Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cypherion

Two guards knocked on Vale's door to escort us to the dining room. They didn't seem the slightest bit surprised at finding both of us in her bedchamber.

We were dressed, sitting in front of the balcony doors she refused to open as I asked her to recall her favorite moments from this spot. Storm clouds rolled over the city, dark and heavy and foreboding, and Vale told me of a festival day where she sat on the balcony with one of Titus's staff, and the girls shared some of the recreational rolled herbs she'd brought to Renaiss all those months ago.

It had been tranquil for a few moments.

Now, as we walked closer to those towering, gray wooden doors of the dining room, the manor took the image of a prison. The angles of every corner seemed sharp enough to kill, the planes of each window an unbreakable barrier.

The guards left us at the door, and Vale lifted a hand to the shining silver handle.

"Wait," I whispered, grabbing her wrist. Her skin was cold. "How do you want to play this?"

"What?" Her eyes searched mine, lined in such a dark blue it was nearly black. As she tilted her head, the shimmering powder atop her cheekbones caught the light. She shone like a gift from the Fates, my Stargirl.

The contrast of her dress against my leathers was not lost on me. She was the Starsearcher darling, beloved and cherished, and I was the brutal guard who had been keeping her from Titus.

That was his story, at least.

"How are we behaving in there?" I asked. "I don't want to make Titus angrier." Not if she would catch the consequences of his fury. "Do you want to play into his game?"

She blinked those wide olive eyes up at me for a moment. Then, she slipped her fingers between mine, locking our hands together.

"He no longer writes my fate, Cypherion."

And without another word, she shoved open the door to the dining room.

But there was a certainty in her voice that didn't match the hollowness of her stare, one that sent a chill of unease down my spine as we faced her captor together.

The walk to the long rectangular table was endless. Vale's heels echoed louder than seemed possible on the marble floors, sound carrying between the limestone pillars lining either side of the room and bouncing off the windows at the opposite end, up to the arched ceiling.

And standing before those windows, watching the wind whipping against the glass with his hands behind his back, was Titus.

He didn't turn immediately, and each moment he waited, wrath boiled in my gut. My grip grew tighter on Vale's, but she remained steady.

As we reached the end of the table, I squeezed her hand, and we both stopped. This may be Titus's manor, his land and jurisdiction, but there wasn't a chance we were getting closer without at least some acknowledgment.

His story of me being nothing but a guard aside, I was the damn Second to the Revered Mystique Warrior. I'd earned a modicum of respect at least, and I'd enforce that title if it meant helping Vale. Spirits, I'd wear the damn thing proudly.

I allowed it to straighten my spine now, assuming the authority of a leader.

We would not stay in this manor a moment longer than was necessary.

Finally, after the silence of our halted footsteps broke through his facade, the chancellor turned. His navy silk robes were a thick brocade, lined with silver that matched Vale's dress, and nearly had a growl rumbling through my throat. They were no political pair to be paraded around.

Titus ran a hand over his neatly-trimmed beard, raising his thick black brows in fascination, and a sickening smile spread across his face.

"Welcome home, darling!" he cooed.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snapping. My free hand automatically reached for a dagger, but they'd been taken, my sword and scythe still back in the attic room of the candle shop.

Vale flinched at his greeting. Only minutely, as if she was stifling the reflex or some force stopped her.

"Thank you, Chancellor," she said, her high, clear voice ringing like a bell. So demure yet strong.

"And Mr. Kastroff." Titus nodded at me. "It's a pleasure to see you again. Though I wish the circumstances of this reunion would have been better coordinated."

"Or it could not have occurred at all," I said blandly. "We each have our preference, it appears."

"Yes." Titus grinned. "It does appear so."

A weighted silence hung between us all.

"Well," the chancellor said, "why don't we sit? No point standing about when dinner has been prepared and we have so much to catch up on."

I led Vale around one side of the table, pulling her chair out for her, but halfway into her seat, she froze.

"Why are there four place settings?"

My head snapped up. Spirits be damned, I was so distracted by Titus I hadn't even noticed.

"I thought it would be wrong to keep this dinner just to us." He sneered as he spoke—just barely—but I caught the accidental twist of his lips and the threat threaded through his words. "We must include your ally."

As if on cue, a side entrance to the dining room opened, and Harlen strode into the room. His gait was strong, confident, but mystlight shone across his face, and a freshly-blooming bruise mottled his cheekbone.

"Harls!" Vale gasped, standing up with palms braced on the table.

I placed a hand to her back, glaring at Titus. "What did you do to him?"

"He needed a reminder of the contract he signed." He shrugged, and worry squirmed through my gut. Had Harlen told Titus anything about Vale?

"Are you okay?" Vale asked, gaze still locked on her friend.

