LoL Universe Indexing and Search

The moment she thought of the cake store, Zoe dove into the air, surrendering herself to gravity. While falling, she reached out with her consciousness to form a gateway. Instantly, a portal opened beneath her and connected to the other place. She fell into the gate. Her mass collided and imploded as she traveled.

It kinda tickles.

Unfortunately, Zoe did not appear at her intended destination. Instead, she emerged from a second portal only a dozen strides away, propelled through the air by the momentum of her previous fall. Then, after a brief moment of equilibrium, she was pulled back into the second portal. Again, time and space twisted around her—all swooshy-like, as she would describe it—before flopping her back at the starting point. Both portals then folded into space and disappeared.

A powerful magic was distorting Zoe’s ability to travel. It probably related to whatever change she was supposed to herald, and, obviously, she hadn’t succeeded yet. It was a problem, but not an unfamiliar one. She wasn’t really sure what the message was, who it was for, or even what it meant, but, in her experience, those details rarely mattered. The holy mathematics wanted to advance, and the messages generally fell into place shortly after she arrived. Zoe felt that was a pretty cool advantage of being an Aspect.

Of course, there was now the question of what to do while she waited. Zoe glanced around. Beside a nearby tree, she spotted a small, fuzzy creature with a huge tail. It looked similar to a tiny yordle, though Zoe noted how this creature’s connection to the spirit world was comparatively miniscule.

The small animal’s life-pattern flashed in Zoe’s brain. It would live only a dozen rotations before returning its spirit. To her, the brevity of its life made it more adorable. Zoe jumped up and ran toward it.

“So cute!”

The tiny animal scrambled up the tree away from her.

“Hey, come back!” she pouted.

Without slowing her pursuit, Zoe created a time bubble, turning it only half a planet’s rotation, before launching it at the tree. The anomaly bounced before bursting against the tree’s trunk.

For a second, the cute animal’s past merged with the present. The night sky overtook the area, and twilight butterflies pulsed around it. The small creature fell into the tired, restful sleep of the previous evening, as its past’s spiritual and mental state overwhelmed its current consciousness.

Zoe ignored gravity for a moment, floated up into the branches, and came to a stop beside the tiny animal. Her hand hesitated above its downy fur. She knew the moment she touched the creature, her spell would break.

“Zoe is a friend,” she whispered. But when she caressed the tiny animal’s head, it burst awake and dove away from her in a panic.

With a disappointed moan, Zoe floated a bit higher before flipping upside down. She considered visiting Aurelion Sol after she finished here. The dragon didn’t like being petted either. But, she thought, he was easier to catch without harming. This notion vanished as, thanks to her new altitude, Zoe saw past the hills and spotted a village on the horizon.

She willed a portal to the town into existence and dove into it. But, again, Zoe was only able to create a gate to a few yards away. Worse, it collapsed upon itself, as before, and pulled her back to her starting point.

The summer grass did seem inviting, so with no better option, she walked through the forest to the village.

She arrived at the outskirts of the walled town as the sun began to set. Hearing laughter, she dismissed gravity for a second and floated up to one of the village’s rooftops.

In the center courtyard, a half dozen mortals were playing. They were almost exactly Zoe’s size, unlike the children or adults she had encountered more recently in her tour of the planet.

One of the males chased a female around in a circle. Both were laughing. The rules of the game were unclear.

Zoe focused on the girl’s beautiful red dress—wondering if the coloration represented something. Even if it wasn’t a part of the game, Zoe liked it. The girl seemed taller than the other females, and Zoe felt the girl might know things she needed to learn.

The male was also interesting, but in a completely different way. She could tell his current incarnation would be short lived, but Zoe suspected it would be amazing if he chased her. There was something wonderful about his chin and the shape of his lips.

She swallowed nervously. It had, after all, been a very long time since Zoe was a mortal or had even visited this realm. She was strangely worried the group wouldn’t accept her, and she would be left out of whatever they were playing.

Two of the other boys, decidedly less interesting ones, began kicking a ball between themselves. This game, Zoe remembered.

Emboldened by this connection, Zoe swooped down from the rooftop to the middle of the group.

“Hi!” she said, while turning the base of her hair into a color that mimicked the tall female’s dress.

“A spirit,” the interesting boy said with wide eyes. Then he screamed, “Run!”

Zoe felt she should point out she was an Aspect rather than a spirit, but she was uncertain if his cry was part of the other game’s rules.

“Actually, I’m here with a message. But if you wanted to play, I have plenty of time,” she said, as she launched after them.

Then she flew, as casually as she could, alongside the tall girl.

“Your red outfit is so cool! Does the color mean something?” Zoe asked. But her attempt at starting a conversation hardly mattered. As she spoke, the tall girl was pulled into a house by the interesting boy. He then slammed the heavy, wooden door shut, blocking Zoe’s path.

Zoe glanced around, discovering the other mortals had similarly disappeared, but a commotion could be heard coming from a keep near the center of the town.

After a moment, a dozen men in armor came running toward Zoe with spears. They reminded her of Pantheon’s weapon.

Local guardians, she surmised.

Assuming she was a spirit, they screamed warnings, while their leader attempted a banishing spell. It was a very good spell, in Zoe’s opinion, but not one she wanted. She wondered if, perhaps, spirits frequently plagued the town.

When the men began throwing their weapons at Zoe, she manifested an arcane meteor and sent it on a flight path around the keep. Then, the twilight girl created a pair of portals to dodge the guardian’s spears, before finally redirecting the shooting star at her attackers.

The meteor’s impact created an implosion, causing a chain reaction with the small particles it had gathered while flying, which resulted in a secondary explosion that thundered through the guards and their tower—annihilating the area into a fine dust.

“Hello?” Zoe asked as the clouds of destruction whirled around her. She wondered if the tall girl or the interesting boy had run away. It seemed likely.

Momentarily dispirited, Zoe decided to visit a larger mortal settlement next. It seemed like someone might be willing to play with her at that sort of location.

Zoe remembered where a... city had been a few thousand years ago. On instinct and despite her previous failures, she willed a portal to it. And she was pleasantly surprised when a gateway opened to her intended destination.

“Oh cool!” she said, happy to be able to travel again, and eager to deliver her next message.

As Zoe stepped out of reality, she wondered if the new crater would lead some mortals to find the World Rune that was nearby. The tall girl or that interesting boy might even be the ones to discover it.

It would probably be funny if they did, she decided.

The appearance of a comet in the night sky is often said to portend upheaval and unrest. Under the auspices of such fiery harbingers, new empires rise, old cultures fall, and even the stars themselves may vanish from the heavens…

The truth is, perhaps, more unsettling.

The almighty being known as Aurelion Sol was already ancient before the rise of the mortal races of Runeterra. Born in the first breath of creation, he and those like him roamed the vast nothingness of a pristine celestial realm, seeking to fill this canvas of incalculable breadth with marvels whose twinkling spectra would bring fulfillment and delight to all who witnessed them.

As he wandered, Aurelion Sol seldom encountered any equals. The eternal Aspects were dispassionate and incurious things, contributing little to existence, content only to compose amusingly self-centered philosophies on the nature of creation.

But then, bathed in the light of a fairly unremarkable sun he had crafted eons earlier, he discovered something. A world. New realms.

He did not know who had created this world, or why—only that it had not been him.

The Aspects, who seemed unusually invested in it, implored him to come closer. There was life here, and magic, and fledgling civilizations that cried out for guidance from beings greater than themselves. Flattered by this new audience to his supreme majesty, Aurelion Sol descended to bask in their adulation, in the form of a vast and terrible dragon from the stars.

