Chapter Five

Betrayal

A great mountain capped with snow rose in the horizon as a small town on a hill slowly crept into sight. It had dozens of small dirt hovels, brick manors and rising pillars of churches and guard towers. It was surrounded by a thin wall made of oak trunks and thick rope bindings. Two men stood atop the gatehouse and beckoned a welcome to a familiar face as Kassadin approached.

"Kassadin! Where have you-" he stopped when he noticed the blue skin and strange armor. "Are you alright, sir?" he asked with concern. Kassadin rose his hand up casually.

"Yes I am fine. It is just a backfire from a spell I had failed casting." he lied causally. The man stood still for a moment and then began to pull on a rope that pulled up the flimsy iron bars of the gate. He rose his hand again and passed through. He held a strange helmet in his hand. It was decorated similarly as his robes but had two large horns on the top and had a strange nose piece that had four tubes on it, one pair connecting to the back of the helmet while the other pair hung loosely down.

A most of the faces walking down the well paved street shouted greetings to him and he simply waved his hand casually at them. Slowly making his way further up the hill to him home, a rather large cottage made of brick and slate, his ventures in search of great magics brought him great wealth. Once he reached the door he stood there and smiled lightly. He reached for the handle but a powerful voice ringed out into his head.

"Kassadin do not open that door, your task is not complete." the voice was dark, raspy and very familiar.

"I do not care for your orders, fiend. I am to see my daughter." he spoke softly to himself. His head rung again and he had to place his hand against his forehead.

"So be it. Enjoy your whore daughter while you can." The dark energy left and Kassadin opened the door with a breath of relief. His home was two stories high with a large marble staircase in the middle of his hall that rose up to a balcony that ran all around the room with doors every few yards along the wall. The walls were hung with rugs and furs of rare beasts. Two matching lines of potted plants led from the door way to the center of the room where a few chairs and couches where in a circle around an empty mahogany table. The chairs and couches were adorned with gold leafing and plush red cushions.

"Selena! Selena my daughter come to me!" Kassadin shouted as he dropped his helmet onto the nearest chair and took a few steps up the staircase. He heard no response and rushed up the stairs in concern and wrenched the door to her room open to find it uninhabited. He opened all the doors, closets bathrooms and found no one. He walked into the kitchen to find that food still lied on the table, a half eaten bowl of rice. Kassadin reached out and grabbed a single grain of rice. It was dried out. Suddenly he heard a noise upstairs in his and his wife's room and leaped up the stairs.

In there he found a beautiful young woman with raven black hair and dressed elegantly, sprawled on the floor in front of his study. She was crying.

"Selena I am here." he spoke softly and she turned to him with red, puffy eyes full of tears. They looked at each other for what felt like an hour before she recognized him. Once she did, she screamed and ran to him crying and shouting, pounding her small gentle fists against her chest. He stood there and looked down at his feet as his daughter screamed and pounded on him.

"You monster!" she cried "You killed her! You killed her! I saw you in there! You bastard!" she pushed her father away from her and snatched up a pen from his study and held it out menacingly towards him. "Papa, why? You saved me instead of her! How do you expect me to live when I know that my father is a monster? You... you took her in that place. I was watching. And then you took me and almost killed me. I-I don't remember anything else..." she stared defiantly at her father. Kassadin reached out for her.

"Selena please listen to me-"

"SHUT UP! Shut up!" she threw the pen at him and threw a couple of books from his desk at him also. Kassadin did not flinch as the books hit hard against his chest and face, he only looked upon his daughter in despair.

"Selena I loved your mother." he affirmed. "I did not kill her, if the choice was given to me I would have had myself killed, but it was not. It was rather-" tears welled up in his eyes and he had to lean against the doorway into his bedroom to keep standing. "It was rather just her or both of you. Your mother was already gone before I had even known what was happening-" he was interrupted as his daughter hugged him around his waist and dropped to her knees.

"Papa I was so scared." she stuttered between snivels and tears."I could do anything I just watched. I could have saved mama but I was a coward." she buried her face into Kassadin's robe. He did not speak, he just held her there and sat down. Selena whimpered and breathed weakly.

Selena fell asleep after a few minutes. Kassadin, tired from his journey but unable to sleep, sat with his daughter laying in his lap and meditated. He meditated on the day he had married his beautiful Agatha fifteen years prior, he blinding happiness as their vows were said and joined together. He remembered the night they had consummated their love and brought little Selena into the world, and the happiness he felt when he first laid eyes on his newborn daughter.

