it would not leave her free to roam about the City any longer, even in the dead of night. How was she to get back to the stairs beneath the Moon Gardens? How was she supposed to see Sera again?
She cursed herself for being so reckless. But as they made their way across Faesa’s Bridge, Leela felt her resolve harden. Whatever this penance was, it couldn’t last forever. She would pay the price and she would return to finding a way to get Sera home.
They skirted the hedge that surrounded the Moon Gardens, novices inclining their heads as the High Priestess passed, then shooting Leela curious looks.
The High Priestess had not spoken a single word to Leela throughout the entire walk, and while Leela was beginning to feel the weight of the silence, the High Priestess herself did not seem to notice. She moved so gracefully she appeared to glide, her face set in an expressionless mask, and Leela could feel the heat of her body radiating through her long robe. The moonstone in the High Priestess’s circlet gleamed in the sunlight and Leela was possessed with the sudden urge to pull the circlet from her head and pry the stone from its setting. She wondered if maybe there were more answers in that stone than in any of the statues in the Moon Gardens.
Leela felt weary as they approached the doors to the temple, her feet dragging, her head bowed. This morning, the world had seemed full of possibilities, but now everything had changed again. The freedom she had taken for granted was gone. She would be watched. Wherever she went, she would be seen as the young Cerulean who’d broken the rules.
But even worse—she had lied to her mothers and she had been caught. She had disappointed them, and Leela’s stomach pinched with the shame of it.
Just then the sun lit on the temple’s golden spire, a blinding flash of brilliant yellow that vanished as quickly as it had come. The High Priestess was still climbing the temple steps, but Leela’s own legs had turned to stone.
She stared at the copper doors, where the markings of Mother Sun were etched in ever-changing, indecipherable symbols. Only they weren’t indecipherable any longer.
Heal them.
Two simple words written over and over and over.
“Leela?” The High Priestess stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at her. “I know you are frightened, but this must be done. There are consequences to every action.”
“What do the doors say?” Leela blurted without thinking.
The High Priestess froze for only half a second, but in that brief moment Leela sensed uncertainty and a hint of what might have been fear.
“That is no concern of yours,” she replied tartly. “The symbols of Mother Sun are meant for the High Priestess alone to decipher and share with the City as she will.”
She can’t read them. The thought came wild and unbidden to Leela’s mind, and once there, she knew she was right. Another lie uncovered—for it was true, everyone in the City thought the symbols were meant only for the High Priestess to read. But who had told them that? The High Priestess herself. Leela did not know why or how she could understand the symbols all of a sudden, but she knew they were no hallucination. It took a great amount of effort to lower her head and trudge up the stairs. She could not afford to look upon the doors again, could not give any indication to the High Priestess that she’d been able to read them.
What is happening to me? They entered the sanctum, its ceiling painted with the sun and three moons and countless stars. There was a large smattering of orange mothers present and Leela was surprised to see Sera’s among them. Though she shouldn’t have been—of course her orange mother would be praying now that Kandra had been sent to the birthing houses. Orange mothers were teachers of devotion in the Cerulean family unit, and prayer was an important part of their lives, especially prayer for a new daughter. Most of the orange mothers were praying together but Sera’s sat apart from the others, on a cushion alone in front of the Altar of the Lost: a giant sun crafted out of sungold and moonsilver and studded with dark blue stargems, one for each Cerulean lost in the Great Sadness.
The Great Sadness was the worst tragedy in all of Cerulean history, when two hundred Cerulean had been massacred on the last planet