Her heartbeat was almost as loud as her breathing, and she closed her eyes to hold her breath and focus on—
There was a noise behind her. She smashed a hand over Mehmed’s mouth, muffling his own heavy breathing. Turning so her back was pressed against him, she squinted out into the night.
A shadowy figure crept toward them. He wore no Janissary cap. A predatory angle to his body eliminated his being a servant. Servants walked with submissive, downturned lines. This man prowled with hands held at the ready. An errant ray of light flashed like a beacon off something metal in one of those hands.
Lada slipped both daggers free of their sheaths. The hunter was directly in front of them, leaning forward in an attempt to see into the deeper darkness beneath the tree.
Lada leaped out, one arm blocking the hand that held a weapon, her other dagger finding its goal with a wet whisper of success. The hunter was still for one eternal moment, then, with an agonized scream escaping his lips into the night, he crumpled to the ground. Lada stood over him as his life pulsed frantically from his neck. Two twitches, and then nothing, where once a man had been.
It was only when Lada realized she could see well enough to notice the deep red of her target’s blood that she looked up. An enterprising tortoise had finally made its way to the depths of the garden. She was illuminated—dagger winking playfully, hand covered in blood, Mehmed standing behind her.
“Lada?” he asked. His eyes were fixed on the body.
But the rest of the garden party, including Murad himself, stared in horror right at her.
“ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU feel well?” Salih leaned forward intently. His eyes, which turned down at either corner and made him appear perpetually mournful, wrinkled in concern. He was eighteen, only a couple of years older than Radu, kind and anxious and always eager to be in Radu’s company.
Radu nodded, unable to shake off his daze.
Mehmed’s lips.
Mehmed’s hands.
Mehmed’s heart.
Tangled up in Lada, not in him. Lada, who could not love someone else if her life depended on it. Lada, who had taken all their father’s attention, who had preferred Bogdan over her own brother. Lada, who had abandoned Radu to beatings and lonesomeness his whole life. Lada, who was cold and vicious and loyal only to herself.
Lada, who was not even beautiful.
“Am I not handsome?” Radu blurted out, the words spilling like tears from his mouth.
Salih’s eyebrows raised, making his expression almost comical with its mix of sorrow and surprise. “You—you are.”
“Am I not deserving of love?”
The surprise in Salih’s face shifted to something raw and terrified. “You are.”
Radu dropped his head. What did he know of love? This was not a love that he had heard of, this was not a love sung about by poets, celebrated in stories. This was something…else, something he had no words for. And who could he speak to? Who could tell him how to love another man?
Or how to stop?
Trembling, Salih’s stubby fingers alighted on his shoulder. “Radu, I—”
A servant knocked on the doorframe, interrupting them. Radu looked up, wearily, to see the thin, greasy boy he had paid yesterday. Yesterday, when he still cared about intrigue. When he still viewed himself as Mehmed’s protector.
Yesterday, before the world ended.
“Salih, there is someone to see you.” The servant bowed, waiting.
Salih’s face creased in consternation. “I am sorry, I—”
“Go,” Radu said, eyes on the floor. Their plates of food, his barely touched, sat cold and abandoned. “I will wait for you in your father’s study. He has a book on the Prophet, peace be upon him, that I wanted to look at.”
“I will hurry.”
As soon as Salih had left the room, Radu dragged himself down the hall, steps as heavy and leaden as the beating of his heart. He did not feel daring or clever. His efforts here would be for naught, just as his love for Mehmed. Just as his life.
He did not bother closing the door behind him. He slowly pulled out the chair at the elaborate wood desk, the top of which was inlaid with patterns of lighter wood and whorls of pearl. What did he think he would find, anyhow? None of it mattered. He really should look for a book on the Prophet, peace be upon him. God was the only thing left to Radu. The only thing he could not lose.
The only thing Lada could not take from him.
He pushed to stand up, knee jerking awkwardly beneath the desk, slamming against it. A curse stopped halfway from his lips. Something had shifted. He got down on the floor and looked up at the bottom of the desk. A false panel, jarred loose by his knee, hinted at something within.
Radu eased it free and pulled out a thick sheaf of parchments. They were written in Latin, dense script neatly marching down each page. He scanned as quickly as he could, his despair forgotten. Most of the top letter was about a man named Orhan, a claim, an allowance. It meant nothing to Radu, but he tucked the information away. He flipped through the pages, stopping with a shock at the end of a short missive. It was signed on behalf of Constantine XI.
The emperor of Constantinople.
Footsteps from down the hall set him panicking. He shoved the letters back into the hidden compartment, then slid the panel into place. It failed to line up exactly, but he was out of time. He threw himself across the room and stood in front of one of the book displays, trying to hide his guilty countenance.
The heavy door swung shut, and he did not dare turn around. If he never turned around, he would never have to see that he had been discovered.
A hand came onto his shoulder, not heavy and violent, but gentle.
“Radu,” Salih said, his voice as tentative as his touch.
Radu turned around with a shaking breath and a falsely bright smile painted on his face. Salih was standing close, too close, only one of those trembling breaths away.
Before Radu could form a question, his mouth was covered by Salih’s.
Radu tensed, shocked and confused by this attack. Salih’s hands gripped his waist, pulling him closer, mouth desperate and hungry against his own. Finally, Radu’s panic-soaked brain processed what was happening. He lifted his own hands, unsure what to do with them. He put them on Salih’s shoulders and pushed him back.
Salih met his eyes with a desperation Radu felt to his core. The desire there was raw and so obvious it hurt.
This was what Lazar had seen when Radu looked at Mehmed. A wave of humiliation and despair washed over him. Everyone had to know. If Radu was this obvious, surely Mehmed knew how he felt, knew what he was, even before Radu had.
Lada must know, too.
Rage flared up, eating away at his humiliation. He narrowed his eyes, refocusing on Salih in front of him. Sad, lonely Salih. Salih, who wanted him.
He brought his lips to Salih’s with a ferocity that bruised his mouth against Salih’s teeth. Salih opened his lips with a gasp as Radu grabbed the back of his head, sliding his fingers beneath Salih’s turban to knot them in his hair. Salih pawed at Radu’s tunic, tugging on the sash around his waist. He pulled Radu’s tunic up, and ran his hand from Radu’s stomach to his chest.
Radu did not know if this was desire or anger or disgust, or some combination of the three. He hated Salih for wanting him, hated himself for liking it, hated Mehmed and most of all Lada.
He kissed Salih harder.
The handle to the door clicked, and Salih jumped away from Radu, terror on his face. Radu turned to the shelf behind him and pulled out a book at random, opening to the middle. An illuminated page in artful Arabic script, the edges leafed with gold, blurred in front of him.