cheers to the demons haunting both of us
"Dear Emilia,
Your question about my wellbeing fills me with joy. However, please do not worry about me. Lately, I am plagued with dizzy spells and my sight has certainly seen better days, but I am not in pain.
I started reading the books about blood magic and blood curses you brought with you when you stepped by last month, and they are a truly delightful read. Some of them seem to be older than this city itself. I suppose they are from the old Whitefall library?
I asked old Vladimir for recommendations as well, and he sent me a tome about hemomancy. An enormous bat brought it, and honestly, I think he is overdoing it a little with his vampire act, but well, everybody has to have their hobbies, right?
Hemomancy seems to be an interesting topic, though. Did you know there were old blood magic rituals which could cleanse sickness out of the blood? Or that all these legends about vampires originate from hemomancy users who stole the blood of humans to enhance their own lifespan with an ancient ritual called 'fons iuventutis'?
There is a chapter about reversing black magic damage with blood rituals. They sound dangerous, but promising. I copied a few of them down on the second page—your opinion on them would be highly appreciated. I believe I could pull off the second one.
But enough about old tomes and my new obsession about hemomancy. You have not written a lot lately, and you have not stopped by since you brought the books. Please don't feel guilty about Katarina—I tend to understand your motivations way better than the rest of my family.
Sometimes, we must do unpleasant things for the greater good. I hope that you have not forgotten how much I know this.
In anticipation of your answer, Cassiopeia"
Jericho stroked the raven that was sitting in front of him on the table, while Emilia read the letter over and over again. She was correct; she realized. Emilia had really avoided her pupil after deciding that her sister would marry the Crownguard boy. She wasn't sure why—guilt didn't seem to be the right word—but she couldn't decline that it was always unpleasant to look at Cassiopeia when she was hurt or in pain.
'Sometimes we must do unpleasant things for the greater good.' There were probably few people in Noxus who understood this sentence as well as Cassiopeia DuCouteau, who could say or write it with so much meaning.
So, Cassiopeia had talked to Vladimir? Well, it had probably just a question of when she would do so. Cassiopeia had always been resourceful, and after black magic had failed her, the obvious answer was, of course, turning to other branches of magic. Both black and blood magic used rituals for certain pieces of magic, and they overlapped from time to time. Hemomancy, the refined version of blood magic Vladimir had mastered decades ago, was indeed an option Emilia had not considered.
The Raven croaked, and Jericho fed him another grape. "So, what does she want? Begging for help again?"
Emilia's lips got a little thin at that comment. "She was never begging. She just found a new ritual that might work and wants my opinion on it."
Jericho raise one eyebrow, as if he was asking her 'and, will it?'. She grabbed the sheets of paper that were attached to the latter, handwritten copies of rituals. Her eyes flew over Cassiopeia's tidy handwriting. It was a modified version of another ritual, one that Emilia actually knew, that was made to separate parasitic curses from humans. Vladimir seemed to have changed it to remove immortality from humans, and Cassiopeia wanted it to cut away every part of the monster she was transforming into. Just …
"It won't work. The ritual isn't meant for cases that have progressed as far as hers."
"Didn't she got cursed three years ago? You said a few years are usually not this bad."
She flipped through the other pages, but it was always the same. None of the rituals were strong enough to really cut away the curse. When she answered, she picked her words carefully. "Cassiopeia is a special case. Her progression is roughly about a decade ahead of how far it should be. I've never seen a case like this, and neither had any of the specialists I asked."
"Do you know why?"
"I have a few ideas, but she won't like any of them. By any means, the rituals she picked should work for removing a curse that was planted three years ago. Just not for her."
Jericho reached for the documents, slow and careful, and she backed away from them, allowed him to take the papers without getting close to her. His eyes moved over the lines of text slowly, and his expression was a focused one, as if he was trying to solve a particularly interesting puzzle.
"Maybe replace the glass vials for crystal ones? It might make the magic stronger. At least it does for demonic rituals. And replace some of these spices with something hotter, if she can handle it. Burning cayenne will hurt, but it might weaken her monster form as well. You said it's some type of snake? Then it will shy away from heat."
