Inside the Mutual Death Prison (2)

“Mullaba, I need some cheap clothes.”

“Cheap clothes, you say… what do you mean, Princess-nim?”

Mullaba tilted her head, not immediately understanding the request.

“Thanks to the Minister of Justice, I can visit the Death Factory Prison, but I can’t exactly go in wearing these clothes, can I?”

Mirabilis raised both arms, causing the luxurious black fabric to drape downwards.

“I need a set of cheap clothes that I won’t regret getting dirty.”

But Mullaba couldn’t agree right away.

“Even though it’s the Death Factory Prison, some dignitaries enter as well, so I don’t think you’ll get dirty just by going in as you are.”

“But I don’t want to, so please?”

“To think the day would come when the Princess-nim would be looking for something like that.”

Mullaba shook her head as if dumbfounded, then called a court lady and gave instructions. Soon, the youngest court lady, still looking quite young, scurried over and returned holding clothes with both hands.

“These are the rough clothes that the court ladies wear when they sweep up fallen leaves or roll around in the dirt with the gardeners, Princess-nim.”

The court lady seemed to have brought the cleanest one she could find for the Princess-nim, but even so, the roughly made one-piece dress of dark brown cloth had dirt smudges here and there, and the mended patches were clear. When Mirabilis touched it, she felt a rough texture she had never felt on her skin before. It was indeed clothing made for work, not for decoration.

Mirabilis packed her things. It seemed strange to wear accessories with cheap clothes, so she removed her necklace and rings as well. Miella helped Mirabilis as a lady-in-waiting, but Mirabilis did many things herself. She took a small backpack that the court ladies used to carry around and packed her belongings inside.

She remembered hearing that Serina liked Dongji food, especially honey-glazed sandwiches. When the Princess entered the kitchen, the cook, who was preparing a meal inside, was so terrified that he knelt down and bowed his head. Mirabilis calmed him down and slowly explained the situation. She asked him for two slices of a special sandwich with extra honey.

She also tried to pack a bottle of alcohol. But after hearing the explanation, the cook said, “Princess-nim, if you’re planning to give it to someone being tortured and trapped in a cold place, you should nourish their body. Please take this instead.” He handed her something else.

It was a decoction of medicinal herbs that commoners often drank to warm their bodies in winter. It was heated and sealed in a ceramic bottle, making it difficult to touch with bare hands, so the cook put it directly into the backpack.

“What else do I need?”

Mirabilis thought. As she walked around the Rose Palace in the rough clothes that the court ladies wore when working in the garden, everyone was dying to ask, ‘Why is the Princess-nim doing this?’ but no one dared to ask the reason.

“Mullaba, thank you for everything.”

“Princess-nim, what are you saying all of a sudden?”

Before leaving the Rose Palace, Mirabilis took Mullaba’s hand. The old woman’s hand, which had spent years in the Rose Palace, was wrinkled and rough like her life. The veins on her dry, twig-like hand bulged out like earthworms.

“Since it’s Dongji, please give the Rose Palace staff a special meal after I leave. I’ll cover the costs with my own money.”

“Mirabilis-nim, why are you suddenly doing this?!”

Mullaba was agitated and raised her voice. It was an unthinkable act of disrespect for a head court lady to raise her voice to the owner of the palace she served, but Mirabilis only gave a bitter smile and said nothing. That appearance only made the head court lady feel more uneasy. So she called Miella and ordered her to attend to the Princess-nim, but Mirabilis firmly refused.

“I want to go alone.”

Before Mirabilis left the palace, Alika came out with something wrapped in oiled paper and cloth. Then, kneeling down, she respectfully offered it, saying, “Please give this to Serina when you go to see her. Serina likes it.” The greasy smell and heat of freshly baked sausage were faintly felt in her hand.

“What is this?”

When the Princess asked, the court lady Alika carefully opened her mouth, feeling honored.

“The palace staff often grill sausages over the brazier on winter nights. Serina also likes them.”

