Page 43 of Humans Don't Have Horns
She smirks knowingly at my heated face. “Fine, I accept.” Then she adds, “There are great changes to be made.” Her voice turns pensive. “The healers were so transfixed with the immortality drugthat they completely neglected simple remedies that could have been used instead to save lives. The entire curriculum for new students needs updating. And oh, Siean, I have so many ideas for improvement.” She flashes a toothy grin. She looks so happy. Genuinely happy. I can’t help but smile at her, and she beams at me. When was the last time I made her smile? Probably then at the library.
I can’t bear it, her happiness. So I tell her, “Great, so I’ll need half a liter of mola.”
“Half a liter?” She gasps. “That’s mola enough to take down a horse. Two horses!”
“Don’t question your queen’s orders.” I glower at her.
“Is the withdrawal so hard?” And damn if it’s not genuine concern in her eyes.
“Half a liter of mola in an hour. And leave it outside with one of the servants. I have no need to see you again,” I dismiss her.
She takes three steps toward me and puts her hand over mine. It feels so good, even that little touch, so I pull away abruptly. But Anya doesn’t even flinch. “Let me be your friend. Only a friend. You need a friend, Siean. The throne is lonely, and you’re in pain. I see your pain.” She sees my pain. She’s the only one ever to see it. To ever see me. All I want to do is curl myself into her, let her stroke my hair like she once did, which is why she can’t be my friend. I will never be able to stop us from becoming lovers again. Not if she is so close and caring.
Tilil is not dead. My guess is she’s in Aldon, but my spies have yet to confirm. Wherever she is, she’s planning her return. And she has dark magic. Powerful dark magic. My mother made it her life mission to fight against it. And she lost. We all did. And now I’m just biding my time. Because the most powerful witch in Amada will be back for her throne, and I’ll die again. And if I’m lucky, she won’t resurrect me this time. Only, I’ve never been lucky.
I must make sure Anya won’t be caught between us. She can’t become a pawn against me. I’ll never be able to bear seeing her get tortured the way I was. Anything is better. So I stab her where it will hurt the most, She’ll never want anything to do with me again.
I laugh icily. “You just don’t get it, do you? It was fun, Anya, but in the end, you will always be nai. And I am royal. I’m the queen, for fuck’s sake. I fuck nais all the time. I had two of them in my bed last night. But that is all a nai can ever be for a queen.”
Her face freezes, her mind struggling to accept the betrayal. I have never ever used that word before. It’s despicable. But I don’t know how else to push her so far away. I’m not strong enough to do it. So I throw that word in her face. That word they said to her again and again when she arrived in Milasurey.
It’s a word only royals would use. The asshole kind of royals. The ones who think a girl with no shoes, a girl with no food in her belly, is not just poor, she’s a reincarnation of a sinner. Her poverty is the punishment for her past life. Because the Goddess is generous, otherwise why would a Renyan be poor? If you are poor, then you are damaged. You are only better than the Cursed Ones.
Anya rises, and her hands shake. Her mother died because the village healer refused to heal nais. And a midwife is no healer. There is no word that would ever burn her more. She told me that herself, once when she trusted me. How stupid of her to trust someone like me. She’s always so bright. Only with me, she’s stupid, forgetting to guard her heart.
She doesn’t manage to stop her voice from shaking, her eyes watery. “I’ll make sure a second healer will bring Her Majesty the mola and act as her personal healer.” She bows and leaves. And part of me is insulted, even angry at her that she would believe I’d ever give a shit about something like that. That she believes the worst of me. The only person who ever truly saw me.
But then, it’s been two years now that I’ve only shown her the worst of me.
***
There is pain. So much pain. It hurts to die. But not nearly as much as it does to be brought back to life. There is fire scorching me from inside. Internally, I’m all blisters and gore. But outside, I’m whole andyoung. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Silly little thing. I will always find out, my little phoenix,” Tilil’s voice is piercing me like a thousand knives. I want to scream in pain, but there is only ash in my mouth and lava in my throat.
