“Just don’t spit here!” Kors reacted instantly, already knowing by heart all his habits and anticipating his actions. “What has happened?”
Nik obeyed, but swallowed what he had just drunk with obvious difficulty:
“You motherfucker! What was it?!”
Arel took the jug, and, sniffing the contents, laughed:
“Nik, this is not wine, but grape juice. Aha-ha…”
“The juice?” Nik asked. “What for?”
“What does it mean – what for?” Kors intervened. “Maybe someone would like some juice, not just wine. I know it’s weird for you…”
“That…juice…it tastes like…like nobody loves you!” Nik tried to explain his feelings.
And Kors laughed, shaking his head. And Nik looked at Lila in a perky dance. She lifted her skirt quite high, and threw her legs up too.
“I want a girl,” Nik said, and his face became sad.
“Here it’s starting… Where can I get her for you here?” Kors began displeasedly. “We’ll come to the city, I’ll pick up a decent one for you…”
“I want Lila!”
“Oh gods,” Kors whispered, leaning his elbow on the table and pressing his palm to his forehead, “I have no rest from you… endless bad ideas in your head… just restless…”
“I want to past some time with her.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that she believes in the God of the upper ones and sings prayers to him?”
“No, I even like it, she sings beautifully.”
“Ask her to sing while you fuck her,” Arel laughed.
“I think he’ll find something to keep her mouth busy besides songs,” Kors remarked with obvious annoyance.
“What is bad in it, why are you jealous? I’ll just stay with her for a while!” Nik was upset.
“I’m not at all jealous of this actress,” Kors snorted deliberately contemptuously, obviously overacting, “she believes in God so much and at the same time dances, twirling her ass like the last whore. I don’t understand how it fits together! Believers are modest and pious. I won’t even mention that she is a married woman after all, let Tol deal with that.”
“Stop beating Lila with words, she is good.”
“Well, ask Tol for her then, if you so desire,” Kors muttered.
“Arel, call Tol,” Nik asked, and the prince silently got up from the table, heading towards the crowd of guests, above which, swaying a little, towered cheerful and joyful Tol. He boomed loudly, telling the audience gathered around him some regular story, in which, as usual, he was a brave hero.
Very quickly, they returned with Tol, and Tol immediately began to vigorously express his joy, as if seeing them for the first time, although they had already talked today and had drinks together no more than an hour ago.
“Wow! I have just tucked a good portion of roast under my belt!” Tol patted his stomach, “Here under the skin now I have a wonderful piece of wood, and if, in addition, I pour wine on top…”
“Tol, give me Lila?” Nik said.
Tol froze, as if at first he didn’t understand what they wanted from him, but finally it dawned on him:
“Do you want to fuck my Lila?”
“Yes.”
Tol was not at all embarrassed:
“Ah, yes, of course!” He turned and looked at Lila. She was still dancing on the drum, but now she was also singing a song. He looked back at Nik:
“Of course, my friend! Take her! I offered you to have fun with us back when Al and I changed wives, and he was having fun with Lila, and I was with Karina, that was great! You shouldn’t have left then, we were so…” Tol froze and looked frightened at Kors, clearly realizing that he had got carried away and blurted out too much, “uh-uh, hm-m-m-m…”
Kors rolled his eyes slightly.
“Come on, Tol, don’t be embarrassed. I have long understood that Karina…” he chuckled, “had fucked everyone here! Probably only Valentine didn’t fuck her!”
And, having heard his words, Nik and Arel, looking at each other, burst out laughing. They literally choked, trying not to laugh out loud.
“What funny thing have I said?” Kors sincerely couldn’t understand.
“Nothing, nothing…”
“Well, I’ll bring Lila then,” Tol obviously wanted to leave quickly, he never fully got used to Kors and never communicated with him on his own initiative.
They saw how he approached his wife, and she immediately jumped off the drum. Flushed and smiling, she approached them.
“You dance so beautifully,” Nik told her.
“Did you mean you wiggle your ass?” Ariel laughed.
Lila made an offended face and pouted her lips:
“Prince Arel, this is choreography,” she said indignantly.
“Lila, will you come with me to my room?” Nik asked.
She looked at him fascinated:
“Yes, my angel.”
“Lila, wring out the hem, it’s all wet,” Arel laughed, seeing what her face looked like when she looked at Nik.
And Nik got up and, taking Lila by the hand, led her upstairs to their room.
Kors very much wanted to tell him not to linger and do everything quickly, but he couldn’t. He hated Lila for this, for those couple of hours for which she took his boy away from him.
