The Hand She Tried to Forget
After that, Laniakea listened for a long while as Mole explained what he had found at the place she had asked him to look into. Only when she realized how much time had slipped away did she send him off and return to the office with Lucy.
Just as she had expected, a fresh stack of documents was waiting, and Hilde and the other maids were sidling nearer, watching her face for the right moment to approach. It went without saying that the matters in their hands were ones only Laniakea could decide. The instant she sat, they descended on her as if they had been waiting for nothing else.
While she worked through them, she had meant to write Hyperion about the Annex Palace before the thought escaped her. But her mind was in such a whirl that halfway through she decided it would not do, set the page aside to begin again, and pushed it into a corner of the desk…
Surely it didn’t get mixed in with the documents?
The possibility made her head ache. In truth, the letter said very little. There were no secrets written in it, and because it broke off mid-sentence, anyone would see at once that it had been slipped in by mistake.
Only the papers bound for the Emperor’s Palace went out, so His Majesty is certain to open it first…
She had already signed it, which left nothing but the Emperor’s review. The chance of anyone else seeing it was small.
At least that’s a mercy.
The thought had barely formed before Laniakea startled at it.
Why should that be a mercy?
Would it not be better if someone other than the Emperor saw it? Hyperion was one of the people she ought to find most difficult. The word husband was still strange to her, and he was the one everyone—herself included—was meant to serve and obey.
And yet he isn’t as frightening as he was at first.
When she thought about it, facing Hyperion had, at some point, ceased to fill her with dread. Once, the mere sight of him in the distance had drawn her tight with nerves before their eyes could even meet.
It really is turning out just as the Ensi couple said.
They had told her that if she met him often and let herself grow used to his presence, the tension would ease, and that as familiarity settled in, he would become easier to be with. Hyperion had treated her exactly as they described.
Though he did move rather faster than I expected.
He had taken her hand, and after that he had spent the entire day with his mouth at her neck and her ears.
It’s still a little embarrassing, though…
Strangely, this slow, lingering closeness shamed her and wore on her far more than the first time they had joined their bodies. She knew why. Was this not the sort of thing one did only with someone one truly loved?
Looking around her, she had often seen and heard of people who coupled out of lust even when there was no affection between them. At outdoor banquets on summer nights, a few would slip away from watching eyes for secret trysts. The nobles called it frivolous and vulgar—and yet she had seen the very people who said so seize a partner’s hand and vanish into the bushes the moment one appeared. Others had watched and laughed, as if the sight were amusing.
But while everyone else was looking toward those heading into the woods, Laniakea had sat in a resting room at the edge of the banquet hall, her gaze on the chairs nearby. An elderly couple occupied them. They held each other’s hands tightly and looked at one another. The husband listened closely while his wife spoke, and whatever she was telling him must have delighted him, for he burst out laughing again and again as he heard it. Then he drew her hand up and cradled his own face with it. As if even that were not enough, he kissed the back of her hand over and over, clasping it and letting it go, then clasping it again.
In the meantime, those who had gone into the woods returned, their clothes and hair in disarray. They turned their backs on each other and melted into the crowd as if nothing had happened, as if they were strangers. All the while, the old couple still sat with their hands joined. Laniakea could not look away until they rose to leave.
A hollow ache she could not name had just begun to make her think of leaving as well when the conversation of the people seated nearby reached her.
“Count and Countess Dennes are as devoted as ever.”
“They are. I hear it was absolute chaos when they announced the marriage. They had been quarreling every single day, and then all at once they said they were getting married.”
“Everyone insisted it wouldn’t last… and yet look how fond of each other they still are.”
The whisperers watched the Dennes couple recede. Unlike the looks they had given those disappearing into the woods, every face was full of envy. Laniakea, too, kept her eyes on them until they vanished from sight—or, more precisely, on the hands the two of them never let go. The entire time they sat in the hall, and even as they left, the count and his wife were always touching, save for the moments when they had no choice.
It was nothing like the people who spoke of love, coupled in haste, and then refused to touch at all in front of anyone else. At that sight, Laniakea had looked down at her own hands, thinking she would never have a bond like that for the rest of her life.
And yet now there was someone who, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, held her hand through every moment they were together. The instant she recognized that, a ticklish warmth stirred in one corner of her chest. In all the years she had lived, no one had ever treated her with tenderness. In Priatra she had grown up beneath the coldness of her parents and her sisters, and after she came to the Empire she had been forced to live quietly and alone under the Empress’s watch.
What had kept her from loneliness were the few beings always near her. The spirits she had to call with care, out of everyone’s sight—and, once she reached the Empire, Lucy, who guarded her with her whole body. They were not many, but she had thought them enough. She had told herself that if she could go on living quietly with them, that would be enough…
For no particular reason, Laniakea closed her hand and opened it again. A long while had passed since she parted from Hyperion, and still her palm seemed to hold the feeling of his firm grip. At the same time the emptiness returned. The sensation, once so strange, must have grown too familiar in the meantime.
What am I going to do?
Thinking she would never feel it again once the year was over, worry pressed in on her already. At the same time, a voice whispered inside her.
You could stay longer, couldn’t you?
He had named one year, but Hyperion had said that if she wished it, she might remain as long as she liked. Laniakea, however, had already set the clock inside her turning.
If I stay too long, it will become difficult.
Even if no one else said so, she knew her place and her position well. For now Hyperion needed her, and he treated her as his wife. But could that continue? At present everyone held their breath and watched his mood, yet once time passed and things settled, he would want another kind of power. What he would need then was alliance with the great nobles. In that situation, Laniakea would be nothing more than a useless card.
I’ve already had more than enough of those looks.
Were they not the same eyes that had always turned on her in Priatra? If she remained, she would surely meet them again. That, she could not bear.
Laniakea gave her hand a light shake, as if to cast off every trace of sensation left in it. She drew her chair in, sat once more, and looked over the desk. There was so much to do. These documents, and going to the Main Palace to see Hyperion—both were duties laid upon her. Ordinary things, in which she need invest no feeling, so that when they were finished she could leave this place without regret…
She was thinking that, and had just taken up her pen again, when—
Bang!
The office door flew open with a tremendous crash. This was a place where everyone who entered deliberately muffled even their footsteps. Who would barge in so recklessly? Laniakea and the maids alike stared at the open door in shock. Someone stood there, breathing hard.
“Your Majesty?”
Startled, Laniakea shot to her feet. Unless her eyes were deceiving her, the one who had stormed the office was Hyperion. He looked at her, crossed the room in a few strides, and caught her hand. His warmth met the very hand from which she had just shaken the memory of the night, and with that alone every memory she thought she had discarded came rushing back.
“Your Majesty, why so suddenly…”
Unable to understand why he had come so abruptly and seized her, she was about to ask what had happened when Hyperion drew her by the hand and spoke.
“Let us go to the Main Palace.”
At that, the room stirred. Here and there came the maids’ voices, murmuring Oh my, oh my! as they clapped their hands over their mouths.