Azra'il's POV
Victory, I have discovered over the ages, has a varied taste. I have tasted cosmic ash upon seeing a supernova star I helped to kindle swallow its rebellious worlds. I have tasted the salt of blood on my tongue after unifying a continent under a single banner that, two hundred years later, would be used as a floor cloth. The victory I won in the Du Couteau's courtyard, however, had a new and distinctly Noxian flavour: the insipid taste of a successful bureaucratic agreement. As thrilling as filling out forms.
I returned from their fortress feeling tactically in control. Turning predators into resources is the basics of empire management, be it with nations or with temperamental teenagers with hidden blades. I had gained access to an intelligence network, and all it had cost was a bit of tea and a demonstration that my brain operated at a higher speed than theirs. A success.
And, apparently, the reason for my celestial guardian to enter a vow of sepulchral silence that had now lasted twenty-four hours.
Morgana, bless her stubborn, bleeding heart, did not see the beauty of the transaction. She didn't see the chess, the dance of information and leverage. She saw 'monsters'. In the carriage, and now in our home, her silence was a judgement. It was the sort of silence the gods used to employ when they were deciding which city to turn into a pillar of salt. Dreadfully dramatic. As soon as we arrived, she retreated to her chambers. I let her go. She needed to process her complex feelings. I… I needed to work. I had a new enemy to catalogue, the 'Black Rose', which seemed a terribly cliché name for a secret society. At least they had a sense of aesthetics.
The following evening, however, the routine was broken by the arrival of one of my new… collaborators.
Talon materialised in the middle of my study like a particularly silent sewer leak.
[ALERT: 'Talon' signature detected. Point of entry: window crevice. Infiltration time: 1.2 seconds. No alarms.]
"Do your people have a cultural aversion to doors?" I asked, not looking up from a map of Shurima.
"Doors are for friends and merchants," he replied, his voice the sound of ground glass. "I am a delivery." He placed a sealed cylinder on my desk. "The first instalment of our partnership."
I gestured to a chair, an invitation I knew he would refuse. He preferred to remain in the shadows, a lethal statue. I opened the cylinder. Inside were their spy reports on Grand General Eris Vance. The script was precise, the details exhaustive. I read them, my mind absorbing and cataloguing the information, their mission clear: predict the Black Rose's assassination method so House Du Couteau could thwart it and reap the political benefits. A puzzle. A delicious, complex puzzle.
"Interesting," I murmured after a few minutes of silence, spreading the scrolls out. "The target is a man of habit. A military dinosaur who believes high walls and loyal guards are the only form of security. A beginner's mistake."
"He is one of the most well-protected generals in the capital," Talon retorted, his tone challenging. "His routes change daily. His food is tested by three separate tasters. His wine comes from vineyards controlled by his own family."
"Precisely," I said, not looking at him. "And they are focusing on the wrong fortress. The Black Rose doesn't knock down walls, Talon. They rot the foundations." My fingers traced the list of Vance's personal effects. "His vulnerability is not what he eats or drinks. It is what he breathes. He believes his private chambers are an impenetrable sanctuary."
"They are," Talon insisted. "My own scouts took a week to map the guard patterns without being detected."
I finally looked at him, a condescending smile on my lips. "Your scouts. They see and hear. But do they smell? Tell me, what do their reports say about the air in the corridors leading to his chambers? Did they note any specific aroma? A scent that didn't belong to the rest of the fortress?"
I saw a split second of uncertainty in his rigid posture. It was a variable that he, and his scouts, had not considered. "The reports mention the use of incense to mask the city's odour," he admitted, reluctantly. "Aromatic. From Ixtal."
"And the supplier, is he loyal to House Vance?" I asked.
"Yes. For two generations."
"Loyalty can be bought, broken, or… imitated," I said, tapping my finger on the scroll. "They won't bribe the supplier. They will replace him or his shipment. A Black Rose agent posing as a caravan guard, a harbour inspector. It is trivial."
"The method," he pressed, getting back to the point, clearly uncomfortable at being caught out in a failure of intelligence gathering.
"It's not a contact or ingestion poison. It's an alchemical pollen. Dispersed by the smoke. Odourless to most, but it would overpower the natural Ixtali incense if you knew what to smell for. Designed to bind to the heart's receptors. It is not an attack; it's an instruction. It tells the heart to… stop." I detailed how the death would appear natural. "Clean. Elegant. And dreadfully difficult to trace."
Talon processed this in silence. "The antidote?"
"Complex," I said. "But you're not interested in the antidote. You want the ambush."
"We want the agent. Alive," he confirmed.
"Then you have a problem. Waiting for the attempt is reactive. You need to be proactive." I took a fresh scroll. "The agent who delivers the next shipment of incense must be apprehended. At the same time, you need a diversion. An 'accidental' fire in the tapestry storeroom next to the general's quarters, forcing his evacuation. It takes the target off the field."
I was about to detail the neutralising compound, but to analyse that I would need a sample of the incense, when suddenly the temperature in the room dropped.
"That's enough, Azra'il."
Morgana's voice came from the doorway. Calm. Terribly calm. She had been standing there, listening. She looked at Talon. "Your visit is over."
Talon looked at me. I gave a nod. *Go*. He straightened, gave a slight bow, and left the same way he had come in.
Morgana entered, closing the door. She stared at me, a deep sadness in her eyes.
"Do you hear yourself, Azra'il?" she said. "You're speaking of a man's life and death as if it were an alchemy problem. You discuss ambushes with… them… as if you were planning a trip to the market."
I crossed my arms. "I'm being clinical. And, in the end, we're saving a life. I thought you'd be pleased."
"Pleased?" The word came out as a broken sigh. "Azra'il, I don't care if the outcome is 'good' if the process corrodes you from the inside! I saw your face. There was no hesitation. There was only… the game." Her eyes seemed to see me across ages. "You're becoming like them. Cold, calculating, seeing people as pieces. This alliance is extinguishing your light. The spark of warmth I saw in you… it is disappearing under the iron of Noxus."
"It's called adaptation, Morgana," I retorted. "It's survival!"
"No," she said, and took a step back. "This is surrender. You are not fighting their darkness; you are learning to speak its language." The silence that followed was absolute. "Play your games," she said at last. "But know that with every moment you spend with people like them, a little more of you turns into the iron of this city. And I will not stand by and watch the rust consume you. I will be here when you remember who you are. But I cannot walk beside you on this path."
She left, closing the door softly. The sound of the click was louder than a scream. The ultimatum wasn't about an act, but about my soul.
I just stood there. She didn't understand. Survival required sacrifice.
I took a deep breath. The decision was now mine. I took up a fresh scroll and began to write to Katarina. I detailed not just the method of the poison, but the flaws in the general's security and the strategies for the ambush. I did this not to save the general. I didn't care about him. I did it to uphold my end of the bargain. To solidify my position. It was the right move. It was the only choice.
I left the scroll on the windowsill, knowing it would be collected. The price of the alliance was paid.
So why, for the first time in centuries, did I feel as though I had lost the game?