The Alcazar

by Amy Ewing

  Wyllin swallowed. For a long moment, the two women held each other’s gaze.

  “What would you have me do?” Wyllin asked.

  “I would imbue you with my own strength, my own power,” Elysse said. “And you would keep your moonstone on you. You would survive the fall, though you would lose most of your blood along the way. But my magic can sustain you long enough for you to reach the ground, where your own magic will replenish. You can keep the tether strong. Keep the planet healthy. The planet is always at its strongest when a Cerulean is on it, remember? Keep us in one place, keep us safe. Could you do that, Wyllin? Are you brave enough, and willing? I know what I ask of you, my dearest friend. If I could do it myself, I would. But I cannot abandon my people, not now, not when hope is only just beginning to blossom in this City again. They need me, do you see?”

  And Wyllin did see—this City was broken. To suffer the loss of its leader would be a devastating blow, one that it might not recover from.

  “I see,” she said, rising and trying to find her courage. “And I accept.”

  The scene dissolved and they were back below the City and Wyllin was dragging Elysse out of a stalactite, her prayer robe sticking to her skin, her breath coming out in shallow pants.

  “Are you all right?” Wyllin cried. “Oh, Elysse, speak to me.”

  Elysse opened her eyes, but it was not Wyllin’s face she gazed at.

  “Look,” she croaked.

  Wyllin turned and saw a golden fruit had blossomed among the green and pink vines surrounding the cone of moonstone. She gasped and the fruit fell to the ground with a plop.

  “You must . . . eat,” Elysse said, her words faintly slurred.

  “How much magic did you take from yourself?” Wyllin demanded.

  Elysse’s smile was blurry. “Enough. My strength will return. I know it. Give me time.” She turned her head toward the fruit. “But you must eat.”

  With trembling hands, Wyllin picked up the fruit and took a bite. A wild gasp escaped her lips—it tasted like blackberries and honey, like the sound of her green mother’s lute, like moonlight on the leaves of an apple tree. Wyllin felt herself fill with an exquisite power unlike any she had ever known and it thrilled her and terrified her in equal measure.

  And then she was in the Night Gardens, standing on the glass dais, and Elysse was cutting the skin on the insides of her elbows with the ancient iron knife. Wyllin’s heart stuttered but she steeled herself. Her people needed her, even if they did not know it. She had taken her moonstone out of its setting and hidden it in the pocket of her robe so the Cerulean would not know she kept it with her. She was grateful for it, for its warmth, for its connection to the City.

  “Good luck,” Elysse whispered, so that only Wyllin could hear. She turned, the blood flowing down her arms, and jumped from the dais.

  33

  Leo

  THEY RETURNED TO THE PRESENT WITH A JOLT THAT SENT a shock through Leo, even though he hadn’t moved at all.

  The courtyard was too bright after the dimness of the Night Gardens. Leo felt mixed up, so many emotions coursing through him, most of them not even his. He could still feel Wyllin inside his mind, her thoughts, her fears, her terror as her feet left the dais.

  He turned to the others; Agnes looked winded, Sera dazed, but Leela seemed to be one step ahead of them all, and Leo felt like she was satisfied in some way, as if she had finally found a missing piece that completed a puzzle.

  “So that is why she has lied all this time,” Leela said. Then she shook her head. “Her motives may once have been pure, but they have become twisted and rotten. She clutches her power now. She does not want to relinquish it.”

  “She has been through so much,” Wyllin said, sinking to the ground as if her legs could no longer support her weight.

  “So have you,” Leela pointed out.

  Sera found her voice at last. “What is a planet-keeper?”

  Leo had noticed that as well, when Wyllin had mentioned the Cerulean who’d stayed on the planet of ice and roses.

  “A Cerulean who finds her purpose on a planet,” Wyllin explained. She mopped at her brow, Sera’s necklace still clutched in one hand. “There was usually one, sometimes two, who would find a deep connection to a planet—whether it was romantic love, or friendship, or simply a love of the planet itself. It was often a traveler, but not always. Those were some of the most bittersweet goodbyes, a Cerulean who chose to leave her City.”

