Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga 3)

She was tormented by thoughts of Bogdan, of Radu. By the time the three of them had spent here. A summer of laughter and scraped knees, soaked in sunshine, the memory mocking her now that she was clinging blindly to cold, wet stone.

Radu had taken Bogdan from her.

Radu.

Who did she have now? Where was the strength and assurance that had sustained her? She should put her trust in her true mother, Wallachia, but she kept seeing Bogdan falling. Bouncing off her mountain. How could this, too, be taken from her?

The rocks were slick with moisture, portions caked with layers of bat droppings or moldy growths. She felt them beneath her fingernails, was glad she could not see their blackness clinging to her. It was completely dark now, the opening above her so far she could no longer see its light. Beneath her, her goal too far to even see a glimmer of hope.

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nbsp; Alone, stone pressing in, she knew: there was no heart in this mountain.

Wallachia was not her mother. Wallachia did not care what happened to her. And every single person who might have was either dead or trying to kill her.

Her feet slipped, and she hung by the tips of her fingers. Pain burned through them. “I am a dragon,” she whispered. It echoed around her, her own words coming back haunted and empty of meaning or strength.

She fell.

Poenari Fortress

RADU SAT IN THE dim lantern light, his head leaning against the cold stone. In his hand he held one of Lada’s knives. Wrist, wrist, waist, ankle, ankle. He had taken them all.

Lada’s head rested in his lap, her eyes closed. Her breathing was even. Her arm had been bent at an impossible angle when he found her in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the long, dark tunnel leading to the fortress. She was not bleeding anywhere that he could see, but she had been sleeping for hours now.

He shifted, working circulation back into his legs.

Lada’s eyelids fluttered. Radu stroked her forehead, brushing away one of her tangled curls. She sat up with a start, then cried out in pain, grabbing her shoulder and scooting away from him. She tried to stand but one of her ankles gave out. Dragging herself away, she hit the far wall only a few feet from Radu and stopped, leaning back against it and breathing heavily.

“Hello, Lada,” Radu said.

With her good hand, Lada reached for her other wrist.

Radu held up the knife. In the lamp’s golden flicker, Lada’s black eyes looked dead, no reflection coming back to him. It was as though the light was sucked in, devoured whole, and disposed of.

“How did you know about this place?” Lada put her good hand on her ribs and grimaced.

“Did you think all I did that summer was cry because you and Bogdan would not let me play with you?”

Lada blinked, still dazed. “Actually, yes.”

Radu laughed, the sound ringing brighter through the space than the lamp’s light. “I did do a fair amount of that. But I also explored. I found this cave, and climbed all the way up to the fortress. As soon as I got out up there, I knew it was the secret you had been keeping. I did not dare climb back down, though. It took me until dark to hike back. You never noticed I was gone the whole day.” Radu smiled.

“Father did not notice when I found the fortress ruins the first time, either. I was so excited to tell him. But all he wanted to do was leave us.”

“That never changed.” Radu sighed, a soft noise lost in the breeze that wound its way back to this part of the cavern. “When I heard rumors of your fortress in the mountains, I knew this was where I would find you.”

Lada closed her eyes, another grimace passing over her face and then resolutely dismissed. “So you came down here after you missed.”

“After I missed?”

“Your shot. With the arrow.”

“I did not miss.”

Lada opened her eyes, narrowing them at him. “And yet here I am, free from arrow holes.”

“I hit my target.”