Page 59 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“But what if you fall out? What if you don’t get along anymore, fight with each other?”
“Blood and honor are more important than getting along,” he hisses, and I think I offended him somehow. “You wouldn’t want a bond like that?” he asks very quietly. “The Shavirs’ way is better, you think?”
“I wouldn’t want to be bound to a man no matter what he does.” Ashar’s monstrous face springs to mind, and it’s enough for me to taste bile. “My parents’ marriage was a catastrophe no matter how you look at it. And if I had married Ashar…” I can’t even finish that sentence, although that was a royal marriage. Love was never part of the agenda. And Daton is different, obviously. Still, to be bound to someone in that way. What about your freedom? What happens if one day he breaks your heart and you can’t move on? Even in the afterlife.
“You think of marriage like a Shavir.” He sounds somber.
“I am a Shavir,” I laugh.
“You are. I keep forgetting.” He frowns. What a strange statement from him, of all people. How could he possibly forget that we are from different races, who drew blood from each other to the extent of bringing the world to its end? I try reading his face; perhaps he tried to make a rare joke. But he still looks at the stars, and I have a feeling he especially avoids looking at me.
I take a risk and say, “Tell me of Baghiva.” I sit so I can look at him from above. This strange conversation about marriage makes me want to understand what she was for him. It’s so long until he speaks that I think he won’t talk to me about it.
“She was always the stronger one of us. In the Oblivion, I lost everyone. My parents, brothers, and sisters. I was the only one to survive. I was broken, and she still wanted to marry me. She became my family, and she kept me sane in those days.” He sits up, and his voice breaks as he says, “And how did I repay her? I failed her.”
“You can’t continue to blame yourself. It’s not fair to her. She is worth remembering without your guilt,” I tell him.
He rises to his feet in anger. His body is taut. His fists clench. He looks like he’s going to ignite with fury. “It’s like a sadistic joke of the Goddess. This shit happens, and then it happens again with you. It’s like I summon this shit to my women.”
I catch a glimpse of his lamenting face before he turns to leave.
“I was raped before I met you.” I don’t shout it, but it feels like I did.
He stops abruptly and turns to look at me. He doesn’t say anything, only watches me with something incredulous on his face.
“Bad things happened to me before I met you. Ashar raped me before I met you. Not every shitty thing is about you. Stop making every pain and hurt your responsibility.” I just now notice I’m standing in front of him, hitting his chest with frustration. Maybe it’s me that was going to ignite all this time.
He drags his fingers through his hair, looks at the sky, and starts swearing.
“I didn’t fight him.” My voice trembles, and I don’t know why I say it out loud to him. I only know I can’t keep it inside anymore.
“Why didn’t you?” And there is no judgment in his voice.
“It’s stupid.” I shake my head.
“It can’t be,” he says and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. It’s not sexual, yet I shiver at the intimacy of the gesture, especially now that I’ve uttered my darkest moments to him.
“I thought it was the Nimatek. But it wasn’t, not really. I was so humiliated and shocked, and I wanted—” I struggle with the right words. I feel the tears coming down. The Nimatek numbed me but not enough to stop me from trying to fight Daton, weakly as that attempt might have been. “I was afraid to disappoint my father.” I sniff and wipe my tears with my palm. “I told you it was stupid.” I know now that the Nimatek numbed me when Ashar came to my tent uninvited. But it was my father’s expectations that crushed me. I watched as my guardian curtsied and left the tent instead of demanding him to keep Aldon’s honor. I was paralyzed by the thought of what might happen if I fought him off, not that I really stood the chance to succeed. But it could have made him cancel the wedding. So I only begged him to stop, but I think it made him enjoy it more. “I was that desperate for my father’s approval. I had no one else left.”
“I think,” he says while lifting my chin with his fingers, his eyes full of stars and something warm and sweet, “you are the smartest person I’ve ever met, and it’s time you take your own advice about pain and guilt.”
“Don’t you think I acted in a dishonorable way?” I huff, perplexed because I can’t understand how all his actions and words are from the same man. I know there is nothing more important than honor to him. Even if I’m struggling with his concept of honor. And in Aldon, what happened to me means I’m repugnant and befouled.
“If you steal from me, you are the one with no honor, not me. The honor is not lost to you but to him,” Daton asserts.
I have the feeling that a lot of Mongans wouldn’t agree with him. I’ve grown to like them, but I’m not blind to the hardness imprinted in them. In him. The unforgiving way in which they view failure andweakness. I also know no Mongan would risk everything the way he did when he refused to force me.
There is power to his words, to his acceptance with no judgment. But there is even more power to my own words. I never thought I would admit out loud to anyone what happened that night. Ashar is dead by my hands, and the dark secret we shared is now dead as well. Also by my hands. And while I’ll never get back what I’ve lost, I feel lighter and freer than ever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lian
As the battle nears, my heart feels heavier in my chest, and I grow more and more apprehensive. My nightmares, once occupied mainly by Ashar, now contain mostly living demichads and dead Mongans and come more frequently. One Mongan in particular dies in my dreams every night, each death worse than the one preceding it.
Each night, I wake up in my tent, my body covered in cold sweat and Daton’s name on my lips. Every cloud in the sky seems ominous. Every gust of wind in the air makes me wary. So I find myself deprived of sleep, barely able to eat, every muscle in my body taut.
The Mongans’ approach to the upcoming battle only amplifies my discomfort, since it is so foreign to me. Every day, they laugh louder, drink more bree, dance more and more brazenly, and act like they have no concerns in the world. Everyone except Daton, who seems to be the only one sensible enough to be brooding. As if the world coming to an end and them being served as the appetizer to the demichads isn’t worrying them.
