Spirit and Balance

Many had feared that the spirit blossoms would never return to Ionia, a sign of the imbalance still permeating the land and its people. Much of a generation had come of age without the spirit blossoms, without the festival.

But Paskoma had learned over a lifetime that, no matter how long the blossoms were away, they always came back.

Now, for the first time since the war began, there were fresh buds upon the spirit trees, delicate and pearlescent and perfuming the air with a biting sweetness. Paskoma remembered the last festival well. It had arrived just a few summers after the birth of her granddaughter. She and her husband Okerei drank the spirit tea together and spoke with their lost loved ones, making sure that they remained well and showing them that they were remembered. It was a way to let go, to find peace, and to move forward after loss. Then their loved ones returned to the spirit realm, content knowing that the family would continue thriving.

This time, though, Okerei would not be by her side. He had died fighting against the Noxians shortly after they first invaded. There was so much to tell him. So much to ask.

But first, she needed to get things ready.

Paskoma’s teahouse did not have a name. Visitors to Weh’le were able to identify it by the distinctive teapot sculpture outside the front door. Back when Paskoma built the teahouse, she’d asked a talented woodweaver to create it out of different trees that bloomed different colors depending on the season. Presently, the teapot was a vibrant fuschia, half covered in blush-pink lanterns.

“Ituren?” Paskoma called into the teahouse. “I need your expertise.” He was tall and able to hang the lanterns on the higher branches.

“I am with you, my love.” A man of few words, Ituren placed the lanterns where Paskoma pointed, smiling down at her all the while. But it was a sad smile. A worried smile.

Ituren had been Paskoma’s love and companion since the last days of the war. But without the spirit blossom festival, they had never been able to commune with the spirit of Paskoma’s husband. Okerei had never been able to give his blessing to them, and so Paskoma did not feel able to marry again. Ituren was patient and understanding, having lost his wife half a lifetime ago, but he worried. Paskoma did her best to reassure him, but truthfully she wasn’t certain what she would do if Okerei did not approve.

After they hung the lanterns, Paskoma and Ituren readied the guest rooms and the common areas: washing the floors with wine, placing two candles in front of all the mirrors, and dividing the rooms for the onfall of paying guests they were expecting for the festival. They had started early in the morning, but the golden light of late afternoon shone on them when they heard a knock at the door. “May past joys bloom, Emai!” came a familiar voice.

Ituren and Paskoma shared a confused look as they both responded with the traditional “And present sorrows wilt.” That voice sounded so similar to that of Turasi, Paskoma’s daughter, but it couldn’t be. Turasi lived in Siatueh, a village on the other side of the bay, nearly a month’s journey across the mountains.

But when the door opened, it was Turasi who stepped in. Her smile was just like her father’s. Paskoma rushed to her daughter and hugged her tightly. “Turasi, I didn’t know you would be coming! What a lovely surprise. Where’s Satokka? Where’s Kumohi?”

“Satokka is just outside with our things. Kumohi… decided to stay in the village.” Paskoma recognized the tightness in Turasi’s voice as she spoke of her husband. “We wanted to surprise you, for the spirit blossom festival. So Satokka can meet her o-fa.”

Ituren looked at Turasi with a question in his eyes. “The buds only came out this past week.”

Turasi frowned, ready to reply, when a lanky young woman with a dour expression kicked open the door and pulled a wooden trunk into the room. Ituren bent down to help, but she waved him away. Turasi gave her daughter an exasperated look. “Satokka, let Ituren help you.”

“I can do it myself.” Without another word, Satokka dropped the trunk in the middle of the floor and went back outside.

Paskoma turned back to Turasi. “You’re here for the festival?”

Hesitation, then a nod. “Yes. We’re here for the festival.”

It didn’t matter that she wasn’t being honest. Paskoma could tell from the circles under her daughter’s eyes that she needed to be allowed her time. She knelt at the stove to light a small fire before looking back up at her daughter with an encouraging smile. “Then we will make sure this festival is one to remember.”

