Page 8 of Stitches
“What if crystals aren’t enough?” someone asked.
It was a new mother, Ashmedai recalled, someone who had, in turn, been born here within the curse, never having known something different. She resembled a Gorgon with blank white eyes and a head of snakes, though her bottom half was that of a spider.
Ashmedai gestured her forward to take Grillo’s place in front of him.
“What happens after these trees are taken?” she continued. “What of the next time we need to build or expand? What of the rumors that we have not only reached our limit, but that the barrier is shrinking in on us?”
A murmur tittered through the crowd.
“Hold on now!” Dreya stomped one of her hooves to regain the room. “Are we a people of discussion or hearsay? A rumor is merely a rumor, Shevah. The barrier is not shrinking. You’ll recall Braxton disproved that months ago.”
That was true—the barrier wasn’t shrinking—but the rumors weren’t wrong that they were running out of resources, and Ashmedai had tasked Braxton with solving that quandary above all else. He didn’t want his people to panic until he knew for sure what might be done.
“Calm yourselves,” added Luccite, their healer and the final advisor, seated beside Dreya. “If Brax’s crystals ever fail or do not warn someone in time, I have perfected many ways to adapt after disintegration.”
Luccite was like a panther on two legs, with a very humanoid bodybut a feline head, and a cat’s sly smile to match. She was shorter than most, however, and quite stout, often wearing robes that hung off her body, like today’s, in deep emerald. Her fur was a rich gray but with brown at its roots, giving her shimmering dimension, and her eyes were slitted gold. She lounged like a cat too, practically leaning on Dreya, who didn’t seem to mind.
“There is nothing to adapt if someone disintegrates entirely,” Shevah hissed back.
It wounded Ashmedai to hear such things, but he understood his people’s fear. He had kept them mostly safe for nearly a thousand years. The limited space was bound to catch up to them eventually.
“Your words are heard, Shevah,” Yentriss said, “and rest assured that concerns over the barrier are our top priority. Do you doubt the resolve of your king to keep you as safe as he is capable?”
Shevah’s stony expression wavered, her white eyes turning to Ashmedai, which caused her to look immediately cowed. “No. Never. Surely the demon would have killed us all by now without your guidance.” She bowed.
That wounded Ashmedai more, because his people loved him without question. No one knew what really happened that night.
Other than Ashmedai and Braxton.
“Shall we move on to the Emerald shipment and call it an evening?” Dreya broke in with a chipper tone, ever vigilant to the shifting mood of the room.
Shevah returned to her seat, and Ashmedai listened with only half an ear as various other citizens came forward to make requests of items that would likely be on the monthly caravan from the Emerald Kingdom or made suggestions for new things to send. The other half of Ashmedai’s attention was on the hooded figure of Levi.
He wished he could see Levi’s face.
“Another note? It’s a waste of time!” a louder voice broughtAshmedai back again. It was Lauffy, a naga woman in the crowd, whereas Gordoc stood before the table.
“There’s no harm in trying,” Gordoc argued. “I’ll pen the note myself. If they ignore it again, so be it. One day, they might finally take to heart specific trade requests.”
Ashmedai remembered soon after the curse befell them when he had penned the first note. He’d explained what had happened and warned the people of Emerald to stay away for fear that they might be taken by the curse too should they cross into Amethyst. There was never a response, but occasionally people would venture close, and Ashmedai’s fears were realized.
If anyone crossed into the barrier, they couldn’t leave. They would morph into monsters, and if they tried to escape afterward, they’d disintegrate as soon as they were out again.
For a while Ashmedai had set up sentries to warn people away, but when they saw the monsters the citizens of Amethyst had become, they’d run in fear as if they had gone mad. It was from the shrieks of those escaping, and from the few outsiders claimed by the curse in its early years, that they learned of the kingdom’s new name.
The Shadow Lands, they were called now, forever cloaked in darkness.
People who had crossed over and stayed never recalled being told of notes with the caravan. It was assumed that someone, either royalty or a guard, must have been snatching them up and tossing them aside. These days, only a small few still called the lands Amethyst, like it had been when Ashmedai fell in love with it—and its people.
And….
“Perhaps not this time, Gordoc,” Ashmedai said. “While I appreciate your willingness to try, with the festival soon upon us and so much else on everyone’s minds, I ask that you wait until at least the shipment afterward. Is that all?” He looked to his advisors for anything forgotten,then to the crowd for other voices, but all was quiet. “Good evening, then, and thank you.”
There was a bustle as the crowd began to disperse. Yentriss and Luccite left with little more than brief good nights, but after watching them leave, Dreya turned to Ashmedai, immediately starting in on something or another to keep his attention.
She meant well and could rarely contain her excitement about this or that to keep things running and the people happy. Ashmedai had added her as an advisor for that very reason—because she’d done the same even before she had the position—but as he noticed that a sole figure lingered at the back while everyone else continued to leave, he spoke over Dreya.
“It seems someone else needs my ear tonight. May we reconvene tomorrow morning?”
