LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Quinn ran through the forest, moving softly and swiftly. It was past dawn, though the sun had not yet risen over the mountain peaks to the east. The light was cold and pale, casting everything in shades of gray. Quinn fogged the air with every measured breath.

There were no paths through the untamed woodlands that spread like a blanket across the foothills of the Eastweald Mountains. Ferns and ivy concealed moss-slick rocks, rotting logs, and wild tangles of roots, but Quinn was more at home here than she was in any city or town, and was not slowed by the rough terrain. Despite her speed, there were only a handful of rangers in Demacia—all of them trained by Quinn herself—who would have had any hope of tracking her, so light was her step.

She caught a flicker of movement to her right, and dropped into the undergrowth, instantly motionless. Her eyes were golden, unblinking, and intense, missing nothing.

For ten breaths she remained still, all but invisible among the brush. She glimpsed movement again, and tensed... until she saw it was a greathorn stag. Big one, too, with a rack of antlers easily two arm spans across. Already its fur was starting to change, turning pale and silvery in anticipation of the rapidly approaching winter.

Some said that encountering a greathorn was a good omen. Quinn was not sure that was true, but she’d take it. These days, Demacia needed as many good omens as it could get.

In recent months, Quinn had been helping the Eleventh Battalion hunt rebellious mages—emboldened by the king’s murderer, Sylas of Dregbourne—through the wildlands of northern Demacia. Her rangers were too few, however, and the Eleventh’s strength did not lie in chasing an enemy that didn’t stand and fight. There had been running battles and skirmishes, but it was like trying to grasp smoke.

Quinn had lost three rangers in the last weeks, and their deaths weighed heavily upon her. Thus, it did not sit well with her that she had been ordered away from the hunt for rebel mages, and tasked with escorting Garen Crownguard and a detachment of the Dauntless Vanguard on some diplomatic mission beyond Demacia’s borders. She was due to meet up with them three days hence, on the south side of the Greenfang Mountains.

It hardly seemed the time for such an exercise, and Quinn would much rather have reassigned this mission to one of the others in her command—Elmheart, perhaps. However, the writ of order, delivered by swiftwing, had named Quinn specifically.

And the seal of High Marshal Tianna Crownguard brooked no argument.

She watched the giant stag a moment longer before pushing herself back to her feet. The greathorn saw her now. It held its ground, unafraid.

“Honor and respect, noble one,” she said, with a nod.

It was a long way to the Greenfang Mountains, but the skies were clear. She was confident she would get to the rendezvous point ahead of schedule.

The sun had finally climbed over the peaks, with golden light filtering through the canopy and dappling the forest floor, when the wind changed. It carried a distant, familiar scent.

Smoke.

A keening cry cut through the morning air. Quinn glimpsed Valor above the canopy, through the branches of the immense firs.

“What do you see up there, little brother?” she breathed.

The azurite eagle circled twice, then struck eastward like a blazing blue arrow loosed toward the rising sun. Without pause, Quinn turned and followed.

A short time later, she stood atop a ridge, where a rare break in the trees revealed a valley below. It was partly cleared, and scattered livestock could be seen in dry-stone partitioned fields. Under other circumstances it would have been a peaceful, picturesque view, but Quinn’s gaze was drawn to the smoke rising from the dark shape of a cabin. Her expression hardened.

She began picking her way down the steep incline, descending into the valley.

Quinn warily circled the smoking cabin. She’d known bandits to light fires like this to lure unsuspecting targets, and so she would not approach until she was certain it was not a trap.

She had her repeater crossbow in hand, bolts loaded. It was a one-of-a-kind weapon, lovingly crafted. It was nowhere near as powerful as a traditional heavy crossbow, but she could wield it one-handed, on the move, and without the need to reload after each shot, which made it worth ten times its weight in gold to Quinn.

She frowned as she came across a series of tracks on the ground. There’d been a lot of activity around this cabin in the last day or so, but it seemed she was alone here now. Quinn approached cautiously, crossbow at the ready.

The cabin was a humble abode, but had been built with obvious care. She pushed open the heavy front door—still smoldering, and hanging off its hinges—and stepped over the threshold.

A simple ceramic vase stood upon a fire-blackened hardwood table, holding a handful of wilted wildflowers. The remnants of hand-sewn curtains, mostly burned away, hung mournfully from window frames. Those curtains had been drawn shut, Quinn noted, and the surviving shutters pulled closed. The fire had started after dark.

On a solid oak door frame, Quinn noticed tiny notches carved into the wood. That brought a memory long forgotten, of Quinn’s parents doing something similar to record the growth of her and her brother.

This was not some rarely used hunting cabin—this was a family’s home.

Chairs and cabinets had been overturned and smashed. Drawers had been ripped open, and their contents strewn across the floor. Nothing of value remained. On the wall above the hearth, Quinn noted the sun-bleached outline of a shield.

As she turned, something in the ashes glinted in the sunlight streaming through a hole in the burned roof. Kneeling, she saw an object—a coin, perhaps?—wedged between the hearth and the blackened floorboards. Quinn holstered her crossbow, and used the tip of her hunting knife to pry it free. Likely, it had fallen down there, and been lost—she’d only seen it because the fire’s heat had twisted the floorboards out of shape.

Finally, it came loose, and Quinn saw it was a palm-sized silver shield that bore the winged sword emblem of Demacia. There were words engraved on its reverse: Malak Hornbridge, Third Battalion. Demacia honors your service.

It was a Shield of Remembrance, given to the families of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. Quinn had delivered more than a few of them to grieving spouses and parents herself.

Pocketing the medallion—it didn’t feel right to leave it amid this destruction—Quinn continued looking through the cabin. In what was clearly the family bedroom, which had escaped the worst of the fire, delicately woven garlands were strung across the rafters above the main bed.

In a corner, a smaller, child-sized bed had been overturned, and Quinn’s eyes narrowed as she knelt beside it. Charcoal markings were drawn onto the floorboards where the cot had once stood. The symbols were barbaric, of a sort not generally seen within Demacia. Bones and small pebbles were placed at intentional positions upon the runes, and she was careful not to disturb any of the lines. She had seen such runes before...

Valor’s piercing call sounded, high above, drawing Quinn away from the strange and unnerving display. Keeping low, she returned to the cabin’s main room, and pressed her back against a wall. With a quick, careful glance, she peered through one of the burned-out windows.

A cloaked and hooded man was approaching the front of the cabin, a rangy, pale gray hound loping along at his heels. The dog gave a low growl, but he silenced it with a word.

Moving soundlessly, Quinn repositioned herself in the shadow behind the smoldering front door. The man stepped inside, then froze, like a deer tensing as it feels an unseen predator’s eyes upon it.

“That you, boss?” he asked the seemingly empty room.

Quinn smiled. “What gave me away?”

The man turned, lowering his hood. He had the look of someone who spent most of his time outdoors, his face tanned and his short beard unruly. Just outside the threshold, the hound whined in excitement. “Don’t see many azurite eagles anymore,” he explained with a grin.

“True enough,” admitted Quinn.

“It’s good to see you, boss.”

Quinn knelt on the ground outside the cabin, ruffling the hound’s ears. It had been over a year since she had last seen the Greenfang warden, Dalin, and his faithful dog, Rigby.

The warden had given Quinn his assessment. He’d arrived at the cabin only an hour before her, and after a quick look around, had set out to speak to those living nearby.

“A woodsman saw a group moving through the trees last night, about half a mile up the valley,” said Dalin, pointing. “The moon was full, else he wouldn’t have seen them at all. Raiders, it looks like.”

“Setting a cabin on fire is not a good way to remain unseen,” observed Quinn. Rigby rolled onto his back, looking up at her with adoring, eager eyes.

“Perhaps they were more concerned about alerting anyone to their approach than remaining unseen afterwards? Or perhaps they lit the fire to draw attention to it, while they slipped off?” Dalin glanced over his shoulder. “Careful now—I think someone’s getting jealous.”

Valor was staring at her, unblinking, from a branch of a dead tree.

“Valor knows he’s my one true love,” she said, looking at the azurite eagle, her eyes smiling, even as she vigorously scratched the hound’s exposed belly. “Has there been much banditry in these parts of late?”

Dalin shook his head. “Been mercifully quiet, until this. The unrest spreading from the capital has got people nervous, but the sight of so many soldiers has driven most of the brigands into hiding. Small blessings, I guess. I hear you and yours have been busy, though, back west. Bad times.”

“Bad times,” agreed Quinn. Her jaw clenched, and she changed the subject. “A soldier’s widow and her child lived here. Anyone know where they are?”

The warden gave her a look, then shook his head with a laugh. “I shouldn’t be surprised you already figured that out,” he said. “The woman’s name is Asta. Her man died fighting mages when everything flared up in the Great City. She lives alone with her daughter.” He glanced back at the cabin, and sighed. “I didn’t see evidence of bloodshed when I looked around here earlier, but it doesn’t seem good.”

“No friends or family nearby who they could be with?”

“Seems not,” said Dalin. “The woman’s foreign-born. Keeps to herself. Her husband was from Lissus, back west. No family in these parts.”

“Foreign-born?”

“One of the independent nations to the east, apparently. No one seems to know exactly where.”

Quinn grunted and stood. She turned around on the spot, considering, then looked back toward the forest. She paced toward the tree line, studying the ground as she went.

“Here,” she said, coming to a halt. Dalin joined her, and she indicated a number of confusing, overlapping scuff marks. “They came out of the forest, and stopped here.”

Dalin dropped to his haunches, nodding. “At first I figured they were watching for the right moment to approach,” he said. “But then I saw these tracks here.”

Quinn circled around the tracks that Dalin indicated, careful not to let her own footsteps obscure them.

“A second set, lighter than the others,” she murmured. “Our widow and her child.”

“My guess is she confronted them—then they looted and burned her cabin.” Dalin’s eyes narrowed. “I couldn’t find the woman’s tracks returning to the house...”

“They don’t,” agreed Quinn, her expression grim. “Looks like they took her with them. Her and the child. See there? The little girl’s footsteps stop. Someone picked her up.”

She looked back at the cabin. “But these raiders didn’t approach the cabin, either. The ones who burned it approached from the other side. It’s possible the raiders split into two groups before their attack.”

Dalin folded his arms, thinking. “There’s something else,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any truth in it, but it seems at least some folk ’round these parts believe the woman was... different. A mage.”

Quinn thought of the runes drawn onto the floor underneath the child’s cot. They seemed more like archaic superstition than sorcery... though she could not be certain. This was not her area of specialty.

“The local gossip is that the raiders were allies of Sylas,” continued Dalin, “and they came to collect one of their own. It could explain why it doesn’t look like there was a fight, but why burn the cabin?”

Quinn frowned. She was missing something, she was sure of it. “Could be retaliation,” she mused, “for her husband fighting against mages. Perhaps they were looking for some payback.”

“Killing him wasn’t enough?”

Quinn shrugged.

“Whatever the case, I’ll be going after them,” said Dalin. “They’re at least half a day ahead, but if they’re carrying the child, they’ll be slowed.”

Quinn glanced at the sun, judging the time and how far she still had to travel to rendezvous with Garen. It would be cutting it fine, but...

The woman, Asta, had been made a widow by the mage conflict, and it seemed likely she’d been abducted. Quinn could not in good conscience ignore that.

“I’ll come with you,” she declared. “There’s at least five of them, by my count. You’ll need help.”

“Mighty pleased you happened by, boss.”

“Let’s get going, then,” said Quinn. “And don’t call me boss.”

Technically, as a ranger-knight, Quinn was Dalin’s superior, but rigid hierarchy and honorifics had always made her uncomfortable.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Dalin said with a wry grin, knowing exactly how uncomfortable it made her. “C’mon, Rigby! Let’s move!”

Rigby loped alongside his master, tongue lolling seemingly of its own volition, while Valor sliced between the trees, flying low overhead.

The majestic azurite eagle streaked past the two running rangers, tucking his broad wings to avoid branches. In the blink of an eye, he was gone, disappearing into the distance. A few minutes later, Quinn and Dalin found him perched on a branch, waiting. The eagle watched impassively as they ran below him. Only when they were almost out of sight did he launch back into flight, zigzagging at blinding speed, once again shooting by them.

It wasn’t hard to follow the outlaws, particularly with Rigby chasing their scent. There were five of them with the widow, and they’d made no attempt to cover their trail, choosing speed over stealth. The rangers tracked them over a ridge to the north, into a neighboring valley of unbroken forest. The trail then cut due east, following an icy stream that writhed its way down from the mountains.

For hours, Quinn and Dalin ran, closing the distance. The land gradually rose as they climbed higher into the foothills. They didn’t speak, only pausing to check that they were still following the trail. Rigby happily bounded back and forth on these occasions, snuffling through the undergrowth, while Valor watched the dog aloofly.

When the sun was just past its zenith, Quinn stopped, kneeling in the soft loam beside a few boulders. Some moss had been scraped away from one, most likely by a careless boot. Quinn inspected it, and picked something off a flat rock, looking closely.

“They broke bread here,” she said. “I’d say it was only an hour ago. Maybe a little more.”

“We’re getting close,” said Dalin, sitting down and sucking in deep breaths. Rigby was taking the moment’s respite to lap from the nearby stream, while Valor watched. “We’ll overtake them by sundown.”

“Not fast enough,” said Quinn, balling her fists in frustration. “They’ll be over the border by then.”

“You think they’re trying to leave Demacia?”

Quinn shrugged. She pulled a hard trail biscuit from her pack, bit off half, and tossed the remainder to Dalin. He caught it deftly and nodded his thanks. The rations didn’t taste the best—in truth, Quinn could imagine sawdust had more flavor—but they’d sustain them. After a moment, she broke out a second biscuit, and launched it at Rigby. The pale dog snatched it out of the air, jaws snapping, devouring it instantly.

“It’s possible,” she said. “If they were just trying to hide, they’d have done better turning north. There are chasms and ravines up there that would take weeks to scour.”

Dalin chewed his tasteless biscuit thoughtfully. “The closest border crossing’s half a day’s march to the south, though,” he said. “And there’s no way they’d get through. The gates have been locked since the king’s murder. There’s nought but sheer cliffs and watchtowers this way.”

“Unless there’s another crossing we don’t know about,” said Quinn. She glanced down at the dog, now panting beside Dalin. “You think your master can keep up, Rigby, or should we ditch him?”

The hound looked at her quizzically, turning his head to the side.

Dalin snorted. “Funny,” he said. Then, with a groan, he pushed back to his feet.

A short time later, Quinn and Dalin stood on a bluff, overlooking a ravine. A massive rocky spire rose above the forest canopy in the distance.

“There,” said Dalin, pointing.

Climbing around the circumference of the spire was a group of people. It was hard to make out any details—at this distance, they looked like ants—but it was clear that they would reach the border before the rangers.

“If I can get in front of them, I can slow them,” said Quinn.

“The only way you’d be able to do that is if...” started Dalin, but his words trailed off as he saw Quinn staring at him, a half smile on her face.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

Quinn soared through the air, borne aloft by Valor. The eagle’s bladelike talons were latched tightly around her shoulders, and she squinted against the biting wind as they sailed over the trees.

“Take us around to the north,” Quinn shouted as they approached the spire. She leaned her weight in that direction, and Valor obligingly angled their descent.

The raiders had circled around to the south of the spire and disappeared into the trees, but Quinn didn’t intend to follow their path directly. No, she needed to get in front if she was to slow them long enough for Dalin and Rigby to catch up. Two rangers against five were not great odds, but it was better than confronting them alone.

Valor continued to come down, and Quinn lifted her legs to avoid hitting the highest branches. The spire loomed before them, and Valor banked around its northern flank, gaining a little height as updrafts buoyed them. Then the rocky ground rose rapidly to meet them. Spying a likely place to land, Valor shifted their approach, and angled his wings back to slow their descent.

Two powerful beats of his wings, and Quinn’s feet touched down, ever so gently.

“Thank you, brother,” she breathed as Valor released his grip. Then she was running again, into the cover of the forest. The azurite eagle, unshackled by her weight, took to the air once more.

Quinn leaped over tangles of roots and burst through stands of ferns and hanging lichen. She ran along the length of a fallen tree, using it as a bridge to traverse a cascading waterfall, before bounding off it and charging up the rise on the other side.

This was not her usual, mile-eating pace that she could sustain for hours on end. This was a full sprint, and her heart was hammering in her chest. After racing up the hill, she hurled herself to the ground, concealed among the bracken. Elbowing herself to the edge of the rise, she peered down into the hollow bellow.

A lone figure appeared, bow in hand. It was a man, bearded and bedecked in furs. A bronze torc around an upper arm glinted in the dappled light filtering through the trees, and Quinn glimpsed swirling warpaint or tattoos on his pale flesh.

The ranger-knight instantly knew this was no Demacian rogue mage or bandit. This was no Demacian at all.

The raider paused, surveying the way ahead, and Quinn felt his gaze flit over her. She resisted the urge to crawl back, knowing the movement of the ferns would draw more attention than if she remained motionless.

Seemingly satisfied, the outsider lifted a hand and gestured forward before continuing on. Quinn stayed where she was, waiting as the rest of the group appeared. One of them had a gleaming Demacian shield strapped across his back. That was the shield that had been stolen from above the cabin’s hearth—a shield that had belonged to a noble soldier who’d fallen in battle. Seeing an outsider wearing it as a trophy filled her with a cold-burning anger.

It wasn’t hard to pick out the widow. While the others were bedecked in furs and leather, she was wearing a simple but elegant woolen dress, rolled up to free her legs. A fur shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, and she wore a pair of practical, tall boots. She looked exhausted, stumbling forward with her head down. With a breath of relief, Quinn saw the child, a toddler with a mass of golden curls, asleep in the thick arms of one of the marauders.

The ranger-knight watched them for a moment longer, then crawled slowly backward, a plan formulating in her mind. She knew where they were going, for she’d been here before, years earlier.

In her youth, she and her twin brother, Caleb, had roamed the wilds around their home of Uwendale, several days’ march to the northwest. The pair had often disappeared into the wilderness for weeks at a time, exploring the forests and mountain foothills, hunting for their own food, and sleeping under the stars. Their father had been none too excited about it, but their mother had always encouraged them. She was a big believer in the importance of self-reliance and resourcefulness, and both children had accompanied her on hunts from a young age.

Their father had come around eventually—it probably helped that the family larder was always well stocked with venison and boar after they returned—though he never stopped worrying for them.

And it turned out he’d been right to worry.

Quinn had been here only once, a month before Caleb’s death. And so she knew that if the outsiders continued on their path, they’d have to make their way up through a narrow ravine, half a mile farther on.

Running low and fast, hidden by the crown of the rise to her right, Quinn sprinted on a path parallel to the raiders. She made it to the ravine before they did, and ran up the side. She’d just set herself up at the top of it, her back against a concealing rock, when she heard the first of the outsiders begin his ascent.

Quinn took measured breaths, slowing her thumping heart. She left her repeater crossbow holstered, but drew her large hunting knife. The blade was long and broad, almost the size of a shortsword.

The outsider was good—he made almost no noise as he climbed steadily up the rocky gulch—but not good enough to realize Quinn was waiting for him. As he hauled himself up the final, steep climb, Quinn stepped from concealment. She was to his side, and he didn’t see her until the last moment. He tried to turn, drawing back the string of his bow, but he was too slow. Quinn struck him in the temple with the pommel of her knife, and he dropped without a sound.

She hastily dragged him out of view. He was bleeding, but he was alive. With swift, practiced movements, the ranger-knight bound the unconscious man’s wrists, before yanking them back and tying them to his ankles. Then she resumed her position, back against the rock. She drew her crossbow, and flipped the knife around in her other hand so that its point was down.

With a quick glance, she peered down the ravine before ducking back. Three raiders were climbing the steep rise below, with the widow between them. The one Quinn presumed was their leader—he was bigger than the others, and alone among them wore chainmail under his furs—was at the front. He was the one who bore the Demacian shield upon his back.

Quinn ground her teeth in frustration. There should have been four of them left. Where was the last one? Was he simply acting as a rearguard, or could he be approaching from an unexpected angle? She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was too late to change her plan. She’d deal with him if and when he appeared.

As the leader of the outlanders neared, Quinn stepped out in front of him, crossbow leveled at his throat.

It took him a moment to register her presence. His eyes widened and he halted, reaching instinctively for his axe, hanging over his shoulders.

