8. Chapter 8 #2
Shevah laughed, her white eyes darting downward at the attention toward her child.
“It’s quite all right. You’ve been very busy.
This is Eris. She’s three months now. The drawback of her getting mummy’s legs, though, is she’s already capable of skittering across the floor. Would you like to hold her?”
Ashmedai had recently blessed the births of many of his people’s coming children, but he hadn’t held Eris yet, not even when she was first born. He hadn’t held a babe since Kenner, and even then, only briefly.
“I would be honored,” he said and took the offered child.
Eris’s spider legs tickled as they kicked at the exchange, not because she wanted to escape, but simply getting used to the feeling of moving them.
Ashmedai had no trouble holding her securely, and once he had her safe in his arms, he marveled at the way she marveled at him.
Shevah had no irises, but the babe did, bright blue, though the whites of her eyes glowed like her mother’s, making her young gaze quite entrancing.
She had never known “normal.” Neither had Shevah or her wife.
They had only known being monsters in a monstrous land, cursed with forever night, yet they would never see their existence as a curse, other than the threat of the barrier and memories of the demon.
To them, to Eris, humans, elves, and dwarves were the strange ones.
“Are you all right, Ash?” Shevah asked.
Ashmedai looked up, realizing he’d gotten misty-eyed gazing at the babe. “Yes. Apologies. Your daughter reminded me how blessed we are with what we’ve been given.” He always used his claws with care, but he was especially careful to only run the back of his fingers along the babe’s sweet face.
She cooed at him, staring at the fangs in his smile like she might reach for one and latch on, finding them fascinating instead of frightening—like Levi.
Ashmedai passed the babe back to Shevah and thanked her for the chance to hold Eris.
Shevah wished him well and continued through town.
A great weight seemed to have been lifted, more in the act of holding that child and not shying from his own people than even lying with Levi.
Ashmedai knew, however, that his change in perspective was because of Levi.
Levi made his penance feel more like deliverance .
Bright giggling caught Ashmedai’s attention from the neighboring house—Grillo and Yentriss’s house. It was also a farmhouse, for when Grillo wasn’t busy with carpentry, he grew vegetables.
It was Kenner giggling, no doubt, but Ashmedai smiled wider as he moved around the house, for the boyish giggling was not only accompanied by Grillo’s voice but by Levi’s.
“Keep left!” Grillo called cheerfully over the laughter. “Mind the moss-berry fruit!”
Ashmedai rounded the corner, bearing witness to a chase. Levi had summoned the vision of a serpentine dragon about the size of a hawk that was flying after Kenner without need for wings.
Levi gave chase too, as did the family’s rollhound puppy, but Levi kept his dragon closest at Kenner’s heels, until he suddenly thrust the dragon that much faster ahead to move through Kenner, whose steps stuttered in surprise when it appeared in front of him.
Levi scooped the boy up while he was distracted and spun a still-giggling Kenner in a circle before depositing him on the ground. The rollhound yipped excitedly, formed into a ball, and proceeded to roll right into their feet, where it toppled out of its ball form onto its back. They laughed again.
Ashmedai could easily imagine how Levi must have played this way with a brother.
“Ash!” Grillo called. The minotaur sat on the back stoop, looking weary but far better than he had while staying at Luccite’s. His lizard arm moved as naturally as his original one as he used it to push himself up to his feet.
Levi and Kenner turned to see Ashmedai as well, and Kenner gave a joyful wave while Levi smiled, not displaying nearly as much of the bashfulness that used to infuse his every expression.
“Yen went to the festival grounds, if you’re looking for her,” Grillo said, though his grin said he didn’t truly think that’s who Ashmedai was after.
“Merely out for a walk,” Ashmedai said, continuing leisurely into the yard, “and pleased by the company I’ve found. Are you well, Grillo? You look it.”
“Another day’s rest needed, is all, and I’ll be back to work.”
“Are you missing stitches?” Kenner drew Ashmedai’s attention to where the boy was looking at Levi, as if only just having noticed the changes in Levi’s face.
“I suppose I am,” Levi said. “Ash has been helping me get rid of them.”
