LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.

Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.

She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d lived it before. She shook her head and continued on, deeper into the forest.

Finally, she stood before the sacred ghost-willow. Its limbs moved languidly, as if underwater, accompanied by the faint, musical whisper of bone chimes.

While the anger still coursed through her, hot and fierce, she closed her eyes and forced her fists to unclench. She breathed in, slowly, just as the old master had taught her, trying to push back her rage.

Something hit her, hard, in the back of the head, and she fell to her knees. She touched a hand where she’d been struck, and her fingers came away bloody. Then she heard the laughter, and her fury surged to the fore.

She stood and turned towards her brother and the others, her eyes dark and glaring. Her breathing was heavy and short, and her hands clenched into fists at her side once more, all the effort to calm herself a moment before lost in a flash of anger. As it built within her, compounding and growing like a malignant sickness, the air around her seemed to shimmer, and the ghost-willow began to fade and wither behind her. It wept red sap, its leaves curling and blackening.

Since time immemorial the magic of this land had nourished the ghost-willow, just as it in turn nourished the land and its people, but now it was dying, its supple limbs turning bone-dry and brittle, its roots curling in pain. Its chimes tolled a mournful death-rattle, but the girl didn’t hear it, lost in the moment of her seething fury.

As the ancient, primordial tree perished, the little girl began to lift off the ground, rising into the air. Three light-swallowing spheres of absolute darkness began to orbit around the child.

Her tormentors were not laughing now...

Kalan stood upon the battlements of Fae’lor, looking across the narrow sea towards the mainland of the First Lands—what humans now called Ionia.

It was a dark, moonless night, but he saw as clearly as if it were daylight, the pupils of his feline eyes fully dilated. Occasionally, they caught the gleam of torch-light and reflected it back brightly; the mirrored eyes of a night predator.

Kalan was vastaya, of the ancient bloodline. His fur was russet-red and hung down his back in long, intricate, knotted braids that now had more than a few streaks of grey in them. His proud face was akin to that of a great hunting cat, and criss-crossed with scars from a lifetime of battle. The left side of that face was furless, and angry red welts bore evidence of the horrible burns he’d suffered as a young warrior. Curling horns sprouted from his temples, each engraved with spiralling runic patterns, and his three tails swished behind him, each covered in segmented plate. The armor he wore was Noxian dark iron, and he wore the trappings of his adopted empire with a scowl.

Some called him a traitor, both to Ionia and his vastayan heritage, but he didn’t care. What they thought didn’t matter.

The fortress of Fae’lor was built upon the westernmost island of Ionia. Highly defensible, this place had remained for centuries, standing against countless foes, before being finally overrun after a long siege during the Noxian invasion.

That was before Kalan had joined Noxus, before the fateful Battle of the Placidium when he’d pledged himself to Swain. Before he’d requested this post as governor of Fae’lor as reward for his service.

The Noxians laughed at him behind his back, he knew. He could have had a far more prestigious posting—but he had chosen Fae’lor, at the forgotten edge of the empire.

They didn’t understand, and that mattered nothing to him. He needed to be here.

Noxus had not won the war, of course… but nor had Ionia. Nevertheless, many seasons after the end of the campaign, Fae’lor remained under the invaders’ control.

Thirty-three warships were currently docked here, as well as perhaps half that number of trader vessels and merchant ships. Over a thousand warriors of Noxus—a mix of veteran warbands hailing from the far corners of the empire—were stationed here under his leadership.

A guard patrol stomped along the battlements. They saluted, fists crashing against breastplates, and he gave a nod in return. He didn’t fail to miss the dark looks they gave him as they marched by. They hated him almost as much as his own people did, but they feared and respected him, and that was enough.

He turned to look back across the sea once more, brooding on the past. Why was he here? It was a question he saw in the eyes of his subordinates every day, and one that crept up on him the darkest of nights, those nights when the forest, and the hunt, called to him. The answer was simple, however.

He remained here to keep watch over her.

A pair of dark-clad figures—one female, one male—emerged from the sea, unseen, and as silent as death. Swiftly, moving like spiders, they scaled the near-vertical hull of the warship Crimson Huntress, and slunk over its gunwale. Their blades glinted, and the ship’s night wardens were silently dispatched, one after another, without any alarm being sounded.

Within moments, all five Noxians were dead, their lifeblood leaking out onto the deck.

“Neatly done, little brother,” said one of the pair, now crouched in the shadow of the upper deck. Of her face, only her eyes and the swirling indigo tattoos that surrounded them were visible.

“I had a passably decent teacher,” replied the other. He too was fully clad in black and crouched in shadow, though in place of his sister’s swirling tattoos, his skin was a solid block of etched flesh.

“Passably decent, Okin?” she replied, one eyebrow rising.

“No need to feed your ego, Sirik,” her brother replied.

“Enough fooling around,” said Sirik. She opened a black leather pouch at her hip and delicately removed an object, tightly bound in waxed leather. She unwrapped it, gingerly, revealing a fist-sized, black crystal.

“Is it dry?” whispered Okin.

In answer, Sirik gently shook the crystal. A hint of an orange glow lit it from within for a brief moment, like a fanned ember.

“It would seem so. I’ll find a suitable place for it,” she said, nodding to the nearby door leading below deck. “You signal the others.”

Okin nodded. Sirik ghosted below deck, and her brother moved silently back to the gunwale. He leaned over the edge and beckoned. Seven other black-clad figures rose from the dark water below, climbing soundlessly up onto the deck of the ship, hugging the shadows.

They were the dispossessed—the last remaining warriors who had served here at the fortress of Fae’lor, before the Noxians had wrested it from them. The shame of that defeat still burned in their hearts, as did the desire to see every Noxian pushed from their ancestral homelands.

Once all were on deck, they waited a moment for Sirik, who emerged after a few minutes.

“It is done,” she said.

The nine dispossessed Ionians flowed over the ship’s side, following the leading pair. They moved as fluidly as water, and ran lightly along the stone dock towards the fortress of Fae’lor.

From shadow to shadow they darted, like specters, until they reached the first wall. Hugging the darkness, they remained utterly motionless as a patrol marched by, the Noxian warriors speaking in their guttural language and laughing, utterly oblivious to the nigh-invisible Ionians crouched mere feet away.

As soon as the patrol turned a corner, the infiltrators snapped into motion once more, climbing the sheer surface of the wall, moving swiftly, hand-over-hand. They made it look easy, like climbing a ladder, though in truth there were virtually no handholds.

Sirik reached the crenellations first. She peered over, then ducked swiftly back and went perfectly still, clinging one-handed to the battlements. The others below her froze, then hurriedly climbed to join her as she made a series of swift hand-movements. She made a fist, before climbing atop the wall, joined by her brother, Okin. None of the Noxians saw the pair of Ionians ghosting along behind them, hopping lightly across the top of the battlements in their wake.

Then Sirik and Okin leapt among the enemy, and the four guards were killed before a single one drew a blade.

The last of them clutched his throat, blood welling beneath his hand, and teetered on the edge of the wall. Sirik grabbed him, like a lover enfolding her paramour in her arms, and lowered him gently to the ground; if he’d fallen, the sound would undoubtedly have raised the alarm.

Two other guards nearby were swiftly dispatched, silently and without mercy, as the other Ionians came over the wall. Then, as one, the nine moved on, darting across an open courtyard and scaling a second, inner wall.

Each of them knew their target, and each knew the precise layout of the fortress, for it had been their own people who had constructed it. The Noxians were merely its current occupants.

They scrambled up the inner wall, and flowed over the parapet, their timing almost preternatural as they avoided two pairs of sentries atop the wall. They ducked into the shadow of the jutting stone bluff Fae’lor abutted, and became as one with the darkness.

That was when a shout sounded, echoing up from the docks.

Okin cursed under his breath. “They know we’re here,” he hissed.

“I had hoped to be further in before they discovered the first body,” said Sirik, “but this changes nothing. We continue as planned.”

The first shout was echoed by others, and a bell began to toll, sounding out across the fortress.

“Time for our distraction,” said Sirik. She closed her eyes and silenced her inner thoughts. In her mind’s eye, she saw the black crystal she’d secreted below the deck of the Noxian warship, and she reached out to it, fanning it to life.

She was no conjurer or soul-mage, but like many of her people, she could feel and subtly manipulate the magic of the land in minor, fairly insignificant ways. Hers was just a small, common gift, akin to that of the farmers of her village who spun a little magic into their crops. To outsiders this was shocking, but among her people, such simple gifts were not at all unusual, nor regarded as anything to be held in awe. It was like being able to whistle, or curl your tongue—some people could do it, others couldn’t.

Sirik deepened her breathing, and intensified her silent entreaties, encouraging the fyrestone to do what was it its nature to do.

Her gift might have been minor, but the effect of it as she nudged the crystal to life was not. That had more to do with the volatile nature of the fyrestone crystal than any innate power of her own, of course, but nevertheless, the result was impressive.

In the harbor below, the Noxian warship Crimson Huntress exploded, lighting up the night in a billowing fireball. Soldiers who were responding to Fae’lor’s warning bells stopped in their tracks, turning towards sudden inferno.

Sirik opened her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said.

Kalan stalked onto the stone dock, flanked by guards, his three tails swishing dangerously.

“The work of Ionian saboteurs, I would guess, my lord,” said a nervous-looking officer, trotting to keep up with Kalan’s long strides. “A black powder detonation, most likely.”

Kalan halted and frowned deeply as he surveyed the mayhem on the docks.

The Crimson Huntress was no more, reduced to the waterline. What timbers remained still burned. Three other nearby vessels were ablaze, and while crews worked to put out the flames, Kalan could see at a glance that at least one of them was a lost cause, and he snarled in frustration, exposing his teeth.

“We’ve secured the docks, and a thorough search of all other ships is currently underway,” said the nervous officer. “If there are more explosives, they will be found.”

Kalan ignored him, eyes narrowed. He dropped to one knee and scratched at the ground, then lifted his hand to his nose, sniffing.

“If they are still here, lord, we’ll find them,” said the officer, clearly uncomfortable with his superior’s silence. “I’d guess they are long gone, though.”

Kalan stood, and looked back along the dock, away from the sea, towards the towering walls.

“A cowardly act,” the officer remarked. “They know they can’t take us in a siege, so they try to hurt us in other ways. But we will not be deterred! We are Noxus! We—”

“Be silent,” growled Kalan. He was looking at the officer for the first time now, his yellow eyes unblinking. The man paled under his gaze, and seemed to shrink a little, like a toad retreating into its hole. “It was fyrestone, not blackpowder. And they are still here. This was not an act of cowards.”

The officer gaped silently, like a landed fish. “No?” he managed, finally, his voice little more than a squeak.

“No.” Kalan swung away from him, and strode back towards the fortress of Fae’lor. “This is a distraction.”

Kalan seethed. He would deal with that fool later. Right now, he had something far more important to focus on.

“They are going for the Dreaming Pool,” he snarled.

Sirik kept her hand clamped across the Noxian’s mouth until his struggles ceased, then dropped his lifeless body to the ground. She wiped her bloody dagger clean on his tunic and glanced around to see her brother and the others deal with the remaining Noxians within the lower level of the tower.

They were close, now. A rocky bluff reached up to the night sky in the courtyard beyond their position, and Sirik’s eyes were drawn to its peak. A jutting structure, blotting out the stars, marked their target.

Tolling bells were sounding the alarm, echoing all across Fae’lor.

Sirik led the way out into the courtyard, breaking from the tower and sprinting towards the stone steps carved into the bluff. She didn’t care who saw them now. The time for subterfuge was passed. Now speed was the best ally.

Shouts erupted from above, and arrows chased the Ionians as they darted across the open space. None hit home, skidding off the cobbled stone at their feet. A handful of guards emerged from a nearby gate, rushing to intercept them. Sirik and her companions didn’t even slow as they drew weapons; curved swords, sickles, poisoned darts and bladed fans. In a heartbeat they were among the Noxians, sliding under and somersaulting over heavy blows, dancing through them, blades wreaking a bloody toll.

The first of the Ionians fell, then, hacked down by a heavy halberd blow to the neck. Sirik pushed her instant pang of grief within, and pushed on, breaking through the enemy with her brother at her side, leaving a handful of them bleeding in their wake.

They reached the carved, uneven steps—far older than the fortress itself—and began sprinting up, toward the peak, taking the stairs three at a time. Votive lanterns carved into the rock on either side of the stairs remained dark.

Before Noxus had taken this holy place, those would never have remained unlit, day or night.

Another Ionian fell, two arrows thudding into his chest. Without a sound, he toppled from the path, falling to the courtyard below. On and on, the remaining Ionians ran, climbing the spiralling path encircling the stone bluff towards its peak. More arrows clattered against the rock wall beside them, but thankfully no more of her companions were struck.

They rounded the curve at speed. A flash of metal in the night was all the warning Sirik had, and she threw herself instinctively into a roll. A heavy spear, thrown with great force, sliced scant inches over her to strike one of her companions behind. It took him in the chest and lifted him off his feet, hurling him off the bluff.

Two guards stood before the entrance to the shrine at the top of the bluff. Both were immense slabs of muscle and heavy black armor, with huge shields and heavy, jagged cleavers clutched in their brutish fists.

The six remaining Ionians attacked as one, sprinting, leaping and somersaulting towards the towering Noxians, blades glinting.

Moving at speed, Sirik ran up onto the side of the bluff, taking two steps across its vertical surface before leaping off, her short blades seeking the neck of the first guard, even as her brother attacked low. Okin rolled under a heavy swinging blow and came up behind the Noxian, slashing a backhanded blow across his foe’s leg, making him stumble. Sirik speared through the air, leading with her blades, carving a pair of deep furrows through the solid meat of the Noxian’s neck.

Still, he did not fall, and as Sirik landed lightly in a low crouch, one hand touching the ground for balance, the injured warrior roared and smashed one of the dispossessed Ionians to the ground with the flat of his tower shield. Before Sirik could intervene, the brute slammed the ridge of that shield down onto her fallen comrade’s neck, killing him instantly.

The other Noxian was proving equally difficult to put down, bellowing like a wounded bull and flailing about wildly, even as she bled from wounds that would have killed most, lesser individuals.

Okin hacked into the Noxian’s ribs, just to the side of her heavy breastplate, and danced aside as his enemy turned on him. Sirik darted in then, landing another strike, and as her enemy swung in her direction, another of her companions did likewise, hitting the Noxian from behind. They fought like a pack mercilessly taking down large prey, and at last the other Noxian dropped to her knees, lifeblood leaking out onto the stones. She stayed upright for a moment more, spitting curses, then fell facedown and was still.

Her companion roared in grief and anger, and hacked one of the dispossessed down with a brutal sweep of his cleaver. Then he ran to his fallen comrade, dropping to his knees and cradling her in his huge arms. All the fight had gone out of him, and he let out a terrible, anguished wail to the night sky.

Okin and the others encircled him to land the killing blow, but Sirik shook her head. “Leave him be,” she said. “Come. Let’s finish this.”

The Noxian didn’t understand her words, but recognized their intent. He looked up with grief-filled eyes, and regained his feet, picking up his blade. Then, with a cry, he launched himself at Sirik. He was cut down before he went more than a few steps—as he’d likely expected—and he dropped beside the other Noxian. With his last breath, he reached out to her, then went limp.

His death saddened Sirik, for all that he was an enemy. Were they kin, these two? Lovers? Friends? With a deep breath, she pushed those feelings aside, so as to focus on the task at hand.

With a silent nod, she led the four remaining dispossessed Ionians into the shrine known to her people as the Dael’eh Ahira—the Dreaming Pool.

Fae’lor was not originally intended as a fortress. Far from it, it was once a center of tranquility and guidance, where gifted young Ionians came, from far and wide, to learn how better to harness their own innate gifts. All that had ended years before Sirik had been born, and the island that had once been teeming with life, study and peace, became little more than a barren prison. Barely any vegetation grew on the island around the fortress now—only dry, brittle thorn-bushes and ghost-gray lichen was able to thrive. Birds and other wildlife, so abundant on the nearby islands, also shunned it now, except for the dark, hateful crows and ravens that had come with the Noxians.

For all of Sirik’s time here, before the invasion, she and other guards had stood sentinel, watching over the Dael’eh Ahira. It was their duty to ensure that the one held within it was never released.

Sirik led the way down into the darkness within the rock, holding aloft a glass sphere filled with glowing flitterwings to light the way. She shivered, skin prickling, as the temperature dropped the deeper they went.

The stone steps were slick with moisture, but she picked her way down swiftly, for it would not be long before the Noxians arrived in overwhelming force. None of them had expected to make it back from this mission; all that mattered was completing the task they’d come to achieve, and ending the threat imprisoned down here within the Dreaming Pool once and for all.

They reached the deepest point of the Dael’eh Ahira, finally, sliding down the uneven rocks the final ten feet, and landed with a splash in the shallow waters below.

Once, this shrine had been beautiful, but disaster had brought the cavern down in years past.

Here was imprisoned the one they had guarded for so many years.

The one Sirik now came to kill.

Kalan leapt toward the top of the the stone bluff in powerful bounds, clearing ten steps with each one, quickly outpacing his soldiers. He arrived at the peak alone, and growled in frustration as he saw the corpses there: two Noxian, two Ionian.

Without waiting for his warriors, he plunged into the Dael’eh Ahira. Into the darkness he descended, his feline eyes instantly adjusting. He could taste the scent of the humans on the air, leading him on.

Padding silently into the gloom, Kalan began the hunt.

The darkening forest was full of beauty, but the girl saw none of it as she stomped along the winding path.

Glowing flitterwings danced through the twilight, leaving trails of luminescence in their wake, but she swatted them out of her face, oblivious to their fleeting grace. Eyes downcast, she kicked a rock, sending it skidding over the roots twisting across her path, blind to the glorious sunset glimpsed through the canopy. The delicate violet petals of a blooming night-sable unfurled to release its glowing pollen into the warm evening, but she reached out and twisted the flower off its stem as she passed.

Her face burned with shame and anger. The scolding from her mother still lingered, and the laughter of her brother and the others seemed to follow her.

She paused, looking back at the broken petals on the path, and frowned. There was something strangely familiar about all of this… almost like she’d—

Dark shapes appeared in her peripheral vision, and she looked around, trying to see them clearly. There were four of them, but she could only just make them out if she didn’t look directly at them.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

Something was very wrong.

Sirik and her three companions stood in a circle, looking down into a deeper section of the water. A woman lay there, beneath the surface, her pure white hair, long and flowing, drifting around her languidly.

Syndra. That was her name; a byword for destruction, for giving in to your darkest fears and anger. A name still cursed throughout the provinces.

