LoL Universe Indexing and Search

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lux held his hand in both of hers.

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

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

“Why can’t I see?”

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

“What... what’s wrong with them?”

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

The man drew in a sharp breath.

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

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

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

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

“It’s so beautiful...” he whispered.

As the youngest daughter of the noble Laurent family, Fiora seemed destined for a life as a political pawn, to be married off in Demacia’s grand game of alliances. This did not sit well, and from an early age she deliberately defied every expectation placed upon her. Her mother had the finest craftsmen of Demacia fashion the most lifelike dolls for her to play with—but Fiora gave them to her maids, and took up her eldest brother's rapier, forcing him to give her lessons in secret. Her father obtained a set of dressmaking mannequins for her personal seamstress to craft wondrous gowns—but Fiora merely used them to practice her lunges and ripostes.

Despite her years of quiet resistance, a politically advantageous marriage was eventually arranged with an outlying branch of the Crownguard family, after her eighteenth birthday. Plans were set for a summer wedding. It would take place in the capital, and King Jarvan III himself was to attend.

On that day, as the invited guests began to arrive, Fiora stood up and declared that she would sooner die than allow someone else to decide the course of her life. Her betrothed was publicly shamed by this outburst, and his family demanded satisfaction in the old manner—a duel to the death.

Fiora immediately agreed, but her father Sebastien implored the king to intervene. Jarvan had done much to end such feuding among the nobility, but in this case his hands were tied. Fiora had already accepted.

There was only one option left. Sebastien invoked his right to fight in her place.

High Marshal Tianna Crownguard likewise named a champion to fight for her kinsman, selecting a veteran warrior from the Dauntless Vanguard. Sebastien’s defeat seemed almost certain. The Laurent name would be ruined, and Fiora exiled in disgrace. Presented with so stark a choice, he made a decision that could damn his family for years to come…

The night before the duel, he attempted to slip his opponent a draught that would dull his senses and slow his reactions—but he was caught in the act, and arrested.

The law was clear. Sebastien Laurent had broken the most fundamental code of honor. He would be humiliated upon the executioner’s scaffold, hanged like a common criminal. On the eve of his death, Fiora visited his cell, but what passed between them remains a secret known only to her.

The next day, Fiora approached the king’s dais in full view of the crowd. She knelt before him, and offered up her blade—with his blessing, she would claim the Laurent name from her father, and justice would be served. The duel was blindingly swift, a dance of blades so exquisite that those present would never forget what they witnessed. Fiora’s father was a fine swordsman in his own right, but he was no match for his daughter. They said farewell in every clash of steel, but in the end Fiora tearfully buried her rapier in her father’s heart.

Solemnly, King Jarvan ruled that Sebastien had paid for his crimes in full. Fiora would be his successor. The quarrel between the families was resolved, and that would be an end to it.

Even so, such scandals are not easily forgotten. Fiora took to her new duties at court with her customary clarity and directness, but found that rumors and gossip continued to follow her at every turn. She had usurped her brothers’ claims to the family name. What could this arrogant child bring to the Great City of Demacia but more strife and bloodshed, if she would not take a husband?

Rather than demand more justice at the edge of her sword, Fiora instead turned to her wider family—cousins and more distant relatives, with many renowned swordmasters among them—and silenced her critics by granting noble status to all in her household. Together, they were dedicated to the refinement of bladecraft within the kingdom. Dueling was an ancient art, but need not always end in death.

And if any care to disagree with that notion, Fiora will be only too happy to test the strength of their conviction in combat herself.

“A shadow fades before the light,” the girl repeated to herself.

The words were a mantra, one she often used to put herself at ease when she felt herself losing control. Though she was only thirteen, she had become adept at using tricks like this to ease the symptoms of her affliction. But today she found the words to be little help. Today, the girl needed to be alone.

She fought to hold in the tears, avoiding eye contact with passersby as she walked briskly toward the scrutinizing glare of the sentries at the city gates. If they stopped her, she felt she might break down and spill everything to them. At least then it would all be over, she thought.

But they paid her little mind as she walked through the archway, to the open lands outside the city.

Far off the main highway, the girl found a quiet nook in a wooded hillside. Once she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, she removed a clean handkerchief from her pocket, placed it to her face, and sobbed.

The tears came fast and thick down her cheeks. If anyone had seen the girl like this, they probably would not recognize her. Everybody knew her as the fresh-faced optimist who cheerily bid them Good morning! and Nice to see you! everyday, regardless of circumstance.

The other side of her – this ugly and decidedly un-Demacian one – was a face the girl shared with nobody.

As she stanched the flow of tears with her thin linen cloth, her mind began to settle. She finally dared to recall the events that had led to the tears. She had been in the lecture room with her classmates when her gaze began to wander to an open window. The flock of fuchsia nectarflies outside were far more interesting than the drab lesson in field tactics their instructor was offering. The flies danced, not in unison at all, but in a vivacious chaos that was strangely beautiful. She had taken in their movement, feeling herself warming to the core with an intense happiness.

The warmth was familiar to her. Most of the time it could be tamed, stuffed back inside her like feathers that had leaked from a mattress. But today the warmth was... hot, with a life of its own. She felt it burning, in her teeth, threatening to explode into the world with a fan of iridescent hues as it had only done in privacy before.

For a brief moment, a thin trickle of white light leaked from her fingertips.

No! This is not for anyone to see! she thought, hoping to suppress the glow.

For the first time in her life, it felt too big. The girl had only one chance to save herself. She needed to leave. She stood and gathered her belongings.

“Luxanna,” her instructor had said. “Are you-”

“A shadow fades before the light,” she had muttered, and ran from the room without explanation. “A shadow fades before the light. A shadow fades before the light.”

As she finished drying her eyes in the calm of the woods, her feet carried her farther and farther from the city. She began to assess the cost of the incident. Word would spread quickly across the citadel that a student had stormed out of class without leave. What punishment would she receive for that insubordination?

Whatever was to come, it would be better than the alternative. If she’d stayed, she would have erupted, filling the entire building in the brightest, purest light. Then everyone would know she was afflicted with magic.

That’s when the annullers would come.

Once or twice, the girl had seen the annullers in the streets with their strange instruments, rooting out practitioners of magic. Once these afflicted people were found, they were forcibly relocated to slums outside the kingdom, never to take part in the grand society Lux’s family knew so well.

That was the worst part, knowing her family would be shamed. And her brother... Oh, her brother. She shuddered to think what Garen would say. The girl often dreamed of living in a different part of the world, where people with arcane gifts were revered as heroes, and celebrated by their families. But the girl lived in Demacia, where people knew the destructive potential of magic, and treated it as such.

As she found her situation becoming increasingly hopeless, Lux realized she was standing within view of the Galio monument. The gargantuan statue had been made long ago as a battle standard for the military, accompanying them in their missions abroad. Sculpted from petricite, Galio possessed magic-absorbing properties that had saved many lives from archmage attacks. If one believed the legends, he had even come to life at times, when enough mystical power had seeped into his mortar. At the moment, he stood still as a mountain, straddling the Memorial Road, far from the traffic of the main highway.

Lux cautiously approached the statue. Ever since she was a little girl, she had imagined the old titan keeping vigilant watch over all those who passed beneath him. It seemed to peer into her soul, judging her.

“You have no place here,” it would say accusingly.

Though it only spoke in her imagination, the girl knew it spoke true. She was different. That was undeniable. Her constant smiles and exuberance stood out glaringly among Demacia’s trademark austerity.

Then there was the glow. Ever since she could remember, Lux felt it burning in her heart, longing to burst free. When she was small, the glow was weak, and she could easily conceal it. Now the power had become far too great to stay hidden.

Burdened with guilt, Lux lifted her eyes to the Colossus.

“Well, go on and say it!” she yelled.

It was uncharacteristic of Lux, but the day had not been kind, and it soothed her soul to vent. She expelled sharp breaths of air in relief, then immediately felt embarrassment at the outburst. Did I really just yell at a statue? she marveled, and looked around to make sure nobody had seen. At certain times of the year, this road was flooded with travelers making their pilgrimages to the colossus, paying tribute to the symbol of Demacian resolve. But presently, the Memorial Road was empty.

As Lux was searching for bystanders, she heard a gravelly racket in the air above her. She whipped her head up – it had come from the top of the colossus. It was common for birds to take flight from their nests in the statue’s crown, but this was no bird. It sounded like a heavy clay pot being dragged across cobblestones.

Lux stared for a long while, but nothing stirred about the statue. Perhaps this was her mind again, working through the trauma of the day’s events. Even so, her eyes remained fixed on the colossus, daring whatever had moved to do so again.

And then it did: the eyes of the statue actually shifted. The large stone orbs physically swiveled in their sockets to find Lux in the grass below.

The girl’s face blanched for a moment. She could feel the enormous stone figure studying her. This time, it was definitely not in her imagination. Lux found her legs and ran, away from the statue, as fast and as far as she could.

Later that night, Lux entered the alabaster arch of her family’s city manor. She had walked many miles, all day long, all over the city, in the hope her parents would be asleep when she returned home. But one person was not.

Her mother Augatha sat in on a sofa in the corner of the grand foyer, glowering at the door with burning expectation.

“Do you know what hour it is?” she demanded.

Lux did not respond. She knew it was past midnight, well beyond the hour when her family were typically asleep.

“The school has chosen not to expel you,” said Augatha. “It was not an easy mess to fix.”

Lux wanted to break down crying, but she had done nothing but weep all day, and she simply had no more tears. “They almost saw it,” she said.

“I figured. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“What should I do?” said Lux, exhausted from worry.

“What we must,” her mother replied. “You’ve lost control of it. Eventually, someone will get hurt.”

Lux had heard of men dying in battle at the hands of sorcerers, bodies melted beyond recognition and souls torn in two. She felt wretched, knowing she harbored any power that might be used for such destruction. She wanted to hate herself, but found herself numbed by the constant torrent of emotions she’d experienced that day.

“I’ve enlisted the help of a professional,” said Augutha.

Lux’s stomach turned. There was only one profession that dealt with her affliction. “An annuller?” she said, light of breath.

“He’s a friend. Someone I should have called on a long time ago,” said Augatha. “You can trust him to be discreet.”

Lux nodded. She knew the shame that was imminent. Even if the man told no one, as her mother assured her, he would still know.

And the cures — she didn’t want to think about those.

“He’s coming for your consultation in the morning,” said Augutha, as she walked up the stairs toward her bedroom. “This will be our secret.”

The words were no comfort. Lux was not even a woman yet, and already her life was over. She wanted nothing more than to retire upstairs to a deep slumber that would bury all her troubles in darkness, but she knew her particular troubles would not disappear with the night. The light would still grow inside her, threatening to erupt again at any moment. The annuller would arrive in the morning to perform some dreadful treatment. Lux had heard rumors, horrible rumors, of petricite ground and swallowed in potions, followed by bouts of excruciating pain. True, the girl wanted to be rid of the affliction, but no part of her wanted to experience that.

Isn’t there another way? she wondered.

Of course!

The idea leapt into her head like lightning. All at once she was filled with dread and hope, unsure if the plan she’d just thought up would work, but knowing it was something she had to try.

Under the deepening night, Lux frantically retraced her steps, back through the alabaster archway, down the boulevard, sneaking her way past the guards at the gates. To the south, she found the Memorial Road, and followed it for miles before coming to Galio’s resting spot. Her heart galloped in her chest.

“Hello?” the girl asked shakily, unsure if she wanted an answer.

Lux approached the plinth where the colossus stood, all alone in the stillness of night. She cautiously placed her hand on the cold petricite foundation. Wonder what it tastes like. I bet it’s really bitter, she reckoned. She supposed she would find out soon enough, unless her plan worked.

“Well, they say you fix magic,” she said. “So fix me. I want to be Demacian.”

She gazed up at the colossus. It was as inert and unwavering as the Demacian way of life. Not even the bats were fluttering about it tonight. What she had heard before — what she thought she saw — was something she had imagined after all, then. She removed her hand from the plinth, pondering where else she could turn.

“Small girl person,” said a booming voice above.

Lux’s head shot upward to see the statue tilting its enormous head down. Her mind raced. He knows. And he’s not going to fix you. He’s going to squash you like a bug.

“Can you... scratch my foot?” asked the colossus.

Galio watched in wonder as the girl ran away from him, her tiny head shrieking words he could not understand. Though he’d observed her for years, he never knew she could move so quickly, and loudly.

Ever since the girl was very small, Galio had seen her as she stopped by on yearly trips with her family. He would study her with fascination, straining to keep sight of her as she skipped in and out of his field of vision. Then, in the middle of play, she would suddenly remember him standing above her, and she would shy away behind her mother’s skirt. When the colossus was dormant, everything seemed to move with a hazy distortion. The world was dull, people were but flickers before his eyes.

