Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (20 page)

Sara crossed her hands over Lord
Li’s heart and began to pump. “One, two, three-”

Ashlyn drew a breath, hardly
realizing she hadn’t been breathing at all this whole time, and turned her
horror-stricken gaze to Aik, who was standing in the doorway. His wolfish
expression, normally so serene, was grave.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Sara
chanted as she pressed on Lord Li’s chest. She stopped and crouched down,
fixing her mouth over his and breathing life-giving air into his lungs.

Ashlyn sat silently as Sara
worked, her blood roaring in her ears. This was not possible. This was not
happening. Any moment now she would wake up next to her dad, and he would be
fine and they would be safe, and Aaron would be coming to get them tomorrow.

She stood, and wandered to the
hira shuriken in the wall. It stuck fast when she tried to pull it out,
embedded too deeply into the thick wood to be removed easily. Ashlyn slid
reveal
out from its slot. Better to keep
the magic safe with her, where no one could get hold of it.

The bo shuriken caught her eye
next, poking comically out of the mattress. Ashlyn walked to it and pulled it
free from its feathered resting place. She finally had her bo shuriken back.
That was better, too.

She turned back to Sara just in
time to see the older woman sit back on her heels, tears streaming down her
face.

“I’m sorry, Ashlyn,” Sara said,
and her voice was muffled, like it was coming from inside a bubble. “He’s
gone.”

This
is not happening.

Ashlyn tried to draw a breath,
but it caught in her throat, and she backed away from Sara. “I don’t
understand,” she said, and her voice was muffled, too.

She bumped into the open window,
feeling the cold draft from outside, and shivered. Kou had escaped through this
window.

Kou had killed her father.

Ashlyn turned and climbed out the
window, sinking up to her ankles in the snow outside. She vaguely heard Aik and
Sara calling her name, but she ignored them, running into the night in search
of her father’s murderer.

Chapter 10

The Vision

Her breath came in quick, painful
gasps, more like a habitual spasm of her lungs than the act of breathing. The
reveal
stane was clenched in her fist,
bright orange rays emanating from between her fingers and tracing the path
before her as she ran. The bo shuriken was in her other hand.

Ashlyn’s heart was pouring from her,
sucked from her with every agonizing exhalation. The pain was indescribable. There
was a gaping hole inside her, as though she’d been stabbed through, but with no
physical evidence to show for it.

Her intent was single-minded.

Find Kou, and kill him.

It was bitterly cold, and she’d
been running for what seemed like hours. The tears on her face had long ago
turned to ice, melting and re-freezing as she pushed her body beyond its
intended limits. Still the orange path stretched on before her.

It was dark outside of North
Camp, with the only light coming from a sliver of moon above that disappeared
behind the clouds intermittently. The only sound besides her breathing was the
crunch of her sneakers in the snow. The shifting light from the stane cast
everything in an eerie light, the shadows stretching beyond the illumination
proving almost more ominous than the darkness itself.

She had some idea of where the
magic was leading her, but nonetheless felt a surge of uncertainty when the
first spire of the Heavenly City rose up out of the darkness before her. The
City was dead, a graveyard filled with whispering spirits and lingering magic.
She hadn’t ventured inside since Jenn’s death three years prior- few people
did.

Ashlyn paused at the edge of the
cliff, allowing for only a split second of indecision before she turned,
shoving the
reveal
stane into her
pocket and the bo shuriken into her waistband as she pushed sideways, her
sneakers sliding on the slick incline as she skidded down the canyon wall. The
blackness came up and swallowed her as the magic of the stane dwindled, and
Ashlyn scrabbled for a hold on the cliff face, slowing her descent as much as
she could.

She landed waist-deep in water at
the bottom, and momentarily forgot how to breathe as the freezing cold enveloped
her. Ashlyn drew in a shaky breath, feeling it rattle in her lungs, and whispered
a few words through her chattering teeth. The
reveal
stane lit up from her pocket, a flickering trail of orange
fireflies tracing a path through the water. She eased forward, pushing chunks
of ice out of the way, shivering violently and trying to make as little noise
as possible.

