LoL Universe Indexing and Search

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

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

But all joy was forgotten when Catherine died in childbirth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the kingdom itself was changing.

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

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

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

Renata Glasc’s heels click angrily against the marble floors on her way to the front door. It’s a long walk, and her annoyance grows as the bells screech out the same cloying tune a second time.

The mechanical fingers of her left hand unfurl as she reaches for the latch, twisting and snapping into the necessary shapes, embedding in the bespoke lock as its one and only key.

She throws open the ornate copper door and looks down at her visitor. “Mave.” All of Renata’s high-ranking subordinates had been informed that her priority for the evening was debuting her Decanter at the Vesella Novelty Gala.

“Ms. Glasc,” the shorter woman says with a curt nod, her prosthetic iron eyes rattling against the glass of her gel-filled goggles. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“It must be important.”

“We’ve gotten wind of a new type of breather. Not just a filtration unit. An air purifier.”

Renata’s eyes flash. “My devisers said we had nothing to worry about on that front.”

Mave shrugs—not her department.

“Who’s manufacturing it?”

“Baron Midenstokke. Not sure where yet.”

She glances at her gaudy Piltovan clock. The gala begins in just under two hours, her presentation slot is at precisely 21:05, and she hasn’t even had time to pick up the Decanter from the laboratory yet… She sighs. It looks as though the gala will have to start without her.

Time to get the night back under control.

Basile, a worm of a man, grovels at Renata’s feet, dirtying her office floor with his soot-stained tears. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, breath still rank from whatever swill he’d been drinking when she’d interrupted his visit to the Corrodyne Taproom. “I’ll get the money to you in a week. Two, at the most.”

Renata says nothing, letting Basile squirm and sob on the floor a little longer. He had come to her for a loan six months ago for his wife’s replacement leg after an accident at a machinist’s shop. Renata gave him what he asked for, and got him a well-paying factory job to boot. But after his wife died from sepsis and Basile tried to drown his sorrows at the taproom… it’s no surprise he can’t pay.

It’s what she’s counting on.

“Do you think,” she asks finally, “that I need that money? That I would even miss it?”

“I…”

“I’m not interested in money, dear Basile. Keep it.”

Basile’s eyes fill with tears of gratitude. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Ms. Glasc—”

“But.” She holds up a finger to quiet him. “There is something I need from you.”

“Anything.”

“You’re still working for Midenstokke, yes? Got a nice little promotion last month?”

Basile’s face falls. Not everyone has the stomach to get between two chem-barons. He swallows hard. “I can get you your money in… in four days, Ms. Glasc.”

“No, Basile.” Renata Glasc leans down. She can see the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “You’ll get me the information I need, and you’ll get it to me within the hour.”

Elodat carefully moves aside the vials and burners, the metals and wires, the tools and masks that litter her own private workspace, and lays out the first few pages of designs. Renata watches as the deviser dons a loupe, looking closely at all of the details that make these new breathers tick. There are few she would trust with this new alchemical technology, but Elodat has proven her worth time and again since she first entered Renata’s employ at age twelve.

“These are unbelievable,” Elodat breathes reverently. “No filter system, no place for the toxins in the air to go. They just… destroy the toxins. Eliminate them completely.”

“And you understand how it works?” Renata asks. “Would you be able to replicate the results in a similar product?”

“Without question.” Elodat’s fingers twitch excitedly. “Is this my next project?”

“It is.” She pauses. “But make some part of it necessary to replace. Filters are a great way to keep money rolling in. Find our version of that for a purifier.”

Renata looks at Mave, who’s standing in the corner near the door and awaiting instructions. “We’re sure about the factory?”

Mave nods. “My scouts confirmed it. Just beneath Midenstokke’s dance hall in the Promenade as Basile said.”

“Excellent. 22:30, then. That should give us both plenty of time.”

Mave turns to leave, but Renata stops her and glances at the deviser. “Elodat, the Decanter’s show-ready, yes?”

Elodat snorts as she marks up the design documents. “Of course, Ms. Renata.”

Beside the deviser’s workstation sits the Decanter prototype. A weapon. A tool. A mechanized wonder attuned only to the gestures of Renata’s left hand. All elegant lines of gold and brass, both sinuous and sharp, protective, yet delicate. Bubbling inside the contraption is the glowing magenta liquid that encompasses Renata’s entire inheritance.

Renata twirls one of her mechanical fingers in the air. In response, one of the vials attached to the Decanter fills with a pink gas. She plucks a breather from Elodat’s desk and grabs the vial, clicking it into the mask in place of a filtration unit.

“Make things easy on yourself,” she says as she tosses the mask to Mave. With a nod, Mave exits.

“Um, Ms. Renata?” The deviser looks at the floor as Renata turns back to her. “How are my parents? I haven’t seen them in… yeah.”

“They’ve just bought a house,” Renata says casually. “And I’ve found work for your brother and his fiancé at a cultivair. Your work has kept them very happy.” A pause. “You should visit them.”

Elodat’s head snaps up. “Really?”

“Absolutely.” With a beckoning gesture from Renata, the Decanter’s thrusters fire, lifting it into the air. It bobs beside her as she walks toward the door. “After the demonstration.”

“And now, finally,” the announcer says with a glare at Renata, “we have the newest product from Glasc Industries, presented by the fabulous Renata Glasc, herself! Renata, darling, please join us on the stage!”

With practiced ease, Renata steps out from behind the curtain to ravenous applause. Wealthy Piltovans, dressed to impress, fill the Vesella clan’s lavish ballroom, eager to hear about the newest novelties from their favorite Zaunite. The announcer claps politely, though his eyes roll at this level of excitement from the audience.

Renata removes her mask. Every breath she takes of the empty Piltovan air cuts her throat like glass, but still, she smiles. “A big thank you to the Vesella clan for having me! What a treat it is to spend an evening in your beautiful city.

“For many of you, ‘chemtech’ is a scary word. An ugly word. One of iron and decay. What, then, could a Zaunite have to offer Piltover? Glasc Industries has shown you time and again that chemtech doesn’t have to be ugly. And tonight, I’m going to show you that it can be beautiful.”

A flick of her wrist, and the Decanter floats across the stage past the announcer to Renata. Delighted gasps punctuate the murmur of the crowd.

So easily pleased. So hopelessly naïve.

“The Glasc Industries Decanter, a milestone in the world of healing! Alchemist and nursemaid all in one, creating medicine and administering it in the same breath.”

She’s interrupted by the announcer coughing into his sleeve. She turns to him, knowing full well that none of the chemicals in the Decanter are strictly medicinal. “Would our kind announcer be interested in helping with a demonstration?”

Renata sips her sparkling wine as yet another potential investor approaches her. Across the room, the announcer stands beside the Decanter and hands out Renata’s business cards—just as Renata had... suggested.

She peers at her pocket watch and walks toward a balcony with a phenomenal evening view of Piltover. Below, even Zaun’s promenade level is visible from here...

An explosion lights up the promenade. Right about where Baron Midenstokke’s dance hall is, in fact. Or, rather, where it used to be.

But no one in the Vesella clan’s ballroom seems to care. A glance is the most any of them spare for the tragedy down in Zaun. It’s beneath them.

Except for Renata Glasc, who watches with a chuckle and takes another sip of her fine Piltovan wine.

He wiped the gun’s stock a fourth time. He couldn’t be sure it was clean until he wiped it down four times. Didn’t matter that he hadn’t used it. Didn’t matter that he was only going to stow it in the bag under the bed. He couldn’t put it away until he was sure it was clean, and he couldn’t be sure it was clean until he had wiped it down four times. It was getting clean though. Four times makes it clean.

It was clean, and it was wonderful. His new patrons had been generous. But did the finest painters not deserve the finest brushes?

The scale and precision of the new device made his previous work with blades seem insignificant by comparison. Understanding firearm mechanics had taken him weeks of study, but evolving his ki techniques from blades had taken months.

The gun held four shots. Each bullet had been infused with magical energy. Each bullet was as perfect as a Lassilan monk’s blade. Each bullet was the paint from which his art would flow. Each bullet was a masterpiece. It didn’t just cut apart the body. It rearranged it.

The rehearsal at the mill town had already shown the gun’s potential. And his new employers had been pleased with the work’s reception.

He had finished polishing it, but with the gun in his right hand, the temptation was too great. He knew he shouldn’t, but he unpacked the black, eel-skin bodysuit. He drew the fingertips of his left hand across the slick surface of the clothes. The feel of the skin’s oily surface quickened his breath. He picked up the tight, leather mask, then—unable to help himself—slid it over his face. It covered his right eye and mouth. It constricted his breathing and removed his depth perception…

Delightful.

He was putting on the shoulder armor when the bells he’d hidden on the steps leading up to his room sounded. He quickly folded up the weapon and removed the mask.

“Hello?” the maid asked through the door. The lilt in her voice hinted to an upbringing far south of this town.

“You did what I asked?” he said.

“Yes, sir. A white lantern every four yards. A red lantern every sixteen.”

“Then I can begin,” Khada Jhin said as he swung open the door to his room.

The woman’s eyes widened as he exited his room. Jhin was well aware of how he looked. Normally, it elicited pangs of self-conscious loathing, but today was a performance day.

Today, Khada Jhin cut a slender, elegant figure as he walked out with a cane. He was hunched, and his cloak seemed to cover some huge deformity on his shoulder, but a jaunty stride belied this. He forcefully tapped the cane ahead of him as he marched toward the window. He tapped the frame rhythmically—three beats, then a fourth. His gold sparkled, his cream cloak flowed, and his jewels glittered in the sun.

“What… What is that?” the maid asked, indicating Jhin’s shoulder.

Jhin paused for a moment to study the woman’s cherubic face. It was round and perfectly symmetrical. A dull and predictable design. Removed, it would make a terrible mask.

“It’s for the crescendo, my darling,” Khada Jhin said.

From the inn’s window, he had a clear view of the rest of the town in the valley below him. This performance had to be wonderful, but there was still so much work to do. The councilman would be returning this evening—and so far, all of Jhin’s plans for tonight seemed… uninspired.

“I brought some flowers for your room,” the woman said, walking past him.

He could have used someone else to place the lanterns. But he didn’t. He could have changed clothes before opening his door. But he didn’t. Now she had seen Khada Jhin in his finery.

The inspiration he needed was so obvious now. So preordained. There was never a choice. There was no escaping the Art.

He would have to make this maid’s face... more interesting.

Shen considered the interior of the White Cliffs Inn. It was deceptively simple and rough. The wood weavers had been masters, removing the tree bark and living leaves only where necessary.

The candle on Shen’s table flickered… wrongly. He slid away from the table, retrieving his blades from under his cloak.

“Your students are as quiet as a pregnant worax,” he said.

Alone and dressed like a merchant, Zed entered the inn. Brushing past the waitress, he sat down three tables away. Every part of Shen wanted to dash at his foe, to avenge his father. But such was not the way of twilight. He calmed himself as he realized the distance was too far… even if only by the length of his index finger.

Shen looked over at Zed, expecting to see him grin. Instead, his rival sighed. His skin was sallow, and dark folds hung beneath his eyes.

