Chapter Text
The castle of Sultan Orhan Ghazi glowed warm against the evening sky of Bursa. Torches lined the entrance, their flames dancing in the spring breeze. The smell of roasted lamb, saffron rice, and fresh bread drifted through the air. Tonight was no ordinary gathering; it was a dawat of gratitude, of victory, and quietly, of new beginnings.
The long table was set with the finest copper platters. Orhan sat at the head, Nilüfer Hatun graceful and composed at his side. To his left sat Alâeddin Pasha, his broad shoulders relaxed, one hand resting near Gonca Hatun's, as it always found its way. Malhun Hatun sat with the quiet authority she carried everywhere, not the loudest presence in the room, but somehow the one everyone felt most. Halime sat beside Gonca, the two of them already murmuring something to each other with barely concealed smiles. Fatma sat straight, composed, dressed in deep burgundy, her dark eyes taking in the room.
And then there was Flavius.
He entered without ceremony, which somehow made his entrance more noticeable. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed now in simple but clean Turkish attire, a concession he had made without being asked, and one that had not gone unnoticed. His Byzantine posture hadn't left him; spine straight, steps measured, but there was something different about him tonight. A guardedness that had softened. Just slightly.
Orhan rose. The room stilled.
"Flavius." The Sultan's voice carried warmth that surprised even some who knew him well. "You honour my table." Flavius placed his right hand over his heart and bowed his head, a Turkish gesture, performed with sincerity rather than performance. "The honour is mine, Sultan. I am grateful." Malhun Hatun's eyes moved to him slowly. Said nothing. Watched.
He was shown his seat, across from Alâeddin, two places down from Fatma, who did not look at him when he sat. But the slight shift in her posture told Flavius she was aware of exactly where he was. Yiğit Bey, seated further down with his father Şahinşah Bey and mother Dildar Hatun, had been watching since Flavius walked in. His jaw tightened.
The food came. Conversation rose and fell in comfortable waves. Orhan spoke of the campaign. Alâeddin made the table laugh with a story about a soldier who had fought an entire skirmish with his boot on the wrong foot. Nilüfer added a quiet, precise remark that made even Malhun Hatun smile. Flavius mostly listened. He answered when spoken to, ate with discipline, and laughed at the appropriate moment. He was not trying to charm anyone. Which, ironically, was charming.
Yiğit had been waiting for the right moment.
He found it when a brief silence settled over the table.
"Tell me, Flavius," he said, his tone light but with an edge underneath like a blade wrapped in silk. "Is it difficult… sitting at a Turkish table after spending your whole life fighting the Turks?" The table didn't freeze exactly, but it adjusted. Alâeddin's hand stilled. Gonca looked at Yiğit with a flat expression. Fatma's eyes dropped to her plate. Flavius turned his gaze to Yiğit slowly, the way a man looks at something that does not concern him much. "Not at all," he said pleasantly. "The lamb is excellent. Much better than anything we had in the Byzantine camp, where the cook, I suspect, had a personal grievance against flavour." A small laugh escaped Halime before she could stop it. Gonca pressed her lips together. Yiğit's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I only wonder if old loyalties are so easily set aside." "I wonder the same of some people at this very table," Flavius replied, still calm, reaching for his water. "But then… loyalty was never about where you were born, was it? It is about where you choose to stand. And I have made my choice." He said it without looking at Yiğit again as if the matter was already concluded.
Orhan, who had been watching this exchange with the focused stillness, set down his cup. "Yiğit Bey." His voice was quiet. Yiğit straightened, "My Sultan." "Flavius is a guest at my table. He is here because I invited him. Because he earned his place here." A pause. "I will not say this again."
It was not cruel. It was final.
Yiğit bowed his head. "Forgive me." But his eyes, when they lifted again and found Flavius across the table, said something else entirely.
After the main meal, as the table softened into quieter conversation and tea was brought, Orhan turned his full attention to Flavius, genuinely asking, "Do you remember anything?...Of before."
The table went quiet, understanding that this question carries real weight.
Flavius was still for a moment. Not uncomfortable, thinking.
"Pieces," he said at last. "Like looking at a mosaic that someone has broken and only half reassembled." He turned the cup in his hands slowly. "I remember a village. Not the name of it. But the smell — woodsmoke, wet earth, animals nearby. I remember a house with a low ceiling and a fire that was always too large for the room." The faintest trace of something moved across his face. "I remember a man. Tall. Laughing at something. He had his back to me in the memory; I could never see his face fully. But his hands, I remember. Strong hands. A warrior's hands."
He stopped.
"And then I remember noise. A noise that even a child knows means run." His jaw tightened briefly. "I remember a woman's voice telling me to be quiet. To stay still. And then—" He paused. Set the cup down. "Then nothing. And then Constantinos. And a different life."
Silence followed; people sit in it because they don't want to break it carelessly.
It was Halime who spoke first.
She leaned slightly forward, her dark eyes soft with an entirely personal recognition. "The pieces will come," she said quietly. "They came to me slowly too, first in dreams, then in small moments, a smell, a sound, something that stopped me mid-step and I didn't know why." She paused. "God does not give us our truth all at once. Perhaps because we could not carry it all at once." She smiled, and it was a gentle thing. "But it comes. And when it does, each piece is not a wound reopened. It becomes something you can hold. Something that belongs to you."
Flavius looked at her. Something in his expression, usually so controlled, so read-nothing, shifted.
"Thank you, Halime Hatun," he said. Quietly. Sincerely.
She nodded. "You are not as alone in this as you think."
Across the table, Fatma had been watching him. When he glanced her way, as he inevitably did, she didn't look away immediately this time. For just a moment, their eyes held.
Then she looked down at her tea.