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.

them. They died when I was young, leaving me an orphan. The village wasn't kind to children without families, and for the most part, I raised myself. It

her head. "We'll get into how I came to be there some

her past much. Any time I'd asked her, she glossed over it

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CH117

back in her chair, "marry a lord or spend the rest of your life

in their plans for me, and I had been very forward in how much I

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 younger, quieter, still learning what it meant to be a crown prince under his father, but he was just as kind then as he is now." Her eyes glossed over. "He saw me-this girl, barely out of childhood, lost

paused, her fingers tightening around the cup, a flicker of something deeper passing

Gates," she said quietly. My jaw dropped. 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

and-hurried

"It was absolute chaos. We got through the gate. The gong sounded, the whole palace went crazy, and suddenly, I'd gone from an injured orphan to a completely healed

blinked. "Just like

soft laugh, but it was filled with irony. "Yep. The way I understand

not to compare her story to

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own trial had been so much more dramatic, traumatic, and complicated. I was still dealing with the effects of how I'd ended up here due to Goro and Adele's machinations. It was

was why

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

"And... you adjusted?"

defender and apologetic while I got through all the classes, the endless education, and nonsense that I was certain was just made to make things

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