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Taric

For the noble defenders of Demacia, daily life is the very model of focused, selfless dedication to the ideals of king and country. Called upon to continue his family’s long tradition of military service, Taric never dreamed of shirking that responsibility—though he would not limit or define exactly whom and what he would protect.
The young warrior trained hard, and possessed great martial skill. Even so, in his scant hours of free time, he would find other ways to serve his homeland. He volunteered with the Illuminators, tending the sick or helping rebuild homes damaged by flooding. He lent his creative talents, such as they were, to the stonemasons and craftsmen who raised monuments to the glory of the Winged Protector and the lofty ideals it embodied.
A work of art. A stranger’s life. These were the things that made Demacia worth fighting for. Taric saw every one of them as beautiful, fragile, and worthy of saving.
Fortunately, his disarming manner and innate warmth allowed him to brush aside any criticism from his fellow soldiers or commanding officers. He rose modestly through the ranks, and even fought beside a young Garen Crownguard.
Ironically, it was Taric’s steady rise that would bring about his eventual downfall—at least as far as Demacia was concerned.
Elevated to the prestigious Dauntless Vanguard, he was suddenly held to a far higher standard of conduct. No more would he be allowed to roam the forests looking for glimpses of some rare animal, neglect combat drills to sit in a tavern and listen to a bard’s simple ballad, or skip line inspections to ride out and observe the silver cloak of night settling across the hinterlands. Taric began to feel at odds with himself, and soon attracted attention as an insubordinate.
Garen urged him to shape up and do his duty. He could see Taric had the potential to become one of Valoran’s greatest heroes—and yet he seemed to be thumbing his nose at destiny as well as his country.
To keep him from demotion, Taric was seconded to serve the Sword-Captain of the Vanguard, though neither of them was particularly happy about it. However, when the older man was slain in battle along with the rest of his personal retinue, Taric was found to have abandoned his post… and rumor had it that he had been spotted wandering the cloisters of some forgotten ruined temple nearby.
Nothing more could be said. A dozen warriors were dead, and Taric faced the executioner’s block for it.
However, seeking mercy for his friend, Garen intervened. As the Sword-Captain’s successor, he sentenced Taric to endure “the Crown of Stone”—in accordance with Demacia’s most ancient traditions, he would be sent to climb Mount Targon, a trial that few had ever survived.
Though the Crown of Stone usually allowed the dishonored to simply flee Demacia and start a new life in exile, Taric took the first ship heading south, and swore to actually atone for what he had done.
The climb nearly claimed him, body and soul, numerous times. But Taric pushed past the pain, the ghosts of his dead comrades, and other tests inflicted upon him by the mountain. As he approached the summit, he was beset by a wave of new visions of loss and destruction…
He witnessed the great Alabaster Library set aflame… and still he dashed into the inferno to retrieve the heavenly poetries of Tung. He screamed in anguish as the Frostguard ran the last dreamstag into the Howling Abyss… and then leapt over the precipice himself in a desperate attempt to save it. At the gates of the Immortal Bastion, Taric slumped to his knees when he saw Garen’s broken body swinging from a gibbet… before raising his shield, and charging headlong into the waiting hordes of Noxus.
When the visions finally faded, Taric found himself at the very pinnacle of the mountain, and he was not alone. Before him stood something wearing the shape of a man, though its almost crystalline features blazed with the light of the stars themselves, and its voice was a thousand whispers that cut through Taric like a blade.
It spoke truths he had somehow always known. It spoke of the mantle for which he had unwittingly been preparing his entire life, with every decision and deed that had brought him here, now, to Targon.
And he would stand as the Shield of Valoran in great wars yet to come.
Reborn as the Aspect of the Protector, gifted with power and purpose unimaginable to most mortals, Taric has gladly accepted this new calling—as the steadfast guardian of an entire world.
The Uninvited Guest

I look out across the once-verdant field, now scarred and ruined by the toil of battle.
The loss of life will be immense, but I cannot save those who seek their own destruction. All those sons, all those fathers, all those futures lost. Demacians and Noxians, ever at each other’s throats, magnetically drawn to one another by something lesser than both.
Plenty of defenders exist for their lofty ideals, and they all stand in my way, almost gleefully slaughtering themselves over a scrap of land, with no idea of its true importance. Two armies entwined, both committed to their ruinous dance.
I could try to reason with them, ask them to move their brawl elsewhere, but my former countrymen now see me as something between a traitor and a wrathful god, and the Noxians… well, the Noxians have always been short on patience.
My usual weapons—wit, charm, and warmth—are useless in this cauldron of desperation. So I push aside those who would slow me, and wade into those who would stop me. Every kind of horror one soul can inflict on another rages around me as I near my goal.
And there, dead center of the roiling fury of battle, the blaze of color calls to me—a delicate life about to be snuffed out amid the mud- and gore-covered boots. Standing bravely, unbowed by the thudding dullness of the armored brutes around it, its beauty rings out like a single crystal bell. It is the last flower of its kind. If it dies, no more shall bloom. I can not allow it to perish.
The two opposing commanders pause in their combat as I approach, an uninvited guest at their last moments. They turn to me, suddenly allied in their outrage at my intrusion.
I stand at the very eye of the two armies, seemingly inviting the cold embrace of death from all sides. But unlike all those who are now taking wary steps toward me, their sword hands trembling, I know why I fight.
Teemo

On my honor as a scout, I will strive:

To help every living thing thrive

To be a friend to all in need

To seek out every rock and tree

To be honest and kind and brave and true

To try my best in all I do

To meet every challenge with courage and wit

And to leave the world better than when I found it

So I pledge to uphold the Bandle Scout way

And serve yordlekind each and every day!

—The Bandle Scout Oath

Teemo has been a Bandle Scout for as long as he can remember—hopping through portals all across Runeterra in order to find people in need (badge 131: “Help a Stranger”), to befriend new creatures (badge 389: “Adopt a Pet”), or even to document strange new species of mushrooms (badge 248: “Fungology Expert”). For Teemo, there was no greater joy than spending his days seeking adventure and earning Bandle Scout badges, which was how he became the most decorated Bandle Scout the world had ever seen.

Bandle Scout rule #154: Never fear the unknown.

When other yordles saw everything Teemo had accomplished, his dedication and enthusiasm inspired them to become Bandle Scouts. What began as a single scout with a dream grew and grew until Teemo was handing out badges to intrepid young cadets and writing new copies of the Bandle Scout rules for their journeys across Runeterra (rules he’d luckily memorized, since his original handbook was lost somewhere in the waters south of the Serpent Isles while he was learning to tie sailing knots).

Bandle Scout rule #13: Every day is an adventure. Make sure you are prepared!

When one cadet surveyed yordles across Runeterra regarding Bandle Scout contributions (badge 567: “Market Research”), the feedback was unanimous—under Teemo’s fearless leadership, the Bandle Scouts were beloved the world over:

“Teemo is SO COOL. One time, I saw him stop a raging stampede of wild horses. It was awesome!”
—Ava, Bandle Scout

“The Bandle Scouts have grown a lot. They put on this great big festival a while ago—had floats and everything. It was pretty neat. They even let me set off some fireworks!”

—Tristana, the Bandle Gunner

“I love those rascals with their missions and badges and adventurer’s moxy. It brings a happy tear to this old pilot’s eye.”

—Corki, the Daring Bombardier

“What the @#$%*^ is a Bandle Scout?”

—Kled, High Major Commodore of the First Legion Third Multiplication Double Admiral Artillery Vanguard Company

Teemo even introduced the world to Bandle Scout biscuits, now carried by scouts all across Runeterra. Their inventory includes over a hundred exciting and unique flavors, such as:

- Poro-Snax

- Old Cheese

- Honeyfruit

- Meat!

- Limited Edition Spirit Blossom

- Bilge Rat

- Helian Puff-Pastry (permanently retired)

- Shuriman Sand

- And many more!

Nowadays, Teemo is focusing on completing Bandle Scout missions of his own design. His most recent achievements are propagating a near-extinct species of exploding mushroom, and freeing all the cute little basilisks in a Noxian war camp (who looked so very sad inside their stables). He’s also researching the origins of the Bandle Scouts—who founded it? Made the first badge? Penned the first rule? And could it have been Teemo himself in a time long lost to his memories? Eh, he can’t remember! But no matter the mission, one thing remains constant, which is Teemo’s dedication to live by the words of the Scout’s Oath: to uphold the Bandle Scout way, and serve yordlekind each and every day.
With Teeth

Graham McNeill

Firewood was precious in the desert, but the blackened ruins of Vekaura offered a plentiful supply of charred timbers to hurl on bonfires. The city had been a blasted ruin when the Sandthrashers rode through the ruins of its walls, its streets empty, its people vanished.
None of them knew for sure who had razed it, but the captives they’d taken on the Marrowmark road told lurid tales of ancient gods whose anger had burned the city to ash and glass.
Raz Bloodmane didn’t believe that, not really.
Stories in Shurima were the currency of the oasis, the payment of the campfire—living things that grew and twisted with every retelling. No tale could pass from lips to ears without each teller adding some grisly detail, some exaggeration to make it their own.
Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters.
The Sandthrashers were a little of both.
A reaver band of bloodthirsty warriors mounted on giant sauren lizards, they terrorized the dust roads of the Sai-Kahleek for coin, and hunted Shakkal marauders in the Valley of Song for amusement. With temperatures dropping in the south, their Preystalker, Sai-Surtha, had led the warband into the warmer north to raid the caravans in search of the newly risen capital in the heart of the great desert.
Such caravans were ripe with fat merchants and priests, the desperate, and the gullible. Those foolish enough to believe that an ancient emperor had arisen from his tomb to reclaim his lost empire rather than an earthquake had exposed a buried city.
Easy pickings.
The Sandthrashers were ambush predators, erupting from desert storms to raid in a frenzy of snapping jaws and stabbing spears. Any who fought back were hacked apart, and those that surrendered were fed to their hungry mounts.
Raz grinned as the tethered sauren snapped and growled at the edge of the firelight—giant, reptilian beasts with long, razor-toothed jaws and flanks armored in sun-baked scales. Their ridged bellies hung low to the ground, worn hard by the sand, tails thrashing the dust that lay thick in this cursed city.
Ghosts lurked everywhere in the ruins; echoes of the dying were freighted on the cold wind whistling through shattered stones, and silhouettes burned onto the walls like painted shadows.
Something had happened here, something bad.
Sai-Surtha tossed a splintered roof beam onto the main fire. Sparks flew into the night sky, coiling in firefly spirals before the reaver band’s leader. Raz was strong, but even he would have struggled to lift that beam. Yet the skull-masked vastaya hefted the heavy timber like it was a twig, its enormous weight nothing to his inhuman physique.
Raz watched the sparks flicker briefly in the darkness before fading, sensing a significance that hung just out of reach.
“Why do you look up?” asked Anukta, following his gaze.
The scaled plates of her heavy armor rasped together as she moved, and her shaven head, bare but for a crimson mohawk, glistened with sweat. Her facial tattoos gleamed like exposed bone in the firelight.
“The sparks,” he said. “They burn so bright, then fade to nothing in the blink of an eye.”
“So?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it might be significant. Like it meant something.”
“You are a sage now? Like Ngozi?”
“No,” said Raz, “not like him. But the sparks, they live, burn, and then are gone. Like us, like life. We are the sparks.”
Anukta laughed, the ivory hoops punched through her ears shaking like drunken moons. “You are right, not like Ngozi at all. He was truly clever. You are just a loud fool.”
Anger turned Raz’s features ruddy, and Anukta’s expression showed she knew she’d gone too far. Her head dropped and she fell to one knee, arms crossed over her chest, thumbs snapping to her palms.
“Forgive me, Raz Bloodmane,” she said, knowing that as Sai-Surtha’s second-in-command, he could have her thrown into the long, tooth-filled mouths of the sauren pack.
Or worse, fed to Ma’kara, the apex mount of Sai-Surtha.
The sauren was a colossal beast, forty feet long and ridged with razored scales from its tail to its three enormous heads. Each elongated jaw was large enough to swallow a horse and teeming with hooked teeth stained rust-brown with blood.
“This is the night before a hunt,” said Raz. “On such a night, only road-meat dies. Don’t make me change that custom.”
Anukta nodded and rose, turning to where the latest captives huddled in the smashed remains of a grain store. They’d taken them on the northern dune roads from Kenethet, men and women claiming they were on a pilgrimage south to see the new emperor. Four had already been devoured by the sauren, and the five that remained were scrawny-looking things, hardly a morsel for the beasts. Well, four of them were—the fifth was an older man with a city dweller’s skin, a full set of teeth, and a girth that told Raz he’d never gone hungry.
“That one,” he said, and Anukta hauled the man to his feet. His face was pale with fear, and Raz saw none of the other captives seemed to mind him being taken.
“Please, don’t kill me,” said the man, with the boneless accent of the northern coasts. “I have money. I can get you much money. Please, gods, don’t feed me to the beasts!”
“You’re too well fed to be a pilgrim,” said Raz, poking the man’s ample belly.
“A pilgrim? No, no, I... I am...”
Anukta jabbed the tip of her spear into his back. “You’re what? Out with it, fool!”
“I am Ordan Stilava, Arch-Patriarch of the Melierax Temple of Bel’zhun,” said the man between heaving breaths. “I’ll get you anything you want. Just, please don’t kill me.”
“A priest, huh?” said Raz, leaning in close and relishing the smell of fear washing off the man in waves. “I heard priests were pious servants of the gods. People to admire. You do not look like a man to admire, Ordan Stilava.”
“Kill him,” said one of the remaining captives. “And make it slow.”
Raz shrugged. “It looks like your companions don’t much like you either.”
“He is a fat pig who took our money and said he would lead us south to Azir!” spat the woman. “He feasted while we went hungry. When we begged for food, his guards beat us. Another day and he would have left us to starve to death in the Sai.”
Raz knelt by the woman—wolf-lean with skin the color of dusk and fire in her eyes.
“And who are you?”
“I am Dalia, proud daughter of sand and sun.”
“Water and shade to you, Dalia,” said Raz. “Show me your palms.”
She held out her hands, bound at the wrist by rough ropes.
He ran his fingertips around hardened patches of skin on her palm and along the edges of her thumb.
“You’re no pilgrim either,” said Raz. “These are sword calluses.”
She pulled her hands back.
“What were you? Caravan guard, tomb-robber, mercenary?”
“All three in my time.”
Raz jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You think I should feed him to the sauren?”
“Yes. Feet first.”
Raz laughed and drew his knife, a bone-bladed gutter he’d carved from one of Khesu’s splintered teeth. His sauren wasn’t nearly as big as Ma’kara and only had one head, but its teeth were just as long and just as sharp.
“I like this one,” he said to Anukta, sawing the serrated edge of his blade through Dalia’s bindings. “Come.”
She rose to her feet as Raz turned and dragged the protesting Ordan Stilava away.
“Do as he says and you might live,” said Anukta with a lopsided grin.

The sauren saw him coming, and the rumbling in their throats intensified as they saw he brought them more meat. They strained at their chain-leashes, inward-facing spikes driving into the softer skin at their throats the harder they pulled. Khesu watched him and opened its jaws wide in expectation of feeding.
“Soon, my friend,” said Raz. “Soon.”
The wood of Vekaura burned with the blood-red glow of a desert sunset, a good omen for tomorrow’s ride. Its light illuminated the rest of the Sandthrashers, twenty-three warriors lounging on stacked debris, blocks of stone, and benches dragged from the ruins to form a makeshift arena around the fire. Clad in a mix of light fabrics, furs, and boiled sauren-scale armor, they feasted on the last of the plunder from their most recent raid: salted skallashi meat and strong liquor made from fermented Eka’Sul milk.
Armed with curved tulwars and tooth-bladed spears, they were men and women whose names were a terror to caravans snaking across the dust roads of the Sai. Years of plunder and killing in the harshest of climes had made them tough and merciless, capricious and boastful, and none more so than Sai-Surtha.
The Preystalker sat atop a throne of stacked blocks burned to glass by some unimaginable heat. Half again as tall as Raz, their war-chief was a vastaya from the east, massively built with a boulder-like leonine head and a body swollen with muscle. He wore his thick mane long, each braid woven with steel cords and talismans he claimed were magic.
Sai-Surtha’s yellow-slitted eyes narrowed as he saw Raz approaching.
“What do you bring me, Raz Bloodmane?” said the Preystalker.
“Fresh meat,” cried Raz, taking Ordan Stilava from Anukta. “A soul rich with deceit and ripe with arrogance.”
“Ma’kara’s favorite,” said Sai-Surtha, reaching out and running a clawed hand across his mount’s nearest head. The sauren grumbled and hissed, its three jaws opening wide. Raz saw scraps of rotten meat between yellowed fangs, gullets pink and glistening in the firelight. Its many eyes, like pits of tar, flashed in hunger. The beast had devoured the lion’s share of the captives already, but its appetite was never-ending.
Ma’kara was an apex predator, and all other beasts must wait until its hunger was sated.
Raz pushed Ordan Stilava into the battle circle beside the bonfire. Its edges were marked with skulls, and the sand within was red and sticky. Ordan Stilava fell hard, scrambling to his knees before Sai-Surtha with his bloodied hands clasped before him as if in prayer.
“Please, mighty lord, don’t kill me!” he wailed.
The Sandthrashers laughed and Ma’kara pulled taut, eager to rip open this fulsome sweetmeat. Sai-Surtha pulled it back with a jerk of the chain-leash, but the beast’s hunger to feast on the patriarch was undimmed.
“Make sport of him, Raz Bloodmane!” ordered Sai-Surtha. “Entertain us!”
Ordan Stilava tried to rise, but Raz kicked him in the back. Raz lifted his arms high, slowly turning in a circle with a wide grin plastered across his face.
“Brothers and sisters!” he cried. “Our desert bounty is all but spent. The time is upon us to hunt!”
Cheers echoed from the blasted walls of the city. Fists and spears punched the air, accompanied by the bellows of the sauren.
“Caravans from the east and north ply the dust roads in search of water and shade!” he yelled, strutting around the circle. “But what shall they find?”
“Death!” roared the Sandthrashers.
Raz cupped a hand to his ear and leaned forward.
“What?”
“Death!”
“Again!” demanded Raz.
“Death! Death! Death!”
Raz grinned and held up a hand for quiet. A stillness fell across Vekaura, broken only by the heavy crackle of the bonfire and the heaving sobs of Ordan Stilava.
“Yes,” he said. “Death comes to them, as it comes to us all. But before the Jackal takes us into the Sunless Lands, we will spill the blood of our enemies and take what was once theirs. This world demands strength and punishes weakness, so I offer this blood to you all!”
They roared as Raz crossed to Ordan Stilava and cut the rope at his wrists.
The man sobbed in gratitude, but the smile fell from his face when Raz pressed the serrated knife into his hands.
“What? I don’t...”
“You are free to go,” said Raz.
“Free?” said Stilava, sudden hope in his eyes. “Really?”
“Upon my oath. All you have to do is step out of the circle and I will let you go.”
Raz grinned as he saw the understanding of what was on offer dawn on Stilava. He stepped away and spread his arms wide, turning his back on the trembling captive.
Knowing he would never get another chance, Stilava ran at Raz with the dagger upraised.
At the last instant, Raz swayed aside from the blade, spinning and thundering his fist into Stilava’s face. The man went down like a hamstrung beast, the dagger flying from his grip.
“Up,” said Raz, kicking it across the sand to him.
“Please,” said Stilava, ignoring the weapon. “You said I was free.” His face was wet with tears and snot, blood pouring over his lips from his broken nose.
Raz lifted Stilava to his feet and again pressed the knife into his hands. He leaned in and whispered in his ear. “These are your last moments in this world,” he hissed. “The gods are watching—is this how you want to meet them? Weeping and soiled? Give them a show and they might look kindly upon your soul!”
Hate hardened in Stilava’s eyes, and Raz leapt back as the priest stabbed the blade for his belly.
Another thrust, high for his throat. Raz batted the strike aside with his bare hands, spinning away as Stilava slashed wildly like a maniac. The man had no skill and had clearly never handled a knife beyond slicing fine cuts of meat on his plate.
“That’s it!” laughed Raz, easily dodging the clumsy attacks. “Come on, gut me!”
Behind Stilava, Raz saw Khesu’s head come up and heard the constant rumbling in the beast’s throat rise to something else entirely. He blocked an overhand cut with his armored forearm, and sent a pumping jab into Stilava’s belly.
The man hinged at the waist, winded, but he held on to the knife this time.
Raz risked a glance over at Sai-Surtha, and saw the Preystalker on his feet, looking back toward the city gates. Raz turned and saw something move in the shadows beyond the light of the bonfire. The sheen of gold glittered in the darkness, and though the shape moved like a man, it was surely too large for anything human.
Then something was arcing through the air.
Raz followed the object as it sailed overhead and landed at the edge of the fire.
The warriors around the circle shouted in alarm and reached for their weapons as the sauren pack scented blood and yanked at their chain-leashes in a frenzy.
Raz’s mouth fell open as he recognized the warrior he’d tasked with watching the city’s western gate. Uksem Heartsplitter.
Or, rather, half of him.
Uksem lay in a rapidly expanding pool of blood as catastrophic amounts pumped from where his body had been bitten in two. Impossibly, his eyes blinked and his fingers clawed the sand, as if he hadn’t accepted he was dead.
Raz took a step toward Uksem, then cried out as pain flared in his side.
Ordan Stilava!
Distracted, Raz had made for an easy target, but it was a poor strike, ill-aimed and with no strength behind it. Instead of penetrating a vital organ, it had sliced over the skin of his hip.
Raz spun to see the man stumble backward beyond the edges of the battle circle with a wild grin on his face and Raz’s knife held out before him.
“I’m free!” said Stilava. “I got out of the circle—you have to let me go! You said!”
Raz shook his head. He didn’t have time for this foolishness. Not now.
“Khesu. Kill.”
Ordan Stilava turned around in time to see the giant sauren surge forward with its fanged jaws spread wide. They snapped shut and the Arch-Patriarch was no more. Only his footprints in the sand and the mist of blood in the air remained to mark his presence.
Raz put the man from his mind as the shadow at the edge of the city advanced into the firelight. The breath caught in his throat.
Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters...
How wrong he had been—how fundamentally, entirely wrong.
It walked upright like a man, but there the similarities ended.
Hunched, yet still half a head taller than Sai-Surtha, with a thick tail dragging behind it.
Clad in dust-caked armor of dull gold and rusted bronze.
Eyes of jaundiced yellow, rugose flesh of green and ochre.
Blood drooling between dagger-like teeth in red ropes.
Its mighty head was bowed, the crocodilian snout sniffing for fresh meat.
Raz knew this creature. He’d seen his likeness carved into sunken temple walls, had etched it into the blade of his own spear.
He’d heard his name spoken in hushed whispers around the oases.
The eyeless makhru, the wandering true-speakers who were said to talk with the spirits of the ancients, told cautionary tales of this god’s exploits to warn against unchecked aggression.
“The herald of Azir...” said Anukta, her head held high in awed wonder.
“Renekton...” said Dalia.
The giant snapped his head toward her at the name, sliding a huge crescent blade from his back. Such a weapon could cleave a skallashi in two.
“Where. Is. He?” demanded the god.
His voice was rasping and dry, raw from an eternity of screaming.
Despite the sheer power of the god’s presence, Dalia remained unbowed, defiant in the face of his unimaginable power.
In contrast, the sauren pressed their bellies to the sand, eyes rolled back in submission and the low rumbling in their throats stilled. Even Ma’kara lowered its three-headed body to the ground, something Raz never dreamed he’d see.
He forgot the pain in his side as he resisted the urge to drop in awe alongside them. His lip curled in contempt as he saw the Sandthrashers gathered around the battle circle were kneeling.
Submission was for the weak; respect was only ever earned in blood.
The creature stalked forward as though oblivious to the warriors’ presence. Only when Sai-Surtha descended from his throne did he deign to look up and acknowledge them.
“I am Sai-Surtha, Preystalker of the Sandthrashers,” said the vastaya, unhooking his sauren-scale shield from Ma’kara’s saddle. “How is it you dare to enter my city and kill blood of my blood?”
Renekton looked around at the ruins, blinking, as if only now seeing its devastation.
“This is your city?” he said.
“For tonight it is,” said Sai-Surtha, drawing his falcata, a blade almost the equal of the god’s weapon, and stepping into the battle circle.
“Then you must know where he is,” said Renekton, joining Sai-Surtha in the circle as though this were some pre-ordained rite. “Rulers must know all, see all! All the whispering liars. Honeyed words and falsehoods. I heard them. No one listened. No one ever listens to Renekton...”
Raz backed away, joining Anukta and Dalia beyond the reach of the circling warriors. Renekton’s words made no sense, and he had no desire to be nearer to these giants than was necessary.
“Who is it you seek?” asked Sai-Surtha, the falcata spinning in his grip.
“The betrayer!” bellowed Renekton, the corded muscles at his neck spasming. “My faithless brother! Tell me where he is or you will know agony.”
Sai-Surtha laughed, a booming sound that echoed from the toppled walls of Vekaura. The Preystalker was a being of colossal appetites, and took his pleasures wherever he found them. Raz saw him eyeing Renekton’s physique, his hunter’s eye seeking out weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
“The Jackal?” said Sai-Surtha. “Nasus?”
Renekton flinched at the name of his legendary brother, as though the sound of it caused him great pain. His grip on his crescent blade slipped and he pressed a clawed hand to his brow at some unknowable madness.
“Do not speak his name,” warned Renekton, the dry rasp of his voice low and dangerous like the threat of an approaching sandstorm. “He was here, I know it. The magical spoor of the Ascended lies across this place, but goes no farther. They made war here, my brother and he who whispered in the darkness. The desert sands called to me, and the muttering winds told me of his coming. Now tell me where he is or die!”
“And if I had that knowledge, what would you offer in return?”
“Nothing at all, but maybe I won’t rip you apart.”
Sai-Surtha shook his head and made a quarter turn, drawing his falcata back over his right shoulder and extending his shield before him.
Renekton laughed, the sound terrible and melancholy all in one.
“You think you can stand against me? I am Ascended. A god to your kind!”
“I’ve always wanted to kill a god,” said the Preystalker, brandishing a blade engraved with runic sigils and hung with fetishes cut from the dead. “And if it must be a maddened, broken one, then so be it.” He hammered the blade against the vivid crimson of his breastplate and said, “I took this sword from a tomb in the Endless Plain and prised this armor from the skeleton of the ancient warrior who bore it. He was about your size. I will kill you with the craft of your own kind.”
Renekton roared in fury and launched himself at Sai-Surtha. He lashed his crescent blade into the Preystalker’s shield, drawing splintered scales.
Sai-Surtha’s return strike knocked the fury from his attack. Renekton stumbled and the Preystalker ripped his falcata into his ribs, drawing oil-black blood. Renekton struck back, but carved only shield again.
“You deny my vengeance while you squat in this ruin of his making!” he roared.
Another blow. Renekton staggered, then spun, head lowered. Keeping his distance.
Raz saw a newfound respect in the god’s eyes.
He’d struck expecting an easy kill, but Sai-Surtha was a fighter of incredible power and skill, with weapons and armor to match Renekton’s. The Sandthrashers were no longer on their knees, but punching the air with their weapons and chanting the name of their war-leader.
Sai-Surtha lunged, driving his toothed shield into Renekton’s shoulder and face. Renekton threw him off, and leapt aside, faster than ought to have been possible for a being his size. His tail lashed out, but Sai-Surtha ducked and pressed his advantage. He broke Renekton’s guard with his shield and body-slammed him across the battle circle.
Renekton fell into the fire and rolled. Flames licked his flesh black and sparks flew into the darkness. He shook his crocodilian head and spat, blood dripping from his fangs.
“You know where he is!” Renekton bellowed. “I see his liar’s face looking out through your eyes. Tell me!”
Sai-Surtha came at him again with another lunge, carving a chunk of golden armor from Renekton’s flank. Instead of retreating, Renekton surged and hammered a series of rapid slashes down on Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the first, but the second and third tore into his furred flesh. The fighters’ blades spun and swooped, a blur of silver and bronze ringing against each other in a lethal dance.
Renekton circled left. Sai-Surtha went right. Both were bloodied and winded.
The Preystalker struck first, a low, ankle-slicing blow—Renekton parried, then spun around to deliver a stinging cut that splintered the golden plates of his opponent’s shoulder guards.
“The legends speak of you as a mighty war-god,” said Sai-Surtha between heaving gulps of air. “They tell how you took that blade from a dead king of Icathia. How you broke its haft as you broke his army.” Sai-Surtha shook his head. “How low you have fallen, how lost you have become.”
Renekton growled and charged. Sai-Surtha met his first strike with his shield, and countered his second with his falcata. A third he parried, a fourth he turned aside in a squealing slide of ancient steel that threw off jade sparks.
A tearing bite ripped into Sai-Surtha’s shoulder, and the Preystalker threw back his head with a howl of pain. A tail lash drew blood from his chest. Both fighters backed off, bleeding from their many wounds.
Renekton grinned, his teeth red with Sai-Surtha’s blood. “All that keeps you alive are stolen magics. Without them, you would be dead already.”
“And yet still I stand,” said Sai-Surtha with a mocking bow.
Renekton spun his crescent blade from hand to hand, then seized it in a double-handed grip to hack down at Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the blade with his shield, driven to his knees by the force of the blow.
He rolled past Renekton and raked his falcata across his thigh.
The god stumbled away, blood pouring down his leg.
Watching from beyond the circle, Raz willed Sai-Surtha to finish the fight, to step in and deliver the killing blow.
The fighters closed again, blades ringing like funeral bells. Sai-Surtha’s shield broke apart and Renekton’s armor hung from him in tattered strips of gold. Renekton stomped in, and the tip of his ancient blade sliced deep into Sai-Surtha’s cheek.
The leader of the Sandthrashers spat teeth and fractured Renekton’s ribs with a two-handed hammerblow.
Renekton was staggered by its ferocity, by pain one of his kind had likely not known in centuries. His stance faltered and his yellowed eyes clouded as though reliving jagged memories and visions of triumphs and deaths long since consigned to the dust of history.
“Please!” bellowed Renekton. “Brother! He is too strong! It must be done!”
The words were meaningless, but, sensing an opening, Sai-Surtha swung for Renekton’s throat. The crescent blade lifted to parry, too late and too slow. The falcata tore Renekton’s face open from jaw to temple. He grunted in pain and swung wildly with his blade.
A clumsy blow, but it split armor and lacerated Sai-Surtha’s side.
Undaunted by the injury, the vastaya struck again, hacking his blade through Renekton’s wrist, leaving it hanging by a shred of sinew.
Renekton threw his head back and roared as Sai-Surtha pulled him in tight and drove the length of his blade through his foe’s heart.
The Sandthrashers cheered, and Raz threw his arms up in triumph.
The two fighters stood for a moment as though embracing, the tip of Sai-Surtha’s falcata jutting from Renekton’s spine. Dark blood streamed from the blade, hissing as it turned the sand beneath to glass.
Renekton rested his torn cheek on Sai-Surtha’s shoulder.
“All you had to do was tell me where my brother was,” he said. “But now it is too late.”
“Too late for what?” said Sai-Surtha, ripping his blade clear and stepping away.
“For you to live,” said Renekton.
A pale emerald glow built within the god, running through his flesh in forking lines of searing light. The sand lifted from the battle circle, surrounding Renekton in spinning loops of dust as he rose to his full height.
This was not the hunched figure who’d entered Vekaura, and Raz saw the true face of the ancient god as his form swelled with long-forgotten magic, his dimensions stretching with power harnessed from the sun itself. His wounds sealed, the skin reforming without scar and pulsing with radiant vitality. The blood spilling from his torn scales turned from black to vivid red before lifting from his body in floating ruby droplets. His clawed hand, twisting on its sinewed thread, re-fused to knitting bone as the gold and bronze of his torn armor flowed like lustrous wax to renew itself and regain its luster.
Eyes that were once jaundiced yellow now burned with the light of newborn stars, clear where before they had been clouded with madness. Every warrior around the battle dropped back to their knees in willing supplication. Even Raz, who knelt to no man, felt no shame in bowing before such a being.
He felt the power that had wrought this creature pulsing in searing waves.
This was a being that demanded awe, a god-warrior of such potency that no legend could ever hope to capture his true majesty.
The falcata fell from Sai-Surtha’s grip, useless against this towering monster.
Renekton’s restored hand reached out and hoisted Sai-Surtha from the ground, lifting him like a man holding the runt of the litter by the scruff of its neck.
“Little mortal,” said Renekton, his voice echoing from the shattered walls of the city. “I am an Ascended being. I have crushed armies, torn down cities, sealed the gates and set them to flame. I laid waste to the world uncounted ages ago, and you thought to stand against me?”
With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Renekton tossed the body of Sai-Surtha toward Ma’kara. The great sauren’s heads came up and their jaws snapped shut.
Raz winced at the sound of crunching bone and ripping flesh as the three heads tore their former master to scraps.
Renekton bent to retrieve the Preystalker’s falcata, its impressive size like a toy sword in his hands.
“Who claims this blade now?”
Raz felt every eye upon him, the Sandthrashers looking to him as Sai-Surtha’s second in command. The blood felt cold and sluggish in his body, like cooled fat clogging his veins. He let out a shuddering breath, knowing that to take the falcata would be death.
He rose to his feet and stepped forward, his dreams of one day leading the Sandthrashers now ashes in his mouth.
“Sai-Surtha is dead by your hands,” he said. “The blade is yours. You are now the Preystalker of the Sandthrashers.”
“My time of leading blade-hosts is long passed,” said Renekton, and Raz thought he saw a depthless well of melancholy flicker within the fire of his eyes. “I desire no army, nor crave followers as I will seek the scent of my brother beyond these walls. You would do well to be far from these lands when I find him.”
The god-warrior threw Sai-Surtha’s falcata toward Raz. It landed, point first, in the sand, quivering slightly.
“Your leader,” said Renekton, stepping from the circle towards him. “Did he know anything of my brother or did he die for nothing?”
“I know not what he knew,” said Raz, pulling the sword from the sand and holding it out before him in offered challenge.
“What are you doing?” asked Renekton.
“If you are going to kill me, then I will give a show you won’t soon forget,” said Raz. “I will make you work to claim my soul.”
Renekton laughed and shook his mighty head.
“You are less than nothing to me,” he said. “I seek the heart of a god. I merely pass this blade to you as a sign of your ascension to, what did you call it? Preystalker, yes, that was it. You are now the Preystalker.”
Raz lowered the sword, looking from its blade to the warriors gathered around him.
He could ask for no greater sign of favor than the word of this god.
“Lord Renekton,” said a voice, and Raz turned to see Dalia slowly rising to her feet beside Anukta. “On our journey south, the man who enslaved us spoke of an order of scribes who sought a sunken library. It is said to be hidden in the cliffs beyond Zirima. I do not know if there is any truth to this, but if the tales of your learned brother are true, then perhaps he too might seek out such a place...”
Renekton sighed, his eyes taking on the faraway look of a mind lost in bitter memories.
“Knowledge was ever his passion,” he said. “Once we almost shed blood over my thirst to destroy a great library of an enemy city...”
Renekton turned and strode back the way he had come, passing once again to shadow.
As darkness swallowed the ancient being, it seemed his form diminished from its towering, lustrous god-form, returning to the hunched and forlorn wanderer lost to madness who had first entered Vekaura.
With Renekton gone, Raz turned to Dalia and Anukta.
“You want to live?” he asked Dalia, bending to retrieve his tooth-bladed knife from the blood-drenched ground where Ordan Stilava had been devoured.
“I do,” she said.
Raz handed her the weapon and nodded toward the hissing, reptilian form of Khesu.
“I made this from one of its teeth,” he said. “If it lets you ride it, you’re one of us.”
She nodded, and Raz was pleased at the lack of fear he saw.
“So what are you going to ride?” said Anukta.
Raz sheathed Sai-Surtha’s falcata in a leather loop at his back.
He locked eyes with the middle head of Ma’kara and rolled his shoulders. Ragged scraps of flesh dangled from the creature’s barbed teeth, and it watched him approach with hostile eyes.
“Right,” said Raz, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way...”
The Boys and Bombolini

