Page 10 of Stitches
“Just—” Ashmedai tried to correct him, but before he could finish, Levi was already out the door. “—Ash.”
He hadn’t meant to upset Levi. Selfishly, however, he had wanted an excuse to touch him.
It seemed it was Ashmedai’s true curse to be left to emptiness like the now vacant hall, with only the shadows that flocked to him and the faintest light from the crystals to keep him company.
He was cursed to keep watching that same face leave him….
Tomorrow, Ashmedai would see Braxton.
Chapter 2
Ashmedai
“IfI’dknownyouwere 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 trustme?”
Ashmedai responded, as he always did to that question, “With my very soul.”
“Thentrust 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? Orfeet, 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 theirlifehere. 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.”
