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Sona

Sona’s earliest memories are of the Ionian monastery where she was raised, in the province of Galrin. The monks, along with kindhearted volunteers from the local villages, took in any orphans or foundlings left at the front gates, and made sure that they would want for nothing.

As a young girl, Sona was considered shy and quiet, until it became apparent that she couldn’t speak at all. But she was unusually thoughtful and attentive, and the other children tended to seek her out whenever they needed comfort, their playful smiles quickly restored.

And Sona discovered other ways to express herself.

Unlike her playmates, she had one possession when she was first found—a curiously strung instrument, packed into a plain wooden case. None of the visiting musicians or teachers knew what it was… though that did not stop several of them from attempting to procure it for themselves, one way or another. Instead, Sona taught herself how to play it, and her simple, beautiful melodies moved even the most skeptical listener to tears of joy.

However, dark times were approaching. The foreign empire of Noxus had begun landing troops in the northern provinces, and the monks decided to evacuate their young charges to safety before the invasion reached Galrin. After their caretakers struck a deal with a Demacian trader, Sona and a handful of her friends found themselves bundled onto one of the last ships to escape before the Noxian blockade of Ionia’s western coast. She looked back in anguish, knowing that she would not be able to return for many years, if at all.

After months at sea, they arrived in Demacia—a strange, dour land where magic was widely distrusted. Their monks were called “Illuminators”, and they worshipped no gods or spirits, yet still placed great value on showing kindness to strangers and the needy.

So it was that Sona was taken in by the Buvelle family. Lord Barrett and his wife, Lestara, were prominent supporters of the Illuminator order, and renowned patrons of the arts in the Great City. Sona became like a sister to their daughter, Kahina, and Lestara in particular grew very attached to her. The Demacian language was often difficult to learn, but the Buvelles developed a personalized sign language that enabled Sona to communicate easily with her new family, and their friends.

Yet she yearned to express so much more. To show her appreciation to her adopted countrymen, she decided to use her gift to delight and soothe them, and returned to her music with renewed passion.

Soon, word spread of her virtuoso talents. Her performances captivated audiences, bringing them from sorrow to bliss, from righteous martial pride to almost exquisite peace… and Lestara became intrigued by the mysterious instrument that made this possible.

Delving deep into the libraries of the Illuminators, she came to believe it was one of the fabled etwahls—wondrous artifacts dating back thousands of years before Demacia’s founding, and now exceedingly rare in the world. If that were true, then this was an object of magic, and Sona’s preternatural connection to it was a dangerous gift indeed. Lestara urged her to keep it secret, to avoid bringing unwanted attention from the Demacian mageseekers.

Sona obeyed, though she wondered how something that brought people peace could be seen as a threat.

Some years later, Lord Barrett Buvelle was slain fighting Noxus at the Gates of Mourning. When Kahina took up her father’s blade and military commission, the heartbroken Lestara decided the time had come for Sona to return to Ionia, and the two of them withdrew from all courtly engagements to make the journey together.

In the war’s aftermath, a great “restoration” was underway across the First Lands, but the people were much changed by what they had endured, and Sona realized there was no longer any place for her there. Saying farewell to Ionia once again, she went back to Demacia with Lestara.

Even so, her chosen homeland is not without its own problems. In the wake of King Jarvan III’s assassination, the mageseekers have gained significant power, and many innocent citizens are persecuted for any supposed connection to magic.

As a child of two wildly different cultures, Sona increasingly finds herself at odds with her family’s political allegiances. With etwahl in hand, her melodies now serve not only to provide comfort, but also to defend what she knows is right and just.
One Last Show

Katie Chironis

That old, familiar smell hit her first. Hay, strawberries, and sturdy wood. The courtyard of the Argentine Inn had a particular waft to it that brought the ache of memories long past: a hundred concerts, a thousand faces lit by lantern light, and—most painful of all—a time when things were simpler and happier in Demacia.
But these days, that version of her home country felt distant. Worlds away. When she first spotted her old friend Etra emerging from the doorway of the inn, her breath hitched—maybe this, too, was different. But Etra’s eyes went wide. She shrieked with joy, and as she ran forward to wrap Sona up in her arms, Sona breathed a little sigh of relief. Some things didn’t change after all.
“You got my letter!” Etra said, and squeezed her tight.
Sona nodded. As Etra released her, she stood back to get a good look, still clasping Sona’s hands. “Someone’s been traveling,” she said, impressed. As if noticing Sona was on edge, Etra paused, released her hands, and slipped into the rough sign language they’d forged over a lifetime. All is well?
It was a relief to be able to sign back. To be understood by someone who loved her. Yes, of course, Sona responded, whether it was true or not. Missed you terribly, though. She held her hands a little lower. Didn’t want passersby to see the sharp gestures, the twitching fingers, and draw the wrong conclusions.
How long will you stay this time?
As long as I can, Sona signed. You know I never could refuse an empty stage.
Etra grinned. Excellent.

There was no audience around sunset, when Sona struck her first chord, but the first few folks trickled in right away. She was standing front and center in the Argentine’s “concert hall”—a converted barn with a bit of raised wood at the front to make a stage. Some of the people she could see were familiar faces. They brought their evening plans with them: wine by the flagon, cheese in its cloth.
Sona had set her etwahl center stage. The burnished gold on the front was freshly polished, gleaming. It sat on its little frame, the one she brought for Demacian performances only.To Sona’s right, a man named Cal kept beat on the inn’s goatskin drums. Etra’s voice joined her on the left after a moment, high and clear and smooth like water.
As they settled into their familiar rhythm, the crowd swelled. Wagons were pulled up beyond the open door of the stage hall now, horses tied to posts. Some of the men had started to sing along loudly. They were drunk faster than usual. Sona smirked over at Etra, and she signed back with one hand: They missed you, too.
Things were tense for folks right now. They’d just lost their king and seen their country turn on itself in a single bloody year.
As if to punctuate Sona’s thoughts, four figures slipped into the back row of the audience, hoods pulled loose over their faces. Dark blue fabric. Not terribly suspicious on its own, but…
One of them tilted their head up at Sona, and she saw the hint of a gold mask glinting in the light.
Mageseekers.
Sona’s stomach lurched. She heard the slightest hitch in Etra’s voice, too, but neither of them dared look at each other right now.
The only answer was to keep performing, keep singing, and—hopefully—keep up appearances. The next song in the set was a solo. Etra and Cal slipped backstage.
This was the moment the crowd had really come to hear, and there were small murmurs and comfortable rustles in the audience as people settled in. There was no name for the piece, but they all knew it regardless. It was Sona’s own creation, and she relaxed into it. Her fingers brushed the strings, the air teemed with silence—and then, with a pick of a single note, they were off.
Her fingers danced like fireflies. The song flowed, built, faded, built again.
But then something evolved in the music. There were additional layers to it, notes that should have been impossible to play simultaneously. Sona looked up and saw only smiles and closed eyes. The audience had become enamored, absorbed.
It was time. The etwahl had awoken. Long, twisting illusions rose up from the strings, stretching and snapping as the very air hummed. To her, they were brilliant—a language she and the instrument alone shared. No one else could see them.
The etwahl had chosen someone. An old woman in the back of the room was thinking of her husband, a farmer, and the instrument had become throaty with the full warmth and bass of his voice. Sona could almost hear him talk. And in the shapes that rapidly shifted before her, she saw the outline of his weathered face, the way his cheeks crinkled when he smiled. But the outline morphed… the fuzzy curve of a sleeping figure. He had fallen ill and passed a month ago. A hard harvest without him, no doubt.
The etwahl hummed something private to Sona then: the last rasping song the man had ever sung to his wife. The notes hung in the air. She took the snatched phrases of the melody and, without even having to pause, she wove it back into the song, building around it. When she glanced up, Sona saw the widow’s eyebrows raised with recognition, tears trailing down the woman’s cheeks.
Sona slipped music into the woman’s heart. Music to warm her. Music to soothe her. Music to give her strength to face the year ahead.
The music had reached crescendo now. She and the etwahl were deep in conversation. The shapes had expanded, brilliant and ever-moving, an aurora stretching across the hall…
A shout shattered the song. She halted, frozen. But the shapes still drifted, no longer a secret between her and the instrument.
She’d lost control.
The mageseekers in the back had risen, making their way down the center aisle. They were coming for her. Some threw their hoods back now. The rest of the audience was still transfixed, unseeing. They hadn’t yet registered what was happening. Sona took two steps back, toward the archway that led out the back of the barn.
“Stop!” one of the mageseekers cried. They were undeniably here for her. She bolted, hefting her skirts in one hand. The etwahl shuddered, broke free of its stand, and drifted after her through the air. Why hide it anymore?
She emerged out back and into the darkness. There was an alley back there—she could flee into the woods before they spotted her. But as she reached the end of the alley, two seekers stepped into her path. She pulled up short and turned around. Maybe… No. Three more blocked her way back to the inn’s door. She was trapped.
“If you don’t resist…” one of them started, but she saw the flash of Demacian steel in his hand and she heard nothing else. Behind her, footsteps. They were closing in.
She backed up against the wall of the inn, all five of them now standing in front of her.
She laid her fingers on the etwahl. I hope Etra ran, she thought.
The etwahl glowed. She struck a violent burst of music. The chord shot forth from her and slammed into the seekers. The air was charged gold, sickeningly radiant. They turned away from her. She heard their groans, their broken screams, and knew it was over.
They were dancing, all of them. They cut an eerie sight to anyone who might see: contorted, twisting figures bent against their will like puppets being made to perform. It was painful, she knew that much. But she had to make them hurt. She had to make pain the only thing they could remember. That way, they couldn’t remember Etra. They couldn’t come after her.
“For pity’s sake, mercy!”
“Ungh… My arm—”
At first they begged her to stop, but after a moment even that died away and there was nothing but gurgling, the shuffle of footsteps, the creaking and snapping of joints. I didn’t want to hurt you, she thought. I never do. But you… You’re the reason home isn’t home anymore.
One last beat. One final encore. She strummed. The chord reached them, deep violet. They dropped to the floor instantly like discarded toys, unconscious and forgetful.
And Sona disappeared into the silence of the woods.
Soraka

An age ago, when time itself was young, the inhabitants of the celestial realm regarded the fledgling races of Runeterra with growing concern.
These creatures deviated wildly, unpredictably, and dangerously from the great designs intended for them by those above. The guidance and fates that had been woven into the night sky often went unseen—or worse, were misinterpreted by their simple mortal minds, leading to chaos, uncertainty, and suffering.
No longer able to merely watch, one celestial being chose to descend to the mortal realm, determined to untangle the knots in the tapestry of the world. This child of the stars took on a form of flesh and blood, and though the powerful magic coursing through her veins burned this new body from the inside out, she knew her suffering meant little if she could help to heal all that was broken and incomplete.
And so Soraka came to be, and set upon her journey to soothe the mortals she encountered.
Even so, she quickly learned the capacity for cruelty that the peoples of Runeterra possessed. Whether on the battlefields of inescapable conflicts, in the seedy underbellies of sprawling cities, or on the frontiers of the untamed wilderness beyond them, there seemed to be no end to the fighting, betrayal, and suffering Soraka witnessed. She watched, helpless, as mortals ignorantly broke the threads of destiny they could have woven together. Their lives were too short, she reasoned. They were simply unable to see the greater patterns, now lost.
But as Soraka lived among them, as one of them, trying to repair what little of the damage she could… something incredible and wholly unforeseen happened.
From the snarls and tangles and knots, the messy breaks in the great patterns, Soraka noticed a new, unintended design emerging—intertwined, and of a staggering complexity.
Unintended and wild, the mortals were forging new and unknown futures for themselves. From the celestial realm above, it had seemed like pure chaos; but with her new perspective, and blessed by the stars to stand against the erosion of time, Soraka now beheld an almost perfect beauty. Just as mortals had the deepest capacity for cruelty, so too did they possess infinite potential for kindness, and inspiration to rival anything among the stars.
Soraka realized her place was not to repair or replicate the celestial pattern. While a part of her craved the fixed, comforting destinies of the stars, she knew in her heart that static fates could not contain the unbridled, dynamic potential of mortality.
And so her work took on renewed vigor, driven to unlock the untapped possibilities of all she met. Soraka sought now to inspire and guide rather than shepherd, to see what unblazed trails each mortal would discover for themselves in their brief, radiant moment.
Over the millennia, legends of the Starchild have filtered through all the lands of Runeterra. Some tribes of the Freljord still speak of a far wanderer, a horned healer who soothed the icy bite of the most brutal winters. In the depths beneath Zaun, rumors float of a lilac skinned medic who would purify weary lungs from the ravages of the alchemical Gray. In troubled Ionia, the oldest myths of the Vastayashai’rei recall a seer who communed with the stars themselves, and called upon their light both to heal the wounded and scorch those who would do further harm to the First Lands.
Currently, Soraka calls the westernmost peaks of Targon her home. She watches over an isolated tribe of vastaya, teaching them her healing ways, and tending quietly to her own needs—though what brings her so close to the great mountain, or how long she will stay, only Soraka knows.
Many times, she has watched entire civilizations dance close to the brink of destruction, and she has learned that she cannot save those who do not wish it, nor force them to see what they will not.
All the same, Soraka is determined never to stop trying.
Halfway Between the Stars and Earth

Katie Chironis

It was a perfectly good night for a cup of tea. Chilly, certainly, but clear—as crisp a night as frigid Mount Targon ever got, really. Soraka was expecting a visitor. The snow in the stone kettle had already begun to melt over the hearth at the center of her little yurt; as it grew warmer, the room was suffused with the smell of dried tea leaves and sparse mountain herbs.
She crossed the room, passing the shelf she’d built herself along the back wall. Like the rest of her home, it was ever-so-slightly crooked. As far as mortal skills went, carpentry was not her strong suit. But she had built it because she loved the keepsakes on the shelf: a willow-wreath from Omikayalan, a tiny golden acorn from a dear friend in Bandle City, and oldest of all, surely older than anything mortal, was a stone dog from the old days of Nashramae. She owed that city another visit. She hadn’t been back in centuries, and she had a fondness for its people.
But she was shaken from her reverie as the commotion started outside. Shouting. Barking. Precisely on time.
In the darkness a pack of wolves surrounded a huddled lump in the snow. She strode out into the night, drawing her shoulders back, her head high. The moon was out and appeared slightly too large, as it often seemed to on Targon. Her home, nestled partway up the peak, was framed to the east by craggy flats, and to the west by a sheer drop into the mist far below. A constant frigid wind battered everything westward. It wasn’t uncommon for wild creatures to be battered on their way across the flats, too… but it was rare that they found prey.
The wolves turned to snarl at her, half-illuminated in the yellow light from the yurt’s windows. Meanwhile, the lump rolled over. It was a girl. Frightened eyes stared back at Soraka, a wooden spear clutched between two shaking hands. Only one thing brought people to this remote cliffside on the approach to the Holy Mount. But they were never this young.
The wolves lunged for Soraka in unison, and she heard the stars cry out in her defense. Sparks trickled from her fingertips as she rained golden fire down on the pack. The slam of impacts sent most of the wolves skittering back with primal fear, but one of them was left behind, its hindquarters crushed beneath the weight of the dying embers. It moaned and rasped, struggling. She saw the remainder of the pack disappearing over the icy barrens, abandoning their fellow to his fate.
Soraka shook her head and instantly knelt in the singed snow, her hands already outstretched. She couldn’t bear to feel the poor thing’s pain. It tugged at her. As she laid her hands along its bloodied back haunches, it snarled, digging its teeth into her arm. Ouch. Mortality had its drawbacks.
“Stop!” the girl cried. “It… It’ll kill you!”
Soraka felt her face melting into a smile. “I’m not afraid of wolves,” she replied, as light spread down her arms and into the wolf’s mangled body. “Besides,” she added, “Targon belongs to him as much as to me.”
The creature’s flesh began to knit back together, the crushed bones becoming whole once more, like clay taking proper shape in an artisan’s hands. But the magic burned as it left her. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the pain for a moment.
When she opened them, the wolf had retreated. Only the girl remained. Her eyes flicked upwards, tracing the line of Soraka’s horn, and Soraka already knew what she was thinking.
“Are you… one of those things?”
“One of what?”
“Demons. I’ve heard…”
Soraka laughed. But before she could respond, the girl sagged weakly, the spear tip dropping. It was only then, her mind clearing, that Soraka finally felt the enormity of the girl’s own pain. Her arms were black all the way to the elbows. Her fingers were frozen to the spear, the flesh swollen red above that. Frostbite like this… she’d be dead soon.
When she laid her hands upon the girl’s arms, the girl flinched, and Soraka was worried. Humans were curious creatures when it came to healing. Their minds were intricate. It had to be a mutual agreement—they had to want to heal. Sometimes she’d get the tendrils of her magic deep into a wound and find that the mind pushed her right back out again.
But not here. The girl was too tired, all vestiges of her energy spent getting her this far up the mountain. Soraka flooded the dead flesh with all the power she could give, pushing through the pain. Coils of emerald light wound their way up the girl’s arms. The spear dropped to the ground. As Soraka worked, she watched the skin fade through black, red and purple to its proper dusky color. There. That should do it.
“Do I seem like a demon to you?” Soraka asked. Her gold eyes glimmered in the darkness.
The girl was silent. After a moment, Soraka pressed her. “You’re making the summit climb. Why?”
But the girl just looked away, ashamed, rubbing her newly-restored arms. “My family,” she blurted, shaking her head. “We… We Rakkor—we’re warriors. And my mother, she’s the strongest of all. You don’t know what it’s like to be the only one who can’t fight. To be…” she bit her lip, struggling to find the word. “Weak.”
Soraka swept a hand out towards the dirt path the girl had followed, the one which led all the way to Targon’s base. “You came this far, and still you think yourself weak?”
“I won’t be soon,” the girl replied, her hands balling into fists now. “Not when I reach the summit. I’ll walk off the final peak and right into the sky, just like the old stories. And then—then they’ll be forced to accept that I’m strong. No one made of the stars could ever be brought low.”
“If only that were true,” Soraka said, flashing a too-sharp grin.
She scarcely caught the girl’s face breaking out into stunned amazement as she turned, walking to the edge of the path. Above them the stars spread out against the inky sky, brighter than they were anywhere else in the world. They sang songs only she could hear. This was home to her. It hadn’t always been. But it was the home she’d made.
“Come,” Soraka beckoned. And she raised her hand, trailing her fingers across the heavens. As she did, she knit the clouds and mist into shapes which wound their way against the moon and became faces the girl would no doubt have recognized from stories. A young woman with pale hair. Her counterpart, a woman whose face burned as brightly as the sun. And a warrior with a spear not unlike the girl’s own.
“All of these mortals ascended to the peak. But they had chosen that path with all their soul.” She turned to the girl and spoke slowly, taking no delight in her words. “You have not truly chosen the mountain. And Targon will not choose you. You would walk to your death. Don’t do this.”
The girl turned away. She was silent a long time.
“Where, then?” she said at last, her voice rough. “I can’t go home. I can’t go back to them. Where else would I go?”
Soraka smiled. “The world is vast. Your paths are many. I can help, if you let me.”
The images in the moon had faded.
Soraka motioned to the cheerful yellow yurt nestled among the rocks nearby. “But first, better come on inside and get warm. No sense in starting back until dawn comes. Besides, I’ve got a kettle on. Perfectly good night for a cup of tea.”
The Spear of Targon

Anthony Reynolds

A lone figure awaited the armed convoy, standing silhouetted against the sun. His heavy cloak and the long plume atop his helm billowed in the hot, dry desert wind. A tall spear was held at his side.
The convoy was thirty strong. Most of its number were hired mercenaries—rough, warlike men and women garbed in hauberks, leather, and chain, bearing crossbows, halberds, and blades. They walked the dusty path alongside heavily laden mules, though they came to a halt, crude insults and jokes dying on their lips, as they saw the warrior standing motionless before them.
The dark-clad leader of the expedition frowned as he pulled his coal-black steed to a halt. While the others were from lands far away, he knew this place and its inhabitants, for he once counted himself one of them. While he had been raised among the mountain people of the Rakkor, he had long ago turned away from them. Now he returned, after many years of absence, drawn by the lure of the priceless wealth he knew awaited in the Seer’s temple above.
He knew and respected the fighting prowess of his former people, but a single warrior? Not even the Ra’Horak could survive such odds.
Even so, the figure atop the rocky outcrop made no move to stand aside.
“You come with murder in your hearts,” the warrior said, his voice as hard as iron. “I am of the Mountain. Turn back, or I will gladly destroy you. The choice is yours.”
The mercenaries smirked and scoffed.
“Piss off, madman,” one of them shouted, “lest we plant your head on a spike to mark our passing.”
“You are a long way from home, friend,” the leader of the convoy said. “We journey to the mountain ourselves. There need be no blood spilt here.”
The lone Rakkoran warrior was unmoved.
“We are simple pilgrims, and still have far to go,” said the leader. “And besides, there is no way back for us now. Our ships have sailed, see?” He gestured behind him.
Behind the convoy, less than a mile distant, the sea glittered like dragon scales in the dying light. A trio of galleys could be seen, sails unfurling as they turned north on the long journey home.
“We come with no ill intent, I assure you,” the leader continued. “We merely seek wisdom.”
“Your tongue is forked, serpent,” said the lone warrior. “You seek the blood of the Seer, and it will be your end. You were born on the mountain, and now you will die in its shadow.”
The leader’s frown deepened, and he turned away with a dismissive shrug.
“We shall see,” he said. “Kill him.”
In an instant, crossbows were hefted to shoulders and the air was filled with loosed bolts. The warrior of the Rakkor was not punched from his feet, however; the bolts clanged as they ricocheted from his heavy, circular shield. Then he began to advance.
He appeared to be in no hurry. He strode forward with grim resolve, still silhouetted against the sun, the tip of his spear lowering toward his enemies. Another flurry of crossbow bolts. Again they were turned aside by his shield.
The first of the snarling mercenaries launched herself toward him, a jagged-bladed scimitar arcing in for his throat. She died in the blink of an eye, the warrior’s spear buried in her chest. The next two died almost as quickly, a crimson line slashed across one man’s throat, and another falling with a broken skull.
“Take him!” roared the expedition’s leader, drawing an exquisite, bespoke pistol from his waistband.
A cloud passed in front of the sun, allowing the warrior to be seen more clearly. His armor was wrought with celestial imagery,and it seemed as if stars gleamed in the shimmery fabric of his midnight-blue cloak. That starlight also glittered in his unrelenting gaze, shadowed within the visor slits of his helm. For a moment, it seemed like his armor and speartip gleamed with what could only be described as divine power, and sudden dread filled the leader of the raiders, for he had heard of this power in his childhood, but had long since dismissed it as myth and legend.
The lone warrior moved like liquid, every movement smooth, efficient, and deadly. He was impossibly fast—faster than any man should be. More mercenaries died, their blood staining the dry desert ground. None could land a blow upon the deadly fighter. He moved effortlessly through the battle, closing inexorably on the horseman. One by one, the mercenaries were slain. In moments, those still standing turned and fled in the face of this unstoppable foe.
The leader of the mercenaries leveled his pistol at the lone warrior and fired. Impossibly, he swayed aside at the last moment, and the shot merely scraped across the side of his helm. The leader swore and cocked his pistol for another shot… but he was too slow.
The warrior’s shield took him square in the chest, and he was hurled from the saddle. He fell heavily and grimaced as the warrior’s foot came down on his torso, pinning him to the ground.
Staring up, the leader of the raiders realized with a shock that he knew the face of his opponent. A name surfaced in his memory, from a time when he had still lived among the Rakkor.
“Atreus,” he said. “Is it you?”
In answer, the Rakkoran’s spear drove down, punching through the leader’s chest.
“Atreus is gone,” said the warrior. “I am the Pantheon, now and forever.”
Blood bubbled from the dying man’s lips, and he shuddered. When finally he was still, Pantheon pulled his weapon clear and turned away. Twilight had given way to dusk, and countless stars lit the night sky.
A comet of burning fire streaked down toward the distant mountains, a hundred miles east.
Pantheon’s eyes narrowed. “It is time, then,” he said to the darkness, and began the long journey back to Mount Targon.
The Slumber Party Summoning

Ariel Lawrence

Okay, I’ll admit slamming the door in their faces was a bit of an overreaction.
“Lulu.” I make the words come out calm and easy, but I can feel my palms go sweaty in the oven mitts I’m still wearing. Can’t forget about dinner. I keep my white-knuckle grip on the front door handle. Lulu stops her absent-minded twirl in the hallway, coming up to stand next to me. I take one more breath in and out before turning towards her. “Do you know why Ahri’s teammates are standing on the porch?”
“Yep,” she says, nodding her head. She draws herself up a little taller, “You said, ‘This is a man-da-tory Star Guardian council meeting.’”
Just my luck. I instinctively release the door handle, as I hear Lulu do an extra bubbly—but very stern—Lux impression enunciating each of those syllables.
I definitely said that.
To Jinx.
Who still isn’t here yet.
Lulu makes for the handle, the smile on her face positively beaming. “They’re Star Guardians, right?”
I nod dumbly.
“Super,” she says as she opens the door wide.
The three of them are still standing on the porch where I left them, although in decidedly different positions. Ez looks like he was mid-sentence trying to calm down a much more annoyed Sarah Fortune.
No, not ‘Sarah’, I remind myself. Sarah’s for friends. I learned that all too well from last summer’s outdoor adventure.
Miss Fortune’s usual smirk is now an angry grimace as she furiously texts something on her phone. Behind her, the quiet girl with mint green hair—Soraka—is carrying a bakery box from Pantheon’s Pastries. They look at me intently, probably wondering if I’m going to slam the door again. I can actually hear crickets in the bushes.
Lulu reaches out into the uncomfortable silence and takes Ezreal and Fortune by the wrists, pulling them inside. Fortune’s so surprised, she goes along with it, nearly dropping her phone. I can feel the pink climb up my cheeks as Ezreal flashes his trademark grin in my direction as he passes by. I wave meekly with one oven mitt.
Soraka leans in close and whispers “Cinnamon rolls” in my ear, like a spy password. She smiles, hands the heavy bakery box to me, and walks quickly to catch up with the others.
“Welcome,” I hear Lulu announce from the living room, “to our Star Guardian sleepover party!”

