The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (19 page)

“The
Elder Heir!” he shouted suddenly, struggling to his feet. “They have brought
the Elder Heir back to Toryn!” The man flung himself towards Ashly, and her
horse shied sideways, tossing its head.

“Guards!”
Kou shouted, and two of the ninjas jumped forward to restrain the man. The
entire crowd of people began surging forward, eager to see if the man’s words
were true, if the Elder Heir had truly returned.

The
gates creaked open, and Kou rushed forward, with his soldiers following. In all
the commotion, Ashlyn could barely see what was happening, but she kept an eye
on Skye’s head of blond hair, which was very noticeable in a sea of
black-haired Toryns.

The
gates swung shut behind them with a loud
boom,
but Ashlyn could hear the shouts of the Toryn outside, calling her name.

“I’m
sorry,” Tag said breathlessly as he drew up beside Ashlyn. “We can’t have word
of your arrival getting out. It would cause a massive uprising.”

She
didn’t quite understand, but Ashlyn pushed her confusion aside as she noted
that the inside of her city was not changed, not in the least. The bridges
stood solidly, every house just as she had left it- even her own. It was so
heartbreakingly beautiful that it brought tears to her eyes. There was the
bridge where she'd broken her nose at the age of seven, trying to prove to her
father that the river was deep enough to dive in (lucky it hadn't been her
neck
).
There was Heaven, the old bar where she'd conned her uncle into letting her try
his sake when she was barely ten.

And
beyond it all, beyond her dad's house, beyond even the pagoda where she had
once faced the Elder Lords in battle for leadership of Toryn, was Na Michico.

Ashlyn
slid off the horse. This was her home, the land of her ancestors. It was an
entire world apart from the rest of Kresmir. The ground beneath her feet was so
familiar that she could have closed her eyes and danced a thousand steps
without falter.

"Thank
Drago," she breathed. "I thought I'd never see it again."

Then
she turned and threw up all over Tag's boots.

Chapter 11

Tainted Blood

"Ungh,"
Ashlyn groaned, mashing her cheek into her pillow. The air was cold, colder
than she was accustomed to, anyway, and she'd managed to kick off her blanket
at some point during the night. Keeping her eyes shut, she fumbled around in
front of her, looking for the woolly blanket she had bought from an old lady in
Landi a year or so ago.

Instead
of soft wool, though, her hand settled on something warm. And firm.

"You're
finally awake," Skye said from beside her, amusement in his tone.

Ashlyn
pried one eye open and looked at where her fingers had ended up.
"Heh," she said weakly, removing her hand from Skye's leg. "Um,
sorry."

Mental note: no touching of Skye Damien. Ever
again.

Skye
shrugged, apparently deciding to pretend like he hadn't noticed her shameless
groping. "How are you feeling?"

Ashlyn
rolled onto her back, blew out a breath. Her stomach was still roiling a
little, but it wasn't horrible. "I'm better, I guess." Belatedly she
noticed the presence of a soft pillow, and glanced quizzically at Skye.
Traditionally, Toryn slept on thin rugs on the floor.

"I
couldn't stand seeing you bang your head on that useless mat anymore," he
replied. "There are a few traditions around here that I just don’t
get."

"Me,
too." Ashlyn stared at the ceiling of her house-
her
house, she
realized, looking much the same as she had left it. Well, the ceiling anyway.

She
frowned, noticing also that she was wearing one of her old kimonos.

"Did
you bring me here?" she asked curiously.
Did you change my clothes too?
Please say no.

Skye
shifted, his boots clunking on the solid wooden floor as he stretched his legs
out in front of him. "Actually, you brought yourself here. Don't you
remember?"

"Not
really." She screwed up her eyebrows as she tried to recall. "I puked
on Tag's boots, and then…um…"

"Then
you announced to the world that you were going to sleep." He shifted,
looking irritated with the available seating options. "You dragged me in
here, babbling on about how we weren't going to be out of each other's sight at
any point, not even if you had to handcuff yourself to me during your bath."

"Oh,
no."
Ashlyn rubbed at her forehead, trying to cover her
embarrassment. "You're kidding me, right?"

Giving
up on finding a comfortable spot, he settled back against the wall and grinned.
"Nope. Sorry." He ignored her indignant glare and continued,
"Devlyn said you needed your rest. He must have been right, because you
changed into…that…and fell asleep."

Ugh. Devlyn.
                                                       

Ashlyn
grumbled an obscenity in Angelic, sitting up and running a hand over her hair,
most of which had come loose from its ponytail.

"I
swear I didn't know that he was Devlyn, Skye. If I'd had any idea, I would have
challenged him to the Leadership Duel and been done with it, but he lied to me.
He said his name was Kou."

"I
know." The blond swordsman drew up one knee and rested his arm across it,
leaning his head back against the wall. "What's done is done, Ash. We
can't change it now."

"That
doesn't mean I can't feel like a total moron for a lifetime or two." She
pulled her knees up and propped her chin on the shelf they made.

The
silence that followed was thick with tension, and it seemed to get worse with
every unsaid word that passed between them.

"He
seemed nice enough, though," she ventured finally. "I mean, here we
are, unshackled, free to roam. No lopping of heads so far. That's a good sign, right?"

Skye
laughed; low, raspy and just a little gruff. Any other day- any other place-
and that laugh would have been enough to turn her insides to jelly. Today, she
was just relieved he wasn’t angry with her.

"You're
trying to convince me to forgive you for leading me here," he said. It was
a statement of fact, not a question.

"Maybe."
She grinned weakly. "Is it working?"

A
corner of his mouth quirked. "Maybe."

