Ви Корс
The Mist and the Lightning. Part 18

On the left side, but not in a human country, in the demonic kingdom, the red river measures the path.

And in that red river there is a black pool.

And in a black, terrible pool, black water boils, boils, throws foam.

And human lewdness dwells in that pool.

Dashing fornicator devil is a master there.

The pool with bodily languid boils, boils, seethes.

You, devil, fornicator, listen to my words, listen, and raise the water of the black pool!

Let the streams come out of the edges, let your river flow to human lands, and let (name) be drawn into the pool.

And in that whirlpool, let human lewdness enter into (name), and let (name) with fornication day after day for me suffer, let (name) the fornication of lewdness with me desire!

And if he wants, then let him make it! Let him burn with passion!

Key. Lock. Tongue.

Chapter 1

An army of black and unclean people left the city. They took away from Ore town a lot of goods and valuables, and Lis didn’t prevent them from doing so, keeping his promise. Loaded with booty, the army was heading for Crimson Rock. The predatory snake, fed up and gleaming with scales, slowly crawled along the red brick road, returning to its lair. The people went first, followed by the unclean. And Kors was literally torn with anger if, at the halts, he accidentally caught sight of the terribly pleased Zagpeace Gezaria. The fact that Zagpeace and Prince Ariel dared to free his Nik and give him free rein made Kors both furious and desperate. He didn’t know how to take revenge on them and how to make them see and understand that Nik still belonged to him.

Kors was in love, and this feeling was very bright and strong, he felt it with all clarity. And at the same time, this feeling was unreal in its strength, in its joy and beauty. He was happy just like that, just because he loved. It was not difficult for him to sleep a little, it was not boring to spend many hours on the road, because he was horse riding and thinking about Nik, imagining him, and these emotions filled Kors with incredible energy. Despite the field conditions, he felt great, he was in a high and light mood. It seemed to him that some kind of bright radiant light was streaming from him, illuminating him from the inside and making him beautiful. This love adorned him. Now he couldn’t even imagine how he had lived before without this feeling, how he walked, ate, slept and even laughed. But all this was not the same, it was still empty. Then he didn’t realize this, but now he realized that he didn’t live for real, and his life was incomplete, and he himself was gray and empty, he was nothing, and only now he was breathing deeply. He imagined Nik and shone with happiness, especially since Nik was driving a little ahead or next to him, and Kors could endlessly look at his white hair and imagine his face there, under the mask. Kors could imagine how he would hug him at a halt and finally, in a tent, when they were alone, remove the mask from his face and kiss him. And he also knew that Nik would kiss back. Kors recalled his words: “I will give you the meaning of life”. At that moment, Nik probably meant something else, most likely, the completion of the Mission, but Kors now didn’t care about the Mission. He didn't care about it anymore. Nik, unwittingly, gave him the true meaning of life, gave him the most valuable, what turned out to be needed the most. Having found love, Kors got happy, rejoicing in every day, every minute, every moment, because everything was filled with this meaning. The most important meaning. Kors realized that love was the most important thing. His meaning of life was love. He couldn’t realize it with Iness, and now he was happy that life gave him another chance to love and be alive thanks to this.

If I speak with human and angelic languages, but have no love, then I am a ringing brass or a sounding cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and I know all the secrets, and I have all knowledge and all faith, so that I can move mountains, but I do not have love, then I am nothing.

At the same time, Kors noticed that Nik also likes everything that happened between them, and liked Kors’ love.

Nik never had a loving mother and father, he was an orphan, and Kors felt his inferiority, his loneliness and vulnerability from this. Not a single person in this world really cared about him as his child, as a part of himself. Nik didn’t know this, because, in fact, no one needed him, and no one was interested in what was happening to him. Not knowing how it could be otherwise, he didn’t understand the difference, he didn’t understand it before, but now Kors showed him what true parental love and care, attention and care were. And Nik accepted it with joy, taking pleasure in being needed by someone, just like that, just because you belong to the family. From this love and Kors’ interest in him, he blossomed, became less twitchy, began to drink less. Nik took the restorative only to maintain the body destroyed by the Black Water, only because he could no longer do without stimulants, but now not for the sake of being high. He was cheerful, relaxed, he also had a good mood. He leaned towards Kors and looked at him with devoted eyes, unquestioningly obeyed any of his words and himself didn’t break away from his father for a minute. At the same time, Kors understood that Nik was already very subjugated and spoiled, and it was still possible to treat him not quite correctly, and Nik resignedly accepts this. And immediately, as soon as Kors expresses a desire, he obediently opens his mouth, without feeling any resentment at Kors for the fact that he sexually uses him. And Kors liked the soft character of his son, he liked to rule a little and give orders. He liked that Nik was small compared to him, and liked to press a little on the back of his head, forcing him to kneel. Nik raised his bright eyes at him and looked like a devoted puppy, and Kors howled and came on his face, on his lips and half-blood rings.

Kors had no doubt that Nik really fell in love with him, he was obedient, gentle and agreeable. It seemed to Kors that his happy life with Iness had returned. Iness was just as beautiful, gentle and loving. And she was just as calm, silent and submissive. But Kors couldn’t forget what happened next, how short-lived his happiness was, and now he was afraid that this happiness would be taken away again, he was afraid on the edge of panic, to the point of trembling, and if he could, he would have tied Nik to himself and would not let him go for a single minute.

Kors loved his son very much, he was absolutely happy next to him, and at the same time he was afraid, wildly afraid of losing him. He tormented him with his vigilant attention and control, never letting go of himself, and followed him on his heels, even when Nik needed to be absent.

This fear of loss grew stronger every day. If earlier it loomed somewhere on the horizon, now it was approaching the same way as they themselves were approaching the Black City, closer and closer. Like a thundercloud, fear clouded the clear blue sky, predicting a thunderstorm and becoming an endless disturbing background, not letting go of Kors for a moment and poisoning moments of joy.

Nik didn’t show him any displeasure. Absolutely submissive, like a doll, he reminded Kors of a doll with his beautiful face, which was often motionless, relaxed, like a mask, without emotions or facial expressions. He looked like a doll with his transparent, like glass gray-blue beads, empty eyes framed by long, really doll-like eyelashes, and light long strands framing a white, like a porcelain face. Kors couldn’t take his eyes off him and, like a man possessed, he asked a hundred times a day: “Nik, do you love me? Nik, are you with me?” And Nik slowly turned his head, and a light, gentle smile appeared on his face, turned to Kors, and he invariably answered: “Yes. Yes, ”and froze again.

And at the same time, when during the day Nik covered his eyes with black glasses, put on a mask, and Kors could no longer see his eyes and could not admire his face, when Nik ceased to be a beautiful doll and his son from Iness, Kors loved him no less.

On the road, from time to time, unclean ones drove up to them. Nik quickly exchanged short phrases with them, and often, while communicating, he suddenly began to laugh hoarsely, a dull short laugh, bestial, inhuman. At these moments, Kors also loved him, because then he heard and understood that his Nik was still more close to the unclean ones than to people, that he was a dirty unclean, mindless drug addict and alcoholic, a criminal and human waste with a hoarse voice and hoarse laughter. But he loved his husky voice and wanted him, so dirty and finished, no less. He wanted him in any form: an obedient person, and a Demon, he wanted a beautiful doll and a dirty drug addict, evil and kind. Kors wanted both. His cock literally jumped up when Nik was talking to Zaf or Parky, when he laughed, and Kors heard this short hoarse laugh… and then Nik turned to Kors, apparently feeling his emotions, and said:

“Vkhitor, wkhat?”

And everything froze inside Kors from his endless “kh” and “sh”. Nik “heard” this, he laughed and talked with the unclean, and then, hearing this love from Kors, this mad lust, he turned to him, and Kors understood that he was looking at him through the black glass. Nik put a horizontally turned finger in a black glove to the mask at the level of his mouth and slightly raised it up, and Kors was already used to this “smile” of his and loved it too.

At one of the halts, Kors combed his hair, again pinned his hair into a beautiful ponytail, removed the strands that obscured his face. Nik sat patiently and let him brush his hair, although he said:

“Vitor, why are you wasting your time? After all, you will ruffle me anyway.”

“No. I will not mess you up.”

“As this morning, under the bush.”

“No, no, I'll be careful,” Kors whispered hotly, kissing him on the fluffy top of the head, “I love you. You misunderstood me, I didn’t betray love. I gave up my love for Iness, but I didn’t give up love at all. And I betrayed Iness for you, because I wanted to love you. Love is a summer night with a star-studded sky and a fragrant earth. This is the breeze sweeping over the roses. These are daisies that spread their petals wide at nightfall. Love is fiery hellish music that makes even the hearts of old people dance. It makes the king bow his head to the ground, so that his hair sweeps the road dust. It can destroy a person, lift him up and brand him again with shame. It is solid, like an indestructible rock, and burns with an inextinguishable flame until death, because love is eternal.

Love is the first word uttered by the creators of the world, the first thought that dawned on them. When the Supreme said “Let there be light!”, Love appeared. And they saw that it was so beautiful that they didn’t redo anything. This is how love appeared and became the primary source of the world and its ruler. But all her paths are covered with flowers and blood. This is love.”

And Nik silently listened to him, smiling a little, and after a couple of days there was no trace of his neat tail and pinned hair.

Kors wanted to make his son even better, more beautiful. His marks on his cheeks haunted him, and Kors took a flesh-colored dye, mixed it with white, trying to make it look like Nik’s skin tone, and carefully smeared over his inscriptions.

“You can paint them over, hide them, at least for a little while?”

“Generally, of course, I can't, but I'm not in the Unclean Limit right now.”

“Look how beautiful it is. How good are you without them! Without those dirty black spots on your face!”

Nik remained silent, and the next morning Kors couldn’t resist, and, taking a black pencil, wrote his initials on his now clean, painted cheeks, on one “V”, and on the other “K”, again soiling, spoiling and making him his thing.

“Don't wear a mask today,” he said.

“Okay,” Nik replied calmly.

“I'm not humiliating you?”

“No. I am yours.”

And Kors hugged him in a fit of feelings and kissed him for a long time.

Kors wanted the blacks and especially Zagpeace to see them. During one of the stops it happened, Peace saw them nearby, and for Kors it was a triumph. Because Peace realized that, despite the fact that he freed Nik, he didn’t leave and didn’t run away from Kors, continuing to belong to him, and Kors with pleasure felt the annoyance and anger of his former comrade.

Grabbing Nik, Kors immediately took him away, took him a little to the side over the hill, and, breathing heavily, began to unbutton his fly. Nik understood everything, he had already learned very well to guess the wishes of Kors. He immediately knelt down and began to suck him. Kors wanted to scream out loud, but they still moved very close, and he restrained himself, feeling that Nik was doing it diligently, with love, and no matter how many times Kors ordered to do it, he would do it. He will do it in front of black if Kors wants it, and he will do it in front of Zagpeace. But, of course, Kors couldn’t allow this, he loved Nik very much and didn’t want to humiliate him in front of others. He didn’t consider his obedience humiliation, but, on the contrary, was very pleased. And at the halts, he still often fed Nik out of his hands, putting pieces of food in his mouth. Nik smiled and took food from Kors’ hands. The unclean ones and Parky, who were sitting with them by the fire, saw Kors take a piece of meat and give it to Nik, who, before taking it, kissed Kors’ hands, and then took his fingers into his mouth along with the food. And Kors fed him with great tenderness. But at the same time, despite all his insane love and fear of loss, Kors beat him, and every day more and more. He hit him in the face or in the stomach, he could slap him in the face, but only when they were alone and others didn’t see them. In their tent, when Nik, in Kors’ opinion, pronounced a word incorrectly or with a strong accent, or if he expressed himself obscenely, he immediately received it on the top of his head, despite all the love. Kors staggered and shook from side to side, he became more and more nervous. Nik silently endured his jabs, only squeezed or closed his eyes from the blow. And Kors kicked him, kissed him, was happy and shook with fear at the same time. Arel didn’t interfere with their relationship. The three of them often made love, and Kors fulfilled all their desires. Nik and Arel did whatever they wanted with him, he still allowed them to simultaneously pound him in the anus, got used to it and no longer experienced such painful sensations as before.

Chapter 2

Their little world was fenced off only by unreliable rag walls, but it was warm and cozy in the tent. It smelled of aromatic resin that Valentine burned against insects, and tobacco. The floor was covered in several layers of soft skins. A small yellow-orange stone flower, suspended from the ceiling in a jar of thick glass, softly illuminated the surrounding space with a warm, dim light.

The wine in the jug ran out long ago, but they were not asleep.

“I'm going crazy with you! I’m going crazy! My little white boy, so fair! Gods, how I adore you! You are like a porcelain figurine, your hair is thick and as snow!” repeated Kors, tightly squeezing Nik in his arms, admiring his neat features, unable to calm down and fall asleep, despite the fact that it was already deep night:

“I love you with unconditional love, do you understand what it is?”

“Not really…”

“I'll explain it to you later. It is very rare in our life that someone loves us with unconditional love.”

“Does that mean just like that? Without conditions?”

“Yes! Put on your mask! Cover your face, I can no longer see such a sweet face of yours, otherwise I will now be torn apart!”

Nik immediately put on the mask, and Kors waited impatiently for him to do so, and again impulsively pulled him to himself. From the feelings that overwhelmed him and the constant fear of losing his boy, he started something like a hysteria, and tears flowed from his eyes:

“They will take you, take you from me! I know it!” He repeated, shuddering and sobbing.

“No, no, I'm not Iness, no one will steal me!”

“They will steal you! Leonardo will steal you from me! He will make you obey and serve him,” Kors didn’t let go of Nik, continuing to convulsively press his face to his chest, now covered by a mask of an unclean one convicted of murder.

“I won’t survive this!” Kors began to sway from side to side, tears continued to flow down his cheeks, he could not calm down.

Nik freed himself a little from his embrace.

“Eh, he doesn’t think about me! Leonardo doesn't know about me.”

“He will know! He will know everything, I won’t survive it!”

“Vitor, Vitor, please stop. Don’t cry, they won't take me away from you!”

“I can’t! I can't stand it!”

“Vitor, stop tearing your heart, it hurts me too! You're hurting me now too!”

“I'm afraid I won't be able to protect you!”

“I myself know how to defend myself.”

“Yes, I know how you can, I saw it…”

“There are three of us, and he is alone!”

And at the same instant Kors felt Arel’s invisible hand on his throat. The prince barely squeezed his neck and let go, as if demonstrating to Kors that he possessed the Power and could use it against their enemies. Kors looked up at him, and Arel grinned.

