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Born into a patrician family, one of many to exist since the first walls were raised around Noxus, Jericho Swain seemed destined for a life of privilege. The noble houses had played a key role in Boram Darkwill’s rise to power, stoking rhetoric that their proud heritage was the nation’s greatest strength.

However, many hungered for greater influence, plotting against Darkwill in a secret cabal united by nothing more than the symbol of a black rose. Uncovering their intrigue, Swain personally executed the most prominent conspirators. Among them were his own parents, whose whispers of a “pale woman” had first alerted him of the danger to Noxus, which he valued more than house or kin.

They sought a power, a shapeless voice cackling in the darkness of the Immortal Bastion. Something like a raven’s caw…

For exposing the cabal, Swain was granted a commission in the Noxian army, far from anything he had ever known. There, he learned firsthand that the empire was not strong because of Noxians, as he had believed, but because of the way it could unite all men in spite of their origins. On the front lines, a foreign slave could be the equal of a highborn noble.

But still, Swain found only darkness in the wake of each battle. Clouds of carrion crows…

After securing the western borders, Swain’s own reputation was secured in Shurima, where his forces raised countless noxtoraa above the desert sands. Yet, in time, it became clear that greed was the sole purpose driving the empire forward. Fighting wars on too many fronts, lusting over magical relics, the aging Boram Darkwill was clearly growing unhinged.

When Noxus invaded Ionia, Darkwill began to move even more brazenly, retasking entire warbands to scour the land for anything rumored to extend a mortal lifespan. With Swain’s forces depleted, it became nearly impossible to engage the enemy. Finally, at the Battle of the Placidium, after luring the local militia into what should have been a trap, Swain’s warhost was overrun. His veterans were routed, and Swain was gravely wounded, his knee shattered, Ionian blades cleaving through his left arm.

As he lay on the verge of death, a raven approached to feed, and Swain felt an old, familiar darkness press upon him again. But he would not let it take him. He could not. Staring into the the bird’s eye, he saw reflections of the evil strangling the heart of Noxus. A black rose. The pale woman... and her puppet emperor. Swain realized that he had not defeated the hidden cabal, and they had betrayed him to what should have been his death, after seducing Darkwill, the man they failed to overthrow.

All this was glimpsed, not in the mind of a raven, but something more. The power his parents had been seeking, the demonic eyes blazing in the dark…

Cast out of the military for his “failure,” considered nothing more than a cripple, Swain set about uncovering what truly lay within the Immortal Bastion—an ancient entity, preying upon the dying and consuming their secrets, as it had attempted to consume his own. Swain stared into that darkness, seeing what even it could not: a way to wield it.

Though his meticulous preparations took many years, Swain and his remaining allies seized control of Noxus in a single night. Physically restored by the demon, he crushed Darkwill in full view of his followers, leaving the throne shattered and empty.

Swain’s vision for the future of Noxus is one of strength through unity. He has pulled back the warhosts from Darkwill’s unwinnable campaigns and, with the establishment of the Trifarix, ensured that no individual can rule unopposed. He embraces any who will pledge themselves to the empire—even the Black Rose, though he knows, in secret, they still plot against him.

Gathering knowledge as the demon did before him, Swain has foreseen far greater dangers lurking just beyond. However, many Noxians secretly wonder if the darkness they face will pale in comparison to the dark things Swain has done…

The sacrifices are only beginning, for the good of Noxus.

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

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

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

The Black Rose exists now to further the clandestine interests of those who can wield such magic—with its rank-and-file composed of mundane nobles, drawn to rumors of miracles, kept in thrall and ruthlessly exploited. Even the most powerful military commander could only ever serve the cult’s true masters, as they fight one another for influence in games of intrigue and conquest, both in the Noxian capital and beyond its borders.

For centuries, LeBlanc has served in secret as an advisor to foreign dignitaries, appearing in many nations at once, her illusions driving order into chaos. Rumors of a new matron rising with each generation only raise further questions—which is the “true” version of herself? When she speaks, is it with her own voice? And what will the price be, for the favor she offers?

Boram Darkwill was but the latest to learn this last answer for himself. Though the Black Rose had aided his bid for the throne, he refused the counsel of their hand-picked advisors, requiring LeBlanc to take drastic measures. Manipulating a young nobleman named Jericho Swain into revealing the cult’s involvement, LeBlanc allowed herself to be executed along with the most prominent conspirators… or at least, so it appeared. In time, she reached out to Darkwill herself, and found an increasingly paranoid ruler, fearful of his own mortality.

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

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

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

The Black Rose has yet to truly bloom.

The youngest child of General Du Couteau, Cassiopeia was born to a life of possibility and privilege among the Noxian noble houses. From an early age, she displayed a keen mind and sharp wit, and while her sister Katarina flourished under their father’s tutelage, it was their mother Soreana in whose footsteps Cassiopeia would follow.

A hero of Noxus’ expansion into Shurima, General Du Couteau eventually sent for his family, installing them close to the governor of the coastal city of Urzeris. Surrounded by strangers in an unfamiliar land, Cassiopeia remained close to her mother, learning much of politics, diplomacy, and subtle influence. As she grew, Cassiopeia could not help but glimpse other, hidden concerns within Soreana, beyond those of the empire…

One day, quite unexpectedly, Soreana collapsed in the family residence—her hairbrush had been laced with caustic venoms by an unknown hand, leaving her close to death. General du Couteau was well versed in the ways of an assassin, and so he had all the household staff removed, leaving his wife and daughters alone in an empty house.

Still little more than a child, Cassiopeia never left her mother’s bedside. While Soreana’s recovery took many months, the bond between them became stronger than ever before.

When the general was recalled to Noxus to prepare for the long-awaited invasion of Ionia, he took Katarina with him, but Cassiopeia remained in Urzeris. Seemingly relieved, Soreana confided in her daughter that she belonged to a clandestine and secretive cabal, known by some as “the Black Rose”. Having guided the empire for centuries, they had finally managed to spread their influence into Shurima.

Now free of her husband’s watchful eye, Soreana’s real work could begin.

In time, and under her mother’s tutelage, Cassiopeia blossomed into a young woman of tremendous beauty, cunning and intelligence, if somewhat lacking in empathy. She saw those around her as tools to be used to achieve her goals, and then cast aside just as quickly.

Though she had barely reached the cusp of womanhood, she was initiated into the Black Rose by hunting down and eliminating those who had sought the death of her mother. She surprised even Soreana with her speed and efficiency, and left no trace of her activities—or her proxies—behind. Only then was Cassiopeia made privy to the cabal’s broader plan for Shurima. Using her family’s tremendous resources, she undertook a number of expeditions into the deep desert, raiding ancient ruins with the help of a local mercenary named Sivir.

Her efforts were made all the more urgent when word reached Urzeris from the capital. Grand General Boram Darkwill had been deposed by Jericho Swain, and a number of noble houses had chosen to honor this coup… including Du Couteau.

Outraged and disgusted by her husband’s betrayal, and fearing that all members of the Black Rose were now in jeopardy, Soreana became desperate. She dispatched Cassiopeia to seek out the godlike power that had been the key to Shurima’s supremacy in ages past. Cassiopeia swore she would return with a weapon ready for the looming secret war, or not at all.

Fulfilling this oath would leave her changed forever. Upon unearthing a long lost tomb of the mythical Ascended, she knew this was the threshold to the power she sought, and intended to dispatch all witnesses from her expedition before claiming it. The guide Sivir was the first to fall to Cassiopeia’s blade, but then an ancient stone tomb guardian reared up, and buried its fangs into her flesh.

Overcome by its arcane toxins, she was carried back through the desert by her hired soldiers, screaming as her body twisted into something new and unspeakable…

Cassiopeia locked herself in the disused crypt of the Urzeris residence, and endured the untold agonies of this transformation. Gone was the brilliant and beautiful daughter of Soreana Du Couteau, replaced by a monstrous, slithering creature that skulked in the shadows, spitting poison, and crushing stone as easily as glass.

For weeks she wept and howled, grieving her lost life… until the day she could weep no more. She dragged herself up from the depths of despair, determined to accept—maybe even someday embrace?—her fate. It was not the Ascension she had hoped for, but Cassiopeia had unearthed the magic of dead Shuriman gods. She would turn it to the schemes of the Black Rose just as she and her mother had planned, and she could feel this power growing within her, day by day.

Though into what, even she cannot guess.

