Transfixed - Destiny Mira- — Valeria Atreides - S...

It rose from a pool of still, black water at the cavern's heart—a sculpture of fused obsidian and bone, organic and cruel. And on it sat a woman who could not possibly be alive.

She reached out. Her fingers were cool as river stones against Destiny's cheek.

Destiny's hand moved to her knife. She hadn't willed it. The transfixion was wearing off, replaced by something worse: certainty .

Destiny Mira looked into Valeria Atreides' endless eyes and saw her own reflection—not as she was, but as she could be . Transfixed - Destiny Mira- Valeria Atreides - S...

She should have turned back. The Sisterhood taught: Fear is the mind-killer . But this wasn't fear. It was transfixion . The paralysis of prey sensing a predator far above its evolutionary station.

Consciousness anchored to place.

"Because I have been alone for three thousand years," Valeria said, stopping an arm's length from Destiny. "And even a god tires of speaking only to ghosts." It rose from a pool of still, black

The black water rippled. The humming stopped. And Destiny Mira—foundling, weapon, would-be goddess—led the last prophet of Dune toward the sunlight.

Valeria's eyes were open. They were the pale blue of a Fremen's after decades of melange, but deeper— infinite . Her skin was the color of old ivory, flawless, and she wore a gown of woven sandtrout leather, still glistening.

Neither of them looked back.

Impossible.

She took the old woman's hand.

Then she saw the throne.