"Good."
She took a deep breath. "Then I'm sure you're getting used to the idea
that I'm not a traitor, and I'm
not
trying to betray FLD. All I wanted
was to come here- alone, actually, although that plan didn't work out so great-
and try to resolve this without any bloodshed."

She
lied back on her mat again and put a hand to her temple, sighing. "I hope
you don't think I still make a habit of puking on my friends' shoes, though.
That is
totally
a thing of the past- I got over that
years
ago-
and- and Tag is the first time since…well, since you." Sadly, Skye and
Ashlyn had learned about Ashlyn’s motion sickness at the same time- three years
ago, about five minutes after the airship’s take-off.

Skye
reached out a hand to brush his fingers across her forehead. "I don't
think you're running a fever," he observed.

There
was some light coming through the window on the far side of the room, behind
the screens that served to separate living area from sleeping area, but it was
still faint enough for Skye's eyes to catch her attention. In sunlight, they
shone bright obsidian, but in the semi-darkness his eyes were each like a
bottomless inkwell, pulling you in effortlessly.

Ashlyn
had always felt the same way about Skye as she had about Drake; she'd never get
tired of looking at him. They were both beautiful in a masculine sort of way,
both devastatingly handsome, both unique because of their distinctive eyes.
Skye typically wore dark glasses to cover his, preferring to avoid the
questions that came with being acknowledged as a former DEMON soldier. Drake,
on the other hand, never bothered to hide his eyes. Maybe he simply didn’t care
about people’s reactions anymore.

"Drake!"
She bolted upright and turned to Skye. "Is he okay? He's okay, right? I
mean, you were with him, you wouldn't have left him alone if he wasn't okay.
Right?"

Skye
rested his hand across his knee again. "Right."

Ashlyn
waited for him to continue. When he said nothing else, she flicked her fingers,
palm-up, as if to say,
Well?

"He
heals fast," Skye admitted. He gave her a grudgingly admiring glance.
"He told me what happened. You tried to stop the sword."

"Yeah,
and I lost my shuriken doing it," Ashlyn said, not at all distressed about
that fact now that she knew Drake was all right. She crawled over to sit next
to Skye. "Did he say anything else?"

"About
what?"

She
really had no idea. "About…anything."

The
blank look that the swordsman gave her made her words sound lame, even to her
own ears. What had she expected Drake to tell Skye? That her crazy attempt to
save his life had proved to him without a doubt that she was the woman he'd
been looking for all his unlife? That he was abandoning Trace to throw himself
at Ashlyn's feet and worship her for all eternity?

No.
That was unreasonable.

Ashlyn
tried to think of all the things she didn't like about Drake. Musty coffin.
Icky old coat. Red eyes.

Really sexy red eyes.
                

"Stop
it!" she yelled, smacking herself on the forehead. "Give it a break,
will you?"

Skye
jumped, staring incredulously at her like she'd just sprouted three heads.
"What the hell?"

"Never
mind," she said grumpily, finger-combing her tangled hair and trying to
secure it back into a messy ponytail. She blew upwards, trying to get her bangs
out of her eyes. "I just hope I can see my dad soon. Nothing like coming
back from the dead to make you appreciate your family again."

There
was a grinding sound as the door slid open, and illumination flooded the room
behind them, light glaring around the edges of the screens that bisected the
room. Ashlyn blinked at the interruption, and turned to see Kou- Devlyn-
outlined in front of her. Tag stood at his side.

"We
don't have much time," Kou said, looking at Ashlyn- and, she felt, looking
over
her, probably finding her unkempt appearance somewhat lacking. He
motioned towards the basement steps and told them, "If you want to know
the truth, there's only one place to begin."

Ashlyn
stood, brushing off her hands. "The one place to begin is my
basement?" she said skeptically. "Do you
know
how long it's
probably been since anyone's been in there? There could be man-eating spiders
down there. They could be huge. They could be the size of
draynors
, as
long as they've had to set up house."

"There
are no spiders in your basement," Kou said. His expression did not change.

"How
do
you
know? They could be ten feet tall. They could be as big as this
house.
They could have hairy legs and fangs as long as my
arm
-" Ashlyn
stopped, feeling a little queasy at the thought of enormous incisors and creepy
spider eyes.

Tag and
Kou shared a frustrated look, and if Ashlyn had been in a better mood then she
probably would have smiled. Obviously the great and noble Li heir wasn't making
such a great and noble impression.

She
wasn't intimidated- which really could have had something to do with Skye's
presence behind her. As nice as these guys had been so far, it was still
comforting to boast a sidekick who had tromped Lord Angelo with one seriously
lethal hissy fit.

"Kou-
Devlyn- lived in this house for months before…the war," Tag said.
"It's only been sitting for a short time. There are no spiders."

It
didn't take a genius to hear the hesitation in his voice.

Before the war, huh?

Ashlyn
glowered. It was difficult for her to decide whether to be angry with them for
using her house without her permission, or relieved that they had kept it
spider-free in her absence. She chose not to comment at all. "Lead the
way, then," she told Kou, jerking her chin towards the basement with as
much dignity as she could muster. "But if I follow you down there, I
better get some answers."

He
turned without another word and started down the steps. Ashlyn had the uneasy
feeling that he wasn't very happy with her, but she wasn't exactly in the best
mood herself, so it seemed fair enough.

She
glanced over her shoulder, making sure that Skye was right behind her before
she made her way down the steps. "Hey," she said, skipping two steps
at a time to catch up with the Toryn man, "when can I see my dad?"

Kou
turned when he reached the bottom of the stairs, moving aside to let her pass.
"He's not here," he said.

"Not
here?" Ashlyn stumbled forward a little bit as Skye brushed past her to
inspect the room. "What do you mean, not here? Not in this house? Not in
Toryn? Not on the island?"