And I Darken

by Kiersten White

  “Either they are already in the room and we are too late,” she said, gasping for breath, “or they have not yet reached his apartments and we can still stop them. Here.” She shoved open a secret door that led to the grand hall outside Mehmed’s apartments. “Secure his door!” She did not wait for Nicolae or Bogdan to agree before ducking back into the hallway and running for the entrance to Mehmed’s rooms. If he was dead, she had to know. She had to make them pay. She slammed her shoulder into a door hidden behind a tapestry in one of Mehmed’s sitting rooms. Then she ran through, ripping the tapestry free from its hanging rod.

  Mehmed stood, mouth open in shock.

  Radu was barely visible in the next room, a tall, lean Janissary’s hand on his arm and the man’s mouth next to his ear. No one was panicking, no one was dead.

  And Ilyas, not Kazanci Dogan, was standing beside Mehmed.

  Lada slumped against the wall, relief robbing her of the fire that had chased her here. Other than the door that connected them to the hall containing Radu and the Janissary, the only other entrances to the sitting room were the one she had come through and the balcony. They would need to move to a more secure location. She closed the hidden door, barring it with the tapestry rod.

  “What is this about?” Mehmed asked, incredulous.

  “Revolt. Janissaries. I thought—I feared it was a distraction. That they were trying to assassinate you.”

  “God’s wounds,” Ilyas said, but he did not sound shocked. He sounded tired. He walked over and nodded to the Janissary with Radu before closing and locking the heavy door to the sitting room.

  Lada crossed over to it, shaking her head. “We should move to a more defensible room. One without a balcony. Someone could climb in, or jump over from Mehmed’s bedroom balcony.”

  Ilyas sighed, pulled out a dagger, and slid it into Lada’s side.

  “THE JANISSARIES ARE REVOLTING?” Radu asked, shock robbing him of coherent thought.

  “It would seem so.” Lazar’s voice was bright, his eyes darting to the locked door between them and Mehmed.

  “But we are raising their pay!”

  Lazar raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  Radu shook his head. “Mehmed. He met with Kazanci Dogan before Murad died. It was all arranged.” It made no sense for the Janissaries to revolt now. They were being paid more than ever before. What had Radu missed? How had he failed to anticipate this move by Halil Pasha?

  “Doubtless it will work itself out.” Lazar licked his lips, then startled as banging echoed down the hall from the palace entrance to Mehmed’s apartments.

  “Is that Petru?” Radu stepped toward the door. Ilyas had sent Petru and Matei to the outer hall so he could discuss confidential plans with Mehmed. “Why is the outer door barred?”

  “Ilyas must have locked it after they left. Smart. Safer that way.” Lazar bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, gaze flitting between the two locked doors like a moth against a lamp’s glass. “Maybe we should check Mehmed’s chambers. Look out over the balcony to see what is going on in the city.”

  There was more banging, louder now and accompanied by shouts. Panic seized Radu. “Do you think the revolt has made its way here? What should we do?”

  “Help will arrive soon.” Lazar took Radu’s elbow, pulling him toward the other end of the apartments. “We really need to check Mehmed’s bedroom.”

  “That sounds like Nicolae shouting. We should let them in.”

  “No! If the fighting has gotten to us, they need to defend the door. We should position ourselves in Mehmed’s bedroom in case someone tries to come in that way.”

  “Stop.” Radu pulled his arm free. “We need to think this through. We should get Mehmed to a better location. The room they are in has a balcony, too. It is not safe, and only Lada and Ilyas are in there with him.”

  The pounding turned into rhythmic slamming. Someone was trying to break down the door. Radu could still hear Nicolae shouting. It made no sense. If they had been overpowered, he would be dead, not shouting.

  In the sitting room, Lada shrieked with rage and pain, the wall shaking as something smashed against it.

  Mehmed.

  Radu ran to the door, wrenching at it, but to no avail.

  “Help me!” he said, casting about for some tool to unlock it. The hall was filled with plush furniture, everything padded and soft. There were no utensils, no pens, nothing that was not gold and delicate. Radu had a knife in his belt, but it was too thick to jam into the keyhole.

