Page 14 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

I’m in the closet. Siean’s hand covers my mouth so tight that I can barely breathe.

The top half of the door is hand carved with flowers, and I can see everything outside through the slits.

My mother holds Nikanor, hugging him tightly, and he wraps himself around her with his little hands and legs.

My father is pulling him. Nikanor is crying, calling my mom.

She tries to grab him again. Rod is furious.

I’ve never seen him like this before. He was always cold and distant but not violent.

He hands Nikanor to one of his men, who just stand there, and then he hits my mother.

Hard. Her face is bloody now. I hear a whimper.

It’s mine. Siean tightens her hand on my mouth.

My mother is on the ground, and he kicks her.

She is curled up, and he doesn’t stop. Then he grabs her by the hair and shouts in her face, “What did you think would happen when I learned that you taught my son witchcraft? Or did you just assume I’m too stupid to find out?

Do you know how I found out?” And he laughs domineeringly.

“You are the stupid one, Rutanna. Not me.”

This memory is so vile that there is no wonder why it escaped me.

After my mother died, I saw my brother a few times on public occasions.

He was always at my father’s side and never acknowledged my presence.

I never dared to approach him. What was it like for Nikanor to grow up in my father’s care after that day?

He was so attached to my mother. She spent so many hours with all of us, playing, teaching, and loving.

Does he remember her? Or did he prefer to forget as well?

“How did he find out she taught us Renyan healing?” I ask.

But my sister remains facing the window, and she doesn’t answer.

As if all she wanted was not to carry that memory alone and now that we share it, she wants nothing more to do with me.

I think all three of us are lonely. We were deprived of not only our mother but also our siblings.

We were left under the care of people who never cared for us at all.

All of Rutanna’s children became means to an end.

But I hope I’m wrong. I hope it only happened to me.

After all, Nikanor’s hair is red, and he is a man. Perhaps Rod truly loves him, truly values him. And for Siean, my aunt cared enough for her to bring her back from the dead. Didn’t she? I have no idea how she did it, but I guess it means she cared.

“You know, it’s strange,” I say to Siean. This Kozari lasso, it burns badly. But it’s not so bad as the Mongan described it to me. He said that not only is it the worst pain, but it is as if someone has put a blanket of despair on you, and you lose the will to fight or even live.”

Her voice is flat, her face still at the window as she answers, “That’s because they contain Cursed Ones’ horns. It affects them differently.”

My breath is tight all of a sudden. How would one get Mongan horns to begin with? And to chain the Mongans with the remains of their people. Such callousness. Daton’s harsh words come back to me. And why would Siean know this? Is it common knowledge?

“Wait, is this how Tilil brought you back from the dead? Is that why you still look sixteen? Are you using some kind of Renyan healing involving Mongan horns?” I ask her.

She looks at me then. Her eyes simmer with anger. “Don’t you dare judge me.” Her voice is harsh. “I was dead. You have no idea what that’s like. She didn’t ask me if I wanted to come back. It’s not as if anyone has ever given me a choice.”

I frown at her. “So if they bring you back to life, you’re stuck at the age you died?”

“I don’t know. Just shut up,” Siean snaps .

But I won’t drop this. “So you’re still using them? Don’t you—” The carriage stops as I’m mid-sentence.

I can hear the soldiers talking while climbing down from the carriage.

But as they get farther away, there is an unnatural silence.

Siean opens the door and goes down to see what caused them to stop, leaving the carriage open.

But she doesn’t return. I push my way out of the carriage slowly.

Every movement burns where the lasso touches my skin.

Farther down the road, Siean and the guards are standing with their backs to me.

All five of them are looking at something I can’t see.

They are all quiet and stand still as if frozen.

I go farther down the road to get a better look, and then I see it.

Body parts of Aldonian soldiers are scattered on the ground.

It is the most horrific and violent scene I’ve ever witnessed.

I can tell the body parts belong to Aldonian soldiers by their blood-drenched uniforms. The men themselves are impossible to identify, since most of them are missing.

It’s hard even to estimate how many bodies there are.

The dismembered bodies are dispersed in ten-feet radii.

I spot an ear close to me, then a finger.

A few feet from me lies something like a half-eaten head.

Everything is quiet but for the sound of one of the guards vomiting. I can’t hear even a single bird.

Siean clears her throat and says in a determined voice, “Back to the carriage. We can still cross this road.” The guards look at one another as if waiting for one of them to gather his courage to defy her. But they head back to the carriage without a word.

“Have you all lost your minds?” I cry out. “What if what did this is farther down the road?”

“We can’t go back to Renya without completing our mission. And we have our armed guards with us for protection,” Siean answers brusquely.

I stare at her in bewilderment. She looks just as she did before she got sick, yet I don’t know her at all.

How can she be so calm about delivering me to my death?

She stands tall and looks me straight in the eye, challenging me to defy her.

Her royal cape is deep blue with silver strings reaching the ground.

She looks like a proper Renyan princess, one I can never look like.

Beyond her lies blood, gore, and death, yet she seems like an island of tranquility.

It’s a mask of calmness. She was never calm.

She was always so easily frightened, so profoundly loving. More so than all of us.

I wonder again why my aunt has such control over her.

While we rode in the carriage, I saw her pain.

It was so palpable. The memory of my mother and brother haunts her still.

And these body parts are scattered around.

It looks as if something preyed on these men.

And whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. The guards appear utterly terrified. And yet she is more scared of my aunt.

“At least untie me. I can’t protect myself like this,” I say. I can’t believe I need to press her in this way.

“I can’t see how you can protect yourself from whatever did this untied as well,” she answers wryly and walks past me to the carriage. I reluctantly follow her.

“Now you are taking both of us to our deaths,” I implore. But I get no reaction from her.

At first, the horses are reluctant to ride ahead, but the guards whip them violently until they cooperate and pull the carriage. Even so, our ride stops after just a few minutes. The horses are now bucking in fear, screaming loudly.

“Release me, Siean. I will not run from you. May the Goddess strike me if I lie.” What a strange thing it is to have the Goddess on my tongue again.

My mother was very religious, even under the supervising eyes of the King of Aldon, the head of the True Religion.

And I remember now how we prayed secretly to the Goddess.

She told us, “Sun is our punishment, girls, and we shall endure him and pay for our sins. But our souls are gifts of the Goddess. We are the daughters of the Goddess. Sun is childless.”

I can see Siean’s thoughts battling in her mind. She doesn’t trust me, but something horrible is approaching us, and she can no longer deny it. She unties me quickly and wordlessly. Then she is out of the carriage, calling to the guards .

It is a great relief to be free of the burning sensation.

When I look at my wrists, I’m surprised to see no burn marks.

No sign whatsoever of the feeling of my skin being scorched – which I endured for hours.

I follow Siean outside the carriage against every instinct I have.

In front of the carriage, Siean and the guards stand as if paralyzed.

And when I see it, my legs are also glued to the ground. Because what we all see is impossible.

It is impossible because the Aldonian army exterminated the demichads in the War of Light. The war that made Aldon the nation that rules all others also made Renya and Kozari submit to the True Religion, disarm, and relinquish all aspirations for independence.

The War of Light was the triumph of Amadans over the darkness, over the man-eating monsters—the demichads.

They have been extinct for a hundred years, but not before eating and preying on a third of the population of Amada.

Families vanished, and so did whole villages and towns.

No one was spared. It didn’t matter how old you were, how wealthy you were, what language you spoke, or what god you worshipped.

Once they got close, you ended up as their meal.