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Across the frozen river, the distant, glowing lights promised warmth and food. Udyr imagined a hearth fire crackling inside one of the city’s homes. Around the fire, bedding furs rested, prickling with warmth.

The loud crack of river ice shook the shaman from his fantasy. Udyr cursed and shivered. The sleet had soaked his furs, and the setting sun already hinted at a dangerous freeze coming. It was going to be difficult to convince Sejuani to change course. He wasn’t looking forward to continuing that conversation, or to rejoining the rest of her army.

In the valley below him, the bulk of Sejuani’s host approached. Through victory, the Winter’s Claw tribe had absorbed dozens of clans and all of the Stone Tooth tribe. Sejuani was a true Warmother now—commanding thousands of blooded warriors, steelclad, mammoth riders, and Iceborn.

Ahead of the main force, the warriors of Sejuani’s vanguard were unpacking yurts to house her bloodsworn and to serve as the command outpost for the army’s scouts. Sejuani’s tent, marked with blue wards and covered in rune-stitched leather, loomed over the center of the encampment.

As Udyr approached, drool slithered down his long jaws, and his teeth gnashed with bottomless hunger. The feeling seemed his own before he spotted a wolfhound trotting past. He snarled at the dog, struggling to regain control of his own jaw and rid himself of the animal’s invading consciousness.

He found Sejuani helping her bloodsworn build a yurt.

Udyr smiled in pride. This was her way. No matter the work, she led from the front. Raising these mammoth-hide tents in the soaked earth was a burdensome task. As Sejuani slammed a tusk-spike into the mud, she stumbled to one knee. Nearby, bloodsworn warriors struggled in the icy rain, with curses echoing hers.

Watching Sejuani pull herself to her feet, Udyr was struck once more by how she’d grown into a heavy-shouldered swagger. He would never be able to think of her as anything but the bone-thin girl he’d met a so many seasons ago; he wasn’t sure he wanted to. She had so desperately needed his guidance then. In perhaps only a few more years, Udyr worried, he would become a useless burden to her.

“The weather ended this discussion, Udyr,” she shouted over the downpour.

“The Vargkin tribe are a few days west of here,” Udyr began. “We could avoid crossing the river, take them by surprise and—” The minds of a dozen passing horses filled Udyr’s head. He felt their frozen muscles tightening as they shivered in the cold. Udyr snapped at the nearest horse, “Shut it! No oats now!”

Taken aback, Sejuani’s bloodsworn exchanged nervous glances. Sejuani gave her men a look of warning. Immediately they returned to work. Even they did not have the right to question her shaman’s strangeness.

Hiding his hands behind his back, Udyr gently took a small spike made of silver from a hidden pouch. He pushed the metal nail against the flesh of his palm. Hardly the relief of meditation, but the metal’s pain cleared his mind, allowing him to focus on speaking like a human.

“The Vargkin are only a six-day march,” Udyr snorted, “no walls around their villages.”

Sejuani let his eyes settle before responding.

“We’re out of time, Udyr.” Sejuani indicated the sagging yurts around her. “We must take that city across the river or freeze!” She gestured to a few of her older warriors nearby, “Most of the long tooths skip meals to feed their young. Yesterday, I helped Orgaii bury her daughter.” Sejuani’s lips, purple from the cold, tightened bitterly. “The child was two summers, but as small and frail as one on its first spring.” She exhaled and looked away before continuing. “I will not be responsible for another child growing too thin to survive the cold.”

“Then attack now.” Udyr said pointing toward the distant city across the river. “Trust in our axes and muscle. Claws and teeth. The old way.”

“The old way is to use the best warriors,” she interrupted. “What clan or tribe do I know stronger than the Ursine? How many of us would die crossing that river without their help? I will not watch my army diminish from hunger, not when I promised my people strength and victory.” She steadied Udyr’s shoulder, “I know you have good reason to fear what they—”

“Ashe’s army is what I fear,” Udyr countered. “New clans bend their knee to your rival’s banner every day. Each moon, the Avarosans absorb whole tribes. You say you want to make the Winter’s Claw stronger? If we work with the Ursine… there will be no thralls. No warriors to be reborn as clan-kith. The Lost Ones won’t stop until they kill every living thing in that town.”

“Our name is Winter’s Claw. They are our kin.” She explained, “I called this war, and we stop when I—”

“The Ursine do not obey!” More than the pain from the silver he held, it was Udyr’s certainty that finally cleared his mind. His voice lowered. “Their bloodlust spreads like a sickness. It will consume us.”

“I have valued your advice my whole life,” Sejuani said, as she considered his words. “But we must overwhelm that city tomorrow,” she concluded.

“You’ve beaten odds worse than this.” Udyr lost his train of thought as the consciousness of boars, horses, wolves, men, and elnük flowed through him. He fought against it, knowing this would be his last chance to change her mind.

“Sejuani,” he said finally, “Kalkia had many failings. She was too prone to compromise, too quick to see defeat. I know how badly your mother failed you. But it was your grandmother who was our tribe’s true coward, afraid of ever looking weak. Afraid of—”

“You will not speak ill of Hejian,” she warned.

“Even Kalkia was smart enough to avoid your grandmother’s mistakes.” As he spoke, Udyr knew he had crossed a line.

“Was it a mistake for Hejian to take me from mother?” Sejuani’s eyes flashed in anger. “Would it be better if I became a southern cow, like my mother? Should I have laid on a throne as she did? My legs open and my belly full of mead? Worthless in a fight, unworthy of ruling.” Sejuani stated coldly. “The only mistake my grandmother made was tolerating my mother’s rule.”

“Hejian raised you for her own ambitions.”

“And I honor her for that.”  Any closeness and deference Sejuani had shown Udyr was gone. “I will call the Lost Ones. You may help negotiate with the Ursine, or you may rot in this storm.”

Udyr’s hopes sank. “Then I should leave,” he said admitting his defeat. “The Hounded Lord wouldn’t be happy to see me.” And Udyr had no desire for that unhappy reunion either.

Sejuani’s face transformed, softening before she gave a cunning smile.

“No,” she grinned. “That’s exactly why I need you with me, old friend.”

Above him, the song-tree’s leaves were the color of blood. Watching a scarlet leaf fall, Udyr realized how badly he’d misunderstood the color red. In his homeland, he had only seen its hue splashed against the white snow. In the Freljord, red was the color of violence. In the Freljord, red was the color of death’s approach. But in truth, it was the color of life. As long as they lived, every man and beast carried it with them.

Udyr opened his eyes.

The light of his meditation candle burned a red spot into his vision. Rain hissed against the weakening flame of his campfire. Wind shook the hut’s sagging leather walls, promising to collapse them before the night ended. On the ground around him, a thin stream of freezing water flowed between the hides of his yurt’s floor. He wasn’t sitting with monks on a hilltop in the foreign lands of Ionia; he was on the edge of Sejuani’s camp.

This is my home, he thought with bitter pride.

It’d been weeks since Udyr had meditated successfully, but there wasn’t time to dwell on it. As his current surroundings came into focus… the voices returned.

The inescapable cacophony knocked the breath from the shaman. The foreign thoughts of nearby elnük, drüvasks, and horses flooded his consciousness with feelings that weren’t his own—a thunderous soundscape only he and the most powerful spirit walkers could hear, and could never truly quiet. The emotions of men came next. They were beasts as much as any other. A thousand scattered thoughts: anger, fear, bitterness, cold—

Udyr couldn’t hear himself screaming. He simply became aware of the rawness in his throat. The voices wouldn’t go away; they never went away. He ripped through his bag searching for the silver nail. The metal burned in his fingers as Udyr found it. He plunged it into his palm again and again. The shock of the metal compounded the pain a thousand-fold—but to quiet the voices, he would give anything. Anything.

Sejuani wondered how much of the army’s supplies she was risking in an attempt to contact the Ursine. Massive bonfires roared with flames three times the height of a man. Around them stood Sejuani’s army, starving and cold, stared at the fires with exhaustion and uncertainty. Dry wood was a commodity that determined life or death in this weather. And there was no guarantee the Lost Ones would come.

The bonfires’ logs had been arranged to match the interlocking triangles of a death knot’s pattern. Piled on top of each other, the wood formed a series of burning towers. Surrounding the fires, tall, ancient iron-stakes were arranged. Forged with the Ursine’s symbols, around each stake was heaped a pile of weapons and bones, like kindling. All was ready. The warriors preparing to channel the oath needed only the Red Blessing to begin the ritual.

She nodded to the bear spirit’s acolyte to begin. He lifted the massive wooden bowl above Sejuani’s oathsingers and poured. The bear’s blood covered them in sticky strings of gore, clinging to the men’s features and chests. Each man then took the bear-claw totem, dragged it across his chest, and snarled in pain as his skin was ripped open.

The final oathsinger, a girl of only ten summers, shivered as the bear spirit’s acolyte attached the traditional shawl of raven feathers around her neck like a collar. Then she joined the choir of warriors around the main fire. Her eyes rolled back as she released a sustained noise from her throat, like wind crying in a storm. Then the other oathsingers began. Each overlapping, several pitches at once, creating an unnatural, guttural dirge which harmonized with the fire’s roar. The sound dug fear into Sejuani’s stomach like an unquenchable hunger.

“Get Udyr,” she commanded a pair of bloodsworn nearby. Hypnotized by the fire, they nodded dumbly, failing even to look away from the ceremony. “Find our shaman!” she barked.

Her voice cut them from the trance, and her guards trudged into the darkness, outside of the firelight’s reach.

She marched from the fire to Bristle, her mount. Sejuani knew, whatever uncertainty she felt, her people needed to feel she was ready to lead them into battle.

She climbed onto her saddle atop the giant mount’s back, an enormous, boar-like drüvask. Its shoulders were twice as tall as her and heavier than a dozen men. When it snorted uneasily, she didn’t need the great shaman’s training to know what it felt.  Ice crackled around its claws as her unease resonated with her soul-bonded steed. She was risking something other than her army’s supplies.

Above Sejuani, the fire’s embers floated toward the sky. Pinpricks of flickering light danced upward and pointed to an approaching storm. Distant lightning flashed, briefly illuminating the wall of ferocious clouds boiling toward her. In the face of this huge maelstrom, she felt as small as a child.

The first lighting bolt smashed into an iron stake with a crack. Sejuani leaned forward in her saddle and ran her fingers through Bristle’s dark, wiry fur. To a horse, or some lesser mount, Sejuani would have lied and uttered soothing words. Instead she whispered, “I don’t like it either. But now everything depends on the great shaman…”

Morning never came.

Churning, black clouds blocked the sun’s return.

Udyr shuddered in the cold. The rains had frozen overnight. The frost on his leggings resisted his every move. His mind twitched and wandered uncontrollably. Too many creatures, too many men, surrounded him, and the clamor of their misery howled in his mind.

Sejuani had arranged her forces in the twin-horn formation at the edge of the woods lining the riverside. The camps and hearthbound warriors stood on the hill behind her frontline troops. Awaiting the arrival of the Ursine tribe, everyone in her host had their weapons drawn and ready. Blooded warriors smashed shields, drums sounded.

This was the way of the Freljord. You proved yourself a friend before either side sheathed arms.

Tiny sparks of static electricity began crackling across the Winter’s Claw’s armor, swords, and axes. Udyr watched as the tribe’s warriors reacted to this alien thing, arcing and jumping across their weapons. He could feel their fear.

At the front of her army, Sejuani threw off her cloak with a flourish. No doubt to remind her tribe that their Warmother was a true Iceborn. Battle was the only warmth she needed; ice magic was in her blood. The army cheered.

Udyr followed her to the edge of the forest. The features of his face stretched, transformed. Fangs formed, became tusks then twisted back into an approximation of his own features. Waves of hair formed and cascaded across his skin, covering him in fur before reversing like waves in an inlet, reacting to some unknown tide. He growled, jabbered, and drooled. Suddenly, Udyr’s eyes widened.

“They’ve come.”

A silence swept over everything.

The first of the Ursine slipped out from between the black forest’s trees without a sound—savages, with their skin stained brown by blood. Their hair matted with filth. Some were naked; others wore bear hides or the rotting remains of clothes.

Next came the beasts, bears mostly, of various sizes and colors. Some breeds Udyr knew, others he’d never seen before. They were spirit walkers trapped in the form of the unrelenting bear. Men who had forgotten they were men.

Then came the monsters.

They were strange amalgamations of bears and other creatures, things of legends, dreams, and folklore. They had all been men once too, but now, so consumed by the true spirit, they had passed beyond what the normal animals looked like. The largest of them, a huge bear-like thing, lumbered out of the forest—where its head should have been, a decayed elk’s skull rested on a mane of black feathers. Eyes glowing with blue fire, it opened its jaws to reveal a child’s face inside its maw. Then the child opened its own mouth too, spewing a foul brown liquid. Other nightmares followed it from the woods, limping, crawling, and shambling forward.

The Ursine assembled in a rough battle line across from Sejuani’s army. They made no gesture to attack, spoke no words. They simply waited.

Udyr’s ragged breaths slowed, his nervous jittering became a hypnotic sway. The pain in his hands dissolved. He recognized a few of the souls across the field from him: pupils, masters, and former oathsingers. Clan shamans he’d known in drink, warriors he’d known in battle. Little of their consciousness remained. Most had forgotten they were men. Some had rended their souls into the raw, singular emotion of the unrelenting bear’s spirit, an unchecked confidence bordering on rage.

A man walked from between the trees, wearing only a great raven-feathered cowl and a bearskin cloak. The Hounded Lord.

“I am Ursine. I come to bring the word of the Volibear,” he announced.

Udyr remembered him from years before. Back then he was Najak, a troubled boy and an untrained spirit walker of great potential. Udyr’s first pupil, now reduced to the voice of the Ursine. Even searching for it, pulling at the magic around him, Udyr could find little sound coming from Najak’s spirit or mind. That boy was gone.

How deeply I failed you, Udyr thought, remembering too late that the Najak could hear his mind as clearly as shouted words.

“Cowardice is your true failure,” the Hounded Lord snarled to answer Udyr’s thought. “You torture yourself by trying to control our gift. Denying its true power.” The wind howled briefly through the ice-covered trees behind him, sounding like ghostly chimes. “Why have you called us, Winter’s Claw?”

“I ask for the strength of the Ursine.” Sejuani intoned. “I ask you fight alongside my host, Hounded Lord.”

