Page 43 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

Looking back, I think my mother was an ungrateful woman with no honor. Daton saved her because he was an honorable man, not because of anything else. But she used that act of honor to try to squeeze more out of him. It wasn’t the way to pay her debt to him.

When I was ten, my mother met a man who wanted to marry her.

She came to ask Daton’s permission, and he said he couldn’t grant her permission, for she never belonged to him.

But he gave her his blessing and wished her a life of honor.

I think she hoped he would refuse her so she could stay and keep collecting the crumbs of his affection.

But my mother wasn’t completely stupid, so she told him she wanted just that, a life with honor. And that meant a life in which she wasn’t raped by a Shavir man, even though a Mongan woman is stronger than a Shavir man. At least, that’s what people said behind her back.

They made Baghiva a martyr and my mother a whore.

Maybe because of the number of men who were involved, or maybe because my mother didn’t have the decency to simply die.

Whatever it was, it’s no life worth having, shamed wherever you turn.

At the age of twenty-six, she wanted a new life.

A life without me, the constant evidence of her disgrace.

I remember sitting on the ground watching the only mother I had ever known grow smaller and smaller as she walked farther away with her new husband.

Then there was a sudden shadow, and it was Daton’s big body looming over me.

He crouched on one knee and, with his thumb, wiped away the tears I hadn’t realized I was shedding.

“You are my daughter now,” he said. And I wondered how the saddest day could turn into the happiest with only five words .

Before that day, the kids would tease me for my colors. And Daton taught me how to fight back. But from that day, no one ever dared to mock the Emancipator’s daughter. With five words, I transformed from a charity case into the blood of a legend.

Without my mother around, he stepped in, raised me as his own, and taught me how to make a Shavir bleed to death before I turned twelve. And he made sure that when he was away for killing, which was more often than not, Emek and Bahar would care for me as their own.

And because of all this, I was not surprised when my father refused to breed the Shavir princess forcefully.

He had more honor in his little finger than Minera had in her entire body.

So when they said Minera would nominate a new warlord, I took off for a few days so I wouldn’t need to refuse her and only make things worse.

Of course I couldn’t take my father’s place and betray him in such a way, but her lack of honor meant she would ask.

So she nominated Niro, and we all know how that turned out.

But ever since the witch came to his trial, I barely know him anymore. He actually made the warriors take down the Shavirs’ bodies from the camp entrance because she asked it of him. Him. The one who helped me hang my first corpse when I wasn’t yet tall enough to do it.

How can the Mongan with more honor than anyone walking this land bow like that to a Shavir witch? I can’t stand it. I can’t.

Emek grabs my shoulders and shakes me. “You need to trust him, you ungrateful child. She is the savior that was promised to us. He knows what he’s doing.”

“He loves her. He loves a fucking Shavir,” I cry out, and my voice breaks because that’s much worse than what I dared to say to him.

I only dared to tell him that he wanted to fuck her.

But he loves her. I know him, and at this rate, he will ask her for a Blood Oath.

But that is a fear I don’t dare express even to Emek.

Mongans don’t give blood to anyone but Mongans.

“After all the Shavirs have done to us, how can he betray our people like that? How can he betray me like that?” I sound like a little girl, but I don’t understand how she can be on his side.

She sighs, “Of all the Mongans, Niska, you should know not to judge a woman by her colors.” I know she means well, but of everything she could have said to me, that is the cruelest. I will always be half-Shavir to them.

No matter how many Shavirs I kill. My people will always look at me and see the rapist’s blood in me.

***

“Aha, there you are, Niss. Didn’t you hear me calling for you?

” I hear the endearment only my uncle uses as I’m about to enter my tent.

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath to compose myself.

I want to be alone. But to be alone among Mongans is rarer than snow in summer.

Boundaries are not something my people believe in.

In fact, they usually find the concept insulting.

After all, why wouldn’t you want their opinion on everything, especially your own life?

I did hear him. Goddess, forgive me. I heard my uncle’s call and kept walking. This is really not my best day. I turn to face him. “I’m sorry, uncle.”

“Forget it.” He grins at me and waves his hand dismissively. In his other hand, he holds a big green ball. “What is that?”

“Ah, this, as Lian has informed me, is supposed to be some kind of fruit. Heaviest fruit I have ever seen, I’ll tell you that.

