The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (64 page)

A sound outside the door caught her attention, and
she looked up just as Aik’s inquisitive face peeked around the doorjamb. The
handle of a slim black case was in his mouth.

Ashlyn smiled, deliberately pushing her dark
thoughts to the back of her mind. “Hi.”

He set the case down carefully. “Hello,” he said.
“Is this a bad time?”

“Of course not. Come in.”

He stepped inside the room, glancing around with
obvious confusion. “Isn’t this…?

“Vargo’s room,” she finished up for him. “He left
yesterday.”

“Left?” The wolf’s ears perked up in alarm. “Why?
Have the Spartans found anything in the Caverns? What about the messenger he
sent to Civitas?”

“I don’t know.” Ashlyn felt a surge of guilt. She’d
been wallowing in her own self-pity while Aik was putting his own concerns
about the Spirit of the Caverns aside to help her. “Don’t worry,” she said
quickly. “I’ll talk to the Spartans first thing this morning. The messenger
won’t be back till tonight at the earliest, but I’m sure he’ll have the stane
with him. Don’t worry, Aik. I’m not going to let anything happen to Cosmea.”

He gave her a skeptical look that said he wasn’t
buying her authoritative tone, but apparently decided to go along with it. “I
found Restlyn’s birth certificate,” he said, and leaned down to pick up the
case again. Ashlyn watched as he padded closer, set the case down again, and
opened the latch with a claw. She had always marveled at how he managed to
manipulate objects with just his paws, never bothering to complain about his
lack of opposable thumbs.

Aik moved the open case closer to her, and she
leaned down to pick up the small stack of papers lying inside. Written in
Cosmean, the first document didn’t list much besides the vital statistics of
the baby. At the top was her name- Restlyn Grulich. Ashlyn wrinkled her nose.
What a terrible surname. Restlyn had probably been relieved to be adopted as a Li,
with a name like that.

At the bottom were Restlyn’s parents’ names. Under
mother was written
Abinitio Redhorse.
Under
father it said
Nanka Grulich.

 
“Abinitio? No
wonder my dad couldn’t pronounce it. What does it mean?” Ashlyn spoke Angelic,
but not fluently, and didn’t recognize the word.

“It’s a variation of an Angelic phrase that means
from the beginning,
” Aik replied. “I did
notice, however, that there is no ‘G’ anywhere in the name.”

The wolf had a point, but Ashlyn wasn’t too curious
about Restlyn’s mother’s choice of nickname. Lord Li, like most Toryns of his
generation, had experienced difficulty with some sounds that weren’t in the
Toryn language. Even though her dad had spoken four languages, Ashlyn recalled
there were some inflections and specific sounds that he’d never been able to
master. It was entirely possible that G had taken pity on Ashlyn’s dad, and
made up a simple nickname that he could pronounce easily.

“Nanka does not sound like a man’s name at
all,”
she said, changing the subject.
“But- hey, Restlyn’s mom was a Redhorse. That’s proof that Restlyn is the
chief’s daughter and a descendant of the Chief Redhorse we read about in my
dad’s journals. Except for her dad’s name. Who the heck is Nanka Grulich? That
name sounds familiar.”

“He was the author of a book you…looked
through…briefly when we were here a few weeks ago. It was a book about Toryn
customs,” Aik said, graciously choosing not to mention that Ashlyn hadn’t
gotten beyond the table of contents before slamming the book shut and
hightailing it outside.

“Oh yeah. See, I would have sworn that was a girl’s
name, even then.” Ashlyn frowned, feeling deflated. “But it’s still not my
dad’s name. Which means we’re back to square one.” Damn. She’d been so
sure
that Restlyn was her sister. “Why
would my dad adopt an unrelated Cosmean as his own daughter? It makes no sense.
It’s never made sense.”

“What reasoning did he give when he first brought Restlyn
to Toryn?”

“He said that her father had been a close friend of
his.”

