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The overcast skies had parted since the magistrates entered. When the large doors at the back of the hall opened again, Riven watched as the room full of villagers was split by a blinding shard of daylight. She walked across the hall’s threshold and the movement pushed aside the still air in the hall like the release of a held breath.

The doors closed behind her. Two warrior priests marched her through the large aisle that divided the throng. The council hall was once again cast in the murky gloom from curled windows set high in the ceiling and the cylindrical lanterns that hung from the sculpted roof. She watched Shava Konte swallow thickly as she passed.

She knew what they saw. A woman, her white hair matted with straw from a rough sleep in stone cell. A stranger. An enemy. A daughter of Noxus.

Fatigue clung to Riven’s bones like the farmer’s mud that still stained her clothes. Her soul felt stiff and misshapen, but when Riven’s gaze found the old man on the stool, she stood a little straighter.

She took in the three judges seated on the dais before her. The stern one in the middle motioned for Riven to be seated, rather than shackled standing.

Riven refused the wooden chair shaped by magic. She recognized the bailiff as the lead rider that came to old couple’s field. His thin lips stretched in the same arrogant smile.

“Suit yourself, it’ll just be harder for you.”

The bailiff sat on the chair himself with an air of satisfaction. The center judge gave the bailiff a look of admonishment and then spoke to Riven.

“I know you are not of this land. The dialect here is tricky. I will speak the common tongue so that we may better understand each other.”

Like most Noxians, Riven had learned enough of Ionia’s common tongue to command and order, but like the land itself, the accent of each village had a unique personality flavored by its people. She nodded at the judge and waited.

“What is your name?”

“Riven,” Riven said. Her voice was hoarse, catching in her throat with a croak.

“Bring her water.”

The bailiff stood and took up a skin of water, shoving it at her. Riven looked at the skin, but did not take it.

“It is only water, child,” the judge seated beside the center judge said, leaning forward over the table. “What, do you fear we would poison you?”

Riven shook her head, refusing the offer. She cleared her throat, determined to speak without any more assistance. The bailiff pursed his lips and took a deep swig, water dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He flashed his teeth in a triumphant sneer meant for her.

“You have been brought before this council,” the judge interrupted, drawing Riven’s attention back to the three robed figures and the crowd gathered within the hall. “Because we wish to know what you have to say.”

“Am I not being sentenced?”

The judge swallowed her surprise.

“I am unclear about how justice is carried out where you come from, but here we believe justice is first served by understanding and enlightenment.” The judge spoke to Riven as if she was a young child. “We believe you have knowledge of an event that is most important to this community. If that knowledge reveals a crime, then you could be sentenced and punished accordingly.”

Riven looked from the judge to Asa, then back. Justice in Noxus was often decided in combat. If one was lucky, it was decided swiftly and with the sharpened end of the weapon. Riven eyed the judge warily. “What do you want to know?”

The judge leaned back. “Where are you from, Riven?”

“I have no homeland.”

The judge’s narrowing gaze told Riven that her words had been taken as defiance. The hawk-faced magistrate paused, tempering her response. “You must have been born somewhere.”

“A farm in Trevale.” Riven looked at the old man. “Noxus,” she admitted.

The council hall, which had dropped back to silence in order to hear the prisoner, took in a collective breath.

“I see,” continued the judge. “And you no longer call that place home.”

“When your home tries to kill you, is it still home?”

“You are an exile then?”

“That would imply I wish to return,” Riven said.

“You do not?”

“Noxus is no longer what it once was.” Impatience edged into Riven’s voice. “Can we get on with this?”

“So be it,” the judge said with a calmness that irritated Riven more than the shackles on her wrists. “You came with the Noxian fleet, yes?”

“I assume so.”

“You do not know?” The judge looked confused.

“I do not remember,” Riven said. She glanced to the crowd, her sideways look catching the eyes of Shava. The old woman had asked a similar question. Riven shook her head. “Does it matter? There was a battle. Many died. That is all I know.”

The painful memory of war that smoldered among the crowd flared to life at Riven’s words. They shoved each other, shoulders knocking together and shouting, as they all tried to stand at once.

Someone lashed out. “Noxian filth! My son is dead because of you!”

A moldy eggfruit sailed through the air and pelted Riven in the neck. The fermented juice and pulp slid wetly down the back of her shirt. The rotten smell rose up in the air, but Riven would not allow the scent of death to take her back to that moment long ago. She closed her eyes, allowing her breath to come through parted lips.

With that, the crowd erupted. Riven knew what it looked like, that she felt nothing for what had happened to these people. “Please,” she whispered to herself, unsure if she was imploring them to stop, or to encourage the fullness of their barely contained anger.

In answer, more of the late season eggfruit exploded on the stone floor. One caught Riven behind the knee. She stumbled, struggling to maintain her balance with her hands bound.

The judge rose to her full height, towering over the seated villagers and Riven. Her magistrate’s robe flared as she slammed the chestnut sphere against its cradle. The wooden benches beneath the crowd strained, groaning and flexing in response to the magistrate’s will.

“I will have balance restored to this hall!”

The reprimanded villagers quieted.

“Yes, Riven, the council remembers that time,” the judge continued with more restraint. “Many Ionians… and Noxians… perished. And you?”

It was a question that plagued Riven. Why had she been spared when others had not? She could offer no answer that would satisfy. “It seems I did not,” she said quietly

“Indeed.” The judge smiled coldly.

Riven knew there was little she could say to pacify the bereaved crowd. She owed them the truth, but even that was not hers to give. Her memories of that time were broken. She bowed her head.

“I do not remember,” Riven said.

The judge did not stop the questioning. Riven knew doing so would only allow for interruptions to spew forward from the anger simmering in the room.

“How long have you been in this land?”

“I do not remember.”

“How did you come to this village?”

“I do not remember.”

“Have you been here before?”

“I…” Riven hesitated, but could not hold on to the moment that would give a clear answer. “I cannot remember.”

“Did you meet with Elder Souma?”

The name stirred something within her. A memory of a memory, hazy and sharp at the same time passed through her. Anger flooded the empty place where her past once lived. She had been betrayed. She had betrayed.

“I can’t remember!” Riven lashed out in frustration, the shackles at her wrists rattling.

“War breaks many things,” the judge said, softening. “Some we cannot see.”

In the face of this enlightenment, some of the fight left Riven. “I cannot remember,” she said, more calmly than before.

The judge nodded. “There are others who may be able to speak to what you cannot remember.”

Riven watched the old man make his way slowly to a witness stool set in front of the judges. His fingers shook as he smoothed a few errant hairs in his thick eyebrows.

“Asa Konte,” the judged said patiently. “O-fa, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today.”

The old man nodded.

“Do you know this woman, the one called Riven?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” the old man said. “She came to us at the beginning of this past wet season.”

“Us?”

“Myself and Shava, my wife.”

The judge looked up at Mistress Konte, who still shifted uncomfortably on the bench at the front of the hall. The judge gestured to Riven.

“She came to you?”

“Well, I found her in our field,” the old man offered sheepishly. “We had a calf wander in the night. At dawn I went looking for it. Instead I found her.”

Murmurs of surprise and concern spilled again from the crowd.

“Spy!”

“More will come!”

“We must protect ourselves!”

The judge rested a hand on the heavy wooden sphere in front of her. The room grew quiet. “What did she want, Master Konte?”

The old man smoothed his eyebrows again and glanced at Riven. His look begged apology.

“She wanted to die, magistrate,” he said softly.

The judge leaned forward.

“It was the start of the wet season,” Asa continued. “She was soaked to the skin, nothing but fevered bones held together by mud and stubborn Noxian muscle.”

“You knew she was Noxian?”

“She carried a weapon, a blade, the scabbard was inscribed with the marks of their father tongue. No Ionian would carry such a weapon.”

The judge pursed her lips. “Master Konte, you took heavy losses during the invasion?”

“I did, magistrate,” the old man said. He looked to his wife. “Two sons.”

“What did you do with the woman?”

The old man took a deep breath.

“I took her home to Shava,” he said.

The murmur of the hall rose again, questioning the man’s lenience on a foe that had been so merciless. The faces within the hall told their stories of loss. None in their community had been untouched by the conflict. The old man lifted his head, and turned to the crowd, challenging the hardness of their hearts.

“My sons… My boys… Their bones have long since been cleaned by the sky. Would those we lost wish us to bury ourselves in grief beside them?”

Riven watched as the old man and his wife shared a knowing look. Shava’s eyes were wet and full.

“We were not ready to let them go, but…” The old man’s voice quivered. “But it does us no good to mire ourselves in the past when there is life left to live.”

Shava bit her bottom lip and sat up straighter, daring those who sat next to her to speak ill of their choice. Asa turned away from the crowd’s stares. He sat facing the magistrate, the stool creaking beneath him.

“There were so many deaths, I couldn’t bear to add another,” he explained. “We cleaned her up and offered what we had in peace.”

The judge nodded without emotion. Riven watched as the judge took in Riven’s shirt and pants, mentally unrolling the cuffs. She knew what the judge pictured as she had thought the same thing many times since the old woman had presented the clothes. They were meant for a young man, a head taller than her, maybe a man with Shava’s smile or Asa’s kind eyes.

For Riven it was a constant reminder of her own weakness. All her years of living or dying by the strength of Noxus, and Riven had accepted their fragile offer of hope, let herself be clothed in it and in a family that could have been.

“When she regained her strength, she wanted to work in the fields,” the old man went on. “My wife and I are old. We welcomed the help.”

“You and your wife did not fear for your lives?”

“The girl wants nothing to do with Noxus. She hates Noxus.”

“She said this to you?”

“No,” he said. “She said nothing of her past. Shava asked her once and she said nothing. We saw that it pained her, so we did not ask again.”

“If she said nothing, then how do you infer her feelings about her homeland?”

Master Konte wiped at his old eyes. Riven watched the trouble pass over his face, like the words were not his to give. He spoke quickly, conscious suddenly of the audience surrounding him.

“Fevered dreams, magistrate,” he said. “The night she came to us. Something that belonged to her, something she had cared for greatly, had been broken. For that she cried out against Noxus.”

“Do you know the thing she spoke of?”

“I believe so, magistrate.” The old man nodded slowly. “The pommel of her weapon has been bound into her scabbard. Four days ago I saw her undo the laces. I saw the blade was broken.”

Riven had thought she had only been watched by the fat mousing cat that day in the barn.
A few snide comments about the quality of Noxian weapons passed like handshakes among the crowd.

“And what did you do with that knowledge, Master Konte?”

“I took the blade to the temple.”

The judge cocked her head to one side, looking down her predatory nose at the old man. “To what end?”

“I hoped the priests might be able to mend it. That if the blade was made whole, she might be relieved of some of the ghosts that haunt her.” Even as crowd erupted behind him, the old man looked at Riven and the chains that bound her hands. “That she might have some peace in the present.”

“Thank you, Master Konte, for sharing your knowledge with the council,” the judge said, coldly staring the congregation into silence. “Your attestation is finished.”

She looked down at an unrolled parchment and back to the bailiff.

“Bring in the weapon.”

Riven watched two temple priests carry in a large wooden tray draped with a scarlet cloth and set it gingerly on the table before the council judges. A warrior priest stepped forward, his high rank made evident by the fluted edges of his wooden pauldron and breastplate.

“Show us,” the judge said.

The warrior priest withdrew the scarlet cloth, revealing a weapon and sheath both bigger than a kite shield. The scabbard was etched in the harsh strokes of Ur-Noxian, the heavy angles and slashes in stark contrast to the fluid script of Ionia. But it was the blade that drew the interest of the judges. A blade so thick and heavy it looked like it would break the well-trained arm of a temple priest to lift it, let alone the slender wrist of the young woman shackled before them. Indeed, when Riven had seen the weapon for the first time, she had thought the same thing.

Now, instead of one solid blade, the weapon was fractured into angry pieces, as if monstrous claws had raked through its metal flesh. The five largest pieces would have been deadly in their own right, but laid out against the soft Ionian cloth, broken and raw as it was, it was terrifying.