This is awkward.
I can hear the second hand of the clock in the kitchen tick off another minute that we’ve been uncomfortably quiet. Ezreal is wedged on the small couch between Fortune—still texting on her phone—and Soraka, who’s quietly watching Lulu while nibbling on a cinnamon roll. Janna and Poppy are sitting on the stiff dining chairs Lulu dragged in from the other room. Lulu is bent over the coffee table, folding a piece of paper into some complicated shape. I have no idea what she’s making, but her soft humming is the only other sound besides the clock.
And me, well, I’m pacing a well-worn path in the carpet.
The first to break the silence is Fortune. She stops texting, lets out a disgusted sigh, and finally puts her phone face down on her lap, the small pistol charms on the end jingling loudly. She looks around, taking in everything in the room from the faded pattern on the curtains to the beige-colored couch for the first time. Her disappointment is evident. As she sinks back into the cushion behind her, Ez leans forward.
“You all do this regularly?” he says. “Get together like this?”
Poppy and Janna stare at him. Poppy still doesn’t understand why Ez was chosen as a Guardian. I keep telling her the First Star chooses each of us for a reason. She crosses her arms and watches him, clearly still not convinced.
“Yes, doesn’t your team?” Janna asks. She’s calm, at least on the outside, but there’s a slight breeze circling the room even though the ceiling fan isn’t on. I can tell she’s just as on edge about them being here as I am.
“Ahri…” Ez starts and then looks at Fortune. Fortune rolls her eyes, her perfectly feathered bangs rippling as she shakes her head. “Well,” Ez continues. “Ahri prefers to be out and about where there are people. She’s not much of a homebody herself, and she figures most trouble wouldn’t be either.”
Great. They think we’re homebodies. Could this get any worse?
“Is that why she and Syndra didn’t come? They have something better to do?” Poppy asks, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm against the foot of her chair. Janna stiffens at the mention of Syndra.
Soraka jumps in and tries to change the subject. “Your friend, the one with the long red pigtails—”
“The loud one,” Fortune interrupts. “The one with a rocket launcher.”
“Yes, the one with the glitter bombs,” Soraka finishes. “Is she coming tonight?”
“Jinx? She’s always fashionably late.” I look at my watch. ”She just loves to make an entrance.” The words are barely out of my mouth when the front door opens and slams loudly. I hear the familiar sound of a tote bag full of Shiro, Kuro, and a handful of fireworks hitting the ground in the hallway.
“Luxy-Poo! Windchimes! Shortstop!” Jinx calls out in a sing-song voice. “I’m home!”
Jinx saunters into the living room just as Lulu triumphantly finishes the last fold in her project. Jinx lowers her sunglasses to the end of her nose. It’s dark outside. It has been dark outside for more than an hour. “Looks like you got the party started without me.” Jinx smiles, obviously enjoying all eyes on her, until her gaze finds Ez stuffed in the middle of the couch.
“Oh, he’s here too,” she says, the enthusiasm sucked out of her like a fast-leaking balloon. She tugs on the bow in Lulu’s hair and focuses on what looks like an oversized paper pincher in the young Guardian’s hands. “Whatcha got there, Loops?”
Lulu takes her hands out of the folds of paper and hugs Jinx around the waist. “I need another number.”
I stop my pacing to take a better look at the star-shaped object Lulu’s made. It’s a paper fortune teller. I haven’t seen one since primary school. The numbers on the flap show how many times the fortune teller should open and close it, with the last number chosen revealing some kind of mysterious destiny. My fortunes always ended in doom. Maybe because I always played with Jinx.
“Four,” I say. Maybe Lulu’s paper project can be over quickly.
“Twelve,” Jinx says.
“Two hundred forty-six,” Fortune says. Her satisfied smirk is back.
“Two hundred and forty-six it is.” Lulu smiles at Fortune and grabs a pen off the coffee table, scribbling the number onto one of the flaps. Lulu sits down at Soraka’s feet, offering up the paper oracle, encouraging her to pick a number to start the game.
“Do you braid each other’s hair too?” Fortune asks watching Lulu and Soraka, her words dripping with sarcasm.
“No—” I begin.
“Sometimes,” Poppy says at the same time, rushing to defend the unaware Lulu. Janna nods enthusiastically.
Ugh. Can neither of them play it cool?
“What I mean is, no, not all the time. We don’t braid each other’s hair all the time,” I stammer. “I mean, we discuss team stuff. Important Star Guardian matters.” I cough. “You know, saving the universe.”
“And braid each other’s hair,” Poppy adds truthfully.
Fortune rolls her eyes and goes back to her phone.
“How about we skip the usual slumber party stuff and talk serious Star Guardian matters?” I offer.
“Bor-ing,” Jinx says. She eyes Lulu as she slowly opens and closes the paper fortune teller for Soraka. “How about we play a faster game with more consequences?” I hear the trigger click of Shiro and Kuro waking up.
Ezreal claps his hands and rubs them together excitedly. “Sounds dangerous, I’m in.”
“Great. Let’s start.” Jinx smiles, but then quickly turns on Ez. “Truth. Or. Dare. Is it true that you have romantic intentions towards our Luxanna?”
“Jinx!” I shout.
Ez opens his mouth like a beached fish, definitely not having prepared for this particular game.
“Truth,” Janna says loudly, diffusing the rising energy in the room as if blowing out a candle. All heads snap towards her.
“Ez has to answer,” Jinx says watching the color rise in Ez’s face.
“First person to volunteer goes first,” Poppy says. “That’s the rule.”
“Fine,” Jinx says, obviously dissatisfied. “Is it true that you are older than Poppy’s hammer?”
I watch Janna’s look from Jinx to Poppy. Jinx is thrilled to see Janna momentarily flustered, while Poppy absently touches the handle of the hammer where she’s set it against her chair. Janna’s gaze settles on Soraka for a moment and then moves on. “False.”
Poppy eyes her hammer with a newfound awe and respect.
“Really?” Jinx raises an eyebrow. “But, it’s true that Short Stack’s hammer has more personality, right?”
“You can’t ask her another question, Jinx.” Poppy points out. “It’s Janna’s turn to ask a question. That’s the rule. Janna, go on, who are you going to pick?”
“Soraka,” Janna says gently. “Truth or Dare?”
Soraka is halfway through a cinnamon roll, staring attentively at Lulu opening and closing the paper fortune teller while counting under her breath. Shisa sits on Soraka’s shoulder monitoring the whole operation with a focused frown, at once completely confused at what Lulu is doing, but intent on making sure it happens with the utmost efficiency. Without missing a number—and to Shisa’s satisfied approval—Lulu nudges her elbow into Soraka’s knee, letting her know she’s been tapped into the group game.
“Yes,” Soraka smiles, a bit absent-minded. “That’s me.”
“Truth or dare?” Poppy repeats, taking her self-appointed position of game referee very seriously.
“Uh, truth,” Soraka says.
Janna thinks for a minute. “What do you remember—”
“Well,” Soraka jumps in, excited to be included in the game. “Ezreal and I went to Pantheon’s earlier. I had a cinnamon roll. He had an iced coffee, no milk because his tummy doesn’t like dairy—”
Poppy clucks her tongue. “Janna, it has to be an ‘Is it true’ question.”
Soraka sits up straight on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, and waits. Zephyr floats in from the dining room and curls up in Janna’s lap. Janna rests a hand on her companion, a slight breeze rustling its fur.
“Soraka.” Janna’s voice is low and calm, barely above a whisper. “Is it true you can remember a time when the First Light was whole?”
“Oh, yes.” Soraka nods with her whole body. “I mean, true.”
The room goes eerily silent. She looks around. All of us are staring at her. Jinx can’t remember what she had for lunch today. Even Poppy and Lulu can only say what it was like when they were called. I’ve asked Janna about the First Light and especially its guidance, but the memories, even for her, are murky and broken.
“Wait, you all can’t remember?” Soraka’s voice wavers a bit. “But—”
“You have to pick one person to ask a question, Soraka,” Poppy says cutting her off with the rules of the game. “And they have to pick truth, and—”
“We get it, Smalls,” Jinx jumps in, changing the subject before Janna or I can ask more questions about Soraka’s memories. I’ll have to find a quiet moment later to talk to her.
“My turn to pick. Okay, mmm…” Soraka bites her bottom lip and then turns in her seat to face Ezreal. “Ez. I pick Ez!”
“No fair. I wanted to pick Ez,” Jinx pouts.
Poppy shakes her head. “You already went.”
“Ladies, please. There’s enough adventure to go around.” Ez tucks both hands behind his head and settles back on the couch. Fortune pulls out one the small throw pillows from behind her, fluffs it, and slams it back into the sofa and Ezreal, conveniently knocking the literal wind out his gallant sails in the process. I stifle a giggle into one of the oven mitts I’m still wearing.
Ez blushes and tries to recover his normal breathing gracefully.
“Dare,” he chokes on the words. “I choose dare.”
“I… dare… you…” Soraka pauses between each word, watching Poppy to make sure she’s getting it right. Poppy nods. Ez waits expectantly. “I dare you to do that thing you do,” she says finally.
Ez shrugs, totally not following whatever Soraka is talking about.
“You know, that thing you do. With Yuuto,” Soraka continues, clapping excitedly for him. “And the portal thing.”
“Oh, yeah. Cool. I can totally do that.” Ez reaches into his backpack and taps on the bright blue of his Guardian emblem. “Hey, bud—wake up. It’s showtime.”
“Portals? Portals sound dangerous.” Poppy asks as a white-winged familiar pounces into the room. It leaps into the air, wings spread, its bright blue eyes the same color as Ezreal’s.
“Portals are dangerous. Very dangerous. But lucky for you, you’ve got me. And this isn’t quite a portal. Technically it’s a shortcut through another dimension.” Ez flashes a lopsided grin at Poppy and starts looking around the room, eyeing a black ceramic bookend and a small potted plant. “Alright, Soraka, do you think that bookend is good enough for a demonstration of a little arcane magic?”
Soraka shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. Between Yuuto’s chirping loops, I can hear Lulu deep in concentration.
“Two hundred and forty-four. Two hundred and forty-five,” she counts. “Two hundred and forty-six!” she announces triumphantly. “It’s done, Soraka.” Lulu waves the paper oracle around in her hand.
“The fortune maker!” Soraka lets out a giggle. “I almost forgot.”
“Fortune maker it is!” Ez says, “Yuuto, let’s go. Time for a true display of skill.”
Yuuto arcs in the air, turning towards Ez. It looks like Yuuto is going to crash right into Ez, but at the last minute, Ez and Yuuto combine, granting Ez a brilliant set of white feathered wings that fill the room. Less than a second later, Ez disappears through a wavering portal to reappear hovering over Lulu. He plucks the paper fortune maker out of her hands.
“Just going to borrow this for a second,” he says and then a moment later he blinks back to the sofa, leaning comfortably back against the couch cushions with no wings and a happily purring Yuuto. He unfolds the flap and reads the fortune aloud. “‘Opportunity can’t knock if you don’t build a door.’ Huh. I like it, Lulu.”
Poppy groans. “She copied that from our takeout cookies last night.”
“That’s not her fortune,” Lulu says. She gestures to the flap to the right. “It’s the next one.”
Ez unfolds the second flap and reads it to the group. “Only in darkness can the light shine brightly.”
“The First Star told me that,” Lulu says.
“The First Star talks to you?” Fortune cocks her head in disbelief. “Still?”
“Yes,” Lulu’s face is a serene smile. “Ezreal, when you open a portal like that, where did you say you go?”
“Uh-oh,” Ezreal whispers.
“What’s ‘uh-oh’, champ?” Jinx leans over Ez as he struggles to keep a grip on the folded paper.
“We may need to get rid of this.” Ez gives a weak smile. “Like right now.”
Before anyone can make good on that suggestion, the paper oracle rips itself out of Ez’s hands. It tumbles around the room like a possessed autumn leaf. A high-pitched whine begins to grow. It seems like it’s coming from the fortune teller itself.
The paper folds and unfolds a dozen times, finally dumping out a small but squat, black and green, glowing creature. Everyone is on their feet.
“Did you just bring an annoying, interdimensional hitchhiking demon into Lux’s living room using your not-a-portal portal power?” says Jinx, watching the unruly little monster jump from the arm of the sofa to the carpet.
“I might have,” Ez whispers. “Arcane magic doesn’t come with an instruction manual.”
“Cool,” Jinx says.
Ez looks at me, mouthing the word Sorry.
“This has only happened once before,” he says.
Fortune elbows Ez in the side.
“Okay,” Ez corrects himself, “This may have happened more than once. Possibly six or seven times, but it’s totally not a big deal.”
The little creature jumps on the coffee table. All I can see is Poppy’s hammer rear back and take a wide swing. There’s a crack of wood and the coffee table splinters. That is definitely not going back together ever again. The dark shape darts away unscathed.
Janna stands up, her arms lifting in the direction of the creature. A breeze starts to build, shifting the debris of the coffee table and fluttering the pages of one of the books that had been sitting on it just a moment ago.
“I got this, Janna.” Jinx is returning from the hall, Shiro and Kuro nipping at her heels.
“No,” Fortune says. I snap my head around to see one of Fortune’s shiny white pistols leveled at my face.
“Woah, Sarah. Not so fast. That’s a little close quarters, don’t you think?” Ez tries to step closer to her to push her guns off their mark. I feel my stomach drop as adrenaline coats my insides. This was her plan all along. My luck’s run out. She is going to end me.
“Fortune—”
The words barely leave my lips before I hear the pull of a trigger.
“Time to say goodbye,” she says. There’s a sharp pop like a balloon. My hands go up to my nose and eyes, quickly checking them out that they’re all intact and where they belong. A second later, there is no demon, and fine bits of paper start to rain down on everyone as the fortune teller explodes into confetti. It looks like it is snowing in my living room. Lulu is dancing in it, of course.
“Look, now it’s a party,” she exclaims. Shiro and Kuro tumble each other in the remains of the coffee table, while Shisa looks very disturbed at their delight in wanton destruction.
Unfortunately, my relief at being whole is short-lived. An angry, beeping alarm begins to wail as a smoky haze creeps throughout the house, originating from the kitchen.
“Smells like burning,” Jinx says.
Oh, no. Dinner.

The air is thicker in the kitchen. What was dinner for the team is now charred ruins stuck to a metal baking sheet. I cough and wave the oven mitts I’m still wearing, trying to move the smoke haze around. I open the window, letting the cool fall air in. The alarm finally shuts itself off.
My eyes are starting to water. I tell myself it’s from the smoke and the mess in the oven, but I’m pretty sure it’s from the mess of things going on in the living room.
“Everything’s ruined.” My voice is small and pathetic even to my own ears.
Then I hear a shuffle of footsteps on the tile floor. Janna or Ez must have braved the smoke to offer some comfort. I wipe my eyes quickly, surprised as I turn around.
It’s Fortune.
“Well that’s definitely not edible,” she says.
I nod my head in agreement. “Definitely not.”
Fortune’s phone vibrates with a text message. Ahri, I’m sure, telling her what all the cool kids are doing.
“This is probably not the way you wanted to spend your Friday night,” I offer.
I pick at the burned bits of what was dinner on the aluminum foil. “Sorry Lulu dragged you into all this. Dinner’s ruined. The party’s ruined. I totally understand if you want to go. We’ll figure things out by ourselves.”
Ugh. Too many words. Why can I not stop talking around her? I take a deep breath and try to start more clearly.
“Fortune—”
“Sarah,” she interrupts. “You can call me Sarah.”
“I thought Sarah was for friends,” I say.
Fortune’s phone vibrates again. Instead of looking at it, she puts it in her back pocket. “I came in here to apologize. You looked pretty freaked out back there.”
“Have you ever been on the other side of one of your pistols?”
“No, I guess not,” she chuckles. Her voice takes a serious turn. “You need to understand I would never hurt another Guardian. Not ever.”
I nod. There’s something more behind her declaration, a pain she hasn’t quite put away.
“I know Ez kinda made a mess of things, he does that sometimes, but would you mind if we stayed? Soraka would be fine if dinner was nothing but cinnamon rolls, but Ez ordered some pizzas to say sorry for the little portal mishap. But I totally get it if you want us to go—”
I hold up an oven mitt-clad hand. It’s Sarah who seems to have too many words now.
“Wait, you want to stay?”
Sarah opens her mouth, but is interrupted by an ecstatic Lulu skipping into the kitchen, a bouquet of pastel fabric and ribbons spilling out onto the floor around her. She shoves an armful of trimmed white flannel into both Sarah and my hands.
“These are for you,” she chirps before skipping back out of the kitchen.
“Lulu, dear,” I call after her. “What are these?”
Sarah holds hers up by its shoulders, inspecting Lulu’s handiwork.
“You’re right,” she says, smiling. “This is not how I usually spend my Friday nights, but I think this whole pajama party thing might actually be a little fun.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Her grin takes on a particularly mischievous bend. “And, I’ve always wanted to see what Ezreal looks like with braided hair.”
Pantheon

Atreus was born on the hostile slopes of Targon, and named after a star in the constellation of War, known as the Pantheon.
From an early age, he knew he was destined for battle. Like many in his tribe, he trained to join the Rakkor’s militant order, the Ra’Horak. Never the strongest or the most skilled warrior, Atreus somehow persevered, standing up, bloodied and bruised, after each bout. In time, he developed a fierce rivalry with a fellow recruit, Pylas—but no matter how often Atreus was cast onto the stones, he stood back up. Pylas was impressed by his unrelenting endurance, and through the blood they spilled in the training circle, a true brotherhood was born.
Atreus and Pylas were among the Rakkor who stumbled across a barbarian incursion, surviving the ambush that left the rest of their patrol dead. When the Aspect of the Sun refused to destroy these trespassers, Atreus and Pylas swore to capture the power of the Aspects themselves by climbing to the peak of Mount Targon.
Like so many before them, they underestimated how arduous the ascent would be, with Pylas shivering his last upon finally reaching the summit. Only Atreus remained as the skies opened, making him host to a divine Aspect, with the power to take revenge.
But it was not a man who returned to the Rakkor afterward, spear and shield gleaming with celestial might. It was the Aspect of War itself, the Pantheon. Judging Atreus unworthy, a warrior who had known only defeat, it had taken control of his body to pursue its own ends—a task it considered too great for mortal men.
Cast into the furthest corners of his own mind, Atreus endured only vague visions as the Aspect scoured the world for Darkin, living weapons created in a bygone age.
Eventually, Pantheon was goaded into battle not far from Mount Targon by the Darkin Aatrox, who sought the mountain’s peak. Their fight raged into the skies, and swept through the armies of men beneath… until the impossible occurred. The Darkin’s god-killing blade was driven into Pantheon’s chest, a blow that carved the constellation of War from the heavens.
But as the Aspect faded, Atreus—the man it had considered weak—awoke once more. Impaled upon Aatrox’s blade, and with the power of the Aspect’s weapons dimming, he took a ragged breath, and spit in the Darkin’s face. Aatrox sneered, and left Atreus to die.
Hours later, as the crows descended, Atreus painfully stood back up, stumbling back to the Rakkor in a trail of blood. After a lifetime of defeat, his will to live, and his anger at betrayal, were enough to stave off the death that had claimed War itself.
Atreus recovered on Pylas’ homestead, nursed back to health by his friend’s widow, Iula. There, Atreus realized he’d spent his life looking to the stars, never considering what lay beneath. Unlike gods, mortals fought because they must, knowing that death lay in wait. It was a resilience he saw in all life, the threats unending.
Indeed, barbarian invaders now threatened the Rakkor’s northern settlements, including Iula’s farm. Though it was months before he could lift a spear, Atreus was determined to end this scourge himself, and eventually set out with the Aspect’s dulled weapons in hand.
Yet, when he arrived, he found his sworn enemies already under siege. He knew from their cries, from the overwhelming stench of blood… they faced Aatrox.
It was Aatrox who had driven the barbarians into Targon, Atreus realized. Though he’d considered them his foes, they were much like the Rakkor—mortals who suffered in the conflicts between greater powers. Atreus felt a cold rage at both the Darkin and the Aspects. They were no different. They were the problem.
Atreus put himself between the barbarians and Aatrox. Recognizing the battered shield and spear of the fallen Aspect, the Darkin mocked him—what hope had Atreus now, without the Pantheon’s power? But even though Aatrox’s blows cast him to his knees, Atreus’ own will reignited the Aspect’s spear, upon hearing the cries of the people around him… and with a mighty leap, he struck a blow that severed the Darkin’s sword arm.
Both blade and Darkin fell to the ground. Only Atreus still stood, and watched his namesake star blaze back to life in the heavens.
Though he often yearns to return to Iula’s farm, Atreus vowed that day to stand against Aspects, Ascended, demons, and any who wield power so great, it can only destroy. Forsaking his own name, he has become a new Pantheon—the Aspect’s weapons fueled by the will to fight that can only exist in the face of death.
For with the divine Pantheon gone, War must be reborn in man.
For Those Who Have Fallen

