The Empress Dowager's Resolve
"I propose that the Imperial Guard sortie under the Rastold Silverion."
Just as Jincheon's party finished their remodeling work, the Empress Dowager gathered the nobles and dropped a bombshell.
With the war situation deteriorating, it was hardly unreasonable for the Imperial Guard—possessed of formidable combat power—to take the field. The reason it still counted as a bombshell was this:
"I intend to take the captain's seat and enter the battlefield myself."
"What?"
"Your Majesty the Dowager, that is…"
She meant to go herself.
"The situation worsens by the hour. Do we not need every capable commander we can field?"
"Ahem. The enemy's momentum is stronger than expected, true, but if we first suppress the defensive posture they have established…"
One noble tried to sound knowing in a solemn voice. To Eirin, who had lived the battlefield herself, it carried no weight at all.
"Do you take me for a fool? Or are you merely foolish optimists?"
"…"
She fixed the speaker with a hard stare. He shrank of his own accord and bowed his head.
"We understand Your Majesty's passion. There is, however, a problem."
"A problem?"
Duke Hamilton, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke.
"Had Your Majesty joined at the opening of hostilities, a force could have been prepared for you in advance. As things stand, every unit already has its own chain of command."
"And changing commanders midstream would sow confusion."
Then as now, swapping commanders in the middle of a war sent shockwaves. Worse still, the bulk of the loyalist armies were private troops raised by loyalist nobles. Handing over forces assembled with one's own fortune to another commander was never going to sit well with the aristocracy.
The Imperial Army units that might have answered her command had either defected to the traitors, or died and been captured covering the royal family's escape. For the moment, the Rastold Silverion's own crews and pilots were all she truly had.
It was a flaw born of feudal monarchy—yet that same system had let the Giranlek Empire expand its territory at speed through the voluntary cooperation of its nobles. Grant a fief, and a house would call on kin and neighbors and develop it with a will.
Eirin had already anticipated the difficulty.
"Are there not remnant soldiers left from the nobles who fell in battle?"
She addressed the Duke in the formal register due his station and pressed again.
Most nobles preferred to send a commander from some safe rear position, but more than a few took the field in person. Enhanced intellect from bio-modification played a part; so did naked ambition to win greater glory in the civil war. Those ambitious ones had died to the schemes of the rebel Count Sherdon.
"Your Majesty… surely you don't mean—"
"I will form a fleet from them. I trust you will not refuse me even that."
A force built from remnants. Men who had lost their lords could not simply wash their hands of the civil war; absorption into other noble units was the ordinary course. Eirin meant to gather those remnants and make them her personal command.
Scraped together, they might just manage a single fleet. The greater problem remained.
"What real achievement can a fleet of broken soldiers hope to win? Your Majesty would only throw her life away."
"Indeed. Your Majesty was called a great general—but only when soldiers actually obey orders."
Victories won with remnant armies were rare. Not unheard of—Earth's history alone held wars turned by counterattack after defeat—but rare enough. The nobles laid out sound reasons and tried to restrain her.
Once, the old Eirin would have nodded at those reasons and withdrawn the proposal. She would never have made it in the first place. The woman standing before them now was not that Eirin.
"Your words are not wrong. But these men are neither incompetent nor cowards. Give them a single victory for their recovery, and they will become themselves again."
She was right. One victory would restore them. The catch was that it could not be some minor skirmish; they would have to defeat an enemy of comparable strength. Only then could remnant soldiers truly rise again.
Lead remnants against a peer force and win. That was the near-impossible task the Empress Dowager was volunteering for, and the nobles began to waver. They knew her ability—but leading broken troops to victory was another matter entirely. And because Eirin, not the child Emperor, was the practical heart of the loyalist cause, her death would shatter them beyond recovery.
On the other hand, if the Dowager distinguishes herself…
Duke Hamilton turned the thought over. If the true center of the loyalists performed brilliantly, morale would rise on every front.
No choice. At this rate the rebels will devour us. We need a breakthrough, and the Dowager is perfect for the role.
Ability, station—no one else came close on every count.
And while she is gone, I can arrange for my daughter to grow close to the Emperor.
Hamilton had judged that joining the rebels would only invite the Emperor's focused hostility and shrink his power, so he had planted himself as a pillar of the loyalists. At the same time he meant to use the civil war to place one of his daughters as the Emperor's consort and lock his house into permanent supremacy. If the Dowager were absent, his daughter could fill the lonely Emperor's circle and grow intimate with him.
