Automatic Eve by Rokuro Inui

Author:Rokuro Inui
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-9747-1298-4
Publisher: VIZMedia
Published: 2019-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

“Kasuga.”

Startled at the voice, Kasuga looked around but saw no one.

Perhaps she had imagined it. She had certainly been nodding off.

Kasuga was sitting beside the empress’s bed. The curtain was now lowered again, the bedchamber lit by a paper lantern, and Kasuga was waiting impatiently to hear the long, even breathing of sleep from within. She must have dozed off herself.

Like the dawning of the day and first repast, the empress’s slumber had to be conveyed to the rest of the palace too. Alignment with the empress’s movements was the fundamental law of the palace, so Kasuga’s role here was an important one. If the empress did not fall asleep, most of her staff could not either, in case she decided to summon them.

Which meant that if Kasuga fell asleep and failed to alert the gentlewomen of the inner rooms, the entire palace would remain on standby all night without a minute’s sleep.

Kasuga crawled forward quickly and listened to the sounds within the curtain around the imperial bed.

“Kasuga.”

That voice.

She looked around again.

Why was she hearing a voice when there was no one in the room with her?

She got goose bumps at the thought before suddenly remembering that there was someone in the room with her.

The empress.

But Kasuga was dubious.

She had joined the women of the innermost sanctum two years ago, and in all that time she had never heard the empress speak.

To report the empress’s sleeping and waking, two of the ladies of the inner sanctum stayed in the imperial quarters each night. One was there in case the empress woke in the night with business to assign, and she spread her bedding beside the empress’s bed. The other slept in a neighboring room.

Tonight, Kasuga was the first of these two. There was no one she could turn to for confirmation of what she had heard.

Nor would it do for her to ask the empress if she had called her. She would just have to peer behind the bed curtains and check.

She slipped her fingers through where the curtains met and parted them an extremely modest inch or so.

Looking through the crack, she saw that the empress was awake and sitting up amid the blankets spread on the black lacquered dais that was her bed.

She was also looking back at Kasuga—and laughing, hand over her mouth for propriety’s sake. Kasuga’s attempts at stealth must have amused her.

Kasuga froze.

She froze, fingers still in the curtains, body hunched forward to peer through. She felt a flash of anxiety. Was she actually doing something extremely impolite?

“Kasuga. That is your name, we believe? We have been calling to you for some time without receiving an answer. Were you asleep?”

“F—forgive me, Your Majesty,” said Kasuga, both mortified and astonished. Her voice came out as a squeak. Without getting off her knees, she sprang back at least two feet like a shrimp, then pressed her forehead to the floor.

“You are an amusing one,” the empress said. “Go and tell the gentlewomen that we are asleep. I hope you will then indulge us in some light conversation.

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