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The Whispering Doodad

Graham McNeill

Let me tell you about my glade.
On a clear night—like this night, in fact—when the moon is full and ripe, silver light glitters on star-shaped leaves with hair-fine fronds like threads of silk, and night-blooming Seleneia render my glade a magical wonderland.
A traveler might catch the scent of far distant continents on the wind. Only hints, to be sure, but such hints! A bouquet of desert spices, sun-baked stone, and salt from the crests of racing waves, mingled with the evergreen sap-scent of highland firs. You might think such a turn of phrase overly whimsical, words that might tumble from the lips of a hopeless romantic, or a lovelorn poet. You’d be right, of course, but that doesn’t make them any less true.
And while we’re on the subject of romantics—an artistic soul might, if they came here at just the right time, see dancing patterns in the moonglow dappling through the forest canopy. Their eye might follow it around, gradually sensing an order to the play of light and shadow across the bark of a tree, or in the ripples upon a pool of water. A pattern that almost looks like it might just form a doorway of sorts, if only it would complete.
But no matter how those patterns swirl and dance, they never fully coalesce into a whole. Almost never, that is. After all, the magic of these lands is skittish—with good reason—and doesn’t reveal its secrets to just anyone. We nature spirits are drawn to places like this. They nurture us, as we in turn nurture them. You can find us all over the world—in some places more than others, yes, but if there’s magic bubbling up, like as not you’ll find a spirit like me.
I flatter myself that the glade I inhabit is more infused with it than most other places in this land that mortals call Noxus—if you know the right way to look. Most of this world’s inhabitants have forgotten how to see, how to really see, but there are others, a whole race of them, in fact, who never forgot. They’re called yordles, and they’re not exactly from this world. I’m friends with a lot of them.
Two of them are approaching now. It sounds like they’re trying to get back to their kin, but they’re having trouble with the—for want of a better word—key that’s supposed to help them find their way home. You see, the low roads they travel don’t run on the surface of this world. Nor do they travel straight, like those of the men who call the lands hereabouts home. They curve and loop, swirling all around the place like a crazy knot you can’t ever untie.
Most yordles know how to travel them relatively easily, but these two?
Let’s just say they’re not the best-suited traveling companions. I can hear them, just beyond the spirit veil, bickering like a pair of hungry foxes.
They’ll be here soon, but I wonder if they know they’re not the only ones approaching.
Mortals are coming this way. Warriors. Armored in steel and stone, bearing instruments of death. I don’t like them, but don’t misunderstand my reasons. I understand death is necessary, a vital part of the natural cycle of being, but these people only take, and don’t give back. They pave over the land with roads that do not curve. They use their axes and saws to clear the land of growing things. They are an empire of angles and order. Nearby trees bend away from them in response, but they don’t notice, of course.
Mortals almost always miss their impact on the world around them.

A woman with long brown hair is the first to enter my wooded glade. She taps spurred heels to her horse’s flanks, and rides in a circle, scanning the treeline and ground for signs of life that might mean her harm.
Her eyes are cold, and she surveys the beauty of the trees like a woodsman sharpening an axe.
She halts her mount in the middle of the glade and sits in silence. She hears birdsong, the sighing of the forest, and the burbling stream flowing over time-smoothed rocks. Most people who come here are calmed by these sounds, their souls replenished simply by being in nature.
But not her.
None of the forest’s energy touches her, and I don’t know whether to feel sad or angry. The woman is patient, and only after several minutes pass does she lift her arm and spread her fingers wide. Moments later, a dozen riders appear at the edge of the glade. Their horses are exhausted, flanks lathered white and heads bowed. These animals have carried their riders a great distance, so I extend a little magic into their tired limbs. They whinny and toss their manes in gratitude.
A mustachioed man clad in leather and furs rides towards the woman. A bronze circlet holds his long dark hair from his face, and his tunic has been cut to show off his muscular build. A wolf-pelt cloak mantles his shoulders, and a pair of circle-grip axes are slung at his back. Like the woman, his gaze makes me fear what he might do to the trees.
Yes, I think I dislike him even more than the woman.
“What took you so long, Tamara?” he says. “Afraid we’ll be ambushed?”
She ignores his questions. “We should make camp here, Draven. Fresh water and plentiful wood. It’s broad and wide, too, so there’s limited avenues of approach.”
“Spoken like a true Noxian warmason.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She slides from her saddle, and as soon as her boots hit the ground, I recoil from the stone in her veins, the iron in her soul. The sounds in the glade dim, but none of the humans notice.
“I want to reach the capital before we die of old age,” says Draven. “The fighting in Basilich was fun, but I need to get back to the arena and put these axes to good use.”
“You also want to go back and tell Darius you’d rather his army advance without a warmason carefully scouting the way?”
“We’re in no danger,” says Draven. “Not in the empire’s heartland.”
She folds her arms. “You heard what happened to Wintory outside Drekan?”
“No,” shrugs Draven, “but you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
She looks at him, then sighs and shakes her head. “What would be the point? It’s not about you, so you’re not going to care.”
I listen to them trade insults back and forth, but am confused at how the words they say don’t match the shimmering colors of their auras. It’s a source of great confusion to me that mortals spend so much time saying things they do not mean, and feeling things they do not express.
There’s an honesty to nature—albeit a bloody one—you can count on.

It’s nightfall when the yordles get here.
I feel the irresistible call of their key, and push a little of my power into the spirit realm to open the way. One of the silverbark trees shifts her branches windward slightly, and the last rays of sunset complete a glowing amber pattern on the gnarled knots of her mossy trunk. Shadow, light and ridged bark combine to form an endless loop that, from a certain angle and a certain height, looks like a portal into a land of eternal sunrise.
Whispers and song echo from the arbor in the heart of the tree. The Noxians are busy with their horses, and the animals make enough noise that the humans don’t hear it. It sounds like the winds are speaking, passing secrets between the trees. Maybe they are—you can never really know what the winds are saying. Well, maybe the blue bird of the seas knows, but she doesn’t roam far from the sunken city these days.
The grass around the base of the silverbark ripples in a warm breeze that carries a multitude of stories from another realm. I’ve heard hundreds of them, but the yordles have an inexhaustible supply, and I never tire of learning of their travels.
There’s a soft pop of air, like a bubble bursting on the surface of a lake…
…and two diminutive forms tumble out from the tree. They roll into the high grass, looking surprised to find themselves in a forest glade. One of them immediately picks herself up, and brings her big cannon to bear. She spins around. Left then right. She draws a bead on a rabbit with a half-chewed ear, poking a twitching nose from its burrow.
“Did you do this?” she asks.
The rabbit doesn’t answer. But then rabbits are stoic. You want a secret kept, but have to tell someone? Tell a rabbit, they’ll take it to their grave.
I know this yordle—she’s called Tristana, and she looks mad. Like she’s ready to march off to fight, but forgot which way the war was. Her purple skin is flushed a deeper shade than normal, and her white hair is swept back in a tight ponytail.
She hefts her cannon and aims it towards the rabbit.
It hops forward, unfazed by the threat.
“I won’t ask again,” says Tristana, “and Boomer never misses!”
The rabbit twitches its nose, cool as winter frost.
Tristana’s traveling companion sits up, a tiny, winged faerie circling her head. Ah, Lulu and Pix. Her wild purple hair billows in a wind that only seems to affect her, and her tall hat sits at a funny angle. It’s slipped over her eyes, and she taps around her with a curling stick.
“I’ve gone blind!” she says. “That’s new.”
Tristana keeps her gaze locked on the rabbit, and holds up a hand to silence Lulu, but her friend doesn’t see it. Lulu gets up and walks in a circle, tapping the ground in front of her. The flowers duck, and the buzzing glitterbugs scatter before Pix can pluck their wings. Lulu’s faerie companion is cute, but he’s got a strange sort of humor. I can’t ever tell if he’s really funny or rude. Maybe it’s both.
“Tristana! Are you there?” says Lulu.
Tristana sighs in exasperation. She taps two fingers to her eyes, then points them at the rabbit with a stern look.
“I’m watching you, flopsy,” she warns. Her jaw drops as she finally notices the humans in the glade. She darts over to Lulu and pushes her back against the tree. The portal they fell from is already fading as the light changes.
“Humans,” she hisses.
“Where?” says Lulu. “It’s all dark! But then, sometimes I see more with my eyes closed.”
Tristana sighs, and pulls the brim of Lulu’s hat up.
Lulu blinks, and hugs Tristana.
“It’s a miracle!”
“Quiet,” hisses Tristana, and Pix darts down to zap a tiny spike of violet light at her cheek.
Tristana bats the faerie away with a grimace.
I bend the shadows around the trees a little. Humans sometimes have a hard time seeing yordles, at least as they really are, but I think the woman with the cold eyes might be sharper than most, and I don’t want to see these two get hurt.
Tristana glances around the tree. The Noxians are making camp, but I’m relieved to see they’re not lighting a fire. Draven is grumbling about that, but Tamara is adamant they not broadcast their presence. I make sure all the wood in this glade is green and not good for fires. Doesn’t stop everyone who comes this way from trying their luck with an axe or saw… but most of them.
Tristana nods to herself.
“They haven’t seen us,” she whispers. “Good.”
“They look friendly,” says Lulu, peeking over Tristana’s shoulder. “I think we should say hello.”
“They’re Noxians,” replies Tristana, and I feel her exasperation. “You don’t talk to Noxians unless you want to lose your head.”
“Why? Do they like collecting heads?”
Tristana rolls her eyes, finally taking the time to examine her surroundings. I lift up some flowers and wave to her. She can’t help but feel the magic in the glade, and waves back. Some people say Tristana’s all business, and so very serious, but I know better.
She looks up at the tree and gives it an experimental rap with her knuckles. She taps gently around the bark, before finally hearing a booming echo from deep inside the tree. Some of the Noxians look up, and she winces. I creak some branches, and persuade the water to splash playfully over the rocks. The Noxians return to their work.
Tristana nods and says, “Thanks,” before turning back to Lulu and asking, “Right, where’s the whispering key?”
“The what-now?”
“The thing we’ve been using to travel through all the portals…”
“Remind me, what did it look like?”
“It looked a little like a compass made of carved stone.”
“Oh, you mean my doodad.”
“Your…,” begins Tristana before settling on, “Yes. That’s what I mean.”
Lulu does a pirouette and pats herself down, checking pockets that seem to appear and disappear at random. She closes one eye, and bites her lip, pulling out coins, dice, chips of precious stones and glittering fluff. But nothing resembling a key.
“I just had it.”
“Yes, you did,” agrees Tristana through gritted teeth. “You used it to open the portal on the beach while we were running from that pack of cragwolves, after we’d dropped in on Poppy.”
“I like Poppy, but she’s so serious,” says Lulu, stomping around as if she’s marching on a parade ground. She pauses to stare at Tristana. “Wait! Are you and her actually the same yordle?”
“No, of course we’re not,” sighs Tristana. “Now, will you hurry up, please?”
“You could be, you know. Same hair, and that little furrow just above your nose when you get mad. See, there it is!”
Getting angry with Lulu won’t do any good. It would be like chasing a cub that’s stolen your shoe; it’s all part of a fun game. I send a cooling breeze to ruffle Tristana’s white hair, but it doesn’t seem to help.
“The whispering… I mean, your doodad? Can you just get it for me?”
“Oh, right, yes, I was looking for that, wasn’t I?”
“Yes. Yes, you were.”
Lulu sighs, making a theatrical show of befuddlement. She looks up at the darkening sky and snaps her fingers.
“No wonder I can’t find it,” she says. “It’s too dark!”
She lifts her crooked staff, and Tristana’s eyes widen as she realizes what Lulu’s about to do. But it’s too late to stop her.
A stream of glitter bursts from the end of Lulu’s staff and explodes like a swarm of dancing fireflies overhead. The glade is bathed in the glow of a thousand stars and a secret gathering of moons.
“Aha!” says Lulu, finally pulling out something from a fold in her tunic. It looks like a cross between a budding seedpod and a curling seashell. A rainbow of colorful lines swirls on its surface, and what look like tiny tadpoles swim inside it. “Here it is.”
Tristana looks horrified as the light from Lulu’s staff floods the glade, but before she can react, a spinning axe blade flashes between the two of them and buries itself in the bark of the tree.
Lulu almost jumps out of her skin, and the seedpod-seashell flies from her hand.
The silverbark cries out in pain, so I pour magic up through her roots and into the heartwood. Vivid amber sap oozes from the gouge in the wounded tree’s bark, pinning the axe in place.
Lulu’s doodad sails through the air to land somewhere in the middle of the glade. It rolls into the tall grass, and I feel its primal energies pulse outwards in a rippling wave.
“Oops,” says Lulu.
A veritable flurry of black-shafted arrows slices through the undergrowth as the Noxians respond the only way they know how.
“Get back!” shouts Tristana, swinging Boomer around and dragging Lulu away to find cover behind a moldy log covered in moss and ivy.
An arrow punches into the rotten wood. Another splits the night a hair’s breadth from Tristana’s ear. Lulu squeals, and Pix darts to Tristana’s side. Fresh wildflowers of blue, gold, and crimson instantly bloom on the dead wood.
Tristana fires Boomer. Blam, blam, blam!
Everyone ducks. Noxians, rabbits, and glitterbugs. Even the worms burrow deeper.
Boomer’s cannonballs streak burning streamers across the glade, and spouts of water leap from the stream to cool them as they ricochet from the rocks. The last thing we want in the glade is a fire!
“Spread out!” yells Draven, running to retrieve his axe from the silverbark’s trunk.
The Noxians are quick to obey.
Say what you want about the Noxians—and I’ve heard plenty of humans passing through my glade who have a lot to say about Noxians—they’re disciplined! Tamara runs to her horse and draws a slender rapier from a saddle scabbard.
She grins at Draven and says, “No chance of an ambush, eh?”
Draven shrugs, and his aura gives no sense of any alarm or care at being proven wrong. All I sense is glee at the chance to spill blood.
Yes, I definitely dislike him more than Tamara.
The Noxian warriors spread through the glade, moving forward in pairs, as archers loose steady volleys of arrows to keep the two yordles from moving. I know nothing of war, but even I can see the deadly tactics of the Noxians will see Lulu and Tristana dead.
I’m all for fun and games, but I don’t want anyone killed…
Magic surges through the ground in a powerful wave. I weave loops of grass that tangle the feet of the first Noxian soldier, a great brute of a man with a double-bladed axe. He goes down hard, slicing open his arm as he falls flat on his face. His companion trips over him, dropping her sword, and the man cries out in pain as it stabs a handspan into his buttock.
An amberwood tree twists its trunk and whips its willowy branches around like a catapult. It smacks a crouching archer in the face, and he topples backwards. The arrow he was poised to loose goes straight up in the air. A careful gust of wind, and it plunges down between his legs, tearing his britches open at the crotch. He yelps in alarm and scrambles back on his haunches.
Tristana fires again, and Pix jumps onto her head, punching the air and shouting squeaking insults with every shot. Flowers fall from the air above the tiny faerie, and I see more than one arrow deflected around the yordle gunner by their shimmering petals.
“Can you see your doodad?” shouts Tristana over the cannon’s noise.
Lulu spins her staff around, and springs onto its shepherd’s crook handle. She shades her eyes with one hand, and peers through the fading illumination. An arrow slashes towards her, but the coiled point of her hat smacks it from the air.
“Nope, but then I don’t know what it looks like now.”
“What do you mean you don’t know what it looks like now?”
Lulu spins in a spiral down her staff, and daisies spring up around her as she lands. “The doodad’s a bit flighty, you see. Every time I put it down, it likes to try out a different shape.”
Tristana groans as Lulu sends a blazing shaft of sparkling light through the trees. A pair of Noxians are hurled through the air. They land in the stream, and I immediately mob them with a knot of frogs. The tongues of bucket-frogs are coated with slime that will give them waking dreams, and ought to send them to the moon and back.
“So it could look like anything?” asks Tristana.
“Pretty much,” agrees Lulu. “Just look for it out of the corner of your eye. It only changes if it thinks you’re looking right at it.”
“I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Heimer was here right now,” says Tristana. “We could really use his hex-goggles.”
“Don’t be silly,” says Lulu. “That’d take all the fun out of this.”
Tristana spins on her heel to fire at a Noxian leaping towards her. Her cannonball punches him square in the chest and he flies back into a thorny bush that suddenly gets a lot more thorny.
“Fun?” she says. Then she grins. “You know what, you’re right. Let’s have some fun with these numpties. Grab on.”
Lulu laughs and throws her arms around Tristana’s neck as if she’s about to give her a big sloppy kiss. Tristana fires again, and this time her cannon is aimed at the ground. The two yordles erupt from behind the flowery, arrow-studded log and arc over the heads of the advancing soldiers. The Noxians watch in open-mouthed surprise as the two yordles spin over their heads, giggling musically as they go.
Who knows what the Noxians are seeing? Something strange, no doubt. A yordle’s glamour is an inconstant thing, and even they don’t know how others see them most of the time.
Gleaming bolts corkscrew from Lulu’s staff, and everywhere they hit, Noxians are thrown from their feet in a spray of petals and sparks that burn like drops of venom. The two yordles land on the run, and while Tristana spins around, firing at any Noxians who rear their heads, Lulu scrambles around on all fours in search of her doodad.
“Here, doodad,” she whispers to the grass. “Pretty please, with sprinkles on top! I’ll let you take us somewhere you want to go next.”
The doodad—or whatever it’s really called—doesn’t respond, but I sense it rolling away from Lulu. Well, not really rolling, as such, more making itself be where she isn’t. It’s a thing of old and powerful magic, but not without a childish sense of whimsy. It’s like it thinks this is a fun game. Perhaps it is, as Lulu is laughing with delight, spinning around and bounding through the glade like a weasel chasing its own tail as she chases her doodad. It turns into a large snail as Lulu gets close to it. And when she takes her hand away, sticky, it turns into a puff of light before reappearing behind Lulu as a stick-man tottering away on mismatched legs.
Tristana’s keeping the Noxians’ heads down with a barrage of cannon fire. I hear Draven finally wrench his axe from the silverbark, its edge all gummy with sap. He turns and moves from cover to cover, stalking Tristana like a cat, all taut limbs and steely focus. He draws his arm back, ready to throw his other axe.
A squadron of buzzing wasps swoops in and swarms him as a battalion of angry squirrels drops from the trees. His axe flies wide of the mark, thudding back to earth where the Noxian horses used to be. Now there’s only a mess of hoofprints and a few discarded saddles. Draven spins around in a frenzy, pulling the scratching, biting squirrels from his arms and neck. Squirrels are the thugs of the forest. Rabbits might be stoic, but squirrels will bite your ear off as soon as your back’s turned.
Lulu’s not even looked up. She’s still running in circles and giggling like a child as she shoots puffs of light from her staff.
With an explosive burst of speed, Tamara breaks from cover and runs straight for Lulu. I use my magic to throw distractions in her path. Frantic moles dig holes before her, but she weaves between their hasty traps. The thorny stems of a hookbrush whip at her, but she skids under them. She looks around, starting to understand she has another enemy here—one she can’t see or fight.
“Gotcha!” cries Lulu, finally grabbing hold of her doodad. Now it looks like a knotted bunch of twigs held together by loops of grass and spiderwebs.
Tamara dives over a coiling root I rip up from the earth, and rolls to her feet. The last sparkles of Lulu’s starburst gleam on the rapier as Tamara pulls it back to strike.
And then Tristana’s there.
She hefts Boomer as if her cannon’s suddenly gotten heavier.
A lot heavier.
“That’s my friend, buster,” she says, and pulls the trigger.
The booming thunder of the cannon is deafening, and birds as far away as two rivers west take to the sky at the noise. A blazing tongue of fire erupts from the muzzle as a giant cannonball blasts out. The force of the recoil spins Tristana around, but that’s nothing compared to what it does to Tamara.
She flies backwards like she’s been punched by an angry stone golem. She vanishes into the trees, and I don’t think she’ll be getting up any time soon.
Then Tristana is hauled from her feet by the scruff of her neck. Boomer drops to the earth and Draven holds her up to his face with a bemused grin on his scratched and bleeding face.
“Now, what in the name of the Wolf are you?”
“Put me down, ya big oaf!” yells Tristana.
She kicks and swings her fists at him, but not even her pluck can overcome the length of his limbs. Draven cocks his head to one side, clearly wondering what he’s got his hands on.
“Hey, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” yells Lulu, aiming her staff towards Draven. Swirling fireworks ripple up and down its length, but Draven doesn’t look impressed.
“Do your worst, shorty,” he says. “You ain’t got nothing can hurt Draven.”
The fireworks shoot out of Lulu’s staff in a storm of light.
And miss.
Draven laughs, spinning his axe up.
But then a tall shadow falls over him, and he slowly turns around.
That’s when he realizes Lulu didn’t miss at all.
The rabbit with the half-chewed ear looms over Draven, twice his height at least. It munches slowly on a carrot—a carrot that’s as long as Draven’s arm. He drops Tristana as the giant rabbit taps two stubby fingers of its paw to its eyes, then points them at Draven with a stern look.
Draven is a warrior, and has fought his share of monsters, but this is too much even for him. He turns and sprints for the trees, pausing only to scoop up his other axe as he goes. The rest of the Noxians have already fled, or are backing away slowly into the undergrowth at the sight of the giant rabbit. Something tells me they will find a different route for their master’s army.
Tristana turns to look at the rabbit with the half-chewed ear.
“Thanks,” she says, but the rabbit doesn’t reply. Like I said, stoic.
It turns and makes its way back to its burrow in a series of thudding hops. By the time it reaches the entrance, it’s more or less returned to its normal size. It squeezes into the burrow with a final waggle of its tail and a puff of earth.
Tristana slings Boomer over her shoulder. “Do you have your doodad?”
Lulu holds it up triumphantly. “My very naughty doodad. Shouldn’t run off like that!”
Tristana shakes her head and marches back to the tree they fell out of. Lulu skips after her as Pix buzzes overhead, riding a pair of wasps with a tiny squeal of delight.
Lulu catches up with Tristana and waves her doodad at the tree in what might be a predetermined pattern, or might just be her hoping for the best. Whatever it is, it works, and the leafy arbor reappears in the silverbark’s trunk. Sunrise over the land of the yordles spills into my moonlit glade. I feel its ancient magic, and I send a pulse of my own through the air, wishing my two friends interesting travels.
Lulu pauses and looks over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” she says, and I feel the boundless joy in her heart.
The beauty of my glade is made all the richer for it.
“Come on, we should get going,” says Tristana.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“We should be gone before the Noxians return.”
“I don’t think they’ll be coming back,” says Lulu with a wide grin.
The light of the portal swells outwards in a glowing, rippling spiral to envelop the yordles. Their forms blur, and their voices grow faint as they are drawn away once more. But I hear Tristana’s last words, and cold winds pass through the glade in a ripple of unease.
“They’re Noxians,” she says. “They always come back.”
The Will of the Dead

Laura Michet

Long before she became a Truth Bearer of her people, Illaoi had been an acolyte priestess at a Buhru temple on the coast. Every morning, she went down to the shoreline to exercise in the sun. She tried to focus on the principles her teachers held dear. Discipline. Motion. Strength.

She’d been alone on the beach one morning when the sea dropped low, lower than a low tide. The lookouts on the serpent-caller towers began ringing their alarm bells and pointing toward the horizon.

A Great Wave loomed, rushing toward shore with the strength to pulverize bone and rip swimmers out to sea.

In the moments after the alarms rang out, fear blanked Illaoi’s mind. Her teachers’ lessons abandoned her all at once. Do I have the time to escape? she wondered. Should I just stand here?

She glanced at the wave, then at the waterline. At her feet, she noticed a swarm of pink crabs. The wave had sucked the water away, and the crabs were frozen absolutely still on the wet rocks, paralyzed by sunshine and surprise and indecision.

Little creatures, too small to understand the fear they felt. A crab couldn’t do much to avoid a wave like that.

Illaoi could. She shook herself into action and sprinted to the temple gates just in time for the priestesses to slam them shut. As she perched on the temple’s parapet and watched the wave hit the shore, Illaoi thought about how she had stood in paralysis and fear.

I could have died. It was the closest she’d come to death in her sixteen years.

“I won’t do that again,” she told her teachers. Nagakabouros, the Mother Serpent, loved those who grew and changed. She had no sympathy for those who carried on as before while the wave bore down on them.

These days, something about the streets of Bilgewater reminded her of those frightened crabs.

It was noon. The sun was high and hot. Usually, the streets would be filled with sailors celebrating shore leave, or sea-monster hunters spending their earnings. But today, the streets were full of people hurrying about their business heads down, silent.

Bilgewater was on the edge of a civil war, but this was no battle of fresh and eager wills. Sarah Fortune and Gangplank were fighting the same damned war they’d fought already. The same war they’d fight a hundred times, if they could. Gangplank wanted his throne back; Sarah wanted him dead. The city stank of the stagnation lurking in their hearts. Each believed that victory would give them the things they had lost. Respect, perhaps. Justice for the long-lost dead. Something to soothe the pain of defeat and failure.

It would be so much easier if I cared nothing for either of them, Illaoi thought. But Sarah was her closest friend—and Gangplank, her former lover. Never before had two people been so trapped by their past, and so eager to waste their potential.

Illaoi glanced down at the lockbox under her arm. “And this is your fault, too,” she muttered.

The lockbox screamed back at her.

Its screams were quiet, just soft enough that they were hard to hear without listening closely. But whenever Illaoi focused on them, a hateful presence started scrabbling at the edge of her mind.

The fellow within the lockbox—the screamer who hurled horrible, muffled imprecations at Illaoi day and night—was to blame for everything.

It was he who put the shadow on Sarah’s soul.

Just then, some of Sarah’s crew came marching around the corner. Cutlasses and pistols hung from every belt, and every knuckle was ornamented with brass. They were streaked with blood and sweat and gunpowder. The fighting had been hard.

And with them, of course, was Sarah Fortune herself. She looked exhausted. The right sleeve of her fancy captain’s coat was stained with blood. Her shoulders were hunched and her hat was tipped low, as if a cold rain only she could feel battered her from above.

