LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Scrape the bench of sunless moss,
And harken to this tale of loss.
A princess lies below the soil,
A king’s pride and joy, a beauty divine.
Now food for worms, her flesh to dine.
Skin once fair, now left to spoil.

A Princeling came, a suitor fair,
To press his cause, to wed the heir.
The marriage feast like none before
was blighted by a deed most foul.
A poisoned cup, the king did howl.
To find a cure, the Princeling swore.

His ship set sail, crossed ocean’s deep,
With knights all pledged to end death’s sleep.
Through tempests fierce and unknown miles,
Drawn by wind from a land undying,
The very storm its name seem’d sighing.
A place men named the Shadow Isles.

Like the hound abroad with bloody scent,
Drawn ever on by forlorn lament,
To a night-veiled isle on no man’s chart.
No wind was heard, no bird nor beast,
Only spirits summoned by death’s priest.
Onward knights to this island’s heart!

Through black-thorned trees on crooked path,
A clash of steel, a cry of wrath.
The Shadow of War wrought bitter defeat,
The Princeling’s men were slain.
He ran in fear; they died in vain,
His love of life too bright, too sweet.

Lost in darkest, haunted night,
Pursued by spiteful wraith and wight.
He chanced upon a moonlit field,
And a ghastly monk assailed by the mist.
“Aid me!” cried he, “With sword and fist!
The spirits are cruel, their hearts unhealed.”

“Here, all men are equal, all sins forgiven,
But pride hath made this land corpse-riven.
The dead we’ll fight, our lives as the prize.
Shepherd them onward, and then come the dawn,
Triumph will teach you secrets long gone,
But vanquished, we fall and then rise.”

They fought as brothers on cursed battleground,
Atop the bones of scholars renowned
‘Gainst spirits in black, with hunger infernal.
Dawn never came, but the battle was done.
The monk and the Princeling had won!
“Speak, fellow! Tell secrets of life eternal.”

The monk told tales of a time forgotten
An ancient queen, now dead and mulch-rotten.
Of her king brought low by sorrow and woe,
Who came to this isle to bring back her life,
But damned the world to endless strife,
Spirits of death and carrion crow.

His magic unleashed a terrible scourge;
Grim prelude to the Deathsinger’s dirge.
Black mist rose up and doomed all to death.
But spirits arose from every dead thing,
Cursed to undeath by this grief-maddened king.
He begged it all end with his very last breath.

A land once blessed, was ripped asunder,
Split with lightning and beaten by thunder.
Phantoms now mutter in graves enshrined.
And banshees throng its haunted streets,
Shrieking their woes of black defeats,
A boundless curse upon all mankind.

The Princeling listened, all aghast,
To hear this tale from the grim outcast.
He spared this ancient king no boon,
But tales of death and grim disaster;
Unmask all, from slave to master.
The Princeling’s lies laid bare by the moon.

The goblet supped by his new wife,
The Princeling poisoned to take her life.
Her father’s wealth and crown he craved;
No cure he wished, but existence deathless,
No succor for his queen, forever breathless;
His soul was dark, his mind depraved.

And yet his bride had one last curse.
A fatal spell of bitter verse.
Justice sought with dying breath,
Set the Spear of Vengeance on the hunt
To punish him for such great affront
And bring about his bloody death.

The mist closed in and called his name,
A huntress aglow in mist-wreathed flame.
Her spears of light pierced his breast,
A cold ground yawned wide and deep,
The Princeling fell to blackest sleep,
Never to wake from his victim’s bequest.

Smothered in darkness, dying in pain,
No crown for his brow, never to reign.
Buried forever in earth’s dark womb,
Heed the price of ambition’s dark call
Be not ensnared by its artful thrall,
The Princeling’s greed was his doom.

A pallid light waxed cold and bright,
Borne up through the earth, his soul took flight.
No reprieve was this, but torment afresh,
The Warden of Chains drawn by his scent.
Dancing to the Deathsinger’s lament.
“Your soul is mine,” said the beast called Thresh.

So heed this fate and learn it well,
Shun the Isles where the dead still dwell.
Seek ye all the things to cherish,
And pass the years in time well spent.
A life full-lived, a soul content.
And know you all are doomed to perish...

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.

Sejuani slammed the axe into the tree’s trunk. It had taken her five hits to fell it, and hacking down a dozen trees had winded her. Iceborn were strongest in the cold, and the southern heat was sapping her strength.

Her weary reavers cheered. Though only a hundred strong, their roar echoed off the hills.

The time for stealth had passed. The southerners had gathered an army of many thousands and were less than a half-day behind. On the surrounding hilltops, enemy scouts watched.

The main body of Sejuani’s forces were in the far north occupied by the summer: fatting herds, fishing, and hunting. She had scattered small war parties along the Demacian border to destroy towns, burn crops, and wreck keeps. Hoping, when winter came, her full horde could smash through these weakened lands and raid further south.

Scarmaiden Kjelk approached Sejuani. Like the rest of the raiders, she rode a drüvask, a boar-like creature larger than any ox.

“Warmother, enemies gather on the other side of the river!” Kjelk said, bringing her monstrous mount to a stop.

“Show me,” Sejuani replied, leaping onto her own drüvask, Bristle. He was twice the size of his peers and as wide as a mammoth.

Together they rode down the hillside, passing warriors lashing the logs into rafts. She followed Kjelk along the riverfront until sweat dampened their mounts’ backs.

Downstream of a waterfall, just three hundred paces across the river, Demacian skirmishers were exiting the forest that had hidden them and climbing down the bare rocks. It was an advanced flanking force of a few hundred archers and spearmen. They spotted the two Freljordian women on their drüvasks, but continued on their path.

“Svaag!” Sejuani spat at the flowing water in front of her. In winter, bogs, lakes, and rivers like this one became frozen highways for her fast-moving warbands.

A horn sounded, and Sejuani needed no scout to tell her that the main force of the enemy army had arrived. She turned and could see their armor glimmering on the hilltops behind them. The Demacians’ plan was clear.

If her warband tried to cross the river on rafts, the enemy skirmishers would rain missiles onto them, cutting her numbers in half. Then, using the high ground just beyond the riverbank, the spearmen would be able to hold her survivors long enough for the main force to catch up and overwhelm them.

Bitter and raging, Sejuani kicked Bristle onward and the giant beast ran, crashing through underbrush and shallows back to where the rafts waited.

Most of the warriors had already spotted the enemy forces and were preparing to flee along the river’s edge. A fear had gripped them—not of battle, but of the trap the southlanders had sprung.

“The enemy will send riders to block off any escape along the riverside. We cannot stand against the army coming down from the hills. We must cross. Now,” Sejuani commanded.

Sejuani took a small piece of wood wrapped in leather, no larger than her thumb, and slipped it into her mouth. Then she uncoiled her great flail, Winter’s Wrath. Each link of the weapon’s chain was as large as a man’s hand. At the chain’s end hung a massive shard of True Ice, the largest most had ever seen. Misty vapor rose from its magical cold.

Sejuani clamped her teeth down on the leather-wrapped stick to resist the pain of the weapon’s magic. For wielding True Ice always had a cost. Its cold frosted her arm, sending her into agony. Her eyes watered and tears froze like diamonds on her cheek. Yet all her warriors saw was a grimace of certainty and rage. She swung the weapon around her before crashing it into the water.

A bridge of ice formed, but—as she had expected—it immediately broke apart in the warmer currents. It could not hold her war party.

A few arrows began to fall from the other side of the river, archers testing their range. Few reached land, but she could hear the southerners’ jeers.

Sejuani set Winter’s Wrath back, spat out the stick, and removed her helmet. Then she unwrapped the wolf-gut twine on her wrist. Seeing this simple act, her men roared in approval.

A barking chant began. The warriors, no longer afraid, knew now they were witnessing something special. Sejuani was making the most sacred oath of her people.

She would tie a death knot.

She uncoiled her braids and deftly ran the wolf-gut through her hair. She wondered how many times she had taken a death oath. A dozen? More than any warrior known. Eventually she would fall or fail. Would it be today?

Arrows began to hit the shore around her as she bound the knot. A few of her warriors fired bolts back at the enemy, but the wind was against them.

“I am Sejuani, Warmother of the Winter’s Claw! I am the Winter’s Wrath! I am the Flail of the Northern Winds!” she cried as she tied the last triangular knot into her hair. “Even in death, I will hold the riverbank until you safely cross. This is my oath! I see the Wolf. And my fate… is tied!”

Her warriors cheered, voices growing hoarse as they tried to hold the sound longer. Many had eyes wet with emotion, for Sejuani had sworn to save their lives, even at the cost of her own.

She did not need to give them any further orders. They readied their weapons and climbed onto rafts. They would cross as quickly as they could—and perhaps they might arrive in time to save her.

Sejuani placed the leather-wrapped stick back between her teeth. She ran her fingers through the wiry hair on Bristle’s neck, who needed no oath or words to understand her intent. He grunted and turned to face the water.

Again she grabbed Winter’s Wrath and swung it. Exhausted, in pain, and sweating in the heat, Sejuani brought it down onto the water…

A bridge of ice formed as Bristle charged. The ice cracked and tilted, but her steed somehow ran true.

Arrows fell; not the few exploratory shots from before, but a black rain. Sejuani held her shield high, though a few still stabbed her shoulders and thighs. Dozens pierced Bristle’s hide.

Then, barely halfway across the river, the bridge collapsed, and they were in the water.

Bristle struggled. Desperately, he tried to hold them above the surface. Still the arrows fell. The distant shore was gone. All Sejuani could see was a rain of black bolts and the water red from Bristle’s blood.

The great beast was screaming—with a sound like a thunderstorm and a baby wailing. Bristle sputtered. Without thinking, Sejuani leaned over, protecting his torso with her own. Her shield covered his face to ease the mount’s suffering.

It was then she thought, Perhaps our death comes today.

Suddenly, Bristle found his footing in the shallows. Instead of drowning, the great beast made huge splashing strides onto the riverbank.

Sejuani stood in her saddle and swung her flail in front of her, releasing an explosion of ice. The blast cut apart a dozen unarmored archers. Bristle gored and trampled another two. The others ran from her, back uphill, seeking cover behind the spearmen who formed a shield wall to block her next attack. More missiles would rain down and the spearmen would charge her in mass momentarily, but Sejuani grinned, knowing the archers had lost their opportunity.

She looked back to see her own warriors crossing, unharried by the barrage she had just weathered. Sejuani still did not know if she would survive this day, but she had not failed her oath or her people…

And that is what mattered.

The softskins broke our slumber of a thousand spins.

For many long ages, I sensed the world’s dizzying movement. Stars exploded and died above me, though I did not see them. I felt the warmth of the sun flood the sand with life.

When my heartpulse slowed and I curled in the dry sand to warm my body for longsleep, I thought my time below would be lonely, that the earth would not respond to my touch. But all around me were kin. I sensed them rustling in their slumber. I listened to their silent murmurs reaching for my mind. I heard their dreamsongs of worlds upon worlds. A place without softskins, without fear or pain or doubt. A place of great peace.

In the sand, we were all connected; we dreamed as one. Not just the singers, but all living things; the worms curling around smooth rockgrains, the molerats burrowing tunnels to birth their young, even a family of fur-soft spiderlings who rested for a night in the deepdark.

I thought the rocks would be immobile, cold, uncaring. But they, too, were part of us. The stones were warm, and the deeper we burrowed, the closer we got to this world’s wombfire. Each time the underground boiled in rage, I was there; its tremors shook the sand until I sang back with my own anger. We are one, we are all. Your anger is as mine. I heard its gratitude in the raintime when wet drops soaked the sand and the earth grew fat and full.

When the softskins came, the ground knew only pain. Our songs became cries as we were torn and broken and scattered. I heard the sorrowsong as the softskins unearthed my kin. They tore crystal namestones from our bodies as we screamed, louder than earthshakes, and stole them away. I sang long into the many nights, sang until my heart was empty and cold, but they did not return.

Today, I am alone in the aboveplace. Today, the dry wind burns my skin. With every step, the sand grinds against me in protest. I fight my urge to bury myself down, down, to go inside the earth’s deepdark. I am not apart. I am part of the one, not beyond.

From far away, a song of painfear reaches me. The tone is faint, but I recognize the melody, and I send out a song of my sorrow. A note of hope rings back in my mind, clear and fine. Almost, almost.

Another set of stars whirl overhead, and again. The endlessly blinking universe stares down at me. I feel moltenheavy with the weight of above. I should be down, but I am here, alone in the cold air.

I have been above for three moons. A blink of an eye, a sliver of existence. A warming murmur passes silently underground — yet in the aboveplace, I feel the eternity of alone.

