18
" None of them are real to me.” He paused again, placing a hand flat against the door. “You are the only real thing in my life.”
Radu gasped with the sheer physical pain the words sent through him. But the sound of his agony was covered by that of the door opening. Mehmed reached in and pulled Lada out to him, and then his mouth was on hers and his hands were in her hair and he was holding her so tightly, so tightly, and they stumbled back into Lada’s room and closed the door.
Radu tripped forward, feet dragging, until he stood outside the room. He wanted to be inside it. He wanted to be the only real thing to Mehmed, just as Mehmed was the only real thing to him.
He wanted—
No, please, no.
Yes.
He wanted Mehmed to look at him the way he had looked at Lada.
He wanted Mehmed to kiss him the way he had kissed Lada.
He wanted to be Lada.
No, he did not. He wanted to be himself, and he wanted Mehmed to love him for being himself. His question, the question of Mehmed, was finally answered, piercing him and leaving him shaking, silent, on the floor.
He did not want this answer. "
― Kiersten White , And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1)
20
" She swung her fist at Nicolae’s head. He raised an arm to block the blow, and she delivered a killing stab with her wooden dagger.
Nicolae laughed, staggering dramatically to the ground. “Dead, again, at the hands of the ugliest girl in creation.” He stuck out his tongue, face contorted in a grimace.
Lada kicked him in the stomach. “I am no girl. Who is next?”
The other Janissaries, gathered in a loose circle around Lada and Nicolae, shuffled their feet and avoided eye contact. Nicolae pushed himself up on an elbow. “Really? Cowards!”
“I still have bruises from the last time.”
“I cannot sit without pain.”
“She fights dirty.”
Ivan did not even respond, having never forgiven Lada for besting him when they were introduced. He refused to fight her and rarely acknowledged her presence.
Lada laughed, showing all her sharp teeth. “Because when you are on the battlefield, honor will mean so much. You will die with a blade between your ribs, secure in the knowledge that you fought with manners.” She picked up her dull practice sword, abandoned on the edge of the circle, and swung it through the air, sweeping it across the line of the Janissaries’ collective throats. "
― Kiersten White , And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1)
