The relationship between the empire's most noble crown prince and the secret guard leader he personally trained was a mutual torture in the name of love.
He gave her a hairpin that symbolized power, but used that hairpin to carve new scars on her back late at night.
She slaughtered all the opposition forces for him, but put poisonous wine into his hands at the moment when he trusted her most.
It wasn't until the morning light illuminated the imperial capital that we discovered that the perpetrators and victims were never fixed roles.
Intent: Power is the sharpest shackle, dragging both the abuser and the victim into the abyss called "obsession"; and the real redemption is never the entanglement of exchanging pain for pain, but the courage to find reconciliation with oneself and the past in sin.