The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

The Moonbirch Altar stood at the Shrine's inner spine, a dais of silvery timber polished by centuries of bare feet. Tall pillars of living birch twined overhead, white bark etched with vow-runes that glowed faintly whenever someone stepped inside. Tonight, those runes shimmered like snowlit rivers as Saintess Myria crossed the threshold, sandals tucked beneath her arm, toes sinking into cool grain.

She paused, inhaling resin tinged with moonleaf oil. Lanterns hung in quiet constellations along the ceiling, each flame reflecting in broad pools of still water surrounding the altar. The whole chamber felt afloat, like an island carried atop gently breathing waves.

Myriad memories rushed in: the night she first walked this wood at fourteen, scalp raw from ritual shaving, knees shaking inside oversized novice robes. The cold sting of incense scoring her lungs. The sting of losing her name. It had floated upward with the petal-smoke, a fragile syllable sacrificed to keep the Grove's balance.

She ascended two shallow steps and halted in the altar's center. Her pulse drummed against the floorboards. She half-expected the wood to reject the uncertainty slithering in her chest, but the altar held her without complaint. In the quiet she heard the faintest hum—old magic, still alive.

Rooted mirrors lined the circular chamber beyond the pillars: silver surfaces latticed with curling branches so each reflection fractured, multiplied, became versions of the self that might have been. Myria approached the first.

The mirror showed her clothed in traveler's leathers, hair grown long and braided with foreign beads. In that life she must have run—away from vows, away from prophecy—into the wide world beyond the Grove. The reflection's eyes sparkled with strain and sun, yet wore a smile that hinted at open skies.

She stepped to the next mirror.

Here, she gripped a short ceremonial blade, its point pressed lightly beneath a man's chin. Not any man: Mikhailis, though older, wearier, his gaze resigned. Her face held no softness; in that timeline she must have judged him guilty and chosen to cull the threat before it rooted. The reflection's lips trembled between duty and sorrow, but the hand never wavered.

Myria swallowed, throat suddenly dry. She pressed two fingers to the timber rail, steadying herself, then turned to the third mirror.

At first she saw only shifting light. Then the shapes aligned—her and Mikhailis standing among roots bursting with silver blossoms. Their hands were clasped, vines spiraling around their wrists, weaving flesh and bark together. Her reflection's eyes overflowed with tears that looked like sunlight. Mikhailis's smile was soft, devoid of irony—just earnest wonder.

Heat surged beneath her skin. She looked away, heart rattling. Is that love? Is that doom? The Grove offered no label.

She retreated a step, breathing hard, and nearly stumbled. Cold timber bit into her soles, grounding her body while her thoughts spun. "I have no name," she whispered, echoing a pain she'd buried years ago, "but I have a choice."

Something warm unfurled against her palm. She lifted her hand.

A sprout—no longer than her smallest finger—lay across her skin, roots curled delicately around the life-line of her palm. It glowed a tender gold-green, pulsing with the same rhythm she had felt on the moss stone hours earlier.

"This is not punishment," she breathed, tears blurring her vision. "It's…"

She couldn't finish. The sprout brightened, sending soft rays across her knuckles, as though answering the unfinished thought. It smelled faintly of rain on dust, that sweet scent when the ground first drinks.

Not soil, no. Seed.

The word echoed in her bones, spoken nowhere yet heard everywhere.

You are not soil. You are seed.

_____

Raincall Hollow lay open to the storm like a waiting chalice, its low stone ring slick with rainwater that streamed down grooves cut by ancient hands. Vines climbed each pillar of the circle, trembling whenever thunder rolled overhead, their leaves shedding silver beads that flashed like tiny lanterns before sinking into the dark soil.

Myria arrived first, robe hood pulled forward but not enough to hide the way lightning kept catching in her eyes. She felt the air heavy with ion and old judgment—a taste like iron on the tongue. Damp wind tugged strands of her hair loose, slapping them against cheeks already chilled, yet the Saintess barely noticed. Her attention fixed on the empty bowl of black stone set upon a pedestal at the circle's heart, waiting to receive a verdict in tokens—or blood—depending on how the morning unfolded.

One by one, priestesses stepped from covered walkways into the down-pouring light. Their ceremonial whites quickly stained to gray, but they did not flinch. Tradition said the rain of Raincall Hollow washed away illusion; any color that remained was truth. Thiralei's crimson sash stayed bright even soaked, dripping scarlet down pleats like slow threads of fire. Calwen's lavender cuffs darkened to bruised violet. Nyshala's pale-green edging looked almost silver against her shivering arms, though she tried to hide it by clasping a scroll to her chest.

Talyra and Nessa were led in last, wrists bound only by thin ribbon—formality, nothing more—but the ribbon looked fragile beside the storm. Lightning flashed, and for a heartbeat their faces appeared almost luminous: Talyra's jaw set, Nessa's lips pressed tight to stop their tremble. Neither spoke, but their shared glance said stand tall.

Myria stepped forward before Thiralei could claim center ground. The Saintess lifted a palm—rain ran off her fingers like liquid glass—and the circle fell quiet enough that the hiss of falling water sounded suddenly loud.

"By root and leaf," she called, voice carrying, "we gather to weigh a breach." Words taught to every acolyte, yet today they scraped raw in her throat. "Let truth show itself in storm and silence."

Thunder answered, low and distant, like an elder clearing its voice.

