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VI. Diana’s Situation

There were a few facts Viern was unaware of.

He believed he had carefully tamed the fierce, beast-like Diana. In reality, she was the beast who had adapted herself to fit him. The one truly tamed was the man who believed himself to be the tamer.

Having grown up locked in that old, cramped tower for so long, Diana had to learn countless survival skills to stay alive. For instance, how to hear a person’s footsteps, cling to the ceiling, hold her breath, and hide. How to move silently and strike an enemy from behind before fleeing. Or the uncanny ability to distinguish whether someone’s feelings toward her were genuine goodwill or hostile intent.

Without these skills, she wouldn’t have survived. The tower—where she was born and imprisoned for what felt like a lifetime—was that kind of place. In a world where showing the slightest weakness meant death, Diana clung to life with pure tenacity.

She was not the fragile creature Viern imagined, nor did she simply endure the abuse from those who tormented her.

When the Crown Prince and his cronies brought rotten food, urging her to eat while snickering, she overturned the bowl onto their faces—the longest scar on her back was the price she paid from the subsequent whipping. When the second prince tried to violate her, she fought back with the determination to rupture a t******e to protect her chastity. When the injured second prince, hobbling from the damage to his vital parts, came for revenge, she hid in the shadows and struck the back of his head, ensuring he never set foot in that tower again.

Clinging to survival like this, Diana finally left that place the year she turned twenty. She remembers the man who entered as the cold air rushed in, dispelling the tower’s stifling heat, the heavy iron door groaning open. Under the black night sky, he seemed to shine alone. Like fate, he gifted her a new world. From that day on, Viern Erkman became her only light, leading her out of the dark tower; her only breath, relieving the suffocating pressure on her throat; her one and only world.

Diana quickly discerned the behavior he desired from her. If she acted docile, he would pat her head. If she acted fierce, he would tell her not to, but when she nodded obediently, he would pat her head again. It was like taming a young beast.

So, Diana began acting like Coco, the puppy the tower warden had once so tenderly tamed. She followed him with her eyes, as if she saw only him. She snapped at anyone else who tried to play master. She craved his attention, seeking refuge only in his arms. He treated her like Coco, so shouldn’t she act like Coco to please him?

Viern seemed very satisfied with this behavior. Whenever she rejected others’ touches and submitted only to him, Diana noticed the pleased look blooming on his face. She worked harder to ensure he saw her definitively as ‘his.’ So that he would never let her go from his hand for the rest of his life. So that she could become his sole possession.

Ah, my dear Viern.

You’ll never know. How meticulously I acted the part of the tamed beast for you.

Viern, my light. My breath. My world.

Diana thought: Viern, if you are my only light, breath, and world that keeps me alive, shouldn’t I, in turn, become your only possession? Shouldn’t you, too, hold only me and never let go?

The Ershan faction approached her not long after the Crown Prince and his brothers were all dead, and she had become the kingdom’s sole heir.

The Liberation Army of the fallen kingdom of Ersha, believed to have scattered after Defonos’s death. A faction of that group sought to extract Diana from the palace. To them, Diana was the sole bloodline left by Anais, Ersha’s last princess, and an ill-fated princess, long abused by the Rosenheir royal house and now being used by the Duke.

However, Diana refused their help. Contrary to their assumptions, she wanted to live as Viern’s chess piece. Above all, she had no memory of her mother’s face—the woman who had abandoned her and thrown herself from the tower—so why would she feel anything for Ersha now?

“If that is Your Highness’s will, we cannot force it. But if you ever need help, contact us. We are ready to aid you,” said Caelan, the red-haired commander leading the Liberation Army and Defonos’s nephew, respecting her decision. Of course, Diana snorted, thinking she’d never see them again.

The point is this: Diana Rosenheir could have fled Viern Erkman at any time but chose not to. She stayed by his side of her own will. She was not a young beast he had rescued from the tower and raised. She was a cheeky kitten who had chosen him as her butler and settled herself firmly at his side.

* * *

The kidnapping on Viern’s wedding day was orchestrated by Diana. While it was publicly known as an act by the disgruntled remnants of the Crown Prince’s faction, in truth, she had used the aid of the old Ershan forces to stage her own kidnapping, framing it as the Prince’s doing.

Without her cooperation from the start, how could they have breached the tight security and infiltrated the palace interior? That the Princess happened to be taking a solitary stroll in the sparsely populated eastern gardens at that precise moment and became their hostage was also no coincidence.

The result was brilliant. Not only did she successfully sabotage Viern’s engagement ceremony, but she also managed to awaken the feelings he himself refused to acknowledge and turned away from. She had intended to provoke his possessiveness, but she hadn’t expected to gain his love. It was a far greater harvest than she had imagined.

How was this possible for a woman who had lost her memory?

It was simple.

She had never lost her memory in the first place.