Uh-oh.
“Apollo?” I called, even though he was right there. But his eyes had grown distant and I didn’t like that all that much.
He focused on me and I held my breath as he did this for a good long time without speaking.
I let out my breath when he broke his silence.
“There are two possible reasons for this,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied when he said no more.
“One is that I’m Queen Aurora’s strategist. I also served under King Atticus in this same position. This mostly included negotiations but there were skirmishes. Baldur was always conniving, he’d made some plays to wrest land from Lunwyn when he was the ruler of the now-gone Middleland. Most in Lunwyn don’t know about them because my men and I stopped them before they took hold.”
“Oh,” I whispered, unsure about where this was going, though still thinking it was pretty cool badass Apollo and his badass boys nipped that shit in the bud.
“Frey is a raider,” Apollo continued. “He is not a soldier. Lahn is a warrior but his country in the Southlands is much different than those in the Northlands. His army is highly trained, highly skilled, large in number and thus unbeatable.”
“Right,” I mumbled, thinking this was good news.
“What I’m saying is, although Lahn is very intelligent, and strategy would factor into what he does, his warriors are so trained, they need little direction, and so mighty, they always best a challenge. They’re known for it. This leaves Tor, who is also a warrior and a strategist. However, against our foes, we must put all our best minds together and Queen Aurora called upon me to be involved from the beginning. This could have made me a target, as any ruler or high-ranking general would be.”
This made sense. It sucked, but it made sense.
“And the other possible reason?” I prompted
He held my eyes, hesitated, but still, he gave it to me. “It could be that you were the target.”
What?
And why?
I picked one question and breathed it out.
“What?”
“Baldur has reason to be angry with all the couples who were brought together over the worlds. And Minerva herself connived to keep Tor and Cora apart by splitting Tor’s soul and putting the other half in a woman from your world. This, we feel, is not a coincidence.”
Oh boy.
“And you and I are now a couple brought together over the worlds,” he concluded.
It felt good him saying we were a couple. We hadn’t been together long but the time we had been together was intense. So yes, definitely good.
It didn’t feel good me being a possible target of angry ex-rulers and she-gods, though.
“This doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy, Apollo,” I told him.
“It doesn’t me, either, poppy. But we can’t know why they do what they do. We can only guess. And the coincidence is not something we can ignore.”
“Does Baldur have reason to be angry with you?”
“Except for fighting in the war against the traitors who killed Atticus and imprisoned Aurora and Finnie, a war where his son was slain, not especially.”
Well at least that was good.
“And…um, does he have a reason to be angry with the other me?” I asked hesitantly and his arms gave me a squeeze.
“No. Although I have met him at a variety of state affairs, and at some of them Ilsa was on my arm. But their meetings would be brief and insignificant to a man like Baldur.”