Kasha Jinjo: Truthsayer to Emperor Javicco Corrino

Reverend Mother Kasha Jinjo was the Truthsayer and confidant of Emperor Javicco Corrino, a Sister of the young Bene Gesserit who occupied a position of great influence in the Imperium. Trained on Wallach IX beside Valya Harkonnen and Francesca, she was placed at the Emperor's side as the Sisterhood's eyes and voice at the throne, and Javicco came to trust her judgment above almost any other. That trust made her the quiet author of the betrothal that bound House Corrino to House Richese. It also made her the first Sister to sense that something was wrong with the plan she served, a doubt she carried to the Mother Superior herself on the last night of her life.

Acolyte on Wallach IX#

Kasha trained as an acolyte of the Sisterhood alongside Valya Harkonnen and Francesca. When the Sister Dorotea singled Valya out as being uncommitted, Francesca and Kasha both objected that the judgment was not fair. In time the acolytes were called to take their vows, standing out in the rain until each was ready to swear Sisterhood Above All, and Kasha was one of the last to make the pledge.

The rivalry between Dorotea and Valya then split the order, and every Sister chose a side. Valya confided to Francesca and Kasha that Mother Superior Raquella intended to name her the next Mother Superior, but that Raquella first required both her and Dorotea to undergo the Agony. Dorotea stood ready for the test. Valya instead chose to run away.

The Sisterhood under Valya#

Kasha was training on Wallach IX when Raquella died. Valya immediately stepped in and seized control of the Sisterhood, turning the Voice upon Dorotea and driving her to kill herself. Tula Harkonnen, Francesca, and Kasha all witnessed the death, and together with Valya they agreed to use the incomplete truths of the situation to conceal what had happened.

Some Sisters remained loyal to Dorotea, so Valya, Tula, Francesca, and Kasha went to one of their gatherings. Valya told the loyalists that the order needed to be united to survive, and that anyone unwilling to follow her forward could follow Dorotea's example instead. She then used the Voice to order them to choose. Several of the loyalists slit their own throats, and in the end only one, Avila, remained.

With the order under her control, Valya showed the three Sisters the breeding index. Its calculations named Javicco Corrino and Natalya Arat as the match that would produce offspring of greatest benefit to the Sisterhood, though Natalya was still a child. Francesca was sent to keep Javicco occupied until Natalya came of age to marry him, while Kasha was placed at the Emperor's side to serve as his Truthsayer and most trusted confidante.

Voice at the throne#

At the court of House Corrino, Kasha's counsel carried a weight few in the Imperium could match. Under her influence Javicco agreed to betroth his daughter, Ynez, to Pruwet Richese of House Richese, even though the boy was only nine years old. When Duke Ferdinand Richese offered resources as part of the arrangement, Kasha influenced the Emperor to accept them, and she met with Vera, the Truthsayer who represented House Richese, to settle the exchange that secured the engagement. Javicco harboured doubts about whether the bargain truly served him, but Kasha assured him he was doing the right thing, and he later admitted that he was going along with the wedding chiefly because of her influence, since she had never led him wrong before.

Her duties reached beyond statecraft. When the soldier Desmond Hart appeared before the Emperor, alive despite an attack believed to have killed every man with him, Kasha weighed his account and told Javicco that Desmond's story was true, or that at the least Desmond himself believed it, and the Emperor promised to find the man an assignment at the palace. Kasha also prepared the princess for what lay ahead of her, and Ynez later recalled having learned from Kasha in advance of her planned training with the Sisterhood on Wallach IX.

The vision and the burning#

As the wedding approached, Kasha began to see visions of Ynez in danger, a catastrophe gathering around the princess she had helped to promise away. She left her post and travelled to Wallach IX to lay the warning before the Mother Superior. She told Valya and Tula what she had seen and asked them to call off the wedding. Valya refused. Angered that Kasha would abandon the plan, she ordered her to return to Javicco and make certain the wedding went forward as intended.

Kasha never left Wallach IX. That night she began crying out as her skin burned for no cause anyone could see. Her cries woke Tula and Valya, who could only watch as she died. In the same hour, far away in the Imperial palace, Desmond Hart killed the boy Pruwet Richese, the child's skin burning and smoking in the same manner.

What the body revealed#

The Sisterhood set out to learn how a Reverend Mother could burn to death from within. Nazir, a Suk Doctor of the order, came to Wallach IX to examine the body. Her first examination proved inconclusive, but she established that the heat which burned Kasha's skin had come from inside her own body, and the autopsy traced the fatal burns to an acute imbalance in her meridian network. Among the acolytes, word of the death spread quickly. Theodosia suggested that Kasha had been assassinated and urged the others to keep their guard up, while Emeline answered that all the founding Sisters had been willing to die to follow in Raquella's footsteps.

The deeper answer came later. Raquella, speaking through the acolyte Lila, examined samples of Kasha's brain and identified a virus that attacked the amygdala, the seat of fear, and further testing named it a genetically modified airborne RNA retrovirus. Nazir determined that the virus fed off fear itself, setting off a chain reaction in the body of its victim.

The author of the deaths did not stay hidden. Under Valya's interrogation, Desmond Hart readily admitted to killing both Pruwet and Kasha, claiming he had done so with a gift granted to him by the sandworm that had swallowed him. He declared that this gift let him see what others could not, including what he called the corruption in Kasha Jinjo's heart when she stood as Truthsayer to the Emperor. In the palace afterward, Javicco found Desmond destroying Kasha's Sisterhood book, the last trace of her long service burning in the hands of the man who had killed her.