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“How could you kill my favorite son?” the old man bellowed bitterly as he flung the glass at the frozen hwarang. 

It bounced off the wall behind him as it splintered into a thousand sharp shards.  But nothing hurt as badly as the wound in his fractured soul.  The knowledge that he had destroyed the beautiful life of his younger brother was growing more excruciating with every passing second.  And his grandfather wasn’t helping him.

“I wanted to elevate you,” Dan Se whispered, stricken.  “I hated seeing you kowtow to that brutal man.  I simply wanted to see you free of his terrifying hold.  And I sought to save the very life I extinguished,” he agonized.

“But I went about it the wrong way.  I listened to you.  And endangered the life of a noble man.  But ultimately, Seon Woo didn’t pay the price of the poison on the blade of my sword.  Han Sung did.  I did.  For I’m the only one bearing a black mark on my soul now.  And nothing I do can ever wash it away.” 

He choked back a sob.  He would not let it rise.  Or free it.  He had kept his grief locked tightly within his soul.  Since he had allowed the tears to flow over his brother’s letter.  Dan Se hadn’t wept since that day.  The day Han Sung had died.

His brother had been gone for months now.  But the pain wasn’t lessening.  Only the recollection of his sweet face was fading.  And that gentle voice didn’t ring out in his heart as clearly as it once had.  The evidence of that tender soul seemed to disappear more with each breath that Dan Se drew.

His grandfather glared at him with hatred burning in his eyes.  “That black mark burns a hole through my own soul every single day.  How can you think it doesn’t?  I’m the one who ordered you to kill Seon Woo.  You were just carrying out my orders when you killed my grandson.”

“That does not absolve me of guilt.  I had a choice.  And I chose to honor you.  And destroyed my brother through my obedience!” 

He turned bitterly away from his grandfather and stomped out of his house.  Into the dark night.  He had to stop coming here.  It did neither of them any good.  He would return to the only thing that he had left.  The hwarang house.