Page 165 of Dragon Slayer

She took an aggressive step toward him, chin lifting. He thought she might strike him. “What?”

He wanted to shrink back, to give – she was his mother, who’d nursed, and raised, and loved him…

But this was bigger than family bonds now.

“I assume you told Val that you wanted to take him with us when we left. What did he say to that?”

She breathed harshly through her nose, face going slowly red. But then she turned away from him, and banded her arms across her middle. Shoulders slumping as if in pain.

The room was silent a long moment save the ragged sound of Eira’s breathing. Then she took a final breath and said, “He said to leave him here. That he was leverage against us. He can’t leave, and we shouldn’t try to help him.”

A surge of pride in his brother. Delicate to look at, but strong inside. “He’s right, and you know he is.”

She didn’t answer.

A knock sounded at the door, and Cicero went to answer it, falx still in his hand.

To his credit, the slave boy on the other side didn’t reel back in shock at sight of the weapon, though his gaze did touch upon it. He then looked to Vlad. “His majesty wishes to speak with you, your grace.”

“Which one?”

~*~

Murat.

He didn’t leave Vlad in suspense. “You cannot stay here,” he said, offhand, accepting a jewel-studded cup from a tray-bearing slave. “I’m sure you know this.”

He did, but he ground his back teeth anyway. “Your Majesty, if this is about Mehmet and me–”

The former sultan cut him off with a wave. “It is not.” The slave still stood at his side, and Vlad noticed now that the tray also held a roll of parchment. Murat reached for this now, and unrolled it leisurely. He sipped his wine. Waited, intentionally, to set Vlad on edge.

Vlad could wait, too, and was careful to keep his expression neutral, his hands folded behind his back.

Finally, Murat set aside his cup and began to speak. “I have here in my hands a letter from Vladislav, the man who drove you out of Wallachia, and co-signed by the governor of Transylvania, the Hungarian John Hunyadi. It reads, quote, ‘I wished to inform you as to the stability of my rule here in Wallachia, a rule which intends to work alongside you, Your Majesty, and your great empire in order to achieve peace throughout the Romanian lands. I should also like you to know of the treachery of your puppet Vlad Dracula, who, I have it straight from witnesses’ mouths, gave a traitorous speech in the town square of Tîrgoviste, in which he promised to free the people from your tyranny. He promised to turn on you, fight you, and push you out of Wallachia altogether. He is a violent, petulant boy, Vlad Dracula, and he wants only violence, and never peace. I’m afraid you have misplaced your trust in him, Sultan Murat.’”

He set aside the letter and leveled his gaze at Vlad, heavy, implacable. There would be no arguing his case, Vlad saw in his expression. The decision had already been made.

“Do you deny that you did such a thing?” Murat asked.

“No, Your Majesty. I said it.”

“Do you have an explanation?”

Would it matter? No. The axe was already poised and ready to fall.

So with the same stubborn spirit that had earned him daily beatings as a schoolboy in this palace, Vlad thrust out his chin and said, “I said it because I meant it.”

Murat stared at him a long, still moment. Not bothered, not angry, but watchful. Calculating. Finally, he nodded. “So I thought. Your stay here has come to an end, then. You will be escorted back to your rooms where you will gather your things and what people belong to you, and you will leave the city of Edirne tonight. Understood?”

“Understood.” Vlad gave a short bow and turned to leave, though his heart was pounding.

“Vlad Dracula,” Murat called, and Vlad paused, glanced back over his shoulder.

It would be the last time he ever laid eyes on the old sultan.

And to his surprise, emotion glittered in the man’s eyes. Carefully checked – but he gave off the faintest hint of fear.

“I don’t know what your uncle is planning,” Murat said, quietly. “But the older I grow, the more and more I begin to think that it isn’t something sanctioned by any god of any king. Take care of yourself, your grace.”

Shock froze Vlad in place for a moment.

On his walk back to his rooms, he found that, though hatred was a living spirit inside him, he hated the old sultan a little less, and pitied him a little more.

No one was surprised when he relayed the news.

Silent, crystal tears slipped down Eira’s cheeks, and she clenched her jaw tight against the crushing guilt and rage that having to leave Val behind brought. But she wiped her face and said, “I think I know somewhere that we can go. Someone who will help us.”

Which was how Vlad Dracula was forced to leave his little brother behind a second time, and how he ended up completing his Romanian education and knighthood training in the principality of Moldavia, alongside the pretend cousin who would become his best mortal friend…who would become Stephen the Great.

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