The Spirit of Copperwood Glade

Jared Rosen

August 11, 2021

It is common in these dark days to speak of the Elderwood with some deference, as both the young and old know it as a place of great danger, filled with tricks and traps laid by the last true children of the wilds.

Yet this was not always the case, and in the bygone age before the gods fell these fair folk did mingle with a wide-eyed humankind, both for good and ill. Tales of those misadventures exist even to this day―perhaps the last surviving stories of a more innocent time, captured and passed down so those who come after us will remember the magic that has been lost to witchery and shadow.

But let us not speak of sad things! Here is but one telling of those touched by the old forest, and the strange creatures living within it. For the Elderwood was once home to brave knights, gentle dryads, and odd spirits large and small, and some reside there still; perhaps, if you are lucky and pure of heart, you may one day even meet one yourself...

Many years ago, in a kingdom to the south of the great Elderwood, there lived a good-natured husband and wife who worked as toymakers. They had a young daughter whose name was Rowan, as gentle and pleasant as a child could be, and together they lived quite happily making all manner of playthings from the wood of the forest.

The toys fashioned by Rowan’s parents were greatly desired, even by members of the noble houses, and because of this they became wealthy and well-renowned. The toys were never damaged no matter how roughly children played, and never grew old no matter how much time had passed, and each was a work of art unique in everything but name, never to be made again―for this was the magic of the Elderwood, such as it was back then.

It had been said that Rowan’s great-grandfather had once saved a fledgling spirit, and in return his family had been blessed for one-hundred-and-two years, so that they might harvest a single tree each year and from it make as many creations as they desired. No creature would harm him or his descendants, even the Great Guardian Hecarim, so long as his family never turned against the denizens of the forest, and not more than a single tree was taken on the first day of spring. They must also live away from the walls of the city, to signify the bond of spirit and man, and in return the Elderwood would extend its protection to their kin forevermore.

Rowan’s family did respect the terms of this agreement for one-hundred-and-one years, and they were joyful for it.

On the eve of the one-hundred-and-second year, a nobleman from a foreign land visited Rowan and her parents. His name was Brín, and he fancied himself a king, though in truth his lands were small and his influence was quite minor among the lords and ladies of the kingdoms. As such he was obsessed with baubles giving the appearance of wealth and status, and so mesmerized by these wooden toys that he decided he must have as many as he could, so that in his court they might be considered commonplace.

“Honored toymaker,” he declared, “these treasures are priceless, and yet ye would sell them for such a pittance to the children of this land. Is it not more prudent to create them for a noble such as I? I could pay thee greatly, and fill thy coffers, so thy family may never want again.”

But Rowan’s father refused, as the Elderwood provided all the family needed. “I do not wish to sell my wares for profit, though their fame has blessed me greatly. I strive only to honor my agreement with the great forest, as my father did, and his father before.”

“Honored toymaker,” declared Brín, “thy fame is known throughout the lands, and yet ye would live among the edges of the untamed wilds. Craft these treasures in the name of my house, and I will build ye a great manse upon the riverbank, so ye might be the envy of all other men.”

Again, Rowan’s father refused, as even when they could harvest the trees no further, his family would always have a place among the fair folk of the Elderwood. “I am sorry,” he said, “but ye may purchase any wares within these walls, and bring them back to thy court. They never age or wear, and I am sure that will suffice.”

Now Brín did become furious. “If thou would’st reject such a generous offer, I will burn thy workshop to the ground. The Elderwood does not extend as far as my kingdom, and by the time its children come to thine aid thy life will be spent, and thy family slaughtered. I will take these treasures for my own, and that will be the end of it.”

With this, Rowan’s father relented, and the lord Brín would return one month hence, to claim every toy crafted from the final gifted tree.

“Father,” said Rowan, for she knew much despite her years, “what will we do? Though his lands are few, that man is a lord nonetheless, and might call upon a great many knights.”

“True,” said Rowan’s father, “but in his hubris he disregards the spirits of the wood. Take warm clothes from thy mother, and a bindle of foodstuffs, and go to the place called Copperwood Glade. There, thy eyes will fall upon a great tree as hard as armor plate. Sleep softly at its base, and the spirit that blesses this house will appear in a dream to barter with ye. But beware, for it is not a kind spirit, but a violent one. If thy words are false, or thy offers unfair, or it senses darkness in thy heart, then it will cut thy soul away, and thy body will never wake.”

And so Rowan did take warm clothes from her mother, and a bindle of food, and travel into the Elderwood, as her parents raced to carve toys for the lord Brín, in case her quest failed.

Before long Rowan did stumble upon a quiet glade apart from the forest, at its center an ancient tree whose bark shone like polished copper. Around it were the bones of many people, their tattered belongings covered in deep, green moss. Rowan could not hear the birds or the streams of the whispers of the countless spirits in this place―only silence, as though not even the wind would dare disturb its countless secrets. She felt a great dread here, as though she were being watched, but despite her fear she unpacked her bindle, and buttoned up her warm coat, and rested herself against the base of the copperwood tree as her father had told her to do.

Soon enough, she fell deeply asleep. The sun’s rays danced across her cheeks, and it seemed that these old bones strewn about were barely a bother anymore.

She awoke in the dead of night, to the sound of a hymn.

Now Rowan was brave and kind, but the words creaked and moaned like a beetle-filled log, and rustled like the branches of an old, dead willow, and soon enough her fear returned to her. Her father’s warning did echo in her ears, warning of a vicious thing, and so Rowan cried out, “Art thou the spirit of Copperwood Glade?”

And for a while the hymn continued, as if to answer the question.

Then the logs and the moss and the branches and the trees grew still, and the hymn ceased, and a strange, misshapen apparition did appear at the edges of the glade. Its arms hung low, and ended in sharpened blades, and its head turned unnaturally against its strange wooden body, and it looked at Rowan without expression.

“Hwæt þú gewilnunge mædencild?” said the spirit, its voice creaking like rotten timber.

But this was the old tongue, older by far even than Rowan’s great-grandfather, and she could not understand it.

“Ah,” said the spirit, “it has been many years since thy ancestor lent me his aid. Forgive me, for time does not pass for us as it does for thee, and often I confuse the mortal tongues. I am called Nocturne, and I am the spirit you seek. What dost thou desire, child? I wish to hear thy words. But speak not falsely, or I will cut thy soul away, and thy body will rot in the glade with those others who have aimed to trick a creature such as I.”

Yet the spirit did not draw closer, and Rowan’s fear would not subside.

“O, Nocturne,” she said. “One-hundred-and-one years have passed since ye blessed my house, and this year will be the last. We have always honored thy will, and the will of the Elderwood, and from this we will never falter. But a lord named Brín now threatens us with death, and we entreat thee for protection.”

“Ah,” said Nocturne, drawing closer. Rowan saw that he floated above the ground, and scraped his long blades across it as he went, and the bones beneath them were sliced clean in twain as though they were made from air. “I have heard of this Brín, and his lands to the west, where the air is warm and the forest thin. Should he slay thy family and steal thy treasures, I promise to take his life in return.”

“O, Nocturne,” replied Rowan, “we are unlike spirits of the wood. We have but a single life, and when it is spent go from this world hence, and do not return. Couldst thou act against him now? Would that I could offer something to a spirit such as thee, in payment...”

“Ah,” said Nocturne, drawing closer still. His hands trembled in excitement, and his blades clicked as they cut the stones and armor and paltry belongings scattered before him, and Rowan did feel within him a thirst for violence. “Perhaps if I had something fresh to eat, and something warm to wear, then I could make the journey westward.”

And Rowan did give Nocturne her bindle of foodstuffs, and her warm clothes, despite his body of bark and blades.

“Ah,” said Nocturne, rising up before Rowan, his carved face peering into her eyes. “But are thy words true? I wonder, what is the content of thy heart?”

And he sank a blade deep inside her chest, and raised her body high above his head. Yet Rowan was silent, and resolute, for she knew her fate when she saw the bones scattered about Copperwood Glade, and had accepted it gladly.

Nocturne then lowered Rowan, and placed her before him, and her wounds were healed. “Your words are spoken truly, and your offerings are given freely, and your heart is kind. You will not die upon this day. Go back to your home, and live your life, and the lord Brín will never trouble thee again.”

And Rowan did thank the spirit, and when she awoke she returned to her home at the edge of the Elderwood, and her family went on to take the final tree and then lived happily for many generations until they became one with the forest, as was the agreement they had struck so many years before.

As for Lord Brín, he and his knights were slain by a vicious spirit while they rested, and his kingdom fell into a dark slumber from which it never awakened. The Elderwood grew quickly towards these lands, and consumed them utterly within the year, with nary a soul escaping. One can still find their ruins in the place now known as Somberwood, where it is said the spirit Nocturne visits from time-to-time, to admire his handiwork.

More stories

Nocturne

While all magic can be dangerous and unpredictable, there are some forms or disciplines that even the most skilled mages and sorcerers will shun, and with good reason. For centuries, the practice of “shadow magic” was all but forbidden across Runeterra, for fear of reawakening the horrors it once unleashed upon the world.
The greatest of those horrors has a name, and its name is Nocturne.
Towards the end of the Rune Wars, desperate for victory, cabals of warrior-mages sought any advantage they could find over their foes. Although no record names the first of them to cast off their flesh and enter the spirit realm, it is known that they came to stalk one another not only on the battlefield, but in landscapes shaped by their own subconscious thoughts and emotions. Unconstrained by the laws of physical reality, they fought in ways that more mundane minds could scarcely comprehend, even conjuring subtle, etheric assassins to do their bidding. Shadow mages seemed particularly skilled at such things—and so it was, for a time, that they came to dominate the spirit realm, casting it into twilight.
The thoughts of mortals everywhere were touched by this darkness. It sapped their morale and infected their dreams, with nameless fears hounding them day and night, driving some to commit ever more horrendous acts against their own kin.
No one can say for certain whether all this suffering created Nocturne from nothing, or if it merely corrupted a lesser assassin-construct into something more willful and deadly, but the shadowy creature that resulted was one of insubstantial form and fathomless dread. Nocturne understood nothing of kindness, honor, or nobility—it was terror made manifest, with none of the restraint necessary to control itself.
This demonic creature howled within the spirit realm, and set upon those foolish, errant mages who had given it life, thrashing in desperation for an end to its own suffering. It was in pain, and that pain made it cruel, but it quickly acquired a taste for mortal fear. Time has little meaning in that other place, but Nocturne dragged out each and every pursuit for as long as possible, savoring the prey’s anguish before cutting their life’s silvery thread in an instant. Soon enough, there were none left who dared to enter Nocturne’s domain.
Would the outcome of the Rune Wars have been different if the demon had not played its part beyond the veil? It is difficult to say for certain, but afterwards, what little remained of the lore of shadow magic was hidden away, and its practice carried the sentence of death in many lands.
Trapped in the spirit realm, and with precious few intruders to sustain it, Nocturne began to starve. The only thing close to the delectable feasts of fear it had once tasted was when mortal minds unknowingly drifted through the ether in the hours of sleep. Drawn on currents of magic to where the two realms divide—and where peaceful dreams can easily become night terrors—Nocturne found a way to manifest itself into the waking world.
Existing now as a shade, eyes burning with cold light, Nocturne has become a sinister reflection of the most primal fears of the many peoples of Runeterra. From the bustling cities to the desolate plains, from the mightiest king to the lowliest peasant, the demon is drawn to any weakness of spirit it can twist into mortal terror, and everlasting darkness.
The Slumber Party Summoning

Ariel Lawrence

Okay, I’ll admit slamming the door in their faces was a bit of an overreaction.
“Lulu.” I make the words come out calm and easy, but I can feel my palms go sweaty in the oven mitts I’m still wearing. Can’t forget about dinner. I keep my white-knuckle grip on the front door handle. Lulu stops her absent-minded twirl in the hallway, coming up to stand next to me. I take one more breath in and out before turning towards her. “Do you know why Ahri’s teammates are standing on the porch?”
“Yep,” she says, nodding her head. She draws herself up a little taller, “You said, ‘This is a man-da-tory Star Guardian council meeting.’”
Just my luck. I instinctively release the door handle, as I hear Lulu do an extra bubbly—but very stern—Lux impression enunciating each of those syllables.
I definitely said that.
To Jinx.
Who still isn’t here yet.
Lulu makes for the handle, the smile on her face positively beaming. “They’re Star Guardians, right?”
I nod dumbly.
“Super,” she says as she opens the door wide.
The three of them are still standing on the porch where I left them, although in decidedly different positions. Ez looks like he was mid-sentence trying to calm down a much more annoyed Sarah Fortune.
No, not ‘Sarah’, I remind myself. Sarah’s for friends. I learned that all too well from last summer’s outdoor adventure.
Miss Fortune’s usual smirk is now an angry grimace as she furiously texts something on her phone. Behind her, the quiet girl with mint green hair—Soraka—is carrying a bakery box from Pantheon’s Pastries. They look at me intently, probably wondering if I’m going to slam the door again. I can actually hear crickets in the bushes.
Lulu reaches out into the uncomfortable silence and takes Ezreal and Fortune by the wrists, pulling them inside. Fortune’s so surprised, she goes along with it, nearly dropping her phone. I can feel the pink climb up my cheeks as Ezreal flashes his trademark grin in my direction as he passes by. I wave meekly with one oven mitt.
Soraka leans in close and whispers “Cinnamon rolls” in my ear, like a spy password. She smiles, hands the heavy bakery box to me, and walks quickly to catch up with the others.
“Welcome,” I hear Lulu announce from the living room, “to our Star Guardian sleepover party!”