Arel held out the goblet to him:
“Shall we have a drink?”
But Kors didn't want to.
“He just needs female energy from time to time to complete the balance,” the prince said, as if consoling Kors.
“I know!” Kors said irritably. “Do you need her, Arel?”
“I don’t,” Arel shook his head, “I don’t need anything to be full, because I am empty.
Kors handed him his goblet.
“For you, Prince Arel!”
And Arel condescendingly and smugly smiled at him.
Chapter 16
Vitor Kors was sitting at the table among the joyful guests, having the heebie-jeebies. He was literally counting down the minutes, resisting the temptation to see how his boy was doing. More than an hour passed, and Nik was still gone, and Kors could hardly restrain himself from breaking loose, struggling with a wild desire to immediately rush upstairs to the room and finally throw this bitch out of their bed! Throw her away like he did with that pissing cat!
And suddenly he saw Lila. She entered the hall, all the same smart and happy. “Damn, she literally glows with happiness!” Kors thought with sincere anger. “Tol’s bitch achieved with her ass what she wanted!”
And Lila approached the musicians and began to explain something to them. One of the guests helped her climb onto the drum again, and everyone clapped, obviously expecting another fun dance. But the musicians played a slow and quiet melody, and Lila just stood on the drum, pressing her crossed hands to her chest, and then started singing:
I thank You God for moon and sun,
For wonder of the planets run,
For every moment, Good Lord, You will give me!
For light and shade, for joy, dismay,
For my the best till present day,
For every new inhale yet – Hallelujah!
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujaaaa…
Kors looked at the guests, frozen in delight, and at Lila, and thought that, oddly enough, despite the fact that Lila had white hair, he never had any interest in her, and he didn’t like her. In general, Kors was aware of her sad story – how the Reds attacked the village where Lila’s family lived and set fire to their house. Her brother Dick Nedwill managed to hide Lila in the cellar. Their parents were burned alive, and Dick was badly burned, for which he later received his nickname – Coal. When the blacks liberated the village and found Lila, they saw that after a few days spent in the basement, the girl had become gray-haired. Maybe that’s why Kors was not attracted to Lila, because she was not a real blonde, her hair was actually gray, and not naturally blond. Lila had dark skin and brown eyes, nothing of the White’s Upper race, and although Lila was considered a beauty by black standards, until now, Kors simply didn’t notice this commoner. Now he hated her.
“If Lila is here, where is Nik?” and, unable to wait any longer and even think about the situation for a bit, Kors already used his power to “find” him.
He immediately “found” and “saw” Nik. He was very close, on the first floor of the Estate, in a small living room, adorned with hunting trophies – deer antlers and stuffed quails. Nik stood there, neatly dressed, with his weapons strapped on, and even, it seems, ran a comb through his hair a couple of times, because he was not disheveled. Or was it Lila who smoothed his hair after making love with him? But now Kors was no longer up to Lila and not to the point that she seemed to dare to comb his boy, because Nik was standing in this room and talking to…
“You motherfucker!” Kors literally jumped up in his chair, since Arel, who was sitting next to him, was already pretty drunk by this time and didn’t notice this.
“This scum continues to follow us! He’s waiting for Nik, waiting until he moves away from me at least a step!” Kors barely suppressed the urge to rush at them immediately.
Before Nik stood Zagpeace Gezaria:
“Freedom is obviously good for you, I’m glad to see it,” Peace said, turning to Nik.
And Kors felt, “heard” that Nik was drunk or already stoned while getting “filled with energy” with Lila, that it was difficult for him to think, and he was desperately trying not to get out of the role of a “lame fool with a pretty face”, barely understanding what Zagpeace was saying to him.
(Kors began to shake: “Fuck, Nik! You’re going to ruin everything! No wonder I didn’t let you get into conversations with true blacks! Gods, what a stupid irresponsible jerk! What to do?!”)
“You look much better than when your father treated and raised you,” Zagpeace continued. He looked at Nik, as usual, smiling a little indulgently.
“Well…” Nik was embarrassed by how closely Zagpeace was looking at him. “My father treats me, and he uses… hmmm… certain methods of upbringing, from simple to complex…”
“Methods? In my opinion, he is methodical only in his madness,” Zagpeace burst out laughing.
And Kors, sitting in his place in the hall among the guests, froze.
