Irelia's heart doesn't beat. She knows it's not physically possible, but somehow it's hammering like a drum, thumping wildly against the cage of her body, and the reason is standing in front of her.

Riven makes some kind of noise, vivid russet eyes locked on her. She can't tell if it's a grunt of pain or a cry for help, because she knows with awful certainty that the knife shining through Riven's chest is puncturing her lung, filling it up with blood. In moments she'll be dead.

And all because Irelia was too slow.

Riven's murderer pulls her knife free and the motion is careful, almost respectful. Irelia's been around blades all her life and she knows intimately the slide of steel into flesh. She knows what a reluctant kill looks like.

But that's not important right now.

Riven sways, pitching forward, and Irelia's moving before she can think, arms closing around her as the blades of her will hover threateningly before them. Carefully, reverently, she lowers the Noxian to the ground, cradling her like a newborn. Her throat is raw as she screams for a medic. Around her the battle rages, yet the area around her is curiously free of enemies or allies. Irelia is alone.

Riven's eyes are slitted now, barely open as blood flecks her lips. Her breaths are coming slower; air barely disturbs the strands of matted white hair over her cheeks. Her hand is limp in Irelia's grasp and this can't be happening.

There's water blurring her eyes, wetness sliding down her cheeks and it feels like tears, except that isn't right, she hasn't cried since the Placidum. Irelia shakes her head and clutches Riven tighter.

Impossibly, the bloodstained lips turn up at their corners, and even with the last of her life fading away Riven's smile is still the most beautiful thing Irelia has ever seen. The knowledge that this is the last time she'll ever see it makes Irelia curl tighter around the woman in her arms, as if more pressure will somehow stop the bleeding.

Riven's fingers are feather-light against her cheek; her mouth opens and Irelia leans in, thunder ringing in her ears. Intellectually, she knows that there isn't any air left in Riven's lungs, that she can't talk.

And yet, somehow she hears it in Riven's soft, dulcet tones. Three words filled with warmth and affection, three simple words that break her apart forever.

Then those beautiful eyes close for the last time and Irelia closes her own, burying her face in white hair as life leaves the body in her arms.

The murderer looks at her, at the corpse holding a corpse. "Blood for Noxus," she says, and there is a tinge of regret in her words.

The thunder in Irelia's ears is gone; whatever magic that made her heart beat vanished. Once more it's just a dead lump of flesh in her chest.

"It ends here," she says, and with those words she lets go.

The Will of the Blades rises from the ground and charges.