“No matter how warm and comfortable a place may be, you must miss the days when you could freely stand in the falling snow.”
Alexa thought of the red plum blossoms that had bloomed in the white snowscape. The blossoms were still beautiful now, but they could not compare to that snowy night.
“You and I are not so different.”
Alexa murmured sadly.
No matter how elegant and beautiful the empress’s quarters might be, it was no substitute for freedom.
But Alexa was already the empress now. It was the same as the plum blossoms in the vase, which could never return to the Secret Garden where the snow had fallen.
Time passed. She had glanced at the clock until midnight, just in case, but as expected, Enoch did not come.
By now, even those in the empress’s quarters could tell that something was going wrong, but no one could bring themselves to say it aloud.
More than anything, the empress had to wait for the emperor alone in the bedchamber on the wedding night, which made it all the lonelier.
‘He won’t come until the early hours of dawn, anyway.’
That too was part of the original story’s course.
Alexa had been sitting on the bed with her knees drawn to her chest, and she let herself lie down just like that. She already knew he was not coming, so there was no reason to sit up stiffly and wait with her heart in her throat.
* * *
The banquet hall was still lively with noise.
In the midst of it all, David came and said to Enoch, for what must have been the dozenth time, “You must go to the empress’s quarters now.”
At those words, Enoch’s expression turned irritable. But the Empress Dowager’s gaze had been boring into him from across the room for some time now. One way or another, he had to stop by the empress’s quarters.
On top of that, if he did not go to the empress’s quarters on the wedding night, the imperial marriage would be rendered void. If he had no desire to go through this tiresome business all over again, he had no choice but to go.
“All right, I’ll go now.”
Enoch made up his mind and headed for the empress’s quarters. The attendants there bowed their heads in unison to receive the emperor, each quietly breathing a sigh of relief.
“Her Majesty the Empress is waiting in the bedchamber.”
Enoch gave a nod at Matilda’s words, opened the bedchamber door, and stepped inside. There before him was a four-poster bed with a translucent curtain drawn around it.
Enoch made his presence known, but Alexa gave no sign of response, as though she had no intention of paying her respects. In the end, Enoch strode up to the bed and drew back the curtain.
And at the sight before him, he froze for a moment.
Alexa was curled up like a child, fast asleep.
“Ha.”
It was so absurd a laugh escaped him.
He had never heard of a bride falling asleep before her groom on the wedding night. And Alexa was the empress, no less.
Seeing the woman who should have been waiting for her husband with a fluttering, nervous heart sleeping soundly instead, Enoch was left at a loss for words.
Alexa lay sleeping, her breath coming in soft, quiet sighs. Enoch stood there for a moment, caught off guard, simply watching.
With her eyes closed, her lashes were long and even, and the small, straight nose that rose and fell with each breath and her full lips drew his gaze.
With all her makeup removed, she had the fresh bloom of someone who had only just turned twenty.
“Ahem.”
Enoch made a deliberate sound, but Alexa would not wake easily. The exhaustion from the tension of the imperial marriage must have run deep.
“Ahem.”
Enoch made a slightly louder sound than before. This time, Alexa slowly opened her eyes, blinked languidly, and then startled awake.
“Your… Your Majesty…”
She had only meant to lie down for a moment, but she could not even remember when she had fallen asleep.
Alexa bowed her head deeply before Enoch, who stood there as though to show off his considerable height, looking for all the world like a guilty party.
“How enviable, to have such an untroubled heart.”
The title of empress still felt unfamiliar to her ears.
“I am deeply sorry. I did not mean to…”
Alexa pressed her lips together.
Enoch looked down at her for a moment. The neat lashes he had noticed earlier cast a delicate shadow at the corners of her eyes.
“Did not mean to?”
“That is to say… I was so tense all day that I was exhausted, and I must have dozed off without realizing it.”
“Hm.”
A strange sound escaped Enoch.
It was unexpected that she had been tense all day, given that she was becoming empress under the Taira name with such apparent confidence.
Had his own mother not always said it? That the position had been hers from the start, and that the imperial marriage had not made her nervous in the slightest.
“You were tense all day?”
