Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (21 page)

The wolf behind her leaped at
that very moment, and Ashlyn sprang into action, only managing to scramble up
another handful of stairs before the beast was on her back. Crying out as its
claws dug into her skin, Ashlyn rolled on the steps, using her body weight to
crush him against the marble stairs. It was enough to momentarily stun him, but
no sooner had Ashlyn rolled off him than he was after her again. She found herself
dodging teeth and claws, lifting her injured right arm to fend him off and
screaming in pain as the full realization of how badly she was wounded began to
sink in. The wolf managed to snag the sleeve of her shirt in its mouth and
yanked, ripping the fabric. Ashlyn took the opportunity to punch the animal square
in the eye, and it fell backwards against the steps, yelping as it rolled down
the stairs towards the water.

A
shift
stane glittered at her from the silver armlet on the wolf’s
leg, and Ashlyn realized with a sinking feeling that this was Tag, that he had
assumed the third and most deadly shape offered by the
shift
magic. A wolf.

She turned and reached out with her
one good hand, fingers curved into claws, shaking as she dragged herself up
another stair, then two, finally mustering the strength to push herself up onto
her feet and stagger up the steps. Every movement seemed to be in slow motion. Blood
dripped from her arm, and she pulled it up close to her body, trying to ignore
the shadows crowding the corners of her vision. It was too dark to get a good
look at the wound, but she knew it was bad, knew that she was in danger of
bleeding out.

The wolf met her at the top of
the stairs, the faint moonlight glittering off its bared teeth. He’d gone
around somehow, gotten ahead of her.

Ashlyn tried to straighten up,
preparing herself to fight, but her knees buckled, and she fell, her legs
slipping out beneath her as she flopped gracelessly onto her back.
Get up!
She propped herself up with her
uninjured arm, and managed to brace herself up against the column at the head
of the stairs. Her legs remained twisted uncomfortably in front of her,
appearing almost gruesome with their odd, crooked angles, but she was so numb
that she couldn’t summon the strength to straighten them.

Her head lolled to the side
drowsily, and she blinked for a moment before recognizing the outline of her bo
shuriken, less than a foot away, hidden in the shadows of the spire beside her.
There was a
heal
stane in its slots.
If she could just get close enough to grab it, use it…but her hand wouldn’t
move. She was cold, so cold.

“Do you get it now, Ashlyn?”
Kou’s voice, low and dripping with disdain as he stepped into view. He was too
far away for her to see his eyes, but close enough that she could throw the
shuriken at him, if she could get her hands on it.

“Do you understand?” he said,
turning towards her and pausing. He was hunched forward, in obvious pain from
her attack with the katana earlier, but not mortally wounded. “This was meant
to happen. You were meant to die here. I am meant to assume leadership of Toryn
and overthrow the Free Lands Democracy. It was the destiny I saw in my vision.”

She tried to speak, but even her
vocal cords refused to budge in the icy cold. Ashlyn swallowed, willing her
body to warm itself, and glanced at the shuriken again. It was a good stabbing
weapon, but she wasn’t sure how accurate a throw would be, as cold as she was,
and given the fact that she’d have to throw with her weaker right arm. But if
she threw it, even if it was a death blow, would she be able to get to it so
she could use the
heal
stane?

Tag turned away then, licking a weeping
wound on his shoulder, and Ashlyn drowsily wondered if maybe this was her
chance.

“I had hoped that you would be
more open-minded than your father,” Kou continued.

She was reminded of Lord Angelo,
how he’d delivered a pointlessly arrogant speech about his power and
immortality right before Skye had kicked his ass.

Skye…

This
is your chance to be a leader, Ash. It’s your turn to be a hero and do the
right thing. Don’t let it pass you by. Don’t live your life with regret.

Ashlyn gritted her teeth,
glancing up at Kou, but he was oblivious, completely absorbed in the sound of
his own voice. The Tag-wolf was still occupied with tending to his various
wounds. Ashlyn focused hard, willing her hand to move. Her fingers curled
slightly.

