Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga 2)

Her mother’s voice was as harsh as Lada had ever heard it, finally filled with true emotion. “No one belongs there.”

The maid was loath to part with any information, but as far as Lada could determine, her mother was mad. They had lived together in this house, far away from everyone and everything, for the last ten years. Vasilissa had been given the manor by her father, who doubtless could not stand the broken shell of a woman she was.

Every day was the same. The maid smiled as she described it, saying over and over how pleasant it was, to be safe and to always know what to expect. This was what Lada’s mother had chosen. Safety. Seclusion. The woman had abandoned her children, utterly and completely, to live in pampered isolation instead of dealing with the harsh realities of life.

The harsh realities of her own children’s desperate attempts to survive without anyone to aid them.

Lada did not say goodbye. She stopped in the kitchen and stole as much food as she could carry. Then she closed the front door behind her and walked along the dark lane to where the campfire of her men—her friends—called to her. She sat next to them, drawing heat and strength from their shoulders. Bogdan shifted closer and she leaned against him.

“Well?” Nicolae asked.

“She is mad.”

“Then you do have something in common after all!”

His attempt at levity met with no reaction from Lada. His voice got quieter. “Will there be any aid from Moldavia?”

“None that she can provide. We can go to the capital and appeal to the new king. But I do not think these people will help us. She is just like all the nobility, the boyars. They are sick with the same disease. They lock themselves in finery and wealth, and they refuse to see anything that might jeopardize their comfort.” Lada paused, remembering her mother’s teeth, her mother’s foot. Perhaps she should not begrudge the small measure of comfort a powerless woman had managed to find in a cruel world.

But she would absolutely begrudge her mother the failure to empower herself. Running and abandoning those who needed her was the weakest, lowest thing possible. Lada would not do that. She could not. Whatever else she was, Lada was nothing like the class who could go on living after turning their backs on those who depended upon them.

“What, then?” Nicolae asked. “Do we try to convince more boyars that you are a tame princess and not a warlord prince?”

Lada picked up a canteen of water and poured it on the flames, watching them sizzle and die. “I do not know. I have tried—” Her voice caught. She had tried everything. She had pledged loyalty to foreign kings, she had betrayed an ally, she had trusted that love was the same as honesty. “I have tried everything.”

“The little zealot was always unlikely. None of us blame you for looking for help there, though.”

Lada sat up straight, alarmed. “What do you mean?”

Nicolae’s expression was without reproach. “We are all very good soldiers and scouts, Lada. Did you really think we would fail to notice the sultan camped within miles of us?”

She hung her head, the weight of her shame pulling her down. “I told you I was freeing you. But when he offered help, I leapt at the opportunity.”

“We do not care,” Petru said.

The way Bogdan sat perfectly still next to her indicated that he, perhaps, did.

“We know you fight for us. For Wallachia.” Nicolae shrugged. “The little zealot was a means to an end. It did not work. So we find more means for the same end.”

Lada held out her hands. “I have exhausted my means. I am sorry you have followed me this far.”

“We still have Hunyadi,” Bogdan said.

Nicolae rubbed his beard, leaning back with a thoughtful expression. “No, Hunyadi is not our best option. We have our own Hunyadi in Lada. What we need is someone who can work new angles of power. What we need is Matthias.”

“He is the same as all the other leaders,” Lada said, shaking her head.

“That is precisely the point.” Nicolae smiled, the fire illuminating his face in the midst of the darkness. “He is the same as them. So if we get him…”

Lada took a deep breath filled with smoke. It seared her lungs. She wanted nothing to do with Matthias, and knew his help—if she could get it—would not be without a price. How much more of herself would she have to lose to get where she belonged?

“For Wallachia,” Bogdan said.

Lada nodded. “For Wallachia.”

A THICK FOG OVER THE city muffled all life: muting church bells, softening footfalls, cloaking the streets in a layer of damp and stifling mystery.

Radu turned from staring out his window into the blank white that had settled over the distance like a sickness coming ever closer. Taking a deep breath, he knelt on the floor facing Mecca. Letting go of his fear and questions, he hoped his prayer could find its way out of the fogged-in city even if nothing else could. He was so lost in the ritual he failed to notice an increase in the frequency and number of church bells until his door burst open.