LoL Universe Indexing and Search

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

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

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

But these were far from normal circumstances.

The king was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uncle?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Rise,” Jarvan ordered.

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

Xin Zhao jumped backward, avoiding the blow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You have nothing to say?” demanded Jarvan.

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

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

Drakebane.

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

“Get your spear,” he said.

“You are not armored,” protested Xin Zhao.

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

“I don’t care,” Jarvan said.

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

Without a word, Jarvan attacked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He held it out to his seneschal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao said nothing.

“I’m right, am I not?” said Jarvan.

Xin Zhao sighed, and looked down.

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

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

Jarvan rubbed his eyes.

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

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

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

“I remember,” said Xin Zhao.

“You delivered this letter, I take it?”

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

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

“Nothing that could not be dealt with.”

“Mages?” said Jarvan.

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

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

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

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

“And they killed him,” snapped Jarvan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then it will be done,” he said.

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

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

Xin Zhao frowned.

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

“To whom did you make this pledge?”

“High Marshal Tianna Crownguard.”

Jarvan frowned.

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

“Of course.”

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

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

“But what of the High Marshal?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It would be my honor… my king.”

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

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

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

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

Jarvan paused before the great council doors.

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

“My lord?”

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

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

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

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

“Destroy it,” Jarvan said.

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

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

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

“Seneschal?” said Jarvan.

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

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

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

“Let us begin,” said Jarvan.

Rumored to have never lost in one-on-one combat, Xin Zhao spent much of his life fighting an uphill battle. Some of his earliest memories are of the Viscero, an Ionian fishing boat he served aboard off the coast of Raikkon. A diligent cabin boy, he obeyed his elders’ every request—from cleaning grimy decks to fixing tangled nets—and enjoyed a peaceful existence… until the day they unknowingly ventured too deep into foreign waters.

A pair of privateer ships from Noxus chased down the smaller vessel. Their commander cited the glory of the empire as he boarded, claiming the Viscero and its crew as his rightful property. They were mostly ageing fishermen, unfit for military service, but they would be taken back to Noxian territory regardless.

After enduring a tough journey across the open ocean, Xin Zhao found himself in a strange new land. There was no delicate beauty in the waters here, no magic in the trees. Imposing gateways and fortified stone walls unlike anything he had ever seen lined the streets, and the people were crammed into every available inch of space. He learned this was the capital of Noxus, and it was from here that a man known as “Darkwill” ruled the vast empire. Separated from the rest of the Viscero’s crew, and with no means of returning home, Xin Zhao entered the service of the man who had taken him prisoner.

His skill with a spear did not go unnoticed, and soon he was promised a better life—with meals served on plates—in exchange for his martial prowess. Noxus celebrated strength, and his patron deemed him to be a strong fighter.

Having nothing to lose, the young man accepted. He shed his ragged clothes for crude armor, and entered the Reckoning arenas.

Truly, this was a strange form of entertainment. Mighty warriors, known by even mightier titles, fought each other before ravenous crowds, who cheered for displays of skill and showmanship as often as they did for blood. Xin Zhao, taking the name “Viscero”, was catapulted into success. His bouts soon filled the seats of every arena… and also the pockets of his sponsors. In only a few short years, Viscero became a celebrated name—one that audiences adored, and other Reckoners came to fear.

But this good fortune did not last.

Beyond the distractions of the Reckoner circuit, the empire faced difficult times. Hostile nations encroached upon its territories, provoking rebellion all along the Noxian frontier. It was rumored that Darkwill and his advisors had offered a fortune in gold for the private release of mercenaries, prisoners, and Reckoners alike, to be conscripted into the empire’s warhosts. With little more than a handshake, Xin Zhao and his fellows were bought out, and placed on a transport ship heading west.

Here, at the coastal fortress of Kalstead, the names and reputations of even the most well-known Reckoners counted for little. They were hurled into battle against the elite forces of King Jarvan III of Demacia, who was determined to curb Noxian influence on Valoran… and Xin Zhao quickly learned that war was unlike any arena duel.

While many of the former Reckoners deserted in the face of inevitable defeat, Xin Zhao held his ground, staining his spear with the blood of hundreds. When the king’s Dauntless Vanguard—some of whom were silently impressed by his skill—finally surrounded him, still he refused to run. Xin Zhao stood tall, welcoming his execution.

However, Jarvan thought differently. Unlike the arena crowds, the king of Demacia took no pleasure in needless killing. He granted the defeated Noxians their freedom, if they would swear to leave Kalstead in peace. Surprised by this show of mercy, Xin Zhao thought about what awaited him back in Noxus. He could return to a society where his life had meant little beyond the gold he earned for his patrons… or he could fight for those who embodied the virtues to which he, himself, aspired.

Compelled by honor, he knelt before Jarvan III, pledging himself to the king’s service.

In the decades that followed, Xin Zhao proved his loyalty time and again. As a seneschal of the royal household, he became bodyguard and advisor not only to his friend and master, but also to the king’s son—young Prince Jarvan, who would one day inherit the crown. Xin Zhao’s path to becoming a Demacian may have been unusual, yet never once did he falter in his commitment to the kingdom and its ideals. This was not from a sense of duty, he reasoned, but by choice.

However, his greatest test came when a mage insurrection threatened the capital. With the nefarious Sylas of Dregbourne wreaking havoc throughout the Great City, Xin Zhao stood ready to defend his liege, but the king commanded him to leave on a personal mission of critical importance. With a heavy heart, Xin Zhao reluctantly obeyed.

It was only when the palace bells tolled that he knew the true gravity of his mistake. By the time the seneschal fought his way back, King Jarvan III was dead.

Xin Zhao believed his life would be forfeit… but instead, Prince Jarvan reminded him of the pledge he had once made, and accepted a renewal of his service to the kingdom.

For now, more than ever, Demacia needs its seneschal. The throne lies vacant, as the other noble houses fear that the prince may not yet be fit to rule. Xin Zhao has no such concerns—he is utterly devoted to Jarvan, and determined to guide him in the perilous days to come.

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

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

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

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

He failed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prisoner thinks. Will his answer decide his fate?

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

“What?”

“Xin. Zhao.”

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

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

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

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

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

The captain nods.

“Why is this one being kept by himself?”

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

“This one ended more lives than the others.”

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

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

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

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

“Well, go on and eat,” Olber says.

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

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

The guards nod along and turn to each other.

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

“Which Jarvan was that?” another asks.

“Second. We’re on the third one now.”

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao offers his palms facing upward.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know you!” says a guard.

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

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

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

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

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

Is this fate offering its last sympathies?

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

Xin Zhao shakes his head.

“You have family left in Noxus?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where could he find peace? Would he want it?

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

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

“What is it, child?”

“This king of yours. Who is he?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The king welcomes Viscero!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao peers downward, wondering how he should respond.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But it is not my real name.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao lowers his head. “I have one request, if I may.”

“Speak,” the king says.

“I wish to join your guard.”

“Absurd!” Captain Crownguard shouts. The guards strike the ends of their spears against the ground in accord.

The king lets out a soft chuckle and turns to his sword-captain. “What an interesting proposition.”

“Surely, you can't—” Captain Crownguard begins, before she is silenced by her king’s hand once more.

“Let the man explain himself,” Jarvan III says with a grin. “I wish to hear his reasoning.”

Xin Zhao raises his head. His eyes meet the king's. “You have shown me mercy and honor,” he begins. “Two things I never knew until now. All my years in Noxus, I spent fighting for a cause not my own, and during that time I knew of only two truths. Victory meant survival and defeat meant death. That was what I learned, seeing other fighters fall in the arena or disappear never to be seen again after too many losses. But you and your people fight for something else. Something more.”

A breeze ruffles the tent. Two small leather boots shuffle. Xin Zhao clears his throat.

“And I'd rather die fighting for honor than live out my days regretting that I never made that choice.”

Jarvan III leans forward. All others know to remain quiet.

“You speak well,” the king replies. “Better than some of my own advisers, truth be told. Still, my wards endure years, decades even, of training. How am I to believe you are capable?”

Xin Zhao stares at the king, at the prince, at Captain Crownguard. A part of him knows what he could say; another knows what he could do. Is it his choice to make?

No.

Fate has made its choice.

He grabs the coin pouch and throws it at the sword-captain, hitting her in the face. While she recovers, he sweep kicks the guard to his left, knocking him to the floor. Xin Zhao snatches the Demacian’s spear, swinging it in a circle to trip the other guard to his right. His body moves on instinct, fluid and swift as his mind pretends he is back in the arena. With one final twirl of the weapon, he jabs it forward at Jarvan III, its blunt end stopping inches short of the king's throat.

The young prince gasps. The king's guard gather themselves. Soldiers rush in as the sword-captain draws her blade.

Xin Zhao falls to his knees. He lays the spear down without a sound and offers his neck. Finely crafted steel weapons touch his skin.

Tension fills the room. All eyes lock onto Xin Zhao, whose own eyes are closed, at peace, ready to accept whatever comes next.

