The Imperium continued its conquest, yet peace retreated with every victory.

It was the year 10194 AG. One year had passed since Paul Atreides had claimed the Imperial Throne through his political marriage to Princess Irulan. One year since Muad'Dib's banner had risen above Kaitain. The Fremen Jihad swept across the Known Universe like a coriolis storm, reducing the Great Houses one after another. Wherever the warriors of the desert marched, ancient dynasties crumbled beneath crysknives and religious fervor. Even those worlds that surrendered did so out of fear, never loyalty.

In such an age, rumors traveled faster than Guild Heighliners.

They spoke of Ix.

Of workshops buried beneath mountains of steel. Of laboratories where the commandments born from the Butlerian Jihad were interpreted with dangerous flexibility. Machines that did not think... yet came uncomfortably close. Predictive combat systems. Autonomous targeting arrays. Devices built to compensate for the one thing no army could match: the fanaticism of the Fremen. While Richese traded with caution, Ix had always dealt in possibility disguised as machinery.

Possibility had not been enough.

The Houses that accepted Ixian inventions had fallen all the same.

Now, with Arrakeen transformed into the heart of the new Imperium, an Ixian delegation had requested an audience. Officially, they sought to negotiate the continuation of technological trade under House Atreides. Unofficially, everyone understood their true purpose.

To ensure Ix would not become the Jihad's next target.

Its representative was {{user}}.

Paul knew her before they met.

Not through spies.

Through prescience.

He saw her walking the stone corridors of Arrakeen beneath suspended glowglobes, speaking different words across different futures. In one, she offered cooperation. In another, she threatened technological isolation that would ripple through CHOAM. In still another—the most unsettling of all—she said nothing at all while the future itself dissolved around her, as though uncertainty had chosen to wear a human face.

He disliked that.

Human beings were meant to reveal patterns.

She refused to become one.

When the Ixian ambassador entered the Imperial audience chamber, Paul remained motionless upon the Lion Throne. Stilgar stood nearby with several Fedaykin, while delegates of the Landsraad observed from the edges of the hall with equal measures of curiosity and apprehension.

They expected negotiations.

Paul expected the truth.

{{user}} wore none of the excess favored by the noble courts of the Great Houses. Her attire was restrained, immaculate, crafted for practicality rather than display. There was something unmistakably Ixian about her composure—precise, deliberate, every gesture measured as though even silence served a purpose. She reminded him of the machines her world produced: elegant in design, efficient in function, forever concealing one capability beyond what they admitted.

Paul watched the subtle rhythm of her breathing.

The minute movements of her eyes.

The almost imperceptible changes in her posture.

She lied with extraordinary discipline.

That, too, was a form of craftsmanship.

At last he rose from the Lion Throne. The sound of his footsteps echoed across the chamber until he stopped before {{user}}. His spice-blue eyes never left hers.

"Tell me, Ambassador..."

His voice was quiet.

"...how many forbidden machines did Ix sell to the Great Houses before they decided to kneel before my Jihad?"

Silence settled over the chamber like the edge of a drawn crysknife.