The Alcazar

by Amy Ewing

  She ate her rice without tasting it, and climbed into bed before any of the other novices, making her breath come slow and even to give the illusion of sleep. The waiting was torture as she listened to the conversations fade out one by one, replaced by light snores and the shifting of blankets. Leela did not know how, exactly, but she sensed when the hour of the dark approached and sat up quietly. From across the room she saw Elorin rise. The two girls ever so cautiously crept out of the dormitory.

  Elorin followed Leela to Faesa’s statue, where Leela stopped and touched the Moon Daughter’s stone hands. They were bitterly cold, and she was reminded of the ice pops she and Sera used to suck on when they were girls.

  Open for me as you did before, Leela thought, and her heart spoke the words with confidence. She was not afraid.

  Markings appeared down the length of Faesa’s robes, and the statue slid aside silently; the only sound in the quiet dark was Elorin’s hushed gasp. Leela put her finger to her lips. Elorin’s eyes were big as saucers as she gazed down at the sunglass steps. The cold was fierce and Leela began to descend, keeping her hands on the walls to prevent herself from falling. Elorin’s footsteps were a faint patter behind her, and Leela drew courage from her presence.

  Colored lights began to shine as they neared the end of the stairs, and Elorin made a little whimper when she saw them but said nothing. When they reached the bottom, Leela waited patiently as the girl drank it all in.

  Glowing blue columns surrounded them, towering in icy splendor. Eerily lit green paths snaked around the crystal pools that dotted the floor, revealing clear glimpses of the planet below. It was utterly silent except for the faint hitching of Elorin’s breath.

  I see you, Sera, Leela thought, staring down at the outlines of Kaolin and Pelago. I know you’re down there.

  She met Elorin’s gaze and pointed toward the ceiling. Elorin looked up and let out a cry of shock that vanished in the cavernous space. The upside-down gardens or forest or whatever it was stretched out above them. Trees and bushes, wildflowers and ancient shrubs all grew toward them, as if Elorin and Leela were standing in the sky and looking down upon the earth.

  “The gardens wither and die the further out you walk,” Leela said. “Come. I want to show you the tether.”

  “What are those pools for?” Elorin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Leela said. “But I don’t think we want to step through one.”

  They crept forward, keeping to the paths and avoiding the pools. At last they came to the vast circular space right beneath the temple, where the tether shot up through the largest of the pools. It planted itself firmly in an enormous cone of moonstone with a glowing red heart in its center—ice-white vines surrounded the cone, golden fruit hanging among the brittle leaves. Leela was unsure how the High Priestess had managed to reach them—the ceiling was very high. Elorin looked as though she were going to faint as she stared in wonder at the finely wrought chain of magic that connected their City to the planet below.

  “The tether,” she whispered. “It’s so . . .”

  She could not find the word to describe it.

  “I know,” Leela said.

  “What is this place?” Elorin asked, gazing up at the vines surrounding the moonstone. “What are those golden fruits?”

  It was time to show her—no amount of explanation would do, and Leela herself did not have all the answers anyway. She beckoned Elorin closer and knelt by one of the ice-covered circles on the floor.

  Estelle, the symbols proclaimed. Leela brushed her hand over the ice so that it became clear.

  “That’s a Cerulean!” Elorin exclaimed, staring down in horror at Estelle’s hunched naked body trapped in the stalactite.

  Leela nodded solemnly.

  “Is she . . .” Elorin swallowed the word.

  “She lives,” Leela said. “See, she breathes. Her name is Estelle. She was a friend to Kandra—Sera’s purple mother—years ago. The City believed her dead from the sleeping sickness. But she has been here all this time.”

  “What does the High Priestess want with her?”

  Leela pursed her lips. “Not just her,” she said. She pointed to another circle, then another. Elorin clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “There is a Cerulean beneath every one of these?” she whispered. “But why? What for?”

  “I do not know,” Leela replied. “But I saw the High Priestess feed them the fruit from those vines.” She pressed a hand to the ice. “I don’t know how she uncovered these circles, though. I can only make them clear.”