Jenn had once told her that
without the power of the Angels, the Heavenly City would someday begin to sink
into the icy depths of the lake on which it rested.
 
It appeared that the other girl had been
right. From what little Ashlyn could see, the water covered everything. The
stunning pearl-tiled street glinted at her from beneath the water, ominous and
un-alive in the eerie stillness. Ashlyn paused, fresh tears springing to her
eyes as she remembered the last time she had walked these streets, three years
ago, wondering if her father would ever believe her when she told him of the
grandeur she had witnessed.

The fireflies took a sharp left,
leading up a short staircase to higher ground, and Ashlyn followed, blinking
furiously to stay her tears. If she had been cold in the water, stepping out of
it was another shock to her body, as the breeze she hadn’t even noticed before
somehow managed to turn her clothes to ice against her skin. Even at the top of
the steps, her ankles were still submerged, making it even more difficult to
move quietly through the water.

She paused next to a building
with a long, curving spire, watching with knitted brows as the fireflies
sparked and swirled around each other, leading through the open doorway. If Kou
was inside, it would probably be best to still the magic and try to track him
herself. She murmured a word to end the spell, and was plunged into darkness,
barely able to see even an inch in front of her face.

Ashlyn stepped through the
doorway, keeping close to the wall, partially for support because the cold was
sapping her strength, and partly so she wouldn’t lose her way. As her eyes
adjusted in the faint moonlight streaming through the door, she saw a winding
staircase, with what appeared to be polished marble steps, spiraling up into
darkness.

It was so cold that she couldn’t
feel the floor beneath her feet, and after the first few steps, Ashlyn paused to
remove her water-logged sneakers, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to fight
with them on. She ascended the staircase slowly, struggling in vain to control
her quaking body. There was no way to find her center, but she was trying to
quell the rage that seethed through every part of her being and the horrible
emptiness that challenged it. It was all she could do.

At the top of the staircase was
another open door. Drawing her bo shuriken from her waistband, Ashlyn crept
forward, crouching next to the doorway. The door opened onto a balcony with
white pillars as a railing. She tried to peer around the edge of the door,
checking to see if there was anyone behind it. A flutter of movement caught her
eye on the other side, and Ashlyn heard the distinctive scrape of a boot on the
marble floor. She held her breath for a moment. This was it. This was her
chance to avenge her father’s death and finally put an end to it all.

Suddenly she felt something press
against the back of her neck. “Move. Now,” a voice said in Toryn.

Tag!

Ashlyn shifted ever so slightly,
and the katana at her neck followed her, glinting in the faint light. She
hadn’t counted on Tag being here, too.

Kou emerged from behind the door,
his expression completely void. “You have caused enough trouble for me, Ashlyn
Li,” he said in a low voice.

Their eyes met, and Ashlyn’s
heartbeat thudded in her ears as she stared at the man who had killed her
father.

He spoke again. “It’s time to
die.”

Reluctantly, Ashlyn dropped the
shuriken, and as Kou picked it up and flung it over the railing of the balcony,
she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders once more.

She had failed.

The blade of the katana was only
discernible through the light pressure it was exerting on her skin. Ashlyn was
so cold that she could barely feel the bite of the steel. In a wave of sudden
nostalgia, she recalled the battle with the wolves outside Landi. There weren’t
many hostile creatures in the canyons of Landi, and Ashlyn had been
pathetically ill-equipped for battle. She’d been carrying a hira shuriken with
no stanes, but had still fought back, ready to kill the wolves or die trying.

In an instant, that feeling came
rushing back to her- the same survival instinct Ashlyn had honed over the last three
years, the do-or-die mentality that was essential to a true ninja.

A true ninja like her dad.

