Page 15 of Humans Don't Have Horns
“You’re dead,” I say. It comes out in a very cross, even accusatory, I suddenly notice her taut posture. “It is good to see you again, sister,” she scoffs at my scathing tone.
“No. You are dead,” I insist. An expected confusion and an unexpected rage wash over me. “I wept over your body. I smelled death from you,” I say as my hands shake and my legs wobble. Nine years. I’ve mourned her for nine years.
“Our gracious queen saved me from the claws of death,” Siean answers in a clipped voice, her face blank.
A chill runs through my body. “And how would one bring back someone from the dead?” I ask, incredulous.
I know I’m handling this very poorly. I was welcomed into Renya, but my manner of speaking has caused all the warmth to leave the room. Renyan royals do not conduct themselves with bluntness. But this can’t be. Renyan healing cures. It doesn’t raise people from the dead.“They are witches.”I hear Daton in my ears. But this cannot be. It cannot.
“Now, now. Lian, this must be a great shock to you,” Tilil says in her honey-coated voice “Your father needed not to know Siean is alive, since it would only cause him to try to kill her again.”
Kill her? My father killed my sister? No, they were sick. What is going on? “Have you managed to bring my mother back as well?” I’m not sure if it’s hope or fear that makes me ask it.
“Unfortunately, no. Rutanna’s condition meant she was beyond saving,” says the Queen, her face somber. Then she scans me from head to toe and says, “But first, you must clean yourself and get out of this hideous outfit.” She refers to my threadbare Mongan clothes, and something about the haughty way she says it makes me want to protest. Tilil turns to my sister. “Siean, find Lian appropriate accommodations. Have the servants bring her decent clothing.” Then she turns to me. “You must be so exhausted. The awful things you must have seen and been through in the Cursed Ones’ captivity. You must tell us all about it. But first, clean and rest, dear.” That royal smile ofher doesn’t reach her cobalt-blue eyes. I say nothing, and I can’t help but feel guilty for my silence on Daton’s behalf. But to speak of him now can do nothing good, especially since things are so weird. So off.
I let Siean lead me to my room. She walks beside me quietly, her shoulders tense. “Why have you not aged a day since I last saw you? It’s been nine years. You don’t look like a woman, Siean. You still look sixteen.”
Her jaw clenches, but she doesn’t answer.
The Nimatek made the memories so blurry that I didn’t know what and whom I missed. In those years, I didn’t know how to explain this empty hole inside me. But in the past few days, I remembered my sister making me crowns and necklaces from daisies, and no matter how many times I tried to copy her, the daisies wouldn’t stay together. When I had a bad dream, I remember it was her bed I would go to, not my mom’s, never knowing if my father was spending the night at our villa or the palace. She was the oldest, but it was me who taught her how to do cartwheels, and she was scared of thunder but we always pretended she came to my bed during storms to comfort me and not the other way around.
I loved her so much, and watching her die for days in excruciating pain was so devastating that I think it wasn’t just the Nimatek that made me forget. It hurts so bad to remember what was lost. And even though she is alive and looks exactly the same as nine years ago, I feel my sister is still lost to me. I don’t even know why exactly. I walk beside her, and she is cold and distant. And it is so foreign compared to the memories I have.
“I have missed you, and I still do. But then, with Mother, we had no secrets.” I say it to myself more than to her, trying to make sense of my own feelings and memories.
Her voice is derisive. “In the past nine years, your appearance changed to one of a woman, but you act as if you are still a little child. There were always secrets, Lian. It is time for you to grow up finally, and you must not conduct yourself as a child in front of the Queen.”
“Or what?” I bristle at the threat.
“Do not cross her. She is not to be crossed.” Her tone is harsh, yet her eyes avoid mine.
She opens a sage-colored door to a wide room full of sunlight and plants, with a large canopy bed at the center and a big blue armchair near it. On the armchair, underwear and a gown are laid neatly. Siean doesn’t follow me into the room and leaves without saying another word.
I throw myself on the bed. I lie on my back, my eyes losing focus as I stare at the ceiling.“She is not to be crossed.”I think there was fear in Siean’s words, hidden behind scorn. Maybe I haven’t made it home after all. Perhaps there is no home for me. Maybe there is a reason my colors are different. Maybe that’s why my aunt never came for me and just left me in my gilded Aldonian cage, in my Nimatek cell.
