Bright We Burn

by Kiersten White

  He had written to Mehmed, too. Lada did not ask what Radu said, or how Mehmed responded. All she knew was that Radu was on her side, which was worth more than she had imagined, and she would not jeopardize it.

  “What about King Stephen?” Lada asked, continuing their conversation about threats and allies. “He still has the cities he took from me when he was supposed to be helping. I want to kill him.”

  Radu sighed, rubbing the side of his nose and leaving behind a trace of ink. Cyprian, the tall young Greek who was always at her brother’s side, laughed and wiped it away. Cyprian was nothing like Mehmed. He was joyful and open, wearing his emotions so clearly even Lada could read him. Mehmed had always been so careful with what he showed the world. And where Mehmed was never satisfied with anything, always wanting more knowledge, more power, more control, Cyprian seemed deeply content as long as he was with Radu.

  Lada had once questioned whether anyone could pull Radu’s heart from Mehmed. She would not have thought someone so different from Mehmed would be the one to do it. She supposed she ought to be happy for Radu, but he was being very aggravating.

  “You cannot kill the king of Moldavia,” Radu said.

  “I was not planning on doing it personally.” Lada gestured down at her ever-expanding stomach. “Obviously I would send someone else.”

  “No, I mean, we cannot kill Stephen. He is still an ally. I have had good responses from my envoys to him. Besides, I thought you liked him?”

  “I do. But that does not mean he should live after what he did. What kind of example does it set if I allow him to keep the land he took?”

  “We are not going to let him keep it. We are going to give it to him as a gift to thank him for being our ally, and as a gesture of future goodwill and cooperation.”

  Lada sat up with a grunt. “That is terrible.”

  “That is diplomacy. I cannot do much right now for our relations with Transylvania and Bulgaria, but we will not damage one of our only friendly borders.”

  Lada scowled, kneading her lower back with her knuckles.

  “Let me.” Fatima settled on the blanket next to her and rubbed Lada’s sore muscles. Back in the castle, whether meeting with envoys or directing land management, Nazira wore a dress padded to imitate Lada’s condition.

  “You are only nice to me because you want this baby,” Lada said.

  Fatima did not pause or respond. She never did. She treated Lada with distant kindness that Lada knew she did not deserve, and it rankled her. Fatima should hate her, as Nazira rightfully did.

  Sometimes Lada wondered if she should apologize to Nazira for murdering her brother. But she was giving her a baby, which apparently Nazira wanted very much. And Lada could not find the words—or the sentiment—to say she was sorry. She liked Nazira in spite of herself, though. Much as she had suspected and doubted the marriage, she saw now that Nazira was fierce in her own right, with a clever mind always looking for opportunities.

  It seemed a loss to Lada that she and Nazira could not be friends. But there was nothing she could do to fix what she had done. She would not try. Nazira still had far more than Lada did. Radu had managed to build a formidable family around himself. And, unlike Lada, he got to keep all of them.

  A twig snapped, and she reached for a rock before realizing that Bogdan was not trying to sneak up on their lessons in the forest.

  It was Oana, hiking through the forest toward them, lugging a large basket.

  “We will kill Matthias, though,” Lada said. The words hung in a frozen cloud of breath. She willed them to become a solid reality. “He betrayed me. Kept me locked in prison for three months. He also betrayed the pope and his European allies by taking the gold intended for our crusade against Mehmed and using it to buy his stupid crown back. He cannot be trusted. Besides, we cannot be sure he will not try to harm me again.”

  “We are not going to kill Matthias,” Radu answered.

  “He took me prisoner!”

  “But he did not kill you. Or Oana. He even sent her back as a gift.”

  Oana grunted, unpacking their afternoon meal. “He could have sent something more valuable.”

  “There is nothing more valuable,” Radu said, but he could not quite meet their nurse’s eyes. Only he and Lada knew the source of his guilt. The closest Lada had come to apologizing for leaving her behind was not telling their nurse who it was that had killed Bogdan. As far as Oana knew—or would ever know—Bogdan went into the mountains to get help and never returned.

  Oana should not have to live with the truth. It was enough that Lada and Radu did.

  Oana’s gaze shifted down to Lada’s swollen stomach and her eyes misted with tears. Lada resisted the urge to growl. If she could remove the damned thing and have it over with, she would. It was like a parasite, foreign and intrusive. And Lada knew when others looked at her stomach, they saw what they wanted to.

  Nazira and Fatima saw their futures as mothers. Radu, a secret to hide to protect Lada. Oana, her own flesh and blood mixed with her claimed daughter.

  “Is it his?” Radu had asked one night as he helped Lada exercise her injured arm to get full movement back.

  “You mean Bogdan’s?” Lada had answered.

  “We both know that is not who I meant.”

  Lada had not answered again. Nor would she ever. She knew that the child could be considered a legal heir—knew that in Mehmed’s mind and in the eyes of Ottoman law, Lada was part of his harem. He would never have any of her again. Certainly not whatever beast was currently taking up residence over her bladder.

