Page 42 of Guardian of Exile

“I can’t help the way I was born any more than you can, so maybe don’t be a dick.”

He gave a short bark of laughter.

“What?” she snapped.

“You need my help and you know what I’m capable of, and that’s how you’re going to talk to me?” He finally let go of her wrist.

“Was I supposed to fall at your feet in awe and flatter you?”

“Most people do.” It came out with more than a hint of bitterness, and she remembered Mary Turner saying that Tristen’s people viewed him as a saint. Unless he was a narcissist, that couldn’t be a pleasant reaction. If people were fanatically devoted to someone, it meant they never actually saw that person.

Nyx crossed her arms. “Then you don’t need one more sycophant.”

“No, I really don’t.” He shook his head. The little mirth that had come into his face died.“Who told you where to find me?”

She knew, by the way he asked the question, that he already knew the answer. “The Congregation.”

A flurry of emotions passed through his eyes, but the one that lingered was a combination of grief and rage. “Why?”

“I needed a solution to a problem, and they gave me you. Gave me what they knew, because they hoped I could find you.”

“Why?” he asked again. His voice was hoarse, and thick with either longing or regret, or some mixture of both.

“Because they miss you. And because there might be a way for you to rejoin them. If you want.”

Suspicion edged out all his other emotions. “Let me guess—that way is helping you? I do what you want and all of my sins are forgiven? I’m welcomed back into the fold with open arms?”

She winced. “I know how it sounds.”

“I don’t think you do. They cast me out, expecting me to die. And if they wanted me back, they could have come for me before now.”

There was something in his voice of the lost child he must have been at the moment of his exile, and it tore at something in her. She thought of Tobi, so young and trusting despite all he’d been through, with a Shaman’s instinct to help, to heal, and pictured him in Tristen’s place. At least for all Tobi had endured, he had never truly been alone. He had always had the Congregation, and then Kaden, and now Ankira and Diana. He had been taken, but he had also been saved. Tristen had had no recourse but to save himself, and it had cost him the only link he’d had to those who understood him.

“They never came for you,” Nyx said softly, “because who would they send? No Shaman could make the journey unnoticed, and if you were found, what then? The Congregation may link you all, but they do not control you. What if the Shaman they sent talked? How long do you think you would live, if someone outside your ranks knew a Shaman had killed with his power and survived? That he could do it again, without repercussions?

“You’re alive because they didn’t try to find you. Because no one knew that you still existed. And they told me because they understand that I need you, and that because of that need there is no force that could coerce me into telling anyone else about you. And because I have the resources and the connections to keep you safe.

“I can’t force you to help me, and I wouldn’t even if I could, because that’s not who I am. But I desperately need that help. So I am begging you to please just listen to why before you tell me no.”

He stared at her. For someone who had told her it was rude, he seemed to be doing it to her an awful lot. “You think you know who I am. But you don’t. You have no idea who you’re asking for help.”

He cracked for a moment and she saw through him, to all of his insecurities. To someone who had spent most of his life on a planet where no one could ever truly know him.

“You’ve tried to kill me three times since we met,” she pointed out. “And I know what it takes to get exiled from the Congregation. I know exactly who I’m asking for help.” Uncertainty flickered across his face and she stepped closer, her voice soft. “But if you think I don’t, tell me. I’m a good listener.” Because she thought that was what he wanted. What he needed. To finally tell someone everything he’d done, and have them not run away or think he was crazy.

He opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head. Her hopes crashed. She’d read him wrong, had taken the wrong approach, and now he was going to walk away.

But then he said, “Not here.”

“Where?”

“My place.” Wariness crept back into his face. “Leave your phone, your weapons, and your friends here. If they follow us, I won’t help you.”

“The weapons stay with me. If I wanted to kill you, I would have tried it by now. The dagger has sentimental value, and the sword is an asshole who refuses to be left behind despite not actually enjoying my company.”

He held up his hands. “Honestly, I don’t even want to know. Fine, keep the weapons.” He held out his hand. “Phone.”

“I need to call my friends, if you don’t want them to follow us.”