Page 74 of Starchaser
I’m not sure how long we remain this way, but finally, Titus stirs.
“Can you swim?” he asks.
“Can you breathe?”
He chuckles, releasing me slowly from his grasp, but he doesn’t allow me to drift out of arm’s reach. I kick, swimming toward the mouth of the cave, a knot forming in my stomach.
I haul myself onto the bank, my ribs sore, and a moment later, Titus flops onto the stone floor beside me, staring at the ceiling.
“I can’t control it,” I say quietly. “It… it controlsme.”
“You’ll learn,” he says, standing to offer me his hand. “You’ve been suppressing your magic your entire life, and now you have to figure out how to live with it. It’s going to take time.”
“I don’t have time,” I mutter, taking his hand. “What happens if I lose control in front of the wrong person? What if I hurt someone?”
“You won’t,” Titus says, his thumb brushing my knuckles as his other hand comes up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I believe in you, Aster.”
A shiver passes through me, and he mistakes it for a chill.
“You’re freezing,” he says, guiding me toward the staircase. “A hot bath should fix you.”
We emerge from the staircase, and Titus kneels, whispering the words to seal the passageway once more. Before the last stone has risen back into place, Titus has excused himself to my bath, and I listen to the sound of the water filling the tub with a gnawing sense of dread.
I step into the chamber to find him sitting on the edge of the massive, opalescent tub, his hand under the faucet as if to check the temperature. Surrounded by the glittering finery of the bath chamber—the sparkling gold faucets, the white marble floors—he appears so… out of place.
“Titus,” I murmur, lingering in the doorway.
“Yes, love?”
I bite my bottom lip, afraid to say the words that taste like poison on my tongue. “Did you know?” I ask, my voice trembling. “When you volunteered your war room for the Order’s meeting… did you know who my mother was?”
He frowns, but he meets my gaze, his brow furrowed. “Did I know she was Dawnrender, you mean?”
I forget how to breathe. Forget how to speak.
“Yes,” he says softly, getting to his feet. He takes a step toward me, his movements careful, as if he were approaching a wild animal. “I knew.”
I want to back away, but I can’t move.
“How?” is all I manage to say.
He looks up at the ceiling, as if uttering a silent prayer to the Stars, before meeting my gaze once more, his expression somewhat pained. “I have known your mother since long before you were ever taken captive by theDeathwail, Aster.”
Everything—the sound of the waterflowing from the faucet, the rapid beat of Titus’s heart, my own thoughts—fades beneath the shrill, deafening ring of silence in my ears.
“What—what are you saying?”
He attempts to take me by the hand, but I step back, out of his reach.
“Aster, please,” he begs. “Let me explain.”
“Explain?” My voice is hoarse. “You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me all this time!” A small, broken sound escapes me. “Why?” I advance on him now, ready to grab him by the shoulders and force him to look at me—demand that he tell me everything. Every secret. Every lie. But even as I ask the question, a part of me already knows the answer—I keep my own fair share of secrets from the people I love.
Titus sinks to the floor, resting his back against the wall, as if he no longer has the strength to stand under the weight of his words.
“I was a child when I met Grace,” he tells me. “She had infiltrated Castle Grim on behalf of the Order. She discovered something.…” He grimaces, a crease between his brows. “Something about my father. She wanted to take me with her then. Against all Order directives, she was going to help me escape this awful place. But once I realized what your parents were doing—how they were fighting back—I wanted to help. I knew I would be of better use to the cause from inside the castle walls. So I stole away in the middle of the night—took a jolly boat and made my way back here.”
He falls silent for a long moment, staring at his hands—at the tattoos there—with a look so haunted I know, instantly, that he now relives whatever dark memories followed his return.
