“I was the first to speak up for you! I was the first to hold out my hand to you in friendship, and for ten years we have been as close to one another as two people can be. I had hoped we could grow closer, but now… great dragon! Now I do not know what to think!”
He took her hands. “Ryana…” She tried to pull away, but he held on firmly. “No, Ryana, listen to me. Please. I cannot help being the way I am. I, Sorak, can control but my own thoughts and actions. The others with whom I share this body all think the way they choose to think and act the way they choose to act. I can look upon you and see a warm, compassionate, intelligent, and beautiful young woman for whom I can feel desire. But the Guardian, Kivara, and the Watcher are not capable of feeling desire for a woman. Well, Kivara, I must admit, has a certain curiosity, but the Watcher and the Guardian are repelled by the idea of us becoming lovers. They could not allow it.” He brought his hands up to clutch his head and winced with pain. “No! Let me finish!”
Then, abruptly, his hands came down, and a calm, stoic expression came over his features. It was not Sorak anymore. “We should not continue this discussion,” said the Guardian flatly. “It is causing Sorak great distress.”
“Damn you,” said Ryana. “How can you do this to us? You never told me that you were female!”
“You never asked,” the Guardian replied. “How could I have thought to ask? Whenever you spoke to me, it was always with a man’s voice, as you speak to me now!”
“It is not my fault that I exist within a male body,” the Guardian replied. “Had I a choice, it is not the choice I would have made. However, it is something I have learned to accept, as you must learn to accept it.”
This is ridiculous!” Ryana shouted. “Sorak is a man!”
“No, he merely looks like one,” the Guardian replied in a calm voice. “In fact, he is an elfling. He cannot be a man, because he is not human. Or have you forgotten that, as you seem to have forgotten his needs and his feelings in the face of your own selfish desire?”
Reacting instinctively, Ryana slapped the Guardian’s face, but in doing so, she also slapped Sorak, and suddenly realized what she had done. Her hand went to her mouth and she bit down on her knuckle as her eyes went wide with shock. “What have I done? Sorak…”
“Sorak understands, and he forgives you,” said the Guardian. “And for his sake, I shall try to do the same. But you are behaving like a foolish, thoughtless girl who is merely angry because she cannot have her way. And you are only causing Sorak pain. Is that truly what you wish?”
Ryana’s eyes flooded with tears. “No,” she said in a small voice. She shook her head. “No, that is the very last thing I would wish to do.” She stifled a sob, then rose quickly and splashed back to the bank, where she had dropped her robe and moccasins. Without even bothering to put them on, she simply snatched them up and ran back toward the convent..
As she stumbled up the path, tears blurring her vision, Ryana cursed herself for a fool. She felt angry, hurt, humiliated, and more miserable than she had ever felt in her entire life. A storm of conflicting emotions surged through her. She ran, as if trying to escape them, and when she was about halfway back to the convent, she simply sank to her knees on the path and pounded her fists on the ground in helpless frustration, sobbing in both pain and anger.
Fool, fool, she thought. Why, oh, why did I not listen to the others? They only sought to warn me, to protect me… And the sudden thought came, just as the Guardian is protecting Sorak. But from what? From her love? From his own feelings? Was it not the Guardian who was being cruel and selfish? Ten years, she thought, bitterly. Ten years we knew each other, and he never told me. They never told me. The others wouldn’t let him. And then, abruptly, her feelings of pity and despair shifted from herself to Sorak.
He had told her that he cared for her, that he had wrestled with this problem, but he could not go against