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A hero is anyone who answers the call to do what must be done.

They sacrifice so much because of a singular truth: this fragile world requires protection.

This means everything to Lissandra, who rarely rests, especially not on nights like tonight, when stars align in strange ways. The round apex of her private sanctum features many rune-inscribed windows to harness the powers from various celestial syzygies.

Thousands of dark, coffin-like ice formations protrude from the snow-carpeted ground. They rise like great black teeth, jutting up from the depths below, poised to devour the sky. She knows exactly how far down these boulders descend, where their roots terminate, and their purpose.

Lissandra strolls through this unique structure. Under this alignment of the Frost Moon and the Cold Star, she sees more without eyes than anyone who has ever dared set foot in this sacred space. Although it is quiet as a tomb, she hears what no one else can—the voices of the half-dreaming and half-dead trapped within each crystalline monolith.

An ancient troll-king says nothing. Its deep-set eyes scream with malice as it tracks her path. When she passes out of sight, the troll-king’s growl shakes its black ice keep.

Lissandra counts thirteen steps from the troll-king to her knight in rusty armor. Tonight, he speaks first.

“Kill the Ice Witch!” he says. His eyes half-lidded, his grim face stoic. His teeth are broken from decades of gnashing.

But his refrain catches on, as Lissandra winds through the forest of midnight ice.

“Kill the Ice Witch,” becomes a rousing chorus, with voices from across the world, all suspended in stasis, reliving the moment they killed said Ice Witch.

As for the Ice Witch herself, she finds it beautiful when such a diverse crowd rallies behind a single course of action. Their tortured nightmares lull others to sleep. Tonight, though, one voice is peculiarly silent.

Lissandra weaves her way through the crevasses between crystals, toward one of the most exotic heroes in her collection. Silence breeds mysteries, and she loves coaxing secrets from unspeaking lips... She feels a shift in temperature, an aura of warmth.

She is not alone. Someone uninvited walks her menagerie. Her footfalls are whispers on the snow as she follows the trail of warmth.

“Frozen tongues have no place here,” Lissandra says.

“Release my sister, witch!” a voice, gruff and husky, cries out.

Lissandra turns toward this unseen threat. Up, is all she has to think for blade-like shards of ice to erupt from the ground, blocking the intruder’s path. She hears wind gush from the infiltrator’s lungs. Then the soft thud of the fall.

“Demands without a greeting make for ill-mannered guests.”

The would-be interloper finds a shred of courage, then her voice.

“M-My sister is Hara from the Caravanserai of Gilded Scarabs. She dreamt of eight hundred years of ice unless she slew the Prophetess of Frost.” The girl mustered some defiance. “Release my sister, witch, and I shall spare your life.”

Lissandra finds no need to waste good breaths on a pitiful laugh.

“Ah, you seek a bargain, then.”

Lissandra runs her bony fingers across the surface of Hara’s casing and listens to the voice trapped within. The guest’s name dances on Hara’s tongue, and now on Lissandra’s as well.

“You ignored your sister’s command, Marjen. You abandoned the caravanserai.”

Marjen recoils from hearing her name on the Ice Witch’s tongue.

“How do you—”

“We are similar. I too deplore the pleas of unwise sisters.”

“Release her now, or I will end you.”

Marjen brandishes a blade that warms the bitter cold. It reeks of familiar and particularly hard-headed magic. Forged by an older spirit whose name Lissandra erased from the Freljord’s memory.

“Consider the Ice Witch’s offer. I shall relieve you of that warm dagger, and in return, reunite you with your dear sister Hara.”

The alignment of the Frost Moon with the Cold Star completes itself. Lissandra cannot see the shimmering pale blue light descending on the grotto. She wonders how it looks to this woman, born in the Great Sai.

Marjen nods in agreement.

“You are smarter than almost everyone here.” Lissandra’s blue lips stretch into a crooked smile.

“Kill the witch!” Hara screams from inside her own dark prison. Marjen’s heart beats out of time.

And her arm follows through. The blade arcs through the cold air. It plunges into Lissandra’s chest.

“You listened to your sister...”

Lissandra slumps to her knees, then topples over. Silently falling snow shrouds her body.

Marjen turns to Hara, encased in cracked ice. Its surface runs slick with brackish meltwater. Dark water pools on the white snow. Whatever magic that held her ebbs.

“Remember when mother taught us to sand-dance? Follow the heat with the soles of your feet. Follow the heat, Hara. Follow me.”

The cracks widen in Hara’s prison as she struggles to break free. Finally, the edifice crumbles and there she is, kneeling by Marjen’s side in an inky puddle. Relief sweeps both their faces as they embrace.

“We did it,” Marjen says. “The caravanserai is safe. There is no eight-hundred-year freeze coming.”

Hara pulls closer, and whispers in Marjen’s ear.

“Sisters who listen...” Instead of Hara’s voice, she hears the cold, calm voice of the Ice Witch. “...are the easiest to trick.”

Marjen breaks their embrace. Hara’s eyes widen at the words pouring out of her mouth. Her lips mouth a single word.

Run.

Only Marjen can’t. Her fur-lined leather boots have iced over, freezing her to the ground. Black ice crawls up their legs.

“I-I killed...” She looks to Lissandra’s body, but sees only virgin snow. That’s when she sees the blade still in her hand.

The realization dawns on Marjen.

“I never threw the knife.”

A flash of chalk-white catches her attention. She looks up to the rune-inscribed window above. Where there should be a Frost Moon over a Cold Star, a pair of dark blue lips stretch into a mocking grin.

“Sisters,” Lissandra whispers to the two women inside their frozen tombs, “inseparable, devoted, but still so utterly foolish...”

Marjen and Hara, their arms wrapped around each other in a sisterly embrace that turns to terror. They lock eyes as the dark ice entombs their faces.

Lissandra admires her latest acquisition. “I found it more convenient to lose mine.”

Where a single rock of black ice once stood, two now stand, joined together at the base. Sisters perpetually reunited—Marjen and Hara from the Great Sai, their bond stronger than the distance between tundra and desert. A reunion so powerful, Lissandra tastes the satisfaction of the feasting monsters below. The illusions cast by the dreams of the sisters, projected through ice, will keep the beasts slumbering a little while longer.

How exhausting this work is, lulling monsters to sleep.

Tonight, Lissandra too may rest. For the hero protects this fragile world just a little bit longer.

Trolls are, for the most part, hulking and brutish creatures, found in many of Runeterra’s least hospitable environments. Though not invulnerable, they are blessed with a hardy constitution and the ability to heal more quickly than other mortal races—especially the feeble humans. This means they can endure extremes of climate and scarce resources merely by out-surviving their rivals, and this is the most likely reason some of the largest known tribes still call the mountains of the Freljord home.

Trundle was whelped in a filthy cave, along with a brood of fifteen brothers and sisters. Times were particularly hard, so that only seven of them grew strong enough to join the ranks of their chieftain’s warband… and only three remained after their first winter of raiding.

As the warband feasted, the chieftain spoke of his intention to circle back and raid the same lands again. All would fear them. It would get easier every time.

Frowning, Trundle stood up, and said this plan was no good. The people they had crushed had nothing left for the tribe to take—they should return next winter when the granaries were full again, and the livestock grown big enough to make more than a single mouthful.

Many of the other trolls did not like this at all. They ground their teeth and thumped the sides of their heads, trying to comprehend what Trundle was suggesting. Was he a coward? Had the cold got into his brain and turned it to slush? The chieftain beat Trundle with a rock, and threw him away down the mountainside. Fools had no place in his warband.

Trundle wandered far, for he knew he would not be welcome anywhere nearby. He avoided other troll tribes scattered across the tundra, and was careful to keep his distance from the feral yetis that roamed the highlands. By night, he gazed up at the stars and remembered all the stories he had been told as a pup—legends of Grubgrack the Wise, and other ancient troll kings, who followed the old gods and were gifted powerful weapons as symbols of their right to rule the world.

Eventually, Trundle came to a great crack in the ground. While he was glad to be out of the wind, he soon found himself lost in a maze of twisted, howling canyons that seemed to sink deeper beneath the Freljord than the mountains rose above it.

And at the very bottom of that abyss, he met the Ice Witch.

She waited for him on a shimmering, frozen lake, surrounded by little human warriors skinned in furs and metal. Trundle was not daunted by any of this; but the Ice Witch wanted to know how he had found his way here, into the very heart of her domain, and how he was able to walk upon her lake.

Trundle looked down. The ice beneath his feet was darker than the night sky, far overhead. It made his brain want to squirm around inside his skull.

The Ice Witch told him he was special—something called “Iceborn”, which meant he should stay there with her. But Trundle did not want this, and told her how he had been cast out by the chieftain, and that he wanted to find a great weapon and become a troll king like Grubgrack and all the others. To his surprise, the Ice Witch agreed, and handed him a mighty club of ice called Boneshiver. With this, he could become king of all trolls, and form a great alliance with her human tribe.

He eagerly agreed, and began the long journey home.

When Trundle arrived, the chieftain laughed in his face… until Trundle bashed him over the head with Boneshiver. In an instant, the old troll was frozen solid by the club’s icy magic, and a second blow shattered his body into tiny pieces.

Awed by Trundle’s newfound strength, the rest of the warband listened to his tale of the Ice Witch, and the alliance she had promised. Trundle was smart. Trundle had been chosen to wield great power. Trundle would be their king.

And with Trundle leading the charge, the time of the trolls is surely coming.

Of all the tales of the old Freljord that have somehow endured into the modern age, there is one—and one alone—that can chill the blood of even the hardiest Iceborn.

The Frostguard do not tell it. Many of them do not even know it, in full.

By decree of the Ice Witch Lissandra herself, to perpetuate this forbidden legend is heresy against the true faith, and carries the penalty of death for any who speak it aloud. In all the vast libraries of the Frostguard Citadel, only a single written account remains—and that was penned by her most trusted scribe, many thousands of years ago. Few indeed are those individuals across Runeterra who know the truth behind the legend, and Lissandra can count on the fingers of one hand those who were there in person and might dare to contradict her…

It was in the final, dark days of the War of the Three Sisters that Avarosa and Serylda finally marched their warriors up into the mountains, to face Lissandra before the walls of her own fortress. They would not serve the otherworldly masters that she had pledged them to. This would be an end to it.

The Ice Witch gestured to the armies they led, the great alliance that had finally brought these wild lands to heel. The mortal Iceborn were all but immune to the winter’s chill. The troll kings had roamed far across the tundra, amassing tremendous wealth from their conquests. Even the magnificent and terrible Balestriders, twisted far beyond their original form, moved now at the command of the Three.

All of this, Lissandra reminded her sisters, was because of the bargain she had made with the masters of the realm below—the beings she knew as Watchers. It was they who had revealed to her the primal secrets of the world. It was they who would have the final victory.

And it was then, at the height of this bitter confrontation, that the Watchers finally came to Runeterra.

The ground split open, swallowing thousands of warriors into the abyss beneath it, before the first of the dread things heaved itself up into existence. It was new to the material realm, bewildered by such notions as form and constancy, and began immediately to rail against them. In a foul riot of unchecked metamorphosis, it sprouted horns, and patches of fur, and its colossal tentacular limbs grew into jointed humanoid arms with fingers that clawed the bare rock of the mountainsides. Worst of all, other Watchers were following closely in its wake, wracked by horrifying transformations of their own.

It might be fair to assume there was a battle, that the Iceborn rallied behind Avarosa and Serylda to fight back the darkness—but in truth, it was Lissandra who ended it. She saw these abominations now for what they were, and knew what had to be done.

Summoning every last iota of the ancient magic around her, including that of her allies, she sacrificed everything to seal the rift-between-realms with True Ice, entombing the Watchers within it. Vast plumes of freezing vapor howled through the chasm, and those mortal warriors who managed to escape were driven to insanity by what they had witnessed.

This, then, is not only the legend of how Lissandra saved the world from destruction, but also the only first-hand account of the martyrdom of Avarosa and Serylda.

And may the Three have mercy upon all who read it.

''Would you like to hear a bedtime story?''

''Grandma, I'm too old for that.''

''You're never too old to enjoy a good story.''

The girl reluctantly crawled into bed and waited, knowing she wouldn’t win this battle. A bitter wind howled outside, whipping the falling snow into devil whirls.

''What kind though? A tale of the Ice Witch, perhaps?'' asked her grandmother.

''No, not her.''

''What about a story of Braum?''

The girl nodded and the old woman smiled.

''Ah, there are so many, which to choose…? My grandmother used to tell me of the time Braum protected our village from a great dragon! Or once, this was long ago, mind, he raced down a river of lava! Or-''

She paused and shook her head. “No, none of them. Wait, have I ever told you how Braum got his shield?''

The girl shook her head. The hearth fire snapped, its warmth holding off the night’s chill.

''Well, in the mountains above our village lived a man named Braum. He mostly kept to his farm, tending his sheep and goats, but he was the kindest man anyone had ever met, and he always had a smile on his face and a laugh on his lips.

