Page 126 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
She pinned him with a dark look, but this time, he knew it was an act. “Also, if you turn, someone needs to be around to run you through.”
“Comforting,” Noble remarked—even though she was right. “Thank you,” he added.
Her shrug was forcedly casual. “Beats spending time with my fellow knights.”
Noble thought about all the things he feared: failure, the wickedness inside him, the possibility of never seeing Hattie again. In the darkest moments of his knighthood, Noble had wondered if the world would be better off without him—if he should take his Fate into his own hands. But he wanted more than an ending. He wanted a beginning, and everything in between.
“Your fear,” he said. “How do you face it day in and day out?”
“I do what I can do avoid lakes and rivers.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He thought she might leave their conversation there, but then her rich brown eyes found his and held. “I face it just as you said: day in and day out. Bit by bit.” She swung her gaze ahead of them again, then up to the infinite stars above. “There’s no other option, as far as I can tell. Besides death.”
“You don’t fear death, though,” Noble pointed out.
“No,” Mariana said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want tolive.”
Noble hummed in acknowledgement, finding that he agreed with her. Wholeheartedly.
“What?” Mariana prompted.
“Nothing,” Noble said. “I just hate how much we have in common.”
44
Knights
Hattie
Tears blurred my vision as the abomination crept closer, its red eyes fixated on me. I swallowed a horrified cry, shaking with true terror; my limbs were weak and wobbly, as if my joints weren’t my own. An animal part of my brain became certain that this wasit, this was the end. I would die in this unknown forest, far away from everyone I loved, and no one would know what happened to me.
I would die anonymously before I got toliveas my authentic self.
No.
Absolutely not. I would not allow it. I’d faced my fears before. I could do this. Ihadto do this.Think, Hattie, think.
With my captors approaching from behind and the creature stalking me from straight ahead, I had nowhere to go. Clearly, I couldn’t hide or outrun what had already caught up to me—but perhaps higher ground was a good idea, after all? All I had to do was get myself out of reach of the abomination long enough for it to forget me and set its terrifying sights on my pursuers—then, in the chaos, I could escape.
I scrambled against the boulder, searching for a leg up. The face of it was steep, the moss slippery. Bracing against a nearby tree trunk, I finally found purchase, clambering between tree and stone. Small branches caught at my clothes, my hair, but it wasn’t long before I hoisted myself up.
Among the ferns and lichen that crowned the boulder, I had a vantage of the surrounding forest: five kidnappers to the south, abomination tothe north, a racket of sound all around. For a few moments, I caught my breath in the relative safety of my perch. Any second now, the creature would change course toward the others…
Except…as it neared, I realized I’d underestimated its height. When it wasn’t hunched, it stoodwell overthe height of a man. Ten feet, at least. Which meant that when it reached the boulder and stretched up on its hind legs, it was almost eye-level with me.
A cold panic clutched my throat, choking me.
The creature had a human-like face, gaunt and skinless, with gray tissue and bone showing. Veins lined the sides of its neck muscles, pulsing with black. Gnarled antlers twisted out of its skull, branching at deformed angles. When it opened its mouth, a black tongue wriggled like a leech behind pointed teeth. A guttural hiss emanated from its throat, gusting rancid breath across my face. The cloying, rotten-carcass scent was so viscerally awful that I couldtasteit; I gagged with nausea and terror.
Thismust’ve been what had infected the diseased bobcat I’d seen back at the Possum.
Thiswas what had bitten Idris the night he first came to Waldron, what he and Anya had faced in the Western Wood.
Thiswas what Mariana fought for her Order—and had to kill to deliver to me the black blood.
Thiswas the curse I’d been trying to undo.
