Page 42 of What Fury Brings (Wrath and Fury #1)

S anos was fucked.

Well and truly fucked.

But he was so shocked and unprepared for Glenaerys’s words that he could do no more than stare at her.

“One of my spies in Atalius’s court just brought me the most interesting news about his missing son. It turns out—”

“Stop,” Sanos said, cutting her off. Glen was too delighted to chastise him for it.

His heart hurt. Everything was ruined. Not only had Glen broken Olerra by somehow learning a terrible secret, but now Sanos had to deliver another crushing blow. Gods, why now? Why like this?

He came forward, clasped Olerra’s hands within his own. Thankfully, no one tried to stop him. He swallowed.

“Please know that what I’m about to say changes nothing. Not a thing I’ve said to you or the way I feel about you. None of it.”

“Okay,” she said.

Olerra’s big eyes looked up at him, so trusting. How was he going to get the words out?

“I have only lied to you in regards to one thing. Just one thing. Please keep that in mind.”

She pulled back slightly but didn’t release his hands. “What is it?”

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Somehow formed the words.

“I’m not Andrastus.”

There, the first part, the part that was of the most importance to her, and he couldn’t take it back. He watched Olerra process the words slowly, as though trying to make them fit into everything she knew of him.

“What?” she said at last, her hands tensing within his own. “Of course you are. I took you from that brothel. The madam sent you to my room. You have the Brutish royal hair.”

He refused to look away from her. “My brother was very drunk that night. He passed out in the hallway, and I decided I would take his place.”

“Your brother.” Now she snatched her hands away and took a step back. He hated that little bit of distance. “Who are you?”

“I’m… Sanos.”

“The heir?” the queen said in the background.

The revelation was punctuated with a delighted snicker from Glenaerys, who was clearly enjoying everyone’s discomfort. Sanos didn’t take his attention off Olerra.

She looked furious .

“You—you’re Sanos?”

“Yes,” he breathed, elated to finally have his name back.

She took in his features anew. The muscles and the way he held himself. “The fighter. The oldest. Of course. I had met so few Brutes not clad in armor; I just assumed…”

“I wanted to tell you,” he said. “So many times. In the beginning, I stayed silent because I thought you might kill me or ransom me to my father if you learned I wasn’t who you wanted. I couldn’t have either option. And later—”

“What?” She cut him off, her tone lethal. “What possible reason could you have for not telling me later ?”

The queen interrupted the heated discussion. “Glenaerys, take your people and leave. You’ve had your fun.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Glen threw one more haughty look her cousin’s way before exiting, all her women in tow.

“Wait outside,” the queen said to her own guards, who left the room as quickly as they came. The queen didn’t draw herself closer to the two. She observed from a distance. “Olerra, it is only a matter of time before Atalius learns where his heir is. He will come for him.”

“I know.”

“You need to push aside your feelings and think like a leader.”

“A leader? It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”

Sanos’s heart broke for the woman before him. He loved her, but he couldn’t help her. This was the first time he felt truly powerless in Amarra.

She turned back to him. “You’re going back home.”

“Wait, please—” he said.

“I think you’ve said plenty. And you let me say plenty. All those times when we were drawing closer physically and you’d pull away? I thought you were traumatized in some fashion. That someone had hurt you! No, you were guilty. Guilty when I’d say your brother’s name.”

“I didn’t want to ruin things for you. To take your mind off the succession.”

“And yet, here we are, and I was blindsided. I take responsibility for my own secret, but you? You ruined everything .” Olerra turned to the queen. “Auntie, please take him away. I don’t want to look at him.”

“Olerra, wait.”

“No, Prince. You wait. You wait in some dark, dank place until I decide what to do with you.”

The queen called for her guards. He didn’t put up a fight as they took him away.

Sanos.

The man she thought she’d loved was Sanos.

And he was a liar and a schemer. A betrayer.

She kept trying to process it, and her aunt gave her the space to do so. Olerra remembered every interaction. Every moment that was just a bit off, now seen through a new context.

Are you the prince?

I’m the best prince.

Furious tears slid down her cheeks. She brushed them away immediately.

“Everyone will know soon,” she said. She wanted her aunt to talk and fill the silence. Olerra didn’t want to think anymore.

“Yes.”

“They will know that I am Giftless. That I nabbed the wrong prince.”

