Page 59 of The Breaker of Stars

“You want to see what breaks him?” the Fate asked, voice whistling through me.

“Yes, please,” I answered, straightening my spine, attempting to show the Fate the respect they deserved though panic stole through me.

“Look here,” the Fate said, behind me rather than within my head this time.

I spun, and saw?—

“What?” I gasped.

A silver-framed mirror had appeared. And my image stared back.

“You will be the ruin, Vale,” the Fate said. Then, just as the other had, this second celestial voice faded into mist.

And before I could process anything it had just said, my other seven ties crashed into me. Stars showered from invisible heavens, readings burning through their tails of white fire and sucking all the air from the realm.

Six figures burst to light in one, casting beams of power cyclically between them, then sprinkling them among mountain peaks.

In the tail of another star, separate and yet somehow connected, seven figures rose to absorb those drops of borrowed magic. An iron chain strung between them.

In the third trail of starfire, hordes of people stood with their faces tilted skyward. Starsearchers, maybe? Halos framed their heads—eleven stars, with a gap where a twelfth belonged.

Winged creatures soared through another, swooping so low I nearly ducked, though they couldn’t touch me.

The fifth reading showed the face of a girl I missed with every sliver of my Spirit. A boy I didn’t know followed quickly after, the two intertwined.

Cliffs towered in the sixth, waterfalls carving through their ledges and cascading to the ground, an indiscernible profile within the waves.

And in the last?—

Blood.

So much blood coated the world. The cypher trees rose through it, their leaves dyed crimson. The earth shuddered at its touch. Skulls and ancient bones were painted, sand dunes soaked and heavy with the weight of lives. Every star winked out in the sky; every feathered wing dissolved to dirt.

The pressure of so many readings bore down on me. I clasped my hands to my ears to drown out the voices of the Fates, but it didn’t matter. They were within me, tangling into a single, relentless ring.

Those voices pressed closer, the brightness of their readings blinding me.

Until all I knew was a ceaseless white light and a high-pitched chiming that echoed in my ears.

Until I thought this reading would kill me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cypherion

“What are you doing here?” I forced between gritted teeth. “We left you back in Lumin.”

“And by some miracle, I own a horse, Kastroff,” Harlen responded, rolling his eyes.

“So, you followed us?” I tried to ignore the fact that Vale had fallen silent again.

“Oh no, I was always meant to return here.”

“Return here?” He lived in Lumin. He told Vale he rented an apartment in the city and had built a life for himself.

Harlen slid his hands into his pockets, scuffing a heel against the marble floor. “My work brings me to the capital infrequently, it’s true. But I’d been requested to keep an eye out for her in Lumin,” he said, glancing over my shoulder, “and to race here if I had any important information, such as that stunt in the fighting rings.”

Harlen’s brows furrowed as he tried to see through the fog and dissect what was happening to Vale. But I shifted to the side to block her from view. Though, truthfully, the haze was so thick in here that he probably couldn’t even see her.

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