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“Because you don’t love me.”

“Serenio … I do …”

“Yes, in your way, you love me. You care about me. You would never do anything to hurt me, and you would be so wonderful, so good to me. But I’d always know. Even if I convinced myself otherwise, I’d know. And I’d wonder what was wrong with me, what I lacked, why you couldn’t love me.”

Jondalar looked down. “Serenio, people mate who don’t love each other like that.” He looked at her earnestly. “If they have other things, if they care about each other, they can have a good life together.”

“Yes, some people do. I may mate again someday, and if we have other things, it may not be necessary to love each other. But not you, Jondalar.”

“Why not me?” he asked, and the pain in his eyes was almost enough to make her reconsider.

“Because I would love you. I couldn’t help it. I would love you and die a little every day knowing you didn’t love me the same way. No woman can keep from loving you, Jondalar. And every time we would make love, like we did tonight, I would wither inside more. Wanting you so much, loving you so much, and knowing that as much as you might want to, you didn’t love me back. After a while, I’d dry up, be an empty shell, and find ways to make your life as miserable as mine. You’d go on being your wonderful, caring, generous self, because you’d know why I had become like that. But you’d hate yourself for it. And everyone would wonder how you could stand such a carping, bitter old woman. I won’t do that to you, Jondalar. And I won’t do it to me.”

He got up and paced to the entrance, then turned around and came back. “Serenio, why can’t I love? Other men fall in love—what’s wrong with me?” He looked at her with such anguish, she ached for him, loved him even more, and wished there were some way she could make him love her.

“I don’t know, Jondalar. Maybe you haven’t found the right woman. Maybe the Mother has someone special for you. She doesn’t make many like you. You are really more than most women could bear. If all your love were concentrated on one, it could overwhelm her, if she wasn’t one to whom the Mother gave equal gifts. Even if you did love me, I’m not sure I could live with it. If you loved a woman as much as you love your brother, she would have to be very strong.”

“I can’t fall in love, but if I could, no woman could bear it,” he said with a laugh of dry irony and bitterness. “Be wary of gifts from the Mother.” His eyes, deep violet in the red glow of the fire, filled with apprehension. “What did you mean, ‘if I loved a woman as much as I love my brother’? If no woman is strong enough to ‘bear’ my love, are you thinking I need a … man?”

Serenio smiled, then chuckled. “I don’t mean you love your brother like a woman. You are not like Shamud, with the body of one and the inclinations of the other. You would have known it by now and sought your calling and, like the Shamud, you would have found a love there. No,” she said, and felt a flush of warmth thinking about it, “you like a woman’s body too well. But you love your brother more than you have ever loved any woman. That’s why I wanted you so much tonight. You’ll be leaving when he goes, and I won’t see you again.”

As soon as she said it, he knew she was right. No matter what he thought he had decided, when the time came, he would have left with Thonolan.

“How did you know, Serenio? I didn’t. I came here thinking I was going to mate you, and settle down with the Sharamudoi if I couldn’t take you back with me.”

“I think everyone knows you will follow him, wherever he goes. Shamud says it is your destiny.”

Jondalar’s curiosity about Shamud had never been satisfied. On impulse, he asked, “Tell me, is Shamud a man or a woman?”

She looked at him a long time. “Do you really want to know?”

He reconsidered. “No, I don’t suppose it matters. Shamud didn’t want to tell me—maybe the mystery is important to … Shamud.”

In the silence that followed, Jondalar stared at Serenio, wanting to remember her as she was then. Her hair was still damp, and in disarray,