When I land in the ruins of Nerimazeth, it does not feel as if I have leapt, celestial magic burning my path across the sky, but as if I have fallen.
I am, after all, only a man.
Around me on the swirling dunes, a cohort of Ra’Horak fights, Solari warriors far from the temples of Mount Targon. They have marched with fifty spears, three weeks into the desert—a distance I have crossed in moments—to investigate a power that grows, even as their own wanes. Here, the sun they worship is so constant, it is as if the shadows of the past are still burned into the desert, their outline all that remains of an empire long lost. Buildings, now covered in dunes. A sun, once meant to raise men into the heavens, now dulled and fallen to earth.
Shurima was born, and died here. It was in Nerimazeth that the first Ascended were created. Meant to defend Shurima against any threat, those that outlived the empire were driven mad by long centuries of conflict, becoming Darkin and laying waste to the world before being contained.
But, as I well know, some abominations birthed by Shuriman hubris live on…
The sound of metal rings in my ear, as a spear whips past my helm. Then another, and another. The ringing rises up into a full battlecry, as the Ra’Horak unleash their might. Yet, as steel fills the sky, a blast of magic tears through the spears’ path, carving a swath of destruction through the ruins.
Once the dust clears, I see it. The reason I have come. A creature looms, burning and broken like the empire it would rule. It is unlike any Ascended I have ever seen, a shattered god that has claimed this fallen city, and would see it rise again.
But once… it too was a man.
I will remind it what that means—to draw breath in the face of destruction. I will remind them all.
“The god-warrior!” one of the Ra’Horak cries. “We cannot defeat it!”
“Let me show you how a god dies!” I bellow in response, and I charge toward the creature, raising my spear. It is with their power that the spear glows—the power of the gods. The power of the stars. My muscles strain to bear the strange weight of the magic, as the creature unleashes another blast from within its shattered form. My spear is not burned away as the Ra’Horak’s were, but instead burns with its own light. It streaks like a comet at the Ascended, casting it to the earth, and its blast into the heavens.
Before me, only feet from the rent opened by the creature’s blast, a Ra’Horak cradles the body of a fallen warrior. Her own arm has been scorched by magic, where she sought to shield him from the attack.
“You… You are an Aspect,” she says, though in her eyes I can see the desperation. She is pleading, begging me to say yes, so that I can save her. So that I can save her friend. All around, the Ra’Horak lines are broken, along with their will to fight.
I do not answer as the spear is called back to my hand by the magic she so craves, its return an echo of my own thrust. The Ascended has left no blood upon its tip, only sand. It possesses no flesh other than magic and stone.
I want to tell her my name. That I am Atreus, that I too was once a Ra’Horak looking to the skies for the power to save me… But that man is dead. He died on Targon’s peak, along with his brother, Pylas. Slain by the Pantheon, and by his own failures. And no matter how hard I try, I can bring neither Atreus nor Pylas back. Even the god is gone, its constellation torn from the heavens.
Instead, I turn to face the creature once more.
“You must fight,” I tell the Ra’Horak simply. “You all must.” Around us, the ruined city burns, as the Ascended’s magic refuses to fade.
I run over sand fused into glass, each new blast of magic shaking the whole world, until it feels like the earth itself must fall apart. That only the heavens will remain. But I refuse to give up. I see ballistae, abandoned on the ground. The Ra’Horak raise their shields against debris cast from falling buildings, disappearing into dust.
“Fight! You must fight!” I yell louder, my voice carrying more of the gods’ authority than I would like, and then I am upon it, my spear slashing into the Ascended, cutting across the broken stone it boasts instead of a face. This close, its blasts crash into my shield, pushing me backward. I slash again, my spear trailing magic, and again, I raise my shield only just in time to deflect the Ascended’s wrath.
My feet dig into the dirt. I struggle to hold the beast at bay as the magic beats into me with the Ascended’s will, made only stronger by cruelty and rage. I push against it, snarling, and power lances off of the shield wildly in every direction—cutting through the ruins, the sky, and through the Ra’Horak still cowering beneath both. My hands begin to shake, and it is not to the warriors, but to myself, that I growl against lungs gasping for breath.
“Fight…”
The creature’s eyes narrow. It knows. The earth beneath me can no longer hold. My strength can no longer hold. As I fall back to earth, the magic in my spear dies, and the helm clatters from my coughing face.
I spit blood into the dirt, and struggle to raise my head. But all I can see of Nerimazeth is that one Ra’Horak warrior, framed by smoke and chaos—as she looks back at me, into eyes only now revealed… and for the first time, sees something other than an Aspect. The man who cradled Pylas, as snow formed from his dying breath.
I wonder if she recognizes the stars, and my destiny, tattooed upon my chest. The scar that cuts through them. It is no longer pleading that shows in her eyes, as I see the light grow on her face, the creature gathering power for one more blast. Though her arm is ruined, and though her friend lies still, she picks up her shield and begins stumbling toward me, as inevitable and determined as death.
“What… is your name?!” I cough through ragged breaths, and still, the light grows brighter.
“Asose,” she says firmly as she stands beside me, and turns her shield to face the blast.
The ruins fill with impossible brightness that promises to burn everything away, until it does, and only darkness is left. There is no more power, no more Aspect. Where Asose once stood, there is nothing. Only my memory.
But still, I can feel my scar, throbbing with pain. Reminding me I am alive, and of every moment that brought me here. My brother-in-arms, Pylas, telling me to stop getting blood on his victory… The barbarian raid, each of us near death… Collapsing upon Targon’s pinnacle… The Darkin blade, cutting through death to awaken me again… Empyrean wheat, clinging to the mountain… The mud on my hands as I put down the plow, and pick up the spear…
All of that would be nothing without a woman taking up her shield—knowing that she would not survive, but that she would fight. Her power, her sacrifice, so much greater than that of the stars. So much greater than mine, and the weapons of the Aspect that have kept me safe.
It will not be in vain.
As I struggle to my feet, broken, I see the shadow of the Ra’Horak, emerging from cover, eclipsing the Sun Disc cradle behind me at the center of the ruins. I rise with them, not as a god, but as a man. My pantheon, all who have fallen, earning me another moment. All who have lived, and all who have died facing a moment of truth where they must decide why they fight. Who they love. What they truly are.
What are gods before this courage? They are nothing.
“Asose!” I yell into the ruins, though my ribs dig into my lungs.
“Asose!” the Ra’Horak call back. They too stand amidst the rubble, their shadow looming all the larger as the Ascended gathers its magic again.
And though I am broken, and though the god is dead, I feel the power ignite once more in my spear, as the plume on my helm bursts alight. It is calling me to battle, as the Ra’Horak cast their spears once more.
And, for a moment, a star lost with the Constellation of War gleams brighter than the sun.
Her name was Asose.
Perennial

Dana Luery Shaw

Many had feared that the spirit blossoms would never return to Ionia, a sign of the imbalance still permeating the land and its people. Much of a generation had come of age without the spirit blossoms, without the festival.
But Paskoma had learned over a lifetime that, no matter how long the blossoms were away, they always came back.
Now, for the first time since the war began, there were fresh buds upon the spirit trees, delicate and pearlescent and perfuming the air with a biting sweetness. Paskoma remembered the last festival well. It had arrived just a few summers after the birth of her granddaughter. She and her husband Okerei drank the spirit tea together and spoke with their lost loved ones, making sure that they remained well and showing them that they were remembered. It was a way to let go, to find peace, and to move forward after loss. Then their loved ones returned to the spirit realm, content knowing that the family would continue thriving.
This time, though, Okerei would not be by her side. He had died fighting against the Noxians shortly after they first invaded. There was so much to tell him. So much to ask.
But first, she needed to get things ready.
Paskoma’s teahouse did not have a name. Visitors to Weh’le were able to identify it by the distinctive teapot sculpture outside the front door. Back when Paskoma built the teahouse, she’d asked a talented woodweaver to create it out of different trees that bloomed different colors depending on the season. Presently, the teapot was a vibrant fuschia, half covered in blush-pink lanterns.
“Ituren?” Paskoma called into the teahouse. “I need your expertise.” He was tall and able to hang the lanterns on the higher branches.
“I am with you, my love.” A man of few words, Ituren placed the lanterns where Paskoma pointed, smiling down at her all the while. But it was a sad smile. A worried smile.
Ituren had been Paskoma’s love and companion since the last days of the war. But without the spirit blossom festival, they had never been able to commune with the spirit of Paskoma’s husband. Okerei had never been able to give his blessing to them, and so Paskoma did not feel able to marry again. Ituren was patient and understanding, having lost his wife half a lifetime ago, but he worried. Paskoma did her best to reassure him, but truthfully she wasn’t certain what she would do if Okerei did not approve.
After they hung the lanterns, Paskoma and Ituren readied the guest rooms and the common areas: washing the floors with wine, placing two candles in front of all the mirrors, and dividing the rooms for the onfall of paying guests they were expecting for the festival. They had started early in the morning, but the golden light of late afternoon shone on them when they heard a knock at the door. “May past joys bloom, Emai!” came a familiar voice.
Ituren and Paskoma shared a confused look as they both responded with the traditional “And present sorrows wilt.” That voice sounded so similar to that of Turasi, Paskoma’s daughter, but it couldn’t be. Turasi lived in Siatueh, a village on the other side of the bay, nearly a month’s journey across the mountains.
But when the door opened, it was Turasi who stepped in. Her smile was just like her father’s. Paskoma rushed to her daughter and hugged her tightly. “Turasi, I didn’t know you would be coming! What a lovely surprise. Where’s Satokka? Where’s Kumohi?”
“Satokka is just outside with our things. Kumohi… decided to stay in the village.” Paskoma recognized the tightness in Turasi’s voice as she spoke of her husband. “We wanted to surprise you, for the spirit blossom festival. So Satokka can meet her o-fa.”
Ituren looked at Turasi with a question in his eyes. “The buds only came out this past week.”
Turasi frowned, ready to reply, when a lanky young woman with a dour expression kicked open the door and pulled a wooden trunk into the room. Ituren bent down to help, but she waved him away. Turasi gave her daughter an exasperated look. “Satokka, let Ituren help you.”
“I can do it myself.” Without another word, Satokka dropped the trunk in the middle of the floor and went back outside.
Paskoma turned back to Turasi. “You’re here for the festival?”
Hesitation, then a nod. “Yes. We’re here for the festival.”
It didn’t matter that she wasn’t being honest. Paskoma could tell from the circles under her daughter’s eyes that she needed to be allowed her time. She knelt at the stove to light a small fire before looking back up at her daughter with an encouraging smile. “Then we will make sure this festival is one to remember.”
Long ago, the world was perfectly balanced. It was as an enormous tree full of life, with each branch, each leaf, each bloom carefully and thoughtfully positioned so that the sun and rain could nourish them all. The people, the animals, and the spirits were at peace. There was no word for “war” because there had never been battles or bloodshed.
One day, the Gatekeeper and the Collector crossed paths. The Collector saw how many spirits the Gatekeeper had led through the spirit realm to peace and happiness, and he grew jealous of her—
“Wait. The Gatekeeper? You mean the Fox.”
Ituren paused in his retelling of the old tale at Satokka’s interruption. He had enlisted her help in burying all of the blades in the house—the kitchen knives, his saw and sickle, and the rusted sword Paskoma had inherited from her aunt.
“I have heard people say the Gatekeeper is a fox, or a dog, or perhaps a leopard,” Ituren said with a smile. Satokka hadn’t spoken much in the days since she and Turasi had arrived. Ituren had hoped that a task and a story would help loosen her tongue. “Do you picture her as a fox?”
Satokka rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to speak to me like that.”
They continued digging in silence.
Ituren was patient. He could wait.
“When Fa-ir tells the stories,” Satokka said slowly, “he just calls her the Fox. So… she’s a fox.”
“I like to think of her as an otter,” Ituren said softly. He had always thought of the spirit realm as an endless river full of currents that could pull you off of your path, with a nimble otter showing the newly arrived spirits how to navigate treacherous waters.
Satokka stole a sideways look at him. “You can keep going,” she mumbled. “I still want to know why you bury these.”
Ituren cleared his throat and began to speak again.
The Collector grew envious of all the spirits that the Gatekeeper had helped find peace, and so he devised a plan. He took two of his strongest, loudest bells and melted them down. Then, over twelve nights, he hammered them into two blades. Into the first, he poured some of his Jealousy. Into the second, he poured some of his Obsession. Then, when spring began, he let the spirits of those swords bloom in the physical realm, and the swords grew from the ground like saplings.
Saplings. That was what the two Brothers thought the blades were when they stumbled across them in the forest.
The Brothers were the best of friends, perfectly loyal to one another and understanding of their roles in the world. The Elder would one day inherit their father’s own famed sword and lands, while the Younger would inherit their father’s ship. Both believed they would be great heroes, one at home and one abroad. One spring, they found the two sword-saplings growing in the forest. Neither of the Brothers had ever seen a tree grow so shiny, or so sharp. Together, they chopped them down, each shouldering one to bring back to their home.
Little did they know that this would be the last thing they would ever do together as Brothers while they remained alive. For as they walked home, the strange sap from the swords began to flow onto their necks, filling them with horrible thoughts and feelings… those of the Collector. Though they did not become enemies that day, they would eventually bring those blades together, a clanging of bells that would sound throughout the physical and spirit realms as nothing had before.
Satokka frowned. “That’s not how it happened. The Brothers make the swords themselves. They melt down their father’s sword after he dies, each thought that the other had the better blade. That’s why they went to war. The ‘Collector’ had nothing to do with it.”
Wiping the dirt from his hands, Ituren looked down at the hole he had just created in the guest room floor. The roots of the room grew thick and healthy. With just a little pressure, he was able to carefully slide the first blade beneath those roots. “These are old stories,” he said, “told and retold hundreds and thousands of times over many, many lifetimes. I’m sure we each get part of it right. This is the version I know best.”
Satokka considered for a moment as she idly ran her finger over the rusted sword. “So you bury these blades because of the Brothers?”
“Yes. When brothers cannot take up arms against one another, they do not fight. It ensures a peaceful festival, one where we let go of past strife. And look.” Ituren pointed to the sickle, lodged beneath another root. “If you give them over to roots that are grown in peace, the blades cannot grow as the sword-saplings did, rooted in violence.”
He wondered if she would want to hear the rest of his tale, but decided not to chance losing the silk-thin connection they were developing. Instead, he held out his hand for the sword.
Satokka clutched it to her chest protectively. “No. I’ll bury it. Just show me where.”
That was good enough.
Ituren showed Satokka how best to dig beneath the roots without disturbing them. They moved through the house, burying blades under the roots of each room, and giving the women the opportunity to talk seriously for the first time since they arrived.
After dinner, while Ituren and Satokka went off to bury the blades, Paskoma and Turasi uncorked the good wine. It had a rich cocoa-plum taste that lingered on the tongue and made real conversation with a reluctant speaker just a little bit easier. Three glasses in, Turasi was spinning her wine in the cup, watching the firelight dance in the liquid.
“Turasi?” A pause as Paskoma weighed how to ask. Turasi brought her eyes to meet her mother’s. “Why did Kumohi stay in your village? Why didn’t he join you and Satokka for the festival?”
Turasi didn’t want to talk about this yet, Paskoma knew, but they had been at the teahouse for three days now. She needed to know if this was the sort of trouble that could have followed them to Weh’le, if there was something she or Ituren would have to do to ensure they would be safe. Especially during the festival, with all of these strangers in town.
With a sigh, Turasi began. “There are Noxian ships that sail through the bay, to trade with Siatueh and the other villages along the cliffs. They are very… careful. Trying to make sure we know that they aren’t going to do anything. Hurt anyone.” She held her cup so tightly in her hands that Paskoma feared the glass would shatter. “But some of the other folks in Siatueh swear they have seen those same Noxians aground, surveying the area or sending their birds to do it for them. They don’t think the Noxians will ever let go of their designs on Ionia.”
Paskoma nodded. The invasion began after similar surveys, so she understood why it would make her daughter nervous. “And Kumohi?”
“Kumohi has not seen it with his own eyes, no. But he trusts the word of our friends and neighbors who have.”
“So he wanted to stay to confirm the sightings.”
“Not exactly.” Turasi’s hands shook as she took a long sip of wine. “They want the Noxians gone, Emai. They climb aboard the ships and toss everything that isn’t nailed down. For now, that is all they do, but…” She trailed off.
“A resistance.” Okerei had been a part of such efforts before.
“The Noxians have taken notice. They’re sending more ships. Ships with soldiers. I knew it was time to leave.” Turasi hugged her knees. “Kumohi disagreed.”
Paskoma stood and pressed a gentle kiss to Turasi’s forehead, dropping her hands to cover her daughter’s. “It is lovely having you and Satokka around. You do not have to leave once the festival is over.”
A ragged whisper, wet with tears. “Emai—”
“No.” She squeezed Turasi’s hands. “I don’t want to lose anyone else I love to war. Stay.”
Satokka tried to keep on task as she walked through the marketplace the next day. Ituren was to pick up decorative bells to replace a few broken ones, and Satokka had just picked up the two masks her o-ma had commissioned for her and her mother. The plan had been to run the errand, get back to Ituren, and go home. Well. To the teahouse.
But she was entranced by everything that was on display for the festival. The robes, the cakes, the flowers… She had been very young at the last spirit blossom festival, and she couldn’t remember much.
The cake stand had just caught her attention when she spotted an enormous puppet show just past it. The theatre, a large wooden wall on wheels with a translucent paper center, was set up in the middle of the square. Puppeteers moved intricately cut paper puppets as a fire mage created the light for the shadows. A narrator stood in front, explaining the story to a captivated audience as the puppets enacted it.
“And so the spirit of Despair asked our heroine Tsetsegua, ‘Do you truly believe you can find him?’ Tsetsegua nodded, knowing that to speak her hopes in front of Despair would make them fade into nothing.”
Satokka scowled. She had been lost in the beauty of the performance, but the story pulled her out of it. Tsetsegua wasn’t supposed to speak with Despair when she went to the spirit realm to find her lost love—Despair never spoke to anyone.
“Despair raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps I can help you. What is your name, mortal woman?’ Thinking quickly, Tsetsegua replied, ‘Nargui.’ No one. Now, Despair was bound to help Tsetsegua find the spirit of her lost love. And because Despair did not know her true name, Tsetsegua was safe from her wiles. For now.”
The stories her fa-ir told burned brightly in her mind as she observed this other, wrong version of the Tsetsegua tale. Satokka wished she could have stayed at Siatueh with her father. She would have been able to aid the resistance. She was tall and strong and could help throw Noxian goods into the sea. It was more than they deserved. She didn’t remember the time before the war, but Satokka knew something had been lost that Ionia had not yet reclaimed.
Disappointed, she turned to leave. But a larger crowd had started to form. One she wasn’t prepared for.
There were Noxians in Weh’le.
They were not wearing armor, they did not carry weapons, but there was always something in a Noxian’s expression that could identify them. An innate hostility, perhaps, or a sense that they were better than those around them.
But these Noxians—there were six of them, middle-aged or younger—were carrying themselves differently. They wore apologetic looks, as though they knew this festival was not meant for them. And yet here they were anyway. It made Satokka’s stomach turn.
The Ionians gave them a wide berth through the market. Whispers passed throughout the stalls, but not a soul told them they weren’t welcome. One of the younger Noxian women gave a hesitant grin. She held up a small bag of coins and started to walk to the cake stall.
Satokka looked around, waiting for someone to say something. To do something.
It would have to be her.
Satokka stared down the Noxian woman approaching the cakes until their gazes met. The woman held out her hand, as if to introduce herself.
Never breaking eye contact, Satokka spat at her feet.
A collective gasp shivered through the crowd. Satokka never saw how the Noxians reacted, because at that moment someone grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. She looked up—it was Ituren, bowing and apologizing for her actions as he led her away.
A small glance past Ituren as he rounded the corner showed Satokka that the Noxians were just… standing there. The woman she’d spat at looked lost. Pride rose in Satokka’s chest. Good. The Noxians should feel small.
They circled around the festival perimeter to lessen the chance that they might be followed. But Ituren had picked up new bells, and he jingled with every step. Finally Ituren threw the bells to the ground and led her back to the teahouse.
Before they entered the back door, Ituren spun to face Satokka. She blinked in surprise at his expression—she had never seen him look anything but cheerful or tired. But now, his eyes showed fear. “They came here in peace, to celebrate the festival with us, Satokka.” Ituren’s voice was never this sharp. “You did not have to do that.”
Satokka thought back to her father in Siatueh, to the resistance, to the Noxian soldiers making their way into her town at this very moment.
“Yes, I did.”
Turasi burst into the front room in a near panic and went straight to her mother. Paskoma had just handed a new guest a pot of tea, a clean set of sheets and towels, but she waved the woman on when she saw the terror and anger written on Turasi’s face.
“What is wrong?” Paskoma asked gently. Through gritted teeth, Turasi told the story of what happened to her daughter and Ituren at the marketplace. It had taken a while to get more out of Ituren than a sheepish apology for not bringing back any bells, and getting Satokka to speak about something she’d done wrong was like trying to wring water from a stone.
“I cannot believe she would do something so reckless, so dangerous!” Turasi had been so pleased to bring her family to the safety of Weh’le and her mother’s house. But not only were there Noxians in town, but Satokka had brought their attention to herself. That was the entire reason they had left Siatueh.
“She is nearly grown, Turasi. She is pushing her boundaries to see where they truly lie.”
“And that’s what will get her killed. Those Noxians… they may not have had weapons on them, but you know that every soldier who served in that army is a stone-hearted killer.”
“Excuse me.” Both women turned, startled. It was the new guest, standing in the doorway of her room. She was tall, with dark hair and unusual amber eyes partly obscured by the hood of her cloak. “You’re talking about warriors in Weh’le?”
“Yes, exactly,” Turasi said, disconcerted. She hadn’t noticed that they had walked toward the new guest as they spoke. The air around the woman seemed to shimmer strangely, moving differently around her than the rest of the teahouse. For a moment, Turasi wondered if she might be dreaming. “They’re trained in the ways of war. And they need to leave, but I don’t—”
“Oh, no,” the guest interrupted with a good-natured smile. “You misunderstand me. I am in search of someone who could serve as a protector. A guard. Any strong fighters in town could be persuaded to join me, if you only point me in their direction.”
“No.” Paskoma’s voice was clear and insistent. “I refuse to allow anyone dangerous to stay here during the festival. If you insist upon finding yourself a guard, then I will have to insist you find a different teahouse.” She held her hands out, ready for the guest to return her linens.
Instead the guest laughed airily, charmed by Paskoma. “This is the best teahouse in town, is it not? I am not going to stay somewhere inferior if I can help it. I will respect your wishes and not bring anyone dangerous through those doors.”
With a wink, she disappeared into her room. Paskoma let out a sigh and turned back to her daughter. “She will be fine, Turasi. Satokka is too smart to make herself a target for long.”
Turasi nodded. The words stuck in her throat, but she smiled at her mother. She forgot how soothing it could be to let her mother take care of her, sinking back into the roles they played during Turasi’s childhood.
There were differences, of course. When she was a child, Turasi never saw anything of her parents’ worries or fears. They were strong and ever-present, like the mountains or the sea. It wasn’t until after her father died that Turasi saw her mother lost or uncertain.
And now, with the spirit blossoms set to bloom soon, that uncertainty around Okerei had returned. What would her mother do if she didn’t get the answer she was looking for?
But then, Turasi wasn’t sure Paskoma knew what answer she truly wanted.
Satokka had never seen such a meal before in her entire life. To celebrate the first night of the festival, Paskoma cooked up a feast for the twenty or so people lodging at the teahouse. So Satokka filled her plate and her belly and did what she had come to enjoy most while staying with her grandmother: talking with and listening to the other guests.
Everyone wore their masks or costumes. Turasi instructed Satokka to wear her own mask out at the festival, and to never take it off. The Noxians could be watching, ready to retaliate. But Satokka didn’t mind. She loved her mask. It was intricate, with large ornate horns and eyes that twisted down the face into a wicked grin. This was the face of the Taker, the little girl who was there at the moment of every death.
During dinner, Satokka got into a heated discussion about the Taker with the amber-eyed guest. The woman was dressed like the Fox—or the Gatekeeper, as they called her in Weh’le—with lifelike fuzzy ears atop her head and markings like whiskers drawn across her face.
“But the Taker is the one who is actually there when a person dies,” Satokka insisted. “So it makes more sense for her to guide spirits to the spirit realm.”
“So then why,” the guest asked in an amused drawl, “do we remove the sharpest tooth in a person’s mouth and place it in their palm when they die? It isn’t for the Taker, I know that much.”
Satokka shrugged. “It’s payment, to cross the veil.”
“Who do they pay it to? Who would have use for those teeth? The Khumaia.”
“The what?”
“Your Gatekeeper. She wears each tooth she is given on an endless necklace, to understand the life of the spirit she leads down to the spirit realm. By the time they arrive, she knows whether the spirit will follow her peaceful path or Rakhsasum’s path of torment, even if the spirit does not know yet. She will do everything she can to help those destined for pain, but their fate is unveiled in that tooth.”
“Really?” Satokka had grown used to the differences in the stories between Weh’le and Siatueh over the last couple of weeks. Now, she looked forward to all of the tales she would tell her father when she saw him next.
The woman giggled. “No. I made it up.”
“Oh.”
“From what I can remember, it’s so we can celebrate the age of the person who died. The ground down tooth of a wise elder, the sharp youthfulness of a soldier cut down in her prime.” She paused and smiled at Satokka. “But I like telling stories that haven’t been told.”
When it was time for dessert, Satokka excitedly ate the cakes that Ituren had spent the last two days baking for this night. They were a little burnt on the bottom, but the sweet sticky center was full of flavor.
Ituren passed around the cakes by hand, starting with Satokka and ending on the guest with the excellent costume ears. The guest put her hand on Ituren’s forearm and looked deep into his eyes as she quietly asked him a question.
Satokka watched as Ituren’s eyes lost focus, then he nodded, saying, “Of course. Anyone you would want to house here is welcome, whether they are skilled with a blade or not. We do not discriminate here.”
The guest squeezed his arm in appreciation. “Thank you. You should let your wife know, she might not be as understanding as you are.”
Again he nodded, but Satokka noticed when Ituren turned to go back into the kitchen that his eyes weren’t their usual color. For just a moment, so briefly that it could have been a trick of the light, his normally dark brown eyes were the same shade of amber-gold as the fox-eared woman sitting beside her.
As the last rays of the sun disappeared over the water, the spirit blossoms, now in full bloom, began to glow in the moonlight. The festival-goers let out a cheer—finally, after all this time, the blossoms had truly returned. They lit the lanterns on the march up to the temple in the mountains, a warm and cheerful light to counter the eerie silver of the flowers upon the branches.
Paskoma wished she felt as elated as everyone else. After the feast, she and a masked Satokka had dressed in their finery and gone out in search of Okerei’s blossom, the one that would allow her to connect to his spirit and speak with him. In the past, it had never taken long for Paskoma to find the flower she was looking for. There was always a tether, it was said, between the still-beating heart of those alive and the still heart of their loved ones.
This time, though… there were so many spirits upon the trees.
She had never seen the branches so full, so bountiful. Some whispered that Ionians were not the only ones upon the trees, that the Noxians had poisoned their festival even in death. The cawing of ravens in the distance seemed to confirm their fears. Paskoma didn’t believe that. There was a simpler explanation. There were just so many who needed to come back now, more than ever before. The trees were heavy with the hopes of those trying to connect.
And she had not yet found Okerei.
She feared him lost, or not yet at peace, or simply not desiring to speak with her. Perhaps their link had been severed after so long apart.
Paskoma kept smiling through the tears that threatened to spill and encouraged Satokka to keep looking. She would not let her granddaughter’s first spirit blossom festival be ruined by her own grief. This was supposed to be a celebration, and she knew it was important that Satokka learn to understand the joy to be found in these reunions.
Turasi and Ituren joined them after they finished clearing away the feast. “Have you found Fa-ir yet?” Turasi asked as she slipped on her own mask, a beautifully painted Tsetsegua with tears carved into her cheeks. Paskoma shook her head, her throat too tight to speak. “Then Satokka and I will continue to look. Why don’t you rest for a moment?”
Paskoma allowed Ituren to lead her to a bench, where she sat and observed. She saw families crying over pots of spirit tea, begging their loved ones to stay just a little longer. She saw children playing soldier with sticks for swords, a seriousness to their expression that ought not be there. She saw the worry and the whispers from those around the festival who listened to the ravens and stared at the spirit trees with distrust and contempt.
This was not the spirit blossom festival she remembered. She wondered if it ever would be again.
Her eye was drawn away from the festival by the new and patterned sounds of drums in the distance, the blazing of flames on a nearby mountaintop. Paskoma’s hand went to her chest—she knew this sound. She had heard it after fierce battles, when the Noxians burned their dead on enormous pyres.
“I wish,” she sighed, “we did not have to spend so much time looking to the past.”
“Is that not what the festival is about?”
“No.” She turned to look at the trees, her back to the flames. “It is about letting go of the past, and moving forward into the future. So many people forget that.” Though she could not see it, Paskoma thought she could feel the heat of the fire lapping at her, threatening to engulf her, her family, everything around her, all that was and all that would come. “And this feels different.”
“Different in what way?”
“Does this look like letting go?” Paskoma asked, sorrow in her voice as she gestured around them. “Or does it look like we are holding on to something so tightly that it’s bound to come back?”
A warm hand enveloped her own. She looked up into Ituren’s eyes as he spoke softly to her.
“You are upset that we have not found Okerei’s blossom yet.”
A tear coursed down her cheek. “I… everything is different. The spirit blossoms have returned, but can we return to how we were before? Can anything be made right?”
Ituren squeezed her hand gently. “There is still time. We will find him, my love. Your heart’s tether to him was—is—the strongest I have ever seen. You will speak to him and see that, though some things may change, others never will. He will always love you, as you will always love him. And whatever his answer may be…” He paused as he brought her palm to his lips. “Speaking with him will bring you and your family peace. And that is all I want for you.”
Paskoma’s tight smile softened into something real as she gazed at the man she had loved for so long. She squeezed his hand in return. “Our family, Ituren.”
He closed his eyes before tears could come and placed her hand over his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart beneath her fingertips, strong and steady and alive.
For the first time, she knew what she wanted. Regardless of what Okerei would say.
She was ready to let go of the past, and move forward into her future, with Ituren at her side.
The six Noxians tried to keep their ceremony private, but it demanded attention, an insistence that all honor the fallen of Noxus. They had traveled from a small island in the middle of the bay to celebrate the dead in the Ionian way, but had been turned away from the spirit blossom festival at Weh’le earlier in the week. So they had to keep the traditions of their own people and remember the dead the only way they knew how. Though the Noxians had brought little with them on the journey, the remembrance ceremony was easy to improvise.
Laurna beat the Wolf drum, Giotto and Samtha stoked the fire, Helia and Arnaut built the effigies from fallen pieces of timber and twine. Jacrut tossed Samtha’s uneaten festival cake onto the coals. No one felt right eating it after the marketplace incident and so it became the first offering, lending the air a burnt honey scent. Then, with the dramatic flair that came from a noble upbringing and a priestly training, Jacrut threw the effigies atop the flames.
“We send these souls into the sky,” Jacrut intoned, his voice ringing out in the clear, still night. “So that their ashes may fall over all the world.”
“May their deaths bring Noxus across the seas,” the others murmured.
“May their bodies nourish the soil so that we may grow.”
“May they not have died in vain.”
“And may their souls—”
Jacrut stopped suddenly as a huge burst of wind fed the flames, spiraling them toward the stars. It overwhelmed him for a moment, driving him to silence.
This was the promise of Noxus. A flame that would burn everything in its path, even its own people. He and his comrades had realized this even before the war finished. They were all deserters trying to make a life for themselves tucked away from those they had abandoned and those they had hurt.
No one wanted them.
This was not Noxus. This was not their land, and he was unsure if their gods could hear them here. Was unsure if he wanted them to hear. He knew the prayers, yes, but he wasn’t sure he still believed in them.
The blossoms on the spirit trees glowed, almost pulsing in the light of the fire. Jacrut swallowed hard. No, this was not Noxus. This was something beautiful, dangerous, terrifying. They were what made him nervous. The blossoms, blooming for the first time since the war.
Because if the gods weren’t watching, that meant the only eyes on them were the spirits of Ionians. People he and his comrades had killed, people who had no reason to feel anything toward them other than rage and resentment.
People he hoped they would not have to fight against again. Because they had all seen the ships, the soldiers. They knew what it meant. What they didn’t know, was what it would mean for them. For their lives in Ionia. For their service to Noxus.
“May their souls find rest among our ancestors,” he croaked out, his throat dry, “and lend us their strength for the battles to come.”
He did not want the spirits to hear his prayers.
A Piece of Shadow Cake

