Page 65 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
“Good,” Oderin said, wiping his brow with his rolled-up sleeve. He was wearing a loose-fitting white shirt and tight-fitting black trousers, his skin and hair so golden he seemed to glow. “Let’s end the session with a speed sequence, shall we?”
That’s when we performed a combination of moves together on repeat, practicing accuracy and quickness until I collapsed. He’d phrased it like a question, but this was how Oderin liked to end all his sparring sessions.
My arms and legs were already shaking from the exertion of the past hour, but over the past couple weeks, I had begun to crave this kind of punishment. For every tremor of exhaustion, I could feel my body becoming stronger. I could already jog twice as long during our warm-ups than I had when we’d started.
“Yes?” the Mighty Knight prompted.
“Yes,” I agreed.
After Oderin relayed the combination of moves, we reset our stances, said the words, and began again. Lunge, high strike, block, duck, low strike, evade—and repeat. I performed the sequence slowly at first, finding my rhythm; Oderin matched my moves with his own counters, blocking when I struck, swinging when I was supposed to duck. Then we picked up speed, flowing through our deadly dance.
Fighting with Oderin reminded me of watching Noble spar with his father. I’d hated hearing the way Kalden shouted at him and had done my best to avoid the training yard. But now, as I moved through my own blocks and strikes, I found myself imaging Noble’s dark features before me instead of Oderin’s. Black hair instead of gold. Lean muscle instead of bulk.
Once, a few months after we’d turned eighteen, I’d happened upon Noble training alone. I’d been on my way to the gardens with a handled basket hooked over one arm and had paused on the balcony overlooking the dusty yard. I had been immobilized by the sight of him. Shirtless in the muggy midsummer morning. His rich skin sweat-slicked and glistening. He’d been repeating rounds of sprints and strength training, racing across the yard, only to halt and burst through a set of sit-ups, push-ups, or lunges.
I was no stranger to Noble’s body—I had watched it grow from weedy prepubescence to sturdy new adulthood—but most of my interactions with him were reading together, walking alongside one another, the occasional summer swim. I rarely saw himmovelike that. Graceful, decisive brawn. Pure vigor.
“Faster!” Oderin encouraged, startling me back into the present.
But with the distraction of memory, I’d lost track of where we were in our sequence. I lunged—realizing in the midst of pitching my body forward that I had been supposed to duck. The mistake put my torso directly in line with Oderin’s swing. His dull sword collided with the cap of my shoulder, and I went down, landing hard.
Dust swirled and settled. The taste of stone and ash coated my tongue. Pain pulsed where I’d been struck, radiating down through my arm and up into my neck, making me wince.
Oderin dropped his sword with a clatter and sank to his knees in the dirt beside me, placing a strong hand on my leg—a respectable, comforting touch. “Fates, are you alright?”
I sat up with a groan. An angry red line was already forming on my shoulder, tingling with hurt, but otherwise: “Fine, I think,” I said.
“Dizzy?”
I shook my head and was relieved when the movement didn’t send my equilibrium spinning.
“Do you remember your name?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not your name.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You’re cogent enough to be irritated by me, so you must be alright.” Oderin rose to his feet and held out a hand.
I grasped his forearm, allowing him to haul me up. I swayed a little, but the moment passed quickly. Letting go of Oderin, I dusted off mytrousers. Pain lanced through my upper arm, but the ache was dull and tolerable.
“I think we’re done for the day,” Oderin declared.
I chuckled. “And here I thought you were going easy on me.”
His obscenely plush mouth pulled into a rather haughty smirk. “I was.”
I placed a hand on his chest and shoved, laughing.
He laughed too, but sobered when his eyes snagged on where he’d struck me. “I am terribly sorry, Hattie. I saw you were changing the sequence but didn’t adjust in time.”
“I would’ve expected more control from a Mighty Knight,” I teased, walking with him over to a refreshment table.
He poured two cups of water and handed one to me. “Why do you think I opted to train with you? I need the practice, myself.”
I tilted the cup to my lips, drinking the water in three thirsty gulps. It tasted of mountain snow and granite—refreshing. When I’d first moved to Fenrir, I’d been surprised by how muchbetterthe water tasted. “Is that so?”