The young spirit walker turned his head from Udyr to Sejuani without moving his lifeless eyes. “You ask wrongly. I am only the voice of the Volibear.”

“As his agent, I would take your oath as—”

“I cannot speak for him. I am simply his instrument,” The Hounded Lord interrupted her. He seemed to stare through Sejuani. “Our lord walks with us.”

Udyr felt its power before it appeared. The voices, the spirits in his mind from the men around him, which had endlessly plagued him… began to soften. Even that of Sejuani, standing beside him. The ring of her annoyed impatience faded away. The Volibear had come.

In the forest behind Najak, the great black-leaf trees cracked and shook. Taller than a mammoth, it stepped out of the woods. Walls of muscle, each limb larger than a man, propelled the beast forward. Its broken, ancient armor of dark, metal plates was caked brown by the dried gore of a hundreds of battles. Broken weapons, rusted with age, jutted from its back and shoulders. One half of its face had been stripped of flesh, revealing oily bone, teeth, and horns. From its mouth, an unnatural, black blood dripped. Its four eyes, impossibly ancient, alien, and pitiless, looked over Sejuani and Udyr.

As the bear spirit’s avatar came closer, it was like the quiet at the center of a storm. Udyr’s focus became singular. No sounds were left in his head. No animals. No feelings. Even Udyr’s own thoughts barely whispered. He felt only the Volibear. Its silence felt nothing like a man or animal. The Volibear’s consciousness crushed everything with its purity.

Despite Sejuani’s army outnumbering the Ursine by a hundred to one, her warriors backed away from the Volibear’s approach. Huge war mammoths, veterans of numerous battles against men, trolls, and the skard vastaya, trembled in fear.

Sejuani gasped at the awesome creature before her. She had not considered the possibility that the avatar of the bear spirit would answer her summon personally. Whatever value the Lost Ones offered, their master was worth a thousand times that.

She steeled herself in her saddle and held her ground against the Volibear’s slow advance. Instead of fear, ambition flashed across her face.

Udyr fought against the silence, trying to speak, to remember the stories of his childhood. Some said even the Volibear had been a man once. A great shaman and spirit walker who’d surrendered himself to the bear spirit so completely that it was able to truly manifest through him. But looking at the scale of this monster, he doubted this thing could ever have been a man. When the Volibear stopped in front of Sejuani, lightning crackled across its back.

The Volibear’s question flooded Udyr’s mind. It overwhelmed him. Udyr felt as if the words were bursting from inside his eyes, ripping through his fingertips.

“What battle is worthy of us, warchild?”

The voice reverberated from every Ursine and spirit walker on the field.

Sejuani had watched as the Hounded Lord’s eyes rolled backwards, then darkened to black pools before his head tilted back. Now the slight man spoke with a voice like an avalanche. It was as if a thunderstorm had taken control of his throat and shaped itself into those words. But what turned the Warmother in surprise was hearing Udyr whisper the same question.

Recovering quickly, Sejuani smiled, then answered with a voice both armies could hear. “I will burn the southern farms. I will hunt their children for sport. I will level their stone walls and houses so that none may stand against us again.” She gestured southward. “All that snow touches will be ours. My name will be fear, and our tribe will rule forever.”

For a moment, only the sound of Udyr’s cloak flapping in the wind followed her proclamation. Above her, the black clouds circled like a tempest.

“Ask for our strength,” the voice said.

With every ounce of his will, Udyr reached into his bag. He pulled out his silver nail; the cold heat of the metal numbed his arm. If he could speak before Sejuani made the bargain… if he could make the human words come from his mouth… He had time…

It wasn’t too late.

“I ask for your strength,” Sejuani replied, before her former mentor managed to force himself forward. But shaking and stiff-legged, he then stumbled between her and the great bear spirit.

Udyr dug the silver nail into his hand—he felt nothing as it passed through. No pain, not even the energy of the metal. He opened his mouth to speak but found no words would come. Instead, the Volibear’s consciousness shook him, forcing him to his knees.

“Whom do you offer as sacrifice?” Udyr and the Hounded Lord spoke with the spirit’s voice.

Udyr closed his eyes and pictured the Ionian hill, the red leaves falling around him. That memory of learning meditation, learning to control his powers seemed so hollow now. A faraway land he could never call home and would never see again. Then, Udyr remembered his return to the Freljord, meeting young Sejuani, and the years of watching her grow into a Warmother under his tutelage.

From outside his body, Udyr heard his voice crack in effort. “She makes no pledge to you, bear spirit.” He swallowed as he pushed himself toward the monstrous creature. “We offer only the war and its dead.”

The Volibear roared in anger. The force of its howl pushed Udyr back toward Sejuani as the beast’s spell broke.

Sejuani had hunted ice-wyrms alone. She had tied her hair into a death knot before battle a dozen times in the past and, with those oaths, pledged victory or her own death. She had charged into total darkness and fought trolls blind. But the moment the Volibear’s spell broke, when she looked up at the monstrous thing looming over her, she knew its true horror. Its hair stood. Lighting raged from within its flesh. Its scars glowed. Electricity poured from its mouth, as if it would explode. And Sejuani felt the most intense fear she’d ever known; she had almost pledged herself and her people to the Ursine.

This was the true power of the Volibear.

She looked to her former mentor in awe. Somehow he’d found the strength to stand against this power.

“Do you fear our war, spirit of the great bear!?” Udyr screamed at the monster.

The massive creature roared again, seeming to become less and less like a bear—its flesh seemed to lift away: muscles, fur and flesh floated apart, connected only by the endless lighting crackling inside it. The Volibear moved to attack. Before it could strike, Sejuani rode straight at it, blocking its path to Udyr.

“Will you fight alongside us, bear of storms and wilds?” Udyr shouted. “Or do you fear our war?”

After a long moment, the monster answered.

“We fear nothing.”

Udyr walked through the city’s ruined gates. With what was left of the river city, there would be no warm hearths to rid the cold from the night. The structures around him had been reduced to black skeletons. Only scorched timber and stone chimneys remained above the sharp piles of rubble.

As he headed to the center of the city, Udyr’s footsteps left a pale gray trail in the soot-covered street. Walls of black smoke swept around him, obscuring the streets and razed stone buildings. When an inky cloud swept aside for a moment, it revealed a dozen Winter’s Claw warriors. They’d formed a line around a burning guard tower, surrounding the few survivors and pushing them against the blaze. The remaining town guards desperately, helplessly clawed for an escape but they were met only with axes and death.

Near them, an Ursine butchered the remains of a shopkeeper. It turned its bestial face to look at Udyr. Gore covered its fur as it mindlessly slammed a pair of axes into the man’s long-dead corpse. Without stopping, the Ursine bellowed a roar, and the neighboring warriors closed in on the remaining guards, mercilessly pushing them into the fire.

These were the first survivors Udyr had seen. The Ursine had smashed through the city’s defenses first. Sejuani’s forces followed, but they had matched the Lost Ones’ savagery. Even now, Udyr could feel the cruel, unquestioning certainty of the bear spirit creeping through the thoughts of every creature around him. The power of the Ursine was growing.

Udyr climbed up the rubble of a stairway to a ruined square. Surrounded by tall stone buildings, he found the monster waiting for him. Alone and in the middle of the city, the bear spirit’s avatar impaled corpses on stakes arranged in some unknowable pattern. Black branches and roots grew from the speared bodies around the beast, like worms slowly crawling from the earth. The flesh and fur on the Volibear’s face had healed, its muscles seemed thicker, stronger than before.

The Volibear’s eyes turned to Udyr as the shaman approached. Across its face, a dozen new eyes bloomed, each as dark and cold as a spider’s. Perhaps it smelled the foreign magic on the Winter’s Claw shaman, and now deemed him worthy of examination. Somehow Udyr knew, this time, it spoke to him alone.

“I will be reborn. You cannot stop that, son of man,” the beast said.

Udyr removed his cloak. Then, prepared by his evening meditation, he walked through his forms: the Undying Eagle, the Clever Lynx, the Iron Boar, and a dozen more spirit beasts. He paused when he assumed the aspect of the bear spirit. With perfect control, he matched the shape of the giant beast looming above him. Then, finally, Udyr changed from the bear into its sworn enemy, the spirit of fire, hearth, and forge—the Great Ram.

Udyr wasn’t afraid of the fight he would inevitably have with this creature. He wasn’t afraid of anything. His head was clear. And in this certainty… he knew those were bad signs. The Volibear would consume him as readily as Sejuani. But his resolve did not falter. He had sworn an oath to protect Sejuani, as a father would. No matter the cost.

“You will not take her,” Udyr spat.

Silence was the only answer the beast gave as it turned back to its gruesome task.

Whenever the moon rises into a wintery sky, round and red as blood, the spirit walkers of the Freljord know that another of their kind has been born into the world. One attuned to the wilds and the land, one who walks within and beside the spirit that best matches the shape of their heart. On the night of Udyr’s birth, there was nothing in the crimson moon that suggested anything different than that.

Nothing that would suggest Udyr was already the most powerful walker to ever live.

Every being has spirit, whether person or beast, plant or animal, dead or alive or deathless. But unlike his brethren, Udyr’s power of spiritual connection was not limited to one type of spirit—he could hear them all. The needs and wants of everything around him constantly flooded his mind, making it impossible to hear anything above their roar.

His parents did not know how to help him. Their warmother sent for other spirit walkers to train the boy, but each said the same thing: spirit walker training focused on opening oneself up, not closing oneself off.

The first time Udyr tapped into his powers with purpose was the night the Frostguard came for him. Young Udyr, terrified, hid in the forest. He did not expect to feel the life ripped from... everyone. His entire tribe, slaughtered in an instant. Howling with sadness and rage, Udyr took power from the spirits of the forest. With a swipe of his claws and a beating of his wings, he brought the mountain down on the Frostguard. Alone, grieving, and overwhelmed, Udyr wandered the wastes for years, doing what he had to in order to survive.

He did not interact with humans again until he landed the killing blow on a wildclaw that was troubling a Winter’s Claw hunting party. Impressed, they brought Udyr back to camp. Warmother Hejian sent him to be trained in the ways of war alongside her daughter Kalkia. The wild boy showed the lonely daughter how to live in the wild, and she showed him how to live among people. Soon, the Winter’s Claw began to almost feel like a home.

But that changed when a pack of starved and diseased rimefang wolves skulked close to the camp. Udyr lost himself in the fog of the pack’s madness and hunger, attacking and nearly killing a child. It took Kalkia and her mother’s True Ice to stop Udyr. After the wolves had all been slain, Hejian banished Udyr from the Winter’s Claw.

Udyr returned to the mountains, far from those he could hurt. Kalkia would visit whenever she could get away until she was eventually called upon to lead her tribe. She joyfully lifted Udyr’s banishment, but he refused to return. He still had no control over the spirits whose wants and needs howled inside his mind, but swore he would always be there to protect Kalkia and the people she loved. That was the last time they saw one another.

Everything changed when a foreign monk sought him out, saying he had come to train with the spirit walkers so that he may learn how to subdue the dragon spirit that burned within him. Udyr refused, but the monk challenged Udyr for the right to train with him. They fought to their limits, but in the end, neither won.

The monk introduced himself as Lee Sin, and said that this battle had shown him they both had much to learn. He invited Udyr to train in his homeland of Ionia. With nothing left to tie him to the Freljord, Udyr agreed.

The two men grew close during their journey, taking time each day to spar together and to speak of the spirits, but when they finally arrived at Hirana Monastery, they found it besieged by Noxian invaders. Calling upon the spirits of Ionia, Udyr leapt into the fray.

After their victory, the two men asked the abbott for guidance and how to learn control. The abbott told them that self-mastery had no guaranteed end, but agreed to train them both.

For the first time, Udyr’s mind was quiet enough for him to hear his own thoughts. He and Lee trained together to master the spirits within and beside them. With new knowledge and understanding, Udyr was able to help Lee and his dragon find balance with one another. And through this endeavor, Udyr came to understand that harmony and interdependence created a state of balance in Ionia. In contrast, balance in the Freljord was based on a sense of struggle and conflict—of growth and change—where the fight to survive against an uncaring and dangerous environment lived deep in the soul of every Freljordian.

After several years, Udyr’s powers plateaued. He was faced with the choice to stay and train in Ionia, or return to the struggle of his homeland where he could continue his growth. In the end, the choice was obvious.

Lee gave Udyr one of his blindfolds to keep with him—a reminder of his commitment to self-mastery—and asked for a promise. That, once Udyr had achieved what he was looking for in the Freljord, he would return the blindfold to Lee in person. Udyr wrapped the blindfold around his hand before setting off across the world once again to take up the mantle of spirit walker.

A new conflict between an Avarosan and Winter’s Claw warmother greeted Udyr upon his return to the Freljord. The Avarosan wanted to unite the people of the Freljord under a single banner, putting an end to their struggles. Udyr understood that such an action would harm the spirit of the land, and so he decided to offer counsel to the other side—the Winter’s Claw. It was Kalkia’s headstrong daughter Sejuani who received him, and he could feel her need for guidance.

The young woman accepted Udyr’s help, but Sejuani’s trust was hard-won, for she had grown up hearing tales of the spirit walker and his bloodlust. Udyr came to appreciate Sejuani’s drive and cleverness, though her ruthlessness worried him. Sejuani saw wisdom and a warrior’s heart in Udyr, but his frequent absences grated her nerves. In time, they came to view one another like family—a surrogate oathfather and daughter—though they would never say it aloud.

Before long, the other spirit walkers summoned Udyr down to the south. But fate intervened when he met a strange old woman in an enormous coat. She asked for his help with several impossible tasks that he inevitably failed. Entertained by his attempts, she rewarded his efforts with bread so salty that he choked, and water so cold that his veins turned to ice. The old woman laughed at his reaction and shrugged off her coat, and the spiritual power hit Udyr like an avalanche. He passed out, and woke alone. But he could feel something had changed within him—a new power had awakened. He didn't realize it, but the Seal Sister, in one of her many disguises, had tested Udyr and given him her blessing.

Still unnerved by this odd encounter, Udyr joined his brethren in the south and listened as they told him of a strange spiritual shift they had each felt. They feared the Freljord was dying—the spirits of the land itself crumbling from within. Udyr believed that it was the Avarosans, in their efforts to unite the Freljord, that was causing this pain. He told the other spirit walkers as much, and asked them to fight against the Avarosan advance alongside the Winter's Claw. Many were skeptical, but others, afraid that Udyr might be right, agreed.

