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I.
Irulan found her brother in the garden, still pacing and angry. She had already left their father, impotently fuming upon his throne, and it seemed tonight would be one for placating men.
“Peace, dear brother,” she said, modulating her voice. She did not have the capabilities of those higher in the Sisterhood, but she knew enough to force his shoulders to relax, to slow his pacing, to shift his hands so they dropped to his side. “You knew Father would never allow it. I do not see why you even brought it up.”
Leto turned around, his eyes fiercely boring into her own. “Then you agree with him,” he said. “You would see me wed to someone I can barely stand rather than a woman I love.”
“I would see our father not murder one of my sisters,” Irulan said. “Keep her as an official concubine if you must, let her bear a few children after you have a legitimate heir, but you must recognize your position. She cannot be your wife.”
“Irulan,” Leto said. “I love her.”
Poor, foolish Leto, Irulan thought. It was most certainly his wish since Jessica would know better than to push for such a thing, let alone suggest it, but she would still let the Reverend Mother know to keep a close eye on her. It would not do to have Jessica falter or deviate at this critical stage.
“I know,” Irulan let her fingers touch his arm, soothed them with soft movements. It never failed to work on him, a man so easier to manipulate with gentle subtlety than the fierce threats their father threw at him on a regular basis. He never could understand Leto, she thought, know that a man who was raised to rule and war would never back down from a challenge, would fight to the end.
Such a man cannot break and be made to be anything useful. But he can bend when a river flows into him, a constant litany of words and thoughts that tell him that it is the only way to keep his precious Jessica safe. Leto loves his oceans, loves the soft embrace of waters and women and he will protect them by being a rock that can be battered by storms. He will rejoice in it.
It is no matter. In time, the cracks will form and the stone will crumble. Leto will concede, as he must.
“Give it some time,” Irulan said. “Let him calm down. He does not have a firm candidate for you to marry yet in any regard. The Harkonnen have no daughters and the Mutelli have no assets.”
“The Harkonnen,” Leto scoffed.
“They control Arrakis,” Irulan said. “Having it is a great honor and a sign of the Emperor's regard.”
Irulan watched him carefully. She did not need to use the Voice to have it ring inside him, see the gleam in his eyes. For while her brother did love the cooler climes, the smoother touches, there was something in him that yearned for the wild power that Arrakis could provide.
“You do not suppose--” Leto said, then stopped.
“Yes,” Irulan said. “I believe he would give it to you as well as allow you a bit more freedom to do things without his control if you would consider a few sacrifices of your own.”
Leto stiffened again, but she knew her brother. More importantly, she knew the path.
It will be but a short time and then she will see Leto proudly take over the operations of Arrakis, with his carefully chosen bride and his hard-won concubine who will bear him a daughter, not a son. Jessica will know that the only way both her and the child stay alive is if she follows the plan to its end and she will fear to stray from it, lest she lose what little power she will have over her life. Irulan will stand at her brother's side, not long after their father passes, and she will write of the glories of their house and of the legacy of their empire.
“Trust in what I say, Leto,” Irulan said. “It is all as it should be.”
II.
She was gentle.
That was the first surprise.
Alia's hands were careful as they brushed her hair out, unplaited the braids from it until it was a silken river down her back. She rubbed oils into the strands carefully until they smelled of spice (but oh, not the Spice, that heralded Alia's approach, as much a part of her as her bones or blood might be).
“You hate me,” Irulan said quietly. “You have never hidden that.”
“I do,” Alia replied. “You have given me no reason to love you and plenty to wish you as dead as my brother or his consort.”
Irulan flinched at this, but Alia's hands were steady. She expected to feel cold steel down her back, a knife tracing a line but it was smooth, warm flesh that pressed just hard enough to remind Irulan that if Alia did wish her dead, there would not be a single person left to stop her. The Bene Gesserit were furious at her betrayal, her father dead though powerless long before it, and of the eyes that would meet her in the hall, none would linger for long. Only Jessica might show any pity for her, any desire to assist, and she had larger concerns than Irulan.
“I will not kill you, Irulan,” Alia said. “But not because I trust you or because I fear that my mother might take offense at taking blood. And though I believe you do wish to do right by my brother's children, that alone would not spare your throat from my blade.”
Irulan said nothing. Alia's fingers traced along Irulan's throat. She did not move away from the touch, kept her gaze steady ahead of her as one nail scratched delicately along her neck.
“I did not think you would last long out here, Irulan,” Alia said. “The desert swallows up those far stronger than you, leaves no trace of their passage. It takes their water for its own, lets those who swim in warm waters burn in the sun. Arrakis makes them old before their time.” She leans forward, whispers in Irulan's ear. “But you are still beautiful, still pristine, still untouched, I would venture, even by my brother.”
Irulan closed her eyes, the bitterness sharp on her tongue. The rage and shame of her fate had passed over her like a storm, leaving that stubborn small part in her weak and trembling. She had loved Paul. Still loved him, and his leaving had not extinguished the spark, but kept it blazing, for now she knew that much like the desert he had walked into, she could never have understood him or hoped to keep him.
“I know all of this,” Irulan said softly. “If you wish to hurt me with this, Alia, you cannot make the wound bleed any more than it is. It is already deep enough to last.”