Ahead, I hear softskins. They do not sing, they shout. Their tones scratch and clash without melody or cohesion. They burn meatflesh over a falsefire. Its fat smokes the air and I choke on the stench. Why would they do such a thing? The ground is plenty, plenty for all.

The melody calls to me weakly. Almost. The namestone is close.

I must explain; the softskins do not understand. Their race is but three turns young; they have only begun to dig; they have barely uncoiled the beginnings of underneath. They speak, but I have not yet heard them sing. They will learn.

I sing in their minds a song of the calmland, so they feel the great beauty that awaits us when we sleep. I sing for my dead kin, so they know what they stole.

The softskins do not sing back. They do not seem to hear me so my voice grows louder in their heads. I sing for our namestones, wrongfully taken. Bring them back, they are ours. You murdered one cluster already. Do not deny our future also. I sing a plea. Let me carry the crystals to the deepdark, so they can bind with us again. I sing to heal this tearing wound.

The softskins are still shouting to each other. One of them releases a rhythmic sound… a laugh? I feel as though my body is being crushed by the air, so I burrow. I am comforted by the weight around me.

How can they not see the ruin they’ve caused? You are heartless, you are crude. How could you sever us like this?

My husk glows skywhite with rage. I will not let these softskins destroy us.

I hear them scream as I erupt from the sand. I summon energy from the ground and store the power in my namestone. A softskin throws a splinterblade and it hits my leg, shattering on my lucent shell. You sing only death. I, too, can sing this song. I release sunbright energy and sharp crystals burst from the ground, impaling flesh and cracking spines.

The falsefire spreads in their panic. Their crude structures of twig and hide burn through the darkness, carrying softskins into the flames. Smoke rises in an offering to the blinking stars. Softskins run from the chaos, but I am faster. I circle around them and lash out at a straggler, slicing his middle apart with my claw. I crush another underfoot. Lifeblood stains the sand. I roar in grief, not a song but a cry. Your blood is not worthy to touch the one and the all.

My tail lashes left and right and I knock the softskins down. I summon the sunbright once again, and more crystals spike from the sand to pierce flesh. So you can hear my song, after all...

I am crude like them. I am violence. I am death.

When I dream I see only rage. I am no longer worthy of the deepdark. But I cannot stop.

Only one remains. The softskin fumbles with a glowing thing of wood and metal. She means to kill me. A false sun blazes from the thing and punctures my hardshell, burning my insides. The light reflects inside my crystal, paralyzing me. I stagger in agonizing pain. I cannot move. I am broken. I am ended.

A fading song rings in my mind. Almost, almost. We are one.

She aims her weapon again and I shake with horror as I see the paling namestone strapped to it. Her weapon drains our life energy. They are wasting crystals to power their terrible song. I feeI I will burst in fury and pain, but instead I pull strength from the ground. I cry out and lash with my sting, impaling the softskin as she writhes like a worm. I grasp the weapon and crush it with a claw. It crumbles to dust, leaving only the skywhite namestone.

I hold the crystal in my mouth where it will be safe. I am here, we are one.

I curl my stinger and she falls. Do not return. Do not take our namestones. We are not yours. We are all. We belong only to the deepdark.

I leave her alive and she runs. She lives not with my mercy, but because I know she has heard my dreamsong, and she has no choice but to sing.

Soon after King Jarvan III’s coronation, he addressed the people of Demacia. Even though there were still many foes beyond the borders of their proud kingdom, several of the noble families had begun to feud with one another, some even raising private militias to seek the favor of their new king.

This would not stand. Jarvan would not allow such dangerous rivalries to develop, and declared his intention to end the feuding by marriage. His bride, the Lady Catherine, was much beloved by the people—and courtly gossip had long held that the two shared some secret fondness for one another. The bells of the Great City rang for a day and a night in celebration, and by year’s end came the announcement that the royal couple were expecting their first son.

But all joy was forgotten when Catherine died in childbirth.

The infant, named for his father’s line, was declared heir apparent to the throne of Demacia. Torn between grief and elation, Jarvan III swore never to take another wife, and that all his hopes and dreams for the kingdom’s future would live on in his son.

With no memory of his mother, the young prince Jarvan was raised at court, groomed and guarded every moment of his life. The king insisted that he receive the finest Demacian education, learning from an early age the moral value of charity, the solemn burden of duty, and the honor of a life spent in service to one’s people. As he grew, he was also introduced to the history and politics of Valoran by his father’s seneschal, Xin Zhao. Hailing from distant Ionia, this loyal protector taught the prince about the world’s more spiritual philosophies, as well as the myriad arts of war.

During his military training, Prince Jarvan found himself facing a brash youth of the Crownguard family named Garen. The two were of similar age, and became a quick pair—Jarvan admired Garen’s sheer determination and fortitude, and Garen looked up to the prince’s tactical instincts.

When Jarvan came of age, his father rewarded him with the honorary rank of general. While it was not necessarily expected that the heir to the throne would take to the field of battle, Jarvan was determined to prove himself, with or without the king’s blessing. The lands beyond the Argent Mountains had long been contested by the empire of Noxus, creating an almost lawless frontier where foreign reavers and warring tribes threatened many of Demacia’s allies. The prince pledged to bring stability back to the region. His great grandfather had been slain by a foul Noxian brute many years ago, in the first clashes between their nations in the south. Now, that insult would finally be answered.

Jarvan’s armies won victory after victory… but the carnage he witnessed in the outlying towns troubled him deeply. When word came that the Gates of Mourning had fallen, he resolved to drive onward into Noxian territory, against the advice of his lieutenants.

Inevitably, with the battalions spread so thin, Jarvan was encircled and defeated by Noxian warbands before he even reached Trevale.

Refusing to surrender, the prince and a handful of other survivors fled into the forests, only to be hounded for days by enemy scouts. Eventually, pierced through his side by an arrow, Jarvan collapsed into the shade of a fallen tree, where he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was devastated. He had failed his family, his kingdom, and his brothers-in-arms.

Doubtless he would have died there, alone, were it not for Shyvana.

This strange, violet-skinned woman somehow carried Jarvan all the way back to Demacia, to the old castle at Wrenwall, where she proved herself a kind and worthy companion during his days of healing. At first taken aback by her outlandish appearance, the garrison commander could not deny that she had done a great service to the throne in saving Jarvan’s life.

Unfortunately, Shyvana was herself being pursued—by the monstrous elemental dragon Yvva. When the castle’s watchmen spotted the beast on the horizon, Jarvan saw a chance to redeem himself. As Shyvana prepared to meet the beast in the skies in her half-dragon form, the prince limped from his bed to marshal the garrison, and reinforce the walls. He took up his lance, and swore that they would return to the Great City with the head of Yvva, or not at all.

The battle was swift and deadly. When his men were driven in fear from their posts, it was Jarvan who rallied them. When they were wounded, it was Jarvan who directed healers to their aid. The fell creature was slain by Shyvana, but it was the prince’s leadership that had held the line. In that moment, Jarvan saw the true strength of the Demacian people—standing together as one in defense of their homeland, no matter their differences or misgivings. He promised Shyvana that she would always have a place among his guard, if she so chose.

With the dragon’s skull in tow, Jarvan journeyed to his father’s court in triumph, Shyvana at his side. Though the king was overcome with emotion at his son’s return, some of the gathered nobles quietly questioned the wisdom of allowing such a creature to stand with the prince… let alone serve as one of his protectors.

Even so, Jarvan resumed his position within the military, also playing a key role in stately matters beyond the defense of the realm. With his friend Garen now Sword-Captain of the elite Dauntless Vanguard, and Shyvana and the Wrenwall veterans training other border garrisons, the prince felt assured that Demacia could answer any emergent threat.

But the kingdom itself was changing.

The Mageseeker order had gained support among the noble families, leading to widespread imprisonment of anyone in Demacia possessing magical talents. Fear of persecution quickly gave way to resentment, and finally rebellion. When mages attacked the Great City, Jarvan was distraught to discover that his father, the king, had been killed.

Although the prince’s political stance toward mages has hardened significantly since then, he has yet to fully allay concerns over his suitability to rule. As such, he has taken the counsel of many prominent nobles—including Garen’s aunt, High Marshal Tianna Crownguard—and pledged to heed their wisdom and experience in the days ahead.

For he must examine his own conscience and allegiances carefully if he is ever to come into his inheritance, and be crowned King Jarvan IV of Demacia.

Rin stubbed his toe on a root and stumbled, catching himself before he lost his balance. A few paces in front of him, his great aunt looked back.

“Need my old bones to slow down for you? Ho ha!” she chuckled.

“No,” he murmured to his shoes. His great aunt Peria was snow-haired and stooped with age, though she was still a few inches taller than Rin. He wished he could be as tall as his horrible brother—he would have towered over both of them if he was there.

Rin had never been in this part of the woods before. The pine trees grew closer together, so much that the light of the noonday sun had diminished to a glimmer amongst the shadows.

Aunt Peria stopped ahead. At first, he thought she stood in front of a mossy boulder, but as he caught up he saw the remains of a stone figure, eroded by time. Rin fiddled with the rocks in his pocket.

“Aha! Do you know who this is?” asked Aunt Peria.

“Uh, some old noble from the city?” said Rin.

“Oh no!” said Aunt Peria cheerfully. “To many, she was no more than shadow and myth. A figure known as the Veiled One.”

Aunt Peria lifted her lantern up toward the figure. The statue’s left arm was missing from the shoulder, but her right palm was open, as if inviting them forward. Upon her head was what must have once been a delicate stone shroud, now coated in vines. Feathered stubs rose from her shoulders, broken and weathered. Rin could see that part of her face had crumbled garishly, and he shivered. The unbroken half of her face was not much better—her remaining eye was marked with stains, and her expression was spiteful, as if she was about to spit out sour milk.

“Don’t like her?” Aunt Peria said, amused. “You are not the only one. She is not the most beloved. But she knows all about revenge.”

Rin’s eyes widened. He thought he’d been so careful.

“Yes, yes, I heard the rocks clacking around your pocket,” said Aunt Peria. “I know you’re planning to get back at your brother. He didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.”

“He hit me in the eye with the blunt of his axe!” Rin cried. “What do you think he meant to do? Shouldn’t he be the one who gets a lesson?”

“He was showing you where to chop wood. You know he would never hurt you on purpose,” said Aunt Peria.

“He deserves his own black eye!”

“And if you gave him one, what lesson do you think he would learn from that, hmm?”

Rin did not think Aunt Peria would much like his response, so he stayed silent.

“No answer? A story, then,” said Aunt Peria. “Now, listen!”

Rin sat himself down in front of the statue. With a sigh, he leaned his head against his hand.

“Long ago, in the deepest, darkest woods, where the trees grew together so tightly no sign of the sky or stars was visible, the Veiled One lived, far away from any settlement. Though few spoke with her, it was believed that she was older than dawn, sharper and wiser than any in the land. Those with disputes they could not solve themselves would come to her for final judgment, to seek wisdom, absolution—and occasionally, punishment. But they did so with caution, for it was also known that her lessons could be severe.

“One day, a Cleric and his Pupil entered the woods to find the Veiled One, for the Pupil had erred. The Pupil had acted in anger against his elder, striking him with a censer. Smouldering incense had scarred the Cleric’s face with a grotesque burn. The Pupil knew he done wrong and wanted to repent.

“The two had journeyed a day and a night before they found the Veiled One.

“They entered a cavern illuminated by candles. Water dripped from the ceiling, and strange potions lined the walls. It stank of gravesoil and moss. Dozens of raven-black feathers littered the floor.

“A figure silently emerged from the shadows to meet them—the Veiled One. A black shroud hid most of her features from sight, but her eerily violet eyes shone through. Her feet were bare on the cold stone floor. As the Pupil told his tale, she gazed at him with an unbroken stare.

“‘I see that your actions were no accident,’ spoke the Veiled One at last. Her voice, though rarely heard, was barbed like a thornbush. ‘You acted with purpose and certainty. And yet, now you feel much pain at having hurt your master.’

“‘Aye, I wish to atone for my sins so that I may rid myself of this guilt,’ he said.

“‘Guilt can teach many things to a heart humbled by intent. Why did you strike your master?’ she asked.

“‘It was an act of anger. I was wrong,’ said the Pupil.

“‘Perhaps. What caused your anger?’ asked the Veiled One.

“The Pupil looked to his Cleric, and cast his eyes down.

“‘In my foolishness, I sought to end his lesson to another student,’ said the Pupil.

“‘And what was that lesson?’

“Before the Pupil could answer, the Cleric interrupted.

“‘My students require instruction in myriad ways,’ he said. ‘I teach them manners, patience, and restraint. If I must, I will use the lash. I do not enjoy it—these lessons are my sacred duty.’

