So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?

Lada had a sense for power--the fine threads that connected everyone around her, the way those threads could be pulled, tightened, wrapped around someone until they cut off the blood supply.
Or snapped entirely.

And so she cut out her heart and offered it as a sacrifice. She would pay whatever price her mother Wallachia demanded.
“Make me prince,” she said without feeling.

Well, are you ready, Lada Dragwlya, daughter of the dragon?" Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country. This was hers. Not because of her father. Not because of Mehmed. Because the land itself had claimed her as its own. "Not Dragwlya," she said. "Lada Dracul. I am no longer the daughter of the dragon." She lifted her chin, sights set on the horizon. "I am the dragon.

Souls and thrones are irreconcilable.

As the baby latched on with surprising fierceness, the nurse offered her own prayer.
Let her be strong.
Let her be sly.
And let her be ugly.