With his new spiritual power flowing within him, Udyr raced back to the Winter’s Claw to help end this existential threat to the Freljord once and for all.

Night had always been Diana’s favorite time, even as a child. It had been that way since she was old enough to scramble over the walls of the Solari temple and watch the moon traverse the vault of stars. She looked up through the dense forest canopy, her violet eyes scanning for the silver moon, but seeing only its diffuse glow through the thick clouds and dark branches.

The trees were pressing in, black and moss-covered, their branches like crooked limbs reaching for the sky. She could no longer see the path, her route forward obscured by rank weeds and grasping briars. Wind-blown thorns scraped the curved plates of her armor, and Diana closed her eyes as she felt a memory stir within her.

A memory, yes, but not her own. This was something else, something drawn from the fractured recollections of the celestial essence that shared her flesh. When she opened her eyes, a shimmering image of a forest overlaid the close-packed trees before her. She saw the same trees, but from a different time, from when they were young and fruitful and the path between them was dappled with light and edged in wildflowers.

Raised in the harsh environs of Mount Targon, Diana had never seen a forest like this. She knew what she was seeing was an echo of the past, but the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine were as real as anything she had experienced.

“Thank you,” she whispered, following the spectral outline of the ancient path.

It led Diana through overgrown and withered trees that ought to have been long dead. It climbed the slopes of rocky highlands, and passed through stands of twisted pine and wild fir. It crossed tumbling mountain streams and wound its way around sheer slopes before bringing her to a rocky plateau overlooking a vast lake of cold, dark water.

At the center of the plateau was a circle of towering stones, each carved with looping spirals and curving sigils. On every stone Diana saw the same rune that shimmered upon her forehead and knew she had reached her destination. Her skin tingled with a sense of febrile anticipation, a sensation she had come to associate with wild and dangerous magic. Wary now, she approached the circle, eyes scanning for threats. Diana saw nothing, but she knew something was here, something utterly hostile and yet somehow familiar.

Diana moved to the center of the circle and drew her sword. Its crescent blade glittered like diamond in the wan moonlight penetrating the clouds. She knelt with her head bowed, the blade’s tip resting on the ground, its quillons at her cheeks.

She felt them before she saw them.

A sudden drop in pressure. A raw charge to the air.

Diana surged to her feet as the spaces between the stones split apart. The air buckled and a trio of screeching beasts charged her with ferocious speed; ivory flesh, bone-white carapaces of segmented armor and steel talons.

Terrors.

Diana dived beneath a snapping jaw filled with teeth like polished ebony, slashing her sword in an overhead arc that clove the first monster’s skull to its heavy shoulders. The creature fell, its flesh instantly unraveling. She rolled to her feet as the others circled like pack hunters, now wary of her gleaming blade. The creature she had killed now resembled a pool of bubbling tar.

They came at her again, one from each side. Their flesh was already darkening to a bruised purple, hissing in this world’s hostile atmosphere. Diana leapt over the leftmost beast and swung her sword in a crescent arc towards its neck plates. She yelled one of the Lunari’s holy words and incandescent light blazed from the blade.

The beast blew apart from the inside, gobbets of newly-wrought flesh disintegrating before the moonblade’s power. She landed and swayed aside from the last beast’s attack. Not fast enough. Razored talons punched through the steel of her pauldrons and dragged her around. The beast’s chest split apart, revealing a glutinous mass of sense organs and hooked teeth. It bit into the meat of her shoulder and Diana screamed as numbing cold spread from the wound. She spun her sword, holding the grip like a dagger and rammed it into the beast’s body. It screeched, relinquishing its hold. Steaming black ichor poured from its ruptured body. Diana spun away, biting down on the pain racing around her body. She held her moonblade out to the side as the clouds began to thin.

The beast had tasted her blood and hissed with predatory hunger. Its armored form was now entirely gloss black and venomous purple. Bladed arms unfolded and remade themselves in a fan of hooks and talons. Unnatural flesh flowed like wax to seal the awful wound her blade had ripped.

The essence within Diana surged. It filled her thoughts with undying hatred from a distant epoch. She glimpsed ancient battles so terrible that entire worlds had been lost in the fires of their waging; a war that had almost unmade this very world and still might.

The creature charged Diana, its body rippling with the raw power of another realm of existence.

Clouds parted and a brilliant shaft of silver speared downwards. Diana’s sword drank in the radiance of distant moons and light burned along its edge. She brought it down in an executioner’s arc, cleaving plated bone and woven flesh with the power of the night’s illumination.

The beast came apart in an explosive detonation of light, its body utterly unmade by her blow. Its flesh melted into the night, leaving Diana alone on the plateau, her chest heaving with exertion as the power she had joined with on the mountain withdrew to the far reaches of her flesh.

She blinked away after-images of a city that echoed with emptiness where once it had pulsed with life. Sadness filled her, though she had never known this place, but even as she mourned it, the memory faded and she was Diana again.

The creatures were gone and the stones of the circle gleamed with threads of silver radiance. Freed from the touch of the hateful place on the other side of the veil, their healing power seeped into the earth. Diana felt it spreading into the landscape, carried through rock and root to the very bones of the world.

“This night’s work is done,” she said. “The way is sealed.”

She turned to where the moon’s reflection shimmered in the waters of the lake. It beckoned to her, its irresistible pull lodged deep in her soul as it drew her ever onwards.

“But there is always another night’s work,” said Diana.

I watch the worm wriggling its way up from the sand.

Its fronded head sways this way and that as it tastes the air, sensing the ewer of water I keep by my bedside amid the pile of scrolls, bone styluses, and ink pots. The water is two days old, gritty with dust from a well that is dry more often than not—but the worm won’t care.

I admire its courage, emerging from its home beneath the sand before a creature hundreds, if not thousands, of times its size. It must surely know I could crush it beneath my sandaled foot, but it has no fear of me. A hair-fine tongue emerges as the worm eases itself through the hole in the threadbare rug covering the floor of my humble abode.

The rug was a last gift from my mother before I left Kenethet as an apprentice stonemason in the employ of Arch-Mason Nouria. Even as a young man, my skill with a chisel, rasp, and file was well known, and had earned me first place in the annual Feast of the Ascended, where I carved a likeness of Setaka.

It had also drawn the attention of the Arch-Mason, whose great carvings adorned the carved frontage of Magyett Sadja’s silk palace in Nashramae, and the Sun Temple of Bel’zhun. Some said she had even sculpted the likenesses of great men and women across the ocean in a city where the streets were paved in gold and great machines of magic did the work of ten strong men. I do not know if I truly believe these latter tales, for Nouria never speaks of any work she has done beyond the sands of Shurima.

I remember the moment she lifted my statue vividly, though it is close to twenty years ago now...

“How did you choose the look of the queen of the god-warriors?” she asked, her voice not yet worn thin by the years and her lungs not yet ravaged by the dust of her great work. “No true likenesses have ever been found of Setaka.”

I had been prepared for that question and replied with my carefully rehearsed answer.

“I dreamed of her,” I said, with the earnestness of youth. “I dreamed I saw her lead the Last Charge, and she turned to me just before I awoke, her head haloed by the setting sun.”

“A fine answer, young man,” she said, “but I happen to recognize this face. If I’m not mistaken, this is a sand-maiden working in the employ of Benida-Marah.”

I blushed, caught in my lie.

But Arch-Mason Nouria only laughed and said, “Don’t be abashed, boy. You’re not the first artist to use their lover as a model.”

She turned my sculpture this way and that, running her fingertips over the stone and nodding, judging my work and, apparently, finding it worthy.

“How would you like to be my apprentice?” she asked.

I left Kenethet the next day, following the Arch-Mason across the northern reaches of the Sai Kahleek, to Xolan.

To where the faceless god awaited.

I pour a small amount of water onto the ground near the worm before strapping my tool belt around my waist. It hangs loose over my hips, and I fear I may need to use my awl to punch another hole in the leather. Our food is not plentiful, and if the trade caravans do not pass our way, we sometimes go weeks with our meager supplies strictly rationed.

I leave the worm wriggling happily in his little pool, pleased to have been able to help him survive. Every living thing deserves its chance to exist. I am reminded of the mendicant preacher who passed through our town last year, and told me that even the smallest creatures are part of the Great Weaver’s plan.

I wonder what became of her, for she seemed in a great hurry.

Putting her and the worm from my mind, I head outside, feeling the heat of the day even though the sun is still to fully rise. The sky is a velvety blue, a few stars still glittering in pleasing patterns above.

A gust of cold air disturbs the stone dust that swoops in playful spirals along the street. The wind carries the smell of something foul, like spoiled meat or rancid milk, and I wonder if some wild animal is lying dead somewhere nearby.

The ground hereabouts is rocky and mostly inhospitable, but there are signs it was once abundantly fertile and used to raise crops and graze animals. The Shuriman desert is far from the lifeless wasteland many outsiders believe it to be; it has a vibrant ecosystem of flora and fauna, some dangerous, some entirely harmless. Thankfully, we are untroubled by dangerous predators or bandits in Xolan, in part thanks to our remoteness, but also because the elder stonemasons tell us Xolaani herself watches over us, protecting us so that we might restore her to glory.

Work starts early, and scores of yawning masons are already making their way to the great cliff to carry out their assigned tasks. We share morning greetings before scattering to our assigned duties around or upon the great statue.

And though I have seen it every day for the last two decades, it still has the power to take my breath away.

The rock rises vertically in a solid escarpment, a towering wall of ochre stone, layered in wind-worn knife-like outcroppings. Some of those we have cut from the cliff to create our canvas, others we have left as great windbreaks to better preserve our work.

And what work it is! The statue of Ascended Xolaani is, quite literally, a towering achievement.

Around three hundred yards from her carven feet to her shorn neck, the statue carved into the cliff had been all but worn away by centuries of neglect when I first laid eyes upon it. A passing traveler might even have missed it, were their eyes fixed too warily on the horizon.

The wind softened the detail of the sculpted robes wrapped around her legs, and a long-ago rockfall smashed portions of the kaftan billowing around her outflung arms like wings.

But most grievously of all, some ancient wound slashed clean through her carven stone face, leaving no hint as to the god-warrior’s true likeness. This legend from Shurima’s past has remained faceless for uncounted centuries, but we—the stonemasons of Xolan—are poised to finally restore her to glory once more.

If only we could agree on her true face.

“Water and shade to you, Arch-Mason,” I say, climbing onto the lift platform at the base of the cliff.

“Water and shade to you, Mennas,” Arch-Mason Nouria replies, without looking up. “You’re late.”

She says this to me every morning now, a habit she has fallen into lately, though I have never given her a reason to accuse me of tardiness.

“I was slaking the thirst of a worm,” I say.

“A worm?”

“Yes, it comes by every morning, looking for water.”

“And you give it some?”

“I do.”

She shakes her head, but I can see the idea of me keeping a worm as a pet amuses her.

I crane my neck, looking up the length of the statue. This close to the cliff, it is impossible to make out the details, but as we rise we will be able to see the stonework.

A network of scaffolding clings to the face of the cliff like the web of a spider, the wood brought at great expense from the jungles of the east, and the greener lands south of the mountains. Tempered ironwood beams and steps hammered into the rock allow masons to climb to where they need to work. A series of pulleys and ropes serve as an elevator to reach the highest portions of the statue.

It is there that Arch-Mason Nouria and I will be working today.

“Ready?” she asks.

“I am.”

I untie the loops of ropes securing the lift mechanism, and allow the counterweight rope to pull free of its moorings on the lift platform. The whole contraption judders, and I count the knots as we ascend, each one marking a twelve-foot interval.

I sit at the edge of the platform, relishing the increasing sense of height as we rise.

The town of Xolan is not large, a collection of perhaps two hundred souls clustered around a murky lake and patches of greenery that provide a little shade and some fruit from time to time. To live so far from the cities is hard, but what we do here is more important than any human comforts we might miss. Our dwellings are all finely made, as you would expect from a community of stonemasons, each uniquely crafted by the artisans within and reflective of their character and style. My own house is humble, its understated aesthetic reminiscent of my mother’s home in Kenethet.

A work-yard lies at the sunward edge of our town, filled with rock cut from the cliff, fallen boulders, and larger pieces of new, decorative stonework that have yet to be lifted into place.

Were we all to vanish tomorrow, its many statues, carvings, and master-worked blocks would stand as a testament to our life’s work.

A wide channel cuts through the heart of our town, running from the rubble-choked base of the cliff in a zig-zagging manner before disappearing beneath the sands of the Sai Kahleek. Shards of stone and sand fill its length, but I have seen pictures that show this channel was once awash with running water.

If the stories of the Hawk Emperor restoring the ancient city of Shurima to life are true, then little of his liquid bounty has come our way. But when we have restored the faceless god, the channel will once again flow with healing waters, and we will be lauded for our part in the land’s restoration.

“Tell me of Xolaani,” says Nouria, her eyes somewhere far away.

I have been waiting for this, and turn to smile at her.

This is another habit she has fallen into—having me recite the history of the god-warrior as we ascend. I do not mind indulging her, for it is good to remember why we do this, why we have all devoted our lives to restoring the face of the Ascended, even if much of what we know is fragmentary.

“Xolaani was said to be the daughter of a healer,” I begin, closing my eyes and tilting my head to the east, “a child born under the Aspect of the Protector at an auspicious passage of the sun. She lived in a time of great change for Shurima, when the war against the vile thaumaturges had just begun, and the armies of the emperor had suffered a great defeat before the walls of Icathia.

“Great was the suffering, and Xolaani worked tirelessly to save as many lives as she could, speaking out against the folly of emperors that still drove the tribes of the sun to make war with one another.”

Nouria nods, her eyes drifting over the horizon, as if seeing something I can not.

Is it my imagination, or do I detect a milkiness to the once sapphire-blue of her eyes...?

Sensing my scrutiny, she turns away. “Go on.”

“It is said that she saved hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives, but mourned that they were saved only to be sent back into the fighting. Some say she even spoke out against the emperor, calling him a warmonger and a despot.”

“Your tone tells me you find that unlikely,” says Nouria.

“If she spoke out against the emperor, why would he later agree to her being gifted with Ascension?”

“It was not the emperor who decreed who would rise to meet the sun, but the priests who read the augurs and charted the course of the future in the beams of its golden light. Rare would it be for any emperor to defy the will of the sun.”

“But not unheard of?”

She coughs, her lungs still weak from the fever that struck her last winter.

