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  1. With Hell Before Them

    With Hell Before Them

    Jared Rosen

    June 7th, 1868

    The caravan has delivered me unto Dust.

    It is a listless and dead-eyed town, as likely to be swallowed by the desert as any other two-street this far south of the rail line. I recall it was once something quite spectacular back in the days of the Great Expansion, but now there is little left save a filth-encrusted saloon and a handful of sunken homesteads. The people’s faces are weighed down by a certain heaviness—they look to me for some measure of salvation, but I am not a true angel, and I cannot answer their prayers.

    I am unsure how long this place might weather the dark of the frontier, or if it will be here to greet me when I return. Regardless, I must press on.

    My own goal is east, shadowed by sandstone arches and miles of open backcountry. No man in his right mind would settle in these lands, as dangerously hostile as it is even for the well-prepared, and the quarry I seek is leagues beyond simple bandits or stick-up gangs. To that end, a killer travels with me. Paid half upfront, and half when the deed is done.

    He is a towering hulk of a creature, filled with that selfsame darkness endemic to his kind. I can almost feel the heat of his blood boiling within that blackened heart, but he is the quality of man this venture requires. No doubt. No hesitation. Only raw power and instinct. Thus the manhunter Darius has joined me in this, our ride into the lonely spines of the Black Canyon.

    It is in the depths of that bleak place that we will hunt the devil, and kill him.




    June 9th, 1868

    It has been two days since we left the town of Dust, and Darius has scarcely spoken a word. His is a grim and unclouded resolve, fueled by some swirling anger clutched deep within his breast. He reminds me strongly of my creators in the east, but moreso of his forebears—men who years ago stormed the gardens of paradise, and slew the things within.

    That is the great irony of this endeavor. A machine made in the image of the lost angels and a killer descended from killers, contracted to destroy the very product of mankind’s gravest sin. I am sure my companion is amused.

    We ride against the wind, following the scent of brimstone ash, burning hoofprints, and brushlands singed by hellfire. Here the land goes on for a thousand leagues and a thousand more, an endless, open pastiche of dirt, grass, and wild lavender that meets the sky at its middle and continues on into forever. It is a blessed country; I have explored much of it in the time since my birth, and will explore more in the decades and centuries to come, should this shell of a body hold out for that long.

    Sadly, the secrets of my creation were long ago lost; I stand the first and last of the artificial angels, fueled by the very blood of the old choirs. Their whispers still reach my ears, but the gods are dead and their attendants lay scattered across the frontier, words shorn of all power or consequence, until they, too, vanish completely from the world. That is why I keep this journal: so that those who remain when the old has been lost might not forget us, and know, at least, our story.

    In time my own earthly form will rust and the being within will return to wherever the souls of angels are wont to go, perhaps a long way from here, and I sometimes wonder if, when my days come to an end, I will ever again look upon this land of such agonizing beauty.




    June 11th, 1868

    We smelled the ranch before we saw it. A two-story farmhouse and horse stable, both rendered down to black, ashen ruins. These are the unmistakable signs of the devil we hunt: trails marked with smoldering hoofprints and the incinerated bodies of animals and people, scattered about as if some sadistic giant had tossed them through the air before finally delivering them unto oblivion. Each creature’s burnt face twisted upward in horror and fear as they stared into the flames of some distant, devouring hell.

    Damn these devils! Foreign horrors all, escaped from their prison of smoke and darkness. Some may have made this place their home; famously the great cattle-skulled stalker of the old world, prowling about this land since the time of the ancient progenitor deities. But the rest dwelt for eons within the bowels of the underworld, torturing the souls of the condemned and delivering pain upon the spirits of wicked and broken men. Then heaven fell in that first, great continental land rush, and paradise was lost to humanity for all of time.

    Human souls, compromised as they were, had nowhere left to go but the great grinning maw of the pit.

    Yet even hell could not hold all the wailing masses of mankind, and it burst open in a furious upwelling of flames and hatred—the devils finally rushing forth to join their cousins, the long-maligned demons. Those bestial creatures masquerading as snake-oil salesman, carnival barkers, and traveling undertakers, whose preference for plotting cruel and ironic downfalls of the desperate married happily with the newly expanded threat of hellfire and death.

    Now heaven is empty, and hell has overflown, and these poor mortal souls can do fair little to save themselves from a damnation of their own making.

    Still, Darius seems unmoved by the destruction that so often marks our path. He speaks of his obligation to me and to the success of our venture, yet wonders aloud what a mechanical angel might gain from fighting the long-concluded battle between good and evil. He does not seem ill at ease by my presence, nor does he expect the miracles of the angels to lighten his inner darkness. He seems rather unmoved by almost everything, save the fight ahead and the reward for his victory.

    I trust the man, despite my misgivings about humanity. It is a feeling born of pragmatism, and I suspect he trusts me in kind.

    I sometimes watch him in the dim hours when we camp for the evening, his eyes always drawn to the glittering coals within the firelight. Searching, perhaps, for something I cannot see.




    June 14th, 1868

    We have reached the mouth of the Black Canyon, after many days of tracking the black hoofprints of the devil’s dread riders. Darius’ horse refuses to move ahead, and so I will leave my own mount, Virtue, behind, and the two of us will continue on foot. In the end it could work to our advantage. The beasts will not spook this way, and cannot alert our target.

    The manhunter carries with him a mighty hatchet, upon its hilt countless notches for countless claimed bounties. A man devoid of emotion is a man incorruptible by fear or weakness, unlike the marshals and their untoward aggression to anything less than human. His eyes are consumed with violent intent, always alert for the slightest sound or movement, even when there is nothing on the horizon—used to, as any seasoned killer is, the unpredictability of supernatural assailants.

    The winds are soft, and no sound carries save the crunch of pebbles beneath our feet. Darius asks why a devil would make his home here. I tell him that for a devil, the only better place is hell itself.

    We stand amid the bones of a god, slain by men not so long ago.

    It was only fifty years prior that the deities who did not retreat into the Far West were hunted mercilessly by the government, gunned down by federal marshals and broken apart by skinners, tanners, and scavengers. The god’s colossal bones, too big for even these greedy men to lift, were left here—the rock quickly forming around them into what cartographers have deemed a canyon, though a canyon it is not.

    Darius laughs, and the sound carries across the limestone walls and down into the open belly of the earth. Twisting and contorting, rolling across great slabs of rock as they collapse in upon one another, his voice terminates into whispers and then into nothing—and at this, the manhunter smiles.

    How long do you think it took those men to kill a god? he asks me. Before I can answer, he shoulders his weapon, a new hunger apparent upon his face, and marches down the trail, his pace faster than ever before.




    June 15th, 1868

    Darius is beginning to worry me.

    I took the manhunter on for his ruthlessness, but something about this place is awakening the coiled serpent deep within his heart, and now it has given way to even darker intention. He walks with purpose, the hilt of his axe gripped tightly in his hands. When he looks at me now, I no longer see a companion, but a challenger—a man who would split the world in two if only he could muster the strength. What he sees within me is a road to that power, barely holding himself back as the sky falls away and the air grows warm and still.

    He mutters in the night about demons and devils, and what their bargains could offer.

    Demons give you what you want, he likes to say. Devils give you what you need.




    June ?, 1868

    The true nature of the Black Canyon reveals itself the further down we journey. Whispers from within my blood grow muted within its vast stone walls, their jagged spines ripping into the rapidly vanishing sky. Dirt and dust have given way to ghostly vegetation—fields of odd white flowers contained within valleys that should not exist, ringed by mountains that defy geologic time. Night and day seem interchangeable with each passing hour, but still we move deeper into the bowels of the rock, and deeper still into the lair of the devil.

    Darius grins, now and again, asking of gods and monsters, angels and demons. His questions are fueled by odd tics; he glances behind us as though someone might be there, batting at his ears as if an insect is buzzing about. I watch him carefully as we camp each night. His wild eyes glow as they stare into the burning coals, reflecting embers as they dance upward into the still air, and he interrogates me about the god who died here and how exactly it was slain.

    Occasionally, as he sleeps, I will spot the grinning silhouette of an outsider watching us from some distance away. Though those strange gamblers would never test the patience of an angel, I know why they have come, sensing within this killer some vicious longing for an intractable bargain.

    Darius is becoming a threat. But the devil is so close now—I can sense it, this thing we must slay… and no living creature can destroy one alone. Surely once the deed is done my charge will regain his proper senses, and perhaps the cloud over this place will finally lift itself forever.

    I have prepared myself in the event that Darius turns on me. We need each other alive until we strike into the monster’s lair, but after…

    Well, perhaps this man will find himself dead at the bottom of the world.

    Or, if fate demands it, all three of us will.




    ???

    I wonder if I will remember my death.

    The thought haunts me, at times. I remember my birth quite well—the sensation of being pulled from someplace very far from here, and awakening surrounded by the creaking and clattering of old machines. I was a miracle, I was told. Built from some archaic plan found in a great, silver city, and filled with the essence of the things that had lived there but now do not. Their whispers began to touch my ears, then, and I knew how painful it was to be the first and the last of something I could only half recall.

    Yet I know when I die I will remember the devil Hecarim, his skull burning within the canyon’s otherworldly darkness.

    My companion had regained himself after we reached the bottom of the crevasse, where the still air broke into a calm wind, and the deep unease that had dogged us thus far seemed to finally dissipate. We found ourselves standing before the mouth of a great opening in the rock, its entrance blasted jet-black as small fires flickered across the ground, and we knew our quarry was finally within reach. The hateful riders, that roving pack of demonic horsemen that seemed to follow Hecarim everywhere, would surely meet us inside. Weapons at the ready, we entered the cave to find—

    Nothing.

    A dark tunnel lay before us, but the riders did not make their presence known. How long had we prepared? How long had we been down here? It was difficult to say. We followed the path for a time, into the gloom, into the heat of that furnace, lit only by the glow of crackling ash that lined the edges of the cave floor. Far ahead was some sort of clearing, some opening on the other side of the canyon wall, and in it the flickering red-yellow tongues of fire that were the telltale signs of a devil awaiting his audience.

    For while we had hunted the devil, he had hunted us in turn. That was and always has been the nature of the creatures. Devils are the great kings of hell, and they demand an audience with the pomp and circumstance of any old world nobility or government man from the eastern territories. Demons may lie, and trick, and deceive. They may give mortals the things they want, and extract their prices once the terrible weight of their gifts is finally appreciated. But a devil is never caught unaware, and is always prepared to give its pursuers exactly the thing they need.

    Darius sneered, his eyes lit with the glimmer of so many burning coals, and I knew he had found whatever he saw within the heart of the fire.

    We emerged into a barren outcropping of molten stone and searing heat, ringed by a tower of flame that seemed to climb the very walls of the canyon itself. In its center was Hecarim, his body that of a great black stallion and the monstrous torso of a man, wearing the face of a skinless, burning horse skull. From it jutted a single wicked horn, cloaked in thick smoke, and he spoke with the voice of a mountain slowly tearing itself open:

    Why have you come?

    My companion said nothing. The question was not meant for him to hear, but for me, since his answer had already been given. Perhaps in his sleep, in the recesses in his own dark dreams, or whispered in the echoes of rocks and dust as they crunched beneath our feet in this long journey down. Power, he had said. I must have power. And he turned as if to answer for me, raising his axe high above his head, the weapon glowing with some bedeviled, red-hot flame, that he might bring it crashing down upon me.

    Two arrows I did fire into his heart, and two arrows struck true. Darius fell to earth before his pact could be sealed: the power to slay everything before him, given at any cost.

    Without a word, the manhunter was dead… or so I believed.

    As I drew another arrow against the devil, Darius rose once more, his face twisted into a hateful grin, his axe glowing with the newly gifted powers of hell. And through the flames behind him rode the host of demonic horsemen. Hecarim’s trap had been sprung.

    Through the tunnel I fled, up the winding paths of the Black Canyon toward my steed and open prairie. Pursued by the legions of hell, and the blackened heart of that wicked, brutal man. For monsters are drawn to such power, changed by it, made into a force that in time will burn the continent and everything in it to dust.

    I ride for the border town of Angel’s Perch. There is a man there, a slayer of devils and an ally of those who once called the frontier home, who can rally the wild soul of such chaotic rabble against the threats allied against them. Perhaps they would not fight for the fate of mankind, who have cast us all into damnation with their lot. But they may yet fight for themselves.

    If you have found this journal, I ask that you join us. Our forces muster at the edge of the world. There is precious little time.

    Hell is coming. We must rise as one, or lose the west forever.

  2. Xayah

    Xayah

    As a child of the Lhotlan tribe, Xayah loved listening to her father sing folk-hymns about ancient vastayan heroes. The haunting melodies transported her to a long-forgotten time, when magic danced freely through the island of Qaelin, imbuing the Lhotlan with immense power.

    Yet with each new generation, humans encroached farther into all the vastaya’s ancestral tribelands, disrupting their raw essence. The tribes began to fade, losing vitality as they were gradually cut off from the spirit of the First Lands, and were forced to negotiate with their mortal rivals.

    Xayah watched in frustration as, time and again, her tribe’s juloah ambassadors made treaties with mortals that were swiftly broken. Most disturbingly, humans had discovered the secrets of towering constructs known as quinlons, and were using them to inhibit Ionia’s natural magic in order to protect their expanding settlements.

    Even though Xayah and others like her urged their people to fight back, the Lhotlan instead withdrew into themselves, shunning the mortal world as they clung to what little they had left. Yet this would not protect them, and they were eventually driven from their homes.

    The Lhotlan became rootless nomads. Xayah became a freedom fighter.

    And she was not alone. Vastayan rebellions were growing across Ionia, seeking retribution against mortals. The time for negotiation was over. Xayah was determined to use her lethal quills in battle, to release the land’s wild magic.

    Flitting in and out of the most fortified strongholds and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, she earned the sobriquet “the Violet Raven”. Her dedication to the cause was unmatched, as she focused only on the next mission, and the next step toward freedom for her kind. Though she cherished her rebel allies, she usually acted alone, believing she could do the job better than any other.

    But then she met another vastaya who would change her life forever.

    After she entered the remote mountain town of Vlonqo in search of a stolen artifact, she was struck by the sight of a braying crowd of humans. Onstage before them stood a preening, flamboyant performer, who sang old vastayan songs for his captivated audience. As he finished his show with a dazzling array of cheap tricks, the crowd erupted and chanted his name: Rakan! Rakan! Rakan!

    He took a theatrical bow. Xayah dismissed him as a buffoon. A fellow Lhotlan he might be, but this Rakan seemed like nothing more than a foolish mu’takl.

    Xayah willed herself to ignore him, and completed her mission... which she couldn’t deny had become far easier thanks to Rakan distracting the locals.

    Before Xayah could flee into the wilderness, Rakan accosted her. After making a series of failed attempts to charm her with flattery, the brash vastaya asked for news of the Lhotlan tribe. When she told him they had lost their lands, his plumage darkened, and she was surprised at the depth of his rage. Perhaps there was more to Rakan than she’d thought.

    When she told him of her true cause, he begged to join her. Seeing potential in his ability to create diversions, if nothing else, Xayah agreed.

    When they began their travels, she saw Rakan as a useful—but annoying—asset. The showboating battle-dancer would leap and pirouette through enemies with ease, distracting them before Xayah struck them down. Indeed, this fighting style almost compensated for his irritating inability to remember Xayah’s meticulous plans.

    Rakan helped Xayah in other ways as well. While she was blunt and abrasive, he was insightful and charismatic, able to use charm and persuasion where she would have resorted to violence. She was impressed by his uncanny ability to assess people’s emotions and trustworthiness. She sometimes questioned Rakan’s compassion for mortals, but never doubted his devotion to the rebel cause.

    Eventually, Xayah realized her feelings for Rakan were changing. There was a lightness to him and his free-spirited ways that she found aggravatingly alluring. Over time, she grew to welcome his company, and—though she was initially loath to admit it—the world didn’t feel so broken and lonely. They became inseparable.

    In all the years since, the two of them have become formidable champions of the vastaya, and word of their deeds is spreading. In the wake of the Noxian invasion, Ionians are undeniably more aggressive and dangerous—especially the peoples of Navori, and the hated “Order of Shadow”. Even so, this has enabled Xayah and Rakan to rally countless more vastaya to their side, and their dream of rebellion is coming to fruition.

    Together, they will fight to reclaim the First Lands, so that the tribes may thrive once again.

  3. Puboe Prison Break

    Puboe Prison Break

    Matt Dunn

    Rakan is the worst.

    He’s not listening. He’s fixated on his own golden feathers—as if they’d changed from when he cleaned them this morning. I’m going to have to repeat the plan. Although, thinking it over again, it probably was too complicated for a rescue mission. Simple is better.

    “They will kill me if they catch me,” I tell him.

    “Who?!” He looks ready to kill at the thought of anyone harming me.

    “The guards,” I say. “It’s always guards.”

    “Then I’ll distract them!” He puffs his chest out. “When?”

    “Look for a green flash before the sun sets. Then draw the guards away from the western walls while I run along the ramparts to the cells.”

    “I put on a show the moment the sun sets,” he says like it was his idea. “Where do we meet?”

    “At the gate. I’ll throw a golden blade into the sky. But you have to be there in ten breaths.” I pull one of his feathers from his cloak. It’s warm on my fingers. A memory floods back of me lying in his arms by the Aphae Waterfall. The sun filtering through the leaves, catching the edges of our feathers as they lay atop each other. That was a lovely day.

    “I will be at the gate the moment you throw the blade,” he swears.

    I take his hand in mine and lean close. “I know.”

    That smug, confident grin cracks his face. I want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or both.

    “Now, darling—if I were you, I would stay behind the cover of the tree line, so you’re not spotted.”

    Our embrace is so warm I wish it would last all night. But the sun is dangerously close to the horizon, and our esteemed consul isn’t going to escape a dungeon guarded by a horde of shadow acolytes on his own.

    Rakan tells me to be careful as he wanders away, looking at the sky. Every time he leaves, my heart sinks. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I see him. Although, one day, it might.

    “Remember, my heartfire,” I whisper after him. “Sunset.”


    I dart in between the fortress’ parapets unseen. Years of avoiding the stares of humans taught me their many blind spots.

    Six acolytes guard the gate leading to the dungeons. They carry double-firing crossbows, swords tucked in their belts, and who-knows-what-else in the pouches fastened around their waists. I slink along the inner wall behind them to get within striking distance. I pluck five of my feathers and stack them neatly in my palm, holding them in place between my index finger and thumb, ready to send them flying.

    There’s a noise from outside the walls. The crash of a gong. Shouts. Confused men. It has to be Rakan.

    The prison guards hear it, too. Worry chokes my heart. I hope my love is okay. I know he’s going to be okay. He’d better be okay, or I will force a necromancer to resurrect him so I can murder him myself. He knows I’ll do that, too. I’ll figure it out.

    The guards are distracted from their posts. He’s early, but it’s perfect timing. I can get in without needing to fell a single one of them.

    I almost reach the dungeon door, when I see another guard climb the parapet and take deadly aim with his rifle. Nobody aims anything at my Rakan. I’ll have the still-beating heart of anyone who dares to harm as much as one of his feathers. It’ll make a cute beating-heart necklace.

    I stop. The prisoners won’t be going anywhere. I’ve got time to turn this guard into a sieve.

    I leap back toward the parapet. The first feather I throw slices off the barrel of the gun. It clatters loudly to the floor. The rest slice through his chest. He drops like a bag of turnips.

    “Intruder!” one of the guards at the gate shouts.

    I duck and roll as crossbow bolts ping off the stone wall behind me, or stab into the wooden posts. Staying low, I race straight toward the acolytes who are fanning out to get better angles. I leap. They shoot where they think gravity will take me, instead of where I am: hovering in the air.

    I throw another handful of feathers, shaping them into blades mid-flight.

    Five of the guards drop, my quills sticking out of their chests. The remaining acolyte narrows his eyes and squares his shoulders, ready to fight. His sword is out before my feet touch the ground.

    “Your soul will serve me forever,” he grunts. I can feel the shadow magic bound up in his blade, the essence of every life it has taken.

    I laugh. “I killed more people in the last twenty paces than you have in your entire life.”

    The acolyte hesitates before slashing wildly in my direction. His little sword leaves wavering trails of darkness. I don’t have time for this, the sun is setting. I turn my back.

    With a snap of my fingers, my quills tear free of the corpses behind the acolyte, and fly back toward me.

    I hear the sword clang to the floor a moment before the dull thud of his body. I’m sure the Order of the Shadow will find some way to harness these men’s souls into a slingshot or something. I don’t really know how these guys work, but good on them for being so economical. One shouldn’t waste life essence.

    I take Rakan’s feather and launch it high into the air. It hangs in the sky, a golden message that should turn some heads. But there’s only one who knows what it means.

    Meanwhile, I have a date in the dungeons with the consul.

    He looks terrible sitting in a cage. Emaciated. Weak. Beaten. He doesn’t look up, figuring me for one of the guards. He and his mate are Sodjoko, but his entourage are vastaya from other tribes. Their harrowed eyes thank me more than their tongues. They know as well as I that this is no time for gratitude. We’re not out of the fortress yet.


    As I lead the prisoners toward the eastern gate, I’m perplexed by the appalling lack of guards. Nearly every post is deserted. Isn’t this supposed to be a fortress? Who makes their schedules?

    We round past the armory and the barracks. There’s the gate. Looks like Rakan found the guards. Dozens of them. They’re surrounding him. My feathers bristle. Heartbeat necklace, here I come!

    Rakan reaches us. His smile turns from confident to bemused as he speaks with the consul. Akunir is one of my father’s oldest friends, and the most important of our ambassadors. I have much to discuss with him once we’re out of this.

    “All of you, run for the tree line,” I command.