But even then, Galio could feel something profoundly special in the girl. It was a glow, but not just a visual luminescence. Time slowed with her, and the haze lifted as something strange stirred within his stone form.

It started small. When the girl was a toddler, Galio could feel her strange warmth tickling his toes. On her second visit, Galio could feel the glow tugging at his entire leg. By the time she was ten, the girl’s warmth was so strong Galio could feel her approaching from a mile away, and would grow giddy with anticipation of her visit.

Now, here she was again, even though it was not her normal visiting day. Her power burned so intensely it had spread like wildfire across his cold innards. She had brought him life!

Now that Galio was awake, he saw her brilliance with stunning clarity. She shone like all the stars in the heavens.

And she was leaving again.

With every step the girl took, Galio felt his life evaporating, returning him to his cold, motionless state. If he went still, he would never know the girl. He had to follow.

His towering legs rumbled from the plinth, easily catching up to the girl with their enormous gait. Her eyes shot wide as she whirled toward the lumbering colossus. A concentrated beam of light fired from the girl’s fingers into Galio’s leg. The strange feeling within him intensified until he thought he might explode, scattering bits of himself all over Demacia.

But Galio did not break. Instead, he grew even warmer, and more alive. He bent down and gently scooped up the girl in his hands. She covered her face, as if to shield herself from some imminent harm.

The colossus began to laugh, like a child playing in a fountain.

“Small golden-head person,” he bellowed. “You are funny. Please, do not leave.”

The girl slowly overcame her trauma, and responded, “I... I can’t. You’re holding me.”

Realizing his offense, Galio carefully placed the girl back on the ground.

“I am sorry. I don’t often meet small girl people. I only wake up to smash things,” he explained. “Do you have things to smash? Large things?”

“No,” said the girl meekly.

“Then let us find something to smash.” He walked a few booming steps, then turned to find the girl was not following. “Are you not coming, girl person?”

“No,” she replied, even more shakily, unsure if the answer would upset the giant. “I’m sort of trying not to be noticed right now.”

“Oh. Forgive me, girl person.”

“Well. I’m going to go now,” said Lux, in what she thought was a final parting word. “It was nice to meet you.”

Galio followed right behind her. “You are walking away from your city,” he observed. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” she responded. “Someplace I belong.”

The colossus tilted his head at her. “You are Demacian. You belong in Demacia.”

For the first time, the girl saw empathy in the giant, and she felt herself opening up.

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re a symbol of this kingdom. I’m just...” She searched for a word that would tell everything without telling too much. “I’m all wrong,” she said, at last.

“Wrong? You can’t be wrong. You give me life,” boomed Galio, lowering his huge boulder of a face to her level.

“That’s the problem,” said the girl. “You’re not supposed to be moving. The only reason you are moving is me.”

Galio reacted in stunned silence for a moment, then erupted with joyful epiphany.

“You’re a mage!” he thundered.

“Shhh! Please be quiet!” begged the girl. “People will hear you.”

“I crush mages!” he proclaimed. He then quickly added: “But not you. I like you. You are the first mage I’ve liked.”

Luxanna’s fear began to fade, giving way to irritation. “Listen. Even though this is all wondrous and miraculous, I’d really prefer you leave me alone. Besides, people are going to notice you’re gone.”

“I do not care,” insisted Galio. “Let them notice!”

“Don’t!” said Lux, recoiling at the thought. “Please, just go back where you belong.”

Galio stopped to reflect, then smiled as though he’d recalled something amusing. “Do that thing to me again. With your wonderful starlight!” he said, far too loudly for Lux’s comfort.

“Shhh! Stop yelling!” she urged. “Are you referring to my affliction?”

“Yes,” said Galio, in a slightly quieter tone.

“I’m sorry. I can’t always do it. And I shouldn’t do it. You have to go,” she insisted.

“I can’t go. If I leave you, I will sleep. And when I wake, you will be gone, small girl thing.”

Lux paused. Though she was mad from exhaustion, she found herself touched by the titan’s words.

“If I can do it again, do you promise to go away?” she asked.

The colossus thought for a moment, then accepted the proposal.

“Okay,” said the girl. “I’ll try.”

She screwed in her hands toward her body and thrust them forward toward Galio. To her disappointment, nothing but a tiny spark of light glinted from her fingers. She tried again, and again, getting less of a result each time.

“I must be tired,” she realized.

“Rest,” suggested Galio. “Then when you are refreshed you can give me your magic.”

“Hmm,” thought Lux, mulling the suggestion. “I can’t get rid of you, and I have no place to go. Suppose I might as well bed down.”

She began feeling around the ground for a comfortable patch of grass. Once she’d found a suitable place, she lay down and wrapped her cloak snugly around herself.

“Well, I’m going to sleep now,” she said with a yawn. “You should too.”

“No. I sleep too much,” replied Galio.

“Can you just... I don’t know, freeze yourself for a while, then?”

“I do not work that way,” said the colossus.

“Then be still and pretend you’re not alive.”

“Yes. I will just stand here and watch you rest, girl person,” said Galio.

“Please don’t,” insisted Lux. “I can’t sleep with you staring at me. Can you... turn around?”

Galio honored the girl’s wish, turning himself away from her, toward the distant lights of the Demacian capital. It was not as interesting as the girl, but it would suffice.

Making do with the modicum of privacy, Lux closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Once she was certain Galio would not turn around, she quietly got up and crept away into the night.

Luxanna walked quickly, knowing her first order of business was getting as far away as possible from the colossus. If she didn’t, her magic would still empower him, and he would surely come looking for her. By morning, every patrol in the kingdom would be searching for the missing Crownguard girl who had vanished in the night. They’d surely notice the walking national monument following her, and they’d know the girl must be the magical source that had awakened it.

Lux’s aching legs quickened to a sprint. She had only a vague idea of her surroundings. It was difficult to find any landmarks at this black hour of night. All she knew for sure was the Cloudwoods were nearby - their thick, towering redbarks forming the skyline to the south. It would be an ideal place to hide from any search parties, and a good foraging ground for breakfast. She could cross the forest in two days time and find shelter in one of the Vaskasian timber villages, where people were unlikely to recognize her. It was not a brilliant plan, by any stretch, but it was the best she had.

Lux could see the beginnings of the forest coming into view, its trees progressing in height like a pyramid, with the largest in the center. As she crossed the threshold of the woods, she paused a moment to grieve what she was abandoning. She would miss her brother Garen, and her beloved steed Starfire, and even her mother, but this was the way it had to be.

A shadow fades before the light, she reassured herself, and then stepped into the blackness of the dense evergreen woods.

After an hour of plowing her way through the barbed, resinous branches of the forest, Lux already found herself doubting her plan. Her stomach was growling, and any confidence she’d had in finding a clear path through the trees had vanished with the brightest moon behind the clouds. All around she could hear the snorts and rustles of nocturnal animals, and that made her nervous.

Just a little light, she thought. Surely just a little won’t hurt, way out here.

She began to conjure a luminescent orb between her hands. For a brief moment, a flicker of light danced on her fingertips, causing an audible ruckus in the creatures around her. But the light snuffed out as quickly as it came, returning all to blackness. Lux looked at the outlines of her hands, inspecting them for flaws. She wondered what could have hampered her from doing what had previously come so easily and unbidden.

It’s the colossus, she realized. It must be.

She suddenly became aware of voices in the woodland murmur. Slow, purposeful footsteps, and whispers. They were-

An arm shot around Lux’s throat and restrained her. She could sense the presence of at least two other men to her sides.

“Where are you headed tonight, miss?” asked one of the men.

Lux stammered, not quite formulating a response. The man restraining her tightened his grip.

“You’re supposed to be in the annulment slums, yeah?” he said.

“No...” Lux gasped, the man’s arm wedged firmly under her chin. “I’m not...”

“We aren’t fools, miss,” said the third man. “Come on, let’s take you back.”

Lux struggled to free her arms as the men tried to bind them with coarse rope. She concentrated, but still could not summon the magic that had apparently once been hers. She freed one hand, struck one of the men squarely in the jaw, and heard the twigs on the ground crunch as he fell. The two other men angrily descended on her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said one of them with a scowl. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

The men began to tighten her bindings. They were making a point to pull the knots as tightly and painfully as possible, when the ground began to vibrate with dull thunderous beat. The men paused in dread, searching for the source of the noise, as it slowly increased in frequency and volume.

It rumbled like an earthquake, only broken up into steady rhythmic booms... like gigantic footsteps.

And they were getting nearer.

“What is it?” asked one man, too frightened to move.

The ground shook more, and its quaking was joined by the crackling of great trees being broken apart. Whatever it was, it was now in the forest and almost upon them.

“It’s... It’s...”

All looked up to see the monstrous Galio, striding toward them, a path of felled redbarks in his wake. The men ran, getting only a few steps through the trees before a giant petricite hand snatched them up high into the air. Galio glared with one enormous eye at the trembling wads of flesh held tight in his grip.

“Is it time for fighting?” said the colossus with a grin. “I will engage you!”

He opened his clenched fist, and raised the other hand as if to smash the men between his palms.

“No!” said a tiny voice. “Please stop!”

The colossus found Lux on the ground below, beating on his ankles with her bound arms.

“It isn’t right!” she shouted.

Confused, Galio lowered the men to the ground and released them. Lux heard the quick patter of the men’s feet, sprinting away from her with the urgency of hunted elk. As she wriggled out of her bindings, she gazed up at the colossus.

“I turned around and you were gone, girl person,” he said. “Why are you in the trees?”

“I- I don’t know,” Luxanna managed.

Galio reclined on a hillside, gazing at the stars with the tiny yellow-headed girl he had befriended. Neither spoke, save for an occasional sigh - not the stressful gasps that Lux had previously known. These were the sounds of two beings that had found utter contentment in each other’s company.

“I do not usually awaken for this long,” said the colossus.

“Me neither,” said the girl, with an enormous yawn.

“How do people spend time together without battle? Should we have a conversation?”

“No. This is nice,” said the girl. “I feel... calm.”

A frown crossed Galio’s face. There was something different about the girl. Something missing. She no longer shone like the stars.

“Why are you sad? You’ve cured me,” said the girl. “As long as you’re near me, I can return home and be normal.”

Galio did not brighten or look up. The girl continued her thought.

“I mean, maybe I can just come visit you every day to keep my affliction away—”

“No,” said the titan, finally locking eyes with her.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Young girl person, you are special. Since before you can remember, I have felt your gift. For so long, I wanted it near me. But now I see... I smash your gift.”

“But it gives you life.”

Galio pondered her words, but only for a moment. His mind was made up.

“Life to me is very valuable,” he said. “But your gift is everything. Never lose it.”

He got to his feet and gingerly placed the girl on his shoulder. Together, they began to trudge back toward the city to face what awaited.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when Lux returned to her family manor. Outside the city walls, Galio was returning to stillness on his plinth beside the Memorial Road, leaving Lux to face her problems alone.

A shadow fades before the light, she thought, and she opened the latch to her front door.

She entered the house to find her mother sitting in the parlor with a balding middle-aged man, who held a case of exotic medical tinctures in his lap.

“Luxanna, so glad you decided to return home,” said Augatha, through clenched teeth.

Lux looked warily at the man on the couch.

“This is the man I was telling you about,” her mother whispered. “The one who’s going to fix your... problem.”

Lux felt light-headed, as if her spirit was leaving her body to watch what she was about to say.

“You know what, mother?” she said, her voice trembling with words she’d been longing to say. “I don’t think I want to see this man. In fact, I’d like you to send him away.”

The annuller looked offended. He stood and slung his bag over his shoulder.

“No, stay,” begged Augatha. She cornered Lux and began to speak with authority. “You do not know what you are saying. This man has risked everything to help you. It is the only way you’re ever going to be Demacian. Have you forgotten your afflic-”

“I am not afflicted!” Lux cried out. “I am beautiful and valuable, and one day I will prove it to this kingdom! And if anyone has a problem with me, I’ve got a very large friend they can talk to.”

She strode upstairs to her room, leaving her mother alone with the annuller.

As Lux flopped onto her bed, she expelled a deep, easy breath. For the first time in years, her mind was as still as a pond in summer. The light that had once exploded from her unbidden was still there, but she could feel its beginning and its end, and knew that one day she could master it.

As she drifted off to sleep, she realized her mantra had always been wrong. No light could ever kill shadows.

A shadow thrives beside the light, she thought. It had a nice ring to it.

As a mage born to a poor Demacian family, Sylas of Dregbourne was perhaps doomed from the start. Despite their low social standing, his parents were firm believers in their country’s ideals. So, when they discovered their son was “afflicted” with magical abilities, they convinced him to turn himself in to the kingdom’s mageseekers.

Noting the boy’s curious ability to sense magic, they used Sylas to identify other mages living among the citizenry. For the first time in his life he felt he had a future, a life in service to his country, and he performed these duties faithfully. He was proud, but lonely—forbidden from associating with anyone but his handlers.

