All I know is the true ML is Terkan. Him being the childhood friend is almost definite. And he received a prophecy about her, and he is a space time wizard so he probably saw her in the past due to his powers. My guess is that either Terkan is manipulating the emperor, and misrepresenting the prophecy (or part of the prophecy), and Terkan KNOWS his fated partner is the princess (I’m very sure about this). Terkan does NOT like the princess becoming fond of the emperor, and we can see that in his behavior a few times, however he doesn’t need to worry about that much because the emperor is very good about messing things up himself. My guess is, that while things progress, Terkan and Celeste will become closer and closer, as they have been, and the emperor will become more volitile and jealous about their relationship, all while pushing Celeste away or trying to force her to like him without actually considering her.
I’m hoping there will be more masquerade scenes, where Celeste opens up to Terkan and entertains his advances.
I see a few possible endings.
1) Terkan is misrepresenting the prophecy and chose to bring his fated partner (Celeste) in only to take over the throne with her later. This is why he chose to become vital and needed to the emperor, almost to the point the emperor is so dependant on him.
2) Terkan becomes the official mistress of the empress, after the wedding. This is less likely as a true ending because there would be a lot of friction, as we can see the start of this friction already occurring. This is more likely to be an arc in the story.
3) Terkan is the ‘true emperor’ in some way.
4) Terkan knew (through the prophecy) that the only way the emperor could unite the continent under one regime is with Celeste as empress. But Celeste is Terkan’s fated partner, and he thought he could resist it due to his loyalty to the emperor. (This could also be an arc, as it’s unlikely to be an ending.)
5) The empress runs away. I think this is incredibly unlikely, especially due to how the princess is displayed as being actually quite intelligent with a good memory despite her troubled upbringing.
6) I think it’s likely that there is some sort of ‘power’ that the princess has that hasn’t manifested yet. This could be why she is necessary to uniting the continent.
Overall, there is no way there would be any lasting romantic feelings between Celeste and the emperor. Due to a lot of factors, I’m leaning towards the ending somehow being Terkan and Celeste as emperor and empress, but how they get there exactly? I am not sure. Very excited about this series
Okay, so I have 2 ideas:
1.) The silver haired dude is not the emperor but the black haired one is instead. So they switched places probably to have the real emperor move more freely.
2.) The Black haired guy is of royalty or somesuch (due to his demeanor the MC mentioned) and is indeed her childhood friend but more likely not a love interest (he basically did not age, i think, so maybe he's something like a dragon or whatever is popular for the author).
I can see it being the case that both are wrong, but I do not believe the emperor is the childhood friend after changing haircolour or such. He feels too stand-offish.
If anyone can spoiler me, please do. I'm curious.