The rift between me and Azra'il was not like a storm, full of lightning and thunder. It was like the silent arrival of winter, a gradual cold that settled in our home, freezing the unspoken words in the air between us. I watched her immerse herself in her new alliance with House Du Couteau, a child playing with obsidian knives, and a part of me wanted to tear the blades from her hands. But the other part, the older and more weary part, recognised the iron logic of her survival in this place. And so, I withdrew. Not in body, for we shared the same roof, but in purpose. She had her game of shadows. And I needed to find my own.
My refuge, as always, was the periphery. I returned to the alleyways, no longer as a judge, but as a healer. I needed to feel the pulse of life, of pain and resilience, to remind myself why I fight, to wash the rust of high-level politics from my soul. The atmosphere in the district troubled me. The Pit Rats were gone, but the joy I had expected to see in their place did not exist.
There was a wary fear, a sickly peace, like the silence of a village that knows the wolves still prowl the forest, even if they cannot see them. I felt I was responsible not just for the pack I had culled, but for the vacuum I had left behind. Nature, especially Noxian nature, abhors a vacuum.
My network of information was woven not with gold or threats, but with trust, earned drop by drop with fever tonics and burn balms.
My first stop was Borin's forge. The smell of coal and hot metal was comforting. He was hammering a blade, but his shoulders were tense.
"Shadow Lady," he greeted me, his voice low. "It's good to see you."
"And you, Borin. How is Helena? And Lyra?"
"Well, thanks to you. Safer." He hesitated, glancing at the door of his workshop as if expecting to be overheard. "But the district… it's strange. Too quiet."
"That is what I fear," I said. "Tell me what's strange."
"It's… the 'good luck'," he said, and the words sounded like poison. "Things are going *too* well. Tovin, the tanner, his debt with the leather-workers' guild just… vanished. Paid off, they said. Masha, the weaver, received a new loom from an 'anonymous patron'. It seems like charity, but… this is Noxus, Lady. Charity always comes with a price. We just don't know what it is yet."
I left Borin's forge and went to Masha, the weaver, who offered me tea, her eyes full of both gratitude and a new anxiety. She was working on her new loom, a beautiful instrument that was out of place in the simplicity of her shop.
"It's a blessing," she said, her hand running over the smooth wood. "But every night I wonder when the giver will come to collect."
"Has anyone come?" I asked.
"No… not to collect. But to gift," she said, and touched a small, polished obsidian brooch pinned to her shawl. A rose. "A messenger from the weavers' guild brought it. Said it was a gift from the new guildmistress, for my 'loyalty' to the craft." She frowned, confusion clouding her features. "But I haven't seen the guildmistress in weeks, not since she fell ill. And this… this is not our guild's symbol."
The seed of doubt had been planted. I left Masha with her loom and her 'gift'.
The final piece of the puzzle came from Borin. Later, he sought me out, his eyes wide. "There's a craftsman, Kethan. A jeweller from Ixtal. Always struggled to make ends meet. Now, his shop is the finest in the district, and his work is suddenly in high demand from merchants who never came here before," he said. "And people talk. Tovin saw it. It was Kethan who paid off his debt. Discreetly, late at night. Said it was 'a gesture from a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous'." Borin wiped the sweat from his brow. "I don't like it, Lady. In Noxus, anonymous benefactors usually sign their names in blood later on."
The web was clear, and more clever than I had imagined. They had a source, Kethan. But the distribution was decentralised, masked under false pretences, guild gifts, debt payments. They weren't just buying people; they were inserting themselves into the very social fabric of the district, until it was too late. I needed to go to the source.
That night, I became a shadow. I slipped across the rooftops. Kethan's workshop was dark, but I could feel the thrum of contained magic within. I entered through a window, silent as falling dust. The scene below was lit by a single rune-lamp. Kethan was hunched over his workbench, etching tiny runes onto dozens of the rose brooches.
Hidden in the rafters, I watched him. He picked up a finished brooch, whispering an incantation in an old Ixtali tongue. The brooch glowed with a dark violet light. And on the surface of a huge, polished mirror, dozens of small visions appeared: the view of a guard in the Bastion, of a servant in a noble hall, of a docker at the port.
My heart seemed to stop. They weren't just brooches. They were eyes. Eyes scattered across the entire capital, turning ordinary citizens into their spies. 'Charity' was just the price to buy their vision. And Kethan, this one man in a forgotten workshop, was at the centre of a vast and terrifyingly ingenious surveillance network. The scale of what they could see, what they could know… it was frightening. And they had built this network on the hope of the very people I protected.