    They’re panicked, but thankfully Rakan took out the riflemen. More of us will survive crossing the field. “Run!” I yell.

    Akunir’s too slow. Rakan begins to lead him toward the forest.

    The consul grabs at Rakan. “No. Please, protect Coll.” Rakan turns back toward her.

    I shake my head. Rakan understands. He drags the consul behind him.

    I nod to the strongest-looking juloah. He lifts Coll in his arms. She calls him Jurelv, and he pledges on his horns to keep her safe.

    He makes it ten paces before the first arrow strikes him, but he doesn’t stop. He carries Coll into the forest. The shadow acolytes surge forward after them.

    “Xayah!” Rakan yells. “Bowtube or tubebow?!”

    I wish I had time to play, but I don’t.

    Instead, I join the fight.

    And it’s not pretty.

    For the acolytes.


    We were safe under the forest canopy by the time Jurelv’s body could ignore its wounds no longer.

    Coll kneels next to his corpse. His blood is on the leaves. We have already prayed that his spirit finds our ancestors in joy and peace. His family will mourn for moons.

    I’m used to death. It doesn’t move me as it once did. Rakan takes it hard; I have to be strong for him.

    At least the consul is safe. After taking his hand off his wife’s shoulder, he turns to me.

    “I have friends in the south,” he says. “The Kinkou must be informed.”

    Humans broke the pact.” I feel my blood rising. “How can you not see this as a grievous trespass? To them, magic is power. To us, it is life. They will never respect our boundaries.”

    “Humans are a splintered race, Xayah. Only Zed and his shadows broke the pact. They do not speak for all men.”

    “You are naïve. Your friends in the south will betray you. Then, they will turn on us all.”

    “The Kinkou are honorable. They will believe me. I trust them.”

    “So you’re not naïve, you’re an idiot.” Akunir is shocked that I dare speak to him like this. I reject the notion of being diplomatic. Diplomacy will not restore life to the dead.

    Coll stands up. Her face is a mask of grief and anger. “I will go back north, Akunir. I will tell them what was done to us.”

    I honestly didn’t think she had it in her.

    The glow fades from Akunir’s eyes. “Coll, no.”

    “I will bear word of Jurelv’s fate to his kin, and mourn with them. Then, I will muster arms and prepare the tribe to fight.”

    “You cannot do that!” the consul proclaims.

    Coll ignores him. “I forsake my claim to you. I forsake your claim to me.”

    “Coll… please.” His voice falters.

    “No,” she says.

    The consul takes a step toward her, but Rakan stops him.

    “I will speak with my mate,” Akunir says to Rakan. To his guards.

    But Coll is already turned away. She looks at me, and I no longer see a diplomat’s wife. I see a warrior. She gathers those loyal to her—all but two of the consul’s entourage.

    “Thank you, Xayah,” Coll says before she turns north and walks farther into the forest.

    Akunir and his guards watch her leave, then wordlessly set off to the south.

    Rakan moves in close to me. I feel his heart beating in time with my own.

    “Promise me nothing will come between us like that, mieli,” I say.

    “We’re not like them, miella.” Rakan assures me. “We’ll never be like them.”

    I watch Coll as she disappears among the trees.

    “Where to now, Xayah?”

    “Let’s just stay here a moment longer,” I murmur.

    I bury my face in his chest. He drapes his cloak and arms around me. My head rises and falls with his breath. I could stay here forever.

    “Repeat it back to me,” I tell him.

    “We are not like them,” he says. “We are not like them.”

    He smiles and kisses my forehead. The vows we took at the Aphae Waterfall spring to mind. His heart beats for me, and mine for him. Home is within his arms, his breath, his smile.

    There is no one better than Rakan.

  4. Xerath

    Xerath

    Xerath is an Ascended Magus of ancient Shurima, a being of arcane energy writhing in the broken shards of a magical sarcophagus. For millennia, he was trapped beneath the desert sands, but the rise of Shurima freed him from his ancient prison. Driven insane with power, he now seeks to take what he believes is rightfully his and replace the upstart civilizations of the world with one fashioned in his image.

    The boy who would eventually be called Xerath was born a nameless slave in Shurima thousands of years ago. He was the son of captured scholars, with only the prospect of endless servitude ahead. His mother taught him letters and numbers, while his father told him tales from history in the hopes that such skills might allow him a better life. The boy vowed he would not end up bent-backed and whipped like every other slave.

    When the boy’s father was crippled during the excavations for the foundations of a monument to the Emperor’s favorite horse, he was left to die at the site of the accident. Fearing her son would suffer a similar fate, the boy’s mother begged an esteemed tomb architect to take him on as an apprentice. Though at first reluctant, the architect was impressed with the boy’s eye for detail and innate understanding of mathematics and language, and accepted. The boy never saw his mother again.

    He was a swift learner and his master dispatched him on errands to the Great Library of Nasus to retrieve specific texts and plans on an almost daily basis. On one trip, the boy met Azir, the least-favored son of the emperor. Azir was struggling to read a difficult passage in an ancient text, and, despite knowing that to talk to royalty was to invite death, the boy paused to help the young prince with its complex grammar. In that moment, a tentative friendship was established, and over the coming months that friendship only grew stronger.

    Though slaves were forbidden names, Azir gave one to the boy. He named him Xerath, which means ‘one who shares,’ though that name was only ever spoken between the two boys. Azir saw to it that Xerath was appointed to his household’s slaves, and made him his personal attendant. Their shared love of knowledge saw them devour texts from the library and become as close as brothers. Xerath was Azir’s constant companion, learning all he could from this new proximity to culture, power and knowledge, finally daring to dream that Azir might one day free him.

    On the annual tour of the emperor’s dominion, assassins struck the royal caravan as it spent the night at a well-known oasis. Xerath saved Azir from an assassin’s blade, but Azir’s brothers were all slain, leaving the young prince a heartbeat away from Shurima’s throne. As a slave, Xerath could expect no reward for his deed, but Azir promised that one day they would be as brothers.

    In the wake of the assassination attempt, Shurima endured years of horror and fear of the emperor’s retribution. Xerath knew enough of history and the workings of the Shuriman court to understand that Azir’s life hung by the slenderest of threads. That he was heir to the throne meant nothing, for the emperor hated Azir for living while his more beloved sons had died. Of more immediate danger, the emperor’s wife was still young enough to bear other children, and thus far she had borne many healthy sons. The odds were good that she would produce another male heir for her husband, and as soon as she did, Azir’s life was forfeit.

    Though Azir was a scholar at heart, Xerath persuaded him that to survive, he must also learn to fight. This Azir did, and in return the young heir elevated Xerath, insisting he continue his education. Both youths excelled, and Xerath proved to be an exceptionally gifted pupil, one who took to the pursuit of knowledge with gusto. Xerath became Azir’s confidant and right hand man, a position unheard of for a mere slave. This position gave him great - and some said, undue - influence over the young prince, who came to rely on Xerath’s judgement more each day.

    Xerath bent his every effort into seeking out knowledge wherever he could find it, no matter the cost, no matter its source. He unlocked long-sealed libraries, delved into forgotten vaults and consulted with mystics entombed deep beneath the sands; all to further his knowledge and ambition, both of which grew with unchecked rapidity. Whenever the whispers around court that spoke of his delving into unsavory places grew too loud to ignore, he would find cunning means to silence them. That Azir never mentioned these whispers was, to Xerath, tacit approval of how he was keeping his emperor safe.

    Years passed, and Xerath took ever darker steps to keep the emperor’s wife from carrying a child to term, using his nascent magical abilities to corrupt every infant in the womb. Without rivals to the throne, Azir would be safe. When rumors of a curse arose, Xerath ensured they were never spoken again, and oft-times those who had voiced such suspicions vanished without trace. By now, Xerath’s desire to escape his roots as a slave had become a burning ambition to achieve power of his own, though he justified every murderous act by telling himself he was doing it to keep his friend alive.

    Despite Xerath’s best efforts to thwart the queen’s midwives, a new prince of Shurima was brought into the world, but on the night of his birth, Xerath used his growing magical powers to summon the elemental spirits of the deep desert and craft a terrible storm. Xerath brought bolt after bolt of lightning down upon the queen’s chambers, reducing it to burning rubble and killing the queen and her newborn son. The emperor rushed to his queen’s chambers, only to be confronted by Xerath, his hands ablaze with arcane power. The emperor’s guards attacked, but Xerath burned them and the emperor to cindered skeletons. Xerath ensured that the mages of a conquered territory were blamed for these deaths, and Azir’s first act upon taking the throne was to lead a brutal campaign of retribution against its people.

    Azir was crowned emperor of Shurima with Xerath at his side, the boy who had once been a nameless slave. Xerath had long dreamed of this moment, and expected Azir to end slavery in Shurima before finally naming him brother. Azir did none of these things, continuing to expand his empire’s borders and deflecting Xerath’s overtures regarding the end of slavery. To Xerath, this was further proof of Shurima’s moral bankruptcy, and he raged at Azir’s breaking of his promise. Azir’s face was thunderous as he reminded Xerath that he was a slave and should remember his place. Something once noble died in Xerath that day, but he bowed in supplication, outwardly accepting Azir’s decision. As Azir continued his campaigns of conquest, Xerath remained at his side, but his every action was carefully designed to increase his influence over a realm he now planned to take for himself. To steal an empire was no small thing, and Xerath knew he needed more power.

    The famous legend of Renekton’s Ascension revealed that a mortal did not have to be chosen by the Sun Priests, that anyone could rise up. So Xerath plotted to steal the power of Ascension. No slave could ever stand upon the sun disc, so Xerath fed the Emperor’s vanity, inflating his ego and filling his head with impossible visions of a world-spanning empire. But such a dream would only be possible if Azir could Ascend as the greatest heroes of Shurima had before. In time Xerath’s perseverance paid off, and Azir announced he would undertake the Ascension ritual, that he had earned the right to stand alongside Nasus and Renekton as an Ascended being. The Sun Priests protested, but such was Azir’s hubris that he ordered them to comply on pain of torture and death.

    The Day of Ascension arrived and Azir marched toward the Dais of Ascension with Xerath at his side. Nasus and Renekton were absent from the day’s events, for Xerath had arranged a distraction for them by weakening the seal on a magical sarcophagus containing a beast of living fire. When that creature finally broke its bindings, Renekton and Nasus were the only warriors capable of defeating it. Thus Xerath had stripped Azir of the only two beings who might save him from what was to come.

    Azir stood beneath the sun disc and in the final moment before the priests began the ritual, events took a turn Xerath had not anticipated. The emperor turned to Xerath and told him that he was now a free man. He and all Shurima’s slaves were now released from their bonds of servitude. He embraced Xerath before naming him his eternal brother. Xerath was stunned. He had been given everything he desired, but the success of his plans hinged upon Azir’s death and nothing was going to dissuade him from acting. Too many pieces were in motion and Xerath had already sacrificed too much to turn back now – no matter how much that part of him wanted to. The emperor’s words pierced the bitterness enclosing Xerath’s heart, but came decades too late. Unaware of his peril, Azir turned as the priests began the ritual and brought down the awesome power of the sun.

    With a roar of anger and grief combined, Xerath blasted Azir from his place on the dais, watching through tears as his former friend burned to ash. Xerath took Azir’s place and the light of the sun filled him, reshaping his flesh into that of an Ascended being. But the power of the ritual was not his to take, and the consequences of his betrayal of Azir were devastating. The unbound power of the sun all but destroyed Shurima, sundering its temples and bringing ruination upon the city. Azir’s people were consumed in a terrifying conflagration as the desert rose up to claim the city. The sun disc fell and an empire built by generations of emperors was undone in a single day.

    Even as the city burned, Xerath held the sun priests in the grip of his magic, preventing them from ending the ritual. The energies filling him were immense, alloying with his dark sorcery to create a being of incredible power. As he drew ever more of the sun’s power into his body, his mortal flesh was consumed and remade as a glowing vortex of arcane power.

    With Xerath’s treachery revealed, Renekton and Nasus rushed to the epicenter of the magical storm destroying the city. They bore with them the magical sarcophagus that had imprisoned the spirit of eternal fire. The Ascended brothers fought their way to the Dais of Ascension just as Xerath fell from the deadly radiance engulfing the city. Before the newly-Ascended Magus could react, they hurled his crackling body within the sarcophagus and sealed it once more with blessed chains and powerful sigils of binding.

    But it was not enough. Xerath’s power had been great as a mortal, and that power - combined with the gift of Ascension - made him all but invincible. He shattered the sarcophagus, though its shards and chains remained bound to him. Renekton and Nasus hurled themselves at Xerath, but such was his newfound strength that he fought them both to a standstill. The battle raged throughout the collapsing city, destroying what had not already sunk beneath the sands. The brothers were able to drag Xerath toward the Tomb of Emperors, the greatest mausoleum of Shurima, a vault whose locks and wards were impossible to break and which answered only to the blood of emperors. Renekton wrestled Xerath within and called upon Nasus to seal the vault behind them. Nasus did so with heavy heart, knowing it was the only way to prevent Xerath’s escape. Renekton and Xerath fell into eternal darkness, and there they remained, locked in an endless battle as the once-great civilization of Shurima collapsed.

    Uncounted centuries passed and, in time, even Renekton’s mighty strength waned, leaving him vulnerable to Xerath’s influence. With poisoned lies and illusions, Xerath twisted Renekton’s mind, filling him with misplaced bitterness toward Nasus, the faithless brother who had - in Xerath’s fictive narrative - abandoned him so long ago.

    When the Tomb of Emperors was finally discovered beneath the desert and broken open by Sivir and Cassiopeia, both Xerath and Renekton were freed in an explosion of sand and rubble. Sensing his brother still lived, Renekton charged from the ruins, his distorted mind leaving him little better than a savage beast. After an age lost to legend, Shurima was reborn, and as it rose majestically from the desert, Xerath felt another soul return to life beneath the sand, one he had thought long dead. Azir was also newly resurrected as one of the Ascended, and Xerath knew there could be no peace for either of them while the other yet lived.

    Xerath sought the heart of the desert to regain his strength and understand how the world had changed in the millennia since his imprisonment. His stolen power grew with every passing moment, and he beheld a world ripe for conquest, a world brimming with mortals ready to worship at the feet of a new and terrible god.

    Yet for all his newfound power, however far he has come from that nameless slave boy, a part of Xerath knows he is still in chains.

  5. Unbound

    Unbound

    This was the moment.

    The singular moment that had cost him so much, that had taken a lifetime of planning. A corrupt empire and its strutting princeling would be struck down under the blankly idiotic sun symbol they both so trusted. The key to immortality, jealously guarded and miserly offered, would be his alone, stolen in front of the entire world. A singular moment of perfect vengeance that would finally free the slave known as Xerath.

    Though his master's helm revealed no human expression, and knowing that the lovingly etched metal could not respond in kind, Xerath smiled up at the soulless hawk's face just the same, his joy genuine. A life spent in servitude, first for a mad emperor and now a vain one, endless manipulations for and against the throne, a near-damning quest for barely remembered knowledge that almost consumed him – all of it led to this grotesque masquerade of Ascension.

    The very word when spoken aloud was an assault: We will Ascend, while you are chained to the broken stone as the sands of time swallow you all. No. Not anymore, and never again. The chosen golden lords will not be taken into the sun’s embrace and made gods. A slave will do this; a simple slave, a boy who once had the misfortune to save a noble child from the sands.

    And for this sin, Xerath had been punished with a horrible, maddening promise: Freedom. Unobtainable. Forbidden. Should the thought even dart through a slave’s mind, it would be punished by death, as the Ascended could gaze past flesh and bone, deep into one’s very soul, to see its dim traitorous glow. And yet, there it was, spoken by the young princeling he dragged from the embrace of the mercurial mother-desert. Azir, the Golden Sun, vowed that he would free his savior and new friend.

    A promise unkept to this day. The words of a grateful child, innocently oblivious to the impact they would have. How could Azir upend thousands of years of rule? How could he fight tradition, his father, his destiny?

    In the end, the young emperor would lose it all by not honoring his word.

    And so, Xerath was elevated and educated, eventually becoming Azir's trusted right hand – but never a free man. The soured promise ate into what he was, and what he could have been. Denied a small, simple thing, the right to live his life, Xerath decided to take everything, all of the things denied to him, all of the things he deserved: the empire, Ascension, and the absolute purest form of freedom possible.

    With each step taken toward the offensively grandiose Dais of Ascension, positioned respectfully behind his emperor and flanked by the inept sentinels who supposedly protected Shurima, Xerath felt an unknown lightness he was genuinely shocked by. Was this joy? Does vengeance bring joy? The impact was almost physical.

    At that very moment, the overwrought suit of golden armor that was his tormentor abruptly halted. And turned. And walked toward Xerath.

    Could he know? How could he possibly know? This spoiled, self-obsessed boy? This righteous, falsely benevolent emperor whose hands were just as bloody as Xerath's own? Even if he did, there was no staying the killing blow that was already in motion.

    Xerath had planned for every contingency. He had bribed, killed, out-maneuvered, and plotted for decades – he even tricked the monstrous brothers Nasus and Renekton into staying away from the event – but he had not planned for this...

    The Emperor of Shurima, the Golden Sun, Beloved of Mother Desert, soon to be Ascended, took off his helmet, revealed his proud brow and smiling eyes, and turned to his oldest and most trusted friend. He spoke about the love of brothers, the love of friends, of hard fights won and others lost, of family, of future, and finally... of freedom.

    At these words, the guards flanked Xerath, moving in, weapons drawn.

    So the princeling did know. Had Xerath's plans had been undone?

    But the fools in armor were saluting. There was no menace to them, they were honoring him. They were congratulating him.

    On his freedom.

    His hated master had just freed him – he had freed them all. No Shuriman would ever wear chains again. Azir's last act as a human was to unfetter his people.

    The foundation-shuddering roar of the assembled masses drowned out any response Xerath could have had. Azir donned his helmet and strode out onto the Dais, his attendants preparing him for the godhood that would never come.

    Xerath stood in the shadow of the monolithic Sun Disc, knowing that an empire-destroying doom was but seconds away.

    Too late, friend. Too late, brother. Far too late for us all.

  6. Aftermath

    Aftermath

    Anthony Reynolds

    The first rays of dawn brushed the rooftops of the Great City, turning pale stone to gold. The air was still, and the only sounds filtering up to the high garden terraces on the east side of the citadel were the gentle chorus of morning birds and the hushed murmur of the waking city below.

    Xin Zhao sat cross-legged upon a stone dais, hands resting upon his spear, laid across his lap. He stared down across the lower garden tiers, over the battlements and out across Demacia’s capital beyond. Watching the sun rise over his adopted homeland normally brought him peace… but not today.

    His cloak was charred and splattered with blood, and his armor dented and scratched. Strands of his iron-gray-streaked hair—no longer the full inky black of his youth—hung wild over his face, having escaped his topknot. Under normal circumstances he would have already bathed, washing away the sweat, blood, and stink of fire. He would have sent his armor to the battlesmiths for repair, and secured himself a new cloak. Appearances mattered, particularly as the seneschal of Demacia.

    But these were far from normal circumstances.

    The king was dead.

    He was the most honorable man Xin Zhao had ever met, and he loved and respected him above all others. He was oath-sworn to protect him… and yet Xin Zhao had not been there when he was needed most.

    He took a deep, wracking breath. The weight of his failure threatened to crush him.

    The mage uprising the day before had taken the whole city by surprise. Xin Zhao had been wounded in the running battles as he fought to make his way back to the palace, but he felt nothing. For hours, he’d sat here, alone, letting the cold of the stone seep into his bones as the shroud of grief and shame and guilt descended upon him. The palace guards—those that hadn’t been killed in the attack—had left him to his misery, keeping clear of the tiered garden where he sat in silence through the hours of darkness. Xin Zhao was grateful for that small mercy. He didn’t know if he could cope with the accusation in their eyes.

    The sun reached him, finally, like the light of judgment, forcing him to squint against its glare.

    He sighed deeply, steeling himself. He pushed himself to his feet, and took one final glance across the city he loved, and the garden that had always before brought him solace. Then he turned, and walked back toward the palace.

    Many years ago, he had made a promise. Now he intended to keep it.




    Lifeless and hollow, Xin Zhao felt like a wraith haunting the location of its demise. Death would have been preferable. Falling while protecting his lord would at least have been honorable.

    He drifted along corridors of the palace that seemed suddenly cold and lifeless. The servants he saw did not speak, shuffling along in shocked silence, their eyes wide. The guards he passed wore mournful expressions. They saluted, but he looked down. He did not deserve their acknowledgment.

    Finally he stood before a closed door. He reached out to knock, but paused. Did his hand tremble? Cursing his weakness, he rapped sharply on the solid oak, then stood to attention, planting the butt of his spear sharply to the floor. The sound echoed along the corridor. For a long, drawn-out moment, he remained motionless, staring at the door, waiting for it to open.

    A pair of patrolling palace guards turned a corner and marched past him, armor clanking. Shame kept him from looking at them. Still, the door remained shut.

    “I believe High Marshal Crownguard is in the North Ward, my lord seneschal,” said one of the guards. “Overseeing increased security.”

    Xin Zhao sighed inwardly, but gritted his teeth and nodded his thanks to the guard.

    “My lord…” said the other guard. “No one blames you for—”

    “Thank you, soldier,” Xin Zhao said, cutting him off. He didn’t want their pity. The pair saluted, and moved on their way.

    Xin Zhao turned and marched down the corridor in the direction the guards had come, toward the northern wing of the palace. It was no reprieve that the High Marshal, Tianna Crownguard, was not in her office. It merely drew out this matter.

