Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy)

by Charity Santiago

  Ashlyn stepped through the doorway, smiling at her success, and stopped when she came face-to-face with Skye. Who was shirtless.

  Man, have I been missing out with this whole reclusive warrior gig.

  He quirked an eyebrow, a crooked smile creeping onto his lips. "What?"

  It took Ashlyn a second to realize she had actually voiced her thoughts - in Toryn, thankfully. She switched to Merchant Tongue and said sheepishly, "Sorry, just thinking out loud. I'm not, uh, feeling great. I'd forgotten how much I don't like flying."

  His curious expression turned concerned. "Are you up for this? We can always wait . . . "

  "No, I'm fine." Or she would be, if she could keep from touching any part of his sculpted chest or well-muscled arms during their scuffle. "Are we fighting hand-to-hand or with weapons? I don't remember which one is required for the, um, Leadership Duel."

  "Without weapons, first. We'll look up Toryn customs when we reach Cosmea and figure out how you're going to be fighting Devlyn." He held out a hand, and Ashlyn reluctantly handed over her shuriken. It was a long-range weapon, to be sure, but she always felt more comfortable when she had it, regardless of whether she was using it or not.

  Skye set the hira shuriken on the table next to his sword and turned to face her, clenching his fists together and bowing in traditional Toryn style. Ashlyn smiled and did the same. Her stomach had ceased its flip-flopping completely, and she wondered wryly if bloodlust was all that could satiate her motion sickness.

  What she found more strange than her sudden wellness, however, was the feeling of comfort she had in the one-on-one atmosphere with Skye. Eight years may have made her a little shy around a large group of people, but she felt totally at ease with just one person.

  "Okay, just some basic stuff right now. I'm going to come at you with my fists and I want you to block as best you can." Skye advanced before he had even finished the second sentence, aiming punches at her with the grace and fluidity of a natural athlete (a corny observation that Ashlyn was pretty sure wouldn't have been made if Skye had been fully dressed, but seeing as how he was half-naked, her mind was running wild with all sorts of zany thoughts).

  Ashlyn dodged easily, sometimes throwing up her left arm to block the blows. When she realized that he was slowly backing her into a corner, she sidestepped underneath one of his jabs and shoved him forward against the wall, catching his arm and twisting it behind his back as he attempted to elbow her in the stomach.

  "Hey," she said, happy with herself. "I guess I still got it, right?"

  Skye laughed, and she was suddenly aware of the flex of his forearm against her wrist. She stepped backwards, releasing him. Dang. She really needed to get over this or she wasn't going to be able to focus at all.

  "Not bad," he said, turning towards her again. "I could have taken you if I had attacked your weaker side, though. You seem more focused on using your left arm to fight and defend. What happens if your left side is incapacitated somehow?"

  "Then I fight with my right," she replied, not sure that it was the truth. "I'm naturally right-handed, but I had an injury to my arm a couple, um, I guess about a year and a half ago. It just hasn't recovered yet. Not fully, anyway. It won't affect my fighting, though."

  "Let me see," he said. He took her arm and ran his hand down her bicep.

  "Ow," she muttered, more out of habit than anything.

  Skye ignored her admission of pain - what a feeling guy - and squeezed her upper arm gently, feeling the scarred muscles and abnormally thickened bone within. "It was a bad break," he observed.

  "You don't have to tell me that. I was there," Ashlyn said fervently. She could still remember the feeling of the snake's fangs sinking into her skin, tearing her muscles, snapping her bones like dried branches. It was more horrible than anything she'd ever experienced before.

  She could actually conjure up the memory of the pain as if it were still happening. With other injuries she only remembered the before and after - with this one she had a front-row seat to view a close-up anytime she felt like it.

  "Did you get these to cover your scars?" he asked. His fingers traced the outline of her tattoos, sending shivers down her arm.