“Arel! Kill this black one with your touch immediately on the spot! To hell! Let's not stand on ceremony with him! Let's kill him now! Right now, Nik!”

“Vitor… you can't…”

“Are the Demons guarding him too? Eh? Order his Demon to serve you!”

“Not in this case. There are rules, and the first move must be made by a human, but he has not yet made it. And maybe he won't, he doesn't know about me. He doesn't care about me. I'm just a half-blood from Lower City, a commoner. I'm not interesting for Leonardo, not at all interesting! He doesn’t think about me and doesn’t perceive me as a person. I'm trash that he doesn't care about.”

“Okay. If you cannot do this due to the severe restrictions that have been imposed on you, let Arel do it! Leonardo is the main culprit of all his troubles! Arel, you don't have to follow the rules that Nik must obey, do you?”

“I don’t have to.”

“The High Demons haven’t punished you, so do it!”

“We are too far from the Black City…”

“Oh! Arel, develop your Gift more, damn it! Train! Learn!”

“I now have more strength and capabilities than before,” said Nik.

“This is wonderful, but somehow it doesn’t calm me down!” Kors wiped away his tears.

“Don’t be afraid of anything.”

“Nik…”

“Why are you so afraid of Leonardo?! He treats you quite well, you never interfered in his affairs, never entered into conflict with him. You see, he invited you to his secret meetings, which are only for the elite. He doesn’t consider you to be his enemy or competitor.”

“He will take you! He will make you fulfill his wishes!”

“He doesn't even think about me. Did you think about me a lot when you were given the assignment?”

“No… I didn't think at all…”

“You see…”

“But he will learn that you are not a man, not a commoner…”

“He won’t know. He will decide that these are stupid inventions.”

“He will know. When I retired, I put all papers in order and left them to my successor. I didn't expect it to be him! And I left your case too. What for! Why did I do it! Everything is described there! That's it, Nik, in detail! There are your data, signs, recorded interrogation, my questions and your answers, every word, and how you behaved. What substances and drugs Balthazar injected you with. Your diagnosis. My personal conclusions based on interrogation. My conclusion is that I completely agree with the royal sages and seers and, of course, consider it appropriate to get rid of the suspicious half-blood. But first I proposed to make a laughing stock out of you, humiliate you, make you look like a fool, in order to show everyone that you are not the Son of the Devil, but an ordinary miserable person. And everything that is said about you is just stupid inventions, thought of to intimidate fools, and only ignorant commoners from Lower City can believe in them. So that the sirs have fun at the ball, and laugh. Well, and then, without trial and investigation, I offered to quietly rot you in a stone sack, writing off death for natural causes. And the king’s permission. He liked this idea. And that's all… Leonardo will read it all!”

“He didn’t read anything. Didn’t even look at these papers. He is not interested in this. So he thinks exactly as you wanted, that I am an ordinary half-blood, and everything that is said about me is just stupid inventions of commoners. And he, just like you, considers the king to be an old senile.”

“We will return to the Black City, Leonardo will take an interest in you, take your case and read it! What have I done!”

“And what will he read? That I am a half-blood slave from the command of Prince Arel?”

“I described your criminal biography…”

“What Zagpeace and everyone else know about me anyway? Will he read this? The supreme masters are not interested in this. You didn’t write there that I wasa Demon in a human body.”

“No, of course, I didn’t make such an categorical statement,” and, seeing that Nik was embarrassedly silent, Kors simply mentally conveyed to him the vision of the case, as he wrote it, page after page, realizing that the Demon will have time to perceive this information and understand everything and see what Kors wrote.

Nik was silent. And Kors’ heart was breaking.

“Get rid of him like rubbish, no longer attracting attention,” Nik said quietly, repeating Kors’ entry from his case.

And Kors, in despair, covered his face with his hands.

“You like to put everything on the shelves, you are neat,” said Nik, “well, to hell with that! He has not read it, and won’t read it. He doesn’t care.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Vitor, yes. Don’t worry like that, please. Everything will be fine.”

“I can’t,” said Kors, “I can’t…”

The fear of losing his love didn’t let him go.

He pushed Nik slightly away from him, peering into the faceless blackness of the mask and the narrow slits for his eyes. He saw how Nik was looking at him intently, how he blinked, and this made his light eyelids visible in the slits of the mask for a second, and the eyelashes almost rubbed against the edge and prevented him from blinking. Kors practically howled and inaccurately pulled off his mask, and Nik hissed barely audibly. Now Kors saw his white face, and the way Nick wrinkled his nose from the fact that Kors pulled off the mask from his face, involuntarily painfully pulled on his hair. Long bangs immediately fell on his forehead and eyes, obscuring them. Recently, Nik’s hair has always been clean and combed, and the bangs, cut by strands of different lengths, have become even more naughty.

The blonde strands that Kors loved so much were so thick and fluffy that they covered not only Nik’s right eye and cheek, as before, but literally the entire upper part of her face. And now Kors saw only his pierced lips with two thick carved half-blood rings.

“It seems like it’s time to cut your bangs,” Kors said with affection and as if thinking aloud, “or, maybe, leave it to grow some more…”

Slightly sliding it back, he ran his fingers into the roots of his hair, enjoying its color, softness and density, opening his bright devoted eyes, pressed his boy to his chest with force again and in despair began to sway from side to side, thus trying calm down and at the same time, as it were, rocking Nik. At some point, Kors very clearly heard Nik jerk sharply in his arms. This is what people do when they fall asleep, and Nik, from the affectionate hugs and rocking, fell asleep in Kors’ arms like a child. Kors felt how much Nik loved him. He was not worried or hurt by what Kors wrote about him. Nik trusted him, was not afraid of anything, he was with his tough and best father, and he was calm and happy. And, having caught these emotions in the head of his son, Kors, despite all the fears, felt boundless happiness. Nik considered him very brave, handsome, noble, true black, elite, the best. Nik was proud of him and the fact that he was his father. Kors couldn’t help crying again. Not daring to wake Nik, he awkwardly wiped away his tears and looked at Arel:

“Arel, I love you very much, you are also my son. Call me Vitor if you want.”

Arel got up and covered the stone flower jar with a rag. It became dark in the tent. The prince lay down next to Kors, and Kors, having neatly laid Nik down, hugged Arel. So he lay between them, hugging his boys to him:

“Everything will be fine, and a great future awaits us,” he said to Arel, apparently trying to convince himself of this not the prince, but himself.

Arel pressed closer to him, falling asleep, and Kors, hearing their measured breathing, also fell into a short and anxious sleep. Very soon he woke up. It seemed to him that he had dozed off for only a minute, but it was already dawn, and in the gray predawn haze Kors saw some terrible creature next to him. Very thin, like a skeleton, it seemed to consist of only sharp bones and ribs, tightly covered with shiny black skin with tightly attached scales, like a snake, and this vile creature, curled up into a ball, gently pressed against Kors. It lay next to him, very close, embracing him with several long, articulated appendages, like spider legs. Not yet fully awake, Kors involuntarily cried out, experiencing some indescribable deep horror, and, recoiling, he unconsciously pushed the abomination away from himself with force, also hitting the protruding ribs. At the same moment he heard a choked sob, and the darkness fell asleep. Kors looked at his boy with all his eyes, and he sat and looked at him. Yes, his body was thin and black from tattoos, but beautiful and not at all disgusting and his face was so familiar, and now it is also confused:

“Daddy… what's wrong with you?” asked Nik, stunned and even somehow a little scared, his hand involuntarily twitched several times.

“Gods, in my dream… I, it seems, have not yet fully woken up, and it seemed to me,” Kors looked tensely into his face, not understanding why he saw next to him instead of Nik this muck, what came over him, could the nervous state and fear made him felt like this? Nik, under his gaze, was completely embarrassed and bent his shaggy head low, not allowing Kors to look at himself anymore and look into his eyes.

Kors drew him closer:

“Sorry, I had a dream, God knows about what!”

“You hit me in the ribs so hard…” Nik’s voice was upset, “I don't understand…”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my little boy,” Kors gently patted him on the top of his head, “well, how shaggy you are,” he laughed tenderly.

“Vitor, let me, please, return the rings to my nose,” asked Nik, seeing that Kors again behaved as usual – caressed him, touched him and was kind. Therefore, he raised one of his eyes, not covered by hair, at Kors and looked inquiringly and pleadingly.

“Why do you need them? You don’t take off your mask anyway.”

“I'm taking it off.”

“Only when we are alone.”

“Oh please…”

“No!”

Nik covered his face with his hands, and Kors stared at his black hands, still involuntarily trying to cast aside his insane vision of a vile entity.

“You have a ring in each nostril,” he said, trying more to distract himself than actually listening to Nik. He wasn’t going to allow him to shamefully decorate his face again, and this conversation was completely useless, only Nik hadn’t figured it out yet.

“They are small, they don’t…”

“Don’t spoil you, yes.”

Nik sat huddled and said nothing.

“You’ll come with me to the halt today,” said Kors and Nik didn’t object, they did this from time to time. Kors put him in front of him on his horse and hugged him all the way, burying his face in the fluffy back of the head, and Nik turned his head slightly to the side and pressed against his chest.

Chapter 3

Their journey continued. And if in the Ore town Adrian spent all the time locked up, now Kors, on the contrary, didn’t let him go in the carts. He chained his slave to the cart with a long chain, and Adrian was forced to walk all the way. After so many days spent in a cramped cage, where it was impossible either to stand up to his full height, or even just to stretch his legs, but only to sit, crouching in a practically immobilized state, poor Adrian lost the habit of walking, and even more so to overcome such long distances at once and walk a lot of hours in a row. He stumbled, fell, he was in pain, and often at the end of the march, the exhausted slave simply dragged himself behind the cart, since the red brick road was smooth, without serious potholes and bumps. Kors still covered Adrian’s nakedness, but this gesture was rather purely symbolic, because Kors gave Adrian only a dirty shirt made of rough linen. The shirt was short, above the knee, and it was humiliating, because the master didn’t show any mercy to his slave and didn’t give him pants.

Disgraced Adrian tried not to bend too much, constantly pulling his short hem down to somehow cover his bare ass, and in front – a chastity belt. He tried to move carefully so that the already short shirt did not bulge up even more. With his head lowered, chained behind a collar, barefoot, with bloodshot legs, Adrian, with his last strength, trudged behind the elegant carriage of Kors, inside which, along with other riches of the Ore town, a red slave was locked. The girl also had a hard time: in a carriage crammed to overflowing with various goods, it was impossible to turn around, and Kors did not change his rules. Acting in his usual manner, he chained the slave to the wall, tied her hands behind her back and put his beloved on her head an attribute of humiliation – a dense black bag, as usual, tightened around the throat with a rope. The girl was deprived of the ability to move, see and breathe normally; only at the level of his mouth did Kors cut a small gap with a knife, and if not for this hole, the slave would inevitably suffocate in the unbearable stuffiness.

Prince Arel’s slave, Valentine, rode next to the coachman: the boy still wore a helmet, which, on Arel’s orders, was put on him back in the Limit. Then Verniy, although he was forced to obey, nevertheless selected for his pet the most comfortable and light helmet made of a material that is slightly breathable. But at the moment it didn’t save Valentine: the southern summer days were sunny, calm; there was often intense heat from early morning until evening. Constantly staying in a tightly laced, tightly wrapped helmet was painful. Valentine suffered from the heat and sweated under the dense material. No matter how hard he tried to lift the flap covering his mouth to relieve his condition, salty sweat ran down his parched, chapped lips onto his chin. The rays of the sun unbearably heated the black material and made the top of his head hot, by the end of the day bringing the boy almost to sunstroke. Verniy rarely received a key from Arel and could not unbutton his helmet and remove it from the exhausted slave so that he could get at least a little respite: he could refresh his face with water and wash off the sweat, wash and comb his hair, just take a break from the ever-squeezing vice. Valentine was deprived of these simple joys and therefore constantly scratched his head in unsuccessful attempts to calm the incessant itching. He scraped the tough material with his fingernails and tugged at the tight lacing on the back of his head with his fingers, trying to somehow pull the tight-fitting helmet crust away from his face and hair. He was hot, stuffy, uncomfortable, and the heavy slave collar on his throat did not add comfort. But the poor fellow couldn’t help it, and anyway, he was in a better position than Adrian or the red girl.

In the evening, Valentine looked after them, having finished with business: when the sirs finally left him alone, he opened the cart and gave the girl water. The slave girl practically didn’t move, and sometimes, when Valentine made his way to her in the depths of the carriage through the heaps of chests and bales of wealth, it seemed to him that she was dead. He called out to her, and then the unfortunate woman still moved sluggishly and took a sip of water. Kors didn’t feed his slaves at all, so that they would not defecate and cause trouble on the road, but Valentine took with him a piece of bread that had been stolen from the master's table, thrust it through the crack in the sack and said:

“Eat, eat…”

But she didn’t eat. And Adrian also refused to eat. Both the girl and the unclean were so exhausted that a piece couldn’t go down their throats, they were not at all interested in bread. Adrian only drank water: a lot, hastily and greedily. Having drunk the horses, Valentine always left water for him: he brought in a bucket, as much as possible. Fortunately for Adrian, Kors at that time was already busy with “his boys” and didn’t see the pleasure with which his slave quenched his thirst, otherwise he would have immediately deprived him of this little. However, Valentine was smart and knew: while the sirs are busy, you need to do everything carefully and quietly.

Kors saw some unclean ones approaching Adrian at the halts. Former friends looked at his disfigured face and barely covered body with pity and silently walked away, but there were those who scoffed, stared at him unceremoniously and spit out humiliating jokes. A couple of times Kors watched as they kicked Adrian, and one unclean hit him hard in the stomach. Kors didn’t interfere; he knew these warriors, their names were Mador, Thalbus and Cazul. Despite the fact that they, like Nik, always hid their faces and didn’t take off their masks, Kors still distinguished them and, according to his professional habit, remembered their names. He understood long ago that what was considered shameful among people was exactly the opposite for the unclean. The mask, tattoos and piercings were not at all signs of “inferior”, but Kors couldn’t accept this completely, and he wanted his son to live according to human laws and among people. He also noticed that often among themselves the unclean were divided into groups of ten or twelve warriors, and these three were just from such a dozen. For an incomprehensible reason for Kors, they called each other “night dukes”, and these, in his opinion, unjustifiably pretentious titles only made the noble black laugh.

