WRITTEN BY: rikiblues
GENRE: HISTORICAL FICTION.
TW: blood, major character death, mild gore
EVEN IF I'M WRONG, I DON'T DOUBT IT
WHAT MATTERS IS BELIEVING IN MYSELF STRONGLY.
"Jaemin!" Seo Nara bursts into the room frantically, wide-eyed, covered in blood. "Tell them I didn't do it! I just found her-tell them I'm innocent! I would never-"
"I cannot do anything," the Grand Prince, Na Jaemin raises a hand to cut her off. "I'm sorry, Nara. But what can I say? They saw you there. That's clear proof to them."
Standing by the window of his room, he looks every bit the prince he is. She hates it.
Nara stops, staring at him. "What?" she nearly screams. "You-you're the Grand Prince and the heir to the throne! Your word is as good as the law at this point! You're the one person in this entire palace who can save me, who has the capability of doing it-"
Jaemin refuses to look at her. "Nara, the whole palace is in an uproar. I can't try to do anything to further complicate matters. You've run away from the guards, too. You're looking as guilty as you can get."
"So what?" she demands, giving a laugh of disbelief. "You're going to let them kill me?"
"That isn't it-"
"Then what is?"
Nara storms right up to him, grabbing him by the collar with her blood-covered hands and jerking him forward to eye level. She has always had the advantage of physical strength over most children her age as a child, and this has remained even as she bloomed into the beautiful young woman that she is today, though it pales in comparison to Sunghoon. Any of the men she finds herself in the company of, really. After all, what exercise that a concubine can get compares to that of the royal princes?
"You," she breathes, "are the biggest coward-"
"If that's your opinion of me," he cuts her off again, a firm hand wrapping around her wrist and freeing him, "why don't you run right back to my brother? I'm sure Jeno will be more than willing to protect you. I'm well aware of what you do behind my back."
Nara inhales sharply; raises a hand, and slaps him across the face. "Asshole," she hisses. "Why bother loving me if this is what you're going to do me? I should have known."
She shoves him back with enough force that he stumbles backwards a couple of steps, requiring him to grab the windowsill with one hand to prevent falling over. The shining fabric of his outfit, all princelike and showy, proving his status as the only actual heir to the throne, swishes as he levels her with a glare.
"Known what, Nara?" he asks evenly, stepping closer, leaning down to gap the eight or nine centimeters between them, getting right in her face with no obvious aggression. "I want to hear it. Go on. Known what? That I wouldn't protect you when I have no need to do so? Hm?"
Nara sees the fury in his eyes, hidden beneath the carefully constructed calm façade he has grown to wear like a skintight mask. Jeno says that Jaemin has always worn it like it belongs to him-no, like it is him. Jeno is right about that. But Jeno doesn't see Jaemin the way Nara does. He doesn't realize that Jaemin is stretched tight and too far, waiting to snap. It's a reason Nara has always been able to sympathize with him.
But no, this prince before her doesn't deserve her sympathy now.
So, she says the one thing she promised herself she wouldn't throw at his face, the thing everyone throws at his face.
"I should've known that a privileged little prince wouldn't do a right thing for someone so far below his status," she hisses. Jaemin's eyes widen, clearly not having expected her to say that of all things. She sees the fury and the betrayal. It doesn't stir the slightest bit of pity in her.
She doesn't wait to see what he says.
***
When Nara was first chosen as Grand Prince Na Jaemin's first concubine, she wasn't a happy girl. Most girls would fall over their feet trying to get in the royal family's good graces, using any methods at their disposal. It came with living in the capital, therefore having a close proximity to the royal family, as close as ordinary villagers could ever get.
She had a life set out before her. She was going get married. She would become a mother and wife, the way she had known she would. She would raise her children, possibly earn a job as a teacher. Female teachers are exceedingly rare, and students are rare as well-most don't bother unless they're hoping to become a scholar, and good percentage of the time, both roles went to males.
But Nara has ways. The palace's scholar is a good family friend, and she has been told by more than a few people that she is very smart. Not to mention, her family is one of the more well-off in the area, and her husband-to-be, Jungwoo, was more than okay with it. He wanted his wife to do well, he said. He wanted her to be happy.
And then she somehow managed to catch the eye of the heir to the throne while out at the market with her mother.
