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I. Princess Diana

Diana, the forsaken princess of Laurelai. Daughter of Lady Anais, the only woman King Axion ever loved. Yet from the moment she was conceived in her mother’s womb, she was doomed to grow up imprisoned in the northern tower of the palace—a place where not a single ray of sunlight ever reached. The unwanted burden of Laurelai.

Diana’s birth mother, Anais, was the last bloodline of the fallen Kingdom of Ersha. Dragged away by the very man who destroyed her homeland, she became his consort. King Axion of Laurelai had felt an overwhelming passion from the moment he first laid eyes on Anais—so intense that he killed his queen, the mother of the crown prince, just to seat Anais in her place.

But Anais could never accept him. To her, Axion was nothing but the enemy who had annihilated her country and murdered her family. And she already had a lover to whom she’d promised her future: Defonos, a general of the liberation army that had rallied to restore the fallen Kingdom of Ersha. He was Anais’s true love.

When Axion discovered this truth, his rage burned white-hot. Using underhanded tactics, he captured her lover and used him as leverage to blackmail Anais. Unable to simply watch her beloved die, Anais swallowed her grief and threw herself into Axion’s arms, forcing false words of love past her lips. And Axion—knowing full well that her love was a lie—embraced her body, kissed her, and drowned himself in counterfeit happiness.

But the precarious peace they maintained by covering each other’s eyes and ears shattered without warning. Anais discovered the truth: Defonos was dead. And Axion had hidden his death from her.

With those delicate hands that couldn’t even kill a small bird, Anais stabbed Axion. Naturally, he didn’t die. But a queen who had attempted to murder the king could hardly keep her position intact—far too many had witnessed her attempt.

Axion ignored his retainers’ demands to execute the queen and instead imprisoned her at the very top of the northern tower. He visited her every single day to torment her. Anais, in turn, would harm herself defiantly before his eyes, only to be stopped—over and over again. What remained between them was a relationship of pure destruction.

Had it not been for the tiny life just conceived in her womb, Anais would have hastened her own demise far sooner. Thanks to that small life stirring within her, Anais endured for a few more months. That child—the sole hope of a queen who had lost everything—was Diana.

But the moment she discovered traces of Axion in the child born from her own body, hope turned to despair. To think that the baby she’d carried for ten months, the child who had finally seen the light of day, resembled the most terrible man in the world!

Unable to bear this reality, Anais finally threw herself from the tower before Axion’s very eyes. Amid the shattered remains of the woman’s body, Axion went mad, and the daughter left behind was slowly forgotten.

Diana grew up like a beast, never even knowing she was of noble birth. Bathing was a luxury, she couldn’t even dress properly, and she often crawled on all fours, surviving that wretched existence by snatching up the hard chunks of bread the jailer managing the tower would toss to her.

‘That day’

It was when a great fire engulfed the palace. The flames that consumed the palace spread even to the northern tower where Diana was imprisoned. Desperate to escape through the acrid smoke, Diana descended to the first floor of the tower, remembering how people would occasionally open the iron door on the first floor to come and go.

But the heavy iron door, firmly shut, wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she pushed, pounded, or clawed at it with her nails. As the heat gradually choked the breath from her lungs, she was desperately scraping at the iron door with her torn fingertips when—

Creeeeeak—

The tower door opened, and light poured in with the fresh air. Through it walked a man. A man whose jet-black hair somehow seemed to shine dazzlingly bright, as strangely luminous as darkness itself.

The only light she’d ever seen in her life was the handful of sunlight filtering through the small window now blocked by sharp iron bars. Into her retinas, the image of this man emerging from roaring flames seared itself with burning intensity.

Frost-cold blue eyes cast a chilling gaze downward, sweeping over Diana’s body—that pathetic figure sitting dumbly on the floor in torn, tattered rags that were now singed as well, draped carelessly over her frame.

“So, the rumored Beast of Laurelai.”

Diana, who had been staring blankly at the man, snapped to attention at the low voice that descended upon her. Every single man who had opened that door and entered had beaten her, cursed her, whipped her, tormented her. Some had even laid hands on her body.

Diana bared her teeth savagely and made threatening sounds.