Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (33 page)

"I can't take this anymore," she said raggedly.
A month before, a week before, she would have thought this situation impossible, but everything had changed now.

"It's nearly dark,"
Drake said, stoic and frustratingly enigmatic to the end. "Do you want me to leave?"

She breathed, inhaling his
scent, and it was something like blood and dust, but it was comforting nonetheless. "Please don't," she whispered, and swallowed as another tear slipped down her cheek. "I can't be strong anymore, Drake. I don't know if I can keep doing this. I'm no leader. I'm not even a really good ninja. I'm just so…so
tired
…"

He was silent for a moment, and then he shifted, adjusting his hold on her. When he stood, she was securely in his arms, and
Ashlyn reflexively put her hands on his shoulders, a little surprised that he would initiate such an intimate embrace. He carried her from the room, away from Soryl, using an elbow to slide the door shut behind them before he took a seat on the bench in the corner of the foyer, showing no signs of releasing her.

"
Drake?" Ashlyn said tentatively, unsure of what exactly was the most appropriate thing to say, given the situation.

He r
eached across and slid his ungloved hand down her left arm, bringing his fingers underneath the heel of her hand and raising it to eye level. Her knuckles were torn and bloody, slivers of wood clinging tenaciously to her flesh.

"I once knew a girl," he said, his voice a perfect monotone, "who was like a dying rainbow. Her colors were incomparable, her countenance a whirlwind of brilliance."

Ashlyn resisted the urge to pull away from his touch. If this was another story about his dear long lost Loritta or the perpetually bratty Trace, she really wasn't in the mood to hear it.

Eight
years ago, she would have immediately yanked away and jumped up, jabbering something about Drake's selfishness and his inability to let things go or think about anyone but himself.

Today,
Ashlyn sighed inwardly and resigned herself to a drab sob-fest about one of two women she hated for the pure fact that they were both incredible and mature and…well, not her.

Drake
went on, oblivious to Ashlyn's inner turmoil, "As much as she shone, however, she faded into nothingness, at times so quickly that I was unsure whether she had existed at all."

He paused, their breathing and the rain on the roof the only sounds in the room as he gently extracted a splinter from between her fingers. "Years passed, and she became a memory to me. It was a long while before I realized how difficult it must have been for her, attempting to find a balance- somewhere from oblivion to her own unmatched radiance."

His hand covered hers, emerald light gleaming from between their interlinked fingers as her flesh knitted beneath his touch.

"I never thought I would see her again,"
Drake continued. His lips were close to her ear, stirring the damp strands of her hair with his breath. "But she came to me one night, eight years later, out of the rain, as much a walking contradiction as she'd ever been."

Ashlyn
's throat tightened.

He was talking about he
r, sweet Drago, he was saying all that stuff about
her
. She'd spent a month with Drake before, in close proximity, and he'd never said this much during those entire four weeks, much less in a single conversation.

And what he was saying now…?
Gods. If she hadn't already been pretty much collapsed into his arms, it would have happened, and probably with a bunch of drama and swoony fluttering, too.

"What seems impossible,"
Drake said, his fingers brushing across her palm with obvious reluctance as he let go of her hand, "becomes possible in the smallest, most trivial moments. The girl that I remember has become a woman I cannot forget. Her strength has united a kingdom once thought lost. Her passion has awakened the hearts of heroes unsure of their purpose."

"Her stupidity caused the war in the first place,"
Ashlyn said uncomfortably, folding her arms across her chest. Instead of utter elation at his words, she felt like a child receiving a precious gift that was completely undeserved, and as much as she wanted to let him console her, there was no way to deny the truth of the situation.

When she met
Drake's gaze, his blood-red eyes were solemn, and he raised a hand to cup her face, brushing his thumb across her cheek to remove the last traces of her tears. "You can run from your destiny, Ashlyn, but it will find you regardless," he said.

"I was alone for eight
years," she told him.
I am not leaning into his hand. I AM NOT leaning into his hand.
"I'm not the same person anymore. Toryn isn't my destiny anymore. I'll just screw it up, like I have everything else."

"I was alone for twenty
years," he replied. "You dragged me out of the coffin nonetheless."

"That's different."
Oh gods, don't do this to me, Drake. Don't make me fall for you all over again.

His eyebrows quirked, obviously in disagreement.

Ashlyn frowned, trying hard to focus. "I only asked you to start thinking of yourself as a man,                            Drake, instead of a monster. That's hardly the same thing."

"I'm asking you to think of yourself as a leader," he said. "You've spent so long running from responsibility that you think yourself incapable of fulfilling your birthright, which is completely untrue."

"We haven't seen each other in eight years. You don't know what I'm capable of-
I
don't even know what I'm capable of."

He grabbed her hand, abruptly, and brought it up to his chest. Through the cloth of his shirt, his skin was warm to the touch, and
Ashlyn let him press her hand against the solidness of his shoulder, confused as to what he was doing.

"This," he said, his voice low, "is where I was struck by
Devlyn's sword."

After a moment, he slid her h
and lower, until it was resting directly above his heart. Ashlyn paused, entranced by the lack of a pulse beneath her fingers, the scent of him filling her senses and enveloping her like the rain against the roof.

"This,"
Drake said. "This is where I would have been struck, if you had not deflected the blow."

She met his gaze, breathing so hard that she felt light-headed. His eyes bored into hers, piercing her straight to her soul.

"I know what you are capable of, Ashlyn," he said. "I know better than anyone."

He picked her up agai
n, placing her easily on the bench, and stood, releasing her hand as he did so. He stared at her for a long moment, just long enough for Ashlyn to understand that he wasn't running away, but giving her the space they both needed. Then he turned and walked from the room, not bothering to shut the door behind him.

