Page 28 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

Chapter Seventeen

Lian

As I enter the tent, I squint at the light of the sconces.

The space is packed with Mongans. They all stand because there is no room to sit.

There are hundreds of them, at least. All those eyes turn to me, all those mouths open in shock.

As fear floods my system and perspiration pools on my back, I can sense that many of them are apprehensive at my appearance—a Puresoul at the heart of their never-visited territory.

I’ve arrived in the middle of Daton’s trial. Minera, the Mongans’ oracle, whom I remember from her conversation with Daton, is midsentence as she notices me.

But my eyes, my soul, are immediately drawn to him.

Daton is the only Mongan sitting on the ground.

One leg spread on the ground, the other folded.

His arm is draped over his knee, his head held high.

He’s not chained. There’s no trace of the broken man that left me near a waterfall.

No evidence of the fissures in his soul.

He doesn’t look like a prisoner awaiting a verdict.

He looks like a king. Even in the middle of his trial, he looks like a king watching over his domain.

A halo of power and dominance surrounds him.

My lungs contract at this. How was I so blind?

How could I spend all that time with him? Intimately. And not realize what he is.

Daton said their religion forbids them from having a king.

It is considered a challenge to the Goddess.

Well, I don’t know what word in Mongan describes what he is, but in his worn-out Mongan clothes, sitting on the ground with no throne and no crown, he is more of a king than any royal I’ve seen. And I feel abashed at how blind I was.

At first, I only saw his brutality, and then I saw other things.

And it all distracted me. I feel stupid and vain that I came here thinking he would need me among his subjects.

Our eyes meet, and he stiffens, but he keeps his expression blank.

Yet I swear his eyes are obsidian black again.

No trace of those starry eyes I once saw.

I feel his scorn burn me, and I blush under it.

He doesn’t want me here. He left you, you idiot. Of course he does not want you here.

“What is the meaning of this?” Minera cries in anger and gestures at me with her hands, but the question is for Daton. It is an accusing question, and I can see Daton’s jaws lock even harder than before.

I don’t wait for him to explain what he cannot. I step forward, hoping my jitteriness will go unnoticed, and say, “The demichads are back.” I say it in Mongan. The people gasp in shock.

I hear murmurs near me. “He taught her our language.” My presence here seems to worsen his position instead of helping him.

“We know,” Minera says curtly. Then she asks slowly, as if I am an idiot that can barely comprehend her, “Why are you here?”

Her dismissing the return of the demichads alarms me. I assume Daton already told them of the demichads’ return. Doesn’t she believe him?

“I’m here to help you defeat the demichads,” I answer, struggling to keep my voice steady. It is true. That is why I am here. And mentioning saving Daton would only escalate his situation further. And does he even need me to save him?

“Haa,” Minera howls in laughter. “We don’t need the help of heretics,” she says, waving me off.

Then she turns to the crowd. “The heretic presence here is only proof of his sins to the Goddess,” she points at Daton accusingly.

“He has taught her our language.” She throws her hands in the air dramatically.

I can feel the anger pervade the tent. “She knows where our camp is. ”

Now she points to me, malevolence in her words. “And now we are all exposed to a heretic’s attack, for she is stupid enough to lead them to us.”

The crowd murmurs in agreement.

A Mongan woman in the crowd steps forward.

Her hair is braided back, and she wears a Mongan necklace and plain dress.

I recognize her as Emek, the woman who cared for me and fed me while I was a captive here.

“This is not right,” she calls loudly, and they all go quiet.

“To even consider to stone to death the Emancipator. This is not right. How many of you sitting here were enslaved but set free by him?” She raises her hand as if to say this was her fate.

An astonishing number of people raise their hands and cry in support. I’m almost dizzy from the quick turn of events. The crowd was so enraged at Daton, and now it flipped.

“No one denies he has done great things for our people,” Minera says, gesturing with her hands in a reassuring manner. “But he has gone vain from the adoration.” Her voice is accusing again. “So vain that he thought he could make his own law. That he presumed to disobey the law of the Goddess.”

“You mean he disobeyed you,” Emek says wryly. The astonishment on everyone’s faces is evident. Minera is appalled, as if Emek had stabbed her in the heart.

