If she were a stronger person, or maybe just a more mature person, Ashlyn knew she'd be handling this a lot better. Three years had blurred her memories a bit, but she seemed to recall Skye taking on the role of leader with considerably more ease than she was.
She looked down at the steep drop-off beside her, following the edge of the path up to the pile of boulders teetering at the end of another sharp turn. If those boulders weren't there, she thought, I might actually be able to jump across that dry waterfall, to the end of the path, rather than walking twice as long to take the long way around.
Frowning, she turned back towards the longer way around, scuffing her sneakers in the dirt. No use trying to distract herself with idle thoughts. I'm just not a natural leader, she mused silently, no matter what Drake Lockhart thinks.
Of course, the fact that Drake hadn't spoken more than two words to her since their emotional encounter that day might have had something to do with her sour attitude. Ashlyn wasn't exactly an expert on these sorts of things, but the first time she'd seen Drake after that, she'd smiled the biggest, goofiest, most embarrassed smile she could muster, and he hadn't even acknowledged her presence, instead walking past her to lean over and mutter something in Trace's ear.
Maybe Drake regretted what had happened between them.
She raised her left hand, sliding the fingers of her opposite hand over the grooves between her knuckles, remembering how gentle his touch had been. Not that pulling slivers of wood out of someone's flesh was particularly romantic, but then, most situations had at least a touch of morbidity when you threw Drake Lockhart into the mix.
Ashlyn's footsteps crunched as she crossed the last ten feet to the edge of the Na Michico cliff, and the mountain wind ripped at her clothes. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes to inhale the scent of her homeland.
How many times had she stood in this very spot in the last eighteen years, searching her soul for what to do next? She'd lost count so long ago. She had come here when her mother died, Ashlyn remembered that, when the DEMON army had invaded and held Toryn under martial law for what seemed like an eternity.
So many times before, she had come here in moments of utter emotional turmoil, but for whatever reason, it was a place of peace for her. It was the only place of peace that she could find on this island. Even her house was tainted now, as much a part of the twisted, miserable web as anything else that made up this tarnished reality.
She was shivering, chilled with sweat and the cold, rain-heavy wind. The smell of the ocean made her think of her father, teaching her to swim when she was just a little kid, forcing her to paddle even when she was scared and crying.
Everything about Toryn made her think of him, and that hurt. Ashlyn sank to her knees, twisting and untwisting the hem of her shirt. It was tough to think about her father, and to come to terms with the new mental image she had of him. He'd always been a real jerk, turning Toryn into a tourist trap to make money and of course treating Ashlyn like some bratty little kid who needed to grow up and start acting like the princess she was supposed to be.
Over the past three years, Ashlyn had been glad to be rid of him, for the most part, glad to have the freedom to do what she wanted without having him glowering over her shoulder like some really old-man-ish extension of her conscience.
But first and foremost, he was still her father, and at the edge of sanity Ashlyn was still a little girl who was madly in love with her daddy. She could remember every little smidgen of affection that she'd ever felt for him, from the time he'd taught her how to fly a kite to the time he'd grounded her for two months for swiping stanes from the local shop. Secretly she was pretty sure he'd been proud of her for the theft, but the old shop-keeper hadn't been too pleased, and Lord Li was all about keeping up appearances.
Loving her dad, and hating him too, was pretty easy either way. Ashlyn wasn't particularly concerned about which emotion it was- she was always one or the other with him. But this…this ambivalence…this horrible, aching sadness yawning inside her like a giant void where her self-assurance used to be…this was not so simple to deal with.
Lord Li may have been many things, a liar, a cheat, an emotionless jerk, but he was never the villain. That was always reserved for people like Lord Angelo. Evil people. People that Ashlyn could actually justify killing, if she thought about it long enough.
She had kept her distance from her friends, for the most part, since Drake's unexpectedly sweet speech in her father's home. She still felt like FLD was pitying her, and who wouldn't? It was her selfish stupidity that had caused this war in the first place. Maybe if she'd been here, Lord Li wouldn't have gone off the deep end, maybe the shift magic would still be safe in the mountains of Na Michico where no one would find it.
