Page 32 of Fate’s Sweetest Curse (Mirrors of Fate #2)

Curse Conspiracy

Hattie

I ’m glad you’re all right,” I said to Viren the next morning.

The Collegium’s private hospital was located in the center of campus, attached to Medica College, where healers studied. My apothecary training meant that I took multiple classes there, but I’d never had a need to visit the infirmary.

It was a long rectangular space with high ceilings and lots of light.

Rows of beds were partitioned off with gauzy curtains, and healing supplies—linens, metal tools, bottles of tinctures and potions—were stocked on wheeled carts throughout the room.

A fountain in one corner trickled musically, emanating calm.

Healers and assistants walked back and forth across the tile floor, their footsteps echoing, voices kept at a whisper.

“Without your ministrations, I might not be here,” Viren rasped. She was pallid, feeble—but alive .

Thank the Fates .

“Anyone could’ve followed your instructions.

” I was seated in a wooden chair beside her sickbed, the two of us concealed by the shroud of her privacy curtain; I kept my voice low, too, not wanting to disturb neighboring patients.

“Did the healers give you a sense of when you could return to the lab?”

“It’ll be a few weeks, at least.” The attacker’s blade had skimmed along her rib; thankfully, the wound was wide and shallow, but the healers were concerned about infection. “Any strain could prolong my healing, so they’ve advised me to be patient.”

“They haven’t allowed us back into the lab yet,” I said. “Sounds like the Orders of the Mighty and Lawful are going to send more knights to guard the dorms and labs, but none of it has been sorted yet.”

Viren shook her head. “I knew it was a dangerous project, but I had no idea it would be so…” She shook her head again.

“Volatile?” I supplied.

Her eyes lifted to mine. “Exactly.”

I leaned closer, dropping my voice to a whisper that was mostly breath. “Do you know why you were targeted?”

“What are you, a knight?” Viren joked.

I opened my mouth to protest, but then the tapping of footsteps outside Viren’s curtain faded, until no sound permeated the fabric.

I immediately recognized the silence as an effect of sound magic.

Anya did the same thing sometimes, shrouding us in a bubble of silence so we could discuss private matters without eavesdroppers.

“Look, I know you’re a curious person, Hattie, and a skilled Hylder alchemist, too, so for the sake of your own safety, I’m going to be frank,” Viren said, speaking at normal volume within the insulation of her magic. “I believe I was targeted by the Order of the Valiant.”

“The Order of…who?”

“The Valiant,” Viren repeated. “They’re a secret Order of Fenrir, tasked to eradicate the realm of cursed beings—abominations, they call them. Monsters.”

I swallowed hard, thinking of when Idris showed up at the Possum with black sludge on his hand, demanding an herb traditionally used for purging evil. Idris, a knight of an unknown Order. The same Order, I presumed, as Mariana’s .

Phina hadn’t confirmed it, but I was certain that monsters were the ultimate focus of this study. To know that Viren had come to a similar conclusion…after what’d happened, I didn’t want either of our theories to be correct.

“Monsters,” I whispered, “are a thing of myth.” They were empty words—said for comfort, not truth.

“Monsters are a weapon of war,” Viren countered, undeterred.

“At least, that’s my hunch. Even third-year students don’t know much about the programs we assist. Limiting information stunts research, but it also keeps secrets contained.

” She stared at me a moment, assessing. “You already knew they existed.”

“Why do you say that?”

Viren smirked. “You didn’t question the notion.”

“Here’s a question,” I said, leaning forward.

“You’re telling me that there’s a secret Order of knights charged with fighting monsters, and they targeted you because of your connection to Phina’s research?

” I asked. “Are we not working to cure curses? Wouldn’t that put us and the Valiant on the same side? ”

Viren’s small mouth twisted into a tiny, knowing grin; apparently my question was proof enough of what I’d already uncovered. “No more monsters, no more Valiant Knights,” she said.

“You think they tried to kill you because our research would put them out of a job ?” That did sound far-fetched.

“Not a job,” Viren said. “A sentence. Valiant Knights don’t take their Oaths voluntarily—it’s a punishment.”

I waved my hand as if to clear away that idea. There was no way Idris was a reformed criminal —he was one of the kindest men I’d ever met.

Mariana, on the other hand… She fit the description. In more ways than one.

Yet Mariana had been there in the alley with Phina, demanding Hylder for the hooded figure. Why endeavor to help Phina’s mysterious friend, only to turn around and target one of her students? It didn’t make sense. Something was missing.

“Think about it, Hattie,” Viren continued. “Imagine you’re a criminal. You have a choice between dungeon or Oath. You choose Oath. Your Oath is dissolved…you go back to the dungeon. If we cure the curse, their Order becomes obsolete.”

My skin itched with anxiety, a slow march of horror swarming my senses like soldier ants. “But why would they target you , specifically? Why not another researcher? Why not Phina?”

Viren shifted against the pillows at her back, scooting more upright with a wince.

“The curse is in the blood,” I realized. “And your expertise is blood.”

She nodded weakly. “More specifically, I study the intersection of herbal alchemy and metal alchemy in healing. Weaving herbal magic into blood by binding it to iron.”

“Phina wants to alchemize monster blood with Hylder?”

“Precisely.”

I’d assumed we were merely making tinctures and potions with the herb, trying to refine Hylder’s potency for consumption.

This was… far more sordid. Blood alchemy wasn’t outright illegal, but it was highly regulated—and though what Viren was describing wasn’t quite blood alchemy, it was close.

No wonder my Oath of Allegiance prevented me from revealing anything about Viren’s role in the research.

“Wait,” I said. “I thought Gildium was central to Phina’s research, not iron?”

“That’s because monster blood contains Gildium.”

I covered my mouth with trembling fingers.

Noble was the lead Gildium metalworker on the project.

As far as I knew, he’d been a member of Phina’s research team since the beginning.

And he’d been in Waldron studying under Richold’s tutelage.

Fates , if Richold knew what his teachings were being applied toward, his gentle heart might’ve given out.

Mine certainly wasn’t doing so well at the moment.

“How many researchers on the project know all this?” I asked.

“Few,” Viren said. “Let’s just say I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”

“There’s a lot of that going on,” I remarked. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Viren reached out and gripped my hand with clammy fingers.

“Your breakthrough the other day progressed the research in a way we didn’t expect,” she said.

“Common Hylder can be bound to iron, but as far as I can tell, not Gildium; Black Lace Hylder, on the other hand, appears to have more potential for binding. It could be the missing piece.”

I let out a soft gasp.

“I suspect Phina will bring you deeper into the research as a result—but Hattie, once she does, you’ll become a target, too.” She squeezed my hand, voice going high. “I would regret it forever if something happened to you and I hadn’t warned you.”

My heart was thunder in my ears. “How certain of all this are you?”

“Not very,” she said, “but enough to be here in the infirmary. Enough to be afraid.”

“Have you told the knights investigating the incident?” I asked. “They questioned me, but this—”

“I haven’t,” Viren interrupted, “and neither should you.”

“Why not?”

“Because if the Valiant are truly behind this, then who knows how many other Orders are tied up in it, too? They can’t be trusted.

Not now. Not yet.” Viren released my fingers, picked up a cup of water from the side table near the bed, and drank thirstily.

She looked pale and tired. She needed rest.

“I should let you sleep. ”

Viren offered me a wan smile. “Look, I don’t want to frighten you—”

“Too late.”

“—I just want to offer you a warning. Watch your back, Hattie. This program isn’t for the weak of spirit.”