Page 22 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

But as I open the door, my chambers are not empty.

And it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to crumble and sob, not to go to my knees and beg for her embrace, for her love, for her forgiveness.

But instead of all that, I will wound her today because she can’t be here.

Not now. Not when Tilil contemplates my punishment, not as her spies might realize and share the perfect place to hit me.

“Get out,” I say in my well-practiced domineering voice, but Anya ignores it as she rises from my bed and takes in my bloodied and disheveled appearance.

Her beautiful face grows wary at the sight of me, and her big aqua eyes fill with emotion.

I know she came here despite herself, that she hates herself for not being able to stop caring.

It’s been like this for years. She doesn’t want to love me.

And some awful part of me takes pleasure in it.

That I mean so much to her. That it’s not only me who is consumed with love.

The Goddess has a sadistic sense of humor. Always has.

“It’s true, then? The demichads are back?” she asks, with a voice almost as sulky as mine.

“Get out” is the only answer I give her. I take a few steps into the room, not bothering to close the door behind me. She shouldn’t have come. I’m not worth her pain, and I’m sure not worth her death.

Tilil hates her as it is. Even without knowing of us.

It is rare for a healer to advance so quickly in the royal healers’ ranks as Anya did.

Especially coming from a simple background like hers, growing up in a small, distant village.

Her father died of illness when she was just a baby.

She was ten when her mother passed. They were so poor that when Anya first arrived in Milasurey, her feet were bare.

She had walked barefoot to the capital to find a job.

At ten, Anya knew of healing as much as most healers in Milasurey, if not more, having helped her mother as a midwife since she was old enough to walk.

The royal healers took her in despite her background.

She was so gifted as a healer that she started working for the palace at sixteen.

That’s when I first met her. Only I never aged, and she is now standing in front of me, a beautiful twenty-five-year-old woman.

That was her worst sin against Tilil. Far worse than her origins.

So Anya rarely comes to the palace these days, and while she should be the chief healer, she stopped rising in the ranks years ago.

She didn’t want to love me. I represented every privilege she despised. But she did because the Goddess is cruel. What other reason could there be?

Anya walks past me in several quick steps and shuts the door.

“I’m worried about you,” she says, leaning on the sage door.

Her aqua braid hangs over her right shoulder.

Her simple healer uniform hugs her body, and a sliver of her skin is showing above her pants.

I clench my fingers into fists. I want to touch that soft skin there so bad it hurts.

She blushes, and I realize how much of my self-control has slipped that she noticed my train of thought.

But she ignores all that, and if her next words aren’t the equivalent of a cold shower, then what is?

“You took your sister to Modos” she says.

That’s why she’s worried, not because I’m bloodied and encountered a demichad.

Because I sold out to Tilil again, and it was worse than anything I’ve done so far.

I step toward her, so close we’re almost touching.

Her eyes go to my mouth for a second before she brings them up again.

I don’t try to suppress my smirk. “You were a nice fuck. But in no way good enough to justify this constant nagging,” I say viciously.

I can see the hurt in her eyes. We walked this line before, and she knows it will only get worse.

I will only get worse. But she’s glued to the door, her clever eyes assessing me.

So I add, “I really don’t understand how I could possibly make it more clear to you.

I’m not interested. Get out.” And I turn to go to the bathroom, hoping this will be the end of it.

“You won’t die. If you stop. You’ll age, but whatever sickness killed you, it’s not in your blood anymore. You can stop.” she tells me. Anya. Sweet Anya. Always trying to save me, even when I am so beyond salvation.

I didn’t die of sickness. And the person that killed me, she’s on her way to Aldon now, contemplating my punishment. So I just listen as the woman I love walks out of the room and hopefully out of my life. It’s not like it could turn out any other way. Villains don’t get happy endings.

** *

The next morning, Bina catches up to me.

The old hag has been reduced to ambushing me while I pray in the Goddess’ temple.

I kneel in front of the altar. The smells of jasmine and lavender fill the chapel.

No one dares to disturb me while I pray.

But I hear her footsteps and smell her cinnamon scent.

“Go away,” I tell her without looking at her.

She kneels beside me. “Your aunt knows your sister is alive,” she whispers.

The hairs on the back of my neck rise at that.

“She didn’t leave for Aldon because of the demichads. She left to urge your father to capture your sister,” Bina warns me.

I finally look at her. She is sixty years old. Her hair is all white, littel blue left in it. Her face is full of wrinkles. Even her gray-blue eyes look dim with fatigue. But that has nothing to do with age. My indigo eyes are like that as well. It’s grief.

“You took the savior to Modos, Siean. What were you thinking?” The fucking prophecy again: the one that belongs to no race will send the darkness away.

“I was thinking if she is the savior, then the fire won’t burn her,” I drawl. I was praying to the Goddess for that. I had no idea what else to do. It’s been a long time since I felt so helpless. Who would have thought the Goddess would send the fucking demichad to save her?

“This is not a joke,” she hisses. “Being the savior doesn’t mean she can’t be killed.”

“She’s with the Butcher. He’ll protect her from the Aldonians,” I say.

That startles the old hag. “It can’t be,” she gasps at me incredulously. Her hand moves to her chest, her face pained with dismay.

“Why not?” I shrug and say with honey-coated venom, “Love is love.” I can’t help the smirk. Because she nags me constantly to marry an appropriate Renyan man. My hair should turn red before I marry any man.

It’s cruel to rub the Butcher in her face after what he took from her.

But I hate her. So fuck her. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t been so incompetent nine years ago.

Sometimes I think I consume the horns just to piss her off.

She deserves to pay. My mother and I shouldn’t be the only ones to have paid for that failure.

My mother had such grand dreams for Renya.

And Bina nurtured those dreams and helped realize them.

Only she got caught, and we were killed for it.

To think I had to sit by my sister and hear Tilil’s lies about my mother, ridiculous lies. Why would my mother, who gave birth to Aldon’s only legitimate heir, ever try to overthrow Rod, King of Aldon? Does she really think anyone believes her bullshit?

I stare at the altar. What can I do to make Bina go away? I hear her swallowing hard, trying to shake off her repugnance.

“Your mother would be heartbroken to see what you’ve become. She believed you could be a true Queen for Renya,” she admonishes me.

“My mother was a fool,” I grumble. “A fool who got both of us murdered.”

“No, Siean. Your mother was true. She saw what your aunt was doing to Renya, spreading the use of dark magic. We weren’t like this.

We didn’t trade death. We didn’t use Cursed Ones horns.

It is not the Goddess’s way. Your mother tried to stop Tilil, but Tilil had consumed too much of the Cursed Ones horns.

It had twisted her mind. Dark magic always comes with a heavy price. Do you know the price you pay, Siean?”

“Your ongoing ramble of things I already know?” But I know the price. I am a coward, paralyzed by my own fears.

“You can stop,” she says, her voice pleading now. “You won’t die.”

“But I will die. We already took that path. She will kill me if I start aging. She will kill me again.” I’m sweltering all of a sudden.

“We’ll stop her. We’ll stop her this time. The prophecy is real. Lian will defeat the darkness. She is our only chance against the demichads. Against the dark magic. Go in the light, Siean. Help your sister remove the darkness from Renya.”

Tears escape me as I try to think what scares me more: Tilil poisoning me to death again only to bring me back to life, as she has done more than once. Or this life I live. A shadow of a life for fucking eternity.

At night, when I enter my room, Anya’s scent still lingers. But the room is empty and cold. So I take the immortality drug my servant set for me and flush it down the toilet.