Chapter 1

The wind whipped around her, blowing her hair in circles around her head. She shivered and stumbled forward trying to catch her balance amongst the tall grass that surrounded her legs. As she stared out across the barren field she realized with a start that she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Her head started to spin and she was suddenly assaulted with a strange chill running up her spine. Looking out in the distance she collapsed with a strangled cry as she saw someone appear out of nowhere. Tears seemed to rip themselves from her eyes as the dark figure came upon her.

"Do not be alarmed my dear Rosie," a soothing voice spoke to her.

She looked up into his startling sapphire eyes and immediately felt tiny; miniscule. His eyes held ages of experience of a past she couldn't fathom. He held out his hand and she tentatively reached out to grab it as he pulled her to her feet.

"You have a very challenging future, one that I have no doubt you will succeed in. He spoke so softly that Rosie had to strain to make out the words.

She looked up at him with confusion etched into her face and he soon elaborated.

"The boy with the ebony hair and cobalt eyes must be saved no matter the cost. The whole of existence relies on him and he is in your hands. I have faith in you Rosie, we all do, but you must be wary."

Rosie caught the angry flash of his eyes as he continued to speak.

"Many will try to thwart you and persuade you otherwise, but you must remain vigilant. Do not forget what I have told you."

He gave her a small smile and when she blinked he was gone.

Rosie gasped and sat straight up in her bed reaching frantically for the light. She flipped it on, and was relieved to find herself in her room surrounded by her familiar possessions. Blinking rapidly, she saw the room come into focus and tried hard to control the onslaught of emotions that attacked her mind. What the hell had just happened? She had no idea who the mysterious man from her dream was and more importantly, she had no clue what he was talking about. It had felt so real standing in that field with the wind rushing all around her.

At loss of something better to do, she flipped off her light and lay back down to try to fall asleep. It was useless. Her thoughts would not stray from the strange man with his strange words. An hour later, with a hopeless sigh, she pushed herself up from her bed and resigned herself to the fact that she would be getting no more sleep that night.

'Might as well do something useful.' She thought as she pulled her laptop up from the floor and switched it on.

For the past month her English class had been delving into Arthurian Literature, something she had no interest in whatsoever. She couldn't imagine why they would possibly need to study a fairytale in such detail in 12th grade. They weren't little kids any more. She supposed it would've been fine to study the stylistic genius of the many writers of Arthurian legend, but really, what use was it to her that the great sorcerer Merlin supposedly had a fear a cats? It was just her luck to get stuck with the only teacher who actually cared about this stuff. Mrs. Morgan definitely took it way more seriously than her colleagues.

Done with her inner rant, Rosie opened her document that housed her enormous term paper describing the relationship between Merlin and Arthur, or Merthur as she preferred. She still had a month to complete it, but with the lack of sleep she had been getting recently, she reckoned it could probably be done by the end of the week.

After a solid hour of nonstop typing, Rosie felt herself beginning to doze off. She beamed a lopsided grin at the wall at the thought of Mrs. Morgan watching a student fall asleep to her "revered fable."

With a smile plastered on her face, Rosie pushed her laptop aside and collapsed onto her pillows grateful that she was going to get some sleep after all.

She woke up to find herself face down in what appeared to be grass although she couldn't see the top of it. With a groan she rolled herself over and picked herself up into a delirious standing position. When her eyes focused she discovered that she was standing in the middle of the same field she had met the dark stranger in.

Taking more care to notice her surroundings this time, she spun around in a circle devouring the environment with her eyes. They fell upon a thick forest to her right and she immediately started walking in that direction, although unsure of why. It's not like she had a particularly strong desire to explore forests that could be crawling with any number of dangerous animals, but for some reason she felt drawn to it. Like she needed something inside of that forest.

And despite the little voice in the back of her head telling her that it probably wasn't the best idea, she continued on until she found herself surrounded my tall green trees and muggy feeling air. She kept up her pace not really caring where she was going, but knowing that she would end up where she needed to be.

Without warning, she felt herself being pushed forward by a pair of small hands and tumbled to the forest ground seconds before she heard the undeniably lethal sound of an arrow whistling past the spot her head had been moments before.

She landed with a crack on a rock that split into her head sending a blinding pain all the way through her body. Trying to remain conscious, her eyes searched for the person who had just saved her life. Connecting with a blob in front of her, her eyes found the concerned face of a gangly boy with dark hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen.

"I found you," she whispered with a smile before descending into unconsciousness.

The concerned boy's face morphed into confusion for a second before quickly becoming one of concern once more. Using all the medical training that he had soaked up over the years, he did the best he could to clean this strange girl's wound and bandage it with a piece of cloth from his shirt. When this was done he picked the girl up off of the ground and tried his best not to drop her as he clumsily made his way back to the hunting party he had left minutes ago.

"MERLIN!" An agitated voice yelled, and the blue-eyed boy grimaced as he turned to answer the call.

"Sorry Arthur, I got a bit distracted." He turned with a sheepish smile to show the prince the girl that he had discovered.

Arthur rolled his eyes at his idiot manservant before turning his attention to the girl.