BEST NOXUS STORIES TO READ NEXT

Citizens of Noxus, I bring word from the capital!

It is a time for celebration! The Hand of Noxus is returned, and stands with our new Grand General! With the noble houses united behind them, the new age of our glorious empire begins now!

Let it be known that, on this day, from distant Shurima to the shores of Ionia, the countless wars initiated by Boram Darkwill have been ended. No longer will our treasuries be drained in pursuit of victories that none can truthfully promise. No longer will our brave warriors spend their lives needlessly, and without gain.

Noxian gold, and Noxian blood. These are the treasures that Jericho Swain has pledged to return to you, the people.

While on campaign in the northlands, mighty General Darius received orders to stand down. Rather than meekly accept this edict, he marched back to the capital with all his warhosts—for the duty of the Hand of Noxus is first and foremost to the empire itself, and not to whomsoever shall sit upon its throne, with the passing of years. It is right and proper that he would question these orders, and the authority by which they were issued.

Let it be known that General Darius met with General Swain. Let it also be known that Darius was satisfied that the coup against Boram Darkwill was just, and legal, and that Swain’s intentions were for the good of all Noxus.

Explore image +

Long live Grand General Jericho Swain, savior of the empire!

Under the protection of Darius and his warhosts, representatives from all noble houses have met to hear Swain’s plans for the future of Noxus. Those who have sworn themselves and their houses to him in perpetuity have received full pardons for any prior wrongdoing, or opposition they may have offered. These men and women are proud and honorable servants of the Grand General, and are not to be harmed.

In his boundless wisdom and mercy, he has also granted clemency to those who refuse his benevolence. They have a full seven days to conclude their affairs within the empire, surrender their lands and titles, and depart Noxus forevermore. Any who choose to remain in defiance will forfeit their lives, with public Reckonings to recommence in the Noxkraya Arena three days thereafter.

Henceforth, let it be known that each and every Noxian shall be treated equally, and on the merit of their own ability and strength. Furthermore, let it be known that Jericho Swain and the noble houses are committed to ending the decades of incompetence and nepotism that plagued Darkwill’s rule.

But the former Grand General was not an evil man, and Swain would not have him remembered as such. Rather, he was a weak man—manipulated from behind the scenes by others...

Yes, friends. There is a corruption at the heart of our great empire. For centuries this corruption has grown, blooming like a pleasant flower in plain sight, while its roots twist and spread in the darkness beneath.

No more, friends! No more! Jericho Swain will destroy any who seek to exploit Noxus for their own secretive gains! He will tear out this corruption, this blighted and thorned rose, root and stem! Every one of its agents and allies are hereby named enemies of the empire, and all good citizens are obliged to do them harm, if they are able. Together we shall prevail! Let none be above suspicion!

Explore image +

Before Boram Darkwill, these same sinister forces puppeted even the greatest kings and champions of the Noxii, all the way back to the Rune Wars. Indeed, our beloved Grand General has heard the fears of the noble houses—that if any could fall to such corruption, then why not him also? To that end, henceforth he has decreed that Noxus shall not be ruled by any single individual... but three. He draws upon the legacy of the greatest among the old tribes—the vision of the Noxidi, the might of the Noxkri, the guile of the Noxtali—to create a “Trifarix” council, whose members will eschew any throne, and embody those same principles of strength that have ever allowed Noxus to triumph over its foes.

Finally, let it be known that after much consultation with his dear friends among the nobility, the Grand General has reconciled with the leaders of the assassin guilds. Alongside Swain and Darius, they will find a place on the council prepared for them, maintaining a “faceless” representative to protect the empire against even the most insidious threats from within.

Go forth, citizens! Carry these words and proclamations to all! The greatest years of Noxus lie yet before us, and we shall rise as a single people, united in purpose and glory, once more!

ARCHIVIST’S NOTE: In spite of the inspirational and conciliatory promises contained in these official pronouncements, within a single year the Trifarix had completely changed the political landscape of Noxus. Imperial governorships and military commissions were no longer inherited, but bestowed through official channels. All personal wealth was to be declared and verified, and hefty taxes imposed on any gold or silver not held in trust by state banks. Finally, it became illegal for any citizen to be owned as chattel by another, and unauthorized sale or transfer of the same was made punishable by death.

Effectively, Jericho Swain courted the noble houses to gain a foothold within the assassin guilds, then systematically dismantled the power structures that had supported them for almost a thousand years. Though the full repercussions of this remain to be seen, it is likely that many nobles have been driven into alliance with his clandestine enemies, and eventual rebellion.

My name is Alyssa Roshka Gloriana val-Lokan. For almost two millennia, my ancestors ruled the Delverhold as kings.

Warlords, nations and would-be empires sought to overthrow us, jealous of the wealth the Ironspike Mountains offered up to us, but none could breach our fastness. They broke against our walls like ocean waves, and fell back from the doom of our blades.

All of them failed... until Noxus came.

And then my family were kings no more.

She held her head high as they climbed the Stairs of Triumph. Liveried guards stood sentinel every twelve steps, but her flinty gaze was locked forward, unwavering. This might have been Alyssa’s first time in the capital, but she refused to be overawed; she would not gawk like some provincial lowborn. She was of the Delverhold, and the blood of kings flowed through her veins.

The steps were flanked by guards clad in dark steel. The ore used in the forging of their armor came from the depths below her mountain home. All the best plate in Noxus started there, deep under the mountains. For five generations, ever since her realm had been conquered by Noxus and incorporated into the empire, it had been so.

Red banners rippled in the evening’s dry wind as they ascended. The scent of coalfire and industry wafted upon that hot breeze. In Noxus, the forges rarely cooled.

The Immortal Bastion loomed before them, dark and threatening.

“They flaunt their wealth and decadence, while we live as paupers,” said her brother, Oram. She looked askance at him, striding beside her.

Oram Arkhan val-Lokan. Broad-shouldered, strong of arm, and undeniably skilled with a blade, he was also arrogant and limited of mind—in Alyssa’s opinion—but she kept her disdain concealed behind an impassive, unexpressive mask. He was her elder, if only by a matter of minutes, and was only two steps removed from ruling the Delverhold himself. Alyssa was well aware of her place.

Outwardly, the fact they were twins was obvious. Both were tall and athletic in stature, and each had the cold eyes of the family line, as well as the proud demeanor of those born to nobility. Both wore their long, black hair bound artfully in tight braids, they each bore angular facial tattoos and wore shale-grey cloaks over their armor.