This is awkward.
I can hear the second hand of the clock in the kitchen tick off another minute that we’ve been uncomfortably quiet. Ezreal is wedged on the small couch between Fortune—still texting on her phone—and Soraka, who’s quietly watching Lulu while nibbling on a cinnamon roll. Janna and Poppy are sitting on the stiff dining chairs Lulu dragged in from the other room. Lulu is bent over the coffee table, folding a piece of paper into some complicated shape. I have no idea what she’s making, but her soft humming is the only other sound besides the clock.
And me, well, I’m pacing a well-worn path in the carpet.
The first to break the silence is Fortune. She stops texting, lets out a disgusted sigh, and finally puts her phone face down on her lap, the small pistol charms on the end jingling loudly. She looks around, taking in everything in the room from the faded pattern on the curtains to the beige-colored couch for the first time. Her disappointment is evident. As she sinks back into the cushion behind her, Ez leans forward.
“You all do this regularly?” he says. “Get together like this?”
Poppy and Janna stare at him. Poppy still doesn’t understand why Ez was chosen as a Guardian. I keep telling her the First Star chooses each of us for a reason. She crosses her arms and watches him, clearly still not convinced.
“Yes, doesn’t your team?” Janna asks. She’s calm, at least on the outside, but there’s a slight breeze circling the room even though the ceiling fan isn’t on. I can tell she’s just as on edge about them being here as I am.
“Ahri…” Ez starts and then looks at Fortune. Fortune rolls her eyes, her perfectly feathered bangs rippling as she shakes her head. “Well,” Ez continues. “Ahri prefers to be out and about where there are people. She’s not much of a homebody herself, and she figures most trouble wouldn’t be either.”
Great. They think we’re homebodies. Could this get any worse?
“Is that why she and Syndra didn’t come? They have something better to do?” Poppy asks, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm against the foot of her chair. Janna stiffens at the mention of Syndra.
Soraka jumps in and tries to change the subject. “Your friend, the one with the long red pigtails—”
“The loud one,” Fortune interrupts. “The one with a rocket launcher.”
“Yes, the one with the glitter bombs,” Soraka finishes. “Is she coming tonight?”
“Jinx? She’s always fashionably late.” I look at my watch. ”She just loves to make an entrance.” The words are barely out of my mouth when the front door opens and slams loudly. I hear the familiar sound of a tote bag full of Shiro, Kuro, and a handful of fireworks hitting the ground in the hallway.
“Luxy-Poo! Windchimes! Shortstop!” Jinx calls out in a sing-song voice. “I’m home!”
Jinx saunters into the living room just as Lulu triumphantly finishes the last fold in her project. Jinx lowers her sunglasses to the end of her nose. It’s dark outside. It has been dark outside for more than an hour. “Looks like you got the party started without me.” Jinx smiles, obviously enjoying all eyes on her, until her gaze finds Ez stuffed in the middle of the couch.
“Oh, he’s here too,” she says, the enthusiasm sucked out of her like a fast-leaking balloon. She tugs on the bow in Lulu’s hair and focuses on what looks like an oversized paper pincher in the young Guardian’s hands. “Whatcha got there, Loops?”
Lulu takes her hands out of the folds of paper and hugs Jinx around the waist. “I need another number.”
I stop my pacing to take a better look at the star-shaped object Lulu’s made. It’s a paper fortune teller. I haven’t seen one since primary school. The numbers on the flap show how many times the fortune teller should open and close it, with the last number chosen revealing some kind of mysterious destiny. My fortunes always ended in doom. Maybe because I always played with Jinx.
“Four,” I say. Maybe Lulu’s paper project can be over quickly.
“Twelve,” Jinx says.
“Two hundred forty-six,” Fortune says. Her satisfied smirk is back.
“Two hundred and forty-six it is.” Lulu smiles at Fortune and grabs a pen off the coffee table, scribbling the number onto one of the flaps. Lulu sits down at Soraka’s feet, offering up the paper oracle, encouraging her to pick a number to start the game.
“Do you braid each other’s hair too?” Fortune asks watching Lulu and Soraka, her words dripping with sarcasm.
“No—” I begin.
“Sometimes,” Poppy says at the same time, rushing to defend the unaware Lulu. Janna nods enthusiastically.
Ugh. Can neither of them play it cool?
“What I mean is, no, not all the time. We don’t braid each other’s hair all the time,” I stammer. “I mean, we discuss team stuff. Important Star Guardian matters.” I cough. “You know, saving the universe.”
“And braid each other’s hair,” Poppy adds truthfully.
Fortune rolls her eyes and goes back to her phone.
“How about we skip the usual slumber party stuff and talk serious Star Guardian matters?” I offer.
“Bor-ing,” Jinx says. She eyes Lulu as she slowly opens and closes the paper fortune teller for Soraka. “How about we play a faster game with more consequences?” I hear the trigger click of Shiro and Kuro waking up.
Ezreal claps his hands and rubs them together excitedly. “Sounds dangerous, I’m in.”
“Great. Let’s start.” Jinx smiles, but then quickly turns on Ez. “Truth. Or. Dare. Is it true that you have romantic intentions towards our Luxanna?”
“Jinx!” I shout.
Ez opens his mouth like a beached fish, definitely not having prepared for this particular game.
“Truth,” Janna says loudly, diffusing the rising energy in the room as if blowing out a candle. All heads snap towards her.
“Ez has to answer,” Jinx says watching the color rise in Ez’s face.
“First person to volunteer goes first,” Poppy says. “That’s the rule.”
“Fine,” Jinx says, obviously dissatisfied. “Is it true that you are older than Poppy’s hammer?”
I watch Janna’s look from Jinx to Poppy. Jinx is thrilled to see Janna momentarily flustered, while Poppy absently touches the handle of the hammer where she’s set it against her chair. Janna’s gaze settles on Soraka for a moment and then moves on. “False.”
Poppy eyes her hammer with a newfound awe and respect.
“Really?” Jinx raises an eyebrow. “But, it’s true that Short Stack’s hammer has more personality, right?”
“You can’t ask her another question, Jinx.” Poppy points out. “It’s Janna’s turn to ask a question. That’s the rule. Janna, go on, who are you going to pick?”
“Soraka,” Janna says gently. “Truth or Dare?”
Soraka is halfway through a cinnamon roll, staring attentively at Lulu opening and closing the paper fortune teller while counting under her breath. Shisa sits on Soraka’s shoulder monitoring the whole operation with a focused frown, at once completely confused at what Lulu is doing, but intent on making sure it happens with the utmost efficiency. Without missing a number—and to Shisa’s satisfied approval—Lulu nudges her elbow into Soraka’s knee, letting her know she’s been tapped into the group game.
“Yes,” Soraka smiles, a bit absent-minded. “That’s me.”
“Truth or dare?” Poppy repeats, taking her self-appointed position of game referee very seriously.
“Uh, truth,” Soraka says.
Janna thinks for a minute. “What do you remember—”
“Well,” Soraka jumps in, excited to be included in the game. “Ezreal and I went to Pantheon’s earlier. I had a cinnamon roll. He had an iced coffee, no milk because his tummy doesn’t like dairy—”
Poppy clucks her tongue. “Janna, it has to be an ‘Is it true’ question.”
Soraka sits up straight on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, and waits. Zephyr floats in from the dining room and curls up in Janna’s lap. Janna rests a hand on her companion, a slight breeze rustling its fur.
“Soraka.” Janna’s voice is low and calm, barely above a whisper. “Is it true you can remember a time when the First Light was whole?”
“Oh, yes.” Soraka nods with her whole body. “I mean, true.”
The room goes eerily silent. She looks around. All of us are staring at her. Jinx can’t remember what she had for lunch today. Even Poppy and Lulu can only say what it was like when they were called. I’ve asked Janna about the First Light and especially its guidance, but the memories, even for her, are murky and broken.
“Wait, you all can’t remember?” Soraka’s voice wavers a bit. “But—”
“You have to pick one person to ask a question, Soraka,” Poppy says cutting her off with the rules of the game. “And they have to pick truth, and—”
“We get it, Smalls,” Jinx jumps in, changing the subject before Janna or I can ask more questions about Soraka’s memories. I’ll have to find a quiet moment later to talk to her.
“My turn to pick. Okay, mmm…” Soraka bites her bottom lip and then turns in her seat to face Ezreal. “Ez. I pick Ez!”
“No fair. I wanted to pick Ez,” Jinx pouts.
Poppy shakes her head. “You already went.”
“Ladies, please. There’s enough adventure to go around.” Ez tucks both hands behind his head and settles back on the couch. Fortune pulls out one the small throw pillows from behind her, fluffs it, and slams it back into the sofa and Ezreal, conveniently knocking the literal wind out his gallant sails in the process. I stifle a giggle into one of the oven mitts I’m still wearing.
Ez blushes and tries to recover his normal breathing gracefully.
“Dare,” he chokes on the words. “I choose dare.”
“I… dare… you…” Soraka pauses between each word, watching Poppy to make sure she’s getting it right. Poppy nods. Ez waits expectantly. “I dare you to do that thing you do,” she says finally.
Ez shrugs, totally not following whatever Soraka is talking about.
“You know, that thing you do. With Yuuto,” Soraka continues, clapping excitedly for him. “And the portal thing.”
“Oh, yeah. Cool. I can totally do that.” Ez reaches into his backpack and taps on the bright blue of his Guardian emblem. “Hey, bud—wake up. It’s showtime.”
“Portals? Portals sound dangerous.” Poppy asks as a white-winged familiar pounces into the room. It leaps into the air, wings spread, its bright blue eyes the same color as Ezreal’s.
“Portals are dangerous. Very dangerous. But lucky for you, you’ve got me. And this isn’t quite a portal. Technically it’s a shortcut through another dimension.” Ez flashes a lopsided grin at Poppy and starts looking around the room, eyeing a black ceramic bookend and a small potted plant. “Alright, Soraka, do you think that bookend is good enough for a demonstration of a little arcane magic?”
Soraka shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. Between Yuuto’s chirping loops, I can hear Lulu deep in concentration.
“Two hundred and forty-four. Two hundred and forty-five,” she counts. “Two hundred and forty-six!” she announces triumphantly. “It’s done, Soraka.” Lulu waves the paper oracle around in her hand.
“The fortune maker!” Soraka lets out a giggle. “I almost forgot.”
“Fortune maker it is!” Ez says, “Yuuto, let’s go. Time for a true display of skill.”
Yuuto arcs in the air, turning towards Ez. It looks like Yuuto is going to crash right into Ez, but at the last minute, Ez and Yuuto combine, granting Ez a brilliant set of white feathered wings that fill the room. Less than a second later, Ez disappears through a wavering portal to reappear hovering over Lulu. He plucks the paper fortune maker out of her hands.
“Just going to borrow this for a second,” he says and then a moment later he blinks back to the sofa, leaning comfortably back against the couch cushions with no wings and a happily purring Yuuto. He unfolds the flap and reads the fortune aloud. “‘Opportunity can’t knock if you don’t build a door.’ Huh. I like it, Lulu.”
Poppy groans. “She copied that from our takeout cookies last night.”
“That’s not her fortune,” Lulu says. She gestures to the flap to the right. “It’s the next one.”
Ez unfolds the second flap and reads it to the group. “Only in darkness can the light shine brightly.”
“The First Star told me that,” Lulu says.
“The First Star talks to you?” Fortune cocks her head in disbelief. “Still?”
“Yes,” Lulu’s face is a serene smile. “Ezreal, when you open a portal like that, where did you say you go?”
“Uh-oh,” Ezreal whispers.
“What’s ‘uh-oh’, champ?” Jinx leans over Ez as he struggles to keep a grip on the folded paper.
“We may need to get rid of this.” Ez gives a weak smile. “Like right now.”
Before anyone can make good on that suggestion, the paper oracle rips itself out of Ez’s hands. It tumbles around the room like a possessed autumn leaf. A high-pitched whine begins to grow. It seems like it’s coming from the fortune teller itself.
The paper folds and unfolds a dozen times, finally dumping out a small but squat, black and green, glowing creature. Everyone is on their feet.
“Did you just bring an annoying, interdimensional hitchhiking demon into Lux’s living room using your not-a-portal portal power?” says Jinx, watching the unruly little monster jump from the arm of the sofa to the carpet.
“I might have,” Ez whispers. “Arcane magic doesn’t come with an instruction manual.”
“Cool,” Jinx says.
Ez looks at me, mouthing the word Sorry.
“This has only happened once before,” he says.
Fortune elbows Ez in the side.
“Okay,” Ez corrects himself, “This may have happened more than once. Possibly six or seven times, but it’s totally not a big deal.”
The little creature jumps on the coffee table. All I can see is Poppy’s hammer rear back and take a wide swing. There’s a crack of wood and the coffee table splinters. That is definitely not going back together ever again. The dark shape darts away unscathed.
Janna stands up, her arms lifting in the direction of the creature. A breeze starts to build, shifting the debris of the coffee table and fluttering the pages of one of the books that had been sitting on it just a moment ago.
“I got this, Janna.” Jinx is returning from the hall, Shiro and Kuro nipping at her heels.
“No,” Fortune says. I snap my head around to see one of Fortune’s shiny white pistols leveled at my face.
“Woah, Sarah. Not so fast. That’s a little close quarters, don’t you think?” Ez tries to step closer to her to push her guns off their mark. I feel my stomach drop as adrenaline coats my insides. This was her plan all along. My luck’s run out. She is going to end me.
“Fortune—”
The words barely leave my lips before I hear the pull of a trigger.
“Time to say goodbye,” she says. There’s a sharp pop like a balloon. My hands go up to my nose and eyes, quickly checking them out that they’re all intact and where they belong. A second later, there is no demon, and fine bits of paper start to rain down on everyone as the fortune teller explodes into confetti. It looks like it is snowing in my living room. Lulu is dancing in it, of course.
“Look, now it’s a party,” she exclaims. Shiro and Kuro tumble each other in the remains of the coffee table, while Shisa looks very disturbed at their delight in wanton destruction.
Unfortunately, my relief at being whole is short-lived. An angry, beeping alarm begins to wail as a smoky haze creeps throughout the house, originating from the kitchen.
“Smells like burning,” Jinx says.
Oh, no. Dinner.

The air is thicker in the kitchen. What was dinner for the team is now charred ruins stuck to a metal baking sheet. I cough and wave the oven mitts I’m still wearing, trying to move the smoke haze around. I open the window, letting the cool fall air in. The alarm finally shuts itself off.
My eyes are starting to water. I tell myself it’s from the smoke and the mess in the oven, but I’m pretty sure it’s from the mess of things going on in the living room.
“Everything’s ruined.” My voice is small and pathetic even to my own ears.
Then I hear a shuffle of footsteps on the tile floor. Janna or Ez must have braved the smoke to offer some comfort. I wipe my eyes quickly, surprised as I turn around.
It’s Fortune.
“Well that’s definitely not edible,” she says.
I nod my head in agreement. “Definitely not.”
Fortune’s phone vibrates with a text message. Ahri, I’m sure, telling her what all the cool kids are doing.
“This is probably not the way you wanted to spend your Friday night,” I offer.
I pick at the burned bits of what was dinner on the aluminum foil. “Sorry Lulu dragged you into all this. Dinner’s ruined. The party’s ruined. I totally understand if you want to go. We’ll figure things out by ourselves.”
Ugh. Too many words. Why can I not stop talking around her? I take a deep breath and try to start more clearly.
“Fortune—”
“Sarah,” she interrupts. “You can call me Sarah.”
“I thought Sarah was for friends,” I say.
Fortune’s phone vibrates again. Instead of looking at it, she puts it in her back pocket. “I came in here to apologize. You looked pretty freaked out back there.”
“Have you ever been on the other side of one of your pistols?”
“No, I guess not,” she chuckles. Her voice takes a serious turn. “You need to understand I would never hurt another Guardian. Not ever.”
I nod. There’s something more behind her declaration, a pain she hasn’t quite put away.
“I know Ez kinda made a mess of things, he does that sometimes, but would you mind if we stayed? Soraka would be fine if dinner was nothing but cinnamon rolls, but Ez ordered some pizzas to say sorry for the little portal mishap. But I totally get it if you want us to go—”
I hold up an oven mitt-clad hand. It’s Sarah who seems to have too many words now.
“Wait, you want to stay?”
Sarah opens her mouth, but is interrupted by an ecstatic Lulu skipping into the kitchen, a bouquet of pastel fabric and ribbons spilling out onto the floor around her. She shoves an armful of trimmed white flannel into both Sarah and my hands.
“These are for you,” she chirps before skipping back out of the kitchen.
“Lulu, dear,” I call after her. “What are these?”
Sarah holds hers up by its shoulders, inspecting Lulu’s handiwork.
“You’re right,” she says, smiling. “This is not how I usually spend my Friday nights, but I think this whole pajama party thing might actually be a little fun.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah.” Her grin takes on a particularly mischievous bend. “And, I’ve always wanted to see what Ezreal looks like with braided hair.”
Invocation

The sword-wife stood amid the burnt out ruin of her home. Everything and everyone that mattered to her was gone, and she was filled with fathomless grief... and hate. Hate was now all that compelled her.
She saw again the smile on his face as he gave the order. He was meant to be their protector, but he’d spat upon his vows. Hers was not the only family shattered by the oath-breaker.
The desire to go after him was strong. She wanted nothing more than to plant her sword in his chest and watch the life drain from his eyes... but she knew she would never be able to get close enough to him. He was guarded day and night, and she was but one warrior. She would never be able to fight her way through his battalion alone. Such a death would serve no purpose.
She took a shuddering breath, knowing there was no coming back.
A crude effigy of a man, formed of sticks and twine, lay upon a fire-blackened dresser. Its body was wrapped in a scrap of cloth torn from the cloak of the betrayer. She’d pried it from her husband’s dead grasp. Alongside it was a hammer and three rusted nails.
She gathered everything up and moved to the threshold. The door itself was gone, smashed to splinters in the attack. Beyond, lit by moonlight, lay the empty, darkened fields.
Reaching up, the sword-wife pressed the stick-effigy to the hardwood lintel.
“I invoke thee, Lady of Vengeance,” she said, her voice low, trembling with the depth of her fury. “From beyond the veil, hear my plea. Come forth. Let justice be done.”
She readied her hammer and the first of the nails.
“I name my betrayer once,” she said, and spoke his name aloud. As she did so, she placed the tip of the first nail to the chest of the stick-figure. With a single strike, she hammered it in deep, pinning it to the hardwood door frame.
The sword-wife shivered. The room had become markedly colder. Or had she imagined it?
“I name him twice,” she said, and she did so, hammering the second nail alongside the first.
Her gaze dropped, and she jolted in shock. A dark figure stood out in the moonlit field, a hundred yards in the distance. It was utterly motionless. Breathing quicker, the sword-wife returned her attention to the unfinished task.
“I name him thrice,” she said, speaking again the name of the murderer of her husband and children, before hammering home the final nail.
An ancient spirit of vengeance stood before her, filling the doorway, and the sword-wife staggered back, gasping involuntarily.
The otherworldly being was clad in archaic armor, her flesh translucent and glowing with spectral un-light. Black Mist coiled around her like a living shroud.
With a squeal of tortured metal, the spectral figure drew forth the blackened spear protruding from her breastplate — the ancient weapon that had ended her life.
She threw it to the ground before the sword-wife. No words were spoken; there was no need. The sword-wife knew what was being offered to her — vengeance — and knew its terrible cost: her soul.
The spirit watched on, her face impassive and her eyes burning with an unrelenting cold fury, as the sword-wife picked up the treacherous weapon.
“I pledge myself to vengeance,” said the sword-wife, her voice quivering. She reversed the spear, aiming the tip inward, towards her heart. “I pledge it with my blood. I pledge it with my soul.”
She paused. Her husband would have pleaded for her to turn away from this path. He would have begged her not to condemn her soul for theirs. A moment of doubt gnawed at her. The undying specter watched on.
The sword-wife’s eyes narrowed as she thought of her husband lying dead, cut down by swords and axes. She thought again of her children, sprawled upon the ground, and her resolve hardened like a cold stone in her heart. Her grip tightened upon the spear.
“Help me,” she implored, her decision made. “Please, help me kill him.”
She rammed the spear into her chest, driving it in deep.
The sword-wife’s eyes widened and she dropped to her knees. She tried to speak, but only blood bubbled from her lips.
The ghostly apparition watched her die, her expression impassive.
As the last of the lifeblood ran from her body, the shade of the sword-wife climbed to her feet. She looked down at her insubstantial hands in wonder, then at her own corpse lying dead-eyed in a growing pool of blood upon the floor. The shade’s expression hardened, and a ghostly sword appeared in her hand.
An ethereal tether, little more than a wisp of light, linked the newly formed shade to the avenging spirit she had summoned. Through their bond, the sword-wife saw her differently, glimpsing the noble warrior she had been in life: tall and proud, her armor gleaming. Her posture was confident, yet without arrogance; a born leader, a born soldier. This was a commander the sword-wife would have willingly bled for.
Behind the spirit’s anger, she sensed her empathy — recognition of their shared pain of betrayal.
“Your cause is our cause,” said Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance. Her voice was grave cold. “We walk the path of vengeance as one, now.”
The sword-wife nodded.
With that, the avenging spirit and the shade of the sword-wife stepped into the darkness and were gone.
The Meaning in Misery

