tremble, give me your hand,” said Nikto.
Kors swallowed hard.
“What will I feel? Hot pots and pans on which devils fry sinners, or whatever you have in Hell?”
“There will be no hallucinations,” Nikto smiled, “this is a good drug, relax.
“Good drug,” Kors whispered and shook his head.
He stretched out his hand, seeing that from the cord, on the inner side of the elbow, blue paths of the veins clearly manifested. Kors continued to have a nervous shiver. He didn’t understand what he was doing and what he allowed to do with himself. Kors looked at the concentrated face of Nikto: now he didn’t seem handsome to him at all – under sunken eyes there were dark circles, he was too pale, with too sunken cheeks and black inscriptions on the cheekbones further emphasized the unhealthy thinness. Living Dead.
“It will be good,” Nikto so inhumanly “smiled”, exposing the edges of the fangs, bent to Kors’ hand holding a filled syringe in his black fingers and slightly at an angle putting the needle to the white clean skin. He carefully punctured skin, piercing it with the sharp end of the needle and damaging the wall of the blood vessel. Bright scarlet blood swirled behind the glass, mixing with the substance. Nikto slowly pushed on the piston, injecting a foreign mixture into Kors’ blood. Verniy relaxed the cord. From the fact that the unclean one touched him with his furry paw, Kors involuntarily shrank. The demon and his dog touched him and performed unacceptable actions with his body. Kors felt defiled and already regretted letting them do it.
But suddenly everything passed, and he was released. This difference between the previous nervous state, full of tension and fatigue, and the current one, was so palpable, as if Nikto had not a syringe in his hands, but a magic wand and he waved it and – wow! Just a moment ago Kors felt so dreary and bad, but now he felt so good! Kors didn’t expect such a sharp transition, for some reason he thought that he had to wait and maybe after a while he would feel some slight relief. But not that it would be like this! Fast, magical, wonderful! And Nikto, seeing his face, laughed:
“Well? Does it hurt?”
“No. Only very slightly at the beginning when you pierced.”
Kors felt relieved, nervous exhaustion was gone, and interest in life reappeared. Yes, that was truly a “restorative”! Verniy walked away from them, he took the bloody sword of Nikto and went with him to the adjacent room.
“Is your sword the sword of the unclean?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get it here? Have the unclean ones brought it?”
“Yes. When Wolf arrested me in Lower, they disarmed me and threw everything away. Arel handed over Power and my weapon to the unclean Borgan, and he then passed them on to Zaf.”
“It is beautiful, it is clear that it is expensive. Does your sword have a name?”
“No, no, I'm bad with coming up with names.”
“However, you named your horse and habir beautifully.”
“Really?” Nikto was surprised.
“Yes. A bit pompous, but in general beautiful.”
“But I have more than one sword, actually. I happen to call a weapon in conversation by the name of the one who made it. The sword of Lumin or Ridiger for example.”
“So many say.”
“I don’t invent separate names.”
“I was amazed today by how you managed to compensate for your disability.”
“What?”
“You got used to it. You fight very well. Sometimes you let the enemy get too close, but in general…”
Nikto just chuckled. Kors watched as he quickly wrapped a wide strip of black fabric around his wrist and put a high leather bracelet on top, how easily he worked with his left hand, tightening the lacing.
“I remember now your steel bracelets,” said Kors.
“Yes. You didn't return them to me. And the rings. And hairpins. All my jewelry has been fucked up by you, Kors.”
“I took off your rings because I wanted you to see the tattoos on your fingers.”
“Do you think I didn't understand it?”
“I have everything, all your things. Also the chain with the ring.”
“Well, this is the ring of your Iness, keep it to yourself.”
“Thank you. I will leave the ring, and I will give the rest to you when we return to the Black City.”
“Your guards took off my earrings,” Nikto said a little upset, “now you won't find them.”
“Earrings?”
“My earrings, Enriki called them rat tails.”
Kors remembered the silver earrings of Nikto, which hung down to his shoulders and really resembled rat tails in shape and length:
“Exactly! I remembered! I didn’t take them off you, you were in the throne room with them.”
“In the throne room,” Nikto shook his head slightly, “I was in a cage, and not in the throne room, your Nolan or how is his name took them off after, apparently he liked them, and others as well.”
“But you found a replacement and decorated your ears even uglier.”
Kors pushed his hair a little to the side, examining the lobe stretched out by the iron tunnels:
“Two fingers come in.”
Nikto shook his head slightly, dodging Kors, forcing him to pull his fingers out of the tunnel:
“Enough of fiddling with me like with a toy, really! Why are you looking at me like that again?”
“Strange movements, how strange you are moving, I cannot get used to it. When you want to turn your head, you turn your whole body. Where you can just turn your head, you turn your shoulders.”
“This is a habit from the collar, it restricted me.”
Kors ran his fingers over the obvious calluses, the hard, hardened skin on the neck of Nikto:
“I’m guilty, because of me they put it on you. Everything that has happened to you since birth is all because of me. Your appearance, your paralysis, your scars.”
Nikto was silent.
“Where is it now?”
“What?!”
“Your collar.”
“It stayed at the blacksmith’s, in Arel’s Estate.”
“Why didn't you take it off earlier?”
“Everyone liked it. The prince liked it.”
“Did you really obey Prince Arel?”
“In the beginning, yes.”
“Did he humiliate you?”
“Yes.”
“Same as I did?”
Nikto thought for a minute:
“No, stronger, and at the same time no… less. He exhausted me more physically, and you press hard with words.”
“Exhausted physically, that sounds great!”
“He beat hard, broke my nose, knocked out my front teeth, almost broke my jaw, ah-ah, also the knee…”
“Enough! Why did you let him?!”
“I knocked out his eye.”
“Are you crazy?!”
“I liked it myself. I liked his games.”
Kors looked at Prince Arel, who was still sitting on the bed without changing his posture and listening to their conversation with a slightly condescending expression