"I'm fine," he assured her. His eyes begged her to sit, to obey what was being commanded.

It made me sick to consider, but this was the chancellor's game. Even if Vale said she would not succumb to his plans for her, we had to tread carefully.

With a gentle squeeze of her hip, I tried to communicate that I agreed with Harlen. Reluctantly, Vale sat. I claimed the seat beside hers, Harlen across from us. Titus took his time settling into the head of the table and fanning his napkin across his lap.

The chancellor snapped his fingers, and staff members filled the plates before us. But I barely even looked at the food or the wine they poured. I kept my glare on Titus and imagined every creative way I could end his life right now.

"This is lovely," he said with a content sigh as the servers cleared the room.

A clap of thunder echoed over Valyn. The storm's prickling tension bled through the glass windows and stone walls, settling over the table and testing my sense of control.

"What is it you want, Titus?"

His brows rose at my lack of decorum. No title, no false niceties.

"I don't recall you being the one with a brash temper, Mr. Kastroff. That was Mr. Vincienzo, was it not?"

I thought back to the Rapture when Tolek had sternly spoken to the former Mindshaper Chancellor, Aird, for how the man addressed Ophelia.

"I suppose I just needed the right motivation," I said with a shrug.

Titus smirked, smug. "You know, when word first reached me that you were in my territory, I assumed it was in search of that emblem your Revered hunts."

"A task you have yet to assist with," I reminded him. The chancellors—all but Aird, who had died during the Battle of Damenal—had each agreed to assist with finding the shards of their Angel's power.

"Have I not?" Titus crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair.

"Not in the least." I bristled. He hadn't written a damn word to Ophelia regarding the Starsearcher token. Only that he had people working on it , as requested, but after so many months of silence on various alliance efforts, we suspected it was a lie.

"Regardless"—he waved off my accusation as if the emblems were inconsequential—"after what Harlen witnessed in Lumin and what occurred last night, it seems there is something else at play here." Titus turned his attention on Vale. "What is happening with your readings, darling?"

I followed his gaze to the Starsearcher beside me. Under the table her hand sought mine.

Vale bit her lip as if fighting some words from bursting. Her fingers fidgeted.

And then, an explanation bubbled right out of her like the clouds cracking open outside.

"My magic is malfunctioning. It's been happening since Daminius, and the episodes have only gotten worse. I haven't had a clear reading in months, and when I try, I faint."

Titus's jaw ticked. For the first time tonight, he wasn't the one holding control. "You should have come home sooner."

"Home?" Vale scoffed. Her grip grew solid in mine. "You left me , Titus! I wrote to you every week—sometimes every day—after Daminius, when I was no better than a prisoner of the Mystiques, begging for you to get me out of there. And how many letters did you write back?"

Titus was silent, searching for an explanation he either didn't have or was reluctant to give.

"That's what I thought," Vale spat. "I knew the letters returned weren't from you. Did you think I wouldn't recognize the handwriting as someone else's? After being your apprentice for years ?"

"Darling—"

"I do not want your excuses," she said, voice lethal. "I won my way out of that cage with honor. I became a true ally to the Mystiques, and in turn, they are helping me decipher what's wrong with my magic."

Pride burned through me at how she spoke. That was my Stargirl, as fierce and strong as the constellations that lined the heavens for eternity and burning just as bright.

"How could you abandon her like that?" I added. Titus glared at me. "If Vale is as important to you as you say?—"

"I would never truly leave her," he interrupted my accusations. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but my attention piqued at the knowing tone of his words.

"Vale," he said, addressing his apprentice again, a new desperation seeping through her name. "You should have come back sooner. I have resources to help you."

"I put it in the letters," Vale admitted. "I asked for help." Her voice broke over that last word, a crack in her armor.

"And speaking of her readings," I added, "why were you two not affected by the incense in the archives as she was?" Both Harlen and Titus seemed unbothered while Vale was overtaken by…something else.

Titus answered, "Typically, a Starsearcher can postpone a reading at a given time. What happened to Vale is likely a result of her Fate ties being so powerful. And so stifled."

Did that also mean that strange voice that had overtaken her was because she'd been succumbing to so much power? That thing that claimed it was there when Endasi was created?

Titus addressed Vale. "I'm guessing once you succumbed, they were a flood. I didn't know what was plaguing you," Titus admitted. He was somewhere between wrenching sadness and the edge of force. He was ready to push her into accepting his excuses, and that grated on my restraint.

"Why wouldn't the stars have guided you to help her?" I accused.

"The—"

"Fucking Angels," Harlen gasped. All heads whipped toward him. I'd nearly forgotten he was here, but now the Starsearcher was gaping at his chancellor. "Your sessions don't work, do they? You can't read a damn thing."

