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

simply called himself A Husband Without

Was it you?

journal entry. The last one I

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do you mean?" I asked, my voice colder than I intended. "You dreamed

We were... together again. I could feel her, hear her voice. For a moment, I thought I was dead. I thought I had finally gone

wasn't a question. I could see it in

all the confirmation I

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

fear swirling in my chest. This was the man

to fight for what was ours. And yet

going to stay if given the

"I had thought I was dead until I woke up. It had felt the way you would imagine death... We were back in that meadow we met as if we had all the time in the world. There

warm, with no knowledge of how long I had been down there, and the guilt hit me so hard I

approaching him. "Guilt for

the way I've failed the kingdom. The way I have failed you. For what I've allowed to happen. I've watched as my children. turn on one another... You had to kill two of your siblings, Tsuneo... I've 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

felt so inadequate as a father

taught you to face your

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her and drift into my next life... The shame for wanting to abandon you. Shame for wanting

"Yet, you are here."

to be,"

You could have

me. My eyes stinging as I looked down at

that you had a million plans to make it happen... I knew that the only reason you were still