The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,15
out her glowing finger.
Their magic shone together, and Sera poured all the love she had for her friend into the connection. Every memory, every moment. She gave Leela her heart, all of it, every last shred.
Love, love, love.
There was only one thing she held back, the thing she always did. Even in this bleak time, Sera would not relinquish it.
She felt Leela’s love fill her up, their hearts beating in unison. They stayed like that, the Estuary breaking in tiny waves against their bodies, until at last Leela looked up and her eyes were dry.
“Let’s go see the dress your green mother is preparing,” she said. “I’m sure it will be beautiful.”
Sera nodded and swallowed her fear. She glanced across the water to where their clothes lay out on the bank with so many others.
“I would prefer to take the long way back, if you don’t mind,” Leela said, standing and wringing the water out of her hair. “We will dry off as we walk.”
Sera knew she was only saying that to help her—that she had sensed Sera’s reluctance to return to the opposite shore, even if it meant leaving her robe behind. Surely her mothers would not mind. She would not need robes soon anyway.
Leela helped her to her feet. “We will have to stop at my dwelling first,” she said with a sly grin. “And don’t worry, I have told my mothers that under no circumstances are they to call you the chosen one or any other such thing.”
“Thank you,” Sera said. “It’s just awful, isn’t it? Everyone gaping at me and saying ‘praise her.’”
“I wonder if Koreen will suddenly act as if you are best friends now that you are so popular.”
“I wouldn’t call it popular.”
“I bet you could get her to do anything you want,” Leela said wistfully, tugging on a lock of her hair.
“Trying to get the chosen one to abuse her power already?” Sera teased.
“Oh, it would be fun. Imagine the pranks you could pull. I bet Freeda would give you as many plums as you wanted now if you asked.”
They arrived at Leela’s house, and she lent Sera a robe but made her wait in the sitting room while she changed in her room. Leela’s mothers were kind to her as they always were, no trace that there was anything different about today, and Sera was grateful for it.
When they returned to Sera’s dwelling, they found that Sera’s green mother had truly outdone herself.
The cloudspun dress fell in ripples to the floor, the fabric so light and glittering Sera wondered if she had spun the thread and woven the fabric this very day. It was adorned with new rose blossoms and baby’s breath. On her head, her green mother placed a wreath of bright purple forget-me-nots. When Sera saw herself in the looking glass, she had to admit the overall effect was very becoming. She had never truly liked her reflection. Leela clapped her hands and cried, “Oh, Sera, you are a vision!”
Her orange mother knelt before her and tied three strings of stargems—one purple, one green, one orange—around Sera’s left wrist.
“Oh, Mother,” Sera gasped with delight, holding them up. The tiny little lights that shone within each gemstone seemed to wink at her.
“We had them specially made,” her orange mother said, her voice trembling. “For your birthday this year.”
Sera was too overcome to speak.
“I have a gift for you too,” Leela said. “But I . . . I would like to give it to you privately.”
“Of course,” her purple mother said. “We will wait for you girls in the sitting room.”
Once they were alone, Leela dropped a fine gold chain into Sera’s palm, and Sera understood why Leela had not let her into her room earlier, and why she had asked Sera’s mothers to leave.
“Leela, no!” she cried. The moonstone pendant glowed in her hand—Leela had found the stone nearly a year ago when she and Sera had been digging in the banks of the Great Estuary for skipping stones. They’d kept it a secret, hoping it would reveal some of its magic to them, which it never had, much to their disappointment. And then Leela had set it in a classic Cerulean design, the many-pointed star, when she was practicing her hand at jewelry making. She had never worn it, though, as far as Sera knew, and the girls had an unspoken rule that they would not tell anyone of the moonstone’s existence.