LoL Universe Indexing and Search

My yordle Norra snores into the pages of my friend, Book. My tail twitches as dozens of moon-moths sail in through the open window like floating lanterns, and I leap joyfully into the air, not caring if I catch one. I bounce higher and higher, batting at the moon-moths as they drift all around me.

One of them bends and turns inside itself, lashing about until it twists into the shape of a mackerel. Around me, the other moon-moths spin in mid-air, all transforming into floating fish. Delicious—until the whole world turns upside down. Books cascade up from the shelves, landing on the ceiling with a dozen thuds. My Norra floats upward, still asleep. The fish flounder in every direction as we all fall up, up, up—

I wake up, blinking sleepily in a wooden box as moonlight shines through the slats. How in a mouse’s house did I get here? Oh yes. The tasty stink of fish fills my nose and I remember prowling the streets of Bilgewater, finding a crate of dried fish, then eating my fill before falling into a deep, belly-full sleep.

Before I can get comfy again, my stomach lurches and I’m knocked onto my side. Dozens of dried fish fall on top of me—just like my dream!—and my stomach purrs.

Book flutters in the corner as it tries to edge away from the falling fish. It’s always hinting that food is bad for its pages. I think dried-up-trees would be much improved with the smell of fish, but Book knows much more about dried-up-trees than I do, so I don’t argue.

I peek through the cracks between the slats. The floor beneath us creaks and shifts while, in the distance, moonlight flickers on the surface of the… ocean!

“Book, whyyy?!” I cry. “Naps never lead to bad things!”

Book opens and closes in exasperation. I don’t do water, and neither does Book.

I start to panic. Book rustles, reminding me not to worry—but it’s too late. I scratch and scramble at the wood in desperation, and I shred some of the dried fish by accident. This ocean is making me destroy my yummiest snack—it’s the worst type of water! I paw at Book’s cover, opening it to a frost-tinged portal that will take us far away from this watery nightmare. We have to escape somewhere, anywhere. Even somewhere cold.

I’m about to jump into Book’s portal when I hear a scream that sounds like tinkling bells and the brightest rainbows. A scream that makes my fur stand on end. A yordle scream.

I peek through the slats in the crate and watch as two human sailors drag a blue-furred yordle to the edge of the bustling ship’s deck. One of them has black chin-whiskers and the other is chubby, and both are smirking. They step over roped stacks of harpoons, fishing poles, spears, and coils of thick fishing wire. Must be deep-sea monster hunters.

“This little ’un is gonna fetch us a prize gulperfish, eh?” the first sailor says.

“I hear the biggest fish love yordle meat,” says the chubbier sailor. “Never tried it before, myself. Not a lot of yordles ’round Bilgewater.”

The blue-furred yordle squeals and struggles against them. “I’m not bait!” he exclaims, squeaking with each word. “I beg you, please release me!” The sailors don’t budge.

The whole ship tilts as a particularly large bump shakes my crate. “Ah, that’ll be the fish now. Time to fill our boat with gulperflesh!” says the first sailor, grinning. I don’t like his grin.

An enormous fin circles our boat, making lion-sized waves that bash the side of our ship. I feel Book tugging at me. I know it wants us to escape through a portal, to get away from the bad water right now before anyone sees us, but I hear the yordle cry out. I stick my paw through the slats in the crate and open the crate’s latch. I won’t leave a yordle alone to die. Not after losing my Norra.

The sailors watch the fin thrash around in the water. They don’t notice me as I leap from my crate like the quietest tiger and stalk them from behind.

The poor yordle is tied to a long fishing pole, which the sailors are dangling over the ocean. The water beneath him is bubbling and frothing. How does water always move in the worst ways?! I jump over the pile of harpoons and Book follows, flying next to me and nervously flapping its pages as it hovers in the air. They see us.

“Is that a purple raccoon—with a flying book?” one of the sailors asks.

“I think it’s a baby bear with a journal,” says another.

“No, you idiots, it’s just a cat,” says a third. “Get it!”

The sailors rush at me, but I dart swiftly between their feet. I unfurl a coil of magic that twists and tangles around their legs. They trip and topple like cups on a table.

I perch on the ship’s railing next to the fishing pole, unsure what to do next. The waves swirl below us, and my hunting instincts kick in—something’s gonna pounce.

“Untie me!” shouts the yordle as he clings to the fishing rod. “I am not a piece of bait. This is quite strange and embarrassing!”

Luckily for him, I am not afraid of fish. Even if I don’t like water.

I bound onto the fishing pole. In the midst of a cat’s leap, sometimes time slows. With my paws splayed out like pancakes and wind rushing through my fur over the terrible water, I am determined to save this yordle with everything I’ve got. Besides, mid-leap, there’s no going back.

“Don’t worry, small blue yordle!” I shout. “I got you!”

The yordle’s fate and mine intertwine as I land on its shoulder, with Book right behind.

The fishing pole wobbles under our weight. The biggest fish I’ve ever seen—a third the size of the boat—bursts from the sea with its mouth gaping open, hundreds of teeth glistening in the moonlight. Its jaws open so wide it could swallow a pair of cows, without even chewing them up. Even in the dark, with my shinylight I can see its skin is made up of pointed razor-sharp scales of silver and violet.

The giant gulperfish swallows us whole—the yordle, Book, me, and even a bit of the fishing pole, with room to spare.

We jostle against the roof of the fish’s mouth as it falls back into the water. It’s pitch-black, and smells like old seafood! Before it can gulp us down, though, I balloon open a magical shield that bubbles around us, lodging us in the fish’s leathery gullet. I blink on my shinylight again, illuminating some seriously rotten teeth that explain the awful smell. The yordle squeals at the sight. The fish lashes about, and the three of us are thrown in every direction, protected by the impermeable bubble.

What a strange way to make new friends!

I try to open Book so the three of us can escape, but the gulperfish leaps into the air once more, and we are tossed into a heap inside the bubble. We fall with a thud—the fish must have landed on the ship’s deck. I hear the sailors shouting as the enormous gulper thrashes back and forth, slapping them with its tail.

I hear a splash, and another, and another. The humans must have been knocked into the water. Still stuck in the throat of the gulperfish, I flip Book open to a portal that shimmers with the dusky green of Bandle City, the green of home.

I grab the small yordle’s shirt with my teeth and dive into the page. The portal widens and we spin into the spirit realm, dizzy and whirling into a jumble of colors.

We emerge, coughing, on the banks of a shallow creek. My lungs fill with the sweet air of Bandle City, thick and lush as in my dream. Sapphire-blue crickets chirp in the twilight as the brook babbles gently, full of fish—normal-sized fish.

Book flaps its pages to dry off. The blue-furred yordle stands up, dripping and shaking. “What was that? How did we… escape?” he asks. “Wasn’t the nearest Bilgewater portal back on the docks?”

“Lucky for us, Book carries our portals around wherever we go,” I say. Book twirls, showing off its dried-up-tree pages, each inscribed with a magical gateway outlined in ink and paint.

“Well, thank you for saving me, both of you,” says the yordle. He looks at Book curiously. “Is this where you’re from, too?”

“Yes, but we don’t live here anymore,” I say. I look at Book, sadly, thinking of master.

Book flutters. I know it thinks it’s time to move on.

“You know how to get home from here?” I ask the yordle.

“Yes, yes, just up the hill past the bowl-moles. I know this meadow well. And I do hope you find your yordle,” he says, before wandering off.

I stay for a moment, watching as the gloaming turns to daybreak. I catch a glimpse of a moon-moth hovering on the horizon and I long to pounce on it, but I remember that Norra is still lost somewhere, perhaps waiting for us to rescue her this very minute.

I pat Book as gently as I can with my paw—I know it misses her too.

Then I open it to a new page, and dive in.

Like most yordles, Tristana was always fascinated by the world beyond Bandle City. She traveled far and wide, full of wonder and enthusiasm for the varied places, people, and creatures she encountered. Using the hidden pathways that only yordles know, she explored the length and breadth of the material realm, remaining mostly unseen.

She witnessed such breathtaking sights as ice trolls migrating across the floes of the far north beneath kaleidoscopic auroras. She marveled as warships blasted each other to pieces in naval battles that churned the seas. She watched, awestruck, as great armies marched with unity and precision—incredibly strange concepts to a yordle!—across the endless sands to the south.

But Tristana’s carefree, wandering ways changed the day she witnessed the destruction of a bandlewood. These places are steeped in the magic of the gateways they grow around, giving yordles a safe haven from the world. Tristana, dozing in the dappled sunshine, was shaken awake as the trees around her began to burn and topple. A warband of armored marauders rampaged through the woodland with fire and axes, led by a sorcerer wreathed in dark energy.

Tristana hid in horror. The sorcerer focused his power upon the portal at the heart of the bandlewood, speaking one final utterance. Her ears still ringing with pain, Tristana watched the gateway collapse, never to be opened again. The ripples of that destruction were felt in Bandle City itself, causing great despair among the yordles.

Tristana had never experienced anything like the pain of this loss, or the guilt she felt for not acting. Never again would she allow such a terrible thing to happen. In that moment, she dedicated herself to become the guardian of all bandlewoods, and her fellow yordles.

Tristana had often marveled at how mortals protected the things that were dear to them. While she couldn’t comprehend their reasons to guard shiny metals, or walls of stone, she respected their methods, and decided to emulate them. Other yordles watched with curiosity as she took to marching around the borders of Bandle City stern-faced, and watching out for danger. She started calling her food “rations”, and set herself strict times for rest and relaxation.

But something was missing. In her travels, she had seen many powerful inventions, including the black powder cannons of Bilgewater. Inspired by them, she collected enough precious metal discs to commission a gun suited to her diminutive size.

With a wry smile, she named it Boomer.

Since then,Tristana has defended the bandlewoods from innumerable threats. In the jungles of the Serpent Isles, she intervened in a clash between the local Buhru people and treasure hunters from Valoran that was getting too close to a hidden portal, sending them all running for their lives after she leapt into their midst, Boomer roaring. And in the burning deserts at the edge of Shurima, she destroyed a Void-horror after it began consuming a secret bandlewood oasis, killing it with an explosive bomb down the gullet.

Tristana has become something of a legend in Bandle City, and recently, a number of yordles have started to imitate her, trying—and mostly failing—to copy her disciplined ways. Some have even had weapons mimicking Boomer constructed for them by the scrappy inventor Rumble, who is always seeking to win Tristana’s approval. While Tristana finds this all rather embarrassing, she has come to the conclusion that if they are going to defend the pathways to Bandle City, they had better do it properly. As such, she has started training these new recruits, and they have adopted a new moniker—the Bandle Gunners.

Nevertheless, Tristana can often be found out in the wilds on patrol by herself—simultaneously protecting the bandlewoods and also getting away from her new, and rather annoying, trainees.

Let me tell you about my glade.

On a clear night—like this night, in fact—when the moon is full and ripe, silver light glitters on star-shaped leaves with hair-fine fronds like threads of silk, and night-blooming Seleneia render my glade a magical wonderland.

A traveler might catch the scent of far distant continents on the wind. Only hints, to be sure, but such hints! A bouquet of desert spices, sun-baked stone, and salt from the crests of racing waves, mingled with the evergreen sap-scent of highland firs. You might think such a turn of phrase overly whimsical, words that might tumble from the lips of a hopeless romantic, or a lovelorn poet. You’d be right, of course, but that doesn’t make them any less true.

And while we’re on the subject of romantics—an artistic soul might, if they came here at just the right time, see dancing patterns in the moonglow dappling through the forest canopy. Their eye might follow it around, gradually sensing an order to the play of light and shadow across the bark of a tree, or in the ripples upon a pool of water. A pattern that almost looks like it might just form a doorway of sorts, if only it would complete.

But no matter how those patterns swirl and dance, they never fully coalesce into a whole. Almost never, that is. After all, the magic of these lands is skittish—with good reason—and doesn’t reveal its secrets to just anyone. We nature spirits are drawn to places like this. They nurture us, as we in turn nurture them. You can find us all over the world—in some places more than others, yes, but if there’s magic bubbling up, like as not you’ll find a spirit like me.

I flatter myself that the glade I inhabit is more infused with it than most other places in this land that mortals call Noxus—if you know the right way to look. Most of this world’s inhabitants have forgotten how to see, how to really see, but there are others, a whole race of them, in fact, who never forgot. They’re called yordles, and they’re not exactly from this world. I’m friends with a lot of them.

Two of them are approaching now. It sounds like they’re trying to get back to their kin, but they’re having trouble with the—for want of a better word—key that’s supposed to help them find their way home. You see, the low roads they travel don’t run on the surface of this world. Nor do they travel straight, like those of the men who call the lands hereabouts home. They curve and loop, swirling all around the place like a crazy knot you can’t ever untie.

Most yordles know how to travel them relatively easily, but these two?

Let’s just say they’re not the best-suited traveling companions. I can hear them, just beyond the spirit veil, bickering like a pair of hungry foxes.

They’ll be here soon, but I wonder if they know they’re not the only ones approaching.

Mortals are coming this way. Warriors. Armored in steel and stone, bearing instruments of death. I don’t like them, but don’t misunderstand my reasons. I understand death is necessary, a vital part of the natural cycle of being, but these people only take, and don’t give back. They pave over the land with roads that do not curve. They use their axes and saws to clear the land of growing things. They are an empire of angles and order. Nearby trees bend away from them in response, but they don’t notice, of course.

Mortals almost always miss their impact on the world around them.

A woman with long brown hair is the first to enter my wooded glade. She taps spurred heels to her horse’s flanks, and rides in a circle, scanning the treeline and ground for signs of life that might mean her harm.

Her eyes are cold, and she surveys the beauty of the trees like a woodsman sharpening an axe.

She halts her mount in the middle of the glade and sits in silence. She hears birdsong, the sighing of the forest, and the burbling stream flowing over time-smoothed rocks. Most people who come here are calmed by these sounds, their souls replenished simply by being in nature.

But not her.

None of the forest’s energy touches her, and I don’t know whether to feel sad or angry. The woman is patient, and only after several minutes pass does she lift her arm and spread her fingers wide. Moments later, a dozen riders appear at the edge of the glade. Their horses are exhausted, flanks lathered white and heads bowed. These animals have carried their riders a great distance, so I extend a little magic into their tired limbs. They whinny and toss their manes in gratitude.

A mustachioed man clad in leather and furs rides towards the woman. A bronze circlet holds his long dark hair from his face, and his tunic has been cut to show off his muscular build. A wolf-pelt cloak mantles his shoulders, and a pair of circle-grip axes are slung at his back. Like the woman, his gaze makes me fear what he might do to the trees.

Yes, I think I dislike him even more than the woman.

“What took you so long, Tamara?” he says. “Afraid we’ll be ambushed?”

She ignores his questions. “We should make camp here, Draven. Fresh water and plentiful wood. It’s broad and wide, too, so there’s limited avenues of approach.”

“Spoken like a true Noxian warmason.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She slides from her saddle, and as soon as her boots hit the ground, I recoil from the stone in her veins, the iron in her soul. The sounds in the glade dim, but none of the humans notice.

“I want to reach the capital before we die of old age,” says Draven. “The fighting in Basilich was fun, but I need to get back to the arena and put these axes to good use.”

“You also want to go back and tell Darius you’d rather his army advance without a warmason carefully scouting the way?”

“We’re in no danger,” says Draven. “Not in the empire’s heartland.”

She folds her arms. “You heard what happened to Wintory outside Drekan?”

“No,” shrugs Draven, “but you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

She looks at him, then sighs and shakes her head. “What would be the point? It’s not about you, so you’re not going to care.”

I listen to them trade insults back and forth, but am confused at how the words they say don’t match the shimmering colors of their auras. It’s a source of great confusion to me that mortals spend so much time saying things they do not mean, and feeling things they do not express.

There’s an honesty to nature—albeit a bloody one—you can count on.

It’s nightfall when the yordles get here.

I feel the irresistible call of their key, and push a little of my power into the spirit realm to open the way. One of the silverbark trees shifts her branches windward slightly, and the last rays of sunset complete a glowing amber pattern on the gnarled knots of her mossy trunk. Shadow, light and ridged bark combine to form an endless loop that, from a certain angle and a certain height, looks like a portal into a land of eternal sunrise.

Whispers and song echo from the arbor in the heart of the tree. The Noxians are busy with their horses, and the animals make enough noise that the humans don’t hear it. It sounds like the winds are speaking, passing secrets between the trees. Maybe they are—you can never really know what the winds are saying. Well, maybe the blue bird of the seas knows, but she doesn’t roam far from the sunken city these days.

The grass around the base of the silverbark ripples in a warm breeze that carries a multitude of stories from another realm. I’ve heard hundreds of them, but the yordles have an inexhaustible supply, and I never tire of learning of their travels.

