Chapter one: The Book I Died For

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.

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