  “Radu.”

  “We have to break it down!”

  “Radu.”

  “Why is there nothing useful in this whole damn room?” Radu shouted, kicking over a cushioned footstool.

  Lazar grabbed his wrist, yanking Radu around to face him. “Please listen to me.” His voice was low, too calm. Lazar did not understand the trouble they were in—even Radu did not understand it. There was so much noise from so many places. He needed to get to Mehmed.

  Lazar did not release him. “There is nothing you can do.”

  “What are you talking about? We can do something! We have to, we—” Radu stopped. Lazar did not look panicked—he looked sympathetic. Sorrowful.

  It was definitely Nicolae yelling, accompanied by Petru. They were shouting for Lada, screaming to be let in. They would never do that if enemy forces were outside.

  “You pulled me out of the room,” Radu said, his stomach sinking as the truth settled like lead. “You do not expect help to come. You are counting on it not to.”

  “Let me explain.”

  Radu twisted his wrist free, darting for the door where Lada’s men were trying to get in. It was blocked by a bar easily lifted from the inside.

  Lazar tackled him from behind, Radu’s head meeting the tile in a blinding flash of lights. “Please,” he said, knee digging into Radu’s back. “I was trying to keep you safe.”

  Radu spat blood from where his lip had been cut open. “Keep me safe?”

  “You were not supposed to be here tonight. You were supposed to be with your bride. When Ilyas told me you were back, I begged him to let me come along, to keep you out of it.”

  Radu squeezed his eyes against the pain and despair, arms trembling as he tried and failed to push himself up. “Why is Ilyas betraying us?”

  “He is protecting us. You are not a Janissary. You cannot understand. All we have is each other. No one else cares about us, no one else values us as anything other than bodies to be thrown at enemies in the name of the sultan.”

  The muted sound of blades from Mehmed’s room drew a sob from Radu.

  Lazar leaned his head down, resting it against Radu’s back. “I am sorry. I know you care about him; I know. But he would spill our blood against the walls of Constantinople. Ilyas will not let that happen to us. He is our father, not Mehmed. It has to be like this.”

  “No!”

  “Tell me. Tell me that Mehmed will not kill us.” Lazar waited, but Radu could not. He knew Mehmed’s heart was set on Constantinople. “He wants it as a dragon wants a jewel—merely to possess, merely to feed his hunger. He will never be satisfied. You saw what the siege of Kruje was. It will look like a holiday compared with Constantinople. We will all die, and no one will mourn us. These are my brothers, Radu.” Lazar’s voice cracked, and his warm tears found their way through Radu’s tunic. “They are the only family we have. If you think about it, you will understand. You will forgive me. I love you, Radu. Please. Please forgive me for this. I would sacrifice anything for my family. You would, too.”

  Radu stopped fighting and released himself to the floor. Lazar’s weight was heavy against his back, the same as that patrol night in Kruje when Lazar had tackled him to save his life.

  Lada would die defending Mehmed. Mehmed would die. But Lazar was right. If Mehmed lived, so many of the Janissaries—his friends and companions—would die. All to take a city that threatened nothing. Only because it was their dream, because the Prophet, peace be upo
n him, had declared it so long ago.

  Radu turned his head, trying to look back at Lazar. Still keeping Radu pinned, Lazar shifted his weight, so their eyes could meet.

  “I am so sorry,” Radu said. Lazar had saved him so many times—saved him with kindness as a child, saved him on the battlefield, saved him tonight. “I love you, too, my friend.”

  Lazar’s face lifted with hope.

  Radu answered that hope with a stab, his hand freed just enough to shove his knife into Lazar’s stomach.

  Lazar rolled to the side, hands clutching his wound. Bright blood spilled between his fingers. Radu knelt over him. He threw Lazar’s sword across the room, then pressed his forehead to his friend’s. “I am so, so sorry.”

  Lazar gave a lazy, lopsided smile. It broke Radu’s heart. “You always choose him.”

  “I always will,” Radu whispered.

