A Little Fate by Nora Roberts

sister.” Aurora lifted Cyra’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “You’ve become wise.”
    â€œI believe in you, and it makes me strong. You must change or you’ll be late and annoy Owen. You need to keep him happy. It will make his death at your hands all the sweeter.”
    Aurora’s eyes widened. “You talk easily of killing.”
    â€œSo will you, when I tell you what I’ve learned. Hurry. This will take some time.”

7
    â€œB RYNN was one of your mother’s women, and her friend,” Cyra began.
    â€œI know this. Now she sits as queen. Though not happily, by all appearances.” Aurora turned so Cyra could unhook her gown.
    â€œShe—Brynn—was widowed in the great battle. Thane was but three. In the year that followed, Lorcan decided to take a new wife. It’s said—whispered—that she refused him but that he gave her the choice between giving herself to him and her son’s life.”
    â€œHe would murder a child to win a wife?”
    â€œHe wanted Brynn, because she was closes to the queen, in spirit and in blood.” Cyra helped Aurora into the riding habit and began to fasten it. “I only know it’s said that Brynn wept to another of the handmaidens—the mother of the kitchen girl who spoke to me. She swore her allegiance, and gave herself to Lorcan for his promise to spare her son’s life.”
    Aurora sat at the dressing table, staring at her own face, and asked herself what she would have done. What any woman would have done. “She had no choice.”
    â€œThane was sent to the stables, to work, and was not allowed inside the castle from that day, nor to speak a single word to his mother.”
    â€œHard, hard and cold. He could have taken Brynn by force and killed the boy. He kept him alive, kept Thane alive and within her reach, never to touch or speak. To make them both suffer, to cause pain for the sake of it. Payment,” Aurora said aloud as she let herself drift into the nightmare of Lorcan’s mind. “Payment for her first refusal of him.”
    â€œThis is his way,” Cyra agreed. “A way of vengeance and retribution. Brynn married Lorcan, and twice miscarried his child before she gave birth to a daughter, who was Leia. Three years after, she bore Dira.”
    â€œShe had no choice, but Thane . . . he’s no longer a child.”
    â€œWait, there’s more.” Cyra brushed out Aurora’s hair and began to braid it. “When Thane was but seven, he ran away—to join the rebels, it’s said. He and a young friend. They were caught and brought back. The other boy, the brother of the maid who told me, was hanged.”
    The horror of it cut through her heart. “By Draco, he hanged a half-grown boy?”
    â€œAnd forced Thane to watch it done. Thane was beaten and told that if he insulted the king again, another would die in his place. And still he ran away, less than a year later. He was captured, brought back, beaten, and another boy his age was hanged.”
    â€œThis is beyond evil.” Aurora bowed her head. “Beyond madness.”
    â€œAnd more yet. Lorcan took the baby, Dira, his own daughter and half sister to Thane, to the stables where Thane was shackled. She was only days old. And he put his own dagger at the baby’s throat. If Thane ran again, if he spoke ill of Lorcan or Owen, if he disobeyed any law or displeased the king in any way, Dira would die for it, then Leia, then Brynn herself. If he did not submit, any and all who shared his blood would be put to death.”
    â€œCould he kill his own?” Struggling to see it, Aurora rubbed a hand over her troubled heart. “Yes, yes, he coulddo it. She is only a female child, after all,” she said bitterly. “And how could a brother, a boy, a man, risk it? He could run, and now he could escape, but he could never forfeit his sisters’ lives, risk his