LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Sejuani was the child of a Freljordian political marriage that ended as coldly as it began. Her mother, the Iceborn warrior Kalkia of the Winter’s Claw, abandoned her new family to pursue the man who had captured her heart years before, and the tribe fell into decline and chaos without a young Warmother to lead it.

Sejuani was instead raised by her grandmother, Hejian. Though Sejuani tried her best to earn Hejian’s love, she was never able to meet her arduous expectations. As the tribe’s troubles grew in the years that followed, Hejian had even less time for the girl.

Wealth, love, safety—these were things Sejuani only experienced secondhand, through visits to the Winter’s Claw’s sister tribe, the Avarosans. During the summers, Grena, the most famous warrior in the region, took Sejuani into her household. After discovering Grena had in fact once bested Kalkia in a duel, the Avarosan Warmother instantly became Sejuani’s idol… and Grena’s daughter Ashe became the only person she ever truly considered a friend.

After Grena questioned the treatment of the young girl by her grandmother, an affronted Hejian cut all ties with the Avarosans. The Winter’s Claw then instigated a series of conflicts with other neighboring tribes, attempting to reclaim the lands and honor they had lost with Kalkia’s flight, but these desperate tactics only led them further into ruin.

Somehow, word of this reached Kalkia.

Hearing of her former tribe’s misfortunes, she returned and took up the mantle of Warmother once more. Even so, quelling these hostilities left the Winter’s Claw with game-poor lands and precious few other resources, forcing them to rely on the grim Frostguard for protection.

Sejuani was galled by this, and resolved to seize leadership from her mother. She swore a sacred oath to lead a perilous raid against a Noxian warship, hoping that fulfilling this oath would be enough to rally the tribe to her, with enough support to wrest power from Kalkia and the Frost Priests.

During the vicious assault, Sejuani freed a juvenile drüvask from the ship’s butchery stores, naming it Bristle for the feel of its hide. Though she could not have guessed it at the time, this creature would grow to become one of the largest drüvasks ever seen, and remained with Sejuani as her loyal steed.

Her raid a success, Sejuani decided it was time to challenge her mother directly for the tribe. By the ancient customs, a duel between a mother and her daughter was unthinkable—but Sejuani would not be deterred.

Outraged, the Frost Priests were forced to intervene, and Kalkia died in the struggle before Sejuani could reach her.

As the new Warmother of the Winter’s Claw, Sejuani began attacking and absorbing nearby tribes, consolidating her power and gathering a veritable horde of followers. Her defiance of the Frostguard also attracted outcast shamans, spirit walkers, Iceborn and Stormborn, and unrepentant worshippers of all the old gods from across the Freljord.

Where once they had been weak, disgraced, and preyed upon by their neighbors, in only a few years the Winter’s Claw had become feared throughout the northlands for their speed, brutality, and absolute devotion to their Warmother.

Now, as the seasons turn, Sejuani marches on the southern tribes, Noxian interlopers, and even the borderlands of Demacia—raiding, pillaging, and conquering any who stand against her. Ultimately, she seeks to cast down and destroy the burgeoning coalition of tribes formed by her childhood friend, Ashe. As far as Sejuani is concerned, the Avarosan Warmother has betrayed not only their friendship but, far worse, she has also betrayed Grena’s legacy.

And so, Sejuani will prove that only she is worthy of ruling the Freljord.

Long before the lands that would become Camavor were named, dragons dwelt there.

Once mortals arrived, conflict followed. The strife was only quelled when the first king of Camavor humbled himself before the dragon matriarch, bending the knee and pleading with her to lend her great strength to his armies, and all his dreams of empire. So it was that the dragon who would eventually be known as Grandmother Viper and the Camavoran ruler swore the oath of Vol Visperi-Desinvein, binding their lineages for generations to come.

The dragons remained fiercely loyal to the throne and to those high houses that passed the trials and performed the sacred rites of the oath. In exchange, the dragons were kept satiated with livestock and showered with offerings. The gold, jewels, and precious artifacts they accumulated over the years garnered them a great respect… and those brazen enough to cross the dragons would pause at the thought of their own fortunes being reduced to molten slag and windblown ash.

Long after Grandmother Viper passed into legend and her brood was already much diminished, the young king—Viego Santiarul Molach Vol Kalah Heigaari—called upon the imperial dragons to accompany him and the knightly orders to the Blessed Isles. The dragons refused, seeming to recognize his madness for what it was… though even remaining in Camavor with all their treasures could not spare the kingdom from the tragic repercussions of the Ruination. The handful that survived bore witness to endless neglect and conflict, roosting within the deteriorating palace where no monarch would ever reign again.

Centuries would pass before another imperial dragon would hatch.

As that hatchling grew, scarcity of game forced his mother to venture further and further to hunt. This left the nest vulnerable to far-roaming Noxian beastmasters, who stole the young dragon and set sail for home to collect their reward.

However, shortly before arriving at their destination, the mother dragon discovered the ship’s whereabouts and obliterated it with her fiery breath. In the chaos, the hatchling was swept away, borne by the current to a nearby island off mainland Noxus.

Scared, alone, and hungry, the hatchling employed his mother’s lessons to hunt small prey in this strange environment—and on one such hunt, he stumbled across a human child called Marinos. The boy would go on to name his new friend “Smolder,” and as the young dragon’s ability to communicate grew, their friendship flourished… but remained a secret. The boy feared that if anyone else were to discover Smolder, he’d be taken to the mainland and sold to the highest bidder.

As time passed, the boy grew into a man—one with responsibilities that seldom allowed for the playtime Smolder had grown so fond of. And so, in an effort to amuse himself, Smolder decided he’d learn to breathe fire like the dragons in Marinos’ stories.

After many attempts, instead of sneezing sparks as he’d done countless times before, flames burst forth… and in his excitement over this new development, Smolder failed to notice the fire spreading until it had engulfed the forest canopy.

Suddenly, louder than a hunting horn, louder than thunder, a roar unlike any other rang through the air as a massive dragon approached. Having been drawn by the rising smoke, Smolder’s mother swept down to embrace her child lovingly, as if they never parted. Carried away from the growing inferno by the scruff of his neck, Smolder soared—his first time experiencing the world as dragons should.

Smolder now roosts with his mother on the cliffside where she’d spent so long watching and waiting for signs he yet lived. Every night, she recounts the history of his kin, the meaning and responsibilities of imperial dragons, and how to hone his fledgling abilities.

And one day, when he is ready, they will return together to their ancestral home to usher in a new golden age for Camavor.

My yordle Norra snores into the pages of my friend, Book. My tail twitches as dozens of moon-moths sail in through the open window like floating lanterns, and I leap joyfully into the air, not caring if I catch one. I bounce higher and higher, batting at the moon-moths as they drift all around me.

One of them bends and turns inside itself, lashing about until it twists into the shape of a mackerel. Around me, the other moon-moths spin in mid-air, all transforming into floating fish. Delicious—until the whole world turns upside down. Books cascade up from the shelves, landing on the ceiling with a dozen thuds. My Norra floats upward, still asleep. The fish flounder in every direction as we all fall up, up, up—

I wake up, blinking sleepily in a wooden box as moonlight shines through the slats. How in a mouse’s house did I get here? Oh yes. The tasty stink of fish fills my nose and I remember prowling the streets of Bilgewater, finding a crate of dried fish, then eating my fill before falling into a deep, belly-full sleep.

Before I can get comfy again, my stomach lurches and I’m knocked onto my side. Dozens of dried fish fall on top of me—just like my dream!—and my stomach purrs.

Book flutters in the corner as it tries to edge away from the falling fish. It’s always hinting that food is bad for its pages. I think dried-up-trees would be much improved with the smell of fish, but Book knows much more about dried-up-trees than I do, so I don’t argue.

I peek through the cracks between the slats. The floor beneath us creaks and shifts while, in the distance, moonlight flickers on the surface of the… ocean!

“Book, whyyy?!” I cry. “Naps never lead to bad things!”

Book opens and closes in exasperation. I don’t do water, and neither does Book.

I start to panic. Book rustles, reminding me not to worry—but it’s too late. I scratch and scramble at the wood in desperation, and I shred some of the dried fish by accident. This ocean is making me destroy my yummiest snack—it’s the worst type of water! I paw at Book’s cover, opening it to a frost-tinged portal that will take us far away from this watery nightmare. We have to escape somewhere, anywhere. Even somewhere cold.

I’m about to jump into Book’s portal when I hear a scream that sounds like tinkling bells and the brightest rainbows. A scream that makes my fur stand on end. A yordle scream.

I peek through the slats in the crate and watch as two human sailors drag a blue-furred yordle to the edge of the bustling ship’s deck. One of them has black chin-whiskers and the other is chubby, and both are smirking. They step over roped stacks of harpoons, fishing poles, spears, and coils of thick fishing wire. Must be deep-sea monster hunters.

“This little ’un is gonna fetch us a prize gulperfish, eh?” the first sailor says.

“I hear the biggest fish love yordle meat,” says the chubbier sailor. “Never tried it before, myself. Not a lot of yordles ’round Bilgewater.”

The blue-furred yordle squeals and struggles against them. “I’m not bait!” he exclaims, squeaking with each word. “I beg you, please release me!” The sailors don’t budge.

The whole ship tilts as a particularly large bump shakes my crate. “Ah, that’ll be the fish now. Time to fill our boat with gulperflesh!” says the first sailor, grinning. I don’t like his grin.

An enormous fin circles our boat, making lion-sized waves that bash the side of our ship. I feel Book tugging at me. I know it wants us to escape through a portal, to get away from the bad water right now before anyone sees us, but I hear the yordle cry out. I stick my paw through the slats in the crate and open the crate’s latch. I won’t leave a yordle alone to die. Not after losing my Norra.

The sailors watch the fin thrash around in the water. They don’t notice me as I leap from my crate like the quietest tiger and stalk them from behind.

The poor yordle is tied to a long fishing pole, which the sailors are dangling over the ocean. The water beneath him is bubbling and frothing. How does water always move in the worst ways?! I jump over the pile of harpoons and Book follows, flying next to me and nervously flapping its pages as it hovers in the air. They see us.

“Is that a purple raccoon—with a flying book?” one of the sailors asks.

“I think it’s a baby bear with a journal,” says another.

“No, you idiots, it’s just a cat,” says a third. “Get it!”

The sailors rush at me, but I dart swiftly between their feet. I unfurl a coil of magic that twists and tangles around their legs. They trip and topple like cups on a table.

I perch on the ship’s railing next to the fishing pole, unsure what to do next. The waves swirl below us, and my hunting instincts kick in—something’s gonna pounce.

“Untie me!” shouts the yordle as he clings to the fishing rod. “I am not a piece of bait. This is quite strange and embarrassing!”

Luckily for him, I am not afraid of fish. Even if I don’t like water.

I bound onto the fishing pole. In the midst of a cat’s leap, sometimes time slows. With my paws splayed out like pancakes and wind rushing through my fur over the terrible water, I am determined to save this yordle with everything I’ve got. Besides, mid-leap, there’s no going back.

“Don’t worry, small blue yordle!” I shout. “I got you!”

The yordle’s fate and mine intertwine as I land on its shoulder, with Book right behind.

The fishing pole wobbles under our weight. The biggest fish I’ve ever seen—a third the size of the boat—bursts from the sea with its mouth gaping open, hundreds of teeth glistening in the moonlight. Its jaws open so wide it could swallow a pair of cows, without even chewing them up. Even in the dark, with my shinylight I can see its skin is made up of pointed razor-sharp scales of silver and violet.

The giant gulperfish swallows us whole—the yordle, Book, me, and even a bit of the fishing pole, with room to spare.

We jostle against the roof of the fish’s mouth as it falls back into the water. It’s pitch-black, and smells like old seafood! Before it can gulp us down, though, I balloon open a magical shield that bubbles around us, lodging us in the fish’s leathery gullet. I blink on my shinylight again, illuminating some seriously rotten teeth that explain the awful smell. The yordle squeals at the sight. The fish lashes about, and the three of us are thrown in every direction, protected by the impermeable bubble.

What a strange way to make new friends!

I try to open Book so the three of us can escape, but the gulperfish leaps into the air once more, and we are tossed into a heap inside the bubble. We fall with a thud—the fish must have landed on the ship’s deck. I hear the sailors shouting as the enormous gulper thrashes back and forth, slapping them with its tail.

I hear a splash, and another, and another. The humans must have been knocked into the water. Still stuck in the throat of the gulperfish, I flip Book open to a portal that shimmers with the dusky green of Bandle City, the green of home.

I grab the small yordle’s shirt with my teeth and dive into the page. The portal widens and we spin into the spirit realm, dizzy and whirling into a jumble of colors.

We emerge, coughing, on the banks of a shallow creek. My lungs fill with the sweet air of Bandle City, thick and lush as in my dream. Sapphire-blue crickets chirp in the twilight as the brook babbles gently, full of fish—normal-sized fish.

Book flaps its pages to dry off. The blue-furred yordle stands up, dripping and shaking. “What was that? How did we… escape?” he asks. “Wasn’t the nearest Bilgewater portal back on the docks?”

“Lucky for us, Book carries our portals around wherever we go,” I say. Book twirls, showing off its dried-up-tree pages, each inscribed with a magical gateway outlined in ink and paint.

“Well, thank you for saving me, both of you,” says the yordle. He looks at Book curiously. “Is this where you’re from, too?”

“Yes, but we don’t live here anymore,” I say. I look at Book, sadly, thinking of master.

Book flutters. I know it thinks it’s time to move on.

“You know how to get home from here?” I ask the yordle.

“Yes, yes, just up the hill past the bowl-moles. I know this meadow well. And I do hope you find your yordle,” he says, before wandering off.

I stay for a moment, watching as the gloaming turns to daybreak. I catch a glimpse of a moon-moth hovering on the horizon and I long to pounce on it, but I remember that Norra is still lost somewhere, perhaps waiting for us to rescue her this very minute.

I pat Book as gently as I can with my paw—I know it misses her too.

Then I open it to a new page, and dive in.

The harbinger of oblivion, Karthus is an undying spirit whose haunting songs are a prelude to the horror of his nightmarish appearance. The living fear the eternity of undeath, but Karthus sees only beauty and purity in its embrace, a perfect union of life and death. When Karthus emerges from the Shadow Isles, it is to bring the joy of death to mortals, an apostle of the unliving.

Karthus was born into abject poverty in the sprawl of dwellings built beyond the walls of the Noxian capital. His mother died at the moment of his birth, leaving his father to raise him and his three sisters alone. They shared a crumbling, rat-infested almshouse with scores of other families, subsisting on a diet of rainwater and vermin. Of all the children, Karthus was the best ratter, and regularly brought gnawed corpses for the cook-pot.

Death was commonplace in the slums of Noxus, and many mornings began with the wailing of bereaved parents who woke to discover their child cold and lifeless beside them. Karthus learned to love these laments, and would watch, fascinated, as the tally-men of Kindred notched their staffs and bore the bodies from the almshouse. At night the young Karthus would sneak through the cramped rooms, seeking those whose lives hung by a thread, hoping to witness the moment their soul passed from life to death. For years, his nightly travels were fruitless, as it was impossible to predict exactly when a person would die. He was denied witnessing the moment of death until it reached his own family.

Outbreaks of disease were frequent in such cramped confines, and when Karthus’s sisters sickened with the plague, he watched over them intently. While his father drowned his grief, Karthus was the ever dutiful brother, caring for his sisters as the disease consumed them. He watched each of them as they died, and a sublime connection seemed to reach into him as the light faded from their eyes - a yearning to see what lay beyond death and unlock the secrets of eternity. When the tally-men came for the bodies, Karthus followed them back to their temple, asking them question after question about their order and the workings of death. Could a person exist at the moment where life ends, but before death begins? If such a liminal moment could be understood and held, might the wisdom of life be combined with the clarity of death?

The tally-men quickly recognized Karthus’s suitability for their order and he was inducted into their ranks, first as a digger of graves and pyre-builder, before ascending to the rank of corpse collector. Karthus guided his bone-cart around the streets of Noxus to gather the dead every day. His dirges quickly became known throughout Noxus, mournful laments that spoke to the beauty of death and the hope that what lay beyond was something to be embraced. Many a grieving family took solace in his songs, finding a measure of peace in his heartfelt elegies. Eventually, Karthus worked in the temple itself, tending to the sick in their final moments, watching as whatever death had laid its claim upon them took its due. Karthus would speak to each person laid before him, ushering their souls into death, in search of further wisdom in their fading eyes.

Eventually, Karthus reached the conclusion that he could learn no more from mortals, that only the dead themselves could answer his questions. None of the dying souls could tell of what lay beyond, but whispered rumors and tales told to frighten children echoed of a place where death was not the end - The Shadow Isles.

Karthus emptied the temple’s coffers and bought passage to Bilgewater, a city plagued by a strange black mist said to draw souls to a cursed island far out at sea. No captain was willing to take Karthus to the Shadow Isles, but eventually he came upon a rum-sodden fisherman with a mountain of debts and nothing to lose. The boat plied the ocean for many days and nights, until a storm drove them onto the rocks of an island that appeared on no charts. A black mist rolled out from a haunted landscape of gnarled trees and tumbled ruins. The fisherman freed his boat and turned its prow in terror for Bilgewater, but Karthus leapt into the sea and waded ashore. Steadying himself with his notched tally-staff, he proudly sang the lament he had prepared for the moment of his own death, and his words were carried on a cold wind to the heart of the island.

The black mist flowed through Karthus, ravaging his flesh and spirit with ancient sorcery, but such was the force of his desire to transcend mortality that it did not destroy him. Instead, it remade him, and Karthus was born anew in the waters of the island as a fleshless revenant.

Revelation filled Karthus as he became what he always believed he should have been; a being poised at the threshold of death and life. The beauty of this eternal moment filled him with wonder as the wretched spirits of the island rose to behold his transformation, drawn to his passion like predators scenting blood in the ocean. Finally, Karthus was where he belonged, surrounded by those who truly understood the boon undeath truly was. Filled with righteous zeal, he knew he had to return to Valoran and share his gift with the living, to free them from petty mortal concerns.

Karthus turned and the Black Mist bore him over the waves to the fisherman’s boat. The man fell to his knees before Karthus, begging for his life, and Karthus granted him the blessing of death, ending his mortal suffering and raising him up as an immortal spirit as he sang his lament for passing souls. The fisherman was the first of many such souls Karthus would free, and soon the Deathsinger would command a legion of unliving wraiths. To Karthus’s awakened senses, the Shadow Isles was in a state of apathetic limbo, where the blessings of death were squandered. He would galvanize the dead in a crusade to bring the beauty of oblivion to the living, to end the suffering of mortality and usher in a glorious age of undeath.

Karthus has become the emissary of the Shadow Isles, the herald of oblivion whose laments are paeans to the glory of death. His legions of unbound souls join with his funereal dirges, their haunting song reaching beyond the Black Mist to be heard on cold nights over graveyards and charnel houses all across Valoran.

“Seven times,” said Ysard Tomyri, straining to keep her voice level and face neutral.

Captain Oditz did not answer his first officer immediately, his attention consumed by the maps and reports covering his desk, or at least feigning as much. It was Oditz who had summoned her and, like so much else in their short service together, making her stand at attention in his quarters aboard the Kironya was, above all else, a display of power.

“I request audience with high command,” said Ysard, unwilling to play the captain’s game this time.

“I speak for high command here, Commander Tomyri,” said Oditz, not looking up. “A fact you seem either ignorant of, or unwilling to accept.”

“Seven times,” said Ysard again. “I have requested audience, not to plead or beg, but to promise.”

“Promise?” the Captain looked up from the spread of parchments, finally glancing at Ysard.

“Yes,” she answered. “To promise them the glory that I shall win for them, the lands and peoples I will bring, by word or by blood, into the empire. There are expansions being mobilized, envoys being sent out from our borders to secure new lands for Noxus each day. I can win those for them. All that I require is a command.”

“We have spoken of this before,” Oditz muttered. “Seven times now, as you know. It is high command that decides how to interpret the will of the Trifarix—not their subordinates.”

Ysard stiffened. Frustration frayed her patience. “When Captain Hurad fell to the pirates off the coast of Ruug, it was I who led the Kironya’s crew to victory, not you. It was I who led the boarding action to seize the corsairs’ ship, and when the last of them fell it was my name that was cheered. It felt right. After such a victory I expected—”

“What?” asked Oditz. “Your own command? After beating a rabble of underfed Freljordians back into the sea? You think it is you who should be sitting here, rather than myself. And because it isn’t, you superseded my authority to request audience with high command yourself.”

Calmly, Captain Oditz set down his quill and rose from his chair. He towered over Ysard, the light catching the old scars etched upon his features from a lifetime of war. “I would have seen you stripped of rank and thrown into the Reckoner pits for your lack of respect, Commander Tomyri,” he said stiffly. “But it seems that fate has intervened on your behalf.”

He produced a scroll and extended it to her sharply.

The seal around the scroll had been broken, its contents already read by Oditz or his assistants, as was their right.

“Take it. And get out.”

After an instant of surprised hesitation, Ysard reached for the message. She saluted and hurried to her quarters, unfurling it and quickly reading over its contents.

It was as though a galvanizing stream of molten steel had been poured from a crucible into her heart. Ysard felt providence in the wind, for the first time at her back. Finally, her skills would be given their full range.

She had been ordered to the capital. At last, a command was hers.

The harbor was a bustling throng of activity. Merchants, traders and dockworkers crowded alongside fleet crews embarking and disembarking from ships in a constant stream. Rare beasts let out keening wails from within iron cages, destined for the arenas for sport, or the homes of the elite to join their exotic collections. Shipments of foods from all corners of Runeterra were being offloaded from trading vessels and distributed to feed the countless citizens of Ysard’s barren homeland. It was a breathtaking scene, a living estuary where new goods, cultures, and ideas flowed into the empire, expanding it, enriching it, and making it stronger.

All of this, and the sprawling city beyond, sat in the shadow of the Immortal Bastion. Ysard gazed upon the grandeur of the ancient structure from a harbor road, its immeasurably high walls and towers draped with the banners of the empire. There was no better manifestation of Noxus’ power—the very power that surged within her heart.

Ysard spared a few more moments to take in the vibrant scene around her, before her face set in a curt expression and the efficient mind of a commander took hold of her thoughts.

A grand expedition awaited her, and she moved with haste to where her ship was moored.

The Ardentius appeared to Ysard like a vessel washed up from another, earlier time, and it bore the scars to match. Wounds accumulated across decades of service pockmarked and spread across her hull like spiderwebs, from the battered iron speartip of her prow to the creaking timber of her aftcastle. These smaller frigates served as escorts for larger warships like the Kironya. They were designed to be ground to splinters against enemy pickets, and to soak up fire as interdictors, to be expended to their last ounce of usefulness before being scuttled or left to sink. To Ysard’s eyes, either fate seemed likely for the Ardentius.

The crew on its deck was little better. A motley assortment of grubby men and women labored together in a disordered rabble, spending more time exchanging insults and threats than loading provisions or cargo. They numbered no more than sixty, nearly a skeleton crew. Ysard’s lips pulled back from her teeth in disgust.

Ysard forced the sneer from her face. The tools she had been given were lowly, but no matter. It would make the conquests she won with them all the greater.

“You there,” she called out to a taskmaster, causing him to turn from the assembled crew he was ordering around. He turned, straightening the collar of his beaten leather storm coat, and approached with an easy, confident grin that set Ysard’s teeth on edge.

“See that the cargo and crew are readied for departure immediately,” said Ysard tersely. “I intend for my ship to be at sail with no further delays.”

“Your ship?” The man’s voice was a gritty baritone. He frowned for an instant, before realization dawned upon him. “Ah, so you’re the Noxian prodigy I’ve been stuck with. You can get your ship running as you like, and if you’ll quit pestering we’ll be off as soon as I have the rest of my things.”

“You dare,” Ysard reddened at his impudence, her hand closing on the hilt of the ornate sword at her hip. “Give me your name.”

“Ordylon,” the man answered, apparently unconcerned. “Friends call me Niander, though.”

“Niander Ordylon,” Ysard repeated the name. She looked at the heavy crates being loaded onto the Ardentius, marked as carrying harnesses, bola nets and cage housings. “The Beastmaster?”

“Ah, so you have heard of me.”

There were few in the capital who hadn’t. Even though she had spent precious little time at the arenas—there was an empire to fight for, after all—Ysard knew the name Ordylon was synonymous with theatrical displays of deadly creatures battling to the roar of the crowd.

What was he doing here?

Ysard recovered her composure. “I was not informed in my orders that you would be coming aboard.”

“Well, here I am.” He handed Ysard a scroll bearing the sigil of Captain Oditz. Ordylon noticed her scowl and flashed her a toothy, conspiratorial grin. “Looks like we’ll be shipmates.”

Ysard stood at the bow of her frigate, scanning the horizon. Upon setting sail, the ship had filed into the queue of vessels seeking passage through the mouth of the river and out into the ocean. Hours of waiting had led to a brusque and thorough inspection by the soldiers manning the fortified installations that secured entry into Noxus by sea, but after they had checked every inch of the Ardentius and pored over Ysard’s orders no fewer than six separate times, she had been given clearance to depart.

Ysard had seen the ocean many times, but never on a ship under her own command. It was always as shocking to her as it was beautiful, a boundless plane of deep blue, separated from the sky by a delicate blur of heat from the midday sun.

And now, somewhere ahead of them, Ysard’s destiny awaited. A new land to explore, conquer, and usher into the Noxian empire.

She had earned a taste of glory, won by the edge of her sword, but it was hardly a feat that would echo throughout eternity. And try as she might to forget it, Ysard always carried a shard of the reclusive street urchin inside, never fully giving herself to the collective, never truly trusting any but herself.

Until Ysard had that, she would know no rest.

She looked back over her shoulder at the sound of heavy bootsteps on the deck. Seeing the Beastmaster approaching, she made a last quick note in a worn leather journal before closing it and placing it in a pocket of her coat.

“Quite the sight, eh?” said Ordylon, leaning his knuckles against the railing.

Ysard bristled. “Why are you here?”

“I needed a ship.”

“This is my ship,” said Ysard. “And my expedition. Remember that and we’ll have no problems.”

Ordylon shrugged. “Play soldier all you like. All that matters to me is that we get there in one piece, and you keep out of my way while I find what I’m looking for.”

Ysard turned to him. “And that is?”

“A monster, my dear.” He smiled. “A spectacular one. Something that will keep me off my deathbed.”

Three weeks on the open ocean brought them at last to the outermost edge of the Serpentine Delta. Dozens of landmasses dotted the area, from tiny patches of sand and scrub barely fit to stand upon, to islands large enough to house villages. The archipelago stood as the gateway to the southern continent of Shurima, and the unexplored regions in its eastern reaches.

The waterways were filled with small boats and rafts, fishermen and local traders seeking to barter. The arrival of a Noxian vessel, even an escort like the Ardentius, was a rare event and cause of much commotion. Few of the people living on the rivers of the archipelago would pass up a chance to barter like this.

Walking from her cabin onto the main deck, Ysard found the hull of her ship was surrounded by the natives. Men and women stood and clamored from their rocking boats, holding up bundles of fish and a myriad different trinkets to tempt the naval soldiery and crew looking down from the railings. Ordylon was down amongst them, chattering away in their native tongue as his trappers bartered and compared the local knowledge with their maps.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Ysard. For a brief moment she allowed the thought of turning the ship’s guns upon the boats and sampans blocking their way to linger in her mind, but dismissed it quickly. It would have been an unnecessary expenditure of the expedition’s already meager resources, and the locals were of more value to her alive.

“Relax,” Ordylon called up to her, inspecting a piece of intricately carved wood before tossing it back to a disappointed trader. “Waters get dangerous past this point. Don’t be so quick to turn away a friendly face.”

Ysard wouldn’t budge. “We take on provisions, fresh water, and a guide. No one goes ashore.”

Ordylon gave an irritatingly sincere salute before continuing his conversation with the locals. Ysard put the Beastmaster from her mind, seeing to the cadre of Noxian naval soldiers aboard and ensuring that they stayed vigilant at points across the ship. As she finished inspecting the ship’s cannons and their gunners she saw Ordylon hauling a man up from a sampan onto the deck.

“Found us a guide,” said Ordylon, leaning down as the man spoke to him in the local tongue. “He says welcome to the Serpentine, and that he can take us upriver.”

“Good,” Ysard said quickly, eager to be underway.

The guide spoke again to Ordylon. “But he asks, why do we go up the river?” said the master trapper. “Why do you seek to go there?”

“Tell him,” said Ysard, “that once we are done, it will belong to Noxus.”

After restocking their provisions with an odd assortment of local fruits and preserved fish, the expedition sailed on past the floating trading post. The archipelago condensed, the labyrinthine paths between the islands shrinking until the only route available to the Ardentius was a wide, dark river leading deeper into the jungle.

Days passed in an uneventful stretch, as true, untouched wilderness confronted them. Ysard’s heart swelled with pride at the thought that she and her crew were the first Noxians ever to see this untamed wilderness. There was beauty here, vibrant plant life that exploded with lush towering trees swathed in dazzling, multicolored blooms.

There was something else here, too.

As their river guide hesitantly led them ever deeper, pointing out landmarks and keeping the ship clear of reefs and shallows, an itch took hold of Ysard—first imagined, then more real and insistent. A gloom permeated every inch around the river, as if it were all drowned in a shadow that could not be seen, only felt.

Ysard found that her hand would stray to the blade at her hip without thinking. She would draw her hand away before deliberately crossing her arms over her chest and forcing her mind to focus.

But the silent horror remained, saturating everything she could see.

Ysard saw to her command to remain sharp, consulting with the ship’s navigator as he worked to chart the course of the river, followed by an inspection of the ship’s stores. She climbed back up to the main deck, picking a rat-weevil out of her ration of Bloodcliffs hardtack, when she heard shouting.

“What is it?” she demanded as she climbed onto the main deck.

Ordylon listened to the guide. “He says he will go no further.”

Ysard frowned. “Why here?” She looked around, the river and jungle no different than anywhere else in the past days. Yet the riverman was panicking, as though they had broken some invisible boundary they were never meant to cross.

The little man gestured frantically to the crew around him. He pointed to the patches of red, weeping flesh on their bodies. Ysard had noticed the affliction spreading amongst the crew, despite her efforts to divine its source. She even found signs of it on herself.

“It is the jungle,” Ordylon translated as the guide ranted. “He says it is punishing us. It will not let us in.”

Cowardly little thing, thought Ysard.

She looked at Ordylon. “So be it. Get him off my ship now, throw him overboard if you have to. We aren’t turning back now.”

The Ardentius sailed on, now more than a week’s travel into the interior. The past days had seen no wind to fill her sails, not even a slight breeze to carry her forward. On Ysard’s command, teams of the crew had disembarked, wading to their shoulders as they strained to haul the frigate on with ropes and heavy chains. The effort was enormous, and with the treachery of the river’s shifting banks, the crew continued on after finding the current with nine fewer souls than it had started with.

Mist shrouded the river, obscuring it from view. The primordial treeline swelled, branching over the water to link the opposite banks in an ever-deepening canopy that closed in and stole away all but the barest trace of light. Ysard had the distinct sensation that the ship was moving downward, not forward, into the dark heart of this unexplored land.

The jungle was swallowing them.

