The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy)

by Charity Santiago

"What?"

  "And then we find out you’ve been hidin’ out while we’ve been fightin’ the good fight," Aaron continued angrily, standing up. He towered over everyone else in the room, which made his words that much more intimidating. "We been keepin' Toryn's army trapped on your island for three months now, and it ain't no thanks to you."

  "Three months?" Ashlyn said in disbelief. "How did I not notice this? I'd have had to be living in a cave…" She trailed off, remembering too late that she had been secluded in Endro for the last seven months. Of course she couldn't have known.

  They stared at her, waiting for her excuses, and Ashlyn felt all the happiness she'd experienced at seeing her old friends slip away, leaving behind a cold void of blackness and guilt.

  "I was...just wandering," she said softly. "I didn’t know this would happen. I'm so sorry." She paused, tears gathering in her eyes as she thought of her father, Lord Li. She had never dreamed that anything like this could happen. "I can't believe my father would just think I was dead. He knows me better than that. I wouldn't kick it without a sweeping exit."

  "Devlyn said he had seen your death," Skye spoke up. "Killed by a wolf in the Heavenly City. He presented your father with your shuriken as proof."

  "My shuriken?" Ashlyn screeched, then winced, putting a hand to her aching forehead. "Was it my bo shuriken? I lost that two years ago. In this tavern, actually."

  "You were here? I never saw you," Restlyn said curiously.

  "I know. I came to see you, but then some jerk swiped my shuriken and I went after him. Listen, if I had known, there's no way I would have stayed out of the loop for so long. I swear I didn't know that this would happen.” She swiped angrily at her eyes, frustrated and ashamed at the tears that were welling up. This is ridiculous, Ashlyn thought, blinking furiously. Five minutes ago she'd been totally void of all responsibility for anything. Now she was discovering that she’d started a war. That thought only made the tears come faster.

  "Cryin’ ain’t gonna help nothin‘," Aaron grumbled. "Stop actin’ like a baby."

  "Sorry," Ashlyn muttered. "I didn't mean to…" She couldn't finish the sentence. What could she possibly say? After a pause, she asked, “Should I go back to Toryn? Tell them the truth?” The thought made her stomach twist. She didn’t feel ready to be Lady of Toryn and if Lord Devlyn was as bad as Aaron was saying, he wouldn’t be giving up leadership without a fight.

  “I’ll wager that Devlyn already knows you’re alive,” Drake said, moving closer. His arms were folded across his chest, the metal fingers of his silver glove tapping idly against his opposite arm. “Those ninjas were tracking you. They wanted to capture you or kill you- and from what I saw, they didn’t particularly seem to care which.”

  “I have to get to my father. He’ll know what to do,” Ashlyn said, standing up. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she stumbled forward, one hand to her head. Drake caught her before she fell.

  “Let’s talk about this in the morning,” Skye said from behind her, and his voice sounded tinny, like it was coming from the other end of a long tunnel. Ashlyn’s eyelids fluttered, and suddenly she felt Drake shifting his grip on her, sliding one hand behind her back and the other one behind her knees. Before she could object, he had lifted her up in his arms.

  “I can walk,” she protested weakly.

  “You need to rest,” Drake said. “I’ll take you to your room.”

  “This way, Drake,” Restlyn said, leading him towards a small door behind the bar.

  Ashlyn was so tired that she barely registered their movement through the tavern. She knew they were climbing stairs because Drake bumped her feet against the banister and muttered an apology, but she didn’t recognize her surroundings at all.

  Finally, he set her down on a bed, keeping his hands on her shoulders so that she would remain upright. Ashlyn struggled to stay awake, staring intently at the vampire. He paused, his eyes meeting hers, and a slight smile flashed briefly across his face.

  “I’m glad that you’re all right,” he said, speaking so softly that she almost couldn’t understand him.

  Then Restlyn was there, shooing him out the door, and Ashlyn watched him go, trying desperately to remind herself of how he’d broken her heart a year ago without even knowing it.

  Chapter 2

  Planning a Duel

  There were cracks in the ceiling paneling, threading through the artificial wood like cobwebs, or a length of intricate lace, or bare branches against a cloudy sky. In her years alone, Ashlyn had learned to find beauty even in the most unlikely of places, and to appreciate it while others may not have had the patience to notice in the first place.

