The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

The roots whispered.

At the deepest heart of the Grove Shrine, beneath chambers carved by the prayers of generations, Saintess Myria knelt in the Chamber of Echoes. She lowered herself onto cool moss, letting her knees sink until they found a natural hollow, as if the floor had learned her shape over countless vigils. Her hands rested lightly on the living carpet, fingertips brushing pearl-gray lichen that pulsed with faint bioluminescence. Each pulse matched the slow throb of sap moving inside the walls.

She inhaled. Rainwater, cedar dust, and a hint of crushed moon-petals drifted through hidden vents. Far above, storm-clouds pressed against the Grove's outer leaves, and the bark skin of the Shrine shivered whenever thunder rolled. The rain tapped a steady pattern—tap-tap-tap, pause, tap-tap—roughly the beat of a calm heartbeat. Myria tried to sync her breathing to it, but her own pulse refused to slow.

A low hum stirred beneath her palms. The roots—thick as her own arms—lay braided under the moss like sleeping serpents. They vibrated in short bursts, the Grove's language of memory. Each tremor sent a warm thread up her arms and across her shoulders, until it buzzed behind her ears. Some nights she found the sensation soothing, like distant harp strings. Tonight it felt odd, almost urgent.

Myria bowed her head, silver hair slipping forward to frame her cheeks. She closed her eyes, surrendering sight so that sound and touch could speak louder.

Listen, she told herself. Let the Tree speak first.

The chamber answered with flickers—images cast against the inside of her mind, not unlike moonlight through moving leaves. At first they were hazy smudges. Then sharper.

She saw Mikhailis: silver-blond hair messy from travel, eyes wide with a scholar's hunger and a child's uncertainty. His mouth twitched between apology and laughter, unable to decide which suited him. The image drifted left and bled into another: Talyra's cheeks flushed crimson as she tucked loose curls behind her ear, guilt battling wonder in her gaze. Then Nessa, lips quivering, confessing in a voice so small that even memory rendered it as a trembling line of light.

These glimpses circled her like fireflies. She tried to hold one, but they slipped away, reforming into new patterns. The roots wanted her to see them together—three threads pulled by a common gravity. Beneath that, a deeper symbol formed: a seed cracking open in dark soil, pushing one hopeful sprout toward sunlight no matter how heavy the dirt.

A voice came next—not a sound through air, but pressure inside bone.

The Fulcrum walks—neither sinner nor savior. Judge not the soil before the seed has grown.

Myria's lashes fluttered open. Candle-sized droplets of amber resin glowed on the chamber walls, lighting her startled expression. She did not rise. Instead she stared at the green lattice beneath her fingers, as if the roots themselves had spoken aloud.

Her heart thumped once, hard. The Tree does not condemn him.

A cold thought followed: Nor does it defend me.

She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her pulse hammer against soft fabric. The chambers of the Shrine had always given her answers—clear, even stern—when she sought them. Tonight they gave only a pause. A waiting breath. And in that space, doubt bloomed like a weed.

If he's not a threat, she wondered, could he be a guide? Yet guides did not crash through sacred protocols. They did not turn prayer-hall stillness into gasps and hurried spells of cleansing. But she could not ignore the echo of Talyra's wide smile or Nessa's shy, shining eyes. There had been fear, yes, but also a fierce kind of awakening.

A droplet of rain finally broke through some distant vent, striking a leaf overhead. The leaf tipped, letting the drop fall with soft finality onto the stone beside her knee. The sound was tiny, but it startled her more than thunder. For a moment she wished she could shrink to that droplet, simple and pure, its path chosen only by gravity, never by conscience.

The hum beneath her palms shifted. It grew steadier, like a drumbeat leading a march. She realized the roots were offering support, not scolding. They recognized her turmoil and lent rhythm to her confusion, turning it into something she could breathe through.

Slowly, she exhaled. The rain outside kept its tempo. She imagined each drop soaking into soil, becoming part of the unseen. Seeds needed dark, wet places to split and reach upward. A seed was helpless in daylight until it first braved the hidden world.

