He had. And Lada had not asked him for something like this in so long. She was his sister, and she was begging him to choose her again. But maybe, if Lada left, Mehmed would finally choose him.
“I am home, Lada.” Radu lay back and turned on his side, away from her.
THOUGH LADA DID NOT know what would happen, she was certain of two things:
It would hurt, and she would need to be strong.
She dressed in chain mail and the Janissary uniform, except for the cap. She left her hair down, a tangled mass of curls in defiance of both Janissary custom and feminine styles. At her hip was her sword, and on her wrists were her knives.
Her spine was steel. Her heart was armor. Her eyes were fire.
At her side were Bogdan and Nicolae. Bogdan, to remind her of what she had left behind and could find again. Nicolae, to remind her that she could lead and men would follow.
Mehmed looked up in surprise when Lada entered the reception room. He sat behind a table, robed in purple, perfectly in place in his gilded chair. His official stool holder crouched nearby, waiting. Behind Mehmed, Radu avoided Lada’s eyes.
Unable to account for her appearance, Mehmed’s eyebrows rose in a question. “Leave us,” he said, and the attendants scattered and disappeared.
Lada planted her feet, rooting herself. “Make Radu prince of Wallachia.”
Radu shook his head, turning toward the window, away from her.
Mehmed’s expression fell, then turned deliberately neutral. How long had he known about her father and kept the information from her? And why? But she would not ask those questions. They made her look weak. She was here to demand, not question.
“Why would I do that?” Mehmed asked.
“Because you need as much stability as you can get before you go after Constantinople. You have had enough problems with Wallachia allying with Hungary, Transylvania, and Moldavia. Make Radu the prince, and you will guarantee no treaty with Wallachia will be broken.”
Mehmed leaned back and stretched, long and feline. “He does not want to take the position of vaivode. There is another way to strengthen the alliance with Wallachia.”
No! Lada had been hoping Mehmed was not in contact with the Danesti family. If they had already agreed to work with him, her position would be irreparably weakened. “You cannot trust the Danesti boyars.”
“The Danesti line? No, I am going to ally myself with the Draculesti family.”
Lada bit back a growl of frustration. “With Mircea dead, that leaves only Radu to take the throne.”
“He is not the only Draculesti.” Mehmed’s mouth curled around a smile fighting to break free. “And thrones are not the only way to secure alliances.”
“What—” Understanding slammed into her, stealing her breath. “No.”
Mehmed stood, walking around the table to stand in front of her. He cupped her chin, lifting her face to his. “Marry me, Lada. It is the perfect solution.”
Lada laughed.
Mehmed’s smile grew, until he realized her laugh was not a sweet breeze of delight, but a brutal desert wind carrying stinging sand in its wake.
“I will never marry.”
“Why? Stand at my side! Rule my empire with me!”
“I want no part of the Ottoman Empire.”
Anger flashing in his black eyes, Mehmed let go of her chin. “Why do you hate my country so? Have you not been happy here?”
“Do you know me at all? I have never been happy anywhere except Wallachia.”
His face darkened, and he jabbed a finger at her. “You have been happy with me.”
She realized, finally, that she had been less selfless than she thought when taking the full blame and sparing Radu. On some unconscious level, she had hoped that Mehmed would be unable to forgive her. That she would not have to make the choice to leave him, but that the choice would be made for her.
Love was a weakness, a trap. She had learned that from her father her first day in Edirne, but somehow she had failed to keep herself free. Mehmed and Radu stood before her, snaring her, keeping her here. And even knowing it, she recoiled at the thought of losing them.
Lada made her face stone, her heart a mountain. A mountain that would never be pierced to let cold, clear water flow. “Nothing holds me here.”
Mehmed closed his eyes, rearranging his features from rage and hurt to supplication. He had so much control now, so much skill in using emotion as a tool. How they had all grown. “You have saved my life three times. I would be dead without you. I need you.”
“Give up Constantinople.”
“What?”
Lada lifted her shoulders impassively. “Your mindless determination to take Constantinople is what threatens your life. You have no claim to the city, no right to it, no reason to fixate on it. Give it up, and your enemies will stop trying to kill you.”
“You know I cannot!” He clasped his hands behind his back, pacing the length of the room. “It calls to me, taunts me. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said it would be ours, and I must—I must—be the sultan to see his words fulfilled. As my people were made for greater things than traveling deserts on horses, so am I made for bigger things than maintaining a stagnant, dismissed empire. We will be the jewel of the world, the envy of all Europe, the new Rome. I will be the one to make it that way. I have to show the world what my people are. This is my calling. I cannot turn my back on it.”
Lada nodded, lids half closed, heavy with the weight of the future. “We understand each other completely. I cannot give up Wallachia. I cannot turn my back on my home for what scraps may fall to me from another master’s table. I did not choose to come here, Mehmed. I was held against my will.”
“But now I am asking you! Choose to stay! Choose me.”
“And be left behind when you go crusading? You would not take me to Albania, you will not take me to Constantinople. I will hate you for it, and the poison between us will grow until I turn into one of your invisible wives, as captive as your father ever made me. If you try to keep me, I will hate you, and you will lose me forever. You already know you cannot rule me. I proved that the last time you were on the throne.”
