Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson Page A

Emperor’s; her eyes were small and blue. Though twenty-one, she seemed much younger, mentally and emotionally. Her moods swung like a pendulum on a storm-rocked boat, and she hadn’t been entirely stable since suffering an emotional trauma as a child. But she was a Corrino, the Emperor’s royal sister, and her flaws were overlooked.
    Anna glared at Salvador as soon as he entered, her expression full of hurt and accusation. Knowing exactly why she was miffed, he sighed and felt his headache already coming back. Acting as her eldest brother, and as the Emperor, Salvador had put an end to the girl’s inappropriate romance with a palace chef, Hirondo Nef. For some months now, Anna had allowed no one but Nef to prepare and deliver her food, but Salvador’s spies had discovered that the chef was delivering more than dinner to his sister. What had the girl been thinking?
    Entirely unfazed by the family drama that simmered beneath the surface of the social gathering, Roderick talked easily with Sister Dorotea, a lanky woman with a sensual feline face. A few days earlier, during Manford Torondo’s alarming demands in the Landsraad Hall, Roderick had been surprised to discover that Dorotea sympathized with the Butlerians, unlike most of the Sisters of Rossak. Thankfully—with swift thinking, as usual—he had staged the bomb threat and disrupted the silly but dangerous vote.
    Salvador didn’t like the antitechnology fanatics; they were so intense, single-minded zealots who caused a lot of trouble. But he could not ignore their ever-growing numbers, their fervor, and their potential for violence. He had to tolerate them at least. Maybe Dorotea could act as a liaison, a buffer between himself and the charismatic leader.…
    He certainly couldn’t deny the benefits that Dorotea and the ten Sisters like her brought to the Imperial Court. The women who graduated from Rossak had extraordinary powers of observation and analysis, and Dorotea had indeed impressed him with her perceptiveness ever since she’d come to the Palace. Maybe she could talk some sense into his little sister before Anna got herself into more embarrassing trouble.…
    Struggling to feign an aura of glowing health, the Emperor arrived at the head of the table. His guests rose to their feet (even Anna, grudgingly), but not his overdressed stepmother, who claimed to suffer from severe pains in her joints. Salvador had learned to ignore Lady Orenna’s quirks and passive disrespect; she was his father’s widow, after all, and deserved consideration for that, though in Imperial matters she remained irrelevant. Since Jules’s three children were all illegitimate, born from different mothers and none of them from his actual wife, Salvador supposed the old woman’s annoyance could be excused.
    He took his seat, and the other guests dutifully sat back down. Instantly, servants burst like spring-loaded projectiles from where they had been waiting in the wings. They served an appetizer in a flurry, a salad of blova-shrimp and savory hepnuts, presented on star-shaped leaves of lettuce. An attendant took up his position to taste the Emperor’s food, in case it had been poisoned.
    Roderick, though, waved the man away and leaned over to take a bite from the salad on his brother’s plate. “I’ll take care of this.” Salvador reached out in alarm to stop him, but it was too late. Roderick chewed and swallowed. “The salad is very good.” The blond, muscular man smiled, and everyone began to eat as he whispered to Salvador, “You’re silly to worry so much about your food. It makes you look weak and frightened. You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
    With a sigh of exasperation, Salvador began eating. Yes, he did know that Roderick would give his life to protect him, would risk poison or throw himself in front of an assassin’s projectile. Alas, Salvador knew that he wouldn’t do the same were the circumstances reversed. Roderick was a better person in