John O’Bryan

It was midday on the island, and Vex was just emerging from her previous night’s sleep. The Black Mist that blanketed the Shadow Isles was especially thick today, creating an atmosphere of despondency that suited her perfectly.
The grisly host of specters surrounding her released a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks and hisses, hoping she might be in the mood to engage them on this exceptionally dismal day.
“You wanna play again?” Vex sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it. But someone else has to be the gravedigger this time.”
From her back, Vex heard her shadow volunteering.
“Shadow, if you’re gravedigger, that means I have to be gravedigger too.”
Shadow looked at her with sad, hopeful eyes.
“Whatever. Even though this is completely stupid, me and Shadow will be gravedigger. Everyone else, go die.”
Covering its eyes with its hands, Shadow began to count to one hundred as the host of specters scattered to find hiding places in the rocks and ruins that dotted the island.
Vex, her eyes uncovered, could see something peculiar bobbing through the haze in the distance. It looked like... a pair of pointy ears?
“Small fry!” called a voice from just beneath the ears. “Are you here, yordling?”
“Ohhhh no,” said Vex in dismay. “Tell me that’s not...”
The pointy ears continued bobbing toward her until, at last, the figure beneath them came into view. An older yordle stood before Vex, his arms splayed in excitement.
“There you are, yordling!” he said.
Vex’s eyes narrowed contemptuously at the familiar face. “Uncle Milty, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? Can’t a grown yordle pay a visit to his small fry?” said Uncle Milty with unrelenting cheer.
“Don’t call me that.”
Vex noticed her spectral peers were beginning to emerge from their hiding places, curious about the new visitor.
“I’m kinda busy,” Vex said to her uncle. “Can you just tell me what you want and get outta here?”
Uncle Milty’s face melted, its stiff, resilient smile changing to a grave look of concern. “Very well. I won’t lie to you, small fry—it’s your parents.”
Vex’s eyes rolled so hard they nearly fell from their sockets. “Ughhhhh, what about ‘em?”
Why did Uncle Milty even care what her parents thought? He wasn't her real uncle, anyway.
“They’d never tell you this, but... they’re worried sick about you!” said Uncle Milty. “You’re off living in some... drab stinkhole. Cavorting with ghosts. You have to come home.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Please, small fry.”
“No.”
“Just for a visit? Just to show them you’re okay.”
“No.”
“Just a quick one? Pop in and pop out.”
“NO. Now get lost,” said Vex.
Uncle Milty’s brow furrowed at her resistance. A moment later, his beaming smile returned, and a twinkle sparked in his eye.
“Well, I can see there’s only one thing to do here…” said the old yordle. He wiggled his fingertips, moving his hands in an arc around his body. A large rainbow portal opened before him. “Let’s not tarry. Your parents are just about to sit down for tea. We can join them if we hurry!”
Vex winced as Uncle Milty pulled her toward the magic gateway. Thinking quickly, she raised her hand, summoning a thick, black shadow at their feet, snuffing out the brightly colored portal. “If you think I’m walking through that thing, you’re even more clueless than I thought.”
Uncle Milty raised one of his bushy eyebrows high in befuddlement. “But—small fry, look around you. This place is for... dead things.”
“Duh. That’s why I’m here,” said Vex. “People suck. Yordles really suck. Colors make me wanna puke. And this place has none of those things.”
Uncle Milty stammered, stunned by his niece’s words. Then realization began to wash over him, and the twinkle returned to his eye. “Ohhhh, I know what this is. You’ve been away from the Bandlewood for too long! You’ve lost your yordle spirit. All you need is a couple days back home, and you’ll be right as rose hips!”
He wiggled his fingers, conjuring the rainbow portal once more.
Vex felt the very bottom fall out of her soul as she realized her eternal plight: she was a yordle, would always be a yordle, and would forever be tormented by their undying enthusiasm.
Unless...
A thought popped into Vex’s mind. She nearly smiled as she realized it just might be the solution to this torture. She quickly suppressed the smile and summoned her true malaise, full strength, and gazed at the ground. “What’s the point, Uncle Milty?”
“What’s the point of what, Vexy?”
“All of it. Bandle City, yordles... life?” She looked up from the ground to see her uncle’s smile fading.
“The point of life?” he asked. “Uhhhnnn... isn’t it...”
Seeing her uncle at a loss for words, Vex eagerly answered the question for him. “I mean, we’re all just random wads of magic. Who we are, what we do, who our family is—we don’t decide any of it. We’re all just drifting by like dead leaves with no control over anything.”
A strange look of determination came over Uncle Milty. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true. What about making people happy? We all have the ability to do that!”
“I guess. But their happiness never really lasts, does it?”
Vex could feel her words knock the wind out of Uncle Milty’s sails as his long, perky ears began to droop.
“It’s like everything else in this world,” she continued. “Happiness, birds, trees, bugs… rainbows—they all fade away. I guess you could say that’s their purpose. They hang around for a few minutes, and then die. Just ask all these chumps here.”
Vex motioned toward her spectral friends, who were poking their gruesome, withered faces out from their hiding spots. When she turned back to her uncle, she could barely see the edges of a frown forming on his lips.
“I guess I never… thought of it quite that way,” said her uncle.
Vex reached into her bottomless well of despair, hoping to drive the stake of misery deeper into his heart. “I know it’s a downer, but the whole point of life… is death.”
“Death?” whimpered Uncle Milty.
“Yeah. And the worst part of it all? Yordles don’t even get to do that. We just go on forever. Doomed to a stupid, magical, pointless existence.”
Uncle Milty’s lip quivered. Tears that shimmered like diamonds trickled from his eyes. The rainbow portal behind him evaporated into the surrounding darkness.
“That’s... so... awful,” he cried.
“Right?” said Vex.
Suddenly, Uncle Milty erupted in uncontrolled sobs. They came like thunder, scaring off even the ghastliest of the wraiths lingering nearby.
As her uncle ran away crying, Vex breathed a deep sigh of relief, the burden of intrusive cheer no longer weighing on her tiny, slouching shoulders. “Okay,” she said, “you can all come out now.”
One by one, her spectral comrades emerged from the rocks and ruins around her.
“One more game,” said Vex. “And sure, why not—I’ll be the gravedigger.”
Shuriman Trash

Amanda Jeffrey

So I was walking through this little plaza off the library district in Nashramae—super dusty, flagstones older than empires, and usually pretty quiet. Having just out-negotiated those dumb human merchants in the Grand Marketplace, I was feeling good. I’d been all “You want how much for that teapot?!” and “There’s no way that’s an authentic Ascended-age mace with that iconography!”
But a whole day around mortals was enough for me. If I had to hear another cheery “Water and shade to you!” greeting, I was gonna get heated.
Anyway, I’d almost gotten my cart full of treasure to my stall, thinking how great it’d be to get back in my junkyard, when whammo! I was flat on my backside.
I jumped back on my feet in a heartbeat, surrounded by mortals again. But these were younger humans, a bunch of ’em, and most of ’em were laughing at the scrawny kid who’d slammed into me and my cart. He was trying to pick himself up off the ground and onto the sorriest excuse for a mech I’d ever seen—a board with wheels—and he wasn’t laughing. Just kept apologizing.
“Sorry, Obujan!”
I said, “Do I look like your grandfather?” This kid didn’t have my winning smile, or my razor-sharp cheekbones, and his ears weren’t even furry, so there was barely any family resemblance.
Anyway, the laughing kids had a ringleader: a nasty-looking boy wearing an oversized Noxian-style tunic and iron-capped boots. He said, “Where d’you think you’re rolling, armadillo-bug?”
My hackles went up until I realized he was talking to the scrawny kid. But still, that’s a pretty mean thing to say!
This ringleader didn’t stop there. He was all, “You’re Shuriman trash, Anaktu. You’re ugly and you can’t even walk.” He pointed at my broken cart. “The empire doesn’t need useless things. We should throw you with the rest of the garbage on this old man’s pile of junk.”
Now I was seeing red. Steam right outta my ears. So I got up in the big bully’s face—well, up in his knees—and I said, “Hey, kid. You better apologize.”
He scoffed with his stupid face, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, old man. I’m Kesu Rance. Son of Governor Rance! Walk away, or we’ll clear this plaza of all its trash!”
Of course, I walked.
I mentioned my stall, right? Shuttered, overlooked, and full of bric-a-brac that’s way too good to ever sell to humans. It’s a cover—a front—for where the portal back home appears once I set things up juuuuust right.
So I wasn’t walking away from this bully. I was walking to my stall. Not to escape, obviously—I was walking to an especially large, tarpaulin-covered, metallic form…
Meanwhile, Kesu was so busy monologuing to his club-wielding amateur thugs about being the strong future of Shurima that he didn’t even notice me until I was blocking out the sun from the cockpit of the sweetest of bipedal mechs, my beloved Tristy.
“Walker and shade to you, Kesu.”
Oh, his face! Kid looked like I’d harpooned him!
I hadn’t, of course. That comes later.
Now, I’m an unbiased storyteller, so I’ll mention Tristy might have had an ever-so-slight malfunction around this point. Barely worth noting, really, but in the interest of tellin’ you everything, there was… a hiccup. A hesitation. A stoppage.
Tristy and me were the definition of intimidating, but that hitch was making some of those older kids bold, and one of them bashed my mech’s leg with a club! “You’re just a dumb old man with a dirty pile of junk. There’s only one of you against all of us,” she said, swinging her hand to indicate about a dozen armed, angry-looking snots.
And then who should roll up—still piloting the worst mech ever—but the scrawny kid, Anaktu.
While I applied percussive maintenance to Tristy’s precision mechanisms, I noticed he’d grabbed the “one hundred percent authentic” Ascended-age mace from my cart. I’d have to have a chat about personal property with my “grandson” later.
Anyway, Anaktu yelled, “He’s not alone!”
But Kesu just laughed and tried to kick him! The little guy pivoted on his rolling board and swept the mace under Kesu’s other leg, and whack! The bully went down hard.
With a shout, Anaktu took the fight to the rest of ’em. Surprised ’em, too, because within seconds, he’d gotten two big ones backed into a corner. Too bad he didn’t see Kesu coming at him from behind with the torn-off handle of my cart, ready to clonk him.
But Anaktu wasn’t alone either.
Tristy sprang back to life, and bam! I was zooming across the plaza. We skidded to a stop, kicking up dust, and I pulled the trigger.
Zap!
Remember that harpoon I mentioned? Yeah, I electro-harpooned that cart handle mid-swing. I’d like to see a certain other yordle pull off a demonstration of extreme marksmanship like that!
And Kesu? He toppled into the dust. Anaktu heard the commotion and spun around. Gave me a big smile.
“Obujan!”
“Yeah, yeah, get up here,” I said, giving him a hand up to Tristy’s cockpit. “The view’s better.”
He said something like, “You don’t have to tell me twice!” which is a pretty cool thing to say under the circumstances.
And then Tristy went pew pew and zap zap zap, and I let Anaktu activate the flamespitter, but only to scare the bigger kids. Anyway, Tristy and me were awesome and I guess Anaktu wasn’t bad for a mortal, and soon the bullies were running away.
Grinning, I said to Anaktu, “This is gonna be bumpy.” Then everything shook and the air was full of rockets.
The bullies got as far as the archway over the plaza’s exit when boomboomboom the rockets slammed into the ground, flaming and zapping anything nearby, barring their escape.
So there they were, stuck between the Equalizer’s wall of fire and Runeterra’s finest mechanized pilot. I was about to demand that apology, when Anaktu climbed down, rolled up to Kesu, and asked, “Why are you so mean?”
Kesu whined something about his new Noxian dad, how he wanted to impress him. It was pretty boring, really.
The rockets sputtered and died, and the other bully kids fled, leaving Kesu behind. He started to back away, too.
“Hold it!” I yelled, harpoon at the ready. “What about my apology?”
As I pulled back my hood, he finally figured out I wasn’t just some old man, because his eyes were buggin’. He bowed down in the dust, saying, “Master Yordle, I’m sorry I threatened you—”
But I stopped him. “You think I care about threats? Ha! Try again.”
He said, “I’m sorry for fighting—” but I cut him off there, too.
“Nope. I’m ready for round two if you don’t apologize for the right reason.”
“I shouldn’t have been so mean to Anaktu—”
“You disrespected junk!” I shouted. “Junk is not garbage. It’s pure potential! Dumb people don’t see its worth, but with imagination and hard work and love, junk can be turned into the finest mech a yordle could dream of! And other stuff.”
Kesu was obviously awestruck at my logic, because he was speechless. When he found words, he said, “Uh… I’m sorry…?”
“Thank you!”
So I finally got the apology that junk deserved.
Anaktu helped Kesu out of the dirt. They clasped arms and there were tears or something, but I’d had enough of mortals, so Tristy and I turned to head home.
“Obujan, your mace! You must want it back.” Anaktu rolled over to hand it to me.
Wouldn’t you know, a mortal who respects junk.
“Keep it,” I said. I mean, if you can’t spoil your grandkids, what’s the point?
In the Fires of Justice