  Then he ran, leaving Lazar to die alone. The door to the palace hall was barely splintered despite Lada’s men’s continuous attempts. Radu called for them to stop, then put his shoulder under the bar. They had warped the door, and Radu let out a cry of rage as he pushed up with all his might. Finally, the bar slid free.

  Radu ran straight for Mehmed’s bedroom. “Mehmed is in there!” he shouted, pointing to the locked sitting room.

  He scanned the bedroom, hands bloody and mind utterly focused. Long curtains were draped from the wall, held by a rod. Radu backed up, then ran and leaped, grabbing the rod and swinging his body until it tore free with a metal scream.

  He carried the rod onto the balcony, too far from the room where Lada and Mehmed were. They were not dead yet. They were not allowed to be.

  Radu could not leap from one balcony to the other. The distance was too great. He threw the rod across the gap, barely catching the curtain before it all followed. The rod clattered to the stone floor of the other balcony, curtain pulled taut. Radu yanked it, praying.

  The rod caught, snagged on the stone railing.

  Wrapping the curtain around one hand, Radu climbed onto the edge of the railing and jumped. The impact of the fall jarred his arm, nearly pulling it from its socket. He cried out in pain, then pulled himself up, every muscle screaming in protest, until his free hand found the edge of the balcony. With one last burst of strength, he climbed up.

  He was in the darkness, looking in at the brightly lit room. The scene inside was a nightmare. Mehmed crouched, weaponless, in a corner. One good hit would be all it took to murder him. It was a testament to the wonder of Lada that that had not happened yet. She was all over the room, ducking and twirling and screaming. Her blade clashed with Ilyas’s, denying him at every turn.

  Though Radu had missed the beginning of this story, he could see the end.

  Lada was bleeding heavily, every footstep smearing her life against the delicate floral patterns of the tiled floor. She favored her right arm, and her breathing was too heavy, too fast. All Ilyas had to do was outlast her, and they both knew it. She fought with everything she had, and he stepped around her with the ease of a partner in a dance.

  Neither had noticed him yet. Radu went to draw his sword—

  He did not have a sword.

  Or a knife.

  He had been so desperate to get into the room, he had not thought what he would do once he got there. Bleak surrender threatened to pull him under. He had murdered his oldest friend. Now, as a reward, he would watch his only family and his only love killed while he stood by, unarmed and useless. All his wit and charm amounting to nothing in the end. He would at least die by Mehmed’s side. He stepped forward, nearly tripping on the curtain.

  The rod!

  Radu yanked it free of the railing, letting the curtain fall free.

  Lada slipped on her own blood, crashing to the floor, sword trapped beneath her hand. Ilyas raised his blade. He was close enough to strike either Lada or Mehmed. Radu did not know who Ilyas would kill first, and he could not protect them both at once.

  He chose Lada. With a scream, Radu ran in front of his sister, holding the rod. Ilyas’s sword fell on it, the force nearly jarring it from Radu’s hands. Lada kicked out at Ilyas’s knee, forcing him to stumble back.

  Lada looked at Radu, wide-eyed with surprise. Then her focus snapped into place. “Get him to turn his back to the balcony,” she hissed.

  Lada stood as Radu shifted sideways, angling to put himself between Ilyas and Mehmed. Lada darted to Ilyas’s other side, swinging her sword wide in a lunge so predictable even Radu could have blocked it. Ilyas took advantage of her opening, filling the space she had left.

  The space right in front of the balcony door.

  Ilyas’s sword sliced through the air. At the last possible moment, Lada dropped backward onto the floor, screaming, “Now!”

  Radu braced the rod at shoulder-height and ran forward with everything he had left. The rod slammed into Ilyas, catching him off guard. He stumbled backward, but Radu did not have enough momentum to push him off the balcony.

  Lada appeared at Radu’s side. She grabbed the end of the rod and pushed it like a door, hinging hard to the right so Ilyas was knocked off balance. The backs of his legs met the stone railing of the balcony, and Lada followed the swing of the rod.

  Ilyas fell.

  But Lada could not stop, her momentum carrying her forward. She tipped over the edge of the railing.

