The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,147

And Leela had heard Sera’s voice twice now. She had not been imagining it. Plus, those visions, and the way the moonstone was reacting to her . . .

Colored lights began to shine at her feet as she descended, and when she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, she gazed around in wonder. Great columns rose up, glowing blue from the inside. There were paths that wove through them, emitting pale green light, snaking around pools of crystal-clear water that studded the floor; through them Leela could see straight down to the planet below. There was no sound of birds or hum of insects. There was no life at all. What was this place?

Then she looked up.

It was as if she was upside down. A forest sprawled across the ceiling, lush trees and wildflowers and brambly bushes growing toward her. It was disorienting, like standing in the sky. Leela followed one of the green paths. As she moved out away from where she imagined the temple must be above her, the trees grew shorter and stunted, the wildflowers withered, and the bushes became thorny and brittle. Whatever this sky forest was, it was dying.

The silence around her was unnerving, as was the crumbling foliage above. The farther out she traveled, the worse it became, until the ceiling was nothing but ash and mold.

Swish, plop. Swish, plop.

The sound was so faint, she could hardly hear it over her pounding heart. But then it came again.

Swish, plop.

It sounded like it was coming from near the stairs. She hurried back along the path, avoiding the clear pools—something told her they were dangerous, that they were not to be touched. Had Sera somehow fallen into this vast underbelly she’d never known existed? Was Estelle here, too?

She had passed the staircase, the swishing and plopping growing louder, when she heard a voice that made her blood run cold and her knees lock.

“Eat up, my beauties,” the High Priestess said. “I need you to be strong for me now.”

It took all of Leela’s willpower to find the courage to move. She crept forward, trying to keep out of sight behind the glowing blue columns without stepping off the path into one of the pools. She came to a wide, circular space, and it seemed like it was the exact size and shape of the temple. They must be right beneath it. The pools vanished, replaced by icy circles with markings carved onto them. Instead of dead trees and bushes, frost-covered vines hung in great boughs, heavy with a strange fruit Leela had never seen before—round, plump orbs of pure gold. She peered around one of the columns, wondering where the High Priestess was among these vines, when she had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out at what she saw.

The tether was slicing up through the open space, glowing brighter than the columns around her. It burst through the largest pool of water Leela had seen in this place and was planted firmly in a cone of moonstone protruding from the tangle of ice-white vines above. There was a red-orange light in the moonstone’s center, and it pulsed like a heartbeat. The High Priestess was circling the pool, muttering to herself. Then she stopped, crouched down, and passed her hand over something on the floor Leela could not see. Swish. She held out her other hand and one of the golden fruits fell into her palm. She dropped it into whatever she was crouching over. Plop. Then she passed her hand over the ground again.

She repeated this pattern several more times, crouching in various places that made no rhyme or reason to Leela, dropping fruit and then making the same gesture.

“That should do for now,” she said, standing and rubbing her hands together. Then she sighed. “For now.”

She shook her head and her posture shifted; for a moment she looked old and bent, showing her years in a way Leela had never seen before. “This was not how I meant it to be,” she whispered, like she was explaining herself to the floor. “But it is up to me and me alone. As it has been for so many long years. I am doing the best I can.”

She held out her hands toward the tether like she was warming her palms over a fire. Leela watched in horror as pure white light began to glow from beneath her, from the circles where she had dropped the fruit. The ground started