The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (67 page)

“I don’t love Vargo,” Ashlyn said. She paused, and
shook her head. “No, that’s not right. I do love Vargo. Just not like that.
He’s my best friend. When he kisses me, it’s not like it is with Drake. I-“

“He
kissed
you?”
Restlyn’s voice climbed an octave with each word. “When were you planning on
telling me this?”

The blatant jealousy in Restlyn’s tone made Ashlyn
smile. “Three times,” she said, holding up three fingers and wagging them in
Restlyn’s face. “Not that I was counting.”

“There is no justice in this world,” Restlyn said
disgustedly. “I haven’t gotten so much as a peck on the cheek from a guy in
years, and here you are being pursued by two gorgeous men. It’s not fair.”

“You can have Vargo. He’s a great guy. Just not for
me.” She thought back to that goodbye kiss, and bit her lower lip. Active love
life or no, there was a lot of heartbreak that went with caring about people.
And honestly, would she be okay, seeing Vargo with someone else? She didn’t
even want to consider it.

“What’s this about you having a non-existent love
life, anyway?” she said, following Restlyn as the other girl headed down the
hallway. “Skye may be a complete and total moron, but there are plenty of guys
out there who would kill for a chance to win your heart. I’m sure you meet a
lot of guys at the tavern.”

Restlyn gave the younger girl a withering look. “Do
you honestly think I want to be courted by the kind of guys who hang out in the
tavern? And I hate to say it, because at this point I’m actually angry with
Skye, but…” She broke off, and shook her head. “The heart wants what the heart
wants. And my heart apparently has some kind of death wish, for all the agony
it causes me.” She went to the closet and pulled out two robes, tossing one to
Ashlyn.

Ashlyn caught it over her wrist. “I don’t really
have to go through the purification process for my coronation, do I?” she
whined. “I hate the hot springs.”

Restlyn’s upper half was concealed inside the
closet, her voice muffled. “Don’t complain to me. I didn’t make the rules.”

“But you could just lie and say that I did it, even
if I didn’t.”

“Ash, you’re not going to start off your reign as
Lady of Toryn with lies.” Restlyn emerged from the closet, holding a bottle of
lavender oil and a sanding stone. “Here we go.”

Ashlyn tagged along obediently as Restlyn led her
down the corridor to the enclosed hot springs at the end of the house. By Toryn
law, the Lord (or Lady) of Toryn was supposed to go through a purification
process before coronation, along with one of the lesser lords. There were no
lesser lords now, and Restlyn was about as close as it was going to get.

“Can I call you my lady-in-waiting?” Ashlyn asked as
she padded barefoot into the steamy room.

Restlyn leaned down and pulled a lever, opening the
spout that allowed the naturally heated water from the springs to fill the tub.
“No.”

Ashlyn would have pouted, but Restlyn wasn’t paying
attention anyway. It suddenly occurred to Ashlyn that if she didn’t find the
courage to talk to Restlyn about her mother’s relationship with Lord Li, the
coronation would happen, whether Ashlyn was the rightful Elder Heir or not. It
was especially crucial for her to get more information from Restlyn now,
because Aik had been unable to locate a marriage certificate for Lord Li and
Abinitio Redhorse.

“Restlyn, I need to talk to you,” she blurted out.

The older girl stripped her shirt over her head and
looked over her shoulder at Ashlyn. “What have we been doing?”

“I mean, like, talk about serious stuff.” Ashlyn
hopped on one foot, loosening the laces of her sneaker. “Stuff that doesn’t
involve my love life.”

“Sure.” Restlyn continued to undress, which didn’t
serve to make the situation any less awkward.

“Do you know who your dad was?” Ashlyn asked. She
took off her other sneaker and peeled off her socks, then her shirt.

“Nanka Grulich,” Restlyn replied. “He actually spent
most of his adult life here in Toryn, trying to get adopted into a clan.” She
grinned at Ashlyn. “He wasn’t so successful, but at least he made an honest
effort.”