  For one moment the world died, hanging lifeless and devoid of air in front of Radu. And then he felt the rod being wrenched from his hands. He tightened his grip, twisting so the rod was under his armpit.

  “Hurry!” Lada said, and in her voice he heard the girl he had grown up with, the girl who always chose to be fierce instead of scared. The girl who was now terrified. “I cannot hold it!”

  Radu pushed down on the rod, using the railing as a fulcrum. The metal bent but was strong enough to pull Lada back. As soon as she was level with the balcony, Radu threw himself forward and grabbed her blood-slicked hands. He tipped her up, falling backward with her on top of him.

  She was shaking all over, trembling as he had never seen, delirious with blood loss and fear. “You saved me,” she said.

  “Of course I did.”

  She shook her head. “Not when I was falling. When Ilyas had us both on the floor. You chose me over Mehmed.”

  “You are my family,” he whispered. Lazar had been right, after all.

  He held her, stroking her hair and crying, the sound of the door finally breaking open and Lada’s men pouring into the room a distant, dull roar.

  ILYAS HAD NOT DIED in the fall, though Lada suspected that he wished he had. She was surprised to find Kazanci Dogan exonerated by the information the prison guards extracted from Ilyas. Kazanci Dogan had not been in on the assassination plot, merely encouraged to hold Edirne hostage for even higher pay increases.

  It had been a simple matter for Ilyas to walk through the palace, commanding Janissaries to go into the city and put out fires. Leaving only him and his accomplice Janissary to know the truth of the mission.

  Lada shifted on her seat, her side complaining doggedly when she moved and when she did not move and when she did or did not do anything at all. She did not feel like herself, head aching and tired after even modest exertion. Still, she would heal.

  She glanced over at Radu. His eyes were unfocused as he stared at the courtyard.

  The head gardener raised the stake, planting Ilyas. Ilyas, who had allowed her to train with his men. Ilyas, who had given her a chance to prove herself and accepted it when she did. Ilyas, who had given her responsibility in an empire where she should have been invisible.

  Ilyas, who had stabbed her.

  She did not know whether to hope he died quickly or lingered in agony. His accomplice was more fortunate, having bled to death on the floor while a physician sewed Lada together with black thread.

  “You did him a kindness,” she said to Radu, her voice low so it would not carry beyond them to Mehmed or the gathered officials. Grand Vizier Halil
was there. He had not been implicated. But he was also in charge of the rotations of prison guards who extracted the information.

  “Who did I do a kindness?” Radu did not look at her, his tone lifeless.

  “The Janissary you killed. The accomplice.”

  A spasm of pain twisted Radu’s features. “Lazar. His name was Lazar.”

  “You knew him?”

  Radu did not respond. Lada wished for some sense of what to do, some knowledge of the ways people comforted each other. Were their positions reversed, Radu would know what to say.

  “Was he the first man you have killed?”

  “No. But he is the first I murdered.”

  Lada scoffed. “He was a traitor. And you saved him the agony of prolonged death. It is more than he deserved.”

  “He was only there to protect me.” Radu gave her a bleak grin she did not recognize, a tortured imitation of humor. “He was worried I would be hurt.”

  Lada reached for Radu’s hand and was surprised when he accepted it. She squeezed, once. “You saved all our lives.”

  “You once told me some lives are worth more than others. How many deaths before the scales tip out of our favor?”

  She had no answer.

  With Ilyas executed, the official story was that the Janissaries had simply revolted, behaving badly as they occasionally did. That same afternoon, Mehmed had Kazanci Dogan dismissed and publicly flogged until his back was more blood than skin. He announced a universal pay increase for the Janissaries, as well as sweeping reform in the structure of the military. Mehmed would be the head. Every thread of power and authority would start and end with him.

  A few days after the attack, Lada was strong enough to join Mehmed in his study to go over the restructuring. Radu was already there. He looked haunted, moving too quickly through the outer rooms, eyes fixed ahead.

  Lada remembered the hillside forest she could no longer enter in Amasya and felt pity for Radu. She was about to suggest they move to the gardens when they were surprised by the arrival of a eunuch escorting Halima.