Ten night dukes had a bad temper and obeyed their superior unclean, and that one obeyed Parky and, accordingly, Kors. Mador and the rest of his comrades were famous for their ferocity and bestial incontinence, even among their no less aggressive fellow tribesmen. They always found the slightest reason for a fight, and if they didn’t find it, they fought for no reason, since they were arrogant and angry. Kors interrupted these endless skirmishes, and unclean dukes often had the pleasure of feeling the taste of blood on their teeth after his iron bar. But in general Kors was pleased with them, since, despite their minor flaws, they were strong and fearless warriors and proved themselves to be excellent in battles; and in Ore town they carried out executions with particular pleasure, torturing peaceful citizens who did not fulfill the new law. Therefore, Kors indifferently watched as they mocked his slave: how Adrian writhed on the ground, how he tried to shrink and crawl away from the tormentors. Kors didn’t interfere with these entertainments, and one evening just like that, as a reward, he even gave them unfortunate Adrian for a couple of hours, thus encouraging the dukes for faithful service.

Adrian was broken: he shuddered cautiously at any person or unclean, covered his tattooed face with his palms, lowering his head low. Kors saw that Adrian could not bear humiliation with dignity, he was ashamed of himself – he was pathetic. But, however, the coward never asked for mercy and did not beg for leniency, thus at least a little deserving the favor of his master.

It was morning, and the unclean ones were packing their camp, preparing to set out on the road.

“Fix your skirt, bitch,” one of the warriors threw in a laugh, passing by Kors’ cart and Adrian strapped to it. The latter, shrinking, tried to pull the short hem of his shirt over his bleeding knees. Nik, who had just left the tent, yawned and, looking skeptically at what was happening, said:

“Dress him, Vitor, eh?”

“No. Dignity returns with clothing and hair,” Kors replied.

He looked at his Nik. Although it was still morning and Nik had just got ready (and even seemed to have done it diligently), he still looked messy: somehow untidy and sloppy. It seemed to Kors that this stupid, bad nature of his son was manifested in everything: even in appearance, no matter how Kors tried to ennoble him. Kors himself, who looked perfect during the campaign, didn’t understand how Nik manages to do this. And it annoyed him.

Adrian, realizing that they were talking about him, immediately knelt in front of the sirs, his head lowered and huddled into a ball.

“Adrian, tell me something nasty!” Asked Kors. “Tell me, I order you! Insult your master; I swear I won’t do anything to you, I just want to see how brave you are, you coward, a-ha-ha. Pathetic little coward, huh? Can you insult me? Are you afraid? I wait!”

“Damn you,” Adrian said through clenched teeth.

And Kors laughed contentedly:

“Good! I wanted to tell you to shave your head bald, but now I won’t. May your noble father see you in all your glory.”

“Do you think Adri is Leonardo’s son?” Nik asked.

“Am I mistaken?”

“And if you are mistaken?”

Kors turned pale:

“Who is his father?!”

Nik shook his head.

“I can only lead to a thought, I can’t say that, forgive me.”

“Heck! Then he is completely useless!”

“Besides Leonardo, there are other noble blacks…”

“And how can I find his father?”

Nik smiled.

“Just as you always do it – watch through his life.”

“His childhood. Yes!” Agreed Kors, but nevertheless he was greatly annoyed that his assumptions and the hopes and plans for revenge connected with it turned out to be incorrect and empty.

“Are you upset?” Nik asked.

“Hell yes! I don’t want to watch his worthless life! And why do I need another true black? I need Leonardo. Now that doesn’t make any sense!”

“Does Leonardo have children at all?”

“As far as I am informed, his children were weak and died in infancy, none of them survived to adulthood.”

“Sadly…”

“Not at all sad!”

“And Salaf has no children, and Zagpeace and Prince Ariel – only you have children, but they are not purebred.”

“Prince Ariel will now, thanks to the diamonds of Ore town, restore his ruined estate, happily marry some noble black woman and continue his family, I have no doubt. Varakh has a son and two daughters. However, the girls are twins, and this is also considered a sign of degeneration.”

“Does Daniel Crassus have heirs?”

Kors shook his head.

“His son died in the war with the Reds, Daniel took this loss hard.”

“It’s a pity.”

“Yes, Nik, true blacks are degenerating, there are less and less of us. We lose ourselves and dissolve in the general mass of mudbloods and commoners.”

“And you also contributed to this mixture.”

“Yes.”

“You blamed me for doing a lot of stupid things, but isn’t your connection with Iness the same madness?”

Kors lowered his head.

“Now I understand this and admit my mistake, but in fact I am not as noble as you think due to your inexperience. I am not as pure-blooded as Prince Arel, Prince Ariel or Salafael. There is no royal blood in my veins. Yes, I am from the race of masters, from a good decent family, but my ancestors did not observe purity so much: sometimes there was a misalliance. Of course, I am not a peasant or a commoner. But in many ways, I built my career myself. Thanks to my intelligence and hard work, I reached the top and approached the true blacks, became one of them and entered their Supreme Order.”

Nik listened intently.

“And more, more, Nick, I was young and madly in love!”

Kors fell silent, lost in thought and lost in memories.

“What would you do when you saw that your son had blond hair?” Asked Nik, tearing him out of the past. “When you saw that he was such an obvious half-blood? You would get rid of him, right? You planned to let live only dark-haired children? People like Karina? Yes?”

“Yes,” Kors replied barely audibly. “Maybe I would leave a blonde girl…”

“And the boy?”

“No. No, I’m sorry. I’m telling you honestly.”

“So this is how you were going to solve this problem. And how would you explain this to your beloved Iness?”

“Small children often die…”

“It turns out that your son was lucky that the Reds stole Iness: they themselves, unwillingly, saved his life.”

“Nik…”

“You were looking for your child, you suffered, and if you found and saw that he was light-haired, you yourself would get rid of him! Great!”

“Please don’t…”

“Or would you sell him into slavery? Why kill him if a white child is worth good money?”

“Well, why are saying this!”

Nik, slightly raising his head, quickly looked up: the day ceased to be cloudless, and the sky was increasingly covered with gray clouds:

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” and he put his black glasses into his belt bag, not putting it on as usual.

Kors looked at him, still a little sleepy and rumpled, looked at his face, realizing that no matter how hard Nik tried to pretend to be indifferent, inside behind this inept mask he was upset and depressed.

Guided only by his passions, Kors, without hesitation, transgressed the laws and regulations, having entered into a relationship with a woman of another race, thereby dooming his descendants to life-long torment to be half-breeds, second-class people. And no matter what Nik did, he remained a mud for the blacks from birth to death. Yes, the soul of Kors belonged to the Demon, and he was completely devoted to him, but the human body of the Demon was the body of his son and belonged to Kors: the Demon had nowhere to escape from him, and he couldn’t do anything about it.”

And Kors involuntarily smiled: he understood that it was ugly in relation to Nik and unpleasant for him, but now Kors no longer regretted what he had done, he was satisfied with this alignment.

“Put on your glasses!” He ordered, just to demonstrate his power over his son. And, since it seemed to him that Nik was hesitating, he added sharply:

“Do you hear badly what I said?”

Nik silently took out his glasses and put them on. Kors was pleased, his mood improved a little:

“Tell me, Mara, this witch – did she pay them a lot for you?”

“Enough,” Nik said barely.

Kors felt sorry for him: “What am I doing? Why am I humiliating him?!”

“Forgive me,” he said hastily, “forgive me…”

“Why are you asking for forgiveness from me, it makes no difference to me,” and Nik, covering his face with a mask, turned away and walked away.

Kors saw Nik walk up to his Unclean Power and, inserting his healthy leg into the stirrup, confidently jumped into the saddle. Kors turned away in frustration. With annoyance, he looked at Adrian – he also looked at him, looked with his narrow, deep-set eyes, surrounded by black stripes of indelible arrows, looking at his master, as it seemed to Kors, even somehow too impudent. And now Kors didn’t feel, as usual, his inner suffering. He didn’t like it at all.

“I could kill you with one blow,” said Kors. He stroked his iron stick hanging from his belt, and Adrian noticed the gesture, the way he gently stroked it.

And now Kors listened with pleasure to his emotions:

“Coward,” he chuckled. “I’m not going to kill you, because then you’ll go to a feast for your gods. No, no, you will suffer here much more, Adri…”

Adrian dropped his eyes.

“Useless stupid creature,” Kors hissed with anger and disappointment, and spat in his face.

Chapter 4

The unclean ones drove slowly behind the main army of blacks: they were clearly in no hurry and often stayed at a halt all night and all the next day, lagging behind the people more and more. The warriors of Zagpeace and Tol have gone far ahead. Kors was not upset. He wanted to be with Nik and didn’t want to return to the Black City, he was afraid of this and was also playing for time. It was better that way – to stay with Nik as long as possible, until business in the capital didn’t twist them into a deadly whirlpool. Therefore, Kors was ready to go on this road endlessly.

This time they stood near a small picturesque lake for two days, and although Kors really didn’t want this, he still had to let Nik go play cards with his unclean ones. Kors and Arel remained in their tent, Valentine brought them dinner, and then removed the dishes and folded up a small camp table and chairs so that there was more space inside and the sirs could lie on the skins.

“Valentine, burn some more of this resin against insects,” said Kors. “I am annoyed by its smell, but the mosquitoes infuriate me even more!”

“Yes, sir,” Valentine immediately responded and put a tightly pressed piece of coal on a small censer in the corner.

With the help of a thin candle, he set it on fire: the coal began to smoke, covering a small area of the tent with thick gray smoke. Valentine, lifting the bottom of his helmet as far as possible, began to gently blow on the flat piece until it stopped smoking, red-hot. Then Valentine put small balls of tree resin on top of it. Softening on a hot coal, the resin spread a rather specific aroma over the tent, to which one had to get used to; but this pungent smell was good at repelling insects.

“I all like the southern lands,” said Kors, “except for the abundance of all kinds of flying and crawling evil spirits. I hate insects, as well as spiders and snakes!

“Yes,” Arel agreed with him and slapped himself on the leg, trying to kill an impressive, but already sluggish from the smoke and smell of tar, mosquito.

Kors looked skeptically at Valentine, who easily straightened and wiped the jar with a stone flower hanging from the ceiling with a rag.

“Arel, why did your slave become so tall? Is he almost as tall as you? I don’t understand something?” Kors asked, watching the lanky Valentine closely.

Arel didn’t answer.

“Or am I not aware of something?” Kors looked at him with his professional gaze, which had always instilled fear in those poor fellows, who, unfortunately, found themselves in his office. “And he continues to grow. Arel, he will soon catch up with you and overtake you. Look at his legs! How long his shins are! He will be very high, I understand this. Where did you get him from?”

“This is a slave from my Estate,” Arel answered clearly reluctantly, but nevertheless he answered.

“Take off his helmet. I want to look at his face. You hide his face carefully all the time. Take off his mask.”

Valentine was very frightened and involuntarily froze, squeezing into the wall away from them. He didn’t want the sirs to look at him at all, since he was not at all stupid, despite the difficult living conditions and the mental disorders associated with them. Valentine nevertheless perfectly remembered Arel’s questions about sir Chester: he was smart enough to understand at that moment that he was sir Chester’s illegitimate child from a little slave; a bastard who wasn’t killed just because sir Chester had died earlier. And his owner Arel was his half-brother.

Valentine also realized that their father was very cruel, not only with the slaves, but also with his legitimate son. Therefore, Arel with all his soul hated his father and never pronounced his name, always calling him only “damned”. And Valentine, as luck would have it, grew up and matured in the Limit, and if now his helmet is removed… What if during this time, he became even more like the damned? And seeing the traits he hates… Arel would simply kill him!

Valentine began to shake with a small shiver: he was terrified of Arel, and this uncontrollable reaction always started when the prince paid a little closer attention to the boy. Yes, Valentine suffered from the heat in a slave helmet, but at least he was composed.

“Why have I grown and changed so much?! What for?!”

“No, I won’t take off his helmet,” Arel said.

“Valentine is Chester’s bastard? Yes?” Kors asked. “Arel, do you want to deceive me? Have you forgotten who I am? I don’t even need his face, I see his physique, and this is not the body of a peasant and a commoner. Was your father having fun with the pretty slave girls from the Estate?”

“Yes,” Arel replied reluctantly, realizing that it would hardly be possible to hide this fact from the former head of the security service, “and this girl was a little over ten.”

“Sorry,” Kors nodded knowingly. “Your father was very unrestrained. I will say more: Chester was just a pompous turkey, confident that only he was always right and only his opinion and point of view were the only true ones. He managed to quarrel with everyone! Even with Leonardo, who was initially very loyal and sympathetic to him. Yes, your father was a rare kind of shit…”

“I killed him,” Arel said calmly.

At these words, Valentine froze and shrank even tighter.

“Yes, now the owner will kill me too. Exactly.”

“You killed him?” Kors was surprised. “After all, it was an accident, a fatal coincidence: Chester burned down in a fire in your ancestral chapel, when he offered prayers to the Gods.”

“It was already afterwards,” said Arel, “first I killed him, and then he burned down in the chapel, because I set it on fire.”

“But! Arel! How did you deal with him? After all, you were at that time… mmm… no more than sixteen years old, and he was such a healthy and tall, experienced warrior.”

“He was on his knees and prayed, kept whining and complaining to the Gods about injustice and his unhappy fate, as usual. I just quietly approached from behind and cut his throat, then stuck a knife in his back, up to the handle, and then again and again… He didn’t expect this: he wheezed, grabbed his neck with his hands, tried to stop the blood. He considered me a weakling and didn’t take me into account,” Arel smiled bitterly. “He didn’t have time to do anything. And I hit him from the back. It wasn’t fair.”

“I don’t blame you,” Kors stretched out his hand and gently stroked Arel’s head, slightly burying his fingers in thick, parted strands, admiring how the gold rings on his hand glittered beautifully in the prince’s dark hair. “Your father really was the true shit and deserved to die like that. I am sorry for you, sorry that you were forced to do this, to take on this burden, to do this wrong act in order to save your life. He is to blame, he forced you to get dirty in this filth, dragged you along with him into hatred.”

Arel smiled sadly and unconsciously tilted his head a little tighter, pressing it to Kors’ stroking hand. He looked at him with sincere love and fatherly tenderness.

