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When they reached the fields beyond the tents, Cassia seized her opportunity. She exchanged a glance with her sister, who returned a nod. Solia and her retinue slowed, and as Genie captured Ben in conversation, he too fell back. Flavian was at Cassia’s mercy.
“I will give you one more opportunity to release me from our betrothal,” Cassia told him.
Flavian had the gall to laugh. “And if I don’t? What will you do this time? Send the Semna to lecture me again? You cannot threaten anything meaningful, such as costing me votes. The kingship is within my reach.”
“The votes any of us can predict with certainty are split down the middle, and those undecided are anyone’s guess. That throne is not yet yours.”
“But it will be.”
“If you are so confident, why keep me trapped in this promise? You have no intention of marrying me and making me your queen.”
“I’m keeping this card in my hand until the final trick. No telling what cards you and your sister have up your sleeves to play in the last hours of the Council.”
“And after that? Let us imagine, for a moment, that you have won. Will you finally let me go then?”
“That depends on how much trouble your sister intends to make in my kingdom afterward.”
She looked over at him, trying to see in him the man she would once have called a friend. “Don’t make me do this, Flavian.”
“Making others do as you wish is your specialty, Cassia.”
“Is that what this is? You’re punishing me?”
“If you think I would punish a woman out of spite, you do not know me as well as you pretend. You think I want to continue parading this mockery of a betrothal in front of Sabina? I would never, if I had any other means of mitigating the damage you’re capable of dealing my plans.”
“If you do not release me,” Cassia said through her teeth, “what I parade in front of Sabina will be far worse than our betrothal.”
“You two are thick as thieves. You would never do anything to cause her pain.”
“No. But she will thoroughly enjoy the pain I intend to cause you.”
His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t. It would do too much damage to her reputation if you told everyone we…”
Cassia laughed. “You think of all the affairs you’ve had, we need to choose that one to spawn nasty rumors about you? Certainly not.”
“I have been perfectly discreet,” he said.
“Yes, everyone knows you keep your fornication within the approved bounds of Tenebran manhood. Widows, traveling players, concubines. But what if all your admirers found out you had deflowered a lady? Worse still, a temple virgin?”
“Unfortunately for your schemes, I haven’t.”
“That is immaterial.” She handed him the note. “There are plenty more where this came from.”
One hand on his reins, he held Hoyefe’s brief, forged note up to read. Flavian’s face flushed red and his brows drew down in anger. “I didn’t write this!”
“But everyone will believe you did. Wait until you see the replies from Irene.”
Cassia relished the sight of Flavian’s incredulous face. “Tyran’s sister? She’s merely one of the many sycophants begging for Segetia’s favor.”
“I told you your worst quality is trying to please others. You never should have allowed her letters to enter your solar.”
“I received those letters as her liege lord, nothing more!”
“The entire staff knows she’s been writing to you, and the entire nobility knows you are showing great favor to her brother. Besides, Irene is a very beautiful woman, and already a little disgraced. It’s not a great stretch of the imagination to think you two would disgrace her a little more.”
“No one will believe this.”
Cassia gave him her most scheming smile. “Are you willing to stake your reputation on that? There are plenty of men who wouldn’t care if you defiled a Kyrian maiden. But there are enough. Can you afford to lose their votes?”