But Emek doesn’t waver. “I have served the Goddess under your guidance for the past fifty years. It is not Daton who has gone vain.”

I feel as if I accidentally ran into a gladiator fight. For the amusement of the king. I glance at Daton. He watches the exchange, his face reticent. He doesn’t even glance in my direction.

“Are you turning against me?” Minera cries. The insult and hurt in her voice are loud. “Me? The mother of the people? After all I have sacrificed?” She hits her chest expressively. Daton told me of Minera’s sacrifice: her seven sons were all killed by Aldonians who tried to force her bow to Sun.

“You sacrificed everything so our people would continue to worship the Goddess.” Emek’s voice remains undaunted.

“But it is time we choose our leaders not by their sacrifice in the past, but by their promise of a future. A future in which our children will not need to make the same sacrifices. In all of our history, we were never so few, so hunted. And now the demichads come to hunt us too. And you want us to stone the Emancipator of all people? And for what? For not wanting to follow the ways of the heretics. The ways in which they treat their females.”

“He handicapped our greatest warrior,” a man from the audience calls in anger. And I wonder if he’s refering to the Mongan warrior who tracked us down, Niro.

Another man jeers, “So great he handicapped him in less than five minutes.” And the people around him snicker. I frown at the way they mock something like that.

Emek shushes them with her hands and says solemnly, “He hurt one of our greatest warriors, and he was exiled for it.” But then her voice goes bitter, and she turns to Minera. “But it was not enough for you, was it?”

“Will you let her talk to me this way?” Minera turns to the crowd. “She is only protecting her brother-in-law. Not fighting for justice for you all.”

Was I treated and fed by Baghiva’s sister? The realization dawns on me.

“Enough,” Daton snaps and stands up. Everyone goes silent.

He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. He hasn’t even really acknowledged my presence.

“Stone me. Or don’t. I don’t give a fuck,” he says as he steps casually to the center of the tent.

His gait is casual, and it only makes him more dominant.

No one in the crowd dares to breathe. Minera goes apprehensive, and it’s as if she’s lost two feet of her height just by his nearness.

“The demichads are awakening in greater numbers than ever,” Daton says, his tone scornful.

“And all you do is fight with one another while the only person able to stop them is standing here being ignored.” he points at me, his eyes on me all of a sudden.

My heart skips a beat as his eyes burn me with their intensity.

I gasp, hating him for still having this effect on me.

He walked away from me. He could be the king of the asses for all I care.

I’m so busy pulling myself out of his lure that it takes me a minute to realize everyone in the crowd looks perplexed. Their eyes dart between Daton and me.

“You believe the Princess of Aldon can defeat the demichads?” a man asks Daton in bafflement.

Daton looks at me, his face full of emotion I can’t read.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” he says quietly.

“The demichad preyed on everything on site. The men and the horses. It only spared her and the woman she protected. And she can summon nature by her will. She has done so with direwolves and with vultures,” he tells them.

I swallow hard. What will he say when he realizes I can do none of that now?

“I will not have it!” Minera yells. She looks like she’s going to have a heart attack. “We will not follow a heretic. We will sacrifice to the Goddess, and she will protect us.”

But then, of all people, Niro, the man whose leg Daton broke, comes forward.

He is almost tall as Daton, and I can see how his proximity to him is enough for guilt to wash over Daton’s face.

Niro’s leg has been amputated. Mongans have no healing, no remedies.

In Renya, his leg would have been saved, but they had to amputate it here to save his life.

He stands on his other leg and leans on a crutch.

“Daton will lead us against the demichads. The heretic will help him,” Niro says definitively.

Daton starts, “I didn’t—”

But no one hears the rest of it as Minera starts yelling again. “Lead?? Lead? He is exiled! He is to be stoned to death! Not leading!”

But Niro speaks again, his voice rising in anger.

“He made me”—he hits his chest in emphasis—“a cripple. By law, I get to decide on his redemption. And his redemption is not to be stoned. It is saving us from the demichads.” Then he takes a step back and says in a sardonic voice, “And if a demichad bites off his ass in the course of it, even better.”