Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga 2)

Cyprian waved his free hand. “The book we gave the sultan. You understood how funny it was. The dragon book. I wished so much I could laugh with you. Even then I knew you would have a wonderful laugh. He did not want me to go back, you know.”

Radu searched his memory, trying to figure out what Cyprian was talking about. Books and dragons? And then it rushed back. Last year. The delegation from Constantinople after Mehmed’s coronation. It was the first time Radu had seen Cyprian. Back when Cyprian was a nameless ambassador delivering a book on Saint George and the dragon as a gift. Radu remembered that moment perfectly, too. That startling jolt when he had met Cyprian’s clear gray eyes and seen the hidden laughter there.

“Who did not want you to go back to Edirne?” Radu asked, suddenly very interested in the conversation.

“My uncle. Too dangerous. I insisted, though. I wanted to speak to you.”

Radu’s heart was racing. “To ask me to come here and give information on Mehmed?”

“No.” Cyprian’s voice went far away and quiet. “I just wanted to speak to you. I wanted to hear you laugh.” He smiled, lifting their clasped hands toward Radu’s cheek. Radu leaned his head down, letting Cyprian’s fingers brush against his skin. Though his fingers were cold, the touch felt like fire.

“I regret nothing,” Cyprian murmured, and then his face relaxed into sleep.

The door clicked shut and Radu startled, looking up guiltily.

“Oh, husband.” Nazira sighed, already in the room, for how long Radu did not know. “You almost make me believe in fate, for how unfortunate yours is.”

She set down a bowl of broth and a mug of watered-down wine. Adjusting Cyprian’s blankets, she knelt across the bed from Radu and looked up at him. “First a man with no heart to give you, and now a man who can never know your truths.”

Radu stood, his pulse still racing, his cheeks flushed. “I— He was— I am not—”

Nazira looked tenderly at Cyprian, brushing some hair from his forehead. “I suspected, but I hoped I was wrong. It seemed too cruel, too absurd an irony.”

“You know I am loyal to Mehmed!”

Nazira’s face darkened faster than the tempest in the streets. “You owe him nothing more than your loyalty. Certainly not your love. Normally I would rejoice that your heart had stirred in another direction. But this…” She lowered her head onto the bed, hiding her face from him. “Oh, Radu. What will we do?”

A bell in the distance tolled doom, doom, doom.

Radu could not sit at Cyprian’s bedside. He wandered the streets until nightfall. The storm had disappeared as suddenly as it came, the clouds taking residence on the earth instead. The air was still and dead, the city shrouded as if for burial.

As night fell, the fog thickened, masking all lights and making the city as dark as a cave. Radu had started toward home when muted cries of “Fire, fire!” broke through the fog. He turned, running in their direction, wondering if this was it, if the wall had finally fallen. Instead, he saw the roof of the Hagia Sophia flickering with light.

Horrified, he ran several steps toward the church before stopping. It was not fire. The light danced and moved along the roof, but it was the wrong hue for fire, more white and blue than yellow. And there was no smoke. Radu watched, transfixed, as the light gathered around the main spire and then shot upward into the sky.

He stared, blinking in the darkness, the afterimage playing across his vision. He had never seen anything like this, never heard of anything like it. But no—had not God appeared to Moses as fire? A cloud during the day—like the impenetrable fog—and a pillar of fire at night.

Radu could not breathe, could not comprehend what he had seen. Because the only way he could explain it was that he had seen the spirit of God himself. And God had left Constantinople behind.

But the fire had gone into the sky, not to the camps of the Ottomans. Perhaps all their prayers had canceled each other out. It was only men against men now.

God was right to abandon them. If anyone had decided on mercy and reason over stubbornness, all these lives could have been spared. If Mehmed had allowed the city to continue its natural, slow death rather than needing to claim it. If Constantine had bowed to the impossible odds and opted to save his people over his pride.

Radu was so angry with both of them. Different possibilities spun through his mind. Killing Constantine, as he had considered. It would lead to surrender.

Using Mehmed’s trust and sending a message into the Ottoman camps that Hunyadi was on his way with an army from the pope. That would tip things out of Mehmed’s favor, forcing him to accept a new peace treaty.

Either was a bigger betrayal than Radu had it in him to commit, and for that he was as culpable as emperor or sultan. He could not make the hard decision, could not solve this where they refused to.

Radu wandered, lost in the fog. It clung to him, questioning, nagging. Radu was sorrier than he had ever believed possible. Somewhere in the past months he had grown to love this odd, superstitious, worn-down city. Somewhere in the past months he had grown to love the man who brought them here.

But an end was coming. If Mehmed did not take the city, it would be his end. Halil would see to that. More Muslims would die in Christian crusades, like Fatima’s family had. And the city would still fall eventually. But if Radu helped the city fall now, he could save Mehmed. Radu could be at his side to see the future Mehmed would create.

Lada had despised Radu for the fact that he would always choose Mehmed. Nazira had told him that he did not owe Mehmed his love.

But he did owe Mehmed his life. And Mehmed was the only man who could fill the destiny laid out by the Prophet, peace be upon him.

He had imagined Constantinople, had wanted it for Mehmed. It had been simple and straightforward. But now he knew the true cost of things, the murky horrors of the distance between wanting something and getting it.