He had pushed Lada away, and she had ridden to Wallachia and glory. To everything she had ever wanted, without a second glance for the man she allegedly loved. Or for her pathetic brother. For all his supposed cleverness, Radu could not secure the same happy ending for himself that he had tricked his sister into.
If Lada were still here, would this plan of enforced distance be his life? Or would Lada have come up with another way to subvert Halil? A way that let Radu keep his friendship with Mehmed? A way that did not leave Radu alone every night, wondering when his future would be what he hoped it to be? Wondering what those hopes even were?
Hope was an arrow that never ceased piercing his heart.
Plans notwithstanding, Mehmed could have done things as Nazira said. He could have made excuses so he and Radu were able to speak face to face instead of via covert, hidden messages. There were many things Mehmed could do but did not, and probably never would. If Radu let himself dwell on those things, he would surely go mad.
He avoided Nazira’s gaze. “It is fine. Everything is as it ever was, and as it will ever be. Once we have taken Constantinople, I will be at his side again. As his friend.” Radu’s voice wavered on the last word, betraying him.
“Will it be enough?” she asked.
“It will have to be.” Radu tried to smile, but it was useless to be false with Nazira. Instead he bent and placed a kiss on his wife’s forehead. “Give my love to Fatima. I have work to do.”
Nazira stood, taking his elbow firmly. “Not without me. You need an ally.”
Radu sighed. He really did. He had been so lonely, so lost. He did not want to ask this of her. But then again, he had not asked. She had simply shown up and told him how things would be. That was her signature, he supposed. And he was grateful for it. “Thank you.”
Together, they walked back into the party. It felt less like hell and more like a game. Nazira deliberately greeted the people least likely to speak to Radu now that he was out of favor. She did it to annoy them, and he adored her for it. It was delightful to watch those who had once clamored for his favor and then shunned him squirm as they tried to be polite. Radu was actually enjoying himself. And he had good news for Mehmed, which meant an excuse to sneak into his rooms to leave a message.
He was laughing as he turned and came face to face with ghosts from his past.
Aron and Andrei Danesti. His childhood rivals. Memories of fists in the forest, stopped only by Lada’s ferocity. Radu had been powerless to face them on his own. But he had figured out another way. The last time he had seen them, they were being whipped in public for theft. He had set them up in retaliation for their cruelty.
Time had stretched them, built them new forms. Aron was thin and sickly-looking. His mustache and beard were sparse and patchy. Andrei, broad-shouldered and healthy, had fared better, though there was something wary in his expression that had not been there before Radu’s trick. Radu felt a brief pang of guilt that his actions had carved that onto someone else’s face. Aron smiled, and Radu saw something in the man’s eyes he had never seen as a child: kindness.
But apparently time had been more exacting on Radu than it had on his Danesti foes. That, or his turban and Ottoman dress disguised him completely. Their smiles—Andrei’s guarded, Aron’s kind— held no spark of recognition.
Nazira cheerfully introduced herself. Radu resisted the urge to shield her from them. Surely they were not the same bullies they had been in childhood. “Where are you from?” she asked.
“Wallachia,” Andrei answered. “We are here with our father, the prince.”
A noise like the roaring of wind filled Radu’s ears.
Nazira lit up. “Oh, what a coincidence! My husband is—”
Radu tugged her arm. “Apologies, we have to leave.” He walked away so quickly Nazira had to run to keep up. As soon as he had rounded a corner, Radu leaned against the wall, overcome. Their father. A Danesti. The Wallachian prince. Which meant that Lada was not on the throne.
And if they were here paying respects, Mehmed knew Lada was not on the throne.
What else did Mehmed know? What other secrets was he keeping from Radu?
For once, though, the biggest question did not revolve around Mehmed. All these months, Radu had never written Lada, because she had never written him. And because he hated her for getting what she wanted and leaving him with nothing, as always.
But apparently he had been wrong about that.
Where was Lada?
2
February 1453
IT TOOK ONLY three fingers smashed beyond recognition before the would-be assassin screamed the name of Lada’s enemy.
“Well.” Nicolae raised his eyebrows, once singular but now bisected by a vicious scar that failed to fade with the passage of time. He turned away as Bogdan slit the young man’s throat. The heat of life leaving body steamed slightly in the frigid winter air. “That is disappointing.”
“That the governor of Brasov betrayed us?” Bogdan asked.
“No, that the quality of assassins has fallen this low.”
Lada knew Nicolae meant to make the situation palatable through humor—he never liked executions—but his words struck deep. It was certainly a blow that the governor of Brasov wanted her dead. He had promised her aid, which had given her the first shred of hope in months.
Now she had none. Brasov was the last of the Transylvanian cities she had tried to find an ally in. None of the noble Wallachian boyar families would so much as respond to her letters. Transylvania, with its fortified mountain cities crushed between Wallachia and Hungary, was heavily Wallachian. But Lada saw now that the ruling class of Saxons and Hungarians treated her people like chaff, and considered her worthless.
But almost worse than losing her last chance at an ally was that this was the most they could be bothered to spare for her: an underfed, poorly trained assassin barely past boyhood.
That was all the fear she instilled, all the respect she merited.
Bogdan kicked the body over the edge of the small ravine bordering their encampment. Just as when they were children, he never had to be asked to clean up her messes. He wiped the blood from his fingers, then tugged his ill-fitting gloves back on. A misshapen hat was worn low, hiding the ears that stuck out like jug handles.
He had grown broad and strong. His fighting was not flashy but was brutally efficient. Lada had seen him in action, and had to bite back the admiring words that sprang to her lips. He was also fastidiously clean—a quality emphasized by the Ottomans that not all her men had retained. Bogdan always smelled fresh, like the pine trees they hid among. Everything about him reminded Lada of home.
Her other men crouched over their fires, scattered in groups among the thick trees. They were as misshapen as Bogdan’s hat, their once pristine Janissary uniformity long since abandoned. They were down to thirty—twelve lost when they had met an unexpected force from the Danesti Wallachian prince as they attempted to cross the Danube River into the country, eight more lost in the months since, spent hiding and running and desperately seeking allies.
“Do you think Brasov is in league with the Danesti prince or with the Hungarians?” Nicolae asked.
“Does it matter?” Lada snapped. All sides were set against her. They smiled to her face and promised aid. Then they sent assassins in the dark.
She had bested vastly superior assassins on Mehmed’s behalf. Meager comfort, though, and worse still that she found it only by remembering her time with Mehmed. It seemed as though anything she might look on with pride had happened when she was with him. Had she been so diminished, then, by leaving the person she was at his side?
Lada lowered her head, rubbing the unceasing tightness at the base of her neck. Since failing to take the throne, she had neither written to nor received word from Mehmed or Radu. It was too humiliating to lay bare her failure before them and anticipate what they might say. Mehmed would invite her to return. Radu would console her—but she questioned whether he would welcome her back.
She wondered, too, how close they had become in her absence. But it did not matter. She had chosen to leave them as an act of strength. She would never return to them in weakness. She had thought—with her men, with her dispensation from Mehmed, with all her years of experience and strength—that the throne was hers for the taking. She had thought that she would be enough.