Page 58 of Guardian of Exile

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The kitchen was a study in tense silence, predominantly because Tristen refused to say anything to anyone outside of the bounds of “What is your name, and what do you want to drink?”

Kaden answered the joint question with a single word: “Nothing.” Evra and Morgen answered succinctly, while Nyx tried to decide if it was a hopeful sign that Tristen was grumpily making them coffee, or if he had just decided it was the polite thing to do before he kicked them all to the curb.

Nyx waited impatiently until everyone had coffee. Tristen plunked an Americano down in front of Kaden despite his earlier refusal, because he clearly read that Kaden’s glower screamed black coffee. She wasn’t sure if Tristen was trying butter him up or rile him. It was a losing attempt either way.

“Could we go back to this whole ‘messy end ties’ thing?” Nyx asked. “What did you mean?”

“Just what I said.” Tristen twisted the stopper out of a bottle of whiskey and poured a generous amount into his coffee.

“A Shaman who drinks?” Evra asked, confusion evident in her voice.

He laughed. “Honey, I’d be shocked if you can find a Shaman past the age of fourteen who doesn’t drink. Heavily. It’s not like it’s going to kill us.”

Evra frowned. “Why are you referring to me as the product of one of this planet’s insects?”

Tristen stared at her. Then he looked at Nyx.

“Translator spells,” she said. “They don’t always get things exactly right.” It was Nyx’s turn to frown as something else occurred to her. “Does yours not have the same problem?” She would think, considering his would be an older version that hadn’t been updated, that it would be even worse with that issue.

Tristen only looked confused at the question, and she realized she hadn’t seen a translator tattoo on him, and while she hadn’t exactly been looking for one, she had seen all of him a few hours ago.

“I thought those were just in the cities? I remember my mo—I remember someone mentioning it, when I was a kid.”

“They’re individual too.” Nyx showed him the tattoo on the inside of her right wrist that was her own personal translator spell. “How did you talk to people when you got here?”

Tristen laughed. “I didn’t. One of the guys who brought me here translated initially. When he took off, I had to figure out what people wanted however I could. Learned the language eventually.” He took a swallow of coffee, wrinkled his nose and poured more whiskey into it.

“Is this really the time to be getting drunk?” Kaden asked.

Tristen shrugged. “If now isn’t the time, I really don’t know when is. Besides, I can sober up in five seconds if I want to.” He waved his hand. “It’s almost like magic.”

“End ties?” Nyx prompted again, before the conversation could go too much further off the rails.

Tristen grimaced. “The mess of your Station should never have been made in the first place. It isn’t what Shamans do. We fix biological systems that are broken. We don’t make new ones out of old parts.

“But given what I felt through those?” He indicated the chaos thorns. “That’s exactly what they did. Took your—God, I can’t believe I’m saying this—planetary soul and grafted it to this planet and the Station’s Avatar. Then stretched another part of that soul to connect it to the rest of the Stations they did this too. It’s also connected to a few other beings by the thinnest threads, but wherever those go, I couldn’t follow them. And they’re different—it isn’t a graft the way the others are, it’s…I can’t explain it, but it feels like an outside control.”

“How many?” Nyx asked.

“How many what?”

“How many others is it connected to?”

“Originally? Thirteen. But two of those threads have already been cut, from the other end. Whoever they went to, those people are dead now.”

Nyx and the others shared a look.

“What?” Tristen asked. The significance of the number didn’t seem to have hit for him, but then he’d been so young when he’d been taken to Earth he might not remember how many people comprised the All Council. Those small threads must be how the Council had some control over the Stations they entered, but they must not have been able to gain more without risking their own lives being irrevocably tied to each of the Stations.

“I think I know who those threads belong to,” Nyx said. “We can get into that later.”

“Later, meaning if I agree to help you. I’m getting a lot of that.”

Nyx shrugged. “If I do end up telling you, you’ll understand why I didn’t earlier. So the way the Stations were made—you’re telling me that was the experimental frontier of Shamanic work?”

Tristen snorted. “That’s one way to put it. It’s like handing someone who’s never sewn before a needle, some thread, and some unevenly cut pieces of fabric and telling them to make a shirt out of it. They can probably come up with something functional but it’s going to look like shit and there are going to be pieces sticking out everywhere.” He pointed at her face. “Those are some of the pieces that were sticking out.”