“Please, please just listen. I know what our faith professes about those who love the wrong gender, and yet I cannot bear to live another day like this. Every waking moment which I do not spend with you is a wasted moment; a life without you in it would be a pitiful and torturous existence. I cannot allow myself to continue listening to you complain about your wretched life even when I know that I could make it better. When I see you with him I feel trapped, frozen in time as I silently scream into the empty void until my lungs are in pain yet even you, who know me better than I know myself, do not hear me. I have always been a woman of faith but now.... now, I can no longer attempt to put aside what I feel about you.” She reached out shakily, interlacing her fingers with mine, and gently squeezed my palm. Tears danced behind my eyes and I struggled to swallow the pain.

“My love for you is... is... It’s everything, Aniya. It is the sun and the moon, the earth and the sea, the wind and the rain and the rose and the thorns. There are no words to describe my love for you; even if I were the greatest poet that ever lived I could not express that feeling. It is more deep and more vast than the Dragon’s Sea. Most of all it is fierce and unrelenting, impermeable

and inexplicable, and nothing in this world nor the next could ever challenge it.

“I wish that I could let you go, I wish my love was only that strong, but it’s not, it’s too strong, and even if you reject me now once and for all, my love for you will never die. You could plunge a dagger into my heart and as the life faded out of me I would be thankful that your face would be the last thing I saw.”

I shook my head, tears spilling, and clasped tightly to her hands. She pressed her lips into a pained smile, and put our hands in her lap.

“I love you enough to want the best for you,” she continued, “even if that is not what is the best for me. I know, rationally, that the best thing for you is to marry him, I know that, and yet against all reason I *know* that being with me would make you happier, I know it would. It cannot be explained, but that knowledge stems from something deeper than reason.” She gripped my hand firmly, clinging on for dear life, and I knew that she meant every word of what she said. Reina would never do anything that could hurt me, even indirectly, and I was crushed with the realisation that if I turned her down now she would never make another advance toward me again.

“Even if the gods do not forgive us, I would still have you and you would still have me. I wish things were different, but I...” she trailed off, looking at me in concern. I bit down, hard, on my tongue as I swallowed a sob, struggling to compose myself and hold back the tears.

“I couldn’t bear it,” she finished. “I can’t. I couldn’t care less how long I live; a day with you is better than a lifetime with him. When you look at me, I know that I am finally free; heaven and hell are mere words to me. If we burn we shall burn together,” she whispered as the tears streaming from her eyes made a clean path down her face, cutting through the grime. Her eyes searched my face desperately as her voice faltered.

She paused, a shadow of her usual cheeky grin flitting across her face. It passed quicker than a floating cloud, but it was enough to make me realise I had already decided what I was going to do. I had decided long ago.

“And,” she finally whispered, “at least it would be warm.”

I giggled, watching as fresh tears spurted from her shining eyes. “Yes,” I said softly, looking down at our entwined hands. “At least it would be warm.”

On a sudden impulse I leaned towards her, our lips coming together in a fiery kiss. The embrace was soft but firm, and it was only as I felt the coolness of her tear-streaked cheek against mine that I realised I was crying too.