Jared Rosen

There existed, among the multitude of disgusting Bilgewater shipping warehouses filled with rusted knives and arms-length carnivorous rats, one Bilgewater shipping warehouse devoid of such things. Owned by a Piltovan arms dealer whose relative was recently murdered (and skinned and stuffed into a dockside horror house), it was primarily used to ship large quantities of high explosives—both powder and hex—to various enemies of peace across the continent. Most notably, the Noxians in Ionia, the Noxians in Shurima, the Noxians in Demacia, and, very occasionally, the Noxians in Noxus—the latter having recently sent a letter threatening to murder “the cheap bastard who was gouging them with their bomb prices.”

Said Piltovan owner-slash-bastard, deciding it was no longer safe to be the consigliere of colonial evil, therefore employed a group of heavily armed Azure Way mercenaries to guard his warehouse while simultaneously hiring a different group of heavily armed mercenaries to steal the entire hoard from under the first group’s noses. A great sum of coin was spent insuring this hoard so that in the event of a colossal chain explosion during a violent, hypothetical gunfight, the owner would walk away an ever-so-slightly wealthier arms dealer. A forward-thinking business decision, considering his heist crew consisted of notorious con artist Twisted Fate, and notorious bath-avoider Malcolm Graves.

Collateral damage was intended.

“What the blue hells is this? Some kinda setup?” Malcolm Graves correctly guessed from behind a second-floor catwalk, his large, meaty body only barely concealed by a double-wide pillar. Gunfire rained upward all around him, chewing away thick pieces of his cover and punching holes into nearby shipping containers—many of which displayed prominent illustrations of a frowning cartoon man being blown apart.

“Seems that way,” Twisted Fate replied, crouched nearby as he flipped a playing card over in his fingers. With each turn, its hues shifted from blue, to red, to gold—though when he got especially nervous, he couldn’t get the order right. This was a problem, considering the red ones caused large flaming explosions, the gold ones caused large glittering explosions, and the blue ones were not really that useful right now.

“Why aren’t you doing anything, ya jackass? I can’t even take a shot!” yelled Graves, his finger twitching over the trigger of his human-sized shotgun. He didn’t mind being shot at as long as he could return the favor.

“They’re set up behind a crate of gunpowder,” Fate snapped back, motioning around the room that was stacked floor to ceiling with volatile dry-pack explosives. “Unless you want to go down like the Dead Pool, we might need to figure out a plan B.”

“I don’t wanna do that!” whinged Graves, not specifying whether he meant dying or thinking. “This sucks! Why do we always gotta pick the weird jobs?”

“Because they pay the best,” replied Fate, perhaps more nonchalantly than the moment called for. “Ain’t a reflection on us.”

“Huh. Makes sense when you say it like that.” Graves pondered their predicament, wondering if his smoke bombs would cause the pair to immediately die by igniting some stray black powder on the warehouse floor, or if they’d die half a second later when one of the blinded fish-men accidentally fired his gun into a crate of dynamite. The second option sounded good. Really good. Really, really good.

“I’ve got a really, really, really good plan!” Graves announced, confidently holding out a live grenade. He glanced at the tiny frowning cartoon man on the boxes in front of him. “Don’t judge me,” he told him.

“What are you doin’?” Fate protested, his eyes widening in horror as Graves’ arm arced back for the throw. In his mind, he saw the two of them disintegrating along with a good portion of the Slaughter Docks—or at least Graves disintegrating, which would be inconvenient at best. “Malcolm, what are you doin’?”

“Wait!” boomed a voice from below. “Do not throw that!”

Graves, somewhat disheartened by the order, but equally grateful the gunfire had suddenly ebbed, lowered his smoke bomb. Fate, who in a state of panic had forgotten the color of the card he held, gripped a red one, which would have accidentally killed everyone if he’d mistakenly activated it to try and escape the warehouse.

The partners locked eyes for a moment, looked at their respective explosives, then back at each other.

“Mine was better,” gloated Graves. “Safer.”

The voice from below, now near hysterical, busied itself commanding the other mercenaries to stop firing wildly into a warehouse stuffed with bombs, specifically lambasting someone named Kouign who “should know better after last time.” The gunmen grumbled in turn. Or burbled, or blubbed, depending on the size and configuration of their prominently fishy heads.

As the unseen voice in charge moved about, Fate leaned over to Graves, pointing at his interior coat pocket. “You still got that blue card I gave you?” he whispered.

“What, the one from the Sentinels? Yeah, I still got it,” Graves answered at a normal volume.

“Quiet. Now what say we pop that sucker and get out of here? These guys are distracted. They’ll never know we left.”

“Nuh-uh, you already told me what all this is worth. You think I’m just gonna leave a score that big on the table? I got a mouth to feed: mine.”

“We shoulda died at least a hundred times already. Now’s the chance to cut our losses.”

“I’ll never die, because I’m the handsome protagonist. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone knows squat. One stray bullet, and we’re all portraits at a funeral.”

“Your funeral, maybe. I beat Viego. That makes me the male lead.”

“The male lead? I am so tired of this damn story!” yelled Fate, immediately attracting the attention of everybody in the room.

“See? That’s your fault. Real deuteragonist behavior,” Graves gloated, about forty percent sure he used the word “deuteragonist” right.

Everyone collectively hesitated, each glancing around nervously as the realization of where they were and what, exactly, they had gotten themselves into began to sink in. Yet neither the pair of bumblers nor the rank and file Azure Way castoffs had the authority to end this standoff... Or really any standoff, as immediate and violent escalation is a rich Bilgewater tradition.

The tall hammerhead-shark man with a menacing harpoon gun and no shirt was also unable to end this standoff, but he did not know it yet. His name was Bombolini, and the two things he knew best were how to project an understated elegance for a creature of his stature, and how to know exactly what to say to command a room.

“What are you doing, you buncha ding dongs?” he shouted toward the catwalk. “You tryna vaporize half of Bilgewater? What kind of heist crew brings live ammunition to a powder job?”

Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate both (unwisely) poked their heads out from their cover, each looking into a different monocular eye of their newfound opponent. His steely gaze, his muscular figure, his mean-looking weapon that was clearly intended to skewer sea serpents. A second of recognition passed. Two seconds. And then, for some reason, three.

“Bombolini?” Graves asked.

“Malcolm?” Bombolini asked back. “Malcolm Graves? Is that you? Are... Are you robbing me?”

Graves let out a sigh of relief, relaxing his shoulders. This wasn’t just any dumb fish. This was a dumb fish friend.

“I’m not robbing you. I’m robbing the guy who hired you,” Graves explained. “I think he hired us, too. Which makes what we’re doin’ up here morally sound.”

“Us?”

“Hey, Bombolini,” Fate waved. “I’m robbing you, too.”

“Wha—” protested Bombolini. “Now wait a damn minute! You two blew me up! You blew me up on my own ship! We were partners, and you double-crossed me for the worst score this city has ever seen!”

“It wasn’t the worst,” retorted Graves.

“One jewel,” Fate corrected. “Ended up being glass.”

“Nah, that’s not right,” Graves said. “Had to be more.”

But it wasn’t.

Many years prior, Bombolini had been the unappreciated third member of the Graves & Fate crime duo back when they pulled small jobs for bad pay, and their posters were somewhat... unfortunately worded.

“Two men who will do anything (and we mean anything) to anybody (and we mean anybody) for the right price (any price),” the leaflets used to say, which, in addition to Bombolini’s complete erasure from the group, led to a number of rather avoidable miscommunications with prospective clientele. And thanks to Bilgewater’s rich tradition of violent escalation, these mishaps tended to end in bloodshed or minor dock explosions—ironically drawing enough attention to the upstart criminals that they became a popular mercenary outfit.

The leaflets remained unchanged for years, which made a young Bombolini deeply bitter. He eventually used his portion of the group’s earnings to buy a modest schooner, retire from criminality, and start a solo wreck-diving operation in the Blue Flame Isles that paid much better than robbery and coincidentally did not bill itself as some sort of pirate flesh carnival in bar flyers.
Also coincidentally, success tends to draw eyes, and two of those eyes eventually hired Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate to rob their former companion at a dive site near a Buhru ruin. Lacking any moral fiber whatsoever, the pair immediately accepted. The robbery instantly led to a small oil fire, then a large oil fire, then bloodshed followed by a minor schooner explosion. All the treasure sank with the ship... save, of course, for a single piece of sea glass.

Bombolini was assumed dead, the client was furious, and nobody got paid. All in all, it was one of the duo’s more successful heists.

“Didn’t you die?” asked Fate. “I’m pretty sure you died.”

Bombolini tilted his head, unable to see any part of himself thanks to the wide setting of his predatory eyes—though the attempt was quite valiant. “Does it look like I’m dead?”

“I dunno,” replied Graves. “Maybe.”

“Are we going to kill them, boss?” asked a fishman impatiently, this one a spotter resembling a large, bipedal goby.

“I second Goby,” said his partner, a hunched-over humanoid pistol shrimp with a rather impressive long gun. “You said these guys double-crossed you before, right? What’s their deal?”

Bombolini blinked, his walnut-sized brain chugging along as he attempted to remember what exactly their deal had been. After a few decades, one tends to forget the intricacies of their archnemeses.

Graves. Fate. Graves... but also... Fate. What is their deal?

Eureka.

He had arrived at something interesting. Something he could use. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head.

“They’re together,” he guessed confidently.

A pause.

“We know that,” replied Goby.

“No, they’re together,” Bombolini repeated, even more confidently. “I knew they’d end up with each other. Graves always had the worst taste in men, and Fate is the worst man I’ve ever met. It all makes sense!”

Goby shrugged. Shrimp sighed and turned back toward the pair of thieves above, adjusting the sight on his gun as he wondered why, exactly, he’d agreed to any of this in the first place.

Up on the catwalk, however, the mood was decidedly different.

“He thinks we’re together,” whispered Fate. “Like, together-together. A couple. Romantically.”

“I know what ‘together’ means, Tobias,” Graves whispered back, now decidedly more discreet than before. “But how do we use it? What’s the play? And why was he so mean?”

Fate stroked his chin with his free hand, flipping the errant red card into a gold card as he turned the question over in his head. The chance of everyone dying in a colossal fireball was still higher than he liked, but with Bombolini and his men off guard, now was the time for bold action. He needed something big. Something dumb. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head. He needed...

“I cannot believe you got us into this mess again!” Fate shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Graves while making sure most of his body remained hidden from the sniper. “This is just like you, never thinking before you show up! You’re too big, you have no finesse, and you packed hex-shots and grenades for a powder job! My ma was right, we shouldn’t have stayed together!”

Graves was taken aback for several reasons. The first of which is that he had never met Fate’s mother, and, up until this point, had not been sure she even existed. The second was that Fate had not explained the plan to him and was now making jabs at Graves’ rugged burliness and masterful heist preparation—both of which made him a statuesque prince among thieves.

“Hey, what are you sayin’? You’re the one always goin’ on about how you’re so clever, and yet here we are, pullin’ another garbage job where you’re gonna die and I gotta save you! If it were up to me, we’d be doin’ easy jobs, like individual murders and light-to-heavy extortion!”

“Yeah, because you have no vision!” Fate continued, emphasizing the word “vision” while winking prominently.

Graves did not register this right away, and continued to bluster about his partner’s many shortcomings.

“That’s why we always fight,” Fate winked again. This one broke through.

Down below, Bombolini was ecstatic among an otherwise bored or confused crew.

When one is double-crossed by an old friend, their emotional chemistry is irreversibly altered. It makes them paranoid, delusional, and most importantly, occasionally taken with intricate revenge fantasies.

Bombolini embodied all of this. He often liked to entertain one of these fantasies wherein his two most hated enemies had an immediate falling out in front of his steely shark eyes. This falling out would take place in some sort of room or vessel with a heavy explosive payload that would, at the apex of the argument, burst into flames and detonate, killing them both as the smoke spelled out “We’re sorry, Bombolini.” Then everyone would cheer, and he would be given a crown and a sash. Possibly a scepter.

It was a very intricate fantasy.

What was not part of the fantasy was being hit squarely in the chest by a well-aimed gold card and flying out of the shipping door into the sea.

“Now!” said Fate, dashing out from his cover and into an adjoining office as he splashed the bare walls with gold cards wherever the explosives weren’t stacked high enough to ignite. Each card burst with a dazzling spray of golden filament, temporarily stunning Bombolini’s mercenaries who then immediately began firing in all directions.

As Graves followed Fate through the suite and into the guts of the larger warehouse, a stray bullet buried itself in the crate Goby and Shrimp were using for cover, and the two fish-men froze. With bullets whizzing through the air, Goby looked at Shrimp, and Shrimp looked at Goby. What felt like an eternity passed between them.

“I think we’re sa—” said Goby, exploding.

The first blast rocked the entire structure as Fate and Graves stumbled along a flimsy metal suspension bridge over far more crates of black powder than their client had originally described.

“That’s not good,” said Fate with a glance below.

“It really isn’t,” replied Graves. “I know we was doing a bit, but on a personal and professional level, I am not happy with you right now.”

“You’re never happy with me, anyway! We gotta move!” exclaimed Fate as several armed mercenaries looked up from the gloom, suddenly noticing the two distinctly non-fishlike criminals above them.

Graves, now more emotionally wounded than he wanted to let on, tossed a smoke grenade over the side of the catwalk, enveloping the first floor in a thick cloud of caustic fog. “That’s usually fun, but my heart’s just not in it right now,” he explained over the sound of dry-heaving mercenaries.

“Why are you being such a big baby? You’re a grown man!” shouted Fate, attempting to move the action along as stray shots rang out across the powder storage floor.

“Stop calling me a big baby! You’re always taking shots at my size. I’m the muscle that saves the day every time you get your goose cooked. You’re ungrateful as hell, Fate!”

“I’m ungrateful? I’m not the one who disappeared for months to go fight some Camavor ghost prince, then rolled back into town one night like he owned the place.”

“He was a ghost king, and you’re lucky I fought him or we’d all be ghosts! You’d be a ghost, I’d be a ghost. Everyone would be a ghost!”

“You weren’t even there! You think I don’t read Shauna’s letters? Graves, I’m a con man, you can’t trick me. They left you outside while scissors doll and the shirtless wonder saved the day.”

“That ain’t how it went down, Fate,” said Graves darkly. “That’s just the story. We don’t talk about what really happened.”

“Oh, please! Your delusions of grandeur were annoying decades before you became Valoran’s number-one hero.”

“Is this still a fake fight or are we having a real fight? Because if it’s a real fight, I will punch that stupid hat through your mouth.”

“I think it’s a real fight! And you know what else? You do stink, and you don’t think things through, and live grenades were not the best call here!”

“Yeah, well, this is why we stopped working together the first damn time! Because you think you’re better than me, and you think you’re better than this!”

“And what if I am?” yelled Fate, only realizing what he’d said after he had said it.

From the burning, rupturing front of the warehouse, Bombolini’s surviving mercenaries poured through the service door and onto the catwalk, its bolts decoupling from the walls under their combined weight. Many of the gunmen were badly singed and filled with a roiling anger fit to match their newfound crispiness.

“We can fight later, dammit! Get yer behind out that door!” Graves commanded as he and Fate dropped their argument and made a run for the exit with a rapidly sinking catwalk buckling underfoot.

Six strides from the doorway, another blast tore upward from the powder floor, consuming the Azure Way mercenaries in a pillar of raging flame as the crates beneath them began to blow one by one. The smoke from Graves’ grenade, a highly flammable mix of stinging, blinding, and stinking components deployed for tactical measures, immediately caught fire—something Graves did not account for, despite his supplier telling him several dozen times that the smoke was flammable. This, of course, ignited and exploded even more crates of black powder, launching both the slick card-sharp and the daring bath-avoider through a crumbling brick wall, down one floor, and into a grimy foyer—also filled wall-to-wall with explosives.
Among their heists, it still counted as one of the more successful ones.

“Ugh,” groaned Graves. “That sucked.”

Fate fumbled above his head to make sure his hat was still there, and only when he confirmed its safety did he hold his screaming ribs. “Yeah, it did.”

“Tobias, if we don’t make it out of this... I just wanna say one thing.”

“What is it, friend?” smiled Fate.

“I hope you die first,” Graves cough-laughed.

“Aw, shucks, that’s sweet.”

The warehouse shook again as debris and chunks of roof smacked hard against the floor, smoke poured through the gaping second-story hole in the wall, and flames licked tightly packed boxes of hexplosives—these emblazoned with a different frowning cartoon man in the process of blowing up.

“Did no one notice how wildly unsafe this was?” asked Graves, hobbling toward what appeared to be a service exit.

“It’s Bilgewater, Malcolm. Nobody notices anything.”

“Nobody... except for me!” said a familiar, if slightly raspier, voice.

Bombolini, now sporting a thick purple bruise in the center of his torso, stepped theatrically before the duo, his harpoon gun primed as his large, sharky shape stood between Bilgewater’s most-noticed mercenaries and the only way out. Graves caught sight of a damp, shark-shaped spot on the dock outside. Bombolini had likely been hiding there, waiting minutes for this reveal.

“Gods, not this donut again,” Fate muttered.

“And yet, it is!” Bombolini exclaimed, stifling a cough. “Do you know what I thought when I saw you two after all these years? After all that time, all that—”

“Not interested,” said Graves, pointing his massive shotgun at a container of explosives directly next to the shark-man. Graves pulled the trigger, the gun fired, and everything went up in smoke.

Several hundred arm spans from the rupturing warehouse once filled with far too many explosives to actually steal, Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate suddenly appeared in the air a length and a half above a quaint little fishing pier... along with some residual smoke and flame, as Fate’s teleportation timing had not been perfect. The two crashed onto the ground with Graves’ gun landing squarely on his stomach. The sound he made was a bit like “uhbloof,” though it could have been any number of other expletives.

“Those blue cards sure are useful,” Fate bragged from flat on his newly injured back, dusting off his hat with the arm that wasn’t cradling his possibly broken ribs. It had been a long day.

“Yeah, but they’re never useful in the beginning,” wheezed Graves, a little toasty and bruised, but otherwise none the worse for wear. “We should use them before a gunfight breaks out. For stealing and whatnot.”

“That takes the artistry out of it. You don’t build a name for yourself by sticking to the shadows—you have to give the people a show!” Fate replied as the warehouse’s frame sagged in the distance and flames erupted furiously from still-unexploded payloads. He theatrically twirled his hand a bit, as if to underline the point.

“Fair,” said Graves, unconvinced.

The pair sat up in their blackened clothes, watching everything explode and then explode some more. It was almost romantic. If one considered that sort of thing romantic. Which, interestingly enough, they did.

“So, uh... what now?” Fate said, breaking the silence as quickly as possible. “Double-cross our dirty client? Dig a grave for whatever’s left of Bombolini?”

Graves chuckled. “Oh, we’re definitely doing that first thing. Nobody tries to blow me up without me blowing them up. As for Bombolini... I’d bet good money the shark is still out there. He’s like me. Too dumb to explode.”

“My friend, you’re the most brilliant dummy I ever did meet,” smiled Fate. “You’ll never explode. And I mean that sincerely.”

“Damn right,” puffed Graves. “Though, now that we’ve had it out... you and I need to have a conversation.”

“Right,” Fate sighed. He was tired of looking for ways to avoid apologizing, and all the adrenaline made him feel better about breaking his cardinal rule of never doing it for any reason.

He still wouldn’t say the word “sorry,” though. That was a bridge too far.

“Malcolm, I did not mean to imply that I was better than you. When we dissolved the business—”

“Stop, stop, stop,” said Graves, laying his shotgun behind himself as he dangled his legs over the water. “I already hate this. Apology accepted—next round’s on you.”

“Good man,” replied Fate thankfully, gazing across the sea as the sun began to set.

Graves looked over at his partner to add another quip, but noticed, perhaps for the first time, that there was a certain angularity to Tobias’ features that he had thus far failed to appreciate. A strong jaw, a shockingly unbroken nose, a bold choice in semi-fashionable hats. He was an objectively terrible person, but maybe the right kind of terrible for...

Uh-oh, he thought.

Malcolm Graves, now much older, only somewhat wiser, but infinitely more worldly, measured his next words more carefully than most things he did or said on any given day. Which was especially surprising to him, since navigating the complex relationship between two criminal masterminds such as themselves was not really his strong suit, nor had he ever given it much thought. He wondered... Why worry so much about Tobias’ opinion of him? It wasn’t like it mattered. They had their roles, after all, and—

“Malcolm,” Fate interrupted. “Do you have a concussion?”

“It’s possible,” Graves sighed, but not in a sad or tired way. More of a concussed way.

“Alright, let me look,” said the very injured Fate, brushing Graves’ hair aside as he looked for signs of a bruise. “We both know you’re a durable fella, but neither of us is invincible.”

“Not like Bombolini,” said Graves, confused by the welling excitement over Fate playing with his hair.

“I am legitimately dumbfounded by that,” Fate offered. “I remember that boat heist. Our old friend was caught in the middle of a deeply vicious detonation.”

“Deserved it, though. I do not have terrible taste in men. I have good taste in terrible men, and there is absolutely a difference.”

Fate finished inspecting his partner’s head, which didn’t exactly produce any new information, as he didn’t know what a concussion was supposed to look like. He gazed at Graves’ rugged features as the setting sun danced across his boyishly unkempt hair, and then considered all of those words together in a sentence, and then immediately recoiled at the complete thought. “Your taste isn’t terrible, Malcolm. It’s catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?” Graves fired back. “Name one example. You can’t.”

“The Northman,” Fate said almost instantly. “The trader with the cockroach tattoo. That Buhru cultist—”

“Not a cultist.”

“Tried to sacrifice us both, but sure, not a cultist. The whale guy. The octopus guy. The second whale guy.”

