And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga 1)

“No,” Nicolae answered, draping an arm across her shoulders. “I am pretty sure that means you won.”

“Lada!”

She turned, scowling, to find Radu running toward her. He was gasping and breathless. She crouched into a fighting stance, looking behind him for the threat, ready to kill whatever was chasing him. Instead, he grabbed her by the shoulders. His eyes shone with panic or excitement or both.

“Hunyadi. The pope. They have declared a crusade. They are already marching.”

Lada blinked. Even as she wrote to Hunyadi, she doubted anyone would listen to her. They must have already been poised on the brink of attack, waiting for an opening. And now they were taking it. She threw her head back and laughed, a barking, strangled sound like that made by the stray hounds that slunk through the streets of Tirgoviste. “Hunyadi! A crusade!”

Matei shouted a command, and the Janissaries left, instantly falling into formation as they headed to the barracks for more information. Radu had not let go of Lada’s shoulders, his grip crushing. Lada looked at his face, the tightness and fear there.

“What? This is what we wanted. What Mehmed wanted. It will force Murad to take the throne again.”

Radu shook his head. “No, there is more. Father…he sent troops. Mircea leads a contingent of Wallachians.”

For one brief, glorious moment, Lada’s heart swelled with pride for her father. He had finally found his spine, had come down in defense of his own people, against—

Against the country that held their very lives as collateral.

“He has sacrificed us,” Radu whispered.

Lada squeezed the pommel of her practice sword until her fingers cramped. Mara’s talk of duty to one’s country was meaningless if one’s country cared nothing for its duty to you. “He sacrificed us years ago. But I will be damned if I let him kill us.” She dropped her sword and grabbed Radu’s wrist, pulling him along behind her as she rushed to the main wings of the palace. Her head ached, a bump already growing where Ilyas had struck her, but she did not have time to indulge the pain.

“Mehmed will not let them kill us. He is the sultan now.” Radu sounded as though he was trying to convince himself.

Lada hissed, nearly laughing at the irony. “We engineered this whole situation to get his father to be sultan again. Mehmed may not have a say for long. We are running. Right now. We can slip out during the confusion of troop movements.”

“With what supplies? With what money? Even if we make it out of the city, we have no way of getting back to Wallachia.”

Lada skidded to a stop in front of the door to their small apartments within the palace. Mehmed paced there, hands behind his back, forehead creased in worry. With him was a contingent of guards, and Halil Pasha, the main advisor he had inherited from his father. The man responsible for Lada’s stay as captive. If Halil Pasha was here, Mehmed must have lost the argument to protect Lada and Radu. Her fingers twitched toward her wrist sheaths, where she had not removed the daggers.

Mehmed looked up, his expression unchanging. Lada lifted her chin in defiance. If she and Radu were to be punished for their father’s actions, she would not let it happen without a fight. The first man to touch Radu would die.

“There you are!” Mehmed hurried forward, waving for Lada and Radu to join him. “You are excused, Halil Pasha.” Then the guards were not here for Lada and Radu. Lada did not relax her posture.

The older man narrowed his eyes. “We still have much to discuss.”

“I said you are excused!”

Lada noted with interest the look of derision that crossed Halil Pasha’s face, and the petulant tone to Mehmed’s voice. It was not the tone of someone in power.

She met Halil Pasha’s shrewd eyes. As he walked away, she could practically see the threads trailing from him, snagging on everything he passed. Mehmed was sultan, but he was not in power.

They were escorted to Mehmed’s new chambers, which were even more opulent and dizzying than his previous ones. He instructed his guards to remain outside, then slammed the doors shut and threw himself onto a pillow.

“He will not come.”

“What?” Lada walked the borders of the room, tracing the gold patterns painted onto the walls.

“My father. He has refused to come lead the armies. He says that I am sultan now, and it is my job. I will do it if I must, the best I can. But I am not ready to face Hunyadi!”

Radu spoke up, voice high and fast with the relief that they were still safe. For now. “Lada could tell you about Hunyadi’s tactics. She studied him.”

Lada’s eyes cut at Radu like a knife. “Yes, and I can tell you that he and his forces ha

ve the blessing of God and the fervor of a renewed crusade. That he uses wagons as mobile barricades, that he is organized and swift and brutal. That they have been waiting for this opportunity to unify them for years, and they will descend on your holdings like a swarm of locusts. And I can tell you that your Janissaries—the soldiers you need to obey you without question—call you names behind your back and complain of poor wages and treatment. I can only imagine you are equally popular with the spahis.” Spahis had even more to lose under an unsuccessful sultan. They had land and wealth, prestige and influence. All the Janissaries had were their lives and their salaries.

Mehmed threw his hands up in despair. “I know I am not ready to face Hunyadi! That was never the plan. I need my father!”