“I felt such relief then,” continued Arel, “it was one of the best moments of my life: happiness, and a little fear that I was the owner of a huge Castle and would not be able to cope with all matters. But everything turned out to be not as difficult as I feared. I could live without flinching at his voice, without jumping into a corner at the sound of his footsteps along the corridor; I could talk loudly and say whatever came into my head, laugh, sleep as much as I wanted, order the servants to set the table at the time I wanted, and eat and drink what I wanted. Actually, I was finally able to have my time! And invite my friends to visit. I didn’t need to hide everything from that freak all the time…”

Kors, in a fit of feelings, pressed Arel’s head to his chest, pressing on the back of his head in the same way as he often did with Nik, and said with the same passion:

“My poor boy, you didn’t tell me anything during the interrogation, you didn’t confess.”

“You weren’t particularly interested in him.”

“Yes. Everyone believed that he burned down in this chapel. Nobody thought of you. But what about Valentine, Arel?” Kors returned to the beginning of their conversation. “Let me see, maybe he doesn’t look so much like Chester?”

Arel, and Kors noticed this with pleasure, with some regret pulled away from his hand and, taking out the key from his pocket, looked at his frozen slave.

“On your knees! Crawl over here!” He ordered, and Valentine immediately collapsed to the floor.

The helmet completely covered his head and wrapped around his neck, it was tightly laced up and additionally closed at the back with a lock so that Valentine could under no circumstances take it off on his own. However, Valentine would never have dared to do this even without these tricks. Moreover, on his throat an iron slave collar was put, very similar to the one that Nik once wore. Wide and heavy, tied tightly, it covered his neck, resting the upper edge against the chin, not allowing Valentine to fully turn his head.

To remove the helmet from Valentine’s head, Arel first had to loosen the lacing a little. After unbuttoning the lock, he finally pulled the edges of the helmet out from under the collar with some effort.

“Lift your face and look at sir Kors,” he ordered, opening his slave.

Valentine’s face was dirty, because on the campaign Verniy had no time to take care of the boy properly. And Arel rarely gave him the key. But despite the dirt, deep streaks of scars on his cheeks and the absence of one eye, poor Valentine’s clear resemblance to Chester was evident, and no injury could hide it.

Kors shook his head in disappointment.

“Yeah… Arel, it looks like you were right. Damn it! He is practically his copy!”

Arel was silent.

“Maybe we should dye his face with black paint?” Kors suggested thoughtfully, meticulously examining Valentine, who was grimy and pale with fear. “Rub in the dye the way Nurhg does with her slaves? You can ask the unclean ones for paint, for sure they have not only blue, but also black one. Rub it with black paint and hmmm… cut off his nose,” Kors smiled cheerfully at his idea, imagining disfigured Valentine. “With a black face and no nose, he will cease to be like Chester. No, nevertheless an artist died in me, I have this talent, and I passed it on to my son, not Iness,” he laughed smugly.

Arel said nothing, just rolling his eyes slightly. He had heard these endless self-praises of Kors so many times in his life that he had long been accustomed to letting them pass by.

“I’m just kidding, just kidding,” Kors continued as if nothing had happened. “What’s the point in cutting off his nose? You can’t hide his height, but he will be taller than you, and maybe then me. Arel, he has absorbed the best features of true blacks! You look like a mother, you are all like her. And he… This is unacceptable! Wouldn’t it have been easier to get rid of him immediately and quickly and painlessly, since Chester didn’t have time to do this?”

“Yes, he didn’t have time, and I… I just didn’t know about it. When I arrived at the Estate, Valentine was small, sweet and smart. I became fond to him, and then in the Limit, Verniy began to feed him, heal him, and now…”

“In the Limit, he became what he always was,” said Kors thoughtfully. “That which slept in him, in the Demon’s Limit woke up, came to life and actively developed.”

“Yes,” Arel agreed, “this cursed blood immediately manifested in him.

“Do it now. Get rid of him.”

“No, I can’t, I love him.”

“What?! You knocked out his eyes!” Kors didn’t seem to believe his ears.

“So what? I still love him very much,” Arel pulled Valentine to him. “Do you hear, you moron? I cannot kill you.”

“M-master, I’m n… not worthy of your love, I upset y-you and look like the d-damned, kill me!” As always, from being worried, Valentine began to stutter badly.

“No!”

Kors was stunned.

“Arel, this is so unlike you. I thought it was easy for you to kill slaves.” There was overt surprise in his voice. “How many of them did you kill in your Castle, Arel? My slave, the white half-blood that I gave you, did you kill her?”

“No,” Arel shook his head. “I really loved your gift – Mina – and took care of her. I didn’t give it to anyone. She saved Nik’s life.”

“How?”

“Nik needed Black Water, he lost consciousness and fell into a coma. The doctor transfused him with the blood of the white half-breed Mina, and Nik didn’t die. And Mina also survived, I took care of her. I didn’t let anyone touch her, neither Lis nor Enriki.”

“Arel!” Kors was touched. “I love you, Arel, I love you very much!”

He hugged him again.

“You are like a son to me too. Do you know why I stopped loving you then?”

“Because I became dirty.”

“No, I thought so. But with Nik, I realized that I love dirt. Yes, unfortunately, I love dirt. I stopped loving you because you did not obey me!”

“No, I always listened to you!”

“You didn’t listen well. You don't understand what it means to obey properly. Nik more or less understands… not completely, of course, he also needs to be educated much more, but at least he is trying to obey me as needed. Maybe you will try too?” Kors gently ran his fingers over the tightly closed lips of his prince, slightly pressing his not-cropped nails on his lower lip.

“No!” Arel said, dodging.

“Arel! That’s why, that’s why I stopped loving you! I love obedience. And you infuriate me with your obstinacy! You just piss me off!”

Arel turned away in frustration, but Kors, moving closer, tried to turn him around and kissed him on the temple.

“You will try, Arel, try, and you will succeed.”

But Prince Arel was stubbornly silent, and Kors, knowing his character, decided to change the subject for a while.

“Do you want me to help you? I will make it as painless as possible for Valentine.”

Arel shuddered and turned sharply to Kors:

“No! Don’t dare! It will be over between us forever if you dare to touch him without my permission. Don’t you dare harm Valentine!”

“Okay, okay,” Kors shrugged his shoulders, offended, “I wanted to help you, but since you don’t want… but no problem, Arel! Let your slave be taller than you, this is very… hmm… original! But you have always been not like everyone else, it is not for nothing that you were nicknamed “stupid handsome prince.”

Valentine, all this time kneeling in front of them, sobbed, unable to restrain himself any longer, and tears flowed from his eyes; and from a thorn covered, and from an implanted unclean eye. Arel, oddly enough, didn’t get angry.

“Valentine, I will bring you to the Black City and give you to my half-brother Vil. There are three of us.”

“Father had three sons,” Kors whispered softly and grinned.

“Vil will take care of you, he is very kind, and I will go with Nik and Vitor to the Demon World.”

“No, please, Master, don’t leave me! Take me to the Demon World too! I will serve you there, sir, when you become a Demon! Please!”

“No, Valentine, you will be fine in my Castle. You have nothing to do in the Demon World.”

Valentine continued to cry, smearing tears on his dirty, scarred cheeks. Kors looked condescendingly at what was happening, he was clearly bored; both this situation and crying Valentine at least a little entertained him and distracted him from the endless worries about his son, who went for a walk. Kors now could not control him and therefore was very worried.

“No, he’s pretty cute,” Kors remarked, finally returning to discussing Valentine. “Chester was far from ugly, and that little slave must have been pretty too. Pleasant appearance. Only you, Arel, don’t know how to handle your slaves. Valentine is dressed too expensively, you allow him to have long hair, you don’t really limit anything, you don’t follow him. He walks where he wants, does what he wants…”

“He never leaves our cart,” Arel objected.

“Are you sure about that? Have you seen how well-bred slaves behave in my house? The cook is in the kitchen, the groom is in the stable. And the slave in the entertainment room. Everyone is in his place and does not hang around anywhere.”

“Yes. All are distributed as in the cells in a prison.”

“Arel!”

And Kors already out of habit, not at all restraining himself, just as he spanked Nik, gave Arel a box on the ear; and he, like Nik, only shrank slightly and swallowed it without answering.

“You need to put a chastity belt on him. Otherwise, he will make children and continue the spoiled family.”

“Who needs him!”

“Are you kidding? His expensive clothes, long hair and tall stature will perfectly attract peasants and slaves, this is quite enough for them. Valentine, can you hear thoughts?” Suddenly asked Kors, abruptly changing the subject from an unexpected guess.

And Valentine trembled again and timidly answered:

“Yes, sir. Quite a bit, only sir Arel’s, sir Nik’s and sir Verniy’s.”

Kors shook his head.

“Yeah… Arel, and all your fault is your carelessness and stupidity! Gods, what am I to do with you all? How to fix this mess?”

“Put it back on,” Arel ordered Valentin, nodding at the helmet, and the boy immediately began to pull it over his disheveled head, slipping a hard leather collar under the collar. He couldn’t himself tighten the lacing on the back of his head, and Arel helped him and closed the back with a lock again.

Kors watched as Valentine himself put on a slavish attribute, as it seemed to Kors, he did it even with some kind of joy or relief he humbly bowed his head when Arel laced him up.

“But his character is not at all the same as that of Chester,” remarked Kors, “or is it you, Arel, who knocked all the crap out of him?”

“Valentine, get out, get out!” Arel ordered, and Valentine rushed to the exit.

“We should have sent him to Verniy to at least wash his face, he’s grimy as a pig,” said Kors.

Arel didn’t answer, he was clearly tired of being busy with a slave. He held out his hand to Kors.

“Go here.”

Kors responded, and Arel threw him onto his skins, holding him to himself.

“Arel, do you love me?”

“Yes,” Arel whispered, leaning on Kors with his whole body and pulling off his pants.

Chapter 5

“Why have you got drunk? I let you go play your fucking cards! I gave you permission! I fulfilled your wish, because I know how much you love it! And you got drunk!”

Kors shouted at his Nik, who returned to their tent in the morning and was pretty drunk.

“All clear! Dull silence! A ram’s look!”

Kors kicked in annoyance at their camp bed, on which Nik was sitting, and Nik quickly moved aside.

“I drank quite a little…”

“Have you seen yourself from the side?”

“Forgive me…”

“Yes, for you to say “I'm sorry” is as easy as to go have a piss!”

“You said one can’t say that … express himself in this way.”

“Why have you got drunk again? I don’t understand, explain to me!”

Nik thought for a while:

“Because it’s… it’s very pleasant.”

“Pleasant?! Is it pleasant to drink and hang around with all sorts of obscure personalities?”

“Personalities?”

“With all sorts of garbage!”

“It’s fun…”

Kors literally gasped with indignation:

“Fun?! Well, for goodness’ sake! I have no words! Your drunken friends will break your head sooner or later! Mador will split your stupid head, this will be also fun!”

“No.”

“Yes! This is usually the end of such adventures, believe me, I know. And you choose your friends the right way – only crap!”

Nik slid off the trestle bed and knelt in front of his father, bending down to him and kissing his boots. He knew that Kors really liked this demonstration of humility and obedience: at the very beginning of their relationship, Kors forced Nik to do it, angering and humiliating him, but now, as time passed, he taught his son to such an expression of love and gratitude. Nik was used to this and often, without orders, crawled at Kors’ feet, licking his boots like a faithful dog. Kors was always happy to let him do it, but now he brutally threw him away.

Having slightly lost his balance (both from Kors’ kick and from the fact that he was very drunk), Nik fell on his side, but quickly pulled himself together and sat down. He didn’t rise from his knees and was silent, allowing his father to scold him. No matter how hard he tried, Kors didn’t feel a stream of suffering or any kind of experience from Nik. Deciding that it was alcohol to blame, which blocked his son’s consciousness and prevented him from being sad and fully feeling the burden of guilt, Kors stopped scolding him:

“Put on the mask! I can’t see your drunken face! Oh, demonic nature, why should I be so punished – to have such a son!”

Nik, upset, but obediently reached for his mask and put it on. He finally got up from his knees and lay down on their trestle bed on his side, facing the wall, clearly trying not to “stick out like a sore thumb” and not provoke Kors. Frustrated, Kors left him alone and lay down on the skins next to him, defiantly embracing Arel.

They slept almost all day and only woke up in the evening.

“Can I take off my mask?” Nik asked cautiously. “I’ll wash and brush my teeth.”

“What for are you asking me?! When you get drunk, you don’t ask me!” Kors snapped sharply and irritably.

Nik sat in front of him with his head down, and Kors saw that he had not touched the mask, didn’t take it off without permission.

“You can take it off!”

“Thank you, daddy, please forgive me.”

“Oh!”

Nik took off his mask and looked at his father apologetically. He looked sad. Unable to remain serious at the sight of his cute face, Kors involuntarily smiled.

“Well, enough to flutter your eyelashes!”

“I don’t do it on purpose! Why are you making fun of me? You made me this way yourself, and now you laugh!”

“I made it beautifully!”

“Yes, you just went too far! And now it amuses you that I look so!”

“I’m not laughing…”

“No, you’re laughing.”

“No!”

“Vitor, I want to spend time with you, I'm yours. But please don’t laugh at me. I am not a toy!”

“I’m not laughing or playing with you, my doll, my porcelain figurine. Yes, I can scold you a little, but with love and for your own good. Can I do it this way?”

“This way yes.”

“Yes, honey, yes.”

“Please, Vitor, l am open to you, do you understand? Don’t break my heart!”

“I am also open,” Kors strongly supported him, “and it is you who break my heart with your behavior! How can I trust you if you only care about drinking and partying?”

“No, I don’t care about it! I love you!”

“I love you too!” Shouted Kors. “And it makes me vulnerable to your antics! One wave of your eyelashes, and I succumb to you for everything!

“No, I yield myself to you! When you scold and beat me, and I don’t dare to answer you, because I am afraid of losing your love.”

“And it is right. I fell out of love with Arel precisely because he didn’t listen to me well. If you don’t contradict me and obey me, I won’t stop loving you, I will never stop loving you! We’ll be happy. I will make you happy,” Kors reached out to his face and gently ran his fingers over the scar. “I would rather do your treatment! I will remove this scar from you, I will heal it.”

“Are you ashamed of me because of it? It spoils everything, doesn’t it?”

“I haven’t said that.”

“Even when you fuck my mouth, you always try to shove you cock into a healthy cheek and never into a scarred one.”

“Damn it, Nik! Sometimes you really need to be dicked to keep you quiet!” Unable to restrain himself, Kors raised his voice again.

And Nik’s face immediately reflected tension, he shied aside and quickly said:

“Don’t… please, Vitor!”

“Don't read my mind! Can you see me doing something to you?”

