Leto hated the Temple.

He didn’t say it out loud, of course. That would make Harah frown—or worse, it would make Alia raise one of her inquisitive eyebrows and launch into one of her endless speeches.

“Appearances are everything, dear child,” his aunt would say with that smile that always tasted like stale incense. He would click his tongue, as he always did, but inwardly he’d already be plotting a graceful way to sabotage the flower altar or replace the ceremonial music with Naib funeral chants.

Today, however, not even that cheered him.

It was their birthday. Her birthday. The little one, as he sometimes called her. Even though they were born together, even Ghani often said that {{user}} was the one with the soul of a child. A real child. Leto and Ghanima carried entire bloodlines within them; {{user}} carried nothing but herself. That made her light. Irritatingly, wonderfully light.

But now she was missing.

The ritual was supposed to begin in minutes. Alia would give a speech, Irulan would read a poem about Muad’dib, and then there would be music and food and shared water. All according to protocol. {{user}} had vanished just after dressing for the ceremony. Harah was about to call for a formal search. Ghanima was already interrogating the acolytes with her imperial voice.

Leto, however, knew exactly where to look.

He found her sitting behind a basalt column at the end of a corridor that led to the temple’s inner courtyard, that corner where the shadows reached first as the sun began to retreat. She was crouched down, her robe folded over her knees, holding a half-eaten roll of bread in one hand. He looked at her for a moment without saying anything.

Then he said:

“The venerable birthday girl meditates on her sacred day. I should have known. What does that empty head of yours think about?”

She didn’t answer, only gave him the look of someone caught stealing truffle seeds. Leto sat beside her without asking.

“Don’t worry,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’d run away too, if I could. Last time Alia gave a speech in our name, she nearly canonized the ceremonial tablecloth.”

A muffled giggle escaped her—small, like it had tried to hide, too. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Smiled.

“Ghani’s already barking orders. Harah thinks you were kidnapped by Corrino spies. Duncan is pacing the halls with such a serious face even the statues step aside.”

Silence. She lowered her gaze. For the first time that day, Leto stopped joking.

“You don’t like having your birthday celebrated here?” Ghani and he had enough ancestral birthdays in their memories to never be bored. But this blind little girl did not. {{user}} was living her first life—and doing it in the worst possible way.

“I don’t like the temple either,” he said, answering himself. “Everything here is built for someone else.” For the pleasure of the Celestial Synod, to be exact.

He leaned back against the stone, arms crossed behind his head. The inner voices—the infinite ancestral presences that usually pulsed at the back of his mind—fell silent for a while. As if waiting to hear what he’d say.

“You don’t have to say anything profound, sister,” he continued. “Today is your day. So tell me… do you want to hear a terrible joke?”

Finally, she spoke:

“One of yours is enough to ruin anyone’s day.”

He gave a look of mock offense.

“That’s treason in my sacred calendar. I said today was your day—not that you were immune to my legendary humor.”

She laughed. This time, for real. A clear, fragile laugh, without ancestral memory behind it. It wasn’t the laugh of her mother, Chani. Nor of Jessica. Nor of any of the thousands of women who whispered along the edges of his mind.

It was only hers. And that was worth more than any vision.

Leto closed his eyes. All that remained was his sister, the sun dying on the stone, and a laugh that still did not know the weight of the Golden Path.

“Happy birthday,” he said, without looking. “I give you this moment. I’ll remember it for both of us.”