  "Yeah. You can't see the scars now unless you're up close. The artist did a pretty good job of hiding them," Ashlyn said, staring at the tattoos, transfixed as she always was whenever she studied the fascinating designs. "Hey, but don't worry. You should have seen it before I took my little sabbatical at Jenn's house; my arm was like a frigging twig, dude. I've built it up a lot and I should be okay to fight."

  "Jenn’s house?" Skye repeated. "Is that where you were while all of this was happening?"

  Oops. She met his gaze uneasily, expecting to see some kind of anger. But his expression was uncharacteristically sorrowful, gleaming with what looked suspiciously like unshed tears. Her reflection wavered in his aqua eyes.

  "I stayed there for six months," she said. "A viper attacked the ranch where I was staying, and I killed it. It nearly tore my arm off, but I killed it, and afterwards…well, I thought Restlyn might be in Endro, so I went there, but she was gone.”

  “You were in Jenn’s house?” Skye’s expression was guarded, but she saw the pain in his eyes when he looked up at her.

  Ashlyn pursed her lips, trying to control her temper. So both she and Restlyn were taken with Skye - Restlyn obviously more than she, because Ashlyn had never acknowledged the emotions as anything more than a youthful crush - and yet here was Skye, still hung up on a dead girl.

  She jerked her arm out of his grasp, unable to hide her exasperation. “Actually, I was in Restlyn’s house, but she’d already moved on to Storim by then. It hasn’t been Jenn’s house for years, Skye.”

  He nodded. “I haven’t been back at all in the last eight years. I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t you ever visit Restlyn?”

  He turned away, and Ashlyn rolled her eyes. There was a lot she wanted to say to Skye- and number one on that list was Get over yourself and notice Restlyn for once! But yelling at him wouldn’t do any good now.

  She turned and left the room, not bothering to snatch up her shuriken off the table.

  Skye’s obsession with Jenn was confusing and more than a little weird. Ashlyn was one of the few who knew the details of the swordsman’s relationship with Jenn, and she knew that it had never gone beyond friendship, but it certainly didn’t look that way to people on the outside. Skye’s older brother, Jax, had died in the war, and Skye had taken on the responsibility of protecting Jax’s fiancée, Jenn. He’d failed when Lord Angelo had killed the Angel, but in Ashlyn’s opinion, there was no reason for Skye to still be grieving eight years later.

  Ashlyn found Restlyn in the kitchen, deep in thought with her nose buried in a cookbook.

  "Hi," Restlyn said without looking up. "How goes the training?"

  "Good," Ashlyn said quietly. Probably better not to mention her embarrassing little outburst. She sat down on a stool across the counter. "Skye says I need to focus on balancing myself out, um, strengthening my weaker side so that my opponent can't catch me off-guard."

  "I can give you some exercises for that," Restlyn said. She set the book down and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. "Your dad showed me how to build up the rest of my body to make up for the weakness in my left side, but also to strengthen that side in particular to ensure that I wouldn't be caught unawares, no matter how I was attacked."

  Ashlyn's eyes were drawn to the thin, barely visible scar starting at Restlyn's left shoulder and disappearing into the neckline of her shirt. She knew that the injury had been nearly fatal. The other girl was lucky to even be alive - Lord Angelo’s legendary sword was so finely crafted that it could cut through layers of steel in a single slice. A human that was cut from shoulder to navel should, by all rights, die instantly. But by some miracle, Restlyn had survived.

  And yet Jenn had not.

  Sure, the wounds inflicted by the blade were different - Jenn had be
en stabbed while Restlyn had suffered an eighteen-inch slash across the torso - but all the same, it seemed odd that Restlyn had survived a brutal attack by Lord Angelo, and Jenn hadn't.

  Ashlyn hadn't been there to see Restlyn's battle back when Lord Angelo had first taken over Cosmea. Restlyn didn’t talk about it much. But Ashlyn knew that her father had rescued the half-Toryn and successfully healed her before taking her in as his adopted daughter.

  "You look so serious," Restlyn said in an amused tone. "What are you thinking about?"