“Don’t,” warned Quinn. She wasn’t sure the man would understand her, but the shake of her head was a universal language, and the outlander’s hand froze.

He was a big man, two heads taller than Quinn, and easily twice her weight, but she had the higher ground, and was unintimidated. She’d brought down far bigger prey in her time.

His hair was straw-colored and long, hanging in elaborate plaits, and his beard, streaked with gray, was bound with bones and stone beads. His eyes were like slivers of slate, and he stared up at her without blinking.

There was a shout of alarm from the raiders half hidden behind his bulk, but the big man barked something over his shoulder in his own clipped, harsh language. He looked past the ranger-knight, searching. Probably trying to see what support she had.

His gaze returned to her. He licked his lips, and Quinn knew he was judging the chances of closing the distance without taking a fatal bolt.

“You speak my language?” asked Quinn. “You understand my words?”

The outlander stared at her for a moment before giving a slow nod.

“Let the woman and child go,” said Quinn, “and we won’t have to see how long it takes you to bleed out from a bolt to the throat.”

The big man snorted in amusement. “You’ve been tracking us? Alone?” His voice was deep and heavily accented. “You may kill me, if you are lucky, but my men will tear you apart. I do not think I will do as you ask.”

“I wasn’t asking,” said Quinn.

The outlander grinned. Two of his teeth were made of gold. “There is steel in you, Demacian. I like that.” His smile dropped abruptly. “Where’s my scout?”

“Alive,” said Quinn.

“Good. He is my brother, by oath. My wife would be angry if I had let him get killed.”

“What’s going on?” the widow called up.

The leader of the outlanders barked a response in his own language, though Quinn did recognize something amongst that garble of words: Asta. The widow’s name.

The woman begged. “Please, I don’t want any—”

“Be silent!” shouted the leader, half turning, his face flushing a deep crimson. When he looked back at Quinn, his expression was angry. “You should not have tried to stop us by yourself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw the fifth raider rising to his knees atop the ridge to her left, bow in hand. Quietly he nocked an arrow and drew the string, weapon leveled at her.

Quinn, still holding the leader’s gaze, gave him a smile. “What makes you think I’m alone?”

There was a flash of blue, moving like a thunderbolt, and the bowman gave out a strangled cry. His arrow, loosed in haste, sailed into the undergrowth, and he fell back, clutching at his bleeding hand.

The widow screamed, and everyone broke into motion.

One of the warriors threw a hand axe, sending it hurtling end over end toward Quinn. She swung aside, dodging it, but that was enough of a distraction for the leader. He sprang forward, swinging his axe off his shoulders. Quinn loosed two bolts in quick succession, but the first missed its mark, slicing harmlessly by his head. The second took the raider in the meat of his shoulder, embedding itself there, but it did nothing to slow his charge.

With a roar, he brought his weapon around in a lethal arc. It was a heavy, double-handed axe, and the strike was meant to hack Quinn in two. She swayed back from the wild swing, then reversed her momentum—she was far quicker than the outsider, for all his power—and stabbed him in the chest. It should have been a killing blow, delivered right to the heart, but the tip of her knife caught in his chainmail, stopping it from sinking deep.

The big man drove Quinn back with a swinging elbow, sending her reeling, then brought down his axe in a heavy overhead blow. Diving to the side, Quinn avoided the strike, and let loose a bolt at close range as she rolled. The bolt plunged into his flesh just above the knee, and the warrior collapsed with a growl of pain.

Quinn was on him instantly, knife at his throat.

That gave the other raiders pause, and they traded glances, unsure what to do. One of them was still cradling the woman’s child, though the infant was now wailing loudly.

The widow scrambled forward on her hands and knees. “No, no, no,” she cried. “Please, don’t hurt him!”

Quinn blinked. “You... know this man?” she asked, looking at the exhausted, tearful woman before her.

“Of course I do,” the widow said. “He’s my brother.”

“My husband was in the capital when the king was murdered,” said the widow, Asta. She held her daughter in her arms, and was gently swaying back and forth, trying to calm her. “He was defending the palace. The mages killed him.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” murmured Quinn, as she bound a length of cloth around the outlander leader’s leg. His name was Egrid. His chest wound was only minor—his chainmail had saved him from worse harm there—and he’d torn out the bolt from his shoulder himself.

The other warriors were sitting on rocks nearby. One had some ugly cuts on his hand, and was staring balefully at Valor, perched on a branch overhead, while the one Quinn had tied up was rubbing gingerly at the side of his head.

Standing near Quinn, a deep frown on his face, was Dalin.

“I met Malak when a diplomatic contingent came to my homeland, six summers back,” said Asta. “In Skaggorn, I was a chieftain’s daughter, but when Malak returned to Demacia, I came with him as his wife.”

Quinn finished tying the bandage, then sat back to inspect her work.

“You are fast, and strong, and you stitch wounds well,” said Egrid with a grin, his golden teeth flashing. “Marry me, and come back to Skaggorn with us, yes?”

Quinn didn’t even dignify that with an answer. “But why try to leave Demacia now?” she asked Asta. “You must have known that would bring trouble down upon you.”

“My people left the Freljord many generations ago,” said Asta, “traveling over the mountains and settling in Skaggorn. Yet the old blood still runs in my veins. My grandmother was a seer, one you would call a mage, or a witch. I do not have that power, but what if my daughter develops the sight? I have heard what is going on. She would be taken from me. The Frost-Bringer knows what would happen to her. I could not risk that, so I sent word to my family by hawk, begging them to get us out.”

“Mageseekers,” Quinn hissed, shaking her head.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. If the child manifested arcane powers, the mageseekers would take her. Were she in the widow’s shoes, Quinn would likely have already taken her child far beyond the reach of that insidious organization. She couldn’t blame Asta for what she was attempting.

“You understand we can’t let you go,” said Dalin. “The borders are closed. No one is allowed to leave without express permission from the high council itself. It’s the only way to ensure the traitor Sylas and his associates don’t slip away, and escape justice.”

“My husband died fighting against the traitor!” said Asta. “Everything here reminds me of Malak. Without him, I don’t wish to stay. And the small-minded farmers of our valley hate me. They already think I’m a witch.”

“You didn’t ransack your own home when you left, did you,” said Quinn. It was a statement, not a question. “And you didn’t set it ablaze, right?”

“What? No, of course not.” Asta paused. “Did someone truly do that?”

Quinn nodded. “And the markings under your daughter’s cot,” she said. “They were not of a... sorcerous nature, were they?”

Asta laughed, shaking her head. “A blessing of protection. A mark all Skaggorn mothers make for their children.”

Quinn nodded again, finally understanding. “But that runic blessing might seem like sorcery to those who wouldn’t know any better. Even I was suspicious of it.”

“I was careful to keep the old traditions to myself, but my neighbors were always wary of me,” Asta said. “And with all that’s been happening...”

It seemed clear now that the second set of tracks leading to the cabin had not belonged to any warrior of distant Skaggorn. Maybe the locals were seeking evidence of Asta’s sorcery. If so, perhaps they saw those charcoal runes, and set the house ablaze in a clumsy attempt to burn away what they thought was dangerous magic.

Quinn sighed, shaking her head. On the whole, Demacians were good, honorable people, but fear and distrust were spreading like a plague, and bringing out the worst in the kingdom’s scared citizens. It needed to end.

“I found something that I think you should have,” Quinn said, remembering what she had recovered in the wreckage. She handed over the Shield of Remembrance, and tears appeared in Asta’s eyes.

“Thank you,” she said, clutching the medal to her chest. “I thought it had been lost. It broke my heart to leave without it.”

“I’m sorry, but we cannot allow you to leave,” said Dalin.

“We are leaving, Demacian,” growled Egrid, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. “Do not try to stop us.”

“Egrid, enough!” snapped Asta. “These two rangers are just doing their duty.” She turned to Quinn. “But please, I beg you, at least let my daughter go. She should not have to suffer for something beyond her control. Let her go with my brother, and I will return with you.”

Dalin and Quinn traded a look. The law was firm. No one was allowed to leave Demacia, not Asta, her daughter, or the Skaggorn warriors.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Dalin.

“If we let them go, then we are the ones violating the law,” whispered Dalin.

The two rangers walked behind as the group trekked eastward.

“We need to know how they got across the border,” replied Quinn in a low voice.

Dalin looked troubled, but he gave a clipped nod and fell into silence.

It wasn’t long before they reached the cliffs marking the edge of Demacia. The Skaggorn party led them to a secluded location, tucked just out of view of the guard towers to the north and south. Every inch of these cliffs should have been visible to one of the dozens of Demacia’s watchtowers, but clearly this was a blind spot.

Quinn leaned over the edge. The drop was several hundred feet, but heights had never bothered her. She could see pitons hammered into the rock. “You approached the base of the cliff at night, so as not to be seen by the sentries?” she asked.

Egrid nodded. Quinn grunted, impressed.

“Quite the climb to make, even in daylight,” she said. She looked down at the big man’s strapped leg. “Sorry about the knee. Are you going to manage it?”

“Of course! We of Skaggorn are strong,” boasted Egrid. “You are strong, too. You should return with us. The two of us, we would make strong warrior children. Yes?”

Quinn stared at him without speaking, her expression unreadable. Eventually, he shrugged and turned away.

“Worth asking the question,” he muttered. With a shout, he ordered his men to retrieve the ropes, hidden in the undergrowth nearby.

“I thought you just wanted to find out how they crossed into Demacia unseen,” hissed Dalin, taking Quinn aside. “We’ll be breaking our oaths if we allow them to go!”

“I’m uncomfortable with forcing a woman to stay and risk having her child taken simply because of a quirk of her bloodline,” she said, her voice low. “Besides, our first oath is to protect Demacia.”

“And letting them go protects Demacia?”

Quinn flashed him a fierce glance. “If we try to stop them, this plays out in one of two ways,” she whispered. “Either they kill us and leave anyway, in which case Demacia has lost two of its best rangers—or we defeat them, and Demacia gains an enemy, for the people of Skaggorn will know we are holding a chieftain’s daughter against her will.”

Dalin glanced at the big warriors, and conceded the point. “Doesn’t make it right, though,” he muttered. “And still makes us lawbreakers.”

Quinn regarded him. “If you want things to be simple, then you’d be better off in the regular infantry. Things are always more complicated out on the fringes.”

“The laws—”

“The laws be damned,” snapped Quinn. “It does not weaken Demacia in any way to let them go, but it will if we try to stop them.”

“But—”

Quinn rarely enforced the power her rank allowed her... but she did so now.

“Stand down, soldier,” she growled. “I am letting them go. That is an order.”

He stiffened for a moment, then gave her a sharp salute.

“As you will it, ranger-knight.”

The sun was starting to set as the Skaggorn party commenced climbing down the cliff. Quinn waited till they were all on their way—tied to each other, with the widow Asta’s child strapped tightly upon Egrid’s back—before she turned away. As good as their word, Egrid’s men removed the pitons they’d hammered into the stone as they descended.

Quinn had less than three days to get to the meeting point with Garen. She’d be forced to run through the night to make it in time, but had no doubt that she would. She gathered herself, readying for the journey ahead.

Before she left, Quinn paused, glancing over at Dalin, who was sitting near the cliff’s edge, Rigby at his side. He was looking eastward, away from her. They had barely spoken since the Skaggorn began their descent.

“I don’t expect you to feel good about it,” Quinn said, “but letting them go was for the best.”

He looked at her. “I understand,” he said. “Matters just aren’t as straightforward as I’d like them to be, I guess.”

“For some, they are,” said Quinn, shrugging. “But we are rangers.”

The Greenfang warden gave a slow nod, then stood to see Quinn off.

“You watch out for her, Valor, you hear?” he said, addressing the azurite eagle perched nearby. “Demacia needs her.”

Valor clacked his beak in reply.

“Speak to the local garrison,” Quinn said. “See that they build a watchtower here. Best make sure this gap in our defenses is closed for good.”

“Pulling rank on me again, boss?”

Quinn snorted, and scratched Rigby behind the ears. “Something like that.” She looked the warden in the eye. “Stay safe, and stay vigilant, Dalin,” she said. “Demacia needs you, too.”

Then she turned, and started running once more.

Though they are rare creatures now indeed, there exist a handful of places across Runeterra where the great elemental dragons still nest.

Long after the fall of the Shuriman empire, in the chambers beneath a lost volcano, the elder beast known as Yvva guarded her clutch of eggs. Beyond the depredations of rival drakes, dragon eggs were priceless almost beyond a mortal’s comprehension, and so many were daring or foolish enough to try their luck. Yvva feasted upon the charred remains of a score or more would-be thieves over the years… before one succeeded in his attempt.

This upstart mage fled the mountains with the large egg hugged close to his chest, the jungle at his heels set ablaze by Yvva’s fury. Against all odds, he reached the coast and left the dragon to slink back to her lair in defeat. She had lost one egg. She would not lose another.

The mage traveled north to Piltover—but before he could find a buyer, the egg began to hatch. Whether it was the act of removing it from the nest, or the last moon of autumn giving way to winter, something had changed. It was no infant dragon that emerged, but an apparently humanoid baby girl with pale, violet skin, and the mage found he could not bear to abandon her. He raised the child as his own, naming her Shyvana after the dark legend of her brood-mother.

It became clear that Shyvana was no mortal. From an early age, she was able to shift her form into something monstrous, akin to the half-dragons of ancient myth. This made living among the common folk of Valoran difficult, to say the least. One thing was clear: Yvva retained some connection with her lost daughter, and it grew stronger over time. When her other offspring finally took flight, Yvva left her empty nest and soared far over the ocean in search of Shyvana.

The land was wracked by fierce border wars, but armies and villagers alike scattered at the great dragon’s approach. Seeking refuge in a ruined farmhouse, Shyvana saw her adopted father engulfed in flames as Yvva swept low overhead—the young woman dragged him into the nearby forest, but there was nothing more she could do. She buried him in a simple grave beneath a spreading oak, and set off alone.

After many weeks in hiding in the wilds, always on the move, Shyvana picked out the faint scent of blood among the trees. She found a wounded warrior, close to death, and knew this was someone she could save.

Without a thought for the beast that hunted her, she assumed her half-dragon form and carried the unconscious man far away, to an outpost on the borders of Demacia.

There, in the castle at Wrenwall, Shyvana discovered that this warrior was none other than Prince Jarvan—the king’s only son, and heir to the throne. Though the stationed soldiers regarded her violet skin and strange manners with some suspicion, she was made welcome. Demacians, it seemed, always looked out for one another, and her time in the town was the most peaceful she had ever known.

The peace was not to last. Shyvana sensed darkness on the wind. Yvva was coming.

The recovering prince, knowing that he had to marshal Wrenwall’s garrison, brought the terrified locals inside the stronghold in preparation for the coming battle. Even so, Shyvana prepared to make her escape. Jarvan confronted her, and she admitted that the creature in pursuit of her was of her own blood. She could not allow innocent people to die for that.

Jarvan refused to let her go. Shyvana had saved his life, so it was only right that he fight at her side, now. Moved by his offer, she accepted.

As Yvva came into view, Demacian archers loosed volleys of arrows to keep her distracted. In retaliation, she bathed the battlements in flame, tearing at the stonework with her powerful talons and sending armored warriors tumbling from the parapet. It was then that Shyvana leapt forth, transforming in mid-air and bellowing a challenge to her brood-mother. In a sight seldom witnessed in Valoran since the Rune Wars, the two dragons clashed, tooth and claw, in the skies over Wrenwall.

And finally, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Shyvana grappled Yvva to the ground, and broke the creature’s neck upon the flagstones.

The prince himself honored Shyvana’s bravery, and promised that she would always have a place at his side, if she would return with him to his father’s halls. With Yvva’s skull as proof of their triumph, they set out for the Great City of Demacia together.

Shyvana has learned that King Jarvan III’s realm is somewhat divided—with the people’s distrust of mages and magic putting them at odds with the noble ideals upon which it was founded. While she has found a measure of acceptance as one of the prince’s most trusted guardians, she is left to wonder whether that would still be the case if her true nature were more widely known…

Ojan’s knife whittled the edge of the ironwood into a soft curve. As an eight-year-old, he wasn’t the most practiced craftsman; his wood block was just starting to resemble something round and spiky.

His sister, Zyama, leaned down from her bunk and grimaced.

“What’s that? Rhoksha dung?” she said. “No one will want to buy that.”

“It’s not dung, it’s a great and fearsome god, with his armor and everything! And it won’t be for sale. It’s for luck.”

“We’re traders, little brother,” she said. “Everything here is for sale.”

The caravan clinked and clanged as it rolled over the dunes. Every space from floor to ceiling was packed tightly with jars of spices, leaving just enough room for the family’s narrow bunks.

“Something’s chasing us from the south!” Ojan’s mother shouted from outside. Ojan heard her whip crack, urging the camels to hurry their pace.

Zyama leaned out the window, staring through her most prized possession, an ornate spyglass.

“They’re Kmiros! I’ll ready the arrows,” she said. “They must be after your Rhoksha dung.”

Ojan replaced her at the window. Sure enough, hundreds of beetles the size of dogs swarmed over the dune behind them.

Zyama returned with a bow and quiver of colorful arrows. She fired, taking one beetle out, but the mass of insects charged on without pause.

“How many arrows do we have?” Ojan asked.

“About forty,” Zyama said, looking into the quiver. She frowned.

Their mother’s voice carried from the front. “We’ll have to outrun them. Hold on!”

Whips cracked once more and the caravan jolted forward, knocking Ojan to the floor.

Zyama loosed another arrow into the swarm, spearing two at once. The creatures fell, but plenty more took their place.

“Oil! In the left cabinet!” their mother shouted.

Ojan ducked away and returned with a flask of lamp oil and a wad of rags. He doused a piece of cloth before wrapping it around the tip of an arrow. He lit the bundle on fire and carefully handed it to Zyama, who blasted the flaming shot into a cluster of beetles. They burst into flames, screeching as they burned. Ojan grinned.

Together they bombarded the horde with flaming arrows, firing as fast as Ojan could wrap each arrowhead. The air smoked with burning chitin. The caravan accelerated, and the gap increased. They were nearly safe.

Ojan’s stomach dropped. The Kmiros spread glittering wings and rose to the skies as a unified black cloud.

Ojan flinched as a heavy thud shook the cabin from above. More followed, and the wooden slats groaned under the weight of the oversized insects.

“Hold on!” his mother shouted from the front as she veered them sharply left. Beetles tumbled from the roof, but Ojan heard a discordant scratching from above and knew more had landed.

Pincers broke through the layered beams in the ceiling and an enormous beetle tumbled into the caravan. Zyama drew her dagger and stabbed it, but her blade was unable to pierce its tough carapace. She pushed Ojan back and waved her blade before her, desperately trying to hold it at bay.

More Kmiros dropped through the smashed roof, all snapping jaws and clicking pincers. Ojan dove beneath his bunk, desperately kicking the insects as they clawed for him. He prised the round wooden figure from his pocket.

“Please, Rammus, I pray to you,” he whispered. “Help us!”

The caravan jolted as beetles landed on the roof. It pitched back and forth like a ship on a rough sea. Then the world tilted sideways as the caravan overturned completely, skidding in the sand.

Ojan shielded his face from tumbling objects as dust clouded his vision. He was flung against the wall, his ears ringing and head throbbing as the caravan swerved. After a moment of stillness, he felt a hand tug his arm as his mother dragged him from the rubble. He squinted in the blinding sunlight.

The family huddled in the wreckage of their caravan, coughing in the dusty air as the Kmiros circled. A beetle charged forward and Ojan’s mother stabbed it between its clicking jaws. She skewered another as it scrambled to bite her daughter, spilling rank yellow innards across the sand. A third beetle leapt from the top of the caravan and landed behind them. Zyama screamed as it seized her foot in its pincers.

The beetles froze abruptly, halting their attack. They hunkered low to the ground, antennas flexing. In the silence, Ojan heard a distant whirring. He watched the western horizon as a sand cloud rushed toward them in a fury of dust. The family brandished their weapons in readiness to fight this new threat.

A round armored shape exploded from the flurry of sand and smashed into the nearest beetle with terrible force, crushing it to pulp.

The shape barreled on, smashing beasts left and right. Though the insects snapped at the shape with their sharp pincers, it was unstoppable, and in a moment, no living Kmiros remained.

The dust began to settle once more, and Ojan glimpsed spiked armor jutting from the round shape ahead.

