Page 6 of Ties of Dust

“Prince Cassius.” The man inclined his head slightly, both his bearing and his attire proclaiming his affluence. “My apologies for the delay in reaching our intended meeting point. I’m Prince Theodore, and I’m delighted to welcome you to Siqual on behalf of my father the king.” He glanced to the side, where the princess was still regarding her own folded hands. “And to present to you my sister, Princess Miriam.”

She raised her eyes at last. Her features were beautiful,but the smile that crossed her face was strained. Cassius had sympathy for her. It was an awkward situation. But it was of his making, so he should do his best to reduce the discomfort.

“I am grateful for your welcome,” he said, trying to project both kindness and confidence. “And to meet Her Highness.”

With a hint of steeling herself, the princess moved forward. Another figure followed her movement, drawing Cassius’s gaze. The man, whom he hadn’t even noticed at first, was dressed in a uniform of silver and black, with a fitted hood that made it difficult to see his face. Cassius was familiar with the type of uniform—his own guards wore similar ones, designed to make them seem less like individual people and more like a role embodied. They weren’t supposed to attract notice, but Cassius couldn’t help staring at the one in front of him.

The man’s watchful demeanor and the way his every movement shadowed the princess seemed to confirm what Cassius had assumed from his attire—he was the princess’s personal bodyguard. But he was a strange choice. In Cassius’s experience, bodyguards were built like bears, tall and muscled with statures designed to intimidate. This man looked like a teenager. He moved with confidence, and his posture was one of readiness, but he was barely taller than the princess, and he was far too lithe to be described as muscled.

“You are very welcome, Prince Cassius.” Princess Miriam’s voice was soft but clear, even over the sound of the rain on the branches above. “We are glad to—”

It was the sudden movement of the bodyguard that cut off the princess’s words. Cassius didn’t even see what had prompted the man to move, he just saw him leap in front ofthe princess. Cassius blinked in confusion as what appeared to be a cloud of dust burst over the man as he raised a leather bracer before his face. Cassius’s eyes could barely follow quickly enough to catch the chunk of misshapen metal that thunked into the bracer before falling to the grass in front of him.

It was only as something whistled past his ear that he realized what had happened. The bodyguard had used magic to destroy an arrow mid-flight before it could strike the princess.

There was no time to be impressed by the man’s reflexes and magic manipulation skills. By the time Cassius understood what he was seeing, the guard had repeated the performance four times in rapid succession, disabling a fresh arrow each time. The moment the barrage stopped, he whipped a sling from his jacket and placed a small stone inside it.

Shouts from both parties showed that all the other guards—who clearly wouldn’t have identified the threat until too late—had at last grasped what was happening. Prince Theodore drew a blade, moving toward his sister as each party’s guards converged on their charges.

“Just as we feared!” Lord Armand cried from beside Cassius, seizing the prince’s arm and attempting to drag him behind the shelter of a tree. “Foul play!”

“Don’t be a fool!” Cassius snapped, yanking himself free. His guards had already formed a human shield around him, but he reached for his own blade nonetheless. “We’re not the target.”

The princess’s impressive bodyguard had taken no note of the bustle around him. By the time the other guards reached Princess Miriam, the bodyguard was swinging his sling expertly around his head. Deftly, and without evenlooking around, he shifted forward so the weapon didn’t catch any of the converging guards.

“There! In that tree!”

Prince Theodore had found the source of the attack, but Cassius didn’t follow his gesture, too fascinated by the smooth movement of the bodyguard’s sling. He’d assumed that the purpose of the weapon was to take out the archer, but the bodyguard didn’t release the stone. His posture was rigid with focus as he continued to whip the weapon around his head, his body still placed between the princess and the direction of the arrows.

“He’s generating more magic!” Lord Armand cried, realizing the purpose of the sling just as Cassius did.

Cassius ignored the scandalized observation. The bodyguard wasn’t a threat to them—a blind man could perceive that his whole focus was the princess and her protection. He still didn’t release the stone, instead watching as one of the Siqualian guards took aim with a bow of his own, squinting in the direction from which the arrows had come.

Cassius tried to dull his main senses and focus on the awareness of magic that had been part of his studies. The rapid motion of the bodyguard’s sling was creating a steady stream of magic. Cassius could tell that it was tethered to the bodyguard, meaning the man had taken hold of it, but he didn’t have the training to identify the exact shape the harnessed magic was taking. His best guess was that the man was using it to create a sort of shield around the princess.

Cassius pulled his attention back to his physical surroundings in time to see the archer guard let his arrow fly. A gurgling cry and a heavy thunk behind Cassius told him that the attacker had been neutralized. But the bodyguard didn’t relax, and it was a good instinct. Just asseveral of the guards swarmed toward the fallen archer, something flew out of the trees in the opposite direction.

Cassius’s warning cry died in his throat as the spear collided with an invisible wall of magic and fell, harmless, onto the grass. From his vantage point, he couldn’t see whoever had thrown the weapon. But the bodyguard apparently could. He spun his sling around a final time, releasing the stone at last. It disappeared into the branches, and a moment later, a much larger shape than a spear plummeted through the foliage and hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Like everyone else, Cassius froze, staring at the lifeless body of the second attacker, who had another spear clutched in his hand.

“Move into the field, away from the trees.”

The sharp voice of Prince Theodore broke through the silence. Cassius turned to see him ushering his sister and her bodyguard across the road toward open space. The Siqualian prince turned to his guards.

“Search the whole copse. Every tree, you understand?”

Half the guards spread out among the trees and, at a word from Cassius, most of his own guards joined them. The rest accompanied the royals from both kingdoms into the open space on the other side of the road. Cassius’s head was spinning, and dominant among his reactions was a vague feeling of uselessness, even shame. He wasn’t the only one whom the attack had taken by surprise, but that didn’t make him feel any better about his response to danger being put so thoroughly to shame by a teenager.

As he drew close to the Siqualians, he saw that Prince Theodore looked equally shaken. Over the driving rain, Cassius could barely hear his voice.

“Without a doubt, you saved her life,” the other prince was murmuring to the bodyguard. “I hope you know that.”

The bodyguard inclined his head, his youthful frame still stiff with tension as rain hammered down on the hood he wore. He looked like he was struggling to hold himself upright, and no wonder. The energy his defensive magic had required would have been immense. Princess Miriam herself looked pale, her eyes darting around the open, grassy space in search of further threats. She was sticking close to her bodyguard, the only one standing alongside the royals. The rest had formed a protective ring that fully encased them all, a stone’s throw from their position, ready to keep the fighting away from them if another attack came.

But why had the first attack come? None of it made sense. Cassius was still searching for words to voice his confusion when Lord Armand strode angrily into the protective circle. The nobleman was taut with fury, his face set in an expression of outrage that Cassius knew all too well.

“This is unacceptable!” Lord Armand raged as he neared the Siqualian royals. “Carrack will know how to answer such an affront!”

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