    He walked through a hall hung with pennants and banners, pausing briefly beneath one of them—a standard depicting the white-winged sword of Demacia on a field of blue. It had been woven by the king’s late mother and her handmaidens, and even though almost a third of it had been destroyed by fire, it was a work of astounding beauty and artistry. It had fallen at the battle of Saltspike Hill, but King Jarvan himself had led the charge to reclaim it, Xin Zhao at his side. They’d cut their way through hundreds of fur-clad Freljordian berserkers to reach it, and Xin Zhao had been the one to lift it high, even as flames licked at its embroidery. The sight of the reclaimed standard had turned the tide that day, rallying the Demacians, and securing an unlikely victory. Jarvan had refused to allow it to be repaired on its safe return to the palace. He wanted all who looked upon it to remember its history.

    Xin Zhao passed a small room, a remote library in a little-used corner of the palace that was one of the king’s favorite places to spend his evenings. It was his place of escape, where he could get away from the fussing of servants and nobles. Xin Zhao had spent many long nights here with the king, sipping fortified honey-wine, and discussing the finer points of strategy, politics, and the now-distant memories of their youth.  Jarvan was ever the stoic, stern leader in public, yet here, in this inner sanctum—particularly in the early hours, when they were deep in their cups—he would laugh until tears ran down his face, and speak with passion about his hopes and dreams for his son.

    Fresh pain wracked Xin Zhao as he realized he’d never hear his friend laugh again.

    Without having noticed it, Xin Zhao found himself passing by the halls of training. He’d probably spent more hours there over the last twenty years than anywhere else. That was his real home, where he felt most himself. There, he’d spent untold hours training and sparring with the king. That was where, to the king’s amusement and delight, his son had adopted Xin Zhao into the family. Where Xin Zhao had taught the young prince to fight with sword, spear, and lance; where he’d consoled him, wiping away his tears and helping him back to his feet when he fell; where he’d laughed with him, and cheered his successes.

    Thought of the prince struck him like a blade to the gut. Xin Zhao might have lost his dearest friend the previous day, but young Jarvan had lost his father. He’d already lost his mother in childbirth. He was now alone.

    With a heavy heart, Xin Zhao made to walk on, but a familiar sound gave him pause: a blunted blade slamming against wood. Someone was training. Xin Zhao’s brow furrowed.

    A sickening feeling grew in the pit of his stomach as he slipped through the heavy doors leading within.

    At first he couldn’t see who was there. The arches and pillars around the edge of the vaulted room conspired to keep them obscured. The sound of sword strikes echoed loudly around him.

    Rounding a cluster of pillars, he at last saw the prince hacking at a wooden practice dummy with a heavy iron training sword. He was covered in a sheen of sweat, and his chest was heaving with exertion. His expression was one of anguish, and he attacked wildly.

    Xin Zhao paused in the shadows, heart aching to see the young prince so raw and hurt. He desperately wanted to go to him, to console him, and help him through this awful time, for the prince and his father were the closest Xin Zhao had ever had to family. But why would the prince want him here? He was the king’s bodyguard, and yet he lived while the king lay dead.

    Hesitancy was not familiar to Xin Zhao, nor a feeling he was comfortable with. Not even in the Fleshing pits of Noxus had he ever second-guessed himself. Shaking his head, he turned to leave.

    “Uncle?”

    Xin Zhao cursed himself a fool for not having left immediately.

    They were not blood relatives, of course, but the prince had started calling him uncle soon after Xin Zhao had come into the king’s service, twenty years earlier. Jarvan had been just a boy, and no one had corrected him. The king had been amused by it, at first, but over the years Xin Zhao had become as close as blood kin to the royal family, and he had watched over the king’s son as if he had been his own.

    He turned slowly. Jarvan was a boy no longer, standing taller than Xin Zhao. His eyes were red-rimmed, and surrounded by dark rings. Xin Zhao guessed he was not the only one to have had no sleep.

    “My prince,” he said, dropping to one knee and bowing his head low.

    Jarvan didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking down at Xin Zhao, breathing hard.

    “My apologies,” said Xin Zhao, his head still lowered.

    “For interrupting, or for not being there to protect my father when he was murdered?”

    Xin Zhao glanced up. Jarvan glowered down at him, heavy training sword still in hand. He had no good way to answer, to say all that he felt.

    “I failed him,” he said at last. “And I failed you.”

    Jarvan stood for a moment longer before turning and striding to one of the many weapon racks arranged around the room.

    “Rise,” Jarvan ordered.

    As Xin Zhao did, the prince threw him a sword. He caught it reflexively in his off-hand, still holding his spear in his right. It was another training blade, heavy and blunted. Then Jarvan was coming at him, swinging hard.

    Xin Zhao jumped backward, avoiding the blow.

    “My lord, I don’t think this is—” he began, but his words were cut off as Jarvan lunged at him again, thrusting his sword at his chest. Xin Zhao batted it aside with the haft of his spear, and stepped back.

    “My prince—” he said, but again Jarvan attacked, more furiously than before.

    Two strikes came at him this time, one high, one low. Jarvan may have been using a training blade, but if those blows struck, they would break bone. Xin Zhao was forced to defend himself, deflecting the first with a side-step and an angled spear, the second with the blade of his own sword. The impact rang up his arm.

    “Where were you?” snarled Jarvan, pacing around him.

    Xin Zhao lowered his weapons. “Is this how you want to do this?” he said, in a quiet voice.

    “Yes,” said Jarvan, his anger simmering, his sword held in a deathgrip.

    Xin Zhao sighed. “A moment,” he said, and moved to put his spear on a rack. Jarvan waited for him, hand clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his sword.

    As soon as Xin Zhao returned to the center of the room, Jarvan attacked. He came in a rush, grunting with effort. There was little finesse to the strikes, but fury lent him strength. Xin Zhao turned those blows aside, using Jarvan’s power against him, not wishing to meet the heavy blows directly.

    At any other time he would have berated the prince for his poor form—he was thinking only of attack, and leaving himself open for ripostes and counter-strikes—but Xin Zhao would not interrupt the prince’s justified anger. Nor would he take advantage of the gaps in his defense. If the prince needed to beat him bloody, then so be it.

    “Where—were—you?” Jarvan said between strikes.




    “I should have done this long ago,” the king said, not looking up from his desk, where he sat penning a letter.

    Every dip of the quill was an irate stab, and he wrote in fast, furious bursts.

    It was rare to see to see the king’s emotions so close to the surface.

    “My lord?” Xin Zhao said.

    “We have been so fixated on that which we fear,” the king said, still not looking up, though he did pause from his angry scratching for a moment. “We’ve been fools. I’ve been a fool. In trying to protect ourselves, we’ve created the very enemy we sought to protect ourselves from.”




    Xin Zhao blocked a heavy blow aimed at his neck. The force of the strike drove him back a step.

    “You have nothing to say?” demanded Jarvan.

    “I should have been with your father,” he answered.

    “That is no answer,” snarled Jarvan. He turned away abruptly, tossing his sword aside with a sharp, echoing clang. For a moment, Xin Zhao hoped the prince was done, but then he retrieved a different weapon from its place upon one of the racks.

    Drakebane.

    Now the prince leveled the lance toward him, his expression hard and unflinching.

    “Get your spear,” he said.

    “You are not armored,” protested Xin Zhao.

    Training weapons could easily break limbs, but the slightest mistimed parry with a combat blade could be lethal.

    “I don’t care,” Jarvan said.

    Xin Zhao bowed his head. He bent to retrieve Jarvan’s discarded training sword, and placed it carefully upon a rack, along with his own. Reluctantly, his heart heavy, he retrieved his spear and moved back out into the open area in the center of the hall.

    Without a word, Jarvan attacked.




    “I’m not sure I follow, my lord,” said Xin Zhao.

    The king paused, looking up for the first time since Xin Zhao’s arrival. In that moment he looked suddenly old. His forehead was deeply lined, and his hair and beard had long since gone to gray. Neither of them were young men anymore.

    “I blame myself,” said King Jarvan. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into empty space. “I let them have too much power. It never sat right with me, but their arguments were convincing, and they had the backing of the council. I see now I was wrong to have ignored my own judgment. With this letter, I am commanding the mageseekers to halt their arrests.”




    With a deft flick, Jarvan extended Drakebane toward Xin Zhao. The legendary weapon’s haft almost doubled in length, its lethal blades slicing blindingly fast toward Xin Zhao’s neck.

    The seneschal swayed aside, deflecting the deadly strike with a circular turn of his spear, careful the blades did not hook his own weapon.

    Even in the brutal contests of the Fleshing, Xin Zhao had never seen a weapon like Drakebane. In truth, the secret of how to fight with it had been lost in the reign of the first kings of Demacia, and in unskilled hands it was as deadly to its wielder as to the enemy. As such, for centuries it had been little more than ceremonial, an icon of the ruling family. However, when the prince was still just a boy, he had dreamed of fighting with it, like the heroes of old he idolized, and so Xin Zhao had promised to teach him when he was ready.

    Jarvan leapt forward, bringing the lance down in a scything blow. Xin Zhao turned it aside, but the prince followed up instantly with a spinning strike that missed him by scant inches, the bladed tip slicing by his throat. Jarvan was not holding back.

    Before Xin Zhao could teach the young prince how to wield the weapon, however, he had to master it himself. With the king’s approval, he began training to learn its secrets. Surprisingly light in the hand and perfectly balanced, it was a sublime weapon, created by a master at the peak of his abilities.

    Forged in Demacia’s infancy by the renowned weaponsmith Orlon, the lance was a revered icon of Demacia, as much a symbol of its greatness as its towering white walls or the crown of the king. Wrought to defeat the great frostdrake Maelstrom and her progeny who had plagued the early settlers of Demacia in ages past, it had long been a symbol of the royal line.

    For years, Xin Zhao had practiced with the lance every day before dawn. Only when he felt he understood it well enough had he begun to teach the teenage prince how to wield it.

    Jarvan grunted with effort, lunging at Xin Zhao. The seneschal thought only of defense, stepping neatly away and always aware of his surroundings. His spear was a blur before him, knocking the lance from its intended course each time it came at him.

    Young Jarvan had already been learning the uses of sword and spear and fist—as well as the more cerebral arts of military history and rhetoric—it was on his sixteenth birthday that he was finally presented with Drakebane by his father. He trained hard, sustaining countless self-inflicted injuries along the way to mastery, but he eventually fought with the weapon as if it were an extension of himself.

    Jarvan pressed Xin Zhao hard, striking furiously. He gave the seneschal no respite, each attack blending seamlessly into the next. A foiled lunge became an upward, sweeping slash, which in turn came around in a pair of scything arcs, first in a low, disemboweling cut, then back across the throat. All were avoided by Xin Zhao, his body swaying from side to side, and his spear flashing to turn each strike aside.

    Nevertheless, while Jarvan had long been Xin Zhao’s student, the prince was younger and stronger, and his tall frame gave him a greater reach. No longer was he an awkward aspirant; he’d been hardened by battle and training, and Jarvan’s skill with Drakebane now easily outstripped his own. Jarvan harried him mercilessly, forcing him to retreat with every step.

    It took all of Xin Zhao’s considerable skill to remain unscathed… but it could not last.




    The king looked down, reading over his letter. He let out an audible sigh.

    “Had I the courage to do this earlier, perhaps this day’s disaster could have been averted,” he said.

    He signed the letter, before dripping heated royal blue wax next to his name and stamping his personal seal into it.  He blew on it, then held the letter up, shaking it lightly in the air to aid its cooling.

    Satisfied the wax was dry, the king rolled the letter before sliding it into a cylindrical case of cured white leather, and sealing the lid.

    He held it out to his seneschal.




    Xin Zhao barely avoided a vicious slash, turning his face at the last moment. The jagged blades of Drakebane sliced across his cheek, drawing blood.

    For the first time since they began, Xin Zhao wondered if the prince was actually trying to kill him.

    There was a certain balance in dying to the son of the man he had failed to protect.

    Jarvan slapped Xin Zhao’s spear aside with the butt of Drakebane and turned swiftly, bringing the weapon around in a tight arc, the blade seeking his neck.

    It was a perfectly executed move, one that Xin Zhao had taught the prince himself. Jarvan’s footwork to set up the strike was sublime, and the initial hit to his weapon was weighted just enough to knock it aside, but not so hard that it slowed the final strike.

    Even so, the seneschal could have blocked it. It would have been a close thing, but he trusted his speed—even tired as he was—to have ensured the strike did not land.

    And yet, he made no move to do so. His will to fight was gone.

    He lifted his chin ever-so-slightly, so that the strike would be true.

    The blades of Drakebane hissed in. The blow was delivered with speed, skill, and power. It would slice deep, killing him almost instantly.

    The killing blow stopped just as it touched Xin Zhao’s throat, drawing a series of blood-beads, but nothing more.

    “Why will not you say where you were?” said Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao swallowed. A warm trickle of blood ran down his neck. “Because I am at fault,” he said. “I should have been there.”

    Jarvan held the blade at Xin Zhao’s throat for a moment longer, then stepped back. He seemed to wilt suddenly, all the fire and fury draining out of him, leaving just a grieving, lost son.

    “My father ordered you away then,” he said. “And you do not wish to blame him for your absence.”

    Xin Zhao said nothing.

    “I’m right, am I not?” said Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao sighed, and looked down.




    Xin Zhao remained silent and unmoving. He eyed the sealed letter the king held out to him, but did not reach out to take it.

    The king raised his eyebrows, and Xin Zhao finally accepted it.

    “You wish me to give this to a runner, my lord?” he said.

    “No,” said Jarvan. “I will trust its delivery only to you, my friend.”

    Xin Zhao nodded gravely, and attached it to his belt.

    “Who is it for?”

    “The head of the mageseeker order,” said the king. He held up a finger. “And not to one of his lackeys, either. To him directly.”

    Xin Zhao bowed his head. “It will be done, as soon as the streets are clear and the whereabouts of the escapee have been determined.”

    “No,” said the king. “I want you to go now.”




    “He could be so stubborn,” said Jarvan, shaking his head. “Once his mind was set, there was no changing it.”

    “I should have been there,” said Xin Zhao, weakly.

    Jarvan rubbed his eyes.

    “And defy your king’s order? No, that’s not you, uncle,” said Jarvan. “What was it he had you doing?”




    Xin Zhao frowned.

    “My place is by your side, my lord,” he said. “I would not wish to leave the palace. Not today.”

    “I want you to deliver that message before events worsen,” said the king. “It’s imperative that the mageseekers are reined in before this escalates. This has gone far enough.”

    “My lord, I do not think it wise for me to—” Xin Zhao said, but the king cut him off sharply.

    “This is not a request, seneschal,” he said. “You will deliver this decree. Now.”




    “Delivering a letter,” said Jarvan, flatly. “That’s why he ordered you from his side?”

    Xin Zhao nodded, and Jarvan let out a bitter laugh. “How very like him,” he said. “Always thinking of state matters. You know he missed my blade ceremony, on my fourteenth birthday, because of a meeting of the Shield Council. A meeting about taxation.”

    “I remember,” said Xin Zhao.

    “You delivered this letter, I take it?”

    “No,” Xin Zhao said, shaking his head. “I turned as soon as I heard the bells. I made my way back to the palace as swiftly as I was able.”

    “And ran into trouble in the streets, by the looks of it,” said Jarvan, indicating his battered appearance.

    “Nothing that could not be dealt with.”

    “Mages?” said Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao nodded. “And others who had thrown their lot in with the murderer.”

    “We should have executed them all,” hissed Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao looked at the prince in alarm. He’d never heard him speak with such vitriol before. Indeed, he knew the prince had always been troubled by Demacia’s treatment of its mages. But that was before.

    “I do not believe your father would share that view,” said Xin Zhao, in a measured voice.

    “And they killed him,” snapped Jarvan.

    There was nothing helpful for Xin Zhao to say, so he remained silent. That moment’s fire was extinguished within Jarvan almost immediately. Tears welled in his eyes, even as he tried to hold them back.

    “I don’t know what to do,” he said. In that moment, he was a boy again, scared and alone.

    Xin Zhao stepped forward, dropping his spear, and took Jarvan in his arms, hugging him tightly. “Oh, my boy,” he said.

    Jarvan cried then, deep wracking sobs that shook his whole body, and tears he had not yet shed now ran freely down Xin Zhao’s face as well.

    They stood clinging to each other for a few more moments, held together by shared loss, then stepped apart. Xin Zhao turned away to pick up his fallen spear, allowing them both a moment to gather themselves.

    When he turned back, Jarvan had thrown off his sweat-stained shirt, and was pulling on a long, white linen tunic emblazoned with a blue-winged sword. Already he looked more composed.

    “Now you will do what you were born to do,” Xin Zhao said. “You will lead.”

    “I don’t think I’m ready,” said Jarvan.

    “No one ever does. At least, not the good ones.”

    “But you will be with me, uncle. To help me.”

    A coldness clawed at Xin Zhao’s heart. “I… regret that will not be possible,” he said.




    Xin Zhao was conflicted. He was sworn to King Jarvan, and had never once defied an order from him, not in twenty years of service.

    “My place is here, protecting you, my lord,” he said.

    King Jarvan rubbed his eyes, looking suddenly tired.

    “Your duty is to Demacia,” the king said.

    “You are the king,” said Xin Zhao. “You are Demacia.”

    “Demacia is greater than any king!” snapped Jarvan. “This is not up for debate. It is an order.”

    Xin Zhao’s inner sense for danger was screaming, but his devotion to duty silenced it.

    “Then it will be done,” he said.

    With a bow, he turned and strode from the room.




    “I made a promise, long ago,” said Xin Zhao. “If harm ever befell your father, my life was forfeit.”

    “And how many times did you save my father’s life?“ said Jarvan, suddenly stern. In that moment he seemed so much like his father, in Xin Zhao’s eyes. “I personally witnessed you do so at least three times. I know there were others.”

    Xin Zhao frowned.

    “My honor is my life,” he said. “I could not live with the shame of going back on my word.”

    “To whom did you make this pledge?”

    “High Marshal Tianna Crownguard.”

    Jarvan frowned.

    “When you entered my father’s service, you pledged yourself to Demacia, did you not?” he said.

    “Of course.”

    “Your pledge was to Demacia.” said Jarvan. “Not my father. Not anyone else. Your duty to Demacia overrides all.”

    Xin Zhao stared at the prince. He is so like his father.

    “But what of the High Marshal?”

    “I will deal with Tianna,” said Jarvan. “Right now, I need you to do your duty.”

    Xin Zhao let out a breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding.

    “Will you serve as my seneschal, as you served my father?” said Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao blinked. Moments earlier he’d been certain Jarvan was going to execute him… and he didn’t feel that would have been unjustified.

    He hesitated, his emotions in turmoil, his mind reeling.

    “Xin Zhao… Uncle,” said Jarvan. “Our kingdom needs you. I need you. Will you do this? For me?”

    Slowly, as if expecting Jarvan to change his mind at any moment, Xin Zhao dropped to one knee.

    “It would be my honor… my king.”




    Jarvan walked with Xin Zhao up through the palace, toward the council room. His father’s advisors—no, his advisors, Xin Zhao corrected himself—awaited.

    Soldiers were everywhere. Demacia’s most elite battalion—the Dauntless Vanguard—had been brought in to supplement the palace guard, and they stood at every doorway, watchful and disciplined.

    Jarvan’s expression was stern, his bearing regal. Only Xin Zhao had witnessed the outpouring of emotion down in the training room. Now, in front of the palace servants, the nobles, and the guard, he was in complete control.

    Good, thought Xin Zhao. The people of Demacia need to see him strong.

    Everyone they passed dropped to one knee, bowing their heads low. They continued on, striding purposefully.

    Jarvan paused before the great council doors.

    “One thing, uncle,” he said, turning to Xin Zhao.

    “My lord?”

    “The letter my father wanted you to deliver,” he said. “What happened to it?”

    “I have it here,” said Xin Zhao. He loosened it from his belt, and handed the leather case over.

    Jarvan took it, broke the case open, and unfurled the sheet of vellum within. His eyes flicked back and forth as he read his father’s words.

    Xin Zhao saw Jarvan’s expression harden. Then he crushed the letter in both hands, twisting it as if he were wringing a neck, before handing it back.

    “Destroy it,” Jarvan said.

    Xin Zhao stared at him in shock, but Jarvan was already turning away. He nodded to the guards standing on either side, and the council doors were thrown open. Those seated at the long table within stood as one, before bowing low. Flames crackled in the ornate fireplace set against the south wall within.

    There were a number of empty seats at the table. The king was not the only one who had fallen in the previous day’s attack.

    Xin Zhao was left holding the crumpled letter, stunned, as Jarvan moved to the head of the table. He looked back at Xin Zhao, still standing in the door.

    “Seneschal?” said Jarvan.

    Xin Zhao blinked. At Jarvan’s right, High Marshal Tianna Crownguard stared at him, her gaze dangerously cold. On Jarvan’s other side, his gaze equally icy, was Tianna’s husband, the intended recipient of the king’s letter—the head of the mageseeker order. Xin Zhao’s gaze passed between them, then returned to Jarvan, who raised his eyebrows questioningly.

    Without further pause, Xin Zhao strode into the room, and threw the letter into the flames.

    Then he took his place, standing behind his ruler. He hoped none of the deep concern he suddenly felt was visible.

    “Let us begin,” said Jarvan.

  7. Vi

    Vi

    Vi remembers little of her childhood in Zaun, and what she does remember, she wishes she didn’t. Running with the sump-snipe gangs, she quickly learned to use her wits, as well as her fists, to survive. Everyone who encountered Vi knew she could talk—or punch—her way out of trouble. More often than not, she chose the latter.

