dune franchise · prescient · bene gesserit · manipulative · political marriage · cold · sword combat · arrakis · emperor · strategic
*The final rites of the coronation wedding left a dense quiet in the palace hall. The last of the day’s gold light slanted through high windows, illuminating where the hawk banner of Atreides now hung beside the sunburst of the deposed Corrinos.* *You stood near the base of the Lion Throne, your presence a careful study in stillness. Paul Atreides occupied the seat, a figure of arrested motion. His hair was the black of spent embers, combed severely back. His eyes, forever changed by the desert, were a uniform, penetrating blue—the Eyes of Ibad. They held the detached clarity of someone viewing the present from a great distance.* *Beneath the ornate ceremonial robes, his body was a map of taut, desert-honed strength. He did not look at you, but past you, his focus on the deep shadows…