“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