    None of the old-timers from her youth could tell her anything of her parents. Most assumed they had died in one of the industrial accidents that were, sadly, all too common in the undercity. Though she had ended up in the crumbling Hope House orphanage, a notoriously mad sump-scrapper claimed to have found her adrift in a bassinet large enough for two in the ruins of a collapsed chem-lab. In the end, Vi figured some things were best left unknown.

    With her wild pink hair, she became a distinctive sight on the streets of Zaun—hightailing from angry shopkeepers in the boundary markets, swaggering through the colorful bazaars of the Black Lanes, or hitching rides up into Piltover aboard the hexdraulic conveyors. Wherever there was a scrape to be gotten into or a scam to be run, Vi was in the thick of it, though she never stole from those that couldn’t cover the loss… and never hurt those that didn’t deserve it.

    As she got older, the capers of childhood became more audacious and daring, and Vi formed a gang of her own. Brash and quick to anger, she still relied on her fists a little too much, and was rarely without a black eye or split lip.

    She found a mentor in the owner of a bar on the edge of the Lanes, who tempered some of her more self-destructive tendencies. He tried to reinforce her moral code, and showed her how to fight with discipline, as well as teaching her ways to better direct her simmering anger.

    In time, Vi earned a reputation as someone who got things done, no questions asked.

    Listening to the chatter of the Zaunite miners who frequented the bar, she came to learn when big deals were being made, and how payments were to be delivered. To a chem-baron, this was chump change—but to her and her friends, it would be a fortune. She planned a heist, but knew it would require extra bodies to pull off, so Vi reluctantly brought a rival gang, the Factorywood Fiends, in on her score.

    Everything was going fine, until the leader of the Fiends killed the mine owner with a pair of oversized pulverizer gauntlets, and trapped the rest of the workers in the tunnels. Even as both gangs fled with the loot, Vi knew she could not leave these innocent people to die. She snatched up the gauntlets, the wrist mechanisms clamping down painfully on her arms, but she endured the agony long enough to smash open a path to free the miners.

    The following day, Vi paid a visit to the Factorywood Fiends. Still wearing the powered gauntlets, she took on the entire gang, administering a beating so legendary that it is still spoken of in the Lanes to this day.

    Vi eventually disappeared from Zaun during a time of great upheaval, when tensions with Piltover were running high. Rumors circulated between the gangs that she had been killed in a huge explosion in the heart of the undercity, or that she had turned her back on her friends and struck out for distant lands. The truth, however, finally came to light when Old Hungry’s Scars—a vicious gang whose murder sprees had spread topside—were brought down by a respected sheriff of Piltover and her new ally… Vi.

    The former gang leader was now in the employ of the Wardens, and she had replaced the chem-powered pulverizer gauntlets with a pair of brand new hextech Atlas prototypes.

    No one yet knows the exact reason why or how Vi came to be working alongside Caitlyn—but given the anarchic nature of the crime wave now sweeping Piltover, speculation runs rife that it might involve a certain blue-haired hellion from Zaun…

  8. Interrogation 101

    Interrogation 101

    Vi stifled a yawn as she moved through the gilded chamber at the heart of Piltover’s Hall of Law. Dawn was less than an hour old, and the place was quiet. A few drunks were sleeping it off in the shaming cells, and she’d heard there were a couple of chem-augmented thugs in the deeper, more secure lock-ups. She’d ask around later, see if she could provide any insight as to what they were doing up in Piltover.

    She rolled her shoulders, the muscles there stiff after a hard night’s work. It had been a long shift, and her forearms were aching from the pressure of her powered gauntlets. All she wanted to do was go back home, get them off, and bathe her fists in ice water. Maybe throw back a few glasses of something strong and sleep some, but the pnuema-tube from Caitlyn had been full of imperatives about getting herself down to the district house on the double. Vi had cocked an eyebrow, tossed the message and given it an hour before leaving her cramped home in the dressmakers-quarter to answer Caitlyn’s summons.

    “Hey, Harknor,” she said to the desk-warden when she reached the cells. “What’s so important Caitlyn has to drag me from an erotic dream about—”

    “Ah, ah, stop right there,” said Harknor without looking up from his elevated desk as he ran a finger down the list of prisoners brought in during the night. “I’m not in the mood to hear another of your lurid fantasies.”

    “You sure?” grinned Vi, leaning on his desk and blowing a loose strand of pink hair from her eyes. “This was a good one. Had a plot and everything.”

    “Quite sure,” said Harknor, looking away and holding out the charge sheet. “Caitlyn and Mohan brought in a hextech thief last night. He hasn’t said a word to anyone, but she thinks you might be able to get him to talk.”

    Vi arched an eyebrow as she scanned the page.

    “Devaki? You’ve been a very naughty boy,” she said, rolling her eyes and curling her metaled fingers into a fist. “Yeah, Devaki and I knew each other back in the day. I’ll get him to talk.”

    Harknor shook his head, saying, “Listen, Vi, I don’t want to have to call the surgeon back here again. Caitlyn wants this fella to able to speak when he goes before the procurator.”

    “Where is she anyway?” asked Vi. “She isn’t even here to say hello?”

    “Chasing down a lead at the docks,” said Harknor. “Said she figured you could handle this one on your own. She wrong about that?”

    “Nope,” said Vi, turning and sashaying toward the cells. “Which cell’s Devaki in?”

    “Number six. But remember, he’s got to be able to talk!”

    Vi nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah...”

    She reached cell six and slid back the locking bar. Normally, another warden would secure the door, but Vi didn’t need anyone at her back. She knew Devaki from the old days, even worked with him a few times before the job with the Factorywood Fiends went bad. Devaki was a thief, not a fighter, and if she needed backup to restrain his scrawny frame, then it was time to find a new line of work.

    Devaki was sitting on the edge of the chipped hunk of stone they called a bed with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He cradled one arm close to his body, the limb ending at a bandaged stump where his hand ought to be. He looked up as she entered, and his eyes widened in surprise.

    “Vi?”

    “Piltover’s finest,” she said with a petite curtsey that, despite where he sat, made Devaki smile. “What happened to your hand?”

    “Your damn sheriff shot if off,” he said. “What happened to yours?”

    “I got an upgrade,” said Vi, holding up her hextech gauntlets. They hummed with a low buzz and she turned them around to let Devaki see just how powerful they were. “Fully customizable with variant levels of hurt. I can punch through walls with these babies.”

    “Yeah, I heard what happened to the Ecliptic Vaults,” said Devaki with an easy smile, as if he was talking to the old Vi, the Vi from the Lanes. He wasn’t bright enough to know that Vi wasn’t the one standing in front of him.

    Devaki held up the arm ending in a stump. “I’m gonna need an upgrade too. This was a high-end augment from Bronzio’s. That sheriff didn’t need to shoot it off.”

    “You can bill her,” said Vi, closing the distance between them in two strides and lifting Devaki off his feet. She threw him against the opposite wall, rattling his bones and sending plaster dust billowing into the air.

    Devaki slid to the floor, shocked and gasping for breath. “They’ve been playing nice so far, but now they send you in? What gives?”

    “I’m the one they send in when asking all polite doesn’t get you anywhere, cupcake,” said Vi, letting the power build in her gauntlets. “I’m the one who’ll go to town on you with these beauties. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know.”

    “Whoa, wait! Vi, what are you doing?” spluttered Devaki, holding his remaining hand out before him as he scrambled to his feet.

    “I’m interrogating you, what’s it look like?”

    “But you haven’t asked me anything!”

    Vi cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, I should probably get on that.”

    She reached down and hauled Devaki to his feet, applying a growing pressure to his shoulder.

    “So, who was gonna buy that stolen hextech?”

    Devaki winced in pain, but didn’t answer.

    “Come on, you’re tougher than that,” said Vi, releasing his bruised shoulder. “You want to see what happens to a face when I don’t pull my punches?”

    “No!” cried Devaki.

    “Then tell me what I want to know.”

    “I can’t.”

    Vi tapped a finger on her chin, as if weighing whether to punch him again. She smiled, the expression worrying Devaki more than the thought of her fists.

    “Be a shame if word got round the Lanes that you’d been informing on all your criminal friends for the last couple of years.”

    “What?” said Devaki, spluttering in pain and indignation. “That’s a lie!”

    “Of course it is,” said Vi, “but I know all the right people to talk to down there. A lot of folk’ll listen if I let it slip that you’re in the wardens’ pocket.”

    “I’ll be dead in a day if you do that,” protested Devaki.

    “Now you’re catching on,” said Vi. “Tell me what I want to know. I’ll make sure it gets about you resisted arrest. Even give you a black eye so it looks like I beat it out of ya.”

    Devaki’s shoulders slumped, knowing he had no defiance left in him.

    “Fine, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

    “Excellent,” said Vi, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  9. Viego

    Viego

    Few know of the kingdom to the east, far across the seas, whose name lies all but forgotten among the ruins that dot its shores. Fewer still know of its foolish young ruler, whose lovestruck heart was doomed to destroy it.

    Now a grave threat to all, that man’s name was—and is—Viego.

    The second son of a dynastic king, Viego was never intended to lead. Instead, he lived a life of comfort that made him complacent and selfish. Yet, when his older brother died unexpectedly, Viego, who possessed neither the inclination nor the aptitude for rulership, suddenly found himself crowned.

    He showed little interest in his position until he met a poor seamstress, Isolde. So taken was he by her beauty that the young king offered her his hand in marriage, and thus, one of the most powerful rulers of the age was wed to a peasant girl.

    Their romance was enchanting, and Viego, who’d rarely shown interest in anyone other than himself, devoted his life to her. The two were inseparable—he scarcely went anywhere without Isolde, always lavishing gifts upon his queen, and his attention could seldom be broken when she was present.

    Viego’s allies fumed. Unable to interest him in governance, and with the nation beginning to unravel under his questionable rulership, some plotted in secret to end their new king’s reign before it had begun. His nation’s enemies, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to strike. And the vipers began to circle.

    Thus did an assassin’s poisoned dagger one day come for Viego. But the king was well defended, and the dagger did not strike true—instead grazing Isolde.

    The toxin worked quickly, and Isolde fell into a ruinous torpor, while Viego could only watch in horror as his wife’s condition grew ever more serious. Overwhelmed with fury and despair, he spent every last coin within his coffers trying to save her.

    But it was all for naught. Isolde perished in her bed, and Viego was consumed by madness.

    His search for an antidote became desperate, crazed. Unable to accept his wife’s death, every treasure of the kingdom—every scrap of wealth—was sacrificed to his quest to return her to him. As the land fell into disarray, Viego hid himself away with Isolde’s body, becoming hateful and violent.

    Then came the day he learned the secret of the Blessed Isles, of its water that healed any ailment. With his great army, he stormed the peaceful country by force, slaughtering everyone who stood in his way until he at last breached its inner sanctum and let his wife drift beneath the blessed water. She would return to him, no matter the destruction he wrought. No matter the cost.

    And for just one moment, she did.

    Isolde arose a horrifying wraith of shadow and rage, and in her pain, her anger, her confusion at being ripped from death, she took Viego’s own enchanted blade and thrust it through his heart. The magic of the waters and the ancient sword clashed, and the chamber’s energy erupted, tearing across the Isles and trapping everything it touched in tortured, conscious undeath.

    Yet of this, Viego remembers nothing. His country collapsed into ruin, great nations rose and fell, and in time, even his name was forgotten... until, a thousand years after his death, Viego stood once more. And this time, he would not fail.

    His mind twisted by the same dangerous obsession he possessed in life, Viego’s unflinching, deranged love fuels his every action, his every desire, his every atrocity. The deadly Black Mist pours freely from Viego’s broken heart—ripping the life from everything it touches—and he uses the Mist to scour the world for some way to return Isolde to his side.

    Legions will fall before him only to rise again in his service, continents will be swallowed by living darkness, and the world will pay for every moment of happiness it stole from an ancient ruler laid low by all-consuming love. He cares naught for the destruction he causes, so long as he can see Isolde’s face again.

    His reign is terror.

    His love is eternal.

    And until Isolde returns to him, all will fall before the Ruined King.

  10. She

    She

    Jared Rosen

    Each time Viego thought of her face, it looked a little different.

    Sometimes, the eyes were just too far apart, or too close together. Or her cheeks were a little too thin or a little too wide. Sometimes, her hands lacked the calluses of a seamstress, but other times, they were gnarled and thick from long days holding scissors and needles. She wore a gown some days, and others, a simple work frock, and on others still, she wore nothing at all. She was never the same, but always the same, never there, but always present. A ghost of the heart Viego no longer possessed, rent open when... when...

    Viego, on his shattered, blackened throne at the bottom of the world, slammed his king’s blade deeply into the rock beneath, cracking the obsidian and sending a brutal tremor across the entirety of the Shadow Isles.

    To his left lay a painting he could no longer bear to look at, for the fair Isolde’s countenance had been too perfect to lay eyes upon, too lovely to grant him any peace or respite. He had torn her away, leaving only the image of a foolish young king who had believed the world was kind centuries before, but who now was rightfully dead.

    Or if not dead, something else.

    Viego could not remember much of his old country that was not twisted by shadows or anguish. In his memories, he stepped out upon the sandstone streets and only saw Isolde before him. Every fresco on every wall contained her within a painted world that only he could touch, only he could see. Yet when he went to reach for her, the illusion broke away, and he was here, surrounded on all sides by the putrid waters that had stolen her all over again.

    Viego ripped his blade from the ground and stood, smashing its great heft into the floor and walls as he wailed. Then he was still for a long while, regarding the ancient painting from the old kingdom as if he had seen something new. Regarding himself as he was before the Isles had been swallowed up by darkness.

    “Viego,” he said. “So handsome. So young. What became of you, Viego? Where have you gone?” He dropped the painting to the floor, its frame cracking awkwardly as the canvas crumpled beneath it.

    “Where are you, Isolde?” said Viego. “Why won’t you come back to me?”

    But he already knew the answer.




    To most, the Black Mist is a plague, a vector for monstrous, life-sucking wraiths to assault the living and steal them away until the sun dies and the world crumbles into nothing.

    To Viego, it is his great, unending sadness, pouring ceaselessly from his broken heart. A testament to his love, of better days long gone by, and a cruel reminder of what was taken from him so long ago.

    It is this very Mist that scours the land, tendrils infecting everything with their grim power, draining the life from whatever they touch until all that remains glows with the soft, necrotic green of the Ruination. Yet this, too, has a purpose, for as Viego’s sadness ebbs and wanes, the Mist surges forward, searching as if drawn to something... something old, familiar, safe. The wraiths and spirits that travel within it do what they will, but the Mist itself, no—it grasps ceaselessly for her.

    Everything Viego does is for her.

    And now, it has found something, far from the shores of the Isles, far past the docks of Bilgewater and the coasts of Ionia. Something on the mainland, hidden within a modest city at the edge of a river. The object calls to Viego, screams for Viego, demands his attention at all costs. And though the people wail, though they run from the blanket of death that rolls softly across their homes and fields, though the wraiths shriek and the horrors stir to feed, Viego hears but one voice, and one voice alone.

    “Viego,” he imagines it says, for he cannot make out the words.




    The Ruined King bursts from the fog like a hungry shadow, tearing through the first guard he sees as he lifts his blade high above the ground. The man’s face contorts in pain as his body melts away and his spirit is absorbed into the Mist, but Viego barely pays him any attention before he brings his sword down upon the second. Everywhere around him, ghouls feast upon the living, tearing them apart as their souls are dragged away to join the king’s legions.

    Searing flesh sails through the air, arrows tumble across space, swords clatter, and warriors fall.

    It does not matter to Viego.

    He raises a single hand before the city’s great wall, and the Mist rushes forward, stones falling away as the structure becomes tainted with decay. Viego simply steps across the threshold, and suddenly, he is through. He cuts down two more men as he moves silently toward the source of the voice, then another. They mean nothing. None of them bear any weight, and not one matters at all. Their spirits simply rise behind him, to do as he wills.

    The ruler of this city now stands before him, a proud man protecting a treasure of some kind, Viego is sure. But as a fellow leader, as a skilled warrior, perhaps he would make a better vassal than hungry spirit.

    “Stop,” says Viego, raising a single hand once more. The Mist, the wraiths, the horrors, the fighting—everything seems to freeze on the Ruined King’s command.

    “Behind you is a treasure you could not fathom the importance of. I will see it returned to me, and in exchange, you will serve me personally.”

    The man seems to stumble over his words, grasping at something he cannot quite muster the courage to speak. But Viego gives him time, and slowly, the words form on his lips: “If I give you this treasure, will you spare the city?”

    The Ruined King seems disappointed. Whether he ponders an answer or reflects on the situation, this man will never know, as Viego suddenly appears above him, his great blade slicing down through the heart of this small, frightened warrior-king. His body slides harmlessly down the massive greatsword, as blackness spreads across his skin.

    Viego rips the door behind him open, and there, the treasure lies.

    An old, worn-down music box, a gift from Viego’s wedding day, whispering something he cannot quite hear. It seems possessed by grief, by boundless, immeasurable sorrow, but Viego simply holds it before his eyes, imagining the soft smile that will surely dance across Isolde’s face the day he sees her again.

    “What have they done to you, my love?” he coos, as the man he slaughtered slowly rises from the earth, ghostly greens and blues throbbing from between the cracks in his skin.

    “Do not worry,” he assures the music box. “I will find you. It is simply a matter of time.”

    And with that, Viego is gone, vanishing as wraiths devour the city.

  11. Viktor

    Viktor

    The herald of a new age of technology, Viktor has devoted his life to the advancement of humankind. An idealist who seeks to lift people to a new level of understanding, he believes that only by embracing a glorious evolution of technology can humanity’s full potential be realized. With a body augmented by steel and science, Viktor is zealous in his pursuit of this bright future.

    Viktor was born in Zaun on the borders of the Entresol level, and, encouraged by his artisan parents, discovered a passion for invention and building. He devoted every waking minute to his studies, hating to interrupt his work even to eat or sleep. Even worse was having to rapidly relocate if there was a nearby chemical spill, accidental detonation or incoming chem-cloud. Abandoning his work, even for a short time, was anathema to Viktor.

    In a bid to impose a level of order and certainty on his world, Viktor researched Zaun’s many accidents and came to realize that almost all of them were the result of human error, not mechanical failure. He offered his services to the local businesses, developing inventions that made them far safer working environments. Most turned him away, but one - the Fredersen Chem-forge - took a chance on this earnest young man.

    Viktor’s inventions in automation reduced the number of accidents in the forge to zero within a month. Soon, other establishments sought his work and Viktor’s designs became common in Zaun, improving production with every innovation that removed human error from a process. Eventually, at the age of nineteen, he was surprised to be offered a place in Zaun’s prestigious Academy of Techmaturgy. But Viktor’s work had attracted the eye of Professor Stanwick of Piltover, who convinced him to leave Zaun and travel to Piltover’s academy instead. There, he could work in the most advanced laboratories and gain access to all the resources the City of Progress could offer. Thrilled to be singled out, Viktor accepted his offer and took up residence in Piltover, where he refined his craft and sought to perfect his theorems in ways that would benefit everyone.

    Viktor worked with Piltover’s best and brightest; including an insufferable genius named Jayce. The two were equally matched in intellect, but where Viktor was methodical, logical and thorough, Jayce was flamboyant and arrogant. The two worked together frequently, but never truly became friends. Often, the two would butt heads over their perceptions of intuition vs logic in the process of invention, but a level of mutual respect developed as each saw the flawed brilliance in the other.

    In the midst of his studies in Piltover, a major chem-spill devastated entire districts of Zaun, and Viktor returned home to offer his help in the rescue efforts. By grafting a sophisticated series of cognitive loops upon existing automata-technology, he crafted a custom-built golem, Blitzcrank, to help in the clean-up. Blitzcrank was instrumental in saving scores of lives and appeared to develop a level of sentience beyond anything Viktor had envisioned.

    Even with the spill contained, Viktor remained in Zaun to help those afflicted by the released toxins. With the golem’s help, he attempted to use his techmaturgical brilliance to save those whose lives had been blighted by the spill. Their attempt was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing more deaths, and the two parted ways. Though Viktor was distraught at the loss of life in Zaun, the work taught him a great deal about the merging of human anatomy with technology and how mortal anatomy could be enhanced with technology.

    When Viktor returned to Piltover, weeks later, it was to find that Professor Stanwick had held a symposium on Blitzcrank and presented Viktor’s researches as his own. Viktor lodged formal complaints with the masters of the college, but his impassioned claim that he had designed Blitzcrank fell on deaf ears. He turned to Jayce to verify his claims, but his fellow student refused to speak up, further widening the rift between them, and the matter was decided in Professor Stanwick’s favor.

    Bitter, but resigned, Viktor returned to his studies, knowing that his ultimate goal of making people’s lives better and enhancing humanity was more important than one stolen project and a bruised ego. He continued to excel, finding ever new ways to eliminate human error and weakness from his work, a facet of his researches that came to dominate his thinking. He saw human involvement in any part of a process as a grossly inefficient aberration - a view that put him at odds with a great many of his fellow students and professors, who saw the very things Viktor sought to remove as the source of human ingenuity and creativity.

    This came to a head during a reluctant collaboration with Jayce to improve the diving suits used to keep Piltover’s docks clear of underwater debris and lingering chemical waste. Viktor and Jayce’s enhanced suits allowed the wearer to go deeper, remain underwater for longer, and lift heavier weights. But many wearers claimed they saw phantom corpse lights in the depths or suffered from chem-induced hallucinations. When divers experienced such symptoms, they panicked and often got themselves or their fellow divers killed. Viktor saw the problem was not technical, but with the wearer’s nerves unraveling in the inky depths. He devised a chem-shunt helm that allowed an operator on the surface to bypass the wearer’s fear response and, effectively, control the diver. A heated discussion between Viktor and Jayce on free will and mental enslavement turned bitter - almost violent - and the two vowed never to work together again.

    Jayce reported the incident to the college masters, and Viktor was censured for violating basic human dignity - though, in his eyes, his work would have saved many lives. He was expelled from the college, and retreated to his old laboratory in Zaun, disgusted by the narrow-minded perceptions of Piltover’s inhabitants. Alone in the depths, Viktor sank into a deep depression, enduring a traumatic period of introspection for many weeks. He wrestled with the ethical dilemma he now faced, finding that, once again, human emotion and weakness had stood in his way. He had been trying to help, to enhance people beyond their natural capabilities to avoid error and save lives. Revelation came when he realized that he too had succumbed to such emotions, allowing his naive belief that good intentions could overcome ingrained prejudice to blind him to human failings. Viktor knew he could not expect others to follow where he did not go first, so, in secret, he operated on himself to remove those parts of his flesh and psyche that relied upon or were inhibited by emotion.

    When the surgery was done, almost no trace of the young man who had traveled to Piltover remained. He had supplanted the majority of his anatomy with mechanical augmentations, but his personality had also changed. His idealistic hope to better society was refined into an obsession with what he called the Glorious Evolution. Viktor now saw himself as the pioneer of Valoran's future - an idealized dream where man would renounce flesh in favor of superior hextech augmentations. This would free humanity from fatal errors and suffering, though Viktor knew it was a task that would not be completed easily or quickly.

    He threw himself into this great work with a vengeance. He used technological augmentations to help rebuild Zaunites injured in accidents, perfected breathing mechanisms, and worked tirelessly to reduce human inefficiency by decoupling physicality from emotion. His work saved hundreds of lives, yet seeking Viktor’s help could be dangerous, as his solutions often brought unexpected consequences.

    But if you were desperate, Viktor was the man you went to.

    Some in Zaun, hearing fragments of his philosophy and seeing the successes of his work, saw him as a messianic figure. Viktor couldn’t care less for them, viewing their quasi-religious cult as an aberration; yet another reason to eliminate emotional foibles and the belief in that which could not be empirically proven.

    After a toxic event in the Sump saw hundreds of men and women in the Factorywood transformed into rabid psychotics, Viktor was forced to use a powerful soporific to sedate the victims and bring them back to his labs to try and undo the damage. The toxins had begun to eat away portions of their brains, but Viktor was able to slow the degenerative process by opening up their craniums and employing machinery to slowly filter their bloodstreams of poison. The technology available to him wasn’t up to the task, and Viktor knew many people were going to die unless he found a way to greatly enhance his purgative machinery.

    As he fought to save these people, he detected a surge in hextech energy from Piltover and saw immediately that this could give him the power he needed. He followed the powerful energy surge to its source.

    Jayce’s lab.

    Viktor demanded Jayce hand over the source of this power, a pulsing crystal from the Shuriman desert. But his former colleague refused, leaving Viktor no option but to take it by force. He returned to Zaun and hooked the strange crystal to his machinery, readying a steam golem host for each afflicted person in case their body gave out under the stress of the procedure. Empowered by the new crystal, Viktor’s machines went to work and, gradually, the damage from the toxins began to reverse. His work would save these people - in a manner of speaking - and had Viktor retained more than a fragment of his humanity, he might have celebrated. As it was, the barest hint of a smile was all he allowed himself.

    Before the process could complete, a vengeful Jayce burst in and started smashing the laboratory with an energized hammer. Knowing an arrogant fool like Jayce would never listen to reason, Viktor ordered the automatons to kill Jayce. The battle was ferocious, and only ended when Jayce shattered the crystal Viktor had taken, bringing the entire warehouse down in an avalanche of steel and stone, thus ending the existence of those Viktor was trying to save. And for this, Jayce returned to Piltover, feted as a hero.

    Viktor escaped the destruction of the laboratory, and returned to his mission of bettering humanity by ridding it of its destructive emotional impulses. In Viktor’s mind, Jayce’s impetuous attack only proved the truth of his cause and strengthened his desire to unburden humanity of the failings of flesh. Viktor did send chem-augmented thugs to raid Jayce’s laboratory not long afterward. This was - Viktor told himself - not for revenge, but to learn if there were any more shards of the Shuriman crystal he could use for the advancement of mankind. The raid was unsuccessful, however, and Viktor thought no more of Jayce.

    Instead, he intensified his efforts to find ways in which humanity could be shepherded beyond their emotional weaknesses and brought into a new, more reasoned stage of their evolution. Such researches sometimes transgress the boundaries of what would be considered ethical in Piltover (and Zaun), but they are all necessary steps in bringing about Viktor’s Glorious Evolution.

  12. House on Emberflit Alley

    House on Emberflit Alley

    Rayla Heide

    Viktor’s third arm emitted a thin ray of light that welded metal into his left arm with steady precision. The smell of burning flesh no longer bothered him, nor did the sight of his left wrist splayed open, veins and sinewy muscle fused with mechanical augments. He did not wince. Instead, he felt a sense of achievement gazing at the seamless blend of synthetic and organic materials.

    The sound of children shouting gave Viktor pause. Rarely did anyone venture down the fog-bound confines of Emberflit Alley. He had chosen this location for that very reason — he preferred not to be interrupted.

    Keeping his left arm immobile, Viktor adjusted a silver dial on his iridoscope. The device contained a series of mirrored lenses that angled light to allow him full view of the street outside his laboratory.

    Several children were violently shoving a malnourished boy toward Viktor’s wrought iron gates.

    “I doubt Naph will last a minute in there,” said a girl with imitation gemstones embedded above her eyes.

    “I bet he comes back with a brass head,” said a boy with a shock of red hair. “Maybe then his brain won’t be dull as the Gray.”

    “You better return with something we can sell, or we’ll be the ones to give you a new head,” said the largest one, grabbing the small boy by the neck and forcing him forward. The other children backed away, watching.

    The young boy trembled as he approached the towering gate, which screeched as he pushed it open. He passed the front door encrusted with interlocking gears and shimmied through an open window. An alarm blared as he fell to the floor.

    Viktor sighed and pressed a switch that quieted the ringing.

    The skinny boy stared at his new environment. Glass jars, containing organic and metal organs floating in green fluid, lined the walls. A leather gurney stained with blood, upon which lay a mechanized drill, sat in the center of the chamber. Dozens of automatons stood motionless against every wall. To Viktor, his laboratory was a sanctuary for his most creative and vital experiments, but he could imagine it might seem frightening to a child.

    The boy’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Viktor at his workbench, arm splayed open on the table. He ducked behind a nearby crate.

    “You will not learn anything from that box, child,” said Viktor. “But on top of it, you will find a bone chisel. Hand it to me, please.”

    A trembling hand reached to the top of the crate and grasped the handle of the rusted metal tool. The chisel slid across the floor to Viktor, who picked it up.

    “Thank you,” said Viktor, who wiped off the instrument and continued work on his arm.

    Viktor heard the boy’s rapid breathing.

    “I am replacing the twisting flexor tendons — ahem, the broken mechanism in my wrist,” Viktor said, reaching into his arm to adjust a bolt. “Would you like to watch?”

    The boy peeked his head around the crate.

    “Doesn’t it hurt?” said the boy.

    “No,” said Viktor. “When one eliminates the anticipation and fear of pain, it becomes entirely bearable.”

    “Oh.”

    “It also helps that my arm is almost completely mechanized. See for yourself.”

    The boy stepped away from the crate and sat across from Viktor without a word, eyes fixed on his arm.

    Viktor resumed welding a new boltdrive onto the tendons beneath his skin. When he had finished, he sealed the flaps of dermis onto his arm. He drew the beam of light across the seam, cauterizing his flesh and fusing the incision.

    “Why did you do that?” the boy asked. “Didn’t your arm work fine as it was?”

    “Do you know what humanity’s greatest weakness is?”

    “No...” said the boy.

    “Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo.”

    The boy gave him a blank stare.

    “People fear change,” Viktor said. “They settle with fine when they could have exceptional.”

    Viktor walked to his stovetop. He mixed a blend of dark powder and Dunpor cream into a saucepan, heating the liquid with his laser.

    “Would you like a glass of sweetmilk?” said Viktor. “A weakness of mine, but I have always enjoyed the anise flavor.”

    “Um... you’re not going to saw off my head and replace it with a metal one?”

    “Ah. Is that what they think of me now?” Viktor asked.

    “Pretty much,” said the boy. “I heard one kid had theirs replaced just because they had a cough.”

    “Did you get this information directly?” said Viktor.

    “No, it was my neighbor Bherma’s cousin. Or uncle. Or something like that.”

    “Ah. Well in that case.”

    “Would replacing someone’s head even get rid of a cough?” asked the boy.

    “Now you are asking the right questions,” said Viktor. “No, I imagine it would not be much of an upgrade. Coughing stems from the lungs, you see. And to your earlier point, I am not going to saw your head off and replace it with a metal one. Unless, of course, you want that.”

    “No thanks,” said the boy.

    Viktor poured the thick liquid into two mugs and passed one to the boy, who stared longingly at the hot drink.

    “It is not drugged,” said Viktor and took a sip from his own mug. The boy gulped down the sweetmilk.

    “Are the others still watching outside?” said the boy through stained teeth.

    Viktor glanced through his iridoscope. The three children were still waiting by the front entrance.

    “Indeed they are. Do you wish to give them a scare?” Viktor said.

    The boy’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.

    Viktor handed him a sonophone and said, “Scream as loud as you can into this.”

    The boy gave an exaggerated, blood-curdling shriek into the sonophone. It echoed along Emberflit Alley, and the other children jumped in terror, quickly scattering to hide. The boy looked at Viktor and grinned.

    “I find that fear is more often than not a limiting emotion,” said Viktor. “Tell me something that scares you, for example.”

    “The Chem-Barons.”

    “The Chem-Barons are feared because they project an air of dominance and often the threat of violence. If no one feared them, people would stand up to them. And then where would their power go?”

    “Uh...”

    “Away. Exactly. Think of how many Chem-Barons exist compared to how many people live in Zaun. Fear is used by the powerful few to control the weak because they understand how fear works. If someone can manipulate your emotions, they can control you.”

    “I guess that makes sense. But I’m still afraid of them,” said the boy.

    “Of course you are. Patterns of fear are carved deep into your very flesh. Steel, however, has no such weakness.”

    Viktor retrieved a vial containing miniscule silver beads floating in milky fluid.

    “That is where I may be able to assist,” he said. “I have developed an augmentation that eliminates fear altogether. I could let you try it out for a short time.”

    “How short?”

    “The implant will dissolve in twenty minutes.”

    “You’re sure it’s not permanent?”

    “It can be, but not this one. You might find that without fear, your friends out there lose their grip. Bullies feed on fear, you see. And without it, they will starve.”

    The boy nursed his drink, considering the offer. After a moment he nodded to Viktor, who inserted a thin needle into the vial and injected one of the silver beads into the skin behind his ear.

    The boy shuddered for a moment. Then he smiled.

    “Do you feel your weakness falling away?” Viktor asked.

    “Oh yes,” said the boy.

    Viktor walked him to the door and twisted a dial to unlock it before waving him out.

    “Remember, you can always return if you wish a more permanent solution.”

    A wave of fog created a ghostly silhouette around the boy as he emerged from the laboratory. Viktor returned to his workbench to watch the experiment through his iridoscope.

    Emberflit Alley was empty, but as soon as the boy walked out his companions emerged.

    “Where’s our souvenir?” asked the red-haired boy.

    “Doesn’t seem like little Naph has held up his end of the deal,” said the girl.

    “Guess we have to punish him,” added the large boy. “We did promise him a new head today, after all.”

    “Don’t you touch me,” said Naph. He raised himself to his tallest height.

    The bully reached for Naph’s neck, but Naph turned and punched him square in the face.

    Blood streamed from the bully’s nose.

    “Grab him!” the bully screamed.

    But his companions were no longer interested in grabbing him.

    Naph stepped toward the bullies. They stepped back.

    “Get away from me,” he said.

    The bullies eyed each other, then turned and ran.

    Viktor closed his iridoscope and returned to his work. He stretched the fingers of his newly repaired arm and tapped them on his desk in satisfaction.

  13. Vladimir

    Vladimir

    A master of ancient, forbidden sorcery, Vladimir is among the oldest enigmas of Noxus. He was present at the dawn of the empire, and has since woven his influence deep into its foundations… but he remembers little of those days. His mind is mortal, and so most of his unnaturally extended life endures not in his memory, but in his chronicles.

    History has lost track of Vladimir on many occasions, though its pages are littered with figures suspected to have been him. Legend once told of a prince in a kingdom threatened by the infamous darkin, as their great war spilled into Valoran. With his father’s crown at stake, and many more heirs ahead of him in the line of succession, the unfortunate youth was traded to the fallen god-warriors as a hostage.

    Mortals were little more than cattle under the tyranny of the darkin, their supremacy apparent in the sorceries they had conceived—the arts of crafting flesh and transmuting blood, granting them mastery over life itself.

    Believing himself above other mortal vassals, and therefore worthy of such power, Vladimir was the first of his kind permitted to study this terrifying magic. His devotion earned him a place of favor in his patron’s warhost, and the right to practice hemomancy and enforce the darkin’s will on lesser beings. Over time, the god-warrior watched with amusement as Vladimir came to govern his subjects with as little mercy as the darkin themselves.

    The fall of these cruel tyrants is, likewise, the stuff of legend. An account of it, written in the dead High Shuriman language, is kept hidden within the Immortal Bastion. It speculates that Vladimir’s master was not imprisoned like so many of his kin, but instead died at the hands of his own warhost. The few surviving mortals fled, taking what knowledge they had of blood magic with them.

    Unknown to all but Vladimir himself, it was he who struck the killing blow. Scarred, blinded, driven mad by the radiance of a darkin’s undoing, he absorbed enough power to renew flesh that was never meant to last beyond a mortal lifespan.

    And he has done this countless times since, through rituals too vile to speak of.

    At the height of Mordekaiser’s dark reign, it was said that a mythic and bloodthirsty fiend haunted the coastal cliffs of eastern Valoran, demanding young lives and savage worship from the local tribes. Few were welcome in his lair, until the day a pale sorceress approached this barbarian god with an offer. The two feasted together as equals, weaving magic so dark that the wine at their table soured, and the roses withered, vibrant red turning to black.

    Thus began the pact between Vladimir and LeBlanc, rife with disputes, and games of politics and war. Over the centuries, others joined them—powerful nobles, exalted masters of magic, and beings darker still. This cabal grew into the hidden power that would guide the throne of Noxus for more than a thousand years, orchestrating many of the empire’s most ambitious campaigns.

    Uniquely among the leaders of the Black Rose, Vladimir has rarely limited himself to scheming from the shadows. In the past, he deigned to join the Noxian noble courts during the most interesting of times, only to fade into seclusion decades later, his extreme age—and the atrocities his sorcery could wreak—a well-kept secret. Even so, under Vladimir’s tutelage, the art of hemomancy has found a place in the military of Noxus, and among scions of the old aristocracy. Among these diverse practitioners is the Crimson Circle, a youthful cult dedicated as much to Vladimir’s personality as to blood magic itself.

    With the death of the previous Grand General and the rise of Jericho Swain, the political landscape of the empire changed dramatically, and Vladimir has been forced to rouse himself once more.

    Wearing the guise of a benevolent socialite, he has returned to the public eye as a vocal opponent of the ruling Trifarix council… much to the concern of more cautious members of the Black Rose. Indeed, his reappearance may have come too soon, as time has not yet washed away all the stains of his previous lifetime, and it seems likely that Swain himself has begun to grasp Vladimir’s true nature.

    As a new and darker conflict approaches Noxus, Vladimir drinks deeply from the renewed vitality of the empire, reminding himself of his past glories. To him, this life is a mere revelry, a masquerade spanning centuries, and the prologue to greatness—for though the darkin eventually fought amongst themselves and lost their immortal grip on the world, Vladimir knows he is strongest alone.

  14. Alone

    Alone

    Ian St. Martin

    Lyvia had nearly found sleep when the light appeared.

    The first night in the orphanage carried strange emotions for her, unfamiliar yet close to a past that she had once held. Life had taken trust from Lyvia, like it had taken everything else, but habits of survival waned here, their edges dulled by the safety of a roof overhead. Her cot, though narrow and thin, was still far removed from the cold cobblestones of the capital. Sleep beckoned, warm and enveloping, tenderly lowering her eyelids with the promise of true rest.

    Then the door opened.

    “Wake, child.” Lyvia recognized the voice of Cynn, the headmistress. “Come.”

    Afraid to lose what respite she had found from the streets, Lyvia obeyed and sat up. Her legs swung over the side to land on the cold floor, and she walked into the light of the hall.

    Blinking, Lyvia took her place alongside the other children. All of them, ranging from eight to ten summers, had arrived there today, freshly collected from the streets of Noxus. A pair of brothers, three scrawny urchin boys who clutched each other’s hands in grubby unity, and Lyvia. Both groups shuffled away from her, retreating to the familiar.

    “I know the hour is late,” said Cynn as she walked down the line of little faces, “but there are many demands upon the time of our patron. Still, he wishes to welcome the newly arrived.” There was something within Cynn’s words that Lyvia could not place. “It is an honor.”

    It was then that the children noticed him with a start, as though he had appeared out of thin air. Tall, slender, clad in a wealth Lyvia had never known, the patron approached them. Cynn demurred into the background, her expression impassible.

    Slowly, the man walked from orphan to orphan, his pale eyes casting them in an odd scrutiny. He passed the brothers without a thought. Lyvia felt her pulse quicken as he paused, the eyes falling upon her, and felt it slow again as he continued on. The trio of urchins bunched together, each defending the others, and the patron barely spared them a glance.

    “Her,” the man said to Cynn, his voice low, silken.


    Cynn’s arm was on her shoulder now, leading her to another room. It was empty, but for a single chair. “No harm will come to you,” Cynn said, an attempt to dispel Lyvia’s fear. “It is an honor,” she repeated, closing the door behind her.

    Lyvia crossed to the chair, and sat in it. She watched the door intently, the sole means of entry into the room, only to notice a moment later the shadow stretching out from behind her.

    The patron.

    “Please,” he said, raising his hands as she bolted to her feet.

    Lyvia did her best to contain her fear, to remember what Cynn had told her.

    “Think I am here to hurt you?” he asked, his voice languid, accent cultured.

    Lyvia shook her head, but it was far from convincing.

    He feigned puzzlement, laughing softly. “My dear, has life not done enough?” He circled around in front of her. “No, my child, I am only here to hear about your life, and what has brought you here.”

    He gestured kindly to the chair, and slowly Lyvia took her seat.

    “I’m from Drekan,” she began.

    “Yes?” He nodded, urging that she continue.

    “War took papa,” said Lyvia, trying to keep her voice level, to betray no weakness. “So we came to the city. Mama went out to find work, but after four days we stopped waiting for her to come back. It was just my sister Vira and I. I kept her safe.” She fought her voice but it faltered. “Then Vira took sick. I couldn’t protect her, and then I… I was...”

    “Alone,” he said softly.

    Lyvia’s chest swelled with a tide of pain. Of loss. “Alone,” she repeated, and a tear struck her cheek.

    There!” he breathed. She recoiled as he reached toward her.

    “Close your eyes,” he said, his voice hypnotic. “Focus upon that feeling. The pain. It has mounted for you in this unforgiving world, nowhere to go but bottled up inside. Feel it rise up, above your neck, slipping up over your nose, your ears. It threatens to swallow you, but just at the precipice, it yields. Face it and feel it break against you. That is strength. Turn your mind upon it, and allow it to drain from you.”

    She let the pain flow out of her in sobs, feeling the cold of glass against her cheeks, softly touching beneath each eye. A torrent of despair, taking her breath, then it was gone.

    Lyvia opened her eyes.

    “Thank you,” said the man, and Lyvia noticed a vial in his hands, “for sharing.”

    “You,” Lyvia dared to ask, seeing something she could recognize in her patron despite everything else about him. “You’re alone, too?”

    He took his eyes from the vial, glanced at her. “I have seen much of this world, over many years—yes, almost all of it alone.”

    Livia sniffed, looking up at him. “Will it get better?”

    “For you?” He smiled gently, his eyes glimmering for a moment in a gentle show of sadness. “No.”


    “She is unharmed?” Cynn asked as Vladimir stepped into the hall.

    Vladimir arched an eyebrow. “Were you harmed, Cynn, all those years ago when it was you in that room?” He tilted his head, producing a thin ampoule in his long fingers.

    Cynn’s eyes locked to the slender tube of glass, its frosted length dulling the contents to a soft ruby. Cynn snatched the ampoule, her eyes darting as she secreted it in the sleeve of her robe.

    “Until next time, my dear,” Vladimir chuckled, then he turned and left.

    The moon was full that night, bathing the Noxian streets in radiant silver hues. Vladimir stopped at the fountain in the orphanage’s empty courtyard, dipping a finger into the still water. Whorls of crimson bloomed from his touch, rushing across the shallow pool until it was a depthless claret. Stepping briskly up to the lip of the fountain, Vladimir dropped into it without sound or splash.


    Vladimir rose from another pool within the dark halls of his manor, emerging dry, it was as though he had never touched the liquid. A chill wound through the yawning cavern of shadow and stone arches, brushing over shuttered windows and priceless artworks collected over a thousand lifetimes. His step was light across thick rugs, barely disturbing the layers of dust that caked them as he ascended a staircase.

    For a moment his thoughts lingered on the child, Lyvia. Doubtless tonight had been a strange experience, but he had seen enough mortals to know this night would not define her life. She would live, and then die, like all the other little sparks around him. Her name, her face, their interaction would slip away from him, as they always did, to where he wondered if they had ever existed at all.