Maybe she would have made peace with her father, stopped him from growing so close to Kou. Kou…who seemed eager, almost desperate to get close to her. Making up for lost time, maybe. He'd followed her up this mountain path the first couple times, but he didn't seem to understand that she wanted to be alone.
Was it really so hard to figure out how she was feeling? Even Kou should understand why Ashlyn wasn’t so keen on socializing. In a matter of days, her entire world had crumbled around her. Everything she'd thought would be safe and secure whenever she came back to it was now turned completely upside-down.
Frowning, Ashlyn stood, brushing grit from her pants. Most emotions seemed to ease with time, but this confusion and frustration over her dad had only gotten worse. Could she challenge him? Could she kill him, if necessary? That scared her more than anything. Ashlyn had never battled a foe that she wouldn't have been able to kill, if she had to. But she wasn't sure if she could actually kill her father.
Skye was waiting for her when she got to the bottom of the mountain path, leaning up against a tree, ankles crossed, arms folded across his chest.
"Couldn't wait to see me all hot and sweaty, huh," Ashlyn said, without feeling.
He ignored her half-hearted flirtation. "Sara has something," he said. "With the samples she took from Soryl."
"Oh, lovely. That's exactly how I want to spend my morning."
The corner of his mouth turned up, and he put his hand on her back briefly as he moved to walk beside her, guiding her in the right direction.
Little things like that- comforting her without using any words or any significant gestures- probably would have made Ashlyn's crush flare up all over again a week ago. But right now she was just grateful that Skye understood, on some level.
"Did Sara say anything about what she found?" she asked him.
He shook his head. "She just said to get you."
"Fun." Ashlyn lengthened her stride to match Skye's, but came up a little short- her legs just weren't long enough. She furrowed her brow, exasperated.
He noticed, and glanced at her. "Something on your mind?"
"Lots of somethings," she said, and shortened her stride again so that she took two steps to his one. "I was just thinking about- about you and me. I mean, our relationship. I mean-" That sounded horrifying- "whoa, not a relationship, but this mentorship thing we’ve got going. You were the leader before, and now you're trying so hard to help me be the leader, but I'm just no good at it. Square peg, round hole. You must be frustrated out of your mind."
"No," he said immediately. "I was there too. It hasn't been that long."
"I feel so heavy all the time," Ashlyn said. "It's like I can't breathe sometimes. Like I can't even move."
"Weight of the world," Skye replied. "It's a burden all leaders have to deal with."
"I'm not a natural-born leader."
"Leaders aren't born, Ash. They're made." He shook his head when she spoke again, stopping her mid-sentence with the gesture. "I wasn't a leader. I was just following Jax around, trying to help out where I could. And after he was…gone…I knew I had to step up because there was no one else.”
He stopped halfway across the bridge to the lab, and leaned against the railing, his
expression grave. Ashlyn turned to face him and mimicked his relaxed pose, trying to look nonchalant.
Skye turned his face towards the rising sun, the first rays lighting his handsome features with a strange, tormented beauty. The illumination lasted for only a moment before clouds obscured the sunrise, and they were plunged into grayness again.
"The burden of saving the sun was bad enough," Skye said slowly, "but then to be pretending to be something I wasn't, constantly worried that people would find out I had no idea what I was doing…I almost snapped a couple of times. Stuck inside my mind and trapped by my own lies and insecurities. Tortured by my own failure."
Ashlyn stayed silent as it began to rain. Skye pushed away from the railing and started walking, and she followed quietly. In the back of her mind a little voice was asking why, what with Drake's speech and Restlyn's epiphany and Skye's current revelation, she wasn't having any clarifying moments of her own. Life just wasn't fair sometimes.
Aik raised his head and nodded once to them as they walked up to the lab entrance. He was curled up in a fuzzy gray ball underneath the tile awning that spanned the length of the laboratory, his hair standing nearly on end from the humidity. Clearly not his favorite type of weather.