“Years, I have waited,” said Shen.

“Have I misjudged the distance?” Zed asked wearily.

“Even if my head is cut off, I will still close and strike,” Shen continued, sliding his foot backward and cocking it against the floor. Zed was ten paces and one half of a finger length away.

“Your path’s closer to mine. Your father’s ideals were a weakness. Ionia could no longer afford them,” Zed said. He leaned back in his chair, keeping himself just outside of the range Shen would need to strike a killing blow. “I know that’s not something I can make you understand. But I will offer you a chance for vengeance.”

Shen inched forward to the edge of his chair. “I do not act because of vengeance. You defy the balance. For that, you are damned.”

“The Golden Demon escaped,” Zed said, simply.

“Impossible,” Shen replied, feeling a hollowness that caught in his chest.

“Your father’s greatest victory. And now, again, his foolish mercy has tarnished his legacy.” Zed shook his head. “You know what that… thing is capable of.” Then Zed leaned over the table, well within Shen’s range—his neck intentionally exposed. “And you know that we are the only two people who can get close enough to stop him.”

Shen remembered the first time he’d seen the body of someone killed by the infamous Khada Jhin. His skin prickled from the memory; his teeth clenched. Only his father had been strong enough to still believe a merciful justice could be served.

Something in Shen had changed that day. Something in Zed had broken.

Now, that monster had returned.

Shen put his swords on the table. He looked down at the perfect bowl of soup in front of him. Little droplets of the pork fat’s oil shimmered on its surface, but he wasn’t hungry anymore.

From the jetty, Jhin looked back to the foreign ship. The tide had come in, and the ship would be leaving in a few moments. He would have to return soon if he was going to perform in Zaun next month. Risk on top of risk.

He stopped to check his reflection in a puddle. From the water, a worried, elderly merchant stared back at him. Years of acting practice combined with his martial training had given him total control of his facial muscles. It was a common face, and he had given it an unexceptional expression. When he walked up the hill, Jhin blended easily into the crowd.

He checked the white lanterns above him, counting the distance. If Zed appeared, he would need them. At the inn on the top of the hill, he glanced at the planters where he had hidden traps. Sharpened steel blades, shaped like flowers. They protected his escape route in case anything went wrong.

He thought of how the metal would slice through the crowd and splash the building’s freshly painted teal walls with red. It was tempting.

He was pushing through the crowd when he heard the village elder speaking to Shen.

“Why would the demon attack her and the councilmen?” the elder asked.

Shen, dressed in his blue outfit, didn’t answer.

Another of the Kinkou, a young woman named Akali, stood beside Shen. She walked to the doorway of the inn.

“No,” Shen said as he blocked her path.

“What makes you think I’m not ready?” Akali demanded.

“Because I wasn’t when I was your age.”

At that moment, a town guard stumbled from the entrance, his face pale and hollow.

“Her flesh, it was… It was…” He took a few steps, then collapsed to the ground in shock.

Against the far wall, the tavern’s owner laughed. Then he began weeping—his face painted by madness. “He saw it. He saw the flower!”

These were not people who would forget seeing Khada Jhin’s work.

Shen scanned the faces of the onlookers.

Clever boy, Jhin thought, before fading into the back of the crowd.

He checked the rooftops for Zed as he walked back to the ship.

The work was inescapable. Together or apart, Zed and Shen would chase the clues he had left. They would follow them back to the Blossom Festival. Back to Jyom Pass. And when they became desperate, then they would have to work together again.

It would be like it had been when they were young. They would huddle together in awe and fear.

Only then would the great Khada Jhin reveal himself…

And his true masterpiece would begin.

“How came you to Ionia, friend?”

Muramaat tried to keep her voice light. She had never felt uncomfortable sharing a campfire with other travelers along the road to the markets before. This, however, marked her first time sitting across the flames from a Noxian, one with an enormous weapon sheathed across her back.

How many Ionian lives has that blade claimed? she wondered.

The white-haired woman glanced at her “father” before swallowing a mouthful of charred peppers and rice, then cast her eyes down at her plate. “I was born in Noxus,” she said, her accent thick but her tonality nearly flawless. “I have not been back since the war, and I do not plan to return.”

The Noxian’s father, Asa Konte, smiled and placed his hand on her shoulder. “This is her home now,” he said with finality.

Muramaat had invited Asa to make camp with her before she had spotted the Noxian asleep in the back of his cart. He had introduced her as his daughter, Riven, in this same tone, with his chin jutting forward in preemptive defense. Muramaat hadn’t pushed back against the strange old man’s declaration then, but that didn’t mean his “daughter” was beyond scrutiny.

“You have not answered my question,” Muramaat pressed, the chimes of her mender’s necklace clinking together as she poured herself a cup of tea. “What brought you to our shores, Riven?”

Riven tightly gripped her plate, tension rippling through her shoulders. “I fought in the war.”

A simple statement, laden with sorrow. Curious, to hear regret from a Noxian.

“Why did you stay?” Muramaat asked. “Why would anyone stay in a place where they and their people have caused so much pain, so much destruction?”

Crack.

The plate had broken in half in Riven’s white-knuckled grip, her charred peppers and rice falling to the ground. With a gasp, she dropped the plate shards before bowing ruefully. “My deepest apologies,” she mumbled as she rose. “I will pay for this plate, and then we will leave you to your evening. I didn’t mean to intrude—”

But Muramaat wasn’t listening. Instead, she cradled the broken plate in her hands and held the shards to her ear, humming softly. Slowly, she adjusted her pitch, calling to the spirit within the clay.

The back of her skull tingled when she hit the right tone, as the spirit reverberated with her hum. Holding the note, Muramaat lifted her necklace and flicked its chimes until she found the one that joined her and the spirit in song.

She stared at the chime in the firelight—each one had been inscribed with a symbol that identified how to mend a resonant spirit. This symbol was for smoke, a single line with a curve that became more pronounced toward the end. Muramaat lifted the shards above the fire to bathe them in the smoke. It took only moments before they knitted back together, with only a few coal-colored seams and ridges to show that the plate had ever been broken.

“I’m a mender,” she said as she held the pottery out to a wide-eyed Riven. “No need to replace anything.”

Riven took the plate and examined it. “How does it work?” she asked, running a finger down a thick black seam.

“Everything has a spirit, and every spirit wants to be whole. I ask them what they need to mend, and give it to them.”

“It leaves scars,” Riven sighed.

“Scars are a sign of healing. That plate will never be seamless again, but it is whole. And it is strong. I’d even say it is more beautiful like this.”

Riven considered the plate in silence.

“I am still here,” she said after a moment, “because I have caused so much pain and so much destruction. I stay to atone.”

Muramaat nodded somberly. Clearly Riven’s scars, though invisible, ran deep. Perhaps this Noxian was different from the others.

But then Muramaat’s eyes fell to the hilt of Riven’s massive weapon. A tool for cutting, not mending.

How different can she really be?

Muramaat woke bleary-eyed to a loud thump against the side of her caravan. Bandits. Riven had insisted on keeping watch through the night, Muramaat remembered as she grabbed her heaviest kettle. But the mender was experienced in dealing with robbers and could always hold her own in a fight.

When she opened her door, however, she saw that Riven would not need her help after all.

One of the intruders lay crumpled at the foot of the caravan. By the fire stood Riven, surrounded by three hulking bandits. She held the enormous hilt, and Muramaat was surprised to see only a broken blade attached to the end. Yet the weapon was still formidable. It seemed to pulse in Riven’s hands as she waited for the others to advance.

Muramaat’s stomach turned to see that blade, not relishing the sight of a Noxian spilling more Ionian blood... but still she watched.

The bandits rushed at Riven, yelling incoherently, but she took a single step forward and repulsed them with a burst of energy from her blade. They dropped their weapons, then scrambled to find them in the dark. Riven could have cut them all down, Muramaat realized, but she didn’t. Instead, she raised her sword, which began to glow an eerie green. The magic from the weapon blasted outward and repelled one of the bandits as soon as it touched him. He fell to the ground in a catatonic daze.

By this point, the others were on their feet, weapons in hand. Riven brought her arm back, and glowing pieces of metal raced toward the Noxian from the cart. The shards formed around the blade, making it look almost whole—though there were still gaps between the pieces. The bandits rushed her again.

Or so they tried. Riven whipped the blade in front of her and blew them back against the caravan with a sudden gust of wind, knocking them all unconscious.

A bloodless victory.

Muramaat stepped gingerly over the defeated bandits. “What will you do with them?” she asked Riven, who had barely broken a sweat.

Riven shrugged, letting the shards of her sword drop to the ground. “I’ll just tie them to a tree until morning.”

Muramaat stared at the remnant of the blade. It didn’t seem as threatening anymore, now that she had seen how Riven wielded it. “Could I see your weapon?”

Riven frowned and took a step back. “Why?”

“You don’t need to hand it to me. Just hold it up.”

Warily, Riven raised the blade. Muramaat closed her eyes and hummed.

“What are you doing?” Riven asked in alarm, just as Muramaat found the right pitch—

—a pair of eyes, searching—

—three hunters, hearts filled with hate, thoughts with revenge—

—burning—

—everything, burning—

Muramaat didn’t realize she had fallen until she felt Riven shake her. “Are you all right?”

“Someone,” Muramaat whispered, her throat dry, “is searching for this blade. For you.”

Riven blanched, but her eyes revealed nothing of her thoughts. “What did you do, Muramaat?” she asked in a low whisper.

“I was wrong to question you. I wanted to offer my apologies by mending your sword.”

“No.” The intensity of the word took Muramaat by surprise. “If you truly want to thank me, you will never fix this blade.” Riven chuckled, a bitter sound. “The one thing I would want you to fix, you can’t. But... thank you. For the offer.”

She sighed, exhausted, and collected up the shards of her sword.

“You should go back to sleep if you want to get to the marketplace early tomorrow.”

Muramaat nodded and slowly made her way to her caravan. When she looked back, Riven was at the fire, sitting and watching the night.

Not for the first time, Muramaat wished she knew how to mend people.

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.

Many had feared that the spirit blossoms would never return to Ionia, a sign of the imbalance still permeating the land and its people. Much of a generation had come of age without the spirit blossoms, without the festival.

But Paskoma had learned over a lifetime that, no matter how long the blossoms were away, they always came back.

Now, for the first time since the war began, there were fresh buds upon the spirit trees, delicate and pearlescent and perfuming the air with a biting sweetness. Paskoma remembered the last festival well. It had arrived just a few summers after the birth of her granddaughter. She and her husband Okerei drank the spirit tea together and spoke with their lost loved ones, making sure that they remained well and showing them that they were remembered. It was a way to let go, to find peace, and to move forward after loss. Then their loved ones returned to the spirit realm, content knowing that the family would continue thriving.

This time, though, Okerei would not be by her side. He had died fighting against the Noxians shortly after they first invaded. There was so much to tell him. So much to ask.

But first, she needed to get things ready.

Paskoma’s teahouse did not have a name. Visitors to Weh’le were able to identify it by the distinctive teapot sculpture outside the front door. Back when Paskoma built the teahouse, she’d asked a talented woodweaver to create it out of different trees that bloomed different colors depending on the season. Presently, the teapot was a vibrant fuschia, half covered in blush-pink lanterns.

