6. Chapter 6 #3
“Close enough.” Klarent moved to a small sofa against the wall and slumped onto it, prompting Levi to push through his nausea and join him. “The curse had only been active for about a year when I came exploring to see if the tales were true.”
“You’re one of the people who crossed the barrier and was changed?”
“Indeed. I was always a scholar, so I wasn’t afraid. I was… fa scinated, especially when I began to take on my new form.” As Klarent lifted his fingerlike hand tendrils, Levi could see the honest pride in Klarent’s eyes for what he had become.
Which made Levi even more curious. “May I ask…?”
“What did I look like before? Very strapping.” Klarent sat up taller.
“Same height, mind you, and similar frame. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Proud, square jaw. I prefer the tendrils.” He winked.
Klarent had no hair anymore, but his eyes did retain a certain navy hue, though they were large without pupils, almost like Daedlys’s black pits.
“Did you leave family behind?” Levi asked.
“Parents, siblings, friends. I still miss them, but they’re long gone now. I think that’s why my focus became history. I had a large family once, all of us quite close, and I wonder sometimes what their descendants might be like.”
“You must have been so lonely when you learned you couldn’t leave here.”
“Meeting Lyssy helped,” Klarent said with a wriggle of his face tendrils, which Levi knew was his way of smiling.
It made sense why Klarent had appointed himself the kingdom’s chronicler if he was an outside scholar wanting to learn all he could.
In Levi’s few weeks of life, he had only heard the tale of the demon from the mouth of a child.
He’d been too anxious to ask it of anyone else, let alone one of the most knowledgeable, but now he felt compelled to understand.
“What really happened the night of the curse?”
Klarent sagged lower into the sofa, though this time, almost wistfully. “The old king had passed away, and Prince Cullen longed for direction. No one can truly say they know his state of mind at the time, not even Ash, a newcomer to Amethyst, who had befriended Cullen.”
“Did Cullen summon the demon?”
“No one truly knows that either. Perhaps. Perhaps the demon simply was. All anyone can be sure of is that Ash was there when the people needed someone to lead after Cullen vanished. Without him, everything might have fallen into chaos.”
“I didn’t realize Ash wasn’t originally from here,” Levi said, finally relaxing into the sofa.
“Diamond, I believe, in a valley beyond the Sapphire Kingdom, which is nearest to us. Diamond is the primary land of the elves. Or was once. Who knows now, a thousand years since?”
Levi frowned at the map those words created. “Sapphire is closest? Then why do the carriages only go to Emerald?”
“They used to go to Sapphire too, but a couple hundred years ago, their people stopped loading them. No one knows why. So, Brax stopped sending it there.” Klarent sighed, seeming far away despite being able to recite anything about the history of the kingdoms with nary a pause for pondering.
“Klarent?” Levi broached softly. “What made you sing that song today?”
“I was thinking of home,” Klarent said, followed by another deep sigh, and then he closed his eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
“ What ?” Levi leapt to the edge of his seat. “Truly?”
A slightly more agitated flurry of mouth tendrils preceded Klarent’s response.
“Daedlys doesn’t know. It was an accident.
We’d discussed it, planned it for years, though we hadn’t told anyone we were finally going to go through with it.
When it was revealed that a good dozen or more people were already pregnant, we decided to wait…
only it seems we made that decision too late. ”
There was no visible distention of Klarent’s belly, and honestly, Levi wasn’t sure how pregnancies worked between the various species and genders, but it still seemed such a miracle to look upon his friend and know that a new life was growing inside him. “This is wonderful!”
“Is it?” Klarent scoffed. “So much is unknown right now, and we decided to wait. What if Lyssy is angry?”
“With you? Over this?” Levi couldn’t help but smile, because he knew Klarent and Daedlys better than he knew almost anyone in the Shadow Lands, and their devotion to each other was unconditional. “Never.”
The orange hue of Klarent’s skin seemed to darken a few shades at the apples of his cheeks and partway down his tendrils. “What if Ash is angry?”
“How could he be? Ash said at the council meeting that he never wants anyone to think that way again or to keep such things from him. This is good news.” Levi took Klarent’s hand, and the tendrils of his fingers coiled up Levi’s forearm to wrap tight.
“It’s you and Daedlys, one of the most inspiring couples in all the Dark Kingdom.
