Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga #3)(51)

“Because he was coming!” Lada gestured sharply in Mehmed’s direction. Radu did not look at Mehmed, certain Mehmed would signal him to speak in a language he could understand. The Janissaries edged closer. Radu was surprised to find he wished he had not called them so soon. This conversation with Lada felt like it might—like it would—be their last. And he did not want it to end.

She might have found him changed, but he found her more precisely, more powerfully herself than she had ever been. He was … proud. In spite of everything. And it made him devastatingly sad. She had worked so hard and fought so long for this. They were going to take it all away.

This was the first time the three of them—once inseparable—had been in the same room since Lada left. Everything had changed. And nothing had. She was still choosing Wallachia over them. Radu was still supporting Mehmed. And Mehmed was still demanding they both be his. The stakes had just gotten higher.

Radu sighed. It could have been such a different reunion. Well, no. Not with Lada. But it should have been different. “We came because you forced us to. We did not want this.”

Lada shook her head, but there was something evasive in her expression that hinted to Radu she knew he was right. “I only sped up the inevitable. He was never going to let me have this.”

“All you had to do was make concessions. We would have given you—”

“It is not his to give me! Wallachia is mine, and I owe nothing to him or anyone else!”

“That is why you will lose it!” Radu shouted. “Because of your refusal to bend. Because of your damnable pride! We offered you peace.”

“And came armed with usurpers to betray and replace me!”

Radu threw up his hands in exasperation. “You cannot accuse us of betrayal. Not when you agreed to sign a treaty and came here to assassinate Mehmed.”

Lada opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. A shocking giggle escaped her mouth. It made her almost girlish. “I suppose that is true.”

Caught off guard, Radu found himself returning her smile. “We always have contingency plans, you and me. That has not changed.”

Lada’s smile deepened and darkened. “You have no idea what is coming.”

“Are you certain about that?”

Unease crept into Lada’s face. Her deep-set, hooded eyes narrowed, and her full lips pressed together. Radu had a shameful thrill that she now respected him enough to question herself. He would have given anything for a moment like this as a child, even more for a moment where she looked on him with pride for besting her. But he would never get that.

“Enough,” Mehmed said. “I am taking you prisoner.” His face was etched with anger, something cold and hard growing beneath the softness of his cheeks. “I should kill you right here for this.”

Lada tilted her head, gazing up at him through her thick lashes. “You really should.” She gave him a banal, blank smile as though she were the woman she should have been, a woman like their mother. “Make Radu do it.”

Radu balked, stepping back. He glanced at Mehmed, seized with a sudden fear that Mehmed might be angry enough to demand that. But his friend shook his head. “I would never ask that of him.”

Lada’s smile turned coy. Radu saw a hint of himself there, as though she were imitating him. “You would, if you thought it was your best option. Do not pretend to put his feelings ahead of your own. You never have. You cannot.”

“Just as you cannot release your insane fixation on this country!” Mehmed took a deep breath, trying to get his anger under control. The men around them shifted uncomfortably. This was not the aloof, self-possessed sultan they were used to serving under. “I offered you the throne.”

“You offered me nothing I do not already have.” Her upper lip curled in defiance, returning her to the Lada that Radu knew. “And you have given me nothing I cannot find elsewhere with far less hassle and far more pleasure.”

Mehmed’s eyes widened in shock and hurt. Then he shifted from Mehmed to sultan with a lift of his chin and a firming of his jaw. “Bind her and take her to the wagons. We will make quick work of the rest of this campaign while she is sent ahead to Constantinople.”

Lada smiled at Radu, showing all her sharp little teeth. “Tell the Danesti boyars their kind does not live long in my Wallachia.”

Radu wanted this to be over. He wanted to sleep. He knew he would not be able to, not tonight. He would change his plans and request to escort Lada back to Constantinople. Knowing her, she would goad the guards into killing her. She would never admit it or even realize it, but she needed his protection now. He would see her to prison—safe, at last, once and for all—and then he would be finished. “Lada, I am—”

“How long would you say I have been in here?” she asked, her expression thoughtful.

Radu gestured for the Janissaries to take her. “Be careful.”

“We will not hurt her,” Kiril said, nodding respectfully.

Lada widened her stance and bent her knees. “That is not what he is afraid of.”

“I—” A deafening explosion rocked through camp, cutting Radu off. The tent shook, several panels detaching from their stakes and blowing inward. Radu ducked, covering his head as the chandelier came crashing to the ground. By the time he straightened, the two Janissaries closest to Lada were already dead.