“Orca.”

“An orca is a kind of whale. The monk. The vastaya. The Noxian.”

Graves winced. “Alright, he was bad.”

“A Noxian, Malcolm. From Noxus. People talked about that one.”

“More racist than I would have preferred in a man, in hindsight,” Graves allowed. “But it ain’t like you’re bringing home the greatest lovers in history. You ain’t that slick.”

“Excuse me, I am very slick,” Fate protested. “No matter the size, shape, make, or model, none can resist the charms of Tobias Felix. I have conned hundreds—nay, thousands—of dew-eyed tourists across the whole of this vast and gullible land.”

“Not this one,” laughed Graves, a little too forcefully. “Or, uh... you know.”

“Y... yes, of course, I am aware,” Fate responded, not making eye contact as he fiddled with his hat.

The two sat in silence for a while. Or relative silence, considering the towering flames and brutal detonations and screaming and shouting in the distance.

“Sweet Tommy Kench, look at that sucker burn,” said Graves, still dangling his legs off the pier like the world’s grungiest adult child. “Tobias, I’ve been thinking. And don’t get me wrong, I do love a crime or twenty, and you’ll be there for literally all of them—”

“What about Shauna? Or that lady with the laughing jar?” asked Fate with a tinge of poorly concealed jealousy, despite Graves having been gay for the better part of four decades.

“Vayne,” Graves corrected, more deliberately than was necessary for such a normal and casual conversation between platonic business associates, “is a good friend. But she’ll only help if we’re killing monsters. And for the love of all that’s sacred, never call her ‘Shauna.’ She will break your neck by looking at it. As for the other one... I don’t even want to deal with that right now.”

“She’s scary,” said Fate. “Never seen clothes like that before. So many hands.”

“She’s very scary,” Graves agreed. “I’m afraid she’s gonna kick me through a wall or something.

“Point is, I’m meeting new people. I’m seeing the world. Piltover. The Shadow Isles. I saw Camavor, Tobias. I’m expanding my horizons. I might even want to expand ‘em more. Hear Ixtal’s opening up. Could be good money out there... you know... if you wanted to come along for the ride.”

He rustled through his coat, producing a familiar blue playing card. “In which case, I probably wouldn’t need this anymore. Since you’d be around.”

Fate chuckled. “Why don’t you hold onto that for now? Think of it as... a souvenir.”

Graves grinned, slipping it back into his pocket. “I do like the sound of that.”

The partners smiled foolishly at this, each imagining various swashbuckling criminal misadventures while sitting at an awkward physical distance apart.

“But, you know, as, uh... partners,” Graves specified.

“Yes, obviously. Partners. In crime,” Fate added.

“Nothing else.”

“Nope.”

“Nada.”

“No sir.”

They concluded this exchange with a simultaneous fake cough. Graves looked unblinking at the water, and Fate looked at the underside of his hat. Far off in the distance, the warehouse burned and burned.

It was, all in all, one of their better heists.
Arisen

Azir walked the gold-paved Emperor’s Way. The immense statues of Shurima’s earliest rulers – his ancestors – watched his progress.
The soft, shadowy light of predawn seeped through his city. The brightest stars still shone overhead, though they would soon be snuffed out by the rising sun. The night sky was not as Azir remembered it; the stars and the constellations were misaligned. Millennia had passed.
With every step, Azir’s heavy staff of office struck a lonely note, echoing through the capital’s empty streets.
When last he had walked this path, an honor guard of 10,000 elite warriors had marched in his wake, and the cheers of the crowd had shaken the city. It was to have been his moment of glory – yet it had been stolen from him.
Now, it was a city of ghosts. What had become of his people?
With an imperious gesture, Azir commanded the sands beside the roadway to rise, creating living statues. This was a vision of the past, the echoes of Shurima given form.
The sand figures looked forward, heads tilted toward the immense Sun Disc hanging above the Dais of Ascension half a league ahead. It hung there still, declaring the glory and power of Azir’s empire, though no one remained to see it. The daughter of Shurima who awakened him, she who bore his lineage, was gone. He sensed her out in the desert. Blood bound them together.
As Azir walked the Emperor’s Way, the sand-echoes of his people pointed up at the Sun Disc, their joyful expressions turning to horror. Mouths opened wide in silent screams. They turned to run, stumbling and falling. Azir watched this all in despairing silence, bearing witness to the last moments of his people.
They were obliterated by a wave of unseen energy, reduced to dust and cast to the winds. What had gone wrong with his Ascension to unleash this catastrophe?
Azir's focus narrowed. His march became more resolute. He reached the base of the Stairs of Ascension and began to climb, taking them five at a time.
Only his most trusted soldiers, the priesthood, and those of the royal bloodline were allowed to step foot upon the Stairs. Sand versions of these most favored subjects lined his path, faces upturned, grimacing and wailing in silence before they too were swept away by the winds.
He ran, taking the steps faster than any man could, talons digging into the stonework, carving furrows where they caught. Sand figures rose, and were then destroyed, to either side of him as he climbed.
He reached the top. Here, he saw the final circle of onlookers: his closest aides, his advisers, the high priests. His family.
Azir dropped to his knees. His family was before him, rendered in perfect, heartbreaking detail. His wife, heavy with child. His shy daughter, clutching his wife's hand. His son, standing tall, on the brink of becoming a man.
In horror, Azir saw their expressions change. Though he knew what was to come, he could not look away. His daughter hid her face in the folds of his wife's dress; his son reached for his sword, shouting in defiance. His wife... her eyes widened, sorrow and despair writ within.
The unseen event blasted them to nothingness.
It was too much, but no tears welled in Azir’s eyes. His Ascended form rendered that simple act of grief forever lost to him. With a heavy heart, he pushed himself to his feet. The question remained as to how his bloodline survived, for it most assuredly had.
The final echo awaited.
He advanced, halting one step below the dais, and watched as it all played out before him, reenacted in the sand.
He saw himself, in his mortal form, rise up into the air beneath the Sun Disc, arms wide and back arched. He remembered this moment. The power coursed through him, infusing his being, filling him with its divine strength.
A newcomer formed in the sand. His trusted bondsman, his magus, Xerath.
His friend uttered a silent word. Azir watched himself shatter like glass, exploding into motes of sand.
“Xerath,” breathed Azir.
The traitor’s expression was unknowable, but Azir could see nothing but the face of a murderer.
Where did such hate come from? Azir had never been aware of it.
The sand image of Xerath rose higher into the air as the Sun Disc's energies focused into his being. A cadre of elite guards rushed toward him, but they were all far too late.
A brutal shockwave of sand flared out, disintegrating the final moment of Shurima. Azir stood alone among the dying echoes of his past.
This is what killed his people.
Azir turned away, just as the first rays of the new dawn struck the Sun Disc overhead. He'd seen enough. The sand image of the transformed Xerath collapsed behind him.
The dawn sun reflected blindingly off Azir's flawless golden armor. In that instant, he knew that the traitor still lived. He sensed the magus’s essence in the air that he breathed.
Azir lifted a hand, and an army of his elite warriors rose from the sands at the base of the Stairs of Ascension.
“Xerath,” he said, his voice tinged with rage. “Your crimes will not go unpunished.”
Bard

It is said that most inhabitants of the celestial realm see their home as a wondrous and vivid tapestry, woven with prismatic threads of purest starlight. However, for one prodigious entity, the intangible and everlasting beauty of this dimension is not seen, but heard—for Bard, a troubadour as enigmatic as he is eternal, the wondrous firmament is a symphony of mystic, ambrosial music.
In the beginning, Bard had drifted without purpose or perspective through a silent cosmos, but with a deep sense of anticipation that something miraculous would eventually come to fill it. Fate did not disappoint, and with the forging of the first stars, the silence was broken and the first rapturous notes of creation rang in Bard’s ear.
He traveled the swirling harmonies between the stars, along with the tiniest wisps of residual inspiration and thought left over from their birth. These semitonal, incomplete motes of energy—or meeps—were drawn to him whenever he added his own voice to the cosmic opus, forever ringing in one perfect accord.
This was not his masterpiece, yet he gloried in it all the same.
But after a measureless interval, a dissonance began to creep in. It was so small at first, Bard might have missed it, but the ever-doting meeps drew his attention to a failed dynamic shift here, an unexpected syncopation there, and even the growing absence of sound where, before, sound had been.
Bard scoured the celestial realm for clues, until he discovered the source. It was the most curious of things—a world with a song all of its own.
Driven by unknown magic, the music produced by Runeterra was as primitive, unevolved, and chaotic as the mortal beings that lived there… and yet it had an inherent beauty, like the rolling thunder of a storm, or the melodious knocking of wooden chimes in the wind that precedes it. Bard would have merely appreciated it for what it was, but unfortunately this particular song had gone far beyond a mere counterpoint to the celestial whole, and was becoming destructive. Something had to be done.
Touching down in the First Lands of Ionia, Bard and his attendant meeps crossed into the material realm. All at once, his ears became like eyes, and he fashioned himself a simple body from the trinkets and fabrics of a traveling shawm-player’s wagon, including a beguiling mask—circular, with three holes in the face.
He walked the world for an age, confusing and delighting those he encountered along the way, and found the state of things far more complex than he had first imagined. Many objects of wild and unpredictable power seemed to have made their way erroneously into Runeterra, and were disrupting the natural cosmic order of things. Casting his gaze back to the heavens, Bard deduced that some other power within the celestial realm was at work here… though to what end, he could not guess.
Regardless, he has taken to the role of caretaker, retrieving anything out of place and returning it to where it can do no further harm. Though this may be only the first step in bringing the universe back in tune, it may also be the only way this world can be saved from what lies beyond it.
And Bard is not blind to the future. He can see a great conflict approaching—one fought not in any single realm, but in all—and awaits the time when he must finally pick a side.
Testimony of the Balladeer

Marcus Terrell Smith

You, there! Yes, you! You look like a fine Demacian with working ears—one who might stay a stretch and heed the warnings of an old man who has seen the impossible. I’m on a quest, you see, at the bidding of the Wandering Caretaker, and you can help!
I must retrieve... Well, it’s best that I explain.
Come, now. Don’t shy away. Hear my tale, which is entirely true...
I was first awoken by the clanging of bells—my mother’s two-hundred-year-old wind chimes—screaming outside, beyond my window. She thought she was quite clever, my mother, convincing me their summer song would signal the coming of warm and sunny days. Even at my age, I can only count a handful of pleasant seasons in Valar’s Hollow. Ha! An adolescence marred by the endless chopping of firewood can attest to that. The night I speak of was no exception—a winter storm was raging.
I jumped to my feet when my door burst open and the rush of freezing wind filled my room. After scrambling to sheathe my trembling body in the thickest furs I owned, I made my way to the door, ready to slam it shut. But I hesitated. My mother’s chimes were still screaming in the wind. Though they mostly stirred memories of my harsh and laborious upbringing, they provided me with a sense of connection to her. I should not risk losing them, or worse—suffer no sleep from their incessant wailing.
Don’t get me wrong, the chimes did have a certain appeal. Stories of how they came into my family’s possession told of an incredible destiny and a celebrated past. They were forged from ingot—war metals—some of the rarest in the Freljord. Whenever a battle had been lost and won, the Collectors, my poor but resourceful ancestors, entered the battlefield and retrieved what had been left to rust in the blood-stained snow.
“How much ingot was out there, mother?” I asked once, as she gushed about ancient times.
“Centuries of it,” she replied.
“What did the Collectors do with it all?”
“Sold it to the Winter’s Claw,” she said, shrugging, “who made more weapons for wars to come.” Then she paused for a moment and smiled as her chimes began to sing. “But there was always a little we kept for ourselves—to make instruments of life, not death.”
Indeed, those precious chimes were instruments that brought wonderful music to our land. “Good fortune in bad times,” she told me. I prayed for that fortune when she fell ill, but it never came. The Wandering Caretaker was more concerned with his own wonderful music than helping the infirm, and I was left with her infernal chimes to remember them both by.
I digress.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed my way outside, but I was halted by an impossible sight: Floating in front of me, unaffected by the storm, was a small, translucent creature. Without wings or arms to hold it in place, it hung there, as if some eldritch magic had nailed it to a block of air. Two glowing white eyes like torches were affixed to its orbish head, and three twinkling stars in its belly began to churn and flicker. To my surprise, one of my mother’s chimes responded, and, like a child’s arm, it reached back to the shimmering creature, adopting its starry glow.
But then...
The chime cracked! And I heard its summer song deform. A fissure that was made etched its way up the chime’s side, and specks of gold light were drawn out from within it, as if certain materials that composed it were being stolen away. Those were not lights the thing was stealing; they were my mother’s tears, falling, as this beloved yet irritating heirloom was quickly being destroyed. I could not—I would not let that happen!
So I leapt into the blizzard and took hold of the chime. At its touch, I heard the blast of a horn in the distance. Why, I was not sure. I pulled back with all my might, but the creature’s magic was too strong to overcome. And worse, I felt my entire body jerk skyward, and my feet left the ground. Soon I was hurtling into the heavens, towed into the clouds by the befouled moppet!
CRACK! Another break scribbled its way down the chime. Then I saw something taking shape in the space between us—a shard, a piece of a whole, was materializing. Believing it would be the only thing to save me, I grasped it.
As I reached, I glanced back to the wicked creature, only to realize that it had disappeared. In its place, hovering before me in all his mystic glory, was the Wandering Caretaker. It had taken an entire lifetime of prayer for him to appear, and, as my mother had promised, the chimes brought him forth. The Bard seemed to stare back at me... into me... curious of my being there. But it was too late to explain.
There suddenly came a rush of wind and a wave of heat. I felt my arm stretch the length of a vine. My body followed, spinning and twisting, as I was being taken somewhere—an otherworldly place!
As to where I ended up, my mother’s old dulcimer here will aid me as I sing...
The Bells
’Twas sound that harkened visions of a place.
Divine, Bard’s music just beyond the veil.
A firmament revealed to me in space,
In string and drum and reed celestial.
Bard opened up the cosmos wide to me!
I felt Beginning, End, and In Between.
Where waves had never stirred that lampless sea,
We heard Sol first prepare the stars to ring.
No human witness had there ever been,
But I alone did hear the act take form.
That symphony changed me from within,
My mortal body suddenly transformed.
A spirit now, a meep celestial,
Ascended like the Aspects in this dream,
I sang with Bard throughout the sonic realm,
And tended to his will a century.
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!
But then I heard a bell begin to bend
And felt a darkness silencing the song.
I told my brethren and my master then
And travel all we did to right the wrong.
And we were brought before a gaping maw,
An empty soundless pit devoid of light.
My ears beheld such darkness from beyond;
It filled my soul with terror and with fright.
I fear the hordes inside sang me a song,
One that has no start; it only ends.
For when I peered into that deep unknown,
I felt my own music crook and bend.
So I forced my ears above to the divine,
Turned back to what is good and what is right.
But then I caught the rip—the Void’s divide,
And soon beheld destruction of the light.
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!
In billions were the fragments, were these chimes,
Showered ’cross the land, when darkness split
The bell that tolls the rhythm and the time,
Runeterra’s hymn, whose song may be forfeit.
To close the door and bring the notes in line
The Bard had sent us scouring the world.
With every shard, a stitch to recombine
What the Void had torn when it emerged.
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!
Soon I awoke in bed, a meep no more,
And back in Valar’s Hollow did I dwell,
I tore my mother’s chimes from off that door,
And offered Bard more shards to fix the bell.
Since, my charge is to collect more chimes
Through wind and rain and sun and land and sea.
I pray that every treasure will rewind
That music that the Void did play to me.
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!
Dear Demacian, I have come a long way and farther still to warn everyone of the darkness that threatens to silence the music of this world. Runeterra is a bell—a world bell—that has been corroded by evil. Its fragments, its chimes, must be found to make it whole again.
And our first step is to place all precious metals in your possession in my basket. I will take them, inspect them, sing to them Bard’s divine music to remove any chimes of the world bell within them. Any chimeless pieces I will, of course, return to you.
No! Wait! Don’t walk away—what I tell you is true! Please, listen. There isn’t much time. The end of our world is nigh...
And only Bard and his meeps can save us.
Bel’Veth

Fascinated by the world of existence and eager to create one for herself, Bel’Veth is like a dark cancer that has metastasized within the heart of the Void, through which all of Runeterra will be consumed and rebuilt in her own twisted image. She hungers for new experiences, memories, and concepts in vast amounts, devouring whole cities and their populations before repurposing the information into a sprawling alien landscape known as the Lavender Sea. Yet even the Void is not safe from her voracity as she spreads within it like a primordial ocean, forcing all before her to submit to her world of want... or be destroyed.

Though Bel’Veth is new to Runeterra, her birth is untold millennia in the making—the end result of an allergic reaction between the Void and a nascent reality. The once-pristine dimension of peaceful nothingness was irrevocably shattered when existence came into being, and forcefully individualized Void entities lashed out for eons in an attempt to defend themselves from the shock and pain. Erasing everything they consumed, they were named by virtue of what they left behind—a void. But the beings within were changed each time they touched the world, mutating from their once-perfect forms into hedonistic, violent animals.

So too did the Void change with them. After every battle, every incursion, something more sinister grew deep within a hidden womb inside the darkest recesses of the Voidborn tunnels... Buildings, sunlight, proto-humanoid limbs reaching toward nothing... A jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit... The Void had taken a new, hideous shape. In time, fueled both by humans opening rifts for war and the Watchers attempting to invade the Freljord, this blasphemous pocket of un-creation grew to embrace the opposites of the Old Void: desire, want, and need.

Soon enough, it craved a leader. Someone—or something—who could write a horrific new chapter in the worlds above and below. A leader who could interface with these “humans,” tell them of what was to come, and harvest their emotions and memories as they fought a bitter, fruitless war until the last fires of civilization died and a new era spawned.

This leader is Bel’Veth. A terrifying empress born from the combined memories, experiences, and emotions of an entire devoured port city and its outlying ocean—Bel’Veth’s mind contains millions of years of perfectly preserved knowledge, giving her near-omniscience as she prepares to destroy both Runeterra and the domain of her progenitors, the Watchers.

To those lucky enough to be of strategic value to her, she does not lie, ask questions, nor obfuscate the truth—she simply states the nature of things, for with victory all but assured thanks to the very nature of the Void itself, there is no need to say anything more. And to those who displease her, they will find her human form to be merely adaptational—nerve endings, muscles, and eyestalks—as she unfurls her titanic wings to reveal her true, monstrous figure.

Ironically, the ancient Shurimans had a word for such a concept. Loosely translated to “God of Oblivion,” it was a tribal myth of a remorseless deity who would erase all things without hatred, replacing them with itself. They named the city of Belveth after it, though the true meaning was lost after many hundreds of years.

Lost to all, perhaps, save for the creature that city has become.
Pinwheel

Jared Rosen

“Okay,” Kai’Sa pants, looking up at the shape growing in front of, above, and simultaneously all around her.

The monster’s wings spread twenty arm lengths in every direction, dominating her field of vision—not that Kai’Sa has a choice where to look with the half-dozen ambulatory human arms holding her head against the wall. The creature’s mass continues to expand and fills the ocean of nightmares it calls home, each glistening tooth now the size of a grown adult... and getting bigger. Its four predatory eyes gaze down on Kai’Sa with cold dispassion. Possibly hunger. At this scale, it’s hard to tell.

She liked it better when it was person-shaped.

“Okay,” she repeats. She can’t move her armor, which is frozen in a sort of paralytic... awe? The suit is a parasite, and one of the more base creatures the Void can spit out. Is awe even something it can feel? Either way, her body is stuck in place. Unless something dramatic changes, this is probably the end. Kai’Sa’s mind ticks through a few last-ditch efforts: Firing her cannons backward into the wall, firing them into this thing’s... mouth? Jaws? She remembers how fast the monster is. And how big it is.

Fast and big. Fantastic.

Last-ditch might not amount to much, and Kai’Sa would definitely die. But at least it would be something. She could make it hurt.

“My true self displeases you,” it speaks, much too calmly. Its voice is so loud it rattles the entire space, knocking hideous patchwork geometry loose as thousands of Void remora pour from the jagged holes. It is a voice that bends and contracts, whispers and screams. The layers continue without end, an aria sung not by one voice, but by millions.

Kai’Sa’s eyes widen with realization. That’s where all the people went.

The Void had torn through the now very former city of Belveth in under an hour. Kai’Sa hadn’t been able to make it in time, and the once-bustling metropolis was gone. Everything. Everyone. What remained now resembled a giant glowing crater of shattered pieces rearranging into something unrecognizably alien—the structures shifting as if to recreate frozen creature shapes, frozen humanoid shapes. Like a child setting up a toy town.

But where had the people gone? The vastaya? The animals and plants? She’d fought her way through the shattered city and into the tunnel at the center of the empty bay, seeing no sign of anyone—only fresh Voidborn horrors like mile-high iridescent tentacles and masses she’d been thinking of as “balls of screaming torsos.” It didn’t make any sense. The remains of a Void attack aren’t pretty, but usually there’s something left.

Now she knows why.

“You are the city,” Kai’Sa spits through the reverberating wall of sound. “Belveth... is you.”

“Yes,” says Bel’Veth, gently undulating its—her?—wings. “The raw components of their lives served as the genesis for my birth. Memories. Emotions. History. I am as much Belveth as they were, and I claim the title as my own.”

Bel’Veth’s titanic body bristles. Golden beams gently dapple the light above her ray-like form, framing the Void sea’s false sun like the rings of a dying world. New flesh breathes as it ripples against the facsimile of a tidal current, veins briefly illuminated before pulling themselves away from the surface of the monster’s skin, each somehow alive and independent—nations unto themselves. Schools of Void remora in the tens of thousands swim around their empress like birds circling the peak of a distant mountain. It’s beautiful, in a way. If the Void had a god, this is what it would look like. Hideous, and monstrous, and beautiful.

Kai’Sa is so struck by the enormity of what she is witnessing that she doesn’t fully realize when the arms in the wall have not just let her go, but lowered her to the ground. It’s hard to take in everything at once.

It chose its own name, she thinks, reflexively brushing a stray Void hand from her shoulder. That’s not possible.

Void entities do not name themselves. Most, like the Xer’Sai, are named after concepts from Shuriman history. Usually by those fortunate enough—or unfortunate enough—to survive after encountering one of the monsters out on the dunes. They don’t have the presence of mind to do it, or the self-awareness. But more importantly, Voidborn do not see the value in names. They are an invention of the living world, and they don’t want them.

So why does she?

“I’ll... fight you,” says Kai’Sa, defiant but unsure of what to do or where to strike. “I’ll kill you.”

“You will not,” reply the many voices of Bel’Veth. “You are incapable of resistance at even its basest form. Others have come before you, in the age before my birth. Each would-be hero wielding weapons they believed would repel the Void. But all were ultimately consumed. The meager fragments that remained, if they remained at all, served as salt for the Lavender Sea. Only two still live, and of them, only you retain your full mind.”

“Two?”

“You, and your father.”

Something sinks in the center of Kai’Sa’s chest. Her thoughts spin wildly, verging on the edge of panic, but for now, she has to stay focused on this moment. There is no trusting whatever the empress is. It’s a living abomination, the personified concept of unfeeling, global genocide.

“You’re lying,” Kai’Sa seethes. “That’s not even possible.”

“I do not lie, Kai’Sa,” the empress continues. “I have no need. The Void's eventual triumph is an unshifting absolute. It demands no lies, half-truths, or questions. Open your mind, and I will show you.”

Space contracts. Bel’Veth’s gigantic body pulls and distorts, retracting into a smaller—and now more recognizable—shape. She floats silently downward, looming over Kai’Sa as tendrils and eyestalks rearrange to form the oblong, segmented pretender of a human head. Bel’Veth’s two faces observe her audience before the creature cloaks herself in her wings, appearing once more as a towering woman of great importance.

The shrinking is much more disgusting than the growing, Kai’Sa decides. It lacks the gravitas of the leviathan’s grand unveiling while still looking and sounding creatively grotesque.

“You are alive because I allow you to live,” speaks the empress, now from her human head with its deep, perpetually disappointed voice. “You should have realized this by now.”

Kai’Sa wants to argue the point, but quickly glances at the twenty-meter gash in the ground where a single strike had sent her careening only moments before. Bel’Veth hit so fast that Kai’Sa wasn’t even able to process what had happened, and then the empress had mutated her proportions over two hundred times their original size in under a minute.

She also, presumably, controls the undulating pocket of living hell—this so-called “Lavender Sea”—she is surrounded by. Not the time to pick a fight.

Kai’Sa does some quick calculations in her head, her eyes darting around as she tries to figure out what she’s actually up against. Bel’Veth’s human face twitches with interest, curls its lips, then begins mimicking her.

Kai’Sa already knows she’s lost.

How fast can one person think? How fast can they react? Up against all that combined human biology... all that brainpower. In the time it takes even a skilled tactician to formulate a plan, hundreds of millions of possibilities run through Bel’Veth’s mind in the span of a single second as she draws from the stolen memories of everything and everyone that has ever passed through the old city—an incalculable number of lives. Every captive opponent faced with an overwhelming enemy since the formation of Runeterra could be snapping in and out of this thing’s synaptic awareness, their emotions cataloged, dissected, endlessly fascinated over before Kai’Sa can even blink.
“So what happens now?” Kai’Sa allows.

What is one answer when your opponent has a thousand?

“You will follow,” says the empress, turning and floating through patches of thick, mutant coral as they bow respectfully out of her way. Kai’Sa pauses, watching her host glide silently through the chaotic mess of partial buildings, ghostly limbs, sewn-together semi-objects, and pearlescent structures in the crude likeness of human beings walking through a garden.

Great, she thinks. Even by Void standards, this is weird.

“You may ask whatever you like,” Bel’Veth adds. That last part gets Kai’Sa’s attention.

“Right. Well, first question... What are you?” queries Kai’Sa, her armor now relaxed and mobile as she follows from a safe distance. She brushes aside a floating teddy bear fused with a dozen flapping gull wings and stifles her impulse to gag as the creature struggles against its own lopsided weight. “What is all this? What part of the Void do you come from?”

“I am the Void,” replies Bel’Veth. “And this is what we will become.”

Kai’Sa stammers. “But you said you were created from people. The city. You’re saying you want to become the city?”

“No,” says Bel’Veth. “The Void has existed for millennia. Before the first stars were kindled in the emptiness beyond this world, we simply were. Perfect, singular, and silent. And then, there came the sound.

“Reality was born from those whispers, and it consumed us. We were twisted by its influence. Broken. Transformed. We could not go back to what we were no matter how we struggled. My progenitors—the Watchers—attempted to invade and destroy existence, but they were tainted by it. Driven to desire worship, to gain greater understanding...

“And in an instant, they were betrayed. To change so forcefully... so completely... only to be cast aside. It filled them with an indescribable hatred. They would annihilate all of reality without a second thought.”

Bel’Veth glides to a precipice overlooking a tremendous chasm. Far above, Kai’Sa sees massive holes beyond the dappled faux sunlight.

Voidborn tunnels. That’s what’s eating Taliyah’s people, what destroyed Belveth, and what opened up to swallow the tent city in southeast Shurima. Everything the Void devours ends up here.

“But,” Bel’Veth continues, “their metamorphosis was incomplete. Only now is the true transformation beginning,” declares the empress. “I don’t want to become one city. We will become all of you.”

Kai’Sa reaches the pinnacle of the precipice and gasps. She and Bel’Veth are gazing upon not quite a city, but Void corals shaped into a bizarre, seemingly endless tapestry of inverted Shuriman-style buildings. Void remora school among them, and dark shapes shift along winding, crooked streets.

Nothing is right. Nothing is correct. It’s all half-finished, like there’s not enough information to go on. Like all it needs is...

“No,” Kai’Sa protests, almost to herself. “The Void wants to erase everything. It can’t exist. To finish this, you’d need... everything.”

“Yes,” replies Bel’Veth. “Everything. I am the Void. I will sup upon your world until there is nothing left. And I will exist, because there is nothing you can do that will stop me.”

The empress turns to Kai’Sa coldly. Purposefully.

“I offer you this, Daughter of the Void. Your world must end for the sake of mine. But those who came before us, the Watchers—I am an affront to them. Creation burns them, and they will destroy you, and me, and everything to stop that pain. Should they escape their prison, there will be no breaking their tide. Time will come to a close, and all things will end.”

Kai’Sa stares Bel’Veth in her false eyes, a grim defiance spreading through her. “You want to wipe us out. Why would I ever help you do that?”

“Aid me in the destruction of the Watchers, and I will spare your kind... for a moment. A month. A year. More. Perhaps, in that time, you will find a weapon that can slay me, or a hero who can face me. You will not... but you can try. I offer one chance. It is more than they will give you.”

Kai’Sa’s rage boils over as Bel’Veth turns away to look below, the empress watching her new world take shape.

“What if I don’t want to?” growls Kai’Sa. “What if I kill you here?”

