Achilles took a tentative step from between the men but he stayed close and suggested, “Let’s move on from this. We should be discussing your journey, Rik. Obviously, Lo agrees with what Draven and I have been trying to impress on you all morning. It’s more than foolhardy.”
Derrik tore his eyes from Apollo to look at Achilles. “I simply go to scout.”
Achilles eyebrows went up. “Alone, without a single man at your back or a witch for protection?” He shook his head. “You know this is reckless. It hardly helps the cause, losing a good man and it definitely wouldn’t help, losing a brother.”
“Nothing will be lost. I’m skilled at it,” Derrik returned and Apollo knew he was not wrong. If they needed a scout, Derrik always led the party. He wasn’t skilled at it. He excelled at it.
But they were talking about a she-god and two witches that were known to wield nearly as much power as Minerva. He’d not even turn his eyes to Specter Isle without being detected.
And dispatched.
“The birds were sent to Houllebec last night,” Apollo told him. “Frey may have some men in the village and it’s only a three days’ ride—”
“Hard ride,” Derrik cut in. “And, do you think, brother, that we have three days before we face something further after what happened last night?”
“It was a play, Rik,” Achilles stated and Derrik looked to him. “You heard the man. They were sent to assassinate Lo, Maddie, and the children as a warning to the others to concede without a fight. They didn’t even use magic.”
“It was a first strike,” Derrik contradicted. “We’re at war.”
Unfortunately, he was not wrong.
“A first strike where we prevailed,” Achilles reminded him.
“And what? We sit and wait for the second?” Derrik asked derisively.
“A war fought on many fronts weakens the enemy,” Apollo said low and Derrik looked to him. “You know that. If Frey, Lahn, Tor and I were to amass in one place, Minerva would have to conjure and send one set of creatures. With us separate, she has to create at least two armies and send them to two locations, depending on where the other men are now. Her magic has already been weakened after what she sent at Tor in the other world and you know magic does not renew quickly. If she were to need to do this, it would cost her.”
“And clearly this strategy was decided by you and you alone last night,” Derrik returned. “For just days ago, you were off to Bellebryn to meet the others.”
“And was I not brought on by Frey and Queen Aurora to do just that?” Apollo shot back. “Provide strategy?”
Derrik clamped his mouth shut for he knew he was.
“With this foe, it has always been the plan to seek information, strategize, prepare and not attack until they do and thus they’re weakened,” Apollo decreed.
“Then we withstand whatever they throw at us in the meantime?” Derrik pushed. “Alone. And the others withstand whatever may be happening to them, and they be damned?”
“We are constrained by slow communication, brother. And it takes a bird in flight or a man and horse much less time to travel the distance than it does a man escorting a woman in a sleigh. If the others disagree and feel there is safety in numbers, this will be discussed. But I took on three men with swords, armed only with my knives. They were quite skilled and I do not like to think how that would have gone if Maddie wasn’t there to assist me.” His eyes grew sharp on Derrik. “Nor do I wish to think what would have become of her had I fallen and they turned to her.”
Derrik’s jaw again went hard and Apollo knew his point was made.
So he continued.
“And my children were threatened,” he said with deadly quiet. “I will not leave them. I will stay and protect my family and my home. This is my decision and it is strategic, but it is also the decision of a man, a husband and a father. So it is not ‘the others be damned’ for I know with no doubts that Frey, Lahn and Tor would do precisely the same thing.”
“So, you wed her along the way,” Derrik replied.
Apollo took in an irritated breath at being back on the subject of Maddie. “No.”
“Then you are not her husband.”
“Not yet.”
“But it’s your intention to take her to wife,” Derrik went on.
Apollo held his eyes for long moments before he said, “Yes.”
Something shifted in Derrik’s gaze that Apollo, in all their years of knowing each other, and there had been many, had never seen.
Then he said softly, “So she is Maddie to you, but who are you to her, brother?”
“Is this drivel necessary?” Draven cut in to ask.
But Derrik didn’t look away from Apollo and he kept speaking.
“Has it occurred to you that when she gazes up at you while you take her, she sees the husband of the other world that she felt wrong in loving, the husband of the other world she wished she had, not you?”
Apollo stayed perfectly still because if he didn’t, he would not be responsible for what he did do.
And also because that had not occurred to him.
Not once.
She called the other him “Pol.” She’d never slipped and even started to call him that name.
So this couldn’t be.
Could it?
“I’ve had four months with her and she told me much about this man,” Derrik stated.
At that, uncharacteristically, Achilles lost his temper and he did it clipping out, “She told you much and she did it because she trusted you. Do not betray that now, Rik.”
Derrik’s mask slipped, remorse shining through as he glanced at Achilles then he looked back at Apollo, opening his mouth to speak.
“And right now you taste the blood Lo put in your mouth, Rik,” Draven stated before Derrik could say a word. He moved to stand close to Apollo and finished, “But if more comes out of that mouth about Maddie, you won’t be picking your teeth out of the snow. You’ll be coughing them up from your gut.”
Through this, Apollo remained still and silent.
And through it, Derrik glared at Apollo. When he got nothing he transferred his glare to Draven, then Achilles and finally he moved to his horse, muttering, “I’m away to Specter Isle.”
“Do you wish to be buried on Lazarus land, or Ulfr?” Draven asked after him as he mounted.
Derrik looked down at them all.
“If that decision needs to be made, I’ll be dead so do I care?”