A Place We Share
"You cannot find His Majesty? What is that supposed to mean?"
At Laniakea's rebuke, the imperial knight bowed his head.
But she had seen it plainly. In the instant before he lowered his gaze, irritation had crossed his face, as if she were nothing but a nuisance.
Even so, she could not tell him to look up again. The look would already be gone, and to everyone else she would only seem a woman airing private feelings in a crisis and harassing a knight.
"Report the situation again, in full. Twenty knights moved with His Majesty. Half of them are seasoned men who have ridden with him since the border. And you mean to tell me those men lost him?"
"It is... there was an ambush. On the road from the Academy to the capital, as they passed through Feren Forest."
"What!"
"An ambush?"
At the knight's words, shock broke from the crowd packed into the lobby of the Emperor's Palace.
An attack on the Emperor? For decades, such a thing had been unthinkable in the Empire. The former emperor, of course, had never much cared to leave the Imperial Palace, and aside from grand occasions such as the hunt he almost never went out at all. Whenever he did, he took hundreds of imperial knights with him. And above all, there had been no faction in the Empire that would dare aim for the throne.
A few houses had fattened themselves in the former empress's grip, and there were places bled by their extraction, but on the whole the Empire had been passing through a remarkably peaceful age. And now, the moment a new emperor took the throne—an ambush.
"Ha."
Laniakea let the sound out at the sheer wretchedness of it. Even a prince's consort who had kept quietly to the Annex Palace could see how thoroughly this mocked imperial authority.
She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, then questioned the knight.
"How many attacked?"
"Pardon?"
"I am asking how many assaulted His Majesty, and where, and in what manner. Answer properly."
"Ah—yes. The attackers looked to be about twenty, and they were dressed as commoners."
Even as he answered, the knight stared at Laniakea in bewilderment.
Everyone knew her as a powerless empress out of a minor kingdom. Had they not all snickered that the Empress's Palace only began to run properly once she had assembled her ladies-in-waiting? So, quite naturally, the Empress in people's minds was nothing more than a pretty doll the Emperor had chosen to keep beside him for the time being. And yet, in a crisis that had even capable ministers flustered, she showed no agitation at all. She was calmly confirming the facts.
"So you failed to get an exact count."
At Laniakea's low voice, the knight bowed his head.
In any situation, a swift and certain reading of the enemy was among a knight's most basic duties. It was already absurd that the very men guarding the Emperor had lost the one they were meant to protect—and they had not even managed a proper count of the attackers. Those who grasped that fact turned cold eyes on the bowed knight.
"Very well. Is Lord Signo still in the Emperor's Palace?"
"He is missing as well. Together with His Majesty."
Laniakea's expression hardened further. Signo was the man Hyperion trusted most.
The post of Minister of State is still vacant. I was meant to handle this with Signo.
The names of those currently steering the Imperial Palace flickered through her mind. There was no old-noble faction to speak of, but that did not mean she could place absolute trust in any of them. Which meant that, in the end, the one who had to take hold of everything here was the Empress herself.
"Hilde. Issue a summons to the Imperial Knights. I will go to the Main Palace."
The Empress looked neither terrified nor visibly anxious. Her voice was calm, yet heavy enough to show she understood the gravity of the matter full well.
"All of you, move quickly. His Majesty must be where he ought to be before dark falls."
At Laniakea's even tone, those who only moments before had been fluttering about in a panic, wailing over what they ought to do, shut their mouths. The Empress, who ought to have been the most shocked of all, was that composed; they could hardly go on flapping their tongues.
The chaotic lobby settled in an instant. Laniakea swept her gaze over those around her, then called the name of the one watching her for a cue.
"Chelsia."
"Y-yes!"
Chelsia, standing a little apart, flinched and answered in a rush.
"You will carry a summons to every minister, calling them to the Main Palace. Have the council chamber prepared as well, and leave one room beside it empty. And..."