There’s a soft pop of air, like a bubble bursting on the surface of a lake…

…and two diminutive forms tumble out from the tree. They roll into the high grass, looking surprised to find themselves in a forest glade. One of them immediately picks herself up, and brings her big cannon to bear. She spins around. Left then right. She draws a bead on a rabbit with a half-chewed ear, poking a twitching nose from its burrow.

“Did you do this?” she asks.

The rabbit doesn’t answer. But then rabbits are stoic. You want a secret kept, but have to tell someone? Tell a rabbit, they’ll take it to their grave.

I know this yordle—she’s called Tristana, and she looks mad. Like she’s ready to march off to fight, but forgot which way the war was. Her purple skin is flushed a deeper shade than normal, and her white hair is swept back in a tight ponytail.

She hefts her cannon and aims it towards the rabbit.

It hops forward, unfazed by the threat.

“I won’t ask again,” says Tristana, “and Boomer never misses!”

The rabbit twitches its nose, cool as winter frost.

Tristana’s traveling companion sits up, a tiny, winged faerie circling her head. Ah, Lulu and Pix. Her wild purple hair billows in a wind that only seems to affect her, and her tall hat sits at a funny angle. It’s slipped over her eyes, and she taps around her with a curling stick.

“I’ve gone blind!” she says. “That’s new.”

Tristana keeps her gaze locked on the rabbit, and holds up a hand to silence Lulu, but her friend doesn’t see it. Lulu gets up and walks in a circle, tapping the ground in front of her. The flowers duck, and the buzzing glitterbugs scatter before Pix can pluck their wings. Lulu’s faerie companion is cute, but he’s got a strange sort of humor. I can’t ever tell if he’s really funny or rude. Maybe it’s both.

“Tristana! Are you there?” says Lulu.

Tristana sighs in exasperation. She taps two fingers to her eyes, then points them at the rabbit with a stern look.

“I’m watching you, flopsy,” she warns. Her jaw drops as she finally notices the humans in the glade. She darts over to Lulu and pushes her back against the tree. The portal they fell from is already fading as the light changes.

“Humans,” she hisses.

“Where?” says Lulu. “It’s all dark! But then, sometimes I see more with my eyes closed.”

Tristana sighs, and pulls the brim of Lulu’s hat up.

Lulu blinks, and hugs Tristana.

“It’s a miracle!”

“Quiet,” hisses Tristana, and Pix darts down to zap a tiny spike of violet light at her cheek.

Tristana bats the faerie away with a grimace.

I bend the shadows around the trees a little. Humans sometimes have a hard time seeing yordles, at least as they really are, but I think the woman with the cold eyes might be sharper than most, and I don’t want to see these two get hurt.

Tristana glances around the tree. The Noxians are making camp, but I’m relieved to see they’re not lighting a fire. Draven is grumbling about that, but Tamara is adamant they not broadcast their presence. I make sure all the wood in this glade is green and not good for fires. Doesn’t stop everyone who comes this way from trying their luck with an axe or saw… but most of them.

Tristana nods to herself.

“They haven’t seen us,” she whispers. “Good.”

“They look friendly,” says Lulu, peeking over Tristana’s shoulder. “I think we should say hello.”

“They’re Noxians,” replies Tristana, and I feel her exasperation. “You don’t talk to Noxians unless you want to lose your head.”

“Why? Do they like collecting heads?”

Tristana rolls her eyes, finally taking the time to examine her surroundings. I lift up some flowers and wave to her. She can’t help but feel the magic in the glade, and waves back. Some people say Tristana’s all business, and so very serious, but I know better.

She looks up at the tree and gives it an experimental rap with her knuckles. She taps gently around the bark, before finally hearing a booming echo from deep inside the tree. Some of the Noxians look up, and she winces. I creak some branches, and persuade the water to splash playfully over the rocks. The Noxians return to their work.

Tristana nods and says, “Thanks,” before turning back to Lulu and asking, “Right, where’s the whispering key?”

“The what-now?”

“The thing we’ve been using to travel through all the portals…”

“Remind me, what did it look like?”

“It looked a little like a compass made of carved stone.”

“Oh, you mean my doodad.”

“Your…,” begins Tristana before settling on, “Yes. That’s what I mean.”

Lulu does a pirouette and pats herself down, checking pockets that seem to appear and disappear at random. She closes one eye, and bites her lip, pulling out coins, dice, chips of precious stones and glittering fluff. But nothing resembling a key.

“I just had it.”

“Yes, you did,” agrees Tristana through gritted teeth. “You used it to open the portal on the beach while we were running from that pack of cragwolves, after we’d dropped in on Poppy.”

“I like Poppy, but she’s so serious,” says Lulu, stomping around as if she’s marching on a parade ground. She pauses to stare at Tristana. “Wait! Are you and her actually the same yordle?”

“No, of course we’re not,” sighs Tristana. “Now, will you hurry up, please?”

“You could be, you know. Same hair, and that little furrow just above your nose when you get mad. See, there it is!”

Getting angry with Lulu won’t do any good. It would be like chasing a cub that’s stolen your shoe; it’s all part of a fun game. I send a cooling breeze to ruffle Tristana’s white hair, but it doesn’t seem to help.

“The whispering… I mean, your doodad? Can you just get it for me?”

“Oh, right, yes, I was looking for that, wasn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, you were.”

Lulu sighs, making a theatrical show of befuddlement. She looks up at the darkening sky and snaps her fingers.

“No wonder I can’t find it,” she says. “It’s too dark!”

She lifts her crooked staff, and Tristana’s eyes widen as she realizes what Lulu’s about to do. But it’s too late to stop her.

A stream of glitter bursts from the end of Lulu’s staff and explodes like a swarm of dancing fireflies overhead. The glade is bathed in the glow of a thousand stars and a secret gathering of moons.

“Aha!” says Lulu, finally pulling out something from a fold in her tunic. It looks like a cross between a budding seedpod and a curling seashell. A rainbow of colorful lines swirls on its surface, and what look like tiny tadpoles swim inside it. “Here it is.”

Tristana looks horrified as the light from Lulu’s staff floods the glade, but before she can react, a spinning axe blade flashes between the two of them and buries itself in the bark of the tree.

Lulu almost jumps out of her skin, and the seedpod-seashell flies from her hand.

The silverbark cries out in pain, so I pour magic up through her roots and into the heartwood. Vivid amber sap oozes from the gouge in the wounded tree’s bark, pinning the axe in place.

Lulu’s doodad sails through the air to land somewhere in the middle of the glade. It rolls into the tall grass, and I feel its primal energies pulse outwards in a rippling wave.

“Oops,” says Lulu.

A veritable flurry of black-shafted arrows slices through the undergrowth as the Noxians respond the only way they know how.

“Get back!” shouts Tristana, swinging Boomer around and dragging Lulu away to find cover behind a moldy log covered in moss and ivy.

An arrow punches into the rotten wood. Another splits the night a hair’s breadth from Tristana’s ear. Lulu squeals, and Pix darts to Tristana’s side. Fresh wildflowers of blue, gold, and crimson instantly bloom on the dead wood.

Tristana fires Boomer. Blam, blam, blam!

Everyone ducks. Noxians, rabbits, and glitterbugs. Even the worms burrow deeper.

Boomer’s cannonballs streak burning streamers across the glade, and spouts of water leap from the stream to cool them as they ricochet from the rocks. The last thing we want in the glade is a fire!

“Spread out!” yells Draven, running to retrieve his axe from the silverbark’s trunk.

The Noxians are quick to obey.

Say what you want about the Noxians—and I’ve heard plenty of humans passing through my glade who have a lot to say about Noxians—they’re disciplined! Tamara runs to her horse and draws a slender rapier from a saddle scabbard.

She grins at Draven and says, “No chance of an ambush, eh?”

Draven shrugs, and his aura gives no sense of any alarm or care at being proven wrong. All I sense is glee at the chance to spill blood.

Yes, I definitely dislike him more than Tamara.

The Noxian warriors spread through the glade, moving forward in pairs, as archers loose steady volleys of arrows to keep the two yordles from moving. I know nothing of war, but even I can see the deadly tactics of the Noxians will see Lulu and Tristana dead.

I’m all for fun and games, but I don’t want anyone killed…

Magic surges through the ground in a powerful wave. I weave loops of grass that tangle the feet of the first Noxian soldier, a great brute of a man with a double-bladed axe. He goes down hard, slicing open his arm as he falls flat on his face. His companion trips over him, dropping her sword, and the man cries out in pain as it stabs a handspan into his buttock.

An amberwood tree twists its trunk and whips its willowy branches around like a catapult. It smacks a crouching archer in the face, and he topples backwards. The arrow he was poised to loose goes straight up in the air. A careful gust of wind, and it plunges down between his legs, tearing his britches open at the crotch. He yelps in alarm and scrambles back on his haunches.

Tristana fires again, and Pix jumps onto her head, punching the air and shouting squeaking insults with every shot. Flowers fall from the air above the tiny faerie, and I see more than one arrow deflected around the yordle gunner by their shimmering petals.

“Can you see your doodad?” shouts Tristana over the cannon’s noise.

Lulu spins her staff around, and springs onto its shepherd’s crook handle. She shades her eyes with one hand, and peers through the fading illumination. An arrow slashes towards her, but the coiled point of her hat smacks it from the air.

“Nope, but then I don’t know what it looks like now.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what it looks like now?”

Lulu spins in a spiral down her staff, and daisies spring up around her as she lands. “The doodad’s a bit flighty, you see. Every time I put it down, it likes to try out a different shape.”

Tristana groans as Lulu sends a blazing shaft of sparkling light through the trees. A pair of Noxians are hurled through the air. They land in the stream, and I immediately mob them with a knot of frogs. The tongues of bucket-frogs are coated with slime that will give them waking dreams, and ought to send them to the moon and back.

“So it could look like anything?” asks Tristana.

“Pretty much,” agrees Lulu. “Just look for it out of the corner of your eye. It only changes if it thinks you’re looking right at it.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I wish Heimer was here right now,” says Tristana. “We could really use his hex-goggles.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Lulu. “That’d take all the fun out of this.”

Tristana spins on her heel to fire at a Noxian leaping towards her. Her cannonball punches him square in the chest and he flies back into a thorny bush that suddenly gets a lot more thorny.

“Fun?” she says. Then she grins. “You know what, you’re right. Let’s have some fun with these numpties. Grab on.”

Lulu laughs and throws her arms around Tristana’s neck as if she’s about to give her a big sloppy kiss. Tristana fires again, and this time her cannon is aimed at the ground. The two yordles erupt from behind the flowery, arrow-studded log and arc over the heads of the advancing soldiers. The Noxians watch in open-mouthed surprise as the two yordles spin over their heads, giggling musically as they go.

Who knows what the Noxians are seeing? Something strange, no doubt. A yordle’s glamour is an inconstant thing, and even they don’t know how others see them most of the time.

Gleaming bolts corkscrew from Lulu’s staff, and everywhere they hit, Noxians are thrown from their feet in a spray of petals and sparks that burn like drops of venom. The two yordles land on the run, and while Tristana spins around, firing at any Noxians who rear their heads, Lulu scrambles around on all fours in search of her doodad.

“Here, doodad,” she whispers to the grass. “Pretty please, with sprinkles on top! I’ll let you take us somewhere you want to go next.”

The doodad—or whatever it’s really called—doesn’t respond, but I sense it rolling away from Lulu. Well, not really rolling, as such, more making itself be where she isn’t. It’s a thing of old and powerful magic, but not without a childish sense of whimsy. It’s like it thinks this is a fun game. Perhaps it is, as Lulu is laughing with delight, spinning around and bounding through the glade like a weasel chasing its own tail as she chases her doodad. It turns into a large snail as Lulu gets close to it. And when she takes her hand away, sticky, it turns into a puff of light before reappearing behind Lulu as a stick-man tottering away on mismatched legs.

Tristana’s keeping the Noxians’ heads down with a barrage of cannon fire. I hear Draven finally wrench his axe from the silverbark, its edge all gummy with sap. He turns and moves from cover to cover, stalking Tristana like a cat, all taut limbs and steely focus. He draws his arm back, ready to throw his other axe.

A squadron of buzzing wasps swoops in and swarms him as a battalion of angry squirrels drops from the trees. His axe flies wide of the mark, thudding back to earth where the Noxian horses used to be. Now there’s only a mess of hoofprints and a few discarded saddles. Draven spins around in a frenzy, pulling the scratching, biting squirrels from his arms and neck. Squirrels are the thugs of the forest. Rabbits might be stoic, but squirrels will bite your ear off as soon as your back’s turned.

Lulu’s not even looked up. She’s still running in circles and giggling like a child as she shoots puffs of light from her staff.

With an explosive burst of speed, Tamara breaks from cover and runs straight for Lulu. I use my magic to throw distractions in her path. Frantic moles dig holes before her, but she weaves between their hasty traps. The thorny stems of a hookbrush whip at her, but she skids under them. She looks around, starting to understand she has another enemy here—one she can’t see or fight.

“Gotcha!” cries Lulu, finally grabbing hold of her doodad. Now it looks like a knotted bunch of twigs held together by loops of grass and spiderwebs.

Tamara dives over a coiling root I rip up from the earth, and rolls to her feet. The last sparkles of Lulu’s starburst gleam on the rapier as Tamara pulls it back to strike.

And then Tristana’s there.

She hefts Boomer as if her cannon’s suddenly gotten heavier.

A lot heavier.

“That’s my friend, buster,” she says, and pulls the trigger.

The booming thunder of the cannon is deafening, and birds as far away as two rivers west take to the sky at the noise. A blazing tongue of fire erupts from the muzzle as a giant cannonball blasts out. The force of the recoil spins Tristana around, but that’s nothing compared to what it does to Tamara.

She flies backwards like she’s been punched by an angry stone golem. She vanishes into the trees, and I don’t think she’ll be getting up any time soon.

Then Tristana is hauled from her feet by the scruff of her neck. Boomer drops to the earth and Draven holds her up to his face with a bemused grin on his scratched and bleeding face.

“Now, what in the name of the Wolf are you?”

“Put me down, ya big oaf!” yells Tristana.

She kicks and swings her fists at him, but not even her pluck can overcome the length of his limbs. Draven cocks his head to one side, clearly wondering what he’s got his hands on.

“Hey, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” yells Lulu, aiming her staff towards Draven. Swirling fireworks ripple up and down its length, but Draven doesn’t look impressed.

“Do your worst, shorty,” he says. “You ain’t got nothing can hurt Draven.”

The fireworks shoot out of Lulu’s staff in a storm of light.

And miss.

Draven laughs, spinning his axe up.

But then a tall shadow falls over him, and he slowly turns around.

That’s when he realizes Lulu didn’t miss at all.

The rabbit with the half-chewed ear looms over Draven, twice his height at least. It munches slowly on a carrot—a carrot that’s as long as Draven’s arm. He drops Tristana as the giant rabbit taps two stubby fingers of its paw to its eyes, then points them at Draven with a stern look.

Draven is a warrior, and has fought his share of monsters, but this is too much even for him. He turns and sprints for the trees, pausing only to scoop up his other axe as he goes. The rest of the Noxians have already fled, or are backing away slowly into the undergrowth at the sight of the giant rabbit. Something tells me they will find a different route for their master’s army.

Tristana turns to look at the rabbit with the half-chewed ear.

“Thanks,” she says, but the rabbit doesn’t reply. Like I said, stoic.

It turns and makes its way back to its burrow in a series of thudding hops. By the time it reaches the entrance, it’s more or less returned to its normal size. It squeezes into the burrow with a final waggle of its tail and a puff of earth.

Tristana slings Boomer over her shoulder. “Do you have your doodad?”

Lulu holds it up triumphantly. “My very naughty doodad. Shouldn’t run off like that!”

Tristana shakes her head and marches back to the tree they fell out of. Lulu skips after her as Pix buzzes overhead, riding a pair of wasps with a tiny squeal of delight.

Lulu catches up with Tristana and waves her doodad at the tree in what might be a predetermined pattern, or might just be her hoping for the best. Whatever it is, it works, and the leafy arbor reappears in the silverbark’s trunk. Sunrise over the land of the yordles spills into my moonlit glade. I feel its ancient magic, and I send a pulse of my own through the air, wishing my two friends interesting travels.

Lulu pauses and looks over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she says, and I feel the boundless joy in her heart.

The beauty of my glade is made all the richer for it.

“Come on, we should get going,” says Tristana.

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“We should be gone before the Noxians return.”

“I don’t think they’ll be coming back,” says Lulu with a wide grin.

The light of the portal swells outwards in a glowing, rippling spiral to envelop the yordles. Their forms blur, and their voices grow faint as they are drawn away once more. But I hear Tristana’s last words, and cold winds pass through the glade in a ripple of unease.