He arrived at the camp only moments before the strategy council was to begin, flanked by a small honor guard, each handpicked from the Trifarian Legion. They remained at the entrance as I watched him approach.

Some men cast a shadow greater than themselves, but few could bring a darkness such as this, one that circled above us and hungrily cawed. In a way, the ravens that seemed to follow him around the camp were a grim reminder of every warrior’s fate, the tattered cloth in their beaks a match for the state of our own banners. Yet, as he strode into the remains of the war tent, I realized I had not prepared myself for how truly mortal he looked.

There was grey in his hair, framed by a crimson sky choking on ash. His battle-worn armor gave way to a functional coat, and he kept his arms tightly within its folds—as I imagined one of his lineage might. I smiled, for he was still, at his heart, a gentleman. He wore no signs of rank beyond the telltale scars of a soldier who had seen his share of bloodshed. There were many gathered now for the council who demanded more fear and respect, swaying their warhosts with powerful displays of strength. Each of them seemed more than capable of breaking the man before us.

But, somehow, this was the man who led us all. The Grand General of Noxus.

Looking at him, I could feel there was something I could not place, no matter how closely I looked. Something truly unknowable, perhaps? Perhaps it was because there was something unknowable about this man, that so many flocked to his side. Whatever the draw, Jericho Swain stood before us now, and it was far too late for me to turn back.

Five warhosts had marched onto the Rokrund Plain, but it had been only a matter of weeks before the locals had shattered our positions. They blasted through our hastily-constructed berms with explosive powder, mined from hills that seemed even more barren than those of home. Disaster had built upon disaster, until Swain himself had no choice but to intervene. I had made sure of that.

For months, I had prepared. I had sent warmasons deep into the mines. I had mapped every detail, every conceivable twist of the land… and the fates upon which Noxus now balanced, the whispers that gave each moment shape…

My ear itched at the memory of the pale woman’s words. Of the moment she first commanded me, and gave voice to our plot.

Everything was in place. I had accounted for it all. Here, where the earth opened into a maze of canyons impossible to escape, I and I alone would determine the future of the empire.

After all, was that not what Swain had called upon this council to do?

“My trusted generals,” Swain said finally. The power in his voice rang out like the drawing of a blade. He paused, as if giving us a moment to test ourselves against its keen edge. “Tell me how Noxus may prevail.”

“There are twelve war-barques here, in the hills,” Leto began, pointing to a spot on the map already worn white by his attention, “each drawn by a basilisk. Send them before the warbands, and we’ll be marching over the enemy dead. Those beasts would rut with a hedge of rusty spears if we let them.”

He smiled, pleased at his own cunning, but Swain was more concerned with the wine being poured into his glass.

Will it be poison? his eyes seemed to ask, as he peered around the table. I stared at my reflection in his armor. I would betray nothing of my intent.

“We can scarcely control the basilisks ourselves,” Swain finally murmured, carefully regarding the fine Ionian vintage. “Imagine even a single explosive, dropped by a sapper within earshot of the beasts. And then tell me, in your imagination, who runs first—the basilisks with their tails between their legs? Or your vaunted warhost?”

“We scorch the earth then,” Maela petitioned before Leto could respond, the words flying wildly from her mouth. “Set fire to the pitch they’ve laid to burn on our advance. Drive them out of those damn mines.”

Swain sighed. “We came here for the very earth you would burn. Though I suppose it is too much to expect you to know the uses of saltpetre.” He swirled the wine in his glass, betraying a hint of disappointment. “All you have done so far is bury your own men with it.”

“The redblades are still sharp,” Jonat spat impatiently from the shadows where he lurked, the darkness seeming almost bright against his Shuriman skin. “We’ll enter the mines after dusk, take out their leaders. Clean or messy. Doesn’t matter.”

“An admirable strategy,” Swain laughed. “But those leaders are not soldiers. Not yet. Our enemy here merely follows whomever bellows the loudest. Kill one, and there will be three bellowing by morning.”

I laughed, nodding to the frowning leader of the redblades. “For a moment, I was afraid you’d find a way for us to actually win, Jonat.”

Silence fell around the table. The candles were burning low beside the maps.

This was my moment. The pale woman would be pleased. I would say her name as I sent our Grand General to oblivion.

“The truth is, you cannot win this battle,” I continued. “No one can fight death. Not even the ruler of Noxus. Darkwill showed us that.”

Swain and the others watched as I carefully drew the flint striker from my tunic. The fuse line was already in my other hand. Leto, aging hero of the Siege of Fenrath, bristled.

“Granth, what are you doing?” he growled, glancing down at the crude demolition charge I had carefully positioned under the table, barely an hour before. “You would threaten the Grand General? This is treason.”

Still, none of them dared approach me. I held the striker over the fuse, ready.

Except… someone was laughing. It took me a moment to realize who it was.

“And there, General Granth is the only one who has the right of it,” Swain chuckled, smoothing the wrinkles from his coat. “He alone understands. The rest of you, you see a battle and ask what you must do to avoid defeat. But some battles cannot be won. Sometimes, the only strategy is to burn. To charge into the flames, knowing full well you will die, but that twenty thousand march behind you. And that behind them, there is a greater power.”

He let his coat fall open, to reveal… To… reveal…

“Granth and I,” he said with a cruel smile, “we always look for what must be sacrificed in order to win.”

Maela lunged for my trembling hands. Leto too. But it was Swain’s inhuman grip that clamped around my throat, hefting me from the ground, the unlit fuse forgotten.

“If only you could tell her yourself how you failed,” the Grand General whispered, his voice rumbling with the wrath of eons. “If only she, too, could heed the wisdom of the dead.”

I tried to scream then, to confess it all. To somehow beg for forgiveness.

But there is nothing now, save for the soft murmur of whispers. I spill my secrets, this tale, into your ears. Fading like the rustling of wings, as the raven cries its carrion caw…

Near the end of his reign, Grand General Boram Darkwill entrusted the Black Rose and its many hemomancers with creating a new kind of living weapon. Unlike their previous experiments on the deceased, this would be a being born from and fueled by blood—one driven to hunt down targets without requiring the sustenance of food and water.

And so Briar was born.

Her creators wanted an assassin, but all she wanted was to eat, eat, EAT! When her first mission ended in a frenzied, gory failure, the Black Rose decided that Briar was too dangerous to use, but too powerful to be destroyed. In order to control her, they devised a special pillory—locked by a hemolith gemstone—to restrain her and focus her mind. Once shackled with the pillory, Briar, along with the rest of the Black Rose’s living weapons, was quickly deployed during Jericho Swain’s coup against Darkwill.

She was given a handler to help direct her, but when released from her pillory, Briar immediately devoured him and everyone near her—everyone but her target, Swain, who escaped while the living weapon fed upon friend and foe.

After an arduous capture, Swain’s guards managed to trigger Briar’s pillory and restore her restraint, enabling them to transfer her to their holding facility.

Alone in her cell, Briar could focus on nothing except her hunger. Though she couldn't die from starvation, the absence of fresh blood weakened her day by day.

At first, she thought the chorus of crazed wails echoing around her room were her own starving thoughts... until she realized the sounds were drifting in from unseen neighbors. Did Swain’s forces manage to capture other living weapons during the coup? Was she locked up with them now, each having failed their mission? Their purpose?

The voices cried out for blood—a sentiment Briar could relate to. But what she couldn’t stand wasn’t how often they did it, nor how loud they were, but that it was ALL they talked about. Their unrelenting hemomania was the most boring thing she had ever experienced.

As hungry as Briar was—and she was hungry—her thoughts stayed focused on the pitiful sounds of the others. What if she managed to break out of the pillory? Would her frenzy make her even more unhinged than her neighbors? Would she become as single-minded and boring as them? The idea was too horrifying to dwell on, so she instead resigned herself to listless solitude.

Years passed, and the time alone allowed Briar to reflect on herself and consider the possibilities of the world outside her cell. Entertainment consisted of eavesdropping on the guards’ conversations, devising new ways to pester them for raw meat, and agonizing over whether she should race her pet spiders or eat them.

By chance while she was toying with her pillory one day, she inadvertently loosened the hemolith, which settled into a position just short of unlocking the restraint. Briar froze as thoughts of her hemomaniacal neighbors filled her head—is that what she’d become? But then she realized something: Being under control was just as dangerous as being out of control. She wanted to strike the balance.

Having discovered the hemolith’s mechanism, Briar devised a plan.

