A/N:This is a bit of a lengthy chapter. The last part of this chapter feel free to skip over as it delves a little bit into Sayo's history with Nera, but otherwise has little to no impact on the plot, other than character developmental reasons.


When they left Rowena, storm clouds gathered in the distance and the ominous rumble spurred their party on a much faster pace back towards the capital.

One couldn't exactly outrun a storm however-

"I swear, once we get back to Demacia I'm never complaining about baths again," Noah grumbled as he secured his hood a little more tightly around his head.

"Just be glad Kepi had the foresight to spare us some coats. Else you'd be soaked to the bones right about now." Sayo had forgone keeping her hood up, declaring some time ago she much preferred feeling the rain against her face. "How are you faring, Mistress Laurent?"

Neither terrible nor great. Fiora was simply relieved she had something to keep herself moderately dry, but rain was rain and she much preferred riding when she could see the roads instead of stretches of water. Getting back to the Great City proved far more challenging given the closer they got, the worse the downpour. "We can make a small detour to weather the storm. My home is not far from here."

"Brilliant." Noah kicked his horse into a small gallop. "Great, let's go. If I have to sit in this rain some more, I'm going to lose my shit."

Sayo rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. "You're such a big baby Noah." She gave the duelist a side glance. "You lead the way."


"Peaceful, isn't it?" Eyrin tore her eyes from the window as Nera came up from behind, two steaming mugs in hand. She thanked the older woman quietly and blew it a few times to cool it off. Despite winter coming to an end, a few storms stubbornly remained in the area to give the kingdom one last kick of cold. She shuffled a bit to pull the thin blanket around herself tighter, humming quietly in agreement. "I wish it would stay this way forever, honestly."

Nera sighed and sipped at her own tea. "Preferably without the rain, but yes." She laughed when the raven-haired woman slapped her arm. "Careful, you're getting a bit too strong for this old lass."

"Oh shut up. You could still hand me my ass if you wanted to."

"That, I could but let me feel like an old lady just for the sake of it," she joked, peeling away from the soothing patter of rain and sitting down in Fiora's desk chair. A quiet groan did leave her lips when she felt her muscles protest at disuse from all day. It didn't escape Eyrin's notice, however and she giggled at the small noise.

"You are getting to be a bit of an old lady, Nera."

The servant glared at her, but it had little to no bite to it. "I can see why milady prefers hours in the training hall rather than an hour behind this desk."

Eyrin raised an eyebrow, coming over and half-leaned, half-sitting on the table. "I thought you'd be used to it."

"I have never sat down for more than thirty minutes at a stretch in the last ten years of my life." She picked up her glasses and slipped them on, reading the fine prints on the current file sitting atop the mess on the desk. "The things I do for milady while she goes off gallivanting through the kingdom," Nera mournfully joked, as if doomed to an inevitable fate.

"I'm sure she's grateful for it." Eyrin reached over and traced her fingers over the woman's jawline. The corners of her lips twitched at the contact. "You should take a break. You've been reading through every book Fiora owns on Demacian law for the last seven hours."

"I can't put it to rest." Nera ran a hand over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose, never mind leaving her glasses askew atop her forehead. "Everything about this just feels wrong to me. Why would the Crown suddenly ask for a Crownguard's hand in marriage? There has to be some line of separation between a family sworn to uphold the duties of protecting the official, royal bloodline and the Crown itself."

"Given the number of potential brides in the kingdom, it doesn't surprise me Prince Jarvan would approach Lady Crownguard. There aren't many who would be fit to be his bride, especially a Prince whose priorities lie with fighting rather than sit on the throne," Eyrin offered somewhat helpfully. "She's one of the few who has fought at his side, and they are childhood friends."

Nera's frown only grew. "And you would go as far as disregard milady's feelings then?"

"I'm not saying they don't matter," Eyrin argued. "But openly defying or denouncing something as big as a marriage between two of the biggest houses in Demacia would not only put House Laurent at odds with virtually every person in the kingdom, it might destroy what little stability we have left as a whole."

The snowy-haired woman slouched, eyes glazed over with tears. "Forget the family name. Forget the rules and law. Forget everything that weighs on us all." She reached out and grasped Eyrin's hand in a tight grip. "I love Fiora, and I'd do anything to protect her and make her happy. She deserves peace of mind with everything she's been through. I've seen her eyes light up whenever you and Lux are around, and she always has a ghost of a smile on her lips listening to her talk."

Eyrin set down her mug to pull Nera close to her. Strong arms wrapped around her waist as she combed her fingers through silky hair.

"I don't know if I can handle watching milady's heart break. I'm scared."

"As am I, for Lux."

They both had every reason to be.


