The Tree of the Sun
They had hurried as best they could, but cutting swiftly through the capital's streets—where the spring festival had only just begun—was no easy thing. By the time the two of them returned to the Imperial Palace, stars were already scattered across the sky. Even when they passed inside on the identity tokens prepared in advance, the guards offered nothing more than a perfunctory salute, never once suspecting that the pair before them were the Emperor and Empress.
The moment they stepped through the gate of the inner palace—
"Your Majesty the Empress!"
Lucy, who had been waiting, caught sight of Laniakea and launched herself off the ground, charging like a wild bison.
"Lucy! Wait—how did you know it was me at a glance?"
"Clothes!"
They were still in the very clothes they had left in, so of course she had recognized them at once.
Just then Signo came thundering after her and spoke between heaving breaths.
"I was wondering why Miss Lucy suddenly bolted—hah... hah... You've come back..."
He grumbled that he had thought she had fled because she hated her Imperial language lessons. Hyperion silenced the chatter with a single glare, took Laniakea's hand, and started toward the Annex Palace.
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"The Annex."
"The Annex? Why would you— No. Never mind."
Signo had been about to ask why they were in such a rush instead of resting the moment they arrived, but the look Hyperion turned on him—shut your mouth—closed it for him.
As she walked at Hyperion's side, Laniakea still carried the sapling he had given her. On the way back he had offered more than once to take it himself, and each time she had smiled and refused. It was a gift she had received, she said, and she wanted to carry it with her own hands.
When they arrived, the attendant in charge of the Annex came rushing out in shock.
"Your Majesty the Emperor? And Her Majesty the Empress as well...!"
The sudden visit of the imperial couple left him looking ready to faint on the spot. After Hyperion had transferred every right to the Annex Palace to Laniakea, ten attendants had been stationed there permanently. But this was the spring festival, when most of the palace offices stood down, and nearly all of the Annex staff had gone home for a short while. And now the Emperor and Empress had arrived without warning. Fearing he might have done something wrong to bring them here, the attendant bowed low.
Then Laniakea spoke.
"Is there a shovel in the storehouse?"
"A—a shovel? Yes, there is! I'll fetch it at once!"
They had appeared out of nowhere asking for a shovel. What on earth was this? Without the faintest idea what the imperial couple meant to do, the attendant sprinted for the storehouse.
A short while later, Laniakea and Hyperion stood beside the vegetable patch with the shovel in hand. Thanks to the attendants they had asked to tend it, the plants had not withered in their absence; they were still fresh and green.
"The ones out of season are gone."
Hyperion murmured it as he looked over the beds and noticed that the tomatoes and corn Mole had once pressed on him were nowhere to be seen. At that, Laniakea gave a wry smile.
"I thought anything out of season would die soon anyway, so I asked them to clear it. Coming back to find them dead would only have hurt more."
She looked over the vegetables that remained, then walked a few paces off. Hyperion came up beside her, shovel in hand.
"Do you want to plant it here?"
"Yes. This side usually gets the best sun. They say a Kindes tree turns a brighter gold the more light it drinks."
The Kindes tree was one Laniakea had always longed to raise, even once.
As a child, in a tree encyclopedia in the royal library, Laniakea had seen a picture of the Kindes tree. How wondrous it had seemed.
"They call it the tree of the sun. It's beautiful..."
She could not count how many times her fingers had traced that picture of a tree glittering gold.
There was only one reason she had kept the Kindes tree in her heart. Every time they went into the forest, she was losing her older sisters more and more often. She had always managed, just barely, to find them again and come home—but if things went on like this, someday she truly would lose them and lose her way. And the knights who treated her so coldly did not seem the sort who would come looking for her.
"Even if I vanished, Mother and Father wouldn't notice... I have to make it back on my own."
Even when Laniakea was small, the king and queen had been cold, and the stronger their two elder daughters grew, the more displeased they became with her. So, not long after her seventh birthday, she was ordered not to attend breakfast any longer. She was of no use as a princess.
"At least they aren't telling you to starve. This is for the best, isn't it? You were frightened of going every morning, weren't you? From now on, eat comfortably in your room, by yourself."
When Laniakea came back on the verge of tears, her wet nurse only smiled and said it was rather a good thing. After that, she could no longer speak her sorrow to anyone else.
And from then on, whenever the princesses had an engagement, her sisters left her behind more and more often. She believed they did not mean to. Even so, on nights like those, before she slept, she lay awake wondering how she would ever find her way back to the palace alone.
That was when she had seen the Kindes tree in the encyclopedia. A mysterious tree said to glitter and shine at night. The book told how, long ago, people in the regions where Kindes trees grew thick had used them in place of lanterns after dark. Reading that, Laniakea decided she simply had to find one.
One tree would be enough. Trees keep growing, so if I cut the branches and plant them each time, one will become ten, and ten will become a hundred... Once there are that many, I'll plant them all along the road back to the castle.
Then even if she lost the others in the great forest, she wouldn't have to worry. She could come back to the castle all by herself, brave and steady!
She searched with that hope in her heart, only to be told that the tree did not grow in Priatra. For a long while after, how downcast she had been.
After I met Mole, I forgot the Kindes tree entirely.
And to think she would come to have one now, after all this time. The flutter of those childhood nights—when wanting it so badly had kept her from sleep—came alive again.
Beside the vegetable patch, Laniakea felt along the ground for the spot that caught the most sun. Planted here, it would surely grow into the golden, shining tree she had seen in that book as a child.
Hyperion watched her, still giddy and at a loss ever since she had received the sapling, and lifted the shovel.
"Step back for a moment."
Then he drove it into the earth, digging with heavy, rhythmic thuds.
"Your Majesty—I will! I'll dig!"
The attendant who had brought the shovel came running, so startled he could hardly breathe, at the sight of Hyperion suddenly breaking ground. Hyperion glanced back at Signo, who stood behind him. Catching the meaning in that look, Signo turned to Lucy beside him.
"He's saying to get that attendant out of the way."
"Good. My specialty."
Lucy seized the attendant by the scruff of the neck as he tried to rush in—don't you worry—and dragged him off toward the Annex. Signo followed. A moment ago Hyperion's eyes had said not only get rid of him, but the two of you disappear as well.
Trotting after Lucy, Signo thought, I really ought to start making preparations.
Once everyone who had been watching vanished into the Annex, Hyperion's hands moved faster still. With every stroke the hole grew deeper. In a flash he had dug a pit deep enough to plant the sapling and then some—so deep, in fact, that they would have to fill a good deal of it back in.
Laniakea lifted the sapling from its pot and set it in the hole, then gathered the soil beside her with her hands and covered it. Hyperion set the shovel aside, sat down with her, and helped gather the fallen earth. Again and again they pressed the soil firm over the little tree, planting it together.
A moment later the sapling stood neat and true in its place. Across it, their eyes met.
Not a word passed between them, and still each of them knew. The work of the day was finished, and yet they wanted to stay together a little longer.