Chapter 34
Joyful tears sprang to Marigold’s eyes. This was no stranger who’d thundered down the path on horseback. This could not be
the Leshy, for he was anchored to his patch of forest.
“Rowan!” She flew down the stairs and into her twin’s embrace. He was the best hugger, arms fully wrapped around and squeezing tight. “Please say you believed what I wrote in my letters?”
“How could you ask me that, sister?” He released her and searched her face. “Of course I did. The devil take him and all of
Harvest Hollow for his evil plans.”
She tangled her fingers together. “Not the people—they’re lovely. Don’t blame them for the prince’s villainy.”
“Fallen in love, have you?” He hooked his thumbs into his belt.
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. She certainly hadn’t written that in either of the letters to Rowan. “How . . . how do you mean?”
“With the people of Harvest Hollow, naturally.”
“Ah, right. Yes, I have.” She fidgeted with the tail of her braid. “Have you told our parents of Crispin’s plot? With the
possibility of an intelligencer lurking in the castle, I didn’t feel safe sending a letter. And how go the battles with the
sprites of the Gildfall Mountains?”
“No, I came here straightaway.” Rowan turned his signet ring, which he’d inherited when he’d been elevated to prince of Cliffward.
“Your first letter arrived during a rare calm. Beckett had already left for a respite in Thornwick, so I had none with whom I could confer. I boarded the Orvale to set sail and round the Horn of Rashemba, and I came north through their port and Mareval. How do you fare, though? You’re
well? He did not hurt you? You do not appear sickly like the kingdom’s criers and broadsheets claim.”
Her throat tightened. She had no armor against kindness and concern. She swallowed.
A smile bubbled her cheeks. “I’m sound. Tales of my illness have been greatly exaggerated. More of Crispin’s deceit to explain
the stalled wedding. I’m more than sound. Happy, content, well fed. Better than I’ve been since Papa’s ascension. It’s all
due to this farm.”
“Clearly it suits you. I’m glad you’ve had a chance to escape for a bit and clear your head. Where are your harborers? I’d
like to thank them.”
“In the fields. We’re hosting a festival in a few days, and there’s much to be done. It’s just one harborer, though. Did you
ask the townspeople about Grimroot Farm’s proprietor?”
He shook his head. “No. As soon as we docked, I flew here like a longbow’s loosed arrow. I’ve not spoken to anyone in Harvest
Hollow.”
It might’ve been easier if someone had spilled the beans.
She beckoned to him. “Come inside. Let’s catch you up on—”
An angry, galloping Bram sprinted directly for Rowan. Too late, she yelled, “Bram, no!”
Rowan’s whirled around, and his eyes widened. “Bram?”
A green blur collided with her brother, sending up clouds of dust as they tumbled through the yard. Rowan’s palfrey whinnied and pranced away from the wrestling cluster of arms and legs. Barnaby crowed nearby, because that was all Barnaby knew to do.
“Stop!” She picked up her skirt and dashed toward the two before either of them could seriously injure the other. She tugged
at Bram’s arm before he could pummel her brother. “Bram, it’s Rowan.”
She tugged again. It was much like tugging on a pillar. Capable though Rowan was in battle, at his core, her older brother
was a scholar, not a warrior.
“Rowan? Sorry, friend. I mistook you for one of Crispin’s flunkeys.” With a grunt, he raised himself from the pale Rowan,
then held out his hand to help her brother rise.
Rowan brushed off the offer and pushed himself upright. With his hand on his hilt, he locked his gaze on Bram. “Twice she
called you Bram.”
Marigold rested her hand on Bram’s shoulder. “Because that’s his name.”
“What are the odds . . .” Rowan shifted his gaze to her, but his grip remained on his sword. “You’d meet another by that name?”
She blew out her lips. For a scholar, Rowan lacked imagination. Which could explain his failed alchemical experiments. Delighted
as she was to see her rescuer and grateful as he might be that Bram had kept her safe from Crispin, he might not be the picture
of happiness that she’d taken up with a commoner . . . who was now an orc.
This required a plainspoken explanation. And that required privacy. While she was fairly confident there were no spies about, she’d rather not tempt fate.
“Let’s discuss it inside over hot cider.” She climbed the porch steps and opened the cottage’s front door. “Rowan, sit on
the divan. Bram, take the rocking chair.”
Because people were less intimidating in a rocking chair. Even orcs. Especially when a tabby cat leapt onto their lap and made biscuits on their broad chest until the orc relented and scratched the cat’s chin.
“Feel free to chatter!” she trilled.
They did not. She filled the kettle with cider and set it on the stove. The quiet was unsettling. Credit to Rowan for not
staring at Bram, but his gaze flitted about the cottage. Instead of the quaint love nest she’d come to adore, she was seeing
it through his luxury-tainted eyes. The frayed upholstery, the slightly uneven mantel, the homespun curtains.
No. She wouldn’t allow her family’s upturned nose to spoil this.
She dropped cloves and cinnamon sticks into the tankards, then added the steaming cider. The aroma soothed her rough nerves.
Simple pleasures were the only pleasures she cared to have for the rest of her days. Which included, above all, Bram.
Who was indeed a pleasure but definitely not simple.
In her pursuit of a life with him, she could use an ally.
On a tray she carried the tankards, along with comfited pumpkin seeds and last night’s dessert wafers, then set them on the
crate in front of the divan. She handed Rowan the unchipped mug, Bram another, then took the third and sat on the squashy
chair she preferred for reading.
“So,” she said.
“So?” Rowan answered.