The judge looked at Riven. “This weapon belongs to you.”

Riven nodded her head.

“I suppose in this many pieces, it makes it a bit difficult to wield,” the judge said to herself.

There were snickers among the crowd.

The warrior priest shifted uncomfortably. “This weapon is ensorcelled, magistrate. The Noxians have bound magic into the blade.” The disgust hung heavy on his words.

Riven didn’t know if the judge was listening to the priest. The judge was nodding absently, her gaze washing over the weapon until it found the spot that Riven knew it would, the empty place Riven had struggled to fill. The judge’s falcon nose twitched.

“There is a piece missing.”

A young temple adept swayed nervously before the council hall.

“Adept, is this the weapon Master Konte presented to the temple?” the lead judge asked.

“Yes, magistrate.”

“You were the one to alert this court?”

“Yes, magistrate.”

“How did you know this weapon would be of interest to us?”

Riven watched the adept wipe his hands on the lengthy sleeves of his robes. His face was pale, as if he might faint, or be sick on the stone floor.

“Adept?” the judge probed.

“I am a bone washer, magistrate.” The words tumbled out of the young man. His hands hung like spent candle wax. “For the elders. After their bodies have been left to the sky, I collect them and prepare them.”

“I am familiar with the duties of a bone washer, adept. How is it this weapon concerns you?”

“The blade is the same.”

A moment of confusion swept over the judge’s face. The same uncertain daze washed over the crowd, passing from person to person in befuddled looks. Riven, however, felt a wave of unease crawl over her skin.

“When I prepared the bones of Elder Souma, after his time, for the temple, I mean to say.” The adept’s haphazard explanation was losing many. Instead of continuing he pulled from a fold in his robe a small silk bag and started undoing the tight knots with his long fingers. He retrieved from the bag a shard of metal and held it up. “This metal, magistrate. It is the same as the broken blade.”

The adept scurried from his place and approached the judge. She took the shard from his outstretched hand and turned it over in her fingers. Even held at a distance, the metal seemed similar to the broken blade.

Riven's breath caught in her throat. There was the piece of her past that she had searched for and given up finding. Now it was on the verge of coming together, illuminating a dark and forgotten corner of her mind. The guilt Riven carried and had buried deep was finally being unearthed. Riven steeled herself against what she knew would come next.

“Where did you find this?” the judge asked.

The adept cleared his throat. “In the bones of Elder Souma’s neck.”

The council hall gasped.

“You did not bring this forward before?” The judge’s eyes narrowed as she focused in on her target.

“I did,” the adept said, trying desperately to look anywhere but the warrior priest who stood next to Riven’s broken blade. “But my master said it was nothing.”

The judge had no such trouble looking at the warrior priest.

“Approach,” she ordered. She handed the bit of mangled metal to the warrior priest. “Put it with the rest.”

The warrior priest glared at the adept, but followed the orders given. He approached Riven’s blade and then turned at the last minute to the judge. “Magistrate, there is dark magic in this weapon. We don’t know what this piece may reveal.”

“Proceed.” The judge’s words left no room for argument.

The warrior priest turned back. All the eyes in the council hall watched as he took the sliver of hammered metal and placed it nearest the tip of the broken blade.

The weapon was silent.

The judge let out a small sigh. Riven, however, continued to watch the old man and his wife. She knew their hope would last only a moment longer. She had been weak to accept it, to believe that there was something in this world for someone so broken. Their relief at her fleeting innocence hurt most of all. It hurt because Riven knew in that moment the good they believed about her was a lie. The truth of her past was sharper and more painful than any blade.

Riven heard the sword beginning to hum. “Please,” she called out. She struggled to be heard over the chatter of the hall. She struggled against her restraints. “Please, you must listen.”

The vibration built. Now it could be heard and felt. The villagers panicked, pushing and shoving to get back. The judge stood quickly, her arms outstretched to the wooden table that held the broken sword. The edge of the table began to grow and curl, the wood budding new green limbs over the weapon, but Riven knew the magic would not hold.

“Everyone, get down!” Riven yelled, but the sound of the blade drowned out her voice, indeed all the voices, as the weapon built to a fever pitch.

Then, all at once the power exploded in a burst of runic energy and splintered wood. A gust of wind knocked everyone who had been standing down to the floor.

From the ground, the faces of the crowd turned to Riven.

Riven’s lips were cold and her cheeks flushed. The ghosts of her mind, memories she had entombed, they were fully alive now, looming one by one before her. They were Ionian farmers, sons and daughters, the people of this village that would not kneel to Noxus. They were looking at her. Haunting her. They knew her guilt. They were her warriors, too, her brothers- and sisters-in-arms. They would have gladly sacrificed themselves for the glory of the empire, instead she had failed them. She had led them under the banner of Noxus, a banner that had promised them a home and purpose. In the end, they were betrayed and discarded. All of them cut down by the sick poison of war.

Now these ghosts stood among the living, the courtroom of spectators knocked down by the power of the blade. The villagers slowly rose to their feet, though Riven was still there in that valley from long ago. She couldn’t breathe. Death choked her nose and throat.
No, these dead aren’t real, she told herself. She looked at Asa and Shava and they at her. Two shades stood near them. One with eyes like the old man’s and the other with a mouth like Shava’s. The old couple clung to one another as they steadied themselves and stood, oblivious to the deathly past that surrounded them.

“Dyeda,” the old woman said.

At that Riven could no longer contain her guilt and shame.

“I did it.” The words fell from Riven’s lips with an empty hollowness. She would accept her fate at the hands of these people. She would let them pass judgment and she would answer for her crimes.

“I killed your Elder,” she told them, breathless. Her ragged confession filled the room. “I killed them all.”

The light is dying.

Above me, the sky fades to black as the sun sinks beneath the horizon, leaving ripples of dappled red trailing above it, the last warm echoes of the day. There is red trailing from me, too, from my armor, my sword. The last warm echoes of the lives I’ve taken today. In the first days I would work in the aftermath to cleanse myself of it, to wash and scour the blood and death away, but was never truly able to. After a time, I stopped trying.

I hear the swish of a crimson cloak as someone drops into the bulwark beside me. From the corner of my eye I see the markings of rank.

“Captain,” I say, beginning to stand.

“Please,” she waves me back. I forget that I lead my warriors now, that she and I are equals, but it feels false. She is nobility, I am an orphan sword.

I know her, the cavalry officer we’ve been escorting into the hills, some attempt to break the stalemate bleeding us white. Proud, skilled, furious. As though the eyes of our empire watch her every move. She considers me for a second. “You look like you need rest.”

I glance up. “They use bombs that mimic the sound of children screaming to rob us of our sleep, or they come by night to slit our throats, with only the stars to bear witness.”

The captain’s eyes trail off, in thought. “I heard an officer from the Ninth cohort, saying that they can kill you through dreams.”

“Dreams?” I ask.

She nods.

I exhale. “What do you do if they kill you in a dream?”

She shrugs, and offers me a tired grin. “Try not to remember it, I suppose.”

I hear no beast nearby, and know this one is never far from hers. “Where is your mount?”

Her face darkens. “That ground we took last week… Their witch…”

I swallow, closing my eyes for a moment to block the memory.

“Before she died,” she continues. “The witch whispered something to my steed, probably meant for me. A wasting disease. This morning he could not stand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was suffering, so I eased it.” She looks at me. “Are you suffering?”

I meet her gaze, and she chuckles softly.

“Relax, the empire needs you. I refer to that.”

She inclines her chin toward my sword, its massive blade sunk into the earth beside me, still trailing red.

“That blade is a gift,” she says, her words cautious. “I have seen you wield it with skill, but time can so often make a gift into a burden. You have been so strong through all this. If the burden you bear has become too heavy, I would carry it for you.”

“No.” My hand reflexively goes to it, its terrible weight reassuring. “This thing I carry is mine. I would wish it on no one else. Even as it breaks me.”

In silence she studies me, her eyes cold for a moment, before she smiles. “I meant no shame upon you—as I said, we need you. We have shed blood together here, and that act makes us sisters.”

A child’s scream slices open the early night. It hangs, gouging the air with unnatural length. Sleep seems like a thing from another life, impossible here.

“This truly is a horrible place. Together, we’ll make it better.” She rises, and presses a fist to her chest. “For Darkwill.”

“For Darkwill,” I return the salute. “Thank you, captain.”

She shakes her head. “You can call me Marit.”

Riven blinked sweat from her eyes. The sting brought her out of the memory, and back to the calm of the field. Her senses adjusted to now, the rich smell of earth and crops ready for harvest, the crisp spice on the air as the leaves turned crimson, the heat of the sun on her skin.

She walked between the rows of the crop, sunlight peeking in golden bars through broad leaves and stalks. For a moment Riven was a child again, growing up tending the fields, though the barley she grew in her youth didn’t rise up past her head, or shimmer with the traceries of magic that suffused every part of the First Lands. Every few paces there would be a gap, the light flooding in to highlight a patch that had been harvested in stark relief, the prize portions of the crop that had already been taken to market. She paused each time, standing in the sun, allowing its heat to wash over her, as her insides twisted.

The sun had reached its zenith, the hottest part of the day. Riven drew a forearm across her brow, and tried to clear a parched throat. Her thoughts turned to water.

Emerging from between the stalks, she found Asa, his eyes kind as he waited for her with a skin in his hands. Riven had been distant from her adoptive father since they had returned from the market, wanting to give him his privacy to think, to feel.

To bury his wife.

“Soup will be ready soon,” he said. Then he looked down. “I think I made too much again. I forgot.”

Riven’s eyes darted to the shrine they had built for Shava Konte, the closest thing she had ever had to a mother. “Forgive me, fair.”

“For what?” Asa tilted his head, regarding her.

“I should have gone alone to market,” Riven continued. “You weren’t here when—”

“It is not upon your shoulders that the weight of the world be laid,” Asa shook his head slowly. “Nor the path that the stars turn in the heavens, or the dance that happens across the veil. Their accordances are great, they are beyond our influence.”

“Yet I still feel guilt.”

“Our responsibility rests upon our own actions, the choices made by our hearts.” Asa offered Riven the skin of water. “I know your heart, dyeda. It is pure.”

“Not all of it,” Riven took the skin, but her gaze lingered over the shrine. “I miss her, fair.”

“As do I,” Asa stood at her side. “Yet I do not grieve my beloved Shava, because she is not lost to us. She was at peace when we found her. No pain, and the fortune of passing in her sleep. I treasure her, as someone certain that when the blossoms return next, I will see her again.”

Riven felt a tear slide down her cheek. “Do you think her blossom will be hard to find?”

“My wife?” Asa smiled broadly. “I don’t believe a single blossom can contain her spirit. That woman, she will be an orchard.”

Riven smiled, looking up at Asa but finding the joy had vanished from his face. She turned, following where he stared transfixed upon a small group of figures that had appeared in the distance.

Her blood went cold. Her heart was stilled by an utter certainty within her, an inevitability she could no longer hope to hide from. The smell of a campfire welled in Riven’s nose, the words of the mender they had met upon the road echoing sharply in her mind.

“Fair,” said Riven, her hands clenching into fists. “Hide.”

“Farming,” Marit sighed. “Really.”

Erath followed the huntresses as they looked out across the stretch of land ahead of them. Great columns of natural stone lined the east, like the broken ribs of a long-dead god left exposed. To the west was forest, hued in a thousand shades of crimson, and nestled in between, a humble solitary farmstead.

“Perhaps the war truly did break her,” said Tifalenji. Her blade’s hum had become a full-throated song as they traveled from the bleached site of the chemical attack. Now, here, it was felt rather than heard, a sensation that shivered the bones and caused gums to ache. “She seeks to grow and create, some kind of attempt to assuage her past.”

“She grows crops, nourishing them, and then she harvests them. Cuts them away and sells them,” Marit snorted. “I’m sure a poet could do something with that.”

“Remember,” grumbled Arrel, reaching down to scratch First’s scalp. “We want her alive.”

