“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

LEELA’S HEART WAS BURSTING AS ELORIN LED IN ALL THE Cerulean who were now free.

“Plenna!” Heena shrieked as she saw her wife, and then she and Jaycin were falling into Plenna’s arms.

“Estelle?” Sera’s green mother gasped as Estelle rushed to embrace Kandra.

“Iona?”

“Beleen! But . . . but you died, you . . .”

“Kirtha, is that you? Can it be?”

The group of Cerulean from the stalactites were swarmed, even the ones who were so ancient they no longer had family alive to welcome them. For a time, the High Priestess was forgotten as the Cerulean hugged and cried and rejoiced, gazing at each other with wonder and amazement. It was like they were all waking up from a very long sleep. Sera and Elorin joined Leela at the front of the temple.

“You did it,” Leela said to Elorin.

She beamed. “I did.” She turned to take in the room, the change that was happening, chains finally being broken. “We’ve shown them who they were meant to be, Leela. We’ve healed them.”

“Not yet,” Leela said, feeling crestfallen. “The City must move. There must be another sacrifice.”

Elorin glanced at the chancel, where the High Priestess was boxed in by her acolytes. “Perhaps it should be the High Priestess,” she whispered. “After all she has done. Perhaps it is for her to right this wrong.”

Leela looked to Sera to see what she thought, but her friend did not appear to be listening. She was clutching the necklace, her eyes distant.

“Sera?” Leela asked.

“I have to go back,” Sera said. “We have begun to heal our City, but the High Priestess’s schemes affected the planet as well. And my friends are in danger. I don’t know what the Renalt will do if she gets her hands on Leo and Agnes.”

Leela swallowed. She did not know what a Renalt was and she did not wish for her friend to return to the planet, but she knew when Sera had made her mind up about something there was nothing else to be done. She cared deeply for those she had left behind, Leela had seen that. And then she remembered a snippet of Wyllin’s memory—of how, before the City moved again, the Cerulean would go down onto the planet one last time.

“I will go with you,” Leela said. “We must give back what we took from this planet.”