The tiny inhabitants of the insignificant land of Targon named him for the golden light of the sun he had gifted them, and the Aspects commanded them to bring forth a suitable offering in return. The mortals climbed to the peak of their tallest mountain, and presented him with a splendorous crown, crafted with careful and cunning magic, and etched with the inscrutable patterns of the celestial realm.

From the moment it touched Aurelion Sol’s brow, he knew this was no gift at all.

The accursed thing clamped in place with unimaginable force, enough that even he could not remove it, and he could feel his knowledge of the sun and its creation being stolen and scrutinized by intelligences vastly inferior to his own. Worse still, the power of the crown hurled him back into the heavens, and prevented him from getting any closer to that world again.

Instead, he was forced to watch as the duplicitous Aspects of Targon set the mortals to work in the construction of a great, gleaming disc. With this, they channeled his celestial power to raise up immortal god-warriors, for some unknown conflict that was apparently still to come.

Outraged, Aurelion Sol could see other stars fading across the firmament for lack of care and maintenance, and he strained to break free of the crown’s control. It was he who had birthed their light into the universe! Why must he be shackled, now, by the Aspects and their lowly pawns? He roared with glee when the Sun Disc failed… only to see a second, more powerful one take its place. Eventually, resigned to his fate, he saw the god-warriors cast down their rivals, then chittering creatures of pure darkness, and eventually each other.

Then, in little more than the blink of a star dragon’s eye, the world was ravaged by a succession of sorcerous catastrophes, and Aurelion Sol finally knew that Targon and the hated Aspects were all but defenseless. As he cautiously circled back, he realized the magic that bound him was weakening. Flecks of gold began to fall from his crown, each one blazing across the skies like a comet.

Driven by the tantalizing possibilities of freedom and revenge, Aurelion Sol now regards Runeterra with simmering, eternal fury. Surely, it is here, upon this world, that the cosmic balance will tip in his favor once more—and with it, the universe itself shall bear witness to the fate of those who dare steal the power of a star forger.

Atreus was born on the hostile slopes of Targon, and named after a star in the constellation of War, known as the Pantheon.

From an early age, he knew he was destined for battle. Like many in his tribe, he trained to join the Rakkor’s militant order, the Ra’Horak. Never the strongest or the most skilled warrior, Atreus somehow persevered, standing up, bloodied and bruised, after each bout. In time, he developed a fierce rivalry with a fellow recruit, Pylas—but no matter how often Atreus was cast onto the stones, he stood back up. Pylas was impressed by his unrelenting endurance, and through the blood they spilled in the training circle, a true brotherhood was born.

Atreus and Pylas were among the Rakkor who stumbled across a barbarian incursion, surviving the ambush that left the rest of their patrol dead. When the Aspect of the Sun refused to destroy these trespassers, Atreus and Pylas swore to capture the power of the Aspects themselves by climbing to the peak of Mount Targon.

Like so many before them, they underestimated how arduous the ascent would be, with Pylas shivering his last upon finally reaching the summit. Only Atreus remained as the skies opened, making him host to a divine Aspect, with the power to take revenge.

But it was not a man who returned to the Rakkor afterward, spear and shield gleaming with celestial might. It was the Aspect of War itself, the Pantheon. Judging Atreus unworthy, a warrior who had known only defeat, it had taken control of his body to pursue its own ends—a task it considered too great for mortal men.

Cast into the furthest corners of his own mind, Atreus endured only vague visions as the Aspect scoured the world for Darkin, living weapons created in a bygone age.

Eventually, Pantheon was goaded into battle not far from Mount Targon by the Darkin Aatrox, who sought the mountain’s peak. Their fight raged into the skies, and swept through the armies of men beneath… until the impossible occurred. The Darkin’s god-killing blade was driven into Pantheon’s chest, a blow that carved the constellation of War from the heavens.

But as the Aspect faded, Atreus—the man it had considered weak—awoke once more. Impaled upon Aatrox’s blade, and with the power of the Aspect’s weapons dimming, he took a ragged breath, and spit in the Darkin’s face. Aatrox sneered, and left Atreus to die.

Hours later, as the crows descended, Atreus painfully stood back up, stumbling back to the Rakkor in a trail of blood. After a lifetime of defeat, his will to live, and his anger at betrayal, were enough to stave off the death that had claimed War itself.

Atreus recovered on Pylas’ homestead, nursed back to health by his friend’s widow, Iula. There, Atreus realized he’d spent his life looking to the stars, never considering what lay beneath. Unlike gods, mortals fought because they must, knowing that death lay in wait. It was a resilience he saw in all life, the threats unending.

Indeed, barbarian invaders now threatened the Rakkor’s northern settlements, including Iula’s farm. Though it was months before he could lift a spear, Atreus was determined to end this scourge himself, and eventually set out with the Aspect’s dulled weapons in hand.

Yet, when he arrived, he found his sworn enemies already under siege. He knew from their cries, from the overwhelming stench of blood… they faced Aatrox.

It was Aatrox who had driven the barbarians into Targon, Atreus realized. Though he’d considered them his foes, they were much like the Rakkor—mortals who suffered in the conflicts between greater powers. Atreus felt a cold rage at both the Darkin and the Aspects. They were no different. They were the problem.

Atreus put himself between the barbarians and Aatrox. Recognizing the battered shield and spear of the fallen Aspect, the Darkin mocked him—what hope had Atreus now, without the Pantheon’s power? But even though Aatrox’s blows cast him to his knees, Atreus’ own will reignited the Aspect’s spear, upon hearing the cries of the people around him… and with a mighty leap, he struck a blow that severed the Darkin’s sword arm.

Both blade and Darkin fell to the ground. Only Atreus still stood, and watched his namesake star blaze back to life in the heavens.

Though he often yearns to return to Iula’s farm, Atreus vowed that day to stand against Aspects, Ascended, demons, and any who wield power so great, it can only destroy. Forsaking his own name, he has become a new Pantheon—the Aspect’s weapons fueled by the will to fight that can only exist in the face of death.

For with the divine Pantheon gone, War must be reborn in man.

As the Rune Wars raged, Mount Targon stood as a beacon against the oncoming darkness—Kayle and her twin sister Morgana were born beneath that light. Their parents, Mihira and Kilam, began the perilous climb in search of the power to save their tribe from destruction.

Even when Mihira learned she was with child, she pushed onward. At the mountain’s summit, she was chosen as a divine vessel for the Aspect of Justice, wielding a sword that blazed with a fire brighter than the sun.

Not long after, the twins were born. Kayle, the elder by a breath, was as bright as Morgana was dark.

But Mihira had become a fearsome warrior, far greater than any mortal. Kilam began to fear her new divinity, and the sorcerous enemies that were drawn to her light. He resolved to take the girls out of harm’s way, journeying across the Conqueror’s Sea to a settlement where the land itself was said to offer protection against magic.

In their new homeland, Kilam raised the twins, their temperaments growing more different with each passing day. Kayle was precocious, often arguing with the settlement’s leaders about their rules—she had no real memory of her mother’s powers, but knew the laws were meant to keep them all safe. Her father rarely spoke of such things, but Kayle was certain Mihira had saved them by ending the Rune Wars on some distant battlefield.

When the twins were teenagers, a streak of flame split the sky. A sword smoldering with celestial fire struck the ground between Kayle and her sister, breaking in two—Kilam was distraught when he recognized the blade as Mihira’s.

Kayle eagerly snatched up one half of the weapon, feathered wings springing forth from her shoulders, and Morgana cautiously followed her example. In that moment, Kayle felt more connected to her mother than ever, certain that this was a sign she was alive and wanted her daughters to follow the same path as her.