“Rid of them?” Kenner wrinkled his nose. The dragon had been dismissed, which had the rollhound sniffing about in search of it, but Kenner was focused on Levi. He reached up to grab Levi’s collar and tugged him down to his level. “Why? Don’t you like how you are?”
Levi floundered, glancing at Grillo, and then at Ashmedai, before returning to the boy. “It’s not that exactly, but….”
“But,” Ashmedai broke in, finishing his forward motion to reach Levi and Kenner, “sometimes we need to have the freedom to change the things about ourselves that don’t quite feel like us. Do you understand?”
Kenner released Levi but kept his scrunched brow. Then his eyes brightened. “I’d want wings like Penny! Do you think her baby will have wings?”
“Perhaps,” Ashmedai said with a chuckle. “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”
Levi came toward Ashmedai and there was a moment of uncertainty, filled with fluttering nerves, like neither knew what should happen next. The shrinking space between them seemed to say that a proper greeting was called for, and by the time Levi reached Ashmedai, the answer was clear.
They kissed, the same as in Ashmedai’s bed, light and sweet, though with a lean inward like the promise of everything they longed to share again.
“Are you looking forward to the festival, Levi?” Grillo asked as he came nearer, not commenting on what he’d witnessed but likely not surprised. “You can help me finish those stalls tomorrow. Then the event is just around the corner.”
Levi smiled, echoing all of Ashmedai’s recent joys in the expression. Their hands found each other as reflexively as their lips, lacing tight with neither having to glance down, as Levi answered, “I can’t wait.”
Levi
Levi stared at himself in the mirror, wearing the violet-colored tunic made from Emerald silk.
He had tried it on numerous times since being gifted it from Daedlys, but ever since the king learned of its existence and asked if he might see it at the festival, Levi had wanted to save it for just this occasion.
The silver threads that edged the bottom, long sleeves, and oversized hood all seemed to sparkle in the light. The draping of the uneven hem, like a skirt but too short to be worn modestly without trousers, gave the garment a formal appearance, ideal for a special occasion.
Levi had originally claimed a basic leather belt to accompany the tunic, but he thought his weapons belt, black with silver, along with the black and silver daggers, completed the outfit in a more elegant manner.
He wore a black shirt beneath, black trousers, and black boots.
With his wavy red hair as neatly styled as he could manage, and although stray curls tended to fall into his eyes, he thought he looked almost… .
Like a prince.
Levi knew that if he looked out his window, he would see the lights of the festival glistening, even this early, turning what had simply been structures the night before into the dazzling carnival they were intended to create.
He made a point to not look. Levi was excited, but he and Ashmedai had promised to attend the festival together, and he didn’t want to experience any of it without his king.
Instead, Levi’s eyes fell to the music box he had placed on his windowsill. He had played it often lately, remembering more and more of the melody’s words each time. The stamp on the bottom of the painted green, blue, and white wooden box with its rearing horse inside said Jafari’s.
Levi remembered the shop. He remembered wanting to purchase one of the boxes for his brother when they were first on the shelves, but his family had very little to spend on frivolities.
He’d been saving for one of the boxes nonetheless, from odd jobs, while still looking for where he might apprentice, even at his older age.
He should have completed an apprenticeship by now, though he couldn’t quite remember by how many years.
His mother had been too nervous to let him work much outside the home for fear of him getting caught.
He had been caught anyway, for… his magic, he thought? He couldn’t quite remember that either, but every day another memory surfaced, though there was no way to know how much time had passed between then and now.
Levi lifted the lid of the music box, and it began to play its tinkling melody, the chorus of a folktale, The Ride-Along Bard .
“For no bard is humble, And no hero’s flawless. All that matters is the stories we tell. ”
Levi thought it might have been one of his favorites, but it certainly was now since the box had been a gift from Ashmedai.
Upon descending the tower steps, Levi found the main living area empty.
There was no draught left out for him and no sign of Braxton, other than the faintest of dark purple light pulsing from beneath the workshop door.
For once, Levi felt no draw toward it, but at risk of being pulled in against his conscious mind, he turned away.