Toma leaned back in his chair. They had taken residence in another Basarab family boyar’s home. The study might as well have always belonged to Toma. His letters covered the desk, his wine next to his hand. Only Lada’s sword was out of place.

They were close to Tirgoviste. So close Lada could not stand being cooped up in this house with these people, knowing how near her throne was.

Toma held up a letter. “The prince knows what we are up to.”

“And?”

Toma smiled, the expression transforming him from a well-mannered boyar into something Lada understood far better: a predator. “And it does not matter. We have all the support we need. More than half the boyars are on my side.” He paused, his smile shifting generously. “Our side. Most that are not will do nothing until they see where the advantage falls. He will not be able to draw a significant force in time to save himself. His sons and all the men he could ask for help are fighting at the walls of Constantinople at the sultan’s request.”

Lada closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “I can go to Tirgoviste.”

“Yes, my dear, you can,” Toma answered, as though she had been asking permission. “I will follow.”

“But not too closely.” She opened her eyes and raised a knowing eyebrow.

He laughed. “No, not too closely. But you take all my hopes and prayers with you.”

Lada picked up her sword where it leaned against a chair. “Keep your prayers. I do not need them.”

They had made it only a couple of hours before the scouts ahead of them shouted a warning. Lada spurred her horse to a gallop, quickly closing the distance between herself and her scouts.

It was too late. The two men, who had been with her since Edirne, were bleeding their lives out into the dirt. A band of a dozen dirty men surrounded them, pawing through their clothes.

They looked up at Lada. Their faces twisted with cruel pleasure, dead eyes greeting her. She drew her sword and killed two before the rest could react. By the time they realized she was no easy prey, Bogdan and a score of her men had caught up.

Several of the robbers scattered for the trees. “Kill them all,” Lada said. She paused, thinking. One of the robbers had curled into a ball on the ground, arms over his head. “Leave this one.”

She dismounted. Kicking him in the side, she pushed him over so he was forced to look up at her. His face was covered with the angry red spots of youth. He was probably only a couple of years younger than her.

“Are there any other thieves?” she asked, jerking her head down the road.

“No. No. Just us in this part.”

“And in other parts?”

He nodded desperately. “Yes, miss. All over.”

She leaned close, resting her sword against his throat. “Would you like a job?”

He could not nod. He could not even swallow. He whispered a tortured “Yes.”

“Go down this road ahead of us. Find every thief, every robber, everyone preying on my people, and give them a message. These roads belong to Lada Dracul now. I declare them safe. And anyone who defies that will die.”

She eased her sword away. The boy scrambled to his feet, bowing. “Yes. Yes, miss. I will.”

She thought for a moment. Words were one thing. Evidence was another. She bent down and cut the ears off the nearest bodies. The first she mangled. The second she found the right place to slice. Nicolae blanched. The sound and sensation was unpleasant, but Lada rolled her eyes at him. “Take these.” She held the ears out to the boy.

He looked as though he would lose his stomach, but he took the ears in trembling hands.

“Tokens of my sincerity. If you run, if you fail to deliver my message, I will know. And I will find you.”

The boy squeaked an assurance that he would not fail, then, stumbling once, ran down the road away from them.

Bogdan returned a few minutes later, wiping his sword clean. “We got them all.”

“Good.” Lada stared at the quickly receding silhouette of the fleeing boy. It was a good message. But it was not quite enough. She had spent years in a land where every road was safe. The Ottomans were free to travel and trade, and their country flourished. She had not forgotten her lessons on the subject.

She had learned something from her tutors there, after all.

“These roads need clearer directions. Hang the bodies from the trees. Write ‘thieves’ on them.” Several of the recent recruits looked worried. Most of them could not read or write. “Nicolae will write it,” she said.

“This all seems excessive.” Nicolae paused, halfway through dragging one of their scouts’ bodies to the side of the road, where another soldier had started on a shallow grave.

Lada shrugged. “They are already dead. They may as well serve a purpose in death, as they did nothing with their lives.”

After a full day on the road and with Tirgoviste within reach on the morrow, they set up camp. Daciana had not yet moved into Stefan’s tent, but Lada had no doubts it would happen soon.

Stefan watched Daciana move around camp with a sort of confused fear tightening his eyes. He was so twitchy and nervous that Lada worried about sending him ahead to scout. Daciana paid him only the barest attentions, occasionally pausing in her work to comment to him, or to straighten his vest, or to remark on the color or length of his stubble, casually brushing her hand against it.

Lada did not understand the strange dance Daciana was performing. It seemed deeply inefficient. But seeing the way Stefan watched the girl, Lada became twitchy herself.

The place between her legs nagged at her at the strangest times, reminding her of how it had felt and could feel again in the future. She cursed Mehmed for introducing her to those sensations. Before, she had not known they existed. Now, she longed for them.

Daciana leaned close to Stefan, whispering something in his ear and then laughing.

Bogdan joined Lada at her fire. He was thick and menacing where Mehmed was lithe. Bogdan was a hammer to Mehmed’s graceful sword. But hammers had good qualities, too. Lada looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “You would do anything for me.” It was not a question.

He looked at her as though she had taken the time to inform him the sky was blue. “Yes.”

“Come with me.” She stood and walked into her tent. Bogdan followed.

It was much more efficient than Daciana’s methods. And if she did not feel the same with Bogdan as with Mehmed, if the spark and the fire and the need were not overwhelming, Bogdan was as he had always been: loyal and serviceable.