The warm interior made me feel like I was inside a fairy-tale castle. A dazzling chandelier hung above our heads. The tables and chairs no doubt were antiques. Vases bursting with roses, the symbol of royalty, were placed in the middle of each table.

“This is Vlad’s favorite place. Sometimes I wonder if he is the reincarnation of a duke or countess, with his love for antiques and all this”—Adrian gestured at the surroundings—“old, fancy stuff.”

It was possible. As Hellenicus we were reincarnated over and over again, taking different vessels and genders. One thing would remain the same for me, though: I would always be born a Regular. A Regular could never be reincarnated as someone with royal blood. The Royals and Pure Royals, however, could be born as anyone. It depended on what they had done in their previous lives.

If a Royal had done good deeds in their former life, they could come back as a Pure Royal. Similarly, a Pure Royal who had done terrible things might become a Royal, or even a Regular, in their next life. This was one of the reasons why royal bloods kept their distance from the Regulars. It was almost impossible to track the original lineage of a Regular, so they couldn’t trust that we hadn’t been terrible people in our past lives.

There was quite a large number of Regulars, since the Great Massacre—one of the most gruesome events in our history. Our textbooks told us that some Royals had used Apollo’s arrow to cease the Stavroses’ existence, destroying their souls. The remaining Stavroses then met the same fate throughout the generations until there were none left. The murderers received one of the worst punishments for a Hellenicus: they were doomed to be Regulars forever.

“Avy, are you okay?” Vlad asked. “You were seriously lost in thought.”

“Sure, General.”

“I wish you would give the nickname a rest, Avy.”

“If you want me to stop, maybe you should stop calling me Avy.”

The hostess led us to a table. Adrian nodded toward a towering display of cakes and desserts. “Montgomery, you are going to be stuffing in the calories.”

“We’ll see. I’m not easily satisfied,” I said, always ready for a challenge when it came to sweets.

Maybe this was exactly what I needed to help lessen the pain.