He carried the rod onto the balcony, too far from the room where Lada and Mehmed were. They were not dead yet. They were not allowed to be.
Radu could not leap from one balcony to the other. The distance was too great. He threw the rod across the gap, barely catching the curtain before it all followed. The rod clattered to the stone floor of the other balcony, curtain pulled taut. Radu yanked it, praying.
The rod caught, snagged on the stone railing.
Wrapping the curtain around one hand, Radu climbed onto the edge of the railing and jumped. The impact of the fall jarred his arm, nearly pulling it from its socket. He cried out in pain, then pulled himself up, every muscle screaming in protest, until his free hand found the edge of the balcony. With one last burst of strength, he climbed up.
He was in the darkness, looking in at the brightly lit room. The scene inside was a nightmare. Mehmed crouched, weaponless, in a corner. One good hit would be all it took to murder him. It was a testament to the wonder of Lada that that had not happened yet. She was all over the room, ducking and twirling and screaming. Her blade clashed with Ilyas’s, denying him at every turn.
Though Radu had missed the beginning of this story, he could see the end.
Lada was bleeding heavily, every footstep smearing her life against the delicate floral patterns of the tiled floor. She favored her right arm, and her breathing was too heavy, too fast. All Ilyas had to do was outlast her, and they both knew it. She fought with everything she had, and he stepped around her with the ease of a partner in a dance.
Neither had noticed him yet. Radu went to draw his sword—
He did not have a sword.
Or a knife.
He had been so desperate to get into the room, he had not thought what he would do once he got there. Bleak surrender threatened to pull him under. He had murdered his oldest friend. Now, as a reward, he would watch his only family and his only love killed while he stood by, unarmed and useless. All his wit and charm amounting to nothing in the end. He would at least die by Mehmed’s side. He stepped forward, nearly tripping on the curtain.
The rod!
Radu yanked it free of the railing, letting the curtain fall free.
Lada slipped on her own blood, crashing to the floor, sword trapped beneath her hand. Ilyas raised his blade. He was close enough to strike either Lada or Mehmed. Radu did not know who Ilyas would kill first, and he could not protect them both at once.
He chose Lada. With a scream, Radu ran in front of his sister, holding the rod. Ilyas’s sword fell on it, the force nearly jarring it from Radu’s hands. Lada kicked out at Ilyas’s knee, forcing him to stumble back.
Lada looked at Radu, wide-eyed with surprise. Then her focus snapped into place. “Get him to turn his back to the balcony,” she hissed.
Lada stood as Radu shifted sideways, angling to put himself between Ilyas and Mehmed. Lada darted to Ilyas’s other side, swinging her sword wide in a lunge so predictable even Radu could have blocked it. Ilyas took advantage of her opening, filling the space she had left.
The space right in front of the balcony door.
Ilyas’s sword sliced through the air. At the last possible moment, Lada dropped backward onto the floor, screaming, “Now!”
Radu braced the rod at shoulder-height and ran forward with everything he had left. The rod slammed into Ilyas, catching him off guard. He stumbled backward, but Radu did not have enough momentum to push him off the balcony.
Lada appeared at Radu’s side. She grabbed the end of the rod and pushed it like a door, hinging hard to the right so Ilyas was knocked off balance. The backs of his legs met the stone railing of the balcony, and Lada followed the swing of the rod.
Ilyas fell.
But Lada could not stop, her momentum carrying her forward. She tipped over the edge of the railing.
For one moment the world died, hanging lifeless and devoid of air in front of Radu. And then he felt the rod being wrenched from his hands. He tightened his grip, twisting so the rod was under his armpit.
“Hurry!” Lada said, and in her voice he heard the girl he had grown up with, the girl who always chose to be fierce instead of scared. The girl who was now terrified. “I cannot hold it!”
Radu pushed down on the rod, using the railing as a fulcrum. The metal bent but was strong enough to pull Lada back. As soon as she was level with the balcony, Radu threw himself forward and grabbed her blood-slicked hands. He tipped her up, falling backward with her on top of him.
She was shaking all over, trembling as he had never seen, delirious with blood loss and fear. “You saved me,” she said.
“Of course I did.”
She shook her head. “Not when I was falling. When Ilyas had us both on the floor. You chose me over Mehmed.”
“You are my family,” he whispered. Lazar had been right, after all.
He held her, stroking her hair and crying, the sound of the door finally breaking open and Lada’s men pouring into the room a distant, dull roar.
ILYAS HAD NOT DIED in the fall, though Lada suspected that he wished he had. She was surprised to find Kazanci Dogan exonerated by the information the prison guards extracted from Ilyas. Kazanci Dogan had not been in on the assassination plot, merely encouraged to hold Edirne hostage for even higher pay increases.
It had been a simple matter for Ilyas to walk through the palace, commanding Janissaries to go into the city and put out fires. Leaving only him and his accomplice Janissary to know the truth of the mission.
Lada shifted on her seat, her side complaining doggedly when she moved and when she did not move and when she did or did not do anything at all. She did not feel like herself, head aching and tired after even modest exertion. Still, she would heal.
She glanced over at Radu. His eyes were unfocused as he stared at the courtyard.
The head gardener raised the stake, planting Ilyas. Ilyas, who had allowed her to train with his men. Ilyas, who had given her a chance to prove herself and accepted it when she did. Ilyas, who had given her responsibility in an empire where she should have been invisible.
Ilyas, who had stabbed her.
She did not know whether to hope he died quickly or lingered in agony. His accomplice was more fortunate, having bled to death on the floor while a physician sewed Lada together with black thread.
“You did him a kindness,” she said to Radu, her voice low so it would not carry beyond them to Mehmed or the gathered officials. Grand Vizier Halil was there. He had not been implicated. But he was also in charge of the rotations of prison guards who extracted the information.
“Who did I do a kindness?” Radu did not look at her, his tone lifeless.
“The Janissary you killed. The accomplice.”
A spasm of pain twisted Radu’s features. “Lazar. His name was Lazar.”
“You knew him?”
Radu did not respond. Lada wished for some sense of what to do, some knowledge of the ways people comforted each other. Were their positions reversed, Radu would know what to say.
“Was he the first man you have killed?”
“No. But he is the first I murdered.”
Lada scoffed. “He was a traitor. And you saved him the agony of prolonged death. It is more than he deserved.”
“He was only there to protect me.” Radu gave her a bleak grin she did not recognize, a tortured imitation of humor. “He was worried I would be hurt.”
Lada reached for Radu’s hand and was surprised when he accepted it. She squeezed, once. “You saved all our lives.”
“You once told me some lives are worth more than others. How many deaths before the scales tip out of our favor?”
She had no answer.
With Ilyas executed, the official story was that the Janissaries had simply revolted, behaving badly as they occasionally did. That same afternoon, Mehmed had Kazanci Dogan dismissed and publicly flogged until his back was more blood than skin. He announced a universal pay increase for the Janissaries, as well as sweeping reform in the structure of the military. Mehmed would be the head. Every thread of power and authority would start and end with him.