Constantine stood at the front, looking upward as though he were already an icon himself. Nearby, Giustiniani stood, pale and sweating. He should have been sitting, but appearances were everything. He had been injured in the bombardment yesterday. The panic that spread through the city at the idea of losing him had been more dangerous than any cannon. And so Giustiniani stood when he should have been resting, prayed when he should have been sleeping, all so the people could see their emperor and their military commander and have some semblance of hope.

When the service ended, no one moved. Radu was desperate to get outside, to be away from all this. A hand tugged on his vest and he whirled around, ready to strike.

He looked down into the eyes of the little heir, Manuel. “Where is my cousin?” Manuel asked. Something in the way his lip trembled but his chin stayed firm stabbed Radu to the core. Manuel was expecting to hear that Cyprian was dead, and he was preparing himself not to cry over the news. Radu dropped into a crouch so he was face to face with the boy.

“Cyprian is resting at home. He was hit on the head with some rocks, but he will get better.”

Manuel let out a breath of relief, grinning to reveal his first few lost teeth. “He promised to take me fishing when the siege is over.”

“Well then, there you have it. He will heal quickly, because he would never break a promise like that.”

Manuel nodded, quick to accept comfort. He slipped his tiny hand into Radu’s hand, anchoring Radu with the weight of his innocence. John and their nurse soon joined them, the older boy solemn and ashen-faced. He nodded to Radu and Radu formally dipped his head.

“You will protect us,” he said. Radu wanted to sink into the ground. John nodded again, and Radu realized the boy was reassuring himself. “The men and the walls will protect us.”

Everyone turned, watching as Constantine, stately and regal, marched out of the church. As the door closed behind him, there was a whoosh of collectively held breaths released, along with wails and cries of despair. People scattered in every direction. Radu overheard snatches of plans to hide, places that might be safe, cisterns underground that no Turk would think to look in. At least they knew the limits of their faith.

Radu grabbed the nurse’s arm as she tried to herd the boys away. “Stay here,” he said.

She scowled in offense. “I am to take the boys back to the palace.”

“If the walls are breached, the palace will be the first place the soldiers go looking for loot.”

She lifted her nose defiantly in the air as though Radu’s dour prediction were foul to smell. “Those filthy Turks cannot come past the columns. The angel of the Lord will descend from heaven and drive them away with a flaming sword.”

Radu held back an exasperated huff, though it cost him dearly. Instead he smiled encouragingly. “Yes, of course. Which is why you should stay here. The Hagia Sophia is farther in the city than the angel will let the Turks get, so you will be safest here.”

She frowned, weighing his words.

“And it will do the boys good to pray more.”

No Byzantine nurse could resist the lure of forcing her charges to pray. She took both boys’ hands and marched back into the center of the Hagia Sophia. Radu wished he could do more. But he knew Mehmed would want the Hagia Sophia intact, and would send soldiers to protect it if and when they breached the walls. It was safer than anywhere else in the city.

He walked out the doors, breathing the evening air with relief. Another little hand tugged on his shirt. He glanced down to see Amal. Taking a coin—his last—he placed it in the boy’s palm. “Tell him to look to the gates at the palace wall. I will—”

“Where is my nephew?”

Radu whirled around. Constantine stared wearily back at him. Radu stammered in surprise and guilt. “He—he—he is resting. I think he will recover, but he is not fit to fight.” He glanced to the side. Amal was gone.

Constantine nodded, something like relief in his eyes. “Take his place at my side, then.”

Radu was swept along with Constantine’s party. Stuck in the middle next to Giustiniani, he was unable to slip free. This was not where he wanted to be tonight. He had planned to position himself at the Circus Gate—a small gate opening into Blachernae Palace. He needed to be there. But there was nothing he could do to get away without looking suspicious. Constantine led them through the city, past the inner wall, and to the masses of soldiers clustered in front of the Lycus River section of the wall. It was here and at the Blachernae Palace section that their final stand would be made. The palace was visible in the distance. Nazira was there, as planned, and he was stuck here.

Constantine climbed onto a pile of rubble, looking out in the twilight over the heads of his men. “Do not fear the evil Turks!” His booming voice was punctuated by a distant impact. “Our superior armor will protect us. Our superior fighting will protect us. Our God will protect us! Their evil sultan started the war by breaking a treaty. He built a fortress on the Bosporus, on our land, all while pretending at peace. He looked on us with envy, lusting after the city of Constantine the Great, your homeland, the true homeland of all Christians and the protection of all Greeks! He has seen the glory of our God and wants it for himself. Will we let him take our city?”

The men shouted no angrily.

“Will we let the call to prayer corrupt the air good Christians have breathed for more than a thousand years?”

Another roar, even louder.

“Will we let them rape our women, murder our children and elders, and profane the sacred temples of God by turning them into stables for their horses?”

This time the roar of anger was accompanied by the slamming of spear butts into the ground and the pounding of fists on shields. Radu could not point out that it had been a Christian crusade two hundred years before that had been guilty of all the above.

Constantine continued on. “Today is your day of triumph. If you shed even one drop of blood, you will prepare for yourself a martyr’s crown and immortal glory!” He raised a fist in the air. “With God’s help we will gain the victory! We will slaughter the infidels! We will bear the standard of Christ and earn our eternal rewards!”

The sound of the cheering and screaming was almost enough to drown out the bombardment. Constantine held his arms in the air, then lowered them and turned. His face was haggard and drawn, losing light as quickly as the day turned to night around them. “We lock the gates back into the city,” he said quietly to Giustiniani. “We stand or fall where we are. No one gets out. If the wall falls, we all die together.”

Giustiniani nodded grimly.

Radu watched the two men with a disconnected sense of farewell. In his time here, he had seen them be truly great, holding together a city against impossible odds. And he had seen them commit atrocities while doing it. He respected them, and he hated them, and he knew the world would be lesser for their deaths.

If they died.

He both hoped for and dreaded that outcome, impossible to reconcile, just like everything else in this accursed city. He took a place on the wall next to Giustiniani. Although it was night, the Ottomans had lit so many fires the light bounced off the low clouds, creating an ominous orange haze everywhere. The defenders could not repair the walls, because there was no cover of darkness.

From his vantage point Radu could see the mustering area for the Ottoman troops. Somewhere nearby, Mehmed waited to find out whether his grand design would succeed or fail, whether he would fill the prophecies of generations. Maybe if Radu were out there with Mehmed, this would have all been exciting. It made him ill to think of it, to imagine who he could have been. How easily he could have wanted the end of this city and everyone in it.

It also filled him with longing, knowing it could have been simple. But he released that thought to the night, too, along with everything else. He would die on the wall tonight, between his brothers and his enemies, because he could no longer distinguish between the two. They had finally come to the end. Whichever side won, neither would triumph.

A stone cannonball slammed into the wall beneath Radu and Giustiniani. They fell to their knees, the impact jarring Radu from his toes to his teeth. He shook his head, trying to clear the strange ringing noise in his ears.