Gerald was soon skirting the fringes of the wood. As a child he'd both longed to meet and feared to encounter Ghillie Dhu, spirits of the forest. By the time he'd started training at Cair Parn he considered the Dhu a fairy tale. But now, looking across the moors as a late afternoon mist arrived, with the forest urging him to both stay and go, he wasn't so sure. He was alone in a land haunted by everyone who'd ever disappeared... whether to dragons, his fellow man, or something else. All he was sure of was his horse, his weapons, and his skills- and the latter were impressing him less by the minute.

He thought back over all he'd learned: tactics, skill at arms, the little he'd learned about dragons. He thought of Torquil, of Cuthbert, of visions, of dragons. He wished for a Great Crow to come, but then he remembered the crows could as easily tell the dragons of him as him of the dragons. He reminded himself of the king's speech, that he was a man, engaged to be married, that he dreamed true, and of his farewell kiss from Sally. The last memory carried him well into the moors and the mists.

Copyright 2015 Miles O'Neal, Round Rock, TX.

Illustration by Alli Ritchie.