He heard Zagpeace’s thoughts, saw how he looked at Nik and smiled at him, while not opening his lips. How soft and friendly mockery plays in his gaze. Zagpeace was laughing inside, amused by how Nik looked. He thought: “How nice is this Nik, the son of Kors. He looks so much like a pretty girl. What did Kors do with this mixture of races! Such a funny boy was done, not an adult man, even though he was in his twenties. Funny, with his eternal snot under his nose and crookedly cut bangs.”
(What!? I cut his bangs perfectly straight! You idiot!)
Zagpeace barely restrained himself so that Nik didn’t not ice that he was making fun of him. Kors “heard” that he still wanted Nik to be one of his warriors. Andyes, Zagpeace wanted to put him up again for fights in the Lower and Upper, and just at private parties, but now on his own behalf. Kors felt it, and Zagpeace, making the most serious face, said to Nik:
“I’m glad that at least you don’t try to run away from me like you used to, and talk to me without being forced.”
“Y…yes… my father allowed me to talk to whomever I want, people…” Nik said cautiously.
(Gods! Why have I done it?! I shouldn’t have let him even get close to the gentlemen! Nik, you’re drunk and you’re in a tough symbiosis with my underdeveloped son! Nik! You can’t handle it! Get out of there immediately!)
“Shall we go to our table? I invite you. Will you talk with my warriors? Zagpeace suggested.
(That last thing I could have wanted!)
“Uh, no… no,” Nik said immediately and literally staggered away from Zagpeace, so that they were now separated by a table standing in the room.
“Okay, I won’t insist,” Zagpeace retreated immediately, noticing his tension. “Then just listen to me carefully. Nik, I'm waiting for you in the Black City, in Upper, Coastal street, house eight. Do you know where is it?”
“N… no…”
“But you lived in the Upper!”
“Y…yes, but I lived in Prince Arel’s Castle…”
“Yeah, it’s still a wilderness,” Zagpeace threw contemptuously, “did you visit your father’s mansion? It is very close to the Coast.”
“N… no, never…”
“Clear. What streets of the Upper City have you been to? I will try to give you directions so that you understand where my Academy is located.”
“I was only on those streets that Prince Arel pressed…”
(Nik! You can’t say that! How right I was when I wanted to stick a plaster on your mouth! If I could do it now, I would cover your mouth in several layers, tightly! So that you don’t even make a sound! Shut up at last! What the nonsense are you saying?)
Zagpeace grimaced slightly, but pretended that everything was in order:
“I have understood you. Streets on the very border of the Upper and Lower near the border wall. They don’t even count as the Upper.”
“Yes, right next to the wall,” Nik continued uncertainly, “I was also at Dim’s Coliseum…”
“Do you know where is the third gate?”
“Third gate? N… No. Prince Arel… we traveled from Upper to Lower, back and forth, always only through the same gates. Never through others. I think it was gate number twelve…”
“The easternmost gate by the river, through which few people travel. You, it turns out, have not seen all the beauty and grandeur of the Upper City, Nik. You can’t even imagine how beautiful it is! I’ll show it to you!”
(Damn, he doesn’t give a fuck about this beauty!)
Nik was silent, obviously not knowing what to answer, and Zagpeace asked:
“Do you still have a pass?”
“Hmm… Prince Arel made me a pass a long time ago… it seems to be somewhere in an old jacket…”
“Has your father given you a new pass?”
“No.”
(When it will be necessary, I will do it! You, Peace, have nothing to do with it!)
Zagpeace took from his pocket a small rectangle made of thick white cardboard with gold embossing – his business card, on which his family coat of arms was depicted. Then he took out a pen filled with red ink.
“I’ll make you a new pass now,” he said, “just don’t lose it, be more careful with the documents. And when you go to my place and the patrol stops you, and they stop you, it’s natural, since my Academy is located in one of the richest and most closed areas of the city…”
(What the fuck are you saying?!)
“Then you will show them the pass. And, Nik, if they ask where you’re going, tell it like it is – you’re coming to me because I called you.”
(Nik, why are you looking at this piece of paper like a sheep?! Don’t take anything from him!)
“Nik, will you be able to come by yourself? Or should I send someone for you?” Zagpeace clarified, also noticing some confusion with which Nik looked at the business card.
“No, I’ll figure it out, I went to Dim alone,” Nik remembered.
“I’ll write you the address on the back right now so you don’t forget it.”
(Why are you telling him, chewing on elementary things, as if my son is an idiot! He will find everything if only he needs it!)
