Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

PEYDRAN

"The boys need to help us, Peydran."

The desk of my office was covered in spiral notebooks and binders because I'd had Nayth's Untold Stories and every song Ren had ever written printed and bound. And now my husband was trying to convince me to get our children to read it all with us.

Ren and I had finally admitted out loud that his song-writing frenzies had occurred in tandem with Ryst's relapses. We were going to comb through decades of written material, searching for clues about the tangle and try to unravel the mysteries that lie within.

Ren continued, "We can't keep this from them. This is about family, and it's really import—"

"No way, Ren! No way! I'm not giving them Ryst's journals. Sands only knows what kind of sexual depravity is written in them in graphic detail. The boys do NOT need to read that!"

Raising his hands, Ren said, "Pey'o, I don't disagree with you. I agree with you. But the boys can read my song lyrics. They are really gifted and can see things that you and I may not when it comes to Ryst and Nayth. And the only overtly-sexual song lyric I have in my files is 'Come Slammin' into me baby', which I didn't even write, as you recall."

I rubbed my temples, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I keep snapping at you, Ro."

Smiling wryly, Ren said, "Every time you do, I picture you in your donkey costume. So, keep snapping at me. You just keep making an ass of yourself."

I collapsed into giggles and hugged him to me. "Sands, what would I do without you, Ren?"

"Probably bray a lot," Ren snorted, then he pulled me closer against his torso. "Are you ready to talk about what's really going on with you?"

I sighed, rubbing my cheek against his hair and wondering when our belly buttons were going to ignite. Probably not until I was ready to feel something other than frustration.

"We should probably go upstairs so the boys don't see us canoodling in plain view."

We went up to the soundproof recording studio and turned on the "recording in progress" sign. Cuddling on the daybed, I focused on my breathing, and opened up my belly button. The moment I did that, the truth started spilling from my lips.

"Yeah, I wanna stay mad because mad feels better than hurt. I just don't understand why Ryst and Nayth left us— why she left me without saying goodbye. Or telling us anything. I mean, Ro, they could have told us something. Instead, they disappeared and left those vague letters. Why?"

"I don't have answers yet, Pey'o. You know that already, but I do think we're gonna understand it eventually. I'm not sure how yet. But I write songs I don't understand all the time. It's years and decades before they make sense. So, I won't be surprised at all if Ryst and Nayth did things they didn't understand too."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"But, Pey'o, they showed up at the concert. I don't know what that means, but they were there. I felt you overflowing with Ryst's love. Can you forgive her for leaving suddenly? Maybe she was really sick and on the threshold of death again, and there was a doorway she was able to go through, and she just had to take it? I don't know— what do you think of that?"

"Maybe, Ro, maybe.," I said softly. I pulled Ren onto my lap so he straddled me and kissed him. I let it all go. I didn't understand it, but what Ren had said made more sense than anything else. So I forgot about everything else for a while and got filled up with Ren instead.

I was still good at the lotus, and Ren was still good at me. We were great together.

"Alright. Let's give the boys your song lyric notebooks and see what they come up with," I suggested.

"I'll take Ryst's journals for starters so you don't have to be traumatized by her sex life. You read Nayth's files since it was pretty clear he left them to you. Good?" Ren replied.

I nodded, and we took Ren's notebooks to the media room and asked the boys for their help. Then I got started reading Nayth's Untold Stories. I was surprised to find that it wasn't just old song lyrics. He'd recorded all of the chats I'd had with him.

"Nayth, you bastard. What kind of super brain did you have? How did you remember all of that?" I said aloud. So much of what I read made me laugh. And so much of it made my heart hurt. Very little of it gave me solid answers.

Ren fared a little better, and he spent weeks pouring over Ryst's journals and then cross-referencing them with his song lyrics. The boys were genius at finding hidden meanings in Ren's songs. To them, it was as plain as day.

"Stars Dancing" was a love song Ren wrote for me and Ryst and Nayth and Euri and Dwin. According to my kids, that song was about all six of us, and we were all going to be dancing together for all eternity. Whatever that meant.

I spent months pouring through Ren's songs and his notes about his songs and his notes about Ryst's journals. I got over myself and read all of her sexy recordings. I got numb to it after a while. Yeah, another soul-ripping orgasm. Whoo hoo. Who the fuck cares anymore?

The bigger thing was that Ryst and Nayth had been having visions that they were more than just small people living on Shurwinn. That corresponded to what Nayth had recorded from my conversations with him. All those times he'd said things I couldn't understand.

I still didn't understand it, and Ren didn't understand it either. We just pieced together the same thing Ren had said two decades ago, "They are Stars Dancing, of course, Peydran." Whatever that meant.

The biggest question of all was: what was I going to do with all of this material? Why 150 years? Why publish it at all? What did it have to do with Borden and Nika and the Five Spheres project? We spent months pouring over journals, and I wound up with more questions, not answers.

I understood the tangle, though. Why it had always been so overwhelming to Ryst. Why it gave her headaches. It was so many threads and so many people's choices. Dozens of spheres worth of people.

And we had no idea how many Talented there were in the 9 Galaxies or how many other augmented people there were like me, hacking their relays and hiding what they'd done.

How was all of that related? Did Ryst really foresee a future where Talented could live out in the open and not have to hide? Was Borden right? Could we actually make a safe place for Talented and Augments? Spheres worth of people, living freely and openly, not having to hide for fear that the powerful would use and abuse them?

Was that something I could achieve? Did I want to?

Ryst and Nayth had left everything in my hands. They must've had a reason. Because of Produced by Peydran? Because I could handle big projects with lots of moving parts? Because of my tech manipulation?

Because my husband and kids were maybe Talented? Why? Maybe just because they trusted me? They knew they could count on me, even if they'd had no idea what was coming?

My mind cataloged the scope of the projects before me. I needed to prioritize. Borden's project was long-term. Colonizing Five Spheres was a decades-long design. Ryst wanted me to publish her identity as the true author of Within and Without and her journals. Why? And why wait 150 years?

Ren came in grinning ten months after we'd started this reconnaisance. He looked as tired and disheveled as I felt, but there was excitement in his eyes.

"I cracked it, Pey'o. I've got it. It's in the songs. I know what we need to do."

Thank the stars. Oh, thank the stars! My beautiful, beautiful magic man.

"I'm listening, Ro."