Through his work, Sylas began to notice that magic was far more prevalent than Demacia cared to admit. He could sense glimmers of hidden power even among the wealthy and prominent… some of whom were the most outspoken decriers of mages. But while the poor were punished for their afflictions, the elite seemed above the law, and this hypocrisy planted the first seeds of doubt in Sylas’ mind.

Those doubts finally bloomed in one deadly, fateful event, when Sylas and his handlers encountered a mage living in hiding in the countryside. After discovering it was only a young girl, Sylas took pity on her. When he tried to shield the child from the mageseekers, he accidentally brushed against her skin. The girl’s magic rushed through Sylas’s body—but rather than killing him, it shot forth from his hands in raw, uncontrolled bursts. It was a talent he did not know he possessed, and it resulted in the deaths of three people, including his mageseeker mentor.

Knowing he would be called a murderer, Sylas went on the run, and quickly gained notoriety as one of the most dangerous mages in Demacia. Indeed, when the mageseekers found him, they showed no mercy.

Though he was still just a youth, Sylas was sentenced to life imprisonment.

He languished in the darkest depths of the mageseeker compound, forced to wear heavy shackles of magic-dampening petricite. Robbed of his arcane sight, his heart turned as hard as the stone that bound him, and he dreamed of vengeance on all who had put him there.

After fifteen wretched years, a young volunteer from the Illuminators named Luxanna began to visit him. Even with his shackles, Sylas recognized her as a singularly powerful mage, and over time the two forged an unusual and secretive bond. In exchange for Sylas’ knowledge of the control of magic, Lux educated him about the world outside his cell, and brought him whatever books he desired.

Eventually, through careful manipulation, he convinced the girl to smuggle a forbidden tome into his cell—the original writings of the great sculptor Durand, detailing his work with petricite.

The work revealed the secrets of the stone to Sylas. It was the foundation of Demacia’s defenses against harmful sorcery, but he came to see that it did not suppress magic, but absorb it.

And if the power was held within the petricite, Sylas wondered, could he release it…?

All he needed was a source of magic. A source like Lux.

But she never visited Sylas again. Her family, the immensely powerful Crownguards, had learned of their contact, and were furious that Lux had broken the law to help this vile criminal. Without explanation, it was arranged for Sylas to be executed.

On the scaffold, Lux pleaded for her friend’s life, but her cries fell on deaf ears. As the headsman pushed past her to raise his sword, Sylas managed to touch Lux. As he had predicted, her power surged into the petricite shackles, ready for him to unleash—and with that stolen magic, Sylas blasted his way free, sparing only the terrified young Crownguard.

He left the mageseeker compound not as an outcast, but as a new, defiant symbol of the broken and persecuted in Demacia. While traveling the kingdom in secret, he amassed a following of exiled mages… However, perhaps he always knew that even their combined power would not be enough to succeed in toppling the throne.

Which is why, with a band of his closest followers and several hardy oxen, Sylas eventually journeyed over the northern mountains to the frozen tundra of the Freljord.

There he seeks new allies, and the great elemental magic of ancient legend, so that he might return to Demacia and demolish the oppressive system that has made him and his fellow mages suffer for so long.

I was young and unafraid, heart aflame with the sort of righteousness that cast out all shadows of doubt, on the day I first met Barrett Buvelle.

He watched from beside the throne of the young King Jarvan III, crowned only a fortnight earlier, as I marched into the Hall of Valor as soon as my name had left the crier’s lips. Both young men seemed interested, briefly—I know I was attractive at that age, though I did everything in my power to quiet that beauty—but the young king seemed mostly bored and tired of dealing with discontent noble families.

Jarvan waited for Barrett to whisper something in his ear before he continued. I could only see Barrett in silhouette on his left side, as his body was angled toward the king. As then, as always. “Lestara Demoisier,” Jarvan said, his voice strong and clear, echoing through the vast hall of petricite and marble. “What brings you here today?”

“Your failure.”

That got their attention, as I recall. Jarvan raised his eyebrows until they disappeared beneath his crown. Barrett, eyes wide, put his hand around his liege’s shoulder in a tight grip.

“My failure?” Jarvan asked with a mixture of confusion and amusement. “My failure in what? Not a fortnight ago was my coronation, what could I have possibly failed at since then?”

“You have been king for a whole two weeks and you have not yet addressed the plight of those beneath you.”

He rolled his eyes, thinking he knew my mind. I am sure there were many girls in those days who petitioned the king, in the hopes of elevating their own status and that of their families, and he must have tired of it. “I cannot further ennoble the Demoisiers without cause, as I have told countless other petitioners this day If you serve your country well in battle—”

“I do not speak of the nobles.”

Barrett turned to face me full for the first time with astonishment writ across his face. I still remember the gleam of his armor, stamped with the prestigious Buvelle seal right in the center of his chest. It shone like diamonds. Like his eyes.

“Then of whom,” Jarvan asked, curious, “do you speak?”

That was the opening I had been waiting for. I cleared my throat before continuing, as I knew I had much to say. I began by untucking my necklace from my blouse, revealing the lit-candle symbol of the Illuminators. “Your subjects,” I said, my tongue full of acid. “There are those in Demacia with neither home nor livelihood, and you have failed them in neglecting to provide it, even as you broker peace between the feuding nobility. There are good people, honest people who live in the streets, or slip into barns to get out of the rain at night, or go hungry for days on end because every scrap of food they collect goes to their children. If you truly seek what’s best for your kingdom, you will make them your priority... not those who already have more than enough.”

There was only a moment of dumbfounded silence from both men before Barrett let out a full belly laugh that bounced off the walls and echoed through the throne room, finally settling into my burning red ears. The embarrassment sat in the pit of my stomach like a stone.

He moved toward me then. I stepped back, wary, but he was fast. He took my hand in his and said...

Well. Regretfully, I can’t recall exactly what he said. My memory can be so clear about certain moments in my life, and so hazy with regard to others. The essence of it was that he would do what he could to personally oversee a project to house every ailing Demacian. Jarvan III gaped at his friend, as he had obviously not approved a single word of this man’s promises to me.

But Barrett never said he would do something unless he meant to commit himself to doing it properly. So he merely looked at his childhood friend until the king nodded his assent. “There should have been assistance offered to these people long ago,” the king said, looking at me with new respect. “Thank you for bringing this discrepancy to my attention. Lord Buvelle and I will get started on these plans posthaste.”

Flushed, I stared at my hand in Barrett’s, his fingers gently encircling mine. I knew who he was, of course, even then. The young king’s right hand. The man who knew the king’s heart better than any other. The man for whom the king would kill, and the man for whom the king would gladly die.

“It only pains me that it has taken us so long,” Barrett Buvelle said with a smile, “to do what was so obvious to you, Lestara Demoisier.”

That was the first time I heard him speak my name.

The last time was just over six weeks ago.

And I will never hear him speak it again.

I have been three weeks a widow, but still it has not felt... real.

Barrett’s absences, when he is called to minister to the soldiers, have always been long. Three months, usually. Kahina and I would sometimes visit him at the front, helping him distribute food and supplies and good cheer to the Demacians risking their lives on our behalf. But not often.

This time, it still feels as though he could walk back into our home at any moment, sorrow lacing his brow for what those young soldiers must go through, for the families they will leave to mourn them when they lay down their lives for their country.

He was a chaplain. He was never supposed to die in battle.

Barrett was not the only person to lose their life, of course. I am told that the battle was unwinnable. Even the Dauntless Vanguard fell before the might of Demacia’s enemies. Unthinkable, until it happened. How fitting that the place my husband and so many others died is known as the Gates of Mourning.

He wanted to hold the funeral as soon as Barrett’s body was returned to us. I told Jarvan that he needed to honor the late High Marshal first, that he could not let his love for my husband cloud his duty to those who served him with their swords and souls. Truly, though, it is because I could not bear how dreadfully real it would all become.

But funerals cannot be put aside forever. Today, I must find the strength to say goodbye.

The first four times Barrett asked me to marry him, I had said no.

“Why,” I asked, pained for him, “would you keep asking when my answer remains the same?”

“It is precisely because your answer remains the same that I must keep asking,” Barrett said with that patient smile I had come to love so deeply in the years since we had first met. He had led me to the gardens beside the palace, with the clear sky and the lilies dancing in his eyes. A more romantic setting than the first three, I admit.

“You know why I cannot accept.” I had promised myself from a young age that I would join the order of the Illuminators to help those in need, giving them shelter, providing food and work, listening to their stories, perhaps even learning some of the healing arts to help ease their pain. The Illuminators seemed to truly embody the values I had been taught as a Demacian, and all of my time spent with them had opened my eyes and my heart to the idea of a lifetime of service. And while there were lay Illuminators who were able to balance their good works with the needs of a family, those who dedicated their lives fully to the order lived a monastic existence and did not marry. This had been my intention.

“Indeed I do.” Barrett understood this about me, through our many conversations about injustice and how it could be corrected. But he had never given up on the idea that love could conquer all, even a stubborn girl’s desire to do good.

And his persistence, not just in asking for my hand but in consistently showing me through his deeds that his love for me was true, was beginning to wear on my determination. For I had come to love him as well—accidentally on my part, though through no small effort on his—and each refusal I made weighed heavily on my heart. It was all too easy to see the beautiful life I could lead with this man if only I allowed it.

My hands shook and my eyes burned as I turned from him. “You need to start looking elsewhere for a wife, Barrett, or all the kind women will have made their match already.”

“I will not marry if it cannot be to you.”

“Your family will never allow that to happen,” I said with a mirthless laugh. There was no future I could foresee in which the Buvelles did not force Barrett to marry, if only to sire an heir.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“And do you trust that I love you?”

“Yes. You have made that quite clear.”

“Then let me be clear about something else.” He paused. “I would appreciate if we could speak on this while... looking at one another. If that would be all right.”

I shook my head, knowing that if I looked at him right now, I would burst into tears.

“Very well.” I could hear him take a few deep breaths, presumably rolling his shoulders and attempting to relax. “My family has amassed a great deal of wealth and influence over the centuries. If you were to ask it of me... I would dedicate all of it to the good works you wish to do. To support the people of Demacia. All of them.”

My breath caught in my throat. The entire Buvelle fortune, dedicated to the benefit of the less fortunate? That would go far beyond anything I could hope to achieve with the Illuminators.

I wheeled around, suddenly incensed that he would put a price on my acceptance. “But you would not do this if I refuse to marry you? That does not make you an honorable man, Barrett, it makes you a conniver.”

Barrett blinked at me in confusion. “When did I say that you would have to marry me for such a thing? All I require to do it, is that you ask it of me. That you guide my hand, help me to understand where I could do the most good. ”

I stared at him, all of my anger dissipating like smoke. Barrett had just committed his life to me, while requiring nothing from me. And his word was truly his bond—if he said it, he meant to do it.

How could any man be like this?

He smiled again, gentle, with love in his eyes. “But I admit that I would enjoy it better with you in my life.”

And so he asked a fifth time.

And this time, I said yes.

At my request, Jarvan III had held a funeral for the High Marshal first, with citizens and soldiers coming in from all across Demacia to watch the late Purcivell Bronz be interred with the other heroes in the Hall of Valor. The streets had been lined with mourners, and Bronz had been sent off with much respect from the people he had served.

The city is not large enough to contain all the people who have come to mourn my husband.

The inns are filled. There are thousands of tents outside the walls, filled with those whose lives have been touched in some way by my husband’s good works. The funerary march has changed routes twice, winding through the streets and around the walls, so that all have the chance to touch his casket and weep.

The only thing keeping me grounded are the hands of my girls, one on each side, gripping mine steadily. I can feel their heartbeats through their palms, reassuring me that they are both alive and well and here.

Usually the throne room is filled with all of the mourners who have come to pay tribute to the fallen, but the king has had to be selective with those allowed in today. He has generously offered that the Hall of Valor be open to the public for the next week, but today it is a smaller crowd within. I recognize nearly all the faces, though I would not call most of them friends.

Nobles. Highborn. Important political figures.

Jarvan has allowed, at my behest, an Illuminator to lead the service. Mistress Myrtille, a renowned healer and a mentor to my daughter Kahina, recites out the familiar poesy:

A flame that once burned brightly has been doused.

We mourn its light, the warmth it gave us.

But though all we see is the smoke,

Remember that no light ever truly goes out.

Not when it has enkindled others

To shine brightly, to burn with passion.

Their warmth is in others, and their light still burns

As long as we honor their spark that we each hold.

The words do not bring comfort, but they are easy to say after decades of repetition, and so I say them.

I must admit, I do not pay close attention to the service. Instead, my eyes continue to wander to the cinerarium. Barrett’s armor has been refashioned to hold his ashes, as is the custom for all those who die in battle. I can picture him in those gleaming pauldrons, though I cannot imagine him inhabiting it now. It appears far too small to hold the man I knew, now. Perhaps he is not in there at all.