Zagpeace put the business card on the table and began to carefully write down the address of his house on the back of it. Kors saw his hands wrapped in thin leather gloves, which he never took off, and how he was writing his address in a beautiful confident hand, holding a small rectangle slightly with his left hand without fingers. The two empty fingers in his glove were filled from the inside with something to make it seem like all the fingers were in place. An ignorant person will not understand that Zagpeace’s hand is crippled. But Kors knew it, and he was sick of disgust.
At the very end, Zagpeace’s hand seemed to tremble, breaking the perfect pattern of letters with a small squiggle. Kors realized that Zagpeace had put a secret sign on Nick's pass. For everyone, it was just a tail of a letter that didn’t mean anything, but for patrolmen, it was a special mark. It meant that the master needed this commoner to perform some task. Usually this is how the security service marked the pass for informers and assistants from Lower. And, therefore, having seen a secret mark, the patrolmen will not detain Nik, they will let him through to such an area of the Upper, where strangers never appear.
“Well,” Zagpeace slightly waved his business card so that the ink would dry faster, “when the patrol stops you, show them this.”
“Fine.”
“I hope you didn’t have any unpleasant incidents with patrolmen before this?”
“Unpleasant? Uh …” Nik nervously ran his hand under his nose and, not finding the usual ring with a bead, fiddling with which, he calmed himself, got even more nervous:
“Well, when they stopped me, I just showed my pass, and that’s it…”
“Were you detained?”
Nik with annoyance removed his hand from his nose, and, making a displeased face, reluctantly replied:
“Yes, a couple of times.”
“This is bad.”
Nik pursed his lips and said nothing.
“Tell me why you were detained so that I can prevent such situations in the future. What did you do?”
“Nothing at all!”
“You dared them, as you like it? Or behaved disrespectfully?”
“No.”
“If you didn’t do anything wrong, just tell me what happened.”
Nik froze and stood for a while, staring blankly at the floor, and then made his strange movement, jerking his head sharply, as if someone invisible had hit him on the back of the head from behind. Finally, he began hesitantly:
“I went to training at Dim’s Coliseum…” he fell silent, and Zagpeace didn’t rush him, patiently waiting for the continuation, “and they stopped me. They didn’t like my horse, that it was unclean, and it seems that I rode it too fast… But it was impossible on that street. They abruptly drove out from behind the turn to intercept me, I barely managed to stay in the saddle and didn’t tip over only because Power stood on hind legs. They surrounded me, began to demand to dismount. I did it and showed them the pass. I didn’t… didn’t dare. They asked who my master was and where I was going. I answered that my master was Prince Arel, and I was going to Dim’s Coliseum for training. They began to ask why I had an unclean horse, they began to say that it was impossible here to ride so quickly… hmmm … They ordered me to remove the mask, but I couldn’t do it as soon as they wanted, because I usually always stick it to my face. So it is more convenient to fight, it doesn’t slide anywhere. I said, “It’s glued on.” One of them reached out and pulled me hard on the edge of the mask, it hurt, but I said nothing. They made sure that I was not lying and that the mask was glued on, but still they twisted my hands behind my back, handcuffed me and took me to the police station. Until… until the circumstances were clarified. I was just there, in the cell, and couldn’t come to Dim.”
After listening to all this rather indistinct stream of words, and even with an unclean accent, because when Nik spoke a lot and for a long time, he involuntarily began to swallow vowels, Zagpeace somehow wearily sighed and shook his head:
“And then what happened?”
“Arel… Prince Arel came for me. He said that I was his warrior, and he put me up for fights at Dim’s Coliseum. He yelled that he was not going to give me a black man to accompany me every time I needed to go to training. And if his pass was not enough for them, and he also has to come to the station for his soldiers and explain something there, he would arrange for them such a fun life that they will regret it. Arel promised that he would smash everything to hell, and he would get nothing for it!” Nik laughed merrily, but Zagpeace, on the contrary, was clearly not laughing.
“Arel was very angry,” said Nik, continuing to have fun and not paying any attention to the expression on Zagpeace’s face. It seemed that, unlike his listener, Nik found this story amusing and he himself was so carried away by his story that now he couldn’t be stopped:
“They were afraid of him, began to make excuses to him that they detained me because I didn’t obey the order and didn’t take off the mask. And he said, “You idiots, it’s glued on! This is my warrior, he obeys my orders, and only I decide when he has to take off and when not to take off his mask! He told them a lot. Aha-ha! Arel is so cool! He took me from there. They didn’t seem to care anymore, and they just wanted him to stop yelling and get out as soon as possible. And the next day he again sent me to Dim’s alone. But they didn’t stop me anymore. And I always drove on the same road, and the patrols already knew me, and then they went to fights, they liked to watch my fights, and they didn’t touch me anymore.