  Leo tried very hard to ignore the way his blood was suddenly pumping through his veins, the tiniest ray of hope lighting up inside him. Sera was not a planet-keeper, no matter how much he might wish her to be.

  “What’s a traveler?” Agnes asked.

  Wyllin seemed bemused by him and his sister, as if she could not understand why they cared so much.

  “Travelers were the first to go down when we tethered to a new planet,” Wyllin explained. “They would seek out life, assess the level of danger or intelligence, the richness of the earth and how long a tether might be able to hold. They would be the first to communicate, to make contact with the inhabitants if contact was deemed safe or necessary. Of course, there would be no more Cerulean travelers now. And there are no tether-tenders either, are there?” She dropped her head into her hands. “What have you done, Elysse?”

  “So there were Cerulean who once looked after the tether,” Sera said.

  Leela grinned. “Koreen will have to eat her words.” Then she frowned. “I am confused about something else, though. Elysse loved a male. That does not seem possible.”

  Wyllin gave her a curious look. “But of course it is possible. There are Cerulean who love men, though I admit they are rare. There are Cerulean who love men and women, and Cerulean who have no interest in romantic love at all. There are Cerulean who love planets more than people and Cerulean who enjoy the physical expression of love but not the emotional. Not every Cerulean is meant for a triad. Not every Cerulean is the same.”

  Sera seemed to be thinking very hard about something and Leo kept as still as he could. When she turned to Leela, there was a fierce sort of determination on her face.

  “It is possible,” she said. “I am proof. I am attracted to males, Leela. But I did not know it until I came to this planet. Finally, I understood every part of myself.” She gazed up at the crystal-blue sky. “I had wondered if there were others in our City like me. Or not like me. Cerulean that are different in other ways.”

  Leela’s eyes bulged. “Males?” She rubbed her forehead then and shot Leo a furtive glance. “Are you attracted to that male?” she whispered as if Leo wouldn’t be able to hear her, standing where he was.

  Sera laughed and Leo felt a sharp tug in his chest, knowing this might be the last time he heard that sound. “I was not at first,” she said. “But yes. I am now.”

  Leela looked Leo up and down with a sort of hesitant mix of approval and curiosity, and he hoped he appeared more cool and collected than he felt. All this discovery, all this new information about the City Above the Sky, it was all leading to one thing: Sera leaving. Agnes had tears in her eyes and Leo wished she wouldn’t—he wanted to be strong now. He didn’t want Sera to see him falter, to see just how much it would hurt him to lose her.

  “The tether must break.” Wyllin had risen to her feet, breathing heavily. “The City must move. The tether cannot provide for much longer. And then the City will die, as it nearly did during the journey after the Great Sadness. The moonflower fields will wither, the seresheep and the bees and the birds will perish, the Estuary will dry up . . . and Elysse will cling to it anyway. Because her guilt has crippled her.” She ran her fingers along the edge of the fountain. “We used to speak, from time to time. I could see her through my moonstone, hear stories of my home and news of my friends. And then my magic and my stone grew weaker until at last this fountain froze over and I saw my City no more.” Her eyes gleamed for an instant. “I got the moonstone out, though, before it froze,” she muttered
. “I did that at least.”

  She held the pendant out to Sera, who took it and slipped it back around her neck. “This moonstone is yours now. Take it and return. But know that a sacrifice must be made. You fell before, and you—”

  Then Wyllin gasped, staring over Sera’s shoulder.

  Leo turned and saw Ambrosine striding into the courtyard, Hektor and a group of Misarros at her heels. Hektor had a spear pointed at Matthias; one Misarro had a blade pressed to Eneas’s throat, and another held Vada, sporting a freshly blackened eye, in a chokehold. Ambrosine herself looked slightly worse for wear after the climb, her hair lank and sticking to her face, her clothes torn and stained with sweat and dirt.

  “What are you doing?” Agnes cried, as Leo instinctively moved to stand in front of Sera. “Let them go, don’t hurt them!”

