"Oh gods! Tell me now, don't look so horribly!"
"I knocked out your eye," Nikto said.
"What?!"
"I knocked out your eye," Nikto repeated and looked at Orel again waiting for his reaction.
Orel started at him for a while, not understanding. Then he got it.
"No," he shook his head. "No!"
"I didn't want to. I hit you precisely to hurt you very much but it had to be safe. I don't know why… Oh shit! The ring! It was because of the ring! Your ring you put onto my finger! I wasn't used to it. I didn't even notice it then."
Orel grabbed his face.
"Nik, do you want to say that you knocked out my eye with the ring?"
"Yes. At first I thought I was mistaken, you'd be all right, but now I see you won't. Maybe you shouldn't have strained and come… It got worse."
Orel touched his swollen eye carefully.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
Nikto just nodded.
"But I don't feel anything."
"Do you want to feel?"
"No-o, no! Anything but that!"
Nikto kept silent.
"He made a hole in my eye with the 'royal' ring, oh gods," Orel whispered sitting on the floor and rocking from side to side. "What shall I do now? My eye will leak out and even if it doesn't, it'll stop seeing. I don't want to be a cripple! I don't want to be single-eyed! Ooh…"
Suddenly he froze and looked at Nikto with hope.
"Help me! Heal me like you healed Asa! You can!"
"I'll try," Nikto raised his eyes. "But I have to go to the Unclean District for medicines."
"I believe you," Orel said. "I believe you and trust you and…" He moved towards Nikto and hugged him. "I don't blame you. It's my own fault."
"It'll be all right, I promise you," Nikto said.
Chapter 2
Friends
"He's here!" Lis shouted to his friends looking into Nikto's room. Orel sat up in bed forgetting about the bandage and at once understood what a stupid thing it was to do. He quickly buried his face into the pillows screaming: "Get out!"
But it was too late; Lis suspected something and rushed to him.
"Arel, what happened to your face? What happened?"
Orel sat up again slowly and looked at Lis angrily with his only eye.
"Nothing."
Tol, Squint-Eye and Enriki stood in the doorway and watched him in fear.
"Ooh shit." Orel turned away.
"Orel, what happened to your face and where is Nikto? How many times can I ask?" Lis asked again.
Orel shook his head trying to toss his hair away from his face and winced with pain.