“You said you were detained a couple of times… for what else?”
“Well…I just went into this…expensive shop…without a black escort, and they called the guards.”
“But why did you go there?!”
“I… I saw beautiful bottles in the window… I wanted to buy one… One of green glass, like an emerald,” and Nik involuntarily looked at his hand to where a ring with a green stone sparkled on his finger. “It was so… it was like it was made of a precious stone, and inside there was dark wine. I had money. I wanted to buy it!”
“And you didn’t know that they wouldn’t sell you anything in Upper, even if you had money?”
“Eh, I knew… I… I was very drunk, and I just thought badly…”
(Yes, and even now, Nik, you are drunk and you think badly if you tell himall this!)
“What was the name of this store?”
“Hmmm… I don’t remember…”
(You yourself know very well what this place was called, Peace! And I remember this incident! The fire in the Glass Island. Now I know, and you can probably guess what caused it to burn down so unexpectedly!)
“And how did it all end? Did Prince Arel take you away again?”
“Yes, but this time he had beaten the shit out of me.”
(Nik! Looks like it’s me who will beat the shit out of you today!)
Kors was angry with Nik, and at the same time, probably only now did he fully realize what a humiliating position his son was in. And the fact that Nik couldn’t move freely in the Upper City, ride the streets wherever he wanted, without a black pass or escort. He couldn’t go into shops, let alone restaurants or the theatre. A patrol could stop him and arrest him at any moment. Kors only now realized that even to collect tribute from his streets, in order to avoid unnecessary problems, Arel sent him not alone, but together with Squit-Eye, who was black.
“On the one hand, I am impressed by your desperate character, it was he who did not allow you to completely break down over ten years of slavery,” Zagpeace said a little out of his style, not minting every word, as usual, but more gently, “and therefore I want help you.”
(Of course! What a hypocrite!)
“But on the other hand, listen to me, this is important,” Zagpeace continued, returning to his impassive intonation. “I understand that you have never been to that part of the Upper City where I tell you to come, and the patrols there don’t know you, so when you are stopped, follow all their requirements. Show them the pass. If they say they’re taking you to my academy, don’t argue with them.”
“And there already my guards will meet you, I will warn them, they will be waiting for you. You will be handed over, just be silent and do whatever you are told.”
“Good,” Nik made such a quick gesture with his hand, familiar to Kors, as if he wanted to remove the bangs from his eyes, but, like the rings under his nose, he now also didn’t have a long bang, and Nik, clearly not understanding how to calm his involuntary movements, doomedly clutched his fingers at his wide belt.
“If you’re wearing a mask and they tell you to take it off, do it. Don’t glue the mask to your face. Because I will meet you, and we will immediately go to a very respected institution to make documents for you, and there you must be with an open face. And you must have half-blood rings in your lip.”
Nik clutched at his lower lip, from which Kors had pulled his badges of affiliation only this morning.
“Documents? At the Upper?” He asked in surprise, not reacting in any way to the fact that Zagpeace, without any requests, quite categorically ordered him to put a humiliating mark on his face.
“Yes! At the Upper, because you’re half true black!”
But Nik looked at Zagpeace somehow very skeptically:
“Half black, and somehow that half is not fucking visible!”
“Nik, trust me, it’s visible! At the time of your birth, your mother was not a slave, Kors had freed Inness and married her. You were born in an official marriage to a noble black. Whatever your father may be, but he is a true black, a descendant of the ancestors of this world, and the blood of the higher flows in you. I’ll do the documents for you. And then you will have my pass and an official document proving your identity, and the Upper will be open to you.”
“Oh…”
“Have you thought about a name?”
“Nik.”
“But understand, this is no good! You should have a longer name.”
“Nikto,” said Nik, and, looking at Zagpeace a little frowningly, he smiled. He smiled so simply, with a little provocative smile, and seeing this, Kors stirred everything inside from love for him. Now that Nik’s smile was no longer crooked due to the scar, it became very clear that smiling made him look great, and he became even more attractive.
Nik became very cute when he pouted a little or pouted his lower lip forward and looked a little from under his brows, but his now not crippled, completely natural smile was no less attractive. Previously, when Nik smiled, his inferiority and the fact that the right side of his face was paralyzed immediately became noticeable, but now, when the paralyzing poison leaked out and the scar healed, Nik could smile freely, and it turned out that he had a very beautiful open smile.