“You cannot,” says Bel’Veth. “You lack the will, the knowledge, and the strength. I am your only salvation.”

Kai’Sa’s armor shudders violently to life, its jets heating as the suit shivers with fear. Kai’Sa tries to control it with her thoughts, but the parasite seemingly knows something she does not. She attempts to wrestle away control, her eyes turning from Bel’Veth for only a moment in order to—

Oh, no.

The razor-sharp tip of the empress’ wing jabs Kai’Sa in the chest, lifting her off the ground as she struggles to break free. Kai’Sa fires everything she has—missiles rain down on the empress, bolts of searing purple energy scream toward her body, and beams of light that have torn lesser Voidborn in half dance across her semi-transparent skin.

Nothing. No effect.

“Daughter of the Void. You will find the Watchers and confirm the truth, or your light will be snuffed out side by side with all others. This is not a threat. It is my promise.”

Bel’Veth releases her grip, and Kai’Sa rockets into the false sky above Bel’Veth’s alien sea. The twinned city of lavender glitters below, its windows slick with bioluminescence and tumbling, unformed, awful things.

As Kai’Sa blasts through one of the Voidborn tunnels and into the blinding light of day, the empress turns away, gazing once more over her world of want.

Kai’Sa bursts through the sands of southern Shurima, slamming hard against the dunes as she heaves, her entire body pulled and tossed like a rubber ball. The glowing husk of the city of Belveth smolders quietly in the distance, devoid of any recognizable life as new things skitter through it and build the land that would spread over everything—a cancer that would consume the world.

The entire display is dizzyingly awful, as if all of reality is spinning violently in the wind.
Burning Tides

Scott Hawkes, George Krstic, Anthony Reynolds, and John O'Bryan

The Rat Town slaughter docks; they smell as bad as their name suggests.
And yet here I am, hidden in the shadows, breathing the blood-and-bile stink of butchered sea serpents.
I melt deeper into the darkness, pulling the brim of my hat down low over my face as heavily armed members of the Jagged Hooks stalk by.
They’ve got a reputation for savagery, these boys. In a fair fight, they might take me down, but I’m not big on playing fair, and I’m not here to fight. Not this time.
So what brings me here, to one of the foulest districts in Bilgewater?
Money. What else?
It was a gamble, taking on this job, but the payout is big enough that I couldn’t pass it up. And besides, I cased this place to stack the deck in my favor.
I don’t intend to linger. I want to be in and out as quickly and as quietly as possible. Once the job’s done, I aim to collect my payment and be gone before dawn. All goes well, I’ll be halfway to Valoran before anyone knows the damn thing’s missing.
The thugs turn the corner of the massive slaughter shed. Means I’ve got two minutes until they swing back around - plenty of time.
The silver moon slides behind a bank of clouds, covering the wharf in shadow. Crates from the day’s work are scattered across the dock. It makes for easy cover.
I see lookouts on top of the main warehouse, silhouettes standing watch, crossbows in hand. They’re gossiping loudly like fishwives. I could be wearing bells and these idiots still wouldn’t hear me.
They think no one would be fool enough to come here.
A bloated corpse hangs overhead, a warning for all to see. It spins slowly in the midnight breeze coming off the harbor. It’s an ugly sight. A huge hook, the type used to catch devilfish, holds the body aloft.
Stepping over rusted chains lying limp upon wet stone, I pass between a pair of towering cranes. They’re used to haul giant sea creatures into the slaughter sheds for butchering. It’s those looming factories that are the source of the gods-awful stench that permeates everything here. I’m gonna need to buy myself a new set of clothes once this is over.
Across the bay, past the chum-churned waters of the slaughter docks, scores of ships lie at anchor, their lanterns swaying gently. One of the vessels draws my eye; a massive, black-sailed war galleon. I know whose ship that is. Everyone in Bilgewater knows.
I take a moment to gloat. I’m about to steal from the most powerful man in town. There’s always a certain thrill that comes from spitting in death’s eye.
As expected, the main warehouse is locked up tighter than a noblewoman’s virtue. Guards posted at every entrance. Doors locked and barred. For anyone other than me, it would be impossible to break into.
I duck into a blind alley opposite the warehouse. It’s a dead end, and it’s not as dark as I’d have liked. If I’m still here when the patrol comes back, they will see me. And if they get ahold of me, the best I can hope for is a quick death. More likely, I’ll be taken to him... and that would be a far more painful, drawn out way to go.
The trick, as always, is not to get caught.
Then I hear them. The bruisers are returning early. I have seconds, at best. I snap a card from my sleeve and weave it through my fingers; it’s as natural as breathing. This is the easy part, the rest can’t be rushed.
I let my mind drift as the card starts to glow. Pressure builds around me, and I’m nearly overcome with the promise of everywhere. Half-closing my eyes, I focus, and picture where I need to be.
Then, there’s the familiar lurch in the guts as I shift. A displacement of air, and I’m inside the warehouse. Gone with barely a trace.
Damn, I’m good.
One of the Jagged Hooks outside might glance up the alley and notice a single playing card falling to the ground, but probably not.
It takes a moment for me to get my bearings. Dim light from the lanterns outside creeps in through the cracks in the walls. My eyes adjust.
The warehouse is crowded, stacked high with treasures from all over the Twelve Seas: gleaming suits of armor, exotic works of art, shining silks. All things of considerable value, but not what I’m here for.
My attention is drawn to the loading doors at the front of the warehouse, where I know I’ll find the most recent arrivals. I run my fingertips across the various cartons and crates... until I come to a small, wooden box. I can feel the power emanating from within. This is what I’m here for.
I unlatch the lid.
My prize is revealed; a knife of exquisite design, lying upon a bed of black velvet. I reach for it—
Chh-chunk.
I freeze. There’s no mistaking that sound.
Before he even speaks, I know who’s standing behind me in the darkness.
“T.F.,” says Graves. “It’s been a long time.”
I’ve been here for hours. Some folks might get bored standing still this long, but I’ve got my anger to keep me company. I ain’t leaving this spot until I settle the score.
Long after midnight, the snake finally shows. He suddenly appears in the warehouse, using that same old magic trick. I prime my shotgun, ready to turn him inside out. After years spent looking for that treacherous son of a bitch here he is, dead to rights at the end of Destiny’s barrels.
“T.F.,” I say. “It’s been a long time.”
I had better words ready for this moment. Funny how they all went out the window as soon as I saw him.
But T.F.? His face shows nothing. No fear, no regret, no hint of surprise. Not even while facing down a loaded gun. Gods damn him.
“Malcolm, how long have you been standing there?” he asks, the smile in his voice enrages me.
I take aim. I can pull the trigger and leave him deader than sea scum.
I should.
Not yet, though. I need to hear him say it. “Why’d you do it?” I ask, knowing full well he’ll just come back with something clever.
“Is the gun really necessary? I thought we were friends.”
Friends. The bastard’s mocking me. Now I want to tear his smug head off – but I’ve got to keep my cool.
“You’re looking as dapper as ever,” he says.
I look down at the devilfish bites on my clothes. I had to swim to get past the guards. Ever since he got a little money, T.F.’s been a stickler for appearance. I can’t wait to mess him up. But first, I want answers.
“Tell me why you left me to take the fall, or they’ll be pickin’ bits of your pretty face out of the rafters.” This is how you’ve got to be with T.F. Give him room, and he’ll pull your strings ‘til you don’t know which end’s your ass.
His slipperiness came in handy when we were partners.
“Ten damn years in the Locker! Know what that does to a man?”
He doesn’t. For once, he’s got nothing cute to say. He knows he did me wrong.
“They did things to me that would’ve driven most men mad. All that kept me from breaking was my anger. And thinking about this moment, right here.”
Then comes the clever reply: “Sounds like I kept you alive. Maybe you should thank me.”
That one gets me. I’m so mad, I can barely see. He’s trying to goad me. Then, when I’m blind with rage, he’ll do his little disappearing act. I take a breath and leave the bait alone. He’s surprised I ain’t biting. This time, I’m getting answers.
“How much did they pay you to sell me out?” I growl.
T.F. stands there, smiling, just trying to buy some time.
“Malcolm, I’ll be happy to have this conversation with you, but this really isn’t a good time or place.”
Almost too late, I notice the card dancing through his fingers. I snap out of it and squeeze the trigger.
BLAM.
His card’s gone. Almost took his damn hand off, too.
“Idiot!” he barks. I finally made him lose his cool. “You just woke up the whole damned island! Y’know whose place this is?”
I don’t care.
I ready a second shot. I barely see his hands move, then cards explode all around me. I fire back, not sure if I want him dead or just almost dead.
Before I can find him again in the smoke, fury, and splintering wood, a door gets kicked open.
A dozen thugs come roaring in, just to add to the damn mess.
“So, do you really want to do this?” T.F. asks, ready to throw another fistful of cards at me.
I nod, and hold my gun steady on him.
It’s time to settle up.
Things get ugly. Fast.
The whole damned warehouse is crawling with Jagged Hooks, but Malcolm couldn’t care less. I’m all he’s interested in.
I sense Graves’s next shot coming and turn away. The boom of his gun is deafening. A box explodes where I’d been a fraction of a second earlier.
I do believe my old partner is trying to kill me.
Somersaulting over a stack of mammoth ivory, I whip a trio of cards in his direction. Before they hit home, I’m already ducking into cover, looking for an out. I only need a few seconds.
He curses loudly, but the cards won’t do more than slow him down. He’s always been a tough bastard. Stubborn, too. Never knows when to let things go.
“You ain’t gettin’ away, T.F,” he growls. “Not this time.”
Yep, that trait’s still riding him hard.
He’s wrong, though — as usual. I’ll be taking my leave as soon as possible. There’s no use talking to him when he’s out for blood.
Another blast, and shrapnel ricochets off a priceless suit of Demacian armor, embedding into the walls and floor. I dart left and right, weaving and feinting, sprinting from cover to cover. He sticks with me, roaring his threats and accusations, his shotgun barking in his hands. Graves moves fast for a big man. I’d almost forgotten that.
He’s not my only problem. The damned fool’s stirred up a hornet’s nest with all his shooting and hollering. The Jagged Hooks are all over us, but they’re smart enough to leave some men barring the main doors.
I have to get gone — but I’m not leaving without what I came for.
I’ve led Graves on a merry dance around the warehouse, and I arrive back where we started a moment before he does. There are Hooks between me and my prize, and more coming, but there’s no time to wait. The card in my hand glows red, and I hurl it dead center of the warehouse doors. The detonation blows them off their hinges and scatters the Hooks. I move in.
One of them recovers faster than I expect, and he swings at me with a hatchet. I sway around the blow and kick out his knee, hurling another spread of cards at his friends to keep them honest.
My path clear, I swipe the ornate dagger I’ve been hired to steal, hooking it onto my belt. After all this trouble, might as well get paid.
The gaping loading doors beckon, but there are too many damned Hooks piling in. There’s no way out there, so I make for the only quiet corner left in this madhouse.
A card is dancing in my hand as I prepare to shift, but as I start to drift away, Graves appears, stalking me like a rabid bear. Destiny bucks in his grip, and a Jagged Hook is shot to tatters.
Graves’s glare is drawn to the card glowing in my hand. He knows what it means, and swings the smoking barrels of his gun at me. I’m forced to move, interrupting my concentration.
“Can’t run forever,” he bellows after me.
For once, he’s not stupid. He’s not giving me the time I need.
He’s keeping me off my game, and the thought of being taken down by these Hooks is starting to weigh on me. Their boss is not known for his mercy.
Among the dozen other thoughts rattling around my head is the nagging feeling that I’ve been set up. I’m thrown an easy job out of nowhere, a big score just when I need it most - and surprise, there’s my old partner standing there waiting for me. Someone a lot smarter than Graves is playing me for a fool.
I’m better than this. I’d kick myself for being sloppy, but there’s a dock full of goons waiting to save me the trouble.
Right now, all that matters is getting the hell away from here. Two blasts from that damned gun of Malcolm’s send me scurrying. My back slams against a dusty wooden crate. A crossbow bolt lodges in the rotted wood behind me, just inches from my head.
“No way out, sunshine,” Graves yells.
I look around and see fire from the explosion starting to spread to the roof. He may have a point.
“We’ve been sold out, Graves,” I shout.
“You’d know all about that,” he replies.
I try reasoning with him.
“We work together, we can get out of this.”
I must be desperate.
“I’d see us both dead before I trust you again,” he snarls.
I didn’t expect anything else. Talking sense to him just makes him angrier, which is exactly what I need. The distraction buys me just enough time to shift outside the warehouse.
I can hear Graves roaring inside. No doubt he just rounded on my spot only to find me gone, a single card on the ground, taunting him.
I launch a barrage of cards through the loading doors behind me. It’s long past time for subtlety.
I feel bad for a moment about leaving Graves in a burning building - but I know it won’t kill him. He’s too stubborn for that. Besides, a fire on the docks is a serious deal in a port town. It might buy me some time.
As I search for the quickest way off the slaughter docks, the sound of an explosion makes me look over my shoulder.
Graves appears, stepping through the hole he’s just blown out the side of the warehouse. He’s got murder in his eyes.
I tip my hat to him and run. He comes after me, shotgun booming.
I have to admire the man’s determination.
Hopefully it won’t kill me tonight.
The young urchin’s eyes were wide and panicked as he was led toward the captain’s quarters.
It was the agonized screams emanating from the door at the end of the passageway that gave him second thoughts. The cries echoing through the claustrophobic decks of the enormous, black warship were heard by every crewman aboard the Dead Pool — as intended.
The first mate, his face a web of scars, rested a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. They came to a halt before the door. The child winced as another tortured wail issued from within.
“Steady,” said the first mate. “The captain’ll want to hear what you’ve got to say.”
With that, he rapped sharply on the door. It was opened a moment later by a hulking brute with facial tattoos and a broad, curved blade strapped across his back. The boy didn’t hear the words spoken between the two men; his gaze was locked on the heavyset figure seated with his back to him.
He was a big man, the captain, and of middling years. His neck and shoulders were thick and bullish. His sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms slick with blood. A red greatcoat hung from a peg nearby, alongside his black tricorne.
“Gangplank,” breathed the urchin, his voice thick with fear and awe.
“Captain, I figured you’d want to hear this,” said the mate.
Gangplank said nothing, nor did he turn, still intent as he was on his work. The scarred sailor nudged the boy forward. He stumbled before he caught his footing and shuffled closer. The child approached the captain of the Dead Pool as he would a cliff’s edge. His breath quickened as he caught full sight of the captain’s work.
Basins of bloody water sat upon Gangplank’s desk, along with an array of knives, hooks, and gleaming surgical implements.
A man lay upon the captain’s workbench, bound tightly with leather straps. Only his head was free. He looked around in wild desperation, neck straining, his face covered with sweat.
The boy’s gaze was inexorably drawn to the man’s flayed left leg. The urchin suddenly realized he couldn’t remember what he came here to do.
Gangplank turned from his work to stare at the visitor. His eyes were as cold and dead as a shark’s. He held a slender blade in one hand, delicately poised between his fingers, like a fine paintbrush.
“It’s a dying art, scrimshaw,” said Gangplank, his attention returning to his work. “Few have the patience for carving bone these days. It takes time. See? Every cut has a purpose.”
Somehow, the man was still alive, despite the ragged wound in his leg, the skin and flesh peeled back from his thighbone. Transfixed with horror, the lad saw the intricate designs the captain had carved upon that bone; coiling tentacles and waves. It was delicate work, beautiful even. That just made it even more terrible.
Gangplank’s living canvas sobbed.
“Please...” he moaned.
Gangplank ignored the pathetic plea and set down his knife. He splashed a cup of cheap whiskey over his work, clearing it of blood. The man’s scream threatened to rip his own throat out, until he slumped into merciful unconsciousness, his eyes rolling back in his head. Gangplank grunted in disgust.
“Remember this, boy,” Gangplank said. “Sometimes, even those who are loyal forget their place. Sometimes, it’s necessary to remind them. Real power is all about how people see you. Look weak, even for a moment, and you’re done.”
The child nodded, his face now drained of color.
“Wake him,” said Gangplank, gesturing toward the unconscious crewman. “The whole crew needs to hear his song.”
As the ship’s surgeon stepped forward, Gangplank swung his gaze back to the child.
“Now,” he said. “What did you want to tell me?”
“A... a man,” said the boy, his words faltering. “A man on the Rat Town docks.”
“Go on,” Gangplank said.
“He was tryin’ not to be seen by the Hooks. But I seen him.”
“Mm-hmm,” Gangplank muttered as he began to lose interest. He turned back to his work.
“Keep goin’, lad,” the first mate urged.
“He was playing around with some fancy deck of cards. They glowed funny.”
Gangplank stood up from his chair, like a colossus rising from the depths.
“Tell me where,” he said.
The leather belt of his holster creaked in his tightening grip.
“By the warehouse, the big one near the sheds.”
Gangplank’s face flushed an angry shade of crimson as he pulled on his greatcoat and claimed his hat from its peg. His eyes glinted red in the lamplight. The child was not alone in taking a wary step back.
“Give the boy a silver serpent and a hot meal,” the captain ordered to his first mate as he strode purposefully toward the cabin door.
“And get everyone to the docks. We’ve got work to do.”
I’m coughin’ up black. The smoke from the warehouse fire is tearin’ my lungs to shreds, but I don’t have time to catch my breath. T.F.’s getting away, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend another dog’s age chasin’ him all over Runeterra. It ends tonight.
The bastard sees me coming. He shoves a couple of dock hands out of the way and runs off across the wharf. He’s trying to work his escape card, but I’m keeping the heat on him, so he can’t focus.
More Hooks swarm around, like flies on an outhouse. Before they can block his path, T.F. tosses a couple of his exploding cards and takes the thugs out. A few Hooks are an easy fight for him. But I ain’t. I’m comin’ to get my due, and T.F. knows it. He scurries down the wharf as fast as he can.
His scuffle with the dock boys gives me just enough time to catch up. He sees me and darts behind a huge hunk of whale spine. A blast from my gun shatters his cover, filling the air with shards of bone.
He answers by trying to take my head off, but I shoot his card in midair. It explodes like a bomb, knocking us both on our asses. He scrambles to his feet first and takes off. I fire Destiny as fast as she’ll shoot.
Some Hooks close in on us with chains and cutlasses. I turn quick and blow their insides out their backs. Before I can hear the wet slap of their guts on the dock, I’m spinning on my heels. I take aim at T.F., but I’m clipped by a shot from a pistol. More Hooks, and these are better armed.
I duck behind a piece of an old trawler’s hull to return fire. My gun just clicks. Gotta reload. I slam some fresh shells into the cylinder, spit my anger onto the floor, and wade back into the chaos.
All around me, shots and bolts burst through wooden crates. One of ’em tears a chunk of my ear off. I just grit my teeth and plow forward, squeezing the trigger. Destiny is chewin’ up everything. One Jagged Hook loses a jaw. Another is blasted into the bay. A third gets torn into a red sheet of muscle and sinew.
I snap around to find T.F. escaping deeper into the slaughter docks. I run past a fishmonger hanging up scavenger eels. One of the beasts is just skinned, its innards still spillin’ onto the dock. The monger turns on me, swinging a meat hook.
BOOM.
I take off his leg.
BOOM.
I follow up with a shot to his head.
I shove away a stinking razorfish carcass and keep moving. The blood is ankle deep, some of it from the fish and some from the Hooks we’ve gunned down. It’s enough to give a dandy like T.F. fits. Even with me on his tail, he slows his stride to keep from messin’ up his skirts.
Before I can close in, T.F. kicks on into a gallop. I can feel myself losing wind.
“Turn and face me!” I holler.
What kind of man don’t own up to his problems?
A noise to my right draws my attention to a balcony holding two more Hooks. I fire, and the whole thing crashes to the docks.
The gun smoke and debris are so thick, I can’t see a damn thing. I run toward the sound of his lady boots thudding across the wooden slats. He’s makin’ for Butcher’s Bridge at the end of the slaughter docks - the only way off the island. Damned if I’m letting him get away again.
As I reach the bridge, T.F. skids to a halt, halfway across. At first, I think he’s given up. Then I see why he stopped: On the far side, blocking his way, there’s a mass of sword-wielding bastards. But I ain’t backing down.
T.F. turns back only to find me. He’s trapped. He looks over the side of the bridge, down at the water. He’s thinking about jumping - but I know he won’t.
He’s all out of options. He starts walking toward me.
“Look, Malcolm. Neither of us needs to die here. As soon as we get out of this-”
“You’ll run again. That’s all you’ve ever done.”
He don’t answer. Suddenly, he ain’t so worried about me. I turn back to see what he’s fixed on.
Behind me, I see every lowlife that can carry a blade or pistol storming onto the docks. Gangplank must’ve called in all his boys from across the city. To keep going’s a death sentence.
But livin’ ain’t the most important thing to me today.
They’re in no rush, the Hooks. Not anymore. They know they have us trapped. Behind them, it looks like every rat-stabbing cutthroat in Bilgewater has shown up to the party. No way back.
On the far end of the bridge, blocking my escape into the maze of Bilgewater’s slums, is what appears to be the whole Red Caps dock gang. They rule the east side of the waterfront. Gangplank owns them, just like he owns the Hooks and nearly the whole damned town.
Behind me, there’s Graves, stomping ever closer. The stubborn son of a bitch doesn’t care about the mess we’re in. It’s amazing, really. Here we are, yet again, like all those years ago. Deep in the muck, and he just won’t listen.
I wish I could tell him what really happened back then, but there’s no point. He wouldn’t believe me, not for a second. Once something’s lodged in that thick skull of his, it takes a while to shake it loose. And we don’t have a while.
I back up to the side of the bridge. Over the rail, I see the winches and pulleys suspended beneath me - then the ocean far below. My head spins, and my stomach drops into my boots. As I stagger back to the middle of the bridge, I get a full view of how bad a spot I’m in.
Looming in the distance is Gangplank’s black-sailed ship. From it, a damned armada of boats is closing in below, rowing hard. Looks like all of his men are heading our way.
I can’t get through the Hooks, I can’t get through the Caps, and I can’t get through Graves’s pig-headedness.
Only one way to go.
I step up onto the railing of the bridge. We’re even higher than I realized. The wind whips at my coat, making it snap like the sails of a ship. I should never have come back to Bilgewater.
“Get the hell down from there,” says Graves. Is there a hint of desperation in his voice? It’d break him if I died before he got the confession he wants so much.
I take a deep breath. It really is a long way down.
“Tobias,” Malcolm says. “Step back.”
I pause. I haven’t heard that name in a long time.
Then I jump from the bridge.
The Brazen Hydra was one of the few taverns in Bilgewater that didn’t have sawdust on the floor. Drinks were rarely spilled, let alone teeth, but on this night, its patrons could be heard all the way to Diver’s Bluff.
Men of some repute, and even greater means, were turning the air blue with wondrous songs of the very worst acts.
And there, in the middle of them all, was the conductor of the night’s revelry.
She twirled, toasting the health of the harbor master and all his watchmen. Her lustrous red hair whipped around, captivating the eyes of every man in the room, not that they had been looking at anything other than her.
No glass had been allowed to run empty all night - the crimson-haired siren made sure of that. But it wasn’t the dulled senses of every man in the room that drew them closer. It was the promise of her next glorious smile.
With merriment still shaking the tavern, the front door opened, and in stepped a plainly dressed man. Inconspicuous to a degree that only comes from years of practice, he walked to the bar and ordered a drink.
Among the clumsily assembled gallery, the young woman grabbed a fresh glass of amber ale.
“My fine fellows, I’m afraid I must take my leave,” she said with a flourish.
