The Cerulean (The Cerulean Duology #1) - Amy Ewing Page 0,98

a brass handle. She opened it, revealing a set of sunglass steps leading down into a pale silver light.

The dormitory was a large circular room that Leela guessed was directly underneath the main sanctuary of the temple. Lanterns hung from the walls at even intervals, extinguished now in daytime. Neatly made beds filled the space, with little nightstands beside them littered with various personal belongings. Elorin led Leela to her own bed. A pretty golden comb, a vase with a single moonflower inside it, and a ring in the shape of the many-pointed star set with a large red stargem lay on her nightstand.

“I sleep between Novice Cresha and Novice Baalin,” she was saying. “Cresha is very nice, but Baalin snores. Sometimes it is like sleeping beside a seresheep.”

Elorin giggled at her own jest. How Leela envied her in this moment, the simplicity of her life, and steadiness of her purpose.

“And what of the acolytes?” she asked, because surely whatever secrets the High Priestess kept, they would not be found in the novice dormitory. “Where do they sleep?”

“Oh, they have rooms higher up in the temple,” Elorin said. “We novices are not allowed inside them; they are private. Except for a few of the very old novices who are tasked with ensuring their cleanliness from time to time.” She frowned. “Now that I think of it, I have never heard where the High Priestess sleeps. No one has ever spoken of it.”

“Perhaps she sleeps in the secret spot you mentioned.”

“No, I do not think so . . . but I suppose I do not rightfully know.”

“Or maybe she does not sleep at all,” Leela mused, thinking nothing would surprise her anymore.

Elorin grinned. “Now that would make her truly exceptional.”

They left the dormitory and wandered through the Moon Gardens, passing some novices pruning rosebushes and an orange mother leaving an offering at the foot of Aila’s statue. She nodded to them as she left.

“Many orange mothers have come to pray for a birthing season to begin,” Elorin whispered.

“Yes, I saw Heena earlier when I arrived,” Leela said. Aila’s moonstone statue gleamed iridescent white, shot through with tendrils of color that chased each other like minnows, vanishing and reappearing. Aila was frozen with her arms raised to the sky, a smile etched across her face, her long hair wild about her as if caught in a cheerful breeze. Already a small pile of offerings, garlands of flowers and plates of food, were gathering at her feet. And Leela knew with a heavy certainty that there would be a birthing season soon, but not because Mother Sun willed it so. It would be a continuing distraction, one designed to keep all Cerulean thoughts away from Sera and the failed ceremony.

“These statues require very special care. Only the acolytes tend to them. Acolyte Endaria told me there used to be much more moonstone in the City before the Great Sadness.”

“Yes, my green mother told me that too,” Leela said, only half listening.

“Acolyte Endaria says moonstone is like the beating heart of the City. Or it was. Now these statues are the only pieces left. Well, these and the obelisk at the birthing houses. And the stone in the High Priestess’s circlet, of course. Acolyte Endaria said there used to be a fountain in the Night Gardens made of moonstone as well, but it was broken into pieces many centuries ago.”

Leela had perked up at the mention of the obelisk. “I did not know that,” she said. “Why?”

“It was during a time when the sleeping sickness came,” Elorin said. “She said the Cerulean hoped the moonstone would protect them from the disease, and since there was no new moonstone appearing in the City anymore, they took the fountain apart. It didn’t work, though.”

“My green mother told me moonstone was rare because it was formed from the tears of the Moon Daughters themselves,” Leela said.

“My green mother said it was once used by Cerulean to communicate on the planets, back in the days when we would visit them,” Elorin said.

“Oh?” Leela had never heard that explanation before.

“To be honest, I think she was making that up. I do not think any of our green mothers really knew what it was for. It is beyond ancient.”

Just like the High Priestess, Leela thought. Perhaps they both hold secrets.

Kandra could not explain why Estelle had appeared where she did, in the Forest of Dawn by the birthing houses. Maybe it was not the forest or the houses that were