“No more than a personal guard. I like our chances.” The Janissary laughed brightly. “You should be glad you got such an easy assignment.”
Nicolae grunted. “Good thing it will be easy, since we will do all the work, as usual. I met Radu Bey once years ago, at the siege of Kruje. He had to wear brown pants to cover constantly shitting himself in fear. He still that way?”
“I would not know. He is not here.”
Lada hissed in surprise. Bogdan coughed to cover the noise.
Nicolae rushed another question. “But I thought Radu Bey was the lure? He is her brother, is he not? Who would come but him?”
The scout paused, eyeing Nicolae with sudden scrutiny and doubtless regretting his loose tongue. “I thought you did not know much about this.”
Nicolae grinned. “I am full of surprises.”
Lada drew her knife, jumping in front of the scout and knocking him to the ground. She straddled him, her knife against his throat.
“Who are you?” he gasped.
“I am the bitch who butchered thousands. Tell me: How do you like your chances now?”
His face went white.
“Where is Radu?”
“I do not know,” the scout said, rapid, shallow breaths betraying his panic. But he did not yet realize he was dead. He spoke fast, as though he could talk his way free. “Radu broke away from the group before they got here. I never met him.”
“Who is in his place?”
“Kumal Pasha.”
Lada’s muscles clenched instinctively, recoiling from that name. Unfortunately for the scout, her twitch sliced through his jugular vein. Lada stood as he bled out onto the forest floor.
“He might have had more information,” Nicolae said, frowning.
“Accident.” Lada picked up the dying scout’s cap and used the white flaps to clean her blade. Kumal, not Radu, was waiting for her.
All her old resentment flared to life, burning hot and hungry. Once again, Kumal Pasha had taken her brother from her. He was the reason Radu had willingly accepted their captivity among the Ottomans. Certainly, Radu had loved Mehmed. But Lada had loved him, too, and still been able to walk away. Radu, however, had been poisoned from his childhood by the god that Kumal gave to him. It was Radu’s false faith that separated him from Lada, his false faith that joined him forever to their enemies. Kumal had even claimed him as a brother through marriage, further cutting Radu off from his true family and heritage.
Now Kumal had again taken her brother from her. Instead of riding back to the city with Radu at her side—willing or not—she was once again left bereft. Gritting her teeth, she sheathed her blade.
“What now?” Nicolae asked. “We do not know where Radu is.”
“I will not go back to Tirgoviste empty-handed.” Lada started marching toward the fortress. “The plan is the same. Infiltrate. Bring someone back.”
But unlike the Ottoman plan for her, he would not be alive.
They waited until darkness obscured their ranks.
“Hey!” Nicolae called as they marched up to the gate. “Is she here yet?”
A man shouted back down, “You know women. They are always late.”
“We are tired and hungry. Open the gate.” Nicolae kicked it for good measure.
The gates opened, and Lada and her two hundred Janissary-uniformed men filed in. The rest were hidden and circling the fortress.
“Where is everyone?” Nicolae gestured at the empty courtyard. A few solitary torches threw more shadow than light. A handful of men were visible on the walls, black silhouettes against the night sky. But they all looked outward, not in, where the threat already was.
“In bed. You are too late for a cot. It is the floor for you as punishment.”
“I curse every mile of this forsaken country for it.” Nicolae put an arm around the guard. Then the guard slumped to the side.
“The barracks first,” Lada said, keeping her voice low. “Kill them quietly. Then spread out and take the walls. I will find Kumal.”
She stalked forward, trusting her men to follow Nicolae, Bogdan, and their other leaders. After entering the fortress, she killed the guards in the hallways, as silent as a shadow, until she came to a living area. She took a torch from several lining the wall. The first bedroom was empty. The second held her target.
She kicked the bed. “Wake up.”
Kumal Pasha sat up, eyes wide and blinking in the flickering light. She had never seen him without a turban. He was mostly bald, his scalp paler than his face.
“Lada Dragwlya,” he said, recognition of the situation settling his features from surprise to sadness.
“Lada Dracul,” she corrected. “Prince.”
He had the audacity to tip his head respectfully, as though he was not here to kidnap her. As though he had not stolen her treasured chance to get her brother and hurt Mehmed in one easy step.
“Where is Radu?”
“He went to get Nazira. She had been lost since the city fell, and—”
Lada waved the torch through the air, cutting him off. “I do not care what your sister was doing. Always the two of you have worked together to take my brother from me.”
“He wanted to be here,” Kumal said softly.
“Was this his idea? Kidnapping me?”
“Yes. We did not like the deceit, but he said it was necessary.”
Lada laughed, and it flickered warmly in her chest. “Well, I was coming to kidnap him, so it appears we have more in common than we thought.”
“Come back with me. The sultan cares for you. He will deal fairly. You cannot continue on this path.”
“What path do you think I am on?” Lada wanted to strike him. His calm demeanor was infuriating.
“You have what you wanted, but you are not happy. You lash out and make others suffer. Those are not the actions of a person at peace with their past and future.”
Lada snarled. “You know nothing about me or my past.”
“I know your brother’s past. And I know that he can still find happiness even in the darkest of circumstances, because his faith sustains him. What sustains you?”
“The blood of my enemies,” she said.
14
Edirne
NAZIRA HAD NOT exaggerated her intentions. She let go of Fatima only when absolutely necessary. Radu leaned back on his cushion, smiling to himself as Nazira tried to navigate eating dinner while keeping hold of Fatima’s hand at all times.
“When will you return to the country home?” Radu asked. He knew that was where the two women were happiest. They had been in Edirne to help him, and since the siege was over and everyone was finally safe, he no longer needed help. But he would miss them. Living without Nazira these past terrifying months had been torture. It would be different, knowing she was content, but he still anticipated her absence with tremendous sadness.
“We are not going back,” Fatima said.
“What?”
Nazira let go of Fatima’s hand, but only to twist a lock of Fatima’s hair around her fingers and stroke it. “We talked about it last night. Fatima and I will stay wherever you are.”
“But Fatima hates to be away from home!”
Fatima’s smile was sweet and shy. “Our family is my home.”
Nazira’s smile was as firm and determined as anything she set her mind to. “We are settled on this. We are never being separated again.”
Radu could not deny the wash of relief he felt. He did not want to ask this of them. But he had not asked—they had offered. And, having lived so long without honesty and without love, he would not reject it.
“Thank you.” He hoped they felt how much those two words conveyed. “I will ask Mehmed to give me a position in the countryside, somewhere with fewer memories.”
“We will make new ones.” Fatima rested her head on Nazira’s shoulder.
“Also,” Nazira said, teasingly popping a grape into her wife’s mouth, “we would like to have a baby.”
Radu choked on his bread.
His choking was interrupted by a firm knock. He stood so fast he tripped over his cushion. “I will see who it is.”