Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga #3)(62)

“Everything is going as well as can be expected. We have rationed the stores and should be able to stay for several more months if needed. We supplement everything with game we catch, though we are ranging farther to set traps. But the women in charge are careful and have not come across anyone else. How are things in the country?”

“We had a chance to win. But the Basarabs betrayed me.”

Daciana spit. “Boyars.”

“Yes. But the Ottomans left anyway.”

Daciana’s answering smile was as pointed and brutal as one of Lada’s stakes. She had been one of the biggest supporters of Lada’s Tirgoviste plans. A few of the men had balked at the idea of doing that to the bodies. But Daciana knew what it took to survive. And she had agreed with Lada. They were already dead—why not use them for a loftier purpose? “Mehmed did not like his welcome, then.”

“Not at all.” Lada stopped, turning to face Daciana. “Did you know Stefan is leaving me?”

Daciana had the grace not to pretend. She nodded, no fear or apology in her face. “It was not my idea.”

“But you will go with him.”

“I would follow that man to the ends of the earth.”

Lada felt a stab of pain. Nicolae had once said something similar to her. And now he was in the earth, and she was losing her friends one by one. That missing feeling clutched her as hard and suddenly as she clutched her locket.

Daciana reached out for Lada’s hand. Lada did not offer it. Daciana grasped her shoulder, instead. “I will miss being the lady’s maid to the oddest lady I have ever known.”

Lada turned to walk back to the camp. “I do not need one. I will be fine.” She hurried so Daciana would not be walking beside her. She had braced herself for a fight, or for anger if Daciana had tried to lie to her. She had not prepared herself to be so … sad.

She found her horse and rode away without bidding Daciana goodbye. Oana, slower to get her horse up the difficult path, had only just arrived at the camp. She grumbled about turning her horse around.

Lada still had her. She did not need Daciana.

But it was not quite the same. Daciana was a young woman, nearly Lada’s own age. A companion of her own sex was something Lada had never had before Daciana. She had never realized she needed it—enjoyed it, even—until faced with its absence.

The ache inside her was aggravating. She had found strength in her friends, but the cost of losing them was increasingly high. How had she not learned this lesson yet? Between Radu and Mehmed, even starting as far back as her father, surely her heart should have known better than to allow anyone a place.

She would close her heart.

She did not realize she was again clutching her silver locket so tightly that the edges bit into her skin. She owed it to Wallachia to be whole and complete. Dedicated and clear-eyed. No one could break her heart if all it contained was her country.



Unlike Lada’s last visit to Hunedoara, where she had been invisible when she was not being ridiculed, this time she was treated with respect. One of Matthias’s top advisors rode out to greet her at the outskirts of the city. He bowed to her as he would any male prince. There would be no dresses for her this time, no pretending to be something she was not. She entered the city as an equal.

“Your men can stay in the barracks,” the advisor said as they were escorted to the castle. Last time, her men had had to sleep outside. Lada rode proud and tall across the bridge and through the gates that had felt suffocating just last year. Now, the castle rose around her like a promise.

“You,” Lada said, selecting twenty of her men, “help see to the horses and the beds.” The other ten she motioned to remain with her. Oana, too, stayed at her side. Oana’s lessons about appearances had not failed entirely. Lada needed to make an impression. Fortunately, radiating power and authority came far more naturally to her than navigating crowded rooms in a bulky dress.

Lifting her chin proudly, Lada reentered the castle not as a nationless girl, but as a prince. A conquering prince, no less.

Matthias, as handsome and shrewd as she remembered, stood when she approached him in the throne room. He did not embrace her—it would have been inappropriate, and frankly Lada would not have welcomed it—but he did smile and incline his head respectfully. She did the same, as befitted their positions.

“You have surprised me,” he said, studying her.

“That is because you never knew me. If you had, nothing I have done would surprise you.”

Matthias laughed, gesturing to a servant. Wine was brought in on a tray. Lada took her goblet, raising it when Matthias raised his. He watched her over the rim, eyebrows drawn together thoughtfully. “I understand now why my father spent so much time on you. You know, I was a bit jealous. I did not see why you merited his attention when I could scarcely attract it all.”

“Your father did what he thought was best by you. And it worked.” Lada gestured to the room around them. “You are king.” Lada lifted her goblet to his crown. Her hand froze mid-gesture. His crown. The crown he had not been able to afford. She lowered her wine, wariness settling over her like a cold draft. He wore a fur-trimmed vest with a high white collar that covered his neck. His dark hair was short and curling, his beard neatly trimmed. He looked exactly as he had the last time she had seen him; the crown had changed nothing. And everything.