  Ashlyn looked up to see the the other girl's eyes upon her. In the fluorescent lights of the kitchen Restlyn’s eyes gleamed polished mahogany, like a fine wine held up in front of a flame.

  Ashlyn’s stomach gurgled loudly, and she grimaced. Better not to think about food or drink while they were still in the air. Her motion sickness wasn't totally gone yet.

  "I'm just trying to remember the last time we were all together like this," Ashlyn lied, making a significant effort to separate conversation from her thoughts. "Even Jackson is here. Hey, when did we suddenly get all chummy with the Spartans? Last I knew we weren't even on speaking terms with them. And I was so fine with that."

  Restlyn smiled. "They work for Jackson now. If it were up to me, we still wouldn't be on speaking terms with them. But Trace isn't so bad."

  Ashlyn made a gagging noise. "Vargo gets on my last nerve." She stared at her distorted reflection in the metallic finish of the counter. "What about Jackson? Why isn't he dealing with this on his own?"

  "I think Jackson was most worried about becoming the next Lord Angelo," Restlyn said, shaking her head. "So he contacted me and Aik to form some kind of . . . I don't know . . . "

  "War committee?" Ashlyn joked.

  "Yeah, something like that. It seems strange to think of Aik as the mayor of Cosmea, but I guess he does kind of have a say in things now."

  "Yeah, total weirdness. It‘s hard to get used to a talking wolf, especially since he‘s the only one of his kind," Ashlyn commented. "But he loves the town. I bet he's a great mayor."

  "I wouldn't know," Restlyn said absently. "At any rate, they contacted Aaron to use the airship, and . . . well . . . the rest is history. After we were together, it seemed natural that they try to contact Skye. I've been running the bar in Storim, and Skye is still, you know, running around, taking up mercenary work. We don't see each other much, but he keeps in touch."

  Restlyn looked down at her hands, folded neatly on top of the book, and Ashlyn felt a tug on her heart. Darn Skye. "And the monster man? He doesn't exactly seem like the type to get all worked up about vanishing trade routes." Ashlyn glowered at a lonely potato sitting on the counter.

  "You mean Drake?" Ashlyn smiled. "He owns the weapon shop next to my bar, believe it or not. He's changed, Ash. You'd hardly know him now. You need to give him a chance."

  "Yeah, right. I'm sure he's changed a whole heck of a lot since he got with Trace. That is so gross. But you know what, I tried to talk to him this morning," Ashlyn said defensively, "and I found out that he hadn't even named his horse. How can I trust a man who doesn't even name his own horse? I mean, come on, there's anti-social, there's enigmatic and then there's just plain stupid."

  She shook her head in disgust. "Anyway, now that I'm clear on how everyone ended up in Storim except for me, when did this whole war start? And how did you guys manage to keep the Toryn army contained on the island before they did any damage? Did they send you a memo or something?"

  "No . . . they actually did some significant damage before we could stop them," Restlyn answered slowly, meeting Ashlyn's gaze. "They attacked January Harbor, but luckily Jackson's soldiers managed to hold them off. I don't . . . um, I don't know if any Toryn survived, but after that Jackson sent an ambassador to Toryn to ascertain their intentions. He returned in a box. That was when the war started - Toryn never officially declared it, but . . . " She trailed off.

  "At that point I guess you were reasonably sure that they weren't out to steal cotton candy," Ashlyn said glumly. "Gods, I can't believe this is happening."

  "Me neither. I can't believe I'm a part of it," Restlyn said. “I never thought I’d have anything to do with Toryn again.”

  “Mm.” Ashlyn had never agreed with her father Scorning Restlyn. The older girl had fought against the conversion of the sacred city into a tourist attraction, and Lord Li - Ashlyn’s father - hadn’t been in the mood for any kind of dissention from a half-breed commoner, even a commoner who was good friends with his own daughter.

  "When we saved the world from Lord Angelo and destroyed his regime - or at least reconfigured it so Jackson could take over - I figured that was it,” Restlyn continued. “I thought I could go back and try to make some sort of normal life for myself." She shook her head, sighing. "I should have figured that it wouldn't happen. Some people aren't meant to lead normal lives."

