Darksen, in fresh clothes, shortly after a quick shower, walked through the long corridor, submerged in his thoughts. His footsteps echoed off the empty golden walls, on which the morning sunlight fell.
He was exhausted. After the night's hunt, which totally stood out, they had a long conversation with his father, which was still going round and round in his head.
"You were gone for a long time. I hope the hunt was fruitful," said the King, pouring red wine into four crystal glasses. His long, raven-black hair fell in waves down his broad back.
Neither Arvy nor he spoke. Finally, his father turned to them, watching them closely.
"What's with your faces? Could it be that the world has finally run out of human kind to exterminate?"
Darksen accepted the glass from him, but still remained silent.
"Wait a minute, and where did Roge go?"
Arvy was broken by the King's heavy gaze. "He has fallen, my lord. His body rests in his chamber until..."
"By whose hand!" burst out the ruler, putting the vessel down violently. His huge beast - a black wolf - bared its fangs, growling menacingly.
"A certain human..." began Darksen.
"A girl," interjected Arvy grimly.
"They fought alone...
"...She killed him."
Darksen could probably never forget the expression on his father's face. Thandor perched on the edge of the heavy wooden table, as if he had suddenly felt dizzy, and looked at them as if they had told him the most frightening and funny story at the same time. Then, anger began to shoot from his eyes. "What happened to this human girl?"
Arvy looked fearfully at Darksen. But the Prince was not afraid of his father.
"She was seriously injured. Kendra is taking care of her, although she feared she wouldn't be able to do much."
The King pushed back from the table and faced him. The anger disappeared, replaced by curiosity. "What made you not get rid of your friend's killer?" he hissed quietly.
"She's not like other people I've met, father."
Thandor laughed grimly and leaned back on the table. "I want to know everything from the beginning."
Arvy began the story from the moment they saw four people approaching the abandoned house from the hill. They sneaked up and separated, as one of the girls began circling the hut. Roge watched her from the roof while they stepped inside suddenly. Arvy jumped quietly through a hole in the wall and snapped the nothing-expecting boy's neck. Then the other two people reached for firearms, but Darksen pushed the idea out of their heads by using his power. The fight began.
"Shortly after the boy I wounded screamed, we heard a gunshot," Darksen spoke up grimly, to which his friend nodded his head in agreement.
"Did she shoot him?" King asked threateningly.
Arvy denied it. "His breast was gored with a sword. After the fight, she took the blade with her. The bullet mark was only on his coat. She must have missed."
There was silence. Thandor looked at him then at Arvy. Finally he reached for the glass and drank its entire contents. "What happened to the other two?"
"Killed right in front of the girl," Arvy answered proudly.
Darksen clenched his fists tightly to avoid hitting the door he had just passed. If only either of them had known that the boy was not mortally wounded, this meeting would certainly have ended much worse for the Prince. He would probably have been accused of fraternizing with the enemy, as several Invicta before him once were, and those were no longer among them. The strict law of the Beings dealt with traitors of their kind much worse than with the remnants of humanity.
"What are you going to do? What are you getting yourself into?" he cursed himself.
He walked slowly down the winding staircase, with his father's malicious cackling still ringing in his ears.
"Excellent," Thandor finally said. "I would now like to talk to my son for a while."
Arvy straightened up surprised that this was the end of the conversation. "Will this human face trial for the death of my brother, Lord?"
"Of course. No one can inflict death on an Invicta Being and live without suffering the consequences."
Arvy bowed low and left. Darksen waited for the oak door to slam and then sipped his wine. The dark wolf and his father did not take their night-black eyes off him.
"I wonder, Darksen, why did you give this miserable creature hope for any life?"
He silently put the cup down on the cabinet next to him and answered the question with a question "Have you already passed sentence on her, father?"
"Yes."
"Since I defeated her and decided her fate, she belongs to me. I also told you that this human being is different from the others."
"I know the rules of hunting - you take a captive, then the captive serves you for the rest of their life and you can do whatever you like with them. But I'm afraid it's different in this case, no matter how special the girl is. Arvy demands justice for his fallen brother, and he is right. I'm sorry, Darksen, but on your next hunt you will have to find yourself a servant who has not killed any of my soldiers before."