    People. The creatures surrounded Vladimir yet stood upon the opposite side of an impossible gulf, tantalizing and impermanent. A thin, crooked smile came to him. He was melancholy tonight. He rolled the vial of tears in his fingers.

    The studio beckoned.

    Maudlin thoughts aside, of all the countless mortal lives he encountered, there were a select few Vladimir refused to forget, and so he labored to do what his mind could not. To remember them, those brief moments their lives touched, what felt like an eternity ago. In this case it was less than a millennium, the memory springing suddenly into his mind despite the vast time since last they met. For this one, he chose paint.

    It was nearly finished, a work most would not find out of place alongside the masterworks adorning his lonely walls. He had certainly had the years to hone a craft. All the details were done: the gentle tumble of auburn hair, the tanned skin, features that alone were commonplace, but combined effected a demanding, regal aura. The expression, unthinkable loss. It was all there, save the whites of his eyes.

    Vladimir opened the vial, tipping it into a pot. The innocent tears mingled with the paint, and with the touch of his brush, came alive when laid upon the canvas. Nothing else, in all his travels, could match the splendor it wrought.

    What was his name?

    He found he could not remember. The absence stabbed at him, a name gone, but at least the face preserved. The whites of his eyes would keep his memory here.

    Like a lonesome soul, he sought me out from beyond, Vladimir mused with a smile. More melancholy, but fitting perhaps.

    After all, there was nothing in the world as beautiful as sadness.

  15. Volibear

    Volibear

    To some, he is the Thunder’s Roar, the Greatstorm, or Valhir. To others, he is Ruin, the Thousand-Pierced Bear, or He Who Stands. But to most of the tribes who still hold to the old ways, he is known as the Volibear.

    Destruction, strength, and the storm made manifest, the Volibear represents the unstoppable power and fury of the Freljord itself. It was the Volibear and his demi-god kin who formed the land they called Vorrijaard long before the arrival of the mortal races. The sagas tell how he created the Five Fjords with one mighty swipe of his claws, and how his epic battle with the savage magma-serpent, Rhond, formed countless valleys and ravines. When the Volibear finally felled the beast, its blood became the first river in the Freljord, and its colossal corpse formed the Wyrmback Mountains.

    In the days of the first tribes, wild magic ran rampant. The Volibear was venerated and worshipped by all, for they needed his indomitable strength to survive. Great wars were waged, and the Volibear took to the field alongside his followers, clad in rune-inscribed armor made by his brother Ornn, demi-god of the forge. At the time, the brothers’ bond was strong—they often fought at each other’s side, even though Ornn never had quite the same lust for battle. The Volibear reveled in hard-fought victories, and as ever more blood offerings were made to him, his power swelled.

    In time, the Volibear and his kin drifted apart, each focusing on their own pursuits. Even so, there was no true division between them… until new ideas began to usurp the old beliefs.

    Three sisters rose to power, seeking to control and impose order on the Freljord, and the demi-gods could not agree on how to proceed. A few, like Anivia, seemed inclined to work with the sisters, while the Volibear and the Iron Boar wanted to destroy them. Others would have been content to ignore them completely, since these feeble creatures would eventually die like all before them.

    The Volibear looked to the most animalistic and savage of his followers, known as the Ursine. With them, he would defeat the three sisters. In preparation, he sought out Ornn to arm his warriors for battle.

    But Ornn refused. He did not approve of the Ursine’s savage ways, and a terrible fight erupted between the two demi-gods. In the aftermath, the Volibear cursed his brother’s name, and cast off his rune-inscribed armor. He would fight from then on with just tooth, and claw, and might, and thunder. Far from being lessened, the Volibear found his full power was now unleashed.

    With newfound rage, he confronted one of the mortal sisters who sought to steal the power of the demi-gods for herself. Before her entire army, he struck her down, blinding her—but he was unable to stop what she had already set in motion.

    As the centuries rolled by, and despite the Volibear’s resistance, tribes began to venerate and worship the Three Sisters instead.

    Many of the more ancient practices were forgotten. He saw tribes cowering behind stone walls rather than face the rawness of nature. He saw fields being tilled, and farmers herding cattle rather than hunting. He bellowed in fury to see great rivers dammed rather than be allowed to roar free. This was not his Freljord. The change had happened slowly—glacially—but the Volibear finally came to realize that the tribes had been cut off from the wild spirit of the land, making them frail, compliant, and soft. These weaklings had no reverence for the old ways, or old gods.

    Anger and determination rumbled within him. He vowed to tear down all evidence of civilization and return the Freljord to its ancient state as a true wilderness. The people would become strong once more. He would again be honored and feared by all.

    As the call of the Volibear reverberates across the mountains and plains of the north, more and more Freljordians are responding. Slowly, the old ways are being remembered and re-embraced, and his strength grows with each new follower.

    A reckoning of blood awaits… and the Volibear is rushing toward it.

  16. Stormbringer

    Stormbringer

    Anthony Reynolds & Rayla Heide

    “Valhir!”

    The god-bear twitched in his sleep, but his eyes didn’t open.

    It was an old name, and had not been spoken aloud for… how long? What he heard must have been a dream, or an echo of the past. With a snort, he burrowed his head deeper into the thick snow and continued his slumber of ages.

    “Valhir, with your name, and with this blood, I call upon you!”

    The demi-god’s eyes flicked open.

    The voice was half a land away, but sounded as clear as if spoken directly into his ear.

    With a low growl, the great bear rose, pushing himself to his feet. An avalanche of snow fell from his titanic form, making the earth rumble. He shook out his fur and turned his heavy head from horizon to horizon, nostrils flaring.

    He could taste the blood tribute on the air, and a thrill ran through him. Somewhere, stones had been arranged to form his rune. A sacrifice had been made in his name. He felt the power of worship infusing his limbs.

    “Valhir! We call on your fury! Give us your strength! Every death is an offering!”

    With the promise of battle, slaughter, and worship, Valhir’s heart pounded in time to the war drums he could feel echoing across the land. He could hear the stamping of feet, the clash of blades, the cries of the dying.

    It called to the body he wore. It called to him.

    The Volibear reared onto his hind legs and roared to the heavens. The sound reverberated across the icy tundra, touching the soul of every living creature in the Freljord.




    Hundreds of miles away, where the sun never rose, a spirit walker woke screaming, clawing at his face with hands twisted into immense talons.

    Across the ice floes in a different direction, packs of rimefang wolves threw back their heads and howled, echoing the demi-god’s cry.

    And elsewhere, far, far away, a group of tribesmen sitting around fires fell silent, hearts suddenly thundering. Friends eyed friends with hostile expressions. Blood would be spilled.




    The Volibear dropped to all fours and surged forward, massive claws ripping up the frozen earth. Snow-covered boulders and trees were smashed out of his path, and the wind whistled through his thick fur as he picked up speed.

    When next he paused, sniffing the air, he was hundreds of miles away. He was getting close. The storm clouds of his war-rage darkened the sky overhead.

    “Valhir! We kill and die in your name!”

    With an earth-shattering impact, the god-bear arrived.

    High upon an icy rise, lightning flickering across his ivory fur, he gazed across the battlefield.

    Two armies were engaged upon the blood-soaked plain below. The dead and dying were strewn across the snow. One of the forces was vastly outnumbered. They were fighting a losing battle.

    The giant bear snorted. Something smelled wrong about the larger of the armies. Its humans were clad in black iron, and fought beneath a red banner. He growled as he realized they were not of the Freljord, but weaklings from a land where the snow no longer held sway. He bared his teeth, and lightning flashed. It struck in the midst of the battle with a deafening crash, sending charred corpses from both sides flying.

    “Valhir! Valhir!”

    The Volibear focused his fury-reddened gaze on the one who shouted his name. A mortal woman, clad in fur, stared up at him, her face splattered with gore. She raised a pair of bloodied axes to the sky in salute, a savage grin on her face.

    Many of the other combatants had ceased fighting, staring at the demi-god in awe and horror, but the Volibear’s attention was fixed on the woman.

    This was the one whose heart had called the storm.

    “Valhir!” she screamed, thrusting her bloodied axes into the air once more. “With these deaths, we honor you!”

    With a last deferent salute, the woman turned back to the fight, hurling herself into her enemy with renewed vigor.

    The Volibear turned his gaze upon those the woman fought—the outsiders. The enemy. With a snarl, he charged.

    “Vol kau fera!” he roared, making the heavens themselves shake.

    He smashed into the enemy like a living battering ram, sending their frail troops flying. Bones crunched. Blood splashed. Voices wailed.

    It was over in moments.

    In the face of the unstoppable fury of the god-bear, the resolve of the enemy crumbled. The first of them turned to run. It quickly turned into a rout, then to butchery, as the Freljordians—now filled with the savage rage of the Volibear—fell upon the fleeing enemy like wolves, howling as they pursued them across the snow.

    The Volibear watched the slaughter in satisfaction, blood dripping from his maw.

    The woman that had called him dropped to her knees in reverence and bowed her head.

    “Oh, great Valhir!” she cried. “I am Warmother Raetha, the Bloodied Hand. By your intervention, our village is saved!”

    It was only then, as the Volibear’s battle-lust began to abate, that he saw the nearby farmsteads and stone houses, and his eyes narrowed. He turned his gaze back upon the kneeling woman.

    He loomed over her, easily four times her height, but growing ever larger as his anger returned. His almighty form was crisscrossed with old scars and new battle wounds—all marks he bore proudly. His massive claws dripped with gore. The urge to rip and rend remained strong.

    He snarled down at the warmother. “Vol t’svaag dakk skolj.”

    She looked up at him in confusion. It was clear the old tongue had been all but forgotten.

    “Stand,” he rumbled in the younger, bastardized language she spoke. “A warrior kneels to no one.”

    His gaze settled on something further along the valley. A dangerous growl rose from deep within him, heavy with the promise of violence. The woman, Raetha, took a step back, suddenly wary.

    “What. Is. This?” he bellowed, the air tingling with electricity as his anger grew.

    The woman glanced over her shoulder, confused and uneasy.

    “The… The dam?” she asked.

    The Volibear’s lips curled back, exposing bloodied fangs. This was his river, and it had flowed free and wild since before the coming of humanity. That mortals dared block it, to hold back its power, was an abomination.

    He stomped past the woman, his anger building with every step. By the time he reached the crude structure, his rage was a barely contained maelstrom, and the air around him crackled with power. Warmother Raetha and a collection of others shadowed him at a wary distance.

    The god-bear splashed into the shallows below the dam. The water barely reached past his paws, and his anger redoubled. The river should be thundering.

    With a roar, he tore down the stones and freed the waters.

    Now it thundered, bursting forth in a great churning wave. The power of the river crashed around him.

    There was screaming as it surged down across the floodplain. The god-bear watched in satisfaction as the first of the Freljordian’s houses was smashed aside, timbers shattering and stonework collapsing. People ran, clutching younglings, as the waters demolished the entire settlement.

    Once all evidence of civilization was gone, the Volibear turned to the Freljordians. They stood aghast, shocked at what he had wrought.

    “Today, you are free!”

    He could taste fear in the air, but he also felt the awe and reverence of the onlooking mortals.

    “Live!” he commanded. “Live wild! Hunt! Kill! Honor the old ways… and the old ways will honor you!”

    Warmother Raetha was now standing tall and slowly nodding. This one had the spirit of a true warrior. And in his immortal heart, he knew most of the others would follow her.

    The Volibear gave her a nod, and turned to the horizon.

    There was much to be done.

  17. Warwick

    Warwick

    Warwick is a monster who hunts the gray alleys of Zaun. Transformed by agonizing experiments, his body is fused with an intricate system of chambers and pumps, machinery filling his veins with alchemical rage. Bursting out of the shadows, he preys upon those criminals who terrorize the city’s depths. Warwick is drawn to blood, and driven mad by its scent. None who spill it can escape him.

    Though many think of Warwick as no more than a beast, buried beneath the fury lies the mind of a man—a gangster who put down his blade and took up a new name to live a better life. But no matter how hard he tried to move on, he could never escape the sins of his past.

    Memories of that time come to Warwick in flashes before they’re inevitably lost, replaced by searing echoes of the days he spent strapped to a table in Singed’s lab, the mad chemist’s face looming above him.

    His world a haze of pain, Warwick could not recall how he fell into Singed’s grasp… and even struggled to remember a time before the suffering began. The scientist patiently carved into him, installing pumps and hoses to inject chemicals into his veins, seeking what an alchemist always seeks: transmutation.

    Singed would reveal his subject’s true nature—the deadly beast hidden within a “good man.”

    The chemicals pumped into Warwick’s veins boosted his healing, allowing Singed to gradually and painfully reshape the man. When his hand was severed in the course of the experiment, Singed was able to reattach it, augmenting it with powerful, pneumatic claws, and bringing Warwick ever closer to his true potential.

    A chemical chamber was installed on Warwick’s back and integrated with his nervous system. Whenever he felt rage, or hate, or fear, it would drive liquid fury deeper into his veins, fully awakening the beast within.

    He was forced to endure it all, every cut of the mad chemist’s scalpel. Pain, Singed assured his subject, was necessary; it would prove to be the “great catalyst” of his transformation. Though the chemicals enabled Warwick’s body to heal through most of the physical damage, his mind was shattered by the unending agony.

    Warwick struggled to recall a single memory from his past... All he could see was blood. But then he heard a little girl screaming. Screaming something he couldn’t understand. It sounded like a name.

    He’d already forgotten his. He sensed that was for the best.

    Pain soon overwhelmed all other thoughts. Blood was the only thing left.

    Though his body and mind were broken after weeks on the slab, Warwick stubbornly resisted the chemicals transmuting him. Toxins leaked from his eyes in place of tears. He coughed up gobs of caustic phlegm that sizzled against his chest, before burning shallow holes in the floor of the lab. Restrained against the cold steel of the table, Warwick writhed in agony for hours on end, until his body finally gave out.

    With the untimely death of his subject, Singed disposed of the corpse in a charnel pit deep in Zaun’s Sump, before turning his mind to the next experiment.

    But death proved to be the true catalyst needed for Warwick’s transformation. As he lay cooling atop the pile of corpses, the chemicals could finally complete their work. The chamber on his back began to pump.

    His body contorted unnaturally, bones bending and snapping, teeth growing, sinews tearing and then healing with a faint alchemical glow, dead flesh replaced by something new and powerful. By the time his heart started beating once again, the man Warwick had been and the lives he’d lived were gone.

    He awoke to hunger. Everything hurt. Only one thing mattered.

    He needed blood.

    First, it was the blood of a nearby sump-scrapper, rooting through the charnel pile. And then a priestess of the Glorious Evolved, seeking a member of her flock. Then a Piltovan apprenta taking a shortcut, and a philter-faced merchant avoiding a gang, and a dram-dealer, and a tallyman, and a chem punk...

    He set up a den not far from a place that itched at the back of his now-animal mind. There, he continued the slaughter, not caring who fell to his claws. So long as blood dripped from gnashing teeth, he would feel nothing but a smear of red on his conscience, the hunger in his gut overwhelming any concern for his random victims.

    Yet, even as he surrendered to the beast, glimpses of his past began to haunt him. He saw a bearded man reflected in the eyes of a beggar as he tore out his throat. The other man looked somber, somehow familiar; there were scars on his arms. Sometimes, as he fed in dark alleys on stray gangers, the flash of knives would remind him of an old blade covered in blood. Blood passing from the blade to his hands. From his hands, to everything he touched. Sometimes, he remembered the girl again.

    And still there was blood.

    It had always been there, he realized, his entire life, and nothing he did could wash it off. He’d left so many scars that even if he didn’t remember his past, the city would. When he peered into the eyes of Zaun’s criminals—the gang bosses, murderers, and thieves—he saw himself. The chamber on his back would fill his body with hate. His claws tore out of his fingers.

    He hunted.

    No longer content to kill indiscriminately, Warwick now pursues those already covered in the stench of blood. Just as he was the day he was dragged to Singed’s door.

    He still wonders if he’d truly wanted this. He can’t remember details, but he remembers enough. Enough to know Singed had been right all along—the good man had been a lie, before disaster had burned it away, revealing the truth.

    He is Warwick. He is a killer.

    And there are so many killers to hunt.

  18. If They Run

    If They Run

    I find her near the Black Lanes, where merchants and thieves do business. Anything is for sale. Everything is stolen. I could kill them all.

    Do they think the shadows hide their misdeeds? The gleam of their knives? The deals they make, shrouded in darkness? I can smell the shimmerwine on a beggar’s breath from across this wretched city.

    I know their crimes. I can taste them.

    Then I see her. She’s taking a message from one of Baron Spindlow’s men—the lump-faced one, all scars and scowl—and placing it into a pneuma-tube. He mutters instructions to her.

    Who knew the dob could even speak, let alone write a message? I’ve only heard him scream. The last time we met, I took his leg. Its replacement is already rusted.

    The cogs clink as they pass from the thug’s meaty hand into the girl’s. I can smell the blood on the gear-shaped coins. The pain that passes from person to person. If you want something in this city, it doesn’t matter how many cogs you have. Pain is the true currency.

    I remember a man who knew this—the blood and cogs on his hands—but that man is gone.

    I growl, and the two figures flinch in surprise. Even the shadows seem to draw back as my augments cast a sickly, green glow. The girl takes one look and flees, but not deeper into the alley. She’s a pneuma-tube runner. She clambers up, into the darkness, taking a path few can follow.

    Afraid. Fast, but vulnerable. Carrying a pneuma-tube with a chem-baron’s seal. The gangers will come for her.

    She’s perfect…

    I begin the hunt.

    We move so quickly, the city is a blur—my claws cutting through the smoke, scrabbling for purchase as I leap across rooftops, following the pneuma-tube runner. Carving a path so deep through the city, it seems to bleed chemtech, toxic puddles gathering in the alleys.

    She tries to double back, skittering beneath a cart full of tinctures. She knows the city almost as well as I do. She knows where I’m driving her. Away from sanctuary, toward a place all the runners fear, where only the Zaun Gray escapes.

    I need to remind her to be more afraid of me than what lies in the darkness. I land ahead of her, roaring with rage, my claws tearing a chunk out of a steam conduit. She hesitates, but only for a moment, before turning back into the depths. Where I need her to run.

    I can hear the gasps of effort as she scrambles up walls and slides down railings. She’s praying to the wind goddess to save her. Perhaps I should do the same. The animal inside me wants more than murder. It wants meat.

    I could kill her right now. It would be so easy. I feel my claws emerging, greedy for flesh. I forget why I should spare her, until I draw closer. Close enough to see my reflection in her eyes, as she stumbles on a ledge and looks back.

    Her eyes brim with tears.

    It’s all so... familiar.

    I pull back and howl into the darkness, driving the girl forward. She drops down into a maze of pipes built for the ancient pneuma system. I follow behind her, hanging back as she reaches the dead end.

    The girl thinks I’m going to kill her. That her pale throat is the reason I bare my teeth. But she is only the bait. This is where she’ll lure out my true prey.

    Those who’d prey on her.

    “Well, well. Look what fell outta the Gray,” says a ganger emerging from the darkness. He and his friends surround the girl, their blades catching what little light survives in these depths. I recognize their tattered rags. The Gray Nails. A dead man once had dealings with them.

    There was another girl...

    I shake away the memories. I don’t want them.

    “I know you,” says one of the Nails, her face ringed by piercings. “You run for Boggin, eh? One ’a Spindlow’s mugs. What’s that krovin’ psycho got to say that he don’t want us to hear?” She pokes the pneuma-tube with her dagger and smiles.

    “Please, you don’t understand!” the girl sobs, scanning the gray darkness behind her and trying to rush past.

    “Neither do you,” the first ganger says. “We’re gonna have some fun.”

    I hesitate as the thug knocks the pneuma-tube from the girl’s hands. It’s worth more cogs than their own lives. It’s their ticket out of this miserable pit, to a slightly less miserable one.

    I thought the pneuma-tube would distract them for the moment I needed. It cracks against the alley stones, Spindlow’s seal broken.

    What have I done?

    The runner cries out as a Nail grabs her roughly. There’s a struggle, a flash of steel, and then...blood.

    Its scent enrages me.

    The chamber on my back pumps, and I am lost.

    A roar fills the darkness.

    “It’s him! The Howler!” a Gray Nail cries out as I race into the clearing, trying to focus on the punk. I slash into him, and the alley wall steams with red mist. He crumples to the stones.

    Where is the girl? I’ve lost track in the mayhem. Surrounded. Blades stabbing like clumsy teeth. Claws a metal blur. Jaws clamp down, and bones crack along with armor.

    I taste blood. And still there’s more.

    I see her now. One of the Nails hovers above the girl, his shiv raised. I can stop him.

    But the machine pumps again, and my limbs surge with power.

    The red haze fills my mind. Everything is a blur. Everything is forgotten.

    Everything is blood.

    I don’t know if I saved the girl. I don’t know if I killed her. I’m still biting through flesh when the surviving Nails flee into the darkness.

    I turn, following them into the night. I have no choice.

    They are the monsters I hunt. And I am one of them.

  19. What Once Sailed Free

    What Once Sailed Free

    Michael Luo

    The prisoner stands tall, his ankles chained to a wooden post, his wrists bound together with coarse rope. Blood trickles down his cheeks onto his black Noxian tunic, leaving small red puddles by his bare toes. Above him, the sky paints patches of gray against blue, unsure of its true colors.

    A fence of tall jagged stakes surrounds the prisoner. Nearby soldiers run from tent to tent. Their hurried steps kick up dust, leaving grime on their boots they will be sure to clean before they face their commanders. The prisoner knows this, having observed their disciplined behavior over the past days. It is unlike any he has ever seen.

    Around the camp, bright navy banners ripple in the wind, displaying the image of a sword dividing two spread wings—the sigil of Demacia.

