Dear Risa,

  Long gone are the days when I had the hope of seeing you again soon. On my current journey, every hour takes me farther from your emerald gaze. Alas, Risa dear, I know not when our paths shall cross again, but I dare hope it is not too far in the future.

  …Is it “farther” or “further”? Does anyone really know? Does anyone care?

  I’m bored. In case you couldn’t tell.

  But it’s not the “I don’t have anything to do” bored, it’s the “I’m waiting for something to happen, and when it does I’ll be super busy so I can’t start any projects, but I don’t know when that thing will happen” bored.

  Right now we’re heading west from Dragon’s Pass. If you look on any given map, you will find that area covered in one distinct geographical feature: mountains.

  I thought I knew mountains. They’re these big things that you have to go up and then back down, or sometimes around. Right?

  Not these mountains! These are long and jagged. There’s no real… start or stop to them. There’s lots of peaks, sure, but the height is continuous, with the height above shore level changing by miles vertically for every half-mile horizontally.

  Basically, today we have been traveling along a thin road with cliffs on both sides. To our left, the cliff goes straight up into the clouds. To our right, the cliff goes straight down into a ravine with a teeny tiny river at the bottom. There’s plenty of lovely waterfalls around, and lots of places where it’s obvious rockslides have happened recently.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  All day I’ve been waiting for a rockslide to come straight down on top of us. I know it’s gonna happen. I’m glad the earthquakes are over, because girl, I’d just give up and die if an earthquake happened while we’re here.

  The towns are built in wide spots on the road. If there’s a wide enough gap between mountain peaks, there’s a town there. I don’t think I’d like living in one of these places that’s so cut off from the rest of the world. Sure, it’s pretty here, but knowing that on any given day there might be a rockslide and no travelers can come through for like a week while it gets cleared and the road is rebuilt… Yeahhhh nooooo thanks.

  Although, Maki is downright glad the things pulling our wagon have wings now. In his mind, liondrakes will be a heck of a lot safer than horses if there’s a rockslide. With horses, we’d all be dead. But the liondrakes will use their wings to make sure the wagon with their food and nap spot in it stays in one piece. Which, in turn, will mean the people inside the wagon will also stay in one piece.

  So for the record, that’s me: loves the prestige of having liondrakes around. Cali: super thrilled about having giant flying murder kitties as pets. Maki: appreciative of their ability to fly and doesn’t want to replace them. Luke: still not convinced they won’t eat us someday, but not actively suspicious.

  And if Echo were around… No, I won’t think about Echo. I’m still mad at her.

  Hmm, I’m still bored, but now I want to ruminate on Echo’s betrayal rather than write. I’ll go do that. You can’t stop me.

  Regards,

  Maeve Zee