“Karina!” Kors shouted, not recognizing his voice, and his daughter hissed back, her mouth full of small but sharp teeth curved like hooks.
“What happened to you?! Daughter! What's with your eyes?”
“Love is blind,” Karina hissed, turning away and bending to the furry legs-paws of Lis, began to lick them with a long and thin tongue. And Lis barked hoarsely:
“I am the king, you see, Kors?” And he laughed terribly, his head shook, and another piece of bloody flesh fell off his “crown”, revealing a black horn.
Kors gasped with disgust and nausea, backed away and woke up, he opened his eyes, he was really sick.
He didn’t remember how he fell asleep the day before, where he was this time, in his room, or… He looked around in confusion and saw that he was still in the bedroom of Nikto and Arel, in his clothes, only the sleeve of his shirt was rolled up strongly and his jacket was lying on the floor. With surprise, Kors realized that Nikto was lying next to him. Nikto was lying on his side, on the still unmade bed, uncovered, fully clothed, he was sleeping peacefully, his eyelids with traces of almost worn-out arrows twitched slightly. Such thick and long dark eyelashes lay on pale skin, he breathed measuredly and calmly in his sleep, and Kors saw now that thick rings inserted into his nose closed his nostrils no worse than Arel’s ring. Only it seemed that it didn’t interfere with Nikto, unlike with the prince. Arel was lying right behind Nikto on the edge of the bed, hugging him. Arel put his hand on Nikto, and Kors noticed that on his long and thin hand, there were already three phalanges blackened with “rings”, on three fingers. And Kors couldn’t understand when Nikto had time to make them to him. He didn’t remember how he passed out, what happened later. Kors got up heavily, he was shaking, he literally crawled to the bathroom, he felt nauseous, and nausea came to his throat. Fortunately, Verniy was not there, the household dog had apparently already fled somewhere on business. Only in the corner, wrapped in a torn blanket, sat, huddled in a ball, the slave of Prince, Valentine. Hearing Kors’ footsteps, he stirred awkwardly as he crawled out of his cocoon. Naked and covered with whip scars, the boy turned his face towards the front door. One of his eyes was swollen, closed, with a purple hematoma on it. The second, covered with a white albugo, stared blankly at Kors. So Arel beat his boy again, and when he managed to do it, Kors couldn’t understand either. He suddenly thought that he had never seen Valentine’s face and didn’t know what he looked like without an iron muzzle that completely covered his nose and lower part of his face. Kors bent over the bathroom, nauseated, and involuntarily made several convulsive movements, but he never vomited. He tried to put two fingers in his mouth to finally free himself from this debilitating nausea. If the assault began, he would not be able to raise his sword and fight. “The gods will kill me today, I cannot fight,” thought Kors, “why did I take this drug, Gods, why? But it was so good!”
“Kors?” Nikto was standing on the threshold of the bathroom, Kors turned around and suddenly jerked convulsively, vomited water and gastric juice on the floor next to the bathroom, and the help of two fingers was not needed.
Nikto, without changing his face, said calmly and even somehow kindly:
“Come on, I'll cure you.”
After vomiting, Kors felt a little better, but his head was still dizzy with weakness. They returned to the room, he sat down on the bed. Before his eyes, everything was floating:
“Reds… assault…”
“Not yet. But they will start soon,” Nikto answered and gave him an injection.
And Kors felt released, as if Nikto poured life into him. He felt good, strange where the strength came from.
“Look,” Nikto raised a syringe in front of his face, showing him, “see? It will be yours now. Ver marked it with blue paint. Do you see the blue stripe?”
“I see. Why blue?”
“Well… like your stones,” Nikto looked at Kors’ gold cigarette case lying on the floor. “Isn't your colors blue and gold? Is your banner not blue and gold?”
“Yes. How do you know? You can't distinguish colors.”
“I see your bright blue color,” Nikto smiled and gently stroked Kors on the head, on the gray strand.
“This is the color of our family,” whispered Kors, “sapphire…”
“Yes…”
Nikto approached him, kissing him on the lips, very gently and carefully, but at the same time with pressure, taking his lower lip into his mouth, sticking his tongue into his mouth. And Kors felt the half-blood marks scraping his parched lips. He responded with a kiss, suddenly thinking that Nikto saw how he just vomited in the bathroom, that he didn’t brush his teeth, but it seemed that Nikto wasn’t embarrassed. And Kors wondered if Nik himself often cleaned himself up. “What am I doing?” Kors thought again. “I didn't wash, I slept in my clothes, I just lay on the dirty bed with them, without even taking off my boots. And they, too, obviously did not wash or change their clothes, and they are not even going to do this, and there will be no time. They only take the time to get the shot, not brush their teeth or comb their hair, and I do the same. I'm as dirty as they are, mentally and physically now too. He marked me with his filth, his absolute depravity, his body and mouth odor. I smell like him.” And disgust from himself and from Nikto’s lifestyle was replaced in Kors with a strange courage and delight that he was now the same, in an insane unity with them, devoid of concepts of human rules and laws that threw them away, as if they had already died and everything did not matter, for some reason gave Kors an incomprehensible pleasure and a feeling of freedom. He felt their desperate doom. World with other people was out there somewhere, and were are there. And there was no turning back for them. “There is still for me,” thought Kors, “they accepted me into their flock, and now I am one of them, I am at the bottom, I am an animal, but I will not completely lose touch with the world of people, as they did,” so thought Kors while still kissing her filthy Demon and enjoying it.
Loud alarm sounds forced them to break the kiss. The illusory peace of their little world, limited by this room, was over, and it was necessary to return to the world of war. But Kors was now ready to fight.
4
Power
Take care of your own strength and inner stability. Fortitude will help you overcome problems.
“How long will this continue?! For two days we have been fighting off a five-thousandth army, look, here are the lists, many have died, there are fewer and fewer of us!” Lis nervously walked around the room from corner to corner, and the weapon with which he was hung tinkled on him.
“And of them too,” Nikto answered him calmly.
“You said we had won!”
“Have we lost? Have we surrendered? Is the fort captured?! Lis?” Nikto raised his voice too.
“Do you perfectly understand what I mean, how long will we last?”
“We have enough reserves.”
“And the soldiers? Do we have enough warriors? The siege will drag on, who will remain? Who are we going to Ore town with?”
“I’ll go along the mouse hole, I’ll come to a high mountain,” Nikto said thoughtfully and as if to himself.
“What?”
“There are many mines and underground passages in Ore town, all the land under Ore has been dug up.”
Lis stopped for a second, as if pondering the words of Nikto:
“Nik, if the siege drags on, there will be two or three hundred of us left. And the red ones will call for help. You understand?!” Unable to bear it, he screamed again. “Or will you lead the unclean