She did not return home until the hour of the lamb.
Her orange and purple mothers were in the kitchen when she stepped through the front doorway. Their voices sounded tense and strained, though Sera could not make out what they were saying. Or maybe she just didn’t want to hear.
“Sera?” they called at the same time, as if unsure it was her. Sera realized there might have been many visitors today, not just the High Priestess. Who else had come to call, hoping to see the chosen one? She was glad she had stayed by the hedge.
“It’s me,” she said as they came rushing into the sitting room.
“We were so—” her orange mother began, but her purple mother cut her off.
“We are so happy to see you,” she said.
Sera realized then, with a sharp twist of guilt, that she was being horribly selfish. Her mothers were losing a child. Leela was losing a friend. Would she hide herself away from the ones who mattered most, when she had so little time left to spend with them?
“I’m sorry if I worried you,” she said. “I only . . .”
She didn’t know how to finish her sentence without sounding awful.
“You needed some time on your own,” her purple mother said.
“Of course you did,” her orange mother agreed, but Sera could see the panic behind her eyes and wondered with a start if maybe her mothers had thought she was never coming home.
“Did the High Priestess not tell you where I was?” she asked.
Her orange mother looked startled. “We have not seen her since she left with you.”
Sera’s eyes widened. “You did not go to prayers?”
Her orange mother never missed prayers. Never, not even when she broke an ankle chasing a stray peahen in the Aviary and it took a full day before her blood had healed it.
“She would not leave this house until you returned,” her purple mother said.
“We would not have you come home to a house without all of us in it,” her orange mother said.
“You didn’t fear Mother Sun would be angry with you?” Sera asked.
Her orange mother strode up and looked her daughter in the eye with such ferocity of love, Sera felt her breath stop in her chest.
“She is a mother, first and foremost,” her orange mother said. “She understands.”
Sera blinked. She could feel the tears building, but she was not ready to give in to them yet. “Where is Green Mother?” she asked. Her other two mothers exchanged a look.
“She is sewing you a new robe,” her purple mother said. “For the feast tonight.”
“Leela said she would come by, if you wanted to go to the Great Estuary to bathe first,” her orange mother said.
Sera did not want to go out in the City and be stared at like some spectacle, but she had not bathed yesterday and she would be embarrassed to show up dirty to a feast being held in her honor. So she nodded.
“I am going to change into simpler clothes,” she said, and then headed to her bedroom without waiting for a response. She chose an old prayer robe that was plain and unadorned, nearly worn through at the elbows. She hung up her cloudspun dress, then collapsed onto her bed and stared at the mobile.
“I am a Cerulean,” she said aloud. “My blood is magic.”
The mobile spun slowly and offered her no comfort.
“Sera?” Her purple mother hovered in the doorway. Sera didn’t say come in, but she didn’t tell her to leave either. Why was it so difficult to talk to her mothers now, especially when she should want to be closer to them?
Her purple mother curled around her on the bed, resting Sera’s head in the crook of her shoulder. Sera could feel the lavender ribbon around her neck brushing softly against her own forehead, and she breathed in her purple mother’s honeysuckle scent.
“Your orange mother made that for you the day you were born,” her purple mother said, with a gesture to the floating stars. “Did we ever tell you that story?”
“Green Mother said that you all went to one of the birthing houses where it was very peaceful, and then a few hours later I was born and you took me home.” Sera repeated the story dully. Her birth held no interest to her anymore.
Her purple mother laughed, stirring up wisps of Sera’s hair. “Seetha likes to keep things short and sweet, that is certain.”
“It wasn’t like that?”
“Well, we did go to the birthing house, but we were there for more than just a few hours and it was anything but peaceful. Childbirth is quite a bloody business. Your green mother had to leave the room for a few moments.”
“Was Green Mother afraid?”
“Yes. She was afraid for me. She did not want to see me in pain.”
Sera sat up straight. “I hurt you?”
Her purple mother put a hand on Sera’s cheek. “Oh, my darling, it was a pain I would suffer again in a heartbeat. I have you because of it. And when the midwife placed you in my arms, so tiny and warm, I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.”
Sera threw herself into her purple mother’s embrace, the tears she’d managed to hold at bay tumbling over her lids and spilling down her cheeks, jagged sobs ripping through her chest.
Her mother held her and said nothing, and when at last the tears were spent, she raised a glowing fingertip.
I do not want this, Sera’s heart confessed in agony. She could feel her purple mother’s pain swirling around her own, an older, stronger grief, with wisps and curls of feelings she didn’t quite comprehend. For the first time, her purple mother’s heart had no words for Sera to read. Just pain.
“Sera!” Leela’s voice rang out cheerfully, and Sera could tell she was trying hard to sound like her normal, upbeat self. “Come, if you stink half as much as I do you must be dying for a bath!”
Her purple mother’s laugh was cut through with sorrow. “She is a good friend,” she said. Then she kissed Sera’s forehead, got up, and walked toward the doorway. Pausing and turning back, she added, “You will be loved long after the ceremony, Sera. Remember that. As long as the stars burn in the sky, I will love you.”
The Great Estuary was full of Cerulean bathing before the feast, naked and laughing, splashing about or eyeing each other with curiosity and desire.
When Sera arrived with Leela in tow, the laughter and shouting vanished as quickly as if she had clapped a hand over all their mouths.
“Don’t pay them any mind,” Leela said as they stripped off their robes and waded in up to their waists.
Everyone stared, even the adults. Some bowed to her, others murmured, “Praise her” or “The chosen one.” Plenna, Jaycin, and Heena were closest to them—they were a few years older than Sera and had been a triad for many months now.
She remembered what Koreen had said yesterday in the cloudspinners’ grove, that the wedding season was coming. The three girls would be getting married soon. And Sera was going to miss it.
“Good afternoon, Plenna,” Leela said with a wave. Plenna’s mothers lived in the dwelling next to Leela’s. She wished Leela didn’t have to be so friendly to everyone, and then instantly hated herself for thinking it. It was not Leela’s fault that Sera had been chosen, and they would all be staring at her anyway.
The girl gave a start and nodded at Leela, her eyes flitting back to Sera.