“They’re Noxians,” she says. “They always come back.”

In Ionia, magic is woven into the land. Forests spread vibrantly, and trees often boast nearly as many colors as leaves, touched by the wonders of the spirit realm.

But there is one forest, hidden away, that draws on a different kind of magic—a garden with a tree at its heart that gathers humanity’s dreams in its blooms.

The Dreaming Tree grew from a seed of the God-Willow, which towered over the ancient grove of Omikayalan. Cast loose when the God-Willow was tragically felled, the seed took root in what came to be known as the Garden of Forgetting. Nurtured by the Green Father, Ivern—as many of the descendants of Omikayalan were—the Dreaming Tree spiraled up, spreading the magic of humanity’s desires each time the dream-laden buds bloomed.

Lillia was born when one of the tree’s own dreams was captured in a bud that fell to the ground before it could bloom—something that had never happened before. Sprouting into an awkward fawn creature with the flower bud still on her head, Lillia’s only company was her mother tree, and the dreams that drifted to the garden each night.

Lillia helped tend the buds, and learned about humanity through them. Enchanted by the people and places she glimpsed, she spent every waking moment experiencing a swirl of emotions and desires that mortals could only see when they closed their eyes.

In caring for the dreams, Lillia also cared for the dreamers. She came to consider each of them a new friend, wanting nothing more than to one day greet the people who imagined such wonders. Lillia wanted it so badly that her own desires eventually gathered in a bud on the tree.

But when Lillia finally did meet humans, it wasn’t like remembering a familiar dream. It was more like waking up.

Something was happening in the world outside Lillia’s forest. War blazed like a fire through the land, and in time, fewer dreams began to reach the garden. The tree itself grew sick, and became infected with burls—writhing tangles in its trunk, which oozed darkness.

Lillia did her best to nurture her mother tree and the dreams that remained in its buds, but it was not long before the garden became so weak that the violence of the world spilled in. One night, warriors entered the forest and chased a lone figure all the way to the Dreaming Tree. With a single errant blade’s slash, the branch containing Lillia’s unrealized dream came thudding to the ground.

Lillia panicked and forced them all to sleep, shocked at the difference between the mortals she thought she knew, and the ones she had found.

They were so afraid—more tangle than sparkle. They were like the burls…

But as the warriors slept and Lillia wept, a dream emerged from the lone figure the others had been chasing. Weakly, it floated toward the broken branch on the ground and moved into the bough’s bud.

Lillia picked it up. She could feel the dream. As she whispered to it and soothed it, it glowed ever brighter—and so did she. The bud upon her head unfurled, and magic swirled around like sparkling pollen. In that moment, swept up in possibility and wonder, Lillia herself bloomed… until, with a sneeze, she sent the magic curling into the surrounding forest.

The humans awoke one by one, unable to remember what had brought them to the forest, or what they had done. None noticed the timid fawn behind the tree. With relief, Lillia watched the humans go, still seeing only confusing tangles—but knowing now that there was still a sparkle beneath it all.

And if their dreams wouldn’t come to the tree, she would have to bring the tree to them.

Taking up her branch, Lillia left the garden and entered the world of humans—a world she had always wanted to know, but one that frightened her now more than anything. It was so unlike what she understood.

Hiding just out of sight, Lillia now helps people’s dreams be born, drawn forward by glimpses of who they could be, and by what may be trapped beneath their tangles. By helping humans realize their deepest wishes, Lillia realizes her own, the bud on her head blooming as she is filled with joy.

Though darkness may be encroaching on Ionia once more, it is but a mask, and beneath it lies the familiar sparkle of hope. Only by braving the world, and braving herself, can Lillia hope to untangle its burls.

“Seven times,” said Ysard Tomyri, straining to keep her voice level and face neutral.

Captain Oditz did not answer his first officer immediately, his attention consumed by the maps and reports covering his desk, or at least feigning as much. It was Oditz who had summoned her and, like so much else in their short service together, making her stand at attention in his quarters aboard the Kironya was, above all else, a display of power.

“I request audience with high command,” said Ysard, unwilling to play the captain’s game this time.

“I speak for high command here, Commander Tomyri,” said Oditz, not looking up. “A fact you seem either ignorant of, or unwilling to accept.”

“Seven times,” said Ysard again. “I have requested audience, not to plead or beg, but to promise.”

“Promise?” the Captain looked up from the spread of parchments, finally glancing at Ysard.

“Yes,” she answered. “To promise them the glory that I shall win for them, the lands and peoples I will bring, by word or by blood, into the empire. There are expansions being mobilized, envoys being sent out from our borders to secure new lands for Noxus each day. I can win those for them. All that I require is a command.”

“We have spoken of this before,” Oditz muttered. “Seven times now, as you know. It is high command that decides how to interpret the will of the Trifarix—not their subordinates.”

Ysard stiffened. Frustration frayed her patience. “When Captain Hurad fell to the pirates off the coast of Ruug, it was I who led the Kironya’s crew to victory, not you. It was I who led the boarding action to seize the corsairs’ ship, and when the last of them fell it was my name that was cheered. It felt right. After such a victory I expected—”

“What?” asked Oditz. “Your own command? After beating a rabble of underfed Freljordians back into the sea? You think it is you who should be sitting here, rather than myself. And because it isn’t, you superseded my authority to request audience with high command yourself.”

Calmly, Captain Oditz set down his quill and rose from his chair. He towered over Ysard, the light catching the old scars etched upon his features from a lifetime of war. “I would have seen you stripped of rank and thrown into the Reckoner pits for your lack of respect, Commander Tomyri,” he said stiffly. “But it seems that fate has intervened on your behalf.”

He produced a scroll and extended it to her sharply.

The seal around the scroll had been broken, its contents already read by Oditz or his assistants, as was their right.

“Take it. And get out.”

After an instant of surprised hesitation, Ysard reached for the message. She saluted and hurried to her quarters, unfurling it and quickly reading over its contents.

It was as though a galvanizing stream of molten steel had been poured from a crucible into her heart. Ysard felt providence in the wind, for the first time at her back. Finally, her skills would be given their full range.

She had been ordered to the capital. At last, a command was hers.

The harbor was a bustling throng of activity. Merchants, traders and dockworkers crowded alongside fleet crews embarking and disembarking from ships in a constant stream. Rare beasts let out keening wails from within iron cages, destined for the arenas for sport, or the homes of the elite to join their exotic collections. Shipments of foods from all corners of Runeterra were being offloaded from trading vessels and distributed to feed the countless citizens of Ysard’s barren homeland. It was a breathtaking scene, a living estuary where new goods, cultures, and ideas flowed into the empire, expanding it, enriching it, and making it stronger.

All of this, and the sprawling city beyond, sat in the shadow of the Immortal Bastion. Ysard gazed upon the grandeur of the ancient structure from a harbor road, its immeasurably high walls and towers draped with the banners of the empire. There was no better manifestation of Noxus’ power—the very power that surged within her heart.

Ysard spared a few more moments to take in the vibrant scene around her, before her face set in a curt expression and the efficient mind of a commander took hold of her thoughts.

A grand expedition awaited her, and she moved with haste to where her ship was moored.

The Ardentius appeared to Ysard like a vessel washed up from another, earlier time, and it bore the scars to match. Wounds accumulated across decades of service pockmarked and spread across her hull like spiderwebs, from the battered iron speartip of her prow to the creaking timber of her aftcastle. These smaller frigates served as escorts for larger warships like the Kironya. They were designed to be ground to splinters against enemy pickets, and to soak up fire as interdictors, to be expended to their last ounce of usefulness before being scuttled or left to sink. To Ysard’s eyes, either fate seemed likely for the Ardentius.

The crew on its deck was little better. A motley assortment of grubby men and women labored together in a disordered rabble, spending more time exchanging insults and threats than loading provisions or cargo. They numbered no more than sixty, nearly a skeleton crew. Ysard’s lips pulled back from her teeth in disgust.

Ysard forced the sneer from her face. The tools she had been given were lowly, but no matter. It would make the conquests she won with them all the greater.

“You there,” she called out to a taskmaster, causing him to turn from the assembled crew he was ordering around. He turned, straightening the collar of his beaten leather storm coat, and approached with an easy, confident grin that set Ysard’s teeth on edge.

“See that the cargo and crew are readied for departure immediately,” said Ysard tersely. “I intend for my ship to be at sail with no further delays.”

“Your ship?” The man’s voice was a gritty baritone. He frowned for an instant, before realization dawned upon him. “Ah, so you’re the Noxian prodigy I’ve been stuck with. You can get your ship running as you like, and if you’ll quit pestering we’ll be off as soon as I have the rest of my things.”

“You dare,” Ysard reddened at his impudence, her hand closing on the hilt of the ornate sword at her hip. “Give me your name.”

“Ordylon,” the man answered, apparently unconcerned. “Friends call me Niander, though.”

“Niander Ordylon,” Ysard repeated the name. She looked at the heavy crates being loaded onto the Ardentius, marked as carrying harnesses, bola nets and cage housings. “The Beastmaster?”

“Ah, so you have heard of me.”

There were few in the capital who hadn’t. Even though she had spent precious little time at the arenas—there was an empire to fight for, after all—Ysard knew the name Ordylon was synonymous with theatrical displays of deadly creatures battling to the roar of the crowd.

What was he doing here?

Ysard recovered her composure. “I was not informed in my orders that you would be coming aboard.”

“Well, here I am.” He handed Ysard a scroll bearing the sigil of Captain Oditz. Ordylon noticed her scowl and flashed her a toothy, conspiratorial grin. “Looks like we’ll be shipmates.”

Ysard stood at the bow of her frigate, scanning the horizon. Upon setting sail, the ship had filed into the queue of vessels seeking passage through the mouth of the river and out into the ocean. Hours of waiting had led to a brusque and thorough inspection by the soldiers manning the fortified installations that secured entry into Noxus by sea, but after they had checked every inch of the Ardentius and pored over Ysard’s orders no fewer than six separate times, she had been given clearance to depart.

Ysard had seen the ocean many times, but never on a ship under her own command. It was always as shocking to her as it was beautiful, a boundless plane of deep blue, separated from the sky by a delicate blur of heat from the midday sun.

And now, somewhere ahead of them, Ysard’s destiny awaited. A new land to explore, conquer, and usher into the Noxian empire.

She had earned a taste of glory, won by the edge of her sword, but it was hardly a feat that would echo throughout eternity. And try as she might to forget it, Ysard always carried a shard of the reclusive street urchin inside, never fully giving herself to the collective, never truly trusting any but herself.

Until Ysard had that, she would know no rest.

She looked back over her shoulder at the sound of heavy bootsteps on the deck. Seeing the Beastmaster approaching, she made a last quick note in a worn leather journal before closing it and placing it in a pocket of her coat.

“Quite the sight, eh?” said Ordylon, leaning his knuckles against the railing.

Ysard bristled. “Why are you here?”

“I needed a ship.”

“This is my ship,” said Ysard. “And my expedition. Remember that and we’ll have no problems.”

Ordylon shrugged. “Play soldier all you like. All that matters to me is that we get there in one piece, and you keep out of my way while I find what I’m looking for.”

Ysard turned to him. “And that is?”

“A monster, my dear.” He smiled. “A spectacular one. Something that will keep me off my deathbed.”

Three weeks on the open ocean brought them at last to the outermost edge of the Serpentine Delta. Dozens of landmasses dotted the area, from tiny patches of sand and scrub barely fit to stand upon, to islands large enough to house villages. The archipelago stood as the gateway to the southern continent of Shurima, and the unexplored regions in its eastern reaches.

The waterways were filled with small boats and rafts, fishermen and local traders seeking to barter. The arrival of a Noxian vessel, even an escort like the Ardentius, was a rare event and cause of much commotion. Few of the people living on the rivers of the archipelago would pass up a chance to barter like this.

Walking from her cabin onto the main deck, Ysard found the hull of her ship was surrounded by the natives. Men and women stood and clamored from their rocking boats, holding up bundles of fish and a myriad different trinkets to tempt the naval soldiery and crew looking down from the railings. Ordylon was down amongst them, chattering away in their native tongue as his trappers bartered and compared the local knowledge with their maps.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Ysard. For a brief moment she allowed the thought of turning the ship’s guns upon the boats and sampans blocking their way to linger in her mind, but dismissed it quickly. It would have been an unnecessary expenditure of the expedition’s already meager resources, and the locals were of more value to her alive.

“Relax,” Ordylon called up to her, inspecting a piece of intricately carved wood before tossing it back to a disappointed trader. “Waters get dangerous past this point. Don’t be so quick to turn away a friendly face.”

Ysard wouldn’t budge. “We take on provisions, fresh water, and a guide. No one goes ashore.”

Ordylon gave an irritatingly sincere salute before continuing his conversation with the locals. Ysard put the Beastmaster from her mind, seeing to the cadre of Noxian naval soldiers aboard and ensuring that they stayed vigilant at points across the ship. As she finished inspecting the ship’s cannons and their gunners she saw Ordylon hauling a man up from a sampan onto the deck.

“Found us a guide,” said Ordylon, leaning down as the man spoke to him in the local tongue. “He says welcome to the Serpentine, and that he can take us upriver.”

“Good,” Ysard said quickly, eager to be underway.

The guide spoke again to Ordylon. “But he asks, why do we go up the river?” said the master trapper. “Why do you seek to go there?”

“Tell him,” said Ysard, “that once we are done, it will belong to Noxus.”

After restocking their provisions with an odd assortment of local fruits and preserved fish, the expedition sailed on past the floating trading post. The archipelago condensed, the labyrinthine paths between the islands shrinking until the only route available to the Ardentius was a wide, dark river leading deeper into the jungle.

Days passed in an uneventful stretch, as true, untouched wilderness confronted them. Ysard’s heart swelled with pride at the thought that she and her crew were the first Noxians ever to see this untamed wilderness. There was beauty here, vibrant plant life that exploded with lush towering trees swathed in dazzling, multicolored blooms.

There was something else here, too.

As their river guide hesitantly led them ever deeper, pointing out landmarks and keeping the ship clear of reefs and shallows, an itch took hold of Ysard—first imagined, then more real and insistent. A gloom permeated every inch around the river, as if it were all drowned in a shadow that could not be seen, only felt.

Ysard found that her hand would stray to the blade at her hip without thinking. She would draw her hand away before deliberately crossing her arms over her chest and forcing her mind to focus.

But the silent horror remained, saturating everything she could see.

Ysard saw to her command to remain sharp, consulting with the ship’s navigator as he worked to chart the course of the river, followed by an inspection of the ship’s stores. She climbed back up to the main deck, picking a rat-weevil out of her ration of Bloodcliffs hardtack, when she heard shouting.

“What is it?” she demanded as she climbed onto the main deck.

Ordylon listened to the guide. “He says he will go no further.”

Ysard frowned. “Why here?” She looked around, the river and jungle no different than anywhere else in the past days. Yet the riverman was panicking, as though they had broken some invisible boundary they were never meant to cross.

The little man gestured frantically to the crew around him. He pointed to the patches of red, weeping flesh on their bodies. Ysard had noticed the affliction spreading amongst the crew, despite her efforts to divine its source. She even found signs of it on herself.

“It is the jungle,” Ordylon translated as the guide ranted. “He says it is punishing us. It will not let us in.”

Cowardly little thing, thought Ysard.

She looked at Ordylon. “So be it. Get him off my ship now, throw him overboard if you have to. We aren’t turning back now.”

The Ardentius sailed on, now more than a week’s travel into the interior. The past days had seen no wind to fill her sails, not even a slight breeze to carry her forward. On Ysard’s command, teams of the crew had disembarked, wading to their shoulders as they strained to haul the frigate on with ropes and heavy chains. The effort was enormous, and with the treachery of the river’s shifting banks, the crew continued on after finding the current with nine fewer souls than it had started with.

Mist shrouded the river, obscuring it from view. The primordial treeline swelled, branching over the water to link the opposite banks in an ever-deepening canopy that closed in and stole away all but the barest trace of light. Ysard had the distinct sensation that the ship was moving downward, not forward, into the dark heart of this unexplored land.

The jungle was swallowing them.

Rain had come without warning, and carried on for days, somehow piercing the impenetrable canopy of the jungle to soak the Ardentius and her crew to the bone. It was as though this place was actively seeking to unravel them, punishing intruders for daring to cross into its domain. The crew believed as much.

The departure of their river guide hung over the crew with the oppression of a stormcloud. The most superstitious of them muttered, seeing dark omens in every tree and in the shape of each ripple the frigate’s hull cast across the dark water of the river. Even the most cynical of the naval soldiers were on edge, only able to hear such ramblings for so long before they began to see patterns themselves.

Ysard knew in her heart it would not be long before the tension cracked some of them, and examples would have to be made. Sooner than she had thought, and hoped, she was proven right.

