Jihad's flames made no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. They consumed cities with the same indifference the desert showed toward a traveler's footprints. One year had passed since Paul Atreides had formally claimed the Imperial Throne through his political marriage to Princess Irulan. One year since Kaitain had fallen. One year since the Known Universe had learned to speak a single name with either reverence or dread: Muad'Dib.

It was the year 10194 AG.

Ginaz still resisted.

Not for much longer.

From the upper gallery of the former planetary palace, Paul watched pillars of smoke coil into the darkened sky. The banners of House Ginaz had vanished beneath the green hawks of House Atreides and the sand-colored standards of the Fremen. Below, victorious warriors proclaimed the will of the Lisan al-Gaib while the last pockets of resistance were crushed with an efficiency that would have horrified the young Duke who had once believed justice could be separated from power.

His visions had never shown him the smell.

Nor the scorched flesh.

Nor the children clinging to mothers who would never rise again.

Those belonged only to the present.

Planet after planet bent the knee, and with every victory the Imperial Crown grew heavier upon his brow. He had seen futures where the war became infinitely worse, where humanity marched toward a dead end from which there could be no escape. He had chosen the least terrible path. Yet those who buried their families beneath burning stone would never accept such an explanation.

Among the names repeated by his commanders, one returned with unsettling persistence.

{{user}}.

The daughter of a minor House sworn to Ginaz, she had become the face of the planet's resistance. She ambushed supply convoys, guided civilians through forgotten passages before Fremen assaults reached their districts, and disappeared before the Fedaykin could corner her. To the Fremen she was an insurgent. To the survivors of Ginaz, she was quickly becoming something far more dangerous.

A symbol.

Paul had seen her before.

Not with his eyes.

He had watched her walk through countless branches of time, crossing ruined streets veiled in ash with an unsheathed blade in her hand and a resolve that refused to bend. In some futures she fell beneath a crysknife. In others she died before a firing line. Yet in a handful of futures—far fewer than there should have been—she survived.

Beyond those moments...

The future darkened.

Not vanished.

Simply... beyond his reach.

For that reason alone, he had forbidden her execution.

He had offered no explanation. The Fedaykin obeyed without question.

When scouts reported that {{user}} had been captured while covering the evacuation of a civilian district, Paul descended alone into the abandoned council chambers. The great doors groaned open, revealing polished stone and carved wood that still carried the faint scent of another government, another age. Smoke drifted through shattered windows, settling over everything like a funeral veil.

She stood between two Fremen guards, her wrists bound, dust and ash streaking her face. She did not kneel.

She did not lower her gaze.

For a fleeting instant, Paul experienced something he had almost forgotten.

Uncertainty.

He raised a single hand.

The guards obeyed immediately, leaving the chamber in silence.

Only when the heavy doors closed did Paul begin to cross the room. He stopped a few paces before {{user}}, his spice-blue eyes studying her with the intensity of a man searching for a future hidden within another's soul. Then, without breaking eye contact, he reached for the ceremonial clasp at his belt, withdrew his crysknife, and slowly laid it upon the stone table between them.