Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) Read online

  REGRET

  by Charity Santiago

  http://charitysantiago.blogspot.com

  Read all of Charity’s books on Amazon Kindle:

  Return (book 1 in the Lady of Toryn trilogy)

  Regret (book 2 in the Lady of Toryn trilogy)

  Redemption (book 3 in the Lady of Toryn trilogy)

  A Carol for Ben (a contemporary holiday romance)

  Copyright © 2013 by Charity Santiago. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  Events of Book 1 (Return)

  Kresmir is a land of magic- a realm where the planet’s power can be harnessed in small gems known as stanes, and wielded by those who have knowledge of the magic originally shared with humans by the now-extinct race of Angels.

  The genocide of the peaceful Angels was orchestrated by the evil Lord Angelo, a cruel dictator who used his powerful DEMON army to take control of the Free Lands of Kresmir and build power plants to drain the natural energy from the planet.

  Three years ago, a small group of rebels managed to overthrow Lord Angelo and establish new leadership in the Free Lands of Kresmir. The Free Lands Democracy (FLD) thrived, until a new enemy emerged- Lord Devlyn, adopted heir to the western monarchy of Toryn.

  The youngest rebel and Elder Heir of Toryn, Ashlyn Li, had disappeared shortly after Lord Angelo’s defeat and had long been presumed dead. In actuality, Ashlyn had simply been wandering Kresmir, living the life of a commoner and avoiding the responsibilities of her birthright. During her travels, Ashlyn crossed paths with her old comrades and learned of the war that Lord Devlyn was waging against the Free Lands Democracy. Although Ashlyn was still reluctant to take her rightful place as Lady of Toryn, at the urging of FLD, she agreed to challenge Devlyn to a Leadership Duel to save Kresmir from his tyrannical reign.

  When Ashlyn finally encountered Lord Devlyn, however, she learned that there was more to the story than either she or her friends knew. Lord Devlyn, or Kou, as he preferred to be called, claimed to be attempting to protect the Free Lands of Kresmir from Ashlyn’s father, the Elder Lord of Toryn. According to Kou, Lord Li had retreated to the southern half of Toryn Island after going insane with the power of a newly-discovered shape-shifting magic called shift.

  Shift spent thousands of years buried in the Toryn mountain Na Michico, and eventually evolved so that only a Toryn from the Li bloodline was able to wield its magic. Shift enabled its user to shape-shift into the form of a powerful and bloodthirsty animal.

  Although Kou had initially presented himself to Ashlyn as her estranged half-brother, Ashlyn later discovered that Kou and his younger brother, Tag, had been injecting themselves with her father’s blood to enable them to use the shift magic. Tag was captured by FLD, but Kou attempted to escape. He was shot and fell from Na Michico to the raging ocean below.

  Though she knew that love had no place in a time of war, Ashlyn had long harbored feelings for one of her friends- the enigmatic vampire, Drake Lockhart. Shortly after discovering Kou’s traitorous nature, Ashlyn finally mustered the courage to confess her feelings to Drake, but the vampire spurned her advances. Ashlyn turned for comfort to her former enemy Vargo, who had previously served as one of Lord Angelo’s deadly Spartan assassins.

  Heartbroken with both Drake’s rejection and the consequences of her actions, and unsure of her feelings for Vargo, Ashlyn decided to leave her friends, and the people of Toryn, to face her father alone. She sneaked out of Toryn under cover of darkness, hoping to finally end the battle that was tearing her kingdom apart.

  Chapter 1

  Barren

  Flowers in the desert.

  Could you get any more contradictory than that? It was sort of ironic. Or maybe not, because she didn’t really know what ironic meant, except that people usually said it to explain strange coincidences.

  Mostly she just thought flowers in the desert were weirdly appropriate right at that moment because the whole concept was a lot like her- a total contradiction. A ditzy girl-woman with an attention span of about five seconds for everything except being a bad-ass ninja, and that was really what she excelled at, wasn’t it? Being stunningly shallow and irresponsible, but kicking serious butt any time the opportunity presented itself.

