I bit down on my lower lip.

‘If you were going to let me be reborn here anyway, you could have at least made me the female lead……’

He must have sensed my presence, because he had already set down the compress and was looking at me. Left with no choice, I began shuffling toward him.

“Um, Dusik……”

He turned to look at me slowly at the sound of his name.

“My dear.”

“Hey. Want some water?”

“I’d like that.”

He extended his large hand toward me. Whether from the year I had worked him half to death, his hands looked somehow rougher than when I had first seen them.

Guilt surged up like a tide.

Here I was, an extra, having put the imperial prince and male lead of this world through all of that. I didn’t even deserve to be an extra. I hung my head, deflated, and it was precisely in that moment—

“My dear. Are you not going to give me that water?”

“Oh, right……! Here, take it.”

He took the glass I offered and drank it down in one go. His throat moved smoothly up and down.

Was that why the memory of last night’s wedding night came back to me? My cheeks warmed without my permission.

“I’ve finished.”

“Oh…… right. It’s a bit warm in here…… and about earlier, I……”

I was fanning myself with my hand and rambling when he took back the empty glass, and in that instant,

“!”

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me into his arms in one swift motion.

The surprise lasted only a moment. Enclosed in his broad embrace, I mumbled.

“Um, Dusik? I wasn’t done talking yet……”

“……”

“I, I had a frightening dream last night, and before I knew it, I just……”

“If it’s about what happened this morning, it’s fine. Having a nightmare is reason enough for that.”

His gracious words left me searching for something to say, but nothing came to mind.

“But……”

“So you don’t need to make excuses.”

His voice saying those words was still flat and dry. Still no emotion directed at me. That much was clear.

“……Okay.”

He exhaled a long, deep breath.

“Because you are now my wife.”

I was the one who swallowed.

‘My wife? But we married without love, and Aiden was practically forced into it. So one day, as things go on like this, he might turn a sword on me……’

My head swam for a moment. But as long as I remained connected to the male lead, there was every chance I would be killed by him once he eventually went berserk.

Before that could happen, finding a way to keep myself alive was the right move.

‘But how?’

A thought flashed through my mind without warning. It was…… a confession.

‘Come to think of it, I’ve never once told Aiden that I love him.’

That made sense, given there had been no romance between us whatsoever, and the marriage had been dispatched in the blink of an eye, like roasting beans over a lightning bolt.

If I could only make him believe that I hadn’t married him to use him for the rest of his life, but that my feelings for him were genuine……

‘Yes! I can erase any resentment future Aiden might build toward me, and then send him off to the female lead. In other words, if I restore things to the original story, Aiden won’t be able to bring himself to harm me either, right?’

But time was running short. Before long, Aiden would begin pulling out fragments of his memory and fitting them together like a puzzle. There was no time to search for another way.

‘That said, I can’t just bluntly demand a divorce out of nowhere…… that would be a straight path to getting killed, wouldn’t it?’

Making up my mind, I wrapped my arms around his slender, firm waist and pulled him into a tight embrace. He flinched.

I buried my face in his chest, eyes squeezed shut, and spoke.

“Dusik, I love you.”

***

I hummed to myself in a cheerful little tune.

Soaking in warm water with steam curling gently upward, surrounded by a generous bloom of yellow Ekarina flowers, it was nothing short of paradise.

The power of the words ‘I love you’ was truly remarkable. For the first time, the face that had always been as rigid as a finely carved statue showed something I had never seen before—flustered.

Picturing that unfamiliar expression of his, a helpless laugh slipped out of me.

‘That was it. That was the key.’

The reason I had chosen Dusik as my marriage partner was simple. As the one and only princess of Martina, I had no desire to leave Martina behind.

I loved this country’s warm-hearted people, the ones who held peace dear, and the royal family that made equality its principle, far too much to leave.

But to stay in Martina, I needed to marry a man who could understand that about me, and until now, not a single man had ever filled that place in my heart. There had been men who courted me, of course, but in their eyes I always glimpsed a hunger for power.

‘If they married me, they’d think they could easily get their hands on the Martina Kingdom.’

And then, in that very moment, I had seen Aiden collapsed on the shore and fallen for him at first sight.

On top of that, there was not a trace of power-hunger in his eyes. Only a sharp, predatory gaze, and a deep, quiet desolation.

‘I wondered where that air of brooding ruin came from, and it turned out he was the protagonist of a dark adult novel……’

I pushed out my lower lip and looked at the wedding ring sitting snugly on my fourth finger. Still beautiful, as always.

The purple opal, a perfect match for the color of his eyes, had been harvested from a cave deep beneath the southern sea of Martina.

Opal was notoriously difficult to harvest, and the reason was the ‘sea monsters’ that lived inside the cave.

Only ten days out of three hundred and sixty-five. That was the window, while the sea monsters slept, to collect the opals embedded in the cave walls.

And the secret of these opals was that they were none other than the petrified eggs of those very monsters.

‘That’s precisely why they’re such rare gems, barely known even across the continent.’

Gurgle. I slowly closed my eyes and sank my face halfway into the water.

‘But if someone were to ask how we manage those depths without a diving bell, well. That would be the secret passed down through generations of our Martina royal family……’

“Princess Riel, aren’t you excited about the honeymoon tomorrow? The Kastua Empire is the very place you’ve always wanted to visit! You must be so thrilled!”

“What? Kastua?”

Splash.

Startled by Merian’s sudden question, I grabbed the edge of the tub and lurched upright, sending water cascading over the sides like a waterfall.

This couldn’t be happening! I had completely forgotten. The honeymoon destination was, of all places, the capital of the Kastua Empire!

“My goodness? What’s wrong, Princess?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing……”

This was a disaster. If we went to the Kastua Empire, Aiden might recover his memories far sooner than expected.

The younger me had dreamed of visiting that faraway land. The Kastua Empire, so unlike Martina with its eternal spring, was a place of breathtaking scenery across all four seasons and filled with strange and wonderful foods. Someday I would set foot on that brilliant land!

So from the age of five, I had spent far more time learning the imperial language than Martina’s own tongue.

Though my father’s objections, citing the dangers, had kept me from ever actually setting foot in the Empire, the irony was that I had been able to communicate with Aiden, who had only known the imperial language.

The idea to go to the Kastua Empire for the honeymoon had been mine, and he had agreed readily. The fact that he could speak the imperial language must have been the only clue he had toward recovering his memories. So Aiden had probably thought that going to the Empire might help him remember.

‘What do I do? Aiden must be looking forward to it.’

But going to Kastua meant not only his memories, but possibly catching the eye of the Kastua imperial family as well.

I gnawed at my thumbnail, click, click, and looked at Merian with a miserable expression.

“Merian. I think…… we’re going to have to cancel the honeymoon.”

Still, I’ll find a way to help you be with the female lead someday, Aiden.

***

The next day at Potela Square.

Potela Square, the very heart of the Martina Kingdom, spreads out in a circular path centered around the Statue of the Goddess of Peace.

From that central path, four smaller roads branch off in the four cardinal directions. To the east lies the royal palace. To the north, the primary residential area for the kingdom’s people. To the west, the bridge leading to the Empire. And to the south, Potela Market, a bustling cluster of shops including workshops, guilds, taverns, restaurants, bookstores, grocers, and clothing stores.

And right now, I am walking side by side with Aiden through that very Potela Market.