Rayla Heide

Abris’ stomach tightened into knots as he waited on the steps of a shining temple. Standing watch before the temple doors was a statue of the Protector. The setting sun silhouetted its face, casting a radiant aura around its bowed head. It was carved in white stone that sparkled with flecks of gold. Great wings framed its shoulders as it held two swords against its chest. The statue’s helmeted expression was blank, austere, more perfect than any human. Hundreds of candles covered the plinth at its feet.
Abris leaned his sword and shield against the base of the sculpture. They were as pristine and unmarred as the stone swords above him. He was told that the Protector blessed virtuous soldiers of Demacia, and felt a strange comfort at its presence.
An elderly woman cloaked in white exited the door of the temple.
“Please, do you have a moment?” Abris called out to her.
She made her way, slowly, over to him.
“The Illuminators always stop for those in need. Tell me, what do you seek here?” Her face crinkled as she spoke, but her eyes were kind.
“I… I leave for battle tomorrow,” said Abris. He opened and closed his fists, nervous. “My sword arm is strong, and I am proud to defend Demacia's honor. But I wonder—how can I claim to be any better than the barbarians invading our lands if I slaughter them just the same? What good are our white walls and resplendent banners, if below them we spill their blood as they would ours?”
“Ah,” the Illuminator said. “Yes. Killing is not to be taken lightly, even as a soldier. Let me tell you a story.” She gazed up at the statue. “Will you light a candle for her as I speak?”
Abris knelt and took a flame from one of the votive candles at the statue’s feet, using it to light another.
The Illuminator’s voice cracked with age as she began the story, and Abris was reminded of his late grandmother, who’d often told him myths and histories of their people. He never knew which stories were true and which she had conjured from her fanciful mind.
“Long ago, in a land now lost to time and crumbling decay, a cruel king led his people into poverty. During a time of great famine, the king gathered everyone from across the realm into his castle courtyard. There, he declared he would cast aside the old laws in order to end their time of scarcity, as was his right. He took their gilded lawbook and cast it to the floor, naming himself the law. Whatever rules or decrees he spoke would become law, no matter what.
“Under guise of protecting the people, he announced his first decree. Since there were too many mouths to feed, the king said, the elderly had no right to food. They were to be killed, and there was no other way.
“The starving citizens had no strength left to fight this injustice, and the king’s guard forced the elderly folk to line up for slaughter.
“The first in line was a man with silver hair who stumbled as he stepped forward. He pleaded with the king. ‘I am a baker! Let me make bread for you and the people,’ he cried. ‘Spare my life!’
“But the king responded, ‘Can you be young again? Can you knead muscle back into your broken and sorry limbs? No? Well then, there is no redemption for you.’ And he motioned to his executioner, who raised his blade, and the baker’s head rolled to the floor.
“How deplorable!” said Abris, interrupting the Illuminator. “Did no one resist the king’s new laws?”
The Illuminator smiled. “Thankfully, there was one who stood against this grave injustice.”
“Our immortal Protector had not been seen in this land for centuries. But perhaps extreme injustice sends ripples that echo far beyond the realms unknown. In any case, at this moment she appeared. The heavens opened with blinding light, as if the stars themselves had focused all their beams in one place. The Protector emerged, wondrous and terrifying in her majesty. She confronted the cruel king, who stood still as stone at her sight.
“‘No king stands above the statutes of the law.’ she declared. ‘Speak thy name and prepare for judgment!’
“‘I am not merely above the law, winged beast, I am the law.’ With a nod, he motioned for his guards to advance. They did so in unison, raising their spears to the sky as one. ‘Because of me, my people have purpose. My people know their place. And my people thank me for it.’
“‘The law is justice given form; it is true and fair judgment writ in ink. It cannot be undone,’ said the Protector.
“She drew her swords, which blazed with holy fire, filling the air with the scent of truth and punishment. Her wings unfolded, which fanned the flames with great strokes, and soon they too were aflame. It was a fearsome sight to see.
“‘You say you lead your people. Be now the first to be judged by my blades,’ the Protector said.
“The cruel king looked upon the Protector’s blazing swords, and her wings of fire. But most fearful of all was the burning in her eyes, gleaming and grave with uncompromising wrath. He felt like he was staring at the sun, beautiful and terrible in her glory, and the King wept in fear. He appealed to the Protector’s mercy and fell to his knees, pleading at her feet.
“‘I can change,’ the king begged. ‘I see now the error of my ways. I was selfish and corrupt and did not deserve my crown. Let me live and I shall follow the rule of law.’
“The Protector watched him with a steely gaze. When he had finished speaking, she drew breath. It is said that her voice in this moment echoed as if the very gods were speaking through her.
“‘Can you undo your deeds of injustice, King?’ asked the Protector. ‘Can you unspeak your lies and unmake your false laws against fair and righteous judgment? No? Then there will be no redemption for you.’
“In one quick motion, the Protector thrust her burning blade through the king’s heart, and he cried out as she impaled him on the gilded lawbook he had cast to the floor.
“The lawbook burst into flame which burned with the terrible heat of the heavens. This was a holy fire—one that would scorch the evil sinners from the land and cleanse the just, leaving them unscathed.
“The cruel king screamed as the Protector’s fire burned his guards and councilmen, his executioner and his servants. The fire did not stop as it spread throughout the land, fueled by the lies of the false king and his wicked followers. The survivors forever remembered this day of glory, for in the ashes of their society they were given a chance to rebuild in justice and honor.
“And, if the land ever returned to unlawful chaos, they were certain the Protector would descend from the heavens once more.”
The Illuminator smiled down at Abris.
“We must all act with virtue and honor,” she said, “from kings to bakers, servants to soldiers. For no one is above the law, and no one is above justice. The raiders who attack and invade our southern borders are lawless and malevolent. With every breath, as they march forward, they threaten the safety of our land. Your role as a shield for Demacia is a great honor, and a just endeavor. And the Protector looks kindly upon those with justice in their hearts.”
“Aye,” said Abris. He looked to his sword, unblemished by acts of war. He vowed that from his first strike to his last, each would be in the name of justice.
“If ever you feel uncertain, soldier, think on how the Protector would act. If you act with integrity and truth, as the Protector would, surely she will guide your blade. Even if you must wet it with blood.”
The Illuminator bowed and returned to her temple.
Abris watched as the candle he had lit flickered in the dark. He stood up to walk back to his camp for the night. As he turned to look toward the statue one last time, he thought he saw the shine of another flame, deep within the stone helmet of the Protector.
Whom Does the Desert Know?

L J Goulding

Shurima is dying. I do not think she will rise again.
The emptiness that writhes in the very bones of my homeland is a malignant, unspeakable thing. It spreads. It devours. Its merest touch is death. A thousand deaths—a thousand, times a thousand, times a thousand. Perhaps once there were some who could stand against it and hope to prevail, but no longer.
I walk here, alone, in the darkest places beneath the world, and I see it with my own eyes, through the finely crafted lenses of my helm. What is seen cannot be unseen, and what is known cannot be forgotten. Not here. I am weary, so very weary.
Still, I walk.
I can no longer feel the ground beneath me, nor the bare rock of the cavern walls, but so, too, am I spared the worst of the numbing winds that rise from the depths. I give thanks for that, for truly this is a chill beyond the desert’s night. I have sat upon the endless plain of the Sai Faraj beneath the first moon of winter, and yet never known anything like this. It is the deep cold of the Void, which the ancients—in their ignorance—might have named as their underworld, and the source of all evil in the mortal realm.
The truth is worse, I think. The air itself feels wrong, and unnatural, throbbing with a fierce, purple un-light that pains the mind.
And from the shadows that even my eyes cannot pierce, you come.
Three. Four. Maybe five. It is difficult to say. A hundred and more of your kind have I faced, and slain. Your howls echo in the gloom, but I do not fear you, for you have already taken everything I ever had.
My wife; my beloved. My daughter; our binsikhi, our little explorer. I call out their names, as I always do, to remind myself why it is that I fight. Then I raise my gauntlet.
For all your teeth and your claws and your ravenous rage, you cannot defeat me. Either I will strike you down, back to the pit… or you will send me into the hereafter, and I will finally be at peace. I will be with them once more.
Either way, I will win. No, you cannot defeat me, you who are shayatin, the beasts of the last infinity…
In my other hand, I clutch the stone tightly. Its foreign magic has kept me alive this long—long enough to delve far, far beneath the wastelands of old Icathia. It holds your corruption at bay, though at what cost to my flesh and my spirit, I cannot guess, for this smallest of trinkets now thrums in time with my own heart. That fearful rhythm is not the pulse of life, or magic, or any other wholesome thing, but of oblivion itself. Of that much, I am certain.
Back, beast. Stay back.
The Nether Blade snaps out from my gauntleted wrist, into the air between us.
Yes. Yes, you know this weapon, don’t you. You all remember it.
Where only moments ago you hungered for my flesh, now you are wary. Now you hesitate. You circle. Those of you that have eyes cannot take them from the blade’s shimmering edge. Even you must know, I think, that this thing was not made for mortal hands, or mortal souls. It was made by clever magic, by men who were no longer men, and who now are nothing at all. Would you remember them too, I wonder?
You screech and hiss, and stamp at the uneven ground. It would be easy to imagine that you hate all living things—but you do not hate us, I think. Not truly. You do not know what hate is.
Hate is the fire that burned in the immortal hearts of the god-warriors when they saw your kind spilling out into the world. Hate was what drove them against you, again and again, though they knew it would almost certainly be their doom…
Yes, this weapon remembers you. It remembers how to end you.
Horok, it was, that struck the first telling blow against your masters. Great and mighty Horok of the Ascended Host, whose name shall live forever. He is the Finder of Hidden Ways, and the One Who Follows After. It was Horok who first dared to face you down here, in the darkness, away from the light of the sun that had given him his strength. It was Horok who first bore the Nether Blade unto the Void’s vile heart.
And it was Horok who showed his brothers and sisters how to defeat the abyss.
I am no Ascended hero of Shurima, no god-warrior to be remembered in the grand halls of that ruined empire. I am but a man. I am a grieving father, and a child of the sai in my own time. From the dust I came, and to the dust I shall return soon enough.
But not yet. For now, I walk as Horok once walked, and I do this with his blade held out before—
The closest of you lunges. Horned shell and razor-sharp talons graze my side as I twist away, breath rasping through the pipes in my mask. For a moment I am blind, trapped inside this meager armored suit of my own devising.
Then I bring the Nether Blade up sharply, cleaving through what on any other creature could be called a neck.
The sinuous body crashes down, and I feel the weapon’s aching hunger in my sword arm, in the sourness at the back of my tongue, like the aftertaste of a scream. Who will be next? Which of you will try?
The desert knows Horok. His name shall live forever. Even when he was betrayed by the tyrant Ne’Zuk, to his death, none would claim the bladed gauntlet from Horok’s wrist. As far as the god-warriors had fallen, even they could not deny that these lands might be threatened by the Voidborn once again, in some unseen future, and this great weapon should be ready.
This is my land. Such horrors walk here now, openly, and I cannot allow it. I will plunge this blade into the creeping nothingness beneath Shurima, as I have a dozen times before.
Was it destiny? No. Nothing so noble as destiny. It was fated, I think, that I knew where this thing might be found. I led the echnebi treasure-seekers to Horok’s mausoleum on the banks of the Kahleek many years ago—back then I sought nothing more than their Piltovan gold, so that I might provide for my family. I gladly helped break open the tomb that had remained sealed for thousands of years. The Nether Blade was not the prize the echnebi sought, but they deemed it valuable all the same.
Some in the tribes called me mercenary. Some called me a traitor. All I know is, in the strange days since then, Horok’s mausoleum has been utterly consumed by the enemy. Were it not for those treasure-seekers and the bounty they paid me, this weapon would now be lost. Like my people. My family.
Unlike them, when the time came, the blade was something I could find again.
Kas sai a dyn. Whom does the desert know?
The desert does not know you, beast. You are not welcome here. You are lost in this ancient land of gods and men.
But the desert knows my name, for that is my name.
Not once have I lost my way. I know exactly where I am, and how many more paces it would be to the doom of all things. I will atone for what I have done, and that which I have not.
And I will defy you until the end.
THE DISSONANT VERSES

Ian St. Martin

I: Herald of the Forbidden God
“Fools!”
The word struck Melodie’s ear like a lash, echoing from beyond the temple’s walls and jarring her from the familiar calm of her meditations.
Her fingers ceased their dance along the strings of her praytar, her eyes of warm hazel flickering open to take in the arched stonework of the temple’s inner sanctum. Setting down the instrument with all the reverence due to the worldly object that enabled her communion with blessed Cacophoni, Melodie rose and made for the entrance, and the source of the disquieting voice.
She lifted the veil of lacquered plectrums she wore over her face, before whorls of incense and the midday light of the suns stole her sight for a moment. The city sprawled out before her, stone and iron and glass wrought into brutal harmony by the chosen of the gods. Grand monoliths hung in the sky, carrying and strengthening the tolling of the Temporonomicon, the rhythmic heartbeat of the world.
All was in tune—save for that single, angry voice whose owner Melodie now beheld from the top of the temple steps.
He was young, slender of build and fair of skin, with gentle locks of platinum blond that tumbled down to his shoulders. His face was ardent, eyes burning with the fervor of belief. Alone he stood, swathed in rags, the crowds ebbing back from him as though he were diseased.
“You have been led astray,” the young man continued, appealing to the wall of scowls surrounding him, “deceived by those who claim sole possession of the truth.”
Melodie glanced at the Rectifiers—those tall, hulking warriors clad in plate of gleaming brass who served as the temple’s guardians, as still as the statues they protected.
Why were they not stopping this?
The young man gestured to the main courtyard, and the brutal and abstract depictions of the Noisome Host that dominated it. “Stentorus, Cacophoni, Perpetuum,” he said. “The gods are true, and worthy of worship, but the faith raised up in their name is built upon lies. And their champions?”
He stabbed a finger in accusation at the only slightly lesser monuments standing with the gods in the silent majesty of granite and gold-flecked marble, the warlords that they had chosen to rule over all.
Pentakill.
“By your sweat did they render their thrones,” he spat. “By your blood do they quench their thirst. You are nothing but slaves to them, your toil the mortar that keeps their stale, unchanging act from collapsing!”
Melodie flinched at the sheer heresy of it, the words burrowing into her thoughts. She shook her head to free herself of them, but they held fast to her with painful barbs. Yet she would not flee back to the sanctuary of the temple, instead gaining strength from the inevitable rebuke that came from the crowd.
“Liar!”
“Blasphemer!”
“May the scriptures curse you!”
The man laughed bitterly. “Scriptures? Pentakill would have you believe that the holy books are complete, that no pages have been torn from them and hidden in fear, that all power in the universe is meted out by the Noisome Host alone. I say again, you are being lied to!”
Disquiet rippled through the assembled masses, murmurs of shock and doubt.
“There is more than you have been allowed to know,” he went on, his tone growing softer in sympathy yet somehow stronger in projection. “You believe it is the will of the gods that lays your paths out before you... but friends, there is another—”
“That’s enough, Viego!”
Melodie turned, hearing the susurrus of a cloak of golden strings trailing against the flagstones. Qylmaster the Sanctifier emerged from the calm of the temple, crossing the threshold and striding down the steps with all the grandeur and assurance enjoyed by one of his rank.
“I was wondering when you would scurry forth, priest,” the heretic smiled thinly. “Puppet of the dying light.”
“Begone from this place,” said Qylmaster, his voice calm and measured but leaving no room for debate. “Have you fallen so far from the grace of Perpetuum that you are deaf to the poison that escapes your own lips? Trouble these innocents and true believers no longer.”
Viego leaned forward and spat upon the ground. “You no longer have any hold over me, old man. I do not bow and scrape at the feet of your weary idols. I answer to a truer power, one worthy of worship. I speak of the Dissonant One!”
The Sanctifier’s expression dropped. His tone became a low rumble. “Leave. Now.”
Viego straightened. “And if I refuse?”
Qylmaster lifted a hand, revealing small cymbals bound to his thumb and index finger. “Then you will be removed.”
The Sanctifier clashed his fingers together once, and in response to the chime the Rectifiers stepped forward as one. Sworn acolytes of Stentorus, they bore mauls of flame-hardened ironwood, and their bootfalls were a percussive staccato upon the earth. Swiftly they surrounded Viego, their weapons raised and poised to strike him down.
“We will suffer no further apostasy,” said Qylmaster. “Still your forked tongue, or in the name of the Noisome Host I will have it torn from your mouth.”
But Viego only sneered. “Why not call forth your fair headliners, eh? Where are Pentakill to answer for the ‘poison’ I utter?” He turned again to the crowd. “High up in their gilded towers, fat and corrupt from your toil. Let them come here and tell me to leave, and I will depart without incident.”
There was a moment of silence. Viego cocked his ear, and his eyes met with Melodie’s, though only briefly.
Then he smirked. “Nothing. I thought as much.”
Melodie watched, shaken by the scene unfolding before her. She could not countenance the worldview being foisted upon them all by Viego. To question the power of the Host was like stating that the twin suns did not blaze, or the bitter oceans did not rise and fall. Pentakill were the greatest band of all time, and rightful champions of the gods. Why were they allowing this to persist?
Agitation began to wind and twist through the crowd. Raised voices and angry words turned to shoves and strikes. Violence and uncertainty crept into the temple courtyard as friends turned on one another, incited by the intriguing madness of Viego’s ravings.
“Silence!” Qylmaster cried, raising his arms. “Peace, my brothers and sisters! Close your ears and your hearts to these lies.”
He glowered at Viego.
“You have fallen so very far, my child. It pains me to send you down deeper still. Honored sons of Stentorus, I loose thee!”
The Rectifiers stamped in unison—three sharp, echoing crashes of brass—and beat Viego down. Their mauls rose and fell, again and again, and Melodie had to look away, flinching at the sound of each blow.
Viego’s limp form was seized, dragged through the streets and pelted with insults and scraps of garbage. At the end of this abusive parade, the city gates were flung wide, and he was thrown into a crumpled heap in the dust beyond them.
Melodie felt Qylmaster’s gentle touch upon her shoulder for a moment as he passed. “Come away, child. This has been no sight for the devout to behold.”
Yet she could not move. Horror rooted her in place, and... something else. A new sensation crept up her spine, as she watched Viego roll shakily onto his knees outside the gates.
Doubt.
“You… cannot stop the... storm that is c-coming...” he choked from between split lips. “All your lies and... m-monuments will be swept away! Your... haughtiness laid low... in the ashes...”
As the gates drew closed, Viego rose defiantly to his feet.
“I am a disciple of Dissonance! I will show you! I will show you all!”
II: Doubts of the Penitent
Music was a wellspring of calm in Melodie’s life, the riffs and chords an oasis that made all other concerns fade. And yet, try as she might, she could not forget Viego’s words, even though days had passed since the incident outside the temple courtyard. She strummed her praytar, willing herself to let all but her heart, mind and fingers drift away.
Still, the doubt remained.
The tune Melodie was playing warped as her finger slipped, curdling the air with discord. She ceased, cursing softly behind her veil, as she heard the soft scrape of golden strings approaching.
“There is suffering in your play, Stringstress.”
Melodie looked up to see Sanctifier Qylmaster. He looked down, with concern in his eyes. “Do the other day’s events yet disturb you?”
Melodie averted her gaze. “I confess they do.”
A soft sigh of understanding passed Qylmaster’s lips. “Heresy is seldom kind,” he said, seating himself beside her, “least of all to the heretics themselves. They are to be pitied, helped whenever possible, however we are able—but their delusions are not to be heeded, much less dwelled upon.”
“Were it so simple,” said Melodie, almost shocked at her own candor. “His words rooted a dread in my heart. A dread that holds fast to me even now.”
The Sanctifier nodded once, then rose to his feet.
“Walk with me, Stringstress Melodie.”
She followed Qylmaster from the inner sanctum, ascending a spiral staircase through floor after floor of the temple, until they emerged from its tallest tower.
Her breath caught in her throat. Never before had she stood at such a height, able to take in all of the city at once. The lesser temples and assorted screamatoria dotted the landscape, offering song and verse to the gods above with such fervour that they could be heard even in the wastelands beyond the city. And there, to the west, lay the Ashenpit, that grand arena erected at the site of Pentakill’s original, triumphant ascendance.
She felt as though she might reach up and touch the floating monoliths overhead, and let her eyes fall upon the holy Temporonomicon in all its glory. Nonetheless, Viego’s words remained with her. Did she even regard that edifice with the same awe any longer?
“Look, dear child,” said the Sanctifier, as though reading Melodie’s thoughts. “Look upon everything we have built together. All we have achieved. Tell me, was this done in the passage of a single day?”
She frowned. “Of course not, holy one.”
“A year, then?” he persisted. “Or even a lifetime?”
Melodie shook her head.
“Consider the first gatherings, those first primitive groups that offered up music and song, such as they could, to the gods. Do you not think they were afraid?”
“They must have been,” Melodie admitted.
“Quite so. And yet they persevered, for they had the truth of their beliefs to sustain them. They triumphed over their fear, and for that victory the Noisome Host deemed us worthy of patronage. All that we have done since has been by their eternal grace.” His arm swept across the majesty of the city once more. “And behold! What wonders we have rendered!”
Melodie smiled. “It is beautiful, in its brutality.”
“Rest easy then. For our path is righteous, as strong as steel. The words of that liar, that fool Viego, are nothing in comparison.”
“His words were cunning,” said Melodie. “They were so sincere. I feel ashamed for my doubt.”
“We must never doubt. Doubt is a doorway, one that only leads to ruin. A pox upon his name—we beat Viego and cast him out, and now I curse myself even for the kindness of that. Better to have gone further still.”
The veil of plectrums jingled as Melodie gave a short bow. “I thank you for your wisdom, holy one.”
“Come now,” Qylmaster gestured to the stairs leading back down to the temple. “I have heard you play, my child. The inspiration of Cacophoni has blessed you bountifully. You are strong not only in song but in mind, in will. You do not require my feeble words to stand against the challenges of this world.”
“I am grateful for them all the same.”
They descended, walking in contented silence, until they reached her simple alcove. Melodie suppressed a laugh.
“To think that there could be a lost chapter of the scriptures, another god—”
“There will be no more talk of such things!” Qylmaster snapped, all his former warmth gone. Melodie sank to her knees, shocked into mortified silence, clutching her praytar for support.
A hush filled the sanctum. Veiled adepts, acolytes, and mystics shared glances and whispered words. They could not help but overhear the Sanctifier’s rebuke, their eyes like daggers piercing Melodie from every direction.
“There is the Host, and nothing else.” Qylmaster towered over her. “Your doubts disrupt us all, throwing our faith from its divine cadence. Are you perhaps unworthy of the rank of Stringstress? Pray for mercy, Melodie. Pray that your thoughtless words will be forgiven.”
Melodie bowed her head, cursing herself for her levity. “In Cacophoni’s name.”
“You shall make penance with a dozen soli.” Qylmaster held out a slim crystal vial, which she accepted. “Contemplate the majesty of the Noisome Host, as you make your offering.”
Melodie played, her fingers a blur over the strings. The vibrating metal stung after a while, yet relief washed over her. She finished the first solo in under an hour.
It was not until midway through the fourth that the calluses on her fingers opened.
Blood slicked the strings, running down to the bottom edge of the praytar’s fretboard, and she was careful to catch each crimson droplet in the vial. By the end of the twelfth solo, Melodie squeezed her shaking hands until it was filled.
She glanced down at her bloodied fingers, unable to force the beaten figure of Viego from her mind, as he had lain broken in the dust.
And where once doubt lingered, anger took its place—an anger unlike any she had felt before.
“Is your penance done?” asked the Sanctifier when she came to him. “And did it bring reason back to you, Stringstress?”
“I pray so,” Melodie answered through gritted teeth. “I know that man’s words were lies. For if they were true, none here would deny them, would they?”
“I believed this matter was concluded,” Qylmaster growled. “Was I mistaken?”
Melodie flinched. “No, Sanctifier, it’s just—”
“It seems penance was not sufficient to quiet your mind! Need I remove you from this temple until you have come to your senses? Perhaps so. Oh, child—you seemed destined to rise so high among us. To become a font of holy wisdom! To teach others the tenets of the faith!” Qylmaster shook his head. “Look upon yourself, now. Bear this shame as I bear my disappointment.”
Melodie cast her gaze around the temple, but found only judgement, coldness, some even stifled laughter at her plight. She knew there were those among them just like her, with questions and doubts. Yet they turned their backs, their denial an almost physical force pushing Melodie from the temple’s light.
She had never felt more alone.
“You will take your leave now,” said Qylmaster. “Return when your faith has, and we will decide if you are worthy of any place among us.”
Melodie paced the streets with no idea of where to go. Her vision blurred with tears, she collided with a street performer who was clumsily attempting to appease all three gods in unison, with a bizarre apparatus of instruments bound to himself. The man sprawled to the ground in a crash of cheap cymbals and the squeal of protesting catgut.
Ripping the veil loose from her face, Melodie looked down upon it as the blood from her hands smeared the lacquer, before tossing it into the gutter.
She was angry. Angry at herself, at the Sanctifier... and most of all at the idea that Viego’s lies might not have been lies at all.
III: A Storm of Dissonance
With a soft, even rhythm, Melodie swept the temple steps, trying to ignore the heat of the suns beating down on her. She concentrated on the even swing of the broom, the rough bristles brushing against the stone, content that even in this humble task she was making music again.
The weeks she had spent wandering the city had not dispelled her doubts, nor the newfound anger that surged in her heart. But when it felt like all else had turned to sand around her, she clung to what she knew would bring her peace.
Music.
She had stood with the other mendicants and aspirants at the gate each day, staring up into the impassive visors of the Rectifiers, seeing the afternoon light reflected brilliantly in the brass. When at last she had been permitted entry once more, Melodie threw herself upon the mercy of the faith, enduring all of the purification they demanded to prove herself worthy to return to the fold.
However, back inside the temple walls she had begun to work in secret moments and hidden acts, searching for what she was now convinced was being hidden from them all. Lost chapters of the holy scriptures. Forbidden gods.
She was determined to find answers.
It played out just as she had hoped it would. Interrogated and scourged by Sanctifier Qylmaster, he had at last relented and Melodie was welcomed back into the ranks of the faithful, though with all the warmth shown to a beggar, beneath notice or friendship. The promising future she had once had, even the potential to one day become an anointed Roadwalker—the blessed servants who tended the sacred instruments of Pentakill—was gone forever. Where once she was adorned in finery, her fingers a conduit for the holy music of the Noisome Host, now she wore plain robes, confined to shuffling in the shadows as she cleaned the temple, and restrung the praytars of others.
Melodie was invisible, but even the simple familiarity of the inner sanctum was a comfort... and in truth it was all the better to achieve the true purpose in her heart.
Pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow, she sighed. It was hot, and she was exhausted, but the suns would begin to set before long, and she would have a chance in the quiet hours of the night to search for the lost chapters, if they even—
She stopped, suddenly. Something prickled her awareness, reaching her ears and filling her veins with ice. She realized it was not a sound that had startled her, but rather its absence.
It was silent. Utterly silent.
Melodie had never heard true silence before. Had she been struck deaf by some cruel twist of fate, excommunicated from the songs that connected her to the divine? She ran to the temple’s front gate, looking up to set her thoughts in time with the holy immensity of the distant Temporonomicon, and her eyes went wide.
It had stopped.
What could stop the Temporonomicon?
In the moment that she grappled with that impossibility, a shadow fell over her—but not just her.
It fell over everything.
The world was plunged into a sickly twilight as the suns were swallowed by a bloom of writhing, malignant darkness. Magical energies the color of a deep bruise lanced through, and throbbing lightning of brightest red reached out to craze the sky, drifting down and coiling toward the earth.
And with it came... a sound, or a hideous un-sound, replacing the faithful beat of the Temporonomicon with the howling of ruin.
The great monoliths hanging over the city began to tilt and sag. With no sacred rhythm to keep them in place, two of them collided, plummeting with titanic slowness to smash like meteors into the skyline. Violent shockwaves tore through the streets from the impacts, the dark energy storm joined by slashing gales of dust and jagged debris scraping and clashing, giving further voice to the din.
Melodie recoiled, clutching onto a pillar for support as she watched men and women fleeing through the streets from the advancing horror. The fortunate found whatever shelter they could, but they were few. So many were caught up in the storm, and it was only after witnessing its effects on them that Melodie realized she was screaming.
It surged like a predator, engulfing its prey. It wound along their limbs like a serpent, surging past their teeth to produce a sound no natural thing should be capable of producing. It was, impossibly, a kind of song—but one attuned to some terrible, keening dissonance. Their faces collapsed around choked cries of agony, falling away slack and boneless, and what was within them was drawn out from between their howling lips, carried to hang up over them like the slick branches of incarnadine trees.
This new and hideous forest sprung up across the city, shivering with discord as it amplified the grand dirge of unmaking. It grew, louder, and louder, and louder, with each new voice it claimed.
Melodie’s throat went raw, cutting off her screams. She looked on as the stormfront rippled over the Rectifiers standing ready in the courtyard. The temple guardians twitched and thrashed, losing their sure footing as the brass of their armor ran like molten wax. The ironwood mauls in their fists caught fire. They stumbled, crashing to the ground in expanding pools of boiling foulness and liquid metal.
Melodie retched as whorls of smoke and steam coiled into the air from the obliterated guardians, drawing her gaze up to the grand thoroughfare. There, through the dust and gloom, she glimpsed a figure striding confidently through the city gates like a conqueror, with his arms spread wide.
“Viego?” she breathed. She could not say for certain.
If it was Viego, he did not look as he had before—a lunatic in rags. This man was transcendent, his flesh absent any wounds that may have been laid into it by the outrage of the masses.
Had he been right all along? Were these the blessings of his “Dissonant One”? Was this his wrath for the falsehood and ignorance of the faithful? Melodie had to know.
“Into the temple!” Qylmaster’s voice came from behind Melodie as she took her first step. Desperate citizens were barging and rushing past her, looking for sanctuary.
But Melodie was rooted in place.
“He wasn’t lying, was he,” she called out, still transfixed by the unfolding destruction, all their great works rendered to ruin. She turned to the Sanctifier. “Where is Pentakill?”
“Come away child!” he bellowed. “You see now the evils of this heresy! Get thee to safety with us!”
“This is a power only the divine could bestow,” Melodie replied, pointing to the madness enveloping the city. “And this is not the work of the Noisome Host. There is another god, isn’t there?”
The Sanctifier stared blankly. “Pentakill will come,” he murmured. “They will come to protect their faithful followers.”
“Then where are they...?” Melodie snarled. She looked up, seeing the temple’s campanile tower topped with a golden statue of Karthus now falling to rubble. “They aren’t coming. You know that.”
The Sanctifier reached out to her. “Sister Melodie...”
He had never looked older, or more feeble.
“We’ve all been living a lie,” Melodie turned her back on him. “I have been living a lie. There are answers, ones I thought hidden away out of mortal fear, or petty ignorance, but now I know.”
She pointed to the storm.
“The answer is out there.”
Melodie descended the steps, moving against the surging current of men and women. Viego was out there, somewhere, doing precisely what he had promised he would do. He was opening the eyes of the world, through such violence and catastrophe that none could ever deny the reality of his patron, this Dissonant One.
Amid all the devastation, she felt she could almost hear a word, a name, all but imperceptible in the chaos.
“Muuuutaaaarisssss...”
Despite its horror, Melodie pushed forward into the crimson maw of the storm. To her, revelation was worth any price. If that ended up being her own existence, then so be it—hers had been a life of ignorance, but no more. Somehow, impossibly, excitement welled up within her, washing away all doubt and anger as a new path appeared, dark and winding as it might be.
And perhaps Viego would show her the way.
Flesh and Stone

