Prolog

For as long as I can remember, I've been told stories of the old Welsh kings. They were the fairy tales we were told as children. Of Owain Glyndwr and his attendants and his poet, of how King Glyndwr was smuggled out of the country, out of this side of the world, sailed to America and hidden away there, a sleeping king awaiting his waking. The tale claimed that whoever would wake him would be granted a favor.

It's a tale that all children are told, but as such, it's a tail that many stop believing as they get older. By the time they're teenagers, they don't believe in tales about sleeping kings anymore. By the time we're teenagers, reality is supposed to have set in and we're meant to understand the supposed truth that these sleeping kings are really dead.

I never understood that though. I couldn't. Along with growing up about tales of sleeping kings, I grew up with stories about ghosts and magical places and a dream path that connected it all. My parents told me these stories along with ones of the sleeping kings.

All parents pass things to their children. Hair color, eye color, habits, knowledge. My parents passed to me an unusual sort of knowledge. They passed to me journals tracking the dream path, and when they died, I inherited their money and their journey.

After my parents were buried and I made sure the estate in my home of Machynlleth, Wales, I left to travel the same route that King Glyndwr took, starting back in his home, at his castle, and then following it to the sea. This was where my parents' exploration had stopped, but their research hadn't. They had a map that marked out the way by sea that Glyndwr must have taken, and I set sail to follow it.

And that's how I arrived in Henrietta Virginia, where my parents' research ended, and mine begins.