Rain had come without warning, and carried on for days, somehow piercing the impenetrable canopy of the jungle to soak the Ardentius and her crew to the bone. It was as though this place was actively seeking to unravel them, punishing intruders for daring to cross into its domain. The crew believed as much.

The departure of their river guide hung over the crew with the oppression of a stormcloud. The most superstitious of them muttered, seeing dark omens in every tree and in the shape of each ripple the frigate’s hull cast across the dark water of the river. Even the most cynical of the naval soldiers were on edge, only able to hear such ramblings for so long before they began to see patterns themselves.

Ysard knew in her heart it would not be long before the tension cracked some of them, and examples would have to be made. Sooner than she had thought, and hoped, she was proven right.

“Turn the ship around!” came a panicked cry. “Now!”

“Easy now, Kross,” said Ordylon, straining to keep his voice calm.

“This is a death ship. A cursed ship.” The trapper hurried toward Ordylon, seizing him by the lapels of his storm coat. “You all heard the riverman—nothing ever comes back from this jungle. Nothing!”

Ordylon flicked his gaze over the surrounding crew, heavy beads of condensation dripping from the wide frayed brim of his hat. He saw it in their eyes, Kross’ words reflected in each of them.

“No more of that,” he snapped, shoving Kross back. “We’ll have no talk of curses here. Get yourself together.”

“We have to turn back,” the crazed trapper begged, eyes wild as he repeated the plea again and again. “We have to—”

Kross never finished his sentence. He gasped, hard, as a sword’s tip emerged from between his ribs. Then he toppled to the deck.

Ysard cleaned her blade. Sometimes, being right was a heavy burden to bear.

“I’ve hunted beside that man longer than you’ve been alive,” Ordylon snarled. “What gives you the right—”

“We don’t stop,” said Ysard coldly. “Not for anything, or anyone.”

A grinding crash threw Ysard from her bunk. She scrambled to her feet, buckling on her weapons and sprinting out onto the deck.

The end of the river had come abruptly. The inlet looked as though the tangles of vines and slick trees had engulfed the water, fed by a fan of streams that trickled out of the jungle, or flowed up from beneath the muddy ground.

“The river has choked out,” said Ordylon, gesturing to the wall of trees confronting the ship. “We’ll have to turn around. Find another branch.”

Ysard raised her spyglass, scanning ahead. Hauling the Ardentius around to find another route would take time she didn’t have. Looking at her collected soldiers and senior crew, Ysard doubted the weary and shaken survivors would be capable of moving the ship in such a way.

Ten had died in the past days—another one by execution for refusing to man his post, and six to the strange, infectious disease afflicting them. Three had simply vanished in the night, those taking their shifts finding no trace when dawn arrived.

“We keep a skeleton crew aboard and strike out from here,” said Ysard to the assembled ranks. “We will either find something of worth to claim for the empire, or establish an outpost to launch further expeditions inland. Armsman Starm, distribute blades to the shore party.”

Starm hesitated. “Commander… No crossbows? No powder bombs?”

Ysard drew her sword and addressed the entire party. “Such weapons will be useless in the undergrowth. We do this the old way.” She glanced at Ordylon, who had gathered his hunting party around him. “This is what you came for, is it not, Beastmaster?”

The master trapper was somehow still his confident, boisterous self, even after the ordeal of the river passage. “We’re after a big one, boys,” he said. “Bring everything we need to bag one and keep it, spread the load amongst us all, and be ready to move when the commander’s lads step off. We stick with them.”

His men dispersing, Ysard approached Ordylon. “I’m surprised to see us in accord for once.”

The jungle was brutal. No other word came to Ysard’s mind. For all the river’s trials, it had been paradise compared to this.

They had to fight through it, hacking and cutting into the solid mass of vines and thick vegetation. There was no air to breathe—only a thick, humid fog that stung the throat and eyes. It wasn’t long before exhaustion set in.

Ysard had a dreadful sense of being watched, from both everywhere and nowhere at once, and one by one men began to disappear from the rearguard and flanks. Most vanished in silence, but a few were torn into the undergrowth with a scream, crying out for help.

Within hours, Ysard’s force of thirty naval soldiers and trappers had been whittled down by half.

“Stay together!” she shouted, cuffing the pouring sweat from her eyes. She struggled to focus, her head buzzing and her flesh burning from the red patches that now covered her torso and limbs. She couldn’t stop now. She wouldn’t stop now. They had to keep moving.

A call rang out from the forward scout, and Ysard trudged to the head of the column. There was a small break in the jungle ahead, with a shallow pool of black, turgid water at its center. It was cramped, but still blessedly open compared to their trek thus far.

“Don’t touch that water,” Ysard ordered her soldiers, in spite of her own thirst. “We rest for now. But be ready to move.”

Sitting down, Ysard looked up to see Ordylon, holding out a battered tin flask to her. After a moment, she grudgingly took it as he sank down beside her. Ysard glanced at him, seeing the poise that he had held throughout their voyage beginning to fray.

“Don’t get too sentimental.” said the trapper. “With or without you, I’d be here, in this accursed place. I’ve got no choice.”

Ysard frowned at him. Looking to see that his men were out of earshot, Ordylon leaned in close.

“My business is bankrupt,” he whispered. “What little coin I had was spent bringing me here, one last chance to save my name. Either I bring back a beast that packs the arenas and pays off my debts, or I don’t come back at all.”

Ordylon sighed, taking the flask back and taking a short pull.

“So. What brought you here?”

“Duty,” answered Ysard, looking out into the jungle. “When I return from here, having brought this place into Noxus, they will name it after me. The noble name of Tomyri used to mean something… before Grand General Swain, and his purges. My conquest will echo through history, a legacy for all time.”

“They said you were vain,” Ordylon chuckled. “I suppose they reached their fill of it, arranging this fool’s errand. I see what they meant now,” he said with a curious softness. “And for that, I am sorry.”

“Wait,” Ysard frowned as she sought the meaning in his words, before the sound of splashing water broke her respite. “I said stay away from it!” she snapped.

“That isn’t us,” said Ordylon, gazing into the jungle.

Ysard looked at the pool, seeing the trees above shaking in its reflection. Branches snapped loose to crash down to the ground and into the water.

Then she heard it.

A pounding tread, accompanied by the sound of trees cracking, and a low, wet rumble. A shape began to resolve from the jungle, shoving its way through the dense vegetation to rear an enormous, fanged head.

Ysard froze. She had seen basilisks before—as mounts for riders, or beasts of burden. She had seen adults so large they could smash down the walls of besieged cities.

This one was larger.

The creature glared down at them, and loosed a roar loud enough to throw those standing from their feet.

“Yes!”

The triumphant voice jarred Ysard from her shock. She turned to see the Beastmaster, snapping together a harpoon and bola as he grinned up at the monster.

“Come on now, you beautiful thing!” Ordylon bellowed, madness creeping into his voice as he brandished the tools of his trade. “Let’s see who’s bigger, you or me!”

Ysard felt the ground quake beneath her with every step the monster took, strong enough to nearly throw her from her feet. She heard the basilisk’s primal roar, and the screams of men, knowing that the famed Beastmaster’s was among them.

But she didn’t look back to see what happened to him. She was too busy sprinting in the opposite direction.

Ysard finally skidded to a halt at the edge of a clearing in the jungle, placing a hand against a tree for support as she fought to catch her breath. She could no longer hear the commotion of Ordylon and the basilisk, but she could imagine what had happened in the end. She looked up after several deep lungfuls of air, taking stock of what remained of her command.

There were six of them in total, including herself. Ragged, drained and terrified, only three of them still carrying weapons. Ordylon’s trappers had stayed with their employer until the end. Despair struck Ysard like a physical blow, and she fought to keep from sinking to her knees.

“Look!” one of the soldiers called out, pointing with his sword. Ysard peered into the clearing, and saw it. An arching shape, overgrown by vines, but still utterly alien in this stifling environment.

It was stone. A structure. They hurried toward it, creepers and brambles snapping as they crossed the break in the undergrowth.

The building was simple, an austere construction completely overrun by the jungle. Thick vines wound through the crumbling stone, likely the only things keeping it standing. It seemed unnaturally overgrown, as though this place was actively seeking to subsume it, and grind it to dust.

The survivors split up, searching in and around the squat cube of plant-choked stone. Ysard stopped before it, a feeling she could not define welling up in her throat. She ripped away the clinging tangle of vines covering the surface, seeing the script chiselled into the stone—in a language she had known all her life.

“This…” Her tongue went thick and dry as she struggled to form the words. “It… It’s a Noxtoraa.”

Revelations came at Ysard in a queasy tide. They were not the first of the empire to come here. There had been others, and from her own journey and the state of this outpost, their fate was clear. As was hers.

She had been sent here to die.

Given a command she was desperate to undertake, leading her to the edge of the world and a place that none had ever returned from. Ysard had given every fiber of her being to forging a legacy.

Instead, she now stood on the precipice of striking the Tomyri name from the face of history, in this suffocating wilderness.

There was nothing for them in the abandoned outpost. Ysard lead the other survivors back into the jungle, hacking a new path through the dense undergrowth. To their fevered minds, it seemed like fresh roots and creepers were winding back into place even as they passed.

When they happened upon the Ardentius, it was almost by accident. They practically ran into its prow.

Vegetation had consumed the frigate, even filling over the inlet around it. It almost appeared as though the vessel itself had somehow grown out of the jungle. Ysard saw shapes sticking up from the deck like broken pillars.

Her blood went cold.

The crew. They had been devoured and overgrown just as the ship had been. Each man and woman was on their feet, like statues covered in vines.

“The jungle,” she stammered. “It’s taken it.”

Panic began to take hold of the remaining soldiers. “What do we do?” Armsman Starm shouted. “What do we do?”

“We make for the river,” murmured Ysard. “Find our way to the bank. Follow it back to the delta.”

“There’s no way we can make it out of here on foot. You saw what happened to the others, commander. The jungle—”

“Damn the jungle!’ she snapped. “It is trees and vines, insects and beasts. You are a soldier of Noxus. There is nothing here that can defeat you.”

Ysard wasn’t certain she believed the words herself. Something was different about this place. There existed some dark, impossible presence here, something that even the might of the empire was unable to tame.

But she would not yield to despair.

“If you want to die here, alone and unremembered, then so be it.” She gathered the last of her strength. “I will not accept such a fate. Any with the strength to follow me, come. This place will not be the end of Ysard Tomyri.”

The low grumble from his stomach, and thoughts of his family waiting at home in the village, had lashed the boy’s focus to his line as he squatted on the riverbank.

He was rewarded with a firm tug. The boy gave a whoop of relieved triumph as he hauled the fish from the water, wriggling and glistening in the light.

He didn’t notice the shape floating toward him until it was an oar’s length away.

The boy frowned, the fish in his basket forgotten as the object came closer. He waded out into the soft riverbed, taking hold of it and taking it back with him onto the bank. Driftwood had many uses in the village, and could be traded away… if he could drag it back home.

But it wasn’t driftwood. The boy gasped as he saw a face staring up through layers of creepers and moss.

It was a dead person, though the boy could not tell if it was man or woman. It reminded him of the preserved elders the village exposed each year for the ancestor feasts. It was clad in scraps of dark, battered armour, edged in tarnished red, adorned with a rusted symbol that meant nothing to the boy.

Something was clutched in its gnarled, lifeless hands. With a strain of effort he tugged it free.

It was a small book, tightly wrapped in sodden, worn leather.

As the boy turned the journal over in his hands, the corpse burst open, and a snarl of bright green vines slowly slithered out from it. A glittering cloud of spores rose from the cavity, and the boy flinched away, coughing.

Book in hand, the boy ran, scratching at the insistent itch that had started on the back of his neck, all thoughts of fish forgotten as he fled for home.

It was the stench of Bloodharbor that hit you first.

Like a gut-punch that took the wind right out of your sails.

The stink always got inside you, making you feel like you’d never get it out.

A noisome reek of opened leviathan bellies, dripping entrails you could crawl through, and weeks-old offal sticking to the cobbles like gory mortar left to rot in the sun. Mix that with the shit of ten thousand scavenging seabirds and the piss of the Slaughter Docks’ bloodied workers, and it was a smell strong enough to turn even the strongest stomach inside out.

You could wear a bandanna soaked in enough rum to souse the Bearded Lady herself, and it’d still get you.

Yes, it was awful, but Sarah Fortune loved what it represented.

It was the smell of prosperity, of a plentiful catch, and monster bounties earned.

A red tide meant people with coins in their pockets, ready to spend them all in the quayside taverns, gambling dens, and fleshpots, all of which paid a cut of their takings to Sarah.

Prosperity, yes—by the Bearded Lady, it was just the worst smell in the world.

Her small landing boat eased out into the sludgy water, its passage through the deepening evening lit by a storm lantern swaying from a wrought-iron tentacle at its bow.

Seated in the back of the boat, Sarah draped her hand over the gunwale and let her fingertips carve a path through the fatty layers on the water’s surface, drawing undulant spirals that rose and fell with the red tide.

“Even for you, that’s pretty damn reckless,” grunted Rafen, sweating as he leaned back and forth on the oars. Rafen was an old salt of the islands, with a craggy face weathered by ocean spray and hard winds, and a keen mind the rum hadn’t managed to take the edge off. He was, by turns, her conscience and right-hand man, and had seen pretty much every dark nook and cranny Bilgewater had to offer.

“How so?” asked Sarah.

“There’s ripper fish and flaying lampreys lurking just under the surface.”

“Scared I’ll get my fingers bitten off?” replied Sarah.

“Can’t pull a trigger without your fingers.”

“You worry too much, Rafen.”

“That’s my job, to worry about the things you don’t worry enough about.”

“Like this boat ride out to the Moon Serpent?”

“Exactly,” said Rafen. “I have a saying, and it ain’t steered me wrong none since I heard it at my papa’s knee. If it smells bad, leave it damn well alone, you idiot!”

Sarah shrugged. “Pretty much everything smells bad out here.”

“Maybe so, but that don’t change the truth of it,” said Rafen, glancing over his shoulder into the mist rising up from the water, where the Moon Serpent lurked like a dark secret. “The sea has an evil cast to it this night. Feels like hungry eyes are looking up from the deep.”

“Your bones talking to you again?”

“You mock, but I been listening to ’em for more’n forty years now, and I’m still alive, ain’t I?”

“Let it go, old man,” said Miss Fortune. “It’s a Captain’s Requiem, I have to be there. And if I have to be there in this ridiculous getup, then my second in command has to be there too.”

Said ridiculous getup consisted of a—literally—breathtaking whalebone corset of cobalt blue and golden lace beneath a gloriously long-tailed scarlet frock coat. In addition, she wore linen breeches of pale cream tucked into heeled boots of polished black leather with silver kraken buckles running from ankle to knee.

An absurdly impractical outfit, but in a gathering of captains it didn’t do to look anything less than obscenely wealthy. A poor captain was a weak captain, and like every kind of predator, Bilgewater reavers would ruthlessly prey on the weak.

Rafen hadn’t escaped the need to smarten up, either, and—under duress and threat of a demotion—wore a borrowed suit of sealskin leather, a scaled waistcoat whose buttons threatened to split from the fabric with every pull of the oars, and a stovepipe hat with a pressed tentacle headband.

“I might have to be there, but that don’t mean I got to like it,” said Rafen.

“True, but I need you to watch my back,” said Sarah. “Aligh had a large crew, and with him dead every captain will be circling like a wharf rat in heat. Last thing I need is his old crew going over to a rival captain or falling in with the likes of the Jackdaws or Butcher Blades.”

“Aye, there’s that,” begrudged Rafen. “Lot of powerful captains’ll likely be here to see Aligh off to the Bearded Lady, but do you really trust all of them to abide by the Truce?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Sarah, opening her coat to reveal a pair of exquisite ivory-handled pistols holstered under each armpit. “But it’s not like I’m going in unarmed.”

“They’ll take those off you, sure as eggs is eggs.”

“Please, you think they’re the only weapons I have?” she said, tapping the side of her head.

“Fair enough, but this still feels like a risk.”

“It surely is, but what’s life without a little risk?”

“I’ll remind you of that if this all goes under fast.”

Sarah grinned. “If it does, I promise you can haunt me from our watery grave.”

Rafen made a quick sign of the horns over his heart and shook his head, but returned his effort to rowing. He’d made his point, and Sarah had made sure he knew better than to press her when her mind was made up. Besides, she knew he was right, and there was nothing more irritating than a man who believed he was right.

But in deference to Rafen’s words, Sarah lifted her hand from the surface of the water and flicked the scum from her fingertips. Something toothy broke the surface where it landed and the old man raised his eyes in a told ya fashion.

Behind her, the ramshackle crags of Bilgewater shimmered in the fog, flickering anthills where people—her people—lived upon the flotsam and jetsam the ocean provided. Its structures clung to the rocks and mountains of the island chain like persistent barnacles that neither storm, Harrowing, nor the occasional probes of Noxian war-barques could ever entirely dislodge.

Like Sarah Fortune, Bilgewater was a survivor.

Since Gangplank’s death, she’d fought the unquiet spirits of the Shadow Isles and survived countless attempts on her life. Consolidating her rule over Bilgewater had been a messy, bloody affair, and her grip was still as shaky as an apprentice rigger on their first climb of the ropes. But she was still alive despite the venom—and firearms—aimed at her for putting her head above the parapet.

“Ship ahoy,” said Rafen.

Sarah looked past him to see a looming shape emerging from the rising mist.

Much like its former captain, the Moon Serpent was an old, unsubtle ship; broad in the beam and glowing with the dim light of dozens of hooded lanterns hanging from its many masts. The brigantine’s reinforced timbers were thickly caulked and carved with scales like a snake. Crusted salt in the grooves shone silver in the moonlight, and though its sails were still furled, Sarah knew they were woven from shimmering white cloth that must have cost Aligh a small fortune. Its ramming prow figurehead was a fanged serpent forged from the melted-down cannons of his enemies.

“By the Bearded Lady, I always forget how big it is…”

“She’s a beast sure enough,” said Rafen as the brigantine’s cold shadow fell across them.

“How in the world did a tight-fisted miser like Aligh pay for this?” said Sarah. “That cheapskate bastard never paid a kraken if he could spend a sprat. I heard he skipped out on his dues to the ocean, never so much as a drop of rum or a copper coin for the lords and ladies of the deep.”

“And ain’t that yet another reason for me to turn us around and not set foot on its deck,” said Rafen. “If even a bit of that’s true, then this here’s a doomed ship. The ocean needs its due, any captain worthy of the name knows that.”

“I gave a hex-carbine to the waters off White Wharf after claiming Jakmunt Zyglos’s bounty.”

“I remember,” said Rafen with a resigned shake of his head. “You promised that weapon to me.”

“Decent craftsmanship too. Wasn’t a Fortune Manstopper, but it was pretty nice.”

“Now you’re just being cruel.”

“A queen must be cruel only to be kind,” said Sarah with mock affectation, as Rafen eased the boat up to half a dozen others moored beneath a wide cargo net strung from the gunwale. The glossy hull of the Moon Serpent rose up like a black cliff and dark silhouettes moved through the lamplight high above.

“She’s sitting high in the water for such a big ship,” said Rafen, nodding toward the mottled green tide lines on the ship’s black hull as he tied the boat up with a loose slipknot.

“Her holds will be empty and most of the crew will be ashore getting three sheets to the wind on whatever cheap rotgut Aligh left them for his wake,” said Sarah.

“Lucky them,” said Rafen, pulling the oars in from the rowlocks and securing them along the gunwale. “You sure about this?”

Sarah rose and took hold of the cargo net, tipping her head back.

“Not really,” she said. “But when given the choice of going forward or back, a strong woman once told me that it’s always better to go forward, so let’s go.”

Hand over hand, Sarah and Rafen climbed to the Moon Serpent’s deck.

A pair of unsmiling twins in leather breeches and scaled shirts took Sarah’s guns and Rafen’s marlinspike dagger as soon as they clambered over the gunwale. Both women were heavily muscled and angrily sober, no doubt wishing they were ashore partaking in Aligh’s wake-rum instead of forming a skeleton crew for a bunch of captains who would, like as not, dance a jig to see one another dead.

One of the twins wore a helmet made from the skull of a scuttle-crab and matching patchwork armor of boiled shells, while the other had a face covered with tattoos of unblinking eyes. When the latter grinned at the sight of the gun-dame forged pistols, Sarah saw her mouth was filled with teeth prized from a razorscale’s jawbone.

Sarah followed them as they made their way to the raised foredeck, and marked which of the three chests they put the confiscated weapons into—cannonball dent in the right side.

An enormous bronze cannon sat on a carved ebony gun carriage just in front of the chests. The weapon’s flared muzzle was sealed with wax, and the sail-shrouded body of Captain Aligh would be entombed within, pickled in rum, vinegar, and camphor for its journey to the bottom of the sea.

“Shame to send something so beautiful to the deep,” said Sarah. “The cannon, I mean.”

“Aye,” agreed Rafen. “A finer thirty pounder I’ve yet to see, but it’s tradition, and you don’t go messing with traditions, right?”

“Right…” said Sarah, turning her attention to the broad-shouldered figure standing immobile next to the ship-wrecker. “Lady help us if we ever buck tradition, eh?”

He was swathed in a robe of iridescent scales with a wide-mouthed fish-head hood ringed in razor teeth. He carried a tentacle-wrapped billhook, and Sarah immediately knew him for what he was.

“A rare honor to have a serpent caller at a Captain’s Requiem,” she said.

“Amazing what enough gold krakens can buy you, eh?” replied Rafen.

Within the jagged hood, the serpent caller wore a mask of perforated coral over the lower half of his face, while his eyes and forehead were obscured by a dried-out squid’s body with crudely cut eye-holes through which the priest surveyed the gathered captains.

The wide deck was thronged with a host of Bilgewater reavers in all their finery: long coats, polished boots, tall hats, and archaic pieces of armor that would drag them straight to the ocean floor if they fell overboard. Sarah saw a wealth of gold and silver sigils and medals, Buhru fishhook amulets, and lucky talismans to honor the lords and ladies of the deeps.

Some captains she knew from fighting or drinking—often both—and some she knew only by reputation.

They, of course, all knew her.

With her blood-red hair, creamy skin, and confident swagger, Sarah Fortune would be a hard woman to miss in any circumstance, but on this ship she was a wild rose among poisoned thorns.

“Quite the gathering, eh?” said Rafen.

“Nothing like death to really bring people together,” said Sarah.

Rafen nodded and said, “Now I know how a fat waverider feels when it finds itself surrounded by a pack of hungry longtooths.”

Sarah shook her head. “You have it backward, old man. I’m the longtooth here.”

Rafen didn’t reply as Sarah marched to the ship’s centerline and back, adjusting each stride for the motion of the ship’s deck. Just as every pistol had its own unique character, so too did every ship; its own way to crest the tides and heed the wind. She moved with the anchored ship’s roll and sway, letting the creak and groan of seasoned timbers tell their secrets from her boots on up.

“A shallow-riding wallower,” she said. “Surprising for such a wide-beamed vessel.”

“I like ’em broad in the beam,” said Rafen, instinctively adjusting the width of his stance.

“So I heard.”

“Not as nimble as a cutter,” said Rafen, ignoring her jibe, “but I’ll wager a bottle of Myron’s Dark she’ll hold you tight to her bosom in rough seas.”

“That she will, Rafen,” said a slender woman dressed in a long coat of pale blue, with gold edging at the cuffs and bronze fringed epaulettes. “She’s a grand old dame, right sure. Sank Darkwill’s Glory and even poked a few holes in the Red Noxtoraa before the Mudtown fogs closed in and saved its cursed hide.”

A salt-stiffened bicorn flopped at a rakish angle on the woman’s shaven head, and the state of her eyes—two poached eggs wobbling in a bowl of fish soup—told Sarah she’d been hitting the rum hard already. Her skin had the waxy, yellowish complexion of someone only recently returned from a long sea voyage.

“Captain Blaxton,” said Rafen. “I heard you were dead.”

“Rumors of my death fly around Bilgewater with every sunset,” said the woman. “And with them, men weep, and their wives curse the morn of their disproving. I assure you, I am in the rudest of health.”

She turned to Sarah and gave her an elaborate bow before offering her a hand.

Sarah took it and was instantly on guard. Despite Blaxton’s drunken appearance and feather-light grip, she felt hard-earned calluses and powder burn ridges on the heel of her palm.

“Marla Blaxton, at your service, Captain Fortune,” she said, releasing Sarah’s hand. “Recently returned from a year of raiding the Amarantine Coast, where the sea is clear, the sky blue, and the coastal settlements fat with more gold than a captain could spend in ten lifetimes.”

“How wonderful,” said Sarah. “Why would you ever choose to return from that?”

“Good times can only last so long, you know. The inhabitants of said settlements had some strange ideas about ‘ownership’ and ‘not being dead’. Also, they were able to summon some curious mage-types who turned the sea and sky against me in ways I’d never seen before.”

“Ah, so you lost all your ships,” said Rafen.

“A few,” allowed Blaxton, waving her hand dismissively. “A temporary setback, Rafen. One from which I expect to bounce back any day now.”

“Perhaps with a new crew and a shallow-riding wallower of a brigantine?” suggested Sarah.

Blaxton laughed and said, “Anything is possible,” before giving her another bow and rejoining a group of captains gathered around a leaking barrel of rum by the foremast.

And Sarah’s heart skipped a beat as she saw a face she recognised, an enemy face.

Rafen saw him too and gripped her arm.

“Remember the Truce,” he hissed urgently.

Sarah didn’t answer, too focused on the man before her.

She pulled her arm free and strode toward him, keeping her face expressionless.

Blond hair, tied back in a rough ponytail, a loose strand hanging, just so, over his handsome, clean-shaven features. He looked up and met her gaze, the ice in his eyes frosting at her approach.

“Sarah,” he said, opening his arms to her. “Look, I know we—”

She didn’t let him finish, hammering her fist into his gut without breaking stride.

He buckled like he’d been hit by one of the twenty-four pounder balls, and his handsome face met her rising knee with a sickening crunch of bone.

He flew back and Sarah pounced on him before he could rise, straddling him and reaching for her pistol before remembering it was locked in a chest next to the mainmast.

Cannonball dent in the right side.

Instead of shooting him, she hauled his head up by his collar and cocked her fist back for another punch. He coughed blood, and lifted a forge-crafted hand of whirring bronze cogs, leather straps, and clicking mechanics out in front him.

“Please,” he wheezed through a broken nose and a mouthful of blood.

“Hello, Petyr,” she said. “I told you what would happen if I saw you again, didn’t I?”

Captain Petyr Harker.

The last time she’d seen him, he’d been cradling the splintered, bloody ruin of his hand, the hand he’d always boasted killed the Crimson Blade.

Petyr, along with Captains Crow and Bragg, had conspired to strip her of her hard-won gains in the wake of her killing Gangplank. Both Crow and Bragg were now dead, one from a pistol ball to the head, the other with one lodged in his liver.

Her pistol balls.

Walking out of the gunfight at MacGregan’s Killhouse, she’d promised to take more than Petyr’s other hand if she ever saw him again.

The Truce of the Sinking Soul was a long-standing tradition in Bilgewater.

More of an unwritten rule than a strictly enforced custom, but it allowed rival crews to gather without bloodshed when their captains attended the all too frequent funerals of old sea-legends.

That violent men and women would abide by such an archaic custom always struck Sarah as somewhat quaint, and until now she’d always kept it in the if it ain’t broken… part of her mind.

An iron grip seized her right elbow and pulled her clenched fist back.

Rafen appeared on her left, dragging her off Petyr.

“Easy, captain,” he said. “Easy now…”

Part of her wanted to land another punch, but by the time Rafen had her back on her feet, the anger had gone out of Sarah. She’d made her point, and so let herself be pulled away.

“Upon our last descent,” said a rum-sodden voice in her ear. “All gathered heed this oath.”

“Peace be upon us all,” she repeated automatically. “No harm to body or soul.”

“No shot nor blade, no serpent nor spell,” added Rafen.

“Observe the Truce of the Sinking Soul!” finished Petyr, scrambling away from her.

Sarah let out a long breath, and turned to see who, along with Rafen, had pulled her off.

A hunched wretch in an expensive kraken-skin coat, fresh octopus-tentacle tie, and glistening stingray flat-cap that was well above the tattered sackcloth she normally saw him wearing.

“Thorne?” she said, shrugging off Rafen’s touch.

“It’s Captain Thorne these days,” he said, spitting a wad of expensive dried-seaweed tobacco to the deck and missing the polished toe of her boot by a finger’s breadth.

Sarah laughed. “You? A captain? Since when?”

Thorne preened, looking like a powder monkey with a freshly stolen mango. “Got me a ship now, and a crew of hearty sea-rats off the back of what you done to Crow and Bragg.”

His breath was like a bucket of rotten clams. Thorne could parade in expensive clothes, but he could never change who he truly was.

“You always were a bottom feeder, weren’t you?” said Sarah. “Now get out of my way.”

Thorne stood aside, and said, “Mark my words, Sarah Fortune, you’ll get what’s comin’ to ya.”

“Promises, promises,” said Sarah, and in two quick steps she was standing over Petyr Harker.

She held her arm out and rippled her fingers, like she was flipping a coin along her knuckles.

“Can I give you a hand?” she said with a grin.

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“It is funny,” said Sarah. “Look how I’m smiling.”

Petyr looked at her gloved hand through an eye that was already swollen and purple. Despite the obvious pain of his bleeding nose and winded gut, he grinned.

“If I give you my good hand, are you going to shoot it off?” he asked.

“I’m not planning to, but the day’s yet young.”

He took her hand, and Sarah hauled him to his feet.

“Why are you here, Petyr?” she asked.

“There might not be a Corsair’s Conclave anymore, but traditions need to be upheld, yes?”

“So I keep hearing,” said Sarah, glancing at Rafen.

She pulled a handkerchief from her coat and handed it to Petyr. He nodded gratefully and wiped the blood from his lips and chin before handing it back.

“Keep it,” she said, then nodded admiringly at his new hand. “Nice work. Doesn’t look like Bilgewater craft.”

“It’s not,” said Petyr. “Well, it is and it isn’t. A new apprentice down at Bitterbelt’s forge made it for me. Zaunite lad named Gysbert.”

“Looks expensive.”

“It was.”

Sarah looked him up and down, taking in his tailored clothing, the well-fed cheeks, and the empty scabbard that looked like it might hold a fine blade. Whatever had become of Petyr after losing his hand, he’d clearly bounced back well enough.

“I keep wondering if I should have killed you back at MacGregan’s,” said Sarah.

“I’ve often wondered why you let me live,” said Petyr. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you didn’t kill me, but let’s be honest, I’m just the sort of fellow to seek dramatic revenge in some stupidly elaborate scheme.”

Despite herself, Sarah laughed. “That you are, Petyr, that you are. But if you want the truth, I didn’t kill you because killing you would have been Gangplank’s way of doing things, and I always try to be better than he was.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“It’s a work in progress,” admitted Sarah as Rafen stepped between them, holding tin mugs hooked over his fingers in one hand, and a large bottle of rum in the other.

“Here,” he said. “If the Truce is holding, and we’re not going to start killing each other, then we might as well have a swig of Aligh’s rum, eh?”

Sarah passed a mug to Petyr before taking one for herself as Rafen poured them all two fingers of the syrupy brown liquid.