  Ambrosine ignored her. She looked from Sera, to Leela, to Wyllin, her face gaunt and greedy. Then she turned to the fountain. Though neither she, nor Agnes, nor Leo himself could see the tether, he was certain she could feel the energy humming from it the way he could. It made the back of his teeth ache, it made his mouth water and his toes itch and his spine crackle. It spoke in a wordless whisper that made him think of green fields and warm summer days and the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.

  “The power here is tied to Culinnon,” Ambrosine said, moving forward with a crazed gleam in her eyes. “I can feel it in my veins.” She inhaled deeply through her nose. “It declares itself for me.”

  “Who are you?” Leela said, and Leo could not help but be impressed at her fearlessness as she stared down the most powerful woman in Pelago. But then, what was Pelago to Leela?

  “Ambrosine Byrne,” Sera growled. “She is related to Agnes and Leo.”

  “Byrne?” Wyllin asked. “Did you say Byrne?”

  Ambrosine tore herself away from the tether she could not see, ignoring Leela and focusing her attention on Wyllin.

  “I am Ambrosine Byrne, matriarch of—”

  “But I met a Byrne,” Wyllin said. “Soon after I fell. She found this island; she came to the Alcazar and I gave her gifts.”

  “Errol and Boris,” Sera gasped, and Leo felt another ripple of shock run through him. It all made sense. The Arboreals called Sera “Mother.” The mertags were devoted to her.

  “I do not know those names,” Wyllin said to Sera. “But I planted a strand of my hair and a tree grew out of it, a tree with silvery bark and turquoise leaves. A tree that could multiply and help replenish what the tether took from the earth. And then I cried a single tear into this fountain and a fishlike creature appeared, similar to the fish I had loved on Orial and yet different. And he was meant to keep the waters pure and healthy. The Byrne promised me she would spread this wealth throughout the planet.”

  “She lied,” Leo said.

  “I spoke to the Arboreals on the island of Culinnon,” Sera told her. “They have been kept there, imprisoned, ever since that day. The Byrne family has coveted your gifts instead of sharing them.”

  Wyllin put a hand over her mouth. “But that is not how it was meant to happen,” she said. “This planet must be dying.”

  Leo thought about all the droughts in Kaolin, the wildfires and the poisoned waters and the desiccated farms. The planet was dying. And it made sense now, why Pelago was always so fruitful when Kaolin was not—they had a concentration of Cerulean magic in this country, and regardless of whether it was being shared properly or not, it was certainly giving Pelago an environmental advantage over Kaolin.

  “How do we fix it?” Agnes asked just as Ambrosine said, “Share? The people of this planet wouldn’t know what to do with them if they ever got their hands on them. They need to be safe, they need to be tended by someone who knows, who respects them.”

  “No, they don’t, Mother,” Matthias said, speaking for the first time. “Alethea was right all along. Their power was meant for everyone, not just Byrnes.”

  “That is exactly the sort of traitorous comment I would expect from a man who abandoned his family,” Ambrosine said, and Hektor jammed the butt of his spear into Matthias’s back, forcing him to his knees. “Weak and a coward, just like your father.”

  “Are you really going to hurt me, Hektor?” Matthias asked. Hektor pointedly avoided his gaze.

  Leo couldn’t stand it any longer. He was sick of watching people fight over something that wasn’t even theirs to begin with. “There’s nothing here for you,” he said to his grandmother. “There’s no power you can wield or control. It belongs to Sera and her city. It gives their city life. You can’t own that. Don’t you see? There are bigger things than some stupid plan to raise yourself up, to rule over a handful of islands. Wyllin just told you our planet is dying and all you can think of is Culinnon and your family legacy and keeping power for yourself.”

  “I see you inherited your father’s arrogance,” Ambrosine said to him, her voice dripping with disdain. “That does not surprise me. Agnes, however . . .” She looked at her granddaughter and shook her head. “I thought we had an agreement. I thought you and I were going to change the world.”

  “I never said I would join you in those plans.” Agnes looked frightened, but stood her ground, her eyes flitting to Vada, still struggling against the Misarro. “I never wanted to change the world. I came here to be my own person, to study science. I thought I came here for you, too, for a connection to my mother, but you can’t give me that, can you? No more than my father can. You both hoard her. You’re both so wrapped up in yourselves.” She jutted out her chin. “I am Alethea’s daughter. She didn’t want what you were offering and neither do I.”

