After My Best Friend and I Transmigrated Into a Book, the System Made Us Seduce Each Other's Husbands novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Wrong Wedding
Elora wakes mid-ceremony in a dragon palace, the System sets her mission, the groom swaps her cup, and the book's last line for her appears.
Elora Prescott woke up in the middle of her own wedding, with a hundred dragons watching her walk.
She was in a pale blue gown with a train that two maids carried.
Her hands held a heavy dark book she had never seen before.
The hall was black stone, lit by candles taller than Elora's shoulder.
Horns and scales and fur collars lined both sides of the aisle, and every face turned to follow her.
Someone was holding her left elbow.
She looked sideways and saw Mirelle, her best friend since freshman year, in a red velvet gown and a gold circlet.
Mirelle's mouth was open.
"Elora," she whispered. "Please tell me you also fell asleep on my couch with the wine."
"I was doing flashcards," Elora whispered back. "For the bar."
"That's not an answer."
"I don't have one."
A voice spoke inside Elora's head, flat and bright.
"Welcome, Host. Please do not scream. You have been transmigrated into the novel 'The Dragon Throne's Chosen.'"
Pale letters hung in the air in front of her eyes.
She glanced at Mirelle.
Mirelle was staring at the same place, and her lips moved as she read.
"You can see it too," Elora breathed.
"I see a menu," Mirelle said. "It has a countdown."
The letters rearranged themselves.
MISSION: Win over your friend's husband within 90 days. REWARD: 1,000,000,000 USD and return to your world. WIN CONDITION: The target prince says he loves you, and the bond-mark forms on his wrist. FAILURE: You remain in this world and follow the original story.
Elora read it twice.
The aisle ended at a raised platform.
Two men waited there, side by side, in black and gold.
The taller one had curved black horns and scales that ran from his wrists up under his sleeves.
His eyes were the color of ice on a window.
The other one was grinning at Mirelle.
His horns were small and copper-colored, and his dark red coat hung open at the throat.
"The tall one is mine," Elora whispered. "The grinning one is yours."
"So I'm supposed to win your husband," Mirelle whispered.
"And I'm supposed to win yours."
"This is the worst group project of my life."
They reached the platform.
An old dragonkin woman in a crown of black iron raised her hands, and the hall went silent.
She named the tall one Prince Aurek, heir to the Ember Throne, and the grinning one his brother, Prince Dacian.
Elora understood only some of the rest of the ceremony.
Lowmere, the small human kingdom to the south, had sent two princesses to the Ember Throne, as it did every generation.
The princes would take them as wives.
Nobody in the hall seemed to think that the princesses had any say in it.
A servant came forward with two silver cups of dark wine.
He offered the first one to Elora.
She took it and lifted it to her lips.
A hand closed over hers.
Cold scales pressed against her knuckles, and the crown prince took the cup away from her.
He drank it all, in front of everyone.
Then he took the second cup from the servant's tray, the one meant for himself, and put it in her hands.
"Drink that," he said.
His voice was low and even, and he did not look at her.
She drank.
It tasted of cloves and smoke.
Mirelle's husband made a small, amused sound beside her.
"My brother, the romantic," he murmured.
The crown prince did not answer.
He turned and walked down the aisle, and the hall bowed as he passed.
Elora stood there holding an empty cup and wondering what exactly she had just agreed to.
The wedding feast lasted until the moon was high.
Elora sat at the head table beside the crown prince and ate nothing, because he did not look at his own plate and she took that as a warning.
He said nothing to her all evening.
At the end of it, two maids took her to a bedchamber the size of her old apartment.
A fire burned in a hearth carved like a dragon's open mouth.
Mirelle was already there, sitting on the foot of the bed in her red gown with her shoes in her hand.
"They put me in the room next door," Mirelle said. "Mine had a note on the pillow. It said, 'Do not wait up.'"
"Mine just has a lock on the outside."
"Of course it does."
They looked at each other.
Elora sat down beside her and took her hand.
"We do this together," she said. "Whatever the System wants, we don't lie to each other, and we don't let one of us be the one left behind."
Mirelle squeezed her fingers hard.
"Together," she said. "I'll coach you on him. You tell me what he's like in the book. Nobody sleeps with the target."
"Agreed."
Elora opened her mouth to say more.
The pale letters appeared in front of her again, and this time they were red.
NOVEL SUMMARY, FINAL PARAGRAPH, CHARACTER: PRINCESS OF LOWMERE (FIRST).
"On the night of the Blood Moon, the human princess was dragged to the dais in chains.
The crown prince himself signed the order.
Her head was cut off before the whole court, and her blood did not stain the stone for long."
Below it, a small countdown blinked.
89 DAYS.
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