Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga #3)(90)

“He had all the power in the world, and he would extend none to help me. He did not want to see me succeed. He only cared about me in relation to himself.” She knew it was true, because she had treated Bogdan the same way. She hated Mehmed for it, and she did her best not to think about Bogdan, lest she hate herself.

Radu sighed, nodding. “I do not want to see him, either.”

“What happened between you two?” Lada had been jealous for so long, worried about Mehmed’s affections. She should have worried more for Radu. But neither of them had been able to avoid Mehmed becoming the central star around which they spun.

“Nothing happened. He asked me to stay, and I chose to leave. He is alone.”

Lada scoffed. “He has an empire.”

“And he has to be over and above all of it. He loved us—he needed us—because we were the only people he could be a person with. The only ones for whom he was just Mehmed, not the sultan.”

“That is the cost of power.” Lada did not look at Radu, knowing he would leave her, too. She would be alone, just as Mehmed was. Only Radu had chosen people over power. Lada looked up at the sky, where a crescent moon was beginning to rise. “Do you remember the night the moon turned to blood?”

Radu nodded. “I was in Constantinople with Cyprian.”

Lada had been right here with Bogdan. With Nicolae. With Stefan. With Petru. She had already been alone. She just had not realized it yet.

“Mehmed can live in a hell of his own making,” Lada said. “Promise him money I will never send. Do not agree to give him any Wallachians. As long as I am prince, the Janissaries will not be given Wallachian blood to fill their ranks.” If the princes before her had been as strong, she would never have met her friends.

She wished that were the case. If they had not been Janissaries, they would not have been her Janissaries. They would all still be alive. And she would never have known them, which meant she would not miss them.

“Mehmed was humiliated by the failure of his attack,” Radu said. “I think he will agree as long as it means peace. And because it is me asking.”

“I am going to take back the Danube, though.”

“Right now you are going to come down to the throne room and settle some land disputes. And if in ten years your people are not in danger of starving, and you have a standing army and the support of your neighboring countries secured through years of peace, then by all means: take back the Danube.”

Lada faked a casualness she did not feel. “We could do it together.”

“You will be alone,” Radu said, his voice sad but firm.

“I know,” Lada said.





48





Snagov Island Monastery


RADU’S WORRIED EXPRESSION melted away when the monk informed him his sister had given birth to a baby girl. The winter was so cold they had almost not made it to the monastery in time, struggling to cross both land and lake. But they had gotten here. And now the baby had arrived as well.

Oana came from the room carrying an armful of soiled linen. “She did well.” Her voice was gruff with emotion.

Radu opened the door hesitantly, and found Nazira sitting on a chair, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle. She beamed at him with tears in her eyes. Fatima was by the bed, tucking blankets around Lada and wiping the sweat from her brow.

There was an odd squeaking noise, and Radu realized it was the baby. Radu went to Nazira and peered down. The baby had thick, dark hair, and though its face was red and swollen from its entrance into the world, Radu needed only one glance to see that this was a mix of the two people Radu would know anywhere.

This was not Bogdan’s child.

“What should we name her?” Nazira said, looking up.

“Theodora,” Lada said, her voice raw. “Who was born to nothing and grew to rule an empire.”

“She is not born to nothing.” Radu smiled down at the baby.

Fatima came over and took the baby from Nazira. She nuzzled the infant’s head, breathing in deeply. “The name is strong and beautiful. She will be, too.”

“I hope for her sake she is ugly. Now get out and let me rest,” Lada snapped. Nazira and Fatima hurried from the room with the baby. Lada turned in her bed, facing away from Radu.

He put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying.

“Get out,” she said again.

He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept.



“How do you feel?” Radu asked.

“Like I will stab the next person who asks me how I feel,” Lada said through gritted teeth as she rode next to him.

It had been only a couple of weeks since the baby had arrived. Nazira and Fatima were still cocooned on Snagov, having found a wet nurse who was willing to stay with them as long as the baby needed. She was even willing to relocate to Edirne. Radu suspected some of her eagerness came from the handsome pay, and some from the fact that Nazira wanted her only to feed the baby and required no other work from her.

“So you will leave and have a happy home in the countryside?” Lada said.

“Yes. Cyprian will marry Fatima to make things easiest to explain.”

Lada made a thoughtful noise. “I suppose marriages always have been business arrangements to make life easier. Yours are simply odder than most.”