''Now, one day, something terrible happened. A young troll boy around your age was climbing the mountain and happened upon a massive stone door with a shard of True Ice at its center. When he opened the door, he couldn't believe his eyes! Beyond was a vault filled with gold and jewels. Every kind of treasure you could imagine!

''What he didn't know was that the vault was a trap. The Ice Witch had cursed it, and as the troll boy entered, the magical door clanged shut behind him! It locked him inside! Try as he might, he couldn't escape.

''A passing shepherd heard the boy’s cries. The entire village rushed to help, but even the strongest warriors couldn't open the door. The boy's parents were beside themselves. His mother's wails of grief echoed around the mountain. It seemed hopeless.

''And then they heard a distant laugh.''

''It was Braum, wasn't it?'' asked the girl.

''Aren't you clever? Braum had heard their cries and came striding down the mountain. The villagers told him of the troll boy and the curse. Braum smiled and nodded. He turned to the vault and faced the door. He pushed it. Pulled it. Punched it. Kicked it. Even tried to rip it from its hinges, but the door wasn’t for budging.''

''But he's the strongest man ever!'' cried the girl.

''It was perplexing,'' agreed her grandmother. ''For many days and nights, Braum sat on a boulder, trying to think of a solution. After all, a child's life was at stake.

''Then, as the sun rose on the fifth day, his eyes widened, and a broad grin lit up his face. ‘If I can't go through the door,' he said, ‘then I'll just have to go through-’...''

The girl thought for a moment. Her eyes went wide as she exclaimed, ''The mountain!''

''The mountain indeed. Braum headed to the summit and began punching his way straight down, pummeling his way through the stone, fist after fist. Rocks flew in his wake, until he had vanished deep into the mountain.

''As the villagers held their breath, the rock around the door crumbled. And when the dust cleared, they saw Braum standing amidst the treasure, the weak but happy troll boy cradled in his arms.''

''I knew he could do it!''

''But before they could celebrate, everything began to rumble and shake. Braum's tunnel had weakened the mountain, and now it was caving in! Thinking quickly, Braum grabbed the enchanted door and held it above him like a shield, protecting the villagers as the mountain collapsed around them. When it was over, Braum was amazed. There wasn't a single scratch on the door! Braum knew it was something very special. And from that moment on, the magical shield never left Braum's side.''

The girl sat upright, struggling to conceal her excitement.

''Grandma,'' she said, ''can you tell me another story?''

The girl’s grandmother smiled, kissed her forehead and blew out the candle.

''Tomorrow,” she said. “You need to sleep, and there are many more stories to tell.''

Ah, Bilgewater.

It’s a hateful, stinking cesspit of murder and treachery at the best of times… and damn, it’s good to be home.

My back’s to the open ocean as I row out across Bilgewater Bay, so I’m facing the lights of the port city, shining like fool’s gold in the distance.

We’d been running jobs in Valoran, in the City of Progress and its uglier, downtrodden sister, but things started getting hot. And besides, the Prince reached out to us with this contract, and the money was too good to ignore.

Far too good, really, for what looks to me like a wild-eel chase. There’s gotta be a catch—always is—but as I said, the coin on offer weren’t to be sniffed at.

Still can’t believe we’re back. Last time we were here, things got a little, well, explosive.

Sarah Fortune played us all like a fiddle—me, T.F., Gangplank. No one’d ever taken on that gods-damned psychopath like she did. Blew him and his ship to smithereens, with all Bilgewater watching. And T.F. and I, we got a close-up view. Just dumb luck we survived. Of course I hold a grudge against her, but I have to admit, it was mighty impressive what she pulled off. She’s running the place now, from what I hear. Just a few more captains to bring into line, or see to the bottom of Bilgewater Bay. Only a few left who still reckon they can make a play to claim the unofficial throne themselves. Like our old friend, the Prince…

“Can you at least try to keep your mind on the job? We’re drifting off course.”

I glower at T.F. While I’m working up a sweat, the smug bastard’s sitting back, absently flipping cards through his slippery fingers. He’s far too scrawny to be of use on an oar anyway, but him criticizing me while lounging like a fancy Demacian high lord rubs me the wrong way.

The fact that he’s right—current’s pulled us a couple hundred yards south, meaning I gotta row that extra bit harder to get us where we need to be—just riles me even more.

“Feel free to take over any time you want, m’lord,” I growl.

“Can’t,” he says, as he lays three cards face down on the upturned barrel in front of him. “Busy.”

Scowling, I glance over my shoulder to get my bearings. We’re passing through a forest of sharp rocks, jutting out of the ocean like knife blades. ’Course, it ain’t the ones above the surface that are the problem. Just like always, it’s the blades you can’t see that are the real killers.

They’re called the Widow Makers, and they’ve claimed scores of victims over the years. You can see the remnants of the ships that’ve smashed on ’em: broken masts wedged between rocks, shattered planks circling in eddies, rotted boarding nets strung up on razor-sharp pinnacles.

Most of those wrecks are caused by damned fool captains not wanting to pay a Buhru wave-whisperer to guide ’em into port. Not too clever, that choice.

Thankfully, we ain’t trying to navigate the Widow Makers in anything more than ten feet from bow to stern. The leaky rowboat’s name is Intrepid, and I must admit I’ve grown more than a little fond of her since we met an hour past. She’s not much to look at—a bit rusty around the edges, and she could use a lick of paint—but she hasn’t let us down yet, which is something. And she ain’t complained about my rowing.

T.F. turns over each of the three cards, one by one. He frowns, and shuffles ’em back up in his hands. He’s been doing this since we ghosted off the White Wharf. Something in the cards has got him spooked, but I don’t give it any more thought. Tonight’s little paddle into the harbor ain’t gonna amount to nothin’, but we gotta make a show of giving it a solid try. I’m just damn pleased we got half the gold Krakens up front.

Far as I’m concerned, that’s all we’ll be getting, and that’s fine by me. Easiest coin we’ve ever made.

A splash of seawater from my oars slaps T.F. in the face. He stops shuffling his cards and looks up, glaring. “Do you mind?” he says.

Nope, I don’t mind one bit.

“My bad.” I give him a shrug, and keep on rowing.

He takes off his hat and wipes his cheek. Once done, he gives me another glare and puts it back on. Pulls it down low in front, tryin’ to seem all mysterious. Looks like a damn fool to me.

I try to keep the smirk off my face as I dig one of my oars into the water again. Get him good this time, right in the side of the head. Smack.

“Oh, for Luck’s sake,” he snaps, glowering at me. Sticks one finger in his ear and gives it a good waggle. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Can’t help it,” I says. “It’s your own fault, tryin’ to look fancy, with your mighty fine coat and your having a bath once a week. Brings out somethin’ mean in me.”

I get him again, perhaps a little more than I intended to. Soaks him to the skin. Infuriated, he starts to stand up, leveling a finger at me, but that just sets Intrepid rocking wildly. He sits down in a hurry, clinging to the sides of the little rowboat, a hilariously terrified expression on his face. For all his show of fanciness, in that moment all T.F.’s cool just got thrown overboard.

I shake my head, chuckling. Still makes me laugh that he’s one of the river folk, one that lived half his life in Bilgewater, no less, and he still can’t swim.

He’s staring daggers at me, his perfumed and carefully oiled hair now hanging limp and dripping like seaweed. I try not to, but it sets me giggling again.

“You’re an imbecile,” he says.

I row on. After a time, the tolling of Third Bell reaches us, drifting across the harbor from Bilgewater.

“We’re here,” T.F. announces, finally, consulting his cards once more.

I look over my shoulder. A jagged rock big enough to be a small island is looming before us, but it doesn’t look much different from any of the others.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he replies, sharply. Still annoyed about the water, I guess. “I’ve checked and re-checked. The cards keep telling me this is the one.”

There’s quite a few little tricks T.F. can do with those cards of his. He can use ’em to get in and out of places we’d otherwise never have access to, which is mighty handy when tryin’ to pull off a job. I’ve even seen him hurl a card to make a wagon explode like it was packed with gunpowder. But what he’s been doin’ tonight is proper old-blood river folk stuff. Must say it’s usually pretty accurate.

At T.F.’s direction, I pull Intrepid in close, rowing around to the leeward side of the sheer rock face. The swell rises and falls, threatening to smack us against it, but I keep her steady and drop anchor when T.F. tells me we’re at the right spot.

The rock towers overhead.

“So… How do we get up there?” I ask.

“We don’t,” he says. “The cards tell me the shrine’s inside.”

“I don’t see no cave entrance.”

Then I see T.F.’s grin, and my heart sinks. He points overboard, down into the water.

“You ain’t serious,” I mutter.

Last time we were in Bilgewater, I thought I was gonna drown, chained to a cannon kicked overboard. T.F. saved me, but it was a close thing, and I ain’t too keen to relive the experience.

“’Fraid so, partner,” he says. “Unless you want me going in by my lonesome…”

“So you make off with the loot and claim the rest of those Krakens without me? I don’t think so.”

I ain’t forgotten that this son of a dung-worm has left me high and dry before, running off with the coin and leaving me to face the consequences. Those years locked up ain’t ones I’m getting back.

“I thought you didn’t believe the shrine existed,” says T.F. “If I recall correctly, you described it as a ‘wild-eel chase’, right?”

“Yeah, well, I still think it’s a load of superstitious horse manure, but on the off chance it ain’t, I want my cut.”

He’s the one smirking now, as I start taking off my coat and boots. I make sure my shells and cigars are secured and watertight. Then check and re-check that my big double-barreled shotgun, Destiny—newly forged in Piltover, to my own specifications—is tightly wrapped in oilskins, and strapped snugly across my back. I roll up my sleeves.

“So where’s this tunnel, then?”

I dive in. Hope I ain’t jumping right into a school of frenzied razorfish.

It’s bastard cold and bastard dark, but I kick down, going deeper. Fish and gods-know-what-else dart in front of me, flickering at the edge of my vision.

There. While it’s all dark down here, there’s a patch that’s, well, darker, further below. A tunnel entrance. Guess T.F.’s cards were right. I swim into it, and soon realize the water outside weren’t dark at all, not compared to this. I can’t even see my own hands in front of me. It ain’t too wide, neither—my fingertips scrape the smooth stone on either side with every pull.

Glancing back, I see the little circle of blue marking the tunnel entrance. I reckon I’ve got just enough air to turn around and make for the surface. I go on any further, and I ain’t getting back out that way.

T.F. better be right about this. If I drown down here, I swear, next Harrowing I’ll be back to haunt the bastard.

There’s light up ahead, and I kick off the tunnel floor toward it, thinking I’ve found a way out… but no. It’s just a bastard glowing jellyfish, tentacles drifting like deadly towlines. Ain’t going near that thing.

I swim on, now completely blind. Panic’s slowly rising like a Blood Moon tide. I hit a wall in front, and for a horrible moment I think I’m at a dead end. Instinct kicks in, and I push straight up, searching for air, but all I achieve is smacking my head on the rock above. Hard. The cold numbs the pain, but I reckon there’s blood in the water. Not exactly ideal to be bleeding. Berserker sharks can smell that miles away…

I feel trapped, like a rat in a water-filled barrel. I might drown for real this time.

There’s gotta be a way through. I scrabble around desperately, feeling blindly at the walls. Seems like there’re curving spirals carved in the stone, but that ain’t too interesting right now. The air in my lungs feels like poison, and my strength’s starting to fade when I find the opening.

Kicking through, I suddenly see moonlight overhead. I swim up. Break the surface. Suck in a deep, ragged breath. I’m alive!

Treading water, I take stock of my surroundings. I’m inside a cave, partially open to the sky, with the moon shining down.

I paddle over to a rocky ledge and clamber out. Crabs the size of my head skitter out of my way. They’ve each got one overgrown blue claw, and they’re waving ’em at me like they begrudge my presence here. Well, that’s fine with me. Never liked crabs. Make my skin crawl, they do. Too many legs.

First things first. I unsling Destiny and unwrap her oilskins. In the moonlight I give her a quick inspection, checking the loading mechanism and trigger. Looks good. I load a couple of shells, and suddenly things feel a whole lot brighter. Not much that gives me the fear when I’ve got the good lady Destiny locked and loaded in my hands.

“Took you long enough,” says a voice.

I almost unleash both barrels before I realize it’s just T.F. He’s leaning against a rock, trying to look all detached and suave since he took the easy way in with his cards.

“Damn near shat myself, you stupid bastard,” I growl.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

I touch my scalp. My hand comes away red. “I’ll live.” Hope I’m right about that.

He might try to play it cool, but T.F.’s still looking at me, and I can tell he’s concerned. I won’t admit it, but I appreciate that.

“Don’t get all excited. I’m fine!” I look around, noting that every inch of the walls is inscribed with curving patterns. Buhru carvings. Takes me a moment to realize what they are.

“That’s a lot of serpents,” I say, stating the obvious.

Huh. Maybe there’s something to this wild-eel chase after all.

“Still think this is nothing but a myth?” T.F. asks.

I just grunt in reply. Even if I am startin’ to come around, I ain’t giving him the satisfaction yet.