There was a gentle pressure on top of Irulan's head, Alia's hot breath against her hair. “I promise you this, Irulan,” Alia whispered. “What my brother has forsaken, I intend to claim.”
She stepped back abruptly and Irulan let out a shaky breath, conscious of her own slip in control. “You cannot,” Irulan said, but it was a question, not a command.
“I am the regent of Arrakis,” Alia said, “sworn to protect my brother's legacy and his children until they come of age.” Her voice was cool, but there was something beneath it, a dark pool of heat that Irulan could feel and something in her mind both shied away from and unconsciously found itself leaning into it . “All that is his is mine.”
Irulan turned and met Alia's eyes, trying not to show her--I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Alia smiled. “You will not need to face your fear,” she said, both mocking and tender. “I would never take by force what will find itself coming to me willingly. Surely, with your training, with your knowledge of the long and lonely fate that awaits you, you can see the path that you will take."
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
She did see.
III.
“I will kill him.”
“No, you will not,” Irulan said. She carefully plucked the knife from Pelagia's side, tested its blade. It sang in the air, curved and deadly and she could easily imagine Pelagia slipping into the bedroom at night and slitting the throat of the Harkonnen heir. “I cannot imagine how you obtained this.”
“Not everyone supports the Baron's regime,” Pelagia said. “Perhaps if he was not too busy bedding young boys and girls, he might have seen that the Fremen aren't the only ones to fear on Arrakis.”
“Pelagia,” Irulan chided. “You must follow the way laid before us.”
“I will.” Pelagia's fingers tightened around Irulan's own, calloused in comparison. Irulan had always relied upon her voice, her diplomacy, and though she had not been called upon to use it, given her position, she had no doubt that her body was also on the altar of sacrifice should it be demanded. Pelagia was different, a knife instead of a sheath, something that would strike hard and fast, using her voice to make her cuts clean and true, and her body would give death for any unwary to demand more than exactly what she was willing to give.
Irulan was to have been the calming influence on Pelagia, the one that would keep her in line. The Reverend Mother had specifically tasked her with this, had entrusted her with the responsibility of ensuring that Pelagia did exactly as she was told.
In that respect, she had admittedly failed, though Pelagia was following the path, albeit with minor deviations. Nothing that their sisters had foreseen as being a serious obstacle, though Pelagia's lack of obedience no doubt troubled Mohiam to this day.
“Feyd-Rautha will not harm you,” Irulan said.
“His uncle would,” Pelagia said, her nimble fingers dropping Irulan's hand to snatch the knife back and secret it upon herself once more. “He has no love for the Atreides.”
“He does not need to,” Irulan said. “He just needs to do what he is told. His nephew will bring even more fortune and glory to the Harkonnen name, a war between houses will have been averted, and he may find comfort in reminding your father that his daughter will be the one to carry on the line he so hates.” And if her father had needed some subtle persuasion to be convinced of the benefit of wedding two dangerous houses to each other to neutralize both, then Irulan could easily undertake it, knowing it had been a far more pleasant task than that which Pelagia had been assigned.
“I had thought perhaps once,” Pelagia said, “that they would have asked me to wed the Baron.” She laughed bitterly. “To spread my legs for that monstrosity and let him spend his seed inside me, make me have his child for the good of the Bene Gesserit. I suppose I should be grateful I was spared that.”
“It will not be terrible,” Irulan said quietly. “And it will not be forever.”
“No, it will not.” Pelagia straightened as they both heard the sound of soft footsteps echoing down the corridor. “All we need is a child. Once that is secured, everything else will no longer matter.”
It is not hard to picture a distant future, one in which Pelagia returns to Caladan, to her ancestral home and her family's legacy, and the oceans that calm her turbulent soul. She will stand in the chill, soak herself in the water until she is drenched, and pretend that she is bathing in something far more intimate and bloody than salt water.
“What if it does?” Irulan asked quietly. “What if you grow to love him?”
Pelagia laughed, the cold gleam in her eyes as sharp as the weapon that the Harkonnen would only see when it was far too late. “Don't be foolish, Irulan. None of us have ever been capable of that.”
IV.
She opened her eyes and the reflection looked back at her.
There was little in her memory, but she remembered this, knew that the woman she saw was her, and she raised her hand to touch what lay before her.
Her hand met no resistance and touched warm skin that waited patiently, even as its hand reached up to take hers.
“Yes,” the woman said. “You are me. But not yet.”
“No?”
“Irulan. That will be your name. You will be called this and you will know it to be yours, even as it is not.”
“I do not understand.” She—Irulan kept touching the other woman's face, finding familiarity in the way the bone curved.
“Scytale made you,” her double said. “He made you because he could not have me.”
Irulan nodded because it was truth and it sang in her ears. “Where is he?”
“I killed him,” the other said. “He had no right and overstepped what he was given.”
She thought about it. “Yes,” Irulan said. “I would have too.”
“He had not yet conditioned you not to.” The woman took her hand, lifted her out of the tank. There was glass around her, though not under her feet. Irulan took the robe she was offered, draped herself in it and followed the steps of the woman before her.
She passed by other tanks, cracked and dim, and saw her face floating in each one. Tears came down to her eyes and she could not understand why she mourned.
“Where are we going?”
The other looked at her. “Home,” she said softly.
“Home?”
“Arrakis.” The woman smiled at her, something that made Irulan smile back in response. “There is work for you to do.”