LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Talon's earliest memories are the darkness of Noxus' underground passages and the reassuring steel of a blade. He remembers no family, warmth, or kindness. Instead, the clink of stolen gold and the security of a wall at his back are all the kinship he has ever craved. Kept alive only by his quick wits and deft thievery, Talon scraped out a living in the seedy underbelly of Noxus. His mastery of the blade quickly marked him as a threat, and Noxian guilds sent assassins to him with a demand: join their ranks or be killed. He left the bodies of his pursuers dumped in Noxus' moat as his response.

The assassination attempts grew increasingly frequent until one assailant met Talon blade-for-blade in a match of strength. To his surprise, Talon was disarmed and facing down his executioner's sword when the assassin revealed himself to be General Du Couteau. The General offered Talon the choice between death at his hand, or life as an agent of the Noxian High Command. Talon chose life, on the condition that his service was to Du Couteau alone, for the only type of orders he could respect were from one he could not defeat.

Talon remained in the shadows, carrying out secret missions on Du Couteau's orders that took him from the frigid lands of the Freljord to the inner sanctums of Demacia itself. When the general vanished, Talon considered claiming his freedom, but he had gained immense respect for Du Couteau after years in his service. He became obsessed with tracking down the general's whereabouts, and scours the land in search of those responsible for Du Couteau's disappearance.

Born to one of the most respected noble families of Noxus, Katarina Du Couteau found herself elevated above others from an early age. While her younger sister Cassiopeia took after their politically brilliant mother, Katarina was very much her father’s daughter, and the wily General Du Couteau pushed her to learn the way of the blade; to cut away the empire’s enemies not with reckless brutality, but deadly precision. He was a harsh teacher with many pupils, and notoriously difficult to impress.

So it was that Katarina’s childhood—if it can be called such—had little room for kindness or rest. She spent every waking moment honing herself into the ultimate weapon, testing her endurance, her dexterity, her tolerance for pain. She stole poisons from the city’s least reputable apothecaries, testing their efficacy in tiny increments upon herself, gradually building her resistance even as she catalogued their effects. She scaled the tallest towers in the dead of night, unseen by anyone.

She yearned to do her part for Noxus. She yearned for the opportunity to demonstrate her hidden strengths in service of the empire, and the throne.

Her first mark came straight from her father, camped with his warbands on the eve of one of the military’s innumerable westward invasions… She was to assassinate a line officer of the opposing army, a low-born wretch by the name of Demetrius.

Katarina was livid. She hadn’t trained her entire life to have her talents wasted on some dungheel barely skilled enough to swing a sword! He simply wouldn’t do. Instead of her assigned target, Katarina stole into the enemy camp and slit the enemy commander’s throat as he slept. It was a flawless execution. It would bring a swift victory, and glory to Noxus. It would make her father proud.

At dawn, his face daubed with ashes, the vengeful hero Demetrius led a berzerk charge into her father’s encampment. Dozens of Noxian soldiers were slaughtered, along with the general’s personal retinue. Katarina’s father himself barely escaped with his life.

He was furious beyond words, refusing even to look his daughter in the eye. She had shamed him, and their family name. The greatest assassins do not seek recognition or glory, he reminded her. They do not expect to occupy a place of honor at their master’s right hand.

Overwhelmed, Katarina struck out into the wilderness, alone. She would complete her original mission. Demetrius would pay with his life. Even so, her mind swam. Could she ever forgive herself? How had she been so foolish?

She was so distracted, she didn’t see her attacker until he had nearly taken her eye out.

For Katarina’s failure, General Du Couteau had sent another of his protégés after her; a nameless whelp dragged up from one of the lesser assassins’ guilds. But even with blood streaming down her face, the years of rigorous training kicked in, and her blades were in her hands in an instant.

Six hours later, she tossed Demetrius’s severed head at her father’s feet.

She told the general she had considered taking his head instead, but eventually decided—as much as she hated to admit it—that he had done the right thing in ordering her death. She had failed. Not just as an assassin, or as a daughter, but as a Noxian.

And failure must have its consequences. She ran her fingers along the raw, deep gash over her left eye, and thought of the price others had paid for her arrogance.

She knew she had lost her father’s favor, and could never regain it. He would raise others in her place, simply to spite her. Still, she vowed to redeem herself, no matter the cost—to rededicate her talents to the empire, and to become the sinister weapon she always intended to be.

Over a century past, the brutal warlord Sion rose to prominence, slaughtering all who dared stand in his way. Greatly feared by friend and foe alike, he was the last of a proud warrior culture that had been part of Noxus since its founding. Sion had sworn oaths to his ancestors to never take a backward step in battle, and to die a proud warrior’s death when his time came.

While not noted for his subtlety or strategic acumen, Sion’s methods were ruthlessly effective, and he won many vicious triumphs for Noxus. The empire’s might was at a peak not seen for hundreds of years, and so it took the generals of high command by surprise when a nation from the west first resisted, then began pushing back their steady advance. These Demacians drove the Noxian warbands eastward, harrying them back behind the walls of Hvardis. Sion, who had been campaigning in the Argent Mountains, now turned south, filled with fury.

He arrived at the city to find the Demacians on the horizon. They had no intention of besieging Hvardis—having driven the Noxians from the lands neighboring their own, they were preparing to return home. Sion readied his troops, determined to punish these upstarts for their impudence. The Noxian commander at Hvardis, however, had already suffered several defeats to the enemy, and was content to hide behind the city walls and let them leave unscathed.

It had been Sion and his warriors who had paid the claim to the land now lost in blood; outraged, he hurled the commander from the city walls, and ordered the attack.

Sion tore straight through the Demacian lines, seeking out their leader—King Jarvan the First. But while his own warband charged with him, fearless of death, those who had been cowering in Hvardis were weak. Their spirit broke, and they retreated back to the city, leaving Sion and his trusted few surrounded. One by one, they fell, but Sion ploughed on.

Alone, pierced by a dozen swords and a score of crossbow bolts, he finally reached Jarvan. The fight was brutal, and it was the Demacian who delivered the killing blow. Sion dropped his axe and, with a final burst of strength, tore the king’s crown from his head with one hand, clamping the other around his throat. Jarvan’s guards stabbed Sion again and again, but his grip did not loosen.