Sirik pulled off the dark hood hiding her face and tossed it aside. The delicate, indigo tattoos surrounding her eyes seemed to writhe in the shifting light emitted by the flitterwings in the glass sphere she held aloft. The others removed their head-coverings as well. All of them bore similar tattoos upon their faces, tattoos that marked them as guardians of Fae’lor. All of them looked down at Syndra, their expressions hard.

The roots of an ancient tree—the only thing holding the immense stones from crashing down upon this already half-collapsed cavern—curled around her limbs. They might have been cradling her, like a protective mother, or holding her down, trapping her, depending on your point of view. She could easily have been mistaken for being dead but for the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed the water.

Syndra didn’t look at all dangerous, but Sirik knew well how deceiving such an impression was. This one had been responsible for the destruction of the once-peaceful temple at the heart of Fae’lor. She had only been contained when the spirit of the land itself had drawn her down here, pulling her in and ensnaring her within this strange, suspended existence.

Sirik had once voiced aloud her confusion as to why they let Syndra live. Why not just end her life, and end the threat of her waking from her slumber? Her old master had smiled, and asked her why, if the land wanted her dead, did it sustain her? Sirik had no answer to that, not then and certainly not now. Her old master talked of balance, but he was dead, killed by a Noxian blade, along with almost all of those who had served here as this slumbering woman’s jailors, yet the one they had guarded still lived. Where was the balance in that?

As long as she lived, Syndra was a threat, yet that threat was contained while she and the others had stood watch over the Dael’eh Ahira. Now that it was within Noxian control, however… The fools would likely release her, either accidentally or in some ill-advised attempt to utilize her destructive power.

No, that danger was too great to risk. Syndra must die. Tonight.

Sirik tossed her flitterwing-filled glow-globe to her brother and stepped into the deeper pool, blade drawn.

“Wait,” said Okin.

“We have no time, brother,” said Sirik. “The Noxians will be upon us momentarily. We must end this now.”

“But she may be our best weapon against them.”

Sirik froze, then turned slowly towards her brother, her expression one of disbelief.

“She is Ionian, after all,” continued Okin. “She could be a great ally. With her, we could push Noxus from Ionia, once and for all!”

“And what then, brother? You think she could be controlled?”

“We wouldn’t need to control her.” Okin stepped forward, his voice full of passion. “We could strike against Noxus, in its heartland! We could—”

“You are a fool, brother,” Sirik interrupted him, her voice thick with derision. She turned away, and began to wade towards the motionless figure of Syndra.

“I can’t let you do that, sister. We can’t let you.”

It was only then Sirik realized her brother and her other two companions had fanned out around her, weapons drawn. “You can’t let me?” she said.

“Don’t make us do this, sister.”

Her gaze flicked between them, judging their distance from her, and whether she would be able to kill Syndra before they reached her. It would be close.

“I’m not making you do anything,” she said. “We came here to end a threat to Ionia—not unleash it.”

“This could be our chance to—”

“No,” said Sirik. “Don’t you see? This sort of division within Ionia is killing us, and it’s playing into the Noxians’ hands. We are all divided, arguing and working against each other, when we need to pull together.”

“So work with us,” begged Okin.

Sirik pointed at the motionless figure of Syndra. “She is a greater threat to this land than Noxus. It’s a foolish act of desperation to think otherwise.”

“Just stop being so stubborn, for once in your life!”

“You’re not going to convince me, brother,” she said. “So what now. You’re going to kill me?”

“Please, don’t let it come to that,” said Okin.

The four of them stood frozen for a second, none quite ready to escalate the situation just yet.

Then a shadow detached itself from the surrounding darkness, and sprang at them with lethal intent.

Sirik gave a shout of warning and lurched forward. The move surprised Okin and their other two companions, who raised weapons, thinking she was attacking. One flung a pair of throwing blades with a sweep of his arm, the move instinctual and reactionary.

Sirik swayed aside from the first dagger, but the second struck home, imbedding itself deep in the meat of her shoulder, making her hiss in pain as she stumbled backwards, falling awkwardly in the water.

Too late, Sirik’s attacker realized the real threat was behind him. The Ionian was lifted from his feet, a blade bursting from his chest, having been driven completely through him. Then he was hurled aside, and the shadowy attacker moved on, abandoning his sword and turning on Okin.

It was a vastaya, garbed in Noxian armor, and he roared, lips curling back to reveal his predator’s teeth. The sound reverberated painfully within the cavern.

Sirik recognized him, of course, as she struggled to regain her feet. This was Kalan, reviled traitor of the Placidium, who had turned away from his people and Ionia to join the enemy. He’d been given Fae’lor as his prize, a bone thrown to a loyal and subservient pet. She and her brother had lost more than a few friends at his hands.

“Noxian lickspittle!” said Okin, crouched low, blade at the ready. “You betrayed our people! You betrayed Ionia!”

Kalan gave a bitter laugh as he padded in towards Okin. He flexed his hands, and long talons emerged from his fingertips, as well as along the ridge of his forearms.

“There is no Ionia,” snarled the vastayan warrior. “There never was. A thousand mortal cultures are scattered across the First Lands, each with their own beliefs, customs, history and feuds. Your people have never been unified, never stood as one.”

“Then perhaps it is time that changed,” said Okin. “Though you have chosen the losing side.”

“Losing? The war is far from over, child,” said Kalan.

With a grimace, Sirik tore the throwing dagger from her shoulder, her blood leaking out into the water like a crimson ribbon wafting in a breeze. She tossed it deftly into the air, spinning it end over end, and caught it by its blade. With a swift flick of her wrist, she hurled it at the betrayer closing in on Okin.

It took him in the side of the neck, sinking deep, though Sirik cursed herself, for her aim was slightly off. It was not a killing blow. Nevertheless, Okin and their last companion took advantage of the moment, leaping in to strike.

Okin dashed forward, lunging, but his strike was turned aside by the flat of Kalan’s hand, who then knocked him away with a sharp kick. Their last companion came in fast from the flank, bladed fans slicing through the air, but the vastaya, even injured, was too fast, and too powerful.

He swayed aside, first one way, then the next, as the fan-blades sliced at him. Then, he lunged forward and grabbed his foe by the tunic with both hands, and slammed her head-first into a wall. An awful crack sounded as her neck broke.

Kalan’s yellow cat eyes turned back to Okin.

Sirik was too far away to help, she knew that instantly. Instead, she turned and began to slog back towards Syndra. She would do what she came to do. She had not expected to escape this venture with her life anyway, but she was determined their deaths would not be in vain.

She heard her brother shout in defiance, and the vastaya roar, but she dared not look back. She plunged deeper into the water, and reached down, fingers closing around Syndra’s throat. Her skin was warm to the touch. In her other hand, Sirik’s blade drew back for the killing blow.

This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

Something was very wrong.

The girl could still hear the sounds of the night forest around her. She could still see the ferns and twisted roots, and the last colors of the sunset beyond the thick canopy overhead.

But at the same time, she could hear shouts and roars, though they were muffled, as if she was hearing them from a distance… or from underwater?

For a moment, she felt her throat filled with liquid, and a sudden panic rose within her. She was drowning! But no, that was impossible. She was here, a child in the twilight forest outside her village. She was nowhere near water.

A shadowy form appeared before her, like a night-terror given insubstantial form. She felt a sudden constriction around her throat, and she struggled for breath.

Her eyes flickered. She glimpsed a young woman, her face covered in twisting tattoos. The vision was strange, and vague, however, as if she were looking at this person through water. A hand gripped her throat, choking her, and a blade was raised, ready to plunge down into—

No.

She was back in the forest. She was having some kind of awful waking dream. She’d just run here, shame and anger coloring her cheeks. She was going to the ghost-willow, to calm the rage surging within her.

No, she’d already done that. She’d done that over and over, hundreds and thousands of times. Reliving that moment, again and again.

What if this was the dream, and the other vision was real?

The darkness of Syndra’s hatred and anger surged within her.

And she woke from her endless dream.

Sirik saw Syndra’s eyes snap open.

With a desperate cry, she stabbed down with her blade, but struck nothing, for she was hauled into the air by some sudden, unseen force. She struggled against it, flailing wildly, but might as well have been trying to fight the rising tide. She was as helpless as a kitten in the mouth of its mother.

Syndra slipped free of the twisting roots that had ensnared her limbs for so many years, and emerged, gasping. Water streamed off her as she rose into the air, hovering several feet above the surface of the pool, shimmering and pulsing beneath her. Dark power radiated from one hand as she kept Sirik held aloft, floating helplessly, and her eyes burned with cold fire.

As Sirik watched, both horrified and fascinated, a helm—or perhaps a crown—grew into existence upon Syndra’s head. It coiled around her brow, like darkness given life, to form a pair of tall, curving horns. A bead of pure shadow formed at its center, becoming as hard as a gemstone, and burning with the same power that bled from her in waves.

Sirik twisted in the air as her brother Okin broke from Kalan’s grasp. As he did so, he saw Syndra, his expression one of awe. For his part, the vastaya looked almost as stunned, feline lips curled back in a hiss, his eyes wide.

With a horrible, sucking sound, three orbs of utter darkness materialised in the air around Syndra, and began to slowly orbit her. They seemed to swallow the scant light in the cavern, and pull at Sirik’s soul, a vile sensation of loathing and despair clutching at her.

“How long?” Syndra demanded, her voice cracked and unsteady from lack of use. “How long have I been imprisoned here?”

“Years,” spat Sirik. “Decades. We should have killed you long ago.”

She felt Syndra’s hatred surge as a painful stab within her, and she gasped. Then Syndra snarled in fury, and with a gesture sent Sirik hurtling across the cavern.

She smashed against a wall some twenty feet distant, and fell heavily, splashing painfully to the floor. Then Syndra’s dark gaze turned upon Okin and the Noxian creature.

Sirik grimaced in pain. Her left leg and more than one rib were broken, she judged, wincing as she struggled to push herself upright. She cried out as she saw her brother Okin stumble forward into the water, holding his hands up in entreaty.

“No, brother…” she managed, weakly.

“I am not your enemy!” Okin called out. “We are both children of Ionia! Join us!”

Syndra looked down upon him, her gaze radiating power.

“The Noxians attacked our lands, and slaughtered our people!” he continued. “We pushed them back, but they still have a foothold in our ancestral lands. They are not done with us yet! Ionia is divided, and vulnerable! You must help! Help us fight against this new tyranny!”

“I do not know who these Noxians are that you speak of,” Syndra replied. “But if they killed my people, then perhaps I owe them thanks. The only tyranny I experienced was at the hands of those I once called kin.”

Okin’s face was mask of horror, perhaps finally realizing his own foolishness, and he slumped to his knees, defeated.

With a sickening tearing sound, Syndra conjured another dark sphere—all of her bitterness, resentment and anger made manifest. It hovered above her hand, slowly spinning.

“And if you are Ionian, then you are my enemy,” she mused.

Sirik screamed, but there was nothing she could do. With a flick of her wrist, Syndra sent the orb hurtling toward, then through, her brother. He gasped, all the color draining from his flesh, and sank beneath the waters.

Kalan attacked then, leaping from the shadows, claws extended, but another gesture from Syndra sent the three spheres surrounding her hurtling from their orbits towards him, throwing him backward.

“You…” said Syndra, tilting her head to the side, as if trying to place him. “I recognize your soul. You shadowed my dreams.” Her expression darkened even more. “You were my jailor. You… You kept me here.”

From her position, Sirik saw the vastaya push himself to one knee.

“You are an abomination,” he hissed.

Syndra’s hand stabbed out, and the snarling creature was lifted into the air.

The waters of the Dreaming Pool were churning, and Sirik stared in wonder as the roots that had held Syndra began reaching out to reclaim her.

“Kill me, then!” Kalan snarled. “But do so in the knowledge that you will never find peace. Wherever you are, you will be hated and hunted. You will never live free.”

“Kill you?” said Syndra, her lip curling in rage. “No. That would be too clean an end for you.”

With a sweep of her arm, Syndra sent Kalan hurling down into the waters, into the grasp of the writhing roots. They clamped around his limbs reflexively, holding him under. He screamed, air bubbles billowing around him… and then went still.

Sirik stared defiantly at Syndra, knowing that she likely had only moments to live, but to her surprise, the powerful sorceress paid her no mind. Instead, Syndra turned her attention skyward. Both hands were wreathed in dark energy, and with a shout she lifted them high. The stone cracked, and a tumble of dust and rocks fell into the pool, sending crazy ripples spreading out in all directions.

With a violent cutting motion of her arms and a deafening boom, Syndra ripped apart the rock overhead. Huge chunks of stone fell around her, crashing down with titanic force, and Sirik pushed herself backwards desperately, each movement sending searing pain flaring up her leg and side.

Stars blinked in the sky far above, and Syndra began to rise, floating up towards freedom. She glanced back down, once, toward the motionless, submerged figure of Kalan, ensnared by roots.

“Your turn to dream, jailor,” she whispered, and with a sweep of her arms, she entombed him completely beneath the fallen rocks.

Wincing with every movement, Sirik crawled further away, certain she would be crushed at any moment…

The island rumbled, as if wracked by an earthquake. It went on for what seemed like an eternity.

And, when it finally ceased, an unnerving silence fell across Fae’lor.

Sirik crawled from the gloom, breathing in fresh air, and stared about her, eyes wide in shock. Easily half of the fortress was gone.

Her gaze drifted up. At first, she saw nothing but darkness where there should have been stars. With a sharp intake of air, she realized she was looking at the silhouette of the greatest towers and ramparts hanging against the night sky. It hadn’t collapsed into the sea—it had been ripped from the island, and lifted toward the heavens.

She stared, her mouth gaping. She had known Syndra was powerful, but this? This was power she could never have imagined.

As Sirik watched, frozen by the sight, she saw one of the Noxian warships moored in the harbor below lifted from the sea. Men tumbled from its deck like so many ants, falling to their deaths on the rocks below, as the ship was lifted ever higher. Then it fell, smashing back down upon two other vessels, crushing them to splinters. The destruction was catastrophic.

The ruined castle in the sky began to drift northwards. Alone at the sundered peak of the Dael’eh Ahira, Sirik watched it go, until the first rays of dawn crept over the horizon.

The import of the night weighed upon her heavily. Her brother, and the last of the guardians of Fae’lor were dead. All but her.

And while the destruction wrought against the Noxians this night would have been cause for great rejoicing at any other time, her heart was heavy.

Syndra was back in the world.

They had failed.

Kalan knelt, motionless and silent, as he waited for the seer to speak. She was a curious creature, violet-skinned, and with a pearlescent single horn growing from her forehead. Some may have mistaken her for one of his bloodline, the children of the Vastayashai’rei, but any of the kin would know otherwise.

The seer was of a people older even than his ancestors.

When she opened her eyes—those strange, kind, golden-flecked eyes that saw far more than they should—he saw they were tinged with sadness, and his heart sank.

“You are faced with an impossible choice,” she said, her voice as quiet as the rustle of autumn leaves.

“Then tell me what I must do,” said Kalan.

“That is not for me to say. Two paths lie before you, but you can only take one. I warn you, though—both lead to tragedy and sadness.”

Kalan didn’t blink. “Tell me.”

“The first path. You fight the invaders. At the Placidium of Navori, a great battle will be fought. While it will be bloody, you will be victorious. You will be proclaimed a hero. You and your heartlight live in peace for many years. You are happy. And yet, you are destined to outlive both your cubs, who will be taken before their time.”

Kalan took a deep breath. “And the other?” he said.

“You fight alongside the enemy. You never see your heartlight again, nor your children. They call you traitor, and curse your name. Your path is one of darkness, and bitterness, and revilement. You will be hated by your kin, and despised by your invader allies. After they are defeated at the Placidium, you must stand vigil on the isle of Fae’lor, guarding over the place of dreaming. And there you will stay.”

“And my little ones?”

“They live. They prosper. If not in this land, then another. But you will never look upon their faces again, and if you ever deviate from this dark path, they will be lost.”

Kalan nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. Sadness threatened to drag him down, but he suppressed it, pushing it deep inside himself.

As he looked around, taking in the details of the seer’s shrine, he felt that there was something strangely familiar about it… a vague sense that he’d been here before, that he’d felt this awful sense of grief and loss more than once.

He shook his head. To be trapped in this accursed moment forever? Now, that would be a fate far worse than death.

“I am sorry, my child,” said the seer. “It is a terrible choice you must make.”

“No,” said Kalan. “The choice is a simple one.”

Icy waves crashed on the bleak shore, red with the blood of the men Hecarim had already butchered. The mortals he had yet to kill were retreating over the beach in terror. Black rain doused them and stormclouds boiled in from the mourning heart of the island. He heard them shouting to one another. The words were a guttural battle-cant he did not recognize, but the meaning was clear; they actually thought they might live to reach their ship. True, they had some skill. They moved as one, wooden shields interlocked. But they were mortal and Hecarim savored the meat-stink of their fear.

He circled them, threading crumbling ruins and unseen in the shadowed mist rising from the ashen sand. The echoing thunder of his hooves struck sparks from black rocks. It gnawed at their courage. He watched the mortals through the slitted visor of his helm. The weak light of their wretched spirits was flickering corposant in their flesh. It repulsed him even as he craved it.

“No-one lives,” he said.

His voice was muffled by the dread iron of his helm, like the corpse-rasp of a hanged man. The sound scraped along their nerves like rusted blades. He drank in their terror and grinned as one man threw down his shield and ran for the ship in desperation.

He bellowed as he galloped from the weed-choked ruins, lowering his hooked glaive and feeling the old thrill of the charge. A memory flickered, riding at the head of a silver host. Winning glory and honor. The memory faded as the man reached the dark surf of cold breakers and looked over his shoulder.

“Please! No!” he cried.

Hecarim split him from collarbone to pelvis in one thunderous blow.

His ebon-bladed glaive pulsed as it bathed in blood. The fragile wisp of the man’s spirit sought to fly free, but the mist’s hunger would not be cheated. Hecarim watched as the soul was twisted into a dark reflection of the man’s life.

Hecarim drew the power of the island to him and the bloody surf churned with motion as a host of dark knights wreathed in shimmering light rose from the water. Sealed within archaic plates of ghostly iron, they drew black swords that glimmered with dark radiance. He should know these men. They had served him once and served him still, but he had no memory of them. He turned back towards the mortals on the beach. He parted the mists, revelling in their terror as they saw him clearly for the first time.

His colossal form was a nightmarish hybrid of man and horse, a chimeric juggernaut of brazen iron. The plates of his body were dark and stamped with etchings whose meanings he only vaguely recalled. Bale-fire smouldered behind his visor, the spirit within cold and dead yet hatefully vital.

