“Why?” Toma asked.

“Because an attack on my men is an attack on me, and I punish treason with death.”

Toma grimaced a smile at the table, then leaned close. “I am certain it was a misunderstanding. Besides, you cannot ask for a noble life in exchange for a soldier’s.”

“I can do anything I want,” Lada said.

Toma’s expression became sharp. “Sit down,” he commanded. “You are embarrassing me. We will talk about this later.”

Lada did not sit. “How many princes have you served under?”

Toma narrowed his eyes even more. “I would have to count.”

She leaned forward against the table, gesturing toward everyone. “I wish to know how many princes you have all served under.”

“Four,” the rat-faced boyar said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Many nodded. “Eight,” another said. “Nine!” someone else countered.

A wizened old man near the back shouted out, “I have you all beat. Twenty-one princes have I seen in my lifetime!”

Everyone laughed. Lada laughed loudest and sharpest. She kept laughing long after everyone else stopped, her laugh ringing alone through the room. She laughed until everyone stared at her, confused and pitying.

She stopped abruptly, the room echoing with the silence left in the wake of her laughter. “Princes come and go, but you all remain.”

Toma nodded. “We are the constants. Wallachia depends on us.”

“Yes, I have seen Wallachia. I have seen what your constant care has created.” Lada thought of the fields empty of crops. The roads empty of commerce. The hollow eyes and the hollow stomachs. The boys missing from the fields, their corpses against the walls of Constantinople now. The lands eaten away by Transylvania and Hungary.

So many things missing, so many things lost. And always, ever, the boyars remained exactly as they were.

She, too, had been lost. Sold to another land, for what? For her father to be betrayed and murdered by the men and women in front of her now, eating her food. Patting her hand. Calculating how long this prince would best serve their needs until they found another.

The Danesti boyars were a poison that would be her eventual end. In the meantime, they would try to marry her into their families, and would siphon the life from her Wallachia. She had promised the people a better country. A stronger country. And now, finally, she understood how to create it. There were no compromises, no gentle pathways. She could not keep power the way anyone else had before her, because she was like no one else before her.

“Your mistake is in assuming that because I have been far away, I do not understand how things work.” She reached over and plucked the knife from beside Toma’s plate. “I have been far away. And because of that, I understand perfectly how things work. I have learned at the feet of our enemies. I have seen that sometimes the only way forward is to destroy everything that came before. I have learned that if what you are doing is not working, you try something else.”

She stabbed the knife into the top of the table, embedding it in the wood. Then she looked up to see her men entering the room and lining the walls of the hallway. “Who killed my father and brother? And who is responsible for the death of my soldier Petru? I demand justice.”

No one spoke.

“Very well. Lock the doors,” she said, her voice cold.

A murmur arose among the boyars. They shifted in their seats, watching as each exit was closed and locked. Finally, they had the sense to look uncomfortable. Finally, they truly saw her.

Lada drew her sword, looking down the curve of it. She had thought it like a smile, before. Now she saw what it was: a scythe. Without a word she shifted and plunged it into the chest of Toma. The man who had used we to talk about their plans, when he meant himself and a foreign king. The man who had thought that through words and advice, he could take Lada’s soldiers, Lada’s power, Lada’s country without ever fighting her. She watched his face as he died, committing it to memory.

A woman screamed. Several chairs clattered as people hastily stood. Lada pulled her sword from Toma’s chest, then gestured to the table.

“Kill them all,” she said.

Her men did not move, until Bogdan drew his sword and stepped forward, swiftly killing two boyars. Then the work of harvesting began in earnest.

Lada picked up a cloth napkin and used it to wipe the blood off the length of her sword. The screams were distracting, but she was used to distractions. Hold hands with the devil until you are both over the bridge.

Or kill the devil and burn the bridge so no one can get to you.

It took a few moments for her to notice the screaming had finally stopped. She looked up. Bodies littered the room. Men and women slumped over the table or lay in their blood on the floor where they had tried to escape. Her men had not even broken a sweat.

It was good that Radu was not here after all. She did not want him to see this. Maybe it would not have been necessary if he had been here. Maybe, together, they could have found another way.

But he had chosen Mehmed, and she had chosen this. She could not stop now. Lada sheathed her sword. “Take the bodies to the courtyard. Everyone needs to know a new Wallachia has been born tonight. After they have been displayed, we will give Petru the memorial he deserves.”

“What about their families?” Bogdan asked.

“Kill any Danesti heirs. They have nothing to inherit now. I will give their titles and land to those who actually serve me.”

“Lada.” Nicolae grasped her elbow. His sword was still sheathed. “Do not do this.”

“It is already done.”

“But their children—”

“We cut out the corruption so we can grow. I am making Wallachia strong.” She turned to face him, her eyes as hard as her blade. “Do you disagree with me? They killed my family. They would have killed me, too, when it suited them. And they wanted us to continue under the Ottomans. They would sell our children to the Turkish armies, just like you. Just like Petru. You know I am right.”

Nicolae looked down, scar twisting. “I— Yes, I know. I wish we could have done it another way, but I think you are right. The Danesti boyars would never have supported a new Wallachia under you. But their children are innocent. You can afford to show mercy.”

She remembered the choice Huma made to assassinate Mehmed’s infant half brother to avoid future civil war. Kill a child, save an empire. It was terrible. Sometimes terrible things were necessary. But unlike Mehmed, who had his vicious mother, no one would make these choices for Lada. No one would save her from this. She had to be strong. “Mercy is the one thing I cannot afford. Not yet. When Wallachia is stable, when we have rebuilt, then yes. What we do now, we do so that someday mercy will be able to survive here.”