“There were always secrets.”I hear her words repeatedly. I need to think and stop reacting to everything so emotionally. I need to expose their secrets. How is my aunt bringing people back from the dead? Does it have anything to do with the Mongans’ horns? Did my father kill my mother? Why would he? He had his heir. Why would he kill his wife and daughter? He never remarried. He could have, but he refused. This doesn’t sound right.
With this tangle of questions in my mind, I go to the bathroom. My mother told me that in Renya, they don’t wash from a bucket like in Aldon. The water comes out of the wall, led by a sophisticated pipes system that reaches the groundwater. Aldonians refer to it as Renyan witchcraft. It is forbidden in Aldon, like all things invented in Renya. “Nothing outside the testimony of the prophets is allowed,” the True Religion priests like to say. All that is new offends the generosity of Sun.
It always seemed so stupid, this Aldonian tendency to portray everything they don’t understand as witchcraft instead of learning from it. There is no such thing as magic. There is no such thing as witches. Only, when I think of my resurrected sister, I am not so sure anymore.
I pull the tube that protrudes from the wall, and sure enough,warm water pours out. I have never seen anything like it, and I just stare at the water for several minutes.
When I undress, there is blood spotting my underwear. It’s enough to make me collapse to the floor, trembling as relief washes over me. I cry and sob for a long time.I am not pregnant. I am not with child.I keep thinking it over and over again as if stopping would make the blood disappear.It is as if the night before my wedding never happened. No one ever needs to know. My shame will never be known.I am so grateful for this first act of mercy. By Sun, by the Goddess, by whomever. But I also mourn. A part of me was forever lost that night, and the thought that this will be a secret I will carry until I die is crushing. I shall always be in solitude in this.
When I finish my bath, I wear the nightgown prepared for me. The delicate cotton feels so different from the rough Mongan clothing. I look at myself in the mirror. My wet hair sparkles in the last rays of light. It is always like that, reacting to the light. Sometimes it shimmers. Sometimes, when the light is strong, it glows. I lost weight since the kidnapping. The withdrawal from the Nimatek and the nasty taste of Mongan food made my eyes stand out. My white irises are framed by silver rings, and they sparkle.
Without the influence of the Nimatek, I can finally remember my mother’s image, and I can see my resemblance to her. With the big, round eyes, the straight nose, and lavish red lips. My sister and brother resemble my father more, with his feline-shaped eyes, high forehead, and thin lips. My mother was known as a great beauty. I doubt my father would have ever married her if she had been less beautiful. He was too dazzled by her appearance to notice her true virtues. Her bravery, her wits. I don’t think he would have dared marry her if he were not taken by her beauty. He might have realized how superior she was to him in all manners.
The woman in the mirror looks so similar to her. Besides the colors, of course. But I never thought of myself as beautiful. I was always a freak with my colors. And freaks aren’t beautiful.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to do better, I tell myself. Tomorrow I shall tryto understand the meaning of all these alarm bells pounding in my ears.
***
Instead of my usual nightmares of that damn night, I dream of Daton. He lies next to me as the morning light comes through the window. His lips graze mine lightly, almost not touching. I can feel the warmth of his breath against my mouth, then against my cheek, my temple, as his lips trail my face. His hand cups my breast. I’m wearing my nightgown, but the thin fabric does nothing to stop my nipples from hardening under the graze of his thumb. His touch sends heat through my body, creating an ache in my center. I can smell his honey scent and taste it on his skin. He’s not frightening in the dream, not brooding and aloof. He’s not the Butcher, and I’m not a princess. He’s only Daton, and he feels like home. That thought is so misplaced, so wrong, that I wake up in alarm, my heart racing. My breasts are heavy, and my center is throbbing.
He kills so brutally. I’ve seen it. And he hates me. How could he be home? I’m mortified at myself. Damn my mind, body, and soul for dreaming a thing like that, for wanting—how can this be something I would even desire? After just yesterday, bleeding for the first time since it happened? I hurry out of bed and don’t bother with the hot water as I take a shower. I change my clothes as if starting a new day could erase the memories of that dream. But the sensations linger, and I feel this empty loneliness. Home. There is no home.