Hecarim reared as forking traceries of lightning split the sky. He lowered his glaive and led his knights in the charge, throwing up giant clumps of blood-sodden sand and bone fragments as he went. The mortals screamed and brought up their shields, but the ghost-knights charge was unstoppable. Hecarim struck first as was his right as their master, and the thunderous impact splintered the shieldwall wide open. Men were trampled to bloody gruel beneath his iron-shod bulk. His glaive struck out left and right, killing with every strike. The ghost knights crushed all before them, slaughtering the living in a fury of thrashing hooves, stabbing lances and chopping blades. Bones cracked and blood sprayed as mortal spirits fled broken bodies, already trapped between life and death by the fell magic of the Ruined King.

The spirits of the dead circled Hecarim, beholden to him as their killer and he revelled in the surging joy of battle. He ignored the wailing spirits. He had no interest in enslaving them. Leave such petty cruelties to the Chain Warden.

All Hecarim cared for was killing.

Bilgewater’s White Wharf had earned its name thanks to the layer of bird waste covering it from end to end, which was only to be expected at a resting place for the dead. Folk here didn’t bury corpses; they returned them to the sea. A grave of the sunken dead hung suspended in the cold depths, marked by hundreds of bobbing grave-buoys. Some were merely name posts, while others were elaborate tomb markers carved to resemble rearing krakens or buxom sea wenches.

Miss Fortune sat on an empty crate of Rapture Rum at the end of the wharf, legs crossed and a noxious cheroot dangling from her bottom lip. In one hand, she held a length of breathing tube connected to a half-submerged coffin floating low in the water. In the other, she grasped a length of frayed rope running through a rusted pulley block and tied to the coffin lid. Both her pistols were holstered within easy reach.

Moonlight cast a weak glow through the mist rolling in from the sea, staining the water’s scummed surface tobacco yellow. Cawing carrion gulls lined every swaybacked roof on the quayside, which was always a good omen. They knew better than any the signs of fresh pickings.

“About time,” she whispered, as a shaven-headed man in a drake-scale frock coat emerged from the narrow, debris-choked alley. A pack of needle-toothed wharf-rats stalked him, hoping he was drunk and might pass out to become easy meat. The man’s name was Jakmunt Zyglos, one of the Painted Brothers. Any corsair worth his salt had tattoos, but every inch of Zyglos was inked with clawed serpents, lovers’ names, and a record of every boat he’d sunk, every man he’d murdered. His skin was as good a confession as any she’d known.

He marched purposefully along the wharf, but his eyes darting warily from side to side gave the lie to his confidence. His hand gripped a long cutlass with a shark-toothed edge that hung low on his hip. He too boasted a firearm, a stubby carbine with glassy pipes running the length of its barrel.

“Where is he?” demanded Zyglos. “You said you’d bring him.”

“That a Piltover hex-carbine?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Answer me, damn you!”

“You first,” said Miss Fortune, letting some rope out through the pulley and allowing the coffin to sink a little more. “After all, I’m not sure how long this breathing tube is, and you wouldn’t want your brother to go without air, would you?”

Zyglos took a breath, and she saw the tension go out of him.

“Yes, damn you, it’s from Piltover,” he said, drawing the weapon and holding it out by the trigger guard.

“Pricy,” said Miss Fortune.

“I guess you’d know,” he sneered.

She let out even more rope. Bubbles of air escaped the now fully submerged coffin. Zyglos held up his hands, instantly contrite.

“Alright! Alright!” he pleaded. “It’s yours. Pull him up. Please.”

“You’ll come quietly?”

Zyglos gave a bark of fatalistic laughter.

“What choice do I have?” he asked. “You sank my ships and killed all my men. You’ve sent my kin to the poorhouse or the gaol, and for what? A stolen hex-gun? A bounty?”

“A little of both and then some?”

“So how much am I worth to you, bitch?”

“Coin? Five hundred silver serpents.”

“All this mayhem for a lousy five hundred serpents?”

“It’s not the money that’s got you killed. It’s the fact that you’re one of Gangplank’s sworn men,” said Miss Fortune. “That’s why I want you dead.”

“Dead? Wait, the warrant says alive!”

“True, but I’ve never been very good at following instructions,” said Miss Fortune, releasing the rope and the breathing tube. The coffin plunged into the darkness of the sunken dead, trailing a froth of frantic bubbles. Zyglos screamed his brother’s name and ran at her, drawing his serrated sword. She let him get within spitting distance before drawing her pistols and blasting him with both barrels, one through the eye, one in the heart.

Miss Fortune spat her cheroot into the sea and blew the smoke from each muzzle.

“Self defense,” she said with a smile, rehearsing her lie for the bounty pursers. “Crazy fool came at me with that fang-sword of his. I didn’t have a choice.”

Miss Fortune bent to retrieve the fallen hex-carbine. She turned the weapon over in her hands. Too light for her tastes, but artfully made and absurdly lethal. The ghost of a smile twitched the corner of her mouth as she thought back to the warmth of the old workshop, the smell of gun oil, and the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. Miss Fortune sighed and shook off the memory before it turned sour. She threw the pistol out over the water, sending it down to the dead. The sea demanded its due, after all, and she’d not lied; the weapon was worth a small fortune.

She stood and strolled back into Bilgewater. She knew she ought to throw Zyglos’s corpse into the water too, but the wharf-rats and the carrion gulls had to eat, didn’t they?

And fresh meat was a rare delicacy on the White Wharf.

Akali could see the stars. They shimmered above her, each one a flickering flame over Valoran City.

Pretty, Akali thought, focusing on those distant lights, forgetting for just a moment that she couldn’t breathe. She forgot the feeling of gravel pressing into her back as she lay prone where they’d left her. Forgot the way the other kids had turned on her when she’d tried to stop them from hurting the small, grimy puppy they’d found in the alley. She forgot everything but the stars, until a soft voice broke her focus.

“Are you okay?”

Akali tried to turn toward that voice, curious as to who’d been brave enough to break up a five-on-one fight. Awareness of where, exactly, those punches and kicks had landed, however, kept her on the ground.

“Did they knock you out?” the stranger asked, concerned.

“Knocked down, actually,” Akali corrected her with a wince. Talking hurt. “But then I figured I’d just stay down here. It’s cozy, you know?” The girl laughed, making Akali smile... and then grimace. Smiling hurt, too.

The girl stepped forward to stand above Akali. She offered a hand, and smiled. “As comfy as that seems, maybe we should get you off the ground? This place is gross.”

Akali couldn’t argue with that, grabbing the girl’s arm and pulling herself up.

It was only then that Akali realized she recognized this girl! Tall, pink hair, prim clothes... It was Kai’Sa! Pretty, perfect Kai’Sa. Akali had never spoken to her, but she knew Kai’Sa had been popular ever since she transferred to Valoran City Middle School earlier this year. The teachers wouldn’t shut up about her. Polite, excellent in every subject, quiet. Basically Akali’s opposite, or so she had thought, right up until Kai’Sa had stormed into the alley. Akali heard Kai’Sa tell all five assailants that if she ever caught them picking on anyone, human or otherwise, she’d personally make them regret it. They’d fled without another word. Akali was as impressed as she was in pain.

“I’m gonna have bruises on my bruises,” she admitted.

“You do this often? The fights, I mean, not the losing.” Kai’Sa grinned.

“Neither,” Akali hedged. “Well, not usually. Sometimes? But they were picking on a—oh, crap! The dog!”

Kai’Sa helped her dig through the nearby bins, and Akali marveled at her willingness to get her hands dirty. Literally. They were elbow-deep in trash and muck until—

“There you are!” Kai’Sa said, pulling the trembling pup from beneath a sodden bag. The creature was filthy, more dirt than dog, but it gave a small wag of its tail as Kai’Sa held it.

“I think you made a friend,” Akali said.

“And here I was thinking I’d made two,” Kai’Sa mused. It took Akali a moment to understand.

“Me?! Why would you wanna be friends with me?” Akali wasn’t good at... well, anything, really, unless you counted playing video games. Which Akali did, of course, but Kai’Sa didn’t know that.

“Well, for starters,” Kai’Sa said as she stood, still holding the dog, “I saved your life. Figure that makes us friends. Plus, you got your butt handed to you trying to save a puppy. Means you have good character.”

Akali laughed. “All right, new friend. What are we gonna do with the dog? No way my mom would let it in the house. She barely lets me in the house!”

“My dad runs the shelter down the street. I volunteer on weekends.”

“Of course you do,” Akali said dryly as Kai’Sa set off.

“Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “We can drop this little guy off, and then I’ll walk you home.”

“Huh? I don’t need a babysitter!”

“You napping in an alley says otherwise.”

Akali realized she’d never win an argument with this girl.

Kai’Sa was true to her word. After settling the dog in one of the plush shelter beds, Kai’Sa walked Akali straight home. The journey was surprisingly pleasant, despite Akali knowing what awaited her at home. She marveled at how easy it was to talk to Kai’Sa. They made plans to grab ramen tomorrow after school, and that alone was enough to drown out the lecture that began as soon as she shut her front door. However, her mother’s admonishments of “useless” and “delinquent” failed to hit their mark for once, banished by the word “friend” blazing in Akali’s heart like a newborn star.

Valoran City Park was busier than usual. Everyone seemed to have reached the same conclusion, opting for the longer, more scenic route to the mall to soak in the beautiful day. After all, who wouldn’t want to bask in the sunshine, birdsong, and Kai’Sa’s yelling.

“You don’t even know what it’s for!”

Kai'Sa never shouted, not in the years Akali had known her, and especially not in public, so Akali couldn’t really blame the passerby for staring. Not when she shouted right back.

“I don’t care what it’s for! No petition thing is worth burning out over!”

“It’s worth it to me! And I’m not burnt out! I’m just tired!”

Akali rolled her eyes. “Tired?! Kai’Sa, tired is you forgetting your homework, not sleeping through class!”

“Look, I don’t need a babysitter, Akali.” Their old joke now felt like a jab.

“You’re right,” Akali spat. “What you need is someone who isn’t going to let you lie to yourself. You’re pulling double shifts at the shelter on top of everything else!”

“Dad needs the help,” Kai’Sa and Akali said in unison.

“Well, it’s true,” Kai’Sa said softly.

Kai’Sa was selfless to a serious fault. It was something Akali usually admired, but now...

“There’s always someone else to help.”

“Oh, so now it’s wrong to help people?” Kai’Sa demanded.

“That’s not what I meant!” Akali knew she should rein in her temper, but— “I’m not gonna sit here and watch you sacrifice yourself for other people!”

“I thought you of all people would—you know what? Never mind.” Kai’Sa’s lower lip trembled. “I need to be alone right now.”

Akali knew she shouldn’t leave. She wanted Kai’Sa to trust her to be there when things got tough. The worst thing Akali could do was go to the mall without her best friend.

It’s official. I am the worst.

Guilt and shame had been no match for pride as Akali had made the trek to the mall alone. This couldn’t all be her fault, right?

That was all my fault.

Whatever else Kai’Sa had going on, she’d always been there for Akali. When things at home had gotten really bad, Kai’Sa was there for her. They’d taken to wandering Valoran City together after school, looking for trouble and trying to stop it if they could. “A bona fide crime-fighting duo,” Kai’Sa called them. Sure, it was mostly to keep Akali out of trouble, but they’d saved a few kids, too.

See? Akali reasoned. I help people!

But Kai’Sa was the one who helped her, no matter how tough it got.

And I just left her there!

“I’m the worst!”

“The worst? Seems a bit dramatic, dear.” A little old lady at the flower kiosk was smiling at her. Akali had been talking to herself. Great.

“S-Sorry. Just... being stupid.” Akali turned to leave, but her gaze snagged on a bouquet of delicate pink and blue blossoms. She recognized them. Kai’Sa loved those little flowers so much that she’d bought matching friendship bracelets with them as charms. Akali could feel the delicate metal against her wrist.

“Forget-me-nots.” The flower seller nodded, knowingly. “They represent an unbreakable bond of love and friendship. They also make a lovely apology.”

A gift! Maybe that would help smooth things over with Kai’Sa! Akali pulled out her wallet, oblivious to the strange rumbling that began above her.

Don’t look. You know she hasn’t called! Sarah Fortune clutched her phone so hard it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. How was not hearing from Ahri worse than fighting monsters?

Don’t look. Don’t—

“Sarah?”

“What?!” she snapped.

“S-Sorry, Fortune. I mean, er, Sarah. I—you looked sort of... angry? I was w-worried.” Lux’s face had turned the same shade as her bright pink hair, and guilt needled Sarah’s conscience.

“Sorry, Lux. I was thinking. About stuff.” Oh, yeah. Very reassuring.

But Lux sagged with relief. “I know you said yes to shopping with us and everything, but I was worried.”

“I’m glad you invited me, Lux. This is a welcome distraction,” Sarah offered with a half-hearted smile. “Now hurry up. Ez looks like he’s going to implode.”

They turned to see Ezreal waving excitedly, gesturing to a Lights & Lamps store, of all places. Lux blushed.

“I’m okay, so go have fun,” Sarah said.

She wasn’t okay, but Lux didn’t need to know that. Instead, Sarah watched Lux smile before running past the flower kiosk to catch up with Ezreal. Jinx, rolling her eyes, followed them.

Sarah didn’t mind coming with them to the mall, not really. From where she sat on her bench, she could see Poppy carrying two ice-cream cones to Lulu, who might have been drooling. She spotted Janna and Soraka being as awkward as possible at the front of a line in the food court. They’d been there for ten minutes, engaged in a polite battle of wills, with many an “Oh, after you!” and “No, please, I insist,” as an irritated crowd formed behind them. Sarah almost smiled at the thought of how long Jinx had been glaring at Ezreal without blinking.

Syndra wasn’t there, of course. She’d been “busy,” but everyone else had made it. Except Ahri.

Yup. Not hearing from Ahri was worse than fighting monsters.

She’s probably in space. Or she’s dead. Or she’s dead in space!

But Sarah knew Ahri would be fine. Fine, and aloof, and unwilling to confide in anyone. Not even her own lieutenant.

It had been like this ever since... that battle. With her.

No! Sarah wouldn’t think about that, even as memories of that lonely planet threatened to rise to the surface. She couldn’t think of Ahri dragging her away from their fallen friends. Not as guilt whispered that they were dead because of her. Nope. Sarah buried that pain deep. And when she couldn’t bury it, she distracted herself from it. She had her new team. She had her phone. Easy! Except when it wasn’t. Like now.

And this is why you can’t get close to the others, Sarah reminded herself. She was barely keeping it together after losing one team. Sarah didn’t think she’d survive losing another. Not if she saw them as more than the mission.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she whispered to herself.

Sarah’s training made it impossible to truly be lost in thought. That’s why one moment she sat, trying to forget, and the next she was standing, every muscle in her body tense.

A keening whistle, the sound of something moving far too fast, was followed by a rumble from somewhere above her.

“What the—?” But Sarah was cut off as something crashed into the flower stand.

Akali could see the sky. She could make out the pinks and purples of sunset through a hole in the ceiling. Petals and debris fell, and for some reason, they reminded her of Kai’Sa.

Forget-me-nots. That’s right. She had been talking to the flower seller, but she couldn’t remember why. Her head throbbed. If only her thoughts weren’t so sluggish. If only the people around her would stop screaming—people were screaming! Panic cut bone-deep. Something was wrong, and awareness, mingled with adrenaline, broke through the haze in her head.

Uh-oh, she thought dimly. This isn’t good.

“Now this isn’t good,” a male voice agreed from somewhere above her. Akali could just make out two figures in front of her, obscured by clouds of dust.

“Where are the banners? Where are the parades and adoring fans?” the voice went on.

“Looks like no one planned a party for your homecoming, Rakan.” A girl’s voice now, bored and mocking.

“I think you’re right, Xayah!”

As the dust began to settle, Akali could see who’d spoken, but—that couldn’t be right. They looked, well, ridiculous. Feathered capes? Gemstones? They were facing away from her as Xayah patted Rakan’s arm.

“Not even a balloon,” he whined. “Babe, do you know what this means?”

“That I’m going to have to coddle your fragile ego?” Xayah asked dryly.

“Well, yes, but no! It means we’re gonna destroy the city. What do you say?”

“It’s a date,” she said simply, before the pair unleashed themselves.

It was what Sarah had been waiting for—less thinking, more action. Past the clouds of dust, she could just make out Lux, Ezreal, and Jinx sprinting toward whatever had crashed through the roof. Poppy, pulling her hammer from Light only knew where, shielded Lulu, who was still eating her ice cream. Sarah couldn’t see them, but she could hear Soraka and Janna ushering panicked shoppers away from the epicenter.

“See anything?” Sarah shouted at Lux.

“Not a thing! There’s too much—Janna, help!”

A gust of wind cleared the lingering dust to reveal two figures. The taller one gave a gracious bow in Sarah’s direction, but the other only glared, hatred clouding her violet eyes. Familiar eyes. But they were the wrong color. They were wrong. They were—

Buried memories clawed their way through Sarah’s psyche. Green eyes were filled with tears. He wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving. Fuchsia feathers fell into puddles of black. Someone grabbed Sarah around the waist, pulling, pleading. A child’s laugh, horrible and cruel.

No! They couldn’t be here. They couldn’t be...

“Xayah? Rakan?” Sarah whispered.

“Looks like she remembers us after all,” Rakan mused, glancing at his partner, but Xayah only had eyes for Sarah. She snarled, and Sarah’s instincts took over.

Looking back, she would wonder if things might have gone differently had Ahri been there. She, at least, would have cautioned against transforming in front of hundreds of panicked patrons. She would defuse the situation in that calm, level-headed way of hers. But Sarah wasn’t Ahri.

“STAR GUARDIANS!” Sarah and Xayah shouted, Sarah’s words a command, Xayah’s a curse, as a kaleidoscope of color exploded from them all.

Sarah couldn’t say she fully believed in the First Light. She wasn’t keen on some unknowable, cosmic force manipulating her life. But she believed in the mission, in protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves, no matter the cost. That molten core of belief fueled her transformation, her world becoming one of color, light, and white-hot power. She channeled it, allowing starlight to replace doubt, replace fear. She could see the gem now glowing on her chest, her uniform twinkling like a galaxy. The old Sarah Fortune had melted away, leaving only a Star Guardian.

The light of eight transformations momentarily blinded Xayah and Rakan, and Sarah seized her chance.

“Boki! Baki! It’s showtime!” Sarah cried.

Her familiars popped into being. A small frown replaced Baki’s usual smirk, and Boki glanced with his good eye past Xayah and Rakan to where Saki and Riku, their familiars, fluttered nervously. Boki let out a sad squeak.

“It isn’t them,” Sarah said, whether to herself or her familiars, she wasn’t sure.

“Still making a habit of lying to yourself?” Xayah asked before hurling her feathers like knives. Sarah took them out with two precise pistol shots, but Xayah had already thrown a second volley.