  Radu was still talking. “…because we know what he wants, he is easy to deal with. And he is our connection to the pope and the rest of Europe. It is a fine line to walk, but I think we can manage to keep him on our side, or at the very least not directly against us.”

  “It would help if we had money to send Matthias,” Lada said. “He is deeply loyal to money.”

  “A lot of things would be helped if we had money. First we need to survive this winter.”

  Lada knew that they would, and only because of Radu’s foresight in employing his Janissaries as farmers. She had destroyed her own land. He had healed it.

  Again, he was annoying her. “If you will not let me kill Stephen or Matthias, who can we kill?”

  “I have made a comprehensive list.” Radu shuffled through his sheaves of parchment. Most of them detailed funds, where they were, where they could go. Resources such as food and materials. Lists of men and where they were located, as well as people he felt they could trust or would be able to buy the trust of. In short, all the little details Lada had never wanted to deal with but that it took to run a country.

  Radu made an excellent prince. She was not surprised. Nor was she even particularly angry. She had always wanted him at her side. Had always known that together, they could accomplish what neither could alone.

  Perhaps if she had not broken so much to get him here, he would stay.

  “Ah! Here it is.” Radu lifted a piece of parchment and held it out to her.

  Lada’s eyes slitted to knife-thin lines. “This is blank.”

  “Exactly! We are building, not burning.”

  “I still think it would be easier to start over. Break down everything that existed and led to such weakness and rot.”

  Radu’s jaw tightened reflexively. “I have seen what it costs to take something very old and make it new. Streets running with blood to clear out a falling empire and make way for the future. Children—”

  Cyprian reached out and placed his hand over Radu’s, which trembled so hard the parchment rustled.

  Radu took a deep breath. “You do not want to pay that cost. I promise. Even you built Poenari Fortress on the stones of the past, the strength that was already there. We are doing the same.”

  Lada raised an eyebrow. “You knocke
d that fortress down.”

  A soft giggle from Fatima drew everyone’s eyes to where she sat, curled up under a thick fur. “Well,” she said, softly, “it was probably not the best example.”

  Lada leaned back and let them talk, listened to Cyprian and Radu discuss and strategize and plan. Radu was trying to give her the most stable throne he could manage, and she did not doubt he would do a good job. They had yet to discuss the biggest problem, the one they shared an entire history with. Neither of them had been willing to broach that topic yet. Lada’s hands rested on her stomach.

  She moved them away.

  Fatima gently rubbed Lada’s forehead and neck, where she had constant tension. Here in the forest, in her trees, in her country, Lada listened to the family her brother had built and desperately missed her own.

  * * *

  “He wants to meet,” Radu said, staring out from the tower. Lada did not want to be up here. Neither of them liked the castle, but he seemed fond of the tower. It held only ghosts for Lada. Another night, another time, other men she loved. Lada looked down at Tirgoviste, trying to forget. Everything was frozen. Calm. War slept during the winter, curled up like a bear in a cave.

  And so Tirgoviste was filling up again. Thanks to Radu’s stores of food and Lada’s presence, the people of Wallachia had slowly returned. And, again thanks to Radu, several of the large manors once again held boyars. Radu visited them daily, making social calls with his charming flower of a wife. But he also met with the people Lada had picked, the ones she had given land to. She could see in his actions that he respected what she had tried to do, what she was still hoping to do. He just wanted to be nicer about the whole thing, which was typical of him.

  “We work well together,” he said, as though reading her mind.

  “You mean I do all the work and then you come in and smile at people to make them like you?”

  Radu laughed. “Yes.” Then he sighed and his face got serious again. “Mehmed wants to meet. He is sending envoys, all of whom will survive and leave healthy and well, and I am working on new terms that I think—I hope—he will accept. He owes me, and I have never asked him for anything. I think he will allow you to remain on the throne. But he wants to meet in secret.”

  “The two of you?”

  “The three of us.”

  The thing inside her jabbed her ribs, which were still sore from her fall those months before. She shoved it with her hand. She had shed her usual chain mail. She wore odd, bulky robes somewhere between a dress and the entari worn in the Ottoman Empire. Her body was naturally thick and had hidden her condition for some time, but these clothes were her only option now. It would not be long.

  Lada shook her head. “I have nothing to say to him.”

  “Even after everything?”

  “Especially after everything. Did I tell you I saw our mother?”

  Radu tilted his head, frowning at the subject change. “When?”

  “When you were in Constantinople. I was trying to find support. I thought maybe she could connect me with her father.”

  Radu’s eyebrows rose, and he looked like the little boy she had saved so many times growing up. But she could not save him from this. “She did not care,” Lada said. “About us. About what had happened to us. She did not even ask about you.”

  Radu blinked rapidly, then attempted to lift the corners of his mouth along with his shoulders as he shrugged. “I do not even remember her.”

  “She does not deserve any place in your memories. She let the world—our father—break her. And she left so the same could be done to us. I will not be broken. And I will never forgive or forget those who failed to stand by my side.”

  “Mehmed was our friend, Lada. More than that. To you, at least.” Radu’s smile was wistful but not bitter.