Only when the enemy king was slain did Sion allow death to claim him.

His body was recovered—along with the Demacian king’s crown, still in his grip—and borne back to the Immortal Bastion in honor. Noxus mourned Sion’s passing, and his corpse was interred within a towering monument constructed to honor him for all time.

Half a century passed before Sion’s tomb was reopened.

Noxian dominance had waned in the years since Sion’s death, and the ruling Grand General of the empire, Boram Darkwill, was willing to pay almost any price to restore its lost glory. Darkwill’s allies, a mysterious cabal known as the Black Rose, reanimated the long-dead hero using forbidden magics, and presented him to the Grand General.

He could not refuse this gift, and so Sion returned to life, driven by unnatural bloodlust and utterly inured to pain.

He hurled himself like a living battering ram against the enemies of Noxus, destroying all he faced. More so than before his death, the victories Sion brought were costly. He was uncontrollable, killing friend and foe without remorse, and those forced to fight alongside him began to desert. Finally, Darkwill ordered Sion reinterred.

Hundreds of warriors died trying to restrain him before he was finally bound in chains and dragged back to the Immortal Bastion. Without slaughter, the blood magic that sustained him quickly engulfed his mind in an all-consuming rage. His roars finally fell silent as he was sealed in beneath his giant statue.

There he languished for many years, neither alive nor truly dead. When his tomb opened once more, it was to a very different empire. Darkwill was gone, overthrown by the general Jericho Swain—but Sion cared little, roaring and pulling against his bindings in a frenzy that could only be sated in battle.

Chained within an iron cage, he returned to Hvardis, which had broken away from Noxian rule under Darkwill’s reign; Sion was the new Grand General’s punishment for their rebellion.

He butchered the defenders of Hvardis and leveled the city, laughing as he ripped its towers apart with his bare hands. Other regions that had abandoned Noxus soon bent the knee, fearing the undead juggernaut would be unleashed upon them next.

When harsh daylight floods his opening tomb, Sion now welcomes it… for with it comes the chance to shed his chains and sate his hunger for bloodshed, to briefly silence the screaming madness drowning out all thought of rest.

Sion remembers only fragments of his life, and less of the times since, but one truth has remained as stark as on the day of his death—now, as then, the world trembles before him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By evening, the snow had soaked all the way through Maja’s boots. With each step, she could feel icy water slosh from her heel to her toes, like a flaying knife drawn along her foot.

Other soldiers were struggling, too—fifteen miles downhill in waist-high snow wasn’t easy. But the legionaries at the head of the column weren’t limping. Their steps kept the confident rhythm they’d struck since morning, and their watchful eyes were still glued to the horizon.

They probably have better boots, Maja thought. Trifarians are tough, but nobody’s that tough in standard-issue boots.

“Hey,” Zalt muttered. “Holding up?”

Zalt, the only minotaur in the warband, was taller, wider, and older than everyone else. He was plowing a deep trench through the snow on sturdy hooves. Maja was jealous. “Wish I couldn’t feel my feet,” she said. “If I didn’t have feet, no one could make me march.”

“In the last campaign against the Winter’s Claw, I saw a soldier’s foot freeze solid,” Zalt said. “His toes cracked off when he put his boot on. So, wham! General Darius chopped the whole thing off.”

Maja turned her gaze down the mountain. On a bend in the road far below, she could see Darius himself—the Hand of Noxus, Might incarnate. The general’s huge axe gleamed on his back.

“You’re lucky to be here,” Zalt told her. “Darius knows this road better than anyone. He built it during Darkwill’s campaign. And we can help him take it back.” A little lick of anger burned in Zalt’s eye. “Damned Winter’s Claw!”

Cliffs rose sheer on either side of Darius’ mountain road. Looking up, Maja could see the silhouettes of soldiers standing atop them. “The scouts don’t get a rest, do they?” she asked.

“What?”

She pointed. “The scouts.”

“Which scouts?” Zalt asked.

Then he looked up, too.

Whatever curse he bellowed was smothered by the avalanche.

Two curtains of white separated from the cliff tops above them. Almost instantly, they filled the pass. Chunks of hard-packed snow smashed into the Noxian column, swallowing the soldiers row by row as the avalanche raced downhill. Maja braced, but it was like being hit by a charging basilisk. There was tumbling terror, an awful weightlessness—then darkness, and the crush of winter.

Crunch! Someone heaved Maja out of the snowpack. “Get up,” he commanded—a voice ringing like the clash of blades. “Dig them out!”

She shook herself and started to dig. Then she realized: she was digging beside the general himself.

Darius found a cloven foot in the snow. “Zalt!” Maja shouted. She helped the general heave him out.

Maja looked back up the frosty slope: far above, Winter’s Claw warriors were picking through the scattered remains of the Noxian dead. No retreat now, Maja thought.

Darius was counting heads. “Officers?” he called. Two Trifarian legionaries swiftly ran over. “Report casualties. There’s a river over the next ridge. We’ll fortify there.” Darius surveyed the battered Noxian ranks, his expression burning with barely leashed anger. “If you can’t walk, crawl.”

As the pale sun plummeted toward the horizon, Winter’s Claw skirmishers followed the Noxian column all the way down to the frozen river, peppering them with barbed arrows. However, the probing fire didn’t slow down the disciplined Trifarian Legion. Maja’s breath grew ragged as she hurried to keep up with them.

The frozen river was wide and slick enough to make it a dangerous approach for the Winter’s Claw, and by holding the bank, the Noxians knew any attack would have to come from the nearby treeline. In spite of the sporadic fire from the shadows beneath the pines, Darius ordered two snow trenches dug parallel to the bank. Soldiers repurposed shields into shovels, and Maja saw Darius doing the same.

“Remember this,” Zalt said. “You saw the Hand of Noxus digging with the infantry!”

Everyone then sharpened stakes for the outer trench. Darius checked defenses along the line—but stopped at Zalt. “You’re familiar,” he said.

“I fought in the first Freljord campaign, general!” Zalt nodded at Maja. “Told this youngster how much worse it was!”

Darius looked Maja over. “This is your first action,” he said.

Maja wondered how he could tell. “Yes, general.”