“No, not unheard of,” she says finally. “All too easy for one to manipulate the other. But keep going. Tell me what became of Xolaani when Shurima fell. Tell me about the conflict that followed.”

I’ve never needed to tell this part of the story. We always reach our destination before the details of Xolaani’s history grow more obscure. But now, with us bound for the missing face of the god-warrior, I have no choice but to continue.

The Arch-Mason catches my hesitation. “You have studied this, yes?”

“I have,” I assure her, “but many of our scrolls are incomplete, or wilfully opaque, filled with stories that are clearly exaggerated, or possibly entirely fabricated.”

“Tell me anyway.”

I nod and try to piece what fragments I have been able to gather into a coherent narrative, but I already know I will disappoint her.

“It is said there was a war. That without the Hawk Emperor, Azir, to guide them, a great conflict erupted between the Ascended Host—one the scrolls say almost tore the world apart.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I do not know,” I say, honestly. “History is full of conflicts that speak of world-ending threats, and while I am sure they would have been terrible to live through, the idea of them all being so cataclysmic feels... unlikely.”

“You may be right, but the long passage of the years has a tendency to dim the fires of such wars in the memory. What part did Xolaani play in this conflict?”

“Nothing certain,” I reply. “I have found little mention of her taking part in the wars between the god-warriors and those who would become known and feared as Darkin. There are veiled references to a being known as Ta’anari begging her to intervene and save the lives of the fallen. In some tellings she refuses, but others say she chose to bestow her healing gifts on those she deemed worthy, that she knew the innermost secrets of blood so deeply she could even return the dead to life. A final tale speaks of how she angered the most vicious of the Darkin, who struck her a fateful blow that laid her low for many centuries.”

Nouria knows much more of Xolaani than I, but likes to hear me tell the stories, as though being reminded helps carve them deeper into her memory.

In truth, I wonder if her mind has reached the point where these retellings are new to her each day... if she has begun the slow descent into her dotage.

I am spared further questions when the lift arrives at our destination.

Locking the ropes in place and hauling the restraining bar into position, we carefully step out onto the rocky ledge that runs around the colossal shoulders of the faceless god-warrior.

When the work is finally complete, the ledge will be hacked away and smoothed off, but for now it serves as our vantage point. I look down, unfazed by the dizzying drop.

I imagine what Xolan would look like were the waters to flow again.

A faded illustration in one of the elder stonemasons’ books shows water tumbling from the top of the cliff and falling in graceful arcs to either side of the great statue. In that picture, the small lake at the heart of our community is wide and full, its waters a wondrous shade of cerulean blue that narrows until it becomes a river flowing out into Shurima.

It is my hope that if we can divine the true face of Xolaani, that river will live again.

I hope to see the water soon.

Whatever fears I might harbor regarding Arch-Mason Nouria’s mind, she has lost none of her skill with the tools of her trade. Her hands may be tanned and leather-tough from years of practicing her craft, but they are graceful like no others when it comes to working the stone.

We are applying the last touches to the collar, layering in deeper folds that will cast a shadow that can be seen from the ground. It is an illusion, an old stonemason’s trick she taught me the first day I worked the rock of the cliff.

Today’s labors are more suited to that of a journeyman than a skilled mason like Nouria—but I sense that she needs to be working with her hands today, to be close to the stone.

All that remains to be carved is the statue’s face, but what features she should possess is a question upon which none of the stonemasons of Xolan can agree. The illustration depicting the waterfall is the only guide we have, and the face behind it is indistinct, hidden by the spray of water. Every mason within the village has sought to bring forth the truth of her visage in dreams, in drink, in prayer, but no consensus has yet been reached.

By mid-afternoon, there is little left for us to do, so we sit on the lip of the ledge, looking out over the undulant horizon. The sky is now a lush azure, the sun a copper disc descending in the west. The dunes ripple in the heat, as if disturbed from below.

In the deepest desert, sandswimmers leave hissing grooves in their wake—but here the bedrock is too close to the surface for them, so we rarely see the sand spouts that mark their passing.

“How do you think the meeting will go tonight?” asks the Arch-Mason, breaking my train of thought.

“Much like the others, I suspect.”

“I hear that Elder Bourai believes he is close to a likeness we may all agree upon.”

“You said that about Mason Ulantor’s proposal last month.”

“I did?”

“Yes, and Master Regouma’s the time before that.”

“Ah, yes, I did, didn’t I?” she says sadly. “All the more reason for this night’s meeting to be different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I will present this to the elders tonight,” says Nouria, pulling a folded scroll from her robes and holding it out to me.

“What is that?” I ask, almost reluctant to take it.

“Look,” she urges. “Then you’ll see.”

Taking the scroll, I hesitantly unfold it. My eyes widen as I see the charcoal sketch she has drawn. Had she not been called to the stone, Nouria could almost certainly have become one of Shurima’s greatest artists.

She has drawn a face, one that is beyond compare, a chimeric blend of the inhuman and the sublime. There is deep wisdom in the dark pools of its hooded eyes, infinite compassion, but also the capacity for lethal violence inherent in each of the god-warriors.

“It’s... incredible. How did you do this?”

“It came to me in a dream,” she says, with an impish grin that takes decades from her wind-worn face. “Just as you did with your sculpture of Setaka, remember?”

“But I was lying. Is this really the Ascended Xolaani?”

Nouria shrugs. “It might as well be.”

“What does that mean?”

She sighs, and I see the toll the years have taken on this brilliant woman. The stiffness in her fingers, the weariness deep in her bones, and—yes, now that I look harder—the growing mist in her eyes. She twists her head to look up at the scarred rock where the face of the Ascended should be.

“This will be my last sculpture,” says Nouria. “There is a sickness in my heart. My mother had it, as did hers before her. I am older now than when they died, so I will count myself fortunate if I live to see the year’s end. I do not wish to pass before seeing my greatest work completed.”

“But is it real?” I ask. “If the elders accept this and we carve it, will it be real?”

She takes back the picture, her face betraying her disappointment in me, and looks down at the gray-brown lake.

“I just want to see the blue waters flow,” she says. “One last time.”

I lay on my bed, but sleep eludes me. I watch the moonlight move across my mother’s rug as the lonely hours of the night pass without the elders coming to a decision. The voices echoing from the Mason’s Hall are as strident as when they first began, but I suspect I already know what the outcome will be.

Respect for Arch-Mason Nouria holds powerful sway in our community, and her drawing is more magnificent than any yet presented to the elders.

I believe they will accept it as a true likeness, because it is miraculous.

They will accept it because they are tired of not knowing.

We all want the work to be completed in our lifetimes, to know that the face of the god who has watched over us for all these years will finally be finished.

We all want to see the waters flow once more.

For decades, we have bickered and debated, but every interpretation we have attempted to place upon Xolaani is hamstrung by our so-very-mortal sensibilities.

How can we, beings so far removed from the time of the Ascended, ever hope to know them, or imagine their likenesses? They are beings wrought by the power of the sun, raised up to godhood by powers both ancient and divine.

To imagine that any of us could set down their form is arrogant beyond words, and I feel a simmering resentment knot my gut at Nouria’s presumption. I am gripping the edge of my bed, a turbulent storm of emotions churning in my gut.

My mouth is dry with fear and unease.

For a moment, I dearly want the Arch-Mason’s drawing to be real, but how can I be sure?

I scoop up a handful of water from the ewer and splash it over my face. It tastes old and the flecks of stone dust wear at my teeth. I run my tongue over my gums and spit a gritty mouthful back onto the dusty floor.

To have spent so long working the stone only to falter at the last for the sake of convenience seems inherently wrong to me. I understand Nouria’s desire to see the work completed before she dies, but to present her vision as truth...?

What if we finish the great work on a lie? I do not like where this thought will lead, and so I stand, pulling on a woolen cloak to keep the night’s chill at bay.

Something crunches beneath my foot.

The frond-mouthed sandworm is dead beneath my sandal.

Its flattened, segmented body is faintly luminous in the moonlight, and my eyes fill with tears. It is only a tiny worm, but I feel an aching sadness at its needless death.

I chide myself for mourning the passing of a worm, when a whisper of warm breath sighs through my window, bearing a sound I have not heard since leaving Kenethet.

I cannot be certain, but it sounds like the pygmy owls that used to nest in the night-woods at the edge of the Sai Kahleek, luring insects with their clicking chirps. I climb the ladder to the roof of my home and open the bolted shutter, feeling the cool night air chill my skin, even through my cloak.

Standing on the flat roof, knowing I will surely not see a pygmy owl, I search the night sky all the same.

There is no owl of course, but lowering my gaze, I see something far stranger.

The lake at the center of our community is gone.

Its levels rise and fall with the seasons, yes, but there is always water.

Now it is gone, simply an empty, rocky basin, its exposed banks and lakebed patterned with a curious spiral, as though the water had carved the mud before vanishing.

The warm wind emanates from where the lake once lay, and I look up at the faceless god carved in the cliff.

“Xolaani, show me the way,” I whisper as I drop from the roof to the sand and make my way toward the vanished lake.

It chills me to see the lakebed emptied, not because we relied upon it for our water, but because to see it vanished on the very night we may finally know the face of Xolaani feels portentous.

Kneeling at the edge, I run my fingers over the mud on its sloping banks. I expect it to be moist and pliant, but it is hard and glassy—like glazed clay after being fired in a kiln.

“What could have done this?” I whisper. The entirety of the lakebed has been vitrified to the same enameled consistency.

Once again, I hear the strange sound that drew me from my house, like chattering birds in the high branches of palm trees. It seems to be coming from the center of the lakebed, and I carefully make my way down the ridged slopes.

The bottom is flat, filled with broken shards of stone, fragments carelessly discarded by the craftsmen above. I see a stone-cut hand with two of its fingers missing, a foot with the heel broken off.

I see faces too. Some are half-sunk into the strangeness of the glassy lakebed, some split open down their length, others looking like they are pressing up from beneath the surface. Their faces are grotesque horrors, their mouths stretched in contorted grimaces. I cannot imagine any of the stonemasons of Xolan having carved such monstrous things, but understand why they would wish to be rid of them.

I give these ghastly things a wide berth.

Moonlight skitters over the rippled glass beneath my feet, sending fractured reflections all around me. Is it my imagination, or is the surface of the lakebed glowing with a soft, inner radiance? The full moon makes it hard to be sure, but then a cloud passes over its face and I am suddenly certain; there is a faint light pulsing from the ground.

It takes a moment for me to realize it is precisely in sync with the beating of my heart.

My steps carry me towards the center of the lakebed, which I now see is the source of the light and the whispering, chattering birds. The ground at the center of the spiral is cracked, split open, and ever so slightly sunken. Hairline cracks radiate outward, and when the wind changes, my stomach heaves as I catch the same rancid smell from earlier this morning.

It is the stench of an opened grave, of meat and fruit left to rot in the sun.

I take a single step back, then another.

Before I can take a third, my eyes narrow as I see a long flat shard of stone, like a mask made for a giant.

The moon emerges from behind the clouds, and the exposed stone’s surface shines like polished porcelain. The beauty of the face carved into the stone takes my breath away, blended as it is with an inhuman, but alluringly wise mien of something atavistic.

Its eyes seem to glimmer with a wisdom far beyond anything I could conceive, and I try to memorize its every contour, knowing that Xolaani herself has guided me to this revelation. I neither know nor care how this thing came to be submerged beneath our lake, that it is here and has been revealed to me on this singular night is enough for me.

I kneel beside the softly glowing stone, reaching to touch it with trembling fingertips.

Faith brought me to Xolan all those years ago, and now my faith has been rewarded.

I must bring the elders to see this miracle...

No sooner has the thought formed in my mind than the ground at the center of the lake breaks apart with a splintering crack like the clean hammer-cut of a block. Portions of the lakebed fall inwards, drawn down into the growing sinkhole.

I scramble backward as the cracks spread wider and wider.

The charnel stench billows up from below, and I feel the night grow still, the wind dropping away and the stars holding their breath.

Something emerges from the hole at the center of the lakebed, a pale, spindle-thin appendage that reminds me of the frond-mouthed worm in my home. It is swiftly followed by another and, together, they haul the pulsating, segmented body of a... a thing from below.

It is the size of a hound, its soft grub-like body tapered, wet, and glistening.

Just looking at it leaves a bilious taste in my mouth.

A multitude of black orbs ripple into existence on the surface of its head, and its skin splits apart as a circular, fang-rimmed mouth rips open. Black ichor drips from the toothed orifice. As it turns its misshapen head towards me, terror fills my veins with ice.

Another creature hauls its insect-like bulk to the surface, its form just as horrible as the first, an unnatural assembly of bladed limbs, dripping teeth, and chitinous armor. More are following, and my mind screams in terror.

But the sound they make is enough to melt the ice in my veins.

Pushing myself upright, I turn and run, no thought but escape burning in my mind. I hear them behind me, a skittering cacophony of sharp claws on the glassy lakebed. Their hissing, rasping cries echo strangely from the rock.

It is a sound not of this world.

Breathless with terror, I climb the slopes of the empty lake, scrabbling for purchase and finding none. The ground is glass, not mud, and my fingers are slick with fear-sweat. I kick off my sandals, and the bare skin of my feet gives enough grip to haul myself over the lip of the banks.

I scramble onto my knees, risking a swift glance over my shoulder.

The lakebed is filled with the hideous, chittering beasts, hundreds of them now. They swarm together—blind, idiot things, hooting and braying, hissing and spitting as they boil up from the ground. Dozens more emerge from the widening sinkhole with every passing second.

I weep as I see the porcelain face obscured by their monstrous forms, the stone flowing like wax, as though their very presence is anathema to its beauty.

With tears in my eyes and sobs wracking my chest, I turn and run for the Mason’s Hall, screaming a warning at the top of my lungs.

“Monsters! Flee!”

I cannot tell if I have been heard, but my foolish urge to look back has cost me dear.

Something sharp and hooked slashes over the back of my thigh, and I fall, going down in a graceless tangle of limbs. I roll, feeling a terrible burning heat spread from the wound as blood pours down my leg. I try to stand, but the leg is useless beneath me.

I hear voices—panicked, terrified cries as the stonemasons of Xolan see the hundreds of terrible things swarming toward them.

Someone rings a warning bell, but it will do no good.

I roll onto my back as one of the creatures rears over me. Its chest splits open down its length, revealing a fleshy red cavity of toothed tentacles and barbed fangs. It falls on me, the gaping maw of its body fastening on my stomach and devouring me in a frenzy of ripping teeth.