By this point, the guards were so used to her calls for attention that when she lured one close to her cell, nobody noticed he was missing until it was too late. The guard’s blood surged within her, lighting a fire that had been waiting to spread.

Briar was finally free.

“I don’t understand,” General Granth mutters, nervously trying to smother the light from his lamp. “There’s nothing here. It’s a dead end.”

He stands at the threshold, framed by the dark stonework against the deeper darkness beyond it. He does not see the open gateway before him, nor the angular Ochnun inscriptions that surround it. He does not see the fragments of bone that litter the flagstones beneath his boots.

I smile, playing my part. “It is the simplest of things,” I tell him, “to hide in plain sight.”

The general turns, confusion and frustration written clearly upon his face. “Don’t play games with me, cousin! Do you have any idea what I’m risking, being down here? Or what would happen if we’re caught? These districts are forbidden, by order of the council—there are Legion patrols everywhere!”

This, at least, is true. Ever since the usurper Swain seized control, he has kept the Immortal Bastion locked down. Officially, it is to protect the Trifarix against reprisals from those noble houses that opposed its creation.

Unofficially, he is daring men like Brannin Granth to expose themselves as his enemies.

“But they would not doubt your loyalty,” I reassure him. “A hero of the Gates of Mourning, no less. You are to be honored by command of the Grand General himself. What can they say to that? If we were spotted, you would not even need to run.”

His expression darkens. “Oh, you don’t run from the Trifarian Legion…”

I do not need to hear this thinly veiled propaganda again. In little more than a year, Swain has built a certain mystique around himself and the Hand of Noxus, and those that serve them both. It is a brilliant scheme, though it fills my heart with hatred to admit it.

Even so, I let Granth have his moment. It is why we are here.

His eyes fall to the ground. “We didn’t win the Gates of Mourning—the Legion did. That’s why Swain won’t attend the triumph. He knows we need not even have been there, damn him. He insults us with this pomp and ceremony, in front of all Noxus!”

I nod, laying a hand on Granth’s shoulder. “And that is why we will make him pay for everything he has done. You are a true Noxian, anyone can see that. I have told the others all about you, and they wish to meet you for themselves. She wishes to meet you.”

“I can’t meet anyone, cousin, if we can’t get inside.” He glances around. “Doesn’t the Black Ro—”

I recoil. “Do not use that name. It makes you sound like… well, as you said. Like you don’t understand.”

Pushing past him, I stride through the yawning mouth of the gate. He almost drops the lantern in surprise, seeing the entrance now, for the first time. Stumbling after me, Granth checks to make sure we are not being followed, then squints into the shadows of the passageway.

“Is it true?” he hisses. “What they say about her, is it true?”

I do not slow my pace. “Come. Find out for yourself.”

The Immortal Bastion is not a monument, as most Noxians believe. Nor is it merely a fortress, in the sense that the old tribes knew it.

The stone around us almost thrums with power, though Granth is mostly oblivious. I have seen it countless times, through the centuries—he knows something is not right, but feels it only as a lethargic drag on his limbs, and a whispering itch in the back of his brain. Few mortals last long when they are this close to the source. To his credit, he still has his wits about him, enough to reach for his dagger when a robed figure emerges from the gloom.

…I pass both of us, coming in the other direction. I look tired.

No matter. This will be concluded soon enough.

Granth eyes me suspiciously until I disappear from sight, then ambles to the side of the person he knows as his cousin.

“Hadrion, who are these people?” Granth asks, as more anonymous figures come and go. “I don’t recognize any of them. Are they the allies you spoke of, among the other houses?”

I sigh. It is disappointing that the finest military minds often cannot see what is right in front of them. “They are sympathetic to our family’s plight,” I reply, keeping the disdain from my voice. “We, all of us, are committed to the downfall of the usurper, and the restoration of the throne. It is better that you do not know their names, or their faces.”

He scoffs. “But how can we work together, if we—”

The words die on his lips as we turn the last corner.

We stand at the edge of the great well of souls, plunging down into the bedrock of Noxus, far deeper than the physical dimensions of the Bastion should even allow. A roiling miasma of cold blues and jealous greens swirls in the distance beneath us, underlighting the three bridges that span the gap.

There, between them, suspended against the madness, is a frightful, hulking silhouette that every Noxian knows only too well. A husk of lifeless armor depicted in every history book, and a thousand defaced statues scattered across the old city.

Granth takes half a step back. “It can't be…” he murmurs. “It… It can't…”

His voice is cracking. His eyes glisten with tears. I lean in over his shoulder, to whisper behind his ear.

“Do you see the truth of it, now? The truth behind the great empire of Noxus? So has it been for centuries, since the days of the first kings—no Grand General, no emperor or tyrant, can stand unless the mistress of the Immortal Bastion allows it. Many are those who would serve, though few prove worthy.”

I gently pluck the lantern from his trembling fingers, and guide him away from the sight that has so transfixed him, toward the veiled alcoves that line the passage on either side.

“Swain must fall. Our cabal is utterly committed to this, above all else, and we will sacrifice whatever we must to achieve it.”

On some level, Granth knows what he will see even before I pull back the shroud.

It is the dessicated body of his cousin, Hadrion. The younger man’s features are frozen in a deathly rictus, yet there is an unmistakable sense of peace about it.

“Your house was singled out most unfairly during the coup, Brannin Granth. Your father and his brothers were stripped of all they possessed, simply for remaining true to Boram Darkwill at the end. Hadrion gave his life gladly in pursuit of revenge. Will you honor that debt, and join us now, too?”

Granth sinks to his knees, looking up at me with fresh eyes. “You. You are her. You are the pale woman.”

He does not even flinch when a second pale woman appears at my side. We speak with the same voice. “I am everywhere. I am everyone. You know only what you need to know, and see what I want you to see.”

Jericho Swain is not the only one who can exaggerate his own legend.

A third pale woman steps out behind Granth, and then a fourth. Even so, he bows his head to me, no doubt convinced he finally understands. He does not need us to point out the empty alcove beside his cousin’s.

“With all my heart,” he swears, “and every drop of my noble blood, I will serve you, my lady. I will not rest until the pretender Swain is dead.”

This naive fool thinks he will be the one to land the killing blow. I will let him think that, for it suits my purpose, which is merely to probe the Grand General’s defenses.

I trace the sigil of the cabal in the air above Granth’s head, marking him as my own. None who can see it will interfere with the plots we shall soon devise. “Rise then, proud son of the Noxii. Your pledge is heard and accepted. Together, we will be victorious, and your name will be celebrated as the savior of an empire.”

She felt the thief coming closer with every careful step he took.

He was skillful, she’d give him that, but her awareness was heightened to degrees no mortal could conceive. His footfalls over the nearby rooftops, though soft and artfully placed, vibrated the stagnant air within her gloomy abode like the plucked string of a lute in a silent temple.

His approach had wakened her from dreams of the ocean, darkness rising up in a tsunami that roared over the world to leave it forever sunk beneath dead black waters. Part of her relished the extinction this wave would bring, even as she knew she had played some role in its coming.

The dream fell away as her multi-faceted eyes opened and she reached out through her every sense. Perceptions colored by scents and sounds, movement felt in the tremors of the air. Still weary and worn thin from her most recent voyage to the mist-wreathed isles, her irritation grew at the thought of having to deal with yet another intruder.

Her cellar lair was folded with shadow, but the heavy barrels, rotted tapestries, and icy floorboards were as clear to her as if daylight were pouring through the shuttered grates.

A whisper of skittering legs echoed throughout the manse, a rustle of hundreds of glossy bodies scuttling from their domains in anticipation of her desires. The dripping walls and sagging ceiling rippled with undulant motion and the gleam of thousands of unblinking eyes.

“Soon, little ones,” she said, her voice smoky and rich with aristocratic tones. “Let me play with this one awhile.”

She felt their appetite for human flesh, sharp with need.

It mirrored her own.

She eased from her resting place, her dreaming form a shifting blend of human and arachnid, extending her slender limbs and drawing the intruder’s myriad scents to her through the surfaces of her tarsal claws. She ran her tongue across needle-like teeth, learning more of him with every inward breath.

A sand-kissed soul—skin of smoke, and the thinnest trace of ancient kings in his blood.

One of the desert-born…

She felt his approach, fully aware of what had drawn him to her shuttered manse on this bitterly cold night. And who had likely sent him.

Like the others before him, he would find only death.