The king straightens his cloak. “Stand down,” he commands. “My father once said Noxus wasted its talent in those arenas. Now I see the truth in his words.”

“My king,” Captain Crownguard begs. “He tried to kill you!”

“No, Tianna,” the king replies. “He showed me how I could be killed. Even in front of my own trusted guards.”

“My deepest apologies,” Xin Zhao says. His voice is calm and measured, a quiet tide not yet ready to flow ashore. “It was the only way I thought to demonstrate myself.”

“And demonstrate you did,” the king says. “To me, and these warriors of Demacia. It appears they could learn a thing or two from you.”

“I will not have the king’s guard be sullied by a prisoner!” Captain Crownguard exclaims.

“When this man entered my sight, he was a prisoner no more.” The king stands from his chair. “Demacia was founded long ago, by good people who sought refuge from the evils of this world. This man's story reminds me of those tales of old, of great Orlon and his followers. The very ones my father once told me.”

His gaze falls on the prince, who looks back, amazed. “My son, my life’s joy,” the king says, “how happy I am that you are here to witness this moment. To see for yourself why we must uphold our virtues, so others may aspire to do the same. Do you understand?”

“Yes, father,” the prince says, his voice small but firm.

The king steps forward. “Xin Zhao, you have touched me with your life and your courage, a rare thing I have not felt in some time.” He bends down to help Xin Zhao to his feet. “Though you may not have been born a Demacian, I shall allow you to travel back with us, to my kingdom, where you will then prove yourself and your loyalty as my personal guard.”

Xin Zhao feels the king's sturdy hands grip his shoulders.

“Do not take this opportunity lightly.”

Xin Zhao looks Jarvan III in the eye. And for the first time, in a long time, he feels joy, washing over his body like the waves that once carried Viscero free.

The night air is chilly this far north of Kalstead. There is still a week or so before he will gaze upon the walls of the Great City of Demacia, Xin Zhao thinks as he walks outside his tent. A familiar face stands by the entrance.

“Still awake?” Olber says.

“I'm going for a walk. Won't be long.”

Strolling through the camp alone, Xin Zhao takes in the spirit of his new allies. They are an orderly lot, quick to aid one another and ensure safety among their ranks. Seeing their disciplined manner brings a smile to his face. He rounds a corner to look up at the crescent moon when he feels a sudden force pulling him down.

His body collides hard against the ground.

After blinking a couple times, he regains his senses and realizes he has been dragged inside a dimly lit tent. The sword-captain glares down at him. Beside her stand fearsome soldiers dressed in heavy warplate.

“You may have won the king's favor, but you are no Demacian in my eyes,” she states.

As Xin Zhao stands on his feet, she unsheathes her sword. Like the pride following their lioness, those around her do the same.

“I will be watching you,” she warns. “Should anything happen to the king while you are sworn in his service—”

With two hands, Xin Zhao clasps the flat sides of her blade. “Take this as my oath to you.”

Tianna Crownguard looks on, stunned, as he pulls the sword’s tip toward his own throat.

“Should anything happen,” Xin Zhao says. “You may kill me.”

The youngest child in a ruling family, Qiyana grew up believing she would never inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. As her parents governed Ixaocan, a city-state hidden deep in the jungles of Ixtal, they raised their children to succeed them, schooling them in the proud traditions of their isolated nation. Primed to rule before her, Qiyana’s nine older sisters received most of the attention, and she often longed to find her own meaningful place in the family.

That place became clear the day young Qiyana began to learn the ancient elemental magic of Ixtal. Soon after she took up lessons, she realized she was blessed with extraordinary talent. Though Qiyana was only seven years old, she mastered advanced techniques within weeks, while some of her older sisters had yet to grasp the basics after years of study.

One by one, Qiyana surpassed her sisters in the elemental arts, and the more she progressed, the more resentful she became. Why did her parents waste so much effort grooming her inferior siblings? Each time they were chosen to preside over the grand rituals that shrouded Ixtal from the outside world, Qiyana lashed out in frustration, picking fights to prove her worth. It wasn’t long before Inessa, the eldest sister and immediate successor, became the target for Qiyana’s aggression.

Rather than defusing the conflict, Inessa bristled at the disrespect from her sister, who was twelve years her junior. As both grew older, their words became increasingly heated, culminating in physical threats from Inessa, and a challenge from Qiyana: they should decide who was strongest in ritual combat, for all of Ixaocan to see—and for the right to succeed their parents. Inessa accepted the challenge to teach her sister some much needed humility.

When the contest was over, Inessa was never to walk again, while Qiyana stood unscathed.

She was eager to take her place as the rightful heir, but Qiyana’s parents were furious at her actions. They denied her the prize—tradition decreed that Qiyana would always be tenth in line to inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. Though the news was bitter, Qiyana soon discovered that the duel had made her elemental prowess known across all of Ixaocan. At last, she had found what had long eluded her: respect.

That respect quickly became an addiction. Qiyana felt a burning need to be recognized for her exceptional skill. In fact, all of Ixaocan should stand proud with her, and put the world in its place with their powerful elemental magic. Instead, they were hiding from foreign explorers, and miners who were uprooting the jungle on their borders.

In her parents’ court, Qiyana laid out her ambitions—to drive off the miners and restore the lands. Qiyana’s parents rejected the idea. Contact with the “outlanders” would bring hatred, war, and disease, jeopardizing what their dynasty had protected for centuries. Qiyana stewed, impatient to prove her strength to the world, and determined to prove her parents wrong.

Acting against their will, Qiyana raided the mining site, killing all the miners but one. As the man’s eyes shone brightly with fear, Qiyana knew he would spread her message—he would tell everyone in his Pilt-over about the grand elementalist who destroyed their mine.

In Ixaocan, Qiyana gladly took credit for the slaughter, infuriating her mother and father. They told her the Piltovan merchants were sending fresh miners and armsmen into the jungle. Qiyana’s parents would not risk their insubordinate daughter drawing even more outlanders toward their borders, and regretfully ordered her imprisoned for her crime.

Just as she was detained, several elementalists of the court came to Qiyana’s defense. The elemental talent displayed in the jungle was unheard of, and they convinced her parents that Qiyana should aid them in powering and defending the city. Qiyana was released, once she swore renewed fealty to her elders, and vowed to never cross paths with an outlander again.

As a growing number of admirers throw their support behind Qiyana, she has finally realized her true place in the world. She holds a power stronger than tradition, and she will climb the ladder of succession by any means necessary.

She is the greatest elementalist the world has ever seen. She is the inevitable ruler of Ixaocan, and the future empress of all Ixtal.

Luxanna—or Lux, as she prefers to be called—grew up in the Demacian city of High Silvermere, along with her older brother Garen. They were born to the prestigious Crownguard family, which had served for generations as protectors of the kings of Demacia. Their grandfather saved the king’s life at the Battle of Storm’s Fang, and their aunt Tianna was named commander of the elite Dauntless Vanguard regiment before Lux was born.

Garen took to his family’s role with fervor, joining the military when he was still little more than a boy. Lux, in his absence, was expected to help run the family’s many estates—a task she resented, even as a young child. She wanted to explore the world, to see what lay beyond the walls and borders of Demacia. She idolized Garen, but railed against his insistence that she put her own ambitions aside.

To the endless frustration of Lux’s tutors, who sought to prepare her for a life of dutiful service to the Crownguard family, she would question their every teaching, examine differing perspectives, and seek out knowledge far beyond what they were prepared for. Even so, few could find it in themselves to stay angry at Lux, with her zest for life and intoxicating optimism.

Little did any of them know a time of change was approaching. Magic had once brought Runeterra to the brink of annihilation, and Demacia had been founded as a place where such powers were forbidden. Many of the kingdom’s folktales told of pure hearts turned dark by the lure of magic. Indeed, Lux and Garen’s uncle had been slain by a rogue mage some years earlier.

And there were fearful whispers, rumors from beyond the great mountains, that magic was rising once more in the world…

Riding home one fateful night, Lux and her horse were attacked by a ravenous sabrewulf pack. In a moment of fear and desperation, the young girl let loose a torrent of magical light from deep within her, routing the beasts but leaving her shivering in fear. Magic, the terror of Demacian myths, was as much a part of Lux as her Crownguard lineage.

Fear and doubt gnawed at her. Would she become evil? Was she an abomination, to be imprisoned or exiled? At the very least, if her powers were discovered, it would see the Crownguard name disgraced forever.

With Garen spending more time away from High Silvermere, Lux found herself alone in the halls of their family home. Still, over time, she became more familiar with her magic, and her sleepless nights—fists clenched, willing her inner light to fade—became fewer and fewer. She began experimenting in secret, playing with sunbeams in the courtyards, bending them into solid form, and even creating tiny, glowing figures in her palm. She resolved to keep it a secret, as much as she could.

