Underwater

Chapter 25: The Bonding

Reina closed her book and struggled to sit up enough to place it on her bedside table. It took her three tries and still she didn't quite manage. In the end, she gave up and left the book on her husband's side of the bed – it's not like he was there at the moment anyway. He could move her book for her when he got back.

She was bored. She reminisced fondly of her early days in Aquina, back when the days passed quickly because she had so much to do. There was never a bored moment – if it weren't the formal proposals, it was books. If it wasn't that, it was her plans for the school or business, or the consultations with Marquess Breim.

These days, she wasn't even allowed to assist with her husband's paperwork.

Nobody would let her do any work and as a result, Reina was bored out of her mind. She got regular written reports about her business and school. But she usually read through that in seconds, thanks to her eagerness. Then she was left with hours of doing nothing.

"I can't even leave the palace anymore..."

The school had opened up a few weeks prior, after the successful renovation of the theatre. The school's opening ceremony – that was the last time she had been allowed out of the palace. Unfortunately, it was also during that trip out of the palace that she had nearly slipped off the stage, her husband managing to catch her at the last minute. Every single onlooker gasped. Why, Reina didn't know. They were surrounded by water, so it's not like she would have been hurt even if she fell. She would have just floated gradually to the ground.

Delwyn had been silent for the rest of the day. Reina did feel sorry for him – the incident had probably been incredibly frightening to his overprotective brain.

She couldn't have known that he was actually plotting something in that overprotective, paranoid brain of his.

Delwyn handed a document over to her during lunch two days after the opening ceremony. She squinted at its title.

"I can't ban you from leaving the palace, so I had to get a little creative."

"This..."

"It's a petition."

Reina flicked through the pages, finding hundreds of signatures from officials, palace staff, people from the market and attendees of the school – even Dart and Morwen's signature featured in the document. All for the sake of keeping her from leaving the palace until she gave birth.

"This is ridiculous," Reina commented.

"What's ridiculous is for the mother of the future emperor to be running around this far in her pregnancy instead of delegating."

"I'm delegating."

"No, you're not. Tasks are being taken out of your hands, by the same people who willingly signed that."

"I'm fine. What else will I do?"

He shrugged. "Sleep. Eat. Read your books."

That idea didn't appeal to Reina at all. She looked through the signatures, recognizing many of the names written beside them. Even Toirdel and Fir's signatures were in it. When did her husband even have time to chase down all these people?

"...I can't ignore this, can I?" she asked. Her husband grinned victoriously. "Alright, fine. I'll stop leaving the palace until the baby is born."

Delwyn breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. "Good."

Reina wasn't used to having such lazy days. She lay in bed but couldn't catch a wink of sleep. She'd slept too much. She was even bored of her books – she'd already read through much of the content. The remaining books in the library were so outdated that it wasn't worth reading, or repeated information that she had already learned.