Odin Austin Shafer

Xayah jumped upward into the trees’ foliage, dodging the gunfire that exploded from the temple’s walls. The humans called their weapons “Kashuri rifles”. They were deadly, and the town’s guards were obviously trained warriors. But they were too late. Too late to hit her. Too late to stop the tribesmen she commanded, who had already climbed the ancient temple and reached what it guarded: a quinlon.
It was a circle of five massive rocks, orbiting around each other, floating in the sky. A great ward, it contained ancient enchantments, which held back and limited the natural magic of this land.
From the quinlon’s gray stone hung a dozen ropes, attached to spikes that the vastayan tribesmen had cast and hammered into it. The tribesmen were the Kepthalla vastaya. Their bodies were feathered, like Xayah’s own tribe, but their heads were long, and from their crown grew great horns.
Hanging from some of those lines, with ropes tied to their waists, were the bodies of the slain. And on the ground far below were more dead bodies. A dozen comrades who had died trying to reach the stone—killed by the humans’ cruel missiles. But their sacrifice had, at least, secured the line Xayah needed.
She nodded to Rakan, her lover and partner. He stole a kiss from her as he took the bundle she held. Then Rakan bounded into the treetops.
“Whooo!” He screamed in joy as he skipped from tree to tree before jumping into the sky with breathtaking speed.
His final leap traversed the height of the tower, a distance greater than a dozen men standing on each other’s shoulders, and still he was rising higher and higher into the air.
Xayah felt her lungs empty. So many had died for this moment… and in it she feared her lover might join the dead. Everything seemed too bright. Rakan’s cape glittered like the sun through the thin autumn clouds. The guns were tracking him. Aiming. It all came down to this. But the energy of his leaps was slowing…
Above him, on one of the ropes, a Kepthalla tribesman swung down from his hiding place, toward Rakan. But Rakan was slowing. And the guns began firing at him.
It was a ludicrous plan, based on some idiotic circus move she’d seen Rakan perform. Xayah knew she shouldn’t have used it. She was risking the battle, the fate of this tribe, and her lover’s life all on Rakan’s luck and athleticism. He was a warrior and an acrobat certainly. But there were so many guns. If he failed—if he hesitated—if he slowed… if he got hurt…
The tribesman hanging from the stone held out his hands and Rakan grabbed them, propelling himself even further upward.
And then he was on the side of the quinlon. He ran up its near-vertical surface, his cape flowing behind him majestically. And he was laughing. Laughing and mocking the mortals firing at him.
“You beautiful bastard,” Xayah whispered joyfully. She felt her hands unclench at last.
“What, warleader?” said the diminutive Kepthalla messenger-singer beside her.
“Sound the retreat! Get everyone off that rock,” Xayah roared.
The messenger blew the horn he carried. Its strangely deep and melancholy sound echoed through the forest and off the temple’s walls.
The Kepthalla tribesmen began to flee from the quinlon. Rappelling, jumping, falling, before running for the forest. They were easy prey for the human marksmen… but they didn’t take the bait. The mortals knew that Rakan was the only target who mattered now. But now he was alone.
Gunshots exploded around him, peppering the stone of the quinlon with tiny holes. When he reached the top, Rakan set down the package, then glanced around in confusion. He looked down at Xayah and shrugged.
“No, you damn idiot!” Xayah screamed. “The matches! The fire sticks behind your ear!” But her words were lost in the gunfire and distance.
Xayah leapt to the top of the trees, exposing herself to the marksmen, and mimed reaching behind her ear.
The bullets were impacting all around him, sending up tiny shards of shrapnel and dust. But Rakan only covered his eyes from the afternoon glare and looked to Xayah. Seeing her gesture, he seemed to suddenly remember the rest of her plan.
He yanked a match from the feathers behind his ear. Struck it on the rock. Leaned over the bundle with it. Then jumped clear.
He used his cape to direct his fall, gliding and banking, somehow always evading the gunfire directed at him. He was a battle-dancer, and their true skill was feeling what an enemy would do, even before they did.
He crashed through the treetops, lost control briefly, hit a tree limb, then somehow backflipped and landed gracefully beside her.
“I am gorgeosity in motion!” Rakan shouted in triumph. He held the smoking match out to Xayah. “Do we still need this fire stick?”
“Ashai-rei,” Xayah swore while rubbing her forehead. “No, we don’t need the match anymore.”
“Now what?” Rakan asked.
“Watch as one of the humans’ own weapons—a bomb used against our people in Navori—watch as it destroys our prison!” Xayah shouted, not to Rakan, but to the Kepthalla tribesmen gathering around her.
Only silence replied… followed by another round of gunfire raking the woods.
“Rakan, did you remember to light the fuse?” Xayah asked with all the calm she could muster and wondering, not for the first time, why she trusted him with these things.
“Fuse?” Rakan asked.
But before Xayah could scream, an explosion cracked overhead.
The largest rock of the quinlon broke apart. It was larger than any house, and its remains crashed into the other floating stones around it. And then the other, surrounding rocks stilled, no longer rotating.
“I put the fire stick on that little string,” Rakan said as the remaining stones of the quinlon began to quiver. Then, all at once, they plummeted downward. The earth shook as they crashed into the valley and monastery below.
The giant quinlon was gone, and the countless centuries of magic it had held back was suddenly released, like a dam crumbling and releasing a flood.
Around Xayah, the forest shone with light. Will-o’-the-wisps pulsed to life like miniature stars. Oddly-shaped beings of wild magic, glimmering with the light of the spirit realm, faded in and out of existence all around her. It was glorious.
She looked to Rakan, and he smiled back at her. His cape shimmered, crimson and gold. His feathers ruffled and peacocked. As the magic swelled, the faint impression of horns grew out from his sharp cheekbones, but he batted them away in favor of darkening his face to a color matching Xayah’s.
“There’s so much, I can feel it. I can feel it changing us,” Xayah said as she breathed it in. It was as if a great iron bar had been clamped tightly around her chest, throat, and skull for years, and now she was finally free of it. Her feathers rose around her and she realized with only a passing thought she could effortlessly change their color, shape, and size. Though the initial wave of freed magic was ebbing, it took only a flick of her consciousness for her to rise into the air, high above the ground.
“We are born from here. On these edges of this world. Half of spirit, half of form.” The Kepthalla tribesmen gathered beneath Xayah, and her voice boomed as she spoke. “This is what we have fought for. This is the land of your ancestors. As it was. As it is meant to be.”
Xayah slowly floated back down to the ground. The tribesmen around her, with their mouths open in wonder, were also transforming. Invigorated by the magic suddenly available to them, they cheered, laughed, and roared in joy.
Xayah’s Kepthalla messenger-singer—a previously shy runt—grabbed her and spun her around in a hug without warning. “You did it!” he screamed in joy. “You did it!”
“Now, you must defend it,” Xayah laughed as she gently pushed from him, allowing herself to float away.
The messenger, with the slightest twist of the magic available to him, transformed his sounding horn. Now it was longer than a tiger, and a dozen bone pipes grew from the instrument. Into it he blew a song as joyful as it was overwhelming.
Behind Xayah the forest was moving. The trail they had taken here, which turned right then left, now also turned the other left, into the spirit realm. A direction that went through places-past, places beyond the forests—and would transform any who took it.
“An ancient pathway has opened!” Xayah whispered in awe. She had not expected the magic here to be so strong. She turned to where Rakan had been, but found him missing.
She spotted him at the forest edge, his cape glowing like the afternoon sun. He was looking outward.
“Mieli?” she asked as she approached, using the ancient word for lover.
“We destroyed it,” Rakan said solemnly.
“Yes. We are free—that quinlon is no more.”
“No, their town.” He indicated the temple and the human settlement around it.
Vines larger than wagons churned the earth. They ran like massive waves from the forest, smashing a dozen houses into flinders.
The other woodwoven houses in the town were growing uncontrollably, folding in on themselves and crushing all inside, as they transformed into colossal trees.
A mortal woman, clutching a small child, ran from her home to a horse cart. Behind her, a man barely escaped being squashed by a huge vine that fell and crumbled his house.
He was carrying an armful of their possessions. He threw them into the cart, but as the wave of powerful freed magic overtook them, the vehicle burst to life, reforming itself as the plants from which it had been fashioned. Xayah watched as it changed into a giant insect-like creature made of wood and vines. The man slashed at the creature with a walking stick, before fleeing from it with the woman and child.
An old man with a long braid struggled on the undulating earth. He scrambled for a few paces before a pair of glowing forest spirits, shaped like ghostly butterflies, grabbed him. The spirits dragged him into the air. Then, growing tired of his struggles, they dropped him as they rose over a tree. He landed with a thud. His soul shuddered against the confines of his body, seeking to escape its own shell and join the forest.
Other mortals were running past him. Xayah could see their souls buffeting against the confines of their bodies too. An old woman grabbed the old man with the braid, lifting him to his feet, and together, limping, they fled… as the earth and spirits churned around them.
“The humans’ greed brought this to them,” Xayah said finally.
Rakan’s said nothing in reply. Xayah followed his gaze back to the destruction her plan had wrought.
After their victory, Rakan and Xayah had received a call for aid from the Vlotah tribe, and it had taken three moons to travel to their main village.
It wasn’t much to look at. The Vlotah had always been a small tribe, even in ancient times. The town was little more than a couple dozen warping trees that surrounded a crystal pool. As Xayah and Rakan were led into the village by a guard, a few of the trees grew openings and Vlotah tribesmen stepped outside to see who the visitors were.
The Vlotah were lithe and narrow, but with massive shoulders that protruded vertically from their backs like wings of bone. Their iridescent fur glittered in the light, first green, then purple, all over their bodies—save for their faces, which were creamy-white and vaguely feline in aspect.
But tints and vapors of sickly yellow and black seemed to be weeping from the trees, the vastaya, and even steaming from the pool. It was the color of hunger and sickness.
Xayah whispered that she thought the vastaya here looked too weak to fight, or even help her and Rakan fight.
“The magic here is unclean,” Rakan observed. “We should leave quickly. It’s upsetting my coat.” He ruffled his feathers.
“Rakan, a victory here would raise awareness of our cause across Zhyun. We need another success to prove a rebellion is possible.” Xayah looked again at the tribesmen around her, pitying them, and confirming her suspicions that they were too sickly to fight for themselves. “The Vlotah tribe asked for our help. And clearly they need it, my love.”
“Is helping them more important than me looking amazing?!” Rakan said incredulously, then flashed a smile to reveal he was joking.
“Obviously not,” said Xayah, playing along and finding herself cheered by his humor.
“We have to pri-or-i-tize!” Rakan cried, emphasizing every syllable.
“Rakan and Xayah, I presume?” a voice rumbled.
In the center of the village, sitting cross-legged on a boulder shaped like an eight-legged turtle, was an ancient Vlotah. He was white-furred and wearing a crown shaped to look like elk horns.
“I am Leivikah, the Vlotah tribe’s elder,” he said, before coughing.
Xayah and Rakan bowed. A crowd formed around them. Dozens of the Vlotah tribesmen were whispering in their own tongue.
“We have heard of how you saved Consul Akunir and Speaker Coll at Puboe. I am hoping you can help us,” Leivikah said, with a weak voice that barely rose above the crowd’s whispers.
Xayah glanced over to her partner and he took his cue.
“I am Rakan,” he confirmed with that deep voice he used sometimes. It was loud and certain, and somehow it held a smile behind it. Its confidence silenced the crowd. Then, with his shoulders squared and his back arched, Rakan turned so as to make eye contact with everyone around them. “And this is Xayah, the Violet Raven. You have heard of her triumphs, and her call for rebellion.”
And just like that, the crowd and elder were hanging on his words, excited he was here. Xayah shook her head, amazed how Rakan could so often say almost nothing, but with exactly the right feeling. She secretly nudged him in the back, keeping him focused.
“Oh, uh… We have answered your summons and we are happy to visit you as friends, or… as comrades. Tell us how we can help.” Rakan finished by flashing his glowing smile.
“Thank you, Rakan and Xayah, our need is great.” Leivikah rose unsteadily with his staff, then pointed toward the mountains. “North of here is the Kouln temple. It contains a small crystal quinlon. For many generations it has conditioned the magic of this region, and we have lived in peace with the mortals who tended it.”
He coughed and indicated the sickness around him. “But black-and-red-clad warriors calling themselves Yanlei have taken over. Now the magic here has dwindled and darkened. We attempted to retake the temple with the good monks of Kouln, but were driven back. Now we are too weak and too few to fight. It is our hope that, with your help, our allies can reclaim their sacred place.”
Xayah frowned and looked at the poverty around her. She began speaking then stopped herself, before finally saying with irritation, “You want us to help some humans retake a quinlon?”
“We have heard of your great successes,” Leivikah said.
“You heard we destroyed the quinlon in the valley of Houth and freed the Kepthalla tribe,” she said.
“The monks of Kouln are—”
“Human,” Xayah snapped, interrupting the elder. “Why would we—and why should any of you—care about squabbles between the mortal races? You ask us to help those who strangled the magic of these lands? Are you a fool?”
Elder Leivikah snarled and then looked to Rakan. But Xayah’s partner didn’t appear to be paying attention. He was humming and balancing a twig he’d just found on his index finger.
“We will help you. But only by destroying the quinlon—not by surrendering it to some monks,” Xayah said finally.
“That will destroy the valley town!” the elder exclaimed.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Many people will die!”
“Many humans will die,” Xayah said, correcting him.
“And when the humans try to take back their lands? What will—”
“With magic, you can defend it.”
“This is no way to speak to an elder!” Leivikah roared at Xayah, spittle coming from his mouth. “You do not have rights here, child! You make demands without knowing our tribe’s ways. Your fame as a warrior does not make you an elder!”
As Leivikah ranted, Rakan stepped away from Xayah and darted along the edge of the crowd, like a predator circling its prey. What few warriors this town still contained quickly backed away from the challenge Rakan was implying. Suddenly he leapt up onto the giant stone, landing beside the elder. Rakan stood over him for a moment.
“Do you want me to slap you off that rock?” Rakan asked.
Leivikah saw all of his guards had stepped away from the famous battle-dancer. Then he stammered, “I… I meant no disrespect.”
Rakan continued, “My lady speaks wisdom, fool. And she speaks only the truth. Listen. And watch your tone. Or we’re gonna have a problem.”
Rakan leapt back down from the rock as the elder pleaded. “My tribe only wants to return to the way it has been. The monks of Kouln have never broken their promises to us, and have protected us. We are not war-seekers like you.”
Rakan walked over to Xayah, adjusted his feathers, and then scratched his ear.
“What do you think?” Xayah asked quietly.
“About what?” Rakan replied in a whisper.
“About what he was saying?”
“I wasn’t listening to the words,” Rakan shrugged. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “You were both yelling. You were angry, but he is just scared.”
Xayah smiled, realizing Rakan was right before whispering, “Thank you, mieli.” Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
“I’m sorry, Elder Leivikah,” she said apologetically with a bow. “I also meant no disrespect.”
Then Xayah placed her hand over her heart and said, “You are afraid. There is no shame in that. But as long as you rely on humans to keep their promises, your tribe will never be free. And that is what I truly fear. How many generations has it been since you saw a child in this village? More than most of our people? Look around you. Your numbers were dwindling long before these new warriors appeared. But in the Kepthalla forests they have hope for the future. They hope that children will be born again—because, at last, the magic there is free!”
She looked around the crowd—like Rakan had—making eye contact with as many tribesmen as she could. “Rakan and I have fought these Yanlei before. Many know them as the Order of Shadow, and they are dangerous. Very dangerous. But we are willing to fight for you. We want to help you!”
Then Xayah let her shoulders drop, and shook her head. “Neither honor nor oath-magic binds you to those Kouln monks anymore—so we offer you a chance to take back your lands. You need only the courage to accept our offer and protect what is yours!”
The elder stared at her for a long moment before replying, “You are truly as fierce as your reputation, Xayah of Lhotlan, and we thank you. We will consider your words, and I will have our answer for you in the morning.”
As the elder rose to his feet, Rakan asked Xayah, “Are we staying the night?”
“Looks that way,” she replied.
Rakan pointed randomly at the crowd. “Which one of you wants to make me dinner? And… do you have chocolate?!”
Unsure of the human substance he was seeking, the crowd exchanged confused looks. Rakan turned back to Xayah and with annoyance cried out.
“No chocolate?!”
In the morning, Elder Leivikah made his decision. He swore his people would defend any lands reclaimed by the wild magic released, and he assigned the few warriors he had to Xayah’s command.
After looking at their weakened and sickened condition, and because she knew the Vlotah tribe would need its warriors to defend their lands later, Xayah decided it was best to use them only as a diversion.
So while Xayah and Rakan were attempting to retake the temple alone, the Vlotah warriors would instead attack the Yanlei patrols—and hopefully draw some of their numbers away from the temple.
It took Rakan and Xayah a day to walk from the Vlotah’s forest to the giant village the elder had spoken of.
Looking down on it from the hilltops, Xayah and Rakan saw it was far larger than any they had encountered in years. It was a small city, which dominated the entire valley with hundreds of dwellings.
“Can we go around it?” Rakan asked.
“No. Not unless we climb on the bare cliff walls surrounding the city.”
“Climbing could be fun.”
“We would be exposed the whole time we were on the cliff’s face. If the humans have ballistae, or their Kashuri rifles…”
“I hate tubebows,” Rakan grumbled. Then he gestured to the hills beyond the town. “I can hear the quinlon disturbing the magic. But I can’t see it. A forest is after the town.”
“We can rest there. But we must pass through the town without being spotted by the black-and-red-clad ones. They will know of us from what happened at Puboe and with the Kepthalla. We must try to look like humans.”
“Perhaps some of the Vlotah can circle back to help us get around it,” Rakan suggested.
“They are too scared and too weak, Rakan,” she replied. “And they would only draw attention to us.”
Xayah began pulling items from a bag she had taken from the village. “The Vlotah gave us human-style foot coverings. And we’ll wear big hoods.”
“That cloak is gray,” Rakan said with breathless horror. “That’s not even a color!” He snapped a twig off a tree and threw it with great force into the forest.
Xayah looked down at the garments, and then she too shuddered at the thought of putting these coarse human fabrics over her feathers.
Guards dressed in black and red were closing the gate and waving the last visitors into the city as night fell. Xayah ducked her head down as she and Rakan walked past them.
As she entered through the gate, she stole a glance at the great town’s wall. It was massive, many times the height of the tallest tree in the forest.
“Rakan, could you jump over this wall?” Xayah whispered.
“Why?” he asked.
“If we had to get out of here quickly,” she said.
He looked up at the wall, judging the distance, before saying, “No—too little clean magic here.”
She could feel the ill magic used to construct the wall. It was alien, even for mortal magic. Dark and angry. She had only felt its like once before… at Puboe.
The enormous thorn vines, each wider around than a horse, hadn’t been asked or coaxed into dragging these stones into the wall—they had been goaded and forced. And the magic that held the wall and ramparts above her wailed and growled.
The wall would be a powerful barrier against invaders, but she wondered what would happen when the vines, which had been holding this magic, were suddenly let free.
The gates closed behind them and locked. Xayah and Rakan hid amongst the travelers and peasants who walked down the main road toward the town’s center.
“There is a mage here,” Rakan said.
“I hear their magic,” Xayah replied, “but I can’t see them.”
“Above us.”
On a tower made out of cut and dead trees, a man stood in burgundy robes. From his eyes a strange darkness emanated, and he held an ornate brass bell which misted a dark vapor.
“He is looking for vastaya and yordles,” Rakan said with certainty.
Xayah grabbed Rakan’s arm and pulled him into an alleyway, as the mage screeched a horrific sound. He had seen through their disguises. Horns of alarm blared from the walls answering the mage’s cry.
Footsteps and guards shouted behind them. Xayah and Rakan ran, dodging from alleyway to alleyway, but soon discovered the streets formed a labyrinth.
They could feel the mage scrying to find them. He was swinging the magically touched bell. It chimed softly but let free an invisible lash of magic in their direction. Again and again, it released a sound no mortal would hear—or feel the pain of—but which cracked like a giant’s whip in the ears of the vastaya. One of his strikes crashed down the alleyway, just missing Rakan as he dove against a wall.
The bell’s magic vibrated their feathers and for a moment Xayah thought they had been discovered. But then the mage rang the bell in a slightly different direction, down another alleyway. He was searching blindly, clearly uncertain what and where they were.
Ahead, at an intersection, the Yanlei guards were grabbing townsfolk and dragging them out into the open where the mage could see them.
One of the guards, a leader, was dressed differently than the rest. He wore a dark gray vest of rough cloth, unbuttoned. To the vastaya, he seemed malformed, touched by some sort of corruption. Rakan nodded to the black-within-black tattoos covering both of the man’s arms.
“Shadow magic,” Rakan growled.
Xayah nodded. “They are insane.”
“Let’s see if he can dance,” Rakan said. On instinct Xayah grabbed her lover’s hand and held him back.
Just then, the man’s tattoos came alive. They rose from his body like smoke. Their darkness solidified into barbed talons like a spider’s legs, each holding a cruel hook-sword. Then these shadow forms slashed a villager who had resisted being pulled out into the open. The man hit the ground screaming, a red gash along his back.