Ashlyn smiled apologetically at the wolf as she pulled open the door and stepped inside. She was greeted by a rush of cool air, and shivered again, shutting the door behind her. Skye remained outside, taking his role as sidekick way too seriously.
"Ash," Sara greeted her informally from behind a pair of bottle-thick lenses. She was beautiful in a nerdy kind of way, but blinder than a bat without her glasses- which Ashlyn found slightly amusing. Sara wasn't known for being particularly social, either. Ashlyn bowed low, grateful for once that she didn't need to make small talk.
"What did you figure out?" she asked, straightening up.
Sara picked up a folder and flipped it open, scattering photos across the metal counter top as she did so. They were pictures of Soryl's arm, the strange, snaking lines that Ashlyn had noticed days earlier.
"These are what we call urme de injectare," Sara said. "Simply translated- track marks, from intravenous drug use. A result of the use of blunt injecting equipment, like a re-usable syringe with a dulled needle. After a while, the veins start to darken from the scarring, and occasionally the build-up of toxins contributes to the tracks."
"Soryl was a junkie?" Ashlyn said, frowning. She'd heard of drug use, but certainly not in Toryn- it was far more prevalent in coastal cities such as January Harbor, where the trade industry was thriving and dealers had easy access to their product. "I've seen pictures of track marks before though, and they didn't really look like what was on Soryl's arm."
"Well, the appearance of track marks depends on what is being injected into the vein. If the expients found in an illicit substance are water soluble, track marks usually won't show at all. Expients that aren't water soluble- paregoric, for example- cause intense sclerotic reaction."
"Seriously," Ashlyn said, rolling her eyes. "Dumb it down for us mere mortals, please."
"I ran a few tests-" Sara began flipping through the folder, running her finger down lists of what Ashlyn assumed were test results- "and they came back negative for all known illegal substances. As far as I can tell, Soryl was clean."
"Hmm." Ashlyn picked up a photo, eyes tracing the winding lines on Soryl's charred skin. "I don't get it."
"Neither did I- until I tried to identify his blood type." Sara slapped a paper down in front of her and pointed to a smudged column of numbers. "See that?"
"Um...no." Math...or any kind of academics, really...were not Ashlyn's strong suit.
"Soryl's blood type is O. But he had something else- somebody else's blood- in his veins when he died. Somebody whose blood type was A."
"Ooh. Oh...oh, ew! How the hell did that happen?"
"He's been injecting with someone else's blood," Sara explained patiently. "From the looks of those track marks, he's been doing it for some time. And that's not the most interesting part."
"There’s something grosser?" Ashlyn said, sinking into a stool in front of the counter.
"This is even better." Sara slapped another paper down next to the first one. "I ran the alien blood against every sample we've got in the lab- pretty much everyone who's ever been treated in Toryn, to include you and your friends. This," she said, indicating one column of numbers, "is the blood that Soryl was injecting with. And this-" she moved her finger to the other page- "is your blood."
Ashlyn stared hard, trying to find a pattern. "Okay, they're similar, there's a lot of the same numbers. Wouldn't that make sense, since technically only the Li bloodline is able to use..." She trailed off, not sure if she should say anything in front of the scientist about the shift stanes.
"They are the same, Ash- or at least similar enough that I can tell your blood is related to this sample." Sara nudged a third paper over the top of the second sheet. "This is your father's blood sample."
Ashlyn scanned the numbers, eyes widening. "They're the same," she whispered. "Soryl was injecting my father's blood?"
Sara nodded. "I can't imagine why- it's so extremely dangerous to inject a foreign blood type into your body. Potentially lethal."
Oh Drago- suddenly it was all making sense.
Kou's words came rushing back to her, clear and concise as if he were speaking them directly to her right this moment.
Shift has made itself indigenous to Toryn...to the Li bloodline...
It has changed itself so that only a Toryn whose veins flow with the blood of the Li clan is able to wield it...
Her heart was pounding.