War merit alone could force a marriage—but if the couple actually like each other, they will favor our house all the more.
Judging this the fork that would decide his family's future, Duke Hamilton nodded at last.
"Very well. We will gather the remnants."
"My thanks, Duke Hamilton."
"And against contingencies, if we attach the house knight order—"
"That would defeat the purpose of commanding a force of remnants alone."
Eirin knew as well as anyone that only a victory won with remnant troops would turn the unfavorable war in their favor. The Rastold Silverion and the Imperial Guard were one thing; accepting another house's knights would empty the claim of leading a remnant army of all meaning.
"Instead, replenish the crews who maintain the Rastold Silverion."
"As you wish."
The crews who had desperately repaired, serviced, and kept the battered flagship running all the way here had been thinned by serious wounds and deaths from the fighting.
"Assemble the remnants in this star system and resupply them. In the meantime I will remain at the late Emperor's tomb."
"At the late Emperor's tomb? Why?"
It had gone unsaid until now, but the late Emperor's body was stored aboard the Rastold Silverion. No one knew what the rebels would do if they got their hands on it, so the Imperial forces had recovered the remains at any cost. A funeral had been held in full view of all, and vengeance against the traitors sworn before the grave.
"To steel my own resolve. Resolve to destroy the traitors by any means necessary."
Who could object to a woman who meant to swear herself before her late husband's body? Those who did not know the full story might even have thought the couple's bond had been exceptionally deep.
"And I wish to be alone. Withdraw the guards from the tomb's vicinity."
"What? If spies should—"
"Which is why I am telling only all of you."
"…Understood."
Unable to withstand the resolve in Eirin's eyes, Duke Hamilton and the nobles fell silent and agreed to proceed in secret.
"When do you expect the remnants to be fully gathered?"
"Roughly four to five days by the cosmic calendar."
The cosmic calendar was the system created by the Calsorn Empire; even in the dayless dark of space, time was measured by Calsorn reckoning. As noted before, most of the galaxy's sentient races had been destined for Calsorn slavery, so the calendar and timekeeping drilled into them were uniform and easy to adopt. Terrans, who had settled on a 365-day year and a twenty-four-hour day, had been startled more than once to meet other species using the exact same system. Planets whose days ran longer or shorter than twenty-four hours simply kept a planetary clock alongside the cosmic one.
"Then I will remain at the tomb for that span. Keep people away."
"You mean to stay the entire time?"
One noble echoed the question in disbelief; the others wore the same look.
"Let me state my resolve plainly. I will not return until this war is won."
Not until victory. The Empress Dowager's fierce declaration made every noble in the chamber swallow dryly without meaning to.
She is truly set on this.
Was their marriage bond truly so deep?
In noble eyes, Eirin burned with the rage of a woman who had lost the husband she loved.
"Very well. We will have meals brought at regular intervals."
"Do so."
Unable to break her will, the Duke and the rest closed their mouths and dispersed.
Eirin met the young Emperor, left word that she would crush the rebels and return, and made her way to the underground tomb reserved for the Hamilton house—where the late Emperor's remains had been temporarily interred.
The family tomb, long in use, held countless graves that spoke of its deep history. It was divided into sections for the founder, successive heads of house, ordinary members, and retainers who had served the family with loyalty. The late Emperor's body, given its rank, had been placed for the time being in the founder's chamber.
Creak—thud—
Once inside the founder's stone chamber, Eirin shut the massive iron door that sealed it from the outside world and lit the interior with tools she had brought ahead.
Beside the Hamilton founder's great sarcophagus that dominated the center of the chamber, the late Emperor's coffin now stood—and anyone could see the balance was off. The space had been built for a single founder; of course it was.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!
"Haa… haaah…!"
At last the day had come. Eirin clutched her wildly pounding chest, unable to master the heat rising through her body.
"P-please… hurry… I can't… hold on any longer…!"
A full month had passed since she last left Jincheon's body. Except for the rare moments when she managed to grip her sanity, her mind was flooded with the memory of his scent, his warmth, and his cock. The first week had been bearable. After that, time only sharpened the craving—withdrawal from a drug, a raw hunger for pleasure.
I will never be parted from him again. Never!
That, too, had been Jincheon's design. For a woman raised wanting for nothing, the first real experience of longing for something she could not have struck with crushing force. Now that she knew the emptiness of his absence, she would never again take that pleasure for granted.
