And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1)(11)

“Your father should know.”

Lada scowled. It was not that she feared punishment for her actions. What she feared was that her father would find out how the Janissaries viewed her and realize they were right. That she was a girl. That she was worth less than the castle dogs until the day she could be married off. She had to be the smartest, constantly surprising and delighting him. She was terrified that the day she stopped amusing him would be the day he remembered he had no use for a daughter.

“Will we be punished?” Bogdan’s face, as familiar and beloved as her own, wrinkled in concern. He was growing like a spring shoot, so much taller now. As far back as she could remember he had been at her side. He was hers—her playmate, her confidant, her brother in spirit if not blood. Her husband. Where Radu was weak, Bogdan was steady, strong. She tugged one of his big ears. They stuck out from his head like handles on a jug, and were more precious to her than any of the fine things in the castle.

“The Janissaries have only what power we decide they do.” She meant it as a reassurance, but her mind stuck on the curved sword that hung above her father’s throne. A gift from the sultan to her father. A promise and a threat, like most things in Tirgoviste were.



The next morning Lada awoke late, eyes heavy with sleep and mind muddled by nightmares. There was a strange noise, a hiccuping sort of moan, coming from the other side of her bedroom door. Angry, she stomped out into the chambers that connected her room to Radu’s, where their nurse slept.

The nurse had all her soft parts hidden as she held herself, rocking. She was the source of the noise. Radu patted her back, looking lost.

“What happened?” Lada asked, panic rising in her chest like a handful of bees.

“Bogdan.” Radu held up his hands helplessly. “The Janissaries took him.”

The bees turned into a swarm. Lada ran from the room, straight to her father’s study, where she found him bent over maps and ledgers.

“Father!” It came out breathless, desperate. Small. All her efforts to force him to see her as something other than a little girl unraveled in that single word, but she could not stop herself. He would help. He would fix this. “The Janissaries have kidnapped Bogdan!”

Her father looked up, setting down his quill and wiping his fingers on a white handkerchief. It came away smudged with black, and he dropped it to the floor, discarded. His voice was measured. “The Janissaries told me they had some trouble with one of the castle dogs. An injury to a soldier. They requested we supply a replacement who had been taught Turkish. It is a fortunate turn of events for the son of a nursemaid, is it not?”

Lada felt her lower lip tremble. That feeling she got in her heart when her father looked at her—that frantic, desperate pride—twisted and soured. He knew what Bogdan was to her. He knew, and he let the Janissaries take her dearest friend anyway.

He did not care. And now he watched for her reaction, weighing her.

She clenched her shaking hands into fists. She nodded.

“See that the dogs behave themselves from now on.” Her father’s eyes cut straight through her, releasing the bees and leaving her echoing and empty inside. She curtsied, then walked stiffly out, collapsing against the wall and shoving her fists against her eyes to push the tears back inside.

This was her fault. She could have walked away from the Janissaries. Radu would have. But not her. She had to defy them, had to taunt them. And one of them—the thin one—had known just by looking at her the best way to hurt her.

All her tiny threads snapped and circled back around her heart, squeezing too tightly. This was her fault, but her father had betrayed her. He could have said no—should have said no, should have stopped it, should have shown the Janissaries that it was he, not them, who ruled Wallachia.

He had chosen not to.

Her mind stuck on the image of his discarded handkerchief. Dirtied and dropped, forgotten now that it was not pristine. Her father was wasteful. Her father was weak.

Bogdan deserved better.

She deserved better.

Wallachia deserved better.

She went back to the mountain in her mind, stood on its peak, remembered the way the sun had embraced her. She would never toss aside her country the way her father had. She would protect it.

A small sob threatened to break free. What could she do? She had no power.

Yet, she vowed. She had no power yet.





RADU HAD ALWAYS HATED Bogdan, hated that he stole Lada’s time and attention, hated the way he tugged on Radu’s hair, or pulled his ear, or sneered when Radu scraped a knee and could not help crying.

Hated most of all that Bogdan ignored him the rest of the time.

And now Bogdan had stolen Radu’s nurse, leaving a hollow shell behind. It was Bogdan’s own fault he was gone. He had to ruin everything else on his way out, too.

Radu’s rooms were a suffocating sepulchre to Bogdan. His nurse wept in her chair, sewing basket dormant beside her. Lada was worse, though. Normally when something did not go her way, she became a torrent of rage, a sweeping storm that flew in and overwhelmed everything, working itself out as quickly as it had descended.

With Bogdan’s loss, however, Lada was silent. Staring. Calm.

It terrified Radu.

He tucked himself into a corner of the stables, a dark, musty spot where only someone looking could find him. No one was ever looking for Radu. A spider crawled down his hand and he lifted it, gently placing the spider on a wood beam where it would be safe.