“Alive,” echoed Marit. “Such a malleable term. How many limbs is ‘alive’?”

“Marit…” warned Teneff.

“She betrayed us.” Marit glared down from atop Lady Henrietta. “Not the army, not even Noxus, us. No mercy for deserters and traitors. Or have you forgotten that?”

Teneff met her gaze. “I haven’t forgotten. But we walk into this clear-headed, and we walk out back to the empire with her in chains. Understand?”

Erath listened, reaching for Talz and patting the basilisk’s flank. He was outside of their conversation but still he felt a part of it, especially Marit’s barb about deserters. Rather than anger at her, though, after all that had happened, he found himself agreeing with her. His father’s betrayal was still lodged tightly in his chest, jagged and insistent.

Teneff lingered back a few steps, allowing Erath to catch up to her.

“I doubt she will come peaceably—there will almost certainly be a confrontation,” said the warrior, hefting the chains wound around her forearm.

“You sound excited at the prospect,” Erath replied.

Teneff gave a wry smile. “Just be prepared. Simply do as you did before, you acquitted yourself well in the last battle.”

“Was I supposed to sulk and be maudlin at the prospect of taking an enemy’s life?” Erath scoffed. “What am I, some Demacian girl?”

As one, the women turned around and stared at him.

“What?” Erath looked at each of them. “I said Demacian.” They turned back around.

Arrel glanced at Tifalenji, scowling at the noise rippling from her sword. “Is that still necessary?”

“No.” The runesmith grinned. She ran a hand over her rune-etched blade, and the sound ceased. “We require the scent no longer. I can feel it myself, for the quarry is now in sight.”

The Noxians advanced upon the farm. Erath heard the huntresses mutter amongst themselves, the subdued talk of tactics on the march to war. Where they would stand, angles and landmarks, who would do what if the need for bloodletting arose, all discussed in a bored, almost horrifically calm manner. All the while their hands tightened over their weapons.

The huntresses spoke as though they were laying siege to a fortress, or meeting an entire army in the field. They were wary of Riven, mindful of the devastation she was capable of, filling Erath’s head with a vision of a ruthless warrior queen wielding an enchanted sword, drenched in the blood of the slain enemies strewn around her.

It was a vision that he found hard to reconcile with the lonely farm they were approaching. There was serenity here, a pocket of calm tucked away from the grandeur and chaos Erath had encountered in Ionia along the way. He considered for a moment if it was the reality that his journey had reached its destination that was really jarring. He thought back to the Immortal Bastion, staring up at its towers what felt like a lifetime ago.

Whoever that Erath had been, the one here now was ready to do his duty to the empire, and bring this traitor to justice.

Talz grumbled, making a deep choking sound. Frowning, Erath peeled back the creature’s gums, searching around and finally drawing his arm out, clutching a spittle-slick chicken bone.

“When did you have chicken?” he murmured.

Talz grunted. Erath stared at the beast for a moment. “Come on,” he said, giving a tug on the basilisk’s reins before flinging the bone away.

A rough dirt road led to the farm. Erath studied the land as they approached, a house in the same woven, organic style inherent to Ionia, a barn big enough for an ox or two, a small plot with rows of grain, some patches of it already cut down and harvested. He made himself think like the huntresses did, like his training had taught him. Where could an ambush lie? Where was the best open ground for a fight, and where could we fall back to if that fight turned bad?

Erath saw no ambush, no band of farmers armed with whatever they had to protect their land. Only a woman, standing alone in muddy clothes at the end of the road.

The huntresses stopped a short distance from her, eyeing her carefully.

“Who is that?” Erath asked.

Teneff took a slow breath. “That is Riven.”

Erath blinked. “That’s her?”

“That is her,” replied Arrel.

He looked closer. “She’s not what I imagined.”

“Appearances aren’t everything, manservant,” said Marit. “You look like an idiot, for example.” She mulled her words for a second. “Perhaps that is a bad example.”

“Where is it?”

All eyes turned to Tifalenji.

“What?” asked Teneff.

“Her blade,” the runesmith said through gritted teeth. “I sense it, not in one place but in many. Something is wrong.”

“Well she isn’t wielding it,” said Marit. “That is surprising. Maybe she’s beaten it into a plowshare.”

Tifalenji glared at Marit. The rider chuckled, though there was no mirth in it.

“I know, I hope not either.”

For a few moments, nobody said anything. Riven stood before the door to her farmhouse, the huntresses arrayed before her. Erath stayed a pace behind with Talz, peering between the women to see what was happening.

The silence stretched, untenable, and finally broke.

“Hello, sister,” called Teneff.

“Teneff.” Riven’s voice was low, almost soft but with an edge of sadness. Erath detected no rage in it, no fear, only pain. Anguish coated the speaking of her former comrade’s name. Riven’s eyes flicked quickly to the other Noxians, taking each of them in before settling on the tracker and her hounds. “Arrel. Pups have grown.”

Arrel inclined her head.

“So she does remember the life she cast aside,” Marit exclaimed, looking to the other huntresses, then back at Riven. “The ones she betrayed.”

Surprise flickered over Riven’s features at hearing the masked woman’s voice. “Marit?”

“Scars and all,” the rider sneered. Lady Henrietta hissed. “Surely you must have known this day would come.”

Riven let out a breath. “It was a matter of time, I suppose.”

Teneff took a step forward. “And now, that time is here. You are alone?”

“Yes,” she answered.

Arrel’s eyes narrowed. “Should we believe you?”

“There was another,” Riven gestured to a death shrine beside the farmhouse door. Erath could see it was newly made. “She passed, now it’s only me.” Her eyes grew hard. “What do you want?”

“You, Riven,” said Marit, leaning down from the saddle. “We have come for you.”

Erath could see Riven visibly tense. The bands of lean muscle in her arms twitched, fingers tightening around the grip of a sword she wasn’t holding. The blade squire’s hand dropped to rest on the pommel of his sheathed falchion.

“Do you plan on giving us any trouble, sister?” Teneff allowed the barbed chain in his hand to slacken, the heavy iron hook striking the ground with a thud. “Remembering who you really are?”

“I’m not that person anymore,” Riven said quietly. “That is all far behind me.”

“Not far enough,” said Arrel.

Silence held for a handful of heartbeats, radiating with tension. Erath looked between the huntresses and Riven, waiting for either of them to make the first move, for the traitor’s blade to magically manifest in her hand and furious combat to begin.

“Well,” said Marit, surprising Erath by swinging her leg over and dismounting from Lady Henrietta, handing him the reins. “Are you going to be a polite host and invite us in? We have so much catching up to do.”

Riven was still for a moment, before she stepped back beside the open door, gesturing inside. “Please.”

The huntresses stepped over the threshold and into the farmhouse, each setting their weapons down beside the door. “Stay,” Arrel bade her hounds, and the trio huffed and whined before sitting on either side of the entrance. Erath made to follow them, only to find Tifalenji’s hand on his arm.

“Not you,” the runesmith murmured, her fingers digging into his flesh. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes darted about. Erath noticed her head tilt slightly, as though she were straining to hear a sound just beyond earshot. “You will come with me.”

Riven watched as the huntresses seated themselves at the table, the three of them together on one side. Waves of emotion rolled out of them, crashing against her in a storm of alarm, dread—and in some small corner of her, relief.

These were the women she served beside, the sisters she made in fire and blood. The essence of them was clear to her, but each had changed, overlaid with scars she never saw inflicted. Riven knew that she had changed as well, the span of the table a rift yawning between them. They were almost like strangers, wearing masks of the comrades she used to know.

Marit was literally wearing a mask. She caught Riven staring at it.

“Oh, this?” The rider reached back, undoing the clasps behind her head. She pulled the mask free, and Riven’s heart sank at the sight.

“What’s the matter, sister?” Marit leaned forward. “Don’t remember what happened? The fire, the screams? You were there, after all.”

Riven’s eyes stung. “What happened to you, Marit?”

“I survived.” Marit’s ruined visage twisted in a cruel lipless grin. “Hmm, perhaps if you had stuck around, you would know.”

Riven looked away. “I thought you all were dead.” The words were genuine, until this day they had been fact to her, now she couldn’t tell if she was uttering them to convince the huntresses, or herself.

“We aren’t,” croaked Arrel, clearing her throat painfully. “How hard did you look?”

“It all happened so quickly,” said Riven, lost in the memory. “Emystan, when she fired on us—”

“Do not speak that name to me,” snarled Teneff. Marit shot the warrior a glance. Teneff rose. “And do not seek to cast blame upon others. You ran.”

“What do you remember,” said Arrel, coughing wetly, “of that day?”

Riven closed her eyes. Broken images flashed across her mind, her ears swelling with fire and screams. Her nose stung from burnt flesh and poison. Agony, pressure, fingers clawing at her boots, begging her to save them. But she couldn’t.

“Little,” Riven finally replied. “Fragments, here and there. I don’t know how I lived, something with my sword.”

“You do look quite unscathed,” said Marit.

“I am not,” Riven said firmly. “I have my scars.”

“We all do,” said Teneff. She locked her withering gaze upon Riven. “Why did you run?”

Erath followed close behind Tifalenji, the runesmith moving as though in a trance. Sweat trickled down Tifalenji’s face as she walked, eyes closed, the tip of her sword flicking and waving in the air as its runes glimmered and pulsed. Erath spared a glance back at the farmhouse, wondering what was happening inside, and nearly collided with Tifalenji as she came to a halt outside the barn.

“In here,” she murmured. “Something.”

Erath’s curiosity peaked. They had succeeded in tracking the traitor down by following the runic magic infused within her sword, so it had to be here somewhere, hidden away. After witnessing what Tifalenji was able to do with her own weapon, the blade squire was eager to see such a powerful relic first hand.

The barn was small, occupied only by a thin-ribbed ox munching contentedly on straw in a stall. Erath thought back to Talz and Lady Henrietta where he had hitched them outside, happy he had not chosen to house them here. Talz was far too big, and likely to bring the structure down, while Lady Henrietta would have taken an interest in the ox… and it was a lot of work to clean all that jewelry.

The tip of Tifalenji’s sword stopped abruptly over a heap of straw. “There,” she breathed, stooping down. “A pox on her life, to keep a blade like hers in a place like this.”

Tifalenji dug, her fingers clawing away at heaps of straw and dried grass. Finally she held her blade over it, whispering a sharp string of syllables that boiled the chaff away, revealing a flat piece of metal, about the size of Erath’s fist. He could make out a portion of a rune, etched into the dark material, cut off by the edge of the fragment where it appeared to have been shattered from the whole.

“No,” Tifalenji’s breath caught in her throat as she touched it. “No, no, no…”

Erath took a step back, feeling the runesmith’s rage rolling off her like a heat haze. “Is that part of the sword? How could something of such power be broken?”

“She did it.” A tear streaked down Tifalenji’s face as her fingers closed over the shard. “She actually did it.”

Erath looked back at the farmhouse, thinking of the deserter inside with the huntresses. What had happened to this woman?

Tifalenji bolted upright and rounded on Erath in a single swift motion, her eyes smoldering. “There are more pieces like this,” she hissed. “I can feel them, and you and I are going to find them. Every single one.”

Riven ladled soup into bowls, placing one in front of each of the huntresses before filling one for herself.

“You certainly made a lot,” Marit remarked, glancing at the large pot simmering over the fire. “You must have quite the appetite, Riv.”

Riven swallowed a spoonful of broth. “I eat some of it fresh. The rest can sit over the fire for a week or so.”

Marit stirred the contents of her bowl. “How quaint.”

“You didn’t answer me,” Teneff pressed, her food untouched. “Tell me why you abandoned everything you had pledged your life to. You owe us that much.”

Riven stopped eating, placing her spoon on the table. “I was an orphan. Father died fighting far from home, I was never told where. Mother died having me. When Noxus called, I leapt at the chance—not for adventure, or a desire to spill blood.” She looked at the huntresses. “For family. For a chance to finally feel like I belonged somewhere. That changed that day in Navori, when the rain caught fire set by those we called ally.”

