LoL Universe Indexing and Search

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

General Miesar slid an ivory cone across the map. Jarvan wondered at the simplicity of the white piece. No head, no features denoting a face. Just a simple rounded shape, neutral and plain, with no resemblance to the hundred Demacian soldiers it represented.

“If we lead our knights south now, we can attack the argoth head-on before they reach Evenmoor,” said General Ibell, a stout woman with commanding eyes.

“The argoth are fiercest in swarms,” said General Miesar as he paced the length of the tent. “They rely on overwhelming numbers to defeat direct attacks. If we cannot divide them, they will slaughter us long before we reach their queen.”

Jarvan strode to the edge of their tent, parting the fabric and gazing out across the valley. He might have enjoyed the view – morning light made the verdant landscape sparkle with dew, and the village of Evenmoor looked peaceful from a distance. But an ominous gray shape swelled on the horizon as the horde thundered in the distance.

The argoth were not enormous creatures; fighting one alone would be easy enough, but in large numbers, they were subject to the dominating will of a queen, able to move and fight as one vicious unit. This swarm was bigger than any Jarvan had seen before.

Miesar wiped sweat from his brow. “They’ll be here by this evening?”

“Sooner,” said Ibell. “We have an hour, maybe two if we’re lucky, until the argoth overwhelm Evenmoor.”

Jarvan turned back to the map. Ten ebony cones representing the argoth stood at the outer edges of Evenmoor, overshadowing the single Demacian cone. The queen was marked by a smaller figurine of red jasper, right in the heart of the ebony mass.

“Any charge would need to fight through hundreds of argoth to get near her,” said Jarvan, gesturing to the red stone. “What do you propose?”

Miesar halted his pacing. “I’m afraid you won’t like this, my lord, but we could retreat. Surrender Evenmoor. Return on the morrow with forces strong enough to cut through the horde and slay the queen.”

“Leave Evenmoor to the argoth?” asked Ibell. “That’s a death sentence for these people. They will be overrun in a matter of hours.”

Jarvan stared at the ebony and ivory until they merged in his mind’s eye. All he saw was the red queen stone.

Ibell raised her eyebrows. “You see something?”

“A desperate plan,” Jarvan replied, “but it is all we have. We conceal our fiercest fighters within Evenmoor and lay an ambush. With such a small band they won’t anticipate our attack. Then, when the queen is within reach, we strike hard and fast. With her death, the swarm’s unity will be broken.”

“Into the center of the argoth, my lord?” Miesar said. “That, too, may be a death sentence.”

“But we give Evenmoor a chance of surviving the attack,” said Ibell.

“No plan is without risk,” Jarvan said. “I will lead only those willing to join me, and will not engage until our hope of victory is greatest. We bide our time until the eye of the maelstrom is upon us, and then strike from within. With the queen dead, it will be a simple matter to fight our way out.”

Ibell slid a single ivory cone to the village on the map, then moved the circle of ebony pieces forward until they overlapped Evenmoor entirely. The jasper queen stood at its center. With a flick of her finger, she tipped the red stone over. That done, she slid two more white cones to join the fight.

“This is our plan,” said Jarvan. “Ibell and Miesar, you and your troops will lead the second wave.”

“Aye,” said Miesar.

“And you, my lord?” Ibell asked. “Where will you be?”

“I have a queen to kill,” Jarvan replied.

Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.

Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.

Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.

His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.

For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…

“Hello, Ledros,” said a voice that shouldn’t be there.

Ledros… His name.

There was an evil, mocking laugh, and a clink of chains.

“I don’t know why you do this to yourself, but I have enjoyed seeing you suffer.”

Reality crashed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to drag him under.

The blood beneath him was centuries old, flaking and brown. The stone was not white, but black, and cracked. The sky was filled with turbulent, dark clouds lit from within by lightning.

And everywhere, the Black Mist coiled.

She was still there for a moment, and he clung to her, unwilling to let her go.

“My love,” he breathed, but then she faded, like ash on the wind, and he was left grasping at nothing.

He was dead.

And he was trapped here in this perpetual in-between.

Ledros rose, and picked up the shattered remnant of his sword.

He leveled the ghostly blade at the one who had shattered the illusion of his memory. The hateful spirit lurked in darkness, leering at him, eyes burning with cold flame. His cursed lantern sat on a smashed chunk of masonry nearby, radiating beams of deadlight, captive souls writhing within.

The Chain Warden. Thresh.

Oh, how he hated him.

The cursed spirit had haunted him for what seemed like centuries, taunting him, mocking him. Now he had found his way here? This was his sanctuary, the only place he could feel even a fleeting moment of peace before the horror of his reality reasserted itself.

“Why are you here?” Ledros demanded. His voice was dull and hollow, as if he spoke from distance or time far away.

“You were lost for quite a while this time,” said Thresh. “Months. Perhaps years. I don’t keep track any more.”

Ledros lowered his blade, and took stock of his surroundings.

He remembered this place as it had been—white stone and shining gold bathed in sunlight. Protective white mist had wreathed the isles, resisting outsiders. When they had first landed, it seemed a land beloved by the gods—a place of wealth, and knowledge, and wonder, untouched by famine or war. It had just made it easier. There had been little resistance.

Now there was no sun. All was darkness. The ruptured, shattered remnants of the library loomed above, like some great, desiccated corpse. Chunks of stonework hung in mid-air, where they’d been blasted outward and locked in time. He had been a fool to think the gods had loved this place, for they had clearly forsaken it.

Every time he re-emerged from the unformed madness of the Black Mist and reformed, it was here, where his mortal body had fallen, so long ago. Every time it was the same. Nothing changed.

The one waiting for him was new, however. It was not a change he welcomed.

Out of habit, he reached for the pendant he always wore around his neck… but it was not there.

“No…” The corpse-light glowing within him flared brightly in rising panic.

“Such a pretty trinket,” said Thresh.

Ledros’ head snapped around, eyes blazing. Thresh held aloft a short chain, from which hung a delicate silver pendant engraved with two roses, their leaves and stalks wrapped around each other like a lovers’ embrace.

Anger surged within Ledros, hot and sudden, and his sword flared as he took a step toward Thresh. He’d been a big man in life, full of wrath and violence—the king’s champion, no less. He towered over Thresh.

“That… is… mine,” hissed Ledros.

The Chain Warden did not flee before him like the lesser spirits did. The death’s head that was his face was hard to read, but there was cruel amusement in his eyes.

“You’re an aberration, Ledros,” he said, still dangling the pendant before him. “Some might say we all are, but you’re different. You stand out. Here, you are the real abnormality.”

“Give it to me,” snarled Ledros, blade at the ready. “I will cut you down.”

“You could try,” said Thresh. He spoke mildly, but his eyes burned, eager for violence. He sighed. “But this gets us nowhere. Here. Take it. It means nothing to me.”

He tossed it away with a dismissive flick. Ledros caught it in one black gauntlet, his arm snapping out with a speed that belied his size. He opened his massive fist, inspecting the pendant. It was undamaged.

Ledros sheathed his blade and removed his spiked helm. His face was insubstantial, a ghostly echo of how he had appeared in life. A cold wind whipped across the blasted landscape, but he didn’t feel it.

