Page 36 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

Chapter Twenty-One

Lian

The entire camp soon talks of the horns’ extract.

Their outrage is so great that I can feel the ripples of the Mongans’ ire.

Grief and anger are tangled together at the evidence of the nameless victims. Because there’s no way to tell whose remains they are, no peace can be given to the families whose loved ones went missing.

No honoring of the dead, no rituals or ceremonies to memorialize them.

The Mongans have been forced to live with the anguish of uncertainty; no bodies to identify and bury, just impossible agony at never truly knowing their loved ones’ fate.

I learned that at least one family member was killed or disappeared in every circle.

No one who has horns is foreign to the bereaved.

I feel ashamed of my people, Aldonian and Renyan as one.

And I feel fear. Piercing, overwhelming fear that I am in so over my head.

That I can offer nothing to these people.

I’m not a savior. I’m the furthest thing from a hero.

I lost Amada’s grace because I killed Ashar, and I can’t even now, knowing the price, bring myself to regret it.

And it is selfish and petty because the cost of my revenge might be the end of the world.

I wanted him dead. I wanted him to hurt as I did and more.

And holding him back, escaping while he was unconscious, would never have been enough.

I wanted blood, and now everyone might bleed for it.

Because truthfully, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I toss and turn on my pallet for hours as sleep eludes me. In the middle of the night, I decide to go out for some fresh air. Emek is sitting alone at the bonfire, and I come to a halt, unsure if I should just go back to my tent.

“Come have some tea.” Her voice is hoarse, I assume from crying for the past hours, her eyes still on the fire.

I sit on the wooden log next to her. The night air is chilly although it’s summer, and I gaze at the sky. I have never seen such a vast night sky. The stars somehow look brighter here.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” she asks, her eyes still fixed on the fire.

I shrug. “Since the Nimatek, sleep is more elusive. I guess my body got dependent on it for slumber.” It’s not a lie.

But it’s not the entire truth either. Tonight is worse than usual because of the day’s events.

And when Daton slept next to me, enveloping me and radiating his body heat, I had the best sleep.

But that is not something I care to admit, even to myself.

“Damn Bahar never has any problem sleeping. He just shuts his eyes, and that is it. Even on a day like this. It’s a gift, really,” she mutters.

Her long black hair is loose. There’s not even silver in it.

She looks so young. It’s the first time I’ve seen her with her hair down and in a nightgown, and with her posture tonight, it makes her look disheveled.

“Kala told me you lost two sons,” I say quietly after a long silence.

“Oh, I didn’t lose them. I didn’t fucking misplace them,” she grunts. I bite my lower lip, not knowing what to say to that. Holding my “sorry” deep inside.

“The worst thing is not having a body. No matter how many years go by or how well your mind realizes that the worst thing has happened to them, that stupid heart keeps hoping. That maybe, just maybe, one day they’ll come back.” She sniffs and pours us both tea.

“Niska, bless her, stole it from the Renyan camp,” she explains.

Because Mongans couldn’t afford to buy tea, and even if they could, no one would sell it to them.

They can only steal and loot. The smell of jasmine wraps around me.

The clay cup emanates heat between my palms. I can’t help wishing it was coffee instead, which is the dumbest thing to think right now.

“What did you do with the extract?” I ask.

“Bahar and some of the warriors buried it in the meantime until the congregation decides what to do with it.” She gazes at the stars for a long moment and then shifts her eyes to me.

“I’d never thought I’d see the day those heathens would give up their precious immortality drug. I guess you really are the savior.”

I shake my head at that. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

But Emek only snorts dismissively at my words.

“You know, of all the Shavirs, my people hate the Renyans the most. Even though the Aldonians are the ones who raised the True Religion, who declared us cursed and contaminated. Most of the enslaved Mongans were enslaved in Aldon. Myself included. Some of them were in Kozari. None in Renya. And the rapes, that’s also something only the Aldonians and Kozaries do.

There are no Mongans with blue colors. The Kozaries were the ones to forge the Kozari lasso.

