Free God of the Abyss by Rain Oxford

nightmares anymore. It was a mystery to me and the other
gods that when my son was born, I started having them again. They were rare at
first, but as the years passed, they were increasingly frequent.
    More and more lately, when Mordon and I were
together, my dreams would be a mixture of gods, dragons, fire, kings, and
childhood. When it first began, I couldn’t understand why I dreamed of flying,
but when Mordon told me he was having dreams of my wife that were far too
intimate, I realized that somehow our ability to speak to each other in our
minds crossed into our sleep. We were sharing dreams.
    Unfortunately Mordon’s childhood was, for the most
part, as bad as mine. My sleep was shallow and mostly involved a major dragon
fight. The weird part was that I was Rojan and I was fighting Vretial… who was
also a dragon. We would both alternate between person and dragon, but he kept
trying to step on me.
     
    *          *          *
     
    I woke to the sound of huffing, hissing, and
snapping. I immediately assessed my condition, but couldn’t find anything
wrong, so I opened my eyes. Three feet from the mouth of the cave were two baby
dragons dueling. Mordon sat watching them with Sammy and Ron eating some bread
and fruit behind him. The boys were both fascinated by the dragons. If either
of the battling reptiles got too close, Mordon would snarl and they would back
off.
    Mordon tried to hand me some fruit, but I didn’t take
it. “I’m not hungry,” I said. I wanted to get going, to get to the bottom of
this. There was no way a Guardian could be a traitor.
    “Eat,” he growled.
    I took the fruit, but grumbled about it. A few
minutes later, Marnd came by and chased away the little dragons. He pleaded
with Mordon to take the position of their leader, only to be brushed off in a
nearly rude display of disinterest. It seemed that whatever childhood
friendship Rojan and Marnd had, it was broken when Ron was threatened. Mordon
chased him off.
    “So I had a moment to talk to Marnd last night. The
reason I couldn’t smell the dragons ahead of time was because Rojan’s sister
found some kind of plant residue that disorientates dragons. Also, my father
was here a few months ago, asking about it.”
    “What do you think?” I asked. “Is he trouble, or is
he in trouble?”
    “At this point I don’t know. Whatever it is, we can
deal with it later.”
    I flashed us all back to Edward’s cabin.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten about Meri. I covered Ron’s eyes and Mordon
covered Sammy’s, because Meri was sitting at the table, dressed only in one of
Edward’s shirts. Edward sat across from her, a fair bit more decent.
    “Hello, Dylan,” Meri said, giving me a polite smile
before continuing with her breakfast.
    She didn’t even try to cover herself, but I guess a
woman like that never had anything to be ashamed of. Divina was the same way.
    “What’s wrong?” Edward asked, immediately assuming we
were in trouble. We usually were. Mordon just gaped at Meri.
    “The gods think that one of the Guardians is a…
Mordon, stop staring. They think one of the Guardians is a traitor,” I said.
Then I put my other hand over Mordon’s eyes when he continued to stare at Meri.
Edward has fought men much bigger than Mordon for a woman and I needed my
friend in one piece to help me.
    Meri gave him a kiss and said she would leave him to
his work. Thinking the show was over, I removed my hand from Mordon’s eyes.
Edward’s girlfriend then pulled the bedroom door up and when she bent down, I
thought Mordon would die. Meri was undoubtedly gorgeous and had a truly amazing
figure, but I had Divina. It wasn’t even that Divina was more beautiful than
Meri; Divina was perfect for me. I liked the mischievous, calculating aspect of
my wife, the innocence hidden behind her darker history, and that she loved to
sleep late.
    Ron blinked when I took my hand away. “What did I
see?” he asked. “Mordon’s heartbeat went