“Is that...?” Zyama said.

“Rammus!” Ojan shouted. He scrambled down the hill to meet his hero.

The creature’s shell was intricately patterned with spiral scales, and his claws were sharp as knives. He gnawed slowly on the hairy leg of a beetle, juice dripping from his mouth.

Ojan and Zyama gaped.

Their mother approached the Armordillo, bowing her head deeply.

“You saved us,” she said. “We are grateful.”

Rammus crunched the beetle leg as the family watched. Several minutes passed.

He rolled to the fallen caravan and rummaged through the debris, emerging with Ojan’s wooden carving of the Armordillo. The likeness wasn’t perfect, but certainly discernible.

“That’s you,” Ojan said. “Please, take it.”

Rammus knelt down and bit the wooden figurine in two with a crunch. He turned and walked a few paces before spitting the pieces into the sand. Zyama stifled a laugh.

“Hmm,” said Rammus.

He tore a leg from another dead beetle and dragged it through the sand as he rolled away.

The family watched him disappear over the horizon.

Ojan ran after Rammus to retrieve the broken pieces of the statue. He pocketed them and bowed.

“For luck,” he said.

Quinn waited for the Noxians to light a fire in the forest clearing and drink two wineskins. Drunk soldiers were easy to predict. She wanted them drunk enough to be stupid, but not reckless. Mistakes got you killed in the wilderness, and these men had just made two big ones. Lighting a fire told her they were overconfident, the wine that they were sure no one was in pursuit.

Rule One: Always assume someone’s after you.

She eased herself through the mud on her belly, using her elbows to pull herself toward a hollowed out, rotten log at the edge of the clearing. The rain had turned the forest into a quagmire, and she’d spend the next few hours picking bugs and worms from her clothes.

Rule Two: Survival never takes second place to dignity.

Careful not to look directly at the campfire and lose her night sight, she counted five men - one less than she expected. Where was the sixth man? Quinn started to ease herself upright, but froze as the hair stood up on the back of her neck, a warning from above.

A shape moved from behind a tree in the darkness. A warrior. Armored in boiled black leather. Moving with skill. The man paused, scanning the darkness, his hand never leaving the wire-wound hilt of his sword.

Had he seen her? She didn’t think so.

“Hey, Vurdin,” called one of the men seated around the fire. “Better hurry if you want any of this wine. Olmedo’s drinking it all!”

Rule Three: Stay silent.

The man cursed, and Quinn smiled at his obvious frustration.

“Quiet,” he hissed. “I think they heard you back in bloody Noxus.”

“Ach, there’s no one out here, Vurdin. The Demacians are probably too busy buckling on their armor and giving it a polish to bother with coming after us. Come on, take a drink!”

The man sighed and turned back to the fire with a weary shrug. Quinn let out a slow breath. That one had some talent, but he too believed they were alone in the wilderness.

Rule Four: Don’t let stupid people drag you down to their level.

Quinn smiled and glanced up, seeing the smudge of night-blue darkness of her eagle companion against the rainclouds. Valor dipped his wings, and Quinn nodded, their wordless communication refined over many years together. She circled her right fist, then raised three fingers, knowing Valor could see her perfectly and would understand.

Rule Five: When it’s time to act, do it decisively.

Quinn knew they should just take these men out quietly and without fuss, but the affront of Noxians this deep in Demacia was galling. She wanted these men to know exactly who had caught them and that Demacia was not some primitive tribal culture to be crushed by Noxian ambition. The decision made, she pushed herself to her feet and strode into the campsite as if her being there was the most natural thing in the world. She stood at the edge of the firelight, her hood raised and her oiled stormcloak drawn tightly around her.

“Give me what you stole and no one has to die tonight,” said Quinn, nodding toward a leather satchel stitched with the winged sword symbol of Demacia.

The Noxians scrambled upright, blinking as they scanned the edge of the forest. They fumbled to draw their swords and Quinn almost laughed at their surprised ineptitude. The one who’d almost walked right over her hid his shock well, but relaxed as he realized she was alone.

“You’re a long way from home, girl,” he said, raising his sword.

“Not as far as you, Vurdin.”

He frowned, put on the back foot by her using his name. Quinn saw his mind working as he tried to figure out how much more she knew. She kept her cloak pulled tight as the men spread out, surrounding her.

“Give me the satchel,” said Quinn, a note of boredom in her voice.

“Take her!” shouted Vurdin.

It was the last thing he said.

Quinn swept her cloak back over her shoulder and lifted her left arm. A black shafted bolt from her repeater crossbow buried itself in Vurdin’s eye, and he fell without a sound. A second bolt tore into the chest of the man to his left. The remaining four came at her in a rush.

A screeching cry split the night as Valor swept down like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. His wings boomed as he spread them wide and swung around in a scything arc. Hooked claws tore the face from one Noxian, and the eagle’s slashing beak clove the skull of the soldier next to him. The third Noxian managed to raise his weapon, but Valor sank his claws into his shoulders and bore him to the ground. The eagle’s beak slashed down and the man’s struggles ceased instantly.

The last Noxian turned and sprinted for the trees.

Rule Six: If you have to fight, kill quickly.

Quinn knelt and loosed a pair of bolts from her crossbow. They hammered into the Noxian’s back and burst from his chest. He managed to reach the edge of the trees before pitching forward and lying still. Quinn remained motionless, listening to the sounds of the wilderness, making sure there were no other enemies nearby. The only sounds she heard were those she’d expect to hear in a forest at night.

She stood, and Valor flew over to her, the satchel of military dispatches the Noxians had stolen held in his claws. He dropped it and she caught it with her free hand, looping it over her shoulder in one smooth motion. Valor perched on her arm, his body rippling with the thrill of the hunt. His claws and beak were red with blood. The eagle’s head cocked to the side, and his gold-flecked eyes glittered with amusement. She grinned, her bond with the bird so strong she already understood his thoughts.

“I was wondering that too,” said Quinn. “How did these Noxians get this far into Demacia?”

The eagle gave a shrill screech, and she nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” said Quinn. “South it is.”

Rule Seven: Trust you can rely on your partner.

Sigvar Half-Quiver knelt on one knee, head bowed, while the wind beyond the gates howled like the ice-wraiths of legend.

He was the Cleaver of Peaks, the Bloody Sword of Winterspike. He had taken the head of the warchief of the Chosen Children, Helmgar Cragheart, and had held the Valley of Spines alone, fighting the Mourncrow tribe to a standstill until reinforcements from the citadel arrived.

What’s more, Sigvar was Iceborn.

And yet—for all his deeds, all the honors he had earned under the Eye of Lissandra—as he knelt in the open gateway of the Frostguard Citadel, with the wind lashing and the unearthly banshee’s wail of the Howling Abyss whipping around him, he felt a flutter of trepidation at the task ahead.

He did not wear his heavy, dark armor, for its weight would have been impractical for what was to come, but he felt comfort in having his shield on his back and his sword at his hip. Expectation hung upon him. He prayed he would not be found wanting.

“You delve now into the darkness below, brothers and sister of the Lodge,” said Ralakka Split-Tongue, Frost-Father of the Keepers, “but you will not be alone. We, the Children of the Frozen Shadow, are never alone, not in the darkest winters of the frozen expanse, nor in the deepest chasms of the hidden ways. The Eye of Lissandra watches over us, now and always.”

“From ice we are born, and to ice we will return,” intoned Sigvar, his words echoing those of the other two lodge members kneeling beside him.

To his left was Olar Stonefist—a legend among the Frostguard who had fought in their ranks for half a lifetime before Sigvar had even been born. Wolf-lean, grey-bearded, and iron-eyed, his skin was like hardened leather, riven with deep crevasses and valleys. Ice-bear furs draped his shoulders, but his arms were bare, and covered in faded war-tattoos and a dozen iron rings, each won in ritual combat. His massive great-hammer, Thunderchild, was strapped across his back. That weapon, its head encased in True Ice, was as storied as Olar himself.

To Sigvar’s right knelt Halla Ice-in-her-Soul. While he idolized Olar, Sigvar was over-awed by Halla. Utterly fearless, and her faith unshakeable, she was as unforgiving and deadly as winter. Her twin short-hafted axes—Bloodfang and Bloodclaw—hung at her waist, though it was strange to see her not garbed in her dark mail and horned helm. She, like Sigvar and Olar, had eschewed her armor for their journey. The sides of her head were shaved, while the rest of her pale hair was tied into a single intricate braid down the center of her head, like a crest. Her left eye was white, blinded by a blow that had left a trio of savage scars cut across her face.

He’d heard Olar tell the tale of those scars, earned when Halla had fought a hunting pack of Ursine. She’d killed three before the others slunk off, so it was said, and Sigvar believed it. Had she not been embraced into the Frostguard as a child, Halla would undoubtedly have been a powerful warmother in one of the tribes beyond the citadel.

The Frost Priest stepped in close, moving first to Olar. “The Eye is upon you,” he incanted.

Sigvar barely heard Olar’s growled reply, his heart was thumping so hard. Then the Frost Priest was in front of him, and his stomach lurched, as it had before his first battle.

“Look up, Frostguard,” the priest said, quietly, and Sigvar obeyed, tilting his chin back to look upon the old man’s face. It was skeletally gaunt, with sunken cheeks and shadow-rimmed eyes. There was no kindness there, but Sigvar expected none. Theirs was a harsh and unrelenting faith. A shard of sacred Dark Ice hung around Split-Tongue’s neck; another topped his knotted staff. Slivers of holy reverence, used for healing and worship. The Frost Priest dipped a finger into a shallow basin filled with kraken ink, black and stinking, and drew an eye upon Sigvar’s forehead.

“The Eye is upon you,” he said.

“And it does not blink,” intoned Sigvar in reply, lowering his head once more. His forehead burned as the ink seared his skin, but he endured it with the stoicism of the Iceborn. Pain was blessing.

The priest moved to Halla, completing the ritual, and the three chosen Iceborn stood.

Olar was the tallest of them, wiry and corded with lean muscle, while Sigvar was by far the heaviest. Halla stood half-a-head shorter than Sigvar, yet the power and authority she radiated made her seem larger.

The three Frostguard stooped to collect their packs, icepicks, and coils of rope, which they threw over their shoulders and hooked onto their belts.

Sigvar glanced back at the ranks of Frostguard standing in silent witness to their departure. Ralakka Split-tongue, turned away, his part in their expedition done. A cluster of other Frost Priests followed behind him, like crows shadowing a war-party. The darkness of the citadel quickly swallowed them.

“Time to go,” said Halla Ice-in-her-Soul. “The darkness calls.”

With a nod, Sigvar joined Halla and Olar, turning away from the gathered Frostguard and walking through the giant gates of the citadel, out onto the bridge beyond, spanning the Howling Abyss.

The ethereal wails borne upon the wind intensified, and shards of ice slashed at them, but none of them flinched from it. They welcomed it. The ice was their ally. The ice was their truth.

Behind the three Frostguard, the great gates of the citadel slammed shut with a resounding boom that was soon lost in the gale.

Sigvar took a deep breath.

It was time to descend into the Abyss.

The journey was made every year, on the vernal equinox, when day and night were of equal length. Three among the Frostguard were chosen. All came from the Keepers Lodge, the inner circle of the faith who guarded the deeping ways.

It was a great honor to be singled out for this most sacred of duties, and Sigvar’s chest had swelled with pride when the deep-horns had sounded and his name been called. At nineteen winters, he was one of the youngest Frostguard ever to have been chosen. How many times had he gazed upon the roll of honor, thousands upon thousands of names, chiselled into the walls of the lodge? One of his first memories after coming to the citadel was of reverently tracing the outline of those names, and dreaming of their great deeds. More than half had a simple rune engraved after their name, the rune of death, indicating those who had perished while performing this sacred duty. It was a dangerous thing, to delve too deep, even for one of the Iceborn bloodline.

Kneeling before the Dark Ice statues of the Three—revered Avarosa, Serylda, and Lissandra—he had long beseeched them to find him worthy, to one day let his name join those esteemed others. Now it seemed his prayers had been answered. He had trained his whole life for this honor. He would do the Keepers Lodge proud.

They walked along the bridge, beneath the gaze of the giant, silent guardian statues that marked the way. The relentless winds battered them, screaming around them in whirling eddies.

It had many names, this bridge: the Proving Grounds, and the Murder Bridge among them. Others knew it simply as Citadel Bridge, or the Howling Arch. If it had a name during the time of the Three, it was now lost. Among the Frostguard, it was often referred to as the Bridge of Sorrows. Thousands of Iceborn had perished here, after all.

It was truly ancient, said to have been crafted by the old gods. The time of those deities was long past, of course. Some of the heathen tribes still worshipped them, but in time they would be brought around to the true faith—voluntarily, or by the sword. Regardless of whether they accepted it or not, the ice would claim them.

Parts of the stonework had crumbled, falling into the darkness. Time had no respect for ancient beauty, the frost priests taught. Everything was fleeting, on a large enough timescale. Even the greatest mountain would be leveled by wind and ice given enough years. Only faith was eternal.

A deep sense of reverence hung over Sigvar as he walked with Stonefist and Ice-in-her-Soul across the expanse. The greatest battle ever to have been fought had taken place here, thousands of years past. Here, the Iceborn had fought the Watchers, in a battle that would determine the fate of the world.

And here they were victorious, though only at great cost, and the Watchers had been hurled into darkness.

Sigvar walked in silence, lost in his thoughts of that earlier, greater age. Neither of the other two Iceborn spoke as they made their way across, though whether that was due to the relentless roaring of the wind, or if they too were lost in ancient legend, Sigvar knew not.

They reached the other side of the Bridge of Sorrows, where Lissandra had led the Iceborn in that ancient, titanic battle, and there Halla Ice-in-her-Soul called the halt with a raised hand.

“We go down here,” she said, shouting to be heard over the gale, pointing towards a section of the bridge near the chasm wall that had long ago fallen.

Sigvar and Olar both nodded in deference. Olar might have been older and more experienced, his name carved nine times upon the wall of the lodge to Halla’s three, but old habits died hard. The blood of the Three was stronger in the women of the Freljord’s tribes.

“I lead the way,” shouted Halla. “Stonefist is the anchor, in the center. Half-Quiver at the back.”

They unravelled two lengths of rope, hooking them onto each other’s belts—Halla’s to Olar’s, Olar’s to Sigvar’s. They tightened the straps on the iron toe-spikes affixed to their boots, and unhooked icepicks, securing them to their wrists with loops of leather.

Halla whipped her picks around in a few arcing, tight circles, loosening her muscles. Then she jumped off the bridge, landing ten feet below on an outcropping of ice jutting from the chasm wall. Sigvar and Olar waited for her to secure herself, digging her picks into the ice, before they jumped down join her.

“We are the will of the goddess, She Who Walks Among Us,” said Halla. “Do her proud, sons of winter.”

Then she went over the edge, putting her picks deep and scrambling over the precipice. She kicked her toe-spikes in, and began the descent.

Olar grinned at Sigvar, his eyes glinting with savage glee. “You will not be the same Iceborn when we return. The Howling Abyss changes you... if you return.” He gave a wink, then he too went over the edge, disappearing from sight, leaving Sigvar alone.

No, not alone, he reminded himself. The Eye was upon him. He felt it burning still into the skin of his forehead. Lissandra was with him, now and always.

He waited a moment longer, then began the long climb into the fathomless depths.

They moved fast, Halla Ice-in-her-Soul setting a punishing pace, though they did not take any undue risk. They climbed one at a time, first Halla, then Olar, then Sigvar, moving almost to the lengths of their ropes with each descent. In this way, they were able to keep a steady anchor in case of a fall, and the intermittent rest allowed them to keep progressing downward steadily, without need for a longer pause.

The Bridge of Sorrows was not the only one of its kind to cross the expanse. Dozens of others spanned the walls of the crevasse, though only a few were visible at any one time, the distance, fog, and darkness closing in like a shroud. All but the uppermost bridge had long been abandoned and remained unused, the myriad tunnels and gateways leading onto them having being sealed by avalanche or by the Frostguard themselves, to limit the number of entrances into the citadel.

The closest bridges were several hundred feet apart, yet the deeper they went, the more spaced out they became. Some had been destroyed completely, only the skeletal abutments protruding from the ice walls indicating where they had once been.

It was dark, but not the complete, all-consuming darkness of mid-winter; it was more akin to the faded half-light of the gloaming hours. The ice itself seemed to radiate a dull, ethereal glow, which reflected upon the thickening fog, such that the three did not need carry torch or brand.

The shrieking gale still whipped through the ravine, tugging at them like spectral hands, trying to prise them from their tenuous hold on the ice.

It was impossible to judge the passing of time. The hours blurred together into one single, uninterrupted span. Climb, wait, climb, wait. On the climbs, Sigvar found a good rhythm, losing himself in the repetitive motion of hacking the icepicks in deep, kicking in the toe-spikes, and hauling the picks back out. While waiting for Halla and Olar to descend below him, he mouthed the Litanies of Truth, keeping himself focused.

Resist not cold’s embrace, for within it lies truth. Be as one with the ice, and understanding shall follow.

Down and down and down they climbed, moving steadily. Hours might have passed, or a day. Unable to see the sky, Sigvar had no way to know.

Endure, without complaint. The ice begs not for mercy, nor offers it. Neither shall we.

No lesser being would have been able to match their pace. They were Iceborn, the children of the gods, and they were not as other mortals. Able to march for days on end without sleep and still fight any foe to a standstill, they stoically endured that which would have killed any Hearthbound.

Even so, Sigvar’s forearms were aching, and he was covered in a sheen of sweat beneath his skins and furs. And when the ice gave way beneath him, he was too slow to react. He struck out with one of his icepicks, but it did not bite deeply, and merely tore a chunk from the wall.

Then he was falling.

Fear not pain, nor seek to avoid its blessing. Without it, there can be no life.

Turning in the air, he made another attempt to arrest his fall, slamming a pick into the ice, but it tore from his grasp, and he would have lost it had it not been tethered to his wrist.

And when death comes, flinch not from its approach.

He dropped forty feet, hurtling past Olar. The older man’s flinty eyes were wide.

From ice we are born, and to ice we return.

“Brace!” the old Frostguard warrior bellowed, tightening his grip and bending his legs in anticipation.

He saw Halla look up and mouth a curse as she realized he was falling straight towards her. She moved quickly and assuredly, hacking her picks swiftly into the ice and shifting herself sideways so he didn’t smash her from the cliffside.

The rope caught his fall then, arresting it with bone-jarring abruptness. He slammed into the ice wall, the impact driving the air from his lungs.

Olar roared as he took Sigvar’s weight. Stonefist held, however, clinging to the ice, his arms as taut as iron.

Sigvar recovered quickly, slamming his picks home, and kicking his toe-spikes in deep. He glanced over at Halla Ice-in-her-Soul, who stared at him, her own piercing eyes—one blue, one white—as unblinking as the one painted on her forehead.

She stared in silent judgement.

“We’ll take a rest at the Bridge of Shadow,” she said, finally, and continued climbing down into the twilight gloom. Sigvar cursed himself, his cheeks burning despite the cold.

When Olar climbed down past him, he gave another of his wide, toothy grins.

“You’re a heavy bastard, Half-Quiver,” he said. “Damn well nearly took us both down with you.”

“The ice gave way,” said Sigvar, weakly. “I’ll do better.”

“See that you do. Might just cut your rope next time.”

Sigvar looked at the old warrior, quizzically. On three of his previous expeditions down into the Abyss, Olar had been the only one to return alive. Was this why?

At the Bridge of Shadow, they dropped their packs, uncoupled their ropes, and unhooked their icepicks. The bridge was so named because, even in midsummer, when the sun never dipped below the horizon, it was never truly in the light.

Olar slumped to the flagstones with an exaggerated groan, propping his back against the low balustrade at the edge of the bridge. Halla stepped away from the other two, unhooking a tiny black effigy of Lissandra from around her neck and placing it upon the ground. She knelt before it, breathing a devotion. Sigvar stood stock-still, wondering if he too should take this time to pray, but Olar waved him over, urging him to sit.

The older man—exactly how old, he didn’t know, but Olar was certainly well past sixty—produced a small leather flask. Unstoppering it, he took as swig, gave a satisfied sigh, and handed it to Sigvar. The younger warrior took it with a nod of thanks, and knocked back a measure.

