Page 4 of What Fury Brings (Wrath and Fury #1)

When he was fourteen, Sanos had a best friend: Vanus, the son of a count.

The boys practiced the sword together in their free time.

They shared their hopes and dreams. Sanos wanted out of the city.

He wished to see the world. Vanus didn’t want to be a count.

He wanted to be a singer. Sanos encouraged Vanus to follow his dreams, and Vanus said that Sanos would make a better king than Atalius.

He should take the throne early and see the world.

To this day, Sanos still had no idea how Atalius found out about the treasonous words, said mostly in jest.

Vanus lost his head, and Atalius had made Sanos swing the ax, else the king would put the prince’s little sister, Emorra, on the chopping block.

Sanos learned that no one could show him any sort of favor or love. The king wanted him isolated so he had few allies should he make designs on the throne. Atalius wanted his son to rely on him and no one else. It was Sanos’s good behavior alone that kept his family alive and intact.

The ax was always there in his mind’s eye, waiting to drop.

So the prince fought the king’s battles and did his utmost not to garner any special favor at all.

And now some Amarran general was spewing idiotic things into the king’s ear. Things that could result in unspeakable horrors happening to his family.

He wanted to wring her neck almost as much as he wished he could kill his father.

Sanos said, “People will amuse themselves with rumors, but that doesn’t make them true. I am devoted to serving the crown of Brutus. I am devoted to you, Father. Any victories I achieve are only because of your training. I win battles for your glory.”

Talking to his father was like balancing on a rope. One wrong word and he’d suffer a one-hundred-foot drop.

The king washed down his meal with a heavy drink of wine. “You mocked me today. With your brother.”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“And what else did Canus find so amusing, then?”

“I told him a joke.”

“A joke, is it? Let’s hear it. Make me laugh.”

Sanos’s mind went completely blank. His brothers had told him all kinds of lewd jokes over the years, but when it counted most, when the skin of his body depended on it, he couldn’t recall a single one.

“I don’t remember it,” he said at last.

“How unfortunate.”

Sanos waited on his father as he strode through the castle.

He listened in on a meeting with the advisers, as his father updated them on the situation with the Amarrans.

He waited while his father visited his mother, doing gods knew what while he stood outside her chambers.

He followed as his father selected a new warhorse for himself, since he’d lost his last one in the battle.

The day was agonizing as Sanos was made to wait for his punishment, following and serving his king.

When Canus was sent for, Sanos knew it was time, and he could finally relax. He didn’t have to guess when the ax would drop. It was here.

They were led to a room deep under the palace. Near the dungeons. The walls were padded to muffle the screams of their enemies. And of the princes.

“I know you both think I’m hard on you,” Atalius said as he drew off his outer garment, leaving him in shirtsleeves and leggings and boots.

“But to be a Brute is to be a hardened warrior, impervious to pain. Able to withstand torture without giving up a single scrap of information. It’s been far too long since you’ve both undergone a training session. Today is a good day for it.”

It was amazing how often these sessions corresponded with the king’s foul moods.

Sanos tried to find something pleasant to think about instead of the pain that awaited him.

His birthday was in two weeks. He looked forward to going out with his brothers.

They always visited a brothel at the end of the night, and Sanos thought of the promise of pleasure rather than pain as the king ordered them both to strip and face the wall.

Canus was angry. His face showed everything, the loathing and fury. Sanos maintained an air of indifference.

“I take no pleasure in this,” the king continued.

A lie.

“My father was also hard on me. Someday, you will look back and realize that I only wanted to make you stronger. When you are indifferent to pain, you will become a true Brute. You will thank me for this.”

“Did you thank your father?” Canus asked brazenly.

Sanos wished he’d shut up.

“I did. On his deathbed.”

The cane was a long stick, smooth from time and use.

It was important not to break their skin.

To make wounds they would heal from without scarring.

They couldn’t have lashes on their backs like servants.

Sanos didn’t know why. Perhaps it was his father’s ego.

He wanted perfect sons, beaten into submission to their king, yet rulers and conquerors to the rest of the world.

They weren’t restrained. They didn’t need to be. If they laid a hand on their father, it was treason. So they could do nothing but withstand the torture.

Slap.

Canus was struck first, and Sanos flinched.

It was worse when it wasn’t his turn. He anticipated pain but didn’t receive it.

Felt the tiniest bit of relief. Then the cane would land on him, and the pain would be worse when it followed that burst of relief.

His father alternated. Sometimes hitting Canus three times in a row before switching back to Sanos.

He didn’t know when it would land. He didn’t know when it would end. He didn’t know anything.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

Time could only be measured by counting the strikes. Twenty-five. Fifty. Seventy-five.

On and on it went. The king even forgot the farce of “withstanding torture.” Atalius didn’t bother to ask them a single question. He didn’t promise the pain would stop if they gave up their country’s secrets. Today, the king was too far gone.

When Atalius finally decided he was done, he told them to get dressed.

“It’s time for sword training.”

They were both so sore they could barely stand. But the way of the Brute was to fight even when wounded. There was no choice but to follow the king to the training yard.

Sanos weathered the beating better than his brother. Perhaps because he was more used to it. As crown prince, he was trained the hardest, preparing to be king one day.

They practiced with real swords, the king taking on both him and Canus at the same time. On a good day, they could probably beat him together, but the king had set them up for failure by leaving them hardly able to move.

Yet something came over Canus once a sword was placed into his hand.

He charged their father with all the rage of a boy who’d been beaten into a man far too soon.

At almost twenty-three, Canus wasn’t quite at his physical peak.

He hadn’t been sent to fight in any battles, likely because the king didn’t want them banding together against him.

Canus had no real battle experience, but he had all the best tutors, just like Sanos.

The move was precise, cutting straight for their father’s head.

Atalius ducked and swiped, cutting a hole in Canus’s shirt. Sanos charged from behind, rallying his strength. His father took his legs out from under him, too fast for Sanos to even track it in his delirium of pain.

He fell to the ground on his already-blistered back.

And screamed.

“Get up,” the king demanded.

They both charged again and lost.

“Get up,” the king said a second time.

It continued until there was nothing but pain and his father’s voice.

Sanos didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious when he woke in his rooms to a cold pinch.

“Shh,” his mother said. She put another salve-soaked cloth on his aching back, covering every injury one at a time.

Ferida was beautiful, with white-gold hair and smooth features that made her look doll-like.

She was small. So small compared to all her grown sons.

Too small to have been paired with the likes of his father.

When the queen was done, she stood, taking the bowl away to the adjoining bathing chamber. She walked a little funny.

“He hurt you,” Sanos said.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Canus—”

“Emorra is with him.”

“Good,” Sanos managed.

He seemed to sink farther into the bedding beneath him.

“Your reign can’t come soon enough,” she said.

“He’s too fit and healthy. It’ll be years and years yet.”

“He’s too battle hungry. One of these days, his pride will get him. And if it doesn’t, perhaps we should help it along.”

The words sang to his soul, but Sanos didn’t have the heart to tell his mother that they could never help it along. He didn’t want her to worry over the threat his father had made to them. Or worse, hear her say she wasn’t afraid of death if it meant it would save her sons and country from Atalius.

So instead, Sanos said, “One day,” to give her hope.

“One day,” she agreed.