“Keep your powder dry and your cutlass sharp,” said Rafen.

“And the world will turn,” finished Sarah, and the three of them touched mugs.

Sarah tipped her head back and took a mouthful, wincing at the gritty, overly sweet taste.

“Oh, that’s bad. That’s really bad,” she said. “You sure they didn’t put Aligh’s body in the rum barrel instead of the cannon barrel?”

“Aligh was known for many things—being a cruel old bastard, a ruthless captain, and a seasoned killer—but one thing he wasn’t known for was his largesse in vittles,” said Petyr, pouring the remains of his rum onto the deck.

“I didn’t know you knew Aligh.”

Petyr shook his head vigorously. “I didn’t. I mean, I knew him by reputation, of course, but it’s not like I ever set foot on the Moon Serpent before today.”

“The man was an enigma,” said Thorne, sidling up to Rafen and holding out his own mug. “A regular man of mystery, but who cares about that? He’s dead, and we ain’t.”

Sarah shrugged and nodded to Rafen, who poured Thorne a generous measure.

“Aye,” continued Thorne. “There’s none here gathered who knows much of the man. They say he never came ashore neither. Always sent one of them vicious twins. So, did you hear how he died?”

“I heard he was stabbed in his sleep by a cabin boy who’d taken one too many beatings,” said Captain Blaxton, arriving mug in hand.

Rafen duly poured her a measure.

“May all your lookouts be sober,” she said, taking a drink. “Ah, some of the good stuff.”

“That’s what you heard?” said Sarah. “I heard he choked to death on a barb-squid that wasn’t quite dead in his dinner.”

Rafen shook his head. “No, that’s just what the cutters on the Slaughter Docks are saying. I heard it from one of the chandlers down the grottoes that he was so drunk he fell overboard. His pockets were so laden with gold that he sank all the way down, straight into the waiting grasp of the Bearded Lady.”

Instinctively, they all looked over the gunwale to the ocean far below.

The waters swirled around the ship, deep and black like a liquid mirror. She saw her wavering reflection, splintered by the water and lapping at the barnacled hull. Hard waves broke against the hull—the kind you saw when something large was coming up from below.

“Told you it had an evil cast to it tonight,” said Rafen.

Sarah let out a breath and tapped her left eye twice with her right thumb, an old sailor’s tradition to ward off evil influences.

“Ach, he was an old man, maybe he just died,” said Sarah. “That’s what old men do best.”

“Fog’s rolling in,” said Blaxton, nodding out to sea.

A chill passed through Sarah as she saw the fog was coming in from the southeast; cold, clammy, and freighted with the smell of the deepest ocean trenches.

“Don’t matter none how the old bastard died,” said Thorne. “All that matters is what happens to his ship and his crew. That’s why we’re all here, ain’t it? Every one of us wants to claim that big prize, don’t we?”

All four captains studied one another, each knowing that was exactly why they were here.

“No one ever found his serpent sigil, did they?” said Blaxton.

“His sigil?” scoffed Rafen. “Like as not, it’s sealed away in that cannon with him. Doesn’t matter anyway, no one pays any heed to a captain’s sigil these days.”

“Maybe they should,” said Sarah. “Maybe there’d be a lot less bloodshed if you could just claim a ship and crew with the previous captain’s sigil.”

“Scared of a little blood, are ya?” grinned Thorne. “Not got the stomach for it, eh?”

Sarah took a step toward him and said, “Truce or not, talk to me like that again and I’ll show you how much stomach I have for bloodshed.”

“Didn’t mean to go upsettin’ ya, Captain Fortune,” laughed Thorne, exposing black teeth and rotten gums. “Just wondering how many of ’em here gathered would have even the slightest hesitation of trying to claim Aligh’s crew if they could get their hands on that sigil…?”

Sarah looked past Thorne at the other captains gathered on the Moon Serpent’s deck, wondering the same thing. Most of them were small fry, with crews that were too green to make a serious play for Aligh’s ship, but the three drinking rum with her… Now that was a motley crew indeed, and any one of them might be a rival she needed to worry about sticking a knife in her back.

Before any of them could say anything in answer to Thorne’s question, Sarah felt the deck shift underfoot, a slow roll and dip.

She reached inside her coat and pulled out a silver coin, flicking it over the side of the ship.

Thorne watched it tumble end over end to the waters, and for a moment she wondered if he might dive in after it.

“Why’d ya do that?” he said. “This ain’t your ship.”

“Someone has to,” said Sarah, as the Moon Serpent’s white sails unfurled. “We’re getting underway.”

The ship sailed eastward out of Bilgewater Bay, taking a gently curving route to avoid the many jagged reefs, treacherous sandbanks, and jutting wrecks that could see a ship foundered. The fog Blaxton had spotted had fully enveloped them now, and the ship sailed in an almost dead silence, interrupted only by the occasional shout between the skeleton crew.

Despite the awfulness of the rum, Sarah, Rafen, Thorne, Petyr, and Blaxton worked their way through the rest of the bottle. After a couple of shots, the sweetness became bearable, and Sarah felt her mood loosening.

With the bottle empty, Rafen threw it overboard and Sarah sent him below deck to find another.

The Moon Serpent sailed onward, deeper into the fog.

More theories as to how Aligh had died were offered, each more ridiculous than the last, and Sarah found herself wiping tears of laughter from her eyes as Petyr finished a preposterous tale of Aligh falling afoul of the Trickster and being led out to sea in a golden narwhal costume only to be carved up by the Bloodharbor Ripper in a tragic case of mistaken identity.

A distant voice, muffled by the fog, called out from the crow’s nest.

“What did he say?” she asked, peering up through the rigging. She held on to the gunwale rail as her vision spun a tad. The rum was bad, but it was strong. Time to ease up.

“I think he said ‘Land ho!’ or possibly ‘Sand Lo!’” said Blaxton, bleary eyed from the rum.

Sarah blinked. “Sand Lo? Why would he say that?”

“I believe it’s a traditional Shuriman greeting,” giggled Petyr, taking another belt of rum.

Sarah fought the laughter bubbling up from her gut as she heard the clatter of iron chains spilling off the deck, swiftly followed by the heavy splash of an anchor hitting the water.

“We’re here,” said Thorne, spitting a viscous wad of tobacco into the sea.

Sarah peered through the mist, seeing a craggy spur of black rock rearing out of the water. Salt crystals glittered in the weak light of the stars.

“Moonshard Reef,” she said. “Why in the name of the Lady’s Beard are we here?”

“Aligh always claimed he was part Marai on his mother’s side,” said Petyr.

“Horse dung!” said Thorne. “The man’s never even seen a Marai, let alone been birthed from one.”

“Makes for an exotic tale though,” said Blaxton. “Mystic origins, magical blood, that sort of thing. Kind of backstory every captain wishes they had. Wish I’d thought of it.”

The thumping of wood on wood halted further discussions, and Sarah turned to see the serpent caller hammering the raised foredeck with his tentacle-wrapped billhook.

In his other hand, he held a flaming torch that burned with a brilliant silver light.

“The sea is this world’s cemetery, and its souls sleep best without monument,” said the serpent caller, his voice a grating hiss through the coral mask. “All other graveyards show symbols of distinction between great and small, rich and poor—but the king, the fool, the prince, and the peasant are all the same to the ocean. Now, fellow travelers of the Sea… heed my words, it is time to pay the ocean its due!”

“About damn time,” said Sarah. “Let’s get this done and go home.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Petyr.

Sarah and the other captains gathered before the wax-stoppered cannon as the serpent caller’s eyes swept over them all. She felt the potency of the rum swimming around her body, and saw a number of the other captains swaying with more than the motion of the ship.

Where in the eight seas is Rafen?

She didn’t want any more rum. She just wanted him here by her side.

The twins who’d met her and Rafen as they came aboard to confiscate their weapons worked a block and tackle over to the center of the deck. An enormous hook on a thick rope loop was lowered and secured to the lifting ring on the cannon just behind the oiled fuse.

“What a waste,” said Blaxton, tears streaming down her face.

“I didn’t realise you and Aligh were close,” said Sarah.

“What? Gods, no! I mean the cannon. That’s an Orban thirty pounder,” said Blaxton. “Probably one of only a handful left in existence. One hit from that would punch a hole clean through a Noxian warship from stem to stern. Crying shame to see it go to waste.”

Thanks to her mother’s teachings, Sarah knew more about pistols and rifles than she did about the intricacies of ship-borne weapons, but even she had to agree the bronze cannon was far too good for the likes of a miserly soul like Aligh. Was that a final insult to those left behind, that his most beautiful weapon would serve as his tomb and never belong to anyone else?

Something niggled about that, though—a nagging feeling she was missing something.

Crab Hat secured the hook to the cannon, then she and her twin stood back as the serpent caller began to speak.

“Captains of Bilgewater, it does my heart proud to see so many of you here today,” he said. “The best and the worst, the scum and the cream of our city’s reaver-kind.”

A few mutters went through the captains at so harsh an opening, but serpent callers were known to be touched by the Bearded Lady, and their ways were unknowable to most people.

“Our fair isles stand at a pivotal moment in their history, and many paths lead into the future, as tangled and inconstant as the many limbs of Nagakabouros, but I have seen the way forward! On many of these paths, I see the peaks and coves of the Serpent Isles ablaze, its people dying as our enemies close in. But on one path, one singular path, I see us proud, stronger than ever, a united people under a great leader!”

Sarah’s brow furrowed. Yes, the serpent callers were a strange bunch, but this was beyond anything she’d heard any of them say before.

“You have gathered here to see Captain Aligh down to the depths, a man whose boots none of you were fit to clean. A man of vision, a man who knew what needed to be done!”

The twins began hauling on the pulley ropes to lift the cannon, their muscles bunching and straining as the rear end of the cannon, gun carriage and all, began lifting from the deck. The barrel tilted downward, and were it not for the waxed stopper, Sarah felt she could have looked right down its length to see Aligh’s dead body.

“You all have failed Nagakabouros! You all have fought and betrayed one another, like Rat Town scum scrabbling over a copper sprat. None of you has the vision to raise a fleet like the ones of old and make Bilgewater ruler of the waves! You all throw your coins and your tributes into the water, and for what? For safety? A blessing? No, it’s a sacrifice you’re offering, a blood price for the ocean to lend you its wrath. But what does the ocean care for copper coins or the smallest fish of the catch? No, for Bilgewater to prosper, it needs a red tide of offerings!”

Sarah surreptitiously glanced around at the other captains to see what they were making of the serpent caller’s lunacy, but clearly the rum had numbed them to just how insane this was. She felt eyes upon her and saw Petyr looking right at her.

He gave her a terse smile, and her unease ratcheted up several notches.

She saw he was easing, half-step by half-step, toward the gunwale.

Sarah looked back down the cannon barrel.

And then she knew.

“Oh no…”

She ran toward the raised foredeck, tearing off her hat and reaching up to pull out twin stilettos masquerading as hairpins. Each was a slender needle of blackened steel with a rounded skull-pommel, and she knew just where to stick them to kill a man stone dead.

“So I offer the sea your blood, your sacrifice!” screamed the serpent caller, tearing off his mask and hood so everyone could see him. So everyone would know who had brought them here to die.

Sarah saw a grey-bearded face, furrowed by old age and aglow with madness. A long scar bisected his leathery face from right eyebrow to left cheek, and the wisps of his beard were twisted into thin braids entwined with pearls and fishhooks.

His eyes were the eyes of a man who never paid a kraken if he could spend a sprat.

Who skipped out on the ocean’s tithe on every voyage.

A man she knew from reputation and decades of bloody legend.

“Aligh, you treacherous bastard!” she yelled.

The twins saw her coming, but couldn’t yet release the chains holding the cannon’s rear aloft.

Time slowed for Sarah, her heartbeat like the slow tolling of the bell upon the Widow’s Manse whenever a ship was lost to the ocean. It felt like she was running knee deep in sticky guts in the carving bays of the Slaughter Docks.

“You’re too late, Captain Fortune,” said Aligh.

He swept the torch down to the back of the cannon, and roared in triumph.

She pulled back her hand to throw one of her stilettos.

She knew she wouldn’t make it.

The silver flame lit the oiled touchpaper.

And the world exploded in a deafening blast of fire and thunder.

That she wasn’t dead was Sarah’s first surprise.

Her second was that the Moon Serpent was still afloat.

A cannon that big ought to have holed the ship all the way down to the ocean, and broken its keel.

She couldn’t hear anything, not really. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched whine, maddeningly shrill and muffled at the same time.

She rolled onto her side, wincing as she felt blood streaming down her arm.

A dull awareness of foggy, distant sounds coming from behind made Sarah turn her head.

A scene of utter carnage, worse than anything she’d seen in a long time.

And suddenly she knew why the ship wasn’t sinking. The cannon had been primed with canister shot.

It was a load designed to shred and maim flesh, but leave a vessel intact, and it had worked its lethal power with horrifying potency.

Sarah’s mad dash toward Aligh had carried her mostly clear of the wide fan of red-hot fragments, but the other captains weren’t so lucky.

Men and women lay sprawled on a deck slick with blood.

Those closest to the gun were almost unrecognisable, transformed from living, breathing human beings into scraps of bloody meat. Shorn arms and legs lay scattered in gory heaps, and it was all but impossible to tell which limb belonged to which body.

But not everyone was dead.

Those captains toward the rear of the throng writhed in agony, bleeding from scores of deep lacerations and screaming the name of the Bearded Lady. Sarah could still barely hear them.

She saw Blaxton lying in a lake of blood, her fine blue coat cut to pieces, as if someone had given her a hundred lashes from a barbed cat-o’-nine-tails. Sarah couldn’t tell if she was dead or alive, but she was lying very still. Thorne slithered out from beneath her, and with the luck typical of that lowlife, it looked like he’d escaped the worst of the blast using Blaxton as a human shield.

Rafen! Where’s Rafen?

She couldn’t see him, and could only hope that he’d found a way to survive.

He must have, he’s Rafen. He survives everything, doesn’t he?

Then her eyes settled on a figure lying sprawled against the railings, bloodied, but mostly unhurt.

Petyr Harker.

He grinned, and hate filled Sarah as she knew that somehow, in some way, that smug, conniving sea-slug had known about Aligh’s trap. He had to have been part of setting it up, a glittering, silver-tongued lure for captains who didn’t know him well enough to send him packing.

Sarah saw the deck hatch swing open, and the skeleton crew that had sailed them out to Moonshard Reef emerged with long gutting knives to finish what their vile captain had begun. They moved as if in a languid dream, skewering bellies and cutting throats with sadistic relish.

Anger surged through Sarah, and she sat upright, blinking through tears of pain.

You’re alive, damn it! Do something!

With that thought blazing in her mind, sounds rushed back and her vision cleared.

The screams of the dying drove her to her feet, and she swept up her stilettos once again.

Aligh stood far behind the smoking cannon, arms aloft and surveying his bloody handiwork with the eyes of a zealot. Sarah sprinted toward him again, but this time the twins rushed past their captain to intercept her.

She vaulted over the cannon, and hammered her boots into the face of the twin with the tattooed eyes all across her skull. Razorscale teeth splintered under Sarah’s iron hard boot-heels, and sent the woman flying backward.

Sarah landed lightly and leapt to the side as Crab Hat swung a monstrous, fang-toothed club at her head. It smashed the deck boards to splinters, and Sarah rolled to her feet hammering her daggered fist into the woman’s back. The crab-shell armor was hard and smooth and the stiletto slid clear without penetrating.

The woman wrenched the club from the deck and spun around, the weapon slashing just over Sarah’s head. Her tattooed twin was back up, blood streaming down her face of many eyes, turning it into a hideous grimace. She held a pair of long punch daggers with razor-toothed sawfish blades.

She came at Sarah in a flurry of blows, elbows, and high kicks.

Sarah tried to parry and dodge, only barely avoiding each killing blow. She could hold her own in a fight, but she’d take a pistol over a pair of thin daggers any day. By the time they’d backed up toward the cannon, Sarah’s shirt was soaked in blood and she was seriously reconsidering the wisdom of her plan to fight hand to hand.

From the corner of her eye she saw the armored twin winding up for another strike.

Two to one, this fight would only end badly for Sarah.

Tattooed Eyes slashed her dagger low, and Sarah grunted as it cut a line of fire across the side of her thigh. She dropped to one knee as a reverse stroke came for her throat.

She lifted her arm to parry, and the slashing blade cut straight through the fabric of her coat.

The impact sent searing bolts of pain up Sarah’s arm, but the iron rods specially woven into the back of the sleeve halted the blade before it bit flesh.

Her foe let out a “Ha!” of triumph, but the grin fell from her face as she realised Sarah was unhurt.

“Gedian and Sons, Battle Tailors and War Clothiers,” said Sarah, and hammered her stiletto up through the soft flesh on the underside of her foe’s jaw. Her eyes flew wide in shock, and Sarah saw the black needle of the blade behind her razor teeth as it punched up into her brain.

Sarah rose and kicked the dead body away as her twin screamed in anguish.

Stiletto versus war-club—bad odds. Really bad odds.

Sarah risked a glance behind her.

Cannonball dent in the right side…

This was her chance to even those odds.

The armored twin launched herself at Sarah in fury, her huge, toothed club rising up for a strike. The weapon slashed down in an executioner’s arc, and Sarah dived aside at the last instant.

The iron head of the club smashed the chest behind Sarah apart. She spun inside the twin’s guard and drove her blade into a gap between the plates of crab-shell armor.

The woman grunted and stumbled backward, tearing the weapon from Sarah’s hand.

Sarah turned and began frantically searching through the shattered ruin of the chest, sweeping aside damaged knives, brass-knuckles, and iron-tipped cudgels.

“Come on, come on, where are you…?” she hissed, hearing the scrape of a club being lifted from the deck. A broken handle, a bent blade.

Had one of the twins hidden them somewhere else, hoping to keep them for themselves…?

No, no, no…

And then her palm closed on the smooth, ivory-handled grips she knew better than anything.

Sarah spun the twin pistols into her grip, and snapped the firing mechanism into place.

She twisted and dived to the side, pulling the triggers in a storm of shot.

Crab-shell armor was proof against blades and hooks, but against gun-dame-forged weapons, the tattooed woman might as well have been naked.

Red-hot pistol balls blasted through her armor, and she toppled over the cannon, leaking vital fluids from more than a dozen neat holes.

Sarah rose to her feet and tensed as she felt the roll and sway of the deck change. It was a subtle change, almost unnoticeable, a change in the angle of the anchored ship’s prow as the swell of the ocean shifted…

“Oh, now that’s not good…” she said, as Aligh limped toward her, distraught at the sight of the dead twins.

“You killed them!” he cried.

Sarah fired a shot into each of his kneecaps. “That’s for all the captains you killed tonight.”

Aligh screamed, writhing on the deck. He wept and feebly tried to swing his billhook at her.

Sarah easily batted it aside and jammed a pistol under his chin.

“Any last words?” she asked. “Now this really is your funeral.”

The deck shifted again, and a deathly silence fell over the ship.

Even the wounded seemed to recognize the strange quality of the darkness closing in around them as a deep rumbling sound rose up from the water.

Sarah sensed fearful tremors running through the ship’s timbers.

“What’s happening?” she demanded, jabbing the pistol harder into Aligh’s throat. “What else did you have planned tonight?”

“This is none of my doing,” wept Aligh, and despite his obvious agony, he laughed with the hysteria of a man who knew his time had come. “My bill to the sea is due. And you’re going to pay it with me…”

Sarah had felt something like this in the bones of a ship once before.

Nine years ago, just north of Bilgewater and making the last, hooking sprint to the inner bay. They’d been returning from a bounty run up by Drakkengate and spotted a smuggler running a slimmed-down carrack out of the Ironwater coves, fleeing the Serpent Isles with treasures looted from a Buhru temple.

She still remembered the mournful rumble of the titanic serpent horns as they echoed over the ocean, and the terror as her crew watched an abyssal kraken rear up from the water to smash the carrack to matchwood and drag all aboard to their deaths.

The shift in the deck as the kraken had passed under their ship felt just like this.

She ran to the gunwale and searched the fog and ocean.

The sea swirled around the crags of Moonshard Reef, dark and keeping their secrets. No one knew just how deep it got around here, but any ship that sank out this way was never seen again, never washed up on the isles.

What’s out there…?

And then she saw it.

Two hundred yards out, huge and unyielding, a titan rising from the deep.

The vast dome of its helmeted head broke the water, twin eyes glowing with the orange light of a smelting furnace. The water boiled around it, frothed to madness by a dark miasma surrounding its wavering outline, and leaving an oily slick in its wake.

Its body was huge, encased in plates of corroded iron, looped with chains torn from countless sunken vessels. Across one shoulder it carried a colossal, hook-bladed anchor, dripping with black water and garlanded with rotten weeds from the deepest, darkest abyss.

Sarah’s mind refused to process what she was seeing.

This is impossible.

It was a dark legend come to life, a scare story told around the beer-soaked tables of the wharf-side taverns by drunken rakes hoping for a free drink. She knew its name, had even laughed at the impossibility of its existence.

But here it was, rising from the ocean with booming, ponderous strides.

The drowned tallyman, come to claim the ocean’s due.

Even his name was said to be a curse.

“Nautilus…”

The water exploded as Nautilus hurled his anchor at the Moon Serpent.

A tidal wave made stagnant and rotten by its time in the darkness washed over the ship, as the anchor crashed into the deck. It smashed clear through the timbers, and the ship tilted wildly to port as the impossible weight of it pulled it over.

Sarah fell against the railing and jammed her pistols home in their shoulder holsters as the ship tilted downward. Crew screamed as they slid down the angled deck or were thrown overboard. The anchor ripped clear of the ship’s side, and the ship violently righted itself. Sarah looked up at the sound of splintering masts overhead. Silver sails billowed as the topmast and mizzen snapped like twigs, falling to the shattered deck to crush a dozen men or more.

She struggled to her feet, hearing the groan of a keel bending under stresses it had never been designed to endure. Caulked timbers split and geysers of black water erupted all along the length of the deck.

Sarah turned to Aligh, who clung to the bronze cannon that ought to have served as his tomb.

“You did this!” she yelled, as the looming shadow of Nautilus reared up from the water.

The carved wooden railing smashed to splinters as a massive hand, surely too large to have once been mortal, slammed down on the foredeck. Another swiftly followed, trailing a length of chain that slithered with a black, oily substance.

“He’s not real!” screamed Aligh, his mind undone by the sight of Nautilus. “It was just a story!”

“He looks pretty damn real to me!” shouted Sarah over the cacophony of smashing wood, tearing sails, and terrified screams. Fiery heat washed over her as Nautilus hauled his bulk over the gunwale, and turned his infernal gaze upon her.

She felt the deathly heat of it crawling over her skin, its touch loathsome and invasive, as if the titan of the deeps could see into her very soul.

His titanic weight heeled the ship over again, and Sarah grabbed hold of the looped pulley ropes as the deck tilted crazily. The front of the cannon slid sideways as the block and tackle swung wildly and its knotted end strained to bear its colossal weight. The wooden pegs securing the wheels of the gun carriage in place creaked ominously.

Aligh pulled his way along the cannon toward her.

“I won’t go alone!” he screamed. “If the ocean wants me, I’ll drag you down with me!”

The man was a lunatic, like the crippled sailors raving in Bilgewater’s alleys with a mind destroyed by the foulest rotgut. His fraudulent serpent caller robes had come loose, and dangling from his neck on a leather thong was a silver-and-brass sigil of three intertwined serpents.

Swinging on the pulley, Sarah tried to kick him away, but he had a madman’s strength, clawing at her throat with his free hand. Cracked fingernails drew blood, and she struggled to find purchase as the ship tipped over onto its side, its port side now completely underwater.

Far above them, Nautilus drew back his anchor once again and brought it down like a colossal woodsman’s axe.

Its unnatural mass sheared through the deck amidships, and Sarah heard the thunderous crack of the keel finally splitting. The vessel’s stern rose up sharply, and the sounds of Aligh’s screaming crew echoed in the mist.

On the ocean, we are all equal, went the old saying, but right now Sarah didn’t give a wharf-rat’s shit for those murderous, traitorous bastards.

Let them all drown.

The front half of the ship sprang up with the force of the blow, then slammed back down onto the ocean, tilting back upright as seawater poured into the bow section. The weight of it was dragging the prow deeper underwater with every passing second.

In moments, nothing would remain on the surface.

A body slammed into the deck next to her; Aligh’s tattooed daughter, the one with Sarah’s stiletto still jammed in her brain.

Slicks of black fluid spilled from her mouth and swirled in her eyes.

With a groan of screeching metal, Nautilus reached for Aligh with a massive, corroded gauntlet. His crushing grip fastened on the treacherous captain’s torso and pulled. Aligh held fast to Sarah with lunatic strength, as though they embraced like lovers.

She couldn’t shake him loose.

“All because you wouldn’t pay the damn tithe,” snarled Sarah, as Aligh fought to hold on to her.

“The ocean will take you as well as me!” he screamed.

“Not today,” said Sarah, reaching up and back to grip the skull-pommel of the stiletto wedged in the soft tissue under the tattooed twin’s jaw.

She pulled hard, and the blade slid free in a welter of fluids.

“You want him?” said Sarah, reversing her grip on the weapon. “He’s all yours!”

She rammed the blade into the side of Aligh’s neck, driving it hard through to the other side. His head snapped back and Sarah’s hand flashed out to catch a falling leather thong cut loose from around Aligh’s throat. His grip spasmed, and the metal titan wrenched him back just as the deck hook securing Sarah’s rope loop snapped.

The full weight of the cannon yanked on the block and tackle, lifting Sarah away from the weapon and Aligh. Swinging wildly above the sinking ship, she watched as Nautilus turned and sank back into the ocean, the screaming Aligh clutched in one iron fist.

The water closed over him, a trail of frantic bubbles following Aligh down as Nautilus returned to the darkness below with his bounty. As Aligh was dragged down, Sarah took grim pleasure in seeing the look of terror in his eyes at his fate; condemned to an eternity in darkness without so much as a pauper’s marker to his name.

The Moon Serpent’s prow rose almost vertically in the ocean, and Sarah swung on the rope to reach the jutting, serpent figurehead. Her booted feet caught the silver fangs, and she managed to remain upright as the ship slowly sank into the ocean.

With a moment’s pause, she saw the back half of the boat was almost entirely underwater, with only a few sailors crowded in around the upright stern, so close she could likely have swung over to reach them. One of the survivors was Petyr Harker, and she felt bilious hatred rise in her gorge.

“I did tell you I was just the sort of fellow to seek dramatic revenge in some stupidly elaborate scheme,” said Petyr. “Admittedly, I didn’t quite see it turning out like this, but at least—”

Sarah didn’t give him a chance to finish, throwing the rope loop toward him like a lasso, and no harpooner had ever cast so perfect a throw.

The loop settled around Petyr’s neck like a noose, but before he could lift it clear, Sarah drew her pistol and aimed upward.

“Say hello to Aligh on the way down, Petyr,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot smashed the block and tackle straining to hold the cannon’s enormous weight, and it immediately fell into the ocean. Sarah had a fraction of a second to savor the look of horror in Petyr’s eyes before the rope snapped taut and wrenched him from his perch.

His scream was cut short as he hit the water and vanished into the depths as the cannon dragged him all the way down.

Standing atop the serpent figurehead, Sarah watched the Moon Serpent’s stern finally go under in a swirl of foaming water and cracking timbers. The few sailors still clinging to the wreckage paddled frantically on the surface before the suction of the wreck finally pulled them down with it.

Looking down, she reckoned she had a few seconds at best before the prow did the same to her.

“Shame to send something so beautiful to the deep,” said a voice behind her, and Sarah smiled.

She looked over her shoulder to see Rafen in their landing boat, soaked to the skin and covered in cuts, bruises, and bites. The storm lamp on the prow bobbed like a welcome beacon of safety.

“Thank you kindly, old man,” she said.

“I meant the cannon,” said Rafen, carefully rowing toward her. “A finer thirty pounder I’ve yet to see.”

“Aye,” agreed Sarah, “but it’s tradition, and you don’t go messing with traditions, right?”

“Right indeed,” said Rafen.

“So where in the name of the Bearded Lady did you get to?” asked Sarah, “I needed you on the damn deck when everything went to shit.”

Rafen shrugged and said, “Went below to get another bottle of rum and ran into Aligh’s crew fixing to get a-murderin’. They didn’t take kindly to being discovered and tried to cut my damn head off. Managed to gut a couple with some borrowed steel, but had to jump out of a gunport before they shanked me good. Swam around to get our boat, getting feasted on by all that lives under the surface, thank you very much. But I’m here now, so do you want to get on board or are you planning to go down with the ship?”

“This ship’s captain’s already gone with her,” said Sarah, stepping casually from the figurehead to the landing boat.

With her safely aboard, Rafen rowed them away from the doomed Moon Serpent as the figurehead and its topmost mast finally went under in a swirl of bubbles, rope, and broken spars.

Sarah moved to the back of the landing boat, now seeing she wasn’t the only passenger Rafen had picked up. A bloodied body in a lacerated coat of pale blue, gold cuffs, and frayed bronze epaulettes lay slumped in the landing boat’s bilges.

“Blaxton?” said Sarah. “She’s still alive?”

“Just about,” said Rafen. “She’s a blowhard, but she didn’t deserve to go down with scum like Aligh. Didn’t feel right to leave her to drown, right?”

Sarah said nothing, too exhausted to do more than nod.

“So you going to tell me what in the eight seas happened up there?” asked Rafen.

“You’d never believe me,” said Sarah.

“I’m guessing it was you that sank the ship firing the damn cannon into the deck?” said Rafen.

“Wasn’t me. What happened up there was all Aligh’s doing,” said Sarah, with a look that told him not to ask more.

“Fair enough.”

“Though I did manage to get this.” She opened her palm to reveal a disc stamped with three intertwined serpents of silver and brass.

“Aligh’s sigil,” said Rafen.

“Might not mean much these days, but we’ll see what happens when I show it to the rest of his crew, once they’ve sobered up.”

Rafen grinned. “Well, at least this trip wasn’t a total waste of time.”

Sarah slumped in the back of the boat and watched as the rearing crag of Moonshard Reef began to fade into the mist. She narrowed her eyes as she saw a lone figure climb from the water and shake itself dry.

A hunched wretch in an expensive kraken-skin coat.

“Thorne,” she whispered. “It’s always the bloody rats that make it out.”

“What’s that?” said Rafen, mid-row. “Someone else made it out?”

“No,” said Sarah, turning away. “No one at all.”

Senna woke with a gasp, her breath pluming in the frigid night. Slicked with sweat, her arms, legs, neck, and back were covered in a mantle of sand. A single thought tumbled through her mind.

You need to reach Bilgewater.

She sat up, and saw the dark waters of the Holnek streaming past the lonely riverbank. Her instincts were pulling at her again, speaking to her as they had since childhood. She had learned long ago to trust those feelings and hunches—and now they were telling her to leave.

Lucian stirred in his sleep. He turned and pulled their bedroll away, leaving her bare. A gentle breeze chilled her skin even more, and she burrowed her toes in the sand, searching for warmth.

There was an unusual ebb in Harrowings, and so they had traveled north, to south-east Valoran, sailing upriver until they neared the Noxian border. The pair had spent a short respite together in solitude, far from the storm that was their lives, a chance to rediscover one another after years of being apart. It was comfortable, like a well-worn cloak. Her instincts were ripping her away from the only refuge she and Lucian had known since they were reunited.

