Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Xanthea]

An icy sensation crawled up my leg.

The din of my breaths and my heartbeats faltered in my ears as the sound of rustling grass, as if a serpent hastily slithered through them. I stood barefoot on the dewy grass, aware of every stir in the surrounding underbrush. Cold fog condensed on my skin like sweats damping my white gown.

Breathing slowly but heavily through my mouth, I kept staring at the grass apprehensively.

Subtle slithering sounds grew louder. Movement in the grass and bushes became evident. It was then I realized something was rumbling under the ground.

Unease knotted in my stomach and even before I could think about running, sinewy vines erupted from the earth all around me. I froze in my place as they whipped right before my eyes like the gigantic tentacles of an octopus. I fell on the ground, lying on my back as they coiled themselves all around my body.

I felt the movements of the vines against my skin. Their cold and damp touch as the vines slowly swallowed me into the ground. I knew I was being pulled underground, but it felt as though I was sinking. The faint light filtering through the grassy surface floated farther and farther away from me.

But there was no panic, just an uncanny peace.

There was a glow underground and a thick scent of soil and roots.

'Xanthea...' someone whispered my name in my ears. 'Come to us. Call us...'

"Who?" I mumbled with a groan.

"Xanthea?"

Moaning, I winced.

"Xanthea," the voice was close to my ears, yet I heard it as a distant murmur.

I parted my eyelids, staring at a familiar ceiling of my room in the Aile castle.

Were those the whispers of the vines?

I struggled with every blink, trying to navigate through what was real. The warm light in the room dispersed the fog before my eyes as though someone had just wiped the dew streaked glass.

"Xanthea..." someone called out to me again, but I couldn't make out whose voice it was until I turned my head and met Nesryn's eyes. Her expressions were a mix of relief and sternness. "You woke up exactly when he predicted you would."

I felt the same cold sensation on my leg. I turned my head to the other side and saw Mavka gently rubbing a sphere of ice over my leg, her gaze fixed on the task.

Gradually, the events came back to me and the last thing I remember was - I was in Raven's office...

I sat up on the bed with a jerk. A sharp pain jolted through my head as it spun. Nesryn held me before my head hit the headboard.

"Easy now. Your body is still healing from the poison," Nesryn said with a stoic face. She arranged pillows behind me to help me lean against them.

"Thank you," I said weakly, with a dry gulp.

Nesryn sat on the bed beside me. Her gaze was blank as she stared at me.

"I warned you to stay away from Raven's plants, didn't I?"

I lowered my gaze. She held my chin and made me look at her again.

"Look at me when I talk to you. Why did you go near his plants?"

"I... I was just... looking around... when my dress brushed against a plant... I am sorry for all the trouble I put you through."

"Well, you are going to be in trouble with Raven, for sure. Do you even know what plant attacked you?" she asked.

I nodded.

"It looked like a carvera. I had only read about them. I had never encountered one in real life. The real ones look different from the ones in sketches."

"Yes, because it was a mutated carvera that Raven had been working on for months. Out of hundreds of the mutated varieties, only one of such carvera survived. So I hope you can imagine how important it was for Raven, considering how much time, resources and probably emotions he had invested in it."

I nodded once, pursing my lips.

"Even so, it was still a plant! All you had to do was be careful. Did you know how to protect yourself from it?" she asked.

"I had read that... its r-roots are its weakness," I said. "If we uproot them, they lose their power, and... eventually, they die."

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Nesryn looked away with a huff as she ran her fingers through her open hair, flipping them back.

"So you knew how to protect yourself from the plant, which is now dead anyway?" she asked, and I lifted my gaze at her.

"Y-yes..."

"So why didn't you uproot it? That's exactly what all of us want to know. When you knew how to save yourself from it, why didn't you?" she had a look of disbelief in her eyes. "I saw the plant's main body. Uprooting it would be simpler than plucking a rose from the garden if we ignore the tentacles which were already busy devouring your leg. But you didn't even try. Why?"

