NAYTH

  “So, meetings, then formal dinner with your father. I don’t suppose I’m actually going to make it to the prince’s apartments until after dinner tonight?” Ryst teased me.

  “My harem of one has full access to anything she wishes in LaGrange.” I leaned up onto one elbow, and she sat up. “I do have to get dressed, unfortunately, but I should be back around 6:00. Do you want to go see my apartment right now?”

  She waved, “Nah, I’ll get ready too. How about I meet you on the way to dinner? Should I know anything more than the recon about your father before then?”

  I rolled my eyes, “With Klear Carmidee, you never know what you’re going to get. But I won’t be surprised if it’s 100% uptight Sturm Minister at first. He likes throwing people off their game and then letting out the Florian-influenced complexity later after his opponents are discombobulated.”

  Ryst laughed throatily, “He sounds delightful. I’m looking forward to it. Okay, love, I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” Then kissing me soundly, she sent me off with an, “I love you, and don’t you forget it.”

  I grinned and repeated back, “I love you too, Ryst.”

  The half-opacity glass door of Ryst’s suite slid open for me, but she wasn’t on the sofa inside. I listened for a second, and I heard sounds from deeper in the apartment, so I settled on the sofa and floated a pad in front of me. I couldn’t stay away from her. Just long enough to finish my meeting and switch out my workwear to my dinner-with-father wear. Ok, yeah, it was all the same boring Sturm jackets and trousers. Maybe I needed to try some of those linen blend fabrics—

  Oh. Wow. Wow. I was in love with Ryst's tailor Mauren.

  Ryst smirked at me, “I can’t read your mind just this minute, Minister, so please tell me what’s going through it.”

  “I was thinking of expanding my harem to two because Mauren is now my second favorite person in the galaxy. Don’t tell my sister she’s fallen from grace.”

  Ryst’s threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, stars, Mauren will love hearing that. So, you like this style? It’s awesome isn’t it? It was my idea, but she really took it up a level.”

  “You wanted something that was a mockery of the kurta?” I teased.

  “Well, I had nearly a year— oh stars, there’s so much I need to tell you, Nayth. It took Peydran TWO YEARS to figure out that you said ‘Methela’ instead of ‘Melthena,’ which is not a word anywhere in any language. And then there were FIFTEEN MILLION black, single men ages 18-25 on Sturm. So I had to go through MILLIONS of men. Do you know how many kurtas I looked at? ONE MILLION FORTY-SEVEN. Have you ever looked at A MILLION black men in kurtas, Nayth? And then I got here, and finally had you all to myself, and I couldn’t get the damn thing off of you. So yes, I am mocking the kurta. I’ll keep mocking it the rest of my life.”

  She cracked up laughing so hard she could barely screech her displeasure at my suit coats, and I doubled over, clenching my stomach. What the clouds was that? Millions of men on Sturm? She’d looked through millions? “Ryst, wait, wait, what are you talking about?”

  “You whispered it to me in dreams. I heard it, but I thought it was ‘Melthena.’ Eventually I told Peydran about you when he was in the hospital, and he started looking for you.”

  I owed that man more than my life. I owed him so much more than I could ever repay.

  “He found words that were phonetically similar to Melthena. And then I saw your hand that time— wait, Nayth, what the heck were you doing? You were awake that time, and so was I. That really happened, right? When you wre laughing, gripping yourself? I saw your hand, so I finally got your skin color—“

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  “Yes,” I nodded, cracking up. “I decided to throw all the ‘fuck me’ begging dreams out of my mind and doggedly pursue whatever would work to find the woman. So, I got this book from Floria and started doing all this stuff—“

  “Were you crouched on the floor, naked? Wanking?”

  In stitches, I could barely get the words out, “Yeah, in the dojo downstairs after my morning practice. I was crouched with my back against the wall, like a kind of wall-squat, just going at it, and it WORKED! You were there! So, you saw my hand? You saw my skin?”

  “Fucking stars, what a picture. The dojo? I’ll never be able to set foot in there with a straight face. Yes, I saw your skin and your fist, thank you very much. Then I had to call Peydran and tell him E-VE-RY detail so he could keep track of everything. Actually,” her tone softened, and she sounded wistful.

