Isael responded by taking her hand in his.
Just the nearness of him brought a strange, unaccountable pleasure, but the feel of his bare skin against hers amplified the feeling, until her body was practically humming with awareness of him. He laced his fingers in hers, his hold gentle. Cera's wasn't. Without thinking, she tightened her fingers into a possessive grip, her body instinctively needing to maintain the contact.
"You feel it now," Isael said.
Cera didn't bother to play coy. "What is it?"
"It's the reason elves seldom marry outside their own kind," he said, brushing his thumb along the side of her finger. "When we're near to one another, when we touch one another, there's a certain accord. We call itladira."
"Rhyming," Cera said. Her voice was absent, still partly distracted by his touch. "My elven governess, when she didn't like someone, she said she didn't rhyme with them." With a frown, she added, "She said I rhymed with everyone."
Her eyes were drawn upwards at the sound of Isael's chuckle. She caught a glimpse of a spark in his blue eyes.
Lips parted with his grin, he said, "That's not a kind thing to say. It means you conform to please others."
Cera fought to keep from rolling her eyes. "Sometimes it's necessary to conform to others, or at least appear to. When you aren't born into a position of great privilege or born into magic—"
"Such as yourself,PrincessCera?"
She really did try to narrow her eyes at him, but he was just so handsome, especially when he was smiling down at her. And then there was that hand against hers. He had touched her last night, she was sure of it. Why did his touch feel so much...more, today? Why was she having such a hard time stringing thoughts together as he leaned over her?
"You'll join me for dinner tonight?" He asked.
And Cera said yes, because of course she would. She had to. He was the high lord, she had to do whatever he wanted. It was just a fortunate coincidence that his desire rhymed with hers.
The Conquerors
Maewyn spread the lavish tapestry out on the floor, offending Cera's sensibilities. She knew her room was near to spotless, save for the meal trays that had yet to be carried from her sitting area. Still, it was disturbing to see such a beautiful piece of art cast onto the floor like a foot rug.
The tapestry was made of elven silk, a rare and coveted luxury in her homeland of Atera. There, most silk was imported from the southern continents, crafted by humans from the cocoons of caterpillars. Such silks, while fine and lovely, couldn't hold a candle to the airy, luxuriant elven silks. The silk was said to be woven with magic from the webs of spiders, but no human really knew how the elves did it.
Cera was about to ask, but she was immediately caught up in admiring the scene embroidered into the fabric. It was a depiction of a great battle, not unlike the many murals she'd seen painted onto the walls of Viranhildr. Except, there were no dragons in this tapestry. It was a battle of elves, with one side clearly favored by the artist. In the sky above the battle, the clouds were parted so that light radiated down on the warriors with banners and hair of silver.
The opposing army had hair of gold and banners of cerulean, yet the threads that made up their weaves were dark and gloomy. On their side of the tapestry, warriors cowered, turned to flee, or were pelted with silver arrows.
Between the light and darkness were two figures featured more prominently than the others. One was striking in his resemblance to Isael, with his long, silver braids and crystalline eyes. Yet he also appeared quite a bit more elven, his limbs more willowy than muscular, his face long, and his chin coming down into a sharp, diamond-like point. He loomed over a bent figure, a darkly clad man who appeared to be weeping into his hands. Atop his bowed head was a crown, which the silver-haired man was lifting with the tip of his sword.
"The Fall of Carodir," Maewyn said, as she smoothed the corners of the tapestry. "It's a famous depiction of Isael Esolin's defeat of Minerondir Resolin." Before Cera could ask, she clarified, "Not our high lord. He's named for Isael Eshval I, the son of Hesobin and the god Trianus. He led Ishvalier to victory over Carodir, the most powerful house in the north. The high lord is gifted with no less than a dozen tapestries like this each year. This one is of particularly poor quality, it won't be missed."
If this tapestry was of poor quality, Cera could scarcely imagine what the others looked like. To her eyes, it was glorious and beautifully woven. It drew her from her chair, down onto the marble floor with Maewyn, where she brushed her fingers against the tapestry's soft fringe. The texture was sublime and not the least bit coarse.
"I thought you'd be teaching me magic," Cera said, her eyes still caught on the face of Isael's ancestor.
It was just an artist's rendering, likely made by someone who'd been born in an age long removed from the battle. Yet, she couldn't help but feel a slight aversion to this Isael. He looked cold and aloof, wholly detached from the carnage and devastation around him.
"I am and I will," Maewyn said, shifting to sit cross-legged. "This is how we begin to teach our children the fundamentals of magic."
Cera perked up. She moved to copy Maewyn's stance, but her efforts were hindered by her overly tight dress. She still hadn't changed from what she'd worn to the gardens that morning, when they'd sat with Sidryne. Later, as she'd walked with Isael through the gardens, she'd inadvertently informed on Maewyn, who was supposed to be giving Cera lessons on magic, not on how best to conceive a child.
Isael had personally escorted her back to her room, where Maewyn had been waiting with lunch and a promise to begin Cera's lessons at once. This seemed to work to avert any criticisms from the high lord, who'd departed with a quick word of farewell and a brush of his lips against the back of Cera's hand. Her skin still tingled where he'd touched her, though she knew it had to be in her imagination.
"Consider the tapestry, not its depiction, but its composition," Maewyn said, taking on a pedagogic tone. "You may think of the elves—yourself now included—as threads that make up the tapestry of life. The spinner, the dye maker, the embroiderer, and weaver, they are like the gods that craft us and put us in our places.
"Many threads are dull of color, some are woven into undesirable positions, and others, such as those on the fringes, may seem to be of little consequence at all, yet when we consider the tapestry as a whole, we see that each thread is necessary. The threads that are embroidered into the lord's sword may hold more significance than those that make up the ground he stands upon, but all are essential for completing the vision of the makers, yes?"
It went on like that for quite some time. Normally, Cera had a rather keen interest for learning new things. Back in Atera, she would have reveled in the opportunity to learn elven philosophy from an Esryian native, but back then she had been more or less human and often bored witless.
She was beginning to question whether she'd actually had a passion for scholarly pursuits, or if her interest had been a reaction to the dull, monotonous life she'd been confined to. Now that she'd dined with elven nobility, bantered with the high lord, and made flowers blossom with her mind, listening to a meandering collectivist lecture made her eyelids grow heavy. It wasn't until Maewyn finally began speaking of magic that Cera's attention was fully recaptured.