And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

Her gaze was so pointed, Lada felt herself blush. She dropped the pieces of ripped flatbread onto the plate in front of her. She felt awkward, ungainly, and uglier than she had ever considered herself before. It had not bothered her, most of her life, knowing that she was not beautiful, would never gain admiration for her looks alone. But Huma used her face as a weapon and a tool in a way Lada never could. Lada had never realized that simply by being attractive, she might have gained more threads of power.

Lada lifted her chin defiantly. “I can be strong without giving anything up. I saved Mehmed.”

Huma picked up a date and sucked on it. “Mmm. Yes, you did. And that was well done. But you did not think you were the only woman who has ever killed to protect him, did you?”

Lada frowned in confusion, then immediately regretted it. Huma seemed to be pulling information from everything. She was dragging her long fingers through Lada’s very soul, merely by watching her face.

Huma lay back on her pillows, lifting a hand to her forehead, her sleeve falling down to reveal the long, pale curve of her arm. “It was such a tragedy when Mehmed’s eldest brother fell ill and died so suddenly. To be struck down in his prime! And then Mehmed’s second brother and his two sons, murdered by unknown assailants. Oh, what sadness. Only one son left of an age to inherit should Murad fall in battle!” Her expression of mock sorrow shifted to something darker, angrier. “Or, should he decide to retire and simply throw his one remaining heir to the wolves. Murad has jeopardized everything I worked for.”

Lada’s mind spun. “But you cannot leave the harem! How could you have done all this?”

“Did you notice the men who work here?”

Lada shook her head.

“Exactly as it is supposed to be. My precious eunuchs, they make everyone so deeply uncomfortable. Men cannot stand to look upon them, tormented with imagining what they must have endured to become what they are. The eunuchs are slaves, just as I am, but they, too, have sacrificed. They have had something precious and irreplaceable taken from them, and in doing so, have created a place of power for themselves. They are everywhere in this country, in every important household; they are clerks, they are guards, they are mine.” Huma sat up, her movement so sudden and violent compared with her lazy, sensual motions that Lada jerked back.

“You see this”—Huma gestured to the room, the building, and finally to herself—“as a prison. But you are wrong. This is my court. This is my throne. This is my kingdom. The cost was my freedom and my body.” Her fine eyebrows raised, mouth playful, eyes hard. “So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?”

This was so different from what Mara had presented to Lada. Not an offering of oneself for the benefit of a bigger cause, but the offering of a portion of oneself for the pursuit of personal gain. “I—nothing, I—I,” she stammered.

“Would you sacrifice my son?”

“What? No! I protected him, I—”

“Would you sacrifice what you think your life should be for what it could be, were you to rule at my son’s side?” Huma paused, then laughed at Lada’s tortured expression. “So that is not your design. Very well. You may go now. But I want you to think on what must be sacrificed to secure a future where no one can touch you. I want you to think of Mehmed, and his future.” She waved a hand dismissively, and Lada fled.

ALL THE FEAR THAT had felt so overwhelming in the darkness seemed tempered the next day, as the brilliant sun illuminated a palace going about business as usual.

Huma had instructed Radu and Lada to act as if nothing had changed, but to draw no attention to themselves.

Radu took a deep, shaking breath, then slid along the wall toward Mehmed’s rooms. Returning to the scene of the assassination attempt was probably a bad idea. If there were soldiers in the hall, he would turn and run. Pretend to be lost. Pray they were not the ones who let this happen, since Mehmed did not know who had been on duty, and they could not very well ask.

But Radu wanted to be brave. Maybe Lada and Mehmed, in their terror, had missed something. If he went in, if he searched the…

Even thinking the words the body made him recoil. But he would. Huma wanted to pretend it had never happened. Radu wanted to know why it had. If he found some vital clue, he might be the one to rescue Mehmed this time. Radu might have gotten Mehmed to safety, but Lada was the one who had actually saved him.

That bothered him more than it should. And made him reckless.

However, when he turned the corner, the cavernous hall outside Mehmed’s rooms echoed with the absence of life.

Was the body still inside? Had no one discovered it? Huma had notified everyone that Mehmed was reveling in the harem. Perhaps no one had been in Mehmed’s rooms since. Sick with dread and a morbid curiosity, Radu slipped through the doors, past Mehmed’s waiting chamber toward his study. He held his breath, then stepped inside.

No blood on the gleaming tile floor. No discarded dagger. No lifeless assassin.

Someone had cleaned up after all. There was nothing to suggest the violence this room had held.

But no—that was wrong. A rug, one of Radu’s favorites, cheerfully blue and yellow, was gone. The only evidence was the absence of things that should have been there: the

body, the blood, the rug, and Mehmed.

Radu walked to the desk, reverently placing his hands on various objects. An inkwell. A map of Constantinople with notes scrawled across it in Mehmed’s compact, aggressive script. Several booklets of religious thought that Radu had been hoping to borrow. A heavy, leather-bound tome detailing the life of Alexander the Great.

The whisper of an outer door sent Radu into a panic. He threw himself behind a pillar, just as the door to the study opened.

The intruder’s steps were quiet but assured. Radu heard items being shuffled, then the crackle of a stiff sheet of parchment resisting being rolled. The intruder left as quickly as he had entered. After a few seconds to calm his racing heart, Radu left his hiding place and returned to the desk. Everything was there.

Except the map of Constantinople with Mehmed’s careful notes.