  The storm was moving away from Storim now, but Ashlyn could still hear the rattle of the last raindrops against the roof of the house. Every nerve ending in her body was crackling with the sound. It wasn't often that the free-spirited ninja was indoors while it rained, and being trapped inside the windowless room gave her the jittery sensation of being locked in a box.

  She ran a hand down the wall next to her bed, tracing the uneven grain beneath the thin paper, feeling the diminishing rumble of thunder in the house's frame. It wasn’t quite sunrise yet, but she was wide awake. Sleep had revitalized her. Each detail of the room was firmly locked into her mind now, every shadowed corner thoroughly explored, every speck of dust and its exact position memorized.

  There was a trapdoor in her ceiling that led to a refurbished attic. The attic contained a single window overlooking the town square, but there were no lanterns lit outside.

  The house was unnerving in its silence. She couldn’t hear any voices, no thumps, no creaking to let her know that the place was settling. She would have preferred for the others to let her know of their presence by making some sort of noise! Even in the matchbox lavatory attached to her bedroom, she couldn't hear anything - not even rattling pipes when she was bathing.

  She rubbed her thumb absently against the bright orange stane in her hand, something she often did when she was restless. Looking down, she smiled when she realized it was the same reveal stane she’d swiped off Skye when they’d parted ways three years ago.

  A soft knock sounded at the door.

  "Come in," Ashlyn said, sitting up on the bed.

  Restlyn entered, looking much the same as she always did in jean shorts and a simple white shirt.

  Details that she hadn't noticed the night before began to surface before Ashlyn's eyes. Restlyn had been adopted into the Li family and shared no blood relation, but she and Ashlyn had the same dark hair and heart-shaped faces. People frequently used to mistake them for biological sisters. Restlyn, however, had changed since Ashlyn had last seen her. The half-Toryn’s hair was much, much lighter now, riddled with honey-colored highlights. Instead of her usual braid, Restlyn wore a loose ponytail, with carefully arranged curls cascading down her back. It was strangely familiar, even similar to the style worn by…

  Ashlyn sucked in a breath in surprise, and swung her legs off the bed, standing up.

  Skye Damien had only started the revolution after his older brother, Jax, had been killed by Lord Angelo as punishment for protecting an Angel from genocide. Murdered soldiers hadn’t been uncommon, back then, and Lord Angelo was indiscriminating with his particular brand of “justice.” But Skye, a fresh-faced new recruit to the DEMON army, had taken his brother’s death hard. In addition to starting the revolution, he’d sworn to protect Jenn, the Angel his brother had died for. But Skye had failed. Lord Angelo had murdered Jenn in cold blood.

  Now Restlyn, who had been in love with Skye for years, was wearing her hair like Jenn’s. The older girl was clearly under the mistaken assumption that Skye’s feelings for the Angel had been something more than platonic.

  "Oh Restlyn," Ashlyn groaned. "How could you?"

  The other girl stopped, a crooked smile on her lips. "How could I what?"

  "Your hair…" Ashlyn trailed off, raising a hand to finger the long strands framing Restlyn's face. "Thi
s isn't you. It was so gorgeous before."

  Restlyn's laugh sounded forced, a fake tittering as she fought to cover the truth. "That's what I was going for, you know. Not me."

  "Jenn would have hated it," Ashlyn said before she could stop herself.

  Restlyn brushed Ashlyn's hand away. "Well, Jenn is dead, isn't she?" Her voice was smooth and biting, like vinegar over glass. "No one around here seems to remember that."

  "I understand that better than you, apparently," Ashlyn retorted.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, Ashlyn’s dark eyes boring into Restlyn’s rust-colored ones. Finally Restlyn looked away.

  "I don't want to talk about it," she said. "I came to get you for breakfast. You can come down to the kitchen if you want.'

  She turned on her heel and walked out, brushing past a smirking man who was lingering in the doorway. It was Vargo, one of the Spartans. Ashlyn groaned inwardly. When he was still working for Lord Angelo three years ago, the red-haired Spartan had proven himself a formidable opponent, but his arrogant attitude was off-putting.

  "Hey, beautiful," he said.

