Okay hear me out though. Like, I mean okay What if the story she was reading was from an unreliable narrator? Now hear me out, what if it was the high priest who was really the narrator? Like think about it, what better way to sabotage the emperor then by sabotaging a relationship that can keep him connected? Like we have to think, the author may not be who we think the author is
It's possible, high priest is definitely sus but he feels more like devil incarnate sus rather then author in disguise sus to me. We still don't know his whole backstory so he could be both, either or none of them ╮(￣▽￣)╭
Though it's definitely fun to speculate.
I don't know, I'm actually hoping that the high priest ends up with the empress. There's something about thirst trap villains imagine a scenario, where the high priest realizes that it's the empress that has you served his plans but that just makes him intrigued by her even more and then
Author strikes with the "sad backstory for bad ML to justify a neglectful relationship" trope, it was not very effective.