Emilia nodded. "Might be worth a try. She could attempt the ritual during the full moon and pick a crystal harmonizing with it. It would also amplify her magic powers; she was rather sensible to the moon phases when she was a kid. I'll write to her."
A part of her doubted it would be enough, though. The rituals might remove five years of curse progression, if done right. Maybe they could bump it up so seven or eight, depending on their modifications and Cassiopeia's power. But Cassiopeia was in the last stage already. Her body had started changing.
'My sight has seen better days…' Eyes were usually one of the last organs to be affected by transformation curses. Experience told Emilia that Cassiopeia's time was running out. In the best case, she had a few months left before her body would attempt the transformation. She made a mental note to add that to her letter, too. Cassiopeia would want to know how little time she had left to plan accordingly.
"You want to play a round of chess?"
She looked up and found him looking at her. It wasn't a smile—she wasn't entirely sure if Jericho Swain could even smile. She certainly couldn't anymore—but there was a glimmer in his eyes, a spark of fondness. As much as he didn't care what happened to Cassiopeia, he enjoyed a challenge, and coming up with something to adjust her rituals was one for him.
It was what Emilia had originally bonded over with him. Intellectual challenges. "Sure, why not."
She lost the first round and won the second.
Jericho kept feeding the crows with grapes, and they talked about everything and nothing. She asked about his work at the military (some of the city walls had broken down, and half his men were busy reconstructing them) and he asked about the black rose (the Whitefall girl was still missing, and Emilia had smashed a few wine glasses in anger when their latest lead had gone cold on the way to the demacian border).
Emilia won the third round as well, and Jericho sat up straight, a concentrated look in his face when he repositioned the chess pieces, as if he hadn't been trying before. She lost the fourth round, and it wasn't anywhere close.
'Stay here. Marry me. Together, we will rule this city.', Jericho Swain had once said. 'Don't ever touch me, and I'm in.', Emilia LeBlanc had answered.
Power, she had learned years ago, was as good of a reason as any to keep somebody company.
It took five days for Garen to accept that his efforts were futile. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried – Lux was sure that her brother had bought about every flower he could find in Demacia – but Katarina had reacted rather coldly to them all, when she had reacted at all.
Which had brought them back to the kitchen, again, Garen gulping down coffee with a look that told Lux that, maybe, it was time to bring out something stronger. Or cake. He definitively looked like he could wolf down a few pieces of cake right now.
"She said, and I repeat, 'Thanks for the effort, but I'd rather be alone right now.'", he lamented between two sips. "I didn't even know a voice could be this empty! And then she closed the door in my face, and I haven't seen her since. That was yesterday morning, dammit."
Lux put her hand on his arm and gave him a pitying look. She would like to have advice for him, but she didn't have any.
"Did you apologize?", she asked, and Garen just sighed again.
"I tried, but she won't even let me get out more than two sentences. I said sorry, I said that I came across wrong, I said that I would like to redo our first few days. I even said that I didn't mean it and just said these things in anger. Nothing. She's just staring at me like some annoying kid, and leaves."
He dropped his head on the table with a thump, and made some undefined, whining sound. Lux would have laughed at the puddle of despair her brother had become if the situation hadn't been as sad.
She wanted to say that maybe, Katarina was just rather recluse and didn't talk to anybody, but a voice in her head whispered that this wasn't true – on the rare occasion when she met her brothers fiancée lately, she had greeted her kindly, and she had seemed lively and happy at the ball, even opened up a little bit. The coldness she threated Garen with since their fight was exclusive to him.
And even if Lux understood her being angry with her brother to a certain extent, the fact remained that they were engaged. No two people could have the same opinion on everything, but if Katarina didn't put any kind of effort in, they would never reconcile. It was okay to be mad for a while, to expect an apology, even to expect him to change his mind on certain things – but not talking to him seemed childish and contra productive.
She hadn't thought of Katarina as childish in any way at the banquet.
Lux hadn't spent a lot of time at home in the last days – she had had a meeting with Jarvan the forth and a few members of his guard, the spot had been formally offered to her and she was in the progress of accepting the offer – but the tension between Garen and Katarina started to irritate her greatly.
"Look, I know you already said no -", Garen raised his head from the table minimally, looking at her between the chaotic nest his hair was right now, " – but you are the only one who she talked to longer than a few minutes. Can you please just … ask her what the hell I need to do?"