“Rowan, at long last, I have found Sir Bram Duncan.” She gestured across the space to Bram. “He’s been cursed by an autumn
sprite these last three years.”
Bram pinched the bridge of his nose. “Marigold, I’m not supposed to tell anyone, or the curse will kill them.”
Rowan stiffened.
“Relax, Ro.” She sipped her cider. “Loophole. He can’t tell anyone—” she gestured to Bram “—but if someone figures it out on their own, like me, or if I share the information, it’s fine.”
“How many experiments have you run to test this?” Rowan asked.
“Including you and me?” She made a big show of counting in her head. “Two.”
Rowan blanched. “Sister, are you sure you haven’t been deceived? What proof—”
“For a future king, you need more spine,” Bram grumbled.
“Is that necessary?” Marigold asked.
Cider sloshed from Rowan’s cup as he slammed it on the table.
“It is you.” Rowan’s bright eyes sharpened. He rose and held his arms wide. “Come here, you crafty rogue. I thought I’d never see
you again in this lifetime.”
Marigold’s thoughts didn’t line up. “Why do you believe him now?”
“Sir Patrick endlessly chastised me that way.” Rowan laughed as he thumped Bram’s back. “If I winced as a wooden sword thumped
my leg—I needed more spine. Didn’t seat my horse perfectly—more spine. Slow to strap into my armor—spine. Only Beckett, Bram,
and I would know that.”
She beetled her brows. “I’m offended.”
“Don’t be. I require evidence before believing anything.” Rowan stepped back to clamp his hands on Bram’s shoulders. “How
did this happen? A sprite, you said?”
Bram gestured to Marigold. “You’d better tell it. To stay within the loophole.”
She nodded and tucked a curl behind her ear.
“When Bram came to Harvest Hollow seeking fame and fortune, he outshone Prince Crispin one too many times for the prince’s comfort.
Crispin also had designs on me, for all the reasons I wrote you in my letters—to marry, get me with child, murder you and Beckett, put me away at Scarlet Spire, and, ultimately, unite and rule both thrones and despoil Thornwick.
So, under the guise of harvesting the autumn sprite’s gold acorns, which grow in the Lantern Oak, Crispin set a trap for Bram to engage with the sprite. ”
“That sounds exhausting,” Rowan said. “But sprites only bargain with willing souls, don’t they?”
“I was willing,” Bram huffed. “Crispin promised me a title and a share of the gold I harvested if I accepted the challenge.”
Rowan twisted his signet ring. “Oh, friend. That’s a dangerous game.”
“Trusting a sprite? Or persuading your parents of my worth?”
“Both.” Rowan reclaimed his seat and his mug. “I take it you lost?”
“He won.” Marigold set down her tankard, then stood next to Bram. “Crispin has control of the autumn sprite and ordered him
to transform Bram and tether him to this farm. While the curse is in force, he can never leave.”
Rowan shifted his gaze between them. “Do I detect an attachment between you?”
For once, her brother’s observations were accurate.
“Yes.” She reached for Bram’s hand. “I love Bram, and he, me.”
With his ankle crossed over his knee, Rowan jiggled his foot. After a few quiet seconds, he seemed to arrive at a conclusion
and nodded. “When did this . . .” Rowan gestured toward them. “Kindle?”
Marigold kissed the back of Bram’s hand. “In Thornwick. Before Bram left. It’s why he left. To improve his circumstances so he could ask for my hand.”
“You were discreet. I knew not of this.”
Rowan wouldn’t have noticed unless she and Bram had cavorted nude in front of him. Her sweet twin noticed the tiniest of details or big walloping facts but rarely anything in between.
Fuzzle switched allegiances and leapt onto the divan next to Rowan, then sniffed at the tankard.
“So, what is it you want to do, Marigold?” Rowan slid a palm against his neck. “Shall I spirit you to Mareval, then Thornwick,
so we might inform our parents in private council? It seems you’re happy here on this farm—”
“Deliriously so.” She wrapped her arms around Bram’s waist.
“But you’re still a daughter of the House of Ashford. Our parents’ blessing is required if there’s to be anything . . . permanent
between you. Is there any chance of reinstating Bram to normal?”
Something pulled tight across her chest, like a bow about to let an arrow fly.
With calm, protective anger, she said, “He is normal.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” Rowan said quickly. “The crown could grant him land and a title in reward for his knightly service
giving safe harbor to you. Marriage to a commoner is a scandal but manageable if he’s human. To an orc, though? Unthinkable.
You’d need to give up your claim to the throne and remain here.”
Everything he said, she already knew. He meant well, but her brother was yet another person trying to school her on the ways
of the world. He could not fathom that she understood the mechanics of noble society and would simply . . . opt out.
“Well, think it, Rowan.”
Bram lifted her chin, his face soft. “Marigold, love, I never intended for you to walk away from the crown itself.”
“I’m walking toward you, Bram.” She cut her gaze to Rowan. “What if I died?”
“What?” Rowan asked.
Bram lowered his brow. “Yes, what?”
“For a month now, Prince Crispin’s claimed I’m too sick to marry.
We obviously need to hold him to account for his dastardly murder plot, but would it be such a stretch for everyone to believe I’d died?
” She bounced on her toes. “Yes. Death may be the solution. I could fake it like one of those poison-apple princesses. Then I’d be free to live as I choose. Mayhap
we could fix the blame upon him, too, and add that to his crimes.”
“No, Marigold,” Bram said. “I’ve lived the last three years of my life as another person. Not being able to own my name has
clawed at me, and I would never ask you to do the same.”
“But I—”
They swiveled their heads toward a knock at the cottage door.