Page 74 of Guardian of Exile

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By the time the four hours had passed to Amelia’s scheduled dinner time, Nyx was on edge because she hadn’t heard from Tristen or Maruca. She walked into the dining room with Evra, her unease amplifying when she saw that everyone was there except them. Her gaze swept over Kaden and Morgen, who stood with Amelia at a sidebar with drinks, quietly talking.

“I’m sure they’ll be here any moment, dear,” Amelia said, picking up on her worry.

Nyx was not so reassured. She dutifully took her own fruity, thankfully non-alcoholic, beverage and tried to sip it and make polite conversation while wondering what the hell Maruca had done with her Shaman. Her tension eased fifteen minutes later when Maruca dragged Tristen in, until she realized Maruca was literally dragging him, because he wasn’t coherent. All of his earlier manic energy was gone, replaced by an empty expression.

Maruca zeroed in on Nyx. “How long has it been since you let him heal anyone? He did too much.”

Somehow, it didn’t surprise Nyx that everything was her fault again. “I don’t ‘let him’ do anything, and a day,” she answered straightforwardly. Tristen had held a last-minute healing session the day before leaving Dead Earth, because Valerie had already made promises to someone with permanent internal damage as the result of an assault.

Maruca blinked. “One day?”

“One. How many people did you ‘let him’ heal? He looks catatonic.” Maruca’s hand curved around Tristen’s wrist seemed to be the only thing keeping him from wandering off in a random direction.

Her face took on a pained expression. “He wouldn’t stop. He cleared the burn ward in an hour, then started tearing through the elder ward.”

Nyx tried not to panic. Maybe they were small wards. Only a few people, not a mass of them about to be released home to spread the news of their miracle cure.

“The second one was more difficult,” Maruca continued. “The last person he worked on has been like this”—she indicated his blank expression—“for two years. Now they’re talking and demanding to go home, and Tristen’s not. I’ve been sitting in the garden with him for the last hour, hoping he’ll wake up.”

Irritation and worry flared in Nyx’s chest. Maybe someone should have listened to her when she’d said this was a bad idea. “Did you try to snap him out of it?”

“No,” Maruca said icily. “I did absolutely nothing, blithely certain that everything would be fine.”

“What did you try?”

“Talking to him. Yelling at him. Shaking him. Slapping him. None of it made any difference. Perhaps another Shaman⁠—”

“No,” Nyx, Evra, and Morgen all said together.

“Why not?” Maruca demanded.

“It’s not your concern,” Nyx said. Tristen had said the Congregation kept them from getting mixed up with the people they healed. That he’d had a hard time remembering who he was when he’d first started healing on his own.

“It is my concern when this happened on my watch,” Maruca objected.

Nyx ignored her. She needed something Tristen would react to that would cut through whatever secondary identity he was currently lost in. What was he most reactive to? The answer came to her with sudden clarity. “Let him go, I need a minute with him.”

Maruca’s hand tightened on his wrist. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing bad.” She was just going to threaten to. In a manner she would rather Maruca and Amelia didn’t know existed.

“It’s fine, Ruca,” Morgen said.

Maruca hesitated.

Nyx’s temper broke. “For fuck’s sake. If I wanted to hurt him, I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of dragging him to this planet to do it. I am not this awful person you seem convinced I am.”

Maruca looked like she was about to snap back at her, but then she took a deep breath. Blew it out slowly like she was mentally reciting calming instructions in her head. “Okay,” she said at the end of the breath. Coming from Maruca, it was practically an apology.

“Then can I have him?”

Reluctantly, Maruca let Tristen go. Nyx had thought the woman’s arguing with her had been because she didn’t like Nyx, but the expression on her face said she actually did feel responsible for Tristen’s current condition.

“He’ll be fine,” Nyx promised. She took his hand and led him out of the dining room. He followed her wordlessly. Since the house wasn’t overly large, Nyx took him back to the room she and Evra were staying in, mostly because it was at least far enough away that if he panicked, Maruca shouldn’t hear it and feel the need to come running.

Alone, Nyx could admit she wasn’t sure if this was going to work. “Tristen?” she asked softly.