Chapter 15

Leto II visits Lady Jessica in Sietch Tabr at dawn and insists he and Ghanima need freedom from imperial designs. He asserts they are not children but pre-born beings burdened with ancestral lives, contrasting themselves with Alia, who denied her nature and became possessed.

Leto challenges Jessica’s Bene Gesserit assumptions, rejecting absolute prescience as a trap and arguing for uncertainty. He goads her with echoes of Duke Leto and Paul, forcing her to confront how fully he and Ghanima contain ancestral memories. He warns that Alia plans to abduct Jessica and that Wensicia’s ambitions run parallel, making a Corrino-blamed kidnapping advantageous to Alia.

Jessica resists, suspects Abomination, and secretly readies a gom jabbar. Leto reveals Jessica’s conditioning, uses flawless Voice to silence and direct her, and exposes that the Sisterhood manipulated her return, even holding her Harkonnen ancestry as leverage. He extracts that Jessica has already denounced Alia to the Bene Gesserit, effectively signing a death sentence.

Leto outlines a survival path for the twins—avoid spice addiction, do not suppress inner lives, but amalgamate them—to avert possession. He hints at a “perfection of being,” vast lifespan, and a deeper truth about Time, even raising the possibility that Paul lives as the Preacher, though not in his former body.

Pressing the strategic point, Leto orders Jessica to allow herself to be abducted, promising its purpose will become clear when she confronts an “interesting student.” He departs. In the anteroom, Ghanima reports Alia is occupied with the Convocation of the Faith; Leto confirms their manipulation of Jessica has worked.