I really enjoyed the concept of this story and I loved the world building and getting to experience the same characters through different points in history. However, this is a love story, not a romance, so there is no HEA. The ending felt unsatisfying, not because there was no happily ever after but because I felt like it left River’s story very open-ended, and we never really know what happened in the Emperor’s timeline. Does the curse get broken? Where did the curse come from? Does it matter? I still very much enjoyed this book, but this doesn’t feel like the kind of story where I can happily not know how it ends.