When she was sixteen, Lux traveled with her parents Pieter and Augatha to their formal residence in the Great City of Demacia, to witness Garen’s investiture into the honored ranks of the Dauntless Vanguard.

The city dazzled Lux. It was a monument to the noble ideals of the kingdom, with every citizen protected and cared for; and it was there that Lux learned of the Illuminators, a charitable religious order working to help the sick and the poor. Between her family’s courtly engagements, she became close with a knight of the order named Kahina, who also taught Lux more martial skills, sparring and training with her in the gardens of the Crownguard manor.

Spending more time in the capital, Lux has finally begun to learn about the wider world—its diversity, and its history. She now understands that the Demacian way of life is not the only way, and with clear eyes she can see her love for her homeland standing alongside her desire to see it made more just… and perhaps a little more accepting of mages like her.

It is said that most inhabitants of the celestial realm see their home as a wondrous and vivid tapestry, woven with prismatic threads of purest starlight. However, for one prodigious entity, the intangible and everlasting beauty of this dimension is not seen, but heard—for Bard, a troubadour as enigmatic as he is eternal, the wondrous firmament is a symphony of mystic, ambrosial music.

In the beginning, Bard had drifted without purpose or perspective through a silent cosmos, but with a deep sense of anticipation that something miraculous would eventually come to fill it. Fate did not disappoint, and with the forging of the first stars, the silence was broken and the first rapturous notes of creation rang in Bard’s ear.

He traveled the swirling harmonies between the stars, along with the tiniest wisps of residual inspiration and thought left over from their birth. These semitonal, incomplete motes of energy—or meeps—were drawn to him whenever he added his own voice to the cosmic opus, forever ringing in one perfect accord.

This was not his masterpiece, yet he gloried in it all the same.

But after a measureless interval, a dissonance began to creep in. It was so small at first, Bard might have missed it, but the ever-doting meeps drew his attention to a failed dynamic shift here, an unexpected syncopation there, and even the growing absence of sound where, before, sound had been.

Bard scoured the celestial realm for clues, until he discovered the source. It was the most curious of things—a world with a song all of its own.

Driven by unknown magic, the music produced by Runeterra was as primitive, unevolved, and chaotic as the mortal beings that lived there… and yet it had an inherent beauty, like the rolling thunder of a storm, or the melodious knocking of wooden chimes in the wind that precedes it. Bard would have merely appreciated it for what it was, but unfortunately this particular song had gone far beyond a mere counterpoint to the celestial whole, and was becoming destructive. Something had to be done.

Touching down in the First Lands of Ionia, Bard and his attendant meeps crossed into the material realm. All at once, his ears became like eyes, and he fashioned himself a simple body from the trinkets and fabrics of a traveling shawm-player’s wagon, including a beguiling mask—circular, with three holes in the face.

He walked the world for an age, confusing and delighting those he encountered along the way, and found the state of things far more complex than he had first imagined. Many objects of wild and unpredictable power seemed to have made their way erroneously into Runeterra, and were disrupting the natural cosmic order of things. Casting his gaze back to the heavens, Bard deduced that some other power within the celestial realm was at work here… though to what end, he could not guess.

Regardless, he has taken to the role of caretaker, retrieving anything out of place and returning it to where it can do no further harm. Though this may be only the first step in bringing the universe back in tune, it may also be the only way this world can be saved from what lies beyond it.

And Bard is not blind to the future. He can see a great conflict approaching—one fought not in any single realm, but in all—and awaits the time when he must finally pick a side.

The earthquake had struck Terbisia at dawn, the earth bucking like an unbroken colt and splitting apart in gaping fissures. Lux rode Starfire through the toppled ruin of the defensive barbican, the thirty-foot high walls of sun-bleached stone looking like Noxian siege engines had bombarded them for weeks. She guided her horse carefully between fallen blocks of masonry, heading to where a makeshift infirmary had been set up within a blue and white market pavilion.

The scale of the devastation was unlike anything Lux had seen before. Terbisia’s buildings were crafted from hard mountain granite and Demacian oak, raised high by communal strength. And almost all of them had been completely destroyed. Dust-covered men and women dug through the shattered ruins with picks and shovels, hoping to find survivors, but instead, dragged corpses from the debris. Entire streets had simply vanished into the many smoking chasms now dividing the town’s districts.

Lux dismounted as she reached the pavilion, and pushed inside. She wasn’t a healer, but she could fetch and carry or simply sit with the wounded. She’d thought that seeing the scale of the devastation would prepare her for the suffering within the tent.

She was wrong.

Hundreds of survivors pulled from the wreckage lay on woolen blankets. Lux heard mothers and fathers crying for lost children, wives and husbands clinging to their dead loved ones, and, worst of all, bewildered, glassy-eyed orphans wandering lost and afraid. Lux saw a surgeon she recognized in a blood-stiffened apron washing his hands in a pewter bowl and made her way toward him.

“Surgeon Alzar,” she said. “Tell me how I can help.”

He turned, his eyes haunted and rheumy with tears. It took a moment for recognition to penetrate the fog of his grief.

“Lady Crownguard,” said Alzar, giving a short bow.

“Lux,” she said. “Please, what can I do?”

The physician sighed and said, “Truly you are a blessing, my lady, but I would spare you the horror of what has happened here.”

“Spare me nothing, Alzar,” snapped Lux. “I am Demacian, and Demacians help one another.”

“Of course, forgive me, my lady,” said Alzar, taking a fatigued breath. “Your presence will be a boon to the wounded.”

Alzar led her toward a young man lying stretched out on a low pallet bed near the back of the pavilion. Lux gasped to see the horror of his wounds. His body was broken, all but crushed by rubble, and his eyes were bound in bloody bandages. From his stoic refusal to show pain, she guessed he was a soldier.

“He dug a family from the rubble of their collapsed home,” said Alzar. “He rescued them, but kept looking for survivors. There was a second quake, and another building fell to ruin on top of him. The rubble crushed his lungs, and shards of glass put out his eyes.”

“How long does he have?” asked Lux, careful to keep her voice low.

“Only the gods know, but his time is short,” said Alzar. “If you would stay at his side, it would ease his passing into the arms of the Veiled Lady.”

Lux nodded and sat beside the dying man. She took his hand, feeling her heart break for him. Alzar smiled gratefully and turned back to helping those he could save.

“It’s so dark,” said the man, waking at her touch. “Gods, I can’t see!”

“Steady now, soldier. Tell me your name,” said Lux.

“It’s Dothan,” he said, wheezing with the effort.

“You’re named for the hero of Dawnhold?”

“Aye. You know the story? It’s an old tally against the savages.”

“Trust me, I know it well,” said Lux with a rueful smile. “My brother told it all the time when we were children. He always forced me to play the Freljordian corsairs while he played Dothan, defending the harbor single-handedly against the skinwalkers.”

“I tried to be like him,” said the young man, his breathing labored and his voice growing faint. A rivulet of blood leaked from beneath the bandage like a red tear. “I tried to live up to my namesake.”

Lux held his hand in both of hers.

“You did,” she said. “Alzar told me what happened. You’re a true Demacian hero.”

The lines on Dothan’s face eased a little, his breath rattling in his throat as his strength began to fail.

“Why can’t I see?”

“Your eyes,” said Lux slowly. “I’m so sorry.”

“What... what’s wrong with them?”

“Surgeon Alzar told me you have shards of glass in them.”

The man drew in a sharp breath.

“I’m dying,” he said. “I know that... but I should... have liked to behold the light of... Demacia... one last... time.”

Lux felt the magic stir within her, but whispered the mantra taught to her by the Illuminators to keep it from rising too close to the surface. Over the years, she’d learned to better control her power, but sometimes, when her emotions ran close to the surface, it was hard to keep the energies contained. She looked around and, satisfied no one was watching, placed her fingertips on the bloody bandage covering Dothan’s eyes. Lux eased the numinous radiance of her magic down through the man’s skull to the undamaged parts of his eyes.

“I can’t heal you,” she said, “but I can at least give you that.”

He squeezed her hand, his mouth falling open in wonder as Demacia’s light shone within him.

“It’s so beautiful...” he whispered.

How long had it been since Lux had come north to Fossbarrow?

She wasn’t sure. Years, certainly. The family had come north to honor the tomb of Great Grandfather Fossian, and Lux remembered complaining about the incessant rain as they made their way through the crags and gullies of the forest to his resting place. She’d been expecting a grand mausoleum, but was disappointed to learn it was little more than a grassy mound nestled at the foot of a soaring cliff face. A marble slab set into the base of the mound depicted the legend of her illustrious forebear—Fossian and the demon falling from the cliff, her great grandfather mortally wounded, the nightmarish entity with a Demacian blade piercing its black heart.

It had rained then, and it was raining now. An icy, northern deluge fresh off the dogtooth mountains that separated Demacia from the Freljord. A storm was brewing in that frozen realm, breaking on the far side of the peaks to fall on verdant swathes of Demacian pine bent by hostile winds. To the west and east, the mountains receded into an azure haze, the sky dark and threatening, like one of her brother’s saltier moods. North, the forested haunches of the highlands were craggy with cliffs and plunging chasms. Dangerous lands, home to fell creatures and wild beasts of all descriptions.