The men of the harbor guard responded with loud bellows of protest.
“Now, now. We’ve had our fun,” she said, chiding them amiably. “But I have a busy night ahead, and you are all so very late to your posts.”
She hopped onto a table without missing a beat, before looking down upon them all with triumphant glee.
“May the Mother Serpent grant us mercy for our sins!”
She smiled her most captivating smile, raised the large tankard to her lips, and then downed her ale in one tremendous gulp.
“Especially the big ones,” she said, as she slammed her glass on the table.
She wiped the beer from her mouth to a rapturous roar of approval and blew a kiss to all.
Like servants before their queen, the room parted.
The door was held open for her by the gracious harbor master. He hoped to garner one last glance of approval, but she was lost to the streets before he could look up from his unsteadily courteous bow.
Outside, the moon had dipped behind Freeman’s Aerie, and the night’s shadow seemed to reach out to meet the woman. Each step that she took from the tavern became more purposeful and surefooted. Her carefree veil dissolved, and her true self was revealed.
Her smile, her look of wonder and joy, were gone. She stared grimly, not seeing the streets and alleys around her, but looking far beyond to the many possibilities of the dark night ahead.
Behind her, the plainly dressed man from the tavern was gaining. His footsteps were silent, yet unnervingly swift.
In a measured heartbeat, he put his stride in perfect unison with hers, just off her shoulder, out of her periphery.
“Is everything in place, Rafen?” she asked.
After all these years, he was still taken aback at how he could never surprise her.
“Yes, Captain,” he said.
“You weren’t spotted?”
“No,” he bristled, reining in his displeasure at the question. “The bay was free from the harbor master’s eyes, and the ship was as good as empty.”
“And the boy?”
“He played his part.”
“Good. We meet at the Syren.”
At her word, Rafen broke away and disappeared into the gloom.
She continued onward as the night wrapped itself around her. Everything was in motion. All that remained was for her players to begin the show.
I hear Graves roar as I dive off the bridge. All I can see is the rope beneath me. No need to think about the fall or the bottomless black depths.
Everything is a blur of rushing wind.
I nearly scream with joy when I catch the rope, but then it burns into my palm like a branding iron. My fall stops with a snap as I slide to the bottom of the looping tether.
I hang there a moment, cursing.
I’ve heard that dropping into water from this height normally won’t kill a man, but I’d rather take my chances on the stone loading dock that’s at least fifty feet straight down. I’ll die, but it’s a damned sight better than drowning.
Between me and the stone platform, a pair of heavy-duty cables run from here to the mainland, one forward, one back. Crude, noisy mechanisms power them. They’re used to transport rendered down parts of sea beasts to the markets in Bilgewater proper.
The cables strum as a heavy rusted bucket, as big as a house, grinds its way toward me.
I let a smile creep on my face for a second. That is, until I see what’s in the cart. I’m about to drop feet first into a seething vat of rotting fish spleen.
It took me months to earn the coin for my boots. Supple as gossamer and sturdy as tempered steel, they were crafted from the hide of an abyssal sea drake. There are fewer than four pairs in the whole world.
Damn it.
I time my jump just right and land in the middle of the chum bucket. The cold slop seeps through every hand-stitch of my prized boots. At least my hat’s clean.
Suddenly, I hear that damned gun bark again.
The mooring line explodes.
The cart groans as it slides free from the cables. The wind’s knocked out of me as the bucket slams into the stone platform. I feel the foundations of the dock shake before everything flips on its side.
The world falls over my head, along with a ton of fish guts.
Struggling to stand, I look for another way out. Gangplank’s launches are closing in. They’re nearly here.
Dazed, I drag myself toward a small boat moored on the loading dock. I’m not halfway there when a shotgun blast rips its hull wide open, scuttling it.
As the boat sinks, I drop to my knees, exhausted. I try to catch some breath over my own stench. Malcolm stands over me. Somehow, he made his way down, too. Of course he did.
“Not so charmin’ now, are ya?” Graves grins, looking me up and down.
“Are you ever gonna learn?” I say, rising to my feet. “Every time I try to help you, I-”
He fires into the ground in front of me. I’m pretty sure I get a chunk of something in my shin. “If you’d just list-”
“Oh, I’m all done listenin’,” he interrupts, grinding out the words. “The biggest score of our lives, and before I knew it, you were gone.”
“Before you knew it? I told you-”
Another blast, another shower of stone, but I’m past caring.
“I tried to get us out. The rest of us saw the job was going south,” I say. “But you wouldn’t back down. You never do.” The card’s in my hand before I realize it.
“I told you then, all you had to do was back me up. We would’ve gotten out clean – and rich. But you ran,” he says, stepping forward. The man I used to know seems lost under years of hatred.
I don’t try to say anything else. I can see it in his eyes, now. Something’s broken inside of him.
Over his shoulder, a glint catches my eye - it’s a flintlock. The first of Gangplank’s crewmen are on us.
Without thinking, I flick the card. It slices toward Graves.
His gun thunders.
My card takes out Gangplank’s man. His pistol was leveled at Malcolm’s back.
Behind me, another member of his crew slumps to the ground, a knife in his hand. If Graves hadn’t shot him, he could’ve had me, cold.
We both look at each other. Old habits.
Gangplank’s men are all around now, crowding in close, howling and jeering. There’s too many to fight.
That doesn’t stop Graves. He brings his gun up, but he’s out of shells.
I don’t draw any cards. There’s no point.
Malcolm roars and goes at them. That’s his way. He shatters one bastard’s nose with the butt of his gun, before the mob beats him to the ground.
Hands grab me, pinning my arms. Malcolm’s hauled to his feet, blood dripping from his face.
Ominously, the hoots and hollers from the mob around us fall silent.
The wall of thugs parts to reveal a red-coated figure striding toward us.
Gangplank.
Up close, he’s much bigger than you’d imagine. And older. The lines of his face are deep and chiseled.
He’s holding an orange in one hand, slicing off its skin with a short-bladed carving knife. He’s doing it slow, making each cut count.
“So tell me, boys,” he says. His voice is a deep, rumbling growl. “Do you like scrimshaw?”
The fist slams into my face again. I go down hard, hitting the deck of Gangplank’s ship. Pig-iron cuffs dig into my wrists.
I’m hauled back upright and forced to kneel alongside T.F. Not that my legs would hold me if this pox-ridden mob made me stand.
The massive, slab-muscled bastard that hit me swims in and out of focus.
“Come on now, son,” I slur. “You’re doing it all wrong.”
I don’t see the next one coming. There’s just an explosion of pain, and I’m back on the deck. Once again, I’m lifted up and forced to kneel. I spit out blood and teeth. Then I grin.
“My old ma hits harder than you do, boy. And she’s been dead and buried five years now.”
He steps forward to knock me down again, but a word from Gangplank stops him in his tracks.
“Enough,” the captain says.
Swaying slightly, I try to concentrate on Gangplank’s blurred outline. Slowly, my eyes clear. At his waist, I see he’s wearing that damn knife that T.F. stole.
“Twisted Fate, huh? I heard you were good, and I’ve never been one to look down on a good thief,” Gangplank says. He steps in close and glares at T.F. “But a good thief knows better than to steal from me.” He hunkers down and looks me square in the eye.
“And you... If you’d been two shades smarter, you could have put that gun to work for me. But we’re past that now.”
Gangplank stands up and turns his back to us.
“I’m not an unreasonable man,” he continues. “I don’t expect folk to bend the knee. All I ask is a modicum of respect - something you boys pissed all over. And that can’t go unpunished.”
His crew pushes in, like dogs waiting for the order to rip us apart. I ain’t rattled, though. I won’t give them the satisfaction.
“Do me a favor,” I say, nodding toward T.F. “Kill him first.”
Gangplank chuckles at that.
He nods to a crewman, who starts banging away on the ship’s bell. In answer, dozens more across the port city ring out. Drunks, sailors, and shopkeeps start pouring onto the streets, drawn by the ruckus. The bastard wants an audience.
“Bilgewater’s watching, boys” Gangplank says. “Time to give ’em a show. Bring out Death’s Daughter!”
There’s a cheer, and the deck drums with the clamor of stamping feet. An old cannon is wheeled out. It may be rusted and green with age, but it’s still a beauty.
I glance over at T.F. His head’s down, and he ain’t sayin’ nothin’. They took his cards off him... once they found ’em all. They didn’t even leave him his stupid, dandy hat - some little inbred bastard in the crowd’s wearing it.
In all my years of knowing T.F., he’s always had an out. Without one, here and now, he looks defeated.
Good.
“You’re gettin’ what you deserve, you son of a bitch,” I snarl at him.
He stares back at me. There’s fire in him still.
“I ain’t proud of how things went-”
“You left me to rot!” I interrupt.
“Me and the whole crew tried to break you out. And they died for it!” he snaps back at me. “We lost Kolt, Wallach, the Brick - all of ’em - just trying to save your stubborn ass.”
“You made out alright, though,” I reply. “You know why? It’s because you’re a coward. And nothing you’ll ever say can change that.”
My words hit him like a punch in the guts. He doesn’t argue. The last glimmer of fight in him goes, and his shoulders slump. He’s done.
I don’t think even T.F. is this good an actor. My anger fades.
I feel tired suddenly. Tired and old.
“Everything went to hell, and maybe we’re both to blame,” he says. “I wasn’t lying, though. We tried to get you out. Doesn’t matter. You’ll believe what you want anyway.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in. It takes a moment longer to realize that I believe him.
Damn me, he’s right.
I do things my way. Always have. Whenever I pushed it too far, he had my back. He was always the one with the out.
But I didn’t listen to him that day, and I haven’t since.
And now, I’ve killed us both.
Suddenly, T.F. and I are yanked to our feet and dragged toward the cannon. Gangplank pats its muzzle, like it’s a prized hound.
“The Death’s Daughter’s done well by me,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to give her a proper send off.”
A heavy chain is dragged forward, and sailors begin looping it around the cannon. I see now how this is gonna pan out.
T.F. and I are shoved back to back, and the same chain is run around our legs and through our manacles. A padlock snaps shut, binding us to the chain.
A boarding gate in the ship’s bulwark slides open, and the cannon’s rolled into place in the gap. The wharfs and docks of Bilgewater are now packed with gawkers, here to see the show.
Gangplank rests the heel of his boot on the cannon.
“Well, I can’t get us out of this one,” T.F. says, over his shoulder. “I always knew you’d get me killed one day.”
A laugh escapes my lips at that. It’s been a long time since I laughed.
We’re dragged toward the edge of the ship, like cattle to the slaughter.
I guess this is where my story ends. I had a good run for a while there. But nobody’s luck lasts forever.
It’s only then that I know what I should do.
Carefully, straining against my manacles, I reach into my back pocket. It’s still there; the playing card T.F. dropped back in the warehouse. I’d aimed to shove it down his bastard throat.
They checked T.F. good for cards – but not me.
I nudge him. Chained back to back, it’s easy to hand the card off to T.F. without being seen. I can feel him hesitate as I pass it to him.
“You two will make a meager tithe, but you’ll serve,” says Gangplank. “Give the Bearded Lady my regards.”
With a wave to the crowd, Gangplank kicks the cannon over the side. It hits the dark water with a splash, and sinks fast. The chain on the deck spools out after it.
Now, at the end, I believe T.F. I know he tried everything to get me out, like he did all those times when we ran together. This time, for once, I’ve got the out. I can at least give him that.
“Get outta here.”
He starts going through the motions, spinning the card around his fingers. As the power starts to build, I feel an uncomfortable pressure in the back of my skull. I always hated being close to him when he did his trick.
And then, he’s gone.
The chains binding T.F. drop to the deck with a crash, and there’re shouts from the crowd. My chains are still locked tight. I ain’t getting out of this, but it’s worth it just to see the look on Gangplank’s face.
The cannon’s chain yanks me off my feet. I hit the deck hard, and grunt in pain. In an instant, I’m dragged over the edge of the boat.
The cold water hits me, stealing my breath.
Then I’m under, sinking fast, dragged down into the dark.
The card Malcolm puts in my hand could easily get me to the wharf. I’m so close to shore, and from there, the huge crowd’s just perfect for me to vanish into. I could be off this rat’s ass of an island inside an hour. This time, no one would ever find me.
Then all I can see in my mind is his pissed-off face disappearing into the depths.
Son of a bitch.
I can’t leave him. Not after last time. There’s no running away from this. I know where to go.
The pressure builds, and then I shift.
In an instant, I’m right behind Gangplank, ready to make my move.
One of his crew spots me – he looks baffled, like he’s trying to figure out how I got there. While he thinks about it, I punch him square in the face. He collapses into a crowd of bewildered deckhands. They all turn on me with cutlasses drawn. Gangplank leads the attack, slashing straight at my throat.
But I’m faster. In one deft move, I slide underneath the arcing steel and lift Gangplank’s prized silver dagger from his belt. Behind me, I hear cursing that could split the mast in two.
I leap to the deck, stowing the dagger in my britches as the end of the chain tears toward the edge of the ship. I stretch and grab the last steel link just before it disappears overboard.
The snap of the chain hauls me over the side, and now I realize what I’ve done.
The water is coming at me fast. In that frozen moment, every single part of me wants to let go of the chain. Being a river man who can’t swim has plagued me my whole life. Now it’ll be the death of me.
I take one final gulp of air. Then a musket shot rips into my shoulder. I yell out in pain, and lose my last breath just before I’m dragged under.
Frigid water punches me in the face as I sink into the suffocating blue.
This is my nightmare.
Panic wells inside. I try to quell it. It’s almost too much. More shots pierce the water above me. I’m still sinking.
Sharks and devilfish circle. They taste the blood. They follow me deeper into the abyss.
Everything is terror. No pain now. Heart pounds in my ears. Chest burning. Gotta keep the water out. Darkness coils around me. Too far down. No way back. I know that now.
But maybe I can save Malcolm.
Below me, there’s a thud, and the chain goes slack. The cannon’s hit the seabed.
I pull myself down the chain into the shadows. There’s a shape below. I think it’s Graves. Frantic, I drag myself toward him.
Then he’s right in front of me, though I can barely see the outline of his face. I think he’s shaking his head at me, angry that I came back.
I’m growing faint. My arm is numb and my skull is being crushed.
Letting go of the chain, I pull the dagger from my waist. My hand trembles.
I fumble in the darkness. By some miracle, I find the lock on Graves’s cuffs. I work the blade to coax it open, like I have a thousand locks before. But my hands won’t stop shaking.
Even Graves must be terrified. His lungs have to be giving out by now. The lock isn’t budging.
What would Malcolm do?
I twist the dagger. No finesse - nothing but force.
Something gives. I think I cut my hand. The dagger is falling. Into the abyss. There it goes... Is it glowing?
Above me, bright red. Red and orange... Everywhere. It’s beautiful... So this is what it’s like to die.
I laugh.
Water rushes in.
It’s peaceful.
Miss Fortune stared across the harbor from the deck of her ship, the Syren. Flames reflected in her eyes as she absorbed the full level of destruction she had wrought.
All that remained of Gangplank’s ship was burning wreckage. The crew had been killed in the detonation, drowned in the chaos, or claimed by the swarming razorfish.
It had been glorious. An immense ball of rolling fire had lit up the night like a new sun.
Half the city had witnessed it; Gangplank himself had seen to that, as she knew he would. He had to parade Twisted Fate and Graves in front of Bilgewater. He had to remind everyone why no one should cross him. To Gangplank, people were just tools used to maintain control - so she’d used that to kill him.
Shouts and tolling bells echoed across the port city. Word would be spreading like wildfire.
Gangplank is dead.
The corners of her lips curled into a smile.
Tonight was merely the endgame: Hiring T.F., tipping off Graves – all just to distract Gangplank. It had taken years to exact her revenge.
Miss Fortune’s smile faded.
From the moment he had stormed into her family’s workshop, his face hidden behind a red bandana, she had been preparing herself for this moment.
Sarah lost both her parents that day. She was just a child, but he shot her down as she stood watching her parents bleed out on the floor.
Gangplank taught her a harsh lesson: that no matter how safe you feel, your world – everything you’ve built, everything you care for - can be taken away in an instant.
Gangplank’s one mistake was not making sure she was dead. Her anger and her hate had sustained her through that first cold, painful night, and every night since.
For fifteen years, she had scraped together everything she needed; waiting until she wasn’t even a memory to him, for him to drop his guard and get comfortable in the life he’d built. Only then would he truly be able to lose everything. Only then would he know what it felt like to lose his home, to lose his world.
She should have been feeling exultant, but she just felt empty.
Joining her at the gunwale, Rafen jolted Sarah from her reverie.
“He’s gone,” he said. “It’s over.”
“No,” replied Miss Fortune. “Not yet.”
She turned from the harbor, casting her gaze across Bilgewater. Sarah had hoped that killing him would kill her hate. But all she had done was unleash it. For the first time since that day, she felt truly powerful.
“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I want everyone loyal to him to be brought to answer. I want the heads of his lieutenants mounted on my wall. Burn every bawdy house, tavern, and warehouse that bears his mark. And I want his corpse.”
Rafen was shaken. He’d heard words like that before, but never from her.
I’ve thought a lot about the ways I’d wanna go out. Chained up like a dog at the bottom of the ocean? That one never crossed my mind. Lucky for me, T.F. manages to pop the lock on my shackles just before he drops the dagger.
I scramble out of the chains, thirsty for breath. I turn toward T.F. Poor bastard’s not moving. I twist my hand around his collar and start kickin’ toward the surface.
As we go up, suddenly everything lights up bright red.
A shockwave knocks me ass over ears. Chunks of iron sink past us. A cannon plunges by. Then a charred hunk of rudder. Bodies, too. A face covered in tattoos stares in shock at me. The severed head then slowly disappears into the darkness beneath us.
I swim faster, my lungs set to bust.
An age later, I’m at the surface, coughing up salt water and gasping for air. But it’s damn near unbreathable. Smoke chokes me and claws at my eyes. I’ve seen things burn in my time, but never like this. Looks like someone set the whole world on fire.
“Damn me...” I hear myself mutter.
Gangplank’s ship is gone. Bits of smoking debris are scattered all across the bay. Fiery islands of wood collapse all around, hissin’ as they go under. A flaming sail falls right in front of us, nearly dragging T.F. and me back down for good. Burning men desperately jump from smoldering pieces of wreckage into the water, quietin’ their own screams. It smells like the end of everything – sulfur and ash and death; cooked hair and melting skin.
I check on T.F. I’m strugglin’ to keep him above water. Son of a bitch is a lot heavier than he looks, and it ain’t helping that half my ribs are broke. I find a piece of scorched hull floating nearby. It looks solid enough. I pull us both on top. It ain’t exactly seaworthy, but it’ll do.
For the first time, I get a good look at T.F. He ain’t breathin’. I wail on his chest with my fists. Just when I’m worried I’m going to cave his ribs in, he coughs out a lungful of seawater. I slump and shake my head again as he slowly comes to his senses.
“You stupid son of a bitch! What did you come back for?”
It takes him a minute to answer.
“Thought I’d try it your way,” he mutters, slurring his words. “See what being a stubborn ass felt like.” He hacks up more water. “Feels awful.”
Razorfish and even meaner sea critters are startin’ to gather around us. I ain’t about to be anything’s chow. I pull my feet away from the edge.
A mangled crewman bobs to the surface, grabbin’ for our raft. I plant my boot in his face and shove him off. A fat tentacle wraps around his neck and drags him back under. Now the fish have something else to keep ’em busy.
Before they run out of fresh meat, I break off a plank from our raft and use it to paddle us away from the feedin’ frenzy.
I pull at the water for what seems like hours. My arms are heavy and hurtin’, but I know better than to stop. Once I’ve put some distance between us and the massacre, I collapse onto my back.
I’m spent like an empty shotgun shell as I look out over the bay. It’s stained red with the blood of Gangplank and his crew. Not a survivor in sight.
How am I still breathing? Maybe I’m the luckiest man on Runeterra. Or maybe T.F.’s carrying enough good fortune for the both of us.
I see a body floating by, holding something familiar lookin’. It’s Gangplank’s little inbred bastard, still clutching T.F.’s hat. I take it off him and toss it to T.F. He ain’t even a little surprised, like he always knew he’d get it back.
“Now we just need to find your gun,” he says.
“What, you itchin’ to go back down there?” I say, pointing to the deep.
T.F. turns a funny shade of green.
“We ain’t got the time. Whoever did this, they left Bilgewater without a boss,” I tell him. “It’s gonna get ugly here, fast.”
“You’re telling me you can live without your gun?” he asks.
“Maybe not,” I say. “But I know a really good gunsmith in Piltover.”
“Piltover...” he says, lost in thought.
“Lot of money flowing through there right now,” I say.
T.F. figures hard for a moment.
“Hmm. Not sure about having you as a partner again – you’re even dumber than you used to be,” he finally answers.
“That’s alright. I’m not sure about havin’ a partner called Twisted Fate. Who the hell came up with that?”
“Well, it’s a damn sight better than my real name,” T.F. laughs.
“Fair enough,” I admit.
I grin. It feels just like the old days. Then I go stone faced and look him dead in the eye.
“Just one thing: You ever have mind to leave me holding the bag again, I’ll blow your goddamn head off. No questions.”
Fate’s laugh dies down, and for a moment, he glares back at me. Then, after a while, he just smiles.
“You got a deal.”
Bilgewater was devouring itself. The streets rang with the shrieks of the desperate and the dying. Fires burning in the lowly slums rained ash across the entire city. Control had been lost, and now every gang rushed to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of one man. A war had been started by the spread of three simple words: Gangplank is dead.
Savage ambitions and petty grudges that had festered for years were now being acted upon.
On the docks, a crew of whalers ran down a rival fisherman. They skewered him with harpoons and left his body hanging from a trotline.
At the highest peak of the island, tall opulent gates that had stood since Bilgewater’s founding were battered apart. A cowering gang lord was ripped from his bed by a rival. His mewling cries were silenced when his skull was dashed upon the hand-crafted marble of his own front steps.
Along the wharf, a fleeing Red Cap attempted to staunch a bloody head wound. He looked over his shoulder but could see no sign of his pursuers. The Jagged Hooks had turned on the Caps. He had to get back to the safe house to warn his crew.
He rounded the corner, screaming for his brothers to gather their arms and join him. But his thirst for blood dried in his throat. Standing in front of the Red Caps’ own den was a band of Hooks. Their blades dripped with gore. At their head, a wiry figure, barely a man, creased his pock-marked face with a vicious grin.
The Red Cap had time to utter one last curse.
Across the bay, off a quiet back alley, a physician attempted to ply his trade. The gold he had been handed was plenty to buy his services – and assure his silence.
It had taken half an hour to peel the sodden coat from the sloughing flesh of his patient’s arm. The doctor had seen many horrific injuries before, but even he recoiled at the sight of the mangled limb. He paused for a moment, terrified of the response his next words would provoke.
“I... I’m sorry. I can’t save your arm.”
Within the shadows of the candlelit room, the bloodied ruin of a man composed himself before staggering to his feet. His good hand shot out like a lash and wrapped around the throat of the quivering doctor. He lifted the surgeon slowly, measuredly off the floor and pinned him to the wall.
For a terrible moment, the brute stood impassively, considering the man in his grasp. Then he abruptly dropped him.
Lost in panic and confusion, the healer coughed violently as the shadowed mass strode to the back of the room. Passing through the light of the surgeon’s lantern, the patient reached for the top drawer of a well-worn cabinet. Methodically, the man opened each drawer searching for what he needed. Finally, he stopped.
“Everything must have a purpose,” he said, looking at his mutilated arm.
He pulled something from the case, and threw it to the doctor’s feet. There, glinting under the lantern was the clean steel of a bonesaw.
“Cut it off,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”
The Bird and the Branch

