It was the middle of winter. The snow was already falling hard from the beginning of December, even when the attack happened it snowed a lot. The trees had lost their leaves and were covered in snow, there was no grass or any kind of plants and flower anywhere outside. Everywhere you looked there was only white snow and frost.

But contrasting to the white frozen nature of the outside world, in the Royal Palace inside of a huge room with a glass ceiling and windows all around, Celia was sitting on the floor looking all around her at the beautiful multicolored flowers.

She had thought Salas would bring her to his office to discuss the information she held about the attack, but instead he had brought her to a beautiful indoor garden.

"Do you like it?" He asked as he approached her, but there was no words with which she could describe the beauty of the place, it seemed it had been made by fairies.

She could not believe she was sitting on the floor, which in fact was not a floor at all. Covered in all kind of different types of flowers, each one more beautiful than the other, and fragrant green grass which invited the feel of summer... it really couldn't be considered an indoor ground, a bed of flowers and grass best described it. There were butterflies all around on the flowers, in the small trees and in the air. Even bird songs could be heard.

She looked his way when she heard Salas's voice. He had disappeared for a bit when they entered, but she had been too charmed by the colors and the enchanting atmosphere, and just by seeing so many flowers in one place in the middle of winter. So she had not noticed he was not with her until now.

"It is beautiful, breathtakingly so!" She said with a calm and serene face, but one could see a small smile adorning the corner of her mouth and her eyes sparkling.

He smiled and crouched to her level, he did not say more and only slowly approached her hand and gently took it in his own. Seeing his actions, she did not visibly react in anyway, as she was confused of what he wanted to do. 

Moreover she could not retract her hand even if she felt uncomfortable, even if his touch sent tingles through her skin. The werewolf kingdom was not a society in which the ruler was elected, the words of the king was the final law. Salas had never been a tyrant about it, he had never issued unfair or restricting laws. Quite contrary, everything he did was in the interest of his people, so all the more reason he should be respected.

Though she would never have expected the aloof  and unapproachable king everyone made out him to be was like this. It seemed he quite liked to touch people, he had touched her a few times now already.

She nervously and a bit unwilling let him hold her hand. But fortunately he only took it and turned her palm up and with the other hand, which he had kept behind his back until this point, covered her whole palm. Then he immediately retracted both of his arms, as Celia felt something small and soft inside her hand. 

Bringing her arm back in front of her, she found he had placed a small dwarf baby bunny. The tiny white furry ball kept wriggling inside her palm until it found a comfortable position before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

"So cute!" She whispered looking at the bunny, she was afraid to scare it awake so she had talked very gently.

"Yes, you are!" Salas said even more quietly than she said, almost inaudible. It was so quiet that the charmed by the bunny Celia had not noticed and so did not react to his words.

"I have never studied about there being a garden inside the Royal Palace before. There was no such information in the books at school." Celia stated, while petting the small furry ball.

"This was my mother's garden. She did not want people to know about it. She did not even bring guests here often because she was afraid they would ask for her flowers or damage it in some way."

She stopped petting the bunny, hearing this information, and wide eyed suddenly looked at him as he was still crouching near her.

"Then I should not be here, what if I harmed something by sitting here?" She alarmed mentioned and frantically looked around her to check the flowers. When she had sat down she was careful enough and had not stepped on any, but now hearing his words she was even more nervous of damaging something.

"Do not worry, she would not have minded you entering. You trod carefully and sat down with attentiveness, even without knowing this from me." Salas assured her.

"But still ..." Celia wanted to say it was not right for her to trespass in her garden, but he did not let her speak further.

"No but. No one has been here to appreciate its beauty in some decades. I have only cared for it as a remembrance of her. I do not know of flowers and do not see beauty in them. It is good that at least there is another person knowing of its existence and appreciates it. As long as you will be staying here, please come whenever you want. I am sure she would have loved for someone to actually feel what she felt looking at the flowers." He gently affirmed, with an honest tone. He truly meant what he had told her.

"Thank you for showing me her majesty's garden. It is a privilege." She thanked him for his thoughtfulness,  and did not refuse his offer of coming to see the garden, but whether she would come again or not it was another matter.

He had said she could sit comfortably, but she still rose on her feet afraid to damage a plant. She also wanted to place the baby bunny back inside his burrow.

After returning the small furry ball, they walked a bit through the garden slowly and as she looked around she would stop from time to time to get a closer look of the flowers. Each and every one of them were beautiful. But the most beautiful flowers were in the center of the garden.

The flowers everywhere were of so many different colors, they were red, pink, white, yellow, magenta, violet, purple, and mixtures of those colors. But what attracted her attention the most was the bush of flowers in the center of the garden. They were colorless roses, they were white almost translucent. Only the leaves were green, but the flowers themselves could be said to be made out of glass. She had never seen something quite like this.

