Leela was dismayed when her first shift was assigned and it was with Novices Cresha, Baalin, Reeda, and Flesse. They were all older and none of them had ever been very friendly with her. So it did not surprise her that while they held candles and prayed around the statue of Aila, they spoke almost as if she was not there.

“Never in all my years have I seen anything like this,” Novice Cresha muttered to Novice Reeda.

“At least one other Cerulean should be pregnant by now,” Reeda said. “I’ve never heard of holding devotionals to encourage fertility. Mother Sun has blessed them. There should be no need for anything else.”

“The High Priestess is only trying to help,” Novice Flesse said piously.

“Yes, of course,” Cresha replied, but Leela could sense that there was no real conviction in her words. Her spirits lifted. It seemed the High Priestess could not erase the doubt spreading through the City for long.

“It feels as if nothing has been the same since Sera Lighthaven failed to break the tether,” Baalin said. Leela’s fingernails pressed into the soft wax of her candle. She hated the way Baalin phrased it, as if it was Sera’s fault.

“I wonder why there has not been another choosing ceremony,” Reeda said.

“Well, there wouldn’t be until after the birthing season, would there?” Cresha said. “We cannot risk the City’s journey to find a new planet until the next generation of Cerulean is born.”

“But that could be years,” Reeda said. “Surely if Mother Sun wished the City to move, she would not want it to be delayed for so long. Can the tether survive an entire birthing season?”

“The tether has survived for nine hundred years,” Flesse reminded her. “What is a handful more?”

“You are awfully quiet, Leela,” Novice Baalin said, turning to her.

Leela started and tried to look meek. “I am not as old or as wise as you novices,” she said. “My only wish is for this City to be healthy and well.”

That, at least, was not a lie. The other novices seemed placated and silence slipped around them, until their vigil was over and another group of novices came to relieve them.

The days passed and still no other purple mother became pregnant, and the devotionals continued. It seemed to Leela as if she would never make it beneath the City again, and her worry became a constant gnawing in her stomach.

“Be patient,” Elorin whispered to her one morning as they returned to the temple from the orchards, carrying baskets of pears and apples for the novices’ breakfasts. “A purple mother will become pregnant soon and this will all end. Then we can return and try to free Estelle.”