They reached the top of the stairs. There was a flutter of wings, and a raven flew low over their heads.

Alyssa almost flinched, but caught herself. “Should we consider that an ill omen, brother?”

She saw Oram’s hands turn to fists.

“Too long have we filled the coffers of Noxus and armored its soldiers,’ he snarled, making only the barest pretense in keeping his voice out of the earshot of the guards. “And for what?”

For survival, Alyssa thought, though she didn’t speak it aloud.

A pair of warriors clad in full plate awaited them outside the great metal doors of the palace. They stood to attention, heavy axe-headed halberds gripped in their gauntlets. The three indentations in their breastplates and their dark red cloaks and tabards informed Alyssa these were no regular guards.

“Legionaries,” breathed Oram, his usual bluster and arrogance forgotten.

In a nation of killers, the elite Trifarian Legion was feared and respected above all—by both friend and foe alike. It was said that their mere presence had seen cities and nations take the knee, rather than face them in battle.

“They honor us,” Alyssa said. “Come brother. It’s time we meet this so-called ‘Council of Three’ for ourselves.”

The throne sat empty, however, as it had since the previous Grand General of Noxus had died.

Not died, Alyssa corrected herself. Been executed.

No emperor for Noxus, no tyrant upon the throne. Not any longer.

Before she’d left the Delverhold, Alyssa had been counselled regarding this new leadership.

“The Trifarix,” her father’s chief advisor had named it. “Three together, each representing one of the core Principles of Strength—Vision, Might, and Guile. The theory is, where a single individual could doom Noxus through incompetence, madness or corruption, now there will always be two others to hold any rogue third accountable.”

To Alyssa, it was an intriguing concept, but one that remained untested in practice.

The chamber felt cavernous, large enough to house over a thousand petitioners, but at this moment it was empty, other than three figures sat at a simple table of marbled stone at the foot of the throne’s raised platform.

The two grim, unspeaking warriors of the Trifarian Legion escorted Alyssa and her brother towards the trio, their footfalls echoing sharply upon the cold floor. The three were deep in discussion, but they ceased their talk as the siblings of the Delverhold came towards them. They were seated in a row, facing the approaching envoys like a silent panel of judgement.

Two of them she knew by reputation. Of the third… well, no one knew anything, really.

In the center, keen-eyed and unblinking, sat Jericho Swain—the renowned visionary, the new Grand General. Some among the noble houses still called him usurper, since it was he who had dragged the madman Boram Darkwill from the throne of Noxus, but none of them said it to his face. His gaze, which seemed to see too much, bore first into Oram, then Alyssa. She resisted the urge to stare at the sleeve of his left arm, tucked within his dark coat. It was said he had lost the limb during the failed invasion of Ionia, severed by some blade-witch of that fey archipelago.

To his right sat Darius, the legendary Hand of Noxus, leader of the elite Trifarian Legion, and now commander of all the empire’s armies. He was the embodiment of might itself; where Swain sat rigidly upright, Darius slouched back, the fingers of one gauntleted hand drumming a steady tattoo upon the wooden armrest of his chair. His arms were massive, his expression hard.

The third figure—only ever referred to as “the Faceless”—was a mystery. This individual sat unmoving, bedecked from head to toe in a many-layered, voluminous robe. They wore a blank, staring, glossy-black mask, and even the eye-holes were obscured with dark mesh, giving away nothing as to their identity. Their hands, too, were concealed, hidden in sleeves of thick fabric. Alyssa thought she perceived a vaguely feminine aspect to the mask, but that might simply have been the way it happened to catch the light.

A barely perceptible inclination of the chin from Darius dismissed the legionaries that had escorted them in. The two warriors slammed their armored fists to their breastplates in salute, and retreated a half dozen steps, leaving Alyssa and her brother alone before the Trifarix.

“Sit, please,” said Swain, indicating the chairs opposite.

“I prefer to stand, Grand General,” replied Oram.

“As you wish.”

There was something undeniably threatening and predatory about the Grand General, Alyssa decided… considering he was a cripple heading into his twilight years…

“Oram and Alyssa val-Lokan, third and fourth-born children of the Governor of the Delverhold,” he continued. “It’s a long journey from the Ironspike Mountains. I take it this is not a social visit.”

“I come bearing the seal of my father,” said Oram, “to speak in his name.”

“Get on with it, then,” said Darius, his voice the warning growl of a murk-wolf. “No ceremony. This is Noxus, not some noble court.”

His accent was rough and earthy, not cultured like Swain’s. The voice of a commoner. Alyssa could almost feel her brother’s sneer.

“For decades, the Delverhold has served loyally,” Oram began, emphasizing the nobility of his own accent, perhaps in an unwise show of superiority. “Our gold feeds the campaigns of conquest. Our iron clads and arms the warbands of the empire. The Trifarian Legion too.”

Darius remained unimpressed. “Ironspike ore makes the best armor. I would not have the Legion protected in anything else. You should be proud.”

“We are proud, my lord,” said Alyssa.

“I am no lord. Especially not yours.”

Swain smiled, raising his hand. “What he means to say is—in Noxus, no man or woman is born superior to another. It is not by bloodline that one earns their place, but by their deeds.”

“Of course,” Alyssa demurred, cursing herself inwardly for her mistake.

“We toil likes slaves in the darkness of the deep-mines below the mountains,” Oram went on. “And every day we watch as the fruits of our labors are taken from us in great wagon trains that come back empty. We are scarcely able to feed our—”

“Oh, really?” Swain exclaimed, raising an eyebrow. “Please, show me your palms.”

“What?” said Oram, taken aback.

“Show us your hands, boy,” said Darius, leaning on the polished surface of the table between them. “Show us these hands that toil in the rock and dust and darkness beneath your mountain fortress.”

Oram squared his jaw, refusing to be drawn.

Darius scoffed. “Never struggled a day in his life, this one. Her neither. The only calluses you two possess certainly didn’t come from hard work.”

“I will not be spoken to in such a manner by…” Oram began, but Alyssa placed a placating hand upon his shoulder. He angrily shrugged it off, but wisely chose not to finish the thought. “The mountains are being bled dry,” he said, his voice more measured. “It is unsustainable, and that is not good for anyone—not for us, and certainly not for the armies of Noxus. There must be concession.”

