Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The carriage bumped and rumbled as it traveled over the rough road. Though it was early in the afternoon, the trees crowded close turning the path into an arboreal tunnel that choked much of the light from overhead. Being late summer, it ought to have been warm, but the shadows soaked up that warmth and left a pine-scented chill in its wake, but Lux didn’t mind that so much as she did the dark.

Silly as it was, Lux had always been afraid of the dark.

There wasn’t any good sense to it other than the practical. One shouldn’t be out late at night for a variety of reasons—especially when one happened to be a pretty young lady of good pedigree belonging to one of the most highly regarded houses of the Demacian aristocracy. Had that been the reason for her fear, there would have been no issue, but Lux’s fear of the dark had never been of rational things. Even in her teens, and now her twentieth summer, she still feared the dark for the imagined things that lurked within. The teeth and claws. Demons and devilry.

Probably not something she ought to mention to the sisters at the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings. They’d probably have all kinds of words for such unseemly thoughts. Her mother certainly did.

Sighing, Lux let her head rest against the cool glass of the carriage window as she tried not to focus too much on the deepening shadows. Her rump ached something awful despite the cushioned seats because no amount of down could soften seven hours of travel over roads that were barely worth the name. The township of Fossbarrow was the nearest to the convent and responsible for supplying much of the sisters’ earthly needs, but it was still a full day’s travel there and back. Isolation, as Lux understood it, was rather the point.

It was supposed to allow the sisters and their novices to focus on their studies and their prayers to the Divine Protector. To Lux, it was just a gilded prison meant to keep her out of the public eye after her latest social debacle—maybe for good if her mother decided to give up on her, which Lux privately thought was a little unfair. It wasn’t her fault that the man her mother had tried to foist her onto had been such an oaf.

And half again her age, at least.

Being the Marquis of Ossumburg didn’t give him the right to paw at her like a piece of meat, whatever her mother seemed to think. Just remembering that night and the feeling of his meaty, sausage-like fingers on her thigh made her skin crawl.

At least a nunnery would let her pursue some academic interests, limited though they might be. Maybe she would even make a friend, though she doubted it. For all her talents, Lux had to admit she wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. Then again, she was going to be living with a bunch of nuns whose idea of a good time was living in a refurbished, centuries-old fortress-turned-convent in the middle of the mountains, so maybe she would be in good company.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Lux muttered to herself. She tried to make herself believe that even as the carriage thumped and thudded harshly over a rough patch, sending another jolt up her spine.

Her luggage shuddered and bumped around overhead, and Lux winced as she wondered if maybe she ought to have been a little more frugal in her packing. She hadn’t even brought all that many things comparatively, but had she known the quality of the roads—or lack thereof—Lux thought she might’ve at least left her favorite tea set at home.

If anything, it was the silence that was really getting to her. She had tried to sleep through some of the trip since nerves had kept her from sleeping much the night before, but the constant jarring had prevented that. Reading had left her feeling ill within moments, so that was right out. Without conversation, all Lux could do to pass the time was mull over what she was walking into and watch the forest around her grow slowly but inexorably darker.

Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

Lux winced as light flashed through the abruptly thinned canopy, and a moment later, she found herself staring up into a sky that…wasn’t actually all that clear. It was only bright by comparison, but really the sky was choked with slate-gray clouds despite the season. A few more moments let her eyes adjust, and she realized the road’s quality had become significantly more tolerable. That was when she finally saw the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings.

Seven steeples rose high into the sky like great spears of stone with a bell tower at the peak of each. They descended into a wide, squat structure that had an air of almost gutwrenching antiquity about it. Lux had read extensively about where she was going, but even her books had been somewhat evasive about exactly when the original fortress was built. It wasn’t Demacian. That much was for certain. The shape of it was all wrong. Amidst those steeple towers were great domes and occuli that hinted at Targonian origins, which her books bore out. Once, that ancient empire had stretched from one end of Valoran to the other, even if its shadows were now confined largely to the southern continent.

The gates of the convent yawned like the toothless maw of an aged dragon, and Lux pressed herself to the carriage door to better look up and around as they passed through what had once been a portcullis and into an old bailey. The Convent showed its martial roots wherever she looked, with high crenellated walls surrounding its outer rim, and yet-higher watchtowers within. Bracketed between those towers were paradoxically peaceful herb and vegetable gardens patterned out with flowers that weren’t quite flourishing, but provided a splash of welcome color. That was also where Lux finally caught a glimpse of life.

A few women in black and white habits moved amidst those gardens, pausing as her carriage drew up to the main keep which occupied the majority of the interior. That keep was three stories of heavy, cyclopean stone, with each block being nearly the size of the carriage itself. It beggared belief, to Lux, that anyone could have raised such a structure by means other than sorcery. She could see, in that manner, why some claimed that the ancient Targonian empire had been served by demons. Most like it was simply that they had extremely capable engineers and architects, but in theory, Lux grasped the kneejerk assumption.

It was certainly startling.

Finally, the carriage slowed, then turned and rolled to a stop with the carriage door resting parallel to the great, open double doors of the keep. Those doors were oak monstrosities reinforced with thick bars of steel meant to resist invasion more than they were to welcome sister-novitiates. More welcoming was the figure standing between the open doors.

Craving ground beneath her feet, Lux didn’t wait for the carriage driver to come around and simply pushed the carriage door open to take an unsteady step down and out into the fresh and frigid air of the mountain convent.

The woman who stood at the door to greet her was statuesque. Lux wasn’t a particularly small woman, having earned her six feet of height honestly from her father, but this woman stood a solid head over her if not more. She had a strong jaw, aquiline nose, and honey-amber eyes set above high cheekbones and framed by long, auburn curls that fell from beneath her habit cap down to her shoulders. Her shoulders were likewise incredibly broad, and seemed to Lux that they ought to belong to a career soldier moreso than to a sister of the faith.

“Good afternoon, little sister.” The woman’s voice was strident, and Lux straightened her back almost instinctively. She had the feeling this was a woman who was used to being listened to, and it was equally obvious as to why.

Clearing her throat, Lux curtsied and bowed her head slightly. “Good afternoon. Am I addressing Canoness Leona Solari?”

“Day Canoness, but yes, you are.” The reply was simple and confident, and her tone alone gave the impression of great control. “And you are Miss Luxanna Crownguard. Our newest novice. I understand you’ve had some difficulties of late.”

Lux swallowed thickly, then nodded before straightening and smoothing out her ankle-length cream skirts. “My family thought I could use some time in quiet reflection. I’m afraid I’m not well-suited to the rigors of high society.”

It was only a small lie, but the moment it passed her lips, Lux could tell she hadn’t sold it. There was nothing obvious about the Canoness that suggested she had caught the lie, but somehow Lux was certain she had.

Rather than accuse Lux of anything, though, Canoness Solari just made a soft sound in the back of her throat, then nodded and said, “Your things will be taken up to your room. You’ve arrived an hour before vespers, but I won’t demand you adhere to them this night. Tomorrow, however, you will be expected to begin acclimating to the convent schedule.”

She turned, gesturing for Lux to follow, and moved into the shadows of the entrance hall. Lux fell in behind her, shivering slightly as she passed under the threshold. Somehow, she felt distinctly…unwelcome.

“Consider yourself under a period of grace,” Leona continued as they moved at a languid pace down the hall, which was adorned with the wing and sunburst icons of the Divine Protector. “We don’t expect you to know and follow all of our strictures immediately, of course, but we do expect you to learn them quickly.”

“Is that largely up to me?” Lux asked, her voice echoing strangely as they left the hall and passed into a series of corridors that seemed labyrinthine to Lux’s eyes, but which she assumed would eventually become familiar.

Thankfully, to her question, the Canoness shook her head. “No, naturally not. Although you will be provided books which I and the Night Canoness expect you to read, I will assign Sister Samira to look after you for the foreseeable future. Direct any questions about behavior or expectations to her.”

Lux nodded as a sense of displacement fell over her. The deeper into the convent she traveled, the more confusing it became. It was almost as though the place was intended to get you lost. Actually, now that she had the thought, Lux wondered if that was literally true. This wasn’t originally a convent, after all. Perhaps it was a defensive measure? Maybe the original Targonian builders had purposefully made the layout unintuitive to confuse invaders. If so, that didn’t bode well for her showing up to prayer hours on time.

Maybe this ‘Samira’ would be able to provide her with a map.

Speaking of… “This ‘Sister Samira,” Lux began. “That doesn’t sound like a Targonian or a Demacian name.”

“Because it is not,” Leona replied, then added, “It’s Noxian.”

A shiver went down Lux’s spine. “Noxian?” she hissed.

“I will remind you of this once and only once, little sister,” Leona said before Lux could continue, casting a single, amber eye over her shoulder and fixing Lux with a hard look. “The Divine Protector shelters all who desire Her protection, irrespective of where they were born or what lines lay where on a map. Sister Samira has proven her faith to us many times over while you very much have not. Are we clear?”

Again, Lux swallowed. It felt like she was staring down a lioness. “Crystal clear, Canoness.”

“Good.”

Turning away from Lux, Leona began walking again. “You will find this convent to be particularly multicultural. It may lay within Demacian borders, but we are beholden to the Divine Protectorate on Mount Targon, not the crown. Therefore the dictates of the faith supersede the laws of mortals on this ground. We are sisters of holy purpose, and that purpose is beyond petty tribal concerns. I suggest you internalize that fact.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Secondly, are you familiar with the concept of perpetual adoration?”

“N-No, ma’am.”

Again, there was that sound in the back of the Canoness’ throat. “Perpetual adoration means that we Sisters of Her Sheltering Wings maintain a constant and unbroken vigil of prayer. The fourth chapel at the center point of the first floor is always occupied by a sister. We pray in shifts. You are not expected to take part in this as a prayer shift is exhausting and only the most senior sisters will do so. That chapel is expressly for the purpose of the vigil and you will not disrupt or distract the occupant.”

Lux didn’t miss that there wasn’t even the clarifying question of whether or not she understood that directive. Leona’s tone said everything it needed to about how deadly serious she was.

It did the beg the question: “You mentioned the fourth chapel. How many chapels are there in this convent?”

“Forty-nine.”

Lux stumbled. “F-Forty-nine?!” That seemed excessive. “There cannot possibly be enough sisters in this convent to require so many chapels, even if they’re small! What purpose could that possibly serve?!”

Leona came to a halt once more, and Lux was abruptly aware of the fact that in the entirety of their little tour, and despite the number of rooms they had passed, Leona had neither pointed out any particular locations nor had they passed a single soul. She hadn’t seen a single nun, in fact, since entering the convent.

Slowly, Leona turned her head, and that cool regard fell over Lux once more. Silence stretched between them for what felt like several minutes before the Canoness finally broke it, speaking in an even, affectless tone. “Tell me, Miss Crownguard. Why do you think you were remanded to my care, specifically?”

That was a question Lux had wondered about herself, actually. There was no shortage of convents within the borders of Demacia—some more popular, some less—but Lux hadn’t even heard of this one until her mother announced that she was being sent there.

“I…I don’t know,” Lux admitted after a moment. “Because it’s very far away from the core of the kingdom, I suppose?”

Leona seemed to consider that answer for a moment before saying, “That is factually true. However, that is also true of many convents. This one is…unique. We are not a dumping ground for the aristocracy as other convents are. Many houses donate vast sums to those halls in exchange for taking in their itinerant daughters and giving them a polished sheen of dignity. We accept no such bribes. Our convent has a purpose as decreed by the Divine Protectorate, and we have no need to beg Demacia’s decadent nobility to loosen their purse strings. In point of fact, it is Fossbarrow itself which would not exist but for our patronage.”

“Then why?”

Sighing, Leona rolled her eyes, the first sign of human frustration the woman had thus shown. “Because,” she said, “the town of Fossbarrow was founded by one of your ancestors.”

“Fossian Crownguard,” Lux said quickly. “I remember reading that much, although the history books were a little vague on why he founded it.”

“They would be,” Leona said cryptically before adding, “But my point is that we unfortunately owe a debt to the House of Crownguard. None of the House’s current occupants know the full nature of that debt anymore, given the centuries that have passed, but it is owed all the same. And to your house’s credit, they have fulfilled their end unquestioningly in accordance with the oaths that your ancestor made to the Protectorate all those years ago despite not really knowing why anymore.”

“If the oath was made, House Crownguard would see it done regardless,” Lux said a bit stiffly. She wasn’t exactly a model Crownguard, but it was still her house, and she was proud of it. “Honor Above All.”

There was that noise again. Like a ‘hm’ in the back of Leona’s throat. “So it would seem,” she said, then, “and in return we are sheltering you far, far from the machinations of Demacia’s societal courts which would otherwise reach easily into any other convent. Here, and here alone, you are truly away from it all.”

