Now I Rise

by Kiersten White

  “How?” one of the men asked.

  “Because anyone who opposes me will be dead. Those are my terms. They will not be offered again.”

  The gate opened.

  Several men fell into line with her own as they rode into the city. “You,” she said, pointing at one of them. “Deliver my terms to every guard you meet.”

  He sprinted eagerly ahead of Lada’s troops. They continued at an unhurried pace. The streets were narrow, like spokes in a wheel going toward the castle. She looked back only once, to see her party stretching back to the gate and beyond, everyone squeezing in to follow. Their numbers had swelled to more than double the soldiers. Men, women, even children. The children danced and laughed in the torchlight like it was a parade. The men and women were warier, but an intensity shone in their eyes that had not been there before. She had done that.

  She faced forward again. She had not romanticized Tirgoviste when she lived here, but after all these years and her time in the Ottoman Empire, it was not only smaller than she remembered, but also dingier, bleaker. Even the manors were pale and haphazard imitations of stateliness. Paint had chipped away to reveal the brown and gray stone skeletons of houses like flesh rotting from bone.

  No one exited the boyar manors to join the procession. Their windows were curtained and shuttered against the night. Against Lada. They passed a fountain that she remembered running with clear water. She had dunked her head there once, trying to wash away the fear that living in the castle had bred within her. Now, fetid water lay still and stinking in it. But she was not afraid anymore, and had nothing to wash away.

  The gates to the castle wall were open. Guards stood to either side, eyes on the ground, heads lowered as she passed. Nicolae and Bogdan looked around rapidly, shifting behind her, but she had no fear of assassins’ arrows. Just as Hunyadi had ridden into the city wearing his confidence and rightness around him, so would she. No one could shoot her. No one could stop her.

  She nodded toward the door to the castle. The guard who had run ahead opened it for her. She rode her horse straight through, its hooves clattering against the stone floor. No pretty tiles here, no rugs, nothing between the teeth of the castle and the people it devoured.

  She liked it that way. Her horse plodded forward, tentative in the narrow halls with their burning torches. Behind her, she heard Bogdan and Nicolae trying to calm their horses. She did not stop or wait for them to reassure the nervous beasts. The throne room was ahead of her. The last time she had been here, she had watched her father pretend he had any power left as he addressed Hunyadi.

  It felt right that as she entered high on the back of her horse, the Danesti prince sat stiff and sweating on the throne. A phantom memory of the scent of her father’s beard oil teased her nose. She wished for one heartbeat that the man on the throne were her father. That he could see what she had become, in spite of him. Because of him.

  The Danesti was saying something, but she had not bothered to start listening. Her eyes were caught on the curved length of the Ottoman sword still hanging above the throne. It was framed by two torches, flickering hypnotically. She guided her horse closer, entranced.

  “I said, explain yourself!”

  Startled, she looked down at the sputtering prince. His face was red, a sheen of sweat making his skin glow. She did not remember him from her time here as a girl. He had not mattered to her then, and he did not matter to her now.

  She glanced around the room. There were several guards, but none moved toward her. She heard voices in the hall, someone swearing about a horse. She was alone.

  It did not matter.

  She addressed the sword. “I have delivered my terms already.”

  “I have heard no terms!” the prince huffed.

  “They are not for you. They are for the Wallachians in this room. Land and wealth for those on my side. Death for those opposed.”

  “You have no right to offer them such things!”

  She nudged her horse forward so that the Danesti had to scramble to the side of the throne to avoid the horse’s long, velvety nose. Lada stood in the stirrups, reaching for the sword on the wall. She tugged it free, pulling it out of its sheath. It was dimmed by age but sharp enough. The sword of their enemies. The sword of their vassalage. The sword of their weakness.

  Her sword now. She lifted it in the air, turning it to play with the torchlight. “I have the only right there is.” She put the sword through the usurper’s chest before he could answer her. He had nothing to say she cared about. She turned her horse, pulling the sword free.