The people of the settlement believed the girls had been blessed by the stars, destined to protect the fledgling nation of Demacia from outsiders. These winged protectors became symbols of light and truth, and were revered by all. Kayle fought in many battles, flying at the head of the growing militia and imbuing the weapons of the worthy with her own sanctified fire… but in time, her pursuit of justice began to consume her. Seeing threats within and without, she founded a judicator order to enforce the law, and hunted down rebels and reavers with equal fervor.

But there was one person she softened her judgment toward. To the dismay of her followers, Kayle allowed Morgana to rehabilitate wrongdoers who appeared humble enough to admit their guilt. Kayle’s protege, Ronas, was the most disapproving of all—he swore to do what Kayle would not, and attempted to imprison Morgana.

Kayle returned to find the people rioting, and Ronas dead. Consumed by rage, she looked down upon the city, and summoned her divine fire to cleanse the city of its sins.

Morgana flew up to meet her, raising her blade. If Kayle was to purge the darkness she saw in mortal hearts, she would have to start with her own sister. The two battled across the heavens, each matching the other’s terrible blows and striking the buildings beneath them to rubble.

Abruptly, the fight was halted by their father’s anguished cry.

Kayle watched Kilam die in her sister’s arms, a senseless victim of the violence that had overtaken the city that day. Then she held the two halves of their mother’s sword in her hands, and vowed she would never again let mortal emotions rule her. As she leapt back into the sky, soaring high above the clouds, she felt she could almost see Mount Targon beyond the horizon, its formidable peak bathed red by the setting sun.

There she would seek perfect, celestial clarity. There she would stand at her mother’s side, and fulfill her legacy to the Aspect of Justice.

Though she has been absent from Demacia for many centuries, Kayle’s legend has inspired much of the kingdom’s culture and law. Grand statues and icons of the Winged Protector give strength to the heart of every warrior who marches to illuminate the night, and banish all shadows from their land.

In times of strife and chaos, there are many who cling to the hope that Kayle might eventually return… and others who pray that such a day will never come.

A headstrong young vastaya of the seas, Nami uses her mystical Tidecaller staff to reshape the tides and defend her fellow Marai from danger. The first of her kind to leave the ocean and venture onto dry land, Nami faces the unthinkable with grit, determination, and daring mettle.

In the seas to the west of Mount Targon dwells a tribe of vastaya known as the Marai. Long ago, these mermadic creatures discovered a rift in the depths. The rift bore a horrible, creeping darkness which sought to exterminate all forms of life.

At the center of their village, the Marai placed a glowing rock known as a moonstone, which is said to be infused with the celestial magic of the heavens. Its haunting, ethereal light protects the Marai from the creatures that crawl from the abyss. Every hundred years or so, the moonstone’s light begins to dim. At that moment, the tribe chooses their fiercest warrior and bestows upon them the title of Tidecaller.

The Tidecaller must plunge into the icy darkness of the rift, survive the horrors within and retrieve an abyssal pearl. If successful, the Tidecaller rises to shore where a luminous wanderer from Targon’s peak awaits with a moonstone to trade for the pearl. It is an arduous ritual that holds the fate of many in its illusive hands, but the exchange has kept the creatures of the dark contained. In the past, the Marai had sent troops of their most elite warriors to collect the pearl, but they learned the more forces they sent into the rift, the stronger the monsters became, as if it fed on their energy. While an army would be annihilated by the abominations below, a single scout – armed with a legendary Marai staff capable of controlling the tides – could potentially elude the dangers of the deep long enough to escape with the pearl.

Nami had always wanted to be the Tidecaller, but she was impulsive and young. A fierce fighter, she was known amongst the Marai for her stubborn determination, which often got her in trouble. In Nami’s adolescence, the moonstone once again dimmed for the first time in a century. Nami attempted the trial of the Tidecaller. Due to her impulsiveness, however, the elders chose Rasho, a prudent warrior known for his level head in battle, as their Tidecaller.

Rasho dove into the depths of the abyss. A week passed, then another. An entire month the Marai waited for their Tidecaller’s return, but there was no sign of Rasho. No Tidecaller had ever failed to return.

The elders waited and argued while the moonstone grew faint, but Nami knew SOMEONE had to take up the mantle of Tidecaller soon, or all would be lost.

It might as well be her.

Nami grabbed her mother’s bathystaff and plunged into the abyss. After several days, she returned with the pearl, the fallen Tidecaller’s staff, and a look of quiet horror in her eyes. Though furious at her impertinence, the village elders nonetheless admired Nami’s bravery and officially designated her Tidecaller. Nami ascended to the surface and rode the tide to shore to meet the landwalker.

The stonebearer, however, was nowhere to be found. Instead, an elderly woman waited on the beach.

The woman, whose grandparents bore witness to the last Tidecaller exchange, explained that there was no moonstone. The Aspect of the Moon was the only being who could conjure a moonstone, but she had fled Targon.

Nami was unwilling to accept this. She vowed to find the Aspect and retrieve the moonstone. The lives of her people depended on it.

Using the power of the mystical Tidecaller staff to summon a perpetual pool of moving water beneath her fins, Nami took to land to continue her quest.

Determined, the Tidecaller swam into a brand new world.

Nobody believed the girl. Even after they’d clothed her and calmed her down enough to speak in complete sentences, nothing she’d said made any sense.

The villagers had seen their fair share of otherworldly things – living at the foot of Mount Targon made this an inevitability – but the child’s story didn’t add up.

She’d described some sort of otherworldly humanoid who had risen from the sea that bordered their village. It sounded like a wanderer: one of the lost, confused celestial creatures who sometimes ventured from Targon’s summit. No one had ever heard of a celestial appearing from the ocean, though. More likely, the young girl was playing games.

But when a woman with crimson eyes swam into their village, held aloft by a pool of water that ebbed and flowed at her command, the villagers realized it was no game.

“Hello,” the stranger said. “I am Nami. I am a Marai, a creature of the blue. I mean you no harm.”

The villagers stared at her, mouths agape. Perhaps they were taken aback by her appearance. That would make sense, considering how unusual they looked to Nami’s eyes: flesh without scales and two backward arms where fins ought to be.

Though they weren’t much in the way of conversation, Nami did have their attention.

“I seek the Aspect of the Moon, for the Aspect has something my people require. Without it, they, and possibly all the world, will succumb to a hungry and merciless darkness.”

The villagers continued to stare at Nami, slack-jawed and mute. Only a sleepy, four-legged beast went unfazed by the appearance of the mermadic creature in the village, as it carried on pulling mouthfuls of dried grass from a wheeled cart and smacking its slobbery gums.

Nami stood in the silence, tapping her staff awkwardly.

“So, if anybody knows where the Aspect is, that would be, erm.” She sniffed, eager to create any noise to break the endless hush that had fallen over the crowd. “Most helpful. To me.”

It was as if the villagers had been frozen in place it was so quiet. Nami looked around the village and saw small, fluttering lights all around. Anchored to small pillars of wax or large, wooden sticks, the lights indeed seemed to be alive, but not sentient. They fluttered in the breeze and crackled with energy.

“What do you call that?” Nami asked, pointing at the light. “It’s lovely.”

An old man in golden robes stepped forward – the people of the oversky insisted on covering themselves, for reasons Nami couldn’t immediately understand – flanked by two sentinels. From the many layers of draped fabric, Nami deduced he must be some type of elder. Or perhaps he was just cold.

“You seek the moon?” he asked. “Is she your friend, or your foe?”

Nami narrowed her eyes. The man’s lip quivered with silent rage. The moon’s Aspect was clearly important to him – but in what way? Did he worship and wish to protect it, or did he consider it an enemy?