I dropped from the rafters with the quiet of a falling leaf, my boots making not a single sound on the dusty stone floor. The workshop's shadows welcomed me, making me just another part of the darkness. I moved with the experience of centuries, past piles of crates and tools, each step deliberate, unseen. I approached him from behind, positioning myself in a deep shadow a few feet from his chair. My intention was to surprise him, to subdue him before he could alert anyone. I was the predator. I was in control.
It was then that he stopped his work. He did not turn quickly. He set down his tool with deliberate calm and, slowly, swivelled in his chair to face me, his gaze piercing the shadow where I was hidden as if I stood in broad daylight. He smiled, a thin, knowing smile.
"The signature of your magic, that night… it left an echo. Subtle, but unmistakable. We were… intrigued."
As he spoke, I felt the familiar tingle of a runic trap closing. A pulse of energy rose from the stone floor, masterfully carved containment runes glowing for an instant before becoming invisible again. The air in the room thickened, growing heavy, designed to choke and bind magic. It was impressive work, a cage made of will and geometry. I felt the bonds tighten around my own magic, testing my defences. They were strong. But not strong enough. With a fraction of my power, I could have shattered the trap like thin glass, and likely taken half the block with me.
But then two figures emerged from the shadows. A man with an academic air and a woman whose features seemed to writhe. I reined in my impulse. To destroy the trap would be easy. To escape, also. But it would mean revealing the true extent of my strength, turning an investigation into a war. They thought they had caged a mysterious wolf. They had no idea they had just prodded a slumbering dragon. For now, curiosity won out over fury. I decided to play their game.
I stepped out of the shadows into the lantern's dim light, my posture relaxed, not that of a prisoner, but of one who chose to be there.
"So, the mystery reveals itself," the academic man said, adjusting his spectacles. His tone was that of an entomologist who has just found a rare specimen. "We were wondering who possessed such an… idiosyncratic arcane signature."
I looked around the room, my gaze resting briefly on each of them, and lastly on Kethan. "All this theatre," I said, my voice calm. "The charity, the gifts, the runes in the floor. All to lure me here for a conversation. I must be flattered."
"Flattery is a useless emotion," the academic retorted, stepping forward. He was clearly the intellectual leader. "Information, however, is invaluable. And you, madam, are an anomaly overflowing with information we desire."
The illusory woman laughed, a sound like shattering glass chimes. Her form stabilised for a moment, revealing a predatory beauty before dissolving into soft outlines again. "She's proud. I like that. Pride breaks so beautifully."
"You've been busy, Kethan," I continued, ignoring the woman and focusing on the craftsman. He was the anchor of this operation, the point of contact with the real world. "I see you've found patrons who appreciate your particular talent for invading the privacy of others. You trade your freedom from Ixtal to become a gaoler in Noxus?"
"Freedom is an illusion," Kethan replied, his voice soft, not taking his eyes from the brooch he was working on, as if our conversation were a minor distraction. "The chains of Noxus are, at least, made of gold. Power is real. And my… associates… offer me a power I would never have in my homeland."
"And who might these associates be? What name shall I give my captors?" I asked, testing their limits, wanting to see how open they would be.
"The Rose has many petals," the woman whispered, her voice seeming to come from behind me this time, a cheap trick of misdirection I ignored.
The academic man took another step, scientific interest gleaming in his eyes. "Let's dispense with the riddles. Lady Vorth was… reckless. She saw you as a local asset, a tool to be used and hidden. She tried to suppress the reports of your… 'performance'... at the brothel, classifying it as a simple 'gang incident'."
"But a power signature of your magnitude, with such refined control," he went on, reluctant admiration in his voice, "cannot simply be ignored by those of us with more… arcane interests. Others of us in the organisation took an interest. Where Vorth saw a tactical problem to be controlled, we saw a scientific enigma to be solved."
"Your purge of the Rats was, however, useful," Kethan smiled, finally looking up from his work. "It created the perfect disorder for us to plant our own order. An order based on observation, not brutality. It's more efficient. And it gave us the perfect opportunity to extend an invitation… for this chat."
The academic stared at me, his gaze sweeping over me as if I were an ancient text to be deciphered. "A power like yours, acting without reins in the heart of the empire, is a variable my masters do not tolerate. They wish to understand the nature of your magic. It is not elemental, not spiritual in the Ionian sense, certainly not hemomancy… What are you? From where does your strength come? And what can you offer us?" He paused, the weight of his next words filling the room. "Willingly… or not."
"I see." I took a step forward, deliberately feeling the tingle of the runes intensify, feigning to test the cage's limits. "You want knowledge. Secrets."