“Turn the ship around!” came a panicked cry. “Now!”

“Easy now, Kross,” said Ordylon, straining to keep his voice calm.

“This is a death ship. A cursed ship.” The trapper hurried toward Ordylon, seizing him by the lapels of his storm coat. “You all heard the riverman—nothing ever comes back from this jungle. Nothing!”

Ordylon flicked his gaze over the surrounding crew, heavy beads of condensation dripping from the wide frayed brim of his hat. He saw it in their eyes, Kross’ words reflected in each of them.

“No more of that,” he snapped, shoving Kross back. “We’ll have no talk of curses here. Get yourself together.”

“We have to turn back,” the crazed trapper begged, eyes wild as he repeated the plea again and again. “We have to—”

Kross never finished his sentence. He gasped, hard, as a sword’s tip emerged from between his ribs. Then he toppled to the deck.

Ysard cleaned her blade. Sometimes, being right was a heavy burden to bear.

“I’ve hunted beside that man longer than you’ve been alive,” Ordylon snarled. “What gives you the right—”

“We don’t stop,” said Ysard coldly. “Not for anything, or anyone.”

A grinding crash threw Ysard from her bunk. She scrambled to her feet, buckling on her weapons and sprinting out onto the deck.

The end of the river had come abruptly. The inlet looked as though the tangles of vines and slick trees had engulfed the water, fed by a fan of streams that trickled out of the jungle, or flowed up from beneath the muddy ground.

“The river has choked out,” said Ordylon, gesturing to the wall of trees confronting the ship. “We’ll have to turn around. Find another branch.”

Ysard raised her spyglass, scanning ahead. Hauling the Ardentius around to find another route would take time she didn’t have. Looking at her collected soldiers and senior crew, Ysard doubted the weary and shaken survivors would be capable of moving the ship in such a way.

Ten had died in the past days—another one by execution for refusing to man his post, and six to the strange, infectious disease afflicting them. Three had simply vanished in the night, those taking their shifts finding no trace when dawn arrived.

“We keep a skeleton crew aboard and strike out from here,” said Ysard to the assembled ranks. “We will either find something of worth to claim for the empire, or establish an outpost to launch further expeditions inland. Armsman Starm, distribute blades to the shore party.”

Starm hesitated. “Commander… No crossbows? No powder bombs?”

Ysard drew her sword and addressed the entire party. “Such weapons will be useless in the undergrowth. We do this the old way.” She glanced at Ordylon, who had gathered his hunting party around him. “This is what you came for, is it not, Beastmaster?”

The master trapper was somehow still his confident, boisterous self, even after the ordeal of the river passage. “We’re after a big one, boys,” he said. “Bring everything we need to bag one and keep it, spread the load amongst us all, and be ready to move when the commander’s lads step off. We stick with them.”

His men dispersing, Ysard approached Ordylon. “I’m surprised to see us in accord for once.”

The jungle was brutal. No other word came to Ysard’s mind. For all the river’s trials, it had been paradise compared to this.

They had to fight through it, hacking and cutting into the solid mass of vines and thick vegetation. There was no air to breathe—only a thick, humid fog that stung the throat and eyes. It wasn’t long before exhaustion set in.

Ysard had a dreadful sense of being watched, from both everywhere and nowhere at once, and one by one men began to disappear from the rearguard and flanks. Most vanished in silence, but a few were torn into the undergrowth with a scream, crying out for help.

Within hours, Ysard’s force of thirty naval soldiers and trappers had been whittled down by half.

“Stay together!” she shouted, cuffing the pouring sweat from her eyes. She struggled to focus, her head buzzing and her flesh burning from the red patches that now covered her torso and limbs. She couldn’t stop now. She wouldn’t stop now. They had to keep moving.

A call rang out from the forward scout, and Ysard trudged to the head of the column. There was a small break in the jungle ahead, with a shallow pool of black, turgid water at its center. It was cramped, but still blessedly open compared to their trek thus far.

“Don’t touch that water,” Ysard ordered her soldiers, in spite of her own thirst. “We rest for now. But be ready to move.”

Sitting down, Ysard looked up to see Ordylon, holding out a battered tin flask to her. After a moment, she grudgingly took it as he sank down beside her. Ysard glanced at him, seeing the poise that he had held throughout their voyage beginning to fray.

“Don’t get too sentimental.” said the trapper. “With or without you, I’d be here, in this accursed place. I’ve got no choice.”

Ysard frowned at him. Looking to see that his men were out of earshot, Ordylon leaned in close.

“My business is bankrupt,” he whispered. “What little coin I had was spent bringing me here, one last chance to save my name. Either I bring back a beast that packs the arenas and pays off my debts, or I don’t come back at all.”

Ordylon sighed, taking the flask back and taking a short pull.

“So. What brought you here?”

“Duty,” answered Ysard, looking out into the jungle. “When I return from here, having brought this place into Noxus, they will name it after me. The noble name of Tomyri used to mean something… before Grand General Swain, and his purges. My conquest will echo through history, a legacy for all time.”

“They said you were vain,” Ordylon chuckled. “I suppose they reached their fill of it, arranging this fool’s errand. I see what they meant now,” he said with a curious softness. “And for that, I am sorry.”

“Wait,” Ysard frowned as she sought the meaning in his words, before the sound of splashing water broke her respite. “I said stay away from it!” she snapped.

“That isn’t us,” said Ordylon, gazing into the jungle.

Ysard looked at the pool, seeing the trees above shaking in its reflection. Branches snapped loose to crash down to the ground and into the water.

Then she heard it.

A pounding tread, accompanied by the sound of trees cracking, and a low, wet rumble. A shape began to resolve from the jungle, shoving its way through the dense vegetation to rear an enormous, fanged head.

Ysard froze. She had seen basilisks before—as mounts for riders, or beasts of burden. She had seen adults so large they could smash down the walls of besieged cities.

This one was larger.

The creature glared down at them, and loosed a roar loud enough to throw those standing from their feet.

“Yes!”

The triumphant voice jarred Ysard from her shock. She turned to see the Beastmaster, snapping together a harpoon and bola as he grinned up at the monster.

“Come on now, you beautiful thing!” Ordylon bellowed, madness creeping into his voice as he brandished the tools of his trade. “Let’s see who’s bigger, you or me!”

Ysard felt the ground quake beneath her with every step the monster took, strong enough to nearly throw her from her feet. She heard the basilisk’s primal roar, and the screams of men, knowing that the famed Beastmaster’s was among them.

But she didn’t look back to see what happened to him. She was too busy sprinting in the opposite direction.

Ysard finally skidded to a halt at the edge of a clearing in the jungle, placing a hand against a tree for support as she fought to catch her breath. She could no longer hear the commotion of Ordylon and the basilisk, but she could imagine what had happened in the end. She looked up after several deep lungfuls of air, taking stock of what remained of her command.

There were six of them in total, including herself. Ragged, drained and terrified, only three of them still carrying weapons. Ordylon’s trappers had stayed with their employer until the end. Despair struck Ysard like a physical blow, and she fought to keep from sinking to her knees.

“Look!” one of the soldiers called out, pointing with his sword. Ysard peered into the clearing, and saw it. An arching shape, overgrown by vines, but still utterly alien in this stifling environment.

It was stone. A structure. They hurried toward it, creepers and brambles snapping as they crossed the break in the undergrowth.

The building was simple, an austere construction completely overrun by the jungle. Thick vines wound through the crumbling stone, likely the only things keeping it standing. It seemed unnaturally overgrown, as though this place was actively seeking to subsume it, and grind it to dust.

The survivors split up, searching in and around the squat cube of plant-choked stone. Ysard stopped before it, a feeling she could not define welling up in her throat. She ripped away the clinging tangle of vines covering the surface, seeing the script chiselled into the stone—in a language she had known all her life.

“This…” Her tongue went thick and dry as she struggled to form the words. “It… It’s a Noxtoraa.”

Revelations came at Ysard in a queasy tide. They were not the first of the empire to come here. There had been others, and from her own journey and the state of this outpost, their fate was clear. As was hers.

She had been sent here to die.

Given a command she was desperate to undertake, leading her to the edge of the world and a place that none had ever returned from. Ysard had given every fiber of her being to forging a legacy.

Instead, she now stood on the precipice of striking the Tomyri name from the face of history, in this suffocating wilderness.

There was nothing for them in the abandoned outpost. Ysard lead the other survivors back into the jungle, hacking a new path through the dense undergrowth. To their fevered minds, it seemed like fresh roots and creepers were winding back into place even as they passed.

When they happened upon the Ardentius, it was almost by accident. They practically ran into its prow.

Vegetation had consumed the frigate, even filling over the inlet around it. It almost appeared as though the vessel itself had somehow grown out of the jungle. Ysard saw shapes sticking up from the deck like broken pillars.

Her blood went cold.

The crew. They had been devoured and overgrown just as the ship had been. Each man and woman was on their feet, like statues covered in vines.

“The jungle,” she stammered. “It’s taken it.”

Panic began to take hold of the remaining soldiers. “What do we do?” Armsman Starm shouted. “What do we do?”

“We make for the river,” murmured Ysard. “Find our way to the bank. Follow it back to the delta.”

“There’s no way we can make it out of here on foot. You saw what happened to the others, commander. The jungle—”

“Damn the jungle!’ she snapped. “It is trees and vines, insects and beasts. You are a soldier of Noxus. There is nothing here that can defeat you.”

Ysard wasn’t certain she believed the words herself. Something was different about this place. There existed some dark, impossible presence here, something that even the might of the empire was unable to tame.

But she would not yield to despair.

“If you want to die here, alone and unremembered, then so be it.” She gathered the last of her strength. “I will not accept such a fate. Any with the strength to follow me, come. This place will not be the end of Ysard Tomyri.”

The low grumble from his stomach, and thoughts of his family waiting at home in the village, had lashed the boy’s focus to his line as he squatted on the riverbank.

He was rewarded with a firm tug. The boy gave a whoop of relieved triumph as he hauled the fish from the water, wriggling and glistening in the light.

He didn’t notice the shape floating toward him until it was an oar’s length away.

The boy frowned, the fish in his basket forgotten as the object came closer. He waded out into the soft riverbed, taking hold of it and taking it back with him onto the bank. Driftwood had many uses in the village, and could be traded away… if he could drag it back home.

But it wasn’t driftwood. The boy gasped as he saw a face staring up through layers of creepers and moss.

It was a dead person, though the boy could not tell if it was man or woman. It reminded him of the preserved elders the village exposed each year for the ancestor feasts. It was clad in scraps of dark, battered armour, edged in tarnished red, adorned with a rusted symbol that meant nothing to the boy.

Something was clutched in its gnarled, lifeless hands. With a strain of effort he tugged it free.

It was a small book, tightly wrapped in sodden, worn leather.

As the boy turned the journal over in his hands, the corpse burst open, and a snarl of bright green vines slowly slithered out from it. A glittering cloud of spores rose from the cavity, and the boy flinched away, coughing.

Book in hand, the boy ran, scratching at the insistent itch that had started on the back of his neck, all thoughts of fish forgotten as he fled for home.

A gust of wind blew cold night air from the garden, carrying with it enticing scents of overripe fruit and blooming flowers. Ahri stood before the garden's entrance, where stone transitioned to soil and narrow labyrinthine caves opened to the sky in a deep caldera. Thickets of trees and brambles grew wild beneath the moonlight, while flowers bloomed in lush abundance. Ahri hesitated, knowing well the twin nature of danger and beauty. She had heard legends of the sacred grove since childhood, but had never before traversed the southern caverns to find it. According to the stories, those who stepped over the threshold of the garden began as one person and left as someone else entirely, or did not leave at all.

Whatever the truth might be, Ahri had made up her mind. As she stepped into the garden, the back of her neck prickled as if someone were watching her. No figure was visible amongst the trees, but the garden was far from still. Everywhere Ahri looked, new flowers bloomed with each passing second. Ahri walked a winding path through the tangle of plants, stepping over roots rumbling beneath the soil. She ducked under hanging vines that reached out to her as if clamoring for affection. She could have sworn she heard a hush from the soft rustling of leaves.

Moonbeams shone through the canopy above, revealing trees bearing leaves of silver and gold. Flower stalks entwined around their trunks, curling to display dazzling buds brighter than any gemstone. Plump spicecherries coated in a layer of frost chimed softly as they swayed amid an untamed thicket.

A snow lily stretched toward Ahri’s face and caressed her cheek gently. It was too alluring to resist. Ahri pressed her face into its petals to inhale its heady scent. Her nose chilled and she took in the faint smell of oranges, the summer breeze, and the tang of a fresh kill. The blossom trembled as it blushed with color, and Ahri’s breath caught in her throat. She swayed, dizzy at the flower’s perfume.

Snip.

The snow lily fell to the soil, severed at its stem. A viscous liquid seeped from the cut. Ahri let out a breath, her nine tails twitching as her head cleared.

Ahri startled as a woman with wisps of gray-white hair stood before her, shears in hand. She was wrapped in colorful shawls and her eyelashes sparkled with dew.

As the woman turned her sea-green gaze to Ahri, Ahri felt a strange unease, as if this woman could slice through her gut just as easily as a fibrous stalk. The woman’s face, wrinkled like tree bark, was impossible to read. But Ahri was no longer concerned for her own safety.

“You startled me, Ighilya,” said Ahri. In the stories, the old woman was known as the Eater of Secrets, the Forgotten, or the Witch Gardener. Wanting to show respect to one with such power, Ahri decided to call her Ighilya. Great grandmother.

“The flowers want something from us,” she said. “Just as we seek something from them. It would be wise to keep your nose to yourself. I would know. I have to feed these hungry babies myself.”

“So you are the Gardener,” said Ahri.

“One of my kinder names, yes. But quite beside the point. I know why you’re here, Iminha.”

Little one. Ahri felt uncomfortable at the word, often used in a familial relationship, though she was not sure why.

“You seek absolution. Freedom from your pain,” said the Gardener.

She stepped over a shrinking fern and beckoned to Ahri.

“Come.”

As they walked through the moonlit garden, flowers turned to face the old woman as if she were the sun itself, warming their leaves and helping them grow. Or perhaps the flowers did not wish to turn their backs to her.

The old woman waved Ahri to a bench in front of a gnarled cloudfruit tree, and sat opposite her.

“Let me guess. You were in love,” the Gardener said, a smile crinkling the corners of her lips.

Ahri’s brow furrowed.

“Don’t worry, you’re far from the first,” said the old woman. “So, who was he? A soldier? An adventurer? A warrior in exile?”

“An artist,” said Ahri. She had not uttered the syllables of his name in over a year and could not bring herself to say them now. They were like swallowing broken glass. “He painted... flowers.”

“Ah. A romantic,” the Gardener said.

“I killed him,” Ahri spat. “Is that romantic enough for you?”

As she spoke the truth aloud, Ahri could not disguise the sharp bitterness on her tongue.

“I sucked the life from his lips as he lay dying in my arms,” she said. “He was kinder, more selfless than anyone had a right to be. I thought I could suppress my urges. But the taste of his dreams and memories was too enticing. He urged me on. I did not resist. And now - now I cannot go on knowing what I did. Please, Ighilya. Can you give me the gift of oblivion? Can you make me forget?”

The Gardener did not answer. She stood and picked a ripe cloudfruit from the tree and peeled it slowly, carefully, so the rind remained in one piece. The flesh fell into six vermillion segments, which she offered to Ahri.

“Care for a slice?”

Ahri stared at her.

“Don’t worry, this one doesn’t want anything from you. Not like the flowers. Fruit never does. Fruit is the most generous part of a plant - it strives to be luscious and juicy - and tempting. It simply wants to attract.”

“Food turns to ash in my mouth,” said Ahri. “How can I feed myself when I am no more than a monster?”

“Even monsters need to eat, you know,” the Gardener said, smiling gently.

She placed one of the cloudfruit segments into her mouth, and chewed before making a face.

“Tart! In all my years in the garden, I’ve never gotten used to the tang.”

The old woman ate the remaining pieces while Ahri sat in silence. When she was finished she wiped the juice from her mouth.

“So you stole a life that was not yours to take,” said the Gardener. “Now you suffer the consequences.”

“I cannot stand it,” Ahri said.

“To be alive is to be in pain, I’m afraid,” the Gardener said.

A vine dripping with snow lily buds wound its way around the old woman’s arm. The woman did not flinch.

“I can’t go on knowing that I killed him,” Ahri pleaded.

“There are greater consequences to losing yourself, Iminha.”

The Gardener reached for Ahri’s hand and squeezed it. Her sea-green eyes glinted in the moonlight, and Ahri detected something she had not seen before - longing, perhaps?

“You will be broken,” said the old woman. “You will never again be one.”

