Her stomach lurched with that revelation, and her hands flew up to her throat with a choked cry, scrabbling at the collar he'd fixed around her throat; it felt cold and unclean under her fingers, and fresh tears pricked forth in her eyes at the thought that this had once been the fair and unblemished skin of one of her sister priestesses.<br/><br/>Her lips began hurriedly to work, forming the soft and pleading words of a cry to help to Diune; but that cold echo of a laugh she'd felt in her head became louder, and it felt as if something were reaching unseen tendrils into her throat, letting her speak the words, but removing any real power of prayer from them; they were sound, nothing more, and would never reach her Goddess' ears.