It started with that voice that damned voice, whispering in my ears.

Choose, it said. You must choose.

And, all of a sudden, I was with Lissa.

We were sitting in her dorm room, and we were talking about the kinds of things best friends usually talked about with each other, such as guys, the latest gossip, and clothes. At the moment, she was going on about Christian, and how, despite his reputation, he was actually a really sweet guy.

"Are you sure about that?" I asked her teasingly. "I mean, if you ask me, he's a real pain in the ass."

Lissa rolled her eyes. "That's because you two have nothing better to do than to push each other's buttons. Seriously, if you two would stop throwing insults at each other for a few minutes and actually played nice with each other—"

"Aww, but where's the fun in that? I mean, just playing nice is sooo boring. And anyway, he drives me crazy sometimes. Honestly Liss, I don't know how you put up with him, and no offense, but I am not even jealous in the slightest. Christian is totally not my type."

"Then what is your type?"

I was about to answer her question, but something in my throat seized. I did my best to move on to another topic.

"So, anything else you want to talk about?" I asked her.

Lissa stared off into space for a little while, deep in thought. Finally, she said, "I wonder where I'll be, ten years from now, maybe twenty."

"Probably married to Christian, and having your Little Dragomirs," I replied.

She threw a pillow at me, and I ducked, laughing as I did. "I'm serious," she insisted. "How different will my life be then? Will I be able to make a difference in the world? Will I be happy with life? Rose, haven't you ever wondered those kinds of things?"

"I don't need to wonder about those things, because I already know," I told her. "In ten years, twenty, thirty even, I'll still be your guardian. I'll always be your guardian, Liss."

She hugged me. "Always?" she asked.

I hugged her back, reassuring her as best as I could with that single embrace.

"What kind of best friend would I be if I wasn't?" I asked her. "Liss, you know how I feel about this. In the end, it's my duty, and regardless of how I live my life now, I can guarantee you that I'll be the best guardian that I can possibly be. I wouldn't give by best friend in the world anything less."

"You think we'll still be best friends by then?"

I smiled. "Do you really doubt that, Liss? We've been practically sisters since kindergarten. If our friendship has been able to last that long, then there should be no doubt that it will still be around then. Best friends forever, remember?"

"Didn't you say that back in kindergarten?" she pointed out.

"Yeah, and as far as I'm concerned, that still has yet to change." And I didn't want it to change. Lissa and I had always been best friends, which is why I was more than willing to be her guardian. If there was any Moroi I was willing to die for, it was her.

She smiled in return. "You're right," she said softly. "Best friends forever."

After that, we were pretty much done with the heavy stuff, and moved on to non-important stuff, like some of the royals' new hairdos. But unfortunately it wasn't long before that stupid voice was back.

Are you sure? it asked. Is this your choice? Or will you choose differently?

Suddenly the whole scene changed. Now I was somewhere completely different than Lissa's dorm room. In fact, I was outside on the Academy grounds, at night. This wasn't all that unusual, considering that it was daytime for Moroi, but what made me pause was the sight of a tall figure, standing maybe twenty yards away.

I didn't have to guess. I already knew who it was.

Before I could say anything, Dimitri turned, and I felt his eyes boring into me. He then quickly strode over to me, picked me up, and then proceeded to start kissing me so desperately, so passionately that it left me dizzy and gasping for breath.

When he pulled away for air, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on. I've never seen him quite like this before, and there had to be a good reason.

"Whoa there, Comrade," I managed to say. "What's the occasion?"

"I love you," he told me, his voice so raw with emotion it made me shiver. "I love you so, so much-" He broke off with a gasp, and then started kissing me again, like a man dying of thirst drinking water for the first time in days.

When he pulled away for the second time, he pressed his forehead against mine. "It hurts," he whispered. "It hurts, loving you. That is exactly how much I love you. So much it hurts. But... it's a good hurt. An unbearably sweet ache, one that I always feel when you're around. One that I want to always feel... if that makes sense."

I nodded, because it made perfect sense, because I could totally understand the feeling he was describing. I felt the exact same thing for him.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on, what drove him to act so desperately, as if this moment was going to be the last we would ever have together.

But that wasn't true, was it? We'd still find a way to be together. Not even duty would stand in the way of our love.

