I Was Only Glad
Her fingers trembled where they touched Hyperion's face.
"Do you have any idea how worried I was...!"
Laniakea could not even finish. The words broke, and she choked on a sob.
She had spent the whole day strung so tight she could not have said how the hours passed. Her mind had gone blank. Let her attention slip for even a moment, and she would not have known whom she was meeting or what she was saying.
She had acted calm with everything she had, and through all of it there had been only one thing she wanted.
Hyperion's safe return.
Had that desperate prayer reached anyone at all? He stood before her exactly as she had hoped—whole, and unharmed.
And yet what rose in her was not simple joy, but a sudden surge of feeling. The look on his face said he had never once imagined she would worry.
"You... worried about me?"
He murmured it as if he could not believe it.
"Of course I did!"
The swell of it made her raise her voice at him again.
"How could I possibly not worry!"
She had meant for him to take it as seriously as she did, but Hyperion only looked dazed, as though it had never occurred to him that she might answer this way. A moment later he gave her the smile she saw so often—and she was certain it was no trick of the light that the corners of his mouth lifted higher than usual.
"You're smiling? Do you know how I burned up inside...!"
She had meant to press him further, and instead the tears spilled over all at once. Seeing him smile made her believe, at last, that he truly was all right, and in the same breath the tension that had been the only thing holding her upright came completely undone.
"I didn't even know what had happened... Mole couldn't find Your Majesty either... I was so—so why are you smiling..."
She knew perfectly well she ought to calm herself and speak clearly, but once the tears had broken they would not stop. She opened her mouth anyway, determined to say what needed saying, and only became someone whose words kept falling apart.
The humiliation of it made her angrier still, and she tried to get up. If she kept looking at Hyperion, she was sure she would only choose the next most foolish thing to do.
But the moment she moved, he caught her arm, and that alone was enough. Already drained, she swayed and folded into his embrace as if she had meant to fall there.
Before she could demand why he had grabbed her, he spoke.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at you. I was only... glad."
His voice dropped lower still as the words trailed away.
She was still vexed enough to push him off, but the murmur at her ear and the warmth of his breath undid the strength in her hands. She had always been weak to him when he was like this. Spent as she was now, shoving him away would have done nothing. And the instant he said he was sorry—absurd as it was—something in her loosened at once.
The resentment of a moment ago had not vanished. The sharp edges of it had only gone a little rounder. So she asked him from within his arms, her voice still carrying that grievance.
"Was there really an attack?"
He looked so utterly unharmed that she could not help doubting even that.
"There was. Truly."
"Then why didn't you come straight back to the Imperial Palace once you were safely away?"
Her voice was sharpening again. Hyperion considered for a moment, then answered.
"The truth is..."
He told her everything that had happened that day. There had been an ambush, and he had turned it at once to his own use and chosen to give chase. He had been in the villa district the whole while. All of it.
"That is how it was. It was so far outside anything I expected that I couldn't tell you beforehand."
At his words, Laniakea gave a small nod. She understood. That did not mean her heart had softened all the way.
Still, hearing it, she understood why he had not come back, and she had confirmed that he was unhurt. She was just beginning to ease herself out of his arms when he drew her in by the waist and spoke.
"Then it's your turn."
"Mine?"
"I received reports along the way, but the Imperial Palace was calmer than I thought it would be. What in the world did you do?"
"That..."
As he had done, she told him everything that had happened that day, still held against him. Keeping her there ought to have been hot and burdensome, yet he did not loosen the arm around her. Slowly, he patted her back.
Perhaps that was why. Even as she spoke of what had happened, sleep began to creep over her. She held on desperately all the same, telling him not only what had passed in the Imperial Palace while he was gone, but how the ministers had reacted as she watched them—even the way she had deliberately given different people different information.
When she finished, Hyperion was silent for a moment. She was just beginning to tense, wondering if she had made some mistake, when he drew her deeper into his arms.
"I've been given a wife far beyond what I deserve."
At that, her lips nearly pushed into a pout.
She knew perfectly well she was an empress of no particular distinction. Had she been one of those other princes' consorts of old, she would have met a day like this with far greater skill. No—an attack on Hyperion would never have happened in the first place. Today, in the end, people had moved because they believed the empress too weak, and that removing the emperor alone would be enough. Hyperion could not fail to know that...
When he noticed she had gone quiet again, he spoke in a rush.
"I'm not joking. Who else could have moved as quickly as you did today? You worked hard. Truly. What you did today will be of great help from here on."
The voice that acknowledged her labor softened her all over again. And she thought, at the same time, that she really did seem rather weak to Hyperion's voice. How else could a heart that had been cooling melt so immediately?
While she was thinking it, her head slipped down against his shoulder.
"Ah."
Startled by what she had done, she opened her eyes again—but only for a moment. They closed once more, her gaze going soft and unfocused. A body held taut all day could endure no longer, and sleep took her.
Sensing it, Hyperion patted her back again.
"You may rest now. It's all right. Sleep deeply, and we'll talk more slowly afterward."
You may rest now.
At those words her mind sank faster into the dark. Even as her vision blurred, she was neither afraid nor uneasy. It must have been the arms locked around her, and the hand stroking her back. No one in her life had ever given her tenderness and protection like this, and Laniakea could not hold out any longer. She closed her eyes.
Her face was utterly at peace.
Hyperion felt the even breath spilling against his shoulder and smoothed a hand down the straight line of her back. He felt it every time he held her: she was too small, too thin. Grip her with any real strength and he half believed she might break.
Of course he knew that no matter how hard he held on, a person did not shatter so easily. But with Laniakea in his arms he grew as careful as a child handed a thin glass.
And yet I desired her well enough, for all that.
Was it the warmth filling his arms? Or the scent of her, pleasant no matter when he breathed it in? Or was it the red, damp corners of her eyes as she slept, wholly unguarded, her body given over to him completely?
The day's uproar was over, and still Hyperion's heart was noisier than before.
He was wondering whether to hold her a little longer just like this when he glanced at his sleeve and clicked his tongue inwardly. He was unhurt, but a few drops of blood had spattered there. After riding all day he seemed to carry the smell of horse along with the smell of sandy dust.
He could not keep holding Laniakea like this. Above all, if he meant to touch her, these filthy hands would never do.
He laid her on the bed and hurried toward the bath. The newly hired servants of the Main Palace had already prepared everything for his washing and withdrawn. He scrubbed the day's filth from himself in haste, and when he returned he sat beside Laniakea, sunk deep in sleep.
Without hesitation he reached out a hand that was no longer dirty and touched her lips. His fingers parted them, just slightly. Between the red he could see white teeth, and beyond them a place glistening and wet.
He hesitated a moment. Then, carefully, slowly, he pushed the tip of his finger into that wetness.