Chapter 27

“You’re kidding me,” was the first thing she said, quietly, and then yelled: “What in Hidiris going on?”

Herkuan stomped his foot. “Watch your tongue, Captain Driada! You are in the presence of royalty!”

Driada’s mouth hung open in shock. Thea sighed and turned to her advisors. “Leave us, please.”

“But my queen, we can’t leave you alone with such an insolent woman!”

“Please, Herkuan.”

Noting perhaps the urgency in her tone, Herkuan conceded and dragged Demetrius out of the room. The doors shut with a loud thud.

Once the two women were alone, Thea stood and stepped down from the raised platform onto the polished floor. “I see that you recognize me, then.”

“You’re the queen?” Driada threw her hands to her head. “You cannot be serious! I knew you were a wealthy woman of some kind, but I assumed you were the wife of some foreign nobleman, not…not the queenof Ios!”

“I didn’t mean to deceive you,” Thea said, wincing.