Bright We Burn

That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it.

A heart did not have to be stone to be strong.

She was a dragon. She was a prince. She was a woman. It was the last that scared them most of all.

I know your brother’s past. And I know that he can still find happiness even in the darkest of circumstances, because his faith sustains him. What sustains you?” “The blood of my enemies.

Be strong. He whispered. Be kind. Be hopeful. He bent down and kissed her forehead. And be fierce.

But they were capable of greatness. Destined for it, even.” “Then do not aim for greatness. Aim for goodness. And however you get there will be the right path for you, my sweet Radu.

Lada had always known exactly what shape she would take. She had never let it be determined by the people around her. But Radu could not escape the need for love, the need for people in his life to help him see what he should—and could—be. Lada shaped herself in spite of her environment. Radu shaped himself because of it.

He was not sure. Or at least there was no way for him to be sure. But he could not imagine that Lada would die alone and in secret. Or that she could be dead and he would not somehow know. Surely her death would be marked by something. A comet. A great hole opening in the earth. A tempest, a flood, a fire. A force such as Lada could not depart this world without leaving one last mark.

I heard she is giving land to anyone. Can you imagine? No family name, no boyar line. She gives it to those who deserve it. So I hope she never marries. I hope she lives to be a hundred years old, breathing fire and drinking the blood of our enemies.

Every time Radu thought he had found a place in the world, the world changed around him, and once again he was left alone.

She would walk into that tent, and she would stab her first friend, her first lover, her only true equal through the heart. She did not want to, she found. But she would do it anyway. It was what Wallachia needed, what it demanded, and Wallachia came before Mehmed. It always would. It had to.

After all, fire and blood and death were nothing to a country led by a dragon.

I told you once," Cyprian said. "Do you remember?" "I remember every moment we spent together." "I told you," Cyprian said, with a tentative smile so full of hope it was physically painful to see, "that I would forgive you. I meant it." Radu let out a breath like a sob. This could not be real. It was too big, too great a gift, too powerful a mercy. He had never had anything like this in his cruel and punishing life. He did not know it was possible.

She drummed her fingers on the arms of the throne, looking out at the empty room. She was not stupid enough to think men would stop trying to take it from her. They would always be there, waiting for weakness, waiting for her to fall. They wanted what she had because she had it. And one day, eventually, someone would defeat her. But until that day she would fight with tooth and nail, with all the fire and blood that had formed her into who she was. She was a dragon. She was a prince. She was a woman. It was the last that scared them most of all.

Radu put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying. “Get out,” she said again. He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept.

Wallachia was not her mother. Wallachia did not care what happened to her. And every single person who might have was either dead or trying to kill her.

And that was why she would win in the end. Because she would offer up everything on the altar of sacrifice, so long as she kept her country.

She had always thought getting married would be the death of her. She had not expected that fear to be realized quite so literally.

The more Radu knew the women around him, the more he wondered if any of them were not secretly terrifying.

To let you stay here until everyone has forgotten you. Until your only legacy are the lurid woodcuts and terrifying nighttime stories of the Saxons. You will fade into a monster, a myth.

I can. You were always ruthless about finding people to love you.

Radu had been wrong all this time. He had felt guilty for the way his heart yearned for other men. But it was not his own love that was poisonous and destructive. His love destroyed nothing, hurt no one. [...] Nazira was right. His love had no evil in it.

Everything had changed. And nothing had. She was still choosing Wallachia over them. Radu was still supporting Mehmed. And Mehmed was still demanding they both be his. The stakes had just gotten higher.

Broken things healed thicker and stronger than they were before, assuming one survived long enough to heal.

Being a Dracul had cost him so much. He had thought he was done paying for the blood that ran through his veins. But he would never be done. The price of being in his family was everything he held dear, taken from him over and over again. They were the dragons. The devils. There was no mercy in them or for them.

Because Bogdan wanted more than she could ever give him. Because she mistrusted Stefan. Because Nicolae’s questions festered under her skin. Because Petru, young and thickheaded but hers, was dead, killed by the boyars she had then eliminated in the dining room of this very castle. Because even after all this, she knew in the blood that flowed through her veins that she could trust Radu. And because…Nicolae had been right. Lada was trying to pick a fight with Mehmed, even if she had not realized it before. She was not doing it for Wallachia. She did it for herself. For everything he had been to her. For all the ways he had failed her. She had Wallachia, and she would do everything she could to protect it, but she wanted to punish Mehmed. Kidnapping Radu—taking back the first, and the last, thing Mehmed had taken from her—might be enough to make him come to her when tens of thousands of bodies had not. Just three bodies mattered. The same three that had always mattered. Radu’s. Lada’s. And Mehmed’s.

She was a strong prince. Strong and terrible and fair

It had felt unavoidable at the time, but how many unavoidable choices of his had resulted in unforgivable consequences?

love is the highest expression of faith—in ourselves, in others, in the world. I can expand my faith to allow myself happiness in this life, and trust in God’s love and mercy after this life.

Radu wondered if Kumal was capable of cruelty. He hoped so, actually. It gave him hope to think that men like Kumal were the same as everyone else—they simply chose to be better.