Like the others, Elise would draw him to her before devouring him alive.

Waning moon in a coal-dark sky. Low clouds and cold winds.

Perfect for an endeavor like this.

A bell tolled over the harbor of the capital, and icy winds carried the sound of bellicose Noxian soldiers from distant camps beyond the city’s Watchbell Gate.

Nyam moved over the rooftops with soft and sure footsteps, his loose-fitting tunic and cloak of gray wool making him all but invisible. He kept low, just below the tiled ridges of the buildings, carefully judging every step over the thin layer of snowfall.

A loose tile, a patch of ice—that was all it would take to end this night in death, his body broken on the cobbled street.

But Nyam had plundered tombs sunk deep in the sands of his homeland, and climbed the cliff-temples on the road to Marrowmark in search of treasure. He had evaded traps set in the ruins of kings and gods, so the swaybacked rooftops of Noxus—uneven, high, and filled with pitted hand- and footholds—offered little in the way of challenge to a thief of his skill.

He’d learned to run the sky-roads as a child, weaving over the high roofs of Bel’zhun to avoid roving gangs of children who beat him for the cleft that split his gums and top lip all the way to his nose. “No-Face Nyam,” they’d called him, his birth deformity giving the Shuriman-born and pallid Noxian runts a unifying target for their anger.

Even after he’d stolen enough to have an embalmer sew his lip closed upon his tenth summer, they still mocked him—but those hard, brutal years had served him well. He’d learned to embrace solitude, to love dizzying heights, and to become one with shadows in a land that knew only the golden light of its ancient sun.

But most of all, he’d learned to fight: first with his fists, and then with the obsidian blade he’d taken from the sarcophagus of a body so large, it must have been one of the legendary Ascended. Sheathed across his shoulder, it had been a knife to the dead god, but was a sword to Nyam.

The place his paymaster had spoken of was just ahead, looming like a grand shadow of its former glory, its windows shuttered, and its gambrel roof rotten where tiles had slipped loose and fallen to the streets below.

That’s my way in.

Nyam reached the icicle-hung gable at the end of a roof, and perched at its edge with perfect balance as he uncoiled a length of rope from his belt. He unfolded the hooks of a grapnel and, with practiced ease, cast it toward a gap between a row of cracked chimneys. The hook landed precisely where he had aimed, and he gave the rope a tug.

Satisfied the hook had bedded into the stonework, he slid from the roof.

The cold air cut into him as he swung over, bracing his legs like a spring to bear the impact. His boots were soft, but he winced as the sound echoed throughout the crumbling building like a hammer upon an anvil. Snow fell from the eaves, and Nyam took a moment, listening for any sign that he had been heard.

Nothing. The ancient house was quiet as a tomb.

Hand over hand, he pulled himself up the rope until he climbed smoothly onto the roof.

Nyam coiled the rope and crouched in the shadow behind a chimney. His breath misted the air, and he tugged a thick mitten of drüvask fur from his left hand, reaching up to place a bare palm on the stone.

This chimney had not known warmth in many passings of the moon.

Only a very few chimneys in this district smoked with a hearth fire. Other parts of the capital glimmered, ruddy with firelight. Cookfires, warrior pyres beyond the walls, and braziers set in shrines to the Wolf.

But not here.

This area of the city felt all but abandoned, the empty windows of its black stone structures seeming like they had never known light. Tattered curtain cloth was frozen stiff by the sighing winds funneled through the narrow streets. Far below, only a few candles guttered in window sconces, and he’d seen just a single lantern, hung outside a forlorn-looking tavern doorway.

Pallid moonlight cast its radiance over empty streets, where the snow lay undisturbed. How such a deserted space could exist in a city where every inch of ground was precious was a mystery to Nyam, but this was where his employer had directed him.

The manse of House Zaavan.

Nyam slid slowly down the rope through a wide hole in the roof.

Flakes of snow swirled around him as he descended, diamond motes glittering in the faint moonlight. He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom within the manse, seeing that he hung within what appeared to be a grand receiving room with a wide fireplace of gold-veined marble.

Snow-brushed kindling was set in the hearth, and a bucket of frosty coal lay spilled beside it, like the home’s inhabitants had knocked it over in their hurry to leave, and never come back.

Linen-draped furniture was situated around the room: long couches, wide divans pushed up against the walls, and empty chairs. Judging by the icy stiffness of the fabric, Nyam guessed many years had passed since this room had been shuttered.

The parquet floor was strewn with tiles and broken roof timbers, and he carefully placed his leading foot between the debris, testing for creaks and groans. Slowly he let his weight settle, and released the rope.

Nyam pushed back his hood and ran a hand over his shaven scalp, the skin dark and stubbled, tattooed, and pierced with ivory needles like a thorny crown.

He crouched low and placed his palm on the floor, closing his eyes and letting the bones of the manse speak to him. The ancient timbers groaned in the cold like old men turning in their sleep, the walls silent, the house’s breath hanging heavy within, trapped like the air of a plague cave where the afflicted waited to die.

Every instinct told Nyam this house was abandoned, a cursed palace frozen in time.

And yet…

A faint hiss like a thousand whispered voices speaking in unison, a soft sense of motion all around him. A crawling sensation traveled the length of his spine, and he suppressed a shiver, telling himself it was just the cold fingers of the north wind.

He eased his gaze around the room, not letting his eyes fix on any one point, allowing his peripheral vision to catch any movement. He saw nothing, only the swirl of snowflakes and the tiny fluttering of cloth.

But the sense that something else was in here with him wouldn’t abate.

The elegantly written letter had been precise: enter the Zaavan mansion, find the library, and steal the designated artifact. The instructions described a grand library in the eastern wing of the manse, a room entered via tall doors of ebon black, just off the mezzanine above an octagonal atrium.

Nyam rose and moved to the walls, where the timber floor would be less likely to creak with his weight, and edged along them to a wide door at the far end of the room. It hung ajar, and gusts of soft wind sighed through from beyond.

He slid his thin frame through the door, finding himself within a long dining room.

A narrow table ran its length, still set for a lavish dinner, with painted ceramic plates and gleaming silver cutlery laid out in anticipation of guests who would never arrive.

Platters were piled high with frost-dusted fruit and icy cuts of meat. Nyam’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that it had been many hours since he’d eaten. Would such meat be edible, preserved by the cold?

Nyam wasn’t about to try it and find out.

At the center of the table was a domed silver tray, and a sudden curiosity made him want to see what lay beneath.

Nyam reached over and lifted the lid.

And a swirling mass of creatures erupted from a moldering joint of beef, gloss-black and skittering—spiders fleeing the light in their hundreds. None was larger than his thumbnail, and Nyam flinched in horror as they spilled from the edge of the table in a squirming tide.

The tray lid fell from his fingers to the floor.

In the silence of the house, the clang of metal was deafening.

He winced, and his hand snapped to the sword at his shoulder. Cursing his stupidity, Nyam moved swiftly to a curtained window, finding the shadows and becoming one with the darkness.

Stillness was his ally, and he remained utterly motionless, waiting for any sign his foolish mistake had been heard. He strained to hear something amiss—a sullen watchman, or even perhaps the owner of this house.

If anything, the house felt somehow quieter, as though something else was right next to him, invisibly watching and waiting.

His eyes scanned the walls, from floor to cornices.

Nothing.

The seconds became minutes, and finally, Nyam let out a relieved sigh. The house was empty and abandoned, something once grand now reduced to a ruin.

“Dead as a desert tomb,” he said.

Elise crawled from her cellar lair to the ground floor of the manse, moving swiftly along the walls and fluted columns to the mezzanine, each of her multiple limbs in perfect synchrony. Her chittering spiderling host followed in her wake, eager to race ahead and swarm this intruder, but she held them back for now.

They hissed at her restraint like unruly children, resentful at being denied this feast.

Her arachnoid form was as black as midnight, segmented and deadly, with an abdomen patterned with blood-red streaks. Her bladed and slender legs moved lightly, making no sound at all.

She crawled with lithe grace across the mezzanine’s checkerboard-tiled floor, toward the dining room.

A clash of metal echoed from within as her foreclaw reached for the door. She paused, and her scuttling host did so too, gently swaying on their many legs.

The sound unleashed a rush of bitter memories from her past life…

… of pain, humiliation, and bloody vengeance.

A jealous and petty man had almost ended her life in that room.

She remembered her husband’s treacherous poison coursing through her veins, searing her flesh from the inside out and crippling her with agony.

A surge of hate, the flash of a blade…

Gloating eyes now wide with fear…

A flood of red as she twisted the knife in his heart.

Elise pushed the memory away. Even now, centuries later, the pain of that night still lingered. Despite drinking the antidote to the poison, she had drifted near death for weeks after his betrayal. Yet as agonizing as those weeks had been, they had signaled the coming of her rebirth.

As a mere human, she had been beautiful. Now, she was glorious.

Elise paused, savoring the rising tension in the thief—but beneath that, she tasted long-buried fears and a will to survive past torments, which found their echo within her.

Intrigued, she lowered her claw as she heard the thief step closer.

Elise turned from the dining room and swiftly crossed the mezzanine to a set of tall black doors.

Nyam eased open the dining room door, wincing as it creaked.

But if no one had come running at the sound of him dropping the metal tray lid, they weren’t going to come for this.

The door opened into a high-ceilinged atrium, eight sided and rising to a stained-glass dome high above. The mezzanine floor ran around the edges of the atrium, though its timbers had collapsed in several places, and the curving staircase leading down to the vestibule was in ruins far below. Fragments of colored glass lay shattered in the vestibule, and Nyam peered up into the gloom to see the broken portions of the dome had been sealed with some kind of pale fibrous resin or gum.

Thick cobwebs spanned the upper reaches of the atrium, and Nyam saw wet-looking bundles held fast within them, squirming with a grotesque internal motion.

Egg sacs? Captured birds? Nests?

Whatever they were, it was no concern of his. Before long, he’d be out of this place with his prize and en route to a fat purse, a clean bathhouse, and a warm meal.

Directly across from the dining room were a pair of imposing doors of jet-black wood, polished and gleaming like dark mirrors.

“There is the library,” he whispered. “Just as the letter said.”

Nyam slipped across the mezzanine, carefully testing the integrity of the floor with each step before committing his weight. The wood creaked and groaned, but held.

He reached the doors and tested a handle, grimacing in revulsion as his hand came away sticky with a gummy yellow-white residue.

“Mercy of sand,” he hissed, wiping his palm on his britches.

The door clicked open, and Nyam forgot his disgust as he heard a soft sound, like sand spilling over rocks. He couldn’t place what it might be—vermin in the walls, perhaps?

Rats were a common enough sight in Noxus. You couldn’t have this many people living cheek by jowl without them infesting every building. But this wasn’t rats.

Pushing the door wide, Nyam entered the library.

It had once been a place of wonder.

Its shelves were high, crafted with love and care from pale wood with a fine, contoured grain. Every bookcase had been violently emptied—leather-bound tomes, scrolls, and sheaves of paper cast to the floor in disarray, books likely worth a small fortune lying amid ancient scrolls that had been torn like discarded army scrip tokens. Artifacts of strange and unusual design had been smashed to pieces, and statues of onyx and jade lay broken into shards. A swaying black chandelier hung from a slender cord over the center of the room.

And there, at the far end of the chamber, was a cabinet of dark wood and cold iron, from which a soft illumination pulsed.

“There,” said Nyam, picking a path toward the cabinet through the scattered books.

He wondered why anyone would destroy such a treasure trove of wisdom and imagination. This chaos had the hallmarks of someone wreaking havoc in blind fury. Judging by the dust gathered on the embossed covers and gilded spines, that rage had been spent long ago.

He bent to lift a book from the floor, its pages brittle with age. Portions of its thick leather cover bore the same glistening residue from the door handle. He opened it, and saw the harsh, angular script of the old tongue of Noxus, a language only the highborn patricians ever used. Nyam couldn’t read it, and it hurt his eyes trying to follow the crisp writing in the dim light.

Placing the book back on the floor, Nyam pressed on, hearing the soft sound of sand over stone once again. He paused, trying to pinpoint the noise, but it was all around him.

What is that?

Finally, he reached the cabinet, its black wood oddly glistening with a patina of moisture that seemed to be oozing from within, as though something inside was leaking. Careful not to touch the liquid, he bent to sniff it.

Salt and rotten timbers, mulched seaweed, and… old blood?

“Tainted seawater,” he said, puzzled.

He knelt to examine the cabinet from the ground up, looking for any trap mechanisms, his ungloved hands gliding over the wet wood in search of catches, switches, or latches. His awareness of his surroundings faded, all his attention focused on the cabinet and whatever lethal surprises it might have in store. Its doors appeared to be secured by the simplest of locks.

“Surely something so valuable would be protected by more than a pinlock,” he whispered in disbelief. “It is almost as though you wish it to be stolen.”

Nyam ran his fingertips around the handles, then drew a mirror from his pouches and used it to peer within the mechanism of the pinlock. No spring-loaded needle, no glass pellet of lethal gas, nor any inscribed curses or magical trap runes.

Satisfied the lock was just as it seemed, he reached up and slid out one of the longer ivory needles from a pierced fold of skin on his scalp. He pressed it into the lock and gently eased the iron pins from their holes.

With the last pin secured, Nyam slid the needle back into his scalp and flexed his fingers.

His stomach grumbled with a stabbing hunger.

He was suddenly ravenous, ready to tear raw flesh from the bone and drain entire vats of beer. His appetite from the dining room returned tenfold, and for a fleeting second, he considered going back to take one of the cuts of meat from the table.

He pushed the sensation down, shocked at how visceral it had been.

Nyam opened the cabinet, and his stomach again tightened with powerful hunger pangs.

Sitting within was a crystalline hourglass encased in a delicate framework of brass. It stood two handspans tall, and tumultuous clouds of blue light spiraled inside, moving restlessly back and forth, from top to bottom. Droplets of red water seemed to sweat from the smoky glass, forming a glossy crimson pool that was the source of the moisture seeping from the cabinet.

Nyam hesitated to remove the object, knowing it was touched by the darkest of magics.

He pulled his gloves back on and carefully lifted the hourglass. It felt warm, like a roasted shank of meat fresh from a clay oven, and he closed his eyes as his mind filled with bloody horrors…

A slaughterman’s cleaver splitting bone for the pot…

Butchered corpses hung on hooks to drain them of blood…

A toothed maw, feeding a hunger that could never be sated…

Soul lights ripped from the living and the dead…

EVEN IN DEATH, I HUNGER!

Nyam set the hourglass back down, all but overcome by the gut punch of the gory imagery, and disgusted with himself as his craving surged.

“I do not know what you are, but the sooner I am out of here and rid of you, the better.”

He unfastened the clasps securing his cloak and removed it, before swiftly wrapping the hourglass within.

Nyam closed the cabinet and turned to leave.

And his mouth fell open in shock.

Every surface of the library was swathed in glistening strands of web, stretching in taut lines from the bookshelves to the floor. Partially shuttered windows were rendered opaque and sealed to their frames, with scattered books and scrolls submerged beneath undulant dunes of white silk.

The rustling sound of sand over rocks intensified, and Nyam drew his black-bladed sword as he saw the ceiling squirm with thousands of spiders in crimson and jet.

More of them crawled toward him in a black tide, squeezing fat bodies from cracks in the walls and floor, swarming over one another to reach him.

“Rammus be with me,” hissed Nyam. “Protect this son of Shurima…”

A larger motion drew his gaze upward toward the chandelier.

It unfolded from the central point, and a huge, segmented body uncurled to reveal a monstrous spider with a pulsing black abdomen streaked with vivid crimson. Its eyes settled upon Nyam as it lowered from the ceiling.

Even as it descended on its cord of silk, its outline seemed to fold in on itself, reshaping and swelling into a new form like a larva emerging from its chrysalis. The monster’s rear limbs slid around to its back, and its forelimbs twisted and extended to become long human legs.

Its body stretched to assume the curves of a voluptuous woman clad in red and black, in silk and damask. Her skin lightened from midnight to the violet of an ill-fated sunset, and the crimson slash on the monster’s abdomen became a slicked-back mane of blood-red hair.

But it was her eyes, twin pools of ruby light framed by a chitinous crown, that kept Nyam pinned in place.

Her tapered foot touched the ground, and she stepped toward him like a ribbon dancer coming down after a flawless performance in the air.

“That doesn’t belong to you,” she said.

Nyam tried to speak, but his tongue turned to turgid leather, his fingers tightening on the grip of his sword. Her beauty was otherworldly and intoxicating, repellent and achingly desirable all at once.

