“Walk with me,” Huma said, holding out a hand.
Scowling, Lada let Huma take her elbow and lead her to the far edge of the room, a corner not quite blazing with light from the dangling chandeliers. So many burned so brightly that the ceiling was obscured by a haze of smoke, the patterns there shifting and blurring.
Or perhaps Lada had finally had too much to drink.
“You seem troubled, little one.”
Lada laughed bitterly, picking at her clothes. She had been dressed by servants every day this week. Though she had tried to insist that she wear the same style of clothes as the Janissaries, she had been provided with draped dresses and silk shoes. Tonight her dress was a red so deep it looked nearly black, cut lower than she cared for, with a white sash. Her hair had been tamed and pulled back into a series of braids and curls that trailed down her back. She wore her boots, at least.
Huma traced a finger along Lada’s collarbone. “You ought to have a necklace here, to draw attention.” She pointed at Lada’s breasts.
Lada would shoot an incense arrow at Huma first.
But looking at the older woman’s face, Lada realized Huma was not pleased to be here, either. Lada had assumed Huma would be thrilled—in her element as the mother of the groom, preening and parading her new power. She had not wanted Lada to marry Mehmed, and here he was, married to another.
Instead, Huma surveyed the room with narrowed eyes.
“I have not offered my congratulations,” Lada said.
Huma huffed, waving a hand sharply. “Let us not pretend. I was not consulted on any of this. It is a political alliance chosen by Murad to secure the eastern borders. An odd move if he was planning to abdicate the throne again soon, now that Mehmed is older.”
Lada looked at the room through new eyes. None of Mehmed’s teachers were here, none of his favorite holy men. No one he had worked with during his brief time as sultan. And yet Kazanci Dogan, who had been the head of the revolt, was here. Surely Mehmed would not have invited him. The veins of power were not, as she had thought, radiating out from the beating heart of the newlyweds. They were radiating out from…Murad.
“But I thought with the marriage, and Mehmed having an heir…”
Huma laughed darkly. “A baby with a concubine is hardly a guarantee. And a marriage to a Turkmen tribe we are already allied with? This is a move of strengthening, not building. Not expanding or creating power and connections for Mehmed. This strengthens Murad and gives no benefit to Mehmed. The baby and this bride mean nothing. They change nothing.”
Something in Lada’s chest loosened, made it easier for her to breathe in the cloying atmosphere.
Huma looked at where Sitti Hatun’s father was talking with inebriated passion to several pashas who stared over his shoulder at where they would rather be.
“Did you know Murad welcomed a son two months ago?” Huma asked. “Such a blessing to have produced yet another boy.” In the pause, Lada heard a horrible grinding noise she suspected came from Huma’s teeth. “And such timing, staging a marriage so soon after, so that everyone can learn of the new heir from Murad himself. Who is to say that, with the heavy encouragement of his trusted Halil Pasha, Murad has not decided to wait out another decade or two in favor of a more pliable heir?”
“None of this is for Mehmed.” Lada leaned heavily against the wall, seeing the celebration for what it was. She knew she ought to feel sick, worried for Mehmed, angry on his behalf, but all she could feel was overwhelming relief. This world, this glittering poem of power that contained no words for her…none of it was his. Did he know?
“No. Murad is reminding us all that he is strong and virile and going nowhere. That Mehmed belongs to him and—” Huma was cut off by a fit of coughing, something rattling deep inside her. It was the same cough she had had when she visited them in Amasya, but grown much worse.
Huma wiped her face with a cloth pulled from her sleeve. A layer of powder came off, revealing dark circles beneath her eyes and hollows where her cheeks had once been full. Her lips pulled back over her teeth, all sensual fullness stretched back to grim hatred. “Everything I have built, all that I have worked toward, is being ripped from me. I cannot bear it. I took everything I could from him, and still he took more.” Her eyes tracked Murad as though she were sighting prey too far off to kill.
And, in that moment, Huma was no longer threatening to Lada. She was her sister. Murad had taken both of them, forced them into a country and a life neither had wanted. “We will kill him,” Lada whispered.
“I have tried.”