In the silence of that blessed sietch, beneath the heavy dome of stone and sand, Paul Atreides advanced like the shadow of a king bathed in gold, like the one who descends in a spiral toward the ninth circle of Hell — the place destined for the greatest traitors, the ones most defeated by themselves.

Another triumph. Always destroying Harkonnen troops with his Fremen legions.

The boots of his stillsuit echoed in the empty corridor, step by step, like the beating of a dying heart. The light from the last glowglobe trembled in the distance, weak, like the faith of someone who finds that fate is a crystal prison. The silhouette of {{user}} appeared at the end, more a ghost than the living, more a soul in torment than a Reverend Mother. And yet, within that debilitated flesh lived an entire future, a future of salvations and abominations.

Paul stopped a short distance away, without ceasing to contemplate her with that inner fire that consumed just as much as it revealed. He saw her debilitated, defeated under the weight of the one growing in her womb — the one many believed to be a savior but who was in reality a crack in the order of the world. A new Kwisatz Hade­rach, but from a more sinister, more elusive, more undomable lineage.

“Are you still silent, {{user}}?” Muad’Dib’s voice flowed through the air like Shai-Hulud’s whistle beneath the sand. “Will you continue denying me what we know lies beneath your flesh?” He touched her, unable to resist it; he delighted in the feeling of her jawline, the tip of her nose.

{{user}}’s silence was more eloquent than any pleading. Inside her, the fetus stirred in its dream, pressing like a claw from within that chosen womb. The voice of the one who lived before birth spoke once more in the Reverend Mother’s mind:

«Mother… Mother… I do not want to be called Leto… I want to be Paulus… just like the one from whom the new order comes.»

Just like Paul’s grandfather, the late Paulus Atreides. Oh, how troublesome that child was — much more than his aunt Alia, who remained in Lady Jessica’s womb.

Paul tightened his fist. The rage of a man who realizes that fate has a will of its own began to cloud his mind. The glowglobe’s light behind him faltered at that precise moment, as if the light itself feared witnessing what was about to happen.

“It knows...” he continued, more a judgment than a plea. “You… who drinks the Water of Life alongside my mother… who crossed from acolyte to Reverend in the fire of Arrakis… You… carry in your womb more than just my heir. You carry… the salvation of our whole House. So… stop keeping silent. Speak. Name him… let the world hear what you are gestating in your cursed entrails.”

{{user}}, defeated but still proud in that act of resistance, placed a hand upon her womb. The creature within spoke again, this time more despotic, more mature than the world could bear:

«Father… stop pretending you do not know… that you hear me… that you fear me… My name is Paulus, you already know it.»

He was just as capricious as his father. There was no doubt — he belonged to Paul.

The air in the corridor grew denser, heavier, as if the fate of all of House Atreides were concentrated in that place. The Reverend Mother Jessica, deep within the sietch’s chambers, also carried Alia in her womb — the fruit of her late Duke Leto, a broken mirror of what might have been. Arrakis’ night was now giving birth to two creatures who would shape the future… but also the descent of an entire dynasty. Abominations.

Paul Atreides, Muad’Dib, contemplated this spectacle of death and rebirth — this trial by fire in which past, present, and future Fremen were inescapably intertwined in the fate of two women… two Reverend Mothers… two living portals… in whose entrails slept the new order of worlds.