“Ituren?” Paskoma called into the teahouse. “I need your expertise.” He was tall and able to hang the lanterns on the higher branches.

“I am with you, my love.” A man of few words, Ituren placed the lanterns where Paskoma pointed, smiling down at her all the while. But it was a sad smile. A worried smile.

Ituren had been Paskoma’s love and companion since the last days of the war. But without the spirit blossom festival, they had never been able to commune with the spirit of Paskoma’s husband. Okerei had never been able to give his blessing to them, and so Paskoma did not feel able to marry again. Ituren was patient and understanding, having lost his wife half a lifetime ago, but he worried. Paskoma did her best to reassure him, but truthfully she wasn’t certain what she would do if Okerei did not approve.

After they hung the lanterns, Paskoma and Ituren readied the guest rooms and the common areas: washing the floors with wine, placing two candles in front of all the mirrors, and dividing the rooms for the onfall of paying guests they were expecting for the festival. They had started early in the morning, but the golden light of late afternoon shone on them when they heard a knock at the door. “May past joys bloom, Emai!” came a familiar voice.

Ituren and Paskoma shared a confused look as they both responded with the traditional “And present sorrows wilt.” That voice sounded so similar to that of Turasi, Paskoma’s daughter, but it couldn’t be. Turasi lived in Siatueh, a village on the other side of the bay, nearly a month’s journey across the mountains.

But when the door opened, it was Turasi who stepped in. Her smile was just like her father’s. Paskoma rushed to her daughter and hugged her tightly. “Turasi, I didn’t know you would be coming! What a lovely surprise. Where’s Satokka? Where’s Kumohi?”

“Satokka is just outside with our things. Kumohi… decided to stay in the village.” Paskoma recognized the tightness in Turasi’s voice as she spoke of her husband. “We wanted to surprise you, for the spirit blossom festival. So Satokka can meet her o-fa.”

Ituren looked at Turasi with a question in his eyes. “The buds only came out this past week.”

Turasi frowned, ready to reply, when a lanky young woman with a dour expression kicked open the door and pulled a wooden trunk into the room. Ituren bent down to help, but she waved him away. Turasi gave her daughter an exasperated look. “Satokka, let Ituren help you.”

“I can do it myself.” Without another word, Satokka dropped the trunk in the middle of the floor and went back outside.

Paskoma turned back to Turasi. “You’re here for the festival?”

Hesitation, then a nod. “Yes. We’re here for the festival.”

It didn’t matter that she wasn’t being honest. Paskoma could tell from the circles under her daughter’s eyes that she needed to be allowed her time. She knelt at the stove to light a small fire before looking back up at her daughter with an encouraging smile. “Then we will make sure this festival is one to remember.”

Long ago, the world was perfectly balanced. It was as an enormous tree full of life, with each branch, each leaf, each bloom carefully and thoughtfully positioned so that the sun and rain could nourish them all. The people, the animals, and the spirits were at peace. There was no word for “war” because there had never been battles or bloodshed.

One day, the Gatekeeper and the Collector crossed paths. The Collector saw how many spirits the Gatekeeper had led through the spirit realm to peace and happiness, and he grew jealous of her—

“Wait. The Gatekeeper? You mean the Fox.”

Ituren paused in his retelling of the old tale at Satokka’s interruption. He had enlisted her help in burying all of the blades in the house—the kitchen knives, his saw and sickle, and the rusted sword Paskoma had inherited from her aunt.

“I have heard people say the Gatekeeper is a fox, or a dog, or perhaps a leopard,” Ituren said with a smile. Satokka hadn’t spoken much in the days since she and Turasi had arrived. Ituren had hoped that a task and a story would help loosen her tongue. “Do you picture her as a fox?”

Satokka rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to speak to me like that.”

They continued digging in silence.

Ituren was patient. He could wait.

“When Fa-ir tells the stories,” Satokka said slowly, “he just calls her the Fox. So… she’s a fox.”

“I like to think of her as an otter,” Ituren said softly. He had always thought of the spirit realm as an endless river full of currents that could pull you off of your path, with a nimble otter showing the newly arrived spirits how to navigate treacherous waters.

Satokka stole a sideways look at him. “You can keep going,” she mumbled. “I still want to know why you bury these.”

Ituren cleared his throat and began to speak again.

The Collector grew envious of all the spirits that the Gatekeeper had helped find peace, and so he devised a plan. He took two of his strongest, loudest bells and melted them down. Then, over twelve nights, he hammered them into two blades. Into the first, he poured some of his Jealousy. Into the second, he poured some of his Obsession. Then, when spring began, he let the spirits of those swords bloom in the physical realm, and the swords grew from the ground like saplings.

Saplings. That was what the two Brothers thought the blades were when they stumbled across them in the forest.

The Brothers were the best of friends, perfectly loyal to one another and understanding of their roles in the world. The Elder would one day inherit their father’s own famed sword and lands, while the Younger would inherit their father’s ship. Both believed they would be great heroes, one at home and one abroad. One spring, they found the two sword-saplings growing in the forest. Neither of the Brothers had ever seen a tree grow so shiny, or so sharp. Together, they chopped them down, each shouldering one to bring back to their home.

Little did they know that this would be the last thing they would ever do together as Brothers while they remained alive. For as they walked home, the strange sap from the swords began to flow onto their necks, filling them with horrible thoughts and feelings… those of the Collector. Though they did not become enemies that day, they would eventually bring those blades together, a clanging of bells that would sound throughout the physical and spirit realms as nothing had before.

Satokka frowned. “That’s not how it happened. The Brothers make the swords themselves. They melt down their father’s sword after he dies, each thought that the other had the better blade. That’s why they went to war. The ‘Collector’ had nothing to do with it.”

Wiping the dirt from his hands, Ituren looked down at the hole he had just created in the guest room floor. The roots of the room grew thick and healthy. With just a little pressure, he was able to carefully slide the first blade beneath those roots. “These are old stories,” he said, “told and retold hundreds and thousands of times over many, many lifetimes. I’m sure we each get part of it right. This is the version I know best.”

Satokka considered for a moment as she idly ran her finger over the rusted sword. “So you bury these blades because of the Brothers?”

“Yes. When brothers cannot take up arms against one another, they do not fight. It ensures a peaceful festival, one where we let go of past strife. And look.” Ituren pointed to the sickle, lodged beneath another root. “If you give them over to roots that are grown in peace, the blades cannot grow as the sword-saplings did, rooted in violence.”

He wondered if she would want to hear the rest of his tale, but decided not to chance losing the silk-thin connection they were developing. Instead, he held out his hand for the sword.

Satokka clutched it to her chest protectively. “No. I’ll bury it. Just show me where.”

That was good enough.

Ituren showed Satokka how best to dig beneath the roots without disturbing them. They moved through the house, burying blades under the roots of each room, and giving the women the opportunity to talk seriously for the first time since they arrived.

After dinner, while Ituren and Satokka went off to bury the blades, Paskoma and Turasi uncorked the good wine. It had a rich cocoa-plum taste that lingered on the tongue and made real conversation with a reluctant speaker just a little bit easier. Three glasses in, Turasi was spinning her wine in the cup, watching the firelight dance in the liquid.

“Turasi?” A pause as Paskoma weighed how to ask. Turasi brought her eyes to meet her mother’s. “Why did Kumohi stay in your village? Why didn’t he join you and Satokka for the festival?”

Turasi didn’t want to talk about this yet, Paskoma knew, but they had been at the teahouse for three days now. She needed to know if this was the sort of trouble that could have followed them to Weh’le, if there was something she or Ituren would have to do to ensure they would be safe. Especially during the festival, with all of these strangers in town.

With a sigh, Turasi began. “There are Noxian ships that sail through the bay, to trade with Siatueh and the other villages along the cliffs. They are very… careful. Trying to make sure we know that they aren’t going to do anything. Hurt anyone.” She held her cup so tightly in her hands that Paskoma feared the glass would shatter. “But some of the other folks in Siatueh swear they have seen those same Noxians aground, surveying the area or sending their birds to do it for them. They don’t think the Noxians will ever let go of their designs on Ionia.”

Paskoma nodded. The invasion began after similar surveys, so she understood why it would make her daughter nervous. “And Kumohi?”

“Kumohi has not seen it with his own eyes, no. But he trusts the word of our friends and neighbors who have.”

“So he wanted to stay to confirm the sightings.”

“Not exactly.” Turasi’s hands shook as she took a long sip of wine. “They want the Noxians gone, Emai. They climb aboard the ships and toss everything that isn’t nailed down. For now, that is all they do, but…” She trailed off.

“A resistance.” Okerei had been a part of such efforts before.

“The Noxians have taken notice. They’re sending more ships. Ships with soldiers. I knew it was time to leave.” Turasi hugged her knees. “Kumohi disagreed.”

Paskoma stood and pressed a gentle kiss to Turasi’s forehead, dropping her hands to cover her daughter’s. “It is lovely having you and Satokka around. You do not have to leave once the festival is over.”

A ragged whisper, wet with tears. “Emai—”

“No.” She squeezed Turasi’s hands. “I don’t want to lose anyone else I love to war. Stay.”

Satokka tried to keep on task as she walked through the marketplace the next day. Ituren was to pick up decorative bells to replace a few broken ones, and Satokka had just picked up the two masks her o-ma had commissioned for her and her mother. The plan had been to run the errand, get back to Ituren, and go home. Well. To the teahouse.

But she was entranced by everything that was on display for the festival. The robes, the cakes, the flowers… She had been very young at the last spirit blossom festival, and she couldn’t remember much.

The cake stand had just caught her attention when she spotted an enormous puppet show just past it. The theatre, a large wooden wall on wheels with a translucent paper center, was set up in the middle of the square. Puppeteers moved intricately cut paper puppets as a fire mage created the light for the shadows. A narrator stood in front, explaining the story to a captivated audience as the puppets enacted it.

“And so the spirit of Despair asked our heroine Tsetsegua, ‘Do you truly believe you can find him?’ Tsetsegua nodded, knowing that to speak her hopes in front of Despair would make them fade into nothing.”

Satokka scowled. She had been lost in the beauty of the performance, but the story pulled her out of it. Tsetsegua wasn’t supposed to speak with Despair when she went to the spirit realm to find her lost love—Despair never spoke to anyone.

“Despair raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps I can help you. What is your name, mortal woman?’ Thinking quickly, Tsetsegua replied, ‘Nargui.’ No one. Now, Despair was bound to help Tsetsegua find the spirit of her lost love. And because Despair did not know her true name, Tsetsegua was safe from her wiles. For now.”

The stories her fa-ir told burned brightly in her mind as she observed this other, wrong version of the Tsetsegua tale. Satokka wished she could have stayed at Siatueh with her father. She would have been able to aid the resistance. She was tall and strong and could help throw Noxian goods into the sea. It was more than they deserved. She didn’t remember the time before the war, but Satokka knew something had been lost that Ionia had not yet reclaimed.

