Page 12 of Ties of Dust

The bodyguard let out a long, slow breath. So long and slow, in fact, that Cassius half expected him to get light-headed. He seemed to be swaying slightly on his feet, at any rate.

“My name is not Florian,” he said, his voice free of the assumed gruffness for the first time. “You’re right, Your Highness, that we will be in each other’s company whether we wish it or not. And I don’t think I’m capable of maintaining the deception under prolonged scrutiny.”

“Deception?” Cassius half-lifted from his chair, his senses on alert. Had the boy lied about not being able to harm him?

The bodyguard swallowed visibly, but the voice that issued from under the hood was resolute.

“Yes, Your Highness. A deception that was never intended to have so great an impact on you, I swear. Myname is not Florian. It’s Flora. And I’m certainly not fifteen. In fact, my summers number twenty.”

Cassius could only watch in numb shock as the bodyguard lowered the hood at last, loosening a waving cascade of hair in the next movement. The features Cassius had previously only glimpsed were transformed by the effect, and he found himself staring speechlessly into a face that unmistakably belonged to a young woman.

Chapter

Four

Flora tried to steady her breathing as she held the prince’s gaze with what she hoped was a semblance of calm. The look on his face would have been comical if she’d been in a different situation.

Meaning, a situation other than being forced by a magical tether to occupy the same bedchamber as a handsome foreign prince.

Because Prince Cassius certainly was handsome. His hair, a deeper shade of brown than hers, reached his shoulders in a style that was customary in Carrack but not favored in Siqual. It suited him, though. It gave the slightest rugged edge to a bearing that was otherwise commanding and polished. His richly embroidered jacket sat well on him, and he moved with a casual grace that she found much more appealing than the stiffness of Prince Theodore’s gait, or the hint of vanity that accompanied Prince Xavier’s lope.

He’d also shown much more kindness than she would have expected given their unfortunate circumstances, andalthough he had the inevitable pride of a prince, in private conversation, he didn’t seem full of his own importance.

In short, he would likely do very well for Mim. The marriage of alliance was looking much more promising than it had a day before.

Or at least, it would be if someone hadn’t tried to kill Miriam and someone else hadn’t caught Flora off guard and hit her with an overpowered enchantment, landing her in this thoroughly humiliating situation.

Handsome prince, bedchamber, both trapped. That situation.

“You’re…” Prince Cassius trailed off, his pale blue eyes—another excellent feature of his—showing something akin to panic as he stared at her. He tried again. “You’re a…”

“A woman,” Flora finished, taking pity on him when he again failed to say it aloud. “Yes, I am, in fact…that. Yes.”

“But this…this is…”

“So very much worse than how incredibly awful it already seemed.” Flora nodded. “Again, you are correct.”

Prince Cassius stared at her for another dumbfounded moment before squeezing his eyes shut and lowering his head into his hand. The food sat abandoned in front of him, the smell making Flora’s stomach ache in spite of everything.

It was the prince who broke the silence, his voice muffled from behind his hand. “What in the world am I going to do?”

Flora straightened her back. For some perverse reason, his consternation was making her feel more confident. She supposed they couldn’t both fall apart, at least not at the same time. They would have to take turns, or their tethered existence would become a hopeless mess.

“Let me put this hood back on and stand guard outside?” she asked, a hopeful lilt to her voice.

Prince Cassius lowered his hand, studying her with a pained expression. “No,” he said at last, shaking his head. “That’s…that’s not really any better, is it?”

“That depends on your guards, I suppose,” Flora said reasonably.

The prince let out a breath that had the hint of a groan in it. “I can vouch for all of them in terms of loyalty to Carrack. In terms of how they’d respond to…” he waved a hand in her general direction, “this?” He shrugged helplessly.

Flora nodded. It was a fair response. Her time among the royal guards in Sindon had exposed her to plenty of comments and behavior that she could have done without. And that was in a situation where everyone was used to her role as the princess’s bodyguard, and the other guards were all aware that she was a woman underneath her intentionally vague attire. The shock of it would likely make it worse this time.

“What about you?” she asked boldly.

The prince seemed confused. “Me?”

Flora cleared her throat. “Can you vouch for yourself?”

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