“Tell me, Oram Arkhan val-Lokan,” said Swain, “how many warriors does the Delverhold send out to fight for Noxus? Approximately. Annually.”

“None, sir. But that is by-the-by. Our people serve better working the mines and guarding the northern frontiers from barbarian attack. That is where our chief value to Noxus lies.”

Swain sighed. “Of all the provinces, city-states and nations that submit to Noxus, the Delverhold stands alone in providing no soldiers to join our warhosts. You do not bleed for Noxus. You have never bled for Noxus. Is that not concession enough?”

“It is not,” Oram replied, curtly. “We have come at our father’s behest to renegotiate our tithes, or the Delverhold will have no option but to reconsider its place within the Noxian empire.”

Explore image +

The room had become very still. Even Darius had ceased the incessant tapping of his fingers.

Alyssa’s face drained of color, and stared at her brother in horror. This was a turn she had not been privy to, and her mind reeled at its implications. The Faceless continued to gaze levelly at her, from behind that glossy mask.

“I see,” said Swain, finally. “I believe I know your father’s real purpose in sending the two of you here, but the question is… do you?”

Oram nodded to Alyssa. “Show them,” he ordered, his eyes flashing in anger.

She took a deep breath, and brought forth a scroll case. Unhooking its end with trembling fingers, she slid free an old sheaf of parchment, covered in intricate, angular writing in Ur-Noxian. It bore both the seal of the Delverhold, and the blood-red crest of Noxus. She placed it upon the table, and smoothed it flat before standing back at her brother’s side—although half a step behind, as was her place, according to Ironspike custom.

Darius appeared disinterested, but both Swain and the Faceless leaned forward to look upon the document. Once again, Alyssa found herself trying to get any sense of who it was that hid behind the mask.

“When the Delverhold submitted to Noxian rule, eighty-seven years ago,” said Oram, “our ancestors gave up their sovereign rights and bowed before the throne of Noxus—the very throne I see before me now, empty.”

Darius glowered at him. “And…?”

“The terms are clear, as you can see for yourself, as to where we pledged our allegiance. The last man to sit on that throne died a little over seven years ago,” said Oram, gesturing up at the dais. “As far as our father is concerned, this piece of paper is now worthless. The Delverhold is under no obligation to continue to pay any tithes at all, but has continued to do so as an act of good faith. However, if our concessions are not met, the Delverhold will be forced to extricate itself from the empire. The Ironspike region will no longer be under our immediate protection.”

Alyssa wanted to look away, wanted to run, but found herself rooted to the spot as she waited for the reaction of the council.

“History only remembers the victors,” Darius warned them. “Stand with Noxus, and be remembered forever. Stand against us, and you will be crushed and forgotten.”

“No army has ever breached the Delverhold,” said Oram. “Our forefathers opened the gates to Noxus willingly, remember. No blood was spilled.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, boy.” Darius pointed to the warriors standing a few paces behind Alyssa and Oram. “Just two of the Trifarian Legion could walk in and take your precious Delverhold. I wouldn’t even trouble myself to go with them.”

As if to emphasize his point, the two legionaries slammed the butts of their halberds into the floor, the sound echoing like a thunderclap.

Oram scoffed at the display, but Darius’ confidence struck Alyssa. He did not seem to be a man to make idle boasts.

“Enough,” said Swain, with a wave of his hand. “Let us hear what these concessions would entail.”

The silver moon had passed its zenith in the night sky overhead by the time Alyssa and Oram left the palace. They began making their way toward the nearby estate that served as their base of operations within the capital.

Alyssa was quiet and brooding, her stomach a tight knot of unease, but her brother seemed energized by the encounter with the rulers of Noxus.

“Swain will agree to our terms! I’m sure of it,” he gushed. “He knows the Delverhold is too important to the empire to allow father to close its gates.”

“This is madness,” Alyssa muttered. “We walk in there and you threaten them? That was your plan?”

“That was father’s plan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have agreed to it, had you known?”

“Of course not,” Alyssa replied. “This is a fool’s errand. We may just as well have offered ourselves up for the next Fleshing…”

“If Swain is convinced, we only need one of the others to join him for them to concede to our terms,” said Oram, seeming not to hear her concerns. “That is how the Trifarix works. Their leadership cannot be deadlocked, when only two of them need agree on anything to get it done.”

“Darius will never agree.”

“Darius is an arrogant dog. He thinks he could send two men to take the Delverhold? Pah! But I fear you are right. While he objects, that leaves only the Faceless. Our future prosperity lies with the vote of whoever is behind that mask.”

“Then there is nothing more to do but wait to hear what our fates will be,” said Alyssa, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

Oram’s eyes gleamed dangerously. “Not necessarily.”

The knot in Alyssa’s stomach tightened a little more as he began to explain.

Dawn was still several hours away, but Alyssa was already uncomfortably warm as she made her way swiftly and quietly through the streets of the capital. At the head of a contingent of Delverguard, she wore a tight-fitting helmet of dark steel, and already she could feel her hair dampening with sweat beneath it.

There were a dozen of them in all, cloaked and hooded over their armor. All carried heavy crossbows, with blades strapped at their waists. In this city, it was not at all unusual to see armed warbands from all across the empire; if anyone saw them, their weapons would not raise alarm, and yet Alyssa could not shake the feeling they were being watched.

And, somehow, that the observer knew their intent.

The streets and alleys of Noxus were narrow and twisting, designed to stifle and frustrate any attacking force that managed to penetrate the city’s outer defenses. The rooftops were flat and crenellated, like the battlements of a castle, allowing any soldiers above to dominate any enemy below. Alyssa eyed those dark rooftops warily. Anyone could be up there, marking their progress. They could well be walking into an ambush…

A flutter of black wings overhead made her skid to a halt, swinging her crossbow skywards. She cursed herself for being so jumpy, and gestured her retainers on.

“This is a bad idea,” Alyssa said to herself, for the twentieth time since leaving the estate.

She had said as much to her brother, trying to dissuade him from this course of action, but his mind was set. This was their father’s will, Oram had stated with finality. They would return home having secured a new deal, or they would not return at all. There was no other course.