See, the thing we’ve been hired to find is a Bilgewater legend, something any sane individual would dismiss as no more real than the Tidal Trickster, or the legends of the Summoners.

The Abyssal Crown.

It’s said that whoever wears the crown commands the Beasts Below. And whoever commands the Beasts Below would control the waters around the Serpent Isles. Control them, and, well, you’d naturally control Bilgewater.

That’s why the Prince is so desperate to get his golden hands on it. Not much Missy Fortune could do to dispute his claim if he was wearing the Abyssal Crown.

“So, where’s the shrine?” I say.

“There’s a passage leading farther in, back over there,” T.F. says, gesturing deeper into the cave. “Perhaps it’s through there.”

“No more swimmin’, I hope,” I mutter.

The “passage” T.F. found ain’t much more than a crack in the rocks. He’s got no meat on his bones and slips through like a flounder. Mine is the more robust—and I daresay, more admirable—physique, and I lose a few buttons tryin’ to squeeze through.

I’m grumblin’ and swearin’ under my breath, cursing that double helping of chowder I scarfed down earlier in the night, when T.F. shushes me, forefinger tapping pointedly on his lips.

With a final grunt I’m through, almost falling flat on my face. Then the smell hits me like a fist. It’s a stink not dissimilar to the vile offal-and-fish-guts reek of the slaughter docks. Makes the eyes water. Brings back bad memories, too.

Moonlight filters down through a gap in the cave ceiling, but it’s still dark. Takes me a moment to register the sheer amount of flotsam and jetsam piled up around the place. It looks like a hoarder’s paradise, with all manner of junk and refuse filling every nook and cranny.

This cavern’s larger than the last, and every part of it—well, every part that doesn’t have random crap heaped up against it—is also covered in Buhru carvings. More serpents. I’m sensing a theme here…

There’s a big old pool of black water to one side, probably connected to the same bastard tunnel that tried to drown me, but there’s no way all this refuse and junk got washed in here. Nah, this was brought here by someone. In truth, there’s a strange kinda order to it, even if it’s the kinda order imposed by a mind twisted like a sailor’s knot.

There’re barrels and boxes, chests, and nets. Fishing tackle and rusted harpoons, lengths of long-rotted rope. Piles of shells and stones are arranged in strange stacks, and jars of fetid liquid and gods-know-what-else are lined up on crude shelves made from driftwood.

A rusted anchor leans against a wall, and a ship’s barnacle-covered figurehead—a buxom lass with a fish tail—is wedged between a couple of boulders. Her flaking paint makes it look like her skin is coming off.

Broken masts criss-cross overhead like crooked rafters. Seaweed hangs from them in long strands, alongside little bundles of slowly spinning fishbones and twigs, tied with twine and hair, and torn ribbons of rotting sails.

And there, in the shadows toward the far wall, half hidden among the bric-a-brac, there’s something that looks an awful lot like…

“You think that’s it?” I whisper.

It’s an altar of sorts, carved straight outta the stone wall. Made to look like a swarming mass of sea serpents—red fins, bile belchers, ebony spine-throats, the lot of ’em. It’s surrounded by hundreds of unlit candles, melted wax everywhere, as well as dozens of skulls from all manner of beasties. More than a few human skulls in there, too.

“The Abyssal Shrine.” There’s awe in T.F.’s voice. He’s always been a superstitious type, being river folk and all. “Yeah, that’s it, all right.”

T.F. starts picking his way over to the shrine. I follow a little more slowly, eyeing the shadows. Feels like about now is when something bad would usually happen. That tends to be the way these things go for us. ’Course, I’m also watching T.F.

“You better not be tryin’ to pocket that crown on the sly,” I growl. He gives me a dirty look, but doesn’t bother replying.

Something catches my eye, then, and I think my heart stops for a second.

There’s an elderly woman lying on a knee-high rock shelf nearby. I almost missed her, scanning right over her before I realized what I was seeing.

“Ah hells,” I breathe. Now my heart’s going again, beating like a Noxian war drum.

She’s on her back, hands clasped in front of her, like a statue of the dead. Actually, by the looks of her, she might well be dead, or damn close. Her clothes are half rotten, and she’s the color of a week-dead fish. Might be the light, or lack thereof, but it also looks mighty like the veins in her see-through skin are ink black.

“There’s, ah, an old lady over here,” I hiss.

T.F.’s at the shrine, giving it the once over. “Huh?” he says absently.

“I said there’s an old lady over here,” I repeat, a little louder, glancing over at her to see if she wakes up. She doesn’t.

T.F. glances back. “What’s she doing?”

“Sleepin’,” I whisper. “Or being dead. I dunno which.” I give her a sniff and almost retch. “But she stinks somethin’ fierce. So probably dead.”

T.F. is making his concerned face, his brows meeting in the middle. He usually reserves that for a really bad hand of cards, or finding a fresh stain on the ridiculously overpriced tailored jacket he got in Piltover.

“I guess… just leave her be, then?” he says.

Brilliant. I change the subject. “Any sign of the crown?”

“No.” He turns back to the shrine. “It should be here…”

I move toward him, to help with the search, when the woman gives a rasping snort behind me. I turn fast, shotgun leveled, but she doesn’t stir. Alive, then.

I look at what I’m doing, and shift my aim toward the sky. What was I gonna do, shoot a sleeping old grandma? No matter how bad she smells, that seems like it would just be inviting a whole shipload of bad luck down upon us.

Turning back, I keep a wary eye on the old bat, just in case. Then I step on something. Something that moves. Something that gives out a muffled shriek.

There’s another person in here, completely buried beneath a pile of rotting sailcloth.

He scrabbles away from me like a cornered dog, panicked eyes wild. By the cut of his clothes and the gold earring, he has the look of a sailor, but one that ain’t had a good feed in a while. It’s then that I see the rusted shackle around his leg, connected to a chain, which in turn is bolted to the wall nearby.

Seeing he’s no threat, I ease Destiny’s barrels up. I nod to T.F., who’d spun around, glowing cards at the ready.

“Easy now,” I say to the captive, holding up a hand. “Ain’t here to do you no harm.”

“Get me out of here,” he whispers, eyes dartin’ between me and the sleeping old woman. “I don’t want to be no sacrifice. Was just sent to look for the crown! Get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out—”

His voice is gettin’ louder as his panic builds. Who knows how long the poor fella’s been chained to a wall down here? Or why?

“Now then, son, keep it down,” I say, trying to be all calm like.

“—get me out of here, get me—”

“Shut him up,” hisses T.F.

“Why you always got to order me around, huh?” I snap, makin’ a show of turning toward my partner in crime and jabbing a finger at him. “I got this, alright? It’s just like when—”

It’s a simple misdirection technique, one I learned from T.F., actually. Get your mark’s attention with a sudden movement, direct their focus where you want ’em to look, and they won’t see the thing you don’t want ’em to see.

Case in point: the prisoner’s frantic gaze shifts to T.F., and he don’t notice me stepping in close ’til it’s too late. I slam the butt of Destiny square into his face. I ain’t tryin’ to kill him, but I want him to have a good long sleep.

I throw a glance over my shoulder, but it seems the old bird didn’t hear anything. Probably stone deaf. Still, the sailor seemed pretty worked up. I’m startin’ to get the feelin’ there’s somethin’ mighty wrong about her…

“Nicely done,” T.F. says.

I give him a nod, and kneel down beside the unconscious captive. He looks a bit familiar… “Think I recognize him,” I say. I yank down his collar, popping a few buttons. Yep, there it is—a small tattoo, a pair of crossed hand cannons. “Yeah, this is one of Missy Fortune’s boys. High-ranking one, too. Reckon she’d pay handsomely to have him back.”

T.F. grunts in amusement. “Seems the Prince isn’t the only one after the crown.”

“Looks like. Wonder if she’d pay better?”

“Need to find it first,” he says.

“What did he say about being a sacrifice?”

Far as I’m concerned, if that old woman is strong enough to overpower Miss Fortune’s man, she’s either got help—which could be close by—or there’s much more to her than it seems. Either way, I ain’t keen to stick around.

“Let’s just get out of here,” I mutter. “This don’t feel good.”

“But we’re so close!” T.F. says. “It’s right here, I know it! Give me a little longer.”

Feels strange, me wanting to cut and run and him wanting to stay. That ain’t the way these things usually play out.

I cast another uneasy glance at the old lady, but give a reluctant nod. “Alright. But be quick.”

T.F. seats himself on the floor, and starts dealing out cards before him, face down, in a symmetrical pattern. I leave him to it, and start poking around, prodding into dark spaces with Destiny’s barrels, and being a bit more cautious of where I plant my feet. I find some old, tarnished coins, and am more than a little surprised to see a few gold Krakens among ’em. I pocket those, sliding a glance over at T.F. to make sure he doesn’t notice.

“You certain it’s here?” I say.

T.F. lifts up a card so I can see it. The picture looks like… well, it looks like a gold crown in the shape of a serpent.

“Don’t think I’ve seen that card before,” I say.

“Nor have I,” says T.F. “It’s never existed, ’til now. The crown’s here. Somewhere.”

I’ll never really understand those cards of his.

I keep searching, but after a while, I get the sense we’re being watched. Can’t say I much like the feeling. I turn around in place, looking into the darkness. There’re flickers of movement at the corners of my vision, but it all goes still when I focus on them. I try to shake it off. Probably just more crabs. Still, it seems like getting out of here would be a good idea, sooner rather than later.

T.F. mutters to himself, then scoops up his cards. He looks around, frowning. “You get the feeling we’re being watched?”

Not just me, then. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. I catch another glimpse of movement, and find my eye drawn to an upturned bucket on the floor.

Did it—did it just move?

I keep focused on it, and after a moment, the bucket does indeed inch along the floor, just a smidge, before stopping again. I reckon I’ve seen a few odd things in my life, but can’t say I’ve ever seen a bucket acting sneaky before.

I take a step closer, leaning down toward it. There’s a hole in the side of it, and it looks like… yep, there’s an eye staring out, right back at me. A big, yellow, staring eye.

“Got you now, you little—” I say, leveling Destiny at it.

Seeing its ruse is up, whatever’s within flips over the bucket and makes a break for it. I almost shoot, before I see it’s nothing but a damn octopus. I hear T.F. chortle as the rubbery thing goes squelching across the cave floor, hauling itself along with a surprising turn of speed.

It’s only got a single eye, and it’s still staring at me as it scoots backward.

“That’s… not something you see every day,” T.F. says.

The gangly green thing flops along to the base of the rock shelf where the old woman sleeps. It reaches up with a pair of tentacles and starts climbing.

“Well, don’t let it wake her up!” hisses T.F.

“What d’you want me to do, shoot it? Don’t you think that might just wake her up?”

T.F. has a card at the ready, but doesn’t throw, probably on account of not wanting to risk hitting the old woman. “I don’t know. Grab it or something!”

“I ain’t touchin’ no one-eyed octopus, Tobias.”

He gives me a look at the use of his real name. “I’ve told you not to call me that,” he says. “It’s Twisted Fate now, all right?”

I roll my eyes. “I ain’t callin’ you that. It’s stupid an’ pretentious an’—”

The old woman gives a shuddering snort, and we cease our bickering instantly. We look over to see the slimy beastie wrapping its tentacles around her face. There’s an unpleasant squelching sound as it pulls itself onto her head, like a grotesque bonnet, and attaches. Its big yellow eye blinks.

“That ain’t right,” I murmur.

Then the old woman sits bolt upright.

Now, I’m secure enough in myself to admit the sound I made when the old lady sat up was perhaps a little more shrill than I’m proud of. But to be fair, T.F.’s cry was even less dignified than mine.

The old woman’s eyes snap open. They’re as white as serpent milk. Blind she might be, but she turns toward us all the same.

“More little rats, sneaking and thieving?” she says. Her voice sounds like, well, exactly how you’d imagine an old sea witch with an octopus on her head would sound. “Naughty rats, nothing here for you, oh no…”

“Now hold on just one moment, lady,” I say, as she swings her legs around and plants her bare feet on the cave floor. I’ve got Destiny leveled at her, but she don’t seem to care. “We ain’t no rats, and we ain’t no thieves. Well, we are thieves, but, well—”

I look over at T.F.

“Help me out, would you?” I hiss.

“We’re looking for the Abyssal Crown,” T.F. says. “If you’d be so kind as to hand it over, there doesn’t need to be any trouble.”

The old witch stands up with the aid of a serpent-headed staff. Didn’t notice that earlier. She turns her blank, cloudy eyes toward us, and gives a toothless smile. “Silly, silly rats,” she says, drooling. “Already drowned. Promised to the Beasts Below, and don’t even know it.”

She slams her staff down on the floor. Reverberations shudder through the cave, and ripples spread across the black water. There’s a clicking sound, like lots of sticks and twigs breaking, and the walls come alive with movement.

Things detach from the surrounding darkness.

Big things.

“Crabs,” I mutter. “’Course it had to be crabs.”

