Why, then, did Lazar’s look still make him feel strange and wrong?
He was distracted by the sound of feet stomping gracelessly along the gravel path. Well hidden, he peered through the curtain of leaves. Lada was prowling up and down, turning in one direction before jerking herself back in the other, as though her body were engaged in an argument that neither side was winning. After a few minutes of furious indecision, during which an entire generation of flowers was mercilessly decapitated, Lada went suddenly and shockingly still. Not her usual type of watchful stillness, but a dreamy, placid cessation of movement. Her limbs, normally so rigid, looked almost soft as she lifted a hand and traced her lips, eyes closed.
Radu held his breath, watching, wondering what was going on in his sister’s head. It had been a long time since he wished he could understand what she was thinking. Most of the time he knew and wished he did not. But in this moment she was transformed from his determined, brutal sister, into…
A girl.
That was it. Lada looked like a girl.
He exhaled sharply, holding back a wondering laugh. In a flash, his sister turned from a girl back into a predator. Her eyes found the source of the noise, and a dagger flashed in either hand.
“Who is there?” she demanded, feet spread, stance low and balanced.
“Please do not kill me.” Radu pushed aside two curtains of branches, holding his hands out in mock supplication.
“Were you spying on me?” Her voice was shrill, panicked, as though she had been caught at something devious.
But no—that was not it. Radu had caught her doing terrible things during their childhood. Once he found her in the stables, choking Vlad Danesti, an insufferable son of rival boyars. When Radu shouted in surprise, Lada had merely looked up and calmly informed him that Vlad had told her she was worth less than the bastard son of their father. She was punishing him, and wondered how long she would have to choke him until he fainted.
Interrupted, she released the red-faced, coughing boy, who ran away sobbing and never played with them again. But thinking about the focused, thoughtful look on Lada’s face, Radu had occasionally wondered whether, if he had not happened upon the scene, she would have continued to see how long it took for the boy to die.
Comparing her unruffled reaction then with her rage now, Radu’s curiosity grew tenfold. He hid it with a placating look of combined fear and confusion. “I did not know you were here until you shouted,” he said. Big eyes, round mouth, palms up. It was an expression that had gotten him out of trouble too many times to count. His eyes were so large anyhow, when he widened them like this, no one believed him capable of guile. Stealing food from the kitchens, being caught eavesdropping, forgetting Janissary protocol: the big eyes and confused apology worked for everything.
Lada should have known better than to fall for it, but her shoulders relaxed and she tucked the knives away. “What are you doing skulking around?”
He held the branches for her. She hesitated, then climbed under the tree with him. It was snug, but they both fit, backs curled against the trunk. The air was cooler, damp with the smell of young green things and old wizened growth. “It is nice here,” he said.
Lada nodded, her mouth grim with the concession. “It feels…secret. Safe.” She spoke in Wallachian as she toyed with the small leather pouch she always wore around her neck. Radu had heard her speak their language with Nicolae, but after she let him be beaten by their first Ottoman tutor all those years ago, he almost always refused to speak it with her. They spoke only other tongues to each other. Hearing the language of their shared childhood now was a strange and startling intimacy.
“I have never been to these gardens,” she said.
Radu tapped the dagger strapped to her wrist, trying to keep the gesture light to avoid puncturing this precarious and precious moment that had descended between them. “Well, it is good you came prepared, because the gardens are frequently populated by assassins and thieves.”
Lada elbowed him sharply in the ribs. From her, it was almost like a hug. They had grown closer in the months of Mehmed’s absence. Now, wrapped in leaves and the language of their childhood, Radu wondered at how they had let so much space expand between them, and whether it was possible that they were finally closing it.
A voice drifted along the path.
“Mehmed,” Radu whispered.
Lada glared in exasperation, switching to Turkish, their moment gone. “Of course it is Mehmed. But where is he going? He told me he had a council today about province taxes.”