Commander Pete Hudson bowed. He may have been in a hurry to get back to his life, but I was still figuring out my new life and had so many questions that were still unanswered.

“Your Majesty, please.” There was desperation in my plea. “I was told only you could answer all the questions I have.” Where should I even begin? I took a breath. “Where are my parents?” Queen Rhea seemed hesitant, but I wasn’t about to give up. “Please. I need to know.”

“Yes. You deserve to know. But please understand some things must remain a secret for now. They say ignorance is bliss, but in your case, Lady Stavros, ignorance could mean safety.”

I nodded in response. I would take whatever information I could get.

Queen Rhea reached out and held my hand, which only made me even more nervous about what I was about to hear. “All I can tell you is that after the Great Massacre, the killing didn’t stop—as you know. The Faction tracked down any remaining Stavroses throughout the centuries until there were only five families left. We were left with no choice but to establish an order of our own, made up of the most trusted Court Guards. These guards were sent to protect these families and to track down the Faction, ensuring they would never harm another Stavros.”

The Myrmidons, I thought to myself. They had been here on official duty to the queen, like Vlad, Kris, and I had suspected. Back then, I had been sure that they had something to do with the Faction—not that they were the ones fighting against them. Since my first official meeting with Drake, though, I had known otherwise.

“But one of the remaining families believed that one day the Faction would become powerful enough again to complete what they had set out to do—to kill all remaining Stavroses. They sent their son, your father, to live among the Nescient, hoping he would have a better chance of survival if the Faction were to rise up again. They cut all ties with him to make sure he couldn’t be traced.

“Not long after sending your father away, their vision came true and the final Stavros families were murdered with Apollo’s arrow.”

I thought back to everything we had learned in Hellenic school about the Great Massacre and the final killings of the Stavroses. “Our history textbooks never mentioned a surviving member of those families. We were told this was when the bloodline became extinct.”

“Because I didn’t want anyone to know that there was still a Stavros out there. But the Faction knew—and they made it their mission to find him.”

“How did they know that my father was still out there?”