Page 54 of Humans Don’t Have Horns (A Crown of Blood and Magic #1)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lian

When I return to my tent, it’s nearly dawn.

Daton went to tell Niska the news of our decision.

I commended him for not avoiding it, as he did before when it came to talking to her about us.

Yet that is a conversation I was determined to avoid myself.

Even though she seems less compelled to bleed me to death after Daton’s recovery.

The camp is still in the darkness of twilight, and the inside of my tent is even darker. As I enter, I put my axes on the small table and kick off my shoes. I’m so tired. I’ll be asleep within seconds once my head hits the pallet.

In the dark, I suddenly notice a figure sitting in the small space. “You must stop.” Nikanor says menacingly, and I nearly jump out of my skin at the fright he has given me. Why is he sitting in my tent in the dark?

“Stop what?” I ask him, and he stands and closes in on me.

“Humiliating me with that animal. How dare you let him put his paws on you in front of everyone? You are worse than the common whores in Aldon. Even they will not be caught dead with a Cursed One,” he spits at me.

Rage fills me at the sound of his words. “I never asked for your opinion, and I sure don’t want it now. Baby brother,” I say, emphasizing the “baby.”

“What you want is insignificant.” He snarls imperiously, “Father was right to put you on Nimatek. You are sinful and a fool. That will all end now. You are coming with me to Aldon, and you will learn your place.”

I bark a laugh at that. “You’re a joke,” I snap at him. In what world does he think I will ever go with him?

As my insult hits him, his entire body goes rigid, and he roars at me, “I’m a joke?

You fucking whore.” And he backhands my face so hard that only because he grabs me with his other hand do I not drop to the floor.

His red eyes glint with malevolence. He pounds me in the jaw, and I half expect my teeth to fly out of my mouth.

Pain explodes on my face and I can barely breathe, let alone cry for help.

His hands then grip my throat and I suddenly can’t breathe at all.

I try to fight him. I’ve killed at least three demichads today on my own. Daton taught me well. But he never taught me how to fight my kin. I never thought I would need such a lesson. I claw at him, but he doesn’t even flinch at the blood I draw from his face.

My axes are out of reach, my left arm weak from my wounds, and there is nothing I can do to make him stop killing me.

My vision goes dark, and my lungs burn. Nikanor trips me to my pallet and kneels on my stomach.

I feel the little air left in me deplete under his weight.

His hold on my neck only grows stronger.

His knees are squashing me heavily, painfully.

“You can’t call your animals for help if you can’t breathe.

Not even that beast you let befoul you,” he says with disgust.

I’m running out of air, and I have nothing left to fight him.

I hear a woman shout. Maybe it’s my mother’s spirit.

It saddens me to think that she can see her son murdering her daughter from the afterlife.

I feel ice-cold, and I know I’m dying because it doesn’t hurt anymore, and that’s the most frightening thing of all, not to feel the pain.

But suddenly, Nikanor crashes over me, and his hands go limp.

The air is back in my lungs and feels like knives.

Someone flips Nikanor off me. And the next thing I see is Siean.

She pulls me to sit up. I’m coughing and wheezing from the return of air.

Nikanor lies on the ground, one of my axes deep in his back. His eyes are wide open.

Siean is trembling violently, and she throws herself over him and bursts into heartbreaking sobs. My sister killed my brother. I crawl to her as she cries and hold her. She’s inconsolable. Because she just saved my life by taking his. After a few minutes, she stops crying. Her body still trembles.

“How did you know he was here?” I ask.

She sniffs. “I followed him. I had a bad feeling. You and Daton kissed where the Aldonians could see. You know how those assholes are. I could see how aghast he was, but I never thought it would come to this.” My blouse is drenched in her tears.

She takes a deep breath and stands, and she’s Siean again, composed and haughty.

And I know that I will never see her cry again.

“You must go to Aldon,” she tells me, and that is such a strange thing that I think maybe I heard her wrong. “Rod is dying. It is only a matter of days now. This will start bloodshed for the crown.”

“I don’t understand how my going to Aldon would be an answer to that.” I frown at her. She makes no sense at all.

“You must take the throne. We can’t let Dorem take it.” She starts pacing.

“You’ve lost your mind.” I watch her incredulously.

