Kristofer had loved the princess of the forest since he was nine years old, and today he meant to prove he could fight for her. He stood in the training yard at first light, a wooden sword in one hand, sweat already running down his neck. Green and silver banners hung from the rafters. Straw targets lined the far wall, scarred from ten years of his arrows. He grew up in the stone cottage on the hill, but he had grown up here too, in this yard, chasing one plan. The hero trials came at week's end. Only one boy from the forest could enter. Kristofer wanted that place more than anything, because winners were named heroes, and heroes were presented to the royal family. He would finally stand before her. He would finally matter. He set his feet and swung at the wooden dummy. The armored figure rocked and held. He swung again, harder, aiming for the joint the way the old drills taught him. The dummy spun on its post and struck him across the shoulder. Kristofer stumbled back and laughed at himself. His calico cat watched from a hay bale, tail flicking, unimpressed. "You could pretend to cheer," he told her. The cat blinked. Kristofer wiped his palms and tried once more. This time he ducked the spinning arm, stepped inside, and drove the point into the joint. The dummy cracked and toppled. He stood over it, breathing hard, grinning like a fool. He was ready. He knew it now, in his hands. Then he saw the notice. A square of paper was nailed to the post by the entrance. He had walked past it in the dark. He crossed the yard and read it twice to be sure. The trials were canceled. A beast had come out of the deep woods, the paper said. It had taken sheep, then a shepherd. The royal family had sealed the eastern forest and called every trained fighter to the hunt. Boys need not apply. Kristofer lowered the paper. Ten years of drills, and now no door to walk through. No trial. No hero's name. No moment before the princess. But the notice named the danger, and it named the reward. Whoever ended the beast would be called a hero by the crown itself. Not a boy who won a game with wooden swords. A real one. He looked at his cracked practice dummy. He looked at the sealed road east, past the banners, into the dark line of trees. His cat jumped down and pressed against his leg, as if she already knew. Kristofer folded the notice and pushed it into his belt. He did not need the trials anymore. He walked back to the cottage on the hill to gather real steel and a real pack. The beast had taken his path from him. So he would go and take it back.

By noon Kristofer stood at the edge of the sealed woods, steel on his hip and his pack on his back. He had drilled for a duel his whole life. A duel meant a marked ground and a clear foe who faced you. This was different. The trees grew close and dark, and the ground gave no path. He did not know where the beast was, or how to find it. He walked in anyway. Branches scratched his sleeves. Roots caught his boots. He looked for the beast the way he looked for an opponent, straight ahead, waiting for it to step out and fight. Nothing came. An hour passed. Then another. He circled the same fallen log twice before he knew it was the same log. He stopped and dropped his pack against a tree. His hands were empty of any plan. Ten years of footwork meant nothing here. He could not duel a forest. A soft weight pressed his leg. His calico had followed him from the cottage. She wound past his boots, then trotted a few steps into the brush. She stopped and looked back at him. When he did not move, she flicked her tail and went on. Kristofer almost called her back. Instead he watched where she stepped. She did not push through the tangle. She followed a thin gap in the ferns, a low channel worn in the dirt. He knelt and put his hand flat on it. The soil was pressed down, smooth, wider than any deer trail. Something heavy used this path. He had walked past it three times without seeing it. He crouched and looked closer. A tuft of coarse gray hair clung to a broken branch at knee height. Ahead, the ferns lay bent all one way. He could not track a beast, but the beast had made its own track. It had cut a road through the woods for him to follow. Kristofer swung his pack back on. He drew a knife and scored a mark in the bark, so he could find his way out. Then he stepped onto the pressed trail and walked where it led. The cat kept ahead, ears forward, sure of the way. The trail climbed a low rise and turned. The trees thinned. At the top Kristofer smelled it before he saw it, a thick reek of blood and wet fur. Below him lay a clearing torn open. Ripped branches. Dark stains on the grass. Bones. He crouched behind a trunk and made himself breathe slow. He had found the den. He knew now where the beast slept. He also knew, from the size of the bones, that it was far bigger than he had let himself believe.

Kristofer crouched behind the trunk and watched the den. His cat sat beside his boot, tail curled. Then she stood. Before he could grab her, she slipped past him and trotted down toward the clearing. "No," he hissed. "Come back." She did not stop. She wove between the bones and vanished into a dark gap under the rise. Kristofer's chest went tight. She had led him this whole way. If he lost her here, he had no guide out. He would wander until the beast found him. He could not wait. He drew his knife and crept down the slope after her. His boots slid on the bloody grass. He reached the gap and squeezed in. The passage narrowed into a low cave that smelled of ash and old smoke. He heard her first, a soft chirping mew. Then he saw two shapes in the dark. His cat stood nose to nose with something. It was small, no bigger than she was, with folded wings and scales patterned red and black and orange, like her own patches turned to armor. A young dragon. It looked up at him and did not run. Kristofer froze with the knife raised. The little dragon pressed close to his cat and made a thin, frightened sound. He saw its ribs. He saw the scrapes on its side. This was no beast. This was something the beast had penned here. He lowered the blade. "Easy," he said. "Easy now." He held out his hand. His cat rubbed against the dragon, then walked to him, sure as ever. The dragon followed her. It sniffed his fingers. Its breath was warm. It let him touch its neck. A long shadow crossed the cave mouth. Something huge shifted outside, and gravel rattled down the slope. The beast had come home. Kristofer scooped the cat under one arm. The little dragon climbed his sleeve and clung to his shoulder. He backed to the far wall and found a second gap, a crack of gray light. He pushed through it into the ferns above the den. He ran. He did not look for his knife marks now. He followed his cat, who twisted from his arm and dropped to the ground and took the lead again. She cut a line down through the trees. The dragon rode his shoulder and did not weigh much at all. Behind them the beast roared. The sound shook the branches. Kristofer ran until his legs burned and the roaring fell away. He stopped at last against a tree, gasping. His cat sat panting at his feet. The little dragon looked up at him with trusting eyes. He had not slain the beast. He had done something else. He had taken its prisoner. Now the beast knew his scent, and it would hunt him. And he carried a small live thing that could not defend itself. "Well," he told them both, catching his breath. "We are in it now."