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— Are you… Are you all right? — Razor asked.

I shook my head.

— To put it mildly… I\'ve been better.

The other prince sighed darkly.

Maybe I haven\'t quite figured out what happened yet, either. My world was shattered in the blink of an eye. I didn\'t know what to do now.

It was likely that I would be hysterical when my emotions kicked in. But now… nothing but emptiness and disgust. Disgust for the man I thought I knew well.

— At first I didn\'t believe it either…» The guy in front of me lowered his gaze, «That\'s why I wanted to be sure. But unfortunately I didn\'t have time to tell you before.

I didn\'t say anything. More than anything else I wondered why the Archduke had become such a man. Was he always like that? And then why-not a single mention of his real personality in the original novel?

This world amazed me more and more every day I was here. Finally, I really couldn\'t understand: why did my father hate Duke Cassius so much? What had happened between them?

My head was literally pounding with everything that was going on. I couldn\'t have imagined that my perfectly peaceful life would turn out this way in the beginning. When would this nightmare finally be over…?

Razor realized that I wasn\'t ready to listen to all his explanations right now. He accepted that and decided to postpone talking about the Archduke until later. And in the meantime…

Something was still troubling him.

— As a matter of fact,» he said quietly, «that\'s not all I wanted to tell you.

— What?» she looked up in surprise for the first time in a long time.

The other prince cleared his throat.

— It\'s… It\'s about Rachel Cassius.

I don\'t know what he\'s talking about. What does this have to do with Rachel? I think we\'ve already made up our minds about our relationship.

But the guy decided to be honest with me about it. He felt a little uncomfortable looking at his hands instead of at me while we were talking.

— Ahem… Not too long ago, a woman started coming into my dreams.

— «A woman?» — I asked him again.

He nodded.

— I don\'t know who that is… but apparently she knows a lot more about what\'s going on in this world than I do.

I was surprised at this unexpected revelation on Razor\'s part. Meanwhile, he continued:

— Thanks to her, I\'ve learned a lot of things I didn\'t know before.

— And… What is it?

Razor sighed heavily. He imagined how I would react to what I had heard. But he told me the truth about Rachel-what he\'d seen with his own eyes anyway. I knew in advance that there was not a word of a lie in his visions.

My eyes grew larger with each word he spoke. Razor told me absolutely everything.

About how Rachel\'s feelings for me had been genuine from the beginning. About how much she had done for me during my time at the palace. And that she had personally made Melinda my maid so I wouldn\'t feel alone here…

But the most shocking thing for me was hearing about the curse of the Bloody Camellia. The first time I heard of it was from Razor\'s lips. It was the thing that made Rachel suffer for me almost every day.

What is this curse? Why is it called like the title of the original novel?

The second prince told me everything he had seen for himself. As it turned out — the mark wasn\'t put on me three years ago because of a chipmunk bite at all… Rachel had made a contract with me to pass on her powers and keep me from dying during the freeze.

That\'s when it all started. I suddenly felt a rush of energy and didn\'t understand what it had to do with. In fact, the whole time, Rachel\'s life had been voluntarily surrendering to me. And I… I didn\'t know anything about it.

The day I broke up with her, Rachel almost died from the pain. Whereas I thought she\'d forget all about it quickly…

Six months later, Rachel pretended to be a different person and saw me again. But she didn\'t do it for fun. It was to… To try to beat the curse. The girl wanted to get through to me.

Even as the years passed: at first, Rachel\'s motives for making me queen were purely selfish. She just wanted to keep me close to her. But then, when she found out that the Archduke was not who he claimed to be, it was her only way to protect me.

That golden cage, in fact, had been my main refuge all along.

When I found out, I was dumbfounded.

What she had done to me recently I will never forget. And yet… Compared to the rest of what she\'d done for me, even my hatred had subsided.

— Wait…» I spoke slowly, «How is that possible? Didn\'t… Didn\'t Rachel kill me in your vision? Why does she care about me so much now?

