1. Chapter 1 #2
“Careful!” a woman with a forked tongue hissed at Levi when he nearly ran into her. Unlike the fish-man, she had no legs but moved like an upright snake, a naga with slitted eyes and hair plaited as though made of scales like the rest of her.
“S-sorry!” Levi hurried onward, trying to keep his face hidden while taking more care with where he was going. He liked the people, the swarm of them here, all so different, never two exactly alike, but it was also overwhelming when any of them paid attention to him.
He’d start with Daedlys’s shop like usual to calm himself.
Daedlys spoke in a naturally pleasant whisper—as long as he wasn’t screaming, but he didn’t scream often since it could be painful to others, being a banshee.
Plus, Daedlys was friendly and had doted on Levi ever since he first ventured out of the tower.
“If it isn’t our sweet Stitches,” Daedlys said like an echo on the wind when Levi entered the shop. As a general store with various wares, it was one of the few businesses inside a building rather than a stall.
Levi threw his hood back when he saw that no one else was inside, revealing his red hair, wavy and messy, curling around his slightly pointed ears.
Daedlys could see through things anyway, with his pitlike black eyes.
The banshee had long white hair, his face gaunt and body thin, fading where feet should have been to a wisp almost like the tail of the naga woman outside, though Daedlys floated, transparent like a phantom, wearing an equally diaphanous black robe.
Daedlys could wear anything, but whatever he put on his body became as see-through as he was.
“Hello, Sir Daedlys. I have a list today,” Levi said, carefully pulling it from his cloak.
Usually he kept his hands hidden too, while trekking through the market, afraid that someone might find his blue skin or the stitches holding his parts together off-putting, but Daedlys had called him “Stitches” with a smile ever since they met.
It made Levi less self-conscious of his appearance while in this shop.
“Lyssy, my love?” Daedlys’s husband, Klarent, called before entering from the back.
Klarent almost seemed to float too, though that was because his tentacles carried him across the floor.
His skin was orange, and his arms were also made of tentacles, three each that worked in tandem like large fingers.
Tentacles made up what might have been hair as well and covered his face like a beard.
Levi distinctly heard a voice, however, and not one in his mind, so he knew a mouth had to exist beneath the tendrils somewhere.
“Levi!” Klarent exclaimed when he saw him, loud, perhaps, but cordial, and not so loud that Levi shrank back or regretted removing his hood.
Levi remembered how surprised he’d been to discover the two were married, given their vast differences in species, but then, everyone in the Dark Kingdom was a different species.
“Perhaps you can offer your opinion as one untainted by too much life experience.” Klarent approached Levi, holding out a beautifully bound tome edged in gold with a depiction of the Source Crystal on the front.
“Tainted, he calls me,” Daedlys scoffed.
Klarent waved at him in dismissal, focusing on Levi. “What do you think?” He coiled a tentacle toward the cover, and the painted picture of the crystal glowed with violet light like the real thing. “Too ostentatious?”
Not everyone in the Dark Kingdom could cast magic.
Klarent could only minimally, with small tricks like the light, and Levi’s magic wasn’t much stronger, since he was a construct.
Even fewer people understood alchemy the way Braxton did, but enough were attuned to magic to keep the crystals glowing so that, even without torches, it was never dark in the land of night.
Levi might have guessed that the Source Crystal itself gave illumination to the other crystals, but the Amethyst gemstone was the source of the kingdom’s curse, not its magic or light.
That was another reason why Levi kept his face hidden—because his eyes glowed violet like the Amethyst.
“It’s lovely, Sir Klarent,” Levi said. “What does this one chronicle?”
“Why, the story of the Source Crystal and the curse that afflicts our lands, of course, and how King Ashmedai rallied the people when we might have descended into chaos. I think this shall be a gift for him come Festival Day.”
“Suck-up,” Daedlys muttered fondly.
Klarent turned on him with a huff that upset his mouth tendrils. “I am the official chronicler of our history!”
“Which you appointed yourself a few hundred years ago. And we have endless accounts of the night of the curse, my love—most by you.”
“Am I not allowed to make improvements over the years? After all, some things get better with age.”
It was only playful banter, Levi knew, for he had experienced the pair many times now and was not surprised when Klarent coiled his arm tentacles toward his husband, slithering them up and around his ghostly form so that Daedlys seemed to emanate bits of mist wherever he was touched.