Nami weighed the options. Surely, she thought, no one would be so unwise as to make an enemy of the moon itself. She replied:

“Friend, of cour–”

“–HERETIC!” the elder shouted.

“–Fiend! I said fiend! You misheard me!” Nami shouted, but her pleas went unheard as the sentinels shouted orders. Many of the village’s people grabbed their weapons, dipping their spears into round containers of fluid and sparking them alight.

Nami stared at the tips of the spears now flickering with orange light spirits. Their dance was mesmerizing, but radiated heat. Nami suspected touching one would be incredibly unpleasant.

“You will leave this village at once! You spread FEAR and DECEIT, and we will have none of it!” the elder demanded.

Nami stared at them for a moment, her face hard. This was it – her first test as a landwalker. She knew, that if need be, she could defend herself against everyone in this village.

But that wouldn’t get her what she needed.

“I am scared,” she said.

The elder smiled. Nami did her best to ignore it.

“Not of you, mind. I’ve looked into the hungry, hateful maw of darkness and thought I would never feel joy again. Your spears can’t compare to that,” she said.

“And so, I’m not going to leave. Not while my people are still in danger,” she said. She moved forward and planted her staff in the ground.

She moved with such confidence and fearlessness the villagers were taken aback – physically, in one unfortunate case.

A young villager stumbled backward, his spear of heat skittering out of his hands, landing beneath the cart of dried grass. The dancing heat spirit grew taller. It licked the grass, spreading its own energy to the pile of dry hay. Within moments, the entire cart was ablaze with the hot, volatile energy.

The grazing beast brayed in terror and turned away from the blaze. It kicked its muscular legs in confusion, knocking the cart onto its side, launching the burning grass into the air.

The wisps of heat landed on the village’s thatched roofs and spread rapidly, consuming everything in its path with a voracious appetite.

The villagers scrambled to fetch bucketfuls of water from a nearby well. Nami watched in frightened fascination as they hurled the liquid at the hungry spirits. For a moment, their efforts seemed to beat back the spirits’ rage, transforming the flickering glow into a horrible cloud of hissing air that, unlike the rest of the air in the oversky, seemed to expand with weight and form. The hissing smoke swirled as the spirits drank up the water and danced on along the rooftops, turning the blue night orange.

“More water!” the villagers yelled. “Quickly!”

I can help with that, Nami thought.

Nami raised her Tidecaller staff, her knuckles tight.

Focusing her thoughts, the seawater lapping the village’s shore began to collect and vibrate.

Nami tightened her grip and closed her eyes, pulling back her staff to draw the seawater toward her.

The ocean roared. It stretched itself into the air high above the village, a sheer wall of tidal ferocity hovering at the ready. The people screamed.

Nami thrust her staff forward, pointing its headpiece toward the dancing heat.

“Please move,” she shouted to the villagers.

They did.

The wave crashed forward as if to drown the entire village. Just before hitting the ground, the water twirled and twisted into an enormous, turbulent tentacle. It snaked through the air, sniffing out the ravenous trails of heat and rage.

The tendril of ocean water encircled the angry light, coiling around it like a serpent, constricting and squeezing the brightness in a suffocating collapse. With one last smoky gasp, the spirits fizzled, their glow replaced with the quiet blue of night.

Nami exhaled, loosening her grip on the staff. The tentacle of water lost its shape in an instant, and splashed to the ground to the startled delight of onlookers.

The elder and his sentinels dropped their buckets. They turned to Nami, the rage they’d carried moments before now but a memory. They looked upon their visitor with new eyes.

“Ionia,” the elder said.

“What?”

“The moon, look for her Aspect there – it’s a continent. That way,” he said, pointing out toward the sea in the direction Nami’s staff tugged her.

Of course. The moon and the tide were as brother and sister. Wherever the moon went, the Tidecaller staff would be drawn.

“Oh!” Nami exclaimed, her heart flush with hope. “That is – yes. Thank you. Sorry about the, er...,” she said, waving her hand noncommittally at the drenched, dripping village. “Anyway. Thank you.”

Nami raised her staff and a wave reared up from the shore wrapping her in a cocoon of water and carrying her back toward the ocean. The elder called after her.

“Fire!” he shouted.

“What?” Nami asked.

“The lights on our torches, our spears. It’s called fire. It keeps us safe, but it can be...irrational, sometimes.”

“Fire,” Nami said, smiling. “I like it.”

And with that, the Tidecaller returned to the oceans, headed for parts unknown.

Diana did not belong on Mount Targon. A group of Solari hunters discovered her swaddled between her frost-claimed parents—strangers to this land, who had clearly traveled a long way. The hunters brought her to their temple, dedicated her, and raised her as a member of the Tribes of the Last Sun, known to many as the Rakkor.

Like all of the Solari faith, she underwent rigorous physical and religious training. However, unlike others, Diana was determined to understand why the Solari act the way they do, and the reasoning behind their beliefs. She spent her evenings digging through the libraries, devouring texts with only pale moonlight to read by. Paradoxically, this pursuit provided more questions than answers, and her teachers’ aphoristic replies did little to sate her inquisitive mind.

When Diana began to notice tomes had whole chapters torn from them, and all references to the moon seemed missing, the teachers assigned harsh punishments, intending to exhaust her into devotion. Likewise, her fellow acolytes distanced themselves from her and her questioning.

There was one shining beacon in these years of confused, frustrated isolation: Leona. The most devout of Diana’s peers, they often found themselves in impassioned debate. Though one never swayed the other in their long and frequent conversations, they developed a close friendship.

Then, one glorious night, Diana discovered a hidden alcove deep within the mountain. Moonlight spilled against its walls, revealing imagery of the sun, of soldiers armored in gold alongside silver-clad warriors, and matching imagery of the moon, atop Targon’s greatest peek. Delighted, Diana raced to share this clear message with Leona—the sun and moon were not enemies after all!

Leona did not react with joy.

She urged Diana to put this heresy from her mind entirely, warning of the punishments that may befall her if she were to voice such thoughts to others. Diana had never seen her serious friend quite so grave.

Frustration gnawed at her. She had reached the end of the Solari’s knowledge, yet not even Leona would take this new discovery into account. What were the Solari hiding? Increasingly, Diana felt certain there was only one place she could go for answers: the top of Mount Targon.

The climb tested her in every way imaginable, and time seemed to stand still as she scaled the peak. To survive, she focused her thoughts on her lone companion, and the answers that would make the Solari better, more whole.

The summit greeted her with the brightest, fullest moon she’d ever seen. After a rapturous moment, a pillar of moonlight slammed into her and she felt a presence taking hold of her, sharing glimpses of the past, and of another Rakkor faith called the Lunari. Diana realized this presence could only be one of the legendary Aspects… and she had been chosen as its host.

When the light dissipated, her mind was again her own. Diana found herself clad in armor, holding a crescent blade, and hair once dark hair now gleaming silver. She turned to find she was not alone—Leona stood at her side, similarly bedecked in shining, golden battleplate, a sunbreak-bright shield and sword in her hands.

Diana was overjoyed to share in this revelatory moment with her friend, but Leona thought only of returning to the Solari. Diana begged her not to, desperate that they face this new future together. But Leona refused, and their disagreement quickly turned into a titanic battle, erupting with moonlight and sunfire.

Fearful of losing herself to the Aspect’s power, Diana ultimately fled down the mountain. But, vindicated in her search, she felt more certain than ever that she had been right to question the Solari’s teachings. It was time to confront them, and show the error of their ways.

