“You sure?” Zamek asked.
Mimir took a long breath. “I’m going to be diplomatic, because that ax looks exceptionally sharp. So, yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
Zamek walked over to the giant and rested the edge of his battle-ax against his throat. “What dwarves?”
“Not even Hades himself could drag it out of me,” the giant said.
“He doesn’t know,” Mimir told everyone. “He’s trying to act all tough, but actually he’s scared.”
“Of dying?” Zamek asked.
“Of Fuvos discovering that he’s failed,” Mimir said. “Fuvos does not deal with failure well. Not really feeling a lot of sympathy for him, to be honest.”
“The shadow elves were here,” the giant said. “They were good playthings for so long, but eventually, like all things, they broke.”
Tarron moved like lightning, darting toward the giant, but Layla created a wall of metal between them.
“He’s goading you,” she said when Tarron punched the wall. “He wants to die.”
“Let him,” Mimir said. “He’s no longer useful to you. I’m going back to smoke some more.” He walked off without another word.
Layla removed the wall. “Go nuts.”
She walked over to the carriage as Tarron drove one of his swords into the giant’s eye. The giant screamed in pain. Flame cascaded from the wound, forcing everyone to get back as the fire fell over the grass. Layla reached out and turned the metal she’d used as a noose earlier into a spear that pierced the flesh under the giant’s chin and exited at the back of his skull.
“You okay?” she asked Tarron.
The shadow elf nodded. “I didn’t expect that.”
“He was preparing to attack,” Jidor said. “He will not be the only flame giant we face today.”
“No,” Layla said. “And I’m willing to bet he won’t be the only one we kill.”
Everyone climbed back into the carriage, and they set off at a fast pace. No one said anything on the journey back to Utgard, and Layla was thankful for the silence. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to deal with Fuvos. She was certain that Fuvos would prefer being killed to being taken for questioning, but there was so much they didn’t know and so much he could tell them. Through force if necessary.
“You need to see this,” Harry said, pointing out the window of the opposite side of the carriage.
Layla looked out and was horrified to see black smoke billowing up from the city of Utgard. She wondered just how much Fuvos was willing to do to the place he’d called home for so long and what would make him betray everyone who called him a friend. Layla banged on the carriage roof.
“I see it,” Jidor said from above.
I hope we get there in time to help, Layla thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
LAYLA CASSIDY
Realm of Jotunheim
Part of the city of Utgard was on fire.
The carriage raced into the city, bumping over cobblestone roads. Everyone was thrown into a tangle on the floor as it came to a halt. Before anyone could ask Jidor to maybe be slightly more careful about her passengers, she’d already leaped from her seat and was racing toward Fuvos’s home.
Thick black smoke billowed from the roof, and several dozen giants were throwing water on it in a futile effort to help quench the flames. The house was only a few hundred feet away.
Layla climbed out of the carriage and tried to figure out how best to help. “Hyperion, as much ice as you can manage, please.”
He changed forms without a word and took to the skies. A massive sheet of ice formed over the house, and a moment later the heat from the fire was already melting it, throwing up clouds of steam.
The constant rain from the ice would help, but it wouldn’t stop the flames.
“Kase, Tarron, anything you can do to get this fire out,” Layla said.
“And me?” Harry asked.
“See if you and Zamek can come up with a way to divert any water supplies to the effort. With your brains and his alchemy, there should be something you could do.”
Layla got the feeling that it was no accident that it was Fuvos’s home aflame, and whoever had started the fire clearly didn’t care about those houses next to his being caught in the inferno.
Layla considered using her power to smother the flames, but she didn’t want to leave red-hot metal all around the place. Instead, she manipulated the underground steel water pipes, bursting them up out of the ground and spraying water. Zamek and Harry found a large water tower on top of a building only a few away from Fuvos’s. With a few dwarven runes placed around it, the water shot out like a cannon, drenching everything that had caught fire around the building. When the fire was out, Layla put the pipes down under the ground—although someone else was going to have to come along and remove the foot of water that remained inside the property—and put the torn earth and stone back in place.
The smell of burning was all that remained of the blaze. As the giants thanked everyone for their help, Jidor arrived with two extravagantly dressed giants, one male and one female, whom she introduced as Tisor and Wedver, elders. Their robes were a mixture of yellows, purples, and reds, and they wore silver laurel wreaths. Both elders asked if they could all go somewhere to talk.
“How about Fuvos’s cabin?” Hyperion asked. “We were going there anyway.”
The two elders exchanged a glance as the rest of the team and Layla walked around the remains of Fuvos’s property.
“We know what happened to Goretis,” Tisor said. “He was in contact with us when one of Fuvos’s guards killed him. He will be missed.”
“Fuvos’s people killed him,” Jidor said with more than a hint of anger. “Because you knew that Fuvos was a traitor and didn’t stop him.”
Layla noticed that the last sentence she spoke was definitely not a question. “Let’s try not to piss off the people we’re here to help,” she whispered to Jidor.
“We knew he was working against us,” Wedver said. “We just didn’t know exactly what he was doing—or who was working with him. You included.”
The two elders had been joined by a half dozen giant soldiers, all of whom stayed a respectful distance behind.
“You worked with Fuvos?” Layla asked while Jidor walked off, clearly unhappy about how everything had gone down.
“He is a high priest,” Wedver said. “Worked with is probably an inaccurate term. We are separate branches of the governing system of this realm. We deal with the law of the land, and the high priest deals with spiritual well-being. He is one of six.”
“Are you planning to investigate the others?” Zamek asked, his voice tense.
“Do we need to?” Tisor asked.
“You have a high priest working with Avalon and the flame giants to undermine your realm and threaten the people who live here,” Zamek almost snapped. “I would be checking everyone he had any contact with.”
“Are you suggesting that more of our high priests are involved?” Wedver asked, his voice matching the anger in Zamek’s. “We have spent many months looking into Fuvos. And I assure you, we have checked anyone else who had any contact with him. Whatever his betrayal, he was not working with other members of the priesthood.”