  “Before I saw you, I had the most wonderful dream. There were yellow autumn ginkgos and maples with red maple leaves drifting down like snow. It was so peaceful and lovely. Then I woke. Then you were there laughing. It was wonderful, Nayth. And then we had details about trees and climate with autumn. So, it was something we could actually use to find you, my Ahtah.” She looked at me with adoration, and I wanted to skip dinner.

  “I’m so sorry it took me so long, love. I’m so sorry,” I murmured, pulling her to me.

  “Please don’t, Nayth. I don’t know why it all happened the way it did, but nothing about any of this is an accident. There’s so many things stacking up, like dominoes falling in a cascade. What happened is what happened, but we’re together now. Should we keep your father waiting?”

  RYST

  I wanted to keep Klear Carmidee waiting. I wanted Nayth to strip me out of my dress right then and there, but I led the way out of my apartment and into the hall. Nayth took my hand as we headed through the covered shade garden and into the villa next door.

  I hadn’t really meant that about the kurtas— I hadn’t thought about it that way at all until I'd said it. When I had told my tailor Mauren my ideas for blending Sturm fashion into something more suitable for me, I had been genuinely inspired. And what she had delivered was priceless. I felt like a priestess in the dress— a priestess of Shurwinn come to claim her Temple in Sturm. The Galactic Minister was mine, and no one would keep him from me. So Klear Carmidee had better be ready.

  The dress was perfection. It was emerald green and fell just to the middle of my kneecaps. The front had a sort of button, but they were ropes twisted into knots, fastened by loop closures, and were every six inches down the front of the dress instead of the tight, numerous buttons the Sturm loved so much.

  There were only twelve cream-colored rope buttons. The collar of the dress was a little smaller than the Sturm men wore on their suit jackets. The dress had no sleeves. The arm holes were cut down about 7 inches below my underarms revealing a yellow-gold bandeau beneath, but a much smaller bandeau than I normally wore.

  Really, it was only about two inches wider than a strapless bra. Then yellow-gold tights covered my legs down to mid-calf and the skirt of the dress was slit up the sides, around seven inches below my hips.

  So, it was a revealing dress shaped like a kurta but with Shurwinn bandeau and tights beneath. It was a stunning blend of cultures, and I looked like something out of a story with my Tindin White, Blue, and Silver Beads woven into my braided hair.

  I decided I was a modern-day sibyl.

  Nayth’s father was seated when we entered the dining room, but he stood to greet me. We bowed as was custom, then he surprised me and held out his right hand. So, another Carmidee wanted to show me he was not completely ignorant of Shurwinn customs.

  I greeted him in Shurwinn then continued in Universal, “Thank you for welcoming me to LaGrange, Minister Carmidee. It’s a joy to be here.”

  “Please, call me Klear. May I call you Ryst? I think we can drop the formalities since my son has appeared at dinner with you on his arm.”

  I wanted to make a joke about Nayth’s harem, but kept myself mannerly, “Of course, Klear. Dinner looks lovely.”

  “Yes, Chef has gone for the evening, so we have the dining room to ourselves.” Smiling politely, he asked, “What is your net worth, Ryst?”

  Several impertinent responses floated through my mind, “Ask any question, but don’t always expect an answer.” Or Peydran’s favorite, “Ask stupid questions, don’t expect answers.” Because Klear already knew my net worth, and he just wanted to see if I’d squirm. I wanted to roll my eyes.

  But I gave him a wry twist of my lips and said the appropriate thing, not the snarky thing, “Two million credits in the bank and 14 million in assets. What is yours, Minister?”

  Oops. Snark had sneaked out. Of course, I already knew the answer because while I’d slept for half of the starliner trip to Sturm, I’d spent the other half reading Peydran and Ren’s recon file on the Carmidee family.

  Nayth chuckled. Klear wasn’t daunted. He gave me the same wry smile, “Fourteen billion in the bank and 789 billion in assets. Why are you here, Ryst?”

  “Because I love Nayth and want to be with him. You won’t get rid of me no matter how hard you try. What other questions do you have for me, Klear?”

  He laughed and looked at Nayth, “I like her. Are we keeping her? Freya will be so happy, and your mother too.”

  “She already said we can’t get rid of her, so I think we’re stuck with her for good, Dad.”

  Dinner was delicious, and from start to finish I enjoyed every moment of my first meal with my new family. I was glad when it ended, though, because I wanted to see the inside of my Ahtah’s apartment.