“Listen to me, Aferi. I want more than this. I want us to be together. I
want someone to bear my children and raise them.”
“I will have our children and we will raise them together.” Slipping my
hand away, I gripped his face between my palms. “You know I want this,
too.”
Not finding what he wanted in my eyes, he turned away.
“I want a wife, Aferi. I want you to be my wife.”
A bitter taste spread across my tongue, but my heart refused to focus on
anything but trying to unravel the meaning behind the words I could
not fathom.
“The Amasiti do not marry. You know this.”
Only then did he turn to me, wild and desperate. He grabbed my hands
and squeezed hard.
“Then renounce them and come with me. Be my wife!”
“Renounce them?” I felt the bile rising, mixing with the taste of fear. “I
am them. You ask this as if I could step out of my own skin.”
His expression turned hard as he dropped my hands.
“You think because you are Amasiti that you are better than me!” he
yelled.
I was not prepared to defend who I was to anyone, least of all him. Still,
I tried, struggling for words I’d never had to speak before.
“I am different than you are, not better. We are meant for different
things.”
“Why? I could learn the dances. I know…” His voice cut off.
I did not realize that I had stepped away until Safaro extended his hand
94 | NKLC MAGAZINE