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 king's
smirked. "You've been
handmaiden or
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ask for someone more
it... more and more. Is Maya... related to you in some
smirked. "You have sharp instincts. Technically, she is
cousin."
I blinked. "And why isn't she a lady instead of
said. "Her mother
banking on her being
chuckled. "You'll meet them
his deal? First, he's hitting on me, then he's insulting me." I glanced over
He sounded amused. "To be fair, you are not
I can keep you out of my
would I tell you?" He smirked.. "And it's the
read my
might have been able to once upon a
darkness."
"That have something
"You asked about Keiji. He is the son of my father's first consort. He is younger than me and resentful of me being chosen as the next heir. I am sure that Maya told
- nower:
due to the risk
keep her from becoming pregnant, but she was bribed by a concubine and later dismissed. My father says that my mother didn't show a moment of fear until the day of my birth, My birth destroyed the whole
thought. "I don't think I want to know what would cause the destruction of a room during birth, but glad to
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He went still.
no desire
www
child to succeed me or choose someone to do so, and if I married, he would essentially be head of the family. I remember telling my father that I'd pass the successorship to Hiro
..
never had a desire
scowled at him. "Get out of
"I cannot."
"It hardly matters now,
His eyes were
the sound. blazing with desire. His hands shook, suspended in the air between us as if he
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