  "Oh, come on. If you led a normal life then you would never have seen me again after Dad flipped out on you," Ashlyn said with a grin.

  "Yes, that thought inspires such gratitude," Restlyn said dryly.

  A loud crash startled them out of their conversation, and Ashlyn half-turned to see a pile of tin plates scattered across the floor behind them. There was a shuffling sound behind the other counter, and a tin cup rolled out into view.

  Ashlyn's eyes narrowed.

  "What was that?" Restlyn asked, leaning over the cutting board to peer around the other girl.

  "I don't . . . LOOK OUT!" Ashlyn cried. She leaped over the counter, dragging Restlyn down to the floor with her as she did, hearing and feeling the loud clang and vibration of several throwing knives colliding with the opposite side of the heavy metal divider.

  "What the hell is that?" Restlyn whispered to Ashlyn as they both struggled into a crouching position.

  Shapes, clothes and movements began to register in Ashlyn's mind. Gray-clad, faces covered with dark green masks bearing a familiar symbol. "I saw two of them. Toryn ninjas," she whispered back. "It just frigging figures that they'd be here now!"

  She automatically reached to unstrap the hira shuriken from her back, and realized with a sinking feeling that she had left it with Skye. Crap.

  She scanned the shelf in front of them, looking for something that could be used as a weapon. Soup spoons, a few tin saucers, and a bag of flour that looked suspiciously out of place. The last item, a heavy cast-iron skillet, would be good for bludgeoning someone into oblivion, but Ashlyn was reasonably sure that she couldn't lift the thing.

  She grabbed the flour before she could rethink, and then snatched up a spoon for good measure.

  Restlyn looked at her like she was crazy. "What are you doing?"

  "Would you stop asking stupid questions and find something to fight with?" Ashlyn said furiously, her voice low enough that even she had to strain to hear herself. "If those are Devlyn's spies and they get back to him with word that I'm alive, then we are so screwed! We have to stop them!"

  "With a spoon and a sack of flour?" Restlyn shot back. "I don't exactly think the odds are in our favor!"

  "Look, they're not going to wait around for us to finish arguing. You're supposed to be some big hoity-toity martial artist, you figure something out!" Ashlyn edged around to the corner of the counter. She moved to peer around the end of it, and quickly jerked her head back as another throwing knife sailed by.

  She looked down at the flour bag in her hands, and sighed. She hadn't killed Lord Angelo, saved the sun, survived eight years traversing the continents and single-handedly killed an Endro Viper to get dusted by some stupid ninja wannabes in an airship's kitchen, for crying out loud.

  Hopping onto her toes, Ashlyn pressed her back against the cool metal side of the counter, counting slowly in her mind. One, two . . . she really hoped that this would work and she wouldn't end up lying on the floor like a stuck pig . . . five, six . . . she used the end of the spoon to gouge three holes in the bag of flour . . . eight . . . she braced herself, tensing her mus
cles . . . nine, ten.

  Grabbing onto the flour sack with both hands, Ashlyn hefted it up and over her head, flinging it as hard as she could in the general direction of the two ninjas. Almost in the same instant, she scooted out to the side of the counter, landing nimbly in a crouch and pushing off with her toes.

  There was an explosion of white as the flour hit, like a snow-filled volcano erupting before her eyes. Ashlyn ignored it, grabbed onto the edge of the second counter and swung herself around, her instep connecting solidly with the side of the first ninja's head. He stumbled backwards and sputtered something that Ashlyn was grateful to not quite understand, but she allowed him no recovery time as she shot her left hand forward, striking him flat against the chest. He gasped and doubled over, choking.

  The second ninja slid his arm around her neck, but Ashlyn pinned her chin to her chest and ducked out of it, her elbow coming back to strike him in the stomach. He sidestepped awkwardly and she caught a corner of his ribs instead. There was a loud crack.