Disappointed, she turned to leave. But a larger crowd had started to form. One she wasn’t prepared for.

There were Noxians in Weh’le.

They were not wearing armor, they did not carry weapons, but there was always something in a Noxian’s expression that could identify them. An innate hostility, perhaps, or a sense that they were better than those around them.

But these Noxians—there were six of them, middle-aged or younger—were carrying themselves differently. They wore apologetic looks, as though they knew this festival was not meant for them. And yet here they were anyway. It made Satokka’s stomach turn.

The Ionians gave them a wide berth through the market. Whispers passed throughout the stalls, but not a soul told them they weren’t welcome. One of the younger Noxian women gave a hesitant grin. She held up a small bag of coins and started to walk to the cake stall.

Satokka looked around, waiting for someone to say something. To do something.

It would have to be her.

Satokka stared down the Noxian woman approaching the cakes until their gazes met. The woman held out her hand, as if to introduce herself.

Never breaking eye contact, Satokka spat at her feet.

A collective gasp shivered through the crowd. Satokka never saw how the Noxians reacted, because at that moment someone grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. She looked up—it was Ituren, bowing and apologizing for her actions as he led her away.

A small glance past Ituren as he rounded the corner showed Satokka that the Noxians were just… standing there. The woman she’d spat at looked lost. Pride rose in Satokka’s chest. Good. The Noxians should feel small.

They circled around the festival perimeter to lessen the chance that they might be followed. But Ituren had picked up new bells, and he jingled with every step. Finally Ituren threw the bells to the ground and led her back to the teahouse.

Before they entered the back door, Ituren spun to face Satokka. She blinked in surprise at his expression—she had never seen him look anything but cheerful or tired. But now, his eyes showed fear. “They came here in peace, to celebrate the festival with us, Satokka.” Ituren’s voice was never this sharp. “You did not have to do that.”

Satokka thought back to her father in Siatueh, to the resistance, to the Noxian soldiers making their way into her town at this very moment.

“Yes, I did.”

Turasi burst into the front room in a near panic and went straight to her mother. Paskoma had just handed a new guest a pot of tea, a clean set of sheets and towels, but she waved the woman on when she saw the terror and anger written on Turasi’s face.

“What is wrong?” Paskoma asked gently. Through gritted teeth, Turasi told the story of what happened to her daughter and Ituren at the marketplace. It had taken a while to get more out of Ituren than a sheepish apology for not bringing back any bells, and getting Satokka to speak about something she’d done wrong was like trying to wring water from a stone.

“I cannot believe she would do something so reckless, so dangerous!” Turasi had been so pleased to bring her family to the safety of Weh’le and her mother’s house. But not only were there Noxians in town, but Satokka had brought their attention to herself. That was the entire reason they had left Siatueh.

“She is nearly grown, Turasi. She is pushing her boundaries to see where they truly lie.”

“And that’s what will get her killed. Those Noxians… they may not have had weapons on them, but you know that every soldier who served in that army is a stone-hearted killer.”

“Excuse me.” Both women turned, startled. It was the new guest, standing in the doorway of her room. She was tall, with dark hair and unusual amber eyes partly obscured by the hood of her cloak. “You’re talking about warriors in Weh’le?”

“Yes, exactly,” Turasi said, disconcerted. She hadn’t noticed that they had walked toward the new guest as they spoke. The air around the woman seemed to shimmer strangely, moving differently around her than the rest of the teahouse. For a moment, Turasi wondered if she might be dreaming. “They’re trained in the ways of war. And they need to leave, but I don’t—”

“Oh, no,” the guest interrupted with a good-natured smile. “You misunderstand me. I am in search of someone who could serve as a protector. A guard. Any strong fighters in town could be persuaded to join me, if you only point me in their direction.”

“No.” Paskoma’s voice was clear and insistent. “I refuse to allow anyone dangerous to stay here during the festival. If you insist upon finding yourself a guard, then I will have to insist you find a different teahouse.” She held her hands out, ready for the guest to return her linens.

Instead the guest laughed airily, charmed by Paskoma. “This is the best teahouse in town, is it not? I am not going to stay somewhere inferior if I can help it. I will respect your wishes and not bring anyone dangerous through those doors.”

With a wink, she disappeared into her room. Paskoma let out a sigh and turned back to her daughter. “She will be fine, Turasi. Satokka is too smart to make herself a target for long.”

Turasi nodded. The words stuck in her throat, but she smiled at her mother. She forgot how soothing it could be to let her mother take care of her, sinking back into the roles they played during Turasi’s childhood.

There were differences, of course. When she was a child, Turasi never saw anything of her parents’ worries or fears. They were strong and ever-present, like the mountains or the sea. It wasn’t until after her father died that Turasi saw her mother lost or uncertain.

And now, with the spirit blossoms set to bloom soon, that uncertainty around Okerei had returned. What would her mother do if she didn’t get the answer she was looking for?

But then, Turasi wasn’t sure Paskoma knew what answer she truly wanted.

Satokka had never seen such a meal before in her entire life. To celebrate the first night of the festival, Paskoma cooked up a feast for the twenty or so people lodging at the teahouse. So Satokka filled her plate and her belly and did what she had come to enjoy most while staying with her grandmother: talking with and listening to the other guests.

Everyone wore their masks or costumes. Turasi instructed Satokka to wear her own mask out at the festival, and to never take it off. The Noxians could be watching, ready to retaliate. But Satokka didn’t mind. She loved her mask. It was intricate, with large ornate horns and eyes that twisted down the face into a wicked grin. This was the face of the Taker, the little girl who was there at the moment of every death.

During dinner, Satokka got into a heated discussion about the Taker with the amber-eyed guest. The woman was dressed like the Fox—or the Gatekeeper, as they called her in Weh’le—with lifelike fuzzy ears atop her head and markings like whiskers drawn across her face.

“But the Taker is the one who is actually there when a person dies,” Satokka insisted. “So it makes more sense for her to guide spirits to the spirit realm.”

“So then why,” the guest asked in an amused drawl, “do we remove the sharpest tooth in a person’s mouth and place it in their palm when they die? It isn’t for the Taker, I know that much.”

Satokka shrugged. “It’s payment, to cross the veil.”

“Who do they pay it to? Who would have use for those teeth? The Khumaia.”

“The what?”

“Your Gatekeeper. She wears each tooth she is given on an endless necklace, to understand the life of the spirit she leads down to the spirit realm. By the time they arrive, she knows whether the spirit will follow her peaceful path or Rakhsasum’s path of torment, even if the spirit does not know yet. She will do everything she can to help those destined for pain, but their fate is unveiled in that tooth.”

“Really?” Satokka had grown used to the differences in the stories between Weh’le and Siatueh over the last couple of weeks. Now, she looked forward to all of the tales she would tell her father when she saw him next.

The woman giggled. “No. I made it up.”

“Oh.”

“From what I can remember, it’s so we can celebrate the age of the person who died. The ground down tooth of a wise elder, the sharp youthfulness of a soldier cut down in her prime.” She paused and smiled at Satokka. “But I like telling stories that haven’t been told.”

When it was time for dessert, Satokka excitedly ate the cakes that Ituren had spent the last two days baking for this night. They were a little burnt on the bottom, but the sweet sticky center was full of flavor.

Ituren passed around the cakes by hand, starting with Satokka and ending on the guest with the excellent costume ears. The guest put her hand on Ituren’s forearm and looked deep into his eyes as she quietly asked him a question.

Satokka watched as Ituren’s eyes lost focus, then he nodded, saying, “Of course. Anyone you would want to house here is welcome, whether they are skilled with a blade or not. We do not discriminate here.”

The guest squeezed his arm in appreciation. “Thank you. You should let your wife know, she might not be as understanding as you are.”

Again he nodded, but Satokka noticed when Ituren turned to go back into the kitchen that his eyes weren’t their usual color. For just a moment, so briefly that it could have been a trick of the light, his normally dark brown eyes were the same shade of amber-gold as the fox-eared woman sitting beside her.

As the last rays of the sun disappeared over the water, the spirit blossoms, now in full bloom, began to glow in the moonlight. The festival-goers let out a cheer—finally, after all this time, the blossoms had truly returned. They lit the lanterns on the march up to the temple in the mountains, a warm and cheerful light to counter the eerie silver of the flowers upon the branches.

Paskoma wished she felt as elated as everyone else. After the feast, she and a masked Satokka had dressed in their finery and gone out in search of Okerei’s blossom, the one that would allow her to connect to his spirit and speak with him. In the past, it had never taken long for Paskoma to find the flower she was looking for. There was always a tether, it was said, between the still-beating heart of those alive and the still heart of their loved ones.

This time, though… there were so many spirits upon the trees.

She had never seen the branches so full, so bountiful. Some whispered that Ionians were not the only ones upon the trees, that the Noxians had poisoned their festival even in death. The cawing of ravens in the distance seemed to confirm their fears. Paskoma didn’t believe that. There was a simpler explanation. There were just so many who needed to come back now, more than ever before. The trees were heavy with the hopes of those trying to connect.

And she had not yet found Okerei.

She feared him lost, or not yet at peace, or simply not desiring to speak with her. Perhaps their link had been severed after so long apart.

Paskoma kept smiling through the tears that threatened to spill and encouraged Satokka to keep looking. She would not let her granddaughter’s first spirit blossom festival be ruined by her own grief. This was supposed to be a celebration, and she knew it was important that Satokka learn to understand the joy to be found in these reunions.

Turasi and Ituren joined them after they finished clearing away the feast. “Have you found Fa-ir yet?” Turasi asked as she slipped on her own mask, a beautifully painted Tsetsegua with tears carved into her cheeks. Paskoma shook her head, her throat too tight to speak. “Then Satokka and I will continue to look. Why don’t you rest for a moment?”

Paskoma allowed Ituren to lead her to a bench, where she sat and observed. She saw families crying over pots of spirit tea, begging their loved ones to stay just a little longer. She saw children playing soldier with sticks for swords, a seriousness to their expression that ought not be there. She saw the worry and the whispers from those around the festival who listened to the ravens and stared at the spirit trees with distrust and contempt.

This was not the spirit blossom festival she remembered. She wondered if it ever would be again.

Her eye was drawn away from the festival by the new and patterned sounds of drums in the distance, the blazing of flames on a nearby mountaintop. Paskoma’s hand went to her chest—she knew this sound. She had heard it after fierce battles, when the Noxians burned their dead on enormous pyres.

“I wish,” she sighed, “we did not have to spend so much time looking to the past.”

“Is that not what the festival is about?”

“No.” She turned to look at the trees, her back to the flames. “It is about letting go of the past, and moving forward into the future. So many people forget that.” Though she could not see it, Paskoma thought she could feel the heat of the fire lapping at her, threatening to engulf her, her family, everything around her, all that was and all that would come. “And this feels different.”

“Different in what way?”

“Does this look like letting go?” Paskoma asked, sorrow in her voice as she gestured around them. “Or does it look like we are holding on to something so tightly that it’s bound to come back?”

A warm hand enveloped her own. She looked up into Ituren’s eyes as he spoke softly to her.

“You are upset that we have not found Okerei’s blossom yet.”

A tear coursed down her cheek. “I… everything is different. The spirit blossoms have returned, but can we return to how we were before? Can anything be made right?”

Ituren squeezed her hand gently. “There is still time. We will find him, my love. Your heart’s tether to him was—is—the strongest I have ever seen. You will speak to him and see that, though some things may change, others never will. He will always love you, as you will always love him. And whatever his answer may be…” He paused as he brought her palm to his lips. “Speaking with him will bring you and your family peace. And that is all I want for you.”

Paskoma’s tight smile softened into something real as she gazed at the man she had loved for so long. She squeezed his hand in return. “Our family, Ituren.”

He closed his eyes before tears could come and placed her hand over his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart beneath her fingertips, strong and steady and alive.

For the first time, she knew what she wanted. Regardless of what Okerei would say.

She was ready to let go of the past, and move forward into her future, with Ituren at her side.

The six Noxians tried to keep their ceremony private, but it demanded attention, an insistence that all honor the fallen of Noxus. They had traveled from a small island in the middle of the bay to celebrate the dead in the Ionian way, but had been turned away from the spirit blossom festival at Weh’le earlier in the week. So they had to keep the traditions of their own people and remember the dead the only way they knew how. Though the Noxians had brought little with them on the journey, the remembrance ceremony was easy to improvise.

Laurna beat the Wolf drum, Giotto and Samtha stoked the fire, Helia and Arnaut built the effigies from fallen pieces of timber and twine. Jacrut tossed Samtha’s uneaten festival cake onto the coals. No one felt right eating it after the marketplace incident and so it became the first offering, lending the air a burnt honey scent. Then, with the dramatic flair that came from a noble upbringing and a priestly training, Jacrut threw the effigies atop the flames.

“We send these souls into the sky,” Jacrut intoned, his voice ringing out in the clear, still night. “So that their ashes may fall over all the world.”

“May their deaths bring Noxus across the seas,” the others murmured.

“May their bodies nourish the soil so that we may grow.”

“May they not have died in vain.”

“And may their souls—”

Jacrut stopped suddenly as a huge burst of wind fed the flames, spiraling them toward the stars. It overwhelmed him for a moment, driving him to silence.

This was the promise of Noxus. A flame that would burn everything in its path, even its own people. He and his comrades had realized this even before the war finished. They were all deserters trying to make a life for themselves tucked away from those they had abandoned and those they had hurt.

No one wanted them.

This was not Noxus. This was not their land, and he was unsure if their gods could hear them here. Was unsure if he wanted them to hear. He knew the prayers, yes, but he wasn’t sure he still believed in them.

The blossoms on the spirit trees glowed, almost pulsing in the light of the fire. Jacrut swallowed hard. No, this was not Noxus. This was something beautiful, dangerous, terrifying. They were what made him nervous. The blossoms, blooming for the first time since the war.

Because if the gods weren’t watching, that meant the only eyes on them were the spirits of Ionians. People he and his comrades had killed, people who had no reason to feel anything toward them other than rage and resentment.

People he hoped they would not have to fight against again. Because they had all seen the ships, the soldiers. They knew what it meant. What they didn’t know, was what it would mean for them. For their lives in Ionia. For their service to Noxus.

“May their souls find rest among our ancestors,” he croaked out, his throat dry, “and lend us their strength for the battles to come.”

He did not want the spirits to hear his prayers.

Look, I should be clear—I didn’t want anything to do with “the dread lord,” or whoever Januk was talking about. I was just trying to sell this stupid little vial to the guy who asked me to get it for him. Should have been easy.

But when you’re me, nothing goes your way for long.

My way. Whatever.

Januk was a red-bearded Freljordian transplant, with deep pockets and big appetites. Unknown to his employers, his private residence was filled with relics and artwork, half of it raided illegally from tombs or other museums, and he loved to dine amidst his collection. As some of the pieces would attest, we’d worked together several times in the past, and he only betrayed me twice. Well, two and a half times, if I’m counting when he blew my cover after we had already salvaged the wreck of the Echelon Dawn…

To Januk’s credit, payment was never a problem, which vastly diminishes my ability to hold a grudge.

“Ezreal,” he said, pushing his plate aside. There were flecks of lamb in his teeth. “Did you find it?”

The it he was referring to was to the Elixir of Uloa. And yes, I had indeed liberated it from a trap-strewn hovel in the jungle near Paretha. I pulled the bone and crystal vial from my satchel. It was cool in the palm of my hand.

“Got what you’re looking for right here,” I said, holding up the vial. “Interesting container. My best guess would be pre-classical Shuriman.”

The spoonful of viscous liquid inside it shimmered in the moonlight. Januk’s eyes widened.

I decided to ramp up the drama. “I tell you what, though—this here isn’t just any ordinary ancient serum. It’s a load bearing ancient serum. The whole place crumbled around me. I barely escaped with my life.”

“The Elixir…” Januk’s voice took on a reverence I had never heard before. “A single drop can quench the soul for a thousand years… Give a man skin as tough as petricite…”

He went to grab it with his greedy hands. I pulled it out of reach.

“Not so fast, Januk.”

“Right, right, right,” he muttered, fumbling for his desk drawer key. “Payment. We agreed sixty thousand.”

“And full accreditation in the Guild, remember?”

I’d been denied entry to plenty of things, in my time. Bars, schools, even a Sona recital… but the Piltover Explorers Guild was the one that stung the most, considering the number of times I’ve risked my neck in the field. Ingrates.

Januk was scowling. “The Guild aren’t particularly fond of you, Ezreal. Can’t say I blame them, having worked with you in the past.” He poured himself some amberwine from a decanter and took a swig. “You left me to rot in that Noxian prison camp…”

“That was payback. For the Echelon Dawn.”

“Which was payback for the map.”

“Which was payback for… something else you did.” I gritted my teeth. “Probably.”

I was getting antsy. I readied myself to make a quick exit.

“Come on, accreditation was half the deal,” I reminded him. “If you don’t want to honor it, I can always find another buyer.”

His boisterous laugh broke the tension. “Why do you think I continue to do business with you? It’s because I like you. We have history, and history is always good for business.” He finished his drink. “Let me fetch the letter from my study. One moment, please.”

Buyers keeping payment in their studies? Oldest trick in the book. He’d probably return aiming a flintlock at my pretty face.

To kill time, I perused his collection of artifacts. There were some I had procured on his behalf. Then my eyes fell on something I had not seen before. Something new—a stone bell, roughly the size of a housecat. Its base was adorned with strange writing. I stepped closer to inspect it.

“It’s Ochnun,” Januk called out. “The language of the dead, composed beyond the mortal veil, and spoken only by those in the afterworld.”

I was getting some serious backstabby vibes, so I spun around.

Januk didn’t have a flintlock. He had two flintlocks.

“I am sorry to inform you, Ezreal, that the Guild has once again denied your application.” He stepped closer, into the light. “The dread lord will rise again. And the Elixir will make it happen.”

A dread lord? Great. I was so close this time…

My gauntlet’s charge rose. Anger is a wonderful arcane motivator. Use it or lose it, I always say.

I raised my arm. Januk fired his pistols. It was magic versus lead shot.

Surprise! Magic won. Magic always wins.

The dull metal slugs burned white-hot in the face of my blast, and winked into silvery vapor on the other side. But with double-crossers, one must be doubly careful, so I quickly charged my gauntlet again. There was a slight fizzle, then a pop, and then I was standing right behind Januk. Teleporting short distances doesn’t really take a lot out of me, so I put my gauntleted hand to the back of his big, stupid head before he could turn around.

“Drop the guns, Januk.”

“Already one step ahead of you.”

Oh, I did not like the sound of that. I glanced down. Sure enough, the pistols were at his feet.

Did I mention Januk was strong? Because he is super strong. He grabbed my gauntlet in one hand, yanked me over his shoulder with the other, and slammed me bodily through his work desk. The damn stone bell jabbed into my spine. I saw white, and splinters. Lots of little splinters.

Januk kicked me in the ribs for good measure. He twisted the Elixir of Uloa out of my shaky grip, pulled the stopper, and drank deep.

“Your pathetic gauntlet will do nothing to an immortal! The Elixir is—”

“Fake,” I croaked. “Almost the right hues, though.” I held up another, far less remarkable looking vial. “This is the real Elixir. You just drank sand wasp venom, out of a cheap souvenir trinket vessel.”

Januk peered into the empty vial, his face scrunched up like he’d tasted sour milk. In fairness, sour milk would have been a lot better for his digestive system.

I winced as I pulled myself back to my feet. He had kicked me unnecessarily hard, but at least he spared my face.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t stray too far from a lavatory for the next few days,’ I added.

He threw the fancy casing to the ground, doubled over, and groaned. Sand wasp venom hits hard and fast. “You… petulant little… I’ll get you… for this…”

I shrugged, then raised my gauntlet and fired another blast of magical energy at the wall. The masonry cracked, melted and exploded outwards. Papers flew everywhere. I picked up the bell, and crouched by Januk’s new window.

“Always a pleasure, ” I said. “I won’t charge you for the, uhh… remodeling.”

I hopped out through the hole, scampered down the masonry and leapt across to a nearby rooftop. I wanted to be far away from Januk as quickly as possible, for lots of reasons. Admittedly, the sand wasp venom was the main one—it was not going to be pretty in that place by morning.

As I ran, I took a closer look at my latest acquisition. Whatever else it was, the Ochnun bell was definitely touched by some darker energy. Once the Explorers Guild got a load of this piece, I’d be a shoo-in for accreditation. With a party in my honor, perhaps? After all, I had just single-handedly kept some dread lord from rising.

And in the end, that’s usually all that matters.

A gust of wind blew cold night air from the garden, carrying with it enticing scents of overripe fruit and blooming flowers. Ahri stood before the garden's entrance, where stone transitioned to soil and narrow labyrinthine caves opened to the sky in a deep caldera. Thickets of trees and brambles grew wild beneath the moonlight, while flowers bloomed in lush abundance. Ahri hesitated, knowing well the twin nature of danger and beauty. She had heard legends of the sacred grove since childhood, but had never before traversed the southern caverns to find it. According to the stories, those who stepped over the threshold of the garden began as one person and left as someone else entirely, or did not leave at all.

Whatever the truth might be, Ahri had made up her mind. As she stepped into the garden, the back of her neck prickled as if someone were watching her. No figure was visible amongst the trees, but the garden was far from still. Everywhere Ahri looked, new flowers bloomed with each passing second. Ahri walked a winding path through the tangle of plants, stepping over roots rumbling beneath the soil. She ducked under hanging vines that reached out to her as if clamoring for affection. She could have sworn she heard a hush from the soft rustling of leaves.

Moonbeams shone through the canopy above, revealing trees bearing leaves of silver and gold. Flower stalks entwined around their trunks, curling to display dazzling buds brighter than any gemstone. Plump spicecherries coated in a layer of frost chimed softly as they swayed amid an untamed thicket.

A snow lily stretched toward Ahri’s face and caressed her cheek gently. It was too alluring to resist. Ahri pressed her face into its petals to inhale its heady scent. Her nose chilled and she took in the faint smell of oranges, the summer breeze, and the tang of a fresh kill. The blossom trembled as it blushed with color, and Ahri’s breath caught in her throat. She swayed, dizzy at the flower’s perfume.

