Ten years.
Ten cycles of incessant rain, winds that erode stone, and political intrigues that erode the soul. Now we are fifteen.
Time in Caladan has shaped me. While Paul stretched upward, graceful and lethal like a duelist's rapier, I grew outward and inward. My bone structure, reinforced by alien biology, had become dense. My shoulders were broad, my physical presence, heavy.
But the true growth wasn't in my body. It was in my index finger.
I found myself standing on the northern cliffs, letting the sea spray hit my face. I looked at the black ring on my hand.
To the universe, it was a simple jewel. To me, it was the gateway to a divine forge.
I closed my eyes and projected my consciousness into Subspace.
What I saw there would have given any Great House of the Landsraad a heart attack.
In that weightless void, illuminated by automated work lights I had designed myself, floated my masterpiece. It wasn't junk. It was an armada.
For a decade, I had purged the landfills. I had "disappeared" tons of metal from the ducal foundries, imperceptibly, gram by gram. And with the high-precision machines I first built—molecular robotic arms, zero-phase matter printers—I had constructed the impossible.
There, suspended in nothingness, floated three Horizon-class Battlecruisers. Black, angular ships, without the bulbous needs of the Guild's vessels. They didn't need Navigators. No specials were needed. Their engines were Gravimetric Impulse, a technology that drew energy from the very fabric of space. They could leap from one end of the galaxy to the other with surgical precision, without paying tribute to the Guild's mutants.
Beside him, squadrons of unmanned fighters, kinetic interceptors, and massive logistical transports waited silently. Their shields weren't Holtzman's blue drone; they were phased-scatter barriers, impenetrable to conventional laser weapons.
It was a force capable of conquering a planet. And it lived in my pocket.
"Valerius."
Paul's voice pulled me from my mental search.
I turned. My brother was a few steps away, wrapped in his ducal cloak, his hair tousled by the wind. He no longer looked at me with scientific curiosity. He looked at me with affection. With trust.
Our relationship had healed. I had learned to modulate my strength, to be gentle. I had learned to be human; I had to allow myself to be vulnerable with them, even if it was an act.
"The Father is calling us," Paul said, smiling slightly. "Thufir has new reports about... the shift."
"Arrakis," I said. The word tasted of sand and blood.
Paul came closer and leaned against the railing next to me.
“I’m afraid, brother,” Paul confessed. He would only tell me this. Not Jessica, not Leto. “I’m having dreams… terrible dreams.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder. I felt his human fragility, but also his immense spiritual strength.
“Let me be afraid for both of us, Paul,” I said gently. “You are the light of House Atreides. I am the wall. Nothing will touch you without first breaking against me.”
Paul stepped up, comforted. He knew I was different. He had seen, years before, when smugglers tried to ambush us during a coastal inspection.
I hadn’t held back that day.
Paul remembered how I moved. It wasn’t a fight; it was an industrial execution. I dismembered the attackers with my bare hands, moving so fast I was invisible. When I stopped, I was covered in blood that wasn't mine, and the smugglers were just... remains.
From then on, Paul understood. With him, I'm a gentle brother. With the enemy, I'm an extinction event.
We walked back to the castle together. The servants bowed as we passed.
"My Lords!" an elderly gardener greeted us.
I returned the greeting with a nod. The people of Caladan respected me now. They saw me as the "Silent Giant." I had secretly used my technology to improve the town's water filters, to reinforce the dikes against storms. They thought it was ducal ingenuity. They didn't know it was the technology of a lost civilization.
We arrived at the council chamber. Duke Leto was there, with Lady Jessica. The atmosphere was somber.
Leto looked at me and smiled. A real, proud smile. He no longer feared me. He had seen my loyalty. He had seen how I cared for Paul. I had become his best weapon and his son at the same time.
"Sense," Leto said.
On the table, a holomap of a desert planet rotated slowly. Yellow. Dry. Deadly.
“The Emperor has signed the decree,” Leto announced, his voice ringing like a sentence. “We’re going to Arrakis.”
Jessica pressed her lips together. Paul stared intently at the map, his visions awakening.
I leaned back in my chair, unconsciously stroking the ring on my finger.
They saw a trap. They saw the tomb of House Atreides.
I saw a testing ground.
My fleet was ready in subspace. My shields were calibrated. My muscles, honed by fifteen years of Caladan’s sun, were ready to drink in Arrakis’s far more brutal heat.
Baron Harkonnen thought he was hunting mice. He didn’t know a wolf in man’s clothing was about to enter his cage.
“Bring them on,” I whispered, so low only the room’s sensors could pick it up.
The change had begun.