“Hey, Illaoi,” Sarah called, her voice flat and sharp. “Let’s get this done.”

“Are you well?” Illaoi asked. “You look miserable.”

“I’ve been chasing Gangplank for a week.” Sarah pointed at the quietly wailing lockbox. “And that thing is still on this island, too. Come on, let’s finish this.”

They turned to a nearby artifact dealer’s shop. While Sarah’s crew remained on guard outside, guns drawn, Illaoi led the way inside.

The loupe in the owner’s eye flashed as they entered. “Illaoi!” he called. “It’s been too long!”

Jorden Irux was a spindly fellow with knees and elbows heading in every direction. He was also the only artifacts dealer in the city with mixed paylangi and Buhru heritage. Illaoi often went to him for help identifying the relics she couldn’t recognize.

“I have a puzzle for you, Jorden.” Illaoi thumped the lockbox down on his countertop.

“You have two for me,” he said, glancing at Sarah. “Captain Fortune herself in my little shop!”

“Don’t get weird about it,” Sarah growled. “Let’s get this over with.”

The moment Illaoi’s key clicked in the lockbox, Sarah shuddered. A sickly light blazed a slash of teal across the wall.

Inside the box sat an amulet. Three curved stones, carved in the Buhru style and looped together with a thin wire. They glowed brightly with the light of a trapped soul.

“Oh, that’s nasty.” Jorden, too, could hear the screams. “By the Goddess, that’s not...?”

Illaoi nodded. “Viego of Camavor.”

It had been only a week since this furious shade of an ancient king attempted to turn Bilgewater into a smoking crater. The whole city knew his name now, and knew to curse his memory. If he gets out of this amulet, he will do it all again.

“It’s a temporary solution,” Sarah said. She let out a short, bitter laugh. “We couldn’t figure out how to kill him for good. There’s no telling what he’ll do if he gets out of there.”

Illaoi nodded. “Our historians say that the stones are made of serpent-amber... but we do not know if shattering them will release the spirit, or kill it.”

“Goddess’s Tears? I’m not surprised,” Jorden said, using the Buhru term for serpent-amber. “It is so rare, only a fool would practice smashing it.” He leaned close and adjusted his loupe. “A Buhru artisan shaped these. Our people’s style is unmistakable. But there’s a marking here on the back... Where did this come from?”

Illaoi laughed. “The Shadow Isles, actually. Our people studied with the scholars there, before the Isles were transformed.” If Viego escapes, he will try to transform Bilgewater into a twisted graveyard, too.

“Let me look something up.” Jorden leaped off his stool and ran into the back of the shop.

A half second of prickly silence followed... and then Sarah turned to Illaoi. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said, grit in her voice. “So don’t.”

“I was not planning to say anything.” After their last fight, there was no use belaboring Sarah with a truth she refused to listen to. “I was not going to talk about your futile hunt for Gangplank, or what it’s doing to the city. I was actually planning to let us stand in awkward silence.”

Sarah scowled. “I’m having a terrible week. Don’t make it worse.”

They silenced themselves when Jorden burst back into the room. He carried a scroll covered with a strange script Illaoi didn’t recognize. And there was a drawing of... a tower?

“Look.” Jorden pointed to a matching symbol etched onto the back of the amulet. “The sign of its makers. The Brethren of the Dusk.”

“Gloomy,” Sarah said. “Never heard of them.”

“Religious order from the Blessed Isles. They died out long ago.”

“Damn.” Sarah shook her head. “Then that’s a dead end.”

Jorden caught himself. “Wait—I forgot. There is a mad hermit who claims he represents them. But... you know what people who spend too much time over there are like.”

The twisted spirits of the happy folk who had once called the Blessed Isles home were not good neighbors. A thousand years wandering under the shadow of the Black Mist had turned most of them into beasts—wraiths, specters, and mistwalkers contorted in endless hideous reflections of mortal weakness. Any living person who chose to live alongside those shades must be uncommonly strong, and very strange. Some of the mortals who made their home on the Isles worshiped death and disease. And spiders, too, for some reason.

But Illaoi had not yet met a Shadow Isles dweller she couldn’t flatten like a sea star beneath her Goddess’s idol. “Such beings do not frighten me,” Illaoi said. “Not long ago, we killed Thresh, the Isles’ greatest monster. Compared to him, parlaying with this hermit will be a simple task. He may know something about the amulet.”

They paid Jorden and stepped out onto the street. “I didn’t expect this would send you back to the Shadow Isles,” Sarah muttered. She seemed apologetic.

Illaoi nodded. Before trapping Viego in the amulet, they’d tracked and fought him on the Isles. Camping in collapsed ruins and sharing meals around a campfire were joyful when friends were there... but to go back so soon, alone, would be melancholy.

“You’ll need a ship. There’s a captain who owes me—Matteo Ruven. He knows safe routes to the Shadow Isles. But don’t let him know about the amulet.”
“Few are left in this city whom we can trust,” Illaoi agreed.

Suddenly, Sarah’s face turned red. Her brow tightened.

Ahh, I’ve said the wrong thing, Illaoi realized. She cannot trust me, because I will not fight in her heedless war against Gangplank.

“I know you are still furious with me,” Illaoi said. She struggled for a new way to say the things Sarah refused to hear. “But my friendship comes with... with challenge. With change.”

“I can hear everything the king says in that amulet,” Sarah blurted. “Did I tell you that? Every moment of the day and night. He talks about... my mother.” Her voice cracked, and her face contorted into a grimace. “I can hear that box whispering from all the way across the city.”

Goddess. That’s a burden.

Illaoi embraced her friend. The need came over her, and she did it, without worrying what Sarah would think.

At first, Sarah held back—but then she returned the embrace. Tears started at the corners of her eyes. “Guhh,” she sighed. “Okay. Fine.”

“You are meant for more than this,” Illaoi told her. “You are meant for better things.” She believed it. She’d never believed anything more. But no matter how many times she said it, Sarah never understood.

“Meant for better things?” Sarah rubbed her hand across a damp eye. “Tell that to Gangplank.”

Sarah must have had a serious claim on Captain Ruven, because he scrambled to make his ship, the Trained Rat, ready for sail the very next day.

When Illaoi arrived, the ship was swarming with sailors hurrying to make it seaworthy. Ruven hollered orders from the command deck. He was older, slender, and knobbly-elbowed, with a halo of frizzy, wind-blasted orange hair.

I could snap him in half, Illaoi thought. Those were her two categories of people—ones she could snap in half, and ones she could not. It made the world an easier place to navigate.

He waved her up to the command deck. “I know you,” he called. “You’re the Buhru queen.”

“Absolutely not,” Illaoi said. “I am a Truth Bearer. A priestess.” This will be one of the annoying ones, she thought.

“All right.” Ruven shrugged. “Ship’s a disaster today. But this is the kind of service you get when you only give me twelve hours’ notice.” He flashed her a disarming, jagged smile, and extended his hand for a shake. “There’s an empty cabin for you down below.”

“Will we leave today?” Illaoi asked.

“We better. Or Sarah Fortune will include me in one of her little dockside executions.”

The ship’s passageways were so cramped, Illaoi could barely fit her idol down the stairs into the lower deck. The enormous orb of sea-tempered metal was wider across than Illaoi’s muscled shoulders. Down here, the roof was too low to carry it comfortably on her back, and the passageways were too narrow to carry it at her side. She had to balance it on her hip and shuffle crabwise between the cannons.

“Excuse me,” she muttered, squeezing past a group of sailors with scrubbing rags and buckets. As she passed, she heard them cursing quietly. Sailors, in Illaoi’s experience, were usually full of motion, game for anything and everything—her favorite sort of paylangi. But this crew was sullen. Their brittle fear filled the ship as completely as the stink of sea salt and rotten ropes.

Bilgewater’s ill temper lives here, too.

When the ship lifted its anchor and turned to ride the wind, Illaoi made her way up to the breezy command deck to speak with Ruven again. The jagged roofline of the city was soon hidden by wave chop and clouds of soaring birds.

“Bilgewater to my rear, and all my troubles forgotten.” Ruven laughed.

“Is Bilgewater more frightening to you than the Shadow Isles?” The idea made Illaoi smile. “The mood there is foul, certainly. But the Shadow Isles are worse.”

“Hey, none of the spirits over there have it out for me personally,” Ruven said. “Our fearless queen, on the other hand... well. Between you and me, I’m lucky to still be alive.”

Illaoi raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”

Ruven coughed out a nervous laugh. “I owe her. We have an agreement. I bring you there and back, and all my debts to her are cleared.”

Sending someone to the Shadow Isles seemed like a poor way to collect a debt. Your chance of losing the debtor to a wraith or a spider bite seemed a little too high. “You must owe her a great price.”

“Yeah. I tried to blow her up.”

“What?!”

“Look, I wasn’t working for Gangplank.” Ruven rubbed his face with his hands. “I was just against the new loot fees. I made some new friends... it was their idea.”

These were not the words of a man who faced his destiny bravely or took responsibility for his choices. Ruven seemed like he was tossed about by the whims of others.

“Captain Fortune does not care for such excuses,” Illaoi said. “These days, she solves problems like you with a pistol.”

“Yeah.” His voice dropped. “The crew is... not pleased. We lost a choice contract because of it. So I went to Fortune and I told her: I’m useful! Make use of me. My pa and I were pilots for hire to the Shadow Isles, back in the day. I know routes nobody else knows.”

“To be used by others is no freedom for a soul,” Illaoi said.

“Well, it’s better than being executed! Look, you’re friends with Fortune, right?” he asked. “Being enemies with her is exhausting. I may be a sorry old fellow, but I could still learn some new tricks.”

Illaoi sized him up. It isn’t likely, she found herself thinking. “Your life is ruled by stagnation,” she said. “The freedom you seek is impossible without motion. You need spiritual counsel, not... help with small talk.”

Ruven chuckled. “I mean, I’d take that too.”

Illaoi sighed. Even the most stagnant people could hide deep currents where the soul still moved and changed. Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves worthy.

And she knew: If this man can change, then Sarah certainly can, too.

“Perhaps we can talk,” Illaoi said. “If we have time on the journey.”

Ruven loved to talk.

He told Illaoi about his father—a pilot for hire, perpetually lurking around Bilgewater’s busiest pubs, “copping free drinks off captains and fishing for gigs.” He wasn’t around when Ruven needed him most, but he was building a legacy, Ruven insisted, charting his route to the Shadow Isles.

“You’ll see it when we get there. It’s incredible. Only safe approach to the entire archipelago. Never seen a wraith on the beach there once.”

“Impressive. How did you learn it? Did your father show you?”

Ruven laughed. “No way! He used to hand me the charts, shove me into a dingy, and make me do the trip myself. All alone in the Black Mist, with him safe on the ship!”

“That is a great effort,” Illaoi said. “Any man who can teach himself a route to the Shadow Isles alone can turn his life around.” He is like Sarah, Illaoi thought. There is greatness within him. He must only find it.

In the final days of their trip, the daylight was less reliable. Each afternoon, an early “evening” crept across the sun and drowned its light in an exhausted gray. It was the Black Mist—its frayed edges, at least. The lookouts grew more tense. The Mist’s cover could give safe passage to furious wraiths of all kinds.

Illaoi always made the most converts to her faith among sailors who had been to the Shadow Isles. When they heard her preach against stagnation, they knew what she meant. Black sand shores. Rotten, twisted, leafless trees. Monuments of slick, dark stone, moist from ocean spray, buried by heaps of ancient loam.

As those haunted Isles loomed on the horizon, Ruven joked constantly and obnoxiously, ribbing sailors about their frowns. The Buhru term for people like him was wave-dodgers: those who shift back and forth on the beach, trying to keep their toes dry with frivolous and frightened motion. Many small steps to avoid a bigger one.

When the Isles were close enough to pick out the ruined towers on the hilltops, though, Ruven turned his frantic energy into action. He vanished into his cabin, then returned brandishing a bundle of paper scrawled with notes and diagrams. When he replaced the navigator at the ship’s wheel, he looked as if he were about to vomit.

“Time for me to prove my worth,” he told Illaoi. He turned to the crew in the rigging and shouted, “Half speed!”

The ship began a strange dance toward the shore. Ruven grappled with the wheel, throwing his scrawny weight into every urgent turn. The ship’s timbers groaned, and the tips of jagged rocks passed less than an arm’s length from the hull. She glanced at Ruven’s inscrutable papers. No wonder Sarah kept him alive. Whatever knowledge he has is useless in translation.

They came to a stop in a rocky little cove. Shattered stones hid it from the open sea, and sheer cliffs concealed the mast and sails from the shoreline. A rare safe harbor... and luckily, not too far from the monastery.

Ruven leaned against the wheel, exhausted. “And that’s how I earn my keep,” he said. “Tell Captain Fortune how impressive I am, will you?”

About twenty sailors—more than half the crew—went ashore for the mission. The monastery would be a few hours’ walk inland. Illaoi brought only her idol, a full canteen, and the lockbox.

“Stay close,” she told the crew. “My Goddess scorns the Mist, so the Mist fears her idol. We will be safe from it if we move together.”

The sailors fell into place behind Illaoi and Ruven as they pushed into the forest. Illaoi’s idol parted the Mist, revealing strange architecture and foliage on either side of their path. Everything was frozen in a moment of decay. Desiccated trees more ancient in life than the citadels of the Buhru capital scraped the sailors’ faces and shoulders as they trudged by.
Soon they found themselves among the ruins of a small town. Crumbling walls forced them to twist and turn through the underbrush. They slowed to pass, single file, along a tight path through the thicket—what might have once been an alleyway.

The dried bushes and trees all looked the same. “Do you even know where you’re going?” someone behind Illaoi demanded.

He was a small, wiry fellow with a patchy beard and a spattering of golden teeth. Another very snappable man.

“Yes,” Illaoi said. “Please chart your own path, if you would like. I can hurl you into the Mist in any direction you please.”

“Kristof? Shut up,” Ruven said. “Or you’re going in the brig when we get back on the ship.”

Kristof was furious. “We shoulda put you in the brig, after what you pulled with Fortune!”

“Stop this nonsense at once,” Illaoi commanded. But now everyone had joined the argument, and their raised voices were echoing through the forest.

Illaoi knew this would draw enemies. Behind the shouts, she could pick out a quiet crunching noise, like footsteps through heavy loam.

The thicket beside the path suddenly churned. Branches scraped against one another with a sound like blades drawn across bones. Clawlike brambles unfurled into hands. There was a face in every bush and tree, withered like those of the unshriven dead.

The arguing turned to screaming—and then the thicket smashed shut. The path was gone in an instant. The sailors bolted in sheer terror. She saw one dash into the woods, but he was slammed to the ground by a knotty branch. The trees closed over him, strangling his panicked shout.

Illaoi even caught a glimpse of Ruven’s back as he ran away through the trees, his papers scattering behind him. Coward, she thought. Then the wraiths were upon her.

The sailors nearest Illaoi fought back, but their swords did nothing—it was like stabbing a thornbush. The wraiths pressed forward through a hail of glancing blows and stabbed the sailors with splintered wooden limbs.

When a wraith lunged toward her, Illaoi ferociously swung her idol. Her strike was true—its body echoed like a hollow bucket and burst into pieces. When another rushed forward, Illaoi punched it so hard it snapped in half like a rotten fencepost.

Goddess, that’s satisfying!

The avatars of the Goddess specialized in muscular force. “Nagakabouros,” she shouted, “defend us!”

She lifted her idol in the air and slammed it down into the mud. The sailors staggered, but the wraiths flew back, repelled by the idol’s blazing green glow.

Paylangi always asked her: Where do the tentacles come from? She’d tell them, It doesn’t matter. The Goddess was everywhere, in everything that changed. She could go anywhere, and be anything, because anything could change.

A wraith, for example, could change into many tiny pieces of wraith.

A protective wall of tentacles erupted from the ground and began transforming wraiths into sawdust. Illaoi helped. Bushes and trees splintered. Knotty wooden heads went rolling through the mud like bowls. She caught a glimpse of a wraith flung high in the air, spreadeagled; it looked like a bird.

When the wraiths nearest them had fallen to pieces, Illaoi hefted her idol onto her shoulder, and the tentacles faded away. The trail was eerily quiet. There was no sign of the sailors who’d run off—not even distant screams. Even the dead were missing. Borne off, perhaps, or buried beneath roots.

“Collect your breath,” she told the group. “Who remains?”

There were only seven. Kristof was among them. “Should we go looking for the captain?” he asked. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. “We can’t sail away from here without Ruven.”

Illaoi saw Ruven’s bundle of charts lying on the ground, soaked through with mud. She picked it up and fished out the map she’d given him. Behind the grime, the way to the monastery was still visible.

On the ship, he’d seemed ready to change. But he’d returned to cowardice in the end—a stagnant soul, forever tossed about by the tide of others’ whims. I’d only be saving him to use him, she thought. Like Sarah and the others did.

And searching for him with only seven injured and exhausted sailors? They would surely die. Kristof and his crewmates did not deserve such a fate. The living can still change and grow, she reminded herself. The dead cannot.

Her decision was clear. “We must press ahead,” Illaoi announced. “To the monastery. We shall have to rely upon the charity of the hermit who lives there.”

It wasn’t long before the monastery loomed up out of the Mist. It seemed well maintained—its tall tower looked just like the one carved on the amulet.

As Illaoi approached the gate, a man leaped onto the path ahead of her. He looked so much like a beast of the Isles, she almost smashed him with her idol.

“Wait! It’s me,” Ruven croaked.

For a moment, the whole group simply stared. Ruven’s body was completely coated with mud. His jacket was soaked with blood. Dead twigs were trapped in his hair. He looked like he’d been run over by a herd of giant rock crabs.

Illaoi was relieved—for a moment. Then her frustration returned in full force. “That was a shameful thing you did,” she snapped. “Leaving your crew.”

Ruven seemed shocked. “I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

“I am never glad to see a man abandon his duty!” Illaoi did not hold back. “You told me you wanted to change. I did not see a man who wants to change on the battlefield today.”

Ruven shot the crew an embarrassed glance, and Kristof went for blood. “How’d you survive the Mist?” he asked.

A strained smile cracked the mud on Ruven’s cheeks. “I, uh...”

“Illaoi said running off by yourself was death.”

Ruven’s expression darkened. “If you’d like to know, I brought my own protection, actually. I was fine.”

Illaoi was disgusted. A protection he did not choose to share. An artifact of some kind? “We shall discuss your shame at a later time,” she said. “First, we must get inside.”

She turned and knocked on the massive wooden door. The sound echoed in some open space beyond. Then, high above, someone cleared his throat and said, “Who goes there?”

Illaoi could make out broad shoulders and a hooded head leaning over the parapet. “I am Illaoi, Truth Bearer of the Buhru,” she called. “I seek the hermit who represents the Brethren of the Dusk. May we take shelter here?”

The man paused for a moment. “I will let you in,” he said, his voice deep. “But do not lay a hand on any creature inside.”

“Creature?” one of the sailors whispered.

The doors slowly began to grind open. Each door was more than twice as tall as Illaoi, and enormously heavy. When they were cracked open about an arm’s length, she saw who was pushing them from within: mistwalkers.

They were spirits shaped like hunched, tired men and women, with long dragging arms and slack mouths ringed with fangs. But unlike others Illaoi had seen, they moved in passive, obedient silence, heaving against the door like dutiful footmen.

Illaoi recoiled, shocked—but the mistwalkers did not lunge for her. Behind her, the sailors reached for their weapons.

The man from the parapet stepped into view. “Do they frighten you?” he asked. “They are my companions.”

Illaoi had never seen anyone like him before. He was robed like a priest, but built like a boulder, with huge shoulders muscled by hard work. Not a man I could snap in half. In one hand, he carried a heavy shovel of dark, rugged metal, stained with dirt, as if he’d just come from digging these beasts out of their graves.

Illaoi noticed that his arms were not sleeved. Their bluish tone... that was his bare skin.

“Are you also a mistwalker?” She had allied with mistwalkers before, though it gave her no joy. Creatures trapped in the stagnation of death often brought pain to the living, and were an unholy affront to the sanctity of life.
The man smiled. “Are you asking if I am alive?”

“On these isles, it is a fair question!”

“A very private one, too.” He made a thoughtful shrug. “I am... a caretaker. Please, come inside.”

The courtyard beyond was filled with mistwalkers carrying scraps of wood and rocks, clambering among rows of gravestones. They paid the newcomers no mind. Though their mouths hung open and their eyes were vacant, they seemed to be driven by some strange mission.

“This is madness,” Ruven whispered. “He has an army.”

“He has protection of some kind, too,” Illaoi said. “Look. The Black Mist does not attack him.”

The hermit overheard them. “It does not need to. It has the Maiden to watch me.”

He pointed at the top of the tower. Illaoi caught a glimpse of a figure up there, but it retreated behind the parapet, as if ashamed to be seen.

“The Maiden?”

“Another... companion of mine.”

“And what is your name?”

“Yorick,” said the hermit. “I am the last of the Brethren at my post.”

She stared. No. He can’t be serious. “The last?”

“I’ve been here since all this started,” he said, gesturing at the Mist-choked sky. “I’ve been here since the Ruination.”

Illaoi had never imagined a home like Yorick’s. The empty halls of the monastery were alive with the motion of mistwalkers. They walked the clean-swept floors in silence, each fixed on some cryptic duty.

She felt her skin prickle and her mouth go dry. It was not fear—it was anger. He keeps the dead in servitude. Unconscionable. Disgusting. She kept this thought to herself, however. This man could still help save Bilgewater.

“You had trouble on the road,” Yorick observed. He gestured to a spiraling stairwell. “I have little in the way of mortal comforts, but there is clean water in the cistern downstairs. And a fire to keep you warm.”

While the others went down to wash on the lower level, Illaoi waited on the doorstep, gazing at the mistwalkers in the yard below. Before her journey with Sarah and their friends to stop Viego, if she’d met a man trapped in the rut of his life for a thousand years, leading an army of restless spirits... she’d have killed him on sight. And Nagakabouros would have blessed me for it.

Yorick appeared at her side. “You have business with me,” he said.

“I do.” She kept her voice calm with difficulty. “But I am not used to seeing spirits treated this way.”

“They are not trapped here, if that is what worries you,” Yorick said. “I search these islands for the tormented dead. Some of them stay here with me for a while, before they move on.”

“And what are they doing?”

“Building graves,” he said. “These are the people of the Blessed Isles. My countrymen, seeking rest and peace.” He paused for a moment, as if saying a prayer. “We can speak privately upstairs, in my library.”

The tower was made of huge, dark blocks of stone, smoothed by time and streaked black with torch smoke. It was older than the ruins of Helia, or the vaults Illaoi and Sarah had visited before.

He has been entombed here like a man dead for a thousand years. Stagnation incarnate. His politeness almost made it worse.

The chamber at the top of the tower was lined with bookshelves and lit by a cold, blue light filtering in through the window. Beside the door hung a pair of stone pauldrons with a cape of Black Mist roiling from them. And atop one of the lofty bookshelves, a nest of dark Mist and glowing blue light slowly turned on itself.

“That is the Maiden,” Yorick said. “She has been with me for centuries.”

“I thought you said they moved on.”

“When they are ready.” He closed the door behind them. “And, if you are ready, please show me who you are hiding in that box on your belt.”

Illaoi raised an eyebrow. “You can sense it?”

“The Maiden speaks to me. She told me whose spirit that is.”

Illaoi opened the box with the key around her neck. Yorick leaned forward to see, and the light of the amulet made a sinister dance across his craggy features.

“Viego of Camavor,” he said. He extended one huge, calloused hand toward the box—then stopped himself. “Since the Ruination, I’d hoped to see something like this. But... I expected more.”

“What did you expect?”

“That the Mist would be gone. But it remains. That the spirits would cease their suffering. But it continues.” There was an unreadable expression on his face. “Perhaps I expected that I would change.”

Illaoi felt a blaze of sympathy for him. She, too, had wondered if the Shadow Isles might change with Viego’s banishment, if the Mist might finally disperse. But that is a challenge for some greater strength than ours, she reminded herself.

“When you defeated him, I saw the lights in the sky,” Yorick said. “But the spirits were not freed, and the Maiden continued whispering in my ear. So my responsibility to them continued.” He gazed at Illaoi, his expression stony. “I am a member of a holy order, same as you. Long years of toil... that is our way. Persistence, faith, and dedication.”

Illaoi bristled. “Nagakabouros does not scorn dedication. She scorns stagnation.”

Yorick stood and went to the window. “Come, look at this.”

Spread out beyond the walls of the abbey, across miles of wild and Mist-wreathed hillsides, were thousands of tombs. Tombs carved by the hands of mortal artisans stood side by side with rough, makeshift ones assembled from rubble by the stumbling dead. Here and there, the endless acres of gravestones stirred with the motion of mistwalkers.

“Is that not the largest cemetery you have ever seen?” Yorick asked wryly.

It was, Illaoi realized, half as big as Bilgewater itself.

Yorick’s voice was tight with controlled emotion. “If there is any agent of change on these isles, I am it. I open the earth and bring the spirits to their rest. And the world around me changes.” He turned to Illaoi. “Do I not, then, honor your goddess?”

A constellation of beliefs netted Illaoi to the particulars of her faith. They were simple beliefs, clear and gracious and humanizing. Though her relationship with the Goddess had changed over the years, the core of her faith remained strong. Life is motion. To live fully is to change; to change is strength.

The living can change. The dead cannot.

Illaoi now felt that foundation shifting beneath her feet. Can the dead build a world of their own? Can they follow their own desires? No. Why would he think that?

She’d brought motion to beings trapped between life and death before. The Bloodharbor Ripper, Pyke, was one of them. But his grace had been given to him by Nagakabouros, and the Goddess had no part in Yorick’s domain.

“I suppose,” she finally admitted, “the dead could have their own kind of motion. But Nagakabouros would never keep spirits here beyond their years in life.”

“She would see them reborn?”

“Yes. As soon as possible! It would be a sin to deny them life for even a moment.”

“And this is our difference,” Yorick said. “You would banish spirits before their time.”

Illaoi knew that if the conversation continued, she’d never settle the issue of the amulet. So she changed the subject. “This is one spirit I’d like to banish.” She lifted the amulet by its chain and showed him the mark on its back. “Your order made this, but in the Buhru style. We hoped you could tell us how to destroy the spirit inside.”

Yorick took the amulet in his bare hand. It did not seem to trouble him the way it had troubled Sarah.

“I think I remember the woman who made this,” he said. He turned to his bookshelves and found a sheaf of fragile, gray parchment. “She was a Buhru sailor. She saw too many perish at sea. So she joined our order, to bring peace to the dying.”
The parchment was covered in an ancient Buhru script. Illaoi could pick out the old words well enough. This artisan had worked on gems made of serpent-amber—a technique practiced only by the Buhru. But she had also tempered the gems under high heat, to form a crystalline shell capable of holding an angry spirit. The technique she used was from the Blessed Isles.

“I cannot read Buhru myself,” Yorick admitted. “Does it say anything useful?”

Illaoi’s eyes wandered down the page. She picked out an illustration of some kind of blast furnace, powered by magic focused through prisms and lenses. A gyroscopic dynamo of light and flame. The illustration was labeled, The Spirit Destroyed.

That seemed clear enough. “She used your people’s machines to temper the gems. At the same heat, we could kill the spirit inside.”

“The furnaces?” He laughed sadly. “I used the blocks to make tombstones.”

They stood for a moment in silence again, thinking. Illaoi wondered how Sarah was doing. She wondered if, across all this distance, she could still hear the amulet speaking to her.

“There is one solution close at hand,” Yorick suddenly said. “You could hurl the amulet into a volcano.”

Illaoi glanced at him. “You are joking.”

“I am not. I have not gone this far in a thousand years, but volcanoes, at least, last that long.” He returned to the bookshelves and found a map rolled into an enormous sheaf. It showed the Blessed Isles as they had been before the Ruination, marked with roads and cities. “This one.” Yorick pointed to a tiny dot in a far corner of the map. “Scardover Cay. Half a day’s sail from here.”

“It has... exposed lava?” She felt ridiculous asking.

“Time changes these things,” Yorick said. “But it did, in my day.”

A thought occurred to Illaoi. If Pyke could see the truth in the Goddess’s ways, this man could, too. “It is still your day,” she said. “Come with us. You wanted to see this king destroyed. You may hurl him to his death yourself, if you like!”

Yorick coughed out a grim bark of a laugh. “It is beyond the Black Mist. I doubt I will be able to help you much when I am outside the realm of the dead.” He gestured to the Maiden. “My powers lie with the dead. And I have not left my post in a thousand years.”

“Then there is no better time to try it!” Illaoi urged. “Leave this place, if only for a day. I think you will enjoy the experience.”

Yorick considered for a moment. “What a curious idea,” he murmured. “Doing something because I would enjoy it.” He drew himself up straight, and crossed his huge arms on his barrel chest. “And you’re right. There is nothing I’d enjoy more than killing Viego.”

They all gathered in the courtyard to leave the monastery.

Ruven stood apart from the rest of the group. As Yorick directed his spirits to open the gate and let them out, Illaoi bundled the navigational charts she’d found in the woods, and went to talk to the captain.

“Have you settled things with your crew?” she asked. “Can you all return to the ship in peace?”

He would not look directly at her. “Sure. Yeah. We can walk back.”

“Did they threaten you? I have a mission. I will tolerate no interruption from you or the crew.” Still, Ruven refused to look at her. Frustration tightened her throat. “You must tell me if they plan a mutiny,” she muttered.

He shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t give a toss what they do with me. This is my last voyage, probably.”

Illaoi looked down at the navigational notes. He’s the only one who can use them, she thought. There will be time to bring him back to his senses once we’re on open ocean.

She handed him the paper bundle. “I expect focus from you,” she told him. “Dedication. A man can change his life, but he has to try.”

“Fine.” Ruven stuffed the papers into his mud-stained jacket.

They returned to the ship in frigid silence. Half the crew was dead, and Ruven was no longer on speaking terms with the ones remaining. As Ruven navigated out of the cove, Yorick stood at the railing and watched the Maiden standing alone on the sand.

“You are leaving her for the first time in a thousand years,” Illaoi said. “Do you feel any different?”

He lifted something from his collar: a small vial, filled with a clear, bright liquid. “The Mist’s whispers are quieter,” he said. “And the sound this makes—it is louder.”

Illaoi took a moment to realize what she was looking at. “Blessed water?”

“Indeed.” He hid the vial under his collar again. “At the monastery, this merely kept me alive. Out here, I pray it will bring me strength.”

The journey was a straight shot, half a day’s voyage to an island on the edge of the Shadow Isles’ archipelago. The crew kept the sails trimmed for speed, and Ruven stewed on the command deck. He hunched his shoulders, thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and kept his eyes fixed grimly on the horizon—and now and then, on the crew, too.

Illaoi approached him. “I know we said we would discuss Nagakabouros, and your place in Bilgewater,” she told him. “If you still wish for guidance, I am here.”

He glanced at her. There was something in his eyes—fear? “Maybe later,” he muttered.

“What did you discuss with your crew at the monastery?” They must have had choice words for him. Whatever they’d said, he needed to listen closely.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Look, I’m busy.”

Illaoi shrugged, and descended from the command deck to walk the length of the ship with Yorick.

She was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. When she didn’t have to look at his army of mistwalkers, it was easier to discuss his beliefs on their own merits. They spent all night deep in conversation. His beliefs were as sincerely held as hers, but his priorities were so strange. Healing the dead was more important to him than returning them to the light of life.

“I will never understand it,” she told him. “But I believe that you mean it.”

“I do not expect you to understand. But I am glad you listened.”

Most of the sailors went to sleep in the lower deck sometime before dawn. When the sun rose, the Trained Rat left the last of the Black Mist behind, and their destination came into view.

“There it is,” Ruven said. “The island. That shadow on the horizon.”

A handful of crew members gathered at the railing. There was a dark, conical blemish on the pale gray skyline ahead.

“Scardover Cay,” Yorick mused. “I’ve heard that people lived there, long before my time. I am not sure I believe it.”

Illaoi could pick out the stench of sulfur when they were still miles from shore. As they grew closer, the hazy shadow on the horizon resolved into a mountain of dark ash, running bare and treeless from the waterline to the lip of the crater. Here and there, it was studded with the stark forms of jagged rocks, each larger than a house.

As the crew lowered the anchor, Illaoi returned to her bunk to retrieve her idol. The belly of the ship was shadowed and quiet, with no sound louder than the creak of timbers and the slosh of waves against the hull. Here and there, crew members were still sleeping in hammocks strung from the ceiling beams.

Her idol was on her bunk. Carrying it awkwardly at her side, she made her way back down the center of the lower deck, between the cannons.

It’s so quiet, she thought.

Then she realized she couldn’t hear anyone snoring.

She put her hand on the nearest hammock and tipped it toward her. Kristof lay inside... and he was not breathing. His dry lips were parted, and his eyes stared blankly upward. Illaoi could feel the presence of his spirit, but he lay like one dead.

A magical stasis? This was not done by natural means.

She stepped swiftly to the next hammock. The sailor there was trapped in corpse-like stasis, too.

Every ship that leaves the Shadow Isles can carry as many stowaways as it has shadows.

“Reveal yourself,” she said. “Who did this?”

THUMP. Farther up the length of the ship, the hatch fell closed over the stairway, and the whole of the lower deck was drowned in darkness.

Illaoi crouched and tightened her grip on her idol. There was barely any room to fight in the lower deck. It was the only place on the ship where she was vulnerable. “You waited until Yorick and I were separated, didn’t you?”

A wink of blue light flared in the dark. “Yes,” a voice said. “And until the Mist was gone. Your new friend wields it like a weapon.” Ruven stepped out of the shadows between Illaoi and the stairwell. “I wanted to speak in private.”

A faint glow wreathed him. And behind him stood someone else.

It was a hunched, robe-swaddled spirit, dressed like a Blessed Isles scholar. His gowns were crisscrossed with arcane geometry and stained with black slime, as if he’d come wading out of some putrid swamp. Tendrils of Black Mist coiled around him. And above his tight, tarnished-gold collar sat a warped face of sagging, melted skin, split by an enormous, toadlike mouth. When his lips pulled back in a smile, Illaoi could see multiple rows of little pointed teeth.

“I know you’ve made a habit of stooping low, captain. But I did not expect this. You’ve made a pact with a monster.”

“I’ve made a pact with a man who helped me! That’s all I ever wanted—a little help.” Ruven’s lips twisted into a pained grin. “I’ve worked hard enough in my life, haven’t I? I don’t need spiritual work, Illaoi. I just need some help!”

The spirit raised his hand. He held an orb that glowed with the same blue light that flickered around Ruven. Black Mist flowed from it, as it flowed from the spirit himself. Then the orb flared, and Ruven’s head made a strange jerk.

Illaoi realized she’d badly misread this man. He didn’t want to do the work of changing. He wanted to be some leader’s lackey. He just wanted a more forgiving master than Sarah.

It was too cramped for her to attack, so she tried to keep the conversation going. “And where did you meet this spirit?” she asked, making her way forward between the cannons.

“Bartek saved me from the wraiths.”

Illaoi could not hold back her bitter laugh. “He’s using you. Be your own man, Ruven.”
Ruven hesitated, but the orb flared again. He jerked like a puppet brought back to stand at attention.

“Stop her,” Bartek said. His voice was rough and wet, like a gas pocket escaping from a bog. “Get the amulet.”

Illaoi did not wait to see what he would do. She took one silent, confident step forward into an open space and swung her idol as hard as possible into Ruven’s snappable little body.

He flew across the deck and hit the opposite hull of the ship hard, cracking the boards in half. Bartek recoiled in surprise and gave a frustrated shriek. “Foolish priestess!”

“Choose your champions better,” she said. “Or why not fight yourself?”

She approached him, and the creature’s craven retreat answered her question clearly enough. “My master has given me a weapon stronger than your Goddess,” he snapped. “And a champion to fight for me.”

Once again, the orb in his hand flared... and the captain stirred. Slowly, he lifted his broken body back to its feet.

“You cannot kill him,” Bartek told Illaoi. His lips parted in a wide, toothy smile, like the River King’s catfish mouth. “I can bring him back. The lantern-lighter’s gift has given me dominion over his soul.”

The lantern-lighter—Thresh! Illaoi stepped back. An artifact that ensnared souls, a gift from Thresh’s hand? By the Goddess. That’s no good.

Ruven moved like a pile of sticks held together with string. Illaoi could see his muscles bunching strangely on his arms and neck—driven by magic, not by his own will. With a twist of his cracked legs, he launched himself toward her with uncommon speed. She dove out of the way and dropped her idol, awkwardly, as she squeezed between cannons. It rolled across the boards of the deck between them.

They paused. Ruven sized her up with a cross-eyed stare. Illaoi took a sharp breath, and lunged for the idol. Ruven dashed forward and kicked her in the ribs. It was like being hit by a mortar shell—and now it was Illaoi’s turn to shatter the boards behind her. The idol flew out of her hand and straight through the hull, leaving a ragged gap as tall as Illaoi herself.

As her fingers slipped from the idol’s grip, she felt her vital connection to Nagakabouros fade. Damn! Fists it is, then. She struggled to peel herself off the deck and square up against Ruven.

“Lost your magic?” Ruven sneered.

“But not my faith. I have wanted to snap you in half for the last day,” Illaoi told him. “I think Nagakabouros will grant me my wish.”

But as she raised her hand to strike him in the jaw, Bartek also raised his. The orb in his palm flared. In the hammocks around the deck, glass-eyed sailors sat up, rigid as a board. Each leaped from their hammock like a Piltovan automaton.

“You profane the dead,” Illaoi snarled.

“They aren’t dead until I tell them to lie down and die!”

Bartek swung the orb, and the sailors swung for her. There were eight or nine of them, and they each hit with the force of a charging brineseal. Illaoi kept her guard up over her face, twisting to shrug off the blows.

Without her idol, she could not summon Nagakabouros’s tentacles to throw them back—but she could punch. The Goddess tests even me, she thought. But this is a test I am glad to bear!

She hit a sailor on the shoulder so hard, his arm dislocated with a sound like a plank cracking in half. She kneed another so forcefully that his flying body shattered the stairs leading to the upper deck. She moved through forms of combat she’d learned while training for the priesthood. Fists snap forward, like the strike of a ramming ship. Legs planted, like the roots of an island in the bed of the sea. Whispering a regretful prayer to Nagakabouros, she dodged Kristof’s punch, rolled him over her shoulder, and threw him down on the deck. His forehead left a splatter of red on the boards.

She began backing up toward the hole in the wall. Outside the ship, I’ll have room to fight. “Captain, you’re an embarrassment,” she taunted. “You are everyone’s fool.”

Exactly as she expected, Ruven’s expression curdled with rage.

“You feel weak because you are weak,” she continued. “Nobody’s help can change that.”

He dove at her. Illaoi let the force of his leap carry them both straight out the side of the ship.

They burst into the sunlight locked arm-in-arm. She caught a glimpse of the chaos on the upper deck: Yorick swarmed by attacking sailors, each wreathed by blue light. She saw him swat a woman clear off the ship with the flat of his shovel.

Then she and Ruven sank into the sea. This was her territory—Ruven was strong beyond human strength, but the man could not swim. Illaoi had been training to swim through riptides since childhood. She pinned him to the sand on the bottom of the bay, grabbed him by the neck, and held him down. Then she punched him until she cut her knuckles on his teeth.

Illaoi could hold her breath underwater for nearly five minutes, if she was conserving her energy. Punching Ruven into submission took so much out of her, she only lasted for a minute and a half before she had to kick up to the surface and take a gulp of air.

Ruven was thrashing weakly on the bay floor, kicking up a cloud of sand. Illaoi swam back down, grabbed him by the jacket, and dragged him across the water and onto the shore. “Give in,” she shouted, and struck him again. He coughed up a mouthful of seawater. “Give in! You’re a dead man.”

Ruven’s eyes darted to the ship. She followed his glance and saw Yorick and Bartek grappling at the prow of the boat. Yorick was holding Bartek’s throat, but the spirit’s hand, gripping the orb, was raised to the sky...

The orb flared a blinding white, and pain drove Illaoi to her knees. It was as if someone had driven a lance of fire through the top of her head. By the Goddess, what was that? She hurt too much to move.

Ruven crawled to her on broken limbs, a dagger in his hand. “His master is too powerful, Illaoi,” he said. “We all have people we answer to. He answers to a phantom who’s near like a god. Just... just give him the amulet.”

Illaoi had destroyed that “god” several weeks ago. “No,” was all she could croak.

But the searing light of the orb shone from the boat again, and this time, the pain was worse. Illaoi gritted her teeth. It felt like someone was trying to peel her mind from her body.

“Give in,” Ruven begged her. “He’ll suck your soul out your ear and make you a puppet. Like he did me.”

“I’d like... to see... him try.”

She struggled to raise her arm—and simply gave Ruven a backhanded slap. He was so badly injured that it sent him sprawling.

A moment later, a shadow loomed over Illaoi, and Bartek hurled Yorick to the ground beside her. Yorick seemed dazed, but alive.

With tendrils of Black Mist flickering about him, Bartek leaned down and unhooked the lockbox from Illaoi’s belt. “My prize,” he gurgled.

“Heal me, master,” Ruven begged. “Please... I’m dying.”

Bartek simply gave a flat, scornful cough of a laugh. “No.”

Illaoi knew they had only moments before Bartek left. She turned to Yorick. “Gravekeeper,” she whispered.

Yorick blinked, shook himself and collected his focus. He placed his palm on the sand to push himself up—then drew it back, as if burned. “There’s something down there,” he replied. “The dead. Corpses.”

Ruven had seized the hem of his new master’s robes. “I want to live,” he begged.

He won’t survive this, Illaoi realized. But his crew still could. She glanced at Bartek, then back at Yorick. “Let them out.”

Yorick closed his eyes. “Rise,” he told the bones. “I have work for you!”

Illaoi felt the rumbling before she heard it.

The sand danced. The ash on the slope of the volcano began to slide down toward them in sheets. Bartek looked about, suddenly nervous. Deep below them, in the bedrock beneath the ocean, something cracked.

Then a tide of spirits rose.

From a crevasse growing beneath Yorick’s palm poured a torrent of furious souls. Illaoi could see spirits leaping from the sand all around her, howling with a rage so profound and concentrated that she lost her breath. They stank of sulfur. The air was so thick with their charred, transparent forms, the terrain around her distorted.

Yorick lifted his hand and flung it at Bartek. With a sound like a cracking whip, a lash of Black Mist flew from the cape on his back and struck the Helian scholar. The Mist around him surged and coiled.

“This man is a servant of the Mist,” Yorick shouted. “The Mist that woke you, and trapped you here!”

The spirits surged toward Bartek, drawn like hounds to a scent.

“Kill him,” Yorick commanded.

The geyser of souls struck Bartek, flipped him onto his back, and thumped the sand around him into a crater. The furious dead tore at Bartek’s robes and beat him with their fists. He writhed, screaming; every strike of their sulfurous hands burned him.

Something flashed in his own hand. The lockbox! Illaoi forced her aching body to stand. The sand bubbled and churned as hundreds of spirits erupted from it, and the rushing current of passing souls whipped her hair and buffeted her like a strong wind. She could barely keep her footing.

She pushed forward, stumbling, and grabbed Bartek by the robes. Spirits writhed around her, screaming in their desperate attempt to strike him. Holding on to him was like holding on to a flag in a hurricane. She tugged him closer. “Give me the amulet!”

“It belongs to my master,” Bartek roared.

She struck him in the jaw. She felt something crack. “Your master is dead,” she shouted. “My friends and I killed him!”
But then his jaw writhed back into position on his face. “No,” Bartek snarled, tar spilling over his warped and sagging lips. “He still lives!”

He brandished his orb, but Illaoi grabbed it. Its smooth surface burned her hands, but she ripped it from his grasp just as it released its final flash. The souls around him recoiled, screaming, and Illaoi fell backward.

She caught a glimpse of Bartek launching himself out over the sea. The lockbox was clutched in his slimy fist. He floated there, victorious...

But then the spirits caught up. They overwhelmed Bartek, and the force of their charge pushed him toward the horizon. He shot like a cannonball over the surface of the water—two hissing sheets of spray flew up on either side of his path.

“No,” she heard Yorick shout to the dead. “Wait!”

The spirits ignored him. The ocean boiled with furious souls, and they carried her enemy and her duty away from her. Far out at sea, something detonated, and a tower of spray shot up the height of a ship’s mast. A moment later, there came another, even farther out. The spirits were moving faster than any ship or serpent-steed.

Illaoi dropped Bartek’s orb and fell to her knees. She pressed her forehead to the sand. I’ve failed. He has Viego.

Yorick collapsed beside her. “This is their will, not mine,” he croaked.

“I’ve failed in my duty,” she said. “I’ve failed Sarah.”

“Who?”

Illaoi struggled to sit up. “My dearest friend. I told her—I promised her I would destroy it.” When she needed me most, I failed her. Goddess, forgive me!

Yorick watched as more spirits rushed out to sea. “I’ve uncorked something I cannot control,” he said. “They were locked down there for centuries, beneath the stone. A city of souls. So much pain and fury. They want revenge... and he is a creature of the Black Mist that roused them.”

As the last of the spirits rose from the earth and poured into the ocean, Illaoi could feel their rage dissipating. “What will happen to them?” she asked.

“If they make their way back to the Isles, I will find them,” Yorick said. “But I doubt I will find that toad who took Viego.”

They struggled to their feet and surveyed the battlefield. Bartek’s rule over the ship’s crew had ended. She could see several of the sailors lying still on the beach, and more draped over the railing of the ship. Ruven himself lay nearby, half-buried by a drift of sand. Illaoi felt for a pulse, but could not find one. “He has died,” she told Yorick.

“But his spirit is still here.”

Yorick knelt beside Ruven and placed a hand on his shoulder. Illaoi saw a shade of him rise from the body, shimmering a near-invisible pale blue in the bright morning light.

His voice was faint and echoing, like a person whispering to them from the far end of a pipe. “I’ve died!” he exclaimed, dismayed. “Gods. I’ve died!”

Yorick took the spirit’s hand. “You’re safe,” he said. “You’ve left your body behind.”

Ruven regarded his broken body with uncomprehending shock.

“You can leave it all behind,” Yorick said. “I’ve awoken you so that you can find peace.”

Ruven froze. “Find peace?”

“Is there anything you need to say?” Yorick asked. “Anything you need to do?”

“I’m not going to find peace. Not without the crew,” Ruven said. “I’m their captain. I owe them.” He glanced around. “Where’s that fiend’s artifact?”

Illaoi was dumbfounded. In his moment of death, at last, Ruven thought of his crew. Goddess, Yorick was right. The dead can change.

“I have the artifact,” Illaoi said. “Can you use it?”

“It held my soul,” Ruven said. “I felt how it works. It can’t save me... but it can save them if they haven’t died yet.”

“Help me heal them,” Yorick begged. “Please, show me how.”

Ruven turned to Illaoi. His face was split with a silly grin, the only genuine smile she’d seen on him since they’d met. “Priestess, watch this,” he said. “I’ll show you what I can do.”

Then he gripped Yorick’s hand... and faded away.

Yorick ran down the beach. The sailors on the shore were at the brink of death. He seemed to know whose spirit still stayed with them, and who had already passed. With Ruven’s knowledge guiding him, Yorick moved among the corpses. When the globe shone in his hand, their breath returned.

As Kristof came alive again in a fit of coughing, Illaoi thought, Yorick heals the living and the dead. What does the Goddess think of him?

But she knew the Goddess would not tell her what to think of Yorick. The Goddess needed her to decide for herself.

That evening, after she’d hauled her idol up from the bottom of the bay, Illaoi and Yorick went to bury Ruven and the other dead high up near the lip of the volcano.

“There’s a fantastic view up here,” Yorick remarked, covering the final grave. He wielded his spade like an accomplished craftsman.

Illaoi approached the edge of the volcano and looked down into the black-capped, red-cracked lake of lava below. She wasn’t sure what to feel. “Perhaps their spirits can watch the rest of the world covered in ruination from up here,” she said.

Yorick stood beside her. “I do not think that will happen,” he said. “Even if Viego tries to kill the whole world... well. The dead have their own kind of will.” He glanced at Illaoi. “I’ve met several in my time who would see him destroyed. They can help us.”

Illaoi thought for a moment. The dead, rising up against Viego? She’d seen something like that on the Shadow Isles before. But it was so rare. With Yorick, was another future possible? Spirits and Buhru, aligned with the same goals? It felt impossible. But...

“I will help them,” Yorick promised.

Illaoi felt a strange hope growing inside her. “You have a good heart,” she said. “Your ability is like a promise of Nagakabouros fulfilled, I think. The power to move the dead from stagnation... I have never seen anything like it before.”

Yorick shrugged. “I do what I must.”

“No,” Illaoi insisted. “You do more than anyone expects. You freed Ruven’s spirit. You moved him after his death. And you brought motion to the trapped dead!”

As she spoke the words, she felt the shock of it growing within her. If this is possible, she found herself thinking, then anything is. Motion for my friends. Freedom for Sarah. A better world for all of us.

“Nagakabouros brought us together for a reason,” she continued. “I think we can learn from one another, as the ancients did.” The possibilities blossomed in her mind. The ancient Buhru and the scholars of the Blessed Isles had created such incredible things together. What they lacked was a common purpose, a mission uniting them toward a single goal. “What your Brethren wished for the world, what my faith dreams of—they are the same. Change and growth. Liberation!”

“I do not know if the rest of your religion would agree.” Yorick laughed.

“I will make them,” Illaoi promised.

“I think it is possible. In my youth, our people were close. But for now, I must return to my home. There are spirits there to whom I owe a duty.”

The Maiden, Illaoi thought. “It is your way. Persistence and dedication, as you said. But one day, when you are ready to leave, the Buhru will welcome an honorable monk like you. We will need an ally in the fight against Viego.”

Yorick gazed down at the lava below. “No one has ever called me an honorable monk before,” he mused.
Thresh

The horrifying specter now known as Thresh was once a simple, if troubled, man. In an age history has all but forgotten, he was a lowly warden of an order devoted to the gathering and protection of arcane knowledge. This order was established on the Blessed Isles, which were hidden and protected from the outside world by magical pale mists.
The masters of the order acknowledged Thresh’s long years of service, and tasked him with the custodianship of certain hidden vaults beneath the city of Helia. It was there that a vast, secret collection of dangerous artifacts was kept under lock and key. Incredibly strong-willed and methodical, Thresh was well suited to such work… but even then, his penchant for cruelty had been noted by his brethren. While it had not yet manifested in murderous ways—at least, none that could be proven—he was shunned by many.
It became clear he had been given a job that kept him away from others, preventing him from gaining the recognition he felt he deserved. Solitary years in the darkness took their toll, and Thresh grew ever more bitter and jealous as he patrolled the long halls with his lantern-stave, and only his own resentful thoughts for company.
His moment of opportunity came when the armies of a mad king managed to pierce the veiling mists, and arrived unbidden upon the shores of the Blessed Isles.
Secretly, Thresh delighted in the slaughter that followed. The invading king was obsessed with resurrecting his dead queen—and Thresh willingly led him to the fabled Waters of Life.
None but the most senior members of the order had ever been permitted to enter the hidden catacomb that housed the Waters. Now, with the king’s greatest warriors at his back, Thresh laughed as the guardians of that sacred place were cut down before him. Finally, he believed, he would get what he had long deserved.
Only those who were there could say what truly occurred when the king lowered the lifeless corpse of his wife into the Waters, but the aftermath would shake the whole of Runeterra.
A catastrophic blastwave of dark energy surged outward, engulfing Helia and spreading rapidly across the rest of the Blessed Isles, and the white mist that had once protected them turned black and predatory. Every living thing in its path perished in an instant, and yet their spirits could not move on, caught in a horrifying new existence somewhere between life and death. Thresh himself was among the first to be claimed… but while others screamed in anguish at their fate, he reveled in it.
He arose from this cataclysm, this Ruination, as a spectral monstrosity, relishing the chance to torment others without fear of reprisal, and unfettered by the limits of mortality.
Over the decades and centuries that followed, his supernatural appearance slowly changed to match the malice and cruelty that had always festered in his heart. To his amusement, Thresh came to realize most other spirits trapped within the Black Mist retained only fragments of their former selves—even the strongest of the foreign invaders, such as Hecarim or Ledros—while his power continued to grow.
Driven by spite to prey upon those he perceives as lesser souls, Thresh’s favorite victims have always been those who will suffer the most from his attentions. No matter how strong their resolve, resilience, or faith, he strives to break them as slowly as possible, by learning their fears and weaknesses, and toying with them to the very end. Only when their lives lie in tatters, their loved ones taken from them, their sense of purpose lost and their last glimmer of hope snuffed out, do Thresh’s hooked chains finally drag them into his undying grasp.
Even so, death brings no merciful release, for he tears out the souls of all he kills—imprisoning them within his accursed lantern, to be unwilling witnesses to his depredations for all eternity.
Only a single soul has ever escaped him.
Senna, one of the hated “Sentinels of Light”, died a futile death after facing Thresh in some forgotten eldritch vault. Her distraught husband, Lucian, then pursued the cruel spirit for years, becoming singularly obsessed with the hunt, letting his grief and rage consume him almost entirely. To Thresh, it was delectable.
However, before he could finally claim Lucian’s soul, a vengeful blow split Thresh’s lantern open, and freed Senna from it.
Intrigued by the obvious strength of their mortal bond, he has decided to allow them this small and insignificant victory, knowing all too well that the game of light and shadow they all play is still far from over…
The Collection

Rayla Heide

A horrible scraping of metal chains drifted over the fields. Outside, an unnatural fog rendered the moon and stars all but invisible, and the regular hum of insects fell silent.
Thresh approached a ruined hovel. He raised his lantern, not to see his surroundings, but to look inside the glass. The interior of the lantern resembled a starry nightscape with its thousands of tiny green glowing orbs. They buzzed frantically as if trying to escape Thresh’s gaze. His mouth twisted in a grotesque grin, teeth glinting from the glow. Each of the lights was precious to him.
Behind the door, a man whimpered. Thresh sensed his pain, and was drawn to it. He knew the man’s suffering like an old friend.
Thresh had only appeared to the man once, decades ago, but since then the spectre had taken everyone the man held dear: from his favorite horse to his mother, brother, and recently a manservant who had become a close confidant. The specter made no pretence of natural deaths; he wanted the man to know who caused each loss.
The spirit passed through the door, scraping his chains as they dragged behind him. The walls were damp and ingrained with years of grime. The man looked even worse: his hair long and matted, his skin covered in scabs - angry and raw from clawing. He wore what had once been fine velvet clothes, but were now little more than torn, tattered rags.
The man shrank from the sudden green glow, covering his eyes. He shook violently, backing away into the corner.
“Please. Please, not you,” he whispered.
“Long ago, I claimed you as mine.” Thresh’s voice creaked and stretched, as if he had not spoken for an age. “It is time I collect...”
“I am dying,” the man said, his voice barely audible. “If you’re here to kill me, you’d best hurry.” He made an effort to look at Thresh directly.
Thresh stretched his mouth wide. “Your death is not my desire.”
He set the glass door of his lantern slightly ajar. Strange sounds came from within - a cacophony of screams.
The man did not react, not at first. So many screams emerged that they blended together like scraping glass shards. But his eyes widened in horror as he heard voices he recognized plead from Thresh’s lantern. He heard his mother, his brother, his friend, and finally the sound he dreaded most: his children, wailing as if being burned alive.
“What have you done?” he screamed. He scrambled for something to throw - a broken chair - and threw it at Thresh with all his strength. It passed through the spectre harmlessly, and Thresh laughed mirthlessly.
The man ran at Thresh, eyes wild with fury. The spectre’s hooked chains whipped out like striking snakes. The barbed hooks struck the mortal’s chest, cracking ribs and piercing his heart. The man fell to his knees, face twisted in delicious agony.
“I left them to keep them safe,” the man cried. Blood gurgled from his mouth.
Thresh wrenched his chains hard. For a moment, the man did not move. Then the ripping began. Like a rough-spun sheet being slowly torn, he was excruciatingly pulled from himself. His body convulsed violently, and blood sprayed along the walls.
“Now, we begin,” said Thresh. He pulled the captured soul, pulsing brightly from the end of the chain, and trapped him within the lantern. The man’s hollow corpse collapsed as Thresh departed.
Thresh followed the curling Black Mist away from the cottage with his glowing lantern held high. Only after Thresh was gone, and the fog dissipated, did the insects resume their nightly chorus and stars once again filled the night sky.
To Herd A Cat

Dana Luery Shaw

“Finally, I will show everyone what I am truly capable of.”
The professor flipped the first switch. A crackling light flashed in the laboratory, illuminating the gearwork tools scattered haphazardly across the floor, the notes and hand-drawn blueprints pasted over the dingy walls, and the thin layer of white hair dusted everywhere. The light glinted off his impish grin before fading into darkness.
“They all said I was mad. Mad!”
He paused. Well... come to think of it, I don’t believe the word “mad” was ever used. “Annoying” is more prevalent. “A dud.” “Disappointing.” “Never going to get tenure.”
Ah, yes, that was it.
“They said I would never get tenure! Tenure!” he shouted into the gloom. “That my inventions were merely expensive paperweights! Well... no more!”
He reached to flip the second switch, but it stuck a little. Probably from when Mauczka spilled coffee all over it. It took another three tries before it, too, fell before his awesome and terrible power. A low hum vibrated through the laboratory.
“For too long, I have been disrespected, my ambition unappreciated, and my work criminally underfunded by my so-called colleagues at the University of Piltover’s Engineering Department. Do they know how hard it is to climb up the ladder of academia without the support of a wealthy family or patron? Of course not! If they did, they would recognize the disadvantage I have had to overcome to rise through the ranks like... like cream atop milk!”
At those words, a happy trill sounded from the other side of the room, but the professor’s attention was entirely on flipping the third switch. The hum grew louder, and the lights began to flicker. A soft blue glow emanated from the opposite wall.
The machine. The professor’s pride and joy. The thing he would be forever remembered for. Ready, finally, after all these years of experimentation, of failure, of pulling out the last of his remaining hair, of starting again from scratch, over and over and over. Ready to be tested.
And with all three switches flipped, the machine was prepared to enter its second phase. The professor walked slowly across the room, savoring the feeling of superiority as he...
Wait. Where was Mauczka? She was supposed to be strapped into her chair.
“Oh, for... Mauczka? Mauczka!” He dropped to his hands and knees as he searched for her under his work bench. When he heard a soft mrrow from beneath the bed against the far wall, he sighed and peered under it. There lay Mauczka, the small white cat who was the professor’s truest companion, curled up just far enough away that he had to squirm halfway beneath the bed to grab her.
Mauczka kept him company while he worked in this abysmally small laboratory-slash-bedroomless apartment, and she always listened when he needed to rant about something inane his colleagues had done or said, often nodding along or offering a supportive chirp. All she asked was that he remember to feed her on time. When he didn’t, her keening whine would remind him. If he left her wailing for too long, the neighbors would pound on the door or send annoyed notes via pneuma-tube.
“Mauczka,” he said, his voice softening as he tried to place her in the harness again. Was she always this wiggly? “Mauczka, I need you to stay here. What about a treat?”
Mauczka eyed the professor warily as he reached into his pocket and offered her a small piece of the pastry he had been saving for when he was hungry. The wariness did not let up as she grabbed it from him and dropped it to the ground in her usual pre-eating ritual. Soon enough, though, she allowed him to strap her into the harness, making a pouty face when he replaced the brassy metal cap atop her head.
On the opposite side of the machine, the professor, buzzing with excitement, strapped himself into a similar harness and donned his own metal cap, covered in crystalline artifacts. He had spent the better part of a decade painstakingly researching them, scouring much of the world for the ones with the correct frequency resonance, then experimenting with them until he got the combination of their powers and intensities just right.
He could have finished in three years, had the dean given him proper funding. Of course, utilizing some of Zaun’s volatile technology might have helped speed things up as well, but that was unthinkable at the university.
The professor turned his attention back to the metal caps. Several of the artifacts lit up, while others beeped. “It’s all coming together now. When I pull this lever”—he gestured to the large lever built into the machine, practicing for his presentation to Dean Svopalit—“I will prove that the mind is not rooted in the body at all! That the brain is merely a housing for the mind! That the mind... can be easily switched between bodies, with no loss of identity. And everyone,” he added in a low mutter, “will see just how wrong they’ve been about me.”
Yes. Once he pulled this lever, no one would ever forget to include him in interdepartmental memos again. No one would mock his failed experiments, or refuse to let him teach the good classes, or give him the runaround for six months instead of letting him argue his case for why he deserved additional grant money.
Finally, Professor Andrej von Yipp would be given the appreciation he deserved.
Heart beating wildly, he pulled the lever. He felt a jolt travel through his body as his eyes rolled back in his head. Mauczka’s wail rang in his ears...
... and then he blinked, adjusting to a new brightness.
When did I turn the lights on?
He wondered if he had lost consciousness. He wondered how much time had passed. He... oh, goodness, what was that horrible smell?
Von Yipp’s nose twitched just before he sneezed, three times. But it didn’t sound right. Not only was it loud, hitting his ears harder than any time he’d sneezed before, but it was undeniably... adorable.
It was an adorable, tiny sneeze.
Von Yipp looked down at his hands... no, his paws... Mauczka’s paws...
“I’ve done it!” he tried to say, but it came out as a satisfied purr. Aha! I can only make cat sounds now. Touching his fuzzy little face with his new paws, von Yipp laughed—rather, he chittered—in delight. “I’ve successfully switched bodies with—”
He suddenly recognized the odor he smelled: smoke. Not good. Potentially very bad, in fact. He pushed the metal cap off his head and saw that several of the artifacts were beginning to fracture, melt, or sizzle into steam. And about half of them were irreplaceable, one-off pieces that could not be recreated.
“Oh gods,” cried von Yipp, the words coming out as a formless caterwaul. “We must switch back before the artifacts are destroyed!” He slid the cap back on his head, reached his paw over toward the lever—thoughtfully installed at a level suitable for a human inhabiting a cat’s body—and tried to pull it down.
It held fast.
Von Yipp stretched as far as he knew he could based on his experiences in a human body, and then he stretched even more. He slinked out of the harness and put all of his weight onto the lever. But it was metal and slippery, and he had no way of holding on to it without the cap slipping off.
“Drat!” he yowled. “This would be so much easier to operate with thumbs!”
That’s when he realized—his human body still had thumbs. He just happened not to be in it at the moment. Somebody was, though. And she could use those thumbs to pull the lever and switch them back before it was too late.
“Mauczka!” he trilled, hoping to catch her attention. He couldn’t see her on the other side of the machine. “Mauczka? Do you understand me?”
A scream was the only response. Von Yipp slid the cap off his head again and ran around to the front of the machine. There, he saw his human body leaning forward, straining against the harness, face panicked.
“I need to get out!” Mauczka shouted in von Yipp’s voice, sweat cascading down her balding head. “I don’t want to be in here!”
She’s already picked up human language, von Yipp thought as he stalked over to her. How very unusual. “You can press the button in the middle of the harness to release yourself!” he meowed, hoping she could comprehend.
Mauczka looked down at the harness in confusion. She tried to lower her head to the button, presumably to bite it, but this feat could not be achieved with von Yipp’s relatively inflexible body. “You do it!” she cried.
Oh good, von Yipp thought as he leapt onto her lap and pushed the button. At least she can understand me. The harness released Mauczka right away. She bent forward and tried to stand on her human hands and feet, but fell to the ground gracelessly, limbs akimbo.
“Now I need your help with this lever!” von Yipp wailed as he ran back to the cat side of the machine.
“No, I’ll be over here.”
“What?” von Yipp hissed. He whipped his head back to see Mauczka lying on the ground, unconcerned.
“I don’t want to get up.”
“You have to!” von Yipp spat at her. But then he felt a drip coming from above him, and...
Oh no. The thaumatic catalyzer had completely melted. He looked down at the floor and found shards of two other artifacts that had disintegrated. Even if Mauczka pulled the lever in record time, it wouldn’t be enough.
He sat on the ground beside the machine. I... I’m stuck in this cat body. Dismayed, von Yipp looked to Mauczka, who was trying and failing to crawl under the bed. And Mauczka... he realized with growing horror, is stuck in mine.
A wave of catastrophizing anxiety washed over him, culminating in spasms as he coughed up a disgusting hairball. Everyone would find out that von Yipp, for all his big talk about the invention that would change the course of history, had instead made himself a cat. What an idiot, they would say. He would never live it down. Forget about tenure—his colleagues would laugh him out of the Engineering Department. He’d have no money and no way to earn it. He’d lose the apartment and live as a stray cat on the streets, and be forced to learn to hunt rats down in Zaun...
There was no way forward.
It was during this awful epiphany that Mauczka screamed as loud as she could.
Von Yipp began to panic. Had his body been hurt? Would he lose an arm? A leg? An eye? Would there be anything left for him to return to one day? He sprinted over to Mauczka and jumped on her chest. “What?! What’s wrong with my body? What did you do to it?”
Mauczka stopped screaming. She looked von Yipp dead in the eye, then shouted, “HUNGRY!”
“Hungry?” He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or angry. “You’re screaming because you’re hungry?! That body wasn’t hungry last time I was in it!”
“I AM WASTING AWAY!” Mauczka wailed. “SKIN AND BONE! STARVED! CLOSE TO DEATH!”
“Shhh, shhh, calm down.” Von Yipp’s apartment was within university-owned housing, and it was the middle of the night. He could practically hear his neighbors striding angrily down the hallway to bang on his door and tell him to be quiet. “You can’t get food just by screaming!”
“Yes, I can,” Mauczka said, her voice returning to a whiny tenor. Ugh, have I always sounded like that? “It’s worked for me before. Why shouldn’t it work now?”
“Because usually I am the one who feeds you! But I can’t do that right now, so please, please, Mauczka, don’t—”
“DYING! UNDERFED! NEVER HAD A SINGLE BITE OF FOOD IN ALL MY LIFE!”
Von Yipp tried to think quickly, but it was difficult in this tiny apartment with a giant screaming person beside him. He’d thought his sneezing was loud, but this was simply unbearable. All of his senses were different, really. He could see much better in this low light than he could before, his whiskers caught the movement of every piece of dust, his nose pierced through the smells of sweat and oil to land upon something buttery and golden and...
“Mauczka! Your pocket! Check your right pocket!”
Mauczka thrust her hand into the pocket of von Yipp’s lab coat. It looked like she didn’t know how to use her new fingers—she kept them together as she swiped around, likely confused at her lack of claws. But she managed to pry the pastry out, and sniffed it delicately. “What’s this?”
“What’s... You already ate some of it!”
“Smells different,” she said with a shrug as she dropped the pastry on the ground. It was disturbing to watch his own body eat off the floor, tearing through a baked good like it was the innards of a rat. And he knew exactly how disgusting these floors were.
That was the crux of the problem: Mauczka, in von Yipp’s body, couldn’t help but act like the cat she truly was. It’s a vindication of my theory of the mind, he considered, though I wish I could enjoy it more. No, what von Yipp needed to focus on was making a plan.
He had a meeting with the dean in two days. He would have to appear before her, as normal as could be, and try to convince her to give him more money. Von Yipp knew there wasn’t a way to repair his machine during the lifespan of this cat body, so he would have to propose another project. Something new. Something that would make his transformation seem deliberate, designed to show off his genius in a unique and creative manner.
It would be a challenge, but not impossible. He just needed to help Mauczka act like a human during the meeting, and to hope that Dean Svopalit was in a good mood. With luck, he would be ready to astound his colleagues by the end of the semester!
Von Yipp watched Mauczka paw at the floor as she attempted to bury the rest of the pastry in the cold concrete. “Oh, Mauczka,” he mewled. “Did you enjoy that pastry?”
She flopped onto her back and stretched to show her belly. That’s probably a yes, von Yipp thought with a smile. At least, it was an approximation of a smile, as good as it got for a cat. Really, it was more of a sign of aggression. Sort of the opposite of a smile.
“I know where you can get more,” he purred. “But you’ll have to listen to me. And not like that time I tried to teach you to use a toilet. You’ll have to really listen.”
It was here that he realized he would need to teach Mauczka to use a toilet. But he shook that thought aside.
“Do you think you can do that?” He waited for a response. “Mauczka?”
Still nothing. And then, he heard the sound of a human body’s deep inhale.
“I’M! STILL! HUNGRY!”

The University of Piltover was one of the least peaceful places to pursue an education. The fault usually lay with the prestigious Engineering Department—lots of explosions, fires burning down half a wing of the dance department, and students and professors crashing their inventions into the structures around campus. The university wasn’t an ivory tower so much as a chaotic playground for people with talent and intelligence. That was what had drawn von Yipp in the first place, as a student and later as faculty.
That said, there were certain expectations of decorum. For example, there was unofficially a rule that the amount of damage a professor caused had to be matched by the importance of their invention. But the most well-known rule was that animals were not allowed on campus. This was a rule that Dean Svopalit had insisted upon, and she wielded considerable power.
Professor von Yipp’s post-machine-mishap plan for getting around this had involved Mauczka smuggling him in beneath a large overcoat, but he did not own one, and he didn’t have time to instruct her in the intricacies of commerce. None of his sweaters were quite large enough to conceal an adult cat, either.
And letting Mauczka run around in von Yipp’s body, unaccompanied? Out of the question. She couldn’t remember such simple pleasantries as “Lovely weather today, isn’t it?” or “please” or not knocking over mugs filled with hot coffee, so clearly she could not be trusted to have a complex conversation. If he could have rescheduled his meeting with the dean, he would have. But it had already taken months to find an opening in her schedule, and his plan had to move quickly, especially as he needed to explain the pivot away from his research from the last decade.
So instead, von Yipp attempted to ignore the astonished stares from students and faculty as Mauczka, in his body, sauntered onto campus with a cat on her shoulder. Well, “sauntered” was a generous term for her stumbling, halting gait. She had already bumped into more than one statue on the lush green courtyard between the brick and limestone buildings. Luckily, the sheer audacity of bringing an animal to campus meant that they were left well alone. No one wanted to be within firing range when the dean heard about this absurd abandonment of protocol.
One day, von Yipp mused as Mauczka finally reached the main building, there will be a grand statue of me out here.
“The Engineering Department is just up those stairs and through that door,” he said. “Do you remember how to open a door?”
“No.”
“With your thumbs, Mauczka. Use your thumb to help you grip the doorknob and turn it.”
“I don’t like them.”
“Your thumbs? But they’re so useful. How could you not—”
“They feel weird.”
“Well, you’re going to have to use them if you want to get your next pastry.” The only reliable way to get Mauczka to do anything she didn’t want to was, as ever, bribery.
When Mauczka reached the door, she extended both hands outward and tried to turn the knob without using her thumbs at all. Von Yipp sighed. This would have to do.
“The dean’s office is just down the hallway,” he trilled as they entered the bustling hall. He felt like he hadn’t been here in ages, but the smell of sulfur and grease, as well as that low static hum that came with any active hextech element, welcomed him back like an old friend. One good thing about his new senses was that these scents and sounds affected him more. He could almost feel himself tearing up before wondering if cats could cry.
Mauczka, however, did not enjoy the sight of dozens of students milling about. Luckily, one of the lessons she had actually absorbed was not to scream when she was displeased. Instead, she whispered, “Too many people. I don’t like it.”
“You have to walk through them. But don’t worry, they won’t step on your tail.”
And they didn’t. Certainly, they gaped at Mauczka with von Yipp perched atop her shoulder, but they did not approach. Mauczka, however, was still uncomfortable, and so she drew herself up to her fullest height and... hissed.
“Mauczka! People don’t hiss!” Von Yipp’s cat body couldn’t blush, yet his face felt very hot.
He couldn’t tell whether it was because a cat was meowing loudly in a place where no animal should be, or whether it was because a professor was hissing, but the students quickly cleared out of the hallway. With no further distractions, Mauczka located the dean’s office and opened the door to the large, plush, many-windowed room.
Dean Svopalit sat behind her oaken desk, gazing down with pursed lips at a research file. As Mauczka entered, the dean began to speak. “So. Von Yipp. Another extension, or is it an additional grant? Because I’m...”
She trailed off as soon as she looked up. Von Yipp could see the telltale signs of an angry and explosive lecture beginning to form, so he sought to cut it off. “Tell her... she looks... well rested?”
Instead, Mauczka leaned over the dean’s desk and blinked slowly. “Would you like a pastry?”
Of all the niceties for her to remember, von Yipp thought murderously, this would be the one that sticks.
Dean Svopalit, in a voice so quiet and scathing that von Yipp heard the end of his career in it, whispered, “Close. The door. Now.” As soon as the door was shut, he closed his eyes and pressed his ears flat against his head, waiting for the shouts that would inevitably follow...
... when he felt himself being lifted off Mauczka’s shoulder. Panicked, he began to wriggle—was the dean going to throw him out a window?
But he looked up into her face and saw the biggest smile he’d ever seen. “Who is this widdle girl?” she asked in a singsong voice as she rubbed her nose against the top of his cat head. “Who is this baby?”
Von Yipp, stunned, looked back at Mauczka, who was frowning at this gross mishandling of her cat body. “Well, for goodness sake, tell her my name!”
“Von Yipp,” she said.
Dean Svopalit shook her head with a dark chuckle. “Only you would name a cat after yourself, Andrej.”
“No, tell her your name!” von Yipp whined as the dean pressed her face into his fur. No wonder she didn’t allow animals on campus. This was embarrassing!
“Oh! Mauczka.”
“Mauczka!” the dean cooed, rubbing von Yipp’s cat cheeks while making little kissy faces. “My little Mauczka, so soft and so sweet!” After a few more minutes of petting the cat, she looked up at Mauczka sharply. “Not a word of this outside this room, von Yipp. You hear me?”
Mauczka nodded. Von Yipp purred in delight. “Perfect. We can tell her that she has to provide funding, or we’ll—”
“I know you’re here to talk about your invention,” Svopalit said. “To ask me for more funding for whatever has gone wrong. But I simply don’t have the time. You’ve wasted it by bringing this... this...” Von Yipp tried to make himself purr again, but it came out as a strangled yelp. “This chatty little angel into my office.”
“Mauczka, listen to me, and repeat what I say. Nod if you comprehend.”
Mauczka nodded, but the dean took this as a sign that she agreed with her. “Excellent, I am glad you understand.”
“Wait!” Mauczka cried as she listened to von Yipp’s frantic meows. “I... have been at this university for thirteen years, and—”
“And what have you done in that time? Prattled on, day in and day out, with nothing to show for it. Do you know how much you’ve cost me over the years, von Yipp?”
“Ugh, now she’s going to lecture me.”
“Now she’s going to lecture me,” repeated Mauczka. Von Yipp winced.
“At least one of us is doing some lecturing!” the dean said with a roll of her eyes. “When did you last teach a class? Some of us actually invest in this university, rather than constantly demanding that it invest in us.”
He perked up. “Would... teaching a class make the university more interested in investing in me? Because I could do that. Happily, as long as I have time to prepare.”
Mauczka relayed this to the dean, who grinned an evil grin.
“Well then. Professor Bunce had to drop his course load for some silly family obligations, something about someone being on their deathbed.”
Bunce? Von Yipp’s heart sank into his fuzzy little toes. No... surely, she can’t mean...
“Which means we need someone to teach his intro-level class.” She looked up over her spectacles pointedly.
“I hate teaching those first-year imbeciles! They don’t know anything. They’re not able to assist in my research. They’re... they’re children!”
The dean lifted von Yipp and handed him back to Mauczka. “Sounds like your Mauczka is a little cranky.”
Mauczka leaned down and whispered in von Yipp’s ear. “So... do I tell her you hate the children?”
“No! Tell her I’ll do the class!”
Mauczka gazed at the dean. “I’ll do the class.”
“Excellent.” Svopalit stood, gesturing toward the door. “It’s in Room Two-Seventeen. You’d better hurry.”
“Right now?!”
“Right now?”
“It’s just Intro to Hexographs, Andrej. Even Mauczka could teach it.”

Von Yipp despaired as Mauczka tried and failed to hold a piece of chalk, and thus could not write his name on the board. This is going to be excruciating. Quickly, he meowed instructions, things for Mauczka to say.
“I,” she said with her back to all the students in the cavernous lecture hall, “am Professor von Yipp, and I will be teaching you for the rest of this sem... s... this term.”
She can’t handle the word “semester,” von Yipp thought with dread. She can’t write my name yet, let alone draw the graphic representations she’ll need to use in these proofs. How is she going to teach this class?
Luckily, these were first years, idiots who barely knew what hexographs were. They were also seemingly too busy staring at the cat yowling on the desk to notice that their professor couldn’t write.
“Mauczka, follow the shapes I’m making with my paws. Try to copy that on the board.” He traced out his name on the desk, letter by letter. Mauczka stared, gears visibly turning in her head, as she wrote a gross approximation of Professor von Yipp on the board, chalk held between her palms.
This took six full minutes.
Sweat gathering between his paws, von Yipp turned to the class to see one brave student raising her hand. He directed Mauczka to call on her.
“Professor von Yipp,” the student began, “I wanted to make sure you knew where we left off. When Professor Bunce left, he had just finished speaking to us on quadrillic hexographs.”
“Quad... hmm, yes, I see.” Mauczka glanced at von Yipp, who urged her to continue. “Where we left off,” she said, blankly.
The student stood, her notebook in her hands. “The hexograph tracks the state of vibrational frequency in the magic powering a hextech drive,” she recited. “Correctly reading the oscillations allows us to better understand the way a specific crystal will interact with...” She frowned. “Are you... listening?”
Von Yipp yowled as Mauczka tried to curl into a ball beside the lectern, laying her head down in her hands. “What are you doing?! You have to teach!”
“How do you ever sleep when your back is so... not flexible?” Mauczka whispered as she turned onto her back, unconcerned.
“Mauczka!!”
Mauczka cleared her throat. “I’m resting my eyes,” she said loudly, so the students could all hear. “If you’re so boring that you make me fall asleep, you...”
“You’ll get a failing grade.” Surprisingly, this was not the worst teaching approach von Yipp had ever encountered.
“Yeah, you’ll get a failing grade,” Mauczka said.
A gasp rippled through the room, and the students whispered to each other. With his enhanced cat hearing, von Yipp heard snippets:
“I knew this was a difficult class, but...”
“There must be some reason for this.”
“Maybe... he’s trying to teach us how to present in an engaging way.”
“So we can get funding for our experiments?”
“Yes, that’s it! No professor would be this... callous, otherwise.”
Von Yipp shook his head at their naivete. They would be disabused of that notion quickly.
Mauczka urged the student to continue with an impatient wave of her hand. “Keep going about your... quid... hex... thing.”
With an audible gulp, the student began to recite again, this time with bigger hand motions and metaphors. Von Yipp kept an eye on Mauczka. He had to make her listen—this charade needed to go on for months, and a cat couldn’t bribe a human adult with pastries while people watched. I must find another way to motivate her.
When the student finished, Mauczka opened an eye and nodded. “Good, uh, explaining. Well done. You can all go now. More next time.”
There was supposed to be a full hour of lecture, but none of the students mentioned it. They bolted out of the classroom, relieved that they were not asked to entertain this strange new professor.
“Can we go home now?” Mauczka whined as the last student left. “I’m hungry.”
“Fine,” said von Yipp, taking his place on her shoulder as she bumped into yet another wall. If things continue on like this, how long can we keep this up?

Over the next few weeks, von Yipp struggled to adjust to life as a cat. He felt small, powerless, at the mercy of something much larger and less intelligent than himself. As a university professor, none of these feelings were new, but they were certainly magnified now.
Mauczka was... still a cat, but her attention span and level of care seemed to have gone up. She had learned how to pronounce some of the more difficult terminology. With von Yipp’s help, she explained away her awkward penmanship as the result of a summer injury, and she seemed to enjoy giving students caustic feedback when they answered a question incorrectly. He wondered whether her progress was because her mind inhabited a human brain, and whether the structure of the brain actually did have an effect on how the mind functioned.
He still felt entirely like himself, though. Still as whip-smart and ambitious as ever. Von Yipp needed to find a way to reveal himself as a cat to his colleagues, one that would impress and intimidate, and he was just as driven to succeed in this endeavor as he’d ever been. Until then, they had to continue pretending everything was normal.
Which was why the little things Mauczka refused to do bothered him so much. They had a long road ahead, and even the smallest missteps could cost them.
“Your nails are filthy and disgustingly long,” he hissed. “You have to cut them.”
“Why can’t I just scratch things until the long parts fall off?”
“Because human nails don’t work that way. You’d be left with a bunch of bleeding fingers.”
“So I don’t cut them. No big deal.”
Von Yipp struggled to think of a reason why Mauczka would have to cut them beyond “the students will complain to the dean about your hygiene soon,” as that didn’t seem to faze her. She had been just as reluctant to have her claws trimmed when they were in their original bodies, and treats were even less effective now that she could get them for herself. He was beginning to feel desperate.
“You’ll... you’ll go to jail!” he blurted out.
“Okay.”
“You don’t want to go to jail. Your cat body would starve to death while you were gone.”
“I don’t know what jail is.”
Von Yipp sighed. “Think of how much you hate it when I pick you up and hug you.”
“Horrible,” she said with a shudder. She nodded at the machine, still taking up a considerable amount of space in the apartment. “The only thing I hate more is that harness.”
“Jail is worse than the harness.”
Mauczka rolled her eyes. “I will not go to jail. And if I do, I’ll just... wiggle out of it. Like I always do.”
Von Yipp was getting a headache. “Jail is not something you can wiggle out of.”
“Sure it is.”
“No!” he spat. “It’s not! You’ll go to jail for... not trimming your nails, and the wardens will give you food you don’t like—”
“So I’ll cry.”
“They won’t care, Mauczka!”
“You always cared when I cried.”
“Because you’re a cat!”
“So?” Mauczka asked flatly.
“So you’re in a human body now! You’re not cute anymore!”
Mauczka gasped, eyes wide. Evidently this was a revelation to her. “I’m not?”
“No.”
“Because I’m in your...?”
“Yes.”
“So I can’t...?”
“You can’t get away with whatever you want anymore.”
Mauczka stared into the distance, brow furrowed in thought. Von Yipp wondered if he’d gone too far. But she needed to realize there were different rules for when you were cute and tiny and fluffy. You might be less powerful in some ways, but in other ways, you called all the shots.
An interesting thought.
Mauczka walked over to the machine. Some parts of it were shiny enough that she could see her reflection—and she was not happy with what she saw. She pulled at her cheeks and frowned. “I’m... hideous! Change me back!”
Rude. But perhaps she finally understood what it meant to inhabit von Yipp’s balding, prematurely aged body. “I already told you that I can’t do that. We don’t have the proper crystals. So you have to listen to me if you don’t want to... to go to jail.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll trim my nails.”
“And wash your hair.”
“With water?! We didn’t agree to that!”
This was going to be a long night.

A month and a half later, the dean’s calendar finally opened up. Mauczka and von Yipp went once again to her office, and let her coo over the cat body with the door firmly shut.
“I have heard some reports from your students,” Dean Svopalit said.
But Mauczka changed the subject. She and von Yipp had been rehearsing this speech for a full week now. “IhopeyouhaveseenthatIamcommittedtothisuniversity,” she said in one go. “AndnowIfeelthatIdeservethefundingforanewprojectofmine.” She took a deep, gasping breath. “Soifyouwouldbesokindastogivemeyourstampofapproval—”
“Slow down, von Yipp. I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”
Mauczka looked to von Yipp for approval. He gave her a small nod. “I... hope...” she began, going as slowly as she could, “you... have... seen... that...”
“Enough.” The dean looked annoyed. “From your midterm reviews, it sounds like things are going reasonably well. A few complaints, but it’s just an intro-level class. No one really cares so long as there’s a warm body up front. It’s basically babysitting.” Von Yipp mewed his agreement. “Now. You’ve mentioned that you want funding for a new project.”
Mauczka nodded.
“Perhaps that will be good for you,” the dean continued. “You’ve been tinkering for long enough on your ‘theory of the mind’ machine, or whatever you call it. I’m glad you’re finally admitting defeat. It was foolish to even attempt. In any case, you have the paperwork filled out? The grant proposals written?”
Another meow from a fuming von Yipp, and Mauczka nodded again. They had been practicing writing, with Mauczka following the lines von Yipp made with his paw. She wasn’t good, by any means, but it was practically legible now. Even so, it had taken weeks to fill out the paperwork by hand, as the clacking keys of the typograph scared Mauczka and gave von Yipp migraines.
“And you’ve recruited the graduate students to work on it?”
Von Yipp stared. Graduate students were not recruited until after a project had been approved. Historically, von Yipp had difficulty getting anyone to help him—something about his “abysmal track record” and how working with him was akin to “setting your resume on fire.” Clearly, Svopalit was trying to give him the runaround. Again.
“Uh...”
“No grad students yet? Oh, well, I guess you’ll have to go find some.” Dean Svopalit smiled as she patted a thick stack of folders beside her. “But be warned, most of the good ones have already been taken.”

Professor von Yipp did have an office at the university, technically. Technically, in that it was once a lavatory, but the pipes stopped working several years ago. It still smelled of sewage on hot days. And it was so small that it could barely fit a desk and a person in it at the same time. But it had his name upon the door, so it would do for now.
Unfortunately, the office was too small for the door to close when faced with the addition of a second chair, so the graduate student interviews took place with the chair in the middle of the doorway. The back legs were easily jostled by anyone walking past, but von Yipp would not let this inconvenience bother him too much. Not more than having to jump through this hoop in the first place, or the fact that the dean was operating under the completely false assumption that his machine hadn’t worked, when it had.
“Ask her about a time when completing the experiment was more important than following protocol or ethical standards,” he urged Mauczka. It was the most important question in the interview, and all two of the previous interviewees had answered poorly.
The young woman in front of him frowned and shifted in her seat, the scrolled papers in her lap rustling. “Well,” she said slowly, her eyes flitting up to von Yipp’s cat face with discomfort. “I suppose I’d have to say... never. An experiment that doesn’t follow protocol is one where the results can be easily called into question, and I strive to—”
Blah blah blah, the rest of what she had to say didn’t matter. Von Yipp already knew she was out. But he had Mauczka finish the interview and kindly inform her that they would let her know within two weeks whether she had secured the position. The young woman shrugged, seemingly no longer interested, before she stood to leave.
Mauczka pushed the next file toward von Yipp. “This is the last one? Then we can go get pastries?” Really, he would need to have a discussion with her about nutrition at some point. His human body was beginning to look pallid and undernourished from eating a pastry-based diet.
Von Yipp scanned the page. “That can’t be right. It says we’ve double-booked. Just... ask one of them to come back tomorrow.”
Two sets of footsteps clambered down the hall. Two men, one with a long face and a thick mustache, the other with big sideburns and a mug of steaming tea, stopped in front of von Yipp’s door. The mustachioed one glanced down at the chair. “I’ll stand,” he said gruffly, gesturing for the man with the sideburns to take a seat. He did so, setting his mug down on von Yipp’s desk.
Mauczka looked at them. “My mistake, I’ve double-booked us. Would one of you—”
“You haven’t,” said the seated man, his face stony.
“We’re a package deal, we are,” the man with the mustache said lightly. “Jakubb and Natyaz Batadel.” He gestured between them as he spoke, indicating that he was Jakubb and the man with the sideburns was Natyaz.
“Ah, brothers. I see. Well, ask them about their work.”
The Batadel brothers spoke guardedly about their studies—not unusual, since the university students had to take care that their ideas were not stolen. But they sounded talented enough. Now, for the real test.
“Tell me about a time when completing the experiment was more important than following protocol or ethical standards.”
The brothers exchanged a look. Jakubb cleared his throat, but Natyaz broke in to answer. “There was a part we needed that was not available anywhere in Piltover. So we went and got it elsewhere.”
“That doesn’t sound like a breach of protocol,” Mauczka replied at von Yipp’s urging.
“It was chemtech,” Jakubb said quietly. The words hung in the air.
Von Yipp blinked. Chemtech, from Zaun, was... not well regarded in Piltover. It was banned from the university in order to keep Piltovan scientific endeavors unsullied. There were plenty of inventions in the department that exploded, but adding in volatile Zaunite chemicals would make already unstable machines even more dangerous.
“What in the world did they need chemtech for?” von Yipp wondered aloud.
Mauczka asked the question, and Jakubb shrugged. “We were creating something that we wanted only one person to be able to operate. We were investigating what makes each person unique, and... how much a person can change while remaining themselves.”
“Ah. Interesting...”
At the end of the interview, Mauczka prepared to give them both the standard “we’ll be in touch” line, but von Yipp stopped her. “Tell them they’ve got the job.”
Mauczka looked at the brothers, considering, as Natyaz took another sip of tea. She locked eyes with him and asked, “How is your drink?”
He blinked in surprise as he put down the mug. “It’s good,” he said, “but it’s a little cold now. I’ll probably just—”
Without breaking eye contact, Mauczka slowly pushed the mug off the side of the desk. It fell to the ground and shattered, tea spilling all over the floor.
Von Yipp, amused by this impromptu test, watched the brothers to see how they’d respond to such behavior from a professor.
Neither Jakubb nor Natyaz batted an eye.
“You’ve got the job,” Mauczka said.
Jakubb nodded. “And what... is the job?”
“I’ll tell you more when we get our approvals.”

“The Batadel brothers?” the dean asked, annoyed. “They were nearly suspended last semester.”
“But they weren’t.”
“They were not allowed to sign up for the more advanced courses.”
“So they have more time than the average graduate student to work on my project.”
With a frustrated wave of her hands, Dean Svopalit tossed the Batadel files on her desk. “Fine. But you were supposed to have more information to me about this big project by now, von Yipp.”
“I am working on typing up the abstract. It will be with you by...” Mauczka trailed off.
“By when?”
She had been doing so well. Von Yipp, seated on Mauczka’s shoulder, was barely a word or two ahead of her, telling her how to respond to the dean, and she was getting so good at relaying his words almost exactly.
But he saw the problem immediately, as it was also becoming difficult for his new cat body to ignore. The sun was peeking through the gorgeous window that overlooked the nice side of campus. And every time the dean moved her hands, the sunlight reflected off the timepiece on her wrist. It was hard not to chase after the tiny dot of light, but he managed to contain himself. Mauczka, however, was thoroughly distracted.
The dean tried to follow Mauczka’s eyes to see what she was looking at, but quickly gave up. “You come into my office again and again, Andrej, to plead for funds for a project that will supposedly ‘change everything’, when we’ve all seen that’s past your capabilities,” she said in a low voice. “And you can’t even give me your full attention while you beg for my help.”
“I...” Mauczka tried to pull herself away from the bouncing light, but to no avail.
“You are... actually mad, aren’t you?” The dean stood and leaned over the desk menacingly, trying to make eye contact with Mauczka. “Because I can’t understand why you would waste my time and what’s left of my goodwill like this. I’m tired of funneling money into your ego-driven projects and seeing nothing come of it. Not usable data, not salvageable discoveries, nothing. And to top that off,” she said, raising her voice, “you insist on shrouding your ideas in mystery. You seem to think that the drama of the reveal is more important than proper oversight. I am here to tell you: It. Is. Not.”
Von Yipp could feel the growl begin in the back of his throat, and before he knew it, he had lunged, claws outstretched, toward the dean. Mauczka blinked back into reality just long enough to restrain him.
The dean sniffed. “I’ll need you to get rid of your cat.”
“What?!”
“She’s cute, I’ll give her that. But you cannot seem to heed my rule about animals on campus, which is an outward sign of disrespect. And I will not tolerate it from you.”
If von Yipp were in his human body, he would have started yelling or throwing things. This wasn’t fair. How was he supposed to show what he could do, to finally earn the respect of his colleagues, when he was stymied at every turn by an unwilling dean?
He extended a single claw and scratched at her desk.
“Keep your animal off my desk!” Svopalit shrieked as she lifted von Yipp’s cat body by the scruff of the neck. “This is an antique. It... it...”
The dean was silenced by what she saw.
Into the lacquered wood, von Yipp had carved:
I am v
He no longer cared if he gave the game away. So his colleagues would know what had happened, and he’d be laughed out of the university. Fine. At least the dean would have to go to work every day and see how wrong she was about him when she sat down at this desk. He knew what he was doing. His machines worked, and worked beautifully! How dare she talk about things she knew nothing about? Von Yipp was a genius. He knew it in his tiny cat bones.
If only he had been able to finish writing his name!
She stared at it, and stared, and stared. “Von Yipp,” she said softly.
A cloud moved in front of the sun, freeing Mauczka from the bouncing light’s beautiful tyranny. “Dean Svopalit.”
“You... didn’t tell me... that you were working on animal intelligence!” she squealed. “No wonder Mauczka’s been accompanying you everywhere.”
“Uh.”
“What else can she do?”
Von Yipp was taken aback by this sudden turn, but he’d be damned if he let it go to waste. “Mauczka, ask me what fifty-two times twenty-one is.”
“Uh, Mauczka, what is fifty-two times twenty-one?”
Taking pleasure in destroying the dean’s desk further, von Yipp carved 1092 into it. The dean gasped and clapped her hands.
“Why, this is remarkable, Andrej! We’ve been trying and failing to enhance animal intelligence for years, but you...” She paused and looked at the human in front of her. “You’ve done something no one else could. And with a dramatic reveal, no less! I was... I was wrong about you.”
She extended her hand for a handshake. Mauczka stared at it, unsure of what to do.
“Shake her hand! You’ve seen me do it before.”
Mauczka slapped her palm against the dean’s, still refusing to use her thumb to make a firm grip.
“Now,” said Dean Svopalit, nonplussed as she sat behind her desk once again. “Let’s talk funding.”

“Just like we’ve practiced. Hold the pencil, follow the movement of my paws, and replicate what I’m doing.”
“I’ll try.” Mauczka had already lost several pencils under the bed, and von Yipp did not feel like fishing them out for her.
It took hours of careful sketching, erasing, restarting... but eventually, Mauczka had produced a reasonable approximation of what they would need to build. Von Yipp looked at it with pride.
With her help, with the dean’s funding, with the Batadel brothers’ assistance... von Yipp would show them all what a real scientist could do. And these blueprints would be the first step toward making that a reality.
Cue the dramatic reveal.
The Catastrophe Exosuit.
Animal intelligence, indeed.
Trial of the Masks

Jared Rosen

Imagine the world as a mirror.

Sivir watches leaves fall outside her window, and sips tea flavored with rose petals. The liquid dances gently across her tongue. Its petals are delicate, pink, and soft. The air is still, and the sky is gray, and beneath Sivir’s thatch floor lies hard earth, grounding her upon a single and unnassailable reality.
It is the dirt and the grass and the homes and the villagers she has been accustomed to for the majority of her life—here, in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in the small village of Sugiru. The world, she believes, cannot be a mirror. It is rigid. Concrete.
Sivir’s world is a reflection of nothing.
She avoids looking at the corner of the room.
There is an object there, now. Perhaps it was there before. Perhaps it will be there tomorrow. A golden ring of immaculate, intricate design—or a monstrous wheel whose spokes are sharpened to a wire-thin killing edge. It is a compass, a star, a weapon, a key. It was buried once, someone told her, and now it is not.
Hours pass between Sivir and the golden ring. She drinks tea flavored with rose petals, her cup never emptying as it rises and falls from her lips. Day never breaks, and the leaves outside her window never cease to fall. Hours become days. Days become years. Sivir grounds herself in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in a small village on a tiny island far out to sea, her vision locked in place, her muscles screaming.
Sivir steals a glance at the corner of the room. The ring has begun to widen.
Every synapse in her body freezes. The wheel’s empty center collapses into an ocean of liquid night. Framed with gold, a starless nothing stretches outward beyond an infinite, black horizon. An old fisherman, his shape stark within the ring’s abyss, awaits Sivir’s living eyes as they rise to meet his own. He grins, his mouth blooming into hundreds of teeth.
The fisherman turns to cast his spear into space, each step ponderous, and the needle arcs endlessly upward, then down beneath the surface of glistening, obsidian waters. The ring continues to expand as ichor pours from its center. It fills the room, it fills the cottage, it bursts from the windows and doors. The ring slices into the roof of Sivir’s home, cutting the building’s facade from its foundation, cutting the cliff face it is stood on from the island itself. As she crashes into the sea, Sivir is reflected against the absence of nothing beneath her, the nothing all around her, and she watches the fisherman as his line catches on something, deep below their feet.
Steadily, surely, he begins to drag it towards them.
Sivir runs her finger across the edge of the golden ring. There is no pain as the cut opens, merely a sigh, a release. Sivir studies her blood as it sinks into the metal—a deep, blossoming vermillion that seems to stretch along its surface, down its labyrinthine engravings towards the ever-spreading emptiness at its center. The ring retracts; the portal closes, and the darkness burbles meekly before it is banished.
Sivir drinks tea flavored with rose petals, and watches the leaves outside her window. The clouds begin to dissipate as morning turns to day, and the trees slowly settle against the wind. Blood is smeared along the side of her cup. Black fluid trails along her floor.
It is three days before the rise of the blood moon, and a pair of twin girls has vanished along the beach at night. The day stretches. Sivir remembers how the elders wailed, how their cries punctured the evening air, and how their elaborate burial rites filled the waves with sputtering paper lanterns—an old tradition intended to guide lost souls home. The girls’ bodies were never recovered.
Sivir watches the ring as it rests against the corner of her home.
It is silent. Sated, for now.

The flesh is incomplete.

It took Sivir hours to dig the ring out of the woods. She hadn’t even known to stop until it almost cut her hand in half, its gleaming edge jutting from the foot of an old stone. When she looked up the day had fully passed, and it wasn’t clear how or why she had found herself there.
Sivir took it into the village, maybe? It is hard to recall. Her memories seem distant, unfamiliar, as though they rest at the bottom of a clear lake she can’t breach. Sivir takes the ring to the other side of the island and buries it with sand. Sivir takes the ring to the sea throws it in.
The ring always returns. Resting quietly against the dusty corner of her home, hungrily awaiting only her. And when Sivir gazes into it, the ring opens again and again, the old fisherman locking eyes with her against a still, atramentous midnight, and he begins to pull some nameless horror up from the bottom of the world.
Sometimes Sivir thinks she is dead. She rubs her thumb along the matching shell bracelets in her pocket in those moments—each one small and delicate—and finds in some half-remembered nightmare a pair of girls, hand-in-hand, drifting crimson against the moonlit sea.

She is with you.

Sivir lives on a coastal road overlooking a small archipelago, on the far edge of a quiet island. She is remote enough from Sugiru to enjoy respite from its daily squabbles, and close enough to be accepted as a part of its community. When Sivir looks over the cliffs she sees herself smashed against the rocks below. A different Sivir will look up from the beach, her hands black with the blood of hundreds of people.
Sivir awakens on a bed made of cotton and straw, on the second day before the rise of the blood moon. She peers down the hall at still another Sivir, clutching the golden ring so tightly that her fingers hang by fleshy threads. Her free hand carries a horned, wooden half-mask emblazoned with the visage of a demon, and she begins to place it over her face. Sivir closes her eyes, and when she opens them she is alone.
Sivir’s memories often overlap. Great lengths of time vanish behind her, and recently she has begun to find herself standing outdoors, gazing upwards at a blank and yawning sky. She walks through the village and greets its inhabitants; she walks through the forest and savors its quiet. She looks at her feet and finds the lacerated skull of a man she saw only an hour before, but when she shakes herself awake he stands in front of her at the harborside, brow furrowed in concern. Sivir imagines her hands wrapping around his neck, and ripping his throat out with her teeth.
Her fingers stretch and bend, her bones piercing through flesh in blighted indigos and reds. Great horns burst from her skull; her skin cracks apart as the chrysalis of her mortal body finally gives in, finally gives way to the true body beneath, and she howls through her single flaming eye as sad, small creatures run for safety. She moves against the turning of the world, her feet pounding across time as serrated claws cut through tiny, gnawing, pleading things. She peels the walls off a building and falls upon the craven figures inside, drinking in their screams as thick rivers of blood pour past her monstrous shadow and into the sea.
Sivir finds herself suddenly on the beach, rubbing dead girls’ shell bracelets between her fingers.
The night creeps in softly. Moment by moment, the sun’s rays vanish beneath a blanket of cold stars, and Sivir stands before the black static of the ocean, its lightless waves roiling against her reflectionless mirror world.

Your true face.

The fisherman’s spear sings across a vast emptiness. Light and sound fail as he casts his line, its heft sinking down into the bottomless chasm above which he stands. His is a sea without end, twin reflections of an infinite nihility, the grave of a lost and nameless epoch. He smiles with the hunger of an ancient shark.
His hook sticks fast, and he begins to pull a great shape up from far below.
Inch by inch, second by second, a mountainous silhouette emerges from beyond the edges of the fisherman’s black horizon. It is a tower, a fortress, a sun; thick ichor sloughs from it without end, a great wall of impenetrable darkness dragged along from some forgotten pelagic abyss. The spear tears loose from the object’s surface, a wooden mask impaled along its tip.
One day before the night of the blood moon, Sivir places the mask over her face.

Descend.

Sivir is Sivir, and Sivir is not.
In the red light of the blood moon, Sivir walks the paths of a long-deserted Sugiru, clutching the golden ring in one hand, and a mask in the other. Her muscles twitch at the slightest sound. Her organs pop unnaturally, pebbles washed smooth by the timeless advance of a biological sea.
All around her are bodies. A thousand broken dolls, their arms outstretched in hideous ecstasy, frozen in some grotesque invocation of long-absent patrons, house gods, and ancestor spirits. These victims are a delicate garden—these offerings, their curled palms, are the blossoms of a dark and sumptuous harvest given in the name of entities too terrible to understand. Some aren’t completely dead, and their fingers grasp gently at nothing.
The blood moon descends.
It is larger than Sivir imagined it—too large, looming as a great crimson sphere over her lost and rudderless island. It casts no reflection against the sea, for it has no equal; it shadows the true moon and devours it whole, its hunger colossal, unending, unquenched.
Sivir drops the wooden mask and the golden ring. She falls to her knees beneath this mirrored cradle, its center a bounding main of beating wings and boiling, rippling blood. A great figure stirs within: the lone demonic progeny of humanity’s twinned soul, a great demon in the shape of a man, sliding from his womb of light as the moon’s embryonic shell breaks open. The massive figure falls into the waves—a wicked blade in his hand, wings flapping with the sound of cracking glaciers. Buried once, and now not.
Briefly, Sivir imagines the leaves outside her window, and tea flavored with rose petals, and a small cottage on a small island that seems now so, so small. She imagines the girls by the sea, their shattered bodies floating past the reflection of some pale, inadequate pretender, and the dark whispers of an ancient, unnameable thing, standing before her in the bloodstained night.
She raises her head, and imagines the world as a mirror.
The moon caresses Sivir’s two faces, and envelops them.
The Principles of Strength

Anthony Reynolds

My name is Alyssa Roshka Gloriana val-Lokan. For almost two millennia, my ancestors ruled the Delverhold as kings.
Warlords, nations and would-be empires sought to overthrow us, jealous of the wealth the Ironspike Mountains offered up to us, but none could breach our fastness. They broke against our walls like ocean waves, and fell back from the doom of our blades.
All of them failed... until Noxus came.
And then my family were kings no more.
She held her head high as they climbed the Stairs of Triumph. Liveried guards stood sentinel every twelve steps, but her flinty gaze was locked forward, unwavering. This might have been Alyssa’s first time in the capital, but she refused to be overawed; she would not gawk like some provincial lowborn. She was of the Delverhold, and the blood of kings flowed through her veins.
The steps were flanked by guards clad in dark steel. The ore used in the forging of their armor came from the depths below her mountain home. All the best plate in Noxus started there, deep under the mountains. For five generations, ever since her realm had been conquered by Noxus and incorporated into the empire, it had been so.
Red banners rippled in the evening’s dry wind as they ascended. The scent of coalfire and industry wafted upon that hot breeze. In Noxus, the forges rarely cooled.
The Immortal Bastion loomed before them, dark and threatening.
“They flaunt their wealth and decadence, while we live as paupers,” said her brother, Oram. She looked askance at him, striding beside her.
Oram Arkhan val-Lokan. Broad-shouldered, strong of arm, and undeniably skilled with a blade, he was also arrogant and limited of mind—in Alyssa’s opinion—but she kept her disdain concealed behind an impassive, unexpressive mask. He was her elder, if only by a matter of minutes, and was only two steps removed from ruling the Delverhold himself. Alyssa was well aware of her place.
Outwardly, the fact they were twins was obvious. Both were tall and athletic in stature, and each had the cold eyes of the family line, as well as the proud demeanor of those born to nobility. Both wore their long, black hair bound artfully in tight braids, they each bore angular facial tattoos and wore shale-grey cloaks over their armor.
They reached the top of the stairs. There was a flutter of wings, and a raven flew low over their heads.
Alyssa almost flinched, but caught herself. “Should we consider that an ill omen, brother?”
She saw Oram’s hands turn to fists.
“Too long have we filled the coffers of Noxus and armored its soldiers,’ he snarled, making only the barest pretense in keeping his voice out of the earshot of the guards. “And for what?”
For survival, Alyssa thought, though she didn’t speak it aloud.
A pair of warriors clad in full plate awaited them outside the great metal doors of the palace. They stood to attention, heavy axe-headed halberds gripped in their gauntlets. The three indentations in their breastplates and their dark red cloaks and tabards informed Alyssa these were no regular guards.
“Legionaries,” breathed Oram, his usual bluster and arrogance forgotten.
In a nation of killers, the elite Trifarian Legion was feared and respected above all—by both friend and foe alike. It was said that their mere presence had seen cities and nations take the knee, rather than face them in battle.
“They honor us,” Alyssa said. “Come brother. It’s time we meet this so-called ‘Council of Three’ for ourselves.”

The first thing anyone saw as they entered the audience chamber was the throne of the old Noxian emperors. It was an immense thing, carved of obsidian, blunt and angular, and the innumerable hanging banners, sharply angled pillars, and the burning sconces all worked to direct the eye back toward it. It dominated the space entirely.
The throne sat empty, however, as it had since the previous Grand General of Noxus had died.
Not died, Alyssa corrected herself. Been executed.
No emperor for Noxus, no tyrant upon the throne. Not any longer.
Before she’d left the Delverhold, Alyssa had been counselled regarding this new leadership.
“The Trifarix,” her father’s chief advisor had named it. “Three together, each representing one of the core Principles of Strength—Vision, Might, and Guile. The theory is, where a single individual could doom Noxus through incompetence, madness or corruption, now there will always be two others to hold any rogue third accountable.”
To Alyssa, it was an intriguing concept, but one that remained untested in practice.
The chamber felt cavernous, large enough to house over a thousand petitioners, but at this moment it was empty, other than three figures sat at a simple table of marbled stone at the foot of the throne’s raised platform.
The two grim, unspeaking warriors of the Trifarian Legion escorted Alyssa and her brother towards the trio, their footfalls echoing sharply upon the cold floor. The three were deep in discussion, but they ceased their talk as the siblings of the Delverhold came towards them. They were seated in a row, facing the approaching envoys like a silent panel of judgement.
Two of them she knew by reputation. Of the third… well, no one knew anything, really.
In the center, keen-eyed and unblinking, sat Jericho Swain—the renowned visionary, the new Grand General. Some among the noble houses still called him usurper, since it was he who had dragged the madman Boram Darkwill from the throne of Noxus, but none of them said it to his face. His gaze, which seemed to see too much, bore first into Oram, then Alyssa. She resisted the urge to stare at the sleeve of his left arm, tucked within his dark coat. It was said he had lost the limb during the failed invasion of Ionia, severed by some blade-witch of that fey archipelago.
To his right sat Darius, the legendary Hand of Noxus, leader of the elite Trifarian Legion, and now commander of all the empire’s armies. He was the embodiment of might itself; where Swain sat rigidly upright, Darius slouched back, the fingers of one gauntleted hand drumming a steady tattoo upon the wooden armrest of his chair. His arms were massive, his expression hard.
The third figure—only ever referred to as “the Faceless”—was a mystery. This individual sat unmoving, bedecked from head to toe in a many-layered, voluminous robe. They wore a blank, staring, glossy-black mask, and even the eye-holes were obscured with dark mesh, giving away nothing as to their identity. Their hands, too, were concealed, hidden in sleeves of thick fabric. Alyssa thought she perceived a vaguely feminine aspect to the mask, but that might simply have been the way it happened to catch the light.
A barely perceptible inclination of the chin from Darius dismissed the legionaries that had escorted them in. The two warriors slammed their armored fists to their breastplates in salute, and retreated a half dozen steps, leaving Alyssa and her brother alone before the Trifarix.
“Sit, please,” said Swain, indicating the chairs opposite.
“I prefer to stand, Grand General,” replied Oram.
“As you wish.”
There was something undeniably threatening and predatory about the Grand General, Alyssa decided… considering he was a cripple heading into his twilight years…
“Oram and Alyssa val-Lokan, third and fourth-born children of the Governor of the Delverhold,” he continued. “It’s a long journey from the Ironspike Mountains. I take it this is not a social visit.”
“I come bearing the seal of my father,” said Oram, “to speak in his name.”
“Get on with it, then,” said Darius, his voice the warning growl of a murk-wolf. “No ceremony. This is Noxus, not some noble court.”
His accent was rough and earthy, not cultured like Swain’s. The voice of a commoner. Alyssa could almost feel her brother’s sneer.
“For decades, the Delverhold has served loyally,” Oram began, emphasizing the nobility of his own accent, perhaps in an unwise show of superiority. “Our gold feeds the campaigns of conquest. Our iron clads and arms the warbands of the empire. The Trifarian Legion too.”
Darius remained unimpressed. “Ironspike ore makes the best armor. I would not have the Legion protected in anything else. You should be proud.”
“We are proud, my lord,” said Alyssa.
“I am no lord. Especially not yours.”
Swain smiled, raising his hand. “What he means to say is—in Noxus, no man or woman is born superior to another. It is not by bloodline that one earns their place, but by their deeds.”
“Of course,” Alyssa demurred, cursing herself inwardly for her mistake.
“We toil likes slaves in the darkness of the deep-mines below the mountains,” Oram went on. “And every day we watch as the fruits of our labors are taken from us in great wagon trains that come back empty. We are scarcely able to feed our—”
“Oh, really?” Swain exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. “Please, show me your palms.”
“What?” said Oram, taken aback.
“Show us your hands, boy,” said Darius, leaning on the polished surface of the table between them. “Show us these hands that toil in the rock and dust and darkness beneath your mountain fortress.”
Oram squared his jaw, refusing to be drawn.
Darius scoffed. “Never struggled a day in his life, this one. Her neither. The only calluses you two possess certainly didn’t come from hard work.”
“I will not be spoken to in such a manner by…” Oram began, but Alyssa placed a placating hand upon his shoulder. He angrily shrugged it off, but wisely chose not to finish the thought. “The mountains are being bled dry,” he said, his voice more measured. “It is unsustainable, and that is not good for anyone—not for us, and certainly not for the armies of Noxus. There must be concession.”
“Tell me, Oram Arkhan val-Lokan,” said Swain, “how many warriors does the Delverhold send out to fight for Noxus? Approximately. Annually.”
“None, sir. But that is by-the-by. Our people serve better working the mines and guarding the northern frontiers from barbarian attack. That is where our chief value to Noxus lies.”
Swain sighed. “Of all the provinces, city-states and nations that submit to Noxus, the Delverhold stands alone in providing no soldiers to join our warhosts. You do not bleed for Noxus. You have never bled for Noxus. Is that not concession enough?”
“It is not,” Oram replied, curtly. “We have come at our father’s behest to renegotiate our tithes, or the Delverhold will have no option but to reconsider its place within the Noxian empire.”
The room had become very still. Even Darius had ceased the incessant tapping of his fingers.
Alyssa’s face drained of color, and stared at her brother in horror. This was a turn she had not been privy to, and her mind reeled at its implications. The Faceless continued to gaze levelly at her, from behind that glossy mask.
“I see,” said Swain, finally. “I believe I know your father’s real purpose in sending the two of you here, but the question is… do you?”
Oram nodded to Alyssa. “Show them,” he ordered, his eyes flashing in anger.
She took a deep breath, and brought forth a scroll case. Unhooking its end with trembling fingers, she slid free an old sheaf of parchment, covered in intricate, angular writing in Ur-Noxian. It bore both the seal of the Delverhold, and the blood-red crest of Noxus. She placed it upon the table, and smoothed it flat before standing back at her brother’s side—although half a step behind, as was her place, according to Ironspike custom.
Darius appeared disinterested, but both Swain and the Faceless leaned forward to look upon the document. Once again, Alyssa found herself trying to get any sense of who it was that hid behind the mask.
“When the Delverhold submitted to Noxian rule, eighty-seven years ago,” said Oram, “our ancestors gave up their sovereign rights and bowed before the throne of Noxus—the very throne I see before me now, empty.”
Darius glowered at him. “And…?”
“The terms are clear, as you can see for yourself, as to where we pledged our allegiance. The last man to sit on that throne died a little over seven years ago,” said Oram, gesturing up at the dais. “As far as our father is concerned, this piece of paper is now worthless. The Delverhold is under no obligation to continue to pay any tithes at all, but has continued to do so as an act of good faith. However, if our concessions are not met, the Delverhold will be forced to extricate itself from the empire. The Ironspike region will no longer be under our immediate protection.”
Alyssa wanted to look away, wanted to run, but found herself rooted to the spot as she waited for the reaction of the council.
“History only remembers the victors,” Darius warned them. “Stand with Noxus, and be remembered forever. Stand against us, and you will be crushed and forgotten.”
“No army has ever breached the Delverhold,” said Oram. “Our forefathers opened the gates to Noxus willingly, remember. No blood was spilled.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, boy.” Darius pointed to the warriors standing a few paces behind Alyssa and Oram. “Just two of the Trifarian Legion could walk in and take your precious Delverhold. I wouldn’t even trouble myself to go with them.”
As if to emphasize his point, the two legionaries slammed the butts of their halberds into the floor, the sound echoing like a thunderclap.
Oram scoffed at the display, but Darius’ confidence struck Alyssa. He did not seem to be a man to make idle boasts.
“Enough,” said Swain, with a wave of his hand. “Let us hear what these concessions would entail.”
The silver moon had passed its zenith in the night sky overhead by the time Alyssa and Oram left the palace. They began making their way toward the nearby estate that served as their base of operations within the capital.
Alyssa was quiet and brooding, her stomach a tight knot of unease, but her brother seemed energized by the encounter with the rulers of Noxus.
“Swain will agree to our terms! I’m sure of it,” he gushed. “He knows the Delverhold is too important to the empire to allow father to close its gates.”
“This is madness,” Alyssa muttered. “We walk in there and you threaten them? That was your plan?”
“That was father’s plan.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have agreed to it, had you known?”
“Of course not,” Alyssa replied. “This is a fool’s errand. We may just as well have offered ourselves up for the next Fleshing…”
“If Swain is convinced, we only need one of the others to join him for them to concede to our terms,” said Oram, seeming not to hear her concerns. “That is how the Trifarix works. Their leadership cannot be deadlocked, when only two of them need agree on anything to get it done.”
“Darius will never agree.”
“Darius is an arrogant dog. He thinks he could send two men to take the Delverhold? Pah! But I fear you are right. While he objects, that leaves only the Faceless. Our future prosperity lies with the vote of whoever is behind that mask.”
“Then there is nothing more to do but wait to hear what our fates will be,” said Alyssa, a hint of bitterness in her voice.
Oram’s eyes gleamed dangerously. “Not necessarily.”
The knot in Alyssa’s stomach tightened a little more as he began to explain.
Dawn was still several hours away, but Alyssa was already uncomfortably warm as she made her way swiftly and quietly through the streets of the capital. At the head of a contingent of Delverguard, she wore a tight-fitting helmet of dark steel, and already she could feel her hair dampening with sweat beneath it.
There were a dozen of them in all, cloaked and hooded over their armor. All carried heavy crossbows, with blades strapped at their waists. In this city, it was not at all unusual to see armed warbands from all across the empire; if anyone saw them, their weapons would not raise alarm, and yet Alyssa could not shake the feeling they were being watched.
And, somehow, that the observer knew their intent.
The streets and alleys of Noxus were narrow and twisting, designed to stifle and frustrate any attacking force that managed to penetrate the city’s outer defenses. The rooftops were flat and crenellated, like the battlements of a castle, allowing any soldiers above to dominate any enemy below. Alyssa eyed those dark rooftops warily. Anyone could be up there, marking their progress. They could well be walking into an ambush…
A flutter of black wings overhead made her skid to a halt, swinging her crossbow skywards. She cursed herself for being so jumpy, and gestured her retainers on.
“This is a bad idea,” Alyssa said to herself, for the twentieth time since leaving the estate.
She had said as much to her brother, trying to dissuade him from this course of action, but his mind was set. This was their father’s will, Oram had stated with finality. They would return home having secured a new deal, or they would not return at all. There was no other course.
Now she had some time to digest it, Alyssa was not surprised that this was the old governor’s plan all along. Of course it was. While it may well end in both her and her brother’s capture and subsequent execution, what was that to her father? He had never cared for either of them over-much, saving his affections for his heir: Alyssa’s oldest brother, Herok. And if they were caught, and the Trifarix tried to hold them as hostages to keep the Delverhold within the rule of Noxus, she knew what their father’s answer would be.
To him, Alyssa and Oram were expendable.
She and her men hugged the shadows as they closed in on the Shrine of the Wolf, which butted up against the old southern bulwarks of the Immortal Bastion itself. Her brother would be a few streets to the east, with more of their armed retainers.
In the weeks before the contingent arrived in the capital, spies in their employ had been watching the comings and goings around the palace. One of the observations had been of particular interest, and it was upon that intelligence that Alyssa and her brother were now operating.
They were getting close. Alyssa lifted a hand, and the Delverguard fell in around her, pausing in the shadows of a narrow passage looking towards the Shrine of the Wolf. It was a tall, multi-tiered tower with open sides, each level held aloft by pillars of dark stone. In the center of the tower, looming almost fifty feet high, was a massive obsidian statue of a seated wolf.
They waited there for a long minute, until they saw two brief flashes of light in the distance—the sparks of a blade against flint. That was the signal Oram was in place, and the way was clear.
“Let’s move,” Alyssa hissed, and as one, she and her attendants were up and running, breaking from cover and hurrying towards the shrine, watchful for guards. There were none. It seemed her brother and his men had done their work.
Alyssa loped up the steps to the shrine, indicating with a flick of her hand for her warriors to spread out. They entered, passing over the threshold, and circled out around the wolf statue. They hugged the shadows, leaning in against the pillars, melding into the darkness, and waited.
She gazed up. In ancient Valoran custom, death was often represented as a dualistic in nature, taking the form of the Lamb of peaceful death, and the Wolf of violent ends. In Noxus, the latter was honored with rather more rigor and panoply. Dying peacefully in one’s bed was not the way to secure honor in an empire that venerated strength.
Alyssa steadied her breathing, trying to slow her racing heart. Her hands were clammy. She wiped them on her cloak.
Waiting was always the worst part.
She glanced around again, and found herself barely able to make out her retainers. Good. If they were spotted too early, then all of this would be for naught. Alyssa reached up and fastened a veil of finely wrought chainmail to her helmet, so that it hung below her eyes, obscuring her features.
A distant watchtower tolled the fourth hour. Alyssa readied herself. If the information from their spies was correct, the target would be approaching any moment…
And, as if on cue, a heavily robed figure emerged.
It came from the direction of the Immortal Bastion proper, accompanied by four palace guards. The lead figure was almost invisible in the pre-dawn darkness, dressed as they were, from head-to-toe in black.
It was the third member of the Trifarix—the Faceless.
The anonymous figure walked slowly towards the shrine, head turning from side to side, as if scanning the shadows. Their hands were clasped before them, hidden beneath heavy sleeves.
The guards stopped at the foot of the shrine. It appeared the Faceless conferred with them briefly, though Alyssa was too far away to hear their words, before the masked figure continued on alone, seemingly to pay respects to the Wolf.
While warriors of the warhosts and reckoners from the gladiatorial pits were perhaps the most frequent visitors to the various martial shrines scattered around the capital, even bureaucrats, shop-keeps and servants made frequent offerings. The Faceless, it had been observed, visited this shrine at the fourth hour of every fifth day, always guarded and under the cover of darkness.
Thankfully, while the loyalties of the Trifarian Legion were absolute, mere palace guards could most certainly be bribed to look the other way.
As the masked figure approached the great statue, Alyssa stepped out of the concealing darkness. On cue, the paid off guards turned on their heels and marched back towards the Immortal Bastion. Alyssa had her crossbow levelled at the Faceless as she stepped cautiously into the flickering light of the sconces around the statue.
“Don’t move, and don’t cry out,” she hissed. “Your guards are gone. Twelve crossbows are aimed at you right now.”
The robed figure made a muffled sound, perhaps in surprise, and came a step closer to her. There was something distinctly familiar about it, both in the sound and its awkward movement…
“Hold, I say,” said Alyssa. The Faceless froze.
No one in Noxus seemed to know who the third member of the Trifarix was—no one that Alyssa and Oram had been able to find, at least. That was the strength of deception, the principle of guile represented on the Council of Three.
But Alyssa intended to change that.
“It’s all about leverage,” her brother had said. “If we can learn the identity of that one, then we can use it to our advantage.”
“We mean you no harm,” Alyssa declared, as boldly as she could. “Take off your mask, and there will be no bloodshed.”
The hooded figure looked around, perhaps seeking the guards, or trying to spot the crossbowmen Alyssa had spoken of, concealed in the darkness. Then the figure edged forward again, now almost within weapons’ reach, hands still hidden from view.
Alyssa aimed her crossbow at the figure’s chest. “Don’t. Take. Another. Step.”
The figure made another muffled sound, shaking the mask emphatically. Alyssa narrowed her eyes.
Then she exhaled slowly, as the realization crept over her.
“Ah. That makes things easier.’
She pulled the trigger, and her bolt took the robed figure in the throat.
One of her retinue was at her side in an instant, urging her to run. “We have to go,” he said. “We have to be out the city before sunrise, before anyone knows what has happened.”
“It’s already too late,” Alyssa answered.
She knelt beside the figure, now gasping on the ground. Blood was pooling beneath the body. Alyssa had seen enough wounds in her time to know this one was fatal.
She reached out, and pulled the mask free.
Oram stared up at her.
Her brother’s face was pallid, his eyes wild, and a gag had been stuffed in his mouth. He jerked and twitched as death came for him. The movements pulled his sleeves back, revealing his hands, bound tightly together with cord.
In his last moment, his gaze shifted from Alyssa to the massive statue of the Wolf looming over them.
It was then that the legionaries arrived, loping out of the darkness like hunting hounds, to surround the shrine.
The sun was high in the cloudless sky outside, sending angled beams of light through the narrow slit-windows into the audience chamber.
Alyssa stood before the Trifarix once more, her head held high, wrists manacled behind her back. The members of the council regarded her carefully. The inscrutable masked face of the Faceless was, to Alyssa in this moment, perhaps the most intimidating of the three.
It was Swain who finally broke the silence.
“Let me speak plainly,” he said. “The Delverhold is of great value to Noxus, but not so valuable that we would acquiesce to the demands and threats of its governor. That would be a signal of weakness. Within the week, a dozen other provinces would be lining up with demands of their own. No, that was never going to be happen. But, you already knew that.”
“I did,” said Alyssa. “My brother clearly didn’t.”
“Then, it might make lesser minds wonder… why would an intelligent young woman such as yourself go along with such an obvious and clumsy scheme?”
“Duty,” Alyssa replied.
“Duty to the empire must always overshadow duty to family,” said Swain.
Alyssa might have imagined it, but she thought she saw Darius’ expression darken very slightly at those words. Even so, the Hand of Noxus held his tongue.
“I agree entirely,” said Alyssa. “Which is the reason, when I realized it was my brother under the mask, I shot him.”
Swain turned towards the masked Faceless. “A risky gambit, to gag and disguise your captive. There were other ways we might have tested her.”
He turned back to Alyssa.
“Indulge me, please, for the benefit of my fellow council members. Why would you knowingly shoot and kill your brother?”
“My father sent us here to die,” Alyssa replied, “and would have used our deaths to justify closing the gates of the Delverhold to Noxus.”
“Go on.”
“My father and my brothers are fools. They have been blinded by their desire to rule the Ironspike Mountains as kings once more, as our forebears did. They would lead my people to their doom for such a fleeting vanity.”
The merest hint of an icy smile turned the corner of Swain’s mouth.
“So then, Alyssa Roshka Gloriana val-Lokan—what would you propose instead?”
The aging Governor val-Lokan looked up, an expression of pure outrage upon his face, as Alyssa threw open the doors to his tally-chamber.
“What is this, girl?” he snarled, rising to his feet. “You return unannounced? Where is Oram?”
Striding behind her were two warriors of the Trifarian Legion, imposing and ominous in their dark Ironspike armor, halberds at the ready.
Beside her father was her brother Herok, heir to the Delverhold. His eyes were wide and fearful.
“Guards!” the governor shouted. “Stop them!”
His personal guard, however, made no move to intervene. The reputation of the Legion was known throughout Valoran—even among those who had never fought beside or against them. They marched with the authority of the Hand of Noxus. To defy them was to defy the Trifarix itself.
Alyssa had thought much about the words Darius had spoken, those words that her brother had scoffed at.
Just two of the Trifarian Legion could walk in and take your precious Delverhold.
It had proved to be no idle boast after all.
“What have you done?” her father hissed, sinking back into his chair.
“What was needed.”
Alyssa produced a rolled parchment, freshly written and stamped with the crest of Noxus—the crest of the Trifarix—and slammed it down on the table before her father, making him jump.
“On the order of the Grand General, I am removing you from office,” said Alyssa, “Henceforth, I shall govern this place, for the good of the empire.”
“You?” her father scoffed. “A woman has never ruled the Delverhold!”
“Then perhaps it is time that changed. It is time for someone who will look to the future of our people, and not obsess about the kings and faded glory of the past.”
Alyssa nodded, and her father’s own guards stepped forward, grabbing hold of him.
“You can’t do this!” he screeched. “I am your father! I am your lord!”
“You are no lord,” said Alyssa. “Especially not mine.”
Tristana

Like most yordles, Tristana was always fascinated by the world beyond Bandle City. She traveled far and wide, full of wonder and enthusiasm for the varied places, people, and creatures she encountered. Using the hidden pathways that only yordles know, she explored the length and breadth of the material realm, remaining mostly unseen.
She witnessed such breathtaking sights as ice trolls migrating across the floes of the far north beneath kaleidoscopic auroras. She marveled as warships blasted each other to pieces in naval battles that churned the seas. She watched, awestruck, as great armies marched with unity and precision—incredibly strange concepts to a yordle!—across the endless sands to the south.
But Tristana’s carefree, wandering ways changed the day she witnessed the destruction of a bandlewood. These places are steeped in the magic of the gateways they grow around, giving yordles a safe haven from the world. Tristana, dozing in the dappled sunshine, was shaken awake as the trees around her began to burn and topple. A warband of armored marauders rampaged through the woodland with fire and axes, led by a sorcerer wreathed in dark energy.
Tristana hid in horror. The sorcerer focused his power upon the portal at the heart of the bandlewood, speaking one final utterance. Her ears still ringing with pain, Tristana watched the gateway collapse, never to be opened again. The ripples of that destruction were felt in Bandle City itself, causing great despair among the yordles.
Tristana had never experienced anything like the pain of this loss, or the guilt she felt for not acting. Never again would she allow such a terrible thing to happen. In that moment, she dedicated herself to become the guardian of all bandlewoods, and her fellow yordles.
Tristana had often marveled at how mortals protected the things that were dear to them. While she couldn’t comprehend their reasons to guard shiny metals, or walls of stone, she respected their methods, and decided to emulate them. Other yordles watched with curiosity as she took to marching around the borders of Bandle City stern-faced, and watching out for danger. She started calling her food “rations”, and set herself strict times for rest and relaxation.
But something was missing. In her travels, she had seen many powerful inventions, including the black powder cannons of Bilgewater. Inspired by them, she collected enough precious metal discs to commission a gun suited to her diminutive size.
With a wry smile, she named it Boomer.
Since then,Tristana has defended the bandlewoods from innumerable threats. In the jungles of the Serpent Isles, she intervened in a clash between the local Buhru people and treasure hunters from Valoran that was getting too close to a hidden portal, sending them all running for their lives after she leapt into their midst, Boomer roaring. And in the burning deserts at the edge of Shurima, she destroyed a Void-horror after it began consuming a secret bandlewood oasis, killing it with an explosive bomb down the gullet.
Tristana has become something of a legend in Bandle City, and recently, a number of yordles have started to imitate her, trying—and mostly failing—to copy her disciplined ways. Some have even had weapons mimicking Boomer constructed for them by the scrappy inventor Rumble, who is always seeking to win Tristana’s approval. While Tristana finds this all rather embarrassing, she has come to the conclusion that if they are going to defend the pathways to Bandle City, they had better do it properly. As such, she has started training these new recruits, and they have adopted a new moniker—the Bandle Gunners.
Nevertheless, Tristana can often be found out in the wilds on patrol by herself—simultaneously protecting the bandlewoods and also getting away from her new, and rather annoying, trainees.
A Quiet Night

The fire was crackling away nicely, spreading a warm glow throughout the forest clearing. Tristana lay on her back with her head pillowed on her pack, watching a comet streak across the starlit sky. The winking lights glittered prettily through a swaying canopy of birch and oak leaves. The humans liked to name the patterns in the stars – she’d seen some in an old book in Heimerdinger’s laboratory – but she decided it would be more fun to give them names of her own invention.
“You can be the Growling Badger,” she said, pointing to one group of stars. “And you can be the Cheeky Changeling. Yes, that’s much better than boring names like The Warrior or The Defender. And anyway, I can’t see those ones anymore.”
Her stomach rumbled and she sat up. Hunger was still something surprising to her, even though she’d ventured beyond Bandle City more than most of her kind. A pair of spitted fish were roasting nicely over the flames and the smell of them was making her mouth water. She’d shot them in the stream to the west of her campsite with a single, exceptionally carefully-aimed bullet from her cannon. Not a bad feat of marksmanship, even if she did say so herself. Too bad no-one was around to see it! She leaned over and patted the polished drakewood stock of her exquisitely crafted cannon; a weapon any sensible observer would say was far too large for someone of her diminutive stature to even carry, let alone shoot.
“Let Teemo have his cute little blowpipes, eh, Boomer?” she told the cannon. “I’ll stick to something with a bit more oomph, thank you very much.”
The fire crackled in a ring of stones, burning with cerulean flames, thanks to the pinch of her custom powder she’d sprinkled on the kindling to get it started. She knew now just how little she needed to use after her first time in the Upplands had cost her a perfectly decent pair of eyebrows. Sometimes it was hard to remember that things were so different in the human world compared to back home.
Deciding the fish were ready, she slid one from the spit onto a wooden plate she removed from her pack. She unwrapped a golden knife and fork from a rolled dreamleaf and cut the fish into slices. She might be on a mission, but that didn’t mean she had to eat like a savage. She took a mouthful of fish and rolled it around her mouth, savoring the taste and licking her lips in satisfaction. Mortal food was usually bland and tasteless compared to the smorgasbord of flavors she was used to, but the fish in this part of the world – Ionia, she’d heard it was called – wasn’t half bad. Perhaps it was the magic saturating every element of this landscape that made them extra tasty.
Tristana heard the crack of a twig. One of many she’d laid in a circle around her camp. The sound and type of twig told her exactly how far away the humans were and from which direction they were approaching.
She cleared her throat and called out, “I have another fish if you’re hungry.”
A man and a woman emerged from the forest in front of her. Both were tall and lean, with fidgeting hands and cold eyes. They didn’t look friendly, but she was still learning how to read human expressions and she’d been taught to always be polite. Human languages were so unsophisticated that she often wondered how they managed to communicate at all.
The man took a step forward and said, “Many thanks, old one, but we are not hungry.”
“Old one?” said Tristana with a playfully indignant grin. “I’m a young slip of a girl!”
The man blinked and she saw what might have been a look of puzzlement cross his face.
“The old crone’s insane,” said the woman, looking sidelong at her, as if not quite sure what to make of what she was seeing. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t her true form…
“You’re sure you don’t want a bit of fish?” asked Tristana, taking another bite. “It’s really tasty.”
“We’re sure,” confirmed the man. “But we’ll take any coin you’re carrying. As well as that gun of yours. I suspect it will fetch a pretty penny at auction.”
“You want to steal my Boomer?” said Tristana, sensing movement to either side. “You know, I just don’t see that happening.”
“No? You’re alone and there’s two of us,” said the man. “And we’re bigger than you.”
“Size isn’t everything,” said Tristana. “And there’s four of you. Why don’t you ask your two bandit friends to come out? Maybe they’re hungry?”
The woman shook her head. “He told you, we’re alone.”
“Oh, come on,” said Tristana. “What sort of commando do you think I’d be if I didn’t know you had two friends in the bushes with arrows aimed at me right now? You came in from the north and split up a hundred yards out. There’s a fat man to my left and a man with a limp to my right.”
“Good ears for one so old,” said the man.
“I told you, I’m not old,” said Tristana. “I’m actually pretty young for a Yordle.”
The man’s mouth dropped open in surprise as something of her true nature became apparent to him.
Finally! An expression she had no trouble in reading.
Tristana ducked and rolled to the side as a pair of black-fletched arrows slashed from the undergrowth. They passed harmlessly overhead as she swept up Boomer and chambered a round. She fired into the bushes to her right and was rewarded with a cry of pain.
“Blast off!” she cried, vaulting toward the nearest tree and bounding higher. Tristana landed on a branch halfway up its trunk. Another arrow flashed toward her, thudding into the bark a handspan from her head.
“Hey, you’re pretty fast for a human,” she said, racking Boomer’s crank and priming the barrel with a bunch of shells. She sprang away to another branch as the archer rose from the bushes – the fat one, which almost made it too easy. Tristana somersaulted from tree to tree and fired twice more. Both shots caught the man in his meaty thighs, and he fell back with a wail, loosing his arrow high into the air.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she laughed. “I barely grazed you!”
Tristana landed by her fire as the two humans she’d first seen rushed her with drawn swords. They were likely fast by human standards, but to her they moved like lumbering giants.
“Time for some up and over!” shouted Tristana, unloading the rest of Boomer’s barrel in one almighty blast into the ground. She gave a wild, whooping yell as she sailed over their heads. Even as she arced through the air she was reloading. She pushed off from the trunk of a tree and spun back to the ground.
She landed right behind the bandits with a giggle.
“Boom! Boom!”
Tristana fired two blasts, and both humans cried out in pain as they each took a wound to the rump. The woman fell flat on her face, beating her britches as powder burn set them alight. She managed to pick herself up and flee into the bushes with her backside on fire. The man twisted as he dropped to the ground, scrambling away as she cranked Boomer’s loading arm.
He was making hand gestures he probably thought were some form of magical protection.
“You’re no old woman,” he said.
“I kept telling you that,” said Tristana.
The man opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak the arrow loosed from the fat man’s bow finally came back down to earth. It thudded into the man’s chest and he fell back with a look of intense annoyance.
The other bandits were dragging themselves away as fast as their wounded limbs would carry them. She let them go, grinning as she gathered up her things before stamping down the fire.
“I was just trying to eat my dinner and have a quiet night,” she said to herself. “But I guess four bandits who won’t trouble anyone again soon isn’t bad going!”
Tristana slung Boomer over her shoulder and set off once more, whistling a jaunty tune as she looked for more stars to name.
Trundle

Trolls are, for the most part, hulking and brutish creatures, found in many of Runeterra’s least hospitable environments. Though not invulnerable, they are blessed with a hardy constitution and the ability to heal more quickly than other mortal races—especially the feeble humans. This means they can endure extremes of climate and scarce resources merely by out-surviving their rivals, and this is the most likely reason some of the largest known tribes still call the mountains of the Freljord home.
Trundle was whelped in a filthy cave, along with a brood of fifteen brothers and sisters. Times were particularly hard, so that only seven of them grew strong enough to join the ranks of their chieftain’s warband… and only three remained after their first winter of raiding.
As the warband feasted, the chieftain spoke of his intention to circle back and raid the same lands again. All would fear them. It would get easier every time.
Frowning, Trundle stood up, and said this plan was no good. The people they had crushed had nothing left for the tribe to take—they should return next winter when the granaries were full again, and the livestock grown big enough to make more than a single mouthful.
Many of the other trolls did not like this at all. They ground their teeth and thumped the sides of their heads, trying to comprehend what Trundle was suggesting. Was he a coward? Had the cold got into his brain and turned it to slush? The chieftain beat Trundle with a rock, and threw him away down the mountainside. Fools had no place in his warband.
Trundle wandered far, for he knew he would not be welcome anywhere nearby. He avoided other troll tribes scattered across the tundra, and was careful to keep his distance from the feral yetis that roamed the highlands. By night, he gazed up at the stars and remembered all the stories he had been told as a pup—legends of Grubgrack the Wise, and other ancient troll kings, who followed the old gods and were gifted powerful weapons as symbols of their right to rule the world.
Eventually, Trundle came to a great crack in the ground. While he was glad to be out of the wind, he soon found himself lost in a maze of twisted, howling canyons that seemed to sink deeper beneath the Freljord than the mountains rose above it.
And at the very bottom of that abyss, he met the Ice Witch.
She waited for him on a shimmering, frozen lake, surrounded by little human warriors skinned in furs and metal. Trundle was not daunted by any of this; but the Ice Witch wanted to know how he had found his way here, into the very heart of her domain, and how he was able to walk upon her lake.
Trundle looked down. The ice beneath his feet was darker than the night sky, far overhead. It made his brain want to squirm around inside his skull.
The Ice Witch told him he was special—something called “Iceborn”, which meant he should stay there with her. But Trundle did not want this, and told her how he had been cast out by the chieftain, and that he wanted to find a great weapon and become a troll king like Grubgrack and all the others. To his surprise, the Ice Witch agreed, and handed him a mighty club of ice called Boneshiver. With this, he could become king of all trolls, and form a great alliance with her human tribe.
He eagerly agreed, and began the long journey home.
When Trundle arrived, the chieftain laughed in his face… until Trundle bashed him over the head with Boneshiver. In an instant, the old troll was frozen solid by the club’s icy magic, and a second blow shattered his body into tiny pieces.
Awed by Trundle’s newfound strength, the rest of the warband listened to his tale of the Ice Witch, and the alliance she had promised. Trundle was smart. Trundle had been chosen to wield great power. Trundle would be their king.
And with Trundle leading the charge, the time of the trolls is surely coming.
Tryndamere

Tryndamere came into the world knowing only the harshness of survival, for the frozen steppes where his clan made their home never truly thawed. Though they praised all the Freljord’s old gods, as well as the Cult of the Three, they prayed most often to a spirit-deity known to ravage the tundra—a hearty and unkillable tusklord. Since the raw materials required for armor were scarce, the clan instead put its resources toward the forging of great blades, inspired by their god’s ivory canines.
The stamina and dueling prowess of Tryndamere’s people became legendary. They were able to fend off other raiding tribes, slay the great beasts of the mountains, and repel Noxians encroaching to the south. Tryndamere himself grew to be a brash and formidable warrior, but it wasn’t until a particularly cruel midwinter night that his strength was truly tested. An unusual storm swept in from the east, bringing with it an icy darkness, and a towering, horned figure silhouetted against the full moon.
Some in the clan knelt, believing that their boar-god stood among them. This creature dripped with ancient magic, true enough, but he was not of the Freljord… and those that knelt were the first to die.
Tryndamere looked on in horror. He could feel unhinged brutality rising in his heart at the sight of the invader’s cruel, living sword. Whether taken by bloodlust or some other madness, Tryndamere raised his own blade, and let out a defiant roar.
The dark figure swatted him aside like an insect.
Tryndamere lay surrounded by the dead, in snow soaked almost black with blood. He drew what he thought would be his last breaths as the creature approached and spoke. Tryndamere tried to hold onto the strange, archaic words, but as his life force slipped away, it was the thing’s laughter that burned itself into the young warrior’s memory.
For Tryndamere did not die that night. He was revived by a rage unlike anything he had ever experienced. He looked to the eastern horizon, intent on avenging not only the destruction of his clan, but the desecration of his own martial pride.
However, retribution was not what the steppes offered him. There were survivors, and they would not be long for this world if Tryndamere could not find others to shelter them. There were Noxians to the south, Frostguard to the north, and the dark figure had come from the east. To the west, it was said that some tribes were gathering before the supposed reincarnation of Avarosa—once, he might have dismissed such fanciful rumors, but now he knew this was his only recourse.
Tryndamere and the remnants of his people arrived in the valley as little more than beggars. The young warrior was determined to show his clan’s worth, and win them the Avarosan leader’s protection so that he could return to thoughts of revenge. Brandishing his tusked sword, he did what came naturally, and challenged others to duels. Holding the image of the dark figure and its echoing laughter in his mind, Tryndamere quickly bested anyone who stepped forward.
His singular fury was deeply unsettling to the Avarosans. The northern warriors, too, noted his rapid healing between bouts—unlike the Iceborn that walked among them, the more Tryndamere gave in to his rage, the more quickly his body healed. Many suspected he and his clan practiced strange and unnatural magics, and so Tryndamere’s plan to prove his worth was now endangering the wider acceptance of his people.
But not all of the Avarosans had turned against him. Their warmother, Ashe, was looking to strengthen her position with a political marriage… to someone who could face down the endless challengers for her hand, and to her rule. Seeing an opportunity in the handsome barbarian, she pledged to take in his clan as Avarosans, if Tryndamere became her first and only bloodsworn.
As he spent more time in Ashe’s company, he began to believe what others had whispered—that she was indeed the divine reincarnation of Avarosa herself. His rage found temperance in her thoughtful leadership, and a genuine affection grew between them.
Even so, serving as Ashe’s champion, Tryndamere now looks to an uncertain future. The barbarian king can see war brewing all too clearly on the Freljord’s horizon, yet he still thirsts for his own, personal vengeance, and begins to wonder if his predestined fate might not be at his queen’s side after all…
A Smoldering Coal

Roy Graham

This far north, the nights are dark. The shadows grow long in the hall of Ashe and her bloodsworn groom. The braziers burn down to smoldering coals. They may seem extinguished, dead—but even a fool knows not to grasp one with a naked hand. Even a fool.
He isn’t much to look at, in truth. Tall, yes, and strong, but that dark hair that falls around his shoulders is flecked with gray. He does not look like a figure of myth and legend. Seated at the head of his table, Tryndamere looks like a man. His eyes are a flat green. Dull, like an animal’s.
And yet I cannot meet them for long. I witnessed the rage they conceal, and it nearly took me as the ember takes the straw.

It happened in my first winter as battlemaiden to Ashe. I was young, brash, and very bored—my new life was not the adventure I once dreamed it might be. When she went to fight the northern raiders, Ashe had left me in the great hall, to watch over her bloodsworn. Tryndamere wasn’t mustering war parties or howling with battle-lust, he was holding audience with a collection of envoys from local clans. Not even thanes or warmothers, but little men and women who believed the world turned on the precise numbers of cattle ranging in their pastures. The dullest of the lot happened to be talking just then, a doddering graybeard.
“Warmother Ashe has taken one in three of our warriors north to throw back the raiders of the Winter’s Claw. That is one in three hands not tilling the earth, one in three eyes not watching the flock. I understand your people never raised crops or herded animals, but in more civilized lands…”
I wanted to see the elder’s head parted from his shoulders. This was the warmother’s bloodsworn he was addressing! From my silent post behind Tryndamere I glared up at him, hoping to see a flicker of anger under that passive mask; I already knew, though, that I would be disappointed. By the gods, I wanted him to show some of his legendary temper.
So young, and so foolish. I have never forgotten that: I wanted to see it.
“Allow me, bloodsworn, to educate you on the proper management of the lands west of the White Hills…” the graybeard went on.
I found my hand curling around the leather wrapping of my sword.
Before I could act on my rashness, the great wooden doors of the hall swept open. The braziers sputtered and hissed as wind and snow pushed their way inside—and with them came figures, half a dozen of them. At their head was a tall woman, silver braids peeking out from a traveling hood dusted with frost. As she pushed it back, I recognized the jagged white scar that crossed her face.
“Heldred?”
The warmother of my tribe fixed me with a cold stare. It was then that I noticed her followers, wrapped in furs and leathers and armor, pushing the great doors shut. Warriors, one and all, with weapons drawn and blooded. A war party.
Around the hall, the envoys had gone silent, staring nervously at the new arrivals. Tryndamere watched them, too, though if the presence of bare weapons in his hall irked him, I could not tell.
Heldred ignored me, starting for Tryndamere. I stepped in front of her. “Go no further, warmother.”
“Sigra,” she said, her voice ice. Cold as winter. “You do me honor, to still call me by that title. I am glad you haven’t forgotten your first oaths.”
“Why are you here, Heldred?”
“Step aside, child. If your new warmother was within my grasp, I would wet my axe with her blood. But blood must be shed, so her second will have to do.”
“Heldred of Three Rivers,” a voice echoed in the darker corners of the hall. Tryndamere. “You have come a very long way. Why do you seek battle?”
“Hail, bloodsworn,” she said. “I will tell you. Five days past, as the sun rose over our village, something else rode in with it. Raiders. Reavers. Killers.”
The words sunk into me like knives. “Winter’s Claw,” I whispered.
“Aye!” she barked. “Winter’s Claw. They came while the man you defend sat behind his stout walls, growing fat and slow, and did to us what the Winter’s Claw always does. Now, there was a time when we might have driven them off. But that was before Ashe called for warriors! Before she took one out of every three hands strong enough to swing a blade.”
Her voice became a bitter hiss. “We couldn’t hold.”
Speech would not come to me. I should have been there, I thought. If I hadn’t oathed myself to another, I could have. I could have fought. “How many? How many lost?”
“Your elders hid in time, Sigra. For that, I am grateful. But many did not. Too many.”
Slowly, Tryndamere pushed himself to his feet. “I am sorry, warmother, for your loss. I… know what it is like to lead a desperate people. Bring your survivors here. They can share our food, our walls. You are welcome.”
It was a noble offer.
Heldred only spat on the floor. From her belt, the warmother pulled her axe. “I do not want your walls or your food, bloodsworn. I want blood for blood. The old ways say I am due a challenge, and so a challenge I make.”
“This is foolishness,” I said. “Think of our kin.” Think of my elders, I did not say.
“You forget your place, child. I will not say it again—step aside.”
Fury tightened my hand around the hilt of my sword. In one motion I drew it, the steel glowing orange in the firelight. “No, Heldred. I have forgotten nothing. I am a battlemaiden, sworn to defend this hall. On my oath, I accept your challenge.”
“So be it. If you are in such a hurry to die, I’ll make it quick.”
“Enough!” bellowed Tryndamere. “I will have no Avarosan blood spilled around this hearth. We have enemies enough without killing each other!”
The echo of his words shook the very timbers of the hall. Never had I heard him speak like this—I could not miss something dangerous just under the surface. But Heldred only sneered. “I do not fear you, bloodsworn. Life behind these walls has dulled your edge. Mine is still killing-sharp.”
I caught her first blow on my sword. The shock of it nearly dislocated my shoulder. I had barely recovered by the time Heldred swung again; I was quick, but she had experience and strength on her side.
Heldred’s overhead chop missed my skull by inches, and buried the axehead in the floor. I lunged forward, thrusting for her, but with a ferocious grunt she wrenched her axe free, backhanding the flat end into my ribs. Pain shot through my chest and I sagged to one side, unable to keep my footing.
From the floor I raised my sword, pointing feebly at the woman who had once been my warmother. She struck it from my hand dismissively. “I will tell your kin you fought bravely, Sigra Battlemaiden.”
Heldred raised her axe to deliver the killing stroke, and I squeezed my eyes shut. But it never fell.
I looked up. Tryndamere had caught the axe—caught it, in his open hand. Blood dripped from the blade down his arm, onto the timbers below. “This is not our way. Avarosans protect one another.”
From the floor, I watched as the open wound on his palm sealed itself shut.
Impossible.
He was speaking through gritted teeth, and that lurking danger I had sensed earlier now screamed in my head. Run, it said. Run now, while you can.
For a moment, I saw that Heldred heard it, too—but then, with a snarl, she swung her axe again, a mighty two-handed blow meant to cleave the man in half.
Tryndamere roared. It was an inhuman sound, a fury deeper than the roots of mountains, as bottomless as the deepest lake. He roared, and then he lunged for her.

That was two winters ago. Two winters, and I have not forgotten what I saw. Probably I never will. Probably I shouldn’t.
I am oathsworn still, bound to fight by his side. When I stand guard over my barbarian charge, motionless at his long table, I see Heldred’s face twisted in agony. When the fires burn low in the long hall, I hear her screams. I have seen what lurks beneath those placid, dull eyes.
Every night, I pray to my ancestors that I will not see it again. Some things are better left in stories.
Some coals are better left smoldering.
Turmoil

“Why send us all the way out here?” said the soldier leaning against the wall of the gatehouse, arms folded across his chest. “There’s blood on the streets of the Great City, and we’re sent to the border?”
His name was Bakker, and Cithria had never warmed to him—he was prone to seeing the bad in every situation, though to be fair, in this case there was truth in his words.
The rest of their comrades stood nearby. None of them looked particularly happy about their predicament.
Cithria remained silent. She was the youngest of the Demacian soldiers, though she was by no means an untested recruit. In the year she’d spent among their ranks she had proven herself a capable soldier, and one of the fastest with a blade, yet there were plenty of times—this among them—when she felt out of her depth and unsure of herself.
She wore full, gleaming plate armor, as did they all. A shield was slung across her back, and she carried her helmet under one arm, leaving her dark hair, tied back in a long braid, hanging free.
The soldiers stood before the immense Graygate, guarding the northeast border of Demacia. The name was anomalous, for the bastion was built of pristine white stone. It was generally understood that the name had come from the gray shale cliffs nearby, though soldiers stationed here, particularly those who hailed from the south or the coast of Demacia, moaned it had more to do with the perpetually overcast, northern skies.
To either side of the gate tower stretched tall, white stone walls. Pennants fluttered in the breeze from the crenulations, and sentries stood vigil in the cold wind, looking eastward.
“We should be deployed with the rest of the battalion, scouring the forests for that traitor and his rabble,” another soldier said.
“Mages,” said Bakker, speaking the word with loathing. “We should be rid of the lot of them.”
Such talk made Cithria uneasy. She herself had never encountered magic, or at least none that she was aware of, but she had been raised to fear and distrust those that were able to wield it. News from the capital made that fear seem justified.
It was only a month since the rogue mage Sylas had escaped imprisonment and ripped the heart of Demacia apart. That insane, horrifically powerful rebel had ignited a wave of unrest across the kingdom, and even now the Great City was locked down, the military controlling the streets to ensure order.
Cithria agreed they would be more useful elsewhere, but the venom in her comrade’s voice disturbed her.
“I say the whole lot of them should—” Bakker started saying, but Cithria cut him short.
“Heads up. The shield-sergeant’s back.”
The short, stocky figure of Shield-Sergeant Gunthar was heading toward them at a brisk pace. A pair of hooded men walked with him, one to either side.
“Who’s that with him?”
“I don’t know,” said Cithria.
The soldiers snapped sharply to attention as their sergeant and his mysterious companions drew near.
“Alright you lot,” Gunthar said. “I know you’re all wondering why in the Protector’s name we’ve been sent all the way out here.”
The sergeant cast his gaze across their ranks.
“A foreign envoy from the Arbormark will soon be arriving here at the border, and we have been tasked with escorting them safely to the capital.”
Escort duty?
Even to Cithria, it seemed a strangely mundane task. Still, neither she nor any of the other soldiers said a word, and all remained staring resolutely forward.
“The envoy’s protection is our highest priority,” continued Gunthar. “Were even so much as a hair on their head to be harmed while under our guard, it would tarnish the honor of Demacia. The Arbormark have long been our allies, and we must not allow anything to damage that relationship. It is expected we fulfill this duty with honor, grace, and good faith.”
Gunthar’s expression hardened. “Even if it goes against our better judgment,” he added.
The soldiers were well-disciplined, and made no overt reaction to those final words, but Cithria felt and mirrored their unease. What was that meant to mean?
Gunthar gestured to his cloaked companions, who stepped forward, lowering their hoods.
Cithria’s eyes widened.
The older of the pair was a stern-looking man of middling years, his short-cropped hair going to gray, and his skin weathered with deep frown-lines and more than a few scars. The other was a younger man, slimmer of build and nervous-looking, with a sweep of dark hair hanging to one side of his face.
Both wore form-fitting golden half-masks, and dull gray discs of engraved stone pinned at their shoulders holding their cloaks in place.
Cithria let out a slow breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Mageseekers.
“This is Cadstone, a senior adept of the mageseeker order, and his associate, Arno,” said Gunthar, by way of introduction. The mageseekers bowed ever-so-slightly. “They will be accompanying us as we escort the envoy to the capital.”
Horns sounded atop the gatehouse.
“Riders approaching, under the banner of the Arbormark!” came a cry from a sentry up above.
Shield-Sergeant Gunthar nodded to the guards, and the great gates were heaved open, hinges groaning under the weight. The ironwork portcullis was raised, chains clanking, and the immense drawbridge beyond was lowered. It slammed down with a boom like thunder. Early morning sunlight streamed in through the open gate.
“With me,” Gunthar ordered, striding forward with the mageseekers at his side. Cithria and the other soldiers fell in behind them, moving with well-drilled precision.

Cithria wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting from the envoy, but it wasn’t the massive, dark-skinned man who waited for them. He was clad in bearskins, and carried a staff of heavy wood. He smiled broadly as the Demacians marched forth to meet him.
Cithria watched him warily.
He rode the biggest horse Cithria had ever seen, jet-black and with thick feathering covering its iron-shod hooves. Accompanying him were twenty riders, all wearing long scale mail coats, and carrying axes and shields. One of them bore a standard, depicting the crossed axes heraldry of the Arbormark, which was mirrored on the warriors’ shields.
The envoy dismounted, and strode forward to meet Gunthar and his entourage, smiling broadly. He had the heavily muscled build of a soldier, or a smith; definitely not what she was expected of a mage. She had always imagined them as sneaking, cunning types, preferring subterfuge and trickery to physical strength.
Halting before the Demacians, he touched the palm of his left hand to his forehead, then extended it to the sky. Cithria clasped her hand around the hilt of her sword, thinking he was performing some arcane conjuration, before realizing it was likely an Arbormark salute. Feeling her cheeks burn, she cursed herself for a fool.
Shield-Sergeant Gunthar gave the man a salute of his own.
“My name is Arjen, and I bring greetings from the Lord of the Arbormark,” said the envoy, bowing his head.
“Welcome. I am Shield-Sergeant Gunthar, seventh battalion. And this,” he added, “is Cadstone, of the Order of Mageseekers.”
“You have been a guest within the borders of Demacia before, have you not?” said Cadstone, without any pretense of small talk. “You are aware of the Laws of Stone?”
“Yes, I have been here before, good seeker,” said Arjen, “and I am aware of your kingdom’s rules and regulations. I shall honor the Laws of Stone and make no use of my… talents… while within your realm. I give you my word.”
“Good,” said Cadstone. “Mageseeker Arno and I will be with you, from now until the moment you leave Demacia. It is our task to hold you to your word. Know that there will be repercussions if you do not abide by our laws. But if you abstain from using your… talents, as you call them… then all will be well.”
Arjen bowed deeply, still smiling.
“Then let us be on our way,” said Gunthar. “Your personal guard will need to remain beyond the border, of course.”
“Of course, of course,” Arjen said, before turning and waving his attendants away. “Shoo!” he said. “Be off with you!”
Cithria stifled a smile at the man’s bizarre behavior. The stoic riders turned, one of them grabbing the reins of the envoy’s horse, and galloped away without a word.
“Let us be on our way then!” said Arjen, clapping his hands together.

It was three hours’ solid march northwest to Meltridge, a small river town, where they would board a waiting ship and sail the rest of the way to the capital. Cithria was surprised to find that the envoy from the Arbormark did not slow them, easily matching the punishing pace Gunthar set, his heavy staff striking the ground firmly with every step.
The march took them across windswept moors and dales. The gales whipping down from the frozen north chilled Cithria to the bone. The Demacians trudged on, cinching their cloaks around their necks for additional warmth. Wrapped in bearskins, the envoy seemed unaffected by the weather.
For all Cithria’s apprehension, Arjen was an affable and easily likeable man. She forced herself not to be lulled into a false sense of security, however. The ways of the arcane were full of deception and trickery. While the Demacians were tight-lipped and stoic, clearly uneasy around this mage, Arjen himself passed the time telling stories of his homeland. Most of them involved lots of drinking of ale, feats of strength, and farfetched heroics, but he had a gift for storytelling, and it certainly passed the time better than silence.
“…and then the great beast growled. ‘You don’t come here for the hunting, do you?’ it said.”
The big man guffawed with laughter at his own ribald joke, slapping one of his meaty thighs in mirth. Cithria, marching just to the envoy’s side, found herself smiling despite herself, even as she shook her head at the inappropriateness of the story.
“You get it, lass?” said Arjen, addressing Cithria directly. “He says that because he thinks the man—“
“Oh, I get it,” said Cithria hastily holding up her hand to stop Arjen’s explanation.
Snow began to fall around halfway to their destination. At first, the flakes were small and light, but they quickly became heavier, until visibility was reduced dramatically. Soon, the ground and road were completely blanketed. The snowfall dampened all sound. Cithria walked near the envoy, who was guarded in the middle of the column of soldiers. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the two mageseekers had fallen a few steps back, just out of earshot. They had both drawn their hoods over their heads against the cold.
“I’m curious,” Cithria said, in a low voice that she hoped only the envoy hear.
“Curiosity is a powerful thing,” said Arjen. “Sometimes dangerous.”
A nearby soldier gave her a glance, as if willing her to remain silent. Cithria paused, wondering if she should finish her thought, or let it pass. Her curiosity got the better of her.
“You know of the Laws of Stone, and at least something of the… challenges that currently beset Demacia,” she said.
“I do,” said Arjen. All of his levity was gone now, and his expression somber. “It is for this reason that I have come, sent by my lord. It is for this reason envoys are coming from all of your nation’s allies.”
“But knowing all that, why would your lord send you?”
Arjen looked down at her, raising an eyebrow. “I am chief advisor to the hall of the Arbormark, so it is my place to come,” he said. He saw her surprise, and smiled wryly. “Things are different beyond your borders. If you wished to discuss matters of the forge, you would summon a smith, yes? At a time like this, who better, then, to send than a mage?”
Cithria opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.
Let’s just get him to the capital safely, she told herself.
The sooner they completed this mission, the better.

Dusk was approaching as they made their way into the white-walled town of Meltridge. The guards at the gate saluted, and townspeople stood respectfully aside as the band marched down the main thoroughfare.
“We turn northwest at the next junction,” said Cadstone. The snow was easing, and he lowered his hood, pointing. “The docks lie at the foot of that hill.”
“You’ve been here before, then, lord seeker?” said Cithria, after Gunthar ordered the soldiers to follow the mageseeker’s directions. The mageseeker nodded.
“A young girl lived here,” he said. “Powerful mage.”
“You… captured her?” said Cithria, wide-eyed.
“She gave herself in,” chimed in Arno. “She was benign. Registered. Normally, one such as her wouldn’t be taken in, but ever since—”
“Arno!” snapped Cadstone.
The younger mageseeker fell quiet, looking chastened.
“Let us move,” said Cadstone. “It would be best for us not to linger.”

At this time of early evening, the narrow road down to the docks was busy.
Boatmen finishing work for the day were climbing the hill, making their way home or to one of the numerous taverns that lined the way. Children raced to and fro, chasing each other through the snow, a pair of excited hounds keeping pace. Shopkeepers stood in the doorways of their stores, and peddlers on the street shouted the prices of their wares.
The soldiers were not even a third of the way down the hill before Cithria felt the mood of the street change.
At first it was just a few dark looks and a few muttered words by passers-by. Clusters of townsfolk gathered in doors and alleys, talking in low voices and pointing. A fisherman spat on the ground, his eyes burning with anger.
“Move along, citizen,” growled Gunthar. The man did so, somewhat reluctantly.
Cithria was shocked. She did not expect such outright hostility from Demacians, despite all that had been happening in the capital.
“Tighten ranks,” Gunthar said, and the soldiers responded instantly, keeping the mage and the mageseekers protected at the heart of the column.
A rock struck one of the soldiers in the side of their helmet. Another, thrown from a different direction, glanced from Cadstone’s forehead, drawing blood.
Cithria cursed under her breath at the narrowness of the street. There was little room to maneuver, and they were already too far down the hill to turn back. They had to continue on down to the docks.
“Shields up!” barked Gunthar, the shield-sergeant clearly coming to the same conclusion. “Forward, double-time!”
The soldiers instantly picked up their pace, surging forward along the street.
“By order of the crown, clear the way! Move!” Gunthar shouted. Most of the townsfolk did so, scrambling out of the soldiers’ path, but up ahead, Cithria saw something that made her blood run cold.
A pair of wagons were rolled from alleys ahead, blocking their way. Angry townsfolk crowded before them. Cithria glanced left and right. The white stone walls of shop fronts pressed in on either side, like the sides of a chasm. She realized the doors were all closed and barred, the windows shuttered.
“This is a trap!” she hissed.
“Aye,” said Gunthar. He cursed under his breath.
“Halt! About-face!” the shield-sergeant shouted. The soldiers responded instantly, turning in place. All had their shields raised, though none had drawn weapons.
The mageseekers stood close to the envoy, one to either side. The three of them were kept protected at the center of the soldiers’ formation.
“It’s no good!” shouted Cithria. “This way is blocked, too.”
Now facing the way they’d come, they could see the townsfolk had hurriedly rolled out another wagon, blocking their retreat.
“Give him to us, and no one needs get hurt!” shouted a burly man from atop the wagon. He looked like the local blacksmith, wearing a thick leather apron and holding a hammer in hand.
“Clear the street!” Gunthar ordered.
The blacksmith, who appeared to be the spokesperson for the angry crowd, appeared unmoved.
“Not gonna happen, lad,” he said, gently tapping his hammer into his open hand as an unspoken threat.
While some people ran to get clear of the tense standoff, more townsfolk joined those gathered at either end of the street. Many of them carried farming tools, woodcutter’s axes, and other makeshift weapons, but more than a few had swords scabbarded at their waists. While they were clearly outclassed by the soldiers they faced, they would not be intimidated.
“I say again, clear the way,” said Gunthar.
In response, a stone struck Cithria’s shield. The soldier alongside her—Bakker—made to draw his sword, the blade hissing as he began to slide it from its scabbard.
“No blades!” Cithria cried, putting her hand on the hilt of the sword. “These are Demacians, those we are sworn to protect!”
Bakker, older and more senior than Cithria, scowled, and went to brush her aside, but their shield-sergeant stopped him with a sharp order.
“She’s right,” Gunthar growled. “No sword will be drawn unless I order it.”
The crowd became ever-more aggressive, shouting and closing in threateningly.
Among the din, Cithria made out several individual voices.
“You’ll pay, you swine!” shouted one woman.
“Get him, get him!” roared a man well into his twilight years, though he had the bearing of an ex-soldier.
“We should just give him to them,” muttered Bakker.
Cithria glared at him. “Envoy Arjen is under our sworn protection!” she snapped. “Where is your honor?”
“He’s just a mage,” said another soldier, though Cithria couldn’t see who had spoken.
A heavy earthenware jar struck the soldiers’ line, shattering on a shield in an explosion of shards. A heavy chunk of masonry hit another soldier in the pauldron, dropped from above, and driving him to his knees. His comrades helped him quickly back to his feet, and Cithria looked up to see people appearing on the rooftops around them.
She saw a hooded man up there throw something. Instinctively, Cithria lifted her shield high to protect the envoy standing behind her. A rusted horseshoe struck its curved surface before clattering away harmlessly. Had it struck home, it could have been lethal.
The mage nodded his thanks. He wasn’t smiling now.
“We’ll get you out of this unscathed, on my honor,” Cithria said.
The townsfolk had closed in around them, still shouting, though none of them yet seemed willing to get too close. Nevertheless, Cithria knew it was only a matter of moments before someone charged the line, and she feared what would happen once they did.
“We have to get out of here!” she shouted, as more stones, bricks and loose detritus clattered off the soldiers’ armor.
“If we charge through them, there will be citizen casualties,” said Shield-Sergeant Gunthar.
“That might be our only option,” said Cadstone. Reluctantly, Cithria had to agree. Unless…
“That door!” she called out, gesturing toward a locked and barred shopfront nearby.
“Worth a try,” said Gunthar. “Half circle, on me!”
The Demacians smoothly shifted their formation, forming a curving shieldwall with their backs to the shopfront.
“Cithria! Bakker!” ordered Gunthar. “Break down those doors!”
The pair of them stepped out of the ranks. The mageseekers and Arjen stood within the protective cordon of soldiers, and Bakker impatiently pushed by the envoy.
“Out of the way, mage,” he snarled.
Cithria saw Arjen take a breath to remain calm and not respond. She hurried to the doors, stepping around the mage, and nodded to Bakker.
“On three,” he said. “One, two, three!”
Together, they kicked the double-doors, hard.
“Again!”
Three more times they struck, putting their full weight into the kicks, before there was a sharp, splintering crack, and the doors slammed inwards.
“Go!” shouted Gunthar. “Take the envoy and the seekers, and find a way out! We will hold them here!”
Seeing the object of their ire about to escape, the mob of townsfolk surged forward, charging into the shieldwall.
“Come with me!” Cithria ordered, entering the darkened shop, shield raised before her. “There’s got to be a back door.”
The shop, it seemed, belonged to a candle-maker. Hundreds of wax candles lined the shelves, and an array of floral scents assailed Cithria.
“Here!” shouted Bakker, disappearing towards the rear of the shop.
“Stay close,” said Cithria, and the envoy from the Arbormark, flanked by the pair of mageseekers, dropped in behind her as she followed Bakker deeper into the shop.
The door he found led to a storeroom, filled with barrels, stacks of crates, and sacks. It was so dark that Cithria could barely see Bakker’s shape a few feet in front of her.
“If only we had a candle, eh?” remarked Arjen mildly, making Cithria snort, then cover her mouth to stop herself. It was hardly a time for levity.
Then there was a sound of cracking timber, and light suddenly entered the storeroom as Bakker kicked the back door open. The alley beyond was clear.
Bakker ushered Cithria and the others forward.
“Move!” he said. “I’ll take the rearguard!”
Cithria nodded, and plowed forward, leading Arjen and the mageseekers. She’d gone no more than ten paces when someone stepped out of the shadows of a side-alley, blocking her path.
It was an auburn-haired woman, and she cradled a heavy crossbow in her arms. Even as Cithria slid to a standstill, one hand raised in warning to those behind, the woman leveled the weapon in their direction.
Time seemed to slow.
Snow was falling again, the heavy flakes drifting soundlessly down. The clamor of the crowd and the shouts of her fellow soldiers were faint, here in the quiet alley behind the main thoroughfare.
Cithria saw that the woman’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and her expression was one of desperation.
What had driven this town to such a state? In Cithria’s experience, the people of her homeland were lawful and stoic. Why was this town so angry?
“Get out of the way,” the woman said to Cithria, eyes pleading. Her voice was cracked and choked with emotion. “Please.”
“This man is an envoy from an allied nation,” Cithria said, in a calm voice, the kind she might use around a skittish horse. “I cannot allow any harm to befall him.”
“What?” said the woman, her brow furrowing.
“Don’t do this,” said Cithria. “This man is under the protection of Demacia.”
The woman laughed then, the sound desperate and almost manic.
“It’s not him I want,” she said. “It’s the seeker. That one.”
Only then did Cithria realize the crossbow was pointed at Cadstone.
“My daughter never did anything wrong!” the woman said, and tears ran down her cheeks. “Kyra chose to step forward, to alert the mageseekers of her power. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble, didn’t want to bring grief down upon her family, or on this town. Everyone loved her! All this trouble—you caused it all!”
“You took her daughter…” Cithria breathed, looking at Cadstone.
The mageseeker nodded grimly.
“We had to,” he said. “The law was amended. Any citizen with known magical power, benign or otherwise, is now ordered to be brought in for judgment. Every mage in the kingdom.”
“She was just a girl!” shouted the woman, jabbing her crossbow in the mageseeker’s direction. “You locked her away! With all those criminals! Or maybe she has been exiled and is out beyond the borders, alone! You condemned her!”
Cithria sucked in a breath, certain a bolt was going to be loosed… but it wasn’t. Not yet, at least.
“Kyra was no threat to anyone!” the woman cried. “She used to cry herself to sleep, wishing she had been born like everyone else. And you took her. You’re a monster.”
“The law is the law,” said Cadstone.
“Then the law is wrong,” the woman said. “She was my life, and you took her from me. Now I will take yours from you.”
Her finger tightened around the trigger… but she hesitated as Cithria stepped in between her and the mageseeker.
“Move, please,” said the woman, crying. “I don’t want to see anyone harmed but the one responsible for this.”
“I cannot let you do this,” said Cithria. “Put the crossbow down.”
“My life is over,” said the woman. “His should be too.”
“If you do this, there is no coming back,” said Cithria. “What happens when your daughter returns home, but you are not here because of the choice you make today?”
“No one taken by the seekers is ever seen again,” said the woman. “Kyra is never coming home.”
The depth of despair in her voice was heart-wrenching, cutting Cithria to her core.
“You can’t know that,” pleaded Cithria. “You owe it to her to be here if she does. She’ll need you.”
The woman’s face crumpled in grief, her eyes screwing shut, tears running freely. But she didn’t lower the crossbow.
Cithria took a step forward, reaching out to her.
“I’ll help you,” Cithria said. “I promise you, I will do all I can to find out where your daughter is.”
Cithria was certain she was failing to reach the woman. At this range, the sheer power of a heavy crossbow would punch straight through her breastplate.
“Please,” she said. “You need to be strong. For Kyra.”
The woman collapsed to her knees, all the fight going out of her. But as she dropped, finally giving in to grief and exhaustion, her finger tightened on the trigger.
There was a click, followed by a sharp snap, as the crossbow fired.
The bolt sliced through the air and ricocheted off one of the alley’s white stone walls. Cithria spun as the deadly bolt hissed past Cadstone and Arno, missing the nervous young mageseeker by inches, and shot directly at Bakker.
Cithria saw the envoy from the Arbormark make a slight motion with his fingers, a subtle twisting of his hand. The bolt was knocked off course, as if it had struck an invisible, angled wall just in front of Bakker, and it spun harmlessly over his shoulder.
The hair on the back of Cithria’s neck suddenly stood on end at what she had just seen.
Bakker’s eyes were wide in shock. The bolt should have taken him in the neck, and Cithria could see that he knew it. The giant, bearskin-clad envoy gave her the slightest of winks.
The young mageseeker was on the ground, breathing hard. Cadstone was pressed up against one wall of the alleyway. The woman was kneeling on the ground in the snow, her body wracked with sobs.
Cithria rushed to her side, and gently removed the crossbow from her shaking hands. Then she hugged the woman, drawing her close.
“Do not arrest her,” Cithria said, looking up at Cadstone. “It was an accident, nothing more.”
The mageseeker hesitated, looking troubled.
“No harm befell anyone,” continued Cithria. “She has suffered enough. Please.”
Cadstone sighed, and rubbed his eyes.
“This is not a matter for my order,” he said, finally. “Since there was no magic performed here, I leave that decision to you.”
Cithria caught Bakker’s eye… but he said nothing.

The mob of townsfolk hurled themselves against the Demacian shieldwall, kicking and surging. Bottles and rocks clashed upon shields and helmets, but still the soldiers did not draw weapons.
There was a shout as Cithria emerged from the candle shop once more, leading the red-haired woman, an arm around her shoulder, and the townsfolk backed off.
“Rosalyn?” called the burly blacksmith.
“Kyra wouldn’t want this,” the woman called out. “She wouldn’t want anyone hurt on her account.”
Her sudden appearance gave the crowd pause. A few of them fought on, shoving against the shieldwall, but others backed off, suddenly unsure of themselves.
“Clear the street!” roared Gunthar. “Leave now, and there will be no repercussions!”
The townspeople looked to the blacksmith.
“Do what he says,” he said, finally. “It’s over.”
The fury and resentment in the crowd dissipated, like an early morning fog beneath the sun’s rays. Within a few moments, they looked just like regular citizens once more, now that their faces were no longer twisted with anger and rage. Many in the crowd muttered and looked down, ashamed.
At a nod from Gunthar, the soldiers parted to allow the blacksmith through their ranks, who took the woman in his arms.
“The rest of you, go home!” Gunthar ordered the milling crowd. He could have had them all rounded up and clapped in irons, but Cithria was glad he chose leniency.
Cithria looked around. Miraculously, other than a few scrapes and bruises, no one had been seriously harmed, either among the soldiers’ ranks, or the citizenry of Meltridge. The townsfolk drifted away, dragging the wagons with them.
Her shield-sergeant, Gunthar, looked at Cithria in relief.
“I don’t know what you did,” he said, shaking his head, “but whatever it was, you helped avert disaster today, soldier.”
Cithria felt suddenly tired, and didn’t have the energy to respond. She nodded numbly, and sat heavily on a nearby step.
Soldiers were still watching the last lingering townsfolk warily. Bakker stood nearby, his expression clouded. Cithria’s gaze drifted to the pair of mageseekers, their expressions grim, then to the woman, Rosalyn, crying in the blacksmith’s arms.
All these people were Demacians, and all had good intentions at heart, yet recent actions had set them against each other.
A difficult time was coming to Demacia, she thought.
No, she corrected herself.
It was already here.
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.
A Walk with the Voices

Michael Luo

Far above, Udyr heard the cries of an eagle riding the gale. Its voice was strong, confident, but not close enough to get in the way of his own thoughts. It was a relief to feel this human.
The voices were never silent, but Udyr knew not to be ungrateful. Even a moment’s reprieve was rare.
I can hear myself breathe… for now, at least.
Today, he walked alone. He hiked up the mountain slopes, a chill wind following him, carrying away his lingering memory of Ionia’s ethereal beauty with every gust. The monks at Hirana had offered him a parting gift a few moons past when he left their lands—a riddle intended to guide him on his path to mastering his spiritual powers.
Below winter’s peak
Nature’s pure life essence flows
Now transformed to glass
It read more beautifully in their tongue than his own, but it had not taken him long to solve. After spending months traveling with the blind monk, Udyr had learned to decipher the meaning behind Ionian speech.
Reaching the precipitous eastern slopes of Winterspike, Udyr paused to gaze out at the lake before him, frozen in all its majesty. At the edges of the lake laid the bones and corpses of wild beasts, as well as those of dead shamans and priests who had come to this place, months, years, and lifetimes before him.
Udyr stood still, his chest bare, eyes closed, bracing against the brisk morning air.
This land was my home…
He looked down at his reflection on the ice. It showed the face of a man, ragged and worn from his travels.
My rest ends. I hear them coming.
The ice stirred. A crack at first, as Udyr saw his image splinter into disparate pieces. Soon, entire slabs broke off, drifting apart. Udyr waited, respectfully.
The frigid water bubbled. Slowly to begin with, and then rapidly all at once. Steam rose from the surface, filling the air with heat.
Udyr took in a quiet breath, his shoulders rising, to ready himself.
Out of the mist leapt an ice-formed beast, carved by the land’s magic and birthed from the lake. The ground trembled as it took a thundering step toward Udyr.
Udyr looked up at the wild spirit towering above him, three times his height.
The murmurs started low, soft—leaves falling on fresh snow. Yet quickly, they grew.
Bitter. Restless.
There they are.
Grunts turned into snarls, mutters into barks, one swallowing another. Their rage seized his mind, shattering his every thought. At first, the voices competed for dominance—elnüks, drüvasks, and others. Udyr had heard these voices within himself many times. Soon, they joined together, into the shape he had most feared.
The ravenous tiger.
“Spirit walker. Step closer,” it growled. “Raise your voice and show us why you have returned.”
Udyr only just mustered the strength to stifle a gasp. His knees buckled under the weight of the noise in his head. His hands shot toward the soil to steady his body. Straining his neck, he glared up at the savage creature, not willing to answer.
The voices rose at the sight of Udyr’s inaction, with the tiger roaring above the rest.
“You do not deserve to call the Freljord home. You are weak.”
Udyr braced himself as the spirit rammed its head into him, shards of its icy body cutting into his skin. Tumbling far across the ground, Udyr landed against hard rock.
I must not give in.
Regaining his balance, he wiped the blood off his face and forced his hands into fists. He punched his knuckles into the frosty ground, and the throbbing in his arms overtook him. Veins pulsated from his hands to his shoulders. Getting back to his feet, Udyr readied himself to deflect another blow.
The spirit roared once more. “The strong fight! Instead, you stifle your voice and cower!”
The spirit charged headfirst. Udyr tried dodging out of the way, but his foe was quicker and stronger. As he rolled to the side, the tiger swiped his leg with its claws, spraying the spirit walker’s blood across the frosted ground.
Udyr knelt on one knee in pain. He felt his own anger building, but still he held back.
I must not give in.
The spirit loomed closer, letting out a feral cry before pouncing toward Udyr. Realizing he could not dodge in time, he crossed his arms before him and clenched his fists. Magical energy surrounded him, blocking the tiger spirit’s lethal blow.
The spirit slid backward. After regaining its footing, it grinned through its fangs. Its icy body crackled with vicious energy, splintering the bones of its past victims beneath its feet. Death was all this place knew.
Udyr knelt on both knees now, his head down, his body pounding with pain while the spirit paced around him. He felt the ground shake with its every step.
This is not the way.
He gritted his teeth, their points drawing blood from his lips as he felt the ground tremble once more.
The voices boomed. “The weak… are prey!”
Udyr looked up, seeing the spirit charge toward him, its eyes lusting for blood—so wide he could see himself staring back, with the same lust for violence.
I must embrace who I am.
Golden flames erupted from Udyr’s skin like wildfire, the anger coursing through his body matching the fury of the tiger spirit before him.
“Finally, the prey has decided to fight!”
Udyr roared as he rushed straight at the tiger spirit. Vaulting onto the beast’s leg, he climbed its craggy surface, smashing his bleeding hands into whatever piece of ice he could to pull himself upward. The creature shook, the sharp edges of its body piercing the spirit walker’s skin. Udyr screamed, relishing in his might. At last, his wrath matched the fire in his foe, as the two reveled in their savage violence.
With a brutal lunge, he reached the spirit’s back, trails of his blood dripping down its sides. Spirit energy surged through him, a force strong enough to drown out any pain. The voices of wild beasts clamored unchecked in his mind—the bitter cries of those consumed by the tiger, and his own unbridled anger—merging as one.
“I am no prey!”
Udyr brought his fists down in a flurry of explosive blows, creating a web of cracks running down the creature’s body. He clawed and slashed with abandon, tearing away at his foe. Howling in pure rage, he threw back his head and sank his fangs deep into the spirit’s neck.
He expected the spirit to tumble over, its body to break apart, giant lumps of ice disappearing to dust.
But it was already gone, along with its voices. Had they shrieked? Had they cried?
High above, he heard the eagle call.
Focus. Calm.
Udyr fell and staggered onto solid ground. Breathing heavily, he lay next to the lake, and watched the last of his enemy vanish. Suddenly, he heard another rumbling and stumbled to his feet. The lake, as if celebrating his victory, began to thaw. Piece by piece, the remaining ice melted, raising the water level to wash over the cold, hard land.
Remembering the ritual he had repeated countless times at Hirana, Udyr limped forth. Cupping his hands, he splashed cool water across his head, shoulders, and back, rinsing his wounds clean. Then, gently, he took a drink.
He stared at his reflection, seeing a man looking back. Wounded, tested, alive.
I am who I am.
Udyr heard only the sound of flowing water—and yet, he did not smile.
But this fight is far from over.

All stories

The Whispering Doodad

The Will of the Dead

Thresh

The Collection

To Herd A Cat

Trial of the Masks

The Principles of Strength

Tristana

A Quiet Night

Trundle

Tryndamere

A Smoldering Coal

Turmoil

Twilight of the Gods

Twisted Fate

Double Down

Twitch

Do Not Engage

Udyr

A Walk with the Voices