  “That is more than I can do,” Elorin said, sweeping a hand over a circle with the name Vaana written on it. The ice remained opaque.

  “Hmm.” Leela did not know what that meant.

  “This is not right,” Elorin muttered. “This is unnatural. These Cerulean should not be trapped down here! This is not the City I know and love.”

  “I agree,” Leela said. “But until we know what she is doing with them and find some way to get them out of these icy prisons . . .”

  Elorin gripped her shoulder. “I cannot imagine,” she said, “how frightful and lonely it must have been for you. To know of all this and carry it entirely on your own.”

  Leela’s smile was tight but full of gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Elorin turned to the moonstone’s fiery red heart. “Is that where you saw Sera?”

  “Sort of. It is hard to explain. The moonstone gives me visions of her, of where she is and who she is with.” Leela quickly explained about the necklace she had given Sera. “I think it is connecting us—as if that stone is linked to all other moonstone in this City. But I cannot control it. The visions come as they please.”

  Elorin tiptoed forward and then curled up by the side of the pool. “Another vision will come,” she said. “Even if we must wait here all night. I believe in you, Leela. The power of this place . . . it recognizes you. Can you feel it?”

  Leela had not quite thought about it like that before. She sat beside Elorin and the two of them stared into the pool, watching the tether glint and twinkle as it stretched to the planet below.

  “Do you remember the story the High Priestess told us during the wedding season?” Elorin asked. “The story of Wyllin Moonseer and the forming of this tether.”

  “I do,” Leela said. “Though I am not sure how much of it I believe.”

  “Perhaps the High Priestess and Wyllin were not truly friends at all,” Elorin mused. “Maybe the High Priestess chose her the way she chose Sera.”

  “But Wyllin died to form this tether,” Leela pointed out. “And Sera was unable to break it. I always assumed it was because Mother Sun had not truly chosen her. That the sacrifice could not work because the choosing had been manipulated.”

  “Perhaps,” Elorin said. “I am only wondering what life was like in this City nine hundred years ago. How much has been lost or changed. How much has been forgotten.”

  Leela had been wondering that too. She wished there were someone else to ask, but only the High Priestess was left from that time.

  She did not know how long they sat for, but she was just about to suggest that they leave, her thighs growing numb with cold, when she felt another heart beating in her chest.

  “Sera?” she gasped. Elorin turned, pushing herself up onto her knees.

  “Do you see her?”

  Leela shook her head. “I can feel her heart.”

  “Does it speak to you? Like a blood bond?”

  “No. It is . . . calm. Slow and steady. Almost as if . . .”

  She looked at the cone of moonstone and the vision came and she welcomed it with joy. The room was small and dark, with a square bed and a single round window, like the one in the chamber of penitence but not so high up. The floor beneath her tilted and swayed gently. Leela saw the shapes of two figures beneath the covers, both sleeping. Suddenly, a girl sat up—it was not the same girl she had seen before, the tall one with curly hair and turquoise e
yes. This girl had brown skin and brown hair, disheveled from sleep, and though her face was half in shadow, Leela sensed a keenness in her gaze.

  “Sera?” she whispered, but Sera slept on peacefully. Leela saw the glint of gold around her friend’s neck, the pendant clutched tight in one silver hand. The girl was looking at the necklace too, and Leela wondered if she knew about the moonstone, what it was and where it had come from. They were sharing a bed together, so Leela imagined they must be friends at the very least, if not perhaps something more. Leela found herself glad that Sera had found someone who cared for her on the planet. She wanted to get a better look at the girl, she wanted to move, but she did not know how, when suddenly, Elorin was shaking her arm and the vision dissolved and Leela’s heart ached at the loss of Sera’s steady beat.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Someone’s coming,” Elorin whispered.

  12

  “HIDE!” LEELA HISSED AS THE UNMISTAKABLE SOUND OF footsteps came closer.

