And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1)(19)

She did not stop staring, but something behind her eyes shifted and changed the scene. She needed to see it differently. These men were not real. They did not matter. It was not real. Their screams were distracting. She was trying to think. She needed to focus on her threads. She clutched the pouch around her neck and stared at the men until they blurred into indistinct shapes. There. They were not real.

She felt Radu squeezing her hand, heard him gasping for breath through sobs. She saw the anguish written across their father’s face. Whatever underhanded dealings he had anticipated with this new treaty, he could no longer act. He had made the critical error of loving his children—or Lada, at least—enough that they could be used against him.

Love and life. Things that could be given or taken away in a heartbeat, all in the pursuit of power. She could not avoid her own spark of life. Love, however…

Lada let go of Radu’s hand.

She took a step away from him and watched as the head gardener finished his work.



Lada hated herself for it, but she loved the food. Delicately spiced meats with cool, contrasting sauces, roasted vegetables, fresh fruits—every bite she enjoyed felt like treason. She should miss everything about Wallachia. She should hate everything about Edirne.

But oh, the sweetness of the fruit. Perhaps she had a bit of Eve in her after all.

The clothes, too, were infinitely preferable. A light entari robe was worn over flowing skirts and woven tunics. Everything was bright and soft, far less restrictive and binding than the fashions in Tirgoviste. Easier to move in. Easier to breathe in.

It should be harder to breathe here, with the air of her enemies surrounding her. Lada rebelled where she could, wearing her hair loose instead of elegantly wrapped as was the fashion, holding on to her shoes from Wallachia, and always keeping her precious tiny pouch around her neck and tucked against her heart.

Because food and clothing could never replace what she had left behind, and she would not forget.

She picked through a bowl of dates, sucking on them as noisily as she could to annoy their tutor. He was currently instructing them on the military structure of the empire. Which was better than religious instruction, but still odious.

“How are spahis different from Janissaries?” Radu’s forehead wrinkled as he tried to sort through the information they were receiving.

The tutor looked bored. He always looked either bored or angry. It was the only thing Lada felt they had in common. “Spahis are local garrisons, citizens of the Ottoman Empire. They are not regular troops; they are called up when we have need of them. Local valis of small areas, or beys of larger cities, lead them as appointed by the sultan. Janissaries are a standing force, their only role to be soldiers.”

“Slaves,” Lada said.

“They are educated, paid, and the best-trained soldiers in the world.”

“Slaves,” Lada said again, her inflection never changing. Radu squirmed next to her, but she refused to look at him.

“Janissaries can rise to meteoric heights. We recognize and reward the exceptional. Some Janissaries even become beys. Like Iskander Bey, who…” The tutor trailed off, blanching as though a bad taste were in his mouth.

Lada sat forward, finally intrigued. “Who is Iskander Bey?”

“A poor choice of example. I had forgotten about recent events. He was a favorite of the sultan, promoted to bey and given the territorial city of Kruje, in his homeland of Albania. He has…not been cooperative since then. It is a deep betrayal and shameful to the highest degree.”

Lada laughed. “So your sultan educated and trained him, and now he is using that knowledge to fight you? I think he is a perfect example.”

Their tutor sat back in disgust, glaring at Lada, while Radu toyed nervously with his quill. “Let us move on. Repeat the five pillars of Islam.”

“No. I like this other subject very much. I want to know more about Iskander Bey.”

The tutor pulled out a wooden switch and tapped it menacingly against his leg. Lada’s hands were purpled with bruises, yellow in the spots that had not yet been covered by fresh bruises. Doubtless they would be soon. She leaned back, stretching languorously.

“Perhaps we should visit the dungeons,” the tutor growled.

“Perhaps we should.” Lately the tutor had been taking Lada and Radu on frequent tours of the prisons and torture chambers in addition to viewings of public executions. It seemed that they spent more time in the damp, airless corridors of the prisons than they did in their own rooms.

Radu was constantly ill. His eyes were dark and sunken. He could barely eat, and he was plagued by nightmares.

Lada suffered no such effects. Occasionally she informed her tutors when a torture method appeared to be less effective than others. They ground their teeth and whispered that she had no soul.

She had a soul. At least, she was fairly certain she did. But she had learned that first day with the head gardener to see people as the sultan did. They were objects. They could be pushed and pulled and fed and starved and bled and killed in any variety of ways, depending on the type of power you wanted to exert or obtain. Sometimes an image—eyes in a dirty, ravaged face meeting hers with startling clarity, or a pair of feet, too small to belong to an adult, sticking out of a shadowed corner—struck her. Nagged at her. Pulled at the curtains she had drawn tightly over that part of her mind.

But she could dismiss those images. She had to dismiss them. Because if she did not care what they showed her, or how they hurt her, then these men, these ridiculous tutors, this obscene court, had only one way to control her: by killing her.