“I get the feeling this is not a normal convent.”

“You have excellent instincts.”

Lux shook her head, then said, “You didn’t answer my question, though. About the chapels, I mean. Why so many?”

Again with that ‘hm’. “No, I did not,” Leona said. “Nor will I. Not tonight, at any rate. Instead, I will ask you this: which way is north?”

Lux blinked dully, then turned to look around herself. Like any good Crownguard, she’d been drilled hard on military and survival. She was expected to at least be able to defend herself if not lead a battalion into battle. At the very least, she would be expected to be able to find her way to and from said battle. First Lux looked for a window, but found none, so instead, she closed her eyes and focused. She had always been good at finding her way, and with her eyes closed, she began to slowly turn in place, searching for that feeling like a tug at the base of her skull that would tell her which way was which.

It was harder in that moment than it had ever been. She felt almost dizzy, but not quite. There was a strange pit of nausea in her stomach that Lux couldn’t quite place the source of—like vertigo. She pushed the feeling away and focused. The convent itself faced almost perfectly south, so the rear of it would point north. Entering into the hall, she would have been moving near-perfectly north, and then they had turned…how many times?

Lux stopped, opened her eyes, raised a hand, and pointed a few degrees off from straight ahead of herself. Then, she turned to look at Leona, who had one eyebrow arched slightly.

“Impressive,” the Canoness admitted. “Most would have wholly lost their bearings by now.”

The way she said that tickled something in the back of Lux’s mind. “Lost their…wait. Canoness, were you trying to get me lost?”

Finally, her expression truly cracked, and her lips curved into a felid smile. “Clever girl. Maybe you will fit in here. Protector knows we could use a few more. Some of us are getting up there in age. As a reward, I’ll tell you one thing. Like we sisters, the halls, walls, chapels, and everything else in this convent serve one purpose and one purpose only, and that purpose is not to keep anything out.”

Which, by definition, meant…

Lux swallowed thickly, then said, “Canoness. What are you doing here?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, little sister,” Leona said cooly, then turned, opened an unmarked door to reveal a staircase, and began walking up it with far more purpose, and Lux followed. “Your room, mine, and every other sisters’ is on the third floor as is the conservatory, the refectory, and the recreation rooms. The second floor is where we hold morning prayers, mass, and sing vespers, while the first floor is, essentially, uninhabited, save for vigil and those going between the outside and other floors. There is also an undercroft. You will stay out of the undercroft.”

The way Leona said those words brooked no argument.

“May I ask what’s in it?”

“You may not.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lux bristled a little at the dismissal, but at least it was firm. “If I may, though. The forty-nine chapels. Are they just there to confuse people?”

That ‘hm’ came through clear again as Leona stopped at yet another unmarked door and opened it, revealing a wide staircase leading to, presumably, the third floor. “Yes and no,” she said as she climbed the stairs, and Lux followed suit. “We rotate which chapels are in use every month at the new moon. The only chapel that is constantly in use is the fourth chapel.”

“Why?”

“To remain unpredictable.”

Well, that wasn’t much of an answer. Lux didn’t push for more, though. She had the feeling she’d only get rebuffed if she did. Maybe her mentor, the Noxian sister, would be more willing to talk since it was fairly clear that Canoness Leona felt no special compunction to do so beyond what was necessary.

At least up on the third floor, Lux could pick out sounds of life coming from different parts of the halls. It really did seem to be where most, if not all, of the sisters lived.

They walked in silence for another several minutes before finally stopping in front of another door that, again, seemed no different from any of the others, and Leona said, “This is your room. You may mark the outside if you need to in order to remember it, but I wouldn’t suggest it. Instead, I suggest you learn to count doors like the rest of us. Your room, for instance, is seventeen doors down” —she pointed back the way they came— “from the stairwell.” Then she turned on her heel. “And six doors down from the refectory. So, you’ve no excuse to be late for mealtimes.”

“Seventeen and six,” Lux recited. “I’ll remember.”

“You know, I actually believe you might,” Leona said.

“Anything else I should know, ma’am?”

Leona nodded. “You’ll find a schedule for prayers and mass times in your room along with your luggage. You room has a bed, a desk, two bookshelves, and a chest of drawers which you may fill and use as you see fit. Samira will fetch you promptly at the third hour for morning prayer. Lastly, a few warnings: do not wander the halls after singing vespers, but return to your room. Do not go into the undercroft. Do not count the bells. Finally, each chapel is marked somewhere on or around the door with Targonian numerals to indicate which it is. The fourth, for instance, is marked on the doorknob. Do not enter a chapel unless it is part of the monthly rotation. If, at any point, you happen to find one such chapel open and occupied, you are to ignore it and keep walking. That is not up for debate. And no, I will not tell you why.”

Lux had already started to open her mouth, then closed it and pressed her lips to a thin line before nodding and saying, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Your Grace.”

“Hm?”

“It’s traditional to refer to me as either Canoness or ‘Your Grace’, not ma’am.”

“Oh. S-Sorry, m—your Grace.”

“All is forgiven,” Leona said, then held out a hand to Lux. In her upturned palm was a heavy brass key. “For your room. It’s the only key save for my own master key which I share with the Night Canoness, Diana, who leads us in singing vespers. Lock your room every night, and don’t forget.”

“I confess, I am less at ease here than I had hoped to be,” Lux said quietly as she took the key.

Leona chuckled as she dropped her hand, stepped back, and smiled. “That as may be,” she replied. “But at least here, we have purpose. Take comfort in that, little sister.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

She said nothing more, only nodding before stepping to the side and departing down the hall. Lux watched the statuesque Canoness leave, and again wondered at her physique. She was not simply a nun, that much was clear. Rather, she seemed built more on the scale of one of the Dauntless Vanguard. Her body seemed made less for prayer and more for war.

And yet, she was here.

That was a little disturbing, if Lux were being wholly honest.

Eventually, though, the Canoness was out of sight, and Lux was left alone. She turned to test the door and found it unlocked, pulled it open, and stepped into a small but comfortable room. It was smaller than her room at the Crownguard manse, but that was to be expected, yet it was more spacious than she’d expected. Her luggage was resting at the foot of her bed, as promised, and she decided she would unpack her things tomorrow, or perhaps the day after.

Instead, Lux turned, fitted the key, and locked her door. It did so with a heavy, deadbolt thud. Lux paused at that sound. Whatever it was she had been expecting to hear, that wasn’t it. Were she somewhere else, such a heavy lock might be comforting, but here…

For some reason, Lux only felt more uneasy.

Chapter Text

It’s never easy to sleep in an unfamiliar place, especially when that place is so old and so dark. The ancient stones of the convent seemed to drink in all warmth and light, such that even the candle that Lux had lit before bed barely shone beyond its ember. The bed, at least, was suitable to the climes; the mattress was old but good, and the comforter was thick and heavy, but though the bed might banish the cold in time, the dark remained stubbornly in place.

Lux wasn’t certain how long she lay in that unfamiliar bed in that unfamiliar room set into a strange, old fortress set to the purpose of a prison. But for what? That was what troubled her.

‘That purpose is not to keep anything out.’

Or so the Canoness had said, yet she had not seemed concerned when she’d said it. By definition, of course, that which was protected so dearly but not with the intent of keeping a thing out was meant to keep something in. Lux wished most strongly that the Canoness had not seen fit to ‘reward’ her with that knowledge because it was the only thing she could think of now, and it was plaguing her mind without end.

What could the sisters of Her Sheltering Wings be keeping in? She wanted and, at the same time, did not want to know, yet it was buzzing in her mind. Her eyes burned with exhaustion, and her limbs were leaden, but she could find no rest. Lux couldn’t help but stare at the corner of the room left of the door where the darkness seemed to pool like pitch or ink, and somewhere in her mind, she imagined it was looking back at her. That was silly, of course. The dark couldn’t look back. It was just shadows. Her tired mind was just spinning illusions of the mire captured within the angles of the corner like a seamstress at the loom.

Licking her dry lips and swallowing thickly, Lux forced herself to close her eyes and count to ten. The moment she did, fear began to prickle at the back of her neck and down her spine. It settled in her stomach like bile and needled at the backs of her arms and legs. It was that old, childlike fear of the dark that begged her to open her eyes because something was there, just beyond the campfire light. Something was there in the dark!

“…eight, nine, t-ten.” Lux opened her eyes.

The dark was staring back at her.

That dark was staring ba—

Lux jolted awake to the firm rapping of knuckles against her chamber door. There was a faint lightness to the air and a frigid chill, which told her it was morning—near to the third hour, in fact, assuming her mentor was on time.

She was soaked to the bone with sweat, her nightgown clinging fast to her limbs as Lux panted for breath. She felt as if she’d spent the whole night running, not resting. As if something in the dark had been chasing her.

Another rap of knuckles to wood.

“I’m awake!” Lux called, though her voice was cracked and reedy. “I’m, uhm. I’m sorry. Give me a moment, please!”

Lux slung her legs out of bed, and without thinking, she found herself staring into that corner she’d been fixated on the previous night. In the grey light of the early morning, it was just a corner, bereft of demons or devilry. Those had all just been her nightmares. That was all it was. She had been staring in to the corner, making up visions of monsters, then closed her eyes, counted herself to sleep, and dreamed of…

She couldn’t even remember.

Something watching.

In addition to the essential furnishings of her room, there was a washbasin on the desk that Lux availed herself of after peeling off her sweat-soaked nightgown. It went into the basket at the foot of the bed which, she assumed, was for laundry, and used a rag to wick away the worst of the sweat before dressing. She had a habit of her own, in plain black and white, and to Lux’s surprise it actually fit. It took some doing, but she also managed to get most of her long, golden-blonde hair tucked away under the cap before going to the door and opening it.

The woman standing on the other side could not have looked less like a nun if she tried.

Oh, she was wearing the habit, and although it fit her, it seemed to Lux that it was in a most lascivious way. More a parody of a nun’s habit than one in truth, even if it was only in the manner of the wearer and the way that she stood. What must have been a voluminous collection of hair was betrayed only by a long, spiraling black curl that fell from under the bandeau along the right sight of her face over skin the swarthy shade of Shurima, not the deep, plainsfolk tan of the Nox. Her right eye, kohl-lined, gleamed emerald with mischief, while her left was covered in a fearsome leather eyepatch embossed with flourishes of vines and leaves. Full lips curled in a vulpine smile as she planted hands on hips, straining the shoulders of her habit a bit and betraying more muscle than Lux thought seemly for a nun. Then again, Canoness Leona had been much the same.

Why was it that all the nuns here looked more like warriors?

“Took you long enough,” the nun that could only be Samira said, and her words had the musical lilt of the desert to it. “A good thing that I thought to wake you early, or we would both be late for prayer, and her Grace does hate it when I'm late.”

“You’re Sister Samira?” Lux asked as she stepped out of her room, only pausing to lock it behind her.

“I am,” Samira replied. “Why? Disappointed?”

Lux shook her head rapidly as she fell in step behind the older woman. “N-No, not at all! I was just wondering what…well—”

“What I’m doing here?” Samira filled in.

“More or less, yes.”

Samira chuckled, and it was a low, rich, rolling sound. “Well,” she said playfully. “I was born in Shurima, raised in Noxus, and I thought dying in Demacia would round things out nicely.”

Lux startled. “D-Dying?!”

Again came that rolling chuckle and Samira stopped suddenly to sweep a finger up and playfully flick away a blonde lock that had strayed from under Lux’s hood to the side. “Don’t be so serious, little goldfinch. It was a joke. I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, but then I suppose none of us are, hm? No matter! Life is strange, and now I am here. That is as much as you need to know, and all I have time to tell unless you wish to explain to the Canoness why we are late for prayers.” She clapped her hands firmly together. “Come! Come!”

As strangely welcoming as Samira and, to a lesser extent, Leona had been thus far, Lux couldn’t help but feel as though she might have been significantly safer if she’d just stayed at home. At least there, the worst that might have happened was that she offended some powerful noble with more silver than sense. Here, she had the distinct feeling that her immortal soul was at risk.

But she followed all the same.

Despite her reticence, Lux couldn’t help but look closely over the threshold and door that Samira had stopped at. Maybe it was paranoia, but after Leona had tried to get her lost by walking her through random hallways, Lux felt it was prudent to make sure she wasn’t walking into a chapel that was expressly forbidden. Before sleeping, she’d memorized the few pages that had been waiting on her desk for her, and there were seven chapels currently in use: II, IV, IX, XI, XXV, XXXIII, and XLV. It was just as the door was opened that she found the numeral ‘XI’ etched into one of the stones near the base. Then she was ushered inside.