Eirin stripped and revealed herself in the translucent negligee and seductive underthings she had prepared. A waist so narrow no one would believe she was a married woman who had borne a child stood ready to seduce reason itself.
Creak—
"Ah…!"
The chamber door opened. Joy flooded her face—Jincheon at last—
"Ah…"
—and died the instant she saw who had actually entered. Not the man she had been waiting for. Jincheon's women.
"He told us to come here as well."
Calsira, already introduced, cut straight to the point.
"And him?"
"He said he had something to finish and would be about twenty minutes late."
"Twenty minutes…"
Nothing, as spans of time went—and precisely because of that, the ache between her legs throbbed harder.
No. This is better, actually.
She did not know why Jincheon had sent Heliane and Calsira, but she had words for them anyway. Eirin composed her expression.
"A convenient opportunity. I have something to say to you as well."
"Something to say?"
"??"
Heliane and Calsira tilted their heads and listened.
"I will acknowledge the two of you as concubines."
"…What did you just say?"
Heliane went blank for a beat, then fixed her with a cutting glare.
"In recognition of the merit of having served him first, I will accept you as secondary wives. Naturally I will be his principal consort—so know your place and be content."
"…"
"…"
That a great noble of the Giranlek Empire and Empress Dowager should become Jincheon's principal wife was, to her, self-evident. In her heart she could have cast aside a pair of women of unknown origin without a second thought—but they had served him before her, so she would grant them the status of concubines. Eirin looked down on them with the arrogant face of a woman bestowing a favor, as if nothing could be more natural.
"Ha."
While the serious-natured Heliane was still deciding how to respond, the lighter-tempered Calsira broke first into a hollow laugh.
"Unbelievable. Who exactly are you to decide who is principal wife and who is concubine?"
"Tsk. This is why low-born creatures are such a nuisance."
In public she wore the dignity of a great noble. As a woman fighting to claim the man she truly loved, she let the poison-wife in her show without filter.
"Do you understand? Even by my own standards I am being astonishingly generous. Do not push that generosity to its limit."
Crushed under rank for no reason but rank, both women's faces hardened.
Sister.
I know. We are not letting this pass quietly.
Heliane answered Calsira's transmission with one of her own, and the anger boiling up in her would no longer be held. Honestly they had fretted over how to treat Eirin in private; now that she had shown her true colors, dealing with her had become far simpler.
"Jincheon said his women have no rank and no station. Wanting to be principal wife is one thing—but that is something you earn by winning his heart, not by grinding the rest of us under your heel."
Older than they were, Heliane kept the formal register and spoke plain truth.
"Hah. Pretty words he said for your ears, no doubt. I am prepared to cast aside even my place as Empress Dowager for him."
"If we stood in that place we could cast it aside for Jincheon too! Thinking only you are capable of that is pure arrogance!"
Calsira snapped back, irritated by the way Eirin brandished the sacrifice of her station as if it were some unique marvel.
The three women tore into one another with rising spite until Eirin, out of patience, ended the argument by force.
"Enough. What would low-born creatures know of what it means for the highborn to renounce the privileges they alone may enjoy?"
"…!"
The open contempt lit Heliane's fury. She remembered something Jincheon said often.
Before pleasure, everyone is equal. You, us—under Jincheon we are all the same. I will make her feel that with her body.
Calsira. Draw her eyes for a moment.
Yes, Sister.
Heliane sent the transmission, then used the opening of Calsira's furious retorts to flash behind Eirin with lightness skill.
Grab—!
"Kyaa! You insolent bitches—!"
Heliane caught both of Eirin's arms in her upper pair and hauled them high, drove the arms from her shoulder blades up under Eirin's armpits, stripped the brassiere away, and raked both nipples with the nails of her index fingers.
"Kihk!?"
Nails scraping over the peaks that had risen on those full breasts wrenched a jolt of pleasure so sharp Eirin's heels left the floor without her willing it.
Scritch-scritch! Scritch-scritch-scritch!
"St-stop! I said sto—hh…!"
Starved for pleasure, Eirin felt her nipples stiffen under Heliane's caress—and Heliane only scraped the stiffened tips harder.
"Hhaaang!"
At first it had been martial force that held her fast. Now the aggressive caresses themselves drained the strength from her limbs until she could not resist.
"Among Jincheon's women, all are equal. I will make you understand that."
Dropping the formal speech she had used for her elder, Heliane set about teaching Eirin's body exactly what an Orobece woman became when she was angry.