“He didn’t understand that Toryn
could be the mightiest country in Kresmir- that Toryn
needs
to be the mightiest country in Kresmir. He didn’t understand
the power of
shift.
For a while, I
had held out hope that you might be different,” Kou said, glancing back at her.
Ashlyn stilled momentarily, but soon he looked away again, and she miraculously
found the strength to move her hand towards the shuriken.

Her fingers closed around it, a
solid bar of steel in her hand, the warmth of the slotted stanes comforting
against her palm.

“I soon realized, however, that
you were just like your father. Weak,” Kou continued. “You played right into
our hands until that idiot peasant recognized you outside the city gates. You
couldn’t disappear after that. And somehow you managed to avoid capture during
the attack, as well.” He shook his head. “You always have to make things
difficult, but you’re still weak, Ashlyn. The Li bloodline is weak. The Li
elders have always been afraid to allow the people of Toryn to reach their full
power. And you are no different.” Hunched over, he turned to face her, his face
twisting in a sneer. “That means you are of no use to me.”

Tag rose, walking stiff-legged
towards her, wet fur dripping, his growl menacing. Ashlyn swallowed hard, and
clenched her fingers around the shuriken. The wolf stopped just inches in front
of her, hackles rising as he readied himself to leap.

“Nothing to say?” Kou asked. He
shifted uncomfortably, hand clasped to his midsection, blood seeping through
his fingers. The blade of the katana in his other hand was dragging against the
marble, its master too weak even to hold it up.

Ashlyn swallowed again, her eyes
meeting the wolf’s, their gazes locked. Her timing had to be perfect.

Tag crouched, gathering his legs
beneath him.

In the moment that the wolf
jumped towards her, Ashlyn brought up the shuriken, and caught him in mid-leap,
driving the pointed bar deep into the neck of the beast, warmth sluicing across
her fingers as the steel found its mark and the wolf abruptly collapsed in a
heap on top of her.

Summoning what little strength
she had left, Ashlyn yanked the shuriken out of the wolf’s neck and flung it,
flat-handed, droplets of blood spinning off her fingers with the motion.

Kou brought up his katana, but he
was much too slow, and with a wet
thunk
the shuriken embedded itself in his shoulder.

It wasn’t a killing blow. Ashlyn
nearly cried with disappointment. She’d been off by mere inches.

Kou didn’t speak or cry out, didn’t
look at her, simply stumbled backwards before retreating down the stairs.

The bo shuriken clattering
against the marble after he pulled it from his shoulder was the only sound in
that horrible dark stillness, and Ashlyn pushed weakly at Tag’s body, wondering
if this was her punishment, if this was truly her fate. She was utterly
drained, too exhausted to move the wolf off her legs and get to the
heal
stane.

Blood spilled from her arm,
pooling gruesomely beneath her limp hand. With some effort, Ashlyn lifted her
hand, resting it across Tag’s massive head, trying to elevate the wound as much
as possible to slow the bleeding.

Killed
by a wolf in the Heavenly City,
they had said.

It seemed that at least that much
of Kou’s vision had been accurate.

The sound of her labored breathing
punctuated the silence. Ashlyn lay still for a long time, watching for the moon
to emerge from behind the clouds.

                                                           
To be concluded…

Read
on for an excerpt of the third and final book in the Lady of Toryn trilogy,
Redemption,
available now on Amazon
Kindle
.

Skye materialized in front of a smooth marble pillar
as the sun peeked over the horizon. Rays of light illuminated his solemn, clean-cut
features.

“Ashlyn Li,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ve been
in this situation before. How many times I have told you that true leaders
don’t abandon their followers?”

Ashlyn’s eyes fluttered as she fought to stay
conscious. “I had to…kill…Kou,” she rasped. Her lips were dry as paper.

The blond swordsman turned his disapproving gaze on
her. “And you didn’t even do that right, did you?” he replied scornfully, and
pushed off the pillar, crouching beside her. “You killed Tag, but only managed
to injure Kou. He might die. He might not. But his odds are better than yours.”