He pulled the precious pendant over his head, and slipped his helmet back on.

“Don’t you ever wish to see an end to this vile existence, Chain Warden?” Ledros said. “To finally be at peace?”

Thresh shook his head, laughing. “We have what mortals have coveted since time immemorial—eternity.”

“It makes us prisoners.”

Thresh smirked, and turned away, the chains and hooks hanging from his belt clinking. His lantern drifted along beside him, though he didn’t so much as touch it.

“You cling so desperately to the past, even as it runs through your fingers, like sand in a timepiece,” said Thresh, “yet you’re blind to the wonder of what we have been given. It has made us gods.”

“It is a curse,” hissed Ledros.

“Run along then, sword-champion,” Thresh said, gesturing Ledros away, dismissively. “Go, find your paramour. Perhaps this time she’ll even remember you…”

Ledros became very still, eyes narrowing.

“Tell me something,” said Thresh. “You seek to save her, but from what? She does not seem tormented. You, however…”

“You walk a dangerous line, warden,” snarled Ledros.

“Is it for her sake you do this? Or your own?”

Thresh had said words to this effect before. He seemed intent on making a mockery of Ledros’ efforts.

“I am not one of your playthings, warden,” Ledros said. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you can toy with me.”

Thresh smiled, exposing the shark-like teeth of a predator.

“Of course not,” he said.

With a gesture, Thresh called his lantern. It came to him, swiftly, then hovered just below his outstretched taloned hand. In the lantern’s glowing deadlight, Ledros saw anguished faces, pressing against their confinement, before fading to be replaced by others—a horrific cavalcade of tormented souls. Thresh smiled, savoring their pain.

“I don’t need to torture you,” he said. “You do that to yourself.”

The Chain Warden stepped into the darkness, leaving Ledros utterly alone.

A hollow wind ripped through the shattered city, but he did not feel it.

He felt nothing but her.

She was hunting.

Ledros stepped into the mist, letting it flow around him. Then he shifted through it.

The Black Mist writhed around him, full of hate, anger, and fear, but he remained distinct from it, maintaining his sense of self. He was drawn toward her like a moth to candlelight, and just as unheeding of the danger. He whipped across what had once been the Blessed Isles, passing over wasted lands and the churning water of the straits dividing them. Wherever the Black Mist extended—reaching blindly, searching, always searching—he was able to go. This was their sunless prison.

Her burning presence within the darkness lured him on. She was close. Feeling the nearness of her, he stepped from the mist once more.

He stood in a blackened forest, the trees withered and dead, their branches dry and cracked. The echoes of leaves long since fallen rippled in the memory of a breeze far more gentle than the cold gale now howling through the dead forest.

He sensed movement in the trees. His heavy boots crunched on blackened soil as he began to stalk it.

His iron shield was strapped to his left arm, though he didn’t remember securing it there, and he drew his sword. The leather wrapped around its hilt had rotted long ago, and while the blade was broken a few feet above the hilt, the ghostly outline of its full length could still be seen, glowing softly. Shattered and corroded by the ravages of time, it was a shadow of its former majesty. It had been gifted to him by the king himself, back when his monarch was a man to be admired and loved.

The ground sloped sharply below, but he kept to the high ground, moving along a ridge marked with jutting stone and twisted roots. He could see them now—shadowy spirits borne upon spectral steeds, galloping through the glen below. They moved swiftly, weaving between the trees, east toward a sun that would never again rise over these shores.

They moved as one, like a hunting party… yet they were the ones being hunted.

Ledros broke into a run, keeping pace with them.

A voice echoed through the trees.

“We come for you, betrayers…”

It spoke not as a single voice, but rather a score or more of them, layered and overlapping, a legion of souls speaking as one. The strongest of them was one he knew well.

Ledros quickened his pace, running fast and low. The riders below had been forced to weave around massive stone formations and the boles of ancient, desiccated trees. It slowed them, while the ridge he ran was straight. He quickly outpaced them and drew ahead of the hunted spirits.

Ledros turned abruptly, stepping over the edge of a sheer cliff. He landed in a crouch at the base, some thirty feet below, the earth cracking beneath him.

He stood within a narrow defile, where the natural contours of the land had created a funnel. The riders would have to come through.

With blade drawn, he waited.

The first of the horsemen appeared, riding at a gallop, a being of spirit and twisted metal—a vile mockery of the once-proud knights of the Iron Order. They were nothing to him now, just hateful fragments of the men they had once been.

A dark lance, its tip jagged and hooked, was clasped in the knight’s mailed grip, and great curling horns extended from his helm. Seeing Ledros, he wrenched his mount violently to the side, making it snarl and spit. Its hooves were wreathed in shadow, and it seemed not to touch the ground at all.

Had Ledros killed this one before? Or had he been one of those that had survived his rampage, and killed him?

The other riders appeared, pulling their steeds up short.

“Stand aside, bladesman,” one hissed.

“We have no quarrel with you,” said another.

“Our quarrel will last until the end of time itself,” growled Ledros.

“So be it,” snarled another of the deathly knights. “Ride him down!”

“You shouldn’t have stopped,” said Ledros, a smirk playing on his lips. “That was an error.”

One of the knights was hurled from his saddle, a glowing spear impaling him. His steed turned to smoke as he hit the ground. The knight screamed as he followed it into nothingness, condemned to join the Black Mist once more. No spirit went to that darkness willingly.

“She’s here!” roared the lead rider, dragging his steed around to face the new threat.

There was confusion among the others, caught somewhere between the desire to turn and fight, and to flee in panic.

They’d have been better off taking their chances at riding him down. At least a few might have escaped. Against her, all would be returned to the mist.

Another knight was ripped from the saddle, a spear hurled from the mist taking him in the chest.

Then she appeared, loping from the gloom like a lioness on the hunt, her eyes burning with predatory light.

Kalista.

Ledros’ gaze was instantly drawn to the ethereal speartips protruding from her back, and he felt a pang in the core of his being, as sharp as the blades that had ended his own life.

Kalista padded forward, a spectral spear clasped in one hand. A knight charged her, hook-bladed lance lowered, but she rolled lightly out of the way. Coming to one knee, she hurled her spear, impaling the knight as he rode past. Even as she threw, she was moving toward her next enemy.

She flexed her hand, and a new weapon materialized in her grasp.

A sword flashed down at her, but Kalista avoided it expertly, slapping the blade aside with the haft of her spear, before swaying away from the flailing hooves of the knight’s steed. Leaping from a blackened rock, she twisted in the air and drove her spear down into the rider’s chest, banishing him to darkness. She landed in perfect balance, eyes locked to her next victim.

Ledros had never met a woman as strong as Kalista in life. In death, she was unstoppable.

While the others focused on her, two of the knights charged Ledros, belatedly seeking to escape Kalista’s methodical slaughter. Stepping sideward at the last moment, Ledros slammed his heavy shield into the steed of the first, knocking the spectral beast to the ground, legs kicking, and sending its rider flying from the saddle.

