“Your Majesty!”

“Brother!”

As the startled knights hesitated, the furious Taras seized Dana by the collar and dragged her away. Unable to walk on her own, Dana was pulled through the corridor and thrown out. Leaving behind the bewildered Dana and her frightened, helpless maidservants, the king and queen fled with the prince.

Confined to her room in the castle by Taras’s order, Dana remained unaware and unable to summon her divine beast, left only to wait.

During this time, a maid secretly brought her news of the king and queen. She learned that they had been captured by the Heinz knights while trying to escape with the prince to another city. The Heinz knights, who had caught the king, used his escape route to push back and seize the castle.

Dana was taken to the Heinz Kingdom with her wrists bound. On the way, she heard that the king and queen had been beheaded. During the rough transport, she injured her eye on a branch, causing blood to flow and her eyelid to swell, impairing her vision. She couldn’t even see the castle gates where the heads of the king and queen were displayed.

While imprisoned in a cell where only a sliver of light crept in, Queen Cladimien visited her. Lying on the prison floor, Dana could barely make out the radiant crown and the hem of the purple dress beneath it in the darkness. Queen Cladimien, adorned with a heavy gold crown, looked down at Dana and spoke.

“Rowen is finished now. Even though a lowborn knight is running wild, it won’t last long.”

Ah.

Dana realized that the knight her brother had dismissed was still fighting for the kingdom. The queen whispered to Dana with a cold expression.

“You will be buried alive in my son’s grave.”

Upon hearing this, Dana thought, Prince Ergart must have died after all.

After the queen left, Dana was alone in the cell. The prison floor felt cold with the presence of death. Her hands were bound in heavy shackles. Feeling all this, Dana pondered.

‘Where did it all go wrong?’

When the perfect preparations turned out to be meaningless. When her brother failed to grasp the situation and thought only of selling his sister again. When the nobles, who should have been striving to protect the kingdom, surrendered in fear and opened the way for the Heinz knights.

‘Or maybe.’

When the king refused to trust the knight fighting desperately to protect the kingdom because of his low birth? When the prince of Heinz died?

‘There were countless opportunities to set things right.’

Yet all those opportunities vanished as fleetingly as the lives lost in the war.

‘Who can I blame?’

While every chance was swept away like broken branches in the fierce Heinz wind, trampled underfoot, she did nothing but wait.

She had lived with her head down, hiding herself. She believed she shouldn’t take on any duty or responsibility, thinking she should do nothing. She thought she should always keep her head down and listen to her brother.

‘But this is the result.’

Seeing the moonlight barely seeping through the small window of the cell, Dana felt a desire to do something. Despite her swollen eyes obscuring and blurring her vision, the moonlight appeared brighter than any light she had ever seen.

‘Even though I’ve done nothing until now, this time…’

If doing nothing had led to the kingdom’s downfall, she felt she had to take action now. Dana considered what she could do, clinging to even the slightest hope.

The royal family of Rowen was born with the magic to summon and contract with divine beasts. Dana had contracted with a divine beast when she was seventeen. By contracting with a powerful divine beast, she could gain the ability to lead the legion of beasts that followed it. The legion of divine beasts, flying like the wind and wielding magic, was a mysterious force that protected Rowen.

Unfortunately, the divine beast her brother, King Taras, had contracted was a lowly one. Due to her brother’s jealousy, Dana had never summoned her divine beast after making the contract.

The previous king and queen had died in an accident, and there was a significant age gap between Taras and Dana. To Taras, Dana was more of a threat and an unwanted rival than a little sister. He only valued her for the advantage he could gain by marrying her off under favorable conditions.

Perhaps the mistake had started back then. Dana feared incurring the wrath of her brother, her only family and protector. She never honed her abilities. She always kept her head down, believing she should be humble. Even when confined, she was too cautious of Taras’s reaction to summon her divine beast.

‘If only I hadn’t.’

If she had honed her abilities from the start, if she had prepared for anything, she might have been able to do something during the war. Even when she was locked in her room, if she had come to her senses and decided to summon her divine beast, she might have made a difference.

She never imagined the kingdom would fall so easily and miserably. She knew nothing and did nothing. Was ignorance a fault? Were foolishness and inaction a crime? If this was the result, was it a fitting punishment?

‘Who can I blame…?’

Could Dana Rowen truly blame her brother or the nobles for failing to protect the Rowen Kingdom? Even a knight of humble origins had not given up, yet she, born and raised in royalty, had done nothing…

A single tear, shimmering in the moonlight, formed at the corner of her eye. Her screams and shouts reached no one, and her resentment had long since dried up. Her hands and feet were shackled, and escaping from these chains and the prison seemed impossible. In the end, all that remained was to dream of the impossible and pray, regardless of the odds.

Dana closed her eyes. A tear that had long dried finally flowed down her cheek and reached her lips in the darkness.

Would the divine beast she had never summoned since their contract respond to her call? She didn’t know. Feeling the cold stone floor of the prison, filled with the aura of death, she whispered the name of the divine beast.

‘Yentamien.’

Dana felt the transparent wings fill the dark prison. In the damp, oppressive air of the cell, a refreshing breeze circulated. Even with a small whisper, her divine beast responded. Despite not having called it for such a long time, its reaction was surprisingly swift, as if it had always been waiting for her call.

The delicate wings of the divine beast enveloped her.

‘Could things be reversed?’

The gentle flutter of the wings seemed to suggest it was possible. Was it merely an illusion? Dana couldn’t be sure.

‘How can it be done?’

A being crafted from the breath of the gods. One of Rowen’s ancient guardians.

Despite feeling ashamed for having ignored it for so long, Dana asked, and she heard an answer.

– You must give up something very significant.

Did she have anything left to give up? There was nothing.

She heard loud noises from beyond the prison. The presence of the divine beast filling the cell was impossible to conceal. With her eyes closed, Dana thought.

‘Let me make things right.’

From where the mistake began, let me set it right again.

She didn’t know if it was possible. In a situation where dreaming of the impossible was all she could do, she wanted to cling to someone and plead. She desperately wished to pray. To make the dream of turning back time come true. To fulfill the responsibilities left undone and achieve the ideal of bringing peace.

The loud noises gradually faded away. The gentle flutter of the divine beast’s wings covered her shoulders.

Dana drifted into a dream-like state as if she were falling asleep. The cold stone floor, the damp air, the musty smell—everything gradually transformed into something pleasant, like a dream. The softness of feathers, the refreshing air, the fresh scent, the warm breeze…

Feeling all this, she fell asleep, and when she awoke, Dana found herself back on her seventeenth birthday.

* * *

“After tonight, you will have your own divine beast, Princess.”

Dana listened quietly as her maid, Hilda, brushed her hair. The golden brush, encrusted with jewels, smoothed her platinum hair that gleamed white in the light. Dana looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Wavy curls, a slender white face, and light blue eyes. It was the face of her childhood, just as she remembered.

Hilda draped a sky-blue cloak lined with white ermine fur over the young princess’s white dress. She fastened the cloak’s ends with a gold flower-shaped brooch and neatly arranged Dana’s hair over it. A delicate gold crown, entwined with decorations of flowers and leaves, was placed on her head, and finally, Hilda adjusted her skirt.

Dana stood and watched as Hilda, her maid, appraised her appearance with satisfaction. Hilda nodded with a proud expression.

“Perfect. Even the goddess Yurhemia wouldn’t be this beautiful.”

“Isn’t that blasphemy?”

“Well, let’s say the goddess was exactly this beautiful when she was young.”

Hilda wrinkled her nose and smiled.

“You’ll do wonderfully. The breath of Yurhemia is with you, Princess.”