Page 86 of Guardian of Exile

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Nyx was absolutely sick of sitting in the Lost Road Tavern, and despite the fact that quite a few people in this town spent all day every day in this establishment drinking their lives away, she and Tristen drew more looks than she was comfortable with because no one knew them even tangentially. It had been two days since the events in the alley, and Tristen’s magic, while it was building more slowly than the last time, was starting to make him uncomfortable again. She knew because he kept feeling the need to tell her what ailment everyone around them had.

“Emphysema,” he muttered when a tall woman walked past their table.

“If you can tell what’s wrong with people without needing to touch them, why did you bother asking if I had anything you could heal back at the Station when you had the jitters?”

“One, I did not ‘have the jitters’, and two, I don’t feel it if it’s minor.”

“But you still need physical contact to heal?”

He nodded.

“Why is that?” If his magic could sense a significant issue without touch, why couldn’t it heal without it?

“No idea” His leg bounced up and down under the table, like a ten-year-old being forced to sit in class when they wanted to be outside running around. “Well, probably because if we didn’t need touch, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from healing every problem in the room right now in a mass event. Then I’d probably get confused about who was who and had what and get everybody’s problems mixed up. The end result of that wouldn’t be pretty. Plus it’d be too many identities going through my head at one time.”

The tavern door opened. Nyx reflexively looked at Belas, who reflexively looked at the door. This time, though, Tristen’s mother clearly found what she’d been waiting for. The man who stood in the doorway had a broad chest and large build. He lowered the hood of his cloak, revealing short-cropped, wiry salt-and-pepper curls. His brown hands were rough and scarred, and for all that he was an imposing man, a sword belted at his waist and scars that indicated he was no stranger to violence, he oddly did not strike Nyx as a violent man.

He saw Belas and walked toward her. She met him halfway across the room, near enough that Nyx heard him say, “Could we talk outside?”

Nyx had never seen what blinding hope looked like before that moment. It lit up Belas’s entire face, and if she’d been holding anything in that moment, she would have dropped it. “Did you find⁠—”

“No.” The word was harsh, and the woman crumpled. “No,” he repeated, softer this time. “Let’s talk out back.”

Belas nodded, wiping her hands nervously on her skirt and catching the bartender’s eye. The other woman let out a sigh that could be seen by the exaggerated movement of her chest, and called, “Fifteen minutes.”

Belas and the newcomer walked toward a back hallway. Tristen moved to follow them, but Nyx grabbed his arm. “Wait until the bartender’s not looking.”

No one else in the establishment was paying them much mind today, but the bartender kept eyeing them like she expected trouble. Tristen gave a grudging nod, and when the woman’s back was turned, Nyx threw a Hiding over them both. The magic drain to force the Hiding in place meant someone was looking, but it turned to virtually nothing when a man at the bar fell off his stool. The sound drew nearly every eye in the establishment, and it didn’t matter that he said, “They’re gone!” and pointed at Nyx and Tristen’s table from his spot on the floor, because they were gone from that table before anyone looked at it again.

They moved quickly, catching up to Belas and the stranger just as they slipped out the back door. Nyx darted forward and caught it from closing, letting Tristen slip out before she did. She shut the door softly, but the stranger’s gaze still snapped to it, as if he’d subconsciously realized that the sound of it closing had come later than it should have. She funneled more magic into the Hiding and drew Tristen away from the man’s gaze.

Tristen was a volcano of barely contained energy next to her. She could tell the stranger’s appearance wasn’t doing Tristen’s suspicions any favors. He moved toward Belas, and while Nyx didn’t know exactly what he intended to do, she grabbed his arm, holding him back. After what he’d told her the other night, she didn’t think he intended to hurt Belas, but she did think that after five days of waiting, he was finally about to blow a gasket and confront her.

If he confronted her, those five days of waiting would be utterly wasted. If she was confronted out of the blue with “Hi, I’m your son, did you sell me?”, they wouldn’t be able to believe a word she said in reply. Because anyone who was cold enough to sell their own child was cold enough to lie about having done so if that adult child found them.

And based on how crumpled and broken Belas had looked after the man had quashed a hope she hadn’t even fully stated, Nyx was fairly certain that if they were patient, the truth would come out.

“Just wait,” she whispered, when he tried to move forward again. He relented, but Nyx kept her hold on him, just in case.

Belas was rummaging in her pockets with the slowness of someone delaying the inevitable. The man simply waited, an almost pained expression on his face. Eventually, Belas came up with a handful of coins she held out. “I know this isn’t enough for another month, but I can get you more later. I have a few things left I can sell, and⁠—”

“Bel, no.” He shook his head, pushing the fistful of coins away from him. “I can’t take your money anymore. I didn’t feel right taking it from the beginning, but I did because I though I could find something for you. I hoped I could.”

“You can. If anyone can, it’s you. You’re the first one who’s cared.” The sheen of unshed tears coated her eyes.

The man looked like he’d rather do anything in that moment than tell her no, bracing himself before he said, “There’s nothing to find. The boy’s gone.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, you just need to look harder. There has to be something, some trail, or⁠—”

“It’s been fifteen years,” he said gently. “Only the Council has a chance of finding him now. I thought my connections with the Enforcers would help—it’s the only reason I agreed to take this. But I’ve exhausted every resource I have, and it’s been made clear to me at every turn that no one has any interest in looking into this further.”

Nyx frowned. She would have thought the Council would put every resource they had in to finding a stolen Shaman. The ability was so rare that a Shaman should be worth almost any amount of resources spent to locate them. It was the primary reason Nyx hadn’t questioned it much when Tristen had told her his mother sold him—she’d been convinced that if Tristen had been stolen, that if his mother had reported him taken, the Council would have located him ages ago.

Next to Nyx, Tristen went rigid.

“Please, Connell.”