By all appearances, Empress Sienna possesses everything a woman could want.
A crown, a powerful husband, a place at the center of the empire, the sort of life countless noble ladies dream about. Yet anyone living inside the palace knows that titles and happiness are rarely the same thing.
The emperor spends little time at her side, influential nobles have their own interests to protect, and every faction within the court seems to be calculating something. Sienna learns long ago that speaking carelessly can create problems, while trusting the wrong person can create even bigger ones.
What troubles her most, however, is her son.
As the years pass, the atmosphere around the imperial family grows increasingly uncomfortable. Conversations stop when certain people enter a room, harmless rumors somehow spread through the palace overnight, and matters that should be simple become surprisingly complicated. Sienna can sense things moving in a direction she dislikes, yet by the time she understands how serious the situation has become, there is very little she can do to stop it.
Then she wakes up five years in the past.
The palace is exactly as she remembers it. The same people are present, the same misunderstandings have yet to happen, and the same choices are waiting for her at every turn. This time, however, Sienna has no intention of quietly accepting whatever future awaits her.
Her first decision surprises everyone.
Instead of placing her hopes on a lasting marriage, she proposes a simple arrangement.
Five years.
After that, both sides can walk away without regrets.
At least, that is the plan.
The difficulty is that changing one decision tends to affect everything else. Relationships begin developing differently, people reveal sides of themselves she never noticed before, and events she once believed were settled become much harder to understand. Even the emperor himself proves far less predictable than the version she remembers.
Sienna wanted a chance to protect her son and avoid old mistakes.
What she receives instead is a second opportunity to look at her entire life from a different angle, and perhaps discover that some stories were never as straightforward as they first appeared.
