
I completely agree. I'd be happy to see a story take a different path than the others, and let the main character "become happy" without having to sacrifice all that which otherwise made her happy throughout the entire story.
Besides, it makes more sense for her not to become empress (as you mentioned). She isn't a graceful leader, and while I suppose that isn't necessarily a requirement, it is a huge problem that she doesn't understand other people's hardships. Also, she is infertile so she wouldn't be able to give the emperor the heir he needs.
I believe her happiness can be found in another shape, and that the emperor will be able to move on. It's not as if he has to be separated from her at this moment - she's still his close subordinate. Adding to that, Pauliana becoming close with the emperor's concubines means that she might be able to maintain a close relationship with the emperor without damaging his relationships with his wives. Also, the concubines seem like relatively good people, they aren't really as evil as they usually are in these kinds of stories, so I think the emperor will be able to form meaningful connections with them.
Good job if you managed to read this far (=・ω・=)

true he should honestly give up she has shown that she respects and looks up to him she only sees him as a friend even if they got married she wouldn’t fit in she would be judge a lot cause she doesn’t look “like empresses material” and wouldn’t be able to give a child to take over when they die so things would be easy for them
With the way the story is currently going, I feel like Paulianna and Lucius won't end up together, and tbh I feel like that's the best route cuz Paulianna admires Lucius a lot as her master plus let's be honest here... our girl is not really empress material haha and she really enjoys her knighthood so ripping her off her title as knight would be unfortunate to her :(