Nara had been taking over the stall for her mother while she headed back to the house, to get them some water on that hot summer day, and things were going fine. She sold the fabrics and other ornaments her father procured through his business of trading as a successful merchant, always with a demure smile and soft-spoken words, a picture of the perfect young lady.
The Grand Prince had been there, and purchased a hairpin for his mother, and then, a few weeks later, the invitation, better phrased as an order, had arrived, and her tearful parents had no choice but to send her off with the guards that arrived three days later.
Her arrival at the palace followed much fanfare. She was the first, after all. Nobody had thought that their withdrawn, headstrong prince would ever get around to choosing any girl at all, whether for marriage or not.
She was forced to smile and wave at crowds, allow herself to be held by the smiling Na Jaemin, allow herself to be kissed by him, and generally pretend to be good-natured and act as if she were delighted to be here. Like every other girl. Like she didn't have other wishes and desires for herself.
What she didn't expect, though, was for Na Jaemin to see right through her.
As soon as she was shown to her quarters, she threw a fit all by herself, ripping off her jewelry and hurling it across the room, watching the jewels crack and break, forcefully loosening her hair of its elaborate style, using too much force to scrub off the makeup on her face. She wasn't quite done keeping her screaming to a minimum and causing as much damage as she could to her finery when a knock on the door startled her.
She opened it, her eyes involuntarily narrowing to slits when she saw the same person who had brought her here standing there. She couldn't control what she said as soon as he stepped into the room and closed the door.
"Want to achieve my purpose so soon?"
"Not at all," Jaemin said easily, taking in the mess of the room. Besides the damage she had done to her outfit, she had kicked the bed angrily, and it was standing maybe three inches to the left of its original position, not to mention the pillows across the room and the sheets in disarray. "You aren't happy to be here."
It was a statement, not a question, that made her laugh. "Yeah, I'm not," she said with as much as heat as she could muster, no longer caring of their positions. "What gave it away? My stiffness when you put your hand on me? Wait-it was the room, wasn't it?"
"I knew you wouldn't be happy here before I sent the invitation," Jaemin said. "But it's irrelevant now. I came here to say that you're not here for the purpose you think you are. To put it simply, you're here to be companion and let me court you."
"Court me? What am I, one of those brainless girls waiting to throw themselves at your feet?" she demanded. "No way in hell, Na Jaemin. I'm only here because we both know damn well that I can't leave without consequences to the both of us. You just try."
***
To his credit, Jaemin did try.
He was very kind to her. He didn't allow the servants to mistreat her out of jealousy, all of them having hoped to be in her position, and often gave her little gifts. Things like small, unflashy bits of jewelry that was still quite beautiful, clothes she could wear when she wasn't required to wear her finery, and every morning, a fresh flower to put in her hair. It varied on different days.
The first day, he met her at her room and placed a red rose in her hands. "For you," he said. She scowled at him and placed it on her bed, because it was still a rose and she did not want to know what would happen if she actually rebuffed his presents as violently as she wanted to. Better safe than sorry, she knew, but also, it wasn't stopping her from being as blunt as she could be when they weren't in the presence of others.
This continued on for days on end. Never once did he step out of line. Never once did her treat her any less than a beautiful woman he was sincerely interested in. Never once did he treat her as any less than someone he cared about. Despite her brashness and open rebuttals, he kept trying.
And, well. She is only one woman with a weak heart that longed for love, too. She had thought she could find that with Jungwoo, eventually, but that was no longer a reality, a fact she had to accept very quickly.
She hated herself for finding that she liked the prince very much within two months. A measly two months was all it took for this privileged royal brat who tore her away from her life to capture her heart.
The morning she realized that was when Jaemin casually placed a sunflower in her hair, to match the pale yellows and whites of the outfit the servant he placed under her had picked out for her, and she actually smiled and laughed. "Never going to stop trying to capture my heart, Na Jaemin?" she asked. At some point, the insults had transformed into light banter.
At some point, she had begun accepting his gifts and allowing him to hold her hand or wrap an arm around her waist. She hated to say it, but she liked the feeling of being the object of his special attention. He had done wrong in bringing her here, but he...
He didn't hurt her anyhow. He hadn't forced himself on her. In fact, they still had yet to exchange even a simple kiss outside of the first one for the crowd to eat up. He didn't ask and he didn't try. She actually appreciated that very much.
