The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

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.