“No, no,” the doctor was frightened, “I dare to assure you of absolute safety.”

And at that moment from the half-open room came the prolonged and agonizing groan of a creature suffering unbearably from pain, and Kors changed in his face, ceasing to smirk smugly. The doctor rushed to the door, hastily closing it.

“What the hell is going on there?!”

“Nothing. Treatment. This is a hospital, sir Kors.”

“Is that Kamiel Varakh?”

No, no…”

“I want to see him!” And Kors, without waiting for permission, pushed the door open with his foot, entering a small room. There was a bed on which the man was lying, but it was immediately clear that this really was not Kamiel Varakh, because this man’s hair was red, bright, it was scattered on the pillow, casting blood red in the sun. There were also bloody spots on the white sheet that covered his body. Kors, clearly not expecting to see something like this, froze in some confusion.

“Sir Kamiel Varakh is in another room, I will take you to him,” the doctor said hastily, trying to go around Kors and enter. Kors interfered with him, blocking the doorway.

“Have mercy,” the red one whispered weakly with his lips. “Kill, I beg you…”

And the doctor, finally jumping into the room, stood between him and Kors, blocking the patient from his gaze.

“What an abomination,” Kors said barely.

“This is not what you thought… I just care… Sir Zagpeace Gesaria asked me to take care of his… mmm… ward, he got a little weak on the long journey…” Doctor Cassiel babbled.

“Ward?” Kors asked skeptically. “You mean this captive red? Call a spade a spade, doctor, I don’t like it when people start playing with me in conversation.”

“Y-yes…”

“I see, Peace is having fun.”

Kors turned his gaze to the metal table where the surgical instruments lay: scalpel, clamps. Everything was dirty and splattered with blood.

“And what organs have you already cut out of this unfortunate man?” Kors asked.

Doctor Cassiel stood before him with a pale face and was silent.

Kors chuckled.

“Don’t be so scared, it doesn’t bother me at all. I brought my… hmm… ward, and you will now take care of him. And Zagpeace’s ward will wait!”

And to the doctor’s relief, Kors turned and went out.

“Yes, yes, please come to my office,” Cassiel said somewhat belatedly and indistinctly.

Kors and Nik followed the doctor up to the second floor and entered his office.

Kors nodded to the chair.

“Nik, sit down.”

And he immediately sat down in the place indicated to him, clutching the belt on his waist with his fingers so as not to make involuntary movements.

“Your ward looks good,” said the doctor. He had already come to his senses a little after an unpleasant incident and looked at Nik, and he dropped his eyes and froze.

“I need medications for hepatitis, something else that restores, useful for an exhausted body,” said Kors in the peremptory tone of a man who understands everything and knows perfectly well what he needs. He slowly walked through Cassiel’s office, scrutinizingly examining the cabinets and shelves on which the medicines were placed.

“Of course, of course,” the doctor answered very quickly and obsequiously, “you are right, sir Kors. Unfortunately, because of the mixing of the blood of different races, half-bloods have many defects that require constant correction. I will find the best restorative medicines for you.”

Kors froze, but quickly collected his thoughts. If Cassiel allows himself such statements, then he doesn’t know that Nik is the son of Kors, and Zagpeace is still keeping that secret.

“And I also want to heal the scar on his face as much as possible,” Kors continued, calming down. “It is too early to introduce Nik to the rest of the blacks as my son, I must first put him in order, heal and educate,” he thought.

The doctor walked over to Nik, who was sitting on a chair, carefully examining him:

“The scar is almost healed,” he said. “There is no inflammation. Positive dynamics is already visible.”

“The weapon of this red was smeared with poison,” explained Kors, “I want to remove this poison.”

“We’ll find an effective antidote, sir Kors,” Cassiel replied confidently. “I think it’s Bothrops, the red ones often use the venom of this snake.” The doctor examined the crippled cheek, but didn’t touch Nik, seeing the initials of Kors on his face and knowing that one should not touch the thing of a noble black without permission. But still, trying to get a better look at the almost healed strip of scar on the lower jaw, he bent too much over Nik, making him flinch and recoil.

“Do you see, sir Kors? These stripes at the bottom, marks from the staples. There are visible dents and hole marks where the steel brackets were inserted,” Cassiel said.

“Yes.”

“On the basis of “Sama” there is a good remedy, it removes even old scars. But when the snake’s venom begins to leave his body, the scar may become inflamed again, be prepared for this and don’t put more braces, this method of unclean ones – to fasten the falling parts of the body with steel braces – is very rough and traumatic, it will only leave new scars.