Ashlyn sat there, her fingers tingling, as she watched the door alternately slam shut and swing open, mercilessly buffeted by the wind and the rain.

Chapter 15

Devastation

Ashlyn awoke to the feeling of hands on her shoulders, shaking her none too gently, and opened her eyes to inky blackness. "What? What?" she said groggily, swiping half-heartedly at the hand on her right shoulder. "What's going on?"

"It's me,"
Restlyn whispered, and the floorboards creaked beneath her as she shifted her weight back. "I need to talk to you."

Ashlyn
rolled over and groped around in the dark for the lamp beside her mat. "Gods, don't wake me up like that," she muttered. "If I hadn't been having this great dream, I probably would have socked you or something."

Soft lamplight flooded the room, and
Ashlyn squeezed her eyes shut. "I take that back, I might sock you anyway."

"What were you dreaming about?"
Restlyn asked curiously.

Ashlyn
sat up, eyes still closed, and rubbed her forehead. "Believe me, you don't want to know." Heck,
she
didn't want to know. If she was going to spend the rest of her life dreaming about Drake Lockhart every night, she wasn't sure if she was ever going to be able to look him in the face again without turning a very unflattering shade of crimson. The things she was dreaming about were...well, pretty much unmentionable most of the time.

But honestly! This was totally frustrating and unfamiliar territory for her.
Ashlyn liked to think that she'd experienced a number of significant, once-in-a-lifetime events in her twenty-three years, not the least of which was actually being a part of the group responsible for saving the world from Lord Angelo. There were a few other occurrences she was particularly proud of, too- ascending to the final level of the pagoda against her father's wishes, delivering the deathblow to the general of the DEMON army in the North Triangle eight years ago…successfully parachuting in and not totally biffing it when they were battling Lord Angelo...

And now, experiencing an actual moment of a genuine emotional connection with someone of the opposite sex.

And not just any person of the opposite sex...
Drake Lockhart.

Was it even possible that
Drake felt anything more than friendship for her? Ashlyn didn't know and she was almost afraid to ask. After the events eight years prior, when he'd pretty much abandoned her in favor of Trace, Ashlyn had sworn never to get close to Drake again. But now…she just wasn't sure anymore. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe the tender moment they'd shared was only sexy from her perspective. Maybe he was just being a friend.

Maybe in the end, he'd walk away just like he had before.

Ashlyn opened her eyes, not wanting to think about it anymore, and blinked Restlyn into focus.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed. "What- I mean,
Gods! Your hair!"

Restlyn
smiled and brushed a strand of chocolate-colored hair out of her eyes. "Do you like it?" she asked. "I had an epiphany tonight and I knew I had to change it before I lost my nerve."

"You cut and dyed your hair in the middle of the night?"
Ashlyn said, and rubbed furiously at her eyes, trying to chase away the last remnants of sleep. "Must have been some epiphany."

"It was."
Restlyn paused, then shifted so she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. "It just hit me all of a sudden. I mean, here you are, you were gone for eight years but when you came back you jumped right back into things. You may have had a few bumps along the way, but ultimately you're strong enough to move on, and you're doing it. Everyone knows you could have just refused to do anything to help us out and run away that first night, but you didn't. You stuck with it and now you're actually leading your people as Lady of Toryn."

"Well, all that just kind of happened,"
Ashlyn said uncomfortably. "I don't think I had anything to do with it, really."

"No, you did. You refused to stay the same desperate, hopeless, pitiful sack of flesh you'd been for your entire life, waiting around and praying for something that wasn't going to come."

"What? Hey, wait a minute-"

"Well, I'm not doing it anymore!"
Restlyn pounded her fist on the floor, mahogany eyes sparking. "I'm not waiting for Skye anymore. I'm not the same girl I was eight years ago, Ash. I love him, but I'm done waiting for him. I'm not going to turn into Jenn in the hopes that he finally takes notice of me. I'm not."

The older girl looked so mad that
Ashlyn had to smile. "So you decided to cut your hair. And dye it."

"Yes."
Restlyn ran a hand over her hair, which stopped just short of her shoulders. "I wanted something so far removed that there was no chance in the world that he would look at me and mistake me for Jenn."

"Good for you,"
Ashlyn said. "Is that the only reason you woke me up?"

"Well...yeah."

Ashlyn groaned. "Restlyn, I was in the middle of a really great dream. Next time you have an epiphany, you think it could wait till daylight at least?"

Restlyn
didn't answer, looking pensive. Ashlyn stared at her, bleary-eyed, for what seemed like forever until she finally sighed. "Okay, I'm sorry. I really am happy you had your epiphany. It's just...I don't know, Restlyn. So much is going on right now, I almost feel like thinking about, you know, love is...sort of like cheating. Wouldn't it be? Wouldn't it be cheating my people to think about romance right now? Not to judge you or anything, but I’m supposed to be some kind of leader. It feels selfish to focus on anything to do with my love life right this second."

"I don't think you can schedule time for romance,"
Restlyn replied. She traced a pattern on the floor with her fingernails, propping her chin on the fist of her other hand. "The night before we went into the North Triangle, Ashlyn, when Skye told us all to live like it was our last night..."

She trailed off, swallowing hard, and then continued, "I didn't want to go anywhere else. I just wanted to be with
Skye. I just wanted...I wanted him to know how much he meant to me. But I didn't make that last move, I didn't push it any further than I knew he was comfortable with. And every day, for the last eight years, every day I regret not chancing it, not telling him that I loved him. Maybe that would have been the turning point. Maybe that would have made him realize who I was and what was right in front of him instead of spending the next decade pining for Jenn."