Chapter 61: How to Rescue Someone Who’d Never Admit Needed Saving (1)
He hadn’t changed. Not at all.
Even there, sitting in the darkest corner of the cell, he looked more like a stain than a man. The shaved head exposed the runes — the same ones that seemed carved in anger and then left to fate. The scars, old, were exactly where I remembered. The jagged line of the jaw. The cut on the left eyebrow that ran almost down to the cheekbone. Even the eyes were the same: too steady, too calm. As if they never needed to blink.
The last time I saw those eyes, I was bleeding from my mouth.
"What the hell is this," I repeated, because once wasn’t enough.
Mordrek smiled. Not a smile of nostalgia. It was more like the kind of smile someone gives when they find a pebble in their shoe and decide to name it.
"What a delicate way to run into an old acquaintance," he said. His voice dragged, lower than I remembered. Less threatening, maybe. But more cynical.
"Old acquaintance? Last time, you tried to strangle me with a runic rope and threw my body in a pit."
"And you survived. I must have done something wrong."
"You were born, for example."
He laughed. Low. The kind of laugh that tries to sound casual but carries a trace of bitterness. Like even the jokes were tired of being told.
"And you still have that sharp tongue, huh?"