Page 4 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll

DROGATH

B y all accounts, today should’ve been a victory.

The land survey came back clean—no hidden springs, no cursed burial sites, no surprise badger colonies.

The contractors are ahead of schedule, the ridge soil is firm, and my investors are thrilled.

If I sent one of my usual updates to the board right now, they’d call it a perfect opening quarter.

Hell, they’d probably raise their glasses and toast my unshakable instincts.

But I haven’t sent a single report this week.

Because every time I sit down to do it, I look out the window of this creaky old inn and see the glow of Maple & Mallow in the distance, flickering like a lantern just waiting to burn me alive.

I spent the entire damn morning pacing the eastern edge of the ridge, boots crunching over moss and lichen, pretending like I give a damn about scenic elevation angles and brochure wording.

Truth is, I already know where the retreat will go.

I could draw the blueprints in my sleep.

The real reason I’m out there so long is because it’s quiet—and because it keeps me from doing what I really want.

Which is to march straight into Tessa’s shop, drop to my knees, and ask her what it would take to build a life here—permanent, rooted, hers.

Instead, I go back to town.

I stop by a woodworking shop tucked between the post office and a bakery that sells cardamom tarts so sweet they make my teeth ache. The man behind the counter is older, human, with hands like sandpaper and a voice like crumbling tree bark.

“I need a custom sign,” I tell him. “Something sturdy. Rustic.”

He squints up at me, then gives a slow nod. “For the gala?”

“For the shop.”

That gets a raised brow.

I give him the measurements and sketch a rough idea—maple leaves carved in relief around the edge, her business name etched in cursive along a panel of polished cherrywood.

I make sure it’s tasteful. Beautiful. The kind of thing she’d never admit to liking out loud, but that she’d run her fingers over when she thought no one was watching.

“I hear she likes your work,” I say, signing the slip with a flick of my pen.

The man softens. “Tessa Quinn’s got an eye for detail. Like her mother did.”

That gets me. I nod, leave a generous deposit, and head out before my expression cracks.

Next stop is the weaver’s cottage on Juniper Row. An elven woman answers the door in a shawl striped with forest greens and cider reds, her silver hair braided into a crown.

“You want wreaths?” she says, voice sharp despite the decades in her bones.

“Not just any. Tessa’s favorites. Dried thistle and orange, maybe some strawflower tucked into the base.”

She eyes me like I’m a raccoon sniffing around her root cellar. “You are the one who broke her heart.”

I don’t argue. “Yes.”

“Well.” She shrugs. “Least you’re smart enough to buy her flowers now.”

By dusk, I’m back outside Maple & Mallow . Again.

Lantern light spills in warm gold through the front windows.

I don’t go in—I never do. Not unless I’ve got something in hand that gives me an excuse to be there.

Today it’s a box of hand-poured beeswax candles from the apothecary stall I passed on the way in, each one scented with things that remind me of her—cedarwood, dried apple, black tea and smoke.

I stand there like an idiot for twenty minutes, pretending I’m checking messages on my scrying stone, pretending I’m waiting on a courier. Truth is, I’m waiting for her.

I watch the silhouette of her moving inside—fluid, graceful, constantly in motion. She ties a bouquet with those clever fingers, then pauses to tuck a curl behind her ear. A small smile plays at the corners of her mouth. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I want to.

Gods help me, I need to.

Then the front door opens, and she steps out.

But she’s not alone.

Some local lad—mid-thirties, gangly build, polite smile—walks beside her.

He’s got that eager, slightly-too-nice charm of a man who’s practiced how to flirt without spooking the hens.

He hands her a wrapped pastry, something flaky with powdered sugar that makes her laugh.

That laugh—that damn laugh—used to be mine.

I feel it like a punch to the gut.

She touches his arm as she says goodbye, nothing more than a friendly gesture, but my fists clench anyway.

My teeth grind. My jaw aches with the force of it.

That possessive edge I try so hard to dull flares bright and hot, and I have to fight the instinct to go over there and make it very clear that she is not up for grabs.

But I don’t move.

I just stand there in the shadows, jaw locked, letting the burn of it settle under my skin.

When she disappears back inside, I finally exhale. It’s bitter.

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” Bramley says behind me, startling me into a curse.

I turn. He’s leaning on his cane near the shop’s garden bed, watching me with his usual grumpy amusement.

“You’d know,” I say, forcing a chuckle.

“I also know you’ve been sniffing around this place like a lost hound for the better part of a week.”

“I’m just supporting local business.”

“Uh-huh. And I’m the queen of the harvest fair.”

I don’t answer.

He hobbles a little closer, gives me a look that’s equal parts fond and exasperated. “You want my opinion?”

“Not particularly.”

“Too bad. You had her once, boy. And you let her go for money and shadows. Now you’re back, all muscle and regret, trying to buy your way into something that don’t have a price tag.”

I wince. He doesn’t stop.

“She don’t need your empire. She needs you. And you better figure out who that is before she decides she’s better off without the both of you.”

He adds, “Wouldn’t mind more sturdy little half-orc feet runnin’ around the orchard one day, though.”

I stare at him, mouth open.

He just winks and strolls away, whistling a tune older than sin.

That night, I sit in the window of my suite at the inn, a half-empty tumbler of amber fire mead in one hand and my mother’s old pocket watch in the other. The wind rustles the trees outside, leaves skittering down the rooftop like they’re running from something they don’t want to feel.

I thumb the ridged edge of the watch, breathing slow, steady. The weight of it always grounds me, reminds me who I came from. My mother used to say it was for timing storms—knowing when to seek shelter and when to ride them out.

I click it open. The hands tick steady.

I whisper to the empty room, “Don’t screw it up again.”

Because I’ve built towers from ambition and bled kingdoms dry for power.

But none of it matters—not the investors, not the empire, not the pristine retreat planned for the ridge—if I can’t have mornings where Tessa’s curls are tangled in my beard and a little one is squealing through piles of leaves outside.

And that future?

It's only possible if I can find a way to fix what I broke.

One flower. One damn wreath at a time.