“There!” Radu said, pointing to a narrow alley. If they could duck into it, they could wait until the crowd had passed and then backtrack.

Someone cried out in horror from the front. The Hodegetria was slipping. Though the men carrying it scrambled to counter its momentum, they could not get a good grip on the poles. The icon, the holiest artifact in the city, slid off into a thick patch of mud.

Everyone was silent for a few disbelieving heartbeats. Then the men sprang into action, trying to lift it. Though it was only a painting and there were several men, they could not seem to pull it up. The earth had decided to reclaim the Virgin Mary and would not relinquish her.

Several children started crying, their mothers doing nothing to shush them. A murmur like a tiny earthquake rolled through the crowd. Whispers of doom, damnation, the Virgin abandoning them. Of God judging them and deeming them unclean.

Radu was half tempted to tell them God had nothing to do with this—it had been a young woman with grease on her hands and sorrow in her heart. But it would do no good.

Finally, after far too long, the men managed to leverage the icon out of the mud and back onto their shoulders. A ragged cheer went up, but it would not have felt out of place at a funeral for all the happiness it held.

Then the world was lit for a single second in blinding white. Radu had time only to wonder if he truly was being struck down for blasphemy before a clap of thunder louder than any bombardment followed an instant later, shaking the ground. Screams and cries went up. A rushing sound moved toward them. Radu saw the rain before it hit. It was a solid wall of water, so thick and fast that it slammed into the crowd with the force of a river.

Something stung Radu’s face. He touched his cheek to make certain he was not bleeding. Then another piece of hail struck him, and another. The hail fell with more fury than the arrows of the Ottomans. Another brilliant bolt of lightning struck nearby, the thunder accompanying it so powerful Radu could hear nothing for nearly a minute afterward.

All around him people were falling to their knees, unable to see or walk in the middle of the tempest. Radu knew God had nothing to do with the icon slipping. This, however, was difficult to attribute to anything else. The water fell so furiously that it began streaming down the street, rising to Radu’s ankles and then to his knees. The narrow streets were funneling it, channeling it into a sudden river.

“We have to get out of this!” Cyprian shouted. Radu could barely hear him, though Cyprian’s mouth was right next to his ear. He pointed at the alley they had been aiming for. Because of the slope, the water did not travel far up it. The two men pushed through the street, mud sucking at their boots, the hungry water pulling eagerly. A child in front of them went down, disappearing beneath the brown water.

Radu dove to his knees, pushing his hands down blindly. He caught a foot and pulled the child into the air. A woman rushed toward them. Radu handed her the child. Cyprian shouted, pointing to an old man who had gone down. They hurried to him, helping him up and dragging him through the water to the alley.

“There!” Cyprian waved toward a woman in the middle of the street holding an infant to her breast and unable to move. He started forward, but another blinding flash of lightning and an overpowering burst of thunder cracked through the alley.

Some of the cracking noises were not the thunder. The stones from the roof above them that had been struck fell in a jumble, taking Cyprian down beneath them.

42

April 28

WALLACHIA WAS FATALLY flawed when it came to keeping princes alive. The boyars were tasked with protecting the prince. They controlled all the manpower, all the troops, all the blades that stood between life and death. In theory, the purpose was to keep the prince loyal to the country and the people whom he depended on for survival.

It may have worked, were the boyars ever loyal to a prince. But the roads were open and clear in front of Lada like a field after harvest. She was grateful now that the boyars were never loyal to a prince. The few men the prince had been able to rally were dead on the road behind them.

“So, what is the plan?” Nicolae asked.

Lada shrugged.

“That—that is not a plan. You have no plan? Really? None?”

“We go in. We take the throne. That is all the plan we need.”

“No, I definitely need more plan than that.”

Bogdan grunted. “She told you the plan. Shut up.”

Lada kept her eyes on the city growing ever larger in front of them. Homes were closer together as farmland gave way to life clinging to the edge of the city and the opportunity it provided. Which, judging by the condition of the homes, was not much.

Lada did not smile at the people who huddled in the dark doorways, watching her procession. But she could feel their stares, feel their whispers. Nicolae shifted defensively. She shook her head at him. She would not cower.

“Look,” Petru said, pointing up at the sky.

Among the first stars beginning to pierce the night, there was one falling. It burned, light trailing behind it as it slowly moved through the gathering darkness.

“It is an omen,” Daciana said from her seat in front of Stefan on his horse, her voice quiet with wonder.

Lada closed her eyes, remembering another night when stars fell from the heavens. She had almost been happy then, with the two men she loved. Now she had neither of them. But she had known that night what she knew now: nothing but Wallachia would ever be enough.

The stars saw her. They knew.

She lifted a hand in the air toward the burning sign as she rode forward, letting everyone see her pointing to the omen of her coming. Everyone would witness it.

They were her people. This was her country. This was her throne. She needed no intrigues, no elaborate plans. Wallachia was her mother. After everything she had been through, all she had done in pursuit of the throne, she was left with one thing only: herself.

She was enough.

The gates to the city were closed when they came to them. Two men illuminated by torches stood at the top, a faint metallic clinking puzzling Lada until she realized they were trembling in their chain mail.

“Open the gates,” she said.

The men looked at each other, unsure what to do. They looked over her shoulder, where her men lined up behind her. A murmur of noise like pebbles signaling an avalanche accompanied her.

“I come like that star, burning in the night.” She raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Anyone on my side before I take the throne will be a salaried soldier. I reward merit, and there will be much opportunity for advancement of fortunes.”