Here, there was no shortage of light. The chapel was quite small and had barely enough space for a dozen to sit comfortably on the prayer mats laid out on the floorm, though between herself, Samira, and the current occupants, there were only six. The walls were lined with votive candles that flickered and danced like morning stars, and at the head of the small gaggle of nuns stood Canoness Leona, who was watching her expectantly.

Excepting the Canoness and her supposed new mentor, Lux took in the other three young women kneeling on the mats before the altar. There was another Shuriman, Lux thought, only younger. Broad-shouldered like Samira but shorter and stouter, with softer eyes and a dusting of freckles, she looked like neither a nun nor a warrior, but like a laborer. Her hands looked strong, and were visibly rough with callouses. Beside that one was a much taller young woman whose pale complexion was framed by twin lengths of hair so dark as to be indigo falling from beneath her cap and the most startling violet eyes which were narrowed suspiciously at Lux. That one’s face also bore odd, geometric tattoos: two on each cheek and two on her brow, each one shaped most like the needle of a compass. Again, like Leona and Samira, there was some subtle violence clinging to the woman, although if Lux had to guess, she would have likened it to a more feral aspect than the controlled discipline of the Canoness.

The final nun was significant in that she didn’t noticeably stand out at all. She wore a neat cap and habit that was fitted to her form, which, while generously endowed, suggested no excess of muscle, and her posture spoke of the same etiquette classes Lux had attended. Only a few strands of wispy turquoise escaped from beneath her cap, but nothing more, and in all other ways she seemed to be exactly what Lux would have expected from any convent that catered to the daughters of nobility.

In other words, any convent but this one.

Perhaps it was just nerves, but Lux felt a mild flash of annoyance that she wasn’t surprised to see that only one of them looked much like a nun at all. If anything, that one was officially now the most suspicious of the lot.

Samira’s hand settled on her shoulder and tightened to a painless but iron grip that steered her toward an empty mat. Lux let herself be lowered down while Samira took the mat to Lux’s right. Was this all there was? Six nuns? Surely not. There had to be at least one more performing the vigil, at least.

“Sisters.” Leona’s voice was like the clarified toll of a bell. “Let us pray.”

This much, at least, Lux was able to do. As a Crownguard, she and her family were more or less expected to appear at every major mass at the Cathedral of the Divine Protector in High Silvermere. The years spent in and out of that many-storied temple meant that Lux had almost every major prayer memorized by rote by that point, as well as many of the minor ones.

The morning prayers were common ones, and So it was that the hour passed quickly. In some ways, Lux knew it was simple familiarity, but a greater part—she thought—was thanks to the Canoness’ voice. It was more than just pleasing. There was a rhythm and cadence to every word, as if she were singing the prayers rather than simply speaking them. Moreover, some of the prayers were very slightly different than how Lux recalled them, though she put that down to the fact translations sometimes varied between kingdoms, and Leona was clearly a Targonian-trained orator of the faith, not Demacian.

Whatever the case, Lux could not deny that the Canoness’ prayers brought out the beauty of each prayer that rote memorization had long since eroded in Lux. So notable was the difference that she thought the end of morning prayers came too soon, and found herself uncharacteristically looking forward to mass and vespers.

As one, the small gathering of nuns rose, and Lux rose with them. A heartbeat later, Leona held up several loose pages of parchment and said: “Here are your assignments for the day, sisters. Take them as you will. It matters not by whom they are completed, only that they are completed.”

Lux stepped back as the sisters crowded in around Leona, who handed off the pages before excusing herself. They began looking over the pages, and what happened next, Lux could only compare to something like a market auction as Samira and the others began arguing over them.

Actually, no. That wasn’t quite right. Lux narrowed her eyes at the only other Demacian in the room. She wasn’t saying a word. Had she been reciting the prayers? Lux tried to recall, but she hadn’t been paying too close of attention to what voices were raised from where. All she knew was that the only person here who actually looked like a nun was also acting like one, and it annoyed Lux that that made her more suspicious.

Turning her attention back to the squabbling nuns…

“I’d rather not mill around the first—”

“—omeone else do the garden today. Tali?”

“I’ll take it.”

“Who wants to light the candles?”

“Let Sona.”

“Wait, I’d rather do that than—”

“—just take the damn—”

Leona clapped her hands together with a sound like thunder, and the chatter died down. “Sisters, you’re embarrassing yourselves in front of the novice. Please agree on an order, and then move on.”

The nuns all looked up and over at Lux as one, and Lux was struck suddenly with the image of a flock of magpies crowding over a fallen ring. It took everything in her not to start giggling at the notion.

Finally, Samira sighed and said, “Fine, I’ll take the halls, hey? Might as well. Taliyah”—she handed another page to the freckled girl—“take the gardens. Sona, the candles. Kai can do the walls.”

A page went to each woman, and after a moment of hesitation, they departed the chapel, each moving past Lux with barely a look. All except for the one that Samira had called ‘Sona’. She paused and met Lux’s eyes, and suddenly, she was struck by the thought that the silent sister was trying to tell her something with only that gaze. Then the moment passed, and Sona did as well, only for Samira to appear by Lux’s side and clap a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry about that,” she said airily. “Bickering over daily duties is about the closest thing to fun we get before the day’s end. Don’t look too poorly on them for it.”

“Strange thing to find fun in, if you ask me,” Lux said.

Samira made a most unladylike snort. “Say that again after you’ve been here a year, little goldfinch. I guarantee, after a handful’a moons, you’ll be bickering right along with the rest of us.”

Lux wasn’t as sanguine about that as Samira seemed to be, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she asked, “What’s your duty?”

“Our duty,” Samira corrected her. “Since I’m your mentor, you’ll be following me about. How do you say to that, hey?”

“I’d say it sounds as good as anything else,” Lux replied honestly. “What’s our duty, then?”

“Walking the first floor,” Samira said, still wearing that grin of hers as she slipped an arm over Lux’s shoulder and steered her out into the hall, pulling the chapel door closed behind them.

“I don’t understand,” Lux said, still walking alongside Samira. “The Canoness said there’s nothing on the first floor except for hallways, chapels, and the vigil. Where are we going?”

“Did I say we were going somewhere?”

“W-Well, no.”

“What did I say?”

“That we’re…walking the first floor.” Lux frowned deeper at that as they approached what her memory told her was the door to the second-floor stairs.

It was, and they began descending.

“Precisely,” Samira said. “We are walking, and that is all.”

“Do we pray while we walk?”

“If you’d like.”

Lux pressed her lips to a thin line as she followed Samira through the second floor. All of the pleasant feelings that had come along with Canoness Leona’s frankly angelic morning benedictions were being submerged back beneath the mire of absurdity that seemed to fill the entirety of the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings. What little Lux knew about the convent itself spokes of its great age and the longevity of its service to the Divine Protectorate. Books extolled the ancient convent’s unbroken line of tradition and how it was the last of its era of orders even left in Demacia!

No one had mentioned that all of its nuns seemed to be insane.

She was trying to give the sisters the benefit of the doubt. Leona had seemed to be nothing but entirely serious about her duties and that had left an impression. Samira, on the other hand, seemed almost flippant about them. Maybe it was the Noxian in her, or maybe that was just how the woman was.

Whatever the case, Lux kept her mouth shut as they descended to the labyrinthine first floor, and only once they were there did Samira finally stop and turn to look back at Lux. She had an uncharacteristically serious expression.

“I assume the Canoness told you the basic rules of the convent?”

Lux raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in demeanor but nodded all the same. “Yes,” she replied. “Don’t wander after vespers, don’t enter the undercroft, don’t…count the bells, whatever the means.”

“And?”

“And…don’t go into any of the chapels that aren’t on the list,” Lux finished.

“And?”

Furrowing her brow, Lux wracked her brain, thinking back to when she had arrived and her strange and unsettling encounter with the Canoness. Then she remembered the strange addendum the Canoness had made to her rule about the chapels.

“If I come upon a chapel that’s not on rotation,” Lux said slowly, “and the door is open, and it’s occupied, then I ignore it, right?”

Samira nodded. “That’s right. If a door’s open, no it’s not. If there’s someone in that chapel, no there isn’t, hey? Don’t forget any of that.”

“I don’t understand,” Lux admitted. “If someone’s in one of the chapels, shouldn’t we tell them to leave? Or remind them?”

“Less than twenty people live and work in this convent, little goldfinch. Mostly, that’s layfolk, and they don’t enter the chapels. Only we do, and your fellow sisters know best of all what chapels are in use.” Samira spoke in a lecturing manner that put Lux’s teeth on edge. It was all well and good to lecture on what must be known, but lecturing on something while actively avoiding any substantial explanation was just annoying.

Not that Lux could say that to her ‘older sister’.

“Then who would make the mistake of going into one of those chapels, Sister?” Lux asked, doing her best to keep her tone even.

“No one,” Samira replied. Her expression took on a flat affect. “There is no one in those chapels. Is that understood?”

“But—?!”

“There is no one in those chapels.” The flat tone sharpened to a cold knife’s edge that put a chill down Lux’s spine as it cut off her complaint. For a moment, the facade of the playful minx fell away from Samira, and in that moment, Lux glimpsed something raw and violent.

Then it was gone, and Samira’s little vulpine smile was back.

“And one more thing,” she said as she scooped an arm over Lux’s shoulders and steered her forward once more. “Don’t wander off, hey? You wouldn’t want to get lost down here.”

“The Canoness didn’t get me lost,” Lux remarked cooly.

“Then she wasn’t trying very hard,” Samira replied as she let her arm fall away and moved ahead of Lux before shooting a glance over her shoulder. “Stay behind me, stay in sight, and don’t wander off. I’m not your enemy, little goldfinch. I’m trying to help you.”

As much as Lux wanted to argue that point, she knew it was just her being petty. For however irritating the convoluted and borderline impious rituals of the convent had been, they had also been essentially harmless. Frustrating but harmless. A part of her couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of elaborate prank played on the newest sister to see how many absurdities they could get her to go along with.

Then Lux recalled that strange and intense instant of commanding violence in Samira’s posture and gaze. If this was a prank, then it was a very strange one, and if it wasn’t…

Lux shook her head. If it wasn’t, then she had no idea what it was.

Chapter Text

As it happened, their duty was, in fact, to walk the first floor. Near as Lux could tell, there were no other requirements save that they walk around the first floor of the convent in whichever direction suited their fancy.

Sister Samira seemed utterly unbothered by the nonsense task, however. She walked the halls with long, easy strides that set the dark skirts of her habit billowing around her ankles. The halls themselves were lit periodically by oil lamps with slow-burning wicks, which burned low, leaving everything cast in dim shadows. Those shadows danced to the candle waltz of the lamps, and Lux was suddenly terribly aware of how few windows the convent possessed. During the walk with the Canoness, Lux had been too busy listening to the woman speak to really focus on her surroundings, but now that they were moving hall to hall in silence, it was unavoidable.

The lamplight was enough to see and move by, but it left every corner cast in inky shadow made worse by the uniformity of the halls. No matter which way Lux looked, nothing stood out. Doors were intermittent and irregular, but they were set deeply into the walls, and due to the angles and lamps, it was impossible to see them until you were less than a meter away. There were no decorations, either. No alcoves for votive candles. No portraits of past sisters, abbesses, canonesses, or even the most basic of Protectorate iconography.

It was the emptiest place Lux thought she had ever been.

“Not going to pray?” Samira said suddenly, her voice breaking the oppressive silence that had built up around them jarringly as she looked back over her shoulder.

For a moment, Lux was confused, then she recalled her earlier question and shook her head. “N-No, I…I can if you want, though. I just…”

“Not very pious?”

“I didn’t want to offend,” Lux said quietly.

Samira chuckled. “You will find the residents of this particular convent difficult to offend, little goldfinch. The Sisterhood of Her Sheltering Wings are not here for our great piety—the Canonesses notwithstanding—but for our skill and our histories.”

“What histories? What skills would be required for a place like this?”

“Hm…let me ask you this.” Samira gestured to the walls around them. “Have you noticed that this convent is of peculiar construction? The sheer size of these stone blocks beggars belief, hey?”

“I admit, I’d…thought about that, yes,” Lux replied.

Samira didn’t look particularly surprised by that admission. “That is because this convent was not raised by normal hands,” she continued, “but by other, stranger means. Stonespeakers who served the old Targonians raised many great fortresses for them, and legend says it was by magic. Taliyah happens to be descended from one such line and does possess a…uncanny stonecunning.”

“Magic?” Lux whispered, hardly believing her ears. “Magic is the province of demons, not mortals.”

