Page 40 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

He’s adamant, so I swallow my anger and nod at him in acquiescence. “You are generous to me, brother,” I say. He nods in approval of my change of tone. And that approval makes me wince inside, but I’m not sure what else to do.

I speak of the impending battle, and he is silent for a while. Then he says, “I will bring to the battle one brigade.”

“One?” I struggle to hide my disappointment. This is the only army in all of Aldon.

“The demichads are already attacking in different places in Aldon. The soldiers are needed,” he says in a flat voice.

When I leave the tent, Siean approaches me.

“You did right not to insist with him. His position in Aldon is delicate. I doubt he would have been able to raise more than one brigade, since Dorem is the head of the army.” I’m still surprised that our half brother received such a position.

This is not a good sign for Nikanor, to say the least.

“I only hope it will be enough,” I mutter, and we are both grimmer than I wished at the end of this meeting. There are a thousand men in an Aldonian brigade. But I see the demichads in my returning nightmares, and they look endless to me.

***

As I ride out of the tent at the meeting point, Daton approaches me on his horse.

“You didn’t need to wait for me,” I tell him as guilt floods me.

He doesn’t deserve this, to hide from my brother.

Waiting for me for hours. He was right to think my brother thought of him as contaminated.

And I feel like a traitor for staying there, negotiating, after the things he said of the Mongans.

“Where is Niska?” I ask when I don’t see her .

“Her hours had better use,” he grunts. He waited at least five hours. It is already dusk. I tense, realizing we’ll ride alone with no buffer. Daton looks at me and frowns. “You’re afraid of being alone with me?”

I ignore his statement. “We should get going. It will be night soon.” And I nudge my horse to start riding. I can feel ripples of anger and hurt from him. But he says nothing.

We ride for less than half an hour before our horses begin to panic.

My horse rears abruptly, both his forelegs in the air, taking me by surprise, and I crash to the ground.

I’m stunned by the pain of the fall, my backbone pulsing with pain, my hands bleeding from the pebbles I crashed onto.

Daton has already dismounted his horse and hurries to pull me up.

I can barely stand straight. The impact of the fall is still too painful.

Then I realize the reason for the horse’s panic.

Daton and I both just stand there for a second, staring at the demichads.

There are five of them. Tall and broad, almost like Daton.

Their repulsiveness makes me taste bile.

The exposed flesh, the earthworms traveling all over them, the twisted faces with the predators’ mouths.

I think their resemblance to humans only intensifies their hideousness.

Because if you look carefully through the monstrosity, something familiar peers back at you.

“Are you going to do your thing?” Daton asks urgently, keeping his eyes on the demichads, an ax already in each hand.

“I can’t,” I say, barely managing to get the words out.

Amada has truly forsaken me. I can see the demichads vibrating, communicating with one another.

But the vibrations don’t reach me this time.

Daton doesn’t question me. He orders me to run.

I grab my knife from my boot and run. I run as fast as I can, but my fall from the horse makes me limp and slows me down.

I turn to look at Daton fighting four demichads at once.

It is as if watching a dance. His muscles ripple beneath his clothes.

His strikes are deft and brutal at the same time.

His legs are nimble, and he avoids most of their attacks.

He cuts down one demichad and then another.

I become transfixed at watching him. I’ve only ever seen him fight Puresouls, and it ended so quickly. He didn’t even break a sweat.

But now he fights, and it is beautiful in the most feral way. Then a cry of terror escapes me as one of the demichads manages to slice his back with its long talons. What if we die here? What if we die and only tension and bitterness remain of what we once shared?

I’m so wrapped up watching him, fearing for him, that I don’t even notice the fifth demichad before I feel a sharp burn that brings me to my knees.

The stench hits me as it approaches. The smell of carrion.

It is so strong that I vomit the sweet wine and cookies I ate with my brother and sister.

I realize the burning sensation is from the slit the demichad gave me near my shoulder blade.

I stab my knife in its shin. But that doesn’t stop it from biting into my arm as his talons pierce my abdomen.

There is so much pain, and then darkness.

***

I wake up in my tent, and Emek is beside me.

Everything hurts. “You taught him Renyan witchcraft,” she scolds me.

I try to move but groan in pain instead.

“I don’t think they would approve,” she continues, and I’m hurting too much to wonder why she doesn’t approve as well.

“He cured you with Renyan magic. If he hadn’t you would have died.

” She looks at me as if staring at me long enough will solve some conundrum.

“Is he all right? I remember seeing him get hurt before I passed out,” I ask her.

“He is always all right. It’s his curse,” she drawls. “As is it mine.” I think of all the loved ones they lost in the most brutal ways. Sometimes surviving in Amada can feel like a curse.

When Daton enters the tent, she leaves without a word. Concern floods over his face as he kneels near me.

“How are you feeling?” His soft voice caresses me.

“I’ve been told I’m good, thanks to you,” My voice comes out hoarse, and I’m not sure if it’s from the pain or from his nearness .

“I guess I managed to remember some of the stuff you taught me,” he smirks.

“I always knew behind all these muscles and foul language, there was a brilliant mind,” I tease him, and he laughs loudly at that, his face lighting up in the most alluring way.

“You said the spells.” He knows the healing doesn’t work without the spells.

Not with the kind of injuries I had. “Guess you’re a witch too now. ” I smile impishly.

