5. Chapter 5
Ashmedai
A shmedai dove from shadow to shadow to traverse the market bustle as quickly as possible. Up the steps and down the path toward the wood, he was a mere blink of movement to anyone who might have seen him.
Levi should still be at Daedlys’s shop—which meant Braxton was alone.
Exploding into the tower with all the force of his swirling shadow magic, Ashmedai must have looked like a storm incarnate.
He marched across the lower level with such mad determination, he hardly noticed how he had left the door half off its hinges and upset pieces of stray parchment to flutter like a tornado was raging through.
When he reached the workshop door, he threw it open with just as much force.
“Brax!”
In some ways, the space echoed Luccite’s shop with tools, potions, components, and tomes, only rather than neat shelves and tidy organization, everything was scattered about haphazardly and a bed rested against one wall.
The ceiling was low, making the entire room seem like a cave, especially since it was made from stone, with candlelit sconces as well as crystals glowing.
Table upon table was also loaded with more of Braxton’s black crystals, or unknown items covered by tarp.
At the very back of the workshop, where Braxton sat facing away from Ashmedai, was a larger black crystal that towered nearly to the ceiling.
“Levi,” Braxton growled as he used his wheels to pivot his chair, “I have repeatedly—Ash? What on earth—”
Ashmedai didn’t bother continuing forward. He saw the shadow cast by Braxton’s chair, dove into the one cast by the door, and appeared directly in front of his friend to hover with a menacing flex of shadows that covered Braxton in darkness.
“Who is he?” he roared.
Not a twitch or ripple of trepidation touched Braxton’s expression. “We have been over this. Levi is not—”
“He is not a construct,” Ashmedai snapped, but though Braxton still gave no sign of being cowed or afraid, Ashmedai saw how the shape of the shadow he cast over Braxton was twisting, growing, and he pulled away with a sharp intake of breath and desperate tamping down of his anger.
“You made him from real people. Don’t deny it. ”
The shadows calmed, and Braxton sat taller. “What if I did?”
He displayed no remorse or appeal for forgiveness. That should have made Ashmedai angrier, but it zapped the remaining ire from his heart, leaving him numb. “How? Each piece still looks human or elven. How did you do it?”
With the same calm detachment, Braxton wheeled around Ashmedai. “When people first enter the barrier, there is a delay before they begin to change into one of us. Most, once they see it starting, go mad and flee. You know this. Isn’t it better that they are not disintegrated, their parts wasted?”
“There haven’t been any new people in….” Ashmedai trailed off before finishing his thought, the full horror of the situation so lidifying. “There have been new people. You just made us think otherwise. Were all your constructs real, living beings?”
“Of course not,” Braxton retorted with a sweeping gesture at the workshop.
“They were made here, from cloned material, as I told you. And that is why they were failures. They had no true spark of life. It took years to assemble nonaffected parts from people who had crossed into our lands and perished—decades, centuries, to ensure that the parts matched enough with minimal alchemical manipulation to create Levi as flawlessly as he is. And I know you agree with me, Ash. You think him flawless too.”
It was almost an accusation, but now wasn’t the time to get sidetracked by Ashmedai’s feelings for Levi. “How could you? You mutilated people who might have been talked down to join our community.”
“Talked down?” Braxton huffed. “These people were not going to be talked down. And even if they could have been, most were villainous highwaymen, and we would have run out of room for new citizens long ago and been in far worse shape than we are now. At least this surge of new offspring comes as late as it has, when I am finally ready to free us from this nightmare. I have played my part to get us here, Ash. Just like you did.”
That was an accusation, enough that Ashmedai leaned away from Braxton, feeling a sharp twist in his gut.
“I did what I thought was right,” Braxton said more softly, remorseful maybe for his comment but not his actions.
“You think what you did was right?”
“To buy us more time, I would do worse. But if it disturbs you so, rest assured, I have no need to continue. Levi was a success. And I did not create him purely for companionship or assistance around the tower. Levi is one part of the whole that will change everything.” Again, Braxton gestured around the workshop, like all the answers lay within it.
“What I learned by creating him is all I need to finally solve this. Trust me.”
For a thousand years, Ashmedai had, but he still felt haunted by the ghosts of Levi’s past. “His soul is someone else’s.”