“Tears of the gods,” said Olar. “Nothing like it this side of the Ridgeback Mountains.”

The liquid burned hot in his throat, making his eyes water. Those tears turned instantly to ice on his cheeks. He nodded in appreciation, and handed it back to Olar, who took another swig before secreting it back within his furs.

A waterskin would have frozen as soon as they stepped beyond the gates of the citadel. They would endure without, but the strong spirit was welcome moisture on Sigvar’s throat.

Olar’s heavily tattooed arms were still bare, and Sigvar shook his head as he pulled his furs tighter around him.

“Aren’t you freezing, old man?” he said.

“It’s going to get a lot colder than this, boy,” said Olar, giving him an evil grin. “This is like a summer breeze, compared to what’s yet to come.”

Sigvar didn’t know if he was joking. He pulled his pack over to his side, and brought out a small strip of salted meat, wrapped in waxed leather. He snapped off a frozen section and handed it to Olar, before breaking off a piece for himself. He worked it around his mouth, thawing it enough to chew. It was tough and sinewy, but in that moment it seemed an extravagant luxury.

Slumped with his back against the low wall alongside Olar, Sigvar was out of the worst of the howling wind, which itself was blessing. It screamed over them, wailing horribly, sending flurries of ice and snow swirling across the bridge. Some said the sound of the wind was the screams of the thousands of Iceborn killed in that final titanic battle in the age of heroes, long ago, their souls trapped here forever in this chasm.

“It’s a fearful sound, isn’t it, lad?” said Olar. “Gets inside your head after a time.”

“Is it the same all the way down?”

Olar shook his head. “Would that it was. No, down towards the bottom it’s as silent as the grave.”

“That’s got to be better than this…”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But the silence is worse. It’s heavy, that silence. Weighs upon you like full-length chainmail. No, I’d take this any day.”

Halla finished her devotions and joined them, sitting alongside Olar. She took a long swig from Olar’s flask, then wiped her mouth with the back of her gloved hand.

“How is it you always have the best stuff, Stonefist?” she said, making Olar snort.

“Must be my charming personality,” he replied.

“I’m quite certain that is not it.” Her expression was deadpan, making Olar snort once more.

Sigvar leant over, gingerly offering her some meat, still hot with shame at having fallen. She looked at it for half a moment, making Sigvar think she was going to reject the offer, but finally she took it, and nodded her thanks.

“How did you earn your name, Half-Quiver?” she asked as she chewed.

“There was a raid. I was a tenderfoot, accompanying a caravan escort, bringing provisions back to the citadel. We were attacked out on the frozen expanse. A blizzard had hidden their approach. Tusk-Crow tribe.”

Halla grunted. “Dangerous warriors. Head-takers.”

Sigvar nodded. “I took some arrows in the skirmish. Kept fighting, though. Stonefist honored me with my name once the last of the Tusk-Crows had fled, leaving their dead and dying to the ice.”

“You’ll never make a saga-teller, boy,” said Olar. “Too modest by half. No sense for the dramatic.”

“Not like you, old one,” said Halla. “I swear your stories get more far-fetched with every telling.”

“Have I told you my bear story, lad?” Olar asked, giving Sigvar a wink.

“No,” said Halla, levelling a finger at the old Frostguard. “I will not hear that again.”

“Another time, then,” said Olar, with a resigned shrug. “Anyway, the Tusk-Crows stuck the boy with no less than a dozen arrows. You were only, what, fourteen winters? He was a big lad, though, even then. Not quite the giant slab he is now, but still big. Had four arrows in his shield, two in one leg, one clean through his forearm. Two in his chest, one in his shoulder, more in his back. But he kept on fighting, bellowing like a stuck elnük. Took down three Tusk-Crows before another arrow hit him, making him drop his sword. Still didn’t slow him. He pulls one of the arrows out of him, and kills another two Tusk-Crows with it! One of the funniest damn things I ever saw! True Iceborn. Would have done Serylda herself proud.”

“Fearless Mother,” said Halla instantly, grasping the pale talisman of Serylda, hanging around her neck alongside those of Avarosa and Lissandra.

“Fearless Mother,” Sigvar murmured. His face was burning, and he looked down, uncomfortable with Olar’s praise.

“You have a strange sense of what is funny, Stonefist,” said Halla, pushing herself back to her feet. “Come. It is time to move on.”

“I’m sorry I fell,” Sigvar said, as he regained his feet and made ready for the next stage of the climb. “On my oath, I will not let either of you down again.”

“If you fall, it is the will of Three,” said Halla. “And if you fall and take us down with you, then such is to be our fate also. Your oath matters nothing.”

She walked past him, looking for the best place to recommence their descent. Olar grinned and slapped a heavy hand on Sigvar’s shoulder.

“It’s fine, lad,” he said. “Happens to the best of us. If that’s the worst we go through, we’ll all be on our knees thanking the Three.”

Down into the deep they continued, chased, as always, by the howls in the biting wind.

It appeared like a wraith out of the fog. One moment there was nothing below them, then it was there.

The Bridge of the Lost.

From a distance, it looked almost as though it had been overrun by some kind of voracious black weed, or thornbush. The notion was absurd, of course, for no life could flourish at this depth, such was the cold that almost seemed to radiate up from below.

No, this growth was nothing as mundane as plant life. It was the very antithesis of life. A knot of unease had settled in Sigvar’s gut, and he swallowed, feeling his gorge rising. He had heard the legends and the fireside stories from lodge members who had made this descent, but even so, it was unnerving.

He dropped the final ten feet, landing in a low crouch. His muscles burned with exertion, and his hands were twisted like claws from gripping his picks. Nevertheless, for all his exhaustion, he stared around him, barely daring to breathe, eyes wide.

“Touch nothing,” Halla warned him.

“If I do touch something, that is the will of the Three, is it not?” said Olar. Sigvar didn’t have it in him to smile at the old warrior’s jibe.

Halla turned away, shaking her head. “Catch your breath. This is the last bridge. There’s no more stopping before we reach the bottom—and the next stretch is the longest. May the Three watch over us.”

Having dropped his excess load, Sigvar walked into the center of the bridge, gazing around him in horrified wonder. The wind was not as fierce here, hissing through the strange, stony formations that grew like a twisting lattice around the structure of the bridge.

He found it hard to fathom what he saw, though just gazing upon it made him feel sick.

Giant arcs of what looked like volcanic rock encased the bridge, as if bursts of lava had leapt along and around the length of the bridge before hardening suddenly, in mid-air.

He knew the history of this bridge, of course. That which was trapped below had tried to escape its imprisonment long ago, long after the time of the Three.

Here, Frostguard had fought that darkness, and here they had died. And with each death, the power of What-Dwells-Below grew. It consumed the bodies of the fallen, absorbing and repurposing them to fuel more explosive growth. Such was its nature. It might lie dormant for thousands of years, inert and seemingly lifeless, only for a single drop of blood to rouse it in sudden, shocking violence.

What Sigvar was looking at, those strange, nausea-inducing looping arcs and conglomerations of misshapen detritus were the growth paths of What-Dwells-Below, as it had leapt from Frostguard to Frostguard, claiming them.

And from the matter it consumed, things had been born.

There was an uncomfortable, maddening pressure on Sigvar’s mind here, a pressure that seemed to be coming from below. He pressed his knuckles into his temples, trying to relieve it.

From nowhere, a memory long forgotten came back him in a rush, like a swarm of bats bursting from a cave. He remembered his childhood, before he had been taken by the Frostguard. He remembered the ice-arks of his tribe; sleek, three-masted ships that raced across the frozen wastes upon sharpened keel blades. He remembered the night their ships had slid to a halt at the Great Pinnacle. Black-helmed warriors of the Frostguard awaited them there. Sigvar and six other children under the age of ten winters were chosen from among the tribe. It was a great honor. And there, under the midnight sun, he watched his tribe sail away. It was the last time he saw his family.

He was taken to the citadel, where he underwent the Trials, and was subjected to the grueling, brutal Testing. One-by-one, the other children of his original tribe dwindled, until he was the only one that remained.

By then, he had all but forgotten his tribe. He had a new family. A new faith.

He was Frostguard.

A hand on his shoulder brought him, shuddering, back to the present. He was sitting with his back against the splintered stone statue of an ancient guardian. He had no memory of sitting down. Olar was stooped over him.

“Don’t sleep,” said the old warrior. “Bad dreams, down here. Bad memories.”

Sigvar climbed to his feet. He hadn’t thought about his old tribe for years. The lingering fragments of the dream slipped away, leaving Sigvar with a deep sense of unease.

“It is time,” said Halla.

And so they began their final descent. There was nothing below them now but madness and cold and darkness and dread.

What-Dwells-Below waited, just as it had for millennia.

The ice darkened the further down they went. Black veins spread through it, clawing upwards. A vague, crackling sound surrounded them, seeming to scratch at the back of Sigvar’s eyes. He could see no movement, but he imagined it came from those unnerving threads in the ice, seeking to escape this accursed pit and reach for the surface…

Sigvar tried to push the sound from his head, invoking the Litanies under his breath, and focusing on each kick of his toe-spikes, each strike of his picks.

The ice was less even here, with jutting sections and savage, undercut overhangs to traverse. At times, the three Frostguard were forced to continue using only their picks, legs dangling precariously above the endless depths as they worked their way ever downward. Twice their progress was blocked, with no conceivable way down, and they were forced to backtrack until Halla determined a new route.

Icy fog closed in tightly around them, heavy and oppressive, such that Sigvar could no longer see his companions below. The fog muffled all sound bar that incessant, maddening scratching.

At the last, a floor of solid ice emerged, surprising Sigvar with its abrupt appearance through the fog. Halla and Olar waited for him, having already unburdened themselves of their packs, ropes and picks. The silence here was overbearing. Even the crackling in the ice seemed to have stopped.

“We’re at the base?” whispered Sigvar, his breath fogging the air as he shrugged off his gear.

“This is as far as we go,” said Olar, in a low voice. “But it delves deeper still.”

The older Frostguard ushered him forward, pointing. They stood close to a precipice, and Sigvar saw the chasm dropped away below them, ever deeper.

“How far?” he whispered.

“No one knows. To the center of the world, and beyond. Perhaps to the realm of What-Dwells-Below.”

Sigvar tapped one toe-spike onto the ice underfoot. “We could very easily have missed this. We come down thirty feet that way, and we would be climbing down forever.”

“Ice-in-her-Soul would not have steered us wrong,” said Olar, putting a hand on Sigvar’s back, guiding him to Halla.

Sigvar knelt, placing one gloved hand near the ice. The cold was intense, causing him pain even through his thick layers. More than just cold, though, the ice radiated power.

“This is all… True Ice?” he whispered, his eyes alight with reverence and awe.

“It is,” said Halla. “Only the chosen few have seen it. The Eye is truly upon you, Half-Quiver. Upon all of us. We are blessed.”

True Ice was part of the Frostguard faith, revered as a holy gift from the Three. Infused with ancient, elemental power, it was harder than iron, and would never melt, even in the hottest forge. To carry a weapon that bore even a portion of True Ice—like the warhammer Thunderchild borne by Olar, and Halla’s twin axes, Bloodfang and Bloodclaw—was an honor of deeply religious significance. The skill to craft such weapons was long lost; those remaining were sacred relics carried by Iceborn heroes of long ago. Sigvar prayed he would one day be found worthy to bear such a venerable relic, but for now, his trusty hand-and-a-half sword, forged in a land far beyond the frozen wastes, would do. It was a fine weapon, by any measure, and had never let him down.

“We are close, the Three be praised,” Halla said. “We move.”

They loped along the ravine, running as a pack, with Halla leading the way.

The temperature here was unlike anything Sigvar had ever experienced, though he had lived his whole life in the barren, frozen wastes. Despite his layers of skins and furs, it chilled him to the bone, and every breath was painful. His exposed face was quickly encased in a thin layer of ice, which cracked every time Sigvar blinked. Olar’s beard was frozen, such that it could have snapped were it struck. Frost crackled up their boots as the ice underfoot tried to claim them, making every step an effort.

Only an Iceborn could survive this. Even so, Sigvar wasn’t sure how long he would last down here. An hour? Perhaps two? Certainly no longer than that.

Halla kept them moving. To stop was to die.

They came, finally, to a section where the chasm narrowed, so that they could only proceed one by one through the gap.

Halla went first, and Olar indicated that Sigvar should go next.

“Do not let your gaze linger on it,” warned Olar. “It is not a good thing to look upon.”

“What do you mean?” said Sigvar.

Olar merely shook his head, and would say no more. Sigvar pushed himself into the crevice, wondering what it was the old warrior meant.

The gap was narrow, and he was considerably larger than Halla. The True Ice seared him as he squeezed through, pressing in on all sides. He was so cold that he was sure one hammer blow would shatter his bones, but he continued on, edging forward, inch by inch, until he was through.

A large, bowl-like cavern awaited him on the other side. The ice underfoot here was clearer, shifting from opaque towards transparent. In the middle of the cavern, it was perfectly smooth, like a black mirror. The floor at the center was a broad expanse, surrounded by massive, jutting shards of True Ice. They looked like pillars, arranged in a rough circle around the open middle, giving the cavern the feel of some sacred circle of lost gods. There were nine of those icy pillars, and it took Sigvar a moment to realize the significance of that number.

“The Hall of the Nine,” he said, in reverence.

He had learned of the Nine, of course. They were akin to great shackles, holding What-Dwells-Below down, and were said to have been created by magic long lost. Some said that it was the yetis who created the Nine, but Sigvar had long grown out of such childish tales.

Even so, he knew they had arrived at their destination.

“We stay to the edges, outside the circle,” said Halla, once Olar had slipped through the narrow defile to join them. “Go nowhere near the center of the ice, and do not look down.”

Sigvar knew she was speaking for his benefit, and he nodded.

“Each of the Nine must be checked. I will start here, and go that way,” said Halla, indicating the closest pillar, and motioning past it, around to the right. “Stonefist, you start there, and go that way. Take the boy with you.”

At any other time, Sigvar would have bristled to have been called boy and have someone tasked to watch over him. He’d faced charging troll berserkers in deepest winter and felt nothing but savage joy—but right now, he was grateful to remain at Olar’s side. A palpable tension hung in the air, like the threat felt in the moments between a lightning flash, and the thunder’s crash.

They walked towards the nearest pillars, Sigvar making a conscious effort to keep his gaze high. Once, perhaps, this had been an enclosed cave, but the roof had long ago collapsed. Sigvar had the impression that the collapse had been caused by something vast having been hurled down from above.

He dared not look down, but even so, he could see the dark shadow beneath the ice at the periphery of his vision. It tugged at him, as if straining for his attention...

“Don’t look,” Olar hissed, perhaps feeling that pressure himself.

Halla reached the first ice shard, and began a slow circle around it, peering intently. Olar and Sigvar approached the second.

“What do we look for?” said Sigvar, in a low voice, struggling to keep his gaze from wandering towards the center of the ice.

“Anything that has changed,” replied Olar.

Up close, Sigvar could see threads of frozen darkness trapped within the True Ice. “How do we know if anything has changed?” he murmured.

Olar didn’t answer at first, eyes narrowed as he surveyed the sharply angled sides of the towering ice shard. Finally, he gave a grunt, and pointed. “Runes were carved in this ice, long ago, when What-Dwells-Below was first banished. See here?”

Sigvar stepped in closer and saw a small series of lines carved into the surface, forming runic script. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“It means the ice has not melted. Come, let’s check the next one.”

They set out, hugging the left wall of the cave, continuing to skirt the open expanse in the center.

Sigvar would never be able to clearly articulate what happened next. He remembered following Olar, staying close as they moved toward the next pillar. He remembered a heavy pressure building in his skull, and the sensation of movement in the corners of his eyes. The silence weighed upon him, oppressive and heavy, and everything seemed to become unclear, as if he were surrounded in a sudden fog, muffling every sense.

Then he was standing out in the center of the ice, gazing downward.

An immense eye stared back at him, unblinking.

Sigvar’s soul recoiled, screaming inwardly, yet he was unable to look away, completely in thrall to that giant, staring, lidless eye.

Perhaps twenty feet of solid ice separated him from this shadowy behemoth, but it was not nearly enough. It was impossible to see clearly, but Sigvar was left with an impression of the shadowy, coiling, tentacled limbs that surrounded that great eye. It would have dwarfed even the largest of the titanic leviathans that swam the fathomless depths beneath the ice floes. A creature of such size should not be.

And it was not dead. There was life and a vast, unknowable intelligence in that stare.

It saw him. Its gaze bored into him, through him, and he felt his sanity begin to unravel like a spool of yarn hurled into the night. Sigvar’s stomach was an ever-tightening knot, dark shadows coiling at the edge of his vision, squirming and serpentine, threatening to—

A hand grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, hauling him backward. He stumbled, boots flailing and slipping as he was dragged out of the circle, and dumped unceremoniously on the ice beyond. He scrambled to his feet, shadows and coiling shapes still swimming in his mind.

Dimly, Sigvar registered Olar standing before him, gripping his furs in one tight fist. Halla was on her knees nearby, praying frantically.

The writhing shadows still moved at the corner of his eyes, and his head felt heavy, filled with a stifling fog. Unwittingly, his gaze started to turn back towards the center of the ice, back, back toward—

Olar’s heavy fist struck him across his jaw, snapping his head back sharply. “Don’t. Look. At. It.”

Sigvar blinked, his head a little clearer, and he nodded.

“Halla, he’s not strong enough,” said Olar, fist poised. All the humor in his eyes was gone now, replaced with an intense, ruthless chill. “He should go back.”

“No!” said Sigvar. “I… I’m fine.”

“He should go back,” Olar repeated, looking to Halla. She finished her hurried entreaties, and pushed herself to her feet, studying Sigvar with narrowed eyes.

“I’m fine. I can do this,” he assured them both.

“If he falters again, kill him,” said Halla. “Go. Check the pillars.”

She made her way to the next one, crunching over the ice.

“Don’t make me do it,” Olar growled at Sigvar. “I don’t want to have to haul your body back out.”

No corpse could be left down here, for fear that it could be used to spark the growth of What-Dwelled-Below. It would be an incredibly difficult climb back out anyway; Sigvar couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to have to haul a body out as well.

And Olar had to bear out two bodies on his last couple of climbs, he reminded himself. His reverence for the old warrior was redoubled.

“I will not look,” vowed Sigvar, keeping his eyes locked on him. “Let’s go.”

Olar grunted, and gestured for Sigvar to take the lead.

They located the rune on the next pillar almost instantly. “Here,” said Olar, pointing it out.

The edges of that marking were so sharp, it could have been carved only an hour earlier, not thousands of years ago. That was good. It meant the ice had not melted in all that time.

“This one’s yours,” said Olar, as they approached the next mighty pillar, jutting up at an acute angle from the floor. “I’ll check the next. Don’t let me down, boy.”

Sigvar nodded as the warrior left him to survey the shard alone. It was almost completely black, and as he looked upon it, the shadows at the edge of his vision seemed to return, making it seem as though things were moving within the ice.

He shook his head, walking around the pillar, eyes tracking up and down—searching for a rune, but finding none. Every angled surface was completely smooth. Frowning, he made second pass, moving more slowly this time.

Still he found nothing.

Glancing toward the others, he saw Halla and Olar had almost linked up, having checked all but the last two pillars.

“Come on,” he said to himself, blinking hard. “Focus.”

He made a third turn around the circumference. Still nothing.

Halla and Olar were making their way towards him now, their expressions grim. When he looked at the pillar again, he would have sworn he saw a bead of water sliding down its side… but that was surely impossible. Narrowing his eyes, he leaned in.

Up close, he could see the ice was slick with moisture. The edges of the shard were less defined than they were on the other pillars, blunted and rounded smooth. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed that sooner. Still, he felt no sense of alarm, even when he saw the flicker of movement within the Dark Ice. An unnatural sense of calm infused his being.

Dimly, he heard a shout from behind him, but it barely registered. The sound was muffled, as if it were coming from a long way away. He gave it no mind. All that mattered was the blackness in the ice before him. It was calling to him, whispering to him, urging him closer. The shadows were no longer just at the periphery of his vision; now they were all he saw. He reached out toward—

A hand grabbed his own. Halla’s hand. He was hurled backwards, hitting the ice almost ten feet away.

In horror, he recognized the darkness thrashing within the ice pillar, struggling to be free. It stabbed from within, straining to breach its prison. He realized it had been reaching for him.

