Page 3 of What Fury Brings (Wrath and Fury #1)

S anos rode hard for home, eager for a respite after months away on the battlefield. The campaign was grueling work. He spent his days slaying Ephennans and his nights strategizing for more battles with more Ephennans. He caught sleep when he could, but it was becoming rarer and rarer.

Thank the gods for his upcoming birthday. It was one of the few times he was permitted to visit home, get a full night’s rest, and see his family. Though his mother and sister wrote to him weekly, he was eager to see with his own two eyes that they were well.

He never knew what his father would do while he was away.

Thankfully, the king had been engaged in plans to reclaim Shamire from the Amarrans of late. Brutus needed the extra income the city would provide in their campaign against the Ephennans.

Knowing his father’s temper, Sanos hoped the king had good news for him upon his arrival.

As his horse drew near the castle gates, Sanos had to weave through an unexpected crowd of soldiers and nobility. They seemed to configure around a central point, and the prince decided to see what caught everyone’s interest.

“Sanos!”

The prince turned his head and found all four of his younger brothers grouped together. When he reached them, Canus, third-born, practically wrestled him off the horse, and all his brothers joined in on an enormous hug, nearly squeezing the life out of him.

“All right. All right.” Sanos smacked their backs in return. “Let me go before I put you all on your asses right here in front of this crowd.”

They stepped back, and he asked, “ Why is there a crowd?”

An unnerving grin took over Canus’s face. He pointed up ahead, and Sanos followed the line of his brother’s finger.

He blinked twice to ensure his eyes weren’t failing him.

The king was strapped to a wooden post in the middle of the road, and he was as naked as the day he was born. Ropes spread his arms and legs wide, ensuring nothing would be hidden from the crowd’s eye.

Atalius appeared to be unconscious, though Sanos had to ask, “Did anyone check if he’s breathing?”

“I got close,” Ikanos, the youngest of the Ladicus brothers, said. “No such luck. He’s alive.”

“And no one has bothered to get him down?”

“Do you want to be the one to wake him?” Andrastus asked.

Sanos most certainly did not, but this couldn’t continue. More and more courtiers were pouring out of the castle to see if the rumor was true. The crowd was growing in size, and the fallout would only get worse.

Sanos sighed. Sometimes he hated being the oldest.

He handed off his horse to the nearest guard with instructions to stable him. The soldier frowned, clearly put out to miss the excitement, but he did as he was told.

“Welcome home, Prince,” he said as he left. “It’s good to see you well.”

At his words, more surrounding guards turned and spotted his arrival. Some of them had the decency to look guilty for making a spectacle of the king.

“You,” Sanos said, firming his tone. “Go fetch a robe for the king. You lot there, go untie him. And the rest of you, start clearing out this crowd. Now.”

His orders were quick to be followed, but not before he received more greetings and well-wishes regarding his return. He was proud to be so well-liked by his fellow soldiers. He was prouder still that people listened when he spoke.

“Spoilsport,” Canus said.

“You should all go,” Sanos said, “before he—”

“Get me the fuck down!”

Sanos turned. The king was very much awake now. His face was turning bright purple as he discovered his state of undress and the too-slowly receding crowd.

Canus had to turn around to hide his laughter.

“Don’t,” Sanos cautioned. “He will beat you within an inch of your life.”

“Worth it. I’m going to remember that look on his face for the rest of my life.”

It was a spectacular look. The king of Brutus was a proud, ruthless man, and to see him brought so low was, in a word, everything .

“I could kiss whoever did this,” Canus said.

“That would be the Amarrans,” Sanos replied. “Father went to fight them for Shamire once again. We’ve been exchanging battle briefs.”

“He must have been captured this time.”

“Along with his clothes,” Sanos couldn’t help but say, and Canus lost it again.

Andrastus, Trantos, and Ikanos looked horrified at the two of them and took a step away, likely because they didn’t want the king to think they were in on the joke.

When Atalius’s eyes swung to them, Sanos was quick to remove all signs of mirth from his face.

He was the battle-hardened firstborn son.

