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“I’m trying…” I took a breath. “I’m trying to fight. I haven’t quite deciphered the battles. There are so many of them.”

Cypherion considered that. Then, he said, “Name each one. Make them seem less shadowed.”

I swallowed, my stomach turning at the thought of digging through my fears. But if I was going to do this, I wanted it to be with him.

“Valyn,” I began. “The city—I don’t know what we’ll find there. Just stepping foot within the walls is a mountain to climb.”

“Next.” His voice wasn’t harsh, but it was firm, directing me forward so I didn’t get too caught up in one fear. Cataloging them all to make sense of it the way he always did.

He was giving me a chance, and I wouldn’t be too cowardly to take it.

“Titus,” I admitted. “I don’t…I don’t know how I feel toward him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about anything.”

“You are not supposed to feel a certain way ever, Stargirl.” Angels, I loved that name. It pulled me closer to him every time he said it. “There’s no right or wrong when it comes to your natural response to someone. We have to work through those feelings, maybe redirect them, but how you feel is never wrong.”

That was almost more confusing, trying to convince myself that however I felt was all right. It was a starting point, I supposed. And he said we. Did that mean he would be there while I figured it out?

No, I could not hope for that.

Still—

“You,” I said.

“Me?” Cypherion’s eyes widened. After a pause, he stood, wading through the waist-high water to stand before me. “What about me?”

“You’re one of the battles I’m fighting.” I tracked a drop of water as it slid from the curled ends of his hair and carved a path along his sculpted chest, but I swallowed and forced myself to continue. “You’ve been the battle I’ve continued to stake my heart against, trying to repair what I broke with my secrets and schemes. I want to fix it, but your intentions are murky, so it feels like another uncertain future I’m fighting.”

I paused, letting those words settle between us. When he said nothing, I tilted my head back to look him in the eye. As a cave of steam formed around us, I refused to let my nerve slip. “You’ve built walls back up between us, and I understand why, but I’ve been trying to show that you can trust me. To show that I’m sincerely sorry for my choices, but also explain that I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time. I still don’t.

“Spirits, it’s not an excuse.” I shook my head. “There isn’t one, but I told myself I had to let you go, and for some reason I can’t.”

“You told yourself what?” His voice was dark, eyes flicking between mine like he was putting pieces together.

“When we started on this journey, I told myself it was in your best interest if I let you go. If I only tried to heal what I’d broken to make amends, but not to return to…whatever it was we were before.”

“And what about your best interest, Vale?”

I blinked up at him. “What?”

“What is it that you want?”

“I want…” I exhaled, the thick steam between our bodies clouding my thoughts. “I want room to breathe. I want freedom and choices and a life beyond the damn capital. I want answers, and then I want a fresh start. I want that lightness in my heart like I am precisely where I’m supposed to be, when it feels like it’s expanding in my chest, not like I’m being pushed into a future because of the magic I have no control over.” I paused, debating the last confession, but the words danced off the tip of my tongue. “And I want…I want you, Cypherion.”

“Fuck, Vale.” He shook his head. I’d said too much. Pushed too far and made too big of a claim. “I’m so done wanting you.”

Can you feel when your heart breaks? Because I did with those words, a split, sharp and piercing and irreparable, right behind my sternum. It ached, but I collected myself around the pain.

I’d found my way out of a cage and was my own foundation. My own strength.

“Then don’t.” I forced myself to my feet. My breasts brushed his abs, and I almost backed down, but I had to see his expression change at the impact of what I’d say next. “Leave now if you don’t want me. Please, Cypherion. Don’t continue on to Valyn with me, because I can’t do this any longer. I can’t fight a battle between us while trying to hold myself together against what waits in that damn city.”

My voice shook. My eyes stung.

“Vale—”

“I don’t want to hear about your assignment from the Revered. I release you from it.” I placed a shaking hand to his chest, tried to force him back. “You may turn off the piece of you that feels like you have to be here because it’s your duty. Go back to your friends. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“You don’t understand, Stargirl.” His hand curled around mine, pressing it against his chest with a possessive, cementing grip. “I’m done. Wanting. You.”