It feels as though no time has passed, yet it is time for the eulogies.

“Lord Buvelle was a great Demacian.”

“A skilled warrior.”

“Humble servant of the crown.”

“A safeguard of tradition.”

My face flushes red with anger. Barrett hadn’t fought in a battle in nearly thirty years, and he was more interested in aiding the Demacian people than in “safeguarding” the traditions of the noble families. Most of the people who stand to speak, do so as if they have never met Barrett, only heard of him from afar, even though I know many of them saw him nearly every day. How could they know him so little?

Yet none of these accolades feel more false than those offered by Eldred of the Mageseekers.

“Lord Buvelle was, at his core, dedicated to ridding Demacia of its worst ills.”

Eldred was no friend to my husband in life, yet he speaks as though he knew Barrett’s heart. And even though I know Barrett was indeed committed to improving Demacia, it is not in the way that Eldred means to imply.

My husband was never fearful of mages. Indeed, we both unknowingly welcomed one into our home and our family, and we would never allow her to be taken from us. Sona, our adoptive daughter, sits beside me today, her tears falling silently as she averts her gaze from the Mageseeker.

“He saw the horrors that threaten to devour Demacia from within, and he dedicated his time and efforts to supporting organizations that would eat away at that rot,” Eldred says with an eelish smile. “And his support meant the world to those of us whose lives revolve around securing Demacia’s future.”

It stings to hear my husband so misrepresented.

Jarvan III is the last to speak before the family. He catches my eye from the dais, still clutching Barrett’s ragged blue tabard, and speaks his words directly to me.

“Barrett Buvelle was as a brother to me. Without him... I would not be the man I am today. The leader I am today. I am not ashamed to say that I would be a more thoughtless man. A more reckless man. A man who could love deeply but struggled to put that love into word or deed. But his friendship changed me, helped me be the husband and father and king that I am today. Barrett touched the soul of every person he met, and made them better for it.”

“Finally,” Sona signs to me, “someone is speaking of Father as he actually was.”

It’s true. I knew that if anyone would do so today, it would be Jarvan.

“That he has been ripped away from us, when he had so much more to give this world, is simply unbearable. He was not a man for whom war was easy, but he was a man who made war easier by giving freely of his time and love to the Demacians who fought for their country. And for it... for this love, for our country and our countrymen, he was stolen from us.

“So I swear, by the swords of the Winged Protectors, that I will hold responsible those who took him from me. From all of us. If it takes me a lifetime, so be it, for my love for him did not die with him. It will die with me.”

It feels as though my heart has been plunged into ice water. The king stares at me for another moment before nodding very slightly, the way Barrett used to when he made a promise. I realize that he believes this is what I want, too.

Applause rocks through the room, echoing and echoing and growing louder. The whole hall is filled with bloodthirsty people, willing to send more Demacians to die for... for what? Revenge? False justice?

This is not what Barrett would have wanted.

Before I know it, Kahina is helping me stand, gesturing toward the dais. She looks at me with those same piercing eyes her father had and offers a quick smile. “You can do this, Mother,” she signs to me. “I am here for you.”

“We both are,” signs Sona. My sweet girls. Two gifts that my husband and I were able to give each other, and the world.

My throat is raw, and my voice comes out as a ragged whisper. I cough and try again to limited success, but the din of the room has quieted.

“I do not have the words to tell you about how much my husband cared for the people of Demacia,” I say, willing my voice to remain steady. “Instead, I will do as he would have done, and show you.” I look around at the highborn people surrounding me, with the same fire in my words that I had the first time I had stood in this room. “I am donating the Buvelle residence within the Great City to the people of Demacia, in my husband’s honor. It will become a library, populated with our own private collection, for any Demacian to use at any time.”

A ripple of murmured shock spreads throughout the room. Other nobles do not allow the ordinary citizenry to peruse their book collections. Indeed, I imagine the thought that anyone could educate themselves to be distasteful to some. Barrett and I, however, first discussed the library years ago, and he loved the idea of providing for the Demacian people beyond the basics for survival.

It is the least I could do to honor him, especially when others tried to honor him so poorly.

“Our daughter Sona has composed a song in memory of her father that she would like to play. Sona?”

Sona stands, her etwahl strung across her back, and trades places with me at the dais, where the etwahl’s wooden stand is already in place. As I sit beside Kahina once again, my husband’s cinerarium now in my arms, Kahina whispers in my ear, “He would have loved this. It is the right thing to do.”

“I know it is,” I say, and squeeze her hand as Sona plays the first few notes on her instrument.

It takes only six measures before her song has moved everyone within the Hall of Valor to tears.

“It would only be for a few months,” the Illuminator finished breathlessly. “Would you be able to help sponsor the welfare of these children while they are in our care?”

Barrett and I looked at one another. “I think we can do a bit more than that,” Barrett said with a smile. “How many of these war orphans are there?”

“We are caring for nine, though two of them are ill and they might not last the week. One of them also doesn’t speak, and we aren’t sure yet if that’s something we can heal.”

“Can you spare one of your healers until they are well again?”

“Well... yes, that should be doable.”

“Then bring them all here,” Barrett said, nodding. “We have the room and the resources to help these children, and you’ll be able to focus on finding them families to stay with long-term.”

The Illuminator thanked us profusely for opening our home. We had never housed so many children before, and never from outside Demacia. But Demacians are not the only people in the world, which means they are not the only people worth helping when they are in need.

I remember Kahina became terribly excited, and she spent time researching Ionia with her tutors to see if there was any way we could make the children more comfortable. Any holidays we could celebrate together, things like that. Barrett and I did what we could to ready the rooms, and worked together to prepare an enormous first meal for them all.

When the children arrived, we realized that none of them spoke Demacian. So Barrett and Kahina took it upon themselves to find another way to communicate, one that involved a lot of pointing and hand gestures and facial expressions. I heard the house ring with laughter that evening.

But I wandered away when I heard music. I couldn’t think of where it could be coming from, so I followed it throughout the house, checking room by room to see what I could find.

Then, I saw her. Sona. Her face so serious, playing an instrument three times her size, swaying in time with her own music. She started when I entered the room, but she didn’t stop playing.

It was the most beautiful music I had ever heard.

Barrett found me there, leaning back against the doorframe, sometime later in the evening. “Lestara? Is everything...” He lost his train of thought as soon as the music hit him.

All too soon, the small girl stopped playing and stared back at us with enormous eyes. Barrett and I exchanged glances. Then, he waved at the girl. Just a little wave, to say hello.

She smiled, and her smile was as bright as the moon. She waved back shyly, then walked over and sat just in front of us.

“I think this is the girl they said couldn’t speak,” Barrett said gently.

“I don’t think she needs to.” I remember feeling like I knew everything about her, just from listening to her play. It had felt like a conversation, one that went deeper than words.

Barrett looked back at me. After a moment, he smiled and gave me a small nod.

We hosted those nine orphaned children for about three months. Eight of them left.

Sona stayed.

The funeral reception is held in the gardens beside the Citadel of Dawn, among the lilies where I had said yes to Barrett’s offer of marriage and where we had finally sworn ourselves to one another as husband and wife. It feels like that was so long ago. It feels like it was yesterday.

My daughters sit beside me as we receive endless noble mourners. They keep me from drifting off too far into my own memories, though it is hard to stay rooted to the present.

A young woman with a trained azurite eagle perched on her shoulder approaches. I immediately recognize her as the one who saved Barrett’s life a couple years ago, and lost her own brother in the battle. I stand and grasp her hands tightly between my own. “Thank you, Quinn,” I whisper, “for giving me two more years with him.”

She blushes, embarrassed. “I... It was nothing.”

“It was not nothing. It was everything. Please, if there is anything I can do for you, you only have to let me know.” I wait for her while she wrestles with whether she would like to tell me, if this is the appropriate time. “Please. I want to help you, any way that I can.”

It takes some coaxing, but finally Quinn comes to her point. She aspires to become a knight, and asks haltingly if I would speak to the newly appointed High Marshal on her behalf. “Of course,” I tell her as I stand. She and my daughters both begin to say that I do not need to go right now, but I am quietly happy to have something else to think about today. Something to do.

Tianna Crownguard has not approached me and my daughters yet. Instead, she stands beside her betrothed and listens to him speak with nobles from other houses about his hopes for expanding the Mageseekers. None of them look particularly interested, but a Crownguard’s presence makes Eldred’s words worth listening to, I suppose.

Both Crownguard and Eldred turn as I approach and offer their own condolences. She even embraces me, as though she is not part of the reason my husband is dead. “Tianna,” I say after she has let go of me, “there is a young woman over there, Quinn, who wishes to speak with you.”

“My dearest Lestara, today of all days you should not have to worry about serving others,” she says. “Let others serve you, for once.”

“If you are offering, then I would like to suggest that the best way you could serve me would be by speaking to the young woman. She saved Barrett’s life, once.”

Crownguard purses her lips, shamed. She had been the sword-captain of the Dauntless Vanguard during the battle of the Gates of Mourning three weeks earlier, but she’d had to resign in order to stand any chance of being named the next High Marshal. It was her Vanguard who had failed to keep my husband safe, failed to keep Purcivell Bronz safe. How she had been given a higher command, I cannot pretend to understand.

“We will speak of business another day,” she says coolly.

I am not so easily deterred. “Certainly, Tianna. When?” She mumbles something about returning to the front within the week. “Then I shall have to pay you a visit in the next few days, my dear. Tea?”

To her good fortune and visible relief, one of her polished warriors pulls her away to discuss strategy or some other convenient matter. In her absence, Eldred sidles up beside me. “A library is such a generous offer to make to the Great City,” he says with a light smile.

“Yes, my husband was a generous man.”

“I am interested in seeing what your collection holds.”

I roll my eyes. “The Mageseekers will not find any book of magic within my estate, of that I can assure you.”

“Ah, but descriptions of magic can be dangerous, too, Lady Lestara.” His smile is gone now, replaced with a stony expression meant to distract from the fanaticism in his eyes. “And some books tend to reference magic with a... shall we say, a treacherous lack of judgment. Sorcery deemed morally gray, instead of the evil we know it to be. And we can’t let that corrupt the minds of the Demacian people into believing that magic is... some sort of neutral force.”

“Are you suggesting that the Mageseekers audit my collection before the library opens?” I cannot believe the gall of this man. The Mageseekers do not have the power to make those sorts of demands, especially not of the nobility. “Because I am still Lady Lestara Buvelle, head of the Buvelle family until my daughter claims the title. With all the history behind that name, I don’t believe the king would—”

“Necessitate it? Oh, but didn’t you hear?” His smile is back, and I just want to slap it off his face. “It was Noxian mages that brought down the Gates of Mourning. Who is it that you think the king wants to punish?”

“The Noxians.” I say it firmly, but doubt creeps into my mind.

Eldred confirms these doubts with a shake of his head. “The mages.”

I had wondered for some time about Sona’s instrument, but it became clear after a few years that there was more to it than beautiful music.

And I did not know how best to tell Barrett.

We had never kept anything from one another, and I knew he did not fear and hate mages the way that some others in the nobility did. But I did not know how he would react if I told him that I suspected our daughter used magic.

It took months before I felt like I knew what to say. It was before bed, a week or so before spring would become summer, on a warm and peony-scented night.

“Barrett.”

“Hm?” He was paging through the Illuminators poesy book, as he often did when it seemed like he would need to go speak with soldiers at the front soon.

“I need you to know that, as much as I love you, I would leave you if you ever did anything to hurt our daughters.”

Barrett dropped his book on the floor. “What?” he asked, astounded. “What have I done to make you think that I would ever—”

“I just need you to know it,” I said. “You would never see me or our daughters again, for the rest of your life.”

He frowned. “Has something happened?”

I remember leaning over and lifting his book off the floor, smoothing the pages out where they had bent. I needed something to do with my hands, and somewhere to look that was not my husband’s face.

“I believe that Sona uses magic.”

“...Oh.”

His face, when I glanced up at him, was unreadable.

What had I done? Had I endangered my daughter’s life? Had I destroyed my marriage?

He turned to me, a look of wild fear in his eyes. I had never seen him afraid like this before, and I did not yet know what it meant.

“How...” he asked, his voice breaking. “How can we keep her safe?”

I had never loved my husband more than I did in that moment.

The entire day has left me drained, and my daughters help me to my feet as the last of the noble guests trickle out of the gardens.

“Should we take you home?” Sona asks. I can tell she’s worried about me, she’s been doting on me all day, but I know the grief has been taking its toll on her as well.

I shake my head. “No. I... I want us to say goodbye. Just the three of us. Before we leave.” Before the throne room is opened to the public tomorrow and the throngs of mourners crowd the space too much for any semblance of privacy.

Kahina nods and goes off to find the king. Jarvan, of course, says that we can have as much time as we need. “I’ll be just outside the doors if you need me,” he says. I’m touched by this offer—the king has only ever offered to stand guard for one man, and now that man is ash. His love for Barrett, it would seem, extends to Barrett’s family as well.