That was the main reason I ran away in the first place. I didn\'t want to die at Rachel\'s hands. It seemed to me at the time that her «love» for me was just an attachment that resulted from the fact that I had befriended her first. It was like a pet or a toy. And when she was taken away, the girl wanted to get back at me in a radical way.

Because Rachel wasn\'t good at showing her emotions: it always seemed to me that she did. That she didn\'t love me, but was just obsessed with me as her property. Eventually Rachel even went so far as to kill me so that no one else would own me.

When I reminded Razor of all this, he looked even more guilty.

— That\'s… That\'s not exactly…

— What?» I asked him immediately.

The guy sighed and stared at me hard.

— Then I really thought it was true,» he said. «From the outside, it did look like Rachel killed you. But… That\'s because the vision was of you.

— What…» I choked out, «What are you talking about?

The other prince began to explain.

— When Rachel drew her sword, everything went black before your eyes. It was obvious you were dead. But… I got a slightly different perspective.

I held my breath as Razor took a long moment to gather his resolve for the last words.

— Anyway… Rachel never killed you. You just passed out from fear.

— What?!

— That day…» he hesitated, «That day Rachel killed me and Phillip and my father\'s men. She knew from the beginning that you were forced to become a member of the Imperial family. And to free you, she slaughtered the entire palace.

I couldn\'t believe what I was hearing.

— After everything that happened… When you called her a «monster,» Rachel thought you hated her and would never forgive her. And so she willingly killed herself to leave you alone,» Razor slowly summed up, «When she died, she left you freedom and a whole country.

When the boy said that, I froze in shock for a while.

— I\'m sorry! — Razor apologized to me again,» I wish I had known I was wrong…!

The guy continued to say something in the background, but I couldn\'t hear him.

The thought that Rachel had never really handed me over hit me like a bolt of lightning. All this time… All this time I had been so deeply mistaken!

Tears welled up in my eyes as I hated myself more than anything else in the world.

What a fool I had been…!

***

After I finally figured out the truth-I didn\'t even listen to the rest of Razor\'s story and ran after Rachel. The boy made an attempt to stop me when he noticed something strange: the mark on my neck, which had always been with me, was suddenly gone.

But I didn\'t pay attention, because I was in a hurry. I felt the need to talk to Rachel right now.

«Rachel really loves me!»

When I realized this, I experienced an extraordinary thrill. All this time she had been the only person-who had always been on my side. Rachel was even closer to me than my own father. How could I have ignored that before?

Now… Now I really wanted to apologize to her properly.

When the guards passed by and told me that the girl was in her chambers, I ran as fast as I could. All sorts of feelings overpowered me at that moment.

When I opened the door without knocking, I was sure Rachel was really here. She was standing in the center of the room, buttoning her sleeve cuffs.

I moved closer and hugged her sharply from behind.

— I\'m sorry! — I sobbed out loud. I\'m sorry I was so stupid. But I really… I really didn\'t know anything!

Silence.

— Rachel, I love you. Let\'s start over. — I said, «Let\'s not fight anymore. And… I really want to marry you. Let\'s not wait a week and have the ceremony today!

I poured my feelings out to Rachel, hoping she would turn around and return the favor. After all the mistakes we had already made… I didn\'t want to make any more.

From that moment on, I really decided that I only wanted to be with her. These feelings that I realized so late, I couldn\'t stop myself.

And at first, everything seemed to be going fine.

But as I continued to hug her and sob, the girl suddenly pulled my arms off of her. Then she slowly turned around, not believing: that someone had the nerve to do such a thing.

When Rachel saw me, she was even angrier. And the next moment… What happened was something I hadn\'t expected.

She threw me roughly to the floor, causing me to hit the nightstand. But Rachel didn\'t pay any attention to that. She looked at me like I was a piece of trash.

I was taken aback when I saw that look. Cold and full of contempt… The way Rachel usually looked at everyone but me.

At least, that\'s how it had been until recently.

I had no idea what was going on.

Rachel gave me a fierce, downward glance.

— How dare you touch me, you pathetic brat,» she whispered.

— Wh-what…? — I was speechless in a second.

— I\'m asking, who are you?