  Ashlyn dug her knuckles into her eyes. Could this get any worse?

  Her stomach, always the pessimist, chose that moment to give a very loud and unmistakable rumble.

  "Now that was attractive," said Vargo.

  She dropped her hands, irritated. "Shut up."

  "Hey, no skin off my nose. I'm not the one who started a world war by checking out for three years. I don't need all the friends I can get." He sauntered off, obviously pleased with his parting blows.

  "Bite me," Ashlyn yelled, but he was already halfway down the stairs and out of insult range. She growled a curse in Toryn as she shoved the reveal stane into her pocket.

  She stomped into the bathroom and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, impatiently brushing her bangs out of her eyes as she scowled at herself in the mirror. She at least hadn't gotten her hair cut and styled to look like someone else, but nonetheless she looked totally different from the scruffy fifteen-year-old her friends had last seen. Three years had changed her- for the better, she hoped.

  The steps didn't creak beneath her feet as she descended. Ashlyn ran her hand along the banister, remembering Drake carrying her upstairs the night before. It just figured, with her luck, that with four other able-bodied men in the room, she would end up being toted around by the one ancient vampire with creepy red eyes that she‘d sworn never to speak to again.

  All right, all right, so his eyes didn't really bother her anymore. And yeah, vermilion eyes were unspeakably cool by anyone's standards. But every time Ashlyn thought of Drake, she remembered seeing him smiling broadly at Trace at the North Camp Inn. Before that, Ashlyn had assumed, perhaps stupidly, that Drake only smiled at her that way.

  Apparently not.

  Ashlyn wasn't interested in excuses. After she'd resigned herself to the fact that Drake was simply a moron, suddenly all his other shortcomings became very obvious. Without the resist stane that he wore on a chain around his neck, sunlight was deadly to him, and he spent his free time brooding in a coffin. Plus, um, inherent need to drink blood? Major yuck factor.

  He was not one of the four people sitting around the table when Ashlyn entered the kitchen. Vargo, Aaron, and two other Spartans were, though, and it struck Ashlyn as surreal that her former enemies would be sharing breakfast in Restlyn’s kitchen. Ellis, the third Spartan, had not been present in the tavern the night before, but he was here this morning. Restlyn was at the stove, barefoot with a clean apron over her clothes as she stirred oatmeal in a pot. Aik was lounging in the corner, an empty bowl in front of him.

  There was the sound of a door slamming, and a few seconds later Skye came into the kitchen from a doorway beside the pantry. He had on a heavy leather coat with fur lining - reminiscent of the matching coats they had all purchased at North Camp Inn so long ago.

  Ashlyn wondered if it was the same one. Hers was long gone, peeled in shreds from her broken body by a healer outside of Landi on the southern continent. So many battles, so many wounds - if someone had told her three years ago that she'd still be alive today, Ashlyn probably would have died of shock.

  Skye brushed a hand across Restlyn's shoulder as he passed. It was a strangely affectionate and infuriatingly platonic gesture that he'd obviously done a million times before, because Restlyn didn't return or even acknowledge the greeting.

  Skye hung the jacket on the back of his chair. "Sit down, Ash," he said to her, motioning towards the empty chair next to his. "I'm glad to see you're still here this morning."

  "I’m not about to walk away after finding out I’m responsible for a war,” she told him as she moved to take her seat.

  "I don’t know if that’s the answer I would have gotten from you three years ago," he replied, grinning. “Back then, I wouldn’t have trusted you as far as I could throw you.”

  "Which was probably, like, a mile back then," Ashlyn said automatically, pleased that she could still banter comfortably with another person. Three years hadn't made her a reclusive dimwit, then...that wasn't terribly surprising. She had been kind of a loudmouth anyway, so if the solitude had made her slightly less obnoxious, then it was probably for the better.

  "I wasn't going to say anything," Vargo spoke up. "You have changed, though, Ash. You grew up, gave up the stick figure. Looks good on you."

  "Thanks," Ashlyn said stiffly. She wasn't really comfortable being praised by Vargo, of all people, but she didn’t want to cause a scene in front of everybody.

  Jackson came into the kitchen then, once again immaculately dressed in a suit. "Good morning," he said tiredly, smoothing his hair as he took the last seat. "How’s the oatmeal?”