Mikhailis is a seed—or perhaps he carries one, she thought. So do Talyra and Nessa. And if I condemn them now, I may crush a sprout before it feels sun.

She lowered her forehead until it touched the moss. Cool dampness kissed her skin. Her voice came out barely above a whisper, but the chamber caught it, amplified it, and fed it back to the roots.

"Let me understand," she breathed, each word deliberate. "Not through law. Through truth."

The pulse under her hands eased, as if the Tree—satisfied—settled into patient silence.

_____

The rain hadn't stopped when morning came. It fell in sheets, silver cords cascading through latticed skylights and filling the Atrium of Petal Flame with a steady hiss, as though the very sky tried to drown the tension gathering below.

The atrium was always beautiful—oval dais of pale stone, carpeted by creeping violets, ringed with archways trained by generations of patient gardeners. This dawn, the blooms gleamed wet and heavy, petals cupping beads of water that glowed like pearls. In the center, seven stone chairs waited beneath a living canopy. Each seat was wrapped by a single vine grown directly from the Heartwood Tree. Those vines never lied; they flowered to reveal their bearer's standing, and their color shifted with the mood of the Grove itself.

Myria noticed every hue the moment she stepped into the circle.

Priestess Thiralei's vine blazed scarlet—deep, commanding, edges dark as coals. Thunder cracked overhead when she settled into her throne, and it felt less like coincidence, more like the sky bowing to her certainty.

Opposite her, Calwen adjusted slim crystal spectacles. Her vine shimmered lavender, petals small and neat—precise as the notes she always carried on ley-line drift.

Next to Calwen, Nyshala leaned forward, fingers laced in her lap. Pale green buds opened shyly along her vine, like hearts undecided between fear and hope.

Six other vines exhibited milder hues—pinks of caution, golds of curiosity—but the air between scarlet, lavender, and green seemed to crackle. And at the center stood Saintess Myria, robed in white, her own vine lying dormant at her feet: no blossom, no color, only waiting. The role of the Saintess was to belong wholly to the Grove—never to stake a claim for herself.

A hush settled as the councilors inclined their heads. Petals fluttered to the floor, shattered by droplets seeping from the skylight.

Thiralei spoke first, words clipped and clear. "Sisters, let us begin. A man entered the Library. The vow was broken. The soil disturbed."

Her voice was neither loud nor harsh, yet it carried a weight that pressed against every eardrum. Myria imagined the storm pausing outside, as though rain itself listened.

"There was healing involved," Myria offered, keeping her tone measured. The memory flashed: Mikhailis crouched beside an injured acolyte, hands steady, eyes gentle. A quick salve, a murmured joke—pain turned to laughter. Healing, yes.

"There was touching," Thiralei countered. No lightning in her voice, just sharpened iron. She let the word hang, and around it the other priestesses seemed to flinch, as though the syllables were stones in their shoes.

Nyshala stared down at her folded hands. Calwen's brows knit; she slid a thin quartz rod between her fingers, absorbing the room's etheric flow.

Calwen cleared her throat softly. "Emotion clouds nothing," she said with scholarly detachment. "Ley signatures spiked throughout the root network at the precise hour of the incident. A triple-strand resonance. Not just in the roots, but"—she tapped her chest—"here."

Myria felt the gaze of the circle pivot to her. She lifted her chin.

"The Tree spoke," she reminded them. "It gave no judgment. Only warning."

Water trickled somewhere behind the vines. Distant thunder rolled like a heavy drum.

Thiralei leaned forward, scarlet petals brushing her shoulders. "Then let us act where the Tree hesitates. Sister Talyra and Sister Nessa defiled their stations. They must be stripped of their Leafrings." She raised two fingers, slicing the air. "Cast out for thirty cycles."

A hush. Thirty cycles—an exile long enough for any priestess to lose her vine, her name, her future. For many that punishment was a spiritual death.

"They were drawn in by forces we do not yet understand," Myria answered. She placed her palm against her own dormant vine, feeling its cool bark beneath silk. "I will not pass judgment until I have certainty."

Thiralei's eyes narrowed, not with anger, but pity—as if the Saintess had confessed an old, childish dream. "Then you are weak."