It is agony beyond imagining as the thing eats me alive.

But I cannot die looking at this nightmarish creature, and so with the last of my strength, I turn my head to look up at Ascended Xolaani.

“They said you watched over us...”

I almost expect her to reply, but she has no face and so she says nothing.

“The gods were angry, and shook the land. Cracks rent the earth,” said old Khaldun, his crag-featured face lit by firelight. “It was into one of these fissures that a young man ventured. He found an opening; the entrance to a tomb, hidden for the Jackal knows how long. The man had little ones to feed and a wife to please, and so he ventured in, lured by opportunity.”

Adults and children alike crowded in close to hear the old storyteller’s words. They were all weary - they had traveled far that day, and the Shuriman sun had been unrelenting - but Khaldun’s tales were a rare treat. They drew their cloaks tight around their shoulders against the chill of the night and leaned in.

“The air was cool in the tomb, a merciful relief from the scorching heat outside. The young man lit a torch. Its light made shadows dance before him. He stepped cautiously, wary of traps. He was poor, but he was no fool.

“The walls inside were smooth obsidian and carved with ancient writings and images. He could not read – he was a simple man – but he studied the images.

“He saw a boy prince, sitting cross-legged upon a sun disk borne by a team of servants, a beaming smile upon his face. Chests of coins and riches were piled before him, the offerings of strangely garbed, bowing emissaries.

“He saw other carvings, again showing the smiling prince, this time walking among his people. Their heads were pressed to the ground before him. Stylized rays of sunshine radiated from the boy’s crown.

“Before one of these images was a small, gold statue. It alone was worth more than he could have hoped to earn in ten lifetimes. The young man took it, slipping it into his satchel.

“He did not intend to linger. He knew it would not be long before others came upon this place. When they did, he wanted to be gone. Greed makes fools of even the greatest men, and he knew that others would willingly spill his blood to claim that golden statue - and the other riches that were surely further in. Avarice was not one of the young man’s faults, however. He felt no need to delve further. The other treasures hidden here were someone else’s to claim.

“He looked upon one last image before he left the tomb. It showed the boy prince dead, lying upon a bier. Those closest to him were wailing... but further back, people were celebrating. Had the boy prince been beloved, or had he been a tyrant? There was no way of knowing.

“That was when he heard it: a sound in the darkness that made his skin crawl.

“He looked around, wide eyed, holding his torch up before him. Nothing.

“‘Who’s there?’ he said. Silence was his only answer.

“The young man shook his head. ‘It is just the wind, you fool,’ he thought. ‘Nothing but the wind.’

“Then he heard it again, more distinctly this time. A child was crying in the darkness further into the tomb.

“Heard anywhere else, his paternal instinct would have been to go to the sound. But here, in the darkness of a funereal tomb?

“He wanted to run... but he did not. The sobbing touched his heart. It was filled with such misery and grief.

“Was it possible there was another entrance to this tomb? Had a young boy found his way down here and become lost?

“Torch held high, he crept forward. The weeping continued, echoing faintly through the gloom.

“A wide chamber opened before him, its floor black and highly reflective. Golden artifacts and jewel-inlaid walls glinted within. Gingerly, he entered the room.

“He stepped back sharply as his heel sent ripples spreading out across the floor. Water. The floor was not made of reflective obsidian – it was covered in water.

“Kneeling, he scooped a handful of it to his lips. He spat it out immediately. It was salt water! Here, in the heart of Shurima, a thousand leagues from the nearest sea!

“He heard the sound of the boy weeping once more, closer now.

“Holding his torch before him, the young man glimpsed a shape at the edge of its light. It appeared to be the child, sitting with his back to the man.

“Carefully, he stepped into the room. The water upon the floor was not deep. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and fear clutched at his chest, yet he did not turn to run.

“‘Are you lost?’ he asked, as he stepped closer. ‘How did you get here?’

“The shadowed figure did not turn... but he did speak.

“‘I... I don’t remember,’ he said. The sound swam around the young man, echoing off the walls. The boy spoke in an old dialect. His words were strange... but understandable. ‘I don’t remember who I am.’

“‘Be calm, child,’ said the man. ‘All will be well.’

“He stepped closer, and the figure resolved itself before him. His eyes widened.

“The shape before him was a god-statue carved in onyx, nothing more. It was not the source of the crying, nor of the child’s voice.

“That was when a small, dry hand grabbed him.”

The youngest of the listeners gasped, his eyes wide. The other children laughed in false bravado. Old Khaldun smiled, a golden tooth glinting in the firelight. Then, he continued.

“The young man looked down. The linen-wrapped corpse of the tiny prince stood beside the man. Dull, ghostly light emanated from the deathly boy’s eye sockets, though his entire face was bound in burial wrappings. The corpse-child held the man’s hand.

“‘Will you be my friend?’ the boy asked, his voice muffled by linen.

“The young man lurched backward, breaking free of the child’s grasp. The young man looked down at his arm in horror; his hand was shriveling, turning black and withered. The wasting touch then began to climb up his arm.

“He turned and ran. In his shock and haste, he dropped his lantern. It hissed as it fell into the lake of tears, and darkness descended. Still, he could just make out the glow of daylight up ahead. He ran toward it, scrambling desperately, even as the wasting death crept up his arm towards his heart.

“At any moment, he expected to feel the deathly boy’s grasp upon him... but did not. After what felt like an eternity, but could only have been a matter of heartbeats, he burst from the darkness into the desert heat once more.

“‘I’m sorry,’ echoed a mournful voice from the gloom behind him. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

“And thus, the Tomb of Amumu was unearthed,” said old Khaldun, “and the deathly child released into the world.”

“But everyone knows he isn’t real!” cried one of the children, the oldest of them, after a moment of silence.

“Amumu is real!” said the youngest. “He’s wandering the land trying to find a friend!”

“He’s real, but he isn’t a boy,” said another. “He’s a Yordle!”

Khaldun laughed, and pushed himself to his feet with the aid of a gnarled walking stick.

“I am old, and we have far to travel tomorrow,” he said. “It is past time I was abed.”

His audience began to dissipate, smiling and talking in low, familial voices, but one child did not move. She stared at Khaldun, unblinking.

“Grandfather,” she said. “How did you lose your arm?”

Old Khaldun looked down at the empty sleeve pinned at his shoulder, then flashed the girl a grin.

“Goodnight, little one,” he said with a wink.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eventually, Piltover started to feel less like home.

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

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

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

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

There’s this dream I keep having.

It starts pitch black. It’s so dark, I’m not sure my eyes are even open. It’s like being woken up when the power’s gone out. All those familiar bits of light snuffed out, swallowed up. Just me and an empty night.

I can’t help myself. I reach out, hoping that it is just a blackout, that I can just push away the weight of being alone like too many heavy blankets. But the darkness doesn’t move.

I tread midnight like water in a well, all the while the cold drip of loneliness slips down my back. Then I realize that there’s no surface to break. My chest tightens. My panic rises and it’s hard to breathe. I’m in way over my head. Then someone or something’s pulled the plug at the bottom of the darkness and I’m sinking further into the inky black. My mouth opens to yell, to scream, but only silence comes out.

What did I expect when I have a mouth full of nothing? My heart’s beating too fast. Just when I’m about to give up, just when I’m about to let go, I feel them.

Janna. Lulu. Poppy. Jinx. I feel their light. It’s like warmth and joy and comfort and laughter got balled up together so tightly they had no choice but to catch fire.

My eyes are open. Maybe they were there from the beginning, but this is the first time I can truly see. Their faces are so beautiful, so peaceful. They’re sleeping, dreaming maybe, untroubled by the darkness that surrounds us. I stretch my arms out, but they’re too far. That’s when I realize we’re falling.

The horizon of a world big and blue rushes up to meet us. I can’t concentrate on where we’re going, the danger that’s fast approaching. At this point I don’t care. All I can see are my sisters falling. The atmosphere of the planet below us burns hot, and their lights ignite.

My arms ache to the bone. I try to catch them. I try to hold on, but I can’t stop them from falling. I’m not strong enough to keep us together. I’m not enough for them. The tips of my own fingers start to glow and break apart. The last thing I see is their emblems darkening as their light shatters into a rainbow of ragged cinders.

And then I wake up.

I’m in my bed, the blanket in a sweaty tangle. The darkness is gone, replaced by a muted gray. I’ve taken to sleeping with one of the windows open. I walk over to it and watch the street below. The soft glow of the lights outside paints me and my room in shadow.

Above all the sleeping quiet is darkness. I can feel it still, stretching on and on. It’s hard to see the stars from the city. Just a few pinpoints of light break it up. But I know more are out there. Somewhere.

I crawl back into bed and wait for the dawn. I don’t go to sleep. I can’t. The dream is the same.

Always the same.

“Are you going to join us?”

Jinx is lying on a plastic lounge chair in the backyard, while Shiro and Kuro are napping in the grass at her feet. It’s hard to tell if she’s heard me. Abnormally large plastic sunglasses cover her eyes and most of her eyebrows. She’s got one earbud tucked in her left ear, but I can see the other dangling over the side of the recliner.

She totally heard me.

“Hey, are you coming inside? We’re going to get started.”

Jinx sticks a wad of fluorescent gum back into her mouth, chews loudly, cracking the bubbles with her teeth, and then slowly begins to blow a big, pink bubble. When she gets the bubble big enough to obscure her sunglasses, she sucks it back in with a loud pop.

“Summer’s not gonna last forever, Lux,” she says without looking over. She folds her arms behind her head. Feathered clouds pass in the reflection in her sunglasses. “Better soak all this up before it’s gone.”

She twirls the end of one long red pigtail around the tip of her finger, challenging me to give her something worth coming inside for.

“You’re right,” I say. She loves it when she thinks she’s right. “Summer’s almost over. I just think we should talk about… things. You know, before school starts again.”

Jinx purses her lips and blows a raspberry in the air.

I should not have mentioned school. Definitely lost her there.

“Well,” I say, trying a different tactic, “I guess you don’t want any of the popsicles Poppy brought?”

Jinx sits up, straddling the recliner. Kuro startles awake, yawns, and mischievously starts to tumble the still sleeping Shiro over in the grass. Jinx pushes the enormous sunglasses up to sit on her forehead, making it look like giant plastic stars are shooting out of her pigtails.

“Popsicles?”

“Yep,” I say as I step inside the house. “Shaped like rockets.” I shut the sliding glass door behind me and walk towards the kitchen. Five seconds later I hear the door slide open and shut.

Thank the stars. As temperamental as Jinx is, she can be awfully predictable about desserts. And ammunition.

My peace is momentary. As I walk into the kitchen, Poppy is standing on a chair in front of the stove, turning pancakes on the griddle, her determination and focus evident from the bend in her elbows and the iron grip she has on a big metal spatula. There is a trail of batter and sticky syrup linking her to the refrigerator and the counter.

“Uh, Poppy, what’s going on? I was gone for, like, five minutes,” I say as Jinx elbows past me, making a beeline for the freezer.

“Lulu said she was hungry,” Poppy says over her shoulder. She shrugs and turns her concentration back to flipping the thin batter in front of her. “I made pancakes.”

Lulu is sitting at the kitchen table intently drawing with one hand and stabbing a bite full of pancake with the other, unconcerned with the food drama surrounding her. Pix is gnawing on an uncapped green marker. Lulu scratches her familiar’s head without looking up from her own work.

“Sounds good, Shortstop.” Jinx claps Poppy on the back and then slides into one of the chairs, all while slurping one of the rocket-shaped popsicles. “Make me one shaped like a star? No, wait, one shaped like a missile? Oooh, I know, how about a star missile? I need rainbow sprinkles!”

“Oh, look who finally decided to join us,” Poppy mutters to the griddle.

Chaos. Utter chaos. There’s pancake batter on the ceiling. How are we supposed to save the universe if we can’t get it together ourselves? Janna is quietly washing the pile of dishes that Poppy’s been creating. She’s staring out the window in front of the sink. Zephyr is sitting on the counter next to her attempting to lick the syrup from its paws.

“So,” I start to pace in the little bit of open space in the kitchen. “I think we should talk about the next year. School’s about to start and…”

“Hey, whatcha drawing, Loopy?” Jinx leans over Lulu’s shoulder, stealing a bite of her pancake with a spare fork. She doesn’t want to think about the future so badly, she’ll even feign interest in Lulu to get out of it. I try to keep my deep sigh inaudible.

I start again. “As I was saying, we…”

“It’s the starfall,” Lulu interrupts, completely unconcerned that words were coming out of my mouth. “The new stars are coming.” Without looking up she pushes a paper flyer across the table towards Jinx. A glob of whipped cream and sprinkles drips off Jinx’s pancake piece onto the paper as Jinx gives it a once over. She smirks and leaves it on the table. I can see the flyer has more than ten words and only one picture, so of course Jinx has totally lost interest in it.

I stop my pacing behind Lulu, taking a good look at what our little artist has been drawing for the first time. It’s a field with some trees around the edge. The five of us are standing in the field looking up at a night sky. Janna being the tall, purple one, Poppy has her hammer, and Jinx’s long, red pigtails are easy to pick out. I guess I’m the round pink one. Does my hair really stick out of the sides of my head like that?

“This is you?” I ask, pointing to the green-haired one in the meadow of green and black fireflies. Lulu nods, biting her lip in concentration as she shades in the dark blue of the sky. Among the penciled-in stars there are more colors.

“What about these?” Jinx asks, pointing at the colored bits.

“New stars, of course,” she says, rolling her eyes at Jinx. Lulu looks up at me. “Can we go?”

“There are no more new stars here,” Poppy says as she turns another pancake.

There’s a loud clatter from the sink as Janna fumbles a plate. “Sorry,” she stammers as she catches it.

I walk over and stand next to her. Through the kitchen window I can see the wispy clouds are gone; it’s just a big, empty summer sky. In the sink, Janna slides the sponge around the plate’s outer rim in a slow, wet orbit.

“Nice save,” I say, offering Janna a towel off the counter. “The slippery ones are the hardest to hold onto.”

Janna looks over at me and then down at the plate she’s been washing. Her cheeks color pink, betraying her normally cool demeanor. Something’s up.

She nods and puts the extra-clean plate in the dish rack. She tucks a lock of lavender hair behind her ear and picks up another syrup-drenched plate from the stack on the counter.

Yup, something’s definitely up.

