Leela could not bear to think that Sera was somehow to blame for her own death.
“I was wondering . . . what if it is not the forest that holds the key to where Estelle is hidden,” she said. “What if it is the moonstone?”
Kandra looked the obelisk up and down. “You think she is inside it?”
“I am not sure what to think. Only that we cannot answer why she appeared here when she was supposed to be dead, but we know moonstone is sacred and possesses some kind of magic. So the two could be related.”
Kandra began to circle the obelisk, and Leela followed. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find. It looked the same as it always had. Leela placed her lantern on the ground, thinking perhaps there was something that could not be seen but felt. As she brushed her fingertips across the base of the stone, she gasped—a faint breath of icy air was wafting up from the ground beneath it.
“Can you feel that?” she said, and Kandra reached out, her fingers skimming the grass.
“Where is that air coming from?”
“It’s like it’s coming up from the ground,” Leela said. “But that can’t be. . . .”
Kandra was already on her feet, pushing against the stone. “She might be underneath it,” she said, “not inside. Leela, help me.”
As soon as Leela placed her hands on the polished cold surface, she felt a crackle run through her fingers and up her wrists into her arms, her magic reacting in a way that she’d never felt before. Her knees buckled as a vision came upon her, an entirely unfamiliar place swimming before her eyes—it was a large, dark room, lit by flowers that glowed in purple and pink and orange. There was a tree with silvery white bark and turquoise leaves, and red curtains hung on either side of the flowers. She could not see the ceiling—above was only darkness. She pulled her hands away as if she’d been burned, and the vision faded.
“What is it?” Kandra asked. Leela did not know how to answer. She had no idea what or where that place was, but her magic was sizzling and pulsing as if begging for the vision to return. There was a faint blue glow in all ten of her fingers.
When she looked back up at the obelisk, markings had appeared in a narrow line down its trunk, markings that Leela could not read but felt she understood anyway—like a signpost, pointing the way to something.
Show me, she thought, or perhaps her magic thought it, for it spun and swirled around her heart.
With a faint groan, the obelisk slid to one side, and Kandra let out a shocked cry, her hands flying to her mouth. The next second she and Leela were peering down into a large square space carved into the earth, a chill emanating from its depths.
A set of sunglass stairs led down into the darkness. In the light of the lantern, Leela could see that the stairs had been sealed off four steps down, a smooth pane of sunglass blocking wherever they led to.
Kandra climbed down the steps and pressed her hands against the sunglass barrier. “Estelle?” she called softly. “Estelle, it’s Kandra.”
They waited for what felt like ages, but only the hum of insects and the scurrying of nocturnal creatures answered them.
“Where do you think it goes?” Leela whispered.
But Kandra had turned to stare at her with wonder in her pale blue eyes. “How did the obelisk move?”
“I . . . read the markings,” Leela said. “I asked it to show me.”
Kandra looked from Leela to the stone and back to Leela again. “What markings?”
Leela was about to point them out when she saw they had vanished. She sat back hard. “They were right there,” she said, bemused. “I saw them. They were right there.”
Kandra climbed back up the steps, shaking her head slowly. “Something is happening,” she said. “A change. Can you feel it?”
Leela did not know what to say—she was feeling altogether too many things to pinpoint any one in particular. “I saw something,” she said, and described the vision of that strange room to Kandra. “I don’t know what it means. I have never seen any place like it.”
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!”