“The Veiled One peered at the Cleric. Behind the shroud, her eyes seemed to bore into him.

“‘But you do enjoy them,’ she said.

“‘I beg—’

“‘Tell me, scarred master, are your lessons truly for the good of your students? Or do you punish them to relish their suffering?’ said the Veiled One.

“‘No,’ the Pupil interrupted. ‘He can’t have, he cares about us—’

“The Cleric raised his hand and struck the boy.

“‘I don’t need your lying breath to defend me,’ spat the Cleric, his scarred face vivid with anger.

“The Veiled One opened her palm and chained the Cleric to her with dark fire. The bindings glimmered with immaterial violet light, but the Cleric could not break them as he struggled.

“‘You came to me for another’s punishment,’ she hissed. ‘But you ignore your own sins. Your sick pride swells as they come back to you, Cleric. Since you refuse to look yourself, I will make you feel the pain you caused.’

“Through the chains that bound them, the Veiled One forced him to endure all the shame, suffering, and loneliness he had inflicted on his pupils. For an instant, the Cleric’s heart stopped, as a great weight he had never known constricted his very soul. He fell to his knees, fixed in place by bitter torment, as shadowed flames licked his flesh.

“‘Stop, please stop!’ the student cried. ‘Please, punish me in his place. He has suffered enough!’

“‘You defend him, even now,’ said the Veiled One. ‘The wretch has much to learn ere death's mercy lays claim. He alone must feel the pain he caused so he may never hurt another. You came here seeking understanding—its burden is now yours to bear.’

“The Pupil did not show his face at his cloister for many days. But when hunger and fatigue overcame him, he finally forgot his fear of his master’s lash. Upon his return, he found the Cleric a different man. Where his elder had been cruel and uncaring, he was patient and gentle. For though the burn on his face had not yet healed, the Veiled One’s lesson had cut far deeper.”

Aunt Peria set her lantern at the base of the statue. Half her stone-gray face was lost to darkness, with flickering shadows running down her shroud like tears.

“Be careful, Rin, when wishing for punishment. Can you teach a lesson that will make your brother a better person? Even if he did hit you on purpose, there is no sense in you punishing him selfishly.”

Rin felt the rocks in his pocket.

“I guess my brother did say he was sorry. After I fell down from getting hit in the eye,” he said. He begrudgingly dropped the rocks to the forest floor.

“Wonderful! Let us give thanks to the Veiled One.”

Aunt Peria opened her lantern and blew the candle out.

“Remember—revenge is an act of pride, but teaching is selfless,” she said. “In case you forget, I’ll be watching you! Ha! And the Veiled One might be, too!”

Rin watched the smoke curl and unfold around the statue’s empty stone eye, shrouding the figure in shadow. When he looked back, Aunt Peria had set off through the trees, back toward the village. Rin hurried to catch up.

I look out across the once-verdant field, now scarred and ruined by the toil of battle.

The loss of life will be immense, but I cannot save those who seek their own destruction. All those sons, all those fathers, all those futures lost. Demacians and Noxians, ever at each other’s throats, magnetically drawn to one another by something lesser than both.

Plenty of defenders exist for their lofty ideals, and they all stand in my way, almost gleefully slaughtering themselves over a scrap of land, with no idea of its true importance. Two armies entwined, both committed to their ruinous dance.

I could try to reason with them, ask them to move their brawl elsewhere, but my former countrymen now see me as something between a traitor and a wrathful god, and the Noxians… well, the Noxians have always been short on patience.

My usual weapons—wit, charm, and warmth—are useless in this cauldron of desperation. So I push aside those who would slow me, and wade into those who would stop me. Every kind of horror one soul can inflict on another rages around me as I near my goal.

And there, dead center of the roiling fury of battle, the blaze of color calls to me—a delicate life about to be snuffed out amid the mud- and gore-covered boots. Standing bravely, unbowed by the thudding dullness of the armored brutes around it, its beauty rings out like a single crystal bell. It is the last flower of its kind. If it dies, no more shall bloom. I can not allow it to perish.

The two opposing commanders pause in their combat as I approach, an uninvited guest at their last moments. They turn to me, suddenly allied in their outrage at my intrusion.

I stand at the very eye of the two armies, seemingly inviting the cold embrace of death from all sides. But unlike all those who are now taking wary steps toward me, their sword hands trembling, I know why I fight.

The golden hour between fifth and sixth bell. That’s my favorite time of day. It’s when most people in the Factorywood finish their work shifts. They’re bone tired, but they’re done for the day. Work is behind them. A hot meal and home are ahead. The people here are nice, and I always feel good squeezing my gelatinous body through the cliff-cracks seaming the rocks around the Factorywood. I feel love emanating from a man going home to his newborn son. I relish the anticipation of a married couple looking forward to a romantic dinner in the Boundary Markets.

Their thoughts soak into me. It’s nice, like a warm bath, though I tend to stretch out pretty thin when things get too hot. There’s always a few people in the mix who aren’t so happy. After all, life in Zaun can be hard. Some people are nursing broken hearts, while others can’t stomach the thought of another shift and feel nothing but seething resentment. I absorb the good and the bad, because that’s the way I was made. The bad feelings sometimes make me angry, but there’s nothing I can do about that. My parents taught me it’s okay to feel bad sometimes. Without the bad you can’t properly savor the good.

I follow the crowd until people start to go their separate ways. A few lingering bad feelings drift through my thoughts, so I decide to do something good to push them out. I seep down through a network of cracked vents I’ve been meaning to fix for a while, but just hadn’t gotten around to. I collect fragments of metal in my body as I go, extruding them from my amorphous form wherever there’s a crack, then heating my outer layers to weld them in place. With the cracks sealed, clean air from the pump station higher up in Piltover flows once again. Which hopefully means fewer cases of lung blight in a good many of the streets below.

The bottom of the pipe brings me out in the upper reaches of the Sump level. Things aren’t so nice here. Lots of people don’t have much of anything, and there’s plenty who want to take even that from them. The sump pools, full of toxins and runoff from the chem-forges, remind me of the time I spent alone as a specimen in a laboratory. I try not to think of that time, because it makes me angry. And when I get angry I sometimes break stuff, even though I don’t mean to. I don’t like feeling like that, so I ease myself into my favorite cleft in the rock, the one running beneath the twisting rookeries of the Skylight Commercia. It’s always nice there. People out together, browsing the galleries, meeting friends, dining or going to see one of the companies of players that tour the undercity with their satirical works. The atmosphere warm and friendly, it’s the perfect place to bask in all that Zaun has to offer.

But as I pass beneath the outlying streets, a spike of anguish ripples through me. A tremor of fear and pain disturbs my liquid flesh. I don’t like it. It feels out of place, like something I’d expect to find deeper down in the Sump. That’s the place where bad things happen more often than good things. It shouldn’t be happening here! I get angry as more of the bad feelings soak into me. I follow them down, wanting to stop them from spreading.

I push my body from the corroded pipes running below a metalsmith’s shop. My bulk fills the space under the warped floorboards. Light shines in angled beams through the louvers of a grille set in the floor. Angry voices come from above. Shouts and the sound of a weeping man. I press my body against the grille. My gelatinous mass breaks apart, only to reform on the other side. I push hard and quick, re-establishing my form inside the shop.

The owner of the shop is on his knees beside a woman who bleeds from a deep wound in her belly. He kneels at her side, one arm outstretched toward the four men standing in the wreckage of his shop. I know these kinds of men. I see them all the time in the Sump; thugs who force good-hearted people to pay up or face seeing their livelihoods smashed.

The interior of the shop is lit by chem-lanterns, one of which is held by a man wearing a butcher’s apron and who has a meat-hook crudely fixed to the stump of his other hand. The other three are mere brutes, slab-muscled simpletons in canvas overalls and thick magnifier goggles. Their eyes grow stupidly wide with shock at the sight of me rising over them. I bloat my body, greenish limbs swelling with power as I form a mouth where I think it ought to be.

I want to really hurt these men. I know it’s their emotions I’ve been feeling, but I don’t care. I just want to hurt them as badly as they hurt these people.

“This is gonna get messy,” I say.

My right arm shoots out, smashing the first thug from his feet. He slams into the metal stanchion by the door and doesn’t get back up. A second thug swings a heavy iron club, a sump-scrapper’s oversized wrench. It hits me in my middle and is promptly swallowed by my pliant flesh. I reach down and pluck him from the ground, hammering him up to the latticework girders of the ceiling. He drops back down, his limbs bending in ways even I can tell they shouldn’t. The third thug turns and runs, but I reach up and stretch my arms toward the girders. I spring forward and hammer my feet into his back. I squash him to the ground as their leader slices the blade of his butcher’s hook down the center of my back.

It hurts! Oh, how it hurts. The pain causes my body to lose cohesion. I fall to the floor in a shower of liquid green ooze. For a moment, I lose all sense of spatial awareness, seeing and feeling the world from a thousand different perspectives. The thug stands over me, a gap-toothed smile splitting his stupid face. He’s glad he killed me, filled with pride at his destruction of a living thing.

His pleasure at this destruction courses through me like a hateful elixir. I don’t want to feel like this, it’s not what I was taught, but to help these people I need to use the wrath that fills me. I must turn it against these men. My scattered globules reform in the time it takes him to realize he hasn’t killed me as thoroughly as he thought. I surge from the floor and crash into him, altering my density to that of a thundering piledriver. We smash into the wall of the establishment, the flesh and bone beneath me disintegrating at the force of impact.

I peel myself from the bloody wall, feeling the anger slowly drain from me. I form my body into something man-shaped as I feel the mixed emotions emanating from the couple behind me. The man looks at me with a mixture of fear and trepidation. His wife smiles at me, though I can feel her tremendous pain. I kneel beside her and she takes my hand. It is soft. I am immediately soothed by her gratitude.

I nod and place my hand on her stomach. Heat spreads from me as I ease a sliver of my form into her wound. I’ll be leaving a piece of me behind, a piece I’ll never grow back, but I give it willingly, knowing she will live because of me. The portion of my body within her repairs damaged flesh, knits ruptured tissue and stimulates regenerative growth in her stomach lining. Her husband wipes his hand over her wound, and gasps to see her skin is pink and new.

“Thank you,” she says.

I do not answer. I cannot. Expending such power drains me, leaves me thin. I allow my cohesion to loosen, flowing back down the grille and into the pipes. It is all I can do to maintain my form as I pour down through the cracks in the rock, heading toward the places I know will be awash with good emotions. I need to renew myself. I need to feel all the good Zaun has to offer.

I need to feel alive.

I need to feel.

Firewood was precious in the desert, but the blackened ruins of Vekaura offered a plentiful supply of charred timbers to hurl on bonfires. The city had been a blasted ruin when the Sandthrashers rode through the ruins of its walls, its streets empty, its people vanished.

None of them knew for sure who had razed it, but the captives they’d taken on the Marrowmark road told lurid tales of ancient gods whose anger had burned the city to ash and glass.

Raz Bloodmane didn’t believe that, not really.

Stories in Shurima were the currency of the oasis, the payment of the campfire—living things that grew and twisted with every retelling. No tale could pass from lips to ears without each teller adding some grisly detail, some exaggeration to make it their own.

Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters.

The Sandthrashers were a little of both.

A reaver band of bloodthirsty warriors mounted on giant sauren lizards, they terrorized the dust roads of the Sai-Kahleek for coin, and hunted Shakkal marauders in the Valley of Song for amusement. With temperatures dropping in the south, their Preystalker, Sai-Surtha, had led the warband into the warmer north to raid the caravans in search of the newly risen capital in the heart of the great desert.

Such caravans were ripe with fat merchants and priests, the desperate, and the gullible. Those foolish enough to believe that an ancient emperor had arisen from his tomb to reclaim his lost empire rather than an earthquake had exposed a buried city.

Easy pickings.

The Sandthrashers were ambush predators, erupting from desert storms to raid in a frenzy of snapping jaws and stabbing spears. Any who fought back were hacked apart, and those that surrendered were fed to their hungry mounts.

Raz grinned as the tethered sauren snapped and growled at the edge of the firelight—giant, reptilian beasts with long, razor-toothed jaws and flanks armored in sun-baked scales. Their ridged bellies hung low to the ground, worn hard by the sand, tails thrashing the dust that lay thick in this cursed city.

Ghosts lurked everywhere in the ruins; echoes of the dying were freighted on the cold wind whistling through shattered stones, and silhouettes burned onto the walls like painted shadows.

Something had happened here, something bad.

Sai-Surtha tossed a splintered roof beam onto the main fire. Sparks flew into the night sky, coiling in firefly spirals before the reaver band’s leader. Raz was strong, but even he would have struggled to lift that beam. Yet the skull-masked vastaya hefted the heavy timber like it was a twig, its enormous weight nothing to his inhuman physique.

Raz watched the sparks flicker briefly in the darkness before fading, sensing a significance that hung just out of reach.

“Why do you look up?” asked Anukta, following his gaze.

The scaled plates of her heavy armor rasped together as she moved, and her shaven head, bare but for a crimson mohawk, glistened with sweat. Her facial tattoos gleamed like exposed bone in the firelight.

“The sparks,” he said. “They burn so bright, then fade to nothing in the blink of an eye.”

“So?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought it might be significant. Like it meant something.”

“You are a sage now? Like Ngozi?”

“No,” said Raz, “not like him. But the sparks, they live, burn, and then are gone. Like us, like life. We are the sparks.”

Anukta laughed, the ivory hoops punched through her ears shaking like drunken moons. “You are right, not like Ngozi at all. He was truly clever. You are just a loud fool.”

Anger turned Raz’s features ruddy, and Anukta’s expression showed she knew she’d gone too far. Her head dropped and she fell to one knee, arms crossed over her chest, thumbs snapping to her palms.

“Forgive me, Raz Bloodmane,” she said, knowing that as Sai-Surtha’s second-in-command, he could have her thrown into the long, tooth-filled mouths of the sauren pack.

Or worse, fed to Ma’kara, the apex mount of Sai-Surtha.

The sauren was a colossal beast, forty feet long and ridged with razored scales from its tail to its three enormous heads. Each elongated jaw was large enough to swallow a horse and teeming with hooked teeth stained rust-brown with blood.

“This is the night before a hunt,” said Raz. “On such a night, only road-meat dies. Don’t make me change that custom.”

Anukta nodded and rose, turning to where the latest captives huddled in the smashed remains of a grain store. They’d taken them on the northern dune roads from Kenethet, men and women claiming they were on a pilgrimage south to see the new emperor. Four had already been devoured by the sauren, and the five that remained were scrawny-looking things, hardly a morsel for the beasts. Well, four of them were—the fifth was an older man with a city dweller’s skin, a full set of teeth, and a girth that told Raz he’d never gone hungry.

“That one,” he said, and Anukta hauled the man to his feet. His face was pale with fear, and Raz saw none of the other captives seemed to mind him being taken.

“Please, don’t kill me,” said the man, with the boneless accent of the northern coasts. “I have money. I can get you much money. Please, gods, don’t feed me to the beasts!”

“You’re too well fed to be a pilgrim,” said Raz, poking the man’s ample belly.

“A pilgrim? No, no, I... I am...”

Anukta jabbed the tip of her spear into his back. “You’re what? Out with it, fool!”

“I am Ordan Stilava, Arch-Patriarch of the Melierax Temple of Bel’zhun,” said the man between heaving breaths. “I’ll get you anything you want. Just, please don’t kill me.”

“A priest, huh?” said Raz, leaning in close and relishing the smell of fear washing off the man in waves. “I heard priests were pious servants of the gods. People to admire. You do not look like a man to admire, Ordan Stilava.”

“Kill him,” said one of the remaining captives. “And make it slow.”

Raz shrugged. “It looks like your companions don’t much like you either.”

“He is a fat pig who took our money and said he would lead us south to Azir!” spat the woman. “He feasted while we went hungry. When we begged for food, his guards beat us. Another day and he would have left us to starve to death in the Sai.”

Raz knelt by the woman—wolf-lean with skin the color of dusk and fire in her eyes.

“And who are you?”

“I am Dalia, proud daughter of sand and sun.”

“Water and shade to you, Dalia,” said Raz. “Show me your palms.”

She held out her hands, bound at the wrist by rough ropes.

He ran his fingertips around hardened patches of skin on her palm and along the edges of her thumb.

“You’re no pilgrim either,” said Raz. “These are sword calluses.”

She pulled her hands back.

“What were you? Caravan guard, tomb-robber, mercenary?”

“All three in my time.”

Raz jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You think I should feed him to the sauren?”

“Yes. Feet first.”

Raz laughed and drew his knife, a bone-bladed gutter he’d carved from one of Khesu’s splintered teeth. His sauren wasn’t nearly as big as Ma’kara and only had one head, but its teeth were just as long and just as sharp.

“I like this one,” he said to Anukta, sawing the serrated edge of his blade through Dalia’s bindings. “Come.”

She rose to her feet as Raz turned and dragged the protesting Ordan Stilava away.

“Do as he says and you might live,” said Anukta with a lopsided grin.

The sauren saw him coming, and the rumbling in their throats intensified as they saw he brought them more meat. They strained at their chain-leashes, inward-facing spikes driving into the softer skin at their throats the harder they pulled. Khesu watched him and opened its jaws wide in expectation of feeding.

“Soon, my friend,” said Raz. “Soon.”

The wood of Vekaura burned with the blood-red glow of a desert sunset, a good omen for tomorrow’s ride. Its light illuminated the rest of the Sandthrashers, twenty-three warriors lounging on stacked debris, blocks of stone, and benches dragged from the ruins to form a makeshift arena around the fire. Clad in a mix of light fabrics, furs, and boiled sauren-scale armor, they feasted on the last of the plunder from their most recent raid: salted skallashi meat and strong liquor made from fermented Eka’Sul milk.

Armed with curved tulwars and tooth-bladed spears, they were men and women whose names were a terror to caravans snaking across the dust roads of the Sai. Years of plunder and killing in the harshest of climes had made them tough and merciless, capricious and boastful, and none more so than Sai-Surtha.

The Preystalker sat atop a throne of stacked blocks burned to glass by some unimaginable heat. Half again as tall as Raz, their war-chief was a vastaya from the east, massively built with a boulder-like leonine head and a body swollen with muscle. He wore his thick mane long, each braid woven with steel cords and talismans he claimed were magic.

Sai-Surtha’s yellow-slitted eyes narrowed as he saw Raz approaching.

“What do you bring me, Raz Bloodmane?” said the Preystalker.

“Fresh meat,” cried Raz, taking Ordan Stilava from Anukta. “A soul rich with deceit and ripe with arrogance.”

“Ma’kara’s favorite,” said Sai-Surtha, reaching out and running a clawed hand across his mount’s nearest head. The sauren grumbled and hissed, its three jaws opening wide. Raz saw scraps of rotten meat between yellowed fangs, gullets pink and glistening in the firelight. Its many eyes, like pits of tar, flashed in hunger. The beast had devoured the lion’s share of the captives already, but its appetite was never-ending.

Ma’kara was an apex predator, and all other beasts must wait until its hunger was sated.

Raz pushed Ordan Stilava into the battle circle beside the bonfire. Its edges were marked with skulls, and the sand within was red and sticky. Ordan Stilava fell hard, scrambling to his knees before Sai-Surtha with his bloodied hands clasped before him as if in prayer.

“Please, mighty lord, don’t kill me!” he wailed.

The Sandthrashers laughed and Ma’kara pulled taut, eager to rip open this fulsome sweetmeat. Sai-Surtha pulled it back with a jerk of the chain-leash, but the beast’s hunger to feast on the patriarch was undimmed.

“Make sport of him, Raz Bloodmane!” ordered Sai-Surtha. “Entertain us!”

Ordan Stilava tried to rise, but Raz kicked him in the back. Raz lifted his arms high, slowly turning in a circle with a wide grin plastered across his face.

“Brothers and sisters!” he cried. “Our desert bounty is all but spent. The time is upon us to hunt!”

Cheers echoed from the blasted walls of the city. Fists and spears punched the air, accompanied by the bellows of the sauren.

“Caravans from the east and north ply the dust roads in search of water and shade!” he yelled, strutting around the circle. “But what shall they find?”

“Death!” roared the Sandthrashers.

Raz cupped a hand to his ear and leaned forward.

“What?”

“Death!”

“Again!” demanded Raz.

“Death! Death! Death!”

Raz grinned and held up a hand for quiet. A stillness fell across Vekaura, broken only by the heavy crackle of the bonfire and the heaving sobs of Ordan Stilava.

“Yes,” he said. “Death comes to them, as it comes to us all. But before the Jackal takes us into the Sunless Lands, we will spill the blood of our enemies and take what was once theirs. This world demands strength and punishes weakness, so I offer this blood to you all!”

They roared as Raz crossed to Ordan Stilava and cut the rope at his wrists.

The man sobbed in gratitude, but the smile fell from his face when Raz pressed the serrated knife into his hands.

“What? I don’t...”

“You are free to go,” said Raz.

“Free?” said Stilava, sudden hope in his eyes. “Really?”

“Upon my oath. All you have to do is step out of the circle and I will let you go.”

Raz grinned as he saw the understanding of what was on offer dawn on Stilava. He stepped away and spread his arms wide, turning his back on the trembling captive.

Knowing he would never get another chance, Stilava ran at Raz with the dagger upraised.

At the last instant, Raz swayed aside from the blade, spinning and thundering his fist into Stilava’s face. The man went down like a hamstrung beast, the dagger flying from his grip.

“Up,” said Raz, kicking it across the sand to him.

“Please,” said Stilava, ignoring the weapon. “You said I was free.” His face was wet with tears and snot, blood pouring over his lips from his broken nose.

Raz lifted Stilava to his feet and again pressed the knife into his hands. He leaned in and whispered in his ear. “These are your last moments in this world,” he hissed. “The gods are watching—is this how you want to meet them? Weeping and soiled? Give them a show and they might look kindly upon your soul!”

Hate hardened in Stilava’s eyes, and Raz leapt back as the priest stabbed the blade for his belly.

Another thrust, high for his throat. Raz batted the strike aside with his bare hands, spinning away as Stilava slashed wildly like a maniac. The man had no skill and had clearly never handled a knife beyond slicing fine cuts of meat on his plate.

“That’s it!” laughed Raz, easily dodging the clumsy attacks. “Come on, gut me!”

Behind Stilava, Raz saw Khesu’s head come up and heard the constant rumbling in the beast’s throat rise to something else entirely. He blocked an overhand cut with his armored forearm, and sent a pumping jab into Stilava’s belly.

The man hinged at the waist, winded, but he held on to the knife this time.

Raz risked a glance over at Sai-Surtha, and saw the Preystalker on his feet, looking back toward the city gates. Raz turned and saw something move in the shadows beyond the light of the bonfire. The sheen of gold glittered in the darkness, and though the shape moved like a man, it was surely too large for anything human.

Then something was arcing through the air.

Raz followed the object as it sailed overhead and landed at the edge of the fire.

The warriors around the circle shouted in alarm and reached for their weapons as the sauren pack scented blood and yanked at their chain-leashes in a frenzy.

Raz’s mouth fell open as he recognized the warrior he’d tasked with watching the city’s western gate. Uksem Heartsplitter.

Or, rather, half of him.

Uksem lay in a rapidly expanding pool of blood as catastrophic amounts pumped from where his body had been bitten in two. Impossibly, his eyes blinked and his fingers clawed the sand, as if he hadn’t accepted he was dead.

Raz took a step toward Uksem, then cried out as pain flared in his side.

Ordan Stilava!

Distracted, Raz had made for an easy target, but it was a poor strike, ill-aimed and with no strength behind it. Instead of penetrating a vital organ, it had sliced over the skin of his hip.

Raz spun to see the man stumble backward beyond the edges of the battle circle with a wild grin on his face and Raz’s knife held out before him.

“I’m free!” said Stilava. “I got out of the circle—you have to let me go! You said!”

Raz shook his head. He didn’t have time for this foolishness. Not now.

“Khesu. Kill.”

Ordan Stilava turned around in time to see the giant sauren surge forward with its fanged jaws spread wide. They snapped shut and the Arch-Patriarch was no more. Only his footprints in the sand and the mist of blood in the air remained to mark his presence.

Raz put the man from his mind as the shadow at the edge of the city advanced into the firelight. The breath caught in his throat.

Gods do not walk the sands, only men and monsters...

How wrong he had been—how fundamentally, entirely wrong.

It walked upright like a man, but there the similarities ended.

Hunched, yet still half a head taller than Sai-Surtha, with a thick tail dragging behind it.

Clad in dust-caked armor of dull gold and rusted bronze.

Eyes of jaundiced yellow, rugose flesh of green and ochre.

Blood drooling between dagger-like teeth in red ropes.

Its mighty head was bowed, the crocodilian snout sniffing for fresh meat.

Raz knew this creature. He’d seen his likeness carved into sunken temple walls, had etched it into the blade of his own spear.

He’d heard his name spoken in hushed whispers around the oases.

The eyeless makhru, the wandering true-speakers who were said to talk with the spirits of the ancients, told cautionary tales of this god’s exploits to warn against unchecked aggression.

“The herald of Azir...” said Anukta, her head held high in awed wonder.

