Rue took a deep breath and focused on the story.
"As you likely know, after you left, I was taken in by the Crown Prince. We were wed not long after you left, and it was a bit of a scandal at the time. But nothing compared to what came after.
You see, the other branches of the family weren't happy about a half-breed dragonkin being Queen after he ascended.
It led to so many assassination attempts that we gave up on trying to explain my marriage being within the rules as I could transform, and we simply held a purge of the extended family branches.
Not an extermination, he was too soft-hearted for that. But about a quarter of the Royal Family of Gathuzan was culled after an attempted coup.
He should have finished them all.
We ruled together for, oh, I suppose a hundred years or so. Those were good days, and our descendants are still the main branch of the Royal Family.