Now she had some time to digest it, Alyssa was not surprised that this was the old governor’s plan all along. Of course it was. While it may well end in both her and her brother’s capture and subsequent execution, what was that to her father? He had never cared for either of them over-much, saving his affections for his heir: Alyssa’s oldest brother, Herok. And if they were caught, and the Trifarix tried to hold them as hostages to keep the Delverhold within the rule of Noxus, she knew what their father’s answer would be.

To him, Alyssa and Oram were expendable.

She and her men hugged the shadows as they closed in on the Shrine of the Wolf, which butted up against the old southern bulwarks of the Immortal Bastion itself. Her brother would be a few streets to the east, with more of their armed retainers.

In the weeks before the contingent arrived in the capital, spies in their employ had been watching the comings and goings around the palace. One of the observations had been of particular interest, and it was upon that intelligence that Alyssa and her brother were now operating.

They were getting close. Alyssa lifted a hand, and the Delverguard fell in around her, pausing in the shadows of a narrow passage looking towards the Shrine of the Wolf. It was a tall, multi-tiered tower with open sides, each level held aloft by pillars of dark stone. In the center of the tower, looming almost fifty feet high, was a massive obsidian statue of a seated wolf.

They waited there for a long minute, until they saw two brief flashes of light in the distance—the sparks of a blade against flint. That was the signal Oram was in place, and the way was clear.

“Let’s move,” Alyssa hissed, and as one, she and her attendants were up and running, breaking from cover and hurrying towards the shrine, watchful for guards. There were none. It seemed her brother and his men had done their work.

Alyssa loped up the steps to the shrine, indicating with a flick of her hand for her warriors to spread out. They entered, passing over the threshold, and circled out around the wolf statue. They hugged the shadows, leaning in against the pillars, melding into the darkness, and waited.

She gazed up. In ancient Valoran custom, death was often represented as a dualistic in nature, taking the form of the Lamb of peaceful death, and the Wolf of violent ends. In Noxus, the latter was honored with rather more rigor and panoply. Dying peacefully in one’s bed was not the way to secure honor in an empire that venerated strength.

Alyssa steadied her breathing, trying to slow her racing heart. Her hands were clammy. She wiped them on her cloak.

Waiting was always the worst part.

She glanced around again, and found herself barely able to make out her retainers. Good. If they were spotted too early, then all of this would be for naught. Alyssa reached up and fastened a veil of finely wrought chainmail to her helmet, so that it hung below her eyes, obscuring her features.

A distant watchtower tolled the fourth hour. Alyssa readied herself. If the information from their spies was correct, the target would be approaching any moment…

And, as if on cue, a heavily robed figure emerged.

It came from the direction of the Immortal Bastion proper, accompanied by four palace guards. The lead figure was almost invisible in the pre-dawn darkness, dressed as they were, from head-to-toe in black.

It was the third member of the Trifarix—the Faceless.

The anonymous figure walked slowly towards the shrine, head turning from side to side, as if scanning the shadows. Their hands were clasped before them, hidden beneath heavy sleeves.

The guards stopped at the foot of the shrine. It appeared the Faceless conferred with them briefly, though Alyssa was too far away to hear their words, before the masked figure continued on alone, seemingly to pay respects to the Wolf.

While warriors of the warhosts and reckoners from the gladiatorial pits were perhaps the most frequent visitors to the various martial shrines scattered around the capital, even bureaucrats, shop-keeps and servants made frequent offerings. The Faceless, it had been observed, visited this shrine at the fourth hour of every fifth day, always guarded and under the cover of darkness.

Thankfully, while the loyalties of the Trifarian Legion were absolute, mere palace guards could most certainly be bribed to look the other way.

Explore image +

As the masked figure approached the great statue, Alyssa stepped out of the concealing darkness. On cue, the paid off guards turned on their heels and marched back towards the Immortal Bastion. Alyssa had her crossbow levelled at the Faceless as she stepped cautiously into the flickering light of the sconces around the statue.

“Don’t move, and don’t cry out,” she hissed. “Your guards are gone. Twelve crossbows are aimed at you right now.”

The robed figure made a muffled sound, perhaps in surprise, and came a step closer to her. There was something distinctly familiar about it, both in the sound and its awkward movement…

“Hold, I say,” said Alyssa. The Faceless froze.

No one in Noxus seemed to know who the third member of the Trifarix was—no one that Alyssa and Oram had been able to find, at least. That was the strength of deception, the principle of guile represented on the Council of Three.

But Alyssa intended to change that.

“It’s all about leverage,” her brother had said. “If we can learn the identity of that one, then we can use it to our advantage.”

“We mean you no harm,” Alyssa declared, as boldly as she could. “Take off your mask, and there will be no bloodshed.”

The hooded figure looked around, perhaps seeking the guards, or trying to spot the crossbowmen Alyssa had spoken of, concealed in the darkness. Then the figure edged forward again, now almost within weapons’ reach, hands still hidden from view.

Alyssa aimed her crossbow at the figure’s chest. “Don’t. Take. Another. Step.”

The figure made another muffled sound, shaking the mask emphatically. Alyssa narrowed her eyes.

Then she exhaled slowly, as the realization crept over her.

“Ah. That makes things easier.’

She pulled the trigger, and her bolt took the robed figure in the throat.

One of her retinue was at her side in an instant, urging her to run. “We have to go,” he said. “We have to be out the city before sunrise, before anyone knows what has happened.”

“It’s already too late,” Alyssa answered.

She knelt beside the figure, now gasping on the ground. Blood was pooling beneath the body. Alyssa had seen enough wounds in her time to know this one was fatal.

She reached out, and pulled the mask free.

Oram stared up at her.

Her brother’s face was pallid, his eyes wild, and a gag had been stuffed in his mouth. He jerked and twitched as death came for him. The movements pulled his sleeves back, revealing his hands, bound tightly together with cord.

In his last moment, his gaze shifted from Alyssa to the massive statue of the Wolf looming over them.

It was then that the legionaries arrived, loping out of the darkness like hunting hounds, to surround the shrine.

The sun was high in the cloudless sky outside, sending angled beams of light through the narrow slit-windows into the audience chamber.

Alyssa stood before the Trifarix once more, her head held high, wrists manacled behind her back. The members of the council regarded her carefully. The inscrutable masked face of the Faceless was, to Alyssa in this moment, perhaps the most intimidating of the three.

It was Swain who finally broke the silence.