"Sara," Ashlyn said quietly, staring down at the photographs in front of her. "Would these...track marks show up on anyone who was injecting with my father's blood?"
"Presumably so, if they’ve been doing it long enough."
Ashlyn slammed her fist down on the table, the metal clanging beneath her hand, and Sara jumped. Ashlyn reached across and grabbed the other girl's hand, staring intensely through the thick lenses of her glasses. "Listen to me, Sara. Don't tell anyone you know this. Not anyone. This stays secret. Got it?"
The scientist nodded in confusion. "Certainly."
Ashlyn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll be back. Don't do anything else- anything- until you hear from me." Turning on her heel, she marched to the door, flinging it open just as a brilliant bolt of lightning split the sky in front of her.
"Aik," she said to the wolf, who was still curled around himself and grumbling at the rain. "You need to stay here and make sure no one gets in. Seriously, no one, not even the Toryn elders."
"Of course, Ash." The furry beast stood and shook like a dog, droplets of rain spraying in every direction. "I will await further orders from you."
Ashlyn stepped out into the rain and looked up at the gray sky...swallowed hard. This wasn't going to go over well at all. She began walking, and Skye fell into step beside her.
"What'd she say?" he asked curiously.
One step. Two steps. Her feet were like anchors in the ocean, sucked downwards by the inevitable pull of gravity, almost too heavy to lift.
She glanced over at Skye, trying to think of some way to form words out of the jumble of information swirling in her mind. Oh, the thoughts in her head were horrible, too outrageous to even consider, but what if she was right? What if she was right, oh gods, what if everything she'd been led to believe was nothing but an intricately fabricated lie?
Before she knew it, she was running, her sneakers pounding on the wet grass as she sprinted towards the bridge that led to Heaven. The wooden slats echoed and groaned beneath her feet, and she hit the double doors running, the dual hinges allowing them to swing inward and the distinctive stench of sake filling her nostrils as she charged into the room. Momentarily blinded, she paused to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, breathing so hard it felt like her lungs were cracking.
Her gaze focused on Kou, sitting at the
end of the bar closest to the wall, listening to Tag talking animatedly with Ellis. Restlyn was rummaging around behind the bar- where else?- with her newly dark hair pulled into a tight bun.
"Floor!" Nozomi- who had been bartending in Heaven for longer than Ashlyn could remember- shuffled out from behind the counter. "Floor wet!" he yelled at Ashlyn in very stilted Merchant Tongue. "You disrespect!"
Ashlyn brushed past him, focusing only on Kou as she stomped towards him, water droplets flinging with every step. "Grab him," she snapped at Ellis, pointing towards Tag.
One of the things she'd always liked about Ellis, despite his Spartan beginnings, was how he didn't question things at the wrong moment. In a split second he was on his feet and shoving Tag face-down onto the bar, firmly locking the Toryn man's arms behind his back in one swift motion
Ashlyn swept the barstool out from beneath Kou, planting one hand on his neck and slamming him back against the wall. The impact shuddered up her arm, but Ashlyn was too furious to acknowledge the pain.
"What the-" Kou choked as her grip tightened, and his hands came up to scrabble uselessly at her wrist. "What are you doing?" he gasped, eyes watering.
"I'm going to look up your sleeve, Devlyn," she spat out. "And if I don't like what I find, you had better pray to Drago for mercy."
"What…the hell…are you talking about?" he sputtered, still trying to pry her hand from his throat.
"Ash," Skye said uneasily, appearing at her side. "Calm down. Tell me what's going on."
"I'll calm down after I have a look at Kou's arms," Ashlyn said.
As she stared at him, Kou's eyes locked with hers- and narrowed. Suddenly he spun, rolling against the wall and twisting her arm along with him. Caught off-guard, Ashlyn was pulled into the turn and slammed against the wall, knocking the breath out of her and wrenching her shoulder nearly out of its socket. She held on for dear life, and Kou's shirt tore in her hands, ripping open at the chest.
The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) Page 21