The lance of the second knight took Ledros in the side, punching through his armor and snapping halfway down its length. Nevertheless, Ledros retained his feet and spun, lashing out with his blade. He struck through the neck of the knight’s steed, a blow that would have decapitated the beast had it been made of flesh and bone. Instead, it exploded into nothing with a keening scream. Its rider crashed to the ground.

Ledros smashed the ghostly warrior backward with a heavy blow of his shield as he rose, hurling him onto the point of Kalista’s spear. Her hunt, her kill.

Ledros sheathed his blade, and watched as she destroyed the last of the spirits.

Tall and lean, Kalista was in constant motion. Her enemies had been martial templars whose skill at arms was legendary, yet she moved among them effortlessly, side-stepping lance thrusts and sword strikes, dispatching each in turn.

Then it was done, and the only two left standing were Kalista and Ledros.

“Kalista?” he said.

She turned her gaze upon him, but there was no hint of recognition in her eyes. Her expression was stern, as it ever had been in life. She regarded him coldly, unblinking.

“We are the Spear of Vengeance,” she replied in that voice that was not hers alone.

“You are Kalista, Spear of the Argent Throne,” said Ledros.

He knew the words she would speak next before she even opened her mouth. It was the same every time.

“We are retribution,” said Kalista. “Speak your pledge, or begone.”

“You were niece to the king I served in life,” said Ledros. “We are… acquainted with each other.”

Kalista regarded him for a moment, then she turned and strode away.

“Our task is unfinished,” she said, without looking back. “The betrayers will suffer our wrath.”

“Your task can never be finished,” said Ledros, hurrying to keep pace. “You are trapped in a never-ending spiral! I am here to help you.”

“The guilty shall be punished,” said Kalista, continuing to march back through the trees.

“You remember this, don’t you?” said Ledros, drawing the pendant from around his neck. That gave her pause, as it always did. It was the one thing Ledros had discovered that could break through her fugue, even if only for a moment. He just needed to figure out how to extend that moment…

Kalista came to a halt, cocking her head to one side as she looked at the delicate pendant. She reached for it, but stopped herself before she touched it.

“I tried to give this to you once,” said Ledros. “You refused it.”

Uncertainty touched her eyes.

“We… I… remember,” she said.

She looked at him—actually saw him.

“Ledros,” she said. Her voice was her own now, and for a moment she was the woman he remembered. The woman he’d loved. Her features softened, ever so slightly. “I could never have given you what you wanted.”

“I understand,” said Ledros, “even if I didn’t at the time.”

Kalista looked around, as if only now becoming aware of her surroundings. She looked at her hands, glowing from within and as insubstantial as smoke. Ledros saw confusion, then anguish play across her face. Then her features hardened.

“Would that I had never brought him here,” said Kalista. “All this could have been averted.”

“It was not your fault,” said Ledros. “I knew madness had claimed him. I could have ended it before it came to this. No one would have questioned his death. No one would have mourned him.”

“He wasn’t always that way,” said Kalista.

“No, but the man we knew died long before all this,” Ledros said, gesturing around him.

“…We have a task to complete.”

Hope stirred within him. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

“Whatever it is, we will complete it together, just as…” he said, but his words petered out as he realized his error.

The cold mask had dropped over her features, and she turned and strode away. Despair clutched at Ledros.

He’d failed again, just as he had so many times before.

He saw himself in the early years after the Ruination, stalking the spirits of those who had killed her in life, convinced that destroying them would free her. It hadn’t. He’d spent countless years pursuing that goal, but it had amounted to nothing.

He saw himself felling the arrogant cavalry captain, Hecarim, hacking his head from his shoulders and rendering him back to the mist. That one had struck Kalista the final, fatal blow, and had long toiled, seeking his end. Time and again they fought, as the years, and decades, and centuries rolled by, and the unseen stars turned overhead. But Hecarim was strong of will, and he returned from the Black Mist, of course, each time more monstrous than the last.

Either way, it changed nothing. Kalista became steadily more lost as she absorbed the vengeful spirits of the mortals who pledged themselves to her, seeking her aid against their own betrayers.

Once, he had brought Kalista face to face with Hecarim, a feat that had taken dozens of lesser deaths to achieve. He had believed that was the key to finally setting her free, and he’d rejoiced as he saw the now monstrous creature Hecarim skewered, a dozen spears piercing his towering frame… but banishing him to the darkness had done nothing. A moment of satisfaction, and then it was past.

Nothing had changed.

Just another failure added to his growing tally.

At one point, despair drove him toward self destruction. The purity of the one sunrise he’d seen since the blood had ceased coursing through his veins burned him, his intangible body dissipating like vapor. Guilt at leaving Kalista behind clawed at him, but in that agony he had rejoiced, daring to believe he’d finally found release.

Even in seeking final oblivion, he had failed, and he’d been condemned to the madness of the Black Mist once more.

All the moments preceding his banishment blurred together in a never-ending cavalcade of horror and defeat.

He roared as a purple-skinned sorcerer cast him back to the darkness, tearing him asunder with runic magics.The savage joy he’d felt as he joined the slaughter in the streets of a festering harbor city overrun with the Black Mist gave way to sudden pain as he was blasted to nothingness by the faith of indigenous witches.

He laughed as a sword impaled him on its length, but his amusement turned to agony as the blade burst into searing light, burning with the intensity of the sun.

Again and again and again he’d been condemned back to the nightmarish Black Mist, but always he’d returned. Every time, he returned to a land locked in stasis, waking in the same place, the same way.

A being of lesser will would have succumbed to insanity long ago, as so many of the spirits had. But not him. Failure clung to him, but his will was as iron. His stubborn determination to free her kept him going. That was what ensured he came back, over and over again.

Snapping back to the present, Ledros watched Kalista stalk away from him, intent on her unending mission.

A creeping melancholia settled within him. Was it all for nothing?

Was Thresh right? Was his attempt to free her from her path of retribution actually selfish?

She was sleepwalking through this nightmare, unaware of its true horrors. Would she thank him were he to wake her? Perhaps she would despise him, wishing he had let her be.

Ledros shook his head, trying to dislodge the insidious notion, even as a vision of Thresh—smiling, predatory—appeared in his mind.

“Get out of my head,” he snarled, cursing Thresh.

A new idea came to him suddenly, banishing his lingering doubts and fears. There was something he hadn’t tried, something he’d never considered until now.

“Kalista,” he called.

She did not heed him, and continued on her way, her step unrelenting.

He loosened his sword belt, and cast his scabbarded blade to the ground. He wouldn’t need it any more.

“I betrayed you,” he called out.

She stopped, her head whipping around, unblinking eyes locking on to him.

“I should have stepped forward as soon as the order was given,” Ledros continued. “I knew Hecarim was looking for any excuse to be rid of you. You’d always been the king’s favorite. It all happened so fast, but I should have been faster. We could have faced them, back to back. We could have cut our way through them and been free, together! I betrayed you with my inaction, Kalista. I failed you.”

Kalista’s eyes narrowed

“Betrayer,” she intoned.

An ethereal spear manifested in her grasp, and she began marching toward him.

Ledros unstrapped his shield and threw it aside as she broke into a loping run. He opened his arms wide, welcoming what was to come.