Long ago, the world was perfectly balanced. It was as an enormous tree full of life, with each branch, each leaf, each bloom carefully and thoughtfully positioned so that the sun and rain could nourish them all. The people, the animals, and the spirits were at peace. There was no word for “war” because there had never been battles or bloodshed.

One day, the Gatekeeper and the Collector crossed paths. The Collector saw how many spirits the Gatekeeper had led through the spirit realm to peace and happiness, and he grew jealous of her—

“Wait. The Gatekeeper? You mean the Fox.”

Ituren paused in his retelling of the old tale at Satokka’s interruption. He had enlisted her help in burying all of the blades in the house—the kitchen knives, his saw and sickle, and the rusted sword Paskoma had inherited from her aunt.

“I have heard people say the Gatekeeper is a fox, or a dog, or perhaps a leopard,” Ituren said with a smile. Satokka hadn’t spoken much in the days since she and Turasi had arrived. Ituren had hoped that a task and a story would help loosen her tongue. “Do you picture her as a fox?”

Satokka rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to speak to me like that.”

They continued digging in silence.

Ituren was patient. He could wait.

“When Fa-ir tells the stories,” Satokka said slowly, “he just calls her the Fox. So… she’s a fox.”

“I like to think of her as an otter,” Ituren said softly. He had always thought of the spirit realm as an endless river full of currents that could pull you off of your path, with a nimble otter showing the newly arrived spirits how to navigate treacherous waters.

Satokka stole a sideways look at him. “You can keep going,” she mumbled. “I still want to know why you bury these.”

Ituren cleared his throat and began to speak again.

The Collector grew envious of all the spirits that the Gatekeeper had helped find peace, and so he devised a plan. He took two of his strongest, loudest bells and melted them down. Then, over twelve nights, he hammered them into two blades. Into the first, he poured some of his Jealousy. Into the second, he poured some of his Obsession. Then, when spring began, he let the spirits of those swords bloom in the physical realm, and the swords grew from the ground like saplings.

Saplings. That was what the two Brothers thought the blades were when they stumbled across them in the forest.

The Brothers were the best of friends, perfectly loyal to one another and understanding of their roles in the world. The Elder would one day inherit their father’s own famed sword and lands, while the Younger would inherit their father’s ship. Both believed they would be great heroes, one at home and one abroad. One spring, they found the two sword-saplings growing in the forest. Neither of the Brothers had ever seen a tree grow so shiny, or so sharp. Together, they chopped them down, each shouldering one to bring back to their home.

Little did they know that this would be the last thing they would ever do together as Brothers while they remained alive. For as they walked home, the strange sap from the swords began to flow onto their necks, filling them with horrible thoughts and feelings… those of the Collector. Though they did not become enemies that day, they would eventually bring those blades together, a clanging of bells that would sound throughout the physical and spirit realms as nothing had before.

Satokka frowned. “That’s not how it happened. The Brothers make the swords themselves. They melt down their father’s sword after he dies, each thought that the other had the better blade. That’s why they went to war. The ‘Collector’ had nothing to do with it.”

Wiping the dirt from his hands, Ituren looked down at the hole he had just created in the guest room floor. The roots of the room grew thick and healthy. With just a little pressure, he was able to carefully slide the first blade beneath those roots. “These are old stories,” he said, “told and retold hundreds and thousands of times over many, many lifetimes. I’m sure we each get part of it right. This is the version I know best.”

Satokka considered for a moment as she idly ran her finger over the rusted sword. “So you bury these blades because of the Brothers?”

“Yes. When brothers cannot take up arms against one another, they do not fight. It ensures a peaceful festival, one where we let go of past strife. And look.” Ituren pointed to the sickle, lodged beneath another root. “If you give them over to roots that are grown in peace, the blades cannot grow as the sword-saplings did, rooted in violence.”

He wondered if she would want to hear the rest of his tale, but decided not to chance losing the silk-thin connection they were developing. Instead, he held out his hand for the sword.

Satokka clutched it to her chest protectively. “No. I’ll bury it. Just show me where.”

That was good enough.

Ituren showed Satokka how best to dig beneath the roots without disturbing them. They moved through the house, burying blades under the roots of each room, and giving the women the opportunity to talk seriously for the first time since they arrived.

