LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Sona’s earliest memories are of the Ionian monastery where she was raised, in the province of Galrin. The monks, along with kindhearted volunteers from the local villages, took in any orphans or foundlings left at the front gates, and made sure that they would want for nothing.

As a young girl, Sona was considered shy and quiet, until it became apparent that she couldn’t speak at all. But she was unusually thoughtful and attentive, and the other children tended to seek her out whenever they needed comfort, their playful smiles quickly restored.

And Sona discovered other ways to express herself.

Unlike her playmates, she had one possession when she was first found—a curiously strung instrument, packed into a plain wooden case. None of the visiting musicians or teachers knew what it was… though that did not stop several of them from attempting to procure it for themselves, one way or another. Instead, Sona taught herself how to play it, and her simple, beautiful melodies moved even the most skeptical listener to tears of joy.

However, dark times were approaching. The foreign empire of Noxus had begun landing troops in the northern provinces, and the monks decided to evacuate their young charges to safety before the invasion reached Galrin. After their caretakers struck a deal with a Demacian trader, Sona and a handful of her friends found themselves bundled onto one of the last ships to escape before the Noxian blockade of Ionia’s western coast. She looked back in anguish, knowing that she would not be able to return for many years, if at all.

After months at sea, they arrived in Demacia—a strange, dour land where magic was widely distrusted. Their monks were called “Illuminators”, and they worshipped no gods or spirits, yet still placed great value on showing kindness to strangers and the needy.

So it was that Sona was taken in by the Buvelle family. Lord Barrett and his wife, Lestara, were prominent supporters of the Illuminator order, and renowned patrons of the arts in the Great City. Sona became like a sister to their daughter, Kahina, and Lestara in particular grew very attached to her. The Demacian language was often difficult to learn, but the Buvelles developed a personalized sign language that enabled Sona to communicate easily with her new family, and their friends.

Yet she yearned to express so much more. To show her appreciation to her adopted countrymen, she decided to use her gift to delight and soothe them, and returned to her music with renewed passion.

Soon, word spread of her virtuoso talents. Her performances captivated audiences, bringing them from sorrow to bliss, from righteous martial pride to almost exquisite peace… and Lestara became intrigued by the mysterious instrument that made this possible.

Delving deep into the libraries of the Illuminators, she came to believe it was one of the fabled etwahls—wondrous artifacts dating back thousands of years before Demacia’s founding, and now exceedingly rare in the world. If that were true, then this was an object of magic, and Sona’s preternatural connection to it was a dangerous gift indeed. Lestara urged her to keep it secret, to avoid bringing unwanted attention from the Demacian mageseekers.

Sona obeyed, though she wondered how something that brought people peace could be seen as a threat.

Some years later, Lord Barrett Buvelle was slain fighting Noxus at the Gates of Mourning. When Kahina took up her father’s blade and military commission, the heartbroken Lestara decided the time had come for Sona to return to Ionia, and the two of them withdrew from all courtly engagements to make the journey together.

In the war’s aftermath, a great “restoration” was underway across the First Lands, but the people were much changed by what they had endured, and Sona realized there was no longer any place for her there. Saying farewell to Ionia once again, she went back to Demacia with Lestara.

Even so, her chosen homeland is not without its own problems. In the wake of King Jarvan III’s assassination, the mageseekers have gained significant power, and many innocent citizens are persecuted for any supposed connection to magic.

As a child of two wildly different cultures, Sona increasingly finds herself at odds with her family’s political allegiances. With etwahl in hand, her melodies now serve not only to provide comfort, but also to defend what she knows is right and just.

Quinn and her twin brother, Caleb, were born in Uwendale, a remote mountain hamlet in northeastern Demacia. It was a thriving village of hunters and farmers, protected by rangers who patrolled the wilderness and drove off any dangerous creatures wandering down from the high peaks.

When the twins were still young, King Jarvan III visited Uwendale on a tour of his kingdom. Quinn and Caleb thrilled at the pageantry of the knights in his entourage, resplendent in their gleaming armor. Their father, a weaponsmith in the village, later saw them pretending to bravely defend the land themselves, and fashioned simple weapons for them to play with.

But as they grew, they spent every moment they could outdoors with their mother—a warden among the local rangers. She taught them how to survive in the wilds, how to track beasts, and most importantly how to fight. Quinn and Caleb became a formidable team—with her keen eye for trails, his skill at baiting their prey, her aim with a bow, and his prowess with a hunting spear.

But one expedition ended in tragedy.

Quinn and Caleb, now rangers for Uwendale, were hired to accompany a party of nobles from the capital as they hunted a giant tuskvore—a predator known for its thick hide, long horns, and ferocious temperament. But they failed to kill the creature outright, and the wounded beast turned on them. The twins were quick to intervene, with Caleb’s spear putting out one of the monster’s eyes, and Quinn driving off the tuskvore with her arrows... but not before it gored Caleb with its deadly horns.

The leader of the party, Lord Barrett Buvelle, helped Quinn bury her brother near where he had fallen. But all could see his death had broken her.

Unable to move on, she would return to the gravesite, and the joy she had felt as a ranger began to dim. Her prowess in the wilderness waned, and she started making mistakes—she missed easy tracks, and her aim was off.

A few months later, Lady Lestara Buvelle visited Quinn’s family. The noblewoman was grateful that Quinn had saved her husband’s life, and asked what she could do to repay them. Quinn could think of nothing. She thanked Lady Buvelle, and politely turned her away.

A year to the day after Caleb’s death, Quinn returned to his grave, as she so often did. Lost in grief, she didn’t hear the approaching tuskvore, its one eye marking it as the very beast that had slain her brother.

The monster charged. Quinn fired arrow after arrow, but to no avail, and she knew it was her doom. Just then, a majestic bird swooped in—an azurite eagle, a breed long thought extinct. The eagle’s talons and beak ripped bloody gouges across the tuskvore’s face, but the creature was resilient, its horns tearing into the bird’s wing.

Quinn fired her last arrow as the monster charged her again. This time her aim was true, and the shaft flew right down its gullet, felling the creature in a heartbeat.

Though the eagle was injured, she approached with caution, for such birds had been known as vicious and untamable hunters—but instead, she saw in his eyes a deep well of kinship. Quinn bound the eagle’s broken pinion, and returned to Uwendale with him. She named him Valor, and the bond that formed between them rekindled the fire in Quinn’s heart. Once more, her thoughts turned to serving Demacia in battle, as a knight.

Her mother reminded her that this would require sponsorship, and that was far beyond their family’s humble means. But her father urged her to seek out Lady Buvelle, who had already offered recompense for service to her noble family, in the capital.

With his help, Quinn crafted a new weapon worthy of a knight, a finely wrought repeater crossbow capable of firing multiple bolts with a single pull of the trigger. Quinn and Valor then set out for the Great City together.

Lestara Buvelle gladly vouched for Quinn, even paying a personal visit to High Marshal Tianna Crownguard to petition for her. Within a week, Quinn took her oaths as a ranger-knight of Demacia.

Now, having brought renown to the rangers of Uwendale, she prefers to remain out in the hinterlands, never staying within the walls of the outlying towns for long. Quinn rarely pulls rank with the rangers who report to her, instead deferring to their specialized skills and experience in the field—a stark departure from the rigid hierarchy of the rest of the military.

Quinn and Valor have ventured far and wide in service of Demacia, risking journeys into the icy Freljord and deep within Noxian-held territory. And with each mission, their unique bond has helped ensure the security of the kingdom’s borders for generations to come.

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.

That old, familiar smell hit her first. Hay, strawberries, and sturdy wood. The courtyard of the Argentine Inn had a particular waft to it that brought the ache of memories long past: a hundred concerts, a thousand faces lit by lantern light, and—most painful of all—a time when things were simpler and happier in Demacia.

But these days, that version of her home country felt distant. Worlds away. When she first spotted her old friend Etra emerging from the doorway of the inn, her breath hitched—maybe this, too, was different. But Etra’s eyes went wide. She shrieked with joy, and as she ran forward to wrap Sona up in her arms, Sona breathed a little sigh of relief. Some things didn’t change after all.

“You got my letter!” Etra said, and squeezed her tight.

Sona nodded. As Etra released her, she stood back to get a good look, still clasping Sona’s hands. “Someone’s been traveling,” she said, impressed. As if noticing Sona was on edge, Etra paused, released her hands, and slipped into the rough sign language they’d forged over a lifetime. All is well?

It was a relief to be able to sign back. To be understood by someone who loved her. Yes, of course, Sona responded, whether it was true or not. Missed you terribly, though. She held her hands a little lower. Didn’t want passersby to see the sharp gestures, the twitching fingers, and draw the wrong conclusions.

How long will you stay this time?

As long as I can, Sona signed. You know I never could refuse an empty stage.

Etra grinned. Excellent.

There was no audience around sunset, when Sona struck her first chord, but the first few folks trickled in right away. She was standing front and center in the Argentine’s “concert hall”—a converted barn with a bit of raised wood at the front to make a stage. Some of the people she could see were familiar faces. They brought their evening plans with them: wine by the flagon, cheese in its cloth.

As they settled into their familiar rhythm, the crowd swelled. Wagons were pulled up beyond the open door of the stage hall now, horses tied to posts. Some of the men had started to sing along loudly. They were drunk faster than usual. Sona smirked over at Etra, and she signed back with one hand: They missed you, too.