Lux had set off into the north two weeks ago; Demacia to Edessa, then to Pinara and on to Lissus. Lissus to Velorus, and eventually to High Silvermere, the City of Raptors. A night with her family at their home at the foot of Knight’s Rock, then out into Demacia’s northwest marches. Almost immediately, the character of the people and villages began to change as the heartland of Demacia fell behind her like a pennant torn from the haft of a banner-pole.

Rolling, fertile plains gave way to windswept hinterlands dotted with gorse and thistle. Silverwing raptors screeched overhead, invisible as they dueled in the clouds. The air grew colder, freighted with the deep ice of the Freljord, and the walls of each settlement grew higher with every mile she rode. It had been a long and tiring journey to Fossbarrow, but she was here, and Lux allowed herself a small smile.

“We’ll be at the temple soon, Starfire,” she said, reaching down to rub her horse’s mane. “They’ll have grain and a warm stable for you, I promise.”

The horse shook its head and snorted, stamping its feet with impatience. Lux kicked back her heels and walked her tired mount along the rutted track leading to Fossbarrow’s main gate.

The town occupied the banks of the Serpentrion, a thundering river that rose in the mountains and snaked to the western coast. The town’s walls of polished granite followed the line of the hills, and the buildings within were wrought from stone, seasoned timber and bottle-green roof tiles. The tower of an Illuminator temple rose in the east, the brazier within its steeple a welcome light in the gathering dusk.

Lux pulled back the hood of her blue cloak and shook her hair free. Long and golden, it framed a youthful face of high cheekbones and ocean-blue eyes that sparkled with determination. Two men appeared on the tower above the iron-bound gate, each armed with a powerful longbow of ash and yew.

“Hold, traveler,” said one of the guards. “The gate’s closed until morning.”

“My name is Luxanna Crownguard,” she said. “As you say, it is late, but I’ve come a long way to pay my respects to my great grandfather. I’d be in your debt if you’d allow me entry.”

The man squinted through the gloom, his eyes widening as he recognized her. It had been years since she’d come to Fossbarrow, but Garen always said that once people laid eyes on Lux, they never forgot her.

“Lady Crownguard! Forgive me!” he cried, turning to address the men below. “Open the gates.”

Lux eased Starfire forward as the solid timbers of the gate lifted into the stone of the barbican with a clatter of heavy iron chains. As soon as it had risen enough, Lux rode under it to find a hastily assembled honor guard awaiting her—ten men in leather breastplates and blue cloaks secured with silver pins in the shape of winged swords. They were proud Demacian soldiers, though their shoulders were curiously slumped and their eyes haunted with exhaustion.

“Welcome to Fossbarrow,” said the same man who’d spoken to her from the tower. “This is a great honor, my lady. Magistrate Giselle will be relieved to know you are here. May I offer you a detachment of soldiers to escort you to her home?”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” said Lux, wondering at the man’s choice of the word relieved. “I’ve arranged accommodation with Mistress Pernille at the Illuminator temple.”

She made to ride on, but sensed the guard’s desire to say something and gently pulled Starfire’s reins.

“Lady Crownguard,” said the guard. “Are you here to end our nightmare?”

The Illuminator temple was warm and dry, and with Starfire settled in the stables, she’d spoken at length with Mistress Pernille in the main hall. Lux had heard rumors of magic in the forests and crags around Fossbarrow and had set out to see what she might learn—though she hadn’t mentioned that to Mistress Pernille. The simmering power Lux sensed within herself was frightening in its growing intensity, and she hoped there might be some way she could learn more of its nature. And it was always better to learn such things away from the eyes of her family!

Lux had sensed a dark undercurrent as soon as she’d entered the town, a creeping sensation of being watched from the shadows. The few townsfolk she’d seen on the streets walked with leaden steps, their bodies weary.

A pall of fear hung over Fossbarrow. She didn’t need magic to sense that.

“A terrible business,” explained Mistress Pernille, a flaxen-haired woman in the pale robes of an Illuminator healer. “It’s Magistrate Giselle’s son, Luca. That poor boy.”

“What about him?” asked Lux.

“He went missing two days ago,” explained Pernille. “And people are certain he’s been taken by a dark mage for some terrible purpose.”

“Why do they think that?”

“Ask me again in the morning,” said Pernille.

Lux awoke with a scream, her heart hammering in her chest and her breath coming in wheezing spikes. Terror filled her mind—a nightmare of clawed hooks dragging her beneath the earth, of fetid mud filling her mouth and darkness smothering her light forever. Lux blinked away the last afterimages, glimpsing retreating shadows out of the corner of her eye. Her mouth was filled with the taste of rancid milk, a sure sign of lingering magic, and spectral radiance shimmered in her palms. Light filled the room, and with it, the last remnants of the nightmare were banished.

Warmth suffused her, her skin shimmering with a haze of iridescence, and she quickly clenched her fists, trying to pull it back within her before it got out of control.

She heard voices downstairs, and thankfully the light faded, leaving only the wan traces of daylight from the shuttered window to illuminate the room. Lux pressed her hands to the side of her head, as if seeking to push the awful visions from her mind. She tried to recall specific moments from the nightmare, but all that came was the reek of sour breath and a faceless darkness pressing down upon her.

Her mouth dry, Lux quickly dressed and descended to the temple kitchen. Though she had little in the way of appetite, she prepared a breakfast of bread and cheese. At her first bite, the taste of grave earth filled her mouth and she put the food aside.

“How did you sleep?” asked Pernille, entering the kitchen and joining her at the table.

The skin below Pernille’s eyes was purple with lack of sleep, her skin sallow without firelight to color it. Only now did Lux notice just how bone-weary Pernille was.

“About as well as you, by the looks of it,” said Lux. “Did you dream?”

“I did, but it’s nothing I want to relive by saying it out loud.”

Lux nodded slowly. “I think there’s something very wrong with this town.”

Starfire whinnied at the sight of her, his ears pressed flat against his skull and his eyes wide. He nuzzled her, and she stroked his pearl-white neck and shoulders.

“You too?” she said, and the horse tossed its mane.

Lux quickly saddled her mount and rode toward Fossbarrow’s northern gate. Dawn was already an hour old, but the town was still to fully come to life. No smoke rose from the forges, no smell of fresh bread wafted from the bakeries, and only a very few sullen-looking merchants had their doors open for business. Demacians were hard-working, disciplined, and industrious, so to see a frontier town so late to begin the day’s work was highly unusual. But if Fossbarrow’s people had endured a night like hers, she couldn’t blame them for being slow to rise.

She passed through the gate into the open ground before the town and let Starfire run to work out the stiffness in his muscles before turning onto the muddy road. The stallion had broken his leg many years ago, but it hadn’t impaired the speed of his gallop.

“Easy, boy,” said Lux as they rode into the forest.

The scent of pine and wildflowers hung heavy in the air, and Lux savored the heady, natural aroma of the northern climes. Sunlight pierced the leafy canopy in angled spars of light, and the smell of wet mud sent a shiver up her spine as her nightmare briefly surfaced. She rode deeper into the forest, following the track as it wound its way further north. Lux lifted a hand from the reins and reached for a glittering sunbeam, feeling the magic within her stir at its touch. It was thrilling to feel it rise within her, but she let it come only slowly, for fear it might overtake her fragile control.

Her world lit up as the magic filled her senses, the colors of the forest unnaturally vivid and filled with life. She saw glittering motes of light drifting in the air, the breath of trees and the sighs of the earth. How incredible it was to see the world like this, alive to the energies flowing through every living thing. From blades of grass to the mighty ironbirch trees whose roots were said to reach the very heart of the world. If this was what even the lightest touch of magic might achieve, what wonders might it work were she better able to control it?

After an hour of riding through the iridescent forest, the road diverged at a crossroads, one path leading east—to a logging town if she remembered correctly—the other dropping west to a community built around a thriving silver mine. Her father owned a stake in the mine and her favorite cloak pin had been wrought from metal dug from its deep chasms. Between the two main routes lay a smaller pathway, all but invisible and suitable only for lone riders or those on foot.

She remembered taking that path years ago, and Lux wondered why she was reluctant to guide Starfire in that direction. She had no need to go that way, for her story of paying respects to her great grandfather was just that, a story. Lux closed her eyes and lifted her arms out to the side, letting the magic drift from her fingers. She took a breath, filling her lungs with cold air and letting the light of the forest speak to her. Her understanding of such things was still new, but surely it was worth the risk to find out what was plaguing this region of Demacia.

