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As a child, Lada had never understood what her nurse meant.
But now she thought she might.
Credit: Courtesy Random House Children’s Books
At least the part about destroying being easier than building.
It had been nothing but struggle for the past year.
They were closer to the city of Sibiu than to Brasov.
For efficiencys sake, Lada decided to stop there first.
Ahead of them rose the walls of the inner city, where only Transylvanian noblesnever Wallachianswere allowed to sleep.
She imagined they dreamed deeply, pampered and protected by the sweat of Wallachian brows.
They had neither the time nor the numbers to launch an attack on inner Sibiu.
And they were not here to conquer.
They were here to destroy.
A few days later, they waited outside of Brasov for the sun to set.
The city was set in a valley ringed with deep green growth.
Towers stood at intervals along the inner city walls, each maintained by a different guild.
If she were planning a siege, it would be a challenge.
But, as with Sibiu, they did not want to keep this city.
They merely wanted to punish it.
At twilight, Nicolae returned from a scouting trip.
Terror spreads faster than any fire.
Why must I always be a mans servant?
If anything, I should be partners with the devil, not his servant.
Bogdan scowled, crossing himself.
He still clung to some bastard version of the religion they had been raised with.
Usually the ones about naughty children being eaten by bears.
Bogdan must have carried his religion with him through all his years with the Ottomans.
Janissaries were converted to Islam.
There were no other options.
Whatever faith they had had in their childhood had been trained out of them.
Lada wondered what it had cost Bogdan to hold on to Christianity in spite of so much opposition.
Then again, he had always been stubborn both in grudges and loyalty.
Before he had been taken from her by the Ottomans.
Impulsively she reached out and tugged on one of his ears like she had when they were children.
Bogdan was her childhood.
She had him back.
She could get the rest.
If you are working for the devil, can you tell him to pay us?
Our purses are empty.
Matei held up a limp leather pouch to illustrate.
Lada startled, turning away from Bogdan and the warmth in her chest.
Matei was one of her original Janissaries, her oldest and most trusted men.
They had followed her in Amasya, when she had had nothing to offer them.
And they still followed her, with the same result.
Matei was older even than Stefan, with years of invaluable experience.
Not many Janissaries lived to his age.
When they had been surprised on the border, Matei took an arrow in the side protecting Lada.
He was graying and gaunt, with a perpetually hungry look about him.
That look had grown hungrier still during their sojourn in the mountain wildernesses of Transylvania.
Lada valued that hunger in her men.
It was what made them willing to follow her.
But it was also what would drive them away if she did not do something more, soon.
She needed to keep Matei on her side.
Bogdan, she had no matter what.
Her other men she was determined to keep.
When your work is done, Matei, take anything you wish.
Brasov had sealed its gates, allowing no one in after dark.
Matei and Petru led five men each to scale the walls under cover of darkness.
Lada watched as panicked guards ran around atop the tower nearest her and peered over the edge.
she called out in her native tongue.
One of them shot an arrow.
Lada twisted to the side, and it glanced off the chain mail shirt she wore.
Bogdan fired a return arrow.
The man tipped silently over the towers edge.
Bogdan said, voice desperate as his big hands searched for a wound .
She slapped his hands away.
If I were, it would certainly not be a wound for you to see to!
You need a woman, then?
he asked, looking around as though one would magically appear.
Another man waved a piece of cloth above the edge of the tower.
Yes, we are Wallachian!
he shouted, voice quavering.
Let us in and you’re able to run.
Or it’s possible for you to join us.
She counted her heartbeats.
It took only ten before the tower door opened and seven men filed out.
Three skulked silently into the trees.
She walked past them and climbed the stairs to the top of the tower.
It was circular, with a thick stone railing that she leaned over to view the city.
Already, panic spread like disease within the walls.
People flooded the streets, women screaming, men shouting directions.
Three days later, stray remnants of smoke still wrote Ladas anger across the sky above the crippled city.
It was there that Stefan slid in, silent and anonymous as a shadow.
He, too, had been with Lada since the beginning.
One day, Lada thought, the world would know she was deserving of an assassin such as him.
What news from Tirgoviste?
Did you kill the prince?
He was not there.
Lada scowled, hopes of announcing her rivals death to her men dashed.
Then why have you returned?
Because he is in Edirne.
Her pride had not allowed her to ask Mehmed for help.
And now even that was taken from her.