  Ashlyn Li, Elder Heir of Toryn, sniffled pathetically into her own hands, tears squeezing out from between her fingers, their initial comforting warmth fading and turning tepid in the chilly night air as they trickled down her wrists.

  It was so unfair. She’d tried to do everything right, she’d held in her feelings and had avoided her birthright by living like a nomad for three years straight, and yet- and yet…and yet it all went wrong, and this entire mess was her fault. As if the knowledge that she’d inadvertently started a war in her own kingdom wasn’t enough, Drake had rejected her, and…and…Ashlyn didn’t even know what. She’d never felt like this before, because she’d never let anyone close enough to hurt her this way.

  Three years ago, she had been fifteen, hotheaded and sticky-fingered, ready to get out of Toryn and see the world. What had begun as a spontaneous adventure, joining forces with Skye, Restlyn and the rest of FLD had quickly become the turning point for her, the moment in time where she finally grew up and realized that there was more to life than thievery and sarcasm. And by the time Lord Angelo had killed the last Angel, by the time FLD had defeated the warlord and saved the sun, Ashlyn had realized two things.

  One- she was crazy about Drake Lockhart, a vampire who sometimes displayed less personality than a hunk of driftwood, and someone she had no business being crazy about in the first place, considering he was immortal, angst-ridden, painfully gorgeous, and entirely out of her league.

  And two- she wasn’t ready to be Lady of Toryn.

  But there had been no one to pass the responsibility off to, because she was the Elder Heir. The only heir.

  At the time, running away had seemed like a pretty good option.

  Obviously running away three years ago had set the tone for the rest of her life, because last night, Ashlyn had run away again- only this time, she was running towards responsibility, not away from it. She was determined to face her father and challenge him for leadership of Toryn.

  Ashlyn hiccupped, wiping her face with the back of her hand and trying to blink through the tears as she stared at her mother’s headstone. Her chin trembled as sobs threatened to overcome her once more.

  Susyn Li’s grave was at the end of a long, lonely canyon, bordered on all sides by steep dirt walls. There were no other graves, but Ashlyn had always liked it that way, preferring the solitude of her mother’s final resting place to the busier location of the public Toryn cemeteries.

  It wasn’t technically in the desert, but at this time of year it certainly looked that way. Toryns had always called this place The Barrens, because in the winter it was pretty much desolate, the heavy winds sweeping away dead vegetation in anticipation of the coming spring. After the cold had passed, creeping vines with small blue flowers would cover the cliff walls, turning the empty canyon into a beautiful secret garden.

  But right now, there was no hint of color, no reprieve from the droll grayness of the canyon. Autumn was turning its back on the island, and this area was one of the first to lose its foliage to early freezes, hungry scavengers and the winds. The artificial cherry blossom branches Ashlyn had brought with her from her home in the city looked out of place in the bare canyon, and it felt even stranger to leave fake flowers instead of real ones, but Ashlyn hadn’t had any time to be picky.

  The cherry blossoms were pink, but their centers were much darker, almost a deep red, reminiscent of Drake Lockh
art’s vermilion eyes. Ashlyn could still remember the conflicted look in those eyes when she’d finally confessed her feelings last night, the mixture of shame and despair.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” she whispered as she stood, shaking in the moonlight. “You made your feelings pretty clear, didn’t you, Drake?”

  She didn’t have a right to be angry, but she was. More than angry. Furious. At herself, at that idiot vampire Drake Lockhart, at Vargo for stepping in at her most vulnerable moment and confusing her with that kiss.

  Nothing made sense anymore, and she didn’t want to think about it.

  She’d spent more time lingering at the gravesite than she’d intended. Ashlyn quickly retraced her steps back to the canyon’s entrance and set off again on her original path, following the coast towards the southern half of the island. Pulling her mask up to cover the lower half of her face again, she reached into her knapsack and withdrew a gleaming orange gem- the reveal stane she’d swiped off Skye when they’d parted ways three years ago.