“Maybe that
was
the truth, Ashlyn, or at least a half truth. He couldn’t very well tell you
that he’d married Restlyn’s mother. And there aren’t many Toryns who haven’t
met the Elder Lord- perhaps Lord Li did know Restlyn’s father. If the man wrote
a book about Toryn customs, he must have spent some time there. Even if Nanka
Grulich and Lord Li weren’t close friends, if your father had once had a
romantic relationship with Restlyn’s mother, he might have felt compelled to
care for her child following her death.”

Ashlyn chewed her lower lip, pondering. “Restlyn’s
parents were killed by Lord Angelo. She never mentioned a sister, though. And
the timeline for another child would be all wrong. And Grulich is
not
a Toryn name.”

Aik was silent for a moment. “That is true,” he
admitted. “I think the only way to know for sure is to discuss this with
Restlyn. If you want to pursue it, that is.”

“Gosh, of everyone in FLD, you were the last one I
ever thought would tell me to lie about my heritage, Aik,” Ashlyn groused. “You
make this sound so easy.”

Aik used a hind paw to scratch behind his ear. “I
hope you don’t think less of me for this, Ashlyn, as I am usually strongly
opposed to dishonesty of any kind. But the Toryn people have been through
enough already. They need an Elder Lord. They
don’t
need politicians or another Devlyn.”

“I guess I’ll have to think about it,” Ashlyn said,
and blew out a breath. “I really do appreciate all your help, Aik. Let’s
just…well, okay, why don’t you go find my dad’s record of marriage to this
Abinitio girl. It’d be helpful to have that if and when I do talk to Restlyn.
I’ll get dressed and go find the Spartans, see what they found in the Caverns.”

“Of course. What’s your father’s first name?”

“I actually don’t know,” Ashlyn said, smiling
ruefully. “Toryn Lords give up their first names at coronation, and after that
the Toryn people are forbidden from calling the Lord of Toryn by name. In fact,
I think if we’d followed tradition when I was growing up, no one would have
been allowed to call me by name except family. That’ll be the first thing that
goes when I become Lady of Toryn. What a silly law.” She paused awkwardly,
embarrassed both at rambling and at speaking as though there were some
guarantee that she would still someday be Lady of Toryn. “Sorry. Um, you should
be able to look it up under the bride’s name, right?”

“I believe so.” Aik bid her goodbye and departed,
leaving Ashlyn alone in Vargo’s room again.

A few minutes later, as she was stuffing the ragged
ends of her wet hair into a ponytail, Ashlyn made a valiant attempt to quell
her inner turmoil. Aik was right in saying that the Toryn people didn’t need to
know about the less-than-desirable circumstances of her birth, but at the very
least, she was going to talk to Restlyn about the situation and try to get some
more information.

She was rounding the corner of the hallway when she
smacked into a brick wall.

Or at least it felt like a brick wall.

“Agh!” she yelped, stumbling backwards and clenching
her hand over her bruised nose. “What the heck?”

Her eyes were watering from the impact, but through
the tears she could make out black hair and a black shirt. Ashlyn blinked
furiously, and for one heart-stopping second she thought it might be Drake.

Then her brick wall came into focus, and she lowered
her hand, wrinkling her nose to make sure it wasn’t broken. “Jackson? What are
you doing here?”

He looked as if he’d nearly swallowed his tongue,
and reached out unsteadily, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Geez, Ash. You
scared the hell out of me. You should…navigate corners more carefully.” He
grinned, his perfect white teeth gleaming against the darkness of his
closely-trimmed beard. Although he wasn’t a conventionally handsome man, his
easy smile was genuine and infectious, and Ashlyn found herself grinning back.

Jackson was the same age as Skye, but along with his
calm, reassuring demeanor, the jagged scar that slashed from above his right
brow to just below his left cheekbone made him seem much older. Although Ashlyn
had joined FLD after Jackson had already come on board, she knew that Jackson
had been the brains behind the operation. Skye and Restlyn had started
sabotaging Lord Angelo’s power plants on their own, and with Aaron’s help had
also managed to destroy several DEMON camps, but Jackson had come up with a
plan to end Lord Angelo’s reign of terror. It made sense, then, that he’d gone
on to become president of FLD once the dust had settled. He spent most of his
time in Civitas, a small city near the Silverbell Theme Park and the unofficial
capitol of the Free Lands.

