The Mist and the Lightning. Part 18. Ви Корс

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