Eidolon

No one spoke when the man described what he witnessed at the river, his voice broken. “We saw...we saw a line of elders, led by the old general Hasarath, make of themselves a wall near the riverbank so that others might reach the water in time. Their sacrifice saved hundreds, maybe more.” His breath hitched, and he bowed his head. “No one should die like that.”

Brishen knew the image conjured by those words would remain emblazoned on his mind’s eyes until he died. He spent the next several hours planning and strategizing with his most trusted ministers and his garrison officers. Fear and the black of edge of panic saturated the air, heavy enough he could taste its bitterness on his tongue. When the meeting finally ended and the group disbanded to race to their respective homes or scout the territories Brishen had marked for reconnoitering, the sun was high in the sky and the exhausted Haradis messenger slumped over the table, asleep.

Brishen scraped a hand over his face and blinked a dry, itchy eye. Even the memory of his left eye itched. He swallowed, wondering when his tongue had grown a wool blanket, and gratefully accepted a cup of cold water from his heavy-eyed steward. Except for Mesumenes and the slumbering messenger, he was alone in the hall. “Did the hercegesé find her bed?” Ildiko had long since disappeared from the hall, and Brishen was desperate to hold her, find some steady point to grasp in a world suddenly spinning out of his control.

The steward nodded toward the hall’s doors, now closed to the brutal daylight. “She’s outside, my liege, seeing off the last of the ministers. As you know, she can withstand the light better than we can.”