The Princess stared at the court lady’s face. The fact that a mere court lady knew something about Serina that she didn’t made a dark, jealous feeling surge up. But the Princess didn’t bother to show it outwardly and packed it into the backpack as well.

“…Is that so? I understand. I’ll give it to Serina.”

The Death Factory Prison was inside the palace, as it was where the Changwei kept important unconvicted prisoners they had dragged in. Therefore, even if she went alone, she wouldn’t be going far. But it was the first time since she was born that Mirabilis had gone outside her residence in broad daylight without anyone accompanying her.

Under the gloomy gray sky painted by the clouds, white parallel lines were slowly drawn. Snowflakes fell softly on Mirabilis’s cape, and the sound of her footsteps crunching on the snow was soft with each step. Her hands were so cold that she blew on them to warm them up.

Mirabilis felt as if she were embarking on a long journey, even though she was only walking inside the palace. As if she were going to the distant, faraway snowfield. If it was a conceptual distance rather than a physical one, it was indeed a faraway place. Small footprints dotted the snow, leading to the Death Factory Prison.

Watching Mirabilis’s back as she left the Rose Palace alone, Mullaba felt a heavy foreboding in her heart. He had seen people like that several times over the years. Looking at the empty smile that seemed like it would disappear at any moment, it felt like old, painful memories would resurface.

In the end, she decided to lead her old body and secretly follow her master. It was an unprecedented situation for both the owner of the palace and the head court lady to be away from their posts when there wasn’t a major event, so she had a senior court lady take over in her absence.

The Death Factory Prison was a heavy stone building, but it didn’t pay any attention to the aesthetic sense of the building. The narrow windows, irregularly pierced throughout the building, made it look as if a giant with a face full of pockmarks had buried his body in the ground and only half-exposed his face.

Snow piled up white on Mirabilis’s clothes. When Mirabilis arrived at the Death Factory Prison on one side of the palace, a guard (衛士: 경비병) was waiting in advance. At first, he didn’t recognize Mirabilis at all.

“I am Princess Mirabilis.”

The sturdy guard who was guarding the front of the Death Factory Prison looked at the woman who came alone wearing rough clothes, a cape, and a backpack on her right shoulder from head to toe as if dumbfounded, then looked at her face for a moment, thought about it, and was startled and knelt down in a fluster.

“Princess-nim, why did you come alone in such attire? Please forgive my rudeness. I couldn’t recognize you at all.”

Mirabilis didn’t blame the guard. No one in the palace would think that the Princess would be walking around in such attire in broad daylight. She stood the guard up.

“I received orders from above. The Princess-nim can meet the suspect for two hours.”

Even after entering the building, the chill didn’t disappear. This building wasn’t built to keep people warm, so it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. It was one trick to torment the mind and body of the person trapped inside. The sound of footsteps echoed. The interior of the plain building, which wasn’t decorated at all, looked like the belly of a giant monster to Mirabilis.

Suddenly, when she raised her hand and touched the wall, the rough texture and chill of the hard stone were transmitted to her fingertips. Even though it was daytime, the inside of the building was as dark as night because there were almost no windows, so many torches were hung in the hallway. It seemed like it would take a lot of work to manage the torches. When she walked along the maze-like complex hallway as if the threads were tangled and turned directions, she felt dizzy and nauseous as if she were on a boat.

“Here it is.”

The guard stopped in front of a door and rummaged through his waist. A heavy wooden door made only to imprison people, excluding decorations. The iron added to increase the strength of the door seemed to divide the inside and outside more firmly, so Mirabilis felt suffocated just by looking at it.

The guard took out the key with a clanging sound, opened the door, and went inside. Serina was huddled on the wooden bed, covering herself with the long cloth she had received as a blanket, like a baby.