“Yes.”

“How can you be so calm? Why aren’t you yelling at me for my stupidity?”

The queen stepped farther into the room and took a seat on a nearby settee. “You are beating yourself up better than I ever could.”

“Tell me something. Anything. I cannot bear your silence on this matter.”

“To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out where I went wrong. What did I do to cause you to believe that you needed to keep such a secret from me?”

“I feared you’d stop thinking of me as your heir. I needed your support. I crave your love more than anything.”

The queen stretched her long legs out in front of her. “You thought that Toria and I would love you less if we knew?”

“No, but—”

“But what? That boy, stupid though he is, was right. So what? Do you think I love you because of how strong you are?”

“No, but that is why I’m your general. That is why I lead your armies.” After swallowing, she amended, “Why I did.”

“I’m not in the market for a new general, nor a new heir.”

“The nobles will never have me when they learn about this. I can’t come back from this.”

The queen nodded. “I’m not going to lie to you.

Your odds are almost nonexistent. Glenaerys will make this ugly.

She won’t just call you weak and unchosen.

She’ll call you a liar. A traitor to the country.

She will do everything she can to blow this out of proportion.

I will control the damage where I can, but you must prepare to weather what comes ahead. ”

“And the prince?”

“You could send word to Atalius. Make it sound intentional that you’ve had fun with his heir all this time.

Then ransom him for the spare. Get the real Andrastus and make him yours.

We could tell the court that you took the heir on purpose to teach Atalius a lesson.

You lied about his identity for his own protection. It was all part of the plan.”

Olerra shouldn’t hate that thought. She didn’t want to give her prince back, but she also didn’t want to go through the trouble of kidnapping a new one. As if there was any point. What good would it do if the nobility already hated her and thought of her as a traitor?

“Everyone who was in this room knows the truth. I did nothing to hide my reactions.”

“They will believe the royal family over a handful of guards, whom I can pay off.”

“What of Glen’s? There’s no paying them off.”

“We will just have to hope that we can spread our truth faster than Glen can spread hers. She should have challenged you publicly on this.”

“She tried. She was cautious, in case she was wrong.”

“That’s to our benefit, then.”

Olerra hated all of this. She hated that she needed to take action. She wanted to be alone. To think without anyone watching her or expecting anything from her.

But queens did not have that luxury.

And though she would never become one now, she should still behave like one.

Her nose burned as she forced away more tears. “Do I have any other options, Auntie?”

“You mean other than giving him back? No, Olerra. Atalius will start a war over this if you don’t.”

“I don’t want to keep him,” she said forcefully.

Liar. Her emotions were a tangled mess, but it was still a lie. The queen, probably sensing this, didn’t bother to respond.

Olerra said, “I will send word to the king. He can come pick up his heir at his earliest convenience and swap him out for the spare.”

In the meantime, she didn’t want to go anywhere near Brutus’s lying crown prince.

Sanos expected a dark cell as Olerra had promised. Instead, he was carted off to Ydra’s estate. He recognized it from the carriage window, just over the shoulder of the guard who sat at his side. There were six inside with him. They exited before letting him do so.

Ydra met them at the front door. “What is this about?” she asked when she saw him and the queen’s guard.

“The queen asks that you keep a careful eye on Prince Sanos,” one said.

“Prince Sanos?”

“He is a prisoner, yet he’s to be treated well.”

“Of course,” Ydra said. “I’m happy to do the queen’s will. Thank you for delivering him.”

As soon as she shut them indoors, Sanos turned to her. “Ydra.”

He didn’t get more than her name out before she strong-armed him into the nearest deserted room, some sort of parlor. She practically threw him into the nearest chair.

“Talk. Now.”

Olerra sequestered herself in her aunts’ rooms while the door to her own was being fixed.

She sat at the queen’s desk with a quill in hand and stared at the empty sheet of parchment before her.

She needed to write to the king of Brutus, but she couldn’t let any of her feelings show.

The calculating general needed to come through.

Olerra separated the thoughts in her head by their usefulness. Anything unhelpful would go into the wooden chest she’d conjured in her mind.

Insecurity? The chest.

Fear? The chest.

Anger? That could stay.

Hurt? The chest.

Spite? That could stay, too.

She locked the chest and threw away the mental key.

Then she wrote.

Atalius, dear!