“Angus Augustus.”

He turned from the window to see Catriona at the door. “Mother, what are you doing in here?”

“I heard about the attack,” she said, entering the room and approaching him after a brief look at Siobhan on the bed. “I have come to tell you something.”

“If this is about Siobhan…”

“This is not about her.” She waved a hand in the air as uninvited, she took a seat in one of the armchairs. “This is about something I should have told you about a long time ago, but was too proud to do so.”

That got his attention as she wanted. Angus crossed to the other armchair and sat. “What could be so important to bring you all the way from your royal friends in London almost three days after the attack?”

His mother licked her lips and fell silent. Her gaze dropped to her hands in her lap, before she said in a small voice, “Javert is your older half-brother.”

Thirty-seven years of near-indifference from the woman, and then this? Angus let out a bark of laughter. “What nonsense is this?”

She sighed heavily. “This is not nonsense.”

“So, you had him and put him up for adoption when my father offered you money to have me?”

She drew herself up stiffly. Little blooms of pink touched her cheeks. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”

“A cold woman who never gave an ounce of love to her son.”

Her nostrils flared; he almost thought she might stamp her foot and paw the ground, like the bull that had attacked Siobhan. But, she simply turned her head away.

She launched into a tale he had never heard before, one that involved the woman that tried to kill him, the brother he never knew about, his father, Augustus, and grandfather, Maximus.

Without looking at him, Catriona told Angus how Diamanta was his father’s mistress and the love of his life, even when he was married to his first wife. How when Augustus was widowed, Diamanta purposely let herself get pregnant and demanded Augustus finally marry her, which he, a man totally in love, agreed to.

And then the tale turned horrific, even as told in her cold, unemotional voice: How his grandfather ordered Diamanta’s whole family killed in a disguised attack, and Augustus, heartbroken, and thinking Diamanta was dead, agreed to married Catriona, for the sake of the kingdom. How a few days before the wedding, he had discovered Diamanta was alive in Switzerland and had bore him a son, Javert. But when confronted with the possible loss of his fortune, Augustus had balked and married Catriona, never contacting Diamanta or Javert again, and also never touching his new wife, and living his life as if she didn’t exist.

It didn’t seem possible.

“So, there you have it,” her voice trembled slightly. “Our family is full of skeletons, which must be kept in the dark, under a tight lock.”

“Tight lock,” he repeated.

There was a reason they’d kept their conversations to inane niceties up until this point. There was no way to talk about anything else without bitterness.

They had no common past to draw on, almost no shared acquaintances. His mother had spent more time visiting her lovers and friends than she had stayed with him when, as a child, he came to spend the holidays in Lektenstaten. And she’d chosen to do it. He might have forgiven her at one time. At one time, he would have forgiven her anything.

Angus stared at her for a moment. “Why have you told me this, then? What do you want me to do with all this information?”

She stared back at him. “I would tell you what to do, but I suspect you will not listen to a word I say.”

That, they could agree on. He had long lost the need to listen to her since she had tried to rid him of Siobhan. Their relationship—if one could call what they had a relationship—would be strained for the rest of their lives.

Knowing now what he did of his father, it seemed unfair to hold her to account for leaving the man. But while she’d pushed her husband away in hatred, she could have chosen to give love to her son, to him.

And she didn’t.

“You must keep this secret. Destroy all evidence. Think of what this will do to our family, to be tied to that murderess and her bastard son.” His mother stood, her back ramrod straight. “Your older bastard of a brother.”

Angus nearly sprang to his feet, his temper rising at that. But shouting had never gotten him anywhere. Slowly, he exhaled his anger, letting it flow from him until the serenity of ice returned. “Get out.”

“I see you have made up your mind.” She raised her chin, her eyes hard as glass. “See that you don’t lose your head, Angus Au—”

“You have one hour to leave this country. From this day on, you are persona non-grata in Lektenstaten,” Angus cut her off with a look that could freeze the brightest of fires.

She gasped. “You can’t—”

“I am king, am I not? At least, for the moment, and that means I can,” he told her in an even voice and looked at his watch. “Fifty-nine minutes.”

Lekten cathedral church bell began to chime the nine o’clock hour; and it was joined by other churches to the left and right—a chorus of bells that seemed all the more eerie within the quiet grip of the mist. For whom the bells toll?

The implications were clear. Javert could demand to be recognized and Angus would gladly do so, in fact, he would propose it to Javert at first opportunity; but then he could create difficulties, perhaps demand his rightful place as the older brother in the Braxton-Lenox family. He could demand to be crowned king.

The bells stopped, their echoes waning, and left a curious silence in their wake, one louder than the quiet in the countryside.

Despite what could happen, Javert deserved to know the truth, to have the same rights he had. And if possible, they could establish a friendship, and maybe he would be interested in a place alongside Angus.

Angus had always hoped for a family of his own—first imagining his father more caring than he was, then hoping his mother would love him.

When he’d realized how futile his daydreams were, his wants had shifted outward.

It had started so subtly he couldn’t pinpoint the moment. He’d had daydreams in which Ludwig was his brother, and he would accompany Ludwig home during the summer holidays.

He’d imagined spending entire days together, talking and playing and boxing and fishing and doing whatever it was brothers did.

When Ludwig’s parents visited the school, and they did a lot, they’d rush forward, arms outstretched, and grab up Ludwig. And Angus would watch the ungrateful wretch scowl and complain, “Stop, Mama,” and, “Don’t kiss me in front of the fellows!”

All that fuss, just because they hadn’t seen him in a handful of weeks.

Angus could only stare dumbfounded from the other side of the room, a lump of sadness and jealousy in his throat, blocking him from asking to be taken with them for whatever they planned to do.

He understood there’d be no lazy family summers, no man-to-man talks, no special sweets for him. He told himself it was fine to have Ludwig as his best friend.

And it was.

All this time and Javert is my kin—my brother! Angus looked up to the sky.

The waxing gibbous moon and the stars gleamed through the fringe of clouds, twinkling for the king and peasants alike. He looked up until the clouds covered the moon and cut out all the light.

He couldn’t change the past, but he sure as hell could change the future.