Page 67 of Stitches
“Scales like a jeweled mosaic do shine.
Upon one like no other womankind.
Steel forged with grace who graced me that she’s mine.
My wife and muse who I am blessed to find.”
Levi would have to ask Grillo later if Yentriss actually blushed.
Working swiftly through the crowd and doing his best to ensure they moved fast enough to not be easily stopped by passersby, Levi pulled Ashmedai toward the one place he knew would be quiet when all the Shadow Lands was reveling.
The wood.
“The performance really was lovely,” Ashmedai said once the din of the festival was behind them. Levi had left the tome in a back nook of the very last stall, where he knew he could easily retrieve it later. “You have a true gift with your illusions.”
“I’m so sorry, Ash. I should have known—”
“And told Klarent to cancel? You’d have crushed him.”
“Still, forgive me. You told me you didn’t like to talk about that nightor the prince, and there I went helping Klarent spin the memories right before your eyes like a fool. Of course you wouldn’t want to see that.”
“It’s all right,” Ashmedai said, truthfully, Levi thought, and more clear-eyed with added distance between them and the stage. “It is good to remember sometimes.”
They weren’t using the path Levi had taken all those days with Grillo, but the main road the carriages used when traveling to and from Emerald.
“There is one thing I have wanted to ask,” Levi broached cautiously.
“Go on,” Ashmedai assured him.
“Did you love him?”
The king’s pace didn’t waver, like he had been expecting the question. “Yes. But he didn’t love me.”
“He didn’t?” Levi was the one who came up short, blinking in surprise.
“No.” Ashmedai turned to him. “To Cullen, we were friends, nothing more. If it has plagued you, Levi, I never knew with him what I have shared with you.”
A surge of possessiveness filled Levi, like when he’d wished to be closer to Ashmedai than Braxton. He knew it was silly to have ever envied a dead man, but to know finally that only friendship existed between Ashmedai and the prince, even if Ashmedai had pined for Cullen, made what Levi had with Ashmedai even more special and solely his.
Tentatively, Levi reached for Ashmedai’s face, which almost had a tinge of blue to its stark whiteness with the way the moon and stars reflected off the black trees. Levi kissed him, putting into it all his regret and love in equal measure. He never wanted Ashmedai to get that look of sorrow again.
Ashmedai’s smile when they parted was a good start.
They kept walking, enjoying the quiet, with the sounds of the festivalalmost completely lost now. Then, up ahead, Levi spotted a mound of disturbed dirt.
“Like before,” Levi said, rushing toward it. “Do you see? That’s what I saw on the other side of the wood!”
“Levi, wait,” Ashmedai called. “How far have we come?”
Levi kept onward, too entranced by the sight he feared he had imagined before. Though this was a different spot, surely, it was almost identical to the previous mound where something had been buried.
“Levi, wait!”
“But Ash, I’m certain—”
“Stop!”
The harshness—no, thefear—in Ashmedai’s voice made Levi spin around. He had nearly reached the dirt pile, but Ashmedai hadn’t moved with him, still several paces behind. Between them, parallel to each other on either side of the path, were trees with crystals at their bases glowing bright white. The line wasn’t finished across the road, though Levi spotted a few dormant ones he had passed.