“Don’t waste time on fear,” he told her. “Focus on facing the enemy. On putting your blade in their throats.”

Maja wasn’t sure what to say. “Uh—”

Zzzzip. Something parted the air between them, and a javelin lodged in the wall of the trench.

Maja turned toward the treeline. Branches were shaking, blades were shining, and moonlight glinted on polished bone.

“Stand to!” Darius bellowed.

As the Noxians scrambled for cover, and another volley of javelins flew from the trees, Maja saw a soldier stagger, three feet of knotty wood sprouting from his chest.

Darius pushed past Maja and Zalt, arrows pinging off the axe on his back. “Soon. They’ll charge soon,” he told them. His eyes were lit with fierce excitement. “That’s when we’ll strike!”

And just as he spoke, a snarling came from the trees. A pack of six-legged, catlike shadows raced out of the darkness—trained wildclaws, leaping for Noxian throats.

The Winter’s Claw followed.

As Trifarian legionaries rose from the trench to meet them, Maja drew her sword. She saw Darius bring his axe down like a guillotine. She rose, too, ready to fight—when Zalt collapsed beside her.

A javelin was buried in his shoulder.

“Go,” he gasped, but Maja planted herself beside him. Winter’s Claw warriors were on them in an instant, hatchets swinging. Zalt deflected a skull-crushing strike with his good arm, and Maja tripped their attacker—but instead of delivering the killing blow, she turned back to Zalt.

She could save him. She had to!

She pushed Zalt toward the river, away from the fight, and they slithered out onto the ice behind the Noxian line. As Zalt fell to his knees, struggling for breath, Maja had a sudden urge to flee across the river with him.

“Don’t!” Zalt could tell what she was thinking. “A Noxian never flees!”

Maja’s heart seemed to be beating in her throat. She opened her mouth to argue with Zalt—I am a Noxian, I am—but her mouth refused to form the words.

Then Zalt’s eyes widened, and a heavy hand landed on Maja’s shoulder. She knew who it was before she turned around.

“Face the enemy,” Darius growled.

“I—”

“You’re not facing them.” With a flick of his arm, Darius spun her on the ice. “Noxians who flee, die,” he said.

By your hand, Maja knew. By that axe. As she stared, Darius hefted the axe above his head, and for an instant Maja thought, This is it—my execution.

But the moment never came. A flurry of arrows ricocheted off the flat of the blade, falling harmlessly around them, and Darius lowered the axe again. “Noxians don’t run. We win,” he growled. “We chop them to pieces for what they do to us.”

And suddenly, Maja was angry—at the Winter’s Claw, and at herself, and at her fear. With jerking, frozen limbs, she shoved Zalt aside. She heard him grunt as he hit the ice—but she left him there, and Darius did, too. Beside him, lock-step, she ran into the whirlwind of Noxian steel.

Their blades flashed, and Maja swung hers until her muscles burned and her hand was sore from impact after impact. And with each hammering blow, she reminded herself: Live. Win. Chop them to pieces.

By sunrise, the Winter’s Claw had been routed.

When they returned, Darius and Maja found Zalt at the riverbank, his chest prickled with arrows. Dead.

Maja felt numb. She’d been telling herself, Maybe he rallied. Maybe he fought. But he’d just died where they left him.

“I was trying to protect him,” she told Darius. “He’s—He was a good soldier. I was trying to protect him.”

Darius paused. “That was a poor decision,” he said.

Maja startled. “Sir?”

“You should have been fighting alongside soldiers who still had a chance of living.” He turned his gaze to Maja. She shuddered—his eyes were like iron. “Old Zalt was ready to die. But you should have been ready to fight.”

“Y-yes,” she stammered. “I’ll… I’ll be better, sir.”

Darius turned north, toward the dawn-lit slopes of the Winterspike mountains. Maja could see campfires up there. Smoke rising through the trees.

The Winter’s Claw, waiting.

“Then do it fast,” Darius said.

Cassiopeia reclined against the crenelated rooftop, and gazed over the winding alleys and crowded streets of Urzeris. A Noxian possession for years, the coastal city still refused to completely embrace its new identity—it felt ancient, and quietly resistant to the future.

So Shuriman.

Untroubled by the cool night air, Cassiopeia wore a shift of translucent silk, which revealed the transition at her hips where soft skin merged into sinuous, overlapping snake scales. The scent of roasted meat wafted up to her hidden aerie, but it could not mask the vile stench of thousands of people living on top of each other. Her mouth burned as noxious venom mingled with her saliva. She flexed her muscular tail, cracking the stonework and sending crumbled fragments to the streets below.

Rats scattered from the falling stone. Filthy street urchins dashed around street corners as hooded figures whispered in the shadows and burly soldiers staggered in and out of taverns. All were oblivious to the predator lurking in the darkness above.

Cassiopeia brushed a taloned hand against her scaly side, her serpentine figure concealed by the shadows. Once, she had been a powerful figure in Noxus: assassins killed at her slightest whim, soldiers spilled their darkest secrets, and generals willingly followed her counsel in the hopes of patronage. Cassiopeia sighed. These days, she emerged only under cover of night. No longer was she an influential voice in Noxian society—not since she had been reduced to this grotesque abomination in hiding.

Upon her return from the desert, Cassiopeia had hidden in the crypt of her family’s residence, fearful of her transformation. She remained alone in the cold, dank vault for weeks, filled with disgust for her serpentine body and mourning the loss of her aristocratic life.

Eventually, a growing desire to hunt overwhelmed her, and she ventured out to roam the city by night as the household slumbered.

Cassiopeia put aside her reverie as a broad-shouldered soldier in a leather breastplate stumbled from a tavern, drink in hand. Finally; this was the man she’d been waiting for. She trailed his movements from above, following him silently over fortress walls and archways, until he entered an empty courtyard. Perfect. Cassiopeia slithered onto an adjacent roof, eyes glinting with predatory thrill.

Her figure cast a shadow across the soldier. He turned, drunkenly defiant.

“I know you’re there! Show yourself!” he said.

Cassiopeia’s tail twitched in anticipation. Her forked tongue extended, tasting the air. She drew the sweet scent of his blood into her lungs, then exhaled with great satisfaction.

