Page 20 of Bright We Burn

“He is twice your size. I have seen him break necks with his bare hands.”

“Ah, but you will break his heart with yours.”

“I never asked for his heart.”

Daciana finished, stroking her hand through Lada’s hair. “That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it.”

The door burst open and two small children toddled inside. Stefan followed, a brief flash of surprise disrupting his plain face upon seeing Lada. “I am sorry, I thought you were gone.” He leaned down to scoop up the children, but they squirmed away.

“They want their mother,” Daciana said, laughing. She held out her arms and both ran to her, collapsing against her.

Lada was confused. Given how often she was away from the castle, she did not see Daciana much. And she had not seen Daciana’s baby—named for Lada herself—since she was an infant.

But Lada was absolutely certain there had been only one of them.

“Who is that?” she asked, pointing to the other child.

A furtive look passed between Daciana and Stefan. Lada only caught it because she was so used to Stefan being expressionless. That shared look cut straight through her confusion. Suspicion bled out instead.

“Our son.” Daciana smiled pleasantly, as though such a thing went without saying.

“And where did he come from?”

Daciana pulled her hair free from the little boy’s dimpled fist. “Where all babies come from, of course.”

Lada would not play along. She stood. “Whose child is that?”

Stefan picked up the boy, holding him close. “Mine,” he said. He took the little girl in his other arm and walked out of the room.

Daciana gathered her things, keeping her eyes anywhere but on Lada. “There are a lot of orphans,” she said, shrugging. “We thought our little Lada would like a brother.”

“Hmm.” Lada watched as Daciana fumbled the comb, dropping it on the floor. She picked it up, then dipped her head and hurried from the room. She had not finished her work, which was unlike her.

Daciana had been a wet nurse to a boyar family after she had her own baby. A Danesti boyar family.

Lada had killed all the Danesti boyars. And ordered all their heirs killed as well.

She found Nicolae’s sheet of carefully taken notes and added two of her own at the end.

Watch Nicolae.

Watch Stefan.

Constantinople

RADU AND HIS MEN rode out to the gates of Constantinople, accompanied by Mehmed. Mehmed rode in the center of a ring of guards. His turban gleamed and sparkled in the sun, woven through with pure gold threads. His horse stepped high, a head taller than the rest of the horses, white and gleaming. Mehmed’s purple cloak cascaded behind them. Radu imagined he was a citizen on the side of the road, watching, dazzled. The sultan was certainly everything he should be. Power and glory personified.

They stopped just outside the city, and Mehmed allowed Radu to approach him. “Bring her home.” The quiet urgency in his voice was in contrast to his confident posture.

Radu nodded, but he could not pretend at confidence. Lada was already home. And Radu did not feel at home in Constantinople. But he would get Lada, and he would bring her back. And then…

He did not know where he would go. But his duties to both Mehmed and Lada would be discharged, and he knew what he would do: spend the rest of his days looking for Nazira.

With a hollow pain in his body that was familiar and dull around the edges now, Radu spurred his horse forward. Away from Mehmed.

Kumal drew close to him a few miles outside the city. “Thank you for coming,” Radu said with a more genuine smile than he had been able to muster for Mehmed.

“Of course. It will be good to get out of the city.”