The 'No' had almost crossed her lips until his words really registered with Lux. 'You are the only one who she talked to longer than a few minutes.' That couldn't be true. Surely, Katarina was talking to people constantly, she hadn't registered as shy in any way a week ago, right? Lux tried to recall her talking to anybody, but her brain failed to come up with a single occasion, and words kept stuck in her throat.
Garen looked pleading, and Lux swallowed. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to Katarina, rather the opposite. She wanted to see her, talk to her – it was too much. She couldn't help but feel guilt whenever she saw her, there was a voice in her head whispering 'don't' at their every interaction. It wasn't proper. She was a woman, and she was her brother's fiancée.
And yet, there was no reason to avoid Katarina. It was the same as Katarina asking her to dance at the banquet – they were about to be sisters-in-law. It was okay for them to be close; they should get along. No one would bat an eye at them dancing, and no one would bat an eye if Lux did exactly what she yearned to do – search for the other woman, talk to her, learn everything about her that she could.
No one would bat an eye, because no one could know what kind of thoughts filled Lux head when she watched her.
She couldn't really tell Garen that though, didn't she?
"I can try.", she answered, hesitating. She wanted to take back the words instantly, but Garen looked at her with such gratefulness that she couldn't. He stumbled over his words thanking her, and she patted him on the shoulder again, stammering something about how he shouldn't get his hopes high.
Minutes later, Lux stood in front of the door to Katarina's room, her hand raised to knock. She was feeling sick. What had been on her mind, even agreeing to talk to Katarina? The idea itself was crazy. Katarina and she didn't have any kind of connection besides a drunk dance and a few conversations, nothing that justified Garen's hope that Lux could do … what? Make her accept his apology? Fix their engagement?
She wanted to lower her hand and go again, tell Garen that the whole idea was utterly stupid.
'But if you wouldn't have these dreams about Katarina, maybe you would actually make an effort to get to know her', a voice in her head whispered, and Lux swallowed when guilt flooded her. Maybe it was her fault, even. Maybe she was the one making Katarina feel unwelcome in Demacia by avoiding her, maybe if she would just be normal, the other woman would feel comfortable confiding in her and this entire fight between Garen and her would have resolved days ago.
She was failing as a sister, failing both Garen and Katarina, because she couldn't stop her stupid dreams affecting her.
Behind the door, it was dead silent. It was early, sure, but she didn't imagine Katarina to be someone to sleep in for long, and nobody had seen her for nearly twenty-four hours now. Lux knocked. Waited. Knocked again.
Nothing.
"Katarina?", she called, worried now. "Are you there?"
The silence stretched thin, Lux' voice echoing back at her being the only sound in the hallway. What if something had happened? What if Katarina had fallen and hit her head or something? What if she had simply left?
"Katarina? Can you please answer? Garen and me worry about you.", she tried again, and then, "I'm coming in, okay?"
When she was met by silence, again, Lux counted down from ten in her head, giving Katarina a last chance to answer. Then she grabbed the handle, pushing it down. The door was locked.
'Oh shit, here we go.', she thought, gritting her teeth. It was a shame, truly, because it was a pretty door. Some part of her had hoped it was unlocked, but she should have seen this coming, really. It wasn't as if Lux didn't lock her own door at night. There were certain things one just did after sleeping in a tent for years, and one of them was locking every single door between themselves and possible assassins. And especially if Katarina didn't trust the demacian guards, there had never been a future where Lux wouldn't have to open the door by force.
Really, she should have seen this coming.
"I'm going to break in, so get away from the door!", she called, not expecting an answer. She didn't get one.
Lux stepped back. She raised her hand and felt the handle heating up. The smell of smoldering wood filled her nose, and the handle was glowing bright red. Lux raised her leg and kicked hard, the darkening wood splintering under the impact. With a screeching sound, the melting lock fell out and the door swung open.
Inside was darkness. Lux stepped in, careful, and looked around, seeing barely anything. Katarina had pulled the curtains close, and the deep red fabric they were made from blocked out nearly all light. In front of her was a huge canopy bed, and within it, covered in multiple blankets like a bird in a nest, laid Katarina.
