Kors felt scared.

Chapter 2

To top it all off, as if responding to Kors’ gloomy mood, the weather turned bad and it began to rain. At first small and barely drizzling, very quickly it turned into a deafening downpour, and the unclean ones decided to finally stop for a full-fledged halt. They began to put up tents for the night, but while this was happening, Kors managed to get wet through. He froze and no longer understood why he was shaking, from the cold or from fear. Wrapping himself as tightly as possible in a long cloak, he stood near his horse and waited impatiently for the unclean ones under Parky’s command to set up a tent. Kors had already forgotten the last time his tent was set up. During all the campaigns, he always lived with “his boys”, but this time he didn’t know what to do. Nik and Arel had gone far ahead and were lost in the rain and bustle of preparing for a halt. Where did he have to go? After all, he also had his own place to sleep. As always while waiting, Kors lit a cigarette nervously. Trying not to get his cigarette wet, he bowed his head hard, pulling his hood up as far as he could. And at that moment, in his mind, the order sounded very clearly: “Come here!” Kors flinched in surprise and immediately threw the half-smoked cigarette aside. Where was he supposed to go? He looked around nervously. Where in this confusion did he have to look for Nik? Kors nevertheless decided to go a little forward, in the direction where they had left earlier. He couldn’t ignore the order, he simply was not able to do it, to disobey. Even physically. His legs themselves carried him to no one knows where in the depths of the camp being set up. He barely had time to grab his horse by the bridle, leading him along. Not having made even a couple of dozen steps, Kors saw a dark figure, clearly heading towards him. Despite the fact that the walker was wrapped in a cloak, and his face was hidden by a low-pulled hood, Kors didn’t doubt who was in front of him. Such a proud posture of a born master could only belong to the prince. Arel approached. In the evening twilight and the veil of rain, his gray face looked absolutely inhuman. It was a dead mask. Beautiful and equally repulsive in its icy indifference.

“Follow me, you’re going to spend the night with us,” Arel told him without any intonation.

“But…” Kors glanced back at his nearly pitched tent in confusion, “but after what happened? Why?”

Arel shrugged his shoulders lazily.

“It doesn’t concern me, so said Nik,” and, turning away, he headed in the direction from which he came.

Kors waved his hand to Parky.

“As you were!”

Parky froze, poured with rain, then, it seemed, he understood the order and shouted to his soldiers:

“Stop it! Disassemble it back!”

And Kors hurried after Arel. “So, Nik sent the prince for me. Prince Arel running errands, like Valentine, it’s funny. Nik didn’t mentally indicate to me where to go, he preferred to send Arel after me. Why? However, what’s the difference.”

Kors obediently walked behind, thinking that Arel was no longer human. “Is this awaiting me too? The demon said: ‘I will develop and teach you.’ Develop and teach me to turn into this? In a creature without feelings and emotions, indifferent to all living things?”

They approached the already pitched tent. Arel let Kors go ahead and followed him himself. Kors heard the prince mentally briefly report: “I brought him.”

Nik was sitting at the table. He took off his cloak, but his face was still masked. Kors saw that Nik’s hair was tangled and uncombed, he didn’t do it without his father, and it was killing Kors, but he couldn’t tell him anymore.