  “It is going to be a nightmare to clean that throne,” Nicolae said as he walked into the room, followed by Bogdan and the rest of her men.

  Lada smiled. “I am the throne. Put his body on a stake in the square as proof that I keep my promises. Loyalty rewarded. Cowardice cut down.”

  The gate guard ran forward eagerly, dragging the body from the throne. It left a trail of blood, black in the dim light. The only legacy this prince would ever have, his weakness written across stones as testament to Lada’s superiority.

  Bogdan took a knee, his deep voice booming through the room. “All hail Lada the dragon, prince of Wallachia!”

  Lada’s horse shifted, putting her directly in line with one of the narrow, high windows. Through it, perfectly framed, the falling star finally burned out. She lifted her face, closing her eyes, as her mother blessed her. A warmth settled deep inside, and she clutched the locket she always wore.

  She was home.

  “DO YOU THINK HE will recover?” Radu asked, pacing anxiously. He had half carried, half dragged Cyprian back to the house. Though Cyprian did not appear to have suffered any significant visible damage, a cut on his head bled freely, and he had not yet woken up.

  “Time will tell.” Nazira finished cleaning up the blood. She gave Radu a concerned look that managed to pull her full lips nearly flat. “Sit down. You cannot worry him back to health.”

  Radu collapsed into a chair and put his head in his hands. “I know we greased the poles of the icon. But the way it refused to be picked up again—and then the storm. I have never been in a storm of such sudden fury. They brought out the Hodegetria to guide them, and instead they were swept away, carried off in the middle of a tempest.”

  “This city is getting to you, Radu. Even you see signs in everything now.”

  Radu nodded, rubbing his eyes and leaning back. “I know. I feel sorry for them. To see your own destruction reflected in everything around you—the moon, the weather, the shaking of the earth itself—I am amazed that anyone remains in this city. Why could they not leave?”

  Nazira smiled sadly. “I persuaded Helen to. I know there was no reason for me to continue my friendship with her, but she was so sad and lost. I gave her the last of our money. Yesterday she slipped into Galata, where she has distant relations who can help her get to Athens.”

  “That was a good thing.”

  The door opened and Valentin appeared with a bowl of water and some clean rags. Nazira took them; then Radu held up a hand to keep Valentin from leaving. “Do you have any family in the city?”

  Valentin shook his head. “My parents died two years ago. My sister, too.”

  “Aunts? Uncles?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about outside the city? Do you have anywhere to go?”

  Valentin stood straighter, puffing up his chest. “No, sir, and if I did, I would not go anyway. My place is serving Cyprian, and I will stay where he is until the end.”

  “What if I needed to send a letter to my sister in Hungary? One that I could send only with someone I trust absolutely?”

  Valentin smiled, with an expression too knowing and weary for a boy as young as he. “Then I would say I suspect you of tricking me, and anyway, I have heard your stories of your sister and would rather take my chances here.”

  Radu laughed, shocked at how much the boy had picked up on. “Very well. But promise me one thing: If the city i
s falling around you, you do everything you can to get out. Do you understand? And if I am not here, you help Nazira and Cyprian get out.”

  Valentin stood even straighter, giving a dignified nod. “I will protect them with my life.”

  “Good boy.”

  Valentin left, closing the door softly behind him.

  Cyprian moaned. Radu rushed to the bedside. “Cyprian? Can you hear me?”

  Cyprian tried to lift a hand to his head, his eyes squeezed shut. “Radu?”

  “Yes! You are safe, at home.”

  “I think—” he croaked, his voice cracking.

  “I will get him something to drink!” Nazira hurried from the room.

  Cyprian swallowed, still not opening his eyes. “I think the city fell down on my head.”

  Radu laughed in relief. “It did. But you Byzantines are remarkably hardheaded.”

  Squinting, Cyprian looked at Radu. “Radu! You are here!”

  “Yes. I am right here.”

  Cyprian lifted a hand, searching in the air. Radu took it in his own.

  “I went back for you.” Cyprian’s eyes drifted shut again.