Riven took a breath, fighting to keep the memory from resurfacing. “We didn’t mean anything to them. We never did.”

“Noxus is not the same empire that you abandoned,” said Teneff. “It has evolved. Changed. Darkwill is dead, the nobility torn down.”

Riven noticed Marit’s eyes narrow, her mask of scar tissue twitch involuntarily.

“The empire is now a place where any with the strength to thrive can do so,” Teneff continued. “Where we all work as one to bring the same freedom and meaning to everywhere the sun touches.”

Riven considered her words. “If this new Noxus is some different place, then why does it still care about me?”

“We care about you,” said Arrel.

“We all thought you were dead,” added Marit. “A fallen hero. And instead we had to learn from others that you not only are alive, but have turned your back on those who would have died for you.”

“I met a mender here,” said Riven. “A healer of broken things, pottery, stone. She would sing to them, play charms, help guide the edges back to one another to become one again. She told me the spirits within all things want to be whole, but I don’t know if I believe that. I believe, sometimes, that which is broken cannot be pieced back together. It can’t go back. It is irreparable, and that is how it should stay. How it must stay.”

As Tifalenji roved around the farm, murmuring to herself as she hunted for more fragments, Erath approached the door to the cellar on her instructions. He stopped beside the death shrine that had been recently built, studying the graceful architecture of the small structure.

For a moment he thought to search it for a fragment, but found himself unwilling to risk desecrating the shrine. Tifalenji had found other shards of the blade, mourning each discovery like the body of a dear friend. If she detected one within the shrine, Erath had no doubt the runesmith would not share his misgivings.

Erath had heard nothing from within the farmhouse. No shouts, no sounds of violence. He was intensely curious to know what was happening inside, where the huntresses would find the answers that had driven them across Ionia to find Riven, but knew well enough he was not welcome there. What occurred within those walls was between the four sisters, and nobody else.

Yet Erath could not help but wonder how long it would stay that way.

Squatting down, he took hold of the cellar door and swung it up and open. Cool, moist air wafted up toward him, revealing a set of rough stone steps leading down into the gloom. Peering into the dark, Erath wished he had his own runeblade, for no other reason than to light the way.

Instead, he relied on more traditional methods, walking over to Talz. After checking both his and Lady Henrietta’s hitchings, making sure both strong creatures would be unable to break loose and cause him even more trouble, Erath used the materials borne on the basilisk’s back to fashion himself a small torch.

Now able to see, he descended the cellar steps. He played the light of his torch in front of him, only able to clearly determine what existed inside its flickering glow. The vague impressions of stacks of sackcloth, shelves lined with sealed jars made of clay and stone, farmer’s tools.

Erath heard a noise—a short, sharp rustle in the dark.

Immediately his knife was in his hand. The cellar was cramped, the quarters too tight for his falchion. He froze, straining his hearing, and slowly moved his torch around him.

The light granted shape and texture wherever Erath brought it. He focused on the location of the sound, his breathing low and even, as steady as his grip on his knife. Then he came to an abrupt halt, as he discovered the light of the torch glittering back in a pair of wide, frightened eyes.

It was no runic blade fragment. It was a man.

“Do you think we will accept that?” Marit had still not touched her food, her mind on anything but her appetite. “After what we endured to find you, the blood we spilled? You think we will just turn around and leave you be, like nothing ever happened?”

“Much has happened,” Riven slowly shook her head. “Too much. Go back and tell them I’m dead. There is truth enough in that, the Riven you knew is dead. I’m someone else, someone broken who this land still holds to account.”

“That is a lie,” rasped Arrel. “We are the ones who hold you to account.”

“It is your life here that is the lie, Riven,” said Teneff. “You cannot run away from this, not anymore. Be the Noxian we once knew, our sister. Return with us to the empire, stand tall and finally face justice. If you truly see yourself as broken, home is where you will find the last piece to make you whole again.”

Marit gave a crooked grin. “They may not even execute you.”

“Much has changed,” Arrel said. “But the soul of Noxus has not. Join us, and put a knee to the ground. Or stand against us, and we’ll put you underneath it.”

Teneff shot her comrades an angry look, before turning back to Riven. “Embrace the new Noxus, devote yourself to the empire and be reaffirmed in its eyes, and they will value your strength. I know it’s still within you, Riven. It is not too late for you.”

Riven looked away. She hesitated, hearing a truth in their words she did not want to acknowledge. What if Noxus was different? After everything that had happened, was there still a life for her there? And now that the empire had found her, would they ever stop?

Riven looked at each of her sisters, adamant in their mission. What would she have to do to stop them? And if they failed in their task, Noxus would just send more. How many innocent lives would be lost before they finally tore her away from this place?

Submission loomed heavy in her heart. Go with them, it said. Let no more Ionian blood be shed because of you. No more people dying before their time for the sake of your soul.

People like Asa. Your fair.

“Riven! Come out, now!”

The four women jolted at the voice from outside the farmhouse. Riven stood, and the huntresses followed suit, their postures growing taut.

“What is this?” she asked.

Teneff glanced at Arrel and Marit, then back at Riven. “Let’s go find out.”

Erath watched Riven appear from inside the farmhouse, flanked by the huntresses. They stepped into the daylight, finding him and Tifalenji standing there, their weapons drawn, with the Ionian man Erath had discovered kneeling between them.

“Dyeda,” gasped Asa.

“Fair!” Riven started toward him, stopping short as Tifalenji rested her rune blade against the man’s throat. “Release him,” she demanded. “He has no part in this!”

“Your deception has made him a part.” Tifalenji’s face was hard, her eyes cold. “Now we can dispense with the tears of reunion and get to the true matter at hand.”

Erath looked to Tifalenji. Riven’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I have someone you want,” said the runesmith, indicating Asa. “And you have something I need.” She showed Riven the broken fragments in her other hand. “Bring it to me.”

Riven hesitated, her eyes flashing between Tifalenji and Asa.

“I grow weary of these games,” snarled Tifalenji, pressing her blade hard enough for Erath to see a trickle of blood from Asa’s throat. “I am not asking, and you know of what I speak. Bring it to me, now… or there will be another death shrine, here.”

The moment stretched as Riven looked to Asa. Erath maintained his calm, carefully studying Riven. He watched her push a breath out between her teeth, and slowly turn back to the farmhouse.

“Ensure she does not flee,” commanded Tifalenji. Arrel gestured to First, and the drakehound loped around behind the farmhouse, while the other two guarded the front corners of the structure.

“What is this, runesmith?” said Teneff. She looked at Erath. “Who is this man?”

“I found him in the—”

“Be silent,” snapped Tifalenji. “This is my business.”

Riven reappeared, stepping out into the field carrying something wrapped in a blanket. All eyes were fixed upon it, especially Tifalenji’s.

“Show me,” the runesmith ordered. “Now.”

Her face tight, Riven slowly unwound the blanket, letting it fall to reveal the hilt and crossguard of an enormous broadsword. A jagged portion of the blade was still attached to it, like a chipped tooth, inscribed with the same runic script Erath had seen on the fragments they had collected.

“Damn you,” Tifalenji breathed, her voice shaking at the sight of it. Her fingers tightened around the blade fragments. “Do you have any idea what you have done?”

“This sword was entrusted to me,” said Riven, her slender fingers slowly closing around its leather-bound grip. “It is my responsibility, and no other’s. Let him go.”

“It should have never gone to you,” hissed Tifalenji. “Too long has that mistake gone uncorrected, but no longer. Surrender it now.”

Holding the sword, even broken, Riven seemed stronger. Erath could see the defiance growing within her.

“You cannot have it,” said Riven. “This weapon will never return to those who forged it. I will not allow that to come to pass.”

“Then he will die,” said Tifalenji simply. “And so will you. Even desecrated as it is, the blade is what is important. You are nothing but a parasite, clutching for its radiance to give meaning to a broken, worthless existence.”

“So, this was never about me.” Riven shot an accusing glare at the huntresses. “Was it?”

Erath stared at Tifalenji. Were they really only here for a blade?

“Your life was forfeit the moment you turned against my masters, and the blade ceased to be wielded to their purpose,” Tifalenji seethed. “You died in that moment of betrayal, Riven. I am merely here to take back what is ours.”

“You mean to kill her?” Teneff stepped forward, the chains of her hook rattling. “This was not what we agreed upon, runesmith.”

Arrel gestured, and her trio of hounds rushed around her, snarling.

“You’ll defy me now?” Tifalenji scoffed. “You have deserted, soldiers. Return to Noxus without my protection and you will be executed—or do as I say, and live. There is no alternative.”

“She’s right.”

Teneff and Arrel turned, watching Marit as she walked to the door of the farmhouse and retrieved her glaive. Riven watched as she passed her by, going to stand at Tifalenji’s side.

“Rune-witch,” said Marit. “You promised me a blade when all this was done. But I am feeling impatient, I think I’ll just have Riven’s instead.”

“Prove your worth, then,” said Tifalenji. “Strike her down and take it from her, and it shall be yours.”

“Marit, listen to me,” Teneff pleaded. “We cannot do this. We all agreed, she must return to Noxus to face justice.”

“I’ll be Noxus’ justice!” Marit snapped, leveling her glaive at Riven. “That sword always should have been mine, you never possessed the strength to do what needed to be done with it. With the blade reforged, and wielded by my hands, I will rise—my name and lineage will not die forgotten in the darkness. All that was stolen from me will be restored, won back by the edge of that blade!”

Erath studied the two women, watching the sunlight play across the gleaming edge of Marit’s glaive.

“Look at you.” Marit spat on the ground before Riven. “A broken sword, for a shell of a woman. Could you have even lifted it now?”

Tifalenji cried out as the shards whipped from her hand, leaving it bloody. The fragments sliced through the air toward Riven, shimmering with emerald light. Weaving above her, the broken segments came together, bound by crackling runic energy into an immense, fractured union.

“Lift it?” Riven spun the massive blade once, kicking up dust and bits of gravel into the air. “Oh, yes, my sister. I can still lift it.”

Marit’s gruesome visage twisted in a smile as she sank into a fighting stance. “My whole life was taken from me, you threw yours away. Come on, then! The blood we spilled to find you… You owe me this, Riv!”

Teneff took a step toward Tifalenji, with Arrel at her side. “Do not interfere,” the runesmith hissed, raising her sword. She shot a glance at Erath, and gestured to the old man. “Hold him.”

Erath laid a hand on the Ionian’s shoulder, his falchion in his other fist. He tried to split his attention between ensuring the man didn’t run, and the alarming division forming between Teneff, Arrel, and Tifalenji.

What if he had to choose a side?

Erath’s mind raced at the prospect. What would he choose? Marit’s vindication against betrayal? Teneff’s steadfast duty to the empire? Or the safety of Tifalenji’s authority, despite her secrets?

Would the ones he rejected try to kill him? Could he kill them?

All this while the conflict was poised to begin in front of him, and Erath was unable to take his eyes off Riven’s incredible blade.

“Marit, sister, do not do this,” Riven said through gritted teeth. “Don’t make me kill you.”

Marit spun her glaive. “Don’t worry, Riven. You won’t.”

The two began to circle. Erath took note of their postures, Marit fluid and aggressive, Riven stoic and reserved. Their weapons occupied the space between them, the edges flicking and making tiny circles but never touching…

…until, finally, Marit struck.

Sensing an opening, the rider leapt forward, her glaive a whirling blur of steel. Riven backpedaled, using the hulking length and width of her sword’s blade to deflect the flurry of blows in showers of sparks and emerald runic energy. Marit sidestepped, throwing out the haft of her glaive against Riven’s sword to knock it aside, and lunged for her throat.

Crying out, Riven swept her blade in an arc, sending a gale of lashing wind at Marit and hurling her away. Marit skidded back, her free hand digging into the earth to slow herself.

“Cute,” she said with a grin. She rose, and began her attack anew.

As they progressed, Erath noticed Riven’s defensive guise begin to slip. Something was awakening within her, the warrior spirit that had made her one of the deadliest soldiers in Noxus. Slash by slash, strike after parry, she ceased to be on the back foot. Erath began to see something overtake her features, replacing calm.