Stoic and lethal—his father wanted him to be just like him.

But there was an unforeseen danger that came from instilling that level of brutality and ambition within the prince.

Sanos knew his father feared that he had designs on taking the throne early.

He didn’t, yet there was nothing that could assuage his father’s paranoia.

The king’s arms were unbound now, and two men held him against the post so he didn’t topple off-balance while the others were working on his legs.

This kind of humiliation was worse than losing the battle against the Amarrans in the first place, Sanos knew.

Whoever ordered it was calculating and conniving, and Sanos wanted to congratulate them personally for it.

Canus was right. It was worth another beating to see this.

Sanos let none of this show as his father continued to watch him. Since the Amarran general was not here, Sanos would be the one he took his rage out on. He always was.

It was going to be a very bad day.

The robe arrived at the same time the king fell from the post, collapsing in a heap of limbs, sore from being up there for however many hours. The soldier hovered near his liege, unsure what to do except hold open the robe and wait.

Atalius leaped to his feet, snatched the robe, and backhanded the soldier who’d offered it.

“You dare to look upon your king’s nakedness?” he seethed.

The soldier went to his knees and said nothing.

The king strode forward, now robed, magically managing a superior gait. When he got to Sanos and Canus, he said, “Come,” to his oldest son.

Canus gave him a look of sympathy as Sanos followed a step behind the only man in the country who outranked him. The only man who could raise a hand to him. The only man who could best him with the sword. The only man whose opinion mattered. The one who held his future entirely in his hands.

“Report,” the king said as they walked.

“I have taken the cities of Eritus and Blathe,” Sanos said. “We’re pushing more into Ephenna and claiming its territory as our own. The campaign is going very well. The men are in good spirits and health.” Though more food rations would be welcome.

Sanos did not need to ask how the fight against the Amarrans went.

They arrived at the king’s chambers, and Sanos was made to wait as his father bathed and dressed. After two weeks on the road, Sanos wished he could bathe himself, but he knew better than to leave when his father had ordered him to stay.

The prince sent for food, and the king downed sausages and eggs as he eyed his son. Sanos remained stoic, waiting for the king to bring up what he really wanted to talk about.

The silence was agonizing. He might prefer shouting. At least then he would have some idea of what was on the king’s mind.

“I met the Amarran general,” his father finally said. “She’s a dishonorable wretch. Didn’t face me sword-to-sword. No, she threw a rock at my head while I took on a dozen of her best soldiers.”

That was indeed unsporting, but effective, if it resulted in his father’s capture.

Of course, he couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to cross blades with his father.

Atalius was a beast of a man, bigger than any other Sanos had met.

Only Canus grew close in size, but none were the king’s equal with the sword.

A rock to the head was perhaps the only way to best him.

“Despicable. Unsporting.” Sanos kept his response brief.

“She also had some interesting things to say about you. Rumors of you growing more popular than I. Rumors that there are those who wish to see you on the throne before your time.”

Shit.

This was what the king was building toward. More accusations of treason.

“Do I need to remind you what will happen should I meet an early demise?” the king asked.

“No, Your Majesty.”

“Your mother and sister have no value to me. I already have five sons and no use for a daughter. Should anything at all happen to me, I have assassins in place to deal with them. It will not be quick. You will be made to wait years before finding their broken bodies.”

Sanos swallowed but kept the fury from his face. He forced himself not to look away.

Gods, but he hated his father.

If Sanos wanted the throne early, it wasn’t because of any ambitions he had but because he wanted to rid the world of his father’s evil. He wanted his family safe.

Sanos had to learn the hard way that his father was a master at finding weaknesses and causing the most pain possible.

When he was ten, his mother declared that they didn’t spend nearly enough time together and took the prince on an outing into the city, just the two of them and a handful of guards.

They sampled candies and purchased toys.

At the end of the day, Sanos was allowed to select a pup from a local breeder.

But when he returned home, the king was furious. He said the queen had no right to take Sanos away from his tutors. To go into town without his say-so. The king wrested the pup from Sanos’s fingers and snapped her neck before he could even begin to protest.