After dinner, while Ituren and Satokka went off to bury the blades, Paskoma and Turasi uncorked the good wine. It had a rich cocoa-plum taste that lingered on the tongue and made real conversation with a reluctant speaker just a little bit easier. Three glasses in, Turasi was spinning her wine in the cup, watching the firelight dance in the liquid.

“Turasi?” A pause as Paskoma weighed how to ask. Turasi brought her eyes to meet her mother’s. “Why did Kumohi stay in your village? Why didn’t he join you and Satokka for the festival?”

Turasi didn’t want to talk about this yet, Paskoma knew, but they had been at the teahouse for three days now. She needed to know if this was the sort of trouble that could have followed them to Weh’le, if there was something she or Ituren would have to do to ensure they would be safe. Especially during the festival, with all of these strangers in town.

With a sigh, Turasi began. “There are Noxian ships that sail through the bay, to trade with Siatueh and the other villages along the cliffs. They are very… careful. Trying to make sure we know that they aren’t going to do anything. Hurt anyone.” She held her cup so tightly in her hands that Paskoma feared the glass would shatter. “But some of the other folks in Siatueh swear they have seen those same Noxians aground, surveying the area or sending their birds to do it for them. They don’t think the Noxians will ever let go of their designs on Ionia.”

Paskoma nodded. The invasion began after similar surveys, so she understood why it would make her daughter nervous. “And Kumohi?”

“Kumohi has not seen it with his own eyes, no. But he trusts the word of our friends and neighbors who have.”

“So he wanted to stay to confirm the sightings.”

“Not exactly.” Turasi’s hands shook as she took a long sip of wine. “They want the Noxians gone, Emai. They climb aboard the ships and toss everything that isn’t nailed down. For now, that is all they do, but…” She trailed off.

“A resistance.” Okerei had been a part of such efforts before.

“The Noxians have taken notice. They’re sending more ships. Ships with soldiers. I knew it was time to leave.” Turasi hugged her knees. “Kumohi disagreed.”

Paskoma stood and pressed a gentle kiss to Turasi’s forehead, dropping her hands to cover her daughter’s. “It is lovely having you and Satokka around. You do not have to leave once the festival is over.”

A ragged whisper, wet with tears. “Emai—”

“No.” She squeezed Turasi’s hands. “I don’t want to lose anyone else I love to war. Stay.”

Satokka tried to keep on task as she walked through the marketplace the next day. Ituren was to pick up decorative bells to replace a few broken ones, and Satokka had just picked up the two masks her o-ma had commissioned for her and her mother. The plan had been to run the errand, get back to Ituren, and go home. Well. To the teahouse.

But she was entranced by everything that was on display for the festival. The robes, the cakes, the flowers… She had been very young at the last spirit blossom festival, and she couldn’t remember much.

The cake stand had just caught her attention when she spotted an enormous puppet show just past it. The theatre, a large wooden wall on wheels with a translucent paper center, was set up in the middle of the square. Puppeteers moved intricately cut paper puppets as a fire mage created the light for the shadows. A narrator stood in front, explaining the story to a captivated audience as the puppets enacted it.

“And so the spirit of Despair asked our heroine Tsetsegua, ‘Do you truly believe you can find him?’ Tsetsegua nodded, knowing that to speak her hopes in front of Despair would make them fade into nothing.”

Satokka scowled. She had been lost in the beauty of the performance, but the story pulled her out of it. Tsetsegua wasn’t supposed to speak with Despair when she went to the spirit realm to find her lost love—Despair never spoke to anyone.

“Despair raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps I can help you. What is your name, mortal woman?’ Thinking quickly, Tsetsegua replied, ‘Nargui.’ No one. Now, Despair was bound to help Tsetsegua find the spirit of her lost love. And because Despair did not know her true name, Tsetsegua was safe from her wiles. For now.”

The stories her fa-ir told burned brightly in her mind as she observed this other, wrong version of the Tsetsegua tale. Satokka wished she could have stayed at Siatueh with her father. She would have been able to aid the resistance. She was tall and strong and could help throw Noxian goods into the sea. It was more than they deserved. She didn’t remember the time before the war, but Satokka knew something had been lost that Ionia had not yet reclaimed.