“Not today, lady.” Ezreal teleported in front of Sarah, firing bolts at the oncoming darts, only to be caught off guard by Rakan. One of his feathers clipped Ezreal’s gem, missing his heart by inches.

“There can only be one leading man, you know,” Rakan offered, almost amicably.

“Yeah,” Ezreal agreed, taking aim with his gauntlet. “I’m pretty sure it’s me!”

“I’m pretty sure it’s ME!” Jinx shouted just as her familiars, Kuro and Shiro, unleashed a storm of bullets.

The battle became a blur of light and color, Xayah and Rakan matching the guardians’ combined attacks. How were they so powerful?! Rakan charged headfirst at Poppy, only to narrowly avoid the downward swing of her hammer. Xayah zipped toward them, but Lulu threw Pix at her face. Before Xayah could retaliate against the flapping familiar, Lux shot an orb of light that bound Xayah and Rakan in prismatic rings.

“Why are you attacking us?!” Lux demanded. “Stop this!”

“‘Stop this!’ Ugh. You guardian losers never change.” Xayah looked disgusted.

“Whatever you two are, you shouldn’t be here,” Sarah said.

“Well, you shouldn’t have—what was it she did to us, Rakan?” Xayah said as she struggled against her bindings.

“Abandoned us to die?” Rakan broke free from his ring, Xayah a beat behind.

“Abandoned us to die! Yup, that was it!” Xayah said.

Sarah aimed a shaking barrel at Xayah. “That wasn’t you! The real Xayah and Rakan are dead.”

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?” Xayah chided.

Sarah fired. Rakan soared to Xayah’s side in an instant, a golden shield enveloping them.

“Or is that what Ahri told you?” Xayah seethed. “That we died? Or that we weren’t worth saving!” She broke out of Rakan’s protection toward Sarah once more, but another brilliant beam of light from Lux forced her back.

“Fortu—Sarah, we have a problem,” Lux said.

“Wow, Lux. I hadn’t noticed.” Sarah rolled her eyes.

“Not them!”

Did Lux just snap at her? But Lux wasn’t looking at her, or at Xayah and Rakan. She was staring behind them, to where a small figure cowered in the wreckage of the flower stand.

“We have a problem,” Sarah agreed.

“You need to get her out of here,” Lux said.

“Me? You don’t even know what you’re up against—”

“And you’re too close to this!” Lux really did snap at her! “I watched you hesitate. You never hesitate. And we need help. Go get Ahri. Or Syndra. Anyone! And get that girl out of here.”

Sarah didn’t move, not until Lux whispered, “Please.”

She knew Lux was right. Someone had to help the kid, and Sarah... really was too close to this.

“You’re in charge,” Sarah said, jumping into the air.

“Do you ever not run away?!” Xayah threw another feather at her, but Janna knocked it off course with a well-aimed breeze. Rakan tried to intercept Sarah, but Pix hit him in the head with a smack.

“STOP THROWING THIS THING AT PEOPLE,” Rakan shouted, spinning in mid-air to land on his feet. Lulu waved at Sarah.

“Time to save a star,” she said dreamily before readying Pix for another attack.

Sarah landed next to the girl, who trembled against the only remaining wall of the flower stand.

“Hey, kid. We gotta get you out of here,” Sarah coaxed, but the girl didn’t move. She just stared at the very real, very magical fight happening in front of them.

She’s in shock.

Well, from lieutenant to babysitter. Sarah pulled the girl to her feet, half dragging her toward the exit. A swirling path of stars appeared, lighting the way. Sarah nodded her thanks to Soraka, not stopping even as Xayah shouted after her.

“Leaving your friends to die again, Sarah? You’re pathetic!”

A part of Sarah worried Xayah was right.

Akali was running, aided in no small part by an older girl she didn’t recognize right away. But then Akali remembered. She’d been one of those people fighting in the mall.

Sarah. That’s what one of them had said, right? And she had...

A gun. She had two guns.

Without hesitation, Akali kicked her in the shin. Hard.

“What the heck?!” Sarah shouted, releasing Akali and taking a startled step back. “What’s the matter with you?!”

But Akali was already outside. Had she hit her head? A concussion? That might explain why she’d seen a bunch of teenagers flinging light and bullets at each other like it was nothing. Aliens or a concussion, Akali decided. The only two options that made sense.

“HEY, KID! WAIT!”

The alien-concussion girl called Sarah was following her! Akali didn’t know what this hallucination wanted, but she certainly wasn’t about to find out.

She sprinted and—why were there so many people?! Far more than there’d been in the mall this close to closing. Akali skirted around them, veering left toward the center of Valoran City, away from the fleeing crowds.

Akali rounded a corner and stopped. She was staring at the city’s heart.

What was left of it, anyway.

Akali heard Sarah catch up to her, but it didn’t matter anymore. Not when the once unbroken skyline was now fractured under the weight of falling stars. But they couldn’t be stars. Some were made of darkest night, others glowing embers. They zipped across the twilight sky, changing course midair to crash down without warning. Where they landed, corrosive purples, pinks, and blues blossomed. Buildings collapsed, only to be swallowed by fathomless black holes that winked like all-seeing eyes. Now Akali knew why there’d been so many people. They’d been running away, not just from the mall, but from this. It was terror. It was madness. It was—

“Pretty,” Akali whispered, unable to look away.

“Snap out of it!” Sarah spun Akali away from the chaos.

Akali leaped back. “Don’t touch me!”

Sarah raised her hands. “Hey, hey. I’m on your side. I’m a Star Guardian! We’re the good guys!”

Akali laughed. “Star Guardians? Do you hear yourself?” she scoffed. “Lady, last I checked, good guys don’t destroy malls. Or cities!”

“We didn’t do this, kid!”

“Akali,” she corrected out of pure habit.

“Okay, Akali,” Sarah spat. “Back there, we were just doing our jobs! Protecting people like you from—”

“Your friends,” Akali cut her off. “That other girl... Xayah. She knew you. Which means you’re one of them!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sarah glowered. “And those two were... It doesn't matter who they were. They aren’t like us!”

“Xayah... She said you left them to die. I don’t care who’s on what side, but good people don’t do that!”

Before Sarah could respond, a loud whoosh preceded an inferno of purple fire that funneled into a swirling mass from somewhere blocks away.

That wasn’t very far. Akali had been there barely thirty minutes ago, after all.

“The park...” Akali whispered, right as Sarah said, “Syndra?!”

Akali didn’t ask what a Syndra was. She was already running.

“Hey!” Sarah shouted after her.

“You may be okay leaving your friends to die, Sarah, but I’m not!”

Akali’s gonna get herself killed. Sarah thought about letting her go. It was a terrible thought, but her shin hurt, and Akali’s words had stung. The girl was a brat. A liability.

And she’d been right.

“I’m going to regret this,” Sarah muttered, with no one but Baki and Boki to hear her. They quipped sounds of encouragement as Sarah shot into the air after Akali. She couldn’t have gone far.

As Sarah scanned the city below, her stomach dropped. This particular brand of destruction was worse than she remembered. Or maybe she’d simply tried to erase the memory of what, exactly, Zoe’s magic was capable of.

Don’t remember. Don’t remember. Sarah forced herself to ignore the memories, just as she ignored the screams from the city below. She had to focus on the mission.

“Akali! Where the heck are you?”

“Come on!” someone shouted. Was it Akali?

Sarah landed, tearing off down an alley... and there! Thank the Light. Akali was kneeling in front of a pile of rubble that had clearly broken off a nearby building.

“Come on!” Akali repeated, hurling brick after brick off the mound. A falling paddle star zoomed overhead, illuminating the rubble. Something was under there. Fabric covering what looked like—

“Akali...” Sarah took a step toward her. She could see Akali’s hands, nails cracked and fingers bruised from desperation.

Another star, but the light was too bright this time. This paddle star crashed nearby, and a piece of wall was dislodged by the impact.

“Akali!” Sarah wrapped an arm around Akali’s waist and twisted, flinging her to one side. With her other hand, she aimed her pistol. Bang! The wall broke apart, landing in pieces where Akali had been moments before.

“No!” Akali screamed as debris further buried whoever she’d tried to save.

Sarah launched them both into the air. “They’re gone, Akali.”

“You don’t know that!” Akali sobbed. “They might still be alive!”

“I had to make the call! It was you or them, and it was too late for them!”

“You don’t know that...” Akali whispered again and again, just as Sarah had to Ahri on a lonely planet a lifetime ago.

They had been a team then, stronger than they’d ever been. That must’ve delighted Zoe as she snuffed each one out like a candle. Rakan fell first, as if Zoe knew how much it would shatter Xayah. Neeko was next. One spell to the chest. That was all it took. And Xayah—

“Put me down,” Akali rasped. “Put me down now!”

“If you kick me again, I will drop you.”

“I said put me down!”

“Absolutely not.” Sarah had to get Akali somewhere safe. Had to find Syndra. Had to help her—

“—friend!”

Sarah almost did drop her. “What did you say?”

“My friend—she’s out there!” Akali pleaded. “We argued in the park, and the explosion came from there, and—”

Sarah landed, placing Akali gently on the ground in front of an arcade. Its lights flickered on and off, but the structure seemed sound.

“That’s what this is about? You kicked me, made me chase you around the city... so you could find your friend?”

Akali nodded.

“Look, ki—Akali. I can’t stop all this if I’m babysitting you.”

Akali opened her mouth to argue, but Sarah cut her off. “Even if you found your friend, do you really think you could save her?!”

Akali looked away. Sarah sighed. Don’t do it, Fortune! You don't have time!

“Look. If I find your friend—” Sarah began.

“Kai’Sa! Her name’s Kai’Sa!” The hope in Akali’s voice made Sarah’s throat burn. Fortune, you big, soft idiot. “If I find Kai’Sa, I’ll make sure she finds you.”

“Promise?!”

Sarah held Akali’s foolish hope in her heart like a counterweight.

“I promise,” she said.

Sarah worried it was a promise she couldn’t keep.

Sarah was flying faster than she’d ever flown, heading toward the park. No more babysitting. She was a Star Guardian lieutenant once again. As she soared between the last of the skyscrapers, she saw a grassy field leading up to the edge of Valoran Park. There, two figures stood at the base of the Wishing Tree.

“What took you so long?” Xayah crooned.

Sarah plummeted, Xayah’s quills passing harmlessly above her.

Where are the others? Sarah pulled up from her dive and hovered in midair, looking back to the buildings she’d passed, dread bubbling up once more. Lux. Ezreal. Her frien— Her team. What if Xayah had—

Xayah leaped, her body a missile heading straight for Sarah. There was no time to dodge! Sarah braced for impact... but it never came. Instead, gale-force winds blasted from between the buildings, knocking Xayah out of the air and into Rakan. Janna and Soraka ran onto the grass a moment later.

“That was very good,” Soraka said fondly to Janna. Poppy and Lulu rode on the older girls’ shoulders, and Sarah didn’t know if she should laugh or cry with relief. They were okay! Sarah landed just as Lulu glared from behind Soraka’s waves of green hair.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to chase people?” Lulu demanded.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude not to just let us kill you?!” Rakan countered, as Xayah rolled off him.

“Oh, shut up!” Jinx said as she shoved past a sprinting Lux and Ezreal. She fell to one knee, aiming her rocket with unusually careful precision.

BOOM! Jinx’s whoop of satisfaction was followed by Rakan’s cry of pain. The rocket had clipped his wing.

“I’m sick of you shooting at us!” Xayah swore, firing a quill at Jinx.

“Well, we’re sick of you two being jerks!” Ezreal retorted as Yuuto burst out of his

gauntlet to knock Xayah’s attack off course.

“Nice one, bolt boy.” Jinx gave him a rare grin.

“Ez! Jinx!” Sarah ran to them, fighting an insane urge to hug them. “Can you clear

me a path?”

Ezreal nodded, before teleporting right to Rakan. Sarah expected him to fire an arrow, or an orb, but to her utter delight, Ezreal simply tackled Rakan to the ground. Xayah raced for Rakan.

“Whatcha think, kiddies? Should we help out?” Jinx said to her familiars. Kuro let out an almost intimidating roar in answer. Shiro, ever in contrast, gave a small, horrifying grin that matched Jinx’s own. And then they were sprinting, Kuro and Shiro raining bullets on Xayah without mercy.

Lux gave the barrage a wide berth as she caught up to Sarah. “That purple explosion earlier... that was Syndra and Multi?”

Sarah nodded. “Can you hold them off?” she asked, watching Ezreal and Rakan roll on the ground.

“What does she think we’ve been doing?” Poppy said, leaping off Janna’s shoulders. She ran, hammer raised, to help Ezreal.

“We’ve got this,” Lux said as another plume of purple fire scorched the sky above the park. “Go!” She ran toward the others.

Sarah didn’t need to be told twice. Syndra was still alive! Sarah knew she was powerful, but against some foes, power was never enough.

I’m coming, Syndra. Just hold on.

Sarah raced through the trees, not stopping to marvel at the paddle stars that had fallen in an eerily perfect circle, leaving the heart of the park intact.

As she passed through the circle, she saw a tall girl with midnight hair.

“Syndra!” Sarah cried, though her relief was fleeting.

In front of Syndra sat a little girl on the swings. But this was no child. The swirling eddies of her purple hair were streaked with blue and adorned with shimmering stars. The girl looked at Sarah and smiled.

Laughter on a lonely planet. Friends screaming, falling around her. The taste of chaos and magic scorching her tongue. Cold, fathomless eyes. A grin that promised nothing. And everything.

Zoe.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Syndra muttered, not daring to turn her back on the Twilight Star. Fear made every step an effort as Sarah moved next to Syndra. Sarah could see her own terror-stricken face mirrored in the gem atop Zoe’s brow. Still, she chanced a glance around the park. No sign of Kai’Sa. Thank the Light for small mercies.

“I came for you,” Sarah said. It was clear Syndra and Zoe had been fighting, but Syndra seemed unharmed. Just how strong was she?!

“You need to worry about yourself,” Syndra advised, just as another voice rang across the park. Xayah had caught up to them.

“Worrying about herself is the only thing Sarah’s good at!” Xayah spat, much to Zoe’s delight.

“Xayah! Sarah! I missed you two,” Zoe said.

“Can’t say the same,” Sarah replied.

“But we had so much fun last time,” Zoe whined. “Right, Xayah?”

“I don’t know if I’d call dying fun,” she admitted.

“It was fun for me! And I bet it was fun for Sarah! She probably couldn’t wait to get away from you.”

Sarah balled her hands into fists. “I know what you’re doing, Zoe.”

“I’m telling the truth,” she crooned. “I mean, why else would you leave?”

“Rakan was gone. Neeko was dead!”

“What about Xayah?” Zoe asked, innocently. Sarah said nothing.

“ANSWER ME!”

Zoe’s shout was so sudden that Sarah didn’t have time to react as she opened a black hole between them. A paddle star shot from the void, arcing around to slam into Sarah’s back, searing the exposed skin between her shoulder blades. Sarah fell to her knees, doubled over in agony. She pressed her forehead on the cool earth, trying to calm herself against the heat and pain, but a foot pressed on her shoulder, holding her down. Xayah.

“I didn’t know,” Sarah said through gritted teeth.

Zoe cackled as Syndra fired off three orbs of dark magic.

“See, Xayah? Sarah’s got new friends now,” Zoe teased. She then yawned, summoning portals of pitch to swallow Syndra’s attack. “It’s probably because Syndra’s stronger than you, Xayah.”

The pressure vanished from Sarah’s shoulder, and she raised her head to see Xayah turn on Syndra. Her feathers soared, and Syndra sprinted out of the way. Now at a safe distance, Syndra called upon Multi. Her familiar rose to orbit around her like small, giddy moons. Mouths opened wide, Multi swallowed the feathers whole.

“Whoa! That was almost as impressive as me!” Rakan whistled, finally catching up to Xayah. He turned to Sarah. “What’s not impressive is, like, how obnoxious your friends are? They keep following me—”

“Syndra! Sarah!” Lux was first to arrive, but Sarah heard the others not far behind.

“See what I mean?” Rakan said, before the whizz of his feathers clashed with the sound of Lux’s magic.

But Sarah didn’t watch them. Not as Xayah walked back to her, kneeling down where Sarah still struggled to rise. Zoe could hardly contain her glee, a dark aura beginning to pulse around her. Just like before.

“I watched you run,” Xayah said softly.

Xayah grabbed Sarah’s chin, forcing her to look up. At her. At Zoe. She watched as grasping hands began to take shape, magic peeling off Zoe in ligaments that clawed at Xayah’s wings. Her head. Her heart. Xayah didn’t notice.

“I watched Ahri grab you and run. I called out to you. I was alive, and you left me there.”

The hands clasped around Xayah’s throat as if to choke her, and when they moved, the wound on Sarah’s back writhed in pleasure. Chaos. Corruption. Zoe.

“No...” Sarah rasped. Darkness and pain lodged between her shoulder blades and beat like a second heart, every pulse a misery.

Sarah thought someone said her name, but Zoe shushed them.

“This is the good part!” Zoe said, and the paddle stars suddenly became a torrent, a curtain cutting the others off from Sarah and Xayah.

“Do you know what it feels like... to die?” Xayah asked. The grip on Sarah’s chin tightened painfully.

“No, no, no—” Sarah was crying, not from pain, but from memory. The dark fire beneath Sarah’s skin became tendrils, wrapping around her guilt, her fear, crushing all that she was.

“Dying was nothing.” Xayah’s voice was quiet yet somehow louder than the falling paddle stars. “Nothing compared to watching Rakan die.”

Green eyes filled with tears. He wasn’t breathing. She wasn’t moving.

The tendrils thrummed, gorging on her grief, and Sarah wanted to scream.

Fuchsia feathers fell into puddles of black.

“I didn’t know, I didn’t know—” Sarah’s mantra was a discordant harmony with the pain in her back and the voice in her head screaming, It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.

Someone grabbed Sarah around the waist, pulling, pleading. Someone was shouting— Wait. Someone was shouting! Someone apart from the screaming memories.

“DON’T GIVE UP,” a voice, so at odds with the chorus in her head, rang out.

“Who are you?” Zoe demanded, and for a brief moment, the stars ceased falling.

Rakan ran at Sarah but stopped, his eyes shifting to the sky above them. A fresh host of paddle stars waited there, but they did not fall. They were suspended, trembling in midair as if held by tenuous threads ready to snap. Rakan looked from Sarah to Xayah, some war inside him raging that Sarah didn’t understand. One side must have won out as he pivoted to Xayah, pulling her out of Zoe’s line of sight and away from the petrified stars above.