“Fight me face to face!” he shouted. “I ain’t gonna be stalked like some animal.”

Cassiopeia let out an angry hiss. By the time the soldier looked up, she’d slid to the opposite side of the courtyard and perched directly above him, remaining out of sight in the shadows.

“You consider yourself better than an animal, do you?” she said.

The man’s head turned abruptly, trying to pinpoint the sound of her voice.

“How’d you get across so fast?” he said, his wavering tone betraying false bravado.

“Even beasts are nothing to your savagery,” said Cassiopeia.

Breathless, he edged away, looking for an escape. He hammered his fists against every door, but each was bolted shut. Cassiopeia imagined his mind racing to solve the riddle of who was hunting him and why.

He unsheathed his sword, turning on the spot, unsure where to direct his threat. “You don’t want to cross me. I’ve gutted worse enemies than you.”

“Not just enemies,” Cassiopeia replied. “I’ve seen your handiwork. You’re not the only one who creeps about in the dark.”

She spat a bilious wad of venom as he turned toward the sound of her voice. The man howled in pain, coin-sized holes burning through his armor and into his skin. She inhaled the satisfying sear of burning leather and flesh.

The man brandished his sword. “Who are you? Why’re you doing this?”

“I’ve been watching you,” replied Cassiopeia. “I know what you are, what you do…”

“What I do is no business of yours.”

“I know you’re murdering children for drake meat. I hear it’s quite lucrative.”

The man tried to pry open the shutters of a nearby window with the flat of his sword, but they too were bolted shut.

“Then there’s the three tavern wenches,” said Cassiopeia. “Sarmela, Elmin, and Lyx. They were found in the river yesterday. Their faces were hardly recognizable once you’d finished with them.”

She relished the thought of sinking her talons into his flesh.

The man readied his stance. “You can’t fight me from the shadows. Show yourself!”

“Very well,” Cassiopeia said.

She slithered down to the courtyard and rose to her full height. The man’s eyes widened in horror, his hands trembling. Cassiopeia stood head and shoulders over the man, glaring down with narrowing eyes.

“Monster!” he cried.

“Monster,” murmured Cassiopeia. “Not the worst I’ve been called.”

She slid left and whipped her tail across his legs, effortlessly knocking him to the ground.

Curling her tail around his chest, she squeezed his ribcage tighter and tighter, sensing his pounding heart straining beneath her grasp. She heard bones crack. She resisted the urge to break him completely, and released her grip. He crawled to his sword, grasping it in desperation. She so enjoyed watching him tremble.

She circled him slowly. He met her gaze and stared in slow recognition.

“I know your face. The Lady Cassiopeia!” he said. “Look at you!”

Point to the ground, he pushed himself onto his feet with his sword.

“You chase drunkards like me through the filthy gutters of this city now, is that it?” The man spat a wad of blood. “From such great heights we fall, eh?”

She hissed, exposing dripping yellow fangs.

Cassiopeia’s gaze bored into the man’s eyes, locking them in a cold-hearted bond. She screamed, pouring all her rage into the cry; fury at the unfairness of her current state, anger at the loss of her privileged life, resentment for her failed ambitions. She channeled it all into the screeching, mind-shredding wail.

As she screamed, her fury was replaced with joy. It felt like she was floating, her potential for greatness infinite. Every fiber of her being sang with ancient power.

Searing emerald light blazed from Cassiopeia’s eyes. The man’s final panic was outlined in silhouette as he petrified from the inside out. His stare hardened, greyed, and stiffened, his last cry of terror stifled as her curse transformed his flesh to stone.

Cassiopeia slithered up to the statue and softly caressed its hard cheek. What was once skin fractured into a grisly pattern resembling a dried riverbed.

“Once, I had to manipulate, bribe, or otherwise… persuade people to orchestrate my schemes,” she said. “But now… Now I simply take what I want.”

She whipped her tail forward, smashing the statue to the ground. She smiled, eyes glinting, as it shattered into a thousand pieces of rubble and dust.

Cassiopeia flushed with pride as she considered her handiwork. Her life as a noble was over, yes, but never had she felt such boundless power coursing through her veins. She slithered back onto the rooftops, her mind awhirl with ideas.

Her next victim would offer her a far greater challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Though into what, even she cannot guess.

Even as a small child, Xan Irelia was fascinated by the grace and beauty of human movement. Under her grandmother’s tutelage, she learned the traditional silk dances of her province—though she was dubious of their supposedly mystical connection to the Spirit of Ionia, Irelia’s love for the dances was real. Seeking to master the art, she eventually left home to study with some of Ionia’s most respected performers at the Placidium of Navori.

Irelia’s people were peaceful and sought harmony with their neighbors, but rumors of foreign invaders sighted off the coast unsettled many at the Placidium. Irelia returned to her village to find it already occupied, with steel-helmed soldiers from distant Noxus shoving unarmed civilians through the streets with the butts of their spears. The Noxian Admiral Duqal had seized the Xan home to quarter his fleet officers.

Irelia’s brothers and her father Lito had evidently protested; her entire family now lay in unmarked graves, in the gardens.

Ravaged by grief, the young girl saw Duqal’s men hauling valuables from the house. Among the loot was a large metal crest, depicting the Xan family emblem. Irelia raced to it, wrenching it from Noxian hands. The admiral himself hurled her to the ground, and had his warriors shatter the crest with a heavy iron maul, before ordering them to dig a fresh grave for this upstart child.

As they surrounded her, Irelia averted her eyes, looking to the pieces of the Xan crest scattered on the ground. From deep within her soul, she felt a strange rhythm begin to beat. The shards of metal began to twitch, to twist, moving seemingly on their own, and Irelia felt the serene joy of the ancient dances once more...

With a sweep of her arm, she sent the pieces flying like ragged blades, cutting clean through two of the Noxians. As Duqal and his officers reeled in shock, Irelia snatched up the shards of her crest, and fled the village.

In the quiet forests beyond, Irelia mourned her family, and thought back to her grandmother’s teachings. She realized that the techniques she had learned were more than mere dances—they were a powerful expression of something far greater.