  She and Elorin hurried as quickly and quietly as they could, pressing themselves against the cold surface of a column only moments before the High Priestess emerged into the clearing. They crouched low and peered out to watch her as she circled the main pool, muttering to herself, to the tether, to the moonstone. . . . Leela could not be certain which and she could not make out what she was saying.

  At last, the High Priestess stopped and Leela saw her mask fall away, the ancientness showing on her face in hard, deep lines around her mouth and eyes, her irises darkening, her shoulders hunching as if she carried the weight of the entire City on her back.

  “I have resisted for so long,” she said, and it sounded like a confession. “But I must give in again. They need me. It is not enough. Not enough.”

  She held out a hand and a golden fruit fell into her open palm as if she had called it down from the vines. Her whole body seemed to tremble as she brought it to her mouth and took the first bite. The moonstone heart contracted, then pounded even more frantically, turning a furious crimson. The High Priestess moaned and Leela could not tell if it was ecstasy or agony or both. She took another bite and then another, until the fruit was gone and only a shimmering blue pit left. That she let fall through the pool and it flashed bright as a newborn star before burning out into nothing. The pool rippled, strange shapes and shadows passing over its once-clear surface, but Leela could not make them out from her vantage point.

  The High Priestess watched them with an unreadable expression, her eyes darting this way and that. Then she clutched her head as if in pain and her skin began to glow, silver at first, then blue, then as red as the heart of the moonstone. Elorin’s fingers were painfully tight around Leela’s arm and Leela herself clutched at the novice’s hand in terror.

  Leela could feel the heat emanating from the High Priestess’s tall frame, hotter than anything she’d ever felt before, a heat that writhed, that commanded, that consumed. One by one, the ice-covered circles containing Cerulean began to shine, a light so vividly white both girls had to shield their eyes, as the underground gardens were filled with their brilliance.

  Then the light and the heat were gone, snuffed out as quickly as a candle flame; when Leela looked, the High Priestess was herself again, her face young and smooth and beautiful, her skin silver as the moon. She gave a great gasp, pulling in air as if surfacing after a long time underwater, and lifted her eyes to the vines.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. She knelt by the pool and spoke to the tether like an old friend. “This was not how I meant it to be,” she said, her voice full of regret. “Perhaps it should have been me. Perhaps I would have been the better choice.”

  Then she stood and shuddered, and her gown rippled; she seemed to grow even taller. Without another word, she strode off down one of the luminous green paths and disappeared. Leela and Elorin waited, not daring to move or speak or breathe. When at last they felt it safe, they crept forward from behind the column and approached the pool. It looked the same as it had, crystal clear and still as glass.

  “Did you see those shapes that rose on its surface?” Elorin whispered.

  Leela nodded. “I couldn’t make them out, though.”

  “Nor I.” Elorin shivered. “And then all those lights and that . . . that heat . . .”

  “Who do you think she was talking about?” Leela asked. “When she said she would have been the better choice?”

  “Sera, maybe?” Elorin bit her lip.

  That didn’t make any sense, though. Something nagged at Leela, something she could not quite put her finger on. “We must go,” she said. “We cannot be caught out of bed.”

  “Yes,” Elorin agreed solemnly. Then she threw her arms around Leela. “Thank you for trusting me with this,” she whispered, her breath tickling Leela’s ear. “It is scary and sad and worrying and so many other things, but . . . I would rather know the truth and be frightened than remain ignorant and live a life wrapped up in a lie.”

  Elorin’s arms were hot in this cold place, her skin soft where it touched Leela’s, and she smelled of nutmeg and cedar. Leela felt a faint stirring inside her. It was so nice to be held.

  They hurried back up the stairs, and Leela found herself once again startled by the normalcy of her world. Elorin stood beside her, steadying her, giving her courage.

  And more important, giving her hope.

  The next day, as the sun set and Leela continued her work polishing the temple doors, the bells began to ring out, calling the City to gather.

  Leela climbed down from her ladder, putting it away before joining the other novices in laying out the cushions for the Cerulean to kneel on.