But duty wasn't even something I could think about anyway, not with Dimitri's gorgeous face so close, his dark eyes filled with utter adoration and a need that was only matched by my own. Usually he was stoic, appearing almost emotionless, but now his love was written all over his face, making my heart thud loudly in my ears. If he heard it as well (which wouldn't surprise me at all), then he didn't acknowledge it, instead looking deeply into my eyes, looking at my very soul.

"I will never, ever leave you, my love," he swore to me. "As long as I'm still alive, as long as you still want me... then nothing in this world will tear me from your side, Roza. I promise."

I only swallowed in response, not knowing what to say.

"Please stay," he begged me. "Please let me be with you. That's all I ask."

"But what about-" I started, but I wasn't entirely sure what I was asking about.

"It doesn't matter," he insisted. "We'll get through it. It won't matter. Nothing matters. Just us."

He was right. Nothing in this world did matter. Nothing was enough to keep us apart.

As I kissed him back, savoring the moment, the voice came back again, reminding me, You have a choice to make. Is this truly what your choice is?

What choice? I wondered. But I didn't have to wonder long, because soon enough I found out, and it wasn't good.

This time, the scene changed, and it wasn't just Lissa or just Dimitri- it was both of them. I felt their eyes on me, and I looked back at them, at the two most important people in my life. One was my sister, in every way that truly mattered, and one was the love of my life.

But it didn't matter. The voice was cruel, letting me know that I had an important decision to make, even though it was an impossible one.

You need to choose, Rose, it told me. Your best friend or your lover? One of them has to go. You can't have both. You know that, Rose. You know that very well.

I looked down, and saw that there was a gun in my hand, and I somehow knew there was only a single bullet, for one life- one of theirs.

I screamed.

I awoke with a gasp, sweat pouring off of me and soaking the sheets, and it took me a moment to realize that what I saw was nothing more than a dream. I was safe and sound in my dorm room at the Academy, and nothing bad had actually happened.

Just a dream, I told myself. Nothing to worry about.

But honestly, I wasn't so sure. The dream felt so real, real enough that it frightened me. The voice... it told me to choose.

But how could I have chosen? These were the two people that made up my entire world. If one of them died, part of my soul would die, too. And being asked not only to give up one of them, but to kill them myself...

I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to do it.

But it would come down to that, wouldn't it? I would have to choose between them eventually. Even if I wasn't directly killing one of them, it didn't matter. I had to decide which was more important: duty or love. Who would really come first in my life?

They come first, I reminded myself. There should be no doubt in my mind, and yet...

I loved Lissa. I really did. And I would not hesitate to be her guardian. As I'd told her in my dream, I would always be her guardian.

But when it came to Dimitri...

Dimitri would understand, I thought. And I knew it was true, because being a guardian meant as much to him as it did to me. I knew that better than anyone. But at the same time, I didn't want to give up any chance of being with him entirely. I remembered how he was in my dream, the passion shown clearly on his face in a way that I'd never really seen. He always kept his feelings hidden, although I knew by the way he looked at me sometimes, and by the little things he did for me every now and then, that he loved me. He loved me a lot.

And yet it didn't matter, it couldn't matter, because guardian duty was more important.

But that didn't stop me from feeling the way I did about him, not by a long shot, Love wasn't something that you could just ignore, that you could simply turn off, and I knew that better than anyone. If either were possible, I wouldn't have had this problem now, wouldn't have had to worry about whether I would make the right choice in a dilemma between duty and passion, between a friendship that lasted for most of my life and a love that I knew came around only once in a person's lifetime.

For the rest of the day, I tried desperately to push it to the very back of my mind, and to pretend that I hadn't just been shaken to my very core. Lissa asked me if I were okay, and I reassured her that I was, putting on a brave front and even cracking a few jokes, as usual, though I forgot what I'd been saying almost as soon as the words left my mouth. At practice, it was a little bit harder, though- Dimitri seemed to see straight into my soul- but thankfully, he didn't prod too much, accepting that I didn't really want to talk about it. And all throughout the day, I kept thinking about my dream, and the choice that had been mentioned, and hoped that whatever happened, I would never, ever have to worry about that kind of situation.

Because what frightened me most was, when it came to what I would do in such a situation, I simply didn't know the answer.