The Alcazar

by Amy Ewing

  “She’s . . . gone,” Agnes said, her breath hitching in her throat as Vada held her. There was another loud boom and this time the wall shook, sending chips of rose stone down into the courtyard. Ambrosine may be gone but the Renalt was still very much here and very much a danger to Sera. She could not lose this chance to return home.

  “You’ve got to go,” Leo said, finding his voice at last and turning to her. The words tore at his throat on their way out but he swallowed down the pain. “You’ve got to get back to your city.”

  “I can’t just . . . leave you,” Sera said, looking helpless and torn.

  “You can’t stay here,” Agnes said. “You can’t let the Renalt get her hands on you. You’ve got to go home, Sera.”

  Sera blinked and a tear fell on her cheek, glittering like a star. “But—”

  Another blast from the cannon and this time it found its mark. A whole section of the wall crumbled, causing the Misarros to run for cover.

  “Sera, go!” Leo cried. “Go home!”

  Sera gripped the moonstone pendant in one hand. Her face was tender as she looked at him—he wanted to tell her how much he would miss her, how much she had changed his life, but the words wouldn’t come. Sera pressed her lips together, another tear following the first.

  There were two brilliant flashes of light.

  And when Leo looked again, Sera and Leela were gone.

  34

  Sera

  SHE’D WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE.

  When Sera had gripped the moonstone, she’d felt her heart pulled apart, her mind in knots. Leo was right, there was danger on Braxos and she needed to go, but the thought of leaving him made her chest ache and her lungs shrivel. Besides, she didn’t know how to get home—Wyllin had said it was about intention, but Sera didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

  But it seemed her moonstone remembered—it went cold in her hand and suddenly the thought of her City became bright and writhing inside her, and she could see it as clearly as if she’d called up a memory. She could see the banks of the Great Estuary and the glow of the moonflower fields, could hear the buzzing of the bees in the Apiary and smell the rich fruits of the orchards.

  Home, Sera thought with purpose, and her magic stirred in a way it never had before. The word was more than just a wishful thought. It held the power of a command.

  Then the world was spinning and her feet left the ground in a disorienting whirl of color at first, then fire, then she was in space and the stars were bigger and brighter than she remembered them. Leela was beside her, encased in a pearly mist, and Sera realized she was too. She hadn’t noticed it forming, hadn’t been able to make sense of anything. On her other side, the tether glinted and they were following its brilliant line, shooting upward at an incredible speed. It was the opposite of falling. It was like flying.

  But she had left them. Leo. Agnes. She had left them behind.

  Then she caught sight of the City, its cold stalactites reaching out for them, and they burst through the pool she had appeared in when she first spoke to Leela, landing on the icy floor and gasping for breath.

  She was back. She was home.

  But this was not the home she knew, this cold underground garden with Cerulean imprisoned beneath circles of ice.

  Leela helped her to her feet and hugged her close. “We’re back,” she cried.

  But Sera found she could not melt into the embrace. This was not the homecoming she had expected. This was not how it was meant to be. She was supposed to be happy, not torn. She was meant to feel as if her upside-down world had righted itself.

  “Leela!” Elorin’s voice cut through the silence. Sera turned and Elorin’s mouth fell open. “Sera,” she gasped. “You’re here. You’re here! Oh, but you both must come quick. The High Priestess has called for another choosing, and this time there was no ceremony. She has chosen you, Leela, to be sacrificed. She is saying you caused the sleeping sickness! She has called the congregation back to the temple, to announce it—even the purple mothers and midwives from the birthing houses. I only just snuck out. I was hoping I would find you here.”

  A piece of Sera’s heart was still back on the planet, but her own City needed her too. “We have to show them I’m alive,” she said. “Leela, we must show them the memories the way Wyllin showed us, all of them, hers and yours and mine . . . the memories that live inside us now. We can share them. Every Cerulean in this City must see the truth.”