The light spoke in contrasting hues, scintillating colors. and vibrant illumination. She felt the light of distant stars drift down like mist, light that bathed other realms and people, almost too much to bear. Where the light of Demacia fell into shadow, she flinched. Where it nourished something living, she was soothed. Lux turned in the saddle, reveling in this new sensation. The sun was almost at its zenith, and she frowned as the quality of light in the forest trembled, slipping from her grasp. She felt shadows where no shadows ought to dwell, hidden darkness where only light should exist. The breath caught in her throat, like a hand at her neck, and a sudden wave of dizziness swept over her. Her eyelids fluttered, drifting closed as if she were being pulled into a waking slumber.

The forest around her was suddenly silent. Not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the trees, nor ruffled so much as a blade of grass. The Silverwings were silent, the chatter of animals stilled. Lux heard the soft susurration of grave cloth being pulled tight.

Sleep…

“No,” she said, but the unnatural weariness slipped over her like a comfortable blanket, warm and enfolding. Lux’s head dropped and she closed her eyes for the briefest instant.

The snapping sound of a breaking branch and the scrape of metal flicked Lux’s eyes open. She drew in a great draught of air, the cold in her lungs jolting her awake again. She blinked shadows from her eyes and let out an icy breath as the magic slipped from her grasp and faded away. She heard riders on horseback, the jingle of bridle and trace, the rasp of metal on metal. Soldiers, armored for war. At least four, perhaps more.

Lux wasn’t scared of them. Not really. Not this deep in Demacia. Whatever darkness was lurking somewhere in the forest was a more immediate threat. Its strength was uncertain, like a child exploring just what it could do. She pulled Starfire’s reins, turning him around and setting him athwart the paths.

The foliage in front of her parted, and five riders came into view.

Powerful warriors, armored head to foot in gleaming warplate. They rode wide-chested steeds of gray, none smaller than seventeen hands, and each caparisoned in cobalt blue. Four had their swords drawn, where the fifth had his golden-hilted blade sheathed in a lacquered blue scabbard across his back.

“Luxanna?” said this rider, his voice muffled by the visor of his helm.

Lux sighed as the knight removed his helmet to reveal dark hair and granite-hewn features that so embodied Demacia it was a wonder they weren’t yet on a coin.

“Garen,” sighed Lux.

Her brother had brought four of the Dauntless Vanguard.

Drawn from any other army, four warriors would be a paltry force, but every warrior of the Dauntless Vanguard was a hero, a legend with tales of valor etched into the metal of their swords. Their deeds were told and retold around tavern tables and hearthfires the length and breadth of Demacia.

Dark of hair and keen of eye was Diadoro, the bearded swordsman who’d held the Gates of Mourning against the armored host of the Trifarian Legion for an entire day. Flanking him was Sabator of Jandelle, the slayer of the hideous deepwyrm that woke every hundred years to feast, but which would now wake no more. Its fangs were hung in King Jarvan’s throne room, next to the newly mounted dragon skull brought by his son and his enigmatic companion.

Slighter, though no less striking, was Varya, she who led the charge onto the decks of the sea-wolf fleet at Dawnhold. She set their ships ablaze and, even wounded nigh unto death, cut down their berserk leader. Rodian, her twin brother, had sailed north to Frostheld and burned the Freljordian harbor city to the ground, so that no others would dare sail south to wreak havoc again.

Lux knew them all, but rolled her eyes at the thought of hearing their legends around a table tonight. Yes, they were heroes of Demacia and entirely worthy of respect, but hearing about Sabator climbing down the deepwyrm’s gullet for the tenth time, or how Varya beat a Grelmorn to death with a splintered oar was too much for Lux.

Garen came alongside her as they followed the road back to Fossbarrow. They’d circled the town until the light began to fade in search of the magistrate’s son or any sign of nefarious goings on, but had found nothing. Though any servant of darkness would have had plenty of time to run and hide, given the noise Garen and the Dauntless Vanguard were making.

“You’re really here to visit Great Grandfather Fossian’s tomb?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” replied Garen. “You did. I’m just surprised. I seem to recall mother saying you hated coming here last time.”

“I’m surprised she remembered.”

“Oh, she remembered,” said Garen without looking at her. “When young Luxanna Crownguard doesn’t enjoy something, the skies darken, rain clouds empty, and forest animals hide.”

“You make me sound like a spoiled brat.”

“You kind of were,” said Garen, his easy grin only partially robbing the comment of its sting. “You got away with things I’d have had a smacked backside for doing. Mother was always telling me not to pay attention to the things you did.”

The words hung between them, and Lux looked away, remembering not to underestimate her brother. People knew him as honest and direct, with a sound grasp of tactics and war stratagems, but few ever thought of him as subtle or cunning.

That, knew Lux, was a mistake. Yes, Garen was a simple warrior, but simple didn’t mean stupid.

“So what do you think’s happened to the boy?” asked Lux.

Garen ran a hand through his hair.

“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s run away from home,” he said. “Or decided to have an adventure and has gotten lost somewhere in the forest.”

“You don’t think a dark mage has taken him?”

“It’s certainly possible, but Varya and Rodian rode through this way only six months ago, and saw no evidence of unnatural sorceries.”

Lux nodded and asked, “Have you spent a night in Fossbarrow?”

“No,” answered Garen, as they rode into sight of the town. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“There’s something going on down there,” said Sabator, his hand shielding his eyes from the setting sun.

Garen’s eyes snapped to where his warrior was pointing, and all levity fell from his face. His entire posture changed, muscles taut and ready for action, his eyes utterly focused. The warriors of the Dauntless Vanguard formed up alongside him, ready to move in an instant.

“What is it?” said Lux.

An angry-looking crowd was hounding a stumbling man through the streets toward the market square. She couldn’t hear what they were shouting, but she didn’t need to hear the words to feel their anger and fear.

“Vanguard! We ride,” said Garen, raking his spurs back.

Starfire was a fast horse, but even he was no match for a grain-fed Demacian warsteed. By the time Lux rode through the gates, the sound of yelling voices echoed through the town. Starfire’s flanks were lathered with sweat and his iron-shod hooves struck sparks from the cobbles. Lux hauled her mount to a halt as she entered the crowded market square and leapt from his back as she saw a scene she’d witnessed too many times throughout Demacia.

“No, no, no…” she muttered, seeing two guards drag a weeping man onto the auction platform normally used during the buying and selling of livestock. The man’s clothes were soaked in blood and he wailed piteously. A woman with the ermine-trimmed robes and bronze wings of a Demacian magistrate stood before him, presumably Magistrate Giselle. Hundreds of Fossbarrow’s townsfolk filled the square, yelling and screaming at the man. The intensity of their hate was palpable, and Lux felt her magic drawn to the surface of her skin. She struggled to quell the rising light and pushed her way through the crowd, seeing Garen at the foot of the steps leading onto the auction platform.

“Aldo Dayan,” said Magistrate Giselle, her voice ragged with emotion. “I name thee murderer and consort of a dark mage!”

“No!” cried the man. “You don’t understand! They were monsters! I saw them, their real faces! Darkness—only darkness!”

“Confession!” cried Giselle.

The crowd screamed in response, a swelling lust for vengeance erupting from every throat. They looked set to rush the auction platform to tear Aldo Dayan limb from limb, and perhaps they would have but for the four warriors of the Dauntless Vanguard standing with their swords drawn at its edge.

“What’s going on? What happened?” asked Lux as she reached Garen’s side.

Garen didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on the kneeling man.

“He murdered his wife and children in their beds, then ran out onto the streets and attacked his neighbors. He split three people with an axe before they were able to restrain him.”

“Why would he do that?”

Finally Garen turned to look at her. “Why do you think? There must be a mage nearby. A darkness holds sway here. Only the dark influence of a sorcerer could drive a loyal Demacian citizen to commit such heinous acts.”

Lux bit back an angry retort and pushed past Garen. She climbed the steps of the platform and marched over to the kneeling man.

“Lady Crownguard? What are you doing?” demanded Giselle.

Lux ignored her and lifted the man’s head. His face was bruised, one eye swollen shut from the heavy blow of a cudgel or fist. Blood and snot ran freely from his nose, and ropes of drool hung from his split lip.

“Look at me,” she said, and the man’s good eye tried to focus on her. The white of his eye was bloodshot and purple edged, the eye of a man who had not slept in days.

“Goodman Dayan, tell me why you killed your family,” said Lux. “Why did you attack your neighbors?”

“Not them. No. I saw. Weren’t them, they was… monsters…” sobbed the man. “Darkness clothed in skin. Among us the whole time! I woke and I saw their true faces! So I killed them! I had to do it. I had to!”

She looked up as Magistrate Giselle appeared at Lux’s shoulder. Lux saw a soul-aching grief etched in the woman’s face. The last two days had aged her ten years. The magistrate stared down in disgust at Aldo Dayan, her fists clenched at her sides.

“Did you kill my Luca?” she said, her voice wracked with sorrow. “Did you kill my son? Just because he was different?”

Baying cries for vengeance rose from the crowd as the sun sank into the west and the shadows lengthened. Handfuls of mud and dung pelted Aldo Dayan as his former friends and neighbors called for his death. He thrashed in the grip of the guards, frothing at the mouth and spitting bloody saliva.

