Chapter 7
With the animals tended, Bram would normally break his fast. Except Marigold would flit around him like a horsefly, asking
a thousand questions as he cooked. After a sleepless night spent listening to her sweet sighs, powerfully aware she was mere
feet away but forever out of reach . . . he needed distance from her.
Despite the strong rumble in his stomach, he strapped on his carpentry belt and grabbed a spare jagged board from the cast-off
pile. Earlier, while releasing Paloma to forage, he noticed a cracked rail on the north side of her pen. His lumber supply
was running low after crafting the rocking chairs from the shattered remains of the orchard’s rootstock tree’s heartwood.
Until he chopped down another tree for fresh planks, he’d attach a support as a short-term solution.
“Alas, my love, you do me wrong . . .” Marigold’s light voice carried across the courtyard as she sang. Many a time she’d
break into song while they hiked through woods, insisting it made the journey shorter. “To cast me off discourteously . . .”
He twisted toward her, ready to shout at her to stop.
The word dried in his throat. Saints, she was beautiful.
A little paler than he remembered, but magnetic all the same.
She’d flung open the door to the root cellar, and as her fingers drifted over the jarred vegetables and braided onions, the morning breeze played with her loose curls.
For one second—one brief, glorious, irresponsible second—he let himself fantasize a long future of days like this.
His jaw ached with his clenching.
Fantasy, indeed. She was here for today and today only.
Bram, however, would remain at Grimroot Farm. Forever. What he’d told Marigold about people staring had been true, but the
curse also kept him rooted here as surely as a shackle. The sprite’s magic clamped invisible walls around the farm, impenetrable
only to him. He’d tried crossing the borders in every way possible—walking, running, leaping, hacking with an axe, flinging
himself skyward with a makeshift trebuchet, swimming across Coldpress Lake, digging deeper than any of the graves at Kindlewood
Garden of Rest next door.
Escape eluded him at every turn.
During his three years here, he’d cycled through the fruitless feelings of shock, anger, and melancholy, and finally landed
on acceptance. Then, with one knock on his door, Marigold upended his resolve. Hard-won peace with his situation evaporated.
To be near her without her knowing him would drive him mad. He needed distance—feet, fields, forests—between them.
Much as she might protest, her departure must be today.
After a long, slow blink, he pivoted toward Paloma’s sty. Even with his eyes focused elsewhere, his awareness of Marigold’s
location prickled his spine. She was the sun, and he was her sunflower, tracking her movements around the farm.
A farm where she’d never put down roots.
No, while he was stuck here, she could have a big, beautiful life wherever and with whomever she chose. A nobler knight would
wish her well, but it stung worse than a fury of hornets that she’d forgotten about him and accepted a marriage proposal from
another.
Bram let the churlish feelings flow.
If he didn’t, they’d out in less productive ways.
Like drowning his sorrows in cider or losing a battle of fisticuffs with one of his apple trees.
Two opposing things could be true—he could wish Marigold every happiness, which might entail marriage to another, and he could want to drive a nail into the skull of any man she married other than him.
Bram grunted as he paused at the fractured rail.
But how had she been drawn in by Crispin? He spat bile into the dirt. Had the prince’s good looks mesmerized her? Or was it his crown and the life of ease it promised?
The would-be king playacted at gravitas, and Marigold had mocked such men ruthlessly in their youth. Had she changed so radically
in the five years since they parted? No, not his carefree Marigold. Look at her over there, singing a courtly lament to the
chickens.
With a snort, he drew his hammer from his belt.
The why of it all didn’t matter. She was not, in fact, his Marigold, and she had clearly moved on. To him, a century seemed like a more respectable period of mourning for true love.
Perhaps their love had not been true after all and he’d risked everything for a fantasy. Bram grunted. These fractious, prickly
feelings were unwelcome.
The sooner Marigold left Grimroot Farm, the better.
As he readied his hammer, Bram plotted how to send Marigold away. Evicting her from the farm would protect her from the curse
and preserve his fragile sanity. The hitch was he wanted to see her safely on her journey. Starvation, cold, knaves, wolves, spoiled food, cliffs—all would easily kill an untrained person traveling
on her own.
He raked his hand through his hair.
Clearly, releasing her to the hinterlands alone was reckless.
Minimancy wouldn’t save her. At a diminished size, she’d be a target for more predators.
A falcon could scoop her up for a tasty snack in two heartbeats.
