Chapter 9: History

Upon him the weight of all life descended. Those azure shoulders slouched as he sat alone in the half dark, the night's breeze slowly drifting through the room, shifting the silken curtains. Ryze stared down at the dusk drenched table he leaned on, the shadows dancing before his eyes, melting into dreams – the semisolid scenes of self shaped sights.

Around him he could feel the churning clouds of patient storm. Everywhere but here, everywhere but this room he felt the fire rising, the lightning and the rain, the eyes and the teeth. It was just watching, and all he could do was wait, wait for it to no longer wait for him. The board was being set, and Ryze knew that as soon as his last piece was in place the game would begin.

The blue mage looked to his bed. He watched with saddened eyes at its soft stare and warm embrace, but he could not accept it. Not tonight. So Ryze arose and put his cloak on. He gathered his things and strapped his bag to his back. Then a knock came at the door.

He waited.

The knock came again.

He waited.

"It's me."

"Come in."

Heimerdinger slowly pushed the door open and slunk into Ryze's room.

"I was just wondering why you… wait… where are you going?" Heimerdinger stared up at his friend with fear and confusion. There was safety in Ryze being close, and now he was leaving. "We head for the mountains tomorrow? Don't we?"

Ryze stared down at the ground, hiding his eyes with the shadow of his hood. "I… I have to make a few stops first. I will meet you at the facility in a few days."

Heimerdinger sighed. "You're going to make me deal with Le Blanc and Xerath on my own?"

"It'll only be a few days. Garson Orswell will be arriving tomorrow evening. You will not be alone for long." Ryze began busying himself by overloading his bag and replacing books with other books.

"What about Vladimir?"

"That is one of my stops."

There was then a silence as the two friends looked at each other, one from behind shadow and the other from behind fear. "They don't trust us. Du Couteau still thinks we're going to abandon all the soldiers. What if they refuse to fight?"

Ryze smirked. "They will fight. Do not worry."

Heimerdinger smiled for a moment, but only for a moment. "Ryze?"

"Yes."

"What are we going to do about everyone in the battle?"

Ryze sighed, his breath laden with a kind of morose worry – almost like regret. "That is why we need a hemomancer."

"I don't understand." Here Heimerdinger showed no pride and felt no aggravation. He was too tired to uphold any kind of self-image, he just wanted to know, he just wanted to stop feeling afraid.

Ryze didn't even turn to look at him. "You will. But now I have to go."

The blue mage headed for the door, but as he passed Heimerdinger a small voice forced him to halt. "Ryze."

"Yes?"

"Do you think there are enough of us, I mean, to hold off the void? Do you think Noxus and Demacia and the rest of the armies of Valoran will be enough?"

Ryze did not turn around. "No."

With that Heimerdinger almost began to weep. But the small man forced his emotions away. So instead he froze for a moment; his blood ceased to flow and his lungs ceased to breath, he became a statue, a concrete yordle surrounded by a hue of sadness.

"But there are others who will join us, if I can persuade them."

Heimerdinger said nothing, he only turned to look at Ryze, but the mage's back was all he met.

"And did you not notice the tiny eyes in the corner of the conference room?"

"What?"

"The Kinkou have been watching. But now I must go."

I I I

Du Couteau lay fully clothed atop his sheets, nothing but that sauntering ghost of smoke drifting above his face for company. He pictured his city, his family, his past, his legacy, he watched it all being washed away, he witnessed as everything he ever did amounted to nothing – as his mountains turned to air and that air refused to even whimper before it faded away. But it did not anger him. Instead there was a kind of catharsis to it all: a stillness in the sorrow.

He breathed from his cigar and then, without even raising an eyebrow, spoke. "Come inside Katarina."

With a sheepish look upon her face his daughter covered in blades and leather stepped quietly into his room. "I wasn't sure whether coming here was a good idea, but I needed to speak with you."

"I assumed as much." He took another puff. "Well?"

"Father, the king of Demacia and his only heir lie sleeping only a few corridors away. Why are we just lying here? We could end this feud forever, and then Noxus – Noxus – will be the power that leads the armies of Valoran against the void, and Noxus shall be the force, alone, that saves the world. Father, it would…"

"No."

"I…" Katarina coiled her hands into tightly woven fists and glared. "Father, it…"

"No."

She let out a short and throaty cry of frustration as she buried a dagger into her father's desk. "You have always been the one who told me 'never relent! Never relent Katarina, no matter what! No matter who!' And, I know the risk is great, I know where we stand, but how can we just sit here and…"

The general still remained unmoving. He would not grant his daughter an expression – not a frown, not a smile, not a quiver of rage or fear. "No, Katarina."

"It's… it's as if you're afraid!"

At this Du Couteau sat up in his bed. "I am afraid Katarina, and not just of the void. Do you have any idea who is waiting only a few halls away, who can probably hear this entire conversation?"

"What are you talking about?"

Du Couteau put his hand to his brow and sighed. He put his cigar out on an ashtray upon his bedside table and got out of bed. With the red glow of a match beneath his eyes and birth of fresh smoke between his lips Du Couteau shared weakness with his daughter. "That man who was sat with the king and his son. Do you know who he is?"

"Prince Jarvan's bodyguard? He's just a soldier." Katarina sighed and moved towards the door. She was tired and disappointed; all she wanted now was to go to bed.

"Would you like to know what happened last time Noxus played war with Demacia? Would you like to know the truth about the kidnapping escapade?"

Katarina froze and stared at her father. Her eyes reached out with confusion and discontent. She wasn't sure if she liked where this was going. But the truth will out. "The truth?"

"We kidnapped prince Jarvan and put Le Blanc in his place. She remained disguised within Demacia for weeks and we all believed we were oh so close to bringing all of Demacia to its knees."

