Page 57 of Beds and Blades

“Last night,” I said, “I realized that the dimension I had categorized as aspirational turned out to be…”

I composed myself.

“Not aspirational.”

Caen was quiet for a moment.

The pendant pulsed red. Not blue. Red. A single warm pulse of deep crimson that traveled through the spiral and faded.

Caen did not comment on it. Neither did I.

Caen picked up her deeproot and took a long sip. She cleared her throat.

“The bridge,” she said, her voice composed and only fractionally lower than it had been a moment ago, “is thorough.”

She set down her cup.

I set down mine.

There was a beat of silence in which both of us were, I suspected, thinking about something slightly different.

Then I said, “I have a practical question.”

“Of course you do,” Caen said.

“The claiming,” I said. “The theology is clear on what consummates it. What the act involves. What Skip intends.”

“Yes,” Caen said.

“And fertility is Yravel’s second principle,” I said. “Sacred. Honored. The act that can create life is the most sacred act available to a living person—those were your words, approximately.”

“Approximately,” Caen agreed.

“So.”

I looked at my cup.

“When Skip finishes deep…”

I stopped. Selected my vocabulary carefully.

“When the claiming seals. In the way that it seals. Should I expect…”

“You are asking,” Caen said, “whether the claiming will automatically result in a child.”

“I am asking whether Yravel’s theology has opinions about contraception,” I said. “Because in my world, there was medicine. A small pill, taken daily. I had been taking it for sixteen years. I have not been taking it since I arrived here. The arithmetic has not yet become urgent.”

I let the implication settle between us, then forced myself to say the part I had been circling.

“It is about to become urgent if I proceed with the claiming. Is there something in this world that functions similarly to what I had at home?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

She rose from her chair. She crossed to her worktable. From a small dark cabinet, she retrieved a narrow glass vial, sealed with wax and filled with a deep green liquid. She held it up to the candlelight for a moment, then set it on the table between us.

“Veilshade,” she said.

“The herb itself has been used in this world for centuries. The concentrated form is considerably more reliable.”