“I had to kill them!” he screamed, staring defiantly at his accusers. “It weren’t them. Just darkness, only darkness. It could be one of you too!”

Lux turned back to Magistrate Giselle.

“What did you mean when you said your son was different?”

Giselle’s grief was all-consuming, but Lux saw past it to a secret shame beneath. The magistrate’s eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark smudges of exhaustion, yet even that couldn’t hide the same look she’d seen in her mother’s eyes whenever Lux’s powers had gotten the better of her as a youngster. It was the same look she sometimes saw in her brother’s eyes when he thought she wasn’t looking.

“What did you mean?” she asked again.

“Nothing,” said Giselle. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“Different how?”

“Just different.”

Lux had heard such deflections before, and suddenly knew exactly how the magistrate’s son was different.

“I’ve heard enough,” said Garen as he strode onto the platform, his long, silver sword hissing from its scabbard. The blade glinted in the twilight, its edge unimaginably sharp.

“Garen, no,” said Lux. “There’s something more going on here. Let me speak with him.”

“He is a monster,” said Garen, spinning his sword up onto his shoulder. “Even if he is not a servant of evil, he is a murderer. There can be only one punishment. Magistrate?”

Giselle looked away from Lux, her eyes wet with tears. She nodded.

“Aldo Dayan, I declare you guilty, and call upon Garen Crownguard of the Dauntless Vanguard to dispense Demacian justice.”

The man lifted his head, and Lux’s eyes narrowed as she felt a prickling sensation of… something pass through him. A whisper of a lurking presence. It slithered away before she could be sure, but a breath of frigid air raised her hackles.

Dayan’s limbs spasmed, like a deranged roadside wanderer afflicted with the tremoring sickness. He whispered something, rasping and faint, as Garen lifted his warblade to deliver the executioner’s strike. Dayan’s last words were all but lost in the roars of approval coming from the crowd, but Lux finally pieced them together as Garen’s sword swept down.

The light is fading…

“Wait!” she cried.

Garen’s blade clove the man’s head from his body in one titanic blow, to a roar of approval from the crowd. The body dropped to the platform, twin arcs of blood jetting from the stump of his neck. The head rolled to Giselle’s feet as coiling smoke poured from Aldo Dayan’s corpse like black bile oozing from a charnel pit. The magistrate recoiled in shock as a phantom form of wicked claws and searing eyes erupted from the dead man’s skull.

The spectral darkness launched itself at the magistrate with a cackle of spite. She screamed as it passed through her before dissipating like wind-scattered cinders. Lux felt the breath of the thing’s demise, an energy so vile, so hateful, and so inhumanly evil, that it beggared belief. Magistrate Giselle collapsed, her flesh ashen, weeping in terror.

Lux dropped to one knee as myriad visions of horror arose within her—choking fears of being buried alive, of being driven from Demacia by her brother, of a thousand ways to die a slow and painful death. The light within her fought these terrible sights, and Lux’s breath shimmered with motes of light as she spat the taste of death from her mouth.

“Lux…”

Garen spoke in a whisper, and it took her a moment to figure out how she could possibly have heard him over the cheering crowd. Lux turned from the sobbing magistrate, and felt magic race around her body in a surge tide.

The crowd stood utterly silent.

“Lux, what’s going on?” said Garen.

She blinked away the abhorrent images still searing her mind and followed Garen’s gaze as the warriors of the Dauntless Vanguard rushed to stand with their leader.

Then, one after another, the people of Fossbarrow fell to the ground, as if the life had simply fled their bodies.

Lux clenched her teeth and pushed herself to her feet.

The sun had all but vanished behind Fossbarrow’s western wall and her mouth fell open as she saw black, vaporous shapes lift from the town’s unconscious inhabitants. No two were alike, and Lux saw an assembling host of shades in Noxian armor, vast spiders, many-headed serpents, towering shadow warriors with frost axes, great drakes with teeth like obsidian daggers and scores of things that defied sane description.

“Sorcery,” declared Garen.

The shadow creatures closed on the platform, sliding through the air without a sound. An oncoming tide of nightmarish horrors.

“What are they?” asked Varya.

“The darkest nightmares of Fossbarrow’s people given form,” said Lux.

“How can you know that?” demanded Sabator.

“I don’t, not for sure, but it feels right,” said Lux, knowing she couldn’t stay here to fight. Besides, the Dauntless Vanguard could hold their own here. She placed her thumb and forefinger against her bottom lip and whistled a summoning note before turning to Garen.

“I think I might know how to stop this,” she said. “Maybe…”

“How?” said Garen, without taking his eyes off the approaching shadowhost.

“Never mind how,” said Lux. “Just… try not to die before I get back.”

Lux ran to the edge of the platform as Starfire galloped through the creatures. Her steed passed unmolested, its dreams and nightmares of no interest to the power now abroad in Fossbarrow. Lux leapt from the platform and grabbed Starfire’s mane, swinging onto his back in one smooth motion.

“Where are you going?” demanded Garen.

The horse reared and Lux twisted in the saddle to answer her brother.

“I told you,” she shouted. “I’m going to pay my respects to Great Grandfather Fossian!”

Garen watched his sister gallop through the dark host, carefully navigating a path through the town’s fallen inhabitants. Grasping claws of shadow creatures reached for her, but she and Starfire evaded every attack. Lux rode clear of the monstrous host, and paused just long enough to wave at him.

“For Demacia!” she shouted.

The Dauntless Vanguard clashed their swords against their shields.

“For Demacia!” they answered as one.

Lux turned her horse and galloped from the town.

Garen rolled his shoulders in anticipation of the rigor of close-quarters battle and lifted his sword.

“Lockstep!” he yelled, and his warriors took up their battle stance. Varya and Rodian stood to his left, Sabator and Diadoro to his right.

“We are the Dauntless Vanguard,” said Garen, lowering his sword so its quillons framed his piercing eyes. “Let courage and a keen eye guide your blades.”

Oil-black shade-hounds were the first to reach the platform, leaping upward with tearing fangs and flashing teeth. Garen and the Dauntless Vanguard met them with shields locked and blades bared. A hammering wall of iron beat them back. Though their enemies were wrought from darkness and spite, they fought with ferocious strength and skill. Garen stepped in and thrust his blade into a writhing beast’s haunches, tearing through to where its spine ought to be. The monster’s form exploded into black dust with a shriek of anguish.

Garen spun his sword up and pulled back in an oblique turn. His sword deflected another beast’s snapping jaw. He rolled his wrists and lowered his shoulder into its attack. He pushed the thing back and down. He stamped its chest and the beast roared as it burst apart. Garen’s sword snapped back up to block a crushing blow from what looked like the silhouette of a towering Freljordian warrior. The impact drove him to his knees.

“I will fight as long as I stand!” he said through gritted teeth, straightening his legs with a roar and hammering his pommel into the savage warrior’s horned skull. Ashes burst from the shadow, and Garen spun to drive his sword into the belly of another beast.

Sabator decapitated a slavering hound as Diadoro slammed his shield down on a hissing serpent, splitting its body in half. Varya hammered the hilt of her sword into the snapping fangs of a faceless shadow warrior as Rodian drove his sword into his twin’s foe.

With every killing blow, the shadow creatures burst into amber-limned ashes. Garen’s sword flashed and the silver blade plunged into the body of a scorpion-like monster.

A slash of dark talons came at Garen’s head. Sabator’s shield parried the attack. Varya chopped her blade through the monster’s legs and it burst apart. A hideous, limping creature hurled itself at Rodian, and he thrust his blade hard into its featureless face. It screeched as it died. But for every shadow they destroyed, more always took their place.

“Back to back!” roared Garen, and the pauldrons of the five warriors clashed together. They fought shoulder to shoulder in a circle of steel, a beacon of light against the darkness.

“Show them the strength of Demacia!”

Lux rode hard through the forest, trees flashing past to either side in a blur. It was reckless to gallop through the forest at such speed, but the shadows assailing Garen and the Dauntless Vanguard would keep coming. Human imaginations were a depthless well of nightmares—fear of death, fear of infirmity, or fear of losing a loved one.

She followed the route she had taken only this morning, hoping Starfire remembered the way more clearly than she did. Together, they flew through the night, eventually reaching the crossroads where the roads diverged. Ignoring the roads east and west, Starfire leapt the overgrown bracken that all but obscured the path north.

The path to Great Grandfather Fossian’s tomb.

Even with her mount’s surefootedness, Lux was forced to slow her pace as the path wound its way through steep-sided gullies and up rocky glens. The closer she came to the tomb, the more the landscape began to change, taking on an altogether different character—like something from a tale told to frighten small children. The trees wept a sickly black sap, their branches gnarled and twisted into clawed hands that plucked at her hair and cloak. Gaps in the boles of trees resembled fanged mouths, and venomous spiders spun cloying webs in their high branches. The ground underfoot became spongy and damp with brackish pools of stagnant water—like a grove abandoned by one of the fae folk.

