Kiersten White

She would be married to grant someone else an advantage. And when that alliance fell through, as all alliances did, she would be shuffled to the side. Left in a convent, abandoned and cut off.

An image of their mother, nearly forgotten since she had left them, crawled through Lada’s mind. She recoiled from the memory of that woman. Powerless. Broken. An abandoned alliance had left her a prisoner in someone else’s home, someone else’s country.

Lada squeezed her hand shut around the splinters, warm drops of blood pooling in her palm, covering the scar of her playacting with Bogdan. There would be no happy marriage of equals for her, no one who would agree to let her rule. “I will never marry.”

“The daughter of the Dragon?” Nicolae laughed, but it sounded good-natured, rather than mocking. “No wonder poor Ivan was no match for you. What brings you here, little dragon?”

“Not whoring.” She kicked Ivan’s prone backside.

“I would be terrified to take a dragon into my bed. Even the little zealot must feel the same.”

“Molla Gurani is your zealot? I think he is made of parchment, not flesh.”

Nicolae laughed, shaking his head. “No, ‘the little zealot’ is our name for Mehmed.” The other soldiers nodded, giving each other wry smiles.

“Please do not judge my country by the cruelty of a few. Though there is one God and one Prophet, peace be upon him, not everyone interacts with him in the same way. There are varying levels of faith and practice, just as in everything in life. But you have a choice.”

“I do not feel like I have any choices left to me.”

Kumal nodded. “It may seem that way. But you always have a choice. You can choose to find comfort and solace in God. You can choose to be brave and compassionate. And you can choose to find beauty and happiness wherever they present themselves.” He smiled. “I think you already know this, though. I hope you can hold on to that through the coming years, because you have much to offer the world, Radu.”

“I love Wallachia. It belongs to me, and I belong to it. It is my country, and it should always be mine, and I hate any king or sultan or god or prophet that proclaims anyone else has any right to it.”

“You may worship your prophet, but he is not mine and never will be. Belief is weakness.” She would not cave to Islam as Radu had. But neither did she cherish the Orthodoxy she had grown up with. Religion was a means to an end. She had seen it wielded as a weapon. If she needed to use it, she would, but she would never allow herself to be used by it.

Mehmed grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. “You are wrong, Lada. Belief is not weakness. Faith is the greatest strength we can have.”

“I have never wanted to be your master. I have servants. And teachers, and guards, and a father who despises me. I want you . . . to be my friend.”

This was not the answer Lada had expected. She grasped for a response. “Why would you want that?”

“Because.” Mehmed looked at the ground. “Because you do not tell me what you think I want to hear.”

“I would more likely go out of my way to tell you something you do not want to hear.”

Mehmed’s dark eyes flashed up to meet hers, something deep and hungry in them. He grinned. It was an off-center smile, pulling back his full lips and reshaping his face from arrogance to mischief. “Which is precisely why I like you.”

Lada huffed, exasperated. “Very well. What exactly does a friend do?”

“I have never had one. I was hoping you would know.”

“Then you are even stupider than you look. Radu is the one who makes friends. I am the one who makes people want to whip me.”

“I recall you giving me advice that helped me avoid being whipped. That seems a good foundation for friendship.” He held out a hand.

Lada considered it. What threads would be woven from this arrangement? She had given her heart to a friend once before, and losing Bogdan had nearly broken her. But Mehmed was no nursemaid’s son. “Your father would object to our friendship. He showed us no kindness in Edirne.”

“I do not care what my father thinks. If you have not noticed, no one cares what I do here. Amasya is ignored. As am I. I am free to do as I wish.”

“You are fortunate.”

“But am I fortunate enough to call you friend?”

“Oh, very well.” Some of the tightness left Lada as she at last realized that the punishment she had been waiting for all this time was not coming. They were not free of Murad, but they were far from his eye. For now, that was enough.

“Good. In the spirit of friendship, I must tell you that I am bitterly jealous of the time you spend in the Janissaries’ company. I want you to stop training with them.”

“And, in the spirit of friendship, I must tell you that I do not care in the slightest about your petty jealousies. I am late for my training.” She hooked her foot behind Mehmed’s ankle, then slammed her shoulder into his, tripping him and throwing him to the ground.

He sputtered in outrage. “I am the son of the sultan!”

She pulled the door open, slicing her sword through the air in front of his throat. “No, Mehmed, you are my friend. And I am a terrible friend.”

His laughter made her steps—always purposeful and aggressive—seem almost light.

The streaks of light continued, sometimes coming so fast Lada could not keep track of them. Mehmed held up his hands, palms out, to either Draculesti beside him. Radu took one hand. Lada did not move, but when Mehmed lowered his hand to hers, she did not pull away.

“She went from entertaining men on stage and behind it, to ruling all of Byzantium. She crushed a rebellion when her husband would have run, she improved laws for all women under her rule, and she helped build the most beautiful cathedral in all the world—the Sancta Sophia. It stands in Constantinople to this day as a testament to what Theodora and her husband accomplished together.” Huma leaned forward. “She never picked up a sword, but thirty thousand traitors died under her command. She was a prostitute, bowing to any man with enough coin, then a woman who never again bowed to anyone.

A slender creek sang down the boulders, feeding the pool. Everything was still and quiet, the only sound their labored breathing.

Lada caught up to them, fists raised, momentum set to carry her straight into them.

“Stop!” Radu said. “There’s a drop into a pool!”

With a shout of triumph, she shoved both boys over the side and into the water.

Radu spluttered to the surface, immediately looking for Mehmed. The pool was not deep—his feet had touched the bottom—and he was terrified that Mehmed might have hit his head or broken his neck, or suffered some other grievous injury.

Instead, Mehmed floated on his back, arms behind his head as he laughed. “Why, thank you, Lada. This is quite the miracle on a day like today.”

With a growl, she jumped, landing between them with a great splash. After she had satisfied herself by shoving their heads underwater again and again despite their fighting to get away, she swam to a submerged boulder and sat on it. She looked content, her head tipped back to feel the sun on her water-cooled face. The self-hating, cursing demon of the trees seemed forgotten entirely. Radu had done that. A flush of pride warmed him against the icy water.

Mehmed laughed softly. “It sounds odd, but I am glad he hit me. Before him, no one, no tutor, no nurse ever stood up to me. They let me rage and rant, allowed me to be a terror. The more I pushed, the more they looked the other way. My father never saw me, my mother could not be bothered to take so much as a meal with me. No one cared who I was or what I became.”

Lada tried to shift away from the thing poking into her heart and making her so uncomfortable, but there were no rocks beneath her.

“And then Molla Gurani came. That first day, when he hit me, I could not believe it. I wanted to kill him. But what he said the next day changed me forever. He told me I was born for greatness, placed in this world by the hand of God, and he would never let me forget or abandon that trust.” Mehmed shrugged, his shoulder pressing against Lada’s. “Molla Gurani cared who I was and who I would become. I have tried ever since to live up to that.”

Lada swallowed hard against the painful lump that had built in her throat. She could not blame Mehmed for latching on to a man who saw him, who demanded more of him and helped him attain it. It was a lonely, cold thing to live without expectations.