My skin chilled. We hadn’t been certain Titus was dangerous, only that he seemed to have ulterior motives for instructing Vale to lie to us. But now, with how disgusted Cypherion looked, it was clear we’d been wrong.
“Titus doesn’t have any magic,” Cypherion reported, mutters echoing around the room. “His fate tie barely exists, and he’s never successfully conducted a reading. Even Vale didn’t know.”
Cyph looked at me, but I only blinked in response. Titus didn’twhat?“That’s why he claimed what Vale read in Damenal as his own,” I murmured. Vale had read of destruction and darkness across Gallantia—saw me entwined with it—and the chancellor had announced it as his own session. We only found out the truth during the Battle of Damenal, but…Spirits, how did Titus even hold his title?
Cypherion confirmed, “Titus has been using Vale’s readings ever since he found out she was in the Lumin Temple when she was a girl and herescuedher.”
He sneered that word, and the complications beneath the surface of Vale’s past bubbled up, my own rage with them.
“He wasn’t rescuing her at all,” Cypherion said, leaning on his fists. His head dropped. “And now she’s back there. In that manor she was so terrified of. The cage locked again.”
“How did he get her?” Malakai asked. He and Tolek stood on either side of Cyph.
“He ambushed us, took us both back to his manor, and then presented a trade.”
“What kind of trade?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Apparently the chancellor has an inkling of where Valyrie’s emblem might be.” He waved a hand at the scrolls. “These contain readings back to the Angel herself. He offered them in exchange for Vale staying with him. He claims he’ll help her heal her readings despite the fact that he abandoned her for months,” he growled those last words. “I’m sure that’s a lie, as well.”
“Why did Vale stay?” I asked, voice soft.
When I met Cypherion’s eyes, self-loathing stared back. “Because she wants to help us. Because she cares.”
Because Vale had been isolated for so long, and we’d begun to show her a bit of welcome. A bit of friendship. Maybe not after first learning of her deceit, but as time had passed and the waters began to clear, we understood that hadn’t been her fault.
“She stayed for us,” I muttered, my heart cracking wide for the Starsearcher.
“Then we’ll get her back,” Tolek swore, and around the room agreement echoed.
“Damn right we will.” Cypherion’s voice was laced with a brutal promise. One that said he’d walk through Bant’s Blackfyre and burn with the stars to return to her.
“There’s another reason she stayed,” he added. “The bastard bound them together. That tattoo on her brand? The ink is imbued so she’ll feel an inexplicable loyalty to him.” Haunted memories dulled his eyes.
“Are you saying even if we get to her, she won’t come?” Santorina asked.
“She’ll want to if she thinks we no longer need Titus to work with us for the emblems. But she’ll always feel this draw to him.”
My skin prickled as I sensed where he was heading. “Unless…”
“Unless he dies and the magic in the tattoo breaks.”
Silence hung over the room, thick and treasonous. Malakai asked bluntly, “Are you going to kill Titus?”
“I will if it comes to it.” There wasn’t a hint of mercy in his voice.
“And we’ll be there.” It was Mila who said it, twirling one of her gold cuffs around her wrist with vengeance shining in her eyes.
“Whatever it takes,” I promised Cypherion. “Let’s be smart about it, though. We don’t risk anything—Vale’s life or our own. We don’t know what Titus will resort to.”
“Can I ask,” Tolek began, and all gazes swiveled to him, “why Vale? She was only a child in that temple.”
Cypherion stiffened. “Starsearcher magic is dependent on their Fate ties—their connections to the eleven fates who convey readings to them. They’re all born with one, they discover it sometime before they come of age.” He swallowed. “Vale’s Fate ties arepowerful. More so than any Starsearcher I’ve ever met.” He didn’t elaborate, and I exchanged a glance with Tolek and Malakai that said we all understood it was Vale’s secret to disclose.
Behind us, Lancaster and Mora whispered to each other. I spun around, raising my brows at them. The female said, “Powerful Fate alignments are not something even we would question.”
“And?” I asked.
Lancaster seared me with a gaze. “If the girl has that much promise, we will help rescue her however we can.”