Disappointed, she turned to leave. But a larger crowd had started to form. One she wasn’t prepared for.

There were Noxians in Weh’le.

They were not wearing armor, they did not carry weapons, but there was always something in a Noxian’s expression that could identify them. An innate hostility, perhaps, or a sense that they were better than those around them.

But these Noxians—there were six of them, middle-aged or younger—were carrying themselves differently. They wore apologetic looks, as though they knew this festival was not meant for them. And yet here they were anyway. It made Satokka’s stomach turn.

The Ionians gave them a wide berth through the market. Whispers passed throughout the stalls, but not a soul told them they weren’t welcome. One of the younger Noxian women gave a hesitant grin. She held up a small bag of coins and started to walk to the cake stall.

Satokka looked around, waiting for someone to say something. To do something.

It would have to be her.

Satokka stared down the Noxian woman approaching the cakes until their gazes met. The woman held out her hand, as if to introduce herself.

Never breaking eye contact, Satokka spat at her feet.

A collective gasp shivered through the crowd. Satokka never saw how the Noxians reacted, because at that moment someone grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. She looked up—it was Ituren, bowing and apologizing for her actions as he led her away.

A small glance past Ituren as he rounded the corner showed Satokka that the Noxians were just… standing there. The woman she’d spat at looked lost. Pride rose in Satokka’s chest. Good. The Noxians should feel small.

They circled around the festival perimeter to lessen the chance that they might be followed. But Ituren had picked up new bells, and he jingled with every step. Finally Ituren threw the bells to the ground and led her back to the teahouse.

Before they entered the back door, Ituren spun to face Satokka. She blinked in surprise at his expression—she had never seen him look anything but cheerful or tired. But now, his eyes showed fear. “They came here in peace, to celebrate the festival with us, Satokka.” Ituren’s voice was never this sharp. “You did not have to do that.”

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Satokka thought back to her father in Siatueh, to the resistance, to the Noxian soldiers making their way into her town at this very moment.

“Yes, I did.”

Turasi burst into the front room in a near panic and went straight to her mother. Paskoma had just handed a new guest a pot of tea, a clean set of sheets and towels, but she waved the woman on when she saw the terror and anger written on Turasi’s face.

“What is wrong?” Paskoma asked gently. Through gritted teeth, Turasi told the story of what happened to her daughter and Ituren at the marketplace. It had taken a while to get more out of Ituren than a sheepish apology for not bringing back any bells, and getting Satokka to speak about something she’d done wrong was like trying to wring water from a stone.

“I cannot believe she would do something so reckless, so dangerous!” Turasi had been so pleased to bring her family to the safety of Weh’le and her mother’s house. But not only were there Noxians in town, but Satokka had brought their attention to herself. That was the entire reason they had left Siatueh.

“She is nearly grown, Turasi. She is pushing her boundaries to see where they truly lie.”

“And that’s what will get her killed. Those Noxians… they may not have had weapons on them, but you know that every soldier who served in that army is a stone-hearted killer.”

“Excuse me.” Both women turned, startled. It was the new guest, standing in the doorway of her room. She was tall, with dark hair and unusual amber eyes partly obscured by the hood of her cloak. “You’re talking about warriors in Weh’le?”

“Yes, exactly,” Turasi said, disconcerted. She hadn’t noticed that they had walked toward the new guest as they spoke. The air around the woman seemed to shimmer strangely, moving differently around her than the rest of the teahouse. For a moment, Turasi wondered if she might be dreaming. “They’re trained in the ways of war. And they need to leave, but I don’t—”

“Oh, no,” the guest interrupted with a good-natured smile. “You misunderstand me. I am in search of someone who could serve as a protector. A guard. Any strong fighters in town could be persuaded to join me, if you only point me in their direction.”

“No.” Paskoma’s voice was clear and insistent. “I refuse to allow anyone dangerous to stay here during the festival. If you insist upon finding yourself a guard, then I will have to insist you find a different teahouse.” She held her hands out, ready for the guest to return her linens.

Instead the guest laughed airily, charmed by Paskoma. “This is the best teahouse in town, is it not? I am not going to stay somewhere inferior if I can help it. I will respect your wishes and not bring anyone dangerous through those doors.”

With a wink, she disappeared into her room. Paskoma let out a sigh and turned back to her daughter. “She will be fine, Turasi. Satokka is too smart to make herself a target for long.”

Turasi nodded. The words stuck in her throat, but she smiled at her mother. She forgot how soothing it could be to let her mother take care of her, sinking back into the roles they played during Turasi’s childhood.

There were differences, of course. When she was a child, Turasi never saw anything of her parents’ worries or fears. They were strong and ever-present, like the mountains or the sea. It wasn’t until after her father died that Turasi saw her mother lost or uncertain.

And now, with the spirit blossoms set to bloom soon, that uncertainty around Okerei had returned. What would her mother do if she didn’t get the answer she was looking for?

But then, Turasi wasn’t sure Paskoma knew what answer she truly wanted.

Satokka had never seen such a meal before in her entire life. To celebrate the first night of the festival, Paskoma cooked up a feast for the twenty or so people lodging at the teahouse. So Satokka filled her plate and her belly and did what she had come to enjoy most while staying with her grandmother: talking with and listening to the other guests.

Everyone wore their masks or costumes. Turasi instructed Satokka to wear her own mask out at the festival, and to never take it off. The Noxians could be watching, ready to retaliate. But Satokka didn’t mind. She loved her mask. It was intricate, with large ornate horns and eyes that twisted down the face into a wicked grin. This was the face of the Taker, the little girl who was there at the moment of every death.

During dinner, Satokka got into a heated discussion about the Taker with the amber-eyed guest. The woman was dressed like the Fox—or the Gatekeeper, as they called her in Weh’le—with lifelike fuzzy ears atop her head and markings like whiskers drawn across her face.

“But the Taker is the one who is actually there when a person dies,” Satokka insisted. “So it makes more sense for her to guide spirits to the spirit realm.”

“So then why,” the guest asked in an amused drawl, “do we remove the sharpest tooth in a person’s mouth and place it in their palm when they die? It isn’t for the Taker, I know that much.”

Satokka shrugged. “It’s payment, to cross the veil.”

“Who do they pay it to? Who would have use for those teeth? The Khumaia.”

“The what?”

“Your Gatekeeper. She wears each tooth she is given on an endless necklace, to understand the life of the spirit she leads down to the spirit realm. By the time they arrive, she knows whether the spirit will follow her peaceful path or Rakhsasum’s path of torment, even if the spirit does not know yet. She will do everything she can to help those destined for pain, but their fate is unveiled in that tooth.”

“Really?” Satokka had grown used to the differences in the stories between Weh’le and Siatueh over the last couple of weeks. Now, she looked forward to all of the tales she would tell her father when she saw him next.

The woman giggled. “No. I made it up.”

“Oh.”

“From what I can remember, it’s so we can celebrate the age of the person who died. The ground down tooth of a wise elder, the sharp youthfulness of a soldier cut down in her prime.” She paused and smiled at Satokka. “But I like telling stories that haven’t been told.”

When it was time for dessert, Satokka excitedly ate the cakes that Ituren had spent the last two days baking for this night. They were a little burnt on the bottom, but the sweet sticky center was full of flavor.

Ituren passed around the cakes by hand, starting with Satokka and ending on the guest with the excellent costume ears. The guest put her hand on Ituren’s forearm and looked deep into his eyes as she quietly asked him a question.

Satokka watched as Ituren’s eyes lost focus, then he nodded, saying, “Of course. Anyone you would want to house here is welcome, whether they are skilled with a blade or not. We do not discriminate here.”

The guest squeezed his arm in appreciation. “Thank you. You should let your wife know, she might not be as understanding as you are.”

Again he nodded, but Satokka noticed when Ituren turned to go back into the kitchen that his eyes weren’t their usual color. For just a moment, so briefly that it could have been a trick of the light, his normally dark brown eyes were the same shade of amber-gold as the fox-eared woman sitting beside her.

