XXXIV: The Change
Disarray did not describe the state of the castle when I breached sight of it. There was utter chaos. The air was impenetrable without the allowance of its smothering anxiety. The panic leeched from the looming shadow of the oversized castle.
Bodies of dense black moved at a quick pace around the grounds. This way and that.
Sounds of the landing bay thrummed in a volume that grew with each new addition of another thopter's wings.
Captain Rurik just left the castle grounds with great haste as I approached the winding path up toward the main gates. He slowed. He waited until I was nearer before he addressed me.
"You push the limits of comfort, you know, my lady."
"What has happened?" I gestured toward the castle.
He sighed and waved me into the grounds. "The Baron has summoned all to Arrakeen. The na-Baron has not said, but it is...rumored," he glanced over his shoulder to observe the expression invoked from that word before he continued. "there was sight of the Emperor's ships."
"The Emperor?" I gasped.
I had never seen the Emperor. Not once. In all my times in Geidi Prime.
His reputation was not a good one either. He was an old man, ruthless and cunning. They said, though, that his appearance did not match that was inside his body. The monster within the flesh.
It made him deadly.
"But the North is safe now. We can harvest spice. Feyd has bested Muad'Dib. They harvest as we speak," I retorted.
"I only know what there is said."
The captain did not lead into the castle. He turned and walked around the large walls. Through the grounds of minimal shrubbery and dense hot sands, we trekked.
When silence was the only thing given, I dared break it.
"Where are you bringing me?" I asked.
"The na-Baron needs you present when he flies to Arrakeen. You were not in your rooms. He set to make preparations to move out before the hunt for you began."
Hunt.
My pace quickened. This was the recipe for a very foul moody Feyd.
"You're lucky you were found when you were," the captain grumbled.
He did not need to say why.
I saw quick enough why.
Feyd's long strides met us halfway toward the landing bay. His face was gnarled with a furious snarl.
"Mintha!"
"I know you said to stay-."
"I did not say!" He used the gravelly rasp that struck fear in lesser men's hearts. "I ordered. I ordered you to wait for me! You were not there when I came."
There was frantic panic in his voice now. It bayed at me like that monster I once knew. That frightened many. And whom I despised.
It took this venture in Arrakis, as his witch consort, to understand. It was his fear. He used it as a weapon. The height of his menace became a shield to hide the insecurity he felt.
"I'm sorry, Feyd. I -."
"When I order you to do something, you listen to me. You heed my orders."
"There were duties I had to tend to," I answered.
"Duties?" He repeated in raging disbelief. "What duties? Where were you!"
There was no more fear.
No more destruction.
This, THIS, ragged hand would not continue for my child's sake.
My chin lifted to meet his hardened gaze. "We are needed, na-Baron. Delay will only hinder us further. Captain?"
Captain Rurik stepped up from the disregarded audience where he stood and tilted his head. "Yes, my lady?"
"Tend to your duties. I'm certain there are many before you, too, disembark."
Feyd kept his eyes trained on me. His jaw clenched tight.
There was a moment of total still. Neither of us moved. Or breathed. Or blinked.
The raw intensity that leeched from my skin rivaled the heat of his temper that equally met through the air.
The captain, then, finally obeyed. He took his leave like I'd granted him to do.
It made a ripple of emotion flow down my throat.
This power. This feeling. It could be the end of me, if I let it.
That taste remained wrapped around my tongue. It worked along the underside, teasing and tickling. Sweetness, like a delirium, filled my mouth, soon shot to my head.
It fueled me forward. I circled around him and directed myself toward the landing bay off in the short distance. Even if it was difficult to see in the night, thanks to the clouds blocking the massive moon, I could find my way by the vibrations in the air. It set the entire night alive. The beating of my heart beat in match.
Feyd angrily stomped alongside me. His legs made easy work of the lead I'd taken.
"Had I the time, I'd tear you apart."
"By luck, there is no time," I snipped. "You'll just have to brutalize me later."
A hand suddenly clenched tight on my bicep. It pulled me backward.
He brought his face close to mine.
"What do you mean by that?" He snarled.
"I saw what you did to that woman, Feyd. I saw you laugh as she melted. A person!" My venom bit right back at him. "You are supposed to be the father of my child."
"I am the father of our child, Mintha." He shook his head. "I said stay on the ship."
"What would you feel if it was your own daughter lit on fire as someone laughed? Or me. A human pyre to needless bloodthirst. What will she be like when she is born to this life? You want her a monster like you? Because that is what will be born if you continue this."