The guard woke Serina up, pushed the wooden bed into a corner of the prison, and chained her hands and feet to the shackles on the wall where the bed had been. Unable to resist the guard’s rough hands at all, Serina was left dangling on the stone wall with her limbs spread out. The short iron chain connected the wall and the shackles, allowing her to move her limbs slightly, but that was all.

“Is it really necessary to go that far?”

“It’s the rule of the Death Factory Prison. When a suspect and a high-ranking person talk inside the prison, they are restrained like this to prevent those who have nothing to lose from harming the dignitaries.”

The guard answered politely, placed a chair opposite Serina, and hung a torch on the hook on the wall. When Mirabilis bent down and entered, the guard left the door open and stood at the doorway. The sound of the sword at his waist hitting the door rattled.

“Guard, can Serina and I talk alone?”

“I’m sorry, Princess-nim. This is also a rule.”

Mirabilis took out a jeweled brooch from her backpack and handed it to the guard. It wasn’t big, but the decorated jewels were quite valuable, sparkling brilliantly. The guard looked back and forth between the brooch in his hand and Mirabilis in front of him.

“Please.”

Mirabilis held the guard’s strong hand tightly with her slender hand and folded her fingers to hold the brooch. The hesitation didn’t last long.

“I won’t lock the door, and I won’t come back for the next two hours. Please talk comfortably.”

When Mirabilis nodded, the guard quietly closed the door. The prison where Serina was trapped was narrow and dark. Even though it wasn’t underground, the narrow cuboid space built with cold stone walls was gloomy like the underworld.

Only the small window high up where no matter how hard she tried, her arms couldn’t reach, proved that this wasn’t underground and was nothing more than a narrow door connecting to the world. It wasn’t smelly because it was cold, but a faint smell of urine and feces could be felt in the prison. Mirabilis tightened her cape again.

Serina’s appearance was terrible. Her eyes were sunken, she was bruised all over from being beaten, and there were clear burn marks on her back and arms. Because she hadn’t been treated, it should have festered, but thanks to the coldness of the prison, it didn’t fester and the pus flowed and froze.

Thanks to desperately protecting her fingers and toes, she seemed to have barely avoided frostbite, but the bare skin that wasn’t completely covered by the meager scraps of cloth that were closer to being stripped off than worn was frostbitten and turning red, and the color was gradually darkening.

In addition, it seemed difficult to move her right arm. The guard had only acted according to the rules, but even if her right arm wasn’t tied, she couldn’t even chase away a mouse. This was because the Minister of Justice had stepped in, and the Changwei was being cautious and torturing her less, so her ‘physical condition was the most intact,’ which was absurd.

“Princess…-nim.”

Serina opened her mouth with difficulty. Mirabilis hesitated, not knowing what to say, then moved it to the tip of her tongue in a low voice.

“Your body doesn’t seem to be okay…”

Serina lowered her head. She didn’t want to talk about or show her body in this condition, but she couldn’t even cover it with her hands because she was tied up in restraints.

Despite having lived as a Princess, or perhaps because she had lived as a Princess, Mullaba was the only person she could talk to openly. Except for him, the only person who had crossed the line of her heart that Mirabilis had drawn was a court lady from a fallen family.

It would be absurd to say that her life as a Princess was like darkness. But that was definitely how Mirabilis felt. Until she recognized the person who had come to her, trapped in a cold, dark, and lonely place, licking her wounds alone.

Before that, Serina was just a court lady next to her. But at some point, she became not just a simple court lady, but a ‘person’ with the name ‘Serina.’ Only then did the reality she lived in become warm with light, and the festering wounds scabbed over and gradually healed.

She didn’t want to go back to the days when she was huddled in the Rose Palace, insignificant. She didn’t want to lose the person who had taken root deep in her heart. When Mirabilis thought of Serina, a strange confidence and expectation would spring up in her heart.

That’s why Mirabilis wanted to be Serina’s strength in times like these. Wasn’t she a member of the Imperial family and a Princess? She wanted to be the light, lifeline, and support for this person who had entered deep into her heart. She wanted to be the mountain (山) that Serina leaned on, not anyone else, only herself.

