2nd Chapter

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I sat in my chambers on the terrace from which the whole of Istanbul and even the surroundings could be seen. You could smell the Bosphorus that adorns this beautiful city. The junction of two seas, the junction of two continents. The birdsong could be heard at any moment.

Spring has arrived, and it was my favorite season. The season in which I was born. All my life I have been looking forward to spring and the birdsong as well as the blooming of the flowers. But this spring has not been happy for me. This was the first sad spring I spend alone without my father Sultan Selim Khan.

I was born as the second child of Sultan Selim Khan and his lawful wife Dilara Haseki Sultan. I was born on May 15 exactly eighteen years ago. Joy to my father, sorrow to my mother.

My mother was born as a Circassian and she arrived as a slave in my father’s Harem while he was still a prince. He fell in love with her at first sight. Soon, she became his legal wife. She first gave him a son, Osman, and a few years later me.

That morning when I was born, my mother was very disappointed to give birth to a baby girl. She wanted to have a son. My father was very happy to have a daughter. He always resented my mother’s anger at my birth, which she never hid. But she obviously did not know that she would need me to make political alliances and strengthen the chances of my brother coming to the throne.

After my birth, my father found another slave girl he fell in love with. Mahfiruz, a Greek woman. She soon gave him a son, Prince Mehmed, which greatly angered my mother. My mother did everything to get Osman to the throne one day. She dedicated her whole life to him.

After Mahfiruz, the father found Zeynep. He soon had a daughter with her, Esmahan, and my mother was overjoyed that no other prince had been born to threaten Osman.

My father always told me that I was his favorite child. How I am like the pupil of his eye. He was the one who always spent time with me, taught me everything. I learned five foreign languages ​​with him, because he invested a lot of effort and time in my education. My father taught me politics and government affairs.

He emphasized to me several times that he would most like it if it were possible for me to succeed him to the throne one day, because I was more intelligent and wiser than my brothers. But that was not possible. It was not possible for a woman to inherit the Ottoman throne.

My mother had made alliances all her life that would allow her to put Osman on the throne. She gathered with highly regarded politicians and offered them rewards if they helped her. Osman was eldest pdince, and he was traditionally to inherit the throne.

My life was perfect until that fateful day, which I remember as if it were yesterday. I was sitting with my mother in the Gardens when our faithful assistant Musa-aga informed us that my father Sultan had passed away. At that moment, the whole world turned upside down for me. It all went downhill. My father died so unexpectedly.

The worst thing of all is that both Osman and Mehmed were in the sanjak. My mother and I prayed to God every day for Osman to arrive in Istanbul before Mehmed, because the law of fratricide was still in force. We knew that whoever arrived first would have to kill the second.

Everything looked perfect, Osman had a better chance of getting to Istanbul sooner. But Mehmed's mother Mahfiruz ordered Mehmed's best friend and right-hand man, Iskender, to kill Osman when he arrived in Istanbul.

The next scene I remember is my brother coming to Istanbul, but coming in the coffin. My mother and I were left broken then. We knew what that meant. She lost her son and I lost my brother. Mehmed, my half-brother, is the next Ottoman Sultan.

The first decision he made was to expel my mother to the Palace of Tears, the Old Palace. In the moments when I was having the hardest time, he distanced me from my mother who was my only support.

I promised myself one thing. I will never forgive Mehmed, never. I will avenge him for Osman's death in the worst possible way. Whoever raises his hand against my family will receive my punishment. Regardless he is the Sultan of the whole world.

I am Handan, and this world will remember me. I will do what no one before me has done. I will do everything to avenge my brother Osman, even if it means shedding blood in my own family.


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