Page 50 of Bright We Burn

Mehmed laughed sleepily. “Do not look so scandalized, Radu. We negotiated a new agreement.”

“Negotiated. That is a use of the word I have never heard before.”

This time Mehmed’s laugh was bright and sharp. “Radu! I did not know you could speak so.”

Radu squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She could have killed you.”

“And yet, here I am. I figured out a solution. We give her what she wants, for now. She cannot sustain herself. That much is obvious. She has a few months, maybe a year, before she is driven out by Hungary or Transylvania or her own boyars. But we leave her on good terms so that when she loses it all, she will come back to us.”

“I saw her outside. She heard me talking with Aron and Andrei.”

“That does not matter.”

“Imagine you were in her place. We have proved ourselves repeatedly to be against her. We are sitting on her capital’s doorstep with an entire army. Of course she will agree to something. And then she will find the next opportunity to retain power, and the next, and the next. She is never coming back to us.”

“She already has. I am not dead after all.”

“For now.” Radu opened his eyes. The chandelier dazzled his sight, making bright white spots where the flames imprinted on his vision.

“Radu Bey,” one of the Janissaries outside called. “There is someone to see you. He claims he represents the Basarab family.”

“It can wait,” Mehmed told Radu. “I am happy. Lada is happy. You should be happy. Radu.” His voice was low and insistent, demanding Radu’s attention. Radu dragged his eyes away from the light. White points of flame still danced, surrounding Mehmed.

Mehmed narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, his smile tentative but devious. Radu remembered that smile well from their days in Amasya, sneaking out of the castle in the middle of the night. Stealing apples. Swimming in their secret pool.

Mehmed patted the rug next to himself. “Come. Spend the night with me.”

It was not a question, but it sounded as though Mehmed were trying on the words to see how they fit. Radu did not know what would happen if he crossed the endless, impossible space between them.

In that moment, his certainty was proved: he did not want this. He did not want to accept whatever love Mehmed decided to gift to him. His time with Cyprian—knowing that if their love had been possible, it would have been one of equals, hearts given completely and without reservation—had either broken him forever or finally healed him.

He loved Mehmed—he would always love and care for him as a friend and as his childhood savior—but he no longer needed or wanted something between them that would never be enough.

“Thank you, my friend.” Radu’s smile was the release of years of yearning and pain and the desperation to be loved. “But I have work to do.” Radu bowed his head, then left before he could see Mehmed’s reaction.

Outside, the night was clear. The stars shone cold and constant above him. Once, long ago, Mehmed had told them the story of two lovers, Ferhat and Shirin. Ferhat had carved through to the heart of a mountain to bring water to the other side and win Shirin’s hand in marriage. Ferhat had died inside that mountain, his heart broken. At the time, Radu had thought it the most romantic thing he had ever heard. What a noble end, to die for love.

Perhaps Radu would never know complete love in his life. But all these years of digging desperately had opened up the path to his own heart. He no longer lived in fear that it would break if exposed. A heart did not have to be stone to be strong.

“Radu Dracul?” a tentative voice asked.

Radu turned. Radu Dracul. Radu the Handsome. Radu Bey. All names bestowed on him by those with power over him.

“Just Radu, please,” he said with a smile. “Now, tell me how I can help you.”

One Day South of Tirgoviste

LADA HAD THIRTY MINUTES to topple an empire.

She doubted she would need that long. She walked confidently through the dark camp along the same path she had taken the night before. She still wore the uniform of a Janissary. Perhaps that was fitting. She would use everything the Ottomans had given her, right down to their own clothes, to destroy them.

Only outside Mehmed’s tent did she pause. The weight of history, everything they had been and done together, slowed her steps. She felt it, accepted it, let it settle.

Could she do what she had set out to? It was one thing to plan murder and another to follow through. And tonight she would not act out of rage or instinct. This had to be a choice.

She would walk into that tent, and she would stab her first friend, her first lover, her only true equal through the heart.

She did not want to, she found. But she would do it anyway. It was what Wallachia needed, what it demanded, and Wallachia came before Mehmed. It always would. It had to.