“But you want to… all the time you want to hit me. I said I love you, and that’s why you are going to beat me now? Yes?”

Kors saw Nik turn pale, his lips trembling with excitement and frustration, and his voice was filled with resentment; he literally stumbled in mid-sentence, fell silent, swallowing nervously. His face was so sad that it was impossible to look at Nik so as not to feel your heart contracting with pity.

“Stop pouting capriciously, it’s just vulgar!” Kors tried not to give in, so as not to start feeling sorry for him.

“I’m not pouting anything,” Nik objected resentfully. “You never beat Karina, but you constantly kick me! You slap me on the eyes and lips that you like so much. There are endless slaps from you for everything that is “wrong”, in your opinion. For a “wrong look”, for every “wrong word” – you immediately hit me. Yes, maybe not at full strength, but it’s humiliating.”

Kors saw now that the constant wearing of a mask still affected his Nik. He, like most slaves and commoners, when his face was open, poorly controlled facial expressions and emotions. If he was upset, this was fully reflected on his face. He didn’t even try or somehow didn’t know how to restrain himself, because he was not used to receiving feedback from the interlocutor, depending on the expression of his face. He didn’t understand that this was important, and didn’t care about it. It was unbearable for Kors to see this inferiority.

“Forgive me! Forgive me!” He grabbed his head. “You evoke in me some trashy feelings! And Karina is a complete fool, of course, but she is my only girl. I took care of her, although in an amicable way she should have been punished very harshly. But this idiot in the end at least found herself the same fool. And you’re completely crazy, do you understand? You are wild, neglected. Why are you looking at me with your eyes and keep silence? My little white, little white boy! Oh, oh, my doll… Come here, crawl to me, immediately! Like this… You feel good with me, aren't you? I love you so much, my beloved darling, I love your doll’s eyes and lips.”

“You keep on beating me!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my doll! I’m doing this for your own good. If you weren’t so stupid, you would thank me for that. Thank me…”

“Thank you.”

“My boy. My stupid boy…”

“It hurts me, don’t… don’t touch me…”

“Be patient, you got drunk yesterday, and no matter how I love you, you will be punished for it…”

“Ah, ah … Enough, let me go!”

Kors still let go of his cock and balls, ceasing to squeeze them so hard and dig into them with his nails.

“Only obedience will lead us to success, my love. I love it so much when your bright eyes are filled with tears…”

Nik clenched his fists and stubbornly wiped his eyes with them.

“It’s not my fault that I have such eyes and eyelashes, and that they turn you on so much. Ask yourself why you like white half-bloods so much that you are drawn to them all your life!”

Keep silence! Be silent. Open your mouth, show me your shameful, leaky tongue.”

Nik immediately opened his mouth and pulled his piercing with his teeth slightly upward, so that the thick steel bar that pierced his tongue vertically and onto which the balls were screwed along the edges was now clearly visible.

“Oh-oh-oh… a complete whore, I really will beat you right now!” Kors jerked him closer.

“No, no!”

“Obey me, you fool who fucked up your life and became a whore!”

“I told you stories from my life so that you would reproach me later?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… Lie on your back, lie down,” Kors sat down on his chest, pressing his hands trembling with excitement into the fluffy skins, hastily pulling out his long erect and sweetly aching cock.

“Let… let me cum on your beautiful eyes…”

They continued, and Kors didn’t hit him and no longer hurt him or made him feel bad, because he was madly in love with him.

However, the next day he saw that his Nik was sad and indifferent to everything. Kors understood that he wanted to go to his unclean ones, but didn’t understand how to stop him.

“Nik, are you offended by me?” He asked finally.

“No,” Nik muttered. Still, he sounded very displeased, and, as Kors felt, not respectful enough.

“Talk to me normally! When will it reach your head that I am doing everything only for your good? If it happens that you cannot use the Demon’s power, what will you do?”

“I managed to cope without power too…”

“Why are you snarling now? There is no doubt that as a person you are weak and not smart, to my great regret. I saw how you “managed”. You couldn’t handle it, Nik! And they put you so that it was more convenient to walk on you. Only your appearance helped you, and even then – others played with you and wore you out, made you a slut. I understand it sounds unfortunate, and I still love you very much, even such one, but you need to develop your human mind, it can save you at a critical moment, and for this you must learn to listen to me.”

“I obey you.”

“You must learn to obey the right way, without any offense or discontent, but with gratitude.”

“Thank you, dad, I’m sorry…”

“Gods, you utter this phrase without any understanding! You just say the same thing thoughtlessly. It’s not that… it’s not that…” Kors paused in frustration, and Nik lay down on his face, his face buried in the skins.

Finally, Kors raised his head and smiled, as if a thought had crossed his mind.

“Nik … Do you want to tattoo me? Make me a tattoo.”

“What?!”

“Do you want?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you really want it?” Nik raised himself on an elbow with interest, his face came to life.

“Yes, I do,” smiled Kors, feeling a surge of interest from Nik and the fact that the desire to go for a walk faded into the background.

“Which one?!”

“I don’t know, just anything you want.”

“And where?!”

“Where you want!”

“But I don’t know…”

“Write on me: “Belongs to Nik and Arel”. Do you want it on my chest? Write that I am your thing, that I am shit. Something dirty and vulgar. Write: “I, Kors, a true black, love two cocks in my ass at the same time!”

Nik laughed, and Kors heard that he was no longer thinking about going for a walk. With his non-trivial proposal, Kors seemed to have managed to overshadow all his thoughts about unclean ones, cards and night gatherings.

“Write: “pound me like the last brute” or “I suck unclean cocks.”

“Vitor, why are you doing this, don’t do it,” Nik came to life completely, and his eyes stopped being like empty glass, “I'd rather make beautiful patterns.”

“You can do whatever you want with me. Oh, right, draw your portrait on me! Draw yourself on one side of my chest, and draw a portrait of Arel on the other. Just like the albino has Salafael drawn on his chest.”

“Oh, Vitor! It is very beautiful, but I cannot…”

“Why? After all, you are great at drawing. You painted the prince beautifully.”

“Yes, but getting a tattoo… it’s a little different. My hand will not allow it, it trembles with effort, I can only make neatly simple patterns.”

“Okay, make patterns, I'm ready for anything!”

“Thank you, daddy!” Said Nik, and now these words sounded very sincere and real.

Kors allowed Nik to tattoo his body the way he wanted. He took off his clothes, lay on his stomach on the skin completely undressed, dropping his head on folded hands, and Nik decorated his tailbone and the side of his thigh with black patterns. He no longer wanted to go to play cards and forgot about the unclean.

And Kors, despite the pain, also felt good and quiet.

Chapter 6

Nik was tattooing Kors.

“Does it hurt?” He asked with genuine concern in his voice.

“No,” lied Kors. He felt pain, and Nik understood it, because they “heard” each other’s emotions and thoughts.

Kors buried his face in his folded hands again. He felt that Prince Arel, who until then, as usual, was lazily lying on the neighboring skin, moved closer to him. Feeling the breath on top of his head, Kors raised his head from his folded arms and looked up at the prince with a little questioning expression. He liked Arel’s beautiful face, covered in a thin layer of light gray paint, and his eyes outlined in black. Kors was used to seeing Arel as he was throughout his life: painted, with a gray face framed by long dark hair parted in the middle, and with crazy brown eyes that were naturally bright and additionally accentuated by black paint. Kors had long perceived this image of him quite naturally, and in those rare moments when Arel’s face was clean, he, on the contrary, seemed to him somehow alien, unusual and unnatural.

Arel brought his blackened lips closer to Kors’ face and kissed him, as if comforting. Kors immediately responded to the kiss, feeling a pleasant warmth inside his abdomen and the way Arel’s lips differed from Nik’s: they were not so plump, a little hard because of the paint layer, without rings that always rattled on Kors’ teeth when he kissed Nik. Arel pressed his lips to Kors’, thrusting his tongue into his parted mouth. They began to kiss, and Arel hugged Kors’ head with his arms.

“Arel, Vitor, well, you’re bothering me,” said Nik. At the same time, his voice was gentle. “Vitor, your ass is now covered with goosebumps,” Nik laughed quietly and shortly.

Kors and Arel broke the kiss with obvious regret, but not for long, because Arel continued to lie nearby, and they looked at each other the way loving people look. Kors involuntarily thought about how many circles of hell the prince went through before he found his Gift and the Demon considered the training completed. Or has the Demon not finished yet and has restored Arel, just to give him a little respite?

“What strength of mind does one need to have to withstand all that has happened to you, my poor prince?” Thought Kors, looking at Arel’s calm and unburdened face.

“You, too, are like a son to me, I love you very much, and, probably, I have always loved you, even when I drove you away. Nik is my son, but I am your father too. There are three of us, and we will be together, because this unity is our strength.” Unable to resist, Kors again reached for Arel, and he immediately responded.

“Are you doing it again?! Stop crawling back and forth, Vitor! You said you wanted me to tattoo you, and now you can’t lie still!” Nik was indignant.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Kors answered hastily, stepping back from the prince.

Arel sighed, and, taking himself by his cock, rubbed it back and forth a little, thus trying to relieve tension. Kors, seeing how Arel, moving his hand, completely bared the head of his cock, then closed it with his foreskin, involuntarily breathed heavily and swallowed.

He tried not to look at Arel in order to stop, as Nik put it, “crawling back and forth”.

“Vitor, stop imagining my cock,” Nik said after a while, “you do it… uh … so diligently that it is standing now before my eyes. Stop thinking all sorts of bullshit, my cock is okay and I can jerk off like Arel.”

“No you can’t!” Objected Kors. “Arel moves his foreskin up and down as he wants, and you, Nik, circumcised yourself.”

“Not much,” Nik replied.

“I know perfectly well how you can jerk off. I have done this to you a hundred times and I know that it is impossible to close the head of your cock with the foreskin completely, it is missing, and this is inconvenient. You have to wet your hand with saliva for better glide.”

“You’re just getting excited again because of talking,” Nik chuckled, “you love to talk about all this and jerk off your brain.”

“Jerk off my brain?”

“Well, yes. Arel jerks off his cock with his hand, and you jerk off your brain with words. All the time you think only about who has which cock, and all your thoughts don’t break away from this.”

“They do break away!” Shouted Kors.

“No further than the length of the cock. A-ha… Don’t worry so much about mine, mm… what did you think now? “Shamefully naked head”, aha-ha…”

“It gets hurt by this!”

“No,” Nik disagreed.

“It rubs against everything!”

“It touches everything, right? Without your permission? Ha-ha… Okay, now, when I have the ring threaded, it first rubs against everything; the ring protects my flesh.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kors remarked regretfully.

“It wasn't my will,” Nik replied. “It’s just tradition.”

“It amazes me that you didn’t cripple and circumcise Arel in the same way in your Limit for the sake of your wild traditions,” said Kors.

Nik looked at handsome Arel:

“He’s a true black, prince of royal blood. It is impossible to distort too much the body given by the forefathers and created in their image.”

“Glory to the forefathers for this law,” Kors remarked with relief.

“Yes, you are too beautiful to want to change something in you. Tall stature, beauty, longevity, black soul…”

“We’re perfect,” Kors agreed with a smile.

Nik fell silent, returning to work, but after a while he laughed again:

“Enough already!”

Kors’ cheeks flushed. Fortunately, Nik didn’t see this, but he continued to catch his thoughts.

“Why are you laughing?” Shouted Kors. “You say that I am bothering you, but you yourself are shaking no worse than me. Now it looks like I will have a crooked tattoo like your slave!”

“Like which slave?”

“Like Claire… Remember, you twisted her lips in red crookedly. Yes, Nik, you are a so-so master.”

“Ah-ah, Claire, ah-ha…”

“Nik, that’s enough!”

“Then stop imagining my cock,” Nik smiled, “you do it very funny, you compare cocks just like the height of each and every one. You see, I’m shorter than you, and my cock is no way smaller…”

“Nik!”

“You miss Lis – that’s with whom you endlessly happily measure your cocks.”

“I don’t measure cocks! All the more so happily!”

“Don’t twitch!” Nik continued to have fun. “Well, should I stick a dildo in you so that you lie calmly and be afraid to move?”

“Do you have a dildo?” Kors asked with some dismay.

“I will order Verniy, he will find,” Nik bent down to Kors and gently kissed him on the tailbone.

“Ah, ah… Nik, stop, I'm starting to want you…” Kors barely kept his composure. “You tickle me with your hair.”

“Sorry,” Nik replied tenderly and stopped distracting Kors and distracted himself.

“I called Parky,” Nik said after a while.

“Why? For him to bring a dildo for me?!” Kors froze.

“No, he will bring some weed. Have you been waiting for a dildo?” Nik laughed, and Arel, who was smoking at that time, laughed too.

“Yes, of course, it was exactly what I was waiting for!” Answered Kors indignantly.

Prince Arel, smiling, handed him a half-smoked cigarette, and Kors immediately took it.

Parky entered their tent, but Kors didn’t change his posture, still continuing to lie on the skin and not at all embarrassed that his captain sees his commander lying with his bare ass up. Nik, meanwhile, continued to tattoo him.

“Commander, can I take Tyutya?” Parky asked.

He squatted down next to Kors, laid the box of weed on his skins, and bared his teeth in a smile, displaying his iron crowns. He was actually very funny, this unclean one.

“Take what?” Not understanding, asked Kors, slightly lifting his head from his folded hands.

“Well, Tyutya, red slave girl,” said Parky.

And Kors laughed: “Parks, don’t speak black! I can’t hear you lisping, it’s very funny!”

“Vitor, don’t shiver! You’re bothering me!” Nik shouted for the umpteenth time.

“What can I do if he makes me laugh!”

“And he is not lisping, Vitor, you just think so,” tried to explain Nik, “he just tries to speak softly. You keep jerking me that I insert everywhere, how are they called… these… consonants. So he just tries not to insert them.”

“And you’re right,” thought Kors, “I just remembered, when I first heard you speak, I also thought that you were lisping, as if you had not even half your teeth.”

“I just tried to pronounce the words softer, to speak your language like you,” said Nik, “and you immediately began to make fun and humiliate me. You asked if my teeth were in place. Do you remember? And then I just recently inserted these beautiful teeth, you couldn’t help but notice that my teeth were all right…”

“Give me my jacket, Parky,” Kors said quickly, trying to ignore Nik and clearly not wanting to continue the conversation with him.