  “No,” Radu said, gently. “I was not hurt. I brought you home. Remember?”

  Cyprian shook his head, then cringed, crying out in pain. He squinted again. “No, I went back to Edirne for you.”

  What if the blow had permanently damaged Cyprian’s mind? “We are not in Edirne. We are in Constantinople.”

  “I know that,” Cyprian snapped, rolling his eyes. “You are very confused.”

  Radu tried not to smile. “You are right. I am the confused one.”

  “We never spoke, but your face…The look you shared with him about the book. I never stopped thinking of you.”

  “What book?” Radu wanted to keep Cyprian awake and talking, even if it was nonsense.

  Cyprian waved his free hand. “The book we gave the sultan. You understood how funny it was. The dragon book. I wished so much I could laugh with you. Even then I knew you would have a wonderful laugh. He did not want me to go back, you know.”

  Radu searched his memory, trying to figure out what Cyprian was talking about. Books and dragons? And then it rushed back. Last year. The delegation from Constantinople after Mehmed’s coronation. It was the first time Radu had seen Cyprian. Back when Cyprian was a nameless ambassador delivering a book on Saint George and the dragon as a gift. Radu remembered that moment perfectly, too. That startling jolt when he had met Cyprian’s clear gray eyes and seen the hidden laughter there.

  “Who did not want you to go back to Edirne?” Radu asked, suddenly very interested in the conversation.

  “My uncle. Too dangerous. I insisted, though. I wanted to speak to you.”

  Radu’s heart was racing. “To ask me to come here and give information on Mehmed?”

  “No.” Cyprian’s voice went far away and quiet. “I just wanted to speak to you. I wanted to hear you laugh.” He smiled, lifting their clasped hands toward Radu’s cheek. Radu leaned his head down, letting Cyprian’s fingers brush against his skin. Though his fingers were cold, the touch felt like fire.

  “I regret nothing,” Cyprian murmured, and then his face relaxed into sleep.

  The door clicked shut and Radu startled, looking up guiltily.

  “Oh, husband.” Nazira sighed, already in the room, for how long Radu did not know. “You almost make me believe in fate, for how unfortunate yours is.”

  She set down a bowl of broth and a mug of watered-down wine. Adjusting Cyprian’s blankets, she knelt across the bed from Radu and looked up at him. “First a man with no heart to give you, and now a man who can never know your truths.”

  Radu stood, his pulse still racing, his cheeks flushed. “I— He was— I am not—”

  Nazira looked tenderly at Cyprian, brushing some hair from his forehead. “I suspected, but I hoped I was wrong. It seemed too cruel, too absurd an irony.”

  “You know I am loyal to Mehmed!”

  Nazira’s face darkened faster than the tempest in the streets. “You owe him nothing more than your loyalty. Certainly not your love. Normally I would rejoice that your heart had stirred in another direction. But this…” She lowered her head onto the bed, hiding her face from him. “Oh, Radu. What will we do?”

  A bell in the distance tolled doom, doom, doom.

  Radu could not sit at Cyprian’s bedside. He wandered the streets until nightfall. The storm had disappeared as suddenly as it came, the clouds taking residence on the earth instead. The air was still and dead, the city shrouded as if for burial.

  As night fell, the fog thickened, masking all lights and making the city as dark as a cave. Radu had started toward home when muted cries of “Fire, fire!” broke through the fog. He turned, running in their direction, wondering if this was it, if the wall had finally fallen. Instead, he saw the roof of the Hagia Sophia flickering with light.

  Horrified, he ran several steps toward the church before stopping. It was not fire. The light danced and moved along the roof, but it was the wrong hue for fire, more white and blue than yellow. And there was no smoke. Radu watched, transfixed, as the light gathered around the main spire and then shot upward into the sky.

  He stared, blinking in the darkness, the afterimage playing across his vision. He had never seen anything like this, never heard of anything like it. But no—had not God appeared to Moses as fire? A cloud during the day—like the impenetrable fog—and a pillar of fire at night.