“Let me speak plainly,” he said. “The Delverhold is of great value to Noxus, but not so valuable that we would acquiesce to the demands and threats of its governor. That would be a signal of weakness. Within the week, a dozen other provinces would be lining up with demands of their own. No, that was never going to be happen. But, you already knew that.”

“I did,” said Alyssa. “My brother clearly didn’t.”

“Then, it might make lesser minds wonder… why would an intelligent young woman such as yourself go along with such an obvious and clumsy scheme?”

“Duty,” Alyssa replied.

“Duty to the empire must always overshadow duty to family,” said Swain.

Alyssa might have imagined it, but she thought she saw Darius’ expression darken very slightly at those words. Even so, the Hand of Noxus held his tongue.

“I agree entirely,” said Alyssa. “Which is the reason, when I realized it was my brother under the mask, I shot him.”

Swain turned towards the masked Faceless. “A risky gambit, to gag and disguise your captive. There were other ways we might have tested her.”

He turned back to Alyssa.

“Indulge me, please, for the benefit of my fellow council members. Why would you knowingly shoot and kill your brother?”

“My father sent us here to die,” Alyssa replied, “and would have used our deaths to justify closing the gates of the Delverhold to Noxus.”

“Go on.”

“My father and my brothers are fools. They have been blinded by their desire to rule the Ironspike Mountains as kings once more, as our forebears did. They would lead my people to their doom for such a fleeting vanity.”

The merest hint of an icy smile turned the corner of Swain’s mouth.

“So then, Alyssa Roshka Gloriana val-Lokan—what would you propose instead?”

The aging Governor val-Lokan looked up, an expression of pure outrage upon his face, as Alyssa threw open the doors to his tally-chamber.

“What is this, girl?” he snarled, rising to his feet. “You return unannounced? Where is Oram?”

Striding behind her were two warriors of the Trifarian Legion, imposing and ominous in their dark Ironspike armor, halberds at the ready.

Beside her father was her brother Herok, heir to the Delverhold. His eyes were wide and fearful.

“Guards!” the governor shouted. “Stop them!”

His personal guard, however, made no move to intervene. The reputation of the Legion was known throughout Valoran—even among those who had never fought beside or against them. They marched with the authority of the Hand of Noxus. To defy them was to defy the Trifarix itself.

Alyssa had thought much about the words Darius had spoken, those words that her brother had scoffed at.

Just two of the Trifarian Legion could walk in and take your precious Delverhold.

It had proved to be no idle boast after all.

“What have you done?” her father hissed, sinking back into his chair.

“What was needed.”

Alyssa produced a rolled parchment, freshly written and stamped with the crest of Noxus—the crest of the Trifarix—and slammed it down on the table before her father, making him jump.

“On the order of the Grand General, I am removing you from office,” said Alyssa, “Henceforth, I shall govern this place, for the good of the empire.”

“You?” her father scoffed. “A woman has never ruled the Delverhold!”

“Then perhaps it is time that changed. It is time for someone who will look to the future of our people, and not obsess about the kings and faded glory of the past.”

Alyssa nodded, and her father’s own guards stepped forward, grabbing hold of him.

“You can’t do this!” he screeched. “I am your father! I am your lord!”

“You are no lord,” said Alyssa. “Especially not mine.”

Nights in Noxus were never silent.

You couldn’t cram so many thousands of people from all across the empire into one place and expect quiet.

Desert marching songs from the Zagayah enclave drifted from their tented pavilions by the water, and the martial clashing of blades echoed from a nearby Reckoner’s arena. Drakehounds corralled in an iron-walled enclosure howled as they caught the scent of slaughtered livestock from the northern kill yards.

The cries of widowed spouses, grief-stricken mothers, or nightmare-wracked veterans were a nightly chorus to accompany the roars of drunken soldiers and the promises of street hawkers who plied their trade best in the darkness.

No, the nights in Noxus were never silent.

Except here.

This part of Noxus was deathly quiet.

Maura held her pack of brushes, paints, and charcoals close to her chest as she felt the din of the Noxian night fade. The lack of sound was so sudden, so shocking, that she stopped in the middle of the street—never normally a good idea—and looked around.

The street was in an older, wealthier district of Noxus known as Mortoraa, or Iron Gate, but was otherwise unremarkable. The light of a full moon reflected from its paving of irregular cobbles like scores of watching eyes, and the buildings to either side were well built with stone blocks that spoke of an experienced hand, perhaps that of a warmason. Maura saw a tall shrine at the end of a side street, where three armored figures knelt before the obsidian wolf within its pillared vault. They looked up in unison, and Maura hurried on, knowing it was unwise to attract the notice of men who prayed in the dark with swords.

She shouldn’t be out here in the dark.

Tahvo had warned her not to go, but she’d seen the serpent in his eyes and knew it wasn’t fear for her safety that moved him, but envy. He had always believed himself to be the best painter in their little circle. That she had been selected for this commission instead of him cut deep. When the crisply folded and elegantly written letter had arrived at their shared studio, Cerise and Konrad had been elated, begging her to remember everything she could, while Zurka simply told her to be sure her brushes were clean.

“Do you think you’ll get to speak to him?” Cerise had asked as Maura opened the door to hear the drifting echoes of the night bell fading over the harbor. The idea of venturing out into the darkness filled Maura with equal parts dread and excitement.

“He’s sitting for a portrait, so I suppose I shall have to,” she’d answered, pointing to the darkened sky. “We’ll need to discuss what manner of painting he wants, especially since I won’t have natural light.”

“Strange that he wants his portrait done at night, eh?” said Konrad, wide awake and wearing his blanket like a cloak.

“I wonder what he sounds like,” added Cerise.

“Just like everyone else,” snapped Tahvo, rolling over and wadding his threadbare pillow. “He’s not a god, you know. He’s just a man. Now, will you all just shut up? I’m trying to sleep.”

Cerise ran over and kissed her. “Good luck,” she giggled. “Come back and tell us… everything, no matter how sordid.”

Maura’s smile had faltered, but she nodded. “I will. I promise.”

The directions to her new patron’s mansion were exceptionally specific. Not simply in her eventual destination, but in the precise route she must take to get there. Maura knew the geography of the capital well, having walked its streets for days when hunger gnawed her belly. Or when they couldn’t pool enough commission money, and the owner of their studio kicked them out until they’d earned enough to pay what was owed.