“Renekton...” said Dalia.

The giant snapped his head toward her at the name, sliding a huge crescent blade from his back. Such a weapon could cleave a skallashi in two.

“Where. Is. He?” demanded the god.

His voice was rasping and dry, raw from an eternity of screaming.

Despite the sheer power of the god’s presence, Dalia remained unbowed, defiant in the face of his unimaginable power.

In contrast, the sauren pressed their bellies to the sand, eyes rolled back in submission and the low rumbling in their throats stilled. Even Ma’kara lowered its three-headed body to the ground, something Raz never dreamed he’d see.

He forgot the pain in his side as he resisted the urge to drop in awe alongside them. His lip curled in contempt as he saw the Sandthrashers gathered around the battle circle were kneeling.

Submission was for the weak; respect was only ever earned in blood.

The creature stalked forward as though oblivious to the warriors’ presence. Only when Sai-Surtha descended from his throne did he deign to look up and acknowledge them.

“I am Sai-Surtha, Preystalker of the Sandthrashers,” said the vastaya, unhooking his sauren-scale shield from Ma’kara’s saddle. “How is it you dare to enter my city and kill blood of my blood?”

Renekton looked around at the ruins, blinking, as if only now seeing its devastation.

“This is your city?” he said.

“For tonight it is,” said Sai-Surtha, drawing his falcata, a blade almost the equal of the god’s weapon, and stepping into the battle circle.

“Then you must know where he is,” said Renekton, joining Sai-Surtha in the circle as though this were some pre-ordained rite. “Rulers must know all, see all! All the whispering liars. Honeyed words and falsehoods. I heard them. No one listened. No one ever listens to Renekton...”

Raz backed away, joining Anukta and Dalia beyond the reach of the circling warriors. Renekton’s words made no sense, and he had no desire to be nearer to these giants than was necessary.

“Who is it you seek?” asked Sai-Surtha, the falcata spinning in his grip.

“The betrayer!” bellowed Renekton, the corded muscles at his neck spasming. “My faithless brother! Tell me where he is or you will know agony.”

Sai-Surtha laughed, a booming sound that echoed from the toppled walls of Vekaura. The Preystalker was a being of colossal appetites, and took his pleasures wherever he found them. Raz saw him eyeing Renekton’s physique, his hunter’s eye seeking out weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

“The Jackal?” said Sai-Surtha. “Nasus?”

Renekton flinched at the name of his legendary brother, as though the sound of it caused him great pain. His grip on his crescent blade slipped and he pressed a clawed hand to his brow at some unknowable madness.

“Do not speak his name,” warned Renekton, the dry rasp of his voice low and dangerous like the threat of an approaching sandstorm. “He was here, I know it. The magical spoor of the Ascended lies across this place, but goes no farther. They made war here, my brother and he who whispered in the darkness. The desert sands called to me, and the muttering winds told me of his coming. Now tell me where he is or die!”

“And if I had that knowledge, what would you offer in return?”

“Nothing at all, but maybe I won’t rip you apart.”

Sai-Surtha shook his head and made a quarter turn, drawing his falcata back over his right shoulder and extending his shield before him.

Renekton laughed, the sound terrible and melancholy all in one.

“You think you can stand against me? I am Ascended. A god to your kind!”

“I’ve always wanted to kill a god,” said the Preystalker, brandishing a blade engraved with runic sigils and hung with fetishes cut from the dead. “And if it must be a maddened, broken one, then so be it.” He hammered the blade against the vivid crimson of his breastplate and said, “I took this sword from a tomb in the Endless Plain and prised this armor from the skeleton of the ancient warrior who bore it. He was about your size. I will kill you with the craft of your own kind.”

Renekton roared in fury and launched himself at Sai-Surtha. He lashed his crescent blade into the Preystalker’s shield, drawing splintered scales.

Sai-Surtha’s return strike knocked the fury from his attack. Renekton stumbled and the Preystalker ripped his falcata into his ribs, drawing oil-black blood. Renekton struck back, but carved only shield again.

“You deny my vengeance while you squat in this ruin of his making!” he roared.

Another blow. Renekton staggered, then spun, head lowered. Keeping his distance.

Raz saw a newfound respect in the god’s eyes.

He’d struck expecting an easy kill, but Sai-Surtha was a fighter of incredible power and skill, with weapons and armor to match Renekton’s. The Sandthrashers were no longer on their knees, but punching the air with their weapons and chanting the name of their war-leader.

Sai-Surtha lunged, driving his toothed shield into Renekton’s shoulder and face. Renekton threw him off, and leapt aside, faster than ought to have been possible for a being his size. His tail lashed out, but Sai-Surtha ducked and pressed his advantage. He broke Renekton’s guard with his shield and body-slammed him across the battle circle.

Renekton fell into the fire and rolled. Flames licked his flesh black and sparks flew into the darkness. He shook his crocodilian head and spat, blood dripping from his fangs.

“You know where he is!” Renekton bellowed. “I see his liar’s face looking out through your eyes. Tell me!”

Sai-Surtha came at him again with another lunge, carving a chunk of golden armor from Renekton’s flank. Instead of retreating, Renekton surged and hammered a series of rapid slashes down on Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the first, but the second and third tore into his furred flesh. The fighters’ blades spun and swooped, a blur of silver and bronze ringing against each other in a lethal dance.

Renekton circled left. Sai-Surtha went right. Both were bloodied and winded.

The Preystalker struck first, a low, ankle-slicing blow—Renekton parried, then spun around to deliver a stinging cut that splintered the golden plates of his opponent’s shoulder guards.

“The legends speak of you as a mighty war-god,” said Sai-Surtha between heaving gulps of air. “They tell how you took that blade from a dead king of Icathia. How you broke its haft as you broke his army.” Sai-Surtha shook his head. “How low you have fallen, how lost you have become.”

Renekton growled and charged. Sai-Surtha met his first strike with his shield, and countered his second with his falcata. A third he parried, a fourth he turned aside in a squealing slide of ancient steel that threw off jade sparks.

A tearing bite ripped into Sai-Surtha’s shoulder, and the Preystalker threw back his head with a howl of pain. A tail lash drew blood from his chest. Both fighters backed off, bleeding from their many wounds.

Renekton grinned, his teeth red with Sai-Surtha’s blood. “All that keeps you alive are stolen magics. Without them, you would be dead already.”

“And yet still I stand,” said Sai-Surtha with a mocking bow.

Renekton spun his crescent blade from hand to hand, then seized it in a double-handed grip to hack down at Sai-Surtha. The Preystalker blocked the blade with his shield, driven to his knees by the force of the blow.

He rolled past Renekton and raked his falcata across his thigh.

The god stumbled away, blood pouring down his leg.

Watching from beyond the circle, Raz willed Sai-Surtha to finish the fight, to step in and deliver the killing blow.

The fighters closed again, blades ringing like funeral bells. Sai-Surtha’s shield broke apart and Renekton’s armor hung from him in tattered strips of gold. Renekton stomped in, and the tip of his ancient blade sliced deep into Sai-Surtha’s cheek.

The leader of the Sandthrashers spat teeth and fractured Renekton’s ribs with a two-handed hammerblow.

Renekton was staggered by its ferocity, by pain one of his kind had likely not known in centuries. His stance faltered and his yellowed eyes clouded as though reliving jagged memories and visions of triumphs and deaths long since consigned to the dust of history.

“Please!” bellowed Renekton. “Brother! He is too strong! It must be done!”

The words were meaningless, but, sensing an opening, Sai-Surtha swung for Renekton’s throat. The crescent blade lifted to parry, too late and too slow. The falcata tore Renekton’s face open from jaw to temple. He grunted in pain and swung wildly with his blade.

A clumsy blow, but it split armor and lacerated Sai-Surtha’s side.

Undaunted by the injury, the vastaya struck again, hacking his blade through Renekton’s wrist, leaving it hanging by a shred of sinew.

Renekton threw his head back and roared as Sai-Surtha pulled him in tight and drove the length of his blade through his foe’s heart.

The Sandthrashers cheered, and Raz threw his arms up in triumph.

The two fighters stood for a moment as though embracing, the tip of Sai-Surtha’s falcata jutting from Renekton’s spine. Dark blood streamed from the blade, hissing as it turned the sand beneath to glass.

Renekton rested his torn cheek on Sai-Surtha’s shoulder.

“All you had to do was tell me where my brother was,” he said. “But now it is too late.”

“Too late for what?” said Sai-Surtha, ripping his blade clear and stepping away.

“For you to live,” said Renekton.

A pale emerald glow built within the god, running through his flesh in forking lines of searing light. The sand lifted from the battle circle, surrounding Renekton in spinning loops of dust as he rose to his full height.

This was not the hunched figure who’d entered Vekaura, and Raz saw the true face of the ancient god as his form swelled with long-forgotten magic, his dimensions stretching with power harnessed from the sun itself. His wounds sealed, the skin reforming without scar and pulsing with radiant vitality. The blood spilling from his torn scales turned from black to vivid red before lifting from his body in floating ruby droplets. His clawed hand, twisting on its sinewed thread, re-fused to knitting bone as the gold and bronze of his torn armor flowed like lustrous wax to renew itself and regain its luster.

Eyes that were once jaundiced yellow now burned with the light of newborn stars, clear where before they had been clouded with madness. Every warrior around the battle dropped back to their knees in willing supplication. Even Raz, who knelt to no man, felt no shame in bowing before such a being.

He felt the power that had wrought this creature pulsing in searing waves.

This was a being that demanded awe, a god-warrior of such potency that no legend could ever hope to capture his true majesty.

The falcata fell from Sai-Surtha’s grip, useless against this towering monster.

Renekton’s restored hand reached out and hoisted Sai-Surtha from the ground, lifting him like a man holding the runt of the litter by the scruff of its neck.

“Little mortal,” said Renekton, his voice echoing from the shattered walls of the city. “I am an Ascended being. I have crushed armies, torn down cities, sealed the gates and set them to flame. I laid waste to the world uncounted ages ago, and you thought to stand against me?”

With a dismissive flick of his wrist, Renekton tossed the body of Sai-Surtha toward Ma’kara. The great sauren’s heads came up and their jaws snapped shut.

Raz winced at the sound of crunching bone and ripping flesh as the three heads tore their former master to scraps.

Renekton bent to retrieve the Preystalker’s falcata, its impressive size like a toy sword in his hands.

“Who claims this blade now?”

Raz felt every eye upon him, the Sandthrashers looking to him as Sai-Surtha’s second in command. The blood felt cold and sluggish in his body, like cooled fat clogging his veins. He let out a shuddering breath, knowing that to take the falcata would be death.

He rose to his feet and stepped forward, his dreams of one day leading the Sandthrashers now ashes in his mouth.

“Sai-Surtha is dead by your hands,” he said. “The blade is yours. You are now the Preystalker of the Sandthrashers.”

“My time of leading blade-hosts is long passed,” said Renekton, and Raz thought he saw a depthless well of melancholy flicker within the fire of his eyes. “I desire no army, nor crave followers as I will seek the scent of my brother beyond these walls. You would do well to be far from these lands when I find him.”

The god-warrior threw Sai-Surtha’s falcata toward Raz. It landed, point first, in the sand, quivering slightly.

“Your leader,” said Renekton, stepping from the circle towards him. “Did he know anything of my brother or did he die for nothing?”

“I know not what he knew,” said Raz, pulling the sword from the sand and holding it out before him in offered challenge.

“What are you doing?” asked Renekton.

“If you are going to kill me, then I will give a show you won’t soon forget,” said Raz. “I will make you work to claim my soul.”

Renekton laughed and shook his mighty head.

“You are less than nothing to me,” he said. “I seek the heart of a god. I merely pass this blade to you as a sign of your ascension to, what did you call it? Preystalker, yes, that was it. You are now the Preystalker.”

Raz lowered the sword, looking from its blade to the warriors gathered around him.

He could ask for no greater sign of favor than the word of this god.

“Lord Renekton,” said a voice, and Raz turned to see Dalia slowly rising to her feet beside Anukta. “On our journey south, the man who enslaved us spoke of an order of scribes who sought a sunken library. It is said to be hidden in the cliffs beyond Zirima. I do not know if there is any truth to this, but if the tales of your learned brother are true, then perhaps he too might seek out such a place...”

Renekton sighed, his eyes taking on the faraway look of a mind lost in bitter memories.

“Knowledge was ever his passion,” he said. “Once we almost shed blood over my thirst to destroy a great library of an enemy city...”

Renekton turned and strode back the way he had come, passing once again to shadow.

As darkness swallowed the ancient being, it seemed his form diminished from its towering, lustrous god-form, returning to the hunched and forlorn wanderer lost to madness who had first entered Vekaura.

