And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1) - Kiersten White Page 0,35

back down and nearly stabbed her. She was equally entertained by both outcomes. The mere fact that she was allowed to have a knife again was evidence of how invisible, how unimportant she had become.

Even the crispest apples tasted mealy and bitter to her in Amasya.

The orchard was where she lay one day in early autumn, as the light turned low and golden, so heavy around her she imagined she could taste it. It would taste nothing like the apples of her captivity. It would taste like home. Home.

She lifted the pouch around her neck free of her top, pressed it to her nose, and pretended she could still smell the evergreen sprig and the flower, now so old and dry it had crumbled to almost nothing. She had moved them to the pouch the night they fled Wallachia, and carried it with her ever since.

A couple of Janissaries passed nearby, unaware of her presence. They were joking, and though they talked in Turkish, one of them still carried the shape of Wallachian vowels on his tongue. Lada got up, then darted from tree to tree, following the soldiers to their barracks, a cluster of low stone buildings grouped around a dirt courtyard. Harsh laughter accompanied the ring of swords clashing. Lada peered from behind a wall, watching.

She was grabbed roughly by the shoulders and pushed forward into the open. “A spy!” called out an uneven voice, still clinging to the last remnants of youth. “Or a thief!”

To Lada’s horror, at least a dozen Janissaries turned to see what the matter was. Open curiosity on their faces, they formed a loose semicircle around her.

“That is no spy,” said a short, barrel-chested boy with a single thick eyebrow over both eyes. “The little zealot keeps her as a concubine.”

“Not very pretty for a whore.” The soldier behind her tugged on a strand of her hair. She ducked under his arm, grabbing his wrist and twisting it behind his back to pin him. It was a trick she had learned under the harsh tutelage of Mircea and perfected by practicing on Bogdan and Radu. The soldier shouted angrily and tried to pull away, so she twisted harder, pushing up against the joint. He yelped in pain.

“You are prettier than I.” She put more pressure on his arm. “Perhaps you could offer yourself as whore instead.”

“Help me!” he gasped. Lada looked up, defiance in her set jaw, to find the other Janissaries grinning in delight. The single-browed soldier, who could not have been more than eighteen or nineteen, laughed and walked forward, patting his trapped comrade on the head condescendingly.

“Poor Ivan. Is the little girl picking on you?” He wrapped his arm around Ivan’s neck. Lada released him, and the other soldier twisted, taking Ivan to the ground and sitting on his back. Ivan kicked out angrily, but to no avail.

“You have met Ivan. I am Nicolae. And you are Wallachian!”

Lada nodded, realizing it had been Nicolae’s voice she had heard her home’s tones in. “Ladislav Dragwlya.”

Lada felt a pang at saying her name out loud. They had not been allowed to write their father, nor had they received any letters from him. She did not know if he knew where they were, that they had left Edirne.

She did not know if he would care.

Radu still worried about their nurse. She had lost her son and now her charges to this wretched empire. Lada wondered if she had found other work. She hoped so. She did not bother hoping that her father would think to take care of the woman who had raised his children. But she never said these things to Radu. It would do him no good to dwell on their nurse.

And Lada did not like the discomfort of remembering the woman who had always been so kind to her for so little thanks. If she ever got back to Wallachia, she would remedy that.

“The daughter of the Dragon?” Nicolae laughed, but it sounded good-natured, rather than mocking. “No wonder poor Ivan was no match for you. What brings you here, little dragon?”

“Not whoring.” She kicked Ivan’s prone backside.

“I would be terrified to take a dragon into my bed. Even the little zealot must feel the same.”

“Molla Gurani is your zealot? I think he is made of parchment, not flesh.”

Nicolae laughed, shaking his head. “No, ‘the little zealot’ is our name for Mehmed.” The other soldiers nodded, giving each other wry smiles.

Though she knew from experience that Janissaries were far from