Page 85 of Guardian of Exile

Kaden shrugged. “Not my problem.”

Fair response, given how the two of them weren’t getting along at the moment. She sighed. “Don’t mention anything happened. I’ll tell them when we get back.”

“Any idea when that will be?”

She glanced at Tristen, who had pulled the prosthetic he’d worn in Dead Earth out of his bag and was fitting it on. He’d no doubt heard Kaden’s question, but he chose to ignore it.

“No,” Nyx said. “Thanks for coming.” She realized that in the chaos of everything happening, she hadn’t even asked what Kaden had done. “Did you find who was up there?”

He nodded. “Two people. They won’t be a problem.”

Translation: they were dead. Just like the two people she had killed, and the one Tristen had.

“You okay?” Kaden asked.

She started to say she was fine, but she wasn’t. “Five people are dead for no reason. That woman? Tristen healed her, and she turned around and tried to kill me, presumably so she could take him. And now she’s dead, and so are the people she called.”

“That isn’t no reason,” Kaden said softly. “They’re dead because of what they tried to do.”

She knew that, but: “I just don’t understand why.” It was such a pointless waste of life that had never needed to happen. “What makes a person wake up one day and decide they want to make their living hurting other people? What makes so many people not care how much damage they cause as long as it benefits them?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did.”

There wasn’t much more to say, so she blew out a breath and opened a portal back to Amelia’s. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you here.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t doing anything important.” He stepped back into Amelia’s and walked away. She let the portal close, because there was no point in keeping it open, even though she really wanted to walk through it and collapse in the guest bedroom at Amelia’s.

She made a couple attempts to talk to Tristen, but he shut each one down. She turned the lights off and tried to sleep, but between her own cycling thoughts and the way Tristen kept tossing and turning, she didn’t succeed.

“You awake?” she asked softly.

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” she asked, echoing the question Kaden had asked her earlier.

She didn’t think he was going to answer, but after several breaths of silence he said, “Not really.”

“Want company?” After a second of realizing how that probably sounded, she clarified, “Platonic company?”

“Yeah.”

She swung out of her bed and crossed the room to his. He was lying on his side, facing away from her. She got under the covers and lay on her side facing the opposite direction, pressing her back against his. Slowly, both of their breathing evened out.

“You wanna talk about it?” she asked.

She felt him shrug against her. Then: “It’s not like I haven’t almost died before.”

“As someone who’s been there a time or two myself, I don’t think it’s an experience that improves with repeated exposure,” she said drily.

He let out a short huff of laughter. “Yeah, guess not.”

She was finally getting drowsy when he spoke again. “What you asked Kaden earlier? I don’t know why people are that way. But I’ve seen enough of them to know you can’t change them. Maybe some are born that way. Maybe some turn to it out of desperation. I don’t know. But I know that once they start, they don’t go back. Because to go back, they’d have to face that all the terrible things they’ve done really are that terrible. And I don’t know how a person could admit that and still live with themself.

“I’ve killed people because they would have killed me or hurt me or used me. I used to be conflicted about it. I’m not anymore. I didn’t think I was conflicted about what I came here to do. But then I saw her, and I remembered, and I can’t—I don’t want to believe she’s as terrible as all of the other people who have been in my life. I don’t want to believe she’s just like the person I killed tonight.

“I know that being here is dangerous. I know it’s frustrating to you. I know that what happened tonight is my fault, and I am sorry. But I need to know who my mother is waiting for. I need to understand. Please.”

The irritation Nyx had been holding onto for days finally dissipated. She couldn’t blame him for any of that. “Then we’ll wait.”