The Mist and the Lightning. Part VIII - стр. 2
“I need to talk to Nikto! He reasons wisely and he will help me to gather my spirit before meeting with my father! He’ll tell me how to behave!”
Nikto has some kind of wholeness that she so lacks. And yet, there is an inner calm in him, which she too is very lacking now!
He told her to stay away from him and not come again, but in this situation it doesn’t matter. No!
And, quickly changing clothes and grabbing her bag, with which she usually went to Nikto (it contained all the passes, medicines and a “stone flower” in a special glass case, it didn’t need light, but lit everything around no worse than a candle), Karina rushed along the usual path into the depths of the prison tower.
The guard near hs chamber, not at all surprised, already as usual, without question, let her in.
And trembling with excitement, Karina ran to Nikto:
“Nik! Nik! Are you sleeping?”
Nikto didn’t answered her. He lay on his side, not moving, holding one arm under him, the other was twisted up, fastened by the handcuffs to a ring in the wall.
“Nik?” She called him again, already scared. He didn’t seem to sleep, and there seemed to be something very wrong with him. “Oh Gods!”
Nikto really looked like a corpse now. Not a spot on his pale face, cheekbones very clearly defined, facial features sharpened unhealthy. And the complete absence of at least some reaction to her words…
She tried to moisten his forehead with a damp rag, constantly repeating his name, interspersed with affectionate words, and to her joy he stirred, opened his eyes, but his gaze didn’t express anything.
“Nik! Wake up, please! I beg you! I need you!” Unable to see him in such a deplorable state, so exhausted, Karina burst into tears. She began to lift him, because his unhealthy twisted arm scared her. He sat very slowly, still without making a sound. Karina brought a cup of water to his lips:
“Here it is, drink, you need a drink. What should I inject you? Gods! If you need “black water,” she stopped short, because with these words Nikto flinched and recoiled from her, clinging to the wall. Karina didn’t understand him, she continued:
“If you can't do without it… I will try to get it somehow, steal it from my father’s safe in which he stores material evidence. I think it should be there… Or… I don’t know… I will go to the castle, to Arel, and there I will turn everything upside down and find it. I have nothing to lose! You just tell me where to look?”
Nikto seemed to hear her, he somehow strange, frantically ran his hands over his face, over his eyes, over his scar, lips with rings. And his face twisted in such despair, in such anguish that Karina instantly forgot all her problems and questions.
“Gods! What's the matter? Answer me something?! Don’t act as if you are out of your mind!”
Nikto touched his hair, ran his palm along the entire length of his face, it felt as if he were feeling himself, while his eyes looked into the wall behind Karina’s back, past her, and she realized that he couldn’t see anything.
“Are you okay?! Oh please! Stop it! Gods! He moved off his mind! What to do now?”
Nikto turned his head slightly, as if guided by the sound of her voice, and shook his head in a negative gesture, this made her unspeakably happy, since it meant he still heard and understood her.