The air on Garsuun was different. Not just purer, richer in oxygen and floral scents... it was new. As if the entire planet had just exhaled for the first time.
Under a two-tone sky that gently swirled between emerald and violet, Kael Atreides gazed down upon the terraformed valleys from the top of the Tower of Primordial Breath, his personal bastion. The structure rose like a black spear carved with impossible geometries, so tall that mist formed crowns at its highest point.
Below him, the world he had reclaimed blossomed. Where once there had been desert and rock, now grew vertical forests with crystalline leaves that vibrated in the wind, lakes whose edges glowed with bioluminescent minerals, and verdant plains grazed by creatures that seemed plucked from ancient myths.
Kael spoke, not to the air, but to the system embedded in his armor:
"Biocycle alpha status."
A calm, genderless voice responded from the internal channel:
"All species implanted in the northern region are showing positive adaptation. The Terradon beasts, silverbone wolves, and mantidragons have initiated territorial patterns."
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"Let the next phase begin. Introduce the aerial impersonators."
"Confirmed."
From the hangars hidden beneath the earth, a flotilla of flying creatures emerged. Translucent wings, segmented bodies with natural armor, and compound eyes that glowed with impossible colors. Some inhabitants of old Garsuun watched them from distant terraces in awe.
In the Garsuun citadel
The main city, now renamed Virelan, was a blend of ancient architecture and alien technology. Stone towers carved by previous generations rose among new, living structures, built with materials that reconfigured themselves according to the light of day.
The streets, clean and strangely quiet, were filled with citizens moving about with a mixture of awe and nervousness. No one knew exactly how to react to what had happened.
Kael Atreides, the exile, the erased myth, had returned not as a prince, but as a force of nature. And he had reclaimed his world without firing a single shot.
Conversations Between Citizens
In a semicircular marketplace, two merchants murmured as they watched a floating screen showing the accelerated terraforming of the southern hemisphere.
"They say those flying creatures are hybridized with the DNA of war predators. Can you imagine what just one of those things could do to an Imperial cruiser?"
"I don't know if we're governed... or cultivated. This isn't the kind of order we knew. But look at this... fresh water! And no payment by the milliliter!"
Others listened silently. Some bowed in reverence toward the black towers. Others just clung to what they had left: anonymity.
The Calveran Family
In a vaulted room, decorated with traditional motifs from his lineage mixed with details clearly "imposed" by the planet's new master, Gavorn Calveran, Lysia's father, sat in front of a large window overlooking the vertical gardens.
His wife, Lurei, walked slowly by the table. She was pale, her hands trembling.
"We haven't heard from her in three cycles. Not a message. Not a glance."
Gavorn replied without taking his eyes off the sky:
"She's alive. If she weren't... this world wouldn't flourish like this. This is for her. For her."
In a corner, his youngest son, Ren Calveran, barely seventeen years old, silently watched the transmissions showing Kael's "acts of restoration."
"He's not destroying, Mother. He's... rewriting. Perhaps he's not like the tyrants in the tales. Perhaps... it's necessary." Look at this world. More beautiful than ever.
"He took her!" Lurei cried, her eyes brimming with tears. "He took her without asking. That's not a choice. It's tyranny!"
Gavorn closed his eyes. He knew they would soon receive a visitor. And that on what they said then… the fate of his name would depend.
Audience with Kael
The air inside the audience chamber was thick and aromatic, saturated with a slow-burning incense that emitted notes of sweet, metallic resin. The chamber itself had no straight lines. It was designed with soft, almost organic curves, as if the architecture had grown rather than been built. The walls were a dark, lustrous material, smooth to the touch, similar to onyx but alive to the eye.
Kael waited, seated on a throne formed from a downward spiral of liquid obsidian, hardened by gravitational fields. At her sides, two figures guarded the silence: Na'lor, her guardian forged in symbiosis with living metals, and Maelren, an ex-human with sensory implants that pulsed gently beneath her salt-white skin.
The circular door opened soundlessly. The Calveran family was escorted inside.
Kael didn't speak. He only extended a hand.
Translucent spheres descended from the ceiling, projecting visual representations of Garsuun from space: flowery fields, new oceans, biomechanical structures erected in days. In the center, a female figure emerged from the hologram: Lysia.
"My daughter!" Lurei gasped.
Kael raised her voice for the first time, calm but without a hint of warmth:
"She lives. She was chosen. Her offspring will begin a lineage that will need no myths... because they will be the myth."
"Why her? Why my daughter?" —Gavorn asked.
—Because her DNA contained the seed of balance. Because her lineage had not yet been corrupted by central politics. Because her instinct... was not one of submission, but of suppressed fire.
—Did you force her? —Ren chimed in.
Kael stood. His presence filled the air like a pent-up storm.
—No. But I didn't ask permission either. Sometimes, history isn't written in ink... but in decisions that have no turning back.
Lysia's figure appeared in the doorway. She wore a robe of living fabric that reacted to her emotions. Her belly was beginning to show the curve of new life. Her face was not that of a prisoner. It was that of someone who had seen things no one would ever understand.
—I am fine, Mother,—she said. Her voice was firm, clear.
Lurei sobbed. Gavorn said nothing. Ren lowered his gaze.
Kael spoke again, for everyone:
"Garsuun is the first. But not the last. Soon, other worlds will know what it means to obey without chains. I will conquer not with swords... but with the inevitable."
The screens changed: now they showed star routes to forgotten systems, failed planets, marginal colonies.
Maelren bowed:
"The first transmissions have arrived from Liradon. The Guild detected anomalous activity... but they dare not speak."
"Excellent," Kael replied. "Let them fear. Silence is the first language of surrender."
Outside the tower, winged beasts crossed the amber sky. Flowers opened their petals in time with the planetary pulse. And from his throne, Kael smiled for the first time.
Not because he had won.
But because it had not yet begun.