It's not like her situation would be bad if they end up together. She's the real princess so being with Rupert will solidify his powers. She can even request him to hide her family treason.
She's so dumb to take the blame of her family sins (treason plan) even tho she had no idea or participation about it.
The thing is, it doesn't matter if she gets married to him. Her foster father thinks ML and FL are enemies before they were born. He'd rebel anyway and kill ML. Then make his son marry FL. That's why she had to leave. It was the whole point why the brother loved her and she wanted to avoid him. Sighhh
That's the reason she cut ties with her family trying to make them realize she has no intention to get the throne.
I hate to admit but his j*rk dad is surely smart on scheming things (like Moriarty). The first time is when he create a scenario for the trial and solve the issue himself, to make the emperor indebted to him. And now, he sacrifice his daughter to distract the emperor then frame the crime to that silver haired boy (through replacing the sword).
Not to mention he attempt to kill the emperor multiple times (before the Theor reveal) but still manage to slip.
I really love how the FL/MC of this story is a strong one. I usually dislike reading Chinese manhwa cuz the FL are often softy weak who always rely on their ML. They also get easily affected by rumors and have trust issue with their ML.
However, in this manhwa the FL is strong but at the same time still have soft spot when she can't endure it anymore. She also don't use the ML status but just rely on him as emotional support










¹ So Ai never loves Hikaru. ² It sounds like they are promoting a JP chips through this manga, lmao. ³ Holy sh*t, Ruby death flag.