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LeBlanc

Matron of the Black Rose, LeBlanc’s identity is as intangible as the whispers that describe her, as ephemeral as the illusions that give her shape. Perhaps it is unknown even to herself, after so many centuries of mimicry and deception…

Remnants of an order that has existed far longer than Noxus itself, initiates of the Black Rose have schemed from the shadows for centuries, drawing the rich and powerful to their ranks. Though they do not often learn the origins of their matron, many have uncovered legends of a pale sorceress who aided the broken barbarian tribes, in their struggle against the infamous Iron Revenant subjugating lands already ravaged by the darkin. Even today, his name is whispered in fear: Mordekaiser.

Uniquely skilled among the revenant’s inner circle before she betrayed him, the sorceress pledged to neutralize the source of his power, the Immortal Bastion, cutting him off from the well of death that fueled his nightmarish empire. Yet, even as the barbarians built an empire of their own in the bastion’s shadow, they failed to realize that the arcane secrets it held had not completely been locked away. The pale sorceress had always been gifted at illusion, and her greatest trick was to make Noxus forget the dark power roiling in its own heart, before she was burned from the pages of history around the time of the Rune Wars.

The Black Rose exists now to further the clandestine interests of those who can wield such magic—with its rank-and-file composed of mundane nobles, drawn to rumors of miracles, kept in thrall and ruthlessly exploited. Even the most powerful military commander could only ever serve the cult’s true masters, as they fight one another for influence in games of intrigue and conquest, both in the Noxian capital and beyond its borders.
For centuries, LeBlanc has served in secret as an advisor to foreign dignitaries, appearing in many nations at once, her illusions driving order into chaos. Rumors of a new matron rising with each generation only raise further questions—which is the “true” version of herself? When she speaks, is it with her own voice? And what will the price be, for the favor she offers?
Boram Darkwill was but the latest to learn this last answer for himself. Though the Black Rose had aided his bid for the throne, he refused the counsel of their hand-picked advisors, requiring LeBlanc to take drastic measures. Manipulating a young nobleman named Jericho Swain into revealing the cult’s involvement, LeBlanc allowed herself to be executed along with the most prominent conspirators… or at least, so it appeared. In time, she reached out to Darkwill herself, and found an increasingly paranoid ruler, fearful of his own mortality.

After promising him the secrets to extend his life, LeBlanc slowly poisoned Darkwill’s mind, even as she empowered him. Under his rule, the Noxian reverence of strength became something far more sinister, and together they ensured Swain’s legend would end in disgrace on the battlefields of Ionia.

But Swain, emboldened by forbidden lore from within the Immortal Bastion, did something wholly unexpected, managing to drag Darkwill from the throne and seize Noxus for himself. This new Grand General was not interested in his own legacy, but the glory of the empire—and such a man could not so easily be corrupted. After countless centuries, LeBlanc wondered, had she finally found a worthy nemesis?

Her actions have pushed Runeterra to the brink of all-out war many times. In the wake of desperate campaigns across the Freljord, on Targon’s peaks, and deep in Shurima’s deserts, the darkest magic has begun to spread once more, circling closer and closer to Noxus. Whether LeBlanc is still the same pale sorceress who betrayed the Iron Revenant, or merely one of countless hollow reflections, her influence clearly stems from ancient roots.

The Black Rose has yet to truly bloom.
Thorns of the Black Rose

L J Goulding

“I don’t understand,” General Granth mutters, nervously trying to smother the light from his lamp. “There’s nothing here. It’s a dead end.”
He stands at the threshold, framed by the dark stonework against the deeper darkness beyond it. He does not see the open gateway before him, nor the angular Ochnun inscriptions that surround it. He does not see the fragments of bone that litter the flagstones beneath his boots.
I smile, playing my part. “It is the simplest of things,” I tell him, “to hide in plain sight.”
The general turns, confusion and frustration written clearly upon his face. “Don’t play games with me, cousin! Do you have any idea what I’m risking, being down here? Or what would happen if we’re caught? These districts are forbidden, by order of the council—there are Legion patrols everywhere!”
This, at least, is true. Ever since the usurper Swain seized control, he has kept the Immortal Bastion locked down. Officially, it is to protect the Trifarix against reprisals from those noble houses that opposed its creation.
Unofficially, he is daring men like Brannin Granth to expose themselves as his enemies.
“But they would not doubt your loyalty,” I reassure him. “A hero of the Gates of Mourning, no less. You are to be honored by command of the Grand General himself. What can they say to that? If we were spotted, you would not even need to run.”
His expression darkens. “Oh, you don’t run from the Trifarian Legion…”
I do not need to hear this thinly veiled propaganda again. In little more than a year, Swain has built a certain mystique around himself and the Hand of Noxus, and those that serve them both. It is a brilliant scheme, though it fills my heart with hatred to admit it.
Even so, I let Granth have his moment. It is why we are here.
His eyes fall to the ground. “We didn’t win the Gates of Mourning—the Legion did. That’s why Swain won’t attend the triumph. He knows we need not even have been there, damn him. He insults us with this pomp and ceremony, in front of all Noxus!”
I nod, laying a hand on Granth’s shoulder. “And that is why we will make him pay for everything he has done. You are a true Noxian, anyone can see that. I have told the others all about you, and they wish to meet you for themselves. She wishes to meet you.”
“I can’t meet anyone, cousin, if we can’t get inside.” He glances around. “Doesn’t the Black Ro—”
I recoil. “Do not use that name. It makes you sound like… well, as you said. Like you don’t understand.”
Pushing past him, I stride through the yawning mouth of the gate. He almost drops the lantern in surprise, seeing the entrance now, for the first time. Stumbling after me, Granth checks to make sure we are not being followed, then squints into the shadows of the passageway.
“Is it true?” he hisses. “What they say about her, is it true?”
I do not slow my pace. “Come. Find out for yourself.”

The Immortal Bastion is not a monument, as most Noxians believe. Nor is it merely a fortress, in the sense that the old tribes knew it.
The stone around us almost thrums with power, though Granth is mostly oblivious. I have seen it countless times, through the centuries—he knows something is not right, but feels it only as a lethargic drag on his limbs, and a whispering itch in the back of his brain. Few mortals last long when they are this close to the source. To his credit, he still has his wits about him, enough to reach for his dagger when a robed figure emerges from the gloom.
…I pass both of us, coming in the other direction. I look tired.
No matter. This will be concluded soon enough.
Granth eyes me suspiciously until I disappear from sight, then ambles to the side of the person he knows as his cousin.
“Hadrion, who are these people?” Granth asks, as more anonymous figures come and go. “I don’t recognize any of them. Are they the allies you spoke of, among the other houses?”
I sigh. It is disappointing that the finest military minds often cannot see what is right in front of them. “They are sympathetic to our family’s plight,” I reply, keeping the disdain from my voice. “We, all of us, are committed to the downfall of the usurper, and the restoration of the throne. It is better that you do not know their names, or their faces.”
He scoffs. “But how can we work together, if we—”
The words die on his lips as we turn the last corner.
We stand at the edge of the great well of souls, plunging down into the bedrock of Noxus, far deeper than the physical dimensions of the Bastion should even allow. A roiling miasma of cold blues and jealous greens swirls in the distance beneath us, underlighting the three bridges that span the gap.
There, between them, suspended against the madness, is a frightful, hulking silhouette that every Noxian knows only too well. A husk of lifeless armor depicted in every history book, and a thousand defaced statues scattered across the old city.
Granth takes half a step back. “It can't be…” he murmurs. “It… It can't…”
His voice is cracking. His eyes glisten with tears. I lean in over his shoulder, to whisper behind his ear.
“Do you see the truth of it, now? The truth behind the great empire of Noxus? So has it been for centuries, since the days of the first kings—no Grand General, no emperor or tyrant, can stand unless the mistress of the Immortal Bastion allows it. Many are those who would serve, though few prove worthy.”
I gently pluck the lantern from his trembling fingers, and guide him away from the sight that has so transfixed him, toward the veiled alcoves that line the passage on either side.
“Swain must fall. Our cabal is utterly committed to this, above all else, and we will sacrifice whatever we must to achieve it.”
On some level, Granth knows what he will see even before I pull back the shroud.
It is the dessicated body of his cousin, Hadrion. The younger man’s features are frozen in a deathly rictus, yet there is an unmistakable sense of peace about it.
“Your house was singled out most unfairly during the coup, Brannin Granth. Your father and his brothers were stripped of all they possessed, simply for remaining true to Boram Darkwill at the end. Hadrion gave his life gladly in pursuit of revenge. Will you honor that debt, and join us now, too?”
Granth sinks to his knees, looking up at me with fresh eyes. “You. You are her. You are the pale woman.”
He does not even flinch when a second pale woman appears at my side. We speak with the same voice. “I am everywhere. I am everyone. You know only what you need to know, and see what I want you to see.”
Jericho Swain is not the only one who can exaggerate his own legend.
A third pale woman steps out behind Granth, and then a fourth. Even so, he bows his head to me, no doubt convinced he finally understands. He does not need us to point out the empty alcove beside his cousin’s.
“With all my heart,” he swears, “and every drop of my noble blood, I will serve you, my lady. I will not rest until the pretender Swain is dead.”
This naive fool thinks he will be the one to land the killing blow. I will let him think that, for it suits my purpose, which is merely to probe the Grand General’s defenses.
I trace the sigil of the cabal in the air above Granth’s head, marking him as my own. None who can see it will interfere with the plots we shall soon devise. “Rise then, proud son of the Noxii. Your pledge is heard and accepted. Together, we will be victorious, and your name will be celebrated as the savior of an empire.”
Lee Sin

Among the many spirits Ionians revere, none are as storied as that of the dragon. While some believe it embodies ruin, others view it as a symbol of rebirth. Few can say for certain, and fewer still have ever been able to channel the dragon’s spirit, and none so completely as Lee Sin.
He arrived at the Shojin monastery as a boy, claiming the dragon had chosen him to wield its power. The elder monks saw flashes of its fire in the talented child, but also sensed his reckless pride, and the disaster it could bring. Warily, they nonetheless took him as a pupil—though, as others advanced, the elders kept him cleaning dishes and scrubbing floors.
Lee Sin grew impatient. He longed to fulfill his destiny, not waste time on chores.
Sneaking into the hidden archives, he found ancient texts describing how to call upon the spirit realm, and chose to flaunt his skill during a combat lesson. Brashly, he unleashed the dragon’s rage in a wild kick, paralyzing his learned instructor. Consumed with shame and banished for his arrogance, the young man set out to atone.
Years passed. Lee Sin wandered far, to distant places, benevolently aiding those in need. Eventually he reached the Freljord, where he met Udyr, a wildman who channeled the primal beasts of his homeland. The so-called Spirit Walker struggled to control the powers that warred within him, and Lee Sin began to wonder if controlling the dragon was even possible. Sharing a need for spiritual guidance, the two men forged a bond, and he invited Udyr on his journey back home.
The two were dismayed to hear that the empire of Noxus had invaded and occupied Ionia. Monks from every province had fallen back to defend the holy monastery at Hirana, high up in the mountains.
Lee Sin and Udyr found it besieged. Noxian soldiers had broken through to Hirana’s great hall. As Udyr leapt to join the fray, Lee Sin hesitated, seeing his former peers and elders fall to the enemy’s blades. The wisdom of Hirana, Shojin, so much of Ionia’s ancient culture—all would be lost.
With no other choice left, he invoked the dragon spirit.
A tempest of flames engulfed him, searing his skin and burning the sight from his eyes. Imbued with wild power, he crippled the invaders with a flurry of breakneck punches and rapid kicks, the untamable spirit flaring brighter and hotter with each blow.
The monks were victorious, but Lee Sin’s desperate actions left the monastery in ruins, and his vision would never return. At last, in the blind darkness, he understood that no mortal could ever bend the might of the dragon spirit to their will completely. Devastated, agonized, he bound a cloth over his sightless eyes and tried to stagger away down the mountain paths.
But the surviving elders stopped him. In forsaking all desire for power, their disgraced pupil was finally ready to begin anew. Although they would not forget his previous arrogance, the monks offered absolution: the dragon’s wrath was deadly and unpredictable, true enough, but the humblest and worthiest mortal souls could counter its fiery nature, and direct it from time to time.
Gratefully, Lee Sin stayed with the monks to rebuild their monastery, and after the work was done and the Spirit Walker returned to the Freljord, Lee Sin devoted himself fully toward the pursuit of enlightenment.
In the years since the war with Noxus ended, he has continued to meditate on his role in Ionia. Knowing his homeland has not faced the last of its trials, Lee Sin must master himself, and the dragon spirit within, to face whatever foe is yet to come.
All That Glitters...

