Page 86 of Stitches
“No….” Ashmedai dropped to his knees beside Levi and reached for him with a hesitant hand, fearing he would find an empty body like Braxton’s.
His worry worsened when Levi didn’t gasp awake or sit up with a start, but then, finally, when Ashmedai’s hand landed atop Levi’s heart to search for a beat, violet eyes fluttered open.
“Levi?”
“I-I… was Leander,” Levi croaked as if he hadn’t spoken in days. “My brother’s name is Leslie.”
“What?” Ashmedai asked with a frantic laugh, scooping Levi into his arms.
“The gemstone was making me forget again,” Levi said with a weary smile, despite the horror of those words, “but I remember now.” A sob caught in his throat and tears started to form to quickly stream down his cheeks. He tried to blink through them, but upon failing, he let himself cry and pressed his face to Ashmedai’s chest.
“It’s really you this time,” Ashmedai said, not asking, as he hugged Levi tightly. He felt Levi nod, and in the depths of his soul, he knew it to be true. “I’m so sorry it took me so long to realize.”
“But you did,” Levi said, looking up with wonder and love in his gaze. “You—”
An eruption and inhuman shriek thundered in the distance from somewhere outside the tower. They both sat up, looking to the workshop door.
“If I’m back in my body….” Levi began.
“Then Brax is back in his,” Ashmedai finished.
He helped Levi up, and they rushed for the back door, with Ashmedai not losing contact with Levi for a single moment. He would not lose Levi again, but they had to confront Braxton once and for all.
Once outside, the source of the noise was clear—the garden, where they’d buried Braxton. Dirt shot upward and rained down again as Braxton fought himself free, his added limbs returning from howeverthey stayed hidden within his body. He looked even more monstrous than before with the way dirt and mud covered him, and his eyes were wild with fury.
A sack lay on the ground near him with body parts spilling out of it. At least Ashmedai knew why he’d gone into the wood.
“I was going to remake you!” Braxton bellowed at Levi, striking out with one of his elongated limbs to spill the bag of parts over the ground. “But no, you had to be selfish! You had to draw him to you, like some demandable siren! I waited a thousand years, and you ruined everything!”
The way he rose up and charged toward them—toward Levi—with impossible speed, made it clear he had no intention of sparing Levi this time.
Ashmedai tucked Levi close and jumped into a pool of nearby shadows. They reappeared again halfway down the road toward town. Ashmedai turned to Levi to begin working on a plan, but Levi was gazing upward, staring at the sunlit sky. Ashmedai had nearly forgotten that the real Levi had yet to experience it.
“I remember the sun from my old life, but… it’s beautiful.” He smiled in wonder.
“I know.” Ashmedai allowed the quiet moment, but like their limited time with a once friend turned enemy in pursuit, the sun’s rays appeared to be out of time too. Clouds were forming to block it. The sky was growing dark, and Ashmedai couldn’t be certain if it was natural or magic and alchemy at work. “We may have undone everything….”
“Maybe,” Levi said, with the shadow of guilt erasing his smile. “Braxton said he didn’t need my soul anymore, but I don’t know the consequences of destroying the Onyx.”
“I don’t care.” Ashmedai looked at him squarely. “If I never get to leave these lands or see the sun again, it’ll be a worthy sacrifice to have you.”
As a new smile brightened Levi’s face, another rumble sounded in the distance, and they looked to see what appeared like a monstrous spider clinging to the side of the tower. When Braxton spotted them, he leapt from the tower with ease and again began to charge, moving faster than a rollhound with the way his many limbs carried him forward.
“Run!” Ashmedai urged Levi down the path, and they sprinted together, just as the clouds that had started to appear blotted out the sun entirely.
“What are we doing?” Levi asked. “What can we do?”
“I don’t want to raise my hand or sword against a friend, but I won’t let him touch you,” Ashmedai said. “We can’t let him reach town either. The wood! We must lead him into the wood. We must get him to cross the barrier.”
With the Onyx destroyed, Ashmedai wasn’t certain if crossing the barrier would make Braxton human or kill him, but it was the only way to give Braxton a chance while keeping Levi and the citizens safe.
They were already past the path into the wood closest to the tower. Running in blindly without a path could be as dangerous as what pursued them. They had to make it to the main road. Which meant everyone would be able to see them—and Braxton.
“Ash? Levi?” Grillo called from the edge of town, where he’d just come up the market steps with Yentriss and Kenner.
Someone screamed, and since literally everyone had already been outside enjoying the sun, they all heard the disruption and turned to look.
“Is that…. Brax?” Kenner gaped.
