Even the dreariest room in Castle Caladan was an improvement over the infirmary, and Leto had been moved to the exquisitely appointed Paulus Suite. The change of location, despite its landmines of memory, was meant to help him recover.

But every day seemed the same, gray and endless and hopeless.

“Thousands of messages have come in, my Duke,” Jessica said with forced cheer, though her heart ached for him. She used just the slightest hint of manipulative Voice. She pointed to cards, letters, and message cubes on a nearby table. Bouquets of fragrant flowers adorned the room, battling the antiseptic odors of medicinals. Some children had drawn pictures for their Duke. “Your people grieve with you.”

Leto didn’t respond. He stared ahead, his gray eyes without luster. A white newskin wrap was secured to his forehead, a second application to repair scar tissue. Quicknit amplifier packs were attached to one shoulder and both of his legs, and an intravenous line dangled from one arm. He noticed none of it.

The burned and mangled body of Rhombur remained connected to a life-support pod back in the hospital. The Prince still clung to life, though he might have been better off in the morgue. Survival like this was worse than death.

At least Victor is at peace. And Kailea, too. He felt only pity for her, sickened at what she had been driven to do.

Leto turned his head slightly in Jessica’s direction. His face bore an overwhelming sadness. “The medics have done as I commanded? You’re certain?” Under Leto’s strict orders, his son’s recovered corpse had been placed in cryogenic suspension in the morgue. It was a question he asked each day: he seemed to forget the answer.

“Yes, my Duke— it has been done.” Jessica held up one of the packages from well-wishers, trying to take his mind from the unbearable pain. “This is from a widow on the Eastern Continent, who writes that her husband was a civil servant in your employ. Look closely at the holophoto— she is holding a plaque you gave her, in honor of her husband’s lifelong service to House Atreides. Now her young sons are eager to work for you.” Jessica stroked his shoulder, then touched the sensor to shut off the holophoto. “Everyone wants you to get well.”

Outside, on the steep paths and roads leading to Castle Caladan, citizens had come to place candles and flowers along the entire walkway. Mountains of blossoms were piled beneath his windows, so that the heady, sweet perfume rose with the sea breezes. People sang where he could hear them; some played the harp or baliset.

Jessica wished Leto could go out and face the well-meaning crowd. She wanted him to sit in his tall ducal chair in the courtyard and hear the people’s petitions, their complaints, their praises. He could wear the garments of his duties, looking larger than any normal human, as the Old Duke had taught him. Leto needed to distract himself enough to move forward in life again, and perhaps the momentum of day-to-day existence would even begin to heal his shattered heart. The business of leadership.

His people needed him.

Hearing a shrill cry outside the window, Jessica saw a large sea hawk, with tethers dangling from its clawed feet as it spread its red-tinged wings. Below stood a teenage boy holding the tether, looking hopefully up at the tiny Castle window. Jessica had seen Leto talking with the young man on occasion, one of the villagers the Duke had befriended. The sea hawk flew past Leto’s room again, peering inside, as if the bird could serve as eyes for all the concerned people gathered below.

The Duke’s face sank into deepest melancholy, and Jessica gazed upon him with love. I can’t shelter you from the world, Leto. She had always marveled at his strength of character: Now she worried about the fragility of his spirit. Though stubborn and grim, Duke Leto Atreides no longer had the will to live. This man she admired so much was effectively dead, despite the healing of his body.

She couldn’t bear to let him give up and die— not only because of her Bene Gesserit mandate to conceive his daughter, but because she longed to see Leto whole and happy again. Silently, she promised to do everything in her power for him. She murmured a Bene Gesserit prayer, “Great Mother, watch over those who are worthy.”

In the days afterward, she sat and talked with Leto constantly. He responded to Jessica’s quiet, undemanding attentions and slowly, gradually, began to improve. Color returned to the Duke’s narrow, handsome face. His voice grew stronger, and he began to carry on longer conversations with her.

Still, his heart was dead. He knew about Kailea’s treachery, the murder of her lady-in-waiting, and how the woman he’d once loved had thrown herself out of a high window. But he could feel no rage toward her, no obsession for revenge . . . only a sick sadness. The spark of life and passion had gone from his eyes.

But Jessica wouldn’t give up, and she wouldn’t let him do so, either.

She set up a bird feeder on the balcony outside his window, and Leto often watched the wrens, rock sparrows, and finches. He even named certain birds that came back again and again; for a man who had no Bene Gesserit training, the Duke’s ability to distinguish among similar creatures impressed her.

One morning, almost a month after the skyclipper explosion, he said to Jessica, “I want to see Victor.” His voice sounded peculiar, low but emotionally charged. “I can face it now. Take me to him, please.”

They locked gazes. In the woodsmoke-gray of his eyes, Jessica saw that nothing could dissuade him.

Jessica touched his arm. “He is . . . much worse than Rhombur. You don’t have to do this, Leto.”

“Yes, Jessica . . . yes, I do.”

Down in the vault Jessica thought the boy’s crushed body looked almost peaceful, preserved in its cryogenic case. Perhaps it was because Victor, unlike Rhombur, was safe in a realm where pain could no longer reach him.

Leto opened the doorseals and shivered as he reached through the frosty mist. He placed his strong right hand on the boy’s wrapped chest. Whatever he said to his dead son, he did so privately, because no words came forth. His lips barely moved.

Jessica saw Leto’s sorrow. He and Victor could spend no more time together; he would never have a chance to be the father the boy deserved.

She placed an arm on Leto’s shoulder to comfort him. Her heart raced and she fought to calm herself, using Bene Gesserit techniques. She was unsuccessful, though; she heard a murmuring and agitation deep within her psyche, in the most distant reaches of her mind. What was it? It couldn’t be the echoes of Other Memory, for she was not yet a Reverend Mother. But she sensed that the ancient Sisters were troubled by something of such grave concern that it transcended normal bounds. What is happening here?

“There can be no doubt now,” Leto said, as if in a trance. “House Atreides is cursed . . . and has been since the days of Agamemnon.”

As she drew Leto reluctantly from the morgue, Jessica needed to reassure him, to tell him he was mistaken. She wanted to remind the Duke of how much his family had accomplished, how greatly he was respected throughout the Imperium.

But the words wouldn’t come. She had known Rhombur, Victor, and Kailea. She could not argue with Leto’s fears.