John O'Bryan

“A shadow fades before the light,” the girl repeated to herself.
The words were a mantra, one she often used to put herself at ease when she felt herself losing control. Though she was only thirteen, she had become adept at using tricks like this to ease the symptoms of her affliction. But today she found the words to be little help. Today, the girl needed to be alone.
She fought to hold in the tears, avoiding eye contact with passersby as she walked briskly toward the scrutinizing glare of the sentries at the city gates. If they stopped her, she felt she might break down and spill everything to them. At least then it would all be over, she thought.
But they paid her little mind as she walked through the archway, to the open lands outside the city.
Far off the main highway, the girl found a quiet nook in a wooded hillside. Once she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, she removed a clean handkerchief from her pocket, placed it to her face, and sobbed.
The tears came fast and thick down her cheeks. If anyone had seen the girl like this, they probably would not recognize her. Everybody knew her as the fresh-faced optimist who cheerily bid them Good morning! and Nice to see you! everyday, regardless of circumstance.
The other side of her – this ugly and decidedly un-Demacian one – was a face the girl shared with nobody.
As she stanched the flow of tears with her thin linen cloth, her mind began to settle. She finally dared to recall the events that had led to the tears. She had been in the lecture room with her classmates when her gaze began to wander to an open window. The flock of fuchsia nectarflies outside were far more interesting than the drab lesson in field tactics their instructor was offering. The flies danced, not in unison at all, but in a vivacious chaos that was strangely beautiful. She had taken in their movement, feeling herself warming to the core with an intense happiness.
The warmth was familiar to her. Most of the time it could be tamed, stuffed back inside her like feathers that had leaked from a mattress. But today the warmth was... hot, with a life of its own. She felt it burning, in her teeth, threatening to explode into the world with a fan of iridescent hues as it had only done in privacy before.
For a brief moment, a thin trickle of white light leaked from her fingertips.
No! This is not for anyone to see! she thought, hoping to suppress the glow.
For the first time in her life, it felt too big. The girl had only one chance to save herself. She needed to leave. She stood and gathered her belongings.
“Luxanna,” her instructor had said. “Are you-”
“A shadow fades before the light,” she had muttered, and ran from the room without explanation. “A shadow fades before the light. A shadow fades before the light.”
As she finished drying her eyes in the calm of the woods, her feet carried her farther and farther from the city. She began to assess the cost of the incident. Word would spread quickly across the citadel that a student had stormed out of class without leave. What punishment would she receive for that insubordination?
Whatever was to come, it would be better than the alternative. If she’d stayed, she would have erupted, filling the entire building in the brightest, purest light. Then everyone would know she was afflicted with magic.
That’s when the annullers would come.
Once or twice, the girl had seen the annullers in the streets with their strange instruments, rooting out practitioners of magic. Once these afflicted people were found, they were forcibly relocated to slums outside the kingdom, never to take part in the grand society Lux’s family knew so well.
That was the worst part, knowing her family would be shamed. And her brother... Oh, her brother. She shuddered to think what Garen would say. The girl often dreamed of living in a different part of the world, where people with arcane gifts were revered as heroes, and celebrated by their families. But the girl lived in Demacia, where people knew the destructive potential of magic, and treated it as such.
As she found her situation becoming increasingly hopeless, Lux realized she was standing within view of the Galio monument. The gargantuan statue had been made long ago as a battle standard for the military, accompanying them in their missions abroad. Sculpted from petricite, Galio possessed magic-absorbing properties that had saved many lives from archmage attacks. If one believed the legends, he had even come to life at times, when enough mystical power had seeped into his mortar. At the moment, he stood still as a mountain, straddling the Memorial Road, far from the traffic of the main highway.
Lux cautiously approached the statue. Ever since she was a little girl, she had imagined the old titan keeping vigilant watch over all those who passed beneath him. It seemed to peer into her soul, judging her.
“You have no place here,” it would say accusingly.
Though it only spoke in her imagination, the girl knew it spoke true. She was different. That was undeniable. Her constant smiles and exuberance stood out glaringly among Demacia’s trademark austerity.
Then there was the glow. Ever since she could remember, Lux felt it burning in her heart, longing to burst free. When she was small, the glow was weak, and she could easily conceal it. Now the power had become far too great to stay hidden.
Burdened with guilt, Lux lifted her eyes to the Colossus.
“Well, go on and say it!” she yelled.
It was uncharacteristic of Lux, but the day had not been kind, and it soothed her soul to vent. She expelled sharp breaths of air in relief, then immediately felt embarrassment at the outburst. Did I really just yell at a statue? she marveled, and looked around to make sure nobody had seen. At certain times of the year, this road was flooded with travelers making their pilgrimages to the colossus, paying tribute to the symbol of Demacian resolve. But presently, the Memorial Road was empty.
As Lux was searching for bystanders, she heard a gravelly racket in the air above her. She whipped her head up – it had come from the top of the colossus. It was common for birds to take flight from their nests in the statue’s crown, but this was no bird. It sounded like a heavy clay pot being dragged across cobblestones.
Lux stared for a long while, but nothing stirred about the statue. Perhaps this was her mind again, working through the trauma of the day’s events. Even so, her eyes remained fixed on the colossus, daring whatever had moved to do so again.
And then it did: the eyes of the statue actually shifted. The large stone orbs physically swiveled in their sockets to find Lux in the grass below.
The girl’s face blanched for a moment. She could feel the enormous stone figure studying her. This time, it was definitely not in her imagination. Lux found her legs and ran, away from the statue, as fast and as far as she could.
Later that night, Lux entered the alabaster arch of her family’s city manor. She had walked many miles, all day long, all over the city, in the hope her parents would be asleep when she returned home. But one person was not.
Her mother Augatha sat in on a sofa in the corner of the grand foyer, glowering at the door with burning expectation.
“Do you know what hour it is?” she demanded.
Lux did not respond. She knew it was past midnight, well beyond the hour when her family were typically asleep.
“The school has chosen not to expel you,” said Augatha. “It was not an easy mess to fix.”
Lux wanted to break down crying, but she had done nothing but weep all day, and she simply had no more tears. “They almost saw it,” she said.
“I figured. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“What should I do?” said Lux, exhausted from worry.
“What we must,” her mother replied. “You’ve lost control of it. Eventually, someone will get hurt.”
Lux had heard of men dying in battle at the hands of sorcerers, bodies melted beyond recognition and souls torn in two. She felt wretched, knowing she harbored any power that might be used for such destruction. She wanted to hate herself, but found herself numbed by the constant torrent of emotions she’d experienced that day.
“I’ve enlisted the help of a professional,” said Augutha.
Lux’s stomach turned. There was only one profession that dealt with her affliction. “An annuller?” she said, light of breath.
“He’s a friend. Someone I should have called on a long time ago,” said Augatha. “You can trust him to be discreet.”
Lux nodded. She knew the shame that was imminent. Even if the man told no one, as her mother assured her, he would still know.
And the cures — she didn’t want to think about those.
“He’s coming for your consultation in the morning,” said Augutha, as she walked up the stairs toward her bedroom. “This will be our secret.”
The words were no comfort. Lux was not even a woman yet, and already her life was over. She wanted nothing more than to retire upstairs to a deep slumber that would bury all her troubles in darkness, but she knew her particular troubles would not disappear with the night. The light would still grow inside her, threatening to erupt again at any moment. The annuller would arrive in the morning to perform some dreadful treatment. Lux had heard rumors, horrible rumors, of petricite ground and swallowed in potions, followed by bouts of excruciating pain. True, the girl wanted to be rid of the affliction, but no part of her wanted to experience that.
Isn’t there another way? she wondered.
Of course!
The idea leapt into her head like lightning. All at once she was filled with dread and hope, unsure if the plan she’d just thought up would work, but knowing it was something she had to try.
Under the deepening night, Lux frantically retraced her steps, back through the alabaster archway, down the boulevard, sneaking her way past the guards at the gates. To the south, she found the Memorial Road, and followed it for miles before coming to Galio’s resting spot. Her heart galloped in her chest.
“Hello?” the girl asked shakily, unsure if she wanted an answer.
Lux approached the plinth where the colossus stood, all alone in the stillness of night. She cautiously placed her hand on the cold petricite foundation. Wonder what it tastes like. I bet it’s really bitter, she reckoned. She supposed she would find out soon enough, unless her plan worked.
“Well, they say you fix magic,” she said. “So fix me. I want to be Demacian.”
She gazed up at the colossus. It was as inert and unwavering as the Demacian way of life. Not even the bats were fluttering about it tonight. What she had heard before — what she thought she saw — was something she had imagined after all, then. She removed her hand from the plinth, pondering where else she could turn.
“Small girl person,” said a booming voice above.
Lux’s head shot upward to see the statue tilting its enormous head down. Her mind raced. He knows. And he’s not going to fix you. He’s going to squash you like a bug.
“Can you... scratch my foot?” asked the colossus.
Galio watched in wonder as the girl ran away from him, her tiny head shrieking words he could not understand. Though he’d observed her for years, he never knew she could move so quickly, and loudly.
Ever since the girl was very small, Galio had seen her as she stopped by on yearly trips with her family. He would study her with fascination, straining to keep sight of her as she skipped in and out of his field of vision. Then, in the middle of play, she would suddenly remember him standing above her, and she would shy away behind her mother’s skirt. When the colossus was dormant, everything seemed to move with a hazy distortion. The world was dull, people were but flickers before his eyes.
But even then, Galio could feel something profoundly special in the girl. It was a glow, but not just a visual luminescence. Time slowed with her, and the haze lifted as something strange stirred within his stone form.
It started small. When the girl was a toddler, Galio could feel her strange warmth tickling his toes. On her second visit, Galio could feel the glow tugging at his entire leg. By the time she was ten, the girl’s warmth was so strong Galio could feel her approaching from a mile away, and would grow giddy with anticipation of her visit.
Now, here she was again, even though it was not her normal visiting day. Her power burned so intensely it had spread like wildfire across his cold innards. She had brought him life!
Now that Galio was awake, he saw her brilliance with stunning clarity. She shone like all the stars in the heavens.
And she was leaving again.
With every step the girl took, Galio felt his life evaporating, returning him to his cold, motionless state. If he went still, he would never know the girl. He had to follow.
His towering legs rumbled from the plinth, easily catching up to the girl with their enormous gait. Her eyes shot wide as she whirled toward the lumbering colossus. A concentrated beam of light fired from the girl’s fingers into Galio’s leg. The strange feeling within him intensified until he thought he might explode, scattering bits of himself all over Demacia.
But Galio did not break. Instead, he grew even warmer, and more alive. He bent down and gently scooped up the girl in his hands. She covered her face, as if to shield herself from some imminent harm.
The colossus began to laugh, like a child playing in a fountain.
“Small golden-head person,” he bellowed. “You are funny. Please, do not leave.”
The girl slowly overcame her trauma, and responded, “I... I can’t. You’re holding me.”
Realizing his offense, Galio carefully placed the girl back on the ground.
“I am sorry. I don’t often meet small girl people. I only wake up to smash things,” he explained. “Do you have things to smash? Large things?”
“No,” said the girl meekly.
“Then let us find something to smash.” He walked a few booming steps, then turned to find the girl was not following. “Are you not coming, girl person?”
“No,” she replied, even more shakily, unsure if the answer would upset the giant. “I’m sort of trying not to be noticed right now.”
“Oh. Forgive me, girl person.”
“Well. I’m going to go now,” said Lux, in what she thought was a final parting word. “It was nice to meet you.”
Galio followed right behind her. “You are walking away from your city,” he observed. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” she responded. “Someplace I belong.”
The colossus tilted his head at her. “You are Demacian. You belong in Demacia.”
For the first time, the girl saw empathy in the giant, and she felt herself opening up.
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re a symbol of this kingdom. I’m just...” She searched for a word that would tell everything without telling too much. “I’m all wrong,” she said, at last.
“Wrong? You can’t be wrong. You give me life,” boomed Galio, lowering his huge boulder of a face to her level.
“That’s the problem,” said the girl. “You’re not supposed to be moving. The only reason you are moving is me.”
Galio reacted in stunned silence for a moment, then erupted with joyful epiphany.
“You’re a mage!” he thundered.
“Shhh! Please be quiet!” begged the girl. “People will hear you.”
“I crush mages!” he proclaimed. He then quickly added: “But not you. I like you. You are the first mage I’ve liked.”
Luxanna’s fear began to fade, giving way to irritation. “Listen. Even though this is all wondrous and miraculous, I’d really prefer you leave me alone. Besides, people are going to notice you’re gone.”
“I do not care,” insisted Galio. “Let them notice!”
“Don’t!” said Lux, recoiling at the thought. “Please, just go back where you belong.”
Galio stopped to reflect, then smiled as though he’d recalled something amusing. “Do that thing to me again. With your wonderful starlight!” he said, far too loudly for Lux’s comfort.
“Shhh! Stop yelling!” she urged. “Are you referring to my affliction?”
“Yes,” said Galio, in a slightly quieter tone.
“I’m sorry. I can’t always do it. And I shouldn’t do it. You have to go,” she insisted.
“I can’t go. If I leave you, I will sleep. And when I wake, you will be gone, small girl thing.”
Lux paused. Though she was mad from exhaustion, she found herself touched by the titan’s words.
“If I can do it again, do you promise to go away?” she asked.
The colossus thought for a moment, then accepted the proposal.
“Okay,” said the girl. “I’ll try.”
She screwed in her hands toward her body and thrust them forward toward Galio. To her disappointment, nothing but a tiny spark of light glinted from her fingers. She tried again, and again, getting less of a result each time.
“I must be tired,” she realized.
“Rest,” suggested Galio. “Then when you are refreshed you can give me your magic.”
“Hmm,” thought Lux, mulling the suggestion. “I can’t get rid of you, and I have no place to go. Suppose I might as well bed down.”
She began feeling around the ground for a comfortable patch of grass. Once she’d found a suitable place, she lay down and wrapped her cloak snugly around herself.
“Well, I’m going to sleep now,” she said with a yawn. “You should too.”
“No. I sleep too much,” replied Galio.
“Can you just... I don’t know, freeze yourself for a while, then?”
“I do not work that way,” said the colossus.
“Then be still and pretend you’re not alive.”
“Yes. I will just stand here and watch you rest, girl person,” said Galio.
“Please don’t,” insisted Lux. “I can’t sleep with you staring at me. Can you... turn around?”
Galio honored the girl’s wish, turning himself away from her, toward the distant lights of the Demacian capital. It was not as interesting as the girl, but it would suffice.
Making do with the modicum of privacy, Lux closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Once she was certain Galio would not turn around, she quietly got up and crept away into the night.
Luxanna walked quickly, knowing her first order of business was getting as far away as possible from the colossus. If she didn’t, her magic would still empower him, and he would surely come looking for her. By morning, every patrol in the kingdom would be searching for the missing Crownguard girl who had vanished in the night. They’d surely notice the walking national monument following her, and they’d know the girl must be the magical source that had awakened it.
Lux’s aching legs quickened to a sprint. She had only a vague idea of her surroundings. It was difficult to find any landmarks at this black hour of night. All she knew for sure was the Cloudwoods were nearby - their thick, towering redbarks forming the skyline to the south. It would be an ideal place to hide from any search parties, and a good foraging ground for breakfast. She could cross the forest in two days time and find shelter in one of the Vaskasian timber villages, where people were unlikely to recognize her. It was not a brilliant plan, by any stretch, but it was the best she had.
Lux could see the beginnings of the forest coming into view, its trees progressing in height like a pyramid, with the largest in the center. As she crossed the threshold of the woods, she paused a moment to grieve what she was abandoning. She would miss her brother Garen, and her beloved steed Starfire, and even her mother, but this was the way it had to be.
A shadow fades before the light, she reassured herself, and then stepped into the blackness of the dense evergreen woods.
After an hour of plowing her way through the barbed, resinous branches of the forest, Lux already found herself doubting her plan. Her stomach was growling, and any confidence she’d had in finding a clear path through the trees had vanished with the brightest moon behind the clouds. All around she could hear the snorts and rustles of nocturnal animals, and that made her nervous.
Just a little light, she thought. Surely just a little won’t hurt, way out here.
She began to conjure a luminescent orb between her hands. For a brief moment, a flicker of light danced on her fingertips, causing an audible ruckus in the creatures around her. But the light snuffed out as quickly as it came, returning all to blackness. Lux looked at the outlines of her hands, inspecting them for flaws. She wondered what could have hampered her from doing what had previously come so easily and unbidden.
It’s the colossus, she realized. It must be.
She suddenly became aware of voices in the woodland murmur. Slow, purposeful footsteps, and whispers. They were-
An arm shot around Lux’s throat and restrained her. She could sense the presence of at least two other men to her sides.
“Where are you headed tonight, miss?” asked one of the men.
Lux stammered, not quite formulating a response. The man restraining her tightened his grip.
“You’re supposed to be in the annulment slums, yeah?” he said.
“No...” Lux gasped, the man’s arm wedged firmly under her chin. “I’m not...”
“We aren’t fools, miss,” said the third man. “Come on, let’s take you back.”
Lux struggled to free her arms as the men tried to bind them with coarse rope. She concentrated, but still could not summon the magic that had apparently once been hers. She freed one hand, struck one of the men squarely in the jaw, and heard the twigs on the ground crunch as he fell. The two other men angrily descended on her.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” said one of them with a scowl. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
The men began to tighten her bindings. They were making a point to pull the knots as tightly and painfully as possible, when the ground began to vibrate with dull thunderous beat. The men paused in dread, searching for the source of the noise, as it slowly increased in frequency and volume.
It rumbled like an earthquake, only broken up into steady rhythmic booms... like gigantic footsteps.
And they were getting nearer.
“What is it?” asked one man, too frightened to move.
The ground shook more, and its quaking was joined by the crackling of great trees being broken apart. Whatever it was, it was now in the forest and almost upon them.
“It’s... It’s...”
All looked up to see the monstrous Galio, striding toward them, a path of felled redbarks in his wake. The men ran, getting only a few steps through the trees before a giant petricite hand snatched them up high into the air. Galio glared with one enormous eye at the trembling wads of flesh held tight in his grip.
“Is it time for fighting?” said the colossus with a grin. “I will engage you!”
He opened his clenched fist, and raised the other hand as if to smash the men between his palms.
“No!” said a tiny voice. “Please stop!”
The colossus found Lux on the ground below, beating on his ankles with her bound arms.
“It isn’t right!” she shouted.
Confused, Galio lowered the men to the ground and released them. Lux heard the quick patter of the men’s feet, sprinting away from her with the urgency of hunted elk. As she wriggled out of her bindings, she gazed up at the colossus.
“I turned around and you were gone, girl person,” he said. “Why are you in the trees?”
“I- I don’t know,” Luxanna managed.
Galio reclined on a hillside, gazing at the stars with the tiny yellow-headed girl he had befriended. Neither spoke, save for an occasional sigh - not the stressful gasps that Lux had previously known. These were the sounds of two beings that had found utter contentment in each other’s company.
“I do not usually awaken for this long,” said the colossus.
“Me neither,” said the girl, with an enormous yawn.
“How do people spend time together without battle? Should we have a conversation?”
“No. This is nice,” said the girl. “I feel... calm.”
A frown crossed Galio’s face. There was something different about the girl. Something missing. She no longer shone like the stars.
“Why are you sad? You’ve cured me,” said the girl. “As long as you’re near me, I can return home and be normal.”
Galio did not brighten or look up. The girl continued her thought.
“I mean, maybe I can just come visit you every day to keep my affliction away—”
“No,” said the titan, finally locking eyes with her.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Young girl person, you are special. Since before you can remember, I have felt your gift. For so long, I wanted it near me. But now I see... I smash your gift.”
“But it gives you life.”
Galio pondered her words, but only for a moment. His mind was made up.
“Life to me is very valuable,” he said. “But your gift is everything. Never lose it.”
He got to his feet and gingerly placed the girl on his shoulder. Together, they began to trudge back toward the city to face what awaited.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon when Lux returned to her family manor. Outside the city walls, Galio was returning to stillness on his plinth beside the Memorial Road, leaving Lux to face her problems alone.
A shadow fades before the light, she thought, and she opened the latch to her front door.
She entered the house to find her mother sitting in the parlor with a balding middle-aged man, who held a case of exotic medical tinctures in his lap.
“Luxanna, so glad you decided to return home,” said Augatha, through clenched teeth.
Lux looked warily at the man on the couch.
“This is the man I was telling you about,” her mother whispered. “The one who’s going to fix your... problem.”
Lux felt light-headed, as if her spirit was leaving her body to watch what she was about to say.
“You know what, mother?” she said, her voice trembling with words she’d been longing to say. “I don’t think I want to see this man. In fact, I’d like you to send him away.”
The annuller looked offended. He stood and slung his bag over his shoulder.
“No, stay,” begged Augatha. She cornered Lux and began to speak with authority. “You do not know what you are saying. This man has risked everything to help you. It is the only way you’re ever going to be Demacian. Have you forgotten your afflic-”
“I am not afflicted!” Lux cried out. “I am beautiful and valuable, and one day I will prove it to this kingdom! And if anyone has a problem with me, I’ve got a very large friend they can talk to.”
She strode upstairs to her room, leaving her mother alone with the annuller.
As Lux flopped onto her bed, she expelled a deep, easy breath. For the first time in years, her mind was as still as a pond in summer. The light that had once exploded from her unbidden was still there, but she could feel its beginning and its end, and knew that one day she could master it.
As she drifted off to sleep, she realized her mantra had always been wrong. No light could ever kill shadows.
A shadow thrives beside the light, she thought. It had a nice ring to it.
Hollowspun

