And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

“There is nothing I can do.”

Lada stood. She dropped the parchment on the floor and stomped on it. Radu was scared, but Lada was angry. “There is something you can do. You can stop sitting here, trembling and fearful. You can stand up like a leader, put on your finest clothes, and ride into Edirne like the sultan you are.”

Mehmed looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “You do not understand. The courts—they will never accept me. I was never supposed to be sultan. They will devour me. I have no allies, no one on my side.”

Lada smiled viciously, put on her most mocking voice. “So now you would prove me correct. I thought you had your faith as your greatest strength.”

Mehmed’s face hardened. “My faith is my strength.”

“Then you have your god on your side. What is a court full of sycophants and rivals against that? Wrap yourself in the armor of your faith. Take your throne.”

Mehmed pushed away Radu’s hands and stood, shoulders back, spine straight. He looked down his nose at Lada. Beneath the skinny body, behind the face just beginning to shift into a man’s, Radu saw a glimmer of what Mehmed could become. He shivered.

“I will be sultan,” Mehmed growled. “When I take the throne, I will be the hand of God on Earth. I will fulfill the destiny laid out by Muhammad the Prophet, peace be upon him, and you will know that he was right.” He slumped, the fire gone out of his voice. “But I need more time. I want to do more than merely occupy the throne. I want to command it.”

“How can they expect you to lead?” Radu asked. He hurried on, afraid of insulting Mehmed. “You will be a great leader. This is right, the hand of God in giving you the throne.” As soon as Radu said it, he knew it was true. He had seen what Mehmed was, what he could become. Mehmed was smart and true, clever and strong. When they prayed together, Radu felt it more deeply than when he prayed alone, as though Mehmed’s very soul was stronger than everyone’s around him.

Lada tapped her chin. “I think we can help. Your father is abdicating because of the peace with Hunyadi, yes?”

Mehmed nodded, frowning curiously. Radu flopped back. He put his hands over his face and groaned. He knew his sister too well. No help from her would be a good thing.

“Very well, Sultan Mehmed. We go to claim your throne.” Lada’s face twisted into a smile that a wolf would envy. “And, since your father only felt safe enough to abdicate because of peace? When we get there, we start a war.”

John Hunyadi, vaivode of Transylvania,

I am writing on behalf of our shared interest in defeating the infidel Turks and protecting the Christian sanctity of Transylvania, Wallachia, and Constantinople itself. You will know me as the daughter of Vlad Dracul, vaivode of Wallachia. These past years I have been held in the Ottoman courts as ransom to secure my father’s loyalty.

During my time here, I have become privy to many secrets. I desire the overthrow of the plague of Islam upon the earth, and you can help achieve it. Murad has this very day given up the sultanate, handing the throne to his young son, Mehmed. Mehmed is impetuous and untried, a zealot, fixated on taking Constantinople. He has neither the respect of his soldiers nor control of his people. Strike now. Strike hard. Secure our borders, push the infidels back, squeeze their filth from the lands of all Christendom.

I will do what I can to foment dissension and rebellion within Mehmed’s own borders. I trust you to be an Athleta Christi beyond them. Rally the forces for a crusade such as the world has never seen.

I look forward to the day when I am released from this den of vipers and can join you in protecting Wallachia, Transylvania, and blessed Constantinople.

Ladislav Dragwlya, Daughter of the Dragon

Lada slammed her knee into Nicolae’s stomach, narrowly missing his groin. His deflection threw him off-balance. She pressed her advantage, hitting him with her wooden practice sword until he dropped his own sword and stumbled back. To keep the fight challenging, she threw her sword down as well.

She hated being back in Edirne, hated the way it made her feel caged, hated even more that she had briefly imagined she was free in Amasya. Freedom in these lands was a lie, a glittering fantasy to lull her into sleepiness, into acceptance, into forgetfulness.

She was not free here and never would be.

She had not seen Halima or Mara and did not know if they were even still in the capital, or if Murad had taken his wives with him. She hoped for Halima’s sake that he had, and for Mara’s sake that he had not.

But she had no desire to see either of them, or ponder the questions they had raised.

For now, she and Radu were stuck waiting. Mehmed had laughed, delighted, at Lada’s statements in her letter to Hunyadi. Radu had laughed as well, while giving his sister terrified looks behind Mehmed’s bac

k. He understood the truth behind each and every one of her words.

But until they found out if Hunyadi would take the bait, if a war would threaten the empire and lure Murad back from his early retirement, Mehmed was sultan. In the two weeks since they had come to Edirne with its new sultan, Lada had not seen him once. He had been snatched away by the courts, pulled under in a too-familiar poison current of enemies and allies. More of the former than the latter. No one was happy with the young new leader.

Lada had been certain he would wilt under the pressure, but in spite of his machinations to lure his father back, Mehmed had risen to the occasion. He bent to no man and met every challenge in the open, eager to learn.

But all doors to him were closed now. Lada missed him sometimes, and she hated him for that. She had been right to push him away. Trusting him would only hurt her in the end.

She swung her fist at Nicolae’s head. He raised an arm to block the blow, and she delivered a killing stab with her wooden dagger.

Nicolae laughed, staggering dramatically to the ground. “Dead, again, at the hands of the ugliest girl in creation.” He stuck out his tongue, face contorted in a grimace.