Halla’s eyes were closed, one hand outstretched over the weak point in the ice where the darkness attacked. In her other hand, she clutched her talisman of Lissandra. She barked a catechism of the faith, and her outstretched hand began to glow with cold light. New ice crystals began to form upon the pillar’s face.

It was not going to be enough. What Halla was praying into existence was not True Ice. No one had the ability to create that anymore.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared upon the surface, as the darkness within redoubled its attack. With her eyes closed, Halla didn’t see it, and Sigvar was too far away, even as he lurched to his feet and drew his sword.

Olar was suddenly at Halla’s shoulder, Thunderchild clasped in both hands. Just as the darkness breached the pillar’s surface, spearing towards Halla with the speed of a lightning strike, Olar shouldered her aside.

His warhammer smashed the tendril of darkness asunder with a deafening crack. It was not the only one, however—three more spat from the rupture.

“Stonefist!” bellowed Sigvar. He leapt forward, but was too slow. They all were.

Olar staggered back, swatting one of the tendrils aside with a sweep of Thunderchild, but was unable to stop the other two. They thrust into his flesh with relish, one piercing the meat of his left shoulder, the other the side of his neck, biting deep.

Olar Stonefist’s muscles rippled as the unearthly tentacles writhed into him. His veins turned black, starkly visible though his pale skin, and he dropped to his knees. Sigvar made to grab him, but Halla pulled him back.

“No!” she shouted. “It will claim you too.”

With his last strength, Olar tossed Thunderchild towards them, spinning it across the ice. “Go!” he gasped. “Get... word... to the citadel!”

“Take the hammer!” Halla yelled at Sigvar.

“We can’t leave him—”

“It is too late. He is already gone.”

Sigvar watched in impotent horror as Olar was consumed. The Frostguard warrior was shuddering, and most of his skin was now horrible shades of black and purple, like a bruise. More than a dozen tendrils pierced him, connecting him to the darkness within the ice.

“Take the hammer, Half-Quiver!” repeated Halla.

Sigvar sheathed his blade and picked up Thunderchild, bracing for the pain. It made him gasp, the intensity of its cold flowing swiftly up his arms to his heart, almost making it stop, but he did not fight it. He embraced it, becoming one with it.

A creeping shape, ridged and segmented like an insect, began to spread across Olar’s flesh. It hardened, like cooling volcanic rock. A sickening purple light began to pulse within him, like a second heartbeat, radiating out through his flesh.

In horrified disgust, Sigvar realized something was growing within Olar.

With an anguished cry, Halla hurled Bloodclaw, sending the axe spinning end-over-end through the air. It struck Olar square between his eyes, killing him instantly. It was a merciful act, yet it saddened Sigvar to see a legend of the Frostguard meet such an ignoble end.

Ice instantly formed upon Olar’s corpse, extending down from where Bloodclaw was embedded. Crackling hoarfrost soon encased his head, chest and arms. The power of the True Ice seemed to stall the consumption, the tendrils becoming slow and sluggish, the purple light within him dying.

“Has it stopped?” hissed Sigvar.

“For now, perhaps.”

“Your axe?”

“We leave it,” said Halla, speaking swiftly. “With the blessing of the Three, it will hold What-Dwells-Below in check, but there is no knowing how long. We have to go. Now.”

Sigvar didn’t argue. He began to pick his way around the edge of the circle, but Halla stopped him.

“Too slow,” she barked. “Across the middle. Go!”

Sigvar froze, unwilling to step onto the open ice, but as Halla sprinted out before him, he took a reluctant first step. Forcing his gaze to remain raised, he followed her, gingerly at first, then moving faster. At any moment he expected to feel movement below him as the immense, horrific creature trapped in the ice awoke from its endless slumber.

He could feel its malign force working on him, straining at his consciousness, like clutching tendrils. It was watching him—that giant, lidless, unblinking eye boring into him from below. The urge to look down was overpowering. Sigvar tightened his grip on Thunderchild, gritting his teeth against the pain of its cold.

He kept his gaze locked onto Halla as he breathed the Litanies. “Turn not from pain, for pain is life, and its absence means death. Savor its caress. Welcome it.” Even when he stumbled, he resisted looking down. Every step was an effort, like he was running through a snow drift. He could feel the eye boring into him, whispering to him, calling to him. He croaked the blessings louder to drown it out.

Then he was across, and he gasped for air as the pressure upon him lessened. Halla was there, urging him on. She shoved him ahead, towards the narrow defile marking their exit.

Just before he slipped through, Sigvar glanced back.

Did he see that purple light within the frozen corpse of Olar? He had no time to check, as Halla pushed him urgently through. “Go, go,” she said.

There was no time for a careful, steady passage. Sigvar pressed forward, grinding against the ice, uncaring of the pain. On the other side, the two of them sprinted through the ravine, racing back to where they had descended the ice wall.

“We have… to alert… the citadel!” Halla huffed as she ran. “The Nine… has been breached. The chains… that hold back… What-Dwells-Below… have been weakened. All the other sites… must be checked! The ice must be… reformed!”

They reached their discarded climbing gear, breathing heavily.

“Shouldn’t we stay to fight it?” Sigvar gasped.

“The Watcher will only awaken… once all of the pillars are breached,” said Halla. “Bloodclaw should hold back any lesser creature.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then we kill it,” said Halla. “But word must reach the citadel. At least one of us has to make it back. Leave anything you don’t need.”

With some reluctance, Sigvar swung his shield off his shoulders and propped it against the ice wall. His scabbarded sword joined it, and Halla helped him strap Thunderchild across his back. They roped themselves together, secured their icepicks, and began the long climb back to the top.

And all the while, he felt the great eye in the ice below, staring upward.

The shell that had been Olar Stonefist cracked open with a wet tear, and a pale thing spilled forth in a tumble of hissing ichor and segmented limbs.

It righted itself unsteadily, clawing at the ice with talons the length of daggers. A slashing tail unfurled behind it, and it lifted its head, all bony tusks and jutting spines, revealing a burning, purple-tinged light at its heart. Sections of its spongy, flexible exoskeleton closed protectively around that heart and began to harden.

It was a sickly white colour, devoid of hue, but its hide quickly darkened, as if in reaction to the air. The creature’s eyes tore open to look upon the icy world into which it had been born—twelve pinpricks of hot, purple light, gathered in three clusters.

It lifted its head high, and a keening birth-scream ripped from its throat.

Halla and Sigvar were halfway to the Bridge of the Lost when the inhuman cry reached them. It echoed through the fog all around them. It was impossible to tell the direction it came from, or how close it was.

“Climb faster,” was all Halla said, and the pair increased their pace, eschewing safety for speed. Their picks hacked into the ice in a wild flurry, and they drove themselves upward with powerful kicks, toe-spikes biting deep. Sigvar kept glancing down, expecting some nameless horror to emerge from the depths at any moment…

And then, just as the ghost of the Bridge of the Lost appeared through the fog above, it did.

“Ice-in-her-Soul,” he hissed, and Halla looked down past him.

“Move!” she shouted, eyes narrowing.

They climbed frantically. If that… thing made it to them before they reached the bridge, they’d be helpless. Sigvar glanced back once more, to see the creature racing up on them. It ascended with vile, sinuous movement, multiple bladed limbs stabbing into the ice with frenzied speed. Glowing eye clusters blazed, and it screeched, the sound like steel grinding on steel, mandibles clacking.

Halla made it to the bridge first. Turning, she reached down to Sigvar with her iron grip, and hauled him over the edge. By the time he regained his feet, she had untied her ropes, and had Bloodfang at the ready. In her other hand, Halla held one of her icepicks. It was a poor substitute for Bloodclaw, but would have to suffice.

Sigvar dropped his picks and made to unsling Thunderchild from his back, but Halla stopped him. “No,” she said. “Keep climbing.”

“I will stand with—” he began, but she cut him off with a glare.

“You will climb, Half-Quiver,” she said, pointing at him with Bloodfang. “No discussion.”

“But—”

“No discussion!” she snapped. “Climb. Get word to the citadel.”

“But I should be the one who—”

“Go!” she roared, with such fury that Sigvar took a step back. “Go, Half-Quiver,” she said, quieter. “If the Three will it, I will join you shortly.”

With great reluctance, he scooped up his picks, and began climbing, as Halla dropped to her knees in prayer, eyes closed.

He was some thirty feet up the wall when the creature scuttled over the edge of the bridge. It looked up, its eyes locking onto Sigvar, and started to move in pursuit.

“Here, you ugly beast!” Halla called out, rising to face it. “Come to me and let me smite you down, by the will of the Three!”

Sigvar looked on, powerless. The creature below swung its attention from him to Halla, and leapt toward her with seemingly impossible speed.

She rolled under its scything strike, talons sweeping through the air just inches above her. She hacked Bloodfang deep into its side as she came up, sending forth a burst of steaming entrails and eliciting a horrible screech. Then she followed up with a strike from her icepick, but it bounced harmlessly off the beast’s toughened exterior.

She danced away, spinning out of range as the monster lashed out at her again.

Halla struck twice more, hacking off one of the vile creature’s limbs and scoring a deep wound across the side of its head, but it was unnaturally fast. As Halla’s axe came back for another blow, it darted forward and stabbed one bladed limb through her forearm, making her drop Bloodfang with a hiss of pain.

She hacked desperately at the creature’s face with her icepick, but managed little other than putting out a few of its eyes. Her arm was still impaled. She couldn’t get away.

With a roar, Sigvar ripped his picks from the ice, and pushed himself off. Thirty feet he fell before landing, knees bent and hands outspread for balance, right beside Halla. The frozen flagstones cracked under the impact, and he rolled hard, the wind driven from his lungs.

He already had Thunderchild in his hands as the creature turned its attention toward him. It tried to tug its clawed limb from Halla, but she clutched onto it, keeping it trapped, even as it struggled.

“Strike, Half-Quiver!”

Its maw opened impossibly wide, exposing rows of serrated fangs and tusks, and screamed in defiance as Sigvar brought Thunderchild around in a lethal blow.

The immense hammer took the creature squarely in its head, half-pulping it and sending it flying, with a burst of cold and crack like thunder. The hateful beast struck the balustrade of the bridge and tried to scramble to its feet, but staggered drunkenly, the purple light at its heart faltering.

Bellowing, Sigvar charged the monster as it tried to recover. It hissed but could do nothing to avoid his next attack. This time Thunderchild smashed it squarely in the chest, crushing its exoskeleton and sundering the protective cage around its glowing heart. As the beast sailed over the edge of the bridge, flailing wildly, that heart darkened and died.

Then it was swallowed by the fog, and was gone.

“That was… rash…” said Halla. She was slumped on the ground, her wounded arm hanging loose at her side. Her skin was pale—paler than usual—and her eyes were sunken and dark.

“Or perhaps it was the will of the Three,” Sigvar replied, moving to her side and dropping to his knees.

“Perhaps,” she conceded, smiling weakly.

Using a knife, Sigvar cut away the bloodied sleeve over Halla’s injured arm. The flesh around the wound was dark and steaming. Blackness was already spreading into her veins. Both of them knew what could happen, if that darkness were to spread any further.

“Use Bloodfang,” said Halla. There was no hint of fear in her voice. “Aim true,” she added, tapping the center of her chest.

Sigvar took up Bloodfang, gauging its weight. Ice radiated from its haft over his hands, but he barely registered.

“It has not yet spread beyond your arm,” he said. “It may not…”

Halla stared up at him, eyes clear and devoid of fear. Then she nodded.

“Do it,” she said.

For three days, Sigvar climbed.

And for three days, he felt the malignant eye in the deep watching him.

He felt the ravenous hunger in that gaze, gnawing at him, eating away at his resolve, but he continued on.

Endure, without complaint. The ice begs not for mercy, nor offers it. Neither shall we.

While the hunger of that ancient being was palpable, Sigvar realized there was no real emotion in it. It did not feel anger, or hatred, or resentment at its fate. It was dispassionate, uncaring, unknowable… and patient. In a sense, that made it even more horrific.

Nor was it alone. Sigvar had no idea how many other Watchers were trapped down at the bottom of the Howling Abyss, but as he climbed, he felt other gazes turning toward him, following his progress.

Finally, he pulled himself onto the Bridge of Sorrows. Only now, as he climbed from the great chasm, did he finally move beyond their gaze.

Halla Ice-in-her-Soul was roped to his back. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing shallow, but she lived. Her left arm was gone below the shoulder, but there was no blood on her sleeve―the True Ice core of Bloodfang had effectively sealed the wound. Bearing her had been exhausting, making the difficult climb that much harder, but such was his duty, and he had done it without complaint.

Pausing only a few seconds to catch his breath, Sigvar stomped heavily across the bridge, towards the citadel. It felt like he had been gone for years.

The way was obscured with a billowing icestorm, so that he couldn’t see more than a dozen yards. As the walls loomed out of the storm before him, he saw a shadowy figure awaiting him.

Ralakka Split-Tongue, Frost-Father of the Keepers, leaned heavily upon his staff of office. Sigvar eyed the black tip of that staff as he stomped to a halt before the gate, and took in the shard of ice hanging around the priest’s neck.

He looked upon the two of them with unease. He knew where they came from, now.

“Few among your brethren have glimpsed the darkness below, as we have,” said the old priest. “Your understanding of the faith has deepened, but there is still much to learn.”

Sigvar nodded, accepting this. Split-Tongue’s gaze then settled on Halla, strapped unconscious upon Sigvar’s back, before shifting behind him, searching.

“Stonefist?” he asked, to which Sigvar simply shook his head. He was too exhausted to say more. “From ice we are born, and to ice we return,” said the Frost Priest, touching the center of his forehead in reverence.

“It’s melting,” Sigvar managed. “One of the Nine. Something emerged.”

“The Watchers stir…” breathed the priest, eyes widening—perhaps in awe, perhaps in fear.

Sigvar merely nodded, his breathing ragged. His prodigious strength was close to failing him.

“Our revered mistress, the Lady of Ice and Darkness, must be informed,” said the priest. The immense gates of the citadel ground open, the shadows within beckoning. “Come, Iceborn. We must prepare for what is to come.”

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

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

But all joy was forgotten when Catherine died in childbirth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the kingdom itself was changing.

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

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

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

Sivir watches leaves fall outside her window, and sips tea flavored with rose petals. The liquid dances gently across her tongue. Its petals are delicate, pink, and soft. The air is still, and the sky is gray, and beneath Sivir’s thatch floor lies hard earth, grounding her upon a single and unnassailable reality.

It is the dirt and the grass and the homes and the villagers she has been accustomed to for the majority of her life—here, in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in the small village of Sugiru. The world, she believes, cannot be a mirror. It is rigid. Concrete.

Sivir’s world is a reflection of nothing.

She avoids looking at the corner of the room.

There is an object there, now. Perhaps it was there before. Perhaps it will be there tomorrow. A golden ring of immaculate, intricate design—or a monstrous wheel whose spokes are sharpened to a wire-thin killing edge. It is a compass, a star, a weapon, a key. It was buried once, someone told her, and now it is not.

Hours pass between Sivir and the golden ring. She drinks tea flavored with rose petals, her cup never emptying as it rises and falls from her lips. Day never breaks, and the leaves outside her window never cease to fall. Hours become days. Days become years. Sivir grounds herself in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in a small village on a tiny island far out to sea, her vision locked in place, her muscles screaming.

Sivir steals a glance at the corner of the room. The ring has begun to widen.

Every synapse in her body freezes. The wheel’s empty center collapses into an ocean of liquid night. Framed with gold, a starless nothing stretches outward beyond an infinite, black horizon. An old fisherman, his shape stark within the ring’s abyss, awaits Sivir’s living eyes as they rise to meet his own. He grins, his mouth blooming into hundreds of teeth.

The fisherman turns to cast his spear into space, each step ponderous, and the needle arcs endlessly upward, then down beneath the surface of glistening, obsidian waters. The ring continues to expand as ichor pours from its center. It fills the room, it fills the cottage, it bursts from the windows and doors. The ring slices into the roof of Sivir’s home, cutting the building’s facade from its foundation, cutting the cliff face it is stood on from the island itself. As she crashes into the sea, Sivir is reflected against the absence of nothing beneath her, the nothing all around her, and she watches the fisherman as his line catches on something, deep below their feet.

Steadily, surely, he begins to drag it towards them.

Sivir runs her finger across the edge of the golden ring. There is no pain as the cut opens, merely a sigh, a release. Sivir studies her blood as it sinks into the metal—a deep, blossoming vermillion that seems to stretch along its surface, down its labyrinthine engravings towards the ever-spreading emptiness at its center. The ring retracts; the portal closes, and the darkness burbles meekly before it is banished.

Sivir drinks tea flavored with rose petals, and watches the leaves outside her window. The clouds begin to dissipate as morning turns to day, and the trees slowly settle against the wind. Blood is smeared along the side of her cup. Black fluid trails along her floor.

It is three days before the rise of the blood moon, and a pair of twin girls has vanished along the beach at night. The day stretches. Sivir remembers how the elders wailed, how their cries punctured the evening air, and how their elaborate burial rites filled the waves with sputtering paper lanterns—an old tradition intended to guide lost souls home. The girls’ bodies were never recovered.

Sivir watches the ring as it rests against the corner of her home.

It is silent. Sated, for now.

It took Sivir hours to dig the ring out of the woods. She hadn’t even known to stop until it almost cut her hand in half, its gleaming edge jutting from the foot of an old stone. When she looked up the day had fully passed, and it wasn’t clear how or why she had found herself there.

Sivir took it into the village, maybe? It is hard to recall. Her memories seem distant, unfamiliar, as though they rest at the bottom of a clear lake she can’t breach. Sivir takes the ring to the other side of the island and buries it with sand. Sivir takes the ring to the sea throws it in.

The ring always returns. Resting quietly against the dusty corner of her home, hungrily awaiting only her. And when Sivir gazes into it, the ring opens again and again, the old fisherman locking eyes with her against a still, atramentous midnight, and he begins to pull some nameless horror up from the bottom of the world.

Sometimes Sivir thinks she is dead. She rubs her thumb along the matching shell bracelets in her pocket in those moments—each one small and delicate—and finds in some half-remembered nightmare a pair of girls, hand-in-hand, drifting crimson against the moonlit sea.

Sivir lives on a coastal road overlooking a small archipelago, on the far edge of a quiet island. She is remote enough from Sugiru to enjoy respite from its daily squabbles, and close enough to be accepted as a part of its community. When Sivir looks over the cliffs she sees herself smashed against the rocks below. A different Sivir will look up from the beach, her hands black with the blood of hundreds of people.

Sivir awakens on a bed made of cotton and straw, on the second day before the rise of the blood moon. She peers down the hall at still another Sivir, clutching the golden ring so tightly that her fingers hang by fleshy threads. Her free hand carries a horned, wooden half-mask emblazoned with the visage of a demon, and she begins to place it over her face. Sivir closes her eyes, and when she opens them she is alone.

Sivir’s memories often overlap. Great lengths of time vanish behind her, and recently she has begun to find herself standing outdoors, gazing upwards at a blank and yawning sky. She walks through the village and greets its inhabitants; she walks through the forest and savors its quiet. She looks at her feet and finds the lacerated skull of a man she saw only an hour before, but when she shakes herself awake he stands in front of her at the harborside, brow furrowed in concern. Sivir imagines her hands wrapping around his neck, and ripping his throat out with her teeth.

Her fingers stretch and bend, her bones piercing through flesh in blighted indigos and reds. Great horns burst from her skull; her skin cracks apart as the chrysalis of her mortal body finally gives in, finally gives way to the true body beneath, and she howls through her single flaming eye as sad, small creatures run for safety. She moves against the turning of the world, her feet pounding across time as serrated claws cut through tiny, gnawing, pleading things. She peels the walls off a building and falls upon the craven figures inside, drinking in their screams as thick rivers of blood pour past her monstrous shadow and into the sea.

Sivir finds herself suddenly on the beach, rubbing dead girls’ shell bracelets between her fingers.

The night creeps in softly. Moment by moment, the sun’s rays vanish beneath a blanket of cold stars, and Sivir stands before the black static of the ocean, its lightless waves roiling against her reflectionless mirror world.

The fisherman’s spear sings across a vast emptiness. Light and sound fail as he casts his line, its heft sinking down into the bottomless chasm above which he stands. His is a sea without end, twin reflections of an infinite nihility, the grave of a lost and nameless epoch. He smiles with the hunger of an ancient shark.

