Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

RYST

"Are those your Florian clothes?" I asked Nayth as we headed down to the underground garage beneath his villa. I'd braided blue and silver beads into my hair to set off my emerald green kurta-style dress. I felt stunning, and the dress had the bonus of being very comfy with just tights and a small bandeau underneath. But Nayth looked positively dressed down. Very unusual for him.

"Umm hmm. Freya can leave off telling you how to dress me now. Trousers in light blue and a loose-fitting green shirt. No one will even know it's me in this outfit," he replied.

"You look good, Ahtah. It is really different, though, without the suit coat."

"Nika will be happy. After Borden met her, he started seeing her tailor, Gaston. His fashion is still mostly like what I wear, but he changes things up a little and gets jackets that aren't embroidered silk. But since he's aiming for the ministry job once Dad steps down, he still has to be mostly Sturm-like in his public appearance."

We parked in the underground porter garage at the apartment complex and took a lift up to the Sloan's. When Annika opened the door, I hesitated just a second, but even that pause had her rolling her eyes, "Come in Ryst. You're special, I'm special, we're all special here. Let's not stand in the hallway announcing it to the neighbors."

As she closed the door, I responded, "Well, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to fall over and land in a pile on your shoes."

Laughing, she stood back and looked me up and down. "Firstly, that is the dress of all dresses. Well done. Secondly, what exactly are you? What do you do? Show."

Borden stood a little back from her, and I glanced at him while I raised my eyebrows at his wife. Well, she had a point, didn't she? We all knew something was going on, so why not just dive right in? I let my senses— woah. My eyes went back to Borden, and I stepped towards him, left hand reaching out and eyes widening. "Woah. It's not Annika, it's you."

Borden smiled wryly. "You're not wrong, honey," he said to his wife. "That was quick. What are you, Ryst? What are you doing? What can you sense? Air? Water? Metal?"

My face contorted in confusion. "Metal? I sense you. You're all . . . green light in my brain." Then my head snapped over to Annika. "But it's you too. I'm not getting the blue spirals tonight, but there's something in you. It's like—". My gaze drifted and my eyes closed. "It's not firey. It's something else. Something sharp and kind of spicy. Too much is what it is." I took a couple of steps back, shaking my head, then opened my eyes to see both of them stepping towards me.

Nayth put an arm around my waist and cleared his throat. "Perhaps someone would like to explain to me what is going on?" I suddenly noticed his emotions. He didn't like what he was wearing. He wished he was in a stiff silk suit jacket all buttoned up and powerful. I silently sent him encouragement. Project that, Nayth. Put on the kurta and project that power out.

Annika took a step back and smiled a little at Nayth. "Nayth Carmidee, it appears we all have secrets to share. Your betrothed isn't the only one, is she? Welcome to our home, Ryst. Borden and I have a lot to tell you."

Borden relaxed. "Wine?" he asked as he led us to a fine dining table. "Chef Juanna sends her regards, Ryst."

"Oh?! You had Juanna cater dinner? That was very thoughtful. Thank you."

Dinner started. "Annika, is 'she' okay? The lack of options in Universal—"

Annika interrupted me with a wave. "It's not worth the breath it takes to explain. 'She' is fine."

I nodded my understanding. My own native tongue had a non-binary pronoun option, but we had to work within the limits of the Universal language all three of us spoke. "So, obviously, I know your recon details, and Nayth tells me you are good friends, but he was as surprised as I was that I nearly fell over last night when I met you. Have you met other people like me?" I asked.

"What exactly is 'like you,' Ryst? You what, see colors when you meet people?" Annika asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, that's the eternal question, isn't it? I don't really know. I sense people— thoughts, feelings, intentions. And I have dreams that come true or are metaphors about things in my life that haven't happened yet. And I sense things that are on the horizon, but don't usually understand what I'm sensing until it happens in real time."

"What?" Borden asked, " You mean, you see the future?"

"Yes," Nayth said at the same time I said, "No."

I shook my head, "No, I don't see the future. I just get this pounding feeling that something is coming, and it's all woven up together with events in my life. People I know. Decisions we are all making. They're like dominoes. But I can't really tell what specifics are going to happen." I shook my head. "Actually, I don't really want to talk about it, because it can pull me in too deep, and I don't want to go off into space right now. How about one of you tell me what is going on with you? I haven't gotten to meet Talented people before."

"Talented?" Annika asked.

"Uh . . . ask any question, but don't always expect an answer," I said in response.

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Chuckling, Nayth said, "Let's remember that Ryst is Shurwinn, right?"

"Ah," they both nodded. Annika began, "I suppose you could say that I'm like you, in some ways, but it's definitely not the same. I just have the feeling that there are some people we should trust and others we shouldn't. Very handy in politics. And sometimes I can tell that the trust is more than that. That there's something about the person that is important. But usually, I don't get to know those people, so I can't say if they are Talented or not."

"But I felt it when I met Borden. From the very first encounter, I knew there was more about him than that he was trustworthy. When I met Nayth, I knew I could trust him. When I met you, it was like meeting Borden— a draw to you. That you were trustworthy and then some. Does that help?"

"Hmm," I said looking at Borden speculatively, "I'm going to drop the curtain around my senses and see what I pick up about you, okay? I'll back off if it gets weird." He shrugged. I dropped my mental curtain and sent my senses questing.

Yes, I felt Nayth's presence already there in my mind. Annika was that spicy, zingy sense that confused me. Borden was sharp, green light. Too much! I pulled back, wincing. "Whatever you are, it's a kind of whammy trying to look at you with my senses fully open."