With Renekton gone, Raz turned to Dalia and Anukta.

“You want to live?” he asked Dalia, bending to retrieve his tooth-bladed knife from the blood-drenched ground where Ordan Stilava had been devoured.

“I do,” she said.

Raz handed her the weapon and nodded toward the hissing, reptilian form of Khesu.

“I made this from one of its teeth,” he said. “If it lets you ride it, you’re one of us.”

She nodded, and Raz was pleased at the lack of fear he saw.

“So what are you going to ride?” said Anukta.

Raz sheathed Sai-Surtha’s falcata in a leather loop at his back.

He locked eyes with the middle head of Ma’kara and rolled his shoulders. Ragged scraps of flesh dangled from the creature’s barbed teeth, and it watched him approach with hostile eyes.

“Right,” said Raz, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way...”

Xayah jumped upward into the trees’ foliage, dodging the gunfire that exploded from the temple’s walls. The humans called their weapons “Kashuri rifles”. They were deadly, and the town’s guards were obviously trained warriors. But they were too late. Too late to hit her. Too late to stop the tribesmen she commanded, who had already climbed the ancient temple and reached what it guarded: a quinlon.

It was a circle of five massive rocks, orbiting around each other, floating in the sky. A great ward, it contained ancient enchantments, which held back and limited the natural magic of this land.

From the quinlon’s gray stone hung a dozen ropes, attached to spikes that the vastayan tribesmen had cast and hammered into it. The tribesmen were the Kepthalla vastaya. Their bodies were feathered, like Xayah’s own tribe, but their heads were long, and from their crown grew great horns.

Hanging from some of those lines, with ropes tied to their waists, were the bodies of the slain. And on the ground far below were more dead bodies. A dozen comrades who had died trying to reach the stone—killed by the humans’ cruel missiles. But their sacrifice had, at least, secured the line Xayah needed.

She nodded to Rakan, her lover and partner. He stole a kiss from her as he took the bundle she held. Then Rakan bounded into the treetops.

“Whooo!” He screamed in joy as he skipped from tree to tree before jumping into the sky with breathtaking speed.

His final leap traversed the height of the tower, a distance greater than a dozen men standing on each other’s shoulders, and still he was rising higher and higher into the air.

Xayah felt her lungs empty. So many had died for this moment… and in it she feared her lover might join the dead. Everything seemed too bright. Rakan’s cape glittered like the sun through the thin autumn clouds. The guns were tracking him. Aiming. It all came down to this. But the energy of his leaps was slowing…

Above him, on one of the ropes, a Kepthalla tribesman swung down from his hiding place, toward Rakan. But Rakan was slowing. And the guns began firing at him.

It was a ludicrous plan, based on some idiotic circus move she’d seen Rakan perform. Xayah knew she shouldn’t have used it. She was risking the battle, the fate of this tribe, and her lover’s life all on Rakan’s luck and athleticism. He was a warrior and an acrobat certainly. But there were so many guns. If he failed—if he hesitated—if he slowed… if he got hurt…

The tribesman hanging from the stone held out his hands and Rakan grabbed them, propelling himself even further upward.

And then he was on the side of the quinlon. He ran up its near-vertical surface, his cape flowing behind him majestically. And he was laughing. Laughing and mocking the mortals firing at him.

“You beautiful bastard,” Xayah whispered joyfully. She felt her hands unclench at last.

“What, warleader?” said the diminutive Kepthalla messenger-singer beside her.

“Sound the retreat! Get everyone off that rock,” Xayah roared.

The messenger blew the horn he carried. Its strangely deep and melancholy sound echoed through the forest and off the temple’s walls.

The Kepthalla tribesmen began to flee from the quinlon. Rappelling, jumping, falling, before running for the forest. They were easy prey for the human marksmen… but they didn’t take the bait. The mortals knew that Rakan was the only target who mattered now. But now he was alone.

Gunshots exploded around him, peppering the stone of the quinlon with tiny holes. When he reached the top, Rakan set down the package, then glanced around in confusion. He looked down at Xayah and shrugged.

“No, you damn idiot!” Xayah screamed. “The matches! The fire sticks behind your ear!” But her words were lost in the gunfire and distance.

Xayah leapt to the top of the trees, exposing herself to the marksmen, and mimed reaching behind her ear.

The bullets were impacting all around him, sending up tiny shards of shrapnel and dust. But Rakan only covered his eyes from the afternoon glare and looked to Xayah. Seeing her gesture, he seemed to suddenly remember the rest of her plan.

He yanked a match from the feathers behind his ear. Struck it on the rock. Leaned over the bundle with it. Then jumped clear.

He used his cape to direct his fall, gliding and banking, somehow always evading the gunfire directed at him. He was a battle-dancer, and their true skill was feeling what an enemy would do, even before they did.

He crashed through the treetops, lost control briefly, hit a tree limb, then somehow backflipped and landed gracefully beside her.

“I am gorgeosity in motion!” Rakan shouted in triumph. He held the smoking match out to Xayah. “Do we still need this fire stick?”

“Ashai-rei,” Xayah swore while rubbing her forehead. “No, we don’t need the match anymore.”

“Now what?” Rakan asked.

“Watch as one of the humans’ own weapons—a bomb used against our people in Navori—watch as it destroys our prison!” Xayah shouted, not to Rakan, but to the Kepthalla tribesmen gathering around her.

Only silence replied… followed by another round of gunfire raking the woods.

“Rakan, did you remember to light the fuse?” Xayah asked with all the calm she could muster and wondering, not for the first time, why she trusted him with these things.

“Fuse?” Rakan asked.

But before Xayah could scream, an explosion cracked overhead.

The largest rock of the quinlon broke apart. It was larger than any house, and its remains crashed into the other floating stones around it. And then the other, surrounding rocks stilled, no longer rotating.

“I put the fire stick on that little string,” Rakan said as the remaining stones of the quinlon began to quiver. Then, all at once, they plummeted downward. The earth shook as they crashed into the valley and monastery below.

The giant quinlon was gone, and the countless centuries of magic it had held back was suddenly released, like a dam crumbling and releasing a flood.

Around Xayah, the forest shone with light. Will-o’-the-wisps pulsed to life like miniature stars. Oddly-shaped beings of wild magic, glimmering with the light of the spirit realm, faded in and out of existence all around her. It was glorious.

She looked to Rakan, and he smiled back at her. His cape shimmered, crimson and gold. His feathers ruffled and peacocked. As the magic swelled, the faint impression of horns grew out from his sharp cheekbones, but he batted them away in favor of darkening his face to a color matching Xayah’s.

“There’s so much, I can feel it. I can feel it changing us,” Xayah said as she breathed it in. It was as if a great iron bar had been clamped tightly around her chest, throat, and skull for years, and now she was finally free of it. Her feathers rose around her and she realized with only a passing thought she could effortlessly change their color, shape, and size. Though the initial wave of freed magic was ebbing, it took only a flick of her consciousness for her to rise into the air, high above the ground.

“We are born from here. On these edges of this world. Half of spirit, half of form.” The Kepthalla tribesmen gathered beneath Xayah, and her voice boomed as she spoke. “This is what we have fought for. This is the land of your ancestors. As it was. As it is meant to be.”

Xayah slowly floated back down to the ground. The tribesmen around her, with their mouths open in wonder, were also transforming. Invigorated by the magic suddenly available to them, they cheered, laughed, and roared in joy.

Xayah’s Kepthalla messenger-singer—a previously shy runt—grabbed her and spun her around in a hug without warning. “You did it!” he screamed in joy. “You did it!”

“Now, you must defend it,” Xayah laughed as she gently pushed from him, allowing herself to float away.

The messenger, with the slightest twist of the magic available to him, transformed his sounding horn. Now it was longer than a tiger, and a dozen bone pipes grew from the instrument. Into it he blew a song as joyful as it was overwhelming.

Behind Xayah the forest was moving. The trail they had taken here, which turned right then left, now also turned the other left, into the spirit realm. A direction that went through places-past, places beyond the forests—and would transform any who took it.

“An ancient pathway has opened!” Xayah whispered in awe. She had not expected the magic here to be so strong. She turned to where Rakan had been, but found him missing.

She spotted him at the forest edge, his cape glowing like the afternoon sun. He was looking outward.

“Mieli?” she asked as she approached, using the ancient word for lover.

“We destroyed it,” Rakan said solemnly.

“Yes. We are free—that quinlon is no more.”

“No, their town.” He indicated the temple and the human settlement around it.

Vines larger than wagons churned the earth. They ran like massive waves from the forest, smashing a dozen houses into flinders.

The other woodwoven houses in the town were growing uncontrollably, folding in on themselves and crushing all inside, as they transformed into colossal trees.

A mortal woman, clutching a small child, ran from her home to a horse cart. Behind her, a man barely escaped being squashed by a huge vine that fell and crumbled his house.

He was carrying an armful of their possessions. He threw them into the cart, but as the wave of powerful freed magic overtook them, the vehicle burst to life, reforming itself as the plants from which it had been fashioned. Xayah watched as it changed into a giant insect-like creature made of wood and vines. The man slashed at the creature with a walking stick, before fleeing from it with the woman and child.

An old man with a long braid struggled on the undulating earth. He scrambled for a few paces before a pair of glowing forest spirits, shaped like ghostly butterflies, grabbed him. The spirits dragged him into the air. Then, growing tired of his struggles, they dropped him as they rose over a tree. He landed with a thud. His soul shuddered against the confines of his body, seeking to escape its own shell and join the forest.

Other mortals were running past him. Xayah could see their souls buffeting against the confines of their bodies too. An old woman grabbed the old man with the braid, lifting him to his feet, and together, limping, they fled… as the earth and spirits churned around them.

“The humans’ greed brought this to them,” Xayah said finally.

Rakan’s said nothing in reply. Xayah followed his gaze back to the destruction her plan had wrought.

After their victory, Rakan and Xayah had received a call for aid from the Vlotah tribe, and it had taken three moons to travel to their main village.

It wasn’t much to look at. The Vlotah had always been a small tribe, even in ancient times. The town was little more than a couple dozen warping trees that surrounded a crystal pool. As Xayah and Rakan were led into the village by a guard, a few of the trees grew openings and Vlotah tribesmen stepped outside to see who the visitors were.

The Vlotah were lithe and narrow, but with massive shoulders that protruded vertically from their backs like wings of bone. Their iridescent fur glittered in the light, first green, then purple, all over their bodies—save for their faces, which were creamy-white and vaguely feline in aspect.

But tints and vapors of sickly yellow and black seemed to be weeping from the trees, the vastaya, and even steaming from the pool. It was the color of hunger and sickness.

Xayah whispered that she thought the vastaya here looked too weak to fight, or even help her and Rakan fight.

“The magic here is unclean,” Rakan observed. “We should leave quickly. It’s upsetting my coat.” He ruffled his feathers.

“Rakan, a victory here would raise awareness of our cause across Zhyun. We need another success to prove a rebellion is possible.” Xayah looked again at the tribesmen around her, pitying them, and confirming her suspicions that they were too sickly to fight for themselves. “The Vlotah tribe asked for our help. And clearly they need it, my love.”

“Is helping them more important than me looking amazing?!” Rakan said incredulously, then flashed a smile to reveal he was joking.

“Obviously not,” said Xayah, playing along and finding herself cheered by his humor.

“We have to pri-or-i-tize!” Rakan cried, emphasizing every syllable.

“Rakan and Xayah, I presume?” a voice rumbled.

In the center of the village, sitting cross-legged on a boulder shaped like an eight-legged turtle, was an ancient Vlotah. He was white-furred and wearing a crown shaped to look like elk horns.

“I am Leivikah, the Vlotah tribe’s elder,” he said, before coughing.

Xayah and Rakan bowed. A crowd formed around them. Dozens of the Vlotah tribesmen were whispering in their own tongue.

“We have heard of how you saved Consul Akunir and Speaker Coll at Puboe. I am hoping you can help us,” Leivikah said, with a weak voice that barely rose above the crowd’s whispers.

Xayah glanced over to her partner and he took his cue.

“I am Rakan,” he confirmed with that deep voice he used sometimes. It was loud and certain, and somehow it held a smile behind it. Its confidence silenced the crowd. Then, with his shoulders squared and his back arched, Rakan turned so as to make eye contact with everyone around them. “And this is Xayah, the Violet Raven. You have heard of her triumphs, and her call for rebellion.”

And just like that, the crowd and elder were hanging on his words, excited he was here. Xayah shook her head, amazed how Rakan could so often say almost nothing, but with exactly the right feeling. She secretly nudged him in the back, keeping him focused.

“Oh, uh… We have answered your summons and we are happy to visit you as friends, or… as comrades. Tell us how we can help.” Rakan finished by flashing his glowing smile.