This part of town, though, was a growing mystery to her. She’d known the mansion was here, of course—everyone in Noxus knew where he lived, though few could recall ever going there. With every step she took, Maura felt like she’d wandered into a strange city in a newly-conquered land. The streets felt unfamiliar—narrower and more threatening, as if each twist and turn brought the walls closer and closer until they would eventually crush her. She hurried on through the unnerving quiet, craving a source of fresh light—a boundary lantern perhaps, or a low-burning candle in an upper window, set to guide a night-calling suitor.

But there was no illumination beyond that of the moon. Her heartbeat and pace quickened as she heard what could be a soft footfall behind her, or the sigh of an expectant breath.

Turning a sharp corner, Maura found herself in a circular plaza with a fountain gurgling at its center. In a city as cramped as this, where people lived cheek by jowl and space was at a premium, such extravagance was almost unheard of.

She circled the fountain’s pool, its water silver in the moonlight, admiring the sculpted realism of its carved centerpiece. Hammered from crude iron, it represented a headless warrior encased in thick war-plate, and bearing a spiked mace.

Water spilled from the neck of the statue, and Maura felt a chill as she realized who it was intended to represent.

She hurried past the fountain towards a double gate of seasoned silverbark set in a black wall of red-veined marble. As the letter had promised, it stood ajar, and Maura eased herself between its heavy leaves.

The mansion within the walls had been built from a pale stone of a kind she hadn’t seen before—imposing without being monolithic, as a great many grand structures of Noxus often were. Nor, the more she studied it, did it adhere to any one particular style, but rather a collection of architectural movements that had come and gone over the centuries.

Foremost among such oddities was a rough stone tower rising over the main building, and this portion alone appeared out of place. It gave the impression that the mansion had been built around some ancient shaman’s lair. The effect should have been jarring, but Maura rather liked it, as though every aspect of the mansion offered a glimpse into a bygone age of the empire. Its windows were shuttered and dark, and the only light she saw was a soft crimson glow at the tower’s summit.

She followed a graveled path through an exquisite garden of elaborate topiary, carefully directed waterways, and strange looking flowers with exotic scents and startlingly vivid colors. This, together with the spacious plaza outside, suggested fabulous wealth. The idea that she had been chosen for this task sent a frisson of pleasurable warmth through her limbs.

Hundreds of colorful butterflies with curiously patterned wings flitted to and fro between the flowers. Such light and fragile creatures, yet so beautiful and capable of the most miraculous transformation. Maura had never seen butterflies at night, and she laughed with joy as one alighted on her palm. The tapered shape of its body and the patterning on its outstretched wings was uncannily similar to the winged-blade heraldry she saw flying on every Noxian flag. The butterfly fluttered its wings and flew away. Maura watched it circle and swoop with the others, amazed to see so many rare and wonderful creatures.

She let her fingers brush the colorful leaves as she passed, savoring the scents clinging to her fingertips and drifting up in motes of dust that glittered in the moonlight. She paused by a particularly beautiful bloom, one with flame-red petals so bright they took her breath away.

No red she had ever mixed from Shuriman cinnabar or Piltovan ochre had achieved such luster. Even the ruinously expensive Ionian vermillions were dull by comparison. She chewed her bottom lip as she considered what she was about to do, then reached out to pluck a number of petals from the nearest plant. The flower’s remaining petals immediately curled inwards, and the stem bent away from her as if in fear. Maura felt terrible guilt and looked up at the mansion to see if she had been observed, but the shuttered windows remained closed and lightless.

The front door stood open, and she paused at its threshold. The letter had told her to enter, but now that she was here, Maura felt a curious reluctance. Was this some trap, a means to lure her to some unspeakable fate? If so, it seemed needlessly elaborate. The notion felt absurd, and Maura chided herself for letting fear get in the way of what was likely to be the greatest opportunity of her life.

She took a breath, stepped across the threshold, and entered the mansion.

The vestibule was vaulted by dark and heavy timbers, with faded murals of the empire’s early, bloody days painted in the spaces between. To Maura’s left and right, wide openings revealed long galleries draped in shadow, making it difficult to tell who or what might be displayed. A long, curving staircase climbed to an upper mezzanine and a wide archway, but what lay beyond was impossible to make out. The vestibule was all but empty, save for what looked like a large, sheet-draped canvas upon an easel. Maura tentatively approached the covered canvas, wondering if this was to be where she would paint.

She hoped not. The light in here was ill-suited to portraiture. Where moonlight pooled on the herringbone floor, the space was bright, but elsewhere it was entirely dark, as though the light refused to approach those corners.

“Hello?” she said, and her voice echoed throughout the vestibule. “I have a letter…”

Her words lingered, and Maura sought in vain for any sign she wasn’t entirely alone in this strange house in the middle of the night.

“Hello?” she said again. “Is anyone here?”

“I am here,” said a voice.

Maura jumped. The words were cultured, masculine, and redolent with age. They seemed to drift down from above and be breathlessly whispered in her ear at the same time. She turned on the spot, searching for the speaker.

She was alone.

“Are you Vladimir?” she asked.

“I am, yes,” he replied, his voice freighted with deep melancholy as if the name itself were a source of torment. “You are the painter.”

“Yes. That’s me. I’m the painter,” she said, adding, “My name is Maura Betzenia. I’m the painter.”

She cursed her clumsiness before realizing his last words had not been a question.

“Good. I have been waiting a long time for you.”

“Oh. My apologies, sir. The letter said I wasn’t to leave until the harbor bell rang.”

Explore image +

“Indeed it did, and you have arrived precisely when you were supposed to,” said Vladimir, and this time Maura thought she saw a sliver of deeper black in the shadows. “It is I who am at fault, for I have been delaying sending for someone like you much too long. Vanity makes fools of us all, does it not?”

“Is it vanity?” asked Maura, knowing the wealthier patrons liked to be flattered. “Or simply waiting for the right moment to capture the truth of your appearance?”

Laughter drifted down from above. Maura couldn’t decide if he thought she’d said something funny or was mocking her.

“I hear a variation of that every time,” said Vladimir. “And as to truth, well, that is a moveable feast. Tell me, did you like my garden?”

Maura sensed a trap in the question, and hesitated before answering.

“I did,” she said. “I had no idea you could grow anything that beautiful in Noxian soil.”