Ancient roots, sinuous trees and thickly-leafed vines clinging to the rocks all but obscured the path through the lush jungle. Three men sweated as they hacked their way onward, driven by hearts filled with greed and dreams of untold wealth. For six days the jungle had defied them, but now the temple reared from the undergrowth. Its facade was carved into a colossal stone outcropping, with blossoms of red and blue spreading around its base. Serene statuary filled golden alcoves and garlands of golden orchids were entwined around its eaves.
“You see, Horta?” said Wren. “Didn’t we tell you the temple was real?”
“So long as the treasures inside are real,” said Horta, tossing aside the blunted hatchet and drawing a freshly sharpened sword. “You both staked your lives on that, remember?”
“Don’t worry, Horta,” said Merta, with a rasping cough. “You’ll be able to buy your own palace after this.”
“I’d better,” said Horta. “Now draw your blades. Kill anyone who gets in our way.”
The three brigands approached the temple, weapons glinting in the setting sun. Horta saw its corners were not sharp and defined; every edge flowing together instead of meeting at angles. As they made their way inside, they passed between two magnificent Ionian Whipwillows, their trunks curved to form an entranceway, with bark so white it seemed painted.
“Why aren’t there any guards?” he asked, as he stepped inside.
The question went unanswered as his eyes adjusted to the sepulchral gloom of a chamber hewn into the rock. The arched roof was carved with bas-relief, and every wall glittered with colored chips of glass to form a mosaic of vivid landscapes that rippled with light and life. Ivory tablets engraved with ancient Shojin parables were situated upon pillars of carved bronze, and gem-studded idols of jet stood watchfully in sunken alcoves. Statues of warrior-gods, each trimmed with gold, stared down from plinths of porphyry and jade.
Horta grinned. “Take it. Take it all.”
Wren and Merta sheathed their swords and flung open their packs. They began filling them with everything they could reach: statues, idols and gemstones, whooping with glee as they dragged a fortune in gold behind them. Horta circled the chamber, already planning their deaths when they got back to civilization, when he noticed that one of the statues was moving.
At first glance, he’d thought it to be a painted idol of a warrior monk, seated with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. His back had been toward Horta, but now the man stood and turned on the spot with the fluid ease of a coiled snake. Lean and powerfully muscled, he wore loose-fitting trousers and a red bandanna across his eyes.
“Not so empty after all,” said Horta, flexing his fingers on the leather-wound grip of his sword. “Good. I was hoping I’d get to cut someone up.”
The monk cocked his head to the side as though listening to sounds only he could hear and said, “Three men. One with a blighted lung, another with a weak heart that will not see out the year.”
The sightless monk turned and stared directly at Horta, though there was surely no way he could see him through the thick fabric bound across his eyes.
“You have a twist in your spine,” he said. “It pains you in the winter and forces you to favor your left side.”
“What are you, some kind of seer?” demanded Horta, nervously licking his lips.
The monk ignored the question and said, “I am Lee Sin.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” asked Horta.
“I give you this one chance to put back what you have taken,” said Lee Sin. “Then leave this place and never return.”
“You’re in no position to make demands, my blind friend,” said Horta, letting the tip of his sword scrape across the stone floor. “There are three of us and you aren’t even armed.”
Wren and Merta gave nervous laughs, wary of the monk’s confidence even in the face of their advantage of numbers. Horta gestured with his free hand, and his two companions moved to flank the monk, each drawing a curved blade from leather sheaths.
“This is a sacred place,” said Lee Sin, with a rueful sigh. “It should not be desecrated.”
Horta gave the others a nod. “Put this sightless fool out of his misery.”
Wren stepped forward. Lee Sin was moving before his foot hit the ground. The monk went from being utterly still to a blur of motion in the blink of an eye. His arm whipped around and the hard edge of his hand struck Wren’s neck. Bone crunched and the bandit dropped, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. Lee Sin swayed aside as Merta slashed with his sword. The blow was wild, and the reverse stroke flashed over Lee Sin’s head. The monk dropped flat, twisting as he fell to sweep his shin out and scythe Merta’s legs out from under him. The bandit collapsed, his weapon skittering away over the tiled floor. Lee Sin sprang to his feet and hammered his heel down on Merta’s sternum.
Merta gave a strangled cry as his ribs cracked and the splintered ends were driven into his weak heart. Stolen gemstones spilled from his fallen pack as his eyes bulged in agony and he fought for breath like a landed fish.
“You’re fast for a monk,” said Horta, slicing his sword through the air in a series of blindingly swift maneuvers. “But I’m no slouch with a blade.”
“You believe you are fast?” asked Lee Sin.
“Trained by the best, so you won’t find me as easy to beat as those two idiots,” said Horta, nodding toward the bodies of his former companions.
Lee Sin made no reply as they circled one another. Horta watched as the blind man tracked his every motion. The monk’s steps were fluid and precise, and Horta had the uncomfortable feeling that every passing second was revealing more of his own abilities to his opponent.
He roared and threw himself at the monk, attacking in a blistering series of high slashes and lunges. Lee Sin swayed aside, moving like a wind-blown sapling as he dodged, deflected and spun away from Horta’s desperate strikes. He kept his blade in constant motion, forcing Lee Sin back with every attack. The monk hadn’t even broken a sweat. His impassive mouth, covered eyes and casual disdain infuriated Horta.
He gathered himself for one final attack, drawing on every scrap of training, fury and strength he could muster. His sword cut the air around the monk, but never once made contact.
Lee Sin spun away one last time and bent his knees, his body taut.
“You have speed and not a little skill,” he said, sinews pulsing beneath his skin, “but anger colors your every thought. It has consumed you and has led to your death.”
Horta felt the air in the chamber grow warmer as streamers of energy coalesced around Lee Sin. A fiery vortex engulfed the monk and Horta backed away in terror, his sword falling from his grip. Lee Sin was trembling, as though fighting to control energies more powerful than he could contain. The chamber reverberated with the sound of a rising wind.
“Please,” said Horta. “I’ll put it back. I’ll put it all back!”
Lee Sin leapt, propelled by the blitzing hurricane of energy. His foot hammered into Horta’s chest, hurling him backward. Horta slammed against the wall and stone cracked under the impact. He fell limply to the floor, every bone in his spine shattered like broken pottery.
“You had a chance to avoid this, but you did not take it,” said Lee Sin. “Now you pay the price.”
Horta’s vision greyed at the edges as death approached, but not before he saw Lee Sin return to his seated position. The monk’s back was to him, and, as his posture relaxed, the vortex of lethal energies began to dissipate.
Lee Sin bowed his head and resumed his meditation.
The Legend of the Frozen Watchers

Of all the tales of the old Freljord that have somehow endured into the modern age, there is one—and one alone—that can chill the blood of even the hardiest Iceborn.
The Frostguard do not tell it. Many of them do not even know it, in full.
By decree of the Ice Witch Lissandra herself, to perpetuate this forbidden legend is heresy against the true faith, and carries the penalty of death for any who speak it aloud. In all the vast libraries of the Frostguard Citadel, only a single written account remains—and that was penned by her most trusted scribe, many thousands of years ago. Few indeed are those individuals across Runeterra who know the truth behind the legend, and Lissandra can count on the fingers of one hand those who were there in person and might dare to contradict her…
It was in the final, dark days of the War of the Three Sisters that Avarosa and Serylda finally marched their warriors up into the mountains, to face Lissandra before the walls of her own fortress. They would not serve the otherworldly masters that she had pledged them to. This would be an end to it.
The Ice Witch gestured to the armies they led, the great alliance that had finally brought these wild lands to heel. The mortal Iceborn were all but immune to the winter’s chill. The troll kings had roamed far across the tundra, amassing tremendous wealth from their conquests. Even the magnificent and terrible Balestriders, twisted far beyond their original form, moved now at the command of the Three.
All of this, Lissandra reminded her sisters, was because of the bargain she had made with the masters of the realm below—the beings she knew as Watchers. It was they who had revealed to her the primal secrets of the world. It was they who would have the final victory.
And it was then, at the height of this bitter confrontation, that the Watchers finally came to Runeterra.
The ground split open, swallowing thousands of warriors into the abyss beneath it, before the first of the dread things heaved itself up into existence. It was new to the material realm, bewildered by such notions as form and constancy, and began immediately to rail against them. In a foul riot of unchecked metamorphosis, it sprouted horns, and patches of fur, and its colossal tentacular limbs grew into jointed humanoid arms with fingers that clawed the bare rock of the mountainsides. Worst of all, other Watchers were following closely in its wake, wracked by horrifying transformations of their own.
It might be fair to assume there was a battle, that the Iceborn rallied behind Avarosa and Serylda to fight back the darkness—but in truth, it was Lissandra who ended it. She saw these abominations now for what they were, and knew what had to be done.
Summoning every last iota of the ancient magic around her, including that of her allies, she sacrificed everything to seal the rift-between-realms with True Ice, entombing the Watchers within it. Vast plumes of freezing vapor howled through the chasm, and those mortal warriors who managed to escape were driven to insanity by what they had witnessed.
This, then, is not only the legend of how Lissandra saved the world from destruction, but also the only first-hand account of the martyrdom of Avarosa and Serylda.
And may the Three have mercy upon all who read it.
Leona