“I am already in fragments,” Ahri replied, “and every second that passes, I split myself anew. Please, Ighilya. I must do this!”

The old woman sighed.

“This garden will not refuse a gift freely given, for it always hungers.”

With that, the Gardener offered her arm to Ahri, still entwined with the vine of snow lilies. Buds unfurled like outstretched hands.

“Give your breath to this flower as you think on the memories you wish to be rid of,” the old woman said, gesturing to the bell shaped lily. “The flower will consume them. Do not inhale again until you feel nothing.”

Ahri held the flower gently between her fingers. The Gardener nodded. Ahri took a deep breath and exhaled into the flower.

...Ahri stood next to a raven-haired man at the edge of a lake. Together they leapt into the water and screamed as they frolicked over endless waves.

Ahri’s suffering dissolved like a cloud along with the image in her mind.

...in a forest silenced by winter, Ahri watched a raven-haired man painting a single blossom. “Am I not your flower?” she asked, pulling the strap down from her dress. He lifted his brush and smeared paint over her bare back. The bristles tingled as he recreated the flower atop her spine. “You are, you are,” he repeated, kissing her shoulder with each word.

Ahri knew she should dread what would happen next, but her heart was growing cold and numb.

...she stood at the center of a lake, holding the lifeless body of the man she once loved. He dipped beneath the water, becoming contorted through its glassy refraction.

Once, this vision would have caused stabbing pain, but Ahri felt no more than a dull ache.

...Ahri leaned over a fallen woodcutter in a stone cavern, consuming his life. At the sound of boots crunching on snow, she startled. The raven-haired man stood, watching. Ahri despaired; she had not wanted him to see this.

“I can't be good enough for you,” Ahri said. “Look at me, greedy for the soul of a dying man. Please, leave me. I am not good. I cannot be good.”

Her raven-haired love responded. “I don't care.” This was the first time Ahri remembered someone loving her wholly, in spite of her nature. His voice was warm and deep with emotion. “I am yours.”

The memory caught in Ahri’s throat and she stopped breathing, breaking the flower’s spell.

No, she thought. I can’t lose this.

Ahri tried to inhale, but the air felt like a noose around her neck. It choked her and stifled her throat, as if she were breathing poison. Her vision blackened, but she gasped until her lungs were nearly bursting.

Losing this would kill him all over again.

Ahri’s knees gave out and she collapsed on the ground, still gripping the snow lily. The unnatural perfume she inhaled from the flower percolated through her mind, conjuring strange and disturbing visions.

Ahri hallucinated. In a snow-silenced forest, she envisioned each of her nine tails ripped from her spine, only to grow back so they could be torn off again.

In a stone cavern, she saw dozens of portraits of herself painted in inky black brushstrokes. In each of the images, her face was blank and cold.

She floated, weightless, at the center of a lake, and looked down to see that the lake was filled, not with water, but blood.

Where are you?

In her mind’s eye, she saw a face warped by the endless folds of her memory, one she was already forgetting. The face was blurred, like a painting of a man rather than the man himself. He looked at her, stared into her, but she could not meet his gaze.

Ahri opened her eyes. The Gardener was standing above her, holding the vine of snow lilies, which had turned raven-black.

“Can you still see him?” asked the old woman.

Ahri focused on the hazy shapes in her mind and focused until they materialized into a face. His face.

“Yes. It’s cloudy, but... I remember,” said Ahri. She fixed the image of his face in her mind, memorizing every detail. She would not let it dissolve.

The old woman’s eyes flashed - not with longing, but regret.

“Then you did what many had not the strength to do. You did not succumb to peace,” said the Gardener.

“I couldn’t,” said Ahri, choking over her words. “I couldn’t give him up. Even if I am a monster. Even if each day I fall apart and each day I must bear the pain a hundred times over. Oblivion is worse, much worse.”

Oblivion was a thousand blurry faces staring at her with empty eyes.

“You cannot take back what you gave, Iminha,” the Gardener said. “The flowers do not relinquish what was freely given. But you may keep what remains. Go, go. Leave this place before it takes hold,” she whispered. Vines coiled around the Gardener’s shoulders, revealing lilies of a deep sea-green. “As it’s done to so many others.”

Ahri tried to stand, but a vine of snow lilies had wound its way around her tails. She struggled against their tightening clutches, prying barbs from her fur, then scrambled to her feet and ran. Knotted roots broke loose from the soil, trying to ensnare her as she leapt between them. A tangled curtain of thorned moon roses swerved to block Ahri’s path, but she held her breath and dove beneath the flowers, which caught wisps of her hair as she tumbled.

The path from the garden was overgrown with snow lilies of all colors. Their leaves, sharp as knives, slashed at Ahri’s skin, while thick stalks coiled around her face and neck, binding her mouth. Ahri bit down and ripped through the fibers with her teeth, tasting sour blood. She tore through the archway to the stone caverns beyond.

She could just make out the Gardener’s voice.

“A piece of you lingers here, always,” the old woman called. “Unlike us, the garden does not forget.”

Ahri did not turn back.

A loud crack. The stench of grease, smoke, and powder.

These sounds and smells did not belong to the forest.

The huntress bounded towards the sound, spear at the ready. She followed the acrid scent through the maze of trunks and thick underbrush.

Before long, she came upon a familiar place—a small clearing by an embankment. This was a quiet place teeming with life, split by a shallow stream of fast-running water. The fish were so plentiful, even a cub could catch them with clumsy paws. The calm air was rent by the howls of something, or someone, in great pain.

Nidalee chose a spot behind a thick tree at the stream’s edge, careful to conceal her spear behind its trunk. Just across the river knelt a vastayan male with reptilian features. He clutched at his shoulder, and though he moaned in pain, his eyes were wild with rage. The huntress saw his long tail was caught in a trap. Huge metal teeth had bitten into his scaly flesh.

A human holding a long, ugly weapon loomed over the vastaya. Nidalee stared at the dead, shining wood wrapped around the metal barrel. She had seen these things before. They fired lethal seeds that could easily pierce a target, and these seeds traveled too fast for her eyes to follow.

She stepped out from behind the tree, purposefully crunching dead leaves underfoot. The man turned his head in her direction, but kept his weapon aimed at the wounded vastaya. He could not see her spear.

“My, my. What have we here?” The human looked her up and down, his eyes hungry. “Are you lost, love?”

The huntress knew how to handle his kind. Humans were so often disarmed by her appearance—their eyes saw only the softness of her features. She remained expressionless, carefully gauging the distance between them and adjusting her grip on the spear. Her eyes rested on the weapon in his hands.

He smirked at the wild woman, taking her stillness for fear. “Never seen one of these before? Come have a look. I won’t hurt you,” the man coaxed. He turned away from his prey to hold out his weapon.

As soon as it was pointed away from the vastaya, Nidalee whirled out from behind the tree. She hurled her spear at the human’s torso and dove across the river, enveloping herself in a fierce, feral magic. In a flash, her features shifted—nails hardened into harsh points, skin sprouted flaxen fur, and bones bent into a slender shape.

The man dodged too slowly. The spear cut through the flesh of his upper arm and knocked him onto his back. Nidalee landed on top of him in the lithe form of a cougar, each sharp claw piercing through his thin clothing. She pressed her front paw down on his fresh wound, earning a howl of pain.

The cougar crouched over the man, opening her jaws wide and bringing her sharp teeth against his throat. The human shrieked as Nidalee bit slowly into his neck, just deep enough to draw blood, but not to kill. After a few moments, she released the man’s throat and brought her face into his view, baring her bloodied teeth at him.

Another gust of magic swirled around her, and again she took the form of a woman, her sharp teeth somehow no less menacing. Still crouched over him, she looked down at him through bright, emerald eyes.

“You will leave, or you will die. Understand?”

The huntress did not wait for an answer. She tore a piece of fabric from the man’s shirt, and approached the wounded vastaya. Within seconds, she disarmed the trap around his tail. The moment he was freed, he lunged for the human.

Nidalee grabbed the vastaya’s arm, holding him back. The man, who had been frozen in fear, saw his chance to flee, and hurriedly crawled from sight.

The reptilian wrested his arm from Nidalee’s grip, sputtering and cursing in a language she did not recognize. Then, in a familiar tongue, he demanded, “Why did you let it go?”

Nidalee pointed to where the human had fled, indicating spots of bright red blood. “We will follow him. If there are others, he will lead us to them. If they do not leave, they will die together.”

The vastaya did not look satisfied, but said nothing. Nidalee knelt by the river and washed the cloth she had torn from the man.

“You called it… human.” He spoke with a strange lisp. His mouth was very wide, and his forked tongue flicked out between words.

Nidalee wrapped the damp, clean fabric around his shoulder. “Yes.”

“You are not human?”

“No. I am like you.”

“There is no vastaya like you. You are human.”

Nidalee pulled the fabric tightly around his shoulder, causing him to hiss in pain. She managed to conceal her smile by using her teeth to secure the knot.

“I am called Nidalee. You?”

“Kuulcan.”

“Kuulcan. Tonight, my family hunts. You will join us.”

The vastaya stretched his arm, testing the bandage. It was tight, but did not hinder his movement. He looked up at the huntress, who stood above him with her arms crossed.

Kuulcan nodded.

Percy sat by the fire, his face flushed a deep red—partly because of the adrenaline, partly because of the beer, but mostly because of the embarrassment. He had told his three companions of the wild woman, and they hadn’t stopped laughing. One of them took it upon himself to prance about the fire with his guitar and sing a lewd prayer to the “Queen of the Jungle” while the other two guffawed and danced.

“Keep it down, you damned idiots,” he pleaded, earning an even louder roar of laughter. “She might hear us.”

Tired of the taunting and full of far too much ale, Percy snuck away from his fellow trappers to answer the call of nature. The wound still hurt something fierce, and no amount of drinking could chase away the feeling of her teeth on his throat.

As he refastened his belt, he realized the singing and laughing had stopped. The wind itself had stopped blowing. He could hear no rustling leaves or swaying branches.

Beyond the dim light of their low fire, their camp was surrounded by total darkness. Far ahead past the edge of the camp, something glinted in the shadows. Percy rubbed his eyes and squinted, struggling to see anything in the dark.

All at once, the undergrowth began to heave and creak. The leaves of every fern and tree shook with movement. Countless pairs of eyes opened before him in the darkness, and a chorus of growls and feline hisses deafened him.

Percy recognized the emerald eyes nearest to him. There was no trace of humanity left in them now. The eyes blinked and disappeared, and a voice snarled in his ear.

“You were warned.”

He did not manage to scream before the sharp teeth closed around his throat—and this time they did not stop when they drew blood.

Fast and dumb, or slow and smart?

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

He didn’t.

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

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

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

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

Keyword being “try.”

And “most of the time.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bandits.

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

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

He squatted to the farmer’s level.

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

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

He shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yi stepped out of the brush, sighing.

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

“–Hey!” the old man said.

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

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

“Why?”

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

I smiled.

“Fast and dumb.”

He patted me on my non-bleeding shoulder.

“Fast and dumb,” he said.

The source of the crying is a boy. Six, maybe seven summers.

He sits cross-legged with his back to me, in front of a tall sapwood. The weeping settles into sniffling, wet hiccups. I stop at the edge of the trees, and look back at the shade of the road below. The midday sun is merciless, streaming bright into the boy’s meadow. He doesn’t seem hurt. The clearing is open. Unprotected.

You’re not needed. Keep to your path.

The voice rings clear in my head, though I haven’t heard it spoken aloud for some time. I turn, but about-face at the sound of a deep, racking sigh, ending in renewed little sobs.

When I am about three sword lengths away, I step on a dry twig to announce my arrival. The boy starts at the sound.

“Teo, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” The boy’s rushed apology is muffled by the swipe of his sleeve across his face. He stops dead at the sight of me.

He retreats so quickly that his back thuds against the tree.

“Emai paid the Brotherhood,” he stammers. “I wasn’t playing on the road.”

At the mention of the group, my hand goes to my blade. The boy stares at me; his crying gives over to a series of shallow gasps. Of course. He thinks I’m some Navori thief coming to take something from him.

He thinks you’re a criminal.

I release my grip, trying to appear more friendly. “No, I’m not with the Brotherhood,” I say. “I heard someone from the road. Sounded like they were having a tough time.”

The boy wipes his wet cheek with his sleeve again, trying to save face in front of the stranger standing before him.

“Know anyone like that?” I ask.

The boy starts to shake his head slowly, but the truth tumbles out of him.

“It was me,” he admits, shame roughing his voice. “I… I just wanted to play with it.” He points up. There among the tree’s uppermost branches is an old festival kite, its silk tails fluttering in the light breeze. “It’s Teo’s.”

His eyes start to water again. He shows me the palms of his hands, covered in sap, darkened with dirt and bark.

“I tried climbing the tree, but it’s too tall. Teo’s going to be so angry with me. He told me not to.”

A moment passes between us. “Brothers often say that,” I murmur.

There is a small pile of broken soil in front of the boy. I kneel, wiping away the top layer to reveal a newly sprouted sapwood nut.

“My emai is a woodweaver. I’m learning. I thought…” The boy hangs his head, embarrassed at the idea. Woodweaving even a sapling would take far longer than an afternoon.

I keep the smile from my lips. “An admirable effort.”

The boy’s gaze lingers on the fluted edges of my pauldron.

“That pattern isn’t from our village,” he says, caution edging into his voice. “Or the village in the next valley.”

“I’m on my way to Weh’le,” I reply. “I was making good time on the Noxian road. Even if the stone is a bit hard on the feet.” I try to smile, but with the thought that Noxus could leave us anything of value, I know it comes off a grimace.

“Can you help me?” he asks.

I look up at the kite sitting delicately in the high branches. “It’s been a while since I’ve climbed a tree, kid.”

“Joab,” he says. “My name is Joab.”

I offer him my hand, my own name hesitant on the tip of my tongue. It’s been too long since I've said it with anything but shame.

Come on. You’ve been called worse.

“Yasuo,” I say, and pull him up from the ground.

I step from the shade of the tree, and back into the sunlight of the clearing to get a better view. The day is hot and still. I close my eyes to feel the tiny currents of air lingering at the edges of the meadow. A small breeze picks up, pushing the wisps of hair from my face.

“I wish I could just blow it down. Woodweaving is useless,” Joab mutters, frowning from the kite to his sapwood seed. “There was an elder once who could move the wind, but he’s dead. And his student could too, but emai says he’s dangerous, that he killed the elder…”

I reach for the blade at my side. As I draw the weapon, I focus the magic. Eddies of wind swirl around it, gathering in tighter and tighter whirls. Dust and dead leaves dance on the blade until I shape the whirlwind to my liking, then release it with a flick of my wrist.

The invisible force hits the tree dead-on, the trunk shuddering with the impact. The branches shake as if some unseen spirit rises through them, finally reaching the kite. The colorful silk lifts off gently as the air returns to the sky above, and drifts slowly into my outstretched hand.

The boy’s mouth hangs open a bit, but he closes it quickly. The fear is back.

“You?” he asks. “The elder’s student?”

All of Ionia knows what you are.

Joab looks to the forest road, maybe for someone to come hunting for me. “Did you escape?” he whispers, but I shake my head. “Did they let you go then? I mean, were you pardoned?”

“I can’t be forgiven for a crime I didn’t commit.” It’s just a technicality, but I say it before the voice in my head can.

But you killed the others…

I take a deep, steadying breath, concentrating on the cool breeze at my back and the kite in my hand to keep the memories at bay. Joab chews on his own thoughts for a moment.

Just as his mouth opens for another question, a glint of metal emerging from the forest catches the sun.

I raise my blade in anticipation, only to find a slightly older mirror of Joab carrying a small farming tool attached to a long rope. I lower my weapon quickly, but too late—fear and wariness settle into the meadow.

Too fast to react, too slow to stop.

Never enough for him. It’s my whole life in miniature.

Joab’s brother watches us. He does not leave the safety of the forest edge.

“Joab,” the older boy calls out. Joab runs over obediently, but stops when he sees the tool and the rope. I pull on the light breeze, straining to hear.

“What’s that for, Teo?” Joab asks, realization turning to anger. “You knew I would take the kite?”

I shake my head. Of course he knew.

Big brothers always know what little brothers will do.

“Yeah, always the exact opposite of whatever I tell you, Joab,” the older boy says, still watching me. “Who’s that?”

Joab glances back, then leans over and whispers in his brother’s ear. Teo’s eyes grow wide for a moment, then relax into a dismissive scowl.

“Emai says it’s time to eat,” Teo says as he turns to leave. Joab pulls on his arm, trying to slow him down. He whispers again in Teo’s ear.

I try to quiet the wind that carries the next words, to stop listening, but it’s too late.

“No, he can’t come,” Teo says. “He’s xiiri.”

Xiiri.

