“I cannot.”
“Cannot, or will not?”
“Both,” she replied. “You can tell me that you do not want me to go with you, Sorak, but it will make no difference. I will follow you whether you want me to or not. No one knows you as I do. No one understands you as I do. No one cares for you as I do. And no one can watch your back as well as I,” she added, thinking about the two men she had killed back in the alley as they waited to attack him. She would not tell him about that. She did not want him to feel obligated. She only wished her aim with the crossbow had been better, and that she had killed Rokan, as well. Then Tigra would not have died. She would not tell him about that, either.
He smiled wanly. “Why waste yourself on a male who cannot love you properly?”
“Why waste myself in a villichi convent, where I would never even see a male, much less love one?” she countered.
“But you have forsaken your vows, and you are no longer a priestess. You have no more vows to keep, while I have a vow I cannot break, no matter how much I might wish I could.”
“I will be satisfied with whatever you can give,” she said. “If I cannot be your lover, then I shall be your sister, as I once was.”
“And always shall be,” Sorak said. “Very well then, little sister. Since I cannot dissuade you, we shall both go out to seek the Sage together. Somewhere out there.”
He looked out across the vast Athasian desert, slowly fading from golden orange to bloody red as the dark sun sank on the horizon.