Parky handed Kors his jacket, and Kors, taking out the key from there, handed it to the unclean one:

“Here you go. Valentine will open the cart for you, unfasten her hands and take her, just don’t give her to anyone else. If you want, give Adrian to others, but not Tyutya!”

“Okay, commander. Thank you!” And joyful Parky literally ran out of the tent.

“Tyutya” Kors repeated, shaking his head, and all three laughed again.

There was very little to go to the Fort.

That evening they sat by the fire with the unclean ones. After the capture of the Ore Town, many unclean warriors painted themselves with black and red dyes, thus demonstrating their status as victors. These patterns, combined with their favorite piercings, made their face-muzzles even creepier, but Kors during this time became more or less accustomed to such wild notions of beauty and masculinity.

Kors took off the mask from his Nik, and, not at all caring about how it looked and what the unclean commanders would think, casually fed his son the way he loved, giving him pieces of food from his hands.

After supper, one of the unclean ones began to sing a song, while the others began to sing along with him in the chorus:

I wandered in different countries,

My marmot was with me,

And I was cheerful, and I was happy,

My marmot was with me!

And always mine, and everywhere mine,

My marmot was with me,

And always mine, and everywhere mine,

My marmot was with me.

The unclean ones smiled, revealing impressive fangs, and stared with interest at Kors, who was sitting near the fire and hugging his Nik tightly, kissing him every minute on the top of his head. Kors noticed their looks and smiles, it seemed to him that many literally choked with laughter, barely restraining themselves.

“Hey? Why are you so happy?”

“Just so. Good song, commander,” answered one of the unclean. The fangs on his lower jaw were so long that they protruded from his mouth, making him look like a boar. Others began to grin even harder.

Kors even thought it somehow disrespectful – they seemed to sneer at him. He snorted in displeasure, pushing Nik slightly away from him:

“Pfff, I, apparently, am too noble to experience such unclouded joy from this stupid song of the poor.”

And Nik looked at him with a sly and slightly sly gleam in his eyes, smiling. “Why are you so happy, after all!” Kors couldn’t resist.

They all laughed.

“It’s okay, Vitor,” said Nik and pressed closer to him.

A red slave was sitting by the fire next to Parky. She was without a bag on her head, her dress was torn, and her long auburn slightly curly hair was disheveled. A steel bracelet with a chain was fastened on the wrist of her left hand, and the opposite end of the chain was fastened to the belt at Parky’s belt. But the girl didn’t look as intimidated and hunted as before. Tyutya watched as Parky drank cup after cup of unclean moonshine, and her expression was more displeased than frightened. At some point, seeing that Parky was already drunk thoroughly, but continued to drink, despite the fact that his movements became confused, the girl suddenly pulled the cup out of his hand and angrily threw its contents into the fire. At the same time, in response to Parky’s surprised look, the girl sharply ran the edge of her palm down her throat, clearly making it clear that she was sick of it all. Stunned, Parky froze, and Kors, seeing this slave’s attack, literally choked on wine and laughed sincerely:

“A-ha-ha, Parky, she’s commanding you!”

“Tyutya…” said Parky in complete confusion, “Tyutya, what are you doing?”

But he didn’t look angry and didn’t hit her, although everyone sitting around made fun of him, laughing at him and the wayward slave. The girl, not at all frightened, defiantly turned away from the unclean, and her face was still the same displeased.

“She doesn’t like that you drink so much,” Kors said, “and she’s right, you’ve already had enough. Do you have a wife, Parky?”

“No.”

“Well, now you’ll understand what it’s like to have a wife,” Kors laughed, “everyone knows that the reds have a bad temper, they are aggressive, and now the red Tyutya will show you the heat!”

“No,” Parky protested.

“Yes, Parky, yes,” Kors continued to laugh, “they are completely unpredictable, maybe that’s why men began to restrict them so. All blacks have known this for a long time, and red women are never married. No black man has a red wife. And you have fallen in love, right?”

“I like her.”

“Do you know the story about the red girl named Iridia?”

“No.”

“A guy planned to marry her, but the girl didn’t want to. When her fiancé came, she asked him: :Why do you want to marry me and thereby give me so much grief and sadness?” He replied: “Truly, when I see you, Iridia, I become all like a fiery one!” She asked: “What is it about me that attracts you so much?” And he, as expected, politely replied, (though not what he really thought), he said: “I am seduced by your beautiful eyes!” Hearing such an answer, the girl immediately grabbed the candle from the candlestick and gouged out both of her eyes.”

The unclean ones who listened to the story froze. Seeing that his story had an effect, Kors grinned contentedly.

“Those are the reds, so be careful, Parky.”

Parky turned away. He didn’t drink any more, took out a small piece of wood and a knife from his pocket, and began scraping over the piece of wood with the blade. After a while, he handed the girl a bird carved out of wood. The toy was rude, but the fact that it was a bird could be guessed without a doubt. It had a small beak and a rounded plump body with a small forked tail. Parky handed the bird to the slave, and she took it, squeezed the round bird in her fist and smiled happily. Realizing that Tyutya was no longer angry with him, Parky happily grabbed the girl in his arms and hugged her. So they sat, she – squeezing a wooden bird, and he – squeezing her.

Chapter 7

After a couple of days they returned to Crimson Rock and stopped for a while at the Fort. As before, people settled on the right side of the camp, and the unclean ones near the menagerie, and Zaf was very happy to see that everything was fine with his favorite bear.

Kors, Nik and Arel again occupied their room with the painting on the wall.

The days passed lazily and calmly. Most of the time, the three of them lay on the bed, fucked and slept. Prince Arel drove around the neighborhood on his horse.

Kors watched as his Nik in the arena on the left side of the Fort fought with the unclean ones, participating in their battles. Kors understood that the spirit of the Colosseum warrior was strong in him and didn’t disappear anywhere. Nik didn’t need to work now, he didn’t need to earn money for his living, but he did it anyway: he fought for the amusement of the crowd, just like that, just because he wanted it. And of course, because he did it very well. In minimal ammunition, stripped to the waist, with a shock of white disheveled hair and long bangs falling over his eyes, Nik made precise and powerful blows, defeating rival after rival, some in a matter of minutes, moving closer and closer to the final.

Kors watched his dangerous entertainment anxiously, admiring his son and his skill at the same time. He admired his every movement, tense muscles in his arms, he enjoyed how concentrated his expression was when he fought.

Once – and the enemy is already lying overturned on his back, crushed by a heavy boot, two – and the next warrior with his face distorted from pain is holding his right hand, and the sword knocked out of his hand is lying far to the side. Three – at some point, getting too close, the opponent receives a crushing blow with his fist in the face, falls backwards and hits the back of his head, losing consciousness.

The unclean ones screamed incessantly. When Nik once again forced the enemy to lie at his feet, he, smiling, took off his glove and walked around the circle, raising his hand with an open palm, and his unclean ones with their palms and paws beat on it, shouting words of praise. The fights became more and more difficult, the warriors who had defeated the others fought to knock out each other, and in the end there was only one left. At some point, a very bulk and powerful unclean one hit Nik in the gut so that he literally flew backwards, bent over, and crashed into the surrounding howling crowd of unclean ones. They supported him, preventing him from tipping over on his back, as the enemy expected, and pushed him back into the perimeter of the arena. Kors turned pale. This unclean warrior was very bulk and strong, and Kors had no idea how it would be possible to overwhelm him at all. But damn it, his Nik did it, despite the fact that he missed a few more blows. The spectators rejoiced; they jumped, howled and shouted like animals: “White Lord! White Lord!” Nik didn’t leave the arena, waiting for the next fighter to win him over again. And he won. Again. This time, however, he got such a blow in the teeth that bloody splashes flew out of his mouth. And Kors involuntarily screamed along with everyone. Next, another unclean one was supposed to conduct several fights, with whom Nik was supposedly to meet in the final.

Breathing heavily, Nik approached Kors, whose face was literally twisted:

“Is that all?! Have you lost your expensive teeth?”

“No,” Nik shook his head and bared his teeth and showed Kors that his teeth were intact. Kors saw that his mouth was full of blood, and his teeth were also covered with it.

“Get some water,” he handed Nik a flask.

“Is there something stronger?”

“I won’t give it to you!”

Nik took a flask of water, took a sip, and rinsed out his mouth and spat the blood onto the ground.

“It’s enough for today, let’s go,” said Kors.

“What? The final is ahead!”

“You have been fighting for several hours, you started to miss strikes, you will miss your final now!” Kors started to wind up. “Don’t you understand?! That’s all! You need to be able to stop in time!”

“No!”

“Yes! You don’t need this final, it doesn't make any sense!”

“I need it!”

“That’s it, I said! You’re done!” Kors shouted it so loudly that the unclean ones standing nearby heart him. They turned their heads to look at them, and Kors froze. He shouted now at their commander, their White Lord. Nik lowered his head and wiped his mouth, which was still oozing blood. He didn’t look at Kors. And Kors started to shake, but he saw that the unclean ones didn’t interfere, and Nik was silent.

“Come on,” said Kors a little calmer and quieter.

“No.”

“Come on!” Kors shouted again. He began to get really angry, and the stubbornness of his stupid son pissed him off. Kors felt that he simply couldn’t stand it if Nik was hit again, and he was hurt, this is understandable to anyone who knew at least a little about battles – Nik was tired. And Kors could no longer bear this sight, his heart would simply break.

Kors grabbed Nik by the forearm and pulled:

“You have finished, I have told you! Stop fooling!” He raised his eyes to the unclean:

“That’s all! Your White Lord has finished for today! He’s not involved anymore! I am his father and I am taking him away!” He pulled Nik behind him, and the unclean ones parted, not holding them back and seeing them off. Nik silently followed Kors and didn’t even try to remove his hand, and Kors firmly squeezed his forearm, painted with naked whores and monsters, with an iron grip, as if he was afraid that Nik would break free. In this manner, without letting him go for a second, Kors dragged him into the room, and, unable to resist, hit him several times: in the head, in the face and in the ribs. Nik made a dull sound like a soft, short growl. Kors threw him away from him. Nik fell – only the steel shields clinked, which were protecting his legs below the knees. Kors turned away, and, going up to the table, began to violently stir the medicine in a cup of water. He handed it to him son:

“Get up, take the medicine. Rinse your mouth thoroughly. Hold it in your mouth for a while before spitting. And wash yourself; you’re dirty, covered in dust.”

Nik stood up silently, took the mug, and without looking at Kors, went into the bathroom. Kors exhaled heavily. He continued to shake from the fact that Nik had been beaten and what Kors had done in front of everyone. But he was sure he was right.

Kors entered the bathroom and saw that Nik had removed his protection and was standing slightly bent over the bathtub, holding the medicine in his mouth. Kors approached Nik from behind and roughly undid the buckle on his belt, pulling his pants down, and bent him over the bathroom, jerking him sharply. From a strong jolt, Nik only bent more, resting his hands on the opposite edge of the tub, and healing water poured out of his mouth, mixed with blood. Kors wheezed, panting with orgasm, and fell off:

“Clean up and go back to the room,” he ordered.

When Nik returned to their room, Kors was sitting at the table and smoking. He looked at Nik, so sad and silent now:

“Was I wrong now?” Asked Kors and put out his cigarette. “Have I done the wrong thing to take you away?”

Nik was silent.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know.”

“No, you know. You know perfectly well that I was right! And that’s why you obeyed me!”

In frustration, Nik reached for the bottle on the table.

“Eh, no! Give it back!” Kors jerked the bottle out of his hands.

“Vitor, give me a drink! I’m tired!”

“Of course you’re tired! Who made you fight?! You don’t need this final and prize money, you don’t need it all! I will give you as much money as you want! That’s it, Nik! Relax, you don’t need money anymore, you have a rich father who will give you everything! And when we return to the Black City, I will buy you many of the best clothes and cure you with the best doctors. You will no longer fight in the Colosseum and risk your life for the amusement of the crowd. Forget it!”

“I’m not poor myself!” Nik shouted. “I have enough money! I just had fun!”

“I understand, and I didn’t interfere until I saw that it would end badly for you now!”

Nik sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and looked at Kors:

“Please give me a drink.”

Kors stood up abruptly and poured him a full glass.

“Here it is!”

Nik immediately drained it in two gulps, and Kors involuntarily winced and lit a cigarette:

“Take this as well!”

Nik took it.

“So, was I wrong now?” Kors asked again.

Nik smoked in silence.

“How tired I am!” Kors tugged at his hair with all his might, forcing him to close his eyes in pain and almost drop his cigarette. “What’s in your head? And on the head?! I explained to you how to comb your hair! When are you going to behave well, Nik?”

“Never,” Nik muttered.

“What?!” And Kors hit him again, so that Nik dropped his almost smoked cigarette, and Kors rudely extinguished it, pressing his boot into the expensive carpet:

“No, you will!” He grabbed his bangs, strongly throwing his head up so that Nik would look at him.

“You will obey me, because it is right, and you need to learn to behave normally in order to advance further in your Mission, therefore you obey me! You understand that I am right and that you need it!”

“I don’t need anything! I obey you because I love you! And I don’t want to upset you!”

“I love you too,” Kors slowed down and let him go, “so I do all this and take care of you.”

“I understand,” Nik said.

“Show me your lip. Oh fuck! You ruined your beautiful face again!” Kors clasped his head in his hands in absolutely genuine despair. “What is it!” He grabbed a small round mirror from the table and handed it to Nik:

“Look! Look what’s wrong with your lips! My beautiful, lovely lips, what have you done to them… damn…”

Nik completely indifferently looked in the mirror at his now crooked and swollen lip, which slightly turned upward from the incipient edema.

Kors tossed the mirror aside and thrust the opener into his hand.

“Take out the rings!”

“Why? It hurts,” Nik disagreed.

“You have edema, they interfere, don’t you see?!”

“It happened a hundred times, it will subside and everything will be fine a bit later.”

“Get it out, fuck!” Kors growled with such anger that Nik immediately grabbed the unclamping instrument, hastily removing the jewelry from the purple lip.

“You ruined your tender lips, you don’t take care of your beauty at all!”

“What’s the difference? I’m not a piece of cake for everyone to lick at me.”

“What does this have to do with it? How stupid you are! You don’t know how to use your advantage. Good looks, correct posture, unaccented speech and noble manners – that’s it! You are sitting pretty!”

Nik shook his disheveled head a little.

“I’m not a girl! I fought and they broke my lip a little, what’s wrong with that?!”

Kors looked at his beautiful face, like a girl’s, and involuntarily smiled, realizing that Nik had completely misinterpreted his phrase “you are sitting pretty”, and seeing also Kors’ condescending smile, he literally burst inside with indignation, but endured and kept silent.

