"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 palace was too quiet.
Night had fallen hours ago, yet sleep refused to come. My bed was warm, the sheets laced with the faintest perfume, and yet I felt no comfort. No rest. No stillness.
I stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, my fingers drawing invisible patterns on my stomach, waiting for sleep to seduce me, wrap me in its fog—but it never came. The silence gnawed at my mind. The softness of the room suffocated me.
So I rose. I didn't call for anyone. I didn't need guards or attendants. My steps were slow, careful, silent as breath. I wrapped myself in a velvet robe, deep maroon, embroidered with the faintest gold—a gift from Mihrimah once, when we were still pretending not to be friends.
The hall outside my chamber was cloaked in that velvety hush unique to Topkapı at night. Only the softest of torchlight flickered against the stone walls, throwing long shadows that danced like ghosts. I walked with purpose, and with no purpose at all. I only needed to move.
The air was cooler here, scented faintly with jasmine from the gardens beyond the carved arches. A single nightingale sang somewhere in the dark. I paused beneath one of the arches to listen. The song was mournful. Delicate. Too delicate for this palace. It belonged somewhere else.
Somewhere freer.
Somewhere like Venice.
My breath caught.
Venice. I hadn't allowed myself to think of it in days. Weeks, maybe. I used to count the time since I last saw the canals, the rooftops, the women with their veils and secrets and laced fans. Now I didn't count. Time was fluid here. It dripped instead of moved. It stained.
But tonight, I let myself remember.
The heavy scent of salt and sun. The sound of oars slicing through water. My mother's voice calling me inside when the sun dipped too low. The way the light painted the stones pink at dusk. The bells of San Marco.
God, I missed the bells.
There were no bells in Topkapı. Only footsteps. Only whispers. Only the creak of ambition shifting in the dark.
I continued walking.
Down past the Sultan's private gardens, where the lilies curled into themselves for sleep. Past the wing where the concubines lived, silent now—though I knew some of them were awake, just like me, hearts restless with dreams or fears or plans. Past the ancient tapestry hanging crookedly, the one no one ever fixed, as if its imperfection had become part of the wall.
My hand brushed over it as I passed. Soft. Dusty. Faded red and gold.
I didn't know where I was going. I didn't care. My steps were steady, but unhurried. It felt like I was following something—an instinct, a thread, a memory.