“Don’t give up!” the voice said again. But Sarah was giving up. It was her fault. The darkness in her heart knew it was time to let go. But that voice...

With effort, Sarah managed to turn to see a young girl. The girl was covered in dirt and dried blood, but it did nothing to dim the fire burning in her eyes. Sarah knew, as sure as she knew her own name, that it was Kai’Sa.

“Shut up!” Zoe yelled, hopping off the swings. Sarah watched Rakan pull Xayah farther back. “Why aren’t you shutting up?! You have to listen to me!”

Kai’Sa did no such thing, her eyes fixed on Sarah’s. “Your friends are behind you, so don’t you dare give up!” Sarah’s heart swelled, and she swore the tendrils in her back recoiled.

“Stop ignoring me!” Zoe seethed.

Sarah was struck by the raw determination in Kai’Sa’s voice. It reminded her of Akali. That foolish hope. But was it foolish? It seemed so strong to her now. That unbreakable bond was only possible when—

Your friends are behind you.

And they were. Sarah’s friends had come for her. The tendrils thrashed.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Zoe screamed, stomping the ground with a rage that shook the earth. Her footfalls gave way to pools of pink and purple slime oozing from newly formed fissures in the ground. Zoe could have blasted Kai’Sa with a thought, but Sarah realized Kai’Sa had played the only card in her hand. She’d made Zoe lose her temper.

“You’re not alone!” Kai’Sa said, her eyes glowing like twin stars.

Sarah turned again, to where Xayah and Rakan struggled to avoid the fissures and slime. They, at least, weren’t a threat at the moment, but Sarah knew it wouldn’t last. She saw Lux, and the others, all their attention fixed on Zoe. They were ready to attack, but hesitating. Sarah understood. Zoe, distracted by her own fury, seemed oblivious to everyone, even Kai’Sa. An attack could very well provoke Zoe into action, and Lux knew, as Sarah knew, they might not get to Kai’Sa in time. So they waited, poised on the knife’s edge. Syndra stood slightly off to the side, but there was a small smile playing about her lips.

Sarah turned back to Kai’Sa. “You see?” Kai’Sa said. “You’re not alone. You hear me? YOU’RE NOT ALONE.”

And as if Kai’Sa summoned them, two stars illuminated the park from high above. These were no paddle stars. They hurtled past Zoe’s suspended stars, crashing beside where Sarah knelt and Zoe raged.

“Well,” a voice said from the smoldering crater. It was a voice they all recognized. “You heard her.”

“Ahri!” Lux sounded as relieved as Sarah felt.

“Listen to the little yelling girl, Sarah!” Another oh-so-familiar voice. It wasn’t possible, but what did that matter? Neeko was smiling at her, offering a hand.

“You’re not alone,” Neeko said.

And Zoe lost control.

Zoe was screaming, but it was all wrong. The stilled paddle stars above were vibrating, attuned to the tenor of Zoe’s fury. The pools of liquid at her feet began to boil and overflow, setting the ground aflame with multicolored fires. None of that scared Sarah, not until the screaming stopped. And Zoe began to laugh.

It was so much worse than the screams. The paddle stars dropped, crashing into one another, shards falling into black holes that sprang across the park. But it was Zoe herself that was more concerning. Her mouth had grown far too wide, her features distorting, and Sarah watched in horror as Zoe’s limbs began to stretch, cracking at odd angles only to spring back like a ball-jointed doll’s.

Zoe was growing, shooting up past the tree line, and Neeko trembled as she pulled Sarah to her feet. Sarah retched, corruption still churning along her spine. Neeko held her steady as the other Star Guardians ran up behind them, desperately holding off the careening paddle stars.

“I have seen her do this before. It is... not pleasant,” Neeko said, her voice carrying over the crashing stars. Sarah looked to where Rakan did all he could to shield Xayah from the deluge.

“Then let’s take her out!” Jinx shouted, taking a shot at Zoe’s leg. It passed through harmlessly, her body shimmering like a mirage. “Or... not.”

“Her body is more chaos than flesh right now. We have to wait until she solidifies,” Neeko said, and Ezreal winced.

“That’s gross,” he said.

“It is very gross!” Neeko agreed, “but it means she cannot attack us. At least for now.”

Sarah backed away from Neeko. “I’m afraid to ask what else you’ve learned since you died.” She couldn’t keep the edge from her voice. Neeko flinched as Ahri stepped in.

“We can talk about all that later,” Ahri said coolly.

“We can talk about it now!” Sarah demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me? Either of you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it matters, Ahri—” But a yelp cut Sarah off. Kai’Sa had managed to dodge an errant star shard by centimeters.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Sarah agreed through gritted teeth.

“Hello, little yelling girl!” Neeko said to Kai’Sa. “That was very brave of you, back there.”

“You’re Kai’Sa, right?” Sarah asked, trying to keep the pain from her voice as her back throbbed.

Kai’Sa whipped toward her. “You know my name?”

“Akali told me—” Sarah began, but Kai’Sa had already grabbed her by the shoulders. Ouch.

“You saw Akali?! Is she okay? Something hit the mall and—”

“She’s fine—” Sarah started, but her voice was drowned by another shout.

“Whoa! Watch it!” Ezreal said, leaping out of the way as a girl-shaped blur ran through the trees into the park.

“KAI’SA!” The relief in Akali’s voice was palpable.

“Fine and incapable of listening, apparently,” Sarah muttered, but she wasn’t angry. Not as she watched the pain and desperation melt off Kai’Sa’s face.

“AKALI!” Kai’Sa sprinted to meet her, the danger all but forgotten, even as Zoe’s light began to envelop them.

Lux blasted a few stars apart before they could intercept the girls, who now crashed into each other in a fierce hug.

“I thought you’d taken her somewhere safe,” Lux said.

“I did, but I should’ve known she wouldn’t stay put. I guess... sometimes friendship is worth the risk.” Sarah saw Neeko look away, but Ahri was looking at the sky.

“The stars aren’t falling,” Lulu said, though her usual dreaminess failed to tinge her voice.

“Then the only thing that’ll be falling is you!” Xayah, no longer distracted by the onslaught of paddle stars, was on the attack once more.

Janna was having none of it. “I am getting rather tired of you!” she said, summoning a small tornado to encircle Xayah and Rakan, pinning them in place.

“We have, um, bigger things to worry about right now,” Soraka whispered to Lux.

“A bit of an understatement, Soraka,” Sarah offered.

Zoe glowed, a mountain of distorted chaos far above them, but the speed of her ascension seemed sluggish, as did her movements.

“Looks like she’s almost done,” Ezreal observed.

“Then we don’t have much time until she can attack again. What’s the plan?” Sarah demanded.

“The plan is you getting those two girls, and yourself, to safety,” Ahri said firmly, gesturing to Kai’Sa and Akali.

The two girls still held each other tightly as if afraid to lose one another again. Sarah should have been moved, but anger kept her attention on Ahri.

“No way! I can fight!” Sarah blustered.
“You can barely stand,” Ahri reminded her.

“I’m standing fine! And I’ll decide when I’m not fit for battle, captain. Just because you’re back, you think you can tell me what to—”

“I’m telling you I can’t lose you!” Ahri snapped.

Sarah knew the other guardians were beginning to tire, the paddle stars only growing in number. Janna’s hold was beginning to weaken, and Xayah and Rakan would be on them in a moment, but Sarah couldn’t look away from Ahri. She was caught, not just by her words, but by silver glistening in the corners of her purple eyes.

“I won’t risk you burning out,” Ahri said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “That means I’m making the hard call.”

“Ahri is right, Sarah. You need to rest. Let us—let me help this time,” Neeko whispered.

“I can’t hold them any longer!” Janna shouted, the wind dying. Xayah was already on her feet, but Ahri held Sarah’s gaze a moment longer.

“It won’t be like last time,” Ahri promised.

“It better not be!” Xayah spat, just as her feathers collided with Neeko’s chest.

Neeko vanished. It was a clone! The real Neeko stepped out from behind Xayah, kicking her legs out from under her. Neeko sprinted back into the trees.

“You wanna play?” Rakan shot a quill at Ahri. It missed, Ahri ducking it with ease, but the feather clipped Sarah’s shoulder instead. She screamed in pain.

“You really tried to steal the show, but I think you’ll find we’re still the main attraction.” Rakan smirked.

Xayah raised her feathers, her smile the promise of death, but she stumbled.

The ground had started to quake.

Sarah couldn’t stand, not as Zoe shuddered above them, sending tremors through the earth that made balance impossible. Unable to coordinate on the turbulent ground, the other Star Guardians took to the air, their magic igniting a path to where Zoe thrashed above the city. Paddle stars continued to fall, more erratic than ever. Sarah watched as a star slammed into a purple light—Syndra or Janna, she couldn’t tell—only for them to recover and continue their ascent.

Sarah wanted to help, needed to be up there, fighting alongside them, but she couldn’t. Even if the earth and sky weren’t literally cracking around her, she still wouldn’t have been able to move. Not under the weight of hatred in Xayah’s eyes.

“This needs to stop, Xayah,” Sarah said. Her voice sounded so, so weak.

“Sarah’s right. You’re safe! Now we can—” Ahri started, keeping herself upright against the tremors through sheer force of will.

“Safe?!” Xayah shouted, Rakan holding her steady. “You think I’ve been safe?!”

Xayah laughed without humor. Zoe’s massive form turned, the tremors easing. Sarah wondered if Zoe was somehow listening in at that great height, reveling in Xayah’s anguish. But no. Like all that Zoe did, it was so much worse. As Xayah went on, each word dripping bitterness and grief, Zoe glowed brighter, drawing power from Xayah’s pain.

“I burnt out. I died my real, actual death. And you know what? It was amazing! I didn’t have to live with knowing that you two left me to her! I didn’t have to exist without Rakan! But then she brought us back. And I saw you.” She pointed at Neeko, who winced. “I saw that you were still alive. Safe. Which meant I’d come back not to two betrayals, but three!”

“X-Xayah—” Neeko tried to walk toward her, but she stumbled as the earth moved again.

“You ran away, Neeko. Just like they did.” Xayah pointed at Ahri and Sarah. “I came back to what? A life that wasn’t even mine? Well, lucky me!”

Sarah didn’t think Xayah knew she was crying.

Rakan tightened his arm around Xayah as he looked at Sarah and Ahri. “Why did you leave?” he asked softly, as if he didn’t think anyone would answer.

Ahri did. “I heard it... when your heart stopped beating, Rakan.” His mouth parted in surprise. “You were dead, and Xayah’s heart was slowing down.” Ahri faced Xayah. “Sarah didn’t care, you know? She tried to come for you. All of you were dead, or dying, and I was about to lose her, too.”

“You pulled me back,” Sarah whispered. Ahri nodded.

“You could have tried!” Xayah countered.

“I had to make the call,” Ahri said. “You know that!”
“We all would have died,” Neeko added.

“Then at least we would have been together!” Xayah cried. “But you three got to live!”

“But we didn’t,” Sarah said softly. They turned to her. “I didn’t.”

Xayah glared.

“You were right,” Sarah continued. “I have no idea what it feels like to die. I can’t begin to understand.”

Rakan tilted his head, considering.

“I didn’t know for sure you’d died,” Sarah admitted. “I thought you did, but I never stopped going over the battle in my head. I needed to know where we failed. Where I’d failed.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Ahri interrupted, but Sarah shook her head.

“But that’s just it. I could have done something. I could have died. You were there, Ahri. I wanted to throw myself at Zoe because I knew I couldn’t live with the loss. And I was right! You were my team. You were my friends—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Xayah cut in.

“You were everything to me!”

“Shut up!” Xayah said.

“Xayah.” Rakan cupped her face with a gentle hand.

“Y-you can’t believe them! They’re liars!”

“They are,” he agreed, and Neeko began to cry. “They left us there, on that stupid planet, and all that’s left is you and me against the world.” Xayah’s lip trembled, and he chuckled.

“Xayah,” he said again, her name so gentle on his lips.

“Th-they let you die,” she whispered.

“I know,” Rakan said, brushing a tear from Xayah’s cheek. He leaned close to her ear and whispered something that made Xayah clench her teeth and curl her fists. Sarah couldn’t hear what he said, but by the way Ahri’s ears flicked and her breath caught, she knew Ahri had.

Rakan turned to Ahri, and they both glanced up to where the other guardians dodged the downpour of paddle stars. Rakan grinned, and Ahri gave him an almost imperceptible nod, just as Zoe readied her final attack.

On pure instinct, Akali had thrown her body over Kai’Sa when the earthquakes started. They’d been like that for some time, exposed under the rain of magic and stars, and Akali marveled that they were still alive. She wondered how long they could survive. Maybe longer than she thought, as both the Star Guardians and... whatever Xayah and Rakan were, leapt into action.

“Looks like she didn’t like our little chat,” Rakan mused.

Akali had to agree. The liquid that had been oozing slowly from the newly formed fissures now fell upward, drawn to Zoe by sheer gravity. In fact, much of the city seemed caught in her orbit, broken star fragments and pieces of buildings slowly moving toward her like a receding tide. Akali didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it was bad. Really, really bad.

Rakan jumped nimbly over a fallen tree that flew at him just as Xayah took out the cluster of paddle stars above.

The park afforded almost no cover, so Akali had to improvise. Whether intentional or not, the guardians had cleared a sort of path toward the jungle gym. It was close to where Zoe loomed, but at least no stars fell there. Akali pulled Kai’Sa along, dodging the bubbling color that now rained in reverse. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if that liquid touched her.

As they sprinted underneath the structure, Akali saw that the falling stars beyond the trees had started cracking like stone eggs, unleashing ominous clouds of black butterflies. The insects amassed in a huge, surging swarm, aiming for where Sarah, Ahri, and Neeko stood opposite Xayah and Rakan mere feet away.

“Look after the kids!” Ahri yelled to Sarah as she flung an orb of flame at a cluster of butterflies.

“Yeah, get outta here! Also, wait... why are these things attacking us?!” Rakan demanded, ducking under a butterfly.

“I don’t think Zoe can see us down here,” Xayah said.

“Or she doesn’t care about you,” Ahri reasoned.

“You’re literally the last person to talk right now. Rakan, don’t let those things touch you!”

“Uhh, why not?”

“Do you really want to find out?”

“Excellent point, my love.” He dodged another butterfly, then fired a feather at a cluster of them. Each one he struck broke apart... into more butterflies!

“I swear that wasn’t on purpose!” Rakan yelled.

Kai’Sa watched as the five of them were overwhelmed, butterflies pushing in from all sides, but Akali kept glancing up at where Zoe raged so close by. Akali could feel the pull as Zoe continued to suck in the destruction around her. She held onto Kai’Sa tightly. Akali saw dots of light flitting about Zoe’s face—the other guardians. How do they do it? Keep fighting, even now?

Kai’Sa placed her hand atop Akali’s and squeezed. “It’s gonna be okay,” she said, and Akali laughed. She must sound hysterical, but—

“None of this is okay, Kai’Sa. People died. People are still going to die. I mean, look at them!” Akali pointed to the butterflies. Sarah could barely hold up her pistol as the one with the lizard tail, Neeko, tried to shield her. “They’ve got magic powers, and they’re just as helpless as we are.”

“We’re not helpless. We found each other, no magic needed.”

“And there’s a good chance we’re still gonna die, Kai’Sa! Optimism can’t stop the sky from falling down.”

“But there are good people up there trying to stop this,” Kai’Sa whispered, glancing between Zoe and the butterflies. The swarm did seem a little thinner. “The least I can do is believe in them. And in myself.”

Akali wished now, more than ever, that she could be more like Kai’Sa. But she knew she never would be.

“I’ve watched them this whole time, thinking there were good guys and bad guys,” Akali said. “But they were friends, once. Just like us.” She saw Xayah take out a butterfly with a feather, almost hitting Ahri in the process.

“And now they hate each other,” Akali said. Kai'Sa didn’t respond, letting Akali work through her thoughts aloud as she always had. “Whatever is happening here, it’s strong enough to corrupt them from the inside out. It’s going to destroy them. It already is.”

Before Kai’Sa could respond, they heard Ahri shout.

“—said get to cover, now, Sarah!”

Sarah, it seemed, was finally ready to listen, the exhaustion on her face clear even at a distance. She limped toward the jungle gym, a blaze of Ahri’s foxfire igniting a pursuing cluster of butterflies.

“Leaving again?” Xayah demanded, though she didn’t look ready to attack for once.

Sarah shook her head and said to Ahri, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Instead of responding, the fox-eared girl looked at Rakan. He smirked.

“I always know what I’m doing,” Rakan said, and Akali didn’t know what to make of it.

Sarah reached the jungle gym and collapsed against a metal pole. Her ragged breathing was constant, at least. Akali shifted awkwardly.

“That was... a lot,” Akali said.

Sarah snorted. “Understatement of the millennium.” She sounded so tired.

“Sorry I didn’t stay put,” Akali offered, and Sarah opened a weary eye. She glanced at Kai’Sa and smiled.

“I’m kinda glad you didn’t,” Sarah said, and she sounded like she meant it. “Friends... Well, they’re worth fighting for.”

“So what about you? You all gonna go back to trying to kill each other after this?”

“Akali!” Kai’Sa admonished, but Sarah smiled.

“Like I said... friends are worth fighting for.” She nodded to where Rakan and Xayah faced the others. The butterflies were gone. Ahri scrutinized the two fallen guardians for a long while, and nodded.

“Do we have to?” Xayah asked, her eyes full of resentment as she stared between Ahri and Neeko.

“I don’t like sharing the spotlight, remember? Not with anyone,” Rakan reminded her.

And then Xayah and Rakan moved next to Ahri and Neeko, standing so the four of them now faced Zoe. Together.

Sarah was still angry as she watched her former team speed toward Zoe. She was furious at Ahri and Neeko for not trusting her, at Xayah and Rakan for putting the other guardians through so much to get to this point, but that anger paled in comparison to the wild, foolish hope she now held. Hope that warred with the painful memories she could no longer keep buried as Xayah and Rakan unleashed themselves upon Zoe alongside Ahri and Neeko.

Sarah knew that Zoe had broken her, with her words, with her magic, but a small voice that sounded a lot like Lux asked if maybe part of her needed to break so she could remember.

Rakan and Xayah bickering over boba, Ahri, Sarah, and Neeko laughing with them. Shopping trips and summer festivals. Battles won and lost, hopes and dreams shared, all of it together.

Sarah glanced at Akali and Kai’Sa, huddled against one another, their faces illuminated by Zoe’s horrid glow, but also by the light of the guardians fighting above them. Sarah didn’t know how to tell Kai'Sa how right she’d been—that everyone fighting out there against Zoe... they were her friends.

