Conqueror | Murad III

chapter seventy-three

My heart ached. My eyes were all dried up. I had began picking at my fingers.

Mahmud's last moments haunted my sleep. Fahriye's did, too.

The scream Hümaşah let out when she found out she had lost her brother was something indescribable. It reminded me of Mihrimah's all those months ago, when my dear Selim left us.

They had clung to their brother's beds the exact same way. An image that will never leave me. Despite what anyone may think, they were more alike than they would like to admit.

Of course, they were still different. While my daughter hugged me until my bones hurt, Hümaşah turned her anger out on me.

Physicians had to come to restrain her. I stood motionless, for she was right.

This was all my fault.

‧͙⁺˚･༓☾　　☽༓･˚⁺‧͙

"Hüsniye..." I ran to Beyhan's side. The small child, barely six, lifted her arm with great effort towards me.

"What can I do for you?"

"I saw you the other day with brother Mahmud..."

I knelt by her. I gently pushed one of her locks from her face, and that unmistakable heat radiated from her forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"I am scared. It hurts, so much."

"I know it does, darling. Do you want medicine?"

Her lips curl in disgust. "It tastes so bad."

"Beyhan, your mother would want you to take it."

She looked at me with her big brown eyes. "Réka."

"What?"

"Mommy likes to call me Réka. It is my special name, like hers is Boglárka."

A small smile found its way to my lips. I remember when Fakriye changed her name to an Islamic one, and I thought she must have been in love with Murad if she was that ready to give up her origins.

Turns out I was wrong. All this time, she had been teaching her daughters to embrace their Hungarian roots.

Beyhan—or Réka—rolled to her side, clutching her stomach. "Can you call me that?" She asked in a whisper.

"Of course, Réka. You are going to be okay."

But she was not listening anymore.

‧͙⁺˚･༓☾　　☽༓･˚⁺‧͙

I hid behind a column and exhaled a long, shuddering breath. This was destroying me. Death seemed to follow me around everywhere I went, to the point where I almost wondered if maybe I should leave.

Go far away to one of my properties where my luck would reach only me. Or was it not bad luck, but a curse?

"What are you doing?" Hümaşah's voice startled me.

"Nothing." I sounded guilty, like my children whenever they took another piece of desert thinking no one would notice.

She rolled her eyes. "Are you not the empire's haseki? You do not have the luxury of hiding away."

I frowned. I knew she intended to hurt my feelings, but she was actually right. Who was I to hide away while people—children—suffered? I was the Haseki Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. I had responsibilities and duties.

I did not have the comfort of turning away and closing my eyes, hoping it would all fade away.

"Of course," she continued. "You have had it easy ever since you arrived in the palace."