Return (Lady of Toryn trilogy) (8 page)

They both swayed on their feet as the airship began its descent for landing.

"And who says I'm not on his side?" Ashlyn said evenly, without missing a beat. "I think Skye said it best - for all I know, my kin might be fighting the good fight and
you
might be the bad guys. I need to find out for myself."

Vargo stared down at her, searching her eyes for sincerity. "I can't believe you," he said. "You don't even know who you're fighting for. I could tell Skye what you just said and blow your cover right now."

"You could," she conceded, her voice soft.

There was a long pause, their breaths mingling in the silence. Finally Vargo dropped his arm, shaking his head as he stepped back. "Don't stay in there long. Skye might get suspicious."

She nodded, her heart in her throat at the trusting gesture, and walked through the doorway.

"Ash."

She glanced back; he stood in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets, his expression troubled. "When I was with Lord Angelo," he said slowly, his green eyes bright in the dim light, "I shut my mouth and did my job. I knew it wasn't right, but I couldn't call it wrong - it was just a job, something I was good at and pretty much all I knew."

It wasn't really clear where he was going with this. She found her voice and said, "Are you regretting it now?"

Vargo smiled humorlessly. "I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? It's in the past. But I . . . I just wanted to say that I can draw the comparison between then and now,
then
, when I was fighting for Lord Angelo and
now
, when I'm fighting for Jackson and the free lands. And, uh, I believe in what I'm fighting for this time. You know. It just seems right," he finished lamely.

Her mouth was dry. Ashlyn looked at Vargo for a moment, seeing him for the first time as something other than a Spartan. "I'm glad," she said, and turned away before he could read the thoughts in her eyes.

The airship had settled now - she assumed that they would soon be leaving it to enter Cosmea, so she had a few minutes before anyone noticed her absence.

The ninja was slumped in the corner of his cell, his feet curled underneath him, his head against the wall. His head was bare and his shoes were gone. Without the hood he looked young, younger than Ashlyn even, and there was still a youthfulness lurking about his eyes and mouth that made her think that maybe he wasn't old enough to be fighting this war in the first place.

He looked so familiar to her. It had been a long time since she‘d seen another full-blooded Toryn.

"I welcome you, young ninja," she said in Toryn, gracefully seating herself on the floor outside his cell and setting the shuriken beside her.

His head shot up - obviously he hadn't been expecting his own language. His eyes narrowed as he recognized her from the fight earlier, but he did not comment, instead returning the greeting in the traditional manner, "I thank you for your welcome, elder."

Ashlyn smiled brightly, like turning on a light bulb, and continued, "I trust you bear no wounds from your ordeal?"

"I was treated for a concussion and cracked ribs," he replied, hand drifting to the bandage around his head. His dark eyes were intense upon her, trying to find some clue as to why another Toryn would be in this place, and unshackled to boot. "And you, elder?"

"These wounds will heal," she said. She held out her hands for examination, and curbed her shock at the seriousness of the scrape she had re-opened. No wonder the freaking peroxide had hurt so much!

"My respect," the younger ninja said, bowing his head.

"And to you." Ashlyn shifted her weight slightly, her smile fading. "Have you sworn oath to reveal nothing?" she asked.

"I have."

"And what have you to say?"

"I may say that I am Kou Lunai of the clan Lunai. I am Toryn ninja, servant only to Lord Devlyn and no other." He tilted his head to the side, a curious gleam in his eye. Ashlyn knew that he was expecting her to introduce herself as well.

"I am Scorned," she said slowly, trying to remember the proper etiquette for the situation, "and I am of no people. I seek to gain knowledge of Lord Devlyn's reasoning."

"His Lordship's reason for waging war, you mean," Kou said.

"Yes."

"Are you Toryn?"

She hesitated. "I . . . was."

"Then I will share his reasons with you in hopes of gaining your alliance."

She sighed, glad that he was making this easier. "Do not compromise your oath on my behalf."

"I will not. I may say that Lord Devlyn was merely a boy when the power of stanes was discovered. The DEMON army drained the magic from our world, and began to drain the sun soon afterwards. After the war was over, Lord Li revived our city. When we did not resist, Toryn was scarcely affected by this super-power known as the DEMON army, but had Lord Li's daughter not assassinated Lord Angelo and saved the sun, our way of life would have been destroyed forever."

"Lord Li's daughter?" Ashlyn repeated, swallowing her laughter. He made it sound as if she had defeated Lord Angelo and saved the world on her own.

"Yes, peace be with her soul. I may say that she lost her life shortly after, continuing to fight for the good of Toryn."

Strange, how distorted the story sounded so far.

"But now another super-power rises. They are called the Free Lands Democracy," Kou said, serious despite the overall ridiculousness of his material. "Lord Devlyn knows that if he ignores FLD as Lord Li chose to ignore Lord Angelo, war may be brought to our city a second time. He seeks to prevent the establishment of worldwide domination by President Jackson."

He pronounced FLD as “flood,” just like Jackson did. Ashlyn still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the nickname, but it was pretty commonplace now.

