Graymore is a dragon hunter. Natalie Yacobson

but it is deceptive.»

      «Does she turn into a dragon?»

      «No, but she breathes fire. Her worshippers use the sickle as an instrument of murder and sprinkle the blood of their victims over the withered fields to summon her. Once the blood is spilled over them, black rye will grow in the fields, producing monsters that will point to where her living statue stands.»

      «What is all this for?»

      «To bring the apocalypse closer and the arrival of her full power over a ruined world. There are many of her admirers in your country.»

      «I don’t know about her. They honor the queen of the fairies, whom no one has ever seen, the elf king, who only came to visit my father, and the horned goddess of the looking glass, the sparkling goddess of the moon and stars, the goddess of the rainbow, and the gods of war. I revere the latter the most. War is my calling.»

      «It is only with dragons!» stressed the skeleton.

      «Only dragons attack in more recent times.»

      Many hunters for easy money went to war against Livellin. It’s a rich country. Why do you think there aren’t as many people conquering the country?»

      «I don’t know!»

      «There’s something evil in the country. It’s black and dark. Even I feel bad about it, though I’m almost a black wizard myself. It is almost… Sometimes I can do good things. I give advice to you. You’re sweet and young and unspoiled. You could easily be seduced by bad advice, but I refrain from it.»

      «I carry presents for you.»

      «Gifts are worthless. They are only a courtesy. There are many sorcerers who would cheat you and kill you for your own gifts.»

      «Are not one of them?» Graymore teased him.

      «You are still alive and well and unaffected by evil spells.»

      «I feel like I burn alive when a dragon flies near my borders. Many would say that is the spell. I have been bewitched! I have been thrust into a quest to fight monsters in which I may die.»

      «You can’t!» The skeleton’s eye was the judge of that. «You have special blood. Golden blood is the symbol of chosen one.»

      «Should I go after the special dragon, or should I sit in my castle and wait until he gets here?»

      «I told you he’s not coming here.»

      «Why is it not? Is that what the mirror says?» Graymore, no matter how hard she looked, all she saw in the mirror was wild woods. There was no writing on the glass which told her fate. Apparently, the skeleton wizard saw more.

      «I’m drawn to this strange dragon,» Graymore admitted.

      «Is it more than to other dragons?»

      «It is much more! Could he be the death to me?»

      «You are nineteen years old! It is not yet time to die!»

      «There was a queen in my family who drowned when she was nineteen. They say she became a mermaid.»

      «More like a mistress of watermen.»

      Graymore was embarrassed. The skeleton knew something compromising about her ancestors. He himself had lived nearly a hundred years before he took poison in that tower and became a dead counselor to the kings of the Livellin dynasty.

      «Will you not help me make my decision?»

      «You must make it yourself.»

      «But I brought you a hoop. You took it, so you must pay for it,» she reminded him.

      For a moment the skeleton stared into the mirror, silently, and surely he saw something there that Graymore herself did not see.

      «If you go, you solve all your doubts, if you stay, you betray yourself and scold yourself,» he admonished.

      «You are a slacker! I knew that.»

      «But it’s the only sensible advice I can give you.»

      Graymore stomped her foot. She felt like yelling at the dead advisor, but that wasn’t wise. Fighting with a wizard, even a dead one, was too dangerous.

      «Well, thank you!» She said. «I hope your advice will be more meaningful next time.»

      «There won’t be a next time,» the skeleton called out to her at the exit.

      «Why is it not?» Graymore looked around with interest.

      «This dragon is your destiny.»

      «What do you mean by that?»

      The skeleton made no reply, but in the mirror she flashed a glimpse of the most beautiful dragon Graymore had ever seen in her life. He had burned an entire horde of goblins. They were coming to sort things out with him over territories. One dragon’s breath was enough to take them all out. And with such a dragon she would have to fight! Admiration and martial spirit struggled within Graymore.

      «He burned a kingdom the other day,» the skeleton reminded her.

      «I know.»

      «If you don’t go to him, next time he might burn the whole of Livellin. He’s got the strength for it.»

      Now, that was an ultimatum, coming from a skeleton. Graymore is sick and tired of the dead wizard speaking in riddles.

      «I’ll go!» She made up her mind.

      Graymore unfastened the ruby belt around her hips, threw a cascade of dark serpentine curls behind her back, and showed her tongue to the sleepy magic mirror, which stubbornly refused to show her dragon a second time.

      «Remember the golden statues of the dragon deity,» the skeleton warned her as she grasped the doorjamb. «It sleeps in the thicket, but you cannot go near it. If you go near it, you might not survive. It is unless your blood is indeed golden. Then you are a chosen one.»

      Graymore nodded dryly.

      «I have noted all the instructions. Is there anything else?»

      But the skeleton was already asleep. He looked dead and motionless. She could no longer believe that he had been alive and talking, even arguing with the ruler a moment ago.

      The magical mirror showed a picture of a dragon massacre of some village that did not belong to Livellin’s domain. Graymore could see the stranger’s banner. Knights tried to defend the village, but they failed. One dragon was stronger than all of them. Had they known that one girl could be stronger than an entire army! But they did not have her support, so they died in dragon fire.

      «Someday dragons will do to you what you did to them,» the mirror whispered.

      The horned fairy of the looking-glass must be joking with her. Though is she capable of speaking through a magic mirror? She usually lives in ordinary mirrors, not magic mirrors.

      «You do not know how to distinguish friend from foe,» whispered the ghostly lips, traced on the amalgam.

      The skeleton adviser did not respond to the whispers, so Graymore decided to ignore them as well. Everyone knows that the spirits of the looking-glasses deliberately mess with the heads of people who stare in the mirror. That’s why you can’t look in mirrors for long, or the ghosts will drive you crazy.

      Graymore slammed the tower door as she went, and dozens of spiders spilled from the jamb to the hem of her dress. The tower had long resembled a tomb. And no wonder! After all, the skeleton counselor sat there.

      It was time to learn to live without his advice. Her only real friend and advisor was her battle sword. In anticipation of the dragon hunt, Graymore remembered it. The sword had never failed her, and magicians and magic mirrors could lie.

      Golden Laurel

      The spring archery contest was held according to all the rules. The