It was for her friends that Sarah’s heart sank. Zoe’s tantrum had faltered under the onslaught of everyone’s attacks, but now the aura around Zoe was growing again, and Xayah—where was Xayah?! She’d been right there with the others, but now—

“Look!” Kai’Sa pointed, right as Zoe lunged for a lone magenta spark twinkling by her hip.

“Xayah!” Sarah knew Xayah couldn’t hear her. Not as Zoe’s hand plucked her from the air before hurling her to the ground.

Sarah stood up, forgetting her own pain, as another speck of light followed Xayah’s descent. Rakan! His shield would protect her! Sarah watched them crash for the second time today, a mere twenty feet from the jungle gym. Rakan was soon back on his feet, but Xayah remained where she’d fallen.

“Something’s wrong,” Akali murmured.

“What’s happening to her?” Kai’Sa asked.

Sarah watched Xayah try to stand, but she was pulled down, sinister hands of chaos distorting the air around her. It made phantom tendrils in Sarah’s blood shudder.

“Corruption,” Sarah whispered.

Xayah was doubled over. Rakan reached for her, but she held out a trembling hand, and he faltered. Sarah stepped toward them.

“What are you doing?” Akali demanded.

“She’s hurt.”

“So are you,” Kai’Sa reasoned, but Sarah took another agonizing step forward, and then another. She made it all of five feet before her legs gave out.

Sarah couldn’t walk. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t fly. Okay, then. She’d crawl. She moved, inch by painful inch, toward Xayah and Rakan.

“Sarah!” Akali shouted, but Kai’Sa shushed her.

Good girl, Sarah thought, knowing Kai’Sa, at least, could keep Akali under control. Zoe, too busy batting away the other guardians like gnats, hadn’t heard Akali shout. But Xayah had.

Xayah lifted her head, watching Sarah struggle to reach her, and for the first time since she and Rakan had returned, there was no hatred in her eyes. Only grief and... resignation?

Jinx and Ezreal crashed a dozen feet from Sarah, but they didn’t look at her before they flew back into battle. Their light, however, brought Xayah into stark relief, and that’s when Sarah saw it. Something beyond chaos had etched its way up and down her arm. Sarah fought the urge to vomit as black feathers sprung forth in clumps from beneath Xayah’s skin.

These were like no feathers Sarah had ever seen. They moved, each undulating blade dripping viscous sludge that seemed to fall in slow motion to pool in a puddle of darkness in front of Xayah. Pure corruption. Sarah pulled herself closer now, as close as she could to the edge of the crater.

Lulu landed next to Rakan. “That doesn’t look good,” she said.

“Yeah, well, Zoe’s pretty mad we joined up with you jerks,” Rakan quipped, but his heart wasn’t in it. Not as he glanced between Sarah and Xayah. Lulu patted his arm gently.

“I know what might cheer you up,” she said. Rakan quizzically looked down at her. “Mind giving Zoe a taste of my own medicine?”

Sarah wasn’t sure what she meant until Rakan picked her up by her tiny shoulders.

“You sure?” he asked.

Lulu nodded, and Rakan hurled her up at Zoe’s face. He whistled, impressed with his own aim. The green star that was Lulu grew, and grew, until she was nearly half Zoe’s size—the perfect height for headbutting Zoe right in the stomach. She stumbled at the impact, and Sarah nearly smiled in spite of herself. Lulu always knew what to do, didn’t she?

Rakan did smile, then. “Your friends are all right, I guess.”

His smile froze as he turned back to Xayah, and it nearly broke Sarah’s heart anew. Rakan had fought back, had somehow pushed against Zoe’s influence to help them, and Xayah had been hurt because of it. He knelt before her, with that false, beautiful smile on his handsome face. He took both of Xayah’s hands in his, one small and delicate, the other no more than a mass of surging, swelling feathers. Rakan didn’t seem to mind.

“What’s happening?” Xayah whispered. Rakan squeezed her hands tighter.

“Zoe’s corruption,” he answered softly. Gone was the cocky arrogance, the theatrical demeanor. This was just Rakan, a boy who loved a girl with his entire, twisted heart. He pressed his forehead against Xayah’s, and Sarah could see how bright his eyes shone in Zoe’s light.

“You fought back.” He choked on a laugh. “I am so, so proud of you... And I’m going to save you.”

Xayah’s smile faltered and then vanished. She tried to pull away from Rakan.

“No!” she screamed, but Rakan held tight.

“Come on, love. You know how this story goes.” Where Rakan’s hands met Xayah’s, a soft golden light began to build.

“No, no, no—” Xayah begged.

“The prince has to save the princess. Those are the rules.”

“Those are stupid rules! I will shred those rules with a fistful of feathers!” Xayah swore, still struggling to break his hold.

“I know you will. Breaking rules is what you’re best at. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Ahri and Neeko flew to them, only for Neeko to smash into a shield that now shimmered around Xayah and Rakan. Ahri caught her as she bounced off the barrier.

“What is going on?” Neeko asked, dazed.

“Rakan, he’s—” Ahri began, but Rakan interrupted.
“Nope! This is my moment!” Rakan chided, but it was clear he was in pain. Still, his voice was strong... and gentle. “The star-crossed hero risking it all for love? It’s the role of a lifetime.”

“RAKAN! STOP!” Xayah begged, but with a flash, Rakan’s barrier disintegrated, golden light surging into Xayah. The corrupted feathers along her arm vanished, only to erupt across Rakan’s in turn. Xayah crumpled to the ground, but Rakan still stood, his body rigid.

Ahri took a step toward him, ready to brace him, but Rakan shook his head stiffly. Sarah gasped as black sludge began to ooze from his eyes.

“I wish there’d been another way,” Ahri said sadly.

“This is... how it has to be... captain.” His bravado was punctured by his own hacking coughs, corruption now filling his lungs and mouth. Somehow, he still managed a genuine smile as he looked between Ahri, Neeko, and Sarah.

“Protect... her.”

“We won’t leave her again,” Sarah promised, as Neeko knelt beside Xayah.

And even though dark feathers continued to pierce through him, chaos corrupting him from the inside out, Sarah was awed by how brightly he shone.

“Everyone!” Ahri shouted. “On Rakan’s signal, give her everything you’ve got.”

“NO!” Xayah screamed again, but Neeko held her back, arms wrapped tightly around Xayah’s middle.

“We promised. We promised,” Neeko cried as Xayah thrashed wildly.

Sarah tried to stand, to go to Xayah, but she still couldn’t get up.

“Not again,” Xayah wailed as Rakan shot like a spear, straight for Zoe’s heart.

His signal.

Rakan was so very small now. Barely a pinprick of flame against the night sky, but he wasn’t alone. He was never alone. Sarah watched as Lulu, still massive, held Zoe in place, the guardians one after the other firing off everything they had. Rockets and windstorms, hammer strikes and orbs of darkness, all of it rained upon Zoe’s titanic body. And still the small star that was Rakan hurtled on. He was heralded by a beam from Lux’s staff, bolstered by Ahri’s foxfire. Their conjoined attacks pierced armor made of magic itself, a crack just wide enough for Rakan to crash into.

Zoe had miscalculated. The guardians alone couldn’t stop her, but Rakan? Empowered by their attacks, Xayah’s corruption, and Zoe’s own magic? He was the quill that pierced through chaos itself.

For a moment all was darkness, before light erupted across Valoran City.

Akali couldn’t see the stars. When Rakan crashed into Zoe, the explosion had blanketed the city in a light so vibrant that she had to close her eyes against it. When she did, all she could see was magic like dark blood leaking from Rakan’s eyes as Xayah screamed. Sarah crawling, her back a scarred and bloodied wreck. Guardian after guardian swatted from the sky, falling like ragdolls, only to get back up to face death itself again and again.

Kai'Sa had been there. She’d been there with Zoe before Akali had even found her. And what did it even matter? Akali had no powers. Wanting to help meant nothing. Akali couldn't do anything. She couldn’t help anyone! She couldn’t! She—

“Akali?” Kai’Sa startled her. Akali’s heart was beating too fast, her hands shaking too much. “Akali... They won.”

She struggled to focus because what Kai'Sa was saying was wrong.

As Akali tentatively crawled out of their shelter, three things struck her. The first, and most obvious, was that Zoe was gone. So sudden and startling was her absence that Akali worried she’d dreamed the whole thing.

“They won,” Kai’Sa repeated in wonder.

They watched the guardians land where Neeko still held Xayah in her arms.

The second thing that struck Akali was that Xayah looked... different. It was subtle, but a soft glow seemed to radiate from within her, and the diamond mark on her forehead was gone. Even her uniform seemed brighter. But as Xayah looked around, Akali saw her dim, green eyes, and was forced to acknowledge the third thing. That Xayah was looking for someone who wasn’t there.

“He sacrificed himself. For her,” Kai’Sa said, and Akali could only nod. “He loved her.”

“And it didn’t matter, did it?” Akali snapped. She could feel a chasm opening inside her heart, a fissure she couldn’t stop. Friendship? Love? It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough.

“It mattered,” Kai’Sa said softly. “He saved her. Us. We’re alive because he won.”

Akali stilled.

“She’s lost him twice, Kai’Sa,” Akali said, pointing at Xayah. “Does that look like winning to you?” Kai’Sa had no answer.

“It’s terrible,” Kai’Sa said eventually, “but that monster is gone. We have him to thank for that.”

Akali looked at Kai’Sa, and saw what Kai’Sa so clearly saw in Rakan. Sacrifice. Akali knew for certain now that Kai’Sa would never keep herself safe, not if it meant saving someone else.

“Why do you always put yourself last?” Akali asked.

“Not this again. I didn’t just survive the end of the world to start fighting again.”

“I don’t want to fight!” Akali said quickly. “I just want to understand.”

Kai’Sa sighed. “It’s not that I put myself last, Akali. It’s that I’ll always put the people I care about first. You know the petition thing? The one you got mad at me for?” Akali nodded slowly. “It was for an afterschool program, I guess. Volunteers to take kids to places like the beach or the arcade when they don’t have anywhere else to go. It sounded like a good way to—”

“Keep kids out of trouble,” Akali finished. “Kids like me.”

“Like a lot of people. If I hadn’t helped you that day, you might still be getting your butt kicked trying to save stray dogs.”

Akali tried to smile. “You’re not wrong.”

“Those kids that picked on you back then... Maybe they were just jerks, but I thought... what if they had something to care about? Someplace where they had people they could rely on.”

“Like you relied on me for the petition?” Akali felt hurt settling in her chest.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t want to tell you.” Kai’Sa took a step toward her. “If anything, I wanted to do this for you.” And wasn’t that just like Kai’Sa? Endangering herself, even though Akali would never ask that of her.

“I think I get it,” Akali said, only half lying. “But, Kai’Sa, don’t shut me out next time. You can rely on me, too.” Kai’Sa nodded, but Akali shook her head. “Promise me.”

Akali lifted her finger, and Kai’Sa hooked it with her pinky, the petals of their pink and blue forget-me-not bracelets glittering in the starlight. “I promise, Akali.”

A small part of Akali worried that this was a promise Kai’Sa was going to break, another opportunity for Kai’Sa to pick Akali over herself. But Akali held onto that moment, their promise, regardless, even as she tried to forget all that had happened. All that had changed.

Akali buried her pain deep inside, where a tendril of darkness unfurled within the chasm in her heart.

Ahri led the Star Guardians as the sky began to lighten. They had spent the last several hours searching for survivors in the ruins of Valoran City until exhaustion threatened to overtake them. Syndra had already left, intent on surveying other planets for traces of Zoe’s presence.

Sarah leaned on Lux, the younger girl using her staff as a walking stick. Sarah was grateful. It hurt even to breathe. Neeko still held a dazed Xayah, and Sarah couldn’t quite accept that they were both here, alive. Her anger almost felt pointless now. Almost.

The knowledge of what still needed to be done was something none of them were willing to face. Buildings were strewn across the streets like discarded blocks. Pools of Zoe’s corruption still bubbled along the cracks in the ground, and they weren’t sure how to get rid of them, though Soraka had some theories.

People had lost their lives last night, but many more had lost their homes. Their friends. Their sense of normalcy. Innocent people who could no more defend against Zoe than they could deny the existence of the Star Guardians. Sarah didn’t know what that meant, that this planet now knew of them, but she could tell by the set of Ahri’s shoulders that it mattered.

Xayah was the first to break the silence.

“I’m going to find Rakan,” she said, surprising no one.

“We’re coming with you,” Sarah said. Everyone but Xayah stared at her.

“What if he is not—” Neeko tried, but Xayah cut her off.

“He’s alive.”

“He could be anywhere,” Ahri added.

“So we look everywhere!” Sarah snapped.

“Why do you want to find him?” Xayah’s voice was cold, and she still wouldn’t look at her. Sarah knew, somehow, that what she said next would irrevocably impact how Xayah saw her. She took a deep breath.

“Rakan is my friend. He never stopped being my friend. Not in death. Not after. And I failed him. I refuse to do so again.”

Xayah finally turned. Wariness, distrust, and doubt all warred in her gaze, but not, Sarah noted, hatred.

Still, Xayah just shook her head before leaping into the air without a word. They watched her go. Sarah wasn’t sure where Xayah was headed first, but she knew nothing and no one in the universe would keep her from finding Rakan.

“She didn’t say we couldn’t go with her,” Sarah mused.

“Are you going too?” Lux asked.

“I said I was going to protect her,” Sarah said softly. “It’s a promise I intend to keep.”

“Then we’re coming with you!” Lux said.

The other guardians turned to look at them. Sarah opened her mouth, ready to shoot her down, but Lux put a hand on her shoulder.

“Star Guardians are a team.” Lux glanced at Ahri. “We’re in this together.”

Slowly, Ahri nodded, and Sarah considered, not for the first time, how startling Lux’s transformation had been. Gone was her hesitation. Her confidence was a beacon as she leapt into the air, lighting their way. Without delay, Lulu and Poppy went with her.

“She’s becoming a real leader,” Janna whispered, before taking to the sky.

“What are we waiting for?” Jinx said, turning to Ezreal, of all people. “Ready to hog the spotlight, sparky?”

Ezreal grinned, before he and Jinx made their exit.

Soraka turned to Sarah. “Are you ready?” she asked.

Sarah nodded. “We just... need a minute. We’ll catch up.”

Soraka smiled, understanding as ever, and then she departed, leaving Ahri, Neeko, and Sarah alone.

Sarah was almost grateful for her exhaustion. It helped dampen the painful awkwardness.

Ahri, of course, took the lead. “I’m sorry,” she said simply.

Neeko shook her head. “You don’t have to—”

“Yes, she does,” Sarah interrupted. “You knew she was alive.”

“I didn’t know for sure that Neeko—”

“I’m not talking about Neeko. And I’m not just talking about now. You knew Xayah was alive when we left them there. You thought all three of them could be alive when you left me here with nothing. No way to contact you. No way to help you!”

Ahri said nothing.

“Why didn’t you trust me?” Sarah asked softly.

That managed to crack Ahri’s façade. “I trust you more than anyone,” she said.

“You don’t act like it! I am supposed to be your lieutenant!”

“You’re also my friend! What was I supposed to do? Tell you that there was a one-in-a-million chance Neeko was alive? That Xayah maybe would live long enough to watch you die if you’d tried to save her?!”

Sarah inhaled, but Ahri wasn’t done.

“You’re not the only one who lost people that day. You were the last one. My last friend. The last person I could trust. I couldn’t give you hope and have it be a lie.”

And then Ahri was sobbing. Sarah saw her own doubt and grief now reflected in Ahri’s tears. She watched Ahri collapse under the weight of overwhelming pressure. She was their leader. She did everything in her power to protect them, but she’d tried to do it alone. Star Guardians were there for each other, right? So Ahri had failed them, just as Sarah had failed them.

Sarah grabbed Neeko and Ahri, holding them tight even as it tore at the wounds in her back. Pain was nothing in the face of this moment. They stood like that for a long time, leaning on each other. Battle had become so easy for them, but they’d forgotten what it felt like to be more than the mission. They remembered now, just as sunlight began to shimmer over the wreckage of Valoran City behind them.

Sarah Fortune could no longer feel the corruption in her back, the tendrils all but gone from her heart. But dread? Doubt? That still seemed to lurk somewhere she couldn’t quite reach. Maybe it always would, but that didn’t matter. Not when her friends shone like stars before her, their blistering light holding back the darkness.

She looked up to where the other Star Guardians had vanished, to where Xayah was already looking for Rakan, and despite the rising sun, Sarah swore she could see the stars.

The knife-edge of the plow cut through the rough topsoil, turning the underbelly of winter toward the spring sky. Riven walked the small field behind the ox-driven rig, her focus caught between steadying the wide set handles and the foreign words she clumsily held in her mouth.

“Emai. Fair. Svasa. Anar.”

Each step filled the air with the loamy scent of newly awakened earth. Riven gripped the wood tightly as she walked. Over the last few days the coarse handles had roused dormant calluses and fleeting memories.

Riven bit her lip, shaking off the thought, continuing with the work at hand. “Mother. Father. Sister. Brother.”

The thin-ribbed ox flicked an ear as it pulled, the plow kicking up clots and small rocks. They struck Riven, but she paid them no mind. She wore a rough woven shirt, the dirt-speckled sleeves rolled into thick bands. Pants of the same material had been dyed an earthen yellow. Their cuffed edges would now be too short on the man they had been made for, but on her, they brushed her bare ankles and the tops of her simple, mud-caked shoes.

“Emai. Fair. Svasa. Anar.” Riven continued the mantra, memorizing the words. “Erzai, son. Dyeda…”

Without slowing her pace she wiped a strand of sweat soaked hair from her eyebrow with her sleeve. Her arms were well muscled and still easily held the plow one-handed. The farmer had gone up to the house for a skin of water and their lunch. The old man said she could stop and wait on the threshold of the shaded forest that bordered the tract, but Riven had insisted on finishing.

A fresh breeze caught the damp at the back of her neck, and she looked around. The Noxian Empire had tried bending Ionia to its will. When Ionia wouldn’t kneel, Noxus had tried to break it. Riven continued her meditative pace behind the plow. For all the Empire’s strength, spring would still come to this land. It had been more than a year since Noxus had been driven out, and the grays and browns of rain and mud were finally giving way to shoots of green. The air itself seemed to hold new beginnings. Hope. Riven sighed as her hair’s bluntly cut edges brushed her chin.

“Dyeda. daughter,” she began her invocation again, determined. She gripped the wooden handles again with both hands. “Emai. Fair.”

“That's fa-ir,” a voice called out from the shadows of the forest.

Riven stopped suddenly. The plow handles lurched in her hands as the bony ox was brought up short by the leather reins. The plow kicked hard into a tough clod of dirt and gave a metal twang as a stone caught on the cutting edge.

The voice did not belong to the old man.