Jinx, oblivious as usual, continues to drown her pile of pancakes in syrup, alternating layers with whipped cream and sprinkles.

“You know how much I hate to agree with our blue-haired door stop,” Jinx says as she crams a full fork in her mouth. “But Loops, it’s just us against all the big bad this part of the galaxy has to offer.”

Lulu puts down her pen and picks up the flyer, handing it to me. I take it and wipe off Jinx’s melting clump of whipped cream and sprinkles with a kitchen towel, smearing a wet rainbow trail across the top of the paper.

“'Camp Targon’s Summer Starfall. Watch the summer meteor shower. Get out of the city and get to know some new stars. Games and amusement. Last chance for summer fun',” I read aloud. “It’s hosted by the Astronomy class at the university and open to all the local high school students.”

I look up. No one’s listening. Lulu’s back to drawing. Poppy and Jinx are stacking more and more pancakes on their plates, determined to see who can eat the most. I can see Janna’s face in the reflection of the window. She’s lost in the sky again.

The paper crunches in my hand. I ease my grip, embarrassed by how tightly I’m holding on. The deadline to register for the camp is today.

“Last chance,” I breathe the words to myself. I look at the girls; everyone’s going in different directions. They are not going to be happy about this. But I’m the captain. This will be good for them. “It will be good for us,” I whisper out loud, talking myself into the decision.

“Pack your bags, ladies,” I say loudly, pasting a bright, shiny smile on my face. The bubbly confidence is as much a show for them as it is for me. Each of them looks up, unsure of what is about to happen.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and start dialing the number on the flyer. “We’re going to welcome some new stars.”

Jinx slips a floppy sunhat on as she ambles down from the bus. She had insisted on wearing her bathing suit on the ride over. The obnoxiously loud colors of her bikini are tempered only by the sheer cover-up billowing behind her in the breeze.

“Alright, nerds,” she sighs. “I’m going to find the pool. Time for some cannonballs.”

“It’s a lake,” Poppy corrects her while carefully watching the bus driver unload our gear onto a patch of grass.

“Whatever, Short Stack.” Jinx grabs a tote bag graffitied with hand-drawn stars and over-sized guns from the top of the pile. As she passes Lulu, Jinx tugs on the teal butterfly bow in Lulu’s hair. “See ya later, Loops.”

I look at Poppy.

“She didn’t actually bring a cannon, did she?”

Poppy shrugs. “Do you really think she could keep her mouth shut about it if she did?”

I’m about to call after Jinx and insist she stay with the group, when I hear a groan behind me. I watch as the bus driver pulls out the last bag, his arms quivering with the effort. The blue duffel is nearly as big as Poppy. She watches him carefully, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm in the dry grass.

He sets the duffel down with a little grunt. “What have you got in there, kid? Rocks?”

“Nope.” Poppy reaches over and snatches up the handles of the duffel, swinging it over her shoulder with ease. She flashes a toothy, satisfied grin at the bus driver. “A hammer.”

Poppy gives me the same smile, I’m sure remembering the challenge I gave everyone before we left, that we’re here to blend in and hang out. Be normal. She grabs the handle of Jinx’s forgotten wheeled bag and nudges Lulu gently.

“Come on, Lulu. Our campsite isn't going to set itself up,” she says cheerfully.

Lulu nods, humming a song only she knows the melody to. She flutters from wildflower to pinecone to pebble, marveling at every treasure the camp has to offer while Poppy maintains her dutiful march down the trail.

The bus starts back up again and then pulls onto the road. I watch until it disappears behind an outcropping of rocks and trees.

“No turning back now, huh, Janna?” All I can hear is a breeze blowing through the pines. I spin around slowly. The last of the other stragglers from the bus are already halfway down the trail to the camp. The bus drop off point is empty. “Janna?”

I finally find Janna standing on the rounded top of a granite boulder that’s sunk deep in dirt. She’s got her back to me. Her hands are wrapped around her arms and the curls of her lavender hair are bouncing in the invisible breeze.

“Janna?”

I drop my backpack on a clump of grass and clamber up to stand next to her. Down in the little valley below us I can see the bustle of other campers and teams setting up. Between the trees there’s the glittery sparkle of Lake Lunari. My bet is that Jinx has already launched herself in there. I feel a smile cross my face as I wonder if she realizes that it’s fed by snowmelt.

But Janna’s not looking at any of that. She’s so tall. I shade my eyes from the sun and look up for a few minutes, straining to see what she sees. It’s another piercingly blue summer sky, empty save for the craggy face of Mount Targon and a few white clouds. My elbow brushes her arm as I shift my position.

Janna looks over surprised.

“Oh. Hi,” she says, like I haven’t been standing next to her for the last five minutes. She smiles, but I can tell that she’s still worried about whatever it is that’s been bothering her. She looks over to where the bus dropped us off.

“Where did everybody go?”

“Wow.” I shake my head. “You really are somewhere else, huh?” I look back at the purplish-gray outline of Mt. Targon framed by a dark fringe of pine. There’s still snow on the peak this late in the summer.

Janna rubs her hands over her bare shoulders and sucks in a breath as if she were suddenly chilled. It’s not even a little cold. The clear sky and sun overhead make me wish for the first time that I had followed Jinx’s advice and just worn a swimsuit and shorts. I fan my face with our camp registration.

“We should get going,” Janna says, her long legs stepping down easily from the boulder as if walking on air. She looks back at me as I fumble down the rock. Her smile fades as she glances back up at the sky. “There’s a storm coming.”

“What?” I try and look back at the sky, but my foot slips on a pocket of loose gravel and the roundness of the rock. As usual, too many things at once. I sit down hard in a puff of dust, the back of my leg scraping on the rock.

“Ow.” I wince at the sting. Just what I need. Lulu, Poppy, and Jinx blown to the corners of the camp. Janna feeling like she’s on another planet. And now their intrepid leader is going to be taken out by her own two left feet.

“Fantastic,” I mumble into my hand as I rub my face.

A cool breeze catches the damp hair at the back of my neck. I look up to Janna offering a healing hand.

“Nope,” I say. I manage a smile. “I’m fine. Remember, no powers while we’re here.”

Janna shrugs. “Better be careful then, we’ve only got one leader,” she says. She looks at me and I’m sure she can hear all the doubt rattling around in my head. She turns back to the trail as I stand up.

“Let’s hurry,” she calls over her shoulder. “We’d all be lost without you.”

I let out the breath I’ve been holding. That’s what I’m afraid of.

The camp information table is draped in dark purple fabric. Rocks and big pinecones hold down stacks of different photocopied flyers. Sitting behind the table is a girl with long black hair. No, not a girl. She looks too old to be in high school and way too cool for a dusty table at a summer camp. She must be one of the Astronomy class sponsors. I hear Janna’s footsteps stop behind me as I walk towards the ‘girl.’ I take this as a not so subtle clue that I’m on my own.

I walk up to the table. The tall pines and late afternoon sun combine at an angle so there is shaft of light stabbing me in the eye no matter where I try to stand. The contrast of light and dark makes it hard to see the person behind the table. She makes no effort to move out of the shadows and instead sounds somewhat amused by my inability to find a good spot to have a conversation.

“Hi,” I say, sticking my hand in the general direction of where I think she is.

“Name.”

Not exactly the friendliest response. Also a step more to the left than I anticipated. “Lux,” I answer, a bit flustered. “Luxanna. My group is the—”

“Hmmm… ‘the Star Sisters,’” the girl interrupts. Her voice holds a strong note of mocking disapproval. “That’s such a… cute name. You two are the last to check in. Leaders are usually the first ones to check in.” She lets out an exasperated sigh for emphasis.

Sun and planet align so I’m finally granted a sliver of shade to get a better look at our collegiate judge. On closer inspection, I think I preferred the audio only version. She’s pursing her lips as if she had just eaten something gross, but still had manners enough not to spit it out. A lanyard name tag with perfectly put together letters reads: Syndra.

“I’m sorry,” I try again, trying to sound more confident. I knew I should have told everyone to stay together. “I stayed to make sure all our bags made it off the bus. The others were really excited about getting to the campsite.”

I feel Janna’s fingertips on my arm, supporting me. I look over at Janna. Her normally calm face is grimacing at the girl behind the table. I do a double take between them before returning to the conversation.

“Well, we’re all here now,” Janna says curtly.

“Great,” Syndra says, totally not meaning it. “Space twenty-sixteen. Some of your group is already there. There’s also a loud one down by the lake. I assume she’s one of yours.”

Jinx. Fantastic.

Syndra leans over and picks out some of the colored papers. She stops and looks up when I don’t immediately acknowledge Jinx as my responsibility.

“You might want to, you know, deal with that,” she says. “Here’s a map and a schedule. The best viewing for the meteor shower starts after midnight.”

Syndra hands me the stack of papers, her eyes narrowing as she looks me over for a final judgment. I am obviously not living up to expectations. “You understand that leaders are accountable for keeping their groups together when it gets dark, right?”

“Yes,” I squeak. I nod dumbly, feeling like a child. I clear my throat to try and find my voice. “I promise I’ll keep everyone together.”

As if on cue, a group of four wanders in from one of the trails. It’s like cool just supernovaed in the middle of camp. A wake of starstruck campers begin to gather in little eddies behind them. I can’t blame them; I can’t look away either.

“Now there’s a team you can learn something from,” Syndra says pointedly. I watch as her snark melts into a smile. “Ahri!” she squeals.

The center star in the approaching constellation looks up. She brushes her perfectly side-swept, peach bangs from her eyes, and smiles. A tall redhead, a quiet girl with mint colored curls, and a kinda cute guy with blonde hair flank their all-too popular leader. Of course the group makes their way over to us, picking up more followers like a magnet. Not only does each member exude individual awesome, they move together effortlessly. I can’t help it. I’m so jealous my teeth hurt.

“Syndra,” Ahri says. “Are you all done? We missed you on the hike this afternoon.”

“I had to wait for the stragglers,” Syndra says looking at me.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry about that.” I turn to Ahri and smile, extending a hand. “Hi. I’m Lux. You must be—“

“Cool,” she says, finishing the conversation before it even got a chance to start. She eyes my extended hand floating out in space in front of her for an extra moment, really letting my awkwardness sink in for everyone. Finally her perfectly manicured fingers touch my hand in a halfhearted shake. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Ahri turns to Syndra, effectively dismissing me from the conversation.

“Okay,” I say a little too loudly. “Nice meeting you, I guess.”

A breeze starts to blow through camp and I turn around abruptly and pick a direction to just start walking in, any direction, as long it’s not towards the information table.

Which is exactly when I run smack into Janna. The stack of camp papers goes flying. So much for situational awareness. Once again I’m on my butt in the dusty grass looking up at Janna. Only this time my annoyance is tempered by the expression on Janna’s face.

Her earlier grimace has been replaced by a dark scowl. The light breeze around us picks up into a stronger gust.

“I have to take a walk,” Janna says. She’s not asking. She doesn’t even look down in my direction. This is weird. I’ve never seen Janna so... so angry.

“But Janna,” I say, grabbing at the flying papers and trying to pull my wind whipped hair from my mouth at the same time. “They just told us to stay together.”

It’s too late. Janna walks down a shady trail taking the wind with her. Behind me, above the dying wind, I hear Syndra laughing. I hope it’s at something clever Ahri must have said. I venture a quick look back, only to catch Syndra looking directly at me. And smiling.

I turn away and concentrate on putting my multi-colored stack of flyers back together, letting the trail of lost paper take me as far away from the cool kids as I can get.

I find the last flyer curled in the hollow of a tree. Instead of bending over to pick it up, I let myself sink down onto a pile of pine needles and lean against the tree. In front of me is the lake, but now that I’ve stopped moving I realize I have no idea where I am.

I push my back against the scratchy bark. This trip is so not going how I wanted it to. We’re not even together, let alone working more as a team.

My face feels hot. The back of my throat tightens. The light glinting off the lake in front of me blurs a little. I can feel the water well in my eyes.

I start rifling through the stack of papers I’ve collected to distract myself from my sudden pity party.

“And not a single, stupid map.” I let out my frustration out in a groan. “How can I be a leader if I don’t even know where I’m going?”

“Meh. Maps are totally overrated.” A guy’s voice breaks the background noise of distant campers. I look up. Great. It’s the cute, blonde guy from Ahri’s star-studded entourage. I stand quickly and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

“But, if you really think you need one, I happen to have this on me.” He hands me a slightly wind-crumpled map of the camp. My group’s site is clearly circled and numbered in Syndra’s perfect handwriting. His grin is a little lopsided. “I have a knack for finding lost things. I’m Ezreal. You can call me Ez.”

I nod, trying to control my sniffling. He’s still smiling. Is he flirting with me? I look around. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to me.

“Thanks,” I murmur awkwardly. Even in the shade of the pine trees, his eyes are really blue.

“Maybe you can help me find my team.” I gesture to the trees around us. This little corner of camp is empty except for the two of us. “Seems everybody’s lost but me and you.”

“Sounds perfect.” He sweeps a lock of blonde hair away from his eyes with his hand and gestures with a gentlemanly bow back to the trail. “It’s Lux, right? Like a light?”

“Yeah,” I nod. If he only knew. “My mom had a thing for desk lamps.” I feel my bubbly confidence returning, the one that Jinx constantly complains is so annoying. I look over and watch his cocky smile falter for a second. He’s not sure if I’m teasing him. It’s my turn to smile. Am I smiling too much?

“I’m just kidding,” I offer.

“Sure, lamps are cool,” he says a little relieved. “But not exactly my favorite kind of light.”

“You have a favorite kind of light?”

“C’mon, doesn’t everybody?” His cocky grin is back. The small footpath we’ve been following is about to join up with the larger trail that goes from the lake to the main part of the camp.

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?” It’s silly, but I’m totally forgetting how sorry I was feeling for myself a few minutes ago. For the first time since getting to the camp, I’m not worrying about anything, not even tripping over my own feet.

Which is exactly when Jinx shows up, a mischievous grin plastered on her face along with wisps of lake-soaked hair. Her smile tightens as Ezreal steps out of the shadows and onto the path.

“Hey there, Lux buddy. Find a new friend?” Jinx’s clap on my back startles me back into reality and I nearly choke on my tongue trying to answer her.

“Jinx, this is Ez,” I cough, trying to catch my breath. “Ez, this is Jinx.”

Ezreal extends a hand to Jinx. Jinx accepts the challenge and strong arms him, squeezing his fingers and pumping his hand up and down like some kind of backwards arm-wrestling contest. Much to Jinx’s surprise, Ez takes the awkward handshake in stride.