“You cannot,” said Vladimir with wry amusement. “Such thin soil produces only the hardiest specimens, ones that spread far and wide to drive out all others. But none of them could be called beautiful. The red flower you killed, it was a nightbloom.”

Maura felt her mouth go dry, but Vladimir appeared not to care what she had done.

“Nightblooms were once native to an island chain in the east, a blessed place of rare beauty and enlightenment,” he said. “I dwelled there for a time until it was destroyed, as all mortal endeavors ultimately must be. I took some seeds from a grove once tended by a temperamental nature spirit and brought them back to Valoran, where I was able to entice them to grow with a combination of blood and tears.”

“Don’t you mean blood, sweat, and tears?”

“My dear, what possible use would sweat be in growing a flower?”

Maura had no answer, but the musical cadence of his voice was seductive. She could listen to it all night. Maura shook off the velvet quality of Vladimir’s drifting voice and nodded towards the covered canvas.

“Is that where I am to paint?” she asked.

“No,” said Vladimir. “That was merely my first.”

“Your first what?”

“My first life,” he said as she lifted the edge of the sheet.

The painting had faded with the passage of time, its colors bleached by light, and the brushstrokes flattened. But the image was still powerful—a young man on the cusp of adulthood, armored in archaic-looking bronze plate and bearing a fluttering banner depicting a wickedly curved scythe blade. Much of the detail had been lost, but the boy’s blue eyes were still piercingly bright. The face was extraordinarily handsome, symmetrical and with a tilt of the head that captivated her gaze.

Maura leaned in and saw an army behind the young man, a host of hulking warriors too large to be human, too bestial to be real. Their outlines and features had faded with age, and Maura was thankful for that small mercy.

“This is you?” she asked, hoping he might appear to explain the portrait in person.

“Once, a long, long time ago,” said Vladimir, and Maura felt ice enter his words. “I was an unneeded heir of a long-vanished kingdom, in an age when gods made war on one another. Mortals were pawns in their world-spanning strife, and when the time came for my father to bend the knee to a living god, I was given up as a royal hostage. In theory, my father’s loyalty would be assured by the constant threat to my life. Should he break faith with his new master, I would be slain. But like all my father’s promises, it was empty. He cared nothing for me, and broke his oath within the year.”

The story Vladimir was telling was strange and fantastical, like the Shuriman myths Konrad told when they shared scare stories on the roof of the studio at night. Konrad’s tales were thinly veiled morality plays, but this… this had a weight of truth behind it, and felt uncontaminated by sentimentality.

“But instead of killing me, my new master had something altogether more amusing in mind. Amusing for him, at any rate. He offered me the chance to lead his armies against my father’s kingdom, an offer I gladly accepted. I destroyed my father’s city and presented his head to my master. I was a good and faithful hound on a leash.”

“You destroyed your own people? Why?”

Vladimir paused as though trying to decide if her question was serious.

“Because even if the god-warriors had not come, my father’s kingdom would never have been mine,” he said. “He had sons and heirs aplenty, and I would never have lived long enough to claim my birthright.”

“Why would your master make you do that?”

“I used to think it was because he saw a spark of greatness within me, or the potential to be something more than a mere mortal,” said Vladimir with a soft sigh that sent warm shivers down Maura’s spine. “But more likely he just thought it would be amusing to teach one of his mortal pets some tricks, as the mountebank teaches a monkey to dance around his stall, to attract the gullible.”

Maura looked back at the image of the young man in the picture, now seeing something dark lurking deeper in the eyes. A hint of cruelty perhaps, a glint of festering bitterness.

“What did he teach you?” asked Maura. As much as she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer, something in her needed to know.

“My master’s kind had the power to defy death—to sculpt flesh, blood, and bone into the most wondrous forms,” continued Vladimir. “He taught me something of their arts, magic he wielded as easily as breathing. But it took every scrap of my intellect and will to master even the simplest of cantrips. I was later to learn that teaching their secrets to mortals was forbidden under pain of death, but my master delighted in flaunting the mores of his kind.”

Vladimir’s sourceless laughter echoed around her, yet there was no mirth to the sound.

“He couldn’t help challenging convention, and in the end, it was his undoing.”

“He died?” she asked.

“Yes. When one of his kind betrayed them, their power over this world was broken. My master’s enemies united against him, and he looked to me to lead his armies in his defense. Instead, I killed him and drank in a measure of his power, for I had not forgotten the many cruelties he had inflicted upon me over the years. Taking his life was my first step on a road far longer than I ever could have imagined. A boon and a curse in one bloody gift.”

Maura heard the relish in Vladimir’s tone, but also sadness, as if the mark this murder had cut on his soul had never truly left him. Did he feel guilt at this killing, or was he simply trying to manipulate her emotions?

Not being able to see him made it that much harder to divine his intent.

“But enough of this painting,” said Vladimir. “It is vital, yes, but only one of my accumulated lives. If you are to immortalize this one, you must see the others I have experienced over the years before we can truly begin.”

Maura turned to the stairs as the shadows draping their length retreated like a soft, black tide. She licked her lips, conscious again that she was alone in this echoing mansion with Vladimir, a man who had just admitted to murdering his father and his monstrous mentor.

“Hesitation? Really?” he said. “You have come this far. And I have already bared so much of my soul to you.”

Maura knew he was goading her into climbing the stairs. That alone ought to make her leave and return to her friends. But as much as she knew she should be afraid, part of her thrilled to be the center of Vladimir’s attention, to feel the power of his gaze upon her.

“Come to me,” he continued. “See what it is I ask of you. And then, if you feel the task is too great and choose to leave, I will not stop you.”

“No,” she said. “I want to know it all.”

The archway atop the mezzanine led into a wide corridor of dark stone that was so shockingly cold, it took Maura’s breath away. Fixed to the dark walls were row upon row of lacquered wooden boards.

And pinned to these boards were many thousands of butterflies with spread wings.

Sadness touched Maura. “What is this?”

“One of my collections,” said Vladimir, his voice coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. It drew her onwards along the corridor.

“Why did you kill them?”

“To study them. Why else? These creatures live such short lives. To end them a moment sooner is no great loss.”

Explore image +

“The butterfly might disagree.”

“But look at what each death taught me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The butterflies you saw in the garden? They exist nowhere else in nature. They are unique because I made them so. With will and knowledge, I have wrought entire species into being.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because, like the gods, I choose which ones live and which ones die.”

