Page 75 of Ties of Dust

“Well?” Cassius asked softly. “What have you found?”

His head guard looked grim. “Something, Your Highness. I don’t have conclusive evidence yet, but what I’ve seen is enough to convince me. There’s a problem with Sir Keavling’s papers.”

“What’s the problem?” Cassius pressed. “They were considered valid by the royal archivist when he first arrived at court.”

“They’re very good forgeries,” the man said with a nod. “I’m not surprised they passed as genuine. But I went over them in painstaking detail, like you instructed, going back four generations and comparing them against papers of those with shared ancestors. And there was a discrepancy in one of the names about two generations back. A minor one, that wouldn’t usually raise concern. I decided to follow it up, and I found that the exact same error had appeared in prior versions of the other records, but nonewithin the last century. It had been corrected in all current versions.”

Cassius frowned. “What are you saying? You suspect the documents he presented were copied from inaccurate ones acquired more than a hundred years ago?”

“I suspected it at first. Now I know it. I’ve spent some time learning the history of the Keavling line. Generations back, during a famine, they attempted to emigrate to the continent. They were driven out by the ruling clan of the area, and returned within two years. They were forced to flee, leaving all their effects behind.”

“And someone had the foresight to archive their documents rather than destroy them,” Cassius said thoughtfully.

“There’s more,” the guard said. “The death of the last title holder, so-called uncle of the man claiming to be Sir Keavling, is very suspicious. I rode out to the estate myself, and no one was aware of the late nobleman’s nephew existing until he showed up shortly after his uncle’s death.”

“He’s an imposter,” Cassius growled. He felt some anger, but at least as much relief. He would be able to expel the man now, and end his influence with the king.

Should he raise it with his father at once, though, or wait for concrete evidence? He was silently grappling with the question when he started at the sensation of slim arms being slid around his middle. He didn’t look down to see who’d grabbed him this time—he’d come to recognize the feeling.

Flora.

Cassius turned his face toward the door, frowning. What was going on? Was she just stretching her legs within the tether, or was she actually trying to leave the area?

He seemed to have his answer as the tug became moreinsistent. For a moment, he stood rooted, his greater physical strength holding the ground as her movements continued to tug at him. This was no accidental brush with the edge of their boundary.

Cassius took a step forward, the pressure easing momentarily then returning.

“Your Highness?” The guard was watching him with furrowed brow.

“Thank you for your report,” said Cassius, taking another step toward the door. “I will consider what’s best to do next.”

“Are you well, Your Highness?”

The guard looked concerned, and for a split second Cassius considered telling him what was happening. He trusted the man more than anyone else on his guard. But he’d gone too long without betraying the tether to do so lightly.

“I’m fine,” he told the other man. “I need to attend to something.”

He was moving toward the door as he spoke, the pull too strong to resist, but he asked one final question.

“Was my Siqualian bodyguard outside the door when you entered?”

His head guard nodded, bemused as the prince kept moving away from him. “She was standing to attention just outside, Your Highness.”

Cassius nodded, trying to seem regal as he practically jogged across the room. She’d only just started moving, then.

“Where are you going, Cassius?” his mother demanded.

“A quick matter, Mother,” Cassius assured her. His father was also staring at him, and he tried not to look ridiculous as he opened the door, his movements jerky. Aflash of frustration passed over him. What was Flora playing at? “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Ignoring their protests, he moved out into the corridor, casting his eyes around vainly for Flora. The area was completely deserted. Cassius’s skin prickled, his annoyance lanced with concern. But he was in his own castle, and Flora had been standing there moments before. She obviously hadn’t gone far. And thanks to the tether, it wouldn’t be difficult to find her. She was moving slowly and steadily, not running as she undoubtedly would be if she was in danger.

He strode forward, following the tug of the tether. As he moved into a busier part of the castle, any fear was allayed. If Flora had moved through the area at a sedate pace moments before, she couldn’t be in too great a crisis. When he rounded a corner and found himself looking down a long corridor, however, he paused. Surely the hallway was more than twenty feet long, and yet he could see no sign of her. Plenty of others moved through the space, a pair of guards heading in the direction of their barracks, a group of maids, a servant pushing a trolley.

Cassius was tugged forward once again by the tether, frowning now as he increased his speed. He was surprised when the invisible lead took him through a door and into the garden where he and Flora had snatched a moment of privacy within the hedge spiral. Darkness had fallen, but he could still make out the hedges up ahead. He stood just inside the garden, waiting for another tug.

None came. Flora had come to this garden and stopped. She was somewhere nearby, still mysteriously out of his sight. The only place within twenty feet that she could be hidden was in the hedge spiral. Had she called him here tobe alone, away from the prying eyes that were always watching inside the castle?

The thought made his heart lurch, and he stepped forward again. Unease still tugged at him, and his hand tested his side, reassuring himself that the hilt of his sword was in easy reach.

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