Maybe she had fallen when they were walking out in the garden, bundled up against the cold autumn air, and she was caught by surprise when Jaemin randomly plucked another rose and wove it gently into her hair. Or maybe it was when he got angry at one of the male servants for looking at her 'lewdly,' and it turned out he was angry that the servant wasn't 'respecting her dignity as a woman,' when she asked later why he seemed to be really upset about it.
"I'm used to it," she had said with a shrug. "It comes with being a merchant's daughter."
"But it isn't right," Jaemin grumbled, fingers tapping agitatedly on the windowsill of her room, where he had come to see her off for the night. "You're mine and you're a person of the royal palace. A woman. He has no right."
Nara had laughed. "You've fallen so easily for me, my little prince," she had said, despite her being at least seven centimeters shorter than him.
"I'd fallen the moment I first laid my eyes on you," he said off-handedly. She hadn't quite known what to say for the flush of her cheeks and the warmth that suddenly made an appearance in her.
If only things were that simple-if only she had stayed in love with the man who took her life away from her.
***
The reason things started going sour: Lee Jeno, Jaemin's half-brother, taking an interest in her, and her taking an interest right back. She hadn't seen anything wrong with it, as she had no intention of giving into Jaemin back then.
Prince Jeno had run into her in the gardens one morning, when Jaemin was off doing his Grand Princely duties and she was left to her own devices. She and Jeno had met briefly here and there, since he was a prince and therefore a member of the royal palace, but they had never really spoken without eyes watching them before.
To be honest, Nara felt that Jaemin was trying his best to keep her away from Jeno and Jeno...Jeno wasn't really doing anything. It was kind of obvious with how Jaemin tried to leave a room with Jeno in it as soon as possible if he was with Nara, and how he had yet to let her talk to Jeno without him in the conversation. She hadn't really minded but soon enough, she would.
"Oh. Your Highness," she had said with a curtsy when she rounded a bend in the path and found Jeno plucking a few roses. "What a surprise. Roses for Hyejung?"
"Yes, she mentioned liking the rose she saw in your hair yesterday," Jeno gave her that cute smile, the wide one that had his eyes curving into crescents. "I'm afraid she has always been a bit stubborn about these things. She wants to be treated as well as Jaemin treats you, apparently."
Nara raised an eyebrow. "Are we allowed to talk to the princes that way?"
"Technically, no. But you and Hyejung don't seem to mind," he chuckled when Nara's expression looked confused. "Nara, I've heard you getting angry with Jaemin. He takes it as it is, I've heard. He quite likes headstrong girls like you."
Nara flushed. "Your Highness, I-"
"No need to explain yourself," Jeno shook his head. "I know you're not happy at being here. And please, you can call me by my name. We're friends, aren't we?"
"Are we?"
"Yes, we are," he said with conviction. "Jaemin might try to stop us, but..." he shrugged as if he didn't care. "You have your own free will. It isn't as if I'm trying to steal you away from him."
But that is exactly what Prince Lee Jeno was trying to do, and Nara let it happen. Heart torn between two of the three princes at the palace, she let herself drift between them, and the consequences of being so careless didn't hit until later.
***
What Nara had learned about Lee Jeno: despite being older than Jaemin by four months (closer to three), his mother was one of the servants, turned one of the concubines of the King once he learned she was pregnant, despite his marriage to Jaemin's mother-a move that is both respected and frowned upon.
When asked why, Jeno responded, "well, he was already married to Jaeminie's mother at the time. While as the king, he wasn't quite tied down by the rules of fidelity, it wasn't exactly a thing the public or anyone was proud of, having me. But at the same time, giving my mother the position that she has now, which is something people are ready to accept better, granted her safety from any ill-wishers. And granting me the title of prince was just to keep me safe, I've been told. I don't have any right to inherit the throne, not like Jaeminie, and neither does Jisungie."
Park Jisung: the infamous 'accident child' of Korea. When princes Jaemin and Jeno had been young, the Queen had been attacked, set upon, one night by a male servant, and the horrible night ended with the conceiving of the youngest prince. While the King had been willing to protect the child at the Queen's begging ("Jisungie wasn't planned, but his mother is a good mother," Jeno said), he wasn't as lenient as he was with Jeno.