Things were tense for folks right now. They’d just lost their king and seen their country turn on itself in a single bloody year.

As if to punctuate Sona’s thoughts, four figures slipped into the back row of the audience, hoods pulled loose over their faces. Dark blue fabric. Not terribly suspicious on its own, but…

One of them tilted their head up at Sona, and she saw the hint of a gold mask glinting in the light.

Mageseekers.

Sona’s stomach lurched. She heard the slightest hitch in Etra’s voice, too, but neither of them dared look at each other right now.

The only answer was to keep performing, keep singing, and—hopefully—keep up appearances. The next song in the set was a solo. Etra and Cal slipped backstage.

This was the moment the crowd had really come to hear, and there were small murmurs and comfortable rustles in the audience as people settled in. There was no name for the piece, but they all knew it regardless. It was Sona’s own creation, and she relaxed into it. Her fingers brushed the strings, the air teemed with silence—and then, with a pick of a single note, they were off.

Her fingers danced like fireflies. The song flowed, built, faded, built again.

But then something evolved in the music. There were additional layers to it, notes that should have been impossible to play simultaneously. Sona looked up and saw only smiles and closed eyes. The audience had become enamored, absorbed.

It was time. The etwahl had awoken. Long, twisting illusions rose up from the strings, stretching and snapping as the very air hummed. To her, they were brilliant—a language she and the instrument alone shared. No one else could see them.

The etwahl had chosen someone. An old woman in the back of the room was thinking of her husband, a farmer, and the instrument had become throaty with the full warmth and bass of his voice. Sona could almost hear him talk. And in the shapes that rapidly shifted before her, she saw the outline of his weathered face, the way his cheeks crinkled when he smiled. But the outline morphed… the fuzzy curve of a sleeping figure. He had fallen ill and passed a month ago. A hard harvest without him, no doubt.

The etwahl hummed something private to Sona then: the last rasping song the man had ever sung to his wife. The notes hung in the air. She took the snatched phrases of the melody and, without even having to pause, she wove it back into the song, building around it. When she glanced up, Sona saw the widow’s eyebrows raised with recognition, tears trailing down the woman’s cheeks.

Sona slipped music into the woman’s heart. Music to warm her. Music to soothe her. Music to give her strength to face the year ahead.

The music had reached crescendo now. She and the etwahl were deep in conversation. The shapes had expanded, brilliant and ever-moving, an aurora stretching across the hall…

A shout shattered the song. She halted, frozen. But the shapes still drifted, no longer a secret between her and the instrument.

She’d lost control.

The mageseekers in the back had risen, making their way down the center aisle. They were coming for her. Some threw their hoods back now. The rest of the audience was still transfixed, unseeing. They hadn’t yet registered what was happening. Sona took two steps back, toward the archway that led out the back of the barn.

“Stop!” one of the mageseekers cried. They were undeniably here for her. She bolted, hefting her skirts in one hand. The etwahl shuddered, broke free of its stand, and drifted after her through the air. Why hide it anymore?

She emerged out back and into the darkness. There was an alley back there—she could flee into the woods before they spotted her. But as she reached the end of the alley, two seekers stepped into her path. She pulled up short and turned around. Maybe… No. Three more blocked her way back to the inn’s door. She was trapped.

“If you don’t resist…” one of them started, but she saw the flash of Demacian steel in his hand and she heard nothing else. Behind her, footsteps. They were closing in.

She backed up against the wall of the inn, all five of them now standing in front of her.

She laid her fingers on the etwahl. I hope Etra ran, she thought.

The etwahl glowed. She struck a violent burst of music. The chord shot forth from her and slammed into the seekers. The air was charged gold, sickeningly radiant. They turned away from her. She heard their groans, their broken screams, and knew it was over.

They were dancing, all of them. They cut an eerie sight to anyone who might see: contorted, twisting figures bent against their will like puppets being made to perform. It was painful, she knew that much. But she had to make them hurt. She had to make pain the only thing they could remember. That way, they couldn’t remember Etra. They couldn’t come after her.

“For pity’s sake, mercy!”

“Ungh… My arm—”

At first they begged her to stop, but after a moment even that died away and there was nothing but gurgling, the shuffle of footsteps, the creaking and snapping of joints. I didn’t want to hurt you, she thought. I never do. But you… You’re the reason home isn’t home anymore.

One last beat. One final encore. She strummed. The chord reached them, deep violet. They dropped to the floor instantly like discarded toys, unconscious and forgetful.

And Sona disappeared into the silence of the woods.

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.

“Why send us all the way out here?” said the soldier leaning against the wall of the gatehouse, arms folded across his chest. “There’s blood on the streets of the Great City, and we’re sent to the border?”

His name was Bakker, and Cithria had never warmed to him—he was prone to seeing the bad in every situation, though to be fair, in this case there was truth in his words.

The rest of their comrades stood nearby. None of them looked particularly happy about their predicament.

Cithria remained silent. She was the youngest of the Demacian soldiers, though she was by no means an untested recruit. In the year she’d spent among their ranks she had proven herself a capable soldier, and one of the fastest with a blade, yet there were plenty of times—this among them—when she felt out of her depth and unsure of herself.

She wore full, gleaming plate armor, as did they all. A shield was slung across her back, and she carried her helmet under one arm, leaving her dark hair, tied back in a long braid, hanging free.

The soldiers stood before the immense Graygate, guarding the northeast border of Demacia. The name was anomalous, for the bastion was built of pristine white stone. It was generally understood that the name had come from the gray shale cliffs nearby, though soldiers stationed here, particularly those who hailed from the south or the coast of Demacia, moaned it had more to do with the perpetually overcast, northern skies.

To either side of the gate tower stretched tall, white stone walls. Pennants fluttered in the breeze from the crenulations, and sentries stood vigil in the cold wind, looking eastward.

“We should be deployed with the rest of the battalion, scouring the forests for that traitor and his rabble,” another soldier said.

“Mages,” said Bakker, speaking the word with loathing. “We should be rid of the lot of them.”

Such talk made Cithria uneasy. She herself had never encountered magic, or at least none that she was aware of, but she had been raised to fear and distrust those that were able to wield it. News from the capital made that fear seem justified.

It was only a month since the rogue mage Sylas had escaped imprisonment and ripped the heart of Demacia apart. That insane, horrifically powerful rebel had ignited a wave of unrest across the kingdom, and even now the Great City was locked down, the military controlling the streets to ensure order.

Cithria agreed they would be more useful elsewhere, but the venom in her comrade’s voice disturbed her.

“I say the whole lot of them should—” Bakker started saying, but Cithria cut him short.

“Heads up. The shield-sergeant’s back.”

The short, stocky figure of Shield-Sergeant Gunthar was heading toward them at a brisk pace. A pair of hooded men walked with him, one to either side.

“Who’s that with him?”

“I don’t know,” said Cithria.

The soldiers snapped sharply to attention as their sergeant and his mysterious companions drew near.

“Alright you lot,” Gunthar said. “I know you’re all wondering why in the Protector’s name we’ve been sent all the way out here.”

The sergeant cast his gaze across their ranks.

“A foreign envoy from the Arbormark will soon be arriving here at the border, and we have been tasked with escorting them safely to the capital.”

Escort duty?

Even to Cithria, it seemed a strangely mundane task. Still, neither she nor any of the other soldiers said a word, and all remained staring resolutely forward.

“The envoy’s protection is our highest priority,” continued Gunthar. “Were even so much as a hair on their head to be harmed while under our guard, it would tarnish the honor of Demacia. The Arbormark have long been our allies, and we must not allow anything to damage that relationship. It is expected we fulfill this duty with honor, grace, and good faith.”

Gunthar’s expression hardened. “Even if it goes against our better judgment,” he added.

The soldiers were well-disciplined, and made no overt reaction to those final words, but Cithria felt and mirrored their unease. What was that meant to mean?

Gunthar gestured to his cloaked companions, who stepped forward, lowering their hoods.

Cithria’s eyes widened.

The older of the pair was a stern-looking man of middling years, his short-cropped hair going to gray, and his skin weathered with deep frown-lines and more than a few scars. The other was a younger man, slimmer of build and nervous-looking, with a sweep of dark hair hanging to one side of his face.

Both wore form-fitting golden half-masks, and dull gray discs of engraved stone pinned at their shoulders holding their cloaks in place.

Cithria let out a slow breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

Mageseekers.

“This is Cadstone, a senior adept of the mageseeker order, and his associate, Arno,” said Gunthar, by way of introduction. The mageseekers bowed ever-so-slightly. “They will be accompanying us as we escort the envoy to the capital.”

Horns sounded atop the gatehouse.

“Riders approaching, under the banner of the Arbormark!” came a cry from a sentry up above.

Shield-Sergeant Gunthar nodded to the guards, and the great gates were heaved open, hinges groaning under the weight. The ironwork portcullis was raised, chains clanking, and the immense drawbridge beyond was lowered. It slammed down with a boom like thunder. Early morning sunlight streamed in through the open gate.

“With me,” Gunthar ordered, striding forward with the mageseekers at his side. Cithria and the other soldiers fell in behind them, moving with well-drilled precision.

Cithria wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting from the envoy, but it wasn’t the massive, dark-skinned man who waited for them. He was clad in bearskins, and carried a staff of heavy wood. He smiled broadly as the Demacians marched forth to meet him.