The word catches in my throat as the wind finally stills around me. Xiiri is something unwanted. A misfortune brought by outsiders or greed. A little pest that follows big brothers around…

The sun beats down, heating the blade at my side. It’s a word I’ve heard all my life.

You’re not needed. Keep to your path.

I steel myself, and walk to the brothers.

“Listen to him, kid,” I say, handing the precious silk bundle to Joab. “Brothers know best.”

Before either of them can answer, I walk on, returning to the road ahead.

The air of southern Shon-Xan was rife with raw magic. Mystic power flowed over the land, surging through iridescent trees, which spread skyward their leaves of magenta and indigo, azure and amber, opening up like fans in the palms of dancers.

Hidden now in the colorful canopy was a barely perceptible patch of pale skin, blending in with the trees’ interwoven branches.

“It’ll be here anytime,” whispered Faey, a girl of twelve summers. She then gave a high tweeting sound like a sparrow. The birdsong was immediately picked up by the others, echoing back through the foliage, a sound perfectly imitated by human vocal cords not yet come of age.

Faey knew everyone was in position. The adults hadn’t approved this hunt, but it was important. If the neophytes could get the silver boar, not only would they stop going hungry for days, but the Kinkou acolytes would have to give them real missions.

No more picking plums or carrying water, Faey thought. The order needs our strength, too, because the neophytes are the future.

And the past was dark. Foreign invaders had been rampaging in Ionia for many seasons, and that was only the beginning of the Kinkou’s problems. A few moons ago, Great Master Kusho had been killed, brutally murdered by Zed, a former member of the order. Then Zed’s minions had driven the Kinkou from their main base, the Temple of Thanjuul. Of those who had survived Zed’s attack, many lost faith in the order and left the Kinkou.

The adults needed hope. Faey would make them see it.

She snapped out of her reverie. There was a rustling in the woods. Leaves started falling, and within heartbeats, a large boar burst out from between tree trunks, squealing, its eyes wide. Its fur was rippling with a shimmering glow, a sign that it had just emerged from the spirit realm.

Confident that the plan would work—as long as everyone followed her instructions—Faey readied her bow and arrow, watching the boar come into range.

A neophyte dropped down from a treetop, dangling from a vine wrapped around one foot. She blocked the boar’s path by waving a large wooden spear and casting a modest magical wind. Startled, the boar ran the other direction—but its path was cut off by a boy who swung down on another vine, summoning a small cloud of smoke and ash that blinded the animal. His spear scratched the boar’s hide and made it roar.

One by one, the neophytes descended from the canopy. Their agility, their precision, their focused intent to hunt all hinted at true warrior spirit. Yet the oldest of them was no more than thirteen summers.

We are the neophytes of the Kinkou, Faey thought with pride.

The vine-swinging children sealed off the boar’s escape route, leaving just one opening that ran through the narrowest part of the small gorge, straight toward Faey’s position. She was in charge of the kill.

Good job, everyone. And now it’s my turn. Faey swallowed hard. Hanging upside down, she drew her bow and set the arrow in line.

Focus. The arrow seeks not to slash nor scratch, but to kill in a single attempt. She aligned the gleaming arrowhead with the running boar’s eye. The vine that wrapped around her waist—as if sensing Faey’s intent—shifted gently so her aim stayed true.

Faey emptied her mind, letting instinct take control. When she knew she had the boar, she would let go of—

“Yeeeh!” A small shadow sprang from the side of the gorge, shrieking as it landed on the boar’s back. The panicked animal swung around and charged in the opposite direction.

The rider was a little girl, one hand gripping the boar’s silvery fur and the other swinging a rope over her head, round and round.

Dumbstruck, Faey watched the boar go berserk with the girl bouncing on its back.

“No! Akali!” Faey shouted as her plan fell apart.

Unable to shake the girl off, the boar started smashing its side against tree trunks as it ran. Somehow, Akali avoided the impacts and clung stubbornly to the mad animal, her laughter audible over its angry squeals. She tried to catch the silver boar’s snout with her rope noose, without success.

A few neophytes bravely attempted to block the charging animal, but it knocked them away. The beast went through a side opening of the gorge, out onto flatter ground shadowed by trees.

Finally, the boar kicked up its hind legs in one ferocious leap, and Akali was bucked off. She tumbled onto the forest floor, raising a trail of flying leaves, and ended up lying flat, face down, limbs splayed open.

Faey rushed over to her. “Are you out of your mind?!”

Akali sat up and brushed some leaves off her clothes. She was nine, three summers younger than Faey. “I only wanted to help,” Akali said.

“I told you not to follow us!” Faey yelled. “We had it! We had it!”

Akali shrugged, grimacing as her shoulders cracked. Apologetically, she said, “I’ll give my dinner plum to you.”

After Zed’s attack, the remaining Kinkou retreated to a long-abandoned temple east of Thanjuul, high up in the mountains where glacial water ran. It was beside a lagoon of turquoise water, peppered with purple lantern florae. Although they were near the village of Xuanain, their haven was difficult to access, with its great elevation and surrounding hills.

In their war-torn land, they had to fight off hostile factions, foreign and Ionian, who viewed the mayhem as an opportunity to prey on those they saw as weak. The Kinkou had made sure no pursuers would stumble upon this location before they set up a solid base. The temple was in poor condition, and it was too small to fit them all, so the acolytes had built additional dwellings: huts constructed from fallen wood instead of magically woven from living trees—the usual Ionian way—in case they had to move again.

With the lagoon’s green water lapping against their sandals, the neophytes now stood in a rigid line before Mayym Jhomen Tethi, the Kinkou’s Fist of Shadow.

Faey was nearest to Mayym, eyes downcast. Akali, a head shorter, stood beside her.

“That was foolish,” Mayym said sternly. “You went outside the perimeter, risking the safety of this haven. There could be wandering warbands out there that might follow you back. You know your instructions.”

One of the older boys, Yajiro, said, “But we weren’t out long, and we stayed hidden.”

“We had the perfect plan,” Hisso chimed in, “but it was ruined by Akali! If she hadn’t—”

“No,” Faey said, cutting the girl off. She made herself look Mayym in the eye. “It was… my fault. I told everyone to come along as soon as I realized a silver boar lived in those woods.”

Akali turned to Faey, brown eyes glistening behind a mess of unkempt hair.

Akali had always looked up to her, and sometimes Faey felt the urge to protect the little girl. But there was another reason she had chosen to take the blame: Mayym was her mentor, and it was simply not Faey’s place to question her. It was unusual for a Kinkou leader to take an uninitiated neophyte under their wing. And for that, Faey was grateful.

“It’s the last day of the Spirit Blossom festival,” Faey muttered. “I just thought if we could get a boar, everyone could eat some meat.”

Mayym studied her for a long moment. Then her gaze swept across the other children, whose skinny frames must have looked fragile under tattered hemp clothes. A trace of emotion crossed her brow, but she quickly lifted her chin and said, “As punishment, none of you will receive a meal tonight. Dismissed.”

The neophytes slouched away, a couple of them holding back tears. Faey bit her lip and was about to go when Mayym stopped her.

“Faey, walk with me.”

Under the falling twilight, Mayym paced along the edge of the lagoon with graceful steps, away from the cluster of shabby houses. Faey was about to follow when she saw that Akali had not moved. The little girl was looking at them.

Somehow, in the presence of Faey, Akali’s mother always treated her own daughter like thin air.

Faey felt slightly guilty, but she turned away and ran up to Mayym.

As the two of them walked in silence, Faey gazed at the lantern florae drifting in the lagoon. The purple flowers had five petals that formed a mouth, allowing them to breathe vapors of various shades into the air. Their large leaves let them float on the surface of the water, and their roots were webbed so they could move around the lagoon, gathering together and then dispersing. Some claimed the lantern florae were plants. Others said they were animals. Faey thought they were both.

“I understand what you meant to do,” Mayym said in a tone she used only when alone with Faey—heavy with patience, weighed down by expectation. “But there is nothing to prove.”

“We were hungry to prove ourselves… and also, just hungry.” Faey tried to sound respectful. “The others acted with discipline, the way we’ve been trained. We worked well as a team.” Except Akali, Faey thought. But she’s the youngest.

“That’s not what I mean,” said Mayym. “The silver boar is not an animal whose meat we should consume. If you’d killed it, you would have brought more harm than good.”

“But I thought we were allowed to hunt it,” Faey said.

“Not anymore.” Mayym led Faey to the far side of the lagoon, where the water was shallow, giving way to pearly pebbles. Dressed in a flowing, silky gown, Mayym moved with elegance. She had layers of bandages wrapped around her arms and thighs, with several kunai hanging from her waist.

In Faey’s eyes, Mayym was a true role model. Graceful yet lethal. Shen, Master Kusho’s son, was now the order’s leader, but he was no match.

“A silver boar has ties with the spirit realm,” Mayym continued. “That means its existence is born out of a connection between the two worlds. It’s a magical creature.”

“A lot of Ionia’s creatures are,” said Faey.

“Yes, but the cycle of predator and prey has been broken. We are descending into chaos.”

“Because of Noxus.” She said the name of the foreign invaders like a curse.

“This war is ravaging Ionia. Armies are hunting animals near extinction, trees in mystical forests are being felled, and the spirit realm is reeling,” Mayym said as they stepped onto a rocky slope. “Magical energies turn vile, and the First Lands are changing shades. Everyone is trying to find their place in a world spiraling out of control, and they do this by killing. Most times blindly so. The violence of the war is already causing unintended damage, resulting in a major disturbance of the balance between the material realm and the spirit realm.”

Faey was shocked. If I had killed the boar, I would’ve hurt the balance—and that’s what the Kinkou are supposed to protect! “Master Mayym, how do we restore the balance with the spirit realm? Can we go back to the way it was before, if all the Noxian invaders are dead?”

“It’s no longer as simple as that.”

They passed into a drifting fog, the work of the lantern florae. The air felt moist and cool. The stone slate under their feet was slippery and slightly curved, as if they were walking between a pair of enormous lips. Faey could make out a protruding rock to the side that resembled a nose and, beyond that, cracked folds that could be half-closed eyelids, where small waterfalls trickled through the fissures. We’re walking on a face, Faey thought. It looked like the remains of a giant statue from an ancient era lost to time, though no one could be sure, as water had eroded all its angles and red moss blanketed its sunlit sides.

The sky was turning dark. They came upon an incline and started uphill. “Magic and life are parts of the same current that connects the two realms,” Mayym said.

Faey recited the Kinkou teaching: “The material realm and the spirit realm are two sides of the same leaf, grown on the same branch, sharing the same roots.”

“Yes. One does not flourish without the other, and when one darkens, the other dims,” Mayym said. “When lives perish in unnatural ways, such as in war, some spirits fade into oblivion. But others linger, with noxious intent. The more this happens, the more polluted the spirit realm becomes. And in turn, this causes a backlash that affects all life in the material realm. A vicious circle.”

The mention of spiritual contamination reminded Faey of something strange. “Master Mayym, when we first saw the silver boar, right when it left the spirit realm, it appeared agitated.”

Mayym stopped in her tracks, then turned to look at her.

“Like it was running away from something,” Faey added.

“And this took place near the perimeter?”

“Yes, just on the other side of the western hills.”

Mayym remained thoughtful for a while, then resumed walking. “It could be that the foul current of the war has enveloped Ionia as a whole, reaching us here, even though the battles are taking place elsewhere.”

“We can help,” Faey pleaded. “Initiate us. Grant us real missions.”

“In time,” Mayym replied gently. “Faey, the other neophytes follow you. Even those older than you. They see you as a good role model.”

Faey’s heart leapt at Mayym’s praise.

“You yourself will have no problem getting initiated as an acolyte, but not everyone has your gift,” Mayym said quietly. “Your presence with the other neophytes serves as a good influence on them. So for now, stay that way.”

Faey’s mood sank, and she bit down on the inside of her cheek. It must be Akali. She’s the one holding me back.

They passed through loose thickets, stepping onto higher ground. “Patience is a virtue, but also a skill that requires honing as much as an arrowhead, especially for one who bests all the rest,” Mayym told her. “You neophytes are the future of the Kinkou. We need to make sure all of you are ready before any of you can be initiated.”

Faey disagreed, but said nothing.

They left the cover of the trees, cresting the last hill untouched by snow. Around the moon, a bright ring of sapphirine silver graced the night sky. Faey gazed at it, knowing she was witnessing the near-convergence of the physical moon and its reflection in the spirit realm. She wondered what it looked like to Mayym.

On this final night of the Spirit Blossom festival in Xuanain, Mayym and other senior Kinkou would see something vastly different on the black canvas of the sky: the circle of pale illumination partially covered by a darker shade, like someone had thrown a thick veil over it, as the mystic moon in the spirit realm swam before the silvery moon in the material realm.

Faey longed for the day when she could experience such a spectacle—it seemed so far away. But she knew it was more than just a beautiful display. It also signified when the triumvirate of the Kinkou would meet and decide what came next for the order.

“Faey, keep growing your skill,” Mayym said, moonlight lining the edge of her silhouette in frosty silver, “and you are bound to succeed me as the Fist of Shadow.”

When that day comes, Faey thought uneasily, will there still be a Kinkou Order?

The art of calligraphy required patience and diligence, stillness of the body and keen focus of the mind—everything that Akali hated.

Sitting in the old temple, she was writing characters on a piece of paper with a broad brush, the inkstick and inkstone by her elbow. The roof was made of hoary branches, and some of them had draped down like the beard of an old man. Light-blooms, tiny luminous plants that the acolytes had grown, hung in strings along the temple walls, lending light to Akali’s nightly lesson. The acolyte instructor sat idly to the side with a scroll on his lap, stifling a yawn.

This is as easy as eating rice pudding, Akali thought. Mother’ll be happy if I do well.

Yet, the more she stared at a character that ended with a curved stroke, the more she thought it looked like a mustache. Mesmerized, Akali couldn’t help but add a few streaks with the tapered tip of her brush. The character turned into a smirking, mustached face.

Akali puffed out a laugh, then quickly covered her mouth with her hands, smudging her cheek. The instructor scowled and was about to stand up, when a voice called from the door.

“Hello, little one.” A small figure waved a clawed hand at her.

“Kennen, you’re back!” Akali bounded to her feet. She dropped the brush, smearing wet, black ink on the paper, and ran out.

The instructor barked at her to return, but stopped short when he saw that the person at the door was indeed Kennen, the Kinkou’s Heart of the Tempest.

Kennen flipped away so Akali could try to catch him, even though it was impossible. They ran between the huts, through the edge of the woods and back, splashing water by the lagoon’s shore. Akali ended up wheezing next to the yordle on a fallen tree trunk.

“I heard that you thwarted the neophytes’ effort to get the silver boar,” Kennen said teasingly, straddling the trunk.

“I didn’t mean to. Faey should have asked me to come along. I can help!”

“Don’t feel bad about it. Children are like that. They probably thought you were too young.” Kennen’s voice was that of a human child, yet his tone was laced with wisdom.

“But I’m taller than you!”

“That you are.” Kennen reached up and tousled her hair.

“Where’s Shen?” Akali asked, absently touching the small kunai she wore as a pendant.

“He’s meditating.”

“Is he still sad? I miss him…” Akali had always admired Shen.

Kennen smiled wistfully. “The betrayal by his best friend and… the loss of his father… weigh heavy on him.”

Akali was reminded of her own father’s death in Zed’s attack. She missed him, too.

Kennen changed the subject. “How have you been doing? Has Mayym been teaching you how to wield the kunai?”

Akali shook her head, now covering the kunai pendant with her hand. “Mother never thinks I’m good enough,” she mumbled. “She only wants to spend time with Faey.”

“Well, I guess Mayym can only teach one protégé at a time.”

“Why can’t I be her protégé?” A sore feeling gripped Akali’s heart.

Kennen gazed at her for a moment, then slid closer to her on the tree trunk. “Before Mayym became the Fist of Shadow, she went on many missions with Faey’s mother. They worked closely as a team.”

“I know that.”

“It’s not that Mayym tries to ignore you. When you were a baby, she made a promise to take care of Faey.”

Akali had no memory of Faey’s parents. They were both senior acolytes who died long ago. Now she thought about what that meant as Kennen waited patiently beside her.

If losing her father had made her sad, Faey must have endured double the pain, for many more seasons. Akali’s anger subsided, and she felt an emotion that she could not comprehend. Her chest tightened.

Everyone had lost so much. This haven by the lagoon temple was all they had.

The yordle hopped in front of Akali, startling her. “Hey, it’ll be all right.” Kennen cupped her face in his hands. “You grow fast, and you can run faster than all the other neophytes. Your mother will see it one day.”

He rubbed his nose against hers, making Akali giggle. Then Kennen somersaulted nimbly away.