She swallowed the knot growing in her throat, and closed her eyes, searching her heart, hoping that she had misunderstood, that her instincts weren’t so cruel, that they could be bargained with.

But the feeling remained.

She stared at the vast darkness and felt the glare of countless stars—each one like a wretched soul waiting for deliverance, watching in silence as she lived the life they were denied. She had no right to squander salvation, these precious moments spent with Lucian.

He’ll understand.

Lucian moaned softly in his sleep, head resting on a leather-bound tome. His breath quickened as he tossed beneath the bedroll, the moans growing louder. Senna shook his shoulder until he startled awake. He pushed himself up on his elbow, breathing heavily. As he readjusted to the waking world, he stared at her, through her, still seeing the woman from his nightmare, the one he failed to save from Thresh’s lantern, her years of imprisonment and torture. He took another deep breath, and relief settled in his eyes.

“Sorry,” he said, offering her the bedroll.

They watched the horizon. A radiant edge of purple and indigo heralded the approaching dawn.

You need to tell him.

Reluctantly, Senna turned to Lucian. “It’s time to go.”

“We were just getting settled in,” he said, still looking out across the water. He let out a heavy sigh. “Where to?”

“Bilgewater.”

He shook his head. “If there’s a Harrowing, it’ll be over before we ever reach port.”

There’s still time.

“If we leave now, we could be there in a few days,” Senna said.

“There’ll be nothing to do but bury the dead.”

Senna tensed at the bluntness of his words, the easy disregard of their duty as Sentinels of Light. But she knew it wasn’t that simple—his feelings ran deeper, and his lapse would be momentary. “There’s still a chance,” she insisted. “I can feel it.”

Lucian said nothing.

His heart is elsewhere.

She looked at the codex lying on the sand, its bronze clasp broken and pitted with age. “Perhaps we shouldn’t have come this far north,” she said. “It was careless.”

The ancient manuscript was Lucian’s latest acquisition, and the reason they had initially sailed to the region. He had procured it in Krexor, hoping it would reveal a way to end her curse, to free her of the Black Mist that had pursued her relentlessly since childhood—drawn to a spark of unnatural life that had infected her when she meddled with a force she didn’t understand. There were dozens of such volumes on their ship.

She’d often awoken at night, alone in their bedroll. She, shrouded in darkness. He, illuminated by candlelight, hunched over a tome, desperately seeking answers to questions she had long stopped asking.

Lucian finally turned to Senna. “There hasn’t been a Harrowing in months,” he said. The warmth had returned to his face, along with a tinge of remorse. “I wanted us to rest, if only for a while.”

A piece of Senna’s heart wanted nothing more. She longed to forget the horrors of the Black Mist, to look up at the night sky and see only stars.

“I know,” she said. “We both did.”

Lucian picked up the heavy codex and started to rise. Senna felt the chasm widen between them, leaving her alone on the other side. She took his hand, holding him fast. “We’ll start after dawn,” she said.

He sat back down on the sand, and they watched the sunrise.

They had broken camp shortly after dawn. Senna was hauling the last of their provisions up a narrow gangplank while Lucian untied the halyard, preparing to hoist the mainsail. They worked in silence, each lost in their own thoughts as the ship swayed in the calm waters of the Holnek.

She planted a wooden crate on the weathered deck, next to their other supplies. Their stores had dwindled during their stay. “We’ll need to resupply before heading to Bilgewater.”

Lucian nodded. “We can sail down the coast and provision in Holdrum, but we’ll also need to anchor at Mudtown.”

She gave him a curious look.

“There’s a weaponsmith in the Buhru Quarter that works with silver grenades,” he said.

“We’ll lose at least half a day in port.”

“If we’re headed into a Harrowing, Thresh will be there,” he said, eyes cold and flat.

Senna gazed at the deep waters of the river, its current flowing gently toward the sea. Her gut feelings were leading her to Bilgewater, but something didn’t seem quite right.

“The mist has been reaching out farther with each storm, like it’s searching for something,” she said. “Why return to Bilgewater?”

“Those islands are his favorite haunts.”

“This is bigger than Thresh,” she said, more sharply than she intended.

Lucian didn’t respond. Instead, he opened his canteen, took a long drink of water, and then slowly pushed the stopper back inside.

“He’s constantly scheming,” he finally said. “And all the other spirits are trapped in their suffering. Who knows what obsessions permeate what’s left of their minds?” He looked away, jaw clenched, lips pressed into a rigid line.

Senna thought of the chaotic patchwork of maps and lengths of twine that stretched across the walls in their cabin. Lucian had used them to track the Black Mist for years while she was imprisoned in the lantern.

He can’t see past his hatred.

Senna shook her head. It was more than just anger. Lucian viewed the mist as a horrific blight upon the world, a scourge of wraiths needing to be purified. But her time in the lantern had shown her a different way. She could use her powers to redeem those wretched souls, liberating them from suffering.

“The Ruined King is behind these Harrowings. There’s longing there... an intelligence,” she said. “I can feel it. He’s—”

Something’s wrong!

A light flashed in the east.

Lucian opened his mouth to speak, but his words drowned before they reached Senna’s ears. Her legs weakened as an overwhelming weight pressed against her chest. She lunged for the ship’s railing but found Lucian’s hand instead.

Dark lightning slammed into Senna. The jolt sent her crashing against the deck, every limb contorted in searing pain, her body tensing and twisting as bones threatened to snap. A chorus of screams breached her mind. The anguished cries resounded and swelled until the world shattered in fragments of blinding light. She felt herself being torn away from Lucian and the boat and the shore, and the anchor that held her life in place.

Sadistic laughter ushered in the silence.

Ash fell gently on Senna’s face. She cracked open her eyes, flinching as she saw pinpricks of dark lightning crawling down her arms. Tortured screams still resonated in her mind. Slowly, her thoughts cleared, and the arcs of energy dissipated. Only the echo of laughter remained.

No. No. No... Something’s wrong... You need to get up.

She struggled to a knee, braced her arm on her leg, and rose in a scattering of ash and cinders. Air, thick and sweltering, rushed past her face like heat from an open furnace, the tang of a burning world on her tongue. She tottered on baked clay—the ship had disappeared, leaving her alone on a plain of sun-cracked mud that stretched across a desolate wasteland, veiled in a haze. A triad of mountains towered in the distance, their fiery crowns spewing smoke into the ruddy sky.

Senna was back in the lantern.

Dread rose in her chest, hammering her heart and hitching her breath. She clutched her hands to ease their trembling, and inhaled deeply.

You’re wrong. This can’t be the lantern.

But she had seen this before, or something similar: scorched wastelands, frozen tundras, bustling streets in chaotic cities. The landscape perpetually changed and warped in the spectral prison, as varied as its tortures.

No, this is something else.

Senna shook away the doubt and squeezed her eyes shut. “Do not deny this truth,” she whispered to herself. “Not again.”

In the early days of her imprisonment, she had wasted precious months, perhaps years, unable to accept her own death, trapped in a cycle of misery and loneliness. She wouldn’t repeat that mistake. She had escaped once—she would do so again. Her eyes opened, and she looked for a way out.

A scream sounded from somewhere far away.

Senna called to the Black Mist, but drew smoke and embers instead. The poor substitutes rushed in, transforming her into a wraith, shrouded by death. She moved, and the world blurred in a smear of color, hues shifting rapidly as the landscape changed.

She stopped with a jolt, and Bilgewater snapped into place. But it wasn’t the Bilgewater she knew. The harbor lay ruined, overrun by a massive Harrowing. Rotting timber, slime-coated stonework, the bones of decaying leviathans, all melded into twisted spires. The warped amalgamations floated in midair among the broken hulls of ravaged ships and hundreds of charnel coffins once submerged in the sea. A fortune in tithes drifted amid the debris, glittering like ghostly stars.

Senna released the darkness, and her body returned, the waterlogged planks of the boardwalk creaking beneath her weight. She walked along the causeway and came across the wreckage of a hunting vessel run aground, its copper-tipped prow skewering the remains of a seaside tavern.

A figure stood at the center of the destruction. It was a statue of a woman, its arms raised in supplication, mottled face frozen in terror. Senna felt a strange familiarity, like a half-remembered dream, and a deluge of sorrow poured over her. Hand quivering, she reached out and lightly brushed the statue’s cheek. The face collapsed, and the entire figure began to break apart. Slowly at first, and then all at once, the stone woman crumbled into a heap of ash.

He found her!

An unfamiliar fear swelled inside Senna, urging her to take flight. She pushed it away. Of course he had found her, whoever she was. There was no hiding from Thresh; this was his domain. She had witnessed countless tortures, each soul an endless opportunity for the Chain Warden to delight in their suffering. Senna regarded the pile of ash.

This isn’t Thresh.

It didn’t feel quite right. In all her years in the lantern, she had never encountered anything like this. Perhaps he had refined his technique. If there was one constant, it was his pursuit of perfecting misery.

She looked out at the dark waters of Bilgewater Bay. The fiery mountain range loomed from afar, spanning the horizon. She knew this to be untrue, a construct of the lantern. There were no mountains south of Bilgewater. She would have had to sail around—

A stray thought flitted through her mind. She reached for it, grabbed it, and turned it over. The vault unlocked, releasing a memory.

She had been going to Bilgewater—no, they had been going to Bilgewater. Lucian! He would be fighting out there, desperate to free her from the lantern, suffering alone, as he had for years. It had almost broken him.

Senna’s consciousness reached out across the great expanse. She smiled, feeling Lucian’s love nearby. But there was something else, profound and urgent. It was panic. She had felt it in Lucian only once before—when Thresh had killed her.

Pushing away her mounting dread, she narrowed her focus and spoke. “Lucian... I’m here.”

Silence.

She tried again, and again, and again, every attempt yielding the same result—Lucian remained unmoved by her call. In the past, she had been able to communicate with him from within the lantern, but Thresh must have found a way to suppress her voice.

Her body trembled in desperation and fury. She shut her eyes, whispering the mantras she’d learned long ago. “Carve away the unwanted. Keep only the stone. Carve away the unwanted. Keep only the stone.”

She opened her eyes with renewed determination. Thresh hadn’t beaten her yet.

The rules of nature didn’t apply in the lantern. The ancient relic was an ever-shifting realm crafted for suffering. It appeared infinitely vast, but Senna knew the truth—she had discovered the lantern’s terminus and pressed against its walls, feeling its seams.

As she studied the sky, her stomach quivered.

This isn’t the lantern.

She paused, reflecting again on those early days and the hard facts she had come to accept. She quelled the denials and continued searching. Dark plumes erupted from the fiery peaks, sending black tendrils of soot to mar the sky. She needed to pierce the cinereous veil.

Drawing smoke and embers into her, she transformed once again, and Bilgewater blurred away as she took to the heavens. Senna flew across the ocean, ascending ever higher. But the mountains rose up as well, rumbling and spewing vapor in her path. She veered to avoid the acrid clouds, but the blazing peaks altered course with her, ever present and unavoidable.

Darkness spread across the horizon—a great fog threatening to consume all in its path. Unable to evade the shifting billows, she plunged into the gloom. A storm roared around her, the wailing of countless souls pushing against her like a headwind.

This isn’t the way. You need to turn back.

Hand outstretched, she pressed even higher. A light flickered beyond her fingertips, and her doubts faded as she sought the edge of the lantern. The light sparked brighter and suddenly snapped at her fingers. She pulled back her hand, but the sting was already flaring into searing pain, stiffening her spectral form. Dark energy surged and leashed her in midair.

Senna fell from the sky.

She awoke on hard-packed dirt. Her human form had returned, an aching, knotted cord covered in a dusting of cinders and ash. She rolled onto her back, groaning and wincing as arcs of lightning crackled down her clammy flesh. They dissipated, leaving behind a stinging numbness.

Physical torture was foreign to the lantern. Thresh rarely resorted to such debased forms of suffering. The mind and soul were richer fields to plant seeds of torment. Perhaps this was her punishment for escaping. And yet, it still felt wrong.

You need to get up!

She staggered to a knee, but her leg gave under her weight, and she crumpled back to the ground. The world dimmed as clouds stretched across the sky, pushing away the last remaining color.

You need to fight... You’re dying!

Senna laughed at the absurdity of the thought. There were fates worse than death. She had endured them for years—she would bear them again.

But as the shadows grew, she began to fear what was in store for her this time. Her brief taste of freedom would make her captivity more desolate, her loneliness and torments greater than before.

And then, she had an even more sinister thought.

No! Don’t think that!

Perhaps she had never escaped. What if she had watched Lucian suffer defeat after defeat, and her broken mind had imagined a different outcome, one that lifted her from this pit of misery? Perhaps her escape had been nothing but a delusion.

As realization flared, Senna wailed, a primal sound filled with rage and despair. No. She hadn’t created this deception—it was made by Thresh.

It’s not true!

She shook her head, furious for clinging to false hope.

You need to get up!

“No,” she said, clutching her temples.

You need to fight!

“No, he’s won. This was his plan.”

If you stay here, you’ll die!

“I’m already dead!” she screamed. “I’m just a dead thing that’s cursed!” Her voice broke, along with something inside. She folded over, curling herself up to become small. Her cries of grief echoed through the great expanse.

It wasn’t meant to be a curse, Senna. What I gave you was a gift.

Senna bolted upright. The words had been heavy and sharp, piercing her mind like a dagger. They weren’t her own.

She swayed on her feet, ignoring the numbness in her legs. “Stay out of my head,” she said. “Do you hear me, Thresh?!”

No laughter. No admission. Nothing.

The mountains had receded, their fiery peaks muted in gray. Senna stood alone among the falling embers. Energy crackled on her skin, bolts raking down her body.

“Is that all you have, Chain Warden?” she asked through gritted teeth. “You’ve lost your touch.”

I’m not the Warden, sweet Senna. But I’ve also known his tortures.

The voice was melodious and sorrowful and resonated with fragile tenderness. Senna had met others in the lantern, communing with them over their shared loneliness and suffering. Perhaps...

“Who are you?”

Silence, and then...

A friend. Someone who can help you get back to Lucian.

Bitterness rose in Senna’s throat. “How do you know that name?”

I know your whole life. I’m here to help, but you’ll need to trust me.

“You’re here to offer hope?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I was wrong. You haven’t lost your touch. It’s more refined.” Senna whirled around, searching for the specter. “Your games are done, Chain Warden,” she said. “The cycle is broken. Here and now. Show yourself!”

The world unfurled and changed, revealing clear skies over white sands and an emerald sea. Waves lapped at her feet, her ankles, her knees. She cast her gaze inland and gasped. Beyond a ridge of white dunes sat a dense grove, its wide-fronded trees native to her island. Senna was home.

She heard a soft melody coming from beneath the canopy, evoking memories of her mother singing by the fireside. Senna held her breath, watching as a young girl exited the treeline, humming the long-forgotten hymn.

She recognized the child—it was her.

The girl strolled toward the shore, probing dunes with a carved walking stick. A cold swell washed over Senna. This was the fateful morning. The day everything changed. By evening, her innocence would be lost. She took a step toward the girl.

It’s only a memory, Senna. You can’t change anything.

“Then why bring me here? Is this another trick?”

There’s something I need you to see.

The girl’s eyes brightened. She bent down and plucked a seashell from the sand. Plump fingers caressed the pink husk before placing it in a pocket—one of dozens on her pant legs, each sewn by her mother, in different fabrics and patterns, to hold the countless treasures she found. The girl turned toward Senna and smiled.

Senna hesitated, then offered a timid wave.

She can’t see you.

The girl dashed at Senna, but then at the last moment, she swerved and splashed into the water next to her. Senna whirled, and dread knotted her stomach.

A shipwreck was washing ashore.

The girl poked inside a dark hollow in the broken hull with her staff, declaring she had “rights of salvage”. She giggled at the words, convinced their power gave her claim to the ship’s bounty.

Hands slicked with sweat, Senna grappled with the urge to snatch the girl and run. From her vantage point, she saw the danger the child did not—a tendril of Black Mist stirring in the wreckage.

“She doesn’t know of the darkness she’s about to unleash on all the people she loves,” she said.

But Senna’s angle also revealed something she hadn’t seen before. As the mist uncoiled and sought to prey on the child, beneath the water, a glowing sphere approached, its filaments of light breaking the surface, searching. The sphere flitted toward the girl and seeped into her spine. The girl stiffened for a moment, eyes wide with fear and confusion.

Do you remember what happened next?

“I-I sensed the danger before I saw it... My mind was screaming... A voice was telling me to run.”

The girl flung her wooden staff at the dark tendril, and bolted into the woods.

Senna grew thoughtful, recalling the warning that saved her life. “But it wasn’t my voice. It was yours.”

The water stirred at Senna’s feet as a trio of luminous filaments rose from the sea. They turned and twisted, knitting together into a brilliant silhouette of hallowed light that gradually formed into the spirit of a young woman. The radiance washed away the details of her face, leaving only an impression of kindness and love. A rush of sorrow and joy overwhelmed Senna, like waters from a broken levee.

“The attack wasn’t your fault,” said the spirit. She spoke with her true voice and not through Senna’s mind. “You were alive. And that’s the one thing the Black Mist cannot abide, for it abhors all life.”

The words lifted a weight Senna had carried all her life. Unburdened, she was able to see the moment in a different way. “I should’ve died on that beach. I’d be another wraith, screaming in the mist, if you hadn’t warned me.” She paused to consider. “Why did you help me?”

The spirit’s thoughts seemed to go far away, and although her face remained hazy behind the hallowed light, Senna saw the hint of a smile on her lips. “I was a girl once, playing with dolls, singing as I made believe.” She fixed her gaze on Senna. “Life should be preserved.”

“But you stayed afterward,” Senna said, her voice shaking. “All these years, the Black Mist wasn’t drawn to me—it was you. The unnatural life. You’re the curse.”

“If I could have spared you that pain... ripped myself out... I would have. I tried for years, but I didn’t know how.” The spirit turned and looked down at the water. “And then... to watch you grow, from that frightened girl into this fierce woman, a Sentinel of Light fighting back the mist—I had to see it through.”

Senna arranged the pieces. That first night. Her village. Her home. All those loves swept away in dark waves. The chasm between her and those who survived. The fear in their eyes. Years spent running in terror. Losing people who tried to protect her. Losing Urias, her mentor. The walls she’d built to guard against the horror and the guilt, believing she had brought the curse upon herself.

“I was a little girl—if I had known the truth...”

“It was best that I didn’t interfere,” the spirit said, wringing her ghostly hands. “To learn you were conjoined to some unwelcome passenger, it would have robbed you of your own heart.”

“But you did interfere,” Senna shot back. “The itch down my spine. The wrench of my gut. Even the whispers in my mind. It’s always been you!”

The spirit hung her head in shame. “I was only helping you... when it was necessary.”

“Help? Is that what that was? All these years, you let me suffer alone!” Senna hardened, venom lacing her voice. “Why reveal yourself now?”

The spirit met Senna’s glare, her eyes tender but resolute. “You were never alone, Senna. I just couldn’t reach you through the veil, until now.”

The world shifted once again, as the white sands and emerald sea were blown away by a sulfurous wind. The pair remained on the island, but now the waters raged, and the mountains towered much closer than before. Ash rained down.

Senna thought about these new revelations, as well as the discoveries she had made in the lantern, secrets learned from other fallen Sentinels. This spirit’s presence had marked her, leading her down a path to death and captivity. But that unnatural life had also kept her alive in the lantern, empowering her to escape. And now, it was still helping her. She knew in her bones that her life was tied to this spirit.

Senna had many questions and lingering resentment, but she let them burn away like dying embers. Escape was the only thing that mattered.

“You’ve been warning me that this isn’t the lantern,” she said, watching the waves crash against the shore. “This is all in my mind, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But the threat is very real. It was Thresh’s powers that struck you down,” said the spirit. “His reach extends across the world, but Bilgewater is his goal for now.”

“Then he’s the key. Lucian was right.”

“The Warden is of consequence. But his cruelty only helped set things into motion... for him,” she said, motioning toward the horizon. Senna followed the spirit’s gesture to the mountain peaks. They rumbled across the ocean, pouring out thick gouts of darkness. “You’ve seen him in catacombs, and temples, and distant shores.” The spirit smiled wanly. “Trust your instincts.”

“What does he want?”

“To possess what is no longer his,” she said, the softness gone from her voice, the hallowed light flaring with her words. “He’s a child with a bitter heart, who would rather make the world share his misery than face it alone.”

“How do we stop him?”

“You’re the best hope. The years of training, the powers you wield, even your time in the lantern, all helped you become a formidable weapon.” The spirit looked away, eyes pooling with remorse. “I’ll be with you, every step of the way... Yet I fear, in the end, it may take all we have.”

Senna simply nodded. “I’ve lived. I’ve fought. I’ve died. And still, I feel the warmth of Lucian’s arms, even now,” she said. “This curse is a gift.” She had come to accept it, even if Lucian had not. Squaring her shoulders, she turned her attention back to the mission. “Can we make it to Bilgewater in time?”

The spirit seemed to ponder the question. “The attack is already under—”

Before she could finish, the spirit’s form tensed with fear.

Arcs of dark light spiked through Senna, driving her to one knee. She gasped for air as color drained from the sky. The heavens pressed in, and the world collapsed into a cavern of swirling ashfall. Every blistering jolt narrowed the cave even more—eventually it would become her tomb.

Senna twisted, fighting the contortions of her body, and looked to the spirit. The apparition was folded over, writhing, trembling, sharing in the misery. Lightning pulsed across her ghostly form, searing away her hallowed light.

“What... is... this?” Senna wheezed.

“Thresh... His attack is still destroying your body... You must drive out his power.”

Senna focused on the dark energy, bound it with her own light, and pushed it away as she would the Black Mist. It flowed out in a steady stream. But as it reached the tipping point, the power resisted and rushed back in, dousing her in pain. She crumpled to the ground.

Her strength was rapidly fading, but underneath her dwindling light, she felt an untapped reserve of radiant power. It belonged to the spirit.

“You say I’m never alone? Then prove it!” Senna grabbed the woman’s spectral hand. “Channel your light and add it to my own.”

She turned toward Senna, though it looked painful to do so. “I’ve never—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” she said, forcing a smile through the agony.

Together, they channeled their light and pushed against the dark energy. They met resistance, but only for a moment, and then the nightmare exploded in a blinding flash of white.

Senna woke with a gasp. She sat up, dark lightning still erupting from her chest. It dissipated in the cool morning air, and she collapsed in Lucian’s arms.

“No, Senna... Not again, please...” Lucian’s voice quavered, his body shuddering as he held fast.

“It’s—it’s passed... I’m okay.” She waited for a moment, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow, his trembling subside. Then she gently pulled away.

“What is that?” Lucian asked, confusion and fear in his eyes.

A faint light glowed in her chest. Senna remained perfectly still, until the light faded away. She waited, listening, feeling, hoping for the slightest hint. “Are you still there?” she finally asked, her voice tremulous.

“Yes,” said Lucian and the spirit, in her mind and in her ear.

Senna exhaled and smiled.

Lucian was staring at her, nodding, searching for answers. She met his gaze, and said, “We need to get to Bilgewater—something terrible has happened.”

He was about to speak, to rattle off a litany of questions, but she reached for his hand. “I’ll explain what I can, but we need to leave, now.”

Lucian sighed, a heavy and reluctant sound, but he helped her to her feet and prepared to launch. The ship gently creaked and swayed on the river, tugging against its anchor, ready to set sail. Senna looked toward the east, breathing in the new day, sunlight shimmering off the water.

For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel alone.

Long before she became a Truth Bearer of her people, Illaoi had been an acolyte priestess at a Buhru temple on the coast. Every morning, she went down to the shoreline to exercise in the sun. She tried to focus on the principles her teachers held dear. Discipline. Motion. Strength.

She’d been alone on the beach one morning when the sea dropped low, lower than a low tide. The lookouts on the serpent-caller towers began ringing their alarm bells and pointing toward the horizon.

A Great Wave loomed, rushing toward shore with the strength to pulverize bone and rip swimmers out to sea.

In the moments after the alarms rang out, fear blanked Illaoi’s mind. Her teachers’ lessons abandoned her all at once. Do I have the time to escape? she wondered. Should I just stand here?

She glanced at the wave, then at the waterline. At her feet, she noticed a swarm of pink crabs. The wave had sucked the water away, and the crabs were frozen absolutely still on the wet rocks, paralyzed by sunshine and surprise and indecision.

Little creatures, too small to understand the fear they felt. A crab couldn’t do much to avoid a wave like that.

Illaoi could. She shook herself into action and sprinted to the temple gates just in time for the priestesses to slam them shut. As she perched on the temple’s parapet and watched the wave hit the shore, Illaoi thought about how she had stood in paralysis and fear.

I could have died. It was the closest she’d come to death in her sixteen years.

“I won’t do that again,” she told her teachers. Nagakabouros, the Mother Serpent, loved those who grew and changed. She had no sympathy for those who carried on as before while the wave bore down on them.

These days, something about the streets of Bilgewater reminded her of those frightened crabs.

It was noon. The sun was high and hot. Usually, the streets would be filled with sailors celebrating shore leave, or sea-monster hunters spending their earnings. But today, the streets were full of people hurrying about their business heads down, silent.

Bilgewater was on the edge of a civil war, but this was no battle of fresh and eager wills. Sarah Fortune and Gangplank were fighting the same damned war they’d fought already. The same war they’d fight a hundred times, if they could. Gangplank wanted his throne back; Sarah wanted him dead. The city stank of the stagnation lurking in their hearts. Each believed that victory would give them the things they had lost. Respect, perhaps. Justice for the long-lost dead. Something to soothe the pain of defeat and failure.

It would be so much easier if I cared nothing for either of them, Illaoi thought. But Sarah was her closest friend—and Gangplank, her former lover. Never before had two people been so trapped by their past, and so eager to waste their potential.

Illaoi glanced down at the lockbox under her arm. “And this is your fault, too,” she muttered.

The lockbox screamed back at her.

Its screams were quiet, just soft enough that they were hard to hear without listening closely. But whenever Illaoi focused on them, a hateful presence started scrabbling at the edge of her mind.

The fellow within the lockbox—the screamer who hurled horrible, muffled imprecations at Illaoi day and night—was to blame for everything.

It was he who put the shadow on Sarah’s soul.

Just then, some of Sarah’s crew came marching around the corner. Cutlasses and pistols hung from every belt, and every knuckle was ornamented with brass. They were streaked with blood and sweat and gunpowder. The fighting had been hard.

And with them, of course, was Sarah Fortune herself. She looked exhausted. The right sleeve of her fancy captain’s coat was stained with blood. Her shoulders were hunched and her hat was tipped low, as if a cold rain only she could feel battered her from above.

“Hey, Illaoi,” Sarah called, her voice flat and sharp. “Let’s get this done.”

“Are you well?” Illaoi asked. “You look miserable.”

“I’ve been chasing Gangplank for a week.” Sarah pointed at the quietly wailing lockbox. “And that thing is still on this island, too. Come on, let’s finish this.”

They turned to a nearby artifact dealer’s shop. While Sarah’s crew remained on guard outside, guns drawn, Illaoi led the way inside.

The loupe in the owner’s eye flashed as they entered. “Illaoi!” he called. “It’s been too long!”

Jorden Irux was a spindly fellow with knees and elbows heading in every direction. He was also the only artifacts dealer in the city with mixed paylangi and Buhru heritage. Illaoi often went to him for help identifying the relics she couldn’t recognize.

“I have a puzzle for you, Jorden.” Illaoi thumped the lockbox down on his countertop.

“You have two for me,” he said, glancing at Sarah. “Captain Fortune herself in my little shop!”

“Don’t get weird about it,” Sarah growled. “Let’s get this over with.”

The moment Illaoi’s key clicked in the lockbox, Sarah shuddered. A sickly light blazed a slash of teal across the wall.

Inside the box sat an amulet. Three curved stones, carved in the Buhru style and looped together with a thin wire. They glowed brightly with the light of a trapped soul.

“Oh, that’s nasty.” Jorden, too, could hear the screams. “By the Goddess, that’s not...?”

Illaoi nodded. “Viego of Camavor.”

It had been only a week since this furious shade of an ancient king attempted to turn Bilgewater into a smoking crater. The whole city knew his name now, and knew to curse his memory. If he gets out of this amulet, he will do it all again.

“It’s a temporary solution,” Sarah said. She let out a short, bitter laugh. “We couldn’t figure out how to kill him for good. There’s no telling what he’ll do if he gets out of there.”

Illaoi nodded. “Our historians say that the stones are made of serpent-amber... but we do not know if shattering them will release the spirit, or kill it.”

“Goddess’s Tears? I’m not surprised,” Jorden said, using the Buhru term for serpent-amber. “It is so rare, only a fool would practice smashing it.” He leaned close and adjusted his loupe. “A Buhru artisan shaped these. Our people’s style is unmistakable. But there’s a marking here on the back... Where did this come from?”

Illaoi laughed. “The Shadow Isles, actually. Our people studied with the scholars there, before the Isles were transformed.” If Viego escapes, he will try to transform Bilgewater into a twisted graveyard, too.

“Let me look something up.” Jorden leaped off his stool and ran into the back of the shop.

A half second of prickly silence followed... and then Sarah turned to Illaoi. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said, grit in her voice. “So don’t.”

“I was not planning to say anything.” After their last fight, there was no use belaboring Sarah with a truth she refused to listen to. “I was not going to talk about your futile hunt for Gangplank, or what it’s doing to the city. I was actually planning to let us stand in awkward silence.”

Sarah scowled. “I’m having a terrible week. Don’t make it worse.”

They silenced themselves when Jorden burst back into the room. He carried a scroll covered with a strange script Illaoi didn’t recognize. And there was a drawing of... a tower?

“Look.” Jorden pointed to a matching symbol etched onto the back of the amulet. “The sign of its makers. The Brethren of the Dusk.”

“Gloomy,” Sarah said. “Never heard of them.”

“Religious order from the Blessed Isles. They died out long ago.”

“Damn.” Sarah shook her head. “Then that’s a dead end.”

Jorden caught himself. “Wait—I forgot. There is a mad hermit who claims he represents them. But... you know what people who spend too much time over there are like.”

The twisted spirits of the happy folk who had once called the Blessed Isles home were not good neighbors. A thousand years wandering under the shadow of the Black Mist had turned most of them into beasts—wraiths, specters, and mistwalkers contorted in endless hideous reflections of mortal weakness. Any living person who chose to live alongside those shades must be uncommonly strong, and very strange. Some of the mortals who made their home on the Isles worshiped death and disease. And spiders, too, for some reason.

But Illaoi had not yet met a Shadow Isles dweller she couldn’t flatten like a sea star beneath her Goddess’s idol. “Such beings do not frighten me,” Illaoi said. “Not long ago, we killed Thresh, the Isles’ greatest monster. Compared to him, parlaying with this hermit will be a simple task. He may know something about the amulet.”

They paid Jorden and stepped out onto the street. “I didn’t expect this would send you back to the Shadow Isles,” Sarah muttered. She seemed apologetic.

Illaoi nodded. Before trapping Viego in the amulet, they’d tracked and fought him on the Isles. Camping in collapsed ruins and sharing meals around a campfire were joyful when friends were there... but to go back so soon, alone, would be melancholy.