Cithria watched him warily.

He rode the biggest horse Cithria had ever seen, jet-black and with thick feathering covering its iron-shod hooves. Accompanying him were twenty riders, all wearing long scale mail coats, and carrying axes and shields. One of them bore a standard, depicting the crossed axes heraldry of the Arbormark, which was mirrored on the warriors’ shields.

The envoy dismounted, and strode forward to meet Gunthar and his entourage, smiling broadly. He had the heavily muscled build of a soldier, or a smith; definitely not what she was expected of a mage. She had always imagined them as sneaking, cunning types, preferring subterfuge and trickery to physical strength.

Halting before the Demacians, he touched the palm of his left hand to his forehead, then extended it to the sky. Cithria clasped her hand around the hilt of her sword, thinking he was performing some arcane conjuration, before realizing it was likely an Arbormark salute. Feeling her cheeks burn, she cursed herself for a fool.

Shield-Sergeant Gunthar gave the man a salute of his own.

“My name is Arjen, and I bring greetings from the Lord of the Arbormark,” said the envoy, bowing his head.

“Welcome. I am Shield-Sergeant Gunthar, seventh battalion. And this,” he added, “is Cadstone, of the Order of Mageseekers.”

“You have been a guest within the borders of Demacia before, have you not?” said Cadstone, without any pretense of small talk. “You are aware of the Laws of Stone?”

“Yes, I have been here before, good seeker,” said Arjen, “and I am aware of your kingdom’s rules and regulations. I shall honor the Laws of Stone and make no use of my… talents… while within your realm. I give you my word.”

“Good,” said Cadstone. “Mageseeker Arno and I will be with you, from now until the moment you leave Demacia. It is our task to hold you to your word. Know that there will be repercussions if you do not abide by our laws. But if you abstain from using your… talents, as you call them… then all will be well.”

Arjen bowed deeply, still smiling.

“Then let us be on our way,” said Gunthar. “Your personal guard will need to remain beyond the border, of course.”

“Of course, of course,” Arjen said, before turning and waving his attendants away. “Shoo!” he said. “Be off with you!”

Cithria stifled a smile at the man’s bizarre behavior. The stoic riders turned, one of them grabbing the reins of the envoy’s horse, and galloped away without a word.

“Let us be on our way then!” said Arjen, clapping his hands together.

It was three hours’ solid march northwest to Meltridge, a small river town, where they would board a waiting ship and sail the rest of the way to the capital. Cithria was surprised to find that the envoy from the Arbormark did not slow them, easily matching the punishing pace Gunthar set, his heavy staff striking the ground firmly with every step.

The march took them across windswept moors and dales. The gales whipping down from the frozen north chilled Cithria to the bone. The Demacians trudged on, cinching their cloaks around their necks for additional warmth. Wrapped in bearskins, the envoy seemed unaffected by the weather.

For all Cithria’s apprehension, Arjen was an affable and easily likeable man. She forced herself not to be lulled into a false sense of security, however. The ways of the arcane were full of deception and trickery. While the Demacians were tight-lipped and stoic, clearly uneasy around this mage, Arjen himself passed the time telling stories of his homeland. Most of them involved lots of drinking of ale, feats of strength, and farfetched heroics, but he had a gift for storytelling, and it certainly passed the time better than silence.

“…and then the great beast growled. ‘You don’t come here for the hunting, do you?’ it said.”

The big man guffawed with laughter at his own ribald joke, slapping one of his meaty thighs in mirth. Cithria, marching just to the envoy’s side, found herself smiling despite herself, even as she shook her head at the inappropriateness of the story.

“You get it, lass?” said Arjen, addressing Cithria directly. “He says that because he thinks the man—“

“Oh, I get it,” said Cithria hastily holding up her hand to stop Arjen’s explanation.

Snow began to fall around halfway to their destination. At first, the flakes were small and light, but they quickly became heavier, until visibility was reduced dramatically. Soon, the ground and road were completely blanketed. The snowfall dampened all sound. Cithria walked near the envoy, who was guarded in the middle of the column of soldiers. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the two mageseekers had fallen a few steps back, just out of earshot. They had both drawn their hoods over their heads against the cold.

“I’m curious,” Cithria said, in a low voice that she hoped only the envoy hear.

“Curiosity is a powerful thing,” said Arjen. “Sometimes dangerous.”

A nearby soldier gave her a glance, as if willing her to remain silent. Cithria paused, wondering if she should finish her thought, or let it pass. Her curiosity got the better of her.

“You know of the Laws of Stone, and at least something of the… challenges that currently beset Demacia,” she said.

“I do,” said Arjen. All of his levity was gone now, and his expression somber. “It is for this reason that I have come, sent by my lord. It is for this reason envoys are coming from all of your nation’s allies.”

“But knowing all that, why would your lord send you?”

Arjen looked down at her, raising an eyebrow. “I am chief advisor to the hall of the Arbormark, so it is my place to come,” he said. He saw her surprise, and smiled wryly. “Things are different beyond your borders. If you wished to discuss matters of the forge, you would summon a smith, yes? At a time like this, who better, then, to send than a mage?”

Cithria opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.

Let’s just get him to the capital safely, she told herself.

The sooner they completed this mission, the better.

Dusk was approaching as they made their way into the white-walled town of Meltridge. The guards at the gate saluted, and townspeople stood respectfully aside as the band marched down the main thoroughfare.

“We turn northwest at the next junction,” said Cadstone. The snow was easing, and he lowered his hood, pointing. “The docks lie at the foot of that hill.”

“You’ve been here before, then, lord seeker?” said Cithria, after Gunthar ordered the soldiers to follow the mageseeker’s directions. The mageseeker nodded.

“A young girl lived here,” he said. “Powerful mage.”

“You… captured her?” said Cithria, wide-eyed.

“She gave herself in,” chimed in Arno. “She was benign. Registered. Normally, one such as her wouldn’t be taken in, but ever since—”

“Arno!” snapped Cadstone.

The younger mageseeker fell quiet, looking chastened.

“Let us move,” said Cadstone. “It would be best for us not to linger.”

At this time of early evening, the narrow road down to the docks was busy.

Boatmen finishing work for the day were climbing the hill, making their way home or to one of the numerous taverns that lined the way. Children raced to and fro, chasing each other through the snow, a pair of excited hounds keeping pace. Shopkeepers stood in the doorways of their stores, and peddlers on the street shouted the prices of their wares.

The soldiers were not even a third of the way down the hill before Cithria felt the mood of the street change.

At first it was just a few dark looks and a few muttered words by passers-by. Clusters of townsfolk gathered in doors and alleys, talking in low voices and pointing. A fisherman spat on the ground, his eyes burning with anger.

“Move along, citizen,” growled Gunthar. The man did so, somewhat reluctantly.

Cithria was shocked. She did not expect such outright hostility from Demacians, despite all that had been happening in the capital.

“Tighten ranks,” Gunthar said, and the soldiers responded instantly, keeping the mage and the mageseekers protected at the heart of the column.

A rock struck one of the soldiers in the side of their helmet. Another, thrown from a different direction, glanced from Cadstone’s forehead, drawing blood.

Cithria cursed under her breath at the narrowness of the street. There was little room to maneuver, and they were already too far down the hill to turn back. They had to continue on down to the docks.

“Shields up!” barked Gunthar, the shield-sergeant clearly coming to the same conclusion. “Forward, double-time!”

The soldiers instantly picked up their pace, surging forward along the street.

“By order of the crown, clear the way! Move!” Gunthar shouted. Most of the townsfolk did so, scrambling out of the soldiers’ path, but up ahead, Cithria saw something that made her blood run cold.

A pair of wagons were rolled from alleys ahead, blocking their way. Angry townsfolk crowded before them. Cithria glanced left and right. The white stone walls of shop fronts pressed in on either side, like the sides of a chasm. She realized the doors were all closed and barred, the windows shuttered.

“This is a trap!” she hissed.

“Aye,” said Gunthar. He cursed under his breath.

“Halt! About-face!” the shield-sergeant shouted. The soldiers responded instantly, turning in place. All had their shields raised, though none had drawn weapons.

The mageseekers stood close to the envoy, one to either side. The three of them were kept protected at the center of the soldiers’ formation.

“It’s no good!” shouted Cithria. “This way is blocked, too.”

Now facing the way they’d come, they could see the townsfolk had hurriedly rolled out another wagon, blocking their retreat.

“Give him to us, and no one needs get hurt!” shouted a burly man from atop the wagon. He looked like the local blacksmith, wearing a thick leather apron and holding a hammer in hand.

“Clear the street!” Gunthar ordered.

The blacksmith, who appeared to be the spokesperson for the angry crowd, appeared unmoved.

“Not gonna happen, lad,” he said, gently tapping his hammer into his open hand as an unspoken threat.

While some people ran to get clear of the tense standoff, more townsfolk joined those gathered at either end of the street. Many of them carried farming tools, woodcutter’s axes, and other makeshift weapons, but more than a few had swords scabbarded at their waists. While they were clearly outclassed by the soldiers they faced, they would not be intimidated.

“I say again, clear the way,” said Gunthar.

In response, a stone struck Cithria’s shield. The soldier alongside her—Bakker—made to draw his sword, the blade hissing as he began to slide it from its scabbard.

“No blades!” Cithria cried, putting her hand on the hilt of the sword. “These are Demacians, those we are sworn to protect!”