“Maybe not all witches are bad,” he grunts, and I feel the heavy weight of his words.

The acknowledgment of the marks our connection left on him.

Because these are the Butcher’s words. After all the suffering his people endured at the hands of the Renyans, who twisted the healing into something dark.

“You scared the shit out of me, you know.” he scolds me.

“Don’t do it again.” I don’t know when his fingers reached my wrist, but they gently brush the inner side, raising goose bumps all over.

Our eyes meet, and his darken with something I know too well.

Heat rises in my cheeks and spreads to my core, between my legs.

This is exactly why I’ve been avoiding him.

It’s mortifying what little control my mind has over my body when he is so near. “Lian.” His voice comes out gravelly.

“Don’t,” I snap and pull my hand away.

But he ignores me this time, his voice full of pain and regret. “I fucked up in the worst way at the worst time. I’m not expecting you to forgive me. I—”

I sit up despite the pain. “I know. I get it.” I really do.

I fight to keep my tears back but fail. “But I can’t do this again with you.

” I can’t wonder when it will get too hard for him again.

I need to be focused. We knew the demichads were coming back, and we were too busy with each other to really do anything about it for weeks.

“We need to stay focused. We can’t do this. ”

Daton opens his mouth to argue but then shuts it and nods.

He left me once. He did the right thing and went to warn his people of the demichads, a decision he had avoided making up until that point.

We both got lost in each other until the reliving of our nightmares woke us up.

And even without the demichads, he’s too much. The way he makes me feel is too much.

***

But I stop avoiding him after that. The days until the battle pass by slowly, and they grow into a pattern. Daton trains the Mongan warriors during the days, and we spend the evenings together. As friends. He never touches me, and I never dare to touch him. We never even flirt.

Mainly we stroll outside of camp. Sometimes we light a fire, and he makes coffee. With way too much sugar. He completely ruins a perfectly good coffee with all that sugar. It’s outrageous.

The Mongan kids steal goods from the Puresoul camps in a daring game.

When Daton catches them, he scolds them, warning them how dangerous the Shavirs are.

He never scolds them for how wrong it is to steal because it’s Shavirs they stole from.

And in Mongans’ eyes, that is not stealing at all.

If anything, it’s not even beginning to reclaim what the Shavirs robbed of them.

After the scolding, Daton always confiscates the best supply.

So sweet coffee for us. He totally does it on purpose, though, by his simpering each time I take the first sip and realize how sweet it is.

And he always manages to get my favorite biscuits and fruits.

I can’t ignore that he knows which are my favorites. Cinnamon biscuits and strawberries.

Daton keeps teaching me Mongan. But this time without demonstrating the names of different body parts on me.

And he insists I need to start learning how to fight with an ax.

More evenings than not, he takes me to a grove, and I throw his axes at a tree trunk.

The first time is so inadequate that I cover my face with my hands, too embarrassed to face him.

He doesn’t tease me, and since I know him well enough, I know it only means it was that pathetic.

He just clears his throat and says, “Let’s start with both hands. ”

Throw after throw, he guides and corrects, saying, “Don’t hold so tight,” and, “Release the ax at your eye level.” It takes me a week of sore shoulders and blisters in my hands until he begins to teach me how to throw with one hand.

He never touches me, unlike when he taught me to fight during our journey through Amada.

Yet I’m constantly achingly aware of his closeness, his smell, a mix of sweat and honey, and male. Friends. I said we could be only friends, and he would slit his own throat before crossing a line I drew. Which makes me want him even more.

Sometimes we sit and just watch the stars. The glimpse of the vast universe makes me feel so small, in a comforting way. And Daton is near me, watching them quietly as well, so while I feel small, I don’t feel alone for the first time in a long time.

Growing up, I never had the chance to make friends. As a child, I spent time only with my mother and siblings. And after she died, I was mainly with my guardian and under the haze of Nimatek.

Now Shana and Kala are becoming my friends. With her irascible nature and sharp tongue, even Emek has carved her way into my heart. And Dahav has become important to me.

But Daton. He is more than a friend. Even without touching, he’s more. I don’t want to admit it even to myself because I don’t think anyone will ever get close to what he means to me, despite my logic, despite all the artificial boundaries I struggle to put between us.

On one of those nights, I tell Daton that Amada wouldn’t help me anymore. That the Mongan I understand and speak now is only through what he taught me.

“You do sound different now.” He frowns. I struggle with the language often. The grammar does not come naturally to me, and my vocabulary is basic.

“And the animals and the demichad. That was also Amada. It won’t happen again,” I explain. But I don’t dare to say to him why. I’m too scared to mention anything about what happened at the waterfall.

Yet even without me saying it, he says, “The gods are vindictive,” as if he figured out by himself I was punished and for what. “If you won’t get help, it only means you will manage it by yourself,” he concludes. As if everyone’s life isn’t on the line, including his .

I tremble in awe at the amount of faith he has in me. He’s the only one I told of the loss of those powers. He’s the only one I trust enough.

“You think Amada is a god?” I wonder at his words. “What else?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was just Amada.”

I chew my lip. “Isn’t it blasphemy for you to suggest there’s another god and not only the Goddess?” Because he’s very religious, as far as I can tell.

“The question is not how many gods there are. It’s how many you worship.” He shrugs.

“And you think they’re vindictive?” I ask to affirm his meaning.

He sighs, “I don’t think. I know.”