And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1) - Kiersten White Page 0,25
a pleasant smile on her own, kept her hands loosely folded in her lap, kept control. Control was power. No one would make her lose it. And eventually the tutor would realize that she would let him hit Radu over, and over, and over.
And only then would Radu be safe.
RADU CURLED IN ON himself as he leaned against Lada’s door. He cradled his hand, welts swelling along his palm. His lip was starting to heal, but only because the tutor had been focusing on his hands lately.
How could she do this?
How could she let him be beaten on her behalf?
She had always been his protector. Even when she was cruel, she never let anyone else hurt him. In spite of everything they had seen since coming to Edirne, Radu had never been truly scared or desolate because he knew—he knew—that Lada would keep him from any real harm.
He cried, because no one was here to see. The salt in his tears stung his split lip.
Did she know? Could she tell that he was interested in Islam, had become fascinated with it, had even started praying in secret? That had to be why. She did not let him be beaten for any other reason, but when the tutor asked about Islam she refused to answer, even though she knew it meant Radu would get hurt.
He wanted to tell her, needed to tell her, that he was sorry. That he would stop studying Islam. But…maybe he could explain how it made him feel, how the basics of the religion made so much more sense to him than the endless array of saints and icons they had in Tirgoviste. He had never really understood what he heard in church, the Latin so formal it created a barrier between himself and God. Everywhere in religion there had been barriers between Radu and God—Christ stood between them, the fall of man stood between them, his very soul stood between them.
God had always seemed like his own father—distant, unknowable, disapproving. Radu feared that, as always, nothing he did would ever be good enough to earn the love of an omnipotent and unknowable God.
Islam made sense to him, appealed to him with its generous simplicity. But if Lada wanted him to hate Islam, he would. If it meant getting his protector back, he would do anything.
He wiped away the remains of his tears, hiding his weakness. Then he pushed open her door.
Wearing only a long shirt, Lada was crouched by the hearth. Instead of stone, like the hearths in Tirgoviste, this one was framed by white tile with a repeating pattern of an eight-sided star. Although it was warm, Lada had stoked a bright fire. She was shoving her nightclothes into it. Next to her on the floor were blankets torn from her bed. They were stained red.
“Lada?” Radu stepped into the room, looking for her assailant, looking for her wound. “What happened?”
She turned to him, eyes wild and filled with tears. “Get out!” she screamed.
“But—”
“Get out!”
Reeling as though struck, Radu ran from the room, then out of their joint chamber. He did not stop running until he was free of the palace’s sprawling labyrinth and weaving through the crowds of people on the streets.
He was lost.
He kept walking, turning in aimless circles, numb. The familiar call to prayer sounded, this time closer than Radu had ever heard it. He stopped in his tracks, finally looking up to see the towers and spires of a mosque. But his heart felt leaden, lower than the ground. He could not follow it up to the sky.
A soft hand came down on his shoulder, and he jumped, cringing.
A man—head wrapped in a simple white turban, robes of fine material but plainly made—crouched down so he was eye-level with Radu. His eyes widened for a moment as he took in Radu’s beaten face, then they crinkled with a gentle smile. He could not be much older than Mircea, but kindness was written on his face in a way that made him seem wise. “Do you need help?”
Radu shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again.
“Would you like to join me for prayer?”
Radu had never prayed before, not like this. He had seen his tutor do it, but it felt strange and intrusive to watch, so Radu usually looked away. But he had wanted to enter a mosque since they had arrived in Edirne.
“I do not know how,” Radu said, face burning, eyes on the ground.