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The woman, presumably Sidryne, did look a bit familiar, but Cera wasn't sure. Isael hadn't introduced her to anyone except for Lord Casean.
"Was your hair in braids?" Cera asked, though she was almost certain that had been a different woman. The woman seated next to Casean had been fair skinned and somewhat plain despite her ostentatious hair and jewelry.
Maewyn answered on Sidryne's behalf. "That was Lady Ashula, Lord Casean's wife."
His wife and his mistress had dined at the same table? Elves were so peculiar.
Sidryne was still smiling as she led Cera into the building. The interior was blessedly plain. So long as Cera didn't look up at the stained-glass ceiling, there was little in the room that might spark her budding magic. The floors and walls were plain stone, free of murals or carvings. There were no furnishings, only three seating cushions arranged around a brazier in the center of the room. The air was thick with the scent of burning sage.
Sidryne claimed one of the cushions. Cera sat down across from her, a feat that took some effort, given the tightness of her robes. Maewyn attempted to linger by the doorway but gave in to Sidryne's insistence that she join them by the fire.
Speaking in a singsong elven dialect, Sidryne said, "She is so precious, like something from a storybook. Did all Ishvalindic women look like her?"
Maewyn rolled her shoulders. "Certainly the Triandruir, but the rest, I cannot say. The aesolin seems to favor her."
Sidryne nodded, her smile stretching wider still. "Of course, she is meant for him. This is why I did not mourn when I could not give the aesolin a child. I knew that fate had other plans."
Maewyn's upper lip curled. "I do not believe in such things. If you consider everything to be in the hands of fate, where is your agency? Why even bother rising from bed in the morning, if fate dictates everything? If it was the aesolin's fate to have an Ishvalindic heir, he would have spared a true lady of the north, rather than giving him some Ateran imitation."
Cera had no difficulty maintaining a polite, distant expression as Maewyn passively insulted her. She'd never been accepted in human society, and she had no illusions about the elves embracing her, even if she looked like one of them.
Offended on her behalf, Sidryne hissed, "You should not say such things in her presence. Even if she does not understand the words, language can be felt with the heart."
Cera wasn't sure what to make of Sidryne, but she could feel the warmth and sincerity emanating from her words. She was far from what she'd expected, given that she was the consort of the oily Lord Casean. She still would have rather been back in her room, but she decided to listen to what Sidryne had to teach her.
The Dragon Slayer
"Does Maewyn explain why you come to me?" Sidryne asked, now back to addressing Cera in broken Ateran.
"You are to educate me on conceiving a child," Cera said, speaking slowly for Sidryne's benefit.
The other woman nodded. "Yes, yes. And have you made a child before?"
Cera looked to Maewyn, unsure what Sidryne meant. Maewyn answered for her.
"She is an Ateran princess. She is a virgin." For good measure, she repeated the last part in elven.
"Hmm." Sidryne's face scrunched, as if this were unwelcome news. "Maybe it is good thing. You will learn only our way. You tell me, what do you know of making a child?"
Cera told her, walking a fine line between what she knew and what she had jokingly told Maewyn the evening before. Sidryne listened without interrupting as Cera conveyed her understanding of the process.
She knew that conception took place between a man and a woman, usually naked and in a bed. After some touching, the man put his male part into the woman's female part, like a key going into a lock. There might be pain and some movement involved, and then the man passed his seed into the woman's womb. If they were to be blessed, the seed would take root and begin to grow into a child.
"Most is correct," Sidryne said approvingly. "But for us, it is a partnership. Between the man and woman, yes? The man has his seed, the woman has her soil. If she prepares her soil, tends the seed, it will grow."
"That is a rather poetic take," Maewyn said dryly.
"Yes. Beautiful, like a poem," Sidryne said.
She explained to Cera how to prepare her body, which involved spending time in nature, drinking only water, and eating fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
"But never the flesh of beasts," Sidryne said, wagging a finger at Cera. "You will turn your soil into a graveyard."
She went on to explain meditation, specifically how Cera would go about meditating on her womb. The topic should have had her biting back laughter, but Sidryne had a way of explaining it so that it didn't sound quite so absurd. She told Cera how she must meditate briefly in the mornings and in the evenings, clearing her mind and setting her intention on making herself into a hospitable vessel for a child.
"That is all to ensure you are in the right mental state for conception," Maewyn said. "The real work comes when you are with the lord."
Sidryne hummed her agreement. "When the aesolin comes to you, you will sit with him and meditate together." She laced her hands together for emphasis. "You will meditate on him and be in anticipation of him and his seed."
