A New Spring for a New Emperor
No one in the hall could help but stare.
The wooden casket that ought to have held the emperor's familiar crown contained, instead, a great flower crown.
It was extraordinarily beautiful. The fullest blossoms of spring, branches just breaking into tender shoots, leaves that had already grown long and lush — an entire spring garden seemed to have been gathered into a single wreath. The trouble was that it lay precisely where the crown should have been.
The silence lasted only a moment. Just as the murmuring threatened to rise again, Laniakea took up the flower crown without the slightest hesitation. She went to Hyperion and lifted her voice so that every soul in the hall would hear.
In that instant a stir greater than any the Grand Hall of Assembly had ever known swept through the chamber.
The words she had spoken were the very first line of the Empire's history.
As in every land, the tale of a founding king is dressed, in time, in the garments of legend. The Empire was scarcely a hundred and fifty years old, and yet its founding was steeped in mystery. As the vitality that had once filled the continent dwindled, many of the other races who dwelt there departed in search of new homes. Those who left did not merely grieve. They blessed the humans who would go on living in the land that had been their ancient ground.
Chief among them was the Fairy Clan — those who had lived in the territory of Priatra, and who were now gone entirely. Their representative, it was said, had left a final greeting for the Empire's first emperor, come to see them off, before boarding the last ship bound for another continent.
A new spring for a new emperor.
It was a farewell, and at the same time a declaration that the age of humankind had come upon the continent.
The moment they heard Laniakea, everyone in the Grand Hall of Assembly remembered the founding legend they had known since childhood. The Fairy Clan. A new emperor. A new spring. What she showed them now was that legend, brought to life before their eyes.
"Oh..."
An elderly noble at the very front could not contain himself. He dropped to his knees.
"A new spring for the new emperor!"
He echoed the words she had spoken, and the nobles beside him followed the old man's lead. One after another they knelt and cried out toward Hyperion.
"A new spring for the new emperor!"
"A new spring for the new emperor!"
As if they had sworn it together, they spoke as one, and the Grand Hall of Assembly filled with a pure, burning fervor. Not one of them dared suggest that the scene before them broke imperial etiquette. No protocol in the Empire was older than the founding legend. And the empress, the Fairy Bloodline bright in her, standing before them exactly as the goddess of spring in the old paintings, made it feel as though legend itself had been born again.
The hall rang with shouts and cheers.
Amid that roar Laniakea held the flower crown and spoke to the high priest.
"The dew of spring."
Even he seemed spellbound. He sprinkled the holy water he had prepared over the wreath, his face overcome.
At the Spring Festival everyone longed for a blessing, yet no matter how the priests labored, it was impossible to bless them all. So the temple taught that the dew gathered on a spring morning was the god's own consecration of a new beginning. At Laniakea's word, the high priest became the very hand through which that grace, bestowed upon the earth, was given here and now.
When the blessing was done, the cheers broke out anew. No one spared a thought for the crown that was nowhere to be seen.
Decades of the Empress Dowager's rule had passed, and it had seemed her world would only stretch longer once her son took the throne. But it was not her son who had ascended. Hyperion had become emperor, and he would bring a new spring to the continent.
Laniakea raised the consecrated wreath high. Hyperion closed his eyes, went to one knee before her, and bowed his head.
The moment that beautiful spring settled upon him, the Grand Hall of Assembly filled with the greatest, fiercest roar it had known since the day it was raised.
"Oh, my heart still hasn't settled. The two of you, greeting the new spring from the highest place of all..."
The nobles who had moved on to the banquet hall were still so overcome they hardly knew what to do with themselves. Even those who had looked on Hyperion with disfavor now spoke of the first emperor, their eyes wet with feeling. At the very front of them stood the emperor — smiling, a rare sight — and beside him Laniakea, her own smile soft.
People would be mid-conversation and then turn to gaze at the imperial couple, rapt. Young and beautiful, the two of them made every heart swell further still.