Ashlyn dropped to the floor and
spun onto her back, her feet scissoring out and striking Tag in the kneecaps.
He yelped in pain, swung the katana, but Ashlyn was already moving, flipping up
as the sword sliced the air beneath her. She touched the floor and spun in a
roundhouse kick that smashed Tag against the wall with its force. Ashlyn
flipped backwards, end over end to the edge of the balcony, avoiding Kou’s rush
as much as giving herself room to move. On the last flip she landed on her feet
and grabbed the balcony railing, letting her momentum carry her legs around in
a half-circle as she held on for dear life. It was a breathless split second as
she glanced back, seeing the vast, beautiful emptiness of the city beneath her,
before she completed the arc and drove her feet into Kou’s chest. He flew
backwards, and Ashlyn dropped to the floor, one hand splayed on the slick
marble.

Tag came at her as she found her
footing, and Ashlyn rose and sidestepped in one motion, striking out with the
heel of her hand. He blocked the hit, swung his right fist around, but Ashlyn
sidestepped again. They parried jabs and punches, and Ashlyn, as much out of
desperation as anything, called down a
fire
spell to singe him just as Kou jumped back into the fray with his own sword.
Tag staggered backwards, screaming as he tried to pound out the flames that had
suddenly erupted on his shoulder.

Ashlyn ducked a slice from Kou’s
sword, and spun, bringing her fist around to backhand him. He took the hit but
managed to land a kick to her thigh, knocking her leg out from underneath her.
She caught herself on the ground with one hand and quickly rolled out of the
way as he brought the sword down again. Up and running, she dashed for the door
and snatched up the katana Tag had been holding, falling to her knees and
bending backwards as she blocked yet another strike from Kou’s sword. She spun
on her knees, but he had guessed her move and easily jumped over her swinging
blade.

She sprang to her feet and
advanced furiously, driving him back. Somewhere in her mind, it registered that
Tag was still screaming, but she didn’t want to give up the advantage she had
over Kou even to look and see where the other man was. She dodged a stab from
Kou and swung the katana in a downward arc. Kou leaped back, but her aim was
true, superficially slicing him from chest to abdomen. He gasped and stumbled
backwards. Ashlyn didn’t stop to offer mercy, leaping forward to finish him
off.

She raised her arm, drawing back
to slash at Kou’s exposed neck, but then a snarling bundle of fur smashed into
her from the side, strong jaws latching onto her left arm and knocking her into
the railing. Ashlyn screamed as the momentum flipped them both over the marble
pillars, sending her careening towards the water below. The tearing pressure let
up on her arm as the wolf released its hold on her, the howling animal
spiraling away from her as they fell, and for one eternal instant Ashlyn was
staring up at the sliver of the moon, a silent moment of perfection in darkness.

It was in that moment that she
realized this had been Kou’s vision, the vision her father had described to her
in North Camp. The vision where she was killed by a wolf.

She landed hard, on her back, and
even with the water breaking her fall, she still hit the ground beneath with a
bone-jarring thud. The breath was forced from her lungs in one huge
whoosh
of bubbles. Ashlyn felt the cold
seeping into her bones, and forced herself to keep her eyes open, a voice
screaming in her head to get moving, to get out of the cold before she froze to
death.
 
She looked up, saw the moon
above, and briefly noted that she was bleeding, thick tendrils of bloody water
snaking through the light above her.

It was eerily reminiscent of that
day she had lain in her bathwater, staring at the shifting shades of crimson
and remembering the painting in the Eastern City mansion.

Somehow she willed her leaden
limbs to move, and drew her feet up underneath her, pushing off with her hands
and standing up in the water. As her head broke the surface, she gasped in a
breath that seared through her lungs like fire- her entire being so incredibly
cold that it felt like the air itself was burning her up. Ashlyn stumbled
towards the nearest staircase, sloshing clumsily through the water, the fog of
her breath freezing against her cheeks. Slick with blood and water, her armlet
slid down her elbow and dropped into the water, but she was far too cold and
numb to try to retrieve it. She reached the bottom step and drew herself up a
few steps, out of the water, but heard a splash behind her, and glanced back.