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
been
handmaiden
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not ask for
more and more. Is
have sharp instincts. Technically, she is
cousin."
"And why isn't she a lady instead of a
said. "Her mother
"I'd been banking on her being
them soon
he's hitting on me, then he's insulting me." I
such behaviors run in the family." He
can
would I tell you?" He smirked..
read my
to once upon a
darkness."
shook my head. "That have something to do with
younger than me and resentful of me being chosen as the next heir. I am sure that Maya told you that it's rare for the queen to birth a child."
- nower:
to the
handmaiden was meant to be ensuring she was taking the potions necessary to 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
destruction of a room during birth, but glad to
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He went still.
no desire
www
it. I was a woman and Their to the family. It was expected that either I'd have a child to succeed me
..
a desire to
scowled at him. "Get out
"I cannot."
head. "It hardly matters now,
His eyes were
looked up, startled by the sound. blazing with desire. His hands shook, suspended in the air between us as if he wanted to touch me. Did
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