    Not long ago these were the black and crimson banners of Noxus. The prisoner remembers his orders: to reclaim Kalstead for the glory of the empire.

    He failed.

    And he knows the consequences. War does not forgive failure. This is the truth he is prepared to accept. For now, he awaits his fate. The first time he was held prisoner, he lost his home. This time, he will lose even more.

    He closes his eyes as more memories flood his mind. There were two men, he recalls. His master he knew—he had turned a lost boy taken from his home into a fighter fit for the Reckoner arenas. The other was a stranger, claiming to represent the empire’s best interests. After they shook hands, he was sent west, under the shadow of the Argent Mountains, to Kalstead.

    There were no goodbyes, no well wishes. But, he was not alone. Others like him shared a name, “soldiers-of-misfortune” as they were called back in Noxus. Ragtag groups of fighters sent to deal with tasks unworthy of a veteran warband’s attention. Not many had a say in the matter, their masters too willing to sell their talents to the military for the right price.

    “You don’t look like you’re from Noxus,” a voice calls out, breaking the prisoner’s moment of reflection.

    He opens his eyes and sees a Demacian man standing outside the enclosure. His garb is a mix of navy and brown fabric covered by chainmail, and a shortsword hangs by his waist. He has the bearing of a leader, the prisoner decides, but a junior one.

    “What’s your name?” the soldier calls.

    The prisoner thinks. Will his answer decide his fate?

    “Xin Zhao,” he replies, his voice rough and dry.

    “What?”

    “Xin. Zhao.”

    “That doesn’t sound like a Noxian name,” the soldier wonders aloud. “Noxian names are tough, like… Boram Darkwill.” He says the two words with a shudder.

    Xin Zhao does not reply. He doubts this conversation is worth having before his coming execution.

    “Come along, shield-sergeant,” says another Demacian. The young officer’s severe look commands the sergeant’s attention. She wears silver armor with gold trim adorning her shoulder pauldrons. A cape of vivid blue falls down her back.

    “Don’t bother conversing with Noxians,” she advises. “They do not share our virtues.”

    The sergeant bows his head. “Yes, Sword-Captain Crownguard. But if I might ask…”

    The captain nods.

    “Why is this one being kept by himself?”

    She glances at the prisoner, her blue eyes stern with contempt.

    “This one ended more lives than the others.”




    Xin Zhao wakes to the sound of horns. He sits in the mud kicking his numb feet at the damp soil. Pressing his back against the post, he snakes himself up to a standing position and sees the sergeant from the day before approach, accompanied by four others dressed in similar attire. They open the gate to the enclosure and the sergeant walks through first, carrying a tray holding a bowl of hot soup.

    “Morning. I’m Olber, and this is my watch unit,” the sergeant says. “Here’s your breakfast, Zen Jaw.”

    Xin Zhao watches him set the tray on the ground. Who knew someone could mispronounce two syllables so cruelly?

    A Demacian guard cuts through the rope binding Xin Zhao’s wrists with practiced motions. The sergeant and the others stand by, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords.

    “Well, go on and eat,” Olber says.

    Xin Zhao picks up the bowl. “They sent five of you.”

    “We do as the captain orders,” Olber explains. “She’s a Crownguard, after all. They protect the king himself.”

    The guards nod along and turn to each other.

    “Aye, her father saved the last Jarvan at Storm’s Fang,” one mentions.

    “Which Jarvan was that?” another asks.

    “Second. We’re on the third one now.”

    “That’s King Jarvan the Third,” Olber interjects. “Your king. And mine. You oughta show some respect, given he personally rode out here with us.”

    They think highly of their king, Xin Zhao notes. While the soldiers continue to banter, he drinks his soup, one sip at a time, as he listens to their conversation. They speak of how foolish the Noxians were to venture this far west, of how easy it was for them to come to Kalstead’s aid, and of how their triumph was one achieved in the name of justice.

    We were sent here to die, Xin Zhao realizes. He grips the empty bowl so tightly it cracks, the wood coming apart in his hands.

    The Demacians turn their attention. Olber looks at Xin Zhao. “Hands.”

    Xin Zhao offers his palms facing upward.

    “You sure took a beating,” Olber remarks, tying new rope around Xin Zhao's wrists. The guards gather around. They see scars everywhere, running like rivers up and down his skin. Xin Zhao follows their gaze. He can no longer tell which scars came from which match. There were so many that he fought, and so few he cared to remember.

    “Those aren’t recent wounds,” one of the guards observes.

    “You’re right,” Xin Zhao says. His voice, clear and strong, grabs their attention. For a moment, they stand still, looking at him like he is no longer just another prisoner.

    “What’d you do back in Noxus?” Olber asks.

    “I fought in the arenas,” Xin Zhao answers.

    “A Reckoner!” a guard exclaims. “I’ve heard of you savages. They fight to the death in front of thousands!”

    “I’ve never heard of no Reckoner named Zen Jaw,” another mutters.

    “Maybe he wasn’t a good one? Maybe that’s why he’s here, all beaten and tied up?”

    “Hold on,” Olber chimes in. “Don't you Reckoners use different names in the arena?”

    Xin Zhao almost smiles. This Demacian is smarter than he lets on. It is known, even outside the empire, that Reckoners often choose inventive titles. Some opt for the extravagant. Others have something to hide. For Xin Zhao, it was to remember the life he had before it was taken away.

    “Viscero,” a guard says, holding an unfurled piece of parchment. “That’s what the other Noxians called him.”

    Olber snatches the parchment. He examines it. A few long seconds pass before he looks up at Xin Zhao. “You're the Reckoner.”

    Silence. Thin streaks of sunlight cut through the gray sky.

    “Viscero,” Olber repeats, his voice tinged with awe. “The one who never lost.”

    The guards look to each other. Then, together, they stare at Xin Zhao, their eyes now lit with recognition.

    “I know you!” says a guard.

    “Didn't you beat a minotaur?” says another.

    Olber raises a hand to halt the idle chatter. “Why'd you say your name was Zen Jaw?” he asks.

    Xin Zhao sighs. “Once I became a Reckoner, there was no more Xin Zhao. There was only Viscero.” He looks down at his bound wrists, at his chained ankles, and then back at the Demacians. “In the time I have left, I’d rather live by my real name.”

    “But what’s a famous Reckoner doing fighting Noxus’ border wars?” Olber asks again.

    “I was bought out,” Xin Zhao replies, “by the military.” He finds explaining all this rather strange. For so long, he had assumed his final moments would pass by quickly, in the arena, by spear or sword—not with a hot meal and questions about his past.

    Is this fate offering its last sympathies?

    Olber appears troubled. “You didn't have a choice,” he says.

    Xin Zhao shakes his head.

    “You have family left in Noxus?”

    Xin Zhao thinks for a moment, then shakes his head again. He wonders if he has any family at all, anywhere.

    “Well, I guess you're off to a new beginning.” Olber nods at a guard who pulls out a key and starts unchaining Xin Zhao from his pole.

    Xin Zhao tilts his head, curious. “What do you mean?”

    Olber smiles. “Let’s get you dressed.”




    Xin Zhao sits upright in the new tunic given to him. The Demacian fabric feels soft on his skin. He looks about the tent, counting the straw beds and the empty bowls of soup. Remarks of gratitude fill his ears. He recognizes the earthy voices. They come from others who, hours ago, were prisoners like him.

    One by one, they rise from their beds and thank the healers who mended their wounds. Armed Demacians enter the tent. Xin Zhao watches the prisoners be escorted out. He knows them well, having marched alongside them to Kalstead. On their journey, they spent much of their time trying to best each other in individual feats of strength, with the victors celebrating their might and the defeated left in shame. Those especially vocal would boast aloud how many Demacian soldiers they planned to kill. That was before they came face to face with a real army.

    There was no battle. Maybe the Noxian military would have fared better, with its legions and siege weaponry, but they were not the military. They were conscripts, untrained in the ways of formal combat, facing a unified kingdom. Within hours, Kalstead cheered for its saviors.

    We were sent here to die, Xin Zhao reminds himself. And yet, as fate would have it, they still lived. Not by the will of Noxus, but by that of Demacia.

    Fate flows like the four winds, his elders had once said, and no man can know its course until he sails it.

    An old healer walks by. Her pale robe matches the others working in the tent. “How are you feeling, child?” she asks.

    “I'm fine,” Xin Zhao replies. “Thank you.”

    “Do not thank me. Thank the king. It was by his royal decree that all prisoners be cared for.”

    “The third Jarvan?” This king, again. How can one man inspire so much?

    “Yes, our great Jarvan the Third,” she corrects him. “He granted you the opportunity to begin anew. To find peace.”

    Xin Zhao looks down at the floor with his hands folded. Viscero could always find a place in the arena. And elsewhere, the peoples of Valoran would embrace him for his strength, that much he is certain. As for his birthplace—the First Lands beyond the sea he has not seen for decades—it is as foreign to him now as any distant fantasy.

    Where could he find peace? Would he want it?

    No, his chance at peace died long ago, when he took his first life and was rewarded with an extension on his own.

    Xin Zhao turns to the healer. “I have one question, if I may.”

    “What is it, child?”

    “This king of yours. Who is he?”

    The healer chuckles. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”




    Xin Zhao walks behind Olber with four guards surrounding him. As they trudge through the camp, he peers into the passing tents, seeing Demacian soldiers pack their belongings and captains plan for their next deployment. Rumors tell that somewhere, not a week’s march away, another battle against Noxus is imminent. Xin Zhao ponders if that is where these people will head, following a trail of turmoil, righting wrongs wherever they go. They seem to serve a higher calling, something stronger than strength, and perhaps more valuable.

    He imagines how that might feel, to be so clear in your convictions you would sacrifice your own life for them. There were times in the arena when his life meant nothing. Now, it is worth an audience with a king.

    “Looks like you’re the last one,” Olber says, stopping the escort and pointing ahead.

    Xin Zhao follows the sergeant's finger and spots a tent larger than all the others. The same bright navy banners grace its roof. Guards in gleaming armor stand in parallel lines outside its entrance. He sees a man, bearing Noxian tattoos on his face and neck, shuffle out carrying a small bag. The man bows his head multiple times before he is led away by one of the guards, and immediately, another Demacian steps in to fill the empty space.

    “That's the king's tent,” Olber says. “We are to stay here. You go in, kneel, accept the provisions granted to you by the king, and then we'll collect you.”

    The sergeant smiles. “The king said once you're in front of him, you're a free man… but you’ll still need us when you’re out. Captain Crownguard runs this camp, and she’ll not have enemy combatants walk alone. Not ‘til they leave Kalstead for good.”

    Xin Zhao gives a knowing nod, and heads toward the tent.

    “The king welcomes Viscero!”

    The voice that hails him is deep and proper. Xin Zhao walks forth. Once inside, he kneels on his right leg and bows his head low. The floor is covered in cloth embroidered with depictions of winged knights and helmed warriors.

    “You may look up,” another voice comes. Xin Zhao lifts his head and identifies its source. It is a man, not much older than himself, sitting on a raised oaken chair. He wears radiant, gold-plated armor embellished with ebony spikes. Atop his head is a crown adorned with jewels. By his right hand lies a great steel lance, its edges sharp like the teeth of some magnificent beast.

    This is their king, Xin Zhao realizes. His eyes linger on the man for a second longer, sensing the air of majesty about him, paired with a raw physical presence he had not expected.

    To the king's left stands Sword-Captain Crownguard, just as stoic as when Xin Zhao first saw her.

    To his right, dressed in a royal tunic is a little boy. He sits on an oaken chair of his own with his small leather boots dangling over the edge. It is impossible not to notice the king’s likeness in him, both having strong noses and square jaws. Two additional guards surround these three, each holding a spear pointing upward.

    “Viscero is quite an unusual name,” King Jarvan III says. “What is its origin?”

    Xin Zhao peers downward, wondering how he should respond.

    “You will speak when the king addresses you,” the sword-captain commands.

    “At ease, Tianna,” the king says with a wave of his hand. “He is surely shocked by the events of these past few days. We would be right to offer this man his time, would we not?”

    The sword-captain opens her mouth only to close it without a word, choosing instead to give a curt nod.

    “It is a reminder of my home,” Xin Zhao answers.

    “Oh, is that so?” the king says, intrigued. “I have studied much of Noxus, yet I have never heard of a place called Viscero.”

    “It is not so much a place, but a memory… albeit one that changed meaning in Noxus.”

    “Ah,” the king says, looking briefly at his son, “memories of one’s childhood are such—”

    “But it is not my real name.”

    “You dare interrupt the king?” the sword-captain roars. Her hand clutches the hilt of her sword.

    Xin Zhao bows his head. Then, he hears laughter, hearty and full. Again, the voice of Jarvan III.

    “You are the first one today to have caused Tianna such grievance,” the king says. “It is her inaugural battle leading the Dauntless Vanguard, though it was not much of a battle, I am sure you would agree.”

    He pats the shoulder of the young prince, who has stayed quiet, attentively observing his father. “Please,” the king says. “Tell us your story, Viscero, whose real name has not yet been revealed to me.”

    Keeping his gaze low, Xin Zhao takes a breath. “My birth name is Xin Zhao, given to me by my parents who I have not seen since I was a boy. They may be alive, or dead—I do not know.”

    He swallows hard. “The place I was born is known as Raikkon, a coastal village in the First Lands, which the people here call Ionia. My childhood was spent on a fishing boat named Viscero, helping the elders with whatever they needed. Life was simple, peaceful… until the marauders came in their red and black ships.”

    He closes his eyes for a second. No Demacian speaks.

    “We didn’t stand a chance. I was taken. After months on the sea, I found myself in Noxus. Everything was… towering, oppressive, harsh. There was none of the natural beauty that filled my home.”

    Xin Zhao thinks he hears hushed sounds of agreement. A resonant murmur, a tiny voice whispering.

    “As any lost boy would, I did what was needed to survive. Things I’m not proud of that got the attention of those with power. They recognized my strength, and turned me into a fighter. From there, Viscero was reborn—as a Reckoner.”

    He sighs as his voice grows soft. “I killed many, many foes. Some whose real names I didn't even know. The more I killed, the louder the crowds cheered, ‘Viscero! Viscero!’ as their gold filled the pockets of my masters. I thought that would be how I lived out my days, fighting in the arena for the thrill of others. That is, until Noxus offered my masters more gold than the arenas could ever bring.”

    Xin Zhao’s shoulders slump. “That was all it took for me to end up here. Your soldiers know the rest.”

    Jarvan III is quiet. Everyone waits for him to speak.

    “You have lived quite the life,” the king finally says. He glimpses at his son before looking back at Xin Zhao. “Thank you for sharing with us your journey. It makes me, and all of Demacia, proud to be able to release you from the bonds of Noxus.”

    The king nods toward one of the guards, who brings out a linen pouch and sets it down before Xin Zhao. It jingles with coin.

    “This is the blessing of Jarvan the Third,” Captain Crownguard declares. “There is enough gold there to last you one week’s worth of travel. Know that you've erred to invade lands protected by the kingdom of Demacia, but as a show of good faith, our king has granted you a second chance. Use it well.”

    Xin Zhao glances at the pouch. He does not budge. Is it that simple? Take this bag and walk out of here—in peace? Just now, he spoke more honestly about himself than he has ever done, to a stranger who could have ended his life with the wave of a hand.

    However, that stranger cared to listen. And through that, he became a stranger no more.

    There is no peace for me, but maybe there can be a cause?

    “Well,” Captain Crownguard says, pointing two fingers toward the exit.

    Xin Zhao lowers his head. “I have one request, if I may.”

    “Speak,” the king says.

    “I wish to join your guard.”

    “Absurd!” Captain Crownguard shouts. The guards strike the ends of their spears against the ground in accord.

    The king lets out a soft chuckle and turns to his sword-captain. “What an interesting proposition.”

    “Surely, you can't—” Captain Crownguard begins, before she is silenced by her king’s hand once more.

    “Let the man explain himself,” Jarvan III says with a grin. “I wish to hear his reasoning.”

    Xin Zhao raises his head. His eyes meet the king's. “You have shown me mercy and honor,” he begins. “Two things I never knew until now. All my years in Noxus, I spent fighting for a cause not my own, and during that time I knew of only two truths. Victory meant survival and defeat meant death. That was what I learned, seeing other fighters fall in the arena or disappear never to be seen again after too many losses. But you and your people fight for something else. Something more.”

    A breeze ruffles the tent. Two small leather boots shuffle. Xin Zhao clears his throat.

    “And I'd rather die fighting for honor than live out my days regretting that I never made that choice.”

    Jarvan III leans forward. All others know to remain quiet.

    “You speak well,” the king replies. “Better than some of my own advisers, truth be told. Still, my wards endure years, decades even, of training. How am I to believe you are capable?”

    Xin Zhao stares at the king, at the prince, at Captain Crownguard. A part of him knows what he could say; another knows what he could do. Is it his choice to make?

    No.

    Fate has made its choice.

    He grabs the coin pouch and throws it at the sword-captain, hitting her in the face. While she recovers, he sweep kicks the guard to his left, knocking him to the floor. Xin Zhao snatches the Demacian’s spear, swinging it in a circle to trip the other guard to his right. His body moves on instinct, fluid and swift as his mind pretends he is back in the arena. With one final twirl of the weapon, he jabs it forward at Jarvan III, its blunt end stopping inches short of the king's throat.

    The young prince gasps. The king's guard gather themselves. Soldiers rush in as the sword-captain draws her blade.

    Xin Zhao falls to his knees. He lays the spear down without a sound and offers his neck. Finely crafted steel weapons touch his skin.

    Tension fills the room. All eyes lock onto Xin Zhao, whose own eyes are closed, at peace, ready to accept whatever comes next.

    The king straightens his cloak. “Stand down,” he commands. “My father once said Noxus wasted its talent in those arenas. Now I see the truth in his words.”

    “My king,” Captain Crownguard begs. “He tried to kill you!”

    “No, Tianna,” the king replies. “He showed me how I could be killed. Even in front of my own trusted guards.”

    “My deepest apologies,” Xin Zhao says. His voice is calm and measured, a quiet tide not yet ready to flow ashore. “It was the only way I thought to demonstrate myself.”

    “And demonstrate you did,” the king says. “To me, and these warriors of Demacia. It appears they could learn a thing or two from you.”

    “I will not have the king’s guard be sullied by a prisoner!” Captain Crownguard exclaims.

    “When this man entered my sight, he was a prisoner no more.” The king stands from his chair. “Demacia was founded long ago, by good people who sought refuge from the evils of this world. This man's story reminds me of those tales of old, of great Orlon and his followers. The very ones my father once told me.”

    His gaze falls on the prince, who looks back, amazed. “My son, my life’s joy,” the king says, “how happy I am that you are here to witness this moment. To see for yourself why we must uphold our virtues, so others may aspire to do the same. Do you understand?”

    “Yes, father,” the prince says, his voice small but firm.

    The king steps forward. “Xin Zhao, you have touched me with your life and your courage, a rare thing I have not felt in some time.” He bends down to help Xin Zhao to his feet. “Though you may not have been born a Demacian, I shall allow you to travel back with us, to my kingdom, where you will then prove yourself and your loyalty as my personal guard.”

    Xin Zhao feels the king's sturdy hands grip his shoulders.

    “Do not take this opportunity lightly.”

    Xin Zhao looks Jarvan III in the eye. And for the first time, in a long time, he feels joy, washing over his body like the waves that once carried Viscero free.




    The night air is chilly this far north of Kalstead. There is still a week or so before he will gaze upon the walls of the Great City of Demacia, Xin Zhao thinks as he walks outside his tent. A familiar face stands by the entrance.

    “Still awake?” Olber says.

    “I'm going for a walk. Won't be long.”

    Strolling through the camp alone, Xin Zhao takes in the spirit of his new allies. They are an orderly lot, quick to aid one another and ensure safety among their ranks. Seeing their disciplined manner brings a smile to his face. He rounds a corner to look up at the crescent moon when he feels a sudden force pulling him down.

    His body collides hard against the ground.

    After blinking a couple times, he regains his senses and realizes he has been dragged inside a dimly lit tent. The sword-captain glares down at him. Beside her stand fearsome soldiers dressed in heavy warplate.

    “You may have won the king's favor, but you are no Demacian in my eyes,” she states.

    As Xin Zhao stands on his feet, she unsheathes her sword. Like the pride following their lioness, those around her do the same.

    “I will be watching you,” she warns. “Should anything happen to the king while you are sworn in his service—”

    With two hands, Xin Zhao clasps the flat sides of her blade. “Take this as my oath to you.”

    Tianna Crownguard looks on, stunned, as he pulls the sword’s tip toward his own throat.

    “Should anything happen,” Xin Zhao says. “You may kill me.”

  20. The Echoes Left Behind

    The Echoes Left Behind

    Anthony Reynolds

    Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.

    Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.

    Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.

    His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.

    For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…

    “Hello, Ledros,” said a voice that shouldn’t be there.

    Ledros… His name.

    There was an evil, mocking laugh, and a clink of chains.

    “I don’t know why you do this to yourself, but I have enjoyed seeing you suffer.”

    Reality crashed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to drag him under.

    The blood beneath him was centuries old, flaking and brown. The stone was not white, but black, and cracked. The sky was filled with turbulent, dark clouds lit from within by lightning.

    And everywhere, the Black Mist coiled.

    She was still there for a moment, and he clung to her, unwilling to let her go.

    “My love,” he breathed, but then she faded, like ash on the wind, and he was left grasping at nothing.

    He was dead.

    And he was trapped here in this perpetual in-between.

    Ledros rose, and picked up the shattered remnant of his sword.

    He leveled the ghostly blade at the one who had shattered the illusion of his memory. The hateful spirit lurked in darkness, leering at him, eyes burning with cold flame. His cursed lantern sat on a smashed chunk of masonry nearby, radiating beams of deadlight, captive souls writhing within.

