And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1) - Kiersten White Page 0,90

good enough grip to yank it away. She slammed her heel down into his stomach and groin, three sharp jabs.

Finally, he stumbled forward, falling to his knees.

“I am not one of you,” Lada said, her mouth right next to his ear. “I am better.”

Ivan pitched forward and Lada went with him, never relaxing her arm though her muscles screamed for release. Long after he stopped moving, she stayed there. And then she stood and walked away.

This was the third man she had killed.

This time, her hands were clean.

She found Mehmed in her room, waiting for her. Walking past him, she pulled off her tunic and dropped it into the hearth. The low-burning flames picked at it, a slow devouring as the cloth turned black and caught fire. “There is a body in the woods behind the fortress,” she said, watching the tunic contaminated by Ivan’s hands turn to ash.

“What?” Mehmed’s hands hovered in midair, on either side of Lada’s hips.

She turned to face him, carrying the fire in her eyes as a burning shield against everything she saw. “Also, I want to lead my own contingent of Janissaries.”

RADU HAD NEVER IMAGINED how deeply lonely being well liked would be.

At tonight’s feast, he sat only three people down from Murad. A position of honor, one that made him highly visible—and desirable—to all the attending pashas, their pashazada sons, visiting valis, local spahi leaders jockeying for position against rival Janissary leaders, even several powerful beys. People who were, by virtue of their birth, all more important than he was.

But he was here, and they were not, and they all wanted to know why.

Radu smiled, eyes wide and guileless, looking as though he were innocently delighted with everything before him. Halil Pasha sat immediately to his left, though, and it was hard to be aware of anything else.

Halfway through the course of roasted game birds with a delicate, creamy sauce, Halil spoke. “You have not been to visit my son Salih since your dear friend Mehmed left last month.”

Radu swallowed the piece of meat threatening to choke him. There were so many traps in that sentence, so many things to avoid or spin in the right direction. He had no doubt that Halil Pasha viewed him with suspicion, and Halil Pasha was the deadliest man in Edirne. Radu shrugged, offering an embarrassed and pitying smile. “I found that Salih and I do not…share the same interests.”

Halil Pasha’s eyes hardened knowingly as he glanced in Salih’s direction. He was at the far end of the table, barely visible. At every event they had attended together, he had tried to catch Radu’s eye, and he had sent him several invitations to visit, but Radu felt it kinder to do this than to let him think there could be something real between them.

“Yes, Salih’s interests are rather peculiar.” Halil Pasha resumed eating, then, his voice as casual as a knife in the dark, asked, “And what of your friend Mehmed? Do you hear much from him?”

Radu sighed, letting guilt play across his face as he looked over in Murad’s direction. “My comportment with Mehmed does not reflect well on my character. It is a source of shame for me.”

Halil Pasha leaned closer. “Oh?”

“When he left, he accused me of using his friendship to get closer to his father, and…I fear he was not wrong. I am grateful for the kindness Mehmed showed me, but I never agreed with his tolerance for radical views on Islam, nor his misguided militaristic ideas. Though,” Radu said, tilting his head thoughtfully, “he has softened considerably on those. I think his time in the country has much improved his temperament. But our sultan is a scholar and a philosopher of the highest order, and it has long been my dream to be near enough to absorb some small portion of his wisdom.”

Halil Pasha made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, though he frowned as he digested Radu’s words. Radu went back to his meal as if the information he had just given Halil Pasha was not carefully constructed and entirely false.

From across the table, a conversation grew more heated, loud enough for Radu to pick up a few words. One, Skanderberg, kept being repeated. “Who is this Skanderberg they speak of?” Radu asked, leaning close to Halil Pasha.

“Have you not heard? He was once a favorite of Murad, though back then he was Iskander Bey. An Albanian Janissary who rose through the ranks until Murad made him bey