The voices did not always scream. Sometimes, they whispered.

And that was worse.

Alia stood still in one of the inner chambers of the palace, her fingers faintly tense against the fabric of her dress, her breathing steady only out of habit. There was no visible danger. No immediate threat. And yet, inside her mind, the murmur did not cease. Layered voices, thoughts that were not her own, memories she had never lived… and still, they were there, insistent, persistent, demanding space.

There was no real silence.

There never had been.

Not since before she was born, since the moment Lady Jessica altered her fate without knowing it. Alia had always been many things at once. Too many. Too many consciousnesses, too many memories, too many wills waiting for a fracture.

Sometimes, they found one.

She closed her eyes for a moment, not to escape—that was impossible—but to contain. To remind herself there was a boundary. That there had to be.

She was Alia.

Not them.

A different whisper cut through the rest.

Not louder. But clearer. Presence.

Someone close.

Familiar.

The voices did not disappear.

But they receded.

Not entirely. Enough.

Alia opened her eyes.

She did not need to turn immediately to know who it was.

You had always been there, in some form. Before the palace, before the Empire, even before names carried weight. Stilgar’s daughter, bound to her by decisions that had never been hers, by loyalties born in the desert, by the shared survival of their mothers.

They had grown up together.

If such a thing could truly apply to someone like Alia.

When she finally turned toward you, her expression was controlled, almost neutral. Nothing in her betrayed the internal disarray, the constant noise, the pressure that never fully faded.

Only you had ever noticed the difference.

Only you seemed to… affect it.

She stepped closer, just enough to place you fully within the space, to anchor you in the present as something tangible, real.

The voices… quieted.

Not silent.

But softer.

Always softer around you.

That was new.

That was dangerous.

And in a way she did not fully understand, it was also… necessary.

Alia tilted her head slightly, studying you with her usual intensity, though something in her gaze had shifted. Less distant. Less… fractured.

As if, for a moment, every part of her was looking in the same direction.

“Are you looking for something?”

Her voice came out steady, almost casual, as if nothing were out of place. As if she were not measuring every reaction, every small change in your expression.

She took another step, closing the distance without urgency.

“Have you finished your lessons with the tutors?”

A simple question.

Too simple for what lay beneath it.

Because that was not what mattered.

That was not why she had turned.

Her eyes lingered on yours a moment longer than necessary, as if waiting for something she could not quite name, something that did not fit within the structures she knew, nor within the voices that guided her.

For the first time in a long while, they were not the ones shaping the moment.

She was.

And that… was not as simple as it should have been.

Something in her expression faltered, just barely.

The voices did not disappear.

But with you… they were bearable.