“You’ll need a ship. There’s a captain who owes me—Matteo Ruven. He knows safe routes to the Shadow Isles. But don’t let him know about the amulet.”

“Few are left in this city whom we can trust,” Illaoi agreed.

Suddenly, Sarah’s face turned red. Her brow tightened.

Ahh, I’ve said the wrong thing, Illaoi realized. She cannot trust me, because I will not fight in her heedless war against Gangplank.

“I know you are still furious with me,” Illaoi said. She struggled for a new way to say the things Sarah refused to hear. “But my friendship comes with... with challenge. With change.”

“I can hear everything the king says in that amulet,” Sarah blurted. “Did I tell you that? Every moment of the day and night. He talks about... my mother.” Her voice cracked, and her face contorted into a grimace. “I can hear that box whispering from all the way across the city.”

Goddess. That’s a burden.

Illaoi embraced her friend. The need came over her, and she did it, without worrying what Sarah would think.

At first, Sarah held back—but then she returned the embrace. Tears started at the corners of her eyes. “Guhh,” she sighed. “Okay. Fine.”

“You are meant for more than this,” Illaoi told her. “You are meant for better things.” She believed it. She’d never believed anything more. But no matter how many times she said it, Sarah never understood.

“Meant for better things?” Sarah rubbed her hand across a damp eye. “Tell that to Gangplank.”

Sarah must have had a serious claim on Captain Ruven, because he scrambled to make his ship, the Trained Rat, ready for sail the very next day.

When Illaoi arrived, the ship was swarming with sailors hurrying to make it seaworthy. Ruven hollered orders from the command deck. He was older, slender, and knobbly-elbowed, with a halo of frizzy, wind-blasted orange hair.

I could snap him in half, Illaoi thought. Those were her two categories of people—ones she could snap in half, and ones she could not. It made the world an easier place to navigate.

He waved her up to the command deck. “I know you,” he called. “You’re the Buhru queen.”

“Absolutely not,” Illaoi said. “I am a Truth Bearer. A priestess.” This will be one of the annoying ones, she thought.

“All right.” Ruven shrugged. “Ship’s a disaster today. But this is the kind of service you get when you only give me twelve hours’ notice.” He flashed her a disarming, jagged smile, and extended his hand for a shake. “There’s an empty cabin for you down below.”

“Will we leave today?” Illaoi asked.

“We better. Or Sarah Fortune will include me in one of her little dockside executions.”

The ship’s passageways were so cramped, Illaoi could barely fit her idol down the stairs into the lower deck. The enormous orb of sea-tempered metal was wider across than Illaoi’s muscled shoulders. Down here, the roof was too low to carry it comfortably on her back, and the passageways were too narrow to carry it at her side. She had to balance it on her hip and shuffle crabwise between the cannons.

“Excuse me,” she muttered, squeezing past a group of sailors with scrubbing rags and buckets. As she passed, she heard them cursing quietly. Sailors, in Illaoi’s experience, were usually full of motion, game for anything and everything—her favorite sort of paylangi. But this crew was sullen. Their brittle fear filled the ship as completely as the stink of sea salt and rotten ropes.

Bilgewater’s ill temper lives here, too.

When the ship lifted its anchor and turned to ride the wind, Illaoi made her way up to the breezy command deck to speak with Ruven again. The jagged roofline of the city was soon hidden by wave chop and clouds of soaring birds.

“Bilgewater to my rear, and all my troubles forgotten.” Ruven laughed.

“Is Bilgewater more frightening to you than the Shadow Isles?” The idea made Illaoi smile. “The mood there is foul, certainly. But the Shadow Isles are worse.”

“Hey, none of the spirits over there have it out for me personally,” Ruven said. “Our fearless queen, on the other hand... well. Between you and me, I’m lucky to still be alive.”

Illaoi raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”

Ruven coughed out a nervous laugh. “I owe her. We have an agreement. I bring you there and back, and all my debts to her are cleared.”

Sending someone to the Shadow Isles seemed like a poor way to collect a debt. Your chance of losing the debtor to a wraith or a spider bite seemed a little too high. “You must owe her a great price.”

“Yeah. I tried to blow her up.”

“What?!”

“Look, I wasn’t working for Gangplank.” Ruven rubbed his face with his hands. “I was just against the new loot fees. I made some new friends... it was their idea.”

These were not the words of a man who faced his destiny bravely or took responsibility for his choices. Ruven seemed like he was tossed about by the whims of others.

“Captain Fortune does not care for such excuses,” Illaoi said. “These days, she solves problems like you with a pistol.”

“Yeah.” His voice dropped. “The crew is... not pleased. We lost a choice contract because of it. So I went to Fortune and I told her: I’m useful! Make use of me. My pa and I were pilots for hire to the Shadow Isles, back in the day. I know routes nobody else knows.”

“To be used by others is no freedom for a soul,” Illaoi said.

“Well, it’s better than being executed! Look, you’re friends with Fortune, right?” he asked. “Being enemies with her is exhausting. I may be a sorry old fellow, but I could still learn some new tricks.”

Illaoi sized him up. It isn’t likely, she found herself thinking. “Your life is ruled by stagnation,” she said. “The freedom you seek is impossible without motion. You need spiritual counsel, not... help with small talk.”

Ruven chuckled. “I mean, I’d take that too.”

Illaoi sighed. Even the most stagnant people could hide deep currents where the soul still moved and changed. Everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves worthy.

And she knew: If this man can change, then Sarah certainly can, too.

“Perhaps we can talk,” Illaoi said. “If we have time on the journey.”

Ruven loved to talk.

He told Illaoi about his father—a pilot for hire, perpetually lurking around Bilgewater’s busiest pubs, “copping free drinks off captains and fishing for gigs.” He wasn’t around when Ruven needed him most, but he was building a legacy, Ruven insisted, charting his route to the Shadow Isles.

“You’ll see it when we get there. It’s incredible. Only safe approach to the entire archipelago. Never seen a wraith on the beach there once.”

“Impressive. How did you learn it? Did your father show you?”

Ruven laughed. “No way! He used to hand me the charts, shove me into a dingy, and make me do the trip myself. All alone in the Black Mist, with him safe on the ship!”

“That is a great effort,” Illaoi said. “Any man who can teach himself a route to the Shadow Isles alone can turn his life around.” He is like Sarah, Illaoi thought. There is greatness within him. He must only find it.

In the final days of their trip, the daylight was less reliable. Each afternoon, an early “evening” crept across the sun and drowned its light in an exhausted gray. It was the Black Mist—its frayed edges, at least. The lookouts grew more tense. The Mist’s cover could give safe passage to furious wraiths of all kinds.

Illaoi always made the most converts to her faith among sailors who had been to the Shadow Isles. When they heard her preach against stagnation, they knew what she meant. Black sand shores. Rotten, twisted, leafless trees. Monuments of slick, dark stone, moist from ocean spray, buried by heaps of ancient loam.

As those haunted Isles loomed on the horizon, Ruven joked constantly and obnoxiously, ribbing sailors about their frowns. The Buhru term for people like him was wave-dodgers: those who shift back and forth on the beach, trying to keep their toes dry with frivolous and frightened motion. Many small steps to avoid a bigger one.

When the Isles were close enough to pick out the ruined towers on the hilltops, though, Ruven turned his frantic energy into action. He vanished into his cabin, then returned brandishing a bundle of paper scrawled with notes and diagrams. When he replaced the navigator at the ship’s wheel, he looked as if he were about to vomit.

“Time for me to prove my worth,” he told Illaoi. He turned to the crew in the rigging and shouted, “Half speed!”

The ship began a strange dance toward the shore. Ruven grappled with the wheel, throwing his scrawny weight into every urgent turn. The ship’s timbers groaned, and the tips of jagged rocks passed less than an arm’s length from the hull. She glanced at Ruven’s inscrutable papers. No wonder Sarah kept him alive. Whatever knowledge he has is useless in translation.

They came to a stop in a rocky little cove. Shattered stones hid it from the open sea, and sheer cliffs concealed the mast and sails from the shoreline. A rare safe harbor... and luckily, not too far from the monastery.

Ruven leaned against the wheel, exhausted. “And that’s how I earn my keep,” he said. “Tell Captain Fortune how impressive I am, will you?”

About twenty sailors—more than half the crew—went ashore for the mission. The monastery would be a few hours’ walk inland. Illaoi brought only her idol, a full canteen, and the lockbox.

“Stay close,” she told the crew. “My Goddess scorns the Mist, so the Mist fears her idol. We will be safe from it if we move together.”

The sailors fell into place behind Illaoi and Ruven as they pushed into the forest. Illaoi’s idol parted the Mist, revealing strange architecture and foliage on either side of their path. Everything was frozen in a moment of decay. Desiccated trees more ancient in life than the citadels of the Buhru capital scraped the sailors’ faces and shoulders as they trudged by.

Soon they found themselves among the ruins of a small town. Crumbling walls forced them to twist and turn through the underbrush. They slowed to pass, single file, along a tight path through the thicket—what might have once been an alleyway.

The dried bushes and trees all looked the same. “Do you even know where you’re going?” someone behind Illaoi demanded.

He was a small, wiry fellow with a patchy beard and a spattering of golden teeth. Another very snappable man.

“Yes,” Illaoi said. “Please chart your own path, if you would like. I can hurl you into the Mist in any direction you please.”

“Kristof? Shut up,” Ruven said. “Or you’re going in the brig when we get back on the ship.”

Kristof was furious. “We shoulda put you in the brig, after what you pulled with Fortune!”

“Stop this nonsense at once,” Illaoi commanded. But now everyone had joined the argument, and their raised voices were echoing through the forest.

Illaoi knew this would draw enemies. Behind the shouts, she could pick out a quiet crunching noise, like footsteps through heavy loam.

The thicket beside the path suddenly churned. Branches scraped against one another with a sound like blades drawn across bones. Clawlike brambles unfurled into hands. There was a face in every bush and tree, withered like those of the unshriven dead.

The arguing turned to screaming—and then the thicket smashed shut. The path was gone in an instant. The sailors bolted in sheer terror. She saw one dash into the woods, but he was slammed to the ground by a knotty branch. The trees closed over him, strangling his panicked shout.

Illaoi even caught a glimpse of Ruven’s back as he ran away through the trees, his papers scattering behind him. Coward, she thought. Then the wraiths were upon her.

The sailors nearest Illaoi fought back, but their swords did nothing—it was like stabbing a thornbush. The wraiths pressed forward through a hail of glancing blows and stabbed the sailors with splintered wooden limbs.

When a wraith lunged toward her, Illaoi ferociously swung her idol. Her strike was true—its body echoed like a hollow bucket and burst into pieces. When another rushed forward, Illaoi punched it so hard it snapped in half like a rotten fencepost.

Goddess, that’s satisfying!

The avatars of the Goddess specialized in muscular force. “Nagakabouros,” she shouted, “defend us!”

She lifted her idol in the air and slammed it down into the mud. The sailors staggered, but the wraiths flew back, repelled by the idol’s blazing green glow.

Paylangi always asked her: Where do the tentacles come from? She’d tell them, It doesn’t matter. The Goddess was everywhere, in everything that changed. She could go anywhere, and be anything, because anything could change.

A wraith, for example, could change into many tiny pieces of wraith.

A protective wall of tentacles erupted from the ground and began transforming wraiths into sawdust. Illaoi helped. Bushes and trees splintered. Knotty wooden heads went rolling through the mud like bowls. She caught a glimpse of a wraith flung high in the air, spreadeagled; it looked like a bird.

When the wraiths nearest them had fallen to pieces, Illaoi hefted her idol onto her shoulder, and the tentacles faded away. The trail was eerily quiet. There was no sign of the sailors who’d run off—not even distant screams. Even the dead were missing. Borne off, perhaps, or buried beneath roots.

“Collect your breath,” she told the group. “Who remains?”

There were only seven. Kristof was among them. “Should we go looking for the captain?” he asked. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. “We can’t sail away from here without Ruven.”

Illaoi saw Ruven’s bundle of charts lying on the ground, soaked through with mud. She picked it up and fished out the map she’d given him. Behind the grime, the way to the monastery was still visible.

On the ship, he’d seemed ready to change. But he’d returned to cowardice in the end—a stagnant soul, forever tossed about by the tide of others’ whims. I’d only be saving him to use him, she thought. Like Sarah and the others did.

And searching for him with only seven injured and exhausted sailors? They would surely die. Kristof and his crewmates did not deserve such a fate. The living can still change and grow, she reminded herself. The dead cannot.

Her decision was clear. “We must press ahead,” Illaoi announced. “To the monastery. We shall have to rely upon the charity of the hermit who lives there.”

It wasn’t long before the monastery loomed up out of the Mist. It seemed well maintained—its tall tower looked just like the one carved on the amulet.

As Illaoi approached the gate, a man leaped onto the path ahead of her. He looked so much like a beast of the Isles, she almost smashed him with her idol.

“Wait! It’s me,” Ruven croaked.

For a moment, the whole group simply stared. Ruven’s body was completely coated with mud. His jacket was soaked with blood. Dead twigs were trapped in his hair. He looked like he’d been run over by a herd of giant rock crabs.

Illaoi was relieved—for a moment. Then her frustration returned in full force. “That was a shameful thing you did,” she snapped. “Leaving your crew.”

Ruven seemed shocked. “I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

“I am never glad to see a man abandon his duty!” Illaoi did not hold back. “You told me you wanted to change. I did not see a man who wants to change on the battlefield today.”

Ruven shot the crew an embarrassed glance, and Kristof went for blood. “How’d you survive the Mist?” he asked.

A strained smile cracked the mud on Ruven’s cheeks. “I, uh...”

“Illaoi said running off by yourself was death.”

Ruven’s expression darkened. “If you’d like to know, I brought my own protection, actually. I was fine.”

Illaoi was disgusted. A protection he did not choose to share. An artifact of some kind? “We shall discuss your shame at a later time,” she said. “First, we must get inside.”

She turned and knocked on the massive wooden door. The sound echoed in some open space beyond. Then, high above, someone cleared his throat and said, “Who goes there?”

Illaoi could make out broad shoulders and a hooded head leaning over the parapet. “I am Illaoi, Truth Bearer of the Buhru,” she called. “I seek the hermit who represents the Brethren of the Dusk. May we take shelter here?”

The man paused for a moment. “I will let you in,” he said, his voice deep. “But do not lay a hand on any creature inside.”

“Creature?” one of the sailors whispered.

The doors slowly began to grind open. Each door was more than twice as tall as Illaoi, and enormously heavy. When they were cracked open about an arm’s length, she saw who was pushing them from within: mistwalkers.

They were spirits shaped like hunched, tired men and women, with long dragging arms and slack mouths ringed with fangs. But unlike others Illaoi had seen, they moved in passive, obedient silence, heaving against the door like dutiful footmen.

Illaoi recoiled, shocked—but the mistwalkers did not lunge for her. Behind her, the sailors reached for their weapons.

The man from the parapet stepped into view. “Do they frighten you?” he asked. “They are my companions.”

Illaoi had never seen anyone like him before. He was robed like a priest, but built like a boulder, with huge shoulders muscled by hard work. Not a man I could snap in half. In one hand, he carried a heavy shovel of dark, rugged metal, stained with dirt, as if he’d just come from digging these beasts out of their graves.

Illaoi noticed that his arms were not sleeved. Their bluish tone... that was his bare skin.

“Are you also a mistwalker?” She had allied with mistwalkers before, though it gave her no joy. Creatures trapped in the stagnation of death often brought pain to the living, and were an unholy affront to the sanctity of life.

The man smiled. “Are you asking if I am alive?”

“On these isles, it is a fair question!”

“A very private one, too.” He made a thoughtful shrug. “I am... a caretaker. Please, come inside.”

The courtyard beyond was filled with mistwalkers carrying scraps of wood and rocks, clambering among rows of gravestones. They paid the newcomers no mind. Though their mouths hung open and their eyes were vacant, they seemed to be driven by some strange mission.

“This is madness,” Ruven whispered. “He has an army.”

“He has protection of some kind, too,” Illaoi said. “Look. The Black Mist does not attack him.”

The hermit overheard them. “It does not need to. It has the Maiden to watch me.”

He pointed at the top of the tower. Illaoi caught a glimpse of a figure up there, but it retreated behind the parapet, as if ashamed to be seen.

“The Maiden?”

“Another... companion of mine.”

“And what is your name?”

“Yorick,” said the hermit. “I am the last of the Brethren at my post.”

She stared. No. He can’t be serious. “The last?”

“I’ve been here since all this started,” he said, gesturing at the Mist-choked sky. “I’ve been here since the Ruination.”

Illaoi had never imagined a home like Yorick’s. The empty halls of the monastery were alive with the motion of mistwalkers. They walked the clean-swept floors in silence, each fixed on some cryptic duty.

She felt her skin prickle and her mouth go dry. It was not fear—it was anger. He keeps the dead in servitude. Unconscionable. Disgusting. She kept this thought to herself, however. This man could still help save Bilgewater.

“You had trouble on the road,” Yorick observed. He gestured to a spiraling stairwell. “I have little in the way of mortal comforts, but there is clean water in the cistern downstairs. And a fire to keep you warm.”

While the others went down to wash on the lower level, Illaoi waited on the doorstep, gazing at the mistwalkers in the yard below. Before her journey with Sarah and their friends to stop Viego, if she’d met a man trapped in the rut of his life for a thousand years, leading an army of restless spirits... she’d have killed him on sight. And Nagakabouros would have blessed me for it.

Yorick appeared at her side. “You have business with me,” he said.

“I do.” She kept her voice calm with difficulty. “But I am not used to seeing spirits treated this way.”

“They are not trapped here, if that is what worries you,” Yorick said. “I search these islands for the tormented dead. Some of them stay here with me for a while, before they move on.”

“And what are they doing?”

“Building graves,” he said. “These are the people of the Blessed Isles. My countrymen, seeking rest and peace.” He paused for a moment, as if saying a prayer. “We can speak privately upstairs, in my library.”

The tower was made of huge, dark blocks of stone, smoothed by time and streaked black with torch smoke. It was older than the ruins of Helia, or the vaults Illaoi and Sarah had visited before.

He has been entombed here like a man dead for a thousand years. Stagnation incarnate. His politeness almost made it worse.

The chamber at the top of the tower was lined with bookshelves and lit by a cold, blue light filtering in through the window. Beside the door hung a pair of stone pauldrons with a cape of Black Mist roiling from them. And atop one of the lofty bookshelves, a nest of dark Mist and glowing blue light slowly turned on itself.

“That is the Maiden,” Yorick said. “She has been with me for centuries.”

“I thought you said they moved on.”

“When they are ready.” He closed the door behind them. “And, if you are ready, please show me who you are hiding in that box on your belt.”

Illaoi raised an eyebrow. “You can sense it?”

“The Maiden speaks to me. She told me whose spirit that is.”

Illaoi opened the box with the key around her neck. Yorick leaned forward to see, and the light of the amulet made a sinister dance across his craggy features.

“Viego of Camavor,” he said. He extended one huge, calloused hand toward the box—then stopped himself. “Since the Ruination, I’d hoped to see something like this. But... I expected more.”

“What did you expect?”

“That the Mist would be gone. But it remains. That the spirits would cease their suffering. But it continues.” There was an unreadable expression on his face. “Perhaps I expected that I would change.”

Illaoi felt a blaze of sympathy for him. She, too, had wondered if the Shadow Isles might change with Viego’s banishment, if the Mist might finally disperse. But that is a challenge for some greater strength than ours, she reminded herself.

“When you defeated him, I saw the lights in the sky,” Yorick said. “But the spirits were not freed, and the Maiden continued whispering in my ear. So my responsibility to them continued.” He gazed at Illaoi, his expression stony. “I am a member of a holy order, same as you. Long years of toil... that is our way. Persistence, faith, and dedication.”

Illaoi bristled. “Nagakabouros does not scorn dedication. She scorns stagnation.”

Yorick stood and went to the window. “Come, look at this.”

Spread out beyond the walls of the abbey, across miles of wild and Mist-wreathed hillsides, were thousands of tombs. Tombs carved by the hands of mortal artisans stood side by side with rough, makeshift ones assembled from rubble by the stumbling dead. Here and there, the endless acres of gravestones stirred with the motion of mistwalkers.

“Is that not the largest cemetery you have ever seen?” Yorick asked wryly.

It was, Illaoi realized, half as big as Bilgewater itself.

Yorick’s voice was tight with controlled emotion. “If there is any agent of change on these isles, I am it. I open the earth and bring the spirits to their rest. And the world around me changes.” He turned to Illaoi. “Do I not, then, honor your goddess?”

A constellation of beliefs netted Illaoi to the particulars of her faith. They were simple beliefs, clear and gracious and humanizing. Though her relationship with the Goddess had changed over the years, the core of her faith remained strong. Life is motion. To live fully is to change; to change is strength.

The living can change. The dead cannot.

Illaoi now felt that foundation shifting beneath her feet. Can the dead build a world of their own? Can they follow their own desires? No. Why would he think that?

She’d brought motion to beings trapped between life and death before. The Bloodharbor Ripper, Pyke, was one of them. But his grace had been given to him by Nagakabouros, and the Goddess had no part in Yorick’s domain.

“I suppose,” she finally admitted, “the dead could have their own kind of motion. But Nagakabouros would never keep spirits here beyond their years in life.”

“She would see them reborn?”

“Yes. As soon as possible! It would be a sin to deny them life for even a moment.”

“And this is our difference,” Yorick said. “You would banish spirits before their time.”

Illaoi knew that if the conversation continued, she’d never settle the issue of the amulet. So she changed the subject. “This is one spirit I’d like to banish.” She lifted the amulet by its chain and showed him the mark on its back. “Your order made this, but in the Buhru style. We hoped you could tell us how to destroy the spirit inside.”

Yorick took the amulet in his bare hand. It did not seem to trouble him the way it had troubled Sarah.

“I think I remember the woman who made this,” he said. He turned to his bookshelves and found a sheaf of fragile, gray parchment. “She was a Buhru sailor. She saw too many perish at sea. So she joined our order, to bring peace to the dying.”

The parchment was covered in an ancient Buhru script. Illaoi could pick out the old words well enough. This artisan had worked on gems made of serpent-amber—a technique practiced only by the Buhru. But she had also tempered the gems under high heat, to form a crystalline shell capable of holding an angry spirit. The technique she used was from the Blessed Isles.

“I cannot read Buhru myself,” Yorick admitted. “Does it say anything useful?”

Illaoi’s eyes wandered down the page. She picked out an illustration of some kind of blast furnace, powered by magic focused through prisms and lenses. A gyroscopic dynamo of light and flame. The illustration was labeled, The Spirit Destroyed.

That seemed clear enough. “She used your people’s machines to temper the gems. At the same heat, we could kill the spirit inside.”

“The furnaces?” He laughed sadly. “I used the blocks to make tombstones.”

They stood for a moment in silence again, thinking. Illaoi wondered how Sarah was doing. She wondered if, across all this distance, she could still hear the amulet speaking to her.

“There is one solution close at hand,” Yorick suddenly said. “You could hurl the amulet into a volcano.”

Illaoi glanced at him. “You are joking.”

“I am not. I have not gone this far in a thousand years, but volcanoes, at least, last that long.” He returned to the bookshelves and found a map rolled into an enormous sheaf. It showed the Blessed Isles as they had been before the Ruination, marked with roads and cities. “This one.” Yorick pointed to a tiny dot in a far corner of the map. “Scardover Cay. Half a day’s sail from here.”

“It has... exposed lava?” She felt ridiculous asking.

“Time changes these things,” Yorick said. “But it did, in my day.”

A thought occurred to Illaoi. If Pyke could see the truth in the Goddess’s ways, this man could, too. “It is still your day,” she said. “Come with us. You wanted to see this king destroyed. You may hurl him to his death yourself, if you like!”

Yorick coughed out a grim bark of a laugh. “It is beyond the Black Mist. I doubt I will be able to help you much when I am outside the realm of the dead.” He gestured to the Maiden. “My powers lie with the dead. And I have not left my post in a thousand years.”

“Then there is no better time to try it!” Illaoi urged. “Leave this place, if only for a day. I think you will enjoy the experience.”

Yorick considered for a moment. “What a curious idea,” he murmured. “Doing something because I would enjoy it.” He drew himself up straight, and crossed his huge arms on his barrel chest. “And you’re right. There is nothing I’d enjoy more than killing Viego.”

They all gathered in the courtyard to leave the monastery.

Ruven stood apart from the rest of the group. As Yorick directed his spirits to open the gate and let them out, Illaoi bundled the navigational charts she’d found in the woods, and went to talk to the captain.

“Have you settled things with your crew?” she asked. “Can you all return to the ship in peace?”

He would not look directly at her. “Sure. Yeah. We can walk back.”

“Did they threaten you? I have a mission. I will tolerate no interruption from you or the crew.” Still, Ruven refused to look at her. Frustration tightened her throat. “You must tell me if they plan a mutiny,” she muttered.

He shrugged. “I don’t know anymore. I don’t give a toss what they do with me. This is my last voyage, probably.”

Illaoi looked down at the navigational notes. He’s the only one who can use them, she thought. There will be time to bring him back to his senses once we’re on open ocean.

She handed him the paper bundle. “I expect focus from you,” she told him. “Dedication. A man can change his life, but he has to try.”

“Fine.” Ruven stuffed the papers into his mud-stained jacket.

They returned to the ship in frigid silence. Half the crew was dead, and Ruven was no longer on speaking terms with the ones remaining. As Ruven navigated out of the cove, Yorick stood at the railing and watched the Maiden standing alone on the sand.

“You are leaving her for the first time in a thousand years,” Illaoi said. “Do you feel any different?”

He lifted something from his collar: a small vial, filled with a clear, bright liquid. “The Mist’s whispers are quieter,” he said. “And the sound this makes—it is louder.”

Illaoi took a moment to realize what she was looking at. “Blessed water?”

“Indeed.” He hid the vial under his collar again. “At the monastery, this merely kept me alive. Out here, I pray it will bring me strength.”

The journey was a straight shot, half a day’s voyage to an island on the edge of the Shadow Isles’ archipelago. The crew kept the sails trimmed for speed, and Ruven stewed on the command deck. He hunched his shoulders, thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and kept his eyes fixed grimly on the horizon—and now and then, on the crew, too.

Illaoi approached him. “I know we said we would discuss Nagakabouros, and your place in Bilgewater,” she told him. “If you still wish for guidance, I am here.”

He glanced at her. There was something in his eyes—fear? “Maybe later,” he muttered.

“What did you discuss with your crew at the monastery?” They must have had choice words for him. Whatever they’d said, he needed to listen closely.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Look, I’m busy.”

Illaoi shrugged, and descended from the command deck to walk the length of the ship with Yorick.

She was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. When she didn’t have to look at his army of mistwalkers, it was easier to discuss his beliefs on their own merits. They spent all night deep in conversation. His beliefs were as sincerely held as hers, but his priorities were so strange. Healing the dead was more important to him than returning them to the light of life.

“I will never understand it,” she told him. “But I believe that you mean it.”

“I do not expect you to understand. But I am glad you listened.”

Most of the sailors went to sleep in the lower deck sometime before dawn. When the sun rose, the Trained Rat left the last of the Black Mist behind, and their destination came into view.

“There it is,” Ruven said. “The island. That shadow on the horizon.”

A handful of crew members gathered at the railing. There was a dark, conical blemish on the pale gray skyline ahead.

“Scardover Cay,” Yorick mused. “I’ve heard that people lived there, long before my time. I am not sure I believe it.”

Illaoi could pick out the stench of sulfur when they were still miles from shore. As they grew closer, the hazy shadow on the horizon resolved into a mountain of dark ash, running bare and treeless from the waterline to the lip of the crater. Here and there, it was studded with the stark forms of jagged rocks, each larger than a house.

As the crew lowered the anchor, Illaoi returned to her bunk to retrieve her idol. The belly of the ship was shadowed and quiet, with no sound louder than the creak of timbers and the slosh of waves against the hull. Here and there, crew members were still sleeping in hammocks strung from the ceiling beams.

Her idol was on her bunk. Carrying it awkwardly at her side, she made her way back down the center of the lower deck, between the cannons.

It’s so quiet, she thought.

Then she realized she couldn’t hear anyone snoring.

She put her hand on the nearest hammock and tipped it toward her. Kristof lay inside... and he was not breathing. His dry lips were parted, and his eyes stared blankly upward. Illaoi could feel the presence of his spirit, but he lay like one dead.

A magical stasis? This was not done by natural means.

She stepped swiftly to the next hammock. The sailor there was trapped in corpse-like stasis, too.

Every ship that leaves the Shadow Isles can carry as many stowaways as it has shadows.

“Reveal yourself,” she said. “Who did this?”

THUMP. Farther up the length of the ship, the hatch fell closed over the stairway, and the whole of the lower deck was drowned in darkness.

Illaoi crouched and tightened her grip on her idol. There was barely any room to fight in the lower deck. It was the only place on the ship where she was vulnerable. “You waited until Yorick and I were separated, didn’t you?”

A wink of blue light flared in the dark. “Yes,” a voice said. “And until the Mist was gone. Your new friend wields it like a weapon.” Ruven stepped out of the shadows between Illaoi and the stairwell. “I wanted to speak in private.”

A faint glow wreathed him. And behind him stood someone else.

It was a hunched, robe-swaddled spirit, dressed like a Blessed Isles scholar. His gowns were crisscrossed with arcane geometry and stained with black slime, as if he’d come wading out of some putrid swamp. Tendrils of Black Mist coiled around him. And above his tight, tarnished-gold collar sat a warped face of sagging, melted skin, split by an enormous, toadlike mouth. When his lips pulled back in a smile, Illaoi could see multiple rows of little pointed teeth.

“I know you’ve made a habit of stooping low, captain. But I did not expect this. You’ve made a pact with a monster.”

“I’ve made a pact with a man who helped me! That’s all I ever wanted—a little help.” Ruven’s lips twisted into a pained grin. “I’ve worked hard enough in my life, haven’t I? I don’t need spiritual work, Illaoi. I just need some help!”

The spirit raised his hand. He held an orb that glowed with the same blue light that flickered around Ruven. Black Mist flowed from it, as it flowed from the spirit himself. Then the orb flared, and Ruven’s head made a strange jerk.

Illaoi realized she’d badly misread this man. He didn’t want to do the work of changing. He wanted to be some leader’s lackey. He just wanted a more forgiving master than Sarah.

It was too cramped for her to attack, so she tried to keep the conversation going. “And where did you meet this spirit?” she asked, making her way forward between the cannons.

“Bartek saved me from the wraiths.”

Illaoi could not hold back her bitter laugh. “He’s using you. Be your own man, Ruven.”

Ruven hesitated, but the orb flared again. He jerked like a puppet brought back to stand at attention.

“Stop her,” Bartek said. His voice was rough and wet, like a gas pocket escaping from a bog. “Get the amulet.”

Illaoi did not wait to see what he would do. She took one silent, confident step forward into an open space and swung her idol as hard as possible into Ruven’s snappable little body.

He flew across the deck and hit the opposite hull of the ship hard, cracking the boards in half. Bartek recoiled in surprise and gave a frustrated shriek. “Foolish priestess!”

“Choose your champions better,” she said. “Or why not fight yourself?”