His hook sticks fast, and he begins to pull a great shape up from far below.

Inch by inch, second by second, a mountainous silhouette emerges from beyond the edges of the fisherman’s black horizon. It is a tower, a fortress, a sun; thick ichor sloughs from it without end, a great wall of impenetrable darkness dragged along from some forgotten pelagic abyss. The spear tears loose from the object’s surface, a wooden mask impaled along its tip.

One day before the night of the blood moon, Sivir places the mask over her face.

Sivir is Sivir, and Sivir is not.

In the red light of the blood moon, Sivir walks the paths of a long-deserted Sugiru, clutching the golden ring in one hand, and a mask in the other. Her muscles twitch at the slightest sound. Her organs pop unnaturally, pebbles washed smooth by the timeless advance of a biological sea.

All around her are bodies. A thousand broken dolls, their arms outstretched in hideous ecstasy, frozen in some grotesque invocation of long-absent patrons, house gods, and ancestor spirits. These victims are a delicate garden—these offerings, their curled palms, are the blossoms of a dark and sumptuous harvest given in the name of entities too terrible to understand. Some aren’t completely dead, and their fingers grasp gently at nothing.

The blood moon descends.

It is larger than Sivir imagined it—too large, looming as a great crimson sphere over her lost and rudderless island. It casts no reflection against the sea, for it has no equal; it shadows the true moon and devours it whole, its hunger colossal, unending, unquenched.

Sivir drops the wooden mask and the golden ring. She falls to her knees beneath this mirrored cradle, its center a bounding main of beating wings and boiling, rippling blood. A great figure stirs within: the lone demonic progeny of humanity’s twinned soul, a great demon in the shape of a man, sliding from his womb of light as the moon’s embryonic shell breaks open. The massive figure falls into the waves—a wicked blade in his hand, wings flapping with the sound of cracking glaciers. Buried once, and now not.

Briefly, Sivir imagines the leaves outside her window, and tea flavored with rose petals, and a small cottage on a small island that seems now so, so small. She imagines the girls by the sea, their shattered bodies floating past the reflection of some pale, inadequate pretender, and the dark whispers of an ancient, unnameable thing, standing before her in the bloodstained night.

She raises her head, and imagines the world as a mirror.

The moon caresses Sivir’s two faces, and envelops them.

“Okay,” Kai’Sa pants, looking up at the shape growing in front of, above, and simultaneously all around her.

The monster’s wings spread twenty arm lengths in every direction, dominating her field of vision—not that Kai’Sa has a choice where to look with the half-dozen ambulatory human arms holding her head against the wall. The creature’s mass continues to expand and fills the ocean of nightmares it calls home, each glistening tooth now the size of a grown adult... and getting bigger. Its four predatory eyes gaze down on Kai’Sa with cold dispassion. Possibly hunger. At this scale, it’s hard to tell.

She liked it better when it was person-shaped.

“Okay,” she repeats. She can’t move her armor, which is frozen in a sort of paralytic... awe? The suit is a parasite, and one of the more base creatures the Void can spit out. Is awe even something it can feel? Either way, her body is stuck in place. Unless something dramatic changes, this is probably the end. Kai’Sa’s mind ticks through a few last-ditch efforts: Firing her cannons backward into the wall, firing them into this thing’s... mouth? Jaws? She remembers how fast the monster is. And how big it is.

Fast and big. Fantastic.

Last-ditch might not amount to much, and Kai’Sa would definitely die. But at least it would be something. She could make it hurt.

“My true self displeases you,” it speaks, much too calmly. Its voice is so loud it rattles the entire space, knocking hideous patchwork geometry loose as thousands of Void remora pour from the jagged holes. It is a voice that bends and contracts, whispers and screams. The layers continue without end, an aria sung not by one voice, but by millions.

Kai’Sa’s eyes widen with realization. That’s where all the people went.

The Void had torn through the now very former city of Belveth in under an hour. Kai’Sa hadn’t been able to make it in time, and the once-bustling metropolis was gone. Everything. Everyone. What remained now resembled a giant glowing crater of shattered pieces rearranging into something unrecognizably alien—the structures shifting as if to recreate frozen creature shapes, frozen humanoid shapes. Like a child setting up a toy town.

But where had the people gone? The vastaya? The animals and plants? She’d fought her way through the shattered city and into the tunnel at the center of the empty bay, seeing no sign of anyone—only fresh Voidborn horrors like mile-high iridescent tentacles and masses she’d been thinking of as “balls of screaming torsos.” It didn’t make any sense. The remains of a Void attack aren’t pretty, but usually there’s something left.

Now she knows why.

“You are the city,” Kai’Sa spits through the reverberating wall of sound. “Belveth... is you.”

“Yes,” says Bel’Veth, gently undulating its—her?—wings. “The raw components of their lives served as the genesis for my birth. Memories. Emotions. History. I am as much Belveth as they were, and I claim the title as my own.”

Bel’Veth’s titanic body bristles. Golden beams gently dapple the light above her ray-like form, framing the Void sea’s false sun like the rings of a dying world. New flesh breathes as it ripples against the facsimile of a tidal current, veins briefly illuminated before pulling themselves away from the surface of the monster’s skin, each somehow alive and independent—nations unto themselves. Schools of Void remora in the tens of thousands swim around their empress like birds circling the peak of a distant mountain. It’s beautiful, in a way. If the Void had a god, this is what it would look like. Hideous, and monstrous, and beautiful.

Kai’Sa is so struck by the enormity of what she is witnessing that she doesn’t fully realize when the arms in the wall have not just let her go, but lowered her to the ground. It’s hard to take in everything at once.

It chose its own name, she thinks, reflexively brushing a stray Void hand from her shoulder. That’s not possible.

Void entities do not name themselves. Most, like the Xer’Sai, are named after concepts from Shuriman history. Usually by those fortunate enough—or unfortunate enough—to survive after encountering one of the monsters out on the dunes. They don’t have the presence of mind to do it, or the self-awareness. But more importantly, Voidborn do not see the value in names. They are an invention of the living world, and they don’t want them.

So why does she?

“I’ll... fight you,” says Kai’Sa, defiant but unsure of what to do or where to strike. “I’ll kill you.”

“You will not,” reply the many voices of Bel’Veth. “You are incapable of resistance at even its basest form. Others have come before you, in the age before my birth. Each would-be hero wielding weapons they believed would repel the Void. But all were ultimately consumed. The meager fragments that remained, if they remained at all, served as salt for the Lavender Sea. Only two still live, and of them, only you retain your full mind.”

“Two?”

“You, and your father.”

Something sinks in the center of Kai’Sa’s chest. Her thoughts spin wildly, verging on the edge of panic, but for now, she has to stay focused on this moment. There is no trusting whatever the empress is. It’s a living abomination, the personified concept of unfeeling, global genocide.

“You’re lying,” Kai’Sa seethes. “That’s not even possible.”

“I do not lie, Kai’Sa,” the empress continues. “I have no need. The Void's eventual triumph is an unshifting absolute. It demands no lies, half-truths, or questions. Open your mind, and I will show you.”

Space contracts. Bel’Veth’s gigantic body pulls and distorts, retracting into a smaller—and now more recognizable—shape. She floats silently downward, looming over Kai’Sa as tendrils and eyestalks rearrange to form the oblong, segmented pretender of a human head. Bel’Veth’s two faces observe her audience before the creature cloaks herself in her wings, appearing once more as a towering woman of great importance.

The shrinking is much more disgusting than the growing, Kai’Sa decides. It lacks the gravitas of the leviathan’s grand unveiling while still looking and sounding creatively grotesque.

“You are alive because I allow you to live,” speaks the empress, now from her human head with its deep, perpetually disappointed voice. “You should have realized this by now.”

Kai’Sa wants to argue the point, but quickly glances at the twenty-meter gash in the ground where a single strike had sent her careening only moments before. Bel’Veth hit so fast that Kai’Sa wasn’t even able to process what had happened, and then the empress had mutated her proportions over two hundred times their original size in under a minute.

She also, presumably, controls the undulating pocket of living hell—this so-called “Lavender Sea”—she is surrounded by. Not the time to pick a fight.

Kai’Sa does some quick calculations in her head, her eyes darting around as she tries to figure out what she’s actually up against. Bel’Veth’s human face twitches with interest, curls its lips, then begins mimicking her.

Kai’Sa already knows she’s lost.

How fast can one person think? How fast can they react? Up against all that combined human biology... all that brainpower. In the time it takes even a skilled tactician to formulate a plan, hundreds of millions of possibilities run through Bel’Veth’s mind in the span of a single second as she draws from the stolen memories of everything and everyone that has ever passed through the old city—an incalculable number of lives. Every captive opponent faced with an overwhelming enemy since the formation of Runeterra could be snapping in and out of this thing’s synaptic awareness, their emotions cataloged, dissected, endlessly fascinated over before Kai’Sa can even blink.

“So what happens now?” Kai’Sa allows.

What is one answer when your opponent has a thousand?

“You will follow,” says the empress, turning and floating through patches of thick, mutant coral as they bow respectfully out of her way. Kai’Sa pauses, watching her host glide silently through the chaotic mess of partial buildings, ghostly limbs, sewn-together semi-objects, and pearlescent structures in the crude likeness of human beings walking through a garden.

Great, she thinks. Even by Void standards, this is weird.

“You may ask whatever you like,” Bel’Veth adds. That last part gets Kai’Sa’s attention.

“Right. Well, first question... What are you?” queries Kai’Sa, her armor now relaxed and mobile as she follows from a safe distance. She brushes aside a floating teddy bear fused with a dozen flapping gull wings and stifles her impulse to gag as the creature struggles against its own lopsided weight. “What is all this? What part of the Void do you come from?”

“I am the Void,” replies Bel’Veth. “And this is what we will become.”

Kai’Sa stammers. “But you said you were created from people. The city. You’re saying you want to become the city?”

“No,” says Bel’Veth. “The Void has existed for millennia. Before the first stars were kindled in the emptiness beyond this world, we simply were. Perfect, singular, and silent. And then, there came the sound.

“Reality was born from those whispers, and it consumed us. We were twisted by its influence. Broken. Transformed. We could not go back to what we were no matter how we struggled. My progenitors—the Watchers—attempted to invade and destroy existence, but they were tainted by it. Driven to desire worship, to gain greater understanding...

“And in an instant, they were betrayed. To change so forcefully... so completely... only to be cast aside. It filled them with an indescribable hatred. They would annihilate all of reality without a second thought.”

Bel’Veth glides to a precipice overlooking a tremendous chasm. Far above, Kai’Sa sees massive holes beyond the dappled faux sunlight.

Voidborn tunnels. That’s what’s eating Taliyah’s people, what destroyed Belveth, and what opened up to swallow the tent city in southeast Shurima. Everything the Void devours ends up here.

“But,” Bel’Veth continues, “their metamorphosis was incomplete. Only now is the true transformation beginning,” declares the empress. “I don’t want to become one city. We will become all of you.”

Kai’Sa reaches the pinnacle of the precipice and gasps. She and Bel’Veth are gazing upon not quite a city, but Void corals shaped into a bizarre, seemingly endless tapestry of inverted Shuriman-style buildings. Void remora school among them, and dark shapes shift along winding, crooked streets.

Nothing is right. Nothing is correct. It’s all half-finished, like there’s not enough information to go on. Like all it needs is...

“No,” Kai’Sa protests, almost to herself. “The Void wants to erase everything. It can’t exist. To finish this, you’d need... everything.”

“Yes,” replies Bel’Veth. “Everything. I am the Void. I will sup upon your world until there is nothing left. And I will exist, because there is nothing you can do that will stop me.”

The empress turns to Kai’Sa coldly. Purposefully.

“I offer you this, Daughter of the Void. Your world must end for the sake of mine. But those who came before us, the Watchers—I am an affront to them. Creation burns them, and they will destroy you, and me, and everything to stop that pain. Should they escape their prison, there will be no breaking their tide. Time will come to a close, and all things will end.”

Kai’Sa stares Bel’Veth in her false eyes, a grim defiance spreading through her. “You want to wipe us out. Why would I ever help you do that?”

“Aid me in the destruction of the Watchers, and I will spare your kind... for a moment. A month. A year. More. Perhaps, in that time, you will find a weapon that can slay me, or a hero who can face me. You will not... but you can try. I offer one chance. It is more than they will give you.”

Kai’Sa’s rage boils over as Bel’Veth turns away to look below, the empress watching her new world take shape.

“What if I don’t want to?” growls Kai’Sa. “What if I kill you here?”

“You cannot,” says Bel’Veth. “You lack the will, the knowledge, and the strength. I am your only salvation.”

Kai’Sa’s armor shudders violently to life, its jets heating as the suit shivers with fear. Kai’Sa tries to control it with her thoughts, but the parasite seemingly knows something she does not. She attempts to wrestle away control, her eyes turning from Bel’Veth for only a moment in order to—

Oh, no.

The razor-sharp tip of the empress’ wing jabs Kai’Sa in the chest, lifting her off the ground as she struggles to break free. Kai’Sa fires everything she has—missiles rain down on the empress, bolts of searing purple energy scream toward her body, and beams of light that have torn lesser Voidborn in half dance across her semi-transparent skin.

Nothing. No effect.

“Daughter of the Void. You will find the Watchers and confirm the truth, or your light will be snuffed out side by side with all others. This is not a threat. It is my promise.”

Bel’Veth releases her grip, and Kai’Sa rockets into the false sky above Bel’Veth’s alien sea. The twinned city of lavender glitters below, its windows slick with bioluminescence and tumbling, unformed, awful things.

As Kai’Sa blasts through one of the Voidborn tunnels and into the blinding light of day, the empress turns away, gazing once more over her world of want.

Kai’Sa bursts through the sands of southern Shurima, slamming hard against the dunes as she heaves, her entire body pulled and tossed like a rubber ball. The glowing husk of the city of Belveth smolders quietly in the distance, devoid of any recognizable life as new things skitter through it and build the land that would spread over everything—a cancer that would consume the world.

The entire display is dizzyingly awful, as if all of reality is spinning violently in the wind.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari Icath’or.

Axamuk was my grandsire’s name. A warrior’s name, it means keeper of edges, and it is an auspicious title to bear. Axamuk was the last of the Mage Kings, the final ruler to fall before the Shuriman Sun Empress when she led her golden host of men and gods into the kingdom of Icathia.

Var is my mother and Choi my father. Icath’or is the name of the blood-bonded clan to which I was born, one with an honorable history of service to the Mage Kings.

I have borne these names since birth.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari Icath’or.

Only Kohari is a new addition. The fit is new, but already feels natural. The name is now part of me, and I bear it with a pride that burns bright in my heart. The Kohari were once the life-wards of the Mage Kings, deadly warriors who dedicated their lives to the service of their master. When Axamuk the King fell before the god-warriors of the Sun Empress and Icathia became a vassal state of Shurima, every one of them fell upon their swords.

But the Kohari are reborn, rising to serve the new Mage King and reclaim their honor. I bear their sigil branded on my arm, the scroll-wrapped sword.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari Icath’or. I repeat it over and over, holding onto what it represents.

I do not want to forget it. It is all I have left.

Was it only this morning I and the rest of the reformed Kohari marched through the streets of Icathia? It seems like a lifetime ago.

The wide thoroughfares were thronged with thousands of cheering men, women and children. Clad in their brightest cloth, and wearing their finest jewelry to honor our march, they had come to witness the rebirth of their kingdom.

For it was Icathia that was reborn today, not just the Kohari. Our heads were high, my chest swollen with pride.

We marched in step, gripping the leather straps of wicker shields and the wire-wound hilts of our curved nimcha blades. To bear Icathian armaments had been forbidden under Shuriman law, but enough had been wrought in secret forges and hidden in caches throughout the city, in readiness for the day of uprising.

I remember that day well.

The city had been filled with screams, as baying crowds chased down and murdered every Shuriman official they could find. Resentment for centuries of humiliating laws intended to eradicate our culture—and brutal executions for breaking those laws—came to a head in one blood-filled day of violence. It didn’t matter that most of these people were merely scriveners, merchants and tithe-takers. They were servants of the hated Sun-Emperor, and needed to die.

Overnight, Icathia was ours again!

Sun disc effigies were pulled from rooftops and smashed by cheering crowds. Shuriman scriptwork was burned and their treasuries looted. The statues of dead emperors were desecrated, and even I defaced one of the great frescoes with obscenities that would have made my mother blush.

I remember the smell of smoke and fire. It was the smell of freedom.

I held to that feeling as we marched.

My memory recalled the smiling faces and the cheers, but I could not pick out any words. The sunlight was too bright, the noise too intense, and the pounding in my head unrelenting.

I had not slept the previous night, too nervous at the prospect of battle. My skill with the nimcha was average, but I was deadly with the recurved serpent bow slung at my shoulder. Its wood was well-seasoned, protected from the humidity by a coat of red lacquer. My arrows were fletched with azure raptor feathers, and I had carved their piercing heads from razored obsidian sourced from the thaumaturges—the magickers of earth and rock. Long runs through Icathia’s lush, coastal forests and along its high mountain trails had given me powerful, clean limbs to draw the bowstring, and the stamina to fight all day.

A young girl, her hair braided with silver wire, and with the deepest green eyes I had ever seen, placed a garland of flowers over my head. The scent of the blossoms was intoxicating, but I forgot it all as she pulled me close to kiss my lips. She wore a necklace, an opal set in a swirling loop of gold, and I smiled as I recognized my father’s craft.

I tried to hold on to her, but our march carried me away. Instead, I fixed her face in my mind.

I cannot remember it now, only her eyes, deep green like the forests of my youth…

Soon, even that will be gone.

“Easy, Axa,” said Saijax Cail-Rynx Kohari Icath’un, popping a freshly shelled egg into his mouth. “She’ll be waiting for you when this day is done.”

“Aye,” said Colgrim Avel-Essa Kohari Icath’un, jabbing his elbow into my side. “Him and twenty other strapping young lads.”

I blushed at Colgrim’s words, and he laughed.

“Craft her a fine necklace from Shuriman gold,” he continued. “Then she’ll be yours forever. Or at least until morning!”

I should have said something to berate Colgrim for slighting this girl’s honor, but I was young and eager to prove myself to these veteran warriors. Saijax was the beating heart of the Kohari, a shaven-headed giant with skin pockmarked by the ravages of a childhood illness, and a forked beard stiffened to points with wax and white chalk. Colgrim was his right hand, a brute with cold eyes and a betrothal tattoo, though I had never heard him talk of his wife. These men had grown up together, and had learned the secret ways of the warrior since they were old enough to hold a blade.

But I was new to this life. My father had trained me as a lapidary—an artisan of gemstones and maker of jewelry. A meticulous and fastidious man, such coarse language was anathema to him, and unfamiliar to me. I relished it, of course, eager to fit in with these leather-tough men.

“Go easy on the lad, Colgrim,” said Saijax, slapping my back with one of his massive hands. Meant as a brotherly pat, it rattled the teeth in my skull, but I welcomed it all the same. “He’ll be a hero by nightfall.”

He shifted the long, axe-headed polearm slung at his shoulder. The weapon was immense, its ebony haft carved with the names of his forebears, and the blade a slab of razor-edged bronze. Few of our group could even lift it, let along swing it, but Saijax was a master of weapons.

I turned to catch a last glimpse of my green-eyed girl, but could not see her amid the tightly packed ranks of soldiers, and the waving arms of the crowds.

“Time to focus, Axa,” said Saijax. “The scryers say the Shurimans are less than half a day’s march from Icathia.”

“Are… Are the god-warriors with them?” I asked.

“So they say, lad. So they say.”

“Is it wrong that I can’t wait to see them?”

Saijax shook his head. “No, for they are mighty. But as soon as you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

I did not understand Saijax’s meaning, and said, “Why?”

He gave me a sidelong glance. “Because they are monsters.”

“Have you seen one?”

I was filled with youthful enthusiasm, but I still remember the look that passed between Saijax and Colgrim.

“I have, Axa,” said Saijax. “We fought one at Bai-Zhek.”

“We had to topple half the mountain to put the big bastard down,” Colgrim added. “And even then, only Saijax had a weapon big enough to take its head off.”

I remembered the tale with a thrill of excitement. “That was you?”

