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There was a long beat of silence. Everyone sat frozen in place. If they breathed, she couldn’t tell.
Ezrob never took his gaze from her, but he at last dipped his head. “I have heard you, Matara. Loud and clear.”
“Good.” Irene considered storming out to put a final exclamation point on her diatribe. She decided it would appear childish.
She sat down instead and began attacking her breakfast, ignoring the Kalquorian custom of her clanmates feeding her. She was too pumped up for niceties anyway. And she was starved. Fortunately, the food hadn’t gotten cold during her rant.
Fekeg was right, she thought as they continued to watch her in silence. The sauce on the swala eggs was incredible. She motioned to Jemi for seconds.
* * * *
“It’s only been a day, but I’ve never been so happy,” Meg gushed on the com that afternoon when Irene contacted her. “Mama too. I wish she were here to tell you, but she’s off with her beaus. She’s like a little girl, really smiling always, like how she was when Papa was alive. I can’t believe what we’ve found, Irene. It’s a miracle, as if fate itself stepped in to bring us here.”
Irene smiled at her friend despite the lump in her throat. Meg had somehow ended up with a clan she claimed was perfect, one Kalquor had chosen for her. Thanks to the empire, Mrs. Hoffman had won a second chance at real love too. The dancer’s delight with their situations was obvious in her shining face.
Meanwhile, Irene had found her own perfect clan, which she might be torn from for lesser men. Was it wrong to feel jealous that destiny had been so kind to Meg and her mother, when it might cheat Irene in the end?
“Tell me everything,” she invited Meg, eager to keep from discussing what might be a looming heartbreak. “Tell me what’s happened from the moment you met them face to face.”
* * * *
The terrifying day of decision arrived. Sherv, his clan, and the three parent clans gathered in the vast cavern of a shuttle bay of the courthouse, lodged in a cliff on the mainland’s pink-sanded seashore. They waited nervously for the team of lawyers who’d been hired to defend Clan Sherv’s clanship to Irene. There were a few attempts, mostly by the mothers and Imdikos, to make small talk. Their efforts came and went with stilted success.
For his part, Sherv kept close to Irene, as did Jemi and Rusp. He didn’t know what was going on in the others’ minds. His own brain raced here and there, one second bemoaning his devotion to music and the threat he could lose Irene thanks to his unconventional lifestyle, the next reminding himself if not for lemanthev, he’d have never met her.
Music had always been both a blessing and a curse. He wondered if it would always be so.
“Whatever it takes.” He mustered his determination.
Irene smiled at him, her expression of seeming confidence. She was firm in her insistence she wasn’t going to the rival clan no matter what any judge or government decided. “I’m done being pushed around by the powers that be. No one else is stripping from me the decisions I should be making about my life.”
Sherv agreed. He wasn’t sure his society, so desperate for continuance it had stooped to abducting women, could be convinced.
His com went off. “Make sure you silence that before we get into the judge’s chambers,” his mother warned.
“I will.” He noted the frequency, and he stepped from his clan. “I have to answer this. Stay here.”
He walked off and clicked to answer. “Hey. We’re at court, minutes from presenting our case to keep Irene as our Matara…yeah, we clanned, but I can’t catch you up now. I have to—”
He listened as an excited voice spoke. His heart stopped for an instant, then slammed into overdrive.
“Are you in the city? Can you get here right away?”
A few seconds later, he clicked off his com. As he turned to his clan, who stared at him questioningly, Vinin called, “Here come our attorneys.”
Sherv looked at the woman and half dozen men heading their way. He didn’t wait for formal introductions but raced over to greet them, desperate hope tossing decorum aside.
* * * *
The judge was a severe Dramok whom Irene thought might have been a child when the universe was born. Her resolve to remain Clan Sherv’s Matara was unwavering, but she had a terrible feeling about his attitude.
He wasn’t nasty or even abrupt to her; indeed, he was the soul of concern over her circumstances. He had his aides scurry to bring her water and guide her to a seat next to his at the long conference table where they were meeting. He personally he held her hover chair steady for her and switched on a translation program to hover where she could read everything said in Kalquorian. Once she was settled, he solicitously inquired how she felt.
He was very kind, but on the level of an adult taking care of a helpless child. Irene was sure Judge Adnam saw her as such. His fatherly care grated rather than reassured her, especially since he ignored her clan.
He was perfectly respectful of Clan Elak, the men who’d expected to become Irene’s mates. Irene had to give grudging credit where it was due. Dramok Elak, Imdiko Verir, and Nobek Mestra made it a point to bow to her first and foremost and tell her they were sorry to meet under the less-than-perfect conditions. They even apologized to Sherv, Jemi, and Rusp for asserting a claim, though Elak somewhat ruined the offered regrets by adding, “We only want what’s best for the mother’s and child’s welfare.”
Irene couldn’t stop herself from asking, “What makes you experts on what benefits me andmybaby?”