Ashlyn had struck Kou in the shoulder with her
shuriken, but it hadn’t been a killing blow. Fury and despair roiled within her
as she considered the events of last night. Kou had murdered her father, and
Ashlyn’s first thought had been to avenge Lord Li…but Skye was right. She’d
acted recklessly by going alone, and she had failed.

“Don’t give her such a hard time,” Vargo said,
suddenly appearing sprawled across the railing just a few feet from where
Ashlyn lay. One leg dangled listlessly off the side of the railing, swinging
idly. “She tried. She just wasn’t up to the challenge.” He took a long swig
from a flask that flashed silver in the early morning light.

“Please,” Ashlyn whispered. She tried to raise her
hand to reach for the flask, but her fingers twitched in response, too weak to
do anything more. “P-please,” she repeated. Her voice was a dry husk, empty and
lifeless.

“What? Oh, this?” Vargo said, holding up the flask.
“You wouldn’t want this. Nothing in it.” He turned the flask upside down,
proving his point.

“We’re not real anyway,” Skye spoke up. “You know
that, right?”

Ashlyn knew. She knew that she was seeing things
that weren’t really there. More than that, she knew that she was dying, and no
one was coming to save her. But somehow, even as she realized for the hundredth
time that she was talking to a figment of her imagination, the epiphany seemed
to crumple up and float away, and she looked up at Skye again, wondering woozily
why he wasn’t helping her.

She hadn’t looked at her arm since the first rays of
light appeared over the horizon, but she didn’t need to. The wolf’s sharp teeth
had torn her flesh from just below her elbow up to her shoulder.

She didn’t know how much blood she’d lost…but it was
bad.

Ashlyn let her eyes drift shut. Maybe rest would
help her heal.

“You’re not falling asleep on us, are you?” Vargo
asked sharply. “That’s pretty inconsiderate.”

“I’m…sorry,” she muttered, and opened her eyes
again.

Tag, one of the Toryn ninjas who’d pretended to be
Ashlyn’s younger brother, had used the
shift
magic to turn into a wolf and attack her. Ashlyn had stabbed him through
the neck with her shuriken, killing him, but he’d fallen on top of her, pinning
her down. His heavy, stiff body was still immobilizing her legs, his massive
head resting across her chest and stomach. The seeping blood from his neck wound
had soaked her clothing and then frozen overnight, but Ashlyn had long ago
stopped shivering.

Her father had told her the night before that
shift
was capable of transforming its
user into a wolf, in addition to the bear and panther forms Ashlyn had
witnessed previously.
 
Wolves, the only
animals in Kresmir capable of intelligent thought and conversation, were lethal
opponents, but Ashlyn had never seen a
shift
wolf until Tag had attacked her.

Vargo dropped his flask on the pearl-tiled floor,
but instead of clattering against the tiles, the sound it made sounded like
footsteps. “Damn,” he said. “Good thing it was empty.”

“Ashlyn!” someone yelled, and it wasn’t Vargo or
Skye.

“You’re hallucinating,” Skye said, seemingly amused
by her feverish state.

Aik’s furry face entered her line of vision. Ashlyn
was happy to see her friend, but much too cold to react to his sudden appearance.
He padded up to her and touched his muzzle to her cheek. Normally the wolf’s
nose was cold, but right now Ashlyn was so chilled that she couldn’t feel any
change in temperature, only the pressure from the contact.

“Hang on, Ash,” he said, and sat back on his
haunches before sending up a long, eerie wolf howl that rang in Ashlyn’s ears
like a bell.

Skye and Vargo abruptly disappeared.

Drake vaulted up the stairs and skidded onto his
knees beside her, looking decidedly
un
-Drake-like
as he slipped in the sticky, half-frozen pool of blood.

“Ashlyn, look at me,” he said urgently, putting a
hand to her cheek and turning her face towards him.

She stared at him dully, lamenting her sad state of
mind for conjuring up the vampire in her fantasies. “Go away,” she mumbled.
“Bring Vargo back.”