Mehmed shook his head. “I have tried to find out who it was. Some suspect Matthias sent an assassin. Most think it was one of her own guards. No one knows for certain.”
“The killing blow?”
“A knife to the back. They brought her body to me on the field. I think they expected a reward.” Mehmed shifted, an abashed expression. “I killed those poor men on the spot. It was foolish, considering I was there to fight her myself.”
Radu put a hand on Mehmed’s shoulder. “Thank you for sending her body here.”
Mehmed nodded, then eased himself down to his knees, resting a hand against the stones over Lada’s body. “Even after all these years, I cannot quite believe she is gone.”
“I cannot quite believe she managed to stay alive so long.” Radu knelt next to Mehmed. “But you are right. It feels wrong to be in Wallachia, knowing she is not here anymore.”
“She was a strong prince.”
Strong and terrible and fair. “I suspect the name Dracul will not soon be forgotten.”
“I am sorry for how things ended with us. All three of us. I wish it had turned out differently. That we had stayed together.”
Once, Radu would have wanted nothing more. But his joyful life had worn away the sharp edges of the past’s pain. In its place was something like Lada’s silver locket: smooth, cold, filled with the much-loved dust of history.
“The two of you never had any choice but to conquer and lead.”
“And you?”
Radu smiled, kissing his fingers and laying them against the stones. He had wanted so much less than they had—and so much more. They had chosen the hard paths, the lonely paths, the paths of blood and struggle.
“I am returning home to my family.” He moved to stand, then, thinking better of it, took out a knife and carefully scratched two additions onto Lada’s marker.
PRINCE
SISTER
DRAGON
It was enough.
Draculesti Family, Wallachian Nobility
Lada Dracul: Prince of Wallachia
Radu Bey: Also known as Radu Dracul and Radu cel Frumos, advisor to Sultan Mehmed
Vlad Dracul: Deceased father of Lada, Radu, and Mircea
Vasilissa: Mother of Lada and Radu, princess of Moldavia
Mircea: Deceased oldest son of Vlad Dracul and his first, deceased wife
Wallachian Court and Countryside Figures
Oana: Mother of Bogdan, childhood nurse of Lada and Radu, current aide to Lada
Bogdan: Childhood best friend of Lada
Andrei: Boyar from rival Danesti family, son of the previous prince
Aron: Brother of Andrei, in line for Wallachian throne
Danesti family: Rival family for the Wallachian throne
Daciana: Wife of Stefan, friend and servant to Lada
Lucien Basarab: Boyar from Basarab family
Galesh Basarab: Ally of Lada’s, in charge of soldiers
Ottoman Court Figures
Mehmed: Ottoman sultan
Murad: Mehmed’s deceased father
Mara Brankovic: Murad’s widow, Serbian royalty now advising Mehmed
Halil Vizier: Formerly Halil Pasha, executed for treason
Kumal: Devout pasha in Mehmed’s inner circles, brother of Nazira, brother-in-law and friend to Radu
Nazira: Radu’s wife in name only, Kumal’s sister
Fatima: Nazira’s maid in name only
Cyprian: Emperor Constantine’s nephew, missing after fleeing Constantinople
Valentin: Cyprian’s servant, missing after fleeing Constantinople
Mesih: Emperor Constantine’s heir and nephew, renamed and made part of the court
Murad: Emperor Constantine’s heir and nephew, renamed after Mehmed’s father and made part of the court
Ishak Pasha: Powerful pasha in charge of military forces
Mahmoud Pasha: Powerful pasha in charge of military forces
Ali Bey: Leader of the Janissary troops
Kiril: Janissary under Radu in charge of 4,000 mounted soldiers
Urbana of Transylvania: Expert in cannons and artillery
Lada Dracul’s Inner Military Circle
Matei: Dead
Nicolae: Lada’s closest friend
Petru: Dead
Stefan: Lada’s best spy
Grigore: Wallachian soldier under Lada’s command
Doru: Wallachian soldier under Lada’s command
Allies of Lada
Matthias Corvinas: King of Hungary
King Stephen: King of Moldavia, Lada’s cousin
bey: Governors of Ottoman provinces
boyars: Wallachian nobility
concubine: Woman who belongs to the sultan and is not a legal wife but could produce legal heirs
dracul: Dragon, also devil, as the terms were interchangeable
Hagia Sophia: Cathedral built at the height of the Byzantine era, the jewel of the Christian world
harem: Group of women consisting of wives, concubines, and servants that belongs to the sultan
infidels: Term used for anyone who does not practice the religion of the speaker
irregulars: Soldiers in the Ottoman Empire who are not part of officially organized troops, oftentimes mercenaries or men looking for spoils
Janissary: Member of an elite force of military professionals, taken as boys from other countries, converted to Islam, educated, and trained to be loyal to the sultan
Moldavia: Neighboring country and ally of Wallachia
Order of the Dragon: Order of Crusaders anointed by the pope
pasha: Noble in the Ottoman Empire, appointed by the sultan
spahi: Military commander in charge of local Ottoman soldiers called up during war
Transylvania: Small country bordering Wallachia and Hungary; includes the cities of Brasov and Sibiu
vaivode: Warlord prince
vassal state: Country allowed to retain rulership but subject to the Ottoman Empire, with taxes of both money and slaves for the army
Wallachia: Vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, bordered by Transylvania, Hungary, and Moldavia
Please see the author’s note in And I Darken for more information on resources for further study on the fascinating lives of Vlad Tepes, Mehmed II, and Radu cel Frumos. In the end, this series is a work of fiction. I have tried to incorporate as much history as respectfully as I can, and encourage anyone intrigued to further study this time period and region.