Snip.

The snow lily fell to the soil, severed at its stem. A viscous liquid seeped from the cut. Ahri let out a breath, her nine tails twitching as her head cleared.

Ahri startled as a woman with wisps of gray-white hair stood before her, shears in hand. She was wrapped in colorful shawls and her eyelashes sparkled with dew.

As the woman turned her sea-green gaze to Ahri, Ahri felt a strange unease, as if this woman could slice through her gut just as easily as a fibrous stalk. The woman’s face, wrinkled like tree bark, was impossible to read. But Ahri was no longer concerned for her own safety.

“You startled me, Ighilya,” said Ahri. In the stories, the old woman was known as the Eater of Secrets, the Forgotten, or the Witch Gardener. Wanting to show respect to one with such power, Ahri decided to call her Ighilya. Great grandmother.

“The flowers want something from us,” she said. “Just as we seek something from them. It would be wise to keep your nose to yourself. I would know. I have to feed these hungry babies myself.”

“So you are the Gardener,” said Ahri.

“One of my kinder names, yes. But quite beside the point. I know why you’re here, Iminha.”

Little one. Ahri felt uncomfortable at the word, often used in a familial relationship, though she was not sure why.

“You seek absolution. Freedom from your pain,” said the Gardener.

She stepped over a shrinking fern and beckoned to Ahri.

“Come.”

As they walked through the moonlit garden, flowers turned to face the old woman as if she were the sun itself, warming their leaves and helping them grow. Or perhaps the flowers did not wish to turn their backs to her.

The old woman waved Ahri to a bench in front of a gnarled cloudfruit tree, and sat opposite her.

“Let me guess. You were in love,” the Gardener said, a smile crinkling the corners of her lips.

Ahri’s brow furrowed.

“Don’t worry, you’re far from the first,” said the old woman. “So, who was he? A soldier? An adventurer? A warrior in exile?”

“An artist,” said Ahri. She had not uttered the syllables of his name in over a year and could not bring herself to say them now. They were like swallowing broken glass. “He painted... flowers.”

“Ah. A romantic,” the Gardener said.

“I killed him,” Ahri spat. “Is that romantic enough for you?”

As she spoke the truth aloud, Ahri could not disguise the sharp bitterness on her tongue.

“I sucked the life from his lips as he lay dying in my arms,” she said. “He was kinder, more selfless than anyone had a right to be. I thought I could suppress my urges. But the taste of his dreams and memories was too enticing. He urged me on. I did not resist. And now - now I cannot go on knowing what I did. Please, Ighilya. Can you give me the gift of oblivion? Can you make me forget?”

The Gardener did not answer. She stood and picked a ripe cloudfruit from the tree and peeled it slowly, carefully, so the rind remained in one piece. The flesh fell into six vermillion segments, which she offered to Ahri.

“Care for a slice?”

Ahri stared at her.

“Don’t worry, this one doesn’t want anything from you. Not like the flowers. Fruit never does. Fruit is the most generous part of a plant - it strives to be luscious and juicy - and tempting. It simply wants to attract.”

“Food turns to ash in my mouth,” said Ahri. “How can I feed myself when I am no more than a monster?”

“Even monsters need to eat, you know,” the Gardener said, smiling gently.

She placed one of the cloudfruit segments into her mouth, and chewed before making a face.

“Tart! In all my years in the garden, I’ve never gotten used to the tang.”

The old woman ate the remaining pieces while Ahri sat in silence. When she was finished she wiped the juice from her mouth.

“So you stole a life that was not yours to take,” said the Gardener. “Now you suffer the consequences.”

“I cannot stand it,” Ahri said.

“To be alive is to be in pain, I’m afraid,” the Gardener said.

A vine dripping with snow lily buds wound its way around the old woman’s arm. The woman did not flinch.

“I can’t go on knowing that I killed him,” Ahri pleaded.

“There are greater consequences to losing yourself, Iminha.”

The Gardener reached for Ahri’s hand and squeezed it. Her sea-green eyes glinted in the moonlight, and Ahri detected something she had not seen before - longing, perhaps?

“You will be broken,” said the old woman. “You will never again be one.”

“I am already in fragments,” Ahri replied, “and every second that passes, I split myself anew. Please, Ighilya. I must do this!”

The old woman sighed.

“This garden will not refuse a gift freely given, for it always hungers.”

With that, the Gardener offered her arm to Ahri, still entwined with the vine of snow lilies. Buds unfurled like outstretched hands.

“Give your breath to this flower as you think on the memories you wish to be rid of,” the old woman said, gesturing to the bell shaped lily. “The flower will consume them. Do not inhale again until you feel nothing.”

Ahri held the flower gently between her fingers. The Gardener nodded. Ahri took a deep breath and exhaled into the flower.

...Ahri stood next to a raven-haired man at the edge of a lake. Together they leapt into the water and screamed as they frolicked over endless waves.

Ahri’s suffering dissolved like a cloud along with the image in her mind.

...in a forest silenced by winter, Ahri watched a raven-haired man painting a single blossom. “Am I not your flower?” she asked, pulling the strap down from her dress. He lifted his brush and smeared paint over her bare back. The bristles tingled as he recreated the flower atop her spine. “You are, you are,” he repeated, kissing her shoulder with each word.

Ahri knew she should dread what would happen next, but her heart was growing cold and numb.

...she stood at the center of a lake, holding the lifeless body of the man she once loved. He dipped beneath the water, becoming contorted through its glassy refraction.

Once, this vision would have caused stabbing pain, but Ahri felt no more than a dull ache.

...Ahri leaned over a fallen woodcutter in a stone cavern, consuming his life. At the sound of boots crunching on snow, she startled. The raven-haired man stood, watching. Ahri despaired; she had not wanted him to see this.

“I can't be good enough for you,” Ahri said. “Look at me, greedy for the soul of a dying man. Please, leave me. I am not good. I cannot be good.”

Her raven-haired love responded. “I don't care.” This was the first time Ahri remembered someone loving her wholly, in spite of her nature. His voice was warm and deep with emotion. “I am yours.”

The memory caught in Ahri’s throat and she stopped breathing, breaking the flower’s spell.

No, she thought. I can’t lose this.

Ahri tried to inhale, but the air felt like a noose around her neck. It choked her and stifled her throat, as if she were breathing poison. Her vision blackened, but she gasped until her lungs were nearly bursting.

Losing this would kill him all over again.

Ahri’s knees gave out and she collapsed on the ground, still gripping the snow lily. The unnatural perfume she inhaled from the flower percolated through her mind, conjuring strange and disturbing visions.

Ahri hallucinated. In a snow-silenced forest, she envisioned each of her nine tails ripped from her spine, only to grow back so they could be torn off again.

In a stone cavern, she saw dozens of portraits of herself painted in inky black brushstrokes. In each of the images, her face was blank and cold.

She floated, weightless, at the center of a lake, and looked down to see that the lake was filled, not with water, but blood.

Where are you?

In her mind’s eye, she saw a face warped by the endless folds of her memory, one she was already forgetting. The face was blurred, like a painting of a man rather than the man himself. He looked at her, stared into her, but she could not meet his gaze.

Ahri opened her eyes. The Gardener was standing above her, holding the vine of snow lilies, which had turned raven-black.

“Can you still see him?” asked the old woman.

Ahri focused on the hazy shapes in her mind and focused until they materialized into a face. His face.

“Yes. It’s cloudy, but... I remember,” said Ahri. She fixed the image of his face in her mind, memorizing every detail. She would not let it dissolve.

The old woman’s eyes flashed - not with longing, but regret.

“Then you did what many had not the strength to do. You did not succumb to peace,” said the Gardener.

“I couldn’t,” said Ahri, choking over her words. “I couldn’t give him up. Even if I am a monster. Even if each day I fall apart and each day I must bear the pain a hundred times over. Oblivion is worse, much worse.”

Oblivion was a thousand blurry faces staring at her with empty eyes.

“You cannot take back what you gave, Iminha,” the Gardener said. “The flowers do not relinquish what was freely given. But you may keep what remains. Go, go. Leave this place before it takes hold,” she whispered. Vines coiled around the Gardener’s shoulders, revealing lilies of a deep sea-green. “As it’s done to so many others.”

Ahri tried to stand, but a vine of snow lilies had wound its way around her tails. She struggled against their tightening clutches, prying barbs from her fur, then scrambled to her feet and ran. Knotted roots broke loose from the soil, trying to ensnare her as she leapt between them. A tangled curtain of thorned moon roses swerved to block Ahri’s path, but she held her breath and dove beneath the flowers, which caught wisps of her hair as she tumbled.

The path from the garden was overgrown with snow lilies of all colors. Their leaves, sharp as knives, slashed at Ahri’s skin, while thick stalks coiled around her face and neck, binding her mouth. Ahri bit down and ripped through the fibers with her teeth, tasting sour blood. She tore through the archway to the stone caverns beyond.

She could just make out the Gardener’s voice.

“A piece of you lingers here, always,” the old woman called. “Unlike us, the garden does not forget.”

Ahri did not turn back.

Six boys and a camel, and the boys were cheaper to replace. Some were orphans and escaped slaves, but most were off casts — teenagers abandoned by families too poor to keep them. When Shahib offered him the work, Jaheje hadn’t eaten in days.

Only the desperate would try crossing the Sai Kahleek, but those with any meager possessions bartered for Shahib. Jaheje looked across the cooking fire at the older boy. A few small tufts of facial hair had sprouted on Shahib’s cheeks, and his voice no longer cracked when he spoke. Few boys survived crossing the desert for more than a couple seasons. No one chose to do it after earning any money. No one except Shahib, who had walked the Sai Kahleek for almost ten years.

Shahib whistled and the other boys ran to his side. He showed them how to cut the callouses from their feet.

“Feel each step,” he instructed. “Start with your big toe, then roll outward until your whole foot touches down. Only then do you shift your weight from your rear foot.” He stood and demonstrated how to move with long, silent strides.

“Practice,” he explained. “If the camel walks too slowly, it will reveal our presence. You must be quiet, and you must be swift.”

Jaheje’s feet bled badly the first day; he nearly fainted from the pain. He practiced long after the caravan stopped and the ground cooled. By the fourth day, the pain was so intense, he used a bit of leather to bite down on. Shahib complimented him on his technique.

Shahib laughed as he indicated it to the other boys. “Watch,” he said. “Jaheje is quieter than me. Copy how he moves. Each step as soft as a mouse, each stride as long as a gazelle. Yes, this is how you survive Sai Kahleek.”

Longing as much for the older boy’s praise as the training he needed to survive, Jaheje soon followed him everywhere. He saw how Shahib rested with one foot raised and wrapped around the pendant spear. He saw how Shahib retied the spear’s pendant every morning, making sure the flag’s cut-cloth always flowed like the leaves of a desert palm. He saw how Shahib’s eyes searched the desert in a pattern, over and over, stopping only when he closed them for sleep.

