“Arel, I love you very much, you are also my son. Call me Vitor if you want.”
Arel got up and covered the stone flower jar with a rag. It became dark in the tent. The prince lay down next to Kors, and Kors, having neatly laid Nik down, hugged Arel. So he lay between them, hugging his boys to him:
“Everything will be fine, and a great future awaits us,” he said to Arel, apparently trying to convince himself of this not the prince, but himself.
Arel pressed closer to him, falling asleep, and Kors, hearing their measured breathing, also fell into a short and anxious sleep. Very soon he woke up. It seemed to him that he had dozed off for only a minute, but it was already dawn, and in the gray predawn haze Kors saw some terrible creature next to him. Very thin, like a skeleton, it seemed to consist of only sharp bones and ribs, tightly covered with shiny black skin with tightly attached scales, like a snake, and this vile creature, curled up into a ball, gently pressed against Kors. It lay next to him, very close, embracing him with several long, articulated appendages, like spider legs. Not yet fully awake, Kors involuntarily cried out, experiencing some indescribable deep horror, and, recoiling, he unconsciously pushed the abomination away from himself with force, also hitting the protruding ribs. At the same moment he heard a choked sob, and the darkness fell asleep. Kors looked at his boy with all his eyes, and he sat and looked at him. Yes, his body was thin and black from tattoos, but beautiful and not at all disgusting and his face was so familiar, and now it is also confused:
“Daddy… what's wrong with you?” asked Nik, stunned and even somehow a little scared, his hand involuntarily twitched several times.
“Gods, in my dream… I, it seems, have not yet fully woken up, and it seemed to me,” Kors looked tensely into his face, not understanding why he saw next to him instead of Nik this muck, what came over him, could the nervous state and fear made him felt like this? Nik, under his gaze, was completely embarrassed and bent his shaggy head low, not allowing Kors to look at himself anymore and look into his eyes.
Kors drew him closer:
“Sorry, I had a dream, God knows about what!”
“You hit me in the ribs so hard…” Nik’s voice was upset, “I don't understand…”
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, my little boy,” Kors gently patted him on the top of his head, “well, how shaggy you are,” he laughed tenderly.
“Vitor, let me, please, return the rings to my nose,” asked Nik, seeing that Kors again behaved as usual – caressed him, touched him and was kind. Therefore, he raised one of his eyes, not covered by hair, at Kors and looked inquiringly and pleadingly.
“Why do you need them? You don’t take off your mask anyway.”
“I'm taking it off.”
“Only when we are alone.”
“Oh please…”
“No!”
Nik covered his face with his hands, and Kors stared at his black hands, still involuntarily trying to cast aside his insane vision of a vile entity.
“You have a ring in each nostril,” he said, trying more to distract himself than actually listening to Nik. He wasn’t going to allow him to shamefully decorate his face again, and this conversation was completely useless, only Nik hadn’t figured it out yet.
“They are small, they don’t…”
“Don’t spoil you, yes.”
Nik sat huddled and said nothing.
“You’ll come with me to the halt today,” said Kors and Nik didn’t object, they did this from time to time. Kors put him in front of him on his horse and hugged him all the way, burying his face in the fluffy back of the head, and Nik turned his head slightly to the side and pressed against his chest.
Chapter 3
Their journey continued. And if in the Ore town Adrian spent all the time locked up, now Kors, on the contrary, didn’t let him go in the carts. He chained his slave to the cart with a long chain, and Adrian was forced to walk all the way. After so many days spent in a cramped cage, where it was impossible either to stand up to his full height, or even just to stretch his legs, but only to sit, crouching in a practically immobilized state, poor Adrian lost the habit of walking, and even more so to overcome such long distances at once and walk a lot of hours in a row. He stumbled, fell, he was in pain, and often at the end of the march, the exhausted slave simply dragged himself behind the cart, since the red brick road was smooth, without serious potholes and bumps. Kors still covered Adrian’s nakedness, but this gesture was rather purely symbolic, because Kors gave Adrian only a dirty shirt made of rough linen. The shirt was short, above the knee, and it was humiliating, because the master didn’t show any mercy to his slave and didn’t give him pants.
Disgraced Adrian tried not to bend too much, constantly pulling his short hem down to somehow cover his bare ass, and in front – a chastity belt. He tried to move carefully so that the already short shirt did not bulge up even more. With his head lowered, chained behind a collar, barefoot, with bloodshot legs, Adrian, with his last strength, trudged behind the elegant carriage of Kors, inside which, along with other riches of the Ore town, a red slave was locked. The girl also had a hard time: in a carriage crammed to overflowing with various goods, it was impossible to turn around, and Kors did not change his rules. Acting in his usual manner, he chained the slave to the wall, tied her hands behind her back and put his beloved on her head an attribute of humiliation – a dense black bag, as usual, tightened around the throat with a rope. The girl was deprived of the ability to move, see and breathe normally; only at the level of his mouth did Kors cut a small gap with a knife, and if not for this hole, the slave would inevitably suffocate in the unbearable stuffiness.
Prince Arel’s slave, Valentine, rode next to the coachman: the boy still wore a helmet, which, on Arel’s orders, was put on him back in the Limit. Then Verniy, although he was forced to obey, nevertheless selected for his pet the most comfortable and light helmet made of a material that is slightly breathable. But at the moment it didn’t save Valentine: the southern summer days were sunny, calm; there was often intense heat from early morning until evening. Constantly staying in a tightly laced, tightly wrapped helmet was painful. Valentine suffered from the heat and sweated under the dense material. No matter how hard he tried to lift the flap covering his mouth to relieve his condition, salty sweat ran down his parched, chapped lips onto his chin. The rays of the sun unbearably heated the black material and made the top of his head hot, by the end of the day bringing the boy almost to sunstroke. Verniy rarely received a key from Arel and could not unbutton his helmet and remove it from the exhausted slave so that he could get at least a little respite: he could refresh his face with water and wash off the sweat, wash and comb his hair, just take a break from the ever-squeezing vice. Valentine was deprived of these simple joys and therefore constantly scratched his head in unsuccessful attempts to calm the incessant itching. He scraped the tough material with his fingernails and tugged at the tight lacing on the back of his head with his fingers, trying to somehow pull the tight-fitting helmet crust away from his face and hair. He was hot, stuffy, uncomfortable, and the heavy slave collar on his throat did not add comfort. But the poor fellow couldn’t help it, and anyway, he was in a better position than Adrian or the red girl.
In the evening, Valentine looked after them, having finished with business: when the sirs finally left him alone, he opened the cart and gave the girl water. The slave girl practically didn’t move, and sometimes, when Valentine made his way to her in the depths of the carriage through the heaps of chests and bales of wealth, it seemed to him that she was dead. He called out to her, and then the unfortunate woman still moved sluggishly and took a sip of water. Kors didn’t feed his slaves at all, so that they would not defecate and cause trouble on the road, but Valentine took with him a piece of bread that had been stolen from the master's table, thrust it through the crack in the sack and said:
