Queen Hephestia
is Athena, Hera, more.
The Mede prays to whom?
The sequel to The Thief & part of the "Queen's Thief" series. I ran right on into it after finishing the first one, & honestly I would read the third one (whose name I won't write here on account of it being a bit of a spoiler-- as is this cover, actually) if I wasn't planning on reading