Dana Luery Shaw

Kai’Sa peers out from the mouth of the tunnel and feels like she’s standing at the edge of the world.

A chasm, so deep that sunlight doesn’t hit the bottom. Surrounding it are the openings of dozens of other tunnels. All are carved into rock that sits deep below the surface, now exposed and crumbling.

Once, this had been home to a vast colony of Void creatures. These had been their burrows, formed with the randomness of unmade matter. Sharp corners, dead ends, coils upon coils... all constructed without a plan beyond “eat the world.” That is the Void—mindless organic machines, driven by instinct to fight and consume and unmake with no thought beyond the present. She’s killed enough to know there is nothing deeper to the creatures than that.

But the tunnel Kai’Sa stands in is different. It is not random unmaking. It is practically a straight line running north, one she’d followed for nearly four days. This tunnel, this passage, was made with intention. With a goal. It doesn’t make sense...

Kai’Sa would make it make sense, starting with where this passage led.

So far, it has led to this chasm.

Kai’Sa eyes the openings on the opposite side. Hard to tell how deep any of them go. But she would bet her second skin that one of them is a piece of the same passage she stands in now.

She rolls her shoulders. Her living armor wakes, pulling its flesh tightly against her own. It has been her only constant, growing with her from the time she was a little girl. It had been one of the voidling beasts that killed her family, her village. Covered in its carapace, Kai’Sa would always be seen as a monster. But without it, she could not keep the world safe from the Void.

Without it, she would be nothing.

The scaly pods at her shoulders flex, and the embedded crystals illuminate as she selects her first target. The heat from the crystals spawns a plasma missile; she launches it down the mouth of a tunnel deep below the surface. It takes six seconds to cross the chasm. Massive. Another second, and the missile hits a curve. Nope. Not what she’s looking for.

From here, it’s point and shoot, over and over. Most missiles hit something a second or two in. But Kai’Sa is nothing if not patient. She will go at this as long as it takes.

She finds the tunnel she’s looking for just as the sun begins to set. She waits for her missile to cross the chasm, then starts the count. One. Two. Three.

Four. Five. Six. This is it. This one’s the other end of the passage.

Grinning, she fires a barrage around the opening to mark it. Her earlier missile is still going... until she hears the horrible screech from whatever it struck.

She turns her shoulder pods inward, pressing them together to hide their light. She waits silently for her prey to show itself.

Another screech. A voidling creature emerges from the other side of the passage. Kai’Sa has spent years fighting and observing and cataloging voidlings. This is not one she’s seen before. The creature’s smooth, rounded body, injured from her missile, deforms as it opens its long lower jaw. Its mouth is filled with translucent needle-like teeth jutting out at dangerous angles. Its sides expand and contract like it’s breathing.

Or taking in scent, she thinks as it turns. No eyes, but it can still find me. She takes aim as the sun dips below the horizon. The voidling begins... to glow. Something—a tongue?—emerges from its mouth and emits a soft bluish light, looking like the hanging lamps in humans’ mines. Haven’t seen a voidling do that before. She notices that its injury is glowing, too.

Guess I’ll call it a Lamplight. She lets a missile fly. The Lamplight’s posture changes. It lets out a high, sustained shriek and dodges Kai’Sa’s blast. Dammit. Kai’Sa lines up another shot.

The entire tunnel behind it blooms with blue light. Hundreds of Lamplights join the first, mouths open, tongues raised and glowing. Kai’Sa forces herself to breathe slowly. She’s fought worse odds. All in one spot. Excellent. Kai’Sa unleashes a barrage, hoping to take out all the voidlings at once.

In the time it takes the missiles to cross, the voidlings spill out like dust, clinging to the walls of the chasm as the barrage whistles past them harmlessly.

What...

Led by the injured Lamplight, they move as one. Toward Kai’Sa.

... the hell?

She raises her hands and fires rapidly at the swarm. She hits a few, but not enough to make a dent in their numbers. And they are already a quarter of the way to her. Kai’Sa looks around wildly. Not many options. Fight from her current location. Run back down the passage. Take her chances and dive down. Try to climb, fight them from the surface.

She glances above, then at the swarm. They’re halfway around. Climb. Kai’Sa shoots into rock four times in a zigzag—one for each of her hands to grip and her feet to balance. Pulling herself up, she begins the climb.

Shoot, grab, pull. Shoot, grab, pull. As fast as she can, Kai’Sa makes her path. Her shoulder pods shoot at the swarm. They’re near, but Kai’Sa’s pace is good. She’s more than halfway to the—

And her hand hits sand.

She shoots again. There’s nothing for her missile to pierce. It blows through the sand, and more seeps down to fill in the empty spot. There’s nothing to grab. Can she jump the rest of the way? Jaw clenched, Kai’Sa turns toward the monsters. If she’s going to die, she’ll take as many of them with her as she can.

Suddenly, the wall around the voidlings cracks.

And crumbles.

Hundreds of Lamplights drop with the falling stone, their light swallowed by the darkness of the chasm. Only three of them still rush toward Kai’Sa. That’s a number she can handle. They’re close enough that she can see barbs on their tongues.

Three shots fire. Two Lamplights fall. One left.

It smacks its thorny tongue against Kai’Sa’s ribcage. Her ribs crack beneath her armor as she slams against the rock. She struggles to take a breath while the suit repairs over her injury. Gripping the wall with her left hand, she grabs the creature’s tongue just below the barbs with her right. Violet power surges. The Lamplight’s tongue melts around her hand. Screaming, it backs away. Kai’Sa takes aim.

This time, she doesn’t miss.

Okay. Kai’Sa breathes. Okay. Next step. She’ll have to find a way to the surface.

That’s when she notices the stone cube sticking out from the sand.

That wasn’t there before. Kai’Sa reaches out and grabs—it is exactly the right size for her hand. She tests part of her weight on it. It holds. Curious, she leans to one side and looks farther up. Jutting out every armspan or so is another one of these stone cubes. She’ll question this turn of good luck later.

Kai’Sa scrambles up, one cube at a time, until she’s out. Looking around in the moonlight, she sees no landmarks, just dunes and rocky cliffs. A sand storm kicks up in the distance. She glances down into the chasm. If she squints, she can almost make out a glow...

The wind gets loud. Storm’s approaching fast. She turns to face it. At the center of the storm is...

A girl?

The ground explodes under Kai’Sa’s feet. She hurtles through the air toward the storm, an arm in front of her broken ribs. She shifts position mid-air, her shoulder pods folding in front of her like a battering ram. If Kai’Sa’s attacker wants to bring her closer, that’s their mistake.

Something wraps around her shoulder pods and wrists, pulling her down, slamming her to the ground. Her ribs feel like they’re on fire, and her helm cracks where her head meets the earth.

She gets to her feet and forces her wrists apart. A red scarf, studded with stones, falls away. With a guttural yell, she sets her hands alight.

She’s stopped by the look of surprise and horror on the girl’s face. Even all these years later, she is still taken aback when someone looks at her and sees only a monster.

Push past it, Kai’Sa. She brings her hands up again, ready to attack...

“You’re human?”

Kai’Sa realizes she’s looking at the girl through the crack in her helm. Oh.

“You... see me?” It doesn’t matter. Humans are always afraid of her, whether or not they know she is one of them. But the girl’s expression gives Kai’Sa a foolish hope. Maybe this time could be different. Cautiously, Kai’Sa lets the helm pull away from her head, revealing the rest of her true face.

The girl drops to her knees, and Kai’Sa’s breath catches in her throat. “I am so sorry,” the girl says. “I thought you were—”

“A monster?”

“Well, yeah.” The girl gestures toward the chasm. “People tend not to survive long in these collapses.” She gazes at Kai’Sa’s second skin. “And you don’t... look human? At first glance.”

The girl is not as young as she’d thought; she must be around her own age, or older. Kai’Sa stares as the scarf lifts from the ground by its stony ends. “The stones,” she says quietly. “You control the stones.” The girl nods as the scarf wraps itself around her neck as though by magic. “You made those cubes come out of the sand.”

The girl shrugs, smiling. “I could feel someone was down there with those monsters. So I tried to help.” Her smile slips. “It’s all I’ve been doing for weeks now. Months? Hard to keep track.”

Kai’Sa blinks, eyes suddenly stinging. Someone else is fighting the Void, she realizes. Not the same way I am, but... “Who are you?”

The smile returns. “My name is Taliyah.”

Dancing firelight greets the two women as they enter Taliyah’s camp, but it’s the scent of roasting meat that holds Kai’Sa’s attention. She’s surprised that Taliyah doesn’t go first to warn the others not to be afraid of the monster. Not that she could blame them when her living armor rumbles with hunger, ready to devour anyone who gets too close.

The tents, cobbled from scraps of fabric and solid slabs of rock, look like Taliyah’s work. A group of thirty or forty, mostly children and elders, surround a large firepit at the center of the camp. The way they look at her—silently, with wide eyes and hunched shoulders—is horribly familiar.

Fear. Kai’Sa doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze. It’s for their comfort. But really, it’s for her own.

Taliyah’s arms are open wide as she introduces Kai’Sa, diving into a dramatic retelling of their meeting. The only movement in the crowd is the flickering of flames. Stillness, and silence, is their only response as Taliyah finishes her tale.

“I don’t have to stay,” Kai’Sa mumbles.

Taliyah shakes her head. “You’re injured. I can’t send you back out there when you haven’t eaten or rested. I won’t.”

A child half her height, a red cowl wrapped around his shoulders, stands. “You sure she’s human?” He squints. “Maybe it’s just some kinda disguise.” He almost falls backward from the force of two older girls pulling him down into his seat.

Taliyah laughs. “Have you seen a Void monster that can smile, Samir?” she retorts. “I haven’t.”

Everyone looks at Kai’Sa expectantly. She does her best approximation of a smile, close-lipped so as not to look too aggressive. It doesn’t seem to scare the children. A victory.

The boy, Samir, stands again. “Fair enough,” he says as he walks toward Kai’Sa. He offers her a half-eaten piece of meat on a stick. “Want the rest of my sandsnake?”
Everyone else seems to breathe easier as Kai’Sa accepts the food. She rips the meat from the stick and swallows without chewing, her suit purring in relief. Zaifa, one of the older girls with jade beaded through her hair, offers her more. This time, Kai’Sa slows down enough to appreciate the flavoring of cinnamon, sour lemon, and smoky ul-tawaat berries.

The taste brings back old memories, of life with her parents, of her father cooking over an open flame while her mother ground the ul-tawaat with her pestle...

Kai’Sa shakes her head to clear her mind—no good can come from dwelling in those memories. She really doesn’t need the rest, and she’s already eaten enough for her ribs to start healing.

But the camp has already started to relax, with people chatting over their own meals. Some have even turned their back to her. A show of trust. And the hope in Taliyah’s eyes is unmistakable. Please stay, they seem to say. Don’t leave us yet.

“I’ll stay awhile,” she concedes. “To heal.”

The passage will still be there tomorrow.

Through the night, Kai’Sa indulges in both food and stories. Everyone has a tale to tell. The younger children speak of how their homes fell into the sand, how much they miss their parents and siblings, how they hope to reunite with them soon.

They are dead. Killed by the Void, as my own family was. Kai’Sa does not say what she is thinking.

Some of the elders speak of the sun-blessed Ascended warriors. Others tell the story of the last emperor, and the chaos that followed his death. Zaifa describes the darkness that infected the Ascended and drove them to madness and evil. None are believable, but Kai’Sa listens intently.

The story told by Kadira, an older girl with rocky arm braces, is by far the most outlandish. She talks of a place called Xolan, across the Sai Kahleek, that has been magically protected for millennia. “It is said to be a paradise,” she sighs. “With libraries, and gardens, and water that flows as far as the eye can see. And everyone is safe, without fear.”

Kai’Sa does not realize that she has scoffed until Kadira and the children look at her. “No place is safe from the Void,” Kai’Sa says. “Especially so close to the Sai Kahleek. It’s a myth.”

“It’s real,” Kadira insists. “Where do you think we’re all headed?”

Without another word, Kai’Sa stands and leaves the storytellers to their tales.

She finds Taliyah leaning against one of the tents, deep in conversation with Zaifa and Samir, lit more by moonlight than by firelight. Zaifa traces her finger across an open scroll.

“You aren’t actually searching out this Xolan.” Kai’Sa doesn’t frame it as a question. “You’d be putting yourselves in real danger, crossing the Sai Kahleek over a fantasy.”

Taliyah exchanges a look with Zaifa, who hands Kai’Sa the scroll—a map of eastern Shurima. She points to a dot to the north of the Sai Kahleek. Xolan. North. The same direction as the passage. Kai’Sa frowns.

“It’s the best chance we have of finding safety for these people,” Taliyah explains. “Their homes have been destroyed, their families... separated. They need hope that things will be okay.”

“False hope helps no one. When it comes to the Void, the only thing you can do is run and hope you’re fast.”

Taliyah shakes her head. “If we go around the sai, we’ll run out of food. Stay where we are, we run out of food. Go back, and all we’ll find are the towns that fell. Where else do we run?”

