Inside the Mutual Death Prison (3)

Mirabilis didn’t want to believe it. She absolutely refused to believe that Serina had cast some strange magic on her. That’s why, even as she entered the prison with a belly full of suspicion, she wanted to hear the answer, “I would never do such a thing, please believe me, Princess-nim.” But the moment Serina admitted it, the doors to her locked-away memories suddenly burst open from the depths of her mind.

She’d already tasted it once in a dream, but the things that poured out from beyond the memory gates were all so intense that Mirabilis couldn’t handle them. Her vision seemed to spin, and she staggered, pressing her right hand to her forehead and taking deep breaths to calm herself. As the dizziness subsided, the anger of being betrayed surged up, simmering in her chest.

“I firmly believed you wouldn’t do such a thing, and I went all over the place trying to save your life, visiting the Minister of Justice and meeting with Royal Father, His Majesty.”

The Princess spat out each word as if she were chewing it, and Serina saw the muscles in her jaw tense as she gritted her teeth. Mirabilis clenched her fists tightly, trembling as she struggled to suppress her resentment. For a moment, she couldn’t say anything, her mouth opening and closing like a mute. It was as if she was struggling, unable to find the words she wanted to say because there were too many of them.

“Why… why!”

Mirabilis, who had been trying to speak like a Princess as a habit, finally lost her composure. The sharp voice of the wounded young lady filled the cold, tomb-like prison.

“I liked you, I cherished you! I thought you were the first friend I’d made in the palace! Is even that feeling something you manipulated with that strange magic?”

Mirabilis’s eyes glistened with tears.

“Did you like it? Did you feel like I was ‘fake’ when you dismissed me as such? Did you feel like you were someone important when I called you Older Sister-nim and clung to you?”

Because she had never learned to swear, Mirabilis couldn’t properly curse even in this situation. But her emotions were conveyed raw and unfiltered.

“Did you like it when I asked you to hug me? Were you proud when I endlessly adored you? Did you feel like an Emperor when you made me your slave? Were you happy to manipulate and mock me? You, who only used some wicked and deceitful magic?”

She even abandoned the authoritative tone she used as a Princess, revealing her emotions as just ‘Mirabilis,’ a human being. Her voice, filled with anger and malice, pierced Serina’s heart more intensely than any curse.

“When I became your younger sister, I revealed everything to you. I was willing to do anything I could for you, if you only wanted it. But you put false emotions into me with strange magic and mocked me. Not only that, but you weren’t satisfied with just being Older Sister-nim and younger sister, you even tried to make me your slave.”

Mirabilis’s mouth was parched. Even though she wasn’t screaming, her throat hurt, and it felt like a brackish taste of blood was seeping up from inside her esophagus. It was as if pieces of her internal organs were flying out with every word she spoke.

The young lady called Princess clenched her right fist and struck the air with all her might. Like warriors wielding swords, as if trying to cut the threads that Serina had cast. But the hot lump of fire lodged in the corner of her heart was neither cut nor extinguished.

“Did you hate me? Did I commit such a great sin that I deserved to be treated like this by you? Even if I were an enemy who couldn’t live under the same sky, I would rather kill you than mock you like this. You barged into the depths of my mind and freely carved your name and messed it up. To the point where I believed it was love even when I was being ridiculed, and I thought it was trust even when I was being mocked.”

Like a butcher’s blade digging into the bones and joints of an animal to dismember its limbs, the anger and sorrow that burned her heart and wandered aimlessly seemed to break her bones into pieces. She couldn’t figure out how to cut the terrible emotional cords that were strangling her heart.

“I trusted you endlessly, but you always had a face filled with scorn. I approached you with love, but you treated me with false mockery. I was just a foolish puppet dancing on the stage of the deception you created, believing that I was loved by you.”

Serina could smell the brackish scent of blood and the damp smell of water in Mirabilis’s voice. The words that came like a storm had no form, but each one was as cold and sharp as a dagger. She couldn’t look directly at the eyes of the person who had been her younger sister, they were so bright that they pierced the heart of the one who had been her Older Sister-nim, but she soon steeled her heart and opened her eyes wide.

“I liked… it.”

Mirabilis flinched for a moment. Serina thought that her body and mind were like rags, but she thought that this was what she had to do here. She gathered all the power of her words, as if sewing torn rags back together, and cast a hypnotic spell on herself once again.

“Power… in my body. My body… doesn’t hurt…”

The power of the hypnotic spell temporarily made the pain disappear from her body and filled her with strength. But this was like a debtor borrowing money here to pay off a debt there, a double-edged sword that would plunge her into deeper pain and helplessness the moment the hypnotic power was cut off.