As the last rays of the sun disappeared over the water, the spirit blossoms, now in full bloom, began to glow in the moonlight. The festival-goers let out a cheer—finally, after all this time, the blossoms had truly returned. They lit the lanterns on the march up to the temple in the mountains, a warm and cheerful light to counter the eerie silver of the flowers upon the branches.

Paskoma wished she felt as elated as everyone else. After the feast, she and a masked Satokka had dressed in their finery and gone out in search of Okerei’s blossom, the one that would allow her to connect to his spirit and speak with him. In the past, it had never taken long for Paskoma to find the flower she was looking for. There was always a tether, it was said, between the still-beating heart of those alive and the still heart of their loved ones.

This time, though… there were so many spirits upon the trees.

She had never seen the branches so full, so bountiful. Some whispered that Ionians were not the only ones upon the trees, that the Noxians had poisoned their festival even in death. The cawing of ravens in the distance seemed to confirm their fears. Paskoma didn’t believe that. There was a simpler explanation. There were just so many who needed to come back now, more than ever before. The trees were heavy with the hopes of those trying to connect.

And she had not yet found Okerei.

She feared him lost, or not yet at peace, or simply not desiring to speak with her. Perhaps their link had been severed after so long apart.

Paskoma kept smiling through the tears that threatened to spill and encouraged Satokka to keep looking. She would not let her granddaughter’s first spirit blossom festival be ruined by her own grief. This was supposed to be a celebration, and she knew it was important that Satokka learn to understand the joy to be found in these reunions.

Turasi and Ituren joined them after they finished clearing away the feast. “Have you found Fa-ir yet?” Turasi asked as she slipped on her own mask, a beautifully painted Tsetsegua with tears carved into her cheeks. Paskoma shook her head, her throat too tight to speak. “Then Satokka and I will continue to look. Why don’t you rest for a moment?”

Paskoma allowed Ituren to lead her to a bench, where she sat and observed. She saw families crying over pots of spirit tea, begging their loved ones to stay just a little longer. She saw children playing soldier with sticks for swords, a seriousness to their expression that ought not be there. She saw the worry and the whispers from those around the festival who listened to the ravens and stared at the spirit trees with distrust and contempt.

This was not the spirit blossom festival she remembered. She wondered if it ever would be again.

Her eye was drawn away from the festival by the new and patterned sounds of drums in the distance, the blazing of flames on a nearby mountaintop. Paskoma’s hand went to her chest—she knew this sound. She had heard it after fierce battles, when the Noxians burned their dead on enormous pyres.

“I wish,” she sighed, “we did not have to spend so much time looking to the past.”

“Is that not what the festival is about?”

“No.” She turned to look at the trees, her back to the flames. “It is about letting go of the past, and moving forward into the future. So many people forget that.” Though she could not see it, Paskoma thought she could feel the heat of the fire lapping at her, threatening to engulf her, her family, everything around her, all that was and all that would come. “And this feels different.”

“Different in what way?”

“Does this look like letting go?” Paskoma asked, sorrow in her voice as she gestured around them. “Or does it look like we are holding on to something so tightly that it’s bound to come back?”

A warm hand enveloped her own. She looked up into Ituren’s eyes as he spoke softly to her.

“You are upset that we have not found Okerei’s blossom yet.”

A tear coursed down her cheek. “I… everything is different. The spirit blossoms have returned, but can we return to how we were before? Can anything be made right?”

Ituren squeezed her hand gently. “There is still time. We will find him, my love. Your heart’s tether to him was—is—the strongest I have ever seen. You will speak to him and see that, though some things may change, others never will. He will always love you, as you will always love him. And whatever his answer may be…” He paused as he brought her palm to his lips. “Speaking with him will bring you and your family peace. And that is all I want for you.”

Paskoma’s tight smile softened into something real as she gazed at the man she had loved for so long. She squeezed his hand in return. “Our family, Ituren.”

He closed his eyes before tears could come and placed her hand over his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart beneath her fingertips, strong and steady and alive.

