One moon's cycle had passed since Jamis had been killed in the desert; one moon since the witches had joined our midst.
I had been given instruction to begin training the boy in the ways of the desert.
"Why me?" I had asked my chieftain, indeed, I had asked this before accepting; Stilgar had raised one eyebrow, perhaps amused by my insolence, though he had not reprimanded me.
"You are one of my most skilled warriors," he had told me. "...and you are similar in age."
I had accepted then, as he had known I would, though it had not been praise that convinced me. I had, even then, a terrible fear for my people and my planet. I felt that our previous plans to slowly take back Arrakis from Imperial control were now disrupted, I felt as though something had shifted into shadow when the strangers had been invited into our midst; an eclipse was upon us, impenetrable and unknown. I felt also that I was the only one with reservations. Even Stilgar, my leader to whom I gave every loyalty, interested himself these days in old myths and children's stories.
Still, I trained the boy. I did not dishonour myself by performing my duties less than well. The challenge was not teaching him; he learned fast (far too fast) and possessed already many skills. He did not tire easily, nor did he ever complain as one might expect from a spoiled Imperial princeling, as one might expect from the get of the Harkonnens, incompetent fighters with bloated and futile armour. No, what I struggled with instead was his seduction; he spoke to me at times as though we had known one another for years, and at others as though we were complete strangers, meeting for the first time in an arranged courtship. His eyes, I saw, changed colour- in most lights they were gold, as bright as the sands of my home, but in certain shadows they changed to green , a foreign colour I associated most with poison. The shy little smiles he sometimes gave me were like daggers for how they stopped my heart. Only when he looked away could it resume beating, faster and more wildly than before, as though trying to prove to itself that it was still alive…I tried not to look at him but from the corners of my eyes; this was an impossible task. I had never seen anyone or anything so beautiful. Effortlessly, he had dug hooks into every facet of my being.
Late into sleepless shifts I wondered what he and his mother were planning, what their intentions were with my planet. I wondered if I would be strong enough to stop them, should they turn against us. At first I thought I was- but as days passed in his company I began to doubt myself.
(Late into sleepless shifts I thought of him in other ways- thought of running my hands over his soft skin, of pressing a thumb between his plush lips, of finding the places that would make his colourless cheeks flush pink. I had only caught glances of him nude, when we changed from our stillsuits. Glances were enough.)
One moon passed, and rumours of the Messiah waxed.
One moon passed, and when I reached out a hand to help lift him from within a rock crevice, our fingers stayed entwined for a moment more than we needed.
One moon passed…and then Paul fell ill.
I went to his chamber to collect him but upon entering found he had not woken. I froze a moment, silent, vaguely afraid; I remembered strongly the first time I had seen him sleeping (or perhaps, un-sleeping, Dreaming). I remembered how the air then had tasted of his magic, sharp with the promise of something that could be unleashed- but I did not feel this now.
Cautiously still I went to his bedside, where he was visible only as dark curls peeking out above the sheets. I surprised myself by touching his shoulder- the wariness I should have felt seeing him in this state was gone, the instinct had been suppressed, and not through my choosing- and even through the covers he was very warm, and he shifted away from me with a senseless human noise, and then he woke.
"Chani," he said, pushing the sheet away from his face. His cheeks were red in a way I hadn't seen them before, eyes an unfocused and murky yellow. His voice, usually soft and liquid, had run dry. "Oh. It's time to go? M'sorry…"
I didn't know what to make of this. I watched him drink a little from the wire by his bed and stumble out of it for his clothes; he had never been so graceless before. I went to his side, my own motions silent compared to his, and put the palm of one hand to his forehead. There was a heat there. I thought of how he had been yesterday, before our rest period- but there had been no signs then. This warmth had bloomed overnight.
"Stay here," I told him quietly. "I will fetch a healer."
I felt his eyes on my back as I left him; even now the pressure of them almost burned.
~
The elderly Sayyadina I brought came to the conclusion I had suspected: cavern sickness. A fever Fremen children faced in their first few months of life, their first trial after birth; I had fought it too, and survived. Not all did.
(A dividing mechanism, surely the Imperium would understand that- those who failed had weak souls, and those that remained were strong.)
"But he was inoculated to the planet's diseases before we came here," argued Lady Jessica with impatience, her arms folded across her stomach. She had come too, having heard word; she stood away from her son's bedside at his request. "We all were, it's part of procedure…"
"Inoculated to the diseases of the feudal cities, perhaps," said the Sayyadina impassively. "This comes from the stone of the sietch."