For example, because the Queen had no fault in the whole event, Jisung was free to be a Na, which was different from Jeno, the child of a then-servant. Instead, he was given, rather cruelly, the surname of his biological father. He was made a prince, but he does not have the same privileges that Jeno does. All in all, he has the short end of the stick compared to his brothers.
Prince Jisung is also famous within the palace and only the palace for his apparent and too obvious infatuation with one of his servants. The girl and the prince are apparently very close romantically, which Nara initially believed, but then she saw the way the girl, Aecha, watched Jeno-especially when he is with Nara.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was only humoring Jisung and was jealous of Hyejung, Jeno's only concubine (only taken because his mother encouraged him to do something that gave him an edge over Jaemin, which was promptly lost because of Nara, Jeno once laughed as he told her), and most definitely of Nara, who was a special person to him-only a blind man wouldn't recognize that.
So, it came down to this: Nara loves Jaemin and Jeno, Hyejung tries her hardest to win over Jeno the way Nara did, and Aecha is jealous of both girls.
And Nara? She is jealous of Hyejung, too-for her sweet smile that makes Jeno smile right back, for her demure personality, everything a well-groomed young woman should be and Nara isn't. In rationality, it shouldn't matter to her that much. She has Jaemin, a Grand Prince, no less, one who actually cares, never mind that he doesn't know of her and Jeno meeting up after dark and exchanging kisses and secrets.
Hyejung is a threat, really. Both to Aecha, who has managed to befriend Jeno, and Nara, who is so close to having Jeno for herself.
***
All of this information given, you'd think that, in the murder of Ahn Hyejung, the only concubine of Prince Lee Jeno, Nara is a prime suspect. And she is, having been found at the murder scene covered in blood and staring wide-eyed at the corpse.
"I didn't do it!" Nara screams, desperate to prove her innocence, as the guards take her away to the prison cells. "I didn't, I didn't! What motive would I have? How could I of all people have gotten into Prince Jeno's rooms and killed her?"
She casts a vicious glare at the room where Aecha is no doubt holed up with her Jisung, laughing at her. They haven't exchanged so much as a word, but they both know where they stand in terms of their 'rivalry' over Jeno. Nara just knows that wretched girl is up and watching through the window and laughing at her.
She should be the one laughing. She should be watching Aecha be taken away as if she were an animal, bound and screaming for help because her prince didn't help her.
If Jisung knew what his lovely, precious Aecha is capable of, he wouldn't make those starry eyes at her. He would be clamoring to get away from her.
She curses Na Jaemin and everything she had let herself be with him. The man tricked her so well-it was well that she had fallen for Jeno and stung his pride. He deserved it for not liberating her. For not proclaiming her innocence, when Aecha should be the one who is about to be subjected to public execution.
Yes, her trial had yet to begin, but she is as good as dead at this point. To be found at a murder scene with all evidence pointing to you is signing your death warrant.
If she ever gets out of this, she is going to be killing more than one person, starting with the lovely Kim Aecha.
***
Jeno's body shakes as he looks at the covered body of Hyejung. He hadn't loved her, not the way she loved him, but she was a good friend. Why would anybody do this? A perfectly harmless, sweet girl. Maybe a little headstrong about the things she wanted, a little too spoiled, but she was a good person. Why...
"Your Highness," one of the servants says gently, "you shouldn't be here. Let's find an alternate place to rest tonight."
"Yes," he murmurs shakily, mind reeling in shock. "Let's go..."
He allows the servant to keep a steadying arm around his shoulders as they walk towards the wing where Jisung and Jaemin's rooms are, where a spare room is set aside for when any special guests arrive. A room is being generous in description, but it's the closest to any place the King will allow to Jeno to sleep in tonight-close to his brothers and in the most security-heavy wing-after this horror.
"Who could've done this?" he whispers to himself.
"It's the Grand Prince's girl, apparently," the servant says. He's a friend of Jeno, so he has no reservations about speaking out of turn like this. Jeno doesn't like it when people defer to him that way, anyway. "She was found covered in blood and holding the knife."
"Nara?" Jeno stops short and all but yells, turning to him in disbelief. "She wouldn't! A murder? Committed by Nara? I don't believe it!"
"Well, the evidence points to that," the servant says. "And it's no mystery that she dared to enter your chambers."
