“It was already afterwards,” said Arel, “first I killed him, and then he burned down in the chapel, because I set it on fire.”

“But! Arel! How did you deal with him? After all, you were at that time… mmm… no more than sixteen years old, and he was such a healthy and tall, experienced warrior.”

“He was on his knees and prayed, kept whining and complaining to the Gods about injustice and his unhappy fate, as usual. I just quietly approached from behind and cut his throat, then stuck a knife in his back, up to the handle, and then again and again… He didn’t expect this: he wheezed, grabbed his neck with his hands, tried to stop the blood. He considered me a weakling and didn’t take me into account,” Arel smiled bitterly. “He didn’t have time to do anything. And I hit him from the back. It wasn’t fair.”

“I don’t blame you,” Kors stretched out his hand and gently stroked Arel’s head, slightly burying his fingers in thick, parted strands, admiring how the gold rings on his hand glittered beautifully in the prince’s dark hair. “Your father really was the true shit and deserved to die like that. I am sorry for you, sorry that you were forced to do this, to take on this burden, to do this wrong act in order to save your life. He is to blame, he forced you to get dirty in this filth, dragged you along with him into hatred.”

Arel smiled sadly and unconsciously tilted his head a little tighter, pressing it to Kors’ stroking hand. He looked at him with sincere love and fatherly tenderness.

“I felt such relief then,” continued Arel, “it was one of the best moments of my life: happiness, and a little fear that I was the owner of a huge Castle and would not be able to cope with all matters. But everything turned out to be not as difficult as I feared. I could live without flinching at his voice, without jumping into a corner at the sound of his footsteps along the corridor; I could talk loudly and say whatever came into my head, laugh, sleep as much as I wanted, order the servants to set the table at the time I wanted, and eat and drink what I wanted. Actually, I was finally able to have my time! And invite my friends to visit. I didn’t need to hide everything from that freak all the time…”

Kors, in a fit of feelings, pressed Arel’s head to his chest, pressing on the back of his head in the same way as he often did with Nik, and said with the same passion:

“My poor boy, you didn’t tell me anything during the interrogation, you didn’t confess.”

“You weren’t particularly interested in him.”

“Yes. Everyone believed that he burned down in this chapel. Nobody thought of you. But what about Valentine, Arel?” Kors returned to the beginning of their conversation. “Let me see, maybe he doesn’t look so much like Chester?”

Arel, and Kors noticed this with pleasure, with some regret pulled away from his hand and, taking out the key from his pocket, looked at his frozen slave.

“On your knees! Crawl over here!” He ordered, and Valentine immediately collapsed to the floor.

The helmet completely covered his head and wrapped around his neck, it was tightly laced up and additionally closed at the back with a lock so that Valentine could under no circumstances take it off on his own. However, Valentine would never have dared to do this even without these tricks. Moreover, on his throat an iron slave collar was put, very similar to the one that Nik once wore. Wide and heavy, tied tightly, it covered his neck, resting the upper edge against the chin, not allowing Valentine to fully turn his head.