  “Yes,” Leela agreed. “But there is something else they must see as well.” She turned to Elorin. “I need to bring Sera to the temple so that all can witness the High Priestess’s lies. I need to confront her myself. But there is another, deeper lie.” She gestured to the circles covering the floor. Sera saw markings on one that read Plenna and another that said Estelle. “You’ve got to release them, Elorin. You’ve got to feed them the fruit and bring them back to the surface. They deserve to be free. They deserve to face the woman who did this to them.”

  “Me?” Elorin squeaked. “Oh, Leela, I can’t, I never—”

  “You can.” Leela spoke with a confidence that compelled, that made the hairs on the back of Sera’s neck stand on end and Elorin’s eyes pop. “And you will.” She bent forward and gave Elorin a quick peck on the cheek. “You remember how it was done?”

  Elorin nodded, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

  “Good,” Leela said. “Bring them up when you have released them all. Clothe them from robes in the dormitory.” Her face softened. “They will be eager to see the trees again and smell the earth and feel the wind on their faces.”

  Sera felt a sharp pang of guilt at the thought of living so many years in her City unaware that Cerulean had been trapped beneath her. They left Elorin there, Sera following Leela down a green-lit path until they reached a staircase. When they emerged out into the Moon Gardens, Sera’s throat seized up and her knees locked together, tears pricking her eyes. It was all just as she remembered it. She gazed up at the temple, its spire twinkling at her as if in greeting.

  “Come on,” Leela said, and they hurried around to the front of the temple. As Sera looked up at the doors, she cried out, her heart slamming against her ribs.

  Home, the markings said to her.

  “Can you read them?” Leela asked. Sera nodded. “What do they say?”

  The word almost got stuck on its way out. “Home.”

  Leela gripped Sera’s shoulder, a fortifying gesture.

  “Are you ready?” she asked, and Sera felt like she was seeing an entirely new side of her friend, one she had never known existed. This Leela was still as sweet and caring as she had always been, but also brave and poised, with a fierceness that could not be denied.

  She has become a leader, Sera realized with a start. Though she does not see it yet.

  Leela pushed open the doors just in time for them to hear the High Priestess saying, “. . . ceremony will take place privately. Leela Starcatcher cannot be allowed to contaminate any other Cerulean. We must act with extreme caution. My acolytes will—”

  “There will be no ceremony,” Leela called out, and the entire congregation gasped in unison, hundreds of faces turning toward the two girls standing in the doorway. “The first one was a lie, and this one would be no better. See for yourself! Sera Lighthaven has returned to us.”

  Sera stepped forward, feeling the weight of all those eyes on her. The High Priestess looked utterly shocked, her acolytes confused except for Klymthe, who glanced to the High Priestess as if for instruction. Whispers of “Sera is alive” and “How can this be?” and “Sera, it’s Sera!” filled the sanctum.

  Then Sera heard a strangled wail and a voice called out her name and everything else faded to a blur as her purple mother came running up the aisle toward her, her green and orange mothers right on her heels.

  “Sera!” her purple mother cried, and Sera fell into her arms.

  “You’re alive, you’re alive . . .” Her green mother said the words over and
over as her orange mother sobbed into Sera’s hair.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks as Sera inhaled their scents, honeysuckle and peppermint and thyme, never forgotten even after so long on the planet.

  “I missed you,” she whispered. And yet she also knew in her heart that she was not the same girl who had fallen.

  Her purple mother cupped Sera’s cheeks in her hands, her face fragile yet alight with joy. “Leela told me and I did not believe at first,” she said. “I was so broken after you fell. Can you forgive me, my darling?”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Sera said. “As long as the stars burn in the sky, remember? I kept your love with me throughout all my travels on the planet. You never left me.”

  “How is this possible?” Freeda from the orchards broke the moment as she stood with her hands on her hips, her broad shoulders casting a long shadow across the kneeling congregants. “High Priestess, you told us Sera Lighthaven was unworthy, and yet here she stands.”