“So he wasn’t Toryn?”

“Nope.”

“But you’re Toryn.”

Restlyn paused in the middle of braiding her long
hair. “My biological dad was Toryn, but I never met him.”

“Do you know who he was?”

Restlyn’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Is it really
that important?”

Ashlyn finished undressing and stepped into the tub,
sucking in a breath between her teeth as the hot water enveloped her legs. “I…”
How was she going to explain this? “I really need to know. I…well, I guess it
sounds kind of stupid.”

Restlyn sat down in the tub, letting the hot water
cover her to her chin. “You’re not thinking about that again, are you, Ash? It
was always a rumor but there was never any truth to it.”

“You mean that you’re actually my real sister?”
Ashlyn sat down too, barely managing to keep from shrieking at the heat of the
water. She knew she’d adjust to it eventually, but she’d never really liked the
hot springs, or understood why people enjoyed it so much.

“That I’m Lord Li’s illegitimate daughter.” Restlyn
shook her head, and the motion caused her long braid, which until then had been
floating on the water’s surface, to pull underwater. “It doesn’t matter anyway,
does it? Toryns don’t acknowledge illegitimate children.”

“It matters to me,” Ashlyn said.

Restlyn grabbed the sanding stone and motioned for
Ashlyn to turn around. “My mom told me that my father was an ambassador from
Toryn. They had a brief affair. He was apparently a good friend of your dad’s,
but he died young. I had no one else. That’s why Lord Li took me in. No other
reason.”

An ambassador from Toryn. Ashlyn took a deep breath,
letting the steamy air fill her lungs, and reminded herself that there was a
reason why she wanted to know. A good reason. “Your mom never told you his
name?”

The older girl scrubbed Ashlyn’s shoulders with the
stone. “She did. I was named after him. His name was Restyn.”

Ashlyn turned and offered her hands to Restlyn for
scrubbing. “I hope this doesn’t freak you out,” she said slowly, “but…while I
was in Cosmea, Aik and I went looking through the public records. We found your
birth certificate, and Nanka Grulich was listed as your dad.”

Restlyn nodded, not looking up from Ashlyn’s hands.
“When he adopted me, they changed my birth certificate to show his name. I
think it’s the same with all adoptions.”

“We didn’t find your original birth certificate, though.”

“My mom kept most of those documents in a big trunk
in her basement. Actually, they might still be there. Aik told me most of the
original stuff was still in the house when he moved in,” Restlyn said, and
handed the sanding stone to Ashlyn. “You can do the rest…I’m not
that
much of a stickler for tradition!”

Ashlyn grinned and starting scrubbing her feet. “So
you think there’s no chance whatsoever that we might be sisters?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t it be fun if we were?”

“We’re already sisters,” Restlyn said, and splashed
Ashlyn. “I couldn’t get rid of you if I tried.”

They bathed in silence for a while, until Ashlyn
broke the silence again. “One last thing,” she said.

Restlyn feigned exasperation. “What now?”

“Your mom’s name was Abinitio, right?”

“Right.”

“But she didn’t go by that name, did she? She had a
nickname?”

Restlyn offered Ashlyn an incredulous smile. “You
really did do your homework, didn’t you? No, she found that a lot of people had
trouble either pronouncing or remembering her name. Since
Abinitio
means ‘beginning,’ she decided to pick another name that
meant almost the same thing. Actually, your dad let me take it as my middle
name when he adopted me into the Li clan, since I didn’t come with any middle
names and most Toryns have at least three.”

“What was it?”

Restlyn tugged her braid out from under Ashlyn’s
feet. “Stop stepping on that! Most people called her G, but the name she went
by was Genesis. It means ‘beginning,’ too.”

Chapter
Seven

There
at the End

Ashlyn lay awake, listening to the sound of
Restlyn’s even breathing next to her. There was a cricket chirping somewhere,
surprising to hear this late in the year and so close to the dead of winter.
Supposedly crickets were good luck.