The Noxian occupation soon began to test the fragile peace of the First Lands. It was said that even the religious leader Karma had been forced to strike back at the invaders with deadly magic, though her followers had now withdrawn to the Lasting Altar and would not condone any further violence. Across Navori, dissenting voices began to band together. A resistance was forming, one that would not rest until Ionia was free once more. Irelia joined their ranks, performing her cherished dances for them in the woodland camps, to preserve some vestige of their vanishing culture.

She was barely fourteen years old when she found herself back at the Placidium. Her band of resistance fighters joined the militia who had sworn to guard the monasteries and wild, sacred gardens.

But Noxus knew only too well what this place represented. A particularly cunning general named Jericho Swain captured the Placidium and took its defenders hostage, hoping to lure the inevitable reinforcements into a trap.

It was in this moment that Irelia rose to meet her destiny. Freed from her bonds, she unleashed the full potential of her ancient blade dance, lashing out with graceful zeal. A dozen of Swain’s veterans fell, sowing chaos in their ranks as the other captives joined her, before she struck down the general himself—the sight of this rebellious girl hefting his severed arm over her head would be the turning point of the war.

This victory, the Great Stand at Navori, ensured that everyone in Ionia knew the name of Xan Irelia, and looked to her for leadership. Reluctantly, she led the growing resistance for almost three years of grueling battle before her triumph at Dalu Bay. There, she finally cornered the defeated Admiral Duqal, and exacted the vengeance she had sought for so long.

Though the war has long since ended, Ionia has been permanently changed by it. The First Lands are now divided, with rival factions fighting each other almost as bitterly as they did the Noxians. Many continue to look to Irelia for answers but, while others might welcome such power, Irelia remains uneasy with it.

At heart, she still yearns only to dance alone.

Most would say that death isn't funny. It isn't, unless you're Shaco - then it's hysterical. He is Valoran's first fully functioning homicidal comic; he jests until someone dies, and then he laughs. The figure that has come to be known as the Demon Jester is an enigma. No one fully agrees from whence he came, and Shaco never offers any details on his own. A popular belief is that Shaco is not of Runeterra - that he is a thing from a dark and twisted world. Still others believe that he is the demonic manifestation of humanity's dark urges and therefore cannot be reasoned with. The most plausible belief is that Shaco is an assassin for hire, left to his own lunatic devices until his services are needed. Shaco certainly has proven himself to be a cunning individual, evading authorities at every turn who might seek him for questioning for some horrendous, law-breaking atrocity. While such scuttlebutt might reassure the native inhabitants of Valoran, it seems unimaginable that such a malevolent figure is allowed to remain at large.

Whatever the truth of his history might be, Shaco is a terrifying, elusive figure most often seen where madness can openly reign.

Nights in Noxus were never silent.

You couldn’t cram so many thousands of people from all across the empire into one place and expect quiet.

Desert marching songs from the Zagayah enclave drifted from their tented pavilions by the water, and the martial clashing of blades echoed from a nearby Reckoner’s arena. Drakehounds corralled in an iron-walled enclosure howled as they caught the scent of slaughtered livestock from the northern kill yards.

The cries of widowed spouses, grief-stricken mothers, or nightmare-wracked veterans were a nightly chorus to accompany the roars of drunken soldiers and the promises of street hawkers who plied their trade best in the darkness.

No, the nights in Noxus were never silent.

Except here.

This part of Noxus was deathly quiet.

Maura held her pack of brushes, paints, and charcoals close to her chest as she felt the din of the Noxian night fade. The lack of sound was so sudden, so shocking, that she stopped in the middle of the street—never normally a good idea—and looked around.

The street was in an older, wealthier district of Noxus known as Mortoraa, or Iron Gate, but was otherwise unremarkable. The light of a full moon reflected from its paving of irregular cobbles like scores of watching eyes, and the buildings to either side were well built with stone blocks that spoke of an experienced hand, perhaps that of a warmason. Maura saw a tall shrine at the end of a side street, where three armored figures knelt before the obsidian wolf within its pillared vault. They looked up in unison, and Maura hurried on, knowing it was unwise to attract the notice of men who prayed in the dark with swords.

She shouldn’t be out here in the dark.

Tahvo had warned her not to go, but she’d seen the serpent in his eyes and knew it wasn’t fear for her safety that moved him, but envy. He had always believed himself to be the best painter in their little circle. That she had been selected for this commission instead of him cut deep. When the crisply folded and elegantly written letter had arrived at their shared studio, Cerise and Konrad had been elated, begging her to remember everything she could, while Zurka simply told her to be sure her brushes were clean.

“Do you think you’ll get to speak to him?” Cerise had asked as Maura opened the door to hear the drifting echoes of the night bell fading over the harbor. The idea of venturing out into the darkness filled Maura with equal parts dread and excitement.

“He’s sitting for a portrait, so I suppose I shall have to,” she’d answered, pointing to the darkened sky. “We’ll need to discuss what manner of painting he wants, especially since I won’t have natural light.”

“Strange that he wants his portrait done at night, eh?” said Konrad, wide awake and wearing his blanket like a cloak.

“I wonder what he sounds like,” added Cerise.

“Just like everyone else,” snapped Tahvo, rolling over and wadding his threadbare pillow. “He’s not a god, you know. He’s just a man. Now, will you all just shut up? I’m trying to sleep.”

Cerise ran over and kissed her. “Good luck,” she giggled. “Come back and tell us… everything, no matter how sordid.”

Maura’s smile had faltered, but she nodded. “I will. I promise.”

The directions to her new patron’s mansion were exceptionally specific. Not simply in her eventual destination, but in the precise route she must take to get there. Maura knew the geography of the capital well, having walked its streets for days when hunger gnawed her belly. Or when they couldn’t pool enough commission money, and the owner of their studio kicked them out until they’d earned enough to pay what was owed.

This part of town, though, was a growing mystery to her. She’d known the mansion was here, of course—everyone in Noxus knew where he lived, though few could recall ever going there. With every step she took, Maura felt like she’d wandered into a strange city in a newly-conquered land. The streets felt unfamiliar—narrower and more threatening, as if each twist and turn brought the walls closer and closer until they would eventually crush her. She hurried on through the unnerving quiet, craving a source of fresh light—a boundary lantern perhaps, or a low-burning candle in an upper window, set to guide a night-calling suitor.