“Did you…come to see me?” Ashlyn asked hesitantly.

“Sadly, no. Although I’m glad to see you- and I’m
glad you’re okay. You look fit for coronation,” he said, squeezing her shoulder
lightly before dropping his hand. “I’m actually looking for Vargo.”

Ugh. She
so
didn’t
want to have to tell Jackson the real reason why the red-haired assassin had
suddenly picked up and left. “I’m so sorry. He’s gone,” she answered. “Some
kind of…family emergency. Did his messenger reach Civitas yesterday?”

Jackson nodded. “That’s why I’m here. He told you
there was a family emergency?”

“It’s such a long story,” Ashlyn said, completely at
a loss as to how to explain it. “Maybe I can help you, though. I was just about
to go talk to the Spartans. Would you mind walking with me? We can talk on the
way.”

He stepped aside, offering her his arm. Ashlyn
fought a smile as she linked her arm through his. She’d forgotten about his impeccable
manners.

“I wasn’t aware that Vargo was in touch with his
father again,” Jackson said as they started down the stairs.

“His father?” she repeated, and had the distinct
feeling she’d started digging either herself or Vargo into a hole with this
particular lie. “He didn’t say the emergency involved his dad. I just kind of
assumed. Maybe it was someone else in his family?”

“He doesn’t have anyone else,” Jackson said, and
apparently deciding that he was done talking about his employees’ personal lives,
smoothly changed the subject. “His messenger was inquiring about the stane of
Novem Milia.
Do you know what this is?”

“Yes. The stane of nine thousand. It freezes time
within a limited area of effect.”

Jackson stepped off the stairs and helped Ashlyn down.
The way he treated her was ridiculous, considering she was an ass-kicking ninja
wearing shorts and sneakers, but Jackson had always been meticulously
respectful towards women. During the first few weeks of their adventures
pursuing Lord Angelo, Jenn and Restlyn had whispered furiously to each other
about how polite and courteous Jackson was, but Ashlyn had dismissed him as a
mama’s boy, too gentlemanly for his own good.

Now, three years later, she was suddenly beginning
to understand what Restlyn and Jenn had found appealing.

“I’m glad you know what it does,” he said as they
exited the inn, “because I had no idea what Vargo was talking about.”

“Does that mean you don’t have one?” Ashlyn asked,
dreading his answer.

Jackson shook his head. “I’ve never even heard of
it.”

Well,
crap.
“Did Vargo at least explain why we need it?”

“He said the Cosmeans need it to restrain an ancient
evil that threatens the Free Lands. Strong words, from a Spartan.”

“Yeah, I guess they’re usually not scared of much.”
Ashlyn bit her lip, contemplating how to best trim the story for Jackson. “So
apparently that ancient evil has been held captive in the Cosmean Caverns for
centuries. The Angels began using the stane- the one Vargo wanted from you- to
trap the Spirit in time, because they didn’t know how to kill it. Apparently
it’s impossible to activate the magic without being trapped inside, which is
pretty much a death sentence for mortals because it makes your heart stop
beating permanently.”

She took a deep breath before continuing, “The stane
gets its name from its power- it freezes time for nine thousand days, or about
twenty-five years, before it’s completely drained of its power. The last time
the Spirit was trapped was twenty-five years ago, when the Angels were still
alive.”

Jackson, for his part, seemed to be taking the news
in stride. “When will the Spirit be released?” he asked evenly.

They were at the entrance to the dwelling that
served as lodging for the Spartans, and Ashlyn came to a halt, looking up at
Jackson and shrugging her shoulders as she mentally calculated the exact dates
in her dad’s journals. “Soon,” she said. “But probably not within the next
three months.”

Jackson blew out a breath of relief. “At least we
have some time,” he said.

Ashlyn reached out and knocked on the door. There
was the sound of footsteps inside, and then one of the female Spartans,
Klotild, answered the door. There was a bandage on her forehead, nearly
obscuring one finely arched raven brow.

“Are you all right?” Jackson asked immediately,
concern showing in his expression.