The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,38
of Faesa’s robes, and the statue slid aside silently; the only sound in the quiet dark was Elorin’s hushed gasp. Leela put her finger to her lips. Elorin’s eyes were big as saucers as she gazed down at the sunglass steps. The cold was fierce and Leela began to descend, keeping her hands on the walls to prevent herself from falling. Elorin’s footsteps were a faint patter behind her, and Leela drew courage from her presence.
Colored lights began to shine as they neared the end of the stairs, and Elorin made a little whimper when she saw them but said nothing. When they reached the bottom, Leela waited patiently as the girl drank it all in.
Glowing blue columns surrounded them, towering in icy splendor. Eerily lit green paths snaked around the crystal pools that dotted the floor, revealing clear glimpses of the planet below. It was utterly silent except for the faint hitching of Elorin’s breath.
I see you, Sera, Leela thought, staring down at the outlines of Kaolin and Pelago. I know you’re down there.
She met Elorin’s gaze and pointed toward the ceiling. Elorin looked up and let out a cry of shock that vanished in the cavernous space. The upside-down gardens or forest or whatever it was stretched out above them. Trees and bushes, wildflowers and ancient shrubs all grew toward them, as if Elorin and Leela were standing in the sky and looking down upon the earth.
“The gardens wither and die the further out you walk,” Leela said. “Come. I want to show you the tether.”
“What are those pools for?” Elorin asked.
“I don’t know,” Leela said. “But I don’t think we want to step through one.”
They crept forward, keeping to the paths and avoiding the pools. At last they came to the vast circular space right beneath the temple, where the tether shot up through the largest of the pools. It planted itself firmly in an enormous cone of moonstone with a glowing red heart in its center—ice-white vines surrounded the cone, golden fruit hanging among the brittle leaves. Leela was unsure how the High Priestess had managed to reach them—the ceiling was very high. Elorin looked as though she were going to faint as she stared in wonder at the finely wrought chain of magic that connected their City to the planet below.
“The tether,” she whispered. “It’s so . . .”
She could not find the word to describe it.
“I know,” Leela said.
“What is this place?” Elorin asked, gazing up at the vines surrounding the moonstone. “What are those golden fruits?”
It was time to show her—no amount of explanation would do, and Leela herself did not have all the answers anyway. She beckoned Elorin closer and knelt by one of the ice-covered circles on the floor.
Estelle, the symbols proclaimed. Leela brushed her hand over the ice so that it became clear.
“That’s a Cerulean!” Elorin exclaimed, staring down in horror at Estelle’s hunched naked body trapped in the stalactite.
Leela nodded solemnly.
“Is she . . .” Elorin swallowed the word.
“She lives,” Leela said. “See, she breathes. Her name is Estelle. She was a friend to Kandra—Sera’s purple mother—years ago. The City believed her dead from the sleeping sickness. But she has been here all this time.”
“What does the High Priestess want with her?”
Leela pursed her lips. “Not just her,” she said. She pointed to another circle, then another. Elorin clapped her hands over her mouth.
“There is a Cerulean beneath every one of these?” she whispered. “But why? What for?”
“I do not know,” Leela replied. “But I saw the High Priestess feed them the fruit from those vines.” She pressed a hand to the ice. “I don’t know how she uncovered these circles, though. I can only make them clear.”
“That is more than I can do,” Elorin said, sweeping a hand over a circle with the name Vaana written on it. The ice remained opaque.
“Hmm.” Leela did not know what that meant.
“This is not right,” Elorin muttered. “This is unnatural. These Cerulean should not be trapped down here! This is not the City I know and love.”
“I agree,” Leela said. “But until we know what she is doing with them and find some way to get them out of these icy prisons . . .”
Elorin gripped her shoulder. “I cannot imagine,” she said, “how frightful and lonely it must have been for you. To know of all this and carry it entirely on your own.”
Leela’s smile was tight but full of gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered.