Читать книгу The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19 онлайн

Physically, it seemed, Kors more or less recovered and could spend many hours on the road, in the saddle, feeling neither pain nor weakness, but morally… Morally, he was simply crushed, and in the monotonous path between the endless desert hills, every now and then stumbling his eyes on such a bright spot of mop of white hair, Kors couldn’t help but think of Nik. He couldn’t help but remember:

“They are on their way from the Ore Town to the Crimson Rock. One of the haunts.

Kors combs Nik neatly, pushing his platinum white hair up from his forehead and temples. He carefully clips them with hairpins, planning to continue to braid his braids or make a tail, but suddenly he notices how cute Nik is with his hair pulled back a little and at the same time with fluffy thick strands sticking out a little further on the sides. Kors puts down the hairbrush and leaves Nik like that, admiring him and seeing that one naughty thin strand has already jumped out of his pinned up bangs and lies on the face of his beautiful boy. This unbearably touches Kors, he looks at the naughty hair sticking out on the sides of his face and slightly shifted back, and they really remind him of the fluffy long ears of a cute puppy. Kors laughs, and Nik purses his lips in displeasure and shakes his head in annoyance, not wanting Kors to laugh at him, and another thin strand of white spills out of the mass of his hair.”

 Nik, standing aloof, spits quickly to the side, spitting out of his mouth as sharply and far as Lis fires bullets from his musket.

Kors literally freezes in shock:

“Stop it,” he hisses, “put on your mask immediately!”

Kors knows that in the mask, even if Nik moves the lower shield as far forward and upward as possible, he still won’t be able to spit so valiantly. Nik, realizing that Kors is dissatisfied with him, squints slightly in his direction and quickly puts on his mask. And later, in their camping tent, Kors rips it off his face and hits his son on the lips with his palm, straight from the shoulder, backhand: