[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

The heroine is good and the villainess is evil.

That was the absolute truth. That rule was undeniable as well as the fact that only the heroine would receive true love and her happy ending. Likewise, the malicious villainess would always suffer and leave the stage to clear the path for the perfect heroine in the end.

So, for Blanche it felt like her world came crashing around her when she remembered the truth about her life. As the villainess in the typical romance novel “To Be Empress” she was fated to be condemned and abandoned by her lover. No matter how devoted she was to Theodore Estien, the emperor of Artias, she would only be the bratty concubine that would obstruct the heroine, who happened to be Theodore's lawful wife and the empress.

In the end, the villainess would be deserted and executed. It was destined to happen like this, and yet she couldn't give up. She had to change the future.

Preventing the romance between the main characters would get her killed. Much like trying to steer away from the enemies' intrigues, in which she was already caught up, would. But neither the heroine nor the emperor's political rivals would change the fact that Blanche loved the man that was supposed to be the heroine's. And no matter what happened she would always stay by her lover's side. So she wouldn't just follow the book's storyline and let her own doom arrive.

Blanche would survive while trying to suppress all of the selfish desires that had made her the villainess. But was she truly fine with that? Did she not desire more than just surviving?

Did she even have the right? Could the villainess ask for a happy end? Was she too brazen if she just wanted to stay with the man she loved and receive his affection? And wasn't there a bit more to this novel than she remembered? She didn't know and in the end that mattered little when the world around her changed with each day as more and more questions about the future and the past arose.

"The Emperor's Concubine" will be updated thrice a week (usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays)

*The Profanity tag was added due to the characters' occasional swearing, which should not happen too often.