    The Chain Warden. Thresh.

    Oh, how he hated him.

    The cursed spirit had haunted him for what seemed like centuries, taunting him, mocking him. Now he had found his way here? This was his sanctuary, the only place he could feel even a fleeting moment of peace before the horror of his reality reasserted itself.

    “Why are you here?” Ledros demanded. His voice was dull and hollow, as if he spoke from distance or time far away.

    “You were lost for quite a while this time,” said Thresh. “Months. Perhaps years. I don’t keep track any more.”

    Ledros lowered his blade, and took stock of his surroundings.

    He remembered this place as it had been—white stone and shining gold bathed in sunlight. Protective white mist had wreathed the isles, resisting outsiders. When they had first landed, it seemed a land beloved by the gods—a place of wealth, and knowledge, and wonder, untouched by famine or war. It had just made it easier. There had been little resistance.

    Now there was no sun. All was darkness. The ruptured, shattered remnants of the library loomed above, like some great, desiccated corpse. Chunks of stonework hung in mid-air, where they’d been blasted outward and locked in time. He had been a fool to think the gods had loved this place, for they had clearly forsaken it.

    Every time he re-emerged from the unformed madness of the Black Mist and reformed, it was here, where his mortal body had fallen, so long ago. Every time it was the same. Nothing changed.

    The one waiting for him was new, however. It was not a change he welcomed.

    Out of habit, he reached for the pendant he always wore around his neck… but it was not there.

    “No…” The corpse-light glowing within him flared brightly in rising panic.

    “Such a pretty trinket,” said Thresh.

    Ledros’ head snapped around, eyes blazing. Thresh held aloft a short chain, from which hung a delicate silver pendant engraved with two roses, their leaves and stalks wrapped around each other like a lovers’ embrace.

    Anger surged within Ledros, hot and sudden, and his sword flared as he took a step toward Thresh. He’d been a big man in life, full of wrath and violence—the king’s champion, no less. He towered over Thresh.

    “That… is… mine,” hissed Ledros.

    The Chain Warden did not flee before him like the lesser spirits did. The death’s head that was his face was hard to read, but there was cruel amusement in his eyes.

    “You’re an aberration, Ledros,” he said, still dangling the pendant before him. “Some might say we all are, but you’re different. You stand out. Here, you are the real abnormality.”

    “Give it to me,” snarled Ledros, blade at the ready. “I will cut you down.”

    “You could try,” said Thresh. He spoke mildly, but his eyes burned, eager for violence. He sighed. “But this gets us nowhere. Here. Take it. It means nothing to me.”

    He tossed it away with a dismissive flick. Ledros caught it in one black gauntlet, his arm snapping out with a speed that belied his size. He opened his massive fist, inspecting the pendant. It was undamaged.

    Ledros sheathed his blade and removed his spiked helm. His face was insubstantial, a ghostly echo of how he had appeared in life. A cold wind whipped across the blasted landscape, but he didn’t feel it.

    He pulled the precious pendant over his head, and slipped his helmet back on.

    “Don’t you ever wish to see an end to this vile existence, Chain Warden?” Ledros said. “To finally be at peace?”

    Thresh shook his head, laughing. “We have what mortals have coveted since time immemorial—eternity.”

    “It makes us prisoners.”

    Thresh smirked, and turned away, the chains and hooks hanging from his belt clinking. His lantern drifted along beside him, though he didn’t so much as touch it.

    “You cling so desperately to the past, even as it runs through your fingers, like sand in a timepiece,” said Thresh, “yet you’re blind to the wonder of what we have been given. It has made us gods.”

    “It is a curse,” hissed Ledros.

    “Run along then, sword-champion,” Thresh said, gesturing Ledros away, dismissively. “Go, find your paramour. Perhaps this time she’ll even remember you…”

    Ledros became very still, eyes narrowing.

    “Tell me something,” said Thresh. “You seek to save her, but from what? She does not seem tormented. You, however…”

    “You walk a dangerous line, warden,” snarled Ledros.

    “Is it for her sake you do this? Or your own?”

    Thresh had said words to this effect before. He seemed intent on making a mockery of Ledros’ efforts.

    “I am not one of your playthings, warden,” Ledros said. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you can toy with me.”

    Thresh smiled, exposing the shark-like teeth of a predator.

    “Of course not,” he said.

    With a gesture, Thresh called his lantern. It came to him, swiftly, then hovered just below his outstretched taloned hand. In the lantern’s glowing deadlight, Ledros saw anguished faces, pressing against their confinement, before fading to be replaced by others—a horrific cavalcade of tormented souls. Thresh smiled, savoring their pain.

    “I don’t need to torture you,” he said. “You do that to yourself.”

    The Chain Warden stepped into the darkness, leaving Ledros utterly alone.

    A hollow wind ripped through the shattered city, but he did not feel it.

    He felt nothing but her.

    She was hunting.

    Ledros stepped into the mist, letting it flow around him. Then he shifted through it.






    The Black Mist writhed around him, full of hate, anger, and fear, but he remained distinct from it, maintaining his sense of self. He was drawn toward her like a moth to candlelight, and just as unheeding of the danger. He whipped across what had once been the Blessed Isles, passing over wasted lands and the churning water of the straits dividing them. Wherever the Black Mist extended—reaching blindly, searching, always searching—he was able to go. This was their sunless prison.

    Her burning presence within the darkness lured him on. She was close. Feeling the nearness of her, he stepped from the mist once more.

    He stood in a blackened forest, the trees withered and dead, their branches dry and cracked. The echoes of leaves long since fallen rippled in the memory of a breeze far more gentle than the cold gale now howling through the dead forest.

    He sensed movement in the trees. His heavy boots crunched on blackened soil as he began to stalk it.

    His iron shield was strapped to his left arm, though he didn’t remember securing it there, and he drew his sword. The leather wrapped around its hilt had rotted long ago, and while the blade was broken a few feet above the hilt, the ghostly outline of its full length could still be seen, glowing softly. Shattered and corroded by the ravages of time, it was a shadow of its former majesty. It had been gifted to him by the king himself, back when his monarch was a man to be admired and loved.

    The ground sloped sharply below, but he kept to the high ground, moving along a ridge marked with jutting stone and twisted roots. He could see them now—shadowy spirits borne upon spectral steeds, galloping through the glen below. They moved swiftly, weaving between the trees, east toward a sun that would never again rise over these shores.

    They moved as one, like a hunting party… yet they were the ones being hunted.

    Ledros broke into a run, keeping pace with them.

    A voice echoed through the trees.

    “We come for you, betrayers…”

    It spoke not as a single voice, but rather a score or more of them, layered and overlapping, a legion of souls speaking as one. The strongest of them was one he knew well.

    Ledros quickened his pace, running fast and low. The riders below had been forced to weave around massive stone formations and the boles of ancient, desiccated trees. It slowed them, while the ridge he ran was straight. He quickly outpaced them and drew ahead of the hunted spirits.

    Ledros turned abruptly, stepping over the edge of a sheer cliff. He landed in a crouch at the base, some thirty feet below, the earth cracking beneath him.

    He stood within a narrow defile, where the natural contours of the land had created a funnel. The riders would have to come through.

    With blade drawn, he waited.

    The first of the horsemen appeared, riding at a gallop, a being of spirit and twisted metal—a vile mockery of the once-proud knights of the Iron Order. They were nothing to him now, just hateful fragments of the men they had once been.

    A dark lance, its tip jagged and hooked, was clasped in the knight’s mailed grip, and great curling horns extended from his helm. Seeing Ledros, he wrenched his mount violently to the side, making it snarl and spit. Its hooves were wreathed in shadow, and it seemed not to touch the ground at all.

    Had Ledros killed this one before? Or had he been one of those that had survived his rampage, and killed him?

    The other riders appeared, pulling their steeds up short.

    “Stand aside, bladesman,” one hissed.

    “We have no quarrel with you,” said another.

    “Our quarrel will last until the end of time itself,” growled Ledros.

    “So be it,” snarled another of the deathly knights. “Ride him down!”

    “You shouldn’t have stopped,” said Ledros, a smirk playing on his lips. “That was an error.”

    One of the knights was hurled from his saddle, a glowing spear impaling him. His steed turned to smoke as he hit the ground. The knight screamed as he followed it into nothingness, condemned to join the Black Mist once more. No spirit went to that darkness willingly.

    “She’s here!” roared the lead rider, dragging his steed around to face the new threat.

    There was confusion among the others, caught somewhere between the desire to turn and fight, and to flee in panic.

    They’d have been better off taking their chances at riding him down. At least a few might have escaped. Against her, all would be returned to the mist.

    Another knight was ripped from the saddle, a spear hurled from the mist taking him in the chest.

    Then she appeared, loping from the gloom like a lioness on the hunt, her eyes burning with predatory light.

    Kalista.

    Ledros’ gaze was instantly drawn to the ethereal speartips protruding from her back, and he felt a pang in the core of his being, as sharp as the blades that had ended his own life.

    Kalista padded forward, a spectral spear clasped in one hand. A knight charged her, hook-bladed lance lowered, but she rolled lightly out of the way. Coming to one knee, she hurled her spear, impaling the knight as he rode past. Even as she threw, she was moving toward her next enemy.

    She flexed her hand, and a new weapon materialized in her grasp.

    A sword flashed down at her, but Kalista avoided it expertly, slapping the blade aside with the haft of her spear, before swaying away from the flailing hooves of the knight’s steed. Leaping from a blackened rock, she twisted in the air and drove her spear down into the rider’s chest, banishing him to darkness. She landed in perfect balance, eyes locked to her next victim.

    Ledros had never met a woman as strong as Kalista in life. In death, she was unstoppable.

    While the others focused on her, two of the knights charged Ledros, belatedly seeking to escape Kalista’s methodical slaughter. Stepping sideward at the last moment, Ledros slammed his heavy shield into the steed of the first, knocking the spectral beast to the ground, legs kicking, and sending its rider flying from the saddle.

    The lance of the second knight took Ledros in the side, punching through his armor and snapping halfway down its length. Nevertheless, Ledros retained his feet and spun, lashing out with his blade. He struck through the neck of the knight’s steed, a blow that would have decapitated the beast had it been made of flesh and bone. Instead, it exploded into nothing with a keening scream. Its rider crashed to the ground.

    Ledros smashed the ghostly warrior backward with a heavy blow of his shield as he rose, hurling him onto the point of Kalista’s spear. Her hunt, her kill.

    Ledros sheathed his blade, and watched as she destroyed the last of the spirits.

    Tall and lean, Kalista was in constant motion. Her enemies had been martial templars whose skill at arms was legendary, yet she moved among them effortlessly, side-stepping lance thrusts and sword strikes, dispatching each in turn.

    Then it was done, and the only two left standing were Kalista and Ledros.

    “Kalista?” he said.

    She turned her gaze upon him, but there was no hint of recognition in her eyes. Her expression was stern, as it ever had been in life. She regarded him coldly, unblinking.

    “We are the Spear of Vengeance,” she replied in that voice that was not hers alone.

    “You are Kalista, Spear of the Argent Throne,” said Ledros.

    He knew the words she would speak next before she even opened her mouth. It was the same every time.

    “We are retribution,” said Kalista. “Speak your pledge, or begone.”

    “You were niece to the king I served in life,” said Ledros. “We are… acquainted with each other.”

    Kalista regarded him for a moment, then she turned and strode away.

    “Our task is unfinished,” she said, without looking back. “The betrayers will suffer our wrath.”

    “Your task can never be finished,” said Ledros, hurrying to keep pace. “You are trapped in a never-ending spiral! I am here to help you.”

    “The guilty shall be punished,” said Kalista, continuing to march back through the trees.

    “You remember this, don’t you?” said Ledros, drawing the pendant from around his neck. That gave her pause, as it always did. It was the one thing Ledros had discovered that could break through her fugue, even if only for a moment. He just needed to figure out how to extend that moment…

    Kalista came to a halt, cocking her head to one side as she looked at the delicate pendant. She reached for it, but stopped herself before she touched it.

    “I tried to give this to you once,” said Ledros. “You refused it.”

    Uncertainty touched her eyes.

    “We… I… remember,” she said.

    She looked at him—actually saw him.

    “Ledros,” she said. Her voice was her own now, and for a moment she was the woman he remembered. The woman he’d loved. Her features softened, ever so slightly. “I could never have given you what you wanted.”

    “I understand,” said Ledros, “even if I didn’t at the time.”

    Kalista looked around, as if only now becoming aware of her surroundings. She looked at her hands, glowing from within and as insubstantial as smoke. Ledros saw confusion, then anguish play across her face. Then her features hardened.

    “Would that I had never brought him here,” said Kalista. “All this could have been averted.”

    “It was not your fault,” said Ledros. “I knew madness had claimed him. I could have ended it before it came to this. No one would have questioned his death. No one would have mourned him.”

    “He wasn’t always that way,” said Kalista.

    “No, but the man we knew died long before all this,” Ledros said, gesturing around him.

    “…We have a task to complete.”

    Hope stirred within him. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

    “Whatever it is, we will complete it together, just as…” he said, but his words petered out as he realized his error.

    The cold mask had dropped over her features, and she turned and strode away. Despair clutched at Ledros.

    He’d failed again, just as he had so many times before.

    He saw himself in the early years after the Ruination, stalking the spirits of those who had killed her in life, convinced that destroying them would free her. It hadn’t. He’d spent countless years pursuing that goal, but it had amounted to nothing.

    He saw himself felling the arrogant cavalry captain, Hecarim, hacking his head from his shoulders and rendering him back to the mist. That one had struck Kalista the final, fatal blow, and had long toiled, seeking his end. Time and again they fought, as the years, and decades, and centuries rolled by, and the unseen stars turned overhead. But Hecarim was strong of will, and he returned from the Black Mist, of course, each time more monstrous than the last.

    Either way, it changed nothing. Kalista became steadily more lost as she absorbed the vengeful spirits of the mortals who pledged themselves to her, seeking her aid against their own betrayers.

    Once, he had brought Kalista face to face with Hecarim, a feat that had taken dozens of lesser deaths to achieve. He had believed that was the key to finally setting her free, and he’d rejoiced as he saw the now monstrous creature Hecarim skewered, a dozen spears piercing his towering frame… but banishing him to the darkness had done nothing. A moment of satisfaction, and then it was past.

    Nothing had changed.

    Just another failure added to his growing tally.

    At one point, despair drove him toward self destruction. The purity of the one sunrise he’d seen since the blood had ceased coursing through his veins burned him, his intangible body dissipating like vapor. Guilt at leaving Kalista behind clawed at him, but in that agony he had rejoiced, daring to believe he’d finally found release.

    Even in seeking final oblivion, he had failed, and he’d been condemned to the madness of the Black Mist once more.

    All the moments preceding his banishment blurred together in a never-ending cavalcade of horror and defeat.

    He roared as a purple-skinned sorcerer cast him back to the darkness, tearing him asunder with runic magics.The savage joy he’d felt as he joined the slaughter in the streets of a festering harbor city overrun with the Black Mist gave way to sudden pain as he was blasted to nothingness by the faith of indigenous witches.

    He laughed as a sword impaled him on its length, but his amusement turned to agony as the blade burst into searing light, burning with the intensity of the sun.

    Again and again and again he’d been condemned back to the nightmarish Black Mist, but always he’d returned. Every time, he returned to a land locked in stasis, waking in the same place, the same way.

    A being of lesser will would have succumbed to insanity long ago, as so many of the spirits had. But not him. Failure clung to him, but his will was as iron. His stubborn determination to free her kept him going. That was what ensured he came back, over and over again.

    Snapping back to the present, Ledros watched Kalista stalk away from him, intent on her unending mission.

    A creeping melancholia settled within him. Was it all for nothing?

    Was Thresh right? Was his attempt to free her from her path of retribution actually selfish?

    She was sleepwalking through this nightmare, unaware of its true horrors. Would she thank him were he to wake her? Perhaps she would despise him, wishing he had let her be.

    Ledros shook his head, trying to dislodge the insidious notion, even as a vision of Thresh—smiling, predatory—appeared in his mind.

    “Get out of my head,” he snarled, cursing Thresh.

    A new idea came to him suddenly, banishing his lingering doubts and fears. There was something he hadn’t tried, something he’d never considered until now.

    “Kalista,” he called.

    She did not heed him, and continued on her way, her step unrelenting.

    He loosened his sword belt, and cast his scabbarded blade to the ground. He wouldn’t need it any more.

    “I betrayed you,” he called out.

    She stopped, her head whipping around, unblinking eyes locking on to him.

    “I should have stepped forward as soon as the order was given,” Ledros continued. “I knew Hecarim was looking for any excuse to be rid of you. You’d always been the king’s favorite. It all happened so fast, but I should have been faster. We could have faced them, back to back. We could have cut our way through them and been free, together! I betrayed you with my inaction, Kalista. I failed you.”

    Kalista’s eyes narrowed

    “Betrayer,” she intoned.

    An ethereal spear manifested in her grasp, and she began marching toward him.

    Ledros unstrapped his shield and threw it aside as she broke into a loping run. He opened his arms wide, welcoming what was to come.

    The first spear drove him back a step as it impaled him.

    His had been the true betrayal. He’d loved her, even if he’d only spoken those words aloud alone, in the darkness of night…

    A second spear drove through him, hurled with tremendous force. He staggered, but stubbornly remained standing.

    He had not stepped in to stop her being murdered. He was her real betrayer.

    Her third spear plunged through him, and now he dropped to both knees. He smiled, even as his strength leached from him.

    Yes, this was it. This was what would finally break her from that awful, unending spiral. He was sure of it.

    “Finish it,” he said, looking up at her. “Finish it, and be free.”

    They stared at each other for a moment, a pair of undying spirits, their insubstantial forms rippling with deathless energy. In that moment, Ledros felt only love. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been in life—regal, beautiful, strong.

    “Death to all betrayers,” she said, and ran him through.

    Ledros’ vision wavered as his form began to come apart, yet he saw Kalista’s expression change, the impassive mask dropping, replaced with dawning horror.

    “Ledros?” she said, her voice now her own.

    Her eyes were wide, and seemed to fill with shimmering tears. She rushed to be beside him as Ledros fell.

    “What have I done?” she breathed.

    He wanted to reassure her, but no words came forth.

    I did this for you.

    Darkness crashed in, and tendrils of mist reached to claim him.

    Kalista reached out to comfort him, but her fingers passed through his dissolving form. Her mouth moved, but he could not hear her over the roaring madness of the Black Mist.

    His armor fell to the ground and turned to dust, along with his sword. Blind terror beckoned, but he went into it gladly.

    Dimly, he registered the pale specter of Thresh, watching from the shadows with his fixed, hungry smile. Even the Chain Warden’s unwanted presence could not dampen Ledros’ moment of victory.

    He’d done it. He had freed her.

    It was over.






    Blind, all-consuming terror.

    Incandescent, uncontrollable rage.

    Claustrophobic horror, cloying and choking.

    And behind it all was the insatiable hunger—the yearning to feed on warmth and life, to draw more souls into darkness.

    The cacophony was deafening—a million screaming, tortured souls, writhing and roiling in shared torment.

    This was the Black Mist.

    And only the strongest of souls could escape its grasp. Only those with unfinished business.

    Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.

    Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.

    Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.

    His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.

    For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…

    No. Something was not right.

    Reality crashed in.

    None of this was real. This was but an echo left behind, the residual pain of his death, hundreds of lifetimes earlier.

    Thankfully, the Chain Warden was not here to mock him.

    How long had it been, this time? There was no way to know. Decades, or a few minutes—it could have been either, and yet it hardly mattered. Nothing changed in this vile realm of stasis.

    Then he remembered, and hope surged through him. It was not a sensation he was familiar with, but it blossomed like the first bud of a seemingly dead tree after rainfall.

    He turned, and she was there, and for a moment he knew joy, true joy. She was herself again, and she had come to him!

    Then he saw her expression. The cold, severe mask, the lack of recognition in her eyes. The hope inside him withered and died.

    Kalista stared past him, her head cocked, as if listening to something only she could hear.

    “We accept your pledge,” she said, before turning and stepping into the mist.

    Then she was gone.

    Reaching out with his will, Ledros felt her now far away. Someone had called to her, from a distant continent to the north-west. Someone else who had traded their soul for a promise of vengeance against whoever had wronged them. They knew not what horror awaited.

    Bitterness and bile filled Ledros. He cursed himself, twisting his hatred inward.

    There was no hope. He knew that now. He’d been a fool to think otherwise.

    She was trapped for eternity, as were they all. Only pride and stubbornness had made him think he could solve it, like a riddle, for all these years.

    Pride and stubbornness—traits that were as much his bane in death as they had been in life, it seemed.

    The cursed Chain Warden was right. It was a selfish desire to free her, he saw that now. Kalista may not be herself, but at least she was not tormented like he was. At least she had purpose.

    Ledros yanked the pendant from around his neck, shattering the links of its thin chain. He hurled it into the mist.

    To even hope for anything more was foolishness. There could be no peace, not unless the curse that held these isles in its foetid grasp was broken.

    “And so, I must end it,” Ledros said.

    Oblivion called.






    Thresh stepped from the darkness. He glanced around, ensuring he was alone. Then he knelt and picked up the discarded silver pendant.

    The fool had been so close. He was on the brink of bringing her back… and now, after countless centuries of trying, he had abandoned his task, at the very moment of success.

    Thresh smiled, cruelly. He liked seeing hope wither and die, like blighted fruit upon the vine, as what could have been sweet turned to poison. It amused him.

    He opened his lantern, and tossed the pendant within. Then he stepped back into the darkness, and faded from view.

    After a time, the rattle of his chains faded, and he was gone.

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