Maura reached out to the nearest pinned butterfly, one with vivid crimson circles on the larger part of its wings. As soon as her finger brushed the insect’s body, its wings disintegrated and the rest of it crumbled like ancient, flaking paint.

A cold wind sighed past Maura, and she stepped back in alarm as a cascade of dissolution swept across the pinned specimens. Scores, then hundreds of butterflies crumbled to powder that spun in the air like ash and cinders stirred from a banked fire. She cried out and rushed down the corridor, frantically waving her hands to brush the dust from her face. It grazed the skin beneath her clothes, and she spat as she tasted the grit of insect bodies in her mouth, felt it gather in her ears.

She stopped and opened her eyes as she felt the quality of sound and light change. She rubbed dust from her face, seeing she had entered into a wide, circular chamber.

Maura took a moment to look around and regain her composure, brushing the last of the dust from her face and clothes. The walls of the chamber were primitively cut stone, and she guessed she stood within the base of the ancient tower. A rough-hewn staircase corkscrewed its way up the interior walls, and strange, ruby light fell in shimmering veils from somewhere high above. The air smelled of hot metal, like the iron winds carried from the bulk forges that fed the empire’s insatiable hunger for armor and weapons.

The circular walls were hung with portraits, and she moved cautiously around the gallery’s circumference, studying each painting in turn. No two were alike in their framing or style, ranging from crude abstracts to renderings so lifelike it was as if a real face were imprisoned within the warp and weft of the canvas. She recognized the styles of some, the work of masters of the craft who had lived centuries ago.

Where the painting in the vestibule was that of a young man in his prime, these were a mixture of the same individual, but at very different times in his life.

One showed him in his middle years, still fit and hearty, but with a bitter cast to his eyes. Another was a portrait of a man so aged and ravaged that Maura wasn’t even sure it had been painted while its subject was alive. Yet another depicted him bloodily wounded in the aftermath of a great battle before a titanic statue of ivory stone.

“How can these all be you?” she asked.

The answer drifted down in the veils of red light.

“I do not live as you do. The gift carried in my former master’s blood changed me forever. I thought you understood that?”

“I do. I mean, I think I do.”

“The paintings around you are moments of my many lives. Not all great moments, I have come to realize, and captured by journeymen for the most part. In the earliest days of my existence I was arrogant enough to believe my every deed was worthy of such commemoration, but now…”

“But now?” asked Maura, when he didn’t continue.

“Now I only commit the renewal of my life to canvas amid events that mark turning points in the affairs of the world. Climb the steps, and see what I mean.”

Maura found her circuit of the gallery had brought her to the base of the stairs, as though her every step had led her to this point. Not just tonight, but every moment since she had first picked up a brush and painted the animals on her mother’s farm in Krexor.

“Why me?” she asked. “Why am I here? There are other artists in Noxus better than me.”

A soft chuckle drifted around her.

“Such modesty. Yes, it is true there are artists more technically proficient than you,” said Vladimir. “Your jealous colleague, Tahvo, for example, understands perspective better than you ever will. Young Cerise’s use of color is outstanding, and the stoic Zurka has an eye for detail that makes his work endlessly fascinating. Konrad, however, will never be more than a dabbler, but you already know this.”

“You know my friends?” she said.

“Of course. Did you think I chose you at random?”

“I don’t know. How did you choose me?”

“To capture such a transformative moment, I required someone whose heart and soul goes into their work, an artist truly worthy of the name. That is why you are here, Maura Betzenia. Because every brushstroke is personal to you. Every mark on the canvas, every choice of color has meaning. You understand the heart of a painting, and willingly give something of your soul to capture the life it represents.”

Maura had heard the flattery of patrons and the empty praise of her fellow painters before, but Vladimir’s words were utterly sincere. He meant every word, and her heart lifted to hear such affirmation.

“Why now? What’s so special about this moment in time that you want your portrait painted? What was it you said? You only have a painting done at a turning point in the affairs of the world…”

Vladimir’s voice seemed to coil around her as he spoke.

“And such a moment is upon us. I have dwelled here for such a long time, Maura. Long enough to oust the Iron Revenant from his Immortal Bastion, long enough to see the many rulers who came after him claw their way to power over the corpses of their brothers before treacherous ambition brought them low. Long enough to know the canker that lurks at the empire’s heart—a midnight flower with roots in old and corrupt soil. We have danced, she and I—oh, how we have danced in blood over the centuries, but the tempo of the music has changed, and the dance nears its end. This parade of fools I walk among, this life… it is unsuited for what must come next.”

“I don’t understand. What is coming next?”

“At almost any other time before, I could have answered that with certainty,” continued Vladimir. “But now…? I do not know. All I know is that I must change to face it. I have been passive for too long, and allowed flunkies and hangers-on to fawn over my every whim. But now I am ready to take what is mine, that which was for so long denied me—a kingdom of my own. This is immortality, Maura. Mine and yours.”

“Immortality…?”

“Of course. Is it not by the warriors’ deeds and artists’ craft that they achieve immortality? The legacy of their work lives on beyond the feeble span of mortal lives. Demacia reveres the warriors who founded it in the martial tenets to which they dogmatically cleave. Great works of literature set down thousands of years ago might still be performed, and sculptures freed from blocks of marble in the ages before the Rune Wars are still viewed with awe by those who can find them.”

Maura sensed with complete clarity that to climb these stairs would be committing to something irrevocable, something final. How many other artists had stood where she was right now? How many had lifted their foot and placed it on the first step?

How many had come back down?

How many had turned and walked away?

Maura could leave now, of that she was certain. Vladimir was not lying to her. If she chose to leave, she had no doubt she would arrive back at the studio unharmed. But how could she face each day from now until the Wolf or the Lamb came for her, knowing she had lacked the courage to take this one chance to create something incredible?

“Maura,” said Vladimir, and this time his silken voice was right before her.

She looked up, and there he was.

Silhouetted against the red light drifting down from above, his form slender and cursive. White hair streamed behind him, and swarms of crimson-winged butterflies filled the air above.

His eyes, once rendered in vivid blue, were now a smoldering red.

They pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

He reached out to her, and his slender fingers were elegantly tapered, with long nails like glittering talons.

“So, shall immortality be our legacy?” asked Vladimir.

“Yes,” she said. “It shall.”

Maura took his hand, and together they climbed the staircase into the veils of crimson.