At this, he raises an eyebrow pointedly. Jeno would normally blush, but he doesn't have the will to do so, instead staring right back, mind racing. Nara found at the scene of the murder? All evidence pointing to her guilt? He knows she was jealous of Hyejung, but-
"I need to go see Jaemin," he says, and bolts before he can be stopped.
He doesn't even knock, throwing the door open and slamming it behind him, startling a distracted Jaemin, who is looking out the window. He turns to see his brother and by the looks of it, he isn't surprised to see him here.
"You've heard about Nara," he says.
"Who hasn't?" Jeno responds.
"True, that," Jaemin sighs. "This is a disaster. Is Hyejung really beyond saving?"
"As dead as it's possible to be," Jeno says, and then gets straight to the point. "Jaemin, don't lie to me. Why haven't you protected her? Why haven't you done anything? Is it out of jealousy for what we've been doing?"
"I got over my jealousy a long time ago."
"Then what?"
"Jeno-yah," Jaemin says in his slow, lazy drawl, "I don't have any reason to protect her. Doing so would get us princes in more trouble given her involvement with us, which is no doubt going to come into light at the trial. Unless we sit back on this one, there's no chance of preventing that information being exposed. Besides, what can I do? She was found there with the knife and the body."
Jeno's stare narrows. "You're going to let an innocent woman be killed?" he demands. "I thought you loved her!"
"I do. And who else would be the suspect?"
"They're saying that it was a murder motivated by jealousy. Nara isn't the only one who was jealous of Hyejung!"
"So, you're saying Aecha, who just returned from visiting her family, is the one who did it?" Jaemin asks pointedly. Jeno stops, realizing that Jaemin is right. Aecha hasn't been in the palace the entire week and she returned in the chaos of the murder being exposed. In fact, she and Jisung are together right now, while Jisung tries not to freak out that a murder happened right under their noses.
"But-if not her, then who did it?" Jeno questions, hands finding their way to his hair and pulling forcefully. "There has to be someone, anyone-"
"Jeno-yah," Jaemin comes closer and removes Jeno's hands from his hair, looking him in the eye sternly, "look at this with common sense. Who else but Nara? I saw her leave her room myself in the direction of yours tonight. I assumed she was going to meet up with you without knowing that you were with Father. Not fifteen minutes later she was discovered with Hyejung's body. Consider this: the possibility of her guilt is great."
Jeno freezes. "No, no, that can't be right," he whispers. "Nara wouldn't...never..."
Jaemin closes his eyes, the first sign of weakness cracking through his façade. "I didn't want to believe it too, at first," he says wearily. "But Nara has been acting off lately. I'm not sure if you noticed, but she's been avoiding me and been brooding quite a lot over the last few weeks. Glaring hostilely at Hyejung for no apparent reason. Aecha has more or less stopped trying to get you, only because with both of them around you, she has no chance, but Nara never stopped being hostile with Hyejung. I should have stopped her from being disloyal to me when I could, but..."
"Why didn't you?" Jeno asks, voice wavering. "You knew the whole time, so why?"
"Who knows?" Jaemin chuckles, releasing Jeno and slumping back against the wall. "I guess I didn't want to anger her. She was so angry, and she was right to be. I tried hard to win over her, but I didn't want to set her off and undo everything. I was sure I would lose her for good if I didn't let you have her, too."
"Were you...jealous of me?"
"Very," he sighs. "Knowing you were able to love her in a way I couldn't. Knowing you had permission to hold her and kiss her when she still hasn't let me really do that unless she's caught off-guard. Confidences and secrets I haven't been given. But I gave up at one point, because without angering her or making a public scene of it all, I couldn't do anything about it."
Jeno wants to apologize for his unashamed betrayal of his brother, but he can't find any words to express it. He can only stare at the defeated form of his usually so unruffled, unaffected, calm, self-assured brother, the image of Nara and her sweet smile running through his mind, followed by the images of the blood all over his room, one after the other, over and over again.
Nara murdered Hyejung. That's what everything he knows is pointing to. But he isn't quite ready to believe it. He isn't quite ready to just give her up to the hands of justice without hearing something from her first. He has to.
Naively, really, he hopes that Nara will give him reason to believe in her.
***
The day of the public execution of Seo Nara by hanging comes far too soon for Jaemin's liking. He may not believe the girl's frenzied screams proclaiming her innocence, but it isn't an easy thing to watch the girl you love be put to death so brutally.
