I know you have not been successful in your attempts at the throne. I wish I could help. However, I have a proposition.

Lada scowled. He did not wish that he could help—he had very clearly demonstrated he wished no such thing. She braced herself for his suggestion that she return to him.

Do whatever you must to persuade Hunyadi to stay out of Constantinople, and I will be able to part with enough men to give you the strength you need to reclaim your throne. Send word back with my ambassadors. Once I have it, I will wait for you in the south of Transylvania, where it meets Serbia and Wallachia.

Lada dropped the letter in her lap. Whatever she had thought Mehmed might write, whatever sly attempts to lure her back or to remind her she had made the wrong choice, they were not there.

She did not know if that disappointed her. But she had found something she had not expected. Support. He wanted her to succeed. And he was offering her help.

Her way to the throne had opened up again. All she had to do was betray Hunyadi.

It was dark by the time Lada walked in a daze back to camp. Her men still lived outside, with no room for them in the barracks. It suited them fine, and it suited her as well. She preferred a tent to the stone prison of Hunedoara.

When she entered her tent, she found Oana sitting on the rug next to a lamp, mending in her lap. As a child, Lada had sometimes wondered if her nurse came with sewing supplies permanently attached. Lada collapsed onto her bedroll with a sigh. “What are you doing in here?” she asked Oana.

“Bogdan snores. This is my reward for carrying his great weight for nine months and nearly dying bringing him into the world. My beautiful little boy turned into a great hulking man who sounds like a dying pig when he sleeps.”

Lada could not help laughing. “Have you walked the camp at night? An army of boars would make less noise than my men do.”

Oana nodded, squinting, then set aside her work. “It is too dark for my old eyes.”

“Sleep.” Lada stripped some of the furs from her bedroll and tossed them at Oana. “Or, if you want, I can probably get you a bed in the castle.”

“Lada, my dear one, you got me my Bogdan back. You do not need to get me anything ever again.” The nurse sounded dangerously close to crying. “Though,” she said, her voice turning gruff, “I would very much like to get out of Hungary. They all have marbles in their mouths. I cannot understand one word in five.”

“You may get your wish soon enough.”

“Back to Wallachia?”

Lada let out a breath heavy with the weight of the future. “No. Hunyadi plans to defend Constantinople.”

“Why would we go there?”

“Because he thinks it is the right thing to do.”

The nurse made a derisive sound. “The devil take Byzantium and all its glory. It never did anything for us.”

Lada listened as the nurse lay down and shifted around, making all the small noises tired bodies make. It was annoying, but there was also something comforting about having another woman present. Someone she knew cared for her.

“Which way is the wrong way?” Lada asked. “How much should I give if it means getting back to Wallachia?” She could lie to Mehmed, tell him she had persuaded Hunyadi to stay out of Constantinople. He would not discover her duplicity until she already had the troops. There would be hell to pay after, though, and her castle was already filled with enemies.

Hunyadi’s love and trust was a valuable thing; it meant more to Lada than she had thought possible. But he could not get her the throne. And she did not feel the pull of Constantinople that all the men in her life seemed to. Hunyadi, she cared about. Constantinople was only a city.

Wallachia, though. Wallachia was everything.

As though hearing Lada’s thoughts, her nurse echoed, “Everything. There is no cost too high for your people, for your land.”

“Even if it means betraying someone who trusts me? Or making deals with the empire that took your son from you?”

“You brought him back. You brought yourself back. Wallachia needs you, and you deserve Wallachia. Let your loyalty be only where your heart is. Everything else can fall by the road and be trodden underfoot as we pass to our home.” Oana patted Lada’s arm. “My fierce little girl. You can do anything.”

Lada did not know if it was permission or prophecy, but she believed it either way.

Though manipulating people was Radu’s area of expertise, Lada found the opportunity to do so handed to her with all the poetic grace of a gazelle’s neck.

Hunyadi paced in front of her. He had called her to the meeting room in the castle, but this time only the two of them were present. “What about Serbia?” he asked.

Lada shook her head. “I know for a fact Mara Brankovic, one of Murad’s wives, made a new treaty for Serbia. If you go to Constantinople, you will fight against Serbians, not with them.” Lada wondered briefly what Mara Brankovic was doing with her cleverly purchased freedom. Mara had taken an offer of marriage from Constantine himself and used it to forge a deal between Mehmed and her father, the Serbian prince—creating a new, permanently single life for herself.

“Damn.” Hunyadi leaned back with a sigh. “What do you think of the Danesti prince? I know you hate him, but will he aid us? Maybe he will die at the wall, which would be very convenient for you.”

Lada dragged a knife along the tabletop, scoring the wood deeply. “He is a worm. And not long ago he was in Edirne, delivering his loyalty to Mehmed in person.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I had someone in Tirgoviste trying to kill him at the time.”

Hunyadi shook his head, but his expression was more amused than shocked.

“Besides,” Lada continued, “he cannot commit troops without the boyars giving him support. They will bide their time and twiddle their thumbs until any usefulness has passed, and then they will send their condolences.”

“The Wallachian boyars like me, though.”

“Yes, and they fear Mehmed. Which do you think will be a stronger motivator among that pack of cowards?”

Hunyadi nodded grudgingly. “I have some support, though. Elizabeth encourages me to go. And I have you and your men. It will be good for you to have something to do.”

Lada already had something to do. She respected Hunyadi, but he could not give her the throne. Mehmed could. He could also take it from her afterward, if she failed to uphold her end of their bargain.