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 or
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CH15
could not ask for someone
it... more and more. Is Maya... related to you in
smirked. "You have sharp instincts.
cousin."
isn't she
he said. "Her
hummed. "I'd been banking on her being
them soon enough, other
me." I glanced over at him, holding back
He sounded amused.
I can keep you out
tell you?" He smirked.. "And it's
others read
once upon a time, but not since
darkness."
have something to
first consort. He is younger than me and resentful of me
- nower:
due to the
a dragon child is a hard undertaking." Tsuneo paused. "Her 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
to know what would cause the destruction of a room during birth, but glad to hear I
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He went still.
have no desire
www
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 telling my father that I'd pass the successorship to Hiro when I wanted to
..
a
"Get out
"I cannot."
shook my head. "It hardly
His eyes were
I 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 he? He licked his
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