After Leto became a father, time seemed to pass even faster.

Dressed in toy armor and carrying a laminated-paper shield, the small boy toddled forward, attacked the stuffed Salusan bull ferociously with his feathered vara lance, then retreated. Victor, the Duke’s two-year-old son, wore a green-bordered cap with a red Atreides crest.

On his knees and laughing, Leto pulled the spiny-headed toy bull from side to side, so that the black-haired boy, still moving with baby clumsiness, had no easy target. “Do as I showed you, Victor.” He tried to cover his grin with an expression of deadly seriousness. “Be careful with the vara.” He lifted his arms and demonstrated. “Hold it like this, and thrust sideways into the monster’s brain.”

Dutifully, the boy tried again, barely able to lift the scaled-down weapon. The vara’s blunted tip bounced off the stuffed head, close to the white chalkite mark Leto had placed there.

“Much better!” He shoved the toy bull aside, gathered the boy in his arms, and lifted him high overhead. Victor giggled when Leto tickled his rib cage.

“Again?” Kailea said in a disapproving tone. “Leto, what are you doing?” She stood at the doorway with her lady-in-waiting, Chiara. “Don’t raise him to enjoy that nonsense. You want him to die like his grandfather?”

With a hardened expression, Leto turned to his concubine. “The bull wasn’t responsible, Kailea. It was drugged by traitors.” The Duke didn’t mention the secret he harbored, that Leto’s own mother had been implicated in the plot, and Leto had exiled Lady Helena to live in a primitive retreat with the Sisters in Isolation.

Kailea looked at him, still not convinced. He tried to sound more reasonable. “My father believed the beasts were noble and magnificent. To defeat one in the ring takes great skill, and honor.”

“Still . . . is this appropriate for our son?” Kailea glanced at Chiara, as if seeking support from the matronly woman. “He’s only two years old.”

Leto tousled the boy’s hair. “It is never too early to learn fighting skills— even Thufir approves. My father never coddled me, and I won’t spoil Victor, either.”

“I’m sure you know best,” she said with a sigh of resignation, but the agitated look in her eyes said otherwise. “After all, you’re the Duke.”

“It’s time for Victor’s tutoring session, dear.” Chiara glanced at her jeweled wristchron, an antique Richesian bauble she had brought from Kaitain.

With a disappointed expression, Victor looked up at the looming figure of his father. “Go along now.” Leto patted him on the back. “A Duke has to learn many things, and not all of them are as much fun as this.”

The lad stood stubbornly for a moment, then trudged on short legs across the room. With a grandmotherly smile, Chiara picked him up and carried him away to a private tutoring room in the north wing of the Castle. Swain Goire, the guard assigned to watch over Victor, followed the lady-in-waiting. Kailea remained in the playroom while Leto propped the stuffed bull against a wall, wiped his own neck with a towel, and drank from a mug of cool water.

“Why does my brother always confide in you before he says anything to me?” He could see she was upset and uncertain. “Is it true he and that woman are talking about getting married?”

“Not seriously— I think it was just something he spouted off the top of his head. You know how long it takes Rhombur to do anything. Someday, maybe.”

With a look of disapproval, she pressed her lips together. “But she’s just a . . . a Bene Gesserit. No noble blood at all.”

“A Bene Gesserit woman was good enough for my cousin the Emperor.” Leto did not mention the pain in his own heart. “It’s his decision, Kailea. They certainly seem to love each other.” He and Kailea had begun to drift apart as soon as his son was born. Or perhaps it had started as soon as Chiara had arrived with all her gossip and grand stories about the Imperial Court.

“Love? Oh, is that the only ingredient necessary for marriage?” Her face darkened. “What would your father, the great Duke Paulus Atreides, say to such hypocrisy?”

Trying to remain calm, he crossed to the playroom door and pulled it shut so that no one could hear. “You know why I can’t take you as my wife.” He remembered the terrible fights of his own parents behind the thick doors of their bedroom suite. He didn’t want that to happen to him and Kailea.

Her delicate beauty was masked with displeasure. Kailea tossed her head, making curls of coppery hair bounce between her shoulder blades. “Our son should be Duke Atreides one day. I hoped you might change your mind once you got to know him.”

“It’s all about politics, Kailea.” Leto flushed. “I love Victor very much. But I am the Duke of a Great House. I must think of House Atreides first.”

At meetings of the Landsraad Council, other Houses paraded their eligible daughters before Leto, hoping to entice him. House Atreides was neither the richest nor the most powerful family, but Leto was well liked and respected, especially after his bravery during the Trial by Forfeiture. He was proud of what he had achieved on Caladan . . . and wished Kailea could appreciate him more for it.

“And Victor remains a bastard.”

“Kailea—”

“Sometimes I hate your father because of the foolish ideas he pounded into your head. Since I can offer you no political alliances, and since I have no dowry, no position, I am not acceptable as a wife. But because you’re a Duke, you can command me to your bed whenever you please.”

