Lada stood as Radu shifted sideways, angling to put himself between Ilyas and Mehmed. Lada darted to Ilyas’s other side, swinging her sword wide in a lunge so predictable even Radu could have blocked it. Ilyas took advantage of her opening, filling the space she had left.
The space right in front of the balcony door.
Ilyas’s sword sliced through the air. At the last possible moment, Lada dropped backward onto the floor, screaming, “Now!”
Radu braced the rod at shoulder-height and ran forward with everything he had left. The rod slammed into Ilyas, catching him off guard. He stumbled backward, but Radu did not have enough momentum to push him off the balcony.
Lada appeared at Radu’s side. She grabbed the end of the rod and pushed it like a door, hinging hard to the right so Ilyas was knocked off balance. The backs of his legs met the stone railing of the balcony, and Lada followed the swing of the rod.
Ilyas fell.
But Lada could not stop, her momentum carrying her forward. She tipped over the edge of the railing.
For one moment the world died, hanging lifeless and devoid of air in front of Radu. And then he felt the rod being wrenched from his hands. He tightened his grip, twisting so the rod was under his armpit.
“Hurry!” Lada said, and in her voice he heard the girl he had grown up with, the girl who always chose to be fierce instead of scared. The girl who was now terrified. “I cannot hold it!”
Radu pushed down on the rod, using the railing as a fulcrum. The metal bent but was strong enough to pull Lada back. As soon as she was level with the balcony, Radu threw himself forward and grabbed her blood-slicked hands. He tipped her up, falling backward with her on top of him.
She was shaking all over, trembling as he had never seen, delirious with blood loss and fear. “You saved me,” she said.
“Of course I did.”
She shook her head. “Not when I was falling. When Ilyas had us both on the floor. You chose me over Mehmed.”
“You are my family,” he whispered. Lazar had been right, after all.
He held her, stroking her hair and crying, the sound of the door finally breaking open and Lada’s men pouring into the room a distant, dull roar.
ILYAS HAD NOT DIED in the fall, though Lada suspected that he wished he had. She was surprised to find Kazanci Dogan exonerated by the information the prison guards extracted from Ilyas. Kazanci Dogan had not been in on the assassination plot, merely encouraged to hold Edirne hostage for even higher pay increases.
It had been a simple matter for Ilyas to walk through the palace, commanding Janissaries to go into the city and put out fires. Leaving only him and his accomplice Janissary to know the truth of the mission.
Lada shifted on her seat, her side complaining doggedly when she moved and when she did not move and when she did or did not do anything at all. She did not feel like herself, head aching and tired after even modest exertion. Still, she would heal.
She glanced over at Radu. His eyes were unfocused as he stared at the courtyard.
The head gardener raised the stake, planting Ilyas. Ilyas, who had allowed her to train with his men. Ilyas, who had given her a chance to prove herself and accepted it when she did. Ilyas, who had given her responsibility in an empire where she should have been invisible.
Ilyas, who had stabbed her.
She did not know whether to hope he died quickly or lingered in agony. His accomplice was more fortunate, having bled to death on the floor while a physician sewed Lada together with black thread.
“You did him a kindness,” she said to Radu, her voice low so it would not carry beyond them to Mehmed or the gathered officials. Grand Vizier Halil was there. He had not been implicated. But he was also in charge of the rotations of prison guards who extracted the information.
“Who did I do a kindness?” Radu did not look at her, his tone lifeless.
“The Janissary you killed. The accomplice.”
A spasm of pain twisted Radu’s features. “Lazar. His name was Lazar.”
“You knew him?”
Radu did not respond. Lada wished for some sense of what to do, some knowledge of the ways people comforted each other. Were their positions reversed, Radu would know what to say.
“Was he the first man you have killed?”
“No. But he is the first I murdered.”
Lada scoffed. “He was a traitor. And you saved him the agony of prolonged death. It is more than he deserved.”
“He was only there to protect me.” Radu gave her a bleak grin she did not recognize, a tortured imitation of humor. “He was worried I would be hurt.”
Lada reached for Radu’s hand and was surprised when he accepted it. She squeezed, once. “You saved all our lives.”