And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

“Pontus kings who ruled here more than a thousand years ago.”

“What were their names?”

“No one remembers.”

She placed a hand flat on the cool limestone of one of the tomb covers. No one remembered the kings’ names, but they were still here, overlooking their land.

Mehmed spread his cloak out and lay on his back, gesturing for Lada and Radu to join him. Radu immediately lay to Mehmed’s right. Lada stayed where she was. “Come on,” Mehmed said, “I did not bring you here to show you the tombs. We can look at them sometime when it is light.”

Sighing loudly enough for him to hear, Lada dragged her feet and lay down on Mehmed’s left side, annoyed with him for asking and herself for obeying.

And then everything else was swallowed by the enormity of the sky above her. The dark curve of the atmosphere was littered with light, stars spilling across her vision, overwhelming and beautiful. Vertigo briefly claimed Lada as she stared upward, and she felt as though she were falling into the sky, toward the stars. Then she saw a brilliant flash of light, trailed with fire. Radu gasped. Another star fell, burning brilliantly in the dark before disappearing.

Mehmed whispered, as though afraid to break the spell, “Molla Gurani said this would happen tonight.”

“How did he know?” Radu asked.

“It happens on a cycle of years. He has books that note its occurrence. Tonight he is up in the tower recording our falling stars for the future to study.”

“Why do you like him so much?” Lada asked, the wonder of the night above her stealing the sting from her question.

Mehmed was quiet for a long time before answering. “That day you found me in the garden? Molla Gurani is the tutor who struck me.”

“You should have had him killed,” Lada said.

Mehmed laughed softly. “It sounds odd, but I am glad he hit me. Before him, no one, no tutor, no nurse ever stood up to me. They let me rage and rant, allowed me to be a terror. The more I pushed, the more they looked the other way. My father never saw me, my mother could not be bothered to take so much as a meal with me. No one cared who I was or what I became.”

Lada tried to shift away from the thing poking into her heart and making her so uncomfortable, but there were no rocks beneath her.

“And then Molla Gurani came. That first day, when he hit me, I could not believe it. I wanted to kill him. But what he said the next day changed me forever. He told me I was born for greatness, placed in this world by the hand of God, and he would never let me forget or abandon that trust.” Mehmed shrugged, his shoulder pressing against Lada’s. “Molla Gurani cared who I was and who I would become. I have tried ever since to live up to that.”

Lada swallowed hard against the painful lump that had built in her throat. She could not blame Mehmed for latching on to a man who saw him, who demanded more of him and helped him attain it. It was a lonely, cold thing to live without expectations.

She unwrapped her hand from where it clutched the pouch at her heart and cleared her throat. “He is still the most boring man alive.”

Mehmed laughed, while Radu remained far away and silent.

The streaks of light continued, sometimes coming so fast Lada could not keep track of them. Mehmed held up his hands, palms out, to either Draculesti beside him. Radu took one hand. Lada did not move, but when Mehmed lowered his hand to hers, she did not pull away.

Radu lifted his free hand as though he would catch an especially bright star. “It is so sad they have to die.”

Lada’s eyes watered from being held open so long, and a tear fell from the corner of her eye into her hair. Here, tonight, with Mehmed and Radu, felt like a dream she was terrified to let slip away. But the stars were real, and she would not miss the passing of a single one. “If they were not burning, we would never know they were there.”

“I am glad we are here,” Mehmed said.

Lada opened her mouth to agree, and then bit her tongue in horror. She was not glad. She could not be glad. Being glad would be the greatest betrayal of herself and her home she could ever commit. The sooner you stop fighting, Mara said in her head, the easier life will be.

It was getting easier to be here. She could not live with that.

“I want to go home,” she said, sitting up, pulling her hand away from Mehmed’s. It was cold where the air hit the skin that had been sealed against his.

“Can we stay a while longer? Then we will walk back.”

“No! I want to go home. To Wallachia.”

Mehmed sat up slowly, looking at the ground. Radu stayed where he was, perfectly still. “Why do you want to go back?” Mehmed asked.

Lada let out a strangled laugh. How had she felt so close to him just now, when he could ask her a question like that? He knew nothing about her. “Because I belong there. You said yourself no one cares what you do. So send me back.”