The First Night
Because the emperor had died before the princes' funerals were even fully settled, his own was arranged with unusual speed.
Laniakea put on the mourning clothes she had worn for the princes and stepped carefully into the hall. From the entrance onward, imperial knights held the place in an iron ring.
Their appearance, though, was not quite the same. At the princes' funeral the knights of the Imperial Order had stood in immaculate dress uniforms. Today they were certainly dressed for the occasion, yet wrinkles creased the cloth and stains marked the fabric, and some of the armor still bore dents with battlefield dust filmed over them.
What set them apart most of all from two days earlier was the sharpness in their eyes. Then, the knights had been busier trading greetings with passing nobles than actually standing guard. The men standing here now were drawn taut, as if they might draw steel at any moment. Faced with an atmosphere as raw as a battlefield, the nobles who entered could not even meet their eyes, and hurried to their seats.
When Laniakea stepped inside, every gaze swung toward her. It was a mercy the veil hid her face. Otherwise they would all have been whispering furiously over whatever expression she wore.
As she made for the place where she had stood two days before, Signo, waiting ahead of her, came to meet her. He had hurried over the moment she began glancing around, uneasy.
"There is no need to be so on your guard. Every one of them is His Highness Hyperion's knight."
"His Highness's knights? You don't mean from the border?"
"I do. The men who faced the enemy with him out there. Though whether I ought to say with him, or say they were driven like dogs, is something I am still turning over..."
"Aren't the border knights forbidden from coming here?"
The border was meant to be held like iron at all times. The empress had insisted as much, and had forbidden Hyperion from bringing any of those knights out with him. And so, whenever he came to the Imperial Palace, he had always come alone. Even at the banquets where gifts of comfort were presented, unlike every other region, the single knight from the territory where Hyperion was stationed had been the only one who never appeared.
And yet he had brought the men who served beside him all the way here.
"In ordinary times, they could not have come. But this is an emergency, is it not? His Majesty the Emperor has passed. Under the regulations, the border knights are permitted to enter the capital in such a case."
"Even so... is it truly all right?"
"Do not worry. The border garrison is not so fragile that it will collapse because this many men have come to the capital. You have no idea how solidly His Highness has fortified that place over the years."
As he answered, Signo's eyes shone, full of trust in Hyperion. He looked over the knights holding the perimeter like iron, pride plain on his face, then guided Laniakea a little farther forward.
"Your Highness the Princess Consort's place is this way."
It was the highest seat in the funeral hall. Two days ago, it had been where the empress stood.
"And Her Majesty the Empress?"
"The grief of losing her children and her husband in so short a span was too great, and she collapsed, and so she is unable to attend today's funeral... That is what will be announced."
He said it, then added in a voice small enough for Laniakea alone.
"She is confined. She has been raising hell, swearing she will kill His Highness Hyperion."
At his explanation, Laniakea nodded as if it made perfect sense. At that funeral, too, the woman had carried on like someone gone mad. And now the emperor himself was dead. She could hardly endure it without truly losing her mind.
Laniakea was looking around once more when Hyperion entered.
Hundreds filled the hall, and yet the moment he stepped in, every other sound vanished. Only his footsteps rang clear. The mourning clothes must have been prepared in haste, but wrapped entirely in black, he showed not the slightest lack. There was only a bearing of absolute assurance and perfection, as if the god of death had entered his own domain.
The nobles who had been watching him come in bowed their heads in a rush as Hyperion passed beside them. The knights, too, sharper-edged than a moment before, lowered their heads toward him.
In that moment, everyone present understood it in their bones. The old, frail emperor was dead, and the age of a new ruler had begun.
The funeral ended quickly. The princes' rites two days earlier must have served as excellent practice.
The moment it was over, the Imperial Palace erupted into uproar. Along with the new emperor's coronation, the families of the second, third, and fourth princes' consorts, and the former empress, all had to leave the palace.
"What nonsense is this! Why should I have to leave this palace! As Empress Dowager, it is only right that I remain and instruct an emperor and empress who are still unripe!"
The former empress screamed at the knights who had stormed the Empress's Palace, hurling whatever came to hand. They were Hyperion's knights, men who did not give a step even before monsters, and yet before the former empress they had no choice but to fall back one pace.
"Well. This has become rather troublesome."
Signo pressed a hand to his brow as he watched. Then a finger jabbed him in the side. He turned to find Lucy already beside him, now dressed in the uniform of the head lady-in-waiting.
"That. Cleaning?"
"You mean you can see Her Majesty the former empress out?"
He had not known Lucy long, but he was already rather good at understanding her.
"Empress. Moving. Fast."
Laniakea was still living near the rooms where Hyperion stayed. She needed to move into the Empress's Palace at once, but with the former empress digging in and refusing to leave, the schedule kept slipping. Unable to stand it any longer, Lucy had come with her mind made up: today, she would throw the former empress out, no matter what.
"Then I leave it to you."
The moment Signo gave leave, Lucy strode straight to the former empress, seized her about the waist, and hoisted her clean off the ground.
"What do you think you're doing! Insolence! Let go! I said let go!"
The empress thrashed for her life, but Lucy paid her no mind at all and ran outside with her in her arms. Then she stuffed the former empress into the waiting carriage as if she were packing a sack. After shutting the door, she even untied the ribbon at her own throat and lashed the carriage handle tight with it, so the empress could not get out.
"You—you! You ignorant Lupin wench...!"
The former empress jabbed a finger through the window and glared, but Lucy only smiled and waved.
"Out."
Within a week, the Empress's Palace welcomed a new mistress. Not only the Empress's Palace. The Main Palace, too, had every trace of the late emperor's long illness wiped away, and received a new master.
In the midst of it all, Laniakea was dying.
"Somebody save me..."
Sprawled on a bed that still felt unfamiliar, she mumbled it with a blank face. It had to have been the busiest week of her life.
When she had been a prince's consort, the only documents she had to check and review were the schedule that arrived once a month. If one were being generous, perhaps the order slips for whatever the Annex Palace needed. But the moment the funeral ended, papers had piled on Laniakea's desk as high as a grown person. Every last one of them, of course, was something the empress was required to review.
And it was not only paperwork. Since entering the Imperial Palace, Laniakea had been taught nothing but the most basic etiquette. She had learned nothing at all about how a palace was run. Even so, an empress could not simply leave the running of the Imperial Palace untouched. A faculty thrown together in haste—drawn from the Imperial Academy and from the Bureau of the Imperial Household—taught her without pause, morning until evening, everything she had to master at once.
Laniakea weakly unfolded the schedule clutched in her hand. Five days of appointments were packed onto it, line after line. There were surely more words there than on every schedule she had received over the past three years combined.
But her eyes were not on those appointments now. On the sixth day, the schedule was blank.
"Haa..."
A day set aside for rest ought to have been something to look forward to, yet her face was full of worry. That was the day she was to share Hyperion's bed.
How many times will we have to do it?
She had never done it herself, but she had heard a fair amount.
They said that, depending on the person, a child might come from a single time, or it might take months.
Laniakea laid a hand on her stomach. Her courses came at a fairly regular interval, and the examinations she underwent every few months had never found anything wrong. She thought of Hyperion. Considering that powerful-looking body, he did not seem likely to have any physical trouble either.
Then... might a child come from just once?