Kai’Sa stares at Taliyah. “Do you know what lives in the Sai Kahleek? What hunts there?”

“The xer’sai. We’ve all heard the stories.”

“No. Xolan is a story,” Kai’Sa says. “The xer’sai are real. I’ve fought them before, many at a time. This is their nest. Trying to cross it is a death sentence.”

“I’ve fought Void creatures too. Or did you forget that I saved you?”

“Those weren’t xer’sai.”

“Whatever they were, I defeated them when you couldn’t.” Kai’Sa can see determination in the set of Taliyah’s jaw. “If Xolan is our only hope, then that’s where I’m going to lead everyone.”

“Besides, we’ve got a plan,” Samir says, excited. “Taliyah’s going to build a bridge or wall or something over the sand, and we’ll take people across together.”

He can’t be that much older than I was when the Void took me. Aloud, she asks, “What, can you move stone too?”

“I’m the best rock hopper you’ve ever met,” Samir says with a confident grin. “None of those monsters can move as fast as my sandboard. And if they try?” He mimes a blast from the ground. “Taliyah drives ’em back with some rock-splosions.”

“You sound like a child,” Kai’Sa spits. Samir’s smile drops. “The children of Rek’Sai... all they do is devour. Anything that gets in their way? Gone.” She leans in close. “When they hear you, they hunt you. They don’t stop until their teeth close around your bones.”

“You’re scaring him,” Zaifa accuses as she puts a steadying hand on Samir’s shoulder.

“Good. He should be.”

“So come with us,” Taliyah says confidently. “You can help keep everyone safe.”

“No. Because you’re not going.” Kai’Sa points to Samir. “You are not putting these children in that kind of danger. They’ll die. Make your way around the sai. Take as many as you can. Leave the slowest behind, use their rations to—”

“We won’t!” Samir stands toe to toe with Kai’Sa, glaring up at her. “Taliyah will protect us. I will protect us.” He puffs out his chest. “I’m going to help these people, and they’re all going to make it across because... because each of their lives means something.” He stomps back toward the firepit, with Zaifa chasing after him.

“It’s your only chance,” Kai’Sa says quietly. “Otherwise, you’re condemning them all to death.”

“No.” Taliyah steps in front of Kai’Sa, refusing to let her look away. “Our world is a tapestry, and every life is a thread of a different color. Each one makes the whole more beautiful.”

Ugh. Metaphors. “Then the Void is a flame,” Kai’Sa replies. “It unmakes everything it touches. If your tapestry catches fire, the entire thing will burn... unless you cut the smoldering threads away. Then you still save most of it.”

“You’re wrong. Any threads that drop make it all unstable, easy to unravel.” Sunlight appears at the horizon, and Taliyah’s eyes flash gold. “I’m not willing to let any of them go.”

The camp sleeps through the heat of the day. Kai’Sa wakes a few hours before sunset. People shoulder packs and gather bindles, ready to move on. Children hand out flatbreads and cheese. She overhears as a child pulls at Kadira’s robe and shyly asks if the older girl could take “the scary lady” her food.

Taliyah collapses the stone structures back into the earth, leaving little sign that they were ever there. Kai’Sa watches and nibbles at her bread, trying to make it last.

“I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind,” Taliyah says, “and decided to join us.” Kai’Sa sees the sheen of sweat on the girl’s brow. This exhausts her more than she lets on.

“No. I have somewhere else to go.” She sighs. “And you haven’t changed yours.”

Taliyah shrugs. “I have somewhere to go, too.” She turns back to her work. “I’m disappointed. You know what you’re doing with these Void monsters. You could help these people.”

The best way I can help is to figure out what made that Void passage. It was made with a purpose in mind... and that scares me. But she doesn’t say that. Instead, she says, “I hope you can help them yourself.”

The passage proceeds much as it had earlier: in a straight line.

Except it feels lonely now. Kai’Sa wonders if she shouldn’t have spent so much time with Taliyah. She’s been alone for more than half her life, just her and the Void monsters that dwell below the surface world. She didn’t realize how good it would feel to be a person again.

Alone with her thoughts, she hardly notices the time pass. Soon, she sees older tunnels, enormous holes punctuating the passage walls and leading elsewhere. Xer’sai tunnels. I’m below the Sai Kahleek. But she still doesn’t see or hear any xer’sai.

She spots a bluish glow down one of the tunnels. Quietly, and with as little motion as possible, Kai’Sa peers down the opening into the darkness.

She sees a few smaller xer’sai of a kind that she has encountered and named before. A group of Callers, reedy bipedal creatures with four prehensile jaw-talons, chirp softly to one another. Their shrieks can cut through the desert, alerting others to the presence of fresh prey. Spiky hatchlings, already larger than the Callers and due to grow much larger still, stand beside them. Together, they encircle dozens of Lamplights.

One of them has a glowing blue mark like a burn on the side of its body. That’s the one I shot, Kai’Sa realizes in horror. Taliyah’s attack didn’t kill it. It might not have killed any of them...

As she watches, one of the hatchlings stalks over to the marked creature. It extends its tongue and touches it to the hatchling’s horn.

A soft blue light engulfs the hatchling. It glows.

The sudden chattering of Callers drowns out Kai’Sa’s gasp. What are they doing? Her heart beats in her throat as more hatchlings and Callers go toward the Lamplights to receive their own glow. Are they making the xer’sai more powerful? She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, and takes aim at the marked creature.

Whatever it is, I’m going to stop them.

That’s when a loud boom shakes the earth.

An enormous xer’sai Dunebreaker cuts through the stone wall with the bladed horn above its eight eyes. The talons along its jaw scratch into the rock, leaving deep gashes. Every step shakes the ground to drive fear into its prey. It hisses, swiping its horn at the Lamplights. It slices three of them at once, their deflated bodies leaking bright blood.

The Dunebreaker doesn’t like what the Lamplights are doing.

The Lamplights screech and flee toward the passage—toward Kai’Sa. She feels the familiar rush of power as she and her suit become invisible just in time for the Lamplights, then the Dunebreaker, to rush northward past her. The Dunebreaker’s horn rips a deep gash through the top of the passage. It bows inward.

The passage is going to collapse.

She dashes ahead, trying to keep up with the massive xer’sai while it can’t see her. I need to know where this leads. I have to understand.

But then, from somewhere behind her... Screams. Human screams.

Kai’Sa drops her invisibility and dashes up toward the surface before everything crumbles beneath her. She blinks as her helm readjusts to the sunlight. The dust clouds make it hard to see, and the crash of rockfall pierces her ears, but she can still hear the sounds of panic. She runs toward them.

Ahead of her, she sees the crevasse that formed where the Dunebreaker’s horn tore through the ceiling of the passage. A stone platform is dangling over the edge, though most of it remains on the sand, refusing to fall into the fissure. The people standing atop the platform are screaming, but a lone figure remains calm. Taliyah. Her stone bridge. She’s the only thing keeping it up. Her arms shake from the strain, but slowly, she lifts the front of the platform back toward the surface.

A child’s shout comes from below. Someone fell into the passage.

Kai’Sa sprints toward Taliyah. “You need to get back!” she shouts as the bridge rises. “The whole thing is going to collapse beneath you all if you don’t move!”
“Samir’s down there!” Taliyah screams as the bridge finally makes it to the surface, settling onto the ground with a thud. “I’m not going to leave him!”

She lets out a strangled yell and pushes against air with one hand. The bridge groans as it scrapes away from her, pushing it a good distance away from the collapse. Then she dives into the crevasse.

Kai’Sa stares over the edge. She’s going to die down there if I don’t help her.

Kadira and Zaifa come running from the bridge. Kai’Sa fires at their feet.

“What are you doing?!” Kadira shouts, jumping back.

“That huge xer’sai could turn back any minute,” Kai’Sa says. “Get the others out of here.”

“We’re not going anywhere until we know Taliyah and Samir are safe,” Zaifa says with clenched fists. “We can help you.”

I don’t have time for this, Kai’Sa thinks as her shoulder pods unfold, crystals crackling with power. If I kill these two, the others will run.

Kadira and Zaifa join hands, but they do not move. Kai’Sa remembers the stories they told around the firepit. The food they shared with her. Their fear of her, and how it left them over the course of the night.

... I don’t want to hurt them. “I’ll go down and help them. Please, go back to the others. They need someone to be strong for them.”

“Fine. But you have to bring them both back,” Zaifa spits out as she and Kadira run back toward the bridge.

I will. I promise. Without glancing back, Kai’Sa leaps into the growing hollow below.

Her feet hit the bottom hard enough to snap any normal person’s bones. In the distance, she sees glowing voidlings—not just the Lamplights, but the hatchlings and Callers they’ve converted—surrounding a smooth stone dome. That must be where Taliyah and Samir are.

She hears a subtle shift in the rumbling sound from afar. The Dunebreaker’s turned around, she realizes. If it’s after the Lamplights... it’ll be coming right back here.

Kai’Sa digs deep into the power of her living armor. Her wrists are surrounded by violet light, until they’re not. Invisible again.

She fires on the Callers. All five die without making a sound. The hatchlings turn, looking for the source of the attack. Only the blind Lamplights, tasting the air, can sense her. Before they can pinpoint her, she’s already taken out the hatchlings.

Now she’s in trouble. Dozens of Lamplights rush toward her. She fades back into visibility and dashes away as fast as she can.

They’re on her in a matter of seconds. She fires wildly, but only a few of them drop. One catches her by the ankle, slicing through her suit with the barbs on its tongue. She falls as she attempts to dodge more attacks. But they slice at her from all sides, faster than her suit can knit itself back together. Blood drips from her arms, her legs, her cheek. She tastes the tang of copper as it runs over her lips...

And then something explodes from beneath. The Lamplights are propelled back and away.

They pause, confused. Kai’Sa looks beyond them. Taliyah’s head pokes through the top of the dome. She’s shouting something. Kai’Sa’s helm reforms, and she hears Taliyah shout, “Come toward me!”

Kai’Sa crouches. “Give me a running start!”

The earth explodes beneath her, propelling her through the air, over the voidlings and toward Taliyah. She lands on her good ankle, and tries to sprint—she can’t. So she dips back into her suit’s power, letting it drain her reserves of energy to speed the healing of her ankle. She can’t run for long.

But she’ll try to make it count.

As the monsters get closer, Taliyah propels Kai’Sa toward her again. The ground she lands on is different, with sharp bumps dotting the earth. Kai’Sa runs over them, trying to get the Lamplights to follow her rather than go toward Taliyah. The one in front bears her mark, and gets close enough to reach for her again...

An explosion tears it to pieces, staining the earth with glowing blood. Kai’Sa stops in shock.

“Keep running!” Taliyah shouts. “That’s what triggers the explosions!”

So she does, circling around Taliyah.

A few Lamplights get too close. Taliyah’s “rock-splosions” tear through them. The others seem to learn, slowing down, but they become a target for Kai’Sa’s missiles.

It doesn’t take long to thin their ranks. But the rumbling grows louder as the Dunebreaker bores its way back. We don’t have much time.

There’s only a handful left. Kai’Sa stands near the dome, exhausted, and fires the last missiles she has the energy to make. Slowed by the minefield, each voidling takes the hit.

Grinning, she turns to Taliyah. The girl is pale, coughing from the dust in the air. Her arm is around a frightened Samir’s shoulders, as he struggles to keep her upright.

“I can’t...” Taliyah pants. “The ground... It’s unstable. Can’t keep holding it up...”

Kai’Sa takes Taliyah in her arms. She beckons for Samir to cling to her back, then runs toward the walls of the hollow. I’m at my limit. I don’t know if I can make it up to the surface like this.

Suddenly, Taliyah twists out of Kai’Sa’s grip and leaps, summoning a rising platform beneath her feet. She pulls Kai’Sa toward her and propels them all upward. Her strength gives out just short of the surface. Kai’Sa and Taliyah grab the ridge and do their best to hold on...

A dozen hands reach down, covered in dirt and dust. Is this real? Kai’Sa wonders as she stretches up toward them. Two hands pull her up. It is. She looks up, recognizing some of the faces from Taliyah’s camp. One of the hands around her wrists belongs to Kadira. I’m being rescued.

“Zaifa!” Taliyah cries once they’re all on solid ground again. “Kadira! You came back for us!”

“And brought help.” Kai’Sa nods at them both. “Smart. Thank you.”

Below, the Dunebreaker bursts back into the hollow. Kai’Sa holds a finger to her lips and mouths don’t move. Dunebreakers can only sense things they can hear or feel or see moving. If we stay still and quiet, we’ll live.

The creature prods the deflated bodies of the Lamplights with its horn. It shuffles around, finding the corpses of the glowing Callers and hatchlings.

Satisfied that its enemies are dead, it burrows back through the rock and down into the earth.

Kai’Sa waits until they can’t hear it anymore before she lets anyone move. Then Taliyah, exhausted and pale, lifts another bridge of stone from the ground and takes them all back toward the others. A drained Kai’Sa and an only somewhat humbled Samir bring up the rear.

“I would have made it back up on my own,” Samir says with a tired grin at Kai’Sa. “But it was nice of you to come help. What with me slowing everyone down and all.”

Kai’Sa gives the kid a sidelong glance, and can’t help but smile. “Couldn’t sit back and lose the best rock hopper I’ve ever met, could I?”

A roaring fire burns bright in the firepit. Taliyah’s stone bridges, pushed from the sai to safety, have become a wall around the camp.

Kai’Sa lies beyond the light, not willing to let on how sore her body still is. Better to rest than to eat, she thinks miserably, the scent of charred cabbage floating toward her.

Taliyah sits and silently offers Kai’Sa a bowl full of cabbage and millet. Kai’Sa pushes it away.

“You’re not hungry?” Taliyah asks.

“I’m angry.”

Taliyah looks surprised. “Why?”

“You should have listened to me,” Kai’Sa says bitterly. “Instead? You couldn’t protect your people—those voidlings you thought you killed were the ones attacking us. You almost lost everyone. If I hadn’t been there, you would have.” She sees the regret in the twist of Taliyah’s lips, the set of her jaw. “And when they needed you most, you abandoned them. You left them all to die so you could try to maybe save one person.”

Taliyah is quiet for a moment. “Not that I’m not grateful, but... you know you did the same thing when you came down to help me, right?”

Kai’Sa doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“Don’t go toward Xolan,” Kai’Sa says after a few moments of awkward silence. “The Void passage that collapsed, the one I’ve been following, was directly below your route there. I’m pretty sure that Xolan is where it leads. That means the Void already has it.”

Taliyah nods, her shoulders slumping. “I’ll tell them they need to find another place.”

“They? What about you?”

“Well. I’m going to Xolan.”

“Taliyah—”

“That’s where you’re going, right?” Taliyah sighs. “I thought I could protect these people. Get them to safety. But you were right—there is no safe place. So... we’ll have to make one.”

“Uh. What do you mean?”

“If the Void is in Xolan... then we take it back! Make it safe enough to lead everyone to it... and try to help whoever is already there.” Taliyah sounds so optimistic.

“If the Void has taken the town... there’s not going to be anyone left to save.”

“We can’t know that from here. Even if there’s one person who needs our help, that will be worth it to me.” Taliyah steps forward and takes Kai’Sa’s hands in her own. They feel warm and calloused, even through Kai’Sa’s second skin. “I can’t do it without you, Kai’Sa. I didn’t kill those Lamplights on my own... but I was able to when you were there with me. Let’s find this place together.”

If she had been there when my home fell to the Void... maybe I could have been something different. Kai’Sa looks at the hope in Taliyah’s eyes, the strength in it. But I am who I am. The world needs me like this. So does she. I’ve seen what we can do together. I think I need her, too.

So does whoever might still be alive in Xolan.

Kai’Sa takes a bite of the charred cabbage and nods. “Fine. Another thread for the tapestry.”

Taliyah waves goodbye to her people as Zaifa leads them away. Earlier, Zaifa had found a spot on the map, a former trade city, that should lead them through grazing territory. “Even if we run out of food,” she had said, “there’s a good chance that we’ll be able to hunt there.”

“Be safe and be well,” Taliyah had said, hugging her tightly. “The blessings of the Great Weaver upon you all.”

Now, they are out of sight. She turns back to Kai’Sa, her only companion for the next leg of this journey. I know she’s happy to have the company, Taliyah thinks with a secret smile. Even if she won’t admit it.

Together they set out across the Sai Kahleek on a floating stone bridge, their destinies momentarily woven into one.