The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,75
pain, even if the rest of the City does not know or see it yet. Kandra believes you—well, about the High Priestess, if not about Sera. I believe you about it all. We will find a way to bring Sera home and prove it to them.”
“If only I could bring the whole City down to the Sky Gardens,” Leela said.
Elorin bit her lower lip. “But you could not get them all down there at once, and it would not surprise me if the High Priestess had some plan in place, some way to discredit or deceive. She erased Kandra’s memory, did she not? And you would not be able to tell everyone at the same time, unless you called the City to the temple, and only the High Priestess can command to have the bells rung.”
Elorin was right. There had to be another way. Leela’s eyes were drawn back to the High Priestess. “I think there may be answers in her circlet, Elorin,” she said.
“Answers that the other moonstone cannot give you?”
Leela nodded.
“But if moonstone is connective, then what do you think the circlet connects to?”
“I don’t know,” Leela said, her frustration returning. “It is just . . . a feeling.”
“Well,” Elorin said. “I am not one to doubt your instincts, Leela. They have not led you astray thus far.”
“I am grateful to have you,” Leela said, squeezing Elorin’s arm. “You are a good friend.”
Elorin beamed. “Come, let us try for one evening to forget our troubles. I think we may be able to sneak some sweetnectar from Novice Loonir if we are very cunning.”
She wiggled her eyebrows, and Leela laughed and allowed herself to be led through the crowd to where Novice Loonir was filling glasses beneath the boughs of a poplar tree.
She had spoken to Sera tonight, after all. Surely that was worthy of celebration. The circlet could wait.
The next afternoon, Leela took a break from cleaning the doors. After the announcement of Plenna’s pregnancy, no one was watching her closely, so she meandered around the Moon Gardens, seeing the statues in a new light after her conversation with Elorin. Perhaps, in days past, Cerulean would gather around them to see visions of their friends or family on the planet. Maybe it was a way for them to know they were safe, so far from home. She touched the statue of Aila, taking comfort in the moonstone’s smoothness. For a moment, she had a glimpse of a room bedecked in pink and gold, and a table laid with all kinds of sweet foods. Then it was gone. Leela felt a surge of triumph.
I am with you, Sera, she thought as she returned to the temple. Perhaps she could try to speak with her again tonight. Would she have to eat the fruit again? She wasn’t sure.
She was searching for a new jar of polish in the closet where the prayer cushions were kept when Elorin burst in.
“You scared me,” Leela said. Then she took in Elorin’s face. Her skin was pale and her eyes so wide Leela could see the whites all around clear blue irises. “What has happened?”
For a moment Elorin seemed too overwhelmed to speak. Her lips trembled and she took a deep, steadying breath.
“The doors,” she whispered. “They spoke to me. I was tasked with washing the acolyte and High Priestess robes. I was carrying a load out to wash in the Estuary and as I passed the doors, the markings on them moved. And I understood them, Leela. I could read what they were saying.”
Leela felt her heart soar. Whatever spell the High Priestess had cast on the City, it was slowly receding, like a veil being lifted. “What did they tell you?”
“The circlet,” Elorin whispered. “Over and over, they spelled out the circlet. And then my feet were carrying me to the dormitory, though that was not where I had intended to go, and then . . . oh, Leela, you must come quickly!”
The two girls walked as fast as they could without attracting the attention of several orange mothers praying in the sanctum. Leela glanced at the doors, but the markings were inscrutable. She was certain her instincts had been right—the doors were meant for all to read, not just the High Priestess. It was a matter of showing the Cerulean not only the lies of the High Priestess but the powers they all should possess that had somehow, someway, been taken from them.