The Myths of Ophelia (The Curse of Ophelia #4)

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

Cypherion

She’s back , I repeated to myself as I carried Vale up the stairs to our room.

But though she was curled into my chest, she was different. Smaller somehow, like the loss bleeding into the air was ripping her apart at the seams. She shuddered, her hand braced on my chest, and the movement was so wrecked. Shattered.

“What do you need, Stargirl?” I whispered once I was sitting on the bed with her tucked in my lap.

“He’s dead,” she muttered, voice hollow.

I swallowed past the thickness in my throat. “I know, Vale.” I sighed. “I know.”

“Everything hurts.”

I clenched my eyes, breathing in deeply to cool the molten ire lodged behind my ribs. Spirits, I wished I could kill Titus ten times over. Wished I’d killed him that night Vale had offered to stay in his manor instead of leaving with me.

I’d been so close to it, staring at the knife on the dinner table like a lifeline. But I’d given into what she wanted instead. Guilt speared through my chest, making my next words thick. “Where does it hurt worst?”

But there wouldn’t be an answer because that aching emptiness was beneath the skin. It was the price of an imbued warrior tattoo being severed—a sacrifice that would change her forever.

With one hand still on my chest, Vale pressed the other to her own, right over her sternum. “Here.” Her voice was flat. “It’s a void. Something’s been taken.”

My heart was being ripped out of my chest with every faint word. Titus could die a thousand deaths and they’d never be enough.

“Listen to me,” I said, tilting her chin up. Even in the low mystlight, her expression was distant, skin pallid. “He cannot take your spirit, and he cannot take your heart. Those things belong to you, and you are damn rich in both. You never belonged to him .” I paused, letting those words settle into the torn pieces of her soul, and I prayed to the Angels they could fill the vacancies. “You are in charge of your own fate—curses, you are the commander of them! And you belong to no one.”

A possessive part of me knew she belonged to me, but not in the way Titus had tried to command her. Regardless, as her lips trembled more with each sentence, that protective voice in my head screamed mine . Screamed for retaliation and the ashes of the chancellor lit in her honor.

Vale repeated, “I belong to no one…because I killed him.”

My spirit crumbled at the loss in her voice. “I know, but that is not why you belong to no one.” I soothed a hand down her back. “You belong to no one because you’re free, Stargirl. I told you once that you’re not some unimportant piece of the universe, no matter how small he tried to force you to be. If you had truly existed as nothing more than an extension of Titus, his death would have done a lot more than take a piece of your spirit. I know what’s missing is irreparable, but you’re still here because you’re so much more than that.”

My fate, my universe, my damn heart. Whatever you wanted to call it, that was what Vale was.

She was silent for a long moment, muffled echoes of the others downstairs and in Malakai’s room drifting through the inn.

And for all of those quiet, processing minutes that she needed, I held on to her. I stroked her hair and soaked in the sound of her heart beating so strongly despite what she went through.

And eventually, she whispered, “I’m happy I did it.” Vale curled her fingers around my linen tunic in an iron grip, and that—that sign of life, of strength—unwound the knot in my chest.

I swiped away the tears slipping down her cheeks. “Happy doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel, Stargirl.” Relieved, elated, desperate—those were a start. “I’m sorry it hurt you, but I’m proud of you, Vale.”

“Proud?” she asked, blinking up at me.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Yes, I’m really proud of you. You survived him, Stargirl. You fought your way out, and you delivered revenge for everything he’d done to you.”

Vale considered that and muttered, “Titus was never proud of me.”

His name on her lips was a wrench through my lungs, and a fire ignited in my blood. But he was dead already, and while a part of me wished I’d been the one to do it, a larger part was satisfied it had been her.

The girl he’d kept as a prized trophy. The girl he’d used and manipulated. The girl he’d tried so hard to break, but who was an Angelsdamned expert at forging shattered pieces into works of art.

“Titus was a fool,” I said.

Was . The force of that word hit Vale like a knife to the gut, her breath stuttering. Her eyes drooped closed. When they opened again, her vacant stare landed on her dress—on the crimson stains darkening the powder blue fabric, and her breath hitched.

I stood and placed her on her feet, not saying a word as I tugged her dress off her. A part of me wanted to burn it—to turn every reminder of tonight to ash for her—but Vale watched me closely, and something in that focus told me she wasn’t ready. Instead, I folded it, stains hidden, and saved that challenge for another day.

Striding back to where she stood beside the bed, I asked, “What can I do?”

Spirits, I felt so helpless. It was disorienting, not knowing how to solve this for her. But I feared there wasn’t a strategy to healing. None but time.

Vale tangled a hand in the front of my tunic again, eyes on the thin white fabric. “Can I wear this?”

I inclined my head toward the dresser. “Do you want a clean?—”

Her trembling lip cut off my question. Swiftly, I pulled off my tunic and helped her into it, lifting her hair out the back so her wild waves fell around her shoulders. The wrinkled material swam over her frame, but she tugged the sleeves around her hands and held the collar close to her face, inhaling.

“Smells like you. Like home,” she mumbled, and the fucking relief in those words could have sent me to my knees.

“You’re home now, Stargirl. Wherever we are together—that’s home. Us against the Fates.”

Scooping her up, I took her back to the bed and leaned against the pillow. “When you want to talk about it,” I said, “I’m here.”

