Dragon King's Harem Chapter 453. There Will be no Wedding Today!

Dragon King's Harem Chapter 453. There Will be no Wedding Today!

The wedding ritual screeched to a halt. Literally.

The magic thread that had been weaving between Maria and Cedric—those elegant silver lines spiraling up from the ritual altar—snapped like brittle thread pulled too tight. It fizzled and dissolved into glittering ash.

The priestess closest to them dropped her scepter. The clang echoed. No one moved to pick it up.

Cedric turned toward the voice, his composure cracking for the first time all evening. His eyes darted from Vaelis, to the blood, to the balcony—then back to the silent, standing crowd.

And finally… to me.

I tilted my head, smiled faintly. Not kindly.

He opened his mouth—probably to protest, maybe to ask for clarification, maybe to fake ignorance.

Too late.

I moved.

‘Shadow Walk.’

The mana warped beneath me. Shadows split. Light snapped.

And I was gone.

One breath later—I stood on the altar. Between Maria and Cedric.

My boots hit the frost-etched stone with a thud loud enough to break the last illusions of peace in the room.

Maria didn’t flinch. Her eyes met mine.

She didn’t ask questions.

She stepped behind me. Her hands brushed my robe.

I didn’t have to look back. I could feel her behind me. Cold and composed, but—finally—safe.

Gasps rippled through the room. Delegates turned to whisper among themselves. The dwarven representatives were wide-eyed, hands twitching toward their weapons.

And then, of course… there was Callum.

The Witch King.

Still seated. Still calm.

His hands folded over one knee like he was waiting for dessert to arrive.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t gesture.

Didn’t even raise a brow.

But his eyes? Those smug, glinting eyes?

They screamed, “I’m so glad I came. Please don’t disappoint me.”

Yeah. Of course he’d find this entertaining.

Al, however, was another story.

He didn’t blink. He didn’t look away. His gaze was locked on Callum like a sniper locking in on his target. If Callum so much as breathed weird, I was ninety-nine percent sure Al would throw protocol out the frosty window and dive over the balcony with a sword in each hand.

Sela?

Gone.

Smart girl. I’d seen her slip away just after the announcement—right when people were too busy gasping and trying to figure out if they should hide under their chairs or pretend they weren’t surrounded by assassins. She was doing what only she could do—heading toward Kaelen. If she could reach him in time, maybe she could remove it.

If not…

Well. That was going to be a bigger mess than this wedding.

Speaking of messes… Cedric finally found his voice.

He straightened, tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his ceremonial coat. Too bad that panic sweat had already hit. His cheek twitched once. His eye had that tiny flicker—like someone trying to calculate too many things at once and realizing none of the numbers added up in his favor.

“What is the meaning of this… Your Majesty?” he asked.

There it was. The fake calm.

The attempt to control the narrative like this wasn’t already spiraling out of his reach.

“I’m simply showing my disagreement with this wedding,” I said.

I kept my tone polite. Diplomatic.

Like I wasn’t seconds away from punching that duke in front of two royal courts.

The gasps hit again—this time sharper. One of the forest Elf nobles choked on his wine.

Cedric’s face twitched again, the edge of his mouth curling into something far less polite. “Disagreement?” he repeated, like I’d just told him his favorite wine was overrated.

“Yes,” I said. “Strongly.”

He scoffed, dropping the mask a little more. “And why, exactly?”

I rolled my shoulders, glancing briefly at Maria behind me. She didn’t speak. Didn’t need to.

“Because you’re not marrying the queen out of love,” I said.

Cedric’s face hardened. “Political marriages are normal, Your Majesty. I thought even a fire-blooded warlord like you would understand that.”

“Oh, I do,” I said easily. “I understand politics very well. Which is why I also know blackmailing the queen and using her son as a hostage is not normal practice in royal alliances.”

Silence.

Dead. Frozen. Suffocating.

The kind of silence that didn’t just hush a room—it buried it.

Cedric didn’t deny it.

Of course, he didn’t. Couldn’t.

He hadn’t expected me to be bold enough to say it.

Not here.

Not publicly.

I saw the flicker of rage behind his eyes. That twitch in his jaw. The tic in his right hand. He was already calculating how to spin it. How to make me the aggressor. The liar.

“Those are dangerous accusations,” he said quietly. “Do you have proof?”

I smiled again. A slow, lazy curl of the mouth. “Would you like me to bring your rune master here? Or should we wake the boy up and show everyone the rune you embedded in his chest—without his knowledge or consent?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

That was check.

Not checkmate.

Not yet.

But it was close.

And gods, I wanted to see what he’d do now.

Would he draw a blade?

Cry injustice?

Throw a tantrum?

Or maybe—just maybe—realize the game had changed and the whole damn board had caught fire while he was still trying to light the candles?

Maria stepped beside me again.

Shoulders back. Crown glinting. Voice clear.

“There will be no wedding today,” she said. “Nor tomorrow. Nor ever.”

Her voice cut through the hall like sharpened frost. Not loud. Just final.

Gasps rippled through the delegates again. Some of them looked like their internal mana circuits short-circuited. A high elf woman clutched her pearls. A dwarf ambassador leaned forward in his seat like this was better than any tavern brawl. I swore someone in the back said “Oof.”

Cedric turned toward Maria, slow and cold, his jaw twitching.

"Are you sure, Your Majesty?" he asked.

His voice was low. Almost gentle.

But I knew that voice. It was the one a hunter used before shooting a caged animal. The kind where calm meant lethal.