He saw rage.

Riven started attacking. Her runeblade made a sizzling thrum as it chopped and slashed against Marit’s defenses. Marit’s scarred features twisted in concentration as she used every bit of her incredible skill to ward off Riven’s assault—but every counter was swept aside, every attempt to spin inside Riven’s guard rebuffed.

For the first time, Erath considered that Marit could lose. In the shade of a massive tree, its leaves red as blood, Riven was winning.

The two were sheened in sweat. Marit’s movements had lost their grace as exhaustion set in, with an edge of desperation. Where Marit was fading, Riven surged, her eyes smoldering as she delivered increasingly powerful blows. Throwing Marit back against the tree, Riven raised her sword for an overhead strike. Marit brought up the haft of her glaive, and Riven’s blade cleaved it in half.

“You’ll never escape what makes you broken, Riven,” Marit smiled coldly, throwing away the lower half of her weapon. “No matter where you go, it will always be with you.”

Marit lunged with her broken glaive. Roaring, Riven drove her own blade forward. Blood burst around it, snapping and burning to a mist against the runes as she ran Marit through, pinning her to the tree.

In an instant, Riven’s eyes widened. She tore the blade back and Marit slowly slid to the ground, clutching her chest but unable to stem the flow of blood spilling over her fingers.

The rage vanished from Riven’s face as she beheld Marit. Her grip on her sword slackened. “Sister, forgive me.”

Marit stared up at Riven, blood trickling down the corner of her mouth. Her strength fading, Marit used the last of it to seize the collar of Riven’s shirt, hauling her down close to look her in the eye.

“No,” Marit hissed, the contempt in the word costing her what life she had remaining to her as she slumped into the dirt.

Silence descended. The shock radiated through all present, especially Erath. Marit had always seemed invincible to him, surviving the chemical attack that had disfigured her, triumphing in every battle across their journey. He could not fathom that he had just watched her fall.

And for what? he thought. What are we really doing here?

“Regrettable,” said Tifalenji, “but not unexpected.”

Riven recoiled as her blade was torn from her exhausted grasp, whirling her around to see the runesmith now holding it, wielding a runeblade in each hand.

“Through all of this, on the path here, I truly debated whether to let you live after I had taken back what is ours. But after this…” She tightened her grip on Riven’s blade. “…sacrilege, I cannot leave here while your heart still beats.”

“Enough!” cried Teneff, and she and Arrel advanced on Tifalenji. Asa whimpered at the sight, struggling to be free of Erath’s grip.

The runesmith crossed her blades and swung them out, punching the huntresses from their feet in a storm of energy. Arrel’s hounds bayed, charging to their master’s defense. Tifalenji uttered a verse and the three were suspended in mid-air, sealed inside capsules of runic energy. Erath watched the scene play out, his heart climbing into his throat, the grip of his falchion growing slick in his hand.

“You think you can stop this now?” Tifalenji roared. “Nothing will stop it! I will kill every single one of you and sleep peacefully tonight, for I am righteous, and you all are—”

The air was driven from Tifalenji’s lungs as the tip of a blade emerged from her chest. For an instant the runesmith sagged, as though weightless, before she began to fall. The twin runeblades tumbled from lifeless fingers, and the bloodied falchion held her up for a second before it was pulled free, revealing Erath holding it behind her.

The drakehounds dropped to the ground, dazed but unharmed. Arrel and Teneff hauled themselves to their feet, staring at Erath in surprise, as though looking at him for the first time.

“No more betrayal,” whispered Erath. “No more secrets. After everything we’ve been through, everything questioned and twisted, all that is constant is honor. Our duty to Noxus.”

Teneff stepped forward. Riven watched her stoop down, and retrieve both runeblades. Riven’s had fallen apart once more, the pieces scattered over the ground. Arrel collected them, before the two huntresses stood over Riven.

“He’s right,” said Teneff. She eyed Riven not with vengeance or hate, but grim resolve. “Honor is all that we have. I gave my oath to Noxus that you would see justice, sister. I will see that carried out.”

“Just leave us be,” Asa croaked, tears streaming down his face. “You do not have to take her.”

Erath looked to the huntresses, to Riven. Would there be further bloodshed before this was done?

“I will go.”

“Dyeda, no…” Asa pleaded, shocked to hear those words coming from Riven’s mouth.

Riven released a shuddering breath. “No more, fair—no more will suffer here because of me. Our responsibility rests upon our own actions, the choices made by our hearts.” She looked at him. “This is my choice.”

Asa’s mouth opened, then closed. He breathed, shakily, and stood tall. “Wherever you go, whatever you do, you will always be my dyeda. Always.”

“You will always be here, fair.” Riven’s hand fell to her heart. She looked up at Teneff. “Leave him in peace, and I will go with you.”

Teneff was still for a moment, before dipping her head a fraction. “I swear it.” She nodded to Erath, and the blade squire immediately released Asa.

The Ionian stood shakily, a look from Riven leaving him to hang his head as he stumbled toward the farmhouse. Asa slid down against the doorway, racked with sobs as he watched Teneff put Riven in chains.

Erath’s mind suddenly went to the beasts. He whirled around, relieved to see Talz still hitched in place, eating grass without a care in the world.

But Lady Henrietta had slipped her reins.

Panic surged in Erath’s chest, until he saw she hadn’t gone far. He found the reptilian steed in the shade of the tree, trying to awaken Marit with gentle nudges from her snout. Slowly, carefully, he closed the distance to them.

Henrietta hissed at Erath, baring her fangs and putting herself between him and Marit’s body as he reached out.

“I know,” Erath whispered, gently running a hand down Henrietta’s neck. “I know.”

Henrietta hissed again, softer this time. Erath reached for her reins, and the beast did not pull away.

Arrel finally gave voice to the question in all their heads. “How will this end? The runesmith is dead, her mandate does nothing for us now.”

“She died on the route of her expedition.” Teneff stared at Tifalenji’s body. “In service to the empire. In her name we continued on, and succeeded in her task, bringing a fugitive to justice.”

“That is what you will tell them?” asked Arrel.

Teneff was unmoving. “That is the truth.”

“Well, then,” said Arrel. “You and the blade squire seem to have everything in order.”

Erath looked at the tracker, realization dawning. “You aren’t coming with us.”

“This was important.” Arrel shook her head, handing Teneff the shards of Riven’s blade. “But it is done, and I serve Noxus better on my own.”

Teneff slowly extended a hand. “Until we meet again, sister.”

Arrel looked at it for a moment, before grasping it, wrist to wrist. “Until then.” She gestured and her hounds padded to her side, as they began to walk the dirt road away from the farm.

“Just the two of us, then,” said Erath, watching Arrel disappear.

“You aren’t coming either,” said Teneff.

Erath stared at her, at Riven, confused.

“This duty is mine alone now,” she said. “My search is over—but not yours.” She nodded to Lady Henrietta. “Now go. Find your betrayer.”

At first, Erath said nothing. After witnessing Riven’s power he didn’t want to leave Teneff alone with her, but he knew in his heart that it was the right choice. And she was right, there was something left that he had to do here.

Erath straightened, hammering a fist proudly against his chest. “For Noxus.”

Teneff returned the salute. “For Noxus.”

Erath helped Teneff drape Marit’s body in her family’s standard, and load it onto Talz before retrieving his own things. “Grow big and strong, Talz,” he patted Talz’s flank. “Keep Ten out of trouble.”

The basilisk swung his head playfully, nearly knocking Erath off his feet. He smiled, feeling his eyes sting. He turned away, wiping away a tear with his thumb, and turned to Lady Henrietta.

Inching toward her, Erath pictured every person he had witnessed Lady Henrietta kill. Every shriek of reptilian fury, every strangled cry ripped from the throats of her prey. Every time he had cleaned the gore from her jewelry. Softly humming he approached, reached out, and gently ran a hand over her scaly hide. She twitched, but did not recoil from him. Encouraged, he tested her reins, and after a moment Erath climbed into the saddle on Lady Henrietta’s back.

She accepted him.

Riven and Teneff watched Erath ride away down the road. Riven’s manacles clinked, and she realized this was the second time she had been dragged from the farm in chains. She remembered how she had felt then—the fear and the panic, allowing it to wash over her and ebb away. It would not be the same as it was before. This time was different, but so was she.

Teneff turned to Riven. “You are my captive, but you are also my sister. I will treat you with respect due. Are you ready?”

Riven exhaled, sparing one last look at Asa and the home she would never see again, and gave a nod. “Yes.”

“Good.” Teneff helped Riven onto Talz’s back, looking out at the long road ahead of them. “To Noxus.”

Erath rode through the night. After the hardships of the journey to find Riven on foot, the speed of covering ground with Lady Henrietta was exhilarating. Were his purpose different, he would have allowed the joy of riding to overwhelm him. But his heart was heavy, like a stone sitting in his chest, as the distance to his destination whittled away to nothing.

The natural stockade did not open for him. Erath drew his falchion, clashing it against his armor.

“I am Jobin’s son!” Erath bellowed. “Let him show himself, or stand aside so that I might face him.”

After a few moments’ silence, the barrier peeled apart wide enough to admit him. He trotted into the village, feeling the frightened eyes of Ionians and wayward Noxians upon him.

“Jobin!” Erath called. “Father, face me!”

“Peace!” An elder emerged from the crowd. Erath recognized him as the old man who had watched over the site of the chemical attack. “Be at peace, my child. I will take you to him.”

Exhaling, Erath sheathed his falchion, and dismounted Lady Henrietta. The elder led Erath to Jobin’s hut, and the two entered. Ionians gathered a distance from Henrietta, singing calming melodies. Henrietta spat at them.

The hut was dark. The Ionian lit a few candles, granting enough illumination for Erath to see the shape at the center of the room, draped in a shroud.

“Your father,” said the elder.

Erath drew a breath. He knelt, trying to keep his hands from shaking as he drew back the shroud, revealing the pale, cold face of his father. It was scarred, bruised, and discolored.

“Why did you return?” asked the Ionian.

“I came,” Erath’s voice shook, “to hear why he betrayed me and my companions to the Brotherhood.”

“Betray?” Sadness flooded the elder’s features. “My child, he did not.”

Erath’s eyes fell over the wounds, taking in every bruise, tracing every laceration.

“The Brotherhood came not long after you departed,” said the Ionian. “They demanded we reveal your path. He defied them, and for his defiance he endured torture. They took his life.”

Erath barely heard the words. His breath caught in his throat. Emotions collided over him. His journey. Denied from fighting for his tribe, enduring the hardships to find his place in another. Discovering their own broken family. Seeing it torn apart and pieced back together.

He touched his father’s face. A tear fell, striking Jobin’s cheek. The weight in Erath’s chest vanished, the stone melting away beneath warmth.

“You could stay,” the elder ventured. “We would welcome Jobin’s son here. Wait for the blossom festival to come once more.”

“No,” Erath shook his head. “His spirit is at peace with me.”

The Ionian stepped back, dipping his head in understanding.

“Help me wrap him,” said Erath, taking hold of the shawl. “He’s coming with me.”

“Where will you take him?” asked the elder.

Erath looked at the Ionian, and smiled. “Home.”

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.

The council hall that had been as still as a grave swarmed back to life. Armed warrior priests, drawn by the commotion, flooded through the doors, pushing past villagers who just wanted to run away from the dangerous magic that had been thrust upon them.

The falcon-nosed judge had found her footing and cracked her wooden sphere against the table.

“This hall will restore itself to balance,” she demanded.

The room grew quiet once more. Overturned benches were righted. The crowd seated themselves. The hooded stranger scratched his scarred nose and moved to examine the new chest high scorch mark that blackened the walls of the council room. A warrior priest approached the magic weapon tentatively.

Amid the broken table legs, was the blade and sheath. A greenish glow of energy crackled around the still broken pieces. The warrior priest bent and reached for the pommel, using two hands as he felt the true weight of the sword. Though fractured, the weapon held its shape.

“Put that accursed thing away!” someone shouted from the crowd. The priest slid the weapon back into the sheath as more priests came to remove it.

“I killed him,” Riven repeated. The voice was hers and not hers. It was the past speaking through her. She looked at the faces in the room. Memory restored, she was awake once more to a shadowed corner of her history.

“Riven,” the judge said.

Riven’s attention snapped from the blade to the judge.

“Do you know what you are confessing to?” she asked.

Riven nodded.

“Why did you do this?”

“I do not remember.” The words were all she had to offer. Because of her bound hands, Riven could not wipe away the silent tears that ran down her jaw.

The judge stared hard, waiting for more to reveal itself, but when nothing came, she motioned to the bailiff.

“Riven, you will stay chained in this hall until dawn so that all who need to speak with you to make peace may do so before you are sentenced.”

Riven looked at the shackles on her wrist.

“The other magistrates and I will consult the scrolls and the elders for an appropriate punishment of your crime.”

The villagers left quietly. The last to leave was the old couple. Riven knew this because she heard Shava whisper in her country voice to the old man, though emotion made the words unclear. When she heard their aged feet finally shuffle over the threshold, Riven at last looked up. The room had been emptied of the living—the only thing she was left with were the ghosts of her past.

The midnight air was cold and clear. The full moon held a ring of frost high in the dark sky. The light streamed in through the hall’s still open doors, but did not reach the shadows which held Riven at the back of the room. None of the crowd had come inside during the day to make their peace. The warrior priests had taken the blade, but the wooden spiked scorch mark that encircled the room kept the villagers from venturing inside the council hall. Some had come to the open door, a few with more rotten eggfruit, but ultimately Riven had been left alone with her thoughts. Sleep had finally come for her, but it was the light, fitful sleep of someone who knew the coming dawn could be her last. When shuffling footsteps approached in the dark hours before sunrise, she was instantly awake.

Riven opened her eyes.

“O-fa,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

The old man crouched down next to her slowly and unrolled a soft cloth full of tools. Riven recognized the metal instruments as the ones he used to fix the long blade to the plow.

“What does it look like I’m doing, child?” The silhouette of the moonlight deepened the wrinkled edge of his face, but the gloom of the shadows where the two of them sat did not touch him the way Riven had thought they would.

“You are stubborn in your wish to die,” he chided her. “That is not how you will find balance.”

He worked the shackles at Riven’s wrist and ankles. Riven did not push him away and tell him to go home as her mind insisted. Her selfish heart would not let her. If the old man was the last person she would sit beside in this life, Riven wanted the moment to go on as long as it could. She sat this way for a few minutes until she heard footsteps on the gravel outside the hall. Riven looked to Asa. He was smiling, dangling the opened cuffs before her like a child’s toy.

“O-fa. Quickly. You must hide. Someone is coming.” The edge to Riven’s voice was sudden and sharp and left no room for argument. The old man shuffled to a dark corner to wait in the shadows. Riven bowed her head again in the practiced pose of sleep. She let her hair fall in front of her face, but kept her eyes open.

A strong wind blew through the trees and curled around the posts of the hall’s great doors. There, framed by a shaft of moonlight, the contour of a man stood on the threshold.

The stranger’s mantle was now pushed back fully from his face and hung loosely over his shoulders, leaving his blade and metal pauldron clearly outlined. He paused at the doorway like the others. Unlike the villagers, he ventured inside. His feet made no sound on the stone floor. When he was a blade’s length from Riven, he stopped.

He reached behind his back and retrieved a leather scabbard with harsh runic writing carved into it. He tossed it, clattering, at Riven's feet.

“Which weighs more, Riven?” he asked. “Your blade, or your past?”

It was clear the stranger knew Riven wasn’t sleeping and so Riven no longer pretended. She looked up at him, his face reduced to gray shadow, yet the scar across his nose was clear.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Another broken blade,” he answered. “You are ready to accept guilt. For that, I admire you.”

Riven watched as a brief wash of emotion crossed his face.

“There is more to the story of your blade,” he continued. “Do you desire the truth of what happened?”

“I killed him. He died because of me. They all died because of me,” Riven countered. She was not sure if she was capable of carrying more grief.

“Pick up your weapon.”

Riven sat. She could hear the man’s low growl of frustration.

“Stand and face your past,” the man said. His voice left no room for argument.

A wind began to build, swirling around the room, knocking back benches in the hall, and pushing Riven to her feet. Instinct and physical memory guided the young woman’s arm. When Riven faced the stranger, the sheathed blade was in her hand.

“I asked him to destroy it,” she said.

“Did you?” the man’s voice was mocking.

The stranger’s question was cutting and it hit a bone of memory in Riven. She shuddered with a half-remembered vision. Elder Souma’s voice had been so calm. The air in his meditation room had been heavy with thought and the smell of incense. Elder Souma had not judged her or her burden.

Riven looked at the stranger before her now, anguish building in her heart, flooding her body until it reached her hands. She tightened her fingers around the pommel as she drew the runic blade from its sheath.

“Why are you here?” Riven asked.

The broken blade coursed with power. The blinding light cast their shadows on the walls.

“I heard you wanted to die.” The stranger smiled.

The ghosts that haunted her had returned in full force and Riven swung wildly at them now. The man’s blade parried the sadness and the fury. It infuriated her and centered her back in the present. They danced around each other. The air hummed and crackled at each block and thrust.

“I came here to kill my master’s murderer.” He was breathing hard through gritted teeth. “I came here to kill you.”

Riven laughed, tears in her eyes. “Then do it.”

The wind warrior lowered his sword, and instead manipulated the very air that swirled around them. The magic built to a fever pitch, the man focused the energy at the runic blade. The Noxian spells within the weapon shuddered, the broken pieces separating for a moment, releasing the sliver at the fore end.

The energy collapsed and the sliver broke away, speeding toward the shadowed corner that held Asa. The tiny bit of death was about bury itself in the old man’s throat. The spiced memory of incense flooded Riven’s nose, she was back in Elder Souma’s meditation room.

“No!” she shouted. Riven dropped her blade, unable to prevent that which had happened before.

Just as the piece of shrapnel was about to graze the old man’s weathered skin, it stopped, held in place by a current of air. The man with the scarred nose let out a strained sigh and the small shard of Riven’s broken blade dropped harmlessly to the stone floor.

“You are lucky your breath comes so heavily, Master Konte,” the stranger said, his own short-winded words tumbled out quickly.

Riven ran to the old man and embraced him. She looked over her shoulder at the stranger. A breeze still whipped his hair as he wiped a bit of sweat away with the back of his free hand.

“It is true.” The stranger joined them, picking up the splinter of the blade. Riven watched some of his anger melt into understanding. “You killed Elder Souma, but you did not murder him.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The moment Riven had been searching for, she was living again. The words came fast and thick. She was shaking as she held on to the old man.

“I came to him. I begged...” Riven struggled to enunciate each word as emotion overcame her. “I begged him to help me. To break this. To break me.”

“Elder Souma tried to destroy your blade,” the scarred man said. His voice grew thick. “But we cannot destroy our past, Riven.”

Riven knew what it was to face memories that could not live again, but would not stay dead. She saw now this stranger carried his own ghosts. The swirling eddies of air calmed around him as he gave a heavy sigh.

“Elder Souma was my responsibility. If I had been there… that night… I could have protected him. It was not your intention to kill him.” Riven watched, one knowing fighter to another, as the man resettled the burden of his own unseen demons once again on his shoulders. He met her gaze. “In the end, the fault of his death lies with me.”

“Yasuo?” The old man looked more closely at the man and then wagged a gnarled finger at this. “You have shown great honor in admitting the truth in this matter.”

“My honor left a long time ago, O-fa,” In Yasuo, Riven saw her own resistance at the offer of hope, of forgiveness. The man with the wild hair shook his head at the old man’s reprieve. “One mistake has compounded many others since. That is my punishment.”

The pronouncement was interrupted by the shift of gravel. A falcon-nosed woman entered the council chamber. She walked carefully around the room, inspecting the damage of the fight between the two broken warriors. A metal jangle kept time with her footfalls. The judge slowed as she passed Riven and the old man. Riven recognized a loop of leather slung with the keys to her shackles. When the magistrate came face to face with the stranger, she stopped.

“Taking responsibility is the first step to atonement, Yasuo” she said evenly.

“And the second?” There was a desperate edge to Yasuo’s words.

Yasuo held the magistrate’s gaze. The room stilled, holding its breath.

The judge’s quiet voice was loud in the empty council hall. “Forgiving yourself.”

Riven watched the fellow warrior closely. He could not bring himself to the words that would release him from his pain. Riven had wanted death for so long, but now as she witnessed Yasuo’s own struggle, she knew the hardest thing she could do was to live and to live with what she had done. Yasuo looked at her now. Would he stay and face his past?

The man who carried the weight of the wind turned his back on the council hall and walked into the night. Riven held tightly to the weathered hands of the old man.

Sunrise was cool, but there was a thickness in the blanket of clouds that hinted the day would turn warm and humid. When the warrior priest and the hawk faced judge with the leather loop of keys had come to collect Riven, the judge had raised one slender eyebrow at the neatly piled shackles still on the floor. Riven stood on her own and walked out of the hall to face her future.

The other magistrates had gathered the waiting villagers in the square outside the council hall. Riven assumed none of them wished to be confined with her or her runic blade. A cool breeze now tugged at the plaits of the judge’s hair.

“Upon examining the evidence and consulting with the elders, the Noxian woman will stand for her crimes,” the judge began.

Riven bristled at the inclusion of the land of her birth. She watched as Shava and Asa leaned on each other.

“Though easy to carry out, a sentence of death does not keep the world in balance,” the head magistrate continued. “It does little to repair the destruction a crime rips through a community.”

The people of the village nodded in sober agreement. Riven took in their faces, noticing a pattern to the many who were missing; fathers and mothers to the young, sons and daughters of the old.

“Instead, this council seeks a longer, harsher sentence,” the judge continued. “We will see that Riven, the exile, mends that which she has broken.”

The judge looked down her falcon nose at Riven.

“It will be a punishment of hard labor,” the judge announced. “Starting with the fields of Master and Mistress Konte.”

A murmur swept through the crowd.

“This court will also see Riven make reparations to the council hall. And to those whose homes and families were injured in the Noxian invasion.”

The judge looked at Riven expectantly. “Will you live by this decision?”

All eyes were on Riven now. A new emotion caught in her throat. She looked around. The ghosts she carried did not melt away with the pronouncement. Riven looked to them as they mixed freely with the living. It surprised her. She welcomed the visions. She would prove to them that she was worthy of the gift being offered.

“Yes.” Riven barely recognized her own voice, overcome as it was.

The old couple swept forward at this, crushing Riven between them. Riven relaxed into their embrace, leaning into them now as they did to her.

“Dyeda,” Shava murmured against the slashes of Riven’s white hair.

“Daughter,” she whispered back.

Built on perpetual conflict, Noxus has never had a shortage of war orphans. Her father lost to an unnamed battle and her mother to the girl’s own stubborn birth, Riven was raised on a farm run by the empire on the rocky hillsides of Trevale.

Physical strength and ferocious will kept the children alive and working on the hard scrap of land, but Riven hungered for more than simply bread on the table. She watched conscriptors from regional warbands visiting the farms, year after year, and in them, she saw a chance at the life she dreamed of. When she finally pledged the empire her strength, she knew Noxus would embrace her as the daughter she longed to be.

Riven proved a natural soldier. Young as she was, her years of hard labor allowed her to quickly master the weight of a longsword taller than herself. Her new family was forged in the heat of battle, and Riven saw her bond to her brothers- and sisters-in-arms as unbreakable.

So exceptional was her dedication to the empire, that Boram Darkwill himself recognized her with a runic blade of dark metal, enchanted by a pale sorceress within his court. The weapon was heavier than a kite shield and nearly as broad—perfectly suited to Riven’s tastes.

Not long after, the warhosts set sail for Ionia as part of the long-planned Noxian invasion.

