Page 54 of Humans Don't Have Horns
He freed my mother from the mansion she was enslaved in. She was seven months pregnant, and he carried her back to the Mongan camp. When I was born shortly after and came out with red hair and red eyes, the Goddess’s servants said I should be given as a sacrifice to the Goddess. But Daton took my mother and me to his tent, and no one said I should be killed anymore. At least not to Daton’s face. He is the Emancipator, so no one argues when he saves a half-Aldonian baby.
And after he took my mother and me under his protection, they stopped killing the babies conceived by rape. The oracle is the Mongans’ leader, but truly it was always him, even though he will never admit it, not even to himself.
While my mother treated me as a mother would, she always saw her rapist in me, and her heart was never in it. But the love she lacked for me, she had for him and more. My mother was utterly in love with him, her savior. It was pathetic to watch. It was obvious he would never return her feelings. He was so obsessed with Baghiva and what they’d done to her. Who could blame him?
But I could blame him for letting her come to his bed. I would lie on my pallet and wake up from the cold caused by her absent body, and I would hear them. Most times, he would send her away, but sometimes he wouldn’t. And I could never decide on which mornings she looked more miserable: the ones when she came back to our pallet with her pride hurt or the ones after she spent the night in his bed and he was so evidently unfazed by it.
I will give him credit for never bringing other women to the tent as long as we stayed with him. He was going to those women’s tents instead, as they constantly swarmed around him like cats in heat.There are better-looking Mongans than him, and for sure better ones at flirting, but he is a living legend. And who doesn’t want a piece of the legend?
I guess those were the mornings when she was most miserable, the ones after his pallet remained empty, even though he was in camp and not out raiding Shavirs. But most days and nights, he wasn’t in camp but out there killing Shavirs anyway.
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 betraymelike that?” Isound 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 ajovial, 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.