Pushing past their Ra’Horak guardians, Diana burst into the chambers of the high priests. They listened with mounting horror as she told of what she had learned of the Lunari… and then they denounced her as a heretic, a blasphemer, and a peddler of false gods. Rage filled Diana, amplified by the Aspect within, and she embraced it in a terrible burst of moonlight. Startled, she fled the temple, leaving a trail of death in her wake.

Now, driven by half-remembered visions and glimpses of ancient knowledge, Diana clings to the only truths she knows for certain—that the Lunari and the Solari need not be foes, and that there is a greater purpose for her than to be a Solari acolyte of Mount Targon.

And though that destiny remains unclear, Diana will seek it out, whatever the cost.

Among the Rakkor tribes that dwell upon Mount Targon, the sun is sacred, and none venerate it more than the Solari. Children are raised from birth to honor it, and even to shed blood for it, until its Aspect returns, heralding a grave threat they all must face.

Leona was one such child. She took to the Solari faith as naturally as breathing, finding solace and warmth within its rigid structure. This manifested through her rapid achievement of excellence, her peers envious of her capability, willpower, and devotion. None doubted she would one day become one of the Ra’Horak, the holy warriors of the Solari.

Though Leona flourished, she could not help but see her masters struggle with their most exasperating student, an orphan named Diana. Her curiosity was welcomed at first, but soon the teachers began to perceive Diana’s questions as challenging the Solari ways. Leona watched Diana suffer punishment and isolation—but where others saw insolence, she saw a lost soul devoted to a search for meaning.

Leona found her purpose in the Solari teachings, and resolved to share it with Diana as even the most dutiful teachers forsook her. The two would debate late into the night, with Leona hoping to persuade Diana that everything she could ever want was there in the faith, waiting for her to accept it. Though she failed to win Diana over, Leona did find a friend.

One night, Diana confided a secret to Leona. She spoke of discovering a hidden alcove in the mountain, an ancient place where the walls were etched with depictions of strange symbols and forgotten societies. When Diana mentioned climbing the summit of Mount Targon to learn more, Leona urged her to stop. Seeking to protect her from the ire of the other Solari, Leona made Diana promise to abandon this search. Reluctantly, Diana agreed.

Time passed, and the two never spoke of Diana’s discovery again. Leona believed her friend had finally come to her senses.

Her belief was shattered late one night, when she glimpsed Diana slipping out of the temple. While her first instinct was to tell the elders, Leona thought instead of protecting her friend, wresting her back from the edge. Resolved, Leona set off after Diana…

To the summit of Mount Targon.

The ascent was a trial unlike any Leona had ever endured, straining every fiber of her being to its limit, and beyond. Her training, willpower, and concern for Diana was all that drove her on. The unblinking eyes of bodies frozen into the mountain's slopes watched her climb, their own journeys forever incomplete, but not even they could deter her.

After what seemed an eternity—and much to her own amazement—Leona reached the peak.

Exhausted, she beheld an uncanny landscape, and found Diana engulfed in a coruscating column of silver light. Leona saw her friend’s silhouette writhing in agony, the air rippling with her screams. Horrified, Leona rushed to her aid, when a golden radiance slashed down from the heavens to envelop her.

The sensation was indescribable, but rather than incinerating Leona, the illumination coursed into her, suffusing her with incredible power. She clung to her consciousness, fighting the current seeking to sear away her very being.

Ultimately, her indomitable will triumphed—and with that control came understanding.

With control came understanding. Leona was forever changed, imbued by the Aspect of the Sun. Destiny had selected her, and it was her duty to protect the Solari in the times to come.

It was then that Leona saw Diana, clad in gleaming silver war-plate, a strange reflection of the golden armor she discovered herself now wearing. Diana begged Leona to join her, to seek out answers the Solari could not offer. Leona demanded they return home, and present themselves for the priests’ judgment. Neither conceded, and they finally felt the weight of the weapons in their hands.

Their combat was swift, a blistering clash between sun and moon, ending with Diana’s crescent blade at Leona’s throat. But, rather than delivering the killing blow, Diana fled. Devastated, Leona descended Targon and hurried to her elders.

When she arrived, she found slaughter. Many Solari priests and their Ra’Horak guardians were dead, seemingly slain by Diana’s hand. The survivors were awed by the presence of two Aspects now in their midst, and Leona was committed to helping them navigate this new reality—the guiding light to her people, just as the sun had always been.

She has sworn to find Diana, to preserve the dominance of the Solari... but also to help her old friend control the Moon Aspect’s power before it destroys her.

For the noble defenders of Demacia, daily life is the very model of focused, selfless dedication to the ideals of king and country. Called upon to continue his family’s long tradition of military service, Taric never dreamed of shirking that responsibility—though he would not limit or define exactly whom and what he would protect.

The young warrior trained hard, and possessed great martial skill. Even so, in his scant hours of free time, he would find other ways to serve his homeland. He volunteered with the Illuminators, tending the sick or helping rebuild homes damaged by flooding. He lent his creative talents, such as they were, to the stonemasons and craftsmen who raised monuments to the glory of the Winged Protector and the lofty ideals it embodied.

A work of art. A stranger’s life. These were the things that made Demacia worth fighting for. Taric saw every one of them as beautiful, fragile, and worthy of saving.

Fortunately, his disarming manner and innate warmth allowed him to brush aside any criticism from his fellow soldiers or commanding officers. He rose modestly through the ranks, and even fought beside a young Garen Crownguard.

Ironically, it was Taric’s steady rise that would bring about his eventual downfall—at least as far as Demacia was concerned.

Elevated to the prestigious Dauntless Vanguard, he was suddenly held to a far higher standard of conduct. No more would he be allowed to roam the forests looking for glimpses of some rare animal, neglect combat drills to sit in a tavern and listen to a bard’s simple ballad, or skip line inspections to ride out and observe the silver cloak of night settling across the hinterlands. Taric began to feel at odds with himself, and soon attracted attention as an insubordinate.

Garen urged him to shape up and do his duty. He could see Taric had the potential to become one of Valoran’s greatest heroes—and yet he seemed to be thumbing his nose at destiny as well as his country.

To keep him from demotion, Taric was seconded to serve the Sword-Captain of the Vanguard, though neither of them was particularly happy about it. However, when the older man was slain in battle along with the rest of his personal retinue, Taric was found to have abandoned his post… and rumor had it that he had been spotted wandering the cloisters of some forgotten ruined temple nearby.

Nothing more could be said. A dozen warriors were dead, and Taric faced the executioner’s block for it.

However, seeking mercy for his friend, Garen intervened. As the Sword-Captain’s successor, he sentenced Taric to endure “the Crown of Stone”—in accordance with Demacia’s most ancient traditions, he would be sent to climb Mount Targon, a trial that few had ever survived.

Though the Crown of Stone usually allowed the dishonored to simply flee Demacia and start a new life in exile, Taric took the first ship heading south, and swore to actually atone for what he had done.

The climb nearly claimed him, body and soul, numerous times. But Taric pushed past the pain, the ghosts of his dead comrades, and other tests inflicted upon him by the mountain. As he approached the summit, he was beset by a wave of new visions of loss and destruction…

He witnessed the great Alabaster Library set aflame… and still he dashed into the inferno to retrieve the heavenly poetries of Tung. He screamed in anguish as the Frostguard ran the last dreamstag into the Howling Abyss… and then leapt over the precipice himself in a desperate attempt to save it. At the gates of the Immortal Bastion, Taric slumped to his knees when he saw Garen’s broken body swinging from a gibbet… before raising his shield, and charging headlong into the waiting hordes of Noxus.