He craved the embrace of her slender limbs, even as he knew that touching her hideous body would be the death of him. He took a step toward her, trying to quell the rising terror of his wildly beating heart.

She grinned, exposing needle-like teeth wet with venom.

How would it be to have them fasten on my arm, to feel her venom coursing through my veins?

Nyam shook his head, breaking eye contact, the breath he hadn’t known he was holding rushing to fill his lungs as her blandishments and seductions fell away.

“I think it is not yours, either,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“True, but it cost me a great deal to retrieve, so the point is moot.”

“The man paying me is powerful,” warned Nyam.

“And the person that item is promised to is no less so,” said the woman.

Nyam began circling around her, edging toward the black doors. She stepped closer, the spiders parting before her. The hooked limbs at her back flexed as she rolled her shoulders.

“Do you really expect to walk out of here alive?” she asked.

“You think to stop me?” he said, brandishing the sword that had once belonged to a dead god. “I have split skulls of many who stood between me and escape.”

“No doubt. But your tally of death is insignificant when set next to mine. I am the Lady Elise, and you are just the latest fly to wander into my web.”

Nyam bolted, sprinting toward the library doors.

He felt the spiders’ bodies pop beneath his boots, heard the crunch of their hard shells, and smelled the acrid stink of their ichor. He’d hoped to gain advantage with his sudden speed, but now saw how horribly he’d misjudged this woman.

She somersaulted toward the doors, springing from the wall in a graceful arc. A burst of silk spat toward the cloak-wrapped hourglass in Nyam’s hands.

He twisted away, but the sticky web stuck to the edge of his cloak and pulled…

Nyam cried out in fury as the hourglass was wrenched from his grip. It flew back through the air and slammed hard into the wood of the cabinet, the brass frame buckling with the impact. The artifact landed on the spun softness of the webs covering the floor, and rolled onto its side.

“You fool!” said Elise, as a curling wisp of deep blue smoke drifted from a wide crack in the hourglass. “What have you done?”

More smoke was pouring out—thicker, darker, reeking of old blood and fear. It swirled with red lightning, a storm of cold light and hunger.

A terrible outline began to form, broad and bloated, a vast figure in thick plates of rusted and decaying armor. A horned skull took shape, with a fanged maw that creakingly stretched wide with hideous appetite.

“What is that?” Nyam said, terror striking deep into his bones and rooting him to the spot.

“A soulgorger,” said Elise. “A creature of infinite hunger that will feast on your spirit for an eternity. A thing of the Shadow Isles…”

Nyam made the Sign of the Sun across his heart as a host of smaller forms coalesced around the creature—wretched, half-digested spirits with missing arms, dislocated jaws, gouged-open chests, and scooped-out skulls. Tethers of blood-red light bound them to the giant entity that feasted on them even as it enslaved them.

He felt their pain, their horror at being slowly devoured. But more terrible than that, he felt their awful need to save themselves from torment.

“Mortal meat for a feast,” said the soulgorger, its voice like a blunt saw through bone.

“Thief!” Elise cried, hoping to break the spell of terror that lay upon him. “Thief!”

He didn’t respond, paralyzed at the sight of this unnatural specter, a thing so inimical to life that his mortal mind couldn’t accept its existence.

She felt the brutal rawness of the spirit’s hunger, a voracious, single-minded imperative without the refinement of her own appetites.

It disgusted her.

Elise took hold of the thief’s shoulder, and his head snapped up.

“Ready your sword and fight, or we both die,” she said as the soulgorger took a ponderous step forward, a grotesque grin splitting its butcher’s face. “Now!”

Her tone brooked no disagreement, and the thief unsteadily lifted his blade.

The soulgorger raised a meaty arm, and the enslaved abominations flew at them.

The legs at Elise’s back lashed out like reaping scythes, and the thief slashed with his sword. The spirits recoiled, screeching in pain as the weapons cut through them.

Elise didn’t waste the momentary reprieve.

“Run!” she shouted, turning and bolting for the door. The thief followed, hot on her heels, but the slave spirits of the soulgorger were far swifter than she had expected.

Their claws raked living flesh, and the thief cried out as a spirit sliced his shoulder and hip. Cold blue light poured into him, and he stumbled as more of the spirits closed in, tearing at them with icy talons as they fought, side by side, toward the library doors. Elise gritted her teeth against the freezing numbness spreading from each wound, flowing through her like a soporific poison.

“Up!” shouted Elise, dragging him onward. “Move!”

They tumbled through the doors, and she threw him to the floor before turning back to the library. Thousands more spiders were spilling onto the mezzanine from the levels below, scuttling down the walls, and pushing out between warped floorboards.

Elise slammed the library doors closed and said, “Seal the way, little ones.”

The spiderlings flowed up the wall, furiously spinning webs as they went. Sticky swathes of silk clogged the hair-fine gap between the doors, filled the keyholes, and sealed them shut. Pulsing blue light built around the edges of the frame.

The webs were holding for now, but already they were fraying, the resin-like substance running like melting wax. Faint wisps of ethereal mist seeped through the gaps, along with ghostly hands and suggestions of wailing faces. Elise’s own webbing would make for a much stronger barrier, but spinning it would take time and energy she didn’t have.

She bent down, and a handful of spiders crawled onto her extended palms. As she held them up before her face, she pictured what she needed, and they leapt from her hands, disappearing into cracks in the walls.

“Gratitude,” said the thief, breathless with terror. “You saved me—”

“I didn’t do it for you,” snapped Elise, rising to her full height.

“Then why?”

“Because if a soulgorger feeds, it gets stronger,” she said, striding toward the dining room. “Now get up. The web won’t hold for long.”

Elise threw open the dining room door, moving swiftly past the long table where her husband had betrayed her. She hadn’t set foot in here since that night.

The thief was limping badly now, a pallid, deathly light spreading through his body from where the revenants’ claws had pierced him. He didn’t know it, but he was as good as dead.

Truth be told, he had been doomed the moment he had chosen to rob her.

“I miss the sun,” he said, his eyes already glassing over. “The sand…”

“You’ll never see them again,” said Elise. “Unless that’s what awaits you beyond.”

“Beyond?”

“When you die,” said Elise.

“No, I am just exhausted. Wounded…” he insisted, his voice growing faint. “And cold… I have been hurt worse than this and walked away.”

Elise shook her head, and one of the legs at her shoulders stabbed down into his neck.

A spasm of venom pumped into the thief, and he flinched from the sudden hot rush of it, stumbling back and lifting his sword. The blade wavered in his weakening grip, and Elise felt the heat of the magic wrought in the folds of its ancient metal.

“What did you do?” he demanded.

“I gave you a sliver of venom that will allow you to live just a little longer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The touch of the Shadow Isles is death,” said Elise. “Every second your kind spends in that damned place drains the soul, like blood flowing from a cut that can never heal. That touch is now inside you, leeching your life away with every last breath.”

He steadied himself on the table, and Elise saw snaking lines of black spreading across his face.

“No,” he said. “You were touched by the spirits, too.”

“My body is a thing of magic,” she said, “wrought by the venom of an ancient god.”

“You are immortal?”

Despite everything, Elise laughed with bitter humor.

“No, but it’ll take more than a soulgorger to end me,” she said, before whispering, “I hope…”

Nyam followed Elise into the chamber where he had first entered the shuttered manse. His every step was leaden, every breath a battle. It was all he could do to place one foot in front of the other.

So very cold…

He bumped into a sheet-covered chair, and his misted gaze cleared long enough for him to see the dangling rope he had used to descend from the roof.

Do I have strength enough to climb it?

Elise stood beneath the hole in the ceiling, haloed in a moonbeam and beautiful once more. Her skin shimmered with an internal radiance, lustrous and vibrant, her eyes alight with purpose.

“So… beautiful,” he said, his voice sounding as though it came from so very far away. She turned to face him, and his heart beat a little faster.

“What do they call you?” she asked.

“Nyam,” he said, his mind falling back through his life. “No-Face Nyam…”

Her head cocked to the side. “No-Face? Why do they call you that?”

He pulled his lip back to show her the ruin of his cloven gums and poorly sewn scar. She nodded, and reached out to run her smooth fingertips across his cheek and chin.

“We all have our scars, Nyam,” she said, and he felt a strange, invigorating warmth pass into him. “Now ready that fine sword of yours. You’re going to need it.”

He turned in time to see the doors flung open by the soulgorger’s spectral host. They charged in a howling mass of nightmares, screeching with frantic urgency.