“So say the church elders. But I advise you keep an open mind.” The way Samira said that didn’t suggest a great deal of respect for said church elders.

Oh, she didn’t come out and say anything untoward, but the cadence of Samira’s speech—the lilt of mockery—suggested far more than she said. Lux didn’t consider herself to be a woman of particularly great piety, but she had a healthy respect for the priesthood of the Protector. She had been raised with the tacit understanding that magic and mortalkind were anathema to one another. Magic was either the work of pagan nature spirits, which doctrine said were simply demons disguising themselves to seem benevolent, or otherwise the product of outright demonic sorcery. For a mortal to work magic would mean they were possessed by such a being!

Or at least, so the church said. Admittedly, Lux had to simply take it on faith that they were right, and clearly, Samira wasn’t so sanguine about that as most people of the kingdom were. Then again, she was Noxian, so maybe that had something to do with it.

“Is Taliyah is a mage?” Lux asked.

Samira shrugged. “Maybe. Why?” She cast another glance back. “Would you drag her out to the lake nearby, fill her pockets with stones, and cast her into it to find out?”

“No, of course not, that’s barbaric,” Lux said cooly.

“Not so long ago, the church would have disagreed.”

“The church you’re a part of?”

Samira huffed out a laugh and turned her eyes back straight, leaving only her unassuming back for Lux to look at as she said, “I am here because I have a good reason, hey? Nothing more, nothing less. All of us have good reasons.”

Sighing, Lux nodded, then asked, “So what about the other Demacian? Sister Sona, I think? She’s the only other one, I’d guess, is from the kingdom. Is that right?”

“It is.”

“She’s very quiet.”

“Yes, she is.”

Another sigh. Samira didn’t seem particularly eager to talk about her fellows. Then again, Lux couldn’t exactly blame her. As friendly as Samira was with her, the fact was that neither of them knew each other, and even though they were ostensibly sisters in faith, they didn’t have a lot of reason to trust one another. She hadn’t really expected to be welcomed to the bosom of the convent with open arms on her first day, either. She also hadn’t expected to have to spend the first day aimlessly wandering a nondescript stone labyrinth, either.

“I’m not trying to be overly nosy,” Lux said after a stretch of silence. “I’m just…trying to understand what I’m doing here. Nobody seems very keen on explaining anything, and this place is strange to me. It’s nothing like I thought it would be.”

Samira slowed, then came to a halt, and Lux stopped just behind her. After a moment, the Noxian woman turned; a thin, apologetic smile on her face, and said, “You’re right, we haven’t been very fair to you. But as cruel as this may sound, we didn’t ask for you. Your family ordered the Canonesses, in the politest possible terms, to take you in, and because we owe a debt to your House, we did. Each of us is here for a reason. We came here to do something specific, and it’s something that we cannot easily share with others. If you’re to be here just to lie low until your social woes have faded, it would be better for you to know as little as possible and simply accept that we do things a certain way. I advise you make peace with that, hey? And in return, I’ll talk to the others. We don’t want to make you miserable, I promise.”

Lux flicked a strand of blond from her eyes, tucking it back under her cap as she chewed on those words for a few moments. The truth was, Samira was right. She didn’t belong here anymore than she belonged in High Silvermere or the Great City of Demacia. She didn’t belong in any of the galas or garden parties or high society soirees. Hells, she barely belonged in her own home.

At least Samira was being honest about it.

“But,” Samira continued as she turned back to keep walking, though at a more sedate pace, and Lux fell in behind her. “What say I tell you a bit about myself and I came to be here, hey? I can’t speak for the others, and I don’t want to. If they want to tell you their stories, that’s for them to decide, but I don’t mind.”

“That would be nice,” Lux admitted.

Samira chuckled. “Well, alright then. As you know, my name is Samira, and you probably have guessed”—she gestured around them at the convent—“that this was not my first choice lifestyle.”

“I didn’t want to say anything.”

“You’d be right,” Samira replied, shooting a brief, playful glance over her shoulder. “The reason I am here is because I…my life has been a hard one, truth be told. The desert could not kill me as a child, then Noxus made me strong, and as a woman grown, I have done many bad things for many reasons. Reasons that filled sacks and chests and spent very, very well at markets and brothels.”

Lux frowned. “A mercenary?”

“A very good mercenary,” Samira corrected, then added, “But yes, I was a blade for hire. My name was well-known throughout the empire, and I was content with that life. I had no great ambitions beyond living fast and dying young and beautiful, preferably in bed with several other young and beautiful women after being poisoned by a rival, or maybe a jilted lover.”

Despite herself, Lux snorted out a laugh at the sheer audacity of that statement. Through her mirth, she managed to ask, “S-So, what changed?”

“A contract,” Samira replied, her voice falling low.

“A contract for what?”

“For whom,” Samira corrected again. “I was hired by the Targonians to escort a young lady from one side of Shurima all the way to Mount Targon. And for a kingly price. It would be a terribly risky journey fraught with danger, and that tickled me.”

Lux hesitated as the thought entered her mind, but she opted to be as honest with Samira as the woman was being with her and just asked, “Taliyah?”

“Mm, yes. Just so.” Samira paused and turned to stare into one of the dim lamps beside her. “Taliyah’s people were on the verge of extinction. Not from war or hunting, but just the…slow death of a people without a home whose numbers are too small to maintain. Whose young folk depart to find better futures, leaving their past behind. The Targonians wanted to preserve something of her culture and people, and I would be lying if I said that didn’t play a part in my agreeing to take the contract. It felt like a…like the right thing to do, and that was rare in my line of work.”

“So what you’re saying is, deep down, you really are a good person?” Lux asked, a playful lilt of her own entering her voice, to which Samira shot a mockingly severe glance.

“I will deny it to my grave,” she said, then chuckled and turned to keep walking once more. “But that contract changed everything. It showed me a part of our world that I never knew existed, like the drawing back of great curtains, and I knew that I would not be able to push those curtains back. No amount of drink or warm company would banish that knowledge from my mind, so I followed my instincts, as I always do, and at the end of the contract, I ended up here.”

“Skipping over a bit, aren’t you?” Lux said.

Samira shook her head. “The contract and those travels…that’s too much of Taliyah’s story. And Kai’sa’s, in fact. She was there, too. The first step of the contract, you see, was to find the nomadic tribes from which I was to retrieve the girl. When I did, it was in dire straits. Kai’Sa was there, helping and protecting them, and she refused to leave Taliyah’s side, so I took both of them. I don’t regret it, even if I grumbled about it at first.”

A good person, then. A hard person, yes, and maybe not the most moral person the world has ever known, but something about her tone made Lux certain that Samira was a good person, deep down. In truth, she hadn’t really expected anything else. Canoness Leona struck her as too good a judge of character to allow someone who intended harm to the world or its people to stay amongst them. Still, it was good to know that her initial impression of having a Noxian in the convent had been wrong.

Maybe it was all just terrible bias—when Demacia and Noxus weren’t at war, they were always threatening it. The saber-rattling between the Kingdom and the Empire was a constant background noise for anyone who grew up in either place, but especially for a Crownguard. Lux had never ascribed to the jingoistic hatred of the Empire that many of her contemporaries seemed content to indulge in. It had always felt too easy and too reductive to assume that Noxus was just a grab bag of unholy barbarians who somehow managed to put the entire east expanse of Valoran under imperial rules. In short, they had to be doing something right.

Or maybe everyone just was doing something wrong.

“At any rate,” Samira was continuing to speak, “my story of how I came here is, at the root, the fulfillment of that contract, and perhaps if Kai and Tali are amenable, we’ll tell you that story in its fullness someday. Til then, let me tell you about the time I fought a warrior called the Queen of Desert Winds to a standstill!”

“Beats eerie silence,” Lux replied.

“HA! So it does! So it does! Now, where to start…? Oh! I know. It all started in a bar in Khadim! I had just had my fifth drink of the night and was trying to talk this particularly beautiful waitress into following me back upstairs when…”

Lux wasn’t sure how much of the story she was being told was entirely true since, good or not, Samira definitely struck her as a bit of a tale-spinner. With that said, at least it was entertaining, and she listened as they continued their long, meandering walk through the empty, uniform halls of the first floor.

It at least served to distract her from the dark.

Samira quickly fell into a rhythm with her story, and Lux nodded along despite that fact that the older woman wasn’t looking at her. She just reached the part of the duel where she and the Desert Queen were engaged it what sounded like a strangely charged exchange of repartee when the creak of a door swallowed the sounds of the story.

Lux stumbled to a halt as, to her right, one of the doors that she was certain had been closed a moment ago as she begun passing it was now wide open. Like all the others doors, it was deeply set into the wall, and the shadows seemed to pool around it like tar, clinging to the threshold and spilling into the room.

It was a chapel.

Without thinking, Lux flicked her gaze over and around the threshold and quickly found the numerals of its designation. They were set into the stones of the threshold’s upper archway and very clearly marked out as: ‘XVI’

The rules that she’d been given were loud in her ears, and yet Lux couldn’t look away because there was something inside the chapel. She had her back to Lux and was dressed in a nun’s habit, though it seemed older and dustier than it ought to. Dirtier, maybe. The ‘sister’ stood before the chapel altar as if lost or confused, and only a few of the votive candles adorning the wall alcoves and the altar itself were lit, leaving the room dim. There was something terribly strange about that nun, though, and it took Lux a moment to realize what it was. It wasn’t the nun. It was the light and the shadows. It seemed as if vast shadows were not clinging to her but were, rather, spilling out of her back and onto the ground.

Lux had never been more aware of herself than in that moment. Her very heartbeats were deafeningly loud, her breathing seemed like a grating noise, and it felt like time itself had ground to a halt. There was so much darkness in that room. It was an absurd thought, but it stuck fast in Lux’s mind to the point that she couldn’t think of anything else. Terror gripped her as she took an instinctive step back and scraped her heels on the stone floor.

The nun within suddenly stiffened, then started to turn, and that terror redoubled in Lux’s chest until she thought her heart was about to burst from inside her. Her breathing was fast and sharp, and icy sweat broke across her brow and neck to slide down her back. Lux took another step back as the shadows, both inside and outside the room, began to converge to the pace of the achingly slow turn of the nun’s head.

Lux slammed her eyes shut and started to count, just as she always did whenever her fears began to better her. For some reason, though—“One…two…”—she thought she heard—“three…four…”—the sound of bells tolling dolorously through the halls. “Five, six, seven, eight, nine…t-t-!”

The last number caught in Lux’s throat like a stone, followed by a jarring surge of vertigo. Lux fell to her knees, barking her shins against the hard, cold stone, and, by reflex, her eyes snapped open. She was no longer in the hall but instead on her knees in the chapel, and swallowing all of the light before her was a figure whose feet did not touch the ground. What she had taken for vast shadows were now up and splayed around in the shape of immense wings, and Lux stared up into an all-consuming dark.

And the dark was staring back at her.

Tears spilled down Lux’s cheeks as she worked her jaw silently while her mind bent painfully around whatever it was she was looking at. There were eyes and jaws and teeth. Wings and feathers. Storm and shadow. Everything was crashing together in her mind as if plucked up and swung about by a great tempest.

All her life, she’d been afraid of the dark, and all her life, she had thought it was a silly thing. There was naught in the dark to be afraid of, she had told herself. Naught but the normal things. A dark forest might have wolves. A dark city might have bandits. But these were there in the daytime and were not products of the dark. The dark was only the dark, she reminded herself repeatedly. There was nothing in the dark to be scared of.

Now, though, she realized how wrong she had been. She had been so terribly wrong. Lux had thought she was afraid of what was in the dark, but only now did she realize the truth.

She was truly afraid of the dark.

“P-Please…Please d-don’t…” Lux babbled, not really sure what she was even trying to beg for. Her life? Her existence? Her soul?

Some part of the thing before her seemed to collapse into focus, and suddenly, Lux was aware of two eyes, not thousands, staring into hers. They were an unearthly color, and they seemed lit from within. Then, the dark was suddenly all around her, those wing-shaped shadows sweeping forward as the thing leaned in.

“Oh, Light,” Lux whispered, her eyes wide as her mind bent further. “Save me…”

Something like a limb detached from the core of the shadows, splitting from the mass to shape into an arm and a hand that reached for Lux from within an illimitable void. The awareness of that vast space dragged a sob from Lux’s lips as terror like she had never known filled her. There came a sound, then, like the world taking a breath, and a voice from nowhere and everywhere said—

“LUX!”

Lux staggered as two hands gripped her shoulders and jarred her backward as she was suddenly back in the hallway—not the chapel. Had Samira not been holding onto her upright, she’d have fallen to the floor.

