Conqueror | Murad III

chapter seventy

The palace had begun to feel like a place holding its breath.

Not in silence exactly—there was still movement, still footsteps, still the distant clatter of trays and hurried voices—but everything sounded restrained, as though even the walls had learned to speak more softly. The corridors that once carried laughter now carried caution. Doors were no longer opened with ease, but with hesitation, as if each threshold might lead to something unseen.

I walked through it with Gülbahar slightly behind me, her presence steady but alert.

"The children are still there," she said at last, breaking the quiet between us.

I did not ask which children. There was no need.

The answer was already tightening in my chest.

Hümaşah's chambers had become a sealed world of their own, guarded and avoided in equal measure. Even from here, I could smell it faintly—the bitter herbs, the vinegar, the smoke meant to cleanse what could not be cleansed. It clung to the air like a warning that had already been ignored too many times.

And then I heard them.

Voices. Small, strained, too loud for a place like this.

"I want to see her!" a boy insisted, anger breaking through his fear. "She is my aunt!"

"She will wake up if she hears us," a girl pleaded, as if illness could be persuaded by love alone.

A guard responded, but his voice was careful, unwilling. No one wanted to be the one to turn children away from death.

When I turned the corner, they were all there.

Mehmed stood rigidly near the wall, his posture too controlled for someone his age, as though stillness could protect him from what he could not understand. Mahmud paced in tight, restless lines, his hands clenched and unclenched as if he might fight the sickness itself if given the chance. Ayşe held Fatma close, but even she looked shaken now, her composure thinning with every passing moment.

And Fatma—

Fatma was no longer speaking at all. She only stared at the doors, silent tears slipping down her cheeks, as though she had already begun to accept something her mind refused to name.

No one moved when they saw me.

Before I could speak, the rhythm of the palace shifted.

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor—heavier, urgent, unfamiliar. Not servants. Not guards. Something else entirely.

A voice followed, raised in demand.

"I am not leaving without seeing her."

The words cut through the air cleanly.

Every head turned.

At the entrance to the corridor stood a young woman I had not seen in months, though I recognised her immediately.

Hümaşah.

Not the dying one behind the sealed doors.

My stepdaughter.

Alive. Upright. Breathing too fast, as though she had ridden through fear itself to arrive here.

Her cloak was travel-worn, her hair slightly disordered beneath her veil, but her presence still carried the weight of Safiye's bloodline. She did not look like someone asking permission. She looked like someone who expected the world to move aside.

Behind her, two guards hesitated, unsure whether they were protecting the palace—or restraining her.

"I have come for my aunt," she said sharply, stepping forward before anyone could stop her. "No one will deny me that."