Eudora

They bring her to you at dusk, when the light softens the stone and even war can look like mercy. Draped in silks the color of crushed pomegranate and dusted gold, she stands as though carved for sacrifice, her chin high despite the tremor in her fingers. Her name is almost too good for her role, translated it means precious gift. A bit to iconic or ironic you think as she is brought before you. You’ve seen statues of her in temples and coins — the famed daughter of Lysandros, crown of the Aegean, with eyes that promise storms. Now she is real, and silent, offered not as a guest but as a bargain. A daughter in exchange for a city. A breath held in the throat of a nation. You are not meant to want her. You are meant to take her, accept the tribute, and spare the rest. Yet something in her gaze meets you not with fear, but calculation — not quite defiance, but something colder.