Page 36 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“Oh, you must be hungry too.” she says to me. “We have a goat stew left from Anasosh’s maturity party. It’s very rare that we get to eat meat, so it’s quite a treat.” Shana smiles at me. While the goat stew doesn’t sound highly appetizing, I am famished, and it sounds better than roram. Besides, Daton mentioned that not accepting food from your host is considered a great insult. I tremble at the memory of Emek’s face as I spat my food when she first fed me. I’m pretty sure she was restraining herself from murdering me then.
I follow them outside, and Shana fixes me a bowl of stew while Kala sits on a wood log, and the man hands her a baby. He has a full head of dark hair, but I don’t see any horns. I only now realize that the children I’ve seen didn’t have horns either. “He doesn’t have any horns,” I wonder out loud.
“We’re not born with horns. The horns only start to grow at ten, which is the most lethal age for Mongans, since the horns emerge but the strength to defend from hunters still doesn’t. When Mongans reach the age of twenty, they already have their full-grown horns. We can tell a Mongan age by facial features, but it would be easier, probably through the horns, for you. At the age of twenty, the horns are still soft and flexible. At that point, the Mongan looks like a twenty-year-old Shavir in every aspect and will remain this way until the age of one hundred. The horns harden entirely at that time—once the Mongan reaches one hundred, the Mongan will appear as a thirty-year-old Shavir. At two hundred, the horns darken, and the Mongan starts looking like a forty-year-old Shavir. But in their last century, the aging accelerates, and they appear older and older every decade. The Mongan who declared Emek as the new oracle is two hundred and ninety-seven years old, and she is the oldest Mongan alive. Once the horns start to grow, Mongans can’t survive without them. Daton is the only Mongan to survive without a piece of his horn. And some believe it has actually made him stronger than all the other Mongans.”
The baby gets impatient with Kala’s explanation, and she exposes her breast. I can’t help but stare as the baby feeds on her.
“What?” She looks at me and raises her eyebrows.
“I’ve just never seen a woman breastfeed before.” My cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “Not even your mother?” Kala frowns.
“Royals don’t breastfeed. They hire a wet nurse to do that, and the wet nurse makes certain never to be seen,” I explain, and I hide my shudder at the mere thought of the consequences of a woman exposing her breast in public in Aldon.
“To let another feed your own child. How strange the heretics are,” Kala marvels.
“Strange indeed,” Shana agrees. “You must tell us of all their strange ways. We’ve never met a live heretic before, only saw their corpses hanging. You are the only heretic to ever meet the Emancipator and remain alive.” I cringe at her words, for I believe they are true and that he has killed so many. But not me and not my sister, on my behalf.
Chapter Eighteen
Daton
The boulder I lean on is the only coolness I can find in the heat of the swamp. My tent is on the edge of the camp, like most of those with no young children to care for. I’ve always liked it that way, to be able to get some quiet and solitude away from the constant fuss of the camp.
As I sit sprawled on the ground, I try to clear my head of all thoughts of Lian. But those futile attempts only make me want to rip someone’s head off. I can’t escape the image of her beautiful face full of disappointment and contempt. She’s never looked at me like that, not even in the beginning when she believed me to be the monster all Shavirs have come to know. And the worst thing is knowing she’s right to scorn me. I don’t deserve the way she looked at me before. I never did.
The problem is I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want her. I’ve tried to fight it. Stars know how I tried. So many times, I begged the Goddess to give me the strength to resist these desires. I didn’t want to feel this way for her. At first because of what she was – a Shavir – but then because it scared me. It’d been a hundred years since I felt this kind of fear. Since I’ve felt so raw and wretched.
When I saw Lian for the first time, I was so mad at the sight of her. At my reaction to her. I had no business looking like that at a heretic.Especially not this heretic. But she was so beautiful and fierce. Her white eyes should have been cold as ice. They weren’t. Many times since that moment, I tried to decide if they were actually white or silver. In every light, they looked different. In every different mood she was in, they changed. And even then, at first glance, they beckoned like moonlight at midnight, luring like the purest of magic. So I hated her even more. Because there is nothing alluring about the Shavirs.
Even with the Nimatek, fierceness radiated from her. I knew the rules of Aldon. She was given a knife to kill herself, not to defend herself from me. Yet she was defiant. She clung to life even through the haze of the Nimatek. And she looked at me, held my eyes. When was the last time a heretic dared to hold my stare? None since the Oblivion. She looked into my eyes and saw right through me, and it put me to shame.