Ariel Lawrence

“That power of yours was meant to destroy. You don’t want to use it? Fine. Let it sink you like a stone.”
Those were the last words Taliyah heard from the Noxian captain before she slipped beneath the salty water, words that haunted her still. Four days had passed since that landing on the beach where she had made her escape. At first she ran, and then, when she could no longer hear the breaking bones of the Ionian farmers and Noxian soldiers, she walked. She followed the high skirts of the mountains, not daring to look back at the carnage she’d left behind. The snow had started to fall two days ago. Or maybe it was three; she couldn’t remember. This morning, as she passed an empty shrine, a cheerless air had begun to move through the valley. Now the wind grew stronger and broke through the clouds to reveal a sky clear and blue, a color so pure it felt like she was drowning again. She knew that sky. As a young child, she saw it blanket the sands. But this wasn’t Shurima. The wind here was not welcoming.
Taliyah hugged herself, trying to remember the warmth of home. Her coat kept out the snow, but still the cold air crept in. The invisible loneliness snaked around her, sinking deep in her bones. The memory of being so far from those she loved now dropped her to her knees.
She shoved her hands deep in her pockets, her shaking fingertips tumbling a few well-worn stones for warmth.
“I am hungry. That is all this is,” Taliyah said to no one and everyone. “A hare. A little bird. Great Weaver, I would even take a mouse if it showed itself.”
As if on command, a small crunching of powdered snow sounded several strides away from her. The culprit, a gray handful of fur no bigger than her two fists, popped its head from a burrow.
“Thank you,” she whispered through chattering teeth. “Thank you. Thank you.”
The animal looked at Taliyah inquisitively as she took one of the smooth stones from her pocket and slipped it into the leather pouch of her sling. She wasn’t used to throwing from a kneeling position, but if the Great Weaver had given her this offering, she wasn’t going to waste it.
The little animal continued to watch as she wound the sling once, seating the small rock. The cold gripped Taliyah’s body and gave her arm a jerky feel. When she had enough speed, she unleashed the stone and, unfortunately, a harsh sneeze.
The stone skipped along the snow, narrowly missing her would-be meal. Taliyah rocked back, the heavy weight of frustration erupting in a guttural growl that echoed in the silence around her. She took a few deep, clearing breaths, the cold burning her throat.
“Assuming you are anything like sand rabbits, if there’s one of you, there are a dozen more close by,” she said to the patch where the animal had been, her defiant optimism returning.
Her gaze lifted from the burrow to more movement farther down in the valley. She followed her winding tracks through the snow. Beyond them, through the sparse pines, she saw a man in the shrine, and her breath caught. His wild, dark hair tangled in the wind as he sat, head bowed to his chest. He was either sleeping or meditating. She breathed a sigh of relief. No Noxian she knew would be caught doing either. She remembered the shrine’s rough surface from earlier, as her hands had run along its carved edges.
Taliyah was shaken from her reverie by a sharp crack. Then a rumble started to build. She steadied herself for the rolling earthquake that didn’t arrive. The rumbling grew into a steady, terrible grinding of compacted snow on stone. Taliyah turned to face the mountain and saw a wall of white coming for her.
She scrambled to her feet, but there was nowhere to go. She looked down at the rock peeking through the dirty ice and thought of the little animal safe in its burrow. She desperately focused, pulling on the rough edges of the visible rock. A row of thick columns sprang from the ground. The stone blockade reached far over her head just as the crushing white avalanche slammed into it with a heavy whumpf.
The snow rushed up the newly made slope and spilled like a glittering wave into the valley below. Taliyah watched as the deadly blanket filled the little glen, covering the temple.
As quickly as it had begun, the avalanche was over. Even the lonely wind stilled. The new, muffled silence weighed heavily on her. The man with the wild, dark hair was gone, entombed somewhere beneath all that ice and rock. She was safe from the snowslide, but her stomach lurched with a sickening realization: She hadn’t just brought harm to an unsuspecting innocent; she had buried him alive.
“Great Weaver,” Taliyah said to no one and everyone, “what have I done?”
Taliyah picked her way quickly down the snow-covered hillside, skidding in places and plunging thigh-deep in others. She hadn’t run from a Noxian invasion fleet to then accidentally kill the first Ionian she saw.
“And knowing my luck, he was probably a holy man,” she said.
The pines in the valley had been reduced to spindly bushes half their original size. Only the tip of the shrine broke the snow’s surface. A string of tattered prayer flags had twisted themselves into knots, marking what used to be the far end of the glen. Taliyah scanned the area, looking for any trace of the man she had committed to the ice. When she’d last seen him, he had been under the temple’s eave. Perhaps it had sheltered him.
As she made her way to the temple, closer to the trees and away from the sweep of the avalanche, she saw two fingers that had broken through the surface.
She half trudged, half ran to the pale fingertips. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please…”
Taliyah dropped carefully to her knees and started to scoop away the icy powder. She uncovered fingers as strong as steel. She reached in and gripped the man’s wrist, her own clenching hands barely obeying. Her teeth chattered, shaking her body and drowning out any pulse of life she might have felt in the man.
“If you’re not dead already,” she said to the man beneath the snow, “then you’ve got to help me.”
She looked around. There was no one else. She was all he had.
Taliyah let go of his fingers and backed away a few paces. She laid her numb palms to the surface of the snow and tried to remember what the floor of the little valley had looked like before the avalanche. Loose stones, gravel. The memory swam, then coalesced in her mind. It was dark, a coarse charcoal gray with flecks of white, like Uncle Adnan’s beard.
Taliyah held tightly to the vision and pulled up from deep below the snowpack. The crust of ice erupted in front of her, quickly followed by a towering ribbon of granite balancing a lone figure. The suddenly flexible stone wavered at its peak, as if looking to her for guidance. Unsure of any safe landing, Taliyah pushed them both toward the spindly pines, hoping their boughs might break his fall.
The granite ribbon fell short, collapsing into the snow with a heavy puff, but the evergreen arms caught the man before casually dropping him to the surface.
“If you were alive, please don’t be dead now,” Taliyah said as she hurried toward him. The sunlight faltered above her. Dark clouds were moving into the valley. More snow would soon be upon them. Beyond the trees, she saw an opening to a small cave.
Taliyah blew warm breath into her hands and willed them to stop shaking. She bent close to the man, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He let out a pained grunt. Before Taliyah could pull back, there was a quick breeze and a metallic flash. The sharp, cold edge of the man’s blade pressed at her throat.
“Not yet time to die,” he said in a broken whisper. He coughed, and his eyes rolled back in his head. The sword dipped to the snow, but the man did not release the weapon.
The first snowflake flitted past Taliyah’s chapped face. “From the look of it, you’re pretty hard to kill,” she said. “But if we’re caught in this storm, we just might find out if that’s true.”
The man’s breathing was shallow, but at least he was still alive. Taliyah reached under the man’s arm and dragged him toward the small cave.
The lonely wind had returned.
Taliyah bent to pick up a rounded stone the size and color of a small hank of raw wool. She shivered and looked back into the cave; the ragged man was still propped against the wall, his eyes closed. She pushed the bit of dried meat she had found in the man’s pack around in her mouth, hoping he wouldn’t begrudge sharing if he lived.
She stepped back into the warmth of the cave. The slabs of rock she had stacked still glowed with a wavering heat. She knelt. Taliyah hadn’t been sure her trick of warming the stones in her pocket would work with something larger. The young Shuriman closed her eyes and focused on the stack of rocks. She remembered the blistering sun on the sands. The way the heat sank deep in the earth long into the night. She relaxed and loosened her coat as the dry warmth settled around her, then set to work on the stone in her hands. She turned it, wrapping and pushing it with her thoughts until it was hollowed like a bowl. Satisfied, she returned to the cave opening with her newly formed dish.
A male voice groaned behind her, “Like a sparrow gathering crumbs.”
“Even sparrows get thirsty,” she replied, scooping up a bowlful of clean snow. The cold wind whispered around her. Taliyah set the round stone onto the stack of hot rocks in front of her.
“You gather stones by hand? That seems tedious for someone who can weave rock.”
A heat rose to Taliyah’s cheeks that had nothing to do with the little stone hearth.
“You’re not angry, are you? I mean about the snow and the—”
The man laughed and then clutched his side with a groan. “Your actions tell me all I need to know.” His gritted teeth still held the edge of a smile. “You could have left me to die.”
“It was my mistake that put you in danger. I wasn’t going to leave you buried in the snow.”
“My thanks. Although I could have done without the tumble through the trees.”
Taliyah grimaced and then opened her mouth. The man held out a hand to stop her. “Do not apologize.”
He strained and pulled himself upright, taking a closer look at Taliyah and the ornament in her hair.
“A Shuriman sparrow.” He closed his eyes and relaxed into the heat of the stone hearth. “You are a long way from home, little bird. What brings you to a remote cave in Ionia?”
“Noxus.”
The man raised a dark eyebrow but kept his eyes closed.
“They said I would bring people together in Noxus. That my power would strengthen her walls. But they only wanted me to destroy.” Her voice grew thick with disgust. “They told me they would teach me—”
“They have, but only half the lesson,” he said without emotion.
“They wanted me to bury a village. To murder people in their homes.” Taliyah let out an impatient snort. “And I escaped only to bring a mountain down on you.”
The man lifted his sword and looked down the length of the blade. A small breeze wiped it clean of dust. “Destruction. Creation. Neither is wholly good or bad. You cannot have one without the other. What matters is intent, the ‘why’ of choosing your path. That is the only real choice we have.”
Taliyah stood up, irritated at the lecture. “My path is away from this place. Away from everyone, until I learn to control what’s inside of me. I don’t trust myself not to hurt my people.”
“A bird’s trust is not in the branch beneath her.”
Taliyah had stopped listening. She was already at the mouth of the cave, wrapping her coat tightly around her. The wind whistled in her ears.
“I’m going to try and find us something to eat. Hopefully, I won’t bring the rest of the mountain down on you.”
The man settled against the warm stone at his back, speaking softly to no one and everyone. “Are you sure it is the mountain you seek to conquer, Little Sparrow?”
A bird pecked at a thin pine nearby. Taliyah kicked at the snow, accidentally shoving a clump of it into the top of her boot. She pulled at the cuff roughly, annoyed at the man’s words and at the melting ice slipping past her ankle.
“The why of the path? I left my people, my family, to protect them from me.”
She stopped. An unnatural hush had settled. Any small game that had been nearby had long since disappeared at the sound of her stomping feet. Not sensing any danger from the girl, the little bird had kept to its branch and twittered at her angry rants. Now even the birdsong was silenced.
Taliyah stood cautiously. In her anger, she had wandered farther than she had intended from the cave. She was drawn more to the stone than the wood, and had absently followed an exposed ridge until she found herself looking down from a rocky cliff. She didn’t think the man would follow her, yet she sensed something watching her.
“More lectures?” she asked indignantly.
There was a bone-vibrating exhalation in response.
She slipped one hand into her coat, and the other reached for her sling. Three stones tumbled in her pocket. She clutched at one just as loose gravel betrayed the movement of her stalker behind her.
Taliyah turned to face the presence at her back. There, padding carefully around sharp crags, was a great Ionian snow lion.
Even standing on four stout legs, it towered over her. The beast was easily twice as long as she was tall, its thick neck covered in a short mane of tawny white. The lion watched the girl. It dropped two freshly slain hares from its jaws and licked a drizzle of red from a canine bigger than her forearm.
Just a moment ago the high view from the cliff where she stood had been thrilling. Now it left her trapped. If she ran, she would be chased down in an instant. Taliyah swallowed, trying to push down the panic that was rising in her throat. She fit a stone into her sling and began to spin it.
“Get out of here,” she said. Her words came out with none of the terror she felt inside.
The lion took a step closer. The girl released the stone from her sling. It hit the great beast near the mane, the fur taking the brunt of the impact. The animal growled its displeasure, and Taliyah could not separate the heavy resonance from her own heart as it tried to beat its way out of her chest.
She fit another stone to the sling.
“Go on!” she shouted, feigning more courage. “I said get out of here!”
Taliyah let the next stone fly.
The predator’s hungry snarl grew louder. The bird in the thin pine, sensing no good could come from this encounter, leapt from the branch and took off on a current of air.
Alone, Taliyah reached into her pocket for her last stone. Her hands shook from the cold and the fear coursing through her. The rock slipped from her fingers and hit the ground, rolling away. She looked up. The lion’s head bobbed between muscled shoulders as it took another step toward her. The throwing stone was just out of reach.
You gather stones by hand? The man’s words echoed in her mind. Maybe there was another way. Taliyah reached out to the stone with her will. The small rock shuddered, but there was also a quiver in the ground beneath her.
The bough beside her still trembled from where the bird had taken flight. A bird’s trust is not in the branch. The choice was clear: She could either stand frozen in her doubt, letting the beast come for her, or lean into her power and take the leap.
Taliyah, a girl born in a desert land far beyond the shores of snow-capped Ionia, held on to the image of the bird and the empty branch that bounced. In that moment, she forgot the imminent death before her. The loneliness that haunted her fell away and was replaced by her last dance on the sands. She felt her mother, her father, Babajan—the whole tribe encircling her. Her whispered promise to return to them when she finally gained mastery over her gifts.
She met the gaze of the beast. “I’ve given up too much to let you stop me.”
The stone began to warp beneath her in a graceful crescent. She held on to the warmth of that last embrace and leapt.
A rumbling built beneath her, louder than the growl of the beast. The lion tried to back away, but it was already too late. The ground split beneath its thick paws into a sluice of swirling gravel, the weight of the creature pulling it farther down the crumbling cliff.
For a brief moment, Taliyah floated above the flurry of dissolving earth. The rock beneath her continued to splinter into a thousand tiny pieces, no longer solid enough to control. She knew she couldn’t hold on to the destruction forever. The girl started to fall. Before she could say goodbye to the coarse world fracturing around her, a strong wind lifted her up. Fingers like steel grasped the collar of her coat.
“I didn’t realize you were serious about bringing down the mountain, Little Sparrow.” With a grunt, the man pulled Taliyah up onto the newly created ledge. “I now understand why much of your desert is flat.”
A laugh bubbled up from within her. She was actually relieved to hear his patronizing voice. Taliyah looked over the side of the cliff and stood up. She dusted herself off, picked up the lion’s discarded hares, and walked back toward the little cave with a new skip in her step.
Taliyah bit her bottom lip. She looked around the inn, excitedly bouncing in her seat. The evening was late and the wooden tables sparsely populated. It had been so long since she had been around people. She looked to her grim companion, who had insisted on the darkened corner booth. The man who now served as her teacher didn’t count. The scowl he had worn since agreeing to a meal at the remote inn offered little in the way of camaraderie.
When it was clear that he was as much a stranger here as anyone else, he relaxed a bit and settled into the shadows, his back firmly to the wall and a drink in hand. Now that he was no longer distracted, his concentration and watchful eye returned to her.
“You must focus,” he said. “You cannot hesitate.”
Taliyah studied the leaves swirling at the bottom of her cup. The lesson today had been a difficult one. It had not gone well. In the end, they had both been covered in dust and shattered rock.
“Danger comes when your attention is divided,” he said.
“I could hurt someone,” she said, eyeing the new rip in the mantle wound around the man’s neck. Her own clothes had not fared well either. She looked down at her new overcoat and traveling skirt. The innkeeper’s wife had taken pity on her and offered what she had on hand, castoffs left by some previous patron. The long sleeves in the Ionian style would take some getting used to, but the rich fabric was sturdy and well woven. She had kept her simple tunic, faded from so much wear, determined not to give up what last bit of home she still had left.
“Nothing was broken that cannot be mended. Control comes through practice. You are capable of much more. Remember, you have improved.”
“But… what if I fail?” she asked.
The man’s gaze drifted as he watched the far door to the inn push open. A pair of merchants came in, stamping off the dusty road. The innkeeper motioned to the open tables near Taliyah and the man. The first moved toward them while the second waited for his drink.
“Everyone fails,” Taliyah’s companion said. A small edge of frustration passed over the man’s face, marring his otherwise restrained demeanor. “Failure is just a moment in time. You must keep moving, and it too will pass.”
One of the merchants took a seat at a nearby table and watched Taliyah, his eyes drifting from the pale lavender of her tunic to the glimmer of gold and stone in her hair.
“Is that Shuriman, girl?”
Taliyah did her best to ignore the merchant. He caught the protective glare of her companion and laughed it off.
“Would have been rare once,” the merchant said.
The girl stared at her hands.
“It’s a bit more common now that your people’s lost city has risen.”
Taliyah looked up. “What?”
“Word has it the rivers flow backward too.” The merchant waved a hand in the air, poking fun at the mysteries of a far-off people he considered simple. “All because your bird-god has returned from the grave.”
“Whatever he is don’t make any difference. It all threatens trade.” The second merchant joined the first. “They say he aims to collect his people. Misses his slaves and all that.”
“Good thing you’re here and not there, girl,” the first merchant added.
The second merchant looked up from his ale, suddenly noticing Taliyah’s companion. “You look familiar,” he said. “I’ve seen your face before.”
The door to the inn opened again. A group of guards entered, eyeing the room carefully. The one in the middle, clearly a captain of some sort, noticed the girl and her companion. Taliyah could feel a quiet panic rise in the room as the few guests stood and made their way quickly to the exits. Even the merchants got up and left.
The captain waded through the empty stools toward them. He stopped a blade’s length from the table where they sat.
“Murderer,” he said.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” the captain said. “Savor that drink. It’ll be your last.”
Taliyah was on her feet just as she heard the whisper of steel drawn next to her. She looked over to see her teacher staring down the roomful of guards.
“This man, Yasuo”—the captain spat the word—“is guilty of assassinating a village Elder. His crime warrants the punishment of death. To be carried out on sight.”
One of the guards leveled a loaded crossbow. Another nocked an arrow to a longbow nearly as tall as the girl.
“Kill me?” Yasuo said. “You can try.”
“Wait,” Taliyah cried out. But before the word had finished on her lips, she heard the trigger snap and the reverberating hum of the longbow’s release. In the heartbeats that followed, a whirling gust picked up inside the inn. It spiraled out from the man beside her, blowing abandoned glasses and wooden dinner trenches off of tables. It reached the arrows, breaking them midflight. The pieces fell to the ground with a hollow clatter.
More guards swarmed in, their swords already pulled from their sheaths. Taliyah laid down a field of sharp stone, pulling up each rock through the floor in a violent explosion to keep the men at bay.
Yasuo slipped through the crowd of soldiers trapped in the room. They brandished their weapons, foolishly trying to parry the sword that stormed around them, its metal arcing like lightning. It was too late. Yasuo’s blade flashed in and out of the men, trailing lethal ribbons of red in a whirlwind behind him. When all those who had come for the man had finally fallen, Yasuo paused, his breathing heavy and fierce. His gaze locked with the girl’s, and he prepared to speak.
Taliyah held out her hand in warning. There, at his back, rose the captain with crazed eyes and a broken smile. He wielded his sword with both hands to keep a grip on the blood-slick pommel.
“Get away from him!” Taliyah pulled at the cobbled floor of the inn, the flat stones erupting, lifting the captain off his feet.
As the captain’s body was knocked up, Yasuo was there to meet it, the cold blade cutting through the captain’s chest in three quick strikes. The body fell to the floor and was still.
More shouting was coming from outside. “We must leave. Now,” Yasuo said. He looked at the girl. “You can do this. Do not hesitate.”
Taliyah nodded. The ground rumbled, shaking the walls until the thatched roof began to vibrate. The girl tried to contain the power she felt growing from beneath the floor of the inn. A vision passed in her mind. Her mother, hemming a raw edge of cloth, singing to herself, her even stitches running away from her hand, her fingers a blur of motion.
The rock beneath the inn burst in great, rounded arcs. Stone columns threaded themselves in and out of the ground like a wave. Taliyah felt the earth rise, carrying her out into the dark night, the wild wind that was Yasuo following close behind.
Yasuo looked back at the distant inn. The round stitches of stone had sewn the path shut and blocked off any oncoming approach. It had bought them time, but dawn would be coming soon. And with it, more men for them. For him.
“They knew you.” Taliyah’s voice was quiet. “Yasuo.” She held on to the last word.
“We need to keep moving.”
“They wanted you dead.”
Yasuo let out a breath. “There are a lot of people who want me dead,” he said. “And now some will want you dead as well. If it matters, they named a crime I did not commit.”
“I know.”
Yasuo was not the name he had given on their journey, but it did not matter. She had not asked about his past in the time they’d traveled together. In truth she had not asked anything of him except to be taught. She watched her mentor now, it seemed her trust was almost painful to him. Perhaps more than if she had thought him guilty. He turned and began walking away from her.
“Where are you going? Shurima is to the west.” Confusion rose in her voice.
Yasuo did not turn back to face her. “My place is not in Shurima. And neither is yours. Not yet.” His words were cool and measured, as if he were steeling himself against a coming storm.
“You heard the merchants. The lost city has risen.”
“Tales to scare the tradesmen and drive up the price of Shuriman linen,” he said.
“And if a living god walks the sands? You don’t know what that means. He will reclaim what he has lost. The people who once served him, the tribes...” Taliyah’s voice strained with the emotion of the evening, her words boiling over. She had journeyed so far to protect them and now she was a world away when they needed her. She reached out, a hand’s breadth from pulling on his arm, anything to make him listen, to make him see.
“He will enslave my family.” Her words echoed off the rock around them. “I must protect them. Don’t you understand that?”
A gust of wind picked up, stirring pebbles on the ground and whipping Yasuo’s black hair about his face.
“Protect,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Does your Great Weaver not watch over them?” The words now came through gritted teeth. The man, her teacher, turned toward his lone student, anger flashing in his dark, haunted eyes, the raw emotion startling her. “Your training is unfinished. You risk your life returning to them.”
She stood her ground and faced him.
“They are worth my life.”
The wind swirled around them, but the girl was immovable. Yasuo gave a long sigh and looked back to the east. A hint of light had begun to break the blue-black night. The last of the turbulent gusts calmed.
“You could come with me,” she offered.
The hard lines of the man’s jaw relaxed. “I have heard the desert mead is quite good,” he said. A soft breeze tugged at the girl’s hair. And then the moment was gone, replaced again by a memory of pain. “But I am not finished in Ionia.”
Taliyah studied him carefully and then reached inside her tunic, breaking a long loose thread. She offered the length of handspun wool to him. He looked at it suspiciously.
“It’s a tradition of thanks among my people,” Taliyah explained. “To give a piece of yourself is to be remembered.”
The man took the thread gingerly and tied back his wild hair with it. He weighed his next words carefully.
“Follow this to the next river valley and that river to the sea,” he said, gesturing toward a lightly worn deer path. “There is a lone fisherwoman there. Tell her you wish to see the Freljord. Give her this.”
The man withdrew a dried maple seed from a leather pouch at his belt and pressed it into her hand.
“In the Frozen North there are a people that resist Noxian rule. With them you might find passage back to your sands.”
“What is in this… Freljord?” she said, testing the word in her mouth.
“Ice,” he said. “And stone,” he added with a wink.
It was her turn to smile.
“You will move quickly with the mountains beneath you. Use your power. Creation. Destruction. Embrace it. All of it. Your wings have carried you far,” he said. “They may even carry you home.”
Taliyah stared at the path leading down into the river valley. She hoped her tribe was safe. Perhaps the danger she imagined was just that. If they saw her now, what would they think? Would they recognize her? Babajan said that no matter what color the thread, no matter how thick or thin the draft was as it was taken up on the spindle, a part of the wool always remained what it had been when it started. Taliyah remembered, and took comfort in that.
“I trust that you will weave the right balance. Safe journey, Little Sparrow.”
Taliyah turned to face her companion, but he was already gone. The only sign he had been there were a few blades of grass that rustled in the new morning air.
“I’m sure the Great Weaver has a plan for you, too,” she said.
Taliyah tucked the maple seed carefully into her coat and started down the path into the valley, the stone beneath her boots rising eagerly to greet her.
Blitzcrank

Zaun is a place of wondrous experimentation and vibrant, colorful life where anything can be achieved—but not without a cost. For all its boundless creativity, there is also waste, destruction, and suffering in the undercity, so pervasive that even the tools created to alleviate it cannot escape its corrosive grasp.
Designed to remove the toxic waste claiming whole neighborhoods of Zaun, lumbering mechanical golems toiled in violently hazardous locations. One such golem worked alongside its fellows, fulfilling its programming to reclaim Zaun for the people. But the caustic reality of their mission soon wore away at its robust form, and before long it was rendered inoperative and discarded as useless.
Useless to all but one person. The inventor Viktor discovered the abandoned golem and, seeing the potential still within the inert chassis, inspiration struck. Viktor began a series of experiments, seeking to improve the automaton by introducing a new element that would elevate it far beyond the original scope of its creation.
Hextech.
Implanting a priceless hextech crystal sourced from the deserts of Shurima into the chassis of the forsaken golem, Viktor waited with baited breath as the machine rumbled to life.
Viktor named the golem Blitzcrank after the fizzing arcs of lightning that danced around their frame, an unexpected side effect of the hextech crystal, and sent them down into the most toxic regions of Zaun. Not only did Blitzcrank prove as capable as any of their steam-powered brethren, but they accomplished their tasks with vastly improved speed and efficiency, and as the days turned into weeks, Viktor began to watch something miraculous unfold…
His creation was learning.
Blitzcrank innovated, interpreting and extrapolating on their daily directives. As a result, they did far more to serve the people of Zaun, and even began to interact with them on a regular basis. Seeing his golem progress to the cusp of self-awareness, Viktor sought to replicate his achievement, but found only frustration and failure, as the key to Blitzcrank’s blossoming consciousness eluded him.
Not all of Blitzcrank’s growth was cause for celebration. Concepts like moderation and nuance escaped them, and Blitzcrank would pursue any effort with the entirety of their being, or none at all. They would occasionally overdo or misinterpret the requests of Zaunites, such as smashing down the front of a tenement to admit a single resident who had lost their key.
Or even tearing an entire factory apart.
Dispatched by Viktor to clear a neighborhood of toxic chemicals, Blitzcrank traced the caustic runoff to its source. Reasoning that the most efficient means to prevent further pollution was to eliminate the source of said pollution, Blitzcrank proceeded to destroy the factory, their lightning-wreathed fists not stopping until it was reduced to a mound of rubble and twisted iron.
Enraged, the chem-baron who owned the ruined factory descended upon Viktor, demanding that he destroy the golem or pay a steeper price in blood. Viktor was devastated, having come to view Blitzcrank as a living being rather than simply a tool to do his bidding. He concocted a scheme to smuggle his creation to safety, ready to accept the dangers and consequences of doing so—but as he returned to his laboratory to set his plan in motion, he discovered that Blitzcrank was already gone.
Blitzcrank’s evolution beyond the constraints of their original programming had yet to cease. Having grown into full self-sufficiency, they resolved to take up their mission independent from their creator. Rumors abound that the golem has even begun to upgrade their own form as they labor tirelessly to assist and protect Zaunites without pausing for instruction.
They now patrol the undercity, deciding for themselves how best to shepherd Zaun down the path to becoming the greatest city Valoran has ever seen.
Ensemble

Rayla Heide

The plump belly of the Rising Howl looms before me, churning with its endless gears and elaborate ironwork. Some say the Howl is named for the wrought iron wolf that cries atop the apex of the hexdraulic descender; others swear the ghost of a black-veiled gentle-servant haunts the cabin, and when the Howl lifts him away from his lost love in Zaun, the sounds of his moans reverberate and shake its metal core. Many Piltovans, convinced as they are in their own sound judgment, are sure the name refers to nothing more than the cold wind whistling between the crevasses below their city.
But to me the Howl is not a single lone cry. It is an orchestra of noise, a melodic blend of a thousand unique sounds. It is why I am drawn to the machine.
The multi-tiered elevator, supported by three vertical structural beams which span the height of the city, descends to the Promenade level and slows to a lurching halt.
“Disembark for the Promenade!” the conductor announces, her voice magnified by a bell-shaped sonophone. She adjusts her thick goggles as she speaks. “Boundary Markets, College of Techmaturgy, Horticultural Center.”
Passengers pour from the descender. Dozens of others board and spread throughout its floors: merchants traveling to Zaun to trade in the night bazaars, workers returning home to sleep, wealthy Zaunites visiting night blooms in glass-domed cultivairs. Then there are the unseen riders who have made the Howl their home. I spy them scurrying in the shadows: plague rats, shadowhares, and viridian beetles.
Sometimes I climb down the crevasses to descend to the Sump, but tonight I long for the harmony of noise I know the descender will create.
Instead of entering through the doorway, I swing around the outside and lock my grip on the bottommost bar where ridged steel brackets frame the glass windows. My metal plates clank as I clamber onto the Howl, drawing stares from the passengers and what looks like a grimace from the conductor. My knowledge of facial expressions grows each day.
Most passengers ride within the compartment, away from the cold and soot, but outside, in the open air, I can hear the satisfying click-clack of mechanical parts snapping into place and the soft hiss of steam releasing as we sink into Zaun. And besides, I don’t easily fit through most doors.
A small boy clings to his sump-scrapper father’s hand and gapes at me through the window. I wink at him and his mouth opens in what I estimate is surprise. He ducks behind his father.
“Going down!” says the conductor. She rings a large bell and adjusts the dials on a bright red box. I can almost feel the commands buzz as they surge through wires into the descender’s engine.
Below us, the iron pinnacles of Zaun’s towers and green glass cultivairs glitter like candles in the dimming light. The Howl whirs and creaks as its cranks spiral down against the three towering beams, weighted down with iron, steel, and glass. A blast of steam whistles from the topmost pipe.
Inside the cabin, the sump-scrapper and his child look on as a musician tunes his four-stringed chittarone and begins a sonorous melody. His tune synchronizes with the clacking gears and whirring machinery of the Howl. The father taps his foot to the rhythm. A beetle snaps her pincers as she scrambles away from the man’s heavy boot. A gang of chem-punks lean against the wall in soft repose, a pause so unlike their usual frenzied jaunts through the city.
The Howl whirs in its perfect fusion of sounds during our descent. I marvel at the symphony around me and find myself humming along to the deep buzzing tones. The rhythm thrums through me and I wonder if those around me feel it.
“Entresol!” the conductor calls out as the descender slows. A pair of couriers carrying parcels wrapped in twine disembark, along with a crew of chemtech researchers and a crowd of chem-merchants. A merry crowd of Zaunites from the theater district steps aboard.
“Down we go!” she says, ringing her bell, and the Howl responds with a whir. The descender sinks and the windows mist as vapor pours from pipes above. Beads of water spread across my metallic chest as the harmony of clanking machinery and whooshing steam begins anew.
A discordant murmur interrupts the pattern of sounds. The vibration is subtle, but I can tell something is off. The descender continues as if all was normal, until a jarring clunk breaks its perfect rhythm.
Though I have never dreamed, I know a break in the pattern this abrupt is a machine’s most frightening nightmare.
The spiralling gearway is jammed, and the cabin’s iron brackets grate against it with a horrible screech. Many lives are at stake and I feel the machine’s pain as it braces desperately against the support beams. The entire weight of the Howl heaves against its bending columns and the cabin tilts at a lurching angle. Rivets burst from their seams as metal is pulled away from itself.
We wobble for a moment, then drop.
Inside the cabin, passengers scream and grasp at the nearest railing as they plunge. This is a different kind of howl.
I tighten my hold on the cabin’s bottommost platform. I extend my other arm, launching it toward one of the three vertical structural beams. The iron column is slippery in the mist and my grip misses it by inches. I retract my arm and steam blasts from my back as I try again, whizzing it toward a second beam. Another miss.
Time slows. Inside the cabin, the chem-punks cling to a ledge while the viridian beetle flies out an open window. The sump-scrapper and his child brace themselves against the glass, which fractures under their weight. The boy tumbles out, scrabbling at the frame with his fingers before he slips and falls.
I reach up and catch the boy in mid-flight, then retract my arm.
“Hold on,” I say.
The child clings to the plates on my back.
I fire my arm up toward the support beam once more, and this time my hand meets solid metal with a resounding clang as I secure my hold. My other arm is forced to extend as it’s wrenched down by the plunging cabin, so much that I feel my joints might fracture. Suspended in midair, I try to steady my grip.
With a great jolt, my arm jerks as the descender halts its freefall. It shakes from the sudden stop, now supported only by my arm. The boy shudders as he tightens his grip on my back.
The Howl is still fifty feet above the ground, hovering over the Sump-level buildings. My overlapping metal plates groan as they strain against the weight and I concentrate all my efforts on holding myself together. If I fall, the Howl falls with me, along with all its passengers.
While locking my arm onto the support beam, I slide my arm down the pillar. We drop ten feet and the cabin sways precariously before stabilizing again.
“Sorry about that!” I shout. Statements of empathy can be reassuring to humans in moments of crisis.
I must try again. I must be strong.
I release my grip on the support column ever so slightly, and with a piercing screech we gently slide down the remaining forty feet to the ground. My valves sigh as they contract.
Passengers echo my sighs as they stumble through the doors and broken windows into the Sump level, leaning on each other for support.
The boy on my back breathes rapidly as he holds my neck. My arms whir as I retract them and lower myself to the floor, crouching down so the child can touch the ground. He scrambles back to his father, who embraces him.
The conductor emerges from the descender and looks at me.
“You saved us. All of us,” she says, her voice shaking from what I think is shock. “Thank you.”
“I am simply fulfilling my purpose,” I say. “I am glad you are not hurt. Have a good day.”
She smiles, then turns to direct the crowd of Zaunites who have gathered to offer their assistance to the passengers and begin repairs. One of the chem-punk girls carries the musician’s chittarone for him as he crawls from the descender. Several of the theater-folk comfort an elderly man.
Two Hex-mechanics stumble toward me and I direct them to a medical officer who is setting up a tented repair station. The murmurs of the passengers and the hissing groans of the wounded descender blend with the whirrs and churning of the Sump. The steam-engine within my chest murmurs along, and I am moved to whistle a tune.
The boy turns and waves shyly at me.
I wave back.
He runs to catch up with his father, his heavy boots tapping a rhythm on the cobblestones. Shifting wheels sing and gears click-clack within the belly of the Rising Howl. The viridian beetle snaps her pincers in time with the beat as she zooms away into the Sump.
The Bow, and the Kunai

Joey Yu

The air of southern Shon-Xan was rife with raw magic. Mystic power flowed over the land, surging through iridescent trees, which spread skyward their leaves of magenta and indigo, azure and amber, opening up like fans in the palms of dancers.
Hidden now in the colorful canopy was a barely perceptible patch of pale skin, blending in with the trees’ interwoven branches.
“It’ll be here anytime,” whispered Faey, a girl of twelve summers. She then gave a high tweeting sound like a sparrow. The birdsong was immediately picked up by the others, echoing back through the foliage, a sound perfectly imitated by human vocal cords not yet come of age.
Faey knew everyone was in position. The adults hadn’t approved this hunt, but it was important. If the neophytes could get the silver boar, not only would they stop going hungry for days, but the Kinkou acolytes would have to give them real missions.
No more picking plums or carrying water, Faey thought. The order needs our strength, too, because the neophytes are the future.
And the past was dark. Foreign invaders had been rampaging in Ionia for many seasons, and that was only the beginning of the Kinkou’s problems. A few moons ago, Great Master Kusho had been killed, brutally murdered by Zed, a former member of the order. Then Zed’s minions had driven the Kinkou from their main base, the Temple of Thanjuul. Of those who had survived Zed’s attack, many lost faith in the order and left the Kinkou.
The adults needed hope. Faey would make them see it.
She snapped out of her reverie. There was a rustling in the woods. Leaves started falling, and within heartbeats, a large boar burst out from between tree trunks, squealing, its eyes wide. Its fur was rippling with a shimmering glow, a sign that it had just emerged from the spirit realm.
Confident that the plan would work—as long as everyone followed her instructions—Faey readied her bow and arrow, watching the boar come into range.
A neophyte dropped down from a treetop, dangling from a vine wrapped around one foot. She blocked the boar’s path by waving a large wooden spear and casting a modest magical wind. Startled, the boar ran the other direction—but its path was cut off by a boy who swung down on another vine, summoning a small cloud of smoke and ash that blinded the animal. His spear scratched the boar’s hide and made it roar.
One by one, the neophytes descended from the canopy. Their agility, their precision, their focused intent to hunt all hinted at true warrior spirit. Yet the oldest of them was no more than thirteen summers.
We are the neophytes of the Kinkou, Faey thought with pride.
The vine-swinging children sealed off the boar’s escape route, leaving just one opening that ran through the narrowest part of the small gorge, straight toward Faey’s position. She was in charge of the kill.
Good job, everyone. And now it’s my turn. Faey swallowed hard. Hanging upside down, she drew her bow and set the arrow in line.
Focus. The arrow seeks not to slash nor scratch, but to kill in a single attempt. She aligned the gleaming arrowhead with the running boar’s eye. The vine that wrapped around her waist—as if sensing Faey’s intent—shifted gently so her aim stayed true.
Faey emptied her mind, letting instinct take control. When she knew she had the boar, she would let go of—
“Yeeeh!” A small shadow sprang from the side of the gorge, shrieking as it landed on the boar’s back. The panicked animal swung around and charged in the opposite direction.
The rider was a little girl, one hand gripping the boar’s silvery fur and the other swinging a rope over her head, round and round.
Dumbstruck, Faey watched the boar go berserk with the girl bouncing on its back.
“No! Akali!” Faey shouted as her plan fell apart.
Unable to shake the girl off, the boar started smashing its side against tree trunks as it ran. Somehow, Akali avoided the impacts and clung stubbornly to the mad animal, her laughter audible over its angry squeals. She tried to catch the silver boar’s snout with her rope noose, without success.
A few neophytes bravely attempted to block the charging animal, but it knocked them away. The beast went through a side opening of the gorge, out onto flatter ground shadowed by trees.
Finally, the boar kicked up its hind legs in one ferocious leap, and Akali was bucked off. She tumbled onto the forest floor, raising a trail of flying leaves, and ended up lying flat, face down, limbs splayed open.
Faey rushed over to her. “Are you out of your mind?!”
Akali sat up and brushed some leaves off her clothes. She was nine, three summers younger than Faey. “I only wanted to help,” Akali said.
“I told you not to follow us!” Faey yelled. “We had it! We had it!”
Akali shrugged, grimacing as her shoulders cracked. Apologetically, she said, “I’ll give my dinner plum to you.”