  "Hell if I know," Aaron spoke up, raising a mug. "But the coffee's pretty damn good. Almost as good as Sara‘s."

  A collective grumble went around the table, and Ashlyn hid a smile behind her hand, remembering how annoyingly persistent Aaron had always been when it came to bragging about his girlfriend’s coffee. Clearly some things hadn’t changed.

  After forcing down a few mouthfuls, Ashlyn dipped her spoon in her oatmeal and watched the honey drip from it. She knew she was hungry (her stomach had more than proved that), but she didn't know how much more she could swallow.

  "So, Ash," Restlyn said, sitting on a barstool next to the counter with a bowl and spoon in hand. "Have you decided to help FLD figure this thing out?”

  Every eye in the room focused on Ashlyn.

  "You mean am I going to leave you guys to clean up my mess?" Ashlyn muttered, uncomfortable with so many people staring at her. "This war is totally my fault, and I feel awful about it. I'll stay and do whatever's necessary to make it right." She pushed her chair back and stood. "In fact, I’m read right now. Are we staying here, or going somewhere, or what?"

  "Staying here," Restlyn said, at the same time as Skye replied, "Going somewhere."

  There was a pause.

  "What," Vargo cracked, and snickered.

  "We're leaving," Skye said, glancing at Restlyn. "We were planning on heading to Cosmea to pick up some more stanes, and do some research on Toryn customs for the process of overthrowing a reigning Lord.”

  "Or we could stay here and just pick your brain," Restlyn said. She ignored the pointed look that Skye gave her. "All I know right now is that you can't exactly waltz into Toryn and kick Devlyn out. I’ve been trying to remember, but it’s just been so long - there must be some sort of traditional custom, a particular method of impeachment that we could use."

  "There is," Ashlyn said, nodding.

  Silence.

  "So shoot. Whaddya gotta do?" Aaron questioned finally.

  "Oh. Um," Ashlyn began, feeling stupid, embarrassed and not at all relaxed speaking in front of other people, "even as the rightful heir to the throne, I can't displace Devlyn because he has the approval of the Elder Lord. Right? Didn't you say my dad adopted Devlyn as his son?" she asked Aik, who nodded the affirm
ative. "So outside of assassination, there's only one way to force him out of Lordship, and that's to challenge him to battle."

  "We're already battling. Hello, we've been battling. Anybody here who has not been battling for the past three months, raise your hand," Vargo exclaimed, irritated.

  "Not that kind of battle," Ashlyn said. "I mean a duel, as in one-on-one combat."

  "Oh." Vargo looked appropriately chagrined.

  "Devlyn wouldn't let you get close enough to propose a duel," Jackson said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. "He's been trying to kill you for the last year. He doesn’t want you anywhere near Toryn."

  There was a long pause before Ashlyn spoke again. "I guess I could...I don't know, challenge him in public," she said. "During a speech, or a city gathering. It’s my right as Elder Heir to challenge the reigning Lord, and he is bound by Toryn law to accept my challenge. I think I could . . . I mean, I'm a little rusty, but I've gotten better at fighting, I might be able to beat him." She could feel herself blushing at the self-given compliment.

  "You're the best chance we've got," Skye said. "The problem would be getting you in there without him knowing."

  "Killing those ninjas last night may have bought us some time,” said Jackson. “Devlyn likely thinks you’re dead, Ashlyn. It would take some effort, but I believe we could smuggle you into Toryn without alerting him to your presence."

  "Or we could just drop her from the airship," Aaron supplied. "Right in the middle of the town, and bam- there she is, all ready to fight."

  "Yeah, broken legs and everything. Not to mention they would probably shoot your ship down," Trace retorted.

  Aaron's eyes widened in horror. "Maybe we should sneak her in."

  "The western continent is heavily guarded," Ellis said. It was the first time the Spartan had spoken since Ashlyn had arrived. "It would be extremely difficult even to reach the shores, much less Toryn itself."

  "After we hit Cosmea, we’ll have the stanes to not only defeat the Toryn armies, but probably to sneak past them as well," Restlyn pointed out. "We need to devise a plan, that's true, but I think it can be done."