The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,148

to shake and the High Priestess’s face contorted in agony, yet she made no sound or cry of pain. The tether shone brighter and brighter and Leela was reminded of the light in the clay bowl, the one that had been used to choose Sera for the sacrifice. It grew so bright it was painful to look at, and Leela squeezed her eyes shut and pressed herself against the column’s cold surface.

Then the light was gone and the ground went still, and she heard the High Priestess’s footsteps. She passed within a few feet of where Leela was hiding, and Leela held her breath so as not to make a single sound.

She counted to one hundred before she allowed herself to move. Her knees were stiff as she walked toward the tether. It was more beautiful than she could have imagined, sometimes blue, sometimes gold, its interlocking links so fine and fragile that no Cerulean jeweler would ever be able to replicate it. She could see the magic running across its surface, tiny bursts of sparkling light. She stopped at the edge of the pool. Some instinct told her this place was sacred but forgotten, and she felt as if she stood before a giant beast with a stick, steeling herself to prod it and wake it up.

There was a circle of ice at her feet and Leela crouched down to inspect it. What had the High Priestess been doing? The markings carved into its surface were not the same as the ones on the obelisk or the statue, though they vaguely reminded Leela of the ones on the temple doors. But as she stared at them, they seemed to form a word—a word Leela could read.

Estelle.

She gasped. Tiny shavings of ice were scattered about the name and she brushed her palm over the letters to wipe them away. Instantly, the ice turned from opaque to as clear as one of the pools. Leela cried aloud and fell, landing sharply on her backside.

There was a Cerulean inside the ice.

Estelle was naked, her body curled into the fetal position, her face tormented, as if trapped in a terrible dream. But her chest rose and fell. She appeared to be inside a stalactite—Leela could see the edges and point of its cone below Estelle’s curled feet. She reached out to touch her, to wake her, to ask her how she came to be here, to bring her back to the City above, but the ice was cold and unyielding. Her hand could not penetrate it.

Then something to the left caught her eye.

Another stalactite.

Quickly, she stood and moved to the next circle. Another name: Inora. Brushing her hand across its surface, she saw a different Cerulean, slighter than Estelle, in the same fetal position, bearing the same tormented expression. Leela pressed her face so close to the ice that her nose grew tight and numb. She looked left. Then she looked right.

Stalactites stretched out in both directions, surrounding the tether and beyond, sticking out from the underbelly of her City like icy candles.

And inside each one was a Cerulean.

Leela went from circle to circle, reading every name, gazing down at woman after woman curled in silent agony. But none of them was Sera.

Exhausted and overwhelmed, she sat back on her heels. The moonstone’s red-hot heart glowed at her, but she found no comfort in its beat. This strange place contained more questions than answers.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she whispered to it, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know how to help these Cerulean or what the High Priestess is doing with them. I just . . . I wanted my friend back.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She had been wrong. Sera wasn’t here—she probably wasn’t even alive. It was a fool’s hope, and Leela felt her body sag as she stood to leave. It would be unwise to linger, lest the High Priestess return.

She walked past the large pool and the tether began to sing, a single beautiful strain more delicate than a violin. The music stopped her in her tracks as if compelling her, and her eyes were drawn to the pool’s clear depths, to the shapes of Kaolin and Pelago far below. Then the water rippled and another vision surfaced, stronger and clearer than any of the others, swallowing her up. She could feel her feet on the cold ground, and yet it was as if she had been transported to an entirely unfamiliar place.

She was on a ship, thick masts with sails hanging from them, billowing in the wind—Leela did not know how she knew this, never having seen a ship before, but she did, as certainly as she knew her green mother’s laugh or the colors of a minstrel flower. She stood on its prow, wind whipping through her hair, as waves crashed against the hull, sending up salty sprays and a bitter tang. Above her, the stars were nothing more than tiny pinpricks of light, so much farther away than she was used to.

Suddenly, another heart began to beat inside her chest, a pulse she was so very, very familiar with because it was the only one she had ever felt besides her mothers’. It was a pulse she would have known anywhere.

It was Sera’s heart.

For a half second that seemed to last an eternity, she caught a glimpse of her friend, her hair done up strangely, her eyes lifted toward the night sky. Sera’s face was filled with hope, her irises brighter than Leela had ever seen them, and as she gazed at the stars she whispered, “I’m coming.”

Then the vision vanished, the pool becoming clear again, and Leela fell to her hands and knees, gasping for breath. All the pieces felt like they were falling into place. Those strange rooms and people these visions had shown her . . . they were from the planet.

Leela felt dizzy and pressed her forehead to the cold ground. If what she had just seen was true—and she was far past the point of doubting herself in the face of such overwhelming power—then Sera was alive. But she would not be found in this cold underbelly of her City, or floating in the wide expanse of space.

She was on the planet. Somehow, some way, she had survived the fall.

Shaking, Leela rose to her feet, her heart pounding forcefully as if it had absorbed Sera’s beat into its own rhythm. The fiery orb inside the moonstone pulsed along with her two heartbeats, connecting Leela with the very roots of the City that she loved so dearly. She felt a determination set in, a conviction as cold and strong as the columns surrounding her.

Whatever the High Priestess’s schemes, she had not managed to kill Sera.

And Leela was going to find a way to bring her home.