Lux stepped closer until she was standing directly beside the bed; the sound of her boots was swallowed by the thick carpet. Katarina was breathing, but fast and shallow. From time to time she was twitching in her sleep, and her hand was clamped in one of the blankets so hard that her knuckles were white. She had to be having a nightmare.
Sleeping, Lux realized, Katarina lacked the confidence she displayed during the day, and without it, she looked small, giving a weird impression, as if she was going to break into pieces every moment. It made her heart ache. There was some otherworldly beauty to her, her pale face framed by red hair, thin pulled scars like white lines all over her body. For a second, it was almost impossible for Lux to believe that this body belonged to a fully trained assassin. She swallowed hard.
This was not the place to think like this, she told herself sternly. It didn't matter that right now; she wanted to lock herself up with Katarina somewhere and protect her from whatever made her have nightmares like this. From whatever caused these scars. She stopped her hand from reaching out to touch Katarina's skin in the last second, hovering above her.
Katarina twitched again, and she was mumbling something that sounded like a name, clear distress in her tone. Lux knew she should probably leave – maybe write a note to explain the destroyed door – and come back later. Watching Katarina sleep was likely a horrible invasion of her privacy – and yet, Lux remained, as if she was tied to the spot where she was standing.
Katarina's eyes snapped open without warning. For a second, her gaze was utterly confused. Lux was staring at her and she stared back, and then, Katarina moved faster than Lux' eyes could follow. She was pushed backwards, hitting the shelf behind her painfully, and a sharp dagger at her throat. Katarina was pressing her backwards, her body against Lux', and her eyes were full of confused fury and shock.
"Katarina -", Lux pressed out, every syllable making her skin move against the sharp metal.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my room?", Katarina hissed, her voice cold as ice.
"It's me - Lux."
She allowed her body to go limb, and Katarina stared at her for a second before she seemed to realize whose throat she was pressing her daggers against. Katarina pulled in a sharp breath and mouthed a quiet 'Shit' before she stepped back as quickly as she had gotten up.
Lux sagged against the shelf the second the pressure against her skin was gone, and Katarina dropped the dagger on the ground.
"Fucking hell, Lux.", she rasped, her voice thick from sleep. "What in god's name -"
Lux looked up at her, and for the first time she realized Katarina was wearing nothing but an oversized shirt. Black tattoos meandered down her thighs, more thin scars covered her legs. A huge one ran over her hip. She bit on her lip and looked down again – the last thing she needed now was to look at Katarina while she was looking like ... this.
"I wanted to talk to you.", she said, the words fell out of her mouth quick and quiet. "And nobody's seen you since yesterday morning, and when I knocked, and you didn't answer I started to worry and -"
Katarina rubbed her eyes and looked around. Her gaze found the door, and she quirked one of her eyebrows. "So, you destroyed a locked door and watched me sleep?"
Maybe Lux was imagining it, but there might have been an amused undertone to Katarina's voice. She wouldn't have bet on it, though.
Suddenly realizing that she was still sitting on the floor, she scrambled up and rubbed her neck absently. "I'm sorry -", she started, but Katarina waved her off.
"Never mind. Sorry I jumped at you. It's just -" She cut herself off, dropped backwards on her bed and sighed loudly. "How late is it?"
"Seven in the morning."
Katarina groaned, cursed, and then pushed herself up again. "I need a fucking drink."
Lux, whose mind harbored exactly that thought for an hour now didn't disagree, even though she hadn't planned on getting drunk in the morning. Maybe she could find some cake in the kitchen, or at least some coffee. Katarina looked like she needed either of them desperately.
"Just give me a second.", Katarina said, nodding toward a pile of clothes on the ground, and Lux wanted to say 'Sure' and leave the room when Katarina took off her shirt with a fluid motion. Lux made a strangled sound and turned away from her as fast as she could.
"I'll wait outside", she sputtered, and rushed out of the room, her cheeks heating up dangerously.
Leaning outside against the wall – She wasn't able to lock the door, but Lux had at least pulled it close behind Katarina – she breathed in deeply and let the air out again with a sigh.
