"In that life, I never married nor even met you, Casey. Instead, I was married to the Dalriada heir, Triton. I was so hopelessly head-over-heels for him that I did and gave him whatever he asked.

I fought for him. I slayed his enemies. I sold my soul to the devil and became a demon all for him. I married him to be his strongest pillar of support against those who didn't believe in him.

And then, on this war I cannot remember with whom, I met this man. He was the king of his kingdom and he took fancy in me."

...

"Here, your majesty." A soldier came into her tent, which she barely used, and placed her share of the ration on the table before quickly fleeing.

They never felt comfortable with her presence. But they needed her talent and strength as well as the Dragon's power, so they had to grin and bear with their set up.

Adira, having finished unhooking her armor off her petite body barely holding up, turned a brief glance at the soldier's back, who was gone as quickly as he came, and sighed.

Silently, she picked up her tray and went out to somehow share a meal with Heise. Also, to make sure he was getting enough meal to eat especially since he was a growing dragon.

When the moment she swiped the tent's curtains away, she suddenly heard a soldier say,

"She's as stuck up as ever. Always looking at us condescendingly like she's so almighty!

She can only swing the sword a little bit better than us. And if she didn't have that big ass dragon under her, she wouldn't be as powerful!"

"You shouldn't say that. She's already poor as she is. Even though she's the Queen, his majesty, King Triton, still sent her to the front lines."

"I also heard the king is planning to take Lady Latifolia as a concubine. Poor her, even though she should've been the Queen. Now, she has to settle as the concubine because his majesty needed the power of the Queen's family."

Adira, hearing enough, decided to shut them out and ignore their words before turning to walk towards where Heise was kept.

It wasn't far enough to her tent but she was staying a bit too far away from the troops.

When the Dragon noticed her coming, he had this worried and pained look in his eyes. It was like he felt heartbroken for her. Like he could feel her pain and wanted to console her.

So she smiled brightly at him before settling down beside him. She had this thought that maybe the Dragon heard what the soldiers were gossiping about.

"Don't listen to them. They don't know what they're saying. Triton loves me so much that he even tried to stop me from coming here. But I did because I want to protect him and the kingdom that he rules."

She spoke to this intelligent dragon and comforted him instead. But even as she said those words, she knew that they were nothing but empty lies.

She knew very well how shaky her position as the Queen was—even her position as the wife was being hewed as well. She can only comfort herself with these lies that have become her truth solely on the basis that it was her Triton married in the end and not Iris.

The dragon whined sorrowfully and nudged his large head at her, trying to cheer her up. But even if she laughed merrily, they both knew that there was not a shred of happiness in there.

...

Dawn rolled in and the fighting resumed. Adira was still at the forefront, leading the army, when their foe's commander finally came forward to face her himself.

He had this short hair with a handful of extra long uncut locks on the right side that framed his face and commanding amber eyes that stared right back at her as they locked swords.

"You must be the Ash Demoness? The Queen of the Versaillus Empire?"

"And if I am?"

"What is your husband thinking sending you to your death like this?"

He suddenly asked that momentarily shook Adira's concentration and psyche that she had to retreat and place enough distance from him.

The man was strong and with her being unstable and weary as she was then, with the addition of him poking at a sensitivity subject, she stood no chance against him.

"Your majesty, what do you say we stop this unnecessary war?" He proposed.

"It will only end if you surrender." And Adira hatefully spat at him. There was something about him that was making her alarm bells blare loudly in her ears—her instincts telling her to run the hell out of there.

"Is that so? Well, how about I surrender and hand over the glory of victory to you?"

He smiled brightly and harmlessly that confused her so bad. It was making her more wary of him.

Surely, no ruler would give up as easily as that. Adira knew that there was a catch to his surrender—if he really was.

"What do you want?"

"My, how perfect indeed." He whispered softly that was barely audible to Adira's ears before he added, "You. I want you."

Adira heard his ridiculous demand and couldn't help but laugh derisively at him. It was a fresh and different kind of approach directed at her. It was the first time someone ever 'wanted' her, albeit it disgusted her to her core.

"Who says my husband would allow that?"

"And why wouldn't he? He's even crazy enough to send you here to the battlefield, who's to say he's not a little bit sane enough to give you to me? One life in exchange for all his citizens? A fair trade, might I say."

His words struck where it hurt her the most that she lost herself to anger and attacked him relentlessly. Gone were her techniques, plans or even her ability to look at the bigger picture and assess her battle.

She was just one-sidedly trying to hammer her way into him and release her anger. She was just single mindedly, with a simple pattern and manner of fighting, just pushing her way in.

And the man easily deflected everything she threw at him like he was playing with his prey. Like he was letting her exhaust her anger and strength.

Adira used her fire but the man easily dodged it as well. So she whistled and called onto Heise to incinerate this man and reduce him to nothing but ashes.

The latter immediately obeyed and landed beside her before breathing out fire towards the man that angered Adira—his chosen master.

Being engulfed in fire, Adira did not feel anything remotely close to pity for this man but only relief—stemming from the idea that she won't have to deal with him ever again.

But she was wrong.

When Heise's attack ended, the man emerged from the fire unscathed. Adira didn't know what he did but it seemed as if he used some kind of protection spell that shielded him even from Dragon fire.

"No."

"Well, I hope you have more than that to dish out against me? However, you have to make sure you'll be able to kill me, darling. Because, after this, I'm taking you back with me no matter what."

And well, you could just imagine how Adira panicked so much and became too desperate that she simply threw every single strong attack she had at her disposal.

However, nothing worked against this man.

"What's... What's with this bastard?" Adira wheezed as she leaned on her knees for support.

"Are we done now, your majesty? Can we go home now?"

The man spoke as if he was a very lenient husband who was letting his angry wife vent out as much as possible and take on no matter what she threw at him.

And it was causing strong feelings of repugnance from the woman even more. Because in her eyes, no one matched up nor went above Triton.

"And oh, just so you know, while you were practically out here risking your life and trying to kill me as soon as possible, I already went ahead and asked you from your husband as a token of ceasing this war. Would you like to know his reply?"

Adira could feel her entire being shake in fear. She was fervently praying that Triton had a shred of decency or respect for her left in him—enough that he would not let her go and give her to this man.

Seeing that Adira could not even find her voice, he continued,

"Well, we are free to go back to my home after this. So, shall we, little darling?"