Still, no one receives more rancor than the Renyans.

It’s not because of their sins. And extracting immortality from our horns is a heavy sin, one that endangers us almost to extinction.

But that is not why. It’s because of their tributes.

Because of their hypocrisy. The Renyans worship the Goddess, but only in secret.

Unlike us, they were never willing to pay for their faith.

They kill Mongans to cure Shavirs, and still, they believe themselves to be more righteous and advanced than any other Shavirs.

They wash their hands clean, but blood can’t be washed.

And if you are a wolf, the least you can do is not hide in sheep’s wool.

Too many had to die for the Mongans to learn to run from Renyans, not just the Aldonians and Kozaries. ”

She sips from her tea. “Your sister has balls. I’ll give her that. Huge fucking balls. To come to us with no protection and stir us up like that. And she faced all those heathens, made them give up their immortality. I wonder how she managed it,” she trails off .

I keep wondering too. And how did she survive the withdrawal when so many didn’t?

Emek then changes the subject so fast it makes my head spin. “Why aren’t you talking to Daton?” Goddess, the Mongans are straightforward, and Emek is the bluntest of them all.

“I’m not not talking to him.” I cringe at how lame that sounds.

She squints. “What did he do?”

“None of your business,” I snap, and she chuckles at my crankiness.

“Whatever he did, I’m sure he regrets it and torments himself more than you ever can.” She sighs, “That man. I’ve been trying to convince him to remarry for at least seventy years now. Goddess knows he has enough women wanting him.”

A possessive monster growls inside me at that. “It’s hard to get married when you’re still married to your dead wife.” I can’t believe I just said that. Out loud. And to the dead wife’s sister of all people. What in Goddess’s name is wrong with me? I’m officially unhinged.

She eyes me, but it’s compassion I see in her expression instead of the rancor I deserve.

“There are not many things more potent than guilt,” she tells me.

“People could do the most monstrous things to us, yet we manage to blame ourselves for not being able to stop them. I still wonder if only I had been a better mother, more watchful, maybe they wouldn’t have been kidnapped.

It’s stupid, isn’t it? We’re just making the monster’s job more thorough. ”

I think of my guilt. With Ashar for not being powerful enough to fight him and then for being too powerful and killing him and condemning all those women to their death.

But I carry far deeper guilt in me for not being able to save my mother and sister.

It took them a week to die, a week of immobilizing pain.

I knew in my blood that if they could get a Renyan healer, they could be saved.

Even without knowing it was poison. But my father didn’t care for my pleas.

He said I was acting like all women—hysterical.

And before that, I’d done nothing when he’d taken my brother away.

When he’d beaten my mother, I’d done nothing but hide.

Maybe it’s guilt that made Siean bring the ashes. Maybe it wasn’t courage but an attempt to get rid of some of her guilt. I think she blames herself for everything that has happened to our family. The first daughter. Born to rule.

I know guilt. I know why Daton left that day. But still, I can’t let him inside my heart again. I’m not sure that he won’t drown me in his guilt. I carry enough of my own. It’s all that I can handle right now.

***

It’s sunset when a Kozari messenger arrives at the Mongan camp.

The red in the sky makes his golden armor appear as if it is made of blood.

He wears gold from head to toe. His long yellow hair has a sandy shade, and it’s braided with golden strings.

When he speaks, the gold covering his teeth twinkles.

He speaks only to me as if the Mongans are not worthy of his attention.

But even his attire and bravado can’t hide his terror at their presence.

A shiver runs through him, noticeable to all.

He announces that the Queen of Kozari will arrive at camp tomorrow.

I’m shocked to hear the Kozaries have crowned a woman.

True, Ashar had no sons. At least not by marriage.

But the Kozaries treat their women almost as badly as the Aldonians do.

I realize suddenly that while my mind drifted, the messenger kept talking.

He goes on and on about the setting appropriate for a royal visit.

He looks more and more dismayed at his every elaboration of what is required because nothing at the Mongan camp is even remotely suitable for royals.

Especially not for Kozari royals, so used to sumptuous luxury .