Page 71 of The Breaker of Stars

From beneath the table, he removed a set of scrolls. Even from here, it was clear the parchment was worn, the ends tattered. And their presence alone weighed the room down with an atmospheric pull, like the center of a whirling vortex or a black hole in a star-flecked sky.

“What are those?” I asked, narrowing my eyes on the scrolls.

“These are from Valyrie’s personal collection,” Titus explained of the Starsearcher Angel. “You accused me of not aiding Miss Alabath in her hunt for these emblems. Well, that is false.”

He waved one scroll at me, stamped closed by a silver seal. He had been searching after all—but he’d been saving the information as leverage.

“What do they say?”

“These here are precious Starsearcher records. Legends of readings Valyrie and her closest warriors conducted. I believe that in here, your Revered will find what she needs, if she knows how to look. You may even find some other very interesting bits of Angel tales that relate to those you care about.” Titus leaned across the table, placing the three scrolls in an untidy pyramid. “You may take these when you leave.” His eyes sliced to Vale. “Or you may take her.”

Damien could have fallen from the sky before us, and I wouldn’t have moved in that moment.

My world shattered, the crash echoing through my head. Or perhaps it was my spirit breaking, rage flooding the cracks at Titus trying to manipulate us all like this.

“Keep your fucking scrolls, then,” I hissed. “We’ll find another way.”

Vale’s voice was delicate, tenuous as she whispered, “Cypherion?—”

She sucked air between her teeth, grasping her shoulder again.

Her hair slid across her back, thin lines of silver catching the light between her splayed fingers.

My eyes flashed from that ink to the man responsible.

And the nameless thing always bothering me about the tattoo finally made sense.

“You’ve fucking tied her to you haven’t you?” My voice was ice cold, even to my own ears, a contrast to the fury burning through me.

“What?” Harlen roared.

“The ink you used on her tattoo over the brand,” I accused. “It’s imbued. It’s why she was so drawn to your fucking office in the archives. It’s why she’s been struggling so hard to grasp this tainted hold you have over her. Because there’s magic in that tattoo that makes her come back to you.”

It was why she’d been so adamant that Titus was good, why it had been so hard for her to name his actions for what they were even after she knew. She likely would have struggled with it either way, having been manipulated by him for so long, but she kept coming back to his defense. Kept being magically dragged to that office in the archives.

The betrayal was rotten either way, but this violation of her free will made it even worse.

“No…” Vale said, but it was the kind of denial where it was clear she understood the truth. “How could you?”

“We’ll discuss that later, darling,” Titus said. Then, he looked at me. “Now that you see that she can’t get away regardless of what she does, I suggest you take these.” Carelessly, as if they weren’t crumbling and containing legendary secrets, Titus pushed the scrolls toward me. “Come on, Mr. Kastroff. Don’t you want her to heal her magic? I am the only one with the resources to do that.”

It was evident he didn’t care about the scrolls, the Angelcurse. Likely didn’t even care about Vale’s magic beyond using it. All Titus was concerned with was himself. He’d clawed his way into this position after unlikely odds, and now he would do anything to retain it.

But I would do anything for Vale.

Not for her magic, but for her happiness. For the freedom she craved and the safety she deserved.

I didn’t care what revenge Titus got for this, what treason he accused the Mystiques of. Vale would not stay in this manor another day. I wouldn’t force her back into a cage she’d worked her way out of, take away the liberty she’d begun to crave. We’d find a solution to her malfunctioning power some other way.

I’d watched her come back to life these last few weeks, and I would put a dinner knife in Titus’s chest before I allowed him to clip her wings. I eyed the table, wondering if maybe I could pull it off before he called his guards.

But Vale’s voice sliced through my thoughts. “Cypherion.” Before I even met her eyes where she was still seated, I knew what she was going to say. And just the preparation for it was like my heart being crushed. “You have to go.”

The actual words hurt even worse.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Vale

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