After the second moon, they arrived. From the top of the dunes, Jaheje looked down at the skeleton of the dead god. No one knew what the monster had been when alive, but its huge ribs raked into the sky, each casting a shadow that engulfed the caravan as they passed. Its bones meant they were entering the Sai Kahleek.

Northerners called Sai Kahleek the “Bone Sea,” but this was a mistranslation. The Laaji tribes had never seen an ocean. Sai was the word the Laaji used for plains of sand and loosely packed rock, which were slow and painful to walk on. It meant the land was pockmarked with tunnels. It meant the Xer’Sai preyed here. It meant death lurked beneath the sand.

Dragging the old camel behind them, the team of boys left before dawn, a half day’s march ahead of the caravan.

Jaheje found his first burrow on the second day, and waved his signal flag. Shahib soft-stepped over to him. They approached the burrow cautiously and stopped a dozen yards from it. Its opening was no larger than a melon, but from it, the poisonous vapors of activity brewed. Shahib sent one of the boys back to redirect the caravan.

Jaheje looked back and asked Shahib, “Can we kill a Xer’Sai that large?”

Shahib scratched his chin, responding, “Their skin gets harder with age.” Slowly, a grin appeared proudly. “Last season I killed one the size of a jackal. We lost the camel, but I killed it.”

Jaheje smiled, enjoying his mentor’s boast. But he found himself asking, “Does Rek’Sai exist?”

Shahib chilled, his mood suddenly bitter. “I have seen her.” But before Jaheje could ask about the famous beast, Shahib stood and told Jaheje to keep moving. They crept away from the burrow, listening, waiting, scanning the horizon for any movement.

When Jaheje heard the first gong of a sounding bell, it took him a moment to process what it meant. Something was coming from behind them, to the east. He had been so focused on looking for hidden burrows, he had forgotten to watch the horizon.

The camel brayed, and Jaheje looked for the signal spears of the other boys in his crew. At the edge of his visibility, he could see their three flags.

The bell sounded again. The boy who had sighted the Xer’Sai would now use the sounding bell to confuse the beast. Jaheje had to chase the camel away from the path of the caravan and toward the lookout. Assuming the lookout wasn’t killed, the Xer’Sai would follow the camel away from the caravan and allow the lookout a safe path to retreat.

Jaheje could see Shahib running toward him. The bone-thin teen had abandoned silent-stepping, racing as fast as he could toward the camel and Jaheje. Shahib dropped his spear as a cloud of dust suddenly appeared behind him.

Jaheje ran to the huge king-bell attached to the camel. He dragged it down to the ground and struck it with all of his might. Even muffled by the earth, the sound battered his ears. He kept hitting, but the cloud of dust pursuing Shahib didn’t change course. Each second it gained ground.

At the moment, it seemed certain to overtake Shahib. Instead of running or dodging, he froze and screamed, “Don’t move!”

The other boys stood as motionless as their bodies would allow. At the exact instant, the old camel began running.

And then, before a word could be spoken, an energy crackle hit them like a wall. The hair on Jaheje’s neck stood on end.

“It’s close,” Jaheje whispered.

“No,” Shahib warned. “It’s not close. It’s big.” And for the first time Jaheje saw real fear on the older boy’s face.

Shahib scanned the desert, looking for a fin, a dust cloud, anything. Then he judged the distance. “The caravan’s too far. If it heads for the camel we can make it to the rocks.”

Jaheje desperately turned, looking for the hidden creature. “Where is it?!”

In the distance, they heard the camel bray in pain. The animal’s screams ended suddenly.

“What could kill a camel that quickly?” Jaheje asked.

Shahib pushed them forward. “We have to reach the rocks,” he insisted.

And with that, they began to run.

When Shahib told them to stop, they stopped. When he indicated for them to silent-step, they did so. Jaheje could only hope Shahib saw what he did not.

But the black rocks seemed to run away from them. No matter how many steps they took, they never grew closer. So they ran as clouds covered the sun and the desert became black. They ran as the wind swept away their trail. They ran knowing the Xer’Sai was behind them; knowing it heard every misstep, every stumble. They ran knowing that it followed, and that every mistake led it closer.

When Jaheje saw it, it seemed to be a giant mouth cut into the rock, vapors hissing from it menacingly. The burrow’s entrance was so large, even standing upright, he would be able to walk into it without lowering his head.

“Rek’Sai,” he whispered in terrified awe. As he turned, he realized that all around them, the black stone was pockmarked with the creature’s giant tunnels.

Young Xalee gave voice to the horrible realization that they all understood: “She can tunnel through rock.” The cliffs they had thought to be their salvation were instead Rek’Sai’s lair.

“We should go back, try and reach the caravan,” Xalee suggested.

“Try if you like,” Shahib answered.

“We can silent-step.”

“A day’s travel,” Shahib cautioned. “Can you travel soundlessly for a whole day?”

“What will you do Shahib?” Jaheje asked.

“If we go back, we will die in the Sai Kahleek. I will go forward and pray a guardian watches over me.”

Xalee asked, “Where does this valley lead?”

“It doesn’t matter where it leads. It is our only choice.”

They moved cautiously along the cliffs, entering a wind cut valley, and hoping it would lead to water soon. Avoiding the monstrous burrows was impossible. Each boy silently prayed Rek’Sai had heard, and pursued, the distant caravan instead of them.

As the sunlight crept over the edge of the valley, it revealed the desolate obstacle they faced. It was impossible to walk silently in the canyon, for bones were scattered underfoot. The sound of each footstep echoed with a hollow lifelessness.

She launched from an unseen hole behind them, which had appeared dead. For Jaheje, everything became a blur.

“Back!” Shahib screamed to the others. “Get downwind!”

The warning was already too late for Xalee. The creature brought down the boy like a wolf taking a mouse. Her huge fangs snapped Xalee’s spine, killing him before he could cry out.

Rek’Sai loomed above Jaheje, twice his height. Her powerful forelimbs stalked left and right. Her leech-like tail, many times the size of an alligator, dragged behind her body. Her long tongue rose, then swayed like a dancing cobra, sniffing the wind.

Jaheje could feel every muscle in his body aching to move. He stood transfixed as the huge Xer’Sai turned toward him. Gore covered the beast’s eyeless face and armored beak.

Rek’Sai was so alien and perfect in her deadliness, Jaheje felt his mouth open in awe. The boy gripped his spear staff, certain he wouldn’t be able to pierce her armored hide if she attacked.

“Down!” Shahib barked.

All the boys ducked flat to the earth as Rek’Sai’s “fin” pulsed a sickly green color. Jaheje could feel the invisible energy crackling above him.

The Xer’Sai turned, facing the distant caravan. Her tongue sniffed the air again, and considered the distance. Suddenly, the fin returned to its original violet color, and Rek’Sai pulled Xalee’s body down into her burrow.

Save the pool of thickening blood and Xalee’s absence, no evidence of the great beast remained.

Shahib whispered to go. The survivors silently retreated, deeper into the canyon.

No one spoke. The dark stone, pockmarked with burrows, robbed them of the ability to speak, to cry, to mourn.

Breaking free of the spell, his exhaustion cast over him. Jaheje looked around the canyon walls. He realized in an instant the enormity of what stalked them and why Shahib had decided to press on. Since Omah ‘Azir’s time, when stone was clay and Shurima built itself to the sun, Rek’Sai had fed here. This valley was hers alone. And all believed the Xer’Sai existed only to eat.

“But why do they stay here?” Jaheje said aloud.

Suddenly, the monster appeared. She burst out of the ground in front of them, diving at Jaheje.

Jaheje ducked as Rek’Sai soared past him, her mass blocking the sun. As she landed, her forelimbs ripped apart the ground and she disappeared beneath the surface.

Hidden in the brush, VezKah, the youngest boy, motioned Jaheje closer. Just then, his mouth opened in horror. A pulse of dark energy ripped from Rek’Sai’s fin, tearing apart the earth as she rushed toward VezKah. The earth cracked apart as Rek’Sai ripped the ground up and threw the boy into the air. VezKah landed in a heap as the huge fin rushed toward them.

Together, Shahib and Jaheje ran out of the gully as quickly as they could.

The creature lurched forward, then slowed a rhythm, which matched the swerving pattern of her pursuit. She pushed them even further into the valley, blocking any other road of escape.

Silent-stepping was meaningless now. Rek’Sai was too close. All that was left was to run.

When Caleeb lost his breath, Rek’Sai took him. Seeing this, Shahib stopped. He collected Caleeb’s spear and waited. All around him, the air churned and bent like a reflection in the water.

“What are you doing?” Jaheje whispered.

“I will be the camel. Go silently.” Shahib acknowledged the walls around them. “Tell people what you have seen here.”

Jaheje followed Shahib’s eyeline. Behind him, the stone cliffs had been cut apart by burrows into a pattern of intersecting circles. From them, a bizarre connection of ink-black energy flowed and dripped like a sticky liquid. And through this matrix, an incompressible reality bent and twisted as someplace else prepared itself to enter our world.

Hidden in this isolated valley, the true lair of Xer’Sai was a half-constructed tunnel. A tunnel to the nightmare place where these creatures had been born, and fouler things waited hungrily at this unfinished gateway to our world.

“Keep going, Jaheje,” Shahib said with a tired smile. “Each step as soft as a mouse, each stride as long as a gazelle. You must survive the Sai Kahleek.”

Jaheje made it to the far cliff before he heard the scream. Turning to look, Jaheje rolled his foot down, then slid his heel to the ground just as Shahib had taught him.

He did this as his teacher was reduced to the sound of bones snapping, and the great beast chewing.

Jaheje watched as Rek’Sai opened her maw and pulled a sticky ball of dark energy from Shahib’s ruined body. The ball rotated as tendrils dripped to the ground, sticking and stretching as Rek’Sai manipulated it into a pattern, which she attached between two of the burrows.

Jaheje looked away, then turned silently and soft-stepped out of the valley.

Jaheje ran out of sweat the next day. He felt his dry eyes scratching against his eyelids. His lips swelled, then split open bloodlessly.

When his calf muscles locked in a cramp from dehydration, and he was no longer able to soft-step, only then did he fall to the ground to cry. He cried for the days of hunger he’d suffered before joining Shahib’s caravan. He cried for knowing his parents off cast him instead of his brothers. He cried for Shahib, the first person who’d shown him kindness. And it was those last tears that dragged him back onto his cramped legs and made him stand. Knowing each shaky and tired step revealed his position to any Xer’Sai nearby, Jaheje stumbled onward.

When Jaheje reached the great river Renek and told his story, few believed him. But soon, those who tried to cross the Sai Kahleek with any meager possessions left, bartered for Jaheje. And Jaheje taught off cast boys how to cut the callouses from their feet and how to soft-step by rolling their heel. He taught them how to survive the Sai Kahleek, and he warned his students of the monster named Rek’Sai.

Helia, the Blessed Isles

Erlok Grael stood separate from his peers, awaiting the Choosing.

They waited within a small open-air amphitheater, the architecture all gleaming white marble and gold-encased capstones. Helia wore its opulence proudly, as if in defiance of the brutalities of life beyond the shores of the Blessed Isles.

