Page 1 of The Pumpkin Bride

Chapter 1

Deep in the hinterlands of Harvest Hollow, Sir Bram Duncan led a lance of knights through Windfall Woods. A tang of pine clung to the chilly night air. And . . . sniff . . . if he wasn’t mistaken, ripening pumpkins. He raised an eyebrow. A dense wood like this should be too full of shade and roots to sustain a vine-based crop. But this was no time to worry about agricultural oddities. Not when curious glowing eyes peeped from between the trees.

“How much farther?” Bram called back to Prince Crispin.

“Just up ahead,” Crispin said. “It’s impossible to miss.”

“How did you find this treasure tree anyway, sire?” Bram asked.

“It’s called the Lantern Oak.” Crispin grunted as they climbed over an enormous rotting log. “And I found it because I’m brilliant.”

“Obviously.” Bram clasped a thick-necked knight, Fergus, by the forearm to help him up and over the log. Kevin followed unaided. Points to him for his strength, but Bram immediately deducted those points for his lack of stealth. The man’s brigandine clanged like church bells on Sunday morning. How had he made such a racket when the small plates were riveted inside his padded jacket?

Lack of training, that was how.

In the years since Bram arrived in this realm to earn prestige and a plot of land, he’d concluded the education for pages, squires, and knights in Harvest Hollow was lax. But if he was being candid, he’d call it a death sentence for the men who believed themselves prepared to square up to an invading army.

This was a boon to him, though.

Thanks to his foster father’s firm training, Bram handily won several tournaments. These victories gained Prince Crispin’s notice, which opened the door to his royal inner circle. Crispin claimed surrounding himself with handsome champions reflected well on him. In Bram’s experience, it also increased the number of maidens tossing their favors at his crew.

Bram, happily in a romance, declined all such favors.

He rubbed his half of a locket anchored on a silver chain that lay nestled against his chest. Princess Marigold’s portrait had been with him during every journey, quest, and step he’d taken since departing Thornwick. After tonight’s adventure, he would finally have enough coin to return home and make an impressive offer for his true love’s hand.

“You can do this,” he called to Crispin’s squire, young Coby.

The adolescent scrambled up and over the massive log with the agility of a squirrel. Impressive for a lad with only two years’ training, especially since he’d kept his lantern level. The squire was sharp of mind, too—he could memorize instruction and repeat it back verbatim.

Unlike Sir Kevin over there.

“Well done,” Bram said. Crispin rarely offered positive feedback to the boy, so he tried to fill in the gaps. “Help me with these?”

Together, they laid three thick limbs across a gurgling brook.

“How will we know the tree?” Bram asked.

Crispin tapped his foot impatiently. “By the lights. It’s called the Lantern Oak for a reason.”

Bram tested the hasty bridge. Solid.

As he crossed, he asked, “What should we know about the magic?”

The command in Bram’s voice belied the pit in his stomach. Unlike battle plans, magic provided too many opportunities for misinterpretation. Like when he was small and his parents flipped a coin into the Whispering Well. New to the kingdom of Thornwick, Harvest Hollow’s neighboring realm, they’d wished for their child to become a knight. Magic twisted the simple request. Instead, his parents had disappeared and Sir Patrick Duncan stumbled upon him, alone and crying in the square, clutching his wooden sword. The only thing he had to remember them lo these twenty years were his mother’s eyes and his father’s face, which he saw in his reflection.

“So many questions, Sir Bram,” Crispin said warily. His blond hair gleamed silver, the moonlight marking him a sovereign. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Bram wouldn’t let it go. “It’s present. And the magic? What are we facing?”

The prince walked the sturdy limbs over the brook. The longer he held his tongue, the more the pit in Bram’s stomach widened. Crispin’s presence was unusual, so there must’ve been more to tonight’s jaunt than met the eye. Bram was game for anything so long as the quest paid. He sought information to prepare for danger. Fortune favored him when luck met preparation and increased his chances of returning home to his childhood sweetheart.

He ached for Princess Marigold of Thornwick.

She was his true love, his true north, his heart’s desire. Her red curls, eyes that flashed like sapphires in firelight when he’d been particularly annoying, soft curves that tempted him like candied apples . . . He could write epic poems about her wondrous body. Above all, he missed their conversation, their laughter, and their understanding of each other. Like they were in a private bubble, where nothing they said or did flowed into the cesspools of courtly intrigue.

Letters had kept them in contact, but it was no replacement for holding each other. Another of her cherished missives had arrived this morning, bearing news that her beloved uncle, the king of Thornwick, had fallen ill with the posy fever. While she was an optimist, the fever was almost always a death sentence. Her sadness had leaked into some of her words as well as the uncertainty about what this meant for her branch of the royal family tree.

After tonight, he’d return to the kingdom of Thornwick to comfort her.