The older sister’s face was contorted in a combination of panic and fury as she said, “What did I tell you?! What did I tell you? THERE IS NOTHING IN THE CHAPEL! THERE IS NO ONE IN THE CHAPEL!”

The world seemed to be trembling, and it took Lux a moment to realize it was, in fact, her who was shaking. She was shivering like a wet kitten and her heart was beating so fast it felt like she had just finished sprinting the length of the kingdom! Her whole body was soaked with sweat, and she was uncomfortably aware of every inch of herself as she belatedly realized she couldn’t recall when she’d last taken a breath.

She gasped, dragging in a draught of cold air that tasted like stone and incense. It was like a slap in the face, turning her legs to jelly and filling her mind with cotton. Lux sagged, and Samira slowly lowered her down until they were both kneeling on the floor.

“W-What…What happened?” Lux mumbled.

“I don’t know,” Samira said in a tight voice bereft of her usual humor. “I only noticed you had stopped following me a moment ago, and I turned to find you staring into chapel sixteen, but…”

She turned to look back, and Lux forced herself to follow her gaze, terrified that she would see…something. Something she couldn’t pull from the depths of her memory beyond the impression of a vast and limitless dark staring back at her.

But the door was closed.

Samira swallowed audibly and turned back to Lux. “Was it open? When you looked, was it open?”

“Y-Yes,” Lux whispered.

“Then why did you look?!”

“I d-don’t know!” Lux sobbed. “I don’t know! I just…I saw a nun. A sister. But she was all wrong! The shadows were all wrong! I…I panicked! I’m…I’m afraid of the dark, so I closed my eyes and started c-counting to ten like I always d—”

“COUNTING?!” Samira hissed over Lux, shocking her into silence as she gripped Lux’s shoulders harder. “Were there bells? Were you counting bells?!”

“I was just counting! I-I always count to ten when I’m scared! Since I was a little girl! It’s nothing!”

“It’s not nothing!” Samira closed her eyes and blew out a hard breath, then opened them again and said, “I apologize. Maybe you were right. Maybe we should have…have explained a few things. It was a misunderstanding that made you count, but you mustn’t count the bells!”

“What was that thing?” Lux asked shakily, looking back to the closed door of chapel sixteen. “It was…it was so…big. Like it was filling the room and spilling out of it and…Oh, Protector, it spoke to me.”

“What?” Samira’s voice was a harsh hiss that dragged Lux’s attention back to her. “What did you just say?”

“I…I said it spoke to me,” Lux murmured.

Samira shook her head in disbelief, then licked her lips before saying, “The thing in the chapel spoke to you? Are you certain of that? It actually said words? Real words? You’re sure it wasn’t just your mind trying to make sense of whatever you were seeing?”

Lux shook her head, then winced as her vision swam. She cradled her skull as she took several deep breaths before looking back up at Samira and saying, “I’m sure of it, Sister. It was right before you grabbed me. I saw her, and it felt like something inside me was bending around the thing in the chapel. Like seeing it was filling my head so much that it was fit to burst, and I was so scared, and yes, I had all these words and images in my mind, like you said, but this was different.”

“What did it say?” Samira asked.

The noise had filled her head more completely than the shadows of its form. It was so vast that it took Lux a moment as she forced herself to remember the words that had suddenly appeared like a fiery marquee inside of her, as much a vision as a voice.

“Lux?”

“It said,” Lux whispered, “Be Not Afraid.”

Chapter Text

The Canoness’ office was frugal but well-appointed. The stone floors were softened by rugs fashioned for comfort more than style or excess. A handful of paintings adorned the walls, but only of landscapes or imagery from the Protector’s Gospels. The desk that dominated the center of the room was old, heirloom quality, while the rear of the room opposite the door was covered entirely with bookshelves that were filled to the brim.

And then, naturally, there was the Canoness. Or rather, the Day Canoness, Leona. Lux had yet to meet the Night Canoness, but she assumed that Diana was likely even less sociable than her diurnal counterpart.

When Lux had first met Leona, she had seemed strangely implacable. Now, though, her brow was furrowed, and concern drew subtle creases along her face as she steepled her fingers before her lips. She had just finished pressing Lux for absolutely every detail she could recall for the past few hours, and Lux had never felt more like a maid’s dishrag—thin, overused, and wrung dry. Her throat was dry despite the tea in front of her, mostly because Lux didn’t trust her stomach not to eject any attempt to fill it, but also because she felt like she’d gone over what had happened—or possibly not happened, depending on if she had been violently hallucinating—in chapel sixteen.

In reality, Lux was aware she’d only actually told the story three times: once to Sister Samira, then to Canoness Leona uninterrupted, then one more time to the Canoness, this time so she could pick apart every single detail. The final recitation had taken the lion’s share of her time in that office and was the main reason she was so exhausted.

“Be Not Afraid.” Leona said the words slowly as if tasting them, then her gaze lifted over her fingers to nail onto Lux. “You’re absolutely certain that’s what it said?”

“As certain as I am physically capable of being, your Grace,” Lux replied.

Not for the first time, Lux wished Samira had stayed, but she’d had her duties to return to, meaning that Lux had spent the last few hours being thoroughly questioned by the Canoness alone. Realistically, she knew it wouldn’t have changed anything, but it would have been nice to have a friendly face nearby.

“Can I say again,” Lux started, “how sorry I am? I didn’t mean to break any rules. Truly. I just…I-I’ve always been afraid of the dark. I never tried to go into the chapel, I swear it! I was just there. I have no recollection of moving from the hall through the door!”

“And you counted, too.”

“I wasn’t counting any bells, your Grace!” Lux argued. “It’s just a childhood habit! My father taught me! He said, ‘To quell your fear, count first to ten, then breathe’. I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember!”

Leona clasped her hands and sighed as she lowered her head to rest it against her knuckles. “Yes, I grasp the misunderstanding, little sister. I cannot admonish you for failing to understand what I did not explain.” Then she looked up, and those fierce amber eyes were somehow…darker. “That habit, though. It’s not an uncommon one. I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

“I am,” Lux replied. “It’s…just a habit, though.”

“Have you ever wondered why we count to ten?”

Lux frowned, then shook her head before saying, “Our maths count from a base ten. I always assumed that was why.”

“But why do we do that when we’re afraid?” Leona pressed. “Why to ten? Why not five? Or twenty? Ixtal uses a base twenty counting system, for instance, but even they have this habit. Did you know that?”

“I…I didn’t.”

“First of ten.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Leona sat back in her chair and sighed again. “To be clear, that counting is something you’ll have to break the habit of. There are things that listen for certain other things. I wish I could tell you more, but in this case, the more you know, the more vulnerable you are, and you lack the proper mental defenses for further education in this regard. I will see to it you receive the necessary training for that, though, so it’s only a temporary thing.”

“Wait, uhm, your Grace,” Lux stammered. “I don’t mean to…to insult you or the sisterhood at large, but I have the distinct impression that you’re all doing something very important here, and I…” she swallowed thickly, trying not to think of the dark staring back at her. “I think it would probably be best if I just went home. Feel free to…to expel me from the order, or whatever you have to do. I won’t complain, I promise. I’ll make sure my family knows it was entirely my fault!”

The words came out in a rush, having built up in the back of her throat for the past hours since what happened in chapel sixteen. It was really the only sensible thing to do, after all. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t human. It wasn’t mortal. It wasn’t…Holy Protector, Lux wasn’t sure what it was, but what she did know was that it terrified her down to her bones.

That meant the best thing she could do was just leave.

“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option, Miss Crownguard,” Leona said flatly, sending a chill down Lux’s spine.

Lux licked her lips nervously. “W-Why?”

Rather than answer immediately, the Canoness reached up, gingerly removed the cap of her habit, and set it to the side. Then carded her fingers through her hair a few times before leaning forward and saying, “Because it won’t let you.”

“What?” The word came out like a squeak more than a word.

The heaviest sigh thus far issued from Canoness Leona as she gave Lux a pitying look. “We call what you encountered the Omen, and there is no memory, living or dead, that recalls a time when it didn’t dwell here. The last person to interact with it was a Canoness about forty years ago. What we know is that she fled in the night a few days later. She vanished from all records for almost a decade before a Sister from another order discovered her in a Noxian sanitarium while she was visiting a patient.”

That was certainly not a good sign. And this was no sister of the faith, apparently, but a Canoness. Someone who, ostensibly, was of comparable mental and spiritual fortitude as Leona. Lux tried to picture the woman in front of her breaking down and fleeing into the night in terror from whatever this ‘Omen’ was, and failed entirely.

Yet, it happened.

“Did she…happen to say why she fled?” Lux asked cautiously, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

“The sister that retrieved recorded her conversations with the woman in a journal,” Leona said, her voice low and sad. “By all accounts, the former Canoness was completely mad. She practically lived in the sanitarium chapel, praying for as long as the healers would allow. She barely ate. Barely slept. According to the sister’s journal, the canoness was convinced she had trespassed against the firmament and brought a divine curse down upon herself. Truthfully, I think she might have been right.”

Lux’s heart plummeted. “Why? What happened to her? In the end, I mean?”

“The order tried to bring her back to Targon, but she died during the voyage across the Conquerer’s Sea.”

“How?”

“Hit by a carriage.”

Lux blinked dully a few times, then shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, your Grace, I must have misheard you. It sounded like you said she was hit by a carriage.”

“Yes.”

“At sea.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Leaning an elbow on her desk, Canoness Leona massaged her temple and said, “The ship was transporting gifts sent by various kingdoms to Mount Targon. Amongst those gifts was a carriage, which, I understand, was secured in the lower decks. For some reason, during the night, the Canoness wandered down to the cargo hold. At the same time, without warning, all fastenings securing the carriage failed, and at the same time, a strong wave struck the vessel, causing it to pitch forward. They discovered the Canoness’ body a few hours later, run over by a carriage at sea.”

It sounded absurd—comical, even—except in context, it wasn’t funny at all, mostly because that was threatening to be her fate. Lux tried to imagine the series of events necessary to produce the Canoness’ fate and simply couldn’t. There were so many things that would have had to have gone wrong to put her there that it had to have been manipulation or machination or…or something.

Or, she thought darkly, it was a curse.

“She’s not the only one, either. Only the most recent.” Leona straightened and laced her fingers before herself. “The very few sisters whom we know have interacted with the Omen always suffer some ill fate.”

“Then what hope have I?” Lux muttered blankly. A hollow was gaping open in her chest and filling with dread. “Am…Am I also cursed?”

“Perhaps, but there are some…key differences,” Leona said, igniting the faintest spark of hope in Lux, who leaned in eagerly. “Firstly, every sister of record who has encountered the Omen fled the convent quickly thereafter, but we know from experience that that is precisely the wrong thing to do. So you will be staying.”

“A-Alright, I’ll agree to that,” Lux replied. The last one had fled all the way to Noxus without reprieve, after all. As much as she wanted to run, Lux wasn’t exactly confident she could get much further and even less certain that it would matter if she did.

“Secondly, understand that although meeting it is not unprecedented, it is vanishingly rare. I have read every record of every interaction with the Omen so as to speak from a place of total certainty when I say that at no point has the Omen ever spoken to one of these sisters, Canoness or otherwise.”

That, more than anything, made Lux perk up. “Never?”

“Never,” Leona confirmed. “The records are all second-hand, too. The ones who encountered the Omen were in no state to even look after themselves, much less write down their experiences in any useful manner. That, more than anything, is why you must stay.”

“What do you mean?”

Canoness Leona cast her gaze down and wrung her hands in a surprisingly normal display of awkward nerves. She seemed almost…guilty. Maybe ashamed. 

“For hundreds of years,” Leona began as she opened one of her desk drawers, “the Order of Her Sheltering Wings has lived under the shadow of the Omen. In all those years, it has never once reached out to us. What we do know”—the Canoness drew a book from the drawer and laid it in front of Lux—“is that the Omen is anathema to something else in the convent. Or rather, something beneath it.”

The book looked very old. Lux thought the binding had probably been redone within the last decade, but everything else about it exuded antiquity. It was not a large book and little more than an inch thick. The parchment within the bindings was old and stiff, and it seemed in all ways to be just a book. And yet Lux found herself loathe to touch it even as she reached for it. The moment her fingers brushed the cover, however, she flinched back.

“It’s cold.”

“It always is,” Leona said, then nudged the book close with her fingers.

Swallowing thickly, Lux reached out again and picked the book up. The title was in classical Targonian and embossed across the face of the book in thin, crabbed black script, and reading it put a stone of dread in Lux’s stomach.

‘Metus et Tenebrae’

Fear and Darkness.