Voices called out. Feyd looked over his shoulder. His tension thickened within the muscles of his face.
"Go. We need to leave," he said. "Now."
Our personal thopter awaited us. Its wings moved alive. Feyd ensured I made a safe journey around their outer reaches and was hoisted into my copilot's seat before he moved around to the pilot's seat.
I did not need assistance buckling the harness. Still, he snapped it out to ensure it was secured.
"Where is the war ship?" I asked. "Isn't that what the Baron gave it to you for."
"The men take longer to ready. Though, with the wandering lady of Harkonnen house, they are near loaded onto it now."
His fingers flipped switches. It lit an array of colors around the cockpit.
"Who did you see? Man, woman? They?"
His large hands ripped the control stick up. It lifted the thopter suddenly.
Our bodies jolted against the harness restraints.
I forced myself cold and rigid.
"Does it matter?" I asked with a flat voice.
Fighting him only played into his field advantage. He knew the ways to dance. The fight was his home. If I wanted to beat him in his own game, I'd become stoic at the face of emotion he showed as I first was.
"No. I will kill them either way."
I forced my hands against my legs. The trousers clung very unappealing to me now that I'd sweated beneath them. Dress skirts were more forgiving on my form.
Also the waistband dug into my sides. It pulled my skin like a constant fist pulled at my frame.
"Because I enjoy their company?"
His knuckles tensed against the controls. "Because you are mine."
"You cannot possibly believe I met anyone to -."
"No. No, you would not." He spoke through gritted teeth. "But they? Them. Whoever the fuck. They would. Anyone in this whole Imperium would touch you and not because you are my beloved, but because you are too beautiful and perfect for any they could wish to reach in an age."
That taste of power instantly soured. It bittered and fouled my tongue.
It was so kind for the rage he expressed. I stumbled through emotions that bubbled from it. Honesty was not a foe I fought well against.
He, as time wore on, used it more and more against me to render my defenses useless against his love.
"I may be a monster, Mintha, but a righteous man would meet the end of a blade swiftly. They would die on you. Kindness does not earn a long-lived life. If fact, it seals a fate of defeat. Not I. I am a monster that does not know defeat. I am capable of protecting you and our children from every threat. Every force. Everyone. My blades will live on to serve you well."
I was stunned to utter silence.
I'd called him a monster. To his face.
And it hurt him.
What black poison had I consumed to ever be possessed to say that?
Feyd. He was my mate. An animal made same as I. Dark and broken. Touched by villainous hands. We were a pair of beings - the only two in the entire Imperium - that belonged together.
I knew who he was. Before I fell in love and convinced him into love with me.
I'd allowed power and anger to wound Feyd.
They called him awful names, feared him, indulged his sick torments, yet the name I called him hurt his pride deeper than stronger hatred of everyone.
The one person who saw my worth when I was naught but a shell of a being.
He never gave up hope.
Not like I had.
In my despair and self-loathing.
The guilt of being alive, the guilt of those who survive such violent times.
My hands trembled. How could I lose that sight?
It was not he against me. It was we against them.
Cool tears descended my cheeks. Soundless, they spilled.
I trained myself still. I did not move or give indication that they fell.
He sighed. "I hate when you do that."
"I'm sorry," I blurted, overcome.
The slick fabric smeared the tears against my flesh. It made a mess of me. There was no drying.
The evidence refused to leave.
"I hate that, too. Don't say it. You need not fear me."
"It was foul to call you a monster, Feyd. I shouldn't have."
A large exhale burst from his nose. "It is true. They all know it."
"Who?"
"Everyone. They know it," Feyd said tensely. "It is no secret. I am a monster. That is what I am good at."
That was once who he was.
He was different. It was not him any longer.
I reached over and grasped his arm. I caressed it with the tips of my fingers.
The flick of his eyes from the windows down to my hand bubbled warmth up my forearm.
"One day, very soon, you will be grateful for how much of a monster I am," he said.
Intense cold overtook me.
Soon.
Very soon.
My eyes flashed to the speeding horizon on which we aimed for.
"Is that where we are heading to? Your reckoning."
"My uncle has called our entirety on planet into Arrakeen. I am awaited. And I will not arrive without you by my side."
"Is that proper since we are not married?"
It flared his frustrations. "The unknown will try to separate us. Treachery works best on us alone. I cannot think straight if you are not within my sight. Plans cannot be concocted if I am not focused."
"Are you going to kill the Emperor? Is that your hope?"
He sighed. "I do not know what opportunities there are to be."
