To Take a Mermaid's Heart

For over a decade, the Bavenberg Empire and the mermarcs—a race of sea-dwelling people—have been locked in a devastating war. When a fragile truce is finally brokered, a young half-mermarc girl named Cordelia is sent to the imperial palace as a living symbol of peace. Over the years, she builds a quiet, comfortable life within the palace walls, forming deep bonds with the imperial prince, Noah von Bavenberg, and the lady-in-waiting, Melina von Hannover. Though the emperor treats her with generosity and she lacks for nothing, one restriction defines her existence: she is forbidden from ever stepping beyond the confines of the imperial villa. Cordelia’s sheltered world shatters on her eighteenth birthday when a horrific incident upends everything she believed to be true. In the aftermath, she inexplicably finds herself thrust two years into the past, carrying the memory of her own destruction. Armed with this second chance, she must pierce the illusions surrounding her gilded captivity and uncover the sinister truths hidden beneath the empire's peaceful facade. With time running out, Cordelia faces a desperate struggle to unravel the conspiracy against her and rewrite a fate that once cost her everything.