“What uhm…what is this?” Lux asked, looking up from the unpleasant cold book.

Canoness Leona looked distinctly uneasy as she said, “You’re aware that the nearby town of Fossbarrow was constructed, in part, to support this convent, yes?”

“Yes. My ancestor was considered uncommonly pious, even by Crownguard standards,” Lux replied.

“It wasn’t just piety that drove Fossian Crownguard to raise Fossbarrow in support of the convent,” Leona said darkly. “It was also terror.” She gestured to the book. “Roughly five hundred years ago, just prior to the founding of Fossbarrow, something happened in the convent. Those details are still lost to us. What we do know is that Sister Flavia Aurelius, who was on pilgrimage, came to Demacia to visit its convents.

“Back then, the roads were even poorer than they are now, and as there was no town of Fossbarrow, this convent was particularly isolated. Accordingly, she begged an escort from the nearby honorable House of Crownguard. The second son of the house, Fossian, agreed and, along with his personal guard, took her on the week-long journey to the convent. When they arrived, they found the doors thrown open, the halls unlit, and of the recorded seven nuns and nineteen layfolk, there was no sign.”

“W-Wait, wait.” Lux held up a hand in plea. “You said the sister’s name was Flavia Aurelius?”

“I did.”

“I’m descended from the line of Fossian and his wife, Flavia Crownguard. Is that…? That’s not a coincidence, is it?”

“No,” Leona replied. “It’s not.”

Lux bit her lip, then decided they were a bit too far into this matter for propriety and asked, “Are nuns allowed to marry?”

“Not in the traditional sense.” Leona steepled her fingers. “And certainly, we’re not supposed to depart convent grounds to wed nobility.”

“Then what happened?”

Leona cleared her throat, then said, “To be frank, we’re not entirely sure. Sister Flavia never returned to the fold, sending only a lengthy report by the speediest courier Crownguard gold could buy. It’s from that report that we know that they came here and found it abandoned save for the fourth chapel where the vigil was still upheld.”

“I thought you said there were no sisters remaining,” Lux said.

“That’s a…complicated explanation, and one I’m afraid you’ll have to be patient with as I cannot reveal its nature without higher approval.” At least Leona looked genuinely apologetic when she said that. Lux was starting to get exceedingly tired of the number of secrets this convent seemed to be filled with.

At least she was being told something. Lux tried to content herself with that and just nodded for Leona to continue. Lux had the feeling that if the Canoness could explain this bit without getting in quite a lot of trouble, she would have.

“As I was saying,” Leona continued, “they searched the grounds and found no sign of the sisters who were supposed to be keeping the convent. What they did find”—she tapped the book—“was this, resting on the Canoness’ desk. This desk.”

“The Canoness wrote it?” Lux asked.

“Perhaps,” Leona said, then added, “but I don’t think so. Every Canoness writes extensively, if only in terms of reports. So I can say with some confidence that the handwriting of that book and that of the vanished Canoness don’t look anything alike. It may have been one of the other sisters, but we have no proof of that.”

Lux nodded, then looked down at the unpleasantly cold book she was still clutching. “What am I supposed to do with this, your Grace?”

“How’s your vulgar Targonian?”

“Passable?”

“Then read it.” Leona gestured broadly at the book. “You’ll understand some of why we do what we do. It may offer some context, and it’s quite literally the least I can do for what I’m asking of you.”

And now they got to the meat of it. “What are you asking of me?”

Leona took a deep, steadying breath, met Lux’s gaze, and said, “I would have you remain here as a sister of the order so that you may, perhaps, come back into contact with the Omen and, I hope, speak to it again.”

“I…I would very much not like to do that, your Grace,” Lux said shakily.

“I’m aware,” Leona said quietly. “And yet, I ask this of you all the same because if the Omen is reaching out, I cannot but fear that it is because something has changed.” She laced her fingers and lowered her head in something approaching a bow. “I am concerned that the Omen is trying to warn us, and you are the only one it has willingly spoken to. I don’t know why, and so I cannot, in good faith or conscience, permit you to leave until I do, both for your safety and ours. I am sorry, Sister Crownguard, but that is the truth of it.”

Lux’s fingers were frigid as she clutched the thin book ever-tighter. She had no illusions that she was not absurdly privileged by birth—her family was amongst the wealthiest of the kingdom, second only to the royal house of Lightshield. She had a nearly incomparable education, and there was little in the world she could not ask for and have, no matter how absurd the request. That kind of freedom was something most people could only dream of. For the vast majority the world over, one’s fate was often well out of one’s hands.

And yet, this still felt so terribly unfair.

It felt like she’d been cursed.

“Am I to understand that I don’t have much of a choice in this matter?” Lux asked.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I thought not.” Lux set the book down on her lap, then winced as she felt the unnatural cold pass through her habit as if it weren’t there as she said, “I understand, your Grace, that leaving would likely serve me not at all. Given what’s happened to the others who met this Omen, I grasp, intellectually, that flight would most probably leave me in similarly dire straits. And yet…I don’t want to do this. I…I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.” She looked up and met the Canoness’ gaze. “I don’t know why it chose me. I am neither pious nor especially skilled. It seems like naught but senseless, petty malice. You call this creature I encountered an ‘Omen’ but, to me, it feels more like a Jinx.”

“I know,” Leona replied, and there was real sorrow in her eyes. “But I promise you this: I will bend the talents of every sister in this convent to keeping you safe. All I ask is that you give me time to show that you can trust me.”

“And what do I do if my Jinx returns to haunt me?” Lux asked.

“Samira will guard you during the day,” Leona said firmly. “And after vespers, the Night Canoness, Diana, will patrol your hall and guard your door. At least until we know what to do.”

Lux shook her head. “With respect, I don’t think a Jinx needs to use doors, your Grace.”

“The Omen has never harmed anyone within the convent, Sister Crownguard. We know only that flight away from it leads to ill fortune.”

Standing from her place in front of the Canoness, Lux couldn’t help but feel a touch bitter over that incredibly cold comfort. Who was to say, after all, that she wouldn’t simply suffer the same consequences? And why did the sisters who encountered that awful Jinx flee from it anyway? Perhaps there was a good reason.

Admittedly, that was pure speculation.

“If it’s all the same to you, your Grace,” Lux said after a moment of tense silence, “I think I’d like to retire to my room for the day. I may as well as start trying to read this.” She held up Metus et Tenebrae. “Perhaps I might grasp some control of my fate. Or if I’m simply a passenger, at least I might know it.”

“You are excused, of course,” Leona said gently. “I’ll have Samira guard your door. If you require anything, you have simply to ask.”

Lux turned and started toward the door, paused, then turned back to say, “The only thing I want is to go home, your Grace. Or failing that, to have never set foot in this awful place at all.”

Then she left, a cloud of misery clinging to her as she wondered what absurd fate of death awaited her. Or if she was merely going to be tormented by the dark and her newly acquired Jinx.

Chapter Text

Lux made her way back to her room in silence with Samira at her back. The third floor was quiet, unlike the evening she had arrived, with all its tenants busy with the daily work they were signed that—if it were anything like the Samira’s—would look at least like half-nonsense. The lay folk, she assumed, lived outside the actual convent itself in adjoining dorms. That was usually the case. Except during days of festival, prayer, or worship, lay folk were generally not permitted to live within the convents or monasteries they served.

Not until they were accepted as novices or offered orders.

‘Offered’.

Lux scoffed, then, without looking back, asked, “If I were to make a run for it, would you stop me?”

There was a moment of hesitation, then, “Yes,” Samira replied softly. “We all know what happens when someone who meets the Omen flees the grounds, hey? Believe it or not, I don’t want you to die.”

“And I’m sure the fact that my Jinx had something to say to me doesn’t play into that at all, does it?” Lux replied more than a little bitterly.

“Not for me,” Samira replied, prompting Lux to glance over her shoulder in mild surprise. The Shuriman woman certainly didn’t look like she was lying. Nor sound like it as she added, “One rule of the mercenary is don’t punch above your weight. There’s business, and there’s pleasure, and you can’t take pleasure if your business gets you killed because you couldn’t tell a good fight from a bad one. The Canoness wants to know, but me?” She shrugged. “I could take it or leave it. And I’d rather it leave it, for your sake.”

“Thank you,” Lux said as she stopped at her door. “But it still feels awful, you know? Just because you can’t see chains or a cell doesn’t make it any less a prison.”

“I know.” Samira laid a hand on her shoulder. “And for what it’s worth, I am sorry. If I hadn’t gotten distracted telling my story, I may have noticed you stop before it was too late. The Canoness trusted me to look after you and didn’t. I can’t remember the last time I fumbled a contract like that, so whatever happens, I’ll be here to try and make it right.”

Under normal circumstances, that might have been cheering, but as it was, all Lux could do was smile thinly as she said, “I’m afraid that this Jinx won’t care much for that resolve, but,” she reached up to pat Samira’s hand, “I do appreciate it.”

Samira just gave her a cocksure smile. “Well, I’ve never fought the herald of a god before, but how hard can it be, hey?”

“If I were to run,” Lux asked cooly, then turned slowly to face Samira. “Would you follow me and protect me?”.

At that, Samira paused, and there, again, was that flicker of something chilly. A reminder that a desert night was as frigid as its days were hot. Then it passed, and she said, “No, but I also wouldn’t let you leave. I’ll protect you, even if it’s from yourself, and even if you hate me for it. A mercenary doesn’t need to be liked to be effective. I just prefer it.” She winked. “Especially when the client is so pretty.”

Lux chuckled, her cheeks coloring despite herself as she opened her mouth to reply. The words died on her tongue as she caught sight of something over Samira’s shoulder. It wasn’t anything specific—there was no looming demon nor vengeful angel.

It was just a feeling.

Like all of a sudden, the shadows on the wall behind Samira were many, many times deeper than they had any right to be. It felt in that moment as if she were looking into a bottomless pit that was somehow capable of a deep and personal hatred. And then it was gone, and Lux was left frozen in terror with her throat locked up. It took absolutely every single ounce of willpower she had not to start counting to ten, and even then she could feel herself start to try and even on the precipice of that impulse, she thought she could hear something.

Like the suggestion of a bell.

“Luxanna?” A tight grip on her shoulder jarred Lux out of her fugue, and she found Samira staring worriedly into her eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“I…I think so,” Lux muttered, stealing a glance over Samira’s shoulder again just to make sure. There was nothing there, though. Just a wall cast partially in shadow from the dim lamps.

“You don’t look fine,” Samira said.

All Lux could do was shake her head and step back as she fished for the handle of her door, grasped it, and jerked it open. “N-No, I would imagine I don’t,” she muttered.

Then she turned and slipped into her room, shut the door behind herself, and slumped against it. She dragged her cap from her head, allowing her long, golden hair to spill haphazard around her face as she took several slow, shuddering breaths. Maybe this was why the other sisters who glimpsed the so-called Omen—her jinx— had fled. Had they, too, seen the shadows grow impossibly deep and hateful? Worse was the thought that it was only beginning, and that it might grow worse.

If that were the case, Lux felt some sympathy for the women who had been chased from the convent in the night. The Canoness had said outright that the last woman who had seen that abominable jinx had fled some nights later, hadn’t she? Maybe it hadn’t been simple madness.

Oh, now there was a dark thought.

How long would it be before she, too, snapped after seeing one too many visions of horror and decided that simply running was a better option? Maybe she was cursed. Jinxed.

“Protector preserve me,” Lux whispered as she curled against the door and buried her face against her knees. She shook as tears burned at the edges of her eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

But she was. And worse, she had a veteran Shuriman mercenary standing outside her door making sure that she stayed there. Lux had no illusions about her ability to outrun or outfight Samira. The woman looked like she could snap Lux in half with barely an effort.

Meaning she was stuck, that was that.

Looking up miserably, Lux reached into one of the deep pockets of her habit and drew out the unusually cold book that the Canoness had given her to read. She flipped it open idly, squinted at the words, then sighed and stood.

If she was going to be stuck in this prison of a convent, at least she would have something to do. With that fixed in her mind, Lux went to her desk and sat down. From the drawers she fetched a fresh well of ink, several finely cut quill pens, and several sheets of blank parchment.

Then she opened the book and began to read.

Excerpts of Note from Metus et Tenebrae

Translated from its original Targonian by Sister Luxanna Crownguard of the Order of Her Sheltering Wings (under protest)

Pg. 4 “…and so must the chapels be not seven, but seven unto seven. For seven is the number of the firmament, and seven is the number of the heavens [skies?]. In this way, the numbers the stones wish to whisper to us might be muffled. Discordance [chaos?] calculated in the music of the spheres made louder [stronger? brighter?] brings It [her? them?] closer to us and closer to the fear and the darkness.”