  Radu could not breathe, could not comprehend what he had seen. Because the only way he could explain it was that he had seen the spirit of God himself. And God had left Constantinople behind.

  But the fire had gone into the sky, not to the camps of the Ottomans. Perhaps all their prayers had canceled each other out. It was only men against men now.

  God was right to abandon them. If anyone had decided on mercy and reason over stubbornness, all these lives could have been spared. If Mehmed had allowed the city to continue its natural, slow death rather than needing to claim it. If Constantine had bowed to the impossible odds and opted to save his people over his pride.

  Radu was so angry with both of them. Different possibilities spun through his mind. Killing Constantine, as he had considered. It would lead to surrender.

  Using Mehmed’s trust and sending a message into the Ottoman camps that Hunyadi was on his way with an army from the pope. That would tip things out of Mehmed’s favor, forcing him to accept a new peace treaty.

  Either was a bigger betrayal than Radu had it in him to commit, and for that he was as culpable as emperor or sultan. He could not make the hard decision, could not solve this where they refused to.

  Radu wandered, lost in the fog. It clung to him, questioning, nagging. Radu was sorrier than he had ever believed possible. Somewhere in the past months he had grown to love this odd, superstitious, worn-down city. Somewhere in the past months he had grown to love the man who brought them here.

  But an end was coming. If Mehmed did not take the city, it would be his end. Halil would see to that. More Muslims would die in Christian crusades, like Fatima’s family had. And the city would still fall eventually. But if Radu helped the city fall now, he could save Mehmed. Radu could be at his side to see the future Mehmed would create.

  Lada had despised Radu for the fact that he would always choose Mehmed. Nazira had told him that he did not owe Mehmed his love.

  But he did owe Mehmed his life. And Mehmed was the only man who could fill the destiny laid out by the Prophet, peace be upon him.

  He had imagined Constantinople, had wanted it for Mehmed. It had been simple and straightforward. But now he knew the true cost of things, the murky horrors of the distance between wanting something and getting it.

  He had wanted Mehmed in ways he could never have him, and that, too, had slowly been destroying him.

  What, then, did he have left?

  Radu closed his eyes, remembering the light. God might have left the city, but Radu w
ould never leave his God. And Constantinople as it was would always be a threat to Islam, bringing crusades, destabilizing the Ottoman Empire.

  Some lives are worth more than others, Lada had told him. He had wondered when the scales would tip out of their favor, had thought her a monster for valuing their lives above all others. But he had valued Mehmed above all. He valued Nazira more than any innocents in this city. And the value he had to admit he held for Cyprian would break his own heart.

  It was wrong, this weighing and measuring lives as though they were coins that could be spent or saved. He longed to be free of it all, to live among men seeing everyone as his brother, to view no one as his enemy.

  But his choice was made. He walked toward the Hagia Sophia to find Amal. He would do everything in his power to give Constantinople to Mehmed, to the true and only God, and let his own heart break or stop as it would after.

  “THE CASTLE IN EDIRNE was nicer,” Petru said, looking dubiously at the whitewashed walls and plain stone floors of the dining hall.

  “There were pigpens in Edirne nicer than this castle,” Lada said. “You are welcome to go back and live in one of them.”

  “I like this castle! Really!” Petru said, scrambling to repair the damage he feared he had done.

  Lada sighed and shook her head. “No one hates this castle more than I do. But this is the capital, so we live here now.” She sat back, looking around the table. Nicolae, Petru, Stefan, Daciana, and Bogdan were with her. Lada had sent for Oana. If her old nurse was in charge of the kitchen, Lada knew she would be safe from any attempts to poison her food.

  “Has anyone checked the treasury yet? Do we even have a treasury?” Lada realized how little of the actual running of a castle she had witnessed as a child. Mehmed had a legion of men employed to keep charge of his empire’s finances. Lada did not even know where her resources were physically located—or whether she had any.

  “I can hunt for treasure in the castle,” Nicolae said.

  “Me too!” Petru sat up, excited. Sometimes Lada forgot how young he was.