The Dragon King's Substitute Bride

Chapter 117

CH117 Morgan

She sounded so unsure but I smiled.

""I'm sure."

She nodded. "Then... if you think it best." She chuckled. "I lean on your judgement, though I have to say that the heavens really have brought an amazing young woman into my son's life."

She smiled, her eyes misty. "I can not think of a bride who would forgo her own honeymoon for

another."

I scoffed. "Given the circumstances, I'm not sure why it's such a surprise."

Haruka blinked and then she burst into laughter..

"I really shouldn't laugh!" She cried. "It's been so long since I remembered the fact of how I got to be here..." She shook her head. "And I imagine that your circumstances are not quite the same.

I frowned at that. "What do you mean by that?"

I thought the Trial was pretty much the same throughout time.

She sighed and looked off into the distant, as if she were looking back through the years. She looked utterly blissful and in love. Anya sat beside me, looking just as curious as I felt.

Her fingers traced the edge of her teacup absentmindedly, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips before she finally began.

said, her voice soft but clear, "on the edge of the Celestial Range, where the mountains met the sky. My parents... well, I barely remember them. They died when I was young, leaving me an orphan. The

"We'll get into how I came to

past much. Any time I'd asked her, she glossed over it stating that it didn't matter. Haruka's eyes flickered with old memories-some painful, some bittersweet. For a moment, I saw the girl she must have been:

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CH117

were only two paths for someone like me," she continued, leaning back in her chair, "marry a lord or spend the rest of your life scraping by as a servant. Marriage was considered a way to better your position, but

"Some of them had been more forward in their plans for me, and I had been very forward in

up

just chance my luck in the forests. He just... appeared seemingly." She smiled softly, her eyes brightening for a moment. "He wasn't the king you know today. He was

around the cup, a flicker of

She shrugged. "I was injured. He wanted to bring me to the doctor. At the time, the veil was open. There hadn't been a queen in a long time. Hayato is actually the son of a former concubine as is customary." "You... He

up and-hurried through it, calling for a physician and

suddenly, I'd gone from an injured orphan to a completely healed wife to the

blinked. "Just

"Yep. The way I understand it... your entry into

feel a pang of something bitter in the back of my mind. It wasn't envy-not exactly-but it was hard not to compare her story to mine. There had been no fear for her.

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complicated. I was still dealing with the effects of how I'd ended up here due to Goro

was why she was

been the way it had been with me. I don't know how I would have felt to know for sure that Haruka had gone

"And... you adjusted?"

classes,

so your path to figuring out how to keep the palace afloat and the kingdom in