“Thank you, Rakan and Xayah, our need is great.” Leivikah rose unsteadily with his staff, then pointed toward the mountains. “North of here is the Kouln temple. It contains a small crystal quinlon. For many generations it has conditioned the magic of this region, and we have lived in peace with the mortals who tended it.”

He coughed and indicated the sickness around him. “But black-and-red-clad warriors calling themselves Yanlei have taken over. Now the magic here has dwindled and darkened. We attempted to retake the temple with the good monks of Kouln, but were driven back. Now we are too weak and too few to fight. It is our hope that, with your help, our allies can reclaim their sacred place.”

Xayah frowned and looked at the poverty around her. She began speaking then stopped herself, before finally saying with irritation, “You want us to help some humans retake a quinlon?”

“We have heard of your great successes,” Leivikah said.

“You heard we destroyed the quinlon in the valley of Houth and freed the Kepthalla tribe,” she said.

“The monks of Kouln are—”

“Human,” Xayah snapped, interrupting the elder. “Why would we—and why should any of you—care about squabbles between the mortal races? You ask us to help those who strangled the magic of these lands? Are you a fool?”

Elder Leivikah snarled and then looked to Rakan. But Xayah’s partner didn’t appear to be paying attention. He was humming and balancing a twig he’d just found on his index finger.

“We will help you. But only by destroying the quinlon—not by surrendering it to some monks,” Xayah said finally.

“That will destroy the valley town!” the elder exclaimed.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Many people will die!”

“Many humans will die,” Xayah said, correcting him.

“And when the humans try to take back their lands? What will—”

“With magic, you can defend it.”

“This is no way to speak to an elder!” Leivikah roared at Xayah, spittle coming from his mouth. “You do not have rights here, child! You make demands without knowing our tribe’s ways. Your fame as a warrior does not make you an elder!”

As Leivikah ranted, Rakan stepped away from Xayah and darted along the edge of the crowd, like a predator circling its prey. What few warriors this town still contained quickly backed away from the challenge Rakan was implying. Suddenly he leapt up onto the giant stone, landing beside the elder. Rakan stood over him for a moment.

“Do you want me to slap you off that rock?” Rakan asked.

Leivikah saw all of his guards had stepped away from the famous battle-dancer. Then he stammered, “I… I meant no disrespect.”

Rakan continued, “My lady speaks wisdom, fool. And she speaks only the truth. Listen. And watch your tone. Or we’re gonna have a problem.”

Rakan leapt back down from the rock as the elder pleaded. “My tribe only wants to return to the way it has been. The monks of Kouln have never broken their promises to us, and have protected us. We are not war-seekers like you.”

Rakan walked over to Xayah, adjusted his feathers, and then scratched his ear.

“What do you think?” Xayah asked quietly.

“About what?” Rakan replied in a whisper.

“About what he was saying?”

“I wasn’t listening to the words,” Rakan shrugged. He kissed her on the cheek and said, “You were both yelling. You were angry, but he is just scared.”

Xayah smiled, realizing Rakan was right before whispering, “Thank you, mieli.” Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips.

“I’m sorry, Elder Leivikah,” she said apologetically with a bow. “I also meant no disrespect.”

Then Xayah placed her hand over her heart and said, “You are afraid. There is no shame in that. But as long as you rely on humans to keep their promises, your tribe will never be free. And that is what I truly fear. How many generations has it been since you saw a child in this village? More than most of our people? Look around you. Your numbers were dwindling long before these new warriors appeared. But in the Kepthalla forests they have hope for the future. They hope that children will be born again—because, at last, the magic there is free!”

She looked around the crowd—like Rakan had—making eye contact with as many tribesmen as she could. “Rakan and I have fought these Yanlei before. Many know them as the Order of Shadow, and they are dangerous. Very dangerous. But we are willing to fight for you. We want to help you!”

Then Xayah let her shoulders drop, and shook her head. “Neither honor nor oath-magic binds you to those Kouln monks anymore—so we offer you a chance to take back your lands. You need only the courage to accept our offer and protect what is yours!”

The elder stared at her for a long moment before replying, “You are truly as fierce as your reputation, Xayah of Lhotlan, and we thank you. We will consider your words, and I will have our answer for you in the morning.”

As the elder rose to his feet, Rakan asked Xayah, “Are we staying the night?”

“Looks that way,” she replied.

Rakan pointed randomly at the crowd. “Which one of you wants to make me dinner? And… do you have chocolate?!”

Unsure of the human substance he was seeking, the crowd exchanged confused looks. Rakan turned back to Xayah and with annoyance cried out.

“No chocolate?!”

In the morning, Elder Leivikah made his decision. He swore his people would defend any lands reclaimed by the wild magic released, and he assigned the few warriors he had to Xayah’s command.

After looking at their weakened and sickened condition, and because she knew the Vlotah tribe would need its warriors to defend their lands later, Xayah decided it was best to use them only as a diversion.

So while Xayah and Rakan were attempting to retake the temple alone, the Vlotah warriors would instead attack the Yanlei patrols—and hopefully draw some of their numbers away from the temple.

It took Rakan and Xayah a day to walk from the Vlotah’s forest to the giant village the elder had spoken of.

Looking down on it from the hilltops, Xayah and Rakan saw it was far larger than any they had encountered in years. It was a small city, which dominated the entire valley with hundreds of dwellings.

“Can we go around it?” Rakan asked.

“No. Not unless we climb on the bare cliff walls surrounding the city.”

“Climbing could be fun.”

“We would be exposed the whole time we were on the cliff’s face. If the humans have ballistae, or their Kashuri rifles…”

“I hate tubebows,” Rakan grumbled. Then he gestured to the hills beyond the town. “I can hear the quinlon disturbing the magic. But I can’t see it. A forest is after the town.”

“We can rest there. But we must pass through the town without being spotted by the black-and-red-clad ones. They will know of us from what happened at Puboe and with the Kepthalla. We must try to look like humans.”

“Perhaps some of the Vlotah can circle back to help us get around it,” Rakan suggested.

“They are too scared and too weak, Rakan,” she replied. “And they would only draw attention to us.”

Xayah began pulling items from a bag she had taken from the village. “The Vlotah gave us human-style foot coverings. And we’ll wear big hoods.”

“That cloak is gray,” Rakan said with breathless horror. “That’s not even a color!” He snapped a twig off a tree and threw it with great force into the forest.

Xayah looked down at the garments, and then she too shuddered at the thought of putting these coarse human fabrics over her feathers.

Guards dressed in black and red were closing the gate and waving the last visitors into the city as night fell. Xayah ducked her head down as she and Rakan walked past them.

As she entered through the gate, she stole a glance at the great town’s wall. It was massive, many times the height of the tallest tree in the forest.

“Rakan, could you jump over this wall?” Xayah whispered.

“Why?” he asked.

“If we had to get out of here quickly,” she said.

He looked up at the wall, judging the distance, before saying, “No—too little clean magic here.”

She could feel the ill magic used to construct the wall. It was alien, even for mortal magic. Dark and angry. She had only felt its like once before… at Puboe.

The enormous thorn vines, each wider around than a horse, hadn’t been asked or coaxed into dragging these stones into the wall—they had been goaded and forced. And the magic that held the wall and ramparts above her wailed and growled.

The wall would be a powerful barrier against invaders, but she wondered what would happen when the vines, which had been holding this magic, were suddenly let free.

The gates closed behind them and locked. Xayah and Rakan hid amongst the travelers and peasants who walked down the main road toward the town’s center.

“There is a mage here,” Rakan said.

“I hear their magic,” Xayah replied, “but I can’t see them.”

“Above us.”

On a tower made out of cut and dead trees, a man stood in burgundy robes. From his eyes a strange darkness emanated, and he held an ornate brass bell which misted a dark vapor.

“He is looking for vastaya and yordles,” Rakan said with certainty.

Xayah grabbed Rakan’s arm and pulled him into an alleyway, as the mage screeched a horrific sound. He had seen through their disguises. Horns of alarm blared from the walls answering the mage’s cry.

Footsteps and guards shouted behind them. Xayah and Rakan ran, dodging from alleyway to alleyway, but soon discovered the streets formed a labyrinth.

They could feel the mage scrying to find them. He was swinging the magically touched bell. It chimed softly but let free an invisible lash of magic in their direction. Again and again, it released a sound no mortal would hear—or feel the pain of—but which cracked like a giant’s whip in the ears of the vastaya. One of his strikes crashed down the alleyway, just missing Rakan as he dove against a wall.

The bell’s magic vibrated their feathers and for a moment Xayah thought they had been discovered. But then the mage rang the bell in a slightly different direction, down another alleyway. He was searching blindly, clearly uncertain what and where they were.

Ahead, at an intersection, the Yanlei guards were grabbing townsfolk and dragging them out into the open where the mage could see them.

One of the guards, a leader, was dressed differently than the rest. He wore a dark gray vest of rough cloth, unbuttoned. To the vastaya, he seemed malformed, touched by some sort of corruption. Rakan nodded to the black-within-black tattoos covering both of the man’s arms.

“Shadow magic,” Rakan growled.

Xayah nodded. “They are insane.”

“Let’s see if he can dance,” Rakan said. On instinct Xayah grabbed her lover’s hand and held him back.

Just then, the man’s tattoos came alive. They rose from his body like smoke. Their darkness solidified into barbed talons like a spider’s legs, each holding a cruel hook-sword. Then these shadow forms slashed a villager who had resisted being pulled out into the open. The man hit the ground screaming, a red gash along his back.

Rakan and Xayah swung against the wall under the overhang of the building next to them, then slipped into another alleyway that stank of rot and garbage. Then seeing it free of guards, they ran with everything they had. Bounding off the walls and drawing on some of the reserves of magic they held within themselves for greater speed. But the alleyway curved around. They discovered it led only back to the wide street.

Behind them several of the black-and-red-clad warriors appeared on a balcony and leapt down.

Rakan scanned the street, looking at each of the houses and inhabitants. Then he grabbed Xayah’s hand and dragged her around the corner toward a nearly ruined house with failing timbers.

“What are you doing?” Xayah asked.

“This one is good,” Rakan responded, indicating the house’s recently swept entranceway and clean windows.

“What?!” Xayah responded.

One of the guards down the street spotted the desperation of their pace, and indicated the pair to his commander. The tattooed brute was still standing over the wailing peasant.

“What’s wrong?” a woman’s voice asked.

Xayah turned and saw an elderly woman dressed in yellow. She had long white hair held up in an elaborate braid, and her eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

“Nothing,” Xayah replied. “We were just—”

“The guards are looking for us,” Rakan interjected. “We need help.”

The woman looked to the guards, then back to Xayah and Rakan. Rakan gave her a hopeful smile. “We mean no harm,” he assured her.

“Quickly, come through the side door,” she said, gesturing to the alleyway beside her house. Then she closed and barred the front entrance behind her.

Rakan and Xayah ducked into the alleyway and ran along the side of the house. It was a dead end… and they couldn’t see any doors.

“Damn it, why would you say that to her?” Xayah cursed. She could hear the mage scrying above them—his magic cracking loudly through the spirit realm. They could see the shadows of the guards in the street, heralding their approach.

But then, a wall suddenly moved, as a hidden door into the house slid open. The old woman leaned out and gestured for them to come inside.

Once the pair was inside, the old woman slid the smugglers’ entrance closed, hiding its existence.

The two vastaya looked around and discovered they were in a storage room with a low ceiling and dirt floors. It was dark and illuminated by only a single oil lamp and the glow of a pair of dying ekel-flowers.

Beneath her cloak, Xayah formed two feather blades and readied them.

Perhaps sensing the danger, the woman backed away toward a full-moon spear resting against the wall. It was a fine weapon, well-oiled and touched by ancient magics that purred happily inside of it.

“You are vastaya?” the woman said cautiously.

Before Xayah could stop him, Rakan nodded and said with the deep voice, “I am Rakan, battle-dancer of the Lhotlan tribe.”

To Xayah’s surprise, the woman let out a deep breath, and laughed. “Leivikah told me he was seeking your help, but we have heard no word from the Vlotah tribe since then. I am Abbess Gouthan.”

There was a loud banging on the front door.

“Stay quiet, I’ll get rid of them,” Gouthan said as she hurried to the front room, sliding the hallway’s door closed behind her.

While the abbess checked who was at the front door, six young mortal acolytes appeared from the house’s other rooms. Many wore bandages and appeared injured. They nervously exchanged glances with each other. Xayah could sense them gathering what little magic they could muster.

Xayah slid one of her hands inside the woolen cloak she wore and willed a new feather blade into existence. If the monks attacked, it would be too close for her to throw the daggers, so she altered the blade’s handle, shaping it into a short falchion.

