When I didn’t answer, he tightened his grip on my waist, his voice sullen. “So you still can’t forget hi
I nodded. “That’s right. I can’t forget him.”
Xylos’s eyes immediately filled with a look of pure anguish. The great and mighty Warlord of the Dragon Clan released his hold on me and whispe-
red, “Is it because I’m not good enough for you?”
I couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and burst out laughing. Xylos looked at me, confused. I reached out and playfully pinched his cheek. “D- on’t be silly. Who could ever forget their greatest enemy? I did have feelings for Damon, but that was in the past. Now, I just want him dead.”
The light slowly returned to Xylos’s eyes.
But then I added, “But I don’t understand. When I asked for a husband in front of everyone, why did you step forward?”
A blush crept up Xylos’s neck to the tips of his ears. He hesitantly told me a story from long ago.
The Warlord wasn’t always the Warlord. Although Xylos had some royal blood, his parents had died young, and he had never been given much
importance. To survive and to prove himself, he had started as a common soldier.
Three hundred years ago, during a battle against a foreign enemy, Xylos was ambushed. All the other soldiers had retreated. He thought he was done for, resigned to becoming a demon’s dinner.
Until a small head popped up. “Hey? You’re from the Dragon Clan. How did you get captured here? Don’t be afraid, I’ll take you home.”
“Phoebe,” Xylos said softly, “I fell for you right then and there. But when you brought me back to the Dragon Clan, I learned from the other soldiers that you were the Phoenix Princess, and you were already engaged to Damon. I thought to myself, who am I to even dream? But I couldn’t stand being a nobody, so I fought and fought on the battlefield until I became the Warlord. That way, even if you had no feelings for me, when you saw
Chapter 2
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being a nobody, so I fought and fought on the battlefield until I became the Warlord. That way, even if you had no feelings for me, when you saw me, you would at least remember me as the Warlord of the Dragon Clan, not just some nameless face in the crowd.”
“Later, when you lost your husband and asked for a new one, I didn’t step forward immediately because I was stunned. It was like a pie had fallen from the sky and hit me on the head. The rest… you know.”
I was both amused and touched. I gently stroked his face, and the heart that had been battered for two lifetimes finally found its peace. Damon had cast me aside like trash, but Xylos treated me like a treasure.
“You fool,” I murmured.
We were lost in each other, time ceasing to exist. Until a servant’s voice came from outside.
Xylos carefully draped a robe over me, hiding the intimate marks, before letting the servant in.
The servant looked at me hesitantly. “The visitor… is the Crown Princess.”
Serena was blocking the doorway. After her true identity was exposed, she had been cast out of the Queen’s territory the same day I left. The hews had quickly reached the Phoenix Clan. Her staunch protector, our father, had long since passed away, and the current leader was his neph- ew, a man Serena had bullied as a child. Upon hearing the news, he had only one thing to say: “The Phoenix Clan has only one princess, and her name is Phoebe.”
With nowhere to go, Serena had been camping outside my palace like a common vagrant.
When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Sister.”
“You’re mistaken,” I said coolly. “I’m not your sister.”
Tears streamed down her face as she clutched at my dress. “I was wrong, sister, I was so wrong! I didn’t mean to steal your man. I just… I just wanted to be Queen. I didn’t want to be looked down on anymore, to have my identity questioned.”
“And so,” I asked, “you had to sacrifice me?”
Her crying stopped abruptly,
“Serena, I gave you two chances,” I explained. “The first time, I confronted you in private, and you turned it around and slandered me, getting me thrown out. The second time, before the coronation, I warned you, and you said I was cursing you. I did everything I could.”
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As Serena cried, a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.
i frowned. “Are you trying to frame me?”
She smiled bitterly. “After you left, Damon went mad and ripped out my life force. The Queen had me beaten. I’m dying.”
Her breath grew shallow. With her last words, she whispered, “If only I hadn’t been so greedy…”
I ordered her to be buried.
That night, the King issued twelve urgent decrees, ordering Xylos to the front lines.
