"Nikto! Help me!"
It was a scream of despair. Orel froze, starting back from her. Nikto who sat at the table screwed his eyes shut and squeezed his temples. Lis didn't look away from him, staring at him with his yellow penetrating eyes. Orel slowly lowered his sword. He didn't know Unclean but everyone in the city knew how 'help me' sounded in it. And the name, the name she'd cried out in her last hope, the name of his most precious person, the name he whispered hundreds times relishing in its sound and naively thinking he was the only one to have this right… The name that left her lips so unexpectedly but naturally and easily, as if it belonged to her, too, stunned him. He suddenly realized very clearly that he was not the only one, that there were others who also considered themselves entitled to say those five letters. It seemed she robbed him. No, she couldn't take anything from him because he had never had anything – he'd only thought he owned something, it was an illusion, a fallacy Nikto instilled into him. Nikto! Orel turned around abruptly; looking past Tol, white as a sheet, he gazed at the man sitting there.
"What is there between you?" Orel's voice was hoarse.
"There is nothing between us that might anger or hurt you," Nikto said even without looking at Orel.
"I don't believe you!" Orel came up to Nikto.
"Calm down."
Orel made a wheezing sound; he grabbed Nikto's hair, pulling his head back, pressing his sword to Nikto's neck right above the collar.
"Are you suggesting me to calm down? To sit down and shut up?"
Nikto didn't move.
"Yes," he said and his voice was completely calm, as if Orel was not holding a sword at his neck but was chatting with him over a glass of wine.
"Don't kid me!"
Nikto looked up at Orel, simply looked. A thin trickle of blood leaked from under the collar down to the carefully laced vest. Orel put his left hand onto Nikto's face, covering this unbearable gaze of grey eyes. He felt Nikto close his eyes under his palm, tickling it with his eyelashes.
"Don't" Orel said thickly. "Don't do it to me, Nik."
The blade was lowered slowly.
"Don't do it to me!" Orel screamed and in helpless rage chopped off one of Nikto's braids that stuck out of his mane of tousled hair and lay on the elbow rest of the chair. A heave thick braid fell on the floor, only silver clamps chimed pitifully.