Page 64 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
“Sorry again, Phina, I’m not feeling like myself.”
“You went through something traumatic, Hattie, it’s alright,” she replied kindly. “Just try to get some rest, alright? I need you sharp.”
I nodded. “What’s my first assignment? Aside from reviewing Viren’s notes?”
“I’d like for you to make some Black Lace tinctures. Ten of them. We’ll start running experiments on them the day after next.”
“I will.”
“Actually, make twelve and set two aside.” She gave me a knowing look, and even in my insomnia-addled brain, it was obvious she intended to give two to her friend from the alley. “You should also read up on Gildium. Discuss its properties with Noble if you haven’t already.”
Monster blood contains Gildium, Viren had said.
The thought of working with a metal that was present in cursed beings made my pulse quicken. The thought of working withNoblealso made my pulse quicken, but for entirely different reasons. The frantic beating of my heart made me jittery, uncoordinated—or maybe that was just the lack of sleep.
“I’ll get reading,” I promised Phina, turning away with a yawn.
With my eyelids already this heavy, I couldn’t imagine spending all afternoon in the library. I really needed to get past my nightmares. A sleep tincture, perhaps? Valerian was easy to come by, but it sometimes made my dreams more vivid—which might do more harm than good. I hadthe sense that as long as I felt unsafe in my own dorm, the sleep problems wouldn’t change.
Which meant that I needed to feel safe again.
“Phina,” I called out, turning back around.
My professor—who’d been walking off in the direction of Noble’s workshop—paused. “Yes, Hattie?”
“Your brother is a Mighty Knight, right?” I asked. “Could you put me in touch with him?”
24
Dangers Be Damned
Hattie
Ablade swung at my head, sunlight glinting on steel. I twisted sideways, feeling a whoosh of air as the sword’s tip passed by my ear. I raised my own sword, blocking the second attempted blow. The strike jolted up through my weapon and into my arm in a way that made my teeth chatter.
“Remember your core,” Oderin said, lowering his practice blade and stepping back. “You’re still absorbing the strikes with your arms instead of your torso. You’re not bracing enough.”
When I’d asked Phina to ask her brother about sparring lessons, I hadn’t expected the Major Knight of the Order of the Mighty to train mehimself—I’d thought he’d introduce me to a subordinate with some free time or allow me to attend training with new recruits. But apparently, Phina had told Oderin about my friendship with Anya and Idris.
“Any friend of Idris’s is a friend of mine,” Oderin had told me when we met in the Castle Might training yard on our first day.
“Seeing as he fell in love with my best friend, I’d say Idris is a solid judge of character,” I’d replied.
“I said he was myfriend, I didn’t say he liked mycharacter,” Oderin had joked, and so our regular sparring sessions had begun.
That was two weeks ago, and now, my entire body hurt.
I was no stranger to sword wielding. When I was a girl, self-defense and weapon training had been mandatory among all the children at Castle Wynhaim—a long-standing tradition that had begun out of necessity during Wynhaim City’s war-torn beginning and had endured as a hypothetically practical custom. I had never been good with a blade, mostly because I hadn’t cared about the skill back then, but under Oderin’s patient tutelage, I’d come to look forward to our sessions in the training yard.
I still had a long way to go before I was capable enough to defend myself, but the sore muscles and whole-body exhaustionhadhelped me get over my insomnia in the nights following Viren’s stabbing.
Oderin reset his stance and lifted his training sword. I mirrored his pose, crossing my dull blade with his. Together, we recited the words of the Order of the Mighty—a phrase I’d heard Noble and his father utter to one another when they sparred: “Fate, Fortune, Death.”
We began again. Me, clumsily striking and blocking; Oderin, matching my turtle-pace with a patient smile on his face. Occasionally, he made a suggestion about my body’s positioning—my hips, my core, my elbows.
It was midday, the sun intense on my brow; sweat beaded along my hairline, pooled inside my sleeveless tunic, chafed in the waistband of my trousers. But because I spent the rest of my days pouring over books that detailed complex concepts about disturbing subject matter, it felt good to move and sweat in the sunshine. The stretch and flex of my muscles reminded me that I was more than a brain absorbing information like a bar rag; I was a body, fluid and powerful.
Or at least, I was getting there.