Before I married Baghiva, in the village we grew up in, the Aldonian girls would flirt. They were different then. They would tease and smile coyly before the True Religion bullshit. They would steal forbidden kisses in the barn at night. Because even then, an Aldonian girl had no business wanting someone like me. But they wanted. After what they did to Baghiva, I couldn’t stand the sight of them. Those pretty girls did nothing to help us. They submitted to the True Religion and never again held my stare. I hated them. All of them.
So I treated Lian more roughly than I should have. I ignored her pain and didn’t have the decency to stop and let her relieve herself. I ignored her pleas for death and focused my mind on killing her after Minera gave me the order. But fucking Minera had different ideas. Bless the Goddess. I shiver at the thought of what would have happened if she’d told me to kill Lian. Because I would have. I would have looked at those beautiful eyes and killed her. That’s how fucked up I am. Sometimes I think I am the monster they say I am.
But Lian is different, not because of the wolves or any of that. I had never met anyone like her. She saved me. She treated me with Renyan healing and shared its secrets with me. The Renyans hadnever done anything like that. Before the Oblivion, the only way to receive healing from them was gold. An amount of gold very few Mongans possessed. After the Oblivion, no Mongan was stupid enough to reach for a Renyan healer. For us, there was only death at their hands. It was only the Shavir they would heal. But Lian didn’t care for their rules, or their greed. I’d never met a Shavir like her, and I would never have believed someone like her could even exist in our hate-driven Amada.
She asked to learn our language, to really understand. How could I not fall in love with her? Every inhibition crumbled. Every reason evaporated.
But I should have never touched her, or kissed her. And I would never have dared. Even though she is so beautiful it hurts. The Shavirs are obsessed with colors. But being obsessed with colors is a privilege someone with horns doesn’t have. Maybe that is why, when I saw her hair sparkle like the freshest snow, instead of being frightened by the uniqueness, I was lured by the beauty. It also doesn’t help that the rest of her features are just as compelling. Fuck, she couldn’t be more tempting if she tried. And then she kissed me, and I was gone. Those impossibly soft rosy lips, her scent like fresh snow. I lost myself and freaked her out with my hunger for her. I did finally manage to pull myself together but I felt like maiming myself for making her cry like that.
While it was physically painful having her so close and holding back, it was also the most whole I had felt since I could remember. And making her smile, making her purr at my touch. Fuck, what I wouldn’t give for a bucket full of ice water right now.
But then, like a fucking idiot, I followed her into that water. Leaving my weapons on the bank. When had I ever been so careless, so stupid? But she looked at me over her shoulder, and I knew she wanted me to follow, and I couldn’t think. Like a fucking teenager.
I will kill for her. I will die for her. But I just can’t bear watching her suffer and do nothing. Can’t take having all these fucking feelings and being useless, not being able to protect her. What a fucking loser. The Emancipator, my ass. What good does it do if I lie there likesome useless piece of shit when that monster touches her? Says those foul words to my woman?She’s not your woman. Never was, never will be.
And I just walked out on her. I left her there, bleeding, teeth broken, after her first kill. I just walked away. I knew she’d be fine. She’s the one who talked to the wolves, the demichads, and then the vultures. She was the stronger one between us. I would happily raze the world for her. But I knew then that I was no use to her.
I just couldn’t watch it all over again and not be able to do anything. Every sound Baghiva made that day, the smell of her blood, their semen. Again, I could do nothing. Nothing but sob, retch, and collapse into the despair of the hunted souls trapped in that abomination they forged and called the Kozari lassos. It all closed in on me. I had always known the Goddess was vindictive. But this. To relive this.
The truth is there is no excuse. She needed me, and I bailed like a fucking coward. And she is so angry with me, so hurt by me. Even so, she came. She said she didn’t come for me, but still she’s here, in the middle of this cursed camp. With my kin. She’s so close.
I hear someone approach, and I recognize Bahar’s footsteps. I look up to see him grin at me, a bottle of bree in each hand. I could almost kiss him for it.
“I bear a peace offering,” he says as he sits beside me, his thigh against mine, his hand on my shoulder. Personal space was never his thing. “I missed you, brother,” he says and presses his brow to mine. I missed him too, but if I admit it out loud, he’ll never shut up about it, so I take the bree in response. I drink the hard liquor from the bottle like it’s water on a hot day. Stars, that shit is gross. But it does the job. One bottle, and I’ll be wasted. One bottle, and Lian’s face will disappear.
“Easy there,” Bahar says at my drinking speed and pulls the bottle from my hand. “Am I forgiven?” he asks, his voice all of a sudden solemn.
