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."

at him. "By having the king's

been

handmaiden or

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CH15

could not ask for someone more

thinking about it... more and more. Is Maya... related to you in some

"You have sharp

cousin."

I blinked. "And why isn't she a lady instead of

said. "Her mother and

been banking on

meet them soon enough, other than

me." I glanced over at him, holding back the words that I wanted to

run in the family." He sounded amused. "To be fair, you

way I can keep you out of my

would I tell you?" He smirked..

others read my

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:

to the risk

necessary to keep her from becoming pregnant, but she was bribed by a concubine and later dismissed. My father says that

at the thought. "I don't think I want to know what would cause the destruction of a room during birth, but glad

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CH15

He went still.

have no desire for

www

hadn't ever thought about it. I was a woman and Their to the family. It was expected that either I'd have a child to succeed me or choose someone to do so, and if I married, he would essentially be head of the family. I remember

..

a

at him. "Get

"I cannot."

"It hardly

His eyes were

desire. His hands shook, suspended in the air between us as if he

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