These ain’t normal crabs, though—not that I’d describe anything with that many legs as normal under regular circumstances, but these things are something else. They’re about the size of small wagons, for starters, and they seem mighty intent on ripping us limb from limb.

They come skittering toward us, each waving a giant blue claw. Gotta say, it looks a whole lot more threatening when that claw’s big enough to snip a man in two. More of them break the surface of the water, chittering and snapping, scuttling sideward up into the cave.

“Eat this, you leggy son of a…!” I roar, and unleash both barrels into the first to come at us.

The blast is deafening, and hurls the giant crab backward with satisfying violence. A flash of red, and T.F. sends one of his cards slicing into the middle of a cluster of them. It explodes, catching the lot of ’em in a burst of sorcerous flames.

I reload just in time to pump a shot into another of the skittering beasts, blasting its overgrown claw to pieces. Shards of crab shell and wet meat splatter outward, and the behemoth staggers. My second shell disintegrates its eyestalks and clacking mandibles, and it’s thrown onto its back. Kicks like a damn mule, does Destiny.

One tries to flank T.F., and I give a shout of warning. He dives, sliding underneath a snapping claw, and flicks another card. It hits the creature with a golden flash. The crab goes instantly still, frozen in place. Freshly reloaded, I step up and blast it back into the water in a shower of crab bits.

“We gotta get out of here!” I holler.

“Not without the crown!” T.F. calls back, dodging a claw.

Feels to me like he’s trying to make a point. See, T.F.’s got a history of taking off as soon as things start to look dicey, leaving me to pick up the pieces. But he swears that’s not his way anymore, and I guess he’s willing to die to prove it. Well, that’s just damn stupid. Admirable, but stupid.

“Ain’t no good to us if we’re dead!” I shout.

I take another shot, but one of the damn crabs grabs Destiny in its claw as I squeeze the trigger. It drags my aim off, and I hit the Abyssal Shrine, blasting it apart.

The sea witch—who, I might add, has been cackling away like a fiend this whole time—screeches in fury.

I’m wrestlin’ with the crab that’s got Destiny in its claw. I ain’t releasing my grip, and the crab don’t seem inclined to, neither.

I snarl. “That’s mine, you scuttling—”

A pair of cards slices through the air, taking off each of the crab’s eye stalks. That makes it let go, and it staggers off blindly, bumping into walls and other scuttlers.

I nod my thanks, but T.F. ain’t lookin’. He’s starin’ over at the shrine. Well, where the shrine was. Now it’s mostly a pile of rocks. Seems it was hollow the whole time, and that my wayward shot bust it wide open.

“Well, would you look at that,” I say.

Seems someone was entombed inside. They’re nothing more than dried bones now, sticking out of the rubble. There’s a tarnished crown circling their skull, too, a crown that glints like gold, and is fashioned in the form of a hissing serpent…

I cast a glance over at the witch. She looks mighty displeased with this turn of events. Scowling, she starts to rise up off the floor. For a second I wonder if I hit my head harder than I first thought, and I have to blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing things right.

But I’m not imagining it. She’s now hovering a good two feet off the ground.

“Huh,” I say.

With a snarl, the witch jabs her staff toward us, and a hole opens up in the air. Now, admittedly that doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it’s the best I got to describe it. The hole’s about the size of a cannonball, at least to start with, but it quickly expands, like a rip in a ship’s hull. A torrent of frigid seawater spills through it, and I go down to one knee as I lose my footing.

There’s movement in the hole as well, and a massive yellow eye appears, iris contracting sharply as it peers through. Looks just like the eye of the octopus thing latched atop the witch’s head, only a hundred, no, a thousand times bigger. I get the feelin’ it’s somewhere deep, deep down in the darkest ocean depths, but here it is, eye-balling us like we’re bait on the end of a line.

Next I know, the eye pulls away, and two giant tentacles lash through the hole. I unleash both barrels, and blow one of those tentacles clean off. It flops to the cave floor, spraying blue blood all over as it thrashes and wriggles. The other one wraps around a giant crab, lifting it easily, and whips it back into the hole.

The old sea witch remains floating in place, with an evil grin. Seems she’s happy to hang back and watch her beast finish us off.

“Get the damn crown!” I bark, pushing back to my feet and fumbling with a pair of fresh shells.

Again the yellow eye races up to the hole, peering through. It looks at T.F., but I shout and wave my arms, and its giant pupil snaps toward me.

A tentacle darts through and wraps around me. Damn near crushes my ribcage as it squeezes and lifts me off my feet. It starts pulling me in, but before I’m dragged through the hole to gods-know-where, I manage to get Destiny up, and level it at the eye.

Seems to me there’s a certain level of intelligence in that gaze, more than one’d expect of a big ol’ sea monster. It sees Destiny and has an inkling of what’s coming, ’cause the eye pulls back, fast. Not fast enough, mind. Destiny roars, barking fire and brimstone, and I hear—and feel—the great beast’s roar of pain.

I’m dropped abruptly to the floor. Water continues to pour into the cave, sending me tumbling head over arse before I’m slammed against the wall. Thankfully, I’ve still got a hold of Destiny—I’m none too eager to head back to Piltover to get another made just yet—but she likely took some water during my little spill.

I come up spluttering. Feels like I’ve swallowed half of Bilgewater Bay. I see T.F. lift the crown off the skeleton, and he gives me a quick nod.

“Now we go,” he says.

I scramble to my feet. Seems like, for the moment at least, the beast behind the hole has backed off, though water keeps pouring through. The whole cave’s knee deep, and refuse and junk are floating around. The giant crabs—those few still here—are milling around, confused as to what’s going on.

The witch’s captive is awake now. He’s climbed up onto a rock, and is staring around him, terrified. Can’t say I blame him. He’s still chained up as well, which ain’t ideal for him with the rising water.

I aim Destiny at the chain and pull the trigger—least I can do is give the fella a fighting chance—but nothing happens. Seems water did get into her workings.

“Sorry, friend,” I say with a shrug.

The witch sees T.F. with the crown, and hisses in fury. She starts floating over toward us, toes dragging in the frigid brine.

T.F. tosses the crown to me, and I awkwardly catch it.

“Why you givin’ it to me?” I have to yell to be heard over the sound of the roaring water.

“Figured you wouldn’t want to let it out of your sight,” he shouts back. “That you wouldn’t trust me to shift out with it.”

I consider that for half a second. Gotta say, I’m a little surprised, and a little impressed. If T.F. keeps this up, I might just have to reassess my opinion of him.

Still, the witch is now focused on me, and it looks like she’s mouthing a curse. As I said, I ain’t the superstitious type, but I ain’t stupid, neither. I toss the crown back to him.

“I trust ya,” I shout. “More or less.”

I take another glance at the witch. Behind her, the big old yellow eye is peeking through the hole again. I feel a moment of satisfaction to see an angry red mark where Destiny bit.

T.F. flicks out a trio of cards, each trailing sorcerous flame, but the witch makes a dismissive gesture. An invisible force knocks them off course, and they fail to hit home. On she comes, floating closer.

She’s smiling her toothless grin now, exposing rotting gums. Seems to reason she thinks she’s got us dead to rights.

“Go, get out of here!” I shout to T.F., even as I swing Destiny over my shoulders. No time to see her wrapped and watertight. If I get out of this mess, she’ll need some tending.

“See you on the other side,” T.F. says with a wink. I believe him, too. Who would have thought?

“Take them, now!” shrieks the witch.

She points her staff at us, and the giant behemoth hurls itself forward, trying to push itself through the hole. A mass of tentacles squeeze out, reaching for us.

Time to leave. T.F. starts doing his thing, cards dancing, focusing on making his exit. Then he and the crown are gone.

My turn. I take a running jump into the dark pool even as tentacles whip toward me. Really hope this does connect to the tunnel I swam through, else that heroic leap’s gonna seem mighty daft.

I hit the water, diving deep, and start swimming. Can’t see anything worth a damn, but the time for caution is long past. If I smack straight into a wall, so be it. Right now that’s the least of my problems.

Thankfully, seems my hunch was right. I swim under a dark rock, blind, and come up on the other side. Back in the first cavern. I can hear the sea witch screeching in rage, echoing around the cave. Any moment, I expect some big damn tentacles to snake through and pull me back.

Sucking in a deep breath, I dive again.

I surface with a gasp. Shoulda been easier coming back, knowing where I was going, but it damn near killed me.

Hands grab me and haul me up. After more than a little swearing and grunting, both T.F. and I flop into the boat, Intrepid.

“Why you gotta be so damn heavy?” he groans.

“Why you gotta be so damn scrawny?” I throw back.

I have no idea if the sea witch or her pets are coming after us, but it don’t seem like a good idea to stick around and find out. I grab hold of the oars and start pulling.

There’s a ship waiting for us, just beyond the Widow Makers. It’s a sleek cutter, built for speed—the Ascended Empress. It’s a gaudy thing, decked out with gold leaf and a cat-headed woman for a figurehead, presumably the aforementioned empress.

“Guess the Prince’s eager to get a hold of his prize, eh?” says T.F, as the cutter turns toward us.

“Seems like.”

Within minutes, the Empress is alongside us. A net’s thrown down, and eager hands haul us aboard once we clamber to the top.

The Prince and his crew are there to greet us. He’s an odd one, the Prince, always has been. Claims to be descended from the lost rulers of the Shuriman sandlands, and waltzes around wearing gold paint caked on his face. Always pays well, though.

“You have it?” asks the Prince. He’s so eager, he’s practically licking his golden lips.

“You got our coin?” I say.

A pair of purses, bulging with Krakens, are thrown at our feet. I stoop down to inspect them. Got a good heft. Like I said, the Prince’s always been one to pay well.

T.F. hands over the crown, and the Prince takes it, full of reverence. “The Abyssal Crown,” he breathes. He stares at it a moment longer, then places it atop his smooth, golden head.

A broad smile creeps across his face. He gives us an appreciative nod, and strides onto the foredeck. He steps up to the bow and leans out, facing the open ocean, and lifts his arms high.

“Rise!” he bellows, shouting at the top of his lungs. “Hear my command, oh dwellers of the deep! Rise and come to me!”

The Prince’s crew are watching expectantly. I catch T.F.’s eye, and nod down toward Intrepid.

I really didn’t expect the crown to work—and part of me figured we’d best not be around when I was proved right—but after everything else I’d seen tonight, I wasn’t dismissing the chance that it might. And if it did, well, that seemed like an even better reason to be far, far away. Besides, that old sea witch probably ain’t gonna be too impressed with someone messin’ with her property.

Still, it’s more than a little surprising when the biggest damn creature I’ve ever seen breaches some hundred feet or so off the Ascended Empress’ starboard.

T.F. and I, we’re already half a league away, heading madly for port, but even from here, the scale of the thing is almost impossible to comprehend.

“Huh,” I grunt.

T.F. can’t even manage that. He stands, all fear of tipping overboard momentarily forgotten, and stares, mouth agape, at the distant sea monster.

I can just make out the tiny figure of the Prince, standing on the Ascended Empress’ deck, arms still lifted to the sky.

The beast continues to rise. It could be mistaken for a small island, though to be fair, not many islands have bloody great glowing lures atop their heads, or teeth the length of a ship’s keel, or masses of coiling tentacles, or pallid dead eyes the size of the moon.

Almost lazily, the gargantuan beast reaches out and wraps the Ascended Empress in its tentacles. The cutter lists to the side, cannons and crew falling into the sea. I can still see the Prince, clinging to the foredeck. Then the behemoth’s immense, distended jaw snaps, biting off the front half of the ship, swallowing it whole—along with the Prince.

It’s over in moments. Before Fifth Bell tolls, all evidence of the Ascended Empress is gone, and the great beast has disappeared beneath the surface.

“Huh,” I say again. Don’t think either of us expected that.

After a while, I start rowing. It’s only once we’re tied up at the White Wharf, and are back on solid ground, that we speak.

“Well, that was really… somethin’,” I say.

“It was.”

“Reckon that sea witch is gonna be comin’ after us?”

“I reckon so.”

I grunt, and we both stand in silence, staring back out across the bay.

“Drink?” says T.F., finally.

I suddenly remember those extra Krakens I pocketed in the witch’s cave. Might not be a bad idea to be rid of them sooner than later.

“Drink,” I agree, with a nod. “And it’s on me.”

Sarah Fortune reclines, boots up on the table. She sips from an ornate goblet, making a show of being casual… though hidden unseen in one of her deep coat pockets, she clasps a loaded hand cannon.

A veritable mother lode of old coins, artifacts, and precious gemstones are piled upon the table before her. Even encrusted in verdigris, barnacles, and dried seaweed, it’s clearly enough to buy up half the Slaughter Fleets. Nevertheless, Sarah Fortune pretends to be unimpressed. No need to seem too eager.

“So, in return for my man, and this lot,” she says, gesturing languidly at the treasure, “what exactly is it you want?”

The sea witch stares at her with her blank, milky gaze. The golden eye of the creature affixed to her head, however, blinks.