But Serina didn’t want to answer Mirabilis in a weak state here. Even if it was a heinous act, she didn’t want to turn a blind eye to what she had done.

“I wanted to have you. I wanted to possess you. At first, I just wanted you to let me sleep well and stop bothering me, but at some point, I became fascinated by you. I wanted to make every drop of your blood, every handful of your soul’s dregs, my own.”

A dark, faint smile spread across the face of the woman hanging there. Memories of unforgettable moments flashed through her mind like a revolving lantern. Her lips seemed parched, so she licked them.

“At first, it was just an impulse, but at some point, it became a desire and an ambition. I wasn’t without guilt, but when I thought of you escaping from me, even those feelings were pushed aside. I wanted to dye your soul completely with my blood, to brand each and every one of them with my name. I wanted to shout to the world that you were mine, my beloved possession that had entered my realm of rights.”

She was speaking to Mirabilis, but also to herself. Looking back on the past that had swept over her mindlessly, Serina reaffirmed her feelings.

“I have never so desperately coveted anything in my life. Even though I thought it was a sordid and dirty obsession, even though I was afraid I might die, I was willing to endure all of that and move forward.”

Serina stretched out the fingers of her only moving left hand and pretended to grab something. Mirabilis couldn’t take her eyes off the withered fingers moving through the trembling of the cold air.

Even though she was just a woman hanging on the wall with a body that had been tortured and ruined, Mirabilis saw her as a monster from an old tale. The Princess opened her mouth and hesitated as if to say something, then drooped her shoulders.

“Crazy bitch.”

It was the most vile curse Mirabilis had ever uttered since she was born. But Serina no longer lowered her head. At this moment, the two were talking not as Princess and maid, Older Sister and younger sister, master and slave, but as equal peers. It was a paradoxical moment when they revealed their honest selves to each other.

“The more you called me Older Sister-nim and approached me, the more I became entangled with you. If you were just a puppet, then I was just a foolish and clumsy clown who was tangled in the strings of the doll I was manipulating, unable to move.”

Serina continued, thinking that she looked like a doll displayed in front of Mirabilis because of the shackles and chains that bound her hands and arms.

“Mirabilis… you may not know it yourself, but you are a bewitching woman. Did I like it? I liked it. Did I feel like I was someone important? I felt like it. To the point where the fire of agony that rose in my heart burned me, to the point where I struggled to remain as Older Sister-nim to you.”

Serina tried to raise her arms, which were bound to the wall, but her right arm was numb and she couldn’t move it properly. Only her left arm was raised, and the shackles and chains connected to the wall rattled. Even though she had alleviated the pain with hypnotic magic, it was still tinglingly painful, but Serina tried to smooth her face as if she were calm.

“So you dominated and mocked me?”

Mockery, ridicule, there was definitely that meaning too. The Keyword ‘Regina Lecta’ was created with a mocking meaning from the start. She didn’t deny it, and she couldn’t deny it.

“Yes. I had to do that much to completely possess you. I made you value the sisterhood we had more than Padrentia, but I couldn’t be satisfied with just that. You’ll remember it all now, won’t you? The memories of when you were in my grasp. Weren’t you happy? Weren’t you happy? Weren’t you… ecstatic?”

Mirabilis didn’t answer. Seeing her face flustered because she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right words, Serina opened her mouth. To Mirabilis, it looked as if only Serina’s face was sticking out and gleaming in the darkness, like a giant snake coiling in the depths of a cave, raising its head and shining its eyes.

“Mirabilis, resentful Princess-nim, Mirabilis, lovely younger sister, Mirabilis, obedient slave, Mirabilis, wanderer searching for happiness.”

As if she had forgotten what her situation was, Serina spoke in a singing tone.

“Don’t say any more! Witch!”

Mirabilis covered her ears and shook her head from side to side, trying not to listen to Serina’s words. But Serina continued to open her mouth as if singing. Even though she tried not to listen, Serina’s voice penetrated between her fingers and seeped into her mind.

“Why did you come to me? Why did you bother to be alone with me and try to confirm the truth? Isn’t it because that moment was so happy, because you didn’t want to break that relationship? There’s no need to deny it. Just be honest with your heart.”

Mirabilis covered her ears and shouted as if screaming.

“Shut up! Don’t cast magic!”

“It’s not magic.”

Mirabilis raised her head. The terrifying feeling from a moment ago was gone, and she saw the figure of a woman fixed to the wall, powerless and pathetic, as if she had aged decades in an instant.

“The magic I used can’t be cast again once it’s broken. And… because you rejected my magic in a weakened state from the counter-spell, the magic I cast on you broke the moment you admitted that I had cast magic. Right now, I’m just a lowly woman facing death.”