When Abbess Gouthan reappeared, the woman held a finger to her lips to indicate they should stay quiet. Then, almost silently, she sent her more heavily injured monks back into their rooms, while she and her two remaining students readied a cooking fire. They quietly sang and hummed a haunting tune as they began to prepare food.

Rakan put his arm around Xayah’s shoulder and led her to a low table in an adjoining room. The couple sat down together. While the monks cooked, Xayah slowed her breathing before cautiously reabsorbing her blades and their magic back into her feathers.

As she waited, Xayah wrapped both her winged and woolen cloaks around her legs—only a few beeswax candles and the cooking fire illuminated their side room and barely held back the evening chill.

When the candles had burned down to a thumb span, the abbess and her two attendants finished cooking and quietly joined Rakan and Xayah with several plates of food.

“We hid in the hills for a few weeks after they took our temple,” Gouthan whispered. “Then, like you, we snuck into the city.”

She and one of her students passed the meager food they had prepared from the fire pit of their kitchen to the table Rakan and Xayah sat at.

“This old house was my family’s long before I became the abbess of Kouln temple. We managed to avoid detection only because the Navori—”

“Who is the warrior with black tattoos?” Rakan asked.

“The warriors with tattoos are the Order of Shadow. They are a part of the Navori Brotherhood… or they were, when—”

“Their tribe is at war with yours?” Rakan interrupted again.

“Not exactly,” Gouthan replied patiently. “They took our temple but let most of us live, I suppose to keep the local villagers from revolting against them. The peace ensures they can gather the foul shadow magic they are harvesting. But I’ve been sneaking my students back into the city. Readying ourselves.”

Rakan bit into the stone-cooked bread. “You sang ‘Theln and the Falling Leaves’ while cooking this?”

“Yes,” Gouthan replied. “When vastaya cook, the song is important, right?”

“It is important,” Xayah said without emotion. Her plate sat untouched in front of her.

Rakan explained, “For stone flour bread, it is traditional to use a happy song that you can drum with.”

“And you can taste that?”

Rakan shoved another piece of bread into his mouth and nodded.

“My apologies, we have so little to offer you, and even less skill in your customs,” the abbess said before bowing her head. She was clearly ashamed of what her order had been reduced to.

Rakan patted her on the shoulder. “It’s good! It’s not a song used for stone bread, but it goes well with this flour.”

“You are too kind.”

“He is hungry,” Xayah said.

“Now that we have shared food, can we discuss how we will take back our temple?” the abbess asked hopefully.

“Your help will not be needed,” Xayah responded.

“My students can lead you there. I myself can stand against more than a few of the shadow warriors. Also I sent word to the Kinkou Order—surely they will send reinforcements.”

Xayah and Rakan exchanged a glance. Then Xayah asked, “How many of these Yanlei warriors are in the city?”

“Perhaps a hundred.”

“And at the temple?”

“Perhaps fifty.”

“We can handle that number,” Xayah said.

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

“They are bad dancers,” Rakan murmured, while grabbing another piece of bread.

“But surely, if we wait for the Kinkou—”

“The Vlotah cannot wait for the Kinkou’s help. That is why we are here.”

“I understand,” the abbess said. “I failed them. Allow me to at least join you against these Yanlei bastards.”

“You should wait here in the city,” Xayah said flatly.

“I can show you where they have set up patrols—”

“You can show us in the morning,” Xayah said. “But if you don’t mind, I would like a moment with my partner.”

“Oh… uh, okay.” The abbess rose with her attendant. Rakan followed them to the door, gave each of them a hug and handed them a couple pieces of bread as they returned to the rooms at the front of the house.

Then Rakan closed the door, and sat back down beside Xayah. She whispered, “We should leave as soon as they fall asleep.”

“We should warn them about what will happen when we destroy the quinlon,” he responded, shoving another piece of bread into his mouth.

“If they knew what we were going to do, they would betray us to these other mortals. Or the Kinkou.”

“Many mortals will die,” Rakan said.

“The Vlotah tribe will die while waiting for help. My love, we are on this path. They settled on vastayan lands. They raised a wall with magic which they barely control and do not understand.”

“If you say so. But I prefer this abbess to Elder Leivikah. At least she’s not scared.”

“You’ve just been seduced by their food.”

Rakan took another mouthful and shrugged. “It was made with care and a song sung truthfully.”

“I don’t trust her. Not with our lives on the line.”

“This is why you said we didn’t need their help?”

“Fifty warriors is a lot,” Xayah admitted. “And that’s before you add shadow magic.”

Rakan shrugged. “You don’t have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan.”

“Then I trust it,” Rakan said softly.

Xayah shook her head. “We’re going in alone. If my plan goes wrong—”

“You are never wrong about those things.”

Xayah ran her fingers through her feathers and bowed her head, running through every detail she had learned about the terrain—the black-and-red-clad warriors, the town, the mountain temple, and the crystal quinlon—from the Vlotah elder.

Then after a long silence, she asked, “Why did you trust this monk?”

“Because I know about these things,” Rakan replied.

Xayah lay awake for many hours that night, studying the maps the Vlotah had provided her with. She was able to deduce where the warriors had probably set patrols and pickets, and charted a path that would allow them to avoid detection until they were only a few hundred paces from the temple.

They left after the moon rose and were able to sneak out of the house without incident.

The town was still, save for the sound of insects, making it easy to avoid the Yanlei warriors by listening for their footsteps. After Xayah deduced where these warriors were, it was simple for her to find a pathway through the sentries’ patrols.

They left the city and past the last of the farmhouses leading up the mountain as dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky.

The forest on the mountain was the color of ash. Rakan and Xayah could feel the magic they held inside them being tugged away from them.

The quinlon here wasn’t just dampening the power of spirit magic to create change, or limiting its life-giving vitality by holding back the wild magic mortals found too dangerous; this one was actively absorbing magic, leeching it from the landscape and the spirit realm at a rate Xayah had never experienced before. It was as if the normal function of the quinlon had been turned upside down, allowing only the darkest magics to ebb out from the spirit realm.

For most of the day, Rakan and Xayah marched through the woods, concealing themselves in what remained of the bone-colored underbrush of the forest, keeping a few dozen yards from the trail. They stayed motionless as the enemy warriors went past. At first they seemed to be on regular patrols, but soon large groups of warriors were marching downhill with an obvious urgency.

Xayah surmised the Vlotah tribesmen had begun the diversionary raids she had directed. Certainly, she and Rakan could defeat these humans—but Xayah knew it was safer to conserve what scarce magic they had.

Weakened and sick from the lack of magic, the Vlotah who had volunteered to draw these Yanlei away had shown great bravery. Xayah assured herself these new comrades would be safe for at least a while. But if she and Rakan failed to take out the quinlon soon? Xayah could feel her fingernails digging into her palms as she and Rakan lay hidden behind a wagon-sized boulder.

After a while, the patrols of red- and black-clad warriors significantly dwindled in size and frequency, enabling her and Rakan to travel more quickly than they had before.

They reached the temple by late afternoon. The building was ugly, and it hated the world. It was tall and as pale as a corpse. Leafless branches and thorns had grown from its woodwoven walls, forming battlements and defensive spikes.

Rakan whistled, drawing the attention of the first guard he saw. The man turned just in time to take one of Xayah’s feather blades in the chest. Rakan caught him before he fell—showing off.

A distant horn sounded, and Xayah knew they had been spotted. From hiding places scattered around the temple, a dozen more of the black-clad warriors appeared.

Rakan dashed into their midst, kicking, spinning, and throwing them up into the air, while Xayah’s blades took their toll. They were moving fast now. They cut a path to the temple’s entrance.

Xayah used her magic to pull her feather blades back to her, killing the warriors that stood against them, while Rakan took a bow.

She rolled her eyes at his antics and left him to keep these black-clad warriors busy.

She pushed through the vines at the gateway of the temple, then walked into its grand entranceway. With doors broken and strewn on the ground, dark curving passageways lay open on both sides of her. She ignored them, and instead followed the path the sunlight cut toward a vine-covered doorway at the far end of the room.

She paused as she passed a small stack of crystal boxes, hidden against a wall. They were odd things, perfectly square and completely soulless, somehow holding no magic at all. In some great act of sacrilege against the world, it was as if their maker had managed not to let any of his essence—or the essence of their base materials—pass into them. She gave them a wide berth, and crept through a doorway overgrown with black roots.

She found the center of temple bathed in red light. Xayah looked up to see the quinlon glowing above her. Like many quinlons, it was an arrangement of rotating stones, but this one appeared to be made of giant shards of ruby, each larger than a horse. It glowed. She could feel its pull as it took in magic.

And she watched in horror as it pulled tiny forest spirits up into it.

There was a shift in the air, and she knew she wasn’t alone. She ducked just as an armored warrior appeared from the shadows. He vaulted above her, bouncing off the walls and pillars as a battle-dancer might—but he was appearing and disappearing in puffs of smoke.

She had known vastaya, touched by the clouds, with similar techniques. But this man’s magic was strange. Even the shadows inside him were touched by something else, an echo of the magic of the twilight. He was powerful—more powerful than any mage, any mortal she had encountered. Weakened as she and Rakan were, Xayah knew defeating this armored warrior was unlikely.

She threw feather blades, but he simply cut them apart, and with each movement she was getting weaker and he closer. She stared as the warrior parried the next of her attacks and sent one of her feather blades up into the quinlon.

The red stone cracked instantly.

It was then the reason this small quinlon had been set inside the temple became clear. The strange ruby-like mineral it was made from gave it its unusual power… but it was fragile. Especially now that it was overloaded.

She couldn’t defeat this warrior, not under these conditions… but if she kept him distracted, she could still destroy the quinlon.

She willed as many feather blades into existence as she could. The effort of it drained her limbs, making her feel as if she was being held underwater. But she threw blindly, forcing her opponent to dodge, to duck—knowing that every blade that went past him would sink into the quinlon, cracking it, or fly beyond it into the roof of the temple.

But her breathing had become short and desperate, and her foe circled around her like a shark. He had been letting her tire—and now he was ready to finish their duel.

In her exhaustion, Xayah clenched her jaw, preparing herself for what she knew she must do. She would die, and so would this warrior… but the Vlotah would survive.

And then for the briefest of seconds she realized she never again would see Rakan. Feel him against her. Hear his laughter. See his sly smile… And in her distraction the armored warrior struck at her. Barely she turned his blow, but the impact knocked her to the ground. The warrior backflipped away from her, then, without pausing, jumped back toward her with blades ready for his killing blow.

This was her chance. Instead of parrying, she drew back her magic blades and… ripped the quinlon and the roof of the temple apart! As the shadow warrior fell onto her, the quinlon’s giant shards and the stones of the roof began to fall onto them both, as certain as death.

And then, suddenly… Rakan!

His arms were around her, holding her, embracing her. A swirl of golden energy wisped from his cape and surrounded them. She could feel the impact of the shadow warrior’s blades slam against its magic—unable to deliver the killing blow. She felt Rakan’s chest against her cheek. She could feel it rising as he took in a breath.

Bigger pieces of the temple’s roof and the quinlon were falling now—whatever magic Rakan had held on to glowed as a bubble of energy, holding back the stones. But Xayah could feel him weakening under the shield’s weight. He roared, screeching like a tiger in a trap, as the entire building collapsed. His chest shuddered, and he fell to his knees.

And then there was darkness.

When Xayah opened her eyes, Rakan was helping her to her feet in the ruins of the temple. The strange warrior was gone, and his cohorts were running down the trail, fleeing as the first wave of wild magic crashed free into this world.

The forests glowed, flowers bloomed, and the great spirits were awakening. The light from the other world washed around them.

She looked at Rakan, smiled, and wiped a smudge from his cheek.

They embraced and took in the magic— it was different here than in the Kepthalla’s forest. Despite, or perhaps because of, how it had been caged and abused, it was bursting with vitality and joy.

The Vlotah tribe would be free as the Kepthalla tribe were. And there would no longer be a question of whether destroying the quinlons was possible or right. More tribes, even Xayah’s, would see the future she believed was possible for her people.

The ground rumbled—something giant beneath the mountain was awakening, and the two lovers danced across the great cracks forming in the landscape.

Rakan kissed Xayah gently, then said, “The humans cannot live in our lands, but I’m going to see if I can help that abbess escape. If I dive down that pink stone cliff, I might get there in time.”

“Go, save your bread-maker, my love. But I think she will have already fled the town.”

Rakan tilted his head in confusion.

Xayah cupped his face with her hands. “I left her a message, telling her what was about to happen, and that she should flee with as many of her kind as she could.”

“You told her what would happen?” Rakan asked, smiling as he held her hands against his face.

“You trusted her,” Xayah replied. “And I trust you in these things.”