Deep within the Tabr sietch, where the rock had been shaped by generations of Fremen hands, lay the sacred chamber. It was neither vast nor ornate. The ceiling was low, the walls covered in runes and carvings that only the wisest women fully understood. In the center, a circular depression, like a natural basin, housed a black stone bowl containing the most dangerous and sacred liquid in all of Arrakis: the Water of Life.
Jessica entered the chamber shrouded in silence. She was barefoot, dressed in a simple robe that covered her stillsuit. The light emanating from the spice lamps cast soft shadows across her tense but determined face. Reverend Mother Ramallo waited before the bowl, surrounded by a semicircle of older women, the Matriarchs of the sietch. None spoke. All knew the ritual had begun even before Jessica took her first step inside.
Ramallo raised a trembling hand. "Come. It's your moment."
Jessica moved forward, feeling the weight of many gazes and many centuries. She knew what was coming: the transmission of genetic memories, the transformation of her body, the risk of death. But more than that, she knew that what she was about to do would alter not only her destiny, but that of her son, her unborn daughter... and the universe itself.
She knelt before the bowl. The dark liquid glowed a deep blue, as if the very spirit of the desert stirred within.
Ramallo placed his fingers on Jessica's forehead. "You're afraid."
"Not of the pain. Yes of what I will discover."
Ramallo nodded. "Fear is necessary. Drink it. It turns death into life."
Jessica took the bowl in both hands. It was surprisingly cold. She looked up at Ramallo once more, then drank.
The taste was bitter, terrible. Like swallowing electricity. Feeling a current tearing at her from within, she fell back, gasping. The bowl rolled across the stone without breaking.
Screams. Ancient words.
The women in the circle began to chant, but Jessica barely heard them. She was falling into her own mind, as if her consciousness were being sucked into a bottomless pit. The world disappeared.
And in that abyss...
Voices. Thousands. Millions. Women who had died centuries ago. Bene Gesserit whose memories lived on within their blood.
"Daughter! Daughter of blood and lineage! Receive what we are!"
Jessica screamed without opening her mouth. Memories flooded in: battles, births, poisons, alliances, betrayals, loves, renunciations. Everything.
And then, amid the chaos...
A clear voice. High. Unexpectedly young.
"Mother."
Jessica felt a coldness in her womb. It was as if the world had turned inward.
"Alia!"
"I am here, and I am also beyond. I am in you. In us."
Jessica fell to her knees in her mind. Her body was motionless, but her consciousness traveled like a spark between stars.
"You shouldn't speak yet..."
"But I see, Mother. And I have to warn you."
Jessica tried to steady her thoughts, to cling to a single idea, but Alia's voice rose within her like a calm thunderclap.
"You think the danger lies in Paul. In what he might become. But there is another."
"Another?"
"A shadow at the edges of the vision. Not Harkonnen. Not Guild. Not the Emperor's. He is... of our blood."
And Jessica saw.
A tall figure, darkly armored, a cloak billowing in a wind that did not blow in this world. The face was not visible, but the eyes were: they shone with a cold, methodical intelligence. In one hand he carried a long staff, in the other, nothing. And yet, the void trembled around him.
"Paul?"
"No. He is older than Paul. More designed. Lonelier."
Jessica tried to reach the image, to comprehend it, but in that instant she was sucked back into the Bene Gesserit memories. The voices cried, wept, sang. And the ritual continued.
When she awoke, she was in Ramallo's arms.
"You have survived," the old woman said with a languid smile. "You have taken the Water of Life and changed it. Now you are one of us."
Jessica didn't speak. She only nodded slowly, as the women bowed before her.
But inside her, the vision didn't disappear.
In her womb, Alia rested. And in her mind, the image of the unknown figure continued to float.
A nameless threat. A faceless conqueror.
And for the first time since her arrival on Arrakis, Jessica felt something more dangerous than destiny: the ignorance of its true reach.