Rakan and Xayah swung against the wall under the overhang of the building next to them, then slipped into another alleyway that stank of rot and garbage. Then seeing it free of guards, they ran with everything they had. Bounding off the walls and drawing on some of the reserves of magic they held within themselves for greater speed. But the alleyway curved around. They discovered it led only back to the wide street.
Behind them several of the black-and-red-clad warriors appeared on a balcony and leapt down.
Rakan scanned the street, looking at each of the houses and inhabitants. Then he grabbed Xayah’s hand and dragged her around the corner toward a nearly ruined house with failing timbers.
“What are you doing?” Xayah asked.
“This one is good,” Rakan responded, indicating the house’s recently swept entranceway and clean windows.
“What?!” Xayah responded.
One of the guards down the street spotted the desperation of their pace, and indicated the pair to his commander. The tattooed brute was still standing over the wailing peasant.
“What’s wrong?” a woman’s voice asked.
Xayah turned and saw an elderly woman dressed in yellow. She had long white hair held up in an elaborate braid, and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
“Nothing,” Xayah replied. “We were just—”
“The guards are looking for us,” Rakan interjected. “We need help.”
The woman looked to the guards, then back to Xayah and Rakan. Rakan gave her a hopeful smile. “We mean no harm,” he assured her.
“Quickly, come through the side door,” she said, gesturing to the alleyway beside her house. Then she closed and barred the front entrance behind her.
Rakan and Xayah ducked into the alleyway and ran along the side of the house. It was a dead end… and they couldn’t see any doors.
“Damn it, why would you say that to her?” Xayah cursed. She could hear the mage scrying above them—his magic cracking loudly through the spirit realm. They could see the shadows of the guards in the street, heralding their approach.
But then, a wall suddenly moved, as a hidden door into the house slid open. The old woman leaned out and gestured for them to come inside.
Once the pair was inside, the old woman slid the smugglers’ entrance closed, hiding its existence.
The two vastaya looked around and discovered they were in a storage room with a low ceiling and dirt floors. It was dark and illuminated by only a single oil lamp and the glow of a pair of dying ekel-flowers.
Beneath her cloak, Xayah formed two feather blades and readied them.
Perhaps sensing the danger, the woman backed away toward a full-moon spear resting against the wall. It was a fine weapon, well-oiled and touched by ancient magics that purred happily inside of it.
“You are vastaya?” the woman said cautiously.
Before Xayah could stop him, Rakan nodded and said with the deep voice, “I am Rakan, battle-dancer of the Lhotlan tribe.”
To Xayah’s surprise, the woman let out a deep breath, and laughed. “Leivikah told me he was seeking your help, but we have heard no word from the Vlotah tribe since then. I am Abbess Gouthan.”
There was a loud banging on the front door.
“Stay quiet, I’ll get rid of them,” Gouthan said as she hurried to the front room, sliding the hallway’s door closed behind her.
While the abbess checked who was at the front door, six young mortal acolytes appeared from the house’s other rooms. Many wore bandages and appeared injured. They nervously exchanged glances with each other. Xayah could sense them gathering what little magic they could muster.
Xayah slid one of her hands inside the woolen cloak she wore and willed a new feather blade into existence. If the monks attacked, it would be too close for her to throw the daggers, so she altered the blade’s handle, shaping it into a short falchion.
When Abbess Gouthan reappeared, the woman held a finger to her lips to indicate they should stay quiet. Then, almost silently, she sent her more heavily injured monks back into their rooms, while she and her two remaining students readied a cooking fire. They quietly sang and hummed a haunting tune as they began to prepare food.
Rakan put his arm around Xayah’s shoulder and led her to a low table in an adjoining room. The couple sat down together. While the monks cooked, Xayah slowed her breathing before cautiously reabsorbing her blades and their magic back into her feathers.
As she waited, Xayah wrapped both her winged and woolen cloaks around her legs—only a few beeswax candles and the cooking fire illuminated their side room and barely held back the evening chill.
When the candles had burned down to a thumb span, the abbess and her two attendants finished cooking and quietly joined Rakan and Xayah with several plates of food.
“We hid in the hills for a few weeks after they took our temple,” Gouthan whispered. “Then, like you, we snuck into the city.”
She and one of her students passed the meager food they had prepared from the fire pit of their kitchen to the table Rakan and Xayah sat at.
“This old house was my family’s long before I became the abbess of Kouln temple. We managed to avoid detection only because the Navori—”
“Who is the warrior with black tattoos?” Rakan asked.
“The warriors with tattoos are the Order of Shadow. They are a part of the Navori Brotherhood… or they were, when—”
“Their tribe is at war with yours?” Rakan interrupted again.
“Not exactly,” Gouthan replied patiently. “They took our temple but let most of us live, I suppose to keep the local villagers from revolting against them. The peace ensures they can gather the foul shadow magic they are harvesting. But I’ve been sneaking my students back into the city. Readying ourselves.”
Rakan bit into the stone-cooked bread. “You sang ‘Theln and the Falling Leaves’ while cooking this?”
“Yes,” Gouthan replied. “When vastaya cook, the song is important, right?”
“It is important,” Xayah said without emotion. Her plate sat untouched in front of her.
Rakan explained, “For stone flour bread, it is traditional to use a happy song that you can drum with.”
“And you can taste that?”
Rakan shoved another piece of bread into his mouth and nodded.
“My apologies, we have so little to offer you, and even less skill in your customs,” the abbess said before bowing her head. She was clearly ashamed of what her order had been reduced to.
Rakan patted her on the shoulder. “It’s good! It’s not a song used for stone bread, but it goes well with this flour.”
“You are too kind.”
“He is hungry,” Xayah said.
“Now that we have shared food, can we discuss how we will take back our temple?” the abbess asked hopefully.
“Your help will not be needed,” Xayah responded.
“My students can lead you there. I myself can stand against more than a few of the shadow warriors. Also I sent word to the Kinkou Order—surely they will send reinforcements.”
Xayah and Rakan exchanged a glance. Then Xayah asked, “How many of these Yanlei warriors are in the city?”
“Perhaps a hundred.”
“And at the temple?”
“Perhaps fifty.”
“We can handle that number,” Xayah said.
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“They are bad dancers,” Rakan murmured, while grabbing another piece of bread.
“But surely, if we wait for the Kinkou—”
“The Vlotah cannot wait for the Kinkou’s help. That is why we are here.”
“I understand,” the abbess said. “I failed them. Allow me to at least join you against these Yanlei bastards.”
“You should wait here in the city,” Xayah said flatly.
“I can show you where they have set up patrols—”
“You can show us in the morning,” Xayah said. “But if you don’t mind, I would like a moment with my partner.”
“Oh… uh, okay.” The abbess rose with her attendant. Rakan followed them to the door, gave each of them a hug and handed them a couple pieces of bread as they returned to the rooms at the front of the house.
Then Rakan closed the door, and sat back down beside Xayah. She whispered, “We should leave as soon as they fall asleep.”
“We should warn them about what will happen when we destroy the quinlon,” he responded, shoving another piece of bread into his mouth.
“If they knew what we were going to do, they would betray us to these other mortals. Or the Kinkou.”
“Many mortals will die,” Rakan said.
“The Vlotah tribe will die while waiting for help. My love, we are on this path. They settled on vastayan lands. They raised a wall with magic which they barely control and do not understand.”
“If you say so. But I prefer this abbess to Elder Leivikah. At least she’s not scared.”
“You’ve just been seduced by their food.”
Rakan took another mouthful and shrugged. “It was made with care and a song sung truthfully.”
“I don’t trust her. Not with our lives on the line.”
“This is why you said we didn’t need their help?”
“Fifty warriors is a lot,” Xayah admitted. “And that’s before you add shadow magic.”
Rakan shrugged. “You don’t have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan.”
“Then I trust it,” Rakan said softly.
Xayah shook her head. “We’re going in alone. If my plan goes wrong—”
“You are never wrong about those things.”
Xayah ran her fingers through her feathers and bowed her head, running through every detail she had learned about the terrain—the black-and-red-clad warriors, the town, the mountain temple, and the crystal quinlon—from the Vlotah elder.
Then after a long silence, she asked, “Why did you trust this monk?”
“Because I know about these things,” Rakan replied.
Xayah lay awake for many hours that night, studying the maps the Vlotah had provided her with. She was able to deduce where the warriors had probably set patrols and pickets, and charted a path that would allow them to avoid detection until they were only a few hundred paces from the temple.
They left after the moon rose and were able to sneak out of the house without incident.
The town was still, save for the sound of insects, making it easy to avoid the Yanlei warriors by listening for their footsteps. After Xayah deduced where these warriors were, it was simple for her to find a pathway through the sentries’ patrols.
They left the city and past the last of the farmhouses leading up the mountain as dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky.
The forest on the mountain was the color of ash. Rakan and Xayah could feel the magic they held inside them being tugged away from them.
The quinlon here wasn’t just dampening the power of spirit magic to create change, or limiting its life-giving vitality by holding back the wild magic mortals found too dangerous; this one was actively absorbing magic, leeching it from the landscape and the spirit realm at a rate Xayah had never experienced before. It was as if the normal function of the quinlon had been turned upside down, allowing only the darkest magics to ebb out from the spirit realm.
For most of the day, Rakan and Xayah marched through the woods, concealing themselves in what remained of the bone-colored underbrush of the forest, keeping a few dozen yards from the trail. They stayed motionless as the enemy warriors went past. At first they seemed to be on regular patrols, but soon large groups of warriors were marching downhill with an obvious urgency.
Xayah surmised the Vlotah tribesmen had begun the diversionary raids she had directed. Certainly, she and Rakan could defeat these humans—but Xayah knew it was safer to conserve what scarce magic they had.
Weakened and sick from the lack of magic, the Vlotah who had volunteered to draw these Yanlei away had shown great bravery. Xayah assured herself these new comrades would be safe for at least a while. But if she and Rakan failed to take out the quinlon soon? Xayah could feel her fingernails digging into her palms as she and Rakan lay hidden behind a wagon-sized boulder.
After a while, the patrols of red- and black-clad warriors significantly dwindled in size and frequency, enabling her and Rakan to travel more quickly than they had before.
They reached the temple by late afternoon. The building was ugly, and it hated the world. It was tall and as pale as a corpse. Leafless branches and thorns had grown from its woodwoven walls, forming battlements and defensive spikes.
Rakan whistled, drawing the attention of the first guard he saw. The man turned just in time to take one of Xayah’s feather blades in the chest. Rakan caught him before he fell—showing off.
A distant horn sounded, and Xayah knew they had been spotted. From hiding places scattered around the temple, a dozen more of the black-clad warriors appeared.
Rakan dashed into their midst, kicking, spinning, and throwing them up into the air, while Xayah’s blades took their toll. They were moving fast now. They cut a path to the temple’s entrance.
Xayah used her magic to pull her feather blades back to her, killing the warriors that stood against them, while Rakan took a bow.
She rolled her eyes at his antics and left him to keep these black-clad warriors busy.
She pushed through the vines at the gateway of the temple, then walked into its grand entranceway. With doors broken and strewn on the ground, dark curving passageways lay open on both sides of her. She ignored them, and instead followed the path the sunlight cut toward a vine-covered doorway at the far end of the room.
She paused as she passed a small stack of crystal boxes, hidden against a wall. They were odd things, perfectly square and completely soulless, somehow holding no magic at all. In some great act of sacrilege against the world, it was as if their maker had managed not to let any of his essence—or the essence of their base materials—pass into them. She gave them a wide berth, and crept through a doorway overgrown with black roots.
She found the center of temple bathed in red light. Xayah looked up to see the quinlon glowing above her. Like many quinlons, it was an arrangement of rotating stones, but this one appeared to be made of giant shards of ruby, each larger than a horse. It glowed. She could feel its pull as it took in magic.
And she watched in horror as it pulled tiny forest spirits up into it.
There was a shift in the air, and she knew she wasn’t alone. She ducked just as an armored warrior appeared from the shadows. He vaulted above her, bouncing off the walls and pillars as a battle-dancer might—but he was appearing and disappearing in puffs of smoke.
She had known vastaya, touched by the clouds, with similar techniques. But this man’s magic was strange. Even the shadows inside him were touched by something else, an echo of the magic of the twilight. He was powerful—more powerful than any mage, any mortal she had encountered. Weakened as she and Rakan were, Xayah knew defeating this armored warrior was unlikely.
She threw feather blades, but he simply cut them apart, and with each movement she was getting weaker and he closer. She stared as the warrior parried the next of her attacks and sent one of her feather blades up into the quinlon.
The red stone cracked instantly.
It was then the reason this small quinlon had been set inside the temple became clear. The strange ruby-like mineral it was made from gave it its unusual power… but it was fragile. Especially now that it was overloaded.
She couldn’t defeat this warrior, not under these conditions… but if she kept him distracted, she could still destroy the quinlon.
She willed as many feather blades into existence as she could. The effort of it drained her limbs, making her feel as if she was being held underwater. But she threw blindly, forcing her opponent to dodge, to duck—knowing that every blade that went past him would sink into the quinlon, cracking it, or fly beyond it into the roof of the temple.
But her breathing had become short and desperate, and her foe circled around her like a shark. He had been letting her tire—and now he was ready to finish their duel.
In her exhaustion, Xayah clenched her jaw, preparing herself for what she knew she must do. She would die, and so would this warrior… but the Vlotah would survive.
And then for the briefest of seconds she realized she never again would see Rakan. Feel him against her. Hear his laughter. See his sly smile… And in her distraction the armored warrior struck at her. Barely she turned his blow, but the impact knocked her to the ground. The warrior backflipped away from her, then, without pausing, jumped back toward her with blades ready for his killing blow.
This was her chance. Instead of parrying, she drew back her magic blades and… ripped the quinlon and the roof of the temple apart! As the shadow warrior fell onto her, the quinlon’s giant shards and the stones of the roof began to fall onto them both, as certain as death.
And then, suddenly… Rakan!
His arms were around her, holding her, embracing her. A swirl of golden energy wisped from his cape and surrounded them. She could feel the impact of the shadow warrior’s blades slam against its magic—unable to deliver the killing blow. She felt Rakan’s chest against her cheek. She could feel it rising as he took in a breath.
Bigger pieces of the temple’s roof and the quinlon were falling now—whatever magic Rakan had held on to glowed as a bubble of energy, holding back the stones. But Xayah could feel him weakening under the shield’s weight. He roared, screeching like a tiger in a trap, as the entire building collapsed. His chest shuddered, and he fell to his knees.
And then there was darkness.
When Xayah opened her eyes, Rakan was helping her to her feet in the ruins of the temple. The strange warrior was gone, and his cohorts were running down the trail, fleeing as the first wave of wild magic crashed free into this world.
The forests glowed, flowers bloomed, and the great spirits were awakening. The light from the other world washed around them.
She looked at Rakan, smiled, and wiped a smudge from his cheek.
They embraced and took in the magic— it was different here than in the Kepthalla’s forest. Despite, or perhaps because of, how it had been caged and abused, it was bursting with vitality and joy.
The Vlotah tribe would be free as the Kepthalla tribe were. And there would no longer be a question of whether destroying the quinlons was possible or right. More tribes, even Xayah’s, would see the future she believed was possible for her people.
The ground rumbled—something giant beneath the mountain was awakening, and the two lovers danced across the great cracks forming in the landscape.
Rakan kissed Xayah gently, then said, “The humans cannot live in our lands, but I’m going to see if I can help that abbess escape. If I dive down that pink stone cliff, I might get there in time.”
“Go, save your bread-maker, my love. But I think she will have already fled the town.”
Rakan tilted his head in confusion.
Xayah cupped his face with her hands. “I left her a message, telling her what was about to happen, and that she should flee with as many of her kind as she could.”
“You told her what would happen?” Rakan asked, smiling as he held her hands against his face.
“You trusted her,” Xayah replied. “And I trust you in these things.”
Nocturne

While all magic can be dangerous and unpredictable, there are some forms or disciplines that even the most skilled mages and sorcerers will shun, and with good reason. For centuries, the practice of “shadow magic” was all but forbidden across Runeterra, for fear of reawakening the horrors it once unleashed upon the world.
The greatest of those horrors has a name, and its name is Nocturne.
Towards the end of the Rune Wars, desperate for victory, cabals of warrior-mages sought any advantage they could find over their foes. Although no record names the first of them to cast off their flesh and enter the spirit realm, it is known that they came to stalk one another not only on the battlefield, but in landscapes shaped by their own subconscious thoughts and emotions. Unconstrained by the laws of physical reality, they fought in ways that more mundane minds could scarcely comprehend, even conjuring subtle, etheric assassins to do their bidding. Shadow mages seemed particularly skilled at such things—and so it was, for a time, that they came to dominate the spirit realm, casting it into twilight.
The thoughts of mortals everywhere were touched by this darkness. It sapped their morale and infected their dreams, with nameless fears hounding them day and night, driving some to commit ever more horrendous acts against their own kin.
No one can say for certain whether all this suffering created Nocturne from nothing, or if it merely corrupted a lesser assassin-construct into something more willful and deadly, but the shadowy creature that resulted was one of insubstantial form and fathomless dread. Nocturne understood nothing of kindness, honor, or nobility—it was terror made manifest, with none of the restraint necessary to control itself.
This demonic creature howled within the spirit realm, and set upon those foolish, errant mages who had given it life, thrashing in desperation for an end to its own suffering. It was in pain, and that pain made it cruel, but it quickly acquired a taste for mortal fear. Time has little meaning in that other place, but Nocturne dragged out each and every pursuit for as long as possible, savoring the prey’s anguish before cutting their life’s silvery thread in an instant. Soon enough, there were none left who dared to enter Nocturne’s domain.
Would the outcome of the Rune Wars have been different if the demon had not played its part beyond the veil? It is difficult to say for certain, but afterwards, what little remained of the lore of shadow magic was hidden away, and its practice carried the sentence of death in many lands.
Trapped in the spirit realm, and with precious few intruders to sustain it, Nocturne began to starve. The only thing close to the delectable feasts of fear it had once tasted was when mortal minds unknowingly drifted through the ether in the hours of sleep. Drawn on currents of magic to where the two realms divide—and where peaceful dreams can easily become night terrors—Nocturne found a way to manifest itself into the waking world.
Existing now as a shade, eyes burning with cold light, Nocturne has become a sinister reflection of the most primal fears of the many peoples of Runeterra. From the bustling cities to the desolate plains, from the mightiest king to the lowliest peasant, the demon is drawn to any weakness of spirit it can twist into mortal terror, and everlasting darkness.
The Shadow Door

Ian St Martin

“Tell me another story.”
“Now now, Abel,” Celwyn said, setting the storybook down on a table and drawing the blanket snug around his son’s shoulders. “That’s two stories already. Now it’s time for sleep.”
“But,” whispered the boy, pulling the covers up beneath his eyes, “what if the monsters get me?”
Celwyn smiled. He half chided himself for telling his son the tales, a collection of old Valoran fables replete with courageous heroes triumphing over evil sorcerers and monstrous beasts. They were from a storybook Celwyn’s own father had read to him when he was young—though maybe not as young as Abel.
The last story he had read, The Shadow Door, had been Celwyn’s favorite as a child, where a young squire wins the day against a foul king seeking to cloak the whole world in shadow. It had scared him silly, Celwyn remembered fondly. Perhaps he should have waited a little longer before reading it to his own son.
“That was just a story,” said Celwyn, sitting down lightly at the edge of Abel’s bed. “Even if you have a bad dream, those monsters from the story can never hurt you, alright? It’s all make-believe. They aren’t real.”
He leaned down to kiss Abel’s forehead, but the boy shrank back from him.
“What?” chuckled Celwyn. “Too old for a kiss?”
His chuckle died as Abel kept sinking into the bed.
A chill ran up Celwyn’s spine as his son sank lower and lower, as though a pit had opened up beneath the mattress. Abel cried out as the blanket wound tight around his body. It began to glisten, becoming slick and wet as it morphed into a red, spotted tongue.
Celwyn snapped free from the shock that had rooted him in place. He reached out for his son, struggling to get hold of Abel and pull him out.
But the tongue only wound tighter, sliding deeper down.
The edges of the bed splintered with a sharp crack. Jagged spars of wood rose, turning sharp and yellow as they calcified into fangs. The entire frame was transforming into a gigantic, hideous maw, poised to devour Celwyn’s son whole.
“Abel!” he cried, staggering as he began to retch. Coils of dark mist feathered from his nose and lips, rising to swirl above the changing bed like a gathering storm.
The maw flexed, yawning wide as it released a deafening, blood-curdling scream. It was neither the roar of a great predator nor the howl of a beast gathering its kin for the hunt. It sounded to Celwyn like a birthing cry… almost as if it were in agony.
“Papa!” Abel screamed, before he vanished from sight.
The jaws snapped shut.

