Diem’s experiences teach her to balance her love for others with her duty to her family and country and her personal desires. At the novel’s start, Diem lives with her family and works as a healer, believing that these facets of her life will always be fixed and guaranteed. However, as she ventures out into the world beyond her home, her village, and the healing center, she begins to experience a barrage of internal conflicts. Her relationships with Henri Albanon, Prince Luther, and her family change drastically after Auralie’s disappearance, and she begins to wonder what she truly wants. Over time, she starts “to feel […] distrustful of [her] own heart” because her desires feel antithetical to her palace duties and relational obligations (341).

Diem’s developing affection for Prince Luther changes how she sees her family, her country, her people, and herself. After the two kiss, Diem realizes that Luther is not the cold, removed person she thought him to be, and his passion ignites something vital in her. As she reflects, 

Looking at him now was like staring in a mirror in the worst kind of way. I hid behind false bravado […] while Luther’s shield was forged with brooding stares and clenched jaws—but inside, we were one and the same.