“I understand,” Kors nodded, “and I won’t let him do that anymore. We are civilized enough not to resort to such wild methods of treatment.”

“Quite right,” Cassiel agreed with Kors.

“Look, doctor, do you notice that his eye is slightly squinting? On the half of his face where the scar is? Apparently, the snake venom and trauma affected his vision so much, Kors said. “He doesn’t see well with it. How do you think, can it be fixed?”

“You are very attentive, sir Kors, his eye really squints a little,” the doctor agreed again, looking at Nik. He tried not to look at him, averting his eyes to the side, so he really looked slightly oblique.

“Everything is clear,” summed up Cassiel, “there is a simple but effective way that my father used to do. You need to close his good eye, and then the right one will begin to train, and he will inevitably begin to see better with it. I’m going to give him a few injections now, healing and stimulating, and seal his healthy eye. According to my forecasts, his vision will recover as much as possible within about a month. Do you agree, sir Vitor Kors?”

And Kors suddenly realized, realized with all clarity, that during the entire time of their conversation, the doctor had never once addressed Nik.

He spoke only to Kors and only asked Kors, although Nik was sitting next to him. Salafael and others also acted in this manner at the beginning of their acquaintance. If Kors was next to Nik, all blacks turned only to Kors, perceiving the half-blood as inferior.

A memory flashed through Kors’ head:

Wedding of Karina and Lis at the Prince’s Estate. Kors sees that Nik is clearly seriously ill, he doesn’t touch food at the festive table and quickly leaves the celebration. Kors comes to his room, confirming his suspicions, Nik lies on the bed, he feels bad, and he doesn’t react to anything. Kors touches his forehead with his palm to check his temperature:

“You’re on fire!” He shouts to Nik, and he recoils from him with the last of his strength in complete bewilderment, he is not used to someone interested in his well-being:

“What are you doing?!”

“Nikto, you’re all on fire! You have an infection. You cannot go marching with such a temperature and in such a condition! You need to be cured. I don’t understand why your people don’t help you? Can’t they see that you feel bad? I noticed it immediately. I’ll get a doctor right now.”

He called him “Nikto”, not Nik, as now. And now would he have turned his tongue to call his boy Nikto?

Very soon, Kors returns with doctor Cassiel.

“He’s on fire,” Kors explains to the doctor, “and it looks like he’s not used to being taken care of by anyone.”

The doctor looks at the punctured hands of his son, shakes his head and asks:

“Does he take Black Water?”

Cassiel addresses this question not to Nik himself, but to Kors, and Kors is not surprised or embarrassed, he is lying:

“Yes. As far as I know, he fell into slavery to the unclean ones, and they put him on the “water”. He was crippled. Then he ran away.”

“And when did he take it for the last time?”

The doctor asks all these questions to Kors, who looks inquiringly at Prince Arel, and he gets lost under his stern gaze and answers uncertainly:

“I don’t know… he tries to take it as little as possible. He stretches greatly the time between doses.”

They talk to each other, they are black, and Nik is a half-blood, he is nobody, and he is not asked about anything. But Kors sees and understands the whole absurdity of this situation only now.

“Everything is clear,” the doctor draws his conclusions, “even now, although he already needs “water”, he endures to the last.”

“Do you have “water”?” Kors again turns to Arel.

“Y-yes.”

“Well, thank the Gods!”

“I can try to restore him so far without the help of “water”,” the doctor suggests, “these new drugs are very powerful, and he is a “white” half-blood, as far as I understand, judging by the color of his hair. Does the blood of the Upper ones flow in him?”

“Yes,” replies Kors, it is very unpleasant for him that his son is a half-blood, but, of course, at that moment he is sure that no one will ever know about it.

“We’ll support him and take more time. Maybe even for a couple of weeks or a month.”

“Are you serious? Of course!”

And the doctor gives Nik a couple of injections, and then, turning to Kors, he says: “I think he needs a bandage over his scar.”

“Do it,” Kors says.

Having received the permission of the black master, Cassiel applies a healing ointment and seals the scar, tightly wraps Nik’s head with bandages. Nik is in a semi-conscious state, he doesn’t resist. Kors is not surprised, it is natural that Nikto accepts the treatment, Kors is sure that with gratitude. How else can it be? After all, the benefactor Vitor Kors took care of him!

At that moment, Kors had no doubt that he was providing invaluable assistance to Nik. He didn’t even pay attention to this small nuance of communication, but Nik probably noticed everything. He realized that he was being treated like a dumb animal and didn’t object to it. Kors was sure he was doing a good deed. It never occurred to him that it might be humiliating. He sincerely believed that he was showing mercy and that no one had to be grateful to him and appreciate this generous gesture. “How does it feel when people ask questions about you next to you, but as if you are not there?”

