DILRUBA SULTAN | CONQUEROR OF THE HEART

1st Chapter

Parga, 1522.

"Angelina, did Niko return yet? It is already late, the sun is going down. What did take him so much time?" my father asked me while I was preparing dinner for him.

" He will probably return home soon, father. You shouldn't worry." I said to calm down my father who was scared because my brother Niko was very late home.

After I stayed without my mother three years ago, I took all her duties. I was the only female in house where I lived with my father and my elder brother Niko. My brother and father were fishermen. They did it to help our family survive, after many bad things happened to us.

If there was any luck in our lives, now five of us would live here happily. Mother, father, me, Niko and his twin, Teo. Teo was captured when he was only 10 years old by pirates while they were fishing.

We had no idea if Teo was alive or where he was. My mother died few years later due to broken heart she felt for her son.

I made dinner and set out to set the tableware. I heard footsteps and soon the door opened. Niko came in and I immediately prepared the utensils for him to eat.

"Father, sister, I've brought you a guest you can't wait to see." Niko said. I didn’t pay too much attention to it because I believed he had brought home the woman he wanted to propose to.

"Father, sister." I heard a voice similar to Niko's, I turned and looked at him. My eyes couldn't believe who they saw. Theo.

"Theo!" I said and left everything in my hands and ran into the arms of my long-lost brother.

"Angelina. Sister. What a beauty you've grown into!" Theo said until I let him out of my arms. No one could feel how happy I was when I saw him after 10 years. After 10 years of grief in which we did not know whether he was alive or where he was.

"Theo, sit down. Eat with us. How we missed you." I said and quickly prepared the cutlery to eat for my brother. Our father ran into his arms, shedding tears from the worker.

Theo came over and sat down at the table next to us. How grateful I am to God at this time. Finally we were all together, unfortunately except for our mother. How happy she would be if she knew Theo was alive and back to us.

"Where's the mother?" Theo asked and at that moment my father and Niko just looked at me. It was hard for me to tell him that.

"Unfortunately, she is no longer with us. She died of grief and worry several years after you were abducted." I said trying to stay strong when talking about my beloved mother.

"Theo, where have you been all these years?" father asked him politely.

"In Istanbul. I became the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman and the husband of his youngest sister Hatice Sultana." Theo said and my father, I and Niko just looked at each other in shock. We didn’t know if it was a shock or a thrill at our brother’s such success.

"Theo, congratulations. I hope you are fulfilling your duty in the best possible way. Who would have thought that my twin brother would become the general and Grand Vizier of the most powerful empire." No one said with enthusiasm.

"My name now is Ibrahim. I became a Muslim." Theo said, this Ibrahim. It was weird for me to get used to his new name.

After dinner, Ibrahim went to talk with father and brother. Ibrahim told them all his stories and military successes from the battlefield.

I went to a small room where the main things were. There’s the thing our mother loved most, her violin. All her life she taught Thea to play the violin, but after he disappeared she never played a single tone again.

I took the violin in my hands and approached Ibrahim. He deserved to receive our only inheritance from his mother.

"Mother would like this to be with you." I told him and handed him the violin.

He enthusiastically took the violin in his hands and played. He played the most beautiful notes in the world, the most beautiful tone, the one our mother played as a lullaby.

"My ship is returning to Istanbul tomorrow. I wish you would come with me." Ibrahim said after he had played violin.

My father just looked at me worriedly, and then he looked at Ibrahim as well. As good as that idea sounded, each of us was afraid to leave our hometown.

"I can give you a property that I own. That way we will all be closer. We will see each other all the time, there will be no more separation between us." Ibrahim said cheerfully hoping we would agree to it.

As much as I missed him and as much as I wanted to spend every day near my brother, I was afraid. I was afraid of what might happen to us there.

"Are we going to be a nuisance to you there?" I wondered, fearing how his wife would react to it.

"Angelika, my beautiful sister, how can you bother me? You are my family. Part of my heart. I promise you will like it there." Ibrahim said and put his hands on my cheeks.

"After all, I want you to meet my wife and our child who is on the way." Ibrahim said that I was overwhelmed with happiness because of my brother who would become a father.

"We accept." I said you looked at your father and brother to see if I had permission, and they just nodded.