Page 1 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
Prologue: Peach
Hattie, One Year Ago
It was raining the day I saw him for the second first time.
I was at Waldron’s spring market, perusing a selection of potion ingredients. I had a jar of dried gardenia in one hand and powdered rose petal in the other, and when I looked up, there he was: standing under the canopy of an open-sided tent two down from mine, speaking with the local blacksmith.
Seeing him here in this tiny cottage town—far, far from home—was like seeing a ripe plum on a tree in winter: so out of place that I doubted my own eyes before my mind even considered the improbability of it being true.
Noble Asheren.Here, in Waldron-on-Wend.
“Looking for love, are we?” the herb merchant asked me, breaking through my trancelike shock.
I stared down at the jars in my hands. Ironic that I was—by sheer accident—holding two common ingredients in love potions. Hastily, I dropped them on the velvet-draped display table, the glasses thudding.
“I’ll be right back,” I told the merchant distractedly, stepping out into the street.
Rain freckled my face and soaked the hem of my dress, but I was impervious to the chilly spring haze as I made my way toward the blacksmith’s tent. My mind pattered with all the reasons Noble could be here.Had someone died? Was I in peril? Would there be another attempt on my life?
Yet no looming tragedy seemed to matter compared to the thrill of his unexpected presence. Since childhood, I’d been drawn to Noble by a desperate ache, instinctual as the urge to inhale after a long-held breath. For the past eight years, I had been underwater; now, I was swimming toward the surface, andhewas my fresh air.
As I approached, the differences in his appearance since the last time I saw him became stark. For one, he was amannow. His lean frame from adolescence had filled out considerably, adult muscle adding rigidity to his shoulders and chest. His hands were crisscrossed with a myriad of tiny pale scars. A faded Oath tattoo ringed the base of his masculine throat. There were new worry lines beside his eyes, and I wondered if any of the creases had formed because of me.
The rest of him was painfully familiar. The same warm brown skin, with a chaotic cascade of black wavy hair that curled by his ears and nape. The same observant, spring-green gaze, made more cutting by his straight nose, wide jaw, and stern but full mouth. The same carefully trained gestures, graceful but restrained. A calm, chilly countenance that gave nothing away.
Fates help me. Eight years of distance had done nothing to quell my hopeless desire for Noble Asheren.
When I entered the blacksmith’s tent, the men were still in conversation, and Noble’s tone dropped to a lower register, maintaining a semblance of privacy in the cramped space. And thatvoice. It was raspier than I remembered—deeper. Silk draped over stone.
He didn’t even glance in my direction. Was he pretending not to know me? Or did my childhood best friend truly not recognize me?
It didn’t matter. The blacksmith was not one to ignore a customer. Breaking from their conversation, Richold swung his kind gray eyes in my direction. “Hattie, how are you, dear?”
I’d always liked Richold. He was a regular at the Pretty Possum Inn & Pub—my best friend Anya’s establishment, where I lived and tended bar—and not once had he ever been impatient or rude. He was in his early fifties, silver streaking his light brown hair, and was desperately in love with Kara, the seamstress. The gossips in town had already concluded that Kara wasn’t interested, but I was still rooting for him.
I knew a thing or two about unrequited love.
“Richold, nice to see you,” I replied.
At the sound of my voice, Noble finally turned, a slow reangling of his torso in my direction. Every person in the Seven Territories possessed one magically heightened sense, and as a sight magician, Noble’s proclivity for visual detail meant that he noticedeverything—and therefore was rarely caught off guard.
He was now, though.
I saw it in the way the skin around his eyes tightened when he saw me—the strained look straight out of a childhood memory. His expression quaked—lips parting, brow furrowing, a brief slackening of his features, like his world was coming undone. Surprise, but also confusion, pain, regret. He drew back as if to see me more clearly, as if a slightly different perspective might explain my presence.
Then all his polite society experience kicked in and his features shifted into the perfect mix of casual curiosity and mild boredom.Court face, we used to call it.
It would’ve been unrealistic for him to sweep me into his arms—or acknowledge me at all. The last thing either of us needed was for the gossips of Waldron to catch on to our perilous history. Yet his flat, dispassionate expression still stung.
My heart began to riot in a manner I knew all too well. Noble wasn’t the only one who’d received etiquette lessons, but my governess had never completely succeeded in training the expressiveness out of my face.My emotional openness, paired with Noble’s preternatural observation skills, meant that he was able to read me with annoying clarity.
Still, I tried my best to act casual. “And who is this?” I asked Richold.
“This is Noble. He’s new in town,” the blacksmith answered. “Noble, this is Hattie.”
“Hello, Hattie.” His confident drawl turned my insides to syrup.
But I recovered—barely. “Noble? That’s a unique name.”
