Adrift-mxm

Chapter 12

He wanted to ask why the man was there, but he knew that he would just get the same answer as always. 

The heir was simply following its sire. 

"I'm sorry that I left you. That I'm not strong enough to be your master, but I'm not going to let you kill me. I have a place in this world now, and you need to go find yours... without me." 

He noticed the man's eyes narrow immediately as a myriad of emotions swam across his face. When he finally settled on a calm expression, Bin was more than a bit wary. 

"I am not trying to kill master Binan," Karalius eventually said, startling Bin enough to nearly make him step right off the stair he was currently settled on!

Not trying to kill me? What else could you have been possibly trying to do with your hands around my neck before, then?! 

Forcing his disbelief to the back of his mind, Bin cleared his throat, then clasped his hands behind his back as he looked at those dark eyes still glued to him. 

"If you aren't trying to kill me, then what, per se, were you trying to do the last few times we've met?" 

Karalius only waited a few moments before responding steadily. 

"I am going to change you into what I have become."

Change me... into that? 

"By killing me?" he asked after a few seconds of nervous hesitation. 

He definitely didn't want to become a demon. 

Karalius slowly shook his head, the tendrils of miasma still suffused throughout his dark hair drifting in the air with the movement. 

"I have never tried to remove your heart, master." 

Bin quickly thought back to all of their previous altercations, but he couldn't discern a single time where the man had truly gone for a killing blow. 

"I don't want to become what you are. I'm sorry that it happened. I should have been watching you, but my father had called me away while you were resting. I didn't think that you'd get attacked by anyone, let alone so quickly," Bin said, reiterating the words he'd spoken many times already. 

He really did feel terrible for what had happened, especially because it was his own fault that he'd had to change the young man in the first place, but he was only so strong. How could he eve hope to support an erratic demon when his own body and mind were already so damaged that he had to rely on Inkani whenever he couldn't handle things? 

Memories of his past tortured him nearly every night, and his body, having already been damaged while still human, hadn't taken well to being changed, either. 

What could he possibly do for Karalius besides let him try to find something better? 

The man before him took several minutes to process his words this time, and, unfortunately, during that interval that miasma around him returned to covering a good portion of his right side, splitting his face nearly down the middle as it shaded one side in billowing darkness. 

I really wish I could do something for you after all of the pain I caused you in our past, but I don't know what else I can do. 

"Little Nana..." 

Bin felt a tear involuntarily slip from his eye at hearing the old nickname Karalius had given him when they were younger. 

They had been inseparable growing up, even though Kara had been raised in comfort while he'd been stuck in his father's hobble of a hut.