Page 52 of The Breaker of Stars

“He left me,” she repeated, but there was more clarity in her gaze now.

“I’m so sorry he did that.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s not a reflection of you, your magic, or your worth.” Pulling back, I swiped away the tears streaking down her cheeks. “You are worth so much more than someone who leaves you, Stargirl. You outshine every damn star in the sky, outweigh every Fate.”

“I don’t know what comes next for me without him.”

“Do you still want to go back?” My heart stuttered.

But she shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”

Relief loosened my chest. “None of us truly know where we’re going.”

“But I’m his?—”

“You don’t belong to anyone, Vale,” I said, quickly shutting her down. “You are your own warrior, your own Starsearcher. Powerful enough that the chancellor wanted your magic at his disposal. You can defy any ruler, any fate written.” And I would help her do it. “I would do horrible things before I let him take you back,” I promised, ducking to kiss her and seal that vow between us.

Vale deserved freedom. She deserved to understand the tangles of her own power and embrace it.

And even if it meant I plunged a blade through the Starsearcher Chancellor’s chest, I would see that she won it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Vale

My bones were wrung out when I woke the next morning, but Cypherion’s arms kept me tight against him, holding me together.

I laid there in the dawn, lulled by the even rise and fall of his chest under my head. My eyes were swollen despite Cypherion making me wash my face with cold water once I stopped crying last night. A hollow had formed within my chest when I’d finally cracked, fissures stretching from its delicate edges through the rest of my body. Down to the marrow of my bones and the wisps of my spirit—something had broken.

But I studied the sun streaking through the window and illuminating specks of dust in the air, and I realized that I didn’t feel as aimless as those wandering particles.

I expected the ache to weigh me down. To make moving on seem a mountainous task in the face of realizing how many lies I’d been fed. The questions still swarmed within me.

What was in that office?

Why did Titus keep secrets?

Why did he keep me?

But instead of sinking into the dark cavern, my magic tingled beneath my skin. It called to me, bolstered me.

There was a hollow in me. One yawning to swallow everything I knew, unrepentant and leaving nothing behind. But the deepest voids between the stars held a refracted beauty. A lack of light that allowed one to exist with the secrets one didn’t want to face.

The ones I never would have chosen to conquer if I’d remained within my cage.

Those bars had been blown wide open, my future with them. And though I had so many questions, I wanted to explore what lurked where the stars broke.

Cypherion stirred, his arms tightening around me. “Good morning, Stargirl,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

“Good morning.” I rolled onto my stomach to face him. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip but kept one hand across my back, drawing slow circles along my spine, but he didn’t open his eyes. “Still not a morning person?”

Cypherion was always the first to arrive at training when we were in Damenal, but no one else saw how he had to drag himself out of bed and dunk his face in cold water to wake himself up for the day.

He groaned. “I like the morning well enough. I don’t like the waking up part much. Especially not when it means you’re getting out of my bed.”

I laughed softly, and finally, he cracked one eye open. Confusion unfurled in his stare, waking him fully as last night came back to him.

“How are you?” he asked, propping himself on an elbow and evaluating me.

“I’m okay,” I said. When he gave me a skeptical look, I added, “I truly am. I don’t have the answers, yet, but I feel as if I’ve accepted the truth.”

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