The Dragon King's Substitute Bride (Morgan and Tsuneo)
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.

"I grew up in a small village," she 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 village wasn't kind to children without families, and for the most part, I raised myself. It didn't help that I was a foreign orphan in a foreign land."

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

1 bit my lip, wondering, for a moment, if Adele had a similar story. She never spoke about her 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: determined, proud, and utterly alone.

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"I had... adoptive family, of course. Mostly other orphans. We worked together to survive more or less." She chuckled. I'll have to visit them soon. In those days, there 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 it wasn't what I wanted. Not to the men that were in the village or anyone who might have wanted me. I was little more than a possession to most of them, and I knew it."

She rolled her eyes. "Some of them had been more forward in their plans for me, and I had been very forward in how much I had no plans to participate in their plans... That's how I ended in the meadow where I met Hayato."

up

She sighed dreamily. "I was gathering herbs in the meadow beneath the mountain, not far from the gate that led to the Celestial Realm. I need medicine. I was planning to leave the village and 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 and alone-and he wanted to help."

She paused, her fingers tightening around the cup, a flicker of something deeper passing over her expression.

"He didn't know that the gate he'd come through was the Trial 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 a long time. Hayato is actually the son of a former concubine as is customary." "You... He just took you through the Trial?" I asked.

She chuckled. "He did. Scooped me right up and-hurried through it, calling for a physician and all."

She laughed. "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 wife to the crown prince." She smirked. "Imagine my surprise.

I blinked. "Just like that?"

Haruka let out a soft laugh, but it was filled with irony. "Yep. The way I understand it... your entry into the realm was filled with a lot more drama."

I couldn't help but 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. Her and Hayato's relationship had started from a place of care. It had hardly even been a Trial for her.

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I swallowed, feeling the familiar knot of resentment twisting in my chest. My 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 nothing like Haruka's almost graceful ascent to her destiny.

I suppose that was why she was Hayato's queen.

Still it was... comforting to know that it hadn't always 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 through the same issues I had.

"And... you adjusted?"

"Well," she chuckled. "Hayato was insistent that he court me. He was my greatest 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 more difficult I nodded. "I hadn't... thought of that..."

"You're a merchant's daughter, so your path to figuring out how to keep the palace afloat and the kingdom in possession of money, probably won't be so tumultuous."

I chuckled, nodding at that. "I know a few things about people who recklessly overspend. I'll get them into shape."

"I bet."

They laughed.

Maya grinned at her. "So where do you want to go?

I listened with half an ear. My mind still turning over everything. I was angry still. A little bitter, too, but I couldn't regret the path I had taken.

Because through it all, I had found Tsuneo, and he was quickly becoming more to me than I had ever imagined anyone could be. The connection between us was real and that was more than many people could ever hope to have. "What about a trip to the Enchanted Forest? Maya suggested. "Isn't that where you went for your honeymoon?"

Haruka smiled. "I'm surprised you remembered that, but yes... It would be fitting, but... we'll let it be a surprise from Hayato."

"We could arrange the carriage to leave after lunch, Anya said. "The queen's carriage has been

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maintained meticulously because Ari was convinced it would be hers one day."

Haruka burst into laughter.

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