  She lifted the stane, intending to slide it into a space in her armlet, then paused, realizing that there were no empty slots. There were two spaces for stanes in her armlet, and she usually kept a heal stane in one slot and left the other one empty, but she’d completely forgotten about the shift stane she had taken from one of her father’s soldiers during the battle for the pagoda. After some deliberation, Ashlyn unstrapped her hira shuriken from her back, placing the stane into one of the weapon’s empty slots instead.

  She whispered a few words, concentrating hard on the tiny orb, and tiny sparks erupted from the stane, spiraling through the air before gently touching down on the sand. As she watched, the swirling little fireflies formed a short path in front of her, extending each time she took a step, and Ashlyn smiled in spite of herself. Reveal was one of the strongest and rarest magics in existence. The sparks from the stane led its user directly towards whatever it was they were seeking. There were some drawbacks to the magic- such as the possibility of the sparks alerting your enemy that you were approaching, or the magic’s tendency to take the most direct route, even if said route was off a cliff or through a raging river. But it had proved invaluable during their battle against Lord Angelo.

  The moon was pulling itself slowly to the east, so that Ashlyn’s shadow stretched out to her right, long and thin, as she picked her way along the beach. She tried to stay on the hard-packed dirt farthest from the water so that her tracks were less visible. Here, on the center stretch of the island, there were no trees or dense foliage to use as cover, so she had to move quickly. Ashlyn picked up her pace, sprinting after the fireflies as the glittering path unfurled ahead of her.

  She didn’t have much time before FLD discovered that she was missing, but she’d made pretty good time moving away from the city of Toryn, heading towards the southern half of the island. Ashlyn wasn’t quite sure how FLD would react to the simple note she’d left behind. She’d scrawled it hastily, her own thoughts and emotions too complicated to convey in words.

  I have to face my father alone.

  The events of the night had been a serious blow to whatever stability Ashlyn had been clinging to in her mind- and her heart. After finally working up the guts to tell Drake how she felt, he had outright rejected her, and walked away.

  For the last three years, Ashlyn had kept her feelings for Drake a total secret. She’d swallowed her jealousy over his somewhat confusing relationship with Trace, one of the Spartan assassins who now worked for the president of FLD, and she’d told herself that her ridiculous crush on the vampire would pass soon enough.

  But last night, she’d tried to confess her feelings to him.

  Ashlyn still wasn’t sure what she’d expected from Drake. He was a ridiculously old, frustratingly square vampire who spent more time wallowing in his own angst than developing meaningful relationships with other people. Not exactly boyfriend material.

  Vargo, the red-haired Spartan, had swept in the moment Drake was gone. He’d heard everything.

  Ashlyn pursed her lips beneath her mask, remembering the feel of Vargo’s mouth on hers. Their first kiss had been about a week ago, in the village of Industry. That first time, she’d only kissed him as a distraction so she could get close enough to knock him unconscious. Last night’s kiss was a different story. What she felt for Vargo wasn’t the same as the yearning she was experiencing for Drake, but the electricity in Vargo’s touch was undeniable.

  If anyone felt responsible for her departure from Toryn, Ashlyn hoped that it was not Vargo. She wasn’t entirely over her initial dislike for him- they had been enemies for so long, after all- but he didn’t deserve to feel guilty.

  Drake, on the other hand…

  Ashlyn grimaced, still running, and followed the glittering orange path as it snaked around a single tree in the middle of the beach. She was getting closer to the forest now. Trees were popping up sporadically, a welcome change from the bare terrain she’d been seeing for the past several miles.

  No, in all honesty, she didn’t want Drake to wonder if she had left because of him, either. This was something she had to do on her own. She couldn’t stomach the thought of Skye, their former leader, one of her closest friends and the man who had defeated Lord Angelo when it seemed all but impossible, challenging her dad in combat. She absolutely had to face Lord Li alone. If she didn’t, she would never forgive herself, and in her heart she truly hoped that Skye would understand that.

