The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,33
of her fast.
She hadn’t even been allowed a moment alone with her mothers to say goodbye. Once she concluded her apology, she was swept off the chancel by Acolyte Klymthe, through the sliding door at the back of the temple.
“Your fast begins at dusk,” she said. “A final meal will be brought for you and novices will provide a bucket in the morning and evening for you to relieve yourself. You are not to leave this room for three nights and three days.” Leela’s breath quickened but she tried not to let it show. One night had been awful enough, trapped in this small room—Leela did not like the closed door, or the window too high to see out of. Acolyte Klymthe’s eyes were unyielding, like blue iron. “I should have suspected you might do something like this,” she said. “Ever since that day you came to the temple seeking answers from the High Priestess for Sera Lighthaven’s unworthiness.”
That was the day Leela had realized Kandra was the only one in the City who might believe her about the High Priestess, the day she had dismissed the possibility of confiding in any of her other friends, including Elorin.
Leela wondered if Acolyte Klymthe knew about the stalactites below the City.
But she had a part to play now—she had already made one grave mistake that had led her right into the High Priestess’s hands; she could not afford to do it again. So she bowed her head and murmured, “I am sorry, Acolyte Klymthe.”
The acolyte sniffed. “Yes. Well. Your life is Mother Sun’s now. Let us hope you will live it in her light and love.”
But when she said Mother Sun, Leela felt with a shiver that she really meant someone else. She kept her head down, sure that if she looked up, Acolyte Klymthe would see her defiance. When she heard the door close, she collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the window.
I will be patient, she vowed. It is only three days. And then I will return to the gardens beneath the City and I will see Sera’s face again.
How long could three days possibly be?
Long, Leela discovered.
Each hour felt like a day within itself. The room seemed to grow smaller with every passing minute. Leela’s stomach shrank and twisted and ached. She was allowed water, and those moments when a novice would deliver her a pitcher or bring the bucket for her to relieve herself became the highlight of her days. It was always one of the older novices, Belladon or Cresha or Baalin. She did not see Elorin again.
She thought of Sera, of where she was now and where she might be headed. If she was on a ship, she was likely on the sea between Pelago and Kaolin, but which country she was coming from and which she was going to Leela could not say. She tried to remember all she knew of the planet, but that had been Sera’s fascination, not hers. She guiltily admitted to herself that she had never paid much attention when Sera spoke of the planet. She sifted through her recollections of the lessons her green mother had given her about it—she knew that family units were different there, with males and fathers and all that. And she knew that they worshipped different gods, not Mother Sun, though what sort she could not say. But she was hopeful that Mother Sun was watching over Sera, that she could see her even on the planet, so far away from the City.
She mulled over what Elorin had said, when she had wondered if Mother Sun even heard her prayers at all now that she knew of the High Priestess’s deceptions. But Leela remembered the way the symbols on the doors to the temple had suddenly made sense—it was Mother Sun speaking to her, she was sure of it. Though if she could read them, then why not all other Cerulean? Perhaps it was a matter of awareness—Leela was seeing through the lies now, and so it was as if a veil had been lifted. Perhaps the High Priestess had cast some sort of spell over the entire City, the way she had taken Kandra’s memory of Estelle away. And because the City believed only the High Priestess could read the symbols, then that was all they saw, a jumble of markings.
But it seemed to Leela as if Mother Sun was far away, farther than she ought to be. It was like trying