An Unknown Seed
“A letter? What does it look like?”
At the sight of Laniakea’s woeful face, Hilde started and drew closer.
“I’ll look with you.”
“It’s in a small envelope. About the size of the paper envelopes His Majesty sends.”
“Oh my. I see.”
At Laniakea’s description, Hilde’s hands moved all the faster. Yet no matter how the two of them searched, the paper envelope refused to appear.
Laniakea told her that would do and sent Hilde away, then pressed a hand to her brow.
Where did I put it?
She tried to recall which papers she had been looking over at the desk.
She had spent the whole morning going through documents for the banquet.
Settling on the tea was only the beginning. There was the color of the cloth and curtains dressing the banquet hall’s windows and ceiling, the color of the cords that tied those curtains, the color of the ornamental tassels on those cords, and on and on. The moment she thought one matter decided, a whole train of further choices came trailing after it.
The former empress, of course, had not examined and settled every one of these things herself. Work of that sort was mostly decided by the maids who oversaw the banquet, and only then brought to the empress for approval. Otherwise an empress would have spent the entire year doing nothing but banquet business.
The trouble was that this was the first banquet the new empress was to manage. A first time meant setting the tone for everything that would follow, and so every choice bound up with this banquet had to be made with the greatest care. She must keep the regulations of the Imperial Palace and the etiquette of the imperial house, and still show a face unlike the former empress’s. For that reason, Laniakea had to take part in nearly every decision herself.
Fortunately, Hilde kept the maids so well in hand that the matters Laniakea had to confirm in person were cut by nearly a third. Even so, what remained was hardly small, and by the time a draft of the banquet had only just taken shape, Laniakea was already spent.
“Experts… I need to catch— no. Bring in more experts…”
The words slipped out of her, and she dropped unsteadily into her chair. There was no room to let her mind go slack. If she had a breath to spare, that breath had to be spent on documents as well.
Sure enough, a new document had been laid down in the meantime. Half ready to cry, Laniakea reached for it, and as she did, she thought:
The days I go to the Main Palace are good, at least.
On those days, so that the emperor and empress might share their bed, both the Empress’s Palace and the Emperor’s Palace held back the documents bound for the two of them from the afternoon on. Thanks to that, she could finally draw a breath and go to the Main Palace. Of course, Laniakea had still gathered the papers herself and carried them there.
In any case, the practice is certainly helping…
She remembered the day she and Hyperion had first lain together. She had been so tense she could scarcely breathe, and every time his bare skin met hers she had startled and hiccuped. Not anymore. When Hyperion touched her now, she no longer jumped. She had grown used to him taking her hand without a word, and used to the press of his lips. He had repeated the same acts, mercilessly, until she stopped flinching.
Her ears, though, had never quite grown used to it, and still she flinched—so he had bitten and sucked until she could not hold a thought. In the end, Laniakea had been soaked through with the stimulus that was Hyperion.
But what comes next?
She was used to holding hands and to kisses. After that, would they join their bodies again? And yet that seemed the very thing that would need the most practice of all. For an instant, the day she had fainted clean away passed through her mind. She could not let that happen a second time. Even so, she had no idea what sort of practice it would take before she could take Hyperion inside her.
I can’t keep leaving it to His Majesty alone to hear the Ensi couple’s explanations… I ought to summon them and ask myself.
With that thought, Laniakea looked at the document that had just arrived.
“Oh?”
The moment she saw the heading, light returned to eyes that fatigue had dulled. The new document concerned the palaces other than the Main Palace, the Empress’s Palace, and the Emperor’s Palace. It reported that the annex palaces of the Second, Third, and Fourth Princes, and the villas they had owned, had all been reclaimed, and that a fresh report on the items missing from within them would be submitted within a week.
Naturally, it also spoke of the annex palace where Laniakea herself had stayed. The place stood empty now. Of the few maids and servants who had lived there with her, those who wished to leave had been sent off with a generous severance, and those who wished to remain had been placed in the Empress’s Palace. The document asked whether to leave the annex as it was, or to furnish it anew.
There are no other royals, so perhaps there’s no need to furnish it at all?
An annex palace was, by custom, given one apiece to the emperor’s children of the direct line. Failing that, one might also be granted to an empress dowager, or to other royals permitted to reside inside the Imperial Palace for some other reason. Needless to say, not a single such royal remained.
When an heir is born, it will be given then.
If a child came to her and Hyperion, that child would likely receive one of the annex palaces the Second, Third, and Fourth Princes had once used.
In any case, the place will stand empty for some time.
Then it might be turned into a residence for honored guests, where foreign envoys and those invited by the imperial house could stay.
But…
Laniakea, staring blankly at the document, came back to herself at the sound of bells from the bell tower of the Imperial Palace, far off. She glanced at the clock, rose, and spoke to Hilde.
“I’ll take a short walk in the rear garden. Lucy will be with me, so don’t worry.”
At that, Lucy, who had been at the door, came at once to Laniakea’s side.
She hurried toward the rear garden. The hour she had promised the Mole yesterday had come. As Laniakea made for the same spot as the day before, Lucy swept the surroundings with her eyes and glared, so that no one else might draw near.
Meanwhile Laniakea spoke toward the earth.
“Mole, can you hear me?”
Those whose power was faint, as Laniakea’s was, had to call a spirit aloud.
Only my sisters could summon them by will alone.
Even they had said that calling by will alone took a great deal of strength, so as a rule they simply spoke a Spirit King’s name. And if someone without the ability tried to summon by will, they would be badly hurt—or so she had been told. In any case, she had to call while holding the spirit’s form in mind, whether Mole or Baepsae. Only then could the spirit show itself before her.
“Mole?”
Ordinarily the Mole appeared the instant it was called. Strangely, though she had called twice, the ground stayed still.
“Mole? Can you hear me?”
It had never happened before, and unease crept in.
Should I try another spirit?
Fear lurched up in her—what if she had suddenly lost the ability to call them at all—when the earth heaved.
“Pwah!”
The ground buckled, and the Mole appeared.
“Why are you so late?”
When Laniakea cried out, worry and reproach tangled in her voice, the Mole flopped onto the earth and answered.
“Ugh, don’t even start. Those earth spirits way out there—why are they so uncooperative? I wore myself out explaining I hadn’t come to live on their land, I’d come to help the people farming it.”
Just then Lucy came over, looked at the Mole, and spoke as if it were a pity.
“Half.”
“…”
At Lucy’s words, Laniakea found herself nodding. The Mole truly had been reduced to half of itself.
“Was it very hard?”
“A bit hard, sure, but who do you think I am? I’m the spirit of the earth, aren’t I? I looked over everything about the place you asked for, and I came back!”
So saying, the Mole thumped its chest. Something pattered off its body.
“What’s this?”
Laniakea bent, crouched, and picked up what had fallen.
“Oh, that? A seed. The spirit there gave it to me as a gift. I asked what plant it came from, and it wouldn’t say. I smelled it, I even ate one, and I think it’s a plant I don’t know.”
“Really?”
A plant the Mole did not know. It had to be a rare thing, growing only in some extremely limited region.
“I wonder what will sprout if I plant it.”
As she turned the seed in her fingers, the document she had been reading before she came out flickered through her mind. And in the same instant, she understood.
What she wanted to do with the annex palace where she had stayed.