Free Honeyed Words by J. A. Pitts Page A

reward was a slow death.”
    “Loki was killed?” Katie asked.
    “Where have you been?” Gletts asked, obviously disgusted. “If they were around, do you think they’d let the dragons run the show?”
    Suddenly I remembered a dream—Odin crucified to a tree, imploring me to find the others, his children and his people.
    “The dragons killed all the gods?” I asked, fearing what the answer was.
    “Yes, obviously,” Gletts said.
    “Maybe not so obviously,” Skella said, patting me on the arm. “You must be new at this.”
    This caused Katie to laugh. “Gods, dragons, giants, elves—”
    Gletts bowed at that last.
    “—yeah, I’d say we are new to most of this.”
    “I think they are not all dead,” I said quietly, hoping not to unbalance the world. “I believe one of them lives.”
    “Not possible,” Gletts said. “The wyrms kill any that are reborn. They’ve killed whole villages, burned whole towns, on the rumor that one of the elder gods has been reborn.”
    Interesting , I thought. Were the dragons slipping? Arrogance brought down the elder gods. Could history be repeating itself with the dragons?
    “And if I told you I met one of them?”
    Skella reached forward and grabbed my arm. “You speak true?”
    “He vanished,” Katie said, watching me.
    I nodded. Woden, the one-eyed god, had ridden in the back of my poor dead hatchback at one time. I’d saved him from attack by two brutish giants, and he had blessed or cursed me, depending on your outlook.
    I lifted the hair off my face and leaned forward so Skella could see the runes buried in my hairline. “He touched me, brought fire to my mind.”
    Gletts hovered over Skella’s shoulder as she peered at my forehead. “Blessed mother,” she whispered. “We are doomed.”
    Before we knew what had happened, they both turned and ran across the concrete. The moment their feet were on grass once again, they faded, disappeared.
    “What the hell?” Katie blurted out, running to the lawn. “They just vanished.”
    “Aye,” I said, not bothering to move. “This may have been a huge mistake.”
    She walked back toward me, puzzlement written on her face. “What happened?”
    “Not sure whose side they are on, after all,” I said, picking up my pack.
    “But they seemed to really hate the dragons.”
    I shrugged. “That was pretty abrupt.”
    She watched the tree line, thinking. “Maybe we should head back to the hotel. They mentioned Ari was snatched by dwarves, but they never really said how they knew.”
    “True,” I said, slipping my arm around her waist and steering us toward a taxi stand just outside the park. “If they are in cahoots with the dwarves, and they think we are trucking with elder gods, maybe we are working to cross-purposes.”
    “None of that makes any sense.”
    I looked at her. “We just spent the better part of a day with two elf kids dolled up in goth clothing. We discussed dragons, shape-shifting elder gods, and dwarves. Why would the possibility of them knowing about the dwarves because they were helping them be that far a stretch?”
    “Elves hate dwarves … all the literature says so.”
    I looked at her. “By all the literature, you don’t mean The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons, do you?”
    She smacked me on the shoulder, which I deserved. “Elves are children of the light. Dwarves, children of the night.”
    Which brought my mind back to that poor dwarf kid, murdered for trucking with dragons.
    The cab ride was mercifully mundane. Katie lay her head against my shoulder and closed her eyes. She’d been up earlier than me, and we’d had a pretty long day of hiking around. It had been a decent enough day, but I wanted to get back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. We were going for Indian food. Katie wanted something spicy; I was sure I could find something to like. They’d have chicken, right? and bread?
    Back in the room, Katie flopped down on the bed, mumbling something about a nap.