And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

“Matthias, Hunyadi’s son.”

A sharp pain beneath her fingernails alerted Lada to the fact that she was scraping them against the rotting wood floor so hard that slivers were stabbing into her palm. She would be married to grant someone else an advantage. And when that alliance fell through, as all alliances did, she would be shuffled to the side. Left in a convent, abandoned and cut off.

An image of their mother, nearly forgotten since she had left them, crawled through Lada’s mind. She recoiled from the memory of that woman. Powerless. Broken. An abandoned alliance had left her a prisoner in someone else’s home, someone else’s country.

Lada squeezed her hand shut around the splinters, warm drops of blood pooling in her palm, covering the scar of her playacting with Bogdan. There would be no happy marriage of equals for her, no one who would agree to let her rule. “I will never marry.”

Radu pried her hand open and attempted to dig out some of the slivers. She let him. He was far gentler with her wounds than she had been with his.

“How do you know all this?” She considered him in wonder. She had assumed Radu spent his days dreaming. His big eyes had a way of looking pleasantly vacant, as though he were not even aware of conversations going on right in front of him. While Lada was fixated on tactics and Hunyadi, she had studiously ignored the intrigues of the boyars. She saw now that was an error.

“People forget I am listening. I am always listening.”

“We should tell father about Mircea’s plans.”

Radu went perfectly still, head down. Lada did not have to see his expression to know how he looked. Terrified. “He will be angry. And Mircea will kill me. I am scared to die.”

“Everyone dies sometime. And I will not let Mircea kill you. If anyone is going to kill you, it will be me. Understand?”

Radu nodded, snuggling into her shoulder. “Will you protect me?”

“Until the day I kill you.” She jabbed a finger into his side, where he was most ticklish, and he squealed with pained laughter. The look he gave her was one she recognized—the same hungry, desperate look she used to give their father. Radu loved her, and he wanted her to feel the same for him. For the first time since he had been introduced into her life, placid and beautiful and worthless, she found Radu interesting. Perhaps even useful. And more than that, in Bogdan’s absence, she felt like someone belonged to her again.

THE SCRATCHES ON RADU’S face and arms from Mircea’s garden attack had faded to thin red lines. He had lied to his nurse, told her that he tripped and fell into a bush. Reporting on Mircea never accomplished anything.

But this time…this time perhaps it would. Lada had told him to talk to their father. And he could.

He would.

Radu paced in their chambers. The information he had about Mircea conspiring with the boyars would hurt all Radu’s enemies. Mircea, first and foremost. Oh, Radu would love to see him fall from grace. And the Danesti family were the main aggressors behind the coalition, so if they were punished or ostracized, it would hurt Andrei and Aron.

Of course, Andrei and Aron avoided him now, avoided nearly everyone. They were already outcasts in the court after their false crime and real punishment. But Radu still feared that someday they would trace it back to him. He had made his nurse arrange for the servant boy who had helped him to be sent with a family to Transylvania, lest the boy reveal Radu’s deception. He lied to himself that Emil was better off, but Radu knew it had been entirely selfish.

But beneath every other motivation—the desire to hurt Mircea, to punish the Danestis—was this: if Radu heroically revealed the plot, his father would finally see him. He would know that Radu was smart, that Radu was valuable. And Lada would be proud.

Lada entered their chambers, glaring at him. “Sit down. You make me dizzy.”

He did not sit, too flushed with excitement. “I am going to tell Father about Mircea and the boyar coalition. He will be so proud of me!”

“He will be furious.”

“Not with me!”

“Do you imagine him thanking you? Embracing you warmly, thrilled with the news that his own son is working against him? You are a fool.”

All Radu’s careful hopes were fleeing. He shook his head. “He will be glad to know! He will thank me!”

“We cannot always predict how our father will respond.” She looked at the corner, where their nurse’s basket of mending sat beneath her chair. The nurse used to darn Bogdan’s socks, cursing him for wearing them out so quickly. She no longer had that task.

A dark realization seized Radu. “You are jealous. You want Father to see only you.”

Lada laughed, a bitter sound. “I do not want Father to see me offering him a conspiracy to take away even more of his power. You are welcome to that.” She stomped out of the room.

Radu found her later that day, standing on the narrow walled ledge that surrounded the tower. “Did you tell him?” she asked without looking at her brother.

Radu did not answer.

“Coward.” But she angled her body so he could stand next to her. “We will think of some way to reveal the truth without entangling you in the mess. You do not want to draw Father’s attention as being part of this.”