Page 14 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“Well, I guess next time I see that hag, I’ll have to thank her for trying to make you rape me. She couldn’t have saved my life in any other way,” I say wryly.
He barks a laugh at my words, but then he frowns at himself like he shouldn’t have done that. Then he puts the fire out and lies down to sleep, and I know there is nothing I can say or do to make him answer my question about the direwolves.
***
We arrive at the River of Tears in the late morning. It’s the only saltwater river in Amada. Rivers aren’t supposed to be salty like the sea. And now I remember the legend my mother told Siean when they thought I fell asleep. The river was created by the tears of the Goddess, from when she wept after Sun raped her. Strange how I have completely forgotten it until now. I have a feeling that story wasn’t about the Goddess and Sun at all. That it was about Aldon’s control over Renya. My mother never truly accepted it, was never at peace with it. She spoke to us in Renyan and taught us the secrets of healing and the ways to worship the Goddess. Secrets and lies, all of it. Because none of it existed when my father, the king, came to call on her.
Daton’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Don’t tell them of the direwolves or that you speak Mongan,” he advises. I turn to face him. His face is tight with wariness. He sighs and rubs his hand through his black hair. “We have a saying: respect and suspect. Just be careful.” I’m surprised he cares.
“I hope one day to prove you wrong, Daton. To show you Renya’s true virtue.”
But he only stares at the river with a grim expression.
I take a deep breath and turn to the wooden bridge crossing the river. His words concern me and stain the hope and joy I feel in expecting to meet my aunt. I cross the bridge and turn to look at him, but he is already gone.
I braid my white hair and roll the braid at the top of my nape. Then I raise the cowl above my head so my hair will be as unnoticeable as possible. Renyans’ hair is blue like the skies, and Aldonians’ hair is red like the sun as it sets in Amada. No one in all of Amada has white hair. My sister’s colors were blue, just like our mother’s, and my brother’s are red, like our father’s.
My eyes are also white. But since Aldonian women are always expected to be modest and avoid eye contact, the color of my eyes was always a minor problem. Still, it is the colors of your hair and eyes that signal your race. The tone of your skin means nothing. The shape of your eyes or nose might appeal to some more than others. But your hair and eyes let everyone know what you are. And I am the only person with white hair and eyes in all of Amada. There are marriages of Aldonian and Renyans across the royalties. And yet each child always has one color, blue or red. I am a freak. A curse. I belong to no race.
My father ordered my hair colored red. So many attempts, yet the color never took hold, not even for several minutes, and my hair remained white. He was so desperate to rid me of the deformation he even had it colored blue, but that didn’t work either. My guardian spent two hours every morning taming my unruly hair into sophisticated styles that would hide most of it under various accessories. And still, I was constantly stared at, talked at in murmurs.
***
After just five hours of walking, I reach Renya’s capital city—Milasurey. Since I laid eyes on the River of Tears, I’ve seen only beauty. The country road I take to Milasurey is filled with fig and olive trees. The rays of the sun dance around their leaves. Every once in a while, I see a clearing full of buttercups in a variety of colors. Carpets of red, white, and purple. And there are packs of butterflies in a number I have never seen before. Nature doesn’t lie, I tell myself. There is beauty in Renya like nowhere else in Amada.
Milasurey has no surrounding walls, yet at the entrances, a great white arch functions as the gate to the city.Forever we are children of Sun,reads the arch, in blue Aldonian letters. I remember the dream I had of my mother, and I wince. Even if Renya had adopted the True Religion, this phrase is not from the True Religion, and the paraphrasing is grotesque in a way. Or maybe it is silent defiance. One that only Renyans will recognize.
The stone pavements and the small houses are all white and clean. The smells of jasmine and lilac are strong around the city. My mother smelled like this. I remember. It is almost as if she is here in Milasurey. Kids are playing and laughing, and people are smiling at one another. I pull my cowl lower, hiding my hair, afraid to disrupt the peace.
