soul.
At a rest stop by a boat launch, I brought Sindari out for company. For the majority of the trip, I’d deliberately avoided doing so, lest his looming tiger presence scare the cat, but there was also the possibility that it would cause Maggie to fall silent. My rattled nerves were frayed after five hours of feline complaints, and an hour of quiet would be blissful.
Have you brought me into this realm to hunt vile enemies? Sindari asked when he formed between the car and a field of waist-high yellow grass with a few meandering trails through it.
No, to babysit the cat and talk to me.
Already, Maggie had fallen silent, though that might only be because I’d opened the passenger door and she could see the roadside wilds.
Babysitting is demeaning. Sindari’s nose twitched. I smell deer.
Which you wouldn’t be able to eat here.
True, but I can still chase prey.
Let’s not terrorize the prey, eh? Here. You can have the whole back seat. I opened the door and patted his spot.
He eyed the back seat of the sedan. This is very small. Your other vehicle was also too small when the roof was on it, but it was better than this.
I know. This is temporary.
Sindari, amid grumbling noises, climbed into the back seat, knocking my sword scabbard, pack, and gun off to make room for himself.
“Get comfortable, will you?” I mumbled.
The small feline rides next to you in the front? Sindari sniffed the ventilation window in the back of the cat carrier.
Maggie hissed.
She has to. You wouldn’t be able to fit up here. You barely fit back there.
This vehicle is not suitable for my large majestic form. It is… Sindari shifted so he could look out the window and toward the sky.
“What is it?” I asked warily, tired of being followed and tired of being surprised.
The sky was blue without a cloud in sight. Just that very large bird.
No, that wasn’t a bird. Nor was it an airplane.
Dread took up residence in my stomach even before it—he—flew close enough for me to sense.
The dragon, Sindari informed me.
Is it the same one?
How many dragons were you expecting?
I wasn’t expecting any, and then he showed up, flambéing a forest to try to get to me.
You did kill his wyvern.
That was my wyvern, damn it.
I stared at the sky, debating what I would do if he landed. Would he? Was he keeping tabs on me and annoyed that I’d come back to Oregon? Did he consider the whole state his territory now? We were more than a four-hour drive from where the wyvern had been, though I supposed that was a much shorter distance as the dragon flew.
Fortunately, the dragon kept flying and soon soared out of sight.
“Let’s hope it’s a coincidence,” I muttered.
Hissing came from Maggie’s carrier.
I frowned at Sindari. “Are you doing something to that cat?”
Absolutely not.
Why is she hissing?
She finds my size and magnificence intimidating, a reminder of her small and diminutive stature, which would put her at the mercy of wolves and cougars if she were in the wilds.
Or maybe she just doesn’t like you.
Another hiss came from the cat carrier.
As any feline will tell you, it is more important to be respected than to be liked.
I got into the car. As I headed back to the highway, Maggie hunkered down in her carrier. She switched from hissing to glaring frostily through the grate toward Sindari.
Even though it was the silence I’d hoped for, I felt bad about cowing the cat.
“You’ll like my mother’s house,” I told her. “It’s got all kinds of bookcases to climb on, and there’s a loft with tons of junk in it. She’s got a golden retriever, but you should get along fine. Rocket likes everybody. Cats, rats, squirrels, people. Everybody.”
Tigers?
We’ll see.
As I drove the car onto the highway, I realized something with a sinking feeling. We were heading in the same direction the dragon had been flying.
My mom had lived in the same log cabin in Bend since I’d left home at eighteen and joined the army. Back then, she’d been on the outskirts of town with a pine-tree-filled acre of land along the river. Since then, town had moved out to her and far beyond, with subdivisions full of expensive houses on tiny lots sprouting up like mushrooms after a rain. Fortunately for her sanity, her street hadn’t changed that much, other than that half the little homes had been replaced by boxy four-thousand-square-foot monstrosities with walls of windows.
She hadn’t cleared any of