I knew the story. I knew how it ended.

Until I woke up inside it…

In love with the Emperor, who was never mine.

I wasn’t the heroine.

I was no one.

But with a blade in my hand, magic in my veins, and his name in my heart—

I’m rewriting everything.

One empire.

And a love that was never supposed to happen.

My name was Leona. Well… it still is, technically.

One moment, I was curled up in bed, rereading Empire of Thorns for the fifth time, tears streaming as Emperor Caelan stood alone at the end, heartbroken and unmoved by the world’s love. The next thing I know, I was choking on smoke and blood, thrown into a battlefield in a world that shouldn’t have been real.

When I came to, I was eight. With flaming red waves and eyes the color of spring grass, I didn’t look like the side characters I remembered. I looked… like me.

Turns out, I’d been reincarnated as Leona Kaelis, a minor noble with no real role in the plot. A footnote. A shadow.

Perfect.

Because if I wasn’t written into the story, then I wouldn’t be bound by its rules. I could forge my own destiny—and maybe… just maybe, get close to him.

Now, at eighteen, I’m a battle-hardened mage and a swordswoman with a scandalous reputation for flirting with danger. I smile easily, laugh loudly, and wear my freedom like a crown.

But behind every smirk lies a truth I’ve never dared speak aloud:

I’m in love with the Emperor.

Caelan Ashet Ardent.

The man I was never meant to meet.

__________________________________

I died with a book in my hands.

Not in a tragic way. No car crash, no final words whispered through bloodied lips. Just me, curled under the blankets of my cramped apartment, a storm raging outside while I clutched the one story I had read too many times.

Empire of Thorns.

A masterpiece, at least to me. Magic, war, betrayal, love. The kind of book that wrecked you slowly—because you fell in love with a man who would never return it.

Caelan Ashet Ardent.

The cold, untouchable Emperor. Ten years older than the heroine, ruthless with his enemies, and heartbreakingly gentle with his sister that he’d burn the world for. He was never meant to fall in love. And he didn’t. Not in the original story.

But I did.

I memorized every word he spoke, every sharp glance, every rare flicker of vulnerability. And when he died—unloved, unkissed, and alone—I cried like I’d lost something real.

I remember whispering, “I wish I could’ve saved you.”

I remember the thunder crashing.

And then—

Nothing.

---

I woke up screaming, lungs full of smoke, body far too small, limbs aching like I’d been thrown.

Because I had.

I was eight years old again, in a burning field surrounded by corpses and magic-scorched earth. Men in bloodied armor fought beasts I didn’t recognize. The sky was split open with lightning.

Someone grabbed me.

“Lady Leona! Stay low!” a knight shouted, dragging me behind a crumbling barricade.

Lady Leona? The name hit like ice.

Because I knew it. She was a footnote in the book. A minor noble girl who died early. She had no arc. No impact. No page count.

But when I caught my reflection in a pool of bloodied rainwater, I saw her face.

Wavy crimson hair. Bright green eyes. My face, but younger.

Somehow, impossibly, I had become Leona Kaelis—a name barely worth remembering in a story I knew by heart.

---

Ten years passed. I adapted. I trained. I survived.

This world was cruel, beautiful, and real in ways no book had prepared me for. I learned magic with the best mages in the empire. I wielded blades until my hands bled. I built a reputation—half scandal, half legend—as the sharp-tongued noble who defied

expectations and dressed scandalously.

I danced at court, dressed scandalously as they said,laughed too loud, flirted too often. I played the role of someone free and someone else. I was me, but at the same time, I wasn't.

But I had a secret no one knew.

I remembered everything.

I remembered the betrayals that were coming. The war. The death. The love triangle that would fracture the empire.

And most of all…

I remembered him.

Caelan Ashet Ardent. The Emperor.

The man I loved before I ever set foot in his world.

The Imperial Palace was colder than I imagined.

Not physically. The air was warm, filled with the scent of roses and incense. Servants bustled in hushed silence, polished marble gleamed under chandeliers, and golden banners fluttered in the corridors.

But the moment I stepped inside the grand audience chamber, the temperature dropped.

Or maybe it was just him.

Caelan Ashet Ardent.

The Emperor. The man I had dreamed about, wept for, loved from a world away.

He sat on a throne of black stone veined with crimson—metal forged from the ashes of the last war. His presence swallowed the room. Cold, composed, and commanding, as if carved from winter itself. He wore his uniform like armor: sharp-lined obsidian with a crimson mantle, his imperial sigil burning on one shoulder like fire held in place by will alone.

He didn’t glance at me. Not at first.

I stood at the center of the hall, surrounded by ministers and guards, my reputation marching ahead of me like a stormcloud. The noble girl turned warrior. The one with magic too wild and eyes too direct.

“Leona Kaelis,” the herald announced. “Lady of House Kaelis, daughter of Lord Renan Kaelis, and duelist champion of the western provinces.”

The echo of my name died out. I bowed—gracefully, but not low enough to be truly polite. Just enough to play the part of a rebellious noble who didn’t fear the crown.

His voice came like steel through silk. “Rise.”

I did.

And he looked at me.

Our eyes met—mine green and gleaming, his the color of frost over midnight. My breath caught. No book, no portrait, and no desperate rereading of the Empire of Thorns had prepared me for this.

He wasn’t just beautiful. He was dangerous. Regal. Every movement restrained, every breath measured. His gaze wasn’t cruel, but it wasn’t kind either. It was calculating. Distant. A man who ruled not by charm, but by silence that made others nervous.

I smiled anyway. “Your Majesty.”

“Lady Kaelis.” He said my name like it tasted strange on his tongue.

Caelan tilted his head, studying me like I was a riddle in a language he hadn’t decided to trust. “I’ve heard… interesting things."

“Only the flattering ones, I hope.”

There was a pause. Someone inhaled sharply behind me.

One of his advisors—a sharp-eyed man in gray—cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, Lady Kaelis is here to receive formal commendation for her service in the border wars.”

“She led a counteroffensive that saved an entire battalion,” another said.

Caelan’s gaze never left mine. “A noblewoman who fights in the mud. Unusual.”

“I was tired of tea parties,” I said, eyes glittering. “Mud washes off. Regret doesn’t.”

Silence. Even the guards shifted uncomfortably.

Then, the corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile—but something like it. “Spoken like someone who hasn’t learned fear.”

“I learned it,” I said, stepping forward slowly, “and then I beat it unconscious with a sword.”

This time, I saw it—a flicker in his eyes. Amusement. Or intrigue. Maybe both.

“Leave us,” he said.

The entire chamber stilled.

“Your Majesty?” one of the ministers asked, hesitating.

“I said—leave.”

One by one, the court began to file out, glancing between me and the Emperor like they’d just smelled blood in the air.

When the doors shut, it was just the two of us. Silence stretched thin between us.

Caelan rose from his throne and walked toward me, every step like thunder in my chest. He was taller than I imagined. Sharper, somehow. Real.

He stopped just in front of me, eyes scanning every inch of my face like he might find an answer there.

“Who are you really, Leona Kaelis?”

I swallowed. He was close enough that I could see the faint scar at his temple, the faint tension in his jaw.

“I’m the girl who knows how your story ends,” I thought.

But I said nothing.

Just smiled.

The Emperor, the untouchable, unreadable, unstoppable Caelan Ashet Ardent, looked at me like I was the first mystery he didn’t know how to solve.