Fiora dismounted Lucette as quick as she could to pull the gates open. They creaked loudly but swung open with enough momentum and the other two filtered through. Lucette plodded off behind them before the duelist could catch her – her poor horse was just as eager to get out of the pouring rain as much as they were.

"Fiora?" She lifted her head and spotted Eyrin at the front door of the manor. "Holy shit – hang on. Let me get Nera. We'll get you guys some towels."

Once they made sure their horses were secured and somewhat dried off, Fiora led them up the road.

"Thank you for letting me know milady is back, and with company. I'd be scrambling without your help." Nera handed her a warm towel, who stepped back to let her through the front doors. Warm air enveloped them when they shut the doors and she ran the towel over her hair to dry as much of it off as she could. "We have some spare robes in the guest rooms. I can take your clothes and set them to dry off if you'd like."

Fiora paused drying herself when Nera stepped over to help Sayo out. The other woman stood stock still, uncomfortably so as the servant draped a towel over her shoulder and took her cloak. "Sayo," she called, uncertain if the woman heard her at all.

"Yeah? Sorry." She snapped out of her daze, shaking her head and pulling the towel off herself to dry her face. "Just a bit surprised is all. I expected more people, I guess?"

The hesitation in her words said differently – she chose not to address the lie. Nera remained oblivious to all of this, but drew their attention to her anyways.

"We can exchange pleasantries later. Right now let's get you all dried off before the lot of you leave a puddle in the foyer and get sick from being in wet clothes."

By the time Fiora stepped out of her room and into the office, Sayo and Noah situated themselves close to the flames roaring in the fireplace. Eyrin was absent, probably vanishing back downstairs to retrieve the tea Nera set on the stove earlier. Nera sat at the desk, oblivious to anything going on around herself.. The duelist raised an eyebrow and folded her arms over her chest, standing in the doorway until the older woman noticed.

"Ah, my apologies milady." Nera bolted right back up as she realized where she sat. "I've been preoccupied as of late with reading."

"I can tell." Fiora walked around to the front of the desk instead, making it known she didn't mind Nera taking over her usual place. She picked up a book on some smaller Demacian statures and waved it in the air lightly. "You never touch these."

Nera sighed and rubbed her cheek. "With how much pressure House Laurent has been undergoing, I've had to pick up some readings here and there. I wanted to make sure our tracks are clean and can be overlooked without suspicion."

It bothered her even with the Illuminators, operating in secrecy meant taking additional precautions that would have been unnecessary otherwise. They drew less attention to the covert aspects of their movements – namely Eyrin who delivered much more sensitive information during the cover of night – but forced Fiora to be much more selective in interacting with the organization outside of Kahina, Sayo, and Noah.

"Take a rest."

Nera blinked. Had she heard right?

"You've been working tirelessly. You'll collapse if you don't."

"I will be fine, milady-"

"Trust me, she's rested plenty enough." Eyrin set the tray of tea on the small table in the middle of the room and handed everyone a generous mug instead of the usual small cups. "I've learned on more than one occasion she loves her sleep. A lot."

Fiora didn't doubt that considering their rigid schedules, but it concerned her nonetheless. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "Nera."

"Yes, milady?"

"While you are a Laurent, you still answer to me, as all do within my house." The duelist braced herself against the table. She exhaled slowly to keep her head cool and voice level. "If I task you, you complete it. If I command you, you obey. Do I need to continue to make myself understood?"

Nera bowed her head sheepishly. "No, milady."

Fiora unraveled the towel around her head and draped it over a shoulder. She herself collapsed in one of the armchairs instead of taking her own seat and deep sigh escaped her lips. After all day of traveling and one hot shower later, the duelist had little intentions of maintaining formalities – couldn't care to. "We have much to discuss, and all of it time-sensitive."


Nera folded her hands over her mouth, murmuring quietly. After exchanging all the information they gathered and knew, everyone fell silent to let the snowy-haired woman filter through the extra information. It was an age-old dance they were familiar with, but not to the other three.

Sayo's reactions intrigued Fiora the most - eyes narrowing, one leg slowly tapping, the fingers on her left hand twitching in a pattern.

She's calculating something.

"There is much information to digest and process," the servant mused, tilting her head to crack the stiff joints and relax her muscles. "Many moving parts and most of them disjointed."

"Any hunches?" Sayo's question seemed harmless, but Fiora sensed another motive underlying it. If only her rapier was closer and on hand.

Nera answered with a small shake of her head. "I dislike voicing conjectures that do not have any basis to them. However there are a few things we are certain of." She held up one hand.

"Sylas is using Mina as a means to maintain his army. There are only two healer-mages within our breadth of knowledge – Miss Buevelle and Wisteria. The former is nigh inaccessible and would warrant a much stronger response from Demacia if she were taken. On the other hand, Wisteria is a much smaller, lesser known entity. Her disappearance would only count among the number of missing persons the law struggles to track.