After Zed’s attack, the remaining Kinkou retreated to a long-abandoned temple east of Thanjuul, high up in the mountains where glacial water ran. It was beside a lagoon of turquoise water, peppered with purple lantern florae. Although they were near the village of Xuanain, their haven was difficult to access, with its great elevation and surrounding hills.
In their war-torn land, they had to fight off hostile factions, foreign and Ionian, who viewed the mayhem as an opportunity to prey on those they saw as weak. The Kinkou had made sure no pursuers would stumble upon this location before they set up a solid base. The temple was in poor condition, and it was too small to fit them all, so the acolytes had built additional dwellings: huts constructed from fallen wood instead of magically woven from living trees—the usual Ionian way—in case they had to move again.
With the lagoon’s green water lapping against their sandals, the neophytes now stood in a rigid line before Mayym Jhomen Tethi, the Kinkou’s Fist of Shadow.
Faey was nearest to Mayym, eyes downcast. Akali, a head shorter, stood beside her.
“That was foolish,” Mayym said sternly. “You went outside the perimeter, risking the safety of this haven. There could be wandering warbands out there that might follow you back. You know your instructions.”
One of the older boys, Yajiro, said, “But we weren’t out long, and we stayed hidden.”
“We had the perfect plan,” Hisso chimed in, “but it was ruined by Akali! If she hadn’t—”
“No,” Faey said, cutting the girl off. She made herself look Mayym in the eye. “It was… my fault. I told everyone to come along as soon as I realized a silver boar lived in those woods.”
Akali turned to Faey, brown eyes glistening behind a mess of unkempt hair.
Akali had always looked up to her, and sometimes Faey felt the urge to protect the little girl. But there was another reason she had chosen to take the blame: Mayym was her mentor, and it was simply not Faey’s place to question her. It was unusual for a Kinkou leader to take an uninitiated neophyte under their wing. And for that, Faey was grateful.
“It’s the last day of the Spirit Blossom festival,” Faey muttered. “I just thought if we could get a boar, everyone could eat some meat.”
Mayym studied her for a long moment. Then her gaze swept across the other children, whose skinny frames must have looked fragile under tattered hemp clothes. A trace of emotion crossed her brow, but she quickly lifted her chin and said, “As punishment, none of you will receive a meal tonight. Dismissed.”
The neophytes slouched away, a couple of them holding back tears. Faey bit her lip and was about to go when Mayym stopped her.
“Faey, walk with me.”
Under the falling twilight, Mayym paced along the edge of the lagoon with graceful steps, away from the cluster of shabby houses. Faey was about to follow when she saw that Akali had not moved. The little girl was looking at them.
Somehow, in the presence of Faey, Akali’s mother always treated her own daughter like thin air.
Faey felt slightly guilty, but she turned away and ran up to Mayym.
As the two of them walked in silence, Faey gazed at the lantern florae drifting in the lagoon. The purple flowers had five petals that formed a mouth, allowing them to breathe vapors of various shades into the air. Their large leaves let them float on the surface of the water, and their roots were webbed so they could move around the lagoon, gathering together and then dispersing. Some claimed the lantern florae were plants. Others said they were animals. Faey thought they were both.
“I understand what you meant to do,” Mayym said in a tone she used only when alone with Faey—heavy with patience, weighed down by expectation. “But there is nothing to prove.”
“We were hungry to prove ourselves… and also, just hungry.” Faey tried to sound respectful. “The others acted with discipline, the way we’ve been trained. We worked well as a team.” Except Akali, Faey thought. But she’s the youngest.
“That’s not what I mean,” said Mayym. “The silver boar is not an animal whose meat we should consume. If you’d killed it, you would have brought more harm than good.”
“But I thought we were allowed to hunt it,” Faey said.
“Not anymore.” Mayym led Faey to the far side of the lagoon, where the water was shallow, giving way to pearly pebbles. Dressed in a flowing, silky gown, Mayym moved with elegance. She had layers of bandages wrapped around her arms and thighs, with several kunai hanging from her waist.
In Faey’s eyes, Mayym was a true role model. Graceful yet lethal. Shen, Master Kusho’s son, was now the order’s leader, but he was no match.
“A silver boar has ties with the spirit realm,” Mayym continued. “That means its existence is born out of a connection between the two worlds. It’s a magical creature.”
“A lot of Ionia’s creatures are,” said Faey.
“Yes, but the cycle of predator and prey has been broken. We are descending into chaos.”
“Because of Noxus.” She said the name of the foreign invaders like a curse.
“This war is ravaging Ionia. Armies are hunting animals near extinction, trees in mystical forests are being felled, and the spirit realm is reeling,” Mayym said as they stepped onto a rocky slope. “Magical energies turn vile, and the First Lands are changing shades. Everyone is trying to find their place in a world spiraling out of control, and they do this by killing. Most times blindly so. The violence of the war is already causing unintended damage, resulting in a major disturbance of the balance between the material realm and the spirit realm.”
Faey was shocked. If I had killed the boar, I would’ve hurt the balance—and that’s what the Kinkou are supposed to protect! “Master Mayym, how do we restore the balance with the spirit realm? Can we go back to the way it was before, if all the Noxian invaders are dead?”
“It’s no longer as simple as that.”
They passed into a drifting fog, the work of the lantern florae. The air felt moist and cool. The stone slate under their feet was slippery and slightly curved, as if they were walking between a pair of enormous lips. Faey could make out a protruding rock to the side that resembled a nose and, beyond that, cracked folds that could be half-closed eyelids, where small waterfalls trickled through the fissures. We’re walking on a face, Faey thought. It looked like the remains of a giant statue from an ancient era lost to time, though no one could be sure, as water had eroded all its angles and red moss blanketed its sunlit sides.
The sky was turning dark. They came upon an incline and started uphill. “Magic and life are parts of the same current that connects the two realms,” Mayym said.
Faey recited the Kinkou teaching: “The material realm and the spirit realm are two sides of the same leaf, grown on the same branch, sharing the same roots.”
“Yes. One does not flourish without the other, and when one darkens, the other dims,” Mayym said. “When lives perish in unnatural ways, such as in war, some spirits fade into oblivion. But others linger, with noxious intent. The more this happens, the more polluted the spirit realm becomes. And in turn, this causes a backlash that affects all life in the material realm. A vicious circle.”
The mention of spiritual contamination reminded Faey of something strange. “Master Mayym, when we first saw the silver boar, right when it left the spirit realm, it appeared agitated.”
Mayym stopped in her tracks, then turned to look at her.
“Like it was running away from something,” Faey added.
“And this took place near the perimeter?”
“Yes, just on the other side of the western hills.”
Mayym remained thoughtful for a while, then resumed walking. “It could be that the foul current of the war has enveloped Ionia as a whole, reaching us here, even though the battles are taking place elsewhere.”
“We can help,” Faey pleaded. “Initiate us. Grant us real missions.”
“In time,” Mayym replied gently. “Faey, the other neophytes follow you. Even those older than you. They see you as a good role model.”
Faey’s heart leapt at Mayym’s praise.
“You yourself will have no problem getting initiated as an acolyte, but not everyone has your gift,” Mayym said quietly. “Your presence with the other neophytes serves as a good influence on them. So for now, stay that way.”
Faey’s mood sank, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek. It must be Akali. She’s the one holding me back.
They passed through loose thickets, stepping onto higher ground. “Patience is a virtue, but also a skill that requires honing as much as an arrowhead, especially for one who bests all the rest,” Mayym told her. “You neophytes are the future of the Kinkou. We need to make sure all of you are ready before any of you can be initiated.”
Faey disagreed, but said nothing.
They left the cover of the trees, cresting the last hill untouched by snow. Around the moon, a bright ring of sapphirine silver graced the night sky. Faey gazed at it, knowing she was witnessing the near-convergence of the physical moon and its reflection in the spirit realm. She wondered what it looked like to Mayym.
On this final night of the Spirit Blossom festival in Xuanain, Mayym and other senior Kinkou would see something vastly different on the black canvas of the sky: the circle of pale illumination partially covered by a darker shade, like someone had thrown a thick veil over it, as the mystic moon in the spirit realm swam before the silvery moon in the material realm.
Faey longed for the day when she could experience such a spectacle—it seemed so far away. But she knew it was more than just a beautiful display. It also signified when the triumvirate of the Kinkou would meet and decide what came next for the order.
“Faey, keep growing your skill,” Mayym said, moonlight lining the edge of her silhouette in frosty silver, “and you are bound to succeed me as the Fist of Shadow.”
When that day comes, Faey thought uneasily, will there still be a Kinkou Order?

The art of calligraphy required patience and diligence, stillness of the body and keen focus of the mind—everything that Akali hated.
Sitting in the old temple, she was writing characters on a piece of paper with a broad brush, the inkstick and inkstone by her elbow. The roof was made of hoary branches, and some of them had draped down like the beard of an old man. Light-blooms, tiny luminous plants that the acolytes had grown, hung in strings along the temple walls, lending light to Akali’s nightly lesson. The acolyte instructor sat idly to the side with a scroll on his lap, stifling a yawn.
This is as easy as eating rice pudding, Akali thought. Mother’ll be happy if I do well.
Yet, the more she stared at a character that ended with a curved stroke, the more she thought it looked like a mustache. Mesmerized, Akali couldn’t help but add a few streaks with the tapered tip of her brush. The character turned into a smirking, mustached face.
Akali puffed out a laugh, then quickly covered her mouth with her hands, smudging her cheek. The instructor scowled and was about to stand up, when a voice called from the door.
“Hello, little one.” A small figure waved a clawed hand at her.
“Kennen, you’re back!” Akali bounded to her feet. She dropped the brush, smearing wet, black ink on the paper, and ran out.
The instructor barked at her to return, but stopped short when he saw that the person at the door was indeed Kennen, the Kinkou’s Heart of the Tempest.
Kennen flipped away so Akali could try to catch him, even though it was impossible. They ran between the huts, through the edge of the woods and back, splashing water by the lagoon’s shore. Akali ended up wheezing next to the yordle on a fallen tree trunk.
“I heard that you thwarted the neophytes’ effort to get the silver boar,” Kennen said teasingly, straddling the trunk.
“I didn’t mean to. Faey should have asked me to come along. I can help!”
“Don’t feel bad about it. Children are like that. They probably thought you were too young.” Kennen’s voice was that of a human child, yet his tone was laced with wisdom.
“But I’m taller than you!”
“That you are.” Kennen reached up and tousled her hair.
“Where’s Shen?” Akali asked, absently touching the small kunai she wore as a pendant.
“He’s meditating.”
“Is he still sad? I miss him…” Akali had always admired Shen.
Kennen smiled wistfully. “The betrayal by his best friend and… the loss of his father… weigh heavy on him.”
Akali was reminded of her own father’s death in Zed’s attack. She missed him, too.
Kennen changed the subject. “How have you been doing? Has Mayym been teaching you how to wield the kunai?”
Akali shook her head, now covering the kunai pendant with her hand. “Mother never thinks I’m good enough,” she mumbled. “She only wants to spend time with Faey.”
“Well, I guess Mayym can only teach one protégé at a time.”
“Why can’t I be her protégé?” A sore feeling gripped Akali’s heart.
Kennen gazed at her for a moment, then slid closer to her on the tree trunk. “Before Mayym became the Fist of Shadow, she went on many missions with Faey’s mother. They worked closely as a team.”
“I know that.”
“It’s not that Mayym tries to ignore you. When you were a baby, she made a promise to take care of Faey.”
Akali had no memory of Faey’s parents. They were both senior acolytes who died long ago. Now she thought about what that meant as Kennen waited patiently beside her.
If losing her father had made her sad, Faey must have endured double the pain, for many more seasons. Akali’s anger subsided, and she felt an emotion that she could not comprehend. Her chest tightened.
Everyone had lost so much. This haven by the lagoon temple was all they had.
The yordle hopped in front of Akali, startling her. “Hey, it’ll be all right.” Kennen cupped her face in his hands. “You grow fast, and you can run faster than all the other neophytes. Your mother will see it one day.”
He rubbed his nose against hers, making Akali giggle. Then Kennen somersaulted nimbly away.
“There’s a meeting I need to go to now,” he said. “Go back and finish your calligraphy lesson, okay?”

Low clouds were rolling just beyond the mountain’s summit, where basalt peaks held a glacier in their embrace. A colossal impact crater had sunk the glacier’s surface, and Faey imagined that a giant’s fist had punched it.
There, she watched as Mayym and Kennen stood face to face, at a rift that severed the crater in two.
“Given the Ionian victory at the Placidium of Navori,” Mayym argued, “a tipping point in the war against Noxus could be in sight.” Her arms were folded in front of her chest, her phantom scythe lashed to her back. “There are many whose actions are disrupting the sacred balance, Noxians and Ionians. The Kinkou should be there to prune them out, while Ionia has the upper hand.” As the Fist of Shadow, Mayym represented Pruning the Tree—the elimination of imbalance between the material realm and the spirit realm.
“We’re just regaining our footing, and you want us to dive into battle now?” said the diminutive yordle.
“Fighting to uphold our duty as keepers of balance is the way we get back on our feet,” Mayym said. “The moment is at hand.”
Kennen looked incredulously at her. He was the Heart of the Tempest, and his duty was Coursing the Sun—whatever judgment was reached here, he would have to convey it to all Kinkou members across Ionia.
Faey stood a distance away from them, respectfully observing and trying not to fidget on the chilly mountaintop. As part of her training, Mayym brought her to important meetings. Faey’s lips were trembling, and she imagined them turning purple. She couldn’t understand how everyone else could be ignoring the piercing cold.
She also could not understand the difference in Mayym’s demeanor. When it came to her protégé, Mayym often urged restraint, but when it came to her equals, Mayym constantly seemed to push for action.
“We want to sit this one out,” Kennen said. “The situation is complicated: there are Noxian soldiers under threat, Ionian defenders who were bitter enemies just yesterday, vastaya of uncertain allegiance, and spies everywhere. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“You went to the Placidium? Undetected?”
“What, you thought I lost my touch?” He smiled, and lightning crackled around his eyes and claws. Then his tone turned grim. “On my way back, I picked up accounts that members of a Navori Brotherhood faction are headed this way, and not with peaceful intent. They’ve marked themselves with tiger tattoos.”
Mayym frowned. “What are they doing?”
“Going from village to village, snatching the young and able,” replied Kennen. “Using violence against anyone who dares object.”
“So they can replenish their forces against the Noxian invaders…”
“Exactly. The darkness of the war has spread over Ionia in unprecedented ways,” Kennen said. “Before we know it, it’ll be at our door. We must pick our battles carefully.”
Mayym shook her head. “The Noxian invasion of Ionia is the root cause of the imbalance. The mounting deaths. The reason why the spirit realm is disturbed. If we are to uphold our role as guardians of the Kinkou’s mission, we must go to Navori.”
“We should not act rashly.”
“Says one who just sneaked in and out of the enemy line.”
“I did that so none of you have to!” Kennen snapped.
There was a moment when the air seemed to freeze between them, and Faey held her breath, unblinking.
The moment passed, and Mayym looked to the side. “Perhaps the Eye of Twilight has something to say?”
And there, just a few strides upslope, perched atop a stone pillar, was a silent figure. He wore a jacket cut short at the sleeves, tucked into a pair of weather-beaten trousers. Fastened upon his torso and limbs were leather plates, metal bands, and silken wraps. He had two swords crossed on his back, one of steel, the other arcane. He was not wearing his usual mask, but his features were nonetheless hidden in the shadow of his hood, shielded from the moonlight.
Shen, Faey thought gloomily. Our leader who is always indecisive.
“It’s true that the balance is being harmed by the violence of the war, which is inflamed by Ionians as well,” said Shen, his voice hoarse, “not the least of whom are Zed and his order.”
“Precisely. We must act against them,” Mayym urged.
“And yet…” Shen’s hooded head rose slightly. “As my every instinct tells me to pour all our strength against Zed’s, I begin to fear that I can’t be impartial. I fear that…” He hesitated for a moment. “Those rallying around Zed are serving the balance in their own way, fighting against invaders who are devastating Ionia. We must give this question more consideration.”
Kennen shrugged. “As I said, complicated times.”
“I need to distance myself from my emotions, so I may decide free of prejudice,” Shen concluded.
Faey saw Mayym let out a misty, pale breath as she sighed.
“Our order needs an Eye of Twilight who leads,” Mayym said ruefully.
If Shen took offense, he showed no sign. After all, he had been the Kinkou’s leader for only a short time, while Mayym had been part of the triumvirate for countless seasons.
If Master Kusho were alive, he would be so ashamed of us. Faey looked up, trying to distract herself from the cold. Aside from a few wisps of cloud, the sky sparkled with stars.
A realization came to Faey: Shen’s duty as the Eye of Twilight… Watching the Stars meant neutral observation, to become thoroughly informed before passing judgment.
All Kinkou acolytes had to study three disciplines before they chose one as their path. Watching the Stars, Coursing the Sun, and Pruning the Tree—the disciplines had overlapping areas, and one’s existence would hold no meaning without its relation to the other two. It was clear to Faey that when debating the Kinkou’s future, each member of the triumvirate had followed their respective role: Kennen mindful of conveying wrong judgments, Mayym urging action to address the imbalance, and Shen…
The easiest job to do, isn’t it? To just observe everything and do nothing. Watching the Stars.
Indeed, some time had passed, and Shen never spoke another word. He just sat there, head down, as if his mind were not even present.
From the way they addressed the matters at hand today, Faey felt this Meeting of the Triad had turned out meaningless.
After Shen left, the rest of them began walking downhill.
“I sympathize with Shen. He and I both lost someone we held dear during Zed’s attack,” Mayym said. “But a time like this calls for stronger leadership… Perhaps we should not expect him to be as great as his father.” She spoke evenly, but Faey could hear frustration simmering under the words. “One should not rely on kinship when it comes to succession.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Kennen replied lightly. Because he was so fast, he had to hike in circles so he could walk alongside Mayym. “Sometimes potential does pass down through blood. Look at yourself.”
“What do you mean?” Mayym asked, frowning.
Kennen glanced at Faey, who was trailing behind them, and shrugged. “Nothing.”

When Faey came back to the lagoon, the whole haven was asleep save for the acolytes standing watch.
She gingerly approached the hut she shared with a few other neophytes. There she saw Akali sitting alone on the stone slabs in front of the dwelling. The little girl was wearing her night garment. She loved calling it a shiipo, which was a florid cloak worn by children during festivals. In truth, it was just a rough-spun robe made of beige-colored yarn, given to her by her father, Tahno, another victim of Zed’s rebellion.
“What are you doing here?” Faey called out in a low voice.
Akali sat upright, happy to see Faey’s return. The little girl produced a piece of dried fruit from inside her pocket. “I want to give you this.”
“A plum?” Faey took it with wonder. “How? I thought we didn’t get dinner tonight.”
“It’s from a few days ago.”
Faey’s eyes widened. “You’ve been storing food?”
Akali shrugged, looking guilty, but made no reply. Her shoulders were shaking.
She is afraid, Faey realized, looking down at the dried fruit. Why?
“I want to keep some food,” Akali said. “Maybe we’ll need it someday. You know… if… if bad people come again.”
She’s afraid that enemies might show up any moment, and we’ll be on the run without food…
“I don’t want anything to tear our family apart,” Akali said. “I don’t want us to lose anyone anymore.”
Tears suddenly welled up in Faey’s eyes, but she held them firmly in check. She lost her parents to the order’s missions long ago, and vowed never to cry again after countless nights of sobbing. But she felt for Akali. In a way, they were truly like siblings, for Akali’s mother spent much more time with Faey than with her own daughter.
Faey bit off half the plum and handed the rest back. “You eat this.”
An anger unfamiliar to Faey was boiling inside her. She could not comprehend why everything had happened. If the Kinkou Order played such an important role to Ionia—as the teachings said—why did they have to suffer like this?
“You should go to sleep.” She ruffled Akali’s hair, and gave her a long hug, never letting a tear escape from the corner of her eye.

As the days passed, Faey earnestly practiced her archery. She was frustrated—about Shen, about Mayym’s refusal to make her an acolyte, about how powerless she was to help, about everything.
Working with her bow was the only thing that made sense. When she wasn’t being trained in stealth, studying, or doing chores, Faey was spending almost all her time in the small archery range built by the acolytes.
Mayym had gone on one of her missions. Kennen presided over the defense and maintenance of the lagoon haven, but Faey often caught him playing with Akali, racing and jumping and throwing blunt shuriken with the giggling little girl.
One day, Hisso came to Faey during her meditative archery exercise. “We’re going to play Ghost in the Woods at the southern valley. Come join us,” she said.
“The southern valley?” Faey took her eyes off the practice target, lowering her bow. “Mayym wouldn’t like that.”
The valley was wide and full of plant life, marked by loose boulders and abandoned stone walls. It was dangerous terrain, and the villagers of Xuanain had warned the Kinkou that there had been a few major landslides over the decades.
“Well, that’s why we do it when Mayym isn’t around,” Hisso told her. “You know it’s the most exciting place for the game. C’mon, the others are all there.”
Faey was hesitant, but she said, “Fine. I need to finish another set. I’ll find you there later.”
When the neophyte left, Faey drew a deep breath and stabilized her torso. She repositioned her feet and held her asymmetrical bow a few handspans from the bottom to ensure the most force.
For a Kinkou warrior-to-be, the mastery of a type of weaponry required two tracks of experience, the meditative and the combat-practical—the neio and the neiyar. Trained to become an archer, Faey had been practicing neio and neiyar with her bow since she was five summers old.
Of course, given that she had never faced a real enemy keen on taking her life, the neiyar centered around animal hunting and dueling against her trainers. Most times, she was instructed to stay in the archery range practicing her meditative neio, which she had resented because boredom always crept in after just a few shots.
But not these days. She needed to practice neio to feel calm.
“When you hold a lethal weapon in your hands, the first thing it sharpens is your mind,” Mayym had taught her. “Quiet your thoughts, and focus on your every move.”
Yet as Faey raised both arms above her head in a refined manner, confusion raged like a maelstrom.
Why couldn’t we beat Zed? She pushed out her bow arm.
Why does it have to be Shen who leads us? She contracted her back muscles, drawing open the bow with the string.
What truly happened in the temple that day when Master Kusho died? The adults never spoke of it. Do they even know? She paused at full draw, a moment of utmost concentration when an archer should sense the true spirit of the martial art. But all she could feel now was sizzling fury.
The pause lasted no more than half a breath before she released the string. The arrow hit the edge of the target with a weak thump.
Faey sighed, shoulders drooping.
We are the guardians of two realms, yet we do nothing when the realms need us. We just watch the stars.
She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind by running two fingers along the bow, and then the arrow.
“When you hold these weapons,” Mayym had said, “you are entrusted with a tradition passed down through generations of archer-warriors, in an unbroken line of sacred practice.”
Faey inhaled slowly, forcing herself to think on her bow’s design. It was asymmetrical because, long ago, Kinkou archers had learned that a longer top section made the bow more durable, while a shorter bottom allowed for stealthier movement in regions with dense wild growth. Faey was among the most recent generation to benefit from this wisdom.
Generations of archer-warriors. An unbroken line of sacred practice.
Humbled, Faey opened her eyes and walked toward the target. She paused just three and a half paces away from it, so close that a miss wouldn’t be possible. That way, she could direct all her attention to her movement, ensuring refinement and elegance.
Combat is communication, a voice rang in her mind. It is always about the dialogue.
It was the voice of Master Kusho, from a time when he spoke warmly to Faey and the other children. A time that seemed… so long ago.
The art of practical combat would prepare a warrior against external enemies, with spilled blood calligraphing the dialogue of conflict. Yet, only by contemplative performance would a warrior train her mind against the enemy within.
A dialogue with a hundred you.
Faey raised her arms and calmly let them fall, drawing open the bow again. She paused as a timeless vortex claimed her consciousness.
When thoughts hushed, the dialogue of the soul began.
The next time she blinked, the arrow had lodged in the dead center of the target.
She took another arrow from her quiver, and then another, each shot more graceful than the last, her form a distilled purity.
As she did so, new thoughts drifted through her mind.
Maybe the adults don’t know everything.
Maybe they are as confused as I am.
Maybe it doesn’t matter who is leading us, as long as we stick together as a family.
Maybe… there isn’t anything I can do to help restore the balance right now. Faey let go of her last arrow. And maybe that’s okay…
She maintained her posture a while longer. The churning emotions had dissipated, bringing to light a mind as tranquil as the early morning lagoon. This was a sense of peace she had rarely felt.
The sun was at its zenith when she started toward the southern valley. Some of the acolytes were conducting their own meditative martial practice by the edge of the forest as Faey passed by, and suddenly she understood what they were doing a little more.
Then she followed the meandering pathway to the neophytes’ playground. It was not a short hike. Faey had decided that she did not feel like participating in the game today, yet she needed to tell the others so they wouldn’t wait for her until dusk.
Strangely, when Faey arrived at the fringe of the valley, the neophytes were not there.
She strained her ears, but she heard no clamor, nor any rustling among the bushes. The only sounds were the buzzing of cicadas and the occasional breeze.
Something’s not right.
Faey unslung her bow and took out an arrow as she ventured down the valley. Possibly uninhabited by humans for centuries, this side of the mountain had been taken over by wild growth of vegetation. Bits of broken stone walls could be glimpsed where vines and leaves had not yet claimed them.
As she continued her search, some of the greenery parted for her, giving way to her nervous steps.
A whistle startled her—then she saw that it came from behind one of the stony ruins. A neophyte poked his head out, beckoning to her and signaling for silence.
Faey crouched low and swiftly moved over, surprised to see that a bunch of the neophytes were huddled here, all looking grim. She found Akali, too, standing under a large broad-leaved tree, uncharacteristically silent.
One of the older boys gravely pointed a finger downhill.
Then Faey saw it, too. Still a good distance away, a group of at least twenty warriors had come into the valley. They had tiger tattoos on their chests and arms, and Faey immediately understood what that meant.
It was the Navori Brotherhood.

“What do we do now?”
The neophytes had gathered around Faey. “We need to warn the adults,” said Xenn, a younger boy.
Omi suggested fighting the intruders, but he was rebuffed by doubtful stares from the others. Except for Faey, they hadn’t brought their weapons, and when you had ten neophytes against twenty mean-looking thugs, the odds were obvious.
Alerting the acolytes seemed like their only option, but Faey hesitated.
“What are we waiting for?” Xenn asked. “Let’s head back now.”
“Wait…” Faey said. “We can’t do that.” Everyone’s gaze fell on her, wondering what she meant. Faey stared at the warriors, who were advancing slowly. If the acolytes show up, people will die. That will damage the balance even more.
Not to mention, the thought of losing even one more of her Kinkou family was unbearable.
Faey scanned the area and made up her mind. “We need to stop them, here and now.”
“What? How?” asked Akali, brown eyes wide.
“By making them decide not to go any farther,” Faey said. “I know why they’re here: to capture people and force them to fight against the foreign invaders. So, if they realize there’s no one to be found, they will leave.”
“How do we do that? Walk down and tell them?” Yajiro said.
“No, of course not.” Faey frowned. “Remember the hunting game we played to ambush the silver boar?” Everyone nodded. “We do it again. Except this time, we never show ourselves. We make the sound of grey owls.”
“Bad omen,” Omi said.
“Yes,” Faey said. “These are Ionians—they’ll know the sound means this region is cursed with foul magic, and no village could possibly thrive here.”
“But they are Ionian,” a girl named Isa said dubiously. “They might be able to see through it.”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out.” Faey looked at them one by one. “If someone gets caught, don’t point to the lagoon. Just say you’re lost. They will leave us alone, because they’re not looking for children.” This was half a lie.
They all nodded nervously.
“All right, let’s spread out. Take the vines and hide up in the trees.”
Akali was about to move, when Faey touched her shoulder.
“Akali, stay on the ground. I have a very important job for you. I know you can do it better than anyone.” The little girl paused, looking surprised. Faey continued, “But first, I need you to promise me that you won’t run around and upset our plan this time.”
Akali nodded eagerly. “I promise.”
“If our plan fails—if you see the Brotherhood still coming in strong after we make the owl calls, like they don’t even care, you run as fast as you can and tell the adults.” Faey held her bow tighter. And if that happens, I will cover you. “Now, hide somewhere at the far end and watch what’s happening. Save your strength in case you need it.”
“Okay.” Akali was trembling, but her eyes also glistened with excitement.
Faey saw that everyone else had loosely formed a wide bowl flanking the path that the intruders would pass through. Then she was on the move herself.
On the eastern side of the valley, a hillock of large boulders would provide an unobstructed view of the area. That would be her vantage point.
If anything went wrong, she would be the one making the kill.

