The First Banquet
The maids had been strung tight since morning. Today was the day the Empress returned to the Empress's Palace after a full week away.
"She's finally coming back..."
"I know. At last..."
They murmured it to one another, and their voices went soft with feeling. At last—Her Majesty the Empress was returning! Now they could get signatures on the mountain of documents waiting for approval! They wanted to shout it then and there, and they pressed the urge down hard.
In truth, every one of them had been thinking the same thing. The Empress was busy, yes, but they were the ones ground down by overtime and extra shifts. Hilde was at her side, and where the actual work was concerned, Chelsia directed and managed it all. Didn't that mean Her Majesty only had to sign?
It was a very large mistake.
No matter how much work was done underneath, without final approval it amounted to nothing. They had told the other departments that the moment Her Majesty returned, the pending matters would be approved at once, but the answer had been stubborn.
"Even so, we can't proceed without the seal. If anything goes wrong, who takes the responsibility?"
"She'll approve them the moment she arrives."
"And how is she supposed to do that at once? Every document Her Majesty has reviewed has her own comments attached. When is she going to go through all of that...?"
Only then did the maids understand that the Empress had been examining the papers with a care meticulous enough to leave her own notes on every one. Seeing their surprise, Hilde told them as much.
"You didn't know? She kept working even while she was at the Main Palace."
They had seen Hilde packing a separate bag, but to think she had truly been working in the Main Palace as well. At Hilde's words the maids looked at one another and found nothing more to say.
Documents of the Imperial Palace could not be carried outside. That was why they could step free of their work the moment they left for the day. But the Empress, who remained in the palace?
Just then the carriage bearing her came into view in the distance. The maids fell into neat lines at once and waited. When it drew up and stopped, Hilde stepped down first, and then the Empress.
Seen after a week, she looked well, thankfully. And yet, for someone who was supposed to have rested long and deeply, she seemed oddly languid—a little tired, perhaps. Even so, a luster had returned to her hair and skin, and the cheeks that had grown gaunt beneath the flood of work had softened back into gentle lines.
A few of the maids, reading that look, coughed quietly into their hands. You had a very good time, didn't you... They did not quite dare say it aloud.
"You've returned, Your Majesty!"
"We've all been waiting!"
There was something almost desperate in their voices, plaintive enough to make Laniakea smile awkwardly. She had been away a full week in the middle of a crush of work. She knew how hard the maids labored from morning to night, and she felt guilty for having rested alone.
Calling it rest is a little ambiguous, though.
She hadn't failed to rest. She also hadn't rested deeply. And if someone asked whether she was tired now, it wasn't quite that either. A thoroughly ambiguous state.
In any case, she was back at the Empress's Palace, and it was time to brace herself and work again.
The banquet really isn't far off.
She had already been busy, and a week spent in the Main Palace had brought the banquet right up under her nose. Two weeks remained.
Time to work myself to death.
Laniakea clenched her fist and headed for her office.
Crunch.
With the sound of something being crushed, the hand pinned beneath Hyperion's boot trembled. Fingers bent the wrong way announced that they had broken cleanly. Their owner could not scream. A gag was wedged hard between his teeth.
Expressionless, Hyperion looked down at the man he had crushed—one of those who had come at him meaning to kill him. When he lifted his foot from the attacker's hand, Signo, who had been watching, frowned.
"Aren't you treating him a little too gently?"
At Signo's words the attacker, who had been on the verge of fainting, jerked his eyes wide in shock. His limbs had been broken and wrenched out of place long ago. Even if he tried to put strength into them now, the body would no longer move.
He turned his gaze. In the corner, someone was yawning as if bored. Gemma Ensi, was that the name? At first, because she was a woman, he had taken her lightly and tried a little harassment. She had driven something sharp into his ear without a moment's hesitation, then spoken to the Emperor as if nothing at all had happened.
"One deaf ear won't interfere with the interrogation, will it, Your Majesty?"
The Emperor had nodded. The woman had grinned.
"You heard him. Know your place, and don't get cute."