"Precision," the academic corrected. "We seek precision. The truth about your power."
"The truth," I mused, my voice calm. "Is a dangerous commodity. You surround me, you trap me, and you expect me to simply unravel my soul's secrets for you?"
"We would prefer a collaboration," the academic said, the euphemism so obvious it was almost an insult. "Imagine what we could learn together. But yes. If collaboration is not an option, dissection is the next logical step."
I let him finish. A tense silence filled the workshop, broken only by the distant bubbling of some chemical in an alembic. They watched me, waiting for a reaction. Fear, perhaps. Anger, certainly. Desperate bargains.
I smiled. a small, tired smile that did not reach my eyes. "You have made two mistakes," I said, my voice soft.
"Oh?" The academic seemed genuinely curious, the pride of a challenged intellectual.
"The first," I said, looking at Kethan, "was believing that these walls and this city are yours. They are just stones and people. They belong to no one."
Then, my gaze met the academic's. "And your second mistake… was assuming that I am the only 'phenomenon' you need to worry about tonight."
As I spoke, it was not my magic that moved. It was hers. Subtly, I felt her, a familiar presence I had learned to recognise amidst a million others. A small, almost imperceptible fluctuation of her Qi from a rooftop across the street. It was Azra'il. Somehow, she knew. Somehow, she had followed me, or predicted I would be here. Her worry, I realised, was as real as my captors' arrogance.
On Kethan's bench, one of the obsidian rose brooches, one that was not enchanted, began to vibrate. The movement was minuscule, but in the tense silence, it sounded like a drum. It vibrated once, twice, three times in a rapid pattern. Code. The three Black Rose mages turned to the brooch, frowning. They did not see the message. But I, who had raised Azra'il from a babe, knew well the secret languages she'd created out of sheer boredom. I understood perfectly.
R-A-T-S.
Immediately after the last vibration, a new element joined the workshop's atmosphere. An odour. Acrid and strange, rising from the iron grate of the drain in the centre of the room. It smelt of bitter spices, ozone, and the contained fury of super-heated metal. I recognised the alchemical signature: a rage incense. An Azra'il creation, designed to overload the most basic instincts of territorial creatures.
The drain grate did not rattle. It was thrown towards the ceiling with the force of a contained explosion, striking the wooden rafters with a deafening clang. From the dark, fetid hole of the sewer, they came.
It was not a swarm. It was an eruption. Rats. Dozens of them, perhaps hundreds. Noxian sewer rats, larger and hungrier than their cousins in other cities, with hackles raised and eyes that glowed with an unnatural red light. They did not flee, scattering in panic. Fuelled by the chemical rage that now filled their lungs, they attacked.
The sound in the workshop turned into a cacophony of shrill squeaks, claws scrabbling on stone, and the shocked shouts of my captors. Guided by the strong scent of magic and their own induced frenzy, the rats leapt upon the nearest figures. The academic screamed as a larger rat latched onto his expensive boot, its sharp teeth piercing the leather. The illusory woman let out a shriek as one scurried up her silk robes. Kethan was kicking clumsily, trying to fend them off his legs as he climbed onto his workbench.
Their concentration, the collective focus that powered the runic cage, was completely shattered. Pain, panic, and sheer disgust took the place of arcane discipline. I felt the pressure on my magic vanish like smoke in the wind.
It was all I needed.
I did not explode outwards. I became what they feared most. The shadow itself. The light from the rune-lamp was swallowed, sucked into my will. The workshop plunged into an absolute, unnatural darkness, filled now only by the squeaking of rats and the terrified screams of the mages. In the middle of the darkness, the only visible things were my eyes, glowing with a cold, violet light, and the shadow chains that now danced freely in my hands, their sound dragging on the floor like iron serpents.
"The lesson," my voice echoed in the darkness, "has just begun."
They were in my realm now. And in this realm, I saw everything. Their auras of panic were like lighthouses in the night.
My first target was Kethan. I sensed him on the table, desperately trying to redraw runes in the air, his hands trembling with fear and the rat-bites on his ankles. One of my chains moved silently across the floor, climbed the table leg, and coiled around him. There was no violent pull. Just a sudden, constricting grip that robbed him of his breath and his consciousness. He collapsed onto the table with a dull thud. One down.
The illusionist was second. Desperate, she conjured flashes of blinding light, trying to disorient both me and the rats. A fool's error. The light, in my darkness, only served to highlight her own location, like a lone lightning bolt in a storm-filled sky. I did not attack the light. I attacked the source. I extended my will and felt her magic waver, like a flame meeting a blast of icy wind. The shadows enveloped her, forming a tight cocoon that silenced and immobilised her, a living monument to her failure. Two down.
One remained. The academic. I could feel his aura pulsing in a corner, a shield of arcane energy glowing around him to ward off the rats. A bright, obvious target.
It was then that the second-floor window shattered. Azra'il dropped into the workshop, nimble as a cat, landing soundlessly amidst her orchestrated chaos. She ignored the other two neutralised mages. Her eyes fixed on the dome of energy protecting the academic.
The mage, seeing her and realising the situation was untenable, made his final mistake. He reached for his belt, where a small escape crystal glowed.
He wasn't fast enough.
"Trying to run from me? How cute," Azra'il mocked.
She made no elaborate move. She simply advanced. Instead of going around his shield, she went through it. Her small fists clenched and slammed into the arcane barrier with the force of a siege ram. The sound was not of shattering glass, but of a contained thunderclap, a deep, resonant *CRACK* that made the air vibrate and the tools on the walls rattle.
The shield did not dissolve into sparks. It imploded, shattering violently inwards under the sheer, overwhelming force of the impact. The remaining mage was thrown backwards by the shockwave like a rag doll, slamming hard against the stone wall and slumping to the floor, unconscious, the escape crystal rolling from his open hand.
Azra'il stood over him, dusting off her knuckles with an expression of boredom. "Shields are made to be broken," she said, as if explaining the most obvious fact in the universe. "Everything is, if you hit it hard enough."
The darkness I had summoned receded, allowing the lantern's solitary light to wash over the scene. The pandemonium ceased. The rats vanished back down the drain, leaving a shocked silence, broken only by the dripping of some alchemical fluid.
I looked around. Kethan, unconscious. The illusionist, slumbering in her cocoon of shadows. The academic, a crumpled heap. Three Black Rose mages. Neutralised. And our prisoners.
Azra'il approached, her facade of calm returning, but I could see in her blue eyes an undercurrent of adrenaline and something else… relief. "Are you whole?" she asked, her voice falsely casual.
"They underestimated me," I replied. "But your arrival was… timely." I stared at her, the question burning in my mind. "How did you find me, Azra'il? I didn't tell you where I was going. How did you know?"
I saw a rare blush creep up her neck, and she looked away, suddenly very interested in examining one of Kethan's broken tools. "I didn't," she lied terribly. "I felt a magical fluctuation and came to investigate."
"The trap's fluctuation was only triggered when I was already inside," I countered with cold logic. "You were already on your way. You were on the rooftops before your… rats… showed up."
She sighed, a long, exasperated sound, finally dropping the tool. She turned to me, crossed her arms, and adopted the most petulant, outraged expression a nine-year-old could muster.
"Frankly, Morgana, I'm offended you have to ask," she said, her voice full of theatrical indignation. "You… my guardian, my only family on this idiot-infested continent… lecture me about how you won't walk beside me anymore, and then you go out alone, at night, to the most dangerous district in the capital, which you yourself destabilised days ago. Did you really expect me to stay home, finish my homework, and go to bed on time?"
She stared at me, her blue eyes wide with false innocence. "Can't a daughter be worried about her mother being out late? I followed you, obviously. Someone had to make sure you didn't end up stabbed in an alley because of your noble and reckless need to help people."
I was utterly speechless. The audacity. The role reversal. The way she had used the word 'mother', something she never did, like a weapon to completely disarm me. And the worst of it… beneath the layers of sarcasm and manipulation, I could see the terrifying truth. She had been worried. Fiercely.
The blush on her face now was no longer from being caught in a lie, but from having admitted, in the most roundabout way possible, how much she cared.
A gentle silence filled the space between us. My entire intention of pressing her for logical answers dissolved in the face of her absurd and undeniably heartfelt declaration.
"I am not your mother," I said finally, my voice soft.
"And I'm not your daughter," she shot back. "But here we are. Now, can we focus on the logistics of how to get our three new study-subjects out of here before the city watch shows up and ruins our family bonding night?"
The moment of vulnerability had passed, sealed with a sharp-edged joke. The strategist was back. But something had changed. I had my answer, even if it wasn't the one I expected. The line I had drawn in the sand hadn't vanished, but I understood that no matter how far apart we walked, there was an invisible thread of concern that still connected us.
"Your rat plan was… ingenious," I admitted, a small smile forming on my lips.
"I know," she murmured. "Now, let's focus. We have three heavy bodies and a limited time frame." Azra'il finally looked at me, and I saw a flicker of the old, mischievous glint in her eyes. "Good. We're finally being productive."