The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,42

like a plant-filled sky.

Sky Gardens, she thought. That is what I shall call this place.

Her feet carried her without thinking to the main pool, weaving her way through the circles where Cerulean rested beneath. The tether seemed dim today, fragile, as if some of the pure light had gone out of it. Leela turned her eyes to the heart of the moonstone. It pulsed weakly in its cone, more orange than red, and she knew this was the High Priestess’s doing. She looked up at the vines crawling around it, heavy with fruit, and wondered how she was ever going to reach one. They were far too high and there was nothing for her to climb.

Plop.

She whirled around. A fruit lay on the ground, only a few feet away, on top of the circle with Estelle’s name. Leela approached it cautiously. She was afraid to consume anything the High Priestess had touched, especially after she had seen the effect it had had on her. But Mother Sun had told her to—and while she didn’t trust the High Priestess one bit, she knew the symbols were not leading her astray. She crouched down to examine it, like a peach but smaller and without a hint of pink. When she picked it up, it was hot to the touch.

“Mother Sun,” she prayed. “Do not fail me now.”

And before she could think about it another second, she plunged her teeth into the fruit’s flesh.

The taste was everything Leela loved most in the world—toasted pine nuts and lavender tea and dates stuffed with cheese . . . it was her green mother’s smile and her purple mother’s laugh and her orange mother’s embrace . . . it was the singing of minstrel flowers and the pale light of dawn and the crook of the old willow tree in the Day Gardens.

And it was Sera’s heartbeat, most of all.

She did not realize she had eaten the entire thing until she held its small glowing pit in her hand. She stood and walked to the pool, dropping the pit through the water as she had seen the High Priestess do. And when it flashed in a light so bright and warm and strange and scary and perfect, the water began to churn around the tether, frothing in a foam of sea green and blushing pink and heliotrope. Leela felt her magic sing inside her, a song of heartbreak and joy, a song like the blazing colors of sunset and a night without stars, and her blood crackled and snapped, and her skin felt as if it was searing itself to her bones.

She threw her head back and laughed though she did not know why, only that it felt good, it felt right—hot tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought of Sera, racing with her along the banks of the Estuary or watching her climb the temple spire or chasing each other through the moonflower fields. Sera filled her mind and her heart, Sera expanded inside her, Sera Sera Sera . . . and when Leela looked at the pond again, the water had become thick and pliable, like newly crafted sunglass, and a shape was emerging from it, a shape that she knew, oh so very well.

When Sera’s slender frame had finished forming out of the water, the pond rippled and she became more than sunglass. She became Sera, the Sera Leela had known and loved, the Sera she had shared her heart with and would share it with until the end of her days.

Leela let out a wild cry, like a trapped animal finally freed.

“Sera?” The name was no more than a fragile whisper on her lips, though she had meant to shout it.

Sera blinked and said, “Leela?”

Through her tears, Leela smiled a smile so wide and full, she thought she might split in two.

“It’s me,” Leela said, and the triumph rang through her louder than the bells of the temple. “It’s me, Sera. I found you.”

Part Three

Ithilia, the Island of Cairan, Pelago

13

Sera

SERA DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY OR WHERE TO BEGIN.

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Leela was here, talking to her. Real, true, perfect, sweet Leela. Sera’s heart swelled up so big she feared she would choke on it.

She hadn’t understood what was happening when the moonstone had flamed in her hand, like a miniature sunflare, a heat stronger than anything she had ever felt—one second, she and Leo were in Rahel’s golden room of desserts and the next she was being