2. Chapter 2
Ashmedai
“ I f I’d known you were going to visit today, I wouldn’t have had Levi bring your shipment to the meeting last night. Though more important was having him there as proxy, I suppose. Seems things went well?”
Ashmedai sat with Braxton in the tower’s lower level. The kitchen table sat only two, but like the last time Ashmedai had come for a visit, Levi was nowhere to be seen.
“I wish you’d attend those meetings yourself more often,” Ashmedai said, sipping from his tea.
It was black and strongly caffeinated, the way Ashmedai liked, and it had been waiting for him when he arrived, despite Braxton coming out of his workroom at Ashmedai’s knock, surprised to see him.
“You are one of my advisors, are you not?”
Braxton sipped from his tea with a wrinkle of his nose. “Do you want me attending meetings or solving our kingdom’s problems?”
“What of that new black crystal you gave Daedlys?” Ashmedai volleyed back. “While useful, how does convenience of turning off lights solve lacking resources?”
“My friend—” Braxton smirked at Ashmedai’s jab. “—do you trust me?”
Ashmedai responded, as he always did to that question, “With my very soul.”
“Then trust me . It’s all part of the same solution.
If useful trinkets come out of grander experiments, so be it.
” Braxton pushed his tea away and regarded Ashmedai across the table.
He looked so human, like he always had, making him unique among the Dark Kingdom’s subjects. “Why are you here, Ash? Really?”
Ashmedai set his tea down too. He listened for a moment with his keen, elf-like ears. All was quiet around the tower, but he kept his voice low regardless. “Levi is different from your other constructs.”
“Yes,” Braxton said evenly. “A cloned body was getting me nowhere, but a combination finally gave me someone who could think. Can you blame me for wanting additional hands around this place? Or feet , rather.”
The comment wasn’t meant as a barb, yet it pricked like one. “You could ask any number of people to help you here,” Ashmedai said. “Take someone on as an apprentice—”
“I need someone to live here—to have their life here. I wasn’t going to get that from the average citizen. But you don’t have a statement for me, old friend. You have a question.”
Ashmedai never could hide anything from Braxton. “Why not ask me to smooth Levi’s stitches? Surely you could as well, but it would be no trouble for me.”
“Why? For vanity’s sake? He hardly needs it.”
“Have you asked if he wants it?”
“Are you interested in my little puppet?” Braxton’s smile turned crooked.
“I’m interested in all my people. And he’s hardly a puppet.”
“True. He is the only one of my constructs that has ever been truly alive. ”
“Exactly. He’s alive. You won’t discard him like you did the others.”
“Oh?” Braxton leveled Ashmedai with an intensity in his pale eyes like moonlight on a still pond. “That didn’t sound like a suggestion.”
“I’d prefer it didn’t have to be,” Ashmedai said. He didn’t often feel passion, angry or pleasant, but he couldn’t deny the emotions that stirred in him now.
Their gazes remained locked for several beats, and then Braxton chuckled. “I have no intention of discarding him. He isn’t used parts to me, Ash. He’s… Levi.”
The tension drained from Ashmedai at his friend’s break in stoicism. “You like him too.”
“What can I say? It’s hard to find good conversation these days.”
That was a barb, however playful, since Ashmedai used to visit Braxton daily, but lately, he might not venture to the edge of the wood but once a month. That wouldn’t be a problem if Brax left the tower more, but it brought them to a crossroads.
Ashmedai reclaimed his tea and finished it in a gulp.
“You are interested in him,” Braxton said.
“Curious, that’s all.”
Braxton’s smile lingered cryptically. Then he headed to the sink, taking their cups, and dumped the remainders from his own.
It was the loss of Braxton’s gaze that bolstered Ashmedai to ask his real question. “Brax… why does he look like Cullen?”
Braxton’s head lifted without turning to look at Ashmedai. “I can’t help that the power that gave Levi life comes from the Source Crystal.”
“It’s not only his eyes. His face, he….”
“He looks like me.”
“Yes, but… maybe it’s the stitches, or….”
Braxton turned to stare with such incredulity that Ashmedai had to wonder if he was imagining the resemblance—or if he simply wanted it to be so.
“Never mind. I’m sorry, it’s just….”
“Festival Day.”
“Yes.”
The sorrow that filled Braxton’s expression mirrored Ashmedai’s own. “It’s been a thousand years, Ash.”
“I know. And it can be a thousand more. I’ll still wonder what might have happened differently.”
The commiseration on Braxton’s face was a connection that Ashmedai could achieve with no one else in all the Shadow Lands.
Especially when Braxton said, “So will I.”
Levi
The front door opened—Levi heard it distinctly and flattened himself to the wall of the tower. He’d been gardening. He would swear to Braxton if questioned later that that’s all he’d been doing since he hurriedly made tea and then dashed out the back door after seeing Ashmedai approaching.
It wasn’t Levi’s fault if he’d left the kitchen window open a crack and stuck close to that window while Braxton and Ashmedai spoke.
He wondered what Prince Cullen must have looked like if Ashmedai saw a resemblance in Levi. There were few surviving paintings or tapestries from that time. The people of the Dark Kingdom preferred to think of the now and their history after the curse, rather than who they’d been before .
While Levi could only vaguely imagine how the Amethyst Kingdom and its people might have appeared before the curse, he did sometimes think on it.
The trees, many near him where the wood began, wouldn’t have been black or shimmered as though covered in diamond dust, but brown with bright green foliage.
Well, in autumn they might have been any number of colors, and in winter, they would have been barren like now, but they had variation throughout the seasons, like Dreya’s hair.
In the Shadow Lands, trees were always the same.
So too the luminescent plant life they cultivated and oftentimes ate would have been more greens and browns instead of colors like iridescent blue.
What had Ashmedai looked like before, Levi wondered? An elf, still with pointed ears? Still pale? Still commanding? Still beautiful?
Oh, he must have still been beautiful.
Levi readied himself to turn and risk a peek around the tower to see how far the king had gotten. Perhaps he would follow for a little while—
“Are you a doll?”
The unexpected voice nearly caused Levi to yelp, and he threw his hands up to cover his mouth and prevent it. The voice had come from behind him, but it wasn’t Ashmedai, for the voice was small and higher pitched.
Slowly Levi lowered his hands and turned to take in the boy who had snuck up on him. Levi hadn’t heard the tiny feet creeping closer from the very direction he’d been about to look.
The boy had a human face, but most of him was covered in a fine layer of light brown fur.
Conversely, the edges of his body, such as his cheekbones, elbows, and knees, were lined with shimmering green scales.
He had small ram horns protruding from the sides of his head, as well as faint claws on his hands and bare feet—like a lizard combined with a bull.
Grillo and Yentriss’s son, Kenner .
“Are you?” Kenner came closer, with a tilt of his head. “You’re stitched like a doll.”
“I-I, um….” Normally Levi would have put up his hood. He was wearing his cloak, but it seemed silly to hide himself when the boy was already staring. “N-not exactly. Master Braxton made me.”
“The other ones he made were dolls, even without stitches. They didn’t talk.”
“I suppose they didn’t.” Levi relaxed from the wall. “I’m different. Is… that okay? Are my stitches strange to you?”
Kenner giggled like that was a silly question. “Who isn’t different here? I’m Kenner.” He thrust out his hand. The top of it had scales too.
“It’s nice to meet you, Kenner.” Levi accepted the gesture, grasping Kenner at the wrist and giving a gentle squeeze before letting go. “I’m Levi.”
“Like Leviathan, right? Brax’s surname? You’re a junior?”
The assessment caused Levi to giggle too. “Maybe so. What are you doing here? Did you pass the king on the road?”
“Uh-huh. I ran ahead of my parents. There’s always new stuff by the tower, but you’re the newest, so I wanted to come see. Can you do anything neat?”
“Neat? I don’t know. Like what?”
“You know, alchemy, like Brax. Or magic! I haven’t come into any magic of my own yet, but since Father doesn’t have any, I might not either.”
Levi smiled. There were so few children in the Shadow Lands.
Children who had been turned at the start of the curse had long since become adults, and back then, people hadn’t realized they could no longer have children until years passed with no new babes.
They thought it a blessing initially, hoping for decades that there was a way to break the curse.
Once the allure of that faded, effort was put into magical workarounds for couples to have children again, regardless of species or gender.
It was still rare that a couple chose to.
Kenner was about ten years old, and there hadn’t been another babe after him until Shevah’s a few months ago. Although this was Levi’s first encounter with a child, he thought Kenner much easier to be around than adults.
“Magic like this?” Levi flared his fingers toward the garden, and among the plants—some phosphorescent perennials, some vegetables they grew to eat—lights in the shape of tiny dancing fairies began to weave the way a bee might carry pollen.