She traced absent patterns around the hem of my shirt, the white linen resting softly against her thighs. It was a steady movement, even if not eager. A better state than she’d been in when Dax passed her off to me, but still hollowed out.

“Not tonight. Tomorrow—I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow,” she answered, and her words lacked inflection. It reminded me of the tone that spoke through her weeks ago in the archives. When something had overcome her, her eyes swirling silver, and a different voice claimed to be there when Endasi was created.

She rested her head on my chest, and as the moment passed, her breathing leveled out, her fingers tapping a musical beat against her skin, like she was using it to soothe herself.

“Okay,” I said, but if she wasn’t ready tomorrow, that would be fine. She’d somehow retrieved Valyrie’s emblem, and that was more than enough. We’d give her all the time she needed to recover.

Needed .

I’d asked her what she needed when we first got up here, but fuck need. Vale had been provided her basic needs for years—just enough that it warped her understanding of living—but she had been deprived of choice all that time. Perhaps taking small steps toward decisions would help restore her grasp on her freedom.

“In this moment, Stargirl,” I asked softly, dragging my fingers up her spine, “what is it you want ?”

“Want?” She considered, twisting her sleeve around her hand. Her eyes lifted to mine, searching.

I elaborated, “What will make you feel better?”

Vale studied me, and slowly, silent tears streaked down her cheeks. Her breaths grew shallow and aching. “I want…” Another breath, and words cascaded out in that disjointed, haunted voice. “I want it all erased. I want you to take me back to when we were in the hot springs. Before Valyn, before the archives. I want you to make me remember the freedom.” Her cheeks were tinged pink, like only the mention of that dream was breathing a bit more life into her. Like the piece of her soul cleaved off with the tattoo bond was dampened compared to this—to us. “When we were there, I thought for one night, I could take my own fate into my hands—I could seize it, own it. I want that back.”

“You can have it, Vale. Tonight, you had something taken from you, but it’s not you. That part of you that was tied to him—the past he compromised and ripped away—it may be gone, and it may hurt like all Spirits, but it isn’t all of you.” I brushed away a tear. “Now you can seize every dream the Fates spin up.”

She hiccupped. “I feel broken.”

“No, Stargirl.” I kissed her cheek and whispered, “You’re not broken. But sometimes we have to rip out the toxic roots of ourselves to make room for the healthy ones to grow.”

The ones that were tended with love and kindness, the ones I’d show her, because if there was one thing I was certain of, it was I could love Vale the right way. I’d messed up before—pushed her away and punished her. I’d never be such a fool again.

“Kiss me?” she asked, and though she still sounded like she was teetering on the edge, my heart thundered at the request.

“Cursed Spirits, you don’t have to ask.”

I swept her down onto the bed so she was on her back, hair fanned out around her, and when my lips met hers, relief unwound in me. Based on the way her body went pliant, she felt the same.

This wasn’t a kiss like in the hot springs—it wasn’t frantic and clawing. This was grounding.

I slipped one hand into Vale’s hair, holding steadily to her and glided my tongue along her lips. When she opened for me and the kiss deepened, that sensation of starlight ignited in my chest. Of everything right and free and promising. Of the possibilities the future held for us to repair what Titus had shattered.

“Cypherion,” she whispered against my lips, tugging me closer.

“Yeah, Stargirl?” Fuck, it felt good to kiss her again. To have her heart beat against mine and feel her skin warm beneath my hands.

Vale’s fingers crept along my stomach, to my waistband. “Remind me,” she begged, her voice cracking. “Remind me of that night.”

She gripped my cock over my pants, and though I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea given all she’d been through, I was powerless against her touch. It was only seconds until I was sinking into her slowly, watching every gasp fall from her lips. Kissing the tears slipping from the corners of her eyes.

I dropped my forehead against hers, nearly breathless. “Tell me to stop.”

“Please, don’t,” she said, desperate in a way I’d never heard from her. Like if I stopped, she’d crack. Vale’s hand tangled in my hair, pulling my mouth to hers. “I need you to replace every memory of tonight.”

I did. Slowly and tenderly, I reminded Vale of the moments we’d spent together before I’d left her in Valyn and the promises of our future.

“I love you, Vale,” I said into her skin, kissing down her chest. “And you belong to no one but yourself.” I paused, pulling my hips back and adding with a small smile, “And me.”

“I’m honored to belong to you, Cypherion,” she gasped as I sank forward again.

“You looked so beautiful in those hot springs, Stargirl. With the steam beading on your skin and curling your hair. The starlight in your eyes. You looked like you were made to be there.” I moved faster, still being gentle with her, but giving her what she’d asked for. “I’d wanted you so desperately, then. Breaking that control was the best decision I ever made.”

She let out a small moan, biting her lip to keep quiet.

“I’m going to take you back there,” I swore, feeling us both ready to combust. “We’re going to relive those memories and make so many others.”

Vale pulled me down to kiss her, and we both rode out our climax like that, entwined in each other without giving a damn to even the Fates.

After, Vale curled into my side, still in the shirt I’d worn all day.

“Thank you for coming back for me,” she whispered.

“Always, Stargirl.”

And as she waded through the darkness, finding her way without that piece of soul, I’d continue to rescue her as long as she needed me to.