The characters in the series all interact with religion, and more specifically Islam, in various ways. I have nothing but respect for the rich history and beautiful legacy of that gospel of peace. Individual characters’ opinions on the complexities of faith, both Islamic and Christian, do not reflect my own.
Spelling varies between languages and over time, as do place names. Any errors or inconsistencies are my own. Though the main characters speak a variety of languages, I made an editorial decision to present all common terms in English.
Normally I save the best for last, but in this, the last book, I’m thanking the best first: Noah, you’re the best person I know, and I’m so lucky to have a life with you. These books wouldn’t exist without you.
Thank you to Michelle Wolfson, my savvy and insightful agent. I don’t ever want to do this job without you. That might read as a little threatening, given that we’ve just spent several hundred pages with Lada…but it’s meant to be a lot threatening. Never stop being an agent.
Thank you to Wendy Loggia, my incredible editor, who has shepherded this trilogy from the very beginning. I’ve benefitted from your contagious enthusiasm at every stage. You are a joy to work with, and I look forward to many more books together.
Thank you to Beverly Horowitz and Audrey Ingerson at Delacorte Press for t
he editorial and career guidance. To my stalwart copyeditors, Colleen Fellingham and Heather Lockwood Hughes, we lift boxes and raise eyebrows, I know, but I’ll make the same mistakes in the next book. I’m glad you’ll be there to fix it. To the First In Line and Get Underlined teams, thank you for coming up with new and exciting ways to find readers so that I can sit alone on my couch hanging out in the fifteenth century instead. To Aisha Cloud, I promise to never eat at an IHOP again as long as you keep being my delightful publicist. To John Adamo, Adrienne Waintraub, and everyone in marketing for executing such brilliant plans and sending our dragons to readers across the country. To Felicia Frazier and the sales team for such passionate and unwavering support.
The incredible covers of this series were painted by Sam Weber and consistently exceeded my wildest dreams. Isaac Stewart, thank you for the amazing maps, and Alison Impey, thank you for the stunning design work.
To Barbara Marcus and everyone at Delacorte Press and Random House Children’s Books, there’s a reason you were my dream house. It is a tremendous privilege to make books with you.
Thank you to Penguin Random House worldwide and Ruth Knowles for taking care of Lada in the UK and Australia. I wish I could join her there.
As always, an acknowledgments section cannot go by without including my two best writing friends. Natalie Whipple, you’re always there for me, even when your own journey is bumpy. If I were Lada, I’d totally pick you for my inner circle. (But then you’d probably die, so let’s have me be Radu instead.) Stephanie Perkins, you make everything better—my books and my life. I’m so lucky to have you as my friend.
Thank you to my three beautiful children for your patience and encouragement. The daily question “Are you all caught up yet?” really helped. (Seriously, though, you three are amazing and delightful and creatively nourishing.)
Finally, to my readers. You’ve come so far with Lada and Radu. Thank you for embracing this fictional family of mine, for proving that no idea is too weird, no girl is too brutal, and no boy is too tender for readers of YA. You are going to change the world, and I can’t wait to see how you do it.
Blue Lily
KIERSTEN WHITE is the New York Times bestselling author of the And I Darken and Paranormalcy series, Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales, Slayer, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, and many more novels. She lives with her family near the ocean in San Diego, which, in spite of its perfection, spurs her to dream of faraway places and even further-away times.
Follow @kierstenwhite on
LIGHTNING CLAWED ACROSS THE sky, tracing veins through the clouds and marking the pulse of the universe itself.
I sighed happily as rain slashed the carriage windows and thunder rumbled so loudly we could not even hear the wheels bump when the dirt lane met the cobblestones of the edge of Ingolstadt.
Justine trembled beside me like a newborn rabbit, burying her face in my shoulder. Another bolt lit our carriage with bright white clarity before rendering us temporarily deaf with a clap of thunder so loud the windows threatened to loosen.
“How can you laugh?” Justine asked. I had not realized I was laughing until that moment.
I stroked her dark hair where strands dangled free from her hat. Justine hated loud noises of any type: Slamming doors. Storms. Shouting. Especially shouting. But I had made certain she had endured none of that in the past two years. It was so odd that our separate origins—similar in cruelty, though differing in duration—had had such opposite outcomes. Justine was the most open and loving and genuinely good person I had ever known.
And I was—
Well. Not like her.
“Did I ever tell you Victor and I used to climb out onto the roof of the house to watch lightning storms?”