Although, poor Hyejung, with the slit throat, violently stabbed stomach and abdomen, not to mention the cruelly mutilated left eye, might say otherwise. She might say that a hanging is too kind for a murderer of the likes of Seo Nara.
"Jaemin! Tell them!" Nara looks to have quite lost her mind as she is manhandled away to the platform, towards the rope. She twists and thrashes and screams in her hoarse rasp of a voice, ruined from so much screaming. "Tell them I'm innocent!"
Jaemin is forced to look ahead impassively.
"Devil of a woman, if you ask me," Aecha murmurs from somewhere to his left, behind Jisung, who has officially begun courting her. It was hardly the most scandalous thing to worry about what with the murder, but Jaemin knows Jisung will be hearing a thing or two about it from their father as soon as the dust settles and the public tries to find something new to latch onto like the bloodthirsty wolves they tend to be. "I'm glad to see the last of her."
"You're quite horrible when you want to be," Jaemin snorts quietly, turning his head to look at her. He can see her well from her position behind Jisung, who sits to his left as well. Her warm brown eyes look cold, as cold as her fair skin looks. "I'm not enjoying this one bit. Are you, Jisungie?"
"Why do we have to watch public executions?" he asks in return.
"You're saying that because you're in love with her," Aecha says dismissively to Jaemin. The two have formed a friendship over the last two weeks, what with her also being a suspect considering that Nara keeps accusing Aecha of doing it. The girl has been in a bad place, a nervous wreck and terrified of everything. Jaemin needed something to put his own demons at rest, too, so he took up the task of actually getting to know the girl his little brother loves so much.
It seems as if she actually cares for Jisung, too, despite her weird obsession with Jeno, who sits to Jisung's left, looking hollow and spent. Jaemin feels pity and sympathy for his brother. He's always felt things very acutely, and to see his first love put to death this way, guilty of murder, is no easy thing to witness. Jaemin feels about the same.
He just possesses the skill of hiding it better.
Aecha sidles up to stand behind him while Jisung, saying something about not having to look at Nara, is distracted. "I'm glad that she will be dying this way, actually. Now I don't have to worry about her finding a way to prove how guilty I am."
Jaemin rolls his eyes. "Alright, enough vindictive talk. She is guilty, end of story-" he stops, struck by her words. "Wait. Say that again."
Aecha giggles. "I've been wanting you to know how much I hate your wonderful Nara," she coos. When Jaemin tips his head back to look at her, she looks stoic and serious, as if she isn't giving Jaemin a near-heart attack. "It's good to see her go this way. She was so obviously territorial over Jeno, it was irritating! Now I can let Jisung off easy and go to comfort him...won't take long to make him realize how I could be better for him."
"Aecha." Jaemin's throat has gone dry, his face pale, hands shaking. "What exactly are you trying to say here?"
"Only that I was the one who put her up to it," she says sweetly. "Don't look so scared! I won't do that to you. I was the one who planted the idea in her head...and planted a little seed in her head. One that grew into full belief that Hyejung was insanely jealous of her and was going to reveal her secret of being entangled with two princes. It didn't take long for her to do exactly as I predicted." She giggles. "In the end, it was she who was insanely jealous."
"Oh, god." Jaemin's breathing quickens. "You...you're the real culprit..."
"No, Nara is," Aecha shrugs. "I encouraged her and she did it. And now I have no way of being deterred."
Jaemin can spot many flaws in her current plan, but what he can't process is how Aecha had managed to hide it so well. Nara had been screaming to drag Aecha down with her, and nobody paid any attention. Because Aecha had planted the seed and taken off with time to spare before Nara did anything drastic.
"Get away from me," he whispers. "I can't...you were the one..."
"Certainly," she smiles sweetly again and moves back to Jisung. "Look over there! Nara is about to die."
Jaemin doesn't want her anywhere near his little brother, but he can't do anything right now. He can't stop her because she already succeeded. And there is no proof of what she did. He would look like an idiot if he tried to accuse her now.
He can't do anything.
Jisung closes his eyes tightly; Aecha watches on in delight; and Jeno and Jaemin watch in horror, unable to tear their gazes away, hearts crumbling as Nara's body hangs limply by the rope, airflow cut off, finally free from the insanity that took ahold of her from the moment Aecha planted the seed of evil in her mind.
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