And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

The lean soldier’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he looked over Lada’s shoulder, where Bogdan loomed. She grabbed his arm and walked out of the room with him.

Bogdan was fuming. “We should tell your father.”

“No!”

“Why? He should know how they disrespected you!”

“They are beneath our notice! They are less than the mud. You do not get angry at the mud for clinging to your shoe. You wipe it off and never look at it again.”

“Your father should know.”

Lada scowled. It was not that she feared punishment for her actions. What she feared was that her father would find out how the Janissaries viewed her and realize they were right. That she was a girl. That she was worth less than the castle dogs until the day she could be married off. She had to be the smartest, constantly surprising and delighting him. She was terrified that the day she stopped amusing him would be the day he remembered he had no use for a daughter.

“Will we be punished?” Bogdan’s face, as familiar and beloved as her own, wrinkled in concern. He was growing like a spring shoot, so much taller now. As far back as she could remember he had been at her side. He was hers—her playmate, her confidant, her brother in spirit if not blood. Her husband. Where Radu was weak, Bogdan was steady, strong. She tugged one of his big ears. They stuck out from his head like handles on a jug, and were more precious to her than any of the fine things in the castle.

“The Janissaries have only what power we decide they do.” She meant it as a reassurance, but her mind stuck on the curved sword that hung above her father’s throne. A gift from the sultan to her father. A promise and a threat, like most things in Tirgoviste were.

The next morning Lada awoke late, eyes heavy with sleep and mind muddled by nightmares. There was a strange noise, a hiccuping sort of moan, coming from the other side of her bedroom door. Angry, she stomped out into the chambers that connected her room to Radu’s, where their nurse slept.

The nurse had all her soft parts hidden as she held herself, rocking. She was th

e source of the noise. Radu patted her back, looking lost.

“What happened?” Lada asked, panic rising in her chest like a handful of bees.

“Bogdan.” Radu held up his hands helplessly. “The Janissaries took him.”

The bees turned into a swarm. Lada ran from the room, straight to her father’s study, where she found him bent over maps and ledgers.

“Father!” It came out breathless, desperate. Small. All her efforts to force him to see her as something other than a little girl unraveled in that single word, but she could not stop herself. He would help. He would fix this. “The Janissaries have kidnapped Bogdan!”

Her father looked up, setting down his quill and wiping his fingers on a white handkerchief. It came away smudged with black, and he dropped it to the floor, discarded. His voice was measured. “The Janissaries told me they had some trouble with one of the castle dogs. An injury to a soldier. They requested we supply a replacement who had been taught Turkish. It is a fortunate turn of events for the son of a nursemaid, is it not?”

Lada felt her lower lip tremble. That feeling she got in her heart when her father looked at her—that frantic, desperate pride—twisted and soured. He knew what Bogdan was to her. He knew, and he let the Janissaries take her dearest friend anyway.

He did not care. And now he watched for her reaction, weighing her.

She clenched her shaking hands into fists. She nodded.

“See that the dogs behave themselves from now on.” Her father’s eyes cut straight through her, releasing the bees and leaving her echoing and empty inside. She curtsied, then walked stiffly out, collapsing against the wall and shoving her fists against her eyes to push the tears back inside.

This was her fault. She could have walked away from the Janissaries. Radu would have. But not her. She had to defy them, had to taunt them. And one of them—the thin one—had known just by looking at her the best way to hurt her.

All her tiny threads snapped and circled back around her heart, squeezing too tightly. This was her fault, but her father had betrayed her. He could have said no—should have said no, should have stopped it, should have shown the Janissaries that it was he, not them, who ruled Wallachia.

He had chosen not to.

Her mind stuck on the image of his discarded handkerchief. Dirtied and dropped, forgotten now that it was not pristine. Her father was wasteful. Her father was weak.

Bogdan deserved better.

She deserved better.

Wallachia deserved better.

She went back to the mountain in her mind, stood on its peak, remembered the way the sun had embraced her. She would never toss aside her country the way her father had. She would protect it.

A small sob threatened to break free. What could she do? She had no power.