The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (3 page)

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. "This 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 affirmative. "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."

Jackson nodded in agreement.

"We have a proposal," Skye said, banging his
fist lightly on the table. "Anybody else come up with something
better?" He looked around the table, but no one spoke. "All right
then. Let's meet at the stables in an hour. Pack your things, we're not
staying."

The meeting was apparently adjourned, and Ashlyn
excused herself from the table, astonished that she'd come up with an option
that everyone had enthusiastically agreed with.

She retrieved her bags from her bedroom, checking
twice to make sure that all her stanes were still in order, and wandered out to
the livery, where Suki was waiting for her eagerly. The stables that Skye had
mentioned were small, more like a shack with some paddocks attached, but there
was a hitching post out front. Ashlyn draped Suki’s lead rope over the post
while she worked on securing her saddlebags on the horse’s back.

It didn’t take long for Vargo to appear.

"Hey, beautiful," he said in his customary
greeting.

"Hey, loser," she replied, not bothering to
look at him.

Undeterred, he continued, "I liked you better
with your hair down."

"Gee, sorry. Tough luck for you I never keep it
that way."

He moved in front of her and began to stroke the
mare‘s velvety nose. "Come on, Ashlyn. We're probably the only two people
here that aren't practically antiques, and we kinda had some sparks back in the
day. You telling me you're not the least bit interested?"