As this new war dragged on, it became clear that Ionia would not kneel. Riven’s unit was assigned to escort another warband making its way through the embattled province of Navori. The warband’s leader, Emystan, had employed a Zaunite alchymist, eager to test a new kind of weapon. Across countless campaigns, Riven would gladly have given her life for Noxus, but now she saw something awry in these other soldiers—something that made her deeply uncomfortable. The fragile amphorae they carried on their wagons had no purpose on any battlefield she could imagine...

The two warbands met increasingly fierce resistance, as if even the land itself sought to defy them. During a heavy rain storm, with mud pouring down the hillsides, Riven and her warriors were stranded with their deadly cargo—and it was then that the Ionian fighters revealed themselves. Seeing the danger, Riven called to Emystan for support.

The only answer she received was a flaming arrow, fired out from the ridgeline, and Riven understood this was no longer a war to expand the borders of Noxus. It was to be a complete annihilation of the enemy, no matter the cost.

The wagon was hit straight on. Instinctively, Riven drew her sword, but it was too late to protect anyone but herself. Chemical fire burst from the ruptured containers, and screams filled the night—both Ionian and Noxian falling victim to an agonizing, gruesome death. Shielded from the scorching, poisonous mists by the magic of her blade, she bore unwilling witness to scenes of horror and betrayal that would haunt her forever.

For Riven, memories of the hours that followed come only in fragments, and nightmares. She bound her wounds. She mourned the dead. But, most of all, she came to hate the sword that saved her life. The words carved into its surface mocked her, reminding her of all she had lost. She would find a way to break it, severing her last tie to Noxus, before the dawn.

But when the blade was finally shattered, still she found no peace.

Stripped of the faith and conviction that had bolstered her entire life, Riven chose to exile herself, wandering Ionia’s battle-scarred landscape. When she finally returned to the village where she had broken the sword, it was revealed that her self-destructive needs had cost the life of their most revered elder... and yet Ionia embraced her with forgiveness.

Noxus was not nearly so merciful. Although the empire had long since withdrawn from the First Lands, it had not forgotten about Riven, or her runic blade. After fighting fiercely against those sent to bring her to justice, she refused to let any more Ionian blood be shed on her account, and surrendered herself to the charges of desertion leveled against her.

As she returns to Noxus in chains, Riven remains haunted. Though Darkwill is no more, and the empire is rumored to have evolved, she is uncertain what will become of her, or whether she will ever be made whole again.

In Piltover, where anyone’s dream can become everyone’s progress, a star is born.

As a child, Seraphine always loved music, especially her father’s lullabies. The songs were beautiful, but sad. He’d brought them up to Piltover as he and Seraphine’s mother—two lifelong Zaunites—sought a better life in the City of Progress.

Leaning out the window of their hexcoustics workshop, where broken sound tech was made to play again, Seraphine sang along with the streets. The shanties of the Sun Gates, the whistling of apprentices, even the melody of conversation—in a bustling city like Piltover, she was never alone.

Over time, Seraphine realized she could sense songs too private, too personal, for any ordinary person to hear. And as she grew, so did the intensity of her gifts. She heard every person’s soul, loving or cruel—turning the streets she’d once loved into an overwhelming cacophony of conflicting desires. How could she make sense of the voices if none of them harmonized? Some days, she hid shivering in a corner, hands over her ears, unable to hear herself above the chaos.

Seraphine’s parents had left everything behind so she could be born in Piltover; they couldn’t bear seeing her struggle. Scraping together their savings to purchase a shard of a rare hextech crystal, they crafted a device that dampened her magical hearing. For the first time in years, there was silence.

Within that quiet, though, Seraphine heard something—someone. The crystal had a consciousness, born of brackern blood. Though hard to hear, and harder to comprehend, the voice was kind. In a hymn of distant deserts and ancient conflicts of ancestors, a thousand years of history sang in unison.

Seraphine, awed, asked for guidance. Overwhelmed by the yearnings around her, she worried she may have no song of her own. What if she was merely the voices of others?

“We are all forged through others’ voices,” the presence sang back.

And slowly, she learned to manage the noise. The voice rarely spoke clearly, but Seraphine felt its influence as it helped her understand how to resonate with a crowd, to sing with them, using her dampener less each day. The first time she performed in front of an audience, testing her skills, she was nervous beyond words. But she kept singing, and the crowds swelled. Soon, the biggest venues in Piltover had Seraphine’s fans spilling into the streets. Still, something was missing—in the crowds, and in herself. She resolved to seek perspective in the city her parents had worked so hard to leave: Zaun.

The first time she rode the clanging lift down, Seraphine felt somehow at home but still a stranger. In Zaun, she heard refrains of resilience and ambition much like above, yet with a thrum of freedom that was all their own. But as she spent more time below, she also sensed pain. Fear of the chem-barons who controlled every opportunity. Hatred of the spoiled, arrogant Pilties above. There was so much discord. She began to perform, and listened to these new crowds, their hearts singing their struggles. The two cities were divided by more than simple misunderstanding. She wanted to mend, to unite. But she kept hearing the same refrain: “It’s not that simple in Zaun.”

Eventually, Piltover started to feel less like home.

Her hextech crystal had sung an elegy of what hatred left unchecked could accomplish. Seraphine couldn’t let that happen to the cities she loved. Persuading her parents to help, she dismantled her dampener, and together, they gave the crystal a new home in its opposite—a platform that would amplify her gifts, not repress them, allowing her to hear others in all their complexity. Seraphine hoped the crystal’s voice would be among them. She rode this platform down as a stage of sorts, stepping out onto the Entresol between Piltover and Zaun. As the crowds gathered and the lights dazzled, she heard citizens from both worlds, mingled together to hear her.

This was a new song. Not just understanding—unity.

It wasn’t perfect. It might never be. But her voice mattered. And so, Seraphine realized, maybe she could help others find their voice, too.

Seraphine has become the premier star in both Piltover and Zaun. Empowered by her gifts and her hextech, she amplifies the voices of all with a fresh force of optimism, because to her, everyone deserves to be heard—especially those who are struggling. They inspire her, and she will do her best to inspire them in return.

The fire was crackling away nicely, spreading a warm glow throughout the forest clearing. Tristana lay on her back with her head pillowed on her pack, watching a comet streak across the starlit sky. The winking lights glittered prettily through a swaying canopy of birch and oak leaves. The humans liked to name the patterns in the stars – she’d seen some in an old book in Heimerdinger’s laboratory – but she decided it would be more fun to give them names of her own invention.

“You can be the Growling Badger,” she said, pointing to one group of stars. “And you can be the Cheeky Changeling. Yes, that’s much better than boring names like The Warrior or The Defender. And anyway, I can’t see those ones anymore.”

Her stomach rumbled and she sat up. Hunger was still something surprising to her, even though she’d ventured beyond Bandle City more than most of her kind. A pair of spitted fish were roasting nicely over the flames and the smell of them was making her mouth water. She’d shot them in the stream to the west of her campsite with a single, exceptionally carefully-aimed bullet from her cannon. Not a bad feat of marksmanship, even if she did say so herself. Too bad no-one was around to see it! She leaned over and patted the polished drakewood stock of her exquisitely crafted cannon; a weapon any sensible observer would say was far too large for someone of her diminutive stature to even carry, let alone shoot.

“Let Teemo have his cute little blowpipes, eh, Boomer?” she told the cannon. “I’ll stick to something with a bit more oomph, thank you very much.”

The fire crackled in a ring of stones, burning with cerulean flames, thanks to the pinch of her custom powder she’d sprinkled on the kindling to get it started. She knew now just how little she needed to use after her first time in the Upplands had cost her a perfectly decent pair of eyebrows. Sometimes it was hard to remember that things were so different in the human world compared to back home.

Deciding the fish were ready, she slid one from the spit onto a wooden plate she removed from her pack. She unwrapped a golden knife and fork from a rolled dreamleaf and cut the fish into slices. She might be on a mission, but that didn’t mean she had to eat like a savage. She took a mouthful of fish and rolled it around her mouth, savoring the taste and licking her lips in satisfaction. Mortal food was usually bland and tasteless compared to the smorgasbord of flavors she was used to, but the fish in this part of the world – Ionia, she’d heard it was called – wasn’t half bad. Perhaps it was the magic saturating every element of this landscape that made them extra tasty.

Tristana heard the crack of a twig. One of many she’d laid in a circle around her camp. The sound and type of twig told her exactly how far away the humans were and from which direction they were approaching.

She cleared her throat and called out, “I have another fish if you’re hungry.”

A man and a woman emerged from the forest in front of her. Both were tall and lean, with fidgeting hands and cold eyes. They didn’t look friendly, but she was still learning how to read human expressions and she’d been taught to always be polite. Human languages were so unsophisticated that she often wondered how they managed to communicate at all.

The man took a step forward and said, “Many thanks, old one, but we are not hungry.”

“Old one?” said Tristana with a playfully indignant grin. “I’m a young slip of a girl!”

The man blinked and she saw what might have been a look of puzzlement cross his face.

“The old crone’s insane,” said the woman, looking sidelong at her, as if not quite sure what to make of what she was seeing. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t her true form…

“You’re sure you don’t want a bit of fish?” asked Tristana, taking another bite. “It’s really tasty.”

“We’re sure,” confirmed the man. “But we’ll take any coin you’re carrying. As well as that gun of yours. I suspect it will fetch a pretty penny at auction.”

“You want to steal my Boomer?” said Tristana, sensing movement to either side. “You know, I just don’t see that happening.”

“No? You’re alone and there’s two of us,” said the man. “And we’re bigger than you.”

“Size isn’t everything,” said Tristana. “And there’s four of you. Why don’t you ask your two bandit friends to come out? Maybe they’re hungry?”

The woman shook her head. “He told you, we’re alone.”

“Oh, come on,” said Tristana. “What sort of commando do you think I’d be if I didn’t know you had two friends in the bushes with arrows aimed at me right now? You came in from the north and split up a hundred yards out. There’s a fat man to my left and a man with a limp to my right.”

“Good ears for one so old,” said the man.

“I told you, I’m not old,” said Tristana. “I’m actually pretty young for a Yordle.”

The man’s mouth dropped open in surprise as something of her true nature became apparent to him.

Finally! An expression she had no trouble in reading.

Tristana ducked and rolled to the side as a pair of black-fletched arrows slashed from the undergrowth. They passed harmlessly overhead as she swept up Boomer and chambered a round. She fired into the bushes to her right and was rewarded with a cry of pain.

“Blast off!” she cried, vaulting toward the nearest tree and bounding higher. Tristana landed on a branch halfway up its trunk. Another arrow flashed toward her, thudding into the bark a handspan from her head.

“Hey, you’re pretty fast for a human,” she said, racking Boomer’s crank and priming the barrel with a bunch of shells. She sprang away to another branch as the archer rose from the bushes – the fat one, which almost made it too easy. Tristana somersaulted from tree to tree and fired twice more. Both shots caught the man in his meaty thighs, and he fell back with a wail, loosing his arrow high into the air.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she laughed. “I barely grazed you!”

Tristana landed by her fire as the two humans she’d first seen rushed her with drawn swords. They were likely fast by human standards, but to her they moved like lumbering giants.

“Time for some up and over!” shouted Tristana, unloading the rest of Boomer’s barrel in one almighty blast into the ground. She gave a wild, whooping yell as she sailed over their heads. Even as she arced through the air she was reloading. She pushed off from the trunk of a tree and spun back to the ground.

She landed right behind the bandits with a giggle.

“Boom! Boom!”

Tristana fired two blasts, and both humans cried out in pain as they each took a wound to the rump. The woman fell flat on her face, beating her britches as powder burn set them alight. She managed to pick herself up and flee into the bushes with her backside on fire. The man twisted as he dropped to the ground, scrambling away as she cranked Boomer’s loading arm.

He was making hand gestures he probably thought were some form of magical protection.

“You’re no old woman,” he said.

“I kept telling you that,” said Tristana.

