Page 6 of Guardian of Exile

There weren’t a lot of good reasons for a Shaman to have come to Dead Earth, and she could think of quite a few unpleasant reasons for him to have been brought here. Especially since the Congregation had said he’d been a kid at the time. Tobi shouldn’t have to be exposed to those reasons simply so Nyx could know them. He’d already been through so much in his short life, and he’d finally found a little safety and stability with Ankira and Diana. She didn’t want to do anything to interrupt that.

And frankly, when she looked at Tobi and remembered that the person she was going to New York to look for—the person upon whom all her hopes currently rested—had been nearly that young when he’d come to Earth, it made her heart hurt. Because she had no idea if there had been anyone to provide Tristen with the safety Tobi had found. Because she had no idea what state the exiled Shaman was currently in. Because the only reason she even knew he existed and was going to look for him was because she needed something from him.

It left her with a bad taste in her mouth, which meant she hadn’t formulated much of a plan for how to approach him. “I’m going to play it by ear.”

“Play it by ear?” Evra echoed.

Nyx shrugged. “Everyone’s different. I could write out a nice speech to give him, if you want, but I don’t know if anything I come up with will work, because I don’t know anything about him.” And trying to formulate something in advance without knowing that? Without knowing who he was or what he’d been through? It felt too much like manipulation. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if I could convince him short-term with some generic argument, because we need him for the long haul. If he doesn’t want to help us, there is nothing we can do about it. So yeah, I’m going to play it by ear.”

“Okay,” Morgen said. “When do you want to leave?”

She supposed there wasn’t any real point in putting it off. “Three days?” It would give them all enough time to make their own individual preparations, and for Nyx to sort out the travel logistics.

“Three days it is.” Morgen sighed. “I should write my mother.”

Nyx arched her eyebrow. “My understanding is that the last time you wrote your mother before embarking on a dangerous journey, you worried her so much she sent Maruca after you.”

“Yes, well. I will express less gratitude for her many wonderful qualities this time, and perhaps she won’t worry so much.”

Kaden snorted.

“Right,” Morgen said, resigned. “She’ll worry no matter what.”

At least she cares, Nyx thought. If the expression on Evra’s face was any indication, the Amazon was having similar thoughts. Neither of their mothers were winning any parent-of-the-year awards.

“I will write Tamrin,” Evra said. She and her sister weren’t quite on speaking terms—Nyx would classify it more as being on bickering terms—but at least they were talking regularly in some capacity. “She will be delighted to learn she inherits all my weaponry in the event of my death.”

The pair of them slid off their chairs, going off to write letters and start packing. Nyx needed to talk to her own sister. She checked in with Serenity twice a week, and brought her to Earth to play with Tobi when she could, so she would need to explain that she would be gone for a while. Serenity would either pitch a fit—she was a good kid at heart, but Elena’s parenting hadn’t done her any favors—or she would quietly accept it and not say anything. Nyx was actually hoping for the former reaction, because the latter would mean the news hurt more.

She went to the espresso machine, running through a mental list of all the other tasks she needed to complete, while Griff sat quietly. She could tell he had something he wanted to say, but she didn’t push him.

He spoke as she was blowing across the top of a freshly made Americano. “I am sorry for informing them of the meaning behind your changed eye color. They were concerned, and I wished to allay that concern. I should have spoken with you first.”

Nyx sighed. “It’s okay. I would have asked about it too, if I were them.”

There was an awkward lull after that, until Griff said, “I will leave you to it, then,” and exited the room. She and Kaden realized they were the last two people in the room at the same time, and the air was suddenly thick with more awkwardness.

“Don’t you also have a letter to write to Amelia Drahl, or something?” Nyx asked. The woman was, for all intents and purposes, Kaden’s mother, too.

He gave her a look that conveyed the answer more clearly than any words could.

“Let me guess,” she said, “if Morgen expressing affection makes her worry, you writing a letter at all would give her a heart attack?”

The corner of his mouth twitched, almost as if he was trying very hard not to smile. “Something like that.”

“Have you been home since…” She trailed off, because she realized she didn’t know whether to say “since Arkadia” or “since Kiev”. It was still odd to think of Kaden having a home. In all the time she’d spent with him in Dead Earth, she’d never known where he’d come from, had only known he’d had a sister because he’d mentioned it once. “Home” was a word that didn’t seem to fit with him. She couldn’t picture him as a child, staying in one place long enough to grow up with a brother and a sister, under the guidance of a parent. There was something about Kaden Moor that gave you the impression he must have come into the world fully formed, exactly as he was now.

The hint of amusement that had come into his face died at her half-spoken question. “No,” he said flatly.

“Why not?” By all accounts, Amelia Drahl sounded like a wonderful person. She must have worried about him, and now she knew he was alive and not in Council custody, but he’d never gone to see her?

He set his coffee cup on the counter, but when he tried to move past her without answering, she stepped in front of him. “Why not?” she asked again.

But he just looked down at her, something coldly mocking in his eyes, until she remembered dragging him out of his room months ago to go to Tobi’s birthday party, remembered him telling her to stop trying to fix him. She just couldn’t help herself, could she? It was an automatic response, in her nature, a desire to understand everything that didn’t make sense to her.

But Kaden was never going to make sense to her, and she really needed to be more aware of who she was trying to pry answers from before she kept trying it. She shouldn’t have asked about his mother. She shouldn’t have talked to him about personal matters at all. But there was something she needed to talk to him about, so she changed the subject.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do after we find Tristen?” At his blank expression, she added, “I appreciate you being willing to find him, but you probably don’t want to see him.” Or rather, didn’t want Tristen to see him. “Your wanted poster is still hanging in the Arrival Room.” She took it down every morning, but a new one always came back in its place. Morgen’s and Maruca’s, oddly, had remained gone when she’d pulled them down on her return. She kept meaning to ask Morgen about it and forgetting.

Kaden shrugged. “He won’t know who I am in Dead Earth. But he will be dangerous. I should be there.”

Nyx’s irritation rose again. “I thought we just went over this. I can handle him. You backed me up.”

“You can. But you might not be there at all times. I need to back Morgen up.”

Her ire fizzled. Kaden really seemed to be trying to repair that familial relationship, and she knew it meant a lot to Morgen. So she understood why Kaden felt he needed to be there, but: “What about when you get back here and Tristen does understand who you are?”

Kaden shrugged. “Turning me in would be a poor choice on his part. It’s rare for a Shaman to kill—it isn’t in their nature—so when they do? The Council takes it seriously. The last recorded instance was twelve years ago. In the little time that Shaman had left after she lost the Congregation, the Council made an example out of her.

“If they knew a Shaman survived a break with the Congregation longterm? They would pursue them with extreme prejudice. If Tristen attempted to buy his freedom with mine, it would not end well for him.”

Probably not, but people didn’t always make rational decisions. “Do you have a contingency plan if he does?”

“Yes.”

Nyx waited, but he did not elaborate. She took a deep breath and did not press for more. She had done her due diligence and made sure he didn’t feel the need to fall on the proverbial sword for the sake of this mission, and that would have to be enough. She took her coffee and went upstairs to talk to a different cranky bastard who didn’t like her.