Page 139 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
—he was utterlychanged.
His height now reaching at least nine feet, his body horrifically stretched. Ribs poked out above an overly narrow, concave stomach; his knees were bent backward, his shins too long, extending from of his trousers much farther than they ought. Antlers protruded from the soft waves of his hair and twisted toward the sky. And his hands—hands that had touched every inch of me, that had cherished my body with reverence and care—were tipped with jagged black claws, meant to shred.
When he looked up, he looked right at me, and his eyes—once kind, observant, spring-green—glowed crimson.
Oh, I was going tokillBrendan.
That is, if Noble didn’t kill him, first.
Noble’s eyes slid to Brendan and narrowed. He made to lunge at the captain, but the guards still holding onto the chains on his arms, legs, and neck pulled him back, preventing his progress. He snarled at them, changing tactics. In a swift move, Noble rotated both wrists, loopingthe attached chains around his forearms. It took barely a tug to yank the guards holding his restraints off their feet. Noble bent, picked up the chains attached to his ankles, and pulled those guards down, too. The remaining man—who held the tether attached to Noble’s neck cuff—began to pull, shouting with admirable bravery. Others jumped in to lend their strength, heaving against the remaining chain as Noble turned on them.
Then a lot of things happened in mere moments.
Claws swept out, slicing the guards with a shocking spray of blood.
All around me, soldiers and knights brandished their weapons with a chorus of ringing steel.
Noble met them with a low growl, pouncing on those nearest and taking them out with terrifying ease. Gore splattered the grass. Metal flashed in the torchlight. Men cried out in valiance, fear, and death.
I couldn’t watch. I didn’t havetimeto watch. If there was even a small chance that Noble could still be saved, I needed to alchemize.
And yet I sagged over my little worktable, overcome with a sickening despair.
How could Noblepossiblycome back from this?
How could tonight end with anything other than total carnage?
How could I make any difference?
Hope, I told myself.You don’t have to believe fully—you just have tohope.
I took in my spread of ingredients, thinking of the tapestry of theories I’d been weaving over the past few months. Hurriedly, I dug into my satchel and pulled out my notebook to review where I’d left off: broken formulas, question marks, dead-ends. My many failed experiments entered my mind’s eye, filling me with worry: visions of the black blood and Hylder bubbling, smoking, hardening. The thought of any of that happeningtoNoble made me feel sick. Judging by the chaos all aroundme, I had only one chance to administer the right potion—but whatwasit?
Men shouted, Noble snarled, the wetcrunchof violence filled my ears, but I would not look up from my table and allow myself to be shaken. I reached for the Black Lace Hylder blossoms, mashing them with the mortar and pestle. By now, mixing Hylder tinctures was almost second nature, and in spite of being one-handed, I moved deftly. A splash of the berry syrup to the crushed flowers, dried thistle to boost the Hylder’s effects. I gave the paste a brief taste, making sure the balance was right; it was sweet, botanical, purifying.
It tasted, inexplicably, like hope.
I shifted focus to the Gildium rods and powders provided. I didn’t have blood to experiment with, nor did I know how to alchemize the metal, so I’d have to dissolve the powder in water as Noble had suggested, and hope he’d been right about that being a viable option.
Which left me with the water itself, the varying sources.
I braved a quick glance at clearing in front of me. Bodies were slumped all around, heaped in burgundy pools of blood. White tents were splattered with red and black, and one was collapsed and aflame. Noble was free of his chains, speckled with gore, a slash of black blood across his right pectoral. His face—pulled into an unrecognizably cruel snarl—was not his anymore, and it made me afraid. Not justforhim, butofhim.
Knights came at Noble with determination, breaking on his body like waves on stone. A blood-curdlingscreamvibrated my ear drums as one of Brendan’s Mighty Knights—her sword brandished with the red fire of her Oath magic—fell.
“Work faster,” Brendan urged.
He was hovering over my shoulder, and he looked scared now, his face pale.
“Fuck you,” I spat, but I did as I was told.
I stared down at the water samples again, examining the bottles in the yellow glow of the lantern. Brendan, to his credit, had supplied me with numerous options—but which one was the answer? The samples labeled with the rivers Gray and Wynhaim, as well as the numbered geothermal pools all seemed too far off—my gut told me they weren’t worth exploring.
With care, I lifted theWell of Fatebottle to the light. Even through the glass, I sensed its power; my magic purred in its presence, but it seemed too potent, too powerful, too volatile on its own.
I set it back down.
There was a source missing, I realized. One I should’ve considered long ago. Because while my tinctures from Waldron were alcohol-based, the Hylder I gathered there had absorbed into its roots a potent water: the River Wend.
