The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

After the ceremony, the guests settled down not only in the main hall of the Manor, but also under the canopies in the courtyard at long tables. It was a lot of fun. The guests feasted, sang, danced and arranged various competitions. And the bride, having soon stained her snow-white dress with wine and stained the hem with the dust of the yard, famously danced on the square in front of the main entrance to the Estate, circling now with her newly-made husband, now with Seamus, clearly provoking another fight between them in the near future. Everyone was happy and congratulated each other, and Kors was also happy and good, because his Nik was there and didn’t leave him anywhere. He didn’t rush to his unclean ones, followed Kors like a tail, limping quite a bit, and Kors was also very pleased — that Nik no longer limped as much as before, and even more so that he was without his crutch. In Kors’expensive and elegant clothes, in his long leather jacket, clean and neat, beautifully combed, without a mask on his face, Nik didn’t smoke and didn’t spit on the ground, didn’t speak loudly with his unclean ones in their language, and even more so didn’t laugh with them. He generally tried to be silent. Not opening his mouth, he was simply next to his father and behaved like a good boy. Kors enjoyed the fruits of his proper upbringing and amused himself by watching Nik feel embarrassed that his face was exposed.

“Fuck!” Nik finally exclaimed. “They used to stare at my scar, and now they stare at me because I don’t have a scar! Will this ever stop?”

And Kors laughed:

“They look at you because you are very beautiful. I’m not kidding,” he liked to see how Nik looked down, and how his always pale face got flooded with a blush.

“You are my most beautiful boy, you have the divine beauty of the Upper, the appearance of an angel.”

Nik was silent, and Kors felt that he was listening to him, and he was pleased. But not from the fact that he was beautiful, but because it was Kors who said those words to him. For him it was important. If someone else had called him handsome, he wouldn’t have reacted that way.

“My white kitten, everyone sees your beauty and cannot look away. You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” Kors said affectionately and stroked his cheek with the chain hanging down. “I adore you!”

And he immediately caught from Nik such a splash of euphos in his direction that he involuntarily stuttered:

“Oh…”

Kors looked at the now empty Altar. The fragrances were still smoking on it. Kors saw that in a sacrificial bowl for offerings filled with thick transparent honey an unlucky bee had drowned.

“I remember the day when I led Karina to this Altar,” Kors said, “then I first approached you, experienced feelings, and you were sick and alone. You were lying in Arel’s room, forgotten by everyone, and no one cared that you felt bad. Your scar looked terrible, you had a fever.” Kors shook his head in frustration and looked lovingly at his boy. “Do you remember this?”

“Yes,” Nik replied, “I remember the broth.”

Kors didn’t immediately understand what he meant, but then he recalled:

“Yes! I brought you broth the next morning! Gods, so much has happened in that time! And you said then: ‘It seems that I have a daddy.’ And, as always, you werenot mistaken.”

“I love you,” Nik said, and, approaching Kors, hugged him by the waist, frankly clinging to him and not paying any attention to the fact that quite a lot of other guests were spinning around, and not only uncleanones, but also black warriors. Kors couldn’t yet overcome some of the taboos accepted in society, and reject all the norms of decency.

“Nik, dear, well, not here, not in front of everyone…” he whispered quickly. “This is not a stable,” yet he was unable to set him aside.

Nik immediately pulled away himself, without making Kors more nervous about this, and Kors suddenly, in some outburst of feelings, again pulled him to himself and quickly, briefly, but passionately kissed him on the lips, and then pushed him away again.

He furtively looked around and saw Daniel Crassus standing nearby, who was talking with a company of several young warriors of Tol and at the same time hugging a young pretty girl, clearly from the local “elite”. Most likely, it was the daughter of some merchant from the town. He wondered if Daniel saw them.

“Let’s go inside,” Kors said to Nik.

“Okay,” Nik said, narrowing his eyes slightly, he looked at his feet, and, bending down, picked up from the ground a golden sparkle in the form of a heart, with which the newly married couple had been sprinkled before.

“Gods, Nik, why are you picking up confetti?” Kors smiled, relaxing a little. Daniel didn’t look at them at all, maybe he didn’t see them after all?

“It’s beautiful, take it!” Nik handed him a small gold foil heart.

Kors shook his head, looking at him condescendingly as if he were a child, but he took the glitter so as not to offend Nik and put it in his pocket.