“Someone who died. Does it matter?”
“He’s been having flashes of that life.”
“What?” Braxton moved closer to Ashmedai with a scrunch of his brow. “His draught was supposed to prevent that.”
“Draught?”
“Something to keep any memories from surfacing. It must not be enough. I told him it would help him acclimate and feel more comfortable here. That wasn’t a lie.”
“But it is a lie. It’s all a lie!”
“Do you want to tell him the truth?” Braxton volleyed back. “The memories are from his mind, his head, not a jumble from other parts, but those memories are still fractured. If you tell him, it might bring more to the surface in a way he won’t be able to handle.”
“He deserves to know.”
“That he was a coward so terrified upon entering our lands and starting to transform that he fled, and I was barely able to save half of him before he disintegrated, let alone the head now resting on his shoulders? Does that sound like a pleasant bedtime story?”
When Ashmedai had rushed from Luccite’s shop to confront Braxton, he hadn’t truly considered who Levi was, only that Levi was someone other than the seemingly brand-new soul who looked upon everything he encountered with wonder.
Including Ash.
Losing that seemed a far worse fate than death, but who was Ashmedai to decide for Levi? Worse was that no matter how he looked at the situation, there was no answer that wouldn’t hurt Levi in some way. Which left Ashmedai with one final question .
“You swear you didn’t make him from parts of Cullen?”
“Ash….” A somber sag of pity overtook Braxton’s expression. “Even if it hadn’t been a thousand years since then, you know there was nothing of Cullen left.”
Ashmedai had thought hearing that and truly believing Braxton meant it would wound him deeper than anything else he had learned today. When it didn’t, he wasn’t sure what to feel.
“How many?” he asked.
“Bodies? A dozen. Maybe two dozen over the centuries.”
“And you swear none of them were savable?”
There was still something similar between Braxton and Levi besides the matching color of their hair—a certain way about their mouths, even though Levi’s was stitched.
But if Levi’s eyes were what made him look like Cullen, then that was also the part of Braxton that looked the least like his creation.
Cold blue.
“I did save them, Ash. I made them Levi.”
Ashmedai didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t punish Braxton for what he had done.
People weren’t punished in the Dark Kingdom, because no one committed crimes.
At worst, altercations would require mediation, separation from one another, or just time for people to calm down.
Easy for a small community with only so much space.
They literally couldn’t afford to commit atrocities against one another.
Ashmedai had never considered atrocities against outsiders, even if most were highwaymen.
“You swear you will never do anything like this again?”
“I swear.” Braxton nodded, and while his eyes could be cold, when his heart was in his words, as it seemed to be now, Ashmedai couldn’t doubt him.
“This is almost over, my friend. You know that everything I have ever done these thousand years has been to correct what happened that night. For you .” Braxton reached for Ashmedai’s hand, a rare act, any seeking of physical connection when Braxton usually kept his distance.
He was trying to comfort Ashmedai, to reassure him, as any friend would.
Ashmedai blinked the sting of tears from his eyes and placed his other hand atop Braxton’s. “I suppose I should let you get back to ending our curse. I have never wanted that more than I do now.”
Braxton pulled away with a somber smile. “I couldn’t agree more.”
As Ashmedai left the tower, walking slowly this time to gather his thoughts, wounded was indeed not how he felt.
Levi wasn’t Cullen. He was someone, some unknown traveler or vagabond who had tread into a cursed wood and panicked, and now he was someone new.
Shouldn’t he be allowed to continue being who he’d become?
The sounds and extra lights from the budding festival grounds alerted Ashmedai to how far he had walked before he realized it. Beyond the black carriages from Emerald, workers continued to build stalls and prepare for Festival Day.
Among those workers was Levi.
He had a bag now, probably lent to him from Daedlys to better carry the music box. Luccite was with him, as well as Dreya, talking animatedly as usual, probably to recruit them for some task or another.
Although, whatever they were discussing, Ashmedai couldn’t help noticing the way Dreya’s attention was mostly focused on Luccite, a subtle flush to her cheeks and an extra bounce to her usually drooping ears.
She kept finding little ways to touch Luccite, and every time she did, her hair leaves rustled.