Page 7 of The Breaker of Stars

“Those are the ones worth entering if you want something valuable,” Carthern answered. The other man—who I guessed was his brother based on their similar hazel eyes, sloping noses, and firm brows—didn’t comment. He only assessed me, lips pursed.

Something valuable. Not only was it all I was interested in, it was all I would risk calling attention to ourselves for.

But Lumin was far. And Vale?—

“When I was four, I was taken from my family by the City Council. I was raised at the Lumin Temple until Titus found me—a prisoner, in a sense.” A cracked voice and my hand on her chin pulling her attention back to me as horrors spilled from her lips. Horrors that were only half the nightmare. The half she had words for. “I was ripped from my home as a child”—a huge breath—“and indebted to the temple.”

I blinked away the memory and cleared my throat. “Where exactly?”

“Cliffs overlooking the lake,” Allisman finally offered. “Just west of the temple.”

He proceeded to give me clear instructions on how to enter and who to speak to. All the while I pushed away thoughts of the Starsearcher upstairs.

We were all facing things we’d rather bury. We needed answers to her current reading ailment more than we could afford to hide. We could enter the city and be quick with our business.

“Thank you for the information,” I said, spinning away from the table, retrieving the tray from the bar, and slipping the ink into my pocket.

Allisman and Carthern’s hushed voices followed me as I stomped back up the stairs.

“What did you get?” Vale asked eagerly when I returned, hastily pulling lids off plates and setting the table, as if we were a picture of domesticity. “Smells delicious.” She beamed.

The expression on my face had to be confused, but it didn’t give her pause. Instead, she dropped into the chair and raised her brows pointedly at the other.

This is fine, I told myself as she rambled on about the shops in Castani. This was civil.

“They’re known for their goods mined from the mountains. We often imported them into Valyn by way of travelers. It’s one of my favorite markets.” She barely flinched when she mentioned the capital, but I caught it. A subtle twist of her lips before she pulled together whatever act she was conducting. “I love the jewelry forged here.”

As she spoke of the different metals and the pieces she once owned, ease slipped over her frame.

I said, genuinely sad, “It’s a shame we won’t see it.”

Vale froze.

I froze.

That was the first sentence I’d offered freely on this entire journey. The first that wasn’t an answer to her questions or an instruction, but a conversation. It had simply slipped out. I ran my hand through my hair and dropped my chin.

After a lengthy silence, Vale said. “You wrote to her.”

My head snapped up, and those wide eyes that were my utter weakness were trained on the ink I hadn’t realized stained my hands. Her stare pierced right through me until I had no control over my thoughts and wanted to pour every word on the table between us.

Tearing my gaze from her and pushing the meat across my plate, I said, “As always.”

“And she hasn’t?—”

“No.” My fingers tightened around my fork.

I never missed a day. Never received an answer from her hand, but sent them anyway, so she knew I hadn’t abandoned her as he had.

Spirits, it twisted something inside my chest that Vale knew this about me. It burned in anguish, a knot of longing and regret that choked my throat and marred the civil ease we’d adopted tonight. What was worse, though, was the comfort Vale’s voice worked against that knot, trying to undo it.

Ever since I’d first divulged this piece of myself, she’d done that.

“Every day since we left,” I said, folding the paper and letting the ink take it away. My stare lingered where it disappeared. “Tolek stole ink from his father’s reserves that night we packed up, and I’ve sent one letter to my mother every day.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Vale said, and surprise had me turning toward her. The low mystlight outlined her profile, highlighting the softness of her smile and the compassion in her eyes.

She’d sought me out in my suite tonight, and I wasn’t sure why. I thought perhaps she was lonely—who wouldn’t be after being forced to move to a strange city, in a different territory, spur of the moment, only two weeks prior?