The croach continued to spread, sweeping into the Vale and halfway through it.

“The enemy has come this far-a distance of nearly two hundred miles from the first point of contact-in less than a month. The substance you see represented on the map is known as the croach. It is some kind of mold or fungus that grows in the Vord’s wake, killing all other plant and animal life.”

A befuddled-looking, portly old country Count, his gold-and-scarlet tunic patched and faded, sat on the bench beside Amara, shaking his head. “No,” he murmured beneath his breath. “No, no, no. This is some kind of mistake.”

“Our aerial scouts have confirmed that the entire area represented here has been covered entirely,” Gaius continued. “Nothing lives there now that is not Vord.”

“Oh come now,” sputtered Lord Riva, rising, his jowls flushed and sweating. “You cannot expect us to believe that some kind of fungus is a threat to our Realm?”

The First Lord glanced at the High Lord of Riva and narrowed his eyes. “My lord, you have not been recognized by the Speaker of the Senate. You are out of order. The floor will open for questions and debate as soon as it is practical, but for the moment, it is essential that-”

“That you force these histrionics upon us?” Riva demanded, gathering momentum. “Come now, Gaius. Winter is all but upon us. The first freeze will destroy this… infestation, at which point competent military leadership should suffice to contain and destroy the invaders. I see no reason why these theatrics-”

Gaius Sextus turned toward the High Lord of Riva.

“Grantus,” Gaius said in an even tone. “I do not have time for this. Every moment of delay puts more lives at risk.” His expression hardened. “Perhaps even your own.”

Riva stared at Gaius for a startled moment, his eyes wide, then flushed dark red with anger. His hands opened and closed several times as he realized that the First Lord had all but openly threatened him with the juris macto.

Lord Aquitaine’s gaze snapped to Gaius like a falcon’s and locked upon him.

Amara tensed suddenly.

The First Lord was taking a terrible risk. In his prime, Amara would have thought Gaius the match of any crafter in Alera-but she knew, better than almost anyone, how much of the First Lord’s apparent strength was an act of bravado, a display of sheer will. Beneath the outer show of energy and drive, Gaius was a weary old man, and Riva, despite his less-than-legendary intellect, was, after all, a High Lord of Alera, and wielded tremendous power.

The status of Octavian’s legitimacy was far from set in stone. Should the First Lord die today, especially given the need for strong leadership, Aquitainus Attis might well attain the throne he’d been seeking for so long.

Gaius had to know that. But if the thought troubled him, it did not show in his expression or bearing. He faced Riva with perfect aplomb, waiting.

In the end, Riva’s uncertainty proved a better defense than any furycraft. The portly High Lord harrumphed, and growled, “My apologies for speaking out of turn, Speaker, Senators, my fellow Citizens.” He glowered at Gaius. “I will refrain from pointing out the obvious until the proper time.”

Aquitaine’s mouth spread into a lazy grin. Amara couldn’t be certain, but she thought she saw him incline his head, very slightly, to Gaius, a fencer’s gesture of acknowledgment.

Gaius went back to speaking as though nothing had happened. “The Vord have not limited their attacks to military forces. Civilian populations have been attacked and massacred without mercy. Given the nature of our defeats on the battlefield, a great many people never received word about their presence, or did not hear about them until it was too late for them to escape. The loss of life has been staggering.”

Gaius paused to sweep his gaze around the Senatorium. Again, when he spoke, he did so with detached precision. “More than one hundred thousand Aleran holders, freemen, and Citizens alike have been slain.”

Cries rang out amidst an ocean-surf swell of gasps that ran through the Senatorium.

“Four days ago,” Gaius said, “the Vord reached the southernmost holdings of High Lord Cereus. Lord Speaker, honored Senators, his daughter and heir, Veradis, is here to give testimony to the Senate and to speak on behalf of His Grace, her father.”

Gaius stepped back as the Speaker rose and leaned into the podium again for a moment. “Will the Lady Veradis please come before the Senate?”

Amara watched as a slender, serious-faced young woman rose, her pale, wispy hair drifting like cobwebs as she moved. Bernard leaned close to her, and murmured, “Cereus has a son, does he not? I thought he was the heir to Ceres.”

“He was,” Amara said. “Apparently.”

“Thank you,” Veradis said, the building’s furies projecting her words throughout the Senatorium. She had a voice to match her face-low, for a woman, and quite somber. “My father sends his regrets that he cannot be here himself, but he is in the field with our Legions, slowing the Vord in an effort to give our people a chance to flee. It is at his command that I have come here to beg the aid of the First Lord and of his brother High Lords in Ceres’ most desperate hour.” She paused for a moment, frozen, then cleared her throat. The first several words of her next sentence were tight, constricted. “Already, my brother Vereus has fallen to the invaders, along with half of the Legion under his command. Thousands of our holders have been slaughtered. Nearly half of the lands in my lord father’s care have been consumed by the Vord. Please, my lords. After what Kalarus’s rebellion did to our lands…” She lifted her chin, and though her expression was perfectly composed, Amara could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. “We need your help.”

With perfect poise, Veradis descended from the podium and returned to her seat in her House’s box, and Amara abruptly felt certain that the young woman was unaware of her own tears, or she would have contained them, using her watercrafting if necessary.

Pausing to elicit a nod from the Speaker, Gaius resumed the podium. “Our current estimates place the enemy numbers at somewhere between one hundred and two hundred thousand-but frankly, this tells us relatively little. We have limited knowledge of their capabilities as individuals, but know almost nothing of their potential working in mass coordination.”

“You know one thing,” interjected a quiet voice, enhanced despite the fact that the speaker was not standing at the podium. Lord Aquitaine regarded Gaius steadily. “You know that they are extremely dangerous. In all probability, more so, pound for pound, than an Aleran Legion.”

The uproar raised by that statement was instant and vociferous. Everyone knew that the Legions were invincible. For a thousand years, they had been the wall of steel and muscle and discipline that had held against every attacker-and while a legionare might not leave a battle with victory in his grasp, it would only be because it had been pried tooth and nail from his fingers.

And yet…

It had been a very long time since the Legions as a whole had faced any real threat. The Icemen had been largely neutralized by the Shieldwall, centuries before. Conflicts with the Canim had rarely involved more than a few hundred of the wolf-warriors-at least until Kalare had conspired with one of their traitors to bring a literal horde to Aleran shores three years ago. The Marat had won battles against the Legions here and there, but they had never been lasting victories and had only served to make Aleran counterattacks all the more intense and punitive.

The Children of the Sun were long since dead, their Realm rotted back into the Feverthorn Jungle. The Malorandim had been driven to extinction eight centuries ago. The Avar, the Yrani, the Dekh-all gone, nothing left of them but names that Amara dimly remembered from her history lessons. Once they had all been rivals and tyrants to a younger, smaller, weaker Alera.