The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,80

sit still any longer.

“Orange Mother,” she said. “I would like to pray in my room. Alone. If that is all right,” she added. She did not want to hurt another one of her mothers, no matter how raw she felt.

Her orange mother was about to protest when her green mother interjected. “Of course you may,” she said. Leela escaped gratefully, hearing a whispered, “Leave her be,” from her green mother as she did.

But her room was too small and confining. She rested her arms on her windowsill, remembering the first time Sera had coaxed her out late at night, when they were only ten. The memory was torture. Leela felt the whole City was now designed to torment her daily. Because every place reminded her of Sera. The moonflower fields where they used to play Seek Me If You Dare. The orchards where Leela would wheedle extra pieces of fruit from Freeda, because Freeda would never give Sera extra anything. Every part of the Great Estuary where they had raced or swam or bathed was its own private hurt.

Leela tried to tell herself that Sera would not want her to be sad, but how could she not be? It was as if a piece of her had been torn out and lost forever.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know for certain that the tether was still there. She needed to see it with her own eyes, even if it meant going against the directive of the novices, of the High Priestess herself.

In one swift movement, she was out the window and running. The banks along this part of the Estuary were close and heavily wooded with golden-leaved polaris trees, so she was able to slip away unseen, avoiding the bridges that led to the island where the temple stood and running to cross at the Western Bridge, by the seresheep meadows. She reached the Day Gardens and found them just the same as they had been only days ago, a riot of blooming color as if nothing were wrong, as if the world hadn’t been turned upside down and Sera was still here to listen to the ethereal songs of the minstrel flowers.

She made her way to the very edge of the gardens, to the place where a large willow bent over the Estuary as it spilled into space. Leela climbed up and nestled herself into a crook between two branches. She peered out over the lip of the City, at the blue-green orb below, thin clouds passing over the familiar shapes of Kaolin and Pelago.

And there it was: the tether, looking just the same as it always had. It seemed to wink at her, glowing silver, then blue, then gold, then silver again.

Leela felt anger rise in her heart, a hot fury at this beautiful chain of magic. It was one thing to have lost her friend. It was wholly another to have lost her with no purpose to it, no reason. She felt powerless as the tether twinkled at her innocently, mocking her loss.

And then hope pierced through her, lighting up her soul like a sunburst.

The tether had not broken. Perhaps Sera was still alive.

“Sera!” she cried. The leaves on the willow rustled and the tether kept winking. “SERA!” she screamed, sure that if she called out loudly enough, her friend would hear her.

She shouted until she was hoarse and the sunburst of hope had burned itself into ashes. Sera was not out there. She was dead.

It was the first time Leela had thought the word. Dead. It was so awfully, brutally final. She sat in the crook of the willow, pressing her face against its rough bark, and cried for her friend with no shame and no comfort.

At last, she roused herself. It wouldn’t do to linger too long. Her mothers trusted her and would likely not seek her out, but it would only take one of them passing her room to notice she was not in it. She wandered back along the banks of the Estuary, ignoring the Western Bridge this time, though it was the more direct route home. Instead she crossed at Faesa’s Bridge, the very one she and Sera had run across on the day of the choosing ceremony. It was risky, taking her past the temple, but the hedge should provide her cover and besides, the High Priestess was sequestered. She was nearly to Dendra’s Bridge on the opposite side of the island, which would take her straight