Among the Rakkor tribes that dwell upon Mount Targon, the sun is sacred, and none venerate it more than the Solari. Children are raised from birth to honor it, and even to shed blood for it, until its Aspect returns, heralding a grave threat they all must face.
Leona was one such child. She took to the Solari faith as naturally as breathing, finding solace and warmth within its rigid structure. This manifested through her rapid achievement of excellence, her peers envious of her capability, willpower, and devotion. None doubted she would one day become one of the Ra’Horak, the holy warriors of the Solari.
Though Leona flourished, she could not help but see her masters struggle with their most exasperating student, an orphan named Diana. Her curiosity was welcomed at first, but soon the teachers began to perceive Diana’s questions as challenging the Solari ways. Leona watched Diana suffer punishment and isolation—but where others saw insolence, she saw a lost soul devoted to a search for meaning.
Leona found her purpose in the Solari teachings, and resolved to share it with Diana as even the most dutiful teachers forsook her. The two would debate late into the night, with Leona hoping to persuade Diana that everything she could ever want was there in the faith, waiting for her to accept it. Though she failed to win Diana over, Leona did find a friend.
One night, Diana confided a secret to Leona. She spoke of discovering a hidden alcove in the mountain, an ancient place where the walls were etched with depictions of strange symbols and forgotten societies. When Diana mentioned climbing the summit of Mount Targon to learn more, Leona urged her to stop. Seeking to protect her from the ire of the other Solari, Leona made Diana promise to abandon this search. Reluctantly, Diana agreed.
Time passed, and the two never spoke of Diana’s discovery again. Leona believed her friend had finally come to her senses.
Her belief was shattered late one night, when she glimpsed Diana slipping out of the temple. While her first instinct was to tell the elders, Leona thought instead of protecting her friend, wresting her back from the edge. Resolved, Leona set off after Diana…
To the summit of Mount Targon.
The ascent was a trial unlike any Leona had ever endured, straining every fiber of her being to its limit, and beyond. Her training, willpower, and concern for Diana was all that drove her on. The unblinking eyes of bodies frozen into the mountain's slopes watched her climb, their own journeys forever incomplete, but not even they could deter her.
After what seemed an eternity—and much to her own amazement—Leona reached the peak.
Exhausted, she beheld an uncanny landscape, and found Diana engulfed in a coruscating column of silver light. Leona saw her friend’s silhouette writhing in agony, the air rippling with her screams. Horrified, Leona rushed to her aid, when a golden radiance slashed down from the heavens to envelop her.
The sensation was indescribable, but rather than incinerating Leona, the illumination coursed into her, suffusing her with incredible power. She clung to her consciousness, fighting the current seeking to sear away her very being.
Ultimately, her indomitable will triumphed—and with that control came understanding.
With control came understanding. Leona was forever changed, imbued by the Aspect of the Sun. Destiny had selected her, and it was her duty to protect the Solari in the times to come.
It was then that Leona saw Diana, clad in gleaming silver war-plate, a strange reflection of the golden armor she discovered herself now wearing. Diana begged Leona to join her, to seek out answers the Solari could not offer. Leona demanded they return home, and present themselves for the priests’ judgment. Neither conceded, and they finally felt the weight of the weapons in their hands.
Their combat was swift, a blistering clash between sun and moon, ending with Diana’s crescent blade at Leona’s throat. But, rather than delivering the killing blow, Diana fled. Devastated, Leona descended Targon and hurried to her elders.
When she arrived, she found slaughter. Many Solari priests and their Ra’Horak guardians were dead, seemingly slain by Diana’s hand. The survivors were awed by the presence of two Aspects now in their midst, and Leona was committed to helping them navigate this new reality—the guiding light to her people, just as the sun had always been.
She has sworn to find Diana, to preserve the dominance of the Solari... but also to help her old friend control the Moon Aspect’s power before it destroys her.
The Light Bringer

The raiders attacked before dawn; fifty wolf-lean men in iron hauberks mantled with strange furs and bearing ash-dulled axes. Their steps were swift as they entered the settlement at the foot of the mountain. These were men who had fought as brothers for years, who lived in the heartbeat between life and death. A warrior in battered scale armor and bearing a heavy-bladed greatsword over his shoulder led them. Beneath his dragon-helm, his face was bearded and raw, burned by a lifetime of war-making under a harsher sun than this.
The previous settlements had been easily overcome; little challenge for men weaned on battle. The spoils were few and far between, but in this strange land, a man took what he could get.
This one would be no different.
Sudden light flared ahead, sunlight gleaming brightly.
Impossible. Dawn was an hour or more away.
The leader raised a callused hand as he saw a lone figure standing athwart the settlement’s street. He grinned as he saw it was a woman. Finally, something worth plundering. Light enflamed her, and the grin fell from his face as he stepped closer and saw she was clad in ornate warplate. Auburn hair spilled from a golden circlet and sunlight glinted from her heavy shield and long-bladed sword.
More warriors emerged from the street, taking their place to either side of the woman, each gold-armored and bearing a long spear.
“These lands are under my protection,” she said.
Leona lifted her sword as the twelve warriors of the Ra-Horak formed a wedge with her at their center. Six to either side, they swung their shields and hammered them down as one. Leona made a quarter turn and locked her own shield into place at the apex. Her sword slid into the thrust groove beneath the shield’s bladed halo.
She flexed her fingers on the leather-wound grip of her sword, feeling the surge-tide of power within her. A coiled fire that ached to be released. Leona held it within her, letting it ease into her flesh. Embers flecked her eyes and her heart pounded in her chest. The being she had joined with atop the mountain longed to burn these men with its cleansing fire.
Dragon-helm is the key. Kill him and the rest will falter.
Part of Leona wanted to give the power in her free reign; wanted to scorch these men to smoldering bone and ash. Their attacks had killed scores of people who called the lands around Mount Targon home. They had defiled the sacred places of the Solari, toppling sacred sun stones and polluting the mountain springs with their excretions.
Dragon-helm laughed and swung his greatsword from his shoulders as his men moved away from him. To fight with such a huge weapon and keep it in constant motion needed space. He yelled something in a guttural tongue that sounded more like animal barks than anything human, and his warriors gave an answering roar.
Leona let out a hot breath as the raiders charged, their braided beards flecked with frothed spittle as they pounded toward the Ra-Horak. Leona let the fire into her blood, feeling the ancient creature merge its essence with hers more completely, becoming one with her senses and gifting her with perceptions not of this world.
Time slowed for Leona. She saw the pulsing glow of each enemy’s heart and heard the thunderous drum-beat of their blood. To her, their bodies were hazed with the red fires of battle-lust. Dragon-helm leapt forward, his sword hammering Leona’s shield like a stone titan’s fist. The impact was ferocious, buckling the metal and driving her back a full yard. The Ra-Horak stepped back with her, keeping the shieldwall unbroken. Leona’s shield blazed with light and Dragon-helm’s mantle of fur smoldered in its furnace heat. His eyes widened in surprise as he hauled his enormous sword back for another strike.
“Brace and thrust!” she yelled as the rest of the raiders hit their line. Golden spears thrust at the instant of impact and the first rank of attackers fell with their bellies pierced by mountain-forged steel. They were trampled underfoot as the warriors behind them pressed the attack.
The shieldwall buckled, but held. Axes smashed down, sinews swelled and throats grunted with the effort of attack. Leona thrust her sword through the neck of a raider with a scar bisecting his face from crown to jaw. He screamed and fell back, his throat filling with blood. Her shield slammed into the face of the man next to him, caving in his skull.
The Ra-Horak’s line bent back as Dragon-helm’s sword slammed down again, this time splintering the shield of the warrior next to her. The man dropped, cloven from neck to pelvis.
Leona didn’t give Dragon-helm the chance for a third strike.
She thrust her golden sword toward him and a searing echo of its image blazed from the rune-cut blade. White-hot fire engulfed Dragon-helm, his furs and hair instantly igniting and his armor fusing to his flesh like a brand. He shrieked in hideous pain, and Leona felt the cosmic power inside her revel in the man’s agony. He staggered backward, somehow still alive and screaming as her fire melted the flesh from his bones. His men faltered in their assault as he fell to his knees as a blazing pyre.
“Into them!” shouted Leona, and the Ra-Horak surged forward. Powerful arms stabbed spear blades with brutal efficiency. Thrust, twist, withdraw. Over and over again like the relentless arms of a threshing machine. The raiders turned and fled from the Ra-Horak’s blood-wetted blades, horrified at their war-leader’s doom. Now they sought only to escape.
How and why these raiders had come to Targon was a mystery, for they had clearly not come to bear witness on the mountain nor make an ascent. They were warriors, not pilgrims, and left alive they would only regroup to kill again.
Leona could not allow that and thrust her sword into the earth. She reached deep inside herself, drawing on the awesome power from beyond the mountain. The sun emerged from behind its highest peaks as Leona thrust her hand to the light.
She dropped to one knee and slammed her fist on the ground.
And sunfire rained from the sky.
Lillia

In Ionia, magic is woven into the land. Forests spread vibrantly, and trees often boast nearly as many colors as leaves, touched by the wonders of the spirit realm.
But there is one forest, hidden away, that draws on a different kind of magic—a garden with a tree at its heart that gathers humanity’s dreams in its blooms.
The Dreaming Tree grew from a seed of the God-Willow, which towered over the ancient grove of Omikayalan. Cast loose when the God-Willow was tragically felled, the seed took root in what came to be known as the Garden of Forgetting. Nurtured by the Green Father, Ivern—as many of the descendants of Omikayalan were—the Dreaming Tree spiraled up, spreading the magic of humanity’s desires each time the dream-laden buds bloomed.
Lillia was born when one of the tree’s own dreams was captured in a bud that fell to the ground before it could bloom—something that had never happened before. Sprouting into an awkward fawn creature with the flower bud still on her head, Lillia’s only company was her mother tree, and the dreams that drifted to the garden each night.
Lillia helped tend the buds, and learned about humanity through them. Enchanted by the people and places she glimpsed, she spent every waking moment experiencing a swirl of emotions and desires that mortals could only see when they closed their eyes.
In caring for the dreams, Lillia also cared for the dreamers. She came to consider each of them a new friend, wanting nothing more than to one day greet the people who imagined such wonders. Lillia wanted it so badly that her own desires eventually gathered in a bud on the tree.
But when Lillia finally did meet humans, it wasn’t like remembering a familiar dream. It was more like waking up.
Something was happening in the world outside Lillia’s forest. War blazed like a fire through the land, and in time, fewer dreams began to reach the garden. The tree itself grew sick, and became infected with burls—writhing tangles in its trunk, which oozed darkness.
Lillia did her best to nurture her mother tree and the dreams that remained in its buds, but it was not long before the garden became so weak that the violence of the world spilled in. One night, warriors entered the forest and chased a lone figure all the way to the Dreaming Tree. With a single errant blade’s slash, the branch containing Lillia’s unrealized dream came thudding to the ground.
Lillia panicked and forced them all to sleep, shocked at the difference between the mortals she thought she knew, and the ones she had found.
They were so afraid—more tangle than sparkle. They were like the burls…
But as the warriors slept and Lillia wept, a dream emerged from the lone figure the others had been chasing. Weakly, it floated toward the broken branch on the ground and moved into the bough’s bud.
Lillia picked it up. She could feel the dream. As she whispered to it and soothed it, it glowed ever brighter—and so did she. The bud upon her head unfurled, and magic swirled around like sparkling pollen. In that moment, swept up in possibility and wonder, Lillia herself bloomed… until, with a sneeze, she sent the magic curling into the surrounding forest.
The humans awoke one by one, unable to remember what had brought them to the forest, or what they had done. None noticed the timid fawn behind the tree. With relief, Lillia watched the humans go, still seeing only confusing tangles—but knowing now that there was still a sparkle beneath it all.
And if their dreams wouldn’t come to the tree, she would have to bring the tree to them.
Taking up her branch, Lillia left the garden and entered the world of humans—a world she had always wanted to know, but one that frightened her now more than anything. It was so unlike what she understood.
Hiding just out of sight, Lillia now helps people’s dreams be born, drawn forward by glimpses of who they could be, and by what may be trapped beneath their tangles. By helping humans realize their deepest wishes, Lillia realizes her own, the bud on her head blooming as she is filled with joy.
Though darkness may be encroaching on Ionia once more, it is but a mask, and beneath it lies the familiar sparkle of hope. Only by braving the world, and braving herself, can Lillia hope to untangle its burls.
The Garden of Dreaming

