Page 43 of Fate’s Sweetest Curse (Mirrors of Fate #2)

Blood and Orders

Hattie

Y ou said there’s Gildium in cursed blood. How does that happen?”

Viren looked up from her bench in the enclosed infirmary courtyard, eyes widening slightly as I stormed toward her, still in my sparring clothes.

All at once, the sounds of the peaceful garden—birds chirping, bees buzzing, the distant clamor of the city beyond the surrounding buildings—faded until all I heard was my own panting.

It’d been a hot, exasperating walk from the Castle Might training yard to the Collegium campus.

“What have you heard?” Viren asked.

It wasn’t what I’d heard, but what I’d seen : Noble’s blood, cursed . I wasn’t afraid; I was fuming. I wanted to know how . I wanted to fix it. I wanted to protect him from— Fates , from what? Himself?

Your identity isn’t the only thing that makes this dangerous, Hattie.

I’d assumed he’d been referring to the research program and the attempt on Viren’s life, but now…

I buried my face in my hands. “Fuck,” I groaned.

Viren’s infirmary slippers scuffed against the gravel path as she slowly made her way to standing. “Hattie. What do you know?”

“I’m not sure,” I said into my hands. “I think I know even less than I did before.”

“Before what? ”

I lowered my hands and met her worried brown eyes. “I don’t think I should say.”

Viren pressed her thin lips together and nodded. “Fine. Probably better that you don’t.”

I sank to the stone bench, and she slowly sat back down beside me.

Her skin had more color than the last time I’d seen her—more olive now than sickly gray—but she was still wearing a patient robe.

It was pale blue and patterned with polka dots.

Rather cheerful, considering the reason she was wearing it—but maybe that was the point.

“Phina has me going over your notes,” I told her.

Viren’s smile was wan. “Told you she’d bring you deeper into the fold.”

“I’ve been reading up on Gildium, too.”

“Have you asked Noble about it? He’s a great resource.”

I kept my face carefully blank as I said, “I haven’t gotten around to asking him yet.”

“He can be a bit aloof,” Viren remarked.

Have I made myself clear? he’d asked against my cleavage.

Abundantly , I’d said.

“Easy on the eyes, though,” Viren added, oblivious to my inner turmoil.

“I’ll ask him,” I promised, “but what I need to know right now is how do curses happen?” I’d been wracking my brain on the way here—the Gildium, the Hylder, Noble’s blank Fate—but couldn’t put all the pieces together.

Viren frowned. “I don’t know, exactly. I wasn’t made privy to that information.”

“Truly?”

She shrugged. “Like I said before, no one is allowed to know everything. Well, except Phina.”

I shot to my feet. “Any idea where she is? ”

“In class, probably?”

I swore. I’d forgotten all about my afternoon class.

“Hattie.” Viren let out a long, wheezing sigh. “Whatever you’re hoping to learn, Phina’s not going to tell you.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, marching back down the path.

“No, Hattie. She can’t tell you.”

I halted. Turned. Our voices were still muffled by her magic, no sound permeating our bubble.

“She has an Oath, remember?”

Right . I groaned through my teeth, feeling edgy and agitated by the dead-ends.

The non-answers. The man I loved was caught up in…

whatever this was…and I couldn’t help him.

I couldn’t be there for him. Judging by the look of shame on his face and the way he’d run off, he wasn’t interested in my help, either; I had no doubt in my mind that in addition to the limits of his Oaths, he’d kept this from me because he wanted to protect me.

I returned to Viren. “Phina’s program is about binding Hylder to the Gildium in cursed blood, right?”

“That’s what they tell us.”

“Do you think Phina’s lying about the purpose of her research?”

“No, but I don’t trust that Lord Haron isn’t using our findings for other purposes, too.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, Hattie.” Viren’s eyes took on a sheen, tears glittering at their inner corners.

“All I know is that I was brought on to bind Hylder to the iron in regular blood. But every time I tried, the iron wasn’t receptive.

I eventually got frustrated, and—knowing that Gildium was part of Phina’s research somehow, given Noble’s presence—I tried adding Gildium into the mix, just to see if a magically potent metal would help with the alchemical weaving. When I did, the blood turned black.”

“You think adding Gildium caused the curse? ”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, but”—Viren shook her head, causing a tear to track down her cheek—“I’m just an apprentice, Hattie.

I asked Phina about it and she started coughing like her Oath was keeping her from speaking.

” Viren visibly shivered. “I started digging, trying to find an explanation, any reference to black blood that I could. Books and old research records didn’t clarify much, so I went looking for answers beyond the Collegium.

One night, I overheard knights talking outside the Ire about the Order of the Valiant fighting cursed things— abominations —with black blood. That’s how I put it all together.”

I lifted my fingers to my lips and shook my head. “Do you think it’s possible that black blood isn’t always a sign of a curse? That it could mean something else?” Perhaps the color of Noble’s blood was simply from contamination due to his metalworking. The thought gave me hope.

“To my knowledge, cursed blood is black, but I don’t know if all black blood is cursed,” Viren said. “What I do know is that when you add Hylder, it repels the Gildium, like trying to bind oil and water. It doesn’t work .”

My eyes lifted to the sky above, the sun shattering through the clouds. “Hylder repels evil,” I murmured.

Viren’s eyes were wide.

“No.” I shook my head. “ No . I’d be hard-pressed to believe that the metal that framed the Mirrors of Fate is a source of evil.” And there was no way that Noble had evil in his veins. I wouldn’t accept it. “This doesn’t add up.”

“None of it does.”

A thought occurred. “When you added Hylder to the black blood, did it turn red again?”

Viren shook her head, and my heart sank. “I only started trying a few weeks ago, though. All of this has happened so fast.”

“Did you experiment with Black Lace Hylder?”

“No, just the common varietal.”

That gave me at least a little hope. A place to start, in Viren’s absence. “Where can I learn more about the Order of the Valiant?”

“You can’t,” Viren said with a sniffle. “I went to the library to research them, but there was nothing—it was like the Order didn’t exist. Next thing I know, I’m here—” She choked back a startled sob.

I knelt in front of her, taking her quivering hands in mine.

I was reeling, but Viren—usually quite stoic—was openly weeping now, completely shaken up.

It was alarming to see her this way. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“I shouldn’t have stormed in here like this.

You shouldn’t be thinking about these things. You should be resting.”

She let out an unsteady sigh. “It’s all right. In fact, I’m glad you’re asking these questions. It’s dangerous, but it’s the only way we can get to the bottom of this and learn how to protect ourselves. The longer we’re in the dark, the easier it becomes for threats to sneak up on us.”

I squeezed her hands. “Where did you leave off?”

“The archives. I didn’t have enough clearance to view the classified section, but my gut tells me something’s there. Something about the Orders we haven’t learned yet. Maybe you can sneak in?”

I squeezed her hands one more time, then hurried for the door. “Not if I go to the source!” I called over my shoulder.