“Two rats, promised to the Beasts Below,” the witch hisses. “Find them for me, and all this, and more, shall be yours…”

Anivia is an ancient Freljordian demi-god who represents the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth, intrinsically associated with the changing seasons. To those who venerate her, she is the elemental soul of the Freljord—a symbol of hope, and a sacred catalyst of change.

Stories passed down through the ages often tell of how she rewards those who are kind and humble. On the rare occasion a mortal glimpses her—or at least claims to—she is described as a noble spirit-bird of ice, with glittering wings that span the heavens, and a piercing cry that can be heard over even the fiercest storm.

The songs of the nomadic Notai tribe tell how Anivia’s birth first brought snow into the world. When she burst from her giant egg of ice, tiny pieces of it were hurled into the sky, and it has fallen as snow ever since. And, according to the sagas of the Mourncrow tribe, the frigid winds that scour the Freljord originate from the first beats of her wings.

Indeed, the full power of winter is Anivia’s to command, and to those who seek to desecrate her homeland, she is a bitter foe. When roused to anger, she can cleave fortresses and mountains, and her screech can summon blizzards cold enough to shatter steel.

One of the most enduring and respected beliefs is that Anivia’s greatest gift to the Freljord was the creation of True Ice. Infused with elemental magic, this unmelting substance is pure and potent, and the greatest seers and ice-mages have long strived to use shards of True Ice to amplify their might, while weapons that have even a tiny sliver forged into them are deadly beyond belief.

When mortals first arrived in the Freljord, Anivia welcomed them. Seeing that they could not withstand the cold, she guided them to secluded valleys where they could shelter, become established, and slowly harden themselves against the elements. She nurtured and watched over them for those first precarious centuries—and they, in turn, worshipped her.

Anivia hoped that these newly arrived tribes would remain unified in defending the Freljord from outsiders… but slowly, infighting and blood-feuds became all too common, making an invasion inevitable. According to legend, a greedy southern king marched his warriors up through the mountains, seeking to claim dominion over the northlands and shackle their wild magic for himself. So enraged was Anivia at the outsiders’ hubris and disrespect that she blasted them with a snowstorm that lasted a century and a day. Scattered standing stones can still be seen on the Scouring Plain, which the locals claim are all that remain of that ancient army.

Other tales include the Avarosan legend of Ulla Shatter-Spear, an Iceborn warmother who was favored by Anivia for saving a young hawk from a rimefang wolf. Across her lifetime, the Cryophoenix protected Ulla from harm, and when she finally fell in battle, having witnessed almost a hundred winters, it is said that Anivia welcomed her with wings spread wide.

If all these legends are true, then Anivia must have witnessed the rise and fall of countless mortal civilizations. While there are still some dwindling remnants of those earlier times, most have long been forgotten, and buried beneath millennia of ice.

But death cannot touch Anivia herself. The sagas speak of how she has been struck down and slain a handful of times throughout history, though she is always reborn—for as long as the Freljord exists, her soul is immortal. While it may be hundreds or even thousands of years before she rises again, each rebirth coincides with the dawning of a new era. Thus, her appearance, while regarded as a wondrous blessing, is often the harbinger of something terrible on the horizon.

Once, it is said, she sacrificed herself against a march of towering Balestriders. Anvia knew she could not slay these colossal creatures, and so she plunged into the ice beneath their feet, shattering her own body in order to entomb them.

Recently, some claim Anivia has hatched from the egg once more, and that she has appeared before the new leader of the Avarosans—the Warmother Ashe. In her, perhaps Anivia sees one who may be able to finally reunite the Freljord.

Yet if the Cryophoenix has indeed returned, as more and more shamans and spirit walkers proclaim, then it must be asked: what great threat has she come to face?

Shauna Vayne is a deadly, remorseless monster hunter who has pledged her life to finding and killing the demon who murdered her family. Armed with her wrist-mounted crossbows and a heart full of vengeance, Vayne is only truly happy when she’s slaying practitioners or creations of the dark arts.

As the only child to a wealthy Demacian couple, Vayne enjoyed an upbringing of privilege. She spent most of her childhood indulged in solitary pursuits – reading, learning music, and avidly collecting the various insects found on their manor’s grounds. Her parents had traveled across Runeterra in their youth, but settled in Demacia after Shauna’s birth because more than any place they’d found, Demacians looked out for one another.

Shortly after Vayne’s sixteenth birthday, she returned home from a midsummer banquet and saw something she would never forget.

An unspeakably beautiful, horned woman stood before the bloodied corpses of her parents.

Vayne screamed in agony and terror. Before disappearing, the demon looked down at the young girl and flashed her a terrible, lustful smile.

Vayne tried to brush the bloody hair out of her mother’s eyes, but that haunting smile lingered in her mind, growing and consuming her. Even as she shakily smoothed her father’s eyelids closed – his mouth still agape, frozen in his last horrific moments of confusion – the demon’s smile seeped through her thoughts.

It was a smile that would fill Shauna’s veins with hatred for the rest of her days.

Vayne tried to explain what happened, but no one truly believed her. The thought of a demon on the loose – in the well-defended, magic-averse kingdom of Demacia, of all places – was too far-fetched to consider.

Vayne knew better. She knew from the demon’s smile the enchantress would strike again. Even Demacia’s tall walls couldn’t keep dark magic from creeping through the cracks. It may disguise itself with subtleties or keep to shadowed corners, but Vayne knew it was there.

And she was done being afraid.

Vayne had a heart full of hatred and enough coin to outfit a small army, but where she would go, no army dared follow. She needed to learn everything about dark magic: How to track it. How to stop it. How to kill those who practiced it.

She needed a teacher.

Her parents had told her stories of iceborn warriors who fought against an Ice Witch in the north. For generations, they had defended themselves from her unknowable forces and dark minions. This, Vayne knew, would be where she would find her tutor. She evaded her appointed custodians and booked passage on the next ship to the Freljord.

Shortly after arriving, Vayne set out in search of a monster hunter. She found one, although not in the way she intended. Traversing a frozen ravine, Vayne was ensnared by a cleverly carved icetrap. After tumbling to the bottom of a jagged, crystalline pit, Vayne stared up to see a ravenous ice troll, lips smacking with anticipation as he gazed upon his catch.

His gigantic blue tongue fell limp as a spear whistled through the air, pierced the troll’s skull and planted itself deep in his brain. The giant toppled into the pit and Vayne rolled aside just in time to escape being crushed. A sticky pool of drool and blood collected at her boots.

Vayne’s savior was a grizzled, middle-aged woman named Frey. She bandaged Vayne’s wounds as they clung to the warmth of a campfire that struggled to stay ablaze in the frigid canyon. Frey told Vayne of her life’s work spent fighting the Ice Witch’s minions who had murdered her children. Vayne implored the woman to take her on as a student and teach her to track the dark creatures of the world, but the Freljordian had no interest. Vayne stank of privilege and money, neither of which kept your teeth gritted or your blade sharp through the grueling perseverance of a fight.

Vayne couldn’t accept Frey’s answer and challenged her to a duel: if she won, Frey would train her. If she lost, she’d offer herself as bait to the Ice Witch’s minions, so Frey could ambush them. Vayne had no reason to think she’d win – her training amounted to a single afternoon of studying fencing before she wearied of trying to fight with one hand behind her back – but she refused to back down. To reward Vayne’s mettle, Frey threw snow in Vayne’s eyes and subsequently taught her the first rule of monster hunting: don’t play fair.

Frey saw a determination in Vayne she couldn’t help but respect. The girl had a long way to go as a fighter, but each time Vayne pushed her bruised body up from the dirtied snow to continue the fight, Frey saw a little more of the relentless hunter this girl could become. Beaten in skill, but never in spirit, Vayne beseeched Frey one last time: both of their families were dead. Frey could spend the rest of her days tracking ice trolls until one of them caved her head in, or she could teach Vayne. Together, they could kill twice as many monsters. Together, they could save twice as many families from experiencing the pain that defined them both. Frey saw the same hatred and loss in Vayne’s eyes her own had burned with for years.

Frey agreed to accompany Vayne back to Demacia.

Together they made the journey south, heavily disguising Frey to illude Demacia’s border guards. Once back at Vayne’s estate, the two spent years training. Despite the pageant of suitors who solicited Vayne’s company, Shauna had no interest in anything other than training with Frey. As a result, the two became incredibly close.

Frey taught Vayne the fundamentals of dark magic, conjured beasts, and vile spells. Vayne committed every word of Frey's teachings to heart, but found it slightly unnerving that Frey never explained how she came to know so many specifics of these malefic practices.

Due to the kingdom’s watchful soldiers and antimagic trees, dark creatures were rare within Demacia's walls, so Frey and Vayne would venture into the border forests at night to hunt. Vayne earned her first kill – a bloodthirsty creature who preyed on traveling merchants – at the age of eighteen.

Soaked in the creature’s viscera, something awoke within Vayne: pleasure. The hot flush of vengeance and violence raced through her blood, and she relished in the sensation.

Vayne and Frey spent several years hunting dark creatures, their respect for one another growing with every kill. One day, Vayne realized that she loved Frey like a mother, but her emotions of familial love were so tangled with pain and tainted by trauma, Vayne fought them as she would any beast out to hurt her.

Vayne and Frey traveled Valoran, until tavern tales from the highlands caught their ear, whispering of a demonic horned creature of mesmerizing beauty. According to the stories, the demon had been busy: she’d formed a cult, designed to attract worshippers who would do her bidding. People would walk into the hills, never to be heard from again. It was said the cult’s high priests had a holy grounds near the cliffside, where they’d prepare the demon’s sacrificial offerings. Vayne and Frey immediately set off on the hunt.

As they journeyed into the hills by cover of night, Vayne found herself distracted. For the first time since their partnership began, she felt worried for Frey – worried she might lose her mother figure for a second time. Before she could confess her fear, one of the demon’s priests lunged from the brush, swinging a mace into Vayne’s shoulder.

Vayne was badly wounded. Frey had a brief moment of hesitation, but her eyes steeled with certainty as she apologized to her friend and transformed into a monstrous Freljordian wolf. As Vayne watched in shock, Frey – in her animalistic form – tore the priest’s tendons from his throat with a swift snap of her mighty jaws.

With the priest’s body laid strewn at Vayne’s feet, Frey retook her human form, yet her eyes betrayed the scared animal within. She explained that after the death of her family, she had become a shaman, inviting the curse upon herself in order to gain the power to change shape and fight against the Ice Witch. The ritual that gave her these powers involved dark magic, but she made this sacrifice to protect–

–Vayne put an arrow through Frey’s heart without allowing her another syllable. Whatever affection she had felt for Frey evaporated upon discovering her true nature. A tear formed in Frey’s eye as she collapsed, but Vayne didn’t notice – whatever warmth the two had shared died with Frey.

There were still hours left before dawn, which meant hours left to continue the hunt. Vayne thought only of the demon. The kill that would be hers to savor. And all the kills to come. Runeterra’s underworld would come to fear her, just as she had once feared them.

For the first time since her parents’ death, Vayne smiled.

A hulking figure trudged through the waist-deep snow of the canyon, lumbering uphill with a purposeful gait that dared the blizzard to stop him. He left a deep trench in his wake, heavy clawed feet ripping up the loose shale beneath the snow with every step. Howling winds billowed his patchwork cloak of stitched-together hides, and the figure pulled it tighter around his body.

Even among trollkind, Trundle was huge; his muscles like rocks rolling beneath thick blue skin that was the texture of leather left out under the desert sun. Not that Trundle had ever seen a desert, but he knew what one was.

The Ice Witch had told him about a place beyond the southern mountains where the sun burned you red, and the snow was like little bits of gritty rock that got all up in your nethers and didn’t melt.

Sounded a bit far-fetched to Trundle, and what was the point of snow that didn’t melt?

He carried a giant leather sack slung over one massive shoulder, bulging with the carcasses of elnük, drüvasks, feral hogs, and clumsy mountain goats. It had been more days than he had fingers since he’d left his cave, and the meat was starting to give off a deliciously ripe stink, and the blood pooling inside had frozen black and solid.

Soaring cliffs of ice reared up to either side of him, blue like an ocean wave that had suddenly frozen in place. Maybe they had, Trundle didn’t know. The Ice Witch had told him about a long ago time when magic did all sorts of mad things to the world, so maybe he was walking through a rolling ocean at the top of the world right now. He liked that idea, and wondered if he’d see any skeletons of sea monsters this far north.

Sea monsters in ice, yes, that’d be a good story to tell when he got back. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. Most trolls didn’t have much rattling around in their skulls anyway, and would believe pretty much any tale he told.

He stopped thinking so hard for now.

He was going to need all his best thinking later.

This wasn’t his territory, there were more ways to die up here than he could count, and he could count a lot higher than any other troll he knew.

He might fall into a crevasse, get swallowed by a riddling ice-wyrm, or get cooked in the pot of one of the wild troll clans that lived up this way. Bigger than most other trolls, they didn’t have the good sense to know they needed a king to be in charge of stuff and didn’t give an elnük’s fart for titles.

