My Choice: A War God vs A Fake Dragon Chapter 05
Chapter 5 The Bloodline He Chased In Vain
“I was your son, too.”
健
Finished
He stood there trembling, years of resentment erupting at once. “Why couldn’t any of you see my effort? Why couldn’t any of you treat us equally?”
His voice grew harsher. “After my brother died, I stepped into his place for the stability of the Dragon clan. Before today, did any of you ever notice anything wrong?”
Then he looked around wildly. “If I was truly no worse than him, why was he chosen as Crown Prince instead of me?”
The High Priest finally could not stay silent. He answered for the Dragon King. “Prince Cassian, the Crown Prince’s power far exceeded yours. I presided over the magic trials myself. His Highness Caelan was the most gifted heir the Dragon clan had produced in a thousand years. His appointment as Crown Prince was the will of the entire clan.”
Cassian stared at him. “I don’t believe that. If he was truly stronger than me, why could I never tell?”
The High Priest sighed. “Because His Highness feared hurting your pride. He deliberately kept his power suppressed to your level. Unless the realm stood on the brink of disaster, he would never release it.”
Then he added, “That is why even when you took his identity, none of us saw through you immediately.”
I knew that part was true.
Years ago, Cassian had once been ambushed by a sea fiend and left unconscious.
I had been wounded myself, but I still shielded him and fought back as best I could.
Then the real Crown Prince arrived.
He killed the sea fiend in a single strike.
Cassian, by contrast, had battled it for an hour without leaving so much as a scratch.
Afterward, he had grumbled bitterly, “If that thing hadn’t caught me off guard, I never would’ve lost to something as pathetic as a sea fiend.”
I glanced at the Crown Prince standing nearby and said nothing.
I never thought my silence would feed Cassian’s delusion for so many years.
He slumped to the ground, dazed. “So that was it. Caelan… I was wrong about you.”
The High Priest, however, still looked troubled. “Even so, there is something that doesn’t make sense. Even if the Second Prince impersonated the Crown Prince, the Crown Princess should still carry the legitimate bloodline of the Phoenix royal house. If one of the conditions was still met, God would never have rejected them so violently.”
He frowned. “When the present Dragon Queen inherited the rite with the Dragon King, she came from the Serpent line rather than full Dragon blood, and God still did not punish them.”
His eyes shifted toward my sister. “Unless…”
Finished
I smiled and finished the thought for him. “Unless the Crown Princess isn’t truly of the Phoenix royal bloodline either.”
Selene reacted at once. “You’re lying.”
Her whole body shook, anger and panic written plainly across her face. “I’m your sister. If I’m/not of the true Phoenix bloodline, then what does that make you?”
She shot one glance toward Cassian, and the hatred in her eyes was impossible to miss.
Then she crawled to the Dragon King’s feet and cried, “Father, I had no idea Cassian was pretending to be Caelan. If punishment must be given, then give it to him alone.”
Cassian jerked his head up and stared at her in disbelief.
I almost laughed.
Only in death had I learned, in my previous life, that Cassian had always been secretly in love with Selene.
He thought her gentle, gracious, and kind. He had only met her a handful of times at court banquets, yet he had already become hopelessly devoted.
After stealing my brother-in-law’s identity, he had showered her with treasures from heaven and earth, practically worshipping the ground she walked on.
And now, the woman he had adored was casting him aside the moment disaster struck.
The Dragon King had already taken too many blows in one day. Barely keeping himself upright, he looked at me and asked, “Mira… Selene shares your father and mother. How can you call her an impostor?”
I shook my head. “She and I share only a father.”
When my mother gave birth to me, the damage to her body was too great. She died soon afterward.
By the time I was old enough to remember anything, Selene was already my elder sister.
My father had always told me to listen to her.
So no matter how often she made things difficult for me, I had swallowed my pride and given way.
Until my last life, during the years I was forced into widowhood, I happened to overhear her one day in the ancestral shrine.
She had been speaking before a memorial tablet. “All these years, Father kept me under Mira’s mother’s name and never gave me a proper standing. But once I become Dragon Queen, I’ll tell the whole world you were my true mother.”
I never got the chance to speak that truth aloud.
Cassian had me cut down first.
Finisher
I looked at Selene now and said, “Your mother and our father were involved long before he ever married the Phoenix Queen. But because your mother’s status was too low, he hid the truth and took the Queen instead.
“When the Queen died in childbirth, he claimed she had given birth to twins and brought you back to the Phoenix clan.”
I let the words hang in the air. “The Phoenix clan follows the mother’s bloodline. Whether someone belongs to the royal line is determined by the mother.”
Then I said it clearly. “Your mother was a pheasant spirit. You are not part of the true Phoenix royal bloodline.”
Before Selene could answer, Cassian lunged at her and wrapped his hands around her throat.
The Dragon King immediately ordered the guards to separate them.
Cassian was laughing and sobbing all at once. “So all of it… Everything I risked and planned… all of it was for nothing.”
He glared at Selene in madness. “You lying bitch. You dared play me.”
Selene, even pinned down, was no less vicious. She gave him a cold smile and spat back, “And what about you? Mira was the true heir of the Phoenix royal bloodline, and you still threw her away the moment you decided to steal the Crown Prince’s place.”