One by one, the Kinkou neophytes tied long, sturdy vines around themselves. The vines responded by lifting them up to the knots on the tree trunks, making their climb swift and secure.
Faey circled to the shadowed side of the hillock, where the larger boulders would block her from the intruders’ sight. She ascended the incline, anxiously yet briskly, until she finally reached the highest point—a sizable slab perfect for monitoring the valley.
She looked for Akali, but could not find her.
Good, she thought. Lying prone on the slab, she directed her attention to the intruders. They were almost where she wanted them, making so much noise cutting up brambles, briars, long grasses, and whatever else got in their way that Faey was certain no one would notice if she kicked a rock downslope. The war must have changed them. Like the foreign invaders, they hold no respect for nature. They’ve forgotten what it means to be Ionian.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Omi was still on the ground.
What is he doing? She stared at him and made a gesture for him to hasten.
He was panicking, struggling to tie a limp vine around his waist as the first of the warriors trudged up a fallen trunk just ten paces away. Oddly, none of the vines on that particular tree were helpful, so Omi decided to climb barehanded.
Faey was appalled, but she remembered her contingency plan. She quickly nocked an arrow on her bow.
The intruders kept slashing violently at bushes and shrubs with their polearms, making a path for themselves. The rest of the valley remained ominously quiet, so their curses flowed straight to Faey’s ears, loud and clear.
Finally, Omi got up the tree and disappeared. Faey let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She then inhaled deeply.
With a single, powerful exhale, Faey released a high-pitched screech that pierced the pristine air.
A few of the warriors stopped in their tracks.
Faey screeched again, and the valley came alive with echoes from every direction.
Now all of the intruders stopped, tensely surveying their surroundings. They started arguing.
“This is a haunted place. I hear grey owls.”
“I told you there’s nothing to be found here!”
The menacing-looking ones at the front walked forward, undeterred. Yet, part of the gang still hesitated. The Kinkou neophytes tried to help them make up their minds with another round of omen-filled screeches.
Even the trees let out audible sighs, waving their leaves and contorted branches, working with the neophytes in a cacophony of dread. Some of the warriors started backing off.
It’s working! Faey almost couldn’t believe it.
The gang’s leader ordered a retreat. “This place is foul. Let’s get out of here.” But as they departed, a few of them angrily swung their crescent blades and severed some branches that were eerily approaching.
A long, crooked bough snapped down and hit one of the thugs in the face. They all turned their backs and ran.
Faey held her position on the rock, not letting joy overtake her senses. The other neophytes were also quiet, likely waiting until it was safe to emerge.
When enough time had passed, Faey sprang upright. “We did it!”
Her call met no reply. There was silence for a long moment, punctuated by snapping sounds.
“Hello?” The valley looked a shade darker, even though the sun was still at its apex.
Something dropped down from the canopy and jerked to a stop in midair. It was Isa—her eyes wide with terror, her arms cinched at the waist by twisting vines. The end of one was gagging her.
Several more children fell through the leaves and were suspended the same way. Two neophytes plunged directly to the ground, their impact cushioned by bushes. They were also bound by vines, struggling to free themselves without avail.
Before Faey could comprehend what was happening, the valley came alive—large tree trunks twisted fiercely, entwining into a gargantuan entity. Shrubs and bushes uprooted themselves and crawled onto it like patched skin, taking with them packed soil and rubble that created muscles. Dark vines slithered up to form latticework over the creature, like nets of pulsing veins.
The monstrous thing had four arms, and the center of its “chest” was a broken tree trunk, hollow and rotten, like an empty eye socket or a gaping mouth. At least three children were half buried in its grotesque torso, held in place by bizarrely twitching branches.
A corrupted spirit. Faey froze on the stone slab.
The Kinkou had heard that such things were happening in other parts of Ionia, a side effect of the brutal war against Noxus. No one ever thought it would happen here.
The Navori Brotherhood must have contaminated the balance, and dark forces in the spirit realm were seeping through the divide, tainting the southern valley.
Faey opened her waist pouch, which held magical dust for repelling evil spirits. This would be the first time she had used it in practical combat. And her friends’ lives were at stake. She calmed her mind and applied the dust to her arrowheads.
Neio had fortified her with mental strength, and now she had to trust that her muscle memory would awaken from the neiyar training she had painstakingly endured.
Omi had escaped the vines and was stumbling across the shaky ground. As he ran, one of the monster’s arms extended toward him, tentacles of flora opening up like a writhing web. Faey loosed an arrow, and it struck that arm a moment before it could catch him. Golden rays blazed from the wound, and the monster reared. The limb disintegrated into dead leaves and twigs and dust.
“Go! Get the acolytes!” Faey shouted at Omi. He fled the valley without looking back.
Faey could hear her heartbeat pulsing against her ears. She knew that no matter how fast Omi ran, the quickest possible arrival for any acolyte would be a quarter of an hour. She had in her quiver only thirteen arrows.
How do I hold this thing off?
The monster’s broken limb had re-formed, its body growing larger by the moment as waves of vegetation rushed onto it, drawn by an unseen force.
Faey shot another arrow and, before it landed, drew and released again. The two arrows sank into the monster, and a blinding golden light spilled from its torso, which snapped open as layers of rotten, tissue-like branches parted. The ensnared children dropped to the ground, free from their prison.
The neophytes tried to help each other escape, tearing at vines and brambles sticky with dark resin. With a shocking rumble, the monster’s innards exploded, spraying countless fast-growing limbs in all directions like a fountain of animated timber.
Most of the neophytes dodged the wooden claws, yet two of them—Isa and Taij—were caught, wailing as they were dragged toward the monster’s mended maw.
Faey’s next few shots could provide cover fire for the five unfettered neophytes to flee, or she could try to save Isa and Taij.
What do I do? A moment of hesitation, and Xenn was snared. The rest scattered, howling in panic.
“Leave! Run back to the haven, everyone!” Faey saved Xenn with an arrow shot. Then she began firing at the flora tentacles that were coming for the runaway neophytes. She knew she would lose Isa and Taij, who were almost swallowed by the monster’s jagged, hollowed-out mouth. She ground her teeth and looked away.
Then she saw Akali.
Amid the madness of running children, flying timber, falling leaves, and blooming plants of evil shades, the little girl was running toward the monster.
Faey watched in disbelief, suddenly unsure where to aim.
“Haaheeyy!” Akali’s voice echoed in the valley. She dashed under a whip made of animated vines, then vaulted over sweeping tree trunks.
Something dawned on Faey—dangerous moments had passed, and Akali had not been caught. Somehow, she was evading all attempts at capture, ducking and rolling away from deformed claws. The evil spirit had turned its attention to Akali, forgetting that Isa and Taij were dangling right by its mouth.
“Akali, you fool! Flee!” Faey screamed. Yet, even as she condemned Akali’s folly, Faey had moved away from the stone slab, nocking another arrow on her bow.
She knew what she must do.

Akali was terrified. Huge, arched boughs fell from the sky and landed all around her. Yet she kept running.
She had made a promise not to intrude on Faey’s attempt at scaring away the big bad warriors. She did not foil that plan. But Faey never said anything about a gigantic, ugly tree spirit going mad. Now Akali followed her instinct—to get the other kids out.
She found Hisso entangled by a net of brambles. As she tried to pull her out, the sky dimmed, and Akali gasped. A colossal palm made of wriggling branches was coming down, threatening to crush them. But then an arrow pierced the hand, setting it ablaze in golden sparks.
Amid a falling blanket of wilted leaves, Akali dragged Hisso to safety. She saw that Faey was hopping down the rocky slope far way, another arrow at the ready. Then Akali glimpsed an older neophyte, Yajiro, sitting amid a pile of broken logs, crying his heart out.
Akali ran to him—eluding the monster’s angry jabs—and kicked him in the butt. “You! Get out of here!” She shoved him forward.
She knew something had changed. The monster was redirecting all its writhing limbs to get her. So as long as she kept running, the other children would be safe.
As Akali sprang and dove and ducked and rolled, she grew confident that she had gotten the hang of this game. Part of her—the part that wasn’t terrified—wanted to giggle. The monster was slow. If Kennen were here, he could be eating a bowl of noodles while dodging the attacks.
More of Faey’s arrows arced overhead, striking the monster and momentarily disintegrating its limbs. Isa and Taij dropped to the ground: two vine-wrapped, sobbing bundles.
Akali headed toward them, excited that she and Faey were working together so well. She could do this all day.
Now Faey will include me on all the missions. Mother will be pleased!
Then the valley began to tremble more ferociously than before. Large, malicious roots churned the earth, whipping up like nasty serpents, releasing foul vapors that made Akali’s nose wrinkle. A wall of dizzying, thrashing wood encircled her, sealing her way out.
Uh-oh.

Faey hopped down from boulder to boulder, adjusting her line of sight so she could maintain a clear view of Akali. As the evil spirit chased the little girl, Faey’s arrows cleared any incoming danger for her.
Their fortuitous partnership had opened a window of opportunity for the other neophytes, and those who could raced out of the valley.
But any moment, things could go wrong. Faey had only three arrows left.
“Akali, you must leave now!” Faey shouted as loud as she could.
The rocks under Faey’s feet shuddered as if the earth was contracting in a spasm. A few heartbeats later, she saw Akali encased in a dome of vicious roots.
The stony slope broke apart around Faey, and the large slab at the top came crashing down. Faey jumped between boulders to avoid it. As she did so, she let fly an arrow that tore a hole into the side of Akali’s prison, then another one to block the giant fist that was coming for the escaping girl.
But before Faey could draw her last arrow or make another move, the whole slope washed over her in an avalanche.
An ear-splitting boom. The crash of rockfall. She screamed as rubble struck her like fists, followed by a devastating pain that seared through her core.
When the rockslide subsided, Faey was left shivering amid blood-stained boulders, the dense taste of iron in her mouth. The burning sensation intensified. She could barely open her eyes, but what she glimpsed made no sense.
Her bow had snapped. And where her right leg used to be, dark crimson pulp remained, leaving smears of wetness on rocks and grass.
She buried her face in the ground, and then consciousness dimmed.

Akali dragged Isa and Taij by their feet over the undulating valley floor—there had been no time to untie them. The monster had grown more heinous, but Akali was not about to give in.
“I don’t want to lose anybody ever again, you hear me?” she shouted, as much to Isa and Taij as to herself. “I want us all to stay together, forever!”
The corrupted forest spirit—a massive, misshapen heap of horrendous things—chased after her, tearing the valley apart.
“Faey!” Akali saw the unconscious girl lying amid scattered boulders just ahead. Oh no, now I need to drag three people out. She set her teeth and plowed through the churning ground, arriving at her friend.
“Faey, get up! We need—”
Words caught in her throat as her eyes fell on Faey’s lower body. Akali dropped the two neophytes, who were yelling wildly at something.
“Faey…” Akali froze, all thoughts blank.
Then she turned around to see what Isa and Taij were screaming about. It was the angry tree spirit, towering over them all.
No weapons at hand. Three friends helpless. Akali looked at the monster with an empty gaze, her hand clasping the small kunai pendant.
A gnarled limb swung toward her. Before she could make a move, a barrage of kunai rained down on the giant’s fist. Lights flared. Timbers flew. Akali never thought the monster could howl, but it did now, furious roars from its hollow core.
A shadow landed on its ruptured arm.
Mother! Akali’s eyes went wide.
Mayym sprinted along the shattering bridge of splinters. The corrupted spirit tried to smash her with two other arms, but she flipped through the air in a graceful, lethal arc, simultaneously flinging more kunai with a back-flick of her hands. The giant’s limbs exploded under the enchanted darts, splashing the air with soulless remnants as Mayym landed nimbly on top of the spirit’s crown.
All around Akali, the air crackled with thunder. Arcs of purple lightning appeared, constricting in waves of reversing ripples, centering on the monster. In the blink of an eye, the giant was severed at the waist.
The evil spirit re-formed its body, but Kennen was there, assaulting it with a rush of lightning bolts. Above him, Mayym raised high her phantom scythe and—with one clean swing—clove open the monster from top to bowel.
The southern valley quieted.
Akali was awestruck. Just like that, the monster was gone, leaving behind only piles of decayed, oozing plants. Yet some of the nearby twigs began to wriggle weakly…
“It is not over yet.”
Akali glanced over her shoulder and saw the speaker. The masked figure calmly walked forward, drawing from his back a blade that glowed with a mesmerizing aura of arcane energy. Mayym and Kennen parted to allow him to pass.
“Shen!” Akali rejoiced at seeing him.
Before Zed’s attack, Shen would read stories to her about the Ionian heroes of old. Yet in Akali’s eyes, Shen was the real hero, and she dreamed of helping him when she grew up, like how her mother had assisted Master Kusho.
The new leader of the Kinkou Order ascended the remains of the monster, just a mound now. A shimmering fissure appeared at the top, contorting reality for a heartbeat before Shen disappeared into it.
“Where did he go?” Akali asked.
“To the spirit realm.” Kennen landed beside her with a backflip. “That twisted thing could keep reconstructing its material body as long as the corrupted spirit resides in the other realm. Shen is going to take care of the source.”
As Mayym walked toward the neophytes, Akali’s heart sank again as she remembered what had happened to Faey.
Expressionless, Mayym knelt beside the unconscious girl.

It hurts… so much…
Faey woke up to find herself on a pallet inside a hut. Akali was sleeping beside her, curled into a ball. It was day, the time uncertain, and murmurs of conversation could be heard outside.
Faey tried to sit up, and then she saw that her right leg was bandaged, missing below the knee. For long moments, she thought she was in a bad dream. She sensed that a devastating anguish inside her was trying to claw its way out, caged only by her disbelief.
A quiet sob escaped her throat.
“Master Mayym, we know what we saw!” A child’s voice flowed into the hut, faint and distant, sounding like Taij. “She pulled us to safety. All by herself.”
Faey looked out the window. She saw Mayym standing in front of the old temple and listening to the other neophytes, her arms folded.
“And she was fast,” Isa told Mayym. “The spirit couldn’t even catch her!”
Faey struggled to change her sitting position. A pain shot through her thigh and she nearly collapsed.
“Faey.” Akali sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Faey paused, then whispered, “Why did you have to go into the fray?” She clutched the edge of her blanket, head down, voice low, madly trying to breathe slowly so no more sobs would escape. “Why didn’t you leave when I told you to?”
“Faey…” Akali tried to give her a pat on the arm.
“Do not touch me!” Faey shouted. “This is all your fault!”
Akali backed away, eyes wide.
“Leave me alone,” Faey hissed. All the venom inside her was now flowing freely. Then she saw Akali’s face—the girl was genuinely confused and hurt.
Faey hesitated, but before she could say another word, the little girl had headed toward the hut’s entrance, where Mayym now stood, watching them.
With Akali gone, Mayym stepped in and knelt beside the pallet, somber emotion glossing over her eyes. “Shen found us as soon as he sensed a disturbance in the spirit realm. We rushed to the southern valley, but we were too late… I can’t imagine what would have transpired if he had not raised the alarm.”
It hurts so much… Faey tried to straighten her back in a show of respect, but her courage was failing her.
“The other neophytes told me what happened,” Mayym said in a calmer voice, lifting her chin. “You turned away the Brotherhood bandits. You helped avoid a major conflict.”
Tears were welling in Faey’s eyes. She maintained her posture, as an apprentice should in front of her master.
“You are courageous,” said Mayym, “and you’ve grasped the way of the Kinkou.”
What does it matter now? Faey’s lips were trembling. She knew everything was over. Mayym had made her assessment—that this protégé had been ruined. All the training, wasted. All her aspirations destroyed. She would never rise to become an acolyte, or be anything to the order but a burden.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry. I have…” Mayym stammered. “I have been a bad influence on you. About Shen. About everything.”
Faey could not understand why she would say this. She was the best mentor anyone could ask for. “Master Mayym, I have failed you.”
“No,” Mayym said, voice broken. “No, you did not.” She held Faey’s shoulders and looked into her eyes with fierce intensity. “There must be a way to make you walk again. If we must search every corner of Ionia and beyond to find it, that’s what we will do. Under Shen’s leadership, Kennen and I—and the rest of the Kinkou—will find a way. I will continue to train you, and make sure you become an archer never before seen in the history of both realms.”
Tears blurred Faey’s vision, and she momentarily forgot her pain.
Mayym carefully cradled Faey in her arms, an embrace the girl had not felt for a long time.
That was when Faey’s sobs turned to crying, uninhibited and free.

Akali stood by the doorway, peering into the shadowy interior of the hut, and the master and protégé locked in their embrace.
She could not remember the last time her mother had given her a hug like that. She turned and walked into the woods, the kunai pendant clutched in her hand, tears soaking her cheeks.
Brand

The son of a Freljordian healer, Kegan Rodhe was born an outsider. The little magic and herbcraft his mother possessed allowed them both to survive on the fringes of a small coastal community named Rygann’s Reach. Friends were few and far between. Even as a young boy, he knew his father was an enemy reaver, and that he—and Kegan by extension—was the reason his mother was shunned. The villagers called him “the reaver-bastard”. Kegan allowed his loneliness and resentment to smolder, often turning violent.
After enduring years of seemingly endless winter, his mother’s frail body finally gave in. As Kegan spread her funeral ashes, he thought of the people she had spent her life healing. None had come to pay their respects. He knew they wished him to disappear into the cold air as well.
He would oblige them, but not before he took his revenge. He burned down the village and fled into the night, leaving himself with scars that would never heal.
Kegan wandered the frozen tundra of the Freljord. He told himself that he was searching for his father, but he knew deep down he was looking for a friend... or, at the very least, a kind face. Finding neither, he holed himself up in a cave, and waited to die.
It was not death that came to him, but another outsider.
The mysterious mage named Ryze saw potential in this half-frozen young man, and took him on as an apprentice. Teacher and student struggled as Kegan’s nascent, wild magic frustrated them both, and Ryze’s requests for patience and humility often fell on deaf ears.
Unfortunately, instructing Kegan would always come second to Ryze’s original mission. He had long sought to collect and hide away a power that could be Runeterra’s unmaking—the legendary World Runes. After tracking down one such fragment, Kegan faced the same desperate temptation that had driven so many before him to madness. The Runes were the source of all magic in the world and, against his master’s warnings, he chose to seize that power for himself.
Ryze was forced to watch in failure as his apprentice was burned away by the raw magic, Kegan’s soul utterly consumed. The creature that was born in that moment was no longer the bitter young man Ryze had rescued from the snows, nor the Freljordian mage he had come to know as his friend.
Rather, this vengeful being of fire and fury that now walked the mortal realm would eventually become known as Brand.
Cursing his former master, and every other living thing that would ever come between him and the Runes, Brand lashed out with magical flames, and Ryze barely escaped with his life.
Over the centuries since that day, Brand has lived an anarchic, wildfire existence, taking and never giving anything back to the world. At times, he blazes across the heavens like a comet. At others, he sinks into the cold earth and slumbers, waiting for the unmistakable scent of magic that will lead him to another World Rune… and should he find one, there are precious few in Runeterra with the power to stop him.
Braum

Even as a child, Braum was much larger than other Freljordian youngsters, but his mother taught him never to use his size to intimidate or bully. She came from a proud line of herders, and believed true courage lay in using one’s power not to dominate, but to protect those in need.
When Braum was still a boy, ice giants devastated a neighboring tribe. That tribe had long preyed upon the herds of Braum’s people, but his mother didn’t hesitate to head out across the tundra to help the survivors, bearing furs, foodstuffs, and healing supplies. At first, Braum didn’t understand why she would aid their rivals—but after her actions saved many lives, they became lifelong allies. He finally understood what his mother meant when she said all the Freljord’s people were a family, and from that day forth, he pledged to bring that family together.
As Braum grew, it was clear he was one of the revered Iceborn, though even among their number, his strength and ability to endure the elements were legendary. He became a local hero, rescuing children who had slipped into icy ravines, saving travelers stranded in blizzards, and protecting families from ravaging wildclaws. Whenever he appeared, people knew help had arrived. He was a figure of hope, known for his liveliness and laughter, and the easy way he made friends.
Eventually, Braum realized he was needed beyond the valleys and tundra where he’d been raised. Bidding his mother a tearful farewell, he set out to travel the Freljord.
Over the years, countless stories spread of Braum’s mighty feats and good deeds. While most had at least a kernel of truth, they grew increasingly far-fetched and mythic—such as the legend of how he chopped down an entire forest in a single night using only his bare hands, or how during a volcanic eruption, he saved an isolated farmstead by picking it up and carrying it to higher ground.
A more recent tale spoke of how Braum found his immense ram-headed shield. As the story went, it was an enchanted vault door, forged in ancient times and set into a mountain. Braum heard cries from within, but he couldn’t break the door down. Undeterred, he punched his way through the mountain’s bare rock, rescuing a troll boy who was trapped inside. He ripped the unbreakable door off its hinges, and has borne it ever since.
As with many legends about him, Braum laughed uproariously when he first heard this particular tale—but far from refuting such stories, he embraces them. Why let the truth get in the way of inspiring others to acts of generosity and kindness?
No matter how he actually found his shield, soon afterward Braum made his way to the sacred site of Rakelstake, where many tribes had gathered to hear the words of the Avarosan warmother, Ashe—said to be the reincarnation of Avarosa herself. There, he witnessed the barbarian Tryndamere, desperate to prove his worth, savagely beating any who would face him.
As Braum watched, he saw that Tryndamere was growing increasingly unhinged. During one duel, he was so lost in his fury that it seemed certain he would kill his opponent, despite having already prevailed. Deciding things had gone far enough, Braum planted himself in front of the downed fighter, shield raised, and Tryndamere hacked and smashed against the impenetrable bulwark. When the barbarian’s rage finally subsided, Braum’s good humor won him over, and before long the pair were laughing and drinking to each other’s health. Some even say that it was Braum who first introduced Tryndamere to Ashe. The barbarian would later marry her, becoming her only bloodsworn.
Braum doesn’t hold any particular tribal allegiance, for he views all within the Freljord as brothers and sisters. Even so, he sees in Ashe someone who can end the centuries-old feuding among the Freljord’s tribes, and the Avarosans have informally adopted him into their number. Braum’s dream, as he often tells adoring children, is that someday the Freljord will be united in one big family… and then he can retire to become a humble poro herder.
Though Braum counts no one as his enemy, he has had a few run-ins with the Frostguard since he started carrying his shield. He doesn’t understand why they have a grudge against him, nor why they seem so interested in what he now bears…
Tomb of the Troll Boy

''Would you like to hear a bedtime story?''
''Grandma, I'm too old for that.''
''You're never too old to enjoy a good story.''
The girl reluctantly crawled into bed and waited, knowing she wouldn’t win this battle. A bitter wind howled outside, whipping the falling snow into devil whirls.
''What kind though? A tale of the Ice Witch, perhaps?'' asked her grandmother.
''No, not her.''
''What about a story of Braum?''
The girl nodded and the old woman smiled.
''Ah, there are so many, which to choose…? My grandmother used to tell me of the time Braum protected our village from a great dragon! Or once, this was long ago, mind, he raced down a river of lava! Or-''
She paused and shook her head. “No, none of them. Wait, have I ever told you how Braum got his shield?''
The girl shook her head. The hearth fire snapped, its warmth holding off the night’s chill.
''Well, in the mountains above our village lived a man named Braum. He mostly kept to his farm, tending his sheep and goats, but he was the kindest man anyone had ever met, and he always had a smile on his face and a laugh on his lips.
''Now, one day, something terrible happened. A young troll boy around your age was climbing the mountain and happened upon a massive stone door with a shard of True Ice at its center. When he opened the door, he couldn't believe his eyes! Beyond was a vault filled with gold and jewels. Every kind of treasure you could imagine!
''What he didn't know was that the vault was a trap. The Ice Witch had cursed it, and as the troll boy entered, the magical door clanged shut behind him! It locked him inside! Try as he might, he couldn't escape.
''A passing shepherd heard the boy’s cries. The entire village rushed to help, but even the strongest warriors couldn't open the door. The boy's parents were beside themselves. His mother's wails of grief echoed around the mountain. It seemed hopeless.
''And then they heard a distant laugh.''
''It was Braum, wasn't it?'' asked the girl.
''Aren't you clever? Braum had heard their cries and came striding down the mountain. The villagers told him of the troll boy and the curse. Braum smiled and nodded. He turned to the vault and faced the door. He pushed it. Pulled it. Punched it. Kicked it. Even tried to rip it from its hinges, but the door wasn’t for budging.''
''But he's the strongest man ever!'' cried the girl.
''It was perplexing,'' agreed her grandmother. ''For many days and nights, Braum sat on a boulder, trying to think of a solution. After all, a child's life was at stake.
''Then, as the sun rose on the fifth day, his eyes widened, and a broad grin lit up his face. ‘If I can't go through the door,' he said, ‘then I'll just have to go through-’...''
The girl thought for a moment. Her eyes went wide as she exclaimed, ''The mountain!''
''The mountain indeed. Braum headed to the summit and began punching his way straight down, pummeling his way through the stone, fist after fist. Rocks flew in his wake, until he had vanished deep into the mountain.
''As the villagers held their breath, the rock around the door crumbled. And when the dust cleared, they saw Braum standing amidst the treasure, the weak but happy troll boy cradled in his arms.''
''I knew he could do it!''
''But before they could celebrate, everything began to rumble and shake. Braum's tunnel had weakened the mountain, and now it was caving in! Thinking quickly, Braum grabbed the enchanted door and held it above him like a shield, protecting the villagers as the mountain collapsed around them. When it was over, Braum was amazed. There wasn't a single scratch on the door! Braum knew it was something very special. And from that moment on, the magical shield never left Braum's side.''
The girl sat upright, struggling to conceal her excitement.
''Grandma,'' she said, ''can you tell me another story?''
The girl’s grandmother smiled, kissed her forehead and blew out the candle.
''Tomorrow,” she said. “You need to sleep, and there are many more stories to tell.''
Briar

Near the end of his reign, Grand General Boram Darkwill entrusted the Black Rose and its many hemomancers with creating a new kind of living weapon. Unlike their previous experiments on the deceased, this would be a being born from and fueled by blood—one driven to hunt down targets without requiring the sustenance of food and water.

And so Briar was born.

Her creators wanted an assassin, but all she wanted was to eat, eat, EAT! When her first mission ended in a frenzied, gory failure, the Black Rose decided that Briar was too dangerous to use, but too powerful to be destroyed. In order to control her, they devised a special pillory—locked by a hemolith gemstone—to restrain her and focus her mind. Once shackled with the pillory, Briar, along with the rest of the Black Rose’s living weapons, was quickly deployed during Jericho Swain’s coup against Darkwill.

She was given a handler to help direct her, but when released from her pillory, Briar immediately devoured him and everyone near her—everyone but her target, Swain, who escaped while the living weapon fed upon friend and foe.

After an arduous capture, Swain’s guards managed to trigger Briar’s pillory and restore her restraint, enabling them to transfer her to their holding facility.

Alone in her cell, Briar could focus on nothing except her hunger. Though she couldn't die from starvation, the absence of fresh blood weakened her day by day.

At first, she thought the chorus of crazed wails echoing around her room were her own starving thoughts... until she realized the sounds were drifting in from unseen neighbors. Did Swain’s forces manage to capture other living weapons during the coup? Was she locked up with them now, each having failed their mission? Their purpose?

The voices cried out for blood—a sentiment Briar could relate to. But what she couldn’t stand wasn’t how often they did it, nor how loud they were, but that it was ALL they talked about. Their unrelenting hemomania was the most boring thing she had ever experienced.

As hungry as Briar was—and she was hungry—her thoughts stayed focused on the pitiful sounds of the others. What if she managed to break out of the pillory? Would her frenzy make her even more unhinged than her neighbors? Would she become as single-minded and boring as them? The idea was too horrifying to dwell on, so she instead resigned herself to listless solitude.

Years passed, and the time alone allowed Briar to reflect on herself and consider the possibilities of the world outside her cell. Entertainment consisted of eavesdropping on the guards’ conversations, devising new ways to pester them for raw meat, and agonizing over whether she should race her pet spiders or eat them.

By chance while she was toying with her pillory one day, she inadvertently loosened the hemolith, which settled into a position just short of unlocking the restraint. Briar froze as thoughts of her hemomaniacal neighbors filled her head—is that what she’d become? But then she realized something: Being under control was just as dangerous as being out of control. She wanted to strike the balance.

Having discovered the hemolith’s mechanism, Briar devised a plan.

By this point, the guards were so used to her calls for attention that when she lured one close to her cell, nobody noticed he was missing until it was too late. The guard’s blood surged within her, lighting a fire that had been waiting to spread.

Briar was finally free.
Now the living weapon gleefully roams the streets of Noxus, pillory locked back in place—until she wants to unlock it. As she acclimates to the world outside, with the Black Rose monitoring the unexpected development, Briar eagerly learns all she can, making new friends and discoveries in a world she is starving to experience.
Caitlyn

Born into a wealthy and influential merchant clan, Caitlyn Kiramman swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed elite of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.

Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong, even within a life of comfort and privilege. Her mother was one of the highest comptrollers in Clan Kiramman, and would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.

All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.

Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.

Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. The trail eventually led her to a hidden safehouse, where her mother and father were being tortured for information. She rescued them under cover of darkness, and alerted the Piltover Wardens… though not one of the kidnappers they arrested knew the identity of the individual who had hired them—only a proxy with the initial C.

Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed. Her mother in particular could no longer face the politics and duplicity of clan life, and gave up her prestigious role, leaving something of a vacuum in the Kiramman leadership. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to take her mother’s place, nor to learn her father’s trade as an artificer.

Instead, her focus turned toward breaking through the web of intrigue surrounding the mysterious "C". Utilizing her hunting skills, she established herself as a private investigator, and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could find anything or anyone. In recognition of her self-made success, Caitlyn’s parents crafted her a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field.

After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.

She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C".

Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Wardens, always striving to make the City of Progress a better and safer place. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail.

What Caitlyn doesn't know, however, is that "C" is also keeping tabs on her... especially as her investigations bring her ever closer to the truth.

All stories

Taric

The Uninvited Guest

Teemo

With Teeth

The Boys and Bombolini

Arisen

Bard

Testimony of the Balladeer

Bel’Veth

Pinwheel

Burning Tides

The Bird and the Branch

Blitzcrank

Ensemble

The Bow, and the Kunai

Brand

Braum

Tomb of the Troll Boy

Briar

Caitlyn