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Shen

An enigma to the spirit realm, as well as the mortal world, Shen belongs to neither. Although born to one of the most revered families of northern Navori, it was his father’s role as the Eye of Twilight that set his destiny in the Kinkou Order.
As the son of Great Master Kusho, he was immersed in the order’s culture, and its core tenets were as familiar to him as the Ionian sunset. He knew the necessity of Pruning the Tree, the determination of Coursing the Sun, but above all, he learned the wisdom of Watching the Stars. He meditated and studied throughout his childhood, and was considered exemplary by all his teachers.
His closest friend, the only one who could match him in practice bouts, was the young acolyte Zed. They grew up as brothers, often confiding in each other their personal hopes and dreams. Shen could turn to Zed for a fresh perspective on any matter, and the two became known as the Kinkou’s most promising students.
As their skills developed, Kusho brought them on dangerous missions, including a hunt for the Golden Demon plaguing the province of Zhyun. Their search took years, but Shen stayed committed even after uncovering countless gruesome murders. When they at last captured the “demon”, it was revealed to be Khada Jhin, a mere stagehand from a traveling theater. Instead of execution, Great Master Kusho ordered the criminal imprisoned.
Though he and Zed both thought the killer deserved heavier punishment, Shen accepted his father’s decision. He strived to emulate the Eye of Twilight’s dispassion, and so found himself failing to console a bitter and resentful Zed.
Even when Noxian invaders threatened the peace of the First Lands, Shen reluctantly supported Kusho’s inaction. But when Zed abandoned the Kinkou to join the fight, Shen stayed within the temple walls.
Many of the provinces were soon occupied by the enemy. Despite this, Shen focused on maintaining Ionia’s spiritual harmony. So it was, when he was far from home, he felt a jolting imbalance within the Kinkou Order—rushing back, he came upon the survivors of a bloody coup. From them, he learned Zed had raised acolytes of his own, and seized the temple.
Worst of all, Shen’s father had been slain by the man he once saw as kin.
Repressing his anguish, he led the remnants of the Kinkou to safety in the mountains. Shen took up his father’s spirit blade, as well as the title of Eye of Twilight. His role was not to seek vengeance, but to rebuild the order. Following the core tenets, he began to recruit and train others, hoping to restore its strength.
One acolyte in particular showed boundless potential. Shen taught the girl, Akali Jhomen Tethi, to master the arts of stealth and subterfuge. Her mother, Mayym, had stood alongside Kusho as the Fist of Shadow, and it seemed as though her daughter could follow the same path. Even so, Shen found himself forced to urge restraint whenever Akali would seek to strike back at their mortal foes.
When Noxus finally withdrew, many Ionians celebrated the victorious resistance. Others, like Shen, endured the consequences of war—he persisted in his duty, while in private he wrestled with his hatred for Zed, and doubt in his own ability to lead. The years of conflict had taken a heavy toll on the First Lands, and Shen was uncertain whether the rebuilt Kinkou would ever be able to redress the balance.
Indeed, even as Akali became the new Fist of Shadow, he felt her beginning to drift away. In time, she openly denounced his teachings, and left the order.
Shen meditated, watching the stars, and understood that Akali would need to find her own way… and so would the Kinkou.
Sometimes, between unseen struggles in the spirit realm, Shen still contemplates the value of his beliefs. He has never let his emotions stop him from preserving tradition, but the question remains: how long can one man walk two worlds, before the acts of one destroy the other?
True Neutral

“It was no tempest. It was a spirit,” said the fisherman, still rattled by the shipwreck he’d barely survived two nights ago. The man told of his fishing vessel being sunk by a creature, large as a house and quick as the wind.
Shen listened to the tale, silently weighing the facts as presented.
“Show me where it happened,” said Shen.
The man led him to a beach in the bay, where a team of villagers worked to recover the drowned bodies of the mariners. Shen knelt to examine a piece of wreckage. The gashes in the driftwood were deep and savage, the work of powerful claws.
“How many dead?” he asked.
“All but me… Six,” responded the fisherman.
The spirits are strong, thought Shen, digging through the wreckage for any further evidence.
At last, on the edge of a splintered portion of the hull, he found it: a small tuft of gossamer hair. Most people would overlook it, or if they did see it, they’d never believe a creature that could break a ship in half could leave something so delicate. But Shen had seen hair like this before. Any doubts he’d had about the veracity of the fisherman’s tale faded as he watched the fine, silvery tuft dissolve into nothing at his touch.
“A demon,” Shen remarked. “You must have sailed into its path.”
The fisherman nodded grimly. Spirits of all kinds were known to mingle with the physical world, especially in Ionia, where the barrier between realms was thin and passable. The ethereal and material planes were in constant contact, sliding peacefully past one another like oil atop water.
As the Eye of Twilight, it was Shen’s duty to walk between the worlds, ensuring neither side overwhelmed the other. To humans, he was a ghost, vanishing in the space between breaths to reappear many miles away. To spirits, he was a human, flesh and bone who ought never to venture into ethereal realms.
He knelt on the beach to examine one of the corpses that had been recovered. The man had been torn in half, just below the ribs. What was left of his innards dangled from a pale, bloated torso.
“You need not worry. I shall have the monster before nightfall,” said a voice from behind.
Shen turned to see a holy man sent by the local temple. Several acolytes stood around him, carrying an assortment of mystical trinkets and oils. They were beginning a cleansing ritual to root out any spiritual disturbances in the area. The holy man stared at Shen, as if sizing up his value.
“Can we count on your help, sir?” the man asked.
“Balance will be restored,” said Shen with an assuring nod.
He parted ways with the holy man and continued to follow the faint trail of gossamer hair. He thought of the dead seafarers and the cost he’d need to exact from the demon. The words of his father still rang true: “The hardest part is finding the point of balance in all things.” True neutrality, the precise center of all forces at work in the world - that is what the Eye must be able to distinguish.
Enforcing that equilibrium was its own struggle. For the task, Shen carried two blades on his back. One was an Ionian steel saber that could cleave through a person in one blow. The other was a sword of pure arcane energy. It was used for dealing with spirits, and had been passed down through many generations of Shen’s ancestors. He had slain countless demons, ghosts, wraiths, and sprites with it over the years, and fully expected to take one more before the day was done.
At last, Shen came to a secluded inlet, quiet and devoid of human activity. On a sandbar in the shallows lay the demon, its fine, glossy coat shimmering in the dusk. The creature swelled as it rested, engorged from consuming the mortal essences of its victims. Shen crept through the rushes, silently edging toward the sleeping demon. He could see its massive ribcage expand and contract with deep, restful breaths. When he was but a few paces from the sandbar, he drew his spirit blade, readying his strike.
Suddenly, a distressing sound stayed his hand. It was a shrill, ghastly cry, emanating from the very air itself. It sounded familiar, but before Shen could identify the noise, he heard it again. And again. And again, culminating in a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks. These were the cries of dying spirits. Shen’s eyes darted back to the demon, now beginning to stir from its slumber. Shen took one more look at his spirit blade, calmly weighing his options. He then clasped his hands together, carefully focusing his ki, and disappeared in a vortex of crackling energy, leaving the demon alone on its sandbar.
A moment later, Shen reappeared at the site of the shipwreck. All around, smoldering pools of black ooze evaporated into the air, coupled with the lingering reek of terror.
Shen counted the dissipating black puddles, each the remains of a slain spirit. His tally was interrupted as the holy man entered the clearing with his acolytes. One of the men held a cord of flax and silver. Tethered to the other end was a smaller spirit - an imp of no significance. It struggled against the choke of its leash. It wailed as it saw the remains of its brethren.
“Would you care to dispose of this one?” the holy man asked Shen, casually, as if offering him a bowl of soup at dinner.
Shen looked at the sticky, smoldering pools that were mighty beings of the otherworld just moments ago. Then he turned his gaze toward the priest and the wailing imp.
“I am sorry for this, Your Holiness,” he said. He placed his spirit blade back into its scabbard and drew his steel saber instead. It was not the sword he had expected to use that day.
Shield of Remembrance

Anthony Reynolds

Quinn ran through the forest, moving softly and swiftly. It was past dawn, though the sun had not yet risen over the mountain peaks to the east. The light was cold and pale, casting everything in shades of gray. Quinn fogged the air with every measured breath.
There were no paths through the untamed woodlands that spread like a blanket across the foothills of the Eastweald Mountains. Ferns and ivy concealed moss-slick rocks, rotting logs, and wild tangles of roots, but Quinn was more at home here than she was in any city or town, and was not slowed by the rough terrain. Despite her speed, there were only a handful of rangers in Demacia—all of them trained by Quinn herself—who would have had any hope of tracking her, so light was her step.
She caught a flicker of movement to her right, and dropped into the undergrowth, instantly motionless. Her eyes were golden, unblinking, and intense, missing nothing.
For ten breaths she remained still, all but invisible among the brush. She glimpsed movement again, and tensed... until she saw it was a greathorn stag. Big one, too, with a rack of antlers easily two arm spans across. Already its fur was starting to change, turning pale and silvery in anticipation of the rapidly approaching winter.
Some said that encountering a greathorn was a good omen. Quinn was not sure that was true, but she’d take it. These days, Demacia needed as many good omens as it could get.
In recent months, Quinn had been helping the Eleventh Battalion hunt rebellious mages—emboldened by the king’s murderer, Sylas of Dregbourne—through the wildlands of northern Demacia. Her rangers were too few, however, and the Eleventh’s strength did not lie in chasing an enemy that didn’t stand and fight. There had been running battles and skirmishes, but it was like trying to grasp smoke.
Quinn had lost three rangers in the last weeks, and their deaths weighed heavily upon her. Thus, it did not sit well with her that she had been ordered away from the hunt for rebel mages, and tasked with escorting Garen Crownguard and a detachment of the Dauntless Vanguard on some diplomatic mission beyond Demacia’s borders. She was due to meet up with them three days hence, on the south side of the Greenfang Mountains.
It hardly seemed the time for such an exercise, and Quinn would much rather have reassigned this mission to one of the others in her command—Elmheart, perhaps. However, the writ of order, delivered by swiftwing, had named Quinn specifically.
And the seal of High Marshal Tianna Crownguard brooked no argument.
She watched the giant stag a moment longer before pushing herself back to her feet. The greathorn saw her now. It held its ground, unafraid.
“Honor and respect, noble one,” she said, with a nod.
It was a long way to the Greenfang Mountains, but the skies were clear. She was confident she would get to the rendezvous point ahead of schedule.
The sun had finally climbed over the peaks, with golden light filtering through the canopy and dappling the forest floor, when the wind changed. It carried a distant, familiar scent.
Smoke.
A keening cry cut through the morning air. Quinn glimpsed Valor above the canopy, through the branches of the immense firs.
“What do you see up there, little brother?” she breathed.
The azurite eagle circled twice, then struck eastward like a blazing blue arrow loosed toward the rising sun. Without pause, Quinn turned and followed.
A short time later, she stood atop a ridge, where a rare break in the trees revealed a valley below. It was partly cleared, and scattered livestock could be seen in dry-stone partitioned fields. Under other circumstances it would have been a peaceful, picturesque view, but Quinn’s gaze was drawn to the smoke rising from the dark shape of a cabin. Her expression hardened.
She began picking her way down the steep incline, descending into the valley.

Quinn warily circled the smoking cabin. She’d known bandits to light fires like this to lure unsuspecting targets, and so she would not approach until she was certain it was not a trap.
She had her repeater crossbow in hand, bolts loaded. It was a one-of-a-kind weapon, lovingly crafted. It was nowhere near as powerful as a traditional heavy crossbow, but she could wield it one-handed, on the move, and without the need to reload after each shot, which made it worth ten times its weight in gold to Quinn.
She frowned as she came across a series of tracks on the ground. There’d been a lot of activity around this cabin in the last day or so, but it seemed she was alone here now. Quinn approached cautiously, crossbow at the ready.
The cabin was a humble abode, but had been built with obvious care. She pushed open the heavy front door—still smoldering, and hanging off its hinges—and stepped over the threshold.
A simple ceramic vase stood upon a fire-blackened hardwood table, holding a handful of wilted wildflowers. The remnants of hand-sewn curtains, mostly burned away, hung mournfully from window frames. Those curtains had been drawn shut, Quinn noted, and the surviving shutters pulled closed. The fire had started after dark.
On a solid oak door frame, Quinn noticed tiny notches carved into the wood. That brought a memory long forgotten, of Quinn’s parents doing something similar to record the growth of her and her brother.
This was not some rarely used hunting cabin—this was a family’s home.
Chairs and cabinets had been overturned and smashed. Drawers had been ripped open, and their contents strewn across the floor. Nothing of value remained. On the wall above the hearth, Quinn noted the sun-bleached outline of a shield.
As she turned, something in the ashes glinted in the sunlight streaming through a hole in the burned roof. Kneeling, she saw an object—a coin, perhaps?—wedged between the hearth and the blackened floorboards. Quinn holstered her crossbow, and used the tip of her hunting knife to pry it free. Likely, it had fallen down there, and been lost—she’d only seen it because the fire’s heat had twisted the floorboards out of shape.
Finally, it came loose, and Quinn saw it was a palm-sized silver shield that bore the winged sword emblem of Demacia. There were words engraved on its reverse: Malak Hornbridge, Third Battalion. Demacia honors your service.
It was a Shield of Remembrance, given to the families of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. Quinn had delivered more than a few of them to grieving spouses and parents herself.
Pocketing the medallion—it didn’t feel right to leave it amid this destruction—Quinn continued looking through the cabin. In what was clearly the family bedroom, which had escaped the worst of the fire, delicately woven garlands were strung across the rafters above the main bed.
In a corner, a smaller, child-sized bed had been overturned, and Quinn’s eyes narrowed as she knelt beside it. Charcoal markings were drawn onto the floorboards where the cot had once stood. The symbols were barbaric, of a sort not generally seen within Demacia. Bones and small pebbles were placed at intentional positions upon the runes, and she was careful not to disturb any of the lines. She had seen such runes before...
Valor’s piercing call sounded, high above, drawing Quinn away from the strange and unnerving display. Keeping low, she returned to the cabin’s main room, and pressed her back against a wall. With a quick, careful glance, she peered through one of the burned-out windows.
A cloaked and hooded man was approaching the front of the cabin, a rangy, pale gray hound loping along at his heels. The dog gave a low growl, but he silenced it with a word.
Moving soundlessly, Quinn repositioned herself in the shadow behind the smoldering front door. The man stepped inside, then froze, like a deer tensing as it feels an unseen predator’s eyes upon it.
“That you, boss?” he asked the seemingly empty room.
Quinn smiled. “What gave me away?”
The man turned, lowering his hood. He had the look of someone who spent most of his time outdoors, his face tanned and his short beard unruly. Just outside the threshold, the hound whined in excitement. “Don’t see many azurite eagles anymore,” he explained with a grin.
“True enough,” admitted Quinn.
“It’s good to see you, boss.”

Quinn knelt on the ground outside the cabin, ruffling the hound’s ears. It had been over a year since she had last seen the Greenfang warden, Dalin, and his faithful dog, Rigby.
The warden had given Quinn his assessment. He’d arrived at the cabin only an hour before her, and after a quick look around, had set out to speak to those living nearby.
“A woodsman saw a group moving through the trees last night, about half a mile up the valley,” said Dalin, pointing. “The moon was full, else he wouldn’t have seen them at all. Raiders, it looks like.”
“Setting a cabin on fire is not a good way to remain unseen,” observed Quinn. Rigby rolled onto his back, looking up at her with adoring, eager eyes.
“Perhaps they were more concerned about alerting anyone to their approach than remaining unseen afterwards? Or perhaps they lit the fire to draw attention to it, while they slipped off?” Dalin glanced over his shoulder. “Careful now—I think someone’s getting jealous.”
Valor was staring at her, unblinking, from a branch of a dead tree.
“Valor knows he’s my one true love,” she said, looking at the azurite eagle, her eyes smiling, even as she vigorously scratched the hound’s exposed belly. “Has there been much banditry in these parts of late?”
Dalin shook his head. “Been mercifully quiet, until this. The unrest spreading from the capital has got people nervous, but the sight of so many soldiers has driven most of the brigands into hiding. Small blessings, I guess. I hear you and yours have been busy, though, back west. Bad times.”
“Bad times,” agreed Quinn. Her jaw clenched, and she changed the subject. “A soldier’s widow and her child lived here. Anyone know where they are?”
The warden gave her a look, then shook his head with a laugh. “I shouldn’t be surprised you already figured that out,” he said. “The woman’s name is Asta. Her man died fighting mages when everything flared up in the Great City. She lives alone with her daughter.” He glanced back at the cabin, and sighed. “I didn’t see evidence of bloodshed when I looked around here earlier, but it doesn’t seem good.”
“No friends or family nearby who they could be with?”
“Seems not,” said Dalin. “The woman’s foreign-born. Keeps to herself. Her husband was from Lissus, back west. No family in these parts.”
“Foreign-born?”
“One of the independent nations to the east, apparently. No one seems to know exactly where.”
Quinn grunted and stood. She turned around on the spot, considering, then looked back toward the forest. She paced toward the tree line, studying the ground as she went.
“Here,” she said, coming to a halt. Dalin joined her, and she indicated a number of confusing, overlapping scuff marks. “They came out of the forest, and stopped here.”
Dalin dropped to his haunches, nodding. “At first I figured they were watching for the right moment to approach,” he said. “But then I saw these tracks here.”
Quinn circled around the tracks that Dalin indicated, careful not to let her own footsteps obscure them.
“A second set, lighter than the others,” she murmured. “Our widow and her child.”
“My guess is she confronted them—then they looted and burned her cabin.” Dalin’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t find the woman’s tracks returning to the house...”
“They don’t,” agreed Quinn, her expression grim. “Looks like they took her with them. Her and the child. See there? The little girl’s footsteps stop. Someone picked her up.”
She looked back at the cabin. “But these raiders didn’t approach the cabin, either. The ones who burned it approached from the other side. It’s possible the raiders split into two groups before their attack.”
Dalin folded his arms, thinking. “There’s something else,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any truth in it, but it seems at least some folk ’round these parts believe the woman was... different. A mage.”
Quinn thought of the runes drawn onto the floor underneath the child’s cot. They seemed more like archaic superstition than sorcery... though she could not be certain. This was not her area of specialty.
“The local gossip is that the raiders were allies of Sylas,” continued Dalin, “and they came to collect one of their own. It could explain why it doesn’t look like there was a fight, but why burn the cabin?”
Quinn frowned. She was missing something, she was sure of it. “Could be retaliation,” she mused, “for her husband fighting against mages. Perhaps they were looking for some payback.”
“Killing him wasn’t enough?”
Quinn shrugged.
“Whatever the case, I’ll be going after them,” said Dalin. “They’re at least half a day ahead, but if they’re carrying the child, they’ll be slowed.”
Quinn glanced at the sun, judging the time and how far she still had to travel to rendezvous with Garen. It would be cutting it fine, but...
The woman, Asta, had been made a widow by the mage conflict, and it seemed likely she’d been abducted. Quinn could not in good conscience ignore that.
“I’ll come with you,” she declared. “There’s at least five of them, by my count. You’ll need help.”
“Mighty pleased you happened by, boss.”
“Let’s get going, then,” said Quinn. “And don’t call me boss.”
Technically, as a ranger-knight, Quinn was Dalin’s superior, but rigid hierarchy and honorifics had always made her uncomfortable.
“Whatever you say, boss,” Dalin said with a wry grin, knowing exactly how uncomfortable it made her. “C’mon, Rigby! Let’s move!”

Rigby loped alongside his master, tongue lolling seemingly of its own volition, while Valor sliced between the trees, flying low overhead.
The majestic azurite eagle streaked past the two running rangers, tucking his broad wings to avoid branches. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, disappearing into the distance. A few minutes later, Quinn and Dalin found him perched on a branch, waiting. The eagle watched impassively as they ran below him. Only when they were almost out of sight did he launch back into flight, zigzagging at blinding speed, once again shooting by them.
It wasn’t hard to follow the outlaws, particularly with Rigby chasing their scent. There were five of them with the widow, and they’d made no attempt to cover their trail, choosing speed over stealth. The rangers tracked them over a ridge to the north, into a neighboring valley of unbroken forest. The trail then cut due east, following an icy stream that writhed its way down from the mountains.
For hours, Quinn and Dalin ran, closing the distance. The land gradually rose as they climbed higher into the foothills. They didn’t speak, only pausing to check that they were still following the trail. Rigby happily bounded back and forth on these occasions, snuffling through the undergrowth, while Valor watched the dog aloofly.
When the sun was just past its zenith, Quinn stopped, kneeling in the soft loam beside a few boulders. Some moss had been scraped away from one, most likely by a careless boot. Quinn inspected it, and picked something off a flat rock, looking closely.
“They broke bread here,” she said. “I’d say it was only an hour ago. Maybe a little more.”
“We’re getting close,” said Dalin, sitting down and sucking in deep breaths. Rigby was taking the moment’s respite to lap from the nearby stream, while Valor watched. “We’ll overtake them by sundown.”
“Not fast enough,” said Quinn, balling her fists in frustration. “They’ll be over the border by then.”
“You think they’re trying to leave Demacia?”
Quinn shrugged. She pulled a hard trail biscuit from her pack, bit off half, and tossed the remainder to Dalin. He caught it deftly and nodded his thanks. The rations didn’t taste the best—in truth, Quinn could imagine sawdust had more flavor—but they’d sustain them. After a moment, she broke out a second biscuit, and launched it at Rigby. The pale dog snatched it out of the air, jaws snapping, devouring it instantly.
“It’s possible,” she said. “If they were just trying to hide, they’d have done better turning north. There are chasms and ravines up there that would take weeks to scour.”
Dalin chewed his tasteless biscuit thoughtfully. “The closest border crossing’s half a day’s march to the south, though,” he said. “And there’s no way they’d get through. The gates have been locked since the king’s murder. There’s nought but sheer cliffs and watchtowers this way.”
“Unless there’s another crossing we don’t know about,” said Quinn. She glanced down at the dog, now panting beside Dalin. “You think your master can keep up, Rigby, or should we ditch him?”
The hound looked at her quizzically, turning his head to the side.
Dalin snorted. “Funny,” he said. Then, with a groan, he pushed back to his feet.

A short time later, Quinn and Dalin stood on a bluff, overlooking a ravine. A massive rocky spire rose above the forest canopy in the distance.
“There,” said Dalin, pointing.
Climbing around the circumference of the spire was a group of people. It was hard to make out any details—at this distance, they looked like ants—but it was clear that they would reach the border before the rangers.
“If I can get in front of them, I can slow them,” said Quinn.
“The only way you’d be able to do that is if...” started Dalin, but his words trailed off as he saw Quinn staring at him, a half smile on her face.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Quinn soared through the air, borne aloft by Valor. The eagle’s bladelike talons were latched tightly around her shoulders, and she squinted against the biting wind as they sailed over the trees.
“Take us around to the north,” Quinn shouted as they approached the spire. She leaned her weight in that direction, and Valor obligingly angled their descent.
The raiders had circled around to the south of the spire and disappeared into the trees, but Quinn didn’t intend to follow their path directly. No, she needed to get in front if she was to slow them long enough for Dalin and Rigby to catch up. Two rangers against five were not great odds, but it was better than confronting them alone.
Valor continued to come down, and Quinn lifted her legs to avoid hitting the highest branches. The spire loomed before them, and Valor banked around its northern flank, gaining a little height as updrafts buoyed them. Then the rocky ground rose rapidly to meet them. Spying a likely place to land, Valor shifted their approach, and angled his wings back to slow their descent.
Two powerful beats of his wings, and Quinn’s feet touched down, ever so gently.
“Thank you, brother,” she breathed as Valor released his grip. Then she was running again, into the cover of the forest. The azurite eagle, unshackled by her weight, took to the air once more.
Quinn leaped over tangles of roots and burst through stands of ferns and hanging lichen. She ran along the length of a fallen tree, using it as a bridge to traverse a cascading waterfall, before bounding off it and charging up the rise on the other side.
This was not her usual, mile-eating pace that she could sustain for hours on end. This was a full sprint, and her heart was hammering in her chest. After racing up the hill, she hurled herself to the ground, concealed among the bracken. Elbowing herself to the edge of the rise, she peered down into the hollow bellow.
A lone figure appeared, bow in hand. It was a man, bearded and bedecked in furs. A bronze torc around an upper arm glinted in the dappled light filtering through the trees, and Quinn glimpsed swirling warpaint or tattoos on his pale flesh.
The ranger-knight instantly knew this was no Demacian rogue mage or bandit. This was no Demacian at all.
The raider paused, surveying the way ahead, and Quinn felt his gaze flit over her. She resisted the urge to crawl back, knowing the movement of the ferns would draw more attention than if she remained motionless.
Seemingly satisfied, the outsider lifted a hand and gestured forward before continuing on. Quinn stayed where she was, waiting as the rest of the group appeared. One of them had a gleaming Demacian shield strapped across his back. That was the shield that had been stolen from above the cabin’s hearth—a shield that had belonged to a noble soldier who’d fallen in battle. Seeing an outsider wearing it as a trophy filled her with a cold-burning anger.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the widow. While the others were bedecked in furs and leather, she was wearing a simple but elegant woolen dress, rolled up to free her legs. A fur shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, and she wore a pair of practical, tall boots. She looked exhausted, stumbling forward with her head down. With a breath of relief, Quinn saw the child, a toddler with a mass of golden curls, asleep in the thick arms of one of the marauders.
The ranger-knight watched them for a moment longer, then crawled slowly backward, a plan formulating in her mind. She knew where they were going, for she’d been here before, years earlier.
In her youth, she and her twin brother, Caleb, had roamed the wilds around their home of Uwendale, several days’ march to the northwest. The pair had often disappeared into the wilderness for weeks at a time, exploring the forests and mountain foothills, hunting for their own food, and sleeping under the stars. Their father had been none too excited about it, but their mother had always encouraged them. She was a big believer in the importance of self-reliance and resourcefulness, and both children had accompanied her on hunts from a young age.
Their father had come around eventually—it probably helped that the family larder was always well stocked with venison and boar after they returned—though he never stopped worrying for them.
And it turned out he’d been right to worry.
Quinn had been here only once, a month before Caleb’s death. And so she knew that if the outsiders continued on their path, they’d have to make their way up through a narrow ravine, half a mile farther on.
Running low and fast, hidden by the crown of the rise to her right, Quinn sprinted on a path parallel to the raiders. She made it to the ravine before they did, and ran up the side. She’d just set herself up at the top of it, her back against a concealing rock, when she heard the first of the outsiders begin his ascent.
Quinn took measured breaths, slowing her thumping heart. She left her repeater crossbow holstered, but drew her large hunting knife. The blade was long and broad, almost the size of a shortsword.
The outsider was good—he made almost no noise as he climbed steadily up the rocky gulch—but not good enough to realize Quinn was waiting for him. As he hauled himself up the final, steep climb, Quinn stepped from concealment. She was to his side, and he didn’t see her until the last moment. He tried to turn, drawing back the string of his bow, but he was too slow. Quinn struck him in the temple with the pommel of her knife, and he dropped without a sound.
She hastily dragged him out of view. He was bleeding, but he was alive. With swift, practiced movements, the ranger-knight bound the unconscious man’s wrists, before yanking them back and tying them to his ankles. Then she resumed her position, back against the rock. She drew her crossbow, and flipped the knife around in her other hand so that its point was down.
With a quick glance, she peered down the ravine before ducking back. Three raiders were climbing the steep rise below, with the widow between them. The one Quinn presumed was their leader—he was bigger than the others, and alone among them wore chainmail under his furs—was at the front. He was the one who bore the Demacian shield upon his back.
Quinn ground her teeth in frustration. There should have been four of them left. Where was the last one? Was he simply acting as a rearguard, or could he be approaching from an unexpected angle? She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was too late to change her plan. She’d deal with him if and when he appeared.
As the leader of the outlanders neared, Quinn stepped out in front of him, crossbow leveled at his throat.
It took him a moment to register her presence. His eyes widened and he halted, reaching instinctively for his axe, hanging over his shoulders.
“Don’t,” warned Quinn. She wasn’t sure the man would understand her, but the shake of her head was a universal language, and the outlander’s hand froze.
He was a big man, two heads taller than Quinn, and easily twice her weight, but she had the higher ground, and was unintimidated. She’d brought down far bigger prey in her time.
His hair was straw-colored and long, hanging in elaborate plaits, and his beard, streaked with gray, was bound with bones and stone beads. His eyes were like slivers of slate, and he stared up at her without blinking.
There was a shout of alarm from the raiders half hidden behind his bulk, but the big man barked something over his shoulder in his own clipped, harsh language. He looked past the ranger-knight, searching. Probably trying to see what support she had.
His gaze returned to her. He licked his lips, and Quinn knew he was judging the chances of closing the distance without taking a fatal bolt.
“You speak my language?” asked Quinn. “You understand my words?”
The outlander stared at her for a moment before giving a slow nod.
“Let the woman and child go,” said Quinn, “and we won’t have to see how long it takes you to bleed out from a bolt to the throat.”
The big man snorted in amusement. “You’ve been tracking us? Alone?” His voice was deep and heavily accented. “You may kill me, if you are lucky, but my men will tear you apart. I do not think I will do as you ask.”
“I wasn’t asking,” said Quinn.
The outlander grinned. Two of his teeth were made of gold. “There is steel in you, Demacian. I like that.” His smile dropped abruptly. “Where’s my scout?”
“Alive,” said Quinn.
“Good. He is my brother, by oath. My wife would be angry if I had let him get killed.”
“What’s going on?” the widow called up.
The leader of the outlanders barked a response in his own language, though Quinn did recognize something amongst that garble of words: Asta. The widow’s name.
The woman begged. “Please, I don’t want any—”
“Be silent!” shouted the leader, half turning, his face flushing a deep crimson. When he looked back at Quinn, his expression was angry. “You should not have tried to stop us by yourself.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw the fifth raider rising to his knees atop the ridge to her left, bow in hand. Quietly he nocked an arrow and drew the string, weapon leveled at her.
Quinn, still holding the leader’s gaze, gave him a smile. “What makes you think I’m alone?”
There was a flash of blue, moving like a thunderbolt, and the bowman gave out a strangled cry. His arrow, loosed in haste, sailed into the undergrowth, and he fell back, clutching at his bleeding hand.
The widow screamed, and everyone broke into motion.
One of the warriors threw a hand axe, sending it hurtling end over end toward Quinn. She swung aside, dodging it, but that was enough of a distraction for the leader. He sprang forward, swinging his axe off his shoulders. Quinn loosed two bolts in quick succession, but the first missed its mark, slicing harmlessly by his head. The second took the raider in the meat of his shoulder, embedding itself there, but it did nothing to slow his charge.
With a roar, he brought his weapon around in a lethal arc. It was a heavy, double-handed axe, and the strike was meant to hack Quinn in two. She swayed back from the wild swing, then reversed her momentum—she was far quicker than the outsider, for all his power—and stabbed him in the chest. It should have been a killing blow, delivered right to the heart, but the tip of her knife caught in his chainmail, stopping it from sinking deep.
The big man drove Quinn back with a swinging elbow, sending her reeling, then brought down his axe in a heavy overhead blow. Diving to the side, Quinn avoided the strike, and let loose a bolt at close range as she rolled. The bolt plunged into his flesh just above the knee, and the warrior collapsed with a growl of pain.
Quinn was on him instantly, knife at his throat.
That gave the other raiders pause, and they traded glances, unsure what to do. One of them was still cradling the woman’s child, though the infant was now wailing loudly.
The widow scrambled forward on her hands and knees. “No, no, no,” she cried. “Please, don’t hurt him!”
Quinn blinked. “You... know this man?” she asked, looking at the exhausted, tearful woman before her.
“Of course I do,” the widow said. “He’s my brother.”

“My husband was in the capital when the king was murdered,” said the widow, Asta. She held her daughter in her arms, and was gently swaying back and forth, trying to calm her. “He was defending the palace. The mages killed him.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” murmured Quinn, as she bound a length of cloth around the outlander leader’s leg. His name was Egrid. His chest wound was only minor—his chainmail had saved him from worse harm there—and he’d torn out the bolt from his shoulder himself.
The other warriors were sitting on rocks nearby. One had some ugly cuts on his hand, and was staring balefully at Valor, perched on a branch overhead, while the one Quinn had tied up was rubbing gingerly at the side of his head.
Standing near Quinn, a deep frown on his face, was Dalin.
“I met Malak when a diplomatic contingent came to my homeland, six summers back,” said Asta. “In Skaggorn, I was a chieftain’s daughter, but when Malak returned to Demacia, I came with him as his wife.”
Quinn finished tying the bandage, then sat back to inspect her work.
“You are fast, and strong, and you stitch wounds well,” said Egrid with a grin, his golden teeth flashing. “Marry me, and come back to Skaggorn with us, yes?”
Quinn didn’t even dignify that with an answer. “But why try to leave Demacia now?” she asked Asta. “You must have known that would bring trouble down upon you.”
“My people left the Freljord many generations ago,” said Asta, “traveling over the mountains and settling in Skaggorn. Yet the old blood still runs in my veins. My grandmother was a seer, one you would call a mage, or a witch. I do not have that power, but what if my daughter develops the sight? I have heard what is going on. She would be taken from me. The Frost-Bringer knows what would happen to her. I could not risk that, so I sent word to my family by hawk, begging them to get us out.”
“Mageseekers,” Quinn hissed, shaking her head.
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. If the child manifested arcane powers, the mageseekers would take her. Were she in the widow’s shoes, Quinn would likely have already taken her child far beyond the reach of that insidious organization. She couldn’t blame Asta for what she was attempting.
“You understand we can’t let you go,” said Dalin. “The borders are closed. No one is allowed to leave without express permission from the high council itself. It’s the only way to ensure the traitor Sylas and his associates don’t slip away, and escape justice.”
“My husband died fighting against the traitor!” said Asta. “Everything here reminds me of Malak. Without him, I don’t wish to stay. And the small-minded farmers of our valley hate me. They already think I’m a witch.”
“You didn’t ransack your own home when you left, did you,” said Quinn. It was a statement, not a question. “And you didn’t set it ablaze, right?”
“What? No, of course not.” Asta paused. “Did someone truly do that?”
Quinn nodded. “And the markings under your daughter’s cot,” she said. “They were not of a... sorcerous nature, were they?”
Asta laughed, shaking her head. “A blessing of protection. A mark all Skaggorn mothers make for their children.”
Quinn nodded again, finally understanding. “But that runic blessing might seem like sorcery to those who wouldn’t know any better. Even I was suspicious of it.”
“I was careful to keep the old traditions to myself, but my neighbors were always wary of me,” Asta said. “And with all that’s been happening...”
It seemed clear now that the second set of tracks leading to the cabin had not belonged to any warrior of distant Skaggorn. Maybe the locals were seeking evidence of Asta’s sorcery. If so, perhaps they saw those charcoal runes, and set the house ablaze in a clumsy attempt to burn away what they thought was dangerous magic.
Quinn sighed, shaking her head. On the whole, Demacians were good, honorable people, but fear and distrust were spreading like a plague, and bringing out the worst in the kingdom’s scared citizens. It needed to end.
“I found something that I think you should have,” Quinn said, remembering what she had recovered in the wreckage. She handed over the Shield of Remembrance, and tears appeared in Asta’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, clutching the medal to her chest. “I thought it had been lost. It broke my heart to leave without it.”
“I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to leave,” said Dalin.
“We are leaving, Demacian,” growled Egrid, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. “Do not try to stop us.”
“Egrid, enough!” snapped Asta. “These two rangers are just doing their duty.” She turned to Quinn. “But please, I beg you, at least let my daughter go. She should not have to suffer for something beyond her control. Let her go with my brother, and I will return with you.”
Dalin and Quinn traded a look. The law was firm. No one was allowed to leave Demacia, not Asta, her daughter, or the Skaggorn warriors.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Dalin.

“If we let them go, then we are the ones violating the law,” whispered Dalin.
The two rangers walked behind as the group trekked eastward.
“We need to know how they got across the border,” replied Quinn in a low voice.
Dalin looked troubled, but he gave a clipped nod and fell into silence.
It wasn’t long before they reached the cliffs marking the edge of Demacia. The Skaggorn party led them to a secluded location, tucked just out of view of the guard towers to the north and south. Every inch of these cliffs should have been visible to one of the dozens of Demacia’s watchtowers, but clearly this was a blind spot.
Quinn leaned over the edge. The drop was several hundred feet, but heights had never bothered her. She could see pitons hammered into the rock. “You approached the base of the cliff at night, so as not to be seen by the sentries?” she asked.
Egrid nodded. Quinn grunted, impressed.
“Quite the climb to make, even in daylight,” she said. She looked down at the big man’s strapped leg. “Sorry about the knee. Are you going to manage it?”
“Of course! We of Skaggorn are strong,” boasted Egrid. “You are strong, too. You should return with us. The two of us, we would make strong warrior children. Yes?”
Quinn stared at him without speaking, her expression unreadable. Eventually, he shrugged and turned away.
“Worth asking the question,” he muttered. With a shout, he ordered his men to retrieve the ropes, hidden in the undergrowth nearby.
“I thought you just wanted to find out how they crossed into Demacia unseen,” hissed Dalin, taking Quinn aside. “We’ll be breaking our oaths if we allow them to go!”
“I’m uncomfortable with forcing a woman to stay and risk having her child taken simply because of a quirk of her bloodline,” she said, her voice low. “Besides, our first oath is to protect Demacia.”
“And letting them go protects Demacia?”
Quinn flashed him a fierce glance. “If we try to stop them, this plays out in one of two ways,” she whispered. “Either they kill us and leave anyway, in which case Demacia has lost two of its best rangers—or we defeat them, and Demacia gains an enemy, for the people of Skaggorn will know we are holding a chieftain’s daughter against her will.”
Dalin glanced at the big warriors, and conceded the point. “Doesn’t make it right, though,” he muttered. “And still makes us lawbreakers.”
Quinn regarded him. “If you want things to be simple, then you’d be better off in the regular infantry. Things are always more complicated out on the fringes.”
“The laws—”
“The laws be damned,” snapped Quinn. “It does not weaken Demacia in any way to let them go, but it will if we try to stop them.”
“But—”
Quinn rarely enforced the power her rank allowed her... but she did so now.
“Stand down, soldier,” she growled. “I am letting them go. That is an order.”
He stiffened for a moment, then gave her a sharp salute.
“As you will it, ranger-knight.”

The sun was starting to set as the Skaggorn party commenced climbing down the cliff. Quinn waited till they were all on their way—tied to each other, with the widow Asta’s child strapped tightly upon Egrid’s back—before she turned away. As good as their word, Egrid’s men removed the pitons they’d hammered into the stone as they descended.
Quinn had less than three days to get to the meeting point with Garen. She’d be forced to run through the night to make it in time, but had no doubt that she would. She gathered herself, readying for the journey ahead.
Before she left, Quinn paused, glancing over at Dalin, who was sitting near the cliff’s edge, Rigby at his side. He was looking eastward, away from her. They had barely spoken since the Skaggorn began their descent.
“I don’t expect you to feel good about it,” Quinn said, “but letting them go was for the best.”
He looked at her. “I understand,” he said. “Matters just aren’t as straightforward as I’d like them to be, I guess.”
“For some, they are,” said Quinn, shrugging. “But we are rangers.”
The Greenfang warden gave a slow nod, then stood to see Quinn off.
“You watch out for her, Valor, you hear?” he said, addressing the azurite eagle perched nearby. “Demacia needs her.”
Valor clacked his beak in reply.
“Speak to the local garrison,” Quinn said. “See that they build a watchtower here. Best make sure this gap in our defenses is closed for good.”
“Pulling rank on me again, boss?”
Quinn snorted, and scratched Rigby behind the ears. “Something like that.” She looked the warden in the eye. “Stay safe, and stay vigilant, Dalin,” she said. “Demacia needs you, too.”
Then she turned, and started running once more.
The Curator's Gambit

Matt Dunn

Look, I should be clear—I didn’t want anything to do with “the dread lord,” or whoever Januk was talking about. I was just trying to sell this stupid little vial to the guy who asked me to get it for him. Should have been easy.
But when you’re me, nothing goes your way for long.
My way. Whatever.
Januk was a red-bearded Freljordian transplant, with deep pockets and big appetites. Unknown to his employers, his private residence was filled with relics and artwork, half of it raided illegally from tombs or other museums, and he loved to dine amidst his collection. As some of the pieces would attest, we’d worked together several times in the past, and he only betrayed me twice. Well, two and a half times, if I’m counting when he blew my cover after we had already salvaged the wreck of the Echelon Dawn…
To Januk’s credit, payment was never a problem, which vastly diminishes my ability to hold a grudge.
“Ezreal,” he said, pushing his plate aside. There were flecks of lamb in his teeth. “Did you find it?”
The it he was referring to was to the Elixir of Uloa. And yes, I had indeed liberated it from a trap-strewn hovel in the jungle near Paretha. I pulled the bone and crystal vial from my satchel. It was cool in the palm of my hand.
“Got what you’re looking for right here,” I said, holding up the vial. “Interesting container. My best guess would be pre-classical Shuriman.”
The spoonful of viscous liquid inside it shimmered in the moonlight. Januk’s eyes widened.
I decided to ramp up the drama. “I tell you what, though—this here isn’t just any ordinary ancient serum. It’s a load bearing ancient serum. The whole place crumbled around me. I barely escaped with my life.”
“The Elixir…” Januk’s voice took on a reverence I had never heard before. “A single drop can quench the soul for a thousand years… Give a man skin as tough as petricite…”
He went to grab it with his greedy hands. I pulled it out of reach.
“Not so fast, Januk.”
“Right, right, right,” he muttered, fumbling for his desk drawer key. “Payment. We agreed sixty thousand.”
“And full accreditation in the Guild, remember?”
I’d been denied entry to plenty of things, in my time. Bars, schools, even a Sona recital… but the Piltover Explorers Guild was the one that stung the most, considering the number of times I’ve risked my neck in the field. Ingrates.
Januk was scowling. “The Guild aren’t particularly fond of you, Ezreal. Can’t say I blame them, having worked with you in the past.” He poured himself some amberwine from a decanter and took a swig. “You left me to rot in that Noxian prison camp…”
“That was payback. For the Echelon Dawn.”
“Which was payback for the map.”
“Which was payback for… something else you did.” I gritted my teeth. “Probably.”
I was getting antsy. I readied myself to make a quick exit.
“Come on, accreditation was half the deal,” I reminded him. “If you don’t want to honor it, I can always find another buyer.”
His boisterous laugh broke the tension. “Why do you think I continue to do business with you? It’s because I like you. We have history, and history is always good for business.” He finished his drink. “Let me fetch the letter from my study. One moment, please.”
Buyers keeping payment in their studies? Oldest trick in the book. He’d probably return aiming a flintlock at my pretty face.
To kill time, I perused his collection of artifacts. There were some I had procured on his behalf. Then my eyes fell on something I had not seen before. Something new—a stone bell, roughly the size of a housecat. Its base was adorned with strange writing. I stepped closer to inspect it.
“It’s Ochnun,” Januk called out. “The language of the dead, composed beyond the mortal veil, and spoken only by those in the afterworld.”
I was getting some serious backstabby vibes, so I spun around.
Januk didn’t have a flintlock. He had two flintlocks.
“I am sorry to inform you, Ezreal, that the Guild has once again denied your application.” He stepped closer, into the light. “The dread lord will rise again. And the Elixir will make it happen.”
A dread lord? Great. I was so close this time…
My gauntlet’s charge rose. Anger is a wonderful arcane motivator. Use it or lose it, I always say.
I raised my arm. Januk fired his pistols. It was magic versus lead shot.
Surprise! Magic won. Magic always wins.
The dull metal slugs burned white-hot in the face of my blast, and winked into silvery vapor on the other side. But with double-crossers, one must be doubly careful, so I quickly charged my gauntlet again. There was a slight fizzle, then a pop, and then I was standing right behind Januk. Teleporting short distances doesn’t really take a lot out of me, so I put my gauntleted hand to the back of his big, stupid head before he could turn around.
“Drop the guns, Januk.”
“Already one step ahead of you.”
Oh, I did not like the sound of that. I glanced down. Sure enough, the pistols were at his feet.
Did I mention Januk was strong? Because he is super strong. He grabbed my gauntlet in one hand, yanked me over his shoulder with the other, and slammed me bodily through his work desk. The damn stone bell jabbed into my spine. I saw white, and splinters. Lots of little splinters.
Januk kicked me in the ribs for good measure. He twisted the Elixir of Uloa out of my shaky grip, pulled the stopper, and drank deep.
“Your pathetic gauntlet will do nothing to an immortal! The Elixir is—”
“Fake,” I croaked. “Almost the right hues, though.” I held up another, far less remarkable looking vial. “This is the real Elixir. You just drank sand wasp venom, out of a cheap souvenir trinket vessel.”
Januk peered into the empty vial, his face scrunched up like he’d tasted sour milk. In fairness, sour milk would have been a lot better for his digestive system.
I winced as I pulled myself back to my feet. He had kicked me unnecessarily hard, but at least he spared my face.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t stray too far from a lavatory for the next few days,’ I added.
He threw the fancy casing to the ground, doubled over, and groaned. Sand wasp venom hits hard and fast. “You… petulant little… I’ll get you… for this…”
I shrugged, then raised my gauntlet and fired another blast of magical energy at the wall. The masonry cracked, melted and exploded outwards. Papers flew everywhere. I picked up the bell, and crouched by Januk’s new window.
“Always a pleasure, ” I said. “I won’t charge you for the, uhh… remodeling.”
I hopped out through the hole, scampered down the masonry and leapt across to a nearby rooftop. I wanted to be far away from Januk as quickly as possible, for lots of reasons. Admittedly, the sand wasp venom was the main one—it was not going to be pretty in that place by morning.
As I ran, I took a closer look at my latest acquisition. Whatever else it was, the Ochnun bell was definitely touched by some darker energy. Once the Explorers Guild got a load of this piece, I’d be a shoo-in for accreditation. With a party in my honor, perhaps? After all, I had just single-handedly kept some dread lord from rising.
And in the end, that’s usually all that matters.
THE DISSONANT VERSES