For the first time, she knew what she wanted. Regardless of what Okerei would say.

She was ready to let go of the past, and move forward into her future, with Ituren at her side.

The six Noxians tried to keep their ceremony private, but it demanded attention, an insistence that all honor the fallen of Noxus. They had traveled from a small island in the middle of the bay to celebrate the dead in the Ionian way, but had been turned away from the spirit blossom festival at Weh’le earlier in the week. So they had to keep the traditions of their own people and remember the dead the only way they knew how. Though the Noxians had brought little with them on the journey, the remembrance ceremony was easy to improvise.

Laurna beat the Wolf drum, Giotto and Samtha stoked the fire, Helia and Arnaut built the effigies from fallen pieces of timber and twine. Jacrut tossed Samtha’s uneaten festival cake onto the coals. No one felt right eating it after the marketplace incident and so it became the first offering, lending the air a burnt honey scent. Then, with the dramatic flair that came from a noble upbringing and a priestly training, Jacrut threw the effigies atop the flames.

“We send these souls into the sky,” Jacrut intoned, his voice ringing out in the clear, still night. “So that their ashes may fall over all the world.”

“May their deaths bring Noxus across the seas,” the others murmured.

“May their bodies nourish the soil so that we may grow.”

“May they not have died in vain.”

“And may their souls—”

Jacrut stopped suddenly as a huge burst of wind fed the flames, spiraling them toward the stars. It overwhelmed him for a moment, driving him to silence.

This was the promise of Noxus. A flame that would burn everything in its path, even its own people. He and his comrades had realized this even before the war finished. They were all deserters trying to make a life for themselves tucked away from those they had abandoned and those they had hurt.

No one wanted them.

This was not Noxus. This was not their land, and he was unsure if their gods could hear them here. Was unsure if he wanted them to hear. He knew the prayers, yes, but he wasn’t sure he still believed in them.

The blossoms on the spirit trees glowed, almost pulsing in the light of the fire. Jacrut swallowed hard. No, this was not Noxus. This was something beautiful, dangerous, terrifying. They were what made him nervous. The blossoms, blooming for the first time since the war.

Because if the gods weren’t watching, that meant the only eyes on them were the spirits of Ionians. People he and his comrades had killed, people who had no reason to feel anything toward them other than rage and resentment.

People he hoped they would not have to fight against again. Because they had all seen the ships, the soldiers. They knew what it meant. What they didn’t know, was what it would mean for them. For their lives in Ionia. For their service to Noxus.

“May their souls find rest among our ancestors,” he croaked out, his throat dry, “and lend us their strength for the battles to come.”

He did not want the spirits to hear his prayers.

“It was no tempest. It was a spirit,” said the fisherman, still rattled by the shipwreck he’d barely survived two nights ago. The man told of his fishing vessel being sunk by a creature, large as a house and quick as the wind.

Shen listened to the tale, silently weighing the facts as presented.

“Show me where it happened,” said Shen.

The man led him to a beach in the bay, where a team of villagers worked to recover the drowned bodies of the mariners. Shen knelt to examine a piece of wreckage. The gashes in the driftwood were deep and savage, the work of powerful claws.

“How many dead?” he asked.

“All but me… Six,” responded the fisherman.

The spirits are strong, thought Shen, digging through the wreckage for any further evidence.

At last, on the edge of a splintered portion of the hull, he found it: a small tuft of gossamer hair. Most people would overlook it, or if they did see it, they’d never believe a creature that could break a ship in half could leave something so delicate. But Shen had seen hair like this before. Any doubts he’d had about the veracity of the fisherman’s tale faded as he watched the fine, silvery tuft dissolve into nothing at his touch.

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“A demon,” Shen remarked. “You must have sailed into its path.”

The fisherman nodded grimly. Spirits of all kinds were known to mingle with the physical world, especially in Ionia, where the barrier between realms was thin and passable. The ethereal and material planes were in constant contact, sliding peacefully past one another like oil atop water.

