Page 81 of Stitches
As that thought crept in on Levi, he once again screamed.
“Urg, enough. No one else might be able to hear you, but to me, it’s grating.”
Levi stopped with a stutter, his scream fading as he tried to look around. It was surreal, because he couldn’t actually look around or shift his line of sight, yet he could see in every direction around the Onyx without moving.
Through the workshop door strolledLevi.
Or rather, Braxton with Levi’s face.
“Let me out!” Levi cried. “Please! Please don’t leave me like this….”
“I have no intention of leaving you in there forever.” Stranger still, perhaps, was hearing Levi’s own voice with Braxton’s cadence. He was dressed in the Emerald silk tunic, so it must still be the same night. “Your soul is strong, but soon the Onyx gemstone will drain you of your memories, and you won’t fear anything anymore. Then you will get to start over. My gift to you.”
“What…?”
Braxton came closer but didn’t touch the Onyx. “You are my creation, Levi, my child. Of course I will remake you. You’ve accomplished everything I required of you. The spell is complete now, so it no longer needs your soul. I will give you a new life, a new body. Butthisone—” He pressed a hand to his chest. “—I made for me.” He knelt then to pick up his own body—hisbody, because he was walking around in Levi’s, and he planned to keep it.
“You can’t! Please! Why do you even want my body? To walk again? You could—”
“Blind boy, it’s not only that,” Braxton spat, shifting the body in his arms to better balance the weight. “If all I’d wanted all this time was working legs, you’ve seen how capable I am at crafting from the bodies I’ve harvested. I needed therightbody. Not only for the right soul to accomplish my plan, but a body he could love.”
“But why…?” Levi trailed off even as the words formed, because the answer was obvious, but hehadbeen blind. And so was Ashmedai. “You’re in love with Ash. You’ve been in love with him from the beginning. But you never said anything. You couldn’t have, or—”
“Or what? He would have had the chance to reject me outright? Before you, Ash only ever loved one man, a man who didn’t deserve him and dared cast him aside, earning him his fate. I could have finished the spell years ago, but to make you right, I needed a face that would remind Ash of Cullen while still looking enough like me. I do have some vanity.
“I suppose my one regret is that you had the pleasure of touching him first. I waited so long to find a face as perfect as yours. I didn’t even need to change your hair. Now Ash lovesme, and we can both be happy and forget that prince ever existed.”
“You can’t do this!” Levi cried when Braxton began to walk away. “You can’t erase me again! Please!”
“Don’t worry. You took enough of the draught that the process should be easier this time. Eventually you won’t even know what you’ve lost.” Braxton paused at the workshop door and glanced back with a smile that Levi could only see as callous victory. “Just like Ash.”
Ashmedai
Ashmedai couldn’t help feeling numb as they buried Braxton’s body. He hadn’t wanted to go back inside the tower to retrieve it, but Levi had volunteered, far stronger than Ashmedai felt. Levi carried Braxton’s limp form with a solemn sense of duty that Ashmedai admired. Hedidn’t even shed any tears, so Ashmedai did his best to not shed more either.
Whatever the crystal had done, Braxton’s soul must have ended up powering it instead of Levi’s. Part of Ashmedai wanted to think—good—but he doubted he’d ever fully see it that way. They buried Braxton behind the tower, amidst the flowers, and Ashmedai hoped that, someday, after they explained everything to the citizens, they could have a true ceremony to say goodbye.
They didn’t return to the festival but retired to the castle. Explanations would come tomorrow. All Ashmedai wanted now was Levi in his arms and a bit of sweet oblivion.
“Prrp?”
Aurora’s chirp was questioning as she appeared in the bedchamber while they were changing for sleep. She could always tell when Ashmedai was upset.
“I’m all right, my dear.” Ashmedai petted her, and she pushed up into his hand like a rippling wave. “Sad perhaps, but also hopeful. She has a sense of things, you see,” he said over his shoulder, as Levi moved toward them, “especially when I’m not myself.”
Ashmedai wore a red silk nightshirt to bed, not unlike the tunic he’d been wearing most of the day, though longer and more flowing. He’d lent a second nightshirt to Levi, black, which billowed beautifully around his trim body as he moved.
With a smile, Levi reached to stroke Aurora’s head, but she reared back and hissed at him before suddenly bounding through the bedchamber door, as if eager to escape.
“What on earth?” Ashmedai stared after her. She’d been so good around Levi so far.
“She must blame me for you being upset,” Levi said, his smile quivering in displeasure.
“Or she doesn’t want to share the bed,” Ashmedai appeased. “I’msure she’ll warm back up to you in no time.”
They headed for bed, and there was something so blissfully domestic about climbing under the covers with Levi that Ashmedai almost forgot to turn out the crystals lighting the room. He had a black dousing crystal like everyone else, and he almost hesitated using it to dim the lights all at once. Its true purpose had been revealed to be far more sinister, and an innocent soul had been sacrificed to power it.
Ashmedai tapped it and the lights went out. He sighed. All was as it should be.