Riven tried to ease her breathing by exhaling slowly through her lips. There was one voice, but there could be more coming for her. She fought the years of training that urged her to take a defensive stance. Instead she stilled her body, facing the plow and beast before her. Riven felt too light. She held on tightly now to the plow’s wooden handles. There should have been a weight that anchored her, grounded her, at her side. Instead, she could hardly feel the small field knife on her right hip. The short, hooked blade was good for cutting dew apples and stubborn vegetation, nothing more.

“The word is fa-ir.”

The speaker revealed himself at the edge of the field, where the farmland met a band of thick amber pines.

“There is a break in the middle,” the man said, stepping forward. A wild mane of dark hair was pulled back off his face. A woven mantle was tucked around his shoulders. Riven noticed that it did not completely cover the metal pauldron on his left shoulder, nor the unsheathed blade at his side. He was of a warrior class, but did not serve one house or precinct. He was a wanderer.

Dangerous, she decided.

“Fa-ir,” he pronounced again.

Riven did not speak, not for lack of words, but because of the accent she knew they would carry. She moved around the plow, putting it between her and the well-spoken stranger. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and bent to examine the plow’s blade, feigning interest in the stone she had struck. Meant to cut through sod and clay, the blade would be more useful than the field knife. She had watched the old man fix it to the wooden body that morning and knew how to release it.

“I don’t remember seeing you in the village when I was here last, but I have been away awhile,” the man said. His voice held the indifferent roughness of a long time lived on the road.

The ever present insect hum became louder as Riven refused to fill the silence between them.

“I’ve heard that the magistrates are being called to hear new evidence in the case of Elder Souma’s death,” the man continued.

Riven ignored him and patted the patient ox. She ran her fingers along the leather straps as someone who was familiar with the trappings of horses and farm animals, batting away a gnat from the ox’s big, dark eyes.

“Then again, if you are new to this land, perhaps you know little of the murder.”

She looked up at the word, meeting the stranger’s gaze, the innocent beast between them. A scar stretched across the bridge of the man’s nose. Riven wondered if the one who left that mark still lived. There was hardness in the stranger’s eyes, but under that, curiosity. Riven felt the ground tremble through the soles of her thin leather shoes. There was a sound like rolling thunder, but there were no clouds in the sky.

“Someone’s coming,” the man said with a smile.

Riven looked over her shoulder at the hill that led to the old man’s farmhouse. Six armed riders crested the little ridge and marched their mounts down to the small harrowed field.

“There she is,” one of them said. His accent was thick, and Riven struggled to parse the nuance of language she had been trying so hard to learn.

“But... is she alone?” another asked, squinting at the shadows between the trees.

A quick breeze wrapped around the plow and Riven, sliding back into the shadows of the forest. Riven looked to where the stranger once stood, but he was gone, and the approaching riders left no time to wonder.

“A ghost maybe,” the leader said laughing at his man. “Someone she cut down coming back for revenge.”

The riders spurred their horses into a trot, circling Riven and crushing the even trenches she had dug that morning. The leader carried a rigid bundle wrapped in cloth over the back of his mount. Riven’s eyes followed that horse as the others moved around her, their hooves compacting the loose earth back into cold, hard clay.

She gave the plow blade a final glance. Two riders carried crossbows. She would be taken down before she reached even one of them. Her fingers itched to touch the potential weapon, but her mind begged them to be still.

Tightness quickened in her muscles. A body long trained to fight would not surrender so easily to peace. A deafening rush of blood began to pound in her ears. You will die, it roared, but so will they.

Riven’s fingers began to reach for the plow blade.

“Leave her be!” The voice of the farmer’s wife was strong from calling in errant cows and it rang out over the field, breaking Riven from her self-destructive urge. “Asa, hurry. You must do something.”

The riders halted their circles around Riven as the farmer and his wife crested the hill. Riven bit hard on the inside of her cheek. The sharp pain centered her, quelling her urge to fight. She would not spill Ionian blood in their field.

“I told you to stay in your home until we were done,” the leader said to them.

The old man, Asa, hobbled through the uneven dirt. “She’s done nothing wrong. I was the one who brought it,” he said gesturing toward the wrapped bundle. “I will answer for it.”

“Master Konte. O-fa,” the leader said. A patronizing smile tugged at the corners of his thin lips. “You know what she is. She has committed many wrongs. If I had my way, she would be cut down where she stands,” He looked Riven over, then wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “Unfortunately, old man, you can say your piece at the hearing.”

While the leader spoke Riven’s feet had sunk into the moist earth, momentarily holding her fast. The feeling of being mired, pulled down, overwhelmed her. Her pulse quickened to a shallow beat and a cold sweat slipped between her shoulders as she struggled to pull free. Her mind was enveloped by a different time, a different field. There the horses snorted, their hooves trampling blood-soaked dirt.

Riven shut her eyes before more remembered horrors could bury her. She inhaled deeply. A spring rain floods this ground, not the dead, she told herself. When I open my eyes, there will be only the living.

When she opened her eyes, the field was a field, freshly turned, and not an open grave. The leader of the riders dismounted and approached her. In his hand he held a pair of shackles, swirls of Ionian metal far more beautiful than anything that would have chained criminals in her own homeland.

“You cannot escape your past, Noxian dog,” the leader said with a quiet triumph.

Riven looked up from plow blade to the old couple. The lines on their faces already carried so much pain. She would not bring them more. She could not. Riven tried to hold onto the image, the two of them leaning into one another, each holding the other up. It was a moment of fragile defiance before they knew something would be taken. When the old man wiped a sleeve across his wet cheek, she had to turn away.

Riven shoved her wrists toward the leader of the riders. She met his smug grin with a cold stare and let the steel close over her skin.

“Do not worry, dyeda,” the farmer’s wife called out. Riven could hear the taut hope in her voice. It was too much. Too much hope. The wind carried the strained words and the smell of freshly turned earth, even as Riven was led farther and farther away. “Dyeda,” it whispered. “We will tell them what you are.”

“Dyeda,” Riven whispered back. “Daughter.”

For two days after the girl surrendered, there had been nothing for Shava Konte to do but help her husband slowly repair the trampled furrows and plant the field. It was a task made easier by the girl’s labors, and yet, if their sons still lived, it was one she and Asa should not have had to do at all.

On the cold morning of the tribunal, knowing it would take more time for their older bones to walk the long road into town, the couple left before dawn to reach the village council hall.

“They know she is Noxian.”

“You worry too much,” Shava said, clucking her tongue for good measure. Realizing her tone was more fit for calming chickens than her husband, she gave him a hopeful smile.

“Noxian. That is all they need to proclaim guilt.” Asa mumbled his thought into the homespun wool wrapped around his neck.

Shava, who had spent the better part of her lifetime coaxing stubborn animals into the butcher’s pen, stopped short, turning to face her husband.

“They do not know her like we know her,” she said, stabbing one of her fingers to his chest, exasperation escaping through her hands. “That is why you are to speak on her behalf, you old goat.”

Asa knew his wife, and knew further argument would not change her mind. Instead he nodded his head softly. Shava gave a dissatisfied harumph and turned back to the road, marching in silence to the town center. The council hall that was beginning to fill. Seeing the crowd, she hurried into the narrow space between the benches of the council hall to find a seat closer to the front... and unceremoniously tripped over a sleeping man’s leg.

As the old woman fell forward with a weak yelp, a groan escaped from the sleeping man. Like a lightning blade, his hand snapped forward, his grip like steel, catching the old woman by the arm before she fell to the stone floor.

“You must watch your step, O-ma,” the stranger whispered deferentially, drink still heavy on his breath, but slurring none of his words. He withdrew his hand as soon as the old woman was back on her feet.

The old woman looked down her nose at the unlikely savior, her eyes narrowing. Under her scrutiny, the man receded further into the shadows of the mantle wrapped around his shoulders and face; the ghost of a scar across his strong nose disappeared into the darkness.

“The council hall is nowhere to recover from a night of misdeeds, young man.” Shava righted her robes, the disdain evident in the tip of her chin. “A woman’s life is to be decided today. Be gone before you are asked to concede your own wrongdoings before the magistrates.”

“Shava.” The old man had caught up and put a hand on his wife’s arm. “You must keep your temper in check if we are to offer our assistance today. He meant no injury. Leave him be.”

The hooded stranger offered two fingers up in peaceful supplication, but kept his face hidden. “You strike to the heart of the matter, O-ma,” he offered, humor creeping into his voice.

Shava moved on, carrying her indignation like a delicate gift. The old man tipped his head as he passed.

“Do not judge her quickly, my boy. She worries that an innocent soul will be found guilty before the truth is known.”

The hooded man grunted in acknowledgement as the old man moved on. “On that we are of the same mind, O-fa.”

The old man glanced back at the strange, hushed words. The seat was empty, save the ghost of a breeze that rustled the robes of a nearby couple deep in conversation. The hooded stranger was already receding into the far shadows of the council hall.

The magistrates, their smooth vestments settling behind them as they took their place at the head table, looked out at the crowded hall. The noise in the great room dropped to an uneven silence. One of the three, a tall, slim woman with a falcon nose, stood solemnly.
“This tribunal has been called to take in new attestations in the matter of Elder Souma’s death.”

A hum of murmurs, like a hundred locusts, began to build from somewhere in the middle of the crush of people. Some had heard of the new evidence the judge spoke, but most had gathered at the rumor there was a Noxian in their midst. But rumors didn’t change what they all knew: Elder Souma’s death was no mystery. The wind technique, the magic that scoured his meditation hall was all the evidence that was necessary. Only one besides Souma himself could have executed such a maneuver.

A wound, unevenly healed, opened. The hive mind of the crowd coalesced in a moment of communal pain. If the elder had not fallen, they shouted to each other, the village would not have taken such heavy casualties. Shortly after the murder, half of a Noxian warband had slaughtered many on the way to Navori. So many sons and daughters had been lost in the Noxian engagement, an engagement that swelled in the distressing imbalance of Souma’s death. Worse yet, the village laid the blame on one of their own.

The thrum found a clear voice.

“We already know who murdered Elder Souma,” Shava spoke through weathered lips. “It was that traitor, Yasuo.”

The crowd nodded and a biting agreement rippled through the mob.

“Who knew Elder Souma’s wind techniques? Yasuo!” Shava added. “And now Yone has not returned from the pursuit of his unforgivable brother. Most likely the coward is responsible for that as well.”

The crowd’s gnashing grew again, this time crying out for Yasuo's blood. Shava settled more easily on the bench, satisfied that the question of guilt had been pointed back at the correct person.

The falcon-nosed judge came from a long line of woodweavers, ones famed for being able to untwist and straighten even the heaviest burls. She lifted a perfectly round sphere of hard worn chestnut and brought it down definitively against its jet-black cradle. The sharp sound wrenched the crowd into silence and order returned to the hall.

“This court seeks knowledge and enlightenment about the facts of Elder Souma’s death,” the judge said. “Do you wish to stand in way of enlightenment, Mistress…?”

The old woman looked to her husband and felt heat rise in the skin of her cheeks. “Konte. Shava Konte,” she said much less boldly. She dipped her head. The old man on the stool watched her and mopped the sheen of sweat from his own balding crown.

“As I was saying, we are here to take in new evidence.” The falcon judge looked out at the crowd for any other stubborn burls and nodded to the bailiff, Melker. “Please bring her in.”

The plump belly of the Rising Howl looms before me, churning with its endless gears and elaborate ironwork. Some say the Howl is named for the wrought iron wolf that cries atop the apex of the hexdraulic descender; others swear the ghost of a black-veiled gentle-servant haunts the cabin, and when the Howl lifts him away from his lost love in Zaun, the sounds of his moans reverberate and shake its metal core. Many Piltovans, convinced as they are in their own sound judgment, are sure the name refers to nothing more than the cold wind whistling between the crevasses below their city.

But to me the Howl is not a single lone cry. It is an orchestra of noise, a melodic blend of a thousand unique sounds. It is why I am drawn to the machine.

The multi-tiered elevator, supported by three vertical structural beams which span the height of the city, descends to the Promenade level and slows to a lurching halt.

“Disembark for the Promenade!” the conductor announces, her voice magnified by a bell-shaped sonophone. She adjusts her thick goggles as she speaks. “Boundary Markets, College of Techmaturgy, Horticultural Center.”

Passengers pour from the descender. Dozens of others board and spread throughout its floors: merchants traveling to Zaun to trade in the night bazaars, workers returning home to sleep, wealthy Zaunites visiting night blooms in glass-domed cultivairs. Then there are the unseen riders who have made the Howl their home. I spy them scurrying in the shadows: plague rats, shadowhares, and viridian beetles.

Sometimes I climb down the crevasses to descend to the Sump, but tonight I long for the harmony of noise I know the descender will create.

Instead of entering through the doorway, I swing around the outside and lock my grip on the bottommost bar where ridged steel brackets frame the glass windows. My metal plates clank as I clamber onto the Howl, drawing stares from the passengers and what looks like a grimace from the conductor. My knowledge of facial expressions grows each day.
Most passengers ride within the compartment, away from the cold and soot, but outside, in the open air, I can hear the satisfying click-clack of mechanical parts snapping into place and the soft hiss of steam releasing as we sink into Zaun. And besides, I don’t easily fit through most doors.

A small boy clings to his sump-scrapper father’s hand and gapes at me through the window. I wink at him and his mouth opens in what I estimate is surprise. He ducks behind his father.

“Going down!” says the conductor. She rings a large bell and adjusts the dials on a bright red box. I can almost feel the commands buzz as they surge through wires into the descender’s engine.

Below us, the iron pinnacles of Zaun’s towers and green glass cultivairs glitter like candles in the dimming light. The Howl whirs and creaks as its cranks spiral down against the three towering beams, weighted down with iron, steel, and glass. A blast of steam whistles from the topmost pipe.

Inside the cabin, the sump-scrapper and his child look on as a musician tunes his four-stringed chittarone and begins a sonorous melody. His tune synchronizes with the clacking gears and whirring machinery of the Howl. The father taps his foot to the rhythm. A beetle snaps her pincers as she scrambles away from the man’s heavy boot. A gang of chem-punks lean against the wall in soft repose, a pause so unlike their usual frenzied jaunts through the city.

The Howl whirs in its perfect fusion of sounds during our descent. I marvel at the symphony around me and find myself humming along to the deep buzzing tones. The rhythm thrums through me and I wonder if those around me feel it.

“Entresol!” the conductor calls out as the descender slows. A pair of couriers carrying parcels wrapped in twine disembark, along with a crew of chemtech researchers and a crowd of chem-merchants. A merry crowd of Zaunites from the theater district steps aboard.

“Down we go!” she says, ringing her bell, and the Howl responds with a whir. The descender sinks and the windows mist as vapor pours from pipes above. Beads of water spread across my metallic chest as the harmony of clanking machinery and whooshing steam begins anew.

A discordant murmur interrupts the pattern of sounds. The vibration is subtle, but I can tell something is off. The descender continues as if all was normal, until a jarring clunk breaks its perfect rhythm.

Though I have never dreamed, I know a break in the pattern this abrupt is a machine’s most frightening nightmare.

The spiralling gearway is jammed, and the cabin’s iron brackets grate against it with a horrible screech. Many lives are at stake and I feel the machine’s pain as it braces desperately against the support beams. The entire weight of the Howl heaves against its bending columns and the cabin tilts at a lurching angle. Rivets burst from their seams as metal is pulled away from itself.

We wobble for a moment, then drop.

Inside the cabin, passengers scream and grasp at the nearest railing as they plunge. This is a different kind of howl.

I tighten my hold on the cabin’s bottommost platform. I extend my other arm, launching it toward one of the three vertical structural beams. The iron column is slippery in the mist and my grip misses it by inches. I retract my arm and steam blasts from my back as I try again, whizzing it toward a second beam. Another miss.

Time slows. Inside the cabin, the chem-punks cling to a ledge while the viridian beetle flies out an open window. The sump-scrapper and his child brace themselves against the glass, which fractures under their weight. The boy tumbles out, scrabbling at the frame with his fingers before he slips and falls.

I reach up and catch the boy in mid-flight, then retract my arm.

“Hold on,” I say.

The child clings to the plates on my back.

I fire my arm up toward the support beam once more, and this time my hand meets solid metal with a resounding clang as I secure my hold. My other arm is forced to extend as it’s wrenched down by the plunging cabin, so much that I feel my joints might fracture. Suspended in midair, I try to steady my grip.

With a great jolt, my arm jerks as the descender halts its freefall. It shakes from the sudden stop, now supported only by my arm. The boy shudders as he tightens his grip on my back.

The Howl is still fifty feet above the ground, hovering over the Sump-level buildings. My overlapping metal plates groan as they strain against the weight and I concentrate all my efforts on holding myself together. If I fall, the Howl falls with me, along with all its passengers.

While locking my arm onto the support beam, I slide my arm down the pillar. We drop ten feet and the cabin sways precariously before stabilizing again.

“Sorry about that!” I shout. Statements of empathy can be reassuring to humans in moments of crisis.

I must try again. I must be strong.

I release my grip on the support column ever so slightly, and with a piercing screech we gently slide down the remaining forty feet to the ground. My valves sigh as they contract.

Passengers echo my sighs as they stumble through the doors and broken windows into the Sump level, leaning on each other for support.

The boy on my back breathes rapidly as he holds my neck. My arms whir as I retract them and lower myself to the floor, crouching down so the child can touch the ground. He scrambles back to his father, who embraces him.

The conductor emerges from the descender and looks at me.

“You saved us. All of us,” she says, her voice shaking from what I think is shock. “Thank you.”

“I am simply fulfilling my purpose,” I say. “I am glad you are not hurt. Have a good day.”

She smiles, then turns to direct the crowd of Zaunites who have gathered to offer their assistance to the passengers and begin repairs. One of the chem-punk girls carries the musician’s chittarone for him as he crawls from the descender. Several of the theater-folk comfort an elderly man.

Two Hex-mechanics stumble toward me and I direct them to a medical officer who is setting up a tented repair station. The murmurs of the passengers and the hissing groans of the wounded descender blend with the whirrs and churning of the Sump. The steam-engine within my chest murmurs along, and I am moved to whistle a tune.

The boy turns and waves shyly at me.

I wave back.

He runs to catch up with his father, his heavy boots tapping a rhythm on the cobblestones. Shifting wheels sing and gears click-clack within the belly of the Rising Howl. The viridian beetle snaps her pincers in time with the beat as she zooms away into the Sump.

In life, Yone adhered to a strict code of honor and duty. Even as a child, his love for his family led him to assume the mantle of protector, motivated in no small way by the loss of his father. This was in stark contrast to his half-brother, Yasuo, who was brash and reckless where Yone was patient and disciplined.

Still, the two were inseparable—and when Yone began his studies at the renowned sword school near their village, Yasuo followed.

As they trained, Yone was often forced to temper his younger brother’s impulsiveness. However, when Yasuo refused the personal tutelage of Elder Souma, master of the legendary wind technique, Yone gifted him a maple seed—a symbol of humility—as a sign of his support and encouragement.

Yone was proud of his brother, but he had doubts about the wise master’s judgment, fearing that Yasuo’s impulsive nature would make him a poor student. But Elder Souma was well respected, and did not make careless decisions.

Putting his concerns aside, Yone continued to practice with dual blades, his prowess quickly earning the respect and admiration of his fellow disciples. Though Yone’s skill was unmatched, Yasuo’s use of the wind technique made their sparring sessions a sight to behold, and a joy to the brothers themselves.

But that joy did not last long. War came to Ionia.

Yone, along with many other disciples, left to defend against the approaching Noxian forces while Yasuo reluctantly stayed behind to protect his master. But one fateful night, Elder Souma was discovered dead—slain by the very wind technique that he taught.

When Yone returned, he found that Yasuo had fled.

This shook Yone to his core. His fears were proven true—Elder Souma had been wrong.

Yone blamed himself. If Yasuo had murdered Souma, Yone had failed to teach him the righteous path. If Yasuo had simply abandoned his post and allowed his master to die, then Yone had failed to instill him with discipline. Either way, Yasuo had already killed several of those who pursued him—and to Yone, their blood stained his own hands as much as his brother’s.

He tracked Yasuo down. When their swords finally crossed, Yone’s steel was unmatched… but Yasuo’s mastery of the wind cut his brother down.

Death, however, was not the end. When Yone awoke within the spirit realm, the weight of his failure crushed him. His fury flared, and he pounded his fists on the ground in rage.

A rumbling laugh pierced his thoughts. He turned, and beheld a monstrous, humanoid spirit with a blood-red blade. It was a powerful azakana, a predatory entity that had long stalked Yone from beyond the veil.

Before Yone could speak, it struck.

He drew the spiritual echoes of his blades to his side just in time to block the attack. He once again found himself in a duel where his swordsmanship was unparalleled, but he was overwhelmed by magic.

Anger consumed him. A lifetime of honor and duty snapped. In one furious moment, Yone wrested the azakana’s blade from it and ran the creature through.

The last thing he heard before a new darkness took him was that same rumbling laughter…

As he came to, Yone found himself back in the material realm, though it was a grim shadow of what it had been. He struggled to his feet, the spirit realm hazy in his mind, and a blood-red sword in his hand. Upon his head, a mask had coalesced in the form of the azakana’s face—he could not remove it, but he could now see other azakana through its eyes. They were not yet true demons, content to feed on negativity before eventually manifesting to devour their hosts. But, as Yone would discover, if an azakana’s name was learned, they could be reduced to inert masks of personified emotion.

Even so, he could not tell if—or when—the azakana he wore would reawaken to consume him. In life, Yone had worn the mask of protector, brother, and disciple for so long that it had become his identity. But now, in moments of stillness, he swears he can feel the mask shifting upon his face, his own past and unresolved conflict with Yasuo now paling in comparison to this new threat.

Yone hunts these insidious creatures in an attempt to understand what he has become—with each name bringing him a step closer to uncovering that of the one whose laughter still haunts him.

Nothing else matters. There is only the chase of truth.

Helia, the Blessed Isles

Erlok Grael stood separate from his peers, awaiting the Choosing.

They waited within a small open-air amphitheater, the architecture all gleaming white marble and gold-encased capstones. Helia wore its opulence proudly, as if in defiance of the brutalities of life beyond the shores of the Blessed Isles.

The others joked and laughed together, their collective nervousness drawing them closer, yet Grael stood silent and alone, his gaze intense. No one spoke to him or included him in any of the whispered japes. Few even registered his presence; their gazes slipped over and around him as if he didn’t exist. To most of them, he didn’t.

Grael did not care. He had no desire to swap inane small talk with them, and he felt no jealousy at their juvenile comradery. Today would be his moment of triumph. Today he would be embraced into the inner circle, apprenticed within the secretive upper echelons of the Fellowship of Light. He had more than earned his place there. No other student present came close. They might hail from wealth and nobility, while he came from a line of illiterate pig farmers, but none were as gifted or as worthy as he.

The masters arrived, filing down the central stairs one by one, silencing the gaggle of hopefuls. Grael watched them, eyes burning with a hungry light. He licked his lips, savoring

the prestige and glory that were soon to be heaped upon him, anticipating all the secrets that he would soon be privy to.

The masters shuffled into place upon the lower tiers of the amphitheater, their expressions solemn, staring down at the cluster of adepts on the floor below them. Finally, after an overlong pause to build suspense, a pompous, toadlike master, his skin pale and wet-looking—Elder Bartek—cleared his throat and welcomed the graduating students. His verbose speech was heavy with gravitas and self-congratulatory asides, and Grael’s eyes glazed over.

Finally, the time came for the masters to choose which of the graduates would be taken under their wing as apprentices. There were leaders here from all the major disciplines and denominations of the Fellowship. They represented the Arcanic Sciences, the various schools of logic and metaphysics, the Blessed Archives, the Astro-Scryers, Hermetic Oratory, Esoteric Geometry, the Seekers, and other branches of study. All served, in one way or another, the greater purpose of the Fellowship—the gathering, study, cataloging, and securing of the most powerful arcane artifacts in existence.

It was an auspicious gathering of some of the world’s most brilliant minds, yet Erlok Grael focused on only one of their number: Hierarch Malgurza, Master of the Key. Her dark skin was heavily lined, and her once-ebony hair was now mostly gray. Malgurza was a legend among the adepts of Helia. She didn’t appear at every year’s Choosing ceremony, but when she did, it was always to embrace a new apprentice into the inner circle.

The Baton of Choosing was brought forth. It was passed first to Hierarch Malgurza, the most honored master present. She took it in one gnarled hand, causing a ripple of murmurs among the students. Malgurza would indeed choose an apprentice this day, and the ghost of a smile curled Grael’s thin lips. The elderly woman cast her hawkish gaze across the gathered hopefuls, who held their breaths as one.

Whoever was named would be marked for greatness, joining a hallowed, elite cadre, their future assured. Erlok Grael’s fingers twitched in anticipation. This was his moment. He was already half stepping forward when the hierarch finally spoke, her voice husky, like oak-aged spirits.

“Tyrus of Hellesmor.”

Grael blinked. For a second, he thought there must have been some mistake, before the cold reality of his rejection washed over him, like a bucket of frigid water to the face. There was a delighted whoop from the chosen student, along with a burst of whispers and gasps. The newly named apprentice stepped forward amid a flurry of slaps on the back and ran up the steps of the amphitheater to take his place behind Hierarch Malgurza, a broad smile on his smug face.

Grael made no outward reaction, though he had gone dangerously still.

The rest of the ceremony went by in a dull, surreal blur. The Baton of Choosing passed from master to master, each choosing a new apprentice. Name by name, the crowd of hopefuls around Grael dwindled, until he stood alone. The sea of masters and former peers stared down at him, like a jury ready to announce his execution.

His hands did not twitch now. Shame and hatred writhed within him, like a pair of serpents locked in a death struggle. With a click of finality, the Baton of Choosing was sealed back within its ceremonial case and borne away by golden-robed attendants.

“Erlok Grael,” announced Bartek, his eyes smiling. “No master has spoken for you, yet the Fellowship is nothing if not benevolent. A place has been secured for you, one that will, it is hoped, teach you some much-needed humility, and at least a modicum of empathy. In time, perhaps, one of the masters may deign to take you on—”

“Where?” interrupted Grael, eliciting murmurs and tuts, but he did not care.

Bartek looked down his bulbous nose at him. His expression was that of a man who had inadvertently stepped upon something distasteful. “You will serve as a minor assistant to the Wardens of Thresholds,” he declared, malice gleaming in his eyes. There were smirks and stifled laughter among his former peers. The Threshers, as the student body derisively called them, were the lowest of the low, both literally and figuratively, those who guarded and patrolled the lowest depths of the vaults beneath Helia. Their ranks consisted of those who had earned the ire of the masters, whether through gross political misstep or misdemeanor, and any others whom the Fellowship wished out of the way. Down in the darkness, they could be forgotten. They were a joke. An embarrassment.

Bartek’s patronizing voice droned on, but Grael barely heard his words.

In that moment, he swore that this was not the end. He would serve among the wardens and ensure that his worth was noticed, such that none of these pompous, sniveling masters or his snobbish peers could deny him. He would serve a year, maybe two, and then he would take his rightful place within the inner circle.

They would not break him.

And he would remember this insult.

Alovédra, Camavor

It was dark and cool within the hallowed Sanctum of Judgment, and Kalista appreciated the reprieve from the scorching Camavoran summer outside. Standing at attention, bedecked

in form-fitting armor and a high-plumed helm, she waited for judgment to be rendered.

Despite being out of the sun, the slender young heir to the Argent Throne, kneeling at her side, was sweating, and his breath was shallow and quick.

His name was Viego Santiarul Molach vol Kalah Heigaari, and he waited to see if he would be crowned king, or if this day would be his last.

Absolute rulership, or death. There could be no middle ground.

He was Kalista’s uncle, but she was more like an older sister to him. They had been raised together, and he had always looked up to her. He was never meant to be the next king.

That should have been Kalista’s father, the firstborn, but his unexpected death had placed Viego, his younger brother, next in line.

The sound of the massed crowds outside was muted within the cold walls of the sanctum. Hooded priests, their faces obscured by shadow and blank porcelain masks, stood anonymous in the gloom, forming a circle. The incense from their censers was cloying and acrid, their whispering chant monotonous and sibilant.

“Kal?” breathed Viego.

“I am here,” Kalista replied, standing at his side, her voice low.

He glanced up at her. His patrician face was long and handsome, yet in that moment he seemed younger than his twenty-one years. His eyes were panicked, like those of an animal caught between fleeing and fighting. Upon his forehead, three lines had been drawn in blood, coming together to a point just between his eyebrows. The blood trident was traditionally drawn only upon the dead, to help speed them on their way to the Beyond and ensure that the Revered Ancestors recognized them. It spoke of the lethality of what lay ahead.

“Tell me again of my father’s last words,” whispered Viego.

Kalista stiffened. The old king had been the Lion of Camavor, with a fearsome reputation in battle—and on the political stage. But as he lay dying in bed, he hadn’t looked anything

like the robust warrior-king who had so terrorized his enemies. In those final moments, his body was wasted and thin, all his vaunted power and vitality sapped from him. His eyes

had still radiated a small measure of the power he’d had in his prime, but it was like the last glow of a fire’s embers, one final glimmer before the darkness claimed him.

He clutched at her with the last of his strength, with hands that more closely resembled a vulture’s talons than anything belonging to a man. “Promise me,” he croaked, burning with

a desperate fire. “The boy does not have the temperament to rule. I blame myself, but it is you who must bear the weight, granddaughter. Promise me you will guide him. Counsel him.

Control him, if needed. Protect Camavor. That is now your duty.”

“I promise, Grandfather,” Kalista said. “I promise.”

Viego waited expectantly, looking up at her. The faint roar of the crowd outside rose and fell like the crashing of distant waves.

“He said you’d be a great king,” Kalista lied. “That you’d eclipse even his great deeds.”

Viego nodded, trying to take comfort in her words.

“There is nothing wrong with being afraid,” she assured him, her stern demeanor softening. “You’d be a fool if you weren’t.” She gave him a wink. “More of a fool, I mean.”

Viego laughed, though the sound had an edge of hysteria to it and was too loud in the cavernous space. Priests glared, and the heir to the throne gathered himself. He pushed a wayward strand of his wavy hair behind one ear, and was still once more, staring into the darkness.

“You cannot let fear control you,” said Kalista.

“If the blade claims me, it will be you kneeling here next, Kal,” Viego whispered. He reflected on that for a moment. “You would make a far better ruler than I.”

“Do not speak of such things,” hissed Kalista. “You are blessed of the Ancestors, with power flowing through your veins that your father did not have. You are worthy. By nightfall you will be crowned king, and all of this will be just a memory. The blade will not claim you.”

“Yet if—”

“The blade will not claim you.”

Viego gave a slow nod. “The blade will not claim me,” he repeated.

There was a change in the air, and the priests’ incessant chanting quickened. Their censers swayed from side to side. Light speared down into the sanctum through a crystal lens

set in the center of the dome high above, as the sun finally moved into position directly overhead. Motes of dust and ribbons of cloying scented smoke drifted in the beam of light,

revealing... nothing.

Then the Blade of the King appeared.

Its name was Sanctity, and Kalista’s breath caught in her throat as she looked upon it. Hovering suspended in midair, the immense sword existed only in the spiritual Halls of the Ancestors, except when called forth by the rightful ruler of Camavor, or when summoned by the priests for the judgment of a new sovereign.

Every monarch of Camavor wore the Argent Crown, a belligerent tri-spiked circlet perfectly befitting the long line of belligerent rulers, but Sanctity was the true symbol of the throne. The primacy of whoever held Sanctity was undisputed, and to possess the Blade of the King was to be soul-bound to it—although not every heir to the Camavoran throne survived

the ritual of binding.

Kalista knew that was not some vague, mythical threat, either. Down through the line of history, dozens of heirs had perished here in the Sanctum of Judgment. There was a good

reason some called the blade Soulrender, and it was rightly feared by Camavor’s heirs and enemies alike.

The crowd outside had fallen silent. They waited in hushed anticipation, ready to welcome a new monarch or mourn his passing. Either the doors would be thrown open and Viego would stride forth in glory, blade in hand, or the bell atop the sanctum would toll one singular, mournful note, signaling his end.

“Viego,” Kalista said. “It is time.”

The crown prince nodded and pushed himself to his feet. The blade hung before him, waiting for him to take it. And yet, still he hesitated. He stared at it, transfixed, terrified. The priests glared, eyes wide behind their expressionless masks, silently urging him to do what they had instructed.

“Viego...” hissed Kalista.

“You’ll be with me, won’t you?” he whispered urgently. “I don’t think I can do this alone. Rule, I mean.”

“I’ll be with you,” said Kalista. “I’ll stand with you, as I always have. I promise.”

Viego gave her a nod and turned back to Sanctity, hanging motionless in the shaft of light. In seconds, the moment would be lost. The time of judgment was now.

The priests’ chanting reached a fevered pitch. Smoke coiled around the sacred blade, like so many serpents, writhing and twisting. Without further pause, Viego stepped forward and grasped the sword, closing both hands around its hilt.

His eyes widened, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Then he opened his mouth and began to scream.

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For the noble defenders of Demacia, daily life is the very model of focused, selfless dedication to the ideals of king and country. Called upon to continue his family’s long tradition of military service, Taric never dreamed of shirking that responsibility—though he would not limit or define exactly whom and what he would protect.

The young warrior trained hard, and possessed great martial skill. Even so, in his scant hours of free time, he would find other ways to serve his homeland. He volunteered with the Illuminators, tending the sick or helping rebuild homes damaged by flooding. He lent his creative talents, such as they were, to the stonemasons and craftsmen who raised monuments to the glory of the Winged Protector and the lofty ideals it embodied.

A work of art. A stranger’s life. These were the things that made Demacia worth fighting for. Taric saw every one of them as beautiful, fragile, and worthy of saving.

Fortunately, his disarming manner and innate warmth allowed him to brush aside any criticism from his fellow soldiers or commanding officers. He rose modestly through the ranks, and even fought beside a young Garen Crownguard.

Ironically, it was Taric’s steady rise that would bring about his eventual downfall—at least as far as Demacia was concerned.

Elevated to the prestigious Dauntless Vanguard, he was suddenly held to a far higher standard of conduct. No more would he be allowed to roam the forests looking for glimpses of some rare animal, neglect combat drills to sit in a tavern and listen to a bard’s simple ballad, or skip line inspections to ride out and observe the silver cloak of night settling across the hinterlands. Taric began to feel at odds with himself, and soon attracted attention as an insubordinate.

Garen urged him to shape up and do his duty. He could see Taric had the potential to become one of Valoran’s greatest heroes—and yet he seemed to be thumbing his nose at destiny as well as his country.

To keep him from demotion, Taric was seconded to serve the Sword-Captain of the Vanguard, though neither of them was particularly happy about it. However, when the older man was slain in battle along with the rest of his personal retinue, Taric was found to have abandoned his post… and rumor had it that he had been spotted wandering the cloisters of some forgotten ruined temple nearby.

Nothing more could be said. A dozen warriors were dead, and Taric faced the executioner’s block for it.

However, seeking mercy for his friend, Garen intervened. As the Sword-Captain’s successor, he sentenced Taric to endure “the Crown of Stone”—in accordance with Demacia’s most ancient traditions, he would be sent to climb Mount Targon, a trial that few had ever survived.

Though the Crown of Stone usually allowed the dishonored to simply flee Demacia and start a new life in exile, Taric took the first ship heading south, and swore to actually atone for what he had done.

The climb nearly claimed him, body and soul, numerous times. But Taric pushed past the pain, the ghosts of his dead comrades, and other tests inflicted upon him by the mountain. As he approached the summit, he was beset by a wave of new visions of loss and destruction…

He witnessed the great Alabaster Library set aflame… and still he dashed into the inferno to retrieve the heavenly poetries of Tung. He screamed in anguish as the Frostguard ran the last dreamstag into the Howling Abyss… and then leapt over the precipice himself in a desperate attempt to save it. At the gates of the Immortal Bastion, Taric slumped to his knees when he saw Garen’s broken body swinging from a gibbet… before raising his shield, and charging headlong into the waiting hordes of Noxus.

When the visions finally faded, Taric found himself at the very pinnacle of the mountain, and he was not alone. Before him stood something wearing the shape of a man, though its almost crystalline features blazed with the light of the stars themselves, and its voice was a thousand whispers that cut through Taric like a blade.

It spoke truths he had somehow always known. It spoke of the mantle for which he had unwittingly been preparing his entire life, with every decision and deed that had brought him here, now, to Targon.

And he would stand as the Shield of Valoran in great wars yet to come.

Reborn as the Aspect of the Protector, gifted with power and purpose unimaginable to most mortals, Taric has gladly accepted this new calling—as the steadfast guardian of an entire world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Riven,” the judge said.

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

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

Riven nodded.

“Why did you do this?”

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

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

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

Riven looked at the shackles on her wrist.

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

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

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

Riven opened her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who are you?” she asked.

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

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

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

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

“Pick up your weapon.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why are you here?” Riven asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The judge looked down her falcon nose at Riven.

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

A murmur swept through the crowd.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Daughter,” she whispered back.