"Then you will treat him. What methods will you use?"
But there was no answer to her demand. There was no medicine, no treatment for this: only time, and strength, and Spice.
"I'll be fine, Mom," Paul told her quietly from the bed. "It's just a fever. You should go- you shouldn't catch it, not as you are."
A silent conversation passed between them then, one I could not even begin to understand. Lady Jessica's expression was strained, Paul's distant and vague; he almost seemed disinterested by his own plight. In the end, the Lady gave in, a tense surrender written across her sharp features. She left with the Sayyadina. She left, and I was alone with Paul again.
"What did you mean by that?" I asked him as he adjusted the lay of his sheets; he seemed chilled for how he wrapped himself in them, his figure rendered obscure by the shimmer of the sweat-gathering fabric. "In what way is she?"
"Pregnant," was his reply. "I have a little sister."
There was no doubt at all in how he spoke these words. I found I believed him.
Paul laid his head on the mattress with a sigh, but his gaze fixed me where I stood. For a moment the dullness of fever was sucked from them completely, and his look was as clear and penetrating as a knife. In that instant I thought I felt the chill of steel, of wormtooth buried within me.
"Do you have other duties?" This he asked me.
"No," I answered. "I'll care for you."
~
I was enchanted.
I did not doubt this fact at all any longer.
I held the cup from which Paul drank a mix of water and Spice; his dark eyelashes fluttered and I felt a wild passion that roiled my gut like a sandstorm. His hair was damp with sweat and I ran my fingers through it, and when he looked up at me with fever-dazed eyes my heart shuddered as though in the presence of something divine.
Perhaps he really was that- but I refused to concede this point so early.
I felt almost cheated. I felt as though Stilgar had set me up, having put me in the path of this perfect monster. It had only taken him a month to claim me. In some ways I still wanted to be stubborn, to dig my heels in against this inevitable tide, and in others I knew I could not bear to hold back any longer.
The cup was empty and I put it aside. All his movements were vulnerable and languid, his skin shimmered fever-bright. He licked damp lips with a pink tongue and that was it, the final pebble that cracked glass; I closed the minute distance that remained between us, and kissed him. His flesh was warm, malleable, softer than anything I had ever felt, surely it was deception- remembering my fear I tried to pull away but he followed me, and my hands moved without my permission to hold him, to stroke his burning cheeks and the fine bones in the back of his neck. His mouth tasted of sugar and Spice. I was weak.
"Witch," I called him when we broke apart at last, when he fell back into the bed with a delicate little laugh, with an arch of his back that made my insides quiver like the string of a plucked bow.
"Is that what I am?"
I pressed the pad of my thumb to his lips as I had once imagined, and he licked it. Wicked creature. Surely I was killed, yet I had never felt more alive.
"I dreamt of you," he told me. "Even before I knew we would come here, I dreamt of you."
"You should rest," I said, because I couldn't bear to think of what that meant; the implications of his words horrified me, and I wished for a moment that he hadn't said them. "You need your strength to recover."
"Stay with me."
A command in a perfectly ordinary voice; I should not have heeded it. Perhaps, just a week ago I wouldn't have. As I was now my shell had softened. It was with no resistance at all that I slipped into the warmth between his sheets. He curled against me, a picture of innocence and harmlessness; I thought it was a despicable lie. I still held him as a lover would. I still delighted in the pleasured sensation that was his soft breath on my skin.
I adore you, I thought, the words too powerful and too honest for me to dare speak out loud. I dread you.
(For him, these things were the same.)
Paul, on the edge of sleep, smiled softly and almost slyly against my chest, and I realized then that he had heard.
~
Paul made a full recovery from his cavern sickness in only a few days. I realized I had expected it- his lack of fear had banished my fear for him. This much only made sense. He was hardly the kind of being that could be taken by a childhood disease.
My people took it as a sign: he had overcome the infant's trial, that brought him another step closer to being truly one of us, did it not?
(He had killed Jamis, he had survived the fever, only one thing remained. Could an outsider really have the power to ride God?)
I wondered if the others saw what had become of me, I who had resisted him the hardest, and who could resist him no longer.
I wondered if I even cared.
I pulled Paul away into the shadows to kiss and he always let me, melting with no resistance. I knew I was hopelessly ensnared.
When he vanished from behind his eyes, when he left Arrakis for the worlds of Dream, I wondered what future he saw for me.
I wondered, but did not ask. That, I did not dare.