"The issue now is how did he know of her abilities, and of her location?" Nera put up a second finger. "House Laurent, more specifically Mistress Fiora, is cautious of the information that passes in, out, and through those associated with us. 'Wisteria' is only known to two persons within the House – myself, and milady. Neither of us are in contact with Sylas, nor have we mentioned her in recent times. That means there is an outside link we've missed."

Eyrin frowned. "What about Kepi? Fiora, you mentioned she is Kasim's daughter, correct? And if he was a Mageseeker, then Sylas likely had information about Wisteria's abilities from the get-go."

"Oui, however Kepi and Delilah claimed severance years ago, before they met Mina. If the Mageseekers profiled her for magic, then she would have been sought out and taken when Sylas went rogue, not now." The point brought them back to a dead end and soured their moods.

Nera closed her eyes and buried her face in a hand. It puzzled her trying to figure this all out and there were just a few missing connections they overlooked. But what are they...? "Kasim is still a factor, somehow."

Sayo pursed her lips in deep thought. "He doesn't sound like someone to associate with Sylas, however."

"Not at all," Nera agreed. "It makes this all the more frustrating."

From the fireplace, Noah gruffed and drew the attention of the entire room to himself. "I know I'm not the smartest person around, but maybe you're looking too deep into things? It may be something smaller, more obvious."

Sayo rolled her eyes and kicked him in the leg. "And what do you think it could be? This isn't all just sunshine and roses-"

Fiora bolted from her seat faster than the eye could blink and nearly shouted at the top of her lungs. "Je suis un imbécile!"

Nera sat there stupefied at the sudden outburst. "Milady, are you... alright?"

The duelist didn't respond to her immediately and instead took to pacing the room, swearing up and down in her native tongue. Sayo, Eyrin, and Noah appeared equally as confused as the other.

"Nera, the flowers. Les fleurs. Remember the day of the duel?"

"Yes, but I don't quite-"

Fiora grabbed Nera's shoulders when she approached her, shaking the older woman roughly. "The Mageseekers have never accused us of magic prior to the day I met Lux in the Commercia. The only business I checked was a small florist. The only proof they would have gotten-"

"-was the flowers, which are House Laurent's specialty." All the pieces connected in an instant. "They had been keeping an eye on you, and seized the opportunity to interrogate. So when they confronted you about it and you killed Kasim over the accusation of magic-"

"-it brought Sylas back to Demacia. The news spread through the entire kingdom. You were right Nera, the duel was staged," Fiora finished.

"If I recall correctly, Lux did mention in passing once that all evidence seized from accused persons are held in the Mageseeker's complex," Eyrin chimed in.

"And he came back for that. To find what magic it was, then traced it back. I agreed to let Nera teach Wisteria how to grow flora, more specifically the ones commonly used in healing elixirs."

The snowy-haired woman cut in then. "Except the flora isn't used in many of them, but their essence. And the strongest essence is always in-"

"-the nectar." All, save Eyrin, arrived at the same conclusion in that instant.

"Honey is a highly-sought after resource," Sayo explained. "Even in Ionian with the presence of magic, it is considered an elixir of life, due to the purity of its properties. However nectar is much more potent as a raw form and often is a powder catalyst in many things. Wisteria is the only known source within Demacia, and Sylas traced it back to her."

After connecting all the dots, not a single person in the room dared do as much as breathe.

Except-

"Well I'll be damned," Noah commented, breaking the silence. "Maybe my thick skull was useful for something other than bashing heads in."

"Noah, I was the one who suggested fucking roses. Not you." Everyone broke laughter at the joke, though it died seconds later. "While we've figured out how he managed to find Wisteria, we don't exactly have a way of tracking him down either. He moves too erratically throughout the kingdom and the Illuminators are always one or two steps behind him."

Nera hummed quietly. "Perhaps we need to return to the origin of this all – the Mageseeker's Complex. They are the ones that confront the Mage Rebellion most often, and we still have one missing piece of information that could be hidden there. What exactly is Kasim's role in all of this? He is clearly important enough for Sylas to come back after his death."

"Kepi mentioned she has friends in 'high places,'" Sayo recited. "I'm going to take a gander that it more refers to someone among the nobility, but there isn't really anyone that comes to mind he could be associated with."

Eyrin cleared her throat quietly, drawing everyone's eyes to herself. "How are you guys going to go about that, exactly? It's not the easiest place to break into."

Sayo smirked and lifted her hand. A swirling mist began to grow and expand out into a luminescent orb. "I have a little trick up my sleeve that can help with that." The light at the center flashed momentarily before it shrank and vanished, yet nothing seemed to happen or change.

Fiora would have asked what it was, until her eyes landed on the fireplace.

The flames stopped in mid-dance.

"You control time."