David Slagle

The child slowly makes her way into the forest. And sometimes beneath the forest as the canopy of leaves weaves a green blanket against the clouds. Oh! And sometimes over the forest when there are roots! Don’t trip, little girl, don’t trip. And now… she’s going through it.
Toward me.
Eep!
I stand in the shadows beyond the path leading away from the girl’s village where countless humans have gathered. The small bud on my head peeks out from behind a bush. My hooves dig nervous furrows into the ground, and I hug the branch from Mother Tree tightly to my chest, comforted by the familiar, swirly feeling of the bark.
It’s safe here, in the trees. Or maybe a few more steps behind them.
J-just a few more…
Even with so many humans in the village filling the hillside with life, the girl is alone.
I hold my branch tighter, reminding myself of what I have to do. It’s time to move forward, Lillia. Just one step. You can do this—Mother Tree is sick. She needs the girl’s dream. I take the step. Or, at least, my hoof shifts a little. Oh. That didn’t go very far. Okay, Lillia, another one. This time I lift one shaky hoof up, and before I can get too afraid, I slam it back down.
Whoopsie. That was backward.
The girl stops to sit beneath a tree not far from where I’m watching, just close enough that I can hear her crying softly into a ragged doll cradled in her arms.
There’s no one to wipe away her tears… but she’s not entirely alone. Beneath everything, vibrating with potential in my branch… I can feel it—her dream.
The bud dangling from the tip of the bough shudders to radiant life now that it senses the child and her dream. Like the small flower on my head, the glowing bud and branch are also from Mother Tree—drawn to dreams just as much as the slumbering magic is drawn to them. Glittering pollen drifts from between its petals, and the shadows around me recede, fleeing the light before I can.
My— My hoof is showing? Eep!
I sprawl and contort all four of my legs to fit in the shrinking shadow, wobbling as my balance threatens to give. The glimmering bud swings wildly as the bough sways with me, casting clouds of dust-like pollen that drift toward the girl through the leaves. And then, as the shadows move again, I stumble into the clearing where she awaits.
All I can do is peer at her from behind my branch, too afraid to blink.
But she doesn’t see me. She presses her face into the doll, hiding her tears. Her sobs turn into whimpers, her whimpers into sighs. The pollen from the bud gradually settles around her, twinkling as the girl’s eyes slowly flutter closed. She slumps against the tree, the doll sliding from her grasp.
I’m still afraid to move. Something twirls out of the bough’s bud and dances above my head. It’s my old friend, a little dream that’s traveled with me since I first left Mother Tree’s mystical garden. As if sensing the other dream still snuggled inside the girl, my glittering friend dances through the air toward her.
“That was a close one,” I say as the dream flits back and forth.
It skims above the girl and leaves a trail of sparkles that tickle her skin until she smacks her lips and wrinkles her nose. She snorts so loudly that I leap again, landing with a blush. I touch the petals of the small bud on my head, wondering if they’re flushing as red as my cheeks. The child remains fast asleep.
Why isn’t her dream coming out?
My friend continues to spin around the girl, trying to summon the other dream. But my eyes are drawn to the doll on the ground instead, the girl’s hand hanging as if she still reaches for it, her fingers squeezing tight.
Before I left the garden—the place that was my home—I used to think that dreams were the things people wanted most every time they closed their eyes. But now, I see that the things they want, that they reach for and hold on to… only make them sad. The thing I wanted most, which was to meet the dreamers, hurt Mother Tree.
What if dreams aren’t the things we want?
I put down my branch. This time you can do it, Lillia. Just close your eyes, like you’re sleeping. Stumbling forward, I kneel beside the girl and take up her doll.
What if dreams are the things we need?
I start to hand the doll back to the girl, wary of getting this close, even to such a small human. Instinctively, she rolls over as she feels it against her chest, sitting up to pull the doll into a hug. Her tiny arms are just long enough to wrap around me as well. As she hugs the doll, she pulls me in closer, and closer.
And in that moment, we both find what we need to bloom.
The girl’s dream finally emerges in a luminous swirl, spiraling and dancing alongside my old friend, and filling the forest with so much wonder that I can feel it all the way down to my hooves.
I want to prance!
Like a color that has no name, each dream is so hard to describe. Is this dream the girl’s sister, wrapping her in its arms although the sisters have already said goodbye? Is it the doll she pretends is her sister before she put on armor and left everything else behind? Or are these only the things the child grasped too hard while hugging her doll, and her dream is something deeper—something truer?
“You miss your sister, don’t you?” I whisper into her ear. “You need her love.”
Giving her that love, seeing it and feeling it, is what I need, too. I melt into the hug, and send dream dust spiraling as the small bud on my head twirls open.
Both dreams curl into the large bud on my branch. “I’ll whisper your dream to the tree. I’ll remember,” I tell the girl. “I’m glad I got to meet you,” I add.
I hope her dream hears me, too.
I let go of the girl and lay her down gently. With her sighs, she releases all that’s been trapping her dream.
Like so many mortals, her sister may never come back to give her the love she desires. That’s why she needs to dream. That’s why it will always be there, and she’ll never be alone, as long as she remembers to close her eyes.
That’s why dreams are magical… and the little girl is, too.
I sneeze, and the dust-pollen in the bud on my head swirls away, carrying the magic of the child’s dream into a wind that blows toward Mother Tree.
“Whoopsie,” I blush, realizing I’m in the open. And before the feeling of wonder completely fades, I prance back into the forest.
The girl opens her eyes with a well-rested yawn. The sun is shining through the leaves above her. She’s surprised to find herself still in the forest, and drops her doll in shock. Then, slowly, she remembers what it means to her—who gave it to her—and picks it back up.
She holds the doll tight and starts to run through the clearing.
“O-Ma, O-Ma! Has sister returned?” she cries to her grandmother. “I just saw her. I saw her!”
The girl’s small outline disappears, but in her wake, following the path where she ran, dream blossoms sprout from sparkling pollen.
Perhaps when the child returns, she will pick one of these flowers. And know that in her heart—though it can’t be held—the love of her sister will always bloom.
Lissandra

In a time long forgotten, before the sands birthed and then swallowed Shurima, beings of old magic freely walked Runeterra. The borders between the mortal realm and what lay beyond it were hotly contested.
Into this dangerous and volatile age, Lissandra and her sisters, Serylda and Avarosa, were born. Each sought to harness the powers at war, and each paid a terrible price. Attempting to command the heavens above them, Serylda lost her voice to the first twilight. Avarosa faced the twisting dark beneath the world, and was deafened by its emptiness, waiting to consume all creation.
It was Lissandra who stood against the wild magic of the mortal world itself. For this defiance, the savage claws of a primal god raked across her eyes, blinding her.
Though each sister had lost a part of themselves, it was on the frozen fields of Lissandra’s many battles that they were able to unite and prevail. Together, they were unstoppable… but even a bond of blood could only weather so much.
With her sight taken, Lissandra chose instead to walk in dreams. As she navigated the fitful visions of those around her, she realized only she could see the darkness below for what it was: the lingering abyss promised not only an ending, but infinity. It was death, both dangerous and full of potential. Unknown to her sisters, Lissandra struck a deal on their behalf with the god-like entities she had communed with—the Watchers would grant them near-immortality in exchange for preparing Runeterra for the coming of the Void.
The three sisters and their most powerful followers were named Iceborn. Those with this ability to withstand the worst of the numbing frost would be spared until the very end.
However, Lissandra’s sisters grew displeased. Avarosa argued that the only thing worse than death was servitude. Even Serylda bristled against what would become of the world they had fought so hard for. Caught in the middle, Lissandra tried to soothe her sisters’ concerns while appealing to the Watchers for more time, but the unknowable nothingness cared not for such platitudes.
The Void erupted into the mortal world in the far north, and with it, Lissandra’s hidden allegiance to the Watchers became undeniable. In that moment, her only choices were to let all the world be consumed, or to give up what she cared for most—Lissandra sacrificed her sisters and the allies they had gathered, entombing the Watchers beneath a glacial barrier of magical ice that could never be melted.
Lissandra soon discovered that even this elemental power was not enough. The monstrous beings she had frozen were merely slumbering, slowly tainting the True Ice around them into something darker. Now, they wandered through Lissandra’s dreams as easily as she had theirs, and always she would wake, terrified, professing her loyalty to the chilling eternity they promised.
Ever the survivor, she gathered her remaining followers to venerate her and her departed sisters. If True Ice would delay the inevitable end of all things, then they had to gather as much of it as they could find, and scour the frozen lands for any of Iceborn descent to join their cause.
Lissandra and the first among her Frostguard did everything in their power to rewrite history, seizing all records of what had truly happened… and yet, rumors and prophecies persisted in myth and song. It was whispered that Avarosa and Serylda would one day return to unite the disparate tribes, and so Lissandra had any who were hailed as their reincarnations quietly killed. Even she retreated into the shadows, periodically renewing herself with the powers she had been gifted.
Like the threat that lies trapped beneath the ice, Lissandra has never been able to completely control her sisters’ legends. Whether from guilt or arrogance, her failure to eradicate their legacy has manifested once more in two powerful Iceborn—one an idealist, the other a conqueror—and now, between them, they lead many tribes within the Freljord.
Lissandra watches them carefully, seeking any opportunity to pit them against one another, all the while redoubling her own efforts to lock away the terrible secrets she has buried deep under her citadel.
And she must hurry, for the ice is beginning to melt.
Hero of the Frost Moon