The palace is easily noticeable among the small houses surrounding it. The white marble shines in the summer sun. When I reach the gate, I state my name and relation to the queen. The guards seem skeptical, yet one of them goes into the palace, and after almost an hour, he returns and escorts me inside. He’s a young man with long gray-blue hair. His uniform is immaculate white with embroidered blue decorations. At his waist, a sword shines in the daylight.
The palace is the most beautiful in Amada. Its magnificence lies in its simplicity. I always found the Kozari palace to be a ridiculous display of wealth. Kozaries are obsessed with gold in a religious way. The pavements themselves are made of pure gold, and the walls of their palace are made of black marble at a height of at least ten feet.The roof is a giant gold dome. But this is nothing to the furniture and ornaments. Almost all of them are gilded, and many are embedded with diamonds and gems. I remember finding endless sumptuous pomp and ostentatiousness. I’m sure that was not the effect intended. Probably every royal in Amada would find me strange even to think it. That is my only memory of my visit to Amora, Kozari’s capital. The only one the Nimatek left me with.
In Aldon, the palace is grand and lavish. Not extravagant like the Kozari palace, but it sends a very clear message—this is the palace of the one who rules all of Amada. The walls are made of rose-colored marble, and enormous statues and pictures of Sun are everywhere. Each carpet and piece of furniture seems like a stand-alone masterpiece created by the best craftsmen of Amada. I always found the throne room unsettling with the endless portraits of warriors, the statues and murals of battlefields full of the corpses of the demichads and the Cursed Ones, and some even of Renyans and Kozaries.
In Renya, the wealth and power are not in the walls or paintings. They are in the flowers, the structure’s openness to the blue sky, and the narrow water canals that escort those who enter it. I see the lilac and jasmine, the grapevines that climb the walls, sage and mint, pansy and primrose, and olive trees. Hummingbirds and butterflies are easily spotted all around. I’ve never seen such beauty, and it moves me. My eyes are watery. I haven’t felt so at home since my mother died. Daton’s warnings are entirely lost to me now.
I enter a vast white hall, and in its center, several Renyan men and women are standing, engaging in conversation. They all turn to look at me as I enter, falling into silence. Their faces are wry and cold. The Queen, Tilil, stands in the middle of the group. She looks exactly as I last saw her when my mother was still alive. She is the manifestation of beauty and elegance. Her cobalt-blue hair is in a high bun, and she wears a delicate silver tiara with small diamonds. Her dress is ivory-colored, and it hugs her body lightly, showing her beautiful womanly figure.
It is so unlike the golden extravagance of Kozari dresses and hasnone of the puffiness of Aldonian dresses with the intent to hide the female figure.
Tilil approaches me, her cobalt-blue eyes observing. She smiles at me with a royal smile—no teeth. She pulls my cowl back with both her hands, and my hair is revealed. I hear the others gasp. Then she holds my hands in hers, and her voice is honey-coated. “What a gift from the Goddess. We must hold a ceremony of gratitude for her. Our Lian has arrived home at last.”
I am home at last. I try to keep my smile as small as hers, with no teeth, although my happiness is hard to contain. I want to say something. But I’m so excited, so happy, that all words slip from my mind. And then I see my sister.
My dead sister.
Chapter Eight
Lian
When I was growing up, the only other children I ever saw were my siblings. As the crown prince and the princesses, we were tutored at the Queen’s residence. It was a fifteen-room villa on palace lands, surrounded by opulent gardens and vast woods beyond that. The residence was beautiful and isolated, almost an hour’s ride by horse from the palace itself. It was a Renyan island in a kingdom I didn’t know nor wish to.
And since there were no children there but us, my older sister was my best friend. She was my only friend. We would make up stories and songs. We would force our mother to watch our plays and cheer for us. As we grew older, the three-year gap suddenly became wider. My sister would soon spend the evenings with my mother and her guests while I was dismissed to my room.
But late at night, she would come to my room and tell me of monsters and heroes who fear nothing. And I would wake up in my bed in the morning to see her sprawled on the carpet, lightly snoring, and I didn’t feel dismissed.
I shut my eyes hard and open them again. But Siean is still right there. She is the same as before she became ill. Same feline-shapedeyes with an indigo color. Same long, wild indigo curls. I look at her incredulously, not registering what I see.