Starfire stopped before the entrance to a shadow-wreathed clearing and threw back his head, nostrils flaring in fear.

“Easy, boy,” she said. “Fossian’s tomb is just ahead. Only a few more steps.”

But the horse would not be cajoled into another inch forward.

“Fine,” said Lux. “I’ll go myself.”

She slid off the horse’s back and entered the clearing. Moonlight filtering through the clouds gave off just enough illumination for her to see.

The mound of Fossian’s tomb was a shallow hill of grass that looked black in the gloom, its summit crowned with a rough cairn of stacked stone. Dark smoke drifted into a sky that swirled with images of ancient horrors awaiting their time to claim the world. Dark lines snaked across the great stone slab telling of Fossian’s deeds.

A young boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, sat cross-legged before it, his thin body swaying as if in a trance. Tendrils of black smoke coiled from the tomb, wrapping around his neck like strangling vines.

“Luca?” said Lux.

The boy’s swaying ceased at the sound of her voice.

He turned to face Lux, and she faltered at the sight of his soulless, black eyes. A cruel grin split his face.

“Not anymore,” he said.

A looming spider with hook-bladed legs reared over Garen, its bloated belly rippling with distended eyes and snapping jaws. He split its thorax and kicked the flailing creature from the platform even as its body disintegrated.

Legs braced, Garen felt a searing cold in the muscle of his shoulder as a black claw plunged through his pauldron. The metal did not buckle or crack. The claw passed through unimpeded, and Garen felt a sickening revulsion spread through him. He smelled rank grave dirt—the reek of fetid earth over a centuries-old sepulchre. He fought through the pain as he had always been trained to do.

Rodian fell as a hooking blade slid under his guard and plunged into his side. He cried out in pain, his shield lowering.

“Straighten up!” yelled Garen. “Shake the pain.”

Rodian straightened, chastened at his lapse, as the shadow creatures barged into one another in their frenzy to reach the Dauntless Vanguard.

“They never stop coming!” cried Varya.

“Then we never stop fighting!” answered Garen.

Though she wanted nothing more than to flee this haunted clearing, Lux walked toward the young boy, her hand slipping to the dagger at her hip. His eyes rippled with darkness, nightmares waiting to be born from the rich loam of human frailty. She felt a cold, calculating intelligence appraise her.

Luca nodded and smoothly rose to his feet. Muttering shadows gathered at the edge of the clearing, monsters and terrors lurking just out of sight as they moved to surround her.

“You have nightmares aplenty,” he said. “I think I’ll crack your skull open with a rock to scoop them out.”

“Luca, this isn’t you,” she said.

“Tell me, who do you think it is?”

“The demon in that tomb,” said Lux. “I don’t think it was as dead as people thought when they buried Fossian.”

Luca grinned, his mouth spreading so wide the skin at the corners of his mouth tore. Rivulets of blood ran down his chin.

“Not dead at all,” he said. “Just sleeping. Healing. Renewing. Preparing.”

“Preparing for what?” said Lux, forcing herself to take another step forward.

The boy tutted and wagged an admonishing finger. Lux froze, unable to take another step. Her fingers were locked around her dagger’s grip.

“Now, now,” he said, bending to pick up a sharpened stone. “Let me cut out a nightmare first.”

“Luca,” said Lux, unable to move, but still able to speak. “You have to fight it. I know you can. You have magic within you. I know you have—that’s why you ran away isn’t it? That’s why you came here, to be next to someone who defeated a demon.”

The thing wearing the flesh of the boy laughed, and the grass withered around it at the sound.

“His tears were like water in a desert,” it said, coming forward and circling her as if seeing where best he might crack her skull open. “They woke me, nourished me. I had slept for so long I had forgotten just how sweet the suffering of mortals tasted.”

The boy reached out and stroked her cheek. His touch sent a cold spike of terror through Lux. He lifted his finger away, and a smoky thread followed. She gagged as the fear of drowning filled her. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I made him sleep, and his dreams were ripe with horrors to be made real,” said the boy. “His power is slight, a glowing ember compared to the furnace that burns in your flesh. It gave me little in the way of real substance, but childish fears are a banquet after I had gone so long without. Demacia is a terror to his kind. To your kind.”

Lux felt her magic recoil from this creature, the darkness filling the clearing pressing her light down into little more than a spark. She tried to restrain it, knowing that even a single uncontrolled spark could begin a conflagration that would devour an entire forest.

“They hated him. Luca knew that. You mortals are always so quick to fear the things you don’t understand. So easy to fan those flames and draw forth the most exquisite visions of terror.”

Lux flexed her fingers on the leather of her dagger’s handle, the motion painful. But pain meant she had control. She used it. She nursed the building spark within her, kept it apart from her terror, and let it seep slowly back into her body.

“Luca, please,” she said, forcing each word out. “You have to fight it. Don’t let it use you.”

The boy laughed. “He can’t hear you. And even if he could, you know he’s right to fear what his own people would do if they discovered the truth. That he is the very thing they hate. A mage. You of all people should know how that feels.”

Pain spread along Lux’s arms, and moved through her chest. The boy’s black eyes narrowed as he sensed the build up of magic.

“I know all too well,” she said. “But I do not let fear define me.”

Lux thrust her dagger toward the boy with a scream of pain. She didn’t want to hurt him, only to let the metal of the blade touch him and pass a measure of her light to him. Her limbs burned, and the blow was clumsy. The boy jumped back—too slow. The flat of the blade brushed the skin of his cheek.

The moment of connection was fleeting, but it was enough.

The Dauntless Vanguard fought with brutally efficient sword cuts and battering blows from their shields, but they could not fight forever.

Eventually, the shadows would drag them down.

A pack of squirming things with grasping arms attacked from the left, fouling Diadoro’s swings with their bodies. A blow glanced off his shield and hammered into his shoulder guard. He grunted and punched his sword into the belly of a dark-fleshed beast with the head of a dragon.

“Step in!” admonished Sabator. “Keep them at bay!”

Garen threw a sword cut into the writhing darkness, a backstroke to the guts and a thrust to the chest. In deep and twist. Don’t stop moving. Movement to the right—a howling insect-like skull with fangs like daggers. He slashed it in the eyes. It screamed and burst apart in smoke and cinders.

Two more came at him. No room to swing. Another pommel strike, stove in the first’s chest. Stab the other in the belly, blade out. The monsters withdrew. Garen stepped back, level with Varya and Rodian. Each was slathered from helm to greaves in ash.

“We hold the line,” said Garen.

“For how long?” asked Diadoro.

Garen looked to the north, where a distant light shone in the forest.

“As long as Lux needs,” said Garen with a warning glance.

And the shadows came at them again.

The light poured from Lux and into Luca. Blinding and all but uncontrolled radiance exploded through the clearing. The monster within the young boy was torn loose from his flesh with a howling screech of fury and desperation. Raw white fire enfolded Lux, becoming everything around them, in its own way as terrifyingly powerful as the darkness. Its power was magnificent, but she could barely cling on to its howling radiance as it roared through her. The darkness fled before its awesome power, its shadow banished by the incandescence of the light. The growing radiance kept growing until the forest and the tomb were nowhere to be seen, only an endless expanse of pale nothingness. Sitting in front of her was a young boy with his knees drawn up to his chest. He looked up, and his eyes were those of a small, frightened child.

“Can you help me?” he said.

“I can,” said Lux, walking over and sitting next to him. “But you have to come back with me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m too scared. The nightmare-man is out there.”

“Yes, he is, but together we can beat him,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

“You will?”

“If you’ll let me,” said Lux with a smile. “I know what you’re going through, how you’re afraid of what’ll happen if people know what you can do. Trust me, it’s happening to me too. But you don’t have to be afraid. What’s inside you? It’s not evil. It’s not darkness. It’s light. Maybe it’s a light we can learn to control together.”

She held out her hand.

“You promise?” he said.

“I promise,” said Lux. “You’re not alone, Luca.”

The boy gripped her hand like a drowning man grasping a rope.

The light swelled of its own volition, impossibly bright, and when it faded, Lux saw the clearing was just as she remembered it from her visit years ago. Green grass, a hillock with a stone cairn and a slab describing Fossian’s deeds. The darkness that had so transformed the forest was now absent. The clawed trees were nothing more than ordinary, the sky a midnight-blue vault of twinkling stars. The sound of night-hunting birds echoed from the forest canopy.

Luca still held her hand and smiled up at her.

“Is he gone? The nightmare-man?”

“I think so,” she said, feeling the bitter taste of dark power diminish. “For now, at least. I think maybe it’s not in the tomb anymore, but it’s gone from here. That’s what’s important right now.”

“Can we go home now?” asked Luca.

“Yes,” said Lux. “We can go home.”

Numbing cold filled Garen. His limbs were leaden, pierced through by shadow claws. Ice running in his veins chilled him to the very heart of his soul as his vision grayed.

