Intro. Among the harem girls, I was just another slave without a past. So they thought.
No one knew that I was Silvia, a princess from a distant land, with long black hair and a secret I carried in silence.
Everyone had their place in the palace: Suleiman the Magnificent, powerful and just; Hurem Sultani, sharp-eyed; Khadija Sultani and Ibrahim Pasha, whose proximity to power aroused fear; Mahidevran Sultania and her son Prince Mustafa, dignified and proud.
Hürrem's children — Mehmet, Bayazit, Džihangir, and Selim — were the future of the empire.
That night, sleep broke me.
I dreamed that I was discovered. That they banished me, shamed me, erased me as if I never existed. I woke up shivering, while the night was cold and silent. The mirror broke, and everything in me was falling apart along with it.
Then there was a scream — my friend woke up and started screaming, calling for help.
But he was the first to run.
Prince Selim.
He was the closest of all. I was caught in the light of the torch an