The Dragon King's Substitute Bride

Chapter 110

CHIIO

Tsuneo

I couldn't believe it. My own father, the king of the Dragon Empire, a king of the Celestial Realm, had been hiding.

Hiding from what?

"Why?" I asked, my voice filled with a mixture of confusion and anger.

My father took a deep breath, his eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and resignation.

"I... Shame, honestly."

"What?"

He didn't answer at first, as if he hadn't heard me. But then, slowly, he glanced at me, his eyes distant, unfocused. There was a sadness there, one that I hadn't seen before. It was unsettling.

I studied his face for a moment, the lines deeper than I remembered. His eyes, once so sharp and

calculating, seemed guilty.

He looked away, his gaze drifting back to the Pool. For a long moment, he said nothing, just staring into the water as if searching for answers. Finally, he spoke, his voice heavy with. something I hadn't expected-guilt.. "I dreamed of your mother."

The words hit me like a stone to the chest. It was as if I already knew what he was going to say. My mother was his phoenix, his equal in every sense. Her presence still lingered in this palace, in every room, in every corner of our lives, but I'd known when I first woke up and found out that she was considered dead that the only thing holding him on this plane was duty.

Duty did not make the heartbeat.

It was a line from a poem that he read to me often as a child. It was a poem about grief, written by an ancestor who

A Husband Without A

Was it you?

not a poem, it was simply a journal entry. The last one I made before I left to the

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voice

her, hear her voice. For

question. I could see it in his

silence was all the

stay with her. It felt... peaceful. I had not remembered how... blissful it was to be

a mix of disbelief and fear swirling

taught me to be strong, to fight for what was ours. And yet here he was, that he had wanted to abandon us all.

stay if

"For a dream..." His voice cracked. "I had thought I was dead until I woke up. It had felt the way you would imagine death... We were back in that

woke up beside the casket. I woke up in the cavern, warm, with no knowledge of how

asked, approaching him. "Guilt

made you my heir though you are the youngest... Of all my wrongdoings and misteps... it was the knowledge of what would have happened to you in taking my seat that hurt the most... I couldn't bear it... I couldn't bear to face you as if nothing had happened, as if all I could think of in that moment hadn't been how easy it would be to

never felt so inadequate as a father until that

head. "I have always taught you to face

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prepared to run. To stay with her and drift into

"Yet, you are here."

because I wanted to be,"

could

and turned slowly toward me. My eyes stinging

that you had