Sabator and Diadoro were down, skin darkening. Rodian was on his knees, a clawed hand at his throat. Varya fought on, her shield arm hanging uselessly at her side, but her sword arm still strong.

Garen tasted ash and despair. He had never known defeat. Not like this. Even when he once believed Jarvan was dead, he’d found the will to continue. Now, his life was being sapped with every breath.

A towering figure reared up before him, a horned shade with an axe of darkness. It looked like a savage warrior he had slain many years ago. Garen raised his sword, ready to die with a Demacian war cry on his lips.

A summer wind blew. A strange brightness shone in the northern sky like a sunrise.

The shadow creatures faded until they vanished entirely, like smoke in the wind.

Garen let out a breath, barely able to believe he still could. Rodian sucked in a lungful of air as Sabator and Diadoro picked themselves up from the ground. They looked around, amazed, as the last remaining shadows were banished and the townsfolk began to stir.

“What happened?” gasped Varya.

“I don’t know,” said Garen.

With Luca reunited with his grateful mother, Lux and Garen rode toward Fossbarrow’s south gate at the head of the Dauntless Vanguard. Their mood was subdued, and a palpable guilt hung over every person they passed on their way from the town. None of Fossbarrow’s inhabitants could remember anything after the execution, but all knew they had played a part in a man’s death.

“May the Veiled One welcome you to her breast,” said Lux as they passed Aldo Dayan’s burial procession.

“Do you really think he deserves such mercy?” said Garen. “He killed innocents.”

“That’s true,” agreed Lux, “but do you understand why?”

“Does it matter? He was guilty of a crime and paid the price.”

“Of course it matters. Aldo Dayan was their friend and neighbor,” said Lux. “They drank beer with him in the tavern, shared jokes with him on the street. Their sons and daughters played with his children. In their rush to judgment, any chance of understanding what caused his murderous acts was lost.”

Garen kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

“They don’t want understanding,” he said at last. “They don’t need it.”

“How can you say that?”

“We live in a world that does not allow for such nuances, Lux. Demacia is beset on all sides by terrible foes—savage tribes in the north, a rapacious empire in the east, and the power of dark mages who threaten the very fabric of our realm. We deal in absolutes by necessity. Allowing doubt to cloud our judgment leaves us vulnerable. And I cannot allow us to become vulnerable.”

“Even at such a cost?”

“Even so,” agreed Garen. “It’s why I do what I do.”

“For Demacia?”

“For Demacia,” said Garen.

The appearance of a comet in the night sky is often said to portend upheaval and unrest. Under the auspices of such fiery harbingers, new empires rise, old cultures fall, and even the stars themselves may vanish from the heavens…

The truth is, perhaps, more unsettling.

The almighty being known as Aurelion Sol was already ancient before the rise of the mortal races of Runeterra. Born in the first breath of creation, he and those like him roamed the vast nothingness of a pristine celestial realm, seeking to fill this canvas of incalculable breadth with marvels whose twinkling spectra would bring fulfillment and delight to all who witnessed them.

As he wandered, Aurelion Sol seldom encountered any equals. The eternal Aspects were dispassionate and incurious things, contributing little to existence, content only to compose amusingly self-centered philosophies on the nature of creation.

But then, bathed in the light of a fairly unremarkable sun he had crafted eons earlier, he discovered something. A world. New realms.

He did not know who had created this world, or why—only that it had not been him.

The Aspects, who seemed unusually invested in it, implored him to come closer. There was life here, and magic, and fledgling civilizations that cried out for guidance from beings greater than themselves. Flattered by this new audience to his supreme majesty, Aurelion Sol descended to bask in their adulation, in the form of a vast and terrible dragon from the stars.

The tiny inhabitants of the insignificant land of Targon named him for the golden light of the sun he had gifted them, and the Aspects commanded them to bring forth a suitable offering in return. The mortals climbed to the peak of their tallest mountain, and presented him with a splendorous crown, crafted with careful and cunning magic, and etched with the inscrutable patterns of the celestial realm.

From the moment it touched Aurelion Sol’s brow, he knew this was no gift at all.

The accursed thing clamped in place with unimaginable force, enough that even he could not remove it, and he could feel his knowledge of the sun and its creation being stolen and scrutinized by intelligences vastly inferior to his own. Worse still, the power of the crown hurled him back into the heavens, and prevented him from getting any closer to that world again.

Instead, he was forced to watch as the duplicitous Aspects of Targon set the mortals to work in the construction of a great, gleaming disc. With this, they channeled his celestial power to raise up immortal god-warriors, for some unknown conflict that was apparently still to come.

Outraged, Aurelion Sol could see other stars fading across the firmament for lack of care and maintenance, and he strained to break free of the crown’s control. It was he who had birthed their light into the universe! Why must he be shackled, now, by the Aspects and their lowly pawns? He roared with glee when the Sun Disc failed… only to see a second, more powerful one take its place. Eventually, resigned to his fate, he saw the god-warriors cast down their rivals, then chittering creatures of pure darkness, and eventually each other.

Then, in little more than the blink of a star dragon’s eye, the world was ravaged by a succession of sorcerous catastrophes, and Aurelion Sol finally knew that Targon and the hated Aspects were all but defenseless. As he cautiously circled back, he realized the magic that bound him was weakening. Flecks of gold began to fall from his crown, each one blazing across the skies like a comet.

Driven by the tantalizing possibilities of freedom and revenge, Aurelion Sol now regards Runeterra with simmering, eternal fury. Surely, it is here, upon this world, that the cosmic balance will tip in his favor once more—and with it, the universe itself shall bear witness to the fate of those who dare steal the power of a star forger.

Born into the noble Crownguard family, along with his younger sister Lux, Garen knew from an early age that he would be expected to defend the throne of Demacia with his life. His father, Pieter, was a decorated military officer, while his aunt Tianna was Sword-Captain of the elite Dauntless Vanguard—and both were recognized and greatly respected by King Jarvan III. It was assumed that Garen would eventually come to serve the king’s son in the same manner.

The kingdom of Demacia had risen from the ashes of the Rune Wars, and the centuries afterward were plagued with further conflict and strife. One of Garen’s uncles, a ranger-knight in the Demacian military, told young Garen and Lux his tales of venturing outside the kingdom’s walls to protect its people from the dangers of the world beyond.

He warned them that, one day, something would undoubtedly end this time of relative peace—whether it be rogue mages, creatures of the abyss, or some other unimaginable horror yet to come.

As if to confirm those fears, their uncle was killed in the line of duty by a mage, before Garen turned eleven. Garen saw the pain this brought to his family, and the fear in his young sister’s eyes. He knew then, for certain, that magic was the first and greatest peril that Demacia faced, and he vowed never to let it within their walls. Only by following their founding ideals, and by displaying their unshakeable pride, could the kingdom be kept safe.

At the age of twelve, Garen left the Crownguard home in High Silvermere to join the military. As a squire, his days and nights were consumed by training and the study of war, honing his body and mind into a weapon as strong and true as Demacian steel. It was then that he first met young Jarvan IV—the prince who, as king, he would one day serve—among the other recruits, and the two became inseparable.

In the years that followed, Garen earned his place in the shieldwall as a warrior of Demacia, and quickly gained a fearsome reputation on the battlefield. By the time he was eighteen, he had served with honor in campaigns along the Freljordian borders, played a key role in purging fetid cultists from the Silent Forest, and fought alongside the valiant defenders of Whiterock.

King Jarvan III himself summoned Garen’s battalion back to the Great City of Demacia, honoring them before the royal court in the Hall of Valor. Tianna Crownguard, recently elevated to the role of High Marshal, singled out her nephew in particular, and recommended him for the trials necessary to join the ranks of the Dauntless Vanguard.

Garen returned home in preparation, and was greeted warmly by Lux and his parents, as well as the common people living on his family’s estate. Though he was pleased to see his sister growing into an intelligent, capable young woman, something about her had changed. He had noticed it whenever he visited, but now Garen wrestled with a real and gnawing suspicion that Lux possessed magical powers… though he never let himself entertain the idea for long. The thought of a Crownguard being capable of the same forbidden sorceries that had slain their uncle was too unbearable to confront.

Naturally, through courage and skill, Garen won his place among the Vanguard. With his proud family and his good friend the prince looking on, he took his oaths before the throne.

Lux and her mother spent much more time in the capital, in service to the king as well as the humble order of the Illuminators—yet Garen tried to keep his distance as much as possible. Though he loved his sister more than anything else in the world, some small part of him had a hard time getting close to her, and he tried not to think about what he would be forced to do if his suspicions were ever confirmed. Instead, he threw himself into his new duties, fighting and training twice as hard as he had before.

When the new Sword-Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard fell in battle, Garen found himself put forward for command by his fellow warriors, and the nomination was unopposed.

To this day, he stands resolute in the defense of his homeland, against all foes. Far more than Demacia's most formidable soldier, he is the very embodiment of all the greatest and most noble ideals upon which it was founded.