Stung to hear how she had phrased her displeasure, he could imagine what Chiara must be saying to Kailea in the privacy of her own chambers. There could be no other explanation. Leto didn’t particularly like the off-world woman, but to dismiss the lady-in-waiting might burn his few remaining bridges to Kailea. The two women put on airs together, enjoyed playing at highbrow conversations, imitating Imperial styles.

He stared out the streaked windowplaz, thinking of how happy he and Kailea had been only a few years earlier. “I don’t deserve that, not after my family has done everything in its power for you and your brother.”

“Oh, thank you, so much. It hasn’t hurt your image either, has it? Help the poor refugees from Ix so that your beloved people can see what a benevolent ruler you are. Noble Duke Atreides. But those of us closer to you know you’re only a man, not the legend you try to make yourself into. You’re not really the hero of the common people, as you imagine yourself to be. If you were, you would agree—”

“Enough! Rhombur has every right to marry Tessia if he likes. If that’s what he decides. House Vernius is destroyed, and there will be no political marriages for him.”

“Unless his rebels win on Ix,” she countered. “Leto, tell me the truth— do you secretly hope his freedom fighters don’t succeed, so you will always have an excuse for not marrying me?”

Leto was appalled. “Of course not!” Apparently thinking she’d won, Kailea left the room.

In solitude, he considered how she had changed. For years he’d been smitten with her, long before taking her as his concubine. He had brought her close to him, though not as close as she wanted to be. At first she’d been helpful and supportive, but her ambitions had grown too great, and she had complicated his life immeasurably. Too often recently, he had seen her primping in front of the mirror, styling herself as a queen— but that was something she could never be. He couldn’t change who she was.

But the joy he drew from his son outweighed all other problems. He loved the boy with an intensity that surprised even him. He wanted only the best for Victor, for him to grow up to be a fine, honorable man, in the Atreides fashion. Even though he could not officially name the child his ducal heir, Leto intended to give him every benefit, every advantage. One day, Victor would understand the things his mother did not.

As the boy sat at a tutoring machine, playing shape-recognition games and color identifiers, Kailea and Chiara talked in low tones. Victor pushed buttons rapidly, achieving high scores for his age.

“My Lady, we must figure a way around the Duke. He is a stubborn man and intends to form a marriage alliance with a powerful family. Archduke Ecaz is after him, I hear, offering one of his daughters. I suspect Leto’s purported diplomatic efforts in the Moritani-Ecazi conflict are a smoke screen to hide his true intentions.”

Kailea’s eyelids narrowed to slits as she considered this. “Leto is traveling to Grumman next week to talk with Viscount Moritani. They have no eligible daughters.”

“He says he’s going there, dear. But space is vast, and if Leto takes a detour, how would you ever know? After all my years at the Imperial Court, I understand these things only too well. If Leto produces an official heir, he’ll sweep your Victor under the rug as nothing more than a bastard son . . . ruining your own position.”

Kailea hung her head. “I said everything you told me to, Chiara, but I wonder if I’m pushing him too hard. . . .” Now, where Leto couldn’t see her, she allowed her uncertainty and fear to show. “I’m so frustrated. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do. He and I were close before, but it’s all gone so wrong. I had hoped that bearing his son would bring us together.”

Chiara pursed her wrinkled lips. “Ah, dear, in ancient times such children were known as ‘human mortar’ to keep a family whole.”

Kailea shook her head. “Instead, Victor has only exposed the problem for all to see. There are times when I think Leto hates me.”

“Something can still be worked out, if you just trust me, my Lady.” Chiara placed a reassuring hand on the young woman’s shoulder. “Start by talking with your brother. Ask Rhombur to see what he can do.” Her voice was sweet and reasonable. “The Duke always listens to him.”

Kailea brightened. “That might work. It couldn’t hurt to try.”

She spoke with Rhombur in his Castle suite. He puttered around in the kitchen with Tessia, helping her prepare a salad of local vegetables. With a maddening, bemused smile on his face, Rhombur listened attentively while slicing a purple sea cabbage on a cutting board.

He didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of his sister’s situation. “You have no right to complain about anything, Kailea. Leto has treated us royally— uh, especially you.”

She let out an exasperated snort. “How can you say that? I’ve got more at stake, now that I have Victor.” She was caught between flying into a rage or crumpling into despair.

Tessia blinked her sepia eyes. “Rhombur, the best hope for both of you is to overthrow the Tleilaxu. Once you restore House Vernius, all of your other problems become irrelevant.”

Rhombur leaned over to kiss his concubine on the forehead. “Yes, my love— don’t you think I’m trying? We’ve been secretly sending C’tair money for years, but I still don’t know how well the rebels are doing. Hawat sent in another spy, and the man disappeared. Ix is a tough nut to crack, as we designed it to be.”

Both Tessia and Kailea surprised each other by responding in unison. “You need to try harder.”