Chapter 01
It happened on a day when snow was falling so hard it looked like it could crush the tower.
“Rivi, please… open your eyes…”
That day, just like any other, I had a fever. And as always, my mother sat beside me, crying endlessly.
‘It hurts…’
My breath was hot. Because of the fever, my mother’s tearful face kept blurring and coming back into focus.
It hurt so much, and I was so exhausted that I even wondered, ‘Am I really going to die this time?’
‘…What the heck is this!’
But strangely enough, at that very moment—
Instead of dying, memories from my previous life came back to me.
“Rivi, are you sure you don’t want to rest more? I can do the dishes by myself…”
“It’s okay. I’m fine now.”
I could feel Mom nervously hovering near me. I casually replied and focused on washing the dishes.
Every time I moved the scrubber, a squeaky sound came as the plates got cleaner.
Then, I stopped for a moment and stared into the shiny plate.
The feeling of washing dishes, the sound of it—and even my reflection in the plate were so clear.
‘…This is the world from the novel.’
Sigh.
“Wow, look at her.”
I sighed deeply.
My mother laughed and said, “Why is my nine-year-old sighing like that?”
She looked like a queen of a fairy tale with long green curly hair and deep blue eyes that seemed to capture the night sea.
Sigh…
Seeing her made me feel even more troubled. I held in my sigh this time, afraid of being teased again.
If the memories of my past life were real, then the world I was living in was from the novel The Princess’s Man.
And I was…
…This still feels like a lie.
I was the daughter of the villainess in the story.
More specifically, I was the sickly, soon-to-die daughter.
“Cough.”
Maybe because the thought was so absurd, I suddenly started coughing.
As I hunched over and coughed, my mother, who had been laughing just moments ago, lost all color in her face. She grabbed my shoulder in panic.
“Rivi! Are you okay? Not again…!”
“No, no. I just swallowed wrong.”
“Here, here, drink some water first. Your throat will hurt.”
Actually, my cough soon stopped, but my mother kept looking at me anxiously, handing me warm water, her eyes full of concern.
Seeing her like that made me feel a lump in my throat.
…How could such a kind person be the villainess?
It doesn’t make sense.
I must have been daydreaming with feverish thoughts.
I tried to push aside the ridiculous fantasy and erased the contents of The Princess’s Man from my mind.
However, a few days later, a newspaper article was published, and it described the contents of the novel without a single mistake.
‘Patrick Bryan Becomes Duke Bryan.’
[After saving the lives of many soldiers, including the Crown Prince, and killing the enemy general in the war with Ciklis, Patrick Bryan (24) has been awarded the title of Duke by the Imperial family. The empire is in an uproar due to his heroic deeds.]
I shivered when I saw the article. My hair stood on end as I glared at the newspaper.
Is this the male lead from the novel…?
Because I already knew the contents of this article through the novel.
Despite his great achievements in the war and the manifestation of his magical power, most people believed it was absurd for a common soldier to be awarded the title of Duke.
I also thought so. One of the reasons I thought my past-life memories were “impossible” was this.
But… could this really be the male lead, Patrick Bryan?
He managed to rise from a commoner to a Duke, something that only happened in a novel.
At this point, I had no choice but to accept it.
Damn it.
This world was really the world from a novel, and I had been born as the villainess’s dying daughter.
The novel The Princess’s Man was about the love story between the female lead, the princess, and the male lead, Patrick Bryan. The villains in the story are my grandfather and my mother.
That was the Duke of Deerwood and my mother, Gretel Deerwood.
In reality, the main culprit was the Duke.
My grandfather… or, frankly, I don’t even want to call him that.
The Duke of Deerwood, my biological grandfather, was an ambitious man.
He started as a baron running a small business but eventually became a duke through shrewd business moves, strategic marriages, and land dealings.
However, that was the limit of his rise.
A duke was a position you could only reach with noble blood or overwhelming honor, something the Deerwood family lacked.
Patrick Bryan’s case was an exception. If he wasn’t the male lead in the novel, it would have been impossible.
The Deerwood family did not have the bloodline or the honor to become a duke. They had only gained a reputation for being underhanded over the years.
Now, the Duke of Deerwood planned to make my mother, Gretel Deerwood, the Duchess.
He hoped to control the family by raising a child from my mother to become the Duke’s heir.
But his plan went terribly wrong from the beginning.
It was because of me.
No one knew. No one could have known that the villainess would have a dying daughter as a hostage…
My mother, Gretel Deerwood, had grown up with the gardener’s son as a close friend, and their relationship eventually turned into a romantic one.
The Duke found out that my mother was pregnant with me and was furious.
[How dare someone so lowly impregnate my daughter…?]
The Duke went mad, killed my biological father, and tried to kill me too.
But my mother threatened to die if I was killed, so the Duke only managed to send her to the north, trying to prevent any rumors from spreading.
That was how I, Raviella Deerwood, was born in this tower.
…Actually, I don’t even officially exist. My name was given to me by my mother.
Born in a remote area with snow all year round, without a midwife, my health was frail from the start.
When my illness worsened, it happened at the same time as Patrick Bryan’s return to the capital.
[This guy who became a Duke overnight is bound to have weaknesses. If we play it right, we can easily get the position of Duchess.]
The Duke of Deerwood, having heard of Patrick Bryan, set his sights on him.
Unlike other proud dukes, Patrick Bryan, a newly made Duke, needed money and political support to stabilize his position.
But the imperial family was unlikely to offer him money or much help, and the nobles of the capital had a deep resentment towards him, a commoner.
The Duke of Deerwood decided to exploit this gap.
[If you want to save your child, do as I say.]
He kidnapped me and forced my mother to become engaged to Patrick Bryan.
