And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

“You do not live here?”

“No, I have an estate in the countryside. I am not often in Edirne, as my responsibilities at home keep me quite busy. I leave tonight, in fact.”

Radu wilted. He had no right to expect more from Kumal, but the brief moments of hope he had had in his presence seemed like a cruel tease now.

“You are not Ottoman.”

Radu shook his head. “I am from Wallachia.”

Kumal frowned thoughtfully. “Yet you are not a Janissary.”

“My father is Vlad Dracul, vaivode of Wallachia. He left my sister and me here for…our education.”

Understanding settled into Kumal’s face, but where Radu feared seeing anger or derision, there was only sympathy. “Ah, I see. It would appear your education has been less than kind.”

Radu lifted a hand to his face, self-conscious.

Kumal took the hand, squeezing it, then putting it down so Radu would look at him. “Please do not judge my country by the cruelty of a few. Though there is one God and one Prophet, peace be upon him, not everyone interacts with him in the same way. There are varying levels of faith and practice, just as in everything in life. But you have a choice.”

“I do not feel like I have any choices left to me.”

Kumal nodded. “It may seem that way. But you always have a choice. You can choose to find comfort and solace in God. You can choose to be brave and compassionate. And you can choose to find beauty and happiness wherever they present themselves.” He smiled. “I think you already know this, though. I hope you can hold on to that through the coming years, because you have much to offer the world, Radu.”

A girl slipped onto a cushion across from Radu, her eyes bright and her mouth a perfect full-lipped circle. Her clothes were as pretty as she was, and a cheerful yellow scarf covered her hair. She smiled shyly at him, then took a piece of bread. “Is my brother lecturing you?”

Radu shook his head, looking down at his plate. “No.”

“Good. He does so love to lecture. I am Nazira.”

Kumal put a hand on her shoulder. “Nazira is my youngest sister.”

“And his favorite.”

“And my favorite.” Kumal laughed; and then the servant returned, setting out a spread of roasted fowl, vegetables, and a cooling sauce. Kumal promised to take Radu back to the palace after the meal. Then he and Nazira traded stories, enveloping Radu in their laughter and shared history as though he were a natural part of it.

The warmth between them should have made Radu feel cold in comparison, but he stole a portion of it, tucking it away for the coming days when he knew he would need it.

LADA DID NOT KNOW how much longer she could get away with stealing bedsheets. Radu had complained that his bed was stripped of everything but a single blanket. She had to sit with her back against the door to guard against discovery as she ripped his sheet into manageable pieces to staunch the flow.

Her room was stifling. The smell of burning cloth had lingered through the month, and now the blood was back.

When her nurse had told her she would not have to worry about marriage until her monthly courses started, it had been a comfort. Until the morning Lada awoke covered in blood, in her enemy’s house. She lived in terror of the day she was discovered. Servants were turned away from her chamber door with screaming fits or, when that failed, with her fists. No one could know.

But it was only a matter of time. The door to her and Radu’s tiny joint rooms had no lock.

Still, Lada never cried.

Radu thought his crying was a secret, but every night she heard him throug

h the thin wall that separated them. Sometimes she hated him for crying, and sometimes she hated him because she could not join him.

He looked happy only when he sneaked off to pray, an act that enraged Lada. She picked at him mercilessly for it, but he never acknowledged her anger. Finally, she resigned herself to sullen silence. If she ignored it, maybe he would stop.

The days passed in a desolate blur of lessons and lessons. Today, they were watching a highway robber being hung by a large metal hook inserted between his ribs. Did you know, her history tutor intoned in her mind, that there is very little crime in the Ottoman state? Our highways are safer, our homes more secure than those in insignificant and tiny countries such as your own. Our people love their sultan.

Lada should have conceded that there had been a great deal of crime in Tirgoviste and the surrounding towns. Instead, she remarked that perhaps the Ottomans’ devotion was a result of their turbans being wrapped too tightly and strangling their brains.

When the robber had finished the long, agonizing process of dying, his body was taken down to be displayed on the highway with a sign proclaiming his crimes. Lada’s feet hurt. She was tired of these lessons. There was nothing else to learn. The sultan controlled everything. If you crossed the sultan, you died. People obeyed not out of love but rather because punishment was swift, severe, and extremely public. It was effective justice. Admirable, even. The sultan cowered to no one, did not have to play games and bow to the whims of people beneath him, as her father so often had.