Anguish and anger warred on Mehmed’s face as he stopped in front of Lada and grasped her shoulders. “What would you have me do?”
And, in that moment, Lada saw her future. Her past was filled with snatching what threads she could from the men around her. Her father. Ilyas Bey. Mehmed. But before her was a knife. She would cut them all.
She did not have to accept only what was offered to her.
She would take what should be hers.
What had always been hers lit on her face like the sun on the mountain peak so many summers ago. “I want Wallachia.”
“What?”
“Make me vaivode.”
Mehmed frowned. “But that is the title for a prince.”
“Make me prince, then. You know I am capable. Send me with my Janissary troops, give me the backing of the empire.”
Mehmed raised a hand dismissively, but he sounded unsure. “They will never accept you.”
“I will make them.” She waited for another dismissal, but none came, so she pressed her advantage. “Send me as prince, as a gesture of peace. No one will see it as a show of strength or aggression. They will see that you want stability, not conquest. I will deliver treaties to Hunyadi, to everyone who has opposed you. I will spread news of peaceful Mehmed who wants only what he already has and nothing more. And you will be free to focus on Constantinople.”
Mehmed’s voice was soft, tortured. He did not turn to face her. “But I will lose you.”
Though she had always known returning home would mean leaving Mehmed, until that moment she had never considered the reality of it. It was not fleeing, or being forced away. It was choosing to lose him. It felt impossible. Radu finally met her gaze, and she silently implored him, holding out a hand. She could not, would not lose both of them.
He shook his head.
Huma’s words from all those years ago slipped beneath her armor, piercing her heart. What must be sacrificed to secure a future where no one can touch you? Lada knew now exactly how much she had to lose, because she was about to cut out her heart and leave it.
The two men—the only two people—who had been constants in her life would be left behind. Radu and Mehmed had both given her something she could not give herself, had seen her in a way no one else had and no one else ever would. They looked at her, ugly Lada, vicious Lada, and saw something precious. And she looked at them and saw Radu, her brother, her blood, her responsibility, and Mehmed, her equal, the only man great enough to be worthy of her love.
One future—bleak and unknowable, filled with violence and pain and struggle—unfurled before her. Another, with her brother and the man who knew her and still loved her, shone like a beacon.
And so she cut out her heart and offered it as a sacrifice. She would pay whatever price her mother Wallachia demanded.
“Make me prince,” she said without feeling.
AFTER SHE WAS GONE, Radu held Mehmed as he wept.
Radu’s joy at cradling Mehmed was like a kick to the stomach, overpowering and destined to linger with bruises long after it was over.
“Never leave me.” Mehmed’s grief-choked voice still rang with command.
Radu closed his eyes. “I will never leave you.” Mehmed was in his arms, but he knew Lada was the only thing in Mehmed’s heart. Radu had thought his own heart was filled with nothing but Mehmed. But he now had an aching fissure, the portion Lada left bereft when she abandoned him once and for all.
He had said this was his home. He had told the truth, and he had lied. Because Lada was his home, too, and now she was gone.
The call to prayer drifted through the walls, and the two men fell to their knees. Radu released everything to God. His pain, his fear, his loss, his secrets. His vast, unfathomable loneliness.
When they had finished praying, Mehmed was calm. His face was as hard as the sword of his ancestors. Radu followed him onto the balcony, where he gazed intently into the darkness beyond the city. Mehmed was looking north, where Lada and her men traveled to claim Wallachia.
Radu put a hand on his shoulder. Mehmed needed focus to move past the pain. Radu gently turned them both to look east.
Toward Constantinople.
Wallachian border
THE STORM CLOUDS THAT had accompanied their long march finally broke. After the dark dynamics and constantly shifting palette of the clouds, the flat blue of the sky looked false somehow. A promise worth less than the papers and treaties Lada carried in her bags.
They gazed across a wide, frosted plain to the mountains threatening the countryside.
“Wallachia.” Nicolae’s voice was filled with wonder, all teasing gone.
“Home,” Bogdan grunted.
Stefan, Petru, Matei, the rest of her men—her men—joined them, staring at their past. It had become their future. Lada had made it that way.
Nicolae got past his reverence, grinning at her. “Well, are you ready, Lada Dragwlya, daughter of the dragon?”
Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country. This was hers. Not because of her father. Not because of Mehmed. Because the land itself had claimed her as its own.
“Not Dragwlya,” she said. “Lada Dracul. I am no longer the daughter of the dragon.” She lifted her chin, sights set on the horizon. “I am the dragon.”