Sayo smirked and gave her two thumbs up. "Bingo. I'm a time mage. Well, I can freeze time for as long as necessary but that's because I'm outside of time and I can step back in whenever I wish."

Fiora folded her arms over her chest. "Explains a lot, actually."

"Let's not jump to conclusions however." Sayo held up her hands defensively. "While time does not affect me, shepherding someone through is finite because I have act as leash or else they get lost in the void." As if to punctuate her point, the fire resumed its merry dance and the weight around them returned.

"A time limit on stopping time," Noah grumbled. "That's probably the most paradoxical thing I've heard all day."

Sayo pointedly ignored him. "And I'm not going in blind into the Mageseeker's Complex. I've been there only once to know they have magic traps laid out everywhere. If we're looking for something, I'll need someone who knows the place like the back of their hand."

Eyrin raised her hand. "Lux. She's been there enough times she could probably sleep walk and no one would notice her come or go. I'll have to brief her on all of this, but I think Sayo could do a better job of it."

"Slip in, get the stuff, get out." Nera smiled. "And no one would be the wiser about it."


Fiora clasped her hand on Sayo's shoulder before she left for the stables. Eyrin left long before they did, vanishing in a swirl of mist headed straight for the capital. Nera went to help Noah with his horse, and it gave her a chance to speak with the time mage privately. "How do you know Nera?"

Sayo stopped dead in her tracks, turning back to the duelist slowly. A bitter smile tugged the corner of her lips. "We are both Ionian."

The remorseful tone laden in her voice twisted Fiora's gut like a hot knife. "That much is obvious."

"Time is a tricky and dangerous thing, Mistress Laurent. So are emotions. There is a reason why I only touch the present, never the past nor future." Sayo clenched her left hand and brought her fist to let the duelist examine the ornate ring on it. A dragon weaved around the silvery band, inlaid with small greens and reds. It hooked around her middle finger with a single chain connected to the bracelet around her wrist.

Gorgeous beyond words and masterfully crafted.

"She made this for me, a focus. Something to anchor the magic I couldn't control. And just like that I was able to twist time around me." The mage's lips quirked, a quiet, fond chuckle rumbling in her chest. "She never showed me love, but then again she never showed emotions period. Always calm, always hiding. Always telling me that I needed to focus on my lessons and control my feelings. She never punished me for stopping time, just so I could see her smile a little longer. She knew when I stopped time to give her small kisses on the cheek or steal her shield from her, yet never tried to correct me.

"And then one day, I got angry." Sayo sighed and combed a hand through her hair, letting half-shaven locks fall back haphazardly. "Noxus was coming and I wanted to fight – she did not. I accused her of betraying her homeland, and betraying me. She told me I was ill-prepared and what I was about to do would twist the fabric of reality and split apart my mind.

"I didn't believe her – truth be told, I should have. Why would I ever doubt my jiǎngshī? They are mentors for life, sacrificing their futures to lead their students on a path that shines brighter than their own." Sayo kept her face from Fiora. "My anger seeped into my magic as I fought her. I hit her so many times yet she never swung back at me. And when my hand connected with her head, it shattered reality and sucked me beyond the time-space, and beyond the in-between.

"I watched memories float by, shattering one by one as my emotions ripped them apart. I feared I would be lost to time, but I realized they weren't my memories. They were Jyrane's, my old master's. Even from beyond the physical realm, she stayed at my side and protected me from my own magic."

Fiora had no words – couldn't say anything to comfort Sayo.

"I took control of myself and stopped it before it got any worse. But the damage was done and Jyrane was shattered, broken and adrift lost in the space. It's a fate worse than death, being beyond the reach of time, the reach of time-touched realms. I took it upon myself and sat through all of her memories, and slowly replaced them one by one with different scenes I could conjure up. Happier memories, devoid of my presence and my existence."

"You erased yourself from her life."

Sayo shook her head. "Jyrane was gone. My jiǎngshī died when I took her from the world and dragged her to one only I could access. Reality warped; it needed to be replaced or else I would have been lost too. So I did the only thing I could, and that was to breathe new life and correct the imbalance I created."

Playing the hands of God without being a Celestial or deity herself. It left Fiora with no small wonder the extent and power of such magic, and it dawned on her why she kept quiet about it this entire time. "What will you do now?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I came to Demacia once I heard of her whereabouts, but never did I imagine she would be stuck to your side. I'm glad it was you however." Sayo ran her hand over her face. "I guess I need a new reason to stay here, else I'll be back to wandering like I have been for the last ten, eleven years."

"Then stay and let her be your light. While I may not know of Jyrane, I know for a fact Nera is very much the same as the woman you once knew."

And like Sayo, heliotropes always faced the sun, the light. She watched the mage studying Nera approaching them with her horse in tow.

"Yeah, I might just do that."