"So why don't you send your men to settle the matter right away? What punishment do you condemn her to?"
King Thandor stroked the wolf's muzzle, laughed heartily, then sent him a predatory look. "We'll wait until Kendra gets her on her feet. After that, I sentence her to the arena."
Darksen had to be careful not to show his indignation. The loss of his friend pained him, but...
"Slaves have always been drawn to these fights."
"As we both agreed, this case is different."
The Prince snorted quietly. He knew that he would not win against his father. There was also no point in stubbornly defending the girl, unless he also wanted to pass the King's sentence on himself.
"You are the righteous judge, father. I cannot question your authority. Send the girl to the arena, if that will bring justice for Roge's death."
"That's not all, Darksen," he stopped him before leaving.
The Prince turned slowly to his father. He saw with trepidation that his father was plotting something vile that would probably have to do with Darksen.
"I will not be the one to send the girl to the arena. That decision will be yours. You will be the one to choose her last day."
Darksen, trying to remain indifferent, bowed to his father and left the room.
He hated his life.
He couldn't stand the constant feeling that he didn't belong there. He hated that he was so different from his kind.
And most of all, he hated the fact that he was hiding from it all. He was already tired of it. If only he was brave enough to stop being what everyone expected him to be.
Sometimes he looked at his father and wondered, who is this man? Who is everyone around him?
He didn't want to feel the compassion that none of his brothers had.
He didn't want to feel the grief that tore his heart apart, while the Invicta didn't seem to know it.
If only he could stop feeling anything, everything would be easier. His father had always said: "It's much easier to hate than to love, so why waste your strength?"
To love - what does that even mean?
Darksen crossed the alley and pushed open the hospital door, thus jolting himself out of his run of frantic and annoying thoughts. He walked down the stairs to Kendra's office and immediately spotted her. She was sitting at a large desk, leaning over the files of her human patients. She stood up quickly and bowed as soon as she saw him.
"Prince, I didn't expect to see you here so soon."
"I have a moment to spare, so I've decided to stop by."
He looked through the one-way mirror at the sleeping girl, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Kendra hiding a file under other papers. When he turned back to her, he saw terror written on her pale face. Darksen hated the fear in the eyes of people who were in his presence. While it gave others a sense of predominance, he felt strange, impossible to accept.
"How is your new patient doing?" He asked quietly, subconsciously forcing her to tell the truth.
Kendra looked at him as if she was enchanted when she answered "The girl knows very little about her situation. I managed to have a brief conversation with her, but she is very weakened."
He nodded, directing his gaze back to the mirror. "What is her condition?"
"Her head is bruised. One rib on the right side is fractured, but it's not as bad as it may seem. With modern medication, it will set up to a week. The collarbone is worse - the continuity of the bone has been broken, and the quadriceps muscle is quite badly damaged. The bone will set back, but the girl may have problems lifting her arm and even moving her head. The subclavian artery, fortunately, was not cut, although she still lost a lot of blood, which worries me since we don't have blood to do transfusions. Other than that, a lot of bruising and scratches. I hooked her up to an IV and also gave her morphine, so she's calm and pain-free."
"Did you manage to find out her name?"
He was fighting with himself, asking this question. After all, he knew perfectly well that the girl's fate was already sealed in advance. So why bother with a name?
He was curious, however, about Kendra's reaction, who nervously adjusted the green scarf on her head.
"Yes," she replied briefly, reluctantly. She stared ahead, clenching her teeth tightly, as if she didn't want to say anything anymore, as if she had managed to resist the Prince's charm.
"What is it then?"
"I can't tell."
"Interesting," he muttered. "Whose order is more important, hers or mine?"
"Yours, Prince, however, the promise I gave her is stronger than anyone's order," she said with difficulty, resisting him.
The Prince looked at her with curiosity, then moved the pages with which the girl covered the new file. In the top corner there was a neatly written name.
"As always, you are a very loyal friend, Kendra," he said to the terrified girl. He didn't blame her for her audacity. He felt admiration for this human being. "Don't worry, this little secret is safe with me. Let me know when she wakes up."
The girl watched him, stunned and amazed, as he walked away.