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“I do not know,” the scout said, rapid, shallow breaths betraying his panic. But he did not yet realize he was dead. He spoke fast, as though he could talk his way free. “Radu broke away from the group before they got here. I never met him.”
“Who is in his place?”
“Kumal Pasha.”
Lada’s muscles clenched instinctively, recoiling from that name. Unfortunately for the scout, her twitch sliced through his jugular vein. Lada stood as he bled out onto the forest floor.
“He might have had more information,” Nicolae said, frowning.
“Accident.” Lada picked up the dying scout’s cap and used the white flaps to clean her blade. Kumal, not Radu, was waiting for her.
All her old resentment flared to life, burning hot and hungry. Once again, Kumal Pasha had taken her brother from her. He was the reason Radu had willingly accepted their captivity among the Ottomans. Certainly, Radu had loved Mehmed. But Lada had loved him, too, and still been able to walk away. Radu, however, had been poisoned from his childhood by the god that Kumal gave to him. It was Radu’s false faith that separated him from Lada, his false faith that joined him forever to their enemies. Kumal had even claimed him as a brother through marriage, further cutting Radu off from his true family and heritage.
Now Kumal had again taken her brother from her. Instead of riding back to the city with Radu at her side—willing or not—she was once again left bereft. Gritting her teeth, she sheathed her blade.
“What now?” Nicolae asked. “We do not know where Radu is.”
“I will not go back to Tirgoviste empty-handed.” Lada started marching toward the fortress. “The plan is the same. Infiltrate. Bring someone back.”
But unlike the Ottoman plan for her, he would not be alive.
* * *
They waited until
darkness obscured their ranks.
“Hey!” Nicolae called as they marched up to the gate. “Is she here yet?”
A man shouted back down, “You know women. They are always late.”
“We are tired and hungry. Open the gate.” Nicolae kicked it for good measure.
The gates opened, and Lada and her two hundred Janissary-uniformed men filed in. The rest were hidden and circling the fortress.
“Where is everyone?” Nicolae gestured at the empty courtyard. A few solitary torches threw more shadow than light. A handful of men were visible on the walls, black silhouettes against the night sky. But they all looked outward, not in, where the threat already was.
“In bed. You are too late for a cot. It is the floor for you as punishment.”
“I curse every mile of this forsaken country for it.” Nicolae put an arm around the guard. Then the guard slumped to the side.
“The barracks first,” Lada said, keeping her voice low. “Kill them quietly. Then spread out and take the walls. I will find Kumal.”
She stalked forward, trusting her men to follow Nicolae, Bogdan, and their other leaders. After entering the fortress, she killed the guards in the hallways, as silent as a shadow, until she came to a living area. She took a torch from several lining the wall. The first bedroom was empty. The second held her target.
She kicked the bed. “Wake up.”
Kumal Pasha sat up, eyes wide and blinking in the flickering light. She had never seen him without a turban. He was mostly bald, his scalp paler than his face.
“Lada Dragwlya,” he said, recognition of the situation settling his features from surprise to sadness.
“Lada Dracul,” she corrected. “Prince.”
He had the audacity to tip his head respectfully, as though he was not here to kidnap her. As though he had not stolen her treasured chance to get her brother and hurt Mehmed in one easy step.
“Where is Radu?”
“He went to get Nazira. She had been lost since the city fell, and—”