Seeing her stop before them looking surprised at the flowers, he explained about them without her asking.

"These roses are called the fairies' flowers. They have no color until a person touches them and depending on the one who touched them they would show a different color."

She was listening to his explanation as she approached the flowers. The petals looked like they were made of glass, but she wanted to gently touch a petal to see if even its texture resembled that of glass.

"She once told me about the flowers and the meaning of the colors it would turn into." He continued explaining nostalgic. Even more so than the garden itself, this particular rose bush was the one who best reminded him of his family and childhood.

"She said that dark hearted people would turn its flowers black, pure hearted people would turn them into white. They would also turn into violet, purple... all different kind of colors, depending on the soul of said werewolf. But they would only turn blue if..." Salas was saying before swallowing the rest of his words as he saw that Celia touched gently with her hand one of them.

The colorless rose changed slowly as if by magic from a translucent white in a light blue with tinges of white on the edges of the petals. White meant a pure hearted person which he had expected her color to be. Few would ever try to save and entire pack of werewolves by him or herself. But the rose was white only at the edge of its petals, the rest of the petals until they reached the stem was a light blue hue.

"It turned blue. It indeed changes color." She said gently happy to see the magic of the flower.

"What does the blue color mean?" Celia asked intrigued still looking at the enchanting rose.

He regained his composure hearing her speak.

"It means a noble heart." Salas replied simply. He did not truly lie, but also did not say the whole truth. He could not even explain it to himself why the flower turned blue, much less explain it to her.

The meaning made her flustered, she could only look at the roses with a tinge of red on her cheeks trying to look composed. It felt like he had complimented her, even though he only explained the meaning.

"Ring! Ring!"

The awkward atmosphere was fortunately dispersed because of the ringing phone.

"Yes?" Salas answered, after he took out the phone out of his pocket. Perhaps he was also happy about the interruption. The blue rose had his mind bewildered.

"Your highness, Gabriel has arrived!" His assistant informed him briefly, not wanting to disturb him for too long.

"Alright, tell him to wait in the office. We will be right over! Salas ordered succinctly, before ending the call.

"I am sorry, it seems we can't look around more now. Gabriel is waiting for us." Salas informed apologetic Celia, as the latter was still looking mesmerized of the rose that had returned to their translucent look after she had taken her hand away from its petals.

"Alright." She simply said and proceeded to leave the garden. The view was wonderful and she would have liked for nothing more than to spend her time here as long as she could, but the information about the attack was the most important after all. She could not delay their investigation.

Side by side again, as she did not dare tarry and walk behind the king to his annoyance, they soon arrived to the door of the garden, when Salas spoke once more, just as she was about to exit.

"I know fighting for your life, killing to stay alive and to protect others at the same time... was not easy at all. I cannot begin to fathom your thoughts about it and perhaps the memory of that night will haunt you for some more time. 

Whenever thoughts about it resurface, come take a walk in here, at least during your stay. My mother always said this place was capable of healing her spirit. I do not know if you feel the same way about it, but if it would help even a little..." Salas gently said and continued to walk, not finishing his words. 

Not waiting for her reply, it meant he did not let her agree or disagree, but he seemed more of a gentleman because of this.

She had a feeling he tried to bring her here to take her mind off of the attack, he also did that the day before, when Gabriel wanted to talk of that night. His attentiveness warmed her heart.

At the same time at the Council's general office

"Has Lady Yvonne arrived yet?" The head councilman Reynolds who was currently overlooking some documents at his desk, asked Elias, as he sharply directed his attention to look at the young man who was standing near him.

"Not yet master. Her plane is scheduled to land at 2pm, and she will arrive here 2 hours later." Elias replied immediately. After the scolding he had received the last time, he did not dare delay in informing the councilmember about matters related to his highness, or better said to his highness's possible matchmaking.

"Good, good." Nodded satisfied the elder, then directed his attention again towards the documents.

"But Emery are you sure about this? What if it angers his highness? He is now dealing with the attack from a week or so ago. Nobody has dared pass the borders of the forest without permission before, much less intrude and try to kidnap our kind. He has his hands full. Not to mention he should still be upset about the meeting we held a while ago without his permission." Asked worried the second in command of the Council, Councilman Stephen Simons. 

As opposed to the head councilmember, who still dared to interfere directly in his highness's matters, he and the rest of the members were still more docile in this regard. Councilmember Reynolds had always been a close friend of the royal family, and his highness would still turn a blind eye to his actions as long as he did not exaggerate too much. But would the rest be so lucky? Although if he were to think about it, they had already acted more than they were allowed, by far even.

