Page 12 of What Fury Brings
All women in Amarra could use the magic of the goddess to keep men in line.
All of them except Olerra.
As eager as Olerra was to see Ydra again, she needed to visit her cousin first. Politics weren’t as natural to her as they were to Glenaerys, but Olerra knew when a good brag was in order.
Olerra made the trek to Glen’s wing of the palace. Glen had many estates throughout Amarra, but she spent most of her time here, working and gaining the support of the courtiers.
When Olerra arrived, she walked into a private auction, happening right in the middle of the main greeting chamber.
There were two ways in which noble Amarrans found their men: They stole them from neighboring kingdoms or bought them from the common classes of their own people. While Olerra was determined to do the former like her mother before her, Glen employed the latter tactic.
While kidnapping men was a centuries-long tradition that many families participated in, it had become more common in the past ten years. A decade ago, the noblemen of Amarra, led by the queen’sbrother (Glenaerys’s father), staged a coup against the matriarchy and lost. As punishment, they forfeited their lives and those of their eldest sons. Now the only males of noble birth were children.
Which meant that noblewomen had to steal noble husbands from other kingdoms. Men could be bought for harems, but the royals, like Olerra, needed to be able to claim their daughters had noble blood for succession.
Her cousin, Glenaerys, older by three months, didn’t have a husband despite also being differre. Her harem was thirty strong already, but they were all commoners. Pretty commoners, but peasants all the same. Glen didn’t have Olerra’s brawn, which was why Olerra suspected she had yet to hunt down a husband of her own. The Goddess’s Gift may have given her an edge, but fighting didn’t come naturally to Glen the way it did to Olerra—not that that stopped her from being too rough with her men.
There were five groups of people standing in the chamber. The first was a woman and sire standing behind a young man who must have just turned eighteen and didn’t have terribly much going for him. He was lean, clearly underfed, though maybe that could be helped over time with generous meals. Glen stepped up to him.
“Stick out your tongue,” she instructed.
He did so.
“Is that as far as it goes?” she inquired.
The mother gave her son an encouraging motion with her hands.Go on, it said. The boy extended his tongue farther.
“I assure you no woman has bedded my Armandis,” the mother explained. “I hear you prefer virgins.”
“Hmm” was all Glen said.
She stepped up to the next group. The man in front was more handsome than the first. Glen inspected his hands carefully.
“He keeps his nails well-trimmed,” the mother of this one said. “You won’t find a cleaner man around than Issan.”
“I have servants who prepare my men for pleasure activities,” Glen said haughtily. “He won’t need to worry about his own upkeep. Flex for me now.”
Issan bent his elbow, showing off an impressive bicep.
“Hmm,” Glen said again, and moved on.
The men grew more and more handsome down the line. When she reached the last pairing, a sire and his son, she had to look down rather than up to inspect her potential purchase. The boy couldn’t be older than fourteen.
The sire waited to be addressed before speaking, as was their custom.
“His age?” Glen asked.
“Thirteen, Princess.”
“And he can perform?”
“Of course. I would not be here otherwise, I swear it. Caught him with his own hand just yesterday.”
The boy took a step back under Glen’s assessing gaze. His hair was blond, his skin fair, his face rounded and smooth. He would make a very pretty man someday. “It is not often I see lone sires selling their sons.”
“I lost my wife some years ago. I have no woman to look after me. I’m desperate for the money.”
The boy turned his head and glared at his sire. Had he been bigger, Olerra thought he’d hit him.