She shook her head, not lifting it.
“The way the lighting would play off the mountains, throwing them into sharp relief, as though we were watching the creation of the world itself. Or over the lake, so it looked like it was in both the sky and the water. We would be soaked by the end; it is a wonder neither of us caught our death.” I laughed again, remembering. My skin—fair like my hair—would turn the most violent shades of red from the cold. Victor, with his dark curls plastered to his sallow forehead accentuating the shadows he always bore beneath his eyes, would look like death. What a pair we were!
“One night,” I continued, sensing Justine was calming, “lightning struck a tree on the grounds not ten body lengths from where we sat.”
“That must have been terrifying!”
“It was glorious.” I smiled, placing my hand flat against the cold glass, feeling the temperature beneath my lacy white gloves. “To me, it was the great and terrible power of nature. It was like seeing God.”
Justine clucked disapprovingly, peeling herself from my side to give me a stern look. “Do not blaspheme.”
I stuck my tongue out at her until she relented into a smile.
“What did Victor think of it?”
“Oh, he was horribly depressed for months afterward. I believe his exact phrasing was that he ‘languished in valleys of incomprehensible despair.’ ”
Justine’s smile grew, though with a puzzled edge. Her face was clearer than any of Victor’s texts. His books always required further knowledge and intense study, while Justine was an illuminated manuscript—beautiful and treasured and instantly understandable.
I reluctantly pulled the curtains closed on the carriage window, sealing us away from the storm for her comfort. She had not left the house at the lake since our last disastrous trip into Geneva had ended with her insane, bereft mother attacking us. This journey into Bavaria was taxing for her. “While I saw the destruction of the tree as nature’s beauty, Victor saw power—power to light up the night and banish darkness, power to end a centuries-old life in a single strike—that he could not control or access. And nothing bothered Victor more than something he could not control.”
“I wish I had known him better before he left for university.”
I patted her hand—her brown leather gloves a gift Henry had given me—before squeezing her fingers. Those gloves were far softer and warmer than my own. But Victor preferred me in white. And I loved giving nice things to Justine. She had joined the household two years earlier, when she was seventeen and I was fifteen, and had been there only a couple of months before Victor left us. She did not really know him.
No one did, except me. I liked it that way, but I wanted them to love each other as I loved them both.
“Soon you will know Victor. We shall all of us—Victor and you and me—” I paused, my tongue traitorously trying to add Henry. That was not going to happen. “We will be reunited most joyfully, and then my heart will be complete.” My tone was cheery to mask the fear that underlay this entire endeavor.
I could not let Justine be worried. Her willingness to come as my chaperone was the only reason I had managed this trip. Judge Frankenstein had initially rejected my pleadings to check on Victor. I think he was relieved to have Victor gone, did not care when we had no word. Judge Frankenstein always said Victor would come home when he was ready, and I should not worry about it.
I did. Very much. Particularly after I found a list of expenses with my name at the top. He was auditing me—and soon, I had no doubt, he would determine that I was not worth holding on to. I had done too well, fixing Victor. He was out in the world, and I was obsolete to his father.
I would not let myself be cast out. Not after my years of hard work. Not after all I had done.
Fortunately, Judge Frankenstein had been called away on a mysterious journey of his own. I did not ask permission again so much as…leave. Justine did not know that. Her presence gave me the freedom I needed here to move about without inviting suspicion or censure. William and Ernest, Victor’s younger brothers and her charges, would be fine in the care of the maid until
we could return.
Another burst of thunder, this one rumbling through our chests so we felt it in our very hearts.
“Tell me the story of the first time you met Victor,” she squeaked, clutching my hand so hard that the bones ached.
The woman who was not my mother pinched me and tugged my hair with brutally efficient meanness.
I wore a dress that was far too big. The sleeves hung down to my wrists, which was not the style for children. But it covered the bruises that in turn covered my skin. The week previous I had been caught stealing an extra portion of food. Though I had often been bloodied by her angry fists, this time my caregiver had beaten me until everything went black. I spent the next three nights hiding in the woods at the lake, eating berries. I thought she would kill me when she found me; she had often threatened to do just that. Instead, she had discovered another use for me.
“Do not ruin this,” she hissed. “Better for you to have died at your birth along with your mother than to be left here with me. Selfish in life, selfish in death. That’s what you come from.”
I lifted my chin high, let her finish brushing my hair so that it shone as bright as gold.
“Make them love you,” she demanded as a gentle knock sounded at the door to the hovel I shared with my caregiver and her own four children. “If they do not take you, I will drown you in the rain barrel like the cat’s last litter of runty kittens.”
A woman stood outside, surrounded by a blinding halo of sunlight.
“Here she is,” my caretaker said. “Elizabeth. The little angel herself. Born to nobility. Fate stole her mother, pride imprisoned her father, and Austria took her fortune. But nothing could touch her beauty and goodness.”
I could not turn around lest I stomp on her foot or punch her for her false love.
“Would you like to meet my son?” the new woman asked. Her voice trembled as though she was the one who was scared.
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