  “I told you, Mother,” Hektor said. “She is ungrateful. Let us go, let us leave them here. The shores are filled with gems; we can take the riches and return to Culinnon.”

  “I am not returning to Culinnon until I have the power the scrolls promised,” Ambrosine said, turning on her eldest son with an expression of utter contempt. “And I am not leaving Agnes, no matter how many impassioned speeches she makes. Even if your wife were to somehow manage to produce a child, it would have nowhere near the claim Agnes does. Besides,” she said, her nose wrinkling, “Bellamy would probably just have a boy anyway, and then where would we be?”

  Leo could not believe how cruel Ambrosine was to her own offspring. There was something perverse about it, like she enjoyed taunting him. He recalled the memory from his father, when Alethea had said, “I think that island has made my family crazy.” Crazy, perhaps, and also cruel.

  “There are no riches here,” Wyllin said. “Those jewels you saw on the beaches were illusions. If you were to try to take them off of Braxos, they would turn to dust in your hands. Once the tether is broken, this whole island will crumble into the sea.”

  Hektor looked stunned, his spear trembling. Just then there was an enormous boom that made everyone in the courtyard jump.

  “The Renalt,” Ambrosine said. “That stubborn bitch. You’d think she’d have given up when we destroyed most of her warships.”

  There was another boom and the ground beneath them shook.

  “Perhaps we should go, mistress,” one of the Misarros suggested. Ambrosine silenced her with a look. Then she turned to Wyllin.

  “This is your island,” she said. “I see it now. What is your price? What do you want? I will give you anything you ask for. You met my ancestor. We have a connection, you and I. I swear to wield this power only for good.”

  The lie was so obvious it was almost sad. Wyllin looked at Ambrosine for a long moment, her eyes clear as dawn, revealing nothing. At last, she said, “I will show you. But it will destroy you.”

  Ambrosine’s lips curled. “I’d like to see it try.”

  Wyllin sighed and waved a hand over the fountain. Ambrosine gasped. She must be able to see the tether, Leo realized with a start. But he couldn’t, and judging by the way Agnes was squinting, she couldn’t either. Wyllin’s words from before came back to him.

  I am the tether a
nd the tether is me.

  Ambrosine’s eyes grew round and bright—a dark hunger crept across her face and spread throughout her body, making her back hunch and her hands curl like claws.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, I see. I see it now. Oh, it’s beautiful. Magnificent. It’s . . .” She licked her lips. “It belongs to my family. It’s mine. Mine . . .”

  One claw reached out and Leo realized what she was going to do a moment too late.

  “No!” he cried instinctively, having no love for his grandmother yet not wanting to see what would happen once she touched the chain of Cerulean magic. But Ambrosine had already reached up, wrapping her hand around the tether that Leo could not see. For one endless second, nothing happened.

  Then she let out a choked cry, and her whole body was illuminated in a silvery-blue light—it shone out through her eyes, from the tips of her fingers, from each strand of her hair. She began to scream, and the light poured from her mouth in a torrent of brilliance. One long, high-pitched wail that pierced Leo’s heart and rang over and over again in his ears. The light coming from inside Ambrosine grew brighter and brighter, until she was engulfed in it, until her body was a mere shadow, an outline, and then there was a flash like a solar flare and Leo had to shield his eyes against it.

  When he looked again, all that was left of Ambrosine Byrne was bits of ash floating through the air.

  “She would never have let it go,” Wyllin said. “She would never have let it be until she saw it. It was consuming her thoughts and so it consumed her.”

  Agnes looked too shocked for words, which was exactly how Leo felt. Eneas was rubbing his eyes as if that would somehow help make sense of what had just happened, and Matthias wore an expression of horror. Hektor looked like he was going to be sick. The spear clattered to the ground as the other Misarros released their captives, staring numbly at the spot where Ambrosine vanished. Vada rushed to Agnes’s side.