“You misunderstood me a little,” nevertheless tried to explain Kors, rather not because he felt that Nik was unpleasant, but simply because he loved to teach:

“To be sitting pretty” – this is a phrase from a game on a chess board, you can still play a simpler game of checkers, and if a checker crosses the entire field and has not been eaten…

Nik looked up at him.

“Maybe it’s enough? Please…”

“Nik, you don’t understand your advantages and don’t use them. You have not only a beautiful appearance, but also a good voice, I am not kidding. In fact, you have a beautiful voice.”

Nik looked at Kors dubiously.

“I speak seriously. Yes, your voice is low and hoarse, but there is something exciting about it. If you remove gross mistakes in words, it will be very good.”

Kors calmed down a bit:

“What will your unclean ones think now? I yelled at you in front of them, won’t that hurt your reputation as a commander?”

“They won’t think anything, everything is fine…”

Zaf came to them, he grinned like a satisfied cat:

“What, my Lord, are you getting away with your greyhound daddy?” Zaf, unable to resist, laughed. Kors froze.

“No,” Nik said.

“I left to feed Barla,” Zaf continued, “and when I returned, I saw that you were not there, and they told me how dad yelled at you and took you away.”

Zaf turned to Kors:

“You did everything right. I never fight for fun, combat is not a game! And you?”

“Never! And I won’t let him anymore!” Kors replied sharply.

“If only he still listened to you,” Zaf smiled again, “he doesn’t listen to anyone.”

And Nik, as if confirming Zaf’s words, showed Kors a tattooed finger with the image of an inverted ace of spades on the “ring”.

“And what does it mean?” Kors asked with a grin. “That you didn’t have enough money for real jewelry, and that’s why you drew them for yourself?” He looked at Zaf. “Nik is just not used to obeying. I was not with him, and no one raised him. But I’ll catch up. He will stop behaving like a thoughtless boy and become a worthy warrior, become a truly great, powerful Demon, the way he really is! I will grind this rough diamond into brilliant! I will put the best in him!”

Zaf shook his head, and Nik sat down and was sad and silent.

“Vi-i-tor,” Zaf suddenly said tenderly, as he did in the Limit and in the Ore Town, slightly stretching the vowel, and after “v” he did not insert this rough sound “kh” into his name, as did Nik. Zafa managed to pronounce the name of Kors softer, almost correctly. And Kors froze.

“You are beautiful,” said Zaf, and he didn’t need to say that already. Kors understood everything perfectly, he was shaking, unconsciously and even in some kind of panic. Kors mentally darted to Nik: “What should I do?”

“Whatever you want,” Nik responded immediately, “you are free in your manifestations”.

And Zaf was already unbuttoning his fly. Well, what else had Kors hoped for and counted on, if he himself allowed him in the Limit to do with him everything that Zaf wanted? And now it was not surprising that Zaf continued to consider him his. Kors wanted to refuse him, but how? After Kors crawled at his feet like an obedient slave, and after everything that took place in between? Of course, Zaf considered Kors his own, he was sure that Kors liked him, and there was mutual sympathy between them. Now he could take the refusal as an insult. And Kors didn’t want to aggravate relations with Zaf at all, so he went up to the unclean one and knelt in front of him, trying not to think about anything.

“I missed you,” said Zaf, taking out his decorated scion, “my beautiful greyhound, polish my diamond too…”

And Kors took his cock in his mouth and sucked Zaf, and he didn’t even imagine what it cost him. Zaf contentedly snuffled his disfigured nose and gently stroked Kors along the white strand, as before, being touched by its unusualness among the dark hair. Kors now hated that white strand of his because it attracted unclean ones so much. But when Zaf was already ready to come, he pushed Kors’ face aside and sprinkled cum on the carpet next to him, without staining Kors and not pouring into his mouth.

“Handsome black,” he said, carelessly patting Kors on the cheek, “why do I like you so much?”

And Kors thought that, not aggravating their relationship, he did the right thing.

“I’ll give you expensive jewelry,” Zaf continued, he looked very pleased.

“Zaf, I’m not a whore to pay me,” Kors replied, perhaps even too arrogantly and pretentiously, but he still hadn’t quite come to his senses, “I am free in my manifestations and do only what I myself want.”

“I know,” Zaf answered and laughed, and for some reason Kors didn’t like his laugh.

Chapter 8

“When would you want to go to the doctor, today or tomorrow?” Kors asked.

“Tomorrow,” Nik replied immediately.

Kors thought for a moment.

“No. You know, I thought we were going to the doctor today. This will be better.”

Nik froze in some confusion, and Kors added:

“I have made this decision.”

“Why are you asking me then?”

“Silence! I know what is best.”

And Nik said nothing.

Kors tormented Nik for a long time. He took him to the bathroom and washed him, because no matter how much he did it, Nik still seemed dirty to him, and, as Kors believed, he smelled like unclean ones. He poured water on him endlessly. He didn’t like the way the scar looked – it seemed that the crack on his Nik’s cheek was clogged with dirt, and Kors kept rubbing and rubbing his face with a washcloth, lathered with soap, until his cheek noticeably reddened. He washed and dried his hair again, and Nick probably hadn’t washed his hair as many times in his entire life as Kors had washed it for him lately. Carefully combing the tangled strands, Kors made Nik a tail “like black ones wear” and pinned the regrown bangs up from his forehead with thin hairpins. He once again refreshed the tonal dye on Nik’s forehead and cheekbones, hiding the tattoos, and, on the contrary, lined his initials, making them stand out more. Kors smeared the healing ointment on Nik’s still slightly swollen lip without the usual rings. Kors squeezed him, fiddled with him, and tried his own clothes on him for a long time. Finally, he put a bunch of his own clothing on Nik: underwear, an expensive cambric shirt, pants, jacket and boots. Kors threw away his rough boots of the unclean ones and gave him a pair of his own. He also ordered him to throw away Prince Arel’s jacket and gave him his own one. It was a bit large for Nik, but Kors tightened the lacing on the shoulders, sleeves and sides, and buttoned the high collar all the way to the top, so that Nik’s tattooed neck was as closed as possible. The fact that the jacket was a bit too long for Nik even seemed beautiful to Kors. He put his expensive fine leather gloves on his hands. Nik was a warrior, and therefore in most cases, even in a peaceful environment, he wore ammunition, often armor, and always weapons. Therefore, over his jacket, Kors put on his chest and back a protection of hard thick leather, decorated with rows of precious metal plates. There was no need for it now, but Kors just knew that then Nik would inevitably keep his back straight and not slouch as usual. He strapped on his engraved steel shoulder pads, forearm shields, and tied it up with his a pile of belts. Everything to the smallest detail – both clothes and ammunition – belonged to Kors, and he didn’t leave Nik any of his personal belongings, except for the mask. Finally, he was more or less satisfied with the way his son looked. At the same time, while Kors was washing, combing and dressing his Nik, he hugged him every minute, kissed and cuddled him, then rudely calling him “stupid featherhead”, then tenderly calling him “his most beloved, his precious”. It seemed to Kors that at such moments Nik seemed to fall out of reality, and he was not with him at all and was not even in this world. There was no human, no Demon, no one. Still, Nik didn’t resist at all. He was silent and obeyed his father unquestioningly, got up, sat down and turned around as he was told, and for Kors it was decisive. He dressed him up, and finally he put a mask on his face anyway. It was Nik’s mask, which, upon returning to Fort, Kors immediately returned to him. From the very beginning, black glasses were inserted into the slits for the eyes, so that one didn’t have to put on black glasses on his face first, and only then the mask. Kors looked skeptically at his son, who had become faceless, and, after thinking a little, nevertheless took off his mask. He adjusted the hairpins that held his bangs once more.

“You don’t understand, Nik, how much I love you!” He said with inspiration in his voice. “After all, love is not only sex. Love is also tenderness and care, compassion for the feelings of a loved one and a desire to support him in everything.”

“Vitor, will I go without a mask?” Nik asked, seeing that Kors put it aside.

“Yes.”

“Then I need black glasses, it’s too light outside.”

“No.”

“Vi…”

“I said, no! That’s the limit! It’s ugly, shameful and doesn’t suit you!” Snapped Kors.

“But it’s hard for me without them,” Nik tried to argue, “from the bright sun my eyes hurt later. I have altered eyes…”

“Shut up, I don’t even want to listen to it!”

“To me sunlight is as if hot sand is thrown into my eyes. Then it hurts for a long time, and I can’t see well…”

“It’s not sunny at all,” Kors looked sideways at the window, seeing that behind the loosely covered shutters the bright sun was shining, “we won’t walk for long, bear with it.”

Nik fell silent in frustration, and Kors scrutinized him for the hundredth time.

“If not for this damn scar, now everything would be fine!”

“I…” Nik hesitated, crouched, lowering his eyes, the corners of his lips involuntarily crawled down, and a slightly swollen lower lip protruded forward amusingly, and Kors was invariably touched by this display of frustration: how cute, according to Kors, Nik pouted. Therefore, unable to restrain himself, Kors involuntarily laughed, this laugh forcing Nik to make a sad grimace even more.

Continuing to watch his son so sincerely upset, Kors swallowed as if he had swallowed something pleasant to him, tasty:

“Gods, how funny it is,” continuing to smile, Kors came close to him, and taking him by the forearm, lifted him from the chair, lifting him. Nik stood up immediately.

Hanging over him, Kors grabbed him by the face with his free hand, squeezing him tightly, digging his nails into his cheeks so that Nik’s lips protruded ugly forward.

Kors let go a little:

“Open your mouth,” he ordered, and Nik parted his lips immediately.

“Wider!”

Nik opened his mouth wider, and Kors could now see the ball gleaming in his tongue. Kors admired this and thrust his fingers into Nik’s mouth, pulled the ball up with his nails, so that the bar on which it was wound became visible. Kors pulled the jewelry towards him, and Nik shook his head a little, emitting a low, indistinct hum. Not paying any attention to this, Kors continued to pull, and Nik, due to the metal rod threaded through his tongue, inevitably had to reach for Kors’ fingers and almost stick his tongue out of his mouth.

“Do you love me?” Kors asked, continuing to pull on the piercing. Since Nik didn’t answer, he hastened him:

“Answer me! Immediately!”

“Hmm…”

“What? I haven’t understood! When will you learn to speak normally?”

“Y-yes…” by some miracle, Nik managed to pronounce. And Kors, smiling, let go of the jewelry, but didn’t remove his fingers, spreading Nik’s mouth to the sides with them, stretching his lips strongly, so that Nik felt pain again and closed his eyes. Kors, with pleasure that only he could understand, stuck his finger into the hole in the place of the knocked out tooth on Nik’s lower jaw, closing his eyes and as if remembering the moment when he knocked it out to his son. Removing his finger, he tugged at the nearby teeth, feeling how much they were loose. All this time Nik stood meekly in front of him with his mouth open, allowing Kors to touch his face, put his fingers in his mouth and pull his tongue, loosen his teeth. Finally, after playing enough, Kors pulled his fingers out of his mouth. Squeezing the base of Nik’s tail at the back of his head, he threw his head back, pulling him up so that Kors himself with his tall stature was more comfortable. Bending slightly, he pressed his lips to his, passionately kissing Nik and thrusting his tongue into his mouth. Nik immediately responded to his kiss, pressed against his father, hugging his waist. Kors continued to pull his hair up for his convenience, and Nik had to get up on his toes. Kors was the first to break the kiss and took his son by the chin, not allowing him to lower his thrown back head:

“Don’t you dare pout your lips and take offense at me, do you understand?” He pressed hard on his swollen lip, feeling that Nik hurt and he was contracting inside with pain, but endured. “I look forward to hearing.”

“Yes, yes,” Nik almost closed his eyes so as not to meet his father’s gaze. Kors finally released him. He looked pleased, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and went to the closet, opening it with his key, took out a bottle of strong alcohol, poured and handed Nik a glass:

“Here it is. Drink!”

Nik looked up at him in surprise, but immediately took the offered drink.

“How do you look! There is something animal in you, this look…” whispered Kors.

“Why are you giving me a drink? Do you reward me for obedience?”

“I just have nothing else to do. I noticed that you come alive when you drink. Then you are not silent, not so constrained, it seems to you that you become interested, but only as long as the alcohol is in you, and the rest of the time, as if nothing is interesting. As if it doesn't matter. But life is interesting! Or not?”

“Yes,” said Nik and drank the contents of the glass in one gulp.

“Too little?” Kors asked, watching him closely.

Nik glanced at Kors in disbelief, but nevertheless answered cautiously:

“Yes.”

“There was exactly one hundred grams there.”

“Can I have some more?”

“Isn’t this enough for you?”

Nick said nothing, but everything was clear without words.

“I know you won’t even feel anything now,” Kors remarked sadly, “as if you hadn’t drunk anything. This addiction is very bad… you drink every day, every day… And I’m afraid not to let you drink, because abrupt refusal from alcohol can lead to bad consequences.”

Kors poured him the same amount:

“Come on, drink. Gods, what am I to do with you…”

“Thanks,” Nik said and drank.

“There have never been drunks in our family,” Kors shook his head, “and you are a drunkard.”

“Don’t you drink your own wine yourself? You love it so much and you drink it every evening…”

“Nik, better shut up!”

And Nik immediately fell silent.

“Cassiel is a very experienced doctor,” Kors changed the subject, “he will help you, as he did last time.”

“Casi…” Nik frowned, he literally shuddered, “here are these names again…”

“Yes. He is of noble birth, but not as upstart as this red Cartmer.

They went to that part of the Fort, which was occupied by black mercenaries, and where the doctor received his patients in a small two-story outbuilding near the field hospital.

At this midday time, the sun was at its zenith, and not a single breath of breeze disturbed the sleepy haze that enveloped the buildings and squares of Crimson Rock. The parade ground in front of the barracks of the black mercenaries was completely empty, and even from the nearby forge, the familiar sound of a hammer couldn’t be heard. There was dead silence, and there was not a single living soul around.

Kors turned impatiently to Nik.

“Can you not limp like that? You barely hobble behind, gods, don’t be so nervous!” He frowned in displeasure and annoyance.

