Starcrossed

left Spain because Hector got into a terrible fight and nearly got killed, but worse, he nearly killed someone of his own blood . There is no forgiveness for a kin-killer,” Ariadne said in a hushed voice.
    “But yours isn’t the last House. Mine is,” Helen said, the whole truth beginning to dawn on her.
    “No one knew about you. About two decades ago there was this ‘Final Confrontation’ between the Houses. All Four Houses attacked one another, each of them trying to eliminate the others. The House of Thebes won, and it was thought that the other three, the House of Atreus, the House of Athens, and the House of Rome, were wiped out entirely. But even though everyone else was supposed to be dead, Atlantis wasn’t raised and the gods did not return. My father, aunt, and uncle thought that we were the ones that were keeping the war at bay by refusing to join Tantalus and his cult. We thought it had to be us because no one else was supposed to be left.” Ariadne took a deep breath and looked at Helen. “But it was you all along. Somehow your mother hid you here, preserved your House, whichever one it is, and kept the war from starting. She— you —also kept Tantalus from attaining Atlantis.”
    Helen sat in silence for a moment, realizing how many incredibly strong demigods wanted her dead. The Hundred Cousins believed that if the House of Thebes was unified and the only Scion House left on earth, they would become like gods, and Helen’s life was the only thing standing in the way. Her life was also the only thing keeping the Olympians from coming back to earth and starting World War Whatever. So the Delos family had to protect her even if they all died doing it. And here she was refusing to learn how to fight. No wonder Hector hated her.
    “I’m sorry,” Helen finally said, so overwhelmed by her own selfishness that she had almost no emotion in her voice. “Your family is siding with me against your own kin.”
    “Your burden is heavier,” Ariadne said, taking Helen’s hand. She was going to say something else, but she was interrupted by Pandora, who burst into the locker room, looking for them.
    “Hey! Am I going to have to take someone to the hospital?” she asked, only half joking. “There’s a whole lot of blood out there.”
    “No, she’s okay,” Ariadne answered back with a laugh as she stood up.
    Something was still bothering Helen. There was a hole in the story Ariadne had just told her.
    “Who was it?” Helen asked suddenly, looking up at Ariadne’s puzzled face. “The way we were taught the story, Odysseus tricked the Trojans with a giant wooden horse. Everyone knows about the Trojan horse. But you said someone betrayed Troy, and I don’t think it was by mistake.”
    “I was hoping you wouldn’t pick that up,” Ariadne said, looking like she was mentally kicking herself. “There was no wooden horse. It’s a nice fairy tale, but that’s all it is. Odysseus was involved, that’s true, but all he did was convince Helen to use her beauty to charm the guards into opening the gates at night. That’s really all it took. It’s why we Scions never name our children after her. For us, naming your daughter Helen is like a Christian naming their child Judas.”
    Helen ran past her dad and upstairs when she got home, claiming she wanted to turn in early. She did her homework and then made herself lie down, but she couldn’t sleep. Her brain kept sifting through everything Ariadne had told her that afternoon, like how much her mother must have hated her to give her such a cursed name, but mostly she thought about the cult of the Hundred Cousins. To distract herself from reflecting on just how many people would want her dead so that they could live forever, she got out of bed and attempted to fly.
    She tried to think lighter, then higher. She even tried to sneak up on it by pretending to trip, but all she succeeding in doing was jumping up and down until her father yelled up the stairs for her to stop clowning around.
    Hoping a little ancient history would put her to sleep, she picked up the copy of the Iliad that Cassandra had given her and read as much as she could. It seemed like every page was filled with the gods meddling in the world of men. Helen could see why her ancestors had eventually decided that praying for divine intervention wasn’t such a good idea. Another she noticed was how much she disliked Helen of Troy. Helen of Nantucket couldn’t understand why she