Bakker, older and more senior than Cithria, scowled, and went to brush her aside, but their shield-sergeant stopped him with a sharp order.

“She’s right,” Gunthar growled. “No sword will be drawn unless I order it.”

The crowd became ever-more aggressive, shouting and closing in threateningly.

Among the din, Cithria made out several individual voices.

“You’ll pay, you swine!” shouted one woman.

“Get him, get him!” roared a man well into his twilight years, though he had the bearing of an ex-soldier.

“We should just give him to them,” muttered Bakker.

Cithria glared at him. “Envoy Arjen is under our sworn protection!” she snapped. “Where is your honor?”

“He’s just a mage,” said another soldier, though Cithria couldn’t see who had spoken.

A heavy earthenware jar struck the soldiers’ line, shattering on a shield in an explosion of shards. A heavy chunk of masonry hit another soldier in the pauldron, dropped from above, and driving him to his knees. His comrades helped him quickly back to his feet, and Cithria looked up to see people appearing on the rooftops around them.

She saw a hooded man up there throw something. Instinctively, Cithria lifted her shield high to protect the envoy standing behind her. A rusted horseshoe struck its curved surface before clattering away harmlessly. Had it struck home, it could have been lethal.

The mage nodded his thanks. He wasn’t smiling now.

“We’ll get you out of this unscathed, on my honor,” Cithria said.

The townsfolk had closed in around them, still shouting, though none of them yet seemed willing to get too close. Nevertheless, Cithria knew it was only a matter of moments before someone charged the line, and she feared what would happen once they did.

“We have to get out of here!” she shouted, as more stones, bricks and loose detritus clattered off the soldiers’ armor.

“If we charge through them, there will be citizen casualties,” said Shield-Sergeant Gunthar.

“That might be our only option,” said Cadstone. Reluctantly, Cithria had to agree. Unless…

“That door!” she called out, gesturing toward a locked and barred shopfront nearby.

“Worth a try,” said Gunthar. “Half circle, on me!”

The Demacians smoothly shifted their formation, forming a curving shieldwall with their backs to the shopfront.

“Cithria! Bakker!” ordered Gunthar. “Break down those doors!”

The pair of them stepped out of the ranks. The mageseekers and Arjen stood within the protective cordon of soldiers, and Bakker impatiently pushed by the envoy.

“Out of the way, mage,” he snarled.

Cithria saw Arjen take a breath to remain calm and not respond. She hurried to the doors, stepping around the mage, and nodded to Bakker.

“On three,” he said. “One, two, three!”

Together, they kicked the double-doors, hard.

“Again!”

Three more times they struck, putting their full weight into the kicks, before there was a sharp, splintering crack, and the doors slammed inwards.

“Go!” shouted Gunthar. “Take the envoy and the seekers, and find a way out! We will hold them here!”

Seeing the object of their ire about to escape, the mob of townsfolk surged forward, charging into the shieldwall.

“Come with me!” Cithria ordered, entering the darkened shop, shield raised before her. “There’s got to be a back door.”

The shop, it seemed, belonged to a candle-maker. Hundreds of wax candles lined the shelves, and an array of floral scents assailed Cithria.

“Here!” shouted Bakker, disappearing towards the rear of the shop.

“Stay close,” said Cithria, and the envoy from the Arbormark, flanked by the pair of mageseekers, dropped in behind her as she followed Bakker deeper into the shop.

The door he found led to a storeroom, filled with barrels, stacks of crates, and sacks. It was so dark that Cithria could barely see Bakker’s shape a few feet in front of her.

“If only we had a candle, eh?” remarked Arjen mildly, making Cithria snort, then cover her mouth to stop herself. It was hardly a time for levity.

Then there was a sound of cracking timber, and light suddenly entered the storeroom as Bakker kicked the back door open. The alley beyond was clear.

Bakker ushered Cithria and the others forward.

“Move!” he said. “I’ll take the rearguard!”

Cithria nodded, and plowed forward, leading Arjen and the mageseekers. She’d gone no more than ten paces when someone stepped out of the shadows of a side-alley, blocking her path.

It was an auburn-haired woman, and she cradled a heavy crossbow in her arms. Even as Cithria slid to a standstill, one hand raised in warning to those behind, the woman leveled the weapon in their direction.

Time seemed to slow.

Snow was falling again, the heavy flakes drifting soundlessly down. The clamor of the crowd and the shouts of her fellow soldiers were faint, here in the quiet alley behind the main thoroughfare.

Cithria saw that the woman’s eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and her expression was one of desperation.

What had driven this town to such a state? In Cithria’s experience, the people of her homeland were lawful and stoic. Why was this town so angry?

“Get out of the way,” the woman said to Cithria, eyes pleading. Her voice was cracked and choked with emotion. “Please.”

“This man is an envoy from an allied nation,” Cithria said, in a calm voice, the kind she might use around a skittish horse. “I cannot allow any harm to befall him.”

“What?” said the woman, her brow furrowing.

“Don’t do this,” said Cithria. “This man is under the protection of Demacia.”

The woman laughed then, the sound desperate and almost manic.

“It’s not him I want,” she said. “It’s the seeker. That one.”

Only then did Cithria realize the crossbow was pointed at Cadstone.

“My daughter never did anything wrong!” the woman said, and tears ran down her cheeks. “Kyra chose to step forward, to alert the mageseekers of her power. She didn’t want to get anyone into trouble, didn’t want to bring grief down upon her family, or on this town. Everyone loved her! All this trouble—you caused it all!”

“You took her daughter…” Cithria breathed, looking at Cadstone.

The mageseeker nodded grimly.

“We had to,” he said. “The law was amended. Any citizen with known magical power, benign or otherwise, is now ordered to be brought in for judgment. Every mage in the kingdom.”

“She was just a girl!” shouted the woman, jabbing her crossbow in the mageseeker’s direction. “You locked her away! With all those criminals! Or maybe she has been exiled and is out beyond the borders, alone! You condemned her!”

Cithria sucked in a breath, certain a bolt was going to be loosed… but it wasn’t. Not yet, at least.

“Kyra was no threat to anyone!” the woman cried. “She used to cry herself to sleep, wishing she had been born like everyone else. And you took her. You’re a monster.”

“The law is the law,” said Cadstone.

“Then the law is wrong,” the woman said. “She was my life, and you took her from me. Now I will take yours from you.”

Her finger tightened around the trigger… but she hesitated as Cithria stepped in between her and the mageseeker.

“Move, please,” said the woman, crying. “I don’t want to see anyone harmed but the one responsible for this.”

“I cannot let you do this,” said Cithria. “Put the crossbow down.”

“My life is over,” said the woman. “His should be too.”

“If you do this, there is no coming back,” said Cithria. “What happens when your daughter returns home, but you are not here because of the choice you make today?”

“No one taken by the seekers is ever seen again,” said the woman. “Kyra is never coming home.”

The depth of despair in her voice was heart-wrenching, cutting Cithria to her core.

“You can’t know that,” pleaded Cithria. “You owe it to her to be here if she does. She’ll need you.”

The woman’s face crumpled in grief, her eyes screwing shut, tears running freely. But she didn’t lower the crossbow.

Cithria took a step forward, reaching out to her.

“I’ll help you,” Cithria said. “I promise you, I will do all I can to find out where your daughter is.”

Cithria was certain she was failing to reach the woman. At this range, the sheer power of a heavy crossbow would punch straight through her breastplate.

“Please,” she said. “You need to be strong. For Kyra.”

The woman collapsed to her knees, all the fight going out of her. But as she dropped, finally giving in to grief and exhaustion, her finger tightened on the trigger.

There was a click, followed by a sharp snap, as the crossbow fired.

The bolt sliced through the air and ricocheted off one of the alley’s white stone walls. Cithria spun as the deadly bolt hissed past Cadstone and Arno, missing the nervous young mageseeker by inches, and shot directly at Bakker.

Cithria saw the envoy from the Arbormark make a slight motion with his fingers, a subtle twisting of his hand. The bolt was knocked off course, as if it had struck an invisible, angled wall just in front of Bakker, and it spun harmlessly over his shoulder.

The hair on the back of Cithria’s neck suddenly stood on end at what she had just seen.

Bakker’s eyes were wide in shock. The bolt should have taken him in the neck, and Cithria could see that he knew it. The giant, bearskin-clad envoy gave her the slightest of winks.

The young mageseeker was on the ground, breathing hard. Cadstone was pressed up against one wall of the alleyway. The woman was kneeling on the ground in the snow, her body wracked with sobs.

Cithria rushed to her side, and gently removed the crossbow from her shaking hands. Then she hugged the woman, drawing her close.

“Do not arrest her,” Cithria said, looking up at Cadstone. “It was an accident, nothing more.”

The mageseeker hesitated, looking troubled.

“No harm befell anyone,” continued Cithria. “She has suffered enough. Please.”

Cadstone sighed, and rubbed his eyes.

“This is not a matter for my order,” he said, finally. “Since there was no magic performed here, I leave that decision to you.”

Cithria caught Bakker’s eye… but he said nothing.

The mob of townsfolk hurled themselves against the Demacian shieldwall, kicking and surging. Bottles and rocks clashed upon shields and helmets, but still the soldiers did not draw weapons.

There was a shout as Cithria emerged from the candle shop once more, leading the red-haired woman, an arm around her shoulder, and the townsfolk backed off.

“Rosalyn?” called the burly blacksmith.

“Kyra wouldn’t want this,” the woman called out. “She wouldn’t want anyone hurt on her account.”

Her sudden appearance gave the crowd pause. A few of them fought on, shoving against the shieldwall, but others backed off, suddenly unsure of themselves.

“Clear the street!” roared Gunthar. “Leave now, and there will be no repercussions!”

The townspeople looked to the blacksmith.

“Do what he says,” he said, finally. “It’s over.”

The fury and resentment in the crowd dissipated, like an early morning fog beneath the sun’s rays. Within a few moments, they looked just like regular citizens once more, now that their faces were no longer twisted with anger and rage. Many in the crowd muttered and looked down, ashamed.

At a nod from Gunthar, the soldiers parted to allow the blacksmith through their ranks, who took the woman in his arms.

“The rest of you, go home!” Gunthar ordered the milling crowd. He could have had them all rounded up and clapped in irons, but Cithria was glad he chose leniency.

Cithria looked around. Miraculously, other than a few scrapes and bruises, no one had been seriously harmed, either among the soldiers’ ranks, or the citizenry of Meltridge. The townsfolk drifted away, dragging the wagons with them.

Her shield-sergeant, Gunthar, looked at Cithria in relief.

“I don’t know what you did,” he said, shaking his head, “but whatever it was, you helped avert disaster today, soldier.”

Cithria felt suddenly tired, and didn’t have the energy to respond. She nodded numbly, and sat heavily on a nearby step.

Soldiers were still watching the last lingering townsfolk warily. Bakker stood nearby, his expression clouded. Cithria’s gaze drifted to the pair of mageseekers, their expressions grim, then to the woman, Rosalyn, crying in the blacksmith’s arms.

All these people were Demacians, and all had good intentions at heart, yet recent actions had set them against each other.

A difficult time was coming to Demacia, she thought.

No, she corrected herself.

It was already here.

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.

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

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

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

But these were far from normal circumstances.

The king was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Uncle?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Rise,” Jarvan ordered.

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

Xin Zhao jumped backward, avoiding the blow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You have nothing to say?” demanded Jarvan.

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

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

Drakebane.

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

“Get your spear,” he said.

“You are not armored,” protested Xin Zhao.

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

“I don’t care,” Jarvan said.

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

Without a word, Jarvan attacked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He held it out to his seneschal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xin Zhao said nothing.

“I’m right, am I not?” said Jarvan.

Xin Zhao sighed, and looked down.

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

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

Jarvan rubbed his eyes.

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

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

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

“I remember,” said Xin Zhao.

“You delivered this letter, I take it?”

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

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

“Nothing that could not be dealt with.”

“Mages?” said Jarvan.

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

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

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

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

“And they killed him,” snapped Jarvan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then it will be done,” he said.

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

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

Xin Zhao frowned.

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

“To whom did you make this pledge?”

“High Marshal Tianna Crownguard.”

Jarvan frowned.

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

“Of course.”

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

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

“But what of the High Marshal?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It would be my honor… my king.”

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

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

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

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

Jarvan paused before the great council doors.

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

“My lord?”

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

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

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

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

“Destroy it,” Jarvan said.

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

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

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

“Seneschal?” said Jarvan.

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

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

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

“Let us begin,” said Jarvan.

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

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

But all joy was forgotten when Catherine died in childbirth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the kingdom itself was changing.

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

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

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

The boy admired the yellow dormisroot peeking through the frozen soil. It was one of hundreds growing in a tiny patch of vivid color in an otherwise barren landscape. He crouched next to the blossom and inhaled. Crisp morning air and a faint aroma greeted his nose. He reached out to pick the wildflower.

“Leave it be,” said Vannis.

The older man towered over the boy, his blue cloak stirring in the gentle breeze. Marsino stood next to him, holding an unlit torch. The three had been waiting for a while, completely unchallenged.

The younger man smiled down at the boy and nodded.

The boy plucked the flower and stuffed it in his pocket.

Vannis shook his head and frowned. “Your time with the boy has instilled bad habits.”

Marsino flushed at the remark, his smile disappearing. He cleared his throat and asked, “Do you see anything?”

The boy stood and studied the row of houses across the frostbitten field, the weathered dwellings nothing more than dilapidated shacks strewn across a hillside. Shapes and shadows moved past the cast-glass windows.

“There’re people inside,” he said.

“We can all see that,” said Vannis, his tone biting. “Do you see what we’re looking for?”

The boy searched for the smallest hint or impression. He saw nothing but the dull grey of weathered planks and hewn stone.

“No, sir.”

Vannis grumbled underneath his breath.

“Perhaps if we drew closer,” said Marsino.

The older man shook his head. “These are hillfolk. They’ll put a spear in you before you get within twenty paces of their door.”

The boy shivered at the words. The southern hillfolk’s fierce reputation was known back in the Great City. They lived in the untamed edges of the kingdom, near the disputed territories. He glanced over his shoulder and inched closer to Marsino.

“Light the torch,” said Vannis.

Marsino struck his flint, showering the oil-soaked cord with sparks. The pitch erupted in flames and chased away the brisk morning air.

They didn’t need to wait long.

Several cabin doors opened, and a dozen men and women marched toward the group. They carried pikes and axes.

The boy’s hand fell to the dagger at his side. He turned to Marsino, but the man’s eyes were fixed on the villagers.

“Steady, boy,” said Vannis.

The crowd stopped at the edge of the field, their ragged clothing in stark contrast to the royal blue and white finery worn by Vannis and Marsino. Even the boy’s own clothes were better kept.

A slight tingle ran down his spine. He touched Marsino’s arm, attracting his attention, and nodded. The man acknowledged the signal and motioned for him to step back. There was a process to be followed.

An old woman stepped out from behind the crowd. “Do mageseekers burn villages now?” she asked.

“There’s nothing here, move on!” shouted a young man with wild hair, standing next to the woman. The others joined in, jeering and barking.

“Hush!” the woman snapped, elbowing the man in the ribs.

The man winced and bowed his head. The crowd fell silent.

The hillfolk were unlike anyone the boy had seen in the Great City. They didn’t shrink at the sight of mageseekers in their traditional blue cloaks and half-masks of hammered bronze. Instead, they stood tall and defiant. A few fiddled with their weapons, glaring at the boy. He averted his gaze.

Marsino stepped forward. “A bushel of dormisroot arrived in Wrenwall six days ago,” he said, gesturing to the flowers with his torch.

“People sell things. People buy things. Is it different in the city?” the old woman asked.

The hillfolk laughed.

The boy nervously joined in. Even Marsino offered up a weak smile. Vannis remained unmoved. He regarded the crowd, hand on his quarterstaff.

“Of course not,” said Marsino. “But the flower is rare this time of year.”

“We’re good farmers. Good hunters, too,” she said, the smile disappearing.

Vannis fixed his gaze on the old woman. “Aye, but the ground is frozen and there isn’t one among you who’s ever worked a plough.”

The old woman shrugged. “Things grow where they want. Who are we to say different.”

Vannis smirked. “Aye, plants grow,” he said, as he unclipped the Graymark from his cloak. He dropped down on his haunches and held the carved, stone disk over a dormisroot.

The petals wilted and shriveled.

“But they don’t die at the sight of petricite,” said Vannis, standing back up. “Unless you use magecraft to grow them.”

The smiles disappeared from the villagers’ faces.

“The use of magic is forbidden,” said Marsino. “We are all Demacian. Bound by birth to honor her laws—”

“You can’t eat honor up here,” said the old woman.

“Even if you could, your belly’d be empty,” sneered Vannis.

The crowd stirred at the insult and pressed in closer, coming within several paces of the mageseekers.

Marsino cleared his throat and raised a hand. “The hillfolk have always honored the ways of Demacia. Keeping with law and tradition,” he said. “We only ask you do so again today. Will the afflicted step forward?”

No one moved or said a word.

After a moment, Marsino spoke again. “If honor does not compel you, then know we have a boy here that will root out the guilty.”

The crowd focused on the boy. Reproach welled in their eyes as harsh whispers flowed through their ranks.

“So the runt can invoke magic without censure, but not us?” asked the man who had shouted earlier.

The boy shrank at the accusation.

“He works in service to Demacia,” Marsino said, before turning to the boy. “It’s fine, go ahead.”

He nodded and rubbed a sweaty palm on the leg of his breeches before turning to face the hillfolk. Among the dirt-streaked faces stood a singular, radiating presence. A corona of light pulsated and shimmered around the mage.

Only the boy could see this light, and it had been so all his life. This was his gift. This was his affliction.

The rest of the villagers watched with scorn. It was the same everywhere. These people hated him for his gift. All of them—except for the old woman. Her soft eyes simply pleaded with him not to speak.

The boy hung his head and looked at the ground.

They all waited as the moment stretched in silence. He could feel Vannis taking measure, and judging him harshly.

“It’s alright,” said Marsino, placing an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “We keep the order. We uphold the law.”

The boy looked up, ready to point out the mage.

“Don’t say it, boy,” said the old woman, shaking her head. “I’ll accept it. Do you hear me?”

“Enough of this,” Vannis snapped, pushing past him, Graymark in hand.

The radiant light around the mage momentarily dimmed as the crowd closed in.

“Wait!”

“Quiet, boy. You had your chance.”

But it wasn’t the woman who was afflicted.

The boy turned to Marsino. “It’s not her! It’s the other one!” he said, pointing to the wild-haired man standing next to the old woman.

Marsino took his eyes off the hillfolk, attempting to follow the boy’s gesture. But before he could fix on the threat, the man lunged at the mageseekers.

“Mamma!” he yelled as he reached for Vannis. His hands glimmered with an emerald sheen as thorny vines bloomed from his fingertips.

Vannis spun out of the way, swinging his staff in a wide arc, and cracked the mage across the temple with the hefty wooden pole.

The mage stumbled into Marsino, clutching him by the arm. Sharp thorns pierced his sleeve. Marsino recoiled in pain and shoved the stricken man to the ground, dropping the torch in the commotion.

Flames licked the man’s tunic and ignited the tatters.

The old woman screamed and rushed toward her son.

Arms grabbed and pulled her back, holding her as she struggled. The rest of the hillfolk pressed forward, but Vannis held his ground, staff ready.

“Did he touch you?!”

Marsino fumbled with his weapon, finally unhooking his scepter, his eyes glazed and unfocused.

“Marsino!”

“I’m fine!”

“Are there any more?” Vannis yelled.

The boy didn’t answer. He remained frozen, gazing down at the dying mage writhing in the flames. Bitterness rose in his throat, but he choked back the foul taste, refusing to retch.

“Boy!”

He finally snapped to attention. The fire was spreading through the field, creating a wall between them and the mob. He searched the murderous faces behind the growing flames, the heat overwhelming his senses.

“No.”

“Then mount up!”

The boy mounted his pony. Marsino and Vannis quickly followed on their own steeds and the three raced away from the village. The boy turned to look back. The fire roared, and the field of flowers was already wilting.

Vannis had pushed them to ride well into the evening, putting as much distance between them and the hillfolk as possible. It would take three days to reach Castle Wrenwall. Vannis intended to mount a cohort of mageseekers and return. The law must be upheld, he said.

They bedded down shortly after dark, the rocky terrain too dangerous to navigate. The boy was relieved to have his own feet on the ground. Boys from Dregbourne rarely rode horses, unless they stole them from a livery stable, and he’d never been much of a thief.

He took the first watch, sitting at the base of a towering oak, back and bottom sore and stiff from hours of riding. He shifted his body, seeking a comfortable position. After a few minutes, he stood and leaned against the ancient giant. A solitary wolf howled somewhere up in the hills, and a chorus responded in kind. Or perhaps they were braget hounds—he still couldn’t tell them apart.

Distant thunderheads flickered in the night sky, their rumblings so removed they never reached his ears. Overhead, stars struggled to push through drifting billows of gray. A sheet of thick fog settled over the lowlands.

He threw another bundle of wood in the fire. It sent up a burst of embers that quickly died out.

Ghostly voices filled the stillness in his mind. They pleaded and denied a shimmering truth as memories of the burning mage danced in the campfire. He shuddered and turned away.

It had been a gruesome death. But every time those thoughts invaded his mind he pushed them away and replaced them with all the beauty he’d witnessed since joining Vannis and Marsino.

He’d been traveling with the mageseekers for months, seeing the world outside the crowded streets of Dregbourne for the first time. He’d explored the distant hills and mountains he’d once watched from the roof of his tenement. New mountains now stood before him, and he wanted to see more.

Magic had made it possible.

The affliction that once filled him with fear of discovery was now a gift. It allowed him to walk as a true Demacian. He even wore the blue. Perhaps someday he would also don a half-mask and a Graymark of his own, in spite of being a mage.

Faint rustling broke his thoughts.

He turned and found Marsino mumbling in his sleep. Next to him lay an empty blanket roll. The boy’s heart raced at the sight. He searched the treeline for the older mageseeker—

Vannis stood beneath a nearby oak, watching him.

“You hesitated today,” he said, as he stepped out of the shadow. “Made a bad showing. Was it fear or something else?”

The boy averted his gaze and remained silent, searching for an answer that would satisfy the mageseeker.

Vannis scowled, growing impatient. “Go on, say your piece.”

“I don’t understand… what’s the harm in growing dormisroot?”

Vannis grumbled and shook his head. “Every inch given is an inch lost,” he said. “It's true on the battlefield and true with mages.”

The boy nodded at the words. Vannis regarded him for a moment.

“Where’s your heart, boy?”

“With Demacia, sir.”

Marsino stirred once again. His mumbles rapidly turned into moans until the man was struggling against his blanket roll.

The boy walked over and tugged at the man’s shoulder. “Marsino, wake up,” he whispered.

The young mageseeker twisted at the boy’s touch. The moans grew louder until the man was wailing. He shook Marsino again, only more roughly this time.

“What’s wrong?” Vannis asked, looming over him.

“I don’t know. He’s not waking.”

Vannis pushed the boy aside and turned Marsino over. Sweat slicked his brow and temple, matting his dark hair. Marsino’s eyes were open and vacant and shined a cloudy white.

Vannis pulled back the heavy blanket and opened Marsino’s cloak. Dark tendrils of blight marred his arm. To the boy’s eyes, a radiant bloom pulsed beneath the corrupted skin.

They had been riding since before first light.

Vannis and the boy had managed to lift Marsino onto his horse and secured him to the saddle. The young mageseeker had remained in a fever dream as Vannis tied Marsino’s horse to his own and set off.

The boy’s pony struggled to keep the brisk pace Vannis had set—Castle Wrenwall was still over a day’s ride away.

He watched Marsino jostle with every stride. The wounded man threatened to fall over several times, but Vannis would slow down and resecure Marsino in his saddle. Every time the old mageseeker did so, he scowled at the boy before pushing on.

They reached Corvo Pass by mid-morning. Their mounts clambered up the narrow switchbacks carved into the mountainside. It would cut half a day from their travels, but the treacherous path was ill kept and the thick brush slowed them to a crawl.

The boy squeezed his legs and clutched the reins, nervously watching the precarious drop into the deep gorge below. His pony simply trudged along, instinctively keeping them from certain death.

They broke through the thicket into a flat clearing. He watched Vannis push on his stirrups, driving the horses into a canter—Marsino began inching to his right, leaning over much further than before.

“Vannis!”

The mageseeker reached out, but it was too late. Marsino fell over and slammed onto the ground.

The boy reined up and leapt off his mount, rushing to the downed man. Vannis did the same.

Blood streamed from Marsino’s forehead.

“We need to staunch the bleeding,” said Vannis.

The man unsheathed his dagger and, without asking, reached out and cut a long strip of cloth from the boy’s cloak.

“Water,” said Vannis.

The boy pulled his water skin and poured a stream over the deep gash as Vannis cleaned the wound.

Marsino shifted and muttered incoherently in his fevered state. The boy tried following the man’s ramblings but understood only a few words.

“Drink,” he said, pouring drops of water over the man’s dry lips.

The young mageseeker stirred, his tongue lapping at the moisture. He opened his eyes. Ruddy blotches stained the cloudy white.

“Are we… there?” Marsino asked, chest wheezing with every word.

Vannis shot the boy a look. He knew not to say a thing. They were still far from reaching help.

“Almost, brother,” said Vannis.

“Why build… Wrenwall… so far up a mountain?”

“'It's supposed to be hard to reach,” Vannis said, with a brittle smile.

Marsino closed his eyes and chuckled slightly. It soon turned into a cough.

“Easy there, brother,” Vannis said, watching the man for a moment before turning to the boy. “The dormisroot—do you still have it?”

“Yes.”

The boy dug into his pocket, drawing a straw horse, a polished river stone, and the yellow flower. He smiled at the sight, knowing the blossom would help Marsino.

Vannis snatched it from the boy’s hand. “At least you did something right, boy.”

His stomach tightened at the words. Vannis was right. He had faltered, and his friend had paid the price.

Marsino shook his head. “It’s not… his fault… I should’ve been… more careful.”

The older mageseeker remained silent as he picked several petals from the dormisroot.

“Chew on this. It’s not refined, but it will help with the pain.”

“What about… the magic?” Marsino asked.

“It quickened the growth and kept it hardy, but the plant is untainted,” Vannis said as he placed the petals in Marsino’s mouth. He leaned in close and whispered in the younger man’s ear, gently stroking his hair. Marsino smiled, seemingly lost in some memory.

The boy took a swig from his waterskin. A slight shiver ran down his spine. The fine hair on his arms stood on edge.

He turned and walked to the end of the clearing—a verdant canopy of pines covered the lowlands below.

“What is it?” Vannis asked.

“I don’t know…” He gazed down at the valley. Nothing appeared out of place, even the sensation had disappeared.

“I thought—”

He stopped short. Plumes of dark smoke rose in the distance.

The boy stared at the charred and smoldering husks lying in the pasture. The smell of burnt animal flesh hung in the air. His stomach rumbled.

“What do you think did that?” he asked, tending to Marsino. The young mageseeker lay on a makeshift litter made from a blanket roll and lengths of rope.

“Don’t know,” said Vannis. “Stay there and keep watch.”

The older mageseeker inspected the dead cattle. They all bore fist-sized puncture wounds in their thick hides. Vannis prodded one of the scorched cavities with the tip of his stave, measuring its depth. A third of the shaft disappeared.

“Maybe we should go,” the boy said.

Vannis turned to him. “Do you feel anything?”

The boy studied the cattle. Traces of magic radiated underneath the seared flesh. Whatever had killed them was powerful enough to mutilate the immense creatures. A man couldn’t fare any better. Even one with a quarterstaff.

The boy turned his attention to the farmstead. It held a small log cabin, a weathered barn, and an outhouse at the far end. The property was tucked against the hills, surrounded by dense forest. They never would have seen it if not for the smoke.

The sound of footfalls approached.

Vannis spun around and raised his staff.

An old man rounded the corner of the barn. He stopped at the sight of the unannounced visitors. He wore trousers and a tunic fitted for a larger man, and he carried an old, beaten halberd, its edge gleaming and sharp.

“What are you doing on my farm?” The man asked, shifting the grip on his weapon and remaining well outside Vannis’ reach.

“My friend’s hurt,” said the boy. “Please, he needs help, sir.”

Vannis gave the boy a sidelong glance but said nothing.

The farmer looked down at Marsino. The young mageseeker stirred in his litter, lost to a fever dream.

“They have healers in Wrenwall,” the farmer said.

“It’s over a day’s ride. He’ll never make it,” said Vannis.

“A beast prowls these woods. You best ride out,” the old man said, gesturing to the dead cattle.

The boy glanced at the dense treeline. He sensed nothing at the moment, but he remembered the shiver he’d felt earlier. At that distance, it had to be a massive creature.

“What kind of beast? Is it a dragon?”

“Steady, boy.” Vannis said as he stepped toward the farmer. “You have a duty to quarter a Demacian soldier.”

The farmer stood his ground. “You wear the blue… but a mageseeker is not a soldier.”

“Aye, but I was once. Like you.”

The farmer’s eyes narrowed, and he angled the spearpoint of his halberd in Vannis’ direction.

“It’s that pole cleaver,” Vannis said. “A gut ripper of the old Thornwall Halberdiers, if memory serves. Far as I can see, neither it nor this old soldier have lost their edge.”

The farmer regarded his weapon with a faint smile. “That was long ago.”

“Brothers are for life,” said Vannis, softer this time. “Help us. And we’ll hunt your beast down after we’re done.”

The boy glanced down at Marsino. The mageseeker’s eyes remained shut as he drew shallow breaths.

The farmer regarded Vannis, considering the offer. “That won't be necessary,” he finally said. “Let’s bring your man inside.”

Vannis and the farmer carried Marsino inside the cabin. A small fire burned in the firepit and the modest room smelled of cedar and earth. The boy cleared a table standing in the middle of the room, tossing wooden bowls and hardtack biscuits onto a nearby sleeping pallet. The men eased Marsino down onto the wooden planks.

“Who else is here?” Vannis asked, using his dagger to cut off Marsino’s tunic.

“I live alone,” the old man said, examining the wound. The boy could see the blight had spread. Dark tendrils reached out toward Marsino’s neck and heart.

“We have to have cut it out,” said Vannis.

Marsino started to convulse, threatening to fall off the table.

“Hold ‘em down,” said Vannis. The boy pinned Marsino’s legs, using his weight to secure them in place. The man thrashed against the restraint. A heavy boot kicked free and cracked the boy in the mouth. He stumbled back, nursing his jaw.

“I said hold him!” Vannis yelled as he wiped down the blade of his dagger.

He reached for Marsino’s legs again, but the farmer stepped in.

“It’s alright, son,” the man said. “Try talking to him.”

He moved around the table. Marsino’s tremors had eased, but his chest rattled with each ragged breath.

“Marsino?”

“Hold his hand, let him know you’re there,” said the farmer. “It helps with injured animals. Men aren’t much different.”

The boy grasped Marsino’s hand. It felt warm to the touch and slick with sweat. “It’s going to be alright. We got help.”

Marsino seemed to focus on his voice, turning toward the sound, his cloudy white gaze now a deep red.

“Are we in Wrenwall?”

The boy looked at Vannis, and the magehunter nodded.

“Yes. The healers are working on you,” the boy said.

“The dormisroot… it bought me… some time,” Marsino said, squeezing his hand. “You did good… You did good…”

The boy clenched his teeth, fighting back the grief swelling in his throat. He held Marsino’s hand tighter, not wanting to let go.

“I’m sorry, Marsino. I should’ve—”

“Don’t… it wasn’t… your fault,” Marsino said, every word labored and pained. He strained to lift his head. Searching the room with eyes that could no longer see.

“Vannis?”

“Right here, brother.”

“Tell ‘em… tell ‘em it’s not on him.”

Vannis fixed his stare on the boy. “Aye, bad luck is all,” he finally said.

“See…” Marsino said, offering a wan smile. “You don’t need… to carry it.”

Vannis gripped Marsino’s shoulder and leaned in close to the man’s ear. “We need to cut it out, brother,” Vannis said.

Marsino nodded his head.

“He’ll need something to bite on,” said the farmer.

The boy unsheathed his dagger, the carved wooden handle perfectly suited for the task. He placed it in Marsino’s mouth.

“Good,” Vannis said, holding his own blade inches from the wounded arm.

The tendrils slithered beneath the skin. To the boy’s eyes, they radiated a soft, pulsating light the others couldn’t see.

“Stop,” he said.

Vannis looked up at the boy. “What is it?”

Marsino bit down on the dagger’s handle and released a stifled scream. He squeezed the boy’s hand and thrashed against the table until the movement underneath his skin subsided.

The blight stretched across Marsino’s neck.

“It’s too deep,” said Vannis. “I can’t cut it out.” The mageseeker stepped back, unsure of what to do next.

“What if you burn it out?” The boy asked.

“You can’t cauterize that close to the artery,” Vannis said. He turned to the old man. “Do you have any medicinals?”

“Nothing that would help that.”

Vannis gazed down at his injured partner, weighing something in his mind. “What about a healer?” he said, the words no louder than a whisper.

“They would have medicinals, but the closest one—”

“Not that kind of healer.”

The old man remained silent for a moment. “I don’t know anyone like that.”

It appeared Vannis wanted to push the matter, but he bit his tongue and searched the cabin instead.

The boy followed the mageseeker’s gaze. He found a stack of hides in one corner, a netted hammock in another, and a carver’s workbench crowded with dozens of wooden drakes against a wall. Nothing that would help.

“The cattle,” said Vannis.

The farmer blanched at the mention of the dead livestock. “What of them?”

“Did they ever suffer from tinea worm?”

“Yes. We burn it out with a pulvis of lunar caustic.”

“If we cut the source and use a thin band of the pulvis for the rest, it might work,” Vannis said. “Where is it?”

The farmer looked out the window. He seemed to hesitate, perhaps trying to remember where to search in all the clutter.

A deep guttural sound rose from Marsino’s throat. He violently convulsed and teetered toward the edge of the table, dagger clenched between his teeth.

Vannis held the wounded man down by the shoulders. “Where’s the pulvis?”

The farmer wrestled with Marsino’s flailing legs. “It’s in the barn, but—”

Marsino wailed.

“I got it!” the boy said, as he turned and ran outside.

Crisp mountain air rushed past his face as he raced toward the barn, the heat building in his legs and lungs. The barn door was less than twenty paces away when a shiver ran down his spine.

He slid to a stop.

The surrounding forest stood dark and silent. He searched the dense thicket for the slightest hint of magic but found nothing in the brush. Steam and smoke still rose from the smoldering heaps in the pasture. The tingling sensation spread across his back—there was something nearby.

He needed to warn Vannis but knew better than to shout.

Should he go back?

Another agonizing scream erupted from within the cabin. Marsino needed him to be brave.

He took a deep, sobering breath and darted to the outbuilding. His trembling hands fumbled with the latch until he finally got the door open, then he slammed it shut behind him.

A jolt rushed down his spine.

He stumbled back and fell, crashing into a rack of ditching tools. Shovels and spades clattered on the floor.

It was inside the barn.

The boy reached for his dagger but found the sheath empty. He had given it to Marsino. A silvery brilliance radiated from one of the stalls.

He tried to stand, but his legs refused to act. The glow flourished as a shape exited the stall and rounded the corner. He’d never witnessed a light so blinding. It distorted the very air in waves of colors.

The shape approached.

A droning rose in his ears, like an army of nettle bees swarming inside his head. The boy scrambled back, one hand shielding his eyes as the other searched the ground for a weapon. He found nothing.

The world vanished behind a sheet of light and color.

A sound tried to break through the hum as the shape pushed through the radiant glow. His mind struggled to piece it together until a single utterance made everything clear…

“Papa?”

With a word, the entire world resolved back into place.

It was a little girl.

She stared at him, eyes wide in fear. The corona around her flared brighter again. It pulled at the boy, compelling him to reach out and touch its radiance.

“W-Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m… I’m Sylas.” He rose to his feet, holding out his hand. “I won’t hurt you… if you don’t hurt me.”

The girl balled her hands and pressed them to her chest. “I would never hurt anyone…” she said, her gaze falling to her feet. “Not on purpose.”

The boy recalled the cattle in the pasture. He pushed the thought away and focused on the golden-haired child. She seemed tiny and lost, even here in her own home.

“I believe you,” he said. “It’s not always… easy.”

The light around her dimmed, and the pull on him diminished.

She looked up at the boy. “Have you seen my papa?”

“He’s inside the house. Helping my friend.”

She timidly reached out to grasp his hand. “Take me to him.”

He drew back. “You can’t go inside,” he said.

“Is something wrong with papa?”

“No. It’s… He’s helping a mageseeker.”

The little girl recoiled at the word, and the inside of the barn brightened once again. She understood the danger.

“Are you a mageseeker?” She asked, her voice quivering.

The question wrenched at something deep inside the boy.

“No,” he said. “I’m like you.”

The girl smiled. It was genuine and warmed his heart in a way that no praise from a mageseeker ever had.

Another scream came from the main house.

“Papa?”

“It’s my friend. I need to go back,” he said. “Can you hide until we’re gone? Can you do that?”

The girl nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Do you know where the lunar caustic is?”

She pointed to a clay jar sitting on a narrow shelf.

The boy snatched the container and bolted from the barn. Another agonizing wail broke as he approached the cabin. He pushed harder for the last few steps and burst through the door.

“I found it,” he said, holding the jar like a prize in hand.

Silence filled the room.

Vannis was staring at Marsino’s lifeless body. Only the farmer turned toward the door.

There was fear and resentment in the old man’s eyes. It was the same the boy had seen in all those desperate souls trying to hide their affliction.

The old man slowly reached for his halberd, his gaze sweeping from the boy to Vannis, who still hadn’t moved or said a word.

The boy shook his head, silently imploring the man to stop.

The farmer paused and looked toward the barn before looking back at the boy.

He offered the father a reassuring smile.

The old man regarded him for a moment and then rested his weapon against the wall.

Vannis finally snapped from his trance. “What took you so long?” the mageseeker asked.

“It’s not the boy’s fault. Your friend was too far gone.”

Vannis stepped back from the body and sat down on the sleeping pallet.

“The cur is the reason we’re here,” he sneered. “He’s one of them, you know. Pretending to be normal.”

“Your friend didn’t believe so,” said the farmer. “Honor that memory.”

Vannis looked away from Marsino’s body. He fixed his attention on the dozens of carver’s tools and wooden figures strewn about the floor beneath the hammock.

“He was a young fool who felt things far too deeply,” he finally said. Vannis fell into a deep silence after that, his thoughts seemingly elsewhere.

The farmer and the boy joined him in the uncomfortable stillness, unsure of what to do next.

“So it’ll be the two of us hunting the beast, then?” Vannis asked the old man.

“It’s not necessary,” said the farmer. “Tend to your friend. I have a wagon. It’s yours.”

“Doesn’t seem proper to leave you here… alone,” said Vannis. “I’d be abandoning a brother.”

The mageseeker’s voice carried a subtle sharpness that made the boy uneasy. Sorrow transformed into suspicion. The grieving mentor had become the interrogator once again.

“I’ll manage,” said the farmer. “Been doing so since my days wearing the blue.”

“Of course,” Vannis said, smiling.

The mageseeker leapt from the cot, rushed the farmer, and slammed him against the wall—his dagger tip poised inches from the man’s throat.

“Where is it?”

“What?” The farmer asked, his voice trembling and confused.

“Your beast?”

“I-It’s in the woods.”

“Does it bed down in your cabin at night?”

“What?”

“Your hammock,” said Vannis, gesturing to the netted cord. “Spend enough time on campaign and it becomes your best friend.”

Vannis pressed the dagger to the man’s flesh. “So why the cot?”

“It… belonged to my daughter,” said the farmer, his gaze momentarily flicked to the boy. “She passed last winter.”

The boy looked at the sleeping pallet. It was built for a child.

But it wasn’t only the cot. There was a wooden bowl and spoon, and a practice sword too small for a grown man. If he could see through the lie, then…

“Let’s visit her grave,” said Vannis.

“We can’t,” said the farmer, averting his eyes in shame. “The beast took her.”

“Like it took your cattle?” Vannis sneered. “I wager if we search carefully we’ll find it on your farm.”

“There’s nothing here,” the boy said. “We should go.”

“What do you see on that table, boy?”

He stared at Marsino’s body. The bloodstained eyes wide and lifeless. The blighted tendrils had choked off his neck and webbed his face.

“What do you see!”

“Marsino… I see Marsino.” he said, the words choking his throat.

“A mageseeker, boy. One of my own,” Vannis said, anger and pain seeping from each word. “What is he to you?”

Marsino had been the only mageseeker that showed him kindness. He had accepted him as a true Demacian, despite his affliction.

“He was my friend.”

“Aye… and he was killed by a mage,” Vannis said. “This man hides one from us. A dangerous one.”

The boy remembered the intense glow of the little girl and the scorched flesh of the dead cattle.

“What do we do?” Vannis asked.

The boy wiped the corners of his eyes with his sleeve.

“We keep the order. We uphold the law.”

Vannis led the boy and the farmer outside, driving them with his staff. The three stood in the pasture, watching the barn and the outhouse. He jabbed the man in the ribs with the stave.

“Call your daughter.”

The farmer winced at the blow. “She’s not here,” he said. “She’s gone.”

“We’ll see.”

The old man looked at the boy, silently pleading.

“I’ll search the barn,” the boy said.

“No. Let her come to us.” Vannis slammed the farmer’s head with the edge of his staff, driving the man to the ground.

“Come out! We have your father!”

There was no response. No movement. And then the man wailed.

The boy turned to find the farmer tottering on one knee, clutching his temple. Blood pooled underneath the man’s fingers, slicking his hand with blood. Vannis stood over him, ready to strike again.

“What are you doing?”

“What needs to be done,” said Vannis, his face contorted by anger and grief.

A jolt raced down the boy’s spine. And once again, all the fine hair on his arms and neck stood on edge.

The barn door creaked open.

“That’s right, come on,” Vannis said.

Darkness framed the doorway. Tiny footfalls approached. The little girl crossed the threshold and stepped outside. Her panicked eyes fixed on her injured father.

“Papa…” she said, tears cascading down her face.

“It’s alright,” the bleeding farmer stammered. Papa’s just talking to these men.”

They all watched as the child inched toward them, the men were unaware of what only the boy could see.

She glowed like the midday sun.

The power inside her pulsated and shifted colors. It shimmered with a radiance that appeared to bend light itself. She was a living rainbow.

This was his affliction. This was his gift.

He alone could see the fundamental beauty and nature of magic. It lived in this frightened child as it lived in every single mage in Demacia, and perhaps all across the world. How could he betray that? The boy had seen all he needed to see.

“She’s… normal.”

“Are you sure? Look again!”

He turned to the mageseeker. To Demacia, Vannis was a venerated bulwark, guarding against the threat of magic. But to the boy, he was a simple man clinging to tradition.

“You were wrong. We should go.”

Vannis regarded him for a moment, searching for deception. The mageseeker shook his head and scowled.

“We’ll see if she passes the trials,” he said, removing the Graymark from his cloak.

The farmer’s eyes went wide at the sight of the petricite emblem.

“Run, child! Run!” the old man shouted as he leapt to his feet and lunged at Vannis.

The mageseeker moved fast, thrusting his staff into the farmer's midsection. The man staggered back from the blow, creating some distance between the two. Vannis darted forward and drove the stave down onto the man's head. His crown shattered in a bloom of crimson.

The little girl screamed. Her hands crackled with sparks of lightning—this time, for all to see.

Vannis held out his Graymark, capturing the flickering arcs in the stone and suppressing the magic. But the petricite rapidly darkened and cracked, overwhelmed by the little girl's power. Vannis dropped the ruined disk and spun around, swinging his wooden stave at the child’s head.

“No!”

The boy rushed toward the girl, throwing himself between the heavy quarterstaff and the flaring streams of light. The hairs on his arms singed and his fingers blistered as he touched the little mage.

A twisting arc of lightning pierced his hand, and a blazing current rushed through his flesh, contorting his entire body. The boy's heart clenched and all the air inside him rushed out. He gasped for breath but drew only emptiness.

The edges of his vision blurred and the colors drained as deathly magic flooded him. Vannis appeared motionless, staff in mid-swing, like ancient statuary depicting a hero of old. The little girl was also frozen, her tears dull crystals as the radiant glow around her dimmed and faded…

And then his lungs filled with air.

His heart raced, pumping a numbing calmness throughout his body. The blaze inside him remained, but no longer threatened to consume him. Instead, it flowed calmly throughout, and for the briefest moments it felt malleable to his thoughts. Then it suddenly sparked and flared hotter until he could no longer contain it inside.

Light erupted from his hands, and the world disappeared.

Sylas opened his eyes. Three smoldering husks lay strewn on the scorched ground. One of them held a warped and splintered staff in hand. The other two had fallen near each other, their arms splayed and reaching, but forever apart. His eyes welled at the sight of his failure, and regret gripped his heart. He rolled over onto his back and shuddered.

Countless stars stretched across a cloudless firmament. He watched them arc across the darkness and disappear behind a black canopy of trees.

The night sky turned a purple hue before he finally staggered to his feet.

His legs trembled as he limped away from the carnage. He stopped after a short distance, but didn’t look back.

There was no need. Those images would remain with him for the rest of his life. He pushed them from his thoughts and gazed at the spine of mountaintops spanning the horizon.

He had no intention of riding to Wrenwall, or any of their strongholds. No amount of pleading would save him from their punishment. In time, they would seek him out, not stopping until he was brought to justice. After all, the law must be upheld.

But he knew their ways, and Demacia was vast.