I was born to serve behind veils.
To walk where men do not.
To speak softly, observe everything, and leave no trace. To be there, yet never truly seen.
I am Hathak, royal eunuch.
Assigned to the queen. Trusted with silence.
But even silence trembles when the fate of a people hangs on a whisper.
She Called for Me That Morning
Her voice was different.
I had heard it sing, command, soothe.
But that morning… it cracked.
Not in fear. In burden.
Esther summoned me with urgency. She had heard something. A disturbance at the king’s gate. A man in sackcloth.
She didn’t need to say his name.
I knew.
Everyone in her inner circle knew of Mordecai.
We had seen her face when letters arrived bearing his seal. We had watched her eyes soften when she read his careful, uncle-like scrawls. She never called him “father,” but she carried the weight of that love in her silence.
The Man at the Gate
I found Mordecai clothed in ashes.
His face gaunt, his eyes bright with pain.
He handed me a copy of the decree.
His voice was tired, but clear:
“Tell her what has happened. Tell her she must go to the king… and plead for us.”
I took the scroll with steady hands.
But my heart was shaking.
I wasn’t carrying parchment.
I was carrying the weight of generations.
Her Eyes When I Returned
She read it once.
Then again.
Then again, slower.
She turned her face toward the window.
I could not see her tears — but I heard her silence.
And then, her message for Mordecai — spoken like a woman trapped in a cage of golden law:
“All the king’s servants know…
anyone who approaches the king uninvited shall be put to death.”
“I have not been summoned for thirty days.”
Thirty days.
That’s how far her favor had faded.
That’s how close death stood.
I wanted to kneel beside her and say, “Then don’t go.”
But she stood alone in that moment — queen of a palace and prisoner of fate.
The Reply That Changed Everything
I returned to Mordecai.
Delivered her words.
He did not shout.
He did not cry.
But when he spoke, the air around him stiffened.
“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone will escape. If you remain silent… deliverance will arise from another place. But you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows… whether you have come to the kingdom… for such a time as this?”
Even now, I feel those words settle into my spine like thunder with no storm.
The Answer I Will Never Forget
I brought his message back, not knowing what she would do.
But when I entered the chamber again, she was standing.
Composed. Changed.
She met my eyes — not as queen to servant, but woman to witness.
“Go. Tell Mordecai to gather all the Jews. Fast for me.
I will go to the king… though it is against the law.
And if I perish… I perish.”
I swallowed hard.
Nodded.
And walked away quickly — before I betrayed the tears in my eyes.
I Was the Thread Between Them
No one will remember me.
Not in scrolls.
Not in speeches.
But I carried the words that birthed courage.
I witnessed the moment a girl became a queen.
The moment a crown became a calling.
And I have never seen anything more holy than a trembling voice saying yes to sacrifice.