After that, she had looked after the attacker. Not by healing him. Her work seemed to be keeping just enough breath in him that he would not quite die.
"You granted the others the mercy of killing them outright, and now you're handling the one you kept alive this carefully too... I think you've grown far too refined since you came into the Imperial Palace."
At Signo's entirely sincere complaint, Hyperion answered, his face still empty of feeling.
"I'm an emperor now. I'm trying to cultivate a little mercy."
"Well, if that's the reason, there's nothing to be done. Tch."
The crime of attempting to assassinate the Emperor left a man with nothing to say even if he were flayed, packed in salt, and burned alive. And not only him. His family and kin as well—and depending on the emperor, there had been those who wiped out the entire village where an attacker had lived. So Hyperion's conduct now, neither throwing the man into a fire nor particularly hunting down his family, was exceedingly merciful. The attacker currently under his boot would not have agreed, of course.
Signo clicked his tongue at him.
Idiot. He's seen this much and still doesn't know what kind of man His Majesty is.
He must have assumed Hyperion had been desperate merely to survive on the border. Otherwise, how could he ever have thought of attacking him? But Signo, and everyone who had stood with Hyperion on the border, and even the barbarians—all of them knew. Hyperion was a ruler, and he was a man who considered that his duty.
A comrade you had greeted before sleep might open his eyes to find himself frozen solid, become one with the earth. The man who had ruled a place like that was not going to blink at screams and spraying blood. Those who were not people he had to protect, Hyperion treated with less concern than a twig lying in the road.
When you must step on a rock to climb a mountain, no one feels sympathy or pity for the rock. That is why you can set your foot on it without a second thought. It was less cruelty than a simple refusal to assign value. And because of that, Hyperion was a man who could become all the more brutal.
Hyperion turned and straightened. Seeing his back, the attacker swallowed a breath of relief. The hours of pain were over. He wouldn't come back for a while. In the instant he thought so, Hyperion spoke without looking around.
"I've confirmed what I needed. Clean it up."
"Yes!"
"Yes, sir!"
When Gemma and Signo answered briskly, Hyperion walked away at once.
Clean it up?
The moment the attacker understood what that meant, he thrashed. His blocked mouth could make no sound at all. Gemma and Signo, annoyance plain on their faces, came to stand before him. Unable even to beg for his life, he had to face the end of it as it approached.
"Hah."
Stepping outside, Hyperion drew a deep breath. Clean air came with a faint scent of flowers. Again and again he breathed in deep, driving out the last of the blood-smell that clung inside him.
Until morning, his mood had been good. He had been holding the finest scent in the world in his arms. And not a few hours later, he was smelling blood.
Even he thought he had let them off far too mercifully. There was one reason. The attackers had aimed at Hyperion alone.
If they had gone after Laniakea, who had been in the Imperial Palace, as well—
Snap.
A dry twig crumbled under his foot. If they had, the palace would by now have been strewn with bodies that could not all be buried.
Hyperion steadied his breath and turned toward the Main Palace.
It had nothing to do with the former Empress.
Not long ago, a new report had come in from those he had set to watch her. The former Empress, who for a time had cursed Laniakea like a madwoman, seemed to have come to her senses and returned to her old self. She was telling those around her that she was sorry for the disorder she had shown, and she appeared to be preparing to live out what remained of her life quietly.
Impossible.
If she were the sort to withdraw so meekly, she would never have clutched everything so tightly in the first place. The former Empress would move with extreme caution and in perfect secrecy. She had always been that way by nature, but the rage and emptiness of having lost every son would be making her all the more vicious.
Then who in the world sent these men?
Clumsy as the attempt had been, they had hidden with perfect thoroughness who had ordered it. Lost in thought for a long while, he turned his head and looked toward the Empress's Palace in the distance.
Laniakea had resumed her duties today. By now she would be buried in work alongside the maids who trailed after her. After watching the Empress's Palace for some time, he started walking again. He still had to choose the flowers he would send her today. He needed to hurry.