Free Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) by Charity Santiago Page A

deliberately,
bringing up her feet to catch him in his midsection and propel him over her
head, sending him tumbling behind her.
    Ashlyn jumped up, sheathing her
sword, and ran to Drake’s horse. She slammed her foot into the stirrup and
pulled herself up, but was just swinging her opposite leg over when someone
grabbed a chunk of her hair and yanked. Ashlyn yelped, but grabbed the saddle
and barely managed to avoid falling, and there was a harder yank and then-
suddenly she was free. She clambered up onto the horse, looked over and saw
that Skye had plowed into Drake with his horse, slicing off half the length of
her hair with his sword.
    “Run!” Skye yelled at her. He
circled around and cast an earth spell
that flung Drake backwards into a throng of soldiers that had just managed to
make their way around the dirt barriers.
    Wordlessly, Ashlyn jammed her
foot into the other stirrup and wheeled Drake’s horse around, galloping for the
forest with her father slouched in the saddle in front of her.

Chapter 5
    Control

    The wind whipped Ashlyn’s newly-short
hair into her face, and she shook it out of her eyes impatiently, fighting to
stay focused even as her joints protested their ongoing abuse. Her legs were
exhausted and cramping from being clamped against her horse’s sides for so
long, and her arms were aching from straining to keep her father on the saddle
in front of her. He didn’t weigh much, which was both frightening and
fortunate, because Ashlyn was terrified for his weakened state but she knew if
he had been any heavier she wouldn’t have been able to support him.
    With some effort, she managed to
shift her grip on the reins, cueing the horse to angle west, away from the
coast. Although the route she’d taken to get here was a straight path back to
Toryn, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk the lack of cover on the beach.
Already, Drake’s horse’s neck was lathered with sweat, his breathing harsh and
labored. She didn’t know how much longer she could force the animal to run.
    They leaped over a small log and
galloped into the forest, the moon above blotted out in an instant as they
entered the cover of the trees. Ashlyn racked her brain for the layout of the
island, simultaneously cursing her faulty memory and her own stupidity for not
returning to her homeland more often over the last three years. From what she
could recall, the forest thinned out closer to a small lake, and on the other
side of the lake were The Barrens, where her mother was buried. From there it
was an easy enough trek to Toryn.
    The gelding faltered, a slight
stumble, a skip in the rhythmic run, and that was the only warning that Ashlyn
had before the poor creature went down. Suddenly Ashlyn was tumbling forward,
head over heels because she hadn’t had time to prepare herself for it, and she
felt the crunchy leaves jump up to bite into her shoulders as she rolled. She
came to an unceremonious stop against the trunk of a tree, hard enough to hurt
but not enough to injure, and lay there for a moment, trying to catch her
breath.
    “Dad!” She bolted upright,
belatedly remembering that she hadn’t been alone in the saddle.
    Her father was lying face-down a
few feet away. Ashlyn crawled to him and gently pulled at his shoulder, turning
him over. He was still unconscious, and far too frail and light, his cheeks
sunken, his normally tanned skin pale and drawn. One arm was bent at an odd
angle below the elbow, obviously broken.
    “Oh Dad,” she muttered, tears
springing to her eyes. She hastily untied her belt and looked around. There was
a stick close by that was a bit too thin and long, but would still work for
now. She snapped it over her knee to make it a more suitable size, then gently
picked up her dad’s arm, straightening it very slowly. She prodded the skin
with her fingers, feeling the bone within. It seemed like a clean break, but
she didn’t want to try setting it herself. Instead she placed the stick against
the