"I see." Ashlyn stared down at her hands, weighing the scales in her mind. As twisted as Kou's story sounded, he had a point. If Skye and the rest of her friends had the means to keep the entire Toryn army trapped on their island, then what was to stop them from also obliterating every other army on the face of the planet?

Power could be a good thing in the right hands, but in the wrong hands it was lethal. She had already seen that with Lord Angelo.

She stood, picking up the hira shuriken. "I thank you for your speakings, Kou of Lunai. I will see that you are not - not . . . not treated dishonorably," she finished, uncomfortable with saying anything else. She couldn't exactly promise that he wouldn't be thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

"I am pleased to have answered your questions,
Scorned
Elder." He nodded to her but did not rise - meaning that he didn't believe her story of being one of the Scorned, a Toryn who had somehow disagreed with the current Lord or Lady's doctrine and had decided to leave the island, forfeiting identity and all blood ties.

Well, she wasn't going to break her back trying to make him believe a lie. Ashlyn nodded curtly and walked away.

The scent of red-tinged earth greeted her as she walked down the exit ramp from the airship. Her step faltered, the familiar smell bringing back memories of their journeys before, so long ago. The first time she had seen the sheer cliffs surrounding the tribal village, she had stopped and gawked openly, thinking that maybe, just
maybe
Toryn had been like this once.

Everything about Cosmea was instinctive, unpretentious . . . primal. It was the salt of the planet, the flavored whisper of the wind. There were no tourist traps, no fluffed-up warriors to relay tall tales to the constant stream of visitors. It was simply living beings communing with the earth, studying its history and struggling to keep it alive.

"I better get a room with a darn bed in it or I'm crashing in the ship," Aaron said grumpily, pushing past Ashlyn, dragging her away from her thoughts. "I ain't sleepin' on no friggin’ mat this time."

She couldn't help but grin. Same old Aaron. He would never be happy unless he was on his beloved airship, despite its stained linens and rickety bunks. Restlyn had sworn up and down that morning that she could feel the outline of a skeleton through her sagging mattress, but nobody had mustered the courage to go and look.

Ashlyn personally had suffered no trouble sleeping, but then she was used to camping out on lumpy ground, surrounded by unfamiliar sights and sounds. And although sleeping on top of a skeleton wasn't something she'd tried yet, she didn't imagine it would be so very different than rolling over and nearly impaling herself on a tent stake and/or a shuriken.

Ah, the joys of solitude. Little things like that became such a big deal when you had nothing else to occupy your thoughts.

Shifting her saddlebags to the opposite shoulder, Ashlyn skipped up the steps to her room at the Inn. She was pretty sure that she'd have to share with Restlyn, but that didn't bother her too much. Except for the other girl's smelly old boots, there wasn't much Ashlyn didn't like about her childhood friend, and she'd much rather bunk with the dark-haired martial artist than try to sleep in the same room as one of the others.

Like Aaron. Gods, his snoring was awful. She could hear it through the walls even in the ship. It was like a strange combination of a beaver gnawing on wood and a rat being tortured with a hot poker, and it was enough to keep her wide awake even on her sleepiest nights.

And then . . . Skye! UGH. Nightmare roomie number two. He probably spent hours in front of the mirror trying to make the spikes of his hair fall just so.

Ashlyn didn't pay attention to her surroundings as she pushed open the door to her room - first door in front of the staircase, just like old times - and tossed the saddlebags on the first bed before flopping down next to them. Idly she waved a sneaker in the air, reaching up with two fingers and trying to untie the shoelace.

"Lady Li?" a tentative voice broke into her thoughts. Recognizing the accent immediately, Ashlyn bolted upright.

"Yes - not me! - what?" she exclaimed in a rush, jumbling her impulsive responses together into a single sentence and pretty much sounding like an idiot.

A dark-haired, almond-eyed man who looked very close to her own age stood in the doorway. As she stared at him, open-mouthed, his face lit up like a paper lamp.

"It
is
you - I had hardly dared to hope," he said fervently in Toryn, stepping into the room and dropping to one knee. "I am honored to look upon your face again, Lady Li. Lord Devlyn sends his regards."

Ashlyn squeaked out a reply, her vocal cords nearly frozen in shock - "His regards?"

"Yes. My companions and I were dispatched to locate you on the possibility that you were still alive," the young man said. He stared at her blissfully, the clueless gleam in his eyes making Ashlyn extremely uncomfortable. "Lord Devlyn will be overjoyed to hear that you are well."

"Overjoyed?" She sounded like a parrot but she couldn't stop herself.

"I will immediately notify the other members of my search party, and we will make arrangements to have you transported back to Toryn. Your father searched for you for years."

"My . . . " Ashlyn trailed off, continued hesitantly, "My father?"

"He believed you to be dead, Lady Li. But that is no matter; every Toryn in the city will welcome you back to our noble land with open arms. I mustn't keep you - time is of the essence. Lord Devlyn gave explicit orders for me and my companions to bring you to him. He wishes to establish you as a co-Leader so that the Li bloodline may remain intact."

This was happening so fast.

Ashlyn couldn't think straight.

What
was he saying?