She turned onto her side, trying to get comfortable,
but her mind refused to quiet itself, insisting loudly that she still had
something very important to do before she went to sleep.

Her mind was right, but that didn’t mean Ashlyn was
happy about it, or that she wanted to take its unsolicited advice.

There was one way to prove, at least to herself,
that Restlyn was her sister. Ashlyn didn’t know her dad’s first name, and as
far as she knew no other living Toryn did either. But his birth would have been
recorded in the Li generational tome, which was kept in the gong library. All
Ashlyn had to do was walk in, look up his birth and see what his given name had
been before he’d been known as simply “Lord Li.”

But if she did that, there was no coming back from
her discovery. If his name was something besides Restyn, then her decision
would be made, because there would be no way to track down the true Elder Heir
of Toryn, and Ashlyn would have little choice but to take over leadership for
the good of the kingdom.

If his name
was
Restyn, then her situation became infinitely more complicated.

And therein lay Ashlyn’s moral dilemma.

A month ago, leadership of Toryn had been the last
thing on Ashlyn’s mind. She was more concerned with hunting stanes, pursuing
adventure, and enjoying the free-spirited life of a traveler, with no
responsibilities and nothing to tie her down. But over the last few weeks,
something had changed. Although she’d initially agreed to challenge Devlyn to a
Leadership Duel just so she could take leadership and then appoint someone else
in her place,
she
had changed. No
longer was she willing to leave the fate and well-being of her kingdom in the
hands of someone else.

Even if that someone else was Restlyn.

Ashlyn knew she’d made mistakes since the beginning
of this journey. She’d run off with Kou and failed to stop the younger Toryn
when he had attacked Drake Lockhart just outside of Cosmea, seriously wounding
the vampire. She’d sneaked away a second time to meet the
shift
army, and had run off a third time at North Camp after Kou
had killed her father. All three times she’d risked her life, and all three
times FLD had come to her aid.

But she’d
learned
from those mistakes. No way in hell was she ever going to run off alone
again. Never again would she take her friends for granted, or unnecessarily
risk her own life, or base her reaction to situations on pure emotion.

Okay, maybe not
never
again. But Ashlyn was (sort of) older and (mostly) wiser now. More
importantly, she had confidence in herself, and she knew she could do a good
job as Lady of Toryn. It was what she’d been born to do.

If Restlyn really was her sister, though, assuming
leadership of Toryn would be an outright lie.

Ashlyn scowled and rolled onto her back again. Why
did she have to suffer with a conscience? Why couldn’t she just flip a switch
and turn the guilt off? There wasn’t even a guarantee that Restlyn was really
her sister, and nobody knew for sure at this point anyway. Ashlyn knew she
should just take Aik’s advice and keep her mouth shut.

She remembered her dad’s words, in her dream.

I
would hate to see your spirit broken by the burden of deception.

Frustrated, Ashlyn sat up, flinging the covers aside
with such vigor that Restlyn stirred in her sleep.

Ashlyn left the room silently, pausing in the front
hallway to put on her coat and a pair of fur-lined boots. She was reaching for
the door handle when a chill ran down her spine, and she paused, feeling that
same unease, the same certainty that Kou would eventually track her here. She
grabbed a sheathed machete from her father’s display case and buckled the strap
loosely around her waist.

When she stepped outside, the cold night air hit her
like a block of ice against her skin, and she shivered, turning to close the
door quickly and keep the cold from entering the house.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped at the sound of Skye’s voice. “Geez!” she
exclaimed, turning, her fingers splayed across her chest. “You scared the heck
out of me, Skye!”

He stepped out into the faint light from the lantern
on the porch, and she could see that he was still fully dressed, his sword
strapped to his back. “What are you doing?” he repeated.

“Going for hot cocoa,” she retorted sarcastically,
and descended the porch steps. “What are
you
doing? It’s way too cold for you to be hanging out here all night.”