Matt Dunn

A hero is anyone who answers the call to do what must be done.
They sacrifice so much because of a singular truth: this fragile world requires protection.
This means everything to Lissandra, who rarely rests, especially not on nights like tonight, when stars align in strange ways. The round apex of her private sanctum features many rune-inscribed windows to harness the powers from various celestial syzygies.
Thousands of dark, coffin-like ice formations protrude from the snow-carpeted ground. They rise like great black teeth, jutting up from the depths below, poised to devour the sky. She knows exactly how far down these boulders descend, where their roots terminate, and their purpose.
Lissandra strolls through this unique structure. Under this alignment of the Frost Moon and the Cold Star, she sees more without eyes than anyone who has ever dared set foot in this sacred space. Although it is quiet as a tomb, she hears what no one else can—the voices of the half-dreaming and half-dead trapped within each crystalline monolith.
An ancient troll-king says nothing. Its deep-set eyes scream with malice as it tracks her path. When she passes out of sight, the troll-king’s growl shakes its black ice keep.
Lissandra counts thirteen steps from the troll-king to her knight in rusty armor. Tonight, he speaks first.
“Kill the Ice Witch!” he says. His eyes half-lidded, his grim face stoic. His teeth are broken from decades of gnashing.
But his refrain catches on, as Lissandra winds through the forest of midnight ice.
“Kill the Ice Witch,” becomes a rousing chorus, with voices from across the world, all suspended in stasis, reliving the moment they killed said Ice Witch.
As for the Ice Witch herself, she finds it beautiful when such a diverse crowd rallies behind a single course of action. Their tortured nightmares lull others to sleep. Tonight, though, one voice is peculiarly silent.
Lissandra weaves her way through the crevasses between crystals, toward one of the most exotic heroes in her collection. Silence breeds mysteries, and she loves coaxing secrets from unspeaking lips... She feels a shift in temperature, an aura of warmth.
She is not alone. Someone uninvited walks her menagerie. Her footfalls are whispers on the snow as she follows the trail of warmth.
“Frozen tongues have no place here,” Lissandra says.
“Release my sister, witch!” a voice, gruff and husky, cries out.
Lissandra turns toward this unseen threat. Up, is all she has to think for blade-like shards of ice to erupt from the ground, blocking the intruder’s path. She hears wind gush from the infiltrator’s lungs. Then the soft thud of the fall.
“Demands without a greeting make for ill-mannered guests.”
The would-be interloper finds a shred of courage, then her voice.
“M-My sister is Hara from the Caravanserai of Gilded Scarabs. She dreamt of eight hundred years of ice unless she slew the Prophetess of Frost.” The girl mustered some defiance. “Release my sister, witch, and I shall spare your life.”
Lissandra finds no need to waste good breaths on a pitiful laugh.
“Ah, you seek a bargain, then.”
Lissandra runs her bony fingers across the surface of Hara’s casing and listens to the voice trapped within. The guest’s name dances on Hara’s tongue, and now on Lissandra’s as well.
“You ignored your sister’s command, Marjen. You abandoned the caravanserai.”
Marjen recoils from hearing her name on the Ice Witch’s tongue.
“How do you—”
“We are similar. I too deplore the pleas of unwise sisters.”
“Release her now, or I will end you.”
Marjen brandishes a blade that warms the bitter cold. It reeks of familiar and particularly hard-headed magic. Forged by an older spirit whose name Lissandra erased from the Freljord’s memory.
“Consider the Ice Witch’s offer. I shall relieve you of that warm dagger, and in return, reunite you with your dear sister Hara.”
The alignment of the Frost Moon with the Cold Star completes itself. Lissandra cannot see the shimmering pale blue light descending on the grotto. She wonders how it looks to this woman, born in the Great Sai.
Marjen nods in agreement.
“You are smarter than almost everyone here.” Lissandra’s blue lips stretch into a crooked smile.
“Kill the witch!” Hara screams from inside her own dark prison. Marjen’s heart beats out of time.
And her arm follows through. The blade arcs through the cold air. It plunges into Lissandra’s chest.
“You listened to your sister...”
Lissandra slumps to her knees, then topples over. Silently falling snow shrouds her body.
Marjen turns to Hara, encased in cracked ice. Its surface runs slick with brackish meltwater. Dark water pools on the white snow. Whatever magic that held her ebbs.
“Remember when mother taught us to sand-dance? Follow the heat with the soles of your feet. Follow the heat, Hara. Follow me.”
The cracks widen in Hara’s prison as she struggles to break free. Finally, the edifice crumbles and there she is, kneeling by Marjen’s side in an inky puddle. Relief sweeps both their faces as they embrace.
“We did it,” Marjen says. “The caravanserai is safe. There is no eight-hundred-year freeze coming.”
Hara pulls closer, and whispers in Marjen’s ear.
“Sisters who listen...” Instead of Hara’s voice, she hears the cold, calm voice of the Ice Witch. “...are the easiest to trick.”
Marjen breaks their embrace. Hara’s eyes widen at the words pouring out of her mouth. Her lips mouth a single word.
Run.
Only Marjen can’t. Her fur-lined leather boots have iced over, freezing her to the ground. Black ice crawls up their legs.
“I-I killed...” She looks to Lissandra’s body, but sees only virgin snow. That’s when she sees the blade still in her hand.
The realization dawns on Marjen.
“I never threw the knife.”
A flash of chalk-white catches her attention. She looks up to the rune-inscribed window above. Where there should be a Frost Moon over a Cold Star, a pair of dark blue lips stretch into a mocking grin.
“Sisters,” Lissandra whispers to the two women inside their frozen tombs, “inseparable, devoted, but still so utterly foolish...”
Marjen and Hara, their arms wrapped around each other in a sisterly embrace that turns to terror. They lock eyes as the dark ice entombs their faces.
Lissandra admires her latest acquisition. “I found it more convenient to lose mine.”
Where a single rock of black ice once stood, two now stand, joined together at the base. Sisters perpetually reunited—Marjen and Hara from the Great Sai, their bond stronger than the distance between tundra and desert. A reunion so powerful, Lissandra tastes the satisfaction of the feasting monsters below. The illusions cast by the dreams of the sisters, projected through ice, will keep the beasts slumbering a little while longer.
How exhausting this work is, lulling monsters to sleep.
Tonight, Lissandra too may rest. For the hero protects this fragile world just a little bit longer.
Lucian

From an early age, Lucian wanted nothing more than to be like his father, Urias, who was a member of the ancient order of the Sentinels of Light. While Lucian remained home in Demacia, Urias ranged far and wide, protecting the living from the wraiths of the Black Mist.

Urias would regale Lucian with tales of his adventures, where courage and ingenuity carried the day. Lucian hung on every word, picturing himself saving the people of Runeterra at his father’s side. But Urias did not want his son to follow in his footsteps, hoping to keep his family safe from the dangerous life he had chosen.

Lucian waited for the day he would become Urias’ apprentice, but it never came.

Instead, Lucian stayed in Demacia, where he found himself increasingly at odds with the kingdom’s culture. It especially rankled him that Demacia would exile peaceful mages to the hinterlands. Lucian found fulfillment in safeguarding the banished on their perilous journey. Where his countrymen saw only outlaws, reducing the world to good or evil, Lucian looked closer, and saw people in need of help.

After returning home from one such journey, Lucian found a stranger waiting at his door. She introduced herself as Senna, a Sentinel of Light. Cradling Urias’ relic pistol in her hands, Senna explained that Lucian’s father had died, falling in battle against the the long-dead wraiths of the Black Mist.

Senna had been Urias’ apprentice, fighting at his side for years.

Lucian reeled in shock—not only was his father dead, but before him stood a woman who had lived the life he had wanted for so long. As Senna made to take her leave, Lucian stopped her at the door, insisting he join her. He knew what came next—the vigil for lost Sentinels. Senna reluctantly allowed Lucian to accompany her.

Along the way, the two traded stories of their time with Urias, Senna comforting Lucian with her plainspoken wisdom, and Lucian easing her pain with fond remembrances. They arrived at Urias’ birthplace, far away from Demacian lands. There, they held the vigil for lost Sentinels.

As they prepared to depart, dark clouds rolled in over the coast, and wraiths manifested from the foulness, attacking them. Where Lucian was horrified, Senna drew her weapons with a grim familiarity—this was her curse. Since she was a child, tendrils of the Black Mist had stalked her wherever she went, unleashing its horror should she tarry anywhere for too long.

As Senna fought one of the creatures, it clawed Urias’ pistol from her grip. Lucian retrieved it, sensing his fate opening up before him. The blazing sorrow in his heart manifested in a bolt of light that blasted from the pistol, distracting the wraith so Senna could banish it. Senna fought off the remaining spirits before the pair left, the Mist ever on her trail.

Never before had one of the uninitiated fired a Sentinel’s relic weapon. For the first time, Lucian had shown Senna his potential to join the order.

Eventually, Senna entrusted Lucian with his father’s pistol, and instructed him in the tactics and doctrines of the Sentinels. He proved himself worthy of the lessons. A bond slowly formed between them, Lucian’s warmth and charm the perfect balance to Senna’s discipline and unbreakable resolve.

Lucian and Senna battled the myriad evils that ushered forth from the Black Mist, and their reliance upon each other blossomed into love. The closer Lucian grew to Senna, the more he witnessed the curse she bore. Each conflict hardened him, splitting the world apart into light and shadow, good and evil. Lucian’s urge to heal Senna became a crusade he pursued with reckless zeal.

Scouring a forgotten vault for a cure, the two Sentinels were attacked by the monstrous wraith Thresh. The ghoulish Chain Warden was a dangerous foe, and when Senna called to withdraw and regroup, Lucian refused to turn back. Throwing himself blindly into the attack, Lucian realized his mistake as Thresh gained the upper hand. Senna stepped into Thresh’s path, imploring Lucian to run.

As the dust settled, Senna lay dead before him, her soul claimed by Thresh’s eldritch lantern.

Senna’s sacrifice was nearly Lucian’s undoing. For years, he stalked Runeterra, a husk of the man he once was, his former warmth replaced with anger and bitterness. Wielding both his pistol and Senna’s, Lucian hunted Thresh in the hope of destroying the lantern and granting oblivion to his captive love. On the day that battle finally came, Lucian shattered the lantern—but instead of finding her eternal rest, Senna reemerged.

Lucian and Senna’s love is a bond even death could not sever. As Lucian struggles to grasp Senna’s altered form, he is forced to confront his own. Lucian now fights to return to his former self, while grappling with the reality that the dark forces he hates are all that keep Senna with him.

While Senna has returned with knowledge of a new mission, Lucian remains obsessed with exacting vengeance from Thresh, as he is certain the Chain Warden’s machinations have only begun.
Hunter of Shadows

Anthony Reynolds

They came at Lucian in a blur of shadow, lunging at him with insubstantial talons and ancient, rusted blades. They moved fast… but he was faster.
He moved like a dancer, turning and spinning, ever in motion, the relic pistols in his hands lighting up the rotting interior of the inn with their blazing, arcane light.
Lucian’s long leather coat and tightly bound locks whipped around him as he moved, effortlessly avoiding the frenzied attacks coming at him from every direction. Every shot he fired burned with the intensity of the sun, banishing one of the screeching spirits, sending them reeling back into formless darkness.
He took no satisfaction in this duty. Not anymore. All the light in his world had been snuffed out when she had been taken.
Dark talons raked across one of Lucian’s forearms, making him hiss in pain. Cursing himself for being momentarily distracted, he destroyed the offending spirit with a blast of light to its head, and focused upon the task at hand. Standing firm in the center of the inn, he gunned down the tide of spectral forms rushing at him, every shot lighting up the darkness.
At last he was alone, arms spread wide, weapons pointed in opposite directions, their stone tips still glowing. He glanced left and right, awaiting another attack. The fire in the inn’s hearth seemed to burn more brightly, banishing the deeper shadows, and the icy chill retreated.
Suddenly weary, Lucian righted a fallen bench and sat with a groan. He placed his pistols upon the table, then turned his attention to his wound.
Wincing, he slid the long, black glove from his left hand. The leather was unmarked, but the flesh of his forearm was blackened where ghostly talons had slashed him—almost like frostbite.
He caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, and Lucian was instantly on his feet, both pistols aimed at… a dark-haired girl, barely into her teenage years, who had emerged from her hiding place in a back storeroom.
She froze, staring up at him, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t.”
“Shouldn’t sneak up on people,” Lucian said, lowering his guns.
He made to turn away, but caught a shadow of movement reflected in the girl’s eyes. He spun, swinging his weapons around, but this time he was not fast enough.
A wraith lunged from the receding gloom—an emaciated, insubstantial creature, swathed in shrouds. Pale, blue-green light spilled from its eye sockets and gaping mouth, and it lashed at him with talons the length of daggers.
Lucian was hurled backwards by the force of the blow, flying over the bar, some fifteen feet distant. He slammed into the wall, shattering dozens of empty liquor bottles lined up on the shelves, and fell to the floor in a shower of broken glass. His chest burned where the wraith had struck him, and an icy chill clutched at his heart, making him gasp for every breath.
He searched frantically for his weapons. He spied one, lying on the uneven floor ten paces to his left. Too far. The other had spun across the floorboards, before coming to a halt at the girl’s feet.
She picked up the ancient weapon and aimed it at the wraith, clutching it with shaking hands as the thing lunged towards her, its mouth opening impossibly wide.
“It won’t fire!” she wailed, backing away. “There’s no trigger!”
An echo of memory rose in Lucian’s mind, as sudden as a knife strike.

“But how do you fire it?” Lucian said, looking down at the exquisitely crafted weapon, a look of puzzlement on his face. “There’s no trigger.”
“It doesn’t need a trigger, my love,” said Senna, her eyes glinting with amusement. She touched him lightly on the side of his head. “The trigger is in here.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lucian.
Senna aimed her own weapon—a more elegant version of the one he held—at the target twenty feet away. Her expression hardened, her eyes narrowing. “You have to will it to fire,” she said, and the target exploded in a searing blast of yellow flame.
“Right. Will it to fire,” said Lucian, leveling his pistol at the next target. Nothing happened. He shook the pistol, and snorted, partly in frustration, and partly in bewilderment.
“It requires control,” said Senna. “It requires focus. You need to will it to fire with every fiber of your being.”
Lucian laughed and turned to Senna, one eyebrow raised. “Every fiber of my being?”
“Try it!” she urged.
He did, but couldn’t keep a smile from curling at the corners of his mouth. “I give up,” he sighed. He stepped in close to Senna, and drew her into an embrace. “How do you expect me to focus on anything else when you are near?”
Senna pushed him away, laughing. “You’re not getting out of this that easily,” she said. “Again. And actually try this time.”

The girl was backed up against a wall now, the slender relic gun—Senna’s gun—a useless weight in her hands.
“Throw it to me!” Lucian barked, darting forward.
The girl shrieked as the spirit flew toward her, and hurled the gun in Lucian’s direction. It spun end-over-end through the air, passing straight through the wraith. Lucian deftly caught it in mid-sprint, simultaneously dropping to one knee and sliding across the floorboards to scoop up his other weapon. He came to his feet with both pistols ready, and opened up.
The wraith screamed and tried desperately to escape, coiling and spinning through the air away from him, but Lucian was relentless. He dashed sideways, maintaining his strafing torrent of fire. The blazing light tore through the ghastly apparition, and its cry became piteous as its dark form dissipated, like mist beneath the rising sun.
Lucian came to a halt, though he kept the pistols raised. All was silent once more.
“Is… it gone?” the girl said.
He didn’t answer immediately, his narrowed eyes scanning the room. At last, he holstered the two guns. “It’s gone. You are safe.”
“I… I couldn’t make it fire,” the girl said, staring at the darkness. “I thought I was going to die. Like the others.”
Lucian remembered his own difficulty with the weapon—it felt so long ago now.
It requires control. It requires focus.
“I certainly have focus now, my love,” Lucian murmured, under his breath.
“Did you say something?” asked the girl.
“No,” Lucian replied. He cocked his head. The sound of rattling chains was coming from somewhere nearby. “Do you hear that?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t hear anything.”
Lucian frowned, eyes narrow. “He taunts me, still…”
He turned to leave the inn, cursed to follow that distant, tormenting sound.
“Bolt the door,” he ordered. “And pray for dawn.”
Whom Does the Desert Know?

L J Goulding

Shurima is dying. I do not think she will rise again.
The emptiness that writhes in the very bones of my homeland is a malignant, unspeakable thing. It spreads. It devours. Its merest touch is death. A thousand deaths—a thousand, times a thousand, times a thousand. Perhaps once there were some who could stand against it and hope to prevail, but no longer.
I walk here, alone, in the darkest places beneath the world, and I see it with my own eyes, through the finely crafted lenses of my helm. What is seen cannot be unseen, and what is known cannot be forgotten. Not here. I am weary, so very weary.
Still, I walk.
I can no longer feel the ground beneath me, nor the bare rock of the cavern walls, but so, too, am I spared the worst of the numbing winds that rise from the depths. I give thanks for that, for truly this is a chill beyond the desert’s night. I have sat upon the endless plain of the Sai Faraj beneath the first moon of winter, and yet never known anything like this. It is the deep cold of the Void, which the ancients—in their ignorance—might have named as their underworld, and the source of all evil in the mortal realm.
The truth is worse, I think. The air itself feels wrong, and unnatural, throbbing with a fierce, purple un-light that pains the mind.
And from the shadows that even my eyes cannot pierce, you come.
Three. Four. Maybe five. It is difficult to say. A hundred and more of your kind have I faced, and slain. Your howls echo in the gloom, but I do not fear you, for you have already taken everything I ever had.
My wife; my beloved. My daughter; our binsikhi, our little explorer. I call out their names, as I always do, to remind myself why it is that I fight. Then I raise my gauntlet.
For all your teeth and your claws and your ravenous rage, you cannot defeat me. Either I will strike you down, back to the pit… or you will send me into the hereafter, and I will finally be at peace. I will be with them once more.
Either way, I will win. No, you cannot defeat me, you who are shayatin, the beasts of the last infinity…
In my other hand, I clutch the stone tightly. Its foreign magic has kept me alive this long—long enough to delve far, far beneath the wastelands of old Icathia. It holds your corruption at bay, though at what cost to my flesh and my spirit, I cannot guess, for this smallest of trinkets now thrums in time with my own heart. That fearful rhythm is not the pulse of life, or magic, or any other wholesome thing, but of oblivion itself. Of that much, I am certain.
Back, beast. Stay back.
The Nether Blade snaps out from my gauntleted wrist, into the air between us.
Yes. Yes, you know this weapon, don’t you. You all remember it.
Where only moments ago you hungered for my flesh, now you are wary. Now you hesitate. You circle. Those of you that have eyes cannot take them from the blade’s shimmering edge. Even you must know, I think, that this thing was not made for mortal hands, or mortal souls. It was made by clever magic, by men who were no longer men, and who now are nothing at all. Would you remember them too, I wonder?
You screech and hiss, and stamp at the uneven ground. It would be easy to imagine that you hate all living things—but you do not hate us, I think. Not truly. You do not know what hate is.
Hate is the fire that burned in the immortal hearts of the god-warriors when they saw your kind spilling out into the world. Hate was what drove them against you, again and again, though they knew it would almost certainly be their doom…
Yes, this weapon remembers you. It remembers how to end you.
Horok, it was, that struck the first telling blow against your masters. Great and mighty Horok of the Ascended Host, whose name shall live forever. He is the Finder of Hidden Ways, and the One Who Follows After. It was Horok who first dared to face you down here, in the darkness, away from the light of the sun that had given him his strength. It was Horok who first bore the Nether Blade unto the Void’s vile heart.
And it was Horok who showed his brothers and sisters how to defeat the abyss.
I am no Ascended hero of Shurima, no god-warrior to be remembered in the grand halls of that ruined empire. I am but a man. I am a grieving father, and a child of the sai in my own time. From the dust I came, and to the dust I shall return soon enough.
But not yet. For now, I walk as Horok once walked, and I do this with his blade held out before—
The closest of you lunges. Horned shell and razor-sharp talons graze my side as I twist away, breath rasping through the pipes in my mask. For a moment I am blind, trapped inside this meager armored suit of my own devising.
Then I bring the Nether Blade up sharply, cleaving through what on any other creature could be called a neck.
The sinuous body crashes down, and I feel the weapon’s aching hunger in my sword arm, in the sourness at the back of my tongue, like the aftertaste of a scream. Who will be next? Which of you will try?
The desert knows Horok. His name shall live forever. Even when he was betrayed by the tyrant Ne’Zuk, to his death, none would claim the bladed gauntlet from Horok’s wrist. As far as the god-warriors had fallen, even they could not deny that these lands might be threatened by the Voidborn once again, in some unseen future, and this great weapon should be ready.
This is my land. Such horrors walk here now, openly, and I cannot allow it. I will plunge this blade into the creeping nothingness beneath Shurima, as I have a dozen times before.
Was it destiny? No. Nothing so noble as destiny. It was fated, I think, that I knew where this thing might be found. I led the echnebi treasure-seekers to Horok’s mausoleum on the banks of the Kahleek many years ago—back then I sought nothing more than their Piltovan gold, so that I might provide for my family. I gladly helped break open the tomb that had remained sealed for thousands of years. The Nether Blade was not the prize the echnebi sought, but they deemed it valuable all the same.
Some in the tribes called me mercenary. Some called me a traitor. All I know is, in the strange days since then, Horok’s mausoleum has been utterly consumed by the enemy. Were it not for those treasure-seekers and the bounty they paid me, this weapon would now be lost. Like my people. My family.
Unlike them, when the time came, the blade was something I could find again.
Kas sai a dyn. Whom does the desert know?
The desert does not know you, beast. You are not welcome here. You are lost in this ancient land of gods and men.
But the desert knows my name, for that is my name.
Not once have I lost my way. I know exactly where I am, and how many more paces it would be to the doom of all things. I will atone for what I have done, and that which I have not.
And I will defy you until the end.
Katarina

Born to one of the most respected noble families of Noxus, Katarina Du Couteau found herself elevated above others from an early age. While her younger sister Cassiopeia took after their politically brilliant mother, Katarina was very much her father’s daughter, and the wily General Du Couteau pushed her to learn the way of the blade; to cut away the empire’s enemies not with reckless brutality, but deadly precision. He was a harsh teacher with many pupils, and notoriously difficult to impress.
So it was that Katarina’s childhood—if it can be called such—had little room for kindness or rest. She spent every waking moment honing herself into the ultimate weapon, testing her endurance, her dexterity, her tolerance for pain. She stole poisons from the city’s least reputable apothecaries, testing their efficacy in tiny increments upon herself, gradually building her resistance even as she catalogued their effects. She scaled the tallest towers in the dead of night, unseen by anyone.
She yearned to do her part for Noxus. She yearned for the opportunity to demonstrate her hidden strengths in service of the empire, and the throne.
Her first mark came straight from her father, camped with his warbands on the eve of one of the military’s innumerable westward invasions… She was to assassinate a line officer of the opposing army, a low-born wretch by the name of Demetrius.
Katarina was livid. She hadn’t trained her entire life to have her talents wasted on some dungheel barely skilled enough to swing a sword! He simply wouldn’t do. Instead of her assigned target, Katarina stole into the enemy camp and slit the enemy commander’s throat as he slept. It was a flawless execution. It would bring a swift victory, and glory to Noxus. It would make her father proud.
At dawn, his face daubed with ashes, the vengeful hero Demetrius led a berzerk charge into her father’s encampment. Dozens of Noxian soldiers were slaughtered, along with the general’s personal retinue. Katarina’s father himself barely escaped with his life.
He was furious beyond words, refusing even to look his daughter in the eye. She had shamed him, and their family name. The greatest assassins do not seek recognition or glory, he reminded her. They do not expect to occupy a place of honor at their master’s right hand.
Overwhelmed, Katarina struck out into the wilderness, alone. She would complete her original mission. Demetrius would pay with his life. Even so, her mind swam. Could she ever forgive herself? How had she been so foolish?
She was so distracted, she didn’t see her attacker until he had nearly taken her eye out.
For Katarina’s failure, General Du Couteau had sent another of his protégés after her; a nameless whelp dragged up from one of the lesser assassins’ guilds. But even with blood streaming down her face, the years of rigorous training kicked in, and her blades were in her hands in an instant.
Six hours later, she tossed Demetrius’s severed head at her father’s feet.
She told the general she had considered taking his head instead, but eventually decided—as much as she hated to admit it—that he had done the right thing in ordering her death. She had failed. Not just as an assassin, or as a daughter, but as a Noxian.
And failure must have its consequences. She ran her fingers along the raw, deep gash over her left eye, and thought of the price others had paid for her arrogance.
She knew she had lost her father’s favor, and could never regain it. He would raise others in her place, simply to spite her. Still, she vowed to redeem herself, no matter the cost—to rededicate her talents to the empire, and to become the sinister weapon she always intended to be.
Message on a Blade's Edge

Michael Yichao

Echoing footfalls. Cold stone floors.
A shout from behind. Someone’s caught sight of me. Doors flash by as I sprint down the wide hall. Stone archway ahead—my way out of the barracks. Suddenly blocked as an entire patrol skids into view. Not good.
I turn and dash back the way I came. More soldiers careen towards me. My fingertips itch, but there are too many. I vault through a door, slam it shut, and drop the wooden bar across it.
An assassin’s blades are but one of her weapons, his voice echoes in my head, cemented there by years of training. Know your mark. Know the killing ground. Anything can be a tool to secure the kill.
I run through the room. Some kind of trophy chamber. Well fortified, with a side door leading to a back corridor. Behind me, armor thuds against oak. Iron hinges and strong construction should buy me more than enough time to—
My thought is broken by the sound of splintering wood, as a massive axe chews its way through the frame. Ahead, the other door swings open, and more soldiers pour in.
Too many, too well prepared. They knew I was coming.
These soldiers wear Noxian colors, but bear the sigil of a house in open rebellion against the Trifarix. So assured of their strength, they spent time painting rather than preparing. How cute.
I draw my blades.
Those ahead slow their advance, fanning out, weapons at the ready. Behind, those storming through the broken door do the same. They circle, taking a trained formation. Six in front. Seven behind. Won’t be easy.
It’s more fun when it’s a challenge.
His voice intrudes again. Think fast. Move faster. Plan before you engage, then attack on pure instinct.
I let a blade fly. It glances off the chandelier hanging above, breaking the chain and sending it crashing down onto the soldiers behind me. Two bodies hit the floor as candles bounce and sputter out, casting wild shadows and drawing eyes betrayed by reflex. I spin into the nearest distracted man, and slide my dagger into his side. He gurgles as his lungs fill with blood.
I unsheathe my blade from his body with a satisfying squelch, and fling it at the second chandelier. It also crashes to the floor, the last sources of light flickering out. At the same time, I sidestep the swing of a charging soldier, letting momentum carry him into the two rushing me from behind.
Cries of alarm and confusion echo off the stonework as they struggle in the darkness, suddenly uncertain which silhouette friend, and which is foe.
I don’t have that problem.
Adapt where others cannot. Lead their intuition astray, and their instinct to betray them.
I dash forward, low to the ground, scooping up my first blade where it fell. It finds a throat, then an eye, then a kidney, before a shout cuts through the screams.
“You fools! She’s right there!”
As the remaining soldiers stumble toward me, I close my eyes, sense my second blade where it lies, draw my focus inward, and leap.
They cry out in confusion as I disappear from their sight. I land low behind them, snatching up the dagger and spinning, cutting through ankle tendons. I am rewarded with screeches of pain and surprise as three more fall. That never gets old.
I invert the grip on my daggers and jump, plunging them down in an overhead strike into the shoulders of the man who yelled, then kick off him into a backflip. He falls to the ground as I hurl both blades into the faces of two others.
The butt of a spear smashes into my head. I recoil, slightly dazed. With a flourish, the soldier that caught me off balance brings the spearhead to bear and jabs for my heart. I leap again, appearing in midair, my hand wrapping around one blade and wrenching it from the face I left it in.
I barely pivot my attack into a parry as an axe swings toward my ribs, the clang of metal ringing in my ears as I stumble back. The titan of a man wielding the weapon hefts it again, and I leap once more to my remaining blade. I pull it back just in time as another soldier swings a morningstar at me, and she smashes through her comrade’s face. The weapon’s points graze my arm, drawing blood.
I roll back and reset in a crouch. Four remain standing, scattered before me. Several more are injured but still alive. All of them squint at me in the darkness. Clearly they now know to track my daggers as well as me.
Never take a fair fight. The cornered assassin is a dead assassin. My eyes flit between the exits.
Then she strides into the room.
Through the side door. Flanked by her two personal guards, each wielding a crossbow. She has a torch in one hand, a sword in the other. An arrogant smirk dances on her lips. Even in the darkness, she oozes confidence and charm. All other eyes immediately fly to her.
My mark.
“Well, this is disappointing,” she drawls. “If all the Trifarix has to throw at me is a disgraced assassin, then they must be desperate.”
Her taunt is undercut by footfalls outside the room. Reinforcements, arriving fast. Clearly she underestimated the numbers needed to trap me.
But that will be of little consolation if I end up dead.
If you’ve been made, vanish. Never take your mark head on. Never kill in the presence of witnesses.
I smile and stare into her eyes. “Goodbye, commander.”
I throw my blade straight up in the air. Crossbow bolts fly toward it, predicting my leap. The four standing soldiers charge.
Time seems to slow as the blade spins.
One rotation. Two.
I fling the remaining dagger past the charging soldiers at my target. One of the guards shifts in front of her, and the dagger sticks fast in his breastplate.
Three, four.
I leap to my dagger—my momentum forces the point through the man’s armor, into flesh. I see the white of his eyes, the mixture of shock, pain, and fear. Behind me, I hear the others shout and pivot. Impressively fast. Still not fast enough.
Five, six.
The commander stumbles back and raises her sword. Reaction dulled by surprise. I pull my dagger free and lunge forward. My free hand finds her hair, my edge her throat.
Seven rotations. Thunk.
Another crossbow bolt flies through where I had stood a moment earlier, but I am gone. It pierces the mark’s chest, as I land back at my falling blade, now plunged into the ground. In one hand, I hold a bloody dagger. In the other… the severed head of my mark, her face frozen in surprise.
Her body collapses. Blood sprays over the stone floor. Her soldiers halt, caught in disbelief and horror.
I throw the head down in front of them.
“Grand General Swain sends his greetings.”
More soldiers arrive at the doorway. I revel in their gasps and angered cries.
Never take your mark head on. Never kill in the presence of witnesses. The voice repeats itself in my head. Somehow, it seems quieter than before. I laugh out loud.
I am no longer your assassin, father. I have outgrown your timid little rules.
I flick blood off my blades and stare down the soldiers before me. Fear is as powerful a weapon as any dagger. Let them see. Let the rumors spread. I am far more than a mere instrument of death.
I am the true will of Noxus.
Before me, a soldier lets out a shout and charges. I can’t help but smirk as I again raise my blades.
Not that I mind the killing.
Kayle

As the Rune Wars raged, Mount Targon stood as a beacon against the oncoming darkness—Kayle and her twin sister Morgana were born beneath that light. Their parents, Mihira and Kilam, began the perilous climb in search of the power to save their tribe from destruction.
Even when Mihira learned she was with child, she pushed onward. At the mountain’s summit, she was chosen as a divine vessel for the Aspect of Justice, wielding a sword that blazed with a fire brighter than the sun.
Not long after, the twins were born. Kayle, the elder by a breath, was as bright as Morgana was dark.
But Mihira had become a fearsome warrior, far greater than any mortal. Kilam began to fear her new divinity, and the sorcerous enemies that were drawn to her light. He resolved to take the girls out of harm’s way, journeying across the Conqueror’s Sea to a settlement where the land itself was said to offer protection against magic.
In their new homeland, Kilam raised the twins, their temperaments growing more different with each passing day. Kayle was precocious, often arguing with the settlement’s leaders about their rules—she had no real memory of her mother’s powers, but knew the laws were meant to keep them all safe. Her father rarely spoke of such things, but Kayle was certain Mihira had saved them by ending the Rune Wars on some distant battlefield.
When the twins were teenagers, a streak of flame split the sky. A sword smoldering with celestial fire struck the ground between Kayle and her sister, breaking in two—Kilam was distraught when he recognized the blade as Mihira’s.
Kayle eagerly snatched up one half of the weapon, feathered wings springing forth from her shoulders, and Morgana cautiously followed her example. In that moment, Kayle felt more connected to her mother than ever, certain that this was a sign she was alive and wanted her daughters to follow the same path as her.
The people of the settlement believed the girls had been blessed by the stars, destined to protect the fledgling nation of Demacia from outsiders. These winged protectors became symbols of light and truth, and were revered by all. Kayle fought in many battles, flying at the head of the growing militia and imbuing the weapons of the worthy with her own sanctified fire… but in time, her pursuit of justice began to consume her. Seeing threats within and without, she founded a judicator order to enforce the law, and hunted down rebels and reavers with equal fervor.
But there was one person she softened her judgment toward. To the dismay of her followers, Kayle allowed Morgana to rehabilitate wrongdoers who appeared humble enough to admit their guilt. Kayle’s protege, Ronas, was the most disapproving of all—he swore to do what Kayle would not, and attempted to imprison Morgana.
Kayle returned to find the people rioting, and Ronas dead. Consumed by rage, she looked down upon the city, and summoned her divine fire to cleanse the city of its sins.
Morgana flew up to meet her, raising her blade. If Kayle was to purge the darkness she saw in mortal hearts, she would have to start with her own sister. The two battled across the heavens, each matching the other’s terrible blows and striking the buildings beneath them to rubble.
Abruptly, the fight was halted by their father’s anguished cry.
Kayle watched Kilam die in her sister’s arms, a senseless victim of the violence that had overtaken the city that day. Then she held the two halves of their mother’s sword in her hands, and vowed she would never again let mortal emotions rule her. As she leapt back into the sky, soaring high above the clouds, she felt she could almost see Mount Targon beyond the horizon, its formidable peak bathed red by the setting sun.
There she would seek perfect, celestial clarity. There she would stand at her mother’s side, and fulfill her legacy to the Aspect of Justice.
Though she has been absent from Demacia for many centuries, Kayle’s legend has inspired much of the kingdom’s culture and law. Grand statues and icons of the Winged Protector give strength to the heart of every warrior who marches to illuminate the night, and banish all shadows from their land.
In times of strife and chaos, there are many who cling to the hope that Kayle might eventually return… and others who pray that such a day will never come.
In the Fires of Justice

Rayla Heide

Abris’ stomach tightened into knots as he waited on the steps of a shining temple. Standing watch before the temple doors was a statue of the Protector. The setting sun silhouetted its face, casting a radiant aura around its bowed head. It was carved in white stone that sparkled with flecks of gold. Great wings framed its shoulders as it held two swords against its chest. The statue’s helmeted expression was blank, austere, more perfect than any human. Hundreds of candles covered the plinth at its feet.
Abris leaned his sword and shield against the base of the sculpture. They were as pristine and unmarred as the stone swords above him. He was told that the Protector blessed virtuous soldiers of Demacia, and felt a strange comfort at its presence.
An elderly woman cloaked in white exited the door of the temple.
“Please, do you have a moment?” Abris called out to her.
She made her way, slowly, over to him.
“The Illuminators always stop for those in need. Tell me, what do you seek here?” Her face crinkled as she spoke, but her eyes were kind.
“I… I leave for battle tomorrow,” said Abris. He opened and closed his fists, nervous. “My sword arm is strong, and I am proud to defend Demacia's honor. But I wonder—how can I claim to be any better than the barbarians invading our lands if I slaughter them just the same? What good are our white walls and resplendent banners, if below them we spill their blood as they would ours?”
“Ah,” the Illuminator said. “Yes. Killing is not to be taken lightly, even as a soldier. Let me tell you a story.” She gazed up at the statue. “Will you light a candle for her as I speak?”
Abris knelt and took a flame from one of the votive candles at the statue’s feet, using it to light another.
The Illuminator’s voice cracked with age as she began the story, and Abris was reminded of his late grandmother, who’d often told him myths and histories of their people. He never knew which stories were true and which she had conjured from her fanciful mind.
“Long ago, in a land now lost to time and crumbling decay, a cruel king led his people into poverty. During a time of great famine, the king gathered everyone from across the realm into his castle courtyard. There, he declared he would cast aside the old laws in order to end their time of scarcity, as was his right. He took their gilded lawbook and cast it to the floor, naming himself the law. Whatever rules or decrees he spoke would become law, no matter what.
“Under guise of protecting the people, he announced his first decree. Since there were too many mouths to feed, the king said, the elderly had no right to food. They were to be killed, and there was no other way.
“The starving citizens had no strength left to fight this injustice, and the king’s guard forced the elderly folk to line up for slaughter.
“The first in line was a man with silver hair who stumbled as he stepped forward. He pleaded with the king. ‘I am a baker! Let me make bread for you and the people,’ he cried. ‘Spare my life!’
“But the king responded, ‘Can you be young again? Can you knead muscle back into your broken and sorry limbs? No? Well then, there is no redemption for you.’ And he motioned to his executioner, who raised his blade, and the baker’s head rolled to the floor.
“How deplorable!” said Abris, interrupting the Illuminator. “Did no one resist the king’s new laws?”
The Illuminator smiled. “Thankfully, there was one who stood against this grave injustice.”
“Our immortal Protector had not been seen in this land for centuries. But perhaps extreme injustice sends ripples that echo far beyond the realms unknown. In any case, at this moment she appeared. The heavens opened with blinding light, as if the stars themselves had focused all their beams in one place. The Protector emerged, wondrous and terrifying in her majesty. She confronted the cruel king, who stood still as stone at her sight.
“‘No king stands above the statutes of the law.’ she declared. ‘Speak thy name and prepare for judgment!’
“‘I am not merely above the law, winged beast, I am the law.’ With a nod, he motioned for his guards to advance. They did so in unison, raising their spears to the sky as one. ‘Because of me, my people have purpose. My people know their place. And my people thank me for it.’
“‘The law is justice given form; it is true and fair judgment writ in ink. It cannot be undone,’ said the Protector.
“She drew her swords, which blazed with holy fire, filling the air with the scent of truth and punishment. Her wings unfolded, which fanned the flames with great strokes, and soon they too were aflame. It was a fearsome sight to see.
“‘You say you lead your people. Be now the first to be judged by my blades,’ the Protector said.
“The cruel king looked upon the Protector’s blazing swords, and her wings of fire. But most fearful of all was the burning in her eyes, gleaming and grave with uncompromising wrath. He felt like he was staring at the sun, beautiful and terrible in her glory, and the King wept in fear. He appealed to the Protector’s mercy and fell to his knees, pleading at her feet.
“‘I can change,’ the king begged. ‘I see now the error of my ways. I was selfish and corrupt and did not deserve my crown. Let me live and I shall follow the rule of law.’
“The Protector watched him with a steely gaze. When he had finished speaking, she drew breath. It is said that her voice in this moment echoed as if the very gods were speaking through her.
“‘Can you undo your deeds of injustice, King?’ asked the Protector. ‘Can you unspeak your lies and unmake your false laws against fair and righteous judgment? No? Then there will be no redemption for you.’
“In one quick motion, the Protector thrust her burning blade through the king’s heart, and he cried out as she impaled him on the gilded lawbook he had cast to the floor.
“The lawbook burst into flame which burned with the terrible heat of the heavens. This was a holy fire—one that would scorch the evil sinners from the land and cleanse the just, leaving them unscathed.
“The cruel king screamed as the Protector’s fire burned his guards and councilmen, his executioner and his servants. The fire did not stop as it spread throughout the land, fueled by the lies of the false king and his wicked followers. The survivors forever remembered this day of glory, for in the ashes of their society they were given a chance to rebuild in justice and honor.
“And, if the land ever returned to unlawful chaos, they were certain the Protector would descend from the heavens once more.”
The Illuminator smiled down at Abris.
“We must all act with virtue and honor,” she said, “from kings to bakers, servants to soldiers. For no one is above the law, and no one is above justice. The raiders who attack and invade our southern borders are lawless and malevolent. With every breath, as they march forward, they threaten the safety of our land. Your role as a shield for Demacia is a great honor, and a just endeavor. And the Protector looks kindly upon those with justice in their hearts.”
“Aye,” said Abris. He looked to his sword, unblemished by acts of war. He vowed that from his first strike to his last, each would be in the name of justice.
“If ever you feel uncertain, soldier, think on how the Protector would act. If you act with integrity and truth, as the Protector would, surely she will guide your blade. Even if you must wet it with blood.”
The Illuminator bowed and returned to her temple.
Abris watched as the candle he had lit flickered in the dark. He stood up to walk back to his camp for the night. As he turned to look toward the statue one last time, he thought he saw the shine of another flame, deep within the stone helmet of the Protector.
Kayn

Noxian by birth, Shieda Kayn and others like him were conscripted as child soldiers, a cruel practice employed by only the most devious commanders in Boram Darkwill’s empire. Following the disastrous battle at the Placidium of Navori, the invasion was deliberately reformulated into a protracted war of attrition. Ionian compassion was a weakness to be exploited—their warriors would hesitate before striking down a supposed innocent. Thus, barely able to lift the blade he had been given, Kayn’s first day in battle was also expected to be his last.
Striking against the province of Bahrl, Noxian forces landed at the mouth of the Epool River. Kayn and the others were a reluctant vanguard, facing disorganized bands of locals defending their home from these returning invaders. While his young comrades were cut down or fled the battlefield, Kayn showed no fear. He dropped his heavy sword and snatched up a fallen sickle, turning to face the shocked Ionians just as the Noxian regulars swept in from the flank.
The carnage was staggering. Farmers, hunters—even a handful of vastaya—all were butchered without ceremony.
Two days later, after word had spread throughout the southern provinces, the Order of Shadow came upon the grisly scene. Their leader, Zed, knew this area had no tactical significance. This massacre was intended as a message. Noxus would show no mercy.
A flickering glint of steel caught his eye. A child of no more than ten lay in the mud, leveling his broken sickle at the master assassin, bloody knuckles straining white. The boy’s eyes harbored a pain that belied his age, yet still burned with all the fury of a hardened warrior. This tenacity was not something that could be taught. Zed saw in this child, this abandoned Noxian survivor, a weapon that could be turned against those who had sent him here to die. The assassin held out his hand and welcomed Kayn into the Order of Shadow.
Acolytes traditionally spent years training with a single weapon of their choosing, but Kayn mastered them all—to him, they were mere tools, and he was the weapon. Armor he viewed as a cumbersome burden, instead cloaking himself in shadows and slaying his enemies with quickness and stealth. These swift executions instilled fear in the hearts of those fortunate enough to be spared.
And as Kayn’s legend grew, so did his arrogance. He truly believed that one day his power would eclipse even that of Zed himself.
This hubris led Kayn to embrace his final test: to seek out a darkin weapon recently unearthed in Noxus, and prevent it from ever being used against the weary defenders of Ionia. He accepted without hesitation, never questioning why he had been chosen for this task. Indeed, where any other acolyte would have destroyed the living scythe known as Rhaast, Kayn took it for himself.
The corruption took hold the moment his fingers closed around the weapon, locking them both in a fateful struggle. Rhaast has long awaited the perfect host in order to rejoin its darkin brethren and lay waste to the world, but Kayn will not be easily dominated. He returns to Ionia in triumph, convinced that Zed will name him the new leader of the Order of Shadow.
The Blade of Millennia

Michael McCarthy

Kayn stood confidently in the shadow of the noxtoraa, surrounded by dead soldiers, and smiled at the irony. These triumphal arches of dark stone were raised to honor the strength of Noxus—to instill fear and to demand fealty from all who passed beneath them. Now this one was a tombstone, a monument to false strength and arrogance, and a symbol of the fallen warriors’ own fear turned against them.
Kayn relished fear. He counted on it. It was a weapon, and as his brothers in the Order of the Shadow had mastered their katana and their shuriken, Kayn had mastered fear.
But as he felt Noxian soil beneath him for the first time in years, amid the enemy soldiers slain and soon to be forgotten, there was unease. It hung in the air like the pressure before a storm, begging to be released.
Nakuri, Kayn’s fellow acolyte of the Order, reversed the grip on his blade and prepared for a more personal fight. To his credit, he almost managed to hide the tremor in his voice. “What’s it going to be, brother?”
Kayn said nothing. His hands rested empty at his sides. He knew he was in control. Even so, he felt a flickering sense of déjà vu, like something out of a dream. It came in a flash, and then was gone.
A voice rose from the empty space between them—a dark and hateful voice that echoed with the pained cries of a thousand battlefields, daring each of them to act.
“Who will prove worthy?”
Zed had summoned his greatest student.
Spies of the Order had confirmed the disheartening rumors. The hated Noxians had discovered an ancient scythe of darkin origin, as powerful as any magic in Ionia. A single eye of crimson hate stared out from the heel of the blade, tempting the strongest of men to wield it in battle. Evidently, none had proved worthy. All who touched it were quickly and painfully consumed by its malevolence, so it had been wrapped in chainmail and sackcloth, and secured by a guarded caravan bound for the Immortal Bastion.
Shieda Kayn knew what would be asked of him. This would be his final test.
He had reached the outskirts of the coastal city of Vindor before he ever considered the journey’s significance. Taking the fight to the enemy in their own land was audacious. But so was Kayn. There was no other who could match his talents, none to whom Zed would entrust the fate of Ionia, and so there could be no doubt: Kayn was destined for greatness.
He set his trap shortly before sunset. The approaching caravan was just visible in the distance, as wisps of dust rising into the orange sky—ample time to dispatch the three guards at the noxtoraa.
He moved in silence across the archway’s lengthening shadow as the first guard paced out a patrol. Kayn summoned his shadow magic and stepped into the black stone wall as if it were a passage open only to him. He could see the guards in silhouette, grasping their pikes tightly with both hands.
He lunged from the edifice cloaked in shadow, and snuffed the life from the second guard with his bare hands. Before the third could even react, Kayn dissolved into tendrils of pure darkness and darted across the cobbled road, reforming in front of his victim. In a flash, he wrenched the man’s head around, snapping his neck with ease.
The first guard heard the bodies fall, lifeless and limp, and turned toward Kayn.
The assassin smiled, taking time to relish the moment. “It paralyzes, does it not?” he hissed, slipping into the shade of the noxtoraa once more. “The fear...”
He rose from the quaking soldier’s own shadow.
“This is the part where you run, Noxian. Tell others what you witnessed here.”
The soldier threw down his pike and sprinted for the safety of Vindor. He didn’t get far.
Clad in robes every bit as dark as Kayn’s, Nakuri leapt from behind the noxtoraa and plunged his katana into the belly of the fleeing soldier. The other acolyte locked eyes with Kayn. “The vaunted strength of Noxus? Such delusion...”
“I knew you were impetuous, brother,” Kayn spat. “But this? Following me all this way, hoping to share in my glory?”
There was no time for further admonishment. They could hear the caravan of soldiers approaching.
“Get out of sight, Nakuri. I will deal with you later. If you survive.”
The long shadows of twilight hid the bodies until the approaching soldiers were almost beneath the grand arch.
“Hold!” the first outrider cried, drawing his sword. “Fan out! Now!”
Confusion set in among the others as they left their horses and, for the first time, Kayn laid eyes on their cargo. It was just as Zed had described—wrapped in chainmail and sackcloth and strapped to the back of a sturdy Vindoran steed.
Patience was a virtue that Nakuri did not possess, and he heedlessly dove for the nearest soldier. Kayn always selected his targets carefully, and so struck with precision at the lead outrider, felling him with his own sword.
He turned again to the Vindoran, but the scythe was gone.
No. He had come too far to fail.
“Kayn!” Nakuri yelled as he cut down one soldier after another. “Behind you!”
A desperate Noxian had freed the weapon, its red eye now revealed and glowing with inhuman rage. The soldier’s own eyes grew wide as he swung in vicious arcs at his own comrades. He was clearly not in control, trying in vain to release the scythe.
The rumors were true.
Calling again on his shadow magic, Kayn dove into the writhing Noxian’s darkin-corrupted flesh. For the briefest of moments, he saw through the eyes of this ageless being, witnessing millennia of inflicted pain and suffering, screams and lamentations. This thing was death reborn again and again. It was the purest evil, and it had to be stopped.
He burst from what was left of the Noxian—the soldier’s flesh having warped into scales of hardened carapace that shattered into black shards and choking dust. All that remained was the scythe, its eye now closed. Kayn reached for it as Nakuri dispatched the last of their enemies.
“Brother, stop!” the acolyte cried, flicking blood from his katana. “What are you doing? You saw what it can do! It must be destroyed!”
Kayn faced him. “No. It is mine.”
The two of them drew up, neither willing to back down. Beyond the city boundaries, warning bells began to toll. The moment seemed to stretch out.
Nakuri reversed the grip on his blade. “What’s it going to be, brother?”
The scythe spoke to Kayn, then. It seemed as if it was echoing in his mind, and yet the other acolyte’s widening eyes showed he had heard it too.
“Who will prove worthy?”
Kayn conjured fingers of darkness that snatched up the weapon, lifting it into the night and spinning it into his waiting hands. It felt like a part of him, like it had always been a part of him, as if he alone was born to wield it. He spun it with a comfortable flourish and leveled the blade toward Nakuri’s throat.
“Do what you must.”

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