The man opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak the arrow loosed from the fat man’s bow finally came back down to earth. It thudded into the man’s chest and he fell back with a look of intense annoyance.

The other bandits were dragging themselves away as fast as their wounded limbs would carry them. She let them go, grinning as she gathered up her things before stamping down the fire.

“I was just trying to eat my dinner and have a quiet night,” she said to herself. “But I guess four bandits who won’t trouble anyone again soon isn’t bad going!”

Tristana slung Boomer over her shoulder and set off once more, whistling a jaunty tune as she looked for more stars to name.

“I believed in you, Blade Dancer!” the man choked, his lips frothing red. “You showed us the path…”

Irelia held her stance. She looked down at him, this devotee of the Brotherhood, on his knees in the mud. He had been pierced over and over by her blades.

“We could have been strong... United as one people...”

“That is not the Spirit’s way,” she replied. “If that’s what you think, then you are wrong.”

He had come to this village, waiting for the perfect moment before making his move. But he was clumsy and awkward. She had danced around him easily.

He had been determined to kill her. The worst thing was, he wasn’t the first. Irelia’s blades now hovered at her shoulders, following the graceful, circling movements of her hands. One simple gesture, and it could all be over.

He spat blood on the ground, his eyes burning with hatred. “If you will not lead Navori, the Brotherhood will.”

He tried weakly to raise his dagger against her. This man would never be taken alive.

“I believed in you,” he said again. “We all did.”

She sighed. “I never asked you to. I’m sorry.”

Her limbs flowing lithely around her body, Irelia whirled to the side, sending the blades out in a deadly arc. They sliced cleanly through his flesh, as much an act of mercy as self-defense.

A simple turn, just one elegant step, brought the blades back to her, their edges slick with blood. The man’s lifeless body toppled forward.

“May the Spirit bring you to peace,” said Irelia.

She closed her eyes.

“Father,” she whispered. “I have bloodied our family’s honor once more. Forgive me.”

Irelia spread the blades out before her—like Ionia itself, they were the fractured pieces of something that had once been far greater, now turned to violent ends. She poured water into a small wooden bowl, and dipped in a rag. The simple act of cleaning the shards had become a ritual, one that she felt compelled to undertake after every battle she fought.

The water slowly turned red as she worked. But beneath the fresh blood, the metal carried much darker, older stains that she could never seem to remove completely.

This was the blood of her people. The blood of Navori itself.

Lost in thought, she began to slide the blades around, slowly reforming them into her family crest. Its three symbols lay cracked before her, representing the Xan name, her home province, and the rest of the First Lands, all in harmony. Her ancestors had always lived by the teachings of Karma. They inflicted no harm on anyone, regardless of circumstance.

And now, here was their seal and crest turned into weapons, and takers of countless lives at that.

She could feel the eyes of her brothers upon her. Even in their eternal rest, at one with the Spirit of Ionia, she feared earning their disappointment, their resentment. She pictured her dear old O-ma too, broken and sobbing, devastated by each kill...

Many times, that thought had made Irelia weep more than any other.

The blades would never be clean. She knew that—but she would still do right by those she had harmed.

She passed many of her followers on her way to the burial grounds. Though they looked to Irelia for leadership, now more than ever, she recognized so few of them. With each winter the faces became less familiar, as the last of the old resistance were replaced by new and more zealous fighters. They came from faraway provinces, and towns she had never heard of.

Even so, she halted often to return their half-hearted salutes and bows, and would accept none of their help in dragging the shrouded body of her dead attacker along the road.

Finding an open patch beneath the blossom-heavy branches of a tree, Irelia set him down carefully, and turned to join in the grief of the widows and widowers, the orphaned sons and daughters.

“I know it is never easy,” she said, placing a consoling hand on the shoulder of one man, who knelt before a pair of fresh graves, “but each life, and each death, are part of—”

He batted away her hand, glaring at her until she retreated.

“It was necessary,” she murmured to herself as she prepared to start digging, though she remained unconvinced by her own words. “It is all necessary. The Brotherhood would grip this land in an iron fist. No better than Noxus…”

Her eyes fell upon an old woman, sat on a simple wooden stool at the foot of the tree, singing a soft lament. Streams of tears had dried on her face. She was dressed plainly, with one hand resting on a grave marker next to her. It was adorned with food offerings for the deceased.

To Irelia’s surprise, the woman halted her song.

“Bringing us some company, are you, daughter of Xan?” she called out. “Ain’t much room left round here. But any friend of yours is a friend of ours.”

“I did not know this man, but thank you. He deserved better than he was given in life.” Irelia took an uncertain step closer. “You were singing one of the old songs.”

“Helps keep my mind off bad things,” said the old woman, tamping down a patch of dirt on the grave. “This is my nephew.”

“I… I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sure you did all you could. Besides, this is all part of the Spirit’s way, you know?”

Her kindly demeanor had put Irelia entirely at ease. “Sometimes I don’t know,” she confided.

The old woman perked up, expecting more. Irelia continued, finally giving voice to the doubts that had plagued her for a long time.

“Sometimes… Sometimes I wonder if I killed our peace.”

“Killed our peace?”

“When Noxus invaded. Perhaps we lost something when we fought back, something we can never restore.”

The woman stood, trying in vain to open a large nut. “Child, I remember peace well,” she said, thrusting one gnarled, knobby finger at Irelia. “Those were good days! Nobody misses peace more than me.”

She pulled a knife from her belt, and began to pry open the nutshell.

“But the world’s a different place now. What worked then don’t work today. No point dwelling on it.”

At last, the shell cracked, and she placed the broken kernel into a bowl on the grave.

“See, there? Used to be able to open these with my hands alone, now I need a knife. The young me would’ve fretted about it, damaging the nut like that. But that me don’t matter, because she don’t have to live in the here and now.” The old woman nodded kindly, then went back to her singing.

For the first time in a long while, Irelia smiled. Within her satchel, wrapped in protective cloth, were the shard-blades of her shattered family crest. She knew it would never be clean, never be whole again.

But they were always ready, and that would have to be enough.

Fast and dumb, or slow and smart?

That’s what Yi always asks me. Well, I say “asks,” but it’s not really a question. Not up for discussion. Not really. You can be impulsive and quick and improvisational and have fun... or you can do things Yi’s way. The right way. Slow. Patient. Strategic. With a gruff, determined expression on his face, like he stepped in crap. Because he did. Because I shoved some inside his boot, thinking he’d find it funny.

He didn’t.

(I did, though, so it all kinda worked out in the end.)

The really irritating thing, though: he’s usually right. Through the years we’ve trained together, I’ve beaten him in combat something like...twelve times? Versus the hundreds of times he’s walloped me. And every time – every single time I ate a mouthful of dirt – I knew it was because I’d gotten impatient. Took a swing I wasn’t sure would land. Lunged for an opening that ended up being a trap.

And I’m not being humble. I’m good. Really good. Yi, humorless as he is, just happens to be one of the best warriors I’ve ever met. It’s not like the guy is slow, either: he’s fast. Faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. As in: he unsheathes his blade, then there’s a blur, then three guys are bleeding on the ground. That fast.

So when he tells me to choose slow and smart over fast and dumb, I try to listen most of the time.

Keyword being “try.”

And “most of the time.”

We were wandering through a forest of man-high mushrooms when we heard the shouting.

In addition to cutting off the punchline of an incredible joke I’d been telling, Yi made me dive into the thick of a thistleshrub to avoid detection.

There were six of them. Five bandits and their rope-bound captive, an elderly farmer with anxious eyes.

I felt this situation called for a liberal application of hitting people in the head with my staff, but Yi held me back. He put a finger to his lips, then pointed at his eyes. Observe. Strategize. Fast and dumb, or slow and smart?

I sighed and looked over the group with a discerning eye.

Raggedy clothes hung off their hunched backs, taut with stress. They seemed to take far better care of their blades than themselves. Their eyes scanned their surroundings as they marched, on the lookout for any potential ambush. One shoved a gag into the old farmer’s mouth, presumably to stop the shouting we’d just heard.

Bandits.

The old farmer collapsed to the ground. The tumble was intentional; anyone could tell that. His captors certainly did.

The leader stopped and faced the old man. “Well, that tears it,” he said. “You’re old, my friend, but you’re not that old. Falling over every few hundred steps to stall for time? Give yourself a second to think about how you’re gonna get out of this? That’s an old trick. Older than you.”

He squatted to the farmer’s level.

“You don’t really have a chestful of precious stones at home, do you?”

The old man stared at the bandit, terror slowly replacing itself with resignation.

He shook his head.

“That’s a shame,” the bandit said, a genial smile on his face. The kind of smile that usually leads to somebody pulling out a dagger.

“I’m gonna go save him now,” I whispered to Yi.

Yi shook his head as hard as he could without rattling his goggles. I didn’t have to ask why. He likely wanted one of us to sneak around them and attack from the other side of the pass, trapping them in a pincer. Or something equally cunning and time-consuming. Slow and smart.

Yi’s big problem – apart from not finding me funny, and the fact that his goggles make him look like a man-sized bug – is that he spent the last handful of years sitting alone in a field of flowers. His patience is infinite. He thinks everything can be thought through. Planned for.

Still, Yi had said to go slow. We’d try it his way. I nodded at him, then at the path behind the thugs. You get behind them. I’ll attack on your signal.

Yi circled back through the brush. He darted to the other side of the trail, too quick to notice, even if they had been looking in his direction. Classic ambush setup: he’d get their attention, and while their backs were turned, I’d hit them from my side of the path.

That’s when the lead bandit pulled a blade out of his right pocket. A small little thing, not good for much more than peeling fruit. Or slicing the throat of a tired old farmer.

I couldn’t see Yi in the brush on the other side of the road, but I knew he couldn’t see the blade. He didn’t know what was about to happen.

They were about to kill the old man, no matter how safe Yi wanted to play it. We had no time to go slow.

Thankfully, I had a secret weapon up my sleeve: I’m really, really, really good at fighting.

The leader grabbed the old man’s scalp and put a knife to his throat. I leapt out of the brush, staff held high, and smacked the blade out of his hand. Then we got to my favorite part.

Whenever I get the drop on somebody, I usually get about a two to three second window as they try to make sense of me. Most people have never seen a vastaya, much less a Shimon. They stand there slack-jawed, which typically gives me a chance to hit ‘em before they realize what’s going on.

I drove my knee into the lead bandit's chin, and his teeth clacked together so hard, even I winced at the sound.

“Stay where you are, Yi!” I shouted into the bush where he waited, unseen. “I got this.”

That’s when a knife hit me in the shoulder.

Apparently, one of those jerks had been wearing a bandolier of throwing daggers across his chest, and I hadn’t noticed. I tried not to imagine Yi smirking to himself.

“Still ‘got this,’ do you?,” he yelled from the brush. Likely staying out of the fight just long enough for me to get my teeth kicked in, so he could leap in, save me, and shout that he told me to slow down.

“Completely!” I shouted as I tossed a handful of smokepoppies to the ground. (I always keep a few on me. They’re useful in combat, and even more useful for irritating Yi when I’m bored.)

Then I beat the hell outta the rest of them. I won’t trouble you with the details–

–Wait, yes I will, because they’re great.

I held my staff out and twirled around, aiming high so as to avoid the prone old man. My arms shuddered with every impact of wood against skull. I dodged blows, parried strikes, and only got punched in the face, like, twice.

By the time the smoke cleared, I was the only one still standing. Well, me and the old man, once I got him to his feet.

Yi stepped out of the brush, sighing.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “What are you sighing for? I saved the grungy old man–”

“–Hey!” the old man said.

“And my shoulder will probably heal in a couple of days. Ow,” I said, touching the wound. “What’s disappointed you this time?”

Yi cut the man’s bindings. “I’m not disappointed,” Yi said. “I’m irritated.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like admitting I’m wrong. You were impatient, reckless, and you absolutely made the right call.”

I smiled.

“Fast and dumb.”

He patted me on my non-bleeding shoulder.

“Fast and dumb,” he said.