But there was no illumination beyond that of the moon. Her heartbeat and pace quickened as she heard what could be a soft footfall behind her, or the sigh of an expectant breath.

Turning a sharp corner, Maura found herself in a circular plaza with a fountain gurgling at its center. In a city as cramped as this, where people lived cheek by jowl and space was at a premium, such extravagance was almost unheard of.

She circled the fountain’s pool, its water silver in the moonlight, admiring the sculpted realism of its carved centerpiece. Hammered from crude iron, it represented a headless warrior encased in thick war-plate, and bearing a spiked mace.

Water spilled from the neck of the statue, and Maura felt a chill as she realized who it was intended to represent.

She hurried past the fountain towards a double gate of seasoned silverbark set in a black wall of red-veined marble. As the letter had promised, it stood ajar, and Maura eased herself between its heavy leaves.

The mansion within the walls had been built from a pale stone of a kind she hadn’t seen before—imposing without being monolithic, as a great many grand structures of Noxus often were. Nor, the more she studied it, did it adhere to any one particular style, but rather a collection of architectural movements that had come and gone over the centuries.

Foremost among such oddities was a rough stone tower rising over the main building, and this portion alone appeared out of place. It gave the impression that the mansion had been built around some ancient shaman’s lair. The effect should have been jarring, but Maura rather liked it, as though every aspect of the mansion offered a glimpse into a bygone age of the empire. Its windows were shuttered and dark, and the only light she saw was a soft crimson glow at the tower’s summit.

She followed a graveled path through an exquisite garden of elaborate topiary, carefully directed waterways, and strange looking flowers with exotic scents and startlingly vivid colors. This, together with the spacious plaza outside, suggested fabulous wealth. The idea that she had been chosen for this task sent a frisson of pleasurable warmth through her limbs.

Hundreds of colorful butterflies with curiously patterned wings flitted to and fro between the flowers. Such light and fragile creatures, yet so beautiful and capable of the most miraculous transformation. Maura had never seen butterflies at night, and she laughed with joy as one alighted on her palm. The tapered shape of its body and the patterning on its outstretched wings was uncannily similar to the winged-blade heraldry she saw flying on every Noxian flag. The butterfly fluttered its wings and flew away. Maura watched it circle and swoop with the others, amazed to see so many rare and wonderful creatures.

She let her fingers brush the colorful leaves as she passed, savoring the scents clinging to her fingertips and drifting up in motes of dust that glittered in the moonlight. She paused by a particularly beautiful bloom, one with flame-red petals so bright they took her breath away.

No red she had ever mixed from Shuriman cinnabar or Piltovan ochre had achieved such luster. Even the ruinously expensive Ionian vermillions were dull by comparison. She chewed her bottom lip as she considered what she was about to do, then reached out to pluck a number of petals from the nearest plant. The flower’s remaining petals immediately curled inwards, and the stem bent away from her as if in fear. Maura felt terrible guilt and looked up at the mansion to see if she had been observed, but the shuttered windows remained closed and lightless.

The front door stood open, and she paused at its threshold. The letter had told her to enter, but now that she was here, Maura felt a curious reluctance. Was this some trap, a means to lure her to some unspeakable fate? If so, it seemed needlessly elaborate. The notion felt absurd, and Maura chided herself for letting fear get in the way of what was likely to be the greatest opportunity of her life.

She took a breath, stepped across the threshold, and entered the mansion.

The vestibule was vaulted by dark and heavy timbers, with faded murals of the empire’s early, bloody days painted in the spaces between. To Maura’s left and right, wide openings revealed long galleries draped in shadow, making it difficult to tell who or what might be displayed. A long, curving staircase climbed to an upper mezzanine and a wide archway, but what lay beyond was impossible to make out. The vestibule was all but empty, save for what looked like a large, sheet-draped canvas upon an easel. Maura tentatively approached the covered canvas, wondering if this was to be where she would paint.

She hoped not. The light in here was ill-suited to portraiture. Where moonlight pooled on the herringbone floor, the space was bright, but elsewhere it was entirely dark, as though the light refused to approach those corners.

“Hello?” she said, and her voice echoed throughout the vestibule. “I have a letter…”

Her words lingered, and Maura sought in vain for any sign she wasn’t entirely alone in this strange house in the middle of the night.

“Hello?” she said again. “Is anyone here?”

“I am here,” said a voice.

Maura jumped. The words were cultured, masculine, and redolent with age. They seemed to drift down from above and be breathlessly whispered in her ear at the same time. She turned on the spot, searching for the speaker.

She was alone.

“Are you Vladimir?” she asked.

“I am, yes,” he replied, his voice freighted with deep melancholy as if the name itself were a source of torment. “You are the painter.”

“Yes. That’s me. I’m the painter,” she said, adding, “My name is Maura Betzenia. I’m the painter.”

She cursed her clumsiness before realizing his last words had not been a question.

“Good. I have been waiting a long time for you.”

“Oh. My apologies, sir. The letter said I wasn’t to leave until the harbor bell rang.”

“Indeed it did, and you have arrived precisely when you were supposed to,” said Vladimir, and this time Maura thought she saw a sliver of deeper black in the shadows. “It is I who am at fault, for I have been delaying sending for someone like you much too long. Vanity makes fools of us all, does it not?”

“Is it vanity?” asked Maura, knowing the wealthier patrons liked to be flattered. “Or simply waiting for the right moment to capture the truth of your appearance?”

Laughter drifted down from above. Maura couldn’t decide if he thought she’d said something funny or was mocking her.

“I hear a variation of that every time,” said Vladimir. “And as to truth, well, that is a moveable feast. Tell me, did you like my garden?”

Maura sensed a trap in the question, and hesitated before answering.

“I did,” she said. “I had no idea you could grow anything that beautiful in Noxian soil.”

“You cannot,” said Vladimir with wry amusement. “Such thin soil produces only the hardiest specimens, ones that spread far and wide to drive out all others. But none of them could be called beautiful. The red flower you killed, it was a nightbloom.”

Maura felt her mouth go dry, but Vladimir appeared not to care what she had done.

