The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

"Then you are weak." The words slipped out soft as falling petals, yet they struck like frost.

A few councilors inhaled quickly. Even Calwen's steady hand trembled around the quartz rod.

Nyshala lifted her gaze at last. Her voice, though gentle, carried. "The Saintess follows the Tree, not her whims. And the Tree has spoken with patience. So must we."

Myria felt grateful, if only for a heartbeat—but she could see Nyshala's vine dimming, buds curling protectively. Defiance had a cost.

Thiralei sat back, folding her hands. The scarlet blooms along her vine grew darker still. Above, lightning flickered, and the atrium's shadows quivered like startled birds.

Calwen rubbed her thumb along the rod, eyes distant. "Sisters," she said, "my instruments charted not chaos but harmony. Three distinct pulses, overlapping. I have not seen such perfect correspondence since the last solstice alignment." She paused, searching faces. "We may be witnessing a psionic entanglement—between the visitor, the acolytes, and the Grove itself."

A murmur swept the dais. Words like omen and anomaly rustled through petals.

Thiralei's expression did not soften. "Entanglement is not blessing. A vine that twines wrongly around a sapling strangles it."

"Or strengthens it," Nyshala whispered, though not quietly enough.

Thunder boomed. For a moment, every vine fluttered as a rush of wind whipped through the skylight vents, flinging rain on pale stone. Drops struck Myria's shoulders, cold and bright. She did not wipe them away.

Time stretched. Myria sensed how each woman weighed tradition against curiosity, fear against wonder. She knew the feeling intimately; it coiled now in her own stomach. She remembered Talyra's steady hand upon a shelf, Nessa's whispered apology, Mikhailis's half-masked awe.

"Before we cast judgment," she said, "I ask leave to seek further communion tonight. The Chamber of Echoes answered once. It may yet speak again."

Thiralei's lips pressed thin but she gave the formal nod—an acknowledgment, not acceptance. "One night. At dawn tomorrow, we reconvene and vote."

The circle of seats emitted a faint groan, as if the stone itself disliked deadlines. Still, protocol was satisfied.

The vines surrounding each throne began to loosen, signaling adjournment. Petals dropped like slow snow, gathering in damp drifts around Myria's feet. One final gesture remained: the councilors crossed left palm over right, touching heart and stomach in a blessing of balance. Even Thiralei performed it.

Myria echoed the sign, though her hands felt unsteady. She wished the ritual brought her calm the way it once had. Instead she sensed fractures, invisible cracks racing through roots and stone alike.

As the priestesses filed out through archways draped in blooming creepers, Thiralei paused beside the Saintess. Rainwater had collected on the older woman's shoulders, beading on crimson silk. Up close, her age showed in fine lines, yet her eyes still burned bright as coals.

"When you kneel tonight," she murmured, "recall that mercy can be poison. The Tree tolerates disease only until it endangers the forest."

Myria met her gaze. "And remember," she replied just as softly, "some flowers grow only where storm-water gathers."

Thiralei's expression flickered—annoyance or respect, she could not tell—before the priestess swept away, scarlet vine trailing behind like a captured flame.

Calwen approached next, offering a nod of acknowledgment rather than debate. "Saintess, should you require the resonance charts, they are at your disposal."

"Thank you," Myria said. She noticed Calwen's vine: lavender petals trembled as if unsure whether to bloom wider or shrink back. Even the scholar felt the quake beneath their feet.

Nyshala lingered last. She lifted her green-tipped vine, meeting Myria's eyes. "You did well," she breathed, voice almost childlike. "I… was afraid to speak." She looked down, embarrassed. "But the Grove seemed to breathe easier when you did."

Myria gently squeezed Nyshala's fingers. "Courage often sounds like questions, not answers. Keep asking."

Nyshala smiled—a small, hopeful curve—then hurried after the others, her vine brushing damp petals in her wake.

The atrium emptied. Only Myria remained beneath the skylight, rain's rhythm echoing around her. She turned slowly, surveying the seats, the vines, the blossoms scattered like casualties. Just hours earlier, she would have called the council unshakeable. Now she saw ragged edges: scarlet blooming too hot, lavender buzzing with strange currents, green wavering between youth and conviction.

A droplet slid from her hair onto her cheek. She touched it, unsure whether it was rain or tear. The Grove's breath moved through archways, carrying scents of wet stone and unsettled earth.

No verdict had been passed. Yet the silence that followed felt heavier than any sentence.

Myria stepped toward the arch leading back to her chambers. Her dormant vine remained behind, curled at the base of the dais—waiting for a season no calendar could predict. She could almost hear it whisper: Grow or wither. Choose.

But she walked away while the petals still fell, her sandals silent on slick stone.

The councilors dispersed through shadowed corridors, voices fading, doors closing. The storm eased outside, leaving only gentle dripping. In the stillness, Myria heard her own footsteps echo like an uncertain heartbeat.

And as the council disbanded, Myria felt it. A rift. No longer just among priestesses. Now, within herself.

