“It was like I was there again,” Bellamy was saying. “On that very day.”
“Yes,” Sera said. “I wanted to give you something to hold on to. A gift. Of love. You love him very much.”
A tear fell on Bellamy’s cheek. “I do. I . . .” She gazed out over the ocean again. “You know, she didn’t let us marry for six years after that day. Six years and three other engagements, all made without his consent, all broken. You’d think after Alethea, Ambrosine might have figured out the sort of people her children are. But they aren’t really people to her. They are pieces on a game board.”
It was the most Leo had ever heard Bellamy say.
She turned to Sera, her face fearful. “You can never let her know about this. This power you possess. She will try and take it from you. She will never let you go.”
Suddenly, a bell rang out from the mainmast and the water around the ship began to churn, waves frothing and raging against the hull.
“What’s happening?” Leo asked. Bellamy seemed remarkably calm as a dark strip of land appeared in the distance.
“Leo, look!” Sera gasped. “There’s so many of them.”
“So many of what?” he asked.
And then he saw.
The ocean was filled with the colorful lights of hundreds and hundreds of mertags.
Bellamy turned to them. “Welcome to Culinnon.”
Part Four
The City Above the Sky
21
SERA’S VOICE WAS STILL RINGING IN LEELA’S EARS AS SHE hurried to join the celebrations for Plenna’s pregnancy in the Day Gardens.
“Where have you been?” Elorin hissed when she arrived. “Novice Loonir was looking for you. I told her you had just gone to the creamery for some cheese.”
“Thank you,” Leela said, glancing left and right. Cerulean were laughing and dancing, fiddles and drums and pipes filling the sweet-scented night air, and everyone seemed more relaxed than they had in days. Once again, the High Priestess had managed to distract the City.
Leela pulled Elorin behind a huge rhododendron bursting with magenta flowers. “I found Sera,” she said. “I spoke to her.”
“What?” Elorin gasped. “Where?”
Leela quickly explained how the doors to the temple had told her to eat the golden fruit, and how Sera’s form had appeared in the large pool beneath the cone of moonstone.
“Leela,” Elorin said solemnly. “The doors to the temple can only be read by the High Priestess. If you are reading them . . .”
Leela waved the thought away. “Sera said the same thing. But she told me that she was able to read the symbols on the choosing bowl! And I am certain the High Priestess can no longer read the markings on the door—at least, not the ones that spoke to me. So it has been a lie that only the High Priestess can read the doors. I think they actually used to speak to all Cerulean, just in different ways and at different times.” Elorin did not look convinced. “There’s more,” Leela continued. “She has discovered the location of the tether and is making her way to it now. And there are humans helping her. A male named Leo and a girl named Agnes. They are brother and sister.”
She rubbed her temples, still not quite able to wrap her mind around Sera traveling the planet alongside humans, and befriending a male, no less.
“A male,” Elorin echoed, her eyes wide. “Will the tether be able to bring Sera home?”
Leela bit her lip. “I do not know.”
She had wondered that herself when Sera had first mentioned it. But what other choice was there? The tether was the one connection to the City from the planet.
“I wish we knew more about what the City was like before the Great Sadness,” Elorin said. “It seems like that would give us the information we need. Remember when I told you what Acolyte Endaria had told me, about the fountain of moonstone that used to be in the Night Gardens?”
Leela nodded.
“Well, what happened to it?” Elorin said. “We know that moonstone is powerfully magical—it can show visions and allowed you and Sera to speak. But I do not believe Acolyte Endaria’s story, that it was broken apart to protect from the sleeping sickness. Moonstone does not seem protective—it seems connective.”
Leela had not thought of that.
“Your green mother said that moonstone had been used to communicate between Cerulean when they were on the planet, isn’t that right?” she asked.
“Yes,” Elorin said. “Perhaps that was a snippet of truth that survived the centuries.”
It all felt like it was beginning to make sense. At least, part of it. “Elorin, I think you might be right,” Leela said slowly. “The magic of moonstone is connective. It has connected this City to the planet—I can see visions of the planet, but only of what Sera sees or where she is, and that must be because of the moonstone. And it connects me and Sera to each other, like a blood bond. But instead of reading each other’s hearts, we are able to actually speak!” Her mind was racing as her magic bubbled in her veins. “How did I not think of it before? Cerulean had to have had a way to communicate with those on the planet. And after we stopped going down on the planets, moonstone stopped appearing in the City.”
Elorin clapped her hand over her mouth. “Yes.”
Suddenly, the air was filled with cries of, “Plenna! Plenna is here!”
Leela and Elorin hurried to join the celebration. The Cerulean were gathering around a low plinth of stone, where the High Priestess stood with Plenna, looking radiant beside her.
“My children, let us raise our glasses in celebration of new life!” the High Priestess said. “Plenna may now join her wives in their dwelling, until her time comes to bear her daughter. Oh, what a joyous day for our City, so long plagued with doubts. But Mother Sun sees us and loves us all. Praise her!”
“Praise her!” the crowds shouted back, but Leela and Elorin said nothing. As Plenna fell into the arms of Heena and Jaycin, the moonlight caught the stone in the High Priestess’s circlet. Leela felt her magic begin to burn within her blood, a startling heat that brought out the taste of the fruit in the back of her mouth. There was something special about that circlet, more than the obelisk or the statues or even Sera’s pendant. Leela was certain of it, felt it deep in her bones. If she could just have the chance to hold it, to touch it in some way, maybe she could see . . .
Elorin let out a wistful sigh. “She looks so happy, doesn’t she?”
Leela followed her gaze to where one of the acolytes was placing a wreath of flowers on Plenna’s head. She felt a pinch of envy at the simple joy of Plenna’s life.
“Do you think I am doing the wrong thing?” she asked. “Should I just leave everything be? I do not wish to cause the people of this City more pain.”
“You have not done anything wrong,” Elorin said firmly. “It is the High Priestess who is causing 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.