Fallen flowers bloom again, but broken flowers cannot bloom again. If Serina was by her side, she was sure that she would wither, but she would not be broken. If she couldn’t be a ‘mountain’ for someone even in moments like this, she would feel infinitely miserable. If she was born into the Imperial family and appointed as a Princess, but couldn’t save even one person, she would be trapped in a colder, darker, and lonelier place than before she met him, groaning.

The resentment and coldness embedded in the stone walls of the Death Factory Prison became thin blades, making the Princess’s heart ache as if they were finely chopping it. She wanted to hug Serina and warm her with her body temperature right away. If she hadn’t had that dream, she would have done so without hesitation.

Mirabilis’s heart ached as if it were drying up. She had thought a lot about what she wanted to ask before coming in, but when she saw Serina’s appearance, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She was only filled with the desire to take care of and heal that wounded body.

Hot water welled up in her eyes, but she wiped it away with her sleeve as if nothing was wrong. The Princess put her backpack down on the floor and hesitated for a moment before rummaging through her luggage and taking out the food she had brought from the palace. Then, she moved the words to the tip of her tongue with a forced bright face and voice.

“I got it from the Rose Palace. I heard you like Dongji food? You probably haven’t eaten properly, so eat quickly.”

Serina opened her mouth with difficulty. Because her arms and legs were tied to chains and she couldn’t move, Mirabilis had to hold the sandwich up for her to eat. The nectar made by the bees was so sweet to Serina that it was so intense that she couldn’t feel it all with her tongue. While shaking her body at the violence of the honey swirling in her mouth, her mouth didn’t stop eating the food at all.

Mirabilis didn’t move and held it up with her hands. It took a while, but when Serina had eaten everything, she took out the bottle again and made her drink the soup. She also fed her a piece of sausage that Alika had given her. The soup had cooled down in the meantime and was warm enough for people to drink.

Only then did Serina seem to regain her strength. When she saw the Princess, she was overwhelmed with joy and sadness, and tears flowed out on their own. Mirabilis quietly sat down on the chair. Serina lifted her face and looked at the Princess properly. His appearance, lit by the meager light coming in from outside and the torch, was very unfamiliar even to Serina’s eyes.

“Why… are you wearing such rough clothes?”

“I thought elegant clothes wouldn’t suit coming into the Death Factory Prison.”

Mirabilis answered briefly and explained the situation. She would be acquitted in three days, or a week at the latest, and it seemed that Padrentia had been plotting something. Serina listened to the explanation, sobbing. Mirabilis’s voice echoed quietly in the prison.

Her body was in pain, so she couldn’t remember the contents properly, but thanks to eating a proper meal after a long time, she somehow managed to understand the contents by rolling her head. Still, one thing was certain. She was deeply relieved by the fact that she would be out in a week at the latest, so she only had to endure until then.

“So, the fact that you committed the crime of violating the alcohol ban is likely a false accusation made by the Chrysanthemum Palace. It was probably intended to cut off my limbs. Or maybe it was just to torment me. But…”

Mirabilis stopped talking for a moment. Worries about whether it was okay to interrogate her like this crept in. The regret that she wanted to just dismiss it as a dream and move on, rather than breaking her relationship with Serina, weighed heavily on her and pressed down on her chest.

But she wanted to believe. She wanted to trust purely and without any suspicion. Rather, that’s why she mustered the courage to get a clear answer. If she didn’t ask here and now, she felt like she wouldn’t have another chance to ask in the future.

Serina felt that his atmosphere was different from before. An appearance she had never seen before. It was different from before and after casting the hypnosis magic. She suddenly felt uneasy at the firm momentum that seemed to be determined with all her might.

“The Minister of Justice sent a magician who cast a dispelling spell, saying that it was a set procedure because you might have committed the crime of violating the alcohol ban.”

