“I do not lie! Not to you! You know everything, anyway! And even if I did want some brief pleasure, what does it matter? What does it matter if I need human warmth, human closeness, human joy? If you choose to be a priest, untouched and removed from the rest of us, that’s a high thing, and I love you for it, and for other reasons. But you have not the right to make me the same as you, to put your restrictions around me, to put your choices and sacrifices on me. I can’t live without human love, without a friend to look in my face and touch my hand once in a while. I can’t be like you, I can’t be the person you expect—”

“You have to be! Elsha, I will not suffer this! Never before in all my life has a woman dared to raise her voice to me! And you are harsha. Without me, you would be nothing.”

“I have not changed,” I said, “just because I burned my mining clothes and wear your sacred sign. I am still Elsha. Elsha of the Quelled. How can I ever forget it? It’s branded on me, burned into me, stamped into my flesh. But it doesn’t touch my soul And my soul is the same, whether I live in a goatskin tent or a grand house, whether I live with a harsha friend or a Chosen youth, or you. None of you touch me. You don’t make me anything. I am me. Myself. Elsha. Woman.”

He sighed then, pulled his cloak close about him, and leaned on the wall, away from me. “I cannot fight you,” he said hoarsely.

“Then don’t, lord. If it is my relationship with Alejandro that troubles you, we did nothing. We talked. And he kissed me, that’s all.”

I hesitated, and the Firelord turned and leaned with his back against the wall, looking sideways at me, one flamelit eyebrow raised. He smiled faintly. “So, he kissed you, Elsha. And why did you stop there, you whose spirit is all passion and fire? Don’t tell me you had a sudden urge to obey the laws.”

“I remembered what you said last night, about my road.”

He smiled, and rubbed his hand down across his face and beard, and softly laughed. “I think I don’t always read you very well, Elsha.”

“No, lord. You don’t You’re not often wrong, though.”