Elara Moonpetal's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The unicorn stood strong again, but Elara had no idea where to search. She sat on the gazebo step while the sun dropped. The wing magic waited inside her, ready and useless. She needed a creature powerful enough to grow new wings, and she had never seen such a thing. Her fox pressed against her knee. The owl watched from the rail, its feathers dull with her worry. "I don't know where to look," she told them. "I don't even know what to look for." The owl's feathers flared. Red, then blue, then a sharp bright gold. It launched off the rail and flew a tight circle over the pool. Then it dove past a mushroom-roofed fairy house tucked among the ferns and landed on its glowing windowsill. It tapped the sill with its beak, hard, three times. Elara crossed to the little house. She had passed it a hundred times and never opened it. Inside, on a shelf, lay a folded cape. It shimmered like dew on morning grass. She lifted it. Beneath it sat a scrap of old parchment. The drawing on the parchment stopped her breath. A dragon. Blue and black and purple scales, wings wide as a barn door. Someone had written beneath it in faded ink. The words named the creature and named a place among the high crags where it slept. Her fox growled low at the picture. He did not like it. Elara did not like it either. A dragon could burn a grove to ash in one breath. But a dragon had wings, real wings, more than any creature she knew. If any living thing could give enough of itself to grow new wings, it was this. The owl hopped to her shoulder. Its colors held steady gold now, calm and certain. It had led her to the unicorn's cure. It had led her here. Elara trusted that gaze. She unfolded the cape and drew it around her shoulders. The cloth settled light as mist. It would hide her, she hoped, from eyes that hunted in the dark. She rolled the parchment and tucked it away. "A dragon," she said. The word felt heavy in her mouth. "We're going to ask a dragon." The unicorn came to the gazebo door and lowered its head. Elara laid her hand on its warm neck. She had a lead at last. She had a name and a place and a creature strong enough to answer. She also had a long climb toward something that might kill her before she said a single word. She would leave at first light. The fox stayed at her heel. The owl kept its gold. Somewhere in the high crags, the Azure Umbral Dragon slept, and Elara meant to wake it.