Jinx yanks him closer. “What exactly are your intentions towards our Lux, may I ask?” she says in a threatening whisper that all of us can clearly hear.

I feel my face go pinker than my hair.

“We… We…” Ez stammers. “We were just talking about our favorite kind of light. Did… Did you have one?”

Nice save, Ez. If there’s one thing that can distract Jinx, it’s talking about herself.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jinx says. She eases some of the tension in her grip and lets go of Ezreal’s hand. Ez opens and closes his fingers, double-checking that they still work.

“Really?” I say, surprised. “You have a favorite kind of light?”

Jinx turns to me. “Well, of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

Ezreal shrugs. His cocky grin is back.

“Ezreal, is everything alright?” a cool voice asks. And now it’s a party. The tall redhead, the second star in Ahri’s constellation of awesome, approaches from farther up the main camp path. She doesn’t look too pleased with any of us. Especially Jinx.

“It’s alright, Sarah,” Ezreal says, attempting to smooth over the redhead’s rough contempt.

“Hi. I’m Lux,” I dust my hand off on my shorts and offer it to her in greeting. Her eyes narrow and suddenly it feels like I’m under a dissection microscope. And, of course, when I get nervous, I can’t stop talking. The words just start to pour out like someone left the faucet on. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Sarah. Your hair’s super cool! I don’t think I could ever pull off red, but on you—wow.”

“Miss Fortune,” she interrupts. “Sarah is for friends.” From the look on her face, I do not fall into that category.

“Oh, of course. I’m Lux. Did I say that already? I was just looking to pick up the team snack and got a little lost.” I search one of the flyers in my hands for the details I know I saw a few minutes ago. “Yep, team snack, right here at the mess tent. Looks like it’s chocolate chip cookies and... and… oranges.”

“I hate oranges,” Miss Fortune says coldly. She looks at Ezreal. “Ahri wants us to walk the perimeter before dark.”

Ezreal gives her a mock salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”

Miss Fortune rolls her eyes and begins walking back up to camp. Jinx begins to pull me in the opposite direction.

“I’ll catch you later, Lux,” Ezreal says and starts to jog after her.

I can’t help it. I call after him. “You never said what’s your favorite!”

He stops, shakes the hair out of his eyes, and cups his hands together.

“Starlight,” he shouts back. Even from this distance I can see his lopsided grin clearly. He turns and catches up to Miss Fortune.

“Huh,” Jinx muses thoughtfully. “I totally thought he was gonna say double rainbows.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. I punch her gently in the arm.

“Come on, let’s go find those cookies.”

It’s nearly dark by the time Jinx and I make it back to camp. By the way Poppy is going after a cord of firewood, I can tell she isn’t pleased. Jinx loudly crunches through another cookie, announcing our arrival.

“Took you long enough,” Poppy grumbles. She picks up another piece of wood to cut down to size.

“Ooh. There you are!” Lulu jumps off the stumps she’s sitting on and rushes me in a hug. At least someone’s glad to see us.

“Don’t sweat it, Bam Bam,” Jinx tosses the bag of oranges onto our picnic table. “I brought oranges and cookies.” Jinx looks into the bag again and brings out the last uneaten cookie. “I mean, I brought oranges and one cookie.”

Jinx breaks it in two, giving half to Lulu and keeping the other for herself.

“Here you go munchkin, don’t say I didn’t share,” she says.

Lulu looks up at Jinx and smiles. Poppy groans.

“Alright,” Jinx adds, “But only ‘cuz you’re crazier than me.” She gives Lulu the other half as well. “And because I don’t want Poppy to have any,” she whispers loudly. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to set some stuff on fire?”

“You mean a campfire,” I say.

“Yeah, one of those.” Jinx reaches into her Stars and Ammo tote bag. I can hear Kuro’s squeaking and the distinctive click of a trigger.

“Uh-uh.” I shake my head, “No powers.”

“Killjoy.” Jinx rolls her eyes. Poppy laughs between wood chops.

Janna bends over the campfire ring with a lit match and a bundle of dry pine needles. After a few seconds, the needles catch fire. A thin waft of smoke rises and Janna blows gently, coaxing a bigger stick in the middle to ignite. She tucks the flaming bunch into a teepee of wood in the center of the ring and gives Jinx a satisfied smile.

“And that’s not cheating?” Jinx drops the empty cookie bag on the table with a melodramatic sigh and starts looking around for a stick. “Whatever. Did we bring marshmallows?”

Poppy sets the neatly-chopped logs in a pile next to Janna. “Aren’t marshmallows all you brought?”

“Ooooh yeah,” Jinx snaps loudly, remembering. She finds her discarded tote and pulls out a bag of marshmallows, threading four on long, thin stick. “I brought a towel too, Shorty. I’m responsible.”

I settle onto a stump near Janna. She seems better than before.

“You alright?” I ask her. She nods.

“I think I just needed a bit of fresh air.”

I gesture to all the trees around us and smile. “Well, I guess we came to the right place.”

Janna nods her agreement, but without my enthusiasm. Before I can ask further, Lulu dusts the cookie crumbs off her hands and climbs up next to Janna.

“Tell us a story, Janna,” she says.

“I don’t really know any stories, Lulu.”

“How about a ghost story, Janna,” Jinx adds, “You’re old. You probably know some ghosts, right?”

Janna arches a lavender eyebrow at Jinx.

“Please?” Lulu pleads.

Janna takes a deep breath. It seems no one can deny Lulu tonight.

“Alright,” Janna begins. “Once upon a time, there was a lonely light that stood against darkness.”

“Was it the First Star?” Lulu asks.

Janna nods.

“Yes. In the beginning the First Star was all alone. After a while it didn’t want to be alone anymore so it took all of its starlight and spread it across the night.” Janna waved her hand gently across the sky, gesturing to the blanket of stars above us.

“And that’s where we came from,” Lulu says proudly.

“You. Me. The animals and the trees. Even Jinx,” Janna adds with a smile. “Everyone carries a little bit of that light. It’s very powerful stuff and the First Star knew it needed to be protected from the darkness. The first Star Guardians that were chosen were said to be very strong and full of light.” Janna’s voice drops slightly. “But, those that burn bright, burn quickly.”

“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” Poppy adds, confused. “It’s our duty to protect all of the First Star’s light.”

“Yes,” Janna agrees. She looks over at me. “But it’s more than duty; it’s our destiny. And it's our destiny to do it together. The First Star knew how hard it was to be responsible for so much and do it all alone.”

“Did anybody ever decide not to go with the flow, you know, against the whole destiny thing?” Jinx pokes her marshmallow stick at one of the burning logs, knocking off a few glowing embers. I’m surprised. I didn’t think she was paying attention to anything except burning sugar.

“There was a Star Guardian, once, who decided she’d had enough of the cycle. She didn’t want to return to starlight. She wanted to stay just who she was.”

“You have my attention,” Jinx says, turning to face Janna.

“It’s said that she first came to be in a system full of darkness,” Janna continues.

“Did she find sisters, like us?” Lulu asks.

“Oh, yes,” Janna says. “And because her corner of the galaxy was so dark, they meant everything to her. For a time they were happy. And she was happy with them. Then one day there was a battle. A great evil came, swift and terrible. She lost her sisters in the fight and she became very sad.”

“That would make me sad too,” Lulu sniffs.

“Me too, Lulu.” Janna says, hugging her. “But they say that instead of staying sad, she became angry and turned away from the First Star’s light. They say she followed the evil to where it came from, hoping she could find some way to undo her destiny.”

Lulu shivers and snuggles closer to Janna.

“Is she still alive?” Poppy asks.

“I don’t know.” Janna thinks. “If she is, her light would be pretty old by now.”

“Older than yours, Janna?” Jinx mocks.

“Yes,” Janna says, mocking her right back. “Older than mine.”

Lulu yawns. “Was that a real story?” she asks.

“I’m not sure anymore, Lulu,” Janna says quietly.

It’s quiet. All I can hear is the crackle of the fire as the weight of the night settles over us. I decide to break the silence.

“Well, the meteor shower begins in about four hours. Maybe we should get some sleep before then,” I offer.

Janna stands the sleepy Lulu up and marches her slowly towards one of the two tents. I go to follow her. Poppy stops me and points to the other tent, before going in ahead of Janna.

“You’re with Jinx,” Poppy says quietly. “She snores. Good luck.”

“I heard that, Little Bits,” Jinx says, stuffing another handful of marshmallows in her mouth.

“Don’t worry,” Janna says as she navigates Lulu into the tent. “I’ll look after her.”

I smile and grab a bucket of water to douse the campfire. I look up. More stars than I can count cover the sky. So many. Maybe more Star Guardians. Just like us. It would be nice not to feel so isolated. I shake the hope from my head and pour the water onto the fire. It sizzles and steams as the glowing embers are drowned, leaving me alone in the night.

I climb into the dark tent. Jinx is already whistle-snoring and I can hear Poppy smacking her lips in the other tent. Not exactly peace and quiet, but we’re together. There are four holes in the tent roof. Through them I can see the sky. I try and count the stars beyond our world.

I don’t even make it to ten before I’m swallowed by sleep.

The darkness is the same, but this time the dream is terrifyingly different.

Instead of just me at the bottom of the lonely well, we’re all there. Lulu, Janna, Jinx, and Poppy. We’re all lost in the darkness. Their calm serenity has been replaced by panic. Each of their muffled voices lap over each other, pleading with me to get them out.

Above us and far, far away I can see a handful of stars. Their light wavers, nearly blinking out. They call to me too, but I can’t reach them. I can’t move. Glowing ash rains down from above. It glitters as it falls through my fingers. I recognize what it is before the muted light winks out completely.

Star Guardian emblems. Shattered and broken.

An unseen weight hits me full in the chest, knocking the wind out of me, pushing me down further. The starlight above fades even more, moving away from me. The heavy weight bounces up and down, shaking me, but my arms and legs are dead weights. I’m stuck, frozen in the darkness.

The weight stops bouncing. I keep sinking.

“It’s no use,” Poppy’s voice is annoyed and resigned at the same time. She sounds closer, but I still can’t reach her.

“Here. Let me show you how it’s done, Smalls.”

There’s a metal scraping sound and a slosh of liquid. I suck in a huge breath as cold water splashes over me. I’m drowning. I am literally drowning this time. I sputter and blink my eyes open. It was just a dream. Sort of. The weight on my chest is distinctly Poppy-shaped.

Jinx is standing over the both of us with an empty canteen in her hand. “Oh look, our fearless leader is awake now.”

“Was that completely necessary, you two?” I wipe my eyes and try to sop up the water from my sleeping bag with a spare sweatshirt.

“Lulu’s missing,” Poppy says quickly.

I’m on my feet, out of the tent, and pulling on my shoes. I open the flap of Lulu’s tent. Her sleeping bag is empty. So is Janna’s.

“Janna didn’t even take the cane I made her,” Jinx adds, true concern peeking out in her voice. “What if the old lady falls and can’t get up?”

This is worse than the dream.

“We couldn't go find them without you,” Poppy says insistently. “You said it’s our duty to stick together.”

“I just wanted to dump a canteen of water on you and see what happens,” Jinx says. Her tone says she doesn’t care, but her face disagrees.

“Can we leave now?” Poppy pulls at my arm.

Resting on top of Janna’s pillow is the picture Lulu made of all of us in the meadow. We’re all looking up at the sky. New stars, Lulu said. My stomach sinks as I look closer at the picture. The fireflies. Black and green glowing things surround us. I have a totally bad feeling about this.

I look at Poppy and Jinx. I can’t remember the last time they shared the same expression. Their worry is clear. Flashlights aren’t going to cut it tonight.

“Poppy, get your hammer. Jinx, wake up Shiro and Kuro,” I say. “It’s time to bring out the big guns.”

The light from my staff is infinitely better than a flashlight, but does nothing to calm my pounding heart. I stop my run to get a better look at the map of the camp I’ve clenched in my other hand. Unfortunately, Lulu must have found someplace out of the way. We’re well past the boundaries of the camp.

“There’s a clearing near here,” I say. “A rock slide’s made it off limits to the rest of the camp.”

“Sounds like a great place to welcome the new stars,” Jinx pants, more than a little winded from the growing elevation. “Stupid cookies.”

Poppy tightens her grip on her hammer. “Let’s go.”

The distance between the trees becomes greater, finally opening up to a full meadow. I take a deep breath. Jinx lets out a low whistle.

It’s beautiful.

A low fog has settled like a misty quilt over the area. Moonflowers trail over tiny wild roses. Arcs of little blue flowers poke up and hang over the mist. White granite boulders catch the sliver of moonlight and dot the dark meadow like a stony star field. Above, the meteor shower has just begun.

Sitting in the center of it all on a red and white checkered picnic blanket is our little green-haired Lulu. She even brought the oranges.

“Oh, thank the First Star. She’s here.” A gentle breeze pushes some of the mist away as Janna steps out from behind a tall pine next to us. She must have come up the opposite way from camp. Even she is a little out of breath.

“Lux!” Lulu jumps up. I can’t stop myself from running to her. I’m running so hard, the ground shakes. Wait, no... I stop running, but the ground’s still shaking. A greenish black glow starts to emanate like sickly veins beneath the mist. A vibration rumbles in time with the now pulsing glow.

“Lulu.” I can barely hear myself over the deep growl of the moving rock beneath us.

“We’re not alone. New stars are coming, Lux.” The innocence in Lulu’s eyes has disappeared. She takes my hand. “I’ve seen them in my dreams.”

Even though she’s standing right next to me, her voice sounds so far away. Like she’s still caught in that dream.

Jinx, Poppy, and Janna circle around the edge of the meadow. The earth heaves beneath my feet.

“Stay back!” I shout.

The warning comes too late. The cracks break into deep fissures. The mist ruptures and a horde of black insects the size of dogs comes crawling out, dripping an eerie green light.

Staff in hand, I reflect a beam of Starlight to the nearest creature. The light hits the creature beneath its winged carapace. It explodes in a disgusting burst of lucent green goo.

“By Starlight,” I whisper. “They have wings.”

I shout to the others. “They have wings! We can’t let them reach the camp!”

“Woo-hoo.” I can hear Jinx whooping over the fray. “Shiro. Kuro. Who’s feeling ferocious?!” Missiles start firing before she even finishes her sentence. “Come on Short Stack, it’s bug squashing time.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Rocket Breath,” Poppy shouts back.