Thiralei moved to Myria's left, eyes hard. "As the storm clears the branch," she began, chanting each phrase with ritual precision, "so must the Shrine be cleansed." At her cue, vines winding the inner ring recoiled in perfect unison, sliding from Talyra's and Nessa's robes as though rejecting them. The gesture felt cruelly intimate, like friends turning away.

Nessa flinched when the vine at her collar withdrew, leaving a damp line across her skin that steamed in the cool air. Talyra, jaw still rigid, kept still enough the rain pooled on her eyelashes before falling.

Thiralei's voice rose: "Impurity stains the bloom! Cast out corruption!" Her vine flared scarlet beneath the downpour, petals opening wide despite the wet as if to lend her extra breath.

Myria stepped between the elder and the kneeling pair. Water splashed around her ankles. "Stop." Only one word, but the storm itself seemed to hold its breath. Gasps fluttered along the circle; robes rustled; Nyshala's scroll slipped half an inch in her grasp.

Talyra's head jerked up. Nessa froze mid-shiver, hope and fear colliding in her eyes.

"I saw what happened," Myria said. Her voice did not shout; it steadied on something deeper than volume. "I did not stop it. Not out of ignorance." She drew a breath that tasted of cedar and ozone. "But reverence."

The word drifted through Raincall Hollow like a bird no one expected to see at winter. Priests exchanged looks. Even the rain seemed to soften, drops falling slower, heavier.

Thiralei's mouth opened—whether to protest or question, no one knew, for a blue-white glare split the sky at that instant. Calwen, ever the scientist even now, murmured aloud, "Ley-arc build-up… is this divine wrath or divine recognition?"

Her answer crashed from the sky. A stroke of lightning leapt into the circle, striking the punishment bowl dead-center. Stone that had endured a thousand verdicts cracked apart with a sound like a snapped tree trunk. Instead of sparks or shards, a fountain of golden petals burst upward, swirling through sheets of rain. They glowed—each tiny leaf lit from within—turning the air around Talyra and Nessa into a cloud of soft sunlight.

Shouts rang. Several priestesses dropped to their knees in reflexive awe. Thiralei buckled, scarlet sash splashing crimson into mud as she clutched her chest. The vine that had fled Nessa's robe crept back, tentative, then wrapped itself gently around her shoulders like an embrace. Another slid along Talyra's arm, placing a single pearl of water into her palm before retreating—a quiet apology.

Lightning flickered once more, dimmer this time, and vanished beyond distant clouds. The hollow glowed gold where petals settled on stones, soaking but refusing to dim.

Myria exhaled, knees giving as she knelt between the priestesses. "We walk now where roots have never touched," she whispered, words stolen by rainfall but somehow heard by every ear.

Silence followed—except for the rain, which now sounded less like judgment and more like applause.

_____

Night fell purple-black, the storm spent but clouds still bruising the horizon. The corridors of the Heartwood Shrine hummed softly, as if walls remembered the morning and had not quite decided whether to cheer or tremble. Myria led Talyra and Nessa through shadowed passages lit only by glow-moss and single petal-lanterns. Their robes were dry, but the fragrance of rain clung to them.

At the threshold of the Heartwood Chamber the air shifted—warm, fragrant, almost drowsy. The great trunk filled half the room, living bark etched with spiraling glyphs older than the kingdom. Soft pulses of amber light traveled under the surface like slow comets.

Myria paused, palm against living wood. "Only intention tonight," she murmured. "No confession. The Tree already knows." She looked to the two women. "Are you ready?"

Talyra answered first, voice steady. "Yes, Saintess." Her eyes shone with something fiercer than before—joy laced with resolve.

Nessa nodded, fingers brushing Talyra's sleeve for courage. "Ready."

They approached the small altar set in a knot at root level. Upon it lay three freshly fallen petals Myria had collected herself—one crimson, one green-as-new-leaves, one pale as morning mist. Colors of vows they each were born into.

Myria lifted the red. "For duty," she said, remembering endless days spent judging herself only by how well she served. She held it out. Rain-residue shimmered on its veins. She placed it on a slab of milky quartz.

Talyra took the green. "For obedience," she whispered, but her tone flavored the word with farewell rather than regret. She set it beside the red, petals touching like clasped hands.

Nessa stepped forward, white petal cupped carefully. "For silence," she said, voice barely audible. Small tremors ran through her fingers, yet she smiled while laying it down. The three petals formed a fragile circle on the stone.

All three women joined hands—Myria's in the middle, warm between two slightly cooler grips. They inhaled together; exhaled. Voices rose, soft yet certain:

"We are not vessels of the past. We are roots of what will bloom."

Light flowed from the quartz, passing up through the petals until each glowed brighter than any lantern. The colors bled outward, weaving ribbons of rose, jade, and pearl that twisted around their interlocked arms, climbing to shoulders, to throats—warm but not burning, weightless yet strong.

Talyra gasped, surprised laughter in the sound. Nessa's eyes filled with tears that did not fall, suspended like dew. Myria felt the glow pulse with her heartbeat, and for a breath she feared it would reveal every secret doubt—but instead it carried them away, leaving only calm certainty.

The glow faded into the wood; the petals crumbled into dust that glittered before landing in creases of the altar. A hush settled, more profound than any Myria had known in that place. She closed her eyes, and in the hush she felt—not heard—a distant murmur of leaves shifting in agreement, as if an unseen wind passed through unseen branches.

Somewhere far away, the Tree whispered its approval.