Page 30 of Stitches
Nervous eyes glanced around once more, only this time Ashmedai noticed how no one would look at him.
“You revealed Pentelyn’s pregnancy.” Ashmedai addressed the couple seated in the front row. “Are you saying there are others?”
The persisting silence and wary glances said enough.
“How many?”
It had never been mandated that couples express their desire for children before seeking them, but in the past, since it happened so infrequently, a couple would often tell Ashmedai before they started trying, or immediately after they became pregnant, asking for his blessing. It hadn’t seemed necessary to mandate doing sosince everyone always did anyway.
How out of touch Ashmedai had become rang truer than ever before as more than a dozen hands hesitantly began to rise, expanding throughout the hall. Ashmedai’s advisors, all in attendance save Braxton, looked as shocked as he was, but it was clear that many of those with child had been whispering amongst themselves and knew how many there were.
“Why did you keep this from me?” Ashmedai asked.
Slowly, the hands dropped.
Pentelyn, after patting Amuro’s arm and taking a steadying breath, rose and stepped forward to address the head table—and Ashmedai directly. “My parents waited centuries to have me. There was a small influx of children after my birth, but there was always the fear that we only have so much room. We can’t migrate to other cities, we can’t expand farther outside the city without deforestation we can’t afford,and in the years since the curse, there have only been a handful of accidental deaths.
“We don’t die, Ash, but we still want to grow, to experience new things, to share our lives with others. None of us planned to have children all at once, it just came to a head, because some of us have waited even longer than our parents once did, and we don’t want to wait anymore or feel guilty for wanting families of our own.
“We’re so sorry,” she finished, as if what she had expressed was anything anyone should feel guilty over.
“You didn’t trust me enough to speak the truth?” That hurt worst of all, because of course Ashmedai could understand a desire for family, for companionship.
He spotted Levi in the usual spot at the back, though no longer hiding within his hood. The sight of him didn’t only make Ashmedai think of his own desires but of how even Braxton had made himself a son.
“We trust you, Ash,” Pentelyn said, and all the eyes that had been avoiding the head table returned there now to bolster her sentiment, “but you aren’t all-powerful. We know you’re trying. We know you hope to fix all that concerns us. But when we realized how many of us were pregnant at once, all these years of waiting for answers, for solutions, seemed so much more daunting. We felt trapped and didn’t know what to say.”
They hadn’t wanted to worry Ashmedai, the waytheywere worried. It was everything he most feared and hated about the curse that tortured his people.
With a slight twitch of her wings and a solemn bow, Pentelyn returned to Amuro. The others remained quiet, the various couples who had revealed being with child sitting closer together or holding each other in whatever ways their forms allowed.
Ashmedai’s advisors said nothing either. What could they say, when the burden to assuage the people fell on Ashmedai alone?
“If you trust me,” he began, “then please, believe all I have said about the hunt. And know that you can always come to me with any concern, any request or news, and always be honest with me.
“However, I understand your fears over space and resources. I can’t deny that the promise of so many more future citizens, and likely more and more to come after that, isn’t sustainable as we are now.” Ashmedai closed his eyes, hating how he had to admit what everyone already knew. “This should be a time of celebration, yet everyone is tense and guilt-ridden for wanting to bring new life into our world. I swear, I swear to you all, here and now, that we will find a solution. We will find the answers to keep our kingdom thriving.”
When he opened his eyes, he still saw uncertainty.
“How?” a lone voice asked.
Klarent—sounding far meeker than Ashmedai was used to.
Clearly, Ashmedai had failed them already, because he didn’t have ananswer.
“My black crystals.”
To everyone’s cumulative surprise, Braxton had answered, wheeling forward from behind the head table to the spot they always left open for him.
A stir of movement from Levi proved he hadn’t known Braxton was coming either.
“I am making enough for everyone,” Braxton continued, “available through Daedlys’s shop as many of you already know. While generally a tool of convenience, they will be a critical component in what I have planned.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Luccite spoke from the other end of the table, leaning around Dreya to meet Braxton’s gaze.
“To remove the threat of the barrier. I am close to making a breakthrough. Not decades or even years close—weeks.”
A few hushed exclamations flitted through the crowd. Even Ashmedai had to take a breath, for despite his promises, he had feared such a thing impossible, or at the very least, a far distant goal.