“Are you all right?” a feminine voice asks me. “I think you had a nightmare, Your Highness.”
Anya. No, of course it’s not Anya. What’s her name? I can’t remember. No, I never asked. It’s nearly dawn. My saliva tastes like ash. So I let the nameless woman make it all go away for a little while. Then I dismiss her and gulp some champagne with a ridiculous amount of mola. Ha! Let’s see who kills me first, Tilil or myself. I’m the underdog. Everyone roots for the underdog.
I let the servants dress me, no pants this time. The formal white gown, the crown. You can’t have anything less when you meet the Crown Prince of Aldon. My hands get clammy at the thought of finally seeing my baby brother. It’s been thirteen years. He was just six when Rod violently took him from us. A snake in our paradise.
I think it was Tilil who turned Rod against us, who told Rod my mother taught healing to Nikanor. It’s not all she taught him. She taught him the old language and the old religion, the ways of the Goddess. All this in her quarters inside the premises of the King of Aldon’s palace, the spreader of the True Religion. What a crazy purist she was. Fanatic to the bitter end. It broke her, though, to lose Nikanor. I always thought he was her favorite, despite his red hair and eyes. Or maybe because of it; maybe he was a pawn to her agenda, like everyone else. Because if she could have molded him to her faith, the Crown Prince of Aldon—the Crown Prince of all Amada—what a prize for Renya that would have been.
Fanfare from outside the tent announces the arrival of the future king. And three Aldonian men enter the tent. I recognize Rashkan first, and bile rises to my throat. There are not many people I hate and fear. But Rashkan is the manifestation of everything that is wrong and corrupt in Aldon. And the main problem with him is that he is a genius. A master of manipulation and a gifted strategist who has acomplete lack of morals and no ability to empathize. Therefore, he has very few limits.
The other man is introduced as Nazhan, a general in the Aldonian army. He looks like a slob and a drunk. Yeah, takes one to know one.
And then walks in my baby brother. He looks so handsome and tall. He resembles our father, with his strong nose and high forehead. His colors are also the same as Rod’s, like a fresh rose. How did he get so tall and manly? If I were sentimental, I would sob, but I don’t do sentiment. Mostly.
Bina and two other members of the council stand by my side. We all bow to one another. Rashkan opens, “His Highness is here as acting regent of Aldon, Renya, and Kozari. Our beloved king has been unable to fulfill his duties for the crown for the past two weeks. A great and fast decline has occurred in his health.”
Yeah, being cut off the immortality drug can do that to a sick, old man. Once I took power and banned the chests full of the drug, the sand in Rod’s hourglass finally started moving.
“It is very pleasing that the regent himself has come to deal with the catastrophe of the return of the demichads,” Bina declares near me. It is very tiring, this habit of letting councilors speak instead of the royals. Yet it has its advantages. It leaves me freer to be observant, and I notice the surprise on the face of the general and the flexing muscle in my brother’s jaw.
Only Rashkan smiles like a cat eyeing a cornered mouse before he says, “Our regent will continue protecting Amada from any threat at Sun’s guidance, yet we have arrived here for far more joyous reasons. The head of the House of Oro has placed his niece on the throne of Kozari. Quite unprecedented, and so young she is. Fortunately for us, he has a son. An unwed son, and the allied queen is unwed as well. Although, she’s been of age for years now,” he declared, his face souring suddenly at the reminder of my age. In Aldon, women marry at the age of fifteen at the latest. My sister is out of the ordinary in more ways than one. And me, I’m considered anold hag there, at twenty-five. Then he adds, “A match made by Sun himself.”
“We shall consider this offer, Your Holiness,” says another one of my advisers, Yuna, in a solemn voice. They all know I’d die before I marry a Kozari man. Goddess knows I proved it already. Literally. Tilil suffocated me to death in an outburst of rage at my defiance. Then she brought me back. Again.
Rashkan raises an eyebrow. “Consider? It is not an opportunity to be missed. After all, the regent has only one legitimate sister.”