"You planned on Le Blanc assassinating the king and then taking control over Demacia using prince Jarvan as a guise?" Katarina sat down and watched her father's every movement, waiting for the moment she would see it – that twitch of truth, that shudder of regret when a secret dies.

"It was Swain's plan. It was quite genius, at least we thought so. Then contact from Le Blanc dried up, and one day I and the other generals awoke to find forty seven dead guards hidden throughout the palace… and Swain's decapitated head sat outside, being pecked to pieces by crows." Du Couteau looked away from his daughter now, hiding ghostly within his smoke, hushing fear away with the semblance of a spectre.

"What?" Katarina stood in flash and bared fists at her father. "You told me, you told all of us that Swain was executed for being a traitor! You lied to all of Noxus! You let a great man's honour be desecrated just so you could uphold the fallacy of our security! How many Demacians slipped into our home? How many enemies did you and the other generals allow so close to us as we slept soundly? HOW MANY FATHER? A HUNDRED? TWO?"

"Just one."

Then silence entered Katarina's stomach and its dark nausea spread throughout her entire body. She sat back down and with scared eyes filled by disbelief looked only to the floor.

"Karson Ironfel saw through Le Blanc the day she entered the palace, but he gave her time, he gave her time to make sure Jarvan was still alive. For if he was dead he knew Noxus would act quickly, if we had the security of knowing that Demacia's only leader was a frail old man with no heir there would have been no plot to overthrow the king with a false double. So our patience, our longwinded scheming told him that his prince was still alive. And once he was sure he confronted Le Blanc and beat her half to death, just before he came for the mastermind behind it all, and of course the prince himself. Karson Ironfel slunk into Noxus without making a sound, slaughtered forty seven guards without setting off a single alarm, and cut off Swain's head with so little resistance that it stirred not a single soul. Once he was finished with all that he freed the prince and they escaped, not an arrow shot there way, not a sword drawn in contention." Du Couteau turned to face his daughter then, dismissing the smoke with only his stare. "This is why we do nothing tonight. This is why we must be allies with Demacia for as long as this confrontation with the void goes on. I will not have you…" Du Couteau winced; he saw his daughter's head in Swain's place. "I will not have another of my soldiers broken by that beast. Now go to bed Katarina. It is late."

But Katarina was not afraid; she was filled by too much scorn to be scared. So she glared one last gaze of aggression her father's way and opened the door. But before she left, through gritted teeth and sour sarcasm, Katarina said one last thing. "What are the Du Couteau's souls made of father?"

"Even stone can shatter Katarina."

I I I

His back ached from riding. His feet ached from walking. His eyes ached from needing to cry. Garen sat alone on the grassy plains that stood between him and Zaun, and there he gave up hope. The lonely moon shone down at him, its cold light giving little comfort. For a friendless star was no companion to a friendless knight. He looked off into the shady distance and as he did he felt a part of his soul drift away from the rest, and deep in some dark recess of Garen's body it lay down on the flesh and started to die.

"She's dead, isn't she?" He knew not who he was asking, and the only reply came from within himself. "Oh Luxanna. Why?" So he fell into ball and wept, and as he did he dreamed of home, of her, and of that circlet on his finger, that ring of burns – that woman who could not hold him as he cried.

I I I

Katarina collapsed upon the velvet carpet beneath her, a deep despair suddenly overwhelming her body. She felt the ring finger of her right hand burn with agony as a tempest of suffering swelled within her soul. It all turned the real into nightmare and she knew exactly what was happening. As she laid there, tears involuntarily crawling down her cheek, she let out a small whimpered whisper. "Oh Garen, what has happened?"

Darkness swirled outwards from the pitch of her pupils. Maelstroms of shadow spread like seeping stains across the blue and white of her eyes, and all became a hazy history.

"I cannot believe this Katarina! You are supposed to be a sentinel, an assassin, a soldier! Explain yourself!"

"We all have urges, father."

"Urges of the flesh, perhaps! But this… You do not lie as well as you fight. These are urges of the heart. I can see it in your eyes."

She could not argue. She could not fight. The truth was painted across her face; it was in the squint of her expression; it was in the shaking of her hands; it was in the slow edging of her tears; it was in the quiver of her scar.

"Fine. Remain silent all you wish. But there will be retribution for this." The cigar, the smoke, the sickening smile. "So you want to share each other – then you will share his pain."

The magic overwhelmed her as it had the day it was sealed beneath her skin. She could barely breathe through the pain and delirium. There was no thinking with this, no working through it; there was only the torture that came from him, the pain that was not hers but festered in her soul even so. Yet still there was sick serenity to it, a joy of knowledge. For though it was misery, at least it was a part of him – the only part of him she had left in this world.

"WHAT ARE THE DU COUTEAU'S SOULS MADE OF?"

She screamed as the lightning coursed through her veins.

"WHAT ARE THE DU COUTEAU'S SOULS MADE OF, KATARINA?"

She screamed through the fire beneath her skin.

"WHAT ARE THEY MADE OF?"

She screamed against the ice upon her bones.

"Stone! We're made of stone! They're made of stone! STOP, PLEASE STOP! FATHER!"

Suddenly it stopped. The misery dissipated, the agony relented and that burning ring was doused by silence. Katarina crawled into a ball upon the floor of her room and clutched her finger with her other hand. She was relieved that the pain was over, but not for her own wellbeing. She knew why it had stopped and it gave her reason to smile, at least for a moment. Somewhere deep within her mind's eye Katarina could see Garen sleeping. So she slept too, and in a way they slept together.

Author's note: expect the next chapter soon. I'm trying to pump them out faster than usual.