He’d seen their speed with his own eyes.
Garrick, Harvest Hollow’s royal falconer, had trained birds to swoop faster than a meteor strike.
Bram’s throat thickened as he pulled a nail from his work belt.
Ah, hell. Garrick.
While Marigold had been Bram’s deepest loss since he’d been cursed, his best friend was a close second. Bram longed for the
nights at the Laughing Gourd while he and the falconer attempted to best Laurent the tailor and Martin the haberdasher at
the tavern’s Riddle Night. He was sure Garrick would’ve been game to help Sir Bram Duncan in his time of need.
Jask Bone-Cracker, however, could take his noise elsewhere.
There was no denying it. He personally could not see Marigold safely to Thornwick. His last resort was to ask Alfred to find
a respectable, decent guide to take her safely home to her family. The carter was such a gossip that looping him in might
bring the palace guard back to his doorstep, but the risk might be worth it.
The sooner she was gone, the better.
Because if his bitter heart didn’t kill him, his attraction to her would.
The constellation of freckles sprinkled on her cheeks, the delicate shell of her ear, the way her kirtle hugged her curves . . .
He’d slay a dragon to explore the ways she’d bloomed since they last knew each other. All the more reason to avoid eye contact.
He was sure she’d read desire on his green face and be horrified. To avoid that scenario, all last night and this morning
he focused his disrespectful eyes above her head or turned his back to her. Common beliefs about orcs’ rudeness gave him some
cover, but these tactics wouldn’t last forever.
As she sauntered back toward the cottage, she bowed to Barnaby. “Alas, my love, that you should own a heart of wanton vanity . . .”
Saints, she was distracting.
Back to the fence and the mind-numbing focus it required. The rail’s crack was in an awkward spot, requiring him to hammer
with his left hand and hold the board with his right. Bram pounded the nail, drowning out Marigold’s singing. Was today too
soon to ask Alfred to find a discreet guide? Her absence was the only way to quell the vexing desire that had roared back
to life the moment he clapped eyes on her.
But they could never—
He hissed as a sharp sting tore across his right palm. The nail had slipped and gouged his flesh. Blood welled from the jagged
wound and trickled to the earth. Rough splinters pricked the cut like nettles. Curse his clumsiness. He yanked a handkerchief
from his breeches and pressed the linen to the fresh gash.
“What happened?” Marigold appeared next to him.
He jerked back in surprise. “Nothing. You should wear a bell.”
Bram winced as she laughed.
“Are you always this jumpy?” she asked. “You quailed like Fuzzle at a bath. What happened? I heard you—”
He followed her blue gaze to the linen. Red blossomed on the ivory. As his vision went gray at the edges, he swayed on his
feet. Fresh blood was his Achilles’ heel. A knight of the realm should be able to stomach it, but he’d never mastered his
aversion. Good thing he hadn’t eaten, or he’d have lost his breakfast.
“That’s not nothing.” Quicker than a squirrel, she dashed into the byre and returned with the milking stool. “Sit.”
The legs scraped the fieldstones as he slammed onto the stool. “I’m fine.”
“Liar.” Gently, she lifted his hand above his head.
Her touch sizzled through him, lighting up long dormant parts of him.
His heart, his hips, his . . . This was bad.
So, so bad. Her fingers possessed the same soft, strong skill that had roamed Bram’s body in their secret meeting places in Thornwick.
His very soul awoke, and he might never lull it to sleep again.
“Orcs bleed red,” she murmured as though to herself.
“Of course we bleed red. We’re mammals.”
“Right.” She shook her head. “That was stupid of me. Keep your hand above your head. I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the cottage. He stayed upright through sheer force of will. Barnaby, ever curious, meandered toward him.
“Barnaby, don’t do it.”
The rooster lifted his head high, then puffed his chest.
“If you know what’s good for you, Barn—”
Blood and bones, the Battle of Three Fords hadn’t been as loud as this rooster. On the bright side, he was no longer about
to keel over. The jolt might’ve cost him his hearing, but he’d take it if Marigold wouldn’t find him indignantly sprawled
in the courtyard.
“I’m here!” She crashed back through the door carrying a leather satchel, linen, and several bottles cradled in her arms’
crook. Her footsteps were soft and sure as she crossed the courtyard.
“And I’m still fine.”
“Sure you are.” She set everything on the ground.
As she knelt in front of him and spread a clean linen square next to her, his vision cleared. To have Princess Marigold of