Conqueror | Murad III

chapter sixty-four

I passed through the guards without waiting for protocol. The marble floors of the palace echoed beneath my steps, but I barely heard them. My body moved with purpose; my soul, however, dragged behind—raw, heavy, scorched.

I found him in his study. Murad stood by the window, his silhouette shrouded in the last shadowy hues of the afternoon. He still wore dark robes, as if Selim's death clung to him physically, but I knew that grief sat differently on men. Their mourning was quieter, more diplomatic. Mine bled through the seams of my being.

"Murad," I said, bowing because my training overrode my pain. Respect, even in fury.

"Hüsniyem," he breathed, and the sound of his voice—warm, weary, still mine—nearly undid me. He approached, hand halfway outstretched, but I stepped back.

"I need you to tell me the rumours are not true."

His expression tightened. "What rumours?"

"That Mehmed is being sent to govern Manisa." The name left my lips like a curse. "That my son's province—his—is being handed to someone who did not even mourn him."

Murad sighed, and it was then I realised he had prepared for this moment. He turned from me, as if distance might soften the blow. "Amasya is too demanding a province," he said slowly. "And Mehmed has struggled... with Selim's loss. Manisa cannot go ungoverned."

"And Mehmed is your only option?" My voice trembled, not from grief but from rage, rising like heat beneath cold skin. "Would you give his city—Selim's—to someone who would rather preen in silks than honour his brother's memory?"

Murad stepped closer, trying to meet my eyes. "Time does not freeze for grief, Hüsniye. Selim was—"

"Do not speak of him in the past tense."

His jaw tensed. "He is alive in you. In our children. In every step you take."

"I do not want to walk without him." My voice cracked, and I hated it. I hated how my grief still made me soft when I wanted to be steel.

He reached for my arms, gently, as he always did when trying to steady me. "You have to let him go."

"I will never let him go," I said, coldly now. "And I will never forgive this."

A knock broke the air between us.

"Your Majesty," a voice from the door said, "Şehzade Mehmed is here."

Murad glanced toward me, uncertain, but I gave no reaction. "Let him wait," he answered. "I am speaking with my wife."

But the door opened anyway.

Mehmed walked in without bowing, with all the arrogance of a boy who believed himself untouchable. His kaftan was embroidered with gold threads—inappropriate for court mourning, but perfectly suited to the self-image he paraded through these halls.

"Father," he said. "I need to speak with you about my harem."

Murad turned, already bristling. "Can you not see I am busy?"

"It will not take long." He glanced at me with practised indifference. "Sultanım," he added as an afterthought.

"I was leaving," I said, smoothing my veil even as I burned underneath it. "Şehzade." My tone made his title feel like a dagger.

"I want Ümmügülsüm added to my harem," he said flatly.

I froze.

The words fell like ice water down my spine. I turned slowly.

"You cannot," I said, my voice low and shaking not with weakness, but with the effort it took to contain what now boiled within me. "She was your brother's concubine."