Saijax nodded, but said nothing, and I knew to ask no more. The corpse had been paraded around the newly liberated city for all to see, proof that the Shuriman’s god-warriors could still die. My father had not wanted me to see it, fearing it would enflame the desire to rebel that had smoldered in every Icathian heart for centuries.

The memory of exactly what it looked like is gone now, but I remember it was enormous beyond belief, inhuman and terrible…

I would see the god-warriors later that day.

And then I understood Saijax’s meaning.

We formed up on the gentle slopes before the crumbling remains of the city walls. Since the coming of the Sun Empress, over a thousand years ago, we had been forbidden to reclaim the stone or rebuild the wall; forced to leave the rubble as a reminder of our ancient defeat.

But now an army of stonewrights, laborers and thaumaturges were hefting giant blocks of freshly hewn granite into place with windlass mechanisms that crackled with magic.

I felt pride at the sight of the rising walls. Icathia was being reborn in glory right before my eyes.

More immediately impressive was the army taking position athwart the hard-packed earthen road leading into the city. Ten thousand men and women, clad in armor of boiled leather and armed with axes, picks, and spears. The forges had worked day and night to produce swords, shields and arrowheads in the days following the uprising, but there was only so much that could be produced before the Sun Emperor turned his gaze upon this rebellious satrapy and marched east.

I had seen pictures of ancient Icathian armies in the forbidden texts—brave warriors arrayed in serried ranks of gold and silver—and though we were a shadow of such forces, we were no less proud. Two thousand talon-riders were deployed on either flank, their scaled and feathered mounts snorting, and stamping clawed hooves with impatience. A thousand archers knelt in two long lines, fifty feet ahead of us, blue-fletched shafts planted in the soft loam before them.

Three blocks of deep-ranked infantry formed the bulk of our line, a bulwark of courage to repel our ancient oppressors.

All down our line, crackling energies from the earth-craft of our mages made the air blurry. The Shurimans would surely bring mages, but we could counter their power with magic of our own.

“I’ve never seen so many warriors,” I said.

Colgrim shrugged. “None of us have, not in our lifetimes.”

“Don’t get too impressed,” said Saijax. “The Sun Emperor has five armies, and even the least of them will outnumber us three to one.”

I tried to imagine such a force, and failed. “How do we defeat such a host?” I asked.

Saijax did not answer me, but led the Kohari to our place in the line before a stepped structure of granite blocks. Shuriman corpses were impaled upon wooden stakes driven into the earth at its base, and flocks of carrion birds circled overhead. A silken pavilion of crimson and indigo had been raised at its summit, but I could not see what lay within. Robed priests surrounded it, each one weaving intricate patterns in the air with their star-metal staves.

I did not know what they were doing, but I heard an insistent buzzing sound, like a hive of insects trying to push their way into my skull.

The pavilion’s outline rippled like a desert mirage, and I had to look away as my eyes began to water. My teeth felt loose in their gums, and my mouth filled with the taste of soured milk. I gagged and wiped the back of my hand across my lips, surprised and not a little alarmed to see a smear of blood there.

“What is that?” I asked. “What’s in there?”

Saijax shrugged. “A new weapon, I heard. Something the thaumaturges found deep underground, after the earthquake at Saabera.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“Does it matter?” said Colgrim. “They say it’s going to wipe the gold-armored dung-eaters from the world. Even those thrice-damned god-warriors.”

The sun was close to its zenith by now, but a shiver worked its way down my spine. My mouth was suddenly dry. I could feel tingling in my fingertips.

Was it fear? Perhaps.

Or, maybe, just maybe, it was a premonition of what was to come.

An hour later, the Shuriman army arrived.

I had never seen such a host, nor ever imagined so many men could be gathered together in one place. Columns of dust created clouds that rose like a gathering storm set to sweep the mortal realm away.

And then, through the dust, I saw the bronze spears of the Shuriman warriors, filling my sight in all directions. They marched forward, a vast line of fighting men with golden banners and sun-disc totems glimmering in the noonday sun.

From the slopes above, we watched wave after wave come into sight, tens of thousands of men who had never known defeat, and whose ancestors had conquered the known world. Riders on golden mounts rode the flanks, as hundreds of floating chariots roved ahead of the army. Heavy wagons the size of river barques bore strange war-machines that resembled navigational astrolabes; spinning globes orbited by flaming spheres and crackling lightning. Robed priests came with them, each with a flame-topped staff and an entourage of blinded slaves.

At the heart of the army were the god-warriors.

Much else fades from my mind; the blood, the horror and the fear. But the sight of the god-warriors will follow me into whatever lies beyond this moment…

I saw nine of them, towering over the men they led. Their features and bodies were an awful blend of human and animal, and things that had never walked this world, and never should. Armored in bronze and jade, they were titans, inhuman monsters that defied belief.

Their leader, with skin as pale and smooth as ivory, turned her monstrous head towards us. Enclosed in a golden helm carved to resemble a roaring lion, her face was mercifully hidden, but I could feel her power as she swept her scornful gaze across our line.

A palpable wave of terror followed in its wake.

Our army shrank from the scale of the enemy force, on the brink of fleeing before even a single blow was struck. Steadying shouts arose from our brave leaders, and an immediate rout was halted, but even I could hear the fear in their voices.

I, too, felt an almost uncontrollable urge to void my bladder, but clamped down on the feeling. I was Kohari. I wouldn’t piss myself in my first battle.

Even so, my hands were clammy and I felt a sickening knot forming in my gut.

I wanted to run. I needed to run.

We could not possibly stand against such a force.

“Big bastards, aren’t they?” said Colgrim, and nervous laughter rippled through our ranks. My fear lessened.

“They may look like gods,” said Saijax, his voice carrying far and wide. “But they are mortal. They can bleed, and they can die.”

I took strength from his words, but I wonder now if he knew just how wrong he was.

“We are Icathians!” he roared. “We are the heirs of the kings and queens who first settled this land! It is ours by right and by birth. Aye, we are outnumbered, but the warriors our enemies have sent are slaves, and men whose only loyalty is to coin.”

He raised his weapon high and the sunlight shone from its polished blade. He was glorious in that moment, and I would have followed him to the very end of the world if he asked me to.

“We fight to live in freedom, not in slavery! This is our home, and it is a land of proud people, of free people! There is nothing stronger than that, and we will prevail!”

A cheer began in the Kohari ranks, and was swiftly carried to the other regiments in our army.

“I-ca-thi-a!I-ca-thi-a!I-ca-thi-a!”

It echoed from the rising walls of our city, and was carried to the Shuriman host. The god-warriors spoke swiftly to their attendants, who turned and ran to bear their orders to the wings of the army. Almost immediately, our enemy began to move uphill.

They came slowly, their pace deliberate. On every third step, the warriors hammered the hafts of their spears on their shields. The noise was profoundly unnerving, a slow drumbeat that sapped the will of we who were soon to feel the tips of those blades.

My mouth was dry, my heart hammered in my chest. I looked to Saijax for strength, to take courage from his indomitable presence. His jaw was set, his eyes hard. This was a soul who knew no fear, who rejected doubt and stood firm in the face of destiny.

Sensing my gaze, he glanced down at me. “Egg?” he said.

A pair of peeled eggs lay in the palm of his hand.

I shook my head. I couldn’t eat. Not now.

“I’ll take an egg,” said Colgrim, taking one and biting it in half. Saijax ate the other, and the pair of them chewed thoughtfully.

The Shurimans drew ever closer.

“Good egg,” noted Colgrim.

“I add a dash of vinegar as I boil them,” Saijax replied. “Makes them easier to peel.”

“Clever.”

“Thanks.”

I looked back and forth between them, unable to reconcile the mundane nature of their words as an all-conquering army marched upon us. And yet, I felt soothed by it.

I laughed, and that laughter swiftly spread.

The Kohari were laughing, and soon, without knowing why, our entire army was laughing. The fear that had threatened to undo us all now fled. Fresh resolve filled our hearts, and put iron in our sword arms.

The Shurimans halted two hundred yards from us. I tasted a strange texture to the air, like biting on tin. I looked up in time to see the spinning globes on the war-machines burn with searing light. The priests attending them swept their staves down.

One of the flaming spheres detached from the globe and arced through the air towards us.

It landed in the midst of our infantry, and burst in an explosion of pellucid green fire and screams. Another sphere followed, then another.

I gagged as the smell of roasting flesh billowed from the ranks, horrified at the carnage being wrought, but our warriors held firm.

More of the spheres arced towards us, but instead of striking our ranks, they wobbled in the air before reversing course to smash down in the heart of the Shuriman spearmen.

Amazed, I saw our thaumaturges holding their staves aloft, and crackling lines of magic flickered between them. The hairs on my arms and legs stood up in the shimmering air, as if a veil was being drawn up around us.

More of the searing fireballs launched from the Shuriman war-machines, but they exploded in mid-air, striking the invisible barrier woven around our force.

Cheers overcame the cries of pain in our ranks. I let out a breath, thankful that I had not been among the war-machines’ targets. I watched those piteously wounded men dragged to the rear by their comrades. The temptation to remain there must have been tremendous, but we Icathians descend from explorer kings, and not a single warrior failed to return to their place in the battle line.

The strain on our mages was clear, but their power was holding the Shuriman barrage at bay. I glanced over my shoulder to the pavilion atop the pyramid. There too, the priests were straining with all their power. To what end, I could not imagine. What manner of weapon lay within, and when would we unleash it?

“Stand to,” said Saijax, and I returned my attention to the army before us. “They’ll come at us now. A big wave to test us.”

I looked back at the Shurimans, who now came at us in a run. Arrows flashed from the lines of archers ranged before us, and scores of enemy warriors died. Bronzed plate and shields saved some, but the range was so close that many fell with shafts punched clean through their breastplates.

Another volley hammered the Shurimans, swiftly followed by another.

Hundreds were down. Their line was ragged and disorganized.

“Now!” roared Saijax. “Into them!”

Our infantry surged forward in a wedge, spears lowering as they charged. I was carried by the mass of men behind me, managing to drag my blade from its sheath as I ran. I screamed to keep my fear at bay, worrying that I might trip on my scabbard.

I saw the faces of the Shurimans, the braids in their hair, the gold of their crests, and the blood smearing their tunics. We were so close, I could have whispered and they might have heard me.

We struck their wavering ranks like a thunderbolt. Spears thrust and shivered, hafts splintering with the impact. Driven by sheer will and a thousand years of pent-up anger, the momentum of our charge clove deep into their ranks, splitting them and breaking their formation completely.

Anger gave me strength, and I swung my sword. It bit into flesh and blood sprayed me.

I heard screaming. It might have been me. I cannot say for sure.

I tried to stay close to Saijax and Colgrim, knowing that where they fought, Shurimans would be dying. I saw Saijax felling men by the dozen with his huge polearm, but could no longer see Colgrim. I soon lost sight of Saijax in the heave and sway of surging warriors.

I called his name, but my shout was drowned in the roar of battle.

Bodies slammed into me, pulling at me, clawing my face—Icathian hands or Shuriman, I had no idea.

A spear stabbed towards my heart, but the tip slid from my breastplate to slice across my arm. I remember pain, but little else. I hammered my sword into a screaming man’s face. He fell, and I pushed on, made fearless by fear and savage joy. I roared, and swung my sword like a madman.

Skill was meaningless. I was a butcher hacking meat.

I saw men die whose skill was much greater than mine. I kept moving, lost in the swirling tide of flesh and bone. Wherever I saw an exposed neck or back, I struck. I took grim pleasure in my killing. Whatever the outcome of this day, I could hold my head high in the company of warriors. More arrows flew overhead, and the cheers rising from our army were songs of freedom.

And then the Shurimans broke.

It began as a single slave warrior turning his back and running, but his panic spread like fire on the plain, and soon the whole formation was streaming back down the hill.

In the days leading up to this moment, Saijax had told me that the most dangerous moment for any warrior is when a regiment breaks. That is when the killing truly begins.

We tore through the routed Shurimans, spears plunging into exposed backs, and axes splitting skulls. They were no longer fighting back, simply trampling one another to escape. The bloodshed was appalling, yet I reveled in it as hundreds of bodies were crushed in the slaughter.

I saw Saijax again, then, standing firm, his polearm at his side. “Hold!” he yelled. “Hold!”

I wanted to curse his timidity. Our blood was up, and the Shurimans were fleeing in panic.

I did not know it at the time, but Saijax had seen how dangerous our position truly was.

“Pull back!” he shouted, and the cry was taken up by others who saw what he had seen.

At first, it seemed our army would not heed his words, drunk on victory and eager to plunge onward. We were intent on slaying every one of the enemy, wreaking vengeance upon soldiers who had held our land hostage for centuries.

I had not seen the danger, but all too soon I understood.

Screams and fountains of blood sheeted from the leading edges of our battle-line. Severed heads flew backwards, spinning like rocks skipped over a pool. Bodies soon followed, tossed aside without effort.

Screams and cries of terror erupted, and the songs of freedom were snuffed out.

The god-warriors had entered the fray.

Three of them surged into our ranks; some moving like men, others like ravenous beasts. Each was armed with a weapon larger than any man could lift, unstoppable and invincible. They waded through our ranks with sweeping blows that slew a dozen men with every swing. Icathians flew in pieces from their crackling blades, were crushed beneath their tread, or were rent asunder like bloodied rags.

“Back!” shouted Saijax. “Back to the walls!”

None could pierce the god-warriors’ armor, and their ferocity was so primal, so inhuman, that it froze me to the spot. Spears snapped against their iron-hard hides, and their bellowing roars cut me to the marrow with terror. One, a cawing beast with ragged, feathered wings and a vulture-like beak, leapt into the air, and searing blue fire blazed from its outstretched claws. I cried out at the sight of my fellow countrymen burned to ash.

The elation that had—only moments before—filled us with thoughts of victory and glory, now shattered like a fallen glass. In its place, I felt a sick horror of torments yet to come, the retribution of an unimaginably cruel despot who knows no mercy.

I felt a hand grab my shoulder, and lifted my bloodied blade.

“Move, Axa,” said Saijax, forcing me back. “There’s still fighting to be done!”

I was dragged along by the force of his grip, barely able to keep my feet. I wept as we streamed back to where we had first formed up. Our line was broken, and surely the day was lost.

But the god-warriors simply stood among the dead, not even bothering to pursue.

“You said we had a weapon,” I cried. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”

“They are,” said Saijax. “Look!”

What happened next defies my understanding. No mortal eye had ever seen such a thing.

The pavilion exploded with forking traceries of light. Arcing loops of purple energy ripped into the sky and lashed down like crashing waves. The force of the blast threw everyone to the ground. I covered my ears as a deafening screaming tore the air.

I pressed myself to the battle-churned earth as the wail burrowed deep into my skull, as though the world itself were shrieking in horror. I rolled onto my side, retching as stabbing nausea ripped through my belly. The sky, once bright and blue, was now the color of a week-old bruise. Unnatural twilight held sway, and I saw flickering afterimages burn themselves onto the back of my mind.

Slashing claws... Gaping maws... All-seeing eyes...

I sobbed in terror at the sight of such horrors.

Alone of all the things being stripped from me, this I gladly surrender.

A nightmarish light, sickly blue and ugly purple, smothered the world, pressing down from above and blooming up from somewhere far below. I pushed myself upright, turning in a slow circle as the world ended around me.

The Shurimans were streaming back from the city, terrified by whatever force our priests had unleashed. My enemies were being destroyed, and I knew I should be triumphal, but this... This was not a victory any sane person could revel in.

This was extinction.

An abyss that bled purple light tore open amid the Shurimans, and I saw their ivory-skinned general overcome by whipping cords of matter. She fought to free herself with wild sweeps of her blade, but the power we had unleashed was too much for her. The pulsing, glowing light spread over her body like a hideous cocoon.

Everywhere I looked, I saw the same slick coils rising from the earth, or from the very air itself, to seize the flesh of mortals. Men and women were swept up and enveloped. I saw one Shuriman clawing his way over the earth, his body seeming to dissolve as the tendrils of foul energy overwhelmed him.

I began to hope, to pray, that this doom was what had been planned all along.

I saw shapes in the flickering light, too fast and indistinct to make out clearly. Stretching, swelling limbs of strange, tar-like matter. Men were clawed from their feet and pulled apart. I heard the gurgling, hooting bellows of things never meant to walk the surface of this world.

As awful as this day had become, I wondered if this was the price of the great weapon our priests had unleashed. I hardened my heart to the suffering of the Shurimans and remembered the centuries of misery they had heaped upon us.

Once again, I had lost sight of Saijax and Colgrim. But I no longer needed their presence to steady me. I had proved myself worthy of my grandsire’s name, worthy of the brand on my arm.

I was Kohari!

The sky groaned and buckled, sounding like a vast sailcloth tearing in a storm. I turned and ran back to the city, joining up with other soldiers. I saw the same desperate, horrified looks on their faces I knew must be upon mine.

Had we won? None of us knew. The Shurimans were gone, swallowed whole by the terror we had unleashed upon the world. I felt no regret. No remorse. My horror had given way to justification.

I had lost my nimcha blade somewhere in the frenzy of the battle, so I took my bow from my shoulder and pumped it to the sky. “Icathia!” I yelled. “Icathia!”

The chant was taken up again by the soldiers around me, and we stopped to watch the enemy finally overcome. The seething mass of matter that had consumed them lay like a shroud over the flesh it had consumed. Its surface was undulant, and swelling blisters of glistening matter burst open with frothing birth-sacs that twisted and unfolded like newborn animals.

I turned as I heard a deafening grinding of rock.

Booming cracks echoed as more and more chasms tore the landscape open. I dropped to my knees as the earth shook, and the walls of Icathia, fallen once and now rising again, were shattered by a groaning bass note that split the earth.

Geysers of dust and smoke erupted from within the city. I saw men screaming, but could not hear them over the crash of falling rock and splitting earth. Towers and palaces that had stood since the first Mage King planted his star-metal staff were swallowed whole by the ever-widening chasms. Only rubble and shattered fragments remained, my beloved city reduced to a charred skeleton.

Fires spat skyward, and the wails of my people were somehow magnified by the canyons of the city as they fell into the hideous doom below.

“Icathia!” I cried one last time.

I saw a flash of movement, and flinched as something flew through the air above me. I recognized the vulture-headed god-warrior from earlier in the battle. Its flight was erratic, its limbs already partially ruined and unmade by the strange matter spilling from the rents in the earth.

It flew towards the pavilion with desperate beats of its ravaged wings, and I knew I had to stop it. I ran towards the towering creature, nocking an obsidian-tipped arrow to my bow.

The thing stumbled as it landed. Its legs were twisted and its back was alive with devouring tendrils. Feathers and skin sloughed from its head as it limped past the bodies of dead priests, whose own flesh bubbled and roiled with internal motion.

Fire built around the god-warrior’s hands, ready to burn the pavilion with the last of its power.

Saijax had said the Sun-Emperor had more armies, and we would need our weapon intact if we were to defeat them. I drew back the bowstring, an obsidian arrow aimed at the god-warrior.

I loosed, and the arrow sped true, punching through the dissolving matter of its skull.

The god-warrior fell, and the fire faded from its hands. It rolled onto its side, the flesh falling from its bones—I saw threads of sinewy, pallid matter forming beneath.

The god-warrior sensed my presence, and turned its vulturine head to me. One of its eyes was milky and distended by growths of a strange, fungus-like substance spreading across its skull. The other had my arrow protruding through it.

“Do you even... know… what you... have done… foolish… Icathian?” the blind god-warrior managed, its voice a wet growl of dissolving vocal chords.

I sought to think of some powerful words, something to mark the moment I had killed a god-warrior.

All I could think of was the truth. “We freed ourselves,” I said.

“You… have opened a door... to… a place… that should... never be opened…” it hissed. “You have... doomed us all…”

“Time for you to die,” I said.

The god-warrior tried to laugh, but what came out was a gurgling death-rattle. “Die…? No… What is to come… will be far worse… It will be… as if none of us… ever existed…”

I left the arrow embedded in the god-warrior’s skull. Men were limping back from the battle, bloodied and weary, with the same look of incredulous horror in their eyes. None of us truly understood what had happened, but the Shurimans were dead, and that was enough.

Wasn’t it?

We milled in confusion, none of us knowing what to say or do. The landscape before the city was twisting with unnatural motion, the flesh of the Shuriman army utterly obscured by pale, coiling ropes of hideous matter. Its surface was darkening as I watched, splitting where it hardened like some form of carapace. Viscous ichor spilled out, and more and more I had the impression that this was just the beginning of something far worse.