It’s supposed to be really good. She said she wouldn’t snitch on me to the Renyans for nicking it if I save her some.

I was kind of proud of her. Her very first blackmail.

” He chuckles. I groan in frustration. That damn woman again.

“Come on, let’s find a place to try it without having to share.” He winks at me. He is so obvious, but I can’t help but smile at his blatant efforts. He couldn’t give a fuck about the damn green thing. He hunted me down to cheer me up. Bahar really is the best.

Growing up, I always wondered how he could be Daton’s best friend.

They are so different. One is a brutal giant, and the second is a jovial, stocky, sweet man.

Even after everything the Shavirs took from him and Emek.

But then, a few years after I became a warrior, we ran into Aldonian soldiers.

And well, let’s just say he is not all sweetness.

I was quite impressed, really. I guess they are not that different after all.

I follow Bahar to a nearby clearing filled with white flowers I can’t name. At least we’re out of the swamps now. It might cost us, but Goddess knows we needed to get out of there.

Bahar puts down the ridiculously enormous fruit and breaks it with his knife’s hilt. I crouch next to him and can’t help but laugh at the childish glee on his face as he exclaims, “Look, it’s red inside!” Then he adds impishly , “ Just like the Shavirs.”

“All blood is red, but those fuckers do bleed beautifully,” I answer wryly.

He slices some of the red flesh and tastes it. His eyes widen in surprise. “She didn’t exaggerate! Try some, Niss.” He hands me a piece with his knife.

I gasp at the sweet flavor. “Damn Renyans.” Damn them all for pushing us to the swamps, degrading us by forcing us to eat and breathe what no one else would find worthy.

“It’s good,” I say and take another slice.

“I’d better save some for Emek, or she’ll make me sleep outside the tent again,” he chuckles.

“The woman terrorizes you.” I shake my head. They make the funniest couple.

“Over a hundred years already. May she terrorize me a hundred more.” He grins. It’s so strange that they can be in love after so long. I can’t stand a guy for more than two days. A hundred years sounds like a nightmare.

“She said you were upset,” he adds, finally getting to the point, the reason he came to me in the first place. She most likely sent him.

“Oh Goddess, did she run to tell you? It was just now.”

He ignores me and asks, “You want to talk to your uncle about it, kid? ”

“You do realize I’m fifty, right?” I roll my eyes at him.

“You’ll always be a kid to me.” He smiles his soft, loving smile.

But I don’t have words in me anymore. I feel drained from my outburst toward Daton and his lame reaction. So we stay quiet for a while.

“Your father loves you, you know.” His voice takes on a solemn note.

“Bahar, she is a Shavir. The fucking Princess of Aldon and Renya. What will the people say? How can they follow him into battle if he chooses the enemy’s blood over our own?”

“You are young, even if you are not a kid anymore. You were born after the Oblivion. After the Emancipator struck the Shavirs for the first time.” He says pensively, “But once, we were not a nation of warriors. The fighting is new to us. Before the Oblivion, we lived in peace. We were always stronger than the Shavirs, but they had not even known it. We were fine with the little we had. We only wanted to live quietly, work on our crafts, celebrate our holidays, and raise our children. We were makers. That was what we were. And after the Oblivion and before Daton became what he is now, we were victims. It’s a shitty word, but I don’t think there is a better one for what we were back then.

It took us too long to adjust to the new reality that emerged.

It took us Daton to lead the way. But now we are warriors.

They call us murderers. Maybe we are both.

Maybe we are all of it, the makers, the victims, the warriors, and the murderers.

” He sighs. “I think she can be good for him.”

I start to protest, but he ignores me and keeps talking.

“I think Lian reminds him he was once something else. And if he forgets that, all that is left is what they made him become. Maybe all of us could use a reminder that we are more than what they made us. That before the Shavirs, we were something else. Something more.”

I twirl one of the white flowers, tears in my eyes.

“Niss, look at me. I know you don’t share blood, but he loves you no less than any other father.

Even more, because I have never met anyone who loves or hates as strongly as him.

He also has a crappy way of showing his feelings since Baghiva.

He was different then, but it is what it is.

So just remember that, all right? Whatever happens, your father loves you until his last breath and, after that, among the stars.

No woman can change that, Shavir or not. OK, kid?”