Celwyn bolted upright, gasping, drawing in great lungfuls of air as he ran his hand down a face sheened in cold sweat. His eyes flitted around, seeing nothing in his lightless room. It was the middle of the night in Piltover, and the lamps of the city streets below were barely visible through the curtains of his window.
After a few moments, his heart stopped pounding, and his thoughts began to calm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a nightmare, nor could he recall one as vivid and real as this one had been.
His mind went to his son. He should get out of bed, just for a quiet moment, to check on Abel. To see if he was—
“Papa?”
Celwyn started at the sound of the voice. His eyes had slowly adjusted to the dark, enough to only now see the small shape of his son, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Abel?” Celwyn blinked. “Abel, what are you—”
“Why?” asked the boy.
Celwyn frowned. “What are you doing up? Are you alright?”
“Why did you have that dream, Papa?”
“What?” Celwyn asked, any trace of sleep gone from his mind.
“Why would you do it?” Abel said again, his voice taking on a pleading edge. Celwyn could only see the silhouette of his son’s face with the curtains drawn… but he didn’t remember drawing them. “Don’t you know that’s what feeds him?”
Celwyn suddenly felt very cold. He looked up over Abel’s head, seeing the tall shadow that he cast over the wall.
A shadow that was not of his son.
Abel shivered, and his silhouette melded into the shadow on the wall. In a moment the image of the boy was gone, fading rapidly to nothing in the growing darkness. Celwyn reached out to him, and watched a thin tendril of dark mist sigh out through Abel’s lips, just as it had in his dream.
With a wet, burbling hiss, the shadow began to tear itself loose from the wall. Sheer terror seized Celwyn as he watched a creature emerge. It was like a living shadow, roughly human in form, its body tapering down beneath the torso like the tip of a blade. The monster rippled and wavered, as though Celwyn were viewing it beneath dark waters, with a pair of cold, staring eyes boring back into him, through to his very soul.
Adrenaline flooded Celwyn, the animal response of flight surging through every fiber of his being. But try as he might, no matter how his body demanded it, his mind betrayed him. He was paralyzed, incapable of being anything more than a witness to something he had believed only existed in old fables read by fathers to their sons.
A monster. One that was real.
The creature’s jaws parted a fraction, revealing long, crooked teeth. Then it spoke to him, somehow repeating Celwyn’s panicked thoughts back to him with his own voice.
“What are you?” it rasped. “Where did you come from?”
It surged closer, hovering over him. Drops of midnight fell from its form, bleeding away to nothing like ink in the ocean. The monster’s arms elongated, their ends twisting and flattening into broad, wicked blades that hooked over its claws.
Celwyn blanched, unable to look away from the nightmare creature as it bent down, bringing its horrifying visage directly level with his.
It whispered a single word to Celwyn, before it buried its blades in his heart. An answer to his questions, spoken softly with the voice of a drowning man sinking into the darkest depths.
“You.”

Dawn came, ushering in the bustle and noise of the thriving merchant city. Sunlight bathed the metropolis, shining from every window, including that of Celwyn’s bedroom.
A voice came from the other side of the door, accompanied by the soft knock of a child’s tiny hand. “Papa?” The knob turned slowly, Abel cracking the door just enough for a peek. “It’s morning!”
The boy entered his father’s room, and the shadows withdrew as he opened the door wider. They slid back from the morning light, but somehow slower, more reluctantly than usual.
“Papa? Where are you?” called Abel, fear creeping into his voice as he looked around the room.
There was no sign of his father, or of anyone else in the gloom. And yet, the boy could not shake the idea that something, crowded into the darkest corner of the room, was watching him.
Abel coughed, not noticing the tiny wisp of mist that followed, before turning back toward the hall and closing the door behind him.
Nunu & Willump

One of the Notai, a nomadic tribe that long traveled the Freljord, Nunu learned from his mother, Layka, that behind every thing is a story. Together, they gathered tales that Layka turned into songs. For Nunu, nothing was better than journeying from village to village, hearing his mother sing of ancient heroes. With music and dance, the Notai brought one last celebration to everyone they met, as each winter’s chill set in.

Riding the wave of frost spilling from Anivia’s wings, his heart beating the rhythm of a jubilant song, Nunu’s world was full of possibility.

On his fifth nameday, Layka gave Nunu a special gift: a flute, so he could learn to play her melodies himself. In the safety of their cart, the two bundled together and followed the knotted string that served as Layka’s heart-song, recording everywhere they’d been together, as the years came and went.

When the caravan was attacked by raiders, Nunu was separated from his mother. Though he was dragged to safety by the surviving Notai, he was left to wonder what had happened to Layka, waiting to hear her songs on the wind…

Snow fell. Weeks passed.

Nunu missed his mother desperately, but the Notai assured him no child could safely search for her. They weren’t even impressed when he showed them the flute he now called Svellsongur—the name of a mighty blade existing only in his imagination.

Nunu spent more and more time alone, escaping into his mother’s songs—the legends and heroes of old. He yearned to be one of these heroes, perhaps even a great warrior like the Frostguard, who could have saved his mother. He even met their leader, Lissandra, who asked countless questions about his mother’s stories, always seeking information about one particular song.

No one believed he could be a hero, not even the other Notai children, who teased him for his flute when they now had daggers. But Nunu knew the songs in his heart, and one night, he realized how he could prove himself and persuade the others to help to find his mother.

From the tribe’s fearful whispers, he’d learned of a fierce monster that killed all who sought its power, thwarting the local hunters who were sent each year, never to return. There was a song that Nunu’s mother sang… one that he now couldn’t seem to stop singing to himself.

Suddenly, Nunu understood what he had to do. He could name the beast. It would answer his challenge, and feel the wrath of Svellsongur!

Using his flute to tame a herd of elkyr, Nunu snuck out into the snow. One lonely child traveled to face a monster, finally living out a legend that not even he could imagine.

An ancient and noble race that once ruled over the mountains of the Freljord, the yeti civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm of ice. Forced to watch his brethren descending into savagery after being stripped of their magic, one yeti swore to protect what remained of their power—a gem that swirled with the frozen dreams of any mortal mind nearby.

As the last magical yeti, the guardian was also shaped by perception. Though he had been chosen to safeguard the magic until it would be needed again, he could find no worthy vessel. The men who intruded upon his ruined home had only malice in their hearts… and so a monster greeted them with fang and claw.

But the guardian knew he was forgetting something. His name… and the names of those he had loved...

Once, there had been song.

That all changed when a young boy stumbled into the ruins. After centuries of unbroken vigil, the monster was prepared to end the boy’s life, snarling as he sensed the human approach.

Unexpectedly, the gem brought forth images of heroes slaying dragons and beheading ancient serpents from the boy’s mind. The child roared, drawing his flute like a fearsome sword. But the blow never came, for even as the boy saw visions of heroes swirling around him, he realized the deeper truths of the songs his mother sang…

When he looked at the guardian, he didn’t see a monster. He saw someone who needed a friend.

Still enraged, the yeti did not expect the first snowball to the face. Or the second. Snowball fight! In anger, then shock, then joy, the guardian joined in, shaped not by fear, but by a child’s imagination. He was growing furrier and friendlier. His growl was becoming a laugh.

Until the beast accidentally broke the boy’s flute.

As the child began to cry, the guardian felt a kindred grief take shape around the gem. For centuries, he had looked into it and seen the end of his people—the threat they had buried, betrayal by the blind one—and now, instead, he saw a caravan burning. He heard a voice on the wind. He sensed something else within the boy, something he had never felt from a human, not even the three sisters who had come to him long ago. It was love, fighting back despair.

In that moment, the guardian knew the Freljord’s only hope lay in the power already within this child. The magic he’d been guarding was a tool; what truly mattered was the heart that would shape it. With a gesture, the magic passed from the gem into the boy, giving him the ability to make his imagination real. To repair his flute, freezing it in dreams that hardened into True Ice.

To imagine a best friend named “Willump.”

Escaping into the Freljordian plains, Nunu’s heart and Willump’s strength now enable the pair to do what they never could alone: to have an adventure! Following the songs of Nunu’s mother, they snowball wildly from one place to the next, holding onto the hope that she is still out there, somewhere.

But Willump knows that with magic and dreams come responsibility. One day the games will end, as the dark ice at the heart of the Freljord thaws, and thaws…
Stone Cold

David Slagle

I wake up suddenly, like a story that starts in the middle of the action.
The song. I heard it!
“Willump!” I shout. “I heard the song again! Wake up!”
I shove aside the snow that serves as our blanket and look my flufferific friend in the face. His whiskers are twitching like they can feel my dream slowly fading. He growls, and his breath swirls into all kindsa shapes. But even though he’s old and has hair in his earholes, still, he’s my best friend! I laugh as his beard tickles my nose.
Nothing like a magical yeti to bring me back to reality!
Willump rolls over and starts scratching his grumbling belly. “You’re always thinking about food,” I laugh again. Laughing feels good, it helps me remember.
My mom…
We’ve been following her song across the Freljord—my mom’s heart-song. Everywhere we’ve ever been, she made a verse, and if I could only remember what each place was, I could find my way back to her. I could save her, like a hero in her stories!
But I can only remember parts of the song when I’m not trying, and sometimes… it’s like my mom is out there, singing.
Like that! Did you hear that?!
“It’s coming from that village,” I bellow, pointing towards a patch of darkness beneath a frozen waterfall. Something inside me knows that’s where the song came from. “Sword first, Willump, I’ll cut through the wind!”
I shiver as we enter the clearing a few moments later, though I’m surrounded by scrazzly fur. Even this close, the village is mostly shadows. There are no people—if there were, I’d know, ‘cause it’s so cold I’d see their breath. “What is this place?” I ask.
Willump growls wisely.
“‘Naljaäg’? That can’t be its name. How would anyone know how to spell that?” Then Willump grumbles that it’s the yeti word for “stone.”
The buildings are stones heaped really high, the pathways are stones, too. Stones. Got it. So… it’s not weird that the flowers are carved out of stone, right? And those furs, hanging over a door. And that old rope! At least, it would be rope if it wasn’t hard and gray.
“Is everything around here stones?” I ask. It’s not fair—in the stories, stones at least have runes carved into them or something.
I’m starting to wonder why the song led me here, when finally I see a person, their back turned beneath an archway!
“My name is Nunu, and I’m here to help!” I yell, and I pull at the person’s shoulder—but when they topple into the light with a dull thwunk, I immediately realize… they’re stone, too!
And…
Beyond the archway are all the missing people from the village, huddled together like statues. There’s one who looks like a warrior, now dull and gray. There’s a farmer and his wife, holding each other tightly, like they were carved from one slab. A little girl, a pebble beside them.
It’s a curse. A real one.
“Willump,” I say. “We gotta do something!”
That’s the thing about mom’s songs. My favorites were always tales of heroes, more than a match for any curse. With the lessons I learned, we can save these people, right? I have to believe, otherwise… how am I gonna save her?
I remember one song, a myth about how Avarosa healed the turtle that carries the sea, by giving it a big kiss! But I don’t want my first kiss to be a statue. I make Willump kiss ’em just in case, and watch as the stone gets stuck to his fur.
I try saying the prayers Lissandra taught me, just in case. I make a dragon out of snow to scare the curse away, like Anivia did to fight the southern army! I even try pulling the sun closer, like how Braum thawed his village in the song my mom sang. But the sun’s too far.
Braum must have really long arms.
Willump tries to comfort me. He says some curses can’t be fought. Sometimes, heroes don’t win. But I remember what matters. I can feel it, even though my mom is missing, our caravan buried in snow. The feeling of being loved.
That’s what this village deserves!
“If we can’t help these people,” I tell Willump, “then we’re gonna help these statues!”
I smile and reach for my flute. I mean, my sword! Svellsongur!
Hero time, hah!
I can smell the curse. A hateful stench, like troll. It has the weight of centuries; weight that could grind the years this child has left down to mere days. Here is where even heroes of song would question how they could fight, blades powerless against ancient magic.
But Nunu is no mere hero. He is something better.
He is a boy!
He whoops, and calls my attention to the frozen waterfall above us. We are close enough now that we can see them, nestled atop stillness. Krugs. Stone creatures animated by magic, more than at home living above a village such as this one.
Their nest has dammed the waters’ flow, holding back the Freljord’s lifeblood. I taste a hint of Nunu’s intentions.
It tastes like krugs. Delicious.
“Hey, stoney crabs! You took something from those statues!” Nunu yells, and hops onto my back without losing a beat, for the music is in his heart.
The magic is his now. Swept up in his imagination, snow forms before us, gradually taking shape into a mighty snowball! I laugh as we ramble wildly, our merry burden growing so large that beneath us the village trembles, buildings stretching themselves awake. And still the snowball grows larger. The krugs make only a tiny chitter as we leap into the air to the top of the waterfall, blotting out the sun.
The Freljord goes white, the dam embraced by snow even as it’s torn apart.
And then, the earth roars.
Icicles crack like bones made brittle by winter. The roar grows louder as the river coughs and clears dust from its throat, water tumbling into the village below.
“Did you see that, Willump?!” Nunu asks. But my eyes are already closed.
I can feel a magic more powerful than the curse welling up to fill the village, casting shivers through my fur and bringing warmth to a world that is cold. It is the only magic that can save the Freljord. Even the frozen dreams of my people, coveted by the Frostguard, pale in comparison to this magic, held in abundance by a child.
Hope.
His arms are around me now, and I hug him back with all four limbs, looking away so he does not see the snowflakes falling from my eyes.
The curse has not lifted. But still, life has returned. And as it spreads, stone flowers washing away to make room for living ones, what curse could stand in its way? No evil can last, if life embraces joy, and refuses to hide…
I reach onto the ground and pick up a chunk of ice, crushing it to snow between my paws.
“Hey!” Nunu yells as I hit him in the face with a snowball, trailing the magic that swirls in his heart.
As we play, the wind whips through the flute on Nunu’s back, casting up stray notes. Then I finally hear it, too.
Her song.
Where waters
Once roared,
Winds whisper
To stone.
In shadow,
Naljaäg lies.
Silence sings.
Hope survives.
Olaf

Most men would say that death is a thing to be feared; none of those men would be Olaf. The Berserker lives only for the roar of a battle cry and the clash of steel. Spurred on by his hunger for glory and the looming curse of a forgettable death, Olaf throws himself into every fight with reckless abandon. Surrendering to the bloodlust deep within his being, Olaf is only truly alive when grappling with the jaws of death.

The coastal peninsula of Lokfar is among the most brutal places in the Freljord. There, rage is the only fire to warm frozen bones, blood is the only liquid that flows freely, and there is no worse fate than to grow old, frail, and forgotten. Olaf was a warrior of Lokfar with no shortage of glories and no hesitation to share them. While boasting one evening with his clansmen over the burning embers of a razed village, one of the elder warriors grew tired of Olaf's bluster. The old fighter goaded Olaf to read the omens and see if Olaf's fortunes matched his gloating. Emboldened by the challenge, Olaf mocked the aged raider's envy and tossed the knuckle bones of a long-dead beast to predict the heights of glory he'd achieve in death. All mirth left the gathering as the clansmen read the portents: the bones spoke of a long life and a quiet passing.

Infuriated, Olaf stormed into the night determined to prove the prediction false by finding and slaughtering Lokfar's feared frost serpent. The monster had consumed thousands, man and ship alike, in its long lifetime and to die in battle with it would be a fitting end for any warrior. As Olaf hurled himself into the blackness of its maw, he fell deeper into the blackness of his mind. When the shock of freezing water roused him from the dark, there was only the butchered carcass of the beast afloat beside him. Thwarted but not defeated, Olaf set out to hunt down every legendary creature with claws and fangs, hoping that the next battle would be his last. Each time he charged headlong toward his coveted death, only to be spared by the frenzy that washed over him while on its brink.

Olaf concluded that no mere beast could grant him a warrior's death. His solution was to take on the most fearsome tribe in the Freljord: the Winter's Claw. Sejuani appeared amused by Olaf's challenge to her warband, but his audacity would earn him no mercy. She ordered the charge and sent scores of her warriors to overwhelm Olaf. One by one, they fell until he lost himself in the bloodlust once again, effortlessly cutting a path to the leader of the Winter's Claw. The clash between Olaf and Sejuani rocked the glaciers with its force, and though he seemed unstoppable, Sejuani battled the berserker to a standstill. As they stood deadlocked, Sejuani's glare penetrated Olaf's berserker haze in a way no weapon ever could. His frenzy abated long enough for her to make him an offer: Sejuani swore that she would find Olaf his glorious death if he would lend his axe to her campaign of conquest. In that moment, Olaf vowed he would carve his legacy into the Freljord itself.
Orianna

Nestled among the eclectic storefronts of Piltover sat the workshop of the renowned artificer Corin Reveck. Famous for his masterful craft in artificial limbs, Corin’s intricate brass designs made the prosthetics both breathtakingly beautiful and often superior to the originals. His daughter, Orianna, served as his apprentice—friendly and inquisitive, she was a natural fit to run the shop, and blossomed into a capable artisan in her own right.
Orianna had an adventurous spirit, but her father, fearing for her safety, never allowed her to venture beyond their neighborhood. Instead, he took her to the theater, where dancers, through leaps and pirouettes, told stories of distant lands. Orianna dreamed of visiting these strange and marvelous places, and would scurry home to build clockwork dancers of her own.
News of disaster in the undercity of Zaun made its way to their shop. An explosion had ruptured a chemical line, venting clouds of poisonous gas. Orianna insisted they help the victims, but Corin forbade it. Zaun was far too dangerous.
So, with as many supplies as she could carry, Orianna snuck away in the night and rode the hexdraulic descender into the depths.
The devastation was overwhelming. Debris still filled the streets, and Zaunites walked through the toxic haze, faces covered with little more than oily rags. Night after night, Orianna repaired respirators and installed esophilters. She even gave her own mask to a child who could scarcely breathe.
Her father was furious, but soon after her return, Orianna fell gravely ill. Her lungs were ravaged past all hope of recovery. Refusing to accept this, Corin threw himself into his most ambitious project yet: a fully functional set of artificial lungs.
After weeks of sleepless nights, he completed his desperate task and carried out the surgery himself. To keep her from ever venturing too far again, the lungs were wound with a special key Corin kept in his safe.
Orianna returned to work, and yet the poison continued to spread throughout her body. Father and daughter worked feverishly to develop new implants and prosthetics, replacing each of her organs as they failed. Piece by piece, Orianna's body was transformed from mortal to mechanical until only her healthy heart remained. This long—and expensive—process cost Corin his fortune, forcing him to relocate their business to Zaun… but he saved his daughter's life. And, for a time, they were happy.
Gradually, Orianna began to feel disconnected from who she had been before. Old memories felt like stories. Even her creativity began to fade, and her beloved clockwork dancers became more like masterfully tuned mechanisms than works of art.
But, even as time seemed to stand still for Orianna, it marched onward for her father.
Long, lean years brought Corin agonizing chest spasms that meant he could no longer work, and Orianna was forced to provide for him. She'd become profoundly adept at crafting her figurines, even if she took only distant pleasure in recalling what once inspired their creation. The miniature dancers brought in good coin and barter, but never enough to afford the one thing she believed could save her father. For that, she turned to a local chem-baron.
Orianna never asked how the man came by a hextech crystal. She simply paid what he asked. Even so, before she could use it, the chem-baron returned demanding a second payment. Then a third. When the money ran out, Orianna knew his next visit would end in violence. She looked to the crystal device, still incomplete, too unrefined and powerful for a human body. She saw the logical solution—she didn't need her human heart anymore, and Corin needed a heart no one could ever take from him.
She spent weeks in preparation, building a clockwork orb—integrating it into her own mechanisms, readying it to house the crystal so she could defend herself in the journey ahead. Slipping her father a sleeping draught, she commenced the surgery.
Corin became one with the last remnant of the daughter he had known and loved. She listened to his steady heartbeat through the night, the quiet hum of hextech in the beautifully intricate ball by her side. Only then did she realize she had shed the last of her humanity—but she felt no fear or remorse, merely acceptance. She had become something entirely new, a lady of clockwork, and she needed to find where in the world's vast machine she might fit.
At dawn, she collected the key that wound her lungs, a single pulse from her ball welding it firmly to her back. Then she left for good.
Corin woke to find his workshop filled with hundreds of figurines. But among them was one he vowed never to sell: pirouetting to an endless ballet, a golden dancer that needed no key.
Fieram

Rayla Heide

Orianna walked through the fairground, empty and still in the evening gloom. Sir Feisterly’s Fantastical Fair opened its gates to delighted crowds of Zaunites but twice a year, and Orianna did not want to miss her chance to see its wonders. She had waited until everyone had left for the day, and the rowdy laughter and accordion tunes had fallen silent. Only the low hum of nearby pipelines pumping steam through the chem district disturbed the quiet. Detritus lay strewn along the ground; colorful streamers and bright balloons mingling with crumpled wax paper that once held sweet jam pastries.
Orianna’s clockwork ball hovered beside her as she passed a stall overflowing with roses, which according to a sign, smelled like each day of the week. She walked by a wind-up monkey holding a pair of cymbals, and a cart laden with sugared apples. None of these Zaun-born delights piqued her interest; Orianna had eyes only for the glass cabinet tucked into a secluded corner at the far edge of the grounds.
A glimmering wink of metal flashed in the moonlight. It came from the mechanical boy sitting behind the glass. Orianna had seen nothing like him, and drew closer, intrigued. He was clad in a midnight-blue suit and a silk hat. His skin was a shell of pure porcelain that masked the delicate clockwork gears below, and his eyes shone with glints of silver thread. As Orianna approached him, his lips rearranged into a smile.
“Can you keep a secret?” the boy said. His voice reminded Orianna of softly chiming bells.
“Hello,” she said. “Of course.”
“What say we make a trade. My secret, for your name.”
“That seems fair. I am called Orianna.”
“Or-ee-AHN-uh,” he repeated. “Such soft sounds.”
Orianna could have sworn his porcelain cheeks blushed.
“I suppose it’s my turn. My name is Fieram. My secret is that I fear the outside world, though I long to see distant shores and far-off mountains.”
“Is that why you live in a cabinet?” she asked. “Because you are afraid?”
“From here, the world visits me,” said Fieram. “Behind the glass, I am safe. I’m very fragile, you see.” He pointed to a hairline fracture on his forearm. “There it is. I’m getting old.” Fieram’s mouth opened into a lopsided grin.
Orianna giggled and shrugged her shoulders, a gesture she had recently acquired, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had used it correctly.
“Oho! You haven’t seen my tricks yet,” said Fieram. He reached into his sleeve and produced a bouquet of daisies with a flourish.
“Ta-Da!” he exclaimed. “And...”
Fieram removed his hat and dipped his head in a nod. A half-dozen mechanical pigeons fluttered from beneath the brim. He brought his hands together in a clap and the entire cabinet filled with opaque red smoke. By the time it dissipated a few seconds later, the pigeons were gone.
Orianna applauded in delight. The ball whirred, impressed.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Like magic.”
“And that wasn’t even my best execution. Fumbled my sleeve a bit,” he admitted, folding his hands. “But small miracles are my specialty. Like you finding your way to me, in this great city! You, above all others.”
“You winked at me.” said Orianna. “Why?”
“We are kindred spirits, you and I. But you already knew that,” said Fieram. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” He shuffled his feet. Orianna marveled at the subtlety of his movement.
“It is just that I have never seen another like you,” she said.
“I’m one of a kind, aren’t I? Same as you,” said Fieram. He gestured toward her mechanical frame, and winked again.
Orianna smiled. Fieram leaned in against the glass.
“Your smile is—”
“Fabricated?” she said. “Yes. I am still mastering certain expressions.”
“... beautiful,” said Fieram.
“Well now you are going to make me blush.”
Orianna’s ball, hovering at her left shoulder, nudged her gently.
“Not now,” she told the ball. She lifted the mechanical monkey from its stall nearby and turned its key. It scuttled about the floor, eyes lit with a red glow, clashing its cymbals together at every third step before slowing to a halt.
“You are not like him, are you, Fieram? All wound up at the turn of a key?” she said. “You have a mind. You have thoughts.”
“I may be comprised of cogs and wheels, but I have dreams, like anyone.”
“I know you dream of leaving this place. Surely you are lonely behind this glass. Come with me. We could leave now, together,” Orianna said.
“Leave?” Fieram’s expression fell. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“You have no doubt listened to the restless bustle of Zaun, or heard of the grand marvels in Piltover?” Orianna asked.
Fieram cocked his head.
“I like to ride the Rising Howl at dusk to catch the last of the day’s golden rays,” Orianna said. “From the very top you can see the harbor beyond the sea-gates, and the endless glistening ocean. From up there, you can imagine the smell of faraway lands.”
Orianna’s ball whirred as it spun in the air and nudged her again.
“I suppose now is as good a time as any,” she said. “Fieram, would you like to see the world? We could leave together, right now. I can protect you.”
“I can’t think of anything more wonderful,” he said.
Orianna circled the glass cabinet in search of an opening. An iron padlock secured a small door at its base. She raised a fist and brought it down upon the lock, smashing it open.
A watchman approached them.
“Hey! Stop that!”
With a glance from Orianna, the ball shot toward the watchman. It clanged upon impact with his helmet, then hovered in the air as if waiting for a command. Orianna nodded and the ball radiated waves of coruscating power. Caught in the energy flux, the watchman raised his baton and bashed it into the ball, which spun in midair before returning to his target.
A second watchman ran toward Orianna. She tried to pull Fieram through the door but his chair jammed in the opening.
“Fieram! Can you repeat your trick?”
The ball reverberated with energy as it whirled around the first watchman. His metal helmet fizzled with sparks.
“My tricks?” Fieram reached into his sleeve and pulled out the bouquet as Orianna spun away from the watchman.
“No, the other one!”
Fieram replaced his bouquet.
“The very last trick,” she said. “Quickly!”
The mechanical boy drew the bouquet from his sleeve once more.
Orianna spun toward the watchman, her metal dress fanning out in a flurry of sharp blades until the man backed away, baton raised.
“Get away from him, you!” said the watchman. “That’s our property you’re tampering with!”
“From here, the world visits me,” Fieram said.
He tipped his hat and pigeons poured out. The watchman aimed his baton at Orianna’s head, and she ducked just as Fieram clapped. The baton shattered the side of the glass cabinet and crimson smoke poured from the opening, obscuring all movement.
The first watchman had responded to the ball’s galvanic attacks with rageful abandon, throwing all his weight into every punch. The ball was relentless, however, and shot a final blast of energy toward his helmet, and the watchman fell down, unconscious. Whirring in satisfaction, the ball flew to Orianna. It unleashed voltaic waves toward the second watchman, rendering him motionless.
Orianna stepped into the smoke-filled cabinet. She lifted the mechanical boy from his chair but his legs would not flex to stand.
“Fieram! Fieram, we must leave.”
“Leave? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” A pair of metallic pigeons flew through the broken glass, but dropped to the ground a few feet from the door.
“Fieram, stand up so we can go,” Orianna said, her face falling. “Please.”
“Oho! You haven’t seen my tricks yet.” He pulled the bouquet from his sleeve.
Orianna ignored Fieram’s attempt to tip his hat and dragged him, still fixed in a seated posture, from the glass enclosure. Outside, her ball had cornered the second watchman, who had collapsed in a buzzing heap.
“And that wasn’t even my best execution. Fumbled my sleeve a bit,” said Fieram.
“You are not... your voice is... repeating?” Orianna said. His head lolled back awkwardly and she held it upright.
“My secret is that I fear the outside world,” he said.
Orianna noticed the embroidery lining his jacket.