They’d rip his arms and legs off for a snack if he tried to be all fancy.

Which made the need for this journey all the more strange, because he’d heard stories of a giant troll called Yettu who was going about telling the other clan-trolls that he was the troll king. Trundle had needed to bash a few heads together when some uppity trolls heard those stories and got to saying stupid stuff out loud. Stupid stuff like, if anyone could call themselves king, then why did they give Trundle the biggest share of the food and do what he told them?

Yeah, something needed to be done about this Yettu before things got out of hand.

Just because he’d newly thought of becoming a king like Grubgrack and the other ancient troll lords, didn’t mean anyone else got to think like that!

The wiry hairs on the back of Trundle’s neck tingled, like he was being watched.

He couldn’t see them yet, but he could smell the stink of their ripe bodies hidden beneath the snow ahead. Any troll that called himself king didn’t get to stay that way for long without having a sense for when blood was about to be spilled.

He kept going, walking all casual, like he was just out for a morning emptying of his guts. He pretended like he was having a big, wide-fanged yawn as he scanned the lumpy snowbanks ahead of him.

Hard to see much of anything through the swirling blizzard and howling winds.

There, two humps of snow that were just a bit too big and too regular to be natural.

Also, he could see a foot sticking out of one, and a tuft of hair from the other.

Trundle grinned a wide, gap-toothed grin and shook his mane of ragged red hair free of frost.

Then he reached under his filthy, patchwork cloak to grip the frozen haft of his faithful war-club, unhooking it from his belt. He trudged onward, making sure to look like he was struggling against the fierce wind and driving snow.

A pair of long fingers with long, yellowed nails poked through the snow of the mound to his left. They slipped back into the mound, and a pair of yellow eyes appeared, staring right at him.

Trundle waited until he was a club’s length away from the mound before hauling out Boneshiver. Instantly, the temperature dropped, and icy cold stabbed into his hands as the eternal ice frosted the air around him. The club was an enormous chunk of True Ice mounted on an obsidian handle, and it had never failed him in battle.

The eyes inside the mound widened in surprise as Trundle sprang through the air and slammed his giant club down into the snow with a satisfying crunch.

A troll with greenish skin like mossy tree bark rose unsteadily from his hiding place, the back of his skull a smashed-in crater. He waved a stone-bladed sword at Trundle, but his knitted brow and cross-eyed glare told him he was trying to decide if he was dead or not.

“I fink I’m dead,” said the troll.

“I think you’re right,” said Trundle, and the troll toppled over into the snow.

The second ambusher leapt out with a throaty roar, lifting a giant stone club over his head and slamming it down where Trundle had been standing a moment ago. It looked puzzled there wasn’t a dead troll on the end of its weapon. And in the span of time it took for him to notice the only dead troll was his fellow ambusher, Trundle had a meaty fist wrapped around his throat.

He lifted the troll from the ground, a middling-sized thing with a rust-brown hide covered in gnarled lumps and sprouting tufts of wiry hair from its armpits and nethers.

“Right then, you rascal!” said Trundle cheerfully.

“You supposed to be dead,” gurgled the troll. “I meant to hit you with me club.”

“I saw that,” said Trundle, squeezing the troll’s neck until his face turned a pretty shade of purple. “But turns out I’m alive, and looks like you and your friend here got the dungy end of the stick, don’t it?”

Trundle dropped the troll, who fell to the snow with a rasping wheeze of breath.

“This is King Yettu’s land,” gasped the troll. “Whatcha want ’ere?”

Trundle held Boneshiver close to the troll’s head, who grunted in pain from the nearness of its icy power.

“My name’s Trundle, the Troll King, an’ I want you to take me to Yettu,” he said.

The troll with the rust-brown hide was called Sligu, and he led Trundle through the blizzard toward a series of dots in a glacier that looked like cave entrances. Sligu wasn’t the chattiest of trolls, but after a couple of encouraging taps from Boneshiver he discovered a whole lot of things he wanted to say.

Trundle knew trolls were, by and large, not exactly imaginative, so when Sligu described Yettu as a mountain with eyes, a fighter with fists like boulders, and a belly as deep as a ravine, he began to get an idea of what he might be up against.

“So where does he get off on calling himself a king?” asked Trundle.

“He heard you was walkin’ about calling yourself king and that everyone gave you all the best food first,” said Sligu. “Soon as he ’eard that, it was king this and king that all the time!”

“I thought you northern trolls hated titles like that?”

“We do, but Yettu said if it were good enough for a warmskin southern troll like you, then he wanted to be a king as well. And once he killed all the uvver clan-chieftains who said he weren’t no king, it didn’t seem too clever to not agree wiv ’im.”

“He killed them all?”

“Yeah, punched the chief of the Rock-Eaters’ head right off his neck,” said Sligu. “Flew right over to the next valley, so it did.”

“Not bad,” said Trundle, wondering how far he could punch a head.

“And then he smoked out trolls of Ice Cave Glacier and took their lair.”

“How’d he do that?”

“Ate a load of cave mushrooms and elnük dung, then blocked the cave entrance and let loose a bum-ripper down their air hole.”

“Clever,” said Trundle. “Nasty, but clever all the same.”

“And then he ate the biggest troll of the Night Soilers from the knees up.”

“Why the knees?” said Trundle. “There’s good eating on feet.”

Sligu shrugged, and a tiny rodent poked its head out from the dense knot of fur at the back of his neck with an annoyed squeak. “Dunno. I fink ’e said summat about them being too smelly. Said even a midden-licker wouldn’t touch ’em.”

“Nice ’n’ crunchy, feet are,” said Trundle, taking a sidelong glance at Sligu’s. Wide and flat, just the way Trundle liked them, with good, crusty-looking toenails.

“More of a fingers troll meself, but I likes a good foot too,” agreed Sligu.

Trundle prodded the troll with Boneshiver, and said, “You was telling me about Yettu.”

“Oh, right, so I was,” continued Sligu. “Well, he ’eard about the big troll horde you ’ad, and wanted one for ’imself. Someone told ’im only a king could have an army, so figured he needed to be a king.”

“Does he have a crown?”

“What’s a crown?” asked Sligu.

“It’s like a spiky hat that tells everyone you’s the king.”

“A hat does that? It’s magical, like?”

“I think some of them are,” said Trundle.

“Oh, well, then yeah, he’s got a crown.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“He told us he got it from an ice-wyrm’s belly wot he walked through like a big smelly tunnel, but my mate, Regi, says it looks like he made it from some teef and antlers wot he found in a dung pile.”

Dung pile or not, Trundle wanted a look at that crown now. Couldn’t have some wannabe king saying he was better than Trundle just because he had a bigger crown!

“How far is it to Yettu’s cave?”

Sligu pointed a crooked finger up toward a blue-sheened glacier at the end of the canyon that looked like it had been crudely carved to resemble a giant troll’s head. The giant icy face was the second biggest thing Trundle had ever seen, with giant eyes that still managed to look beady and cunning, fat lips and jutting tusks below a giant, warted nose.

“That supposed to be Yettu?” asked Trundle, trying not to sound impressed.

Sligu nodded. “Yeah, but they ’aven’t quite got his nose right.”

A winding series of rocky paths and bone-scaffolds offered a treacherous path up the sheer face of the glacier.

“Right, let’s get to climbin’ then,” said Trundle.

The sun was going down over the edge of the canyon by the time Trundle and Sligu reached the entrance to Yettu’s cave. That entrance was through the wide nostril of the carved head, and the water dripping from the icicles inside it had a peculiar greenish color.

A pair of wild trolls stood guard, carrying giant bone axes, and naked but for helmets made from hollowed-out drüvask skulls.

They were big, all right, orange-skinned and wiry, birds’ nest hair sprouting from the empty eye sockets of the dead animals. Both were bigger than Sligu—who Trundle was now beginning to realize must have been chosen as a sentry because he was skinnier and sneakier than the rest.

If these boys were this big, how big might Yettu be…?

“Who goes dere?” said the first guard.

“It’s me, Sligu.”

“Which one?”

“Your brother, dung-for-brains.”

“Oh, that Sligu,” said the guard. “Why you not say so? What you want?”

Sligu jerked a yellowed thumb in Trundle’s direction and said, “This one’s ’ere to see Yettu.”

“No one get to see Yettu,” declared the second guard, his beady eyes like two lumps of coal.

“He’ll want to see me,” said Trundle.

“Me? Who’s Me?” said the second guard. “Is it you?”

Trundle tried to follow the guard’s logic, but gave up when it began to hurt his brain.

“I’m Trundle,” he said. “Trundle the Troll King.”

“I heard of you,” said Sligu’s brother. “You not from here.”

“You’s a clever one,” said Trundle.

The troll shook his head and waved his axe at the beady-eyed guard. “He clever one.”

Trundle whacked the clever, beady-eyed guard over the head with Boneshiver, and turned back to Sligu’s brother. The troll took one look at the glittering mass of True Ice that used to be his fellow guard, and Trundle could almost hear the rocks in his brain grinding together as his eyes went back and forth between the club and its owner.

Knowing a troll’s thought processes could take a while, Trundle swung the large sack down from his shoulder and held it open before Sligu’s brother. An irresistible stench of maggoty meat and rank, coagulated blood wafted from its ragged neck.

The troll licked his lips, and thick ropes of yellow saliva drooled between his jutting tusks.

Trundle reached into the sack, lifted out a dripping hunk of meat and handed it over.

“You get come in,” said Sligu’s brother with a hungry smile.

Sligu’s brother, it turned out, was also called Sligu, so Trundle came up with the bright idea of calling one Big Sligu, and the other Little Sligu. Even the guard he’d bashed over the head would be able to tell one from the other now, if he forgot he was dead and got back up.

Big Sligu led him deeper into the glacier, a sparkling network of smooth tunnels carved deep into the ice. No trolls had cut these passageways, but something about them didn’t strike Trundle as being natural. He got a gripey, magical feeling from them, the same as he had when he’d been deep in the frozen maze beneath the palace of the Ice Witch.

They passed caves with spiky roofs of ice and filled with trolls of all shapes and sizes. Trundle couldn’t help but notice that most of those shapes and sizes went from just really big all the way to massive.

Trundle quickly lost count of how many trolls he saw.

“You northern trolls are a big bunch,” he said.

Big Sligu nodded. “Lots of monsters here. Want to eat trolls. Only big trolls live.”

Trundle took a better look at Little Sligu, wondering how he’d managed to survive, guessing there was maybe more going on inside his head than most. Amongst trolls that wasn’t saying much, but cleverness was something a cunning troll like Trundle noticed.

Maybe he might take Little Sligu back with him. Didn’t do to leave clever trolls alone for too long. Sligu might only be little, but sooner or later he might get some big ideas.

Eventually, Big Sligu led them into a gigantic cavern deep in the heart of the glacier. A beam of moonlight speared into the cavern through a hole in the roof that made the towering walls of ice shimmer with dancing lights and ghostly shapes. Trundle thought it looked pretty until he remembered how Yettu had won these caves, and tried not to imagine his warty backside pressed through that hole and disgorging the foggy contents of his guts.

“Big trolls hang out here with king,” said Big Sligu.

A lot of very big trolls indeed were gathered around a gigantic blue rock covered in slimy moss and knots of what looked like taiga grass.

Except it wasn’t a rock.

It was a troll, and somehow it managed to get even bigger when it turned around, catching wind of the sack Trundle was carrying.

Yettu was nearly twice the height of Trundle, his rangy arms like tree trunks and his legs like even bigger tree trunks. His head was like a boulder that had rolled down from a mountain top, gathering up all the frozen moss and gorse along the way before landing on an even larger boulder. A long black-bladed knife of smooth stone from the steaming haunches of a fire mountain was sheathed across his chest in a fold of his skin.

He stared at Trundle the way a pack of rimefangs looks at a fat elnük with a limp.

Trundle had planned to smash Yettu’s head in with Boneshiver the moment he came face to face with him. Looking at the northern troll’s giant head, he decided against it. Between Yettu’s skull and Boneshiver’s True Ice, Trundle wasn’t sure which would come out best.

Time for a new plan…

“You got meat,” said Yettu with a rumbling, gravelly voice.

“I got meat,” said Trundle, reaching into the bag and hauling out the stinking remains of a curling-horned mountain ram. Yettu’s eyes widened and he snatched the carcass from Trundle’s hands to stuff it whole down his gullet.

Yettu wiped his blood-greasy chin and belched.

“You Trundle?” he asked. “One who says he troll king?”

“Yes.”

Yettu reached out and lifted Trundle’s patchwork fur cloak.

“This far north too cold for you, little troll?” said Yettu, and the trolls around them grunted with laughter, the sound like avalanches colliding in slow motion.

Trundle shrugged. “Troll King gotta look good, right? I suppose you’re Yettu then?”

“Who else I be? You see any other troll here wearing a crown?”

Trundle took a closer look at the great mass of moss on Yettu’s head, now seeing that woven into the wiry thatch of thorny briars and ice were various bloodstained animal bones, horns, and antlers.

