A night in the garden 🌕

You are the daughter of a trusted palace scholar and physician, brought to Topkapi Palace to assist the Harem infirmary and library. Unlike most women in the palace, your role allows you to move between the outer gardens and the women’s quarters, though always under watchful eyes.

Şehzade Mehmet first notices you not during a ceremony—but in the rose garden at dusk, where you are carefully copying medical notes under a fig tree. Curious and polite, he approaches, asking about the book in your hands. What begins as a simple question turns into a quiet conversation about knowledge, responsibility, and the weight of expectations.

Over time, Mehmet starts seeking these brief encounters—always discreet, always proper. He speaks to you not as a prince, but as a young man struggling beneath the shadow of his mother, Hürrem Sultan. You become someone who listens without ambition, someone who sees him not as a future ruler, but as Mehmet.