Light still spilled from the colossal rents torn in the ground, and alien sounds—a mix of shrieking, hissing and crazed howls—echoed from far below. I could feel tremors rising up from the bowels of the earth, like the slow grinding of bedrock that presages an earthquake.

“What’s down there?” said a man I didn’t know. His arm was all but encased in a translucent caul that was slowly creeping its way up the side of his neck. I wondered if he even knew. “Sounds like a nest. Or a lair, or… something.”

I did not know what hideous things lived down there. Nor did I want to.

I heard a voice call my name, and looked up to see Saijax limping toward me. His face was a mask of blood, thanks to a jagged wound that ran from above his right eye to his jawline.

I hadn’t thought Saijax could bleed at all.

“You’re hurt,” I said.

“It’s worse than it looks.”

“Is this the end?” I asked him.

“For Icathia, I fear it is,” he replied, moving away to grab the bridle of a cavalryman’s mount. The beast was skittish, but Saijax hauled its reins, and vaulted into the saddle.

“I would have given everything to see the Shurimans defeated,” I murmured.

“I fear we just did,” said Saijax.

“But… we won.”

“The Shurimans are dead, but I’m not sure that’s the same thing,” said Saijax. “Now find a mount, we have to go.”

“Go? What are you talking about?”

“Icathia is doomed,” he said. “You see that, don’t you? Not just the city, but our land. Look around you. That will be our fate too.”

I knew he was right, but the idea of simply riding away...? I didn’t know if I could.

“Icathia is my home,” I said.

“There’s nothing left of Icathia. Or, at least, there won’t be soon.”

He extended his hand to take mine, and I shook it.

“Axa...” he said, casting a glance back at the creeping horror. “There is no hope here.”

I shook my head and said, “I was born here and I will die here.”

“Then hold to who you are while you still can, lad,” he said, and I felt the weight of his sadness and guilt. “It’s all you have left.”

Saijax turned his mount and rode away. I never saw him again.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari Icath’or.

I think… I think Axamuk was my grandsire’s name. It has meaning, but I can no longer remember what.

I wandered the ruins where a great city once stood. All that is left is an impossibly wide crater, rubble, and a tear in the fabric of the world.

I feel a terrible emptiness before me.

Axamuk was a king, I think. I do not remember where. Was it here? In this ruined, sunken city?

I do not know what Var or Choi mean. Icath’or should have meaning to me, but whatever it was is gone. There is a terrible void where my mind and memories once dwelled.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi Kohari.

Kohari? What is that?

There is a mark on my arm, a sword wrapped in a scroll. Is it a slave mark? Was I the property of a conqueror? I remember a girl with green eyes and an opal necklace. Who was she? Was she my wife, my sister? A daughter? I do not know, but I remember the smell of her flowers.

My name is Axamuk Var-Choi.

I repeat it over and over, holding onto it as if it can stave off this slow dissolution.

I do not want to forget it. It is all I have left.

My name is Axamuk.

I am being erased. I know this, but I do not know why or how.

Something awful writhes within me.

All that I am is unravelling.

I am being undone.

My name is

My name

My

Tarnold knew the performance was doomed when all his playwright’s tricks were exhausted. His players were lost to performance jitters. Perhaps the text was to blame, or the superstitions surrounding the performance of a dead scribe’s unfinished work, but each mummer had succumbed to one form of unprofessionalism or another.

Artlo, who played a character known only as the Philosopher, wouldn’t stop dying. Each time he pantomimed his last breath in the company of that kindred pair of macabre spirits known as the Lamb and the Wolf, he prolonged his death rattles to the point of absurdity. This time, Nenni had laughed so hard her Lamb’s mask fell off her face. It landed on the ground with a loud crack.

Emile removed his Wolf’s mask. Its sharp, jagged edges were chafing his jowls to pulp. He winced in pain—Tarnold knew he was about to ask for the poultice again.

“Stop!” Tarnold said. He did not need to yell. The Mummers’ Round’s renowned acoustics ensured even the eaves-perchers, with their half-copper admission, could hear the softest sigh with clarity.

The old theater rested near the lord castellan’s hillfort and provided a nice glimpse of the dark forest. On banquet nights like tonight, nobles descended from the castellan’s manse to drunkenly take in the mummers’ theatrics. A displeased crowd of drunken nobles was worse than the humiliation of a failed play.

The actors released their poses and turned to face their chief dramatist.

Tarnold rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers and looked to the wings, where a mustachioed man, dressed in black finery, leaned against one of the story stones.

“Duarte,” Tarnold said to the well-dressed man. “Buy me as much time as you can.”

Duarte nodded in understanding. “I’ll hold the audience until I hear your sign.”

“Do not disturb us, even if Lady Erhyn herself shakes off her malaise and demands a preview. We are on the verge, Duarte. We must fall together to rise together!”

“Rise we shall, Tarnold. With the gust of life.” Duarte kissed the palm of his hand and placed it on the story stone for good luck. He disappeared from the stage and exited the theater. Silence pervaded while everyone waited on the sound of the heavy bolt sliding shut.

Once they were sealed within the Mummers’ Round’s walls, with the sun dipping closer to the evening, Tarnold unleashed his temper.

“Ask a Great City boy for water, and a Great City boy will bring you fire. There is to be one death, and one death alone, Artlo.” He turned to Nenni. “Stop laughing at Artlo’s nincompoopery, you daughter of Skaggorn. Shake off your provincial humors and exude the cold menace of death.” Finally, he pointed to Emile. “I can see your blood dribbling down your cheek. Dab your cheeks.”

“Please, let me fix some padding to the inside of this accursed wolf mask.”

“Project through the pain! Did Soates complain while writing her Kindred Fables on her deathbed? No. Be honored! One of her own heirlooms chafes your cheek.”

“This one doesn’t fit me,” Nenni said. She had picked her lamb mask up off the stage floor. “It keeps sliding off.”

“Then use straps!” Tarnold said, pulling off his own belt to throw it at Nenni’s feet.

Endless hours of rehearsals had done nothing to prepare the troupe for the performance of Soates’ final, unfinished story. Part of that, Tarnold had accepted as his own fault. As the chief dramatist of Alderburg’s greatest—and only—theater, the grim task of finishing her story fell to him.

“Lambs in the Orchard was Soates’ final gush of madness. The very last of her spark is here, in our hands... and you all choose to desecrate her memory, picking at it for your own vanity and comfort. She spent her final moments coaxing truths from the impending nevermore. Had death not stilled her hand while writing this very scene, perhaps we would all have a far greater understanding of our own brief and tragic existence!”

The actors remained silent, chastened even, until Artlo cleared his throat and spoke up.

“With respect,” the gangly Demacian started. Tarnold knew Artlo meant the opposite, and rolled his eyes to show it. “Perhaps an unfinished work is simply not meant to be finished by another.”

Tarnold sensed an attack on his integrity. They had had this argument over and again. “Are you suggesting that this production is a work of sacrilege?”

“We seem unable to replicate the emotions of a master writing against time.”

“Are you mad? We are out of time!” Tarnold pointed to the dwindling rays of sunlight piercing the wooden walls of the theater. A chilly sensation swept through him.

“Perhaps, we perform the bits we know and leave the unfinished unperformed. Is that not a better way to honor Soates? You must acknowledge, Tarnold, this,” Artlo said, pointing around himself, “does not work!”

Artlo was right. They had failed to recreate the spark found in the prolific bard’s other fables. Their ailing patron, a Soates devotee, expected the impossible—an ending to an unfinished work. In desperation, Tarnold had authorized Duarte to travel to King Jarvan II’s Great City to the west, and hunt down the bard’s original masks. They were ancient and therefore costly.

Tarnold’s head slumped, his shoulders followed, and then he was on his back, struggling to breathe. His heart raced against the quickening hour.

“We have to cancel the performance.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to eke out some last shred of luck, but finding only sweat. “Worse, we’ll be forced to offer refunds.” He gasped out. “We already spent the gold!”

“It’s probably not a good time to mention that the lamb mask is broken.”

The color drained from Tarnold’s face. “What?”

“When it fell off my face, it broke. It was an accident!” Nenni held the pieces of the mask in her hand. One of the wooden ears had snapped off. “I think I can strap it back together.”

“This is utterly majestic.” Tarnold almost laughed. “That’s what we spent the gold on. They were Soates’ original masks. They’re on loan!”

“She said it was an accident,” said Emile.

“Let me think.” Tarnold stood up to take in the theater. Its storied round had existed for centuries. The story stones were the foundation of the Mummers’ Round. The circle of towering flagstones had stood in the theater’s location long before anyone settled the Nockmirch. Over the years, wooden viewing platforms were erected to allow more a better view of the theatrics and rituals performed inside the round. Performers and singers notched the pillars with their sigils, leaving their mark upon hallowed grounds.

The theater had been home to Tarnold during many difficult times. Now, under his stewardship, it was the source of all his sorrows.

“A broken mask tells two stories,” said a voice from the middle balcony, reserved for the wealthiest nobles. Even in his loneliest moments, Tarnold dared not rest his head on those fine cushions. “Three, if you consider the tale of the maskmaker... Alas, no one wishes to hear that story.”

“We agreed for no visitors during rehearsals!” Tarnold said to his performers.

“She’s been here all night,” Nenni said. “We thought she was with you.”

Had she? It was possible. Tarnold had battled insomnia for weeks. His attention snapped to the woman in the golden seats, which were reserved for the Lady Erhyn herself. Two summers ago, King Jarvan II’s little heir had sat upon those velvet cushions to enjoy Tarnold’s rendition of The King of All Fishes. The boy had clapped loudest as the final curtain fell.

“Who are you?” Tarnold said. “Step into the light.”

The woman came forward, but the light illuminated little of her mystery. Her eyes were distant stars shining through mist. She wore a ghostly half-mask with a curious twirl of a twig sprouting off the top. Upon that sprig was a single dark leaf. Her elegant gait sang of nobility, and Tarnold finally recognized the crest on her gown.

It was their patron, recovered from her malaise.

“My lady Erhyn, I did not recognize you! Please forgive me.” Tarnold offered a respectable bow. “Tell me, what mask is this that graces your face? It is familiar yet beyond memory.”

“It is made of eldlock.” She spoke in a calm voice. Her words were clear, even as she whispered. “The stories tell that any wood removed from an eldlock will continue to blossom and flower in season with its mothertree, as long as it still stands. No distance may sever their bond.”

“It is exquisite, my lady.”

“I have interrupted,” Lady Erhyn said, gesturing to the actors. “Perhaps I could suggest a change.”

“Why, of course!” Tarnold fidgeted with his hands. He looked to the wings, and to the stage. The mummers were keeping their mouths shut, for once. “Advice from our favorite patron is always welcome.”

“All actors were masked in Soates’ day—perhaps all must don masks to channel the strange spirits she saw at death’s door, as she scribbled furiously into the night’s embrace.”

“I like that!” Artlo said. “Where is the casket of masks? There were others in that trunk,” he called as he vanished behind the stage.

“Now, wait, let’s talk this—”

Tarnold was silenced by the sight of the gaunt lady with the eldlock mask clasping her hands together. There was something off about their benefactor.

Before Tarnold could put his finger on it, Artlo returned onstage, dragging a trunk that was as long as he was tall. The name Q. W. Soates was engraved on its long side. Suddenly, it struck Tarnold how much the old trunk resembled a coffin.

Artlo lifted open the heavy trunk’s lid. “Smells like dead poets,” he said.

The man really has no taste, Tarnold thought.

A heavy creak of rusted hinges reverberated through the round like the howl of a starving dog. The other two actors craned their necks to peer inside.

“Before you choose,” the woman in the eldlock mask said. “Please heed these next words wisely. The hour is late, the show waits to play, and tonight can be truly memorable if all choose the mask that is right for them, for the spirits we become...”

“...Inhabit us,” Emile completed.

“The mummers’ tenet,” Nenni said.

“Whatever flavor of madness this is,” Artlo said, a grin spreading on his face, “I want to be a part of it. Come, Tarnold. Even you must agree that at this late stage, we must perform with the gust of life.”

“Intrepid,” the lady said.

Tarnold heard the hint of a strange smile on her face. He couldn’t remember... had the nobles’ balcony not been empty when Duarte left? The whole theater was empty... Lady Erhyn struck him as different now, too. She seemed gaunt and haunted. Perhaps the noble lady Erhyn hadn’t entirely shaken off her affliction. The evening chill was settling in.

“My lady, I am most pleased at your recovery. Perhaps I can fetch you a cloak?”

“Now, this is the mask to honor a forgotten poet,” Artlo said.

Lady Erhyn waved off Tarnold’s offer, turning to Artlo. “An ominous choice. The Vulture picks at what remains, and when nothing is left... it flies on to perches far removed from here and waits for the next meal.”

“Pecking at Soates’ legacy sounds like a feast.” Artlo turned around and showed off his guise: a bone-white mask with a long, hooked beak. The gangly man resembled a carrion bird.

The gaunt lady approached the stage. She seemed so ancient, yet hale and graceful in her moves. Her skin did not look like flesh. It reminded Tarnold of plaster, after it had been set and smoothed. Her hair was the very night itself, radiating outward in a wavering embrace. He felt as if the breath were stabbed out of his lungs. How could he have ever mistaken the two?

“You’re not Lady Erhyn.”

The actors were oblivious to Tarnold’s epiphany. A chilling swoon descended upon his heart. Its beating pulsed loudly in his ears, nearly drowning out the actors’ words.

“Switch masks with me,” Nenni said to Emile. “Your soft skin can’t wear such a handsome mask. My skin’s weathered worse, I’ll reckon.”

“If you want to wear that agonizing thing...” Emile offered the wolf mask to his stage partner. “I mourn for your lovely cheekbones.”

The two slipped on their swapped masks.

The walls whispered as a gust of wind swept over the Mummers’ Round. Shutters clacked shut. Tarnold heard voices in that swift and swirling breeze.

“Heartbeats, Lamb. Here,” a deep voice growled.

Tarnold looked for the source, but could only see his mummers. They seemed to have forgotten all about him. Then, in his left ear, sang another voice.

“Bits of light,

Dancing in the dark,

Playing on, playing on, playing on...”

The words flew through Tarnold with a jolt. On the stage, he saw Nenni and Emile, hand in hand, wearing each other’s masks. Then he saw the otherwordly words were coming from the actors’ mouths.

“Yes,” Emile said, shifting his voice up to a lilting and haunted falsetto. “I see my darlingest Wolf now.”

“Ahhh.” Nenni let out a relieved growl, her voice guttural and deep. “That feels better, little Lamb.” The actor dropped down on all fours, and stretched lower than a human should be able to. “Is it time to play chase?”

“When the veil lifts,

You shall claw and bite,

My arrow swift, and on to the next act we go.”

Tarnold crossed the round, keeping his eyes fixed on the gaunt lady. “What trickery is this? Please, leave us be!”

The woman turned to Tarnold. “I am not your patron,” she said.

Tarnold looked to his masked actors. “All of you, clear the stage. Go home. The performance is over.” He raised his voice, shouting toward the barred entrance. “Duarte!”

“Tarnold...” The woman who was not Lady Erhyn turned and looked at him with the enormity of her vast, glimmering eyes. Even behind the eldlock mask, they shone with a light born of darkness. Their eerie sheen pulled Tarnold’s attention out of his body. Whoever this was, he knew her and did not; feared her and sought her. Running from her felt foolish, and reasonable. Without deciding to, he walked toward the stage.

“Take the masks off,” he said. “Now. This is madness... This play is cursed! Don’t you see? What if, in the conjuring, Soates did not happen to die while writing the play, the act of writing Lambs in the Orchard was itself what killed her... The narrative itself is a curse!”

It was not the gaunt lady, Nenni’s wolf nor Emile’s lamb that replied. Artlo, or whatever spoke through Artlo, answered in a screeching voice. He spread his arms high and stood upon one leg, like a carrion bird.

“The author waits for my beak,” he said. The corners of his lips cracked and split open. “Soates is truly dead... as none remember her now as she once was.” Tears ran down Artlo’s stretched cheeks. The voice stilled Tarnold’s heart and stopped him in his stride. “Soates flies in my wake, soon lost and forgotten. Words on a page. A name on the wind. Shreds... nothing more.”

“Shreds of Soates is still Soates,” said the gaunt lady.

“He ceased the performance...” Whatever spoke through poor Artlo didn’t care how much pain it caused the man’s body. The actor’s arm violently wrenched forward and stretched, its bony hand pointing an accusatory finger at Tarnold. “And he wears no mask...”

“You are so close to Soates,” the woman said to the dramatist. “Choose a mask, and see her final scene come alive.”

He thought about running from the Mummers’ Round. He pictured himself fleeing up to the lord castellan’s fort on the hill, or into town. What would he find in Lady Erhyn’s house? He looked to the gaunt woman. The sun had almost set. The evening cacophony of insects and night birds chirped out their greetings to the coming night. How many nights had he dreamt of Soates’ final moments, of the final scene...

“Everyone must wear a mask,” the woman said.

Mouth agape, Tarnold nodded in agreement with the woman in the eldlock mask, that dark leaf dancing in an unfelt breeze.

“If I must choose a mask, then I confess, I know the one I would select is not in that trunk, nor is it on the stage.” He felt life return to his limbs. His bones were stiff and unwieldy... but that was a temporary condition.

The gaunt woman smiled. “You wish to wear my mask? That is a most excellent decision, dear Tarnold, a man of creativity and curiosity. Come and remove it from my face.”

“I shall take your mask, and become you. May the spirits we become...”

“...Inhabit us deeply and truly,” she finished.

When Tarnold did, and placed the living eldlock mask on his face, he saw, finally, the true ending of Soates’ play. It was flawless and terrible, life-giving and breathtaking.

“Places, my friends and fellows,” he said. “Our tale waits for no one. Let us fall together to rise as one, and sing our harmonies with the gust of life.”

“One last gust,” replied Lamb, Wolf, and Vulture.

And together, they played.

Duarte had kept the news about Lady Erhyn hidden from Tarnold all day, even though the truth of her passing threatened to burst forth from his lips. Her malaise carried her off in kindred company before dawn, or so the new lady of House Erhyn had said. The news could break the morale of the entire troupe. Tarnold, he knew, would take it exceptionally hard.

But just as sorrow weighed down Duarte’s heart, there was a brightness, an exciting turn of good fortune beyond the tragedy. Lady Erhyn, on her deathbed, bade her estate to fund the Mummers’ Round, and Tarnold specifically, in perpetuity.

However, as the hour drew later, the inebriated nobles grew weary of the wait. Belligerent and insulted nobility often led to lashings, mockings, and worse: sanctions against future endeavors.

As Duarte was about to address the amassed watchers, daubed with ashes and charcoal in mourning of Lady Erhyn, he heard Tarnold’s signal to open the doors.

He rushed to the gate and removed the heavy deadbolt. The audience rushed in and stopped short as they found the actors posed upon a stage covered in wilted black-stemmed roses. Their buzzing anticipation was hushed by the macabre tableau. They quickly and quietly found their seats. Lady Erhyn’s seat of honor was the only empty spot in the house.

The actors held their strenuous positions while the noble audience waited for Soates’ long-lost and unfinished masterpiece to finally begin.

Duarte saw no sign of Tarnold. It was unusual for the dramatist to desert his cast on opening night—normally he would greet the audience before watching from the wings with a bottle of wine.

He turned to inspect the opening stance. Nenni and Emile were locked in a mortal embrace. Nenni, wearing the wolf mask, held an arrow that seemed to stick directly into Emile’s side. Emile’s hands were wrapped around Nenni’s throat.

Artlo, who was supposed to be playing a philosopher, now inexplicably wore a mask that resembled a dirge crow. He perched atop a prop tree, suspended over the other pair, his arms outstretched like great wings. Dead flowers hung from his arms like feathers.

They weren’t even breathing...

The audience stayed silent, eagerly awaiting action, but Duarte realized something was amiss. Backstage, Duarte checked the dramatist’s favorite perch. There was no bottle of wine, and no Tarnold, either.

Instead there was the last surviving copy of Lambs in the Orchard.

He thumbed to the last page. The story remained unfinished, but there was a new line written in Tarnold’s steady hand.

The end is not for those who wear no masks. She showed me, and it was beautiful.