Page 143 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
Noble had numerous cuts along his chest, his arms, all of them half-coagulated and contaminated with dirt and sweat.
“Remember what you told me about the nightmares?” I continued, closing my fingers around the small shaving blade I’d stolen from Brendan’s tent. “Remember when you said you always woke up before anything bad happened?”
He growled, rattling the metal collar clamped around his throat.
“Can you hear me, Noble?” I whispered. “Can you wake up for me?”
For a moment, I thought he might.
For a moment, I thought the humanity inside him would prevail.
Then the monster sprung for my face with snapping teeth.
He missed me by a hair’s breadth as he was yanked back by Mariana, who held the chain attached to his collar.
I did not hesitate. Flicking my wrist in a move Oderin had taught me, I sliced into Noble’s forearm with the shaving knife, opening a clean wound.
Then I poured the last remaining drops of the potion into his blood.
50
Cure
Hattie
As the potion mingled with the blood welling on Noble’s arm, his body went slack, and he slumped over my lap, pinning me against the soiled ground. Then Mariana was there, rolling him off me with a groan. I went to him, cupping his blood-splattered face in my palm, running my thumb over the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
“Noble?” I murmured. “Noble?”
Tears streaked my face. My arm hurt, my skin stung, my muscles ached—but it was my heart that felt like it was tearing in half.
I slapped lightly at his cheek. “Noble? Noble! Wake up!”
Silence filled the clearing.
A warm hand touched my back. “Hattie, maybe we should—”
“No.” I shrugged off Mariana’s touch. “No. I’m not leaving him.”
Footsteps squelched away from me. I was distantly aware of the whispers and murmurs of the remaining soldiers, looking on from the edge of the circle of destroyed tents. I heard Mariana say something, someone’s sharp retort, then she was returning to my side with a set of keys.
She unlocked the cuff around Noble’s neck. His throat was ringed red from the pinch of metal, black veins spider webbing under the surface of his skin. His eyes remained closed, his mouth slack, his body…monstrous.
Mariana felt for a pulse, frowning.
“Noble,” I begged, frantic with dread. I shook his shoulder, pounded a weak fist on his sternum. “Wakeup.”
But he remained limp.
Mariana removed her hand from his neck and shook her head, mouth pressed into a grim line.
A low wail pealed out of me, and I dropped my forehead to Noble’s bare chest, ignoring the sting of his cursed blood against my skin. The world was collapsing around me, burying me in rubble. My lungs convulsed with dry sobs, heaving for air that wasn’t there. Without Noble, I couldn’tbreathe.
“Hattie?” Mariana prompted.
“Leave me alone,” I said, curling against Noble’s lifeless chest.
“No,Hattie,” Mariana urged.