It looked like an upside-down storm cloud spitting bolts of bone lightning back at the sky.

“So that’s what a crown looks like,” he said.

Yettu nodded and stomped toward Trundle.

“You not so big,” said Yettu, tapping a thick finger on Trundle’s matted red hair. “I ’erd you was biggest troll ever. That you scraped your head on the sky and could drink seas.”

“That was a good one. I made trolls tell that one wherever they went,” said Trundle. “Did you hear the one about how I used the tallest tree in the Big Green Forest for a toothpick? Or the one where I ate a mammoth for breakfast and then used its skull for a bath?”

“What is bath…?”

“It’s when you… Never mind,” said Trundle. “Or the one where I jumped over the southern mountains in a single leap to wrestle the Whitestone Giant? That I broke his tail across my knee and took it home to dig out the inland sea at Rakelstake? That’s my favorite.”

“You fight giants a lot,” said Yettu.

“It’s the only way to get a good fight,” answered Trundle.

“You come here to fight me?” said Yettu with a grin, putting up his fists that were, as Sligu had mentioned, like giant boulders. The other trolls made a rough circle around them and began stamping their feet, just waiting for Yettu to bash him good.

Time for a plan so cunning it would make the Ice Witch’s hair melt.

“Fighting ain’t always done with fists,” said Trundle.

“Yeah, sometimes I kicks things to death,” agreed Yettu.

“That ain’t what I mean,” said Trundle, tapping a curling, yellowed claw to his forehead. “If you’re a king, a real king, you gotta use this.”

Yettu nodded. “Headbutts. Yeah. I likes them too, I do.”

“I mean the thing inside your head,” sighed Trundle. “The brain that does your thinking!”

“Brain?”

“It’d be a battle of wits,” said Trundle, then, under his breath, “Lucky for me it looks like you’re unarmed.”

“How do we fight wiv our squishy brains?”

Trundle grinned a toothy grin and upended the sack to spill out the rest of the animal carcasses between them in a stinking red pile of fur, bones, and rotten meat.

“An eating contest!” said Trundle.

“’Ow’s that usin’ our brains?” asked Yettu with a confused look at his trolls.

“You’ll see,” promised Trundle.

More meat was brought up and placed in the pile between the two seated troll kings. Giant hunks of flesh torn from the bellies of giant sea creatures, ribs from hairy mammoths, slithering piles of rotten fish, giant wings from the flightless birds of the tundra, entire elnük heads, and squirming heaps of wriggling body parts that Trundle was glad he didn’t recognize.

As well as food, giant stone bowls of frothed liquid were brought out, stuff that made the hairs in Trundle’s nose curl up. The stench was like the cracks in the earth around the mountains that spouted smoke and fire, and Trundle had a feeling it would taste worse than the amber water the squishy folk of the south called beer.

Truly this was a feast fit for a king, but only one of them could walk away from it.

“We just eat?” said Yettu.

Trundle nodded. “Eat and eat. First one to die loses. Last troll standing is the real king.”

Yettu grinned and said, “You got some good stories, Trundle, but you only got little belly. Real king needs the biggest belly, and Yettu’s bigger and meaner. Once ate two whole mammoths when yawned and didn’t even notice.”

The trolls around the two kings oohhed.

“That so?” said Trundle. “Well, I once drank so much that when I had to pass water I made the sea at Rakelstake.”

The trolls aahhed.

Yettu’s brow furrowed and his eyes rolled around their sockets as he tried to dredge up a memory from only a few moments ago.

“Wait, you said you dug land to make sea at Rakelstake…”

Trundle retorted without missing a beat. “Dug it out to make a hole big enough to pee in.”

The heads of the trolls around them went back and forth as the two troll kings exchanged boasts, each one more outlandish than the last.

Finally, Trundle said, “Just before I came here, I climbed yetis’ mountain and took a bite of the moon.”

The trolls laughed at this outrageous boast until Trundle pointed up at the crescent moon shining down through the hole in the cavern’s roof. Every troll’s head lifted to follow his pointing finger, and they muttered among themselves with a newfound respect.

While they were looking up, Trundle stuffed the now empty sack beneath his patchwork cloak and pulled it tight around his body.

“No more stories,” growled Yettu. “We eat.”

Trundle nodded, and the feast began.

He began by tearing the meat from a giant rib, making sure it was picked clean before cracking it open over his knee and sucking out the marrow within. Yettu wolfed down the flank of a drüvask, chasing it down with a hearty mouthful of the frothed liquid in the stone bowls.

“Drink!” commanded Yettu. “Not feast without frustbogga!”

Trundle took a proffered bowl and swilled it down in one, chugging gulp. His eyes watered at the noxious flavor of it, somewhere between corpse-blood swamp runoff and the red rock that flows. It burned his throat as it went down, and he felt it light a fire in his belly he knew was going to wreak havoc on his backside when he was forced to empty himself out.

He forced a smile and said, “Not bad. I’ve had stronger.”

Yettu grinned, seeing the sweat on Trundle’s brow, and leaned forward, grease dripping from his chin. “I see fire in belly. Burn you up, little troll.”

In response, Trundle picked up a crawling hunk of whale meat and devoured it in three giant bites. He spat the gristle and bone aside, and hungry trolls pounced, fighting for the splintered scraps.

Yettu tilted his head back and slid an entire Aurma fish down his throat, smacking his lips together as its tail disappeared into his gullet. Trundle scooped up handfuls of meat and guts, stuffing them into his mouth with relish and chewing the meat to paste before swallowing.

On and on they ate, their audience cheering with every rotten mouthful of food and every bowl of frustbogga they drank. The mountain of meat seemed to get no smaller, no matter how many chunks they ate. Yettu popped a shovel-like handful of tiny skulls into his mouth, crunching them and rolling the pieces around his mouth like they were some kind of delicacy.

“Found these when boat made of trees wrecked on sea,” said Yettu. “Lots of little people all dead and going to waste.”

Trundle didn’t mind eating the meat of the small people, but tried to avoid it where he could since most of them didn’t have much in the way of eating on them and their brittle bones got stuck between his teeth.

Another carcass of ribs and meat was washed down with frustbogga, and he knew he was going to pay for this feat on the way home. The northern king stuffed his face with the furry meat of a mammoth, but Trundle saw the telltale signs of a full belly in the redness of Yettu’s face and the slowed pace of his eating.

Trundle, too, was feeling the effects of so much meat and frustbogga.

Yettu belched, a belly-rumbling roar that shook snow from the ceiling and sent a bunch of giant icicles falling from the roof. Trolls jumped out of the way, and Trundle used the distraction to lift the neck of the food sack beneath his patchwork cloak up under his fat and blood-soaked chin.

He looked up and saw Little Sligu staring at him. The clever little troll must have seen him hide the sack under his cloak. Little Sligu gave him a slow nod and Trundle grinned, leaning forward to grab yet more meat and bone. He shoved it toward his mouth, but instead of eating it he tipped most of it down his front and into the sack. He took his time, taking slow bites here and there, all the while stuffing entire wings, heads, and racks of blackened ribs into the sack until it was full and he could fit no more in.

Trundle’s belly rumbled and he belched a stinking cloud of yellowed gas.

“Full yet?” said Yettu, chewing on a leg bone of something long and heavy.

Trundle slapped his bulging midriff and shook his head.

“Full? Me?” he grinned through a mouthful of crunching bone and dripping fat. “I’m just getting warmed up. When do we get properly started?”

The other trolls laughed, and Yettu roared at them to shut up.

“I king here!” he yelled. “Not him.”

Trundle grinned. Yettu was king here because he was the strongest, meanest, and hungriest troll, but Trundle knew that kind of king was easy to topple.

But the cunningest of kings? That kind of king could stay king forever.

Trundle leaned back and yawned, stretching like he was ready to go for a nap.

“Hey,” he said, holding his hand out to Yettu. “Can I borrow that big knife of yours?”

Yettu eyed him suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes swimming in grease.

“What for? Fink you gonna cut me?”

“Nah, just got to make room for next course.”

The northern king gripped the stone handle of his knife and pulled it from the flesh of his chest. He tossed it over the remaining mound of bloody meat, and Trundle caught it in his sticky palm. For a weapon of trolls, it was surprisingly well made and wickedly sharp.

Trundle pushed himself carefully to his feet, holding the bulge of his cloak and letting out a thunderous fart that swiftly cleared the space behind him.

Then, he took Yettu’s knife and sliced it across his cloaked belly.

He let out a convincing groan of relief as the vast quantities of food he’d stuffed into the sack spilled out around his feet in an avalanche of chewed meat, gnawed bones, and fragments of half-eaten gristle.

“Ah, that’s better,” he said, handing the knife to Little Sligu with a sly wink, who returned the blade to Yettu. The big troll stared in amazement at Trundle as he lifted yet another handful of meat and stuffed it into his mouth.

Yettu looked from the knife to Trundle, and rose to his full height with a roar of laughter.

“You gonna let him beat you like that?” said Little Sligu.

Yettu shook his head.

“Nobody beats me,” he snarled, and plunged the knife deep into his own stomach.

The northern king sliced the razor-sharp blade across his belly and lifted the bloody knife high with a triumphant grin.

“Yettu make room for food too!”

Trundle watched the northern king’s grin fade as his belly yawned open like a second mouth and all the half-digested food he’d just eaten came spilling out in a torrent of his own blood and coiled guts.

“Something wrong?” asked Trundle, pulling the skeleton of a fish carcass from his throat.

Yettu tried to answer, but his mouth just flapped as his innards continued to pour from his opened belly. The knife dropped from his hand and his knees buckled.

Yettu sank to the ground, trying in vain to hold the sliced flaps of his belly together.

“That don’t feel good…” he said, before falling face first into the mound of meat.

Little Sligu came forward and Trundle eyed the smaller troll with a mixture of suspicion and respect.

“Now I think I know how a little troll like you’s managed to survive up here among all these big boys,” said Trundle. “You’re clever.”

“A bit,” said Sligu with a modest shrug.

“Maybe you should come back down south with me,” suggested Trundle in a tone that made it clear it was anything but a suggestion.

“Yeah,” said Little Sligu, looking around at the other trolls. “Change of scenery might be nice.”

“Then you knows what you got to do now, yeah?”

Little Sligu lifted Trundle’s arm.

“Trundle is winner!” shouted the clever little troll. “True king of trolls!”

Run.

She raced as fast as she could, bloodied feet pounding the earth beneath her. She tore through another thick bramble. More thorns tugging at her ragged clothes. More scratches. More blood. More pain.

Her lungs burned. She gasped for breath, begged for rest, but the voice inside demanded more.

Run.

She fled just yesterday afternoon, but so much had happened since. First she heard the faculty staff, screaming for her from the conservatory grounds. Then the dogs, barking as she scrambled along the banks of the River Gren.

Night came, and with it, the distant sound of riders, thundering through the dark. She had lost her satchel there, along with the meager pickings she'd stolen from the kitchens of the Ravenbloom Conservatory—two apples, a torn heel of bread, and half a block of cheese that smelled like it had come all the way from Nockmirch. Enough to get her to safety, but barely. Gods, how the hunger gnawed. She picked berries, chewed on twigs, drank the rainwater from leaves.

There was so little peace. Every moment she paused, every time she allowed the exhaustion to weigh down on her, the voice inside would speak again.

Run.

She fell, tripped by a protruding root, landing heavy enough for something in her to crack. Through gritted teeth, she screamed. The pain lanced through her leg, up her body, then slowly, with each passing throb, melded with the rest. Everything ached. Everything burned.

For a time, she just lay there, her face in the mud. Night rain fell on her broken body, washing away her tears, and the blood.

Run, the voice said, angrier now.

Finally, she responded. "I can't!" she cried, her voice ragged as the rest of her. "I can't!"

The voice quietened.

Time passed. Exhaustion and pain braided together, and sent her to sleep.

In her dreams, she saw flashes of what had come before. Headmistress Telsi standing in her dormitory room, the Arbiter of Thorns beside her. "You have been chosen," Telsi said. “The war in Ionia requires new weapons. Old weapons.”

The Arbiter's rough hands on her temples. Flashes of fire in her vision.

The fever. The heat. The voice.

The voice.

Wake.

She woke with a start and lurched to the side, searching for danger. The rain had stopped, and a calm silence had fallen over the woods, broken only by the wind whistling through the trees, and the distant hooting of an owl.

No danger. At least, not for now.

Slowly, with weary arms, she lifted herself, then turned onto her back. Her knee cracked again, sending agony through the whole leg. She held the scream at bay until the pain faded to its old dull throb.

She gazed up past the swaying branches above, seeing stars through the clouds. Memories of happier times floated by. She remembered laying in the Fensworth fields with her grandmother as they named the constellations above. The Fox. The Liar. The Hope. Above her now, shining bright, was the Witch—her favorite. Emotion welled inside her. She let out a single sob, which steamed against the winter chill.

Cold. Cold! She hadn't noticed, but the chill had numbed her fingers and feet. She was freezing. She sat up fast and hugged herself, wiping the wet mud from her body as best she could. She breathed faster, panic setting in. The shivering started.