His wrist flicked a hidden blade from beneath his sleeve. It was a last resort protection he kept on his person always. He had them sewn into clothing. There were cloaks, jackets, shorts, trouser pant legs and pockets fitted with their small blades kept in their own pocket.
I wondered if there was reason he clung to the hope he might need one…if there was someone who often grabbed him that he felt defenseless to protect himself against.
"I am prepared for what may emerge," he relayed. "So should you." The question in my face did not need to be seen to be felt. He kept his eyes trained on the window glass ahead. "Politics being what they are… the court is not stable. The Emperor's visit complicates things. There may come a time when violence is imminent. I will do what is necessary to protect you. And that. You may not like."
That part of him did not frighten me.
If it meant we would live if some of the Baron's guards or the powerful Emperor's elite soldiers would be slain for it, it would not hurt me. they deserved it. Death was a peace I did not think they deserved. The Baron should live in pain. His power should be stripped away, all his wealth too.
The sands of Arrakis that gifted him all his influence should strip the lifeblood away from his inflated, indulged body.
"You may take up the flesh of a monster you were made to be, once in a while, but you are not one on the inside." My throat was rather dry. I struggled against the thickness to say what I knew what true. He deserved to know its truth too. "Not to me."
His eyes stayed ahead. They did not break from the concentration of our journey flown through the sands.
"There can be doubt in me. You can believe that I will falter from your side if you are not enough. But if there is ever a time where you stand alone, it is because I am dead."
Winds of the desert began to handle the thopter roughly. Feyd's hands were tossed from the control stick. It took many long moments of held breaths to get the control back.
The cab of the thopter steadied. Tension still built within it.
Our mouths exhaled hefty breaths.
Excited flipping inside my belly did not quiet when it leveled out. My fingers pressed against the flesh to comfort it. It was not the churning of disgust or discomfort. Flipping. It was strange. The life of its own, against my forced calm, continued to move.
"Who did you visit?" He questioned. The controls crunched beneath his grip. "Man, woman, child. I don't care. I'll rip them apart." A groan built in his throat. "It has been too long. Too long. You smell ripe and sweet. A fruit for plucking. I should have forgot the tradition. Fucked you before I left. How will they know to whom you belong if you've not been marked by my pleasures."
He rambled on, half angry mumbling to himself.
"I carry your child. That is a sign stronger than a smell."
His eyes flashed to my stomach. Try as he could, the snarl did not deepen. "It does not show."
"It has started to."
My hands cupped the top and bottom of my belly. It was noticeable. I could press my hands deep into my flesh to show the hardness of my organ that took life on its own.
"You should always have a belly big and round."
I rolled my eyes. "I eat plenty, Feyd."
"No," he said quickly. His voice was distinct, faraway. "The sight of you carrying a child, one that is mine that you have chosen me to be the father of, will be all I want. Your beautiful body changed perfect all for me. It makes me hunger for you just thinking about it."
"You won't throw me away if I'm bigger bodied?" My nerves rambled straight from my mouth. "The doctor has said it can happen. My body is too healthy. You're a big man. This child may make me big. Bigger than you think."
"If you were removed of your arms and legs, your tongue, nothing but a mute unmoving person dependent on me, I would still keep you by my side as my Empress."
My throat quivered. "Feyd-."
His hands smashed against the side wall of the cockpit. It vibrated the metal, denting pieces of it outward.
"This should not be happening!" He shouted.
His rage, his anger. I watched it overtake him like its own instinct.
It surmounted all of his mind.
The tips of his teeth crunched as his jaw clenched tight.
"You will defeat him," I murmured. "You'll be victorious."
He shook out his head. Viciously.
"I don't like this," he revealed. His hands loosened and tightened in sync against the control stick. "I have done what he wants. The sietch is destroyed. I kill as many Fremen as I find. The spice is free. It is ours! I have done what was asked of me, and still, I do not have what is promised in my hands." I swallowed. "And you. You are pulling away from me."
"I am not!"
"It was supposed to be better this way!"
Just then, the grainy sound of the radio clicked through the speakers. A voice droned from the other side. It asked for permission codes. Feyd did not give them. He beckoned entrance with a voice so full of gravel, that it could have lifted a body from the ground.
We neared Arrakeen. The city was an oasis in a sea of sand.
The thopter sped toward familiar grounds that lifted my heartbeat. It was a place I recalled with fond memories.
However, the moment spoiled. Feyd breathed heavy. Each, a struggle out of his lungs.
Ragged rage battled his throat.
He landed the thopter with haste. It hit the ground tossing me against the restraints.