“I’m somehow not at ease here…”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” Kors turned away, continuing to walk a little ahead of him, and Nik, trying to keep up, looked at his impeccable posture and firm gait, at how confidently Kors walked through the cobbled courtyard of the Fort, all in black and hung with a weapon that slightly tinkled on his belt when walking. Nik looked at his polished boots with a small square heel, which made the already tall Kors even taller. And at the way how a thick black and shiny ponytail length up to the waist lied on his proudly straightened back. Kors’ ponytail was straight and smooth, like silk, not at all the same as Nik’s, without torn strands sticking out in different directions and without the tip curling upwards, and the white strand of hair, so clearly visible on Kors’ forehead, was lost in this luxurious tail… Nik sighed involuntarily, and Kors, hearing this, turned around. He silently waited for his son to approach, and, taking him by the forearm slightly below the steel shield, squeezed him tightly, as he liked to do, and led him next to him. They approached the outbuilding. Climbing the porch, Kors knocked hard on the door with his fist, although there was a bell nearby. Doctor Cassiel very quickly jumped out to meet them, wiping his hands with a not quite clean towel. He began to bow and crumble in front of Kors in the greetings traditional for true blacks. With a satisfied smile on the corners of his lips, Kors nodded condescendingly and went inside, looking around the room. He saw the door ajar, and the room smelled strongly of medicines.

“Do you keep ill people here? Are they contagious?”

“No, no,” the doctor was frightened, “I dare to assure you of absolute safety.”

And at that moment from the half-open room came the prolonged and agonizing groan of a creature suffering unbearably from pain, and Kors changed in his face, ceasing to smirk smugly. The doctor rushed to the door, hastily closing it.

“What the hell is going on there?!”

“Nothing. Treatment. This is a hospital, sir Kors.”

“Is that Kamiel Varakh?”

No, no…”

“I want to see him!” And Kors, without waiting for permission, pushed the door open with his foot, entering a small room. There was a bed on which the man was lying, but it was immediately clear that this really was not Kamiel Varakh, because this man’s hair was red, bright, it was scattered on the pillow, casting blood red in the sun. There were also bloody spots on the white sheet that covered his body. Kors, clearly not expecting to see something like this, froze in some confusion.

“Sir Kamiel Varakh is in another room, I will take you to him,” the doctor said hastily, trying to go around Kors and enter. Kors interfered with him, blocking the doorway.

“Have mercy,” the red one whispered weakly with his lips. “Kill, I beg you…”

And the doctor, finally jumping into the room, stood between him and Kors, blocking the patient from his gaze.

“What an abomination,” Kors said barely.

“This is not what you thought… I just care… Sir Zagpeace Gesaria asked me to take care of his… mmm… ward, he got a little weak on the long journey…” Doctor Cassiel babbled.

“Ward?” Kors asked skeptically. “You mean this captive red? Call a spade a spade, doctor, I don’t like it when people start playing with me in conversation.”

“Y-yes…”

“I see, Peace is having fun.”

Kors turned his gaze to the metal table where the surgical instruments lay: scalpel, clamps. Everything was dirty and splattered with blood.

“And what organs have you already cut out of this unfortunate man?” Kors asked.

Doctor Cassiel stood before him with a pale face and was silent.

Kors chuckled.

“Don’t be so scared, it doesn’t bother me at all. I brought my… hmm… ward, and you will now take care of him. And Zagpeace’s ward will wait!”

And to the doctor’s relief, Kors turned and went out.

“Yes, yes, please come to my office,” Cassiel said somewhat belatedly and indistinctly.

Kors and Nik followed the doctor up to the second floor and entered his office.

Kors nodded to the chair.

“Nik, sit down.”

And he immediately sat down in the place indicated to him, clutching the belt on his waist with his fingers so as not to make involuntary movements.

“Your ward looks good,” said the doctor. He had already come to his senses a little after an unpleasant incident and looked at Nik, and he dropped his eyes and froze.

“I need medications for hepatitis, something else that restores, useful for an exhausted body,” said Kors in the peremptory tone of a man who understands everything and knows perfectly well what he needs. He slowly walked through Cassiel’s office, scrutinizingly examining the cabinets and shelves on which the medicines were placed.

“Of course, of course,” the doctor answered very quickly and obsequiously, “you are right, sir Kors. Unfortunately, because of the mixing of the blood of different races, half-bloods have many defects that require constant correction. I will find the best restorative medicines for you.”

Kors froze, but quickly collected his thoughts. If Cassiel allows himself such statements, then he doesn’t know that Nik is the son of Kors, and Zagpeace is still keeping that secret.

“And I also want to heal the scar on his face as much as possible,” Kors continued, calming down. “It is too early to introduce Nik to the rest of the blacks as my son, I must first put him in order, heal and educate,” he thought.

The doctor walked over to Nik, who was sitting on a chair, carefully examining him:

“The scar is almost healed,” he said. “There is no inflammation. Positive dynamics is already visible.”

“The weapon of this red was smeared with poison,” explained Kors, “I want to remove this poison.”

“We’ll find an effective antidote, sir Kors,” Cassiel replied confidently. “I think it’s Bothrops, the red ones often use the venom of this snake.” The doctor examined the crippled cheek, but didn’t touch Nik, seeing the initials of Kors on his face and knowing that one should not touch the thing of a noble black without permission. But still, trying to get a better look at the almost healed strip of scar on the lower jaw, he bent too much over Nik, making him flinch and recoil.

“Do you see, sir Kors? These stripes at the bottom, marks from the staples. There are visible dents and hole marks where the steel brackets were inserted,” Cassiel said.

“Yes.”

“On the basis of “Sama” there is a good remedy, it removes even old scars. But when the snake’s venom begins to leave his body, the scar may become inflamed again, be prepared for this and don’t put more braces, this method of unclean ones – to fasten the falling parts of the body with steel braces – is very rough and traumatic, it will only leave new scars.

“I understand,” Kors nodded, “and I won’t let him do that anymore. We are civilized enough not to resort to such wild methods of treatment.”

“Quite right,” Cassiel agreed with Kors.

“Look, doctor, do you notice that his eye is slightly squinting? On the half of his face where the scar is? Apparently, the snake venom and trauma affected his vision so much, Kors said. “He doesn’t see well with it. How do you think, can it be fixed?”

“You are very attentive, sir Kors, his eye really squints a little,” the doctor agreed again, looking at Nik. He tried not to look at him, averting his eyes to the side, so he really looked slightly oblique.

“Everything is clear,” summed up Cassiel, “there is a simple but effective way that my father used to do. You need to close his good eye, and then the right one will begin to train, and he will inevitably begin to see better with it. I’m going to give him a few injections now, healing and stimulating, and seal his healthy eye. According to my forecasts, his vision will recover as much as possible within about a month. Do you agree, sir Vitor Kors?”

And Kors suddenly realized, realized with all clarity, that during the entire time of their conversation, the doctor had never once addressed Nik.

He spoke only to Kors and only asked Kors, although Nik was sitting next to him. Salafael and others also acted in this manner at the beginning of their acquaintance. If Kors was next to Nik, all blacks turned only to Kors, perceiving the half-blood as inferior.

A memory flashed through Kors’ head:

Wedding of Karina and Lis at the Prince’s Estate. Kors sees that Nik is clearly seriously ill, he doesn’t touch food at the festive table and quickly leaves the celebration. Kors comes to his room, confirming his suspicions, Nik lies on the bed, he feels bad, and he doesn’t react to anything. Kors touches his forehead with his palm to check his temperature:

“You’re on fire!” He shouts to Nik, and he recoils from him with the last of his strength in complete bewilderment, he is not used to someone interested in his well-being:

“What are you doing?!”

“Nikto, you’re all on fire! You have an infection. You cannot go marching with such a temperature and in such a condition! You need to be cured. I don’t understand why your people don’t help you? Can’t they see that you feel bad? I noticed it immediately. I’ll get a doctor right now.”

He called him “Nikto”, not Nik, as now. And now would he have turned his tongue to call his boy Nikto?

Very soon, Kors returns with doctor Cassiel.

“He’s on fire,” Kors explains to the doctor, “and it looks like he’s not used to being taken care of by anyone.”

The doctor looks at the punctured hands of his son, shakes his head and asks:

“Does he take Black Water?”

Cassiel addresses this question not to Nik himself, but to Kors, and Kors is not surprised or embarrassed, he is lying:

“Yes. As far as I know, he fell into slavery to the unclean ones, and they put him on the “water”. He was crippled. Then he ran away.”

“And when did he take it for the last time?”

The doctor asks all these questions to Kors, who looks inquiringly at Prince Arel, and he gets lost under his stern gaze and answers uncertainly:

“I don’t know… he tries to take it as little as possible. He stretches greatly the time between doses.”

They talk to each other, they are black, and Nik is a half-blood, he is nobody, and he is not asked about anything. But Kors sees and understands the whole absurdity of this situation only now.

“Everything is clear,” the doctor draws his conclusions, “even now, although he already needs “water”, he endures to the last.”

“Do you have “water”?” Kors again turns to Arel.

“Y-yes.”

“Well, thank the Gods!”

“I can try to restore him so far without the help of “water”,” the doctor suggests, “these new drugs are very powerful, and he is a “white” half-blood, as far as I understand, judging by the color of his hair. Does the blood of the Upper ones flow in him?”

“Yes,” replies Kors, it is very unpleasant for him that his son is a half-blood, but, of course, at that moment he is sure that no one will ever know about it.

“We’ll support him and take more time. Maybe even for a couple of weeks or a month.”

“Are you serious? Of course!”

And the doctor gives Nik a couple of injections, and then, turning to Kors, he says: “I think he needs a bandage over his scar.”

“Do it,” Kors says.

Having received the permission of the black master, Cassiel applies a healing ointment and seals the scar, tightly wraps Nik’s head with bandages. Nik is in a semi-conscious state, he doesn’t resist. Kors is not surprised, it is natural that Nikto accepts the treatment, Kors is sure that with gratitude. How else can it be? After all, the benefactor Vitor Kors took care of him!

At that moment, Kors had no doubt that he was providing invaluable assistance to Nik. He didn’t even pay attention to this small nuance of communication, but Nik probably noticed everything. He realized that he was being treated like a dumb animal and didn’t object to it. Kors was sure he was doing a good deed. It never occurred to him that it might be humiliating. He sincerely believed that he was showing mercy and that no one had to be grateful to him and appreciate this generous gesture. “How does it feel when people ask questions about you next to you, but as if you are not there?”

Kors thought that, in fact, trying to find a good black master was the only chance for the half-blood to somehow lift its head out of the shit. Both Lis and Nik served stupid prince Arel simply because he was superior by birthright, and their privilege was only that the prince considered them worthy to serve himself and thus raised them above other commoners.

Finding a master and being the thing of the most high-ranking and noble black as possible – this was the career of a half-blood. And now, to all blacks, Nik was Kors’ thing.

Nik was no longer a slave, but he was not black either, and neither Zagpeace, nor Prince Ariel, nor anyone else could change that. Yes, they released him by signing the relevant papers, but they didn’t make him equal. So, according to the rules of this world, Nik’s fate didn’t imply other prospects for him, except to serve, and it was a good fate – sooner or later to become someone’s thing and wear the initials of his master where the owner wants to put them. And Kors liked to draw his letters on his cheeks, and that alone was reason enough to do so.

Kors knew that this, as he called it, “convincing of blacks”, was deeply rooted in his son, embedded from the very birth, as in any other half-blood and commoner. For centuries and generations, obedience and faith in the oneness of true blacks, the descendants of the gods, have been cultivated in the lower ones.

Despite all his audacity and merging with the demonic essence, as a person, at a deep level, Nik was broken and enslaved, accustomed to obedience, like all other commoners.

Therefore, when fate confronted him with some noble black, Nik did everything to please him. He allowed himself to be beaten by Prince Arel, fulfilling all his whims. By prince’s order, he, without hesitation, committed any crime, intimidating peaceful citizens. He participated in staged battles and shenanigans with rates, doing as the owner of the upper Colosseum told him, the true black Dim Al. Nik was fond of Salafael. He communicated with Daniel Crassus, not offended by his rude jokes about his appearance. He never fought back Kamiel Varakh, and he couldn’t help answering Zagpeace if he asked him about something.

Every day of his life since childhood, Nik received a cruel lesson confirming his low status. He was trained this way, and therefore he will never be able to give a decent answer to a true black on equal terms. Nik said to Kors: “I don’t want to get close to the blacks, they only make troubles,” but Kors didn’t believe him anymore. In fact, Nik was drawn to the true blacks and bowed to them. Because the rightful owners of this world were people like him – Vitor Kors. And that is why Kors was so afraid of their meeting with Leonardo, not doubting that Nik, not knowing the other scheme of things, would bend.

Kors glanced at doctor Cassiel. He stood and looked at Kors, expecting to hear his answer.

“Ask him yourself,” said Kors, and Nik looked up in surprise. Yes, he noticed everything and understood everything – both then and now. And he long ago resigned himself to his humiliating position, meekly accepting his low status in the hierarchy created by the black, and in most cases obeying the established rules of interaction between the lower and the higher masters.

The doctor was also taken aback. He was silent, and Kors, turning to Nik, said gently:

“Nik, do you agree to accept treatment from doctor Cassiel? Can he give you injections of drugs?”

“Vitor, as you say…” Nik barely uttered in confusion, and hearing this answer, the doctor nodded in satisfaction.

“And what about the eye?” Kors specified. “Will you let you close it? After all, then, while your right eye is recovering, you will become practically blind.”

“I see with it…”

“So what? Do you agree?” Kors asked again.

“If you think this is right, Vitor… but only… let you do it. Can you…”

And doctor Cassiel, who was listening attentively to their conversation, smiled understandingly and condescendingly:

“Your ward commander of the unclean ones trusts you, sir Vitor Kors. I will explain to you what needs to be done. This is not difficult.”

“Okay,” said Kors.

“Order him to close his eyes.”

Nik looked at Kors with the eyes of a loyal dog and closed them. Kors’ hands trembled slightly as he sealed his eye in several layers tightly with strips of black plaster.

“Open your eye,” he ordered, finishing, and Nik opened his right slightly slanting eye, “look at me, can you see me?”

“Yes,” Nik quickly looked at Kors, “yes. Everything is fine.”

“Roll up your sleeve.”

While heading to the doctor, Kors assumed that Nik would need an injection. However, he didn’t want Cassiel to stare at Nik’s hands, battered by old ulcers, examining his stupid tattoos of monsters, frozen in a grin, so he wrapped them with black strips of cloth, like bandages, from the wrist to the very elbow. One could only slightly open the desired area of the arm, pushing the fabric apart, and make an injection. Nik obediently pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and shirt, and Kors, having only slightly parted the fabric, quite professionally gave him an injection.

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