The others joked and laughed together, their collective nervousness drawing them closer, yet Grael stood silent and alone, his gaze intense. No one spoke to him or included him in any of the whispered japes. Few even registered his presence; their gazes slipped over and around him as if he didn’t exist. To most of them, he didn’t.

Grael did not care. He had no desire to swap inane small talk with them, and he felt no jealousy at their juvenile comradery. Today would be his moment of triumph. Today he would be embraced into the inner circle, apprenticed within the secretive upper echelons of the Fellowship of Light. He had more than earned his place there. No other student present came close. They might hail from wealth and nobility, while he came from a line of illiterate pig farmers, but none were as gifted or as worthy as he.

The masters arrived, filing down the central stairs one by one, silencing the gaggle of hopefuls. Grael watched them, eyes burning with a hungry light. He licked his lips, savoring

the prestige and glory that were soon to be heaped upon him, anticipating all the secrets that he would soon be privy to.

The masters shuffled into place upon the lower tiers of the amphitheater, their expressions solemn, staring down at the cluster of adepts on the floor below them. Finally, after an overlong pause to build suspense, a pompous, toadlike master, his skin pale and wet-looking—Elder Bartek—cleared his throat and welcomed the graduating students. His verbose speech was heavy with gravitas and self-congratulatory asides, and Grael’s eyes glazed over.

Finally, the time came for the masters to choose which of the graduates would be taken under their wing as apprentices. There were leaders here from all the major disciplines and denominations of the Fellowship. They represented the Arcanic Sciences, the various schools of logic and metaphysics, the Blessed Archives, the Astro-Scryers, Hermetic Oratory, Esoteric Geometry, the Seekers, and other branches of study. All served, in one way or another, the greater purpose of the Fellowship—the gathering, study, cataloging, and securing of the most powerful arcane artifacts in existence.

It was an auspicious gathering of some of the world’s most brilliant minds, yet Erlok Grael focused on only one of their number: Hierarch Malgurza, Master of the Key. Her dark skin was heavily lined, and her once-ebony hair was now mostly gray. Malgurza was a legend among the adepts of Helia. She didn’t appear at every year’s Choosing ceremony, but when she did, it was always to embrace a new apprentice into the inner circle.

The Baton of Choosing was brought forth. It was passed first to Hierarch Malgurza, the most honored master present. She took it in one gnarled hand, causing a ripple of murmurs among the students. Malgurza would indeed choose an apprentice this day, and the ghost of a smile curled Grael’s thin lips. The elderly woman cast her hawkish gaze across the gathered hopefuls, who held their breaths as one.

Whoever was named would be marked for greatness, joining a hallowed, elite cadre, their future assured. Erlok Grael’s fingers twitched in anticipation. This was his moment. He was already half stepping forward when the hierarch finally spoke, her voice husky, like oak-aged spirits.

“Tyrus of Hellesmor.”

Grael blinked. For a second, he thought there must have been some mistake, before the cold reality of his rejection washed over him, like a bucket of frigid water to the face. There was a delighted whoop from the chosen student, along with a burst of whispers and gasps. The newly named apprentice stepped forward amid a flurry of slaps on the back and ran up the steps of the amphitheater to take his place behind Hierarch Malgurza, a broad smile on his smug face.

Grael made no outward reaction, though he had gone dangerously still.

The rest of the ceremony went by in a dull, surreal blur. The Baton of Choosing passed from master to master, each choosing a new apprentice. Name by name, the crowd of hopefuls around Grael dwindled, until he stood alone. The sea of masters and former peers stared down at him, like a jury ready to announce his execution.

His hands did not twitch now. Shame and hatred writhed within him, like a pair of serpents locked in a death struggle. With a click of finality, the Baton of Choosing was sealed back within its ceremonial case and borne away by golden-robed attendants.

“Erlok Grael,” announced Bartek, his eyes smiling. “No master has spoken for you, yet the Fellowship is nothing if not benevolent. A place has been secured for you, one that will, it is hoped, teach you some much-needed humility, and at least a modicum of empathy. In time, perhaps, one of the masters may deign to take you on—”

“Where?” interrupted Grael, eliciting murmurs and tuts, but he did not care.

Bartek looked down his bulbous nose at him. His expression was that of a man who had inadvertently stepped upon something distasteful. “You will serve as a minor assistant to the Wardens of Thresholds,” he declared, malice gleaming in his eyes. There were smirks and stifled laughter among his former peers. The Threshers, as the student body derisively called them, were the lowest of the low, both literally and figuratively, those who guarded and patrolled the lowest depths of the vaults beneath Helia. Their ranks consisted of those who had earned the ire of the masters, whether through gross political misstep or misdemeanor, and any others whom the Fellowship wished out of the way. Down in the darkness, they could be forgotten. They were a joke. An embarrassment.

Bartek’s patronizing voice droned on, but Grael barely heard his words.

In that moment, he swore that this was not the end. He would serve among the wardens and ensure that his worth was noticed, such that none of these pompous, sniveling masters or his snobbish peers could deny him. He would serve a year, maybe two, and then he would take his rightful place within the inner circle.

They would not break him.

And he would remember this insult.

Alovédra, Camavor

It was dark and cool within the hallowed Sanctum of Judgment, and Kalista appreciated the reprieve from the scorching Camavoran summer outside. Standing at attention, bedecked

in form-fitting armor and a high-plumed helm, she waited for judgment to be rendered.

Despite being out of the sun, the slender young heir to the Argent Throne, kneeling at her side, was sweating, and his breath was shallow and quick.

His name was Viego Santiarul Molach vol Kalah Heigaari, and he waited to see if he would be crowned king, or if this day would be his last.

Absolute rulership, or death. There could be no middle ground.

He was Kalista’s uncle, but she was more like an older sister to him. They had been raised together, and he had always looked up to her. He was never meant to be the next king.

That should have been Kalista’s father, the firstborn, but his unexpected death had placed Viego, his younger brother, next in line.

The sound of the massed crowds outside was muted within the cold walls of the sanctum. Hooded priests, their faces obscured by shadow and blank porcelain masks, stood anonymous in the gloom, forming a circle. The incense from their censers was cloying and acrid, their whispering chant monotonous and sibilant.

“Kal?” breathed Viego.

“I am here,” Kalista replied, standing at his side, her voice low.

He glanced up at her. His patrician face was long and handsome, yet in that moment he seemed younger than his twenty-one years. His eyes were panicked, like those of an animal caught between fleeing and fighting. Upon his forehead, three lines had been drawn in blood, coming together to a point just between his eyebrows. The blood trident was traditionally drawn only upon the dead, to help speed them on their way to the Beyond and ensure that the Revered Ancestors recognized them. It spoke of the lethality of what lay ahead.

“Tell me again of my father’s last words,” whispered Viego.

Kalista stiffened. The old king had been the Lion of Camavor, with a fearsome reputation in battle—and on the political stage. But as he lay dying in bed, he hadn’t looked anything

like the robust warrior-king who had so terrorized his enemies. In those final moments, his body was wasted and thin, all his vaunted power and vitality sapped from him. His eyes

had still radiated a small measure of the power he’d had in his prime, but it was like the last glow of a fire’s embers, one final glimmer before the darkness claimed him.

He clutched at her with the last of his strength, with hands that more closely resembled a vulture’s talons than anything belonging to a man. “Promise me,” he croaked, burning with

a desperate fire. “The boy does not have the temperament to rule. I blame myself, but it is you who must bear the weight, granddaughter. Promise me you will guide him. Counsel him.

Control him, if needed. Protect Camavor. That is now your duty.”

“I promise, Grandfather,” Kalista said. “I promise.”

Viego waited expectantly, looking up at her. The faint roar of the crowd outside rose and fell like the crashing of distant waves.

“He said you’d be a great king,” Kalista lied. “That you’d eclipse even his great deeds.”

Viego nodded, trying to take comfort in her words.

“There is nothing wrong with being afraid,” she assured him, her stern demeanor softening. “You’d be a fool if you weren’t.” She gave him a wink. “More of a fool, I mean.”

Viego laughed, though the sound had an edge of hysteria to it and was too loud in the cavernous space. Priests glared, and the heir to the throne gathered himself. He pushed a wayward strand of his wavy hair behind one ear, and was still once more, staring into the darkness.

“You cannot let fear control you,” said Kalista.

“If the blade claims me, it will be you kneeling here next, Kal,” Viego whispered. He reflected on that for a moment. “You would make a far better ruler than I.”

“Do not speak of such things,” hissed Kalista. “You are blessed of the Ancestors, with power flowing through your veins that your father did not have. You are worthy. By nightfall you will be crowned king, and all of this will be just a memory. The blade will not claim you.”

“Yet if—”

“The blade will not claim you.”

Viego gave a slow nod. “The blade will not claim me,” he repeated.

There was a change in the air, and the priests’ incessant chanting quickened. Their censers swayed from side to side. Light speared down into the sanctum through a crystal lens

set in the center of the dome high above, as the sun finally moved into position directly overhead. Motes of dust and ribbons of cloying scented smoke drifted in the beam of light,

revealing... nothing.

Then the Blade of the King appeared.

Its name was Sanctity, and Kalista’s breath caught in her throat as she looked upon it. Hovering suspended in midair, the immense sword existed only in the spiritual Halls of the Ancestors, except when called forth by the rightful ruler of Camavor, or when summoned by the priests for the judgment of a new sovereign.

Every monarch of Camavor wore the Argent Crown, a belligerent tri-spiked circlet perfectly befitting the long line of belligerent rulers, but Sanctity was the true symbol of the throne. The primacy of whoever held Sanctity was undisputed, and to possess the Blade of the King was to be soul-bound to it—although not every heir to the Camavoran throne survived

the ritual of binding.

Kalista knew that was not some vague, mythical threat, either. Down through the line of history, dozens of heirs had perished here in the Sanctum of Judgment. There was a good

reason some called the blade Soulrender, and it was rightly feared by Camavor’s heirs and enemies alike.

The crowd outside had fallen silent. They waited in hushed anticipation, ready to welcome a new monarch or mourn his passing. Either the doors would be thrown open and Viego would stride forth in glory, blade in hand, or the bell atop the sanctum would toll one singular, mournful note, signaling his end.

“Viego,” Kalista said. “It is time.”

The crown prince nodded and pushed himself to his feet. The blade hung before him, waiting for him to take it. And yet, still he hesitated. He stared at it, transfixed, terrified. The priests glared, eyes wide behind their expressionless masks, silently urging him to do what they had instructed.

“Viego...” hissed Kalista.

“You’ll be with me, won’t you?” he whispered urgently. “I don’t think I can do this alone. Rule, I mean.”

“I’ll be with you,” said Kalista. “I’ll stand with you, as I always have. I promise.”

Viego gave her a nod and turned back to Sanctity, hanging motionless in the shaft of light. In seconds, the moment would be lost. The time of judgment was now.

The priests’ chanting reached a fevered pitch. Smoke coiled around the sacred blade, like so many serpents, writhing and twisting. Without further pause, Viego stepped forward

and grasped the sword, closing both hands around its hilt.

His eyes widened, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Then he opened his mouth and began to scream.

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