Feyd moved with a quick lightning. He was out of his seat, and pulled me from mine, before I could recover a breath.
His lips pushed into me with all their might. The force of his breath into my body quivered the back of my knees as I held onto the hands that gripped my body, near lifting me from the ground.
It was the kiss to end all kisses.
A parting farewell.
An ending, he seemed to think, was here.
"No other in the Imperium," he said like it was forced at knife's point. "I belong to no other."
"I love you, too."
"Swear to me, sweetness." He spoke on the under tone of his breath. It was just a mumble in our shared breaths. "Swear to me, you will not abandon me."
Abandon?
Did he not know that I was his, for all life and death?
"There is no place for me to go, Feyd. There is nothing if you are not there, too."
It did not ease his tensions, as I believed it would. He pulled me tighter to him. His mouth pressed against mine like a man pleading of thirst from the touch of my tongue. The moment I met his vigor, he only pursued more.
Hands roved my person. My body was caressed and touched and teased. He pulled his lips from my mouth to drag a moist thick tongue against my cheek down to my neck.
Perhaps it was his poisoning fear. It seeped into my own flesh.
My hands touched the spread of his regal armor. The smooth metal was thick and bulky. I always despised its look, but now that it was his life in jeopardy, I was so glad for its weight.
He groaned the moment my fingertips brushed down his abdomen.
Lips latched onto the small tenderness of my neck. Their pinch, a thrilling delight.
Delight that was short lived.
The sound of echoing marching boots surrounded the thopter. The uniforms were not standard black with bulbous helmet heads. It was pale. A grey armor suit with gold fittings.
Enemy soldiers.
"Feyd?" murmured from my lips quickly.
I steadied myself against him.
"Sardaukar," he confirmed. "The Emperor's."
We left the thopter. Feyd led me along like a royal would lead their lady. Only. His arm trapped mine so tight to his side that my fingers began to lose feeling.
Arrakeen was overrun with commotion. There were bodies everywhere. People. Not only Sardaukar. There were women with black veils, imposing forces, that walked unfettered through the palace. Soldiers of Harkonnen design and others marched too. So many convoluted the sensation of the place that I was awash in all that there was before me I did not know how to process.
I did as Feyd instructed me to, all those weeks ago in the privacy of our own conversation, that I need only respond to him. The others were distractions. Distractions that could use my own weaknesses against me if given indication.
My face shuttered to impassive observation only to what laid ahead of my feet.
We marched through to the main hall of Arrakeen. It was seldom used in Arrakeen previously. Aishti had taught me the dance in this back part of the palace where none tread. The room was entirely changed. The corners were brightened with light. People filled, also, those empty spaces with their bodies. The air was stagnant but in a different tang.
Salutes of soldiers sounded our way through the palace. Each one stopped and stomped their foot as we walked past.
Whirring hissing air began as Feyd entered the hall. Our entrance was announced. A herald of skin and bone used a voice like a demon of the dark to speak our names. It only awakened the sound of a strong Harkonnen sound – their version of music – to fill the great hall.
Harkonnen's used elements to protrude their presence. It aided their control of the moment. The very control of the senses.
Feyd welcomed himself to the strength of the moment. Footsteps were loud and steady up to the high seat. I, too, kept in stride with the air of strength he lended me.
The Baron levitated above the chair by the aid of his machine. He watched us bow to his throne.
Feyd raised quickly from his subjugation. "The sietch is destroyed. Spice harvest has resumed in the North," he declared.
His eyes fluttered around the hall. Witnesses populated the room with their numbers, growing with each moment. The entirety of the Harkonnen empire upon this desert planet was called to his palace. It allowed a large stage for Feyd's performance.
A fact he knew.
Had he been in a better mood, he'd have relished the power at the tip of his tongue.
Instead, he spoke with a voice that rivaled the mighty man in the throne seat. "Muad'Dib is dead."
Commotion rushed from the room. A vacuum of tension trapped us inside it.
The news was not relief, nor devastation.
It took a new feeling altogether. Feyd did not emulate awareness to it. My unseeing eyes slit enough to see that The Baron, too, did not sense it. But. It was there. Its taste atop my tongue, drifted within the very air.
Something different was at work.
The source of its change rested from those behind the black veils.
What rested behind those veils was a force stronger than the Baron's might.
Feyd opened his mouth again, to speak, but the raised arm of his uncle silenced the thought. Heat surged down to my elbow. His arm trapped me tight against his body.
Maybe, I'd been wrong.
Perhaps, my animal senses were not only mine. It was possible Feyd sensed it, too.
