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Oana continued as though none of this was odd. “Now, to be quick. Stefan says there are always at least five guards. The key is kept upstairs in a locked room that also has several guards. He can probably kill the guards on this floor, but he is not certain he can get the key and then come down here and kill them all without raising an alarm. That would make it impossible for you to slip away once the door is opened.”
It was still amazing to Lada that the greatest assassin she had ever known had been working as a cleaner for more than three months. He had made himself a fixture of the castle. No one noticed him; he could do whatever he needed to so long as he kept up his duties. She would never look at her own castle servants the same. Assuming she ever got a castle again.
Lada scratched her head, then stared at her filthy fingernails. “So I need to figure out a way to get the guards to open the door themselves.”
“While Stefan is here. And he cleans this block only once a week.”
Lada wrinkled her nose at the ever-present miasma. “I am aware. Unfortunately, ever since I killed three guards with my bare hands, they have not been willing to open the door.” Lada had to pass her chamber pot out through the small hole in the door. That was also how she got water for drinking and washing, food—which after three eternal months still almost always made her throw up—and anything else they saw fit to send her. Usually more rats. She did not have the energy to bother displaying them anymore.
“You will think of something. When you do, we will be ready.”
“What if this is it? What if I never get out? I will disappear just as he planned, and he will win. Mehmed will win. All the men will win. I cannot bear it, Oana.”
“Who am I speaking to?” Oana reached a hand through the hole and blindly groped for Lada’s head. She found it, tangling her fingers in Lada’s hair. “It feels like my Lada, but it certainly does not sound like her. Will you really let this king with his fine clothes and his oiled beard and his gilded lies get the best of you? You are a dragon.”
Lada nodded. But here, in this sweltering cell, far from her people and her land, she did not feel like a dragon.
For the first time in a long time, she felt like a girl. It terrified her. Because there was nothing in the world more vulnerable to be than a girl.
* * *
These past three months Lada had spoken only to Oana, who was permitted to visit her once a day for a few minutes. She suspected Mara was behind that kindness. For a while she had wondered if Mehmed would send for her. But she had tried to kill him, and if he transported her all the way to Constantinople, word would get out, ruining Matthias’s goal of having her fade from Europe’s consciousness.
So when Matthias came to visit her the next day, Lada was happier to speak with him than she ought to have been.
“It pains me to see you like this,” he said.
“Let me out and I will show you what pain is.”
Matthias laughed. “You are very bad at negotiating. But it is no wonder that my father preferred you over me. You speak the same language. Did you know, he wanted me to marry you?”
“Yes. I knew.”
“You did?” A flicker of confusion passed over his face. Lada assumed it was because he could not fathom any woman passing on the opportunity to wed him.
She yawned, stretching her arms over her head. “I felt it would be disrespectful to your father to marry his son and then murder my husband in his sleep. Though I probably would have murdered you while you were awake, for the satisfaction of watching the look on your face as my knife cut your soul free from your loathsome body.”
Matthias leaned closer, peering through the hole. “Why do you make your life so much more difficult than it has to be? You could have been in a house. With servants. With comforts. I would have taken excellent care of you out of respect for what you have accomplished. I am not a fool; I know you have done great things. But you made so many enemies along the way. Does it not trouble you that I have held you these last three months and no one has come looking for you? No one has inquired about your location.” He twisted his face in mock sympathy. “No one cares that you are gone. You have been replaced on your throne without fanfare or struggle. You may have sent the Ottomans out of your land, but this is your reward.” He sighed as though feeling actual pity for her. “I cannot kill you. I do not know if I want to, but even if I did, it would put me at odds with those who admire you. Besides, it is much easier to simply keep you. To let you stay here until everyone has forgotten you. Until your only legacy are the lurid woodcuts and terrifying nighttime stories of the Saxons. You will fade into a monster, a myth. And when that happens, I will be kind. When everything you accomplished has disappeared—and it will not take long—then I will take you out of this cell. And I will let you die.”
He paused, considering. “Or I may let you live. I do not think it matters much, either way. The world was never going to permit you to continue. You should have made someone a repulsive wife, had an heir or two, and lived out your life in quiet misery.”
Lada lifted an eyebrow coldly. “Your father would be ashamed of you.”
Matthias nodded without emotion. “He probably would. I will have to live with that. And I will live. I have my crown. I will rule my people, and my reign will be long and fair and touched with glory. And you will be less than a notation in the triumphant history of my life. Who knows, maybe you will have a few lines in the sultan’s history as well? You can always hope.”
Lada wanted to find words that would do as much damage as she knew her fists could. She wanted to cut this small man to his very core.
But she knew that even though she was better, smarter, stronger, even
though she had already done more for Europe than he ever would, even though she had worked and fought harder than he was capable of, he was probably right. He would be rewarded and remembered and respected.
He might even merit some of that, eventually.
“We could have done great things together,” Lada said. “If you had but a portion of your father’s courage, we could have changed the face of Europe forever.”
“But only one of us wants things to change. How they are right now suits my people’s needs. And be honest, my pearl. Did you really think the world would change enough to accept a woman as prince?” Matthias searched her face for an answer, genuinely curious. Then, with a shrug, he turned.
Lada watched the space go dark as Matthias walked out of view.
