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 his own nature. She thought, with anguish, what must it be like for him? He had said she did not understand. Well, he was right. How could she? How could she possibly know what it was like to share her body with other entities who had thoughts and feelings of their own? It was not his fault. It was not something he had chosen, but a curse that he was doomed to live with, most likely for the remainder of his life. And in declaring her feelings for him, she had just made things that much worse for him.
Oh, Sorak, she thought, what have I done to you? As she knelt on the ground and wept, the shouts of the other priestesses frolicking in the nearby pool drifted toward her. She could hear them laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Why couldn’t she be like them? They did not suffer for the lack of males in their lives. They were content to accept Sorak as a brother. Why wasn’t that enough for her? Perhaps they knew nothing of love, but if this was love, then with all her heart, she wished them continued ignorance.
With an effort, she struggled to pull herself together. She didn’t want the others to see her like this. What had just passed between herself and Sorak did not concern them. She stood and put on her robe and moccasins, then brushed the tears from her eyes. The Guardian was right, she thought. She would simply have to learn how to accept this. Right now, she did not know how she could, but she simply had to somehow, or else her presence around Sorak would only cause them both continued pain. She took a deep breath, trying to collect herself, and started walking purposefully back toward the convent gates. There was only one thing she could think to do right now. It would be best for Sorak if he did not see her for a while. She, too, needed time to sort things out, to be apart from him. Perhaps, she thought, they would never be able to go back to the way they once were. That thought was even more unbearable than the thought of not being able to love Sorak. In fact, she thought, I can love him. It is only that I can never truly possess him, or be possessed by him, the way it is with normal people. But then, she reminded herself, we are not normal people.
If his female aspects prevented him from making love with her, then they would also prevent him from ever making love with any other woman. In that respect, at least, Sorak would be like most villichi. He would remain celibate. Not by choice, perhaps, but by necessity. So she would do the same. In that way, perhaps, their love would be all the more pure. She knew that it would not be easy. It would take time to discipline her mind to this new resolve, just as it had taken time for her feelings toward Sorak to build up her expectations. Perhaps she had no right to any expectations, no right to think of her own desires. That, she realized, was what Saleen had meant when she talked about the vows that they all took.
“... above all personal desires and material comfort,” she said with bitter irony. She had been but a child when she took those vows. What did she know of their true meaning? It was all so horribly unfair. The question was, what would happen now? Neither she nor Sorak could ever forget what had just passed between them. “Villichi do not marry,” Saleen had said. “We do not take mates.” Ryana had allowed herself to think she could be different. And it was a curse to be different. She had learned that lesson once before, in childhood, and now, because she had forgotten it, she had painfully learned it once again.
3
“There was no reason for you to step in. You only made things worse by interfering.”
“I was merely trying to protect you from—”
“I do not require protection from Ryana, or from my own feelings!”
Had any strangers been present to observe this conversation, they would doubtless have assumed that Sorak was a madman. All they would have seen was Sorak sitting on a large, flat rock in the middle of the pool and apparently having a one-sided conversation with himself. They would have heard what Sorak said, for he spoke aloud, but seemingly to no one. The Guardian’s remarks were inaudible, for they were spoken only within Sorak’s mind. Sorak was capable of carrying on conversations with his other aspects entirely without speech, but he was angry, and he felt that if he tried to keep it all inside, he would explode.
“The girl was being obstinate and selfish,” said the Guardian. “She was not listening to you. She was making no attempt to understand. She was thinking only of her own desire.”
“She was confused,” said Sorak. “And she was angry, because she felt I’d kept things from her. The way you spoke to her was needlessly harsh and cruel. She has always been our friend. And more than just a friend. She cared about us when no one else did.”
“The high mistress cared.”
“The mistress cared, yes, but that was not the same. She recognized our talents and our condition and felt compelled to help. She understood what we had suffered and took pity on us. She felt an obligation to the Elder Al’Kali. Ryana cared without any cause or condition. It was shameful for you to treat her as you did. And it was shameful for us to have deceived her all these years.”
“No one deceived the girl,” the Guardian replied. “To withhold information is not the same thing as deception.”
“Words!” said Sorak angrily. “The fact remains she was deceived. Had she known from the beginning, this never would have happened!”
“Perhaps not,” the Guardian replied, “but you seem to be forgetting something. You, yourself, did not know from the beginning, and when you did know, you feared the others would discover that we were both male and female. You questioned your own masculine identity. It caused you great concern, and so the three of us held back and bolstered your own image of yourself. Then, later, when you and the girl—”
“Her name is Ryana!”
“When you and Ryana had grown close, there was a part of you that felt afraid to tell her, because you feared how she might react. If there was deception, then you were a part of it yourself.”
“Perhaps a part of me was afraid to tell her,” Sorak admitted, grudgingly. “But I could have told her now, and much more gently than you did. Now she is hurt and angry and confused, through no fault of her own. We have led her on and caused her to expect something that we could never give.”
“I did not lead anybody on,” the Guardian replied. “Villichi do not take mates, and for the most part, remain celibate. How was I to know that she was different? How was I to know what was on her mind?”