A young Cuileán Abel reaches one of his first postings as a King’s Ranger. There’s something odd going on, and it needs to be looked into. His detachment has their hands full, being undermanned. What is he going to find when he gets to work on this problem? A short story in the author's Cadealith Chronicles universe. From the author: I got the idea to write this short story in the process of writing Wizard's Apostasy. In the novel, Senior Ranger Isabella D'Aurico makes an offhand remark to Sir Jorah about something that Master Ranger Cuileán Abel did as a young King's Ranger. I wrote that dialogue and got maybe three more lines down when the creative part of my multitasking mind coughed up the idea. And then, it wouldn't let go. Seized me by the proverbial throat, actually. So, I decided to stop for a moment. I thought about that idea. I reread the draft dialogue. I wondered about what the hard-bitten Master Ranger was like as a young man? I know I'm not like I was as a young man, but there are still plenty of similarities between younger- me and now-me. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Wonder what exactly he did that people still talk about it twenty years later?” And so, a story was born. I've included it here, with some edits from my original draft. Also, after I wrote “King's Ranger,” I started thinking about other characters. It wouldn't be fair to give just Cuileán Abel a story of his own, so there are some other short stories in the pipeline. I will put them in a separate companion book, as I write them. Enjoy. JB Steele