She approached him, and the creature’s craven retreat answered her question clearly enough. “My master has given me a weapon stronger than your Goddess,” he snapped. “And a champion to fight for me.”

Once again, the orb in his hand flared... and the captain stirred. Slowly, he lifted his broken body back to its feet.

“You cannot kill him,” Bartek told Illaoi. His lips parted in a wide, toothy smile, like the River King’s catfish mouth. “I can bring him back. The lantern-lighter’s gift has given me dominion over his soul.”

The lantern-lighter—Thresh! Illaoi stepped back. An artifact that ensnared souls, a gift from Thresh’s hand? By the Goddess. That’s no good.

Ruven moved like a pile of sticks held together with string. Illaoi could see his muscles bunching strangely on his arms and neck—driven by magic, not by his own will. With a twist of his cracked legs, he launched himself toward her with uncommon speed. She dove out of the way and dropped her idol, awkwardly, as she squeezed between cannons. It rolled across the boards of the deck between them.

They paused. Ruven sized her up with a cross-eyed stare. Illaoi took a sharp breath, and lunged for the idol. Ruven dashed forward and kicked her in the ribs. It was like being hit by a mortar shell—and now it was Illaoi’s turn to shatter the boards behind her. The idol flew out of her hand and straight through the hull, leaving a ragged gap as tall as Illaoi herself.

As her fingers slipped from the idol’s grip, she felt her vital connection to Nagakabouros fade. Damn! Fists it is, then. She struggled to peel herself off the deck and square up against Ruven.

“Lost your magic?” Ruven sneered.

“But not my faith. I have wanted to snap you in half for the last day,” Illaoi told him. “I think Nagakabouros will grant me my wish.”

But as she raised her hand to strike him in the jaw, Bartek also raised his. The orb in his palm flared. In the hammocks around the deck, glass-eyed sailors sat up, rigid as a board. Each leaped from their hammock like a Piltovan automaton.

“You profane the dead,” Illaoi snarled.

“They aren’t dead until I tell them to lie down and die!”

Bartek swung the orb, and the sailors swung for her. There were eight or nine of them, and they each hit with the force of a charging brineseal. Illaoi kept her guard up over her face, twisting to shrug off the blows.

Without her idol, she could not summon Nagakabouros’s tentacles to throw them back—but she could punch. The Goddess tests even me, she thought. But this is a test I am glad to bear!

She hit a sailor on the shoulder so hard, his arm dislocated with a sound like a plank cracking in half. She kneed another so forcefully that his flying body shattered the stairs leading to the upper deck. She moved through forms of combat she’d learned while training for the priesthood. Fists snap forward, like the strike of a ramming ship. Legs planted, like the roots of an island in the bed of the sea. Whispering a regretful prayer to Nagakabouros, she dodged Kristof’s punch, rolled him over her shoulder, and threw him down on the deck. His forehead left a splatter of red on the boards.

She began backing up toward the hole in the wall. Outside the ship, I’ll have room to fight. “Captain, you’re an embarrassment,” she taunted. “You are everyone’s fool.”

Exactly as she expected, Ruven’s expression curdled with rage.

“You feel weak because you are weak,” she continued. “Nobody’s help can change that.”

He dove at her. Illaoi let the force of his leap carry them both straight out the side of the ship.

They burst into the sunlight locked arm-in-arm. She caught a glimpse of the chaos on the upper deck: Yorick swarmed by attacking sailors, each wreathed by blue light. She saw him swat a woman clear off the ship with the flat of his shovel.

Then she and Ruven sank into the sea. This was her territory—Ruven was strong beyond human strength, but the man could not swim. Illaoi had been training to swim through riptides since childhood. She pinned him to the sand on the bottom of the bay, grabbed him by the neck, and held him down. Then she punched him until she cut her knuckles on his teeth.

Illaoi could hold her breath underwater for nearly five minutes, if she was conserving her energy. Punching Ruven into submission took so much out of her, she only lasted for a minute and a half before she had to kick up to the surface and take a gulp of air.

Ruven was thrashing weakly on the bay floor, kicking up a cloud of sand. Illaoi swam back down, grabbed him by the jacket, and dragged him across the water and onto the shore. “Give in,” she shouted, and struck him again. He coughed up a mouthful of seawater. “Give in! You’re a dead man.”

Ruven’s eyes darted to the ship. She followed his glance and saw Yorick and Bartek grappling at the prow of the boat. Yorick was holding Bartek’s throat, but the spirit’s hand, gripping the orb, was raised to the sky...

The orb flared a blinding white, and pain drove Illaoi to her knees. It was as if someone had driven a lance of fire through the top of her head. By the Goddess, what was that? She hurt too much to move.

Ruven crawled to her on broken limbs, a dagger in his hand. “His master is too powerful, Illaoi,” he said. “We all have people we answer to. He answers to a phantom who’s near like a god. Just... just give him the amulet.”

Illaoi had destroyed that “god” several weeks ago. “No,” was all she could croak.

But the searing light of the orb shone from the boat again, and this time, the pain was worse. Illaoi gritted her teeth. It felt like someone was trying to peel her mind from her body.

“Give in,” Ruven begged her. “He’ll suck your soul out your ear and make you a puppet. Like he did me.”

“I’d like... to see... him try.”

She struggled to raise her arm—and simply gave Ruven a backhanded slap. He was so badly injured that it sent him sprawling.

A moment later, a shadow loomed over Illaoi, and Bartek hurled Yorick to the ground beside her. Yorick seemed dazed, but alive.

With tendrils of Black Mist flickering about him, Bartek leaned down and unhooked the lockbox from Illaoi’s belt. “My prize,” he gurgled.

“Heal me, master,” Ruven begged. “Please... I’m dying.”

Bartek simply gave a flat, scornful cough of a laugh. “No.”

Illaoi knew they had only moments before Bartek left. She turned to Yorick. “Gravekeeper,” she whispered.

Yorick blinked, shook himself and collected his focus. He placed his palm on the sand to push himself up—then drew it back, as if burned. “There’s something down there,” he replied. “The dead. Corpses.”

Ruven had seized the hem of his new master’s robes. “I want to live,” he begged.

He won’t survive this, Illaoi realized. But his crew still could. She glanced at Bartek, then back at Yorick. “Let them out.”

Yorick closed his eyes. “Rise,” he told the bones. “I have work for you!”

Illaoi felt the rumbling before she heard it.

The sand danced. The ash on the slope of the volcano began to slide down toward them in sheets. Bartek looked about, suddenly nervous. Deep below them, in the bedrock beneath the ocean, something cracked.

Then a tide of spirits rose.

From a crevasse growing beneath Yorick’s palm poured a torrent of furious souls. Illaoi could see spirits leaping from the sand all around her, howling with a rage so profound and concentrated that she lost her breath. They stank of sulfur. The air was so thick with their charred, transparent forms, the terrain around her distorted.

Yorick lifted his hand and flung it at Bartek. With a sound like a cracking whip, a lash of Black Mist flew from the cape on his back and struck the Helian scholar. The Mist around him surged and coiled.

“This man is a servant of the Mist,” Yorick shouted. “The Mist that woke you, and trapped you here!”

The spirits surged toward Bartek, drawn like hounds to a scent.

“Kill him,” Yorick commanded.

The geyser of souls struck Bartek, flipped him onto his back, and thumped the sand around him into a crater. The furious dead tore at Bartek’s robes and beat him with their fists. He writhed, screaming; every strike of their sulfurous hands burned him.

Something flashed in his own hand. The lockbox! Illaoi forced her aching body to stand. The sand bubbled and churned as hundreds of spirits erupted from it, and the rushing current of passing souls whipped her hair and buffeted her like a strong wind. She could barely keep her footing.

She pushed forward, stumbling, and grabbed Bartek by the robes. Spirits writhed around her, screaming in their desperate attempt to strike him. Holding on to him was like holding on to a flag in a hurricane. She tugged him closer. “Give me the amulet!”

“It belongs to my master,” Bartek roared.

She struck him in the jaw. She felt something crack. “Your master is dead,” she shouted. “My friends and I killed him!”

But then his jaw writhed back into position on his face. “No,” Bartek snarled, tar spilling over his warped and sagging lips. “He still lives!”

He brandished his orb, but Illaoi grabbed it. Its smooth surface burned her hands, but she ripped it from his grasp just as it released its final flash. The souls around him recoiled, screaming, and Illaoi fell backward.

She caught a glimpse of Bartek launching himself out over the sea. The lockbox was clutched in his slimy fist. He floated there, victorious...

But then the spirits caught up. They overwhelmed Bartek, and the force of their charge pushed him toward the horizon. He shot like a cannonball over the surface of the water—two hissing sheets of spray flew up on either side of his path.

“No,” she heard Yorick shout to the dead. “Wait!”

The spirits ignored him. The ocean boiled with furious souls, and they carried her enemy and her duty away from her. Far out at sea, something detonated, and a tower of spray shot up the height of a ship’s mast. A moment later, there came another, even farther out. The spirits were moving faster than any ship or serpent-steed.

Illaoi dropped Bartek’s orb and fell to her knees. She pressed her forehead to the sand. I’ve failed. He has Viego.

Yorick collapsed beside her. “This is their will, not mine,” he croaked.

“I’ve failed in my duty,” she said. “I’ve failed Sarah.”

“Who?”

Illaoi struggled to sit up. “My dearest friend. I told her—I promised her I would destroy it.” When she needed me most, I failed her. Goddess, forgive me!

Yorick watched as more spirits rushed out to sea. “I’ve uncorked something I cannot control,” he said. “They were locked down there for centuries, beneath the stone. A city of souls. So much pain and fury. They want revenge... and he is a creature of the Black Mist that roused them.”

As the last of the spirits rose from the earth and poured into the ocean, Illaoi could feel their rage dissipating. “What will happen to them?” she asked.

“If they make their way back to the Isles, I will find them,” Yorick said. “But I doubt I will find that toad who took Viego.”

They struggled to their feet and surveyed the battlefield. Bartek’s rule over the ship’s crew had ended. She could see several of the sailors lying still on the beach, and more draped over the railing of the ship. Ruven himself lay nearby, half-buried by a drift of sand. Illaoi felt for a pulse, but could not find one. “He has died,” she told Yorick.

“But his spirit is still here.”

Yorick knelt beside Ruven and placed a hand on his shoulder. Illaoi saw a shade of him rise from the body, shimmering a near-invisible pale blue in the bright morning light.

His voice was faint and echoing, like a person whispering to them from the far end of a pipe. “I’ve died!” he exclaimed, dismayed. “Gods. I’ve died!”

Yorick took the spirit’s hand. “You’re safe,” he said. “You’ve left your body behind.”

Ruven regarded his broken body with uncomprehending shock.

“You can leave it all behind,” Yorick said. “I’ve awoken you so that you can find peace.”

Ruven froze. “Find peace?”

“Is there anything you need to say?” Yorick asked. “Anything you need to do?”

“I’m not going to find peace. Not without the crew,” Ruven said. “I’m their captain. I owe them.” He glanced around. “Where’s that fiend’s artifact?”

Illaoi was dumbfounded. In his moment of death, at last, Ruven thought of his crew. Goddess, Yorick was right. The dead can change.

“I have the artifact,” Illaoi said. “Can you use it?”

“It held my soul,” Ruven said. “I felt how it works. It can’t save me... but it can save them if they haven’t died yet.”

“Help me heal them,” Yorick begged. “Please, show me how.”

Ruven turned to Illaoi. His face was split with a silly grin, the only genuine smile she’d seen on him since they’d met. “Priestess, watch this,” he said. “I’ll show you what I can do.”

Then he gripped Yorick’s hand... and faded away.

Yorick ran down the beach. The sailors on the shore were at the brink of death. He seemed to know whose spirit still stayed with them, and who had already passed. With Ruven’s knowledge guiding him, Yorick moved among the corpses. When the globe shone in his hand, their breath returned.

As Kristof came alive again in a fit of coughing, Illaoi thought, Yorick heals the living and the dead. What does the Goddess think of him?

But she knew the Goddess would not tell her what to think of Yorick. The Goddess needed her to decide for herself.

That evening, after she’d hauled her idol up from the bottom of the bay, Illaoi and Yorick went to bury Ruven and the other dead high up near the lip of the volcano.

“There’s a fantastic view up here,” Yorick remarked, covering the final grave. He wielded his spade like an accomplished craftsman.

Illaoi approached the edge of the volcano and looked down into the black-capped, red-cracked lake of lava below. She wasn’t sure what to feel. “Perhaps their spirits can watch the rest of the world covered in ruination from up here,” she said.

Yorick stood beside her. “I do not think that will happen,” he said. “Even if Viego tries to kill the whole world... well. The dead have their own kind of will.” He glanced at Illaoi. “I’ve met several in my time who would see him destroyed. They can help us.”

Illaoi thought for a moment. The dead, rising up against Viego? She’d seen something like that on the Shadow Isles before. But it was so rare. With Yorick, was another future possible? Spirits and Buhru, aligned with the same goals? It felt impossible. But...

“I will help them,” Yorick promised.

Illaoi felt a strange hope growing inside her. “You have a good heart,” she said. “Your ability is like a promise of Nagakabouros fulfilled, I think. The power to move the dead from stagnation... I have never seen anything like it before.”

Yorick shrugged. “I do what I must.”

“No,” Illaoi insisted. “You do more than anyone expects. You freed Ruven’s spirit. You moved him after his death. And you brought motion to the trapped dead!”

As she spoke the words, she felt the shock of it growing within her. If this is possible, she found herself thinking, then anything is. Motion for my friends. Freedom for Sarah. A better world for all of us.

“Nagakabouros brought us together for a reason,” she continued. “I think we can learn from one another, as the ancients did.” The possibilities blossomed in her mind. The ancient Buhru and the scholars of the Blessed Isles had created such incredible things together. What they lacked was a common purpose, a mission uniting them toward a single goal. “What your Brethren wished for the world, what my faith dreams of—they are the same. Change and growth. Liberation!”

“I do not know if the rest of your religion would agree.” Yorick laughed.

“I will make them,” Illaoi promised.

“I think it is possible. In my youth, our people were close. But for now, I must return to my home. There are spirits there to whom I owe a duty.”

The Maiden, Illaoi thought. “It is your way. Persistence and dedication, as you said. But one day, when you are ready to leave, the Buhru will welcome an honorable monk like you. We will need an ally in the fight against Viego.”

Yorick gazed down at the lava below. “No one has ever called me an honorable monk before,” he mused.

The Rat Town slaughter docks; they smell as bad as their name suggests.

And yet here I am, hidden in the shadows, breathing the blood-and-bile stink of butchered sea serpents.

I melt deeper into the darkness, pulling the brim of my hat down low over my face as heavily armed members of the Jagged Hooks stalk by.

They’ve got a reputation for savagery, these boys. In a fair fight, they might take me down, but I’m not big on playing fair, and I’m not here to fight. Not this time.

So what brings me here, to one of the foulest districts in Bilgewater?

Money. What else?

It was a gamble, taking on this job, but the payout is big enough that I couldn’t pass it up. And besides, I cased this place to stack the deck in my favor.

I don’t intend to linger. I want to be in and out as quickly and as quietly as possible. Once the job’s done, I aim to collect my payment and be gone before dawn. All goes well, I’ll be halfway to Valoran before anyone knows the damn thing’s missing.

The thugs turn the corner of the massive slaughter shed. Means I’ve got two minutes until they swing back around - plenty of time.

The silver moon slides behind a bank of clouds, covering the wharf in shadow. Crates from the day’s work are scattered across the dock. It makes for easy cover.

I see lookouts on top of the main warehouse, silhouettes standing watch, crossbows in hand. They’re gossiping loudly like fishwives. I could be wearing bells and these idiots still wouldn’t hear me.

They think no one would be fool enough to come here.

A bloated corpse hangs overhead, a warning for all to see. It spins slowly in the midnight breeze coming off the harbor. It’s an ugly sight. A huge hook, the type used to catch devilfish, holds the body aloft.

Stepping over rusted chains lying limp upon wet stone, I pass between a pair of towering cranes. They’re used to haul giant sea creatures into the slaughter sheds for butchering. It’s those looming factories that are the source of the gods-awful stench that permeates everything here. I’m gonna need to buy myself a new set of clothes once this is over.

Across the bay, past the chum-churned waters of the slaughter docks, scores of ships lie at anchor, their lanterns swaying gently. One of the vessels draws my eye; a massive, black-sailed war galleon. I know whose ship that is. Everyone in Bilgewater knows.

I take a moment to gloat. I’m about to steal from the most powerful man in town. There’s always a certain thrill that comes from spitting in death’s eye.

As expected, the main warehouse is locked up tighter than a noblewoman’s virtue. Guards posted at every entrance. Doors locked and barred. For anyone other than me, it would be impossible to break into.

I duck into a blind alley opposite the warehouse. It’s a dead end, and it’s not as dark as I’d have liked. If I’m still here when the patrol comes back, they will see me. And if they get ahold of me, the best I can hope for is a quick death. More likely, I’ll be taken to him... and that would be a far more painful, drawn out way to go.

The trick, as always, is not to get caught.

Then I hear them. The bruisers are returning early. I have seconds, at best. I snap a card from my sleeve and weave it through my fingers; it’s as natural as breathing. This is the easy part, the rest can’t be rushed.

I let my mind drift as the card starts to glow. Pressure builds around me, and I’m nearly overcome with the promise of everywhere. Half-closing my eyes, I focus, and picture where I need to be.

Then, there’s the familiar lurch in the guts as I shift. A displacement of air, and I’m inside the warehouse. Gone with barely a trace.

Damn, I’m good.

One of the Jagged Hooks outside might glance up the alley and notice a single playing card falling to the ground, but probably not.

It takes a moment for me to get my bearings. Dim light from the lanterns outside creeps in through the cracks in the walls. My eyes adjust.

The warehouse is crowded, stacked high with treasures from all over the Twelve Seas: gleaming suits of armor, exotic works of art, shining silks. All things of considerable value, but not what I’m here for.

My attention is drawn to the loading doors at the front of the warehouse, where I know I’ll find the most recent arrivals. I run my fingertips across the various cartons and crates... until I come to a small, wooden box. I can feel the power emanating from within. This is what I’m here for.

I unlatch the lid.

My prize is revealed; a knife of exquisite design, lying upon a bed of black velvet. I reach for it—

Chh-chunk.

I freeze. There’s no mistaking that sound.

Before he even speaks, I know who’s standing behind me in the darkness.

“T.F.,” says Graves. “It’s been a long time.”

I’ve been here for hours. Some folks might get bored standing still this long, but I’ve got my anger to keep me company. I ain’t leaving this spot until I settle the score.

Long after midnight, the snake finally shows. He suddenly appears in the warehouse, using that same old magic trick. I prime my shotgun, ready to turn him inside out. After years spent looking for that treacherous son of a bitch here he is, dead to rights at the end of Destiny’s barrels.

“T.F.,” I say. “It’s been a long time.”

I had better words ready for this moment. Funny how they all went out the window as soon as I saw him.

But T.F.? His face shows nothing. No fear, no regret, no hint of surprise. Not even while facing down a loaded gun. Gods damn him.

“Malcolm, how long have you been standing there?” he asks, the smile in his voice enrages me.

I take aim. I can pull the trigger and leave him deader than sea scum.

I should.

Not yet, though. I need to hear him say it. “Why’d you do it?” I ask, knowing full well he’ll just come back with something clever.

“Is the gun really necessary? I thought we were friends.”

Friends. The bastard’s mocking me. Now I want to tear his smug head off – but I’ve got to keep my cool.

“You’re looking as dapper as ever,” he says.

I look down at the devilfish bites on my clothes. I had to swim to get past the guards. Ever since he got a little money, T.F.’s been a stickler for appearance. I can’t wait to mess him up. But first, I want answers.

“Tell me why you left me to take the fall, or they’ll be pickin’ bits of your pretty face out of the rafters.” This is how you’ve got to be with T.F. Give him room, and he’ll pull your strings ‘til you don’t know which end’s your ass.

His slipperiness came in handy when we were partners.

“Ten damn years in the Locker! Know what that does to a man?”

He doesn’t. For once, he’s got nothing cute to say. He knows he did me wrong.

“They did things to me that would’ve driven most men mad. All that kept me from breaking was my anger. And thinking about this moment, right here.”

Then comes the clever reply: “Sounds like I kept you alive. Maybe you should thank me.”

That one gets me. I’m so mad, I can barely see. He’s trying to goad me. Then, when I’m blind with rage, he’ll do his little disappearing act. I take a breath and leave the bait alone. He’s surprised I ain’t biting. This time, I’m getting answers.

“How much did they pay you to sell me out?” I growl.

T.F. stands there, smiling, just trying to buy some time.

“Malcolm, I’ll be happy to have this conversation with you, but this really isn’t a good time or place.”

Almost too late, I notice the card dancing through his fingers. I snap out of it and squeeze the trigger.

BLAM.

His card’s gone. Almost took his damn hand off, too.

“Idiot!” he barks. I finally made him lose his cool. “You just woke up the whole damned island! Y’know whose place this is?”

I don’t care.

I ready a second shot. I barely see his hands move, then cards explode all around me. I fire back, not sure if I want him dead or just almost dead.

Before I can find him again in the smoke, fury, and splintering wood, a door gets kicked open.

A dozen thugs come roaring in, just to add to the damn mess.

“So, do you really want to do this?” T.F. asks, ready to throw another fistful of cards at me.

I nod, and hold my gun steady on him.

It’s time to settle up.

Things get ugly. Fast.

The whole damned warehouse is crawling with Jagged Hooks, but Malcolm couldn’t care less. I’m all he’s interested in.

I sense Graves’s next shot coming and turn away. The boom of his gun is deafening. A box explodes where I’d been a fraction of a second earlier.

I do believe my old partner is trying to kill me.

Somersaulting over a stack of mammoth ivory, I whip a trio of cards in his direction. Before they hit home, I’m already ducking into cover, looking for an out. I only need a few seconds.

He curses loudly, but the cards won’t do more than slow him down. He’s always been a tough bastard. Stubborn, too. Never knows when to let things go.

“You ain’t gettin’ away, T.F,” he growls. “Not this time.”

Yep, that trait’s still riding him hard.

He’s wrong, though — as usual. I’ll be taking my leave as soon as possible. There’s no use talking to him when he’s out for blood.

Another blast, and shrapnel ricochets off a priceless suit of Demacian armor, embedding into the walls and floor. I dart left and right, weaving and feinting, sprinting from cover to cover. He sticks with me, roaring his threats and accusations, his shotgun barking in his hands. Graves moves fast for a big man. I’d almost forgotten that.

He’s not my only problem. The damned fool’s stirred up a hornet’s nest with all his shooting and hollering. The Jagged Hooks are all over us, but they’re smart enough to leave some men barring the main doors.

I have to get gone — but I’m not leaving without what I came for.

I’ve led Graves on a merry dance around the warehouse, and I arrive back where we started a moment before he does. There are Hooks between me and my prize, and more coming, but there’s no time to wait. The card in my hand glows red, and I hurl it dead center of the warehouse doors. The detonation blows them off their hinges and scatters the Hooks. I move in.

One of them recovers faster than I expect, and he swings at me with a hatchet. I sway around the blow and kick out his knee, hurling another spread of cards at his friends to keep them honest.

My path clear, I swipe the ornate dagger I’ve been hired to steal, hooking it onto my belt. After all this trouble, might as well get paid.

The gaping loading doors beckon, but there are too many damned Hooks piling in. There’s no way out there, so I make for the only quiet corner left in this madhouse.

A card is dancing in my hand as I prepare to shift, but as I start to drift away, Graves appears, stalking me like a rabid bear. Destiny bucks in his grip, and a Jagged Hook is shot to tatters.

Graves’s glare is drawn to the card glowing in my hand. He knows what it means, and swings the smoking barrels of his gun at me. I’m forced to move, interrupting my concentration.

“Can’t run forever,” he bellows after me.

For once, he’s not stupid. He’s not giving me the time I need.

He’s keeping me off my game, and the thought of being taken down by these Hooks is starting to weigh on me. Their boss is not known for his mercy.

Among the dozen other thoughts rattling around my head is the nagging feeling that I’ve been set up. I’m thrown an easy job out of nowhere, a big score just when I need it most - and surprise, there’s my old partner standing there waiting for me. Someone a lot smarter than Graves is playing me for a fool.

I’m better than this. I’d kick myself for being sloppy, but there’s a dock full of goons waiting to save me the trouble.

Right now, all that matters is getting the hell away from here. Two blasts from that damned gun of Malcolm’s send me scurrying. My back slams against a dusty wooden crate. A crossbow bolt lodges in the rotted wood behind me, just inches from my head.

“No way out, sunshine,” Graves yells.

I look around and see fire from the explosion starting to spread to the roof. He may have a point.

“We’ve been sold out, Graves,” I shout.

“You’d know all about that,” he replies.

I try reasoning with him.

“We work together, we can get out of this.”

I must be desperate.

“I’d see us both dead before I trust you again,” he snarls.

I didn’t expect anything else. Talking sense to him just makes him angrier, which is exactly what I need. The distraction buys me just enough time to shift outside the warehouse.

I can hear Graves roaring inside. No doubt he just rounded on my spot only to find me gone, a single card on the ground, taunting him.

I launch a barrage of cards through the loading doors behind me. It’s long past time for subtlety.

I feel bad for a moment about leaving Graves in a burning building - but I know it won’t kill him. He’s too stubborn for that. Besides, a fire on the docks is a serious deal in a port town. It might buy me some time.

As I search for the quickest way off the slaughter docks, the sound of an explosion makes me look over my shoulder.

Graves appears, stepping through the hole he’s just blown out the side of the warehouse. He’s got murder in his eyes.

I tip my hat to him and run. He comes after me, shotgun booming.

I have to admire the man’s determination.

Hopefully it won’t kill me tonight.

The young urchin’s eyes were wide and panicked as he was led toward the captain’s quarters.

It was the agonized screams emanating from the door at the end of the passageway that gave him second thoughts. The cries echoing through the claustrophobic decks of the enormous, black warship were heard by every crewman aboard the Dead Pool — as intended.

The first mate, his face a web of scars, rested a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. They came to a halt before the door. The child winced as another tortured wail issued from within.

“Steady,” said the first mate. “The captain’ll want to hear what you’ve got to say.”

With that, he rapped sharply on the door. It was opened a moment later by a hulking brute with facial tattoos and a broad, curved blade strapped across his back. The boy didn’t hear the words spoken between the two men; his gaze was locked on the heavyset figure seated with his back to him.

He was a big man, the captain, and of middling years. His neck and shoulders were thick and bullish. His sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms slick with blood. A red greatcoat hung from a peg nearby, alongside his black tricorne.

“Gangplank,” breathed the urchin, his voice thick with fear and awe.

“Captain, I figured you’d want to hear this,” said the mate.

Gangplank said nothing, nor did he turn, still intent as he was on his work. The scarred sailor nudged the boy forward. He stumbled before he caught his footing and shuffled closer. The child approached the captain of the Dead Pool as he would a cliff’s edge. His breath quickened as he caught full sight of the captain’s work.

Basins of bloody water sat upon Gangplank’s desk, along with an array of knives, hooks, and gleaming surgical implements.

A man lay upon the captain’s workbench, bound tightly with leather straps. Only his head was free. He looked around in wild desperation, neck straining, his face covered with sweat.

The boy’s gaze was inexorably drawn to the man’s flayed left leg. The urchin suddenly realized he couldn’t remember what he came here to do.

Gangplank turned from his work to stare at the visitor. His eyes were as cold and dead as a shark’s. He held a slender blade in one hand, delicately poised between his fingers, like a fine paintbrush.

“It’s a dying art, scrimshaw,” said Gangplank, his attention returning to his work. “Few have the patience for carving bone these days. It takes time. See? Every cut has a purpose.”

Somehow, the man was still alive, despite the ragged wound in his leg, the skin and flesh peeled back from his thighbone. Transfixed with horror, the lad saw the intricate designs the captain had carved upon that bone; coiling tentacles and waves. It was delicate work, beautiful even. That just made it even more terrible.

Gangplank’s living canvas sobbed.

“Please...” he moaned.

Gangplank ignored the pathetic plea and set down his knife. He splashed a cup of cheap whiskey over his work, clearing it of blood. The man’s scream threatened to rip his own throat out, until he slumped into merciful unconsciousness, his eyes rolling back in his head. Gangplank grunted in disgust.

“Remember this, boy,” Gangplank said. “Sometimes, even those who are loyal forget their place. Sometimes, it’s necessary to remind them. Real power is all about how people see you. Look weak, even for a moment, and you’re done.”

The child nodded, his face now drained of color.

“Wake him,” said Gangplank, gesturing toward the unconscious crewman. “The whole crew needs to hear his song.”

As the ship’s surgeon stepped forward, Gangplank swung his gaze back to the child.

“Now,” he said. “What did you want to tell me?”

“A... a man,” said the boy, his words faltering. “A man on the Rat Town docks.”

“Go on,” Gangplank said.

“He was tryin’ not to be seen by the Hooks. But I seen him.”

“Mm-hmm,” Gangplank muttered as he began to lose interest. He turned back to his work.

“Keep goin’, lad,” the first mate urged.

“He was playing around with some fancy deck of cards. They glowed funny.”

Gangplank stood up from his chair, like a colossus rising from the depths.

“Tell me where,” he said.

The leather belt of his holster creaked in his tightening grip.

“By the warehouse, the big one near the sheds.”

Gangplank’s face flushed an angry shade of crimson as he pulled on his greatcoat and claimed his hat from its peg. His eyes glinted red in the lamplight. The child was not alone in taking a wary step back.

“Give the boy a silver serpent and a hot meal,” the captain ordered to his first mate as he strode purposefully toward the cabin door.

“And get everyone to the docks. We’ve got work to do.”

I’m coughin’ up black. The smoke from the warehouse fire is tearin’ my lungs to shreds, but I don’t have time to catch my breath. T.F.’s getting away, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend another dog’s age chasin’ him all over Runeterra. It ends tonight.

The bastard sees me coming. He shoves a couple of dock hands out of the way and runs off across the wharf. He’s trying to work his escape card, but I’m keeping the heat on him, so he can’t focus.

More Hooks swarm around, like flies on an outhouse. Before they can block his path, T.F. tosses a couple of his exploding cards and takes the thugs out. A few Hooks are an easy fight for him. But I ain’t. I’m comin’ to get my due, and T.F. knows it. He scurries down the wharf as fast as he can.

His scuffle with the dock boys gives me just enough time to catch up. He sees me and darts behind a huge hunk of whale spine. A blast from my gun shatters his cover, filling the air with shards of bone.

He answers by trying to take my head off, but I shoot his card in midair. It explodes like a bomb, knocking us both on our asses. He scrambles to his feet first and takes off. I fire Destiny as fast as she’ll shoot.

Some Hooks close in on us with chains and cutlasses. I turn quick and blow their insides out their backs. Before I can hear the wet slap of their guts on the dock, I’m spinning on my heels. I take aim at T.F., but I’m clipped by a shot from a pistol. More Hooks, and these are better armed.

I duck behind a piece of an old trawler’s hull to return fire. My gun just clicks. Gotta reload. I slam some fresh shells into the cylinder, spit my anger onto the floor, and wade back into the chaos.

