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Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tolek

“Sapphire seems unsettled,” Cypherion said, glancing over his shoulder at the blue-maned mare.

She had been riled as we left her in the stable in this small Bodymelder town I didn’t even know the name of, but the rest of our horses were with her. With how late it already was, we were only leaving them for a few hours.

“She gets that way when separated from Ophelia sometimes.” I gripped the strap of my pack tighter. “But the inn is next door. She’ll be okay.”

The sun had set a while ago, taking the last of the day’s warmth with it. Night wrapped around the narrow cobblestone streets and ivy-draped buildings. Dirt paths forked out behind the stables, leading into the cyphers, and somewhere nearby, a calm stream babbled lazily.

As Cypherion and I entered the inn’s dining room and I got us two seats beside the fire, warmth wrapped around me. The girls had all gone upstairs to bathe given that it was our first night in a true inn after a few long days of travel. Firebird’s Field was still nearly a week off, but last Lyria’s spies reported, Kakias was in Mindshaper territory, so at least one threat to Ptholenix’s emblem was out of our way.

And one to Ophelia.

Cypherion ordered drinks from the barkeep, and as he waited, a woman with long dark hair approached him. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I watched with a satisfied smirk, leaning back in my chair.

And when Cyph said, “Sorry, I’m unavailable,” my eyes widened.

He dropped down in the seat opposite me, sighing heavily as he passed me a glass of liquor, and I raised my brows at him. “Are you going to tell me what that was?”

“What what was?”

“I’m not available.” I impersonated his gruff tone.

Not that now was an opportune time for any of us to be entertaining random warriors, but I’d never heard him clearly state he was not available no matter how many women he’d been with.

Cypherion dragged his palm across the splintered wood. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

“And is the it in question a secretive woman with an affinity for the stars and fates?”

I tipped my glass to my lips, watching for his reaction. You didn’t know someone for over a decade, become their other half the way Cypherion and I had, without being able to predict their responses. He would shake his head, mumble something about me that was meant to be insulting but he’d say it so softly it only made me laugh, and cross his arms, looking around the room.

And he did exactly that, but then?—

Cypherion sighed, and it weighed down the air like an unburdening. Dropping his hands to his lap, he fiddled with the cuff of his leathers. There was more he wanted to say; it balanced on the tip of his tongue, trying to break from his strictly ordered mind.

Planting both of my boots on the floor, I leaned my elbows on the table. “What happened in Damenal, CK?”

A shrug. “A lot of things I regret.”

Fuck. Cypherion did not open himself up easily. While I’d known something was unfolding between Vale and him before her arrangement with Titus was exposed, it was clear whatever they’d shared went deeper than any of us had assumed. To regret was one of the worst sorrows, because it was irreversible. You could reach a place where the remorse did not sting so severely, where it was soothed with a balm of understanding, but you could never rewrite history.

And Cypherion was careful. He rarely put himself in a position where regret was a possibility. My fingers curled around my glass. The instinct to march upstairs to Vale and demand she make this right or let Cypherion go and return to Titus, roared inside of me.

But I swallowed it down. Because whatever had happened was clearly hurting Cypherion, which meant he cared. And maybe there was a chance it didn’t have to be this way.

“And you’re certain it’s too far gone to repair?”

“Yes,” he said, but he cracked his neck and avoided my gaze.

The door swung open with a squeak and closed softly as two patrons took a table nearby. I lowered my voice and kept my attention on my friend.

“I’m not going to pretend to know precisely what you’re going through. That would be presumptuous of me. But I’ve seen how you regard her. How you cared for her after the platforms and during the Angellight fiasco the other night.” My hand clenched atop my knee, but I fought off the scars that memory tore at. “I will always be on your side, but it’s clear you care for her despite what has unveiled itself.”

“I would have been concerned for any of you.” He brushed me off, lifting his mug.

“You agree she’s one of us, then?”