“Nightblooms were once native to an island chain in the east, a blessed place of rare beauty and enlightenment,” he said. “I dwelled there for a time until it was destroyed, as all mortal endeavors ultimately must be. I took some seeds from a grove once tended by a temperamental nature spirit and brought them back to Valoran, where I was able to entice them to grow with a combination of blood and tears.”

“Don’t you mean blood, sweat, and tears?”

“My dear, what possible use would sweat be in growing a flower?”

Maura had no answer, but the musical cadence of his voice was seductive. She could listen to it all night. Maura shook off the velvet quality of Vladimir’s drifting voice and nodded towards the covered canvas.

“Is that where I am to paint?” she asked.

“No,” said Vladimir. “That was merely my first.”

“Your first what?”

“My first life,” he said as she lifted the edge of the sheet.

The painting had faded with the passage of time, its colors bleached by light, and the brushstrokes flattened. But the image was still powerful—a young man on the cusp of adulthood, armored in archaic-looking bronze plate and bearing a fluttering banner depicting a wickedly curved scythe blade. Much of the detail had been lost, but the boy’s blue eyes were still piercingly bright. The face was extraordinarily handsome, symmetrical and with a tilt of the head that captivated her gaze.

Maura leaned in and saw an army behind the young man, a host of hulking warriors too large to be human, too bestial to be real. Their outlines and features had faded with age, and Maura was thankful for that small mercy.

“This is you?” she asked, hoping he might appear to explain the portrait in person.

“Once, a long, long time ago,” said Vladimir, and Maura felt ice enter his words. “I was an unneeded heir of a long-vanished kingdom, in an age when gods made war on one another. Mortals were pawns in their world-spanning strife, and when the time came for my father to bend the knee to a living god, I was given up as a royal hostage. In theory, my father’s loyalty would be assured by the constant threat to my life. Should he break faith with his new master, I would be slain. But like all my father’s promises, it was empty. He cared nothing for me, and broke his oath within the year.”

The story Vladimir was telling was strange and fantastical, like the Shuriman myths Konrad told when they shared scare stories on the roof of the studio at night. Konrad’s tales were thinly veiled morality plays, but this… this had a weight of truth behind it, and felt uncontaminated by sentimentality.

“But instead of killing me, my new master had something altogether more amusing in mind. Amusing for him, at any rate. He offered me the chance to lead his armies against my father’s kingdom, an offer I gladly accepted. I destroyed my father’s city and presented his head to my master. I was a good and faithful hound on a leash.”

“You destroyed your own people? Why?”

Vladimir paused as though trying to decide if her question was serious.

“Because even if the god-warriors had not come, my father’s kingdom would never have been mine,” he said. “He had sons and heirs aplenty, and I would never have lived long enough to claim my birthright.”

“Why would your master make you do that?”

“I used to think it was because he saw a spark of greatness within me, or the potential to be something more than a mere mortal,” said Vladimir with a soft sigh that sent warm shivers down Maura’s spine. “But more likely he just thought it would be amusing to teach one of his mortal pets some tricks, as the mountebank teaches a monkey to dance around his stall, to attract the gullible.”

Maura looked back at the image of the young man in the picture, now seeing something dark lurking deeper in the eyes. A hint of cruelty perhaps, a glint of festering bitterness.

“What did he teach you?” asked Maura. As much as she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer, something in her needed to know.

“My master’s kind had the power to defy death—to sculpt flesh, blood, and bone into the most wondrous forms,” continued Vladimir. “He taught me something of their arts, magic he wielded as easily as breathing. But it took every scrap of my intellect and will to master even the simplest of cantrips. I was later to learn that teaching their secrets to mortals was forbidden under pain of death, but my master delighted in flaunting the mores of his kind.”

Vladimir’s sourceless laughter echoed around her, yet there was no mirth to the sound.

“He couldn’t help challenging convention, and in the end, it was his undoing.”

“He died?” she asked.

“Yes. When one of his kind betrayed them, their power over this world was broken. My master’s enemies united against him, and he looked to me to lead his armies in his defense. Instead, I killed him and drank in a measure of his power, for I had not forgotten the many cruelties he had inflicted upon me over the years. Taking his life was my first step on a road far longer than I ever could have imagined. A boon and a curse in one bloody gift.”

Maura heard the relish in Vladimir’s tone, but also sadness, as if the mark this murder had cut on his soul had never truly left him. Did he feel guilt at this killing, or was he simply trying to manipulate her emotions?

Not being able to see him made it that much harder to divine his intent.

“But enough of this painting,” said Vladimir. “It is vital, yes, but only one of my accumulated lives. If you are to immortalize this one, you must see the others I have experienced over the years before we can truly begin.”

Maura turned to the stairs as the shadows draping their length retreated like a soft, black tide. She licked her lips, conscious again that she was alone in this echoing mansion with Vladimir, a man who had just admitted to murdering his father and his monstrous mentor.

“Hesitation? Really?” he said. “You have come this far. And I have already bared so much of my soul to you.”

Maura knew he was goading her into climbing the stairs. That alone ought to make her leave and return to her friends. But as much as she knew she should be afraid, part of her thrilled to be the center of Vladimir’s attention, to feel the power of his gaze upon her.

“Come to me,” he continued. “See what it is I ask of you. And then, if you feel the task is too great and choose to leave, I will not stop you.”

“No,” she said. “I want to know it all.”

The archway atop the mezzanine led into a wide corridor of dark stone that was so shockingly cold, it took Maura’s breath away. Fixed to the dark walls were row upon row of lacquered wooden boards.

And pinned to these boards were many thousands of butterflies with spread wings.

Sadness touched Maura. “What is this?”

“One of my collections,” said Vladimir, his voice coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. It drew her onwards along the corridor.

“Why did you kill them?”

“To study them. Why else? These creatures live such short lives. To end them a moment sooner is no great loss.”

“The butterfly might disagree.”

“But look at what each death taught me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The butterflies you saw in the garden? They exist nowhere else in nature. They are unique because I made them so. With will and knowledge, I have wrought entire species into being.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because, like the gods, I choose which ones live and which ones die.”

Maura reached out to the nearest pinned butterfly, one with vivid crimson circles on the larger part of its wings. As soon as her finger brushed the insect’s body, its wings disintegrated and the rest of it crumbled like ancient, flaking paint.

