Page 83 of Stitches
Ashmedai was going to recommend they test things slowly, only if people wanted to, and with careful consideration, sharing all findings to be certain there were no unforeseen side effects—when another hush struck the crowd as light began to filter in through the open doorway.
Bright light.
“The sun is rising!” someone cried, and an immediate dash began for the door.
“Everyone, please!” Dreya tried to retain order, but the excitement was too great for anyone to listen, and Ashmedai reached over to rest a hand on Dreya’s arm.
“I think such a sight happening for the first time in a thousand years is something everyone deserves to see.” Ashmedai smiled and watched the excitement fill Dreya’s face too before she spun around and yanked a surprised Luccite from her chair to lead them both out the back door.
“Go,” Ashmedai told Yentriss, who bowed in thanks before hurrying to join her family.
Levi waited for him, and they walked hand in hand down the center aisle to exit out the front doors after everyone else had gone. All the details they still needed to settle paled in comparison to seeing the sun brighten the once Dark Kingdom.
Itwasbright, something none of them were used to, and some, like Dreya, had never seen the sun before, yet somehow it didn’t seem to bother anyone or cause them pain. It merely took them a moment to adjust. The city looked so different in daylight, since everything was otherwise as it had been all these years, from the angled buildings to the distant trees shimmering black.
“What does this mean when everything else still looks the same?” Luccite asked, farther out since she had come from around the back with Dreya, still holding her hand.
Ashmedai picked a flower from a bush blooming in front of the grand hall’s front windows and willed it with a thought to become how it had once been. Instead of blue luminescence and a winding black stem, the flower became a long-stemmed red rose.
Mindful of the thorns, Ashmedai handed it to Levi, who smiled.
“We get to choose,” Ashmedai said, “so let us do so wisely.”
Everything became more of a celebration after that, different but just as glorious as Festival Day. There were some things people wanted to remember of their old lives, and so they would change objects to that other form, sometimes to stay that way, sometimes to change back. But few who changed their bodies left themselves as human, elf, dwarf, or half.
Like Daedlys, who had once been a slender white-haired elf, or Klarent, a brown-haired human with a handsome beard. Grillo, who’d also been human, had still been broad and tall, but with dark skin and tightly coiled black hair, whereas Yentriss was an elf with paler skin, long golden braids, and green eyes. Kenner tried very hard to follow their example, a half-elf with medium skin between their two shades and brown hair with golden highlights, though he didn’t seem capable of willing his horns away—or didn’t want to.
Dreya was especially fascinated with Luccite’s red curls when she took on her dwarven form, her button nose still looking quite catlike. Dreya herself, like Kenner, couldn’t fully form a “normal” persona, and only managed to rid herself of bark and hooves.
Almost everyone eventually returned to their cursed selves, however, as Ashmedai had suspected. Titles like “monster” were in the eye of the beholder, and a thousand years was a long time to learn that.
There would be order, more tests, and exploration—eventually—but for now, people were content to have a day in the sunshine.
Ashmedai thought Levi looked especially radiant in brighter light, his red hair proving to have even more variations in shade than Ashmedaihad ever noticed. His blue skin too.
“What next, my darling?” Ashmedai asked. They hadn’t chosen a destination, though their impromptu stroll had ended with them at the top of the market steps.
Rather than head down, Levi motioned farther along the path. “While a walk by the lake would be lovely, I should clean up the tower.”
“Oh? I was hoping you might continue staying with me at the castle.”
“I was hoping the same.” Levi took Ashmedai’s hands. “But I’d like to keep the tower as well, maybe even continue some of Braxton’s experiments.Humanely. There are great things that can be done with alchemy.”
“True. You know, there’s one thing I don’t understand about what happened last night. Brax made it sound as if it had to be you, your soul to accomplish all this, but in the end, it didn’t matter.”
Levi’s smile turned thin, as though the reminder pained him. “I guess not.” He kissed Ashmedai, and once more Ashmedai was struck by how different it felt to kiss Levi without stitches. He hadn’t noticed as much when he first took the stitches away, but then they had been quite a bit more amorously involved at the time. Still, it was definitely different now, more starkly different every time, in fact, almost like Ashmedai was kissing someone else.
That thought stirred unease in Ashmedai’s stomach.
“I’ll come with you to assist—” he tried when Levi turned away.
“No.” Levi whirled around. “No thank you. I’d like some time alone if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” Ashmedai said. Levi needed to mourn too, and it was an understandable request. There was no reason for Ashmedai to feel like anything was off, and yet there was…somethinghe couldn’t identify, sitting in his stomach where the unease had swirled.
The last thing Ashmedai wanted was to be distrustful of Levi, but that feeling in his gut didn’t fade. He decided, at least for a few paces,he’d follow Levi by shadow to ensure everything was okay.
There were more shadows than ever with the sun shining above, so finding several along the road was easy, and Ashmedai leapt from one to the next, keeping his distance and always staying out of sight. He was being protective, not suspicious, he told himself.
