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After a moment, she settled back down against me. “Maybe the Fates wanted me to find you.”

In the wake of her words, her voice from the springs floated back. You’re one of the battles I’m fighting.

Perhaps it was a useless battle on both ends, the stars always writing a story greater than us.

“Cypherion?” she mumbled.

“Yeah, Stargirl?”

“What happens when we get to the capital?” Her eyes drifted closed. “I think…I think I’m scared to be back there.”

Her voice was a touch broken, vulnerability piercing through. Like what we’d done tonight had loosened the last resolve she held on her secrets, and now she was bearing them all to me. The need to reassure her was a desperate heat in my chest.

“I don’t know what Valyn holds for us,” I began. “But it’s you and me. We’ll figure it out.”

“Thank you for being here.” She yawned. “It makes me less afraid.”

“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” I said, running a hand down her back and resting my cheek on her head. “I’ll be here in the morning.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cypherion

“It’s been six years, I think, since I was in Valyn,” I said as Erini’s steady stroll carried us through the narrow jungle path. Ahead, the towering trees were thinning, and I could almost make out the white-washed stone comprising the walls of the capital.

“Six years,” Vale mused. “It probably hasn’t changed too much, then.”

I ducked beneath a low hanging vine, eyes on her. “I remember it being sprawling. Eleven districts, right? And each has a contributing Capital Council member who reports to Titus?”

“It appears you do do your research.” She looked over her shoulder, brows up and a teasing smile on her lips. Good. I wanted to keep her smiling throughout this.

Hopefully, we’d get into the city, find the archives and whatever information they held for her sessions, and leave without trouble.

“Knowing what I’m facing,” I said, casually, “what the world is made of, makes everything seem more approachable.”

“That it does.” Vale’s voice shrank, uncertain, my hope of easing this journey for her withering with it. “Whereas the coastal cities and those bordering the lakes are built into the hillsides and cliffs, Valyn commands the land. The city is bordered by a high wall and magic thrives within.”

“Because Valyrie lived here?” Much like Damenal was Damien’s founding capital, Valyn was the home to the Starsearcher Angel.

Vale nodded. “Her legacy left the land powerful.”

“A likely place for a treasure to be stored,” I commented.

Of all the places in Starsearcher Territory, a city blessed with magic and important to their Prime Warrior was the most likely to hide her emblem.

But we had to focus on Vale’s disrupted power first.

I chose my next words carefully. “Do you think a part of you would feel more secure if we went to Titus’s manor?”

Vale’s eyes snapped to mine, a crease between her brows. “Why?”

“Maybe then you’d have more control over the situation.” I shrugged, holding her stare as Erini stepped through the last line of jungle foliage and Valyn unspooled ahead of us. “You can write the script to this encounter, Vale. If he does find out we’re here, would it not feel better if you dictated how and when?”

She considered, gazing toward the city gates. Had she spent time in this area? Did she have memories here?

Even with the walls broken down between us, there were still things I couldn’t pick apart. Pieces I was relearning as her secrets shed new light on all sides of her.

Though clearly things had changed between us last night, and I meant every word I’d said—I wasn’t going to hold back anymore—we wouldn’t heal because of one moment. That distance I’d nurtured between us sprouted roots that clawed through the soil of whatever we were. We had to dig them up.