I see Janna rise off the ground a few feet. “Hold on, Lulu.” I feel her fingers tighten around mine. Janna’s voice echoes in the field.

“For tranquility!” A gust of wind blows the mist from the meadow. Several of the creatures get caught in the whirlwind eddies, smashing into heavy tree trunks. Now that the fog is gone, I see there’s way more of the awful little things than I thought. This isn’t like the other attacks. We’re in way over our heads.

“Look, the new stars!” Lulu shouts.

Five lights streak across the sky. They’re heading straight for us. I follow their arc as they touch down. The lights separate and hit the meadow in a perfect, five point landing. Several of the creatures explode with their impact.

When the dust and goo settle, I nearly have to pick my jaw up off the floor.

It’s Ahri and her entourage. Miss Fortune, Syndra, Ezreal, even the quiet, mint-haired girl.

“You’re a Star Guardian?” I yell. “You’re all Star Guardians?” No one can hear me over the fray. That, and everyone is listening to Ahri.

“Time to shine, ladies,” she says. Her smile alone could light up the meadow. “You too, Ezreal.”

They move as an efficient, synchronized unit. Miss Fortune raises a gleaming white pistol and fires the first shot. It blows through one creature and right through to the one behind it. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile and I count my lucky stars that I’m not the current object of her attention. Ahri and Ezreal are blurs of light as they dash into and out of the fight. The creatures are definitely not fast enough to keep up. Ahri giggles and blows a kiss towards one of the bigger monsters. Seemingly even more mindless than before, it starts to walk slowly toward her and the glowing orbs she’s playing with. Her giggle stops cold as she lobs the orb at the creature, obliterating it in a burst of dark ooze.

Syndra hangs back, but only for a moment, entering the fray with three of her own orbs. The maniacal grins on the balls could give Kuro and Shiro a run for for their money. At the center, the girl with mint green hair raises a long staff in the air, channeling Starlight from above. Looking at her, I feel my racing heart start to slow down and my breathing get easier. Ahri’s orb catches the last creature effortlessly, exploding it in a shower of black insect exoskeleton and bioluminescent goo. As quickly as the new team had arrived, it’s over.

Ahri rubs the tips of her fingers together as she gathers her orbs, obviously not pleased by the creature’s residue. Syndra juggles her dark purple familiars while her casual arrogance lifts her up above the mess.

“All in a night’s work, eh Soraka?” Ezreal says, giving the quiet girl a wink. “Thanks for the little pick me up.”

Soraka maintains a serene smile while nodding enthusiastically at Ez.

Obviously satisfied with all the excitement, Ez smiles in my direction as his winged familiar tucks itself neatly back into his gauntlet. Miss Fortune blows a trail of smoke from her twin pistols and ignores both of them.

The easy moment is fleeting as the ground rumbles again. Before I can count to two, the earth ruptures, knocking me back. I hit my head hard against a log.

“Ow.” I try and shake off the metallic whine now stuck between my ears. I stop moving when I see the meadow itself is going all wonky, like the fabric of space and time is warping in front of me. The green glow is back and stronger than before.

“Lulu! Jinx!” I search for the girls, but all I can see is the hulking carapace of what looks like a space bug the size of two elephants emerging from the biggest rupture in the ground.

I feel the ground ripple and then there’s a streak of light in front of me. A white gauntleted glove reaches out and catches my hand as the earth beneath me starts to give way.

It’s Ez.

“Told you I’d catch you later.” His voice is drowned out in the chaos. “That inter-dimensional nasty isn’t going to explode itself.” The world is literally going to pieces and he’s still smiling. “You ready, Starlight?”

I nod. Ready as I’ll ever be. He lifts me up, launching me into the sky above the monster. From this vantage point I can see everyone.

Janna and Soraka contain a new horde of little evils crawling up from the smaller cracks. Ahri, Miss Fortune, and Syndra begin taking those out as they start to maneuver into a better position against the big one. I land close to Lulu as she avoids the monster’s many limbs while Pix zaps at the smaller creatures. Jinx and Poppy look like they’re arguing at the edge of the field. I can barely hear them above the fray.

“You want me to what?” Jinx yells.

“The Rocket. Fire me on the Rocket!” Poppy shouts back.

“Poppy!” Jinx’s jaw drops in shock. Then a smile slowly blossoms on her face as she leans over and excitedly hugs the short blue haired girl next to her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A moment later Poppy is riding a missile towards the creature’s dripping maw, hammer in hand. The hammer connects with a loud crack. The creature reels back. Its moment is up. I lift my wand and channel Starlight into it. The creature’s sharp incisors snap greedily in the air. It sees Lulu at its feet and opens wide.

My beam of light smashes into it, bursting right out of the back of its head. A spray of noxious liquid drenches the field. The creature screeches and starts to topple over.

Its heavy, flailing limbs reach back in its death throes. Right where Lulu is. I look around. There isn’t anyone closer. I dive in and push Lulu out of the way. Black monster pieces rain down on top of me.

And then it all goes dark.

The first thing I can hear is canvas flapping gently. And birds chirping. My fingers are resting on a thin blanket. I crack my eyes open. Sunlight stabs me in the eye through the four little holes in the ceiling. I’m in my tent.

“Ugh... What…” The words get caught in my dry mouth. I try to sit up more, but think better of it as the ceiling starts to spin. “…am I?”

“Not dead,” a too-cool voice answers.

The fabric at the foot of my sleeping bag pulls as someone adjusts their position. I try and squint through the dizziness. Ahri tucks her perfectly peach hair behind her ear.

“You took quite a fall last night,” she says.

The events of the night start rushing back in some kind of horribly disjointed movie. Running through the woods. The field. The creatures. Lulu. Then everything crumbling around me. It wasn’t just a bad dream.

I bolt up, completely regretting the sudden move a moment later when my brain catches up and slams into the inside of my head.

“Lulu? Is she?” I grimace a little in pain. I rub my forehead to try and shake off the headache.

“Everyone’s fine. I sent them to get breakfast,” she says. “I’ve been told there’s a hammer with my name on it if I don’t tell the stubby, blue one when you’ve woken up.”

Ahri picks up a canteen that’s sitting next to her. She hands it to me.

I look at her as I take a sip of the cold water. This close and I can see that we can’t actually be that far apart in age. But there’s something about her. More experience. More confidence. She’s seen more of what the universe can throw at us. She’s the leader we’re meant to have. I know it.

“I wanted to tell you, you made the right choice,” she says. “Risking yourself and stepping in like that.”

“It was nothing,” I say, pushing away the compliment. “Any one of us would have done it. It’s what Star Guardians do. We’re sisters.”

She laughs softly, but then a touch of darkness washes over her face. A moment later it’s gone, the mask of perfection back in its place.

“We’re not sisters,” she says quietly, her voice tinged with regret. “We’re just strangers with memories.”

She stands up.

“We’ve sealed the incursion point. My team will be returning to the city this morning. We’ll take care of anything that comes up from now on. You and your girls can stay here until you’re recovered. Enjoy the summer sun. After that, stay out from underfoot.”

“Wait, you’re not going to lead us?” I ask, confused. My head is pounding. “Like, all of us together? With a team twice as big, we’re twice as strong. We worked great together last night.”

“You almost got yourself killed last night,” she says.

I’m not listening anymore. “Together, there isn’t anything we can’t face.”

“No, Lux,” she says with an air of finality. “Together, there’s so much more to lose.”

And just like that, dismissed again. Ahri turns to leave.

“Star Guardians are a team,” I say. I swallow the tightness in my throat. I’m not going to beg, but I can try to make her see reason. “It’s our destiny.”

Ahri pauses. She looks at me carefully. The tent flap is open; the bright sun divides her face in light and shadow. “Destiny?” she says; a subtle bitterness creeps into her voice. “That’s such an ugly word.”

The flap of canvas closes behind her. I can feel my face getting hot in frustration. She’s a Star Guardian leader. Why won’t she lead us? Why is she leaving me alone? I stare up at the top of the tent. The four holes of light dance above me.

Not alone. Jinx and Poppy and Lulu and Janna are out there. They need someone. I can’t just let this go if I’m all they’ve got.

I lurch to my feet and stumble towards the light outside. I don’t have time to wait for the world to stop spinning.

Jinx was right.

Summer’s not going to last forever.

Karma is the living embodiment of an ancient Ionian soul, who serves as a spiritual beacon to each generation of her people. Her most recent incarnation came in the form of a 12-year-old girl named Darha. Raised in the northern highlands of Shon-Xan, she was headstrong and independent, always dreaming of a life beyond her provincial village.

But Darha began to suffer strange, fitful visions. The images were curious—they felt like memories, yet the girl was certain they had not happened to her. At first, the problem was easy enough to conceal, but the visions grew in intensity until Darha was convinced she was descending into madness.

Just when it seemed she would be confined to the healing huts forever, a group of monks visited her village. They had come from a place known as the Lasting Altar, where the divine leader Karma had passed away some months earlier. The monks were in search of the old man’s next incarnation, believing him to be among the villagers. They applied a series of tests to everyone they met, but eventually prepared to leave empty handed.

As they passed the healing huts, Darha threw herself out of her cot and ran to stop them. She wept, telling them of her visions, and that she had known the monks’ voices from the babble in her head.

They recognized the signs immediately. This was their Karma. The visions were past lives rushing to fill a new vessel.

In that moment, Darha’s life changed forever. She bid farewell to all she’d ever known, and journeyed to the Lasting Altar to learn from the monks. Over the years, they taught her to connect with her ancient soul, and to commune with thousands of previous incarnations, each espousing the wisdom of ages past. Karma had always advocated peace and harmony, teaching that any act of evil would bring about its own repercussions, and so required no response.

But Darha questioned these principles, even as she became Karma. Some of her followers were confused. How could she be invested with the Spirit of Ionia, the First Lands’ most sacred manifestation, and yet disagree with their most self-evident philosophies?

Indeed, these beliefs were truly tested when Noxus invaded Ionia. Many thousands were killed as the enemy warbands advanced inland, and Karma was forced to face the harsh realities of war. She could feel the immense destructive potential that swelled in her soul, and wondered what the point of this power could be, if it was not to be used.

The voices of the past urged her to remain at the Lasting Altar, to comfort her people and allow this conflict to pass. And yet, a far deeper truth compelled her to act...

Karma agonized over this, until she could stand it no longer. She confronted a Noxian commander on the deck of his own war frigate, and unleashed her divine fury. This was no single, measured attack—she obliterated the entire vessel and its crew in a heartbeat.

Though many Ionians rejoiced at this apparent victory, the monks believed she had made a huge mistake. She had upset the spiritual harmony of their homeland, disgracing all who had borne the name of Karma before her, and tarnished her own undying soul along with those of her followers. Even if it meant a life of solitary meditation and penance, they implored her to do no further injury.

Karma silenced them with a raised hand. Though she could still hear the voices in her head, it was the Spirit of Ionia in her heart that guided her… and the First Lands were stirring to defend themselves. She did not know if she had been chosen for her courage and strength of will, but Karma knew that sometimes harmony came only at a great cost. Their world was changing, and true wisdom lay not in resisting that fact, but accepting it.

Though the war with Noxus is now long over, there are still many in Ionia who have become only too glad to meet violence with violence, even against their own neighbors. Karma has pledged to guide as many of them as she can to a more enlightened path—to peace when possible, to action when necessary.

Among the many spirits Ionians revere, none are as storied as that of the dragon. While some believe it embodies ruin, others view it as a symbol of rebirth. Few can say for certain, and fewer still have ever been able to channel the dragon’s spirit, and none so completely as Lee Sin.

He arrived at the Shojin monastery as a boy, claiming the dragon had chosen him to wield its power. The elder monks saw flashes of its fire in the talented child, but also sensed his reckless pride, and the disaster it could bring. Warily, they nonetheless took him as a pupil—though, as others advanced, the elders kept him cleaning dishes and scrubbing floors.

Lee Sin grew impatient. He longed to fulfill his destiny, not waste time on chores.

Sneaking into the hidden archives, he found ancient texts describing how to call upon the spirit realm, and chose to flaunt his skill during a combat lesson. Brashly, he unleashed the dragon’s rage in a wild kick, paralyzing his learned instructor. Consumed with shame and banished for his arrogance, the young man set out to atone.

Years passed. Lee Sin wandered far, to distant places, benevolently aiding those in need. Eventually he reached the Freljord, where he met Udyr, a wildman who channeled the primal beasts of his homeland. The so-called Spirit Walker struggled to control the powers that warred within him, and Lee Sin began to wonder if controlling the dragon was even possible. Sharing a need for spiritual guidance, the two men forged a bond, and he invited Udyr on his journey back home.

The two were dismayed to hear that the empire of Noxus had invaded and occupied Ionia. Monks from every province had fallen back to defend the holy monastery at Hirana, high up in the mountains.

Lee Sin and Udyr found it besieged. Noxian soldiers had broken through to Hirana’s great hall. As Udyr leapt to join the fray, Lee Sin hesitated, seeing his former peers and elders fall to the enemy’s blades. The wisdom of Hirana, Shojin, so much of Ionia’s ancient culture—all would be lost.

With no other choice left, he invoked the dragon spirit.

A tempest of flames engulfed him, searing his skin and burning the sight from his eyes. Imbued with wild power, he crippled the invaders with a flurry of breakneck punches and rapid kicks, the untamable spirit flaring brighter and hotter with each blow.

The monks were victorious, but Lee Sin’s desperate actions left the monastery in ruins, and his vision would never return. At last, in the blind darkness, he understood that no mortal could ever bend the might of the dragon spirit to their will completely. Devastated, agonized, he bound a cloth over his sightless eyes and tried to stagger away down the mountain paths.

But the surviving elders stopped him. In forsaking all desire for power, their disgraced pupil was finally ready to begin anew. Although they would not forget his previous arrogance, the monks offered absolution: the dragon’s wrath was deadly and unpredictable, true enough, but the humblest and worthiest mortal souls could counter its fiery nature, and direct it from time to time.

Gratefully, Lee Sin stayed with the monks to rebuild their monastery, and after the work was done and the Spirit Walker returned to the Freljord, Lee Sin devoted himself fully toward the pursuit of enlightenment.

In the years since the war with Noxus ended, he has continued to meditate on his role in Ionia. Knowing his homeland has not faced the last of its trials, Lee Sin must master himself, and the dragon spirit within, to face whatever foe is yet to come.