Kiersten White

She would be married to grant someone else an advantage. And when that alliance fell through, as all alliances did, she would be shuffled to the side. Left in a convent, abandoned and cut off.

An image of their mother, nearly forgotten since she had left them, crawled through Lada’s mind. She recoiled from the memory of that woman. Powerless. Broken. An abandoned alliance had left her a prisoner in someone else’s home, someone else’s country.

Lada squeezed her hand shut around the splinters, warm drops of blood pooling in her palm, covering the scar of her playacting with Bogdan. There would be no happy marriage of equals for her, no one who would agree to let her rule. “I will never marry.”

“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.

“Please do not judge my country by the cruelty of a few. Though there is one God and one Prophet, peace be upon him, not everyone interacts with him in the same way. There are varying levels of faith and practice, just as in everything in life. But you have a choice.”

“I do not feel like I have any choices left to me.”

Kumal nodded. “It may seem that way. But you always have a choice. You can choose to find comfort and solace in God. You can choose to be brave and compassionate. And you can choose to find beauty and happiness wherever they present themselves.” He smiled. “I think you already know this, though. I hope you can hold on to that through the coming years, because you have much to offer the world, Radu.”