Pg. 7 “It [she? they?] are the gate and the key and the lock. The omen [warning?] and the harbinger [disaster?]. Do not fear It [her? them?]. Seven is the number of heavenly [divine? immortal?] dissonance [discord? chaos?] but count not the bells. There are no bells. There are no bells.”

Pg. 11 “…then walk you the pilgrim’s [apostate’s? prodigal’s?] path, though it matters not how long. Walk and make seven turns unto seven turns. Heed not the doors which are unmarked [unknown?]. Heed not the dark and count no bells. There are no bells.”

Annotations by Sister Luxanna Crownguard.

Lately of the Order of Her Sheltering Wings (under protest).

Vulgar Targonian is not so much difficult to read as it is difficult to parse the precise meaning of. After the fall of Imperial Targon, the language was slowly debased with loan words and conflations. Certain words that meant one thing in the classical language became more generalized or even changed meanings entirely according to local dialects. It’s difficult to know precisely what perspective the author of this text was writing from, so that context is somewhat absent, leaving me to my best guesses.

I suppose that is as good as I am liable to get.

At least this explains why there are so many bloody chapels.

Seven unto seven was a common if archaic refrain to refer to seven times seven. That is: forty-nine. I probably should have guessed at that, but it’s a bit esoteric and I’m, frankly, not much of a theological scholar if I’m being honest.

Depending on the texts and which aspect-blessed lunatic you ascribe with the power of prophecy versus the curse of madness, the world was said to have been forged in seven days or seven years or seven unto seven years. Either way, there is a numerological power to the number seven. I confess I don’t understand the purported reasoning for the continuous use of the number, though. The author, whoever they are, goes on at length about the discordance of the spheres, repeating the number seven, which is both greater and lesser than ten. Something about the focus on seven disrupting the ten-count?

I’m really not certain.

The greater and lesser part I can understand, in a sense. For instance, if you’re counting up, then seven is greater than ten because it’s higher on the ordinal scale. But by mathematical value, seven is lesser than ten. I have no idea why that’s relevant.

I suspect the author was mad.

At this point, I’m considering joining them.

Regarding the Omen my jinx Jinx, the text refers to it with a nebulous pronoun. There isn’t a proper Demacian translation for it, which is why it fell out of use. Honestly, though, I understand why they used it. If whoever wrote this saw anything like what I saw, then I grasp entirely why they decided to use the most eldritch form of identification for it.

Her.

It’s a Her, I think. Or at least, I think I’ve decided she’s a her.

Maybe it’s just because of the idea that my jinx Jinx is a sentient being with unknowable designs upon my person, but thinking of her as a ‘her’ is a bit more palatable. I am fully aware that I’m only fooling myself. My jinx Jinx is not a person. She’s something else entirely. I was under the impression, at first, that she was some kind of threat, but this author seems to consider her more of an ancillary existence. Or maybe a guardian? It’s hard to tell. All I know is that my jinx Jinx is referred to not with fear but with something like reverence. But also wariness.

I confess I’m not sure what to make of the description of her as both a key and a lock and a gate. I don’t understand how one thing can be all three of those things at once. I understand the ‘Omen’ and ‘Harbinger’ part, at least. It also explains where the Order got its name for her. Here’s another little snare of translation, though. The intent behind the words for ‘Omen’ and ‘Warning’ are close enough as to make no difference, but the next word could mean either ‘Harbinger’ or ‘Disaster’, and those are two very different meanings.

Then again, actually. As I write this, I’ve had a thought. Now it comes to it, the word the author used there has a much older connotation. Quite literally, it means ‘a bad star’. The problem there is, depending on the context, that bad star might literally be a curse.

Or, rather, a jinx.

How very appropriate.

Whatever the case, the last part is relatively self-explanatory. It’s a set of instructions telling the reader to walk the lower level, the colloquial ‘pilgrim’s path’, enough to make forty-nine turns. I wonder if it has to be exact. Or if I were to cock up the order and make a fiftieth turn before leaving the first level, I’d have to start over? Or maybe my jinx Jinx would be waiting just around that stray corner to drag me screaming into oblivion.

That would just be my luck.

I’ll make my end here for the night and return to this in the morning.

It was late by the time Lux finally stopped working. She had even taken her meals in her room rather than the refectory of the convent with the other sisters. Maybe that wasn’t very social of her, but then, the whole reason she was in this mess was her lack of social graces.

Well, that and her inability to tolerate lechers.

Lux pulled off her habit and hung it up, shivering as she did in the frigid air of the mountains. Samira had brought her a basin of warm water which had, predictably cooled by the time Lux remembered it, but at least it wasn’t icy. She used it to towel off the sweat of the day, which was more considerable than she was comfortable with. Her whole body felt wrung out by the time she finished, the panic of the day having finally faded leaving behind knots of sore and tired muscles.

So it was when Lux did finally collapse into bed, her eyes closed with the weight of worlds, and darkness collapsed around her. Her last thought was that she had forgotten to put on her nightgown, but honestly, at that point, couldn’t be asked to disinter herself from the thick blankets of her bed.

And then she slept.

Part of her, even in slumber, had expected nightmares. Instead, there was only a sense of weightlessness and slow sinking, as if she had lowered herself into a deep pool of water, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to be taken by the depth. It wasn’t cold, but neither was it warm, exactly. It was just an all encompassing sense of pressure wrapped around her. It wasn’t silent either. There was a susurration from all sides, as if she were trying to sleep in a room full of people whispering to each other. And yet, it wasn’t terrible.

A gentle knocking stirred Lux awake. Every inch of her body felt lightly bruised, likely from the strain of everything that had happened the day before. She wanted nothing more than to just go back to sleep, but she had the feeling that missing morning prayers wouldn’t do her any favors, and really, she wasn’t exactly in a position to be annoying the Powers That Be.

Really, she ought to be sucking up to them.

“Little sister?” Samira’s voice came muffled from the hall, followed by another knock. “Luxanna?”

“M’awake,” Lux muttered, then smacked her lips as she tried to work some moisture back into her mouth before trying again a little louder. “I’m awake.”

“Prayers are in twenty minutes, little goldfinch,” Samira called a little too playfully for so early in the morning.

Lux sat up and rubbed at her eyes with one hand while yawning cavernously. She had always considered herself a morning person, but this was ridiculous. But everyone followed the same schedule. It was, she reflected, probably not unlike being in the Vanguard.

That was a slightly cheering thought, and Lux smiled faintly as she nudged her way out from under the blankets, only for something to clatter to the floor as she slung her legs off the edge of the bed.

Metus et Tenebrae, with all of her notes tucked between the pages she’d left off at like a bookmark, was lying mockingly on the floor in front of her. Ice sluiced down Lux’s spine as she stared at the book that very distinctly recalled leaving on her desk.

With trembling fingers, Lux bent down and scooped up the book, flipped it open, and looked over the pages. Everything was more or less where she left it. She was on the page she’d half-finished, and her notes seemed—

Wait.

Tension corded along Lux’s jaw as she bolted upright, grabbed her nightgown from the corner of her bed that she’d forgotten to don the night before, and pulled it over her head. Then she jerked the door open, startling Samira out of a knock she’d clearly been halfway through making and said, “SHE WAS HERE!”

“W-What?” Samira took a step back at the venom in Lux’s voice.

“She. Was. Here!” Lux spat each word like a dart as she her notes into Samira’s face. “Look!”

Frowning, Samira took them and started reading. Then her frown deepened as she looked up from the parchment and asked, “Sorry, but…what am I looking for?”

Lux rolled her eyes, stepped into the hall, hissed at the feeling of icy stones under her bare feet, and jabbed a finger at multiple parts of the notation manuscript. “Are you blind?!”

‘my jinx Jinx’

‘My jinx Jinx’

‘ my jinx Jinx’

‘Jinx’

“I didn’t make those! I didn’t! Or…” A horrible thought occurred to Lux. “Or at least, I don’t remember doing that! And when I woke up, the book and the pages were under the covers with me!”

“Oh.” Samira flipped through the pages, looking over them with a growing concern.

“I left the book and the pages on the desk!” Lux all but sobbed. “And when I woke up this morning, they in bed with me! And there are changes I don’t remember making! But it’s…it’s in my handwriting!”

Real panic was filling her.

“S-Sister.” Lux was shaking so hard she didn’t even trust herself to take back the book. “Am I already going mad?”

Samira shook her head, then swallowed thickly before shaking her head and saying, “I don’t know, but we need to show these to the Canoness, hey?” She closed the book on the pages. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, little goldfinch. I promise.”

“I don’t want to go mad, Sister,” Lux sobbed. “If I’m to lose my mind, then I’d rather just die!”

Sighing heavily, Samira stepped closer and pulled Lux into a tight hug, and despite herself, Lux hugged her back as hard as she could. “Sshh…don’t say that,” Samira whispered. “We’ll set this right, little sister. I swear it. I don’t care what power this Omen holds, I will not let it take you.”

As firmly spoken as that promise was, Lux couldn’t help but think that Samira probably wouldn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Nor would anyone.

She truly was jinxed.

Chapter Text

Lux was silent as she entered the chapel for morning prayers. The Canoness had already begun the benediction when she entered, trailing numbly behind Sister Samira with her hands clasped at her waist and her eyes set forward and unmoving. She was beyond the storm of fear, in a certain sense. Now, there was only a quiet dread left in that storm’s wake like the ruins of a once glittering harbor.

She had never realistically imagined going mad before, but seeing words that she in no way could recall writing set down on a page in her own handwriting had shaken her badly. No matter how she wracked her memories, Lux couldn’t recall so much as stirring in the night. As far as she could remember, she had slept soundly from the moment she’d closed her eyes until that morning.

She hadn’t even had any nightmares.

The morning prayers continued, and Lux didn’t hear a word of them. Her attention drifted, unfocused, as she tried to grasp some thread of memory that nonetheless evaded her, or else she was distracted with each flicker of a votive candle that would set the shadows around them dancing. Each black flicker would draw Lux’s eye, silencing the clamor in her mind as she fixed her gaze on the offending shadow and watched—waiting for it to deepen unnaturally. Waiting to glimpse the unnatural eyes and impossible jaws. When no such phantasm appeared, she would turn away and once more meander the halls of her mind, searching for the elusive memory of writing those words that ought to be there but wasn’t.

Then another shadow would dance, and Lux would stop, watch, and wait.

A hand settled abruptly on her shoulder and jarred Lux away from where she’d been staring at a corner of the room where one particular shadow shifted in a way that she wasn’t sure was completely natural. It probably was, as there were numerous candles around it, but her paranoia told her differently.

“Little sister?” Canoness Leona was kneeling before her with a worried look in her eyes.

Lux looked up and around herself to find the other sisters clutching their duty papers and looking worriedly down at her. Distantly, she marked their names and expressions—the Shuriman nomad, Taliyah, looked concerned. Her strange-eyed protector, Kai’sa, seemed suspicious and grim. The Demacian beauty who still had yet to utter a sound, Sona, had an enigmatic softness that was almost pity, but not quite. And Samira, of course, looked two parts worried to one part guilty because she still blamed herself for not intervening.

It was sweet, but Lux wasn’t sure intervention would even be possible. Not with a wholly different sort of intervention already in place. Lux wasn’t sure she was ready to call it ‘divine’, but it was certainly something.

“Canoness?” Lux said quietly.

“Yes?”

“I think I’d like to…to walk the grounds a bit, if that’s alright. I’m sure you don’t need me to fill any duties quite yet.” Lux met Leona’s gaze as steadily as she was able. “And I don’t think I’d be much good at any of them anyway as I am. I’m afraid my family has saddled you with quite a burden.”

She both saw out of the corner of her eye and heard Kai’sa take a breath to say something, but Leona silenced her with an arm snapped upright and fingers curled into a fist. Lux recognized it as an old Targonian sign that meant ‘halt’ or ‘quiet’.

A Targonian legion sign.

‘Ah, so I was right,’ Lux thought vaguely. ‘She was a soldier, after all.’ Although, for some reason, getting proof of that mattered much less than she’d expected it to.

“That’s perfectly fine, Sister Luxanna,” Leona replied as she took Lux’s hand and slowly stood, pulling Lux upright along with her. “So long as you don’t wander the first level,” she continued. “If you need to return to your room, Taliyah will be in the foregardens and has my permission to walk you back.”

Lux bowed at the waist, and the world was numb and gray around her. “Thank you, Canoness.”

“Sister Taliyah,” Leona said without looking back. “Walk Sister Luxanna outside on your way to your duties, will you?”

Taliyah nodded, then shot a wary but friendly smile at Lux. “Sure thing.” She held out a hand. “Just follow me!”

