Chapter 51
“Haa, hnn…”
How many more times did he repeat it? Her desperate search for water gradually slowed.
“Are you alright?!”
Viern peered into her hazy eyes and asked again. Diana blinked a few times, looking at him, and then an overwhelming sense of misery suddenly filled her eyes.
“Hnn, Aise-ehn…”
As she slumped forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, Viern, who had been pulling her into an embrace, froze mid-motion.
“Why… did you come so late… I was really scared.”
Burrowing into Viern’s arms, Diana began to sob, saying she was scared. With a sensation of his chest being shredded, the man silently holding her felt his prominent Adam’s apple move soundlessly up and down.
Viern quietly patted her back as he listened to her sobs. He stayed there, holding her in his arms, until her cries subsided…
A short while later, the sound of approaching footsteps was heard.
“Your Grace, Your Grace! Are you in here?!”
“Your Gra…! No, Your Highness!”
The people who spotted Diana belatedly were startled.
“His Grace has found Her Highness!”
“Prepare a vehicle immediately! A carriage, a carriage…!”
Soon, the cave was bustling with activity.
“Your Grace, allow us to take Her Highness to…”
“I’ll attend to her.”
Viern rose, his arms tightening protectively around her delicate form as if refusing to hand her over.
A carriage arrived shortly after. Viern, holding her motionless, boarded it, and the door closed as the carriage departed.
Viern gazed intently at Diana’s face, asleep softly in his arms. Despite her wretched state, with her eyes gently closed, she still looked as beautiful and lovely as a fairy. He carefully separated and smoothed each strand of platinum hair stuck haphazardly to her forehead, lost in thought.
The fear he felt when she was kidnapped, the despair when he couldn’t find her for days, the relief when he found her again, the rage upon seeing her injured body. And… the painful lurch in his chest upon seeing her mistake him for Aisen…
Ah. Now I understand.
When she lost her memory and didn’t recognize me, I thought my anger at her, who couldn’t stay quietly out of trouble, was just anger. But that wasn’t anger.
Next, I thought the betrayal I felt upon seeing her chase after someone else, having completely forgotten the one who brought her into the world and treated her so preciously, was just betrayal. But that wasn’t betrayal either.
That emotion that churned unpleasantly every time I saw those eyes that no longer looked at me—that was the pitiful fear of a forgotten man crying out with his whole heart. It was a painful, aching sorrow. And… it was the love I had been denying.
“…Yes. Love.”
Viern looked down at Diana’s face and murmured softly. How could this not be love?
Diana Rosenheir. The woman I pulled out with my own hands, took in, and tamed. The beautiful puppet inheriting the Rosenheir royal bloodline, the most perfect chess piece. I defined her with my own words, trying to draw a line against my feelings for her, but the dam I had so tightly built crumbled in an instant of a crack.
My heart, hollowed out because she no longer loved me.
My heart, boiling unpleasantly when I saw her with another man.
My heart, feeling as if the whole world was shattering into pieces at the thought I might lose her forever.
It was love.
It could only be love.
I… am in love with Diana Rosenheir.
It was a fact I had sensed, yet ignored, ever since she lost her memory—the unsteadily churning of my own heart. Finally confronting his own emotions, a sharp, blazing fire ignited in his eyes.
“……”
Slowly, he bent his head towards her. His rough lips touched her forehead with heat. Viern remained still, his lips pressed against her brow in a quiet kiss.
After a moment, he slowly withdrew his lips, pulled her into a tighter embrace, and murmured softly.
“…I love you, Your Highness.”
Diana Rosenheir. My beautiful Princess, who loved only me and chased only me.
“Therefore, I must bring you back to my side, you were always mine.”
Now, it is I who must bring you back to me.
Bump, bump.
Only the sound of the carriage wheels rolling over the mountain path resonated in the quiet space.
And within his embrace, her head buried deeply in Viern’s chest, Diana had to strain her facial muscles to suppress the corners of her mouth that kept trying to curl upwards.
‘Ahh…! See, Viern loves me too!’
A euphoric feeling, so overwhelming it threatened to burst her heart, spread a tingling sensation all the way to the base of her spine.
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