Mirabilis put her hand inside her clothes and took something out. She could tell right away what it was. It was the dagger that Serina had once taken with her body, and that Mirabilis had put her hand on.

“I hate you. When I think about how you’ve been playing with me all this time, I feel so resentful that I’m going out of my mind. I thought I hated Padrentia for a long time, but compared to the feelings I have for you now, that’s like love.”

The young lady took a step closer and poked Serina’s left chest with the tip of the knife. She tormented the area where Serina had been injured by the knife before, gnawing at it so that it didn’t bleed, but it hurt terribly.

“If I stay like this, I’m not really alive even if I live. How can I soothe this pain? Will it disappear even a little if I kill you? Will I be comforted if I see you writhing in pain and crying blood in front of me?”

The tip of the knife slowly moved upwards from her left chest. Following the grain of the metal forged to cut flesh, a red line was drawn on the skin of the bound woman, and soon a scarlet fluid filled it and flowed down. Serina trembled and took a deep breath, more because of the longing of her mind than the suffering of her body.

“Have you ever seen it outside the palace? I’ve never seen it, but when hunters catch animals, they hang them upside down on trees and cut their throats to drain all the blood. It’s not upside down, but doesn’t your current appearance look similar?”

Mirabilis once again put the knife to Serina’s left chest and poked it, then drew another red line on her skin along a similar path. When the iron, which was closer to death than life, reached Serina’s neck, she stopped there and spoke at the tip of her mouth.

“I’ve been played by you all this time, but not anymore. That wicked magic is broken, and now your life is entirely in my hands. Don’t bluff. Even if I cut your body with this knife, you can’t do anything.”

Mirabilis put the blade to Serina’s neck and moved it back and forth as if sawing, making a wound. Faintly, blood seeped out. It was a slow, gnawing movement as if she wanted to be in pain. But Serina didn’t feel any pain yet, thanks to the hypnotic magic, even as she felt the cold sensation of the iron digging into her neck.

Mirabilis tried to control her expression and opened her mouth in a fierce tone. Her appearance was reminiscent of the Empress’s language and appearance, but it was somehow awkward.

“You tried to make me your slave, so now I will possess you. Cling to me, beg me to save you. Swear that you will completely dedicate your existence to me, your rightful owner, as the price for allowing you to continue your meager and insignificant life. Then I won’t kill you. Instead, I will possess you, use you, and use you as a tool for my pleasure, just as you did to me.”

The blade aimed at the blood vessels in her neck was cold. Feeling the throbbing of the wriggling blood, Serina realized that her dangerous tightrope walk was over. But even in the dark despair that seeped in like a cold wave, there was something she couldn’t let go of.

“No.”

As the Princess put strength into her hand, the blade went in a little deeper. The sharp blade drew a red line on Serina’s neck with just a little force. Little by little, scarlet blood seeped out and flowed down.

“Don’t be presumptuous. Do you still think you’re my Older Sister-nim? You don’t have the right to refuse. Otherwise, you’ll die miserably in this prison, pouring out blood like a hanging beast.”

Serina looked straight into Mirabilis’s eyes. She silently endured the gaze that was a mixture of anger, pain, and sorrow, different from the indifferent eyes before she was hypnotized, and the loving eyes of her younger sister after she was hypnotized.

“If that is… my retribution.”

Mirabilis’s face contorted painfully at the words Serina put at the tip of her mouth, and her tone gradually became rougher.

“Don’t test my mercy. This is your last chance. Beg me, beg me to save you. Flatter me like a vile dog and swear to me that you will offer all your blood and flesh to me without leaving anything behind, and that you will serve me as a loyal servant and toy from now on. Then, only then, despite all the humiliation and contempt I have suffered, I will keep you by my side. I won’t touch your family either.”

If she would save her life and not retaliate against her family, Serina should have fawned and sworn allegiance like a dog, as she said. But the moment she did that, everything Serina had done would disappear like sand scattered in the wind.

Serina couldn’t bring herself to do that. She didn’t want to end everything she had done so far by her own hands just to save her life. She couldn’t abandon the heart that longed for the young lady in front of her.

Like a person who fell into the sea with a gold ingot on his back and couldn’t let go of his burden even as he sank, she couldn’t get rid of the deep attachment to Mirabilis even now. Rather, the love flame burned more clearly in this situation. Serina shook her unsightly body hanging like a piece of meat in the hot flames and groaned painfully.

If she could, she wanted to bind her heart with chains and wrap it around her completely, making it her own. She wanted to get her hands on every drop of blood, every handful of dregs of her soul, the complete entirety of Mirabilis as a ‘person’. Serina repeated those words in her mind. The desire that cannot be severed as a being living on this earth, like appetite or sleep, is called thirst for love. If so, this was also thirst for love.