If Only for a Year
"What?"
The attack had been because of that? He had not even sent the assailants himself. What was he saying?
"After you came to see me and went back, another group of ministers arrived and spoke carelessly about the marriage. So..."
Hyperion hesitated, then continued. "You still had not given me a definite answer, so I told them I was not considering divorce. I thought that if I spoke firmly, they might trouble me a little less. It seems they interpreted it rather differently."
"So the ministers left believing Your Highness loves me so dearly that you would never divorce me. And the attacker was sent by one of them."
Sorting through what he had said, Laniakea let out a long sigh.
"To misunderstand it like that..."
"..."
At her murmur, Hyperion said nothing. Taking that silence for regret over how badly the matter had tangled, Laniakea spoke with a troubled look.
"Couldn't we correct their misunderstanding even now? If you divorced me at once..."
"No. They would believe it even less."
He answered at once, as if he had already known what she would say.
"I have insisted until now that I have no intention of divorcing. If I suddenly changed my stance after the attack, they would think I truly care for you, and mean to send you away so that you will not be put in danger."
Laniakea's expression hardened. He had a point. From what she had heard, he had turned aside the ministers' demands for divorce with remarkable stubbornness. And now he would reverse that attitude in a single moment? Of course they would assume he had changed his mind because he feared she might be hurt.
The longer she turned his words over, the darker her face became.
"Then... even after I divorce, I will still be in danger."
Even if Hyperion remarried and lived well with a new empress, a misunderstanding like this would not vanish easily. Assailants had already found her inside the palace. If she divorced and stepped beyond the Imperial Palace, would she even make it out of the capital before she was killed? For a moment she saw them lining up, one after another, each come to end her life.
Then what do I do now?
Only a few hours ago she had been imagining what to plant in the fields and how she would furnish a house. Now all of it was vanishing like foam. She sat stricken and silent beneath the bleakness closing in, and Hyperion stepped one pace closer, sank to one knee, and bowed his head.
"Laniakea."
He met her eyes and spoke her name. In that instant she remembered that he had called her by name when he came to save her as well. As if he had done so countless times, he said it with perfect ease.
"You may think me shameless, having let things come to this, but would you consider my proposal once more?"
"Your Highness's proposal..."
His expression grew more solemn.
"Stay here as my wife and empress, and bear me one child. If you will do that, I will never again wish for anything from you, nor force anything upon you."
He spoke as a man pleading for a single wish. His manner left her with a strange feeling. The wedding had already been held. It was a marriage without any legal flaw, and in a union with the imperial family an heir was closer to a duty than to anything else, a matter that had to come before all the rest. Hyperion could have demanded an heir of her whenever he pleased, by force if he wished. No one would have reproached him for it. They would sooner have pointed at Laniakea for failing her obligation. From the moment she signed the Marriage Contract, she too had agreed to fulfill that duty.
And yet, from the very beginning, he had gone on leaving the choice in her hands, telling her that if she truly did not want it, he would let the matter go.
"I will also give you everything you want. If you wish to leave the Imperial Palace and live elsewhere, the knights of the Empire will guard you always. If you wish to live quietly, they will conceal who they are and protect you all the same."
When his words drew her back into thought, he added one more condition.
"I will not keep you by force for long. Please. One year. Will you be my wife for just one year? If no child comes even after that, I will not hold you any longer. And even if there is no child, I will still grant you whatever you desire."
Laniakea considered the terms he had offered. Because of this attack, the hope of divorcing, going out into the world, and living somewhere quiet and at ease had become, in practice, an impossible dream. If she bore an heir as her original duty required, then as the mother of imperial blood she could formally receive the protection of the imperial knights.
One year. One child, between Hyperion and herself.
It was not the first time she had considered it. When she came to the Empire, she had already steeled herself to share his bed. But three years had passed with nothing between them but a handful of meals, and she had long since stopped thinking about spending the night with him. She looked at the man seated before her: tall, broad through the body, his face handsome even if his manner was blunt and a little frightening. Even now, from a place where he could have compelled her, he was doing all he could to consider her side of things.
A child... with this man?
She knew what passed between a man and a woman in bed. She was grown, and as royalty she had received the basic education. But she had never once imagined herself doing such a thing. When she first learned how a child was made, the mere thought had filled her with a fierce revulsion. As she grew older and came to understand that everyone was born that way, the revulsion eased a little, yet it was still nothing Laniakea could take pleasure in. Born royal, it was simply an unwelcome duty she would have to perform someday. That was all it had ever been.
When she kept silent, Hyperion spoke with a slightly crestfallen face.
"I don't suppose I am to your liking. I look like this, and I can hardly claim a pleasant temperament, so it is only natural that you would be unwilling. And yet here I am, making a request like this. Of course you must find it repulsive..."
"That isn't it!"
Laniakea rushed to deny him.
"It isn't that I dislike Your Highness. Everything has changed so suddenly that I just can't take it in yet..."
She meant it. She did not dislike Hyperion. She had never faced him long enough for dislike to take root. And since his return to the Imperial Palace, had he not helped her at every turn? When the empress had lunged at her at the funeral, and when the attacker broke into the Annex Palace, he had thrown his own body forward to protect her. There was no reason to dislike a man like that. If anything, she felt a strong fondness for him.
And besides... embarrassingly enough, she thought that making a child might be possible, if it was with him. The moment the thought formed, her face flushed red.
What am I thinking?
She hastily gathered herself, and before she answered him she asked the thing that had kept nagging at her.
"But Your Highness, why haven't you asked me about the spirits?"
When she came to his residence, she had been certain that would be the first thing he asked. If spirits could be summoned even in the Empire, he would gain a great deal of help in steadying the palace once he became emperor. And the instant the attacker spoke of spirits, Hyperion had killed him. Seeing that, she had wondered whether he meant to be the only one who possessed that knowledge. She had expected him to bring her here and then press her about the spirits, yet he had only returned to the proposal he made the day before and said not a single word about them, as if he had seen nothing at all.
At her question, he answered without hesitation.
"Because it seemed you did not wish it known."
Her eyes widened. Because she did not want it, he had no intention of forcing the truth out of her. In that moment the rims of her eyes reddened. Whether it was because the tension frozen into her by the attacker had finally loosened, or because someone she had never expected was showing her such care, she could not tell.
"Laniakea? Are you all right?"
Startled by her sudden welling tears, Hyperion raised his voice. She looked at her husband, undone by nothing more than the reddening of her eyes, and opened her mouth.
"...I'll accept Your Highness's proposal."
She believed that this man would keep his word.
The next day, the Emperor died.