The moment she heard the word dispelling spell, Serina’s body flinched. Mirabilis’s eyes were dull, but she didn’t miss it because she was looking at Serina with all her might.

“Nothing happened at that time. Not immediately after receiving the dispelling spell. But… but I had a strange dream that night.”

Mirabilis stopped talking and looked at Serina’s face. As if a cook was observing the dish he had made, the Princess widened her eyes to not miss even one expression. Serina found that gaze too burdensome.

“Do you know what kind of dream it was?”

Serina didn’t say anything. Mirabilis didn’t seem to want an answer either.

“In the dream, I called you Older Sister-nim. I liked and missed you so much that I walked with you in the garden, knelt down, and kissed the back of your hand.”

Mirabilis’s voice, which was heard in Serina’s ears, was quiet but pierced her heart like a knife.

“I missed and longed for you so much that I asked you to… well… to serve me… and I hugged you…”

It seemed embarrassing for Mirabilis to mention serving her herself, so she lowered her head and hesitated.

“I was really happy.”

The Rose Palace Princess’s emotions were transparently embedded in her calm tone and flickered. The Princess confessed her feelings to the court lady in an unusually sincere way.

“When you were hurt, I wanted to drink your blood, for the reason that I wanted to get closer to you. And later, eventually…”

Mirabilis took a breath and paused for a moment. She hesitated as if it was burdensome just to put it into words, but eventually she spoke.

“…I even volunteered to become your slave. Because I liked you so much, because I was so sorry, just for the one reason that I wanted to be a special person to you.”

The court lady didn’t answer this time either. And Mirabilis looked at Serina’s eyes. Mirabilis could guess the emotions underlying those brown eyes that shone so beautifully in the dream. It was painful to see her trembling eyes, which were filled with surprise, shock, and embarrassment.

“That dream was so vivid. Immediately after waking up from the dream, I was so swept away by the wave of intense emotions I felt in the dream that I couldn’t control myself. Even after you were captured by the Changwei, I never thought you had committed a crime. But… now doubt has grown in my heart.”

When she stopped talking again, a silence like a graveyard dominated the two of them. Mirabilis took something out of her backpack and threw it at Serina’s feet. She couldn’t see properly what it was because it was buried in the darkness of the floor that wasn’t reached by the light because it was fixed to the wall, but she could guess it by hearing the dull sound of stone and leather colliding. It was the black dog collar she had given her before.

“I don’t remember bringing something like this in, so why is it among my belongings? I don’t want to believe it. But… I have to ask. Serina, did you… cast forbidden magic on me?”

Serina’s breathing became rough.

‘I’d rather do it here and now…’

She desperately wanted to take out the Keyword. If she erased Mirabilis’s memory in a hypnotic state and endured for a few days, she would be able to get out of the Death Factory Prison. But now that he was suspicious of her, she doubted whether the Keyword would work. If she failed, it would really be over.

And above all, she didn’t want to just stand behind the shield of hypnosis in front of Mirabilis. Whether she was good or bad, she wanted to remain someone who could really be called ‘Older Sister-nim’ in front of him. Even though she thought she was crazy, she took a deep breath and tried to boost her courage. It hurt as if her esophagus was burning, like when drinking strong alcohol.

“Yes.”

A concise answer of affirmation, omitting all honorifics. At that moment, Serina saw red rose petals gushing out of Mirabilis’s body. As if flower rain was fluttering down from the high sky, blood-like petals filled the narrow cuboid space of the Death Factory Prison, fluttering down and disappearing without a trace when they fell to the floor. At that moment, she realized.

‘The hypnosis magic… is broken.’

The moment she acknowledged the question that was asked with suspicion, the power of the conjunctive words contained in the suggestions that Serina had cast bounced out in the shape of flower petals. Mirabilis, sitting between the faint light coming in from the narrow window and the flickering torch, looked truly beautiful in Serina’s eyes, with red rose petals falling softly.