Betrayal and Lies

For the majority of the novel, Anaxandra lies to everyone around her continuously about who she is, assuming the identity of Nicander's daughter, Callisto, because she fears that her real identity would lead her to enslavement. Anaxandra is taken as a hostage by King Nicander when she is only six years old because he wants to coax her father into giving him gold for Apollo. When Nicander's land is sacked and Anaxandra is the only person on the island to survive, the king of Sparta, Menelaus, comes to survey the damage. When he meets Anaxandra there, he assumes that she is Callisto, Nicander's daughter, and Anaxandra does not correct him. She lives for a long time in Sparta (and later Troy) under this false identity even though it continues to gnaw at her that she is practically stealing the personhood of another girl who...