I am sure your child will be miraculous, and soon there will be no worries over barriers or lacking space.
Unknown though the future may be, Braxton has assured it. ”
One thing Levi never doubted was that if Braxton put his mind to something, he was certain to achieve it.
“Thank you.” Klarent took Levi’s other hand to wrap it in tendrils too. “I think I needed to hear that. All that mess with Grillo had me returning to old fears. But then our sweet Stitches saved the day, didn’t you? And now you have again.”
Levi felt his cheeks warm, and the warmth spread further through his chest. Here was yet another example of romance persevering—a potent and ageless love bringing new life into the world.
“What are you two conspiring about?”
Levi and Klarent lurched away from each other at the sudden return of Daedlys.
The banshee held a bag overflowing with thread and trimmings, presumably from one of the other shops. On top was some particularly beautiful gold lace ribbon .
“Just festival business,” Levi said, but as he stood, he turned his back on Daedlys so only Klarent could see him mouth, “ Tell him .” Then Levi spun back around and presented Daedlys with the bag slung over his body.
“I brought another shipment of crystals. I can pick up supplies later. I’m…
off to visit Grillo,” he lied, though it was only a white lie, since he had seen Grillo before coming here.
Daedlys’s black eyes seemed to bore into Levi, so Levi wasted no time making scarce to avoid being questioned. He paused after the door closed behind him, listening in to see if Klarent would take his advice.
He had only faintly been able to hear Klarent’s humming before, and even with the pair closer to the door, Levi caught but a few muffled words—until an exclamation of obvious joy dangerously close to being as loud as one of Daedlys’s screams signaled all would be well.
Which was when Levi looked out into the market and spotted Ashmedai.
All would be well indeed.
Ashmedai
“You look like you have a secret,” Ashmedai said as he and Levi strolled through the market.
Levi hunched but maintained his smile. “It’s not mine to tell, I’m afraid, but it’s a good thing. I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”
Knowing someone else’s secret further proved how much Levi had become part of the community. Ashmedai didn’t mind having to wait to learn it .
They hadn’t mentioned a destination, merely started walking as they talked, heading away from the market steps—which meant they soon reached the Source Crystal at the center of the square.
They paused at its base. The Amethyst gemstone was as hefty as the man-sized black crystal Braxton had in his workroom, though it towered taller since it rested on a pedestal, so wide with its various jagged edges that most people would have been unable to wrap their arms around it and touch their fingers together.
Unless they had tentacles, and of course some citizens did.
Seeing Levi so close to it, Ashmedai thought the glow of Levi’s violet eyes seemed to pulse with the Amethyst’s powerful light.
In truth, Ashmedai hated this crystal but not its color. He loved the color. He would just rather enjoy it on Levi without a painful reminder as the backdrop.
“Would you like to continue our stroll by the lake?” Ashmedai asked.
“I’d love to,” Levi said.
The Black Lake was reached by continuing to the very end of the market and down a small set of steps onto the beginning sands of the beach, which was otherwise hidden by the ravine walls the market was built into.
It didn’t truly look like a ravine until one reached that descending curve in the rocky walls, leading around to the hidden beachfront and the deep lake that was otherwise entirely enclosed.
Without any visible flowing water in or out, the lake could have been stagnant, but underground rivers kept it fresh.
Some mining was done, but they had never tried excavating too deeply, especially in the caves under the water, assuming somewhere beyond would be unknown edges of the barrier they couldn’t risk stumbling upon.
Many unique creatures lived in the lake’s depths, safe enough that fishermen and swimmers weren’t unheard of, but although snow and frigid temperature never touched the Shadow Lands, it was still technically winter and too cold for the beach, so the area was empty.
The temperature was about perfect for a thunderstorm, however. Ashmedai hadn’t noticed, but the cloud cover had increased, and it looked like rain soon. He ignored the threat for now, not wanting his time with Levi to be cut short.
“You never ask me to smooth any more stitches,” Ashmedai said.
“Oh, I….” Levi glanced at his feet. He did that often, turned shy and fumbled for words. The difference was that, now, he eventually looked up and smiled with confidence. “May I be honest?”
“Always.”
They were nearly to the shoreline, and as they skirted it and the faintly lapping tide, movement caught Ashmedai’s attention—then Levi’s a second later.