The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,94
said, sitting up. “I was not. She was real. I know it in my bones, in the very magic that lives inside me. When I finally collected myself enough to speak, I went directly to the High Priestess. I told her what I had seen. I remember being startled at how quickly she seemed to take my account seriously—she bade me to stay in the temple and left. When she returned, she said she had searched high and low but there was no sign of Estelle anywhere in the Forest of Dawn. “Your mind is stretched to impossible limits,” she said. “Estelle is dead, Kandra. Grief can be a powerful thing. But do not fear. I can take the pain away.” And then she put her hands on either side of my head, and I felt a . . . a glow, a pulse, a gentle whisper inside my mind. Her hands were so hot, I remember thinking it was as if she was truly filled with Mother Sun’s light.
“When I woke, it was daylight and I was in my own bed, with my wives. They told me I had been out late at the temple conversing with the High Priestess, hopeful that I would soon be blessed to bear a child. Otess warned of being too pushy, but Seetha thought me very brave. I smiled and pretended I remembered what they were talking about. In truth, I could not recall a thing after deciding to go to the forest. I assumed I must have changed my mind.
“The very next day I was chosen by the High Priestess along with several other purple mothers, and I went to the birthing houses. They held no special significance to me. I had no memory of the previous day spent there. The only thing that felt any different was that if ever I thought of Estelle, she would fade quickly, her face out of focus, my memories pale and distant, like echoes. Until I simply stopped thinking about her.” Kandra pressed her forehead against the obelisk. “Until she vanished from my thoughts almost completely. Almost,” she whispered.
“So what happened?” Leela asked in a hushed voice. “How did you come to recall this? Why now?”
Kandra gathered herself slowly, her hands clutching the folds of her dress, her face twisted in pain.
“When Sera died, something inside me broke. Whatever hold the High Priestess’s magic had over me, whatever spell she may have cast, my grief for my daughter shattered it. I thought I was going mad when the memories came back, as clear as if they had just happened yesterday. I could not conceive of the High Priestess lying to me, or erasing my experiences. It simply did not make sense—she is our hope and our guide and she would never do such a thing, I told myself. I thought whatever these visions were had to be false. And they had happened nearly nineteen years ago, so how was I to even trust them? But it felt so real. And then you told me what you overheard in the Moon Gardens and I thought, ‘I am not crazy. The High Priestess is not who she seems to be. And my daughter became ensnared in her web.’
“I kept hearing Estelle’s voice, over and over, saying, ‘She will not stop.’”
They both sat in silence. Leela reached out and touched the moonstone, surprised to find it cold—her own pendant had always been warm when she held it. “Do you think she is still here?” she asked. “That Estelle is in this forest somewhere?”
“I do not know. I think not. How could she escape detection all these years?”
“Perhaps the High Priestess has hidden her.”
“But where? And for what purpose? What could she have possibly wanted with Estelle?”
Leela thought for a moment. “You said she was like Sera. What if Estelle was also chosen to be the High Priestess? What if the High Priestess has been keeping any potential successor away?”
Kandra wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “But why keep her alive at all then? If she was so willing to sacrifice my daughter, why not Estelle also?”
Leela did not have an answer to that. She could not help but think the two were related somehow. And the High Priestess’s lies were at the very heart of the matter.
But why, and to what end, Leela could not see.
27
THE WEDDING SEASON LASTED ONLY ANOTHER SEVEN days, one of the shortest in recent history.