But she grabs me and shakes me hard. “We don’t have time for this. The only legitimate son of the King of Aldon is dead. Do you want his bastard son to take power? He’s the head of the House of Blood. Do you understand what that means for Renya?” Her voice is tinted with apprehension.

“I don’t care what it means for Aldon or Renya. I’m going away with Daton, and they all can burn for all I care,” I whisper-shout to her because there is a dead body in my tent.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she insists. “If you truly love him, you won’t let Dorem take power. What happens in Aldon affects him. Affects all the Cursed Ones. Affects all of Amada.”

“You do it. You take the throne,” I snap .

“I’m the Queen of Renya. My hair is blue. They would rather commit mass suicide than take me as their queen.”

I huff at that. “All that is nothing to my promiscuity. I spent a month with him alone. I was seen intimately with him.” I don’t bother to mention what Ashar did to me. No one cares for a Puresoul rapist when a Cursed One is to be reckoned with.

“Fuck,” she swears as my words sink in. She bites her fist and starts pacing again, then she stops and says with resolve, “Rashkan will help you.”

I gasp in shock that she would even suggest such a thing. “Why should he?”

She starts pacing again. “Because if Dorem takes the crown, Rashkan is as good as dead.”

“This is ridiculous. We’ll both end up dead. And I’m going with Daton. I’m not going back to that land of darkness,” I say adamantly.

“But don’t you see? The prophecy. It was there all along.

This is your calling. Only you can bring light to Aldon!

” she exclaims. “You could make them stop burning the widows, stop drugging girls with Nimatek. And if you rule Aldon, you will be the head of the True Religion. You could make a better reality for the Cursed Ones, tell them they have been forgiven by Sun.”

“They need no forgiveness. They’ve done nothing wrong,” I argue.

“But they need to stop being hunted,” she snaps in frustration .

As Siean speaks, I begin, to my dread, realizing this is the true path. It’s like a knife in my heart. Only Mongans died in the battle, and nothing changed for them. Not while the Aldonians rule Amada. The blood won’t stop shedding. Not even if the Butcher retaliates. Not until Aldon changes.

“I can’t.” My words stumble from me. “I don’t even understand why Amada chose me. There could be no one less fitting than me for the task.”

“You idiot,” she barks curtly. “No Puresoul has received the submission of all Amadans before you. Father groveled to the Kozaries for decades. His ancestors before him groveled as well. And yet only to you do those wack jobs bow, giving away their precious lassos. And the damn Butcher, leading his people to certain death for you. Who else have the Cursed Ones ever submitted to? They’d rather die than bow to a Puresoul.

All of them. And now, now the Queen of Renya has killed your only opposition.

And even he—even he didn’t dare to slaughter the Cursed Ones when he had the chance in spite of the high lords demanding it.

” A sob escapes her at the mention of our brother.

Her words echo the things Daton said to me. Maybe she’s right. Maybe being the savior doesn’t take great wisdom or great power. Maybe it just takes leaving enough room for people to become better.

She goes on pensively, “You have always been so blind to everything. Maybe that’s why you are so perfect. Who could possibly have us all play like this but you? You who never seek power.” Then she looks at me determinedly. “Stay here. That snake Rashkan can sell the sun to the desert.”

She turns to leave.

“Siean,” I call, and she turns to me. “Thank you. For saving my life. I know how much you loved him.”

“Don’t ever thank me for killing him.” Her voice is hollow.

“Besides, it’s my fault. I should have realized how deeply he got tangled with the Aldonian ways.

It didn’t have to come this far.” I want to say that she is wrong, that this was probably inevitable.

That this wasn’t her responsibility; it was his. But she leaves without another word.

I stand there in the tent with my brother’s body lying on the ground.

I watch myself in my small face mirror, and my fingers go to the bruises around my neck, where Nikanor tried to strangle me.

There are clear marks from his fingers, and my face looks even worse.

My lip is split, there are large, ugly bruises on my jaw and cheek.

The skin below my eye is painfully swollen.

The dawn light washes Nikanor’s body, and his eyes are still open.

I shut his eyes, and I weep. I weep for my baby brother, the one I lost so many years ago, whom our father and our home poisoned.

Maybe he could have grown to be a different man.

I weep for my sister, who has his blood on her hands.

I know she will never forgive herself. And I weep for losing the dream of a life with Daton.

This is wrong. I have to find him and talk to him.