“Aye. I stayed behind for a time.”
“She’s getting ahead of herself.” This from Kari. “Back up a few years, Dari.” Her voice was hoarse. It pained Dari that her friend—her Auntie—was in obvious anguish. “Klykka needs to understand the good parts to see how vastly they contrast from the bad ones.”
“Aye, child. Spare nothing.”
“Aye,” Dari agreed. “Of course.”
Chapter Three
Dari Q’ana Tal was coming to have more than a passing care for Gio Z’an Tar and she didn’t like it. The newly decorated High Lord, his title having been officially bestowed upon him the day he brought Dari to Arak, was like as naught everything she would have wanted in a Sacred Mate had she the option to choose for herself. Gio was fiercely protective and entirely honorable. His sense of humor was second to none and his desire to be near her grew more immense with each new moon-rising. Unfortunately, so too did her yearning to be near him.
They typically spent their morns and moon-risings together walking in the very gardens Dari had loved since the first. The gardens ofArakiawere vast, thickly vegetated, and well kempt. Nigh unto a fullYessat-Yearhad passed afore Dari’d learned the names and purposes of every tree, bush, and shrub. Some of them bore fruits, others vegetables, and still others were wanted merely for their beauty or scents. Her favored plant, which was both beautiful and aromatic, was thekrosis. A very bright lavender much like Gio’s eyes, thekrosisnot only emitted a lush fragrance when she touched it, but the plant also giggled. The sound was faint and rang like soft bells—an effect that never failed to charm her into a passing fair mood.
So vast were the gardens that twenty tradesmen saw to its upkeep. The men worked during daylight hours whilst Gio was training warriors down in Trader City so Dari and her favored bound servant, Qenda, knew the tradesmen far better than did either Gio or his sire.
There was one tradesman in particular Dari had grown to have a care for o’er the others—Bezan. He was a chubby, sweet, elder male who always brought his orphaned grandson to work with him. His grandson, Bazi, had lost his parents in the verygel-fireexplosion that had claimed the lives of Gio’s family. He was a delightful child, so wholesome in every way, and reminded Dari of her younger siblings. Dari had passed many an afternoon playing with the young boy whilst teaching him which tree was what. After a time, she began to teach him his letters that he might learn to readTrystonni.
Her eves were reserved for Gio and his sire, though King Elian tended to retire to his rooms early after the trio of them had partaken of the final meal of the day. Almost invariably, Dari and Gio would end up back in the gardens after the king took his leave. They tended to sit upon a particularvesha-benchwhich was situated under a swath ofkrosisplants and talk for hours. Always was Gio respectful. Always did he hang upon her every word, making her feel important to him. Mayhap she truly was.
“I love it when you smile,” Gio murmured down to her one eve as they sat on thevesha-bench. Seven moon-months had passed since her fifteenth birthday. “I think ‘tis your beautiful smile that causes thekrosissuch happiness.”
Dari silently thanked the goddess for her dark skin. Mayhap ‘twould guard Gio from realizing she was blushing from head to toe.
“Why my fair princess, you are blushing from head to toe!”
Dari swallowed against the lump in her throat. So much for that hope.
Gio grinned. “Why do you blush? For a certainty you must be awares of your great beauty?”
“Nay, milord.” Her expression was at once shy and serious. “I never felt passing fair until…” She hesitated—and did a little more of that bedamned blushing.
“Until…?” Gio asked.
“Until you first gazed upon me,” she breathed out.
Looking up to the stars, they sat in contented silence that moon-rising. Tryston, Ti Q’won, and Morak could be seen from their position. Gio held her hand for the first time, an innocent yet meaningful show of affection.
* * * * *
“’Twas a glorious eve,” Dari murmured to Kari and The Gy’at Li. The emotion in her voice was unmistakable.
“You loved him already?” Klykka asked.
“I loved him long afore that,” Dari admitted. “’Twas just the first time I acknowledged it to myself.” She sighed. “But I digress…”
* * * * *
OneYessat-Yearturned into two and two into three, and still Gio kept his honor about him. The looks he gave Dari were growing more heated and wistful as she aged, but he never tried to touch her afore ‘twas time. Time…
‘Twas something she was running out of as her eighteenthYessat-Yearapproached. In three short months, Gio would have the legal right to gentle her to his touch. From the moon-rising of her eighteenth year and onward ‘twould be not only permissible but expected of him to come to her in the evenings and bring her to peak. Though he could not claim her fully by penetrating her channel with his man-rod until she was twenty-and-five, Gio could do aught else to her that he so desired.
Aye, everything would change on her eighteenth birthday, but then she wouldn’t be on Arak to experience it o’er long. It mattered naught that she’d come to have a care for Gio o’er the years for a vow amongst cousins was a vow one must keep no matter how much it broke her hearts in the doing. The appointed time to flee was at hand, just two short months after she traded in herkazifor themazi.
Naked in her bathing hole,Kefaslaves washing her, Dari absently chewed on her lower lip as she contemplated what else ‘twas she was giving up. Namely, her entire birth family save her elder sister Jana. Though she hadn’t seen hermaniand sire in person since that fateful day she was taken from them, King Elian and Gio had invited them to attend her eighteenth birthday. Not by hologram as they oft talked now, but live and in the flesh. Dari could scarce wait to see them—or to be embraced in her papa’s massive arms whilst hermanifawned all over her.
Already hermanihad commissioned the making of newmazisfor her to wear from her eighteenth birthday until her twenty-fifthYessat-Yearwhen she became an adult female fully grown. Leastways, ‘twas naturally a heady occasion for the eighteen-year-old girls of Trek Mi Q’an to trade in theirkazisformazisfor it signified they were children no more. Themaziconsisted of the see-through bikini top of theqi’kawhilst maintaining the modest skirt of thekazi. ‘Twas a transitional outfit and one Dari was nigh unto giddy about wearing.
After the washing was done, Dari moved to avesha-benchnear to her bathing hole. TwoKefaslaves rubbed exotic oils onto her skin whilst another two brushed out her long hair and braided it. The slaves braided with a quickness that humanoid females simply could not, making short work of what would otherwise have been a daunting,Nuba-hourslong task. That accomplished, Dari chose a whitekazito dress in for that morn’s meal. Her dark nipples, ever stiff, jutted out against the fabric of her top in the way she’d noticed Gio was fond of. He never said as much, of course, yet he was forever sneaking glances at her developing, fertile form.