Draculesti Family, Wallachian nobility
Vlad Dracul: Military governor of Transylvania, vaivode of Wallachia, father of Lada and Radu, father of Mircea, husband of Vasilissa
Vasilissa: Mother of Lada and Radu, princess of Moldova
Mircea: Oldest son of Vlad Dracul and his first, deceased wife
Lada: Daughter and second legitimate child of Vlad Dracul
Radu: Son and third legitimate child of Vlad Dracul
Vlad: Illegitimate son of Vlad Dracul with a mistress
Alexandru: Brother of Vlad Dracul, vaivode of Wallachia
Wallachian Court and Countryside Figures
Nurse: Mother of Bogdan, caretaker of Lada and Radu
Bogdan: Son of the nurse, friend of Lada
Andrei: Boyar child from rival Danesti family
Aron: Boyar child from rival Danesti family
Costin: A boy without shoes at the frozen river
Danesti family: Rival family for the Wallachian throne
Lazar: A Janissary soldier serving in Wallachia, friend of Radu
Edirne Court Figures
Murad: Ottoman sultan, father of Mehmed
Halima: One of Murad’s wives, mother of the infant Ahmet
Ahmet: Mehmed’s infant half brother
Mara Brankovic: One of Murad’s wives, the daughter of the Serbian king
Huma: One of of Murad’s concubines, the mother of Mehmed
Mehmed: The third and least favorite son of the sultan
Sitti Hatun: Daughter of an important emir, Mehmed’s first wife
Gulsa: Mehmed’s concubine, the mother of his second son
Beyazit: Mehmed’s firstborn son
Molla Gurani: Mehmed’s tutor
Halil Pasha: An important advisor in the Ottoman court
Salih: The second son of Halil Pasha, friend of Radu
Kumal: Devout vali of a small area outside of Edirne
Nazira: Kumal’s youngest sister
Fatima: Nazira’s maid
Amal: A young servant in the palace
Military Figures in the Ottoman Empire
Ilyas: A Janissary commander
Kazanci Dogan: Military leader of the Janissaries
Ivan: A Janissary with a nasty disposition
Matei: An experienced Wallachian Janissary
Nicolae: A Wallachian Janissary and Lada’s closest friend
Petru: A young Wallachian Janissary
Stefan: A mysterious Wallachian Janissary
Tohin: A gunpowder expert
Political Figures in Opposition to the Sultan
Constantine: The emperor of Constantinople
Orhan: A false heir to the Ottoman throne, used by Constantinople as leverage
Skanderberg: Iskander Bey, also known as Skanderberg, a former Janissary and favorite of Murad, now holding the Albanian city of Kruje against the Ottomans
bey: A governor
beylerbey: Governors of the largest and most important provinces
boyars: Wallachian nobility
concubine: A woman who belongs to the sultan and is not a legal wife but could produce legal heirs
dervish: Religious ascetics (mostly from the Sufi branch of Islam) who take vows of poverty
dracul: Dragon, also devil, as the terms were interchangeable
emir: A leader of the Turkmen tribes, Ottoman allies to the east
eunuch: A man who has been castrated, highly valued as a servant and a prestigious slave
hajj: Religious pilgrimage taken to Mecca as one of the Five Pillars of Islam
harem: A group of women, consisting of wives, concubines, and servants, that belongs to the sultan
Janissary: A member of an elite force of military professionals, taken as boys from other countries, converted to Islam, educated, and trained to be loyal to the sultan
Order of the Dragon: Order of Crusaders anointed by the pope
pasha: A noble in the Ottoman Empire, appointed by the sultan
pashazada: A son of a pasha
spahi: Military commander in charge of local Ottoman soldiers called up during wars
vaivode: Warlord prince of Wallachia
vali: A local governor, appointed by the sultan
valide sultan: The mother of the sultan
vassal state: Country allowed to retain rulership but subject to the Ottoman Empire, with taxes of both money and slaves for the army
vilayet: Small area of land governed by a vali
vizier:
A high ranking noble, usually adviser to the sultan
Wallachia: Vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, bordered by Transylvania, Hungary, and Moldavia
While the book is based on actual historical figures, I have taken massive liberties, filling in gaps, creating characters and events, shifting time lines, and most particularly, changing Vlad the Impaler to Lada the Impaler.
Any book based in history is a vast and ultimately impossible undertaking. Because history is written by the victors—and those who are quite unhappy with those victors—major figures tend to be canonized or demonized in the records that make it through to our day.
Vlad the Impaler was a national hero, a freedom fighter, a brilliant military mind. Or he was a deeply disturbed psychopath, a vicious despot who murdered tens of thousands and literally sustained himself on their flesh.
Similarly divided accounts exist of Mehmed the Conqueror. History loves him and hates him. He was an incredibly devout, thoughtful ruler, even bordering on a religious figure, or he was a cruel predator who loved debauchery and destruction.
My goal in this book was to carve out a middle ground. In my research I set aside accounts that skewed too far in either direction and tried to focus on the truth: They were men who were born into great power, and they both did what they thought necessary to maintain and expand that power. The central aspect I wanted to explore was the path a person takes to get to the point where they can justify doing terrible things in the name of good. What motivations sway them? What stones laid in childhood become the foundation legacies are built on?
In the end, this is a work of fiction. I chose to make Vlad the Impaler a girl because it was a more interesting lens for me as a storyteller. Radu the Handsome is merely a footnote in Vlad’s stories, but I did my best to breathe life into his legacy. Mehmed the Conqueror is a revered Turkish national hero, with Istanbul still a testament to his greatness and his ability to think far into the future. I have done my best to honor that, while still acknowledging that he was a real person.
And I Darken Page 36