Kelebek Sultan | {SULEIMAN} Magnificent Century

xix. dead or alive

Istanbul, Turkey

"Poisoned, but by who?"

"Hürrem? Mahidevran?"

"I'm sorry, Sultan. There's nothing we could do to save the child."

"What's happened to her?"

"Why isn't she waking up?"

"You have to find who did this, or it will be your head!"

"I will not be sorry to see you dead. But it was not me."

"It was supposed to kill her faster. What went wrong?"

Light.

Kelebek blinked repeatedly, her eyes burning as she awoke at last.

With a groan, she twisted her head to one side, feeling a heavy weight upon her hand.

Indeed, when she managed to move her head far enough to see that hand, Banu sat by her beside with her hand clasped in hers. Not far behind, on a separate chair, Sevil resided with Zeynep asleep in her arms.

"B-B-Banu," Kelebek tried to say, her voice breaking and throat protesting.

Swiftly, Banu was up, shouting that Kelebek had awoken as she scrambled to get her some water from the table at her side.

All the noise and the bustle that soon commenced was very overwhelming for the blonde, whose head throbbed and felt as if it were pushing in on itself.

"W-what happened?"

Banu looked at the confused woman with great concern, tentatively beginning to explain, "you were poisoned. It was in your drink. I'm so sorry for not realising it it was all my fault, feel free to take me off your service I've failed and-,"

In speaking, the young girl's hands had grown more animated and her tone more desperate. One errant hand whacked into a locked box on Kelebek's bedside, a telltale smash of glass sounding from inside it.

"Banu, stop," Kelebek commanded, trying to rid her head of the harsh fog that had settled within it, "it's not your fault. We will simply have to be more vigilant in the future."

The girl she thought of as a little sister lowered her head in shame, so Sevil continued on her behalf.

"There are no leads onto who poisoned you yet. It's been a week since you fell near the courtyard, and the Sultan has visited thrice," as usual, Sevil had cut straight to the point, informing the other woman of all the important facts.

Kelebek nodded curtly, before coming to a sudden realisation.

"Somebody said something when they thought I was unconscious. They admitted to it," she confided in the two girls, "I'll need a list of all the people that have been to see me."

Both Sevil and Banu nodded determinedly.

Kelebek, however, sensed there was something more to the story when the two girls glanced at one another in what they clearly thought was a inconspicuous way.