Laniakea gave her one more order, this time in a low voice. Chelsia's face tightened, and then she nodded.
"Understood."
She seemed briefly thrown, but she answered with perfect courtesy and set off for the Main Palace ahead of the rest. All the while, Laniakea called people by name with precision and set each of them to their task.
Then she spoke again, putting weight behind the words.
"When His Majesty returns, he will say it was a fuss over nothing."
She even smiled, and on purpose. As she did, Laniakea swiftly read the faces turned toward her: those who looked intrigued, those who looked impressed, those wearing displeasure, those still rigid with fear. She stored their expressions quickly in her mind. The looks they wore now would become a clear record of what sort of people they were.
"I need a moment to gather my thoughts before I go to the Main Palace. None of you are to follow."
She called Lucy. That alone was enough. Lucy stepped ahead as if she already knew what her mistress meant to do, and made for the rear garden.
Feeling the stares pouring after her, Laniakea hurried toward a corner of it. Lucy, long accustomed to this sort of thing by now, checked that no other presence lingered near her and confirmed whether anyone could see her from the Empress's Palace. When Lucy signaled that all was clear, Laniakea called Dudeoji at once.
"Dudeoji, are you listening?"
Pop!
As if it had caught the urgency in her heart, Dudeoji appeared even faster than usual. But it looked a little different from the last time she had seen it. It had always possessed a distinct form; today it was half-transparent, like Baepsae.
It must be because it stayed too long last time.
Because Hyperion had treated Dudeoji with ease and shown how glad he was of it, the spirit had remained in the human world far longer than it usually did. That did not mean there was any great problem. Rest long enough, and it would recover. The only real drawback in the meantime was a weakening of its power and its domain. She had never thought of it as a problem before. Now it was.
"His Majesty is missing."
"His trail seems to have gone cold on the way back from the Academy... Can you find where he is now?"
A moment ago, the reason she had been able to keep her composure despite the Emperor's disappearance was that she trusted Dudeoji. But she knew perfectly well that the spirit could not solve everything. As a lowest-tier elemental, Dudeoji could survey earth left in its natural state—soil, rock, and the like. But even stone, once human hands had worked it and laid it down as a road, lay beyond its sight. What happened upon such roads, it could not learn.
Dudeoji drooped, staring miserably at its own translucent forepaws as if in apology.
To find Hyperion's trail, it would have to ask the spirits of that place for help at once. But spirits were beings whose nature clung fiercely to the wild as it truly was. If the one who appeared out of nowhere begging for aid was weaker than they were, they rarely granted the request.
"Anything will do. Learning His Majesty's location would be best, but if that's too difficult, I at least want to know where the trail runs—from where, and toward where."
Faced with a hardness in Laniakea's expression it had never seen before, Dudeoji pounded the ground with its forepaws.
Only at Dudeoji's vigorous answer did a little color finally return to Laniakea's face.
"Thank you. Even so, don't push yourself until you vanish. Understand?"
The moment it answered, Dudeoji vanished into the earth. Laniakea erased the spirit's traces and headed for the Main Palace.
Lucy always guarded Laniakea's surroundings like an iron wall, but now her air was sharper than it had ever been.
The Emperor was missing. That meant that until he returned, every power of his in this place would be exercised by the Empress.
When Laniakea arrived at the Main Palace and stepped into the council chamber, the ministers who had been seated turned to look at her. A few rose at once. Others took their time getting to their feet.
She regarded them and answered, coldly.
"Quite a few heavy bodies in this room."
Those who had expected an empress to cling to them in tears, begging to be told what she ought to do, straightened where they stood. Meeting the look in their eyes—still seeing her not as Empress, but as a woman the Emperor fancied and kept at his side—Laniakea set her teeth.
She could not blame them for that gaze. She herself, more than anyone, had wanted to set the Empress's seat aside. But even if it was only for a year, she had resolved in the end to remain at Hyperion's side as Empress.
Then she had to do, now, what an empress must do.