Her heart was racing, still – she could still feel the ghost of Katarina's knife at her skin, and if she closed her eyes, she could still see Katarina's slim body, in the few seconds that Lux had needed to turn away, when the other woman had just started changing in front of her.
Her face was burning, and she quietly mouthed multiple curses.
'Can you please just … ask her what the hell I need to do?' A great sister did she make. Breaking into Katarina's room, watching her sleep, looking at her like this – She was disgusting. Was it normal for women to change in front of each other?
Quinn had always been someone for privacy, but that might have had more to do with the way she didn't want anybody to see the scars that run over her pulse points than with shame. And maybe it had also been because Quinn had known rather early that Lux was – well, not normal.
But besides Quinn, Lux didn't really have any friendships to other woman that she might use as reference to determine whether Katarina had been acting out of the normal, or Lux was just being a prude.
"So, you guys have these fancy little kitchens at every story, right?"
Lux nearly jumped when Katarina suddenly stood beside her. There had been no sound, no warning at all that the other woman had approached her, and her heart was beating up her throat again. Katarina was to silent, moving soundless over the carpets like a feline stalking its prey. It made her more dangerous that whatever that crazy speed earlier had been. More lethal.
"Uh – yeah.", she pressed out, concentration on making her voice sound as normal as possible. "But – let's not take the one at this floor."
Katarina looked at her, questioning, her head slightly crocked. "Why not?"
"Garen's in there."
Lux could not really place the puzzled look on Katarina's face, but the other woman blinked, and then it was gone.
"Alright. Upstairs?" Lux just nodded and led the way to the stairs.
Two minutes later she dropped on a chair, and Katarina stared out of the window for a second before she opened the small fridge.
"You have any liquor here?", she asked.
"Don't know, probably in the upper shelve over there?", Lux pointed to her left. "Are you really sure you want to drink hard stuff in the morning?"
Katarina let out a dry laugh. "Oh, believe me, if you had the dreams I have you'd need some whiskey from time to time too."
Lux bit on her lip and looked away. Her mind summoned up the image of Katarina sleeping again, the way her body had been twitching, the desperate mumbling of a name Lux hadn't quite caught. She watched Katarina now, walking over to the shelves Lux had pointed at, pouring herself a shot of something dark green that filled the air with the intense smell of herbs. Katarina downed it in one gulp and refilled her glass immediately.
"I'm sorry.", Lux started again, but Katarina waved her off.
"Lux, really, stop saying that. I already feel like crap for attacking you like this. Your neck's okay?"
"Yeah."
Katarina downed the second shot, and unnerved, Lux watched her pour herself a third one. The other woman caught her eye.
"You want one too?"
"Not really.", Lux said, and when Katarina wanted to raise her glass a third time, she instinctively grabbed her hand instead, stopping her.
"You're trying to get drunk here?", she asked, and when she looked Katarina in the eyes, she let go of her hand like it had caught fire, because Katarina looked so incredible shocked, caught off guard. Staring at her hand where Lux had touched her like she had seen a ghost.
"Maybe I am. You want to stop me?" Katarina's voice was hoarse, and she was still staring at her hand. 'Shit' ran through Lux' head. Was she out of her mind, touching Katarina? Hadn't she been creepy enough already today? And it was seven in the morning. Seven in the morning, Lux was already hating herself, and Katarina was already trying to get drunk. Optimal foundation for the 'Please give my brother a chance'-talk they ought to have.
"What if I do?", Lux retorted, and to her surprise, Katarina placed the glass back on the table and gave her a pained look. 'If you had the dreams that I have -'
"What was it about? Your dream?"
Lux could have bitten herself on the tongue the second the words had fallen out of her mouth. How did she even dare asking? At that point, was it even possible to become even creepier? But the look on Katarina's face wasn't disgusted or confused, it was just the same pain that was there since she had woken up, that shone through every little crack in her mask of confidence.
"The war.", she just said, and for a second Lux though that that was it, that was all the detail she would get – and she wouldn't hold it against Katarina, because the war lately seemed like an answer to every second question people asked her – but the Katarina groaned, dropped her head in her arms on the table, and continued to talk.
"I had a friend, before the war. Her name is – was – Riven. Knew her for a while, before everything went to shit. She was a few years older than me, two I guess, but we never really knew – she was an orphan, had no idea when she was actually born. The military took her in back then. She'd been a soldier since she could walk, didn't knew anything else. Didn't wanted anything else, either.