Nyam’s heart flared to life like a hearth fire given fresh fuel, and he roared as he swung his sword. The blade bit deep into the smoky depths of their bodies, and their screams were of pain and sweet release. His own pain was forgotten, the ice in his veins melting before the heat of Elise’s venomous touch. He was, once again, a warrior of the sun, ready to fight and die a hero’s death.

Even as he fought, he watched as Elise leapt and dived among the spirits, her speed and agility incredible. His vision grew dull, bleached of color, but her form seemed to blur between blinks, transforming between sinuous human beauty and the lethal elegance of a deadly spider.

Nyam fought all the harder, hoping she might see how brave he was, and that it might please her.

But the fire in his blood could only last so long, and every clawing blow and deathly touch slowed him. Nyam tried to shout his defiance, but his throat felt as though it were thick with frost. His sword was heavy in his hand, but he would not drop it.

He sank to his knees, feeling colder than he could ever remember.

The mistwraiths encircled him, but they weren’t trying to kill him. He felt icy hands hauling him away. He saw them surround Elise, their ghostly limbs dragging her down with sheer weight of numbers. She hissed and spat at them, but to no avail.

Nyam dug deep, reaching for the fire she had given him, but it was utterly spent.

“Elise…” he whispered.

Hot venom furiously coursed through Elise’s body as the wretched host dragged her and the thief before the soulgorger. Its fire kept the deathly touch of the spirits at bay, but she couldn’t sustain it for long.

Back now in the library, No-Face Nyam knelt before the spirits, alive, but only just, his soul all but drained. Despite that, he gripped his black sword as if he might somehow strike one last blow.

The vast specter towered over Elise, its bestial features twisted in monstrous hunger. It knew she was special, that she was more than just a simple mortal, and it was taking its time, savoring the moment before it drained her of life.

More fool you…

“Bright soul meat,” said the soulgorger. “Rich feast!”

“Too bad you’ll never know,” said Elise.

The soulgorger laughed, a growling, wet sound. “You will be a husk in my wake.”

Elise wagged an admonishing finger. “Have you heard the saying that the man with his head in the clouds never sees the scorpion at his feet? No? Well, I always felt it would be better if you swapped out a scorpion for a spider…”

It stared at her in confusion, then reached down to lift her to its terrible maw.

The clawed hand paused before it could touch her.

The soulgorger turned to see the broken hourglass had been lifted from the floor on a taut length of silk, drawn upward by scores of spiderlings. Sick light still wept from the many cracks in the glass, but with every passing second, it dimmed as hundreds of tiny spiders spun their webs across them like weavers at a loom.

“Thank you, little ones,” said Elise, feeling the soulgorger’s power weaken, its sudden fear driving away all thoughts of feasting.

“Now, Nyam!” she cried. “Strike!”

The thief lifted his head, and with the last of his strength drove his sword into the soulgorger’s belly.

The creature loosed a deafening howl, the sound shaking the walls with its fury. The few panes left in the windows exploded, raining glittering daggers of glass to the floor.

“I won’t go back!” it roared.

“Hush, it’ll be over soon,” said Elise.

The soulgorger reached for her with ghostly talons, but the door of its prison was already slamming shut. Its form stretched, twisting in the air as it was pulled back inside the hourglass, along with its enslaved host. Streamers of cold light spiraled around the specter as the other spirits shrieked in terror, knowing they would bear the full brunt of its imprisoned rage. Books and scrolls spun in a whirlwind as the soulgorger fought the inevitable, but it was no use.

As the last crack in the hourglass was sealed with silken webs, the final bar of its prison was set back in place.

The creature’s roar was abruptly stilled, and an empty silence filled the library. Elise let out a shuddering breath.

Nyam’s sword fell from his hand as he sank to his haunches. His chest heaved in shallow gasps, his eyes wide at their unexpected survival.

Elise stepped over the fallen books to where the hourglass still spun on the web, feeling the terrible hunger within—the horror of the trapped spirits, and the ferocious power pressing at the glass. The pressure on the webs was immense, and her spiderlings’ work wouldn’t hold for much longer.

“I’m going to need a stronger vessel than this,” said Elise.

The caverns beneath the towers were cold, pleasingly hung with cobwebs, their walls glistening with moisture. Elise didn’t like going this far beneath the earth, but darkness was the hallmark of the pale woman she was here to meet, and so had to be endured.

As always, their rendezvous was in secret, their communications made by mystic signs and sigils that led Elise through the labyrinthine pathways.

Given the nature of her business, she wasn’t surprised by the woman’s caution.

The Grand General of Noxus was a vengeful and capricious man, whose schemes within schemes were all but impenetrable. Much better to err on the side of secrecy, and believe he had eyes and ears everywhere.

“You have it?” said a voice from the shadows.

Not one of Elise’s many predatory senses had caught so much as a whisper of the woman’s arrival, but she tried not to show any surprise.

“I do,” she said, holding out a silken bag before her.

Pale hands reached from the darkness to take it, the skin almost transparent, with hair-fine blue veins squirming like worms just below the surface.

“The usual payment will be delivered to your manse,” said the woman, her tones old and refined, an accent from a different age. “They will be young and dashing—foolish and devoted, just as you like them.”

Elise felt the now familiar mix of hungry anticipation and self-loathing, but pushed it aside; introspection was not something she relished.

“Excellent,” she said. “I could use a blush of youth again.”

“You are as lovely now as you ever were,” said the woman, reaching into the silken bag and removing the soulgorger’s glowing prison.

A freshly bleached skull, sealed tight with hardened webs of Elise’s own creation.

Perfect in every way, save for the cleft in the bone of its upper jaw.

A master of ancient, forbidden sorcery, Vladimir is among the oldest enigmas of Noxus. He was present at the dawn of the empire, and has since woven his influence deep into its foundations… but he remembers little of those days. His mind is mortal, and so most of his unnaturally extended life endures not in his memory, but in his chronicles.

History has lost track of Vladimir on many occasions, though its pages are littered with figures suspected to have been him. Legend once told of a prince in a kingdom threatened by the infamous darkin, as their great war spilled into Valoran. With his father’s crown at stake, and many more heirs ahead of him in the line of succession, the unfortunate youth was traded to the fallen god-warriors as a hostage.

Mortals were little more than cattle under the tyranny of the darkin, their supremacy apparent in the sorceries they had conceived—the arts of crafting flesh and transmuting blood, granting them mastery over life itself.

Believing himself above other mortal vassals, and therefore worthy of such power, Vladimir was the first of his kind permitted to study this terrifying magic. His devotion earned him a place of favor in his patron’s warhost, and the right to practice hemomancy and enforce the darkin’s will on lesser beings. Over time, the god-warrior watched with amusement as Vladimir came to govern his subjects with as little mercy as the darkin themselves.

The fall of these cruel tyrants is, likewise, the stuff of legend. An account of it, written in the dead High Shuriman language, is kept hidden within the Immortal Bastion. It speculates that Vladimir’s master was not imprisoned like so many of his kin, but instead died at the hands of his own warhost. The few surviving mortals fled, taking what knowledge they had of blood magic with them.

Unknown to all but Vladimir himself, it was he who struck the killing blow. Scarred, blinded, driven mad by the radiance of a darkin’s undoing, he absorbed enough power to renew flesh that was never meant to last beyond a mortal lifespan.

And he has done this countless times since, through rituals too vile to speak of.

At the height of Mordekaiser’s dark reign, it was said that a mythic and bloodthirsty fiend haunted the coastal cliffs of eastern Valoran, demanding young lives and savage worship from the local tribes. Few were welcome in his lair, until the day a pale sorceress approached this barbarian god with an offer. The two feasted together as equals, weaving magic so dark that the wine at their table soured, and the roses withered, vibrant red turning to black.

Thus began the pact between Vladimir and LeBlanc, rife with disputes, and games of politics and war. Over the centuries, others joined them—powerful nobles, exalted masters of magic, and beings darker still. This cabal grew into the hidden power that would guide the throne of Noxus for more than a thousand years, orchestrating many of the empire’s most ambitious campaigns.

Uniquely among the leaders of the Black Rose, Vladimir has rarely limited himself to scheming from the shadows. In the past, he deigned to join the Noxian noble courts during the most interesting of times, only to fade into seclusion decades later, his extreme age—and the atrocities his sorcery could wreak—a well-kept secret. Even so, under Vladimir’s tutelage, the art of hemomancy has found a place in the military of Noxus, and among scions of the old aristocracy. Among these diverse practitioners is the Crimson Circle, a youthful cult dedicated as much to Vladimir’s personality as to blood magic itself.