My mate's instincts told him to be wary.
The Baron nodded. "Let's discuss this in my private chambers."
Hot bile surged at the back of my throat. Concern over evils and power dropped away. Time alone with that man was not what either of us wanted to endure. The privacy to view us longer, focused, only aided him the power to break the facade Feyd constructed.
The lie that kept us together.
My fingers clamped ahold of Feyd's arm that held me close.
He made no attempt to release me. Our bodies followed the lead of the Baron out of the main hall through the corridors into a large space in royal quarters. There was an oversized levitating chair that the Baron eased himself into. The sudden hiss of air silenced the levitating machine.
The room was absent of attendant or guard.
A Quick Look my way did not deter the progress. The Baron lowered his chin. "So. Tell me."
There were numbers given, exchanged. Some quick exchanges about the terrain, how it was found, what exactly was done.
"I do believe Muad'Dib would have attacked us if he was alive."
"Yes." The Baron agreed. "He would have."
"The rest of them fled. South, I'd wager."
"Take refuge in the storms," the Baron continued the thought. "They may lose their own lives braving that crossing. Their numbers shrink with each swipe of our hands."
The Baron seemed mighty pleased with this.
Feyd cleared his throat. "What of the Emperor?"
"He's grown distrustful." The Baron chuckled. It was an awful torment to endure its cheer. "The man grows old. Old and paranoid. Still, we hold all the power. The spice is in our control. He's left the throne to meet us directly. In his rush, he's made himself vulnerable. In that, we can use for our benefit."
"My benefit," Feyd corrected, with no question in his tone. "I will be the one to replace him."
"Don't be hasty, Feyd darling. We have a long way to go before we see you seated."
"How long?" He barked.
"The time will come. Patience. Have I not taught you...patience is the key to any victory. The wit to outlast in the shadows until it is in your power." The Baron's dark bulged eyes glanced at me once more. Sheets of glass, unfeeling and cold, unmarked with what they witnessed, or contained. "Patience."
Sweat bubbled at the back of my neck. Its liquid seeped from my skin as if my pores were open valves to the lifewater I carried preciously.
Now, it was not only mine. But a baby's, too.
Arrakis had taught me not to waste things unnecessarily.
Whether it be life, blood, water, or resource.
It should be done with sparing number, because excess only polluted the mind.
A former friend – icy numbness – embraced me. The slick coolness slid across my flesh like a blanket cascading me in its comfort.
The sweat stopped. Steady throbs of my chest slowed to nothing. I was dead.
Monster, was I once more.
Its touch was disgusting against my hot soul. Still, I embraced the skin I needed to wear, as I needed to.
Like Feyd.
A door opened behind our backs. My eyes stayed locked ahead. The solid rock walls were textured with many crevices that I observed with intensity, focused on their intricacies, to withhold my reactions.
When in the dark, it was best to focus on the only light.
I did not have control of the creeping evil around me. It moved on its own accord. I had no choice but to remain as I was, still and resolved.
"Baron." The large man bowed down to the floor. Compartments fitted around his middle was a belt I caught at the corner of my eye.
Feyd knew his part well. He did not react physically as I knew he wanted to.
"My lordna-Baron." The doctor then greeted Feyd, too.
"What are you doing here?" Feyd snipped.
"The Baron asked I be presented." The doctor remained humble abutted to Feyd's wrath. Even in the Baron's audience, he knew his limited mortality.
The sound of the Baron's chair groaned as it lifted from the floor higher. Now it was set in motion. "Now, Feyd. Your heir is to be the next in line. Its health is the upmost concern."
Feyd hissed an exhale from his nose.
The Baron did not address the silence. He instead lifted his arm at the doctor. "Eh? What does the witch's body do for my heir?"
His heir. What a bold-faced embellishment.
It belonged to him in no way.
"Her body takes to it well. It grows larger than most. If she maintains herself, a very sturdy heir will be born, Baron."
The slight part of his mouth echoed his labored breathing.
I held bottled disgust in deep reserves for another time.
He swore he would kill us. He swore.
This man had no business being near my children. Their beauty did not deserve the tainting of a hideous man. The demon of their own father's nightmares had no place alive in their dreams. It was too cruel. Faced at its head, I knew that it would wreck me to see Feyd returned to that man's side. Or, his bed.
If it were a precious innocent creature that could not defend itself...no. No. I would not.
"Show me," The Baron then said.
The doctor quivered with hesitation. "Baron?"
"You've got the tools, haven't you? The spectacles. Show me this heir. I want to see proof of life."