The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(80)

Kandra looked at her in a way she had never been looked at before, and it took Leela a second to work out what the difference was. She was seeing Leela not as a child but as an equal.

“Can you put it back?” she asked.

“What?”

“The obelisk.”

Can I? Leela thought, and it was as if her magic had been waiting for her to ask. Her palms began to glow, markings once again appearing on the smooth white surface of the stone.

No one must know you have opened, Leela thought, and the obelisk seemed only too happy to oblige her, sliding back into place, covering the stairs and wherever they led to.

“Mother Sun,” Kandra murmured. She turned to Leela. “Did you see anything that time? Another vision?”

Leela shook her head.

Kandra stood and helped her to her feet. “Sera. The tether. Moonstone. These stairs. Estelle. There is still some connection we cannot see. But by the grace of Mother Sun, Leela,” she said, taking her in her arms and holding her tightly, “I am so grateful we have each other.”

The vision she’d had, plus moving the moonstone, were weighing so heavily on Leela’s mind the next day, she realized she had not heard a word Elorin had been saying.

“I am so sorry,” she said, as she followed Elorin out of the temple. “I did not mean to be distracted. Tell me, what has gotten you so excited?”

For Elorin was flushed and smiling, practically bouncing as she and Leela entered the Moon Gardens. Leela could not help eyeing each of the statues as they passed, first Dendra with her solemn face bent in prayer, then Aila and her joyful smile, and finally Faesa, her cupped hands outstretched as if holding the wisdom of all green mothers in her palms. Leela kept waiting for symbols to appear on them, but as of yet, they remained the same as they had always been. She wondered if she would see that place with the flowers and the tree again, if she touched one of them. Her magic seemed to sparkle at the thought.

“My first Night of Song is fast approaching!” Elorin said. “I have been practicing the songs all day.”

The Night of Song was a monthly tradition in which the novices roamed through the City for a full night, carrying candles and singing. It was an ancient ritual, one that stemmed from the days when the City had just been created, a time of darkness before the first tether was formed.

“That is very exciting indeed,” Leela said.

“Novice Belladon has been helping me. She says I have a songbird’s voice.”

The temple bells began to ring out and both girls jumped.

“What has happened?” Leela asked.

“I don’t know,” Elorin said. “But come, we must go.”

Cerulean were spilling into the temple, and Elorin joined the other novices to help distribute prayer cushions. Leela made her way to her family spot, her orange mother looking delighted to see her already there when she arrived. Leela caught Kandra’s eye as she entered with Sera’s other mothers, and they exchanged a dark look.

Once the entire City had gathered, the High Priestess emerged and crossed the chancel to stand behind the pulpit.

“My children, a new blessing is upon us—Mother Sun has decreed it is time for a birthing season to begin!”

Cheers of joy and cries of “Praise her!” echoed throughout the temple.

Kandra had been right, Leela thought. But there was no sign of the sleeping sickness. Were they wrong on that count? Perhaps the sickness was a coincidence, unrelated to Estelle or the stairs or the High Priestess.

But Leela did not think she believed in coincidences anymore.

She saw Plenna weeping with happiness in Heena’s arms. Even Leela’s own purple mother seemed excited, though since Leela was still living at home, she would not be chosen to bear another child.

“It has been so long since the laughter of little ones has graced this City,” she said to Leela as they left the temple. “I wonder how many new purple mothers will be showing up at our dwelling for tea and advice. The season you were born I felt we had at least two visitors a day!”

“Three,” Leela’s green mother interjected. “The house was overrun.”

Her orange mother laughed. “Indeed it was.” She sighed and put a hand to her heart. “My goodness, so much is happening so quickly. My head has not stopped spinning from the wedding season.”

“Purple Mother, are you disappointed that I am still at home?” Leela asked, suddenly fearful that she was disrupting her mothers’ lives with her secret quest. “Would you like to have another daughter?”

“Oh, my sweet girl,” she said, wrapping her arm around Leela’s shoulders. “I only want you to do what is best for you, and if that means staying with us, then so be it. I am in no rush to bear another daughter—and Cerulean are not bound by restriction of age as human women are, so I have many more years of fertility ahead of me. You are not depriving me of anything.”

Her green mother took her hand and her orange mother said, “We love you more than anything, and that is all that matters.” Leela smiled and felt grateful that no matter what else was happening around her, there was one constant in her life, and that was the love between herself and her mothers. Regardless of the myriad ways her City was changing, that stayed the same.

The advent of the birthing season meant that the temple was crowded day and night. Orange mothers were constantly at prayer and green mothers would leave food in the Moon Gardens, at the feet of the statues of Aila, Dendra, and Faesa, in the hopes that the purple mothers of their triads would be chosen. It gave Leela no opportunity to inspect the moonstone in private, nor could she search for the secret place Elorin had mentioned. Not that she quite knew where to begin. Perhaps it was somehow connected to one of the acolytes’ chambers. Acolyte Klymthe, maybe?