When the visions finally faded, Taric found himself at the very pinnacle of the mountain, and he was not alone. Before him stood something wearing the shape of a man, though its almost crystalline features blazed with the light of the stars themselves, and its voice was a thousand whispers that cut through Taric like a blade.

It spoke truths he had somehow always known. It spoke of the mantle for which he had unwittingly been preparing his entire life, with every decision and deed that had brought him here, now, to Targon.

And he would stand as the Shield of Valoran in great wars yet to come.

Reborn as the Aspect of the Protector, gifted with power and purpose unimaginable to most mortals, Taric has gladly accepted this new calling—as the steadfast guardian of an entire world.

To assume the Aspects act in the interests of Targon or its people is folly of the highest order.

When the first Rakkor climbed the Great Mountain, they did so to bring themselves closer to their holy sun, the divine source of all light and majesty in this world. But when they reached the summit, they found strange, otherworldly beings waiting there for them.

Not gods. There are no gods on the mountain, nor above it. The Aspects have never claimed this, and the Rakkor have never considered them as such. In spite of all their heavenly power, they had descended from the firmament of the celestial realm, yet were still unable to cross over into Runeterra unaided—and this was something for which they would be willing to bargain most dearly. Enough to use our own worst natures against us. Enough to betray the golden sun itself.

To this day, the Aspects strive to manipulate a world that is not theirs, for reasons we cannot fully comprehend, on a timescale that mocks even the grandest of mortal ambitions.

However, we can be certain that their motivations are not human, and their capacity for cruelty and deception is unmatched in all existence.

— from ‘Tribe of the Last Sun’, by the Hierarch Malgurza of Helia

Weary from the day’s labors, Iula wiped her stiff hands upon her apron, and raised a cup to the mantel.

“Here’s to you, my love,” she whispered, before bringing it to her lips.

A flood of sweetness. Warmth. The last rays of an autumnal sunset.

She measured the taste for a moment, letting it sit on her palate, breathing out slowly through her nose. Then she looked down into her drink and gently swirled the golden liquid around.

“How is it?” Hanne asked, as she heaved the farmhouse door closed behind her.

Iula shrugged. “It’s fine. Maybe it will age into something better.”

The younger woman set down two large sacks of grain on the floor beside the kitchen table, and poured a cup for herself. Iula watched her sniff it, and take a long swig.

Then Hanne coughed, and blinked hard, twice.

A third time.

“You can... You can really taste the smoke...” she managed. “Is mead always... like this?”

Iula smiled, running her fingers through the bunches of herbs hanging from the roof beams. “No, not always. Depends what you put in. For a traditional medu, I hoped the hedge-sage would come through a little stronger. Maybe next time we’ll use more. And fresh, not dried.”

“Are we still taking it to the market, though? Will it be ready by then?”

“It’s fine. We can backsweeten each jar with a little more honey, before I seal them.”

Hanne finished her cup with only the slightest hint of a grimace, before setting it down. “I think I saw one last honeycomb in the storehouse,” she said. “I’ll bring it in.”

“There’s no rush. I’m not doing it tonight. Need to start on the sourdough before bed.”

“It’s no trouble!” Hanne insisted. “I’ll go now, before I get this young man his supper.”

Little Tomis was still seated at the table, swinging his bare feet back and forth. Even though the day had been long, his eyes were still keen... and very much fixed on the drink in Iula’s hand.

“Can I have some?” he asked, the moment Hanne was gone.

Iula made a show of turning to face him with an expression of mock-confusion. “You mean this lovely stew that Hanne has made for us all?” she said, gesturing to the fireplace with her cup.

Tomis shook his head. “No. The medu.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s a good idea, is it?” she replied, stepping over the bench to sit next to him. Her knees and elbows creaked as she went—but her knees and elbows always creaked, so she had given up remarking on it years ago.

She tapped the large glass jar next to him.

“What about your fine batch of sun tea, eh? Wouldn’t you rather have some of that? We spent all day on it, and you’ve been very helpful! I’ve been looking forward to trying it.”

Tomis wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like sun tea anymore.”

“Oh, that’s not true! It’s a very special drink for a young Rakkor. It fills you up from top to toe with the blessings of the Sun. Don’t you want that?”

The boy went very quiet, and still. His eyes sank to the tabletop.

“Then why do you put your drink in the dark?” he murmured, plaintively. “Does that mean it’s bad?”

Iula was suddenly worried that she had gone too far. “Oh, no,” she chuckled, putting her arm around him, “it’s not bad. Not bad at all. My dear husband taught me how to make mead, when we were first married. It needs to sit in the dark for a while to... umm... to get more... sort of...”

Then she gave up trying to explain fermentation to a four-year-old, and playfully poked his nose.

“Look, my boy, some of the best things that grown-ups enjoy happen in the dark, all right? One day, when you’re older and taller, you’ll understand that. And then you can have a sip of mead! But for now, it’s sun tea for us both! Can you spare my tired old feet, and bring me two clean cups?”

Tomis giggled, and scurried away to the pantry. Iula watched him go, before craftily gulping down the last of her drink, just as the farmhouse door opened.

“Actually, Tam,” she spluttered, “bring three. Hanne’s back, and she’ll want—”

“Iula.”

Something in Hanne’s tone chilled Iula’s blood. She was on her feet before she realized it, moving to join the girl in the open doorway. “What is it?”

“There’s someone coming. I think... I think it’s a Solari.”

Iula strained her eyes into the twilight gloom of the valley, past the dusty yard of their simple homestead, and the fields of empyrean wheat beyond.

There.

True enough, she could just make out the distant, haggard form of a man clad in dulled, golden battleplate. He was moving slowly through the crop, but there could be no doubt as to his intended destination. Iula’s home was remote and secluded, the nearest neighbors several hours to the north.

She sighed, steeling her nerve, and strode into the yard.

“Greetings, friend,” she called out. “May the Sun’s light be upon you. I hope your journey through the mountains has not been too hard.”

The man did not respond, nor halt in his approach.

Iula continued. “I can offer you food and water, but I am sorry to say warriors are no longer welcome in the house that I once shared with my beloved. Perhaps you have heard of him? Pylas of the Ra’Horak. A worthy hero of the Solari, some forty years past. I have the countenance of the priesthood in recognition of his service. You will find no enemies here, I assure you.”

Still, the man did not respond.

He crossed the bottom ditch. He was now barely a hundred yards from the house.

“Hanne,” Iula said calmly, “please go get my husband’s sword.”

The girl did not move. Her wide eyes were fixed on the approaching figure.

Iula shot her a serious glance.

“The sword hanging above the fireplace. Bring it here. Now. And make sure Tomis is hidden.”

There was something curious about this warrior. As he drew closer, she could see that his deep blue cloak was ragged and stained from battle, and his shield hung limply at his side. His spear, the haft pitted and bent, dragged in the dirt behind him as though it might be a beggar-king’s plow.

Iula took a step back. She did not know why the man had come... but if he meant the three of them harm, she would be ready to fight back.

Hanne tumbled out of the house with the sheathed sword clutched to her chest, letting out a whimper when she saw the warrior heave himself onto the path that ran between the yard and the fields. He stumbled, and Iula noticed that his left sandal was flapping loosely from his bloodied foot.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

“...Atreus?”

The warrior stopped at the sound of his own name. The spear slipped from his grasp.

And then he was falling.

Though neither of them consciously intended it, Iula and Hanne both lunged forward in a vain attempt to catch him; some instinctive, mortal reaction to seeing true divinity humbled and laid low.

But of course, they could not.

Atreus, once known as Pantheon and the Aspect of War, crashed face-first onto the flagstones, his helm seeming to ring like a cracked temple bell as it rolled away into the dusk.

