The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(75)

“I kept hearing Estelle’s voice, over and over, saying, ‘She will not stop.’”

They both sat in silence. Leela reached out and touched the moonstone, surprised to find it cold—her own pendant had always been warm when she held it. “Do you think she is still here?” she asked. “That Estelle is in this forest somewhere?”

“I do not know. I think not. How could she escape detection all these years?”

“Perhaps the High Priestess has hidden her.”

“But where? And for what purpose? What could she have possibly wanted with Estelle?”

Leela thought for a moment. “You said she was like Sera. What if Estelle was also chosen to be the High Priestess? What if the High Priestess has been keeping any potential successor away?”

Kandra wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “But why keep her alive at all then? If she was so willing to sacrifice my daughter, why not Estelle also?”

Leela did not have an answer to that. She could not help but think the two were related somehow. And the High Priestess’s lies were at the very heart of the matter.

But why, and to what end, Leela could not see.





27

THE WEDDING SEASON LASTED ONLY ANOTHER SEVEN days, one of the shortest in recent history.

Even so, Leela felt relieved when it ended.

All the dancing and feasting and protestations of love were wearing on her. She saw her City in a new light, afflicted by a wrong so subtle that Leela herself could not put a finger on it. She watched helplessly at every wedding as the High Priestess blessed the happy triads, and tried to see beneath her mask, to find some clue as to the reason behind her lies, but it was impossible.

She and Kandra would meet every night in the Forest of Dawn, searching for a sign of Estelle or where she might have come from, talking themselves in circles, repeating their stories until they knew each other’s tales by heart. They never found any hint of a Cerulean or a hiding place or a secret lair. Sometimes they would simply sit by one of the ponds in the light of the frogs and remember Sera—her big, bold laugh, her insatiable appetite for fried squash blossoms, her thirst for knowledge, her longing to see another planet. Other times Kandra would tell stories about Estelle, things she had forgotten that were rising to the surface of her mind now.

When the last wedding had come and gone, the City was quiet the next morning, a drowsy calm settling in the air, as if even the blades of grass were exhausted. Leela could hear her mothers still in bed, the murmurs of conversation interspersed with kisses. She wondered what they would think if she told them everything, about the High Priestess, about Sera and Estelle, and her late-night meetings with Kandra. They would listen, she thought, but they would not believe. They would likely pity her and attribute the stories to shared grief over Sera. Worst case, they would take the matter up with the High Priestess herself, and that was something Leela could not risk. Not when she still knew so little.

We are all dying. It cannot continue. She will not stop. Leela and Kandra had puzzled over this for hours. “She” was likely the High Priestess, but what was “it”? What was Estelle warning could not continue?

It was proof she needed, something concrete, and not just for herself. Even if the other Cerulean were not aware, Leela knew there was something wrong in the City Above the Sky, and while she would rather anyone else have been the one to have overheard what the High Priestess said, the fact was that it had fallen on her shoulders. She might only be Leela Starcatcher, but she was a Cerulean and her blood was magic and she was not going to be afraid anymore. Sera had died for some secret, possibly sordid reason, and Leela would know why and make sure it would never happen again.

At least she knew where the High Priestess would be now. During the wedding season she had not kept a strict schedule, and so Leela would come upon her in the orchards or the meadows or the mines with no warning. But life would return to normal, and the High Priestess would be where she usually was—the temple. That was where Leela must start. She got dressed and went into the kitchen, where her orange mother was making licorice root tea.

“Good morning, darling,” she said as Leela took a seat at the round wooden table. “I must admit, I am glad the wedding season has ended, as brief as it was. It was a delight to witness but so tiring!”

“Indeed, Orange Mother. The City feels very quiet today.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” She sighed as she poured cups of tea for the two of them, filling the kitchen with the scent of anise. “You know, the season when your mothers and I got married lasted nearly a month. I thought I never wished to see another feast again as long as I lived.”

Leela smiled. “I would like to have seen that,” she said. “You and Mothers getting married.”

Her orange mother sat at the table across from her and took a sip of tea. “I was so young then,” she said wistfully. “If you can imagine.” She winked. “Your purple mother loved to laze in bed in the morning as much as she does now. That hasn’t changed. I don’t believe she will come out of the bedroom today until the hour of the light.”

“I can hear you, Lastra!” her purple mother called out, and Leela and her orange mother exchanged quiet laughter.

“And what are your plans for the day?” her orange mother asked. “Your next apprenticeship is the stargem mines, is it not? But I don’t think anyone in the City is expected to jump right back into their routines.”