Silence hung in the room, and for a while, even Mavka stopped rubbing the ice on my leg. Gulping hard, I fidgeted with my fingers, still feeling the burn from the poison in my leg.

"Like you said, the plant was important to Alpha Raven. He loves his plants like his child. He cares about them more than anything else. So... how could I... hurt something so precious to him?" I said.

Nesryn gaped at me with wide eyes. She got down from the bed and paced near it.

"I can't believe this. I just can't believe this mortal fool..." she mumbled to herself, then she looked at me. "Are you out of your mind, Xanthea? No, literally, have you fucking lost it? No matter what plant it was. It was still a plant. How can a freaking plant be more important than your life? This is! Do you even realize how outrageously stupid this is?"

I bit on my lower lip, lowering my head. Deep down within me, settled a heavy feeling with an even more bitter answer. It was a truth that even Nesryn knew that the plant was worth far more than my life.

In those last moments when I hastily scribbled down the preparatory procedure and details about preparing the body to treat TTA for the High lady, I really thought I was going to die. And the strongest urge I felt was - even though it might be a futile attempt, I just wanted to help ease her pain a little.

Mavka ran the ice up my hurt leg carefully. The hem of my gown was already lifted to my hips. I saw the welts of vines tattooed on my skin, bruised and red.

"Those welts will leave a permanent scar. Be grateful they saved your leg. A second's delay and they would have to amputate it," Nesryn said. I licked my lips.

"Thank you for saving me..."

"I didn't save you. Raven did," she said.

My body stiffened. "H-he did?"

Nesryn nodded, pressing her lips into a tight, thin line.

"D-does that mean..."

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"Yes, miss stupid. Raven uprooted that carvera and then he rushed you to his hospital, where he operated on you for hours, carefully separating the vines from your legs. Had someone else done the operation, you would have definitely lost your leg," Nesryn said.

With a tight gulp, I felt an inexplicable rhythm of beats take over my heart as it pounded louder in my chest.

"But he looked pissed about something else. And strangely, he visited the palace thrice this week. To check on the High lady. He seemed to have changed her treatment plan. And her condition was improving until yesterday and then it suddenly deteriorated severely. Everyone is scared. She is in the hospital right now. Raven is with her. You should have stayed in the hospital for a few more days, but you were brought to the palace today to fulfill your bridal duties," Nesryn said.

I felt a tight clench in my chest.

"H-how... long has it been?" I asked.

"It's been a week." Nesryn said. "They'll be here tonight. Although I am not so sure about Raven..."

My eyelids flickered as they fell on the bedsheet.

"It's already been... a week?" I looked around restlessly as Ezra's warning ran down my spine with the chill. I shut my eyes as my chest heaved faster.

"It's not like I was worried about you or something. I was in the palace, so I stopped by. Nothing else." Nesryn glanced at me from the corner of her eyes, then sat beside me on the bed again. "But... if your leg hurts a lot... you can take this painkiller... this is the least I can do for you even though in this condition, I know the only thing you should do is rest..." Nesryn placed the vial of a transparent liquid on the nightstand beside my bed.

I forced a faint smile. "Thank you, princess."

"Sorry to interrupt, your highness, it's time for your bath," Mavka said.

"See you," Nesryn said, uncertainty clear in her voice.

I bowed slightly, and she walked out of the room.

Mavka got down from the bed, leaving the ice on my leg.

I wanted to concentrate on myself, but my thoughts ran wild in all the directions, but they heavily traveled back to the High lady.

What could have happened in the last week? Could it be that... could Raven have taken what I wrote on the parchment seriously? A part of me knew he would never think of that parchment as anything more than trash, but then there was another part of me that felt the opposite.

In case he really took me seriously...

Does that mean things didn't work out? Did something go wrong? Could it be my fault that the High lady was in the hospital?