The desert girl’s hand was rough with callouses. Nothing like the hands of the noblemen and women of Demacia. They wouldn’t have felt out of place on a shepherd, smith, or a mason, or so Lux thought. Whatever the case, they were warm and real, and served to jolt some sensation back through her limbs as Taliyah towed her out into the halls. Lux didn’t miss the way Kai’sa’s eyes narrowed at her, though, nor how Sister Samira stepped close to Leona and leaned in to speak to the Canoness in a low whisper.

Probably telling her that their newest sister had managed to go mad in record time. That thought spiraled into a thousand others, and none of them were very helpful, but they were all trending in a particular direction. Specifically, how much, exactly, was she taking for granted? How much did she actually know? That thought stuck like a thorn in her heel and started working its way deeper and deeper with each step. The answer to that dark question was: shockingly little, and from that answer tumbled an avalanche of newer and darker ones.

All of this seemed a little too…immediate. Didn’t it? Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that she encountered this jinx of hers on her first day? A being that was, by the Canoness’ own admission (assuming she was being truthful), vanishingly rare? Wasn’t that a bit too coincidental to countenance? It was possible, of course, but wasn’t it Canoness Leona who had sent her downstairs with Sister Samira? Wasn’t it Sister Samira who hadn’t protected her? What if that hadn’t been a failure?

What if that had been the intent?

What if they had given her to that thing on purpose?

Lux’s eyes darted left and right as dread transmuted suddenly into panic. She was vaguely aware that they had descended the stairs and were moving through the labyrinthine first floor. Her legs itched with unspent energy, and they screamed at her to run! RUN! Get away from this place however she could! Whether it was by carriage or cart or barefoot through the woods, it mattered not. These sisters were not her friends. They were not her allies! They were watching and waiting, weighing her to see what the jinx would do to her. And what would happen when they were finished? What happened when they grew bored or decided her use had been expended? Would they let her go?

No, surely not.

They would come for her in the night, tie her down, drag her back to chapel sixteen, and—!

Sunlight blasted across Lux’s face as the chilly morning air of the mountains slapped her cheeks. The cloying dark was suddenly gone, and in its place were the broad, sunlit foregardens making up the grounds of the convent bailey. Lux stumbled down the first step and was only saved from falling facefirst onto the cobbled path by Taliyah’s ready grip.

“Ho, there.” Taliyah caught her and held her steady for a moment before straightening and levering Lux back upright. “You alright? I tried talking to you on the walk out, but…”

“F-Fine,” Lux muttered as she raised an arm to shield her eyes from the piercing sunlight. “I’m fine, it’s just…why is it so bright out today?”

Taliyah frowned then said, “It’s not all that bright, although”—she chuckled softly—“mayhap I’m just pining for the desert. Nothing seems all that bright this far north. Not to me.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t be,” Lux admitted, then she took a deep breath and held it in. The bracing air chased the cobwebs from her mind, and in their wake, a painful throb took up residence between her eyes.

Barely a handful of steps outside of the convent keep, and she was already exhausted. Her limbs trembled, and beneath her cap, her golden hair was matted to the back of her neck with sweat. What was wrong with her? And those thoughts…in the darkness of the convent, they had seemed almost unassailable in their logic, but now? Now, she wasn’t so sure.

“Sister?”

“Have you ever mistrusted your own mind?” Lux asked suddenly, and Taliyah raised an eyebrow.

Then she shrugged and shook her head. “Not really. My eyes, sometimes. There are things in the desert that can be hard to explain. Mirages and voices on the wind.”

Lux smiled thinly. “You hear voices?”

“The elders say they’re the voices of the djinn,” Taliyah replied as she nodded toward the gardens and started walking. Lacking anything else to do, Lux followed.

“What are djinn?”

“Dark spirits said to have been conjured by the ancient pharaohs of Shurima to raise their great tombs and statues. Then, when the dynasties fell, the djinn were freed to wander the desert.” Taliyah knelt near one of the rows of flowers, leaned in, and breathed deeply. “They try to draw travelers away from caravans and camps, coax them out into the dunes, and then swallow them in the sands.”

“Sounds like a demon,” Lux said quietly.

Taliyah shrugged, then stood, turned, and smiled. She had a lovely, guileless smile. “Demons. Djinn. The more I travel, the more I wonder if they’re all just different names for the same things.”

“What things?”

At that, Taliyah just shook her head. In fairness, Lux didn’t have an answer to that question either. Demons, Djinn, bad spirits…it wasn’t impossible to assume they were all just the same thing. Whatever that was, it wasn’t something the Lux wanted any part of, but apparently, that wasn’t part of the deal. Instead, she was stuck in a convent full of sisters she didn’t know and couldn’t rightfully trust and being haunted by a jinx that was apparently causing her mind to splinter as she slept.

Wonderful.

“I think,” Lux said quietly, “I’m just going to walk around the grounds for a bit…get some air.”

Taliyah offered a wan smile. “Good idea. Just stay inside the walls. There are wolves out there. And mountain cats. Big ones.”

“If only wolves and mountain cats were my greatest problem,”: Lux drawled, then tried to smile back as she said, “but thank you for the warning. And for walking me down.”

“Just let me know when you go back.”

Lux nodded, then turned and left Taliyah to her gardening. That duty made some sense, at least. The gardens in the bailey were wide and colorful, and it would have been a shame to let them go to pot. Taliyah wasn’t the only one out in the yard, either. There were others dressed in sturdy leathers and roughspun linen moving about with purpose. Some were cooking while others did laundry. There was a small gaggle of women at the well talking whom Lux avoided. She was in no mood for casual conversation or, really, any kind of conversation. She wasn’t sure what she was in the mood for, really, other than being anywhere but the convent.

So she walked.

The bailey gardens were interwoven with cobbled paths, and Lux walked those for a while before stepping off the path and heading around the rear of the keep. There was a surprising amount of space between the keep and the outer wall and signs of a well-used cart path in the form of two deeply worn ruts in the ground. She followed the ruts more out of idle curiosity than any thoughtful purpose down between the keep and the walls and then out into a surprisingly spacious rear yard where there were a pair of buildings pressed up against the very northmost edge of the outer wall.

Well, really, there was one building. It was clearly a smithy that Lux supposed served well enough to repair various odds and ends as well as mend the occasional broken tool. The other structure was more like a lopsided shack. It wasn’t quite what Lux would call a ramshackle, but it certainly wasn’t as well-kept as the rest of the buildings surrounding the keep. Lux couldn’t help but wonder who lived there.

The smith, she assumed, which didn’t bode well for their work.

There wasn’t much else behind the convent. Along the east wall, there was a wooden shelter where a number of carts sat bereft of any beasts of burden to pull them. A couple of them looked small enough for a person to pull, but the rest were clearly meant for horses or at least a sturdy mule. Some more token nosing revealed lockers full of spare tools covered in oiled cloths to protect them from the damp, which was wise. At least whoever lived back here knew how to keep their things free of rust.

Mostly.

On a whim, Lux approached the smithy and poked her head inside, then grimaced. The forge was cold, the lamps unlit, and everything else was a mess. There were tools left where they lay, with boxes of nails and other oddments sitting out in random places. Even the floors were a mess. There were ashes all around the forge, an odd creaking was coming from the roof, suggesting something was loose, and there was even a plate from the convent kitchens left on a worktable.

Sighing, Lux went to the table more with the intent of taking the plate back than anything else, only to stop at the sight of what exactly the plate was sitting on. It was a convoluted diagram intersecting and crisscrossing lines that didn’t seem to produce anything but a mess of geometric shapes. Lux circled around it, clearing away the odd bit of detritus cluttering the table as she did, but no matter which angle she looked at it from, she couldn’t form the whole picture in her mind. Despite that, something about it seemed damnably familiar.

Eventually, though, she gave up.

Massaging the bridge of her nose, Lux dropped down into the lone chair at the table and prayed to the Protector that her headache would at least start to ebb. Thus far, it hadn’t gotten any worse, but that didn’t mean much.

At least the smithy was quiet.

“What a slovenly workplace,” Lux muttered as she shifted the dirty plate aside to get another look at the diagram.

“How ‘bout ya lick my ass, ya bumptious church bell?”

Lux almost shrieked as she startled, only keeping from screaming outright by clapping both hands over her mouth as she looked up. Blue strands of hair fell from under a dirty brown flatcap, and her pale skin was dusted with ash and grease. Bright, jewel-blue eyes were set into a flat half-glower as she leaned against the doorway. She was short and wolf-lean, with her sleeves rolled up, baring thin arms that were nonetheless hard with worker’s muscle. A thick leather belt held up trousers that looked a size too big for their wearer, their cuffs pooling around heavy, hobnailed boots, one of which was toe-tapping impatiently.

“E-Excuse me?”

The woman stepped into the smith and then flourished into a mocking bow as she gestured toward the door. “You’re excused.”

Clenching her jaw, Lux stood from the table and crossed her arms. “You must be the smith.”

“And you,” the smith said as she straightened and matched Lux glare for glare, “must be the sniffy new high-hat that got foisted on the holy sisters.” She flashed an insouciant grin. “You must’ve really soiled the sheets if you’re hiding all the way out here.”

For the first time since Lux got to the convent, she was abruptly possessed of an emotion that wasn’t bitterness, fear, paranoia, or moderate-to-severe existential dread. No, instead of any of those things, all she could summon up at that moment was incandescent rage.

“How dare you!” Lux snarled. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“A bob-tailed bint?”

“OH! OH YOU—! Well, y-you…w-well you’re just—!” Lux flailed for an appropriate response. “You’re just a…a cad! A rakehell and a cad with the manners of an oaf, half the wit, and less the sense given a common hound to bathe!”

The woman stared at her for several seconds while Lux panted with exertion, her arm outstretched, and finger pointed accusingly at the smith. Then, absurdly, the infuriating woman began to laugh. It was a long, light, raspish sound that, despite everything, was infectious, and suddenly Lux found herself giggling, snorting, and then laughing right along!

They were all but howling, with Lux half-propped against the table, wheezing between fits. The smith was barely holding herself up on the doorjamb as her cheeks flushed prettily with mirth, and more of that startlingly blue hair fell loosely around what Lux couldn’t help but realize was a pleasingly heart-shaped face.

Actually, underneath the grime, she was quite pretty.

“Oh…Oh, save me,” Lux gasped, “I think I’m dying.”

“M-Me, too!” The smith huffed and puffed between sudden bubbles of laughter.

For the life of her, Lux couldn’t say where that sudden geyser of hysterics came from. Maybe it was all the stress and strain. It needed to come out somehow. Honestly, being half-sprawled on a dirty drawing table and cackling her head off was probably better than lapsing into a screaming fit in the corner of her bedroom later that night because the evening shade looked off. Whatever the case, Lux felt oddly grateful toward the crude young woman who had interrupted her.

Or rather, Lux supposed that she was the intruder in this case.

It took her several moments to catch her breath, but when she did, she found the headache had blessedly faded, and after a couple more chortles escaped her, she said, “I uhm…I apologize for…for intruding. And for insulting your workspace. I’m sure it’s not always like this.”

The woman shrugged. “Nah, it’s…it’s usually like this, actually. But I know where everything is. So, what brings you out here? Somethin’ break?”

“Only my mind,” Lux muttered, then shook her head and added, “No, no, I was just…getting some air. Walking around. I saw this place and got curious. I’m sorry.” She stood up. “I’ll go back to the bailey.”

“Nah, it’s fine. If you need a place, this is as good as any,” the smith said as she went to the forge and began what Lux could only assume was the process of igniting it. Honestly, she had no idea how that worked.

She’d barely so much as lit a hearth before.

One had servants for that.

“You don’t mind a mad cackling nun in your workshop?” Lux asked dryly.

“Hey, at least you laugh.” That smile of hers really was infectious, and Lux found herself returning it. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Luxanna.” Lux moved around the table and held out a hand, not really caring that her new companion’s hands were filthy. “Luxanna Crownguard.”

“Luxanna Crownguard, huh?” She said the name like she was trying to decide if she liked it, then shook her head and clapped a hand into Lux’s, gripping it tight. “Eh, too much of a mouthful. I’ll call ya ‘Blondie’.”

“You know,” Lux said with a light laugh, “I don’t hate it.” Then she let go and asked, “What about you? Who are you?”

“Me?” Another shrug. “Just a blacksmith. Call me Powder.”

Chapter Text

The morning waned through to the afternoon as Lux whiled away the hours in the tucked-away smithy. The smith, Powder, had doffed her flatcap and hung it on a hook on the wall and rolled up her sleeves past the elbow, and Lux had spent the past few hours just