“Darling! Not when we have a customer.”
Klarent laughed. “What are your thoughts then, Lyssy? Too much?”
Daedlys shivered with a ripple of his form that almost made him disappear. “I think the glow is a nice touch.”
“Thank you.”
They were like one being for a moment, not kissing or embracing exactly, but something unique to them and equally as intimate, before Klarent released Daedlys.
That sort of closeness seemed such a precious thing to Levi, and he wondered if he’d ever get to experience it.
“Gather whatever you need, sweet Stitches.” Daedlys returned his attention to Levi. “I know Braxton is good for any trades. What’s he have for me today?”
Levi removed the item from his bag and set it before Daedlys and Klarent on a nearby table. It was a black crystal that Braxton had crafted with alchemy.
“Brace yourselves a moment,” Levi warned. He touched the crystal, and all the other crystals inside the shop went dark, plunging them into shadow. Levi touched the crystal again and the light returned.
“Fascinating!” Klarent declared.
“Master Braxton said he can make more for you to trade at the shop if you like it,” Levi said.
“A master switch to dim every crystal in a room?” Daedlys carefully studied the black crystal, which was no larger than a goblet.
“Within the walls of any building , more than just a room.”
Daedlys stared until the black of his eyes mirrored the black brilliance of the crystal.
“Every home will want one,” he said breathlessly.
“You bet I’ll take more. Pick out something for yourself while you’re at it.
This is the best invention yet!” He snatched the crystal up, though touching it this time did not sink them into darkness.
“You must will the lights to darken, so there’s no risk of setting it off accidentally,” Levi explained, refilling his pack with the supplies on Braxton’s list and then hoisting it over his shoulder again as he began to look around the room with more scrutiny.
There were always wondrous things in this shop, but food and supplies were plentiful elsewhere. What caught Levi’s eye were fabrics and jewelry and all the ways he might make himself look more like a denizen of the Shadow Lands instead of a newborn creation.
“I should chronicle this,” Klarent said, watching Daedlys inspect the crystal, and then setting his tome aside to gather paper and a quill and sit at the desk where he did the shop’s bookkeeping. “Braxton invents so much, I can hardly keep track.”
Only half paying them as much mind, Levi tentatively touched a violet tunic on display. “Is this silk from Emerald?”
“Indeed it is. Don’t listen to Gordoc at the steps,” Daedlys said. “There’s plenty of silk yet and more likely to come with the next caravan. You go right ahead and claim that, darling. It would look lovely on you.”
The tunic was far more ostentatious than anything Levi had worn before, with long sleeves edged in silver thread.
It was slightly longer on the left and right sides, where it would drape near his knees, almost like a skirt, bound together at the collar with deep purple cord, and bearing a hood with similar silver embroidery as the sleeves.
“Claim a belt as well,” Daedlys added.
“Oh!” Levi snapped back from touching the tunic. “I can’t actually take this. Master Braxton—”
“Can let you indulge if I’m offering. He treats you too much like a servant. Honestly, just because he made you in his workshop.”
But Levi was a servant. It was his place. He owed his life to his maker.
He wasn’t planning on taking the tunic or a belt, but at the last second, he shoved both into his bag, just as the shop door opened to admit someone new.
Levi drew up his hood. Everyone knew about him, he just… didn’t like the way most people stared.
“Ash!” Klarent proclaimed. “We were just talking about you.”
Levi’s eyes snapped to the man who had entered.
Ashmedai.
The Shadow King.
Every time Levi saw him, it was as if his stitched-together limbs were about to unravel, and he felt both unable to move and as if he might collapse to the ground in pieces at any moment.
The king was just so beautiful. Levi didn’t even know if he understood beauty, but to him, Ashmedai was it.
His skin was white as bone, his hair long, straight, and ebony black, with black in place of the whites of his eyes, white irises, long nails, almost like claws, all his teeth razor-sharp, and pointier ears than Levi’s subtle tips, like Levi had read about elves.
Like Daedlys, Ashmedai wore all black, but with stitching and accents in red and gold. He looked so royal, with a brocade tunic and long cloak. He wore no crown, but when he moved, the shadows moved with him, as if drawn to his regal presence.
Levi could relate.