[center][h3]Iznea, Capital of Hyrkos[/h3][/center]

The room was dimmed, save for the glow of candelabras set about the wide platform, upon which stood a life-sized effigy of solid ivory. It had the form of a young dancing woman, carved to a marvelous realism. Such was its likeness that if its flesh colored and sprung to life, it would be the desire of all men and the envy of women. 
Prostrate before the idol was a lithe figure, olive skin shining in the candlelight, dark hair woven and decorated with ostentatious bands. She wore only a gold-chased girdle encrusted with gems and a silken skirt, transparent as gossamer. Her eyes looked to the white face above her, arms outstretched and grasping at air. 

“Twenty years it has been, since I have taken the throne in my brother’s place! Twenty years and he has not returned to me. But he cannot be dead - every man on the field that day was examined for his likeness,” Princess Yadira exhaled, wringing her hands together. “I have done all I can for Hyrkos, if only by the guidance of Vizier Gaspar and Agaipos’s friends. Yet I am afraid! The Dakarragord have only grown stronger since their conquest. Amberland is no more, and Riawin is a shell of its former glory. Hyrkos is alone and, without Agaipos, I too feel as such! Oh Ishtar, what do I do?”

Yadira’s head drooped in resignation and she groped at the marble floor. She was exhausted from all this kingly work, even with the tutelage of Gaspar and the reassuring words of Agaipos’s inner circle, two decades of a monarch’s duties bore down on her like a river erodes stone. To gossip and play with her handmaidens again, and run among the gardens as she did in her youth! That was the life she wanted again. 
A silky, feminine voice stirred Yadira from the marble, and lips parted in an O of surprise, she gazed on Ishtar’s idol. 

“Be at ease, daughter of Eneas.” The words were rhythmic and honeyed, and they seemed to come from all around her, besides the effigy itself. From it, Yadira sensed an intangible presence of immense power and knowing. 
“I know what it is that ails you. Follow my directions, and in doing so, save your brother, your kingdom and the entirety of Askor with it. Place Hyrkos in the hands of Vizier Gaspar and gather up a troop of one-hundred and eight trusted men. Go you to Cormyral and seek out Duchess Lynette ‘The Lioness.’ Dark events transpire in the east, and Mycae will fall...” 

“Oh, but I am frightened! I know nothing of the lands in the east!” Yadira moaned with a shudder. But her goddess did not speak again. The princess picked herself up from the floor, and as she did so, her eye caught glimpse of a trinket on the altar that had not been there before. Gingerly, she picked it up, dainty fingers wrapping around a gemstone as white as milk. At its touch, it felt warm and comfortable, like a toy a child prizes above all others. Yadira slid the cord it hung from around her neck, and slipped from the chamber, half-terrified, but with a liveliness in her step that told of a surge of purpose.

[center]*	*	*[/center]
And so Yadira mustered one-hundred and eight of her finest [i]Tagmata[/i], departing from Iznea by ship. She had left Gaspar to act as regent in her absence, and kissed her handmaidens goodbye. Upon the canopied aft, stretching her limbs on silken cushions, Yadira spared a long gaze at her homeland, fingers tight around the white gemstone at her breast. 

[center][img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e4/59/44/e459442a6fc3b6cbd460c077f6b9b78a.jpg[/img][/center]