The Alcazar (The Cerulean Duology #2) - Amy Ewing Page 0,85

her desperately.”

Kandra laughed and tears sparkled in her eyes. “There is no shame in wanting something for yourself,” she said. “And this is the second time you have brought me back from the brink of despair. If anything, I am indebted to you.”

Leela was about to protest when Estelle gave a great shudder.

“It is starting,” she choked. “I have stayed too long away. I can feel it . . . I have to go back.”

“No,” Kandra said. “No, you mustn’t go back there.”

Estelle touched her on the cheek. “I will die if I don’t.”

Her knees buckled and Kandra caught her before she hit the floor. “Help me, Leela.”

Leela supported her on the opposite side and they hurried out of the dwelling, Estelle stumbling between them.

“You are not meant to leave the birthing houses,” Leela whispered as they approached the sacred circle.

Kandra snorted. “I am not bearing another daughter until Sera has returned to this City. If Mother Sun truly did bless me, she would understand. As my orange wife once said, she is a mother, first and foremost.” She glanced at Estelle, whose breathing was becoming more and more ragged. “And you could not have gotten her back alone.”

They reached the Moon Gardens faster than Leela thought possible, and had to walk in an awkward fashion to get Estelle down the curving stairs. Kandra’s reaction to the Sky Gardens was much the same as Elorin’s had been.

“I thought I believed you,” Kandra said. “I saw this in your memory, but still . . . what is this place?”

“I don’t know, but the High Priestess is killing it,” Leela said. “Those gardens did not used to be so withered.”

They found Estelle’s stalactite—Leela helped her out of the robe, not wanting to leave any evidence behind. They gently slid Estelle back into the viscous liquid that contained her magic. As she slipped beneath the surface, Leela whispered, “We will come back for you. Tell the others if you can. We will free them all.”

Then she sealed up the opening. As she stood, she found Kandra staring at her, and a blue light was burning in the depths of her eyes.

“Leela Starcatcher,” she said. “What a marvel you are.”

24

WHEN SHE AT LAST CRAWLED BENEATH HER COVERS IN the dormitory that night, Leela had a dream.

She was walking in the Night Gardens, past bushes of solemn gray roses and beneath the boughs of nebula trees, their black leaves heavy with clouds. A will-o-the-wisp floated in front of her and hung there, its eerie blue light pulsing like a heartbeat.

“Hello, Leela,” it said, though it had no mouth and the words seemed to come from inside her, from the very depths of her heart. And though she knew it was strange, that will-o-the-wisps did not speak, she was not afraid.

“Hello,” she replied. “What am I doing here?”

“Remembering,” the will-o-the-wisp replied. “This is where it all began.”

Leela saw the dais then, and the ghost of the crowds that had gathered on the day that Sera was sacrificed. Sera herself was in full color, almost more vivid than she had been in reality, her hair starkly blue, the bracelets at her wrist vibrant purple and green and orange. Leela could sense the moonstone pulsing beneath her robe.

“I was lost for so long in the night, searching, searching,” the will-o-the-wisp said. “I could not find my children and I mourned for them. Oh, how I mourned.”

Though none of this actually made sense to Leela, her dream mind seemed to understand it.

“I am sorry,” she said. “That must have been so hard for you.”

“But a bond of love and an act of pure courage lit up my sky like a meteorite,” the will-o-the-wisp said. “Where once there was only blackness, I again saw stars. The sun rose at last and the moon waxed and waned and I heard the bubbling of the Estuary and the singing of laurel doves and I knew I could find my way home again.”

“Home.” Leela nodded in agreement. “How sad for you to have lost yours for so long.” Then she frowned. “Where did you come from?”

She had never known a will-o-the-wisp to have a home or a family, much less children.

“From nowhere and from everywhere,” the will-o-the-wisp replied. “But from love most of all. I come from within you, and within Sera, and each and every Cerulean heart in this City. My love is made tangible in a form you know so very well.”

The star pendant rose up in Leela’s mind, and suddenly