And looking at Nik, Zagpeace smiled back at him. He smiled, not mockingly condescending as before, but somehow truly, honestly and sincerely. Kors heard Zagpeace think of his son, “He’s damn charming! Andhe knows how to fight spectacularly. Difficult, hard fate, tattoos of unclean ones on the face – the audience will be delighted. Everyone will want to come and see him!”
(I will kill you, Peace! My son is not some strange animal that people go to see!)
“All the Upper will want to look at the redeemed Son of the Devil, whom I directed on the true path and, according to the precepts of the Holy Fathers, helped the lost sheep return to the flock.”
(Gods, what a hypocrite you are, Peace! How I have been friends with you for so many years and didn’tnotice this!)
“It will only be necessary to keep an eye on him, and, probably, I will have to assign a reliable person to protect him, otherwise my warriors will get him drunk and fucked. At first, it will be needed to watch him constantly.”
But Zagpeace said aloud:
“I propose something more suitable, showing your belonging to the true blacks. For example, Michael or Sebastian.”
“What? Aha! No, I’m not good enough for such names,” Nik laughed, “I have snot hanging under my nose.”
And Zagpeace laughed too:
“It suits you.”
“You don’t have names for people like me,” Nik said, “these are your names, they belong to true blacks, not to me. If they call me like you, you will laugh at me behind my back. My name is Nik, the short name of a slave, and it is more honest,” he finished even with some pride.
Zagpeace paused for a second.
“Okay, we’ll come back to this later, and you know, your father’s last name is not worth mentioning at all and…”
“Uh…” Nik tried to protest. He was pulled back, and he barely kept his balance, clutching the edge of the table with his hand.
Zagpeace chuckled, realizing that Nik was drunk, and immediately said conciliatorily:
“I gave you food for thought, we’ll talk more when we make the document. After that, I will sign a contract with you. This is how free and honest people interact with each other.”
“Contract?”
“Yes, the obligations of the parties and the terms of cooperation will be spelled out in detail. I am very good with my mercenaries. I pay them well. They have everything! Both money and reputation!”
Saying all this, Zagpeace put the pass on the table and kindly pushed it towards Nick:
“Here is your ticket to a new life. I will make sure that you live with dignity and right, I will pick you a good wife.”
“I have a wife,” Nik said.
“The unclean one doesn’t count, forget about her and all the other unclean ones! You are a man, and you must live according to the laws of people, not animals! I will find you a girl, I don’t promise that a noble lady, but I will choose a modest and complaisant one. Many free people of low birth, but respectable and hardworking, live in Upper.”
(Do you want to choose a maid to be his wife?! How noble!)
“Nik, you like girls, don’t you? It’s just that Arel and Kors forced you to serve their voluptuousness, but, in fact, you are not like them, are you? You are not…”
“Yes, they like it,” Nik hastily interrupted him, “but I don’t need any wife! I will make her unhappy. And I look not like a human, but like an unclean one, she will be ashamed of me.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself! And if my warriors at first say to you maybe some hurtful words about your appearance or your past and try to hurt you, just don’t answer. Be quiet. After a while, seeing that you don’t react, they will lose interest and stop bullying you. Don’t even think about starting a fight!”
“I’m used to being bullied.”
“Don’t fall for provocations and dubious offers. I will support you. And at first you will be under my guardianship and protection. Nobody will hurt you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“The dirty past will be forgotten in time. You will teach my warriors the tricks of the unclean ones, they have many interesting blows and combinations that the blacks don’t know about. And you yourself have a very unusual technique.”
“I just com…compensate… for my paralysis, that’s what my father said.”
“Yes, and this is unique,” Zagpeace nodded in agreement.
“But I can’t jump, do hits in a jump.”
“Everyone knows how to do it, and no one has been interested in it for a long time.”
“I often fall.”
“Nik, you know how to fight spectacularly. I confess, when I watched your fights in the Coliseum, my heart skipped a beat! I saw perfectly well when you fought for real, and when you started the scene. That’s why I didn’t go bust at betting like the others. I like your unexpected multi-moves, one can’t guess what you will do next.”
And Kors saw that Nik was standing and listening to Zagpeace, his eyes modestly downcast, and with each praise his cheeks grew redder with pleasure.
(Oh, you little bitch! A small praise, and you are already wagging your tail to the next owner, stupid puppy! You run after every true black, it costs him a kind word! Peace is deceiving you! Nik! Just be a Demon now, squeeze the human out of you, he’s bothering you!)