“Yaya!” Katra huffed, then kissed her cheek. “Take care and I’ll see you soon.”
Apollymi let her go reluctantly. She still couldn’t believe that Katra was real. That her precious son had fathered a child without anyone knowing. Had she not seen the girl with her own eyes and held her in her own arms, she wouldn’t have believed it. But there was no denying this truth.
Katra was Apostolos’s daughter.
If only Katra would renounce her loyalty to her mother. So long as she remained tied to two pantheons, Katra was a danger to both. She could be used against either side.
Just like Urian’s real mother. Had Bethany not inadvertently given her protection over to the Greeks because she loved Prince Styxx, the Atlanteans would have destroyed the Greek army that first day in battle and won their war against Greece before it started.
Then Princess Ryssa wouldn’t have been given to Apollo to win his favor, and she and her son wouldn’t have died, thus causing the curse for Stryker and his people.
More to the point, had Bethany not had divided loyalties Apostolos wouldn’t have been slaughtered. And Atlantis wouldn’t have been destroyed.
Divided loyalties could never be trusted. She only trusted Strykerius now because his father had forever severed their bond when he’d cursed Strykerius’s children to die. There was no repairingthatwith mere words. Strykerius would never forgive Apollo for his damnation of their innocence.
She would make sure of it …
April 17, 9508 BC
“Solren? Please don’t get mad … I was playing with your sfora when I sawthis.”
Urian looked up from where he sat in their front room, polishing his sword, to see Geras holding his crystal sfora in his hand. He smiled gently at the boy. “I’m not angry,m’gios.” He tried to have patience with his son. “Though you should ask before you get into my things.”
Placing the oiled cloth aside, Urian held his hand out for the boy to show him why he was so upset and fretting.
Geras moved closer to hand him the small ball.
Urian took a moment to reassure his nervous son that he wasn’t angry. Geras was literally shaking, he was so frightened. He set his kopis aside and pulled Geras into the circle of his arms so that he could stand between his knees and see into the sfora clearly. “So what did you glimpse that has you so upset?”
Biting his lip, Geras held it up in front of the fire to show him.
The flames flickered in the pale crystal. At first there was nothing except the mist that swirled like Apollymi’s eyes.
Until Urian saw his mother’s home.
And the body of her lover lying in the yard with four arrows protruding from his back.
Cold fear went through him and shook him to the core of his soul. He couldn’t breathe or think.
He shot to his feet.
“Solren?”
Too scared to look closer at the house on his own, Urian almost stumbled over his son. “I-I’m not angry, Geras. I’m grateful.” Kissing him on the head, he reached for his sword. Before he summoned his brothers to this waking nightmare, he wanted to verify the vision with the goddess.
His heart pounded with denials and any other explanation his mind could conjure.
Maybe it was wrong. Maybe, maybe it was something else.
Please, gods, let it be anything else!
He teleported to her garden.
Too panicked to consider what he was doing, he flashed straight to her pool.
Apollymi rose up instantly and slammed him down with a god-bolt. Unexpected pain exploded through his body as if he’d been hit by a mountain. It was so extreme and violent that for a full minute, he couldn’t breathe. He honestly thought that every bone in his body had been shattered. His ears rang with an unparalleled shrillness.
Why didn’t I put on Xyn’s armor?At least that would have given himsomeform of protection.