  “You said more purple mothers would become pregnant,” said Koreen, standing as well, much to Sera’s surprise. “And none have, and now Plenna is ill.”

  “We have never had to sit devotionals for fertility before,” Novice Cresha added.

  “And the birthing season came so fast on the heels of the wedding season,” said Baarha, the old cloudspinner.

  “Nothing seems to have gone right in this City since Sera fell,” Daina announced, clinging to Koreen’s hand.

  “My children, calm yourselves,” the High Priestess said. The moonstone in her circlet caught Sera’s eye, a sudden pinch of fear in her stomach.

  “No,” Leela growled, and then she was running up the aisle, Cerulean stumbling out of her way. She stopped at the foot of the chancel, glaring up at the tall woman who had once been their trusted leader.

  “I know the truth, Elysse,” she said, and Sera felt a thrill run through her as Leela called the High Priestess by her given name. “I have met Wyllin Moonseer.”

  At that name, the High Priestess’s eyes went wide. Several Cerulean close by gasped.

  “But Wyllin is dead,” one called out.

  “She died to form this tether!” another said.

  “This tether was not formed the way all other tethers have been,” Leela said. “This City has forgotten its true purpose. The tether is weak. The sleeping sickness is a lie. Wyllin Moonseer lives, trapped on the planet. And this woman”—she pointed at the High Priestess—“is responsible for the Great Sadness.”

  Freeda was looking at Leela skeptically and Koreen’s expression had changed too—Daina seemed ashamed she’d ever stood up and said anything at all, and Sera realized Leela sounded rather insane.

  But it didn’t matter. They could show the truth of her words.

  Sera stepped forward out of her mothers’ embrace.

  “We can show you,” she said, nodding to Leela. Sera felt her magic begin to sparkle as it connected with itself and with the power of the moonstone she wore around her neck, the power of memory, of connectivity. Her skin began to glow and her eyes burned. The Cerulean closest to her drew away, confused and frightened, but when Sera saw the self blood bond glowing within Leela, she found nothing frightening about her friend’s shining skin or blazing irises. Leela looked free.

  “I am not scared of you anymore,” Leela said to the High Priestess, and her voice echoed throughout the room. “You cannot stop us from sharing our knowledge with this City.”

  Then Sera felt Leela’s heart beating alongside hers and all the memories poured out in waves. Sera was dimly aware of each and every Cerulean in this temple, their magic like candle flames she could see and feel, bright spots of heat that grew brighter as the memories swarmed them.

  At first it was just Wyllin’s memories of the Great Sadness and all that had happened after. But then Sera’s own memories filtered in, falling to the planet, being captured and imprisoned . . . it pained her to remember the hard slats of the crate and the needle sinking into her skin when Kiernan drew her blood. But then the memories shifted and became softer, tinged with friendship and love, for Agnes and Leo, for Errol and Boris. The planet was wonderfully strange and frightening and new and unexpected, and Sera’s attachment to it was palpable, even through all the hardships it had caused her.

  Then Leela’s memories took over and the visions changed and she shared with their people everything she had seen and learned over the past weeks, since she had first overheard the High Priestess speaking to Acolyte Klymthe in the Moon Gardens. The doors, the fruit, the Sky Gardens . . . Finding the circlet. Releasing Estelle from the stalactite. The dream. The cache of moonstone. The High Priestess threatening her. And then Leela jumping through the pool, down to the planet as Cerulean had done in days of old.

  As they were meant to do.

  When at last the memories were spent, Sera and Leela came back to themselves. The temple was as silent and somber as the Night Gardens. Many Cerulean were rubbing their eyes or the backs of their necks, or blinking around as if unsure anything they were seeing was real. Some were crying or holding each other. Some were shaking their heads, dazed. Sera felt a faint crackle in her chest, as if her moonstone was saying, “Well done.”

  “Was that real?” Sera looked up at the sound of Acolyte Endaria’s voice. She was gazing down at Leela. “I felt . . .” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I felt so much. It had to be real.” She turned on Acolyte Klymthe. “How could you have been part of this?”