Silence crashed over the room, so deep you could hear a coin drop on the marble floor.

"You never…" Vale began, voice trailing off. Her lips moved, but nothing came out.

"What wild accusations are you brewing now, Harlen?" Titus spewed. His glare locked on the Starsearcher.

Harlen didn't fidget, his eyes didn't waver. He pushed up from his chair and planted his hands on the table, tilting his head so his fresh bruise caught the light like a beacon. "Something with your magic doesn't work."

My mind spun, hand tightening on Vale's under the table.

Titus's brows flicked up. "And why do you think that?"

"Because you've never shown evidence of any kind of session you conduct," Vale blurted, staring at her captor with a deeper betrayal in her eyes. "Ever since I moved here, you used my sessions. My readings were the ones you reported to council members."

She spun to face me. "At the Rapture last year. That reading about Ophelia was mine. The one that promised darkness and destruction across Gallantia."

She'd confessed as much after the Battle of Damenal. I braced for the wave of deceit that reminder would drudge up, but it never came.

Instead, I met Vale's eyes and confirmed what she'd shared with us all those months ago. "It's true," I said. "At the archives, you said you operate on what the Fates say . Not what your readings show you."

The choice of his words had stood out at the time, and I'd been about to ask him what he meant before he had Harlen drug me covertly.

"All these years," Vale said, "have you ever had something to share of your own or has it all been mine?"

"And since I signed that contract, he's used mine," Harlen added. The disgust was thick in his voice.

"By the Angels," I mumbled.

"Do you have a Fate tie, Titus?" Vale asked, voice softening a touch for a reason I couldn't make out. Absently, her hand that wasn't holding mine massaged her shoulder. My eyes narrowed on that spot.

"Of course, I have a Fate tie, darling," Titus said.

"But do they show you anything?" Harlen asked, leaning forward. His eyes were wild with a manic energy.

"Tell us the truth, Titus," Vale pleaded. "Or neither of us will read for you."

"You both will read for me, or your magic will rebel against you."

"Torture us for the damn readings, then," Harlen spat. "Do your worst, Titus, and we will withhold."

Vale nodded, and by the fucking Spirits, I thought they meant it.

Titus ground his jaw, backed into a corner by the two warriors he'd come to rely on. The two his own greed and fear had pushed him to manipulate. "My Fate does not show me as much as others show their tied."

Which, if his sour tone indicated anything, meant nothing at all. The chancellor had such a weak alignment that the stars barely showed him any readings.

With that confession, a chill seeped into the air. Rain lashed at the windows, and silence filtered around us.

"How did you come to hold your position, then?" I asked.

"I worked for it, Mr. Kastroff. Not everyone receives things because they're blessed by the Fates or Angels. That is an antiquated way to distribute power, don't you think?"

I didn't respond, because in a way I agreed. I didn't hold any special magic or Angel blessings, yet I held a title. And against this man—this sham of a leader—I did so proudly.

"I climbed up the ladder of authority," Titus continued. "First in my school years, then serving in our army, and finally, in the political world. I have conquered all of it— earned all of it."

"Then why lie?" I asked. Beside me, Vale stewed silently.

"Because our people rely so heavily on their precious stars. I have lived my entire life with little power and have plenty to show for it. But it comforted them to remain with the familiar, so I recruited those who could aid me."

Recruited those who could aid him…

"Did you instruct the temples to collect children who showed promise?" My voice was as sharp as a blade, one I longed for right now as the chancellor shrugged and smiled smugly.

Vale and Harlen both froze.

"You what ?" she asked, voice small. "You're the reason they took me from my family. The reason they beat us into training our magic properly."

"I needed to track those who would be of assistance to me, darling," Titus said, eyes only for her again. "I didn't know they would do those things, but I needed to find you so that we could take care of our people."

If he was truly as appalled by the disgusting behavior as he should be, he would have enforced punishments on the temple masters.

Vale shook her head, not saying anything, like she recognized the lie, too. A broken look slid into her eyes.

I pushed up from the table, and Harlen did the same. "Vale and I will be going. Harlen, you may come if you'd like." He was already rounding the table to join us. I bent to whisper in Vale's ear, placing a hand on her back. "Let's get out of here, Stargirl. He's hurt you enough."

She only shook her head more, a war behind those shell-shocked eyes. It tore at my heart, squeezed it to pieces where she held it in the palm of her hand.

I couldn't read her. Beyond devastating hurt, I had no idea what was going through her mind. Like that hollow look she'd had in place before we entered the dining room had siphoned away all of her emotions.

"Actually, you won't be leaving." At Titus's voice, my head snapped back up.

"You don't own them, Titus," I spat.

"You are technically correct, but I do have these."

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.