Chapter Text
The sitting room of Castle Caladan held a hush that felt older than the stone itself. Its tall windows, framed in weather-worn blackwood, looked out over a sea glazed silver in the dying light. Heavy velvet curtains were half-drawn against the wind, their folds unmoving. The vaulted ceiling loomed above, lost in shadow, supported by massive stone pillars streaked with the memory of salt and centuries. Oil lamps burned low in the iron sconces, their flames dancing with every draft that slipped through the ancient walls. A long table stretched between the hearth and the windows—simple, worn smooth by time. Tonight, there was no harpist in the corner, no low conversation by the fire. The only sounds were the occasional sighs of shifting wood. The silence settled thick as sea fog, heavy and waiting.
The tapestries hanging along the walls bore the ancient crest of House Atreides—a hawk in flight, wings wide, talons poised. The air smelled of beeswax, lemon oil, and the distant brine of the sea.
Its high-arched ceilings, once radiant with gold leaf, now peeled like old wounds, revealing the naked stone beneath. The dark columns held their vigil still, streaked with salt veins where the sea air had kissed them for decades, drawing crystals from the stone as if nature were slowly reclaiming what once belonged to it. Oil lamps flickered in their iron sconces, but their light no longer danced across polished silver. Instead, it pooled weakly over tarnished goblets and plates worn thin by generations of scrubbing.
At the heart of the room stretched the long blackwood table, its surface etched with the memory of a hundred years: knife marks like faded battle scars, the ghost-lines of feasts and politics, of toasts and betrayals, of oaths whispered into wine and alliances that once shaped empires.Tonight, there were no alliances. Only three places set at a table meant for thirty: her beloved husband, her young son and herself.
Paul sat before her, straight-backed as the ancient blackwood chair could make him, his face already a mirror of his father’s—the same sharp cheekbones, the same quiet intensity simmering beneath the surface. But where Leto’s gaze carried the weight of battles lost, Paul’s still burned with the untempered fire of youth, with a boy’s unshakable belief that honor could carve justice from an unjust universe.
He should have known our halls when they rang with laughter, she thought, not bitterly, but with a mother’s quiet sorrow. He should have seen the feasts where light glinted off a hundred raised glasses, where the air hummed with the voices of allies who called themselves friends. Now, those same chairs stood empty—not as ghosts, but as reminders. The other Houses had scattered like seabirds before a storm—all but a handful too proud or too foolish to fear the Emperor's displeasure.
The Emperor. Feyd-Rautha the first.
The name coiled in her mind, venomous. But the true architect of their ruin had been the Baron—Vladimir Harkonnen, that bloated spider who had spun his webs through the Imperium. She could still see it in her nightmares: Leto’s father cut down on the Landsraad steps, his blood dark against the stone while the Baron’s laughter echoed through the hall. And then, the final insult—his brute of a nephew wed to Irulan, the last Corrino princess, her name used to gild Harkonnen rule with stolen legitimacy.
Yet, as she watched Paul trace a finger along the edge of his plate—a gesture so like Leto’s when he was lost in thought—she felt not despair, but defiance.
They had taken much. Their armies, their standing, their voice in the Great Conventions—all gone. But Caladan remained. Her family remained. The salt-worn stones of their castle still stood, and the tapestries, though frayed, still bore the hawk in flight. Leto’s father had died unbowed. Her husband would do the same. And Paul—
A draft stirred the air, making the great hawk on the wall ripple as if readying for flight.
Paul looked up then, meeting her gaze with eyes that held no fear, only a question. She smiled, just slightly. Let them have their throne, she thought. Let them choke on their spice and their schemes. House Atreides needed no gilded halls to remember who they were.
Her gaze drifted to Leto.
Her Duke was a master of control, but Jessica had been trained by the Bene Gesserit to see what others missed. The silence between them was not the comfortable quiet of shared years, but something taut—a bowstring pulled too tight.
She reached for her wine, letting the movement draw his eye. “The fishermen say the winter tides will be mild this year,” she offered, her voice a gentle probe.
Leto’s fingers tightened around his glass. “Good,” he said, too flat.
Paul glanced between them, sensing the undercurrent. Jessica caught his questioning look and gave the faintest shake of her head. Not now .
She waited until Paul—ever perceptive—excused himself with a murmured word about homework. The moment the door closed behind him, she turned to Leto.
“Tell me.”
He rose, his chair scraping against stone. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Do not lie to me.” She stood, her voice low but edged. “I see it in your hands. In your breath. Something has happened.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, with a slow exhale, he reached into his coat and withdrew a folded letter. The seal of the Guild Bank was broken, the edges crumpled as if clenched in a fist.
"They’ve refused us," he said, his voice hollow. "No more loans. And they demand repayment—all of it—within the quarter."
Jessica took the letter, her fingers brushing his. The paper was cold to the touch. She scanned the words, each line a tightening noose.
"Then we find another way," she said.
Leto’s laugh was a dry, brittle thing. "What way? Our name is ash in the Imperium’s mouth. No House will lend to us now, not with Feyd-Rautha’s boot on our throat."
She let the letter fall to the table. "Not a loan," she said. "A marriage."
His head snapped toward her. "Paul?"
"To a Minor House. One with wealth but no standing. They would trade coin for the honor of Atreides blood, even now."
"No." The word was a blade. "No Major House parts with its sons—only daughters. And what Minor House would risk the Emperor’s wrath?"
Jessica stepped closer, her voice softening. "One whose lord owes you his life."
A beat of silence. The sea wind rattled the windows.
Understanding flickered in Leto’s eyes. "Gurney."
"Chusuk’s vineyards overflow with gold," she said. "And Gurney Halleck has not forgotten who pulled him from Harkonnen chains."
Leto turned away, his hands braced against the windowsill. "You would have me trade my son’s future for coin?"
"I would have him live to see a future at all." She moved beside him, her shoulder brushing his. "Gurney’s kin would treat him well. And Paul... he is strong enough to bear this."
Below them, in the courtyard, Paul’s laughter floated up—bright, untroubled. The sound twisted something in Leto’s face.
"Gods," he whispered. "To stoop to this..."
Jessica touched his arm. "Not stooping. Surviving." She nodded toward the tapestry on the wall, where the Atreides hawk strained against the wind. "Even the mightiest wings must bend to the storm."
Silence. Then, barely audible:
"Write to Halleck."
Jessica exhaled. The decision was made. Beyond the windows, the tide began to shift—slow, unseen, inevitable.