  “Sh-she made me,” Acolyte Klymthe stammered. “She said it was the only way. She showed me with her circlet, showed me what could happen if we didn’t . . . I was afraid, I only wanted to help.”

  “Silence,” the High Priestess snapped, then looked to Acolyte Endaria with a smile that might have once contained warmth but now was sharp and brittle. “Endaria, I can explain—”

  Acolyte Endaria stepped backward. “You have lied to us,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “You have lied all this time. How could you?”

  “Why?” It was timid Daina who spoke up, to Sera’s surprise. “Why would you do this?”

  The High Priestess looked trapped. She glanced behind her, as if searching for a way to escape, but then Acolyte Imima stepped up, blocking her way.

  “Where do you think you could go, Elysse?” Imima said. “There is nowhere to hide in this City. You must answer for these . . . these memories, these images we have seen. You have told us Leela Starcatcher is false, that she is dangerous. You have said Sera Lighthaven was unworthy. But we have felt their feelings and have lived the truth of them, and the only danger here is you.”

  “All I have done I did for my people,” the High Priestess protested. “Do you want another Great Sadness? You speak of the memories—you saw what Sera went through down there. They locked her up! They tried to steal her blood! Is that the future you want for this City, for our people? To be at the mercy of humans who do not understand us?”

  “Do not use my life to justify your falseness,” Sera said, and every head in the sanctum swiveled toward her. “If I had known . . . if you had not stolen our magic and our knowledge and our history, I could have communicated with the humans from the very beginning. Yes, there are those who are greedy and arrogant and cruel, but there are also humans who are kind and loving, who risked their own lives and futures to return me to this City. We are meant to explore, we are meant to learn, we are meant to give back what we take from the planet. We are meant to be so many things we have been denied. I always thought I was the only one in this whole City who was different. But I know now that is not true. You have made us think we are all supposed to be the same. But that is not what Mother Sun intended. You kept us in one place for so long, we forgot ourselves. But we remember now.”

  “What would you have done?” the High Priestess demanded. “If you were in my place. You think you know so much, Sera Lighthaven, because you have been to one planet. Well, I have been to many! I have seen things you could never dream o
f. You think you know so much about our purpose? We are safe here! How is that not better for our City? Why should we risk the journey through space, the dangers of planet after planet, when we can stay right where we are!”

  “Because life is risk,” Leela said as if she was hardly able to believe she had to explain this to a centuries-old woman. “Life is uncertainty and danger. You have dulled our minds and our hearts. You have kept us so still and sedentary that Mother Sun could not find us any longer. That is not the way to be a Cerulean.”

  Sera felt her throat swell as all eyes turned back to Leela. Their people were looking at her with unabashed admiration.

  “I must admit,” Freeda said. “I have always thought about visiting the planet. But I never wished to acknowledge this, not even to myself.” She turned to Sera. “I am sorry that I called you a nuisance. Perhaps I was envious. It seemed so easy for you to express your wishes out loud.”

  “I always wondered about the tether, too,” Daina said. “If there were ever people who tended to it. I am sorry, Sera, that I made it seem as if you were strange for thinking so. I simply did not want to be seen as strange myself.”

  Sera’s eyes were brimming with tears once more and her mothers were gazing at her, their faces alight with pride. Her purple mother took her hand and squeezed it gently.

  “You were happier that way!” the High Priestess shrieked. “I kept you safe here, I kept you healthy and whole, I—”

  “You stole from us,” Leela said. “You took our friends and our family and our purpose, but most of all you took our magic. So that you could stay young and strong.”

  “This City needs a leader,” the High Priestess insisted. “Only I can protect it.”

  “Like you protected them?” Elorin’s voice rang from the doorway.

  She strode into the sanctum, and once again the air was filled with gasps and cries, as the hundred-odd Cerulean who had once been imprisoned beneath the City filed in after her.

  35

  Leela