Kors thought that, in fact, trying to find a good black master was the only chance for the half-blood to somehow lift its head out of the shit. Both Lis and Nik served stupid prince Arel simply because he was superior by birthright, and their privilege was only that the prince considered them worthy to serve himself and thus raised them above other commoners.

Finding a master and being the thing of the most high-ranking and noble black as possible – this was the career of a half-blood. And now, to all blacks, Nik was Kors’ thing.

Nik was no longer a slave, but he was not black either, and neither Zagpeace, nor Prince Ariel, nor anyone else could change that. Yes, they released him by signing the relevant papers, but they didn’t make him equal. So, according to the rules of this world, Nik’s fate didn’t imply other prospects for him, except to serve, and it was a good fate – sooner or later to become someone’s thing and wear the initials of his master where the owner wants to put them. And Kors liked to draw his letters on his cheeks, and that alone was reason enough to do so.

Kors knew that this, as he called it, “convincing of blacks”, was deeply rooted in his son, embedded from the very birth, as in any other half-blood and commoner. For centuries and generations, obedience and faith in the oneness of true blacks, the descendants of the gods, have been cultivated in the lower ones.

Despite all his audacity and merging with the demonic essence, as a person, at a deep level, Nik was broken and enslaved, accustomed to obedience, like all other commoners.

Therefore, when fate confronted him with some noble black, Nik did everything to please him. He allowed himself to be beaten by Prince Arel, fulfilling all his whims. By prince’s order, he, without hesitation, committed any crime, intimidating peaceful citizens. He participated in staged battles and shenanigans with rates, doing as the owner of the upper Colosseum told him, the true black Dim Al. Nik was fond of Salafael. He communicated with Daniel Crassus, not offended by his rude jokes about his appearance. He never fought back Kamiel Varakh, and he couldn’t help answering Zagpeace if he asked him about something.

Every day of his life since childhood, Nik received a cruel lesson confirming his low status. He was trained this way, and therefore he will never be able to give a decent answer to a true black on equal terms. Nik said to Kors: “I don’t want to get close to the blacks, they only make troubles,” but Kors didn’t believe him anymore. In fact, Nik was drawn to the true blacks and bowed to them. Because the rightful owners of this world were people like him – Vitor Kors. And that is why Kors was so afraid of their meeting with Leonardo, not doubting that Nik, not knowing the other scheme of things, would bend.

Kors glanced at doctor Cassiel. He stood and looked at Kors, expecting to hear his answer.

“Ask him yourself,” said Kors, and Nik looked up in surprise. Yes, he noticed everything and understood everything – both then and now. And he long ago resigned himself to his humiliating position, meekly accepting his low status in the hierarchy created by the black, and in most cases obeying the established rules of interaction between the lower and the higher masters.

The doctor was also taken aback. He was silent, and Kors, turning to Nik, said gently:

“Nik, do you agree to accept treatment from doctor Cassiel? Can he give you injections of drugs?”

“Vitor, as you say…” Nik barely uttered in confusion, and hearing this answer, the doctor nodded in satisfaction.

“And what about the eye?” Kors specified. “Will you let you close it? After all, then, while your right eye is recovering, you will become practically blind.”

“I see with it…”

“So what? Do you agree?” Kors asked again.

“If you think this is right, Vitor… but only… let you do it. Can you…”

And doctor Cassiel, who was listening attentively to their conversation, smiled understandingly and condescendingly:

“Your ward commander of the unclean ones trusts you, sir Vitor Kors. I will explain to you what needs to be done. This is not difficult.”

“Okay,” said Kors.

“Order him to close his eyes.”

Nik looked at Kors with the eyes of a loyal dog and closed them. Kors’ hands trembled slightly as he sealed his eye in several layers tightly with strips of black plaster.

“Open your eye,” he ordered, finishing, and Nik opened his right slightly slanting eye, “look at me, can you see me?”

“Yes,” Nik quickly looked at Kors, “yes. Everything is fine.”

“Roll up your sleeve.”

While heading to the doctor, Kors assumed that Nik would need an injection. However, he didn’t want Cassiel to stare at Nik’s hands, battered by old ulcers, examining his stupid tattoos of monsters, frozen in a grin, so he wrapped them with black strips of cloth, like bandages, from the wrist to the very elbow. One could only slightly open the desired area of the arm, pushing the fabric apart, and make an injection. Nik obediently pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and shirt, and Kors, having only slightly parted the fabric, quite professionally gave him an injection.