Sir Feisterly’s Fantastical Fair
Friendly Fieram
He was nothing more than a simple automaton, a spectacle for the crowds.
“I was certain you had a mind. Had thoughts. Like me,” she said.
Fieram looked up at her with eyes that glinted with silver. “I’m one of a kind, aren’t I?” He shuffled his feet nervously, though they were in midair. “Same as you.”
The ball returned to Orianna and whirred gently.
“We should go,” she whispered. She set Fieram back upon his chair, which she placed just outside the shattered glass cabinet. “I wish you well.”
“Small miracles are my specialty,” he said. “Like you finding your way to me.”
“Goodbye, Fieram,” said Orianna softly. The two watchmen lay unconscious on the ground. The ball hovered at her side as she walked away.
She did not look back until she was clear of the park’s towering gates. As she turned, she thought she saw a glint of metal winking in the distance.
Ornn

Ornn’s name was once spoken throughout the lands that would one day become known as the Freljord. It was widely held that he was the firstborn of the old demi-gods, who had shaped the land itself, and brought forth the first snows.
More than any other of his kind, Ornn was said to value privacy, solitude, and focus. Beneath a dormant volcano that bore scars from some ancient eruption, he labored day and night, forging whatever his heart desired. The results were priceless tools destined for feats of legend—the lucky few who have stumbled upon these relics note their bewilderingly high quality. Some even claim that Braum’s shield was made by Ornn thousands of years ago, and remains as sturdy as the day it was finished.
No one can be sure, however, for none can find the forge-god to ask him. Almost all the tales of Ornn’s deeds and accomplishments have been excised from history by his enemies, and the slow march of time.
The few that remain are remembered by the handful of tribes who can trace their lineage back to a single culture of blacksmiths, architects, and brewmasters. This long-lost populace was known as the Hearthblood, apprentices who journeyed from all corners of Valoran, and gathered on the slopes of Hearth-Home to follow Ornn’s example.
Despite this imitative form of worship, Ornn never considered himself their patron. He would only give them curt nods or frowns when they offered up their work, and yet the Hearthblood accepted this and were determined to hone their skills. As a result, they came to create the finest tools, design the sturdiest structures, and brew the tastiest ales the world had ever beheld. They believed Ornn secretly approved of their perseverance, and the fact that they were always looking to better themselves in their craft.
But, in one catastrophic night, all the Hearthblood had accomplished was destroyed when Ornn battled with his brother Volibear at the mountain’s peak, for reasons no mortal could comprehend. The resultant cataclysm was a storm of fire and ash and lightning so intensely violent that it was seen ten horizons away.
When the dust settled, Hearth-Home was a smoldering caldera, and the Hearthblood were reduced to scattered bones and cinders.
Though he would never admit it, Ornn was devastated. Through the Hearthblood he had glimpsed the sweeping potential of mortal life, only to see it all lost beneath the indiscriminate wrath of his immortal struggle. Wracked with guilt, he retreated to the isolation of his foundry, and buried himself in his work for an age.
Now, perhaps he senses that the world is on the cusp of a new era. Some of his siblings appear to have taken physical form once more, their cults of followers growing restless and aggressive. The Freljord itself is fractured and leaderless, and ancient horrors are lurking in the shadows, waiting for any opportunity to strike…
In the wars to come, and in their aftermath, Ornn knows that the Freljord—and the rest of Runeterra—will have need of a good blacksmith.
The Voice from the Hearth

Matt Dunn

No one knew who lit the fire, but we saw the plume of smoke from far away.
The Winter’s Claw had driven our tribe north, where the land was so harsh that even our warmother Olgavanna shivered through the first night. Our elnuk herd died on the second. At least we had food for the third.
But even that feast was a memory as we climbed the mountain with no peak. Legless Kriek called it “the Half-Mountain of Old Ornn.” Our shaman had lost his mind, but Olgavanna bade us carry the fool. He had convinced her that our survival lay at the source of that mysterious smoke. The rest of us believed we were marching to our doom.
The slopes of the half-mountain were a tortured landscape of black stone. We found the ruins of a forgotten city shown on no map—now just a maze of charred foundations. Kriek, perched atop Boarin’s shoulders, insisted it was once named Hearth-Home.
Dark clouds to the east flashed lightning and winds carried the stench of wet fur and sweet decay. Our scouts did not return. We all knew what this meant, but none of us wished to utter the word “Ursine” aloud.
We climbed until we stood at the edge of a vast crater. Then, Kriek saw the fire. This was odd, because Legless Kriek was also blind.
In the center of that basin was the source of the smoke venting into the sky. Olgavanna reasoned that at least the steep crater walls offered respite from the howling winds, and so we descended into what would likely be our grave. The smoldering terrain proved difficult to navigate, but any halt would mean to bow our heads and accept slaughter.
Then we saw the furnace. The domed structure was the only one that looked hand-made. It was crafted like the head of a great ram, with tufts of goat-grass in the spaces between the smooth flagstones. In the ram’s mouth was a flame so bright, we could find it with our eyes closed.
We huddled around it for warmth while Olgavanna laid out the plans for our last stand. It was better to die on our feet, than shivering and huddled in the cold. Most of us were farmers, builders, menders, and few were skilled in combat like the other tribes. We cared for our elderly, our sick, and our children. Now we were far from the aid of the Avarosans—but war craves only blood and bones.
We could only ever stand a chance against the Winter’s Claw. If the Ursine struck first, our defense would be terrifyingly short. That hideous legion of half-bear abominations would overwhelm us.

And soon enough, we heard their battle-growls growing louder, along with the clamor of their footsteps. We smelled their stench. Hundreds descended the cliffs, like shadows twisting down the basalt slopes. We fashioned spears from our stretchers, and sharpened our carving knives on the flint. We would minister the Rite of the Lamb to our elderly and wounded, and the rest of us would dance with the Wolf. It would all be over by morning.
No one saw who stoked the fire, but it grew so hot that we needed to back away. Then the furnace spoke, its voice like crackling logs.
“Volibear is near,” it said. “Seek shelter now.”
“There is no shelter to seek,” Olgavanna replied to the fire in the forge. We knew not in whose presence we stood. “Enemies are at our heels. The Ursine are flanking us.”
“The Ursine…” and the forge grew hotter at these words, “…will be stopped. The other problems are your own.” The goat-grass caught fire. The flagstones grew red hot around the edges, then toward their centers. Steam sizzled from the cracks.
Some shed their clothes to seek reprieve as the temperature rose. Others fainted. The next wave of blistering heat dropped us all to our knees, gasping for air. “I never thought I’d see the day!” cried Kriek, weeping tears of joy.
Stone began to drip like candlewax. Masonry flowed down the base of the structure. The domed top of the forge melted inward, pulling the rest of the outer shell into a molten pool.
A flash of orange light blinded us, briefly silhouetting a humanoid figure. Then, a geyser of flame spouted into the air, drops of molten rock hardened on the ground at our feet. Where the massive forge had stood, there was now a hulking beast, its form blurred by waves of heat. There it was, the forgotten legend Kriek always told us about—Old Ornn, as tall as three frost pines. The ancient forge-master cooled rapidly into fur and form, lava dribbling down his chin and hardening into a braided beard. His eyes were glaring embers. In one hand he carried a hammer, in the other he hefted an anvil with equal ease.
We gathered behind our warmother. Olgavanna gripped Fellswaig, her true-ice axe, and approached Ornn. “If the Ursine are your foes, we will fight by your side,” she said. Then, in a gesture unbecoming of an iceborn warmother, she bent the knee and laid her weapon at Ornn’s feet. Fellswaig’s true-ice melted, revealing an ordinary bronze and iron axe beneath.
I had never seen true-ice melt. No one had ever seen true-ice melt. We felt it wise to join Olgavanna in her kneeling.
Ornn grunted. “Stand up. Kneeling is death.” He looked to the gathering thunderstorm swirling overhead. “I will deal with the Ursine. Do not follow me.”
He lumbered toward the advancing horde, who charged forward with vicious speed. We could see his fire reflected in their large eyes. Boarin hoisted the old shaman higher onto his shoulders. “Old Ornn swinging his hammer, he pounds valleys from mountains,” the legless fool half-sung.
We watched in stunned silence as the creature stood alone against the Ursine. With a roar, he brought his hammer down onto the ground, and a fissure cracked toward the advancing army, stopping just short of their vanguard. Spouts of lava and sulfur jetted into the sky, hardened fire rained down on the half-bear warriors.
Whatever Old Ornn was, he fought with the hot blood of the earth.
Behind the Ursine, giant chunks of slag broke through the ground, cutting off their retreat. Ornn charged and smashed them with more swings of his hammer. Still, they attacked with the viciousness of ten berserkers each.
But we knew when Ornn reached their rearguard, for there was a deafening explosion—the slag wall shattered, and Ursine flew through the air in contorted arcs of burning flesh and fur.
The sky darkened with ash. Columns of smoke rose to clash with the menacing thunderclouds, and bolts of lightning lanced through the haze. The world grew eerily still as the Thousand-Pierced Bear itself took to the battlefield. We could see its telltale shape: spears, swords, tusks, all were stuck in its hide. Lightning followed in its wake.
And it laughed.
The answering blare of the horn shook our insides. Lava bled from the black cliffs, rivers of fire flowed down the slopes, rushing toward the valley basin, and formed a surging wave. Bolts of lightning stabbed back at the cliffs, to cauterize the wounds in the rock, and a thick, caustic fog blanketed the entire caldera. We saw only blue-white bolts and hellish crimson explosions filtered by the thick vapor. The heat from below the ground scorched the soles of our boots.
Then we saw that surging wave of flame form into a great stampeding ram. Ornn charged at the molten beast, catching the thing he had named as Volibear between his shoulder and the lava-ram.
The force of the explosion toppled us all. The legless shaman was thrown a hundred paces from Boarin’s shoulders, laughing the whole time.
We waited all night for the great cataclysm to overtake us, but it never came. We only heard the roars of the Thousand-Pierced Bear, and the gruff bellowing of the forge ram.
When the pall lifted in the late morning, we saw that the slopes around us were covered in chunks of hissing scree, and unnatural columns of crusted basalt rose at odd angles from the ground.
As we realized what stood before us, we recoiled in horror and awe. The Ursine were frozen in stone, their faces petrified masks of agony.
We did not see any sign of Ornn, nor Volibear. We had no time to look, either. The hunting horns of the Winter’s Claw announced their approach. We picked up our weapons and dug in our heels. What remained of our clothes were scorched tatters of cloth, but our skin no longer prickled with cold.
Olgavanna’s hair had been singed away, her muscular back branded with heat. Her once true-ice axe was bronze and iron, as naked as we were. She had never looked stronger.
Our blood boiled. Our stomachs growled. We were raw and blistered, bare and exposed. We smeared our chests with ash in the shape of a hammer, and ram horns upon our faces.
We sang and chanted in the memory of last night, with the words of mad old Kriek.
We knew who lit the fire. The Winter’s Claw would know, too.
Out of Time

Michael Yichao

PURSUIT
Twin energy blasts explode above me, sparks cascading down. I sprint further up the road. Behind me, the chrono-enforcer’s footsteps echo off the narrow walls. Fast. Relentless. Hate to admit it, but this guy’s definitely faster than me…
Good thing I have a few tricks up my sleeves.
At a crossway, I feint right, running two steps down the alley before I shift back, blinking the short distance across the road and sprinting the opposite direction. Classic fake out—a maneuver I’ve perfected over many a chase, thankyouverymuch. Having a Pulsefire suit that bends space over short distances comes in pret-ty handy.
Too bad this guy saw it coming. Somehow.
In a blink, he’s in front of me, both guns blasting. Chrono-enhanced movement. Has to be. I throw my arms up—always protect the face—and the first blast glances off my arm cannon, but the second strikes me square in the chest, sending me reeling. I stumble and fall, hard. In my ear, I can hear alarms blare. I fire a wild shot, but he dashes out of the way, easy. Guns trained on me now. Almost tickling my nose, he’s so close. I put my hands up and blow a stray strand of shaggy blond hair out of my eyes (funny how time traveling leaves little time for haircuts), trying to buy time as the suit attempts to bring my weapon systems to bear.
The enforcer glares down through his visor. “You’re not getting away again,” he says. I groan. So he’s encountered future-me already—which explains why he knew my signature move.
Note to self: think of more signature moves.
“Time’s up, Ezreal. You’ve created enough anomalies for a lifetime.”
I scoff. “Are you serious? You’re a time-traveling enforcer of the Remembrancers, and that’s the best pun you got?”
Somehow, his frown gets even frownier.
“You know you’re gonna be apprehending a bunch of time fugitives and criminals, you have your whole career to prepare, and you lead with… ‘time’s up’?”
His frown breaks into a scowl, and he leans in so close, I can feel the heat from the barrel of his guns. “You’re not talking your way out of this one, you snot-nosed punk—”
“Arcane shift recharged.” Finally! Pearl’s voice pings in my ear, and I don’t wait for Mister Bad Puns to finish his thought as I blink behind him.
Or at least, I should’ve blinked behind him.
Everything flashes to white, as always—but the core of my suit sparks and sizzles from the center of my chest, where the enforcer’s lucky shot caught me. With a jolt I land exactly where I started.
Uh oh.
Crack! I hear my nose break before I feel it. My vision starbursts—Not the face! Not cool! I hear the whirring of his weaponry. …Super not cool.
Time for one of those new signature moves.
I overload my cannon and fire off a massive wave of energy. The enforcer dodges out of the way (seriously, how fast is this guy?!), but the wave tears through the road and walls and neon signs and hopefully no innocent passersby, blowing rubble and shrapnel in all directions.
I haven’t been in a jam this bad since I was a dumb kid. But I’ve learned since then when to shoot your way out, and when to just make an exit.
“Get me out of here, Pearl,” I say, scrambling away as fast as I can. “We got juice to jump?” Something wet drips over my lips, and I run a gloved hand across my face. Definitely bleeding. Definitely a broken nose. Lovely.
“Chrono-jump unstable,” Pearl’s eternally calm voice says. “Pulsefire core damaged.”
“It’s not a no, so I’ll take it as a yes!” I slam my hand into my arm cannon and twist. The familiar rumble of the Chrono-jump Drive revs through it. My fingers on reflex start inputting a destination, but I stop myself. No. Can’t keep running back to him to fix all my problems. Also can’t bear the thought of seeing his smug face right now…
A furious yell. I peek over my shoulder. The enforcer climbs out of the rubble and dust, guns blazing, a constant barrage of energy shots arcing my way.
Man, I must have seriously pissed him off when I met him. Will meet him. Will have met him meeting me.
…Time travel’s confusing.
Energy blasts are straightforward, though. I let fate (well, Pearl) decide where I’m headed, firing the portal in front of me. But instead of a clear view of a destination, an opaque blue-white static crackles across the surface.
No time to hesitate. I dive head first into the unknown. Better anywhere else than a smoking pile of Deadzreal.
I feel the core on my chest shudder and lurch as I pass through the threshold. An arc of electricity surges out from it, and I plummet into whatever timestream awaits.
Yeah. This is gonna be a problem.

AEGIS
He hasn’t noticed me. Yet.
Stealth isn’t usually my strong suit. I’m much more of a shoot-first, ask-questions-never kind of guy. But considering the current state of my Pulsefire core… well, unusual times call for unusual tactics.
He’s just… standing there. Shield at his side. Spear stuck in the nearby ground. Staunch. Reflective. Booooring.
After dropping into an incredibly unpleasant dimension (blood-sucking gnats should never be that big), Pearl managed to pull enough power out of my damaged core to latch on to a chrono-signature of a nearby (well, relativity-speaking nearby) Pulsefire signal. Good news for me—bad news for the enforcer I’m about to jump for their Pulsefire core.
Why fix something when you can steal—er, borrow—a new one?
As fate would have it, I knew this enforcer. Pantheon. A real lunk of a man. Grouchy type: chip on his shoulder, probably a real tragic backstory, blah blah blah.
Currently, he’s standing in the rubble of some building I don’t recognize. To be honest, this whole dimension is one I don’t recognize—it looks like a real dump. Crumbling structures. Decimated vegetation. Evidence of mechanical and chemical conflict everywhere. Major bummer.
I shift in, nice and snug right behind him, arm cannon pressed lightly against the back of his head. “Don’t move,” I growl in my most threatening voice.
He freezes. From my vantage point behind him, I can barely see his visor chirp and whir, likely trying to figure out who I am.
“Ezreal,” he rumbles.
“How’s it goin’, Panth?” I say, grinning, before I remember that I’m supposed to be doing the angry growly thing.
“Here I was, spending all this time searching for you, and you just come to me.” His calm words are undercut by the tension in his voice, and the slight twitch in his scalp as he clenches his teeth in anger. Banter aside, he definitely knows I’m one sneeze away from obliterating his very chiseled, very handsome face.
“Listen, Panth, I know we had this whole thing going last time we met,” I say, leaning in. “But, thing is, I really don’t have time for you or for this wasteland today—”
“You are responsible for this wasteland.” The way he says it stops me cold. Flat, undeniable, matter of fact.
“Uhh, I don’t think so.” I know he’s stalling. I know I shouldn’t engage. I literally just did this to the last enforcer I talked to.
I can’t help myself.
“I generally remember my dimension-shattering escapades, thank you very much.”
“Reckless renegades like you are responsible for all of this.” Pantheon’s gaze casts across the devastated landscape before us, and I can’t help but look as well. “Careless jumps instigating paradoxes. Paradoxes tearing anomalies in space-time. Then… the Praetorians come.”
A chill runs down my spine. Praetorians… here…
Pantheon moves to stand, and I raise my arm cannon in warning, the weapon humming into high gear. He doesn’t bat an eye. “This used to be my home. Then they took everything from me.”
Sure, I take risks. Sometimes big ones. I’m never careless. But I can’t say I haven’t caused a paradox or two before…
“Pantheon,” I say, dropping my arm cannon by a fraction.
Big mistake.
Pantheon leaps at me, an energy barrier blossoming from his shield as my shot fires, a fraction of a second too late. He smashes into me, and I feel my nose break a second time, leaving me dazed. His left hand reaches out, calling his spear to him. I barely regain my senses in time to shift out of the way of his piercing jab.
“You will answer for your crimes before the Remembrancers!” he roars.
Welp. This went sideways, fast. Not a fight I want to pick in my current state. Pantheon throws his spear, and I push my suit to the limit, shifting as far away as I can manage up a hillside.
I rev up my arm cannon for a chrono-jump, and my entire suit shudders as Pearl tries to coax power through the damaged core. “Jump stability is severely compromised, safety protocols recommend—”
Pantheon’s spear flies at me, and I barely duck in time. It crashes into the remnants of a large stone statue behind me, shattering it into dust.
“Pearl! Override safeties! Now!” I don’t wait for confirmation before I aim my arm cannon and fire, relief flooding through me as I cross the portal’s threshold—cut short by a shock of pain as the untamed aether between dimensions lashes at me. I fall up, plummeting to an unknown fate…

RIPOSTE
I wake with a gasp.
Everything hurts. Like I’ve been thrown in the wash and tumbled dry.
Someone is cradling my head. A woman’s face hovers into view. Severe and stern, but in the moment, softened with concern.
“Thank goodness,” she says. “We thought we lost you in zat last jump.”
“Where…” I try to sit up, but an arc of electricity from the core on my chest spasms the muscles on my left side and I clench in pain.
“Zis is not good,” the woman says. “We don’t ’ave much time. He was right behind us. And ze Praetorian swarm… ” She shakes her head. “Lucian and Pantheon went on ahead, and Caitlyn is climbing for a good vantage point—”
I push through the pain and scramble to my feet. I know two out of three names she just said, and neither were ones you wanted to hear from the lips of a stranger immediately upon regaining consciousness after tumbling through unknown time and space.
The woman also stands, holding her hands out, trying to calm me.
“When am I?” I ask, clutching my chest. “Who are you?”
As I get a good look at her, my confusion mounts. She is, without a doubt, an enforcer. The chrono-blade at her side. That Pulsefire core on her suit—some sleeker, future model, from the shape of it. The dumb single pauldron on her uniform. So dumb. Very Remembrancers.
Confusion flits across the woman’s face—then her eyes widen in alarm. “You are not our Ezreal,” she says.
“Listen, lady, I’m nobody’s Ezreal but Ezreal’s Ezreal.” I look around me. I’m in a strange hallway of smooth, white, living metal, accented with chrome. Lamps, glowing blue, hang at regular intervals. It almost feels like we’re standing inside a Pulsefire suit.
A shiver of dread ripples down my spine. It couldn’t be. “This… Is this…?”
“Remembrancer’s Citadel. But you are not supposed to be here. I do not know when you’re from, but you must leave, before you arrive. Er, ze other you.” The woman’s eyes narrow. “You better still arrive. If you’re dead, I’m going to kill you.”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what or when this is,” I point my arm cannon at her chest. “…but I’ll be taking your Pulsefire core now,” I say with all the threat I can muster.
Right then, my arm cannon stutters and sparks. “Weapon systems at ten percent power,” Pearl says in my ear, exceptionally loudly.
From the look on the woman’s face, I swear she heard it too.
“Ah. You’re definitely from ze past.” The woman pinches the bridge of her nose, as if staving off a headache. “I forgot ’ow insufferable you were.”
I frown adorably. “I’m not insufferable. I’m charming.”
She stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes narrow, then she marches straight at me. I take a step back, but she’s already closed the distance and is jabbing a finger into my chest.
“So zis is why you told me that story last night.” She narrows her eyes at me. “About ’ow I had already saved your life twice. And ’ow I’d likely do it one more time before zis was all over.”
“Listen, I sincerely do not know what you’re talking—”
She doesn’t wait for my response but grasps me by my chestpiece and reaches a hand down my collar. I yelp—but she’s triggered some mechanism in there, and the core on my chest spins and opens, revealing the machinations within.
Okay. She’s definitely done this before.
Before I can protest, diagnostic nodes and microtools emerge from her gloves as she sets to work.
“Are… are you fixing it?” I ask, incredulous.
“You were such an idiot. Goodness. Zis damage. Did you pick a fight with Lucian? You picked a fight with Lucian. Incredible he did not kill you. Always was a much better shot.” She isn’t even talking to me, but muttering half under her breath as she works. I try to stand still—even I know you don’t jostle when a chrono-bending energy core is open and exposed.
A noise comes from down the hall, and the unmistakable sound of blaster fire follows. I frown, craning my neck to look, but the woman gives a sharp tug on my suit.
“Hold. Still,” she warns.
Blue sparks fly and a tiny smoke trail plumes, then she’s let me go and the core spins and locks back into place. I look down. The glow looks dimmer than usual, but it no longer arcs electricity every few seconds.
“It works…,” I marvel.
“For one more jump before it breaks completely. Maybe,” she says. “Now go!”
She turns to leave, then stops short. A hand dashes into a pocket, and she flips something at me through the air. I catch it.
“When you meet me, I will show you no mercy,” she says. “Make sure to show me zat. Otherwise, I will kill you.”
I gaze down and see a coin bearing an insignia—thin blade etched over a stylized rose. So many questions flash through my mind. But voices—followed by blaster fire—echo from further up the hall.
“That’s twice,” she mutters, largely to herself. “No time to figure out the third. Two will have to be enough.”
“That’s not very reassuring!” I call after her, but she is already running. She ignores me, turns the corner, and is gone.
I tap the core on my chest. One last time jump, huh. There’s no helping it. Only one person left I can think of that might be able to help me. Looks like I’m gonna have to see his smug face after all.
I really didn’t want to have to ask him for a favor. Again. Yet. Whichever.
I sigh. “Pearl,” I say, “boot her up.” I aim my arm cannon and fire, and once again, a portal opens. “Time to pay a visit to Ekko.”