Kassadin watched through the windows as the sunlight faded and night rose into the sky. He stroked his daughter's hair and just watched. Suddenly he heard a faint tapping on his door. He rose slowly and walked to it quietly being careful not to wake Selena. He opened it a crack and saw a young man with brown hair, bright blue eyes and a white and gold hood, scarf and cape with fashionable white and blue pants with a tunic of white and black with gold trimming, he looked like a prince from the desert. He had an ornate dagger hanging from his belt, sheathed in gold and ivory.

"You must be Kassadin," he nodded his head humbly, "I am Prince Rah Azlam from the Shurima city of Thepho. He bowed again. Kassadin looked quizzically at him.

"You bow awfully well for a man of royal blood." he opened his door all the way open. Prince Rah smiled.

"We share a curse, you and I." he spoke well and clearly. He rolled up his sleeve and exposed a strange marking on his fore arm, a mystical marking similar to the ones marked on Kassadin's robe. "I too was once a slave to the dark, but I escaped, just as you have." Kassadin brooded at this.

"How do you know that I have been to the Void?" he asked.

"I heard the voice too. I heard it when you were being turned into what you are now, and I heard it when you broke free from its spell. It threatened your daughter." he said solemnly.

"No harm will come to my daughter while I still breathe." he spat and he moved back to close the door but Prince Rah held it.

"Please come to my castle, I will protect you. I protect all who are threatened by the Void. I have taken it upon myself to do so, for the beasts of the Void took my wife and mother." He looked to the side, avoiding eye contact. Kassadin thought hard for a moment.

"Take my daughter tonight, I shall pack our belongings and make my way in the morning." he gestured towards his stable. The Prince smiled and bowed his head again. Kassadin stepped inside and saw that Selena was standing behind him. She looked sad.

"Papa, do you think it is safer that way?" she asked, rubbing her arm against her eyes.

"Yes I do. Grab a change of clothes and anything you need immediately." she ran up the stairs to her bedroom. Kassadin grabbed a dagger from a weapon rack next to the hearth and sheathed it. When Selena came back down he handed the blade to her. She took it and nodded and walked to the door, her father opened it for her.

"Is that all you need for now?" Prince Rah asked and she nodded. Selena was surprised by how young and handsome he was. She walked back towards the stable and disappeared behind the corner of the house.

"Kassadin," Prince Rah whispered as Kassadin watched his daughter turn the corner.

"Yes your highness?" he said, a little confused. The Prince stepped a little closer.

"Do not look directly at it, but in the shadows to my left, a few yards away a beast of the Void awaits." he nudged his head to his left and Kassadin saw out of the peripherals of his vision three glowing yellow eyes in the shadow.

"We must hurry." Prince Rah said and Kassadin called upon his daughter who was now mounted on a white mare. The beast stepped out of the shadows and revealed itself, it was a four legged creature with a jagged purple carapace and a large head connected to a small body. Selena gasped and Prince Rah took a step back.

"You two go now, I will take care of the beast." Kassadin said and he felt energy surging into his arm and suddenly, a large blade of energy burst forth from his hand. It glowed purple and extremely brightly. Prince Rah mounted his own horse, a jet back stallion. Kassadin turned to the beast and walked forward. The beast in return walked back. He was about to dash forward to overwhelm the cautious creature when he felt a sudden pain in his rib. He looked down and saw the tip of an ornate dagger sticking forth from this chest, dark blue blood running down his body.

"Papa! No!" he heard Selena shout as he fell to his knees. He looked down at the ground for a few moments and saw two black shoes walk in front of him. He looked up and saw Prince Rah, no longer clothed in elegant gold and white but instead deep purple and blue. His eyes were no longer a brilliant blue but a deep and glowing purple, covering all of his eyes. He knelt down and was eye level with Kassadin who was trembling in anger.

"There is no escaping the Void. No where is safe." his voice sounded eerily similar to the voice that he heard back in the Void. Kassadin tried to lunge forward and bring his blade into his neck but the Prince let forth a blast of energy from his mouth that knocked Kassadin back into the wall of his house, breaking through some of the brick and leaving him pinned. He laughed and turned to the Void creature. "Now you may kill him." the creature looked at the Prince and spoke in a strangely high pitched tone.

"Yes lord Malzahar." Malzahar walked away towards Selena who was crying in fear and anguish. He slapper he across the face to silence her.

"If you do not shut your pretty little mouth," he turned to Kassadin, "I'll force you to watch him be butchered alive." Selena wept silently now and Malzahar rode off with her. Kassadin shifted his gaze to the Void creature that was slowly creeping towards him. Suddenly it jumped forwards, Kassadin reacted quickly and brought his energy blade up and impaled the beast mid jump. It slid down the length of the blade and bumped against his hand, dead. The blade then retracted itself and the creature fell to the floor next to him. He brought himself out of the wall and wrenched the dagger free from his back and collapsed onto the ground.