In the novel, the original her was scorned, criticized, and her reputation destroyed.
Her faction's members were already roped in by her step-sister, the heroine.
As the first princess, she is the legitimate heir to the throne. Her seat is well preserved. At least on paper. Legally and publicly.
On the banquet day, she found out that her seat, as the first princess, was already taken. And to make matters worse, she was told to sit with the nobles.
How can a person who values her reputation tolerate that? That was her seat. Her power. How can they just demote her from what is rightfully hers?
The hatred that had accumulated for years erupted. Not being loved was fine. Not being respected was still fine. Being accused of what she never did was fine.
But how dare she take the only thing that could give her freedom? That seat is the only way she can be respected, even if it's fake. That is the only place she feels she is near her mother.
Since she was young, the queen had never allowed her to be by her side, to call her mother, to enjoy any privilege from a parent the way her other half-siblings enjoyed.
She had grown to admire the queen and at the same time she wanted just to call the queen mother. Even once. Just to hear it out loud without being slapped down for it.
In her anger, she questioned the queen in front of all the guests.
The queen was angry at being questioned on how to rule. She had ruled in blood since she was ten. She demoted her to a princess in name, meaning she couldn't stand for any royal seat. A title without weight. A cage with a prettier lock.
"I won't argue with the heroine or question the queen, I will just sit in the available space." She told the system while sighing for the umpteenth time.
Remembering how the original her was embarrassed and demoted in the novel, she decided not arguing and staying clear of the heroine was the best choice. Let them play their game. She'd play hers.
After reading that message, she became listless. She thought she could avoid going, but shortly after reading the message, another one chimed in.
Her father, the king, would be attending. He had been in a coma since she was three.
She was curious about what her parents in this world looked like. On Earth, she didn't remember what they looked like. Not because they had died when she was young, but because they had separated when she was twelve.
No one bothered to take custody of her, but they hired a nanny to care for her for five years. Five years of a stranger deciding when she ate, when she slept, when she cried.
One year later, all memories of her parents seemed to have been erased. She wasn't surprised, as that was what had been happening to her since she was young.
Even in school, she could not have friends. Either they died or they transferred, and everything about them would be erased in her memory. Like someone was scrubbing the chalkboard clean every night.
That is why she had never dated. An invisible force forced her to be alone, and she came to understand that. It was easier than asking why. Easier than hoping.
It was this reason that made her tolerate the priest for a long time. Because who would not? Knowing that there is something or someone who is different from everyone else makes it special. She remembered the priest. The priest didn't fade.
A knock on the door interrupted her memories.
She ignored it. Her head felt heavy, and she was tired from everything—physically and mentally. The kind of tired that needed sleep without interruptions to fix.
Half of her body was lying on the bed facing the dark-themed ceiling. Her head was resting on her crossed hands above her head while her legs dangled off the edge.
Hearing the persistent knocks, she stood up tiredly, like a zombie, to open the door.
There, at the door, stood her fifth husband; the one she had saved from slavery after his family members were demoted and executed when he was young.
He had known her the longest. The trust between them should have been the strongest, but was he not the most cruel of them all?
"I came to help you make the bed." He said to her when he saw her questioning eyes.
She cocked her head to the side. That was what she had told them in the novel. She wanted them to be at her beck and call.
They should wash her legs before she slept and wash her face after waking up. Rituals of power. Reminders of who owned whom.
But if she remembered correctly, she hadn't started ordering them around this early. Or did it start earlier than it was written? She decided not to think about something she didn't have a recollection of. The past was unreliable. Her past even more so.
She looked at her already-made bed and looked at him. She moved aside to let him enter.
Since he came, he must have ulterior motives. She sat on the sofa to observe him. Her eyes trailed him, sharp and assessing.
He first went to the bed and, when he saw that it was already made, he went into the bathroom.
After a while, he came back with hot water in a basin and with a towel.
He approached her. With one leg kneeling, he bent his back, took her left bare leg in one hand, while the other hand held a wet towel. He wiped her legs carefully.
His head was lowered, his eyes looked like they were closed. His eyelashes were too long. Unfairly long.
He did the same thing with the other leg. She let him wash her legs. She never told him to wash them, so why should she stop him?
"Why?" She asked him after he had finished with his job.
He looked at her in puzzlement, blinking his big blue eyes. He looked like a cat. _Can he purr?_ she thought.
"Why lower yourself by washing my legs, when you have your privilege as a married mer? Not as a concubine but as the main spouse?"
She really wanted to know. The law not only sheltered the women, but it also sheltered the married mers.
When they get married, there is a fox totem that shows on their left wrist. By cutting it, they would be severing their relationship with their spouses. And every year, on the same month, same day, the wrong partner would feel like worms were crawling on their skin.
Divorce isn't entirely supported. By breaking all the rules can one form a spiritual divorce.
No law, no witness. It is the totem, the person who wants the divorce, and the god who is their divine entity.
The listed mistakes for mers are: being abused, humiliated, and forced sex.
For women, it is infidelity. She seems to have committed all of them in their last life.
What puzzled her was why did they not divorce her spiritually?
Did they not hate her? Then why? Why stay bound to a monster?
After she finished asking him, she looked into his eyes, not to miss any emotion.
Then she saw it—the softness that his eyes showed briefly, and the way his body tensed slightly.
"Mistress, should I sleep on the floor or the couch?"
She looked at him speechlessly. The way he changed the subject was too fast. If she was not the one who asked the question, she would have thought that conversation never happened.
Wait. Did he want to sleep in her room? Her face twisted into something novel. She looked worried. Even though she wanted to die, not so soon.
***
Dylan had been curious since he heard his wife's inner voice. He knew she looked like a different person, a changed person.
He had known her for a very long time. To tell the truth, since he was young. During the hardest time of his life, she was the only light in it. The only one who didn't look at him like he was already dead.
The day she went missing for more than twenty hours, he was worried about her whereabouts. He was the only person who knew the time she left.
He had seen her the other day sneaking around before leaving. When he wanted to chase after her, he blacked out.
Waking up twenty hours later, that's when Cassen came to tell them that she had gone missing.
But thinking about the strange dream, the strange life, and the strange everything that had happened in it, he showed disgust and hatred to the person who had the power to infiltrate his mind. The her from that dream was cruel. Vicious. Wrong.
Today, he decided to test the things the her in the dream had told them to do, and the results were as expected.
She seems to know their dream too well. The way she felt like killing them at that time in the living room, and the way she looked at them as strangers, described it all. She wasn't playing a part. She was seeing them for what they were.
He wanted to take advantage of this time to touch her legs. That was his main reason.
When she asked about the totem severing, he decided to ignore her. Because how can he tell her that he couldn't do it because he loved her? He couldn't see her suffer, not when she knew what he did to her in their dreams.