Page 74 of Ties of Dust

“It’s true,” she insisted. “We’ve both observed that it’s not just a physical link. There’s an emotional connection of some sort, although I doubt Lord Armand intended it. It amplifies things, and…and connects us. How could it not…addle the way we think about each other?”

Cassius stared at her for a long moment. “Is that truly what you think is happening?”

Flora nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. The words had hurt to say, but she needed him to hear them, to see that she was right. Before things went further, and she brought down more trouble on him.

He looked like he had a response, but a rap at the door prevented him from uttering it. He stood, Flora also rising and taking a guard-like position behind a chair as Cassius ran a hand through his hair in irritation.

“Enter.”

The prince’s valet appeared, ready to assist with preparations for dinner. Cassius looked irked, but Flora slipped from the room before he could protest, eager for a few minutes in her own suite before she would need to accompany him to dinner. Her thoughts were all in a jumble. She felt relieved at the interruption, but also regretful. She wanted to know the silent thoughts that had been in the prince’s eyes when he’d asked her so solemnly if she thought the connection they felt was due to the tether. It had been hard to read his reaction to the idea.

Her time alone didn’t bring much clarity, and soon enough, she was walking with the prince along the now-familiar corridor, in the direction of the smaller dining room.

“You look tired,” Cassius told her softly, when they found themselves in an empty stretch of corridor. He’d dispensed with his other guards again. “I wish you could rest in your room and have food brought to you there.”

“A kind thought,” Flora said with a touch of weariness. “But not possible.” She flicked her eyes around their still-empty area. “I confess I’d be grateful not to have to stand behind your chair for all of dinner. Do you think perhaps I could take up a position in the corridor instead?”

“If you prefer it, of course,” said Cassius. “The private dining room isn’t large. We shouldn’t have an issue.”

Flora nodded gratefully. She wouldn’t have to endure a whole meal of silent glares from the queen.

When they reached the dining room, Cassius nodded his approval, and Flora took up a position outside the door as he disappeared into the room. There were no other guards present, so presumably the king’s guards were in the dining room with him. Flora settled into position outside the door with a sigh of relief. She could afford to relax—no particular vigilance was required. The food was taken into the dining room through an interior door, so although the occasional servant would probably pass by, she knew it wasn’t a heavily trafficked route.

One person did approach the dining room from the corridor, entering with confidence about half an hour into the meal. She recognized the man as the head of Cassius’s personal guard, and her curiosity was piqued.

Only a few minutes later, a large food trolley trundled up. It struck her as odd, given that there was a more efficient way for the food to reach the royal dining table. There was no one else around, only the solitary servant who pushed the cart, and suspicion tickled at her mind. Sheslipped a hand into her pocket, closing it around her sling as the cart came to a stop outside the door.

She wasn’t quick enough. She’d only half drawn the weapon when a sudden flash of movement—or rather the Dust it highlighted to her senses—gave her only a second’s warning before the servant leaped forward and struck her a blow to the head.

Flora was too shocked to cry out, her head spinning and her thoughts fuzzy as she tried desperately to generate motion with her sling. How had she let herself be so easily caught off guard?

She’d just grasped hold of a tendril of magic when a second man—also dressed like a servant—poured out of the bottom space of the covered food trolley. Flora reached for the small blade at her side, but she was still dazed, and he struck with the speed of a viper. Before she could properly raise the blade, he was on her, wresting the weapon from her hand and covering her mouth with something.

She thrashed for only a matter of seconds before she felt her already befuddled senses slipping away from her.

Chapter

Seventeen

Cassius couldn’t focus on his meal. He was too occupied with thinking over Flora’s words.

Did she really think that his behavior toward her was somehow orchestrated by their tether? Was there any chance she was right? His every instinct rebelled against the idea, but he wasn’t sure whether to trust his instincts anymore.

She wasn’t wrong that his emotions were unsettlingly strong where she was concerned. He didn’t think he’d ever experienced such passion about anything. The anger that filled him anytime he saw Sir Keavling studying her, his anguish whenever she blamed herself for some imagined failure toward him…the absolute despair when he admitted to himself, as he tossed and turned in the early hours of the morning, that he had no way to extricate her from the mess he’d landed her in.

The only way out was to formalize his marriage alliance to Princess Miriam, and not only was the alliance stalled, the prospect was starting to seem unbearable to him. Hestill thought an alliance with Siqual was the best future for Carrack. But a marriage to the Siqualian princess?

The food tasted like ash in his mouth.

When Cassius heard the door into the corridor open, he turned quickly, thinking Flora may have decided to enter after all. But it was a different guard entirely who entered the room, his eyes finding Cassius at once.

Cassius stood, drawing his mother’s attention.

“Cassius?” The queen’s voice held a reproach as Cassius stood to greet the head of his personal guard.

“Just some pressing business, Mother,” he told her. “It won’t take long.”

He motioned the guard toward the far side of the room, where they could speak in low voices without being overheard.

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