“How dare you!” The voice was sharp and cracked like rotting ice. “You lied to me…after you swore...perhaps I will see to it that you do join the dust that carpets your floors.”
“I still hold that promise. I am helping you. I tell you, it makes perfect sense,” said Capella.
“Sense?” the young woman screeched.
Chester the frog was peering at the woman from under his nest of dreads. “Sirrush was correct,” said Capella. “Orin is not the only one.”
“But she is not the right one,” snapped the other woman as she paced the room. The floorboards creaked and dust swirled around her bronze leggings. She stopped and curled her fingers around a hanging spider thread. “No matter. I will get them back.”
Capella sat up. “How did you know?”
The laugh in response sent tingles up Capella’s spine. What else had she seen? Capella prayed that the woman hadn’t discovered her secret.
“You think I can’t watch you in the very hut I imprisoned you in? You have grown stupid as well as old,” said the woman.
A spider scurried towards the vibrations in its large web, then turned to ash when the threads glowed electric blue. She dropped her hand and the light vanished. The web hung untouched but empty.
“I know you want your freedom so,” she sighed dramatically. “I trust you won’t steal from me in the future.”
“Of course.” Capella said with relief. The woman did not know that she had found a crack in the powers chaining her to the hut. She decided to goad her jailer some more. “But, it will be Ava, not him. On that you’re wrong.”
The blue eyes that shot at her would have quickened any pulse. Capella stared back until the eyes turned away.
“He has another purpose. The dragon told me as much,” said the beautiful young woman, pacing towards the window.
“Does he now…and what, pray tell, did your chummy lizard friend say? How do you know he doesn’t have his own means to an end. Your little chosen boy may just be a bloody beginning to a bloody end just like yours will be.”
She was so quick that Capella barely had time to cast her arms up and deflect the spell. The air shimmered like heat radiating from Capella’s hands as the woman hit the shield and stumbled backwards. The knife clattered to the floor.
“How dare you,” snarled the woman. The blade flew from the floor and slapped into her open palm with a flick of her wrist.
The blue sparks on Capella’s arms ceased, but the other woman didn’t attack again.
“How dare I?” Capella said. Chester’s eyes were practically popping out of his head as he peered through her tangles. “I am not a murderer.”
This time she wasn’t fast enough. Droplets of blood flew from her cheek as the knife sliced through the air and sailed back into its owner’s hand.
“Murderer? She is our destruction, and if not for him everything is lost.” The woman’s face was crawling with blue light like worms under her skin. Her nostrils flared, and the woman’s jaw was so tightly clenched that Capella almost thought she heard a tooth crack.
“I wasn’t talking about Orin and Ava,” Capella whispered, wiping the blood from her wrinkled face.
The light vanished from the woman’s face, and she looked as pale as her silver-blonde hair. She raised her chin and peered down at Capella. “I did that for the good of our people. For our survival. You know that. You didn’t oppose me then.”
“That was then.” Capella slowly sat down into her rickety chair. “I gave her the necklace not because I oppose you, but because I believe she will be the one to change things.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I don’t know. I believe. I feel it.”
The woman snorted.
Capella continued, “We have run out of time. If she doesn’t succeed then your folly will truly be our ruin. There will be no more guardians, as Sirrush said. She is the last connection to our past. The gateways will never be found without her.”
She didn’t move when the woman stepped closer and leaned over. Her breath felt cool on Capella’s cut.
“She won’t succeed,” she hissed into the withered ear. “She’s just another sacrifice to tip the scales.”
The woman walked away and Capella watched the silvery ends of spider webs seem to meld into her hair as she wafted past them.
“Tip the scales?” Capella called out to her. “You do realize the scales are already tipped against us. If she dies, then our scale will be empty.”
The youthful fingers dragged across a shelf, leaving trails in the dust. Her head whipped around. “I thought I would mention, I know about the bat.”
She laughed as Capella stood up so quickly that she nearly toppled over.
“Enjoy another lifetime in your castle of dust, sister.” In a flash she was gone, only motes were caught in shafting sunlight where she once stood.
Chester croaked.
Capella had one hand on the chair, and one clutched at her chest. “All we can hope for is that Sparkle has reached them all in time.” Her voice was heavy as she flopped back into the chair. It groaned along with her sigh.
“Croak.”
“No, we can’t turn her into a larva. She already is one.”
Chester bounced down onto the table, croaked, and looked up at her.
“I don’t think she knows. If she knew her magic was growing weaker, I would be a toad myself right now.”
“Croak.”
“Say that again and I’ll throw you into a hornets nest. I most certainly won’t kiss you. You’re not my type.”
She put her hand out, and Chester flopped into it then onto her face before climbing ungracefully back into her hair.
“No reason to be so grumpy,” she mumbled as she shuffled over to her door. A breeze was blowing through Lula’s sea of coral petals. Capella watched the flowers wave across the hillside for a time before giving a long sigh. “Well, I think it’s safe for now. Her little visits are always so invigorating. Best be going before she comes back.”