The first spear drove him back a step as it impaled him.

His had been the true betrayal. He’d loved her, even if he’d only spoken those words aloud alone, in the darkness of night…

A second spear drove through him, hurled with tremendous force. He staggered, but stubbornly remained standing.

He had not stepped in to stop her being murdered. He was her real betrayer.

Her third spear plunged through him, and now he dropped to both knees. He smiled, even as his strength leached from him.

Yes, this was it. This was what would finally break her from that awful, unending spiral. He was sure of it.

“Finish it,” he said, looking up at her. “Finish it, and be free.”

They stared at each other for a moment, a pair of undying spirits, their insubstantial forms rippling with deathless energy. In that moment, Ledros felt only love. In his mind’s eye, he saw her as she had been in life—regal, beautiful, strong.

“Death to all betrayers,” she said, and ran him through.

Ledros’ vision wavered as his form began to come apart, yet he saw Kalista’s expression change, the impassive mask dropping, replaced with dawning horror.

“Ledros?” she said, her voice now her own.

Her eyes were wide, and seemed to fill with shimmering tears. She rushed to be beside him as Ledros fell.

“What have I done?” she breathed.

He wanted to reassure her, but no words came forth.

I did this for you.

Darkness crashed in, and tendrils of mist reached to claim him.

Kalista reached out to comfort him, but her fingers passed through his dissolving form. Her mouth moved, but he could not hear her over the roaring madness of the Black Mist.

His armor fell to the ground and turned to dust, along with his sword. Blind terror beckoned, but he went into it gladly.

Dimly, he registered the pale specter of Thresh, watching from the shadows with his fixed, hungry smile. Even the Chain Warden’s unwanted presence could not dampen Ledros’ moment of victory.

He’d done it. He had freed her.

It was over.

Blind, all-consuming terror.

Incandescent, uncontrollable rage.

Claustrophobic horror, cloying and choking.

And behind it all was the insatiable hunger—the yearning to feed on warmth and life, to draw more souls into darkness.

The cacophony was deafening—a million screaming, tortured souls, writhing and roiling in shared torment.

This was the Black Mist.

And only the strongest of souls could escape its grasp. Only those with unfinished business.

Blood pooled beneath him, bright crimson against pristine white stone. His sword lay nearby, its blade broken. His killers stood around him, shadows on the periphery, but he saw nothing except her.

Her eyes stared into his own, without seeing. His blood-spattered face was reflected back at him. He was lying on his side. His breath was shallow, and weakening.

Her lifeless hand was cold, but he didn’t feel anything. A calmness descended upon him like a shroud. There was no pain, no fear, no doubt. Not any more.

His armored fingers tightened around her hand. He couldn’t be with her in life, but he would be with her in death.

For the first time in what seemed forever, he felt at peace…

No. Something was not right.

Reality crashed in.

None of this was real. This was but an echo left behind, the residual pain of his death, hundreds of lifetimes earlier.

Thankfully, the Chain Warden was not here to mock him.

How long had it been, this time? There was no way to know. Decades, or a few minutes—it could have been either, and yet it hardly mattered. Nothing changed in this vile realm of stasis.

Then he remembered, and hope surged through him. It was not a sensation he was familiar with, but it blossomed like the first bud of a seemingly dead tree after rainfall.

He turned, and she was there, and for a moment he knew joy, true joy. She was herself again, and she had come to him!

Then he saw her expression. The cold, severe mask, the lack of recognition in her eyes. The hope inside him withered and died.

Kalista stared past him, her head cocked, as if listening to something only she could hear.

“We accept your pledge,” she said, before turning and stepping into the mist.

Then she was gone.

Reaching out with his will, Ledros felt her now far away. Someone had called to her, from a distant continent to the north-west. Someone else who had traded their soul for a promise of vengeance against whoever had wronged them. They knew not what horror awaited.

Bitterness and bile filled Ledros. He cursed himself, twisting his hatred inward.

There was no hope. He knew that now. He’d been a fool to think otherwise.

She was trapped for eternity, as were they all. Only pride and stubbornness had made him think he could solve it, like a riddle, for all these years.

Pride and stubbornness—traits that were as much his bane in death as they had been in life, it seemed.

The cursed Chain Warden was right. It was a selfish desire to free her, he saw that now. Kalista may not be herself, but at least she was not tormented like he was. At least she had purpose.

Ledros yanked the pendant from around his neck, shattering the links of its thin chain. He hurled it into the mist.

To even hope for anything more was foolishness. There could be no peace, not unless the curse that held these isles in its foetid grasp was broken.

“And so, I must end it,” Ledros said.

Oblivion called.

Thresh stepped from the darkness. He glanced around, ensuring he was alone. Then he knelt and picked up the discarded silver pendant.

The fool had been so close. He was on the brink of bringing her back… and now, after countless centuries of trying, he had abandoned his task, at the very moment of success.

Thresh smiled, cruelly. He liked seeing hope wither and die, like blighted fruit upon the vine, as what could have been sweet turned to poison. It amused him.

He opened his lantern, and tossed the pendant within. Then he stepped back into the darkness, and faded from view.

After a time, the rattle of his chains faded, and he was gone.

Azir was a mortal emperor of Shurima in a far distant age, a proud man who stood at the cusp of immortality. His hubris saw him betrayed and murdered at the moment of his greatest triumph, but now, millennia later, he has been reborn as an Ascended being of immense power. With his buried city risen from the sand, Azir seeks to restore Shurima to its former glory.

Thousands of years ago, the Shuriman empire was a sprawling realm of vassal states conquered by powerful armies led by all but invincible warriors known as the Ascended. Ruled by an ambitious and power hungry emperor, Shurima was the greatest realm of its day; a fertile land blessed by the power of the sun that shone from a great golden disc floating atop the temple at the heart of its capital.

The youngest and least-favored son of the emperor, Azir was never destined for greatness. With so many siblings ahead of him, he would never be emperor. Most likely he would take up a position in the priesthood or as governor of some backwater province. He was a slender, studious boy who spent more time perusing the texts collected in the Great Library of Nasus than training to fight under the stern tutelage of the Ascended hero, Renekton.

Amid the twisting shelves of scrolls, books and tablets, Azir met a young slave boy who visited the library almost every day in search of texts desired by his master. Slaves in Shurima were forbidden to take names, but as the two boys became friends, Azir broke that law and called his new friend Xerath, which means ‘one who shares.’ He appointed Xerath - though he was careful never to endanger him by naming him publicly - as his personal slave and the two boys shared their love of history by learning all they could of Shurima’s past and its long legacy of Ascended heroes.

While traveling with his father, brothers and Renekton on the yearly tour of the empire, the royal caravan stopped at a well-known oasis for the night. Azir and Xerath stole away in the middle of the night to draw the stars and add their own celestial maps to those they had studied in the Great Library. While they drew the patterns of constellations, the royal caravan was attacked by a cabal of assassins sent by the emperor’s enemies. One of the assassins found the two boys out in the desert and was poised to cut Azir’s throat when Xerath intervened, throwing himself upon the assassin’s back. In the ensuing melee, Azir freed his dagger and plunged it into his attacker’s throat.

Azir took up the dead man’s sword and rushed back to the oasis, but by the time he returned, the assassins were already defeated. Renekton had protected the emperor and slain the attackers, but Azir’s brothers were all dead. Azir told his father of Xerath’s courage and asked him to reward the slave boy, but his words fell on deaf ears. In the emperor’s eyes, the boy was a slave and beneath his notice, but Azir swore that one day he and Xerath would be brothers.

The emperor returned to his capital, with the fifteen year old Azir now his heir, and unleashed a merciless campaign of bloodshed against those he believed had sent the assassins. Shurima descended into years of paranoia and murder as the emperor took revenge on any he suspected of treason. Though he was now heir to the throne, Azir’s life yet hung by a thread. His father hated him - wishing he had died instead of his brothers - and the queen was still young enough to bear sons.

Azir trained in combat, for the attack at the oasis had revealed how little he knew of the deadly arts. Renekton took up the task of teaching the growing prince, and under his aegis, Azir learned to wield sword and spear, to command warriors, and to read the ebb and flow of battle. The young heir elevated Xerath, his only trusted confidant, and made him his right hand man. To better counsel him, Azir tasked Xerath with seeking out knowledge wherever he could find it.

Years passed, but the queen was never able to carry a child to term, every conceived infant perishing before it could be born. So long as the queen remained barren, Azir’s life was relatively safe. Some around the court believed a curse was at work and a few even whispered the young heir’s name in connection with this – though Azir claimed innocence and even executed some who dared voice such accusations openly.

Eventually, the queen bore a healthy son, but on the night of his birth a terrible storm engulfed Shurima. The queen’s chambers were struck again and again by powerful bolts of lightning, and in the subsequent blaze, both the queen and her newborn son were killed. It was said the emperor went mad with grief and took his own life upon hearing the news, but tales soon spread of how he and his guards had been found lying in pieces on the palace floor, their bodies little more than charred skeletons.

Azir was shocked by their deaths, but the empire needed a leader, and with Xerath at his side he took control of Shurima as its emperor. Over the next decade, he expanded Shurima’s borders and ruled with a harsh, but just hand. He instituted reforms to better the lives of slaves and privately developed a plan to overturn millennia of tradition and eventually free them all. He kept his plans secret, even from Xerath, and the issue of slavery would prove to be a continual bone of contention between them. The empire had been built on the back of slavery, and many of the great noble houses depended on enforced labor for their vast wealth and power. Such monolithic institutions could not be overturned overnight, and Azir’s plans would be undone were they to become common knowledge. Despite Azir’s desire to name Xerath his brother, he could not do so until all Shurima’s slaves were free.

Through these years, Xerath protected Azir from his political rivals and guided the expansion of the empire. Azir married and fathered numerous children, some by wedlock, others by ill-advised liaisons with slaves and harem girls. Xerath stoked the emperor’s grand vision of an empire greater than any the world had ever known. But to stand as ruler over the entire world, Xerath convinced Azir that he would need to be all but invincible, a god amongst men – an Ascended being.

As the kingdom reached the zenith of its power, Azir announced he would undertake the Ascension ritual, that the time was right for him to take his place alongside Nasus and Renekton and their glorious forebears. Many questioned this decision; the Ascension ritual was highly dangerous and intended only for those near the end of their lives, those who had devoted their lives to Shurima and whose service was to be honored with Ascension. It was for the Sun Priests to decree who would be blessed with Ascension, not the hubris of an emperor to bestow it upon himself. Azir would not be dissuaded from his rash course of action, for his arrogance had grown along with his empire, and he ordered them to comply on pain of death.

The day of the ritual finally came and Azir marched toward the Dais of Ascension, flanked by thousands of his warriors and tens of thousands of his subjects. The brothers Renekton and Nasus were absent, having been dispatched by Xerath to deal with an emergent threat, but still Azir would not turn from what he saw as his great destiny. He climbed to the great golden disc atop the temple at the heart of the city and in the moments before the sun priests began the ritual, he turned to Xerath and finally freed him. And not just him, but all slaves…

Xerath was stunned into speechlessness, but Azir was not yet done. He embraced Xerath and named him his eternal brother, as he had promised he would all those years ago. Azir turned as the priests began the ritual to bring down the awesome power of the sun. Azir was unaware that Xerath had studied more than just history and philosophy in his quest for knowledge. He had learned the dark arts of sorcery, all the while nursing a desire for freedom that had grown like a cancer into a burning hatred.

At the height of the ritual, the former slave unleashed his powers and Azir was blasted from his place on the dais. Without the protection of the runic circle, Azir was consumed by the sun’s fire as Xerath took his place. The light filled Xerath with power, and he roared as his mortal body began to transform.

But the magic of the ritual was not intended for Xerath, and such awesomely powerful celestial energies could not be diverted without dire consequence. The power of the Ascension ritual exploded outward, devastating Shurima and laying waste to the city. Its people burned to ash and its towering palaces fell to ruin as the desert sands rose up to swallow the city. The sun disc sank from the sky and what had taken centuries to build was brought to ruin in an instant by one man’s ambition and another’s misplaced hate. All that remained of Azir’s city were sunken ruins and echoes of its people’s screams on the night winds.

Azir saw none of this. For him, all was nothingness. His last memories were of pain and fire; he knew nothing of what befell him atop the temple, nor what became of his empire. He remained lost in timeless oblivion until, thousands of years after Shurima’s doom, the blood of his last descendant spilled onto the temple ruins and resurrected him. Azir was reborn, but was yet incomplete; his body little more than animate dust given form, held together by the last vestiges of his indomitable will.

Gradually resuming his corporeal form, Azir stumbled through the ruins and came across the corpse of a woman with a treacherous knife wound in her back. He did not know her, but saw in her features the distant echo of his bloodline. All thoughts of empires and power were forgotten as he lifted this daughter of Shurima and bore her to what had once been the Oasis of the Dawn. The oasis was empty and dry, but with every step Azir took, clear water began filling the rocky basin. Azir immersed the woman’s body in the restorative waters of the oasis and as the blood washed away, only a faint scar remained where the blade had pierced her.

And with that act of selflessness, Azir was lifted up in a column of fire as the magic of Shurima renewed him, remaking him as the Ascended being he was meant to become. The sun’s immortal radiance poured into him, crafting his magnificent, hawk-armored form and granting him the power to command the very sand itself. Azir lifted his arms and his ruined city shrugged off the dust of centuries spent beneath the desert to rise anew. The sun disc lifted into the sky once more, and healing waters flowed between temples heaving themselves back into the light at the emperor’s command.

Azir climbed the steps of the newly-risen sun temple, weaving the desert winds to recreate the city’s last moments. Ghosts formed of sand relived his city’s last moments from long ago, and Azir watched in horror as Xerath’s treachery unfolded. He wept as he saw his family murdered, his empire fall and his power stolen. Only now, millennia too late, did he finally understand the depths of hatred harbored by his former friend and ally. With the power and prescience of an Ascended being, Azir sensed Xerath somewhere abroad in the world and summoned an army of sand warriors to march alongside their reborn emperor. As the sun blazed from the golden disc above him, Azir swore a mighty oath.

I will reclaim my lands and take back what was mine!

Regardless of what he would later become, Varus was once a paragon of loyalty and honor. A skilled archer of the ancient Shuriman empire, he was appointed as a temple warden in the eastern states, and he held this duty sacred above all else.

During the earliest stages of the war with Icathia, even though it lay far from that cursed place, Varus’ homeland was attacked. While other wardens abandoned their posts to join the defense of the outlying villages, he alone remained, screaming in anguish with every arrow he loosed—for he had chosen to uphold his oaths rather than return home to protect his own family.

Emissaries from the Ascended Host found him kneeling in solemn meditation amid the corpses of his foes. It was said that his cold gaze unsettled even the god-warriors themselves, and yet, in recognition of his noble sacrifice, Varus was offered a place in their ranks.

As one of the great Ascended, he was utterly consumed by his pursuit of vengeance against the Icathians, and the voidling horrors they had unleashed. It is likely that Varus did not even fully comprehend Shurima’s ultimate victory in that war, so twisted had his mind become—nor the empire’s fall centuries later. Atrocity after atrocity blurred together, leaving him as a withdrawn, callous killer, reshaped and sent into battle countless times by his degenerate brethren.

Their name became feared throughout the known world.

The darkin.

Warring among themselves, they destroyed any other who stood against them. With his crystalline bow, Varus assassinated enemy commanders and champions, helping the darkin defeat entire mortal armies with ever greater ease.

Eventually, Varus was cornered by vastayan moon-stalkers and human mages in service of a golden-armored warrior queen of Valoran. They bound him within his bow, leaving him to howl in impotent rage. By then, the raw, corrupting influence of the darkin was known, and yet still the queen chose to wield the deadly weapon in the final days of the war, gladly sacrificing herself for a greater victory.

In the months that followed, the queen carried Varus to the First Lands—those that would later be known as Ionia. Now made monstrous by the bow’s power, her last act was to command her followers to bury her alive in a lightless well, sunk deep beneath a mountain temple overlooking the village of Pallas.

And there Varus was imprisoned, both by the natural magic of Ionia, and the ritual ministrations of the temple guardians.

The bow remained hidden for centuries, unknown, untouched, and all but forgotten, until Noxian invaders attacked the First Lands. Two beast hunters—Valmar and his heartlight, Kai—fought against the first wave at the Temple of Pallas. Though their courage was great and they drove off the attackers, Kai was mortally wounded, and a grief-stricken Val carried him inside, believing the well’s forbidden magic could restore him.

But the temple held only damnation, and both hunters were consumed by the unleashed power of the darkin within it. The very matter of their bodies was unraveled and bound together again to craft a new body, a body fit to free Varus from his imprisonment. What emerged from the well was a gestalt creature, pale and inhumanly beautiful, part human and part darkin. After more than a thousand years, Varus was reborn.

Even so, the human and darkin elements of this imperfect form are in constant flux, with each managing to wrest control for a short time before being reined in by the other. Varus fights to silence the two mortal souls once and for all, and wreak vengeance for the destruction of his race. Still, Kai and Val struggle against his malevolent influence, hoping against hope that their love can overcome the darkin’s hatred.

How long they can keep Varus conflicted is anyone’s guess—but should this sadistic and egotistical killer come to fully dominate his new host, it is certain he will seek to reunite with others of his kind, and reduce all of Runeterra to an ashen wasteland.

Helia, the Blessed Isles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tyrus of Hellesmor.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They would not break him.

And he would remember this insult.

Alovédra, Camavor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Kal?” breathed Viego.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Viego nodded, trying to take comfort in her words.

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

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

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

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

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

“Yet if—”

“The blade will not claim you.”

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

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

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

revealing... nothing.

Then the Blade of the King appeared.

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

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

the ritual of binding.

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

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

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

“Viego,” Kalista said. “It is time.”

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

“Viego...” hissed Kalista.

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

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

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

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

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

His eyes widened, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Then he opened his mouth and began to scream.

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Maokai is a rageful, towering treant who fights the unnatural horrors of the Shadow Isles. He was twisted into a force of vengeance after a magical cataclysm destroyed his home, surviving undeath only through the waters of life infused within his heartwood. Once a peaceful nature spirit, Maokai now furiously battles to banish the scourge of unlife from the Shadow Isles and restore his home to its former beauty.

Long before living memory, a chain of islands erupted from deep beneath the ocean tides as blank slates of rock and clay. With its creation, the nature spirit Maokai was born. He took the form of a treant, with his tall body covered in bark and long limbs resembling branches. Maokai felt the profound loneliness of the land and its potential for teeming growth. He wandered from island to island in search of signs of life, growing ever more forlorn in his solitude.

On a hilly isle covered in soft, rich soil, Maokai sensed a boundless energy radiating from deep beneath the ground. He plunged his great roots downward until they reached a spring of magical, life-giving water and drank deeply. From this potent liquid, he grew hundreds of saplings and planted them across the islands.

Soon the land was shawled with verdant forests, groves of towering virenpine, and tangled woods, all steeped in wondrous magic. Magnificent skytrees with expansive canopies and thickly winding roots covered the isles with lush green foliage. Nature spirits were drawn to the lavish vegetation, and animals reveled in the fertile greenery.

When humans eventually came to the islands, they too thrived in the land’s abundance and formed an enlightened society of scholars devoted to studying the world’s mysteries. Though Maokai was wary of their presence, he saw how they respected the sanctity of the land. Sensing the deep magic within the woods, the humans built their homes in areas not heavily forested, to avoid disturbing any nature spirits. Maokai occasionally revealed himself directly to those he trusted and blessed them with knowledge of the verdant isles, even its greatest gift – the underground spring that could heal mortal wounds.

Centuries passed, and Maokai lived in idyllic contentment until a fleet of soldiers from across the sea beached upon the shores of the isles. Maokai sensed something was terribly wrong. Their grief-maddened king bore the corpse of his queen and in hopes of reviving her, bathed her decayed flesh in the healing waters. Reanimated as a rotting corpse, the queen begged to return to death. The king sought to reverse what he had done, unwittingly casting a terrible curse upon the land.

From leagues away, Maokai felt the first ripples of the disaster that would soon devastate the isles. He sensed a horrific force gathering beneath the soil, and a bitter chill washed over him.

As the ruination spread, Maokai desperately plunged his roots deep into the ground and drank of the healing waters, saturating every fiber of his being with their magic. Before the cursed water reached him, Maokai withdrew his roots, severing all connection to the pool. He howled in rage as the sacred reservoir he had entrusted to men was fully corrupted – the spiraling coils churning underwater until nothing pure remained.

Moments later, the mists surrounding the islands blackened and spread over the land, trapping all living things in an unnatural state between life and death. Maokai watched in helpless agony as all he knew – plants, nature spirits, animals, and humans alike – twisted into wretched shades. His fury grew; the great beauty he had cultivated from tiny saplings fell to ruin in an instant at the careless hand of man.

The enervating mist coiled around Maokai, and he wept as the bright flowers adorning his shoulders crumbled and fell to dust. His body shuddered and contorted into a mass of gnarled roots and tangled branches as the mist leached life from him. But Maokai’s heartwood was saturated with the precious waters of life, saving him from the terrible fate of undeath.

As grotesque wraiths and horrific abominations flooded the land, Maokai was overcome by a host of lifeless men. He struck the spirits with his branchlike limbs in manic violence, realizing the force of his blows could shatter them to dust. Maokai shuddered with revulsion: he had never killed before. He flew at the breathless shapes in a frenzy, but hundreds more overwhelmed him, and eventually he was forced to retreat.

With his home all but decimated and his companions turned to deathless horrors, Maokai was tempted to try and escape the nightmare of the isles. But from deep within his twisted form, he felt the sacred waters giving him life. He had survived the Ruination by carrying the very heart of the islands within him, and he would not abandon his home now. As the Blessed Isles’ first nature spirit, he would remain and fight for the soul of the land.

Though surrounded by endless hosts of malicious foes and darkening mist, Maokai fights with furious vengeance to conquer the evil that plagues the isles. His only pleasure comes from dealing savage violence to the soulless wraiths who roam his land.

Some days, Maokai subdues the mist and its deathless spirits, breaking their hold on a grove of trees or a small thicket. Though new life has not bloomed in such cursed soil for an age, Maokai strives to carve havens, however temporary, free from regret and decay.

So long as Maokai continues to fight, hope remains, for steeped within his heartwood are the uncorrupted waters of life, the last remaining chance of restoring the isles. If the land returns to its joyous state, Maokai, too, will shed his twisted form. The nature spirit brought life to these isles long ago, and he refuses to rest until the isles bloom once more.

The horrifying specter now known as Thresh was once a simple, if troubled, man. In an age history has all but forgotten, he was a lowly warden of an order devoted to the gathering and protection of arcane knowledge. This order was established on the Blessed Isles, which were hidden and protected from the outside world by magical pale mists.

The masters of the order acknowledged Thresh’s long years of service, and tasked him with the custodianship of certain hidden vaults beneath the city of Helia. It was there that a vast, secret collection of dangerous artifacts was kept under lock and key. Incredibly strong-willed and methodical, Thresh was well suited to such work… but even then, his penchant for cruelty had been noted by his brethren. While it had not yet manifested in murderous ways—at least, none that could be proven—he was shunned by many.

It became clear he had been given a job that kept him away from others, preventing him from gaining the recognition he felt he deserved. Solitary years in the darkness took their toll, and Thresh grew ever more bitter and jealous as he patrolled the long halls with his lantern-stave, and only his own resentful thoughts for company.

His moment of opportunity came when the armies of a mad king managed to pierce the veiling mists, and arrived unbidden upon the shores of the Blessed Isles.

Secretly, Thresh delighted in the slaughter that followed. The invading king was obsessed with resurrecting his dead queen—and Thresh willingly led him to the fabled Waters of Life.

None but the most senior members of the order had ever been permitted to enter the hidden catacomb that housed the Waters. Now, with the king’s greatest warriors at his back, Thresh laughed as the guardians of that sacred place were cut down before him. Finally, he believed, he would get what he had long deserved.

Only those who were there could say what truly occurred when the king lowered the lifeless corpse of his wife into the Waters, but the aftermath would shake the whole of Runeterra.

A catastrophic blastwave of dark energy surged outward, engulfing Helia and spreading rapidly across the rest of the Blessed Isles, and the white mist that had once protected them turned black and predatory. Every living thing in its path perished in an instant, and yet their spirits could not move on, caught in a horrifying new existence somewhere between life and death. Thresh himself was among the first to be claimed… but while others screamed in anguish at their fate, he reveled in it.

He arose from this cataclysm, this Ruination, as a spectral monstrosity, relishing the chance to torment others without fear of reprisal, and unfettered by the limits of mortality.

Over the decades and centuries that followed, his supernatural appearance slowly changed to match the malice and cruelty that had always festered in his heart. To his amusement, Thresh came to realize most other spirits trapped within the Black Mist retained only fragments of their former selves—even the strongest of the foreign invaders, such as Hecarim or Ledros—while his power continued to grow.

Driven by spite to prey upon those he perceives as lesser souls, Thresh’s favorite victims have always been those who will suffer the most from his attentions. No matter how strong their resolve, resilience, or faith, he strives to break them as slowly as possible, by learning their fears and weaknesses, and toying with them to the very end. Only when their lives lie in tatters, their loved ones taken from them, their sense of purpose lost and their last glimmer of hope snuffed out, do Thresh’s hooked chains finally drag them into his undying grasp.

Even so, death brings no merciful release, for he tears out the souls of all he kills—imprisoning them within his accursed lantern, to be unwilling witnesses to his depredations for all eternity.

Only a single soul has ever escaped him.

Senna, one of the hated “Sentinels of Light”, died a futile death after facing Thresh in some forgotten eldritch vault. Her distraught husband, Lucian, then pursued the cruel spirit for years, becoming singularly obsessed with the hunt, letting his grief and rage consume him almost entirely. To Thresh, it was delectable.

However, before he could finally claim Lucian’s soul, a vengeful blow split Thresh’s lantern open, and freed Senna from it.

Intrigued by the obvious strength of their mortal bond, he has decided to allow them this small and insignificant victory, knowing all too well that the game of light and shadow they all play is still far from over…

Icy waves crashed on the bleak shore, red with the blood of the men Hecarim had already butchered. The mortals he had yet to kill were retreating over the beach in terror. Black rain doused them and stormclouds boiled in from the mourning heart of the island. He heard them shouting to one another. The words were a guttural battle-cant he did not recognize, but the meaning was clear; they actually thought they might live to reach their ship. True, they had some skill. They moved as one, wooden shields interlocked. But they were mortal and Hecarim savored the meat-stink of their fear.

He circled them, threading crumbling ruins and unseen in the shadowed mist rising from the ashen sand. The echoing thunder of his hooves struck sparks from black rocks. It gnawed at their courage. He watched the mortals through the slitted visor of his helm. The weak light of their wretched spirits was flickering corposant in their flesh. It repulsed him even as he craved it.

“No-one lives,” he said.

His voice was muffled by the dread iron of his helm, like the corpse-rasp of a hanged man. The sound scraped along their nerves like rusted blades. He drank in their terror and grinned as one man threw down his shield and ran for the ship in desperation.

He bellowed as he galloped from the weed-choked ruins, lowering his hooked glaive and feeling the old thrill of the charge. A memory flickered, riding at the head of a silver host. Winning glory and honor. The memory faded as the man reached the dark surf of cold breakers and looked over his shoulder.

“Please! No!” he cried.

Hecarim split him from collarbone to pelvis in one thunderous blow.

His ebon-bladed glaive pulsed as it bathed in blood. The fragile wisp of the man’s spirit sought to fly free, but the mist’s hunger would not be cheated. Hecarim watched as the soul was twisted into a dark reflection of the man’s life.

Hecarim drew the power of the island to him and the bloody surf churned with motion as a host of dark knights wreathed in shimmering light rose from the water. Sealed within archaic plates of ghostly iron, they drew black swords that glimmered with dark radiance. He should know these men. They had served him once and served him still, but he had no memory of them. He turned back towards the mortals on the beach. He parted the mists, revelling in their terror as they saw him clearly for the first time.

His colossal form was a nightmarish hybrid of man and horse, a chimeric juggernaut of brazen iron. The plates of his body were dark and stamped with etchings whose meanings he only vaguely recalled. Bale-fire smouldered behind his visor, the spirit within cold and dead yet hatefully vital.

Hecarim reared as forking traceries of lightning split the sky. He lowered his glaive and led his knights in the charge, throwing up giant clumps of blood-sodden sand and bone fragments as he went. The mortals screamed and brought up their shields, but the ghost-knights charge was unstoppable. Hecarim struck first as was his right as their master, and the thunderous impact splintered the shieldwall wide open. Men were trampled to bloody gruel beneath his iron-shod bulk. His glaive struck out left and right, killing with every strike. The ghost knights crushed all before them, slaughtering the living in a fury of thrashing hooves, stabbing lances and chopping blades. Bones cracked and blood sprayed as mortal spirits fled broken bodies, already trapped between life and death by the fell magic of the Ruined King.

The spirits of the dead circled Hecarim, beholden to him as their killer and he revelled in the surging joy of battle. He ignored the wailing spirits. He had no interest in enslaving them. Leave such petty cruelties to the Chain Warden.

All Hecarim cared for was killing.

A loud crack. The stench of grease, smoke, and powder.

These sounds and smells did not belong to the forest.

The huntress bounded towards the sound, spear at the ready. She followed the acrid scent through the maze of trunks and thick underbrush.

Before long, she came upon a familiar place—a small clearing by an embankment. This was a quiet place teeming with life, split by a shallow stream of fast-running water. The fish were so plentiful, even a cub could catch them with clumsy paws. The calm air was rent by the howls of something, or someone, in great pain.

Nidalee chose a spot behind a thick tree at the stream’s edge, careful to conceal her spear behind its trunk. Just across the river knelt a vastayan male with reptilian features. He clutched at his shoulder, and though he moaned in pain, his eyes were wild with rage. The huntress saw his long tail was caught in a trap. Huge metal teeth had bitten into his scaly flesh.

A human holding a long, ugly weapon loomed over the vastaya. Nidalee stared at the dead, shining wood wrapped around the metal barrel. She had seen these things before. They fired lethal seeds that could easily pierce a target, and these seeds traveled too fast for her eyes to follow.

She stepped out from behind the tree, purposefully crunching dead leaves underfoot. The man turned his head in her direction, but kept his weapon aimed at the wounded vastaya. He could not see her spear.

“My, my. What have we here?” The human looked her up and down, his eyes hungry. “Are you lost, love?”

The huntress knew how to handle his kind. Humans were so often disarmed by her appearance—their eyes saw only the softness of her features. She remained expressionless, carefully gauging the distance between them and adjusting her grip on the spear. Her eyes rested on the weapon in his hands.

He smirked at the wild woman, taking her stillness for fear. “Never seen one of these before? Come have a look. I won’t hurt you,” the man coaxed. He turned away from his prey to hold out his weapon.

As soon as it was pointed away from the vastaya, Nidalee whirled out from behind the tree. She hurled her spear at the human’s torso and dove across the river, enveloping herself in a fierce, feral magic. In a flash, her features shifted—nails hardened into harsh points, skin sprouted flaxen fur, and bones bent into a slender shape.

The man dodged too slowly. The spear cut through the flesh of his upper arm and knocked him onto his back. Nidalee landed on top of him in the lithe form of a cougar, each sharp claw piercing through his thin clothing. She pressed her front paw down on his fresh wound, earning a howl of pain.

The cougar crouched over the man, opening her jaws wide and bringing her sharp teeth against his throat. The human shrieked as Nidalee bit slowly into his neck, just deep enough to draw blood, but not to kill. After a few moments, she released the man’s throat and brought her face into his view, baring her bloodied teeth at him.

Another gust of magic swirled around her, and again she took the form of a woman, her sharp teeth somehow no less menacing. Still crouched over him, she looked down at him through bright, emerald eyes.

“You will leave, or you will die. Understand?”

The huntress did not wait for an answer. She tore a piece of fabric from the man’s shirt, and approached the wounded vastaya. Within seconds, she disarmed the trap around his tail. The moment he was freed, he lunged for the human.

Nidalee grabbed the vastaya’s arm, holding him back. The man, who had been frozen in fear, saw his chance to flee, and hurriedly crawled from sight.

The reptilian wrested his arm from Nidalee’s grip, sputtering and cursing in a language she did not recognize. Then, in a familiar tongue, he demanded, “Why did you let it go?”

Nidalee pointed to where the human had fled, indicating spots of bright red blood. “We will follow him. If there are others, he will lead us to them. If they do not leave, they will die together.”

The vastaya did not look satisfied, but said nothing. Nidalee knelt by the river and washed the cloth she had torn from the man.

“You called it… human.” He spoke with a strange lisp. His mouth was very wide, and his forked tongue flicked out between words.

Nidalee wrapped the damp, clean fabric around his shoulder. “Yes.”

“You are not human?”

“No. I am like you.”

“There is no vastaya like you. You are human.”

Nidalee pulled the fabric tightly around his shoulder, causing him to hiss in pain. She managed to conceal her smile by using her teeth to secure the knot.

“I am called Nidalee. You?”

“Kuulcan.”

“Kuulcan. Tonight, my family hunts. You will join us.”

The vastaya stretched his arm, testing the bandage. It was tight, but did not hinder his movement. He looked up at the huntress, who stood above him with her arms crossed.

Kuulcan nodded.

Percy sat by the fire, his face flushed a deep red—partly because of the adrenaline, partly because of the beer, but mostly because of the embarrassment. He had told his three companions of the wild woman, and they hadn’t stopped laughing. One of them took it upon himself to prance about the fire with his guitar and sing a lewd prayer to the “Queen of the Jungle” while the other two guffawed and danced.

“Keep it down, you damned idiots,” he pleaded, earning an even louder roar of laughter. “She might hear us.”

Tired of the taunting and full of far too much ale, Percy snuck away from his fellow trappers to answer the call of nature. The wound still hurt something fierce, and no amount of drinking could chase away the feeling of her teeth on his throat.

As he refastened his belt, he realized the singing and laughing had stopped. The wind itself had stopped blowing. He could hear no rustling leaves or swaying branches.

Beyond the dim light of their low fire, their camp was surrounded by total darkness. Far ahead past the edge of the camp, something glinted in the shadows. Percy rubbed his eyes and squinted, struggling to see anything in the dark.

All at once, the undergrowth began to heave and creak. The leaves of every fern and tree shook with movement. Countless pairs of eyes opened before him in the darkness, and a chorus of growls and feline hisses deafened him.

Percy recognized the emerald eyes nearest to him. There was no trace of humanity left in them now. The eyes blinked and disappeared, and a voice snarled in his ear.

“You were warned.”

He did not manage to scream before the sharp teeth closed around his throat—and this time they did not stop when they drew blood.