"Stephen, there will always be something happening, that is how 100 years have already passed. Moreover precisely because there has been an attack, his highness must have an heir. For one it will solidify his position, for two it would be an insurance for the future. And three... stop it with the Emery, my name is Victor!" He explained and the last part he even emphasized it with a harsh tone.

" But Em...' The second in command wanted to try to reason, but as he was about to call the head councilmember using his hated name, he quickly stopped and immediately rephrased his words, especially seeing the latter's angry eyes.

"But Victor, his highness is the strongest werewolf. What is there to strengthen? I mean, who could ever compete for his position? It would mean certain death for the one trying to shake his throne. Not to mention that it would only be treason and we the Council will never allow it." Stephen affirmed sure of his words. Not even one councilmember had ever tried to betray his highness in the slightest, not one councilmember would ever try to oppose him... apart from the heir problem that was.

"The newly developed wolfsbane bullets are twice if not more deadlier than they were a few decades ago, we have no certainty of the future. Of course we will do everything there needs to be done to stop the one behind the attack. And 99.99% of the cases his majesty and us will not have a problem with dealing with this problem. I just want to make sure about the 0.01% chance that there would be one.

The royal family has only produced one heir each generation. The family has already shrunk until his majesty is the last werewolf with the highest rank achievable, he is the last one of the royal family. His child is our future. We can't wait any further." The elder sighed as he spoke and taking another breath continued with determination.

"Lady Yvonne is one of the most powerful female werewolves of our kind at the moment, she is the prime candidate we have selected. Whether it is status, beauty, ability and most importantly rank, she has them all. He would surely fall in love with her, no matter how stoic and stern his majesty is. If there is one woman capable of making him attracted to a female I am sure she is the one!" He finished the words with conviction. 

"But what about the student watcher? She is the first female watcher ever, surely her rank would also be high enough." Stephen asked as he pondered about high ranked females, when he heard the head councilman talking about rank. Celia Blair's ability came to his mind, as he recalled the bewildering fight he had watched on his laptop the day the Academy had emailed it to them.

"The female watcher is a 3rd rank wolf, but so is lady Yvonne. Not to mention that lady Yvonne is already 45 years old and has trained for a longer period of time so she should be even higher in rank now. And another fact to keep in mind is that his highness has already seen the alpha a couple of times already, if he was attracted to her he would have done something about it by now." The elder stated objectively. He wasn't a partial man to one particular lady, as long as his highness would notice the said female, he would be satisfied. But it was true that Lady Yvonne had more advantages at this moment.

"But Em... Victor have you not heard the rumors?" The second in command inquired surprised, the news about his highness would always be known by Emery before anyone else. It was the first time that the elder was not already aware of it. For some reason is seemed to him that the attention of the leader of the Council was misplaced.

"Rumors? Which one?" The head councilman asked intrigued, but still did not take his eyes off of his files.

"It came to my knowledge that his highness has moved Celia from the hospital to the Royal Palace to recuperate, he has never done so before. Perhaps it is his way of doing something about it, as you previously said. What if the presence of Lady Yvonne causes problems?"

Hearing this information, the head councilman was stunned, it seemed that his intelligence line faltered so much that even his second in command found something as important as this before him. Quite annoyed at this fact, he directed his gaze towards his assistant with narrowed eyes and humphed, before looking back to Stephen.

His assistant sighed, truly everyone was implicated in investigating the attack and other watcher problems, he did not have time to inquire about the matters in the palace. He had thought that his attention for when lady Yvonne would arrive and where she was at this moment was enough. He really had the worst of jobs, he finally thought. The elder was never satisfied with his work.

"Well even if Lady Yvonne's presence causes problems it is alright. It would still be a move forward from this point onward, something to stir up the stalemate situation. His highness knew of the female watcher and saw her some months ago and did not react yet, so whether he likes her or not it is not certain.

Also, even if his majesty does not take a liking to Lady Yvonne, her presence might make the female watcher want to be closer to his majesty wary of somebody stealing his heart.

Truthfully speaking I would not mind Celia Blair as his partner or lady Yvonne either. If his highness has a baby with someone... anyone, I would be satisfied." Emery replied with the same conviction as before. He was a stubborn man, it would take more than one two reasons to make him change his mind, once he set his thought on accomplishing something.

His assistant and Stephen both sighed looking at one another, understanding the other's thoughts just by looking at each other's faces. They only hoped that the interference of the old man did not make matters worse, if there was truly something going on between Celia and his highness.

A/N

If you read this chapter and you like to skip some as I do sometimes 😅... please also read the extra that follows, as you can find there the true meaning of the rose.