_____

Dewstone Grotto was wet and cold.

The cavern sprawled like a hollowed geode beneath the Grove, walls glittering with flecks of dew-quartz that caught the lantern-glow and fractured it into shy rainbows. Thin curtains of water trickled from fissures overhead, weaving silvery beads that splashed in shallow pools before seeping into moss-padded stone. The air smelled of limestone, wet roots, and the faint metallic tang of regret.

Nessa sat on a smooth ledge near the central pond, her robe drawn tight but failing to keep out the chill. Damp silk clung to the curve of her shoulders and the hollow of her spine, darkening wherever tears or condensation touched. She hugged her knees, forehead resting on pale knuckles. The sobs she released were small, swallowed almost instantly by the echo-soft walls—more a series of stuttering breaths than sound.

Across the pool, Talyra paced in a slow arc, bare feet silent on the slick ground. Her curls frizzed where humidity kissed them; droplets clung to dark strands like glass seeds. Every few steps she paused to glance at Nessa, as though debating whether to speak. Water ripples warped her reflection, turning her features into shifting masks: calm one moment, tight-lipped the next.

"You don't regret it," Talyra said at last, voice low. She pivoted just enough that torchlight brushed her cheek, revealing the faint flush still lingering there.

Nessa stiffened but offered no reply. One thin shiver traveled up her arms.

Talyra exhaled through her nose, the sound neither sigh nor scoff—simply a release of breath that carried the weight of the last twenty hours. She turned again, facing the pond. Its surface mirrored the grotto's single hanging lantern, an amber eye half-closed by mist. She watched her own face bloom and blur with each ripple. "Neither do I," she admitted, softer this time, as if confessing to the pool rather than the girl behind her.

Silence nested between them, troubled only by the drip-drip of cave water and the distant rumble of a storm that refused to leave the Grove's canopy.

Minutes stretched, then frayed.

"Remember when we swore under the Twilight Canopy?" Nessa's voice quavered—barely louder than the water. "When our vines first bloomed? We said we'd walk where the Saintess walked. Protect her path, her future." She pressed her sleeve to her eyes and drew a shaky breath that rattled in the cold air.

Talyra nodded though Nessa couldn't see it. Memory flickered: eleven-year-old acolytes standing barefoot on luminous leaves while moon-moths circled overhead, sealing their vow with silent tears of devotion. "I remember," she said.

Nessa's shoulders hunched. "What if this is her future? What if she doesn't know it yet?"

"Or," Nessa added after a heartbeat, "what if we broke her?"

Wind funneled through a side crevice, carrying a faint scent of crushed starvine—sharp, bittersweet. Talyra's gaze softened. She stooped, gathered a handful of smooth pebbles, and let them tumble through her fingers with tiny clicks. The rhythm matched the heartbeat echo in her ears. At last she crossed the pool's edge, kneeling so they sat level.

She reached out and laid her hand upon Nessa's trembling shoulder. "Or woke her," she whispered.

Nessa lifted her head. Moisture glazed her eyes, catching lantern-light like shattered topaz. "How can you be certain?"

"I'm not." Talyra's thumb traced a comforting arc. "But I know what I felt when he touched my hand. It wasn't corruption." A gentle flush crept into her cheeks again—this time not of shame but wonder. "It was… possibility. Like catching a glimpse of sky through roots you always thought unbreakable."

Nessa bit her lip, remembering the warmth of Mikhailis's laughter against her neck, the way guilt and thrill had tangled in her stomach until they were indistinguishable. She shivered, less from cold than from the echo of that memory. "Possibility feels a lot like danger."

"Maybe they're the same," Talyra said. She glanced upward where mineral stalactites dripped patiently into the pond. "Maybe the Grove is done hiding us from both."

Their words faded. Water whispered around them. From somewhere deeper, a gentle plume of thermal breath rose, fogging the air between their knees. It smelled faintly of warm clay, as though the earth itself tried to soothe their bones.

Talyra withdrew her hand only to reach for a scrap of linen tucked in her sleeve. She dabbed Nessa's cheeks, drying tears before new ones formed. Her touch lingered at the corner of Nessa's jaw. "You and I," she murmured, "we're not just names on prayer rolls now. Whatever happens, we decide whether we bloom or fetter."

Nessa managed a fragile smile. It trembled, then steadied. "If we're exiled?"

"Then we learn to grow somewhere else," Talyra replied. She blinked, surprised by her own conviction. "Even if the Shrine walls turn us away, I refuse to believe the Tree itself hates new branches."

The lantern overhead flickered at that moment, flame bending in a draft—as if the cavern itself nodded.

They sat a while longer, not speaking. Nessa's tears slowed. Talyra breathed easier. In the stillness they heard distant root-beats—deep, slow pulses echoing through rock. Perhaps the Grove listened; perhaps it approved. Either way, both priestesses felt an unfamiliar bud of courage unfold in their ribs.

We might not come back from this, Nessa thought, and for the first time the fear carried a spark of excitement beside it.