The voice spoke again. A new word.

Fire.

She limped from tree to tree in the darkness, searching for dry branches and leaves, anything she could burn. But the earlier rain had blanketed the woods, and left everything sodden.

The shivering had stopped. Her pain had faded. She was about ready to give in and let the cold take her, when ahead, in a small clearing, her eyes caught the moonlight gleaming off the slick stump of a large, felled tree. She narrowed her focus, looked closer, and spotted a deep notch carved into its surface.

Her heart soared. "A waytree… A waytree!"

Such trees had been a common sight in her youth. Dotted throughout the woodlands, they were used as markers by the empire’s scouts, and housed preserved food and other camping supplies. Slowly, she limped forward, every step an agony, until she reached the stump. She fumbled inside its hollow, hoping to find something, anything, that might help her.

There! Her frozen fingers clutched something thin and brittle. Kindling. She pulled out a bundle of sticks, tied neatly with twine. Inside was more—flint, emberleaves, dried beef, and a handful of wild mushrooms.

Soon enough, the fire was built. She sat by its sputtering infancy, hugging her knees and chewing absently on the beef. It was old and barely edible, but she didn't care. With the threat of imminent danger easing, she allowed herself a moment to think back.

Headmistress Telsi must be furious, she thought, as she stared into the blossoming flames. The old lady was a stern and brittle thing, with a lined and haggard face that would fall into a scowl more easily than a smile. She would have locked the conservatory down by now, and sent both scouting contingents out to search for her.

"Oh, Fynn," she sighed.

He was the conservatory's First Scout, a gentle man with kind eyes who found people like her—gifted people—and offered them a home. He had arrived at her grandmother's cottage just a few weeks after her passing, when the other villagers had all but exiled her. While the empire at large saw the value of mages, some of the more remote settlements like Fensworth still clung to old mistrusts. Witch, they called her. Witch. She remembered all those hateful eyes. She remembered begging for help. All the doors closed before her. The loneliness.

And then, one summer's day, Fynn Retrick had arrived to offer her something beautiful: hope.

She kicked the fire with her good leg. The wood cracked and the flames danced out again, warming her face. She gazed into the flickering light once more, deep in thought.

Surely, Fynn couldn't have known what Telsi would do. He was so kind to me. He was so—

She paused, noticing something odd before her. The fire seemed to be taking shape, creating a faint outline for a moment before collapsing away to nothing. She frowned, watching on as it happened again, then again. The same shape, the same collapse.

She glanced up, higher in the fire, and noticed two dark holes in the burgeoning blaze. They remained still and black as the night, no matter how bright the flames around them burned. She looked closer. No, not holes, she realized.

They were eyes.

Amoline.

She froze at the mention of her own name. The flames licked up, but the eyes held firm, fixed on her. She stared back, her skin crawling.

"What… What is this?" Amoline asked, her voice wavering. But she knew. She remembered what Headmistress Telsi had called it. The Gift. Something that would make Amoline stronger, something that would make her more than just a mage.

"You are a queen," Telsi had told her, "and it is your crown."

Amoline.

The voice grew with the flames. It rattled inside her, shaking her bones.

Witness.

The fire began shifting, creating shapes and patterns that put her in mind of events she’d never seen before.

There. A stone cathedral, tall and magnificent. At its entrance, an armored titan made war, scattering the desperate mortal fighters before him with a heavy and cruel mace. By his side were two fearsome beasts—one made of shadow, the other of fire.

Witness.

Amoline felt herself drawn toward the second beast. She peered closer. It was huge, with too-many broad, burning arms and a pulsating frame. It screamed ahead, bellowing out rage that twisted and withered its enemies in unholy fire.

The flames flared before Amoline. A pale woman smiled. At her feet lay the metal titan, destroyed. The two beasts that served him were beaten, forced back. Robed figures surrounded them, chanting in a tongue unknown to her. How the two raged. Amoline saw them falter. She saw their strength sapped until their power was whittled down into two droplets, small as rain.

Amoline followed the droplet of raging fire, trapped now inside a small warded vial. Days, months, years passed. It lay untouched, locked away. Dwindling. Desperate. The spirit ebbed. The light began to wane. Its roars fell to wails.

Amoline felt something unexpected well inside her. It was pity.

The flames flared again. She saw the Arbiter of Thorns, riding silently in a carriage. Ahead stood the great Ravenbloom Conservatory. The droplet of fire fell from its cage onto a bare forehead.

Then screaming, shackles, and fire.

Fire.

"Stop!" a voice cried out, and Amoline snapped from her trance.

The two black eyes blazed with fury mere inches from her face. She felt something below. Heat. Amoline looked down to see she was standing in the fire pit, flames lapping at her ankles. Just as the pain began to set in, just as she opened her mouth to scream, a cloaked figure crashed into her side, knocking her clear.

She slammed into the mud, coughing smoke and embers from the fire. The figure picked himself up, breathing hard.

"Gods, woman," he gasped, "what were you doing?"

Amoline turned away, smoke still burning her throat. She lay there, coughing and despondent, until the needles in her lungs calmed. Finally, she spoke. "I can't go back," she said, her voice feeble and hoarse. “You don’t know what she did to me.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Who?"

"Headmistress Telsi," Amoline replied. She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to feel steel restraints closing around her wrists once more.

"Who?" he repeated, and this time the confusion was ripe in his voice.

Amoline turned to find a slight man peering at her in the gloom, his eyes full of worry. He was a stranger to her—and, evidently, she to him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The man turned and sat on the fallen tree beside him. "I am Gregori," he started, calm as he could muster, "just a simple traveler bound for the frontier. Nothing more." He studied her for a moment. "And you?"

"Amoline."

"Are you hurt, Amoline?"

She checked her legs. The charred soles of her boots had taken the brunt of the heat, and her laces had been lost to the fire. She pulled at the scorched leather to examine her feet… and found them unhurt, save for the blisters and bruises she earned while fleeing the conservatory.

She frowned.

"Just my knee," she murmured, pushing the ruined boots aside, "but not from…"

She looked over to where the fire had burned, and saw the wood scattered by the fall. The pit was little more than smoke and embers now, glowing impotently as the sunrise approached.

Amoline looked for the dark eyes, and found nothing.

"Well, between that and your bare feet, that’s two reasons not to travel on foot, hmm?" Gregori said. He eyed Amoline carefully, suspicious. But in the fledgling dawn light, he saw only a young and desperate woman. "My cart is just a short way there," he said, pointing through the trees, "I could take you to the nearest town. The healers there could—"

"No." Amoline was quick with her refusal. Towns were too dangerous, especially here. Telsi's scouts would be waiting.

"Well, I won't leave you like this."

She looked over Gregori again, searching for a badge or a pin or a pattern somewhere on his clothes that resembled the Ravenbloom sigil. Nothing. "You should," she said.

Gregori nodded slowly. "Would you like to eat, at least? I've a meat pie on my wagon, fresh from the baker’s oven, two villages back."

Amoline fell silent for a moment, trying to fend off the grumbling in her stomach. She failed.

"Yes," she admitted, "I would."

By the time the pair had finished their meal, dawn had fully broken and a frigid winter sun had broken through the crooked treeline. Alongside the pie, Gregori had shared a cold flagon of cow's milk and handful of sweetened chestnuts. Afterward, he joined Amoline on the stump of the waytree, and sketched a misshapen map of Noxus into the mud before pointing out all the places he'd already visited on his travels. Amoline watched on, quietly. This man, Gregori the Gray, was a lively and spirited fellow. His tale about the drunken Basilich krug-whisperers even brought a shadow of a smile to her face, although it was faint and fleeting.

His stories complete, silence fell on their small camp. Gregori leaned back and glanced over to the ruined fire pit. "Would you tell me what happened?" he asked, soft as a leaf.

Amoline pursed her lips.

"Show me where you're going," she demanded, ignoring his question and toeing the dirt map instead. Gregori nodded. He reached over with his charred stick and tapped the edge of the sketch.

"There," he said. "Over the mountains. As north as north gets."

"What's there?"

Gregori shrugged. "Nothing. Plains, valleys. I hope to make a home there." He looked over. "And you? Where will the winds take you?"

Amoline bowed her head, deep in thought. She'd thought of both Drugne and even somewhere in distant Tokugol—but now, in the clear light of day, both seemed so close, so obvious. She couldn't trust her old neighbors in Fensworth, and heading south to the capital would only tempt fate. Amoline thought back to a phrase she often heard the others whisper at the conservatory.

The Rose is everywhere, the Rose is everyone.

No. She would have to go somewhere new. Somewhere unexplored.

"Would..." she started, staring into the mud. "Would you take me with you?"

Gregori fell silent. Amoline slowly turned to see him looking at her, his eyebrows raised.

"I could leave once we neared the border," she continued, "I won't be any trouble. I can hunt and cook. I can—"

Gregori held his hand up, laughing softly. "I will take you as far as you please, Amoline, on one condition." Amoline waited as he leaned over. "It's a long way to the north. Will you tell me some stories of your own?"

"You won't like my stories, Gregori the Gray," she sighed.

"Maybe not, but I would still like to hear them."

By noon, Gregori had mounted his horse and resumed his journey, with Amoline hiding between sacks of food and loose lumber in the cart behind. The cart's rocking, the blanket's warmth, and her own exhaustion soon had the soft pull of sleep tugging at her spirit once more.

Darkness took her, and in her sleep, she finally dared to dream of a quiet and peaceful land far away from all who would hope to hurt her.

In Ionia, magic is woven into the land. Forests spread vibrantly, and trees often boast nearly as many colors as leaves, touched by the wonders of the spirit realm.

But there is one forest, hidden away, that draws on a different kind of magic—a garden with a tree at its heart that gathers humanity’s dreams in its blooms.

The Dreaming Tree grew from a seed of the God-Willow, which towered over the ancient grove of Omikayalan. Cast loose when the God-Willow was tragically felled, the seed took root in what came to be known as the Garden of Forgetting. Nurtured by the Green Father, Ivern—as many of the descendants of Omikayalan were—the Dreaming Tree spiraled up, spreading the magic of humanity’s desires each time the dream-laden buds bloomed.

Lillia was born when one of the tree’s own dreams was captured in a bud that fell to the ground before it could bloom—something that had never happened before. Sprouting into an awkward fawn creature with the flower bud still on her head, Lillia’s only company was her mother tree, and the dreams that drifted to the garden each night.

Lillia helped tend the buds, and learned about humanity through them. Enchanted by the people and places she glimpsed, she spent every waking moment experiencing a swirl of emotions and desires that mortals could only see when they closed their eyes.

In caring for the dreams, Lillia also cared for the dreamers. She came to consider each of them a new friend, wanting nothing more than to one day greet the people who imagined such wonders. Lillia wanted it so badly that her own desires eventually gathered in a bud on the tree.

But when Lillia finally did meet humans, it wasn’t like remembering a familiar dream. It was more like waking up.

Something was happening in the world outside Lillia’s forest. War blazed like a fire through the land, and in time, fewer dreams began to reach the garden. The tree itself grew sick, and became infected with burls—writhing tangles in its trunk, which oozed darkness.

Lillia did her best to nurture her mother tree and the dreams that remained in its buds, but it was not long before the garden became so weak that the violence of the world spilled in. One night, warriors entered the forest and chased a lone figure all the way to the Dreaming Tree. With a single errant blade’s slash, the branch containing Lillia’s unrealized dream came thudding to the ground.

Lillia panicked and forced them all to sleep, shocked at the difference between the mortals she thought she knew, and the ones she had found.

They were so afraid—more tangle than sparkle. They were like the burls…

But as the warriors slept and Lillia wept, a dream emerged from the lone figure the others had been chasing. Weakly, it floated toward the broken branch on the ground and moved into the bough’s bud.

Lillia picked it up. She could feel the dream. As she whispered to it and soothed it, it glowed ever brighter—and so did she. The bud upon her head unfurled, and magic swirled around like sparkling pollen. In that moment, swept up in possibility and wonder, Lillia herself bloomed… until, with a sneeze, she sent the magic curling into the surrounding forest.

The humans awoke one by one, unable to remember what had brought them to the forest, or what they had done. None noticed the timid fawn behind the tree. With relief, Lillia watched the humans go, still seeing only confusing tangles—but knowing now that there was still a sparkle beneath it all.

And if their dreams wouldn’t come to the tree, she would have to bring the tree to them.

Taking up her branch, Lillia left the garden and entered the world of humans—a world she had always wanted to know, but one that frightened her now more than anything. It was so unlike what she understood.

Hiding just out of sight, Lillia now helps people’s dreams be born, drawn forward by glimpses of who they could be, and by what may be trapped beneath their tangles. By helping humans realize their deepest wishes, Lillia realizes her own, the bud on her head blooming as she is filled with joy.

Though darkness may be encroaching on Ionia once more, it is but a mask, and beneath it lies the familiar sparkle of hope. Only by braving the world, and braving herself, can Lillia hope to untangle its burls.