I kneel beside the carving that seals his resting place. On the outside is a detailed relief of his face in profile, his name, and the Buvelle family crest. The official images, the ones that commemorate him to all of Demacia forever. But I know that on the inside, facing his ashes, is a picture Kahina scribbled out when she was a child. It is Barrett, beside two men on horseback, giving them each a water cask and a new pair of boots. A child’s drawing of a man she loved very much.

Kahina kneels beside me and kisses my cheek. “I have been thinking of how I want to honor him.”

“You honor him by living as the wonderful woman you’ve grown to be,” I say, pressing my lips to her forehead.

But she pulls back from me and lets her hands fall to her lap. “I’m serious, Mother.”

Frowning, I gesture for her to continue. I don’t know what I expect her to say, but it’s clear that she does not expect me to be happy about it.

With a long look at her father’s tomb, Kahina says, “Father’s commission needs to be filled.”

“...He was a chaplain.”

“And so shall I be. Sort of.”

“I don’t understand, Kahina.”

She takes a deep breath, which does not calm the worry in my stomach. But then she smiles, radiant. “I have decided to join the Illuminators as a knight.”

I gasp. I can’t help it.

Knightly Illuminators may do their good works in battle, coming to the aid of Demacia when they are needed. In times of peace, they are devoted entirely to the cause of bettering the kingdom.

So devoted that they neither marry nor hold titles. Not a problem for most who join, but for Kahina, the intended inheritor of the Buvelle name...

“That... is wonderful, my love. Wonderful news.” I hug her tightly and try not to let her see the worry I know has settled onto my face. “Your father would be so proud of you, as I am.”

It is true. He would be.

Sona touches the petricite seal to Barrett’s tomb, and I see that she is shaken by this news as well. Kahina joining the Illuminators would mean that Sona is the only remaining heir.

And as an adopted child, especially one of Ionian rather than Demacian blood, that could prove difficult for her.

Especially if the Mageseekers gain the sort of power Eldred seems to be anticipating.

What would happen if things got too dangerous for her to remain within Demacia? Barrett and I discussed the possibility while he was still alive, but neither of us ever thought it would truly come to be an issue. The Mageseekers have never been well-loved or admired, but with Eldred wedded to Tianna Crownguard, that might not matter for long.

I don’t know how long I sit there considering both of my daughters’ futures, but all too soon they are ready to leave. I tell them that I will stay behind, to go home without me.

I am still not ready to say goodbye.

Jarvan III steps into the hall, and I cannot tell if I am annoyed or relieved. “Lestara? Are you still here?”

“I am.”

Quietly, he comes to kneel beside me. He is a tall man, but the weight of his grief has bent his shoulders. I have never looked at Jarvan and thought of him as old, but now I can see his age clearly.

“I remember,” he says, breaking the silence, “the first time I met Barrett. As a boy.”

I have heard this story many times over the years, but always from Barrett’s perspective. I wonder how the king’s account will differ.

“I was angry at another child, a boy who worked in the stables. I think perhaps I had lost in some game or another, something of no real importance, and I was throwing a tantrum the way small children do. I was yelling so fervently that I’m told my face was turning purple.” He laughs at this, though there is still no joy on his face. “And Barrett came up to me and started in on me, asking me what made me think this poor stable boy deserved my abuse, with that damned smile of his.”

“The one where he’s being so patient with you.”

“Exactly. The worst sort of thing for a six year old to see, when he’s crying so hard he can’t breathe. So I start shouting at him instead. ‘Do you know who I am?’ And he just patiently answers that of course he does, and he would have expected better of me than that.” He shakes his head, and I swear I can see tears on his cheeks. “He impressed me then. Didn’t care that I was a prince, just thought that I should have been better. That calmed me down, and when the tears stopped I asked him his name.” This smile is real, full of the love for this boy in a memory. “As I said before, he made me a better man.”

I can feel my own tears starting again, hot behind my eyes. “Did he?”

“What do you—”

“Barrett would not want his death avenged.”

Jarvan knows I’m right. I can tell because his face loses every bit of color. “Not everything we do is what the dead would have wanted from us,” he says, voice tinged with sadness and steel. “But the living have to go on finding ways to live. Ways to move forward.”

I know there are things I could say to him, but none that would get him to change his mind. Jarvan III is a man who, like my husband was, is as good as his word. He will do what he chooses once he has decided to do it, and nothing can stop him from it.

So we sit there together in silence for a little while longer. I stand, wishing that I could have had more time alone with my beloved, but the king shows no sign of moving and I don’t care to sit beside him any longer.

As I start toward the doorway, though, I hear Jarvan speak again. “You made him a better man, Lestara. I hope you know that.”

“I do. He never failed to tell me so.”

Suddenly, the King of Demacia stands and wraps me in a tight hug. I can feel him start to shake as he tries to hold back more sobs.

This is the moment it hits me.

Barrett is gone. He’s really gone.

My own tears start to fall, and soon I’m gasping for air, unable to breathe. It feels as though all of the breath has been wrung from my body, and all I have left is burning tears.

We cry in each other’s arms, unable to speak for the hideous grief that chokes us both. I cannot let go or I would fall to the floor.

I don’t know how long we stay like that. Seconds, minutes, hours. But eventually my breath comes back to me, and I stand there and breathe, feeling Jarvan calm as well.

“I’m having trouble remembering things about him,” Jarvan whispered. “It’s like my mind always trusted that he’d be there, so there was no reason to... to catalogue his laughter, or remember the exact way he’d say something profound. But I... I need some of his words, Lestara. Something that will allow his voice to echo in my mind again. Please.”

I think for a moment, but... the things I remember best about him are not memories I want to share with Jarvan III. They are mine, moments between Barrett and me that are my own treasures.

So I shake my head. “I don’t remember his words, not exactly.” Then, for the first time in three weeks, I feel myself start to smile. It feels foreign to me now, but I still remember how to do it somehow. “But I remember what he did, and how he made me feel. And that’s all anyone can hope to leave behind. It’s the only legacy that matters.”

Far from the Citadel of Dawn, Sona dragged her trunk out from beneath her bed, trying to keep from waking her sister sleeping down the hall, and began emptying her closet. Almost all of it was the things she would wear when performing, and very little of it was particularly practical. Certainly it was not the usual attire for a runaway teenager. But if she was going to support herself away from home, she would need her music and her performance skills to do it.

In the three weeks since her father had died, things already felt so different in Demacia.

She knew that the war the king wanted to wage would not be against the Noxians. It would be against people like her... and Sona was all too aware that her mother could not protect her the way that her father could, as the king’s best friend.

So she was leaving. Leaving before anything else could go wrong. Leaving before anyone could stop her.

Or so she had hoped. Sona heard the front door open—that would be her mother, finally returning home. She can’t stop me, she thought as she ran her hand along the side of her etwahl. I can make sure she doesn’t.

Lestara took one look through Sona’s door and nodded, her hands settling comfortably and easily into the signs as she told her daughter in no uncertain terms, “I’m coming with you.”

Sona chased after her mother as she strode toward her own bedroom. “Mother, you don’t even know where I’m going!” she signed frantically as soon as Lestara could see her hands.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m going with you. I’ll pack my things now, we’ll leave within the week.”

“Mother—”

Lestara gave her daughter a sad smile. “Sona. When have you been able to talk me out of anything once I’ve set my mind to it?”

And with that, she walked away.

Sona didn’t realize she was crying until she looked out her window and felt the cold night air across her face.

This isn’t fair, she thought. I don’t want to leave. This is my home.

But was it? Was it still? With her father gone, could it ever be again?

As she often did when she did not know what else to do, Sona sat down at her etwahl and began to play.

The mournful melody drifted out through her window echoing down the streets of the Great City, through the Citadel, even past the walls. Those who heard it did not know why they began to weep.

But Sona knew.

They cried for the death of a man without equal.

And they cried for the country he had once bettered with his presence, now forever changed in his absence.

Sona knew. And so she wept, and she played.

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

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

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

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

He failed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prisoner thinks. Will his answer decide his fate?

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

“What?”

“Xin. Zhao.”

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

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

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

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

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

The captain nods.

“Why is this one being kept by himself?”

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

“This one ended more lives than the others.”

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

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

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

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

“Well, go on and eat,” Olber says.

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

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

The guards nod along and turn to each other.

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

“Which Jarvan was that?” another asks.

“Second. We’re on the third one now.”

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao offers his palms facing upward.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know you!” says a guard.

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

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

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

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

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

Is this fate offering its last sympathies?

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

Xin Zhao shakes his head.

“You have family left in Noxus?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where could he find peace? Would he want it?

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

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

“What is it, child?”

“This king of yours. Who is he?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The king welcomes Viscero!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao peers downward, wondering how he should respond.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But it is not my real name.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Speak,” the king says.

“I wish to join your guard.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No.

Fate has made its choice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do not take this opportunity lightly.”

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

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

“Still awake?” Olber says.

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

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

His body collides hard against the ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quinn ran through the forest, moving softly and swiftly. It was past dawn, though the sun had not yet risen over the mountain peaks to the east. The light was cold and pale, casting everything in shades of gray. Quinn fogged the air with every measured breath.

There were no paths through the untamed woodlands that spread like a blanket across the foothills of the Eastweald Mountains. Ferns and ivy concealed moss-slick rocks, rotting logs, and wild tangles of roots, but Quinn was more at home here than she was in any city or town, and was not slowed by the rough terrain. Despite her speed, there were only a handful of rangers in Demacia—all of them trained by Quinn herself—who would have had any hope of tracking her, so light was her step.

She caught a flicker of movement to her right, and dropped into the undergrowth, instantly motionless. Her eyes were golden, unblinking, and intense, missing nothing.

For ten breaths she remained still, all but invisible among the brush. She glimpsed movement again, and tensed... until she saw it was a greathorn stag. Big one, too, with a rack of antlers easily two arm spans across. Already its fur was starting to change, turning pale and silvery in anticipation of the rapidly approaching winter.

Some said that encountering a greathorn was a good omen. Quinn was not sure that was true, but she’d take it. These days, Demacia needed as many good omens as it could get.

In recent months, Quinn had been helping the Eleventh Battalion hunt rebellious mages—emboldened by the king’s murderer, Sylas of Dregbourne—through the wildlands of northern Demacia. Her rangers were too few, however, and the Eleventh’s strength did not lie in chasing an enemy that didn’t stand and fight. There had been running battles and skirmishes, but it was like trying to grasp smoke.

Quinn had lost three rangers in the last weeks, and their deaths weighed heavily upon her. Thus, it did not sit well with her that she had been ordered away from the hunt for rebel mages, and tasked with escorting Garen Crownguard and a detachment of the Dauntless Vanguard on some diplomatic mission beyond Demacia’s borders. She was due to meet up with them three days hence, on the south side of the Greenfang Mountains.

It hardly seemed the time for such an exercise, and Quinn would much rather have reassigned this mission to one of the others in her command—Elmheart, perhaps. However, the writ of order, delivered by swiftwing, had named Quinn specifically.

And the seal of High Marshal Tianna Crownguard brooked no argument.

She watched the giant stag a moment longer before pushing herself back to her feet. The greathorn saw her now. It held its ground, unafraid.

“Honor and respect, noble one,” she said, with a nod.

It was a long way to the Greenfang Mountains, but the skies were clear. She was confident she would get to the rendezvous point ahead of schedule.

The sun had finally climbed over the peaks, with golden light filtering through the canopy and dappling the forest floor, when the wind changed. It carried a distant, familiar scent.

Smoke.

A keening cry cut through the morning air. Quinn glimpsed Valor above the canopy, through the branches of the immense firs.

“What do you see up there, little brother?” she breathed.

The azurite eagle circled twice, then struck eastward like a blazing blue arrow loosed toward the rising sun. Without pause, Quinn turned and followed.

A short time later, she stood atop a ridge, where a rare break in the trees revealed a valley below. It was partly cleared, and scattered livestock could be seen in dry-stone partitioned fields. Under other circumstances it would have been a peaceful, picturesque view, but Quinn’s gaze was drawn to the smoke rising from the dark shape of a cabin. Her expression hardened.

She began picking her way down the steep incline, descending into the valley.

Quinn warily circled the smoking cabin. She’d known bandits to light fires like this to lure unsuspecting targets, and so she would not approach until she was certain it was not a trap.

She had her repeater crossbow in hand, bolts loaded. It was a one-of-a-kind weapon, lovingly crafted. It was nowhere near as powerful as a traditional heavy crossbow, but she could wield it one-handed, on the move, and without the need to reload after each shot, which made it worth ten times its weight in gold to Quinn.

She frowned as she came across a series of tracks on the ground. There’d been a lot of activity around this cabin in the last day or so, but it seemed she was alone here now. Quinn approached cautiously, crossbow at the ready.

