Chapter 15
The Dragon King's Substitute Bride
CH15
Morgan
Worry clawed at me. "Isn't it pretty usual for people to leave instructions for their successors?"
He nodded. "In the case of the queen, your instructions are in two parts. One is the journals, but the part you are looking for is held in the Trial itself."
I scowled at him. "I'm just supposed to know because I didn't die?"
His lips twitched. "Because you were chosen by the heavens and blessed by the Phoenix."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Mystic words that mean nothing to me other than seeming important."
He tapped a journal. "Perhaps reading will educate you, then."
I met his gaze. "How can you be so sure?"
He sat on the edge of the desk and looked out the window with a wistfulness in his eyes.
"Because I knew my mother, and she told me many stories about how she came to settle in her power as queen."
I looked down at the journals. "Will you tell me about her?".
"What do you want to know?"
I considered it, trailing my fingers over the cover of the journal in front of me.
"Was she happy with your father?"
"She said she was."
"You didn't believe her?"
her
"I believe that happiness in tion was complicated," he said. "She stirred a lot of
controversy."
him. "By having the
smirked. "You've been talking to
handmaiden or
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CH15
could not ask for someone
been thinking about it... more and more. Is Maya... related to you in some
have sharp instincts. Technically,
cousin."
isn't she a
he said. "Her mother and mine were
on her
"You'll meet them soon
hitting on me, then he's insulting me." I glanced over at him, holding back the words that
think such behaviors run in the family." He sounded amused.
a way I can
smirked.. "And it's the least
others read my
once upon a time, but not
darkness."
my head. "That have something to
of me being chosen as the next heir. I am sure that Maya
- nower:
to the risk
bribed by a concubine and later dismissed. My father
what would cause the destruction
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He went still.
have no desire for
www
succeed me or choose someone to do so, and if I
..
had a desire to
at him. "Get
"I cannot."
my head. "It hardly matters
His eyes were
by the sound. blazing with desire. His hands shook, suspended in the air between us as if he wanted to touch me. Did he? He licked his lips and
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