  Skye had been angry before, when she’d left Cosmea with Kou, intending to confront Lord Devlyn and try to reason with him. After her plan had completely backfired and she’d discovered that Kou was, in fact, Lord Devlyn in disguise, Ashlyn had felt more than a little stupid. But like most of her hair-brained schemes, things had worked themselves out in the end. She could only hope that what she was doing right now would achieve the same results, and anyway, she had no doubt that Skye would come after her once he realized she was gone. Her intention was to somehow locate her father before Skye found her.

  Ashlyn ducked under a low-hanging branch, noting that she was in the outskirts of the forest now. She slowed to a walk, her thin-soled boots making no sound on the leaf-strewn forest floor. She must be close now, close to the shift army, close to…

  …Her father.

  As if her fear over Skye’s reaction and the confusing situation with Drake and Vargo weren’t enough, she still had yet to come to terms with the fact that her father was leading the shift army. She wondered if Kou had been reporting back to Lord Li. Her throat tightened at the thought. She hadn’t seen her father in more than three years, and although her heartstrings weren’t exactly wrapped around his memory as tightly as they had once been, he was still her father, and she loved him. The thought that she might have to fight him or- or worse, kill him- wasn’t anything she wanted to contemplate right now.

  You’d better start contemplating, she told herself harshly, trying to drudge up some good old-fashioned rage, because you’re going to have to deal with it sooner or later, and hesitating at the wrong moment could mean a very sad end for you.

  There was a rustling to her right, and Ashlyn started, thoughts scattering as she crouched low and whispered a word to dissipate the reveal magic’s trail. In the darkness, she could barely see a faint outline of another person, moving towards her carefully, not bothering to use any of the trees for cover. Relying on the darkness, perhaps? Ashlyn frowned. His movements were calculated. Deliberately slow.

  He was trying to distract her.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she launched herself forward, yanking the shuriken off her back as she rolled and came up on her feet. Behind her, where she had been crouching only a moment before, there was a shhhhink as a katana blade sliced through the air and hit the ground. Ashlyn whirled and took one step towards the swordsman, lashing out with her shuriken and landing a cut across the other ninja’s throat. He went down instantly. As she stepped back, turning, a throwing star caug
ht her in the right shoulder. Ashlyn grunted with the pain and dropped to all fours as several more throwing stars, all smaller versions of her oversized hira shuriken, went flying overhead.

  Reaching up with her left hand, Ashlyn yanked the star out, wincing as the jagged edge cut deeply. She rolled to the side and climbed unsteadily to her feet, using a broad tree trunk for cover. They’d caught her by surprise- she’d been too absorbed in her own thoughts to avoid walking into a trap.

  Ashlyn clenched her shuriken in one hand, the throwing star in the other, and took a deep breath, then spun out from behind the tree, the hand holding her shuriken outstretched as the ice stane glowed blue within it. A translucent wall of ice materialized before her, and as she’d predicted, there was a flash of several more throwing stars that quickly embedded in the makeshift shield. Ashlyn sidestepped around the ice and flung the single star with easy expertise, aiming for the patch of blackness where her adversary had revealed his location. Sprinting across the dark forest, she reached the ninja moments after the throwing star reached its target. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Leaves crunched to her right, and once again Ashlyn ducked behind a tree. There was another rustling, this time to her left, and once more in front of her. Her heart sank as she realized that she was probably surrounded.

  For a long moment, she stood pressed against the trunk of the tree, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. Ashlyn raised her uninjured arm, clutching her shuriken tightly, and breathed a single word.

  The fire stane in her shuriken sparked to life, casting a bright red hue on her surroundings and illuminating five ninjas, all of whom were wearing the sign of Toryn on their masks.

  Ashlyn’s eyes narrowed, muscles tensing.

  The first ninja charged, and she reeled off the tree trunk, reversing in mid-motion to slash backwards with the shuriken. It sliced cleanly in a diagonal motion across his back. One down. She ducked under the swing of another katana and spun in a leg sweep, flipping over his prone body, stabbing downwards with the shuriken as she somersaulted. Two.