We were … close. She thought me a lot of the stuff I know today. How to fight with my fists, how to lie, stuff like this. Street knowledge. She was a little bit like the big sister I never had, but … she also wasn't. My dad hated it, that I was running around with that orphan girl from the streets. Called her a brute. She found it hilarious, called me a princess in return."
Katarina let out a sad chuckle before she continued speaking. Lux let her, silently watching as more and more of her mask cracked, and the pain showed in her face instead. There was no doubt about the fact that, however this story ended, Riven would not be alive at its end.
Maybe Katarina needed this, needed to tell this story to somebody, and who was better suited for listening to war stories than Lux?
"Then, near to the end of the war, she was suddenly promoted to officer. Given her own team, twice the pay. She was thrilled, didn't ask questions. Her team was given an important mission – guard a special weapon. Super-secret thing, it could supposedly stop mages from using their magic if fired. Or military thought it might turn the war.
They wanted to bring it into position between two of the major battlefields, just pretended to carry another supply wagon all the way there. There weren't even supposed to be any fights. When the demacian army turned up suddenly, and the ionian flanked from the other side of the mountains, I guess they thought that there was a traitor or something."
Lux felt a cold shiver run down her back when she could probably tell the story to the end as well. She had been part of the operation; a lot of teams had been. In some way, it had been last mayor battle Noxus had won. She could still imagine Garen's face after the retreat, the cold rage.
'They ought to be destroyed for this.', he had whispered. 'All of them.'
"The last message we got from them was that their surrounded. Wanted to barricade in the mountains. They were told to stay where they were instead, and the artillery got ordered to ready the long-range missiles, and suddenly it was so clear, suddenly I understood -"
"They were bait.", Lux said, voice thick. Katarina nodded, and Lux thought that she felt sick. Garen and she had been standing by, in case that reinforcements were needed. They had watched from afar how the chemicals had started raining down on the thousands and thousands of soldiers, had watched as their troops had died a slow and painful death. Unable to help, unable to save so many.
"Yeah. There was no secret weapon, and there was no traitor. The story had been leaked to Demacia on purpose, and it was all a plot to get as much of the enemy's army in one spot as they could. And then, they bombed everything up with acid, including her team. When I got to her, she was barely alive. A demacian soldier shot her, in the end."
Katarina downed her shot, and Lux just stared at her. She had known Noxus had used one of their own teams as bait. But until now, she had always assumed that at least it had been somebody who had somehow deserved what they'd gotten. What a naïve though.
"I can't even blame Demacia for that, because it was all Noxus. It was all Jericho Swain, the entire plan retched of him. She died on that fucking battlefield because she wanted something more than being a soldier, and he used it, tricked her and then called it an honor." Katarina clenched her fists, and she spat out the word 'honor' with so much anger Lux nearly flinched. "She didn't even get a proper burial, and if it hadn't been for me, no one would have recovered her body either."
Jericho Swain. Something in Lux' mind clicked in place at the name. He had been her target, a year ago, for the damn mission that she had failed. Her memories were completely blank from the second she had set foot in Noxus, but she remembered her mission – find out what Swain was up to, if Noxus was properly disarming, if they were making any actual effort at peace of if they were just trying to not be targeted until they had recovered. Whatever had happened, Lux didn't believe that her amnesia resulted from an accident for a single second.
"That's horrible. I'm sorry.", Lux said, not even knowing what she was apologizing for. Something in Katarina's eyes softened, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter.
"Don't be. It's just – it was Swains order, this whole marriage. I didn't even meet him; he just sent a letter, but since then, I just… I dream about it. How Riven died. If I just had been a little smarter and realized that something was wrong, maybe I could have saved her. Stopped her from taking this mission, or the whole damn promotion."
Katarina voice was resigned, and she leaned back and closed her eyes. "Sometimes I just want to march up to his damn villa and kill him as slow and painful as possible."
