Long white fingers, untouched with age, swept over the dead rose bushes. For a moment they blossomed then flew from the vines, creating a gentle whirlwind of colorful petals. They continued to swirl, changing colors, from orange to red to violet, following their conductor's dancing hands. The figure, with long blonde hair like sunlight melting down her back, continued sweeping her hands over hundreds of bare rose bushes in the crumbling courtyard, leaving a cyclone of petals in her wake.
She flicked her wrist. Where the petals once floated now fluttered hundreds of purplish-black butterflies. She glided to the stairway, regally advancing up them towards a solid stonewall.
“Oh there you are,” chided a crackling voice as she materialized through the wall into a plain chamber.
The hidden door sealed her inside with her guest. She raised her chin at the stooped old figure awaiting her arrival.
“Are you sure we won’t be detected?” said the old woman. “I cannot stay here long. Her power is still very strong.”
“Yes. I’ve wound concealing spells into the stones themselves,” the youthful woman answered. She stopped a few inches from the infested nest of hair before her. A frog peered out at her and blinked. She wrinkled her nose at it. “What do you have to tell me?”
The frog croaked.
“Shut up, you,” said Capella, jabbing it with her finger. “Pestering amphibian. She is not a Gorgon.”
The frog croaked again.
“Yes, well, I suppose she might be. Shall I put you on her head then?”
“Enough, enough. We don’t have much time,” said the beautiful blonde woman, waving a hand. “Did you give her the fragments?”
“Of course. She’ll know what to do with them eventually. Don’t worry your pretty face, or you might get wrinkles.”
The woman looked past her, eyes staring blankly at the opposite wall.
“Where are they traveling to?” she said.
“The Monoliths.”
They were both silent for a moment, then the younger woman spoke, “The Monoliths, why? Does the unicorn suspect anything? Are they being followed?”
“I doubt it. Maybe she has another reason for going to the soleon’s lair.”
“Why is Mira taking her there?” Her face was taught as she turned on Capella. “They’re wasting time.”
Capella shrugged. “If the minds of dragons are slippery, then the mind of a unicorn is even more so. Far be it from me, or anyone, to tell a unicorn what to do. Easier to clip its horn.”
“Silence!” The woman spat, clenching her fists.
“Forgive me,” Capella said, bowing her head. Chester eyed the ground. “That is not what I meant to imply.” She looked up into the woman’s blazing eyes.
“We have to be careful, Capella. You can’t be discovered. We test the boundaries of these walls already. Her power is weakening, yet…what if it’s all too late.” It was not a question, but a statement of fear.
“You’re getting a wrinkle.” Capella pointed a bony hand at the woman’s forehead. “It’s right there.”
“This is no joke. Everything depends on Ava.”
“Shawna.”
“What?”
“She likes to be called Shawna.”
The woman pursed her lips and extended her hands. “Watch her, guide her, and find out what the unicorn’s motives are.”
“I will,” Capella said, taking the unblemished hands into her own.
The woman whispered the next question so quietly it was almost lost in the sighing wind outside the window. “Have you found him?”
“No, but Sparkle and I search everyday. You will be together again.”
Capella scrutinized the calculating face unaltered by time. She wondered, through blurred vision, what thoughts chiseled the marbled mind of her sister, Adhara.