Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga 2)

He had wanted Mehmed in ways he could never have him, and that, too, had slowly been destroying him.

What, then, did he have left?

Radu closed his eyes, remembering the light. God might have left the city, but Radu w

ould never leave his God. And Constantinople as it was would always be a threat to Islam, bringing crusades, destabilizing the Ottoman Empire.

Some lives are worth more than others, Lada had told him. He had wondered when the scales would tip out of their favor, had thought her a monster for valuing their lives above all others. But he had valued Mehmed above all. He valued Nazira more than any innocents in this city. And the value he had to admit he held for Cyprian would break his own heart.

It was wrong, this weighing and measuring lives as though they were coins that could be spent or saved. He longed to be free of it all, to live among men seeing everyone as his brother, to view no one as his enemy.

But his choice was made. He walked toward the Hagia Sophia to find Amal. He would do everything in his power to give Constantinople to Mehmed, to the true and only God, and let his own heart break or stop as it would after.

“THE CASTLE IN EDIRNE was nicer,” Petru said, looking dubiously at the whitewashed walls and plain stone floors of the dining hall.

“There were pigpens in Edirne nicer than this castle,” Lada said. “You are welcome to go back and live in one of them.”

“I like this castle! Really!” Petru said, scrambling to repair the damage he feared he had done.

Lada sighed and shook her head. “No one hates this castle more than I do. But this is the capital, so we live here now.” She sat back, looking around the table. Nicolae, Petru, Stefan, Daciana, and Bogdan were with her. Lada had sent for Oana. If her old nurse was in charge of the kitchen, Lada knew she would be safe from any attempts to poison her food.

“Has anyone checked the treasury yet? Do we even have a treasury?” Lada realized how little of the actual running of a castle she had witnessed as a child. Mehmed had a legion of men employed to keep charge of his empire’s finances. Lada did not even know where her resources were physically located—or whether she had any.

“I can hunt for treasure in the castle,” Nicolae said.

“Me too!” Petru sat up, excited. Sometimes Lada forgot how young he was.

How young she was, too. She felt it more now, in the three days since she had taken the throne. She had focused for so long on getting here, that she was not quite sure what to do now that her only goal was behind her.

“I doubt there is much to find,” Daciana said. “Would the previous prince have kept his family wealth here? Our boyar”—she turned her head to the side and spit—“and his family kept their wealth on their own land. The Danesti was not always prince. His wealth would be held by his family.”

“You need taxes,” Stefan said. Lada noticed that his right hand and Daciana’s left hand were not on the table. Were they holding hands beneath it?

“You do need taxes,” a man’s voice said. “And for that, you need boyars. And for that, you need me.”

She looked up to see Toma beaming at her, his arms open wide as though expecting her to run to him. At his side was Oana, who shifted away from him with a look on her face like she smelled something foul. Bogdan stood and embraced his mother. She patted his arm, then looked Lada up and down. Nodding, she tightened the apron around her waist and walked toward the kitchen muttering about getting things in shape.

Lada was surprised at how relieved she was to have Oana here again. It felt right.

Toma, on the other hand…

He sat down in the chair Bogdan had vacated, the one to Lada’s immediate right. “Why are you meeting in here?” He looked derisively around the room. “You should be holding court in the throne room, or your chambers. I looked for you there first.”

Lada had been staying in the tiny barracks with her men. That felt more like home than this castle. “I have not taken chambers yet.”

“You must. And stop sitting with your men like a commoner. They should be standing at the ready near the doors, not treated like advisors. Appearances matter, Lada.”

“Speaking of appearances,” Nicolae interrupted—Lada suspected to spite Toma’s pronouncement that her men were merely guards—“why are you here?”

Toma smiled, showing all his stained teeth. “Before I deliver the good news to Matthias, we need to discuss finances. Castles do not run themselves, I am afraid. And we will have to extend quite a few favors to secure the loyalty of the remaining Danesti boyars after what you did to their prince.”

Lada sighed, making herself listen as Toma instructed her. The last time she had been forced to sit through tedious instruction in Tirgoviste, at least she had been able to demand to learn outside. Now she did not have even that luxury.

The castle reminded Lada of a tomb, heavy stones waiting to claim her as they had her father before her. She did not want to live there—already, she craved escape, thinking longingly of the mountain peak in Arges. But she was the prince, and the prince lived in the castle.

She took her father’s old rooms, throwing out everything that had belonged to the dead Danesti. Some of it might have been left over from her father. She did not care either way. Daciana took over after Lada had cleared the rooms, securing enough furnishings for them to feel livable.

“Are you sure you do not want curtains?” she asked, hands on her hips, her belly jutting out.