"Every decision I make, I make for this empire. But she... she is the reason I fight."
Ripped from her noble Venetian life and thrown into the heart of the Ottoman Empire, Cecilia Venier-Baffo refuses to be just another captive. Armed with intellige...
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- Cecilia Venier-Baffo -
The world had gone still, suspended in a moment of unbearable tension. The gnawing ache in my chest grew worse with each passing second, the sensation building like a suffocating weight pressing down on my ribs. I had felt it in my bones, something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The nagging discomfort that had been eating away at me, gnawing at my mind, didn't have a name yet, but it was there. Something was waiting to break loose, something that had already been set in motion.
I was careful, as always. I had spent so many mornings in this very chamber, putting on my dress, adjusting it so it fit just right. I was meticulous about every detail—the soft velvet, the silken lining, the delicate clasp that shimmered with a subtle glow. It was one of my favorites, the one I'd worn a thousand times, the one that made me feel as though I belonged. But that morning, as I placed it on the bed, I had been distracted. The harem was quieter than usual, the silence was thick with something I couldn't quite place, and for some reason, I decided to slip away to the kitchen to brew myself some herbal tea. My hands had been shaking a little then, though I hadn't noticed it in the midst of my routine.
The air in the kitchen had felt cool against my skin as I waited for the water to boil. The herbs, sweet and earthy, steeped slowly, releasing their calming aroma. But something had felt off in the way the steam rose from the pot, something unsettling in the way the scent lingered in the air, but I had shaken it off.
I should have known.
When I returned to my room, everything seemed so ordinary. The dress lay there on the bed, just as I had left it. Unassuming. Innocent. How could I have ever known? The clasp, the little detail that had caught my attention a thousand times, had been tampered with, had been poisoned.
I put it on as usual, feeling the soft fabric slide over my skin, the familiar weight of the clasp against my chest. There was nothing to suggest anything was amiss, no warning, no sign that something dangerous had been hidden in plain sight. I fastened the clasp with my usual grace, unaware that the poison was already seeping into my bloodstream, threading its way through my veins like a dark whisper.
It wasn't until I made my way to Hürrem Sultan's chambers that I began to feel it. At first, it was just a slight irritation on my skin, like an itch that I couldn't scratch. My neck, my arms, my chest—all of it burned as if my skin were suddenly too tight, too sensitive, and I felt a shiver creep down my spine, a coldness that spread from my fingertips to my very core.
I stopped for a moment, halting in the hallway, and pressed a hand to my chest. The itching intensified, turning to a deep, throbbing ache, and before I could even take a breath, I felt my skin begin to change. Slowly, like a creeping tide, it darkened, bruising in patches from a sickly pale to a deep, unnatural purple-blue.
A gasp caught in my throat, and my pulse quickened. My body was betraying me, the poison's effects surging through me with terrifying speed. My breath became shallow, panicked, and my knees buckled under me. My vision blurred, and my thoughts scattered like dust in the wind. I could barely keep myself upright as I stumbled, desperate to make it to the Sultan's chambers.
