Or do you only treat the “wrong” children this way? Like Shag and Nik? Nik’s hands are tied wrist to wrist. His hands are brought together, palm to palm, he somehow strangely presses them to his chest, and then the rope goes to the ring in the wall. Why did the witch tie a small child in a dark room alone? Why did she tie his hands together? “She didn’t treat you that well, Nik!” — Kors thinks bitterly. But his son never said a bad word about her, and always called her “my foster mother”, or simply mother. He didn’t say “witch”, didn’t call her by name, he said — my mother. And Kors sees now that Mara clearly didn’t deserve this title.
Nik shudders a little, as if he is listening carefully to something, but total silence reigns around. Shaking his head slightly, he removes his hands from his chest and suddenly begins to scrape the dirt floor. The floor is hard, but Nik must have had enough time, because the hole he scratched in the floor is quite deep. He slowly and somehow mechanically stupidly scratches the ground with his nails. There is neither a mug of water nor a bowl of food nearby. Maybe the poor boy really its soil. Nik scratches, scrapes the ground, and, as if angry, in some desperation raises his hands tied at the wrists, clenches his fists and nervously taps them on the top of his head. How familiar is this movement to Kors! Son, why are you digging the soil? Are you trying to dig a tunnel? To dig your way to freedom? Kors is overwhelmed with emotions of love for Nik and resentment for the witch. How could she treat his son like that! Animals are better treated, and he was a child! Kors’s heart is filled with such pain that he can no longer look at this simple and at the same time unbearable picture.
“Gods, son! Son!” he screams in some kind of frenzy and sees that Nik is shuddering, raising his pale face, his empty eyes staring into nowhere. His lips move barely perceptibly, not a sound comes out of them, but in Kors’ head it clearly flashes: “Father?” It's like Nik is putting it right into his brain, without using his voice or language. Only emotions. Again and again, with such surprise, he seems to ask: “Father? Father?!"
Kors freezes in surprise, emotions overwhelm him, and he begins to “fall out” of the past. The picture gets blurred, but he still manages to hear a sharp cry: “Dad, don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!"
And Kors falls out of his strange state. He wakes up, realizing that he is lying on a camp bed in a tent, but in his head, full of despair, it still continues to sound:
“Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave…”
No, it couldn’t happen! It just couldn’t happen! Nik couldn’t feel him there at that moment and hear him, because Kors was just seeing through t the past. And the witch couldn’t treat his son so badly, she needed the child. She herself bought him for the Demon to share his body. So it’s not even the past, but a bad dream. It’s just a nightmare. Just a bad dream! Bad. Dream. Forget it!
What time is it now? His eyes were still tightly covered with plaster. But usually Kors always woke up early, only recently in the Fort his unchanging schedule has gone astray. It probably isn’t even nine in the morning yet, thought Kors. He heard the pounding of rain on the roof. So it hasn’t stopped raining yet, it’s been raining all night? Behind him lay Arel. Kors had no doubt that it was him. The prince was lying very close, clinging tightly and, as usual, placing his relaxed and therefore heavy arm on Kors. He pressed his face against the back of Kors’ head, and he felt his warm, measured breath on his hair. Kors didn’t remember how he fell asleep, didn’t remember when Arel lay down next to him. Most likely, Nik, using his power, put Kors to sleep, just knocked him out, and Kors was offended by this. “Why, like this, without asking, against will, put a person to sleep? Without asking even my desire? He treats me like a thing!” Discontent and irritation were rising in him more and more, and his mood was shitty since the very morning. He was unbearably infuriated by the plaster on his eyes, the sticky layer was pulling his skin, and in general, waking up in the morning, he just wanted to open his eyes, rub them, but Kors couldn’t do this. The way Nik had treated him yesterday was terribly upsetting now, too. Not only did he make him humbly kneel at the threshold, shivering from the cold, but he also blinded him. “I don’t want you to see my face! You won’t see my human face again!” What a crazy idea? Another stupidity in which there is no point, except for humiliation. Senseless humiliation. However, this is absolutely in their style — to humiliate for no reason and cruelly, always the same thing, nothing new. Lis has to be painted like a jester, I have to be blinded. And Nik does this not for the first time, Kors remembered how for several days he was forced to wear uncomfortable shameful glasses in which nothing was visible, and now even worse, Nik just plastered his eyes over. Silly games of an eccentric, cruel boy. “I don’t punish you, daddy.” Hypocritical rubbish, what else are you doing! You allowed me to be beaten! Kors preferred to believe that it was not Nik himself who hit him, but the prince. And then he simply ordered “sleep” and knocked him out.
Kors felt heat from Arel lying next to him. Their camp bed was not wide at all, it was uncomfortable to sleep on it together even in an embrace, and the heavy brocade blanket with which they were covered with their heads now also was annoying Kors. Under it, together with Arel, it was stuffy and hot. Stuffy, hot and cramped. Kors rather rudely threw off the prince’s arm and sat down. Getting out from under the warmth of the blanket and Arel, he immediately felt the damp coolness of moist air. Down below, a draft blew across the wooden flooring, chilling his bare feet uncomfortably. There was a strong smell of tobacco, yesterday’s lamb, sweat from clothes and unwashed bodies, but the smell of cigarette smoke still reigned over all the rest.
“Nik…” Kors called, but immediately stopped short. “Nikto! Son!” He added cautiously. “Can I address you? I really have to!”
“Hmmm…” Apparently, Nik was lying very close, from the side of Prince Arel, and, it seemed, right on the floor:
“What do you want? Oh-h…”
“What time is it now?” Kors asked.
“What?”
“ Do you know what time it is?”
“I have no idea, what?” Nik asked with a yawn.
“Are you asking me?! How would I know if I can’t see anything?” Kors was outraged. Yes, talking to Nik in the morning was a pointless exercise, however, as at almost any other time.
Nik yawned again and didn’t answer.
“Can I peel off the plaster?” Kors asked after a while, realizing that Nik had no intention of continuing the conversation at all.
“Eh? No.”
Kors barely suppressed the uncontrollable wave of anger that swept over him. His fingers clenched nervously into fists.
“No,” repeated Nick, “I’ll do it myself.”
“Then do it…” and Kors, thinking again for a moment, added: “Please.”
“A little bit later. Get away from me, let me sleep! What keeps you up this early?”
“I’m begging you, stop scoffing! Peel it off.”
“I’m not kidding, I want to sleep, do you need it right now?”
“But I can’t see anything!”
“Why do you need to see something now? Sleep, that’s all!”
“I need to step aside to relieve myself!”
“Take a bottle there, Arel left some yesterday…”
“Are you kidding?”
But Nik didn’t answer him anymore.
Continuing to writhe inside with rage, Kors rummaged around near their trestle bed and immediately stumbled upon several empty wine bottles lying there. “Just wonderful!” But what to do, need makes the old wife trot. Standing up and holding a bottle in one hand, with the other hand he pulled his cock out of his pants, and, pressing his head strongly against the neck, he nevertheless managed to relieve himself. As soon as he put the filled bottle aside, he felt Arel’s hands on his belt. He pulled his thin and soft suede pants even lower from his hips and at the same time persistently pulled Kors back onto the trestle bed, forcing him to sit down. Arel didn’t turn him around, releasing his waist, and pressed on his shoulders. Kors lay on his side with his back to the prince. They huddled together like folded spoons in a drawer. Kors felt a hot and hard cock resting against his sacrum. “Well, of course, come on, Arel! Calm your morning boner against me.”