you have to ask him. Just I don’t think that he will tell us about it now.”
Kors examined his tattooed hips, and a chain encircling them. He looked at the crooked sign of Prince Arel, with a healed burn instead of a bird's head.
“Nikto, how did you think to take me for a ride, disfiguring his body like that? Didn't Arel tell you how my interrogations usually end?”
“He told me,” Nikto said.
“And what did you hope for, you didn’t think how it would infuriate me?”
Nikto was silent and didn’t raise his head.
“Or did you want to infuriate me?! Throw this in my face and say: “See what I did?”
Nikto raised his left hand to his face, put his fingers under the edge of the half mask near the ear, and pulled it away, tearing it from the skin, revealing the scar.
“See what HE did? The one you wrote to the dead! He got involved in the stories one dumber than the other! He cut himself in despair.”
“I'm glad he resisted. It pleases me!”
“Enjoy it!”
“His grave will be beautiful! Do you believe me?!”
“Yes! Cram him into the grave quickly, out of sight. And then howl in sorrow as if for your wife, for the rest of your life! Bury him deeper, no matter that he is still alive!”
“And what is this?” Suddenly Kors asked himself rather quickly, and going up to Nikto, who pressed into the wall, leaned over him and with a sharp movement tore off a thin gold chain with a small ring on it from his neck.
He clenched the ring in his fist:
“Don't you dare desecrate her memory!”
“This is my girlfriend’s ring,” Nikto said defiantly, “why do you care?”
Kors looked at him a little in surprise and grinned:
“To begin with, this ring… however… what a difference now.”
He returned to the table and, opening his palm with a strange expression on his face, looked at a small piece of jewelry.
“Lead him away,” he finally whispered. “Take him away! And… damn you!” He cried when the convoy picked up Nikto from the floor and putting a bag over his head, dragged him out the door.
Chapter five
Afterwards
“Well?!” Karina in joyful excitement ran into the interrogation room. “Did you make sure? I couldn’t wait when you finish…” She looked at her frozen, hunched father, on an overturned chair, blood on the floor, a hill of bracelets of Nikto lying on the edge of the table.
“What did you do with him here?” Her voice became deaf, “Are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t dare,” Kors rose sharply, suddenly shouted at her so that Karina's tears came involuntarily because of this evil shout. But she restrained herself:
“You can… you can, at least explain to me.”
“Nikto is a demon!”
“Nonsense! I don’t believe in demons!”
“And I believe!”
“And you will execute him?”
“Sure! But first, I will avenge him, cruelly I will avenge! I’ll give him a walnut finish, my daughter! I have some thoughts on this subject, I’ll mock him great, be sure!”
“Gods! You already scoffed at him enough! Much more than enough! You didn’t even look at him, without understanding, you sent him to the mines! And if then I talked with him, then I saw him… It is quite possible then he could still be saved and he would not be so spoiled!”
“I don’t have time to meet and interrogate personally everyone!”
“But you regret doing so then? Are you sorry? Well, confess to me! Confess that you could have done differently!”
“I could. But I don’t regret it!”
“You regret!”
“Well, I'm sorry, but I don't care what you think about it. And then it was too late! And now even more so.”
“I don’t think so, he’s not as bad as he seems, he’s better than other people of the prince. Well, of course! How could I have thought that you would accept him! How would you introduce him to all your pompous friends. Tell them that your son is a slave, a rag from the “Lower”, and a half-breed.”
“And a drug addict.”
“Yes!”
“With a redone body, a disfigured face, head to toe covered with tattoos, the prince’s slave wearing his…” Kors froze in mid-sentence.
“Wearing his what?!” Karina didn’t understand.
“His brand. The brand. Clear?”
“Yes! It's so awful! It outweighs everything, and the fact that he is your blood and flesh and that he is your desired son and son of your beloved woman. I wonder if his mother would accept him as anyone? I don’t really know him, but I accept him as my brother, no matter what he is!”
“You won't accept him. Neither I nor you. He is not a member of our family – he is nobody, in the literal and figurative sense of the word!”
“You are so embarrassed about him that you are ready to believe and convince yourself that demons exist, and they inhabit human bodies and live in our world.”
“Yes.”
“Father, don’t you find it funny yourself?”
“It’s not funny! It’s not at all funny, Karina. And I hope that when you were there in the castle, you didn’t communicate with him.”
“I communicated with him! He saved my life, in the “Lower” people of the Black Bey ambushed us, and Nikto closed me with his body, and received a strong poke in the stomach.”
“You lie, I didn’t see any scar on his stomach, just a small burn, and even that seemed to be putting out a cigarette. What I quite believe. He has a scar from a stub on his stomach, not a sword!”
“Because he used the “black water” and “sama” to heal the wound and stay alive. I saw it! He saved me! And I thank him for that!”
“You hope you didn’t tell him in a burst of gratitude about your assumptions about your relationship?”
“No, I didn’t. But I showed him mother’s medallion.”
“Oh! Now it’s clear how he knew about Iness.”
“Yes. And I think he understood everything, and if he didn’t understand, then I will tell him anyway! Let it be for him even a small consolation that I admit him, since his father betrays him and betrays him time after time!”
“You won't tell him anything! You won’t even get close to him. By the way, he is contagious. You are very lucky that you didn’t pick up an infection from him in the Castle. Why are you keeping silent? Agree, lucky?”
Karina pulled herself together:
“It doesn’t matter! What matters is what you are going to do with him! Is not a drop of gratitude stirred in you after I told you? That he saved my life.”
“No. Quite possibly, it was all rigged. He is cunning. He almost took me for the ride as well as you. He managed to deceive you!”
“What does it mean: “He almost took me for a ride? You scare with these words.”
“Never mind. The main thing is that I resisted.”
“Have you even tried to talk to him? Or did you immediately hit him, father?” Karina looked doubtfully at the dried blood smeared on the floor.
“Well,