Borden chuckled and stood up, backing away from the table and holding his hands in front of him like a bowl. The floor, which was a beautiful black polished stone, started to melt. As in, there was a puddle of stone that used to be floor and suddenly wasn't. Colors flowed upwards like liquid, up over Borden's shoes, over his trousers, down his arms and into his hands where they pooled. Flowing shades of molten rock separated from one another, and a ball the size of a grapefruit formed in his hands. The colors kept dividing and the sphere started looking eerily familiar to me: two brown land masses surrounded by dark green. The sphere hardened, and Borden laid it in the center of the dining table.

The shock rolling off of Nayth was mirrored on my face. Borden took a sip of wine.

"When did this start? College? Last week? Borden?" Nayth challenged.

"When I was fourteen. Right around the time I met you. When I left my family. You recall it was under unpleasant circumstances."

"So," I started, my mind whirling trying to make sense of what I'd just seen. "You asked if I sense metal or air. What do you sense, Borden?"

"As far as I can tell: minerals."

"And you haven't been to Shurwinn, have you? But you just made a tiny model of the sphere of Shurwinn which has no published satellite or telescopic images?"

He nodded.

"Did you sense it from here? You sense the shape of Shurwinn from a galaxy away?"

He nodded.

"Holy sands below!" I whispered. Then my head jerked up, looking back and forth between Borden and Annika, fear obvious on my face.

"The plan is to become untouchable, Ryst. I don't think I can reach Galactic Ministry, and I don't want that job. But I think I can accrue enough wealth and power to protect us and the children we want to have someday," Borden reassured.

Nayth and I were silent, gobsmacked. This wasn't "Talent." This wasn't my vague gift of perceiving things other people didn't notice. This was a power to reach across the galaxy, sense minerals light years away, and then reshape reality around oneself into a matching form.

It was frightening, and I didn't really want to know about it. I wanted to forget it, but the tangle in my mind insisted that Borden and Annika were a part of whatever giant thing was hounding me. There was something else that Borden had said that picked at me: "Unpleasant circumstances," he'd said.

Something clicked within me. "My Talent started with 'unpleasant circumstances' too, Borden. My ex-husband tried to kill me. I broke his leg and disabled him, but had a brain injury. I think I might have even left this world for a bit and then came back. Trauma seemed to propel me into the Talent. Do you think that's how it starts? Trauma? Bad things happening?"

"I don't know, Ryst. Honey?" Borden asked.

Annika nodded. "For me it wasn't anything so violent. Just a dancing injury that had me sitting out of practice for two months. A lot of sitting and talking to older, wiser troubadours. And then leaving my family, who I loved, because I wanted to see the Galaxy. But I can't say for sure that those things caused it. Only that the timing lined up."

I really didn't want to say what came out next, but I could tell Borden wanted me to. He let me see the edge of something in his mind about his past because he was grateful I was in his home telling him about my abilities, my personal life, and my struggles. He and Annika didn't want to be alone with the truth anymore.

"I managed to break my attacker's leg. How about you?" I asked him.

"His hand. He was a family friend, and I was blamed, not the attacker."

"I'm very sorry, Borden. No one, no child, no adult should ever be in that situation, and I am sorry that happened to you."

He nodded, "As I am sorry for you Ryst, and I agree. There's something very wrong in the Known Cosmos that we even have these stories to tell. It shouldn't be this way."

My voice came out in a whisper, "I've wondered for years if that's why we're stuck in 9 Galaxies? That there's something so wrong with us that we can't even see that it might be possible that outside the 9 Galaxies, there could be a world where suffering doesn't exist. Where people are honest and kind. And that we will never get there because we are broken and don't know to look for it."

Borden sat back, grasping the back of his neck with both hands and sighed. "You might be right, Ryst. You might be right."

"Wealth and power, Borden? Nika? Untouchable? I'm not untouchable, and I have more wealth and power than I want," Nayth said, redirecting the conversation.

Borden smiled at him wryly. "You're not thinking big enough Nayth. Think about Shurwinn. Maybe you'll get there."

I felt Nayth's mind churning, searching for a way to put together what Borden hinted at.

"Another sphere? An isolationist colony of Talented?" Nayth inquired.

Borden smirked.

"Hm," Nayth grunted. "Not one. A bunch. A bunch of untouchable spheres. What— an army of Talented?" he laughed. "Really, that's the strategy?"

Borden rolled his eyes, and Annika chimed in. "Don't be ridiculous, Nayth. No, we colonize and become even more solid in the Trade Guildes than the Shurwinn, but instead of just one sphere, a group of spheres. Possibly a whole system. With such strength that if it gets out what we are, no one will want to try to take our spouses or future children. We'll have too much respect for anyone to even consider it."

"Hwww," Nayth whistled. "Maybe. Maybe. You're wanting Ryst to help? You want me to help, or you want me to stay away? Not draw attention? Maybe I shouldn't know about any of this at all."

"No," I shook my head. "No, Nayth. We're supposed to be here listening to this. I don't know about any of the rest of it. But something about it is right. I can sense it like puzzle pieces sliding closer together. I have no idea what all of this is, and I'm not even going to look at it because it's already too big. Okay, guys? I don't want to look at it. There's just a lot of things that are already in motion, and coming here tonight is one more puzzle piece in this giant landscape that is overwhelming for my mind."

Annika nodded, "Okay, Ryst. Okay. You don't have to do anything. No, Nayth. We aren't asking you or Ryst for anything right now. Maybe someday. This is a long-term strategy, right? It means a lot to us to finally be able to talk to someone about it— to not have to hide it from you anymore."

"Speaking of hiding, Nayth. How in the world did you find a Shurwinn Talented and convince her to marry you? What in the Cosmos is going on with you two?" Borden asked

"She found me in her dreams, of course," Nayth replied with a smile.