On the fourth day, he awoke. Iula did not hear him climb from his bed, pulling on the freshly washed and dried tunic that she and Hanne had left out for him, nor creep down the gritty stone passageway to the kitchen.

The first she knew of his recovery, at all, was when the unmistakable smell of burning reached her nostrils.

She hauled herself out of her simple cot in a daze, her heart pounding.

“Hanne!” she yelled. “Hanne, get Tam!”

The floor was cold beneath her feet, but she did not think to look for her sandals. She threw the dividing curtain aside, cursing when her shoulder struck the wooden jamb as she passed beneath it.

There was smoke in the passageway.

“Hanne!”

Wincing, cradling her shoulder, she drummed a fist on the rough stone wall of Hanne’s small room all the way down to the kitchen, before remembering that the girl would have left for market hours earlier. Iula would have to deal with this alone.

Then she turned the corner, and stopped abruptly.

Atreus was crouched before the bread oven in the fireplace, frantically fanning a small blaze with his shield. His eyes were raw from the smoke, his hands smeared with flour and soot.

He looked over his shoulder at Iula.

“Forgive me,” he choked. “I... I don’t know what I...”

She let out a cry of exasperation and grabbed a flagon of water from the pantry.

“Get out of the way, you big oaf!”

Steam billowed from the oven as the fire was quenched. Iula coughed and wheezed, dropping the flagon so she could cover her mouth and nose with her nightsmock. She glared at the warrior standing sheepishly in the middle of the room.

“What are you waiting for? Get the damn door open,” she snapped at him, even as she hobbled over to the window and pushed the shutters outward. The morning sun streamed into the gloom, becoming almost solid bars of light in the haze.

Atreus opened the door, then thought for a moment, and started moving it back and forth to waft fresher air inside. Iula shot him a withering glare, before lowering herself to her knees in front of the oven, to inspect the damage.

“Well, that’s the whole batch ruined,” she muttered, gingerly plucking one of the sodden, blackened loaves from the mess. The stone base groaned and ticked as it cooled, with a slurry of ashes and water splattering down onto the floor beneath the open grate. “And the fire’s dead too. It took me a whole day to get it up to the right heat, you know.”

She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, in Atreus’ direction.

“I told you last time you were here—you will never be a baker. Just give up.”

He continued to waft with the door, as if it were the most important task in the world. “The girl,” he murmured. “She asked me to mind the bread. Before she left.”

Iula got back to her feet with some effort. “You spoke to Hanne?”

Atreus nodded. He looked around for something to prop the door open, before shrugging and using his shield. Even when he stood again, she noted that he would not look her in the eye, and kept his gaze on the floor between them.

And she could not quite shake the sense that he looked somehow... lesser than she remembered. Diminished, perhaps. In the past, he had always radiated a kind of stubborn defiance, one that reassured his allies and unsettled those who might seek to oppose him.

That was gone, now.

He ran his fingers through his beard, apparently trying to find a specific combination of words that he wanted to speak. “I wanted to... I want to find a way to repay you, Iula. For all your many kindnesses to me, over the years.”

She scoffed. “Well, we’ll have to find something outside of the kitchen, won’t we. Maybe I’ll let you till the fields before I sow again, next season. Not even you can set mud on fire. At least, I hope not. Maybe I’m wrong.”

A glimmer of a smile crossed his features, but it was only a glimmer.

Then his gaze darted past her, to the passageway.

Iula looked to see Tomis standing there, peering around the corner, gripping the edge of the wall with his little fingers. She smoothed out her smock, and beckoned to him.

“Come here, Tam. Come and say hello. This is the man we’ve been helping. His name is Atreus—we’ve been friends for a long time. A very long time. Although you wouldn’t know it from looking at him, eh?”

The boy did not move. Neither did Atreus.

Sighing, she trudged over and scooped Tomis up, letting him lean into her bruised shoulder as she carried him into the kitchen. “He’s a little afraid of you, I think. You’re the first soldier he’s seen, since...” The words died on her lips. She smiled down at the boy, and blew an affectionate raspberry into his hair. “Well. He’s an orphan. These past few years have not been kind to the folk of the high valleys.”

Atreus looked from Iula to Tomis, and back again.

“He is not yours?”

Iula laughed. “Are you being serious? I am never quite sure with you.”

Atreus’ eyes fell to the floor again. “I... I don’t...”

“No, Atreus. I can tell you this very young boy is not my son. And before you ask, no, Hanne is not my daughter either. I’m sixty-eight years old, and I know I look it, so don’t try to flatter me into forgiving you for the burned bread, either. I know you don’t ever seem to age, but the rest of us mortals bloody well do.”

Then she looked at the warrior standing before her, a man she had known almost all her life, and saw something she had never seen before.

His eyes were brimming with tears. He was trembling.

She made to take a step toward him, but Tomis squirmed uncomfortably in her arms at the prospect, and she lowered him to the floor instead. “Go on, young man. Back to your room. I’ll bring you some breakfast shortly.”

In spite of her reassuring smile, the boy still edged out of the kitchen most warily. Iula turned back to Atreus, who had stooped to pick up the flagon.

“You’ve been gone so long,” she said, reaching out to place a reassuring hand on his arm. “I was beginning to wond—”

Atreus reacted to her touch as though struck by summer lightning.

“Get away from me!” he bellowed, recoiling with such force that he crashed over the low wooden bench, and split his forehead on the corner of the table.

Iula started away, almost losing her balance as well.

Atreus covered his face with one hand, and tried to regain both his footing and his composure. He backed into the space behind the open door, and brought his knees up like a wall between him and the rest of the world. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me,” he repeated again and again, under his breath.

It had pained her to see him physically broken, but Iula knew now that the wounds he must recently have suffered ran far deeper than his flesh.

And that, that hurt her more than anything else she could imagine.

She folded her arms tightly across her chest, sobbing gently, grasping the fabric of her smock, and sank down to sit opposite him on the floor.

They sat there for some time. Iula said nothing for a goodly while, watching the sunlight through the window move slowly across the gray tiles, and not thinking about the rheumatic ache in her joints, or the chill in her toes.

Eventually, when Atreus seemed to have calmed enough to let his head sink a little, she wiped her eyes with her sleeves and cleared her throat.

“What happened to you, old friend?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t... I don’t really remember.”

“What do you remember? Do you recall the last time you were here? The last time we saw each other?”

He frowned a little. “I think so. How long ago was it?”

“Six years, Atreus. I haven’t seen you in six years.”

Her words seemed to hang in the air longer than she had intended. She watched him attempt to process them in light of whatever it was he wanted to tell her.

“I... I think I went back to the peak,” he murmured. “I think I climbed the mountain again.”

Iula’s eyes widened. “But...”

“I know. It shouldn’t be possible. And yet, there it is.”

It was beyond anything she had ever considered. Certainly, there were legends that pre-dated even the empire of Shurima, of climbers who reached the summit of Mount Targon and yet were claimed by no Aspect, who then managed against all odds to make their way back down and return to their people; whether in shame or triumph, it was often unclear in the telling, and usually considered nothing more than fanciful allegory.

But the notion that any mortal, even an Aspect’s host, might make the climb twice...

It was unheard of.

She laughed, clapping her open palm on the floor. “My old friend,” she beamed, “if ever someone was going to rewrite the rules of the world, it would be you!”

Atreus shook his head, and Iula felt all levity fade.

“No,” he replied. “It wasn’t me.”

“Then who—”

“Viego.”

Even though she had never heard it before that moment, the name sent a shudder through her. She did not like to think that words, or names, could have power over the living. Maybe it was simply the way Atreus had spoken it, his gaze haunted and thin.