  “He had all the power in the world, and he would extend none to help me. He did not want to see me succeed. He only cared about me in relation to himself.” She knew it was true, because she had treated Bogdan the same way. She hated Mehmed for it, and she did her best not to think about Bogdan, lest she hate herself.

  Radu sighed, nodding. “I do not want to see him, either.”

  “What happened between you two?” Lada had been jealous for so long, worried about Mehmed’s affections. She should have worried more for Radu. But neither of them had been able to avoid Mehmed becoming the central star around which they spun.

  “Nothing happened. He asked me to stay, and I chose to leave. He is alone.”

  Lada scoffed. “He has an empire.”

  “And he has to be over and above all of it. He loved us—he needed us—because we were the only people he could be a person with. The only ones for whom he was just Mehmed, not the sultan.”

  “That is the cost of power.” Lada did not look at Radu, knowing he would leave her, too. She would be alone, just as Mehmed was. Only Radu had chosen people over power. Lada looked up at the sky, where a crescent moon was beginning to rise. “Do you remember the night the moon turned to blood?”

  Radu nodded. “I was in Constantinople with Cyprian.”

  Lada had been right here with Bogdan. With Nicolae. With Stefan. With Petru. She had already been alone. She just had not realized it yet.

  “Mehmed can live in a hell of his own making,” Lada said. “Promise him money I will never send. Do not agree to give him any Wallachians. As long as I am prince, the Janissaries will not be given Wallachian blood to fill their ranks.” If the princes before her had been as strong, she would never have met her friends.

  She wished that were the case. If they had not been Janissaries, they would not have been her Janissaries. They would all still be alive. And she would never have known them, which meant she would not miss them.

  “Mehmed was humiliated by the failure of his attack,” Radu said. “I think he will agree as long as it means peace. And because it is me asking.”

  “I am going to take back the Danube, though.”

  “Right now you are going to come down to the throne room and settle some land disputes. And if in ten years your people are not in danger of starving, and you have a standing army and the support of your neighboring countries secured through years of peace, then by all means: take back the Danube.”

  Lada faked a casualness she did not feel. “We could do it together.”

  “You will be alone,” Radu said, his voice sad but firm.

  “I know,” Lada said.

  Snagov Island Monastery

  RADU’S WORRIED EXPRESSION MELTED away when the monk informed him his sister had given birth to a baby girl. The winter was so cold they had almost not made it to the monastery in time, struggling to cross both land and lake. But they had gotten here. And now the baby had arrived as well.

  Oana came from the room carrying an armful of soiled linen. “She did well.” Her voice was gruff with emotion.

  Radu opened the door hesitantly, and found Nazira sitting on a chair, holding a cloth-wrapped bundle. She beamed at him with tears in her eyes. Fatima was by the bed, tucking blankets around Lada and wiping the sweat from her brow.

  There was an odd squeaking noise, and Radu realized it was the baby. Radu went to Nazira and peered down. The baby had thick, dark hair, and though its face was red and swollen from its entrance into the world, Radu needed only one glance to see that this was a mix of the two people Radu would know anywhere.

  This was not Bogdan’s child.

  “What should we name her?” Nazira said, looking up.

  “Theodora,” Lada said, her voice raw. “Who was born to nothing and grew to rule an empire.”

  “She is not born to nothing.” Radu smiled down at the baby.

  Fatima came over and took the baby from Nazira. She nuzzled the infant’s head, breathing in deeply. “The name is strong and beautiful. She will be, too.”

  “I hope for her sake
she is ugly. Now get out and let me rest,” Lada snapped. Nazira and Fatima hurried from the room with the baby. Lada turned in her bed, facing away from Radu.

  He put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying.

  “Get out,” she said again.

  He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept.

  * * *

  “How do you feel?” Radu asked.

  “Like I will stab the next person who asks me how I feel,” Lada said through gritted teeth as she rode next to him.

  It had been only a couple of weeks since the baby had arrived. Nazira and Fatima were still cocooned on Snagov, having found a wet nurse who was willing to stay with them as long as the baby needed. She was even willing to relocate to Edirne. Radu suspected some of her eagerness came from the handsome pay, and some from the fact that Nazira wanted her only to feed the baby and required no other work from her.

  “So you will leave and have a happy home in the countryside?” Lada said.

  “Yes. Cyprian will marry Fatima to make things easiest to explain.”

  Lada made a thoughtful noise. “I suppose marriages always have been business arrangements to make life easier. Yours are simply odder than most.”

  Radu laughed. “I still cannot quite believe we all found each other.”

  “I can. You were always ruthless about finding people to love you.”

  Radu opened his mouth to argue, hurt. But Lada was right. He had always been as focused and determined as she had. They simply had different goals.

  “You could still come with us.”

  “You could still stay here and help me rule.” She said it lightly, but there was a clipped quality to her voice that made Radu suspect the offer carried more weight than she wanted it to.

  “No.” Radu had loved Mehmed and he had loved his sister, but he had no desire to serve them. Not anymore. He did not want to pay the cost of their ambitions, or to watch as they paid it, too.