Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga 2)

Bogdan stayed closer to her side than ever. He never asked where she had gone. At least his unquestioning acceptance of her actions had not changed. But even if he asked, she would never tell him.

Or anyone.

Lada’s mind chased itself in angry circles. Mehmed—whom she had always trusted—had deceived her. And he thought she would choose Constantinople after that? How little he knew her.

The next night, though, lying on the frozen ground, her mind betrayed her. Images of being empress next to Mehmed haunted her when she closed her eyes. It was the worst part of everything, knowing that, on some level, she wanted that much power, even at that cost.

She awoke, gasping and aching. No. The worst were dreams of Mehmed at her side in an entirely different fashion.

She made her men move before dawn. Sleep was not her ally. She drove them hard toward Hunedoara, reassuring herself that at least she had done some good for Hunyadi. Constantinople would fall—of that she had no doubts, whatever else she might now doubt and hate about Mehmed—and Hunyadi would have died there. Her duplicity had spared him his life. She could take comfort in that.

“I hate Hungary,” Petru grumbled, riding abreast of Lada, Nicolae, and Bogdan. “And that lord or noble or prince, Matthias? Whenever he is around me, he holds a handkerchief to his nose.” Petru ducked his head to smell under his arms. “I smell nothing.”

Nicolae leaned close, then feigned fainting. “That is because your sense of smell has killed itself out of despair.”

“Matthias is not a prince,” Lada said. “He is Hunyadi’s son.”

Petru’s expression shifted in surprise. “How did Hunyadi’s seed produce that weak politician?”

Nicolae’s cheerful voice answered. “The same way Vlad Dracul’s traitorous seed produced our valiant Lada!”

Lada stared straight ahead, numb. In that moment, she realized she was exactly like her father. Hunyadi had cautioned her not to discount the man who made her the way she was. Apparently her father had done his job well. She, too, had taken someone who trusted her and leveraged that trust for Ottoman aid—aid that benefitted her nothing. And she had been stupid enough to make it personal with Mehmed.

She was a fool.

“Lada?” Bogdan asked, his low, grumbling voice soft with concern.

She pushed her horse forward, outpacing them all so they could not see the first tears she had cried since she was a child.

Oana caught her, though. Lada wiped furiously at her face. “What do you want?”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Hunyadi. He is my only ally.”

Oana made a humming noise. “Not your only ally. You have other family besides your father.”

“Mircea is dead, too. And none of the boyars are more closely related to the Dracul line th

an to the Danesti or Basarab.”

“Not that side. Your mother. Last I heard, she was alive in Moldavia. And she is still royalty there.”

Lada turned her head to the side and spat. “She is nothing to me.”

“Be that as it may, you might not be nothing to her. Blood calls to blood. You could yet find your path to the throne through the support of her family. If nothing else, it is a place to rest and regroup. You need some rest.”

Groaning, Lada rubbed her forehead. “I do not want to see her.” There was a reason appealing to her Moldavian relatives had never crossed her mind. Her mother had ceased existing for her years ago. The idea of welcoming that woman back into her life, even if it got her the throne…

Oana leaned closer. “It cannot cost you more than whatever happened with the sultan.”

“God’s wounds, woman, very well.” Lada ignored Oana’s pleased smile as she turned her horse around. “New plan,” she said when she rejoined her men.

“New plan?” Petru asked.

“Where are we off to now?” Nicolae asked.

“Moldavia.”