Page 69 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“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 toyou 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. AndI weep for losing the dream of a life with Daton. This is wrong. I have to find him and talk to him.
As I stand up, Siean enters the tent, and Rashkan follows.
Rashkan is in his late fifties. He has served our family since he was a little boy and has been a high priest for over thirty years. No priest has survived that long. For real or imagined treason, death had always ended their careers within several years. Sometimes months.
Holding power in Aldon is like ruling a snake’s den. You kill one snake, and hundreds come at you. Never stopping. It drove most kings mad. It stopped mattering if snakes were coming for them or not. They saw them everywhere.
Yet this high priest survived. He’s the biggest snake of them all. He’s also the wiliest of them all. And just like a snake, he has no backbone. Nothing is beneath him.
Whoever controls the church of the True Religion controls the crown. While I lived in Aldon, I never even exchanged a word with him. I had no power, I was nothing but a mere pawn, and so I wasn’t worth his time. And now he’s my only chance of taking the crown.
As he enters the tent, Rashkan looks almost offended by the simplicity of the tent, so unfitting to his rich dress. The golden embroidery glints in the dawn light. The diamonds on his fingers seem grotesque in the simple Mongan tent. The hem of his crimson-hooded cloak brushes the dirt. He passes my brother’s corpse without a second glance.
Siean folds her arms and raises her chin. Her entire gait speaks of her dislike of this man. “Lian has to take the throne instead of Nikanor.”
Rashkan eyes me derisively. “Impossible for a woman to take the throne of Aldon.” He waves dismissively, and turns to leave “You are wasting my time, girl,” he drawls at Siean. But Siean seems to not have heard his dismissal. She hadn’t even noticed his domineering tone, the use of the wordgirlfor a queen.
In that moment, as she begins to speak, she is formidable. No, she is terrifying. “Lian becoming queen is the only chance for you to stay alive. Rod is dying. Nikanor is dead. You have stolen, tortured, andkilled for decades in Rod’s name, and now all your victims will come for revenge. Making Lian queen is all you can do to stay alive. And if you think you can scheme your way out of them killing you, know that I shall kill you. I vow before the Goddess, I will kill you.
“But only after I kill your three legitimate sons. Then I will kill your four bastard sons, and I shall serve all seven heads to you in your bed. And when you wake amid your sons’ heads, you will know your time has come. Only then shall I kill you. And you shall die in the most painful way known to Amadans. You have witnessed closely what it is to die of Renya’s kiss. You stood and watched as Rutanna and I were dying for a week, begging for the release of death. By the Goddess, it will bring unspeakable pleasure to me to see you suffer as I once did under your indifferent eyes.”
Rashkan swallows hard. Her words are dripping with venom and promise. I don’t know if Nikanor’s death has shaken her so much or if the memory of her dying haunts her, but I believe her. I believe that she will take pleasure in killing this man and his children in the worst ways, and I don’t want to dwell on what she has become. Every time I think badly of her, she does something noble, and every time I think of her with high esteem, she goes psycho. She is a conundrum to me.
Rashkan sighs and massages his temples with his fingers. The truth is that if he wishes to live, he is tied to us. None of the other families will ever let him live. Least of all Dorem. As the head of the church, Rashkan knows all their dirty little secrets, and he used them to subdue them to my father and for his own benefit. And the Queen of Renya has just explained to him that even if he can escape that fate in some cunning way, Renya will see him dead. He knows firsthand that no Aldonian healer will ever be able to save him.
“How will you make me a queen? My mother is Renyan, my hair is white, and my mate is Mongan. How will you keep us both alive?” I ask him, noticing how the wordsmateandMonganmake him cringe.
He sighs, then says begrudgingly, “First, we’ll bring back Nikanor as a war hero. He was killed by the demichads.”
“But he was seen after the battle,” I interrupt him.
“Leave that to me,” he grunts. It sounds ridiculous, but Siean doesn’t seem to doubt he can pull it off, so I don’t push it any further.
“You are the great savior. Sun subjected animals to your will. You have saved us from the demichads. Your hair is the mark you were given as the savior who will succeed in ruling all of Amada. You were chosen by Sun himself to rule all of Amada. All races bow to you. Even the Cursed Ones.” He pauses. “But you are a virgin.”