“There’s a meeting I need to go to now,” he said. “Go back and finish your calligraphy lesson, okay?”

Low clouds were rolling just beyond the mountain’s summit, where basalt peaks held a glacier in their embrace. A colossal impact crater had sunk the glacier’s surface, and Faey imagined that a giant’s fist had punched it.

There, she watched as Mayym and Kennen stood face to face, at a rift that severed the crater in two.

“Given the Ionian victory at the Placidium of Navori,” Mayym argued, “a tipping point in the war against Noxus could be in sight.” Her arms were folded in front of her chest, her phantom scythe lashed to her back. “There are many whose actions are disrupting the sacred balance, Noxians and Ionians. The Kinkou should be there to prune them out, while Ionia has the upper hand.” As the Fist of Shadow, Mayym represented Pruning the Tree—the elimination of imbalance between the material realm and the spirit realm.

“We’re just regaining our footing, and you want us to dive into battle now?” said the diminutive yordle.

“Fighting to uphold our duty as keepers of balance is the way we get back on our feet,” Mayym said. “The moment is at hand.”

Kennen looked incredulously at her. He was the Heart of the Tempest, and his duty was Coursing the Sun—whatever judgment was reached here, he would have to convey it to all Kinkou members across Ionia.

Faey stood a distance away from them, respectfully observing and trying not to fidget on the chilly mountaintop. As part of her training, Mayym brought her to important meetings. Faey’s lips were trembling, and she imagined them turning purple. She couldn’t understand how everyone else could be ignoring the piercing cold.

She also could not understand the difference in Mayym’s demeanor. When it came to her protégé, Mayym often urged restraint, but when it came to her equals, Mayym constantly seemed to push for action.

“We want to sit this one out,” Kennen said. “The situation is complicated: there are Noxian soldiers under threat, Ionian defenders who were bitter enemies just yesterday, vastaya of uncertain allegiance, and spies everywhere. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“You went to the Placidium? Undetected?”

“What, you thought I lost my touch?” He smiled, and lightning crackled around his eyes and claws. Then his tone turned grim. “On my way back, I picked up accounts that members of a Navori Brotherhood faction are headed this way, and not with peaceful intent. They’ve marked themselves with tiger tattoos.”

Mayym frowned. “What are they doing?”

“Going from village to village, snatching the young and able,” replied Kennen. “Using violence against anyone who dares object.”

“So they can replenish their forces against the Noxian invaders…”

“Exactly. The darkness of the war has spread over Ionia in unprecedented ways,” Kennen said. “Before we know it, it’ll be at our door. We must pick our battles carefully.”

Mayym shook her head. “The Noxian invasion of Ionia is the root cause of the imbalance. The mounting deaths. The reason why the spirit realm is disturbed. If we are to uphold our role as guardians of the Kinkou’s mission, we must go to Navori.”

“We should not act rashly.”

“Says one who just sneaked in and out of the enemy line.”

“I did that so none of you have to!” Kennen snapped.

There was a moment when the air seemed to freeze between them, and Faey held her breath, unblinking.

The moment passed, and Mayym looked to the side. “Perhaps the Eye of Twilight has something to say?”

And there, just a few strides upslope, perched atop a stone pillar, was a silent figure. He wore a jacket cut short at the sleeves, tucked into a pair of weather-beaten trousers. Fastened upon his torso and limbs were leather plates, metal bands, and silken wraps. He had two swords crossed on his back, one of steel, the other arcane. He was not wearing his usual mask, but his features were nonetheless hidden in the shadow of his hood, shielded from the moonlight.

Shen, Faey thought gloomily. Our leader who is always indecisive.

“It’s true that the balance is being harmed by the violence of the war, which is inflamed by Ionians as well,” said Shen, his voice hoarse, “not the least of whom are Zed and his order.”

“Precisely. We must act against them,” Mayym urged.

“And yet…” Shen’s hooded head rose slightly. “As my every instinct tells me to pour all our strength against Zed’s, I begin to fear that I can’t be impartial. I fear that…” He hesitated for a moment. “Those rallying around Zed are serving the balance in their own way, fighting against invaders who are devastating Ionia. We must give this question more consideration.”

Kennen shrugged. “As I said, complicated times.”

“I need to distance myself from my emotions, so I may decide free of prejudice,” Shen concluded.

Faey saw Mayym let out a misty, pale breath as she sighed.

“Our order needs an Eye of Twilight who leads,” Mayym said ruefully.

If Shen took offense, he showed no sign. After all, he had been the Kinkou’s leader for only a short time, while Mayym had been part of the triumvirate for countless seasons.

If Master Kusho were alive, he would be so ashamed of us. Faey looked up, trying to distract herself from the cold. Aside from a few wisps of cloud, the sky sparkled with stars.

A realization came to Faey: Shen’s duty as the Eye of Twilight… Watching the Stars meant neutral observation, to become thoroughly informed before passing judgment.

All Kinkou acolytes had to study three disciplines before they chose one as their path. Watching the Stars, Coursing the Sun, and Pruning the Tree—the disciplines had overlapping areas, and one’s existence would hold no meaning without its relation to the other two. It was clear to Faey that when debating the Kinkou’s future, each member of the triumvirate had followed their respective role: Kennen mindful of conveying wrong judgments, Mayym urging action to address the imbalance, and Shen…

The easiest job to do, isn’t it? To just observe everything and do nothing. Watching the Stars.

Indeed, some time had passed, and Shen never spoke another word. He just sat there, head down, as if his mind were not even present.

From the way they addressed the matters at hand today, Faey felt this Meeting of the Triad had turned out meaningless.

After Shen left, the rest of them began walking downhill.

“I sympathize with Shen. He and I both lost someone we held dear during Zed’s attack,” Mayym said. “But a time like this calls for stronger leadership… Perhaps we should not expect him to be as great as his father.” She spoke evenly, but Faey could hear frustration simmering under the words. “One should not rely on kinship when it comes to succession.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Kennen replied lightly. Because he was so fast, he had to hike in circles so he could walk alongside Mayym. “Sometimes potential does pass down through blood. Look at yourself.”

“What do you mean?” Mayym asked, frowning.

Kennen glanced at Faey, who was trailing behind them, and shrugged. “Nothing.”

When Faey came back to the lagoon, the whole haven was asleep save for the acolytes standing watch.

She gingerly approached the hut she shared with a few other neophytes. There she saw Akali sitting alone on the stone slabs in front of the dwelling. The little girl was wearing her night garment. She loved calling it a shiipo, which was a florid cloak worn by children during festivals. In truth, it was just a rough-spun robe made of beige-colored yarn, given to her by her father, Tahno, another victim of Zed’s rebellion.

“What are you doing here?” Faey called out in a low voice.

Akali sat upright, happy to see Faey’s return. The little girl produced a piece of dried fruit from inside her pocket. “I want to give you this.”

“A plum?” Faey took it with wonder. “How? I thought we didn’t get dinner tonight.”

“It’s from a few days ago.”

Faey’s eyes widened. “You’ve been storing food?”

Akali shrugged, looking guilty, but made no reply. Her shoulders were shaking.

She is afraid, Faey realized, looking down at the dried fruit. Why?

“I want to keep some food,” Akali said. “Maybe we’ll need it someday. You know… if… if bad people come again.”

She’s afraid that enemies might show up any moment, and we’ll be on the run without food…

“I don’t want anything to tear our family apart,” Akali said. “I don’t want us to lose anyone anymore.”

Tears suddenly welled up in Faey’s eyes, but she held them firmly in check. She lost her parents to the order’s missions long ago, and vowed never to cry again after countless nights of sobbing. But she felt for Akali. In a way, they were truly like siblings, for Akali’s mother spent much more time with Faey than with her own daughter.

Faey bit off half the plum and handed the rest back. “You eat this.”

An anger unfamiliar to Faey was boiling inside her. She could not comprehend why everything had happened. If the Kinkou Order played such an important role to Ionia—as the teachings said—why did they have to suffer like this?

“You should go to sleep.” She ruffled Akali’s hair, and gave her a long hug, never letting a tear escape from the corner of her eye.

As the days passed, Faey earnestly practiced her archery. She was frustrated—about Shen, about Mayym’s refusal to make her an acolyte, about how powerless she was to help, about everything.

Working with her bow was the only thing that made sense. When she wasn’t being trained in stealth, studying, or doing chores, Faey was spending almost all her time in the small archery range built by the acolytes.

Mayym had gone on one of her missions. Kennen presided over the defense and maintenance of the lagoon haven, but Faey often caught him playing with Akali, racing and jumping and throwing blunt shuriken with the giggling little girl.

One day, Hisso came to Faey during her meditative archery exercise. “We’re going to play Ghost in the Woods at the southern valley. Come join us,” she said.

“The southern valley?” Faey took her eyes off the practice target, lowering her bow. “Mayym wouldn’t like that.”

The valley was wide and full of plant life, marked by loose boulders and abandoned stone walls. It was dangerous terrain, and the villagers of Xuanain had warned the Kinkou that there had been a few major landslides over the decades.

“Well, that’s why we do it when Mayym isn’t around,” Hisso told her. “You know it’s the most exciting place for the game. C’mon, the others are all there.”

Faey was hesitant, but she said, “Fine. I need to finish another set. I’ll find you there later.”

When the neophyte left, Faey drew a deep breath and stabilized her torso. She repositioned her feet and held her asymmetrical bow a few handspans from the bottom to ensure the most force.

For a Kinkou warrior-to-be, the mastery of a type of weaponry required two tracks of experience, the meditative and the combat-practical—the neio and the neiyar. Trained to become an archer, Faey had been practicing neio and neiyar with her bow since she was five summers old.

Of course, given that she had never faced a real enemy keen on taking her life, the neiyar centered around animal hunting and dueling against her trainers. Most times, she was instructed to stay in the archery range practicing her meditative neio, which she had resented because boredom always crept in after just a few shots.

But not these days. She needed to practice neio to feel calm.

“When you hold a lethal weapon in your hands, the first thing it sharpens is your mind,” Mayym had taught her. “Quiet your thoughts, and focus on your every move.”

Yet as Faey raised both arms above her head in a refined manner, confusion raged like a maelstrom.

Why couldn’t we beat Zed? She pushed out her bow arm.

Why does it have to be Shen who leads us? She contracted her back muscles, drawing open the bow with the string.

What truly happened in the temple that day when Master Kusho died? The adults never spoke of it. Do they even know? She paused at full draw, a moment of utmost concentration when an archer should sense the true spirit of the martial art. But all she could feel now was sizzling fury.

The pause lasted no more than half a breath before she released the string. The arrow hit the edge of the target with a weak thump.

Faey sighed, shoulders drooping.

We are the guardians of two realms, yet we do nothing when the realms need us. We just watch the stars.

She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind by running two fingers along the bow, and then the arrow.

“When you hold these weapons,” Mayym had said, “you are entrusted with a tradition passed down through generations of archer-warriors, in an unbroken line of sacred practice.”

Faey inhaled slowly, forcing herself to think on her bow’s design. It was asymmetrical because, long ago, Kinkou archers had learned that a longer top section made the bow more durable, while a shorter bottom allowed for stealthier movement in regions with dense wild growth. Faey was among the most recent generation to benefit from this wisdom.

Generations of archer-warriors. An unbroken line of sacred practice.

Humbled, Faey opened her eyes and walked toward the target. She paused just three and a half paces away from it, so close that a miss wouldn’t be possible. That way, she could direct all her attention to her movement, ensuring refinement and elegance.

Combat is communication, a voice rang in her mind. It is always about the dialogue.

It was the voice of Master Kusho, from a time when he spoke warmly to Faey and the other children. A time that seemed… so long ago.

The art of practical combat would prepare a warrior against external enemies, with spilled blood calligraphing the dialogue of conflict. Yet, only by contemplative performance would a warrior train her mind against the enemy within.

A dialogue with a hundred you.

Faey raised her arms and calmly let them fall, drawing open the bow again. She paused as a timeless vortex claimed her consciousness.

When thoughts hushed, the dialogue of the soul began.

The next time she blinked, the arrow had lodged in the dead center of the target.

She took another arrow from her quiver, and then another, each shot more graceful than the last, her form a distilled purity.

As she did so, new thoughts drifted through her mind.

Maybe the adults don’t know everything.

Maybe they are as confused as I am.

Maybe it doesn’t matter who is leading us, as long as we stick together as a family.

Maybe… there isn’t anything I can do to help restore the balance right now. Faey let go of her last arrow. And maybe that’s okay…

She maintained her posture a while longer. The churning emotions had dissipated, bringing to light a mind as tranquil as the early morning lagoon. This was a sense of peace she had rarely felt.

The sun was at its zenith when she started toward the southern valley. Some of the acolytes were conducting their own meditative martial practice by the edge of the forest as Faey passed by, and suddenly she understood what they were doing a little more.

Then she followed the meandering pathway to the neophytes’ playground. It was not a short hike. Faey had decided that she did not feel like participating in the game today, yet she needed to tell the others so they wouldn’t wait for her until dusk.

Strangely, when Faey arrived at the fringe of the valley, the neophytes were not there.

She strained her ears, but she heard no clamor, nor any rustling among the bushes. The only sounds were the buzzing of cicadas and the occasional breeze.

Something’s not right.

Faey unslung her bow and took out an arrow as she ventured down the valley. Possibly uninhabited by humans for centuries, this side of the mountain had been taken over by wild growth of vegetation. Bits of broken stone walls could be glimpsed where vines and leaves had not yet claimed them.

As she continued her search, some of the greenery parted for her, giving way to her nervous steps.

A whistle startled her—then she saw that it came from behind one of the stony ruins. A neophyte poked his head out, beckoning to her and signaling for silence.

Faey crouched low and swiftly moved over, surprised to see that a bunch of the neophytes were huddled here, all looking grim. She found Akali, too, standing under a large broad-leaved tree, uncharacteristically silent.

One of the older boys gravely pointed a finger downhill.

Then Faey saw it, too. Still a good distance away, a group of at least twenty warriors had come into the valley. They had tiger tattoos on their chests and arms, and Faey immediately understood what that meant.

It was the Navori Brotherhood.

“What do we do now?”

The neophytes had gathered around Faey. “We need to warn the adults,” said Xenn, a younger boy.

Omi suggested fighting the intruders, but he was rebuffed by doubtful stares from the others. Except for Faey, they hadn’t brought their weapons, and when you had ten neophytes against twenty mean-looking thugs, the odds were obvious.

Alerting the acolytes seemed like their only option, but Faey hesitated.

“What are we waiting for?” Xenn asked. “Let’s head back now.”

“Wait…” Faey said. “We can’t do that.” Everyone’s gaze fell on her, wondering what she meant. Faey stared at the warriors, who were advancing slowly. If the acolytes show up, people will die. That will damage the balance even more.

Not to mention, the thought of losing even one more of her Kinkou family was unbearable.

Faey scanned the area and made up her mind. “We need to stop them, here and now.”

“What? How?” asked Akali, brown eyes wide.

“By making them decide not to go any farther,” Faey said. “I know why they’re here: to capture people and force them to fight against the foreign invaders. So, if they realize there’s no one to be found, they will leave.”

“How do we do that? Walk down and tell them?” Yajiro said.

“No, of course not.” Faey frowned. “Remember the hunting game we played to ambush the silver boar?” Everyone nodded. “We do it again. Except this time, we never show ourselves. We make the sound of grey owls.”

“Bad omen,” Omi said.

“Yes,” Faey said. “These are Ionians—they’ll know the sound means this region is cursed with foul magic, and no village could possibly thrive here.”

“But they are Ionian,” a girl named Isa said dubiously. “They might be able to see through it.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out.” Faey looked at them one by one. “If someone gets caught, don’t point to the lagoon. Just say you’re lost. They will leave us alone, because they’re not looking for children.” This was half a lie.

They all nodded nervously.

“All right, let’s spread out. Take the vines and hide up in the trees.”

Akali was about to move, when Faey touched her shoulder.

“Akali, stay on the ground. I have a very important job for you. I know you can do it better than anyone.” The little girl paused, looking surprised. Faey continued, “But first, I need you to promise me that you won’t run around and upset our plan this time.”

Akali nodded eagerly. “I promise.”

“If our plan fails—if you see the Brotherhood still coming in strong after we make the owl calls, like they don’t even care, you run as fast as you can and tell the adults.” Faey held her bow tighter. And if that happens, I will cover you. “Now, hide somewhere at the far end and watch what’s happening. Save your strength in case you need it.”

“Okay.” Akali was trembling, but her eyes also glistened with excitement.

Faey saw that everyone else had loosely formed a wide bowl flanking the path that the intruders would pass through. Then she was on the move herself.

On the eastern side of the valley, a hillock of large boulders would provide an unobstructed view of the area. That would be her vantage point.

If anything went wrong, she would be the one making the kill.

One by one, the Kinkou neophytes tied long, sturdy vines around themselves. The vines responded by lifting them up to the knots on the tree trunks, making their climb swift and secure.

Faey circled to the shadowed side of the hillock, where the larger boulders would block her from the intruders’ sight. She ascended the incline, anxiously yet briskly, until she finally reached the highest point—a sizable slab perfect for monitoring the valley.

She looked for Akali, but could not find her.

Good, she thought. Lying prone on the slab, she directed her attention to the intruders. They were almost where she wanted them, making so much noise cutting up brambles, briars, long grasses, and whatever else got in their way that Faey was certain no one would notice if she kicked a rock downslope. The war must have changed them. Like the foreign invaders, they hold no respect for nature. They’ve forgotten what it means to be Ionian.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Omi was still on the ground.

What is he doing? She stared at him and made a gesture for him to hasten.

He was panicking, struggling to tie a limp vine around his waist as the first of the warriors trudged up a fallen trunk just ten paces away. Oddly, none of the vines on that particular tree were helpful, so Omi decided to climb barehanded.

Faey was appalled, but she remembered her contingency plan. She quickly nocked an arrow on her bow.

The intruders kept slashing violently at bushes and shrubs with their polearms, making a path for themselves. The rest of the valley remained ominously quiet, so their curses flowed straight to Faey’s ears, loud and clear.

Finally, Omi got up the tree and disappeared. Faey let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She then inhaled deeply.

With a single, powerful exhale, Faey released a high-pitched screech that pierced the pristine air.

A few of the warriors stopped in their tracks.

Faey screeched again, and the valley came alive with echoes from every direction.

Now all of the intruders stopped, tensely surveying their surroundings. They started arguing.

“This is a haunted place. I hear grey owls.”

“I told you there’s nothing to be found here!”

The menacing-looking ones at the front walked forward, undeterred. Yet, part of the gang still hesitated. The Kinkou neophytes tried to help them make up their minds with another round of omen-filled screeches.

Even the trees let out audible sighs, waving their leaves and contorted branches, working with the neophytes in a cacophony of dread. Some of the warriors started backing off.

It’s working! Faey almost couldn’t believe it.

The gang’s leader ordered a retreat. “This place is foul. Let’s get out of here.” But as they departed, a few of them angrily swung their crescent blades and severed some branches that were eerily approaching.

A long, crooked bough snapped down and hit one of the thugs in the face. They all turned their backs and ran.

Faey held her position on the rock, not letting joy overtake her senses. The other neophytes were also quiet, likely waiting until it was safe to emerge.

When enough time had passed, Faey sprang upright. “We did it!”

Her call met no reply. There was silence for a long moment, punctuated by snapping sounds.

“Hello?” The valley looked a shade darker, even though the sun was still at its apex.

Something dropped down from the canopy and jerked to a stop in midair. It was Isa—her eyes wide with terror, her arms cinched at the waist by twisting vines. The end of one was gagging her.

Several more children fell through the leaves and were suspended the same way. Two neophytes plunged directly to the ground, their impact cushioned by bushes. They were also bound by vines, struggling to free themselves without avail.

Before Faey could comprehend what was happening, the valley came alive—large tree trunks twisted fiercely, entwining into a gargantuan entity. Shrubs and bushes uprooted themselves and crawled onto it like patched skin, taking with them packed soil and rubble that created muscles. Dark vines slithered up to form latticework over the creature, like nets of pulsing veins.

The monstrous thing had four arms, and the center of its “chest” was a broken tree trunk, hollow and rotten, like an empty eye socket or a gaping mouth. At least three children were half buried in its grotesque torso, held in place by bizarrely twitching branches.

A corrupted spirit. Faey froze on the stone slab.

The Kinkou had heard that such things were happening in other parts of Ionia, a side effect of the brutal war against Noxus. No one ever thought it would happen here.

The Navori Brotherhood must have contaminated the balance, and dark forces in the spirit realm were seeping through the divide, tainting the southern valley.

Faey opened her waist pouch, which held magical dust for repelling evil spirits. This would be the first time she had used it in practical combat. And her friends’ lives were at stake. She calmed her mind and applied the dust to her arrowheads.

Neio had fortified her with mental strength, and now she had to trust that her muscle memory would awaken from the neiyar training she had painstakingly endured.

Omi had escaped the vines and was stumbling across the shaky ground. As he ran, one of the monster’s arms extended toward him, tentacles of flora opening up like a writhing web. Faey loosed an arrow, and it struck that arm a moment before it could catch him. Golden rays blazed from the wound, and the monster reared. The limb disintegrated into dead leaves and twigs and dust.

“Go! Get the acolytes!” Faey shouted at Omi. He fled the valley without looking back.

Faey could hear her heartbeat pulsing against her ears. She knew that no matter how fast Omi ran, the quickest possible arrival for any acolyte would be a quarter of an hour. She had in her quiver only thirteen arrows.

How do I hold this thing off?

The monster’s broken limb had re-formed, its body growing larger by the moment as waves of vegetation rushed onto it, drawn by an unseen force.

Faey shot another arrow and, before it landed, drew and released again. The two arrows sank into the monster, and a blinding golden light spilled from its torso, which snapped open as layers of rotten, tissue-like branches parted. The ensnared children dropped to the ground, free from their prison.

The neophytes tried to help each other escape, tearing at vines and brambles sticky with dark resin. With a shocking rumble, the monster’s innards exploded, spraying countless fast-growing limbs in all directions like a fountain of animated timber.

Most of the neophytes dodged the wooden claws, yet two of them—Isa and Taij—were caught, wailing as they were dragged toward the monster’s mended maw.

Faey’s next few shots could provide cover fire for the five unfettered neophytes to flee, or she could try to save Isa and Taij.

What do I do? A moment of hesitation, and Xenn was snared. The rest scattered, howling in panic.

“Leave! Run back to the haven, everyone!” Faey saved Xenn with an arrow shot. Then she began firing at the flora tentacles that were coming for the runaway neophytes. She knew she would lose Isa and Taij, who were almost swallowed by the monster’s jagged, hollowed-out mouth. She ground her teeth and looked away.

Then she saw Akali.

Amid the madness of running children, flying timber, falling leaves, and blooming plants of evil shades, the little girl was running toward the monster.

Faey watched in disbelief, suddenly unsure where to aim.

“Haaheeyy!” Akali’s voice echoed in the valley. She dashed under a whip made of animated vines, then vaulted over sweeping tree trunks.

Something dawned on Faey—dangerous moments had passed, and Akali had not been caught. Somehow, she was evading all attempts at capture, ducking and rolling away from deformed claws. The evil spirit had turned its attention to Akali, forgetting that Isa and Taij were dangling right by its mouth.

“Akali, you fool! Flee!” Faey screamed. Yet, even as she condemned Akali’s folly, Faey had moved away from the stone slab, nocking another arrow on her bow.

She knew what she must do.

Akali was terrified. Huge, arched boughs fell from the sky and landed all around her. Yet she kept running.

She had made a promise not to intrude on Faey’s attempt at scaring away the big bad warriors. She did not foil that plan. But Faey never said anything about a gigantic, ugly tree spirit going mad. Now Akali followed her instinct—to get the other kids out.

She found Hisso entangled by a net of brambles. As she tried to pull her out, the sky dimmed, and Akali gasped. A colossal palm made of wriggling branches was coming down, threatening to crush them. But then an arrow pierced the hand, setting it ablaze in golden sparks.

Amid a falling blanket of wilted leaves, Akali dragged Hisso to safety. She saw that Faey was hopping down the rocky slope far way, another arrow at the ready. Then Akali glimpsed an older neophyte, Yajiro, sitting amid a pile of broken logs, crying his heart out.

Akali ran to him—eluding the monster’s angry jabs—and kicked him in the butt. “You! Get out of here!” She shoved him forward.

She knew something had changed. The monster was redirecting all its writhing limbs to get her. So as long as she kept running, the other children would be safe.

As Akali sprang and dove and ducked and rolled, she grew confident that she had gotten the hang of this game. Part of her—the part that wasn’t terrified—wanted to giggle. The monster was slow. If Kennen were here, he could be eating a bowl of noodles while dodging the attacks.

More of Faey’s arrows arced overhead, striking the monster and momentarily disintegrating its limbs. Isa and Taij dropped to the ground: two vine-wrapped, sobbing bundles.

Akali headed toward them, excited that she and Faey were working together so well. She could do this all day.

Now Faey will include me on all the missions. Mother will be pleased!

Then the valley began to tremble more ferociously than before. Large, malicious roots churned the earth, whipping up like nasty serpents, releasing foul vapors that made Akali’s nose wrinkle. A wall of dizzying, thrashing wood encircled her, sealing her way out.

Uh-oh.

Faey hopped down from boulder to boulder, adjusting her line of sight so she could maintain a clear view of Akali. As the evil spirit chased the little girl, Faey’s arrows cleared any incoming danger for her.

Their fortuitous partnership had opened a window of opportunity for the other neophytes, and those who could raced out of the valley.

But any moment, things could go wrong. Faey had only three arrows left.

“Akali, you must leave now!” Faey shouted as loud as she could.

The rocks under Faey’s feet shuddered as if the earth was contracting in a spasm. A few heartbeats later, she saw Akali encased in a dome of vicious roots.

The stony slope broke apart around Faey, and the large slab at the top came crashing down. Faey jumped between boulders to avoid it. As she did so, she let fly an arrow that tore a hole into the side of Akali’s prison, then another one to block the giant fist that was coming for the escaping girl.

But before Faey could draw her last arrow or make another move, the whole slope washed over her in an avalanche.

An ear-splitting boom. The crash of rockfall. She screamed as rubble struck her like fists, followed by a devastating pain that seared through her core.

When the rockslide subsided, Faey was left shivering amid blood-stained boulders, the dense taste of iron in her mouth. The burning sensation intensified. She could barely open her eyes, but what she glimpsed made no sense.

Her bow had snapped. And where her right leg used to be, dark crimson pulp remained, leaving smears of wetness on rocks and grass.

She buried her face in the ground, and then consciousness dimmed.

Akali dragged Isa and Taij by their feet over the undulating valley floor—there had been no time to untie them. The monster had grown more heinous, but Akali was not about to give in.

“I don’t want to lose anybody ever again, you hear me?” she shouted, as much to Isa and Taij as to herself. “I want us all to stay together, forever!”

The corrupted forest spirit—a massive, misshapen heap of horrendous things—chased after her, tearing the valley apart.

“Faey!” Akali saw the unconscious girl lying amid scattered boulders just ahead. Oh no, now I need to drag three people out. She set her teeth and plowed through the churning ground, arriving at her friend.

“Faey, get up! We need—”

Words caught in her throat as her eyes fell on Faey’s lower body. Akali dropped the two neophytes, who were yelling wildly at something.

“Faey…” Akali froze, all thoughts blank.

Then she turned around to see what Isa and Taij were screaming about. It was the angry tree spirit, towering over them all.

No weapons at hand. Three friends helpless. Akali looked at the monster with an empty gaze, her hand clasping the small kunai pendant.

A gnarled limb swung toward her. Before she could make a move, a barrage of kunai rained down on the giant’s fist. Lights flared. Timbers flew. Akali never thought the monster could howl, but it did now, furious roars from its hollow core.

A shadow landed on its ruptured arm.

Mother! Akali’s eyes went wide.

Mayym sprinted along the shattering bridge of splinters. The corrupted spirit tried to smash her with two other arms, but she flipped through the air in a graceful, lethal arc, simultaneously flinging more kunai with a back-flick of her hands. The giant’s limbs exploded under the enchanted darts, splashing the air with soulless remnants as Mayym landed nimbly on top of the spirit’s crown.

All around Akali, the air crackled with thunder. Arcs of purple lightning appeared, constricting in waves of reversing ripples, centering on the monster. In the blink of an eye, the giant was severed at the waist.

The evil spirit re-formed its body, but Kennen was there, assaulting it with a rush of lightning bolts. Above him, Mayym raised high her phantom scythe and—with one clean swing—clove open the monster from top to bowel.

The southern valley quieted.

Akali was awestruck. Just like that, the monster was gone, leaving behind only piles of decayed, oozing plants. Yet some of the nearby twigs began to wriggle weakly…

“It is not over yet.”

Akali glanced over her shoulder and saw the speaker. The masked figure calmly walked forward, drawing from his back a blade that glowed with a mesmerizing aura of arcane energy. Mayym and Kennen parted to allow him to pass.

“Shen!” Akali rejoiced at seeing him.

Before Zed’s attack, Shen would read stories to her about the Ionian heroes of old. Yet in Akali’s eyes, Shen was the real hero, and she dreamed of helping him when she grew up, like how her mother had assisted Master Kusho.

The new leader of the Kinkou Order ascended the remains of the monster, just a mound now. A shimmering fissure appeared at the top, contorting reality for a heartbeat before Shen disappeared into it.

“Where did he go?” Akali asked.

“To the spirit realm.” Kennen landed beside her with a backflip. “That twisted thing could keep reconstructing its material body as long as the corrupted spirit resides in the other realm. Shen is going to take care of the source.”

As Mayym walked toward the neophytes, Akali’s heart sank again as she remembered what had happened to Faey.

Expressionless, Mayym knelt beside the unconscious girl.

It hurts… so much…

Faey woke up to find herself on a pallet inside a hut. Akali was sleeping beside her, curled into a ball. It was day, the time uncertain, and murmurs of conversation could be heard outside.

Faey tried to sit up, and then she saw that her right leg was bandaged, missing below the knee. For long moments, she thought she was in a bad dream. She sensed that a devastating anguish inside her was trying to claw its way out, caged only by her disbelief.

A quiet sob escaped her throat.

“Master Mayym, we know what we saw!” A child’s voice flowed into the hut, faint and distant, sounding like Taij. “She pulled us to safety. All by herself.”

Faey looked out the window. She saw Mayym standing in front of the old temple and listening to the other neophytes, her arms folded.

“And she was fast,” Isa told Mayym. “The spirit couldn’t even catch her!”

Faey struggled to change her sitting position. A pain shot through her thigh and she nearly collapsed.

“Faey.” Akali sat up, rubbing her eyes.

Faey paused, then whispered, “Why did you have to go into the fray?” She clutched the edge of her blanket, head down, voice low, madly trying to breathe slowly so no more sobs would escape. “Why didn’t you leave when I told you to?”

“Faey…” Akali tried to give her a pat on the arm.

“Do not touch me!” Faey shouted. “This is all your fault!”

Akali backed away, eyes wide.

“Leave me alone,” Faey hissed. All the venom inside her was now flowing freely. Then she saw Akali’s face—the girl was genuinely confused and hurt.

Faey hesitated, but before she could say another word, the little girl had headed toward the hut’s entrance, where Mayym now stood, watching them.

With Akali gone, Mayym stepped in and knelt beside the pallet, somber emotion glossing over her eyes. “Shen found us as soon as he sensed a disturbance in the spirit realm. We rushed to the southern valley, but we were too late… I can’t imagine what would have transpired if he had not raised the alarm.”

It hurts so much… Faey tried to straighten her back in a show of respect, but her courage was failing her.

“The other neophytes told me what happened,” Mayym said in a calmer voice, lifting her chin. “You turned away the Brotherhood bandits. You helped avoid a major conflict.”

Tears were welling in Faey’s eyes. She maintained her posture, as an apprentice should in front of her master.

“You are courageous,” said Mayym, “and you’ve grasped the way of the Kinkou.”

What does it matter now? Faey’s lips were trembling. She knew everything was over. Mayym had made her assessment—that this protégé had been ruined. All the training, wasted. All her aspirations destroyed. She would never rise to become an acolyte, or be anything to the order but a burden.

“I am sorry. I am so sorry. I have…” Mayym stammered. “I have been a bad influence on you. About Shen. About everything.”

Faey could not understand why she would say this. She was the best mentor anyone could ask for. “Master Mayym, I have failed you.”

“No,” Mayym said, voice broken. “No, you did not.” She held Faey’s shoulders and looked into her eyes with fierce intensity. “There must be a way to make you walk again. If we must search every corner of Ionia and beyond to find it, that’s what we will do. Under Shen’s leadership, Kennen and I—and the rest of the Kinkou—will find a way. I will continue to train you, and make sure you become an archer never before seen in the history of both realms.”

Tears blurred Faey’s vision, and she momentarily forgot her pain.

Mayym carefully cradled Faey in her arms, an embrace the girl had not felt for a long time.

That was when Faey’s sobs turned to crying, uninhibited and free.

Akali stood by the doorway, peering into the shadowy interior of the hut, and the master and protégé locked in their embrace.

She could not remember the last time her mother had given her a hug like that. She turned and walked into the woods, the kunai pendant clutched in her hand, tears soaking her cheeks.