The previous emperor had lain ill for a long time. Grand banquets and ceremonies had come and gone, and more often than not he had been absent from them. No longer. The young emperor, the empress's hand in his, laughing as he spoke with the guests, was vitality itself. In that sight — proof that an empire grown slow and rigid was stirring back to life — they thought it a true honor to have attended this coronation. The moment they returned to their estates, they meant to tell those who had not come every last detail: how magnificent it had been, and how it had filled them to overflowing.
While everyone else rejoiced, one person was wretched.
The Empress Dowager, of course.
As the others shared the thrill of the coronation, she stood alone, biting her lip.
Damn that wench.
Before the ceremony ended, Laniakea had lowered her eyes and looked at her. It lasted only an instant, but the look was a victor's contempt for the defeated. For a moment the Empress Dowager forgot where she was and nearly lunged. Fortunately, the instant she took a single step, applause broke around her and shocked her back to herself.
This isn't over.
She glared at Laniakea, who was smiling as she received the guests' greetings. The coronation was finished, but the banquet was only beginning, and a banquet — because so much had to be prepared — was always a place where mistakes occurred. Her eyes raked the hall. The first banquet. A grand one, at that. On a day like this, there was no chance some blunder wouldn't present itself, ready to be laid at the empress's feet.
While she was looking this way and that, a few people came late to pay their respects.
"Empress Dowager... Your Highness. It has been a long time."
At Your Highness, the corners of her eyes lifted. Those greeting her now were people she had often invited in the days when she herself was empress. She had cultivated a fair intimacy with them, and here they were, watching Hyperion's mood before they dared address her at all. In the old days she would have had them thrown out of this very hall on the spot. That was no longer possible.
She committed their faces to memory and, with a desperate effort, smiled as she returned the greeting. They had at least come to her. She needed their help, so for now she would have to bend.
"It has been some time, all of you."
Once she accepted them, their expressions eased at once.
"Have you been well?"
"I ought to have come to call on you, but there have been so many matters at home..."
Each offered some thin excuse and apologized for failing to visit. They spoke of recent days — a conversation with very little in it. Once the mood had softened, the women gradually let their true feelings show.
"You wouldn't believe how bleak the Imperial Palace has become."
"When Your Highness was here, there was always music, always pleasure overflowing..."
"My husband is sick with worry over the knights who came up from the border. They were never properly taught the palace's manners, you see..."
Every one of them had profited under the Empress Dowager. Luck had kept them from being driven out, but they had been forced to surrender everything they once enjoyed. Now that matters had settled, they were beginning to miss it. Another feeling had joined that longing: a sour resentment of Laniakea, standing so perfectly at the emperor's side. The woman who once could not even secure a proper invitation to a banquet, who had lived tucked into a corner of the Annex Palace, was strutting about now as if the world were hers.
"Her Majesty hardly took part in her lessons when she was still the prince's consort. I do worry whether she can manage."
"I know. So far she has only taken on maids, and she doesn't seem to care at all about the ladies' gatherings. At this rate..."
Listening, the Empress Dowager smiled. Just as she had thought — these women were still of use.
Just then the maids wheeled in a fresh cart and began preparing tea where they stood. Drawn by the fragrance spreading through the hall, people drifted over one by one. This would be the newly chosen imperial tea.
The moment the scent reached her, the Empress Dowager went straight over and ordered a maid to pour. She took a single sip, then turned to the nobles behind her as if she could scarcely believe what she had tasted.
"All of you. Taste this."
At her word they hurried forward and sampled the tea. Bewilderment soon spread across their faces.
"This is... truly the tea Her Majesty newly chose?"
Having confirmed their dismay, the Empress Dowager crowed inwardly. Then she lifted her cup and spoke to the maid loudly enough for the whole hall to hear.
"Have you brought the wrong one? To present such inferior goods at a banquet!"