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

had simply called himself A Husband Without A Wife. 

Was it you? 

Yes, Tarofu said. Though it was not a poem, it was simply a journal entry. The last one I made before I left to the sacred lands and our daughter, the first golden dragon, took over. 

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CHO 

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice colder than I intended. “You dreamed of her? 

He nodded, a faint, bitter smile pulling at his lips. was with her. In the dream, it felt so real, as if no time had passed. 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 to her.” 

I clenched my fists, the anger rising in me without warning. And you wanted to stay there.” 

It wasn’t a question. I could see it in his eyes. 

His silence was all the confirmation I needed. 

“I did,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “I wanted to stay with her. It felt… peaceful. I had not remembered how… blissful it was to be with her.” 

I stared at him, a mix of disbelief and fear swirling in my chest. This was the man who had raised 

admitting me, who had taught me to be strong, to fight for what was ours. And yet here he was, that he had wanted to abandon us all. He had never admitted it before. 

“You were going to stay if given the choice.” 

“Yes,” he said, his voice croaking. “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 meadow we met as if we had all the time in the world. There was no guilt. No grief…” 

He shuddered and put his head back in his hands. 

“And then I woke up beside the casket. I woke up in the cavern, warm, with no knowledge of how long I had been down there, and the guilt hit me so hard I could barely breathe.” 

“Guilt?” I asked, approaching him. “Guilt for what?” 

“For everything,” he said, his voice cracking. “For Haruka’s death. 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 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 just stay there regardless of how hard it would be for you.” 

He shook his head. “I had never felt so inadequate as a father until that moment…” 

He shook his head. “I have always taught you to face your failures, your mistakes, to try and make 

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CHIO 

them right, and I… I was so prepared to run. To stay with her and drift into my next life… The shame for wanting to abandon you. Shame for wanting to escape, 1- 

“Yet, you are here.” 

“Not because I wanted to be,” he bit out. 

“… You could have ended it.” 

He went still and turned slowly toward me. My eyes stinging as I looked down at him. 

“I knew… I knew the moment I woke up and knew that mother was gone that… that you thought of it, that you had a million plans to make it happen… I knew that the only reason you were still 

here was because….