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“Do you not want to know where Daciana is?” Lada called.
Stefan looked over his shoulder, and, for the first time ever, Lada caught the full power of his smile. She understood what Daciana had seen, and why it might be worth having more than just the military loyalty of such a man. “I would not be a very good spy if I had not already figured it out on my own.”
Lada laughed, undone by that smile. “Then why did you stay?”
“I told you: I am grateful. I wish you well, my prince. It has been an honor.”
If Lada were not so weary and ill, she might have been angry at his departure. But the ghost of Nicolae was heavy at her side, reminding her it was not so bad to lose Stefan this way. There were worse things. “You had better raise your own little Lada to be a terror.”
“I expect nothing less.”
Lada watched as the last of the men she had trained with, the last of her core group of loyal allies and followers—friends—rode away. It was the end of an era. She did not know if she would be weaker for it. She decided she would not be. Each of them had, in one way or another, been sacrificed for the greater good of Wallachia. Had she not decided she would sacrifice everything it took?
Pulling the shawl tighter around her, she rode forward, toward her fortress and toward the last remaining friend of her youth. But what was she really riding toward?
She took account of her resources.
The only member of her inner circle left was Bogdan. She had a few other men she knew to be good, but it was not the same. With Daciana and Oana lost from her household, she would never again trust anyone in the castle—assuming she got it back. After all, she had seen how easy it was for a servant to be someone else entirely.
Hungary was against her, though she knew Matthias would not fight her outright. She probably should have sent Stefan to kill him, but Wallachia always had to be her first priority. Regardless, there would be no conflict but also no aid from Hungary.
Moldavia was not against her, but her cousin King Stephen had taken land from her. That had to be answered with blood, so they would not be allies in the future. Maybe before then she could maneuver him into helping her. She could delay revenge for now.
Bulgaria, of course, hated her and would for some time. Albania and Serbia were firmly Ottoman vassals. She had no love for or from the Transylvanians or the Saxons.
The pope held her in esteem, but her country was not Catholic and he would only praise them, offering no real help. What help he had sent had gone through someone he trusted more—for all the good that did them. She would most certainly write of Matthias’s deceit, though. Let him explain his crown to the papal treasury that bought it.
And even in her own country, her resources were sparse. Her brother had been helping the Danesti usurper. Tirgoviste would be fortified. Any boyars left would have flocked to him. Assuming Galesh Basarab and his men were dead—she hoped they were, but did not count on it considering the information had come from Matthias—Radu would not have gotten a huge influx of men from the remaining scattered boyars. But still, she did not relish the idea of besieging her own capital.
So: enemies within and without. All men in power set against her. Almost no one she could trust. A country in disarray. A fall without a harvest. A people hidden in the mountains. A capital filled with snakes.
There was only one solution.
She had been too kind, too gentle. She had tried keeping what she could intact, tried building on what was already there. But the entire foundation was rotten. She could not build a strong kingdom by removing only a few of the most decay-ridden stones. She would have to dismantle the entire thing.
She would have to burn it—all of it—to the ground. Only then could Wallachia rise anew from the ashes.
She sat straighter, eyes on the horizon. There was no room for kindness, no room for mercy. Matthias had proved that she could not play by any rules that already existed. She would have to become something altogether new.
The countrysid
e around her was hushed, quiet, as though even the insects and wind recognized the passing of a great predator. She again imagined wings unfurling behind her, covering all the land in shadow and fire. There would be no more order, no more structure. She would kill the leaders of every country on her borders, and all their heirs. She would sow absolute chaos and destruction.
And she would be there, in the center, curled around her own land. Wallachia would survive. It always survived. But with her there, and everything around them descended into deadly disorder, Wallachia would finally thrive.
After all, fire and blood and death were nothing to a country led by a dragon.
Tirgoviste
RADU STOOD AT THE top of the tower. This tower had heralded so much change in his life. First, when he and Lada watched Hunyadi ride into the city, signaling the end of their lives here as their father petitioned the Ottomans for support—and traded their lives as collateral. Though it had been terrifying at the time, it had been the best thing that could have happened to Radu. And now the tower had been the site of the most unexpected and joyful reunion of his life.
As though called by his thoughts, Cyprian joined him. The air was sharp with the first hints of impending autumn. Radu shivered, and Cyprian put an arm around him as they looked out over the dawn breaking soft and gentle through the mist. All the scars of the past few months had blended with the green, leaving everything muted and peaceful. The fields around Tirgoviste were full and almost ready for harvest. It had been an unconventional use of trained killers, but thanks to Radu’s Janissaries working under the direction of a few grizzled farmers, there would be enough food to see Tirgoviste—and any refugees that joined them—safely through the winter. He had been stationed here to protect the city, after all.
Radu was proud of those fields. Aron had demanded Radu send his men into the mountains to hunt down Lada, but Radu had known there were more important things. And when Aron did not starve to death over the coming long winter, he would be grateful. Or if not grateful, at least resentful that Radu had, once again, been right.
A lone rider was leaving the city, heading toward the mountains. Radu did not begrudge him his freedom—but only because his own escape was fast approaching.
“We are leaving today,” Radu said, turning from the landscape he could almost love now.
