Page 26 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
“I’m inviting you into the program,” she said, “because your Hylder tincture was stronger than mine.”
I laughed. “That’s impossible.”
“I am not a paragon, Hattie.Yours was better.”
I shook my head, dumbstruck. I was a decent amateur alchemist by Waldron’s standards, but compared to an adept of the Order of Alchemy? “How is that possible?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, “that’s why I want you in my lab.”
I thought of the hooded figure in the alley, coughing and convulsing. My heart twisted. “Your friend. Are they improved?”
“Yes, and grateful for your help.”
I was glad to hear it. But— “There wasn’t anything special about my tincture,” I insisted.
“I’m telling you there is.”
I slumped back in my chair, shaking my head in disbelief.
Phina clasped her hands and squared her shoulders, back to her professorial posture. “What is your goal here, Hattie?”
“To receive my apothecary license,” I replied.
“Why?”
I glanced away again, back to the green book titledHerbs.
My interest in herbal alchemy came from a fascination with the healers who frequented my childhood home. My cousin Raina had been a sickly girl, and apothecaries had come from all over the Seven Territories to solve the mystery of her illness. Not only were they enigmatic—shuffling in through the servant’s door with their moss-green robes, tattooed hands, and cases filled with countless clinking bottles—they’d saved Raina’s life.
To me, Raina’s healers were as miraculous as the Fates themselves. To heal someone I loved with herbs—thatwas awe-inspiring. I wanted to know all their secrets.
As Raina’s illness diminished, the two of us emulated her healers by playing “apothecary” in the kitchens and greenhouses, mixing cooking herbs with dirt, water, sometimes even wine if we could get our hands on it (Raina’s father put an end to that when we got into a particularly valuable vintage gifted to him by the Lord of Lothgaim). The “potions”of our childhood did not hold any real power, butwefelt powerful making them—and therein lay my growing passion.
As Raina’s interests pivoted toward music and the horse stables, my obsession with herbs only increased as I spent more days in the gardens and our home library, learning all I could about medicine, plants, and magic. Around that same time, my uncle promoted a lesser-born knight to lead his personal guard, whose son—when he wasn’t training to become a knight, himself—also enjoyed reading. Those peaceful afternoons with Noble in the library—along with heart-thumping rides with Raina—remained among my most cherished memories from growing up.
And no matter where my life took me, I could always find safety within the laws and properties of plants and magic. Herbs didn’t care who I was, where I came from, or my status; as an aspiring apothecary, my identity was measured only by my skill.
I’d always wanted to be an apothecary, but my enrollment at the Collegium wasn’tjustabout taking my license back to Waldron—it was about the personal liberation of finally living the lifeIchose.
“I feel most like myself when I’m alchemizing,” I amended. “I want to use that passion to help people.Healpeople.”
The left corner of her mouth lifted. “Your talent with Hylder could help a lot of people.”
A buoy of hope bobbed at the top of my chest—even as a sense of foreboding slithered in my gut. “Are a lot of people at risk?”
“I’m afraid I can’t divulge more until you join my team.” Her smile broadened with a blend of encouragement and challenge. “So, what do you say?”
10
No Distractions
Noble
Again,” General Kalden Asheren barked on the morning of his son’s sixteenth birthday.
Noble reset his stance in the training yard, hefting his practice sword. His shoulder shook with strain. Sweat was trickling into his eyes, making them blur and sting with salt. Hot blisters on his fingers and palm threatened to pop under his weapon’s weight.
His father lifted his own training sword with ease and leveled it toward Noble’s, crossing the dull blades—the customary starting stance among Mighty Knights. Compared to his six-foot-six oak tree of a father, sixteen-year-old Noble was a mere sapling. It was times like this—staring down the length of Kalden’s practice weapon—that Noble both feared and revered his father.