“Yes. I had learned the etiquette in advance, but I was worried there might be even a small mistake… And today is my wedding, so I suppose I was more nervous than I realized.”
To Enoch, today had simply been the day of the imperial marriage, an affair of the utmost importance to the empire. But Alexa had called it her wedding.
That difference felt quite vast.
“I see.”
Any moment now, Enoch would pour out cold words and tell her to expect nothing from this marriage before turning to leave.
Alexa did not know when he would begin, so she waited with her head bowed and her lips pressed together.
“Lift your…”
“Pardon?”
“Would you lift your head?”
This was not how things had gone in the original story. But she could not refuse.
Alexa slowly raised her head and looked at Enoch. Her lake-blue eyes turned toward him.
Enoch looked at her, and before he knew what he was doing, he had taken hold of her chin and tilted her head up further.
The woman he had seen in the Secret Garden that night was even more refined up close, and there was something about her that drew a man in. For a moment, even Enoch felt the urge to press his lips to hers.
“Please… let go.”
At Alexa’s quiet plea, Enoch came to his senses belatedly and released her.
And now was precisely the moment when Enoch would pour out his cold words.
“You have only duty. Never so much as hope for rights.”
Those were the words the original Enoch had said to Alexa on their wedding night.
“It makes no difference either way, since you are a daughter of the Tairas before you are empress.”
The one reason Enoch despised Alexa was the maternal relative faction, which he had grown so weary of.
Had it not been for that, the two of them might have had a different beginning.
“I…”
Today was the last chance she would have. Alexa gathered her courage with that thought.
“I intend to live from now on not as a daughter of the Tairas, but as Your Majesty’s empress.”
At those words, Enoch’s eyes widened slightly. It was something he had not expected to hear.
“It is all right if Your Majesty does not seek me out. I do not mind having only duty and no rights.”
All of it was what Enoch had been about to say first.
“I want nothing, so please just do not hate me too much.”
“That remains to be seen.”
Alexa’s voice was trembling faintly. The sight of her did not look anything like a scheme or ploy of the Tairas.
“If you keep to your boundaries, I will not cross any lines either.”
Despising someone is a rather exhausting thing. If Alexa kept to her boundaries, Enoch had no desire to take on that exhaustion willingly.
A brief silence settled between them.
Enoch was still standing in front of the bed.
Realizing this belatedly, Enoch stepped away from the bed and took off his ceremonial jacket. The suffocating feeling he had been carrying since earlier seemed to lift.
While he was at it, he undid a few buttons of his shirt as well.
Seeing this, Alexa grew more tense. Enoch was supposed to pour out cold words on the wedding night and then leave, nothing more. So why was he taking off his clothes now? She had not prepared herself for this at all.
“I drank too much wine. My throat is parched.”
Enoch poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and drank it down in one go.
“Are those the plum blossoms from that time?”
The plum blossoms placed in one corner of the bedchamber caught his eye.
“Yes.”
Alexa gave a small nod.
Enoch found himself thinking again of Alexa holding an armful of red plum blossoms.
Compared to then, she looked far more pure and delicate now, wearing nothing but a snow-white nightgown.
Worried his resolve might waver, Enoch quickly picked up his jacket again. If he stayed any longer, he felt he might be intoxicated by the scent of the plum blossoms and take Alexa then and there.
“Then let us live with as little interference in each other’s lives as possible.”
“Yes…”
Enoch finally turned to leave. He walked out with steady, unhurried steps and left the empress’s bedchamber.
That was all.
“…Is that it?”
Alexa’s wedding night was supposed to have been stained with tears. In the original story, Enoch’s words had been so cold and cutting that there was even a line describing it as a blade being driven into her chest.
But the Enoch of today had been gentlemanly, and he had not seemed to despise Alexa greatly at all.
“Why isn’t it following the original story?”
It was because Alexa had acted differently from the original Alexa.
There is a saying that a single butterfly’s wingbeat can set off a typhoon on the other side of the world. Perhaps Alexa’s small actions had changed the course of the original story.
“No, actually… is this a good thing?”
It was still too soon to say. Alexa simply blinked slowly, her expression puzzled.
“I would be glad if things could stay like this going forward.”
A marriage where neither interfered with the other.
That was exactly what Alexa needed right now.