A cold wind sighed past Maura, and she stepped back in alarm as a cascade of dissolution swept across the pinned specimens. Scores, then hundreds of butterflies crumbled to powder that spun in the air like ash and cinders stirred from a banked fire. She cried out and rushed down the corridor, frantically waving her hands to brush the dust from her face. It grazed the skin beneath her clothes, and she spat as she tasted the grit of insect bodies in her mouth, felt it gather in her ears.

She stopped and opened her eyes as she felt the quality of sound and light change. She rubbed dust from her face, seeing she had entered into a wide, circular chamber.

Maura took a moment to look around and regain her composure, brushing the last of the dust from her face and clothes. The walls of the chamber were primitively cut stone, and she guessed she stood within the base of the ancient tower. A rough-hewn staircase corkscrewed its way up the interior walls, and strange, ruby light fell in shimmering veils from somewhere high above. The air smelled of hot metal, like the iron winds carried from the bulk forges that fed the empire’s insatiable hunger for armor and weapons.

The circular walls were hung with portraits, and she moved cautiously around the gallery’s circumference, studying each painting in turn. No two were alike in their framing or style, ranging from crude abstracts to renderings so lifelike it was as if a real face were imprisoned within the warp and weft of the canvas. She recognized the styles of some, the work of masters of the craft who had lived centuries ago.

Where the painting in the vestibule was that of a young man in his prime, these were a mixture of the same individual, but at very different times in his life.

One showed him in his middle years, still fit and hearty, but with a bitter cast to his eyes. Another was a portrait of a man so aged and ravaged that Maura wasn’t even sure it had been painted while its subject was alive. Yet another depicted him bloodily wounded in the aftermath of a great battle before a titanic statue of ivory stone.

“How can these all be you?” she asked.

The answer drifted down in the veils of red light.

“I do not live as you do. The gift carried in my former master’s blood changed me forever. I thought you understood that?”

“I do. I mean, I think I do.”

“The paintings around you are moments of my many lives. Not all great moments, I have come to realize, and captured by journeymen for the most part. In the earliest days of my existence I was arrogant enough to believe my every deed was worthy of such commemoration, but now…”

“But now?” asked Maura, when he didn’t continue.

“Now I only commit the renewal of my life to canvas amid events that mark turning points in the affairs of the world. Climb the steps, and see what I mean.”

Maura found her circuit of the gallery had brought her to the base of the stairs, as though her every step had led her to this point. Not just tonight, but every moment since she had first picked up a brush and painted the animals on her mother’s farm in Krexor.

“Why me?” she asked. “Why am I here? There are other artists in Noxus better than me.”

A soft chuckle drifted around her.

“Such modesty. Yes, it is true there are artists more technically proficient than you,” said Vladimir. “Your jealous colleague, Tahvo, for example, understands perspective better than you ever will. Young Cerise’s use of color is outstanding, and the stoic Zurka has an eye for detail that makes his work endlessly fascinating. Konrad, however, will never be more than a dabbler, but you already know this.”

“You know my friends?” she said.

“Of course. Did you think I chose you at random?”

“I don’t know. How did you choose me?”

“To capture such a transformative moment, I required someone whose heart and soul goes into their work, an artist truly worthy of the name. That is why you are here, Maura Betzenia. Because every brushstroke is personal to you. Every mark on the canvas, every choice of color has meaning. You understand the heart of a painting, and willingly give something of your soul to capture the life it represents.”

Maura had heard the flattery of patrons and the empty praise of her fellow painters before, but Vladimir’s words were utterly sincere. He meant every word, and her heart lifted to hear such affirmation.

“Why now? What’s so special about this moment in time that you want your portrait painted? What was it you said? You only have a painting done at a turning point in the affairs of the world…”

Vladimir’s voice seemed to coil around her as he spoke.

“And such a moment is upon us. I have dwelled here for such a long time, Maura. Long enough to oust the Iron Revenant from his Immortal Bastion, long enough to see the many rulers who came after him claw their way to power over the corpses of their brothers before treacherous ambition brought them low. Long enough to know the canker that lurks at the empire’s heart—a midnight flower with roots in old and corrupt soil. We have danced, she and I—oh, how we have danced in blood over the centuries, but the tempo of the music has changed, and the dance nears its end. This parade of fools I walk among, this life… it is unsuited for what must come next.”

“I don’t understand. What is coming next?”

“At almost any other time before, I could have answered that with certainty,” continued Vladimir. “But now…? I do not know. All I know is that I must change to face it. I have been passive for too long, and allowed flunkies and hangers-on to fawn over my every whim. But now I am ready to take what is mine, that which was for so long denied me—a kingdom of my own. This is immortality, Maura. Mine and yours.”

“Immortality…?”

“Of course. Is it not by the warriors’ deeds and artists’ craft that they achieve immortality? The legacy of their work lives on beyond the feeble span of mortal lives. Demacia reveres the warriors who founded it in the martial tenets to which they dogmatically cleave. Great works of literature set down thousands of years ago might still be performed, and sculptures freed from blocks of marble in the ages before the Rune Wars are still viewed with awe by those who can find them.”

Maura sensed with complete clarity that to climb these stairs would be committing to something irrevocable, something final. How many other artists had stood where she was right now? How many had lifted their foot and placed it on the first step?

How many had come back down?

How many had turned and walked away?

Maura could leave now, of that she was certain. Vladimir was not lying to her. If she chose to leave, she had no doubt she would arrive back at the studio unharmed. But how could she face each day from now until the Wolf or the Lamb came for her, knowing she had lacked the courage to take this one chance to create something incredible?

“Maura,” said Vladimir, and this time his silken voice was right before her.

She looked up, and there he was.

Silhouetted against the red light drifting down from above, his form slender and cursive. White hair streamed behind him, and swarms of crimson-winged butterflies filled the air above.

His eyes, once rendered in vivid blue, were now a smoldering red.

They pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

He reached out to her, and his slender fingers were elegantly tapered, with long nails like glittering talons.

“So, shall immortality be our legacy?” asked Vladimir.

“Yes,” she said. “It shall.”

Maura took his hand, and together they climbed the staircase into the veils of crimson.