"You know it wasn't your fault, right?", Lux said. Katarina pushed her lips to a tight line and looked away from her. "I was there, that day. Not on the battlefield, but close enough to see what happened. The entire thing was planned really, really well. Neither the ionian nor the demacian information unit had even the slightest idea that it was a trap. My general said afterwards, that if this battle had been what Noxus was capable of on the strategic side, he had no idea why you were losing. He thought that we probably had someone extremely valuable on the inside for the first half of the war."
"What are you trying to tell me?"
"You and Riven were teenagers. Jericho Swain tricked thousands of people,", including Lux, probably, but she couldn't really tell Katarina that, "people that were decades older and more experienced. You never had a chance of knowing, and if somebody says otherwise, they are being unfair."
"I say otherwise, though."
"My point still stands. It's unfair."
Katarina opened one of her eyes, looking at her, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Never took you as one for speeches like this, Lux."
Lux felt her face heating up in an extremely inappropriate way, given the topic, and she turned away from Katarina before answering. "You don't know me."
"No, I guess I don't."
Silence fell between the two of them, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The sun still stood low, luminating the kitchen with gentle light. The air coming in the window was cool from the morning. It reminded Lux of the reason she had wanted to talk to Katarina in the first place.
"Is this why you refuse to give Garen a chance to apologize? Because it was Swain who ordered you to marry him?", Lux asked eventually, and Katarina looked at her puzzled, as if Lux had just pulled her out of a deep thought. Then she shrugged.
"Partially."
Katarina didn't elaborate, instead giving Lux a long look. Lux sighed and dropped her head in her hands.
"Look, I don't know about Noxus, but Demacia won't force you to marry him. If you really don't want to give it a try, the earlier you say so, the easier it gets for both of you. And you can say what you want about him, but I don't want to see Garen hurt."
The other woman raised an eyebrow at this. "You think Noxus would let me pull out?", she said, her voice sharp with sarcasm.
"You can just stay in Demacia, then. Noxus wouldn't risk doing anything to you while you're under demacian protection." The 'At least not right now' dangled between them in the air, too obvious to be spoken out loud.
Lux expected many reactions, but Katarina didn't flinch, nor did she get angry for the jab at Noxus or offended about Lux suggesting her to flee. Instead, she started to laugh, a joyless laughter that sounded somewhat mean and frustrated.
"You really think they can't hurt me here? LeBlanc and Swain?", she hissed. A semblance of the anger from earlier had returned to her face, but it wasn't directed at Lux. "You really think they don't have a way to make me comply when they can't get their hands on me? Weren't you the one who told me how much of a genius Swain is just minutes ago?"
Lux swallowed what she had been about to say. Katarina was right about that one.
"How?", she asked, but Katarina shook her head. "Sorry, I can't. The last time I told… somebody -", she pressed her lips together, swallowed, gave Lux a pained look. "It wasn't pretty. Once was enough."
'I'm going to protect you.' The thought was fierce and sudden, and nearly Lux would have said these words loud out, but she knew better. Instead, she grabbed Katarina's hand and squeezed it, once. Katarina stared at their hands, and a smile hushed over her face. Only when Katarina let got with what seemed like reluctance, even if Lux wasn't entirely sure of it, she realized what she had just done. She fought down another blush. And then, a small wave of disgust with herself.
"One day, I'll kill them.", Katarina said, and there was a finality in her voice. "Swain, and LeBlanc, and everybody who was involved in Riven's death. And in this, too."
It should have disturbed or scared Lux, she realized later, the calm voice that Katarina used instead of anger when she talked about killing somebody, but it didn't. Nothing about Katarina really scared her, not even the daggers at her throat had done so.
So, instead, she smiled at Katarina.
Later, when Garen asked her how it had gone, she debated telling him the truth for a few seconds, but the words would not come over her lips. The idea of putting Katarina in danger by whatever made her marry him in the first place choked her, and so, instead of being honest, she just told Garen that Katarina had a hard time right now, and to give her more space and time. With enough time, she would figure something out, she told herself.
And it wasn't really a lie.
That night, Lux dreamt of a simple grave, the name written on a stone in white, bold letters, on a backyard hidden between leaning houses. She dreamed of summer heat, dry grass and the smell of whiskey. 'There always is a choice', Dream-Lux whispered.
With a loud sound, the crack in the crystal ball tore longer and Cassiopeia's eyes snapped open.