  “What is happening?” she asked Novice Cresha as they worked near the Altar of the Lost.

  “You will hear along with everyone else,” Cresha said. She was one of the novices who most resented Leela’s presence among them.

  “The High Priestess visited the birthing houses this morning at dawn,” Novice Loonir whispered when Cresha left to gather more cushions. “I think one of the purple mothers is pregnant at last.”

  Leela’s knees locked. Was it Kandra? She did not know why, but she was certain that if Kandra became pregnant, it would kill her. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but slowly, the grief would eat away until she was nothing but a husk of bone and forgotten magic.

  “My children,” the High Priestess said when the City had gathered. Her eyes were more vibrant today, her skin aglow like moonlight. Leela thought she could feel the heat of her from where she stood against the wall between Loonir and Cresha, but she may have only been imagining it. One thing was certain—she was stronger and more confident than she had been last night beneath the City.

  “I bring you glad tidings from the birthing houses,” the High Priestess continued. “Plenna Skychaser is with child.”

  The temple erupted in cheers. Leela saw Heena and Jaycin, Plenna’s wives, embracing each other tearfully as other Cerulean offered them their congratulations.

  “Isn’t it wonderful, Leela?” Loonir said, grinning at her.

  Leela forced herself to smile back. “Wonderful,” she echoed.

  She caught sight of Sera’s other mothers, who had not risen to their feet or cheered with joy at this announcement, but only clung to each other. Leela wondered if they were sad because Kandra had not been chosen, or relieved.

  “Such blessed news calls for a celebration,” the High Priestess commanded. “Let us go to the Day Gardens. A new generation of Cerulean is about to begin! Praise Mother Sun and her everlasting light!”

  “Praise her!” the Cerulean cried.

  “Come, Leela,” Loonir said. “We must go at once to the fermentation house in the orchards and gather as much sweetnectar as we can carry. What a joyous day! I confess I was beginning to worry myself.”

  “Worry?” Leela asked as she followed the throng of Cerulean streaming out of the temple.

  “It does not usually take so long for a purple mother to become pregnant,�
�� Loonir said, frowning. “Not all of them, of course, but . . . at least one should have been with child by now. Perhaps it is only because the seasons are so close together.” Then her face brightened. “But no matter! Plenna is pregnant. Heena and Jaycin must be so happy. I cannot wait to offer them my blessings!”

  Leela could not bear the thought of going to the Day Gardens and celebrating. Her stomach was in knots as she descended the temple steps. This felt wrong, another lie of the High Priestess’s, something unnatural. She reached the last stair and turned to look back at the doors just as the symbols began to swirl and shift. It took all her strength of will not to cry out, though she should have been used to reading them by now.

  Eat the fruit, they said.

  “Forgive me,” Leela stammered to Loonir. “I have a gift for Heena and Jaycin on my nightstand; I will meet you at the fermentation house.”

  “I can wait for—”

  “No, no,” Leela said. “You go on. I will join you in just a moment. What a blessed day!”

  Loonir acquiesced as a green mother swept her up in conversation. Leela scurried around the curve of the temple and paused in the doorway to the novice chambers, waiting for the crowds to pass over Aila’s Bridge in the direction of the Day Gardens. The shouts and cheers and cries faded away, but still she waited just to be sure. She hoped Loonir would have forgotten about her by the time she reached the fermentation house.

  The Moon Gardens were drenched in a honeyed light as the hour of the owl approached. The tips of the hydrangeas glowed jade-gold and Faesa’s statue was waiting for her with knowing eyes. This time, Leela did not even have to touch the statue. Markings appeared as she approached, as if they had been waiting for her, as if they knew Mother Sun had told her to come. With one gentle beat of Leela’s heart, the statue slid aside.

  The cold did not seem so biting as it had on her previous visits; perhaps she was growing accustomed to it. The winding stair felt familiar, the blue and green lights a welcome sight as she emerged into the cavernous space with gardens growing from above like a plant-filled sky.