Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga #3)(49)

Mehmed patted the rug next to himself. “Come. Spend the night with me.”

It was not a question, but it sounded as though Mehmed were trying on the words to see how they fit. Radu did not know what would happen if he crossed the endless, impossible space between them.

In that moment, his certainty was proved: he did not want this. He did not want to accept whatever love Mehmed decided to gift to him. His time with Cyprian—knowing that if their love had been possible, it would have been one of equals, hearts given completely and without reservation—had either broken him forever or finally healed him.

He loved Mehmed—he would always love and care for him as a friend and as his childhood savior—but he no longer needed or wanted something between them that would never be enough.

“Thank you, my friend.” Radu’s smile was the release of years of yearning and pain and the desperation to be loved. “But I have work to do.” Radu bowed his head, then left before he could see Mehmed’s reaction.

Outside, the night was clear. The stars shone cold and constant above him. Once, long ago, Mehmed had told them the story of two lovers, Ferhat and Shirin. Ferhat had carved through to the heart of a mountain to bring water to the other side and win Shirin’s hand in marriage. Ferhat had died inside that mountain, his heart broken. At the time, Radu had thought it the most romantic thing he had ever heard. What a noble end, to die for love.

Perhaps Radu would never know complete love in his life. But all these years of digging desperately had opened up the path to his own heart. He no longer lived in fear that it would break if exposed. A heart did not have to be stone to be strong.

“Radu Dracul?” a tentative voice asked.

Radu turned. Radu Dracul. Radu the Handsome. Radu Bey. All names bestowed on him by those with power over him.

“Just Radu, please,” he said with a smile. “Now, tell me how I can help you.”





25





One Day South of Tirgoviste


LADA HAD THIRTY minutes to topple an empire.

She doubted she would need that long. She walked confidently through the dark camp along the same path she had taken the night before. She still wore the uniform of a Janissary. Perhaps that was fitting. She would use everything the Ottomans had given her, right down to their own clothes, to destroy them.

Only outside Mehmed’s tent did she pause. The weight of history, everything they had been and done together, slowed her steps. She felt it, accepted it, let it settle.

Could she do what she had set out to? It was one thing to plan murder and another to follow through. And tonight she would not act out of rage or instinct. This had to be a choice.

She would walk into that tent, and she would stab her first friend, her first lover, her only true equal through the heart.

She did not want to, she found. But she would do it anyway. It was what Wallachia needed, what it demanded, and Wallachia came before Mehmed. It always would. It had to.

Her heartbeat even, her breathing calm, Lada used the cut she had made the night before and entered Mehmed’s tent for the last time.

“Hello, Lada,” her brother said.

Lada scanned the tent quickly, her heartbeat finally picking up.

“He is not here,” Radu said, leaning against Mehmed’s desk. “But I can oversee the signing of the new treaty.” He spoke in Turkish.

Lada’s lip curled in distaste around the language she, too, had spoken for years of her life. “I am not here to sign a treaty.”

Radu smiled. Truly looking at him for the first time, Lada saw in that smile how much her brother had aged since they had been apart. He was taller. Still lean, but with a hollowness to his face that threw his jawline and cheekbones into sharper relief. The too-large eyes were still just as striking. He was beautiful. And he was a stranger. The boy she had known, the boy she had loved and protected, was gone.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Too many things.” Radu sat on one of the cushions, gesturing for Lada to join him.

She remained standing. “I told him he should not have sent you to Constantinople. I cannot believe he put you in harm’s way.”

“You would have done the same.”

“I would not have! You always needed protection, and I protected you.”

Radu tilted his head, a puzzled look on his face. She was reminded again how much he looked like their mother. And, with the weary sadness pulling at his mouth, she saw how life and its cruelty would break him. She had seen a glimpse into his future when she visited their own ruined mother.

“I think,” he said, “you and I remember our childhood much differently. You protected me from Mircea, but only because you liked him even less than you liked me.”

Lada snorted. “That is certainly true. But what about in Edirne?”

“I recall you refusing to do your studies even when I was beaten for your insolence.”

“Are you that stupid?” When Radu looked hurt instead of understanding, Lada sat in a huff across from him. “They used everything they could against us. And they used us against our father. If I had stopped that tutor, if I had let them see they could use you to control me, you never would have been safe again. I let you be beaten to keep you from being used as leverage against me.”

A dozen emotions flitted across Radu’s face, none of which Lada understood. He settled on amused and sad. “We do have very different definitions of protection, then.”