TIMEWINDER
You ever meet someone who was just enough like you that it made you kinda hate them, because maaaybe it made you see clearly all the little things you hated about yourself, just a little?
Well, that’s not at all what’s happening here with Ekko.
It’s the mohawk.
“You said, ‘goodbye forever,’” he says, not looking back at me.
“I know,” I say.
“‘It’s been fun, but now we’ll never see each other again, which is probably for the best, given everything.’” Still not turning around.
I clench my teeth. “Yeah. I remember.”
“It’s been four seconds.” He sets down the weird cube he’s fiddling with and finally turns around, his arms crossing. Man, the trouble we went through to get that thing.
“Not for me. It’s been ages for me.” I can hear how whiny I sound, and I hate it. “I just… I needed to find you in a where and when I knew for sure you’d be.”
“So much for your cool guy exit,” he says, and I want nothing more than to wipe the smirk off his face. “What kind of trouble you find yourself in this time?”
“Oh, nothing major,” I say, walking down the steps and poking at the various panels and gadgets in his little hideout. “I, uh, I may have run into a little trouble with an enforcer…”
“Nothing new so far.”
“And maybe might’ve gotten, uh, roughed up a bit…”
“Don’t touch that.” My fingertips stop, hovering just above a potted plant suspended in an isolated temporal field. I watch as it shrinks from blossom to bud to new sprout, then age back again all within the same timeline, somehow collapsing all eventualities without generating new anomalies. Chronobreak, Ekko called it. I can’t help but shake my head. I didn’t even think Pulsefire tech could do that—and neither, probably, did the enforcers. It’s pure genius.
I hate it.
“My Pulsefire core is toast and I need a new one.” That “truth” thing worked so well with the lady enforcer, I figure I’d try it out on Ekko. “Got one lying around?”
Ekko laughs. I frown. It’s not at me—I’ve been through enough with this joker to know the difference—but it still stings all the same.
“Okay, sure, fine. Can you fix mine then?”
He walks up and leans in, peering at my chestpiece. “Oh man, this wreck? Are you kidding me? What, d’you take a point-blank blaster shot or something?”
“…Maybe.”
He looks at me, mouth agape. “Always protect the core!”
“Always protect the face!” I retort.
“Doesn’t look like you succeeded at that either,” he fires back, all judgement. He pokes my (very broken) nose, and I yelp in pain.
I wince. “Well then can you build me a new one?” Desperation is creeping in… and Ekko’s already shaking his head. “Why not? You built your suit from scratch!”
He shrugs, “Yeah, and part of that ‘scratch’ was the crystal core I snatched from an enforcer. Same as you.”
No way. Even Ekko has his limits.
I… I’m out of options.
I stumble into a chair, numb. “I burned my last jump getting here.” My head falls in my hands. “If you can’t fix this… then… this is it. I… live here now.”
“Like hell you do.” Ekko grabs his mask from the table with the cube. “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said. You ain’t stayin’ here in my timestream. I’ll help you.”
I can’t even look at him. “What options do I have left?” I ask.
“Steal a core.”
I click my tongue in frustration. “Tried that. Harder than you’d think.”
I can hear him clattering around. There’s a click as he straps his Chronobreak pack to his back. “We’ll just need to find a real sucker. Some dummy who’s totally unprepared,” he explains.
He walks up to me and shoves my shoulder. I look up. He’s fully geared up and ready to go. To help me. And knowing the escapade he just got back from… he has to still be exhausted. But he gives me that stupid grin I hate and says, “Let’s go, dummy.”
I start to smile—but my face freezes mid thought.
Oh. Oh damn. That’s it! I am a dummy!
“I hate you so much,” I tell him, bull rushing him into a hug.
“Whoa! Hey! Get off me!,” he shouts.
He struggles, but I cling on. “How long have I been here?”
“About a minute. So, way too long,” he fires back.
His hand is in my face, but I grab his wrist. “Rewind me back to just before I showed up.”
He blinks. “Why—”
I grin. “Buy me back my one last chrono-jump. Then I’ll actually be out of your hair forever, goodbye, never see each other again, blah blah blah.” I reach my free hand to pat his mohawk, but he grabs my wrist this time.
“Don’t. Touch. The. Hair,” he says, icy.
I pull my hand back. “Ekko. Please. Last favor. One more rewind. Like last time.”
With a scoff he replies, “Last time was the last time. And you already know—Chronobreak isn’t meant to carry more than one person.”
I take a deep breath. “I know. And… one of these days… I’ll pay you back. For all the last times.”
“You said we’ll never see each other again,” he sighs.
I wink at him. “Give it four seconds.”
Ekko rolls his eyes, reaching behind his back. “You’re exhausting,” he says as he activates his Chronobreak device.
“Thanks, Ekko.” And I add with a smile, “Owe you one.”
“It’s up to four now,” he corrects, pulling me close as he pulls the cord. The world around us slows, stops—then rewinds at accelerating pace.
Man, I love this guy.

FLUX
Rain pours down in cascading sheets. Down the street, the faint glow of lamps struggle to pierce the gloomy dark, diffused in the downpour. I can barely see in front of my (still very much broken) nose. Every particle in my being hurts. A boom of thunder peals out, and my ears ring in the aftermath. I’m a mess. But it doesn’t matter.
I know this moment and this place so well, I can almost walk it with my eyes closed.
Up ahead, a pair of double doors burst open, and a scrappy boy stumbles out of some sort of shop, a large satchel slung across his shoulders, face obscured by the hood of a heavy cloak. He looks behind him, wasting precious seconds, before sprinting around the block.
I take a deep breath. “Pearl, start the timer.” In my upper periphery, the tracker begins ticking.
One one-thousand. Two one-thousand.
A bulky figure races out of the same door after him. A telltale blue glow emanates from their drawn weapon, white armor catching the dim street lamps, even in the rain.
Eleven one-thousand. Twelve one-thousand.
I hurry along, cutting across shortcuts I haven’t taken in a lifetime, yet still as familiar as Pearl’s voice in my ear. I have one narrow window of time to do this. And if I mess it up… I shake my head. I don’t get to mess this up.
Soon, I reach my destination—a looming dark monolith of a building. I find the fire escape, the ladder hanging a good distance above me. I take a running jump and barely reach, my arms screaming in protest as I hoist myself up. Now, just eleven flights of stairs to climb.
I’m going to take a real long nap once I make it out of this one.
Thirty-two one-thousand. Thirty-three one-thousand.
I make it to the roof and duck behind the single door that is the access from inside the building. I crouch low and hurry across, take my position behind where the door would open, and check my timer.
Thirty seconds to spare, give or take.
One chance to get this right.
Forty-five one-thousand. Forty-six one-thousand.
The door bursts open, and the boy from earlier runs through. But the enforcer is right behind. They reach for him and grab him by the arm. A scuffle. A fight. The boy’s satchel is torn from him, thrown backward. In my direction.
I dart forward and grab the satchel, reaching inside for my prize.
The sound of a blaster shot rings out over the rain.
Fifty-five one-thousand. Fifty-six one-thousand.
Two more blasts, in rapid succession. Nothing but the shah shah shah of the rain. Then the dull thud of a body hitting the ground below.
I shouldn’t look back… but I do.
The kid stands, hands shaking, holding a blaster. He slowly walks toward the edge of the building and pushes his hood back to better peer at the body below, revealing shaggy blond hair.
What a sucker. A real dummy.
I duck back behind my hiding spot, jostling with the satchel. The chime of a distant clock tower rings out—twelve chimes of midnight.
I open the satchel and pull out the Pulsefire core attached to crossing bandoliers, and the synchronized arm cannon. They look so small and simple now compared to the suit I had built and modified since then—but they represent the same thing to me now as they did when I first got my hands on them:
Freedom.
I strap the Pulsefire core across my chest. Check Pearl’s countdown. Past-me is about to walk away from the edge. Come looking for the satchel back where it fell. It won’t be there. He would panic—only to find it dangling from the nearby fire escape, where it had improbably slid and landed—or so I’d thought.
I manually punch in a destination on the old-new arm cannon from the satchel, aim, and fire. A crystal-clear portal opens. I smile.
Back in business.
Sure, I’m now doubly traveling on literal borrowed time—stolen from myself. And if I don’t return the core back to the satchel in time, well—I don’t even want to think about the multiverse-ending anomaly it would tear open. I look up and see me start wandering back this way. Only seconds until I’d see the satchel was missing—no time at all.
But when you’re a time traveler, no time… is all the time you need. I hope.
AEGIS
He hasn’t noticed me. Yet.
Stealth isn’t usually my strong suit. I’m much more of a shoot-first, ask-questions-never kind of guy. But considering the current state of my Pulsefire core… well, unusual times call for unusual tactics.
He’s just… standing there. Shield at his side. Spear stuck in the nearby ground. Staunch. Reflective. Booooring.
After dropping into an incredibly unpleasant dimension (blood-sucking gnats should never be that big), Pearl managed to pull enough power out of my damaged core to latch on to a chrono-signature of a nearby (well, relativity-speaking nearby) Pulsefire signal. Good news for me—bad news for the enforcer I’m about to jump for their Pulsefire core.
Why fix something when you can steal—er, borrow—a new one?
As fate would have it, I knew this enforcer. Pantheon. A real lunk of a man. Grouchy type: chip on his shoulder, probably a real tragic backstory, blah blah blah.
Currently, he’s standing in the rubble of some building I don’t recognize. To be honest, this whole dimension is one I don’t recognize—it looks like a real dump. Crumbling structures. Decimated vegetation. Evidence of mechanical and chemical conflict everywhere. Major bummer.
I shift in, nice and snug right behind him, arm cannon pressed lightly against the back of his head. “Don’t move,” I growl in my most threatening voice.
He freezes. From my vantage point behind him, I can barely see his visor chirp and whir, likely trying to figure out who I am.
“Ezreal,” he rumbles.
“How’s it goin’, Panth?” I say, grinning, before I remember that I’m supposed to be doing the angry growly thing.
“Here I was, spending all this time searching for you, and you just come to me.” His calm words are undercut by the tension in his voice, and the slight twitch in his scalp as he clenches his teeth in anger. Banter aside, he definitely knows I’m one sneeze away from obliterating his very chiseled, very handsome face.
“Listen, Panth, I know we had this whole thing going last time we met,” I say, leaning in. “But, thing is, I really don’t have time for you or for this wasteland today—”
“You are responsible for this wasteland.” The way he says it stops me cold. Flat, undeniable, matter of fact.
“Uhh, I don’t think so.” I know he’s stalling. I know I shouldn’t engage. I literally just did this to the last enforcer I talked to.
I can’t help myself.
“I generally remember my dimension-shattering escapades, thank you very much.”
“Reckless renegades like you are responsible for all of this.” Pantheon’s gaze casts across the devastated landscape before us, and I can’t help but look as well. “Careless jumps instigating paradoxes. Paradoxes tearing anomalies in space-time. Then… the Praetorians come.”
A chill runs down my spine. Praetorians… here…
Pantheon moves to stand, and I raise my arm cannon in warning, the weapon humming into high gear. He doesn’t bat an eye. “This used to be my home. Then they took everything from me.”
Sure, I take risks. Sometimes big ones. I’m never careless. But I can’t say I haven’t caused a paradox or two before…
“Pantheon,” I say, dropping my arm cannon by a fraction.
Big mistake.
Pantheon leaps at me, an energy barrier blossoming from his shield as my shot fires, a fraction of a second too late. He smashes into me, and I feel my nose break a second time, leaving me dazed. His left hand reaches out, calling his spear to him. I barely regain my senses in time to shift out of the way of his piercing jab.
“You will answer for your crimes before the Remembrancers!” he roars.
Welp. This went sideways, fast. Not a fight I want to pick in my current state. Pantheon throws his spear, and I push my suit to the limit, shifting as far away as I can manage up a hillside.
I rev up my arm cannon for a chrono-jump, and my entire suit shudders as Pearl tries to coax power through the damaged core. “Jump stability is severely compromised, safety protocols recommend—”
Pantheon’s spear flies at me, and I barely duck in time. It crashes into the remnants of a large stone statue behind me, shattering it into dust.
“Pearl! Override safeties! Now!” I don’t wait for confirmation before I aim my arm cannon and fire, relief flooding through me as I cross the portal’s threshold—cut short by a shock of pain as the untamed aether between dimensions lashes at me. I fall up, plummeting to an unknown fate…
RIPOSTE
I wake with a gasp.
Everything hurts. Like I’ve been thrown in the wash and tumbled dry.
Someone is cradling my head. A woman’s face hovers into view. Severe and stern, but in the moment, softened with concern.
“Thank goodness,” she says. “We thought we lost you in that last jump.”
“Where…” I try to sit up, but an arc of electricity from the core on my chest spasms the muscles on my left side and I clench in pain.
“This is not good,” the woman says. “We don’t have much time. He was right behind us. And the Praetorian swarm… ” She shakes her head. “Lucian and Pantheon went on ahead, and Caitlyn is climbing for a good vantage point—”
I push through the pain and scramble to my feet. I know two out of three names she just said, and neither were ones you wanted to hear from the lips of a stranger immediately upon regaining consciousness after tumbling through unknown time and space.
The woman also stands, holding her hands out, trying to calm me.
“When am I?” I ask, clutching my chest. “Who are you?”
As I get a good look at her, my confusion mounts. She is, without a doubt, an enforcer. The chrono-blade at her side. That Pulsefire core on her suit—some sleeker, future model, from the shape of it. The dumb single pauldron on her uniform. So dumb. Very Remembrancers.
Confusion flits across the woman’s face—then her eyes widen in alarm. “You are not our Ezreal,” she says.
“Listen, lady, I’m nobody’s Ezreal but Ezreal’s Ezreal.” I look around me. I’m in a strange hallway of smooth, white, living metal, accented with chrome. Lamps, glowing blue, hang at regular intervals. It almost feels like we’re standing inside a Pulsefire suit.
A shiver of dread ripples down my spine. It couldn’t be. “This… Is this…?”
“Remembrancer’s Citadel. But you are not supposed to be here. I do not know when you’re from, but you must leave, before you arrive. Er, the other you.” The woman’s eyes narrow. “You better still arrive. If you’re dead, I’m going to kill you.”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what or when this is,” I point my arm cannon at her chest. “…but I’ll be taking your Pulsefire core now,” I say with all the threat I can muster.
Right then, my arm cannon stutters and sparks. “Weapon systems at ten percent power,” Pearl says in my ear, exceptionally loudly.
From the look on the woman’s face, I swear she heard it too.
“Ah. You’re definitely from the past.” The woman pinches the bridge of her nose, as if staving off a headache. “I forgot how insufferable you were.”
I frown adorably. “I’m not insufferable. I’m charming.”
She stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes narrow, then she marches straight at me. I take a step back, but she’s already closed the distance and is jabbing a finger into my chest.
“So this is why you told me that story last night.” She narrows her eyes at me. “About how I had already saved your life twice. And how I’d likely do it one more time before this was all over.”
“Listen, I sincerely do not know what you’re talking—”
She doesn’t wait for my response but grasps me by my chestpiece and reaches a hand down my collar. I yelp—but she’s triggered some mechanism in there, and the core on my chest spins and opens, revealing the machinations within.
Okay. She’s definitely done this before.
Before I can protest, diagnostic nodes and microtools emerge from her gloves as she sets to work.
“Are… are you fixing it?” I ask, incredulous.
“You were such an idiot. Goodness. This damage. Did you pick a fight with Lucian? You picked a fight with Lucian. Incredible he did not kill you. Always was a much better shot.” She isn’t even talking to me, but muttering half under her breath as she works. I try to stand still—even I know you don’t jostle when a chrono-bending energy core is open and exposed.
A noise comes from down the hall, and the unmistakable sound of blaster fire follows. I frown, craning my neck to look, but the woman gives a sharp tug on my suit.
“Hold. Still,” she warns.
Blue sparks fly and a tiny smoke trail plumes, then she’s let me go and the core spins and locks back into place. I look down. The glow looks dimmer than usual, but it no longer arcs electricity every few seconds.
“It works…,” I marvel.
“For one more jump before it breaks completely. Maybe,” she says. “Now go!”
She turns to leave, then stops short. A hand dashes into a pocket, and she flips something at me through the air. I catch it.
“When you meet me, I will show you no mercy,” she says. “Make sure to show me that. Otherwise, I will kill you.”
I gaze down and see a coin bearing an insignia—thin blade etched over a stylized rose. So many questions flash through my mind. But voices—followed by blaster fire—echo from further up the hall.
“That’s twice,” she mutters, largely to herself. “No time to figure out the third. Two will have to be enough.”
“That’s not very reassuring!” I call after her, but she is already running. She ignores me, turns the corner, and is gone.
I tap the core on my chest. One last time jump, huh. There’s no helping it. Only one person left I can think of that might be able to help me. Looks like I’m gonna have to see his smug face after all.
I really didn’t want to have to ask him for a favor. Again. Yet. Whichever.
I sigh. “Pearl,” I say, “boot her up.” I aim my arm cannon and fire, and once again, a portal opens. “Time to pay a visit to Ekko.”

TIMEWINDER
You ever meet someone who was just enough like you that it made you kinda hate them, because maaaybe it made you see clearly all the little things you hated about yourself, just a little?
Well, that’s not at all what’s happening here with Ekko.
It’s the mohawk.
“You said, ‘goodbye forever,’” he says, not looking back at me.
“I know,” I say.
“‘It’s been fun, but now we’ll never see each other again, which is probably for the best, given everything.’” Still not turning around.
I clench my teeth. “Yeah. I remember.”
“It’s been four seconds.” He sets down the weird cube he’s fiddling with and finally turns around, his arms crossing. Man, the trouble we went through to get that thing.
“Not for me. It’s been ages for me.” I can hear how whiny I sound, and I hate it. “I just… I needed to find you in a where and when I knew for sure you’d be.”
“So much for your cool guy exit,” he says, and I want nothing more than to wipe the smirk off his face. “What kind of trouble you find yourself in this time?”
“Oh, nothing major,” I say, walking down the steps and poking at the various panels and gadgets in his little hideout. “I, uh, I may have run into a little trouble with an enforcer…”
“Nothing new so far.”
“And maybe might’ve gotten, uh, roughed up a bit…”
“Don’t touch that.” My fingertips stop, hovering just above a potted plant suspended in an isolated temporal field. I watch as it shrinks from blossom to bud to new sprout, then age back again all within the same timeline, somehow collapsing all eventualities without generating new anomalies. Chronobreak, Ekko called it. I can’t help but shake my head. I didn’t even think Pulsefire tech could do that—and neither, probably, did the enforcers. It’s pure genius.
I hate it.
“My Pulsefire core is toast and I need a new one.” That “truth” thing worked so well with the lady enforcer, I figure I’d try it out on Ekko. “Got one lying around?”
Ekko laughs. I frown. It’s not at me—I’ve been through enough with this joker to know the difference—but it still stings all the same.
“Okay, sure, fine. Can you fix mine then?”
He walks up and leans in, peering at my chestpiece. “Oh man, this wreck? Are you kidding me? What, d’you take a point-blank blaster shot or something?”
“…Maybe.”
He looks at me, mouth agape. “Always protect the core!”
“Always protect the face!” I retort.
“Doesn’t look like you succeeded at that either,” he fires back, all judgement. He pokes my (very broken) nose, and I yelp in pain.
I wince. “Well then can you build me a new one?” Desperation is creeping in… and Ekko’s already shaking his head. “Why not? You built your suit from scratch!”
He shrugs, “Yeah, and part of that ‘scratch’ was the crystal core I snatched from an enforcer. Same as you.”
No way. Even Ekko has his limits.
I… I’m out of options.
I stumble into a chair, numb. “I burned my last jump getting here.” My head falls in my hands. “If you can’t fix this… then… this is it. I… live here now.”
“Like hell you do.” Ekko grabs his mask from the table with the cube. “That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said. You ain’t stayin’ here in my timestream. I’ll help you.”
I can’t even look at him. “What options do I have left?” I ask.
“Steal a core.”
I click my tongue in frustration. “Tried that. Harder than you’d think.”
I can hear him clattering around. There’s a click as he straps his Chronobreak pack to his back. “We’ll just need to find a real sucker. Some dummy who’s totally unprepared,” he explains.
He walks up to me and shoves my shoulder. I look up. He’s fully geared up and ready to go. To help me. And knowing the escapade he just got back from… he has to still be exhausted. But he gives me that stupid grin I hate and says, “Let’s go, dummy.”
I start to smile—but my face freezes mid thought.
Oh. Oh damn. That’s it! I am a dummy!
“I hate you so much,” I tell him, bull rushing him into a hug.
“Whoa! Hey! Get off me!,” he shouts.
He struggles, but I cling on. “How long have I been here?”
“About a minute. So, way too long,” he fires back.
His hand is in my face, but I grab his wrist. “Rewind me back to just before I showed up.”
He blinks. “Why—”
I grin. “Buy me back my one last chrono-jump. Then I’ll actually be out of your hair forever, goodbye, never see each other again, blah blah blah.” I reach my free hand to pat his mohawk, but he grabs my wrist this time.
“Don’t. Touch. The. Hair,” he says, icy.
I pull my hand back. “Ekko. Please. Last favor. One more rewind. Like last time.”
With a scoff he replies, “Last time was the last time. And you already know—Chronobreak isn’t meant to carry more than one person.”
I take a deep breath. “I know. And… one of these days… I’ll pay you back. For all the last times.”
“You said we’ll never see each other again,” he sighs.
I wink at him. “Give it four seconds.”
Ekko rolls his eyes, reaching behind his back. “You’re exhausting,” he says as he activates his Chronobreak device.
“Thanks, Ekko.” And I add with a smile, “Owe you one.”
“It’s up to four now,” he corrects, pulling me close as he pulls the cord. The world around us slows, stops—then rewinds at accelerating pace.
Man, I love this guy.

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