With the death of the previous Grand General and the rise of Jericho Swain, the political landscape of the empire changed dramatically, and Vladimir has been forced to rouse himself once more.

Wearing the guise of a benevolent socialite, he has returned to the public eye as a vocal opponent of the ruling Trifarix council… much to the concern of more cautious members of the Black Rose. Indeed, his reappearance may have come too soon, as time has not yet washed away all the stains of his previous lifetime, and it seems likely that Swain himself has begun to grasp Vladimir’s true nature.

As a new and darker conflict approaches Noxus, Vladimir drinks deeply from the renewed vitality of the empire, reminding himself of his past glories. To him, this life is a mere revelry, a masquerade spanning centuries, and the prologue to greatness—for though the darkin eventually fought amongst themselves and lost their immortal grip on the world, Vladimir knows he is strongest alone.

Posters across Noxus warn of a dangerous criminal, armed with a massive, blunted spear and borne atop a magical fiend, whose mere existence poses a threat to the safety and security of the entire nation. Even some within the steeled ranks of the Trifarian Legion have begun to worry that they will be sent after her to their almost certain deaths.

What kind of monster could be behind such heinous, unchecked destruction?

The simple answer is a sixteen-year-old girl.

The complicated one is unforgivable.

Rell was special from the moment of her birth—and fated to suffer for it. Born the daughter of a Noxian footsoldier and the heir to a fallen noble house, she enjoyed neither the trappings of wealth nor the gilded upbringing common to children of the lower aristocracy. Nevertheless, her parents had grand plans to mold her into someone who could shatter through Noxus’ dense political landscape. As Rell’s mother always said, “Excellence is measured in sacrifice.”

Rell’s unhappiness grew with time, sparking something unique within her—a magic unlike anything seen in centuries: the ability to manipulate metal. To Rell’s parents, this was something to be exploited—for Rell’s own sake, of course!—and they tried unsuccessfully to apprentice her with many powerful mages who might whisk their daughter into the political or military elite.

But someone else took notice of the young girl’s magic. Seeing in Rell a weapon who could one day face Noxus’ most hated, ancient foe, a certain pale woman visited the family with a dark bargain. Rell soon found herself the star pupil of a very special academy, hidden far from the capital and away from the council’s prying eyes. And though they rarely made appearances in her new boarding school, her mother and father never seemed more proud or more hopeful of their daughter’s future.

It seemed, at least for a moment, that perhaps Rell would be loved after all.

Then the true horrors began.

Rell was first forced into combat with another student when she was eight, and, afterward, a kind of magic sigil was painfully grafted into her arm, amplifying her powers so that she could become even stronger. Yet while this had been framed as a training exercise, Rell never saw the boy again. She never saw any of her opponents again.

Every day, she grew more powerful, honing her magic for martial combat. Her body became covered with sigils that amplified her magical abilities to impossible heights. In time, she could rip a vein of raw ore from deep out of the ground, twist the walls into deadly weapons, and superheat an opponent’s armor until it collapsed and crushed them. But her instructors desired even more from her—all in the hopes that Rell would be the most powerful soldier the empire had ever known.

On her sixteenth birthday, after a particularly barbaric duel, she’d finally had enough. Casting her instructors aside, Rell tore past the guards and ripped open the doors of a forbidden wing of the academy, discovering the true nature of her school: Every opponent she’d defeated had been Nullified—their magic forcibly extracted from them and placed into the very sigils covering Rell’s body—and left as emotionless puppets devoid of memories. This was the price of her power, and she could never give it back.

Worst of all was the headmistress who oversaw the procedures herself: Rell’s own mother. All of this had been for Rell, she said. After all... excellence is measured in sacrifice.

Rell raged.

To the small handful of faculty who survived her escape from the academy, it was like the earth had been torn open into a twisting whirlwind of razor-sharp slag. The building ripped itself apart, forming an impenetrable suit of black armor around Rell as she crushed those who stood before her, flattening seasoned soldiers with a lance heavier than a mountain. Bursting through the front gate on a steed made of rippling iron, she led as many of her classmates as she could to freedom—leaving the Rose scrambling to recover the Null and erase any trace of what their organization had done.

But it was far too late. Soon enough, the surviving faculty members began to die in increasingly public ways, and the Null could no longer be kept secret.

Rell is now a threat to Noxus, but not in the way the handbills proclaim. She is a self-styled defender of the meek, full of unchecked fury, distrustful of everyone, and merciless toward a government that turned a blind eye to years of suffering and abuse. Not because the empire was personally responsible—but because they stood by and did nothing.

Riding atop her iron steed, Rell’s eyes are set on nothing less than the complete destruction of Noxus and saving any children who, like her, survived the Black Rose academy.

And there is nothing in this world that can stop her.

Born into an empire long since gone to dust and forgotten, Hecarim was a lieutenant of the Iron Order—a brotherhood sworn to defend their king’s lands.

As Hecarim won victory after victory from the back of his mighty warhorse, the commander of the Iron Order saw in him a potential successor… but also a growing darkness. His obsessive hunger for glory was eroding his honor, and over time the knight-commander came to realize this young lieutenant must never lead them.

When he was told this, Hecarim was furious. Even so, he bit back his anger, and continued in his duties.

When they next rode to war, the commander found himself surrounded by enemies, and cut off from his fellow knights. Hecarim, seeing his chance, turned away and left him to die. At battle’s end, the Iron Order, oblivious to what Hecarim had done, knelt on the bloody ground and swore allegiance to him.

Hecarim rode to the capital to take his formal oaths, and met with Kalista, the king’s most trusted general. She recognized his prowess and leadership, and when the queen was wounded by an assassin’s poisoned blade, Kalista was comforted to know the Iron Order would remain with the king while she sought a cure.

Gripped by paranoia, and seeing new threats in every shadow, the king raged at those he believed were trying to separate him from his dying wife, and dispatched Hecarim to quell dissent throughout the kingdom. The Iron Order earned a dreadful reputation as ruthless enforcers of the king’s will. Towns and villages burned. Hundreds were put to the sword.

With grim inevitability, when the queen died, Hecarim chose to sour the king’s grief into hatred, seeking sanction to lead the Iron Order into foreign lands. He would avenge her death, while earning yet more dark renown for himself.

But before they could ride out, Kalista returned. She had found what she sought upon the distant Blessed Isles—and yet it was now too late. The king would not believe this, and had Kalista imprisoned as a traitor. Intrigued by what he had heard, Hecarim visited her cell, and they spoke of the pale mists that protected the islands from all invaders… and also of the inhabitants’ immense wealth, including the legendary Waters of Life.

Knowing only Kalista could lead them there, Hecarim eventually persuaded her to guide the king’s fleet through the veil that concealed the Blessed Isles from mortal sight.

They landed at the city of Helia with the queen’s body in solemn procession. The Iron Order led the way, only to be met by the city’s masters, who now refused to help. Enraged, the king ordered Kalista to kill them, but she refused, and Hecarim smiled as he made the decision that would damn him for eternity. He drove a spear through Kalista’s back, and ordered his knights to ransack the city, looting its vaults of arcane treasures.

Amid the chaos, a lowly custodian agreed to grant the king access to the Waters of Life—but not even this could distract Hecarim from the revelry of bloodshed, and so it was that the Ruination of the Blessed Isles would take him almost completely by surprise.

A blastwave of magical force tore across Helia, shattering every last building and leaving the fragments suspended in searing un-light. In its wake came the Black Mist, a billowing hurricane that dragged every living creature it touched into its shrieking, roiling embrace. Hecarim tried to rally the Iron Order, hoping to make it back to their ships, but the mist claimed them one by one as they fled.

Alone, and defiant to the end, the knight-commander was taken by the shadows. He and his mighty steed were fused into a monstrous, spectral abomination that reflected the darkness in Hecarim’s heart—a brazen creature of fury and spite, at one with the Black Mist and yet utterly enslaved by it.

Bound forevermore to these Shadow Isles, Hecarim has spent centuries in a sinister mockery of his former life, cursed to patrol the nightmarish lands he once intended to conquer. Whenever the Black Mist reaches out beyond their shores, he and the otherworldly host of the Iron Order ride out to slaughter the living, in memory of glories long passed.