Ian St. Martin

I: Herald of the Forbidden God
“Fools!”
The word struck Melodie’s ear like a lash, echoing from beyond the temple’s walls and jarring her from the familiar calm of her meditations.
Her fingers ceased their dance along the strings of her praytar, her eyes of warm hazel flickering open to take in the arched stonework of the temple’s inner sanctum. Setting down the instrument with all the reverence due to the worldly object that enabled her communion with blessed Cacophoni, Melodie rose and made for the entrance, and the source of the disquieting voice.
She lifted the veil of lacquered plectrums she wore over her face, before whorls of incense and the midday light of the suns stole her sight for a moment. The city sprawled out before her, stone and iron and glass wrought into brutal harmony by the chosen of the gods. Grand monoliths hung in the sky, carrying and strengthening the tolling of the Temporonomicon, the rhythmic heartbeat of the world.
All was in tune—save for that single, angry voice whose owner Melodie now beheld from the top of the temple steps.
He was young, slender of build and fair of skin, with gentle locks of platinum blond that tumbled down to his shoulders. His face was ardent, eyes burning with the fervor of belief. Alone he stood, swathed in rags, the crowds ebbing back from him as though he were diseased.
“You have been led astray,” the young man continued, appealing to the wall of scowls surrounding him, “deceived by those who claim sole possession of the truth.”
Melodie glanced at the Rectifiers—those tall, hulking warriors clad in plate of gleaming brass who served as the temple’s guardians, as still as the statues they protected.
Why were they not stopping this?
The young man gestured to the main courtyard, and the brutal and abstract depictions of the Noisome Host that dominated it. “Stentorus, Cacophoni, Perpetuum,” he said. “The gods are true, and worthy of worship, but the faith raised up in their name is built upon lies. And their champions?”
He stabbed a finger in accusation at the only slightly lesser monuments standing with the gods in the silent majesty of granite and gold-flecked marble, the warlords that they had chosen to rule over all.
Pentakill.
“By your sweat did they render their thrones,” he spat. “By your blood do they quench their thirst. You are nothing but slaves to them, your toil the mortar that keeps their stale, unchanging act from collapsing!”
Melodie flinched at the sheer heresy of it, the words burrowing into her thoughts. She shook her head to free herself of them, but they held fast to her with painful barbs. Yet she would not flee back to the sanctuary of the temple, instead gaining strength from the inevitable rebuke that came from the crowd.
“Liar!”
“Blasphemer!”
“May the scriptures curse you!”
The man laughed bitterly. “Scriptures? Pentakill would have you believe that the holy books are complete, that no pages have been torn from them and hidden in fear, that all power in the universe is meted out by the Noisome Host alone. I say again, you are being lied to!”
Disquiet rippled through the assembled masses, murmurs of shock and doubt.
“There is more than you have been allowed to know,” he went on, his tone growing softer in sympathy yet somehow stronger in projection. “You believe it is the will of the gods that lays your paths out before you... but friends, there is another—”
“That’s enough, Viego!”
Melodie turned, hearing the susurrus of a cloak of golden strings trailing against the flagstones. Qylmaster the Sanctifier emerged from the calm of the temple, crossing the threshold and striding down the steps with all the grandeur and assurance enjoyed by one of his rank.
“I was wondering when you would scurry forth, priest,” the heretic smiled thinly. “Puppet of the dying light.”
“Begone from this place,” said Qylmaster, his voice calm and measured but leaving no room for debate. “Have you fallen so far from the grace of Perpetuum that you are deaf to the poison that escapes your own lips? Trouble these innocents and true believers no longer.”
Viego leaned forward and spat upon the ground. “You no longer have any hold over me, old man. I do not bow and scrape at the feet of your weary idols. I answer to a truer power, one worthy of worship. I speak of the Dissonant One!”
The Sanctifier’s expression dropped. His tone became a low rumble. “Leave. Now.”
Viego straightened. “And if I refuse?”
Qylmaster lifted a hand, revealing small cymbals bound to his thumb and index finger. “Then you will be removed.”
The Sanctifier clashed his fingers together once, and in response to the chime the Rectifiers stepped forward as one. Sworn acolytes of Stentorus, they bore mauls of flame-hardened ironwood, and their bootfalls were a percussive staccato upon the earth. Swiftly they surrounded Viego, their weapons raised and poised to strike him down.
“We will suffer no further apostasy,” said Qylmaster. “Still your forked tongue, or in the name of the Noisome Host I will have it torn from your mouth.”
But Viego only sneered. “Why not call forth your fair headliners, eh? Where are Pentakill to answer for the ‘poison’ I utter?” He turned again to the crowd. “High up in their gilded towers, fat and corrupt from your toil. Let them come here and tell me to leave, and I will depart without incident.”
There was a moment of silence. Viego cocked his ear, and his eyes met with Melodie’s, though only briefly.
Then he smirked. “Nothing. I thought as much.”
Melodie watched, shaken by the scene unfolding before her. She could not countenance the worldview being foisted upon them all by Viego. To question the power of the Host was like stating that the twin suns did not blaze, or the bitter oceans did not rise and fall. Pentakill were the greatest band of all time, and rightful champions of the gods. Why were they allowing this to persist?
Agitation began to wind and twist through the crowd. Raised voices and angry words turned to shoves and strikes. Violence and uncertainty crept into the temple courtyard as friends turned on one another, incited by the intriguing madness of Viego’s ravings.
“Silence!” Qylmaster cried, raising his arms. “Peace, my brothers and sisters! Close your ears and your hearts to these lies.”
He glowered at Viego.
“You have fallen so very far, my child. It pains me to send you down deeper still. Honored sons of Stentorus, I loose thee!”
The Rectifiers stamped in unison—three sharp, echoing crashes of brass—and beat Viego down. Their mauls rose and fell, again and again, and Melodie had to look away, flinching at the sound of each blow.
Viego’s limp form was seized, dragged through the streets and pelted with insults and scraps of garbage. At the end of this abusive parade, the city gates were flung wide, and he was thrown into a crumpled heap in the dust beyond them.
Melodie felt Qylmaster’s gentle touch upon her shoulder for a moment as he passed. “Come away, child. This has been no sight for the devout to behold.”
Yet she could not move. Horror rooted her in place, and... something else. A new sensation crept up her spine, as she watched Viego roll shakily onto his knees outside the gates.
Doubt.
“You… cannot stop the... storm that is c-coming...” he choked from between split lips. “All your lies and... m-monuments will be swept away! Your... haughtiness laid low... in the ashes...”
As the gates drew closed, Viego rose defiantly to his feet.
“I am a disciple of Dissonance! I will show you! I will show you all!”
II: Doubts of the Penitent
Music was a wellspring of calm in Melodie’s life, the riffs and chords an oasis that made all other concerns fade. And yet, try as she might, she could not forget Viego’s words, even though days had passed since the incident outside the temple courtyard. She strummed her praytar, willing herself to let all but her heart, mind and fingers drift away.
Still, the doubt remained.
The tune Melodie was playing warped as her finger slipped, curdling the air with discord. She ceased, cursing softly behind her veil, as she heard the soft scrape of golden strings approaching.
“There is suffering in your play, Stringstress.”
Melodie looked up to see Sanctifier Qylmaster. He looked down, with concern in his eyes. “Do the other day’s events yet disturb you?”
Melodie averted her gaze. “I confess they do.”
A soft sigh of understanding passed Qylmaster’s lips. “Heresy is seldom kind,” he said, seating himself beside her, “least of all to the heretics themselves. They are to be pitied, helped whenever possible, however we are able—but their delusions are not to be heeded, much less dwelled upon.”
“Were it so simple,” said Melodie, almost shocked at her own candor. “His words rooted a dread in my heart. A dread that holds fast to me even now.”
The Sanctifier nodded once, then rose to his feet.
“Walk with me, Stringstress Melodie.”
She followed Qylmaster from the inner sanctum, ascending a spiral staircase through floor after floor of the temple, until they emerged from its tallest tower.
Her breath caught in her throat. Never before had she stood at such a height, able to take in all of the city at once. The lesser temples and assorted screamatoria dotted the landscape, offering song and verse to the gods above with such fervour that they could be heard even in the wastelands beyond the city. And there, to the west, lay the Ashenpit, that grand arena erected at the site of Pentakill’s original, triumphant ascendance.
She felt as though she might reach up and touch the floating monoliths overhead, and let her eyes fall upon the holy Temporonomicon in all its glory. Nonetheless, Viego’s words remained with her. Did she even regard that edifice with the same awe any longer?
“Look, dear child,” said the Sanctifier, as though reading Melodie’s thoughts. “Look upon everything we have built together. All we have achieved. Tell me, was this done in the passage of a single day?”
She frowned. “Of course not, holy one.”
“A year, then?” he persisted. “Or even a lifetime?”
Melodie shook her head.
“Consider the first gatherings, those first primitive groups that offered up music and song, such as they could, to the gods. Do you not think they were afraid?”
“They must have been,” Melodie admitted.
“Quite so. And yet they persevered, for they had the truth of their beliefs to sustain them. They triumphed over their fear, and for that victory the Noisome Host deemed us worthy of patronage. All that we have done since has been by their eternal grace.” His arm swept across the majesty of the city once more. “And behold! What wonders we have rendered!”
Melodie smiled. “It is beautiful, in its brutality.”
“Rest easy then. For our path is righteous, as strong as steel. The words of that liar, that fool Viego, are nothing in comparison.”
“His words were cunning,” said Melodie. “They were so sincere. I feel ashamed for my doubt.”
“We must never doubt. Doubt is a doorway, one that only leads to ruin. A pox upon his name—we beat Viego and cast him out, and now I curse myself even for the kindness of that. Better to have gone further still.”
The veil of plectrums jingled as Melodie gave a short bow. “I thank you for your wisdom, holy one.”
“Come now,” Qylmaster gestured to the stairs leading back down to the temple. “I have heard you play, my child. The inspiration of Cacophoni has blessed you bountifully. You are strong not only in song but in mind, in will. You do not require my feeble words to stand against the challenges of this world.”
“I am grateful for them all the same.”
They descended, walking in contented silence, until they reached her simple alcove. Melodie suppressed a laugh.
“To think that there could be a lost chapter of the scriptures, another god—”
“There will be no more talk of such things!” Qylmaster snapped, all his former warmth gone. Melodie sank to her knees, shocked into mortified silence, clutching her praytar for support.
A hush filled the sanctum. Veiled adepts, acolytes, and mystics shared glances and whispered words. They could not help but overhear the Sanctifier’s rebuke, their eyes like daggers piercing Melodie from every direction.
“There is the Host, and nothing else.” Qylmaster towered over her. “Your doubts disrupt us all, throwing our faith from its divine cadence. Are you perhaps unworthy of the rank of Stringstress? Pray for mercy, Melodie. Pray that your thoughtless words will be forgiven.”
Melodie bowed her head, cursing herself for her levity. “In Cacophoni’s name.”
“You shall make penance with a dozen soli.” Qylmaster held out a slim crystal vial, which she accepted. “Contemplate the majesty of the Noisome Host, as you make your offering.”
Melodie played, her fingers a blur over the strings. The vibrating metal stung after a while, yet relief washed over her. She finished the first solo in under an hour.
It was not until midway through the fourth that the calluses on her fingers opened.
Blood slicked the strings, running down to the bottom edge of the praytar’s fretboard, and she was careful to catch each crimson droplet in the vial. By the end of the twelfth solo, Melodie squeezed her shaking hands until it was filled.
She glanced down at her bloodied fingers, unable to force the beaten figure of Viego from her mind, as he had lain broken in the dust.
And where once doubt lingered, anger took its place—an anger unlike any she had felt before.
“Is your penance done?” asked the Sanctifier when she came to him. “And did it bring reason back to you, Stringstress?”
“I pray so,” Melodie answered through gritted teeth. “I know that man’s words were lies. For if they were true, none here would deny them, would they?”
“I believed this matter was concluded,” Qylmaster growled. “Was I mistaken?”
Melodie flinched. “No, Sanctifier, it’s just—”
“It seems penance was not sufficient to quiet your mind! Need I remove you from this temple until you have come to your senses? Perhaps so. Oh, child—you seemed destined to rise so high among us. To become a font of holy wisdom! To teach others the tenets of the faith!” Qylmaster shook his head. “Look upon yourself, now. Bear this shame as I bear my disappointment.”
Melodie cast her gaze around the temple, but found only judgement, coldness, some even stifled laughter at her plight. She knew there were those among them just like her, with questions and doubts. Yet they turned their backs, their denial an almost physical force pushing Melodie from the temple’s light.
She had never felt more alone.
“You will take your leave now,” said Qylmaster. “Return when your faith has, and we will decide if you are worthy of any place among us.”
Melodie paced the streets with no idea of where to go. Her vision blurred with tears, she collided with a street performer who was clumsily attempting to appease all three gods in unison, with a bizarre apparatus of instruments bound to himself. The man sprawled to the ground in a crash of cheap cymbals and the squeal of protesting catgut.
Ripping the veil loose from her face, Melodie looked down upon it as the blood from her hands smeared the lacquer, before tossing it into the gutter.
She was angry. Angry at herself, at the Sanctifier... and most of all at the idea that Viego’s lies might not have been lies at all.
III: A Storm of Dissonance
With a soft, even rhythm, Melodie swept the temple steps, trying to ignore the heat of the suns beating down on her. She concentrated on the even swing of the broom, the rough bristles brushing against the stone, content that even in this humble task she was making music again.
The weeks she had spent wandering the city had not dispelled her doubts, nor the newfound anger that surged in her heart. But when it felt like all else had turned to sand around her, she clung to what she knew would bring her peace.
Music.
She had stood with the other mendicants and aspirants at the gate each day, staring up into the impassive visors of the Rectifiers, seeing the afternoon light reflected brilliantly in the brass. When at last she had been permitted entry once more, Melodie threw herself upon the mercy of the faith, enduring all of the purification they demanded to prove herself worthy to return to the fold.
However, back inside the temple walls she had begun to work in secret moments and hidden acts, searching for what she was now convinced was being hidden from them all. Lost chapters of the holy scriptures. Forbidden gods.
She was determined to find answers.
It played out just as she had hoped it would. Interrogated and scourged by Sanctifier Qylmaster, he had at last relented and Melodie was welcomed back into the ranks of the faithful, though with all the warmth shown to a beggar, beneath notice or friendship. The promising future she had once had, even the potential to one day become an anointed Roadwalker—the blessed servants who tended the sacred instruments of Pentakill—was gone forever. Where once she was adorned in finery, her fingers a conduit for the holy music of the Noisome Host, now she wore plain robes, confined to shuffling in the shadows as she cleaned the temple, and restrung the praytars of others.
Melodie was invisible, but even the simple familiarity of the inner sanctum was a comfort... and in truth it was all the better to achieve the true purpose in her heart.
Pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow, she sighed. It was hot, and she was exhausted, but the suns would begin to set before long, and she would have a chance in the quiet hours of the night to search for the lost chapters, if they even—
She stopped, suddenly. Something prickled her awareness, reaching her ears and filling her veins with ice. She realized it was not a sound that had startled her, but rather its absence.
It was silent. Utterly silent.
Melodie had never heard true silence before. Had she been struck deaf by some cruel twist of fate, excommunicated from the songs that connected her to the divine? She ran to the temple’s front gate, looking up to set her thoughts in time with the holy immensity of the distant Temporonomicon, and her eyes went wide.
It had stopped.
What could stop the Temporonomicon?
In the moment that she grappled with that impossibility, a shadow fell over her—but not just her.
It fell over everything.
The world was plunged into a sickly twilight as the suns were swallowed by a bloom of writhing, malignant darkness. Magical energies the color of a deep bruise lanced through, and throbbing lightning of brightest red reached out to craze the sky, drifting down and coiling toward the earth.
And with it came... a sound, or a hideous un-sound, replacing the faithful beat of the Temporonomicon with the howling of ruin.
The great monoliths hanging over the city began to tilt and sag. With no sacred rhythm to keep them in place, two of them collided, plummeting with titanic slowness to smash like meteors into the skyline. Violent shockwaves tore through the streets from the impacts, the dark energy storm joined by slashing gales of dust and jagged debris scraping and clashing, giving further voice to the din.
Melodie recoiled, clutching onto a pillar for support as she watched men and women fleeing through the streets from the advancing horror. The fortunate found whatever shelter they could, but they were few. So many were caught up in the storm, and it was only after witnessing its effects on them that Melodie realized she was screaming.
It surged like a predator, engulfing its prey. It wound along their limbs like a serpent, surging past their teeth to produce a sound no natural thing should be capable of producing. It was, impossibly, a kind of song—but one attuned to some terrible, keening dissonance. Their faces collapsed around choked cries of agony, falling away slack and boneless, and what was within them was drawn out from between their howling lips, carried to hang up over them like the slick branches of incarnadine trees.
This new and hideous forest sprung up across the city, shivering with discord as it amplified the grand dirge of unmaking. It grew, louder, and louder, and louder, with each new voice it claimed.
Melodie’s throat went raw, cutting off her screams. She looked on as the stormfront rippled over the Rectifiers standing ready in the courtyard. The temple guardians twitched and thrashed, losing their sure footing as the brass of their armor ran like molten wax. The ironwood mauls in their fists caught fire. They stumbled, crashing to the ground in expanding pools of boiling foulness and liquid metal.
Melodie retched as whorls of smoke and steam coiled into the air from the obliterated guardians, drawing her gaze up to the grand thoroughfare. There, through the dust and gloom, she glimpsed a figure striding confidently through the city gates like a conqueror, with his arms spread wide.
“Viego?” she breathed. She could not say for certain.
If it was Viego, he did not look as he had before—a lunatic in rags. This man was transcendent, his flesh absent any wounds that may have been laid into it by the outrage of the masses.
Had he been right all along? Were these the blessings of his “Dissonant One”? Was this his wrath for the falsehood and ignorance of the faithful? Melodie had to know.
“Into the temple!” Qylmaster’s voice came from behind Melodie as she took her first step. Desperate citizens were barging and rushing past her, looking for sanctuary.
But Melodie was rooted in place.
“He wasn’t lying, was he,” she called out, still transfixed by the unfolding destruction, all their great works rendered to ruin. She turned to the Sanctifier. “Where is Pentakill?”
“Come away child!” he bellowed. “You see now the evils of this heresy! Get thee to safety with us!”
“This is a power only the divine could bestow,” Melodie replied, pointing to the madness enveloping the city. “And this is not the work of the Noisome Host. There is another god, isn’t there?”
The Sanctifier stared blankly. “Pentakill will come,” he murmured. “They will come to protect their faithful followers.”
“Then where are they...?” Melodie snarled. She looked up, seeing the temple’s campanile tower topped with a golden statue of Karthus now falling to rubble. “They aren’t coming. You know that.”
The Sanctifier reached out to her. “Sister Melodie...”
He had never looked older, or more feeble.
“We’ve all been living a lie,” Melodie turned her back on him. “I have been living a lie. There are answers, ones I thought hidden away out of mortal fear, or petty ignorance, but now I know.”
She pointed to the storm.
“The answer is out there.”
Melodie descended the steps, moving against the surging current of men and women. Viego was out there, somewhere, doing precisely what he had promised he would do. He was opening the eyes of the world, through such violence and catastrophe that none could ever deny the reality of his patron, this Dissonant One.
Amid all the devastation, she felt she could almost hear a word, a name, all but imperceptible in the chaos.
“Muuuutaaaarisssss...”
Despite its horror, Melodie pushed forward into the crimson maw of the storm. To her, revelation was worth any price. If that ended up being her own existence, then so be it—hers had been a life of ignorance, but no more. Somehow, impossibly, excitement welled up within her, washing away all doubt and anger as a new path appeared, dark and winding as it might be.
And perhaps Viego would show her the way.
The Dreaming Pool

Anthony Reynolds

The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.
Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.
Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.
She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d lived it before. She shook her head and continued on, deeper into the forest.
Finally, she stood before the sacred ghost-willow. Its limbs moved languidly, as if underwater, accompanied by the faint, musical whisper of bone chimes.
While the anger still coursed through her, hot and fierce, she closed her eyes and forced her fists to unclench. She breathed in, slowly, just as the old master had taught her, trying to push back her rage.
Something hit her, hard, in the back of the head, and she fell to her knees. She touched a hand where she’d been struck, and her fingers came away bloody. Then she heard the laughter, and her fury surged to the fore.
She stood and turned towards her brother and the others, her eyes dark and glaring. Her breathing was heavy and short, and her hands clenched into fists at her side once more, all the effort to calm herself a moment before lost in a flash of anger. As it built within her, compounding and growing like a malignant sickness, the air around her seemed to shimmer, and the ghost-willow began to fade and wither behind her. It wept red sap, its leaves curling and blackening.
Since time immemorial the magic of this land had nourished the ghost-willow, just as it in turn nourished the land and its people, but now it was dying, its supple limbs turning bone-dry and brittle, its roots curling in pain. Its chimes tolled a mournful death-rattle, but the girl didn’t hear it, lost in the moment of her seething fury.
As the ancient, primordial tree perished, the little girl began to lift off the ground, rising into the air. Three light-swallowing spheres of absolute darkness began to orbit around the child.
Her tormentors were not laughing now...
Kalan stood upon the battlements of Fae’lor, looking across the narrow sea towards the mainland of the First Lands—what humans now called Ionia.
It was a dark, moonless night, but he saw as clearly as if it were daylight, the pupils of his feline eyes fully dilated. Occasionally, they caught the gleam of torch-light and reflected it back brightly; the mirrored eyes of a night predator.
Kalan was vastaya, of the ancient bloodline. His fur was russet-red and hung down his back in long, intricate, knotted braids that now had more than a few streaks of grey in them. His proud face was akin to that of a great hunting cat, and criss-crossed with scars from a lifetime of battle. The left side of that face was furless, and angry red welts bore evidence of the horrible burns he’d suffered as a young warrior. Curling horns sprouted from his temples, each engraved with spiralling runic patterns, and his three tails swished behind him, each covered in segmented plate. The armor he wore was Noxian dark iron, and he wore the trappings of his adopted empire with a scowl.
Some called him a traitor, both to Ionia and his vastayan heritage, but he didn’t care. What they thought didn’t matter.
The fortress of Fae’lor was built upon the westernmost island of Ionia. Highly defensible, this place had remained for centuries, standing against countless foes, before being finally overrun after a long siege during the Noxian invasion.
That was before Kalan had joined Noxus, before the fateful Battle of the Placidium when he’d pledged himself to Swain. Before he’d requested this post as governor of Fae’lor as reward for his service.
The Noxians laughed at him behind his back, he knew. He could have had a far more prestigious posting—but he had chosen Fae’lor, at the forgotten edge of the empire.
They didn’t understand, and that mattered nothing to him. He needed to be here.
Noxus had not won the war, of course… but nor had Ionia. Nevertheless, many seasons after the end of the campaign, Fae’lor remained under the invaders’ control.
Thirty-three warships were currently docked here, as well as perhaps half that number of trader vessels and merchant ships. Over a thousand warriors of Noxus—a mix of veteran warbands hailing from the far corners of the empire—were stationed here under his leadership.
A guard patrol stomped along the battlements. They saluted, fists crashing against breastplates, and he gave a nod in return. He didn’t fail to miss the dark looks they gave him as they marched by. They hated him almost as much as his own people did, but they feared and respected him, and that was enough.
He turned to look back across the sea once more, brooding on the past. Why was he here? It was a question he saw in the eyes of his subordinates every day, and one that crept up on him the darkest of nights, those nights when the forest, and the hunt, called to him. The answer was simple, however.
He remained here to keep watch over her.
A pair of dark-clad figures—one female, one male—emerged from the sea, unseen, and as silent as death. Swiftly, moving like spiders, they scaled the near-vertical hull of the warship Crimson Huntress, and slunk over its gunwale. Their blades glinted, and the ship’s night wardens were silently dispatched, one after another, without any alarm being sounded.
Within moments, all five Noxians were dead, their lifeblood leaking out onto the deck.
“Neatly done, little brother,” said one of the pair, now crouched in the shadow of the upper deck. Of her face, only her eyes and the swirling indigo tattoos that surrounded them were visible.
“I had a passably decent teacher,” replied the other. He too was fully clad in black and crouched in shadow, though in place of his sister’s swirling tattoos, his skin was a solid block of etched flesh.
“Passably decent, Okin?” she replied, one eyebrow rising.
“No need to feed your ego, Sirik,” her brother replied.
“Enough fooling around,” said Sirik. She opened a black leather pouch at her hip and delicately removed an object, tightly bound in waxed leather. She unwrapped it, gingerly, revealing a fist-sized, black crystal.
“Is it dry?” whispered Okin.
In answer, Sirik gently shook the crystal. A hint of an orange glow lit it from within for a brief moment, like a fanned ember.
“It would seem so. I’ll find a suitable place for it,” she said, nodding to the nearby door leading below deck. “You signal the others.”
Okin nodded. Sirik ghosted below deck, and her brother moved silently back to the gunwale. He leaned over the edge and beckoned. Seven other black-clad figures rose from the dark water below, climbing soundlessly up onto the deck of the ship, hugging the shadows.
They were the dispossessed—the last remaining warriors who had served here at the fortress of Fae’lor, before the Noxians had wrested it from them. The shame of that defeat still burned in their hearts, as did the desire to see every Noxian pushed from their ancestral homelands.
Once all were on deck, they waited a moment for Sirik, who emerged after a few minutes.
“It is done,” she said.
The nine dispossessed Ionians flowed over the ship’s side, following the leading pair. They moved as fluidly as water, and ran lightly along the stone dock towards the fortress of Fae’lor.
From shadow to shadow they darted, like specters, until they reached the first wall. Hugging the darkness, they remained utterly motionless as a patrol marched by, the Noxian warriors speaking in their guttural language and laughing, utterly oblivious to the nigh-invisible Ionians crouched mere feet away.
As soon as the patrol turned a corner, the infiltrators snapped into motion once more, climbing the sheer surface of the wall, moving swiftly, hand-over-hand. They made it look easy, like climbing a ladder, though in truth there were virtually no handholds.
Sirik reached the crenellations first. She peered over, then ducked swiftly back and went perfectly still, clinging one-handed to the battlements. The others below her froze, then hurriedly climbed to join her as she made a series of swift hand-movements. She made a fist, before climbing atop the wall, joined by her brother, Okin. None of the Noxians saw the pair of Ionians ghosting along behind them, hopping lightly across the top of the battlements in their wake.
Then Sirik and Okin leapt among the enemy, and the four guards were killed before a single one drew a blade.
The last of them clutched his throat, blood welling beneath his hand, and teetered on the edge of the wall. Sirik grabbed him, like a lover enfolding her paramour in her arms, and lowered him gently to the ground; if he’d fallen, the sound would undoubtedly have raised the alarm.
Two other guards nearby were swiftly dispatched, silently and without mercy, as the other Ionians came over the wall. Then, as one, the nine moved on, darting across an open courtyard and scaling a second, inner wall.
Each of them knew their target, and each knew the precise layout of the fortress, for it had been their own people who had constructed it. The Noxians were merely its current occupants.
They scrambled up the inner wall, and flowed over the parapet, their timing almost preternatural as they avoided two pairs of sentries atop the wall. They ducked into the shadow of the jutting stone bluff Fae’lor abutted, and became as one with the darkness.
That was when a shout sounded, echoing up from the docks.
Okin cursed under his breath. “They know we’re here,” he hissed.
“I had hoped to be further in before they discovered the first body,” said Sirik, “but this changes nothing. We continue as planned.”
The first shout was echoed by others, and a bell began to toll, sounding out across the fortress.
“Time for our distraction,” said Sirik. She closed her eyes and silenced her inner thoughts. In her mind’s eye, she saw the black crystal she’d secreted below the deck of the Noxian warship, and she reached out to it, fanning it to life.
She was no conjurer or soul-mage, but like many of her people, she could feel and subtly manipulate the magic of the land in minor, fairly insignificant ways. Hers was just a small, common gift, akin to that of the farmers of her village who spun a little magic into their crops. To outsiders this was shocking, but among her people, such simple gifts were not at all unusual, nor regarded as anything to be held in awe. It was like being able to whistle, or curl your tongue—some people could do it, others couldn’t.
Sirik deepened her breathing, and intensified her silent entreaties, encouraging the fyrestone to do what was it its nature to do.
Her gift might have been minor, but the effect of it as she nudged the crystal to life was not. That had more to do with the volatile nature of the fyrestone crystal than any innate power of her own, of course, but nevertheless, the result was impressive.
In the harbor below, the Noxian warship Crimson Huntress exploded, lighting up the night in a billowing fireball. Soldiers who were responding to Fae’lor’s warning bells stopped in their tracks, turning towards sudden inferno.
Sirik opened her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said.
Kalan stalked onto the stone dock, flanked by guards, his three tails swishing dangerously.
“The work of Ionian saboteurs, I would guess, my lord,” said a nervous-looking officer, trotting to keep up with Kalan’s long strides. “A black powder detonation, most likely.”
Kalan halted and frowned deeply as he surveyed the mayhem on the docks.
The Crimson Huntress was no more, reduced to the waterline. What timbers remained still burned. Three other nearby vessels were ablaze, and while crews worked to put out the flames, Kalan could see at a glance that at least one of them was a lost cause, and he snarled in frustration, exposing his teeth.
“We’ve secured the docks, and a thorough search of all other ships is currently underway,” said the nervous officer. “If there are more explosives, they will be found.”
Kalan ignored him, eyes narrowed. He dropped to one knee and scratched at the ground, then lifted his hand to his nose, sniffing.
“If they are still here, lord, we’ll find them,” said the officer, clearly uncomfortable with his superior’s silence. “I’d guess they are long gone, though.”
Kalan stood, and looked back along the dock, away from the sea, towards the towering walls.
“A cowardly act,” the officer remarked. “They know they can’t take us in a siege, so they try to hurt us in other ways. But we will not be deterred! We are Noxus! We—”
“Be silent,” growled Kalan. He was looking at the officer for the first time now, his yellow eyes unblinking. The man paled under his gaze, and seemed to shrink a little, like a toad retreating into its hole. “It was fyrestone, not blackpowder. And they are still here. This was not an act of cowards.”
The officer gaped silently, like a landed fish. “No?” he managed, finally, his voice little more than a squeak.
“No.” Kalan swung away from him, and strode back towards the fortress of Fae’lor. “This is a distraction.”
Kalan seethed. He would deal with that fool later. Right now, he had something far more important to focus on.
“They are going for the Dreaming Pool,” he snarled.
Sirik kept her hand clamped across the Noxian’s mouth until his struggles ceased, then dropped his lifeless body to the ground. She wiped her bloody dagger clean on his tunic and glanced around to see her brother and the others deal with the remaining Noxians within the lower level of the tower.
They were close, now. A rocky bluff reached up to the night sky in the courtyard beyond their position, and Sirik’s eyes were drawn to its peak. A jutting structure, blotting out the stars, marked their target.
Tolling bells were sounding the alarm, echoing all across Fae’lor.
Sirik led the way out into the courtyard, breaking from the tower and sprinting towards the stone steps carved into the bluff. She didn’t care who saw them now. The time for subterfuge was passed. Now speed was the best ally.
Shouts erupted from above, and arrows chased the Ionians as they darted across the open space. None hit home, skidding off the cobbled stone at their feet. A handful of guards emerged from a nearby gate, rushing to intercept them. Sirik and her companions didn’t even slow as they drew weapons; curved swords, sickles, poisoned darts and bladed fans. In a heartbeat they were among the Noxians, sliding under and somersaulting over heavy blows, dancing through them, blades wreaking a bloody toll.
The first of the Ionians fell, then, hacked down by a heavy halberd blow to the neck. Sirik pushed her instant pang of grief within, and pushed on, breaking through the enemy with her brother at her side, leaving a handful of them bleeding in their wake.
They reached the carved, uneven steps—far older than the fortress itself—and began sprinting up, toward the peak, taking the stairs three at a time. Votive lanterns carved into the rock on either side of the stairs remained dark.
Before Noxus had taken this holy place, those would never have remained unlit, day or night.
Another Ionian fell, two arrows thudding into his chest. Without a sound, he toppled from the path, falling to the courtyard below. On and on, the remaining Ionians ran, climbing the spiralling path encircling the stone bluff towards its peak. More arrows clattered against the rock wall beside them, but thankfully no more of her companions were struck.
They rounded the curve at speed. A flash of metal in the night was all the warning Sirik had, and she threw herself instinctively into a roll. A heavy spear, thrown with great force, sliced scant inches over her to strike one of her companions behind. It took him in the chest and lifted him off his feet, hurling him off the bluff.
Two guards stood before the entrance to the shrine at the top of the bluff. Both were immense slabs of muscle and heavy black armor, with huge shields and heavy, jagged cleavers clutched in their brutish fists.
The six remaining Ionians attacked as one, sprinting, leaping and somersaulting towards the towering Noxians, blades glinting.
Moving at speed, Sirik ran up onto the side of the bluff, taking two steps across its vertical surface before leaping off, her short blades seeking the neck of the first guard, even as her brother attacked low. Okin rolled under a heavy swinging blow and came up behind the Noxian, slashing a backhanded blow across his foe’s leg, making him stumble. Sirik speared through the air, leading with her blades, carving a pair of deep furrows through the solid meat of the Noxian’s neck.
Still, he did not fall, and as Sirik landed lightly in a low crouch, one hand touching the ground for balance, the injured warrior roared and smashed one of the dispossessed Ionians to the ground with the flat of his tower shield. Before Sirik could intervene, the brute slammed the ridge of that shield down onto her fallen comrade’s neck, killing him instantly.
The other Noxian was proving equally difficult to put down, bellowing like a wounded bull and flailing about wildly, even as she bled from wounds that would have killed most, lesser individuals.
Okin hacked into the Noxian’s ribs, just to the side of her heavy breastplate, and danced aside as his enemy turned on him. Sirik darted in then, landing another strike, and as her enemy swung in her direction, another of her companions did likewise, hitting the Noxian from behind. They fought like a pack mercilessly taking down large prey, and at last the other Noxian dropped to her knees, lifeblood leaking out onto the stones. She stayed upright for a moment more, spitting curses, then fell facedown and was still.
Her companion roared in grief and anger, and hacked one of the dispossessed down with a brutal sweep of his cleaver. Then he ran to his fallen comrade, dropping to his knees and cradling her in his huge arms. All the fight had gone out of him, and he let out a terrible, anguished wail to the night sky.
Okin and the others encircled him to land the killing blow, but Sirik shook her head. “Leave him be,” she said. “Come. Let’s finish this.”
The Noxian didn’t understand her words, but recognized their intent. He looked up with grief-filled eyes, and regained his feet, picking up his blade. Then, with a cry, he launched himself at Sirik. He was cut down before he went more than a few steps—as he’d likely expected—and he dropped beside the other Noxian. With his last breath, he reached out to her, then went limp.
His death saddened Sirik, for all that he was an enemy. Were they kin, these two? Lovers? Friends? With a deep breath, she pushed those feelings aside, so as to focus on the task at hand.
With a silent nod, she led the four remaining dispossessed Ionians into the shrine known to her people as the Dael’eh Ahira—the Dreaming Pool.
Fae’lor was not originally intended as a fortress. Far from it, it was once a center of tranquility and guidance, where gifted young Ionians came, from far and wide, to learn how better to harness their own innate gifts. All that had ended years before Sirik had been born, and the island that had once been teeming with life, study and peace, became little more than a barren prison. Barely any vegetation grew on the island around the fortress now—only dry, brittle thorn-bushes and ghost-gray lichen was able to thrive. Birds and other wildlife, so abundant on the nearby islands, also shunned it now, except for the dark, hateful crows and ravens that had come with the Noxians.
For all of Sirik’s time here, before the invasion, she and other guards had stood sentinel, watching over the Dael’eh Ahira. It was their duty to ensure that the one held within it was never released.
Sirik led the way down into the darkness within the rock, holding aloft a glass sphere filled with glowing flitterwings to light the way. She shivered, skin prickling, as the temperature dropped the deeper they went.
The stone steps were slick with moisture, but she picked her way down swiftly, for it would not be long before the Noxians arrived in overwhelming force. None of them had expected to make it back from this mission; all that mattered was completing the task they’d come to achieve, and ending the threat imprisoned down here within the Dreaming Pool once and for all.
They reached the deepest point of the Dael’eh Ahira, finally, sliding down the uneven rocks the final ten feet, and landed with a splash in the shallow waters below.
Once, this shrine had been beautiful, but disaster had brought the cavern down in years past.
Here was imprisoned the one they had guarded for so many years.
The one Sirik now came to kill.
Kalan leapt toward the top of the the stone bluff in powerful bounds, clearing ten steps with each one, quickly outpacing his soldiers. He arrived at the peak alone, and growled in frustration as he saw the corpses there: two Noxian, two Ionian.
Without waiting for his warriors, he plunged into the Dael’eh Ahira. Into the darkness he descended, his feline eyes instantly adjusting. He could taste the scent of the humans on the air, leading him on.
Padding silently into the gloom, Kalan began the hunt.
The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.
Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.
Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.
She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d—
Dark shapes appeared in her peripheral vision, and she looked around, trying to see them clearly. There were four of them, but she could only just make them out if she didn’t look directly at them.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Something was very wrong.
Sirik and her three companions stood in a circle, looking down into a deeper section of the water. A woman lay there, beneath the surface, her pure white hair, long and flowing, drifting around her languidly.
Syndra. That was her name; a byword for destruction, for giving in to your darkest fears and anger. A name still cursed throughout the provinces.
Sirik pulled off the dark hood hiding her face and tossed it aside. The delicate, indigo tattoos surrounding her eyes seemed to writhe in the shifting light emitted by the flitterwings in the glass sphere she held aloft. The others removed their head-coverings as well. All of them bore similar tattoos upon their faces, tattoos that marked them as guardians of Fae’lor. All of them looked down at Syndra, their expressions hard.
The roots of an ancient tree—the only thing holding the immense stones from crashing down upon this already half-collapsed cavern—curled around her limbs. They might have been cradling her, like a protective mother, or holding her down, trapping her, depending on your point of view. She could easily have been mistaken for being dead but for the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed the water.
Syndra didn’t look at all dangerous, but Sirik knew well how deceiving such an impression was. This one had been responsible for the destruction of the once-peaceful temple at the heart of Fae’lor. She had only been contained when the spirit of the land itself had drawn her down here, pulling her in and ensnaring her within this strange, suspended existence.
Sirik had once voiced aloud her confusion as to why they let Syndra live. Why not just end her life, and end the threat of her waking from her slumber? Her old master had smiled, and asked her why, if the land wanted her dead, did it sustain her? Sirik had no answer to that, not then and certainly not now. Her old master talked of balance, but he was dead, killed by a Noxian blade, along with almost all of those who had served here as this slumbering woman’s jailors, yet the one they had guarded still lived. Where was the balance in that?
As long as she lived, Syndra was a threat, yet that threat was contained while she and the others had stood watch over the Dael’eh Ahira. Now that it was within Noxian control, however… The fools would likely release her, either accidentally or in some ill-advised attempt to utilize her destructive power.
No, that danger was too great to risk. Syndra must die. Tonight.
Sirik tossed her flitterwing-filled glow-globe to her brother and stepped into the deeper pool, blade drawn.
“Wait,” said Okin.
“We have no time, brother,” said Sirik. “The Noxians will be upon us momentarily. We must end this now.”
“But she may be our best weapon against them.”
Sirik froze, then turned slowly towards her brother, her expression one of disbelief.
“She is Ionian, after all,” continued Okin. “She could be a great ally. With her, we could push Noxus from Ionia, once and for all!”
“And what then, brother? You think she could be controlled?”
“We wouldn’t need to control her.” Okin stepped forward, his voice full of passion. “We could strike against Noxus, in its heartland! We could—”
“You are a fool, brother,” Sirik interrupted him, her voice thick with derision. She turned away, and began to wade towards the motionless figure of Syndra.
“I can’t let you do that, sister. We can’t let you.”
It was only then Sirik realized her brother and her other two companions had fanned out around her, weapons drawn. “You can’t let me?” she said.
“Don’t make us do this, sister.”
Her gaze flicked between them, judging their distance from her, and whether she would be able to kill Syndra before they reached her. It would be close.
“I’m not making you do anything,” she said. “We came here to end a threat to Ionia—not unleash it.”
“This could be our chance to—”
“No,” said Sirik. “Don’t you see? This sort of division within Ionia is killing us, and it’s playing into the Noxians’ hands. We are all divided, arguing and working against each other, when we need to pull together.”
“So work with us,” begged Okin.
Sirik pointed at the motionless figure of Syndra. “She is a greater threat to this land than Noxus. It’s a foolish act of desperation to think otherwise.”
“Just stop being so stubborn, for once in your life!”
“You’re not going to convince me, brother,” she said. “So what now. You’re going to kill me?”
“Please, don’t let it come to that,” said Okin.
The four of them stood frozen for a second, none quite ready to escalate the situation just yet.
Then a shadow detached itself from the surrounding darkness, and sprang at them with lethal intent.
Sirik gave a shout of warning and lurched forward. The move surprised Okin and their other two companions, who raised weapons, thinking she was attacking. One flung a pair of throwing blades with a sweep of his arm, the move instinctual and reactionary.
Sirik swayed aside from the first dagger, but the second struck home, imbedding itself deep in the meat of her shoulder, making her hiss in pain as she stumbled backwards, falling awkwardly in the water.
Too late, Sirik’s attacker realized the real threat was behind him. The Ionian was lifted from his feet, a blade bursting from his chest, having been driven completely through him. Then he was hurled aside, and the shadowy attacker moved on, abandoning his sword and turning on Okin.
It was a vastaya, garbed in Noxian armor, and he roared, lips curling back to reveal his predator’s teeth. The sound reverberated painfully within the cavern.
Sirik recognized him, of course, as she struggled to regain her feet. This was Kalan, reviled traitor of the Placidium, who had turned away from his people and Ionia to join the enemy. He’d been given Fae’lor as his prize, a bone thrown to a loyal and subservient pet. She and her brother had lost more than a few friends at his hands.
“Noxian lickspittle!” said Okin, crouched low, blade at the ready. “You betrayed our people! You betrayed Ionia!”
Kalan gave a bitter laugh as he padded in towards Okin. He flexed his hands, and long talons emerged from his fingertips, as well as along the ridge of his forearms.
“There is no Ionia,” snarled the vastayan warrior. “There never was. A thousand mortal cultures are scattered across the First Lands, each with their own beliefs, customs, history and feuds. Your people have never been unified, never stood as one.”
“Then perhaps it is time that changed,” said Okin. “Though you have chosen the losing side.”
“Losing? The war is far from over, child,” said Kalan.
With a grimace, Sirik tore the throwing dagger from her shoulder, her blood leaking out into the water like a crimson ribbon wafting in a breeze. She tossed it deftly into the air, spinning it end over end, and caught it by its blade. With a swift flick of her wrist, she hurled it at the betrayer closing in on Okin.
It took him in the side of the neck, sinking deep, though Sirik cursed herself, for her aim was slightly off. It was not a killing blow. Nevertheless, Okin and their last companion took advantage of the moment, leaping in to strike.
Okin dashed forward, lunging, but his strike was turned aside by the flat of Kalan’s hand, who then knocked him away with a sharp kick. Their last companion came in fast from the flank, bladed fans slicing through the air, but the vastaya, even injured, was too fast, and too powerful.
He swayed aside, first one way, then the next, as the fan-blades sliced at him. Then, he lunged forward and grabbed his foe by the tunic with both hands, and slammed her head-first into a wall. An awful crack sounded as her neck broke.
Kalan’s yellow cat eyes turned back to Okin.
Sirik was too far away to help, she knew that instantly. Instead, she turned and began to slog back towards Syndra. She would do what she came to do. She had not expected to escape this venture with her life anyway, but she was determined their deaths would not be in vain.
She heard her brother shout in defiance, and the vastaya roar, but she dared not look back. She plunged deeper into the water, and reached down, fingers closing around Syndra’s throat. Her skin was warm to the touch. In her other hand, Sirik’s blade drew back for the killing blow.
This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Something was very wrong.
The girl could still hear the sounds of the night forest around her. She could still see the ferns and twisted roots, and the last colors of the sunset beyond the thick canopy overhead.
But at the same time, she could hear shouts and roars, though they were muffled, as if she was hearing them from a distance… or from underwater?
For a moment, she felt her throat filled with liquid, and a sudden panic rose within her. She was drowning! But no, that was impossible. She was here, a child in the twilight forest outside her village. She was nowhere near water.
A shadowy form appeared before her, like a night-terror given insubstantial form. She felt a sudden constriction around her throat, and she struggled for breath.
Her eyes flickered. She glimpsed a young woman, her face covered in twisting tattoos. The vision was strange, and vague, however, as if she were looking at this person through water. A hand gripped her throat, choking her, and a blade was raised, ready to plunge down into—
No.
She was back in the forest. She was having some kind of awful waking dream. She’d just run here, shame and anger coloring her cheeks. She was going to the ghost-willow, to calm the rage surging within her.
No, she’d already done that. She’d done that over and over, hundreds and thousands of times. Reliving that moment, again and again.
What if this was the dream, and the other vision was real?
The darkness of Syndra’s hatred and anger surged within her.
And she woke from her endless dream.
Sirik saw Syndra’s eyes snap open.
With a desperate cry, she stabbed down with her blade, but struck nothing, for she was hauled into the air by some sudden, unseen force. She struggled against it, flailing wildly, but might as well have been trying to fight the rising tide. She was as helpless as a kitten in the mouth of its mother.
Syndra slipped free of the twisting roots that had ensnared her limbs for so many years, and emerged, gasping. Water streamed off her as she rose into the air, hovering several feet above the surface of the pool, shimmering and pulsing beneath her. Dark power radiated from one hand as she kept Sirik held aloft, floating helplessly, and her eyes burned with cold fire.
As Sirik watched, both horrified and fascinated, a helm—or perhaps a crown—grew into existence upon Syndra’s head. It coiled around her brow, like darkness given life, to form a pair of tall, curving horns. A bead of pure shadow formed at its center, becoming as hard as a gemstone, and burning with the same power that bled from her in waves.
Sirik twisted in the air as her brother Okin broke from Kalan’s grasp. As he did so, he saw Syndra, his expression one of awe. For his part, the vastaya looked almost as stunned, feline lips curled back in a hiss, his eyes wide.
With a horrible, sucking sound, three orbs of utter darkness materialised in the air around Syndra, and began to slowly orbit her. They seemed to swallow the scant light in the cavern, and pull at Sirik’s soul, a vile sensation of loathing and despair clutching at her.
“How long?” Syndra demanded, her voice cracked and unsteady from lack of use. “How long have I been imprisoned here?”
“Years,” spat Sirik. “Decades. We should have killed you long ago.”
She felt Syndra’s hatred surge as a painful stab within her, and she gasped. Then Syndra snarled in fury, and with a gesture sent Sirik hurtling across the cavern.
She smashed against a wall some twenty feet distant, and fell heavily, splashing painfully to the floor. Then Syndra’s dark gaze turned upon Okin and the Noxian creature.
Sirik grimaced in pain. Her left leg and more than one rib were broken, she judged, wincing as she struggled to push herself upright. She cried out as she saw her brother Okin stumble forward into the water, holding his hands up in entreaty.
“No, brother…” she managed, weakly.
“I am not your enemy!” Okin called out. “We are both children of Ionia! Join us!”
Syndra looked down upon him, her gaze radiating power.
“The Noxians attacked our lands, and slaughtered our people!” he continued. “We pushed them back, but they still have a foothold in our ancestral lands. They are not done with us yet! Ionia is divided, and vulnerable! You must help! Help us fight against this new tyranny!”
“I do not know who these Noxians are that you speak of,” Syndra replied. “But if they killed my people, then perhaps I owe them thanks. The only tyranny I experienced was at the hands of those I once called kin.”
Okin’s face was mask of horror, perhaps finally realizing his own foolishness, and he slumped to his knees, defeated.
With a sickening tearing sound, Syndra conjured another dark sphere—all of her bitterness, resentment and anger made manifest. It hovered above her hand, slowly spinning.
“And if you are Ionian, then you are my enemy,” she mused.
Sirik screamed, but there was nothing she could do. With a flick of her wrist, Syndra sent the orb hurtling toward, then through, her brother. He gasped, all the color draining from his flesh, and sank beneath the waters.
Kalan attacked then, leaping from the shadows, claws extended, but another gesture from Syndra sent the three spheres surrounding her hurtling from their orbits towards him, throwing him backward.
“You…” said Syndra, tilting her head to the side, as if trying to place him. “I recognize your soul. You shadowed my dreams.” Her expression darkened even more. “You were my jailor. You… You kept me here.”
From her position, Sirik saw the vastaya push himself to one knee.
“You are an abomination,” he hissed.
Syndra’s hand stabbed out, and the snarling creature was lifted into the air.
The waters of the Dreaming Pool were churning, and Sirik stared in wonder as the roots that had held Syndra began reaching out to reclaim her.
“Kill me, then!” Kalan snarled. “But do so in the knowledge that you will never find peace. Wherever you are, you will be hated and hunted. You will never live free.”
“Kill you?” said Syndra, her lip curling in rage. “No. That would be too clean an end for you.”
With a sweep of her arm, Syndra sent Kalan hurling down into the waters, into the grasp of the writhing roots. They clamped around his limbs reflexively, holding him under. He screamed, air bubbles billowing around him… and then went still.
Sirik stared defiantly at Syndra, knowing that she likely had only moments to live, but to her surprise, the powerful sorceress paid her no mind. Instead, Syndra turned her attention skyward. Both hands were wreathed in dark energy, and with a shout she lifted them high. The stone cracked, and a tumble of dust and rocks fell into the pool, sending crazy ripples spreading out in all directions.
With a violent cutting motion of her arms and a deafening boom, Syndra ripped apart the rock overhead. Huge chunks of stone fell around her, crashing down with titanic force, and Sirik pushed herself backwards desperately, each movement sending searing pain flaring up her leg and side.
Stars blinked in the sky far above, and Syndra began to rise, floating up towards freedom. She glanced back down, once, toward the motionless, submerged figure of Kalan, ensnared by roots.
“Your turn to dream, jailor,” she whispered, and with a sweep of her arms, she entombed him completely beneath the fallen rocks.
Wincing with every movement, Sirik crawled further away, certain she would be crushed at any moment…
The island rumbled, as if wracked by an earthquake. It went on for what seemed like an eternity.
And, when it finally ceased, an unnerving silence fell across Fae’lor.
Sirik crawled from the gloom, breathing in fresh air, and stared about her, eyes wide in shock. Easily half of the fortress was gone.
Her gaze drifted up. At first, she saw nothing but darkness where there should have been stars. With a sharp intake of air, she realized she was looking at the silhouette of the greatest towers and ramparts hanging against the night sky. It hadn’t collapsed into the sea—it had been ripped from the island, and lifted toward the heavens.
She stared, her mouth gaping. She had known Syndra was powerful, but this? This was power she could never have imagined.
As Sirik watched, frozen by the sight, she saw one of the Noxian warships moored in the harbor below lifted from the sea. Men tumbled from its deck like so many ants, falling to their deaths on the rocks below, as the ship was lifted ever higher. Then it fell, smashing back down upon two other vessels, crushing them to splinters. The destruction was catastrophic.
The ruined castle in the sky began to drift northwards. Alone at the sundered peak of the Dael’eh Ahira, Sirik watched it go, until the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon.
The import of the night weighed upon her heavily. Her brother, and the last of the guardians of Fae’lor were dead. All but her.
And while the destruction wrought against the Noxians this night would have been cause for great rejoicing at any other time, her heart was heavy.
Syndra was back in the world.
They had failed.
Kalan knelt, motionless and silent, as he waited for the seer to speak. She was a curious creature, violet-skinned, and with a pearlescent single horn growing from her forehead. Some may have mistaken her for one of his bloodline, the children of the Vastayashai’rei, but any of the kin would know otherwise.
The seer was of a people older even than his ancestors.
When she opened her eyes—those strange, kind, golden-flecked eyes that saw far more than they should—he saw they were tinged with sadness, and his heart sank.
“You are faced with an impossible choice,” she said, her voice as quiet as the rustle of autumn leaves.
“Then tell me what I must do,” said Kalan.
“That is not for me to say. Two paths lie before you, but you can only take one. I warn you, though—both lead to tragedy and sadness.”
Kalan didn’t blink. “Tell me.”
“The first path. You fight the invaders. At the Placidium of Navori, a great battle will be fought. While it will be bloody, you will be victorious. You will be proclaimed a hero. You and your heartlight live in peace for many years. You are happy. And yet, you are destined to outlive both your cubs, who will be taken before their time.”
Kalan took a deep breath. “And the other?” he said.
“You fight alongside the enemy. You never see your heartlight again, nor your children. They call you traitor, and curse your name. Your path is one of darkness, and bitterness, and revilement. You will be hated by your kin, and despised by your invader allies. After they are defeated at the Placidium, you must stand vigil on the isle of Fae’lor, guarding over the place of dreaming. And there you will stay.”
“And my little ones?”
“They live. They prosper. If not in this land, then another. But you will never look upon their faces again, and if you ever deviate from this dark path, they will be lost.”
Kalan nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. Sadness threatened to drag him down, but he suppressed it, pushing it deep inside himself.
As he looked around, taking in the details of the seer’s shrine, he felt that there was something strangely familiar about it… a vague sense that he’d been here before, that he’d felt this awful sense of grief and loss more than once.
He shook his head. To be trapped in this accursed moment forever? Now, that would be a fate far worse than death.
“I am sorry, my child,” said the seer. “It is a terrible choice you must make.”
“No,” said Kalan. “The choice is a simple one.”
The Echoes Left Behind

Anthony Reynolds

Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.
Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.
Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.
His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.
For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…
“Hello, Ledros,” said a voice that shouldn’t be there.
Ledros… His name.
There was an evil, mocking laugh, and a clink of chains.
“I don’t know why you do this to yourself, but I have enjoyed seeing you suffer.”
Reality crashed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to drag him under.
The blood beneath him was centuries old, flaking and brown. The stone was not white, but black, and cracked. The sky was filled with turbulent, dark clouds lit from within by lightning.
And everywhere, the Black Mist coiled.
She was still there for a moment, and he clung to her, unwilling to let her go.
“My love,” he breathed, but then she faded, like ash on the wind, and he was left grasping at nothing.
He was dead.
And he was trapped here in this perpetual in-between.
Ledros rose, and picked up the shattered remnant of his sword.
He leveled the ghostly blade at the one who had shattered the illusion of his memory. The hateful spirit lurked in darkness, leering at him, eyes burning with cold flame. His cursed lantern sat on a smashed chunk of masonry nearby, radiating beams of deadlight, captive souls writhing within.
The Chain Warden. Thresh.
Oh, how he hated him.
The cursed spirit had haunted him for what seemed like centuries, taunting him, mocking him. Now he had found his way here? This was his sanctuary, the only place he could feel even a fleeting moment of peace before the horror of his reality reasserted itself.
“Why are you here?” Ledros demanded. His voice was dull and hollow, as if he spoke from distance or time far away.
“You were lost for quite a while this time,” said Thresh. “Months. Perhaps years. I don’t keep track any more.”
Ledros lowered his blade, and took stock of his surroundings.
He remembered this place as it had been—white stone and shining gold bathed in sunlight. Protective white mist had wreathed the isles, resisting outsiders. When they had first landed, it seemed a land beloved by the gods—a place of wealth, and knowledge, and wonder, untouched by famine or war. It had just made it easier. There had been little resistance.
Now there was no sun. All was darkness. The ruptured, shattered remnants of the library loomed above, like some great, desiccated corpse. Chunks of stonework hung in mid-air, where they’d been blasted outward and locked in time. He had been a fool to think the gods had loved this place, for they had clearly forsaken it.
Every time he re-emerged from the unformed madness of the Black Mist and reformed, it was here, where his mortal body had fallen, so long ago. Every time it was the same. Nothing changed.
The one waiting for him was new, however. It was not a change he welcomed.
Out of habit, he reached for the pendant he always wore around his neck… but it was not there.
“No…” The corpse-light glowing within him flared brightly in rising panic.
“Such a pretty trinket,” said Thresh.
Ledros’ head snapped around, eyes blazing. Thresh held aloft a short chain, from which hung a delicate silver pendant engraved with two roses, their leaves and stalks wrapped around each other like a lovers’ embrace.
Anger surged within Ledros, hot and sudden, and his sword flared as he took a step toward Thresh. He’d been a big man in life, full of wrath and violence—the king’s champion, no less. He towered over Thresh.
“That… is… mine,” hissed Ledros.
The Chain Warden did not flee before him like the lesser spirits did. The death’s head that was his face was hard to read, but there was cruel amusement in his eyes.
“You’re an aberration, Ledros,” he said, still dangling the pendant before him. “Some might say we all are, but you’re different. You stand out. Here, you are the real abnormality.”
“Give it to me,” snarled Ledros, blade at the ready. “I will cut you down.”
“You could try,” said Thresh. He spoke mildly, but his eyes burned, eager for violence. He sighed. “But this gets us nowhere. Here. Take it. It means nothing to me.”
He tossed it away with a dismissive flick. Ledros caught it in one black gauntlet, his arm snapping out with a speed that belied his size. He opened his massive fist, inspecting the pendant. It was undamaged.
Ledros sheathed his blade and removed his spiked helm. His face was insubstantial, a ghostly echo of how he had appeared in life. A cold wind whipped across the blasted landscape, but he didn’t feel it.
He pulled the precious pendant over his head, and slipped his helmet back on.
“Don’t you ever wish to see an end to this vile existence, Chain Warden?” Ledros said. “To finally be at peace?”
Thresh shook his head, laughing. “We have what mortals have coveted since time immemorial—eternity.”
“It makes us prisoners.”
Thresh smirked, and turned away, the chains and hooks hanging from his belt clinking. His lantern drifted along beside him, though he didn’t so much as touch it.
“You cling so desperately to the past, even as it runs through your fingers, like sand in a timepiece,” said Thresh, “yet you’re blind to the wonder of what we have been given. It has made us gods.”
“It is a curse,” hissed Ledros.
“Run along then, sword-champion,” Thresh said, gesturing Ledros away, dismissively. “Go, find your paramour. Perhaps this time she’ll even remember you…”
Ledros became very still, eyes narrowing.
“Tell me something,” said Thresh. “You seek to save her, but from what? She does not seem tormented. You, however…”
“You walk a dangerous line, warden,” snarled Ledros.
“Is it for her sake you do this? Or your own?”
Thresh had said words to this effect before. He seemed intent on making a mockery of Ledros’ efforts.
“I am not one of your playthings, warden,” Ledros said. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you can toy with me.”
Thresh smiled, exposing the shark-like teeth of a predator.
“Of course not,” he said.
With a gesture, Thresh called his lantern. It came to him, swiftly, then hovered just below his outstretched taloned hand. In the lantern’s glowing deadlight, Ledros saw anguished faces, pressing against their confinement, before fading to be replaced by others—a horrific cavalcade of tormented souls. Thresh smiled, savoring their pain.
“I don’t need to torture you,” he said. “You do that to yourself.”
The Chain Warden stepped into the darkness, leaving Ledros utterly alone.
A hollow wind ripped through the shattered city, but he did not feel it.
He felt nothing but her.
She was hunting.
Ledros stepped into the mist, letting it flow around him. Then he shifted through it.

The Black Mist writhed around him, full of hate, anger, and fear, but he remained distinct from it, maintaining his sense of self. He was drawn toward her like a moth to candlelight, and just as unheeding of the danger. He whipped across what had once been the Blessed Isles, passing over wasted lands and the churning water of the straits dividing them. Wherever the Black Mist extended—reaching blindly, searching, always searching—he was able to go. This was their sunless prison.
Her burning presence within the darkness lured him on. She was close. Feeling the nearness of her, he stepped from the mist once more.
He stood in a blackened forest, the trees withered and dead, their branches dry and cracked. The echoes of leaves long since fallen rippled in the memory of a breeze far more gentle than the cold gale now howling through the dead forest.
He sensed movement in the trees. His heavy boots crunched on blackened soil as he began to stalk it.
His iron shield was strapped to his left arm, though he didn’t remember securing it there, and he drew his sword. The leather wrapped around its hilt had rotted long ago, and while the blade was broken a few feet above the hilt, the ghostly outline of its full length could still be seen, glowing softly. Shattered and corroded by the ravages of time, it was a shadow of its former majesty. It had been gifted to him by the king himself, back when his monarch was a man to be admired and loved.
The ground sloped sharply below, but he kept to the high ground, moving along a ridge marked with jutting stone and twisted roots. He could see them now—shadowy spirits borne upon spectral steeds, galloping through the glen below. They moved swiftly, weaving between the trees, east toward a sun that would never again rise over these shores.
They moved as one, like a hunting party… yet they were the ones being hunted.
Ledros broke into a run, keeping pace with them.
A voice echoed through the trees.
“We come for you, betrayers…”
It spoke not as a single voice, but rather a score or more of them, layered and overlapping, a legion of souls speaking as one. The strongest of them was one he knew well.
Ledros quickened his pace, running fast and low. The riders below had been forced to weave around massive stone formations and the boles of ancient, desiccated trees. It slowed them, while the ridge he ran was straight. He quickly outpaced them and drew ahead of the hunted spirits.
Ledros turned abruptly, stepping over the edge of a sheer cliff. He landed in a crouch at the base, some thirty feet below, the earth cracking beneath him.
He stood within a narrow defile, where the natural contours of the land had created a funnel. The riders would have to come through.
With blade drawn, he waited.
The first of the horsemen appeared, riding at a gallop, a being of spirit and twisted metal—a vile mockery of the once-proud knights of the Iron Order. They were nothing to him now, just hateful fragments of the men they had once been.
A dark lance, its tip jagged and hooked, was clasped in the knight’s mailed grip, and great curling horns extended from his helm. Seeing Ledros, he wrenched his mount violently to the side, making it snarl and spit. Its hooves were wreathed in shadow, and it seemed not to touch the ground at all.
Had Ledros killed this one before? Or had he been one of those that had survived his rampage, and killed him?
The other riders appeared, pulling their steeds up short.
“Stand aside, bladesman,” one hissed.
“We have no quarrel with you,” said another.
“Our quarrel will last until the end of time itself,” growled Ledros.
“So be it,” snarled another of the deathly knights. “Ride him down!”
“You shouldn’t have stopped,” said Ledros, a smirk playing on his lips. “That was an error.”
One of the knights was hurled from his saddle, a glowing spear impaling him. His steed turned to smoke as he hit the ground. The knight screamed as he followed it into nothingness, condemned to join the Black Mist once more. No spirit went to that darkness willingly.
“She’s here!” roared the lead rider, dragging his steed around to face the new threat.
There was confusion among the others, caught somewhere between the desire to turn and fight, and to flee in panic.
They’d have been better off taking their chances at riding him down. At least a few might have escaped. Against her, all would be returned to the mist.
Another knight was ripped from the saddle, a spear hurled from the mist taking him in the chest.
Then she appeared, loping from the gloom like a lioness on the hunt, her eyes burning with predatory light.
Kalista.
Ledros’ gaze was instantly drawn to the ethereal speartips protruding from her back, and he felt a pang in the core of his being, as sharp as the blades that had ended his own life.
Kalista padded forward, a spectral spear clasped in one hand. A knight charged her, hook-bladed lance lowered, but she rolled lightly out of the way. Coming to one knee, she hurled her spear, impaling the knight as he rode past. Even as she threw, she was moving toward her next enemy.
She flexed her hand, and a new weapon materialized in her grasp.
A sword flashed down at her, but Kalista avoided it expertly, slapping the blade aside with the haft of her spear, before swaying away from the flailing hooves of the knight’s steed. Leaping from a blackened rock, she twisted in the air and drove her spear down into the rider’s chest, banishing him to darkness. She landed in perfect balance, eyes locked to her next victim.
Ledros had never met a woman as strong as Kalista in life. In death, she was unstoppable.
While the others focused on her, two of the knights charged Ledros, belatedly seeking to escape Kalista’s methodical slaughter. Stepping sideward at the last moment, Ledros slammed his heavy shield into the steed of the first, knocking the spectral beast to the ground, legs kicking, and sending its rider flying from the saddle.
The lance of the second knight took Ledros in the side, punching through his armor and snapping halfway down its length. Nevertheless, Ledros retained his feet and spun, lashing out with his blade. He struck through the neck of the knight’s steed, a blow that would have decapitated the beast had it been made of flesh and bone. Instead, it exploded into nothing with a keening scream. Its rider crashed to the ground.
Ledros smashed the ghostly warrior backward with a heavy blow of his shield as he rose, hurling him onto the point of Kalista’s spear. Her hunt, her kill.
Ledros sheathed his blade, and watched as she destroyed the last of the spirits.
Tall and lean, Kalista was in constant motion. Her enemies had been martial templars whose skill at arms was legendary, yet she moved among them effortlessly, side-stepping lance thrusts and sword strikes, dispatching each in turn.
Then it was done, and the only two left standing were Kalista and Ledros.
“Kalista?” he said.
She turned her gaze upon him, but there was no hint of recognition in her eyes. Her expression was stern, as it ever had been in life. She regarded him coldly, unblinking.
“We are the Spear of Vengeance,” she replied in that voice that was not hers alone.
“You are Kalista, Spear of the Argent Throne,” said Ledros.
He knew the words she would speak next before she even opened her mouth. It was the same every time.
“We are retribution,” said Kalista. “Speak your pledge, or begone.”
“You were niece to the king I served in life,” said Ledros. “We are… acquainted with each other.”
Kalista regarded him for a moment, then she turned and strode away.
“Our task is unfinished,” she said, without looking back. “The betrayers will suffer our wrath.”
“Your task can never be finished,” said Ledros, hurrying to keep pace. “You are trapped in a never-ending spiral! I am here to help you.”
“The guilty shall be punished,” said Kalista, continuing to march back through the trees.
“You remember this, don’t you?” said Ledros, drawing the pendant from around his neck. That gave her pause, as it always did. It was the one thing Ledros had discovered that could break through her fugue, even if only for a moment. He just needed to figure out how to extend that moment…
Kalista came to a halt, cocking her head to one side as she looked at the delicate pendant. She reached for it, but stopped herself before she touched it.
“I tried to give this to you once,” said Ledros. “You refused it.”
Uncertainty touched her eyes.
“We… I… remember,” she said.
She looked at him—actually saw him.
“Ledros,” she said. Her voice was her own now, and for a moment she was the woman he remembered. The woman he’d loved. Her features softened, ever so slightly. “I could never have given you what you wanted.”
“I understand,” said Ledros, “even if I didn’t at the time.”
Kalista looked around, as if only now becoming aware of her surroundings. She looked at her hands, glowing from within and as insubstantial as smoke. Ledros saw confusion, then anguish play across her face. Then her features hardened.
“Would that I had never brought him here,” said Kalista. “All this could have been averted.”
“It was not your fault,” said Ledros. “I knew madness had claimed him. I could have ended it before it came to this. No one would have questioned his death. No one would have mourned him.”
“He wasn’t always that way,” said Kalista.
“No, but the man we knew died long before all this,” Ledros said, gesturing around him.
“…We have a task to complete.”
Hope stirred within him. It was an unfamiliar feeling.
“Whatever it is, we will complete it together, just as…” he said, but his words petered out as he realized his error.
The cold mask had dropped over her features, and she turned and strode away. Despair clutched at Ledros.
He’d failed again, just as he had so many times before.
He saw himself in the early years after the Ruination, stalking the spirits of those who had killed her in life, convinced that destroying them would free her. It hadn’t. He’d spent countless years pursuing that goal, but it had amounted to nothing.
He saw himself felling the arrogant cavalry captain, Hecarim, hacking his head from his shoulders and rendering him back to the mist. That one had struck Kalista the final, fatal blow, and had long toiled, seeking his end. Time and again they fought, as the years, and decades, and centuries rolled by, and the unseen stars turned overhead. But Hecarim was strong of will, and he returned from the Black Mist, of course, each time more monstrous than the last.
Either way, it changed nothing. Kalista became steadily more lost as she absorbed the vengeful spirits of the mortals who pledged themselves to her, seeking her aid against their own betrayers.
Once, he had brought Kalista face to face with Hecarim, a feat that had taken dozens of lesser deaths to achieve. He had believed that was the key to finally setting her free, and he’d rejoiced as he saw the now monstrous creature Hecarim skewered, a dozen spears piercing his towering frame… but banishing him to the darkness had done nothing. A moment of satisfaction, and then it was past.
Nothing had changed.
Just another failure added to his growing tally.
At one point, despair drove him toward self destruction. The purity of the one sunrise he’d seen since the blood had ceased coursing through his veins burned him, his intangible body dissipating like vapor. Guilt at leaving Kalista behind clawed at him, but in that agony he had rejoiced, daring to believe he’d finally found release.
Even in seeking final oblivion, he had failed, and he’d been condemned to the madness of the Black Mist once more.
All the moments preceding his banishment blurred together in a never-ending cavalcade of horror and defeat.
He roared as a purple-skinned sorcerer cast him back to the darkness, tearing him asunder with runic magics.The savage joy he’d felt as he joined the slaughter in the streets of a festering harbor city overrun with the Black Mist gave way to sudden pain as he was blasted to nothingness by the faith of indigenous witches.
He laughed as a sword impaled him on its length, but his amusement turned to agony as the blade burst into searing light, burning with the intensity of the sun.
Again and again and again he’d been condemned back to the nightmarish Black Mist, but always he’d returned. Every time, he returned to a land locked in stasis, waking in the same place, the same way.
A being of lesser will would have succumbed to insanity long ago, as so many of the spirits had. But not him. Failure clung to him, but his will was as iron. His stubborn determination to free her kept him going. That was what ensured he came back, over and over again.
Snapping back to the present, Ledros watched Kalista stalk away from him, intent on her unending mission.
A creeping melancholia settled within him. Was it all for nothing?
Was Thresh right? Was his attempt to free her from her path of retribution actually selfish?
She was sleepwalking through this nightmare, unaware of its true horrors. Would she thank him were he to wake her? Perhaps she would despise him, wishing he had let her be.
Ledros shook his head, trying to dislodge the insidious notion, even as a vision of Thresh—smiling, predatory—appeared in his mind.
“Get out of my head,” he snarled, cursing Thresh.
A new idea came to him suddenly, banishing his lingering doubts and fears. There was something he hadn’t tried, something he’d never considered until now.
“Kalista,” he called.
She did not heed him, and continued on her way, her step unrelenting.
He loosened his sword belt, and cast his scabbarded blade to the ground. He wouldn’t need it any more.
“I betrayed you,” he called out.
She stopped, her head whipping around, unblinking eyes locking on to him.
“I should have stepped forward as soon as the order was given,” Ledros continued. “I knew Hecarim was looking for any excuse to be rid of you. You’d always been the king’s favorite. It all happened so fast, but I should have been faster. We could have faced them, back to back. We could have cut our way through them and been free, together! I betrayed you with my inaction, Kalista. I failed you.”
Kalista’s eyes narrowed
“Betrayer,” she intoned.
An ethereal spear manifested in her grasp, and she began marching toward him.
Ledros unstrapped his shield and threw it aside as she broke into a loping run. He opened his arms wide, welcoming what was to come.
The first spear drove him back a step as it impaled him.
His had been the true betrayal. He’d loved her, even if he’d only spoken those words aloud alone, in the darkness of night…
A second spear drove through him, hurled with tremendous force. He staggered, but stubbornly remained standing.
He had not stepped in to stop her being murdered. He was her real betrayer.
Her third spear plunged through him, and now he dropped to both knees. He smiled, even as his strength leached from him.
Yes, this was it. This was what would finally break her from that awful, unending spiral. He was sure of it.
“Finish it,” he said, looking up at her. “Finish it, and be free.”
They stared at each other for a moment, a pair of undying spirits, their insubstantial forms rippling with deathless energy. In that moment, Ledros felt only love. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been in life—regal, beautiful, strong.
“Death to all betrayers,” she said, and ran him through.
Ledros’ vision wavered as his form began to come apart, yet he saw Kalista’s expression change, the impassive mask dropping, replaced with dawning horror.
“Ledros?” she said, her voice now her own.
Her eyes were wide, and seemed to fill with shimmering tears. She rushed to be beside him as Ledros fell.
“What have I done?” she breathed.
He wanted to reassure her, but no words came forth.
I did this for you.
Darkness crashed in, and tendrils of mist reached to claim him.
Kalista reached out to comfort him, but her fingers passed through his dissolving form. Her mouth moved, but he could not hear her over the roaring madness of the Black Mist.
His armor fell to the ground and turned to dust, along with his sword. Blind terror beckoned, but he went into it gladly.
Dimly, he registered the pale specter of Thresh, watching from the shadows with his fixed, hungry smile. Even the Chain Warden’s unwanted presence could not dampen Ledros’ moment of victory.
He’d done it. He had freed her.
It was over.

Blind, all-consuming terror.
Incandescent, uncontrollable rage.
Claustrophobic horror, cloying and choking.
And behind it all was the insatiable hunger—the yearning to feed on warmth and life, to draw more souls into darkness.
The cacophony was deafening—a million screaming, tortured souls, writhing and roiling in shared torment.
This was the Black Mist.
And only the strongest of souls could escape its grasp. Only those with unfinished business.
Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.
Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.
Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.
His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.
For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…
No. Something was not right.
Reality crashed in.
None of this was real. This was but an echo left behind, the residual pain of his death, hundreds of lifetimes earlier.
Thankfully, the Chain Warden was not here to mock him.
How long had it been, this time? There was no way to know. Decades, or a few minutes—it could have been either, and yet it hardly mattered. Nothing changed in this vile realm of stasis.
Then he remembered, and hope surged through him. It was not a sensation he was familiar with, but it blossomed like the first bud of a seemingly dead tree after rainfall.
He turned, and she was there, and for a moment he knew joy, true joy. She was herself again, and she had come to him!
Then he saw her expression. The cold, severe mask, the lack of recognition in her eyes. The hope inside him withered and died.
Kalista stared past him, her head cocked, as if listening to something only she could hear.
“We accept your pledge,” she said, before turning and stepping into the mist.
Then she was gone.
Reaching out with his will, Ledros felt her now far away. Someone had called to her, from a distant continent to the north-west. Someone else who had traded their soul for a promise of vengeance against whoever had wronged them. They knew not what horror awaited.
Bitterness and bile filled Ledros. He cursed himself, twisting his hatred inward.
There was no hope. He knew that now. He’d been a fool to think otherwise.
She was trapped for eternity, as were they all. Only pride and stubbornness had made him think he could solve it, like a riddle, for all these years.
Pride and stubbornness—traits that were as much his bane in death as they had been in life, it seemed.
The cursed Chain Warden was right. It was a selfish desire to free her, he saw that now. Kalista may not be herself, but at least she was not tormented like he was. At least she had purpose.
Ledros yanked the pendant from around his neck, shattering the links of its thin chain. He hurled it into the mist.
To even hope for anything more was foolishness. There could be no peace, not unless the curse that held these isles in its foetid grasp was broken.
“And so, I must end it,” Ledros said.
Oblivion called.

Thresh stepped from the darkness. He glanced around, ensuring he was alone. Then he knelt and picked up the discarded silver pendant.
The fool had been so close. He was on the brink of bringing her back… and now, after countless centuries of trying, he had abandoned his task, at the very moment of success.
Thresh smiled, cruelly. He liked seeing hope wither and die, like blighted fruit upon the vine, as what could have been sweet turned to poison. It amused him.
He opened his lantern, and tossed the pendant within. Then he stepped back into the darkness, and faded from view.
After a time, the rattle of his chains faded, and he was gone.
The Eye in the Abyss

Anthony Reynolds

Sigvar Half-Quiver knelt on one knee, head bowed, while the wind beyond the gates howled like the ice-wraiths of legend.
He was the Cleaver of Peaks, the Bloody Sword of Winterspike. He had taken the head of the warchief of the Chosen Children, Helmgar Cragheart, and had held the Valley of Spines alone, fighting the Mourncrow tribe to a standstill until reinforcements from the citadel arrived.
What’s more, Sigvar was Iceborn.
And yet—for all his deeds, all the honors he had earned under the Eye of Lissandra—as he knelt in the open gateway of the Frostguard Citadel, with the wind lashing and the unearthly banshee’s wail of the Howling Abyss whipping around him, he felt a flutter of trepidation at the task ahead.
He did not wear his heavy, dark armor, for its weight would have been impractical for what was to come, but he felt comfort in having his shield on his back and his sword at his hip. Expectation hung upon him. He prayed he would not be found wanting.
“You delve now into the darkness below, brothers and sister of the Lodge,” said Ralakka Split-Tongue, Frost-Father of the Keepers, “but you will not be alone. We, the Children of the Frozen Shadow, are never alone, not in the darkest winters of the frozen expanse, nor in the deepest chasms of the hidden ways. The Eye of Lissandra watches over us, now and always.”
“From ice we are born, and to ice we will return,” intoned Sigvar, his words echoing those of the other two lodge members kneeling beside him.
To his left was Olar Stonefist—a legend among the Frostguard who had fought in their ranks for half a lifetime before Sigvar had even been born. Wolf-lean, grey-bearded, and iron-eyed, his skin was like hardened leather, riven with deep crevasses and valleys. Ice-bear furs draped his shoulders, but his arms were bare, and covered in faded war-tattoos and a dozen iron rings, each won in ritual combat. His massive great-hammer, Thunderchild, was strapped across his back. That weapon, its head encased in True Ice, was as storied as Olar himself.
To Sigvar’s right knelt Halla Ice-in-her-Soul. While he idolized Olar, Sigvar was over-awed by Halla. Utterly fearless, and her faith unshakeable, she was as unforgiving and deadly as winter. Her twin short-hafted axes—Bloodfang and Bloodclaw—hung at her waist, though it was strange to see her not garbed in her dark mail and horned helm. She, like Sigvar and Olar, had eschewed her armor for their journey. The sides of her head were shaved, while the rest of her pale hair was tied into a single intricate braid down the center of her head, like a crest. Her left eye was white, blinded by a blow that had left a trio of savage scars cut across her face.
He’d heard Olar tell the tale of those scars, earned when Halla had fought a hunting pack of Ursine. She’d killed three before the others slunk off, so it was said, and Sigvar believed it. Had she not been embraced into the Frostguard as a child, Halla would undoubtedly have been a powerful warmother in one of the tribes beyond the citadel.
The Frost Priest stepped in close, moving first to Olar. “The Eye is upon you,” he incanted.
Sigvar barely heard Olar’s growled reply, his heart was thumping so hard. Then the Frost Priest was in front of him, and his stomach lurched, as it had before his first battle.
“Look up, Frostguard,” the priest said, quietly, and Sigvar obeyed, tilting his chin back to look upon the old man’s face. It was skeletally gaunt, with sunken cheeks and shadow-rimmed eyes. There was no kindness there, but Sigvar expected none. Theirs was a harsh and unrelenting faith. A shard of sacred Dark Ice hung around Split-Tongue’s neck; another topped his knotted staff. Slivers of holy reverence, used for healing and worship. The Frost Priest dipped a finger into a shallow basin filled with kraken ink, black and stinking, and drew an eye upon Sigvar’s forehead.
“The Eye is upon you,” he said.
“And it does not blink,” intoned Sigvar in reply, lowering his head once more. His forehead burned as the ink seared his skin, but he endured it with the stoicism of the Iceborn. Pain was blessing.
The priest moved to Halla, completing the ritual, and the three chosen Iceborn stood.
Olar was the tallest of them, wiry and corded with lean muscle, while Sigvar was by far the heaviest. Halla stood half-a-head shorter than Sigvar, yet the power and authority she radiated made her seem larger.
The three Frostguard stooped to collect their packs, icepicks, and coils of rope, which they threw over their shoulders and hooked onto their belts.
Sigvar glanced back at the ranks of Frostguard standing in silent witness to their departure. Ralakka Split-tongue, turned away, his part in their expedition done. A cluster of other Frost Priests followed behind him, like crows shadowing a war-party. The darkness of the citadel quickly swallowed them.
“Time to go,” said Halla Ice-in-her-Soul. “The darkness calls.”
With a nod, Sigvar joined Halla and Olar, turning away from the gathered Frostguard and walking through the giant gates of the citadel, out onto the bridge beyond, spanning the Howling Abyss.
The ethereal wails borne upon the wind intensified, and shards of ice slashed at them, but none of them flinched from it. They welcomed it. The ice was their ally. The ice was their truth.
Behind the three Frostguard, the great gates of the citadel slammed shut with a resounding boom that was soon lost in the gale.
Sigvar took a deep breath.
It was time to descend into the Abyss.

The journey was made every year, on the vernal equinox, when day and night were of equal length. Three among the Frostguard were chosen. All came from the Keepers Lodge, the inner circle of the faith who guarded the deeping ways.
It was a great honor to be singled out for this most sacred of duties, and Sigvar’s chest had swelled with pride when the deep-horns had sounded and his name been called. At nineteen winters, he was one of the youngest Frostguard ever to have been chosen. How many times had he gazed upon the roll of honor, thousands upon thousands of names, chiselled into the walls of the lodge? One of his first memories after coming to the citadel was of reverently tracing the outline of those names, and dreaming of their great deeds. More than half had a simple rune engraved after their name, the rune of death, indicating those who had perished while performing this sacred duty. It was a dangerous thing, to delve too deep, even for one of the Iceborn bloodline.
Kneeling before the Dark Ice statues of the Three—revered Avarosa, Serylda, and Lissandra—he had long beseeched them to find him worthy, to one day let his name join those esteemed others. Now it seemed his prayers had been answered. He had trained his whole life for this honor. He would do the Keepers Lodge proud.
They walked along the bridge, beneath the gaze of the giant, silent guardian statues that marked the way. The relentless winds battered them, screaming around them in whirling eddies.
It had many names, this bridge: the Proving Grounds, and the Murder Bridge among them. Others knew it simply as Citadel Bridge, or the Howling Arch. If it had a name during the time of the Three, it was now lost. Among the Frostguard, it was often referred to as the Bridge of Sorrows. Thousands of Iceborn had perished here, after all.
It was truly ancient, said to have been crafted by the old gods. The time of those deities was long past, of course. Some of the heathen tribes still worshipped them, but in time they would be brought around to the true faith—voluntarily, or by the sword. Regardless of whether they accepted it or not, the ice would claim them.
Parts of the stonework had crumbled, falling into the darkness. Time had no respect for ancient beauty, the frost priests taught. Everything was fleeting, on a large enough timescale. Even the greatest mountain would be leveled by wind and ice given enough years. Only faith was eternal.
A deep sense of reverence hung over Sigvar as he walked with Stonefist and Ice-in-her-Soul across the expanse. The greatest battle ever to have been fought had taken place here, thousands of years past. Here, the Iceborn had fought the Watchers, in a battle that would determine the fate of the world.
And here they were victorious, though only at great cost, and the Watchers had been hurled into darkness.
Sigvar walked in silence, lost in his thoughts of that earlier, greater age. Neither of the other two Iceborn spoke as they made their way across, though whether that was due to the relentless roaring of the wind, or if they too were lost in ancient legend, Sigvar knew not.
They reached the other side of the Bridge of Sorrows, where Lissandra had led the Iceborn in that ancient, titanic battle, and there Halla Ice-in-her-Soul called the halt with a raised hand.
“We go down here,” she said, shouting to be heard over the gale, pointing towards a section of the bridge near the chasm wall that had long ago fallen.
Sigvar and Olar both nodded in deference. Olar might have been older and more experienced, his name carved nine times upon the wall of the lodge to Halla’s three, but old habits died hard. The blood of the Three was stronger in the women of the Freljord’s tribes.
“I lead the way,” shouted Halla. “Stonefist is the anchor, in the center. Half-Quiver at the back.”
They unravelled two lengths of rope, hooking them onto each other’s belts—Halla’s to Olar’s, Olar’s to Sigvar’s. They tightened the straps on the iron toe-spikes affixed to their boots, and unhooked icepicks, securing them to their wrists with loops of leather.
Halla whipped her picks around in a few arcing, tight circles, loosening her muscles. Then she jumped off the bridge, landing ten feet below on an outcropping of ice jutting from the chasm wall. Sigvar and Olar waited for her to secure herself, digging her picks into the ice, before they jumped down join her.
“We are the will of the goddess, She Who Walks Among Us,” said Halla. “Do her proud, sons of winter.”
Then she went over the edge, putting her picks deep and scrambling over the precipice. She kicked her toe-spikes in, and began the descent.
Olar grinned at Sigvar, his eyes glinting with savage glee. “You will not be the same Iceborn when we return. The Howling Abyss changes you... if you return.” He gave a wink, then he too went over the edge, disappearing from sight, leaving Sigvar alone.
No, not alone, he reminded himself. The Eye was upon him. He felt it burning still into the skin of his forehead. Lissandra was with him, now and always.
He waited a moment longer, then began the long climb into the fathomless depths.

They moved fast, Halla Ice-in-her-Soul setting a punishing pace, though they did not take any undue risk. They climbed one at a time, first Halla, then Olar, then Sigvar, moving almost to the lengths of their ropes with each descent. In this way, they were able to keep a steady anchor in case of a fall, and the intermittent rest allowed them to keep progressing downward steadily, without need for a longer pause.
The Bridge of Sorrows was not the only one of its kind to cross the expanse. Dozens of others spanned the walls of the crevasse, though only a few were visible at any one time, the distance, fog, and darkness closing in like a shroud. All but the uppermost bridge had long been abandoned and remained unused, the myriad tunnels and gateways leading onto them having being sealed by avalanche or by the Frostguard themselves, to limit the number of entrances into the citadel.
The closest bridges were several hundred feet apart, yet the deeper they went, the more spaced out they became. Some had been destroyed completely, only the skeletal abutments protruding from the ice walls indicating where they had once been.
It was dark, but not the complete, all-consuming darkness of mid-winter; it was more akin to the faded half-light of the gloaming hours. The ice itself seemed to radiate a dull, ethereal glow, which reflected upon the thickening fog, such that the three did not need carry torch or brand.
The shrieking gale still whipped through the ravine, tugging at them like spectral hands, trying to prise them from their tenuous hold on the ice.
It was impossible to judge the passing of time. The hours blurred together into one single, uninterrupted span. Climb, wait, climb, wait. On the climbs, Sigvar found a good rhythm, losing himself in the repetitive motion of hacking the icepicks in deep, kicking in the toe-spikes, and hauling the picks back out. While waiting for Halla and Olar to descend below him, he mouthed the Litanies of Truth, keeping himself focused.
Resist not cold’s embrace, for within it lies truth. Be as one with the ice, and understanding shall follow.
Down and down and down they climbed, moving steadily. Hours might have passed, or a day. Unable to see the sky, Sigvar had no way to know.
Endure, without complaint. The ice begs not for mercy, nor offers it. Neither shall we.
No lesser being would have been able to match their pace. They were Iceborn, the children of the gods, and they were not as other mortals. Able to march for days on end without sleep and still fight any foe to a standstill, they stoically endured that which would have killed any Hearthbound.
Even so, Sigvar’s forearms were aching, and he was covered in a sheen of sweat beneath his skins and furs. And when the ice gave way beneath him, he was too slow to react. He struck out with one of his icepicks, but it did not bite deeply, and merely tore a chunk from the wall.
Then he was falling.
Fear not pain, nor seek to avoid its blessing. Without it, there can be no life.
Turning in the air, he made another attempt to arrest his fall, slamming a pick into the ice, but it tore from his grasp, and he would have lost it had it not been tethered to his wrist.
And when death comes, flinch not from its approach.
He dropped forty feet, hurtling past Olar. The older man’s flinty eyes were wide.
From ice we are born, and to ice we return.
“Brace!” the old Frostguard warrior bellowed, tightening his grip and bending his legs in anticipation.
He saw Halla look up and mouth a curse as she realized he was falling straight towards her. She moved quickly and assuredly, hacking her picks swiftly into the ice and shifting herself sideways so he didn’t smash her from the cliffside.
The rope caught his fall then, arresting it with bone-jarring abruptness. He slammed into the ice wall, the impact driving the air from his lungs.
Olar roared as he took Sigvar’s weight. Stonefist held, however, clinging to the ice, his arms as taut as iron.
Sigvar recovered quickly, slamming his picks home, and kicking his toe-spikes in deep. He glanced over at Halla Ice-in-her-Soul, who stared at him, her own piercing eyes—one blue, one white—as unblinking as the one painted on her forehead.
She stared in silent judgement.
“We’ll take a rest at the Bridge of Shadow,” she said, finally, and continued climbing down into the twilight gloom. Sigvar cursed himself, his cheeks burning despite the cold.
When Olar climbed down past him, he gave another of his wide, toothy grins.
“You’re a heavy bastard, Half-Quiver,” he said. “Damn well nearly took us both down with you.”
“The ice gave way,” said Sigvar, weakly. “I’ll do better.”
“See that you do. Might just cut your rope next time.”
Sigvar looked at the old warrior, quizzically. On three of his previous expeditions down into the Abyss, Olar had been the only one to return alive. Was this why?
At the Bridge of Shadow, they dropped their packs, uncoupled their ropes, and unhooked their icepicks. The bridge was so named because, even in midsummer, when the sun never dipped below the horizon, it was never truly in the light.
Olar slumped to the flagstones with an exaggerated groan, propping his back against the low balustrade at the edge of the bridge. Halla stepped away from the other two, unhooking a tiny black effigy of Lissandra from around her neck and placing it upon the ground. She knelt before it, breathing a devotion. Sigvar stood stock-still, wondering if he too should take this time to pray, but Olar waved him over, urging him to sit.
The older man—exactly how old, he didn’t know, but Olar was certainly well past sixty—produced a small leather flask. Unstoppering it, he took as swig, gave a satisfied sigh, and handed it to Sigvar. The younger warrior took it with a nod of thanks, and knocked back a measure.
“Tears of the gods,” said Olar. “Nothing like it this side of the Ridgeback Mountains.”
The liquid burned hot in his throat, making his eyes water. Those tears turned instantly to ice on his cheeks. He nodded in appreciation, and handed it back to Olar, who took another swig before secreting it back within his furs.
A waterskin would have frozen as soon as they stepped beyond the gates of the citadel. They would endure without, but the strong spirit was welcome moisture on Sigvar’s throat.
Olar’s heavily tattooed arms were still bare, and Sigvar shook his head as he pulled his furs tighter around him.
“Aren’t you freezing, old man?” he said.
“It’s going to get a lot colder than this, boy,” said Olar, giving him an evil grin. “This is like a summer breeze, compared to what’s yet to come.”
Sigvar didn’t know if he was joking. He pulled his pack over to his side, and brought out a small strip of salted meat, wrapped in waxed leather. He snapped off a frozen section and handed it to Olar, before breaking off a piece for himself. He worked it around his mouth, thawing it enough to chew. It was tough and sinewy, but in that moment it seemed an extravagant luxury.
Slumped with his back against the low wall alongside Olar, Sigvar was out of the worst of the howling wind, which itself was blessing. It screamed over them, wailing horribly, sending flurries of ice and snow swirling across the bridge. Some said the sound of the wind was the screams of the thousands of Iceborn killed in that final titanic battle in the age of heroes, long ago, their souls trapped here forever in this chasm.
“It’s a fearful sound, isn’t it, lad?” said Olar. “Gets inside your head after a time.”
“Is it the same all the way down?”
Olar shook his head. “Would that it was. No, down towards the bottom it’s as silent as the grave.”
“That’s got to be better than this…”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But the silence is worse. It’s heavy, that silence. Weighs upon you like full-length chainmail. No, I’d take this any day.”
Halla finished her devotions and joined them, sitting alongside Olar. She took a long swig from Olar’s flask, then wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand.
“How is it you always have the best stuff, Stonefist?” she said, making Olar snort.
“Must be my charming personality,” he replied.
“I’m quite certain that is not it.” Her expression was deadpan, making Olar snort once more.
Sigvar leant over, gingerly offering her some meat, still hot with shame at having fallen. She looked at it for half a moment, making Sigvar think she was going to reject the offer, but finally she took it, and nodded her thanks.
“How did you earn your name, Half-Quiver?” she asked as she chewed.
“There was a raid. I was a tenderfoot, accompanying a caravan escort, bringing provisions back to the citadel. We were attacked out on the frozen expanse. A blizzard had hidden their approach. Tusk-Crow tribe.”
Halla grunted. “Dangerous warriors. Head-takers.”
Sigvar nodded. “I took some arrows in the skirmish. Kept fighting, though. Stonefist honored me with my name once the last of the Tusk-Crows had fled, leaving their dead and dying to the ice.”
“You’ll never make a saga-teller, boy,” said Olar. “Too modest by half. No sense for the dramatic.”
“Not like you, old one,” said Halla. “I swear your stories get more far-fetched with every telling.”
“Have I told you my bear story, lad?” Olar asked, giving Sigvar a wink.
“No,” said Halla, levelling a finger at the old Frostguard. “I will not hear that again.”
“Another time, then,” said Olar, with a resigned shrug. “Anyway, the Tusk-Crows stuck the boy with no less than a dozen arrows. You were only, what, fourteen winters? He was a big lad, though, even then. Not quite the giant slab he is now, but still big. Had four arrows in his shield, two in one leg, one clean through his forearm. Two in his chest, one in his shoulder, more in his back. But he kept on fighting, bellowing like a stuck elnük. Took down three Tusk-Crows before another arrow hit him, making him drop his sword. Still didn’t slow him. He pulls one of the arrows out of him, and kills another two Tusk-Crows with it! One of the funniest damn things I ever saw! True Iceborn. Would have done Serylda herself proud.”
“Fearless Mother,” said Halla instantly, grasping the pale talisman of Serylda, hanging around her neck alongside those of Avarosa and Lissandra.
“Fearless Mother,” Sigvar murmured. His face was burning, and he looked down, uncomfortable with Olar’s praise.
“You have a strange sense of what is funny, Stonefist,” said Halla, pushing herself back to her feet. “Come. It is time to move on.”
“I’m sorry I fell,” Sigvar said, as he regained his feet and made ready for the next stage of the climb. “On my oath, I will not let either of you down again.”
“If you fall, it is the will of Three,” said Halla. “And if you fall and take us down with you, then such is to be our fate also. Your oath matters nothing.”
She walked past him, looking for the best place to recommence their descent. Olar grinned and slapped a heavy hand on Sigvar’s shoulder.
“It’s fine, lad,” he said. “Happens to the best of us. If that’s the worst we go through, we’ll all be on our knees thanking the Three.”
Down into the deep they continued, chased, as always, by the howls in the biting wind.

It appeared like a wraith out of the fog. One moment there was nothing below them, then it was there.
The Bridge of the Lost.
From a distance, it looked almost as though it had been overrun by some kind of voracious black weed, or thornbush. The notion was absurd, of course, for no life could flourish at this depth, such was the cold that almost seemed to radiate up from below.
No, this growth was nothing as mundane as plant life. It was the very antithesis of life. A knot of unease had settled in Sigvar’s gut, and he swallowed, feeling his gorge rising. He had heard the legends and the fireside stories from lodge members who had made this descent, but even so, it was unnerving.
He dropped the final ten feet, landing in a low crouch. His muscles burned with exertion, and his hands were twisted like claws from gripping his picks. Nevertheless, for all his exhaustion, he stared around him, barely daring to breathe, eyes wide.
“Touch nothing,” Halla warned him.
“If I do touch something, that is the will of the Three, is it not?” said Olar. Sigvar didn’t have it in him to smile at the old warrior’s jibe.
Halla turned away, shaking her head. “Catch your breath. This is the last bridge. There’s no more stopping before we reach the bottom—and the next stretch is the longest. May the Three watch over us.”
Having dropped his excess load, Sigvar walked into the center of the bridge, gazing around him in horrified wonder. The wind was not as fierce here, hissing through the strange, stony formations that grew like a twisting lattice around the structure of the bridge.
He found it hard to fathom what he saw, though just gazing upon it made him feel sick.
Giant arcs of what looked like volcanic rock encased the bridge, as if bursts of lava had leapt along and around the length of the bridge before hardening suddenly, in mid-air.
He knew the history of this bridge, of course. That which was trapped below had tried to escape its imprisonment long ago, long after the time of the Three.
Here, Frostguard had fought that darkness, and here they had died. And with each death, the power of What-Dwells-Below grew. It consumed the bodies of the fallen, absorbing and repurposing them to fuel more explosive growth. Such was its nature. It might lie dormant for thousands of years, inert and seemingly lifeless, only for a single drop of blood to rouse it in sudden, shocking violence.
What Sigvar was looking at, those strange, nausea-inducing looping arcs and conglomerations of misshapen detritus were the growth paths of What-Dwells-Below, as it had leapt from Frostguard to Frostguard, claiming them.
And from the matter it consumed, things had been born.
There was an uncomfortable, maddening pressure on Sigvar’s mind here, a pressure that seemed to be coming from below. He pressed his knuckles into his temples, trying to relieve it.
From nowhere, a memory long forgotten came back him in a rush, like a swarm of bats bursting from a cave. He remembered his childhood, before he had been taken by the Frostguard. He remembered the ice-arks of his tribe; sleek, three-masted ships that raced across the frozen wastes upon sharpened keel blades. He remembered the night their ships had slid to a halt at the Great Pinnacle. Black-helmed warriors of the Frostguard awaited them there. Sigvar and six other children under the age of ten winters were chosen from among the tribe. It was a great honor. And there, under the midnight sun, he watched his tribe sail away. It was the last time he saw his family.
He was taken to the citadel, where he underwent the Trials, and was subjected to the grueling, brutal Testing. One-by-one, the other children of his original tribe dwindled, until he was the only one that remained.
By then, he had all but forgotten his tribe. He had a new family. A new faith.
He was Frostguard.
A hand on his shoulder brought him, shuddering, back to the present. He was sitting with his back against the splintered stone statue of an ancient guardian. He had no memory of sitting down. Olar was stooped over him.
“Don’t sleep,” said the old warrior. “Bad dreams, down here. Bad memories.”
Sigvar climbed to his feet. He hadn’t thought about his old tribe for years. The lingering fragments of the dream slipped away, leaving Sigvar with a deep sense of unease.
“It is time,” said Halla.
And so they began their final descent. There was nothing below them now but madness and cold and darkness and dread.
What-Dwells-Below waited, just as it had for millennia.

The ice darkened the further down they went. Black veins spread through it, clawing upwards. A vague, crackling sound surrounded them, seeming to scratch at the back of Sigvar’s eyes. He could see no movement, but he imagined it came from those unnerving threads in the ice, seeking to escape this accursed pit and reach for the surface…
Sigvar tried to push the sound from his head, invoking the Litanies under his breath, and focusing on each kick of his toe-spikes, each strike of his picks.
The ice was less even here, with jutting sections and savage, undercut overhangs to traverse. At times, the three Frostguard were forced to continue using only their picks, legs dangling precariously above the endless depths as they worked their way ever downward. Twice their progress was blocked, with no conceivable way down, and they were forced to backtrack until Halla determined a new route.
Icy fog closed in tightly around them, heavy and oppressive, such that Sigvar could no longer see his companions below. The fog muffled all sound bar that incessant, maddening scratching.
At the last, a floor of solid ice emerged, surprising Sigvar with its abrupt appearance through the fog. Halla and Olar waited for him, having already unburdened themselves of their packs, ropes and picks. The silence here was overbearing. Even the crackling in the ice seemed to have stopped.
“We’re at the base?” whispered Sigvar, his breath fogging the air as he shrugged off his gear.
“This is as far as we go,” said Olar, in a low voice. “But it delves deeper still.”
The older Frostguard ushered him forward, pointing. They stood close to a precipice, and Sigvar saw the chasm dropped away below them, ever deeper.
“How far?” he whispered.
“No one knows. To the center of the world, and beyond. Perhaps to the realm of What-Dwells-Below.”
Sigvar tapped one toe-spike onto the ice underfoot. “We could very easily have missed this. We come down thirty feet that way, and we would be climbing down forever.”
“Ice-in-her-Soul would not have steered us wrong,” said Olar, putting a hand on Sigvar’s back, guiding him to Halla.
Sigvar knelt, placing one gloved hand near the ice. The cold was intense, causing him pain even through his thick layers. More than just cold, though, the ice radiated power.
“This is all… True Ice?” he whispered, his eyes alight with reverence and awe.
“It is,” said Halla. “Only the chosen few have seen it. The Eye is truly upon you, Half-Quiver. Upon all of us. We are blessed.”
True Ice was part of the Frostguard faith, revered as a holy gift from the Three. Infused with ancient, elemental power, it was harder than iron, and would never melt, even in the hottest forge. To carry a weapon that bore even a portion of True Ice—like the warhammer Thunderchild borne by Olar, and Halla’s twin axes, Bloodfang and Bloodclaw—was an honor of deeply religious significance. The skill to craft such weapons was long lost; those remaining were sacred relics carried by Iceborn heroes of long ago. Sigvar prayed he would one day be found worthy to bear such a venerable relic, but for now, his trusty hand-and-a-half sword, forged in a land far beyond the frozen wastes, would do. It was a fine weapon, by any measure, and had never let him down.
“We are close, the Three be praised,” Halla said. “We move.”
They loped along the ravine, running as a pack, with Halla leading the way.
The temperature here was unlike anything Sigvar had ever experienced, though he had lived his whole life in the barren, frozen wastes. Despite his layers of skins and furs, it chilled him to the bone, and every breath was painful. His exposed face was quickly encased in a thin layer of ice, which cracked every time Sigvar blinked. Olar’s beard was frozen, such that it could have snapped were it struck. Frost crackled up their boots as the ice underfoot tried to claim them, making every step an effort.
Only an Iceborn could survive this. Even so, Sigvar wasn’t sure how long he would last down here. An hour? Perhaps two? Certainly no longer than that.
Halla kept them moving. To stop was to die.
They came, finally, to a section where the chasm narrowed, so that they could only proceed one by one through the gap.
Halla went first, and Olar indicated that Sigvar should go next.
“Do not let your gaze linger on it,” warned Olar. “It is not a good thing to look upon.”
“What do you mean?” said Sigvar.
Olar merely shook his head, and would say no more. Sigvar pushed himself into the crevice, wondering what it was the old warrior meant.
The gap was narrow, and he was considerably larger than Halla. The True Ice seared him as he squeezed through, pressing in on all sides. He was so cold that he was sure one hammer blow would shatter his bones, but he continued on, edging forward, inch by inch, until he was through.
A large, bowl-like cavern awaited him on the other side. The ice underfoot here was clearer, shifting from opaque towards transparent. In the middle of the cavern, it was perfectly smooth, like a black mirror. The floor at the center was a broad expanse, surrounded by massive, jutting shards of True Ice. They looked like pillars, arranged in a rough circle around the open middle, giving the cavern the feel of some sacred circle of lost gods. There were nine of those icy pillars, and it took Sigvar a moment to realize the significance of that number.
“The Hall of the Nine,” he said, in reverence.
He had learned of the Nine, of course. They were akin to great shackles, holding What-Dwells-Below down, and were said to have been created by magic long lost. Some said that it was the yetis who created the Nine, but Sigvar had long grown out of such childish tales.
Even so, he knew they had arrived at their destination.
“We stay to the edges, outside the circle,” said Halla, once Olar had slipped through the narrow defile to join them. “Go nowhere near the center of the ice, and do not look down.”
Sigvar knew she was speaking for his benefit, and he nodded.
“Each of the Nine must be checked. I will start here, and go that way,” said Halla, indicating the closest pillar, and motioning past it, around to the right. “Stonefist, you start there, and go that way. Take the boy with you.”
At any other time, Sigvar would have bristled to have been called boy and have someone tasked to watch over him. He’d faced charging troll berserkers in deepest winter and felt nothing but savage joy—but right now, he was grateful to remain at Olar’s side. A palpable tension hung in the air, like the threat felt in the moments between a lightning flash, and the thunder’s crash.
They walked towards the nearest pillars, Sigvar making a conscious effort to keep his gaze high. Once, perhaps, this had been an enclosed cave, but the roof had long ago collapsed. Sigvar had the impression that the collapse had been caused by something vast having been hurled down from above.
He dared not look down, but even so, he could see the dark shadow beneath the ice at the periphery of his vision. It tugged at him, as if straining for his attention...
“Don’t look,” Olar hissed, perhaps feeling that pressure himself.
Halla reached the first ice shard, and began a slow circle around it, peering intently. Olar and Sigvar approached the second.
“What do we look for?” said Sigvar, in a low voice, struggling to keep his gaze from wandering towards the center of the ice.
“Anything that has changed,” replied Olar.
Up close, Sigvar could see threads of frozen darkness trapped within the True Ice. “How do we know if anything has changed?” he murmured.
Olar didn’t answer at first, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the sharply angled sides of the towering ice shard. Finally, he gave a grunt, and pointed. “Runes were carved in this ice, long ago, when What-Dwells-Below was first banished. See here?”
Sigvar stepped in closer and saw a small series of lines carved into the surface, forming runic script. “What does it mean?” he asked.
“It means the ice has not melted. Come, let’s check the next one.”
They set out, hugging the left wall of the cave, continuing to skirt the open expanse in the center.
Sigvar would never be able to clearly articulate what happened next. He remembered following Olar, staying close as they moved toward the next pillar. He remembered a heavy pressure building in his skull, and the sensation of movement in the corners of his eyes. The silence weighed upon him, oppressive and heavy, and everything seemed to become unclear, as if he were surrounded in a sudden fog, muffling every sense.
Then he was standing out in the center of the ice, gazing downward.
An immense eye stared back at him, unblinking.
Sigvar’s soul recoiled, screaming inwardly, yet he was unable to look away, completely in thrall to that giant, staring, lidless eye.
Perhaps twenty feet of solid ice separated him from this shadowy behemoth, but it was not nearly enough. It was impossible to see clearly, but Sigvar was left with an impression of the shadowy, coiling, tentacled limbs that surrounded that great eye. It would have dwarfed even the largest of the titanic leviathans that swam the fathomless depths beneath the ice floes. A creature of such size should not be.
And it was not dead. There was life and a vast, unknowable intelligence in that stare.
It saw him. Its gaze bored into him, through him, and he felt his sanity begin to unravel like a spool of yarn hurled into the night. Sigvar’s stomach was an ever-tightening knot, dark shadows coiling at the edge of his vision, squirming and serpentine, threatening to—
A hand grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, hauling him backward. He stumbled, boots flailing and slipping as he was dragged out of the circle, and dumped unceremoniously on the ice beyond. He scrambled to his feet, shadows and coiling shapes still swimming in his mind.
Dimly, Sigvar registered Olar standing before him, gripping his furs in one tight fist. Halla was on her knees nearby, praying frantically.
The writhing shadows still moved at the corner of his eyes, and his head felt heavy, filled with a stifling fog. Unwittingly, his gaze started to turn back towards the center of the ice, back, back toward—
Olar’s heavy fist struck him across his jaw, snapping his head back sharply. “Don’t. Look. At. It.”
Sigvar blinked, his head a little clearer, and he nodded.
“Halla, he’s not strong enough,” said Olar, fist poised. All the humor in his eyes was gone now, replaced with an intense, ruthless chill. “He should go back.”
“No!” said Sigvar. “I… I’m fine.”
“He should go back,” Olar repeated, looking to Halla. She finished her hurried entreaties, and pushed herself to her feet, studying Sigvar with narrowed eyes.
“I’m fine. I can do this,” he assured them both.
“If he falters again, kill him,” said Halla. “Go. Check the pillars.”
She made her way to the next one, crunching over the ice.
“Don’t make me do it,” Olar growled at Sigvar. “I don’t want to have to haul your body back out.”
No corpse could be left down here, for fear that it could be used to spark the growth of What-Dwelled-Below. It would be an incredibly difficult climb back out anyway; Sigvar couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to have to haul a body out as well.
And Olar had to bear out two bodies on his last couple of climbs, he reminded himself. His reverence for the old warrior was redoubled.
“I will not look,” vowed Sigvar, keeping his eyes locked on him. “Let’s go.”
Olar grunted, and gestured for Sigvar to take the lead.
They located the rune on the next pillar almost instantly. “Here,” said Olar, pointing it out.
The edges of that marking were so sharp, it could have been carved only an hour earlier, not thousands of years ago. That was good. It meant the ice had not melted in all that time.
“This one’s yours,” said Olar, as they approached the next mighty pillar, jutting up at an acute angle from the floor. “I’ll check the next. Don’t let me down, boy.”
Sigvar nodded as the warrior left him to survey the shard alone. It was almost completely black, and as he looked upon it, the shadows at the edge of his vision seemed to return, making it seem as though things were moving within the ice.
He shook his head, walking around the pillar, eyes tracking up and down—searching for a rune, but finding none. Every angled surface was completely smooth. Frowning, he made second pass, moving more slowly this time.
Still he found nothing.
Glancing toward the others, he saw Halla and Olar had almost linked up, having checked all but the last two pillars.
“Come on,” he said to himself, blinking hard. “Focus.”
He made a third turn around the circumference. Still nothing.
Halla and Olar were making their way towards him now, their expressions grim. When he looked at the pillar again, he would have sworn he saw a bead of water sliding down its side… but that was surely impossible. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned in.
Up close, he could see the ice was slick with moisture. The edges of the shard were less defined than they were on the other pillars, blunted and rounded smooth. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed that sooner. Still, he felt no sense of alarm, even when he saw the flicker of movement within the Dark Ice. An unnatural sense of calm infused his being.
Dimly, he heard a shout from behind him, but it barely registered. The sound was muffled, as if it were coming from a long way away. He gave it no mind. All that mattered was the blackness in the ice before him. It was calling to him, whispering to him, urging him closer. The shadows were no longer just at the periphery of his vision; now they were all he saw. He reached out toward—
A hand grabbed his own. Halla’s hand. He was hurled backwards, hitting the ice almost ten feet away.
In horror, he recognized the darkness thrashing within the ice pillar, struggling to be free. It stabbed from within, straining to breach its prison. He realized it had been reaching for him.
Halla’s eyes were closed, one hand outstretched over the weak point in the ice where the darkness attacked. In her other hand, she clutched her talisman of Lissandra. She barked a catechism of the faith, and her outstretched hand began to glow with cold light. New ice crystals began to form upon the pillar’s face.
It was not going to be enough. What Halla was praying into existence was not True Ice. No one had the ability to create that anymore.
A spiderweb of cracks appeared upon the surface, as the darkness within redoubled its attack. With her eyes closed, Halla didn’t see it, and Sigvar was too far away, even as he lurched to his feet and drew his sword.
Olar was suddenly at Halla’s shoulder, Thunderchild clasped in both hands. Just as the darkness breached the pillar’s surface, spearing towards Halla with the speed of a lightning strike, Olar shouldered her aside.
His warhammer smashed the tendril of darkness asunder with a deafening crack. It was not the only one, however—three more spat from the rupture.
“Stonefist!” bellowed Sigvar. He leapt forward, but was too slow. They all were.
Olar staggered back, swatting one of the tendrils aside with a sweep of Thunderchild, but was unable to stop the other two. They thrust into his flesh with relish, one piercing the meat of his left shoulder, the other the side of his neck, biting deep.
Olar Stonefist’s muscles rippled as the unearthly tentacles writhed into him. His veins turned black, starkly visible though his pale skin, and he dropped to his knees. Sigvar made to grab him, but Halla pulled him back.
“No!” she shouted. “It will claim you too.”
With his last strength, Olar tossed Thunderchild towards them, spinning it across the ice. “Go!” he gasped. “Get... word... to the citadel!”
“Take the hammer!” Halla yelled at Sigvar.
“We can’t leave him—”
“It is too late. He is already gone.”
Sigvar watched in impotent horror as Olar was consumed. The Frostguard warrior was shuddering, and most of his skin was now horrible shades of black and purple, like a bruise. More than a dozen tendrils pierced him, connecting him to the darkness within the ice.
“Take the hammer, Half-Quiver!” repeated Halla.
Sigvar sheathed his blade and picked up Thunderchild, bracing for the pain. It made him gasp, the intensity of its cold flowing swiftly up his arms to his heart, almost making it stop, but he did not fight it. He embraced it, becoming one with it.
A creeping shape, ridged and segmented like an insect, began to spread across Olar’s flesh. It hardened, like cooling volcanic rock. A sickening purple light began to pulse within him, like a second heartbeat, radiating out through his flesh.
In horrified disgust, Sigvar realized something was growing within Olar.
With an anguished cry, Halla hurled Bloodclaw, sending the axe spinning end-over-end through the air. It struck Olar square between his eyes, killing him instantly. It was a merciful act, yet it saddened Sigvar to see a legend of the Frostguard meet such an ignoble end.
Ice instantly formed upon Olar’s corpse, extending down from where Bloodclaw was embedded. Crackling hoarfrost soon encased his head, chest and arms. The power of the True Ice seemed to stall the consumption, the tendrils becoming slow and sluggish, the purple light within him dying.
“Has it stopped?” hissed Sigvar.
“For now, perhaps.”
“Your axe?”
“We leave it,” said Halla, speaking swiftly. “With the blessing of the Three, it will hold What-Dwells-Below in check, but there is no knowing how long. We have to go. Now.”
Sigvar didn’t argue. He began to pick his way around the edge of the circle, but Halla stopped him.
“Too slow,” she barked. “Across the middle. Go!”
Sigvar froze, unwilling to step onto the open ice, but as Halla sprinted out before him, he took a reluctant first step. Forcing his gaze to remain raised, he followed her, gingerly at first, then moving faster. At any moment he expected to feel movement below him as the immense, horrific creature trapped in the ice awoke from its endless slumber.
He could feel its malign force working on him, straining at his consciousness, like clutching tendrils. It was watching him—that giant, lidless, unblinking eye boring into him from below. The urge to look down was overpowering. Sigvar tightened his grip on Thunderchild, gritting his teeth against the pain of its cold.
He kept his gaze locked onto Halla as he breathed the Litanies. “Turn not from pain, for pain is life, and its absence means death. Savor its caress. Welcome it.” Even when he stumbled, he resisted looking down. Every step was an effort, like he was running through a snow drift. He could feel the eye boring into him, whispering to him, calling to him. He croaked the blessings louder to drown it out.
Then he was across, and he gasped for air as the pressure upon him lessened. Halla was there, urging him on. She shoved him ahead, towards the narrow defile marking their exit.
Just before he slipped through, Sigvar glanced back.
Did he see that purple light within the frozen corpse of Olar? He had no time to check, as Halla pushed him urgently through. “Go, go,” she said.
There was no time for a careful, steady passage. Sigvar pressed forward, grinding against the ice, uncaring of the pain. On the other side, the two of them sprinted through the ravine, racing back to where they had descended the ice wall.
“We have… to alert… the citadel!” Halla huffed as she ran. “The Nine… has been breached. The chains… that hold back… What-Dwells-Below… have been weakened. All the other sites… must be checked! The ice must be… reformed!”
They reached their discarded climbing gear, breathing heavily.
“Shouldn’t we stay to fight it?” Sigvar gasped.
“The Watcher will only awaken… once all of the pillars are breached,” said Halla. “Bloodclaw should hold back any lesser creature.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we kill it,” said Halla. “But word must reach the citadel. At least one of us has to make it back. Leave anything you don’t need.”
With some reluctance, Sigvar swung his shield off his shoulders and propped it against the ice wall. His scabbarded sword joined it, and Halla helped him strap Thunderchild across his back. They roped themselves together, secured their icepicks, and began the long climb back to the top.
And all the while, he felt the great eye in the ice below, staring upward.

The shell that had been Olar Stonefist cracked open with a wet tear, and a pale thing spilled forth in a tumble of hissing ichor and segmented limbs.
It righted itself unsteadily, clawing at the ice with talons the length of daggers. A slashing tail unfurled behind it, and it lifted its head, all bony tusks and jutting spines, revealing a burning, purple-tinged light at its heart. Sections of its spongy, flexible exoskeleton closed protectively around that heart and began to harden.
It was a sickly white colour, devoid of hue, but its hide quickly darkened, as if in reaction to the air. The creature’s eyes tore open to look upon the icy world into which it had been born—twelve pinpricks of hot, purple light, gathered in three clusters.
It lifted its head high, and a keening birth-scream ripped from its throat.
Halla and Sigvar were halfway to the Bridge of the Lost when the inhuman cry reached them. It echoed through the fog all around them. It was impossible to tell the direction it came from, or how close it was.
“Climb faster,” was all Halla said, and the pair increased their pace, eschewing safety for speed. Their picks hacked into the ice in a wild flurry, and they drove themselves upward with powerful kicks, toe-spikes biting deep. Sigvar kept glancing down, expecting some nameless horror to emerge from the depths at any moment…
And then, just as the ghost of the Bridge of the Lost appeared through the fog above, it did.
“Ice-in-her-Soul,” he hissed, and Halla looked down past him.
“Move!” she shouted, eyes narrowing.
They climbed frantically. If that… thing made it to them before they reached the bridge, they’d be helpless. Sigvar glanced back once more, to see the creature racing up on them. It ascended with vile, sinuous movement, multiple bladed limbs stabbing into the ice with frenzied speed. Glowing eye clusters blazed, and it screeched, the sound like steel grinding on steel, mandibles clacking.
Halla made it to the bridge first. Turning, she reached down to Sigvar with her iron grip, and hauled him over the edge. By the time he regained his feet, she had untied her ropes, and had Bloodfang at the ready. In her other hand, Halla held one of her icepicks. It was a poor substitute for Bloodclaw, but would have to suffice.
Sigvar dropped his picks and made to unsling Thunderchild from his back, but Halla stopped him. “No,” she said. “Keep climbing.”
“I will stand with—” he began, but she cut him off with a glare.
“You will climb, Half-Quiver,” she said, pointing at him with Bloodfang. “No discussion.”
“But—”
“No discussion!” she snapped. “Climb. Get word to the citadel.”
“But I should be the one who—”
“Go!” she roared, with such fury that Sigvar took a step back. “Go, Half-Quiver,” she said, quieter. “If the Three will it, I will join you shortly.”
With great reluctance, he scooped up his picks, and began climbing, as Halla dropped to her knees in prayer, eyes closed.
He was some thirty feet up the wall when the creature scuttled over the edge of the bridge. It looked up, its eyes locking onto Sigvar, and started to move in pursuit.
“Here, you ugly beast!” Halla called out, rising to face it. “Come to me and let me smite you down, by the will of the Three!”
Sigvar looked on, powerless. The creature below swung its attention from him to Halla, and leapt toward her with seemingly impossible speed.
She rolled under its scything strike, talons sweeping through the air just inches above her. She hacked Bloodfang deep into its side as she came up, sending forth a burst of steaming entrails and eliciting a horrible screech. Then she followed up with a strike from her icepick, but it bounced harmlessly off the beast’s toughened exterior.
She danced away, spinning out of range as the monster lashed out at her again.
Halla struck twice more, hacking off one of the vile creature’s limbs and scoring a deep wound across the side of its head, but it was unnaturally fast. As Halla’s axe came back for another blow, it darted forward and stabbed one bladed limb through her forearm, making her drop Bloodfang with a hiss of pain.
She hacked desperately at the creature’s face with her icepick, but managed little other than putting out a few of its eyes. Her arm was still impaled. She couldn’t get away.
With a roar, Sigvar ripped his picks from the ice, and pushed himself off. Thirty feet he fell before landing, knees bent and hands outspread for balance, right beside Halla. The frozen flagstones cracked under the impact, and he rolled hard, the wind driven from his lungs.
He already had Thunderchild in his hands as the creature turned its attention toward him. It tried to tug its clawed limb from Halla, but she clutched onto it, keeping it trapped, even as it struggled.
“Strike, Half-Quiver!”
Its maw opened impossibly wide, exposing rows of serrated fangs and tusks, and screamed in defiance as Sigvar brought Thunderchild around in a lethal blow.
The immense hammer took the creature squarely in its head, half-pulping it and sending it flying, with a burst of cold and crack like thunder. The hateful beast struck the balustrade of the bridge and tried to scramble to its feet, but staggered drunkenly, the purple light at its heart faltering.
Bellowing, Sigvar charged the monster as it tried to recover. It hissed but could do nothing to avoid his next attack. This time Thunderchild smashed it squarely in the chest, crushing its exoskeleton and sundering the protective cage around its glowing heart. As the beast sailed over the edge of the bridge, flailing wildly, that heart darkened and died.
Then it was swallowed by the fog, and was gone.
“That was… rash…” said Halla. She was slumped on the ground, her wounded arm hanging loose at her side. Her skin was pale—paler than usual—and her eyes were sunken and dark.
“Or perhaps it was the will of the Three,” Sigvar replied, moving to her side and dropping to his knees.
“Perhaps,” she conceded, smiling weakly.
Using a knife, Sigvar cut away the bloodied sleeve over Halla’s injured arm. The flesh around the wound was dark and steaming. Blackness was already spreading into her veins. Both of them knew what could happen, if that darkness were to spread any further.
“Use Bloodfang,” said Halla. There was no hint of fear in her voice. “Aim true,” she added, tapping the center of her chest.
Sigvar took up Bloodfang, gauging its weight. Ice radiated from its haft over his hands, but he barely registered.
“It has not yet spread beyond your arm,” he said. “It may not…”
Halla stared up at him, eyes clear and devoid of fear. Then she nodded.
“Do it,” she said.

For three days, Sigvar climbed.
And for three days, he felt the malignant eye in the deep watching him.
He felt the ravenous hunger in that gaze, gnawing at him, eating away at his resolve, but he continued on.
Endure, without complaint. The ice begs not for mercy, nor offers it. Neither shall we.
While the hunger of that ancient being was palpable, Sigvar realized there was no real emotion in it. It did not feel anger, or hatred, or resentment at its fate. It was dispassionate, uncaring, unknowable… and patient. In a sense, that made it even more horrific.
Nor was it alone. Sigvar had no idea how many other Watchers were trapped down at the bottom of the Howling Abyss, but as he climbed, he felt other gazes turning toward him, following his progress.
Finally, he pulled himself onto the Bridge of Sorrows. Only now, as he climbed from the great chasm, did he finally move beyond their gaze.
Halla Ice-in-her-Soul was roped to his back. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing shallow, but she lived. Her left arm was gone below the shoulder, but there was no blood on her sleeve―the True Ice core of Bloodfang had effectively sealed the wound. Bearing her had been exhausting, making the difficult climb that much harder, but such was his duty, and he had done it without complaint.
Pausing only a few seconds to catch his breath, Sigvar stomped heavily across the bridge, towards the citadel. It felt like he had been gone for years.
The way was obscured with a billowing icestorm, so that he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards. As the walls loomed out of the storm before him, he saw a shadowy figure awaiting him.
Ralakka Split-Tongue, Frost-Father of the Keepers, leaned heavily upon his staff of office. Sigvar eyed the black tip of that staff as he stomped to a halt before the gate, and took in the shard of ice hanging around the priest’s neck.
He looked upon the two of them with unease. He knew where they came from, now.
“Few among your brethren have glimpsed the darkness below, as we have,” said the old priest. “Your understanding of the faith has deepened, but there is still much to learn.”
Sigvar nodded, accepting this. Split-Tongue’s gaze then settled on Halla, strapped unconscious upon Sigvar’s back, before shifting behind him, searching.
“Stonefist?” he asked, to which Sigvar simply shook his head. He was too exhausted to say more. “From ice we are born, and to ice we return,” said the Frost Priest, touching the center of his forehead in reverence.
“It’s melting,” Sigvar managed. “One of the Nine. Something emerged.”
“The Watchers stir…” breathed the priest, eyes widening—perhaps in awe, perhaps in fear.
Sigvar merely nodded, his breathing ragged. His prodigious strength was close to failing him.
“Our revered mistress, the Lady of Ice and Darkness, must be informed,” said the priest. The immense gates of the citadel ground open, the shadows within beckoning. “Come, Iceborn. We must prepare for what is to come.”
The Eyes and the Embers

Conor Sheehy

Run.

She raced as fast as she could, bloodied feet pounding the earth beneath her. She tore through another thick bramble. More thorns tugging at her ragged clothes. More scratches. More blood. More pain.

Her lungs burned. She gasped for breath, begged for rest, but the voice inside demanded more.

Run.

She fled just yesterday afternoon, but so much had happened since. First she heard the faculty staff, screaming for her from the conservatory grounds. Then the dogs, barking as she scrambled along the banks of the River Gren.

Night came, and with it, the distant sound of riders, thundering through the dark. She had lost her satchel there, along with the meager pickings she'd stolen from the kitchens of the Ravenbloom Conservatory—two apples, a torn heel of bread, and half a block of cheese that smelled like it had come all the way from Nockmirch. Enough to get her to safety, but barely. Gods, how the hunger gnawed. She picked berries, chewed on twigs, drank the rainwater from leaves.

There was so little peace. Every moment she paused, every time she allowed the exhaustion to weigh down on her, the voice inside would speak again.

Run.

She fell, tripped by a protruding root, landing heavy enough for something in her to crack. Through gritted teeth, she screamed. The pain lanced through her leg, up her body, then slowly, with each passing throb, melded with the rest. Everything ached. Everything burned.

For a time, she just lay there, her face in the mud. Night rain fell on her broken body, washing away her tears, and the blood.

Run, the voice said, angrier now.

Finally, she responded. "I can't!" she cried, her voice ragged as the rest of her. "I can't!"

The voice quietened.

Time passed. Exhaustion and pain braided together, and sent her to sleep.

In her dreams, she saw flashes of what had come before. Headmistress Telsi standing in her dormitory room, the Arbiter of Thorns beside her. "You have been chosen," Telsi said. “The war in Ionia requires new weapons. Old weapons.”

The Arbiter's rough hands on her temples. Flashes of fire in her vision.

The fever. The heat. The voice.

The voice.

Wake.

She woke with a start and lurched to the side, searching for danger. The rain had stopped, and a calm silence had fallen over the woods, broken only by the wind whistling through the trees, and the distant hooting of an owl.

No danger. At least, not for now.

Slowly, with weary arms, she lifted herself, then turned onto her back. Her knee cracked again, sending agony through the whole leg. She held the scream at bay until the pain faded to its old dull throb.

She gazed up past the swaying branches above, seeing stars through the clouds. Memories of happier times floated by. She remembered laying in the Fensworth fields with her grandmother as they named the constellations above. The Fox. The Liar. The Hope. Above her now, shining bright, was the Witch—her favorite. Emotion welled inside her. She let out a single sob, which steamed against the winter chill.

Cold. Cold! She hadn't noticed, but the chill had numbed her fingers and feet. She was freezing. She sat up fast and hugged herself, wiping the wet mud from her body as best she could. She breathed faster, panic setting in. The shivering started.

The voice spoke again. A new word.

Fire.

She limped from tree to tree in the darkness, searching for dry branches and leaves, anything she could burn. But the earlier rain had blanketed the woods, and left everything sodden.

The shivering had stopped. Her pain had faded. She was about ready to give in and let the cold take her, when ahead, in a small clearing, her eyes caught the moonlight gleaming off the slick stump of a large, felled tree. She narrowed her focus, looked closer, and spotted a deep notch carved into its surface.

Her heart soared. "A waytree… A waytree!"

Such trees had been a common sight in her youth. Dotted throughout the woodlands, they were used as markers by the empire’s scouts, and housed preserved food and other camping supplies. Slowly, she limped forward, every step an agony, until she reached the stump. She fumbled inside its hollow, hoping to find something, anything, that might help her.

There! Her frozen fingers clutched something thin and brittle. Kindling. She pulled out a bundle of sticks, tied neatly with twine. Inside was more—flint, emberleaves, dried beef, and a handful of wild mushrooms.

Soon enough, the fire was built. She sat by its sputtering infancy, hugging her knees and chewing absently on the beef. It was old and barely edible, but she didn't care. With the threat of imminent danger easing, she allowed herself a moment to think back.

Headmistress Telsi must be furious, she thought, as she stared into the blossoming flames. The old lady was a stern and brittle thing, with a lined and haggard face that would fall into a scowl more easily than a smile. She would have locked the conservatory down by now, and sent both scouting contingents out to search for her.

"Oh, Fynn," she sighed.

He was the conservatory's First Scout, a gentle man with kind eyes who found people like her—gifted people—and offered them a home. He had arrived at her grandmother's cottage just a few weeks after her passing, when the other villagers had all but exiled her. While the empire at large saw the value of mages, some of the more remote settlements like Fensworth still clung to old mistrusts. Witch, they called her. Witch. She remembered all those hateful eyes. She remembered begging for help. All the doors closed before her. The loneliness.
And then, one summer's day, Fynn Retrick had arrived to offer her something beautiful: hope.

She kicked the fire with her good leg. The wood cracked and the flames danced out again, warming her face. She gazed into the flickering light once more, deep in thought.

Surely, Fynn couldn't have known what Telsi would do. He was so kind to me. He was so—

She paused, noticing something odd before her. The fire seemed to be taking shape, creating a faint outline for a moment before collapsing away to nothing. She frowned, watching on as it happened again, then again. The same shape, the same collapse.

She glanced up, higher in the fire, and noticed two dark holes in the burgeoning blaze. They remained still and black as the night, no matter how bright the flames around them burned. She looked closer. No, not holes, she realized.

They were eyes.

Amoline.

She froze at the mention of her own name. The flames licked up, but the eyes held firm, fixed on her. She stared back, her skin crawling.

"What… What is this?" Amoline asked, her voice wavering. But she knew. She remembered what Headmistress Telsi had called it. The Gift. Something that would make Amoline stronger, something that would make her more than just a mage.

"You are a queen," Telsi had told her, "and it is your crown."

Amoline.

The voice grew with the flames. It rattled inside her, shaking her bones.

Witness.

The fire began shifting, creating shapes and patterns that put her in mind of events she’d never seen before.

There. A stone cathedral, tall and magnificent. At its entrance, an armored titan made war, scattering the desperate mortal fighters before him with a heavy and cruel mace. By his side were two fearsome beasts—one made of shadow, the other of fire.

Witness.

Amoline felt herself drawn toward the second beast. She peered closer. It was huge, with too-many broad, burning arms and a pulsating frame. It screamed ahead, bellowing out rage that twisted and withered its enemies in unholy fire.

The flames flared before Amoline. A pale woman smiled. At her feet lay the metal titan, destroyed. The two beasts that served him were beaten, forced back. Robed figures surrounded them, chanting in a tongue unknown to her. How the two raged. Amoline saw them falter. She saw their strength sapped until their power was whittled down into two droplets, small as rain.

Amoline followed the droplet of raging fire, trapped now inside a small warded vial. Days, months, years passed. It lay untouched, locked away. Dwindling. Desperate. The spirit ebbed. The light began to wane. Its roars fell to wails.

Amoline felt something unexpected well inside her. It was pity.

The flames flared again. She saw the Arbiter of Thorns, riding silently in a carriage. Ahead stood the great Ravenbloom Conservatory. The droplet of fire fell from its cage onto a bare forehead.

Then screaming, shackles, and fire.

Fire.

"Stop!" a voice cried out, and Amoline snapped from her trance.

The two black eyes blazed with fury mere inches from her face. She felt something below. Heat. Amoline looked down to see she was standing in the fire pit, flames lapping at her ankles. Just as the pain began to set in, just as she opened her mouth to scream, a cloaked figure crashed into her side, knocking her clear.

She slammed into the mud, coughing smoke and embers from the fire. The figure picked himself up, breathing hard.

"Gods, woman," he gasped, "what were you doing?"

Amoline turned away, smoke still burning her throat. She lay there, coughing and despondent, until the needles in her lungs calmed. Finally, she spoke. "I can't go back," she said, her voice feeble and hoarse. “You don’t know what she did to me.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Who?"

"Headmistress Telsi," Amoline replied. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to feel steel restraints closing around her wrists once more.

"Who?" he repeated, and this time the confusion was ripe in his voice.

Amoline turned to find a slight man peering at her in the gloom, his eyes full of worry. He was a stranger to her—and, evidently, she to him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The man turned and sat on the fallen tree beside him. "I am Gregori," he started, calm as he could muster, "just a simple traveler bound for the frontier. Nothing more." He studied her for a moment. "And you?"

"Amoline."

"Are you hurt, Amoline?"

She checked her legs. The charred soles of her boots had taken the brunt of the heat, and her laces had been lost to the fire. She pulled at the scorched leather to examine her feet… and found them unhurt, save for the blisters and bruises she earned while fleeing the conservatory.

She frowned.

"Just my knee," she murmured, pushing the ruined boots aside, "but not from…"

She looked over to where the fire had burned, and saw the wood scattered by the fall. The pit was little more than smoke and embers now, glowing impotently as the sunrise approached.

Amoline looked for the dark eyes, and found nothing.

"Well, between that and your bare feet, that’s two reasons not to travel on foot, hmm?" Gregori said. He eyed Amoline carefully, suspicious. But in the fledgling dawn light, he saw only a young and desperate woman. "My cart is just a short way there," he said, pointing through the trees, "I could take you to the nearest town. The healers there could—"

"No." Amoline was quick with her refusal. Towns were too dangerous, especially here. Telsi's scouts would be waiting.

"Well, I won't leave you like this."

She looked over Gregori again, searching for a badge or a pin or a pattern somewhere on his clothes that resembled the Ravenbloom sigil. Nothing. "You should," she said.

Gregori nodded slowly. "Would you like to eat, at least? I've a meat pie on my wagon, fresh from the baker’s oven, two villages back."

Amoline fell silent for a moment, trying to fend off the grumbling in her stomach. She failed.

"Yes," she admitted, "I would."

By the time the pair had finished their meal, dawn had fully broken and a frigid winter sun had broken through the crooked treeline. Alongside the pie, Gregori had shared a cold flagon of cow's milk and handful of sweetened chestnuts. Afterward, he joined Amoline on the stump of the waytree, and sketched a misshapen map of Noxus into the mud before pointing out all the places he'd already visited on his travels. Amoline watched on, quietly. This man, Gregori the Gray, was a lively and spirited fellow. His tale about the drunken Basilich krug-whisperers even brought a shadow of a smile to her face, although it was faint and fleeting.

His stories complete, silence fell on their small camp. Gregori leaned back and glanced over to the ruined fire pit. "Would you tell me what happened?" he asked, soft as a leaf.

Amoline pursed her lips.

"Show me where you're going," she demanded, ignoring his question and toeing the dirt map instead. Gregori nodded. He reached over with his charred stick and tapped the edge of the sketch.

"There," he said. "Over the mountains. As north as north gets."

"What's there?"

Gregori shrugged. "Nothing. Plains, valleys. I hope to make a home there." He looked over. "And you? Where will the winds take you?"

Amoline bowed her head, deep in thought. She'd thought of both Drugne and even somewhere in distant Tokugol—but now, in the clear light of day, both seemed so close, so obvious. She couldn't trust her old neighbors in Fensworth, and heading south to the capital would only tempt fate. Amoline thought back to a phrase she often heard the others whisper at the conservatory.

The Rose is everywhere, the Rose is everyone.

No. She would have to go somewhere new. Somewhere unexplored.

"Would..." she started, staring into the mud. "Would you take me with you?"

Gregori fell silent. Amoline slowly turned to see him looking at her, his eyebrows raised.

"I could leave once we neared the border," she continued, "I won't be any trouble. I can hunt and cook. I can—"

Gregori held his hand up, laughing softly. "I will take you as far as you please, Amoline, on one condition." Amoline waited as he leaned over. "It's a long way to the north. Will you tell me some stories of your own?"

"You won't like my stories, Gregori the Gray," she sighed.

"Maybe not, but I would still like to hear them."

By noon, Gregori had mounted his horse and resumed his journey, with Amoline hiding between sacks of food and loose lumber in the cart behind. The cart's rocking, the blanket's warmth, and her own exhaustion soon had the soft pull of sleep tugging at her spirit once more.

Darkness took her, and in her sleep, she finally dared to dream of a quiet and peaceful land far away from all who would hope to hurt her.
The Face in Her Stars

Rowan Williams

Under the heat of the midday sun, my opponent and I circled one another. I kept my weight on my heels, hefting my enormous shield. Its spiked sun-in-glory rose in a dazzling display, providing cover for all but my eyes. Crouching low, armored boots scraping across the tamped earth, I slowly advanced like a hungry bolor.

My opponent’s golden armor reflected dappled light in the dust, and though their expression was hidden by the shadow of their helmet, their eyes blazed, locked on my own. I waited—not indecisive, but precise.

My patience was rewarded when their gaze flicked just to the side and over their shoulder, trying to find their footing and continue their retreat. It felt as though I was watching from outside my body, my movements so practiced that I hardly thought about them.

I rushed Shorin with a cry. They raised their shield defensively, but I lifted my own and then drove it down, using their front-heavy weight to topple them. In a flash, my sword was over my shield, pointed at their throat. They lifted their sword to the side to show the stroke would have felled them.

“Your guard was up... but you were distracted,” I suggested, stepping back and resuming a guarded stance, blinking away sweat. “Let’s try again.”

Shorin groaned. “Oh, let’s rest for a moment, please, Tyari,” they said, sheathing their sword and unbuckling the shield from their arm. “We have more than earned it.”

I straightened and nodded, removing my helm. I should have felt energized by besting an opponent, but instead I felt tired.

“I wouldn’t mind,” I admitted. I raked damp hair off of my face and began the arduous process of removing my armor.

Shorin grinned at me and took off their helmet, tossing their dark braid over one shoulder. They shrugged off the padding under their armor, revealing the plain clothes of an acolyte of the Solari infantry. They peeled the front of their shirt off their chest and billowed it, fanning themselves.

“Nice work,” they said. “I thought I was clever to bait you into pressing the attack, assuming you’d leave your flank open, but you proved me wrong.”

“I have a height advantage,” I pointed out, which was true—though Shorin was of average stature, I was a good head-and-shoulders taller, and a fair amount heavier.

“Height, certainly, but you’ve got the makings of a great soldier. And you’re a dedicated acolyte. Who else would be training on their day off?” They shot me another grin.

I allowed myself a smile in return. “If this is your way of thanking me, know that I'm happy to help if it means you feel better prepared for the trials ahead.”

Shorin scoffed playfully and came to stand before me, hands on their hips. “You’re a good friend, and a good warrior. I suspect you’ll be leading your own phalanx before too long,” they said. “I’m proud of you, Tyari.”

I shrugged as my smile wavered and held, trying not to look too forlorn. Both of us strove to become Solari soldiers, Rakkor who fought in defense of the Sun and Her chosen—the Solari faithful. Ever since my protection magic had manifested as a child, I had dreamed of the honor afforded to those noble warriors, donning their golden armor to protect friends and family.

And, after many years in training, I was good at it... but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t relish the idea of going to battle like some of the other acolytes did. I wasn’t impassioned by prayer. I didn’t beam with pride to see our shining soldiers demonstrate their martial prowess. All of it felt... hollow, somehow.

And it made me feel like a pretender.

My gaze wandered up the snowy slopes of Mount Targon. I found myself regarding it more and more lately, its great form an impressive constant. I thought of how it would feel to climb it—the conviction and determination it must take, risking danger for reward... and my heart beat a little faster. Hurriedly, I turned away.

It was not quite winter, and for now, the sun felt good. Soon it would offer little comfort against the piercing cold that descended over the mountains. I removed the last of my armor and walked to the edge of the plateau. On one of the lower peaks, I could see shrine tenders attending midday prayers, the flames of their braziers bright even at this distance. Shepherds led flocks of goats and tamu in the valleys.

I glanced back at the great mountain, looming in the near distance. I didn’t know how long I’d been lost in thought, but my reverie was broken by Shorin’s laughter.

“I said, you seem distracted, Tyari.”

“Oh.” I felt heat rise in my cheeks, and Shorin chuckled.

“You aren’t cheered by the thought of leading a glorious army into battle at dawn?” They spread their arms wide to indicate the size of such a contingent, and I rolled my eyes, laughing.

“I’m sorry, Shorin. I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I said, apologetically.

“Of course you do, my friend.” They offered me a knowing smile, and I froze. How well Shorin knew me. “We’re only a month out from the trials, and you’re the frontrunner for alpha initiate. No wonder your thoughts are elsewhere.”

I turned my face away to hide my disappointment. They only saw the dutiful acolyte, after all.

How little the trials seemed to matter right now! I wished I could tell them how I felt, about my dissatisfaction, but my feelings were jumbled, impossible to voice. Yet if anyone understood the pressure I was under, it was Shorin. And if anyone knew my heart, it was my closest friend.

Tell them.

“It’s exciting,” was all I could say.

“From your expression, I wouldn’t think it.”

They stood beside me, gray eyes following where my own had led—up the mountain, disappearing into the massive bank of clouds that perpetually lingered there. I somehow felt that we were both looking beyond it.

“Tyari,” they began, then paused.

I glanced over and froze again. Something in Shorin’s expression reflected an emotion I recognized in myself: longing.

Longing for what?

“I won’t be taking the initiation rites,” they told me, attention fixed on that bank of clouds.

“What?” I was perplexed. “You... you’ve played at being a soldier since we were children! Your father used to boast that you held a sword before you could walk. You’ve trained for it your whole life! And... you’re going to give it up? How? Why?”

“That,” they said, and pointed toward Mount Targon’s peak.

Long and long the mountain stretched overhead. Who knew how far away the peak itself was? Yet Shorin’s expression was certain.

My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

“Undertaking a journey wherein death is all but guaranteed? Dear friend, I have never been more serious.” Shorin laughed easily. They seemed so unburdened, as if climbing the mountain were the only choice, and forever had been. I envied their conviction.

“Why?”

They made a noise of acknowledgment. “I’ve been asking myself the very same since I first felt the mountain call to me.”

“You don’t know? But you have your honor to uphold, and that of the Solari warriors! If you’re looking for an Aspect’s blessing or power, there are other ways to test your strength and prove yourself,” I argued. “Why don’t we keep running these drills? You’ve almost got it—”

“I’m not concerned with any of that. I don’t want power. I don’t even want honor,” they said. “I just want an answer.”

“But... your family,” I began, thinking on Shorin’s younger sister, Hadaetha, who would also be joining the infantry, and Yundulin, their father, who was an anointed warleader by the time he had retired. “You would be letting them down, wouldn’t you?”

They frowned.

“There is so much danger—you would be worrying them, and for what? What if you fail? What if you never come back?”

After a long moment, Shorin spoke again. “You’re right. Nothing is guaranteed. There’s still time to decide.” They shrugged uncertainly, and their voice lacked conviction. “Maybe the answer I’ve been looking for lies with the infantry, after all.”

“Exactly,” I said, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. I couldn’t bear to think of losing Shorin. “We’re shield-mates. And there’s nobody else I’d want by my side.”

They glanced up the mountain, then began to don their armor again. “Alright, Tyari. The same maneuver as before—I want to see if I can keep my footing this time.”

Even after Shorin left, I continued my drills. My movements were practiced, precise. I owed it to my family, and my people, to be the perfect soldier. If I was not a warrior... I was nothing.

As the sun began to dip behind the foothills, I removed my helmet and looked out over the sunset, letting the sweat dry on my brow. The last of the harvest season’s insects buzzed about, but soon they, too, would rest. The distant bleat of goats and the rising smoke from cooking fires felt peaceful, comforting. It reminded me that I would soon be seeing my cousin Anua for a meal.

I trusted my cousin, though she could be stubborn. She had always known her path. The turmoil I felt, and the desire to seek an answer... I wondered what she would make of it.

I thought on what Shorin had said. How could they want to leave without knowing why they were going? I wasn’t so set in my own journey, but I hoped this feeling would pass. I was head of my class. I had my family and my faith to serve, and what I wanted was not more important than the role I had to play.

I had friends. I had faith. I had family. I had honor. So why did it all feel like I was living someone else’s life?

Suddenly angry, I picked up a stone and hurled it at the retreating sun.

I went to gather my things, collecting my armor, sword, and shield. As I lifted my weapon, I paused, seeing my reflection in its blade. I felt as though I was looking at a stranger—a lonely Rakkor with a heavy heart. But my people saw a soldier, a leader, a skilled and dutiful Rakkor meant to fight in the war of Sun and Darkness. And if that was who my people saw... that was who I had to be.

The first snow was just a dusting, which was fortuitous, as the trials were only a couple of weeks away. The other acolytes and I had gathered to march up and down the slopes of our village in the cold. It was a show of stamina, and a test of our faith while the Sun grew more distant from us.

I pushed myself to excel. If I couldn’t make myself feel like a soldier, I could at least act the part.

Shorin was beside me, serving as my shield-mate. They had said no more about the mountain’s call, and so I assumed they had decided to stay. For that, I was grateful. I was far less lonely with them by my side.

I was caught up in my own thoughts, eyes forward as we rounded a tight corner on a narrow path. I had been whispering a Solari prayer when I heard Shorin yell, and I turned in time to see them stumble.

As they teetered on the edge, I tossed my sword and shield aside and leapt to save them, extending my powers of protection in the hopes of creating a magical shield, but it was too late; the rock they had been standing on sheared off the cliffside, and they landed hard below.

I was the first down the cliff after them, cursing myself for my inattention, and gasped as I came on the grisly scene. I dared not lift Shorin from the rubble, and shouted for aid instead, cradling their head in my lap as they cried out in pain.

One of the Solari priests came, hands blazing with mystical fire, but the injury was not one that could be healed simply, and certainly not this far from the temple. My heart sank as my peers carried Shorin between them back to the village. It was not certain that Shorin would walk ever again.

I was allowed to visit Shorin a few days later, once they had been returned to their family home. Their sister and father greeted me, curt but polite, and guided me to Shorin’s room.

There was my childhood friend, their legs extended in front of them as they sat abed, propped up on a series of handmade blankets and pillows. They gave me a tired but cheerful smile as I came in and sat beside them, noting the many small gifts and trinkets at their bedside. Among them was a pendant bearing the crest of the Solari, a gift I had given to their father so he would pass it along.

“Shorin,” I began, my chest and throat tight, “I’m so sorry—”

“For?” Shorin interrupted, raising an eyebrow.

“I... for... I didn’t...” I fumbled for the words, at a loss. “I was your shield-mate. I should have caught you in time. And my magic, I...” I lifted my hands by way of demonstration, then let them drop into my lap, my face hot.

Shorin stared at me, their expression disbelieving. “Do you really think you’re to blame for any of this?”

“Yes!” I blurted, then lowered my voice. “Soldiers of the Sun shine their light for their allies.”

Shorin shook their head, and I noted the deep bags under their eyes. “Certainly, when we’re in the heat of battle and fending off the enemy, but... I don’t think we have a contingency for tripping and falling off a mountain.” They grinned, then winced. “My heart wasn’t in the drill, not really. No matter how much attention you had been paying, I doubt you could have stopped it from happening.”

My heart lurched. “You didn’t... do this on purpose,” I said, “as a way out of the trials... did you?”

Shorin scoffed. “If I wanted to climb the mountain by the farewell ceremony, I’d want to be in my best shape, don’t you think?”

I frowned. I trusted Shorin, but the situation left me feeling uneasy. “So... what do you think you’ll do?”

“Well,” Shorin began, “I’m honestly not sure. I feel myself drawn to the mountain. The journey... that’s what I needed. That’s what I felt. Seeking an answer didn’t mean sabotaging myself before I could become a warrior. But now both paths are closed to me.” They smiled wryly.

I took a deep breath. Disorganized as my thoughts were, I owed it to them to be honest. To say what I hadn’t said when they had first revealed their own ambition.

“I... I know what you mean,” I said. “The need to know... whatever it is that the journey might reveal.” I paused, and Shorin raised an eyebrow expectantly. “But I can’t just leave everything—all of this—behind.”

Right?

“Tyari.” Shorin fixed me with a serious stare. “You have to go.” I began to object, but they leaned forward, intent. “I see it in you. I’ve seen it... forever.”

I bit my tongue. How? How could Shorin have seen it, or known it, before me?

They gestured vaguely. “More importantly, I know it because I feel it, too. And I don’t have it in me to overlook it anymore, my friend. I can sense you want the change.” Shorin sighed. “This is the last farewell ceremony before the trials. If you don’t go, you’ll be inducted into the infantry, and should you ever abandon your post there... That would be more than dishonorable. Even if you did come back from the mountain, your family would outright disown you.”

Their brows furrowed. “This is the time. You have to go.”

My thoughts felt scattered. “This... is very sudden. You’ve been wanting this for a while, but I’ve only just recognized what this feeling is. I can’t make this choice so impulsively! There are the trials to attend, and service in the name of the Sun, and—”

And how could I explain this to the other acolytes? To Anua?

I fell silent. The prospect of making this climb stirred something in me, and I had to admit that I was excited. If Shorin had seen this in me for a while, perhaps the pull had been there longer than I thought. Have I really been gazing up at the mountain all these years?

Now that I reflected on it, it seemed so clear. When I looked to the mountain, I saw more than opportunity. I felt hope looking at its winding paths, its soaring peak. I felt its draw.

And I was surprised to find that what I felt most of all was yearning.

“If you don’t believe me,” Shorin said, “consult with Raduak. He knows the ways of the mountain and has advised many Rakkor about its mysteries. I have no doubt he can help you.”

I knew I was well-suited to the ranks of the Solari infantry. There was no question that I would be a good soldier. But was I truly meant for something else?

Raduak and I were related, a cousin of a cousin, and Shorin was right—I could ask him for his advice. He was a well-known mystic, and truly insightful.

I hadn’t seen him since my magical powers had manifested as a child, and only then for him to advise my uncle on how to watch for any further developments in my ability. My talents had never become particularly impressive, and so I did not delve into training with him, as others with more significant ability might have.

He lived up in the foothills not far from my home, his dwelling built into the mountain. I approached the wooden door, which was masterfully crafted to sit flush with the hewn rock, and took a moment to steady myself.

I knocked politely and stood back. I had just begun to doubt myself when the door opened inward and Raduak appeared in the entrance, raising bushy white eyebrows in surprise. “Tyari?”

“Yes, sir. It’s been a long time. May I speak with you?” I asked, shifting self-consciously under his searching gaze. He looked at me for a long moment, thoughtful, then waved me inside.

“Of course you may. Your uncle brought you—oh, what was it?—almost a decade ago, didn’t he?” He led the way, stroking his well-kempt beard. “Powers to defend others and keep them safe, so like our beloved Protector. An impressive power, and an important one, especially for a young warrior.”

“Yes, sir.”

The inside of Raduak’s home had seemed massive when I was a child, but now it felt somewhat cramped. Sigils and stars were scrawled across the rough walls and ceiling in dizzying patterns. Scrolls and parchment lay across a series of small desks. I ducked beneath a hanging mobile of what I assumed were constellations.

“So, have you come to ask for a blessing on your path to becoming a warrior? Advice on how to utilize those powers of yours?”

I hesitated, hunched against a wall where an enormous rack was stuffed with charts and leaning scrolls. Would I be seen as less dutiful if my path as a soldier was not at the forefront of my mind?

“Something else,” I admitted.

“Oh?” Pausing over a small astrolabe, Raduak turned in my direction. “Then...?”

I steeled myself. “Lately, I’ve felt a... a calling. Something beyond what I’ve known before. Something beyond mere ambition. Something that speaks directly to me.” I was fumbling, despite having thought on what to say at least a dozen times on the walk over. “What I mean to say is... I’ve been thinking about Mount Targon. I—I want to make the climb.”

He straightened, his expression unchanged, as if that were the most banal thing he’d ever heard. “And?”

I deflated. I thought admitting to this grand endeavor was worth some reaction. Was talk of abandoning everything I knew to climb an all-but-impassable mountain at the risk of catastrophic doom not enough? “And... I suppose I was wondering if you could advise me as to whether that was the right course.”

Raduak’s expression relaxed into one of gentle amusement, and he chuckled. “There’s no deciding your path for you, Tyari. I chart the stars and discern their meaning. I do not tell the future.”

I frowned, feeling self-conscious again. “No, of course not, sir. I didn’t mean that. I meant... when you look to the stars, what do you see? Is there... anything there that can help me?”

Raduak smiled. “What do you see?” he replied, and the painted night sky above us came to life.

My eyes grew wide as the symbols glowed and descended. I reached out to touch the stars, so suddenly near, but my hand passed through them. I could have sworn that I felt heat where the pinpricks of light shone. I stared at them in quiet wonder.

“As your gifts are those that lend themselves to protecting others, I will tell you the story of Taric, the Shield of Valoran,” Raduak intoned. His voice and presence filled the room, powerful and commanding. “The Protector was not of the Rakkor. He was born in Demacia, the city of petricite that lies many miles to the north. A soldier and a guard, he was nonetheless an appreciator of beauty and life. He found joy in the splendor of the forests and plains, in simple birdsong, in great works of art. His heart was full of love for the many things that make our world so beautiful.”

I knew of Taric. Many Rakkor, including my cousin Anua, revered him, for he watched over and protected life and beauty. I had never given much thought to him, as my life was devoted to the Sun, and She, too, was a protector of Her people.

Taric had been a mortal before he climbed the mountain and was granted tremendous power by an Aspect. I had never heard that he was a warrior before his ascent. Our stories were already intertwined.

“It was during his time as a soldier that he let himself become distracted, and it was then that the enemy struck.” The night sky in front of me flashed dangerously, stars flaring to life only to be extinguished, one by one. “His fellow soldiers, the people he had sworn to protect, were cut down. While he knew he would face certain punishment for his negligence, the hardest burden to bear was the weight of his guilt for failing them.”

Shorin. The tiny stars blurred, and I felt tears slip down my cheeks. I knew that guilt. That shame.

“Taric was sentenced to climb Mount Targon, though many expected he would instead go into exile, daunted by the task that lay ahead. However, he accepted the challenge. It was a test the Demacians did not expect him to succeed in. If he did, he would be rewarded with redemption. But how could a single mortal, ignorant of the mountain’s great powers, expect to brave Mount Targon alone?”

I scrubbed my face with the back of my hand. How indeed?

“He faced many challenges on his journey. Tests of his physical strength, as befit the soldier, but also tests of his will. Visions of the companions he had failed to protect haunted him. Great works of art were tarnished, ruined as marauding armies burnt cities to the ground. He saw the beauty and life that he so cherished meet their end, again and again. Yet he persisted.

“And the Aspect of the Protector found him worthy.”

Taric’s face coalesced before me, as though a constellation. His eyes were twinkling stars, two brilliant points of light that burned brighter than all the rest. It wasn’t me he was looking at... was it?

I turned to find Raduak watching me, his brows furrowed, his expression measuring.

“Look again, Tyari,” he said softly, indicating the swirling stars, and I obliged. Where there had been darkness, there was brilliance. I saw my own face among the stars, overlaid by something—someone—else.

In the patterns of this new constellation, I saw an expression of benevolence, of peace, and confidence. I didn’t know who or what this figure was, only that I felt strangely in harmony with them.

Was that meant to be... me?

“Who is she?” I whispered.

“What do you see, cousin?” he implored gently.

I reached for the face. “She... she’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. Is this... an Aspect?”

“It could be any one of a number of things,” he murmured.

My heart swelled in my chest. I saw her. I saw... myself.

“Do you see your face in her stars?” Raduak asked.

My eyes lingered on the constellation a moment longer before it faded back into an endless blanket of stars.

I was overwhelmed, unable to speak. Raduak motioned, and the lights disappeared, leaving us in the relative dark of the chamber.

He laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “What you saw there... is for you alone to interpret. My only advice is that you trust your heart.”

I thanked Raduak and left, my mind abuzz. My breath plumed in the air as I emerged from the dwelling and onto the snowy slope. As I hurried home, I could not bring myself to behold the sea of stars above, fearful that I would not see her face again.

The trials were set to begin in less than two weeks’ time—the farewell ceremony, a week.

As I paced anxiously at home, the constellation from the night before came back to me, clear and bright, though I had never seen it before that evening. Something about it shone like a beacon in my mind. It felt at once like something I was, that I had to do, and something that was yet unattainable.

I tried to shut it out. Whatever this was couldn’t be for me.

The climb was made by those who had something to prove, but in the eyes of my people, I was already well on my way to being proven. I was to serve as a warrior until such time as I was no longer fit. Then I would retire, or start a family. That was... right. Wasn’t it?

It was supposed to be right—and yet the call persisted, clarion. Now that I had heard it, it would not be silent.

I had plans to share a meal with my cousin Anua. She would guide me, I had no doubt.

I gathered my warm cloak and gloves, donning them as I paused before the silvered mirror at the threshold, and I gazed at my reflection.

I saw my own face, but there was something in the way my hair fell, something in my posture, that reminded me of the woman I had seen in the stars. Moreover, there was something in me now that hadn’t been there before.

Conviction.

“I think it is foolish,” Anua told me plainly. She tucked the tips of her fingers into her clay cup, and when they had nearly reached the water line, she withdrew them to avoid being scalded. I reached across the low table between us and took my tea from her without it being offered.

“Foolish,” I echoed faintly. A straightforward proclamation, but I expected no less from Anua. Others might expect more mysticism from a seer, but I knew very well that she wasn’t one who minced words.

She made a low noise of agreement.

“Why?”

“This is a sudden decision, Tyari.” She raised the cup to her lips, blowing steam off the surface before taking a tentative sip. “Our people prepare their entire lives for the climb. And you will do it—what, on a whim?”

“It’s not a whim, Anua. I saw something in the stars. A face. My face.” I hesitated, struggling to articulate just what I had seen, what I felt. “It’s a... a calling.”

“It is not a calling.” She snorted, shaking her head, causing the tiny polished stones she wore on her ears and braided into her thick red hair to tinkle. I bristled. My dear cousin. So blunt.

“What would you say it is, then?”

Anua sniffed. “Delusion. You have spent too much time daydreaming instead of training,” she said stiffly, taking another sip of her tea.

“I’ve already proven my ability as an acolyte. This is my chance to pursue something I want for the first time, instead of just doing what’s expected of me.”

“I seem to recall a young Rakkor very determined to join the infantry,” she said archly. “You would excel at it. Why ask for more than what is given to you?”

“I know how it must seem.” I hadn’t expected that she would challenge me so readily, and under the weight of her judgment, I struggled to sound as convinced as I felt. “But... I’ve changed. That’s what I mean when I say I’ve felt a calling.”

Anua lacked the ability to see, but she pierced me with a disapproving glare nonetheless. “It is unlike you to be so impulsive, and it is foolish to assume your time spent as an acolyte is enough to see you through such a journey.”

“Taric did it without ever training for it,” I countered, though seeing her stiffen at his name made me feel ashamed, as though I had used it like a curse.

She brought her hand to the gems at her neck defensively. Gems, I knew, that she and her order believed had been gifted to them by the Protector himself. “Tyari,” she said flatly, her voice low, a warning.

I frowned. “Taric was a soldier, wasn’t he? That has been my path as well.”

“Then you know you are not acting as a soldier should. Where is your honor, that you would turn your back on your duty?”

I suppressed a squirm. I said much the same to Shorin.

“Taric and I share so many similarities,” I said. “If he could do it—”

“Taric climbed the mountain to atone. You are on the path to a place of honor. Why would you throw that away?” Anua snapped, frustrated, gesturing in a way that came perilously close to upending the teapot. I moved it aside as she withdrew. “He was no ordinary man, Tyari. It is not for us to make these comparisons, let alone hope to accomplish what he did through—well, extraordinary means.” She set her cup down emphatically on the polished wood of her table.

Her father had made that table, I knew. Another family heirloom. Another unspoken expectation. My face felt hot. A long moment of silence passed between us.

“I am sorry, cousin,” she said hesitantly. “Your family loves you. I love you. I cannot bear to think of what I might do if you should come to harm, or worse...” She shuddered.

“Anua.” I reached out and took her hand. “There is a chance of that, yes, but...” I sighed. “The faith that you put in your order’s protector... lend it to me. Lend me your strength and his. He would encourage me, wouldn’t he? I don’t want to make this climb without your blessing. It is your faith that will see me through.”

Anua was silent for a moment. Her fingers grazed the gemstones resting on her collarbone, and she turned away from me.

“We were raised together. We are all but siblings. It is because I love you that I will not give you my blessing.” She pressed her lips together. “Not when I know that you might meet your end before your life truly begins.”

I bowed my head. It felt as though my heart was breaking. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, sluggish and heavy. Chest tight, I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Anua...”

“I will say no more about it.”

I clenched my teeth hard, trying to prevent my forming tears from spilling over. How can she claim to love me if she won’t even try to understand? It felt like my journey was being brought to an end before I even began it.

“Very well,” I told her, slowly standing and placing my cup on the table. “Then I’ll do it without your blessing.”

She didn’t respond, and her gaze dropped to the floor as I stood a moment more, hoping for an apology or well-wishing before I went on my way... but she remained silent.

“Goodbye, cousin,” I said, the words hitching in my throat as I gathered my cloak and gloves. I hastily turned and left, closing the door gently behind me.

I took a deep breath as I stepped out into the snow. The cold felt good against my face, cooling my hot skin. I lowered my head and let out a sob.

With the trials so close, nearly all of the other acolytes were eager to practice, and I ran through drills and exercises with them until I was weary in both body and mind. So much the better to quell my racing thoughts.

I was angry. I despaired. Was Anua right? She wanted to protect me, after all. Yet my thoughts kept coming back to the climb. I wanted to know what the journey held. But how could I hurt my family?

Over and over, the thoughts raced through my mind. I fought them off, channeling them into my drills. As they emerged, I cut them down, raised my shield against them, and threw myself into the practice.

I parted ways with the last of the acolytes for the day, and though they kindly and enthusiastically complimented my form, the praise felt hollow. I was simply attending to my grim duty.

It wasn’t until I heard their shuffling pace that I noticed Shorin was approaching, their slow, uneven stride supported by a cane. How long had they been watching me? I bristled, feeling vulnerable, resentful, and guilty.

“Is my form so poor?” I snapped, but Shorin simply smiled, brushing my anger off easily.

“Your form is perfect, as you know.”

Their cadence was so calm, their earnest good nature so obvious. My guilt doubled, now compounded by my misplaced impatience.

“Anua told me that you visited her.”

I turned my attention downward, partially to hide my embarrassed flush, kicking a stone out from underfoot. “And?”

Shorin’s voice was kind. “Is this really what you want, Tyari?”

I kept my gaze down, and my shoulders sagged. Suddenly the weight of my spear was too much, and I let the tip fall to the dirt. What could I say? The weight of this decision was as heavy as my weapon. It was so difficult to know. “Shorin...”

I struggled to find the right words. I was prepared to tell Shorin I wanted to do my duty as an acolyte, but I couldn’t bring myself to lie. Not again.

“We guide our lives by constants, like the Sun and the stars. Evidence of their influence is all around; we can see them.” I turned, lowering my shield. “How can I make this decision if all I have to trust is my own intuition?”

Shorin came to stand beside me, and placed their hand on my shoulder. “My friend,” they began, “if you were to live only by what is prescribed for you, and only in a way that others understand, would you be satisfied?”

I stood blinking in the sun. “No, but—”

“And would you be satisfied to simply take a partner, live out the rest of your days in the foothill villages, or the farms of the valleys?”

“No.”

“I admit, I cannot see you as a farmer,” they joked. Sobering, Shorin nudged me, and I looked up to meet their eyes. “I see the pain it causes you, Tyari.”

A cold thrill went down my spine, despite the heat of the day. They truly did know me. I said nothing.

“The pain of not knowing, but moreover, the pain of not pursuing that which calls to you.” They clasped my shoulder and gave me a gentle shake. “Uncertainty is not indecision, my friend. You aspired to be a soldier to protect those you love, but you must love yourself, too... and that you can only do if you honor your heart.”

After Shorin left, I stood in the dusty valley until long after the sun had set. The moon was barely a sliver this evening, and the night sky was illuminated by the stars.

I closed my eyes, thinking back to the constellation Raduak had shown me. Then I looked up. There, in my periphery, I saw the face again. Her face. My face.

She smiled, and there was a promise in it—the certainty I had been lacking.

I thought back to what Shorin had said, and Raduak, and even Anua. I didn’t need to know where my path was taking me—it was good enough to know that it was a path I needed to take. I silently dubbed the woman in the constellation “the Traveler,” and I knew in my heart that I must follow her, wherever she would lead.

I gathered my weapons and stripped off the armor of the Solari, for what I knew would be the last time.

At the foot of the ancient stone stairs leading up to the massive threshold, I stood among a small group of climbers. A Solari priest was beside us, staff in hand, giving benedictions before we took our oaths.

The ceremony was as grim and somber as anything still considered a celebration could be. We faced the crowd of onlookers and well-wishers, and beneath the midday sun, we swore to relinquish all that we were leaving behind: our homes, our earthly goods, and our former oaths, in favor of the freedom to make our climb. As no one would be able to claim our bodies or bury us should we fail, the priest sprinkled soil over our heads, a final farewell.

All that was left was to step beyond the threshold, which would signify our departure. Now, however, was the last time we could speak to our friends and family. My hands trembled, clutching the staff my uncle had gifted to me when I first exhibited my powers as a child. He had said I would grow into it. How right he was.

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Anua that I was making the climb, so I had told her father, my uncle, who received the news with grim stoicism. While I could not expect her attendance, I looked for her regardless, hoping against hope.

I saw only Shorin. My heart swelled, but my joy was tempered by sadness. Anua had not come.

I steeled myself against sorrow, and embraced my determination to make the journey ahead of me.

I gazed at another Rakkor who was leaving, and it was not someone I recognized—a youth from a distant village, perhaps. He was clad in the garb of a mountain shrine tender, and I gathered that his trek was one with religious intent. It might have been that he was seeking power, glory, or good fortune, but I would not ask, and I hesitated even to guess. My reasons for climbing were my own, after all. Far be it from me to remark on those of others.

I wish I had paid more attention to what the ceremony’s priests were saying, but my mind had been buzzing. I had been going over my route, one that was as well-planned as it could be without knowing what the upper reaches of the mountain had in store. There had been those who ventured up and came back to tell the tale, but never beyond a certain point, and even then, it was said that the mountainscape became labyrinthine, unchartable for the ways that it shifted and moved.

A test of one’s will, as Raduak had said.

I spoke with Shorin once more, and their best wishes were given with the same cheerful demeanor as always. It felt strange, as though I was taking their place, but they would hear none of it. They seemed genuinely happy for me, and waved off my apologies and professions of gratitude sternly, but not unkindly.

“Your training will see you through the worst of it,” Shorin said with a confidence I did not feel, glancing over the map I had spent the last several nights drafting and annotating. “You’ve taken and passed an endless number of tests already.” They pointed at my chest. “The most important one was trusting yourself.”

We embraced and both shed tears, knowing it was unlikely we would meet again. But if anyone knew that I had to do this, it was Shorin. I watched them retreat slowly, aided by their cane, greeted by friends and family that I feared I would never see again... but strangely, my heart felt lighter.

The crowd was thinning as one by one, the climbers began to depart. Each went alone, taking a different path. I would soon know that same independence. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for my turn to step through the threshold, when I saw Anua approach, guided by her father.

I had thought I’d shed enough tears to last me until I reached Mount Targon’s peak, but I wept to see her. She must have heard my choked-up cry of relief, for a small smile played about her lips as she recognized my voice.

“Tyari,” she said gently. I took her hand, placing her palm flat against my heart and wrapping my own around it.

“Cousin,” I managed, swallowing hard and wiping away tears. “You came.”

She nodded hesitantly. “I thought on what you said. I still do not understand this, Tyari... but I can accept it. Because it matters to you, and I will love you always. If even a small blessing might make the difference on your journey, I would be unwise not to grant it.”

She produced a necklace almost identical to the one she wore, light blue crystals that chimed gently.

“We ask the Protector to shield our beloved cousin,” she murmured, lifting the necklace to the sky. “Taric, act as our shield against that which might harm us. Help us to see the path, so that we may find our way. Lend us your strength, so that we might find it in ourselves to endure.” She lowered the necklace and clasped it around my neck. “Especially our cousin... but also for those of us that are left behind.”

I closed a fist over the necklace. The crystals were cool and slightly rough. “Thank you. Thank you, Anua. This means so much to me. I promise to wear this always.” It felt naive to ask, but I did so anyway. “Will this... protect me?”

Anua smiled sadly. “I certainly hope so, cousin.”

I bid her and her father farewell, and soon enough, they, too, had slipped away into the crowd.

Of the others still making their last preparations, I saw a young woman by herself. I didn’t recognize her garb. It was clearly made for the cold, but the colors weren’t earthy, like mountain folk would wear, and she wasn’t heavily armored, like some who had passed through from more militant lands. She looked up occasionally, as if to scour the landscape for a familiar face, but then she returned to checking her packs, her items, her clothing, readying herself for the climb.

I felt a pang of sorrow for her. There were no gifts laid at her feet. She was utterly alone. Though her expression was determined, it could not hide the sadness beneath. Still... she was here.

I reflected on how lucky I was to have friends and family lend me their strength at such a meaningful moment. I could surely do the same for others.

After all, it was what the Protector would do.

I approached her, letting my nervous energy manifest as enthusiasm. “Hello,” I said, smiling, and she scanned my face as if expecting the friendly greeting to be false. “I saw you at the farewell ceremony. It’s a surprise to see someone on the mountain that isn’t a Rakkor.”

“True, I am not Rakkor,” she answered, still trying to read my expression. After another moment of my unwavering good cheer, she smirked and looked me up and down. “What is your name?”

“Tyari,” I said, and proffered a gloved hand to her.

She shook it. Her grip was firm. The grip of a warrior. “Haley,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Tyari. So, you’re making the climb?”

“Yes.” I nodded, then added, “With you, I hope.”

Haley lifted her eyebrows, no longer suspicious, but genuinely taken aback. “You want to go with me?”

“I figure if we’re going to make it to the top, we’ll have a better chance if we work together.”

She was speechless. I waited, leaning on my staff.

After a moment, she nodded. “There was someone else at the ceremony. Another outsider, like me. A Demacian, I think—Emir? He seems to be a bit of a mountain man. Perhaps that would lend itself to our journey. Three people... it’s not quite so much of a longshot, then. What do you say?”

I felt my excitement build. “I’d like that.”

“Good. I’ll find him.” She started off, then paused, glancing back at me. Her smirk became a genuine smile. “I’m glad we’ll be traveling together. You look so certain... as if you already know your path.”

I smiled in return, although a bit bashfully, and she chuckled.

“Emir and I, we will meet you by the farewell stones.”

“I’ll be there.”

I watched as she retreated into the dispersing crowd of well-wishers, who would soon be lost over the horizon like so many other trappings of the life I’d come from—disappearing and dropping away into the distance as we made our way up Mount Targon’s perilous slopes. Doubt and fear would be left behind, as well.

A sense of certainty enveloped me.

My journey began here, and it would end at the top. I knew that whatever I found on the way would be worth the climb.
The Faceless God

Graham McNeill

I watch the worm wriggling its way up from the sand.

Its fronded head sways this way and that as it tastes the air, sensing the ewer of water I keep by my bedside amid the pile of scrolls, bone styluses, and ink pots. The water is two days old, gritty with dust from a well that is dry more often than not—but the worm won’t care.

I admire its courage, emerging from its home beneath the sand before a creature hundreds, if not thousands, of times its size. It must surely know I could crush it beneath my sandaled foot, but it has no fear of me. A hair-fine tongue emerges as the worm eases itself through the hole in the threadbare rug covering the floor of my humble abode.

The rug was a last gift from my mother before I left Kenethet as an apprentice stonemason in the employ of Arch-Mason Nouria. Even as a young man, my skill with a chisel, rasp, and file was well known, and had earned me first place in the annual Feast of the Ascended, where I carved a likeness of Setaka.

It had also drawn the attention of the Arch-Mason, whose great carvings adorned the carved frontage of Magyett Sadja’s silk palace in Nashramae, and the Sun Temple of Bel’zhun. Some said she had even sculpted the likenesses of great men and women across the ocean in a city where the streets were paved in gold and great machines of magic did the work of ten strong men. I do not know if I truly believe these latter tales, for Nouria never speaks of any work she has done beyond the sands of Shurima.

I remember the moment she lifted my statue vividly, though it is close to twenty years ago now...

“How did you choose the look of the queen of the god-warriors?” she asked, her voice not yet worn thin by the years and her lungs not yet ravaged by the dust of her great work. “No true likenesses have ever been found of Setaka.”

I had been prepared for that question and replied with my carefully rehearsed answer.

“I dreamed of her,” I said, with the earnestness of youth. “I dreamed I saw her lead the Last Charge, and she turned to me just before I awoke, her head haloed by the setting sun.”

“A fine answer, young man,” she said, “but I happen to recognize this face. If I’m not mistaken, this is a sand-maiden working in the employ of Benida-Marah.”

I blushed, caught in my lie.

But Arch-Mason Nouria only laughed and said, “Don’t be abashed, boy. You’re not the first artist to use their lover as a model.”

She turned my sculpture this way and that, running her fingertips over the stone and nodding, judging my work and, apparently, finding it worthy.

“How would you like to be my apprentice?” she asked.

I left Kenethet the next day, following the Arch-Mason across the northern reaches of the Sai Kahleek, to Xolan.

To where the faceless god awaited.

I pour a small amount of water onto the ground near the worm before strapping my tool belt around my waist. It hangs loose over my hips, and I fear I may need to use my awl to punch another hole in the leather. Our food is not plentiful, and if the trade caravans do not pass our way, we sometimes go weeks with our meager supplies strictly rationed.

I leave the worm wriggling happily in his little pool, pleased to have been able to help him survive. Every living thing deserves its chance to exist. I am reminded of the mendicant preacher who passed through our town last year, and told me that even the smallest creatures are part of the Great Weaver’s plan.

I wonder what became of her, for she seemed in a great hurry.

Putting her and the worm from my mind, I head outside, feeling the heat of the day even though the sun is still to fully rise. The sky is a velvety blue, a few stars still glittering in pleasing patterns above.

A gust of cold air disturbs the stone dust that swoops in playful spirals along the street. The wind carries the smell of something foul, like spoiled meat or rancid milk, and I wonder if some wild animal is lying dead somewhere nearby.

The ground hereabouts is rocky and mostly inhospitable, but there are signs it was once abundantly fertile and used to raise crops and graze animals. The Shuriman desert is far from the lifeless wasteland many outsiders believe it to be; it has a vibrant ecosystem of flora and fauna, some dangerous, some entirely harmless. Thankfully, we are untroubled by dangerous predators or bandits in Xolan, in part thanks to our remoteness, but also because the elder stonemasons tell us Xolaani herself watches over us, protecting us so that we might restore her to glory.

Work starts early, and scores of yawning masons are already making their way to the great cliff to carry out their assigned tasks. We share morning greetings before scattering to our assigned duties around or upon the great statue.

And though I have seen it every day for the last two decades, it still has the power to take my breath away.

The rock rises vertically in a solid escarpment, a towering wall of ochre stone, layered in wind-worn knife-like outcroppings. Some of those we have cut from the cliff to create our canvas, others we have left as great windbreaks to better preserve our work.

And what work it is! The statue of Ascended Xolaani is, quite literally, a towering achievement.

Around three hundred yards from her carven feet to her shorn neck, the statue carved into the cliff had been all but worn away by centuries of neglect when I first laid eyes upon it. A passing traveler might even have missed it, were their eyes fixed too warily on the horizon.

The wind softened the detail of the sculpted robes wrapped around her legs, and a long-ago rockfall smashed portions of the kaftan billowing around her outflung arms like wings.

But most grievously of all, some ancient wound slashed clean through her carven stone face, leaving no hint as to the god-warrior’s true likeness. This legend from Shurima’s past has remained faceless for uncounted centuries, but we—the stonemasons of Xolan—are poised to finally restore her to glory once more.

If only we could agree on her true face.

“Water and shade to you, Arch-Mason,” I say, climbing onto the lift platform at the base of the cliff.

“Water and shade to you, Mennas,” Arch-Mason Nouria replies, without looking up. “You’re late.”

She says this to me every morning now, a habit she has fallen into lately, though I have never given her a reason to accuse me of tardiness.

“I was slaking the thirst of a worm,” I say.

“A worm?”

“Yes, it comes by every morning, looking for water.”

“And you give it some?”

“I do.”

She shakes her head, but I can see the idea of me keeping a worm as a pet amuses her.

I crane my neck, looking up the length of the statue. This close to the cliff, it is impossible to make out the details, but as we rise we will be able to see the stonework.

A network of scaffolding clings to the face of the cliff like the web of a spider, the wood brought at great expense from the jungles of the east, and the greener lands south of the mountains. Tempered ironwood beams and steps hammered into the rock allow masons to climb to where they need to work. A series of pulleys and ropes serve as an elevator to reach the highest portions of the statue.

It is there that Arch-Mason Nouria and I will be working today.

“Ready?” she asks.

“I am.”

I untie the loops of ropes securing the lift mechanism, and allow the counterweight rope to pull free of its moorings on the lift platform. The whole contraption judders, and I count the knots as we ascend, each one marking a twelve-foot interval.

I sit at the edge of the platform, relishing the increasing sense of height as we rise.

The town of Xolan is not large, a collection of perhaps two hundred souls clustered around a murky lake and patches of greenery that provide a little shade and some fruit from time to time. To live so far from the cities is hard, but what we do here is more important than any human comforts we might miss. Our dwellings are all finely made, as you would expect from a community of stonemasons, each uniquely crafted by the artisans within and reflective of their character and style. My own house is humble, its understated aesthetic reminiscent of my mother’s home in Kenethet.

A work-yard lies at the sunward edge of our town, filled with rock cut from the cliff, fallen boulders, and larger pieces of new, decorative stonework that have yet to be lifted into place.

Were we all to vanish tomorrow, its many statues, carvings, and master-worked blocks would stand as a testament to our life’s work.

A wide channel cuts through the heart of our town, running from the rubble-choked base of the cliff in a zig-zagging manner before disappearing beneath the sands of the Sai Kahleek. Shards of stone and sand fill its length, but I have seen pictures that show this channel was once awash with running water.

If the stories of the Hawk Emperor restoring the ancient city of Shurima to life are true, then little of his liquid bounty has come our way. But when we have restored the faceless god, the channel will once again flow with healing waters, and we will be lauded for our part in the land’s restoration.

“Tell me of Xolaani,” says Nouria, her eyes somewhere far away.

I have been waiting for this, and turn to smile at her.

This is another habit she has fallen into—having me recite the history of the god-warrior as we ascend. I do not mind indulging her, for it is good to remember why we do this, why we have all devoted our lives to restoring the face of the Ascended, even if much of what we know is fragmentary.
“Xolaani was said to be the daughter of a healer,” I begin, closing my eyes and tilting my head to the east, “a child born under the Aspect of the Protector at an auspicious passage of the sun. She lived in a time of great change for Shurima, when the war against the vile thaumaturges had just begun, and the armies of the emperor had suffered a great defeat before the walls of Icathia.

“Great was the suffering, and Xolaani worked tirelessly to save as many lives as she could, speaking out against the folly of emperors that still drove the tribes of the sun to make war with one another.”

Nouria nods, her eyes drifting over the horizon, as if seeing something I can not.

Is it my imagination, or do I detect a milkiness to the once sapphire-blue of her eyes...?

Sensing my scrutiny, she turns away. “Go on.”

“It is said that she saved hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives, but mourned that they were saved only to be sent back into the fighting. Some say she even spoke out against the emperor, calling him a warmonger and a despot.”

“Your tone tells me you find that unlikely,” says Nouria.

“If she spoke out against the emperor, why would he later agree to her being gifted with Ascension?”

“It was not the emperor who decreed who would rise to meet the sun, but the priests who read the augurs and charted the course of the future in the beams of its golden light. Rare would it be for any emperor to defy the will of the sun.”

“But not unheard of?”

She coughs, her lungs still weak from the fever that struck her last winter.

“No, not unheard of,” she says finally. “All too easy for one to manipulate the other. But keep going. Tell me what became of Xolaani when Shurima fell. Tell me about the conflict that followed.”

I’ve never needed to tell this part of the story. We always reach our destination before the details of Xolaani’s history grow more obscure. But now, with us bound for the missing face of the god-warrior, I have no choice but to continue.

The Arch-Mason catches my hesitation. “You have studied this, yes?”

“I have,” I assure her, “but many of our scrolls are incomplete, or wilfully opaque, filled with stories that are clearly exaggerated, or possibly entirely fabricated.”

“Tell me anyway.”

I nod and try to piece what fragments I have been able to gather into a coherent narrative, but I already know I will disappoint her.

“It is said there was a war. That without the Hawk Emperor, Azir, to guide them, a great conflict erupted between the Ascended Host—one the scrolls say almost tore the world apart.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I do not know,” I say, honestly. “History is full of conflicts that speak of world-ending threats, and while I am sure they would have been terrible to live through, the idea of them all being so cataclysmic feels... unlikely.”

“You may be right, but the long passage of the years has a tendency to dim the fires of such wars in the memory. What part did Xolaani play in this conflict?”

“Nothing certain,” I reply. “I have found little mention of her taking part in the wars between the god-warriors and those who would become known and feared as Darkin. There are veiled references to a being known as Ta’anari begging her to intervene and save the lives of the fallen. In some tellings she refuses, but others say she chose to bestow her healing gifts on those she deemed worthy, that she knew the innermost secrets of blood so deeply she could even return the dead to life. A final tale speaks of how she angered the most vicious of the Darkin, who struck her a fateful blow that laid her low for many centuries.”

Nouria knows much more of Xolaani than I, but likes to hear me tell the stories, as though being reminded helps carve them deeper into her memory.

In truth, I wonder if her mind has reached the point where these retellings are new to her each day... if she has begun the slow descent into her dotage.

I am spared further questions when the lift arrives at our destination.

Locking the ropes in place and hauling the restraining bar into position, we carefully step out onto the rocky ledge that runs around the colossal shoulders of the faceless god-warrior.

When the work is finally complete, the ledge will be hacked away and smoothed off, but for now it serves as our vantage point. I look down, unfazed by the dizzying drop.

I imagine what Xolan would look like were the waters to flow again.

A faded illustration in one of the elder stonemasons’ books shows water tumbling from the top of the cliff and falling in graceful arcs to either side of the great statue. In that picture, the small lake at the heart of our community is wide and full, its waters a wondrous shade of cerulean blue that narrows until it becomes a river flowing out into Shurima.

It is my hope that if we can divine the true face of Xolaani, that river will live again.

I hope to see the water soon.

Whatever fears I might harbor regarding Arch-Mason Nouria’s mind, she has lost none of her skill with the tools of her trade. Her hands may be tanned and leather-tough from years of practicing her craft, but they are graceful like no others when it comes to working the stone.

We are applying the last touches to the collar, layering in deeper folds that will cast a shadow that can be seen from the ground. It is an illusion, an old stonemason’s trick she taught me the first day I worked the rock of the cliff.

Today’s labors are more suited to that of a journeyman than a skilled mason like Nouria—but I sense that she needs to be working with her hands today, to be close to the stone.

All that remains to be carved is the statue’s face, but what features she should possess is a question upon which none of the stonemasons of Xolan can agree. The illustration depicting the waterfall is the only guide we have, and the face behind it is indistinct, hidden by the spray of water. Every mason within the village has sought to bring forth the truth of her visage in dreams, in drink, in prayer, but no consensus has yet been reached.

By mid-afternoon, there is little left for us to do, so we sit on the lip of the ledge, looking out over the undulant horizon. The sky is now a lush azure, the sun a copper disc descending in the west. The dunes ripple in the heat, as if disturbed from below.

In the deepest desert, sandswimmers leave hissing grooves in their wake—but here the bedrock is too close to the surface for them, so we rarely see the sand spouts that mark their passing.

“How do you think the meeting will go tonight?” asks the Arch-Mason, breaking my train of thought.

“Much like the others, I suspect.”

“I hear that Elder Bourai believes he is close to a likeness we may all agree upon.”

“You said that about Mason Ulantor’s proposal last month.”

“I did?”

“Yes, and Master Regouma’s the time before that.”

“Ah, yes, I did, didn’t I?” she says sadly. “All the more reason for this night’s meeting to be different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I will present this to the elders tonight,” says Nouria, pulling a folded scroll from her robes and holding it out to me.

“What is that?” I ask, almost reluctant to take it.

“Look,” she urges. “Then you’ll see.”

Taking the scroll, I hesitantly unfold it. My eyes widen as I see the charcoal sketch she has drawn. Had she not been called to the stone, Nouria could almost certainly have become one of Shurima’s greatest artists.

She has drawn a face, one that is beyond compare, a chimeric blend of the inhuman and the sublime. There is deep wisdom in the dark pools of its hooded eyes, infinite compassion, but also the capacity for lethal violence inherent in each of the god-warriors.

“It’s... incredible. How did you do this?”

“It came to me in a dream,” she says, with an impish grin that takes decades from her wind-worn face. “Just as you did with your sculpture of Setaka, remember?”

“But I was lying. Is this really the Ascended Xolaani?”

Nouria shrugs. “It might as well be.”

“What does that mean?”

She sighs, and I see the toll the years have taken on this brilliant woman. The stiffness in her fingers, the weariness deep in her bones, and—yes, now that I look harder—the growing mist in her eyes. She twists her head to look up at the scarred rock where the face of the Ascended should be.

“This will be my last sculpture,” says Nouria. “There is a sickness in my heart. My mother had it, as did hers before her. I am older now than when they died, so I will count myself fortunate if I live to see the year’s end. I do not wish to pass before seeing my greatest work completed.”

“But is it real?” I ask. “If the elders accept this and we carve it, will it be real?”

She takes back the picture, her face betraying her disappointment in me, and looks down at the gray-brown lake.

“I just want to see the blue waters flow,” she says. “One last time.”

I lay on my bed, but sleep eludes me. I watch the moonlight move across my mother’s rug as the lonely hours of the night pass without the elders coming to a decision. The voices echoing from the Mason’s Hall are as strident as when they first began, but I suspect I already know what the outcome will be.

Respect for Arch-Mason Nouria holds powerful sway in our community, and her drawing is more magnificent than any yet presented to the elders.

I believe they will accept it as a true likeness, because it is miraculous.

They will accept it because they are tired of not knowing.

We all want the work to be completed in our lifetimes, to know that the face of the god who has watched over us for all these years will finally be finished.

We all want to see the waters flow once more.

For decades, we have bickered and debated, but every interpretation we have attempted to place upon Xolaani is hamstrung by our so-very-mortal sensibilities.
How can we, beings so far removed from the time of the Ascended, ever hope to know them, or imagine their likenesses? They are beings wrought by the power of the sun, raised up to godhood by powers both ancient and divine.

To imagine that any of us could set down their form is arrogant beyond words, and I feel a simmering resentment knot my gut at Nouria’s presumption. I am gripping the edge of my bed, a turbulent storm of emotions churning in my gut.

My mouth is dry with fear and unease.

For a moment, I dearly want the Arch-Mason’s drawing to be real, but how can I be sure?

I scoop up a handful of water from the ewer and splash it over my face. It tastes old and the flecks of stone dust wear at my teeth. I run my tongue over my gums and spit a gritty mouthful back onto the dusty floor.

To have spent so long working the stone only to falter at the last for the sake of convenience seems inherently wrong to me. I understand Nouria’s desire to see the work completed before she dies, but to present her vision as truth...?

What if we finish the great work on a lie? I do not like where this thought will lead, and so I stand, pulling on a woolen cloak to keep the night’s chill at bay.

Something crunches beneath my foot.

The frond-mouthed sandworm is dead beneath my sandal.

Its flattened, segmented body is faintly luminous in the moonlight, and my eyes fill with tears. It is only a tiny worm, but I feel an aching sadness at its needless death.

I chide myself for mourning the passing of a worm, when a whisper of warm breath sighs through my window, bearing a sound I have not heard since leaving Kenethet.

I cannot be certain, but it sounds like the pygmy owls that used to nest in the night-woods at the edge of the Sai Kahleek, luring insects with their clicking chirps. I climb the ladder to the roof of my home and open the bolted shutter, feeling the cool night air chill my skin, even through my cloak.

Standing on the flat roof, knowing I will surely not see a pygmy owl, I search the night sky all the same.

There is no owl of course, but lowering my gaze, I see something far stranger.

The lake at the center of our community is gone.

Its levels rise and fall with the seasons, yes, but there is always water.

Now it is gone, simply an empty, rocky basin, its exposed banks and lakebed patterned with a curious spiral, as though the water had carved the mud before vanishing.

The warm wind emanates from where the lake once lay, and I look up at the faceless god carved in the cliff.

“Xolaani, show me the way,” I whisper as I drop from the roof to the sand and make my way toward the vanished lake.

It chills me to see the lakebed emptied, not because we relied upon it for our water, but because to see it vanished on the very night we may finally know the face of Xolaani feels portentous.

Kneeling at the edge, I run my fingers over the mud on its sloping banks. I expect it to be moist and pliant, but it is hard and glassy—like glazed clay after being fired in a kiln.

“What could have done this?” I whisper. The entirety of the lakebed has been vitrified to the same enameled consistency.

Once again, I hear the strange sound that drew me from my house, like chattering birds in the high branches of palm trees. It seems to be coming from the center of the lakebed, and I carefully make my way down the ridged slopes.

The bottom is flat, filled with broken shards of stone, fragments carelessly discarded by the craftsmen above. I see a stone-cut hand with two of its fingers missing, a foot with the heel broken off.

I see faces too. Some are half-sunk into the strangeness of the glassy lakebed, some split open down their length, others looking like they are pressing up from beneath the surface. Their faces are grotesque horrors, their mouths stretched in contorted grimaces. I cannot imagine any of the stonemasons of Xolan having carved such monstrous things, but understand why they would wish to be rid of them.

I give these ghastly things a wide berth.

Moonlight skitters over the rippled glass beneath my feet, sending fractured reflections all around me. Is it my imagination, or is the surface of the lakebed glowing with a soft, inner radiance? The full moon makes it hard to be sure, but then a cloud passes over its face and I am suddenly certain; there is a faint light pulsing from the ground.

It takes a moment for me to realize it is precisely in sync with the beating of my heart.

My steps carry me towards the center of the lakebed, which I now see is the source of the light and the whispering, chattering birds. The ground at the center of the spiral is cracked, split open, and ever so slightly sunken. Hairline cracks radiate outward, and when the wind changes, my stomach heaves as I catch the same rancid smell from earlier this morning.

It is the stench of an opened grave, of meat and fruit left to rot in the sun.

I take a single step back, then another.

Before I can take a third, my eyes narrow as I see a long flat shard of stone, like a mask made for a giant.

The moon emerges from behind the clouds, and the exposed stone’s surface shines like polished porcelain. The beauty of the face carved into the stone takes my breath away, blended as it is with an inhuman, but alluringly wise mien of something atavistic.

Its eyes seem to glimmer with a wisdom far beyond anything I could conceive, and I try to memorize its every contour, knowing that Xolaani herself has guided me to this revelation. I neither know nor care how this thing came to be submerged beneath our lake, that it is here and has been revealed to me on this singular night is enough for me.

I kneel beside the softly glowing stone, reaching to touch it with trembling fingertips.

Faith brought me to Xolan all those years ago, and now my faith has been rewarded.

I must bring the elders to see this miracle...

No sooner has the thought formed in my mind than the ground at the center of the lake breaks apart with a splintering crack like the clean hammer-cut of a block. Portions of the lakebed fall inwards, drawn down into the growing sinkhole.

I scramble backward as the cracks spread wider and wider.

The charnel stench billows up from below, and I feel the night grow still, the wind dropping away and the stars holding their breath.

Something emerges from the hole at the center of the lakebed, a pale, spindle-thin appendage that reminds me of the frond-mouthed worm in my home. It is swiftly followed by another and, together, they haul the pulsating, segmented body of a... a thing from below.

It is the size of a hound, its soft grub-like body tapered, wet, and glistening.

Just looking at it leaves a bilious taste in my mouth.

A multitude of black orbs ripple into existence on the surface of its head, and its skin splits apart as a circular, fang-rimmed mouth rips open. Black ichor drips from the toothed orifice. As it turns its misshapen head towards me, terror fills my veins with ice.

Another creature hauls its insect-like bulk to the surface, its form just as horrible as the first, an unnatural assembly of bladed limbs, dripping teeth, and chitinous armor. More are following, and my mind screams in terror.

But the sound they make is enough to melt the ice in my veins.

Pushing myself upright, I turn and run, no thought but escape burning in my mind. I hear them behind me, a skittering cacophony of sharp claws on the glassy lakebed. Their hissing, rasping cries echo strangely from the rock.

It is a sound not of this world.

Breathless with terror, I climb the slopes of the empty lake, scrabbling for purchase and finding none. The ground is glass, not mud, and my fingers are slick with fear-sweat. I kick off my sandals, and the bare skin of my feet gives enough grip to haul myself over the lip of the banks.

I scramble onto my knees, risking a swift glance over my shoulder.

The lakebed is filled with the hideous, chittering beasts, hundreds of them now. They swarm together—blind, idiot things, hooting and braying, hissing and spitting as they boil up from the ground. Dozens more emerge from the widening sinkhole with every passing second.

I weep as I see the porcelain face obscured by their monstrous forms, the stone flowing like wax, as though their very presence is anathema to its beauty.

With tears in my eyes and sobs wracking my chest, I turn and run for the Mason’s Hall, screaming a warning at the top of my lungs.

“Monsters! Flee!”

I cannot tell if I have been heard, but my foolish urge to look back has cost me dear.

Something sharp and hooked slashes over the back of my thigh, and I fall, going down in a graceless tangle of limbs. I roll, feeling a terrible burning heat spread from the wound as blood pours down my leg. I try to stand, but the leg is useless beneath me.

I hear voices—panicked, terrified cries as the stonemasons of Xolan see the hundreds of terrible things swarming toward them.

Someone rings a warning bell, but it will do no good.

I roll onto my back as one of the creatures rears over me. Its chest splits open down its length, revealing a fleshy red cavity of toothed tentacles and barbed fangs. It falls on me, the gaping maw of its body fastening on my stomach and devouring me in a frenzy of ripping teeth.

It is agony beyond imagining as the thing eats me alive.

But I cannot die looking at this nightmarish creature, and so with the last of my strength, I turn my head to look up at Ascended Xolaani.

“They said you watched over us...”

I almost expect her to reply, but she has no face and so she says nothing.
The Host

Amanda Jeffrey

I’m going to die.
Every halting breath is agony. It feels like someone has torn open my chest with a rusty saw and filled the cavity with teeth. Because someone has.
He has.
I can’t look at what he’s done to me. I stare through watering eyes at a tiny vault light in the brick ceiling, desperate to see anything but what I’ve become. Beyond lies Zaun—my city—but of the thousands of bustling souls there, not one will have noticed I’m missing. No one is looking for the man I was before.
click
The recording device has clicked on, the wax cylinder turning steadily, and my breath catches again, this time against a sob. He speaks.
“Subject ‘Thinker’ is functionally impaired. Yet hearing and recognition still present.”
click
Between the tears in my eyes and the warping effect of the thick greenish glass of the observation window, the nameless man looks like a half-melted waxen nightmare. Sunken, mismatched eyes dripping across a contorted pallid face, the bandages over his mouth growing and shrinking as he restlessly paces behind the window to get a better look at my condition.
His good eye flicks from me to the source of a deep groan in the corner of my cell. I turn to look at a hulking form, rousing itself from unconsciousness. Glowing pipes and tubes snake around and through its forearms, making them more than double their already considerable size.
As I am now, withered and... changed, the brute could snap me in half without thinking.
click
“Subject ‘Breaker’ regained consciousness at six past fourth bell. Earlier than expected. Promising! Experiment begins at... seven past fourth bell.”
click
No. No, no! Not another experiment.
click
“Establishing the baseline. Subject Thinker, answer the following questions as quickly and as accurately as possible.”
“Wha—”
“First question: what is your full name?”
“I’m not doing this! Do you hear me? I demand you release me at once. I refuse to participate in whatever sick, twisted...” My words trail off.
click
He puts down the mouthpiece of his recording device, and moves to a set of valves at the edge of the window. Without even glancing at me or the thing in the corner, he spins one open, and high-pressure, ice-cold sump water slams me into the wall.
I think I’m screaming.

An eternity later, I’m trembling on atrophied hands and knees, gasping for air. I fumble at the floor, seeking purchase through the slowly draining water, when I somehow catch my wrist on something, and my elbow buckles reflexively, slamming me face first onto the ground.
I’m still for a moment, cradling my arm where the pain is hot and alien—then I feel movement between my chest and the floor. Sharp wriggling, like I’ve fallen on a Uloan scorpion and it’s about to claw through me to escape. I roll, but it follows me. It’s on me, on my bare skin, scratching and squirming, and the skittering noise repulses me. I’m kicking and clawing and yelling and desperately trying to get it off me!
“Tiresome.”
My hands are bloodied and there’s something wrong with my wrists and I can’t get the thing off me. It’s all barbs and claws and it’s like it’s burrowed into my—my chest.
The teeth in my chest.
I remember now. There isn’t an arachnid on me. He did this to me. He carved me up and turned me into something else, something with sucking fangs grafted onto each wrist, and two columns of hungry, flexing pincers from neck to waist. And he wants me to use them to bite the thing in here with me.
He’d once strapped us both down on a rusted iron gurney, needle moving quickly and without mercy as he joined us together. Then he waited. Waited for the “process” to start, for the instincts he’d given me through surgical and chemtech sins to kick in.
When it didn’t happen—when I wouldn’t do it—everything went black.
And now I am locked in this chamber with my intended “host”.
click
“Subject found initial stimulus unpleasant. Resuming baseline questions. If the Thinker subject does not state its full name—”
“Stop, I beg you. Have mercy!” I yell.
“Duration and intensity will be increased by a factor of two. Strike that—make it three.”
click
He’s looking right at me. If he’s smiling beneath those wraps, it doesn’t reach his eyes. He seizes the valve again, and I realize what’s next. There’s nothing to hide behind, nothing to grab a hold of, and as the pipes rumble, all I can do is curl up as small as I can, and take a deep breath.
The blast of water hits so hard, so cold, the air is ripped from my lungs. I smash against surfaces I can’t identify, and up and down are meaningless. There’s a shooting pain from my ankle, and when the assault eventually ceases, I twist and drop to the floor. Once the heaving stops, I lie motionless, feeling weaker than I can ever remember as the last of the water drains from the room.
I’m going to die.
Slam. I flinch when my chem-doped cellmate smashes into the observation window. It is fury incarnate—huge, empowered fists hammering at the glass, incoherent primal yells tearing from its throat.
The glass, and the monster behind it, is unmoved.
Though each movement costs me dearly, I quietly drag myself to the other side of the floor, away from the raging beast called Breaker. It’s still smashing at the glass, knuckles bloodying, despite there being no sign of weakening the barrier. Stubborn or stupid, it keeps hitting. Even when its roaring diminishes and shifts to wordless sobs, those swollen fists won’t stop.
click
“Physical strength of subject ‘Breaker’ is within expected range of pneumatochem-muscular enhancements, but he exhibits limited to no problem-solving capabilities.”
click
Emotionlessly, our torturer taps on the glass opposite the smears from Breaker’s self-inflicted wounds. Then, with a scowl, he turns to look at me.
click
“Subject ‘Thinker’, on the other hand, may have been named hastil—”
“My name’s Hadri! Hadri Spillwether. I’m a person—not this ‘Thinker’ you keep calling me.” I reach out, desperate to touch some grain of empathy in my captor’s heart, no matter what fabrications I have to concoct. “I have a son! He’s... he’s two years old, and he must miss me terribly.”
“A son?” The bandaged man raises an eyebrow. “What’s his name?”
“L-Locke. Little Locke Spillwether—cute as a button and twice as—”
“Enough. You have no family. They perished from the same hereditary disease you yourself suffer from, characterized by accelerated aging and all the miserable infirmities that come with it. For the last thirteen years you’ve been making a nuisance of yourself to anyone who’d listen at the Zaun Academy of Sciences, seeking—no, begging for—a cure.”
His words hammer into me, cold and crushing like the water.
“And yet you repay my extraordinary gift with defiance and bad data.” Now he’s angry. “Your estimates give you five years left to live. More lies, but this time to yourself. You have three wretched years at best before you become a drooling invalid. And there’s no one to take care of you as you did your sister and father.”
There’s nothing I can say. He’s right. What little hope I had for finding a cure was just that: hope. The Academy wouldn’t help me—a swarming mass of the world’s finest minds, each unreachable and distant. Everyone had their own desperate or greedy agenda, and I was just another lost cause. Pitiful. Alone.
I’m going to die.
“But you need not die.”
My gaze snaps to his. I feel... revulsion? Loathing? Outrage? Hope. How dare he say such a thing. How dare he. How—
“How?” I choke out the question. I hate that I’ve asked it.
He doesn’t reply with words. He just slowly nods his head toward the hunched form of the thing I’m locked in with—toward Breaker. The brute is cradling his bleeding hands, rocking back and forth, avoiding eye contact with either of us. Maybe he’s incapable of speech. He’s at least three times my weight, all of it muscle, and that’s before whatever those augments on his arms are doing.
I remember when we were strapped down on the gurney. Similarly trapped together. Equally helpless despite his monstrously augmented strength. The bandaged man wants me to latch on to Breaker, to use him as a... support? A living prosthesis?
My own thoughts make me gag, and I dry heave as I scramble backward, away from Breaker.
“Disappointing.” Our torturer sounds bored. “Perhaps three years is still too remote a negative outcome for you, Thinker. Let me make it more compelling—in your weakened state, you’ll likely suffer multiple fractures each time I apply this negative stimulus. Within four more applications, I’d expect you’d be classifiable as only minimally mobile, and face down in the water, you’ll very slowly drown.”
He’s leering through the glass at me. “From previous observations, I’m led to believe it will be quite excruciating.”
click
The room’s too small. I can barely breathe. My heart is throwing itself against my ribcage like Breaker pummeling the observation window.
I look to Breaker and catch his gaze on me—he immediately looks away. There was little understanding in those eyes, but I saw shared fear and something akin to sympathy. It’s the first real human connection I’ve felt in years. Far more human than our captor.
Without turning to meet his cold, calculating stare, I ask, “And what happens if I do it? If I...?”
click
“Once an ectoparasitic melding is established, I’ll run tests on the nature of the pairing, on the extent of the parasite’s behavior-altering capabilities on the host and so on, and on the resilience of the resulting merged superorganism. The experiment will be concluded, and all this...” He waves airily at the chamber, the pipes and valves, the glass observation window. “All this will be done with.”
click
I nod absentmindedly, as if this is the most normal thing in the world, but my mind suddenly reels with realization. Testing the resilience of the organism. What a clean way to say torturing to death under a scalpel.
This is no cure—not for me. It’s a death sentence.
Finger width by finger width, I manage to pull myself to my feet, hugging the cold brick wall for support. I gasp and wobble for a moment—my ankle is broken already—before turning to face my enemy through the window.
“No.”
There’s a long pause. I can hear the sounds of Zaun—water dripping from the pipes, distant pumps, and the low, comforting rumble of never-sleeping machinery. At the very edge of my senses, I fancy I can hear fifth bell chiming.
I expect nothing of my captor. Still I’m surprised when he reaches out—
click
“Subject is... uncooperative.”
click
He spins the water valve to full strength.
Pain. The water hits like a mountain and slams me against the walls, ceiling, and floor without preference. I don’t know which is which anymore. There’s only noise. There’s only darkness. There’s only agony.
Then there’s light.
A flash so bright that the world behind my eyelids turns gold. A lung-hammering boom.
And then nothing.

I regain consciousness face down on the floor, battered and crushingly cold. I look up.
Something’s changed. Water still gushes out of the vents, though at a lower pressure. Light streams in from a hole punched near the ceiling. A way out? There are more flashes of yellow, followed by distant booms.
A keening wail pierces through the ringing in my ears. With horror, I realize it’s coming from Breaker—he’s cradling his face, blood weeping between his fingers. He charges into the wall, spins, and tumbles into the water.
The water. It’s rising.
In a panic, I try to drag myself closer to the hole, but I’m not moving. The fangs on my wrists rake across the stone beneath the water, setting my teeth on edge, but even with my aching fingers clawing at the floor, I make no headway.
I twist around to see if I’m caught on something, and blanch.
A slab of fallen debris—probably the exact piece that opened that treacherous escape route—is crushing my lower back. I kick at it, and nothing happens. I push it, and nothing happens. I try everything, squirming and screaming and flailing weakly. Slowly the block tumbles from me and splashes to the side. Around me, the rising waters flush red.
I can’t feel my legs.
“Experiment ends at... two, no, three past fifth bell.”
I turn just in time to watch the bandaged man walk away from the window and out of sight. A heartbeat later, the lights go out. The sudden explosions, my paralysis, or my defiance—I wonder which variable rendered his precious experiment worthless to him, worthy only of flushing.
Curse him.
I pull myself to a sitting position against the debris, my blood now black in the dim Zaun light. It feels like the heat is being sucked out of my core, and I’m being frozen from the inside out. I have nothing left.
Sobbing. I hear sobbing from Breaker, a boulder of despair hunkered in the corner, the tubes on his arms creating their own faint green illumination.
I keep my voice low. “H-hey.”
His head snaps up. Black streaks surround his ruined eyes, underlit by what that monster behind the glass did to his arms. An expression of anguish and loss twists on his face as he frantically angles his head to listen.
“B-Breaker?” I’m shivering. It’s hard to get the words out. “Hey, I’m s-s-sorry I don’t know your real—”
Breaker rises, splashing and stumbling, his chemtech implants casting wild shadows. He charges toward me—I squeeze my eyes shut, awaiting the impact.
Suddenly I feel a hand, hot and enormous, on my head. I open my eyes, and Breaker is crouched in front of me, clumsily patting my face and shoulders, as if to make sure I’m real.
A distant flash through the gap in the ceiling, like amber lightning, illuminates him. Under the blood and swelling, he looks so innocent. So alone.
I’m going to die.
But maybe Breaker doesn’t have to.
“Breaker? B-Breaker, you ha-have to listen to... me.” He takes my hand and turns his head to point an ear my way. “There’s a way—a way out,” I tell him. “A hole in the ceiling. You w-want to get out of here, right?”
Still holding my hand, he nods so vigorously that he jerks my body back and forth. The pain is white hot against the ice cold filling me. I almost welcome it.
“Aah! All right. Good. L-listen. Listen! Now, you’re g-going to have to let go of my ha—”
His refusal is clear in his death grip on my fingers.
Water is now lapping against the column of weakly flexing barbs on my chest. They gnash, eager to latch on to a host, as if they know their intended target is near. But I’ll die before I do that to myself. Or Breaker.
With so much of my blood swirling in the water around me, I don’t have long. I have to hurry.
I bring up my other hand and gently unwrap his. “Y-you’re going to be fine, B-B-Breaker. I promise. I just need you to... to make sure it’s safe first.” Breathing’s harder now. “Y-you can do that for me? Then we can b-both get ou-out.”
Lies, but it’s enough to get him to release me.
I nudge his elbow, guiding him to stand. Stretching despite the pain, I give him a tiny shove forward, toward the blown-open gap.
I let my arms fall back into the ice-cold water, realizing that his was probably the last warmth I’ll ever feel.
“J-j-just listen to my voice. I’ll g-guide you!” The water’s at my neck now, and I’m shaking so much it’s hard to see straight. “Forward, just a few steps. Careful, th-there’s d-debris, and—” He smashes his shin into a fallen piece of wall and yelps. “All right, y-y-y-you’re all right. S-step up onto it. Good. Now r-reach out to the w-w-wall. Feel it? Good. That’s good. There are cracks between the bricks. Use them to cl-climb. Now reach up. Reach up, Breaker. That’s it—that’s the w-way out.”
I tilt my head back to get a breath of air, the water at my jaw. At least I can’t feel most of my body now.
“Climb, B-Breaker,” I gasp. Then I stretch my neck and splutter, “Goodb-b—”
The water’s over my face, and despite everything, I’m holding this last breath. My heart beats loud in my ears. It occurs to me that I like the sound of it. I’ll miss it.
My lungs start to burn. This is it. My heart roars. My numb arms thrash. My eyes flicker open and my chest heaves, hungry for air. I cough out part of that last breath and gobble a mouthful of bitter sump water.
There is only panic.
My hand hits something, and I instinctively try to push off from it. Up. Anywhere. But I’m caught. I can’t move. There’s no air and I can’t move. Suddenly my whole vision is taken up by Breaker’s face. No! Not him, too! I struggle, but there’s nothing. My body is giving up. I’m giving up. My vision narrows and darkens; grayness fills it. I see Breaker turning, and distantly hope he’ll make it.
Something’s wrong. Or right. I can’t tell. There’s warmth and movement. I feel myself being lifted up. My body convulses and my vision turns sharp for just one beat of my weakening heart. Through the water, I see the back of Breaker’s head. My chest, no, the things in my chest sense the spine pressed against them, and flex back to strike, stretching like a too-big yawn. A welcome pain.
No. Yes. No!
... I don’t want to die!
As the barbs in my chest clamp down, I plunge my fangs deep into the sides of his neck—
CRUNCH.
I/we live!
We’re still submerged, but our lungs are full of air (and empty). Our limbs are strong and powerful (and weak and broken). We can see again (like always).
I/we push off for the faint light through the water. I/we bring up our hand to shove a metal bar out of the way. Our hand is shockingly big, and farther left than we expected, and we almost overshoot. Adjust. We’ve got it now. It’s so easy to push. The bar goes flying back. We kick upward and swim toward the hole in the ceiling, pulling ourselves up the last distance. We flop onto the roof, outside.
Air.
We cough up the water in our lungs, while our other lungs breathe deeply.
No, not our lungs... my lungs. My hearts beat hard and fast. My minds reel.
I climb down the side of the building with my powerful arms. When my feet touch the ground, it seems at once far away and slightly closer, offset to the side. I can hear with a depth and precision I couldn’t have imagined.
It smells like we’re deep in Zaun. I’m surrounded by leaking containers and heaps of wriggling, sodden trash, in a courtyard behind an old factory. High above, some distance away, a segment of fallen tower is precariously leaning against a chasm wall, yellow flashes and rumbles still issuing from secondary explosions.
The source of my freedom. Of my creation.
I start at the sound of a piece of rubble falling from the cell wall behind me, and I’m reminded just how close I came to death. At his hands.
I can’t stay here (fear!).
Before I know it, I’m running.
It’s exhilarating. I’m shocked by how fast the world goes by, how easily my legs move. Quick as a flash, I duck down an alley. There’s a gate blocking my path, but I’ve already spotted an outcropping of pipes I can vault from, and a hanging railing I can use to swing over it.
Neither of my past selves could have done this, but I can. It’s so easy.
I land lightly, and barely slow down. The impact hurts—one of my spines is broken, but it’s distant, no longer a devastating injury. Now, my strengths complement each other, my weaknesses recognized and supported. I’ve never felt this way before—greater than I was, more complete. At ease with myself.
I lope onward, exiting the alleyway and running straight into a small crowd leaving a Church of the Glorious Evolved–a mass of mechanical legs, breather masks, extraneous metal arms, and other, stranger augments.
But each and every one of these unsettling, augment-obsessed cultists stops dead in their tracks to stare at me.
“He’s got something on his back,” a mechanical-eyed man says.
“What is that?” a woman with a back-mounted prosthetic lung asks.
“It’s feeding on him!” an unseen third hysterically yells from the rear of the crowd.
Expressions change from shock to revulsion. I back up, but I’m surrounded.
Someone shoves me from behind. I try to tell them to stop.
“Pleas— —eave me— —lone.”
“—ASE. LEA— —E ALO—”
The words tumble out on top of each other, issuing from two mouths. I’ve never heard my new voice before, and it sounds both familiar and strange. The Evolved don’t seem to understand. A rock flies past my head.
“STOP-op. I HAVE-haven’t done anything-THING to you-YOU,” I beg. My words are still out of sync—it’s like talking through an echo. My voice won’t do what I want, and these people won’t listen!
A yellow-haired man steps forward from the group, attaching a heavy hammer-like prosthetic to his augmented wrist. He raises it to attack.
“I said leave me alone!” It’s my true voice. Clear as a bell—harmonious in the discord. But words won’t help me now.
Frantic, I look around and find a steam pipe near me, bridging the alleyway from above. Just before my would-be attacker strikes, I leap up, hauling the pipe down to block. The hammer pierces it, and scalding vapor blasts into his face. He falls backward, screaming.
I hear their yells and threats as I run away. I don’t know where I’m going as I charge down the dark cobblestone streets. I run past tenement blocks and corner stores, past a pair of stilt-walking chem-jacks and a spring merchant. I take stairs and corners at speed. I’m sprinting across one of the smaller bridges, iron clanging beneath my boots, when I catch a half-familiar whiff from one of the street vendors. I duck behind an empty stall and inhale deeply.
From a distant corner of my mind, I remember the smell—I remember coming here with... with Mama. She’d give me two washers for the porridge lady, and I’d carry a steaming bowl home.
Home. My eyes well up at the thought. Somewhere I can hide, somewhere I can rest, somewhere safe.
It’s not far from here!
This time, I’m running with heartsick purpose. Up three flights of stone steps on the chasm side, past the old broken glasshouse, then down two streets to the edge of the Factorywood.
Before I know it, I arrive at what was once my home. A charred husk remains, long since abandoned. My mind tries to make sense of it. This was my home (no, it wasn’t). I lived here with my mama and brother (no, I didn’t). She’d painted the walls yellow and said it was liquid sunshine (I’ve never been here).
I carefully make my way up warped stairs sodden from countless rainstorms. The railing feels familiar (alien) to my hand.
I push open the ruin of the door, and my vision swims. My happy memories of bright smiles clash with the reality of burnt remains and debris. Tears stream down my faces. Something terrible happened here, but I can’t remember.
The door to the back room has long fallen from its hinges, and the roof is collapsed in, but my eyes are drawn to the left corner, where I once slept—a small cot lies blackened with soot. I approach, and for the first time, I read the name scratched into the wall beside it:
“Palo.”
That’s me. My name is Hadri—I mean, Palo. I was both, but the me that lived here, that was Palo. Hadri’s mother died in childbirth, but Palo was raised by his mama.
What happened? An accident? An attack? Did Mama anger the wrong chem-baron? Did... did I do something without realizing?
Mama’s desk is a drenched wreck, but something glints in the pile of wood. Her hand mirror. It’s cracked, likely from the heat. I pick it up. When I was Hadri, I couldn’t bring myself to look at what the bandaged man had turned me into, but that was a lifetime ago. I’m different in so many ways, and I have to know.
I look.
A nightmare looks back. A beaten, bloodied, and blinded man stands there—forearms encircled and pierced by glowing green tubes and cables. Hooked on to his back is a sickly parasite, its shriveled arms wrapped around his neck, their syringe-like fangs barely concealed. Its withered legs dangle uselessly. Bloodshot, beady eyes peer from behind the man’s shoulder, widening in horror at what they see.
Revulsion washes over me. I drop the mirror, and my largest hands scramble to tear the parasite from its host. I’m hideous. (I’m smart now!) I’m just a failed experiment. (I’m better now!) No one could ever love me. (I love my new self!) I’ll always be alone. (I don’t want to be alone!)
Alone. I was so alone.
The bitter loneliness of two lives hits me, and I throw back my heads and howl. No one person should ever feel this. No one person can. I howl for losses doubled, and losses shared. I howl in sympathy for myself, and for the depth of loss in another. Across Zaun, I hear others take up the cry—animals, humans, and something in between—who for one moment, paradoxically, are together in their loneliness.
I collapse to my knees, my feet uselessly brushing against the floor behind me.
I will live. Not as Palo or Hadri. Not as Breaker or Thinker. I’m both, or all of them. I’m better this way.
I tear one of the half-burned curtains from the wall and throw it over my shoulders, careful not to obscure my vision.
My memories are too strange, too complex, too confusing. I can’t stay here. I walk out the door and down the steps as I try to decide where a monster like me can possibly go.
click
“In spite of, or perhaps due to, unexpected and explosive complications, stage one of the host experiment has finally completed.”
click
I freeze. My captor stands on the narrow street in front of the house, a pneumatic-powered dart gun leveled at me. Vials on his belt clink menacingly, filled with unknown liquids (it burns!), and a bag on his back suggests he has many more terrible things at hand.
He did this to me.
I can feel the fury swell in both of my chests, my hearts thumping against each other with just ribcages between them. I take an instinctual step toward him.
“I don’t think so!” he warns. He casually flicks the dart thrower to the side, pulls the trigger, and spears a large viridian beetle straight through. I watch, horrified, as the liquid in the dart releases into its body, dissolving it almost immediately, its screams all too audible in my four ears.
His gun is already reloaded, and it’s aimed at me again. I raise two of my hands.
click
“The following questions are for the Thinker entity. Answer quickly, or I’ll apply motivational pressures.”
“What?”
“Quiet. First question: what is your full name?”
The dart gun doesn’t waver as his long, stained finger hovers over the recording device’s switch.
“Hadri Spillwether.” I look around for a way out. Somewhere to run. Anything.
“Good. Next question. What was your father’s name?”
My father? I didn’t know my—wait, no, I did have a father. I looked after him when the disease worsened. His name... his name was...
“Hurry up. Answer the question!” the bandaged man demanded.
“Arvon! Arvon Spillwether!” I sounded more relieved than I expected. More desperate.
“Hmph. Faster! Where did you live? What was your profession? What did I call myself when we first met at the Academy?”
“Here! I lived he—no, wait. I... I don’t... Four-five-one! Room four-five-one at the Smellbloom Lodging House! Profession? I... Was I a clerk? I can’t... I don’t remember. It was so long ago!” I’m sweating, shaking my heads. It’s all mixed up.
click
“Pathetic. What a waste. Devolved into some sort of gestalt entity, contaminating the purity of the primary mind. Unsuitable for further exploration,” he mutters. Then he turns on his heel and starts to walk away.
I feel my faces scrunch into masks of pure rage.
He made me what I am. He set my house ablaze with chemical fire—I remember now how it burned. He exploited my hope for a cure.
And now, he will pay.
I’m four paces away from him. Now two. Then he spins on the spot and smashes a vial of something at my feet. I barely take another step when I find that my boots are glued fast to the ground. He’s two fingertips out of my reach, and I claw at the air uselessly.
“So much for being a Thinker,” he says. “I really was too optimistic. I certainly won’t make that mistake again.”
He takes a long step backward, and turns to head down a narrow alleyway. Leven Wynd—I remember it clearly. The second he’s out of sight, I hunker down and quickly untie my laces, loosening them enough to step out of my boots. With one strong leap, I’m padding barefoot after him down the wynd.
It’s dark in the alley, but my hearing is sharpened. I can hear him at the end of the first turn, still muttering to himself about subjects and sources. It stinks here, and I try not to think about what I’m stepping in as I navigate past the narrow gaps and boarded-up doorways. By the time I reach the corner, he’s halfway down the next stretch, barely visible in the gloom and the smog. I lean down to wrench a broken pipe from the ground as a weapon, and feel a rush as I straighten.
He’s gone.
Impossible! I lope onward, checking doorways as I go. The air is nasty, and I try to muffle my coughs with my curtain, but I can only cover one mouth. I’m getting dizzy, and I turn around to look back the way I came. It’s hazy—too hazy.
He’s using some kind of gas! I wrap the curtain around one of my mouths and bury the other into my shoulder, trying to breathe as little as possible. This is a trap.
I try to stagger back toward home—the corner looks farther away than I remember. I need to make it. I start to run, but one of the doors—red, metal, and spiked—suddenly opens, smashing into my face. I fall.
My limbs, all of them feel so heavy. So heavy. I think I’m crushing myself with my own weight on my back, but it’s already so hard to breathe.
I’m going to die.
The bandaged man stands over me. Tears streaming from my faces, I look up at my murderer, and I remember.
Overlaid upon his face, I see a face from before—with tinted glasses and a clean-shaven jaw. When I first met him, years ago, he strode down the hallway from lab to lecture hall, master of his environment, looked upon with admiration, envy, and something I hadn’t recognized (fear!). In his wake was the faintest scent of cologne. He had stopped and looked at me—not with pity, as I was used to, but with a shadow of excitement and anticipation. He’d introduced himself.
“Singed. You said you were Professor SIN-Singed.”
The harmony drops from my voices, and in my last moment, I am alone again.
Crushingly, painfully, deeply alone.
Singed scrambles madly among his things, desperately searching for something. A cure? A mercy?
His recording device. He clicks it on and drops to his haunches to observe.
“Oh, well done, Thinker Four. That puts you... yes... more answers than even Thinker Two! You’ve been most helpful.”
He clicks off his recording device.
It’s the last thing I hear.
The Legend of the Darkin

The darkin are thrice-cursed—once by the ancient enemy they faced, again by the fall of their glorious empire, and finally by the betrayal that has damned them for all eternity.
When the rebels of Icathia foolishly unleashed the Void in battle, Shurima’s defense was led, as ever, by the legendary Ascended. Imbued with the power of the Sun Disc, these “god-warriors” towered over mortal soldiers, wielding magic and blade with equal ease, and eventually they were victorious. Even so, the horrors of the war took a heavy toll, and those who lived to remember it were perhaps never quite as they once were.
Centuries later, with the loss of mighty Azir at the very moment of his own Ascension, Shurima fell. Although apparently immortal, the god-warriors had been born human—gradually, with no emperor to lead them, many of the surviving Ascended began to falter in purpose as their older, petty ambitions resurfaced. They taught themselves forbidden sorceries, and came to view themselves as the rightful inheritors of the world. The scattered mortal populace named these new tyrants darkin, a whispered curse translating roughly in the old tongue as “the fallen.”
But even the darkin could not escape the sickness of soul that had come from fighting against the Void for so long. After centuries of uneasy alliance, they inevitably turned against one another—and so began the Great Darkin War.
This conflict spread from Shurima to Valoran, and beyond. The renegade god-warriors and the armies they raised were unstoppable, and entire nations were crushed between them. It seemed as though this would be the end of all things… until, unexpectedly, the mages of Runeterra learned how to contain the remaining darkin. Through secrecy and cunning artifice, the physical forms of the Ascended could be merged with the celestial power in their hearts, and all of it bound within the weapons they bore. With their leaders imprisoned forever, the rampaging hordes were broken and slain.
These darkin weapons were hidden, many of them carefully guarded by the mortal civilizations that grew in the aftermath—for it was clear that such power could be locked away, but never destroyed.
And, should such power fall into the wrong hands, the darkin will surely rise once more.
The Lure

Dan Abnett

Keelo always cried “Surprise!” when he attacked.
Kayn supposed it was the equivalent of Keelo pulling his punches out of respect, or perhaps some artifact of his ancient, preset protocols.
The warning cry was never necessary, nor was it especially amusing after all this time. And a three-quarter ton fightmek shouting “Surprise!” as it swung a hook-handled titanium halberd with a fifty centimeter blade edge at your head was still a three-quarter ton fightmek swinging a hook-handled titanium halberd with a fifty centimeter blade edge at your head.
“Not now,” Kayn sighed.
“But I have surprised you,” said Keelo dolefully. He looked down at Kayn’s onyx desk, now split cleanly in two pieces and lying on the floor. Then he looked at Shieda Kayn himself, who was still in his seat, reading an official communique.
And not even remotely split into two pieces.
Keelo narrowed his optics in confusion, and waved a huge metal paw through Kayn’s form. The image rippled. “A holo-lure?”
“Yes,” said Kayn from the other side of the chamber. “A holo-lure.”
“This was a trick?”
“Uh huh.”
“You have tricked me.”
“I heard you coming four decks away,” Kayn replied. He occupied the chamber’s window seat. Beyond the thick, tinted port, the hard neon lines of slingspace rasped by. Kayn was reading the document intently. His pose and activity exactly matched the hologram figure in the chair.
Keelo looked from one to the other.
“A holo-lure is clever,” he said. “But how did you hear me coming? I was stealth-moded.”
Kayn did not look up from his work. “Figure of speech. I put a tracer on you last week. I’ve been mapping your movements,” he said, distractedly.
The fightmek paused, then twisted awkwardly to look at himself, trying to find the tracer, like a dog trying to examine its own tail.
“That is not very sporting,” he grumbled.
“You win a fight by any means at your disposal,” said Kayn, rising to his feet. He was a tall man, lean and lithe, clad in the black suit of an imperial officer. But he wore no pins or insignia—just plain black, indicating the highest status of all. His long mane of hair was shaved away from the side of his head in the style of the coreworld nobility, and a polished gold interface of ornate design covered his left eye and cheek. He looked at the fightmek. “You taught me that. First lesson.”
Keelo shrugged. “I suppose.”
“So, the lure was entirely fair.”
“But,” said Keelo, “how will you learn if you cheat? Humans learn through action-response. If you know I am coming, you—”
Kayn looked the fightmek in the eyes.
“Keelo,” he said, “my old and good friend Keelo… Do you really think I have anything left to learn?”
Keelo’s huge, scarred bulk, heavy with green and orange ballistic plate, sagged slightly. “I suppose not. I suppose you are now a high lord of the empire, and proven in battle. I suppose you are now one of the emperor’s own Ordinals. I suppose there’s nothing a rusty old fightmek can teach you now. I suppose it’s the scrap heap for me, or grot-work in the Bedlam Mines.”
“Keelo…”
“I suppose I might get my servos melted down for transuranics, or they could donate parts of me to younger fightmeks—”
“Keelo!” Kayn strode up to the big machine. “No supposing. And no feeling sorry for yourself, okay? I still need to maintain my edge. I need you to keep me on my toes. A surprise here, a surprise there, just like always.”
Keelo’s optics swivelled up hopefully. “Yes?”
“Yes. How can an Ordinal keep in prime form without his loyal fightmek to test him?”
“So… you won this bout?” Keelo asked.
“Well, you did cut my desk in half, so we’ll call it even.”
Keelo nodded. He shuffled around and emitted a sub-sonic pulse that opened the arsenal suite built into the wall of Kayn’s quarters. The lacquered black panels slid aside, revealing racks of blade and projectile weapons bathed in a red glow. Every design under the many suns, and some so exotic they had never seen sunlight at all.
“We will spar now,” said Keelo. “Select your weapon.”
“Not today.”
“But it is the scheduled time.”
“Something’s come up that requires my attention,” said Kayn, gesturing with the communique in his hand.
“A message? You were reading that when I came in.”
“Which is why I really didn’t want the interruption,” said Kayn. “We’ll need to re-route.”
“Sling-course is set for—”
“I know. I’m changing that.”
“The emperor awaits your return to the Armada,” the fightmek said, “to report on the Kloa policing action.”
“This is too important. Nakuri’s found something on an edgeworld, out past the Raen Cluster.”
“I am sure Commander Nakuri can deal with it,” Keelo objected. “He is a first class officer of the Demaxian Empire. A decorated—”
“Commander Nakuri is an old friend and comrade in arms,” said Kayn. “I respect his judgement, and if he says something requires the direct attention of an Ordinal, then I trust him. Inform Captain Vassur I need her to reset our course.”
Keelo hesitated.
“Go on,” said Kayn.
The fightmek nodded, and began to clomp towards the exit.
“Wait,” Kayn called after him. He walked over to the big machine, and plucked a tech-fleck off the fightmek’s broad back. “That’s the tracer gone. See? All gone. You can surprise me again later.”
“Okay,” said Keelo. Renewed enthusiasm glowed in his optics. “I’ve got this special mallet I’ve been waiting to—”
“Shh! Shh!” Kayn silenced him. “It’s a surprise, remember?”

Alone again, Kayn woke the astral portolan unit built into the corner of his quarters. The console rose from the deck, opening its steel petals to project a tri-dimensional local system chart into the air. He reached out and rotated the image, moving through stars, selecting and enlarging. A swipe of his fingers brought Ionan into view. His golden ocular interface engaged with the projection, and augmented it to a real-time display of exquisite detail.
Ionan was an edgeworld. A nothing place. Unpromising.
Nakuri’s team had been out that way for months, hunting for ora, or for renegade Templars trying to steal that vital and precious power source from under imperial noses.
The Demaxian Empire, operating out of the vast Locus Armada, was the supreme authority in known space. Its power, influence and technological prowess were such that no one could stand against it. There were no more wars. In the name of the emperor, forces under the Ordinals and the generals maintained absolute control.
Except that space, however well pacified, was very, very large. Moreover, it was annoyingly full of species and rogues who fought on anyway, resisting that control. No matter the size and military might of the empire, which quite eclipsed any other power, subversive behavior was persistent.
The emperor, Jarvan IV, was a good man; indeed, his great-grandfather had been the first human to wear the crown. He and Kayn were close, in both age and friendship. In private, Jarvan had confided to his friend that he disliked the way imperial policy had been forced to become less tolerant in recent years. The empire was seen as a monolithic force, unyielding and authoritarian. It was, to many—especially the outliers, the subjugated, the Templars, and the notorious criminal wretches of the Syndicate—a domineering and oppressive thing to kick against.
This perception made Jarvan sad. He’d come to the crown with a heart full of progressive ideas and hopes. Instead, he’d been forced to implement tighter restrictions.
“I always thought,” Kayn had told him, “that holding on to this society would be harder than winning it. War is simple. Peace is harder.”
“It pains me, Shieda,” Jarvan had replied. “No one seems to respect the great work we are doing, the future we represent. There’s always someone squirming to evade us. To disobey.”
“Like herding cats.”
“Cats?”
Kayn smiled at the memory. “Cats, my emperor. A feline species. Infamously willful.”
Of course, the problem was ora. The substance, like liquid gold, was a source of vast, almost mythical power. Whoever wielded it successfully could have great influence, which meant it was essential that the empire controlled its sources, distribution and use. Especially illegal were the bio-hacking purposes it could be put to, techniques practiced by the damnable Templars. Such behavior was dangerous, as well as subversive. It was an ongoing struggle to contain their fringe activities and maintain order. It was an unending battle to keep ora in the hands of the empire, where it belonged.
Kayn had solutions for this problem, and—like all the Ordinals, the most singular beings in the emperor’s service—he had laid these out to Jarvan.
Jarvan had recoiled. Kayn’s proposals were ruthless and pragmatic. Hardline suppression, heavier penalties, military annexation of resistant worlds. Kayn knew that an empire organized under his philosophies would be much more aggressive and unforgiving than the society Jarvan supported. Still, it was his duty to suggest these things, his duty to offer the emperor alternatives. He was an Ordinal, Kayn reminded him. That was what Ordinals did.
He was not surprised when the emperor backpedaled, and almost chided Kayn for his brutal proposal. That’s why Jarvan was emperor and Kayn an Ordinal. Kayn was the attack dog that Jarvan kept on a leash. He only let him hunt when there were no other alternatives.
And Jarvan liked to keep testing his attack dog, to measure his loyalty and his aggression.
Ionan… edgeworld…
Kayn wondered just what it was his old comrade Nakuri had found there.
He felt a tremor run through the deck. Their warship, the mighty Fractal Shear, had altered course. Captain Vassur would have ordered its slingspace engines to re-shape the singularity sphere surrounding it, so that they could turn out to Ionan.
The streaks of light flashing past the window ports changed hue. Ora powered the ship’s sling-engines, creating the sphere that warped space-time around the hull, allowing it to skate through the upper layers of subspace at transluminal velocities, like a stone skipping across a lake, unencumbered by current or surface tension. The portolan display told him there was a six hour journey time.
Kayn heard a laugh behind him. A low chuckle.
He looked around, half-expecting to see Keelo bearing down on him. But there was no shout of “Surprise!”
There was no one there at all.

“What armament do you require?” asked Keelo. He had returned to find his master staring at the open arsenal suite.
Kayn shrugged. He’d trained with every one of the weapons a hundred times. They bored him. Only a few felt right in his hands... and even they had their limits.
“Discretion,” he replied.
“What?”
“Commander Nakuri recommended discretion,” said Kayn.
“Is that why we have coasted out of slingspeed short of the target world?”
“Yes. I’ll go down alone. Tell the captain to prep my ship, and hold station.”
“But a deployment squad has been assembled,” said Keelo. “Fifty seasoned slingtroopers. And I have cleaned my favorite axe.”
“I’m going alone,” said Kayn. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
He selected a chrome photann pistol and a sleekly decorated fighting lance—two weapons he knew well. Then he paused, and looked back to Keelo.
“Did you say something?”
“Me?” the fightmek replied. “No.”
“I thought I heard you laughing earlier, too.”
“No. Not me.”

With a brief flare of thruster light, Kayn’s craft left the carrier bay on the upper hull of the Fractal Shear. His craft was a DEMAX-3 Superiority, a small interceptor used for interdiction flights and border work. An Ordinal was supposed to use a more regal fleet transport, something that would impress the locals, something with ceremonial heft and a payload space that could carry trooper squads and combat vehicles.
But Kayn liked the speed and firepower of the little DEMAX-3. He had liked them since his rookie tours as a sub-commander in the Edge Squadrons.
He veered off from the stationary baseship with an unnecessary burst of acceleration. The arrowhead craft rotated its engine nacelles, tight-rolled through a threaded veil of asteroids, and planed down through a void of pink fog.
Distant stars shone like lamps and scattered fireflies. Tracking showed Ionan ahead.
Kayn rejected auto-helm, and took her down on manual, skimming the cold, thin vapor of the atmospheric edge as he followed Nakuri’s beacon. The beacon’s signal, along with all flight data, was channelled directly through his interface—a steady stream of information playing against his retina. Nakuri’s ship was the Gentle Reminder, a suppression cruiser half the size of the Fractal Shear. It held a high orbit on the far side of the edgeworld, like a ghost on Kayn’s range detector.
Down through the cloud level, he tore across the open flats of ochre deserts and salt plains that reflected the daylight with blinding radiance. He gunned so low, his craft kicked up a powder wake, sending small, malformed dust devils dancing haphazardly across the dry terrain.
Ahead, mountains. A long, low range. Pink and russet rock wind-carved into sharp crags and angular shapes, like a coral reef raised from the water.
The beacon signal was pinging wildly. He eased the nacelles around to braking attitude, brought the nose up, and swung in for landing.
Below him lay a high plateau beneath a block of pink cliff. An encampment. Two imperial transport shuttles, parked and anchored.
He extended the landing gear and descended vertically.

“Welcome to the buttcrack of nowhere,” said Nakuri.
Kayn jumped down from his open cockpit into the hard glare of the sun. He smiled. To Nakuri, the old dog, everywhere was the buttcrack of nowhere. They’d served together on many worlds, many tours, and that had been Nakuri’s estimation of every single outer planet and edgeworld.
“I don’t think that’s the proper form of address, commander,” Kayn growled.
Nakuri hesitated, his smile dropping. He hadn’t seen Kayn in a long time, and Kayn was now a high-and-mighty Ordinal. “I’m sorry…” he began.
“It’s ‘Welcome to the buttcrack of nowhere, sir!’”
They grinned, and embraced.
“It’s been too long,” said Kayn.
“Not long enough, Shie,” Nakuri laughed. The circular silver interface over his right eye caught the sun like a wink.
“So what sort of klagging mess have you gotten into this time?” Kayn asked him.
Nakuri turned. His squad—ten slingtroopers who, like him, were wearing full fightkit and weapon rigs—were standing rigidly to attention. Each one of them towered over Kayn in his simple black, form-fitting suit. They were hardy veterans all, and he knew most of them. Korla, Speeks, Rigo, the squad leader Vechid. He interfaced the names of the others quickly from the bio-tags on their breastplates.
It paid to know names. Soldiers responded better to Ordinals who treated them as equals.
“Let’s show him, people,” said Nakuri.
He brought Kayn up to speed as they crunched over the plateau. “It was Templars what brought us here. Two of them, and a whole pack of their believers. Chased them out of Kybol, and they fled here. We thought they might be looking for a get-out, but this is clearly where they wanted to be.”
“Why?” asked Kayn.
“Not clear. So, we got down here and rounded them all up. Well, most of them. A few wouldn’t go without a fight, so… shots fired, and all that.”
“How many?”
“Ten dead, all theirs, both Templars included. It was quite a fight.”
“And how many of their followers were taken?”
“Sixteen. Klag-sack hippy subversives. We’ve got them penned in the caves up ahead. Interrogations in progress.”
Kayn raised an eyebrow. “To find out…?”
“Anything. Templar strongholds. Ora dumps. Contacts. And of course, why they came here, hell-for-leather.”
“We know why,” said a voice behind them.
Kayn and Nakuri stopped and turned. The slingtroopers came to a halt.
“Something to say, Vechid?” asked Nakuri.
“No, commander,” replied the squad leader.
“Not so fast,” said Kayn. “I want to hear what Vechid has on her mind.”
The woman shrugged uncomfortably. “Sorry, sir. I mean, sorry, Ordinal. I spoke out of turn. Just, this heat.”
“You’re in cooled fightgear, Vechid,” replied Kayn. “Speak up.”
“Well… The thing we found. That’s what brought them. That’s what they were after.”

They ascended the gritty slope toward the caves that honeycombed the lower section of the cliffs. The glare of the sunlight was hard and intense, so it was more than a relief to step into the mauve shadows at the base of the cliff—it felt like stepping into a refrigerated cellar.
Nakuri’s interface beeped with an incoming message, and he excused himself by stepping aside. Kayn and the slingtroopers waited in the shade. The Ordinal looked up at the mouths of the caves, eroded out by millions of years of desert wind.
And, again, he heard something.
A voice. Not words, just a murmur. He edged away from the waiting troopers, toward the caves. Their darknesses yawned at him, silent.
Nothing.
Then he heard the murmur again. Half murmur, half chuckle. Something just inside the nearest opening, perhaps? Something watching him, amused, snickering in the dark.
He frowned, and took another step.
His own interface sounded. He opened the link. “This is Kayn,” he murmured.
A fuzzy image of Captain Vassur on the bridge of the Fractal Shear projected into his left eye. “Ordinal? Just an advisory. We detected a soft return moving into Ionan airspace at sub-sling.”
“Soft return, captain?”
“No solid data, and we can’t fix it. A ghost.”
“Show me.”
Vassur obliged. The retinal image switched to a live feed from ship’s main detection systems. Just a phantom track. No defined mass or density. In fact, the sort of data aberration that detection officers would usually dismiss as background distortion. But of course, Vassur was being very careful with an Ordinal on the ground.
“Various rogue agents use masking fields,” Kayn commented.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Vassur. “The Syndicate especially. We’ve seen a lot during anti-trafficking campaigns. If this is a masking field, it’s a good one.”
“Agreed. Very good.”
“Do you want me to intercept, Ordinal?”
“Negative.”
“Then should I bring us in closer? Get Ionan in battery range, in case—”
“Negative, captain. We appear to have a situation down here, subversive elements who might have come to retrieve something, maybe prior to an exchange. If this is the receiver come to collect, let’s not scare them off. Let’s have them unmask.”
“If you’re sure, Ordinal?”
“I am, captain. Let’s see who we meet. This could open deep veins of information.”
Kayn disengaged the link, and turned to see Nakuri walking over.
“Let me guess,” Kayn said. “A soft return?”
Nakuri nodded. “The Shear has it too?” he asked. “Between your ship and mine, we’ve got most of the inner system covered. And it’s probably nothing.”
“I trust you told the Gentle Reminder to hold position?”
“And take no action,” Nakuri replied with a laugh. “I remember the way you work, old friend. Bring the scoundrels in. You like to see their klagging faces.”
Nakuri turned and led him up the last stretch of slope to the largest cave mouth. The troopers followed them. Kayn felt relaxed and content. It felt good to be operating alongside someone as trustworthy and smart as Nakuri. They made a good team, and they always had.
He paid no attention to the odd sense of unease lurking at the back of his mind. That was simple, healthy trepidation, the tension of handling a potentially volatile situation.
He had no time for an encumbrance like that.

They were penned in the outer caves of the cliff system. Nakuri’s troopers had clapped the prisoners in force shackles, while a second squad under the command of an officer called Solipas was guarding them.
The prisoners were a maverick lot, with creatures of different species, their garments dirty and worn. Some had already been beaten in the hope of extracting answers, and Kayn could see that they had all been stripped of ora-derived bio-enhancements—a process that had left some ugly wounds.
As far as he was concerned, the Templars were a sect, and nothing more. A quasi-mystical affiliation of subversives who believed they were the true “guardians” of ora, that they understood the material better than anyone else, and were protecting it from the abuse of other parties. Kayn had interrogated many Templars in his long career. He found them generally ridiculous. Their manner was obnoxious and condescending, exhibiting the sort of tolerant sympathy one got from any religious order. They believed they were privy to some great existential truth locked within the ora, something too good and refined for the likes of the Demaxians, who actually got on with the business of keeping society running. They had naively mistaken a singular natural resource of undoubted value for something more spiritual, as if ora was somehow a manifestation of the gods, or of creation, or a universal soul.
Kayn had seen that kind of lunacy before. Primitives on edgeworlds worshipping trees or nature or ecosystems, or a cargo-cult so astounded by a standard fightmek that they hailed it as a god.
It was childish and ill-informed.
The Templars, however, were unusual in that they were well organized, often militant, and had somehow established a network of support across the galaxy. Their beliefs were deranged and laughable, yet their lowly followers pursued them with vigor, depriving the empire of valuable ora supplies, or actually striking at commercial holdings. They were subversives of the worst kind.
Kayn walked into the caves where they were being held, and saw the same old fierce, determined, devoted faces. People who had faith in what they fought for.
He also noticed, with some satisfaction, how the wretched prisoners looked aghast at the sight of an Ordinal. They knew this was the end of the line, and their pathetic beliefs could no longer protect them.
“I am Ordinal Shieda Kayn,” he told them. “You understand the authority I represent. I understand you have refused to answer the questions set to you.”
They cowered. He noted at least six alien species represented in their numbers. Who to pick? The skoldoi, perhaps? They were fragile creatures.
“You seem to have no fear of slingtroopers, who nevertheless outgun you, round you up, and put you in chains,” he continued. “I think that’s sad, because the experience should have demonstrated that you have no option but to comply. You will answer my questions.”
“We will tell you nothing,” snarled a large korobak.
“No?” asked Kayn. “And why is that?”
“Because what we know is not fit for the likes of you.”
Several others murmured in agreement. The korobak then, perhaps, Kayn mused. He was the biggest, the ringleader. Make an example of him, and the rest would fall into line.
No. Too easy.
Kayn smiled. “You just answered a question, korobak.”
“I…”
“I asked a question, and you answered it,” Kayn went on. “It wasn’t too difficult, was it? So it’s not questions generally you have an issue with? Just specific ones.”
“I won’t play your games, you klag,” snapped the korobak.
“Yet you expect me to play yours. I think something has to give here, sir, and I believe you’re in no position to dictate terms. So let’s begin. I want names. A list of your contacts and associates in the edgeworlds. The two Templars who led you here. The people they had dealings with before you all came to Ionan.”
The prisoner looked away.
“Let’s start with the first name,” Kayn said.
“We were not led here,” the korobak muttered. “I’ll give you nothing.”
“The first name, please.”
The creature would only glare at the cave floor. Kayn unclasped his holster and drew his photann pistol. Its long, chrome form glinted in the ruddy, twilight gloom. He thumbed the activator, and there was a whine as the cell rose to a discharge level.
“The first name,” Kayn said more forcefully.
The prisoner shook his head.
Kayn slowly raised the pistol and aimed it at the kneeling korobak’s forehead. Several of the others murmured in fear. “The first name,” he repeated.
“Shoot me if you want,” said the korobak, still glaring at the floor. “That’s the imperialist mentality. Threaten us. Brutalize us. So shoot me. Then you’ll definitely get nothing. I will pass through the Ora Gate with the blessing of all Templars, and the satisfaction of knowing you have been defied.”
“Yes,” said Kayn, “I’m sure you would. But that’s not exactly how the game works.”
He switched aim. Now the photann gun was pointing at the girl beside the korobak. She was an odd one, wide-eyed and solemn. Unlike the others, she chose to look directly at Kayn and his gun.
“Give me the first name, korobak, or it won’t be you passing through the gate to the hereafter. You’ll still be here, very alive, not blessed or satisfied at all, with her brains on your clothes.”
The korobak looked sharply at the girl, his eyes bulging in concern. “You wouldn’t,” he hissed.
“Oh, I would,” said Kayn. “I will. One by one, as many of you as it takes, until I have my list of names, and answers to all the other questions I have. It’s a very simple game. It really depends on how many dead bodies it takes for you to understand that answers are less important than lives. One? Three? Fifteen? A hundred?”
“How could you be so cruel to—”
“This is my job. I don’t like it. You think I enjoy killing people over something as simple as a question? You, and you alone, are making this necessary. You’re leaving me no choice. In fact, I don’t know how you could be that cruel. This poor girl doesn’t deserve to get her head vaporized, just because you’re slow to answer.”
The korobak swallowed hard. “I… I will not… betray…”
“Well, I suppose I admire a person with principles,” Kayn sighed. “Principles are magnificent, especially when you’re not the one dying for them.”
He looked at the girl. Her eyes were so huge, but there was oddly no fear in them. He’d never seen anyone quite so calm. It was unnerving. He felt he wanted to question her—her in particular—and learn all she knew.
But his intent was set now. He’d chosen her as the example. Backing down would be weakness, and that would simply bolster the resolve of the rest.
Still…
“You know, you can make up for your friend’s lack of cooperation,” he said directly to the girl. “I’ll give you that much. You speak. The first name. Show this fool how bloodshed can be avoided, and I’ll be lenient.”
She stared back at him, silently.
“Quickly,” Kayn said. “The first name. I don’t give such chances very often.”
“Sona can tell you nothing!” the korobak snapped, almost sobbing.
“Oh, I’m sure she can,” replied Kayn, staring into the girl’s eyes. “I’m sure she’s dying to. Sona? That’s your name? Sona, it’s very easy. One word. One name. That’s where we start. The first name.”
The girl made no response. Kayn felt his annoyance growing into outright anger, but he didn’t let it show. He’d been restrained, and given her a chance, and now she was making him look like an idiot. No one did that.
“Sona, you disappoint me,” Kayn said, and pulled the trigger.

The blastwave tore through the cave.
It took Kayn a moment to clamber back to his feet. Dust was fuming down the tunnel from outside, debris skittering from the ceiling. The concussion had lifted him off his feet, and his shot had gone wide, missing the girl’s head.
Two more loud blasts echoed from outside.
“Move it! Move!” Nakuri yelled. The slingtroopers, some of whom had been thrown aside too, scrambled toward the exit. The prisoners cowered in terror.
All except the girl.
“Keep watch on them!” Kayn yelled to Solipas. He ran for the exit, reaching the light in time to see the small fightship making its third pass. One of Nakuri’s carrier transports was already a burning mass of buckled metal. The fightship, a matt green dart, blinked in low over the plateau, and discharged its heavy cannons. Blades of light slashed down from the photann-annihilator pods, and the second carrier blew up, its bulk lifting on a column of fire that shredded it, flipped it and brought it down hard, crushing Kayn’s little DEMAX-3.
Nakuri was shouting commands, and his slingtroopers were forming a line around the cave mouth, weapons rigs engaged to fill the sky with a hail of fire.
“Wait!” Kayn shouted.
“What?” asked Nakuri.
“Hold fire. If they wanted us dead, they would’ve leveled the mountain. They want our attention.”
“Hold fire!” Nakuri ordered.
“Contact our ships,” Kayn told him. “Tell them to remain in standoff. No stupid attempts at rescue or relief.”
“You’re playing with fire, old friend.”
“Always. Now do it!”
Kayn heard Nakuri activate his interface. He walked forward. Black smoke was blowing horizontally off the mass of burning ship wreckage. Heat haze at ground level made the smoke ripple and twist. He could feel the warmth on his face.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Get on with it. Come on…”
The green fightship reappeared. It came up over the edge of the plateau at a stall-speed hover, its nacelles down-blasting to give it lift. Sunlight flashed off the tinted canopy. It edged through the churning smoke towards them. A second one appeared, gray, coming in from the left.
Then a third. This one was red, and came into view moving down the plateau’s centerline, directly towards them.
The three ships stopped at a low hover twenty meters away. “Ah, klag,” said Nakuri. “Syndicate.”
“Yes,” replied Kayn. He had recognized at once the hybrid, custom-fitted style of the aggressor craft: black market weapon systems, some illegal, some alien, disproportionately large compared to the small hulls they had been grafted to. The ships themselves were ex-imperial tech, old models undoubtedly salvaged from junkworlds, retrofitted by the Syndicate’s ingenious weaponeers.
The red ship, the largest, carried a pod on its belly. A masking field generator. More contraband. The soft return hadn’t been from one ship. It had been a vague sensor ghost generated by these three, moving in tight formation inside the mask field. No wonder there had been no hard data on mass or density—they’d made themselves fluid, probably in a tumble trajectory, and no doubt had split and separated as soon as they hit the atmosphere.
Clever, Kayn thought. Typical criminal activity, the kind that regularly got past smuggling blockades and interdiction fleets.
The red ship moved forward a little. Its tinted canopy popped and opened.
“I can take this klagger’s head off,” advised Nakuri.
“Let me talk,” Kayn replied. “But get all your troopers to lock now. When we take them down, it’s got to be instant, or they’ll cremate this whole area.”
Nakuri nodded. Kayn left the shadows, slithered down the slope and walked into the hard sunlight of the plateau top. Head high, he strode across the dust towards the lead machine.
“You have business here?” he called out.
The red fightship’s cockpit was a two-seat. A visored pilot occupied the front, staring down at Kayn through the gunsights. A figure stood up in the back seat and took off his respirator mask. “I do,” he said. “Didn’t think I’d be doing it with an Ordinal, but every day is new and exciting, right?”
It was Zago. Corun Zago. One of the chief players in Syndicate activities on the galactic edge.
Kayn’s interface identified him instantly by face and voice recognition, but Kayn knew him anyway. All Demaxian officers knew Zago’s face from a hundred thousand bounty postings. He’d remained alive and at liberty for a long time, because he so seldom showed up in person.
So what was so important about today?
“I’m honored, Zago,” said Kayn. “Seeing you face-to-face.”
Zago grinned. “Oh, the honor’s mine, Shieda Kayn. Heard so much about you.”
“Lot of damage to imperial equipment there,” said Kayn, gesturing to the burning wrecks.
“Just wanted to be emphatic.”
“You were successful. What’s the business, here? I take it you wanted the Templars and their followers? Some prearranged deal?”
Zago looked genuinely surprised. “Templars? What the klag do I want with Templars?”
“You hadn’t agreed to meet them here?”
“No, sir. Nothing to do with me.”
“What, then?”
“Same reason as you, I guess,” said Zago. “I mean, it’s not every day an Ordinal slings out to an edgeworld either. I take it it’s here?”
“It is,” said Kayn, calmly lying to cover his lack of knowledge. “How did you hear about it?”
Zago looked thoughtful. “The same way you did. I guess.”
Kayn was getting an odd read from the man. Corun Zago was infamously confident and full of swagger, but he seemed troubled. Uneasy.
“Well, I just…” Kayn shrugged, mirroring the man’s awkwardness. “You know.”
“I do,” Zago nodded, earnest. “Strangest thing, eh? It calling out like that. Like a voice in the stars. I just knew… I knew I had to come get it. Knew it had to be mine. With respect, Ordinal, you won’t stop me having it. Hand it over or stand aside, whatever. I’m taking it. Resist and… Well, we’ll cook the lot of you, snatch it, and be masked and gone before your capital ships can get within sniffing distance.”
“I have no doubt.”
This didn’t make any sense. Zago was dangerous, but not insane. His three fightships had Kayn’s small ground forces outclassed, but the Gentle Reminder and the Fractal Shear were the sort of Locus Armada vessels that Syndicate forces would go out of their way to avoid.
And Corun Zago had come in person. This wasn’t the typical bravura Kayn had read about. This was something else. A compulsion. Obsessive.
That made him vulnerable.
Kayn took a long, slow breath. Time to clear his mind. Time to do the sort of work that had made him an Ordinal.
“Well, you’ve got us tight, my good man,” he said, opening his arms in an elegant coreworld flourish—a ritual gesture that anyone would recognize as a formal submission. Then he turned that into the full bow of surrender, dropping to one knee, shoulders forward, his arms by his sides. His right hand braced the ornate lance at his side at a forty-five degree angle, base in the dirt, blade upwards, the angle of military honor. “We must give way to you, in these circumstances.”
Kayn could feel the prickle of the heat, smell the billowing smoke. He could feel Corun Zago’s gaze on him, perhaps surprised at the ease of his triumph.
Kayn was a strong man. His basic biology had been finessed by acute training disciplines, and further enhanced by science. Like all Ordinals, he was a significantly amplified being.
He waited until Zago began to speak. Just the first syllable of the reply.
“You—”
Still kneeling, Kayn cast the lance. An underarm throw with his right arm. No wind-up, just a straight pitch, hurling the lance along the angle it was already pointing in. He didn’t even look up. He was still kneeling, and bowing.
Propelled by the strength of his arm, the lance struck the underside of the hovering red fightship just in front of the mask array pod. The broad blade-head punctured the ship’s skin, and the lance kept going, through the condensers and attitude management systems contained in the belly. Through them, through the floor of the cockpit, through the base of the pilot’s flightseat, and on through Corun Zago.
When it came to rest, it was impaling the hovering ship like a meat skewer, the end of the haft poking from the underside, the head transfixing Zago, and emerging through his back.
He was pinned, upright, against his high-backed seat. There was a look of surprise on his very dead face.
Abruptly, everything was in motion. The red fightship began to wallow violently, its internal systems torn and ruptured. Its engines howled with uncorrected pressure. The Syndicate pilots took a moment to react—just a second while they processed what had happened.
And then it was too late. Nakuri had been waiting. The instant he saw Kayn hurl the lance, he had given the signal, his slingtroopers opening fire in perfect unison. Gunrigs kicked off, screaming streams of photann fire at the gray and green fightships. The first simply came apart where it was hovering, utterly disintegrated by the sustained, heavy fusillade. Its drive core exploded, and the fireball threw fragments of pockmarked, distorted hull in all directions.
Turning his kneeling crouch into an upward spring, Kayn leapt. The wildly wallowing red ship had almost lurched low enough to clip his head off, and his leap cleared the starboard wing. The craft was almost spinning as the pilot fought to regain control. The port wingtip bounced off the ground and scattered a spray of pebbles. The hover thrust was kicking up dust like a desert storm.
Kayn landed on the lurching hull, and clawed his way toward the open cockpit. Zago was still pinned in place, staring into the distance, each jolt of the ship shaking him against the flightseat. The pilot was too busy fighting with the controls to do anything else.
Nakuri’s troopers were still hosing fire, but the green fightship was proving harder to kill. It had some kind of custom shield that soaked up the photann energy. Flecks of light stippled off the greasy haze around its prow. It screamed forward, seeking retribution. Its weapon pods opened up, stitching detonations across the dust toward the slingtrooper formation.
Before Nakuri could order an immediate scatter, two of his men were incinerated where they stood. The ship leveled up, and began to pick off the others as they fled. Ground fire, even from stalwart slingtroopers, only worked against aircraft when the aircraft were unprepared.
They had lost the advantage of surprise.
Kayn grabbed the fightship’s pilot with one hand, and threw him from the cockpit. The man cried in surprise as he bounced off the dipping wing, and plunged to the ground below.
Gripping the canopy frame, Kayn dropped into the pilot position. His interface told him the stabilizer controls were utterly ruined—the lance had speared the guts of several principal systems. He made lightning-fast adjustments, compensating for overthrust and one nacelle port that had flamed out altogether. He slammed the red ship around with the cockpit still open, and limped it forward, accelerating at extremely low level, just kissing the ground.
The green fightship was strafing the slopes. Kayn could see it extending its main weapon pods to level the whole mountainside. Hauling on the stick, he activated the red ship’s fire control, armed the main battery, and locked the green fightship ahead of him.
He opened up with the primary photann array. The force of the unleashed fire rocked the destabilized craft so hard, it swung drunkenly out of true, and the last blaze of shots went wide, snaking off like lumo-tracers into the sky beyond the mountains.
But the first part of the barrage had been dead-on. The green fightship lost its rear end, and then one nacelle. Its pilot tried to steady it, but the whole thing was coming to pieces in the air, shredding from the tail forward. It began to lift, trailing a huge plume of fire and debris. Then, abruptly, as if the effort was too great, it plunged like a rock, and impacted nose first.
The detonation raised a shockwave across the sands, throwing out a large crater of heat-fused dirt.
Kayn struggled to keep his commandeered fightship airborne. Multiple fail warnings screamed from the control board. He cut power incrementally, nursing it down. The red ship hit the dust, bounced, and then slid, digging in with one lolling wing.
He killed all power. Grit was still pattering off the front screen and hull. He lifted himself out of the seat, took one last glance at Zago’s dismayed expression, and jumped back down to the ground.
As he walked away, something caught inside the hull, and fire began to flare out. By the time he reached Nakuri, the red fightship had become a blazing funeral pyre for the man skewered in its heart.
Nakuri was gathering his troops. He looked at Kayn with a mix of shock and admiration. “You’re a crazy fool,” he said flatly.
“I disagree,” Kayn replied. “But I think it’s long past time I saw what this whole mess was about.”

Beyond the caves where the prisoners were being held, there was a hole in the world. It was a rough shaft, thirty meters across, which cut straight down vertically for hundreds more.
Kayn stood at the lip, and looked down. The rock had been cut by… something, excised on a huge scale. Even the main batteries of an Armada sling-ship couldn’t have removed a slice of the planet so cleanly.
And just where was the removed mass? Had it been annihilated?
“Down there,” said Nakuri.
Kayn had begun to clamber down anyway, following the ragged contours of the shaft’s inner wall. Up close, it looked like heat had done this work. The exposed rock was glossy pink, and gleamed like a polished gemstone. But there was also a thick layer of dust on all the upper surfaces. This excision had been made a while ago, perhaps even thousands of years. Quite without warning, Kayn had the sudden impression of a red-hot metal ingot being dropped onto a glacier, melting its way swiftly downward, leaving a borehole with gleaming walls of refrozen ice…
But what could do that to rock?
He scanned for forensic traces via his interface as he made his descent. Coming down behind him, Nakuri clearly heard Kayn’s gasp of surprise.
“I know, right?” he said.
“Are these readings correct?” Kayn murmured.
“They seem to be.”
“This isn’t… here,” said Kayn, making his interface re-work the scan.
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s as if…” There was no easy way for Kayn to describe it. The quantum traces were bizarre. It was as though a piece of another reality, another spatial dimension altogether, had intersected briefly with this mountain on Ionan, negated it utterly, and left this void behind like an empty wound.
A wound that crackled with a residue of the otherness that had made it.
“You see now why I wanted an Ordinal on this?” asked Nakuri.
Kayn didn’t reply. He was speculating. Was this the result of an interspatial collision? Some quantum anomaly? Deliberate or accidental? Those phenomena were only theoretical, or the rare and catastrophic results of sling-drive failures. This could be evidentiary proof of the Multiversal Proposition…
Nakuri had done the right thing. This was Ordinal business, and Kayn’s already high standing would be greatly boosted by it. A ground-breaking discovery. It would make him the most famous man in the Demaxian Empire. Indeed, it was the sort of thing that could propel a man to the very top.
Kayn paused. He was shocked that he was thinking that way. There was work to be done here, an Ordinal’s duty. Assess, analyze, reflect, gather up everything for the good of the empire. Secure this discovery in the name of…
A new thought entered his mind, a burning thought that also disturbed him. He knew he should be consulting with Nakuri, planning the process of investigation.
But he didn’t want to. He wanted to keep it for himself. He didn’t want anyone in here, not even Nakuri. No one else was worthy—
Kayn caught himself again. It was no wonder that others had come here. The Syndicate, the Templars. This was an astonishing prize. Except…
“…how did they know?” Kayn asked.
“What?”
“I came here because you called me. You came because you were chasing the Templars. What brought the Templars here?”
“They’d heard about it too…?” Nakuri ventured.
“From who?”
“They deal in secrets, forbidden lore, all that nonsense. Maybe some legend or myth or… I don’t know, a treasure map?”
That rang false to Kayn. If anyone, anyone, at any point in time had found this, they would have used it. Used the data, the information it presented. It would have become a holy site, a shrine, or it would have gathered a culture around it, or made a man into an emperor… or been the cornerstone of a new empire altogether.
No. No one knew about this. The Templars had come here… instinctively.
“And the Syndicate?” he asked Nakuri.
“What about them?”
Zago knew, Kayn thought. That filthy opportunist hadn’t even been aware of the Templars’ presence. This was what he’d come for, and he’d come obsessively, risking everything—even a confrontation with superior imperial forces.
And he’d come because something had called him. Called out to him, across the gulf of space.
Kayn’s skin felt clammy. He skidded down the last few meters, his unease growing. There was something at the bottom of the pit. Something that looked as if it was fused into the bedrock.
“What the…”
“We think that’s what did it,” said Nakuri. “Like it fell here, and made the hole.”
His voice trailed off.
“Have you touched it?” Kayn asked.
“No, sir. None of us. None of us dared.”
Kayn crouched down. The object lay like a dark fossil embedded in the pale matrix of rock suspending it—like the bones of something impossibly ancient, now exposed to the light. He could make out a long, beautifully fashioned handle, slightly curved. A huge blade head. Handle and blade were both forged from some dark metal his interface couldn’t identify, and apparently proportioned for humanoid hands.
A scythe. A war weapon. A masterpiece that matched no known cultural template.
Kayn wondered how something could be so beautiful and yet so ugly at the same time.
He heard a low chuckle. “What?” he asked, looking at Nakuri.
“I didn’t say anything,” Nakuri replied.
Kayn tried his interface, but the signal was dead.
“We’re too deep,” said Nakuri. “Something down here is blocking communications.”
“Go back up,” said Kayn. “Signal the Fractal Shear. I want a science team assembled, with full monitor instruments. Get them down here in two hours. We’re going to take this place apart, piece by piece, and extract every last scrap of information.”
Nakuri nodded, but didn’t leave. “You’ve changed,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Now you’re an Ordinal. The tone of your—”
Kayn scoffed. “I don’t have time for this,” he said.
“That grandstanding against the Syndicate, what was that? I lost four men. Four men who didn’t need to die. Just so you could show off.”
“It was a delicate situation.”
“We could have called in the main ships. Just wiped them out. But, you had to play your show-off games. Sir.”
“We got the result I needed,” said Kayn.
“Four men dead.”
“Commander. Go and signal the ship. I will not ask you again.”
Nakuri faltered. “I brought you here because… Gods, I brought you here because I knew this wasn’t for me. Above my pay grade. I thought of you. That you’d know what to do. That you’d be worthy of it.”
“Worthy of it?”
“Of this prize! I mean, who am I? I’m not. Not worthy of…” He looked at Kayn. “But I thought you were. I thought I was doing my duty to the empire, and my friend. But I see you now. What you’re like. What you’ve become.”
Kill him for that.
Kayn looked around. Someone had spoken.
“Are we alone?” he whispered.
“What?” asked Nakuri, exasperated.
“Commander, did you post any guards down here?”
“No.”
“Then who just spoke?”
“No one spoke!” Nakuri snapped. “What’s wrong with you? I don’t know who you are any more!”
“Go and signal the ship. Now. Then come back and tell me you’ve done it.”
Nakuri glared at him, then turned and clambered away. Kayn remained crouched over the embedded weapon.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” he asked.
You know it was. I call. Some hear. Some come. I’m only interested in the worthy ones.
“People keep using that word. Who’s worthy? And of what?”
Of me. I’ll know who’s worthy when they prove themselves. Maybe it’s you.
“I don’t know what you are.”
You don’t have to. I just need to know you. I’ll keep calling until I’ve found the one. Then I’ll stop, because I won’t need to call anymore.
“I’m an Ordinal of—”
I care little what you are. What interests me is who you are. Your ambitions. Your dreams. What you’re capable of. How you think about the cosmos. How you think the cosmos should work.
“I told you I’m an Ordinal, because that’s what matters,” said Kayn sharply. “I have a job to do. A duty.”
A duty you resent. A duty you find increasingly frustrating. Following a man you think is growing weak. Pledging to a cause you think is overcautious. Frustrated, day after day, that no one shares your clarity of thought. That no one dares to act the way you want to act. That no one has the strength.
“My duty is to secure this site for the Demaxian Empire. I don’t believe I’m actually having a conversation with some antique weapon. I believe I am being exposed to quantum variance. This is my mind, playing tricks.”
So I’m a hallucination now, am I?
“This site is an anomaly of great scientific value. You’re the principal artifact within it. I am… I am imagining voices because of the exotic trace energies in this location, and—”
Nakuri’s been gone a long time, wouldn’t you say?
Kayn rose. He checked his interface’s chronometer. Nakuri had been gone for nearly an hour. An hour? How had so much time passed…?
Time is another illusion you can soon dispense with.
“If I’m worthy?” Kayn spat. He turned, and began the climb back to the surface.
He ignored the chuckle that came after him.

There was no sign of anyone.
“Nakuri?”
The communication link was empty. Something must have happened. More Syndicate? More of Zago’s men? Surely Kayn would have heard shooting.
He drew his pistol, and stalked forward.
The prisoners were still in their cave, silent and terrified. They blinked at him as he entered. “Where are your guards?” he asked. No one answered.
He crossed to the girl, Sona, and lifted her to her feet.
“I’ve seen what drew you here. I’ve seen it. Tell me about it.”
She didn’t answer.
“Sona,” he said, “you need to speak. Now.”
She stared at him. He tightened his grip on the pistol.
Don’t waste her. She’s far too valuable. Haven’t you figured that out yet? You’ll need her.
Kayn pushed the girl back down. He walked to the mouth of the cave.
The slingtrooper’s blade nearly took his head off. Kayn ducked and let the sword strike rock. Two shots from his pistol took the trooper down, his body sliding down the wall and onto the ground.
Rigo. One of Nakuri’s. A good man.
None of them are good enough, though. Are you?
They came at him from all sides. Photann blasts lit the rocky hallway. He returned fire, dropped two more, then had to spin-kick to drive off another. The trooper staggered away, clutching his splintered visor. Kayn tore the glaive out of his hand, then cut him in half with it.
He wheeled. An up-strike with the glaive’s haft knocked another trooper onto his back. Reverse. The butt-end driving into the belly of man lunging from behind him. Spin. The blade slicing home.
Someone shot at him. Photann shots. Block, block, block. The glaive was whirling in his hands, its coated titanium absorbing the power and deflecting the shots away.
“What the klag is this?” he bellowed.
“You don’t deserve it!” a voice yelled back. “It shouldn’t be for you!”
It was Nakuri.
Kayn plunged forward. He kicked the legs out from under a charging slingtrooper, then pinned him to the ground.
Vechid slammed into them both from the side. The squad leader was all armored bulk and augmented strength. She swung a fist. Kayn tried to block, but her charged gauntlet snapped the glaive’s haft. Kayn snarled, spun back to evade the next swing, then plunged the broken ends of the weapon into Vechid’s chest.
Speeks came at him. Kayn killed him with a beak-fist to the nasal bone.
“Stand your men down, Nakuri!” he yelled, moving towards the light of the tunnel mouth. “This is lunacy!”
This is the test.
“Nakuri! We’re being toyed with! This isn’t you!”
“Oh, but it is!” A voice echoed back. “This is me, the real me! Me for the first time! I see it all now! How it should be!”
“Nakuri!”
Armored fists closed around his throat from behind, and Kayn started to choke as they throttled him.
“Nakuri’s right,” he heard Solipas say. “You’re just some jumped-up fool, Kayn! So pleased with your klagging self! It shouldn’t belong to you! You don’t deserve it!”
Kayn flexed, and threw Solipas right over him. The man landed hard.
“Who then?” he asked. “You?”
“Obviously!” Solipas was springing up, ripping out a blade. “It’s chosen me! It says I’m the one! I heard it say so!”
There was a photann flash, and Solipas’s head was vaporized. His body crumpled.
“That’s a lie!” stammered Korla, edging forward. His eyes were wide. His pistol was still aimed at Solipas. “Me! It called my name!”
“We’re all being played with,” said Kayn.
Korla snapped around, aiming his gun at the Ordinal.
“All of us, Korla. All of us. It’s in our heads. It’s making us do this.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t lie,” said Korla. “Not to me!”
“We don’t know what it does. Put the gun down.”
Korla growled. “I know what it does. It makes you what you should be. I see that, clear as day. It claims you. Makes you… perfect. Makes you see sense. Makes you know who you can trust. Who needs to live or die.”
“That’s not right,” Kayn said.
“It is! It told me! It told me I was the one!”
He fired, but Kayn was already moving. The blast scorched his hip, just as he came in under Korla’s extended arm, and broke it.
Korla dropped to his knees, clutching his elbow. Kayn snatched the pistol away.
“It told me,” the trooper whimpered.
Kayn went to walk past him, but he grabbed at Kayn’s leg. Kayn put him out of his misery with a single shot.
He reached the cave mouth. “Nakuri?”
Nakuri was waiting for him, lance in hand.
“I admit,” the commander said, “I made a terrible mistake. Calling you. You? That was an error. I just wasn’t confident enough. Didn’t think I could handle it. That I could… That I could do it.”
“Do what?”
“Be what it needed. But I can. I see that now. It doesn’t need the likes of you. You won’t do it justice. But a veteran like me? Well, that’s a different story—I’ll be everything it ever wanted.”
“Nakuri,” said Kayn. “Toss the lance. Back off. You’re out of your mind.”
“It told me you’d say that.”
“We are all being influenced by interspatial—”
“No! No, we’re not! This only started when you arrived. I’ve been here for days!”
“That’s because I’m the one it wants,” said Kayn. “It was waiting for me. Now it’s testing me.”
“Testing you?”
“To see if I’m ruthless enough for its needs. And you… Nakuri, you’re my friend. It’s using you. Toss the lance. We can secure this entire—”
“No! It’s testing me. You’re not what it wants. You’re nothing. We’re not friends. Gods, you think we were ever friends? And you think you’re the special one? The chosen one? The worthy one? That’s just like you. So klagging arrogant! So full of your own importance!”
Nakuri took a step forward. Kayn fired, again and again, but the spinning staff spat the shots away, deflecting them into the cave walls. Two more steps, and the whirling blade cleaved the barrel off the photann pistol.
Kayn back-flipped away. The blade kissed the ground where he had been standing. He threw himself into Nakuri, delivering a gut-punch, then a blow to the neck. Nakuri staggered backwards, before Kayn’s spin-kick broke his jaw, and dropped him.
“If… not me…” Nakuri bubbled, broken, “…not you either. Others… are coming…”
“Others? Just hold still. I need to get you a medivac.”
Kill him.
“Shut up.”
Prove what you are. Kill him.
“Shut. Up.”
Kayn walked clear of the cave, and into the sunlight.
You’re running out of time. Make your choice.
He could see the Gentle Reminder. Nakuri had called it in after all. It was on low approach from the west, six kilometers distant, filling the sky, skimming the mountains.
Immense. Gun ports opening for surface decimation. A whole warship full of men and women, all of them answering the call. Men and women who thought they were worthy. Men and women who had each been told that, by the same voice.
Kayn opened his communication link.
“Fractal Shear, give me Captain Vassur.”
“Speaking, sir.”
“We have a situation, captain. Priority one. A mutiny. Lock the Gentle Reminder immediately.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. Lock and fire. Full batteries.”
“Sir, she’s one of ours—”
“Do as I tell you immediately, or you’ll be letting an Ordinal die. Lock and fire. Priority one. Mutiny situation.”
“Yes, sir. We’re on approach. Engines engaged. We’ll be in firing range in eight minutes.”
Too slow. Nakuri’s ship will obliterate you long before that.
“And you,” Kayn muttered.
I’ll survive. I’ll wait. I’ll call again and see who comes next time. Unless you are worthy…
“Once you’re claimed, the call stops?”
That’s what I told you.
Kayn turned and ran back into the cave system. The Gentle Reminder was so close. How long did he have? Three minutes?
He reached the shaft and hurried down between the gleaming pink ledges. Twice, he almost fell. Stones skittered out under his feet. He jumped the last of the way.
The scythe was where he had left it.
Change of heart? Time to reflect?
“Shut up,” Kayn said, and grabbed it.
It took him a second to pull it free. As it came into his grasp, he saw it blink. An eye opened at the base of the blade, a pink fire that burned his retinas and gazed into his heart, like—
He saw silence. He saw the vast well of time. He saw a moment stretched into an eternity. He saw lingering stillness and glacial quiet. He saw dark stars and black suns frozen in a void of endless shadow. He saw monstrous, silent deities lurking in a corrupted cosmos.
He heard a name, breathed like a sigh.
Rhaast.
And he knew it was his name now, too.

“The emperor will demand a report,” said Captain Vassur, nervously. “A detailed report. I… I’m not sure what to say…”
Kayn looked up from his window seat. The rasping light of slingspace beyond the window ports cast strange shadows in the chamber around them.
“I’m compiling it now, captain. It will be full and frank. But confidential. The mutiny on Ionan, and the subsequent destruction of the Gentle Reminder, must be kept quiet. For reasons of morale. I am sure you understand.”
“Yes, sir,” said Vassur.
“Anything else?”
Vassur shook her head. “We are en route back to the Locus Armada as ordered. Maximum slingspeed.”
“And the prisoners?”
“Secure. Ready for transport to detention and interrogation as soon as we arrive. I’m sure we can get a lot out of them. Useful information on covert Templar activity across the sector.”
“Take particular care of the girl,” Kayn replied. “The one named Sona. I will deal with her personally. She is, I believe, especially valuable.”
“Yes, sir,” said Vassur. The captain saluted and left Kayn’s quarters.
What will you tell them?
“What I want to tell them.”
Good.
“What will you tell me?”
Everything.
“Good. What do you want?”
Well, perhaps I won’t tell you that… No, I will. Trust is the essential foundation of any relationship, Kayn, and I want—
Kayn flung himself to the side. Even by the standards of his agility, he was a blur. No longer anything that might be described as human.
Keelo’s axe splintered through the empty window seat.
The scythe flashed. The severed halves of the old, battered fightmek crashed to the deck and lay there, sparking and twitching, as the light in his optics died.
“Surprise…” said Kayn.
Twilight of the Gods

Graham McNeill

They came to a dead city in the mountain’s shadow under cover of night. Battle-hosts of a thousand warriors, each bearing bloody totems that told of the ancient lineages of the Sunborn Ascended who led them.
The city and the bones of its people had long ago become one with the desert, and it was impossible to tell ash and bone from sand. Only its tallest towers remained above the dunes: broken spires that sang mournfully when the winds blew from the realms beyond the mountain. Upon a broken plinth stood two trunkless legs of stone, the cruel visage of a half-buried avian head lying in the sand beside them.
In a long-distant age, an event of great moment had taken place in the valley where the city would later be built.
It had marked the beginning of Shurima.
And set in motion its ending.
None remembered that day, save the god-warriors who now led their hosts towards the city’s jutting ruins. Those same god-warriors had put the citizens to the sword in the wake of their emperor’s betrayal. And with its people murdered, they had seen the city burned and its name hacked from every stele and obelisk that remained standing.
Yet these acts of extermination were for naught but futile spite.
Futile because the child who had been taken as a slave from this city was long dead, and in life had no use for memory of his birth.
His act had destroyed the empire and sundered their brotherhood.
And so the god-warriors burned Nerimazeth, and its people, to ash.
The passage of deep time had stolen the golden scroll’s luster.
Much like us all, thought Ta’anari. He drew a clawed finger down the etched list of names and numbers, a meticulous record of tithes from the newly-established trading port of Kha’zhun in the north.
Newly-established...?
Kha’zhun had been a city of men for centuries, their savage tongue already debasing its name into something new and ugly. The Scholar might have found the scroll’s contents interesting, but the only worth it held for Ta’anari was the tangible link it provided to a time when the world made sense.
The room had once been a hall of records, its marble walls lined with shelves and stacked with scrolls recording tributes due to the emperor, accountings of his wars and long lists of his deeds. It had been a cavernous space, but the roof had caved in centuries ago, and sand filled most of the subterranean space.
He felt a change in the air, and looked up from his studies.
Myisha stood in the doorway, dwarfed by its dimensions, though Ta’anari’s black-furred skull would brush its lintel—were he still able to stand upright. Her frame was slight, fragile even, yet Ta’anari sensed she possessed depths not even he had fully grasped. Gold-blonde hair, like the men found in the cold north, spilled around her shoulders. Her features were youthful, but her eyes, one rich blue, the other twilight’s purple, held wisdom beyond her years. She wore thin silks, colorful and entirely unsuited to the desert, tied at the waist with a thin rope, from which hung a single golden key. A vivid pink scarf coiled around her neck, and she twisted its tasseled ends through her fingertips.
“They’re here,” she said.
“How many?”
“Nine hosts. Nearly ten thousand warriors.”
Ta’anari nodded, drawing his tongue over his yellowed fangs. “More than I expected.”
She shrugged and said, “They all need to be here.”
“Too much blood has been spilled over the centuries,” he said. “Too much hate unleashed. The idea that there could be peace between us is anathema to many of them.”
Myisha shook her head at such foolishness. “So many have already died in this endless war. You’ve managed to kill more of your kind than even the abyssal horrors did.”
A rebuke of her flippant tone died on Ta’anari’s thick tongue. She was right, after all.
And wasn’t that why he had summoned his kin?
“The moment Azir fell, a war between the Sunborn was inevitable,” said Ta’anari, putting aside the scroll, and rising from his study of ancient history. “With him gone, the scale of our ambitions was too great for any one of us to lead. So many visions of what the future needed to be, but all of us too broken to realize them.”
“Then perhaps you are not so different from mortals, after all.”
Once, he would have killed anyone who voiced such a thought, but the centuries of war and the colossal scale of the slaughter they had unleashed was testament to the truth of it.
Ta’anari had no clear recollection of Myisha entering his service. The lives of mortals were so fleeting, he barely noticed when one died and another took their place. But Myisha had drawn his notice more than any other. Her defiant insolence was part of it, but there was more to it than that. She had an insight into the minds of mortals that he and all his kind lacked since trading their humanity for greater power.
Ta’anari had last walked as a man so very long ago. He barely remembered the sensations of a mortal, or the awareness of time’s inexorable march. Ancient magic and the forge of the Sun Disc had remade him, wrought the crude matter of his mortal flesh into that of a god.
A flawed and broken god, but divine nonetheless.
His bronze-armored form had been panther-like, bowed by age and war, but still mighty. The fur of his upper body had once been lustrous black, but both his snout and limbs were threaded with grey, and he had reshaped himself as best he could. Ta’anari’s gaze had cowed entire armies, but one scarred socket now contained a cracked ruby, the other a slitted amber eye, rheumy with despair. His spine was twisted after an axe-blow taken during the Battle of the River Kahleek, a blow so ferocious that not even his fiery regenerative powers had been able to fully undo the damage.
He lifted a weapon from the table, a magnificent four-bladed Chalicar. He felt the perfect balance of its killing edges, but more than that, he felt the weight of expectation it embodied. He sighed and slung it in his shoulder harness before limping over to Myisha.
Even hunched by the ravages of time and old wounds, Ta’anari towered over her. The War of the Sunborn—though others were calling it a different, darker name—had exacted a grievous toll of lives on her kind, yet she had no fear of him.
Sometimes, he sensed a measure of pity from her.
At other times, a withering contempt.
She placed a tiny, hairless hand in his massive, pawed fist. “You are still a god-warrior, Ta’anari,” she said, “Remind them of what that once stood for, and you will win them over.”
“And if they don’t listen?”
She smiled. “Simple. You kill them all.”
His life-bearers were waiting for him in the sand-sunk antechamber. Once they had been queens and the rulers of mortal empires, but in the face of Ta’anari’s invincible warhost, they had pledged their swords to him.
Better to fight alongside a god-warrior than to be crushed by one.
Teushpa bowed as he approached, her muscular arms knotted with tattoos and banded with jade torques. Defiant, but loyal, she had been the last to offer her blood. Sulpae was desert-born with a lineage that reached back to the time before Azir’s father. She stamped her long spear at the sight of him. Her shaven scalp was scarified in a grid and pierced with gold beads at every ridged intersection.
Idri-Mi, proud and sturdy, held her long-hafted axe at her shoulder, its double-leafed blades heavier than most men could lift. She was a queen from the east whose mother and grandmother had fought for him. Her pale skin was like ivory, her long black hair hung with silver hooks.
Ta’anari stood before the three warrior women.
They were not his bodyguards; he had no need of lesser beings to protect him. Instead, they served as symbols of his will, how he could dominate proud warriors who wanted him dead, and were skilled enough that they might actually be able to hurt him.
His brothers and sisters of the fallen brotherhood would bring their life-bearers too, but none were so fierce as his.
Even so, none of the women looked him in the eye as he spoke. To meet the gaze of a god-warrior was to die.
“I have seen many life-bearers over the centuries of my existence, but you will be my last,” said Ta’anari. He scanned their faces for a reaction, but years of servitude had purged them of the weakness of emotion. They were as expressionless as the fallen statues littering the remains of the dead city. “I know this with complete certainty, as much from the patient gleam in your eyes as the nightmares that rip through my skull when Myisha’s elixirs wear off. You are all loyal, but you hunger for my death.”
Was that a flicker in the eye of Teushpa? Once, he would have gnawed the flesh from her bones at such a lapse in control, but his appetite for slaughter had waned over the centuries.
“I cannot blame you,” he continued. “What does my kind offer yours but death and horror? An age ago, the Sunborn saved this world at a terrible cost, but now we have brought it to the edge of ruin. The Ascended Host’s days of glory are long past, overshadowed by the darkness of our warring, and the all too fleeting memories of you mortals.”
Bitterness tainted the last of his words, tempered only by the knowledge that he and his brethren had brought this upon themselves. Overweening pride, war-damaged psyches, and ancient feuds alloyed to forge the blade that sundered their chains of duty.
Ta’anari let out a shuddering breath. For over a thousand years he had fought against this moment, but now it was upon him, he knew death was nothing to be feared.
“If you live through this night, you will greet the dawn free. When the sun rises, return to your people and tell them what you saw and heard here.” He turned away. “Myisha, is everything prepared?”
“Yes. They’re waiting in the amphitheater.”
Ta’anari nodded. “Then let us end this.”
The space had not been designed as an amphitheater. It had served as Nerimazeth’s marketplace, but Ta’anari’s slaves had carved it from the desert’s embrace, and his magic had shaped it with heat so intense that it vitrified the sand. Now it was an arena of blown glass; a caldera of smoky black, sea green and numinous iridescence. Its surfaces captured the soft moonlight and reflected it back in floating veils of silver.
Ta’anari entered through a sweeping arch shaped like a frozen instant in the life of an ocean wave. Tension thickened the air, as was only to be expected when the gods gathered their battle-hosts.
Ten thousand men and women filled the tiered heights of the amphitheater, the champions of the god-warriors assembled below. No blades were bared, but all were ready to unleash an orgy of slaughter at their liege’s command.
Ta’anari swept his gaze around his fellow Sunborn—brothers and sisters once united by unbreakable bonds of love and duty that were, in time, revealed to be as brittle as glass. Unimaginable power had wrought their bodies, drawn from a realm beyond comprehension to sculpt their mortal flesh in ways none living now could recreate.
But our minds are still mortal, he thought, and shockingly weak.
Syphax’s gaze offered understanding. Zigantus radiated disgust. Xuuyan seethed with outright contempt. It had been Xuuyan’s axe that crippled Ta’anari at Kahleek. The chelonian-headed god-warrior spat on the ground as Ta’anari limped to the center of the amphitheater.
Shabaka and Shabake, the raven-feathered seer twins, did not even look up, too engrossed in casting auguries with scrimshawed fingerbones. Valeeva watched Ta’anari with the same haughty disdain that her brother always did—the one member of their sundered fellowship he was relieved had not attended.
Cebotaru the Wolf paced back and forth, impatient to be done with this conclave. His battle-hosts ravaged the far north, and the lands over the western seas. Of all of them, Cebotaru was closest to breaking the bloody stalemate.
Naganeka of Zuretta watched from within her hooded cowl, a long scaled robe draped over the coiled length of her body. Her venom blinded life-bearers stood ready to convey her words, should she actually deign to utter any. None of them had heard her sibilant whispers in over five hundred years.
Only Enakai offered respect. He came forward, his skin patterned with new, vivid stripes of orange and black. Where Ta’anari was bent and bowed, Enakai wore his great age with pride, eyes undimmed, and strength unbroken by the long ages he had made war. Long ago, they had climbed the golden steps to the sun-disc together, hand-in-hand as its searing light infused them with celestial power. Enakai had borne Ta’anari’s wounded body on the retreat from Icathia, fought as his brother in the mud at Kahleek, and faced him as an enemy at the Glacier Port.
Live as long as we do, and the wheel will turn many times.
Enakai took Ta’anari’s paw in his. “Ta’anari.”
“Enakai.”
No more needed to be said. The span of many lifetimes’ worth of experience, joy, loss and heartache were contained in their exchange of names. They were beings raised up as gods. Inconsequential words were beneath them.
Enakai’s eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the weapon slung behind Ta’anari’s back. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ta’anari gave an imperceptible shake of his head.
“I hope you know what you are doing,” Enakai murmured, returning to his place at the edge of the amphitheater.
Ta’anari took a breath; he had rehearsed this moment many times over the years, understanding that a single wrong word could end this before it began. His kin were god-warriors, and had all the haughty arrogance and quick temper common to beings of such ego.
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, the magically crafted acoustics carrying his words throughout the amphitheater. “Such a gathering of the Sunborn has not happened since the drawing of the thousand before the walls of Parnesa.”
He saw nods, that vivid memory stirring the dimmed embers in their souls of what they had once been.
Now build on that. Speak as if to each one of them.
“I look around, and I see power,” he continued, every word delivered with passion and belief. “I see gods where once walked mortals—beings of noble aspect, mighty and worthy of devotion. Some call our ancient brotherhood sundered. They use the ancient tongue to name us darkin, but to see you here gives the lie to that word.”
Ta’anari paused, letting his flattery wash over them. It would be empty to most, for choirs of tortured subjects sang praises day and night to them... on pain of death.
But it might open enough of the rest for them to be won over.
“You all remember when we marched shoulder to shoulder, when Setaka led our Ascended Host to push the emperor’s realm to the very edges of the world. I know I remember it well. It was an age of glory, an age of heroes! Cebotaru, you and I rode dragons of twilight to the piercing summit of the world, where all time is as one, and witnessed the creation of the universe.”
He turned, and held a hand out to Syphax.
“Syphax, my brother, we waged war on the abyssal monsters when they poured from the ocean rift on the eastern coast. We fought for ten days and nights, to the very limits of endurance, but we drove them back. We triumphed!”
Syphax nodded, and Ta’anari saw the memory of that war ripple through his scaled flesh in waves of purple, black and red.
“I do not speak of that time,” said Syphax, his many eyes veiled in smoke. “Seven thousand golden warriors of Shurima died on the red shore. Only you and I returned alive.”
“Yes, we paid a terrible price for that victory, brother—in flesh and in spirit. But what a fight it was! Mortals renamed the ocean in honor of our deeds that day.”
Syphax shook his head. “Your memory has omitted the horrors we saw that day, Ta’anari. Keep your talk of glory. I’ll not hear it. When I close my eyes, I still hear the screams of those we lost. I relive how those... things killed them. Worse, how they wiped them from the world, and devoured their very souls. So spare me your gilded recollections, I do not recognize them.”
“Yes, they were days of blood and, yes, it is likely I glorify them,” said Ta’anari. “But I speak of how the world should know us and remember us. As mighty heroes, bestriding the world at the head of invincible armies and commanded by an undying emperor who—”
“But Azir did die,” snapped Xuuyan, planting his mighty long-axe hard enough to crack the glass beneath. “He died, and without him at our head, the Sunborn fell to war. What went before is now dust and ashes. It is meaningless. So if you think reminding us of golden memories will end this conflict, then you have fallen further into madness than any of us.”
“Reminding us all of what we once were is only part of my reason for bringing you here,” said Ta’anari.
“Then state your purpose, or let us get back to killing one another.”
Ta’anari tried to stand upright, but failed when the twisted bones in his back creaked like a bent branch. Pain shot up his spine like the raking claws of a Void-born terror.
“It is the old wound, Xuuyan,” he said. “It never really healed. You remember, at Kahleek?”
“Of course I remember, cripple,” snarled Xuuyan. “I remember every blow I have struck from the moment I stepped from the light of the great disc. There are none of us here who cannot speak of great deeds or betrayals at the side of those we once called brothers and sisters.”
“You and I, we held the line where Icathia once stood. You saved my life more than once.”
“Those days are gone now,” snapped Cebotaru, the words mangled by the growing disfigurement of his jaw. “And in the past they must remain.”
“Why?” Ta’anari demanded, rounding on him. “Why must they remain in the past? Are we not the Ascended of Shurima? We are not mere avatars, we are gods! What is reality, but what we decide it should be? Any one of us could rule this world entirely, but instead we have fallen to petty squabbling, waging wars for reasons that no longer make sense, even to the few of us that could still name them.”
He paced, his tone hectoring and judgemental, despite himself.
“Zigantus, you believed we should rebuild from the ruins, to continue Azir’s legacy. Enakai, you sought to establish a new kingdom. Valeeva, you and your brother saw spite in every eye, and sought vengeance for slights real and imagined.”
“Oh, they were real,” she hissed, her alabaster skin threaded with violet veins and her venomous spines standing erect at her shoulders.
Ta’anari ignored her. “Each of us saw a different path into the future, but instead of using our Sunborn powers and working together to achieve something divine, we fought like scavengers over a fresh corpse. Yes, Setaka was long dead, and we will never see her like again. Yes, Azir was betrayed, and our empire lay in ruins, its people scattered and frightened. Shurima needed a strong leader to guide its rebirth, but all it was left with was us, broken monsters who had stared into the abyss too long and felt its horror twist their minds to madness and self-destruction.
“So instead of rebuilding, we fought for the scraps of a dead empire, while burning the rest of the world to the ground. Even now, we would sooner see the extinction of all life rather than find common purpose. Alone we are mighty, but together...? There is nothing we cannot do. Nothing. If we wanted, we could storm the celestial gates, leave this ashen world behind, and forge a new empire beyond the stars!”
Ta’anari’s voice dropped, laden with regret.
“But we do not. We do what lesser beings do. We kill each other in a war that has lasted many times longer than any we fought before.”
And then his voice rose, soaring to far reaches of the amphitheater.
“But it does not have to be that way, not any more!”
Ta’anari reached back over his shoulder and unslung the Chalicar. A murmur of shock rippled around the amphitheater at the sight of the ancient weapon.
“You all remember this,” he said. “It is the weapon of Setaka, greatest and noblest of us all. Brought from beyond the mountain and raised aloft at Shurima’s birth. It is the blade that will one day be borne by Sivunas Alahair, the Bringer of Rains. In their hands it will be a weapon of great destruction, or a symbol of unity.”
He held out the Chalicar for his fellows to see. Its edges glittered gold, shaped by cosmic forces beyond this world by powers not even the wisest of Shurima understood. Ta’anari saw their reverence, their awe and pride.
But most of all he saw their desire to possess it. Xuuyan took a step towards him.
Of course it would be Xuuyan.
The god-warrior spun his axe, and Ta’anari remembered the awful pain of its obsidian blade splitting his armor and smashing his spine to shards.
“I will kill you and take it from your dead hand,” said Xuuyan, a wide grin splitting his beaked skull. “Will that make me the leader?” His chitinous carapace bulged at his shoulders, studded with outgrowths of bone spikes and iron blades. Even in his prime, Ta’anari could not best him.
But Kahleek was many centuries ago, and Ta’anari had learned new tricks since then.
“Are you going to fight me with that?” Xuuyan asked, pointing to the Chalicar with his axe.
“No,” said Ta’anari, turning to hand it to Myisha.
Its weight was almost too much for her to bear, but she winked and again he sensed capricious amusement from her, as though the sight of gods about to fight was amusing to her.
Xuuyan sneered. “Then what? You will face me unarmed? Is that what this is? You want to die here, in the sight of your fellow gods?”
“Not that either.”
“No matter, I care nothing for your reasons,” said Xuuyan, “I will finish what I began at the river.”
His charge was like an avalanche—a rumbling, inexorable thunder that was as deadly as it was inescapable. Ta’anari had seen entire phalanxes broken by it, giants toppled and fortress gates smashed asunder.
Ta’anari dropped to one knee and placed his hands flat against the amphitheater’s glassy floor. He felt currents of magic running through its structure, golden threads of power linking him to every living being that stood upon it. The mortals were like tiny sparks rising from a fire, fleeting and inconsequential, but the god-warriors were newborn suns of roiling magic.
He tapped into their power, just as Myisha had taught him. He drew out a measure of the cursed prescience of Shabaka and Shabake, feeling their alien senses twist within him. The lizard-swiftness of Syphax surged through his ancient body. The rage of Zigantus, and Enakai’s sense of righteous purpose.
Ta’anari closed his eye, now knowing where Xuuyan’s charging blow would land.
He swayed aside, the blade slashing a hair’s breadth from his throat. Xuuyan’s passing was like a thunderstrike, and Ta’anari swung around, grasping one of his attacker’s curling shell-horns. He vaulted onto Xuuyan’s back as his former brother roared in fury.
The god-warrior rolled, trying to throw Ta’anari, but his grip was too tight. The seer twins’ unwitting gift allowed Ta’anari to anticipate every wild, bucking move his foe made. Xuuyan reversed his grip on the axe and swung it over his shoulder like the barbed whip of a lunatic penitent. Ta’anari rolled aside as the blade smashed down, cleaving a deep and gory trough in Xuuyan’s unnatural armor.
The Sunborn bellowed in anger, wrenching the blade from his hardened flesh in a welter of blood. One of his horns hung by sinewy threads, and Ta’anari ripped it from the carapace. Ivory white and curved like a scimitar, its tip was sheathed in iron, and needle-sharp.
Xuuyan slammed into the wall of the amphitheater with a hammering impact that smashed it to spinning fragments of razored glass. Scores of mortal bodies tumbled into the arena, only to be crushed underfoot by the struggling god-warriors. Xuuyan hurled Ta’anari from his back. He landed hard on the ground, still clutching the sharpened horn.
Xuuyan turned and swung his axe down in an executioner’s strike, but Ta’anari dove aside, and the floor exploded in knives of glass. Instead, Xuuyan’s gnarled foot stomped down on his chest, pinning him to the floor. He felt his ribs crack, a shard punching through into his lung. The weight was colossal, easily capable of crushing him like an insect.
“The Chalicar will be mine!” Xuuyan shouted.
The god-warrior’s leathery, helmet-like skull extended from his armored carapace, his neck pale and thick with pulsing arteries. Soulless black eyes bulged at the promise of slaying yet another rival. As he’d promised, Xuuyan meant to finish what he had begun on the banks of the River Kahleek.
“No,” grunted Ta’anari through blood-flecked fangs. “It won’t.”
He unleashed a surge of newly-learned power, unknown to the rest of his kind. He blinked—a terrible sensation of hurtling through an unending vortex overcame him, a tunnel surrounded by hideous monsters that lurked just beyond the threshold...
The sensation lasted a fraction of a second only, but felt like an age.
He opened his eyes, and he was once again atop Xuuyan as the deadly axe arced towards the ground. A hard bang of displaced air echoed behind him as the fleeting portal closed.
Ta’anari raised the bloody horn high overhead, and plunged it down into Xuuyan’s eye.
The tip punched deep into the god-warrior’s skull, Ta’anari’s inhuman strength driving the entire length of the horn into the mass of Xuuyan’s brain.
It was a ferocious killing blow, but Xuuyan still stood, his Ascended flesh not quite ready to admit that it was dead. Ta’anari leapt clear as the towering god-warrior crashed to his knees with the sound of a mountain toppling. Xuuyan rolled onto his side, his remaining eye staring at his killer with mute incomprehension. His beaked mouth still moved, but no words came out.
Ta’anari gulped in breaths that heaved in his blood-frothed lungs. He heard Myisha squeal with delight, clapping like a proud teacher pleased at a student’s wild success.
The sound sickened him.
Even if things had gone exactly as planned, he’d suspected he would have to kill at least one of his brethren. But he had not relished the prospect. He and Xuuyan had never been close, but they had fought side by side for the glory of Shurima, back when the sun blessed them, and filled their bodies with strength.
He knelt beside his fallen opponent and laid a furred hand on his head. Blood glistened with the light of dragon-wrought stars. “I am truly sorry, brother,” he whispered.
A roar of anguish went up from Xuuyan’s champions. Not in mourning for their fallen god—Xuuyan was too hated for that—nor even in hunger for vengeance. The roar was for their own forfeit lives. Murderous blades slipped from the sheaths of the warbands to either side of them.
The god-warriors had taught their slaves well.
Men without a god to protect them were nothing more than vermin to be exterminated, or so the teachings had always been.
“Hold!” shouted Ta’anari. “Champions, stay your blades!”
These warbands were not his; but he was Sunborn, and the awesome authority in his voice halted them in their tracks. His fellow god-warriors stared in open-mouthed wonder at what Ta’anari had done. Naganeka of Zuretta slid forward, and lowered her upper body to study Xuuyan’s cooling corpse. Pale smoke was lifting from his flesh, celestial energies already fleeing the mortal meat of his body.
She pulled back her hooded cowl, revealing her many hypnotic eyes rimmed with ash, and scaled lips overhung by long, ebony fangs. She bent over the wound in Xuuyan’s back, and her tongue flicked out to taste his death.
“Rhaast will be disappointed,” she said, her voice a wet, reptile hiss. “He had sworn to slay Xuuyan himself.” Her venom blinded life-bearers shuffled behind her, unsure of what to do now that their reviled goddess had spoken aloud.
The others came forward warily. Enakai and Syfax watched Ta’anari with newfound respect. The others fixated on Xuuyan’s death, but they had seen Ta’anari do something impossible, even for a god-warrior.
Shabaka and Shabake circled the corpse. Their stunted wings fluttered in agitation. They wore the smell of death like a shroud—the corruption that touched them all was most obvious in those two.
Onyx eyes, eyes that had seen too much, darted back and forth. “Told him he would die today, didn’t we, sister?” said Shabaka.
“They never listen, do they?” Shabake replied.
Shabaka giggled. “No, no, never listen to the mad ravens. What do we know? Only everything!”
“You foresaw this?” demanded Zigantus.
“Yes, yes, saw him get too close a look at that horn of his. Told him so, but he just laughed.”
“Not laughing now, is he, brother?”
“No, sister.”
“What else have you seen?” asked Syphax.
The seer twins huddled together, whispering and tossing the small bones back and forth between them. Their minds had been shattered during the battle to seal the Great Rift at Icathia. No one, not even a god-warrior, could meet the gaze of the titanic entities who watched and dwelled within the Abyss without their sanity unravelling a little.
Shabake frowned. “Future too tightly woven to know...”
“And too many possible outcomes from the now to see any clearly,” Shabaka added. “Not for sure.”
“All of us may die today. Or just some,” said Shabake. “Or maybe none. Maybe you kill Ta’anari now, Zigantus, and we all get to live.”
“Live to kill each other another day!” cackled Shabaka.
“She wants it. She is the pebble that starts the avalanche.”
“Speak plainly!” demanded Zigantus. “Who wants what? Pebbles? Avalanches? Who are you talking about?”
“Her!” screeched Shabaka, pointing past Ta’anari to the slight figure of Myisha. “She is the mote-light in the eye of the gods.”
Myisha held the Chalicar tight to her chest, like a child clutching her father’s blade.
Cebotaru snarled and hauled Ta’anari to his feet. The Wolf’s physique was slender, yet monstrously powerful and wrought with four sinewy, grey-furred arms curled into clawed fists. “What are they talking about?” he growled. “That one, who is she?”
Ta’anari bit back a scream of pain as the twisted bones of his spine ground together. “She is a mortal, nothing more,” he said.
“You always were a miserable liar,” said Cebotaru, baring long, crooked fangs. “The truth, brother, or I will rip your throat out before you can blink.”
“She helped me find the Chalicar,” said Ta’anari.
Cebotaru shook his head. “The Scholar buried the Chalicar with Setaka when he took her body into hiding, after the doom of Icathia. How is it that a mere mortal knew where to find it?”
“She did not, but she led me to Nasus.”
The others forgot Xuuyan, and turned their attention on Ta’anari.
“You saw the Scholar?” said Valeeva, the spines on her back rippling with anticipation. “No one has seen him since he killed Moneerah for delving the charred ruins of Nashramae’s great library.”
“I saw him, but he is much changed since we last knew him. Whatever burden he bears has all but crushed him. He dwells at a tower raised on a hidden cliff, watching the dance of stars. He bade her find me, and bring me to his tower.”
“Why you?” hissed Naganeka. “Why not any of us?”
“I do not know,” said Ta’anari. “There are many more deserving of his attention.”
“And you spoke to him?” asked Enakai.
“I did,” said Ta’anari.
“And he told you where to find Setaka’s blade?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?” spat Syphax.
“No, not just like that,” Ta’anari snapped, throwing off Cebotaru’s grip. He turned to retrieve the Chalicar from Myisha. The power within the weapon was potent and restless. “I told him of our war, of how we were burning paradise and clawing at one another like animals. I told him I needed the weapon of Setaka to end this bloodshed.”
“Nasus rejected us the moment Azir fell,” said Zigantus. “Why would he help now?”
“He rejected the Sunborn, because he saw the bitter jealousies and twisted rivalries that fester in our hearts,” said Ta’anari. “He has been walking the forgotten paths of this world, wracked by grief and adrift in memories of his lost brother, but always he is drawn back to the land of his birth.”
Ta’anari took a breath, grimacing as he felt the currents of magic shifting within him. Sharp pain stabbed up into his heart from his belly.
So, the end begins...
Myisha had warned that using the magic she had taught him would irrevocably change even an Ascended, breaking the fetters that bound the immortal breath of the gods to his human flesh. That power had held the hurts of endless battle and the passage of millennia at bay, but some things were never meant to live forever.
Fear touched him then, cold and unfamiliar, but he fought down the creeping tide of pain and weakness.
“You are right, Zigantus. Nasus will never fight in our war, but that does not mean he is heedless of what we do. He told me the stars speak of a time far in the future when Shurima will rise from the sands once more, when the rightful ruler will fight to claim dominion over all that has been lost.”
“Shurima will rise again?” said Cebotaru, unable to mask his eagerness. “When?”
“We will not live to see it,” said Ta’anari. “Not all of us.”
Shabake pushed her scrawny, skittering form between them. Her withered arms stabbed the air, her dark eyes wide. “All of us may die today. Or just some,” she screeched.
Syphax pushed her away. “The Chalicar,” he said. “It will play a part in Shurima’s rebirth?”
“Yes,” said Ta’anari. “For good or ill. It will be a symbol for the people of Shurima to rally behind. I had hoped it could heal the wounds between us—a reminder of what we once were, and what we could be again. It could have saved us if we had taken the chance to reclaim the brotherhood that once bound us together under a single banner.”
Cebotaru grunted in amusement. “And now the truth of it comes out. You gathered us here to claim the right of leadership, bearing the weapon of our greatest champion, and anointed by the Scholar himself.”
Ta’anari shook his furred head.
“No, I could never be the equal of Setaka, or Nasus. All I sought was an end to this war. I had hoped we could do it together, but I see now that was an impossible dream.”
Ta’anari walked away from his brethren, moving to stand in the centre of the amphitheater. All eyes were upon him, eight god-warriors and thousands of mortals.
The pain was spreading all through him, almost too much to bear. He swallowed, tasting the grit of sand in the back of his throat. Fur was drifting free from his body in wispy clumps. Every movement felt like broken glass was grinding in his joints.
He turned to address the others.
“Power without check made us vain, made us believe that nothing should be denied us. That made us poor stewards of his world, and we do not deserve to be its masters. We once called ourselves the Ascended Host. What are we now? Darkin? A name debased by mortals who no longer understand what we are, or what we were wrought to do.”
He lifted his fading eye to the thousands watching from the steps of the amphitheater, tears cutting a path through his flaking skin.
“They hate us, and when the horrors of the abyss rise once more, they will beg for our return,” said Ta’anari, meeting Myisha’s eager gaze. “But we will be gone, no more than whispers on the songwinds, a dark legend of imperfect gods told to scold disobedient children.”
With the last of his strength, Ta’anari rammed the Chalicar down into the crystalline floor of the amphitheater. The sound was deafening, like a hammerblow against the veil of the world. The cracks from its impact spread farther than they should have, and the clear sky burned with the diamond brilliance of a newborn star.
But this was no golden radiance. This was cold, merciless and silver.
“What the sun made, the moon will unmake!” screamed Ta’anari.
And a blazing column of white fire stabbed from the midnight sky.
It struck the Chalicar’s extended arms and reflected that fire outwards, drawing in the god-warriors and piercing their chests. It burned them, reached into the arcane heart of their being and devoured the magic that made them.
Shabaka and Shabake vaporized instantly, disappearing in an ashen cloud of drifting feathers. Their screams were cackles of release, freighted with resigned foreknowledge.
Syphax twisted in the light like a hooked fish, but even his power was meaningless in the face of this cosmic fire. The bull-headed Zigantus tried to run, but not even his legendary speed could outrun the moonfall called down by Ta’anari.
Even as his skin sloughed from his bones, Ta’anari wept to see them die. They were his brothers and sisters, and not even centuries of the most brutal war imaginable could make him hate them.
He saw Enakai unmade by the radiance, his divine flesh dissolving into light from his bones. He reached for Ta’anari, and his eyes were accepting as he met his fate.
He sobbed at what he had been forced to do.
The light burned away his remaining eye, and a world of darkness closed in on him. The last of his strength fled his body and he slumped to the glass floor of the amphitheater. He heard more screams and the shouts of fighting men who knew nothing of the affairs of gods. More bloodshed, but it would pass.
Would the mortal hosts continue the war his kind had begun?
Perhaps. But it would be a mortal war, and it would end.
Ta’anari drifted in darkness, lost in memories of happier days.
He tried to recall his life before climbing the golden steps to meet the sun with Enakai. Little remained of that time, the memories shed as the heavenly power had crowded his skull.
Ta’anari heard footsteps. Booted feet crunching over broken glass. He smelled mortal flesh, rank with sweat and decay.
They were smells he recognised. His life-bearers.
Ta’anari lifted a hand, seeking the touch of another living being, but no one took it.
“Sulpae?” he croaked. “Is that you? Teushpa? Idri-Mi? Please, help me. I think... I think I am mortal once more, I... I think I am human again...”
“You are,” said a voice that seemed on the verge of laughter.
“Myisha,” whispered Ta’anari. “Are they all dead?”
“No. Naganeka, Valeeva and Cebotaru escaped before the fire could take them. But they’re pretty weak, so I don’t think they’ll be a problem for long. It’s the others, all those who didn’t show up, who’ll be harder to trap.”
“No! You must finish them,” wheezed Ta’anari. “Even a wounded god-warrior could conquer this world.”
“Trust me,” said Myisha, “what we did here spells the beginning of the end for your kind.”
“Then we did it. We brought peace.”
Then she really did laugh. “Peace? Oh, no—this world will never know peace. Not really.”
Confused, Ta’anari struggled to rise, but the hard jab of a spear butt to the chest pushed him back.
“No, you stay down there,” said Myisha.
“Please, help me up,” he said. “I told you, I am human now.”
“I heard you, but do you imagine that fact washes away your multitude of sins? Think of all the lives you ended. Does being human now mean you’re forgiven for the oceans of blood you spilled? Tell me, how many atrocities did it take before your withered conscience finally pricked you enough to act?”
“I don’t understand,” Ta’anari murmured. “What are you saying?”
Myisha giggled, and she suddenly seemed so much younger to him, yet impossibly ancient too. He heard the cracking sound of the Chalicar being pulled from the amphitheater floor.
“I am saying that your death has been a long time coming, Ta’anari,” said Myisha. “Some of you turned out not so bad, I suppose, but most of you were so damaged in the war with the Void, it’s a wonder you survived this long. Perhaps you and your kind were a mistake to begin with, but a mistake I can help correct.”
Even without eyes, Ta’anari felt the golden power of the Chalicar hovering just above him. Though his body was withered and all but spent, he cried out in agony as its edge split his chest.
Myisha whispered into his ear. “The power that coursed through this weapon touched you all, Ta’anari. It knows your kind now. And I give that fire to mortals.”
Her hands were inside him, and Ta’anari felt his heart being cut away, felt it being lifted from the cage of his cloven ribs... yet, still, he lived.
For a few moments more, at least.
“Idri-Mi,” she said, handing off Ta’anari’s heart, “take this and the Chalicar to your weaponsmiths. We will need to take a different approach in dealing with the rest of the...”
Myisha paused.
“Wait, what was that old word?”
She snapped her fingers.
“Ah, yes. That’s it. Darkin.”
Twisted Fate

Born to the nomadic river folk of the Serpentine Delta, the boy Tobias Felix quickly learned what it was to be an outsider. Tolerated for the exotic goods they peddled, but shunned for their strange traditions, his people found only short welcomes wherever they berthed their colorful river barques. His elders would shrug, and say this was just the way of the world… but the obvious prejudice always stuck in Tobias’ craw.

He found his true calling in the gambling tents, between games of chance and skill like Mortwheel and Stabberscotch, when he first picked up a deck of playing cards. Many years earlier, his superstitious grandfather had shown him how to read omens in the shuffle and cut, while his aunt had later taught him how to read all an opponent’s tells. Between the two, Tobias took to the high-stakes game of Krakenhand like an old master. He could almost feel each card’s place in the deck, and follow their movements through each successive hand. He was often accused of cheating, but it was difficult for anyone to explain exactly how.

Finally, one night, a group of men who’d lost their fortunes to young Tobias returned in the dead of night to settle the score. They came bearing cudgels and, emboldened by cheap rotgut, went from tent to tent in their search for him, beating down any of the river folk who got in their way. Fearing for his life, Tobias turned and fled into the darkness.

When dawn came, the lad sheepishly crept back to find his people breaking down the camp. No one would look him in the eye. He had thought only of himself, and left others to face the consequences of his actions.

Though he begged and pleaded with them all, Tobias was exiled for what he had done. With his whole world falling apart around him, he watched helplessly as the barques left, leaving him alone on the riverbank with nothing but his grandfather’s worn deck of cards clutched in his hands.

He grew to manhood as a drifter, trawling the gambling halls of every settlement he came to, using his preternatural skill to earn enough coin to survive. That Tobias was able to relieve the boastful, the arrogant, and the cruel of their cash was just an added bonus—though he was always careful to let his marks win at least a few hands, here and there.

Across one table, he met a deplorable fellow named Malcolm Graves.

Each recognizing a kindred soul, Tobias and Graves quickly joined forces, and the two of them spent years running various… dubious endeavors across the northeastern coastal towns, and beyond. With every con, swindle, and heist, Tobias felt the pull of the cards growing stronger, and he knew it was more than mere gambler’s luck that guided him. His people had always waved away concerns over primitive magic and “cartomancy”, but now Tobias began to seek out ever more dangerous means to bend the cards to his will.

That search ended badly when a particularly daring heist went wrong. The exact details of that night remain shrouded in mystery, for neither of them likes to speak of it—but Graves was taken alive, while Tobias and their other accomplices ran free.

Though he tried to break Graves out, he failed. Instead, seeking to begin again, he returned his birth name to the river’s waters, and took another: Twisted Fate.

After that, Twisted Fate continued to ply his criminal trade in the high parlors and low dens of every city he visited, though without his partner to help him, he tended to find himself cornered far more often. Indeed, he was imprisoned with great fanfare too many times to count, yet no cell ever seemed able to hold him for long; Twisted Fate was always gone with morning’s light, leaving only a mocking calling card to confirm he had ever been there at all.

In the port of Bilgewater, Twisted Fate and Graves finally had their day of reckoning. They were forced to put aside their differences after being caught up in a power struggle between the ship captains who ran the place—but following the death of the reaver king Gangplank, the pair managed a swift reconciliation before shoving off and making for distant Piltover.

All in all, Twisted Fate is glad to have his old friend back, even if it might take another job or two—or ten—to restore their once easy partnership.
Double Down

All eyes in Fortune's Glory were on Twisted Fate. He felt the gambling hall's many patrons regarding him with a mixture of envy, vicarious excitement, and spiteful longing for him to lose everything on the turn of the last card.
Beyond the avarice common to dens of chance, Twisted Fate felt a singular purpose at work here, a noose being slowly drawn around his neck. The cards were twitching in agitation, warning him of danger. He knew he should fold and get out before whoever was hunting him sprang their trap, but the opportunity to make a pauper of the man across the table was too enticing to forego.
He grinned at his opponent, a greedy merchant whose fortune was built on the whipped backs of enslaved miners. The man's robes were expensive: Freljord furs, hand-tooled leather, and Bilgewater sea charms. Every finger boasted a ring of blood gold worth more than most men would see in a lifetime. Aromatic smoke drifted from clay pipes to hang over the fortune in coin, jewelry, and deeds lying between them like a pirate's treasure horde.
Twisted Fate nodded toward the merchant.
“I do believe it's your call, Master Henmar.”
“I am aware of the rules, river rat,” said Henmar, as Twisted Fate ran his tattooed fingers in a repeating spiral pattern on the backs of his cards. “And do not think any of your fancy sleight of hand is going to distract me into making an error of judgment.”
“Distract you?” said Twisted Fate, exuding laconic confidence in every gesture. “I declare, I would never stoop to such a low and dishonorable ruse.”
“No? Then why is it your eyes keep darting from the table?” said Henmar. “Listen closely, I have negotiated with the best of them, and I know the tell of a desperate man when I see it.”
Twisted Fate gave a sly grin, swapping the cards between his hands and theatrically doffing his wide-brimmed hat.
“You're sharp, sir. I can see that,” he said, sweeping his gaze across the gathered crowd. The usual collection of hangers-on; men and women hoping that whoever won might be generous to those nearby. The cards trembled as Twisted Fate's eyes fell upon certain individuals and he felt his mouth fill with the rancid flavor of sour milk. He’d long learned to trust that reaction as a sign of imminent bedlam.
There. A man with an eye patch and a flame-haired woman. They were almost certainly armed and well aware of his slippery nature. Did he know them? Probably not. Were they working for Henmar, protecting his assets? Unlikely. A man like Henmar would make it obvious who he'd brought. Bounty hunters then. The cards were growing ever more alarmed in Twisted Fate's hands. He slipped them together and placed them flat on the table.
“You have a look that tells me you know you have already lost,” said Henmar with the tone of a man who believes everyone to be his inferior.
“Then what say we make this a little more interesting, sir?” replied Twisted Fate, spreading the cards in a fan and watching as the hunters eased closer. “Care to double down?”
“Are you able to cover that much?” asked Henmar suspiciously.
“Easily,” said Twisted Fate, locking his gaze with the merchant and lifting a heavy pouch of coins from the voluminous pockets of his long coat. “Can you?”
Henmar licked his lips and snapped his fingers. A flunky behind the merchant handed him a matching bag of coins. The patrons of Fortune's Glory gave a collective moan as it was added to the gold heaped in the middle of the table. Wars had been waged for less coin than was at stake here.
“You first,” said Henmar.
“Always,” agreed Twisted Fate, flipping over his cards as the bounty hunters made their move.
The man with the eye patch lunged at him with a capture collar. The woman shouted his name and drew a matching pair of pistols.
Twisted Fate kicked the underside of the table, spinning it into the air in a shower of coins, cards, and parchment. The pistols fired with deafening roars, blasting fist-sized holes in the table. The capture collar snapped closed, but when the smoke cleared and the screams stopped, Twisted Fate was nowhere to be found.
Henmar rose to his feet, his face twisted in outrage as he searched in vain for his opponent. He looked down at the broken pieces of the table and the color drained from his face.
“Where is the money?” he yelled. “Where is my money?”
Five cards fluttered face-up to the floor of Fortune's Glory.
A winning hand.
Twitch

A plague rat by birth, a connoisseur of filth by passion, Twitch is a paranoid and mutated rat that walks upright and roots through the dregs of Zaun for treasures only he truly values. Armed with a chem-powered crossbow, Twitch is not afraid to get his paws dirty as he builds a throne of refuse in his kingdom of filth, endlessly plotting the downfall of humanity.
Do Not Engage

H.I.V.E. Incident Report
Code Violation: Industrial Homicide
Casefile Status: Unsolved
Investigating Agent: Rol, P.

Team responded to report of suspicious character, criminal activity; proceeded to Sump Works, Sector 90TZ. Sector 90TZ notably absent. In its place: sinkhole, smoke, noxious fumes. Interviews with private security indicate urgent need for better private security.
Response team entered sinkhole. Toxic runoff had melted away building wreckage. Two survivors located, one partially liquefied and dripping off catwalk. Six deceased bodies found among wreckage, three of them partial; two appear to predate incident. Causes of death include acute deceleration, caustic liquidation, and/or fatal crossbow wounds. Unclear if lab's destruction was itself the perpetrator's motive or an attempt to cover tracks.

Survivor #1 (Ra Qintava, facility researcher) brought up for interview, but unable to provide statement due to 1) post-traumatic stress and 2) liquefaction of tongue and lower jaw. Awaiting toxin screen and prosthesis fitting.

Search-and-rescue discovered apparent shantytown constructed from refuse. Recovered items include:

57 waterlogged romance novels, illegible, with edits made in crayon
108 bottles, unlabeled (possible toxic runoff or discarded shampoo remnants)
200 pounds chewing gum (possible installation art project)
1 jar toenails, labeled by toe/finger, date, and mood
Survivor #2 (Valori Olant, Sludge Analyst) in recovery; regained lucidity following prolonged therapeutic electrocution. Statement transcript excerpt follows:

V.O.: GOT TO DO SOMETHING -
NURSE: She's lost so much blood --
P.R.: Her co-workers lost a lot more than that --
V.O.: IT'S STILL OUT THERE!
P.R.: Ma'am, I need you to focus. Tell me what he looked like.
V.O.: LIKE A RAT! (pause)
NURSE: Like a what?
P.R.: You mean, small? Beady-eyed? Sorta rat-faced -- ?
V.O.: I MEAN IT LOOKED LIKE A GIANT GODSDAMNED RAT! (pause). WITH A CROSSBOW! (pause).
P.R.: (to nurse) Can we moderate her painkillers?
V.O.: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! IT'S A HOMICIDAL, PSYCHOPATHIC, GIANT FREAKING RAT!
IN A WAISTCOAT!
P.R.: Nurse?
NURSE: (injecting Olant's arm with sedative) On it.
[EDIT]
V.O.: We were just scientists, working on refining human waste into inexpensive baby formula... [EDIT] I saw - I don't know how else to - this crazed, enormous RAT - screaming at us! Kicking over vats! Spitting on our food! [EDIT] The lab was sealed. Industrial waste was spilling everywhere. Nowhere to run. [EDIT] I woke up in the dark. Well, the acid had melted my eyeballs. I could SMELL the twitchy bastard inches from my face. It said, “NOBODY STEALS TWITCH'S JUICE!” cackled wildly, and skittered off... I can still smell it in my mind. OH MY GODS, I CAN STILL SMELL IT-

End transcript. At this point victim began screaming; has yet to stop.

[UPDATE: Qintava, Written Testimony]
Suspect summary, as reported:
NAME/KNOWN ALIASES: ''Twitch.''
SEX: Male (unconfirmed).
AGE: Unknown.
HEIGHT: 4'9'' (hunched)
WEIGHT: < 99 lbs. (wet).
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Is a giant rat.
STATUS: At large; armed, extremely dangerous; DO NOT ENGAGE.

H.I.V.E - Enforcing Progress!
Udyr

Whenever the moon rises into a wintery sky, round and red as blood, the spirit walkers of the Freljord know that another of their kind has been born into the world. One attuned to the wilds and the land, one who walks within and beside the spirit that best matches the shape of their heart. On the night of Udyr’s birth, there was nothing in the crimson moon that suggested anything different than that.

Nothing that would suggest Udyr was already the most powerful walker to ever live.

Every being has spirit, whether person or beast, plant or animal, dead or alive or deathless. But unlike his brethren, Udyr’s power of spiritual connection was not limited to one type of spirit—he could hear them all. The needs and wants of everything around him constantly flooded his mind, making it impossible to hear anything above their roar.

His parents did not know how to help him. Their warmother sent for other spirit walkers to train the boy, but each said the same thing: spirit walker training focused on opening oneself up, not closing oneself off.

The first time Udyr tapped into his powers with purpose was the night the Frostguard came for him. Young Udyr, terrified, hid in the forest. He did not expect to feel the life ripped from... everyone. His entire tribe, slaughtered in an instant. Howling with sadness and rage, Udyr took power from the spirits of the forest. With a swipe of his claws and a beating of his wings, he brought the mountain down on the Frostguard. Alone, grieving, and overwhelmed, Udyr wandered the wastes for years, doing what he had to in order to survive.

He did not interact with humans again until he landed the killing blow on a wildclaw that was troubling a Winter’s Claw hunting party. Impressed, they brought Udyr back to camp. Warmother Hejian sent him to be trained in the ways of war alongside her daughter Kalkia. The wild boy showed the lonely daughter how to live in the wild, and she showed him how to live among people. Soon, the Winter’s Claw began to almost feel like a home.

But that changed when a pack of starved and diseased rimefang wolves skulked close to the camp. Udyr lost himself in the fog of the pack’s madness and hunger, attacking and nearly killing a child. It took Kalkia and her mother’s True Ice to stop Udyr. After the wolves had all been slain, Hejian banished Udyr from the Winter’s Claw.

Udyr returned to the mountains, far from those he could hurt. Kalkia would visit whenever she could get away until she was eventually called upon to lead her tribe. She joyfully lifted Udyr’s banishment, but he refused to return. He still had no control over the spirits whose wants and needs howled inside his mind, but swore he would always be there to protect Kalkia and the people she loved. That was the last time they saw one another.

Everything changed when a foreign monk sought him out, saying he had come to train with the spirit walkers so that he may learn how to subdue the dragon spirit that burned within him. Udyr refused, but the monk challenged Udyr for the right to train with him. They fought to their limits, but in the end, neither won.

The monk introduced himself as Lee Sin, and said that this battle had shown him they both had much to learn. He invited Udyr to train in his homeland of Ionia. With nothing left to tie him to the Freljord, Udyr agreed.

The two men grew close during their journey, taking time each day to spar together and to speak of the spirits, but when they finally arrived at Hirana Monastery, they found it besieged by Noxian invaders. Calling upon the spirits of Ionia, Udyr leapt into the fray.

After their victory, the two men asked the abbott for guidance and how to learn control. The abbott told them that self-mastery had no guaranteed end, but agreed to train them both.

For the first time, Udyr’s mind was quiet enough for him to hear his own thoughts. He and Lee trained together to master the spirits within and beside them. With new knowledge and understanding, Udyr was able to help Lee and his dragon find balance with one another. And through this endeavor, Udyr came to understand that harmony and interdependence created a state of balance in Ionia. In contrast, balance in the Freljord was based on a sense of struggle and conflict—of growth and change—where the fight to survive against an uncaring and dangerous environment lived deep in the soul of every Freljordian.

After several years, Udyr’s powers plateaued. He was faced with the choice to stay and train in Ionia, or return to the struggle of his homeland where he could continue his growth. In the end, the choice was obvious.

Lee gave Udyr one of his blindfolds to keep with him—a reminder of his commitment to self-mastery—and asked for a promise. That, once Udyr had achieved what he was looking for in the Freljord, he would return the blindfold to Lee in person. Udyr wrapped the blindfold around his hand before setting off across the world once again to take up the mantle of spirit walker.

A new conflict between an Avarosan and Winter’s Claw warmother greeted Udyr upon his return to the Freljord. The Avarosan wanted to unite the people of the Freljord under a single banner, putting an end to their struggles. Udyr understood that such an action would harm the spirit of the land, and so he decided to offer counsel to the other side—the Winter’s Claw. It was Kalkia’s headstrong daughter Sejuani who received him, and he could feel her need for guidance.

The young woman accepted Udyr’s help, but Sejuani’s trust was hard-won, for she had grown up hearing tales of the spirit walker and his bloodlust. Udyr came to appreciate Sejuani’s drive and cleverness, though her ruthlessness worried him. Sejuani saw wisdom and a warrior’s heart in Udyr, but his frequent absences grated her nerves. In time, they came to view one another like family—a surrogate oathfather and daughter—though they would never say it aloud.

Before long, the other spirit walkers summoned Udyr down to the south. But fate intervened when he met a strange old woman in an enormous coat. She asked for his help with several impossible tasks that he inevitably failed. Entertained by his attempts, she rewarded his efforts with bread so salty that he choked, and water so cold that his veins turned to ice. The old woman laughed at his reaction and shrugged off her coat, and the spiritual power hit Udyr like an avalanche. He passed out, and woke alone. But he could feel something had changed within him—a new power had awakened. He didn't realize it, but the Seal Sister, in one of her many disguises, had tested Udyr and given him her blessing.

Still unnerved by this odd encounter, Udyr joined his brethren in the south and listened as they told him of a strange spiritual shift they had each felt. They feared the Freljord was dying—the spirits of the land itself crumbling from within. Udyr believed that it was the Avarosans, in their efforts to unite the Freljord, that was causing this pain. He told the other spirit walkers as much, and asked them to fight against the Avarosan advance alongside the Winter's Claw. Many were skeptical, but others, afraid that Udyr might be right, agreed.

With his new spiritual power flowing within him, Udyr raced back to the Winter’s Claw to help end this existential threat to the Freljord once and for all.

All stories

Shen

True Neutral

Shield of Remembrance

The Curator's Gambit

THE DISSONANT VERSES

The Dreaming Pool

The Echoes Left Behind

The Eye in the Abyss

The Eyes and the Embers

The Face in Her Stars

The Faceless God

The Host

The Legend of the Darkin

The Lure

Twilight of the Gods

Twisted Fate

Double Down

Twitch

Do Not Engage

Udyr