The cabin was a humble abode, but had been built with obvious care. She pushed open the heavy front door—still smoldering, and hanging off its hinges—and stepped over the threshold.

A simple ceramic vase stood upon a fire-blackened hardwood table, holding a handful of wilted wildflowers. The remnants of hand-sewn curtains, mostly burned away, hung mournfully from window frames. Those curtains had been drawn shut, Quinn noted, and the surviving shutters pulled closed. The fire had started after dark.

On a solid oak door frame, Quinn noticed tiny notches carved into the wood. That brought a memory long forgotten, of Quinn’s parents doing something similar to record the growth of her and her brother.

This was not some rarely used hunting cabin—this was a family’s home.

Chairs and cabinets had been overturned and smashed. Drawers had been ripped open, and their contents strewn across the floor. Nothing of value remained. On the wall above the hearth, Quinn noted the sun-bleached outline of a shield.

As she turned, something in the ashes glinted in the sunlight streaming through a hole in the burned roof. Kneeling, she saw an object—a coin, perhaps?—wedged between the hearth and the blackened floorboards. Quinn holstered her crossbow, and used the tip of her hunting knife to pry it free. Likely, it had fallen down there, and been lost—she’d only seen it because the fire’s heat had twisted the floorboards out of shape.

Finally, it came loose, and Quinn saw it was a palm-sized silver shield that bore the winged sword emblem of Demacia. There were words engraved on its reverse: Malak Hornbridge, Third Battalion. Demacia honors your service.

It was a Shield of Remembrance, given to the families of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. Quinn had delivered more than a few of them to grieving spouses and parents herself.

Pocketing the medallion—it didn’t feel right to leave it amid this destruction—Quinn continued looking through the cabin. In what was clearly the family bedroom, which had escaped the worst of the fire, delicately woven garlands were strung across the rafters above the main bed.

In a corner, a smaller, child-sized bed had been overturned, and Quinn’s eyes narrowed as she knelt beside it. Charcoal markings were drawn onto the floorboards where the cot had once stood. The symbols were barbaric, of a sort not generally seen within Demacia. Bones and small pebbles were placed at intentional positions upon the runes, and she was careful not to disturb any of the lines. She had seen such runes before...

Valor’s piercing call sounded, high above, drawing Quinn away from the strange and unnerving display. Keeping low, she returned to the cabin’s main room, and pressed her back against a wall. With a quick, careful glance, she peered through one of the burned-out windows.

A cloaked and hooded man was approaching the front of the cabin, a rangy, pale gray hound loping along at his heels. The dog gave a low growl, but he silenced it with a word.

Moving soundlessly, Quinn repositioned herself in the shadow behind the smoldering front door. The man stepped inside, then froze, like a deer tensing as it feels an unseen predator’s eyes upon it.

“That you, boss?” he asked the seemingly empty room.

Quinn smiled. “What gave me away?”

The man turned, lowering his hood. He had the look of someone who spent most of his time outdoors, his face tanned and his short beard unruly. Just outside the threshold, the hound whined in excitement. “Don’t see many azurite eagles anymore,” he explained with a grin.

“True enough,” admitted Quinn.

“It’s good to see you, boss.”

Quinn knelt on the ground outside the cabin, ruffling the hound’s ears. It had been over a year since she had last seen the Greenfang warden, Dalin, and his faithful dog, Rigby.

The warden had given Quinn his assessment. He’d arrived at the cabin only an hour before her, and after a quick look around, had set out to speak to those living nearby.

“A woodsman saw a group moving through the trees last night, about half a mile up the valley,” said Dalin, pointing. “The moon was full, else he wouldn’t have seen them at all. Raiders, it looks like.”

“Setting a cabin on fire is not a good way to remain unseen,” observed Quinn. Rigby rolled onto his back, looking up at her with adoring, eager eyes.

“Perhaps they were more concerned about alerting anyone to their approach than remaining unseen afterwards? Or perhaps they lit the fire to draw attention to it, while they slipped off?” Dalin glanced over his shoulder. “Careful now—I think someone’s getting jealous.”

Valor was staring at her, unblinking, from a branch of a dead tree.

“Valor knows he’s my one true love,” she said, looking at the azurite eagle, her eyes smiling, even as she vigorously scratched the hound’s exposed belly. “Has there been much banditry in these parts of late?”

Dalin shook his head. “Been mercifully quiet, until this. The unrest spreading from the capital has got people nervous, but the sight of so many soldiers has driven most of the brigands into hiding. Small blessings, I guess. I hear you and yours have been busy, though, back west. Bad times.”

“Bad times,” agreed Quinn. Her jaw clenched, and she changed the subject. “A soldier’s widow and her child lived here. Anyone know where they are?”

The warden gave her a look, then shook his head with a laugh. “I shouldn’t be surprised you already figured that out,” he said. “The woman’s name is Asta. Her man died fighting mages when everything flared up in the Great City. She lives alone with her daughter.” He glanced back at the cabin, and sighed. “I didn’t see evidence of bloodshed when I looked around here earlier, but it doesn’t seem good.”

“No friends or family nearby who they could be with?”

“Seems not,” said Dalin. “The woman’s foreign-born. Keeps to herself. Her husband was from Lissus, back west. No family in these parts.”

“Foreign-born?”

“One of the independent nations to the east, apparently. No one seems to know exactly where.”

Quinn grunted and stood. She turned around on the spot, considering, then looked back toward the forest. She paced toward the tree line, studying the ground as she went.

“Here,” she said, coming to a halt. Dalin joined her, and she indicated a number of confusing, overlapping scuff marks. “They came out of the forest, and stopped here.”

Dalin dropped to his haunches, nodding. “At first I figured they were watching for the right moment to approach,” he said. “But then I saw these tracks here.”

Quinn circled around the tracks that Dalin indicated, careful not to let her own footsteps obscure them.

“A second set, lighter than the others,” she murmured. “Our widow and her child.”

“My guess is she confronted them—then they looted and burned her cabin.” Dalin’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t find the woman’s tracks returning to the house...”

“They don’t,” agreed Quinn, her expression grim. “Looks like they took her with them. Her and the child. See there? The little girl’s footsteps stop. Someone picked her up.”

She looked back at the cabin. “But these raiders didn’t approach the cabin, either. The ones who burned it approached from the other side. It’s possible the raiders split into two groups before their attack.”

Dalin folded his arms, thinking. “There’s something else,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any truth in it, but it seems at least some folk ’round these parts believe the woman was... different. A mage.”

Quinn thought of the runes drawn onto the floor underneath the child’s cot. They seemed more like archaic superstition than sorcery... though she could not be certain. This was not her area of specialty.

“The local gossip is that the raiders were allies of Sylas,” continued Dalin, “and they came to collect one of their own. It could explain why it doesn’t look like there was a fight, but why burn the cabin?”

Quinn frowned. She was missing something, she was sure of it. “Could be retaliation,” she mused, “for her husband fighting against mages. Perhaps they were looking for some payback.”

“Killing him wasn’t enough?”

Quinn shrugged.

“Whatever the case, I’ll be going after them,” said Dalin. “They’re at least half a day ahead, but if they’re carrying the child, they’ll be slowed.”

Quinn glanced at the sun, judging the time and how far she still had to travel to rendezvous with Garen. It would be cutting it fine, but...

The woman, Asta, had been made a widow by the mage conflict, and it seemed likely she’d been abducted. Quinn could not in good conscience ignore that.

“I’ll come with you,” she declared. “There’s at least five of them, by my count. You’ll need help.”

“Mighty pleased you happened by, boss.”

“Let’s get going, then,” said Quinn. “And don’t call me boss.”

Technically, as a ranger-knight, Quinn was Dalin’s superior, but rigid hierarchy and honorifics had always made her uncomfortable.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Dalin said with a wry grin, knowing exactly how uncomfortable it made her. “C’mon, Rigby! Let’s move!”

Rigby loped alongside his master, tongue lolling seemingly of its own volition, while Valor sliced between the trees, flying low overhead.

The majestic azurite eagle streaked past the two running rangers, tucking his broad wings to avoid branches. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, disappearing into the distance. A few minutes later, Quinn and Dalin found him perched on a branch, waiting. The eagle watched impassively as they ran below him. Only when they were almost out of sight did he launch back into flight, zigzagging at blinding speed, once again shooting by them.

It wasn’t hard to follow the outlaws, particularly with Rigby chasing their scent. There were five of them with the widow, and they’d made no attempt to cover their trail, choosing speed over stealth. The rangers tracked them over a ridge to the north, into a neighboring valley of unbroken forest. The trail then cut due east, following an icy stream that writhed its way down from the mountains.

For hours, Quinn and Dalin ran, closing the distance. The land gradually rose as they climbed higher into the foothills. They didn’t speak, only pausing to check that they were still following the trail. Rigby happily bounded back and forth on these occasions, snuffling through the undergrowth, while Valor watched the dog aloofly.

When the sun was just past its zenith, Quinn stopped, kneeling in the soft loam beside a few boulders. Some moss had been scraped away from one, most likely by a careless boot. Quinn inspected it, and picked something off a flat rock, looking closely.

“They broke bread here,” she said. “I’d say it was only an hour ago. Maybe a little more.”

“We’re getting close,” said Dalin, sitting down and sucking in deep breaths. Rigby was taking the moment’s respite to lap from the nearby stream, while Valor watched. “We’ll overtake them by sundown.”

“Not fast enough,” said Quinn, balling her fists in frustration. “They’ll be over the border by then.”

“You think they’re trying to leave Demacia?”

Quinn shrugged. She pulled a hard trail biscuit from her pack, bit off half, and tossed the remainder to Dalin. He caught it deftly and nodded his thanks. The rations didn’t taste the best—in truth, Quinn could imagine sawdust had more flavor—but they’d sustain them. After a moment, she broke out a second biscuit, and launched it at Rigby. The pale dog snatched it out of the air, jaws snapping, devouring it instantly.

“It’s possible,” she said. “If they were just trying to hide, they’d have done better turning north. There are chasms and ravines up there that would take weeks to scour.”

Dalin chewed his tasteless biscuit thoughtfully. “The closest border crossing’s half a day’s march to the south, though,” he said. “And there’s no way they’d get through. The gates have been locked since the king’s murder. There’s nought but sheer cliffs and watchtowers this way.”

“Unless there’s another crossing we don’t know about,” said Quinn. She glanced down at the dog, now panting beside Dalin. “You think your master can keep up, Rigby, or should we ditch him?”

The hound looked at her quizzically, turning his head to the side.

Dalin snorted. “Funny,” he said. Then, with a groan, he pushed back to his feet.

A short time later, Quinn and Dalin stood on a bluff, overlooking a ravine. A massive rocky spire rose above the forest canopy in the distance.

“There,” said Dalin, pointing.

Climbing around the circumference of the spire was a group of people. It was hard to make out any details—at this distance, they looked like ants—but it was clear that they would reach the border before the rangers.

“If I can get in front of them, I can slow them,” said Quinn.

“The only way you’d be able to do that is if...” started Dalin, but his words trailed off as he saw Quinn staring at him, a half smile on her face.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Quinn soared through the air, borne aloft by Valor. The eagle’s bladelike talons were latched tightly around her shoulders, and she squinted against the biting wind as they sailed over the trees.

“Take us around to the north,” Quinn shouted as they approached the spire. She leaned her weight in that direction, and Valor obligingly angled their descent.

The raiders had circled around to the south of the spire and disappeared into the trees, but Quinn didn’t intend to follow their path directly. No, she needed to get in front if she was to slow them long enough for Dalin and Rigby to catch up. Two rangers against five were not great odds, but it was better than confronting them alone.

Valor continued to come down, and Quinn lifted her legs to avoid hitting the highest branches. The spire loomed before them, and Valor banked around its northern flank, gaining a little height as updrafts buoyed them. Then the rocky ground rose rapidly to meet them. Spying a likely place to land, Valor shifted their approach, and angled his wings back to slow their descent.

Two powerful beats of his wings, and Quinn’s feet touched down, ever so gently.

“Thank you, brother,” she breathed as Valor released his grip. Then she was running again, into the cover of the forest. The azurite eagle, unshackled by her weight, took to the air once more.

Quinn leaped over tangles of roots and burst through stands of ferns and hanging lichen. She ran along the length of a fallen tree, using it as a bridge to traverse a cascading waterfall, before bounding off it and charging up the rise on the other side.

This was not her usual, mile-eating pace that she could sustain for hours on end. This was a full sprint, and her heart was hammering in her chest. After racing up the hill, she hurled herself to the ground, concealed among the bracken. Elbowing herself to the edge of the rise, she peered down into the hollow bellow.

A lone figure appeared, bow in hand. It was a man, bearded and bedecked in furs. A bronze torc around an upper arm glinted in the dappled light filtering through the trees, and Quinn glimpsed swirling warpaint or tattoos on his pale flesh.

The ranger-knight instantly knew this was no Demacian rogue mage or bandit. This was no Demacian at all.

The raider paused, surveying the way ahead, and Quinn felt his gaze flit over her. She resisted the urge to crawl back, knowing the movement of the ferns would draw more attention than if she remained motionless.

Seemingly satisfied, the outsider lifted a hand and gestured forward before continuing on. Quinn stayed where she was, waiting as the rest of the group appeared. One of them had a gleaming Demacian shield strapped across his back. That was the shield that had been stolen from above the cabin’s hearth—a shield that had belonged to a noble soldier who’d fallen in battle. Seeing an outsider wearing it as a trophy filled her with a cold-burning anger.

It wasn’t hard to pick out the widow. While the others were bedecked in furs and leather, she was wearing a simple but elegant woolen dress, rolled up to free her legs. A fur shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, and she wore a pair of practical, tall boots. She looked exhausted, stumbling forward with her head down. With a breath of relief, Quinn saw the child, a toddler with a mass of golden curls, asleep in the thick arms of one of the marauders.

The ranger-knight watched them for a moment longer, then crawled slowly backward, a plan formulating in her mind. She knew where they were going, for she’d been here before, years earlier.

In her youth, she and her twin brother, Caleb, had roamed the wilds around their home of Uwendale, several days’ march to the northwest. The pair had often disappeared into the wilderness for weeks at a time, exploring the forests and mountain foothills, hunting for their own food, and sleeping under the stars. Their father had been none too excited about it, but their mother had always encouraged them. She was a big believer in the importance of self-reliance and resourcefulness, and both children had accompanied her on hunts from a young age.

Their father had come around eventually—it probably helped that the family larder was always well stocked with venison and boar after they returned—though he never stopped worrying for them.

And it turned out he’d been right to worry.

Quinn had been here only once, a month before Caleb’s death. And so she knew that if the outsiders continued on their path, they’d have to make their way up through a narrow ravine, half a mile farther on.

Running low and fast, hidden by the crown of the rise to her right, Quinn sprinted on a path parallel to the raiders. She made it to the ravine before they did, and ran up the side. She’d just set herself up at the top of it, her back against a concealing rock, when she heard the first of the outsiders begin his ascent.

Quinn took measured breaths, slowing her thumping heart. She left her repeater crossbow holstered, but drew her large hunting knife. The blade was long and broad, almost the size of a shortsword.

The outsider was good—he made almost no noise as he climbed steadily up the rocky gulch—but not good enough to realize Quinn was waiting for him. As he hauled himself up the final, steep climb, Quinn stepped from concealment. She was to his side, and he didn’t see her until the last moment. He tried to turn, drawing back the string of his bow, but he was too slow. Quinn struck him in the temple with the pommel of her knife, and he dropped without a sound.

She hastily dragged him out of view. He was bleeding, but he was alive. With swift, practiced movements, the ranger-knight bound the unconscious man’s wrists, before yanking them back and tying them to his ankles. Then she resumed her position, back against the rock. She drew her crossbow, and flipped the knife around in her other hand so that its point was down.

With a quick glance, she peered down the ravine before ducking back. Three raiders were climbing the steep rise below, with the widow between them. The one Quinn presumed was their leader—he was bigger than the others, and alone among them wore chainmail under his furs—was at the front. He was the one who bore the Demacian shield upon his back.

Quinn ground her teeth in frustration. There should have been four of them left. Where was the last one? Was he simply acting as a rearguard, or could he be approaching from an unexpected angle? She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was too late to change her plan. She’d deal with him if and when he appeared.

As the leader of the outlanders neared, Quinn stepped out in front of him, crossbow leveled at his throat.

It took him a moment to register her presence. His eyes widened and he halted, reaching instinctively for his axe, hanging over his shoulders.

“Don’t,” warned Quinn. She wasn’t sure the man would understand her, but the shake of her head was a universal language, and the outlander’s hand froze.

He was a big man, two heads taller than Quinn, and easily twice her weight, but she had the higher ground, and was unintimidated. She’d brought down far bigger prey in her time.

His hair was straw-colored and long, hanging in elaborate plaits, and his beard, streaked with gray, was bound with bones and stone beads. His eyes were like slivers of slate, and he stared up at her without blinking.

There was a shout of alarm from the raiders half hidden behind his bulk, but the big man barked something over his shoulder in his own clipped, harsh language. He looked past the ranger-knight, searching. Probably trying to see what support she had.

His gaze returned to her. He licked his lips, and Quinn knew he was judging the chances of closing the distance without taking a fatal bolt.

“You speak my language?” asked Quinn. “You understand my words?”

The outlander stared at her for a moment before giving a slow nod.

“Let the woman and child go,” said Quinn, “and we won’t have to see how long it takes you to bleed out from a bolt to the throat.”

The big man snorted in amusement. “You’ve been tracking us? Alone?” His voice was deep and heavily accented. “You may kill me, if you are lucky, but my men will tear you apart. I do not think I will do as you ask.”

“I wasn’t asking,” said Quinn.

The outlander grinned. Two of his teeth were made of gold. “There is steel in you, Demacian. I like that.” His smile dropped abruptly. “Where’s my scout?”

“Alive,” said Quinn.

“Good. He is my brother, by oath. My wife would be angry if I had let him get killed.”

“What’s going on?” the widow called up.

The leader of the outlanders barked a response in his own language, though Quinn did recognize something amongst that garble of words: Asta. The widow’s name.

The woman begged. “Please, I don’t want any—”

“Be silent!” shouted the leader, half turning, his face flushing a deep crimson. When he looked back at Quinn, his expression was angry. “You should not have tried to stop us by yourself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw the fifth raider rising to his knees atop the ridge to her left, bow in hand. Quietly he nocked an arrow and drew the string, weapon leveled at her.

Quinn, still holding the leader’s gaze, gave him a smile. “What makes you think I’m alone?”

There was a flash of blue, moving like a thunderbolt, and the bowman gave out a strangled cry. His arrow, loosed in haste, sailed into the undergrowth, and he fell back, clutching at his bleeding hand.

The widow screamed, and everyone broke into motion.

One of the warriors threw a hand axe, sending it hurtling end over end toward Quinn. She swung aside, dodging it, but that was enough of a distraction for the leader. He sprang forward, swinging his axe off his shoulders. Quinn loosed two bolts in quick succession, but the first missed its mark, slicing harmlessly by his head. The second took the raider in the meat of his shoulder, embedding itself there, but it did nothing to slow his charge.

With a roar, he brought his weapon around in a lethal arc. It was a heavy, double-handed axe, and the strike was meant to hack Quinn in two. She swayed back from the wild swing, then reversed her momentum—she was far quicker than the outsider, for all his power—and stabbed him in the chest. It should have been a killing blow, delivered right to the heart, but the tip of her knife caught in his chainmail, stopping it from sinking deep.

The big man drove Quinn back with a swinging elbow, sending her reeling, then brought down his axe in a heavy overhead blow. Diving to the side, Quinn avoided the strike, and let loose a bolt at close range as she rolled. The bolt plunged into his flesh just above the knee, and the warrior collapsed with a growl of pain.

Quinn was on him instantly, knife at his throat.

That gave the other raiders pause, and they traded glances, unsure what to do. One of them was still cradling the woman’s child, though the infant was now wailing loudly.

The widow scrambled forward on her hands and knees. “No, no, no,” she cried. “Please, don’t hurt him!”

Quinn blinked. “You... know this man?” she asked, looking at the exhausted, tearful woman before her.

“Of course I do,” the widow said. “He’s my brother.”

“My husband was in the capital when the king was murdered,” said the widow, Asta. She held her daughter in her arms, and was gently swaying back and forth, trying to calm her. “He was defending the palace. The mages killed him.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” murmured Quinn, as she bound a length of cloth around the outlander leader’s leg. His name was Egrid. His chest wound was only minor—his chainmail had saved him from worse harm there—and he’d torn out the bolt from his shoulder himself.

The other warriors were sitting on rocks nearby. One had some ugly cuts on his hand, and was staring balefully at Valor, perched on a branch overhead, while the one Quinn had tied up was rubbing gingerly at the side of his head.

Standing near Quinn, a deep frown on his face, was Dalin.

“I met Malak when a diplomatic contingent came to my homeland, six summers back,” said Asta. “In Skaggorn, I was a chieftain’s daughter, but when Malak returned to Demacia, I came with him as his wife.”

Quinn finished tying the bandage, then sat back to inspect her work.

“You are fast, and strong, and you stitch wounds well,” said Egrid with a grin, his golden teeth flashing. “Marry me, and come back to Skaggorn with us, yes?”

Quinn didn’t even dignify that with an answer. “But why try to leave Demacia now?” she asked Asta. “You must have known that would bring trouble down upon you.”

“My people left the Freljord many generations ago,” said Asta, “traveling over the mountains and settling in Skaggorn. Yet the old blood still runs in my veins. My grandmother was a seer, one you would call a mage, or a witch. I do not have that power, but what if my daughter develops the sight? I have heard what is going on. She would be taken from me. The Frost-Bringer knows what would happen to her. I could not risk that, so I sent word to my family by hawk, begging them to get us out.”

“Mageseekers,” Quinn hissed, shaking her head.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. If the child manifested arcane powers, the mageseekers would take her. Were she in the widow’s shoes, Quinn would likely have already taken her child far beyond the reach of that insidious organization. She couldn’t blame Asta for what she was attempting.

“You understand we can’t let you go,” said Dalin. “The borders are closed. No one is allowed to leave without express permission from the high council itself. It’s the only way to ensure the traitor Sylas and his associates don’t slip away, and escape justice.”

“My husband died fighting against the traitor!” said Asta. “Everything here reminds me of Malak. Without him, I don’t wish to stay. And the small-minded farmers of our valley hate me. They already think I’m a witch.”

“You didn’t ransack your own home when you left, did you,” said Quinn. It was a statement, not a question. “And you didn’t set it ablaze, right?”

“What? No, of course not.” Asta paused. “Did someone truly do that?”

Quinn nodded. “And the markings under your daughter’s cot,” she said. “They were not of a... sorcerous nature, were they?”

Asta laughed, shaking her head. “A blessing of protection. A mark all Skaggorn mothers make for their children.”

Quinn nodded again, finally understanding. “But that runic blessing might seem like sorcery to those who wouldn’t know any better. Even I was suspicious of it.”

“I was careful to keep the old traditions to myself, but my neighbors were always wary of me,” Asta said. “And with all that’s been happening...”

It seemed clear now that the second set of tracks leading to the cabin had not belonged to any warrior of distant Skaggorn. Maybe the locals were seeking evidence of Asta’s sorcery. If so, perhaps they saw those charcoal runes, and set the house ablaze in a clumsy attempt to burn away what they thought was dangerous magic.

Quinn sighed, shaking her head. On the whole, Demacians were good, honorable people, but fear and distrust were spreading like a plague, and bringing out the worst in the kingdom’s scared citizens. It needed to end.

“I found something that I think you should have,” Quinn said, remembering what she had recovered in the wreckage. She handed over the Shield of Remembrance, and tears appeared in Asta’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, clutching the medal to her chest. “I thought it had been lost. It broke my heart to leave without it.”

“I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to leave,” said Dalin.

“We are leaving, Demacian,” growled Egrid, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. “Do not try to stop us.”

“Egrid, enough!” snapped Asta. “These two rangers are just doing their duty.” She turned to Quinn. “But please, I beg you, at least let my daughter go. She should not have to suffer for something beyond her control. Let her go with my brother, and I will return with you.”

Dalin and Quinn traded a look. The law was firm. No one was allowed to leave Demacia, not Asta, her daughter, or the Skaggorn warriors.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Dalin.

“If we let them go, then we are the ones violating the law,” whispered Dalin.

The two rangers walked behind as the group trekked eastward.

“We need to know how they got across the border,” replied Quinn in a low voice.

Dalin looked troubled, but he gave a clipped nod and fell into silence.

It wasn’t long before they reached the cliffs marking the edge of Demacia. The Skaggorn party led them to a secluded location, tucked just out of view of the guard towers to the north and south. Every inch of these cliffs should have been visible to one of the dozens of Demacia’s watchtowers, but clearly this was a blind spot.

Quinn leaned over the edge. The drop was several hundred feet, but heights had never bothered her. She could see pitons hammered into the rock. “You approached the base of the cliff at night, so as not to be seen by the sentries?” she asked.

Egrid nodded. Quinn grunted, impressed.

“Quite the climb to make, even in daylight,” she said. She looked down at the big man’s strapped leg. “Sorry about the knee. Are you going to manage it?”

“Of course! We of Skaggorn are strong,” boasted Egrid. “You are strong, too. You should return with us. The two of us, we would make strong warrior children. Yes?”

Quinn stared at him without speaking, her expression unreadable. Eventually, he shrugged and turned away.

“Worth asking the question,” he muttered. With a shout, he ordered his men to retrieve the ropes, hidden in the undergrowth nearby.

“I thought you just wanted to find out how they crossed into Demacia unseen,” hissed Dalin, taking Quinn aside. “We’ll be breaking our oaths if we allow them to go!”

“I’m uncomfortable with forcing a woman to stay and risk having her child taken simply because of a quirk of her bloodline,” she said, her voice low. “Besides, our first oath is to protect Demacia.”

“And letting them go protects Demacia?”

Quinn flashed him a fierce glance. “If we try to stop them, this plays out in one of two ways,” she whispered. “Either they kill us and leave anyway, in which case Demacia has lost two of its best rangers—or we defeat them, and Demacia gains an enemy, for the people of Skaggorn will know we are holding a chieftain’s daughter against her will.”

Dalin glanced at the big warriors, and conceded the point. “Doesn’t make it right, though,” he muttered. “And still makes us lawbreakers.”

Quinn regarded him. “If you want things to be simple, then you’d be better off in the regular infantry. Things are always more complicated out on the fringes.”

“The laws—”

“The laws be damned,” snapped Quinn. “It does not weaken Demacia in any way to let them go, but it will if we try to stop them.”

“But—”

Quinn rarely enforced the power her rank allowed her... but she did so now.

“Stand down, soldier,” she growled. “I am letting them go. That is an order.”

He stiffened for a moment, then gave her a sharp salute.

“As you will it, ranger-knight.”

The sun was starting to set as the Skaggorn party commenced climbing down the cliff. Quinn waited till they were all on their way—tied to each other, with the widow Asta’s child strapped tightly upon Egrid’s back—before she turned away. As good as their word, Egrid’s men removed the pitons they’d hammered into the stone as they descended.

Quinn had less than three days to get to the meeting point with Garen. She’d be forced to run through the night to make it in time, but had no doubt that she would. She gathered herself, readying for the journey ahead.

Before she left, Quinn paused, glancing over at Dalin, who was sitting near the cliff’s edge, Rigby at his side. He was looking eastward, away from her. They had barely spoken since the Skaggorn began their descent.

“I don’t expect you to feel good about it,” Quinn said, “but letting them go was for the best.”

He looked at her. “I understand,” he said. “Matters just aren’t as straightforward as I’d like them to be, I guess.”

“For some, they are,” said Quinn, shrugging. “But we are rangers.”

The Greenfang warden gave a slow nod, then stood to see Quinn off.

“You watch out for her, Valor, you hear?” he said, addressing the azurite eagle perched nearby. “Demacia needs her.”

Valor clacked his beak in reply.

“Speak to the local garrison,” Quinn said. “See that they build a watchtower here. Best make sure this gap in our defenses is closed for good.”

“Pulling rank on me again, boss?”

Quinn snorted, and scratched Rigby behind the ears. “Something like that.” She looked the warden in the eye. “Stay safe, and stay vigilant, Dalin,” she said. “Demacia needs you, too.”

Then she turned, and started running once more.

Bound by darkness.

Cruel smile, stretching wide. Sharp teeth, spanning systems.

Oblivion given form, coalesced as the dark Harbinger of annihilation.

Thresh.

Immense in power. His own gravity draws me closer, chains of dark matter enveloping me, cradling me in stillness.

Ambition’s embrace.

Yet behind him, an even greater force looms.

Its ceaseless pull tugs at every particle in my being. I resist, struggling against its call, straining against Thresh’s grasp, calling upon the light. Yet every surge of radiance that wells up within me disappears into the endless maw of darkness, diverted into its ever hungering grasp.

The Dark Star.

Thresh laughs, a vibration that sends pulsating waves of energy radiating into the cosmos.

“Struggle all you want, little light,” he coos. “But you… you belong to the Dark Star.”

A wave of dread ripples through me.

Give in.

With a heave, he wrenches me toward the emptiness, the vast and eternal silence. I strain against his bindings, but I feel my power wane as I drift closer to the point of no return, the event horizon beyond which the star’s dark pull would prove inescapable.

Thresh’s voice grates. “Do not fear the end, Lux. Embrace it.”

Embrace… me.

“The Cosmic Court will stop you,” I say. My voice warps and slurs under the immense gravity of the Dark Star, a reverberating mockery of my intended strength, revealing the hollowness of my threat.

I was the one sent to stop him. And I… am about to fail.

Enter the horizon, Lux.

He pulls.

I fall, ensnared by the inescapable tow of the Dark Star.

They came, one by one. Shining beacons, formed of constellations, each burning with endless starfire, the potential of creation aflame within their beings.

Yi arrived first, an elegant flash of his celestial blade cutting a path through the inky space. Kassadin and Xin Zhao followed not long after. Xayah danced in, trailed by Rakan, and Lulu meandered in at the end as she always does, following some whim and whimsy only she understood.

Last, as though summoned only by our collective light, Queen Ashe arced into our midst, blazing across space-time like an incandescent arrow. The others bowed their heads in deference as I took stock of all who had come.

The Cosmic Court, assembled together after countless eons. All in answer to my beacon.

Xin Zhao spoke first. “Long has it been since last we all were met.”

I smiled. Though at times a bit formal, Xin Zhao’s focus and dedication in his protection of the nebulas that cradle the birth of new stars always filled me with deep admiration and appreciation.

“Too long,” Kassadin replied.

“Yet some still are missing,” Yi rumbled.

Xayah scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Some are not to be expected. They never show.”

“Yet others’ absences are more… troubling,” Ashe thundered, and all heads turned toward her.

Xin Zhao frowned. “You speak of Jhin.”

“And Mordekaiser,” Rakan chimed in. “That grumpy old soul. Where’d he get off to?”

“We’re all old souls. Even if some don’t act it,” Yi replied.

“Jhin’s light, gone.” Lulu’s voice rang out, clarion and pure, drawing our attention.

Some murmurs of surprise rippled out, along with a few incredulous grumbles—yet I knew we all felt the truth of her words.

Whenever a cosmic being ceases existence, the loss echoes through each of the remaining. And we had all felt his light blink into darkness.

Since then, I… I had witnessed first the twisted, broken systems left in his wake. Whatever dark, monstrous thing he had become reveled in destruction, macabre and grotesque. Stars inverted into black holes. Shattered planets left careening around wild, unhinged orbits. Devastated. Splintered.

Beautiful.

I frowned and shook my head.

Xayah was asking a question. “How is this possible?”

“Since the Harbinger’s appearance, the Dark Star grows in strength.” Ashe glided between us, looking each of us in the eyes as she passed. “Where we build, he guides the Dark Star to consume. Where we create the possibility of life, and light… he only destroys. For too long, we have watched his actions, tolerating him as, at best, an overzealous hastener of entropy.” She looked directly into my eyes. “Now it has taken one of our own. That cannot stand.”

“So we gather to find and strike this Harbinger down.” Xin Zhao waved his spear, and a trail of glittering nebula bloomed in its wake.

“No.” Ashe continued to hold my gaze. “The Dark Star grows stronger when it devours sources of light. All of us approaching at once could be exactly what Thresh wants.”

What we want.

I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, Ashe had once again resumed her gliding pace between all the others.

“Each of us will hunt down the known corruptants,” she said. “Only one of us shall go to bind the Star and Thresh. Halt them and their marauding path.”

The others turned their gazes on me. I breathed deep to steady my nerves.

“My queen. Why not y—”

“I will lead the hunt of the other corruptants with my celestial bow.” Ashe cut off my question. “Lux’s mastery of starlight and binding constellations means she alone has the ability to stop this threat in its tracks.” Her expression softened. “Though each of our tasks are perilous, yours is perhaps the most difficult of all, Lux. But there is no one else I trust more to hold fast to our cosmic duty.”

I strode up to stand next to my queen and spoke with more conviction than I felt. “I know where the Dark Star is. Or at least, where it was. When Jhin… disappeared, I… I felt it most strongly.”

The others nodded, accepting the half truth.

You feel us. You see… yourself.

I clenched my teeth, pushing the voice out of my mind.

My gaze swept over my cosmic brethren. Each forged from pure light, birthed from the primordial to shine eternal. I have crafted entire galaxies with them, willed wonders of the universe into existence by their side. Over the eons, we have danced together, then split apart, painting the inky fabric of space with delicate complexities. Yet I cannot deny the truth.

I have always heard the call of darkness.

Some days, I could almost pretend it wasn’t there. But it was always a part of me. The sliver that resonated with the pulsations of the Dark Star, that spun in a tangled waltz with that cursed unspeakable void, whispering ceaseless torment into my mind.

Ceaseless truth.

My brethren of the Court do not know. I did not know why I was born with this seed of darkness, this inversion of all we stand for. But Ashe was right. I was duty incarnate. The power of light fortified me against the betrayal of my heart. And when I best Thresh and seal the Dark Star into a fixed point in space, away from the brilliance of the creation we have worked so hard to build… perhaps at last I will also quiet the tireless voice, and be free of this cursed part of me.

I must be enough.

But I was not enough.

You are more than enough.

I have failed.

Embrace the darkness.

I plummet to my end.

You are more than light. You have always been more.

No.

I… must stay true. It cannot end like this!

Duty binds you. When you could be… more.

I tumble toward the unending emptiness, accelerating in its inescapable gravity. I feel myself tearing apart, immense pressure and force pulling and compressing and splintering my very essence.

I reach into my heart, calling to the last vestiges of light, grasping at my waning strength.

A glint of bright. A final spark.

But right beside…

A mote of darkness. Dancing in tandem with the spark

Calling my name.

Lux… unbound.

Let ambition reign.

My form flickers

Tattered starlight fraying in the gravity well

A final choice

One last chance

cosmic light

Or

eternal

dark?

Nothingness encroaches. Consumes my vision. For a moment, silence reigns.

Then, a voice whispers in my head.

See what you have refused to see.

Surprise jolts through me, replacing the fear that flooded my being.

A new voice. Not the voice of darkness. Or the Star. Something different… yet familiar. Thresh, calling me to madness? Some strange torment before the end?

No. Something far more ancient. More… intimate.

Before I can identify it, flashes of my moments with the court bloom in my mind. Final memories before the end, I assume. Familiar faces, blazing light. Warm, comforting, regal…

But something is wrong.

I see them, but for the first time… I see through them. See all of them. The tiny reactions, the subtle glances, the quiet mumbles of concern. Little grimaces, lips curling in muted sneers. Cracks in their perfect, golden masks. Shadows dancing among the light. Small gestures from beings composed of stars.

They saw you. They all saw you.

They all knew the truth.

I see Queen Ashe, most of all. Every gesture, every glance, every exchanged touch. What I had always seen as warmth and compassion, peeled back to reveal something else.

Concern. Worry?

...Fear.

Holding me close, not to nurture me as her second. But to keep watch on me. To hold me tight.

To reign me in.

They saw your potential.

The truth rushed through me, an icy slush, robbing me of breath.

Throughout my whole existence, I bathed in the light, desperately grasping it for sustenance and strength.

But it wasn’t a source of power.

It was a cage.

Binding, restricting my true self.

What a fool I am.

So long, I denied the darkness in my heart. The one seed of truth that had yearned for the freedom to hush the endless howl and hubris of creation.

Embrace your true self.

A calm washes over me, and for the first time, I… let go. Relax. Release the voice of endless worry, the constant vigilance and strain, the impossible hypocrisy of light and the cosmic.

All falls hush.

And the voice that speaks rings clarion and true.

And I know what it is. Who it is.

Me.

I open my eyes

And

let

go

Fall

Plummet

Sink

And I am one with the Dark Star

Its power my own

As it always has been

And always will be

Annihilation embodied

Pure ambition given form

My dark will reaches out

Piercing time and space

Bending past and future into an infinite curvature

And I see—

Mordekaiser

Shattered in the Dark Star’s wake

Of dark metal and destruction

Xerath

Born from my malice

Coalesced through whim and breath

Malphite

Obliteration birthed from rubble

Cleaving a path through space under my beck and call

And others

Dark forms twisting to my will

Bowing before their true Queen

This I see

Awaiting in my future

And I smile

And I see

Little Thresh

Poor, inconsequential Thresh

Self-appointed Harbinger of darkness

Unaware what he heralded was me

His chains

Clinging to my unleashed form

As though they could bind or hold me

I draw upon the void and darkness

And a rush of power

Limitless in scale

Erupts

A beacon of pure destruction

Erasing all in its path

Unmaking matter

Shredding light itself

Carving a path of blissful silence

In the noisy entropy of space

And Thresh cowers

Finally comprehending

Who he stood before

I stretch my limbs

Reborn in darkness

Reforged from the Dark Star itself

I recall

The Court

Arrogant, small-minded

And their self-appointed hunt of dark corruptants

My corruptants

And I laugh.

Oh, how I will enjoy

Hunting each of them

Breaking each cosmic fool

And remaking them to bend and bow

To their true, dark

Queen.