Page 9 of Bright We Burn

Mehmed moved to get off the dais, but Radu held up a hand in warning. “Let me.” He stopped a few paces from the boxes. The smell released with the lid gone was enough to tell him he did not want to see what his sister had sent.

He leaned over to peer inside anyway.

A corpse stared up at him, dried blood in lines of agony down its sunken face. As far as Radu could see from his vantage point, a metal spike had been driven through the turban, right into the head.

Radu leaned away to hide the horror from his sight once more. Keeping his eyes on the far wall, he replaced the lid. “Clear the room,” he said.

No one moved.

Mehmed stood, gesturing sharply. The room emptied rapidly, only his Janissary guards and one personal servant remaining. He stepped down from the dais and joined Radu next to the first box. There were ten more. Mehmed reached out.

“No,” Radu said. “You do not need to see it.”

“My ambassadors?” Mehmed asked.

“Yes.”

Mehmed stared down at the box, then swept his eyes over the rest of them. “And there is no letter with them.”

“No.”

Mehmed pointed to one of his guards. “Catch the men who delivered these. I want a full account of what happened.” The guard sprinted from the room.

Mehmed turned, his purple silk robes swishing through the air. “Come with me.” He glided through a separate, private door. Radu followed. They entered a sitting room with high ceilings. Tiny jeweled windows let in light but were too small for anyone to break in through. As soon as Radu was inside, Mehmed bolted the door behind them. There were no other exits.

Radu faced a wall bearing Mehmed’s elaborate, beautiful tughra, the sultan’s own seal and signature. Around it in gold Arabic script were verses from the Koran. Without turning around, Radu said, “This is why you called me back, then. Because of her.”

Mehmed hesitated. Radu could feel the other man just behind him, close enough to touch. Then Mehmed sat with a sigh on one of the low sofas. “I did not know this was coming.”

“You should not be surprised.”

“She always surprises me.”

Radu clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “I cannot help you with her. I cannot—I will not—go between you and my sister. You will have to find someone else.”

Radu turned to leave. Mehmed stood and grabbed his arm. Radu looked down at Mehmed’s hand, each finger weighted with a jeweled ring. Mehmed was heavy with privilege and power. Radu remembered the lightness of their shared childhood. If the two boys who had met at a fountain in Edirne, who had clung to each other against the cruelty of the world, saw themselves now, they would see strangers. All the years had built a wall of silk and gold and power and pain between them.

Mehmed dropped his hand from Radu’s arm. “I did not ask you here to help me with Lada!”

“Then why did you?” Radu turned to face him.

“Because!” Mehmed wrapped his own arms around himself, shrinking. “Because I am building an empire, and turning this city into the jewel of the world, and becoming the sultan my people need. And it is so lonely.” His voice broke on the last word.

Gone was the cold assurance of the sultan, the calculating intelligence that last year had sent Radu away as a spy. The untouchable Hand of God was replaced by the boy at the fountain. The friend of Radu’s youth. The foundation of his heart. Radu opened his arms, and Mehmed fell into him, burying his face in Radu’s shoulder.

Radu held him close, taking his own deep, shuddering breaths.

“I need you,” Mehmed whispered.

“I am here,” Radu answered.

* * *

“Halil amassed too much power.” Mehmed was on the floor of his private chamber, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. Radu lay next to him, shoulder to shoulder. No sultan and bey. Just Mehmed and Radu. “My father was too permissive, too willing to let others take over much of the business of running the empire. It led to corruption and waste and weakness. So I keep myself separate, let no one think they have a greater portion of my ear or my confidence. Soon I will have a palace complex made, all the rooms and walls circling out in rings from the center. I will be there, and everyone else will revolve around me. Just as I am at the center of the empire, and everyone else exists to serve the empire through me.”

“It does sound lonely,” Radu said softly.

“It is. And it will be. But I cannot put my own needs ahead of the needs of my people. They need a strong sultan. They need me to be the Hand of God, not a mere man. And so I must set aside the things that I want, my own comforts and relationships, to be what my people deserve.”

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