The Seer

by Sonia Orin Lyris

As she arrived at the kennels, she found herself comparing the dogs and the eparchs and finding the eparchs wanting. Once you had established an understanding with the dogs, they didn’t change their minds and try to renegotiate. Yes, they tested you, but they tested in the open, without subterfuge and endless posturing, and when they were sure of you, they stopped challenging. It had taken her time to understand all this, weeks of talking to the handlers, watching her father’s dogs in an attempt to make some sense of what he’d seen in the beasts. Then, to her astonishment, she had begun to. It was as if, as she sat outside the cages watching Chula and Tashu observe her, she had begun to take their measure in return. To understand their scent as they understood hers.