“Viego. The ancient king who brought the Black Mist to our lands. I tried to fight him, but he... uhh...”

Atreus rubbed absently at his scalp.

“He made me his puppet, Iula. I think I’ve done some terrible, terrible things.”

Iula was numb. She recalled Atreus’ disheveled state when he stumbled back into the valley, and how she and Hanne had not dared imagine what foes he must have faced to blunt the weapons and dull the armor of an Aspect.

Had they even been foes at all?

She hauled herself up onto her knees, and found she could not stop shaking her head in disbelief at the injustice of it all. “I’m sorry. I know how hard it was for you to be controlled by the Pantheon, all those years ago. This must have been... Oh, Atreus. I’m so truly sorry for what has happened to you, my friend.”

Slowly, cautiously, she reached out to him again. This time he did not flinch, but his face creased in pained sorrow.

“Oh, Atreus,” she said again, and took him in her arms, rocking gently back and forth with him on the kitchen floor. He clutched at her clothing with his scarred hands, his face pressed against her chest—not so very different from young Tomis in those early days after he first came to the homestead.

Close to tears herself, Iula closed her eyes.

“Tell me what you need, old friend,” she whispered. “Whatever I can do for you, I will. You know that.”

Atreus took a deeper breath to steady himself.

“I need you to tell me it’s okay to give up,” he replied.

Iula felt suddenly cold. “What?”

“There is too much evil in the world. You and I have both seen it. I’ve fought it for so long, I can’t remember what came before... but I’m tired. I’m so damn tired, Iula. How can mortals hope to win out against undying kings, or fallen god-warriors? The Aspects and their slaves. Demons from the spirit realm. Runeterra is becoming their playground. I thought all I needed to do was keep getting back up, no matter what. But if I can be made an enemy too, then simply being able to endure is no longer enough.”

He gritted his teeth, and looked her dead in the eye.

“And worst of all, I’ve lost whatever power I still held after my Aspect was slain. Viego must’ve seen to that. Whatever it was that connected me to the celestial realm, it’s gone. I am... I am just a man. So I need you to tell me that it’s okay for me to leave all this behind. You’re the only person I—”

Iula pushed him away, and clambered shakily to her feet. Adrenaline surged in her veins. She saw that this wasn’t just the absence of his comforting defiance, which for so many years had made her feel safer, just knowing he was out there, somewhere in the world.

He had actually given up.

“How dare you,” she murmured.

Atreus rose, confused, towering over her. He wiped his face with the back of his forearm.

“I don’t underst—”

“How dare you!” Iula shrieked. “How can you even think to ask that?”

He faltered, his fists clenching involuntarily. “I can’t do this anymore. Please.”

A sour taste rose in the back of her throat. Her anger was so fierce, so hot, that she couldn’t feel the floor beneath her feet anymore.

“Damn you,” she spat. “Damn you. Coward. How dare you say that to me.”

“Iula, please, listen to—”

She slapped him, hard, across the face.

And again.

He did not try to defend himself, but only stared down at her, dumbfounded, his cheek reddening quickly.

Iula could not weep. She was too enraged. “He loved you, Atreus! Pylas loved you more than any brother. He was my husband, but he went with you up that accursed mountain, even though I begged him not to. He was mine, and you lost him up there!” She let out a wordless cry of pain, and dug her nails into her forearms. “You got to hold him, Atreus. You got to hold him as he died. And what did I get?”

She pointed to the mantel, where Pylas’ blade hung.

“I got a sword. Nothing more.”

Iula squared her jaw and looked up into the clear, open sky she imagined beyond the ceiling beams.

“Don’t you dare tell me about what you’ve lost, and how you can’t go on anymore. You don’t get to retire. You don’t have that option. This isn’t about you. It never has been. I helped you because that’s what Pylas would have wanted. I even tried to become a soldier and follow you on the battlefield after he was gone. He died for you, so you could become something greater than any Ra’Horak. Greater than any mortal.”

Atreus shook his head. “But I’m not.”

Exasperated, she stomped to the fireplace and snatched down the blade, wrenching it from its sheath and pressing it to Atreus’ heart in one sweeping motion.

“Then we don’t need you! We may as well just let the Aspects have their war, and let that be the end of everything!”

The tip of the sun-tempered steel parted the threads of his tunic, and drew a trickle of blood from his breast. He looked down at the small crimson spot slowly spreading across the fabric.

Then he looked back to Iula.

“What war?” he asked, his voice sounding weak.

She tightened her grip on the sword, realizing only then that she did not know how she expected this to end.

“The Solari, Atreus. They see heresy everywhere. And they’re not just killing anyone they suspect of being a Lunari—but anyone suspected of harboring them, too.” Unable to take a hand off the hilt, she nodded instead toward the open passageway. “Tomis’ entire settlement. The Ra’Horak butchered them. This, this is what happens when the Aspects cloak themselves in mortal superstition. Your former brethren have been driven into darkness by the blinding light of their new savior.”

Something like recognition flickered across Atreus’ features, as if he were trying to recall a fading dream. “And the Aspect of the Moon... Of course, she has not yet stepped forward to lead the Lunari.”

“And how much worse will it all get, once she does?” Iula hissed. “You swore that you would stand against them, Atreus. That you would not let this world’s fate be decided by such inhuman monsters, even when they choose to do nothing. I am sorry for what has happened to you, I truly am... but I cannot let you break your oath. Not now.”

Atreus slowly, deliberately closed the fingers of his right hand around the sword blade. “Killing either the Aspect of Sun or Moon will not end the conflict in Targon. Just as the death of War did not lead to eternal peace.”

“Shut up. Stop trying to justify what you want, and do what you know you should. That little boy was absolutely terrified of you when you arrived, and yet he wanted to wear your helm and pick up your spear from the moment he saw them. If you won’t act now, then that’s the only future he has—growing up to fight and die like too many Rakkor before him.”

She forced as much conviction into her voice as she could muster.

“You need to get back up, Atreus. I didn’t want to be a widowed farmer. I didn’t want to inherit all this. I had to give up my life and my love, so now you need to prove you’re worthy of the faith my husband had in you. You need to honor the sacrifices we’ve all made. You need to stop the Aspects from destroying our people entirely.”

Atreus gripped Iula’s leading hand, gently urging her to drive the blade onward, his expression resolute.

“I can’t,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I’m not strong enough.”

That was it. Iula was done.

She threw down the sword and barged past him, heading for Tomis’ room. “Well, if you’re going to just lay down and die, please pass on my love to my husband when you see him,” she yelled over her shoulder, before scooping up the startled child and hurrying out of the farmhouse in tears. She did not look back to see if Atreus was following them.

“Where are we going?” Tomis asked.

Iula winced as her bare feet were cut raw on the stony path, but did not slow her pace.

“We’re going to cut some more firewood, my boy,” she managed to smile. “We’re going to bake bread again today.”

When they returned, Atreus was gone.

Iula ignored the handwritten note that had been carefully placed beside Pylas’ sheathed sword on the kitchen table, and went to close the door.

Telling herself she was merely looking out for Hanne on her way back from market, she scanned the distant trackways that led up and out of the valley, but saw no sign of anyone.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, letting it out slowly as she walked back to the fireplace, and knelt before the cold oven with a grunt of discomfort. Then, without reading it, she balled up the note and stuffed it into the grate, and began to hum an old song from her youth as she stacked fresh kindling on top.

She genuinely hoped that would not be the last time she saw her old friend; that he would find his way out of the shadows, for all their sakes, by whatever path he had chosen.

But until then, she would sharpen her husband’s blade, and prepare to meet whatever was still to come.