As the Eye of Twilight, it was Shen’s duty to walk between the worlds, ensuring neither side overwhelmed the other. To humans, he was a ghost, vanishing in the space between breaths to reappear many miles away. To spirits, he was a human, flesh and bone who ought never to venture into ethereal realms.

He knelt on the beach to examine one of the corpses that had been recovered. The man had been torn in half, just below the ribs. What was left of his innards dangled from a pale, bloated torso.

“You need not worry. I shall have the monster before nightfall,” said a voice from behind.

Shen turned to see a holy man sent by the local temple. Several acolytes stood around him, carrying an assortment of mystical trinkets and oils. They were beginning a cleansing ritual to root out any spiritual disturbances in the area. The holy man stared at Shen, as if sizing up his value.

“Can we count on your help, sir?” the man asked.

“Balance will be restored,” said Shen with an assuring nod.

He parted ways with the holy man and continued to follow the faint trail of gossamer hair. He thought of the dead seafarers and the cost he’d need to exact from the demon. The words of his father still rang true: “The hardest part is finding the point of balance in all things.” True neutrality, the precise center of all forces at work in the world - that is what the Eye must be able to distinguish.

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Enforcing that equilibrium was its own struggle. For the task, Shen carried two blades on his back. One was an Ionian steel saber that could cleave through a person in one blow. The other was a sword of pure arcane energy. It was used for dealing with spirits, and had been passed down through many generations of Shen’s ancestors. He had slain countless demons, ghosts, wraiths, and sprites with it over the years, and fully expected to take one more before the day was done.

At last, Shen came to a secluded inlet, quiet and devoid of human activity. On a sandbar in the shallows lay the demon, its fine, glossy coat shimmering in the dusk. The creature swelled as it rested, engorged from consuming the mortal essences of its victims. Shen crept through the rushes, silently edging toward the sleeping demon. He could see its massive ribcage expand and contract with deep, restful breaths. When he was but a few paces from the sandbar, he drew his spirit blade, readying his strike.

Suddenly, a distressing sound stayed his hand. It was a shrill, ghastly cry, emanating from the very air itself. It sounded familiar, but before Shen could identify the noise, he heard it again. And again. And again, culminating in a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks. These were the cries of dying spirits. Shen’s eyes darted back to the demon, now beginning to stir from its slumber. Shen took one more look at his spirit blade, calmly weighing his options. He then clasped his hands together, carefully focusing his ki, and disappeared in a vortex of crackling energy, leaving the demon alone on its sandbar.

A moment later, Shen reappeared at the site of the shipwreck.  All around, smoldering pools of black ooze evaporated into the air, coupled with the lingering reek of terror.

Shen counted the dissipating black puddles, each the remains of a slain spirit. His tally was interrupted as the holy man entered the clearing with his acolytes. One of the men held a cord of flax and silver. Tethered to the other end was a smaller spirit - an imp of no significance. It struggled against the choke of its leash. It wailed as it saw the remains of its brethren.

“Would you care to dispose of this one?” the holy man asked Shen, casually, as if offering him a bowl of soup at dinner.

Shen looked at the sticky, smoldering pools that were mighty beings of the otherworld just moments ago. Then he turned his gaze toward the priest and the wailing imp.

“I am sorry for this, Your Holiness,” he said. He placed his spirit blade back into its scabbard and drew his steel saber instead. It was not the sword he had expected to use that day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her tormentors were not laughing now...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He remained here to keep watch over her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it dry?” whispered Okin.

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

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

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

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

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

“It is done,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The one Sirik now came to kill.

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

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

Padding silently into the gloom, Kalan began the hunt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something was very wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wait,” said Okin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t make us do this, sister.”

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

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

“This could be our chance to—”

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

“So work with us,” begged Okin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kalan’s yellow cat eyes turned back to Okin.

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

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

This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

Something was very wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

And she woke from her endless dream.

Sirik saw Syndra’s eyes snap open.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, brother…” she managed, weakly.

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

Syndra looked down upon him, her gaze radiating power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are an abomination,” he hissed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Syndra was back in the world.

They had failed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kalan didn’t blink. “Tell me.”

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

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

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

“And my little ones?”

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

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

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

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

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

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