All around me, shots and bolts burst through wooden crates. One of ’em tears a chunk of my ear off. I just grit my teeth and plow forward, squeezing the trigger. Destiny is chewin’ up everything. One Jagged Hook loses a jaw. Another is blasted into the bay. A third gets torn into a red sheet of muscle and sinew.

I snap around to find T.F. escaping deeper into the slaughter docks. I run past a fishmonger hanging up scavenger eels. One of the beasts is just skinned, its innards still spillin’ onto the dock. The monger turns on me, swinging a meat hook.

BOOM.

I take off his leg.

BOOM.

I follow up with a shot to his head.

I shove away a stinking razorfish carcass and keep moving. The blood is ankle deep, some of it from the fish and some from the Hooks we’ve gunned down. It’s enough to give a dandy like T.F. fits. Even with me on his tail, he slows his stride to keep from messin’ up his skirts.

Before I can close in, T.F. kicks on into a gallop. I can feel myself losing wind.

“Turn and face me!” I holler.

What kind of man don’t own up to his problems?

A noise to my right draws my attention to a balcony holding two more Hooks. I fire, and the whole thing crashes to the docks.

The gun smoke and debris are so thick, I can’t see a damn thing. I run toward the sound of his lady boots thudding across the wooden slats. He’s makin’ for Butcher’s Bridge at the end of the slaughter docks - the only way off the island. Damned if I’m letting him get away again.

As I reach the bridge, T.F. skids to a halt, halfway across. At first, I think he’s given up. Then I see why he stopped: On the far side, blocking his way, there’s a mass of sword-wielding bastards. But I ain’t backing down.

T.F. turns back only to find me. He’s trapped. He looks over the side of the bridge, down at the water. He’s thinking about jumping - but I know he won’t.

He’s all out of options. He starts walking toward me.

“Look, Malcolm. Neither of us needs to die here. As soon as we get out of this-”

“You’ll run again. That’s all you’ve ever done.”

He don’t answer. Suddenly, he ain’t so worried about me. I turn back to see what he’s fixed on.

Behind me, I see every lowlife that can carry a blade or pistol storming onto the docks. Gangplank must’ve called in all his boys from across the city. To keep going’s a death sentence.

But livin’ ain’t the most important thing to me today.

They’re in no rush, the Hooks. Not anymore. They know they have us trapped. Behind them, it looks like every rat-stabbing cutthroat in Bilgewater has shown up to the party. No way back.

On the far end of the bridge, blocking my escape into the maze of Bilgewater’s slums, is what appears to be the whole Red Caps dock gang. They rule the east side of the waterfront. Gangplank owns them, just like he owns the Hooks and nearly the whole damned town.

Behind me, there’s Graves, stomping ever closer. The stubborn son of a bitch doesn’t care about the mess we’re in. It’s amazing, really. Here we are, yet again, like all those years ago. Deep in the muck, and he just won’t listen.

I wish I could tell him what really happened back then, but there’s no point. He wouldn’t believe me, not for a second. Once something’s lodged in that thick skull of his, it takes a while to shake it loose. And we don’t have a while.

I back up to the side of the bridge. Over the rail, I see the winches and pulleys suspended beneath me - then the ocean far below. My head spins, and my stomach drops into my boots. As I stagger back to the middle of the bridge, I get a full view of how bad a spot I’m in.

Looming in the distance is Gangplank’s black-sailed ship. From it, a damned armada of boats is closing in below, rowing hard. Looks like all of his men are heading our way.

I can’t get through the Hooks, I can’t get through the Caps, and I can’t get through Graves’s pig-headedness.

Only one way to go.

I step up onto the railing of the bridge. We’re even higher than I realized. The wind whips at my coat, making it snap like the sails of a ship. I should never have come back to Bilgewater.

“Get the hell down from there,” says Graves. Is there a hint of desperation in his voice? It’d break him if I died before he got the confession he wants so much.

I take a deep breath. It really is a long way down.

“Tobias,” Malcolm says. “Step back.”

I pause. I haven’t heard that name in a long time.

Then I jump from the bridge.

The Brazen Hydra was one of the few taverns in Bilgewater that didn’t have sawdust on the floor. Drinks were rarely spilled, let alone teeth, but on this night, its patrons could be heard all the way to Diver’s Bluff.

Men of some repute, and even greater means, were turning the air blue with wondrous songs of the very worst acts.

And there, in the middle of them all, was the conductor of the night’s revelry.

She twirled, toasting the health of the harbor master and all his watchmen. Her lustrous red hair whipped around, captivating the eyes of every man in the room, not that they had been looking at anything other than her.

No glass had been allowed to run empty all night - the crimson-haired siren made sure of that. But it wasn’t the dulled senses of every man in the room that drew them closer. It was the promise of her next glorious smile.

With merriment still shaking the tavern, the front door opened, and in stepped a plainly dressed man. Inconspicuous to a degree that only comes from years of practice, he walked to the bar and ordered a drink.

Among the clumsily assembled gallery, the young woman grabbed a fresh glass of amber ale.

“My fine fellows, I’m afraid I must take my leave,” she said with a flourish.

The men of the harbor guard responded with loud bellows of protest.

“Now, now. We’ve had our fun,” she said, chiding them amiably. “But I have a busy night ahead, and you are all so very late to your posts.”

She hopped onto a table without missing a beat, before looking down upon them all with triumphant glee.

“May the Mother Serpent grant us mercy for our sins!”

She smiled her most captivating smile, raised the large tankard to her lips, and then downed her ale in one tremendous gulp.

“Especially the big ones,” she said, as she slammed her glass on the table.

She wiped the beer from her mouth to a rapturous roar of approval and blew a kiss to all.

Like servants before their queen, the room parted.

The door was held open for her by the gracious harbor master. He hoped to garner one last glance of approval, but she was lost to the streets before he could look up from his unsteadily courteous bow.

Outside, the moon had dipped behind Freeman’s Aerie, and the night’s shadow seemed to reach out to meet the woman. Each step that she took from the tavern became more purposeful and surefooted. Her carefree veil dissolved, and her true self was revealed.

Her smile, her look of wonder and joy, were gone. She stared grimly, not seeing the streets and alleys around her, but looking far beyond to the many possibilities of the dark night ahead.

Behind her, the plainly dressed man from the tavern was gaining. His footsteps were silent, yet unnervingly swift.

In a measured heartbeat, he put his stride in perfect unison with hers, just off her shoulder, out of her periphery.

“Is everything in place, Rafen?” she asked.

After all these years, he was still taken aback at how he could never surprise her.

“Yes, Captain,” he said.

“You weren’t spotted?”

“No,” he bristled, reining in his displeasure at the question. “The bay was free from the harbor master’s eyes, and the ship was as good as empty.”

“And the boy?”

“He played his part.”

“Good. We meet at the Syren.”

At her word, Rafen broke away and disappeared into the gloom.

She continued onward as the night wrapped itself around her. Everything was in motion. All that remained was for her players to begin the show.

I hear Graves roar as I dive off the bridge. All I can see is the rope beneath me. No need to think about the fall or the bottomless black depths.

Everything is a blur of rushing wind.

I nearly scream with joy when I catch the rope, but then it burns into my palm like a branding iron. My fall stops with a snap as I slide to the bottom of the looping tether.

I hang there a moment, cursing.

I’ve heard that dropping into water from this height normally won’t kill a man, but I’d rather take my chances on the stone loading dock that’s at least fifty feet straight down. I’ll die, but it’s a damned sight better than drowning.

Between me and the stone platform, a pair of heavy-duty cables run from here to the mainland, one forward, one back. Crude, noisy mechanisms power them. They’re used to transport rendered down parts of sea beasts to the markets in Bilgewater proper.

The cables strum as a heavy rusted bucket, as big as a house, grinds its way toward me.

I let a smile creep on my face for a second. That is, until I see what’s in the cart. I’m about to drop feet first into a seething vat of rotting fish spleen.

It took me months to earn the coin for my boots. Supple as gossamer and sturdy as tempered steel, they were crafted from the hide of an abyssal sea drake. There are fewer than four pairs in the whole world.

Damn it.

I time my jump just right and land in the middle of the chum bucket. The cold slop seeps through every hand-stitch of my prized boots. At least my hat’s clean.

Suddenly, I hear that damned gun bark again.

The mooring line explodes.

The cart groans as it slides free from the cables. The wind’s knocked out of me as the bucket slams into the stone platform. I feel the foundations of the dock shake before everything flips on its side.

The world falls over my head, along with a ton of fish guts.

Struggling to stand, I look for another way out. Gangplank’s launches are closing in. They’re nearly here.

Dazed, I drag myself toward a small boat moored on the loading dock. I’m not halfway there when a shotgun blast rips its hull wide open, scuttling it.

As the boat sinks, I drop to my knees, exhausted. I try to catch some breath over my own stench. Malcolm stands over me. Somehow, he made his way down, too. Of course he did.

“Not so charmin’ now, are ya?” Graves grins, looking me up and down.

“Are you ever gonna learn?” I say, rising to my feet. “Every time I try to help you, I-”

He fires into the ground in front of me. I’m pretty sure I get a chunk of something in my shin. “If you’d just list-”

“Oh, I’m all done listenin’,” he interrupts, grinding out the words. “The biggest score of our lives, and before I knew it, you were gone.”

“Before you knew it? I told you-”

Another blast, another shower of stone, but I’m past caring.

“I tried to get us out. The rest of us saw the job was going south,” I say. “But you wouldn’t back down. You never do.” The card’s in my hand before I realize it.

“I told you then, all you had to do was back me up. We would’ve gotten out clean – and rich. But you ran,” he says, stepping forward. The man I used to know seems lost under years of hatred.

I don’t try to say anything else. I can see it in his eyes, now. Something’s broken inside of him.

Over his shoulder, a glint catches my eye - it’s a flintlock. The first of Gangplank’s crewmen are on us.

Without thinking, I flick the card. It slices toward Graves.

His gun thunders.

My card takes out Gangplank’s man. His pistol was leveled at Malcolm’s back.

Behind me, another member of his crew slumps to the ground, a knife in his hand. If Graves hadn’t shot him, he could’ve had me, cold.

We both look at each other. Old habits.

Gangplank’s men are all around now, crowding in close, howling and jeering. There’s too many to fight.

That doesn’t stop Graves. He brings his gun up, but he’s out of shells.

I don’t draw any cards. There’s no point.

Malcolm roars and goes at them. That’s his way. He shatters one bastard’s nose with the butt of his gun, before the mob beats him to the ground.

Hands grab me, pinning my arms. Malcolm’s hauled to his feet, blood dripping from his face.

Ominously, the hoots and hollers from the mob around us fall silent.

The wall of thugs parts to reveal a red-coated figure striding toward us.

Gangplank.

Up close, he’s much bigger than you’d imagine. And older. The lines of his face are deep and chiseled.

He’s holding an orange in one hand, slicing off its skin with a short-bladed carving knife. He’s doing it slow, making each cut count.

“So tell me, boys,” he says. His voice is a deep, rumbling growl. “Do you like scrimshaw?”

The fist slams into my face again. I go down hard, hitting the deck of Gangplank’s ship. Pig-iron cuffs dig into my wrists.

I’m hauled back upright and forced to kneel alongside T.F. Not that my legs would hold me if this pox-ridden mob made me stand.

The massive, slab-muscled bastard that hit me swims in and out of focus.

“Come on now, son,” I slur. “You’re doing it all wrong.”

I don’t see the next one coming. There’s just an explosion of pain, and I’m back on the deck. Once again, I’m lifted up and forced to kneel. I spit out blood and teeth. Then I grin.

“My old ma hits harder than you do, boy. And she’s been dead and buried five years now.”

He steps forward to knock me down again, but a word from Gangplank stops him in his tracks.

“Enough,” the captain says.

Swaying slightly, I try to concentrate on Gangplank’s blurred outline. Slowly, my eyes clear. At his waist, I see he’s wearing that damn knife that T.F. stole.

“Twisted Fate, huh? I heard you were good, and I’ve never been one to look down on a good thief,” Gangplank says. He steps in close and glares at T.F. “But a good thief knows better than to steal from me.” He hunkers down and looks me square in the eye.

“And you... If you’d been two shades smarter, you could have put that gun to work for me. But we’re past that now.”

Gangplank stands up and turns his back to us.

“I’m not an unreasonable man,” he continues. “I don’t expect folk to bend the knee. All I ask is a modicum of respect - something you boys pissed all over. And that can’t go unpunished.”

His crew pushes in, like dogs waiting for the order to rip us apart. I ain’t rattled, though. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

“Do me a favor,” I say, nodding toward T.F. “Kill him first.”

Gangplank chuckles at that.

He nods to a crewman, who starts banging away on the ship’s bell. In answer, dozens more across the port city ring out. Drunks, sailors, and shopkeeps start pouring onto the streets, drawn by the ruckus. The bastard wants an audience.

“Bilgewater’s watching, boys” Gangplank says. “Time to give ’em a show. Bring out Death’s Daughter!”

There’s a cheer, and the deck drums with the clamor of stamping feet. An old cannon is wheeled out. It may be rusted and green with age, but it’s still a beauty.

I glance over at T.F. His head’s down, and he ain’t sayin’ nothin’. They took his cards off him... once they found ’em all. They didn’t even leave him his stupid, dandy hat - some little inbred bastard in the crowd’s wearing it.

In all my years of knowing T.F., he’s always had an out. Without one, here and now, he looks defeated.

Good.

“You’re gettin’ what you deserve, you son of a bitch,” I snarl at him.

He stares back at me. There’s fire in him still.

“I ain’t proud of how things went-”

“You left me to rot!” I interrupt.

“Me and the whole crew tried to break you out. And they died for it!” he snaps back at me. “We lost Kolt, Wallach, the Brick - all of ’em - just trying to save your stubborn ass.”

“You made out alright, though,” I reply. “You know why? It’s because you’re a coward. And nothing you’ll ever say can change that.”

My words hit him like a punch in the guts. He doesn’t argue. The last glimmer of fight in him goes, and his shoulders slump. He’s done.

I don’t think even T.F. is this good an actor. My anger fades.

I feel tired suddenly. Tired and old.

“Everything went to hell, and maybe we’re both to blame,” he says. “I wasn’t lying, though. We tried to get you out. Doesn’t matter. You’ll believe what you want anyway.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in. It takes a moment longer to realize that I believe him.

Damn me, he’s right.

I do things my way. Always have. Whenever I pushed it too far, he had my back. He was always the one with the out.

But I didn’t listen to him that day, and I haven’t since.

And now, I’ve killed us both.

Suddenly, T.F. and I are yanked to our feet and dragged toward the cannon. Gangplank pats its muzzle, like it’s a prized hound.

“The Death’s Daughter’s done well by me,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to give her a proper send off.”

A heavy chain is dragged forward, and sailors begin looping it around the cannon. I see now how this is gonna pan out.

T.F. and I are shoved back to back, and the same chain is run around our legs and through our manacles. A padlock snaps shut, binding us to the chain.

A boarding gate in the ship’s bulwark slides open, and the cannon’s rolled into place in the gap. The wharfs and docks of Bilgewater are now packed with gawkers, here to see the show.

Gangplank rests the heel of his boot on the cannon.

“Well, I can’t get us out of this one,” T.F. says, over his shoulder. “I always knew you’d get me killed one day.”

A laugh escapes my lips at that. It’s been a long time since I laughed.

We’re dragged toward the edge of the ship, like cattle to the slaughter.

I guess this is where my story ends. I had a good run for a while there. But nobody’s luck lasts forever.

It’s only then that I know what I should do.

Carefully, straining against my manacles, I reach into my back pocket. It’s still there; the playing card T.F. dropped back in the warehouse. I’d aimed to shove it down his bastard throat.

They checked T.F. good for cards – but not me.

I nudge him. Chained back to back, it’s easy to hand the card off to T.F. without being seen. I can feel him hesitate as I pass it to him.

“You two will make a meager tithe, but you’ll serve,” says Gangplank. “Give the Bearded Lady my regards.”

With a wave to the crowd, Gangplank kicks the cannon over the side. It hits the dark water with a splash, and sinks fast. The chain on the deck spools out after it.

Now, at the end, I believe T.F. I know he tried everything to get me out, like he did all those times when we ran together. This time, for once, I’ve got the out. I can at least give him that.

“Get outta here.”

He starts going through the motions, spinning the card around his fingers. As the power starts to build, I feel an uncomfortable pressure in the back of my skull. I always hated being close to him when he did his trick.

And then, he’s gone.

The chains binding T.F. drop to the deck with a crash, and there’re shouts from the crowd. My chains are still locked tight. I ain’t getting out of this, but it’s worth it just to see the look on Gangplank’s face.

The cannon’s chain yanks me off my feet. I hit the deck hard, and grunt in pain. In an instant, I’m dragged over the edge of the boat.

The cold water hits me, stealing my breath.

Then I’m under, sinking fast, dragged down into the dark.

The card Malcolm puts in my hand could easily get me to the wharf. I’m so close to shore, and from there, the huge crowd’s just perfect for me to vanish into. I could be off this rat’s ass of an island inside an hour. This time, no one would ever find me.

Then all I can see in my mind is his pissed-off face disappearing into the depths.

Son of a bitch.

I can’t leave him. Not after last time. There’s no running away from this. I know where to go.

The pressure builds, and then I shift.

In an instant, I’m right behind Gangplank, ready to make my move.

One of his crew spots me – he looks baffled, like he’s trying to figure out how I got there. While he thinks about it, I punch him square in the face. He collapses into a crowd of bewildered deckhands. They all turn on me with cutlasses drawn. Gangplank leads the attack, slashing straight at my throat.

But I’m faster. In one deft move, I slide underneath the arcing steel and lift Gangplank’s prized silver dagger from his belt. Behind me, I hear cursing that could split the mast in two.

I leap to the deck, stowing the dagger in my britches as the end of the chain tears toward the edge of the ship. I stretch and grab the last steel link just before it disappears overboard.

The snap of the chain hauls me over the side, and now I realize what I’ve done.

The water is coming at me fast. In that frozen moment, every single part of me wants to let go of the chain. Being a river man who can’t swim has plagued me my whole life. Now it’ll be the death of me.

I take one final gulp of air. Then a musket shot rips into my shoulder. I yell out in pain, and lose my last breath just before I’m dragged under.

Frigid water punches me in the face as I sink into the suffocating blue.

This is my nightmare.

Panic wells inside. I try to quell it. It’s almost too much. More shots pierce the water above me. I’m still sinking.

Sharks and devilfish circle. They taste the blood. They follow me deeper into the abyss.

Everything is terror. No pain now. Heart pounds in my ears. Chest burning. Gotta keep the water out. Darkness coils around me. Too far down. No way back. I know that now.

But maybe I can save Malcolm.

Below me, there’s a thud, and the chain goes slack. The cannon’s hit the seabed.

I pull myself down the chain into the shadows. There’s a shape below. I think it’s Graves. Frantic, I drag myself toward him.

Then he’s right in front of me, though I can barely see the outline of his face. I think he’s shaking his head at me, angry that I came back.

I’m growing faint. My arm is numb and my skull is being crushed.

Letting go of the chain, I pull the dagger from my waist. My hand trembles.

I fumble in the darkness. By some miracle, I find the lock on Graves’s cuffs. I work the blade to coax it open, like I have a thousand locks before. But my hands won’t stop shaking.

Even Graves must be terrified. His lungs have to be giving out by now. The lock isn’t budging.

What would Malcolm do?

I twist the dagger. No finesse - nothing but force.

Something gives. I think I cut my hand. The dagger is falling. Into the abyss. There it goes... Is it glowing?

Above me, bright red. Red and orange... Everywhere. It’s beautiful... So this is what it’s like to die.

I laugh.

Water rushes in.

It’s peaceful.

Miss Fortune stared across the harbor from the deck of her ship, the Syren. Flames reflected in her eyes as she absorbed the full level of destruction she had wrought.

All that remained of Gangplank’s ship was burning wreckage. The crew had been killed in the detonation, drowned in the chaos, or claimed by the swarming razorfish.

It had been glorious. An immense ball of rolling fire had lit up the night like a new sun.

Half the city had witnessed it; Gangplank himself had seen to that, as she knew he would. He had to parade Twisted Fate and Graves in front of Bilgewater. He had to remind everyone why no one should cross him. To Gangplank, people were just tools used to maintain control - so she’d used that to kill him.

Shouts and tolling bells echoed across the port city. Word would be spreading like wildfire.

Gangplank is dead.

The corners of her lips curled into a smile.

Tonight was merely the endgame: Hiring T.F., tipping off Graves – all just to distract Gangplank. It had taken years to exact her revenge.

Miss Fortune’s smile faded.

From the moment he had stormed into her family’s workshop, his face hidden behind a red bandana, she had been preparing herself for this moment.

Sarah lost both her parents that day. She was just a child, but he shot her down as she stood watching her parents bleed out on the floor.

Gangplank taught her a harsh lesson: that no matter how safe you feel, your world – everything you’ve built, everything you care for - can be taken away in an instant.

Gangplank’s one mistake was not making sure she was dead. Her anger and her hate had sustained her through that first cold, painful night, and every night since.

For fifteen years, she had scraped together everything she needed; waiting until she wasn’t even a memory to him, for him to drop his guard and get comfortable in the life he’d built. Only then would he truly be able to lose everything. Only then would he know what it felt like to lose his home, to lose his world.

She should have been feeling exultant, but she just felt empty.

Joining her at the gunwale, Rafen jolted Sarah from her reverie.

“He’s gone,” he said. “It’s over.”

“No,” replied Miss Fortune. “Not yet.”

She turned from the harbor, casting her gaze across Bilgewater. Sarah had hoped that killing him would kill her hate. But all she had done was unleash it. For the first time since that day, she felt truly powerful.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “I want everyone loyal to him to be brought to answer. I want the heads of his lieutenants mounted on my wall. Burn every bawdy house, tavern, and warehouse that bears his mark. And I want his corpse.”

Rafen was shaken. He’d heard words like that before, but never from her.

I’ve thought a lot about the ways I’d wanna go out. Chained up like a dog at the bottom of the ocean? That one never crossed my mind. Lucky for me, T.F. manages to pop the lock on my shackles just before he drops the dagger.

I scramble out of the chains, thirsty for breath. I turn toward T.F. Poor bastard’s not moving. I twist my hand around his collar and start kickin’ toward the surface.

As we go up, suddenly everything lights up bright red.

A shockwave knocks me ass over ears. Chunks of iron sink past us. A cannon plunges by. Then a charred hunk of rudder. Bodies, too. A face covered in tattoos stares in shock at me. The severed head then slowly disappears into the darkness beneath us.

I swim faster, my lungs set to bust.

An age later, I’m at the surface, coughing up salt water and gasping for air. But it’s damn near unbreathable. Smoke chokes me and claws at my eyes. I’ve seen things burn in my time, but never like this. Looks like someone set the whole world on fire.

“Damn me...” I hear myself mutter.

Gangplank’s ship is gone. Bits of smoking debris are scattered all across the bay. Fiery islands of wood collapse all around, hissin’ as they go under. A flaming sail falls right in front of us, nearly dragging T.F. and me back down for good. Burning men desperately jump from smoldering pieces of wreckage into the water, quietin’ their own screams. It smells like the end of everything – sulfur and ash and death; cooked hair and melting skin.

I check on T.F. I’m strugglin’ to keep him above water. Son of a bitch is a lot heavier than he looks, and it ain’t helping that half my ribs are broke. I find a piece of scorched hull floating nearby. It looks solid enough. I pull us both on top. It ain’t exactly seaworthy, but it’ll do.

For the first time, I get a good look at T.F. He ain’t breathin’. I wail on his chest with my fists. Just when I’m worried I’m going to cave his ribs in, he coughs out a lungful of seawater. I slump and shake my head again as he slowly comes to his senses.

“You stupid son of a bitch! What did you come back for?”

It takes him a minute to answer.

“Thought I’d try it your way,” he mutters, slurring his words. “See what being a stubborn ass felt like.” He hacks up more water. “Feels awful.”

Razorfish and even meaner sea critters are startin’ to gather around us. I ain’t about to be anything’s chow. I pull my feet away from the edge.

A mangled crewman bobs to the surface, grabbin’ for our raft. I plant my boot in his face and shove him off. A fat tentacle wraps around his neck and drags him back under. Now the fish have something else to keep ’em busy.

Before they run out of fresh meat, I break off a plank from our raft and use it to paddle us away from the feedin’ frenzy.

I pull at the water for what seems like hours. My arms are heavy and hurtin’, but I know better than to stop. Once I’ve put some distance between us and the massacre, I collapse onto my back.

I’m spent like an empty shotgun shell as I look out over the bay. It’s stained red with the blood of Gangplank and his crew. Not a survivor in sight.

How am I still breathing? Maybe I’m the luckiest man on Runeterra. Or maybe T.F.’s carrying enough good fortune for the both of us.

I see a body floating by, holding something familiar lookin’. It’s Gangplank’s little inbred bastard, still clutching T.F.’s hat. I take it off him and toss it to T.F. He ain’t even a little surprised, like he always knew he’d get it back.

“Now we just need to find your gun,” he says.

“What, you itchin’ to go back down there?” I say, pointing to the deep.

T.F. turns a funny shade of green.

“We ain’t got the time. Whoever did this, they left Bilgewater without a boss,” I tell him. “It’s gonna get ugly here, fast.”

“You’re telling me you can live without your gun?” he asks.

“Maybe not,” I say. “But I know a really good gunsmith in Piltover.”

“Piltover...” he says, lost in thought.

“Lot of money flowing through there right now,” I say.

T.F. figures hard for a moment.

“Hmm. Not sure about having you as a partner again – you’re even dumber than you used to be,” he finally answers.

“That’s alright. I’m not sure about havin’ a partner called Twisted Fate. Who the hell came up with that?”

“Well, it’s a damn sight better than my real name,” T.F. laughs.

“Fair enough,” I admit.

I grin. It feels just like the old days. Then I go stone faced and look him dead in the eye.

“Just one thing: You ever have mind to leave me holding the bag again, I’ll blow your goddamn head off. No questions.”

Fate’s laugh dies down, and for a moment, he glares back at me. Then, after a while, he just smiles.

“You got a deal.”

Bilgewater was devouring itself. The streets rang with the shrieks of the desperate and the dying. Fires burning in the lowly slums rained ash across the entire city. Control had been lost, and now every gang rushed to fill the power vacuum left by the fall of one man. A war had been started by the spread of three simple words: Gangplank is dead.

Savage ambitions and petty grudges that had festered for years were now being acted upon.

On the docks, a crew of whalers ran down a rival fisherman. They skewered him with harpoons and left his body hanging from a trotline.

At the highest peak of the island, tall opulent gates that had stood since Bilgewater’s founding were battered apart. A cowering gang lord was ripped from his bed by a rival. His mewling cries were silenced when his skull was dashed upon the hand-crafted marble of his own front steps.

Along the wharf, a fleeing Red Cap attempted to staunch a bloody head wound. He looked over his shoulder but could see no sign of his pursuers. The Jagged Hooks had turned on the Caps. He had to get back to the safe house to warn his crew.

He rounded the corner, screaming for his brothers to gather their arms and join him. But his thirst for blood dried in his throat. Standing in front of the Red Caps’ own den was a band of Hooks. Their blades dripped with gore. At their head, a wiry figure, barely a man, creased his pock-marked face with a vicious grin.

The Red Cap had time to utter one last curse.

Across the bay, off a quiet back alley, a physician attempted to ply his trade. The gold he had been handed was plenty to buy his services – and assure his silence.

It had taken half an hour to peel the sodden coat from the sloughing flesh of his patient’s arm. The doctor had seen many horrific injuries before, but even he recoiled at the sight of the mangled limb. He paused for a moment, terrified of the response his next words would provoke.

“I... I’m sorry. I can’t save your arm.”

Within the shadows of the candlelit room, the bloodied ruin of a man composed himself before staggering to his feet. His good hand shot out like a lash and wrapped around the throat of the quivering doctor. He lifted the surgeon slowly, measuredly off the floor and pinned him to the wall.

For a terrible moment, the brute stood impassively, considering the man in his grasp. Then he abruptly dropped him.

Lost in panic and confusion, the healer coughed violently as the shadowed mass strode to the back of the room. Passing through the light of the surgeon’s lantern, the patient reached for the top drawer of a well-worn cabinet. Methodically, the man opened each drawer searching for what he needed. Finally, he stopped.

“Everything must have a purpose,” he said, looking at his mutilated arm.

He pulled something from the case, and threw it to the doctor’s feet. There, glinting under the lantern was the clean steel of a bonesaw.

“Cut it off,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.

Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.

She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d lived it before. She shook her head and continued on, deeper into the forest.

Finally, she stood before the sacred ghost-willow. Its limbs moved languidly, as if underwater, accompanied by the faint, musical whisper of bone chimes.

While the anger still coursed through her, hot and fierce, she closed her eyes and forced her fists to unclench. She breathed in, slowly, just as the old master had taught her, trying to push back her rage.

Something hit her, hard, in the back of the head, and she fell to her knees. She touched a hand where she’d been struck, and her fingers came away bloody. Then she heard the laughter, and her fury surged to the fore.

She stood and turned towards her brother and the others, her eyes dark and glaring. Her breathing was heavy and short, and her hands clenched into fists at her side once more, all the effort to calm herself a moment before lost in a flash of anger. As it built within her, compounding and growing like a malignant sickness, the air around her seemed to shimmer, and the ghost-willow began to fade and wither behind her. It wept red sap, its leaves curling and blackening.

Since time immemorial the magic of this land had nourished the ghost-willow, just as it in turn nourished the land and its people, but now it was dying, its supple limbs turning bone-dry and brittle, its roots curling in pain. Its chimes tolled a mournful death-rattle, but the girl didn’t hear it, lost in the moment of her seething fury.

As the ancient, primordial tree perished, the little girl began to lift off the ground, rising into the air. Three light-swallowing spheres of absolute darkness began to orbit around the child.

Her tormentors were not laughing now...

Kalan stood upon the battlements of Fae’lor, looking across the narrow sea towards the mainland of the First Lands—what humans now called Ionia.

It was a dark, moonless night, but he saw as clearly as if it were daylight, the pupils of his feline eyes fully dilated. Occasionally, they caught the gleam of torch-light and reflected it back brightly; the mirrored eyes of a night predator.

Kalan was vastaya, of the ancient bloodline. His fur was russet-red and hung down his back in long, intricate, knotted braids that now had more than a few streaks of grey in them. His proud face was akin to that of a great hunting cat, and criss-crossed with scars from a lifetime of battle. The left side of that face was furless, and angry red welts bore evidence of the horrible burns he’d suffered as a young warrior. Curling horns sprouted from his temples, each engraved with spiralling runic patterns, and his three tails swished behind him, each covered in segmented plate. The armor he wore was Noxian dark iron, and he wore the trappings of his adopted empire with a scowl.

Some called him a traitor, both to Ionia and his vastayan heritage, but he didn’t care. What they thought didn’t matter.

The fortress of Fae’lor was built upon the westernmost island of Ionia. Highly defensible, this place had remained for centuries, standing against countless foes, before being finally overrun after a long siege during the Noxian invasion.

That was before Kalan had joined Noxus, before the fateful Battle of the Placidium when he’d pledged himself to Swain. Before he’d requested this post as governor of Fae’lor as reward for his service.

The Noxians laughed at him behind his back, he knew. He could have had a far more prestigious posting—but he had chosen Fae’lor, at the forgotten edge of the empire.

They didn’t understand, and that mattered nothing to him. He needed to be here.

Noxus had not won the war, of course… but nor had Ionia. Nevertheless, many seasons after the end of the campaign, Fae’lor remained under the invaders’ control.

Thirty-three warships were currently docked here, as well as perhaps half that number of trader vessels and merchant ships. Over a thousand warriors of Noxus—a mix of veteran warbands hailing from the far corners of the empire—were stationed here under his leadership.

A guard patrol stomped along the battlements. They saluted, fists crashing against breastplates, and he gave a nod in return. He didn’t fail to miss the dark looks they gave him as they marched by. They hated him almost as much as his own people did, but they feared and respected him, and that was enough.

He turned to look back across the sea once more, brooding on the past. Why was he here? It was a question he saw in the eyes of his subordinates every day, and one that crept up on him the darkest of nights, those nights when the forest, and the hunt, called to him. The answer was simple, however.

He remained here to keep watch over her.

A pair of dark-clad figures—one female, one male—emerged from the sea, unseen, and as silent as death. Swiftly, moving like spiders, they scaled the near-vertical hull of the warship Crimson Huntress, and slunk over its gunwale. Their blades glinted, and the ship’s night wardens were silently dispatched, one after another, without any alarm being sounded.

Within moments, all five Noxians were dead, their lifeblood leaking out onto the deck.

“Neatly done, little brother,” said one of the pair, now crouched in the shadow of the upper deck. Of her face, only her eyes and the swirling indigo tattoos that surrounded them were visible.

“I had a passably decent teacher,” replied the other. He too was fully clad in black and crouched in shadow, though in place of his sister’s swirling tattoos, his skin was a solid block of etched flesh.

“Passably decent, Okin?” she replied, one eyebrow rising.

“No need to feed your ego, Sirik,” her brother replied.

“Enough fooling around,” said Sirik. She opened a black leather pouch at her hip and delicately removed an object, tightly bound in waxed leather. She unwrapped it, gingerly, revealing a fist-sized, black crystal.

“Is it dry?” whispered Okin.

In answer, Sirik gently shook the crystal. A hint of an orange glow lit it from within for a brief moment, like a fanned ember.

“It would seem so. I’ll find a suitable place for it,” she said, nodding to the nearby door leading below deck. “You signal the others.”

Okin nodded. Sirik ghosted below deck, and her brother moved silently back to the gunwale. He leaned over the edge and beckoned. Seven other black-clad figures rose from the dark water below, climbing soundlessly up onto the deck of the ship, hugging the shadows.

They were the dispossessed—the last remaining warriors who had served here at the fortress of Fae’lor, before the Noxians had wrested it from them. The shame of that defeat still burned in their hearts, as did the desire to see every Noxian pushed from their ancestral homelands.

Once all were on deck, they waited a moment for Sirik, who emerged after a few minutes.

“It is done,” she said.

The nine dispossessed Ionians flowed over the ship’s side, following the leading pair. They moved as fluidly as water, and ran lightly along the stone dock towards the fortress of Fae’lor.

From shadow to shadow they darted, like specters, until they reached the first wall. Hugging the darkness, they remained utterly motionless as a patrol marched by, the Noxian warriors speaking in their guttural language and laughing, utterly oblivious to the nigh-invisible Ionians crouched mere feet away.

As soon as the patrol turned a corner, the infiltrators snapped into motion once more, climbing the sheer surface of the wall, moving swiftly, hand-over-hand. They made it look easy, like climbing a ladder, though in truth there were virtually no handholds.

Sirik reached the crenellations first. She peered over, then ducked swiftly back and went perfectly still, clinging one-handed to the battlements. The others below her froze, then hurriedly climbed to join her as she made a series of swift hand-movements. She made a fist, before climbing atop the wall, joined by her brother, Okin. None of the Noxians saw the pair of Ionians ghosting along behind them, hopping lightly across the top of the battlements in their wake.

Then Sirik and Okin leapt among the enemy, and the four guards were killed before a single one drew a blade.

The last of them clutched his throat, blood welling beneath his hand, and teetered on the edge of the wall. Sirik grabbed him, like a lover enfolding her paramour in her arms, and lowered him gently to the ground; if he’d fallen, the sound would undoubtedly have raised the alarm.

Two other guards nearby were swiftly dispatched, silently and without mercy, as the other Ionians came over the wall. Then, as one, the nine moved on, darting across an open courtyard and scaling a second, inner wall.

Each of them knew their target, and each knew the precise layout of the fortress, for it had been their own people who had constructed it. The Noxians were merely its current occupants.

They scrambled up the inner wall, and flowed over the parapet, their timing almost preternatural as they avoided two pairs of sentries atop the wall. They ducked into the shadow of the jutting stone bluff Fae’lor abutted, and became as one with the darkness.

That was when a shout sounded, echoing up from the docks.

Okin cursed under his breath. “They know we’re here,” he hissed.

“I had hoped to be further in before they discovered the first body,” said Sirik, “but this changes nothing. We continue as planned.”

The first shout was echoed by others, and a bell began to toll, sounding out across the fortress.

“Time for our distraction,” said Sirik. She closed her eyes and silenced her inner thoughts. In her mind’s eye, she saw the black crystal she’d secreted below the deck of the Noxian warship, and she reached out to it, fanning it to life.

She was no conjurer or soul-mage, but like many of her people, she could feel and subtly manipulate the magic of the land in minor, fairly insignificant ways. Hers was just a small, common gift, akin to that of the farmers of her village who spun a little magic into their crops. To outsiders this was shocking, but among her people, such simple gifts were not at all unusual, nor regarded as anything to be held in awe. It was like being able to whistle, or curl your tongue—some people could do it, others couldn’t.

Sirik deepened her breathing, and intensified her silent entreaties, encouraging the fyrestone to do what was it its nature to do.

Her gift might have been minor, but the effect of it as she nudged the crystal to life was not. That had more to do with the volatile nature of the fyrestone crystal than any innate power of her own, of course, but nevertheless, the result was impressive.

In the harbor below, the Noxian warship Crimson Huntress exploded, lighting up the night in a billowing fireball. Soldiers who were responding to Fae’lor’s warning bells stopped in their tracks, turning towards sudden inferno.

Sirik opened her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said.

Kalan stalked onto the stone dock, flanked by guards, his three tails swishing dangerously.

“The work of Ionian saboteurs, I would guess, my lord,” said a nervous-looking officer, trotting to keep up with Kalan’s long strides. “A black powder detonation, most likely.”

Kalan halted and frowned deeply as he surveyed the mayhem on the docks.

The Crimson Huntress was no more, reduced to the waterline. What timbers remained still burned. Three other nearby vessels were ablaze, and while crews worked to put out the flames, Kalan could see at a glance that at least one of them was a lost cause, and he snarled in frustration, exposing his teeth.

“We’ve secured the docks, and a thorough search of all other ships is currently underway,” said the nervous officer. “If there are more explosives, they will be found.”

Kalan ignored him, eyes narrowed. He dropped to one knee and scratched at the ground, then lifted his hand to his nose, sniffing.

“If they are still here, lord, we’ll find them,” said the officer, clearly uncomfortable with his superior’s silence. “I’d guess they are long gone, though.”

Kalan stood, and looked back along the dock, away from the sea, towards the towering walls.

“A cowardly act,” the officer remarked. “They know they can’t take us in a siege, so they try to hurt us in other ways. But we will not be deterred! We are Noxus! We—”

“Be silent,” growled Kalan. He was looking at the officer for the first time now, his yellow eyes unblinking. The man paled under his gaze, and seemed to shrink a little, like a toad retreating into its hole. “It was fyrestone, not blackpowder. And they are still here. This was not an act of cowards.”

The officer gaped silently, like a landed fish. “No?” he managed, finally, his voice little more than a squeak.

“No.” Kalan swung away from him, and strode back towards the fortress of Fae’lor. “This is a distraction.”

Kalan seethed. He would deal with that fool later. Right now, he had something far more important to focus on.

“They are going for the Dreaming Pool,” he snarled.

Sirik kept her hand clamped across the Noxian’s mouth until his struggles ceased, then dropped his lifeless body to the ground. She wiped her bloody dagger clean on his tunic and glanced around to see her brother and the others deal with the remaining Noxians within the lower level of the tower.

They were close, now. A rocky bluff reached up to the night sky in the courtyard beyond their position, and Sirik’s eyes were drawn to its peak. A jutting structure, blotting out the stars, marked their target.

Tolling bells were sounding the alarm, echoing all across Fae’lor.

Sirik led the way out into the courtyard, breaking from the tower and sprinting towards the stone steps carved into the bluff. She didn’t care who saw them now. The time for subterfuge was passed. Now speed was the best ally.

Shouts erupted from above, and arrows chased the Ionians as they darted across the open space. None hit home, skidding off the cobbled stone at their feet. A handful of guards emerged from a nearby gate, rushing to intercept them. Sirik and her companions didn’t even slow as they drew weapons; curved swords, sickles, poisoned darts and bladed fans. In a heartbeat they were among the Noxians, sliding under and somersaulting over heavy blows, dancing through them, blades wreaking a bloody toll.

The first of the Ionians fell, then, hacked down by a heavy halberd blow to the neck. Sirik pushed her instant pang of grief within, and pushed on, breaking through the enemy with her brother at her side, leaving a handful of them bleeding in their wake.

They reached the carved, uneven steps—far older than the fortress itself—and began sprinting up, toward the peak, taking the stairs three at a time. Votive lanterns carved into the rock on either side of the stairs remained dark.

Before Noxus had taken this holy place, those would never have remained unlit, day or night.

Another Ionian fell, two arrows thudding into his chest. Without a sound, he toppled from the path, falling to the courtyard below. On and on, the remaining Ionians ran, climbing the spiralling path encircling the stone bluff towards its peak. More arrows clattered against the rock wall beside them, but thankfully no more of her companions were struck.

They rounded the curve at speed. A flash of metal in the night was all the warning Sirik had, and she threw herself instinctively into a roll. A heavy spear, thrown with great force, sliced scant inches over her to strike one of her companions behind. It took him in the chest and lifted him off his feet, hurling him off the bluff.

Two guards stood before the entrance to the shrine at the top of the bluff. Both were immense slabs of muscle and heavy black armor, with huge shields and heavy, jagged cleavers clutched in their brutish fists.

The six remaining Ionians attacked as one, sprinting, leaping and somersaulting towards the towering Noxians, blades glinting.

Moving at speed, Sirik ran up onto the side of the bluff, taking two steps across its vertical surface before leaping off, her short blades seeking the neck of the first guard, even as her brother attacked low. Okin rolled under a heavy swinging blow and came up behind the Noxian, slashing a backhanded blow across his foe’s leg, making him stumble. Sirik speared through the air, leading with her blades, carving a pair of deep furrows through the solid meat of the Noxian’s neck.

Still, he did not fall, and as Sirik landed lightly in a low crouch, one hand touching the ground for balance, the injured warrior roared and smashed one of the dispossessed Ionians to the ground with the flat of his tower shield. Before Sirik could intervene, the brute slammed the ridge of that shield down onto her fallen comrade’s neck, killing him instantly.

The other Noxian was proving equally difficult to put down, bellowing like a wounded bull and flailing about wildly, even as she bled from wounds that would have killed most, lesser individuals.

Okin hacked into the Noxian’s ribs, just to the side of her heavy breastplate, and danced aside as his enemy turned on him. Sirik darted in then, landing another strike, and as her enemy swung in her direction, another of her companions did likewise, hitting the Noxian from behind. They fought like a pack mercilessly taking down large prey, and at last the other Noxian dropped to her knees, lifeblood leaking out onto the stones. She stayed upright for a moment more, spitting curses, then fell facedown and was still.

Her companion roared in grief and anger, and hacked one of the dispossessed down with a brutal sweep of his cleaver. Then he ran to his fallen comrade, dropping to his knees and cradling her in his huge arms. All the fight had gone out of him, and he let out a terrible, anguished wail to the night sky.

Okin and the others encircled him to land the killing blow, but Sirik shook her head. “Leave him be,” she said. “Come. Let’s finish this.”

The Noxian didn’t understand her words, but recognized their intent. He looked up with grief-filled eyes, and regained his feet, picking up his blade. Then, with a cry, he launched himself at Sirik. He was cut down before he went more than a few steps—as he’d likely expected—and he dropped beside the other Noxian. With his last breath, he reached out to her, then went limp.

His death saddened Sirik, for all that he was an enemy. Were they kin, these two? Lovers? Friends? With a deep breath, she pushed those feelings aside, so as to focus on the task at hand.

With a silent nod, she led the four remaining dispossessed Ionians into the shrine known to her people as the Dael’eh Ahira—the Dreaming Pool.

Fae’lor was not originally intended as a fortress. Far from it, it was once a center of tranquility and guidance, where gifted young Ionians came, from far and wide, to learn how better to harness their own innate gifts. All that had ended years before Sirik had been born, and the island that had once been teeming with life, study and peace, became little more than a barren prison. Barely any vegetation grew on the island around the fortress now—only dry, brittle thorn-bushes and ghost-gray lichen was able to thrive. Birds and other wildlife, so abundant on the nearby islands, also shunned it now, except for the dark, hateful crows and ravens that had come with the Noxians.

For all of Sirik’s time here, before the invasion, she and other guards had stood sentinel, watching over the Dael’eh Ahira. It was their duty to ensure that the one held within it was never released.

Sirik led the way down into the darkness within the rock, holding aloft a glass sphere filled with glowing flitterwings to light the way. She shivered, skin prickling, as the temperature dropped the deeper they went.

The stone steps were slick with moisture, but she picked her way down swiftly, for it would not be long before the Noxians arrived in overwhelming force. None of them had expected to make it back from this mission; all that mattered was completing the task they’d come to achieve, and ending the threat imprisoned down here within the Dreaming Pool once and for all.

They reached the deepest point of the Dael’eh Ahira, finally, sliding down the uneven rocks the final ten feet, and landed with a splash in the shallow waters below.

Once, this shrine had been beautiful, but disaster had brought the cavern down in years past.

Here was imprisoned the one they had guarded for so many years.

The one Sirik now came to kill.

Kalan leapt toward the top of the the stone bluff in powerful bounds, clearing ten steps with each one, quickly outpacing his soldiers. He arrived at the peak alone, and growled in frustration as he saw the corpses there: two Noxian, two Ionian.

Without waiting for his warriors, he plunged into the Dael’eh Ahira. Into the darkness he descended, his feline eyes instantly adjusting. He could taste the scent of the humans on the air, leading him on.

Padding silently into the gloom, Kalan began the hunt.

The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.

Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.

Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.

She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d—

Dark shapes appeared in her peripheral vision, and she looked around, trying to see them clearly. There were four of them, but she could only just make them out if she didn’t look directly at them.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

Something was very wrong.

Sirik and her three companions stood in a circle, looking down into a deeper section of the water. A woman lay there, beneath the surface, her pure white hair, long and flowing, drifting around her languidly.

Syndra. That was her name; a byword for destruction, for giving in to your darkest fears and anger. A name still cursed throughout the provinces.

Sirik pulled off the dark hood hiding her face and tossed it aside. The delicate, indigo tattoos surrounding her eyes seemed to writhe in the shifting light emitted by the flitterwings in the glass sphere she held aloft. The others removed their head-coverings as well. All of them bore similar tattoos upon their faces, tattoos that marked them as guardians of Fae’lor. All of them looked down at Syndra, their expressions hard.

The roots of an ancient tree—the only thing holding the immense stones from crashing down upon this already half-collapsed cavern—curled around her limbs. They might have been cradling her, like a protective mother, or holding her down, trapping her, depending on your point of view. She could easily have been mistaken for being dead but for the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed the water.

Syndra didn’t look at all dangerous, but Sirik knew well how deceiving such an impression was. This one had been responsible for the destruction of the once-peaceful temple at the heart of Fae’lor. She had only been contained when the spirit of the land itself had drawn her down here, pulling her in and ensnaring her within this strange, suspended existence.

Sirik had once voiced aloud her confusion as to why they let Syndra live. Why not just end her life, and end the threat of her waking from her slumber? Her old master had smiled, and asked her why, if the land wanted her dead, did it sustain her? Sirik had no answer to that, not then and certainly not now. Her old master talked of balance, but he was dead, killed by a Noxian blade, along with almost all of those who had served here as this slumbering woman’s jailors, yet the one they had guarded still lived. Where was the balance in that?

As long as she lived, Syndra was a threat, yet that threat was contained while she and the others had stood watch over the Dael’eh Ahira. Now that it was within Noxian control, however… The fools would likely release her, either accidentally or in some ill-advised attempt to utilize her destructive power.

No, that danger was too great to risk. Syndra must die. Tonight.

Sirik tossed her flitterwing-filled glow-globe to her brother and stepped into the deeper pool, blade drawn.

“Wait,” said Okin.

“We have no time, brother,” said Sirik. “The Noxians will be upon us momentarily. We must end this now.”

“But she may be our best weapon against them.”

Sirik froze, then turned slowly towards her brother, her expression one of disbelief.

“She is Ionian, after all,” continued Okin. “She could be a great ally. With her, we could push Noxus from Ionia, once and for all!”

“And what then, brother? You think she could be controlled?”

“We wouldn’t need to control her.” Okin stepped forward, his voice full of passion. “We could strike against Noxus, in its heartland! We could—”

“You are a fool, brother,” Sirik interrupted him, her voice thick with derision. She turned away, and began to wade towards the motionless figure of Syndra.

“I can’t let you do that, sister. We can’t let you.”

It was only then Sirik realized her brother and her other two companions had fanned out around her, weapons drawn. “You can’t let me?” she said.

“Don’t make us do this, sister.”

Her gaze flicked between them, judging their distance from her, and whether she would be able to kill Syndra before they reached her. It would be close.

“I’m not making you do anything,” she said. “We came here to end a threat to Ionia—not unleash it.”

“This could be our chance to—”

“No,” said Sirik. “Don’t you see? This sort of division within Ionia is killing us, and it’s playing into the Noxians’ hands. We are all divided, arguing and working against each other, when we need to pull together.”

“So work with us,” begged Okin.

Sirik pointed at the motionless figure of Syndra. “She is a greater threat to this land than Noxus. It’s a foolish act of desperation to think otherwise.”

“Just stop being so stubborn, for once in your life!”

“You’re not going to convince me, brother,” she said. “So what now. You’re going to kill me?”

“Please, don’t let it come to that,” said Okin.

The four of them stood frozen for a second, none quite ready to escalate the situation just yet.

Then a shadow detached itself from the surrounding darkness, and sprang at them with lethal intent.

Sirik gave a shout of warning and lurched forward. The move surprised Okin and their other two companions, who raised weapons, thinking she was attacking. One flung a pair of throwing blades with a sweep of his arm, the move instinctual and reactionary.

Sirik swayed aside from the first dagger, but the second struck home, imbedding itself deep in the meat of her shoulder, making her hiss in pain as she stumbled backwards, falling awkwardly in the water.

Too late, Sirik’s attacker realized the real threat was behind him. The Ionian was lifted from his feet, a blade bursting from his chest, having been driven completely through him. Then he was hurled aside, and the shadowy attacker moved on, abandoning his sword and turning on Okin.

It was a vastaya, garbed in Noxian armor, and he roared, lips curling back to reveal his predator’s teeth. The sound reverberated painfully within the cavern.

Sirik recognized him, of course, as she struggled to regain her feet. This was Kalan, reviled traitor of the Placidium, who had turned away from his people and Ionia to join the enemy. He’d been given Fae’lor as his prize, a bone thrown to a loyal and subservient pet. She and her brother had lost more than a few friends at his hands.

“Noxian lickspittle!” said Okin, crouched low, blade at the ready. “You betrayed our people! You betrayed Ionia!”

Kalan gave a bitter laugh as he padded in towards Okin. He flexed his hands, and long talons emerged from his fingertips, as well as along the ridge of his forearms.

“There is no Ionia,” snarled the vastayan warrior. “There never was. A thousand mortal cultures are scattered across the First Lands, each with their own beliefs, customs, history and feuds. Your people have never been unified, never stood as one.”

“Then perhaps it is time that changed,” said Okin. “Though you have chosen the losing side.”

“Losing? The war is far from over, child,” said Kalan.

With a grimace, Sirik tore the throwing dagger from her shoulder, her blood leaking out into the water like a crimson ribbon wafting in a breeze. She tossed it deftly into the air, spinning it end over end, and caught it by its blade. With a swift flick of her wrist, she hurled it at the betrayer closing in on Okin.

It took him in the side of the neck, sinking deep, though Sirik cursed herself, for her aim was slightly off. It was not a killing blow. Nevertheless, Okin and their last companion took advantage of the moment, leaping in to strike.

Okin dashed forward, lunging, but his strike was turned aside by the flat of Kalan’s hand, who then knocked him away with a sharp kick. Their last companion came in fast from the flank, bladed fans slicing through the air, but the vastaya, even injured, was too fast, and too powerful.

He swayed aside, first one way, then the next, as the fan-blades sliced at him. Then, he lunged forward and grabbed his foe by the tunic with both hands, and slammed her head-first into a wall. An awful crack sounded as her neck broke.

Kalan’s yellow cat eyes turned back to Okin.

Sirik was too far away to help, she knew that instantly. Instead, she turned and began to slog back towards Syndra. She would do what she came to do. She had not expected to escape this venture with her life anyway, but she was determined their deaths would not be in vain.

She heard her brother shout in defiance, and the vastaya roar, but she dared not look back. She plunged deeper into the water, and reached down, fingers closing around Syndra’s throat. Her skin was warm to the touch. In her other hand, Sirik’s blade drew back for the killing blow.

This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

Something was very wrong.

The girl could still hear the sounds of the night forest around her. She could still see the ferns and twisted roots, and the last colors of the sunset beyond the thick canopy overhead.

But at the same time, she could hear shouts and roars, though they were muffled, as if she was hearing them from a distance… or from underwater?

For a moment, she felt her throat filled with liquid, and a sudden panic rose within her. She was drowning! But no, that was impossible. She was here, a child in the twilight forest outside her village. She was nowhere near water.

A shadowy form appeared before her, like a night-terror given insubstantial form. She felt a sudden constriction around her throat, and she struggled for breath.

Her eyes flickered. She glimpsed a young woman, her face covered in twisting tattoos. The vision was strange, and vague, however, as if she were looking at this person through water. A hand gripped her throat, choking her, and a blade was raised, ready to plunge down into—

No.

She was back in the forest. She was having some kind of awful waking dream. She’d just run here, shame and anger coloring her cheeks. She was going to the ghost-willow, to calm the rage surging within her.

No, she’d already done that. She’d done that over and over, hundreds and thousands of times. Reliving that moment, again and again.

What if this was the dream, and the other vision was real?

The darkness of Syndra’s hatred and anger surged within her.

And she woke from her endless dream.

Sirik saw Syndra’s eyes snap open.

With a desperate cry, she stabbed down with her blade, but struck nothing, for she was hauled into the air by some sudden, unseen force. She struggled against it, flailing wildly, but might as well have been trying to fight the rising tide. She was as helpless as a kitten in the mouth of its mother.

Syndra slipped free of the twisting roots that had ensnared her limbs for so many years, and emerged, gasping. Water streamed off her as she rose into the air, hovering several feet above the surface of the pool, shimmering and pulsing beneath her. Dark power radiated from one hand as she kept Sirik held aloft, floating helplessly, and her eyes burned with cold fire.

As Sirik watched, both horrified and fascinated, a helm—or perhaps a crown—grew into existence upon Syndra’s head. It coiled around her brow, like darkness given life, to form a pair of tall, curving horns. A bead of pure shadow formed at its center, becoming as hard as a gemstone, and burning with the same power that bled from her in waves.

Sirik twisted in the air as her brother Okin broke from Kalan’s grasp. As he did so, he saw Syndra, his expression one of awe. For his part, the vastaya looked almost as stunned, feline lips curled back in a hiss, his eyes wide.

With a horrible, sucking sound, three orbs of utter darkness materialised in the air around Syndra, and began to slowly orbit her. They seemed to swallow the scant light in the cavern, and pull at Sirik’s soul, a vile sensation of loathing and despair clutching at her.

“How long?” Syndra demanded, her voice cracked and unsteady from lack of use. “How long have I been imprisoned here?”

“Years,” spat Sirik. “Decades. We should have killed you long ago.”

She felt Syndra’s hatred surge as a painful stab within her, and she gasped. Then Syndra snarled in fury, and with a gesture sent Sirik hurtling across the cavern.

She smashed against a wall some twenty feet distant, and fell heavily, splashing painfully to the floor. Then Syndra’s dark gaze turned upon Okin and the Noxian creature.

Sirik grimaced in pain. Her left leg and more than one rib were broken, she judged, wincing as she struggled to push herself upright. She cried out as she saw her brother Okin stumble forward into the water, holding his hands up in entreaty.

“No, brother…” she managed, weakly.

“I am not your enemy!” Okin called out. “We are both children of Ionia! Join us!”

Syndra looked down upon him, her gaze radiating power.

“The Noxians attacked our lands, and slaughtered our people!” he continued. “We pushed them back, but they still have a foothold in our ancestral lands. They are not done with us yet! Ionia is divided, and vulnerable! You must help! Help us fight against this new tyranny!”

“I do not know who these Noxians are that you speak of,” Syndra replied. “But if they killed my people, then perhaps I owe them thanks. The only tyranny I experienced was at the hands of those I once called kin.”

Okin’s face was mask of horror, perhaps finally realizing his own foolishness, and he slumped to his knees, defeated.

With a sickening tearing sound, Syndra conjured another dark sphere—all of her bitterness, resentment and anger made manifest. It hovered above her hand, slowly spinning.

“And if you are Ionian, then you are my enemy,” she mused.

Sirik screamed, but there was nothing she could do. With a flick of her wrist, Syndra sent the orb hurtling toward, then through, her brother. He gasped, all the color draining from his flesh, and sank beneath the waters.

Kalan attacked then, leaping from the shadows, claws extended, but another gesture from Syndra sent the three spheres surrounding her hurtling from their orbits towards him, throwing him backward.

“You…” said Syndra, tilting her head to the side, as if trying to place him. “I recognize your soul. You shadowed my dreams.” Her expression darkened even more. “You were my jailor. You… You kept me here.”

From her position, Sirik saw the vastaya push himself to one knee.

“You are an abomination,” he hissed.

Syndra’s hand stabbed out, and the snarling creature was lifted into the air.

The waters of the Dreaming Pool were churning, and Sirik stared in wonder as the roots that had held Syndra began reaching out to reclaim her.

“Kill me, then!” Kalan snarled. “But do so in the knowledge that you will never find peace. Wherever you are, you will be hated and hunted. You will never live free.”

“Kill you?” said Syndra, her lip curling in rage. “No. That would be too clean an end for you.”

With a sweep of her arm, Syndra sent Kalan hurling down into the waters, into the grasp of the writhing roots. They clamped around his limbs reflexively, holding him under. He screamed, air bubbles billowing around him… and then went still.

Sirik stared defiantly at Syndra, knowing that she likely had only moments to live, but to her surprise, the powerful sorceress paid her no mind. Instead, Syndra turned her attention skyward. Both hands were wreathed in dark energy, and with a shout she lifted them high. The stone cracked, and a tumble of dust and rocks fell into the pool, sending crazy ripples spreading out in all directions.

With a violent cutting motion of her arms and a deafening boom, Syndra ripped apart the rock overhead. Huge chunks of stone fell around her, crashing down with titanic force, and Sirik pushed herself backwards desperately, each movement sending searing pain flaring up her leg and side.

Stars blinked in the sky far above, and Syndra began to rise, floating up towards freedom. She glanced back down, once, toward the motionless, submerged figure of Kalan, ensnared by roots.

“Your turn to dream, jailor,” she whispered, and with a sweep of her arms, she entombed him completely beneath the fallen rocks.

Wincing with every movement, Sirik crawled further away, certain she would be crushed at any moment…

The island rumbled, as if wracked by an earthquake. It went on for what seemed like an eternity.

And, when it finally ceased, an unnerving silence fell across Fae’lor.

Sirik crawled from the gloom, breathing in fresh air, and stared about her, eyes wide in shock. Easily half of the fortress was gone.

Her gaze drifted up. At first, she saw nothing but darkness where there should have been stars. With a sharp intake of air, she realized she was looking at the silhouette of the greatest towers and ramparts hanging against the night sky. It hadn’t collapsed into the sea—it had been ripped from the island, and lifted toward the heavens.

She stared, her mouth gaping. She had known Syndra was powerful, but this? This was power she could never have imagined.

As Sirik watched, frozen by the sight, she saw one of the Noxian warships moored in the harbor below lifted from the sea. Men tumbled from its deck like so many ants, falling to their deaths on the rocks below, as the ship was lifted ever higher. Then it fell, smashing back down upon two other vessels, crushing them to splinters. The destruction was catastrophic.

The ruined castle in the sky began to drift northwards. Alone at the sundered peak of the Dael’eh Ahira, Sirik watched it go, until the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon.

The import of the night weighed upon her heavily. Her brother, and the last of the guardians of Fae’lor were dead. All but her.

And while the destruction wrought against the Noxians this night would have been cause for great rejoicing at any other time, her heart was heavy.

Syndra was back in the world.

They had failed.

Kalan knelt, motionless and silent, as he waited for the seer to speak. She was a curious creature, violet-skinned, and with a pearlescent single horn growing from her forehead. Some may have mistaken her for one of his bloodline, the children of the Vastayashai’rei, but any of the kin would know otherwise.

The seer was of a people older even than his ancestors.

When she opened her eyes—those strange, kind, golden-flecked eyes that saw far more than they should—he saw they were tinged with sadness, and his heart sank.

“You are faced with an impossible choice,” she said, her voice as quiet as the rustle of autumn leaves.

“Then tell me what I must do,” said Kalan.

“That is not for me to say. Two paths lie before you, but you can only take one. I warn you, though—both lead to tragedy and sadness.”

Kalan didn’t blink. “Tell me.”

“The first path. You fight the invaders. At the Placidium of Navori, a great battle will be fought. While it will be bloody, you will be victorious. You will be proclaimed a hero. You and your heartlight live in peace for many years. You are happy. And yet, you are destined to outlive both your cubs, who will be taken before their time.”

Kalan took a deep breath. “And the other?” he said.

“You fight alongside the enemy. You never see your heartlight again, nor your children. They call you traitor, and curse your name. Your path is one of darkness, and bitterness, and revilement. You will be hated by your kin, and despised by your invader allies. After they are defeated at the Placidium, you must stand vigil on the isle of Fae’lor, guarding over the place of dreaming. And there you will stay.”

“And my little ones?”

“They live. They prosper. If not in this land, then another. But you will never look upon their faces again, and if you ever deviate from this dark path, they will be lost.”

Kalan nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. Sadness threatened to drag him down, but he suppressed it, pushing it deep inside himself.

As he looked around, taking in the details of the seer’s shrine, he felt that there was something strangely familiar about it… a vague sense that he’d been here before, that he’d felt this awful sense of grief and loss more than once.

He shook his head. To be trapped in this accursed moment forever? Now, that would be a fate far worse than death.

“I am sorry, my child,” said the seer. “It is a terrible choice you must make.”

“No,” said Kalan. “The choice is a simple one.”