On Rossak, Reverend Mother Raquella Berto-Anirul attends the funeral of Sister Tiana, another trainee who died during an attempted poisonous transformation meant to create a second Reverend Mother. Raquella reflects on how she survived Ticia Cenva’s poison decades earlier by altering her own biochemistry, gaining ancestral memories and extraordinary bodily control, but no other Sister has survived the same kind of ordeal.

Raquella worries that if she dies without a successor, the Sisterhood may lose its most important powers and long-term purpose. Her school now trains more than a thousand women, sends graduates into influential roles across the Imperium, and preserves the legacy of the Rossak Sorceresses, but the repeated deaths of promising candidates make the order’s future uncertain.

After the funeral, Raquella summons Sister Valya Harkonnen, a talented and dedicated young woman from a disgraced family on Lankiveil. Raquella leads Valya past the Sisterhood’s ordinary school spaces and up a dangerous cliff path toward the restricted caves that house the breeding records, explaining that the Sisterhood’s genetic database may allow them to map and guide humanity’s future.

Inside the restricted archive, Raquella shows Valya the immense paper records maintained by Sisters, including Mentat-trained women, and introduces Sister Sabra Hublein, one of the original architects of the expanded breeding database. Sabra and Raquella then bring Valya through a holographic stone wall into the Sisterhood’s deepest secret: a chamber filled with forbidden computers.

Valya is shocked to see thinking machines, but Raquella explains that no human mind, not even a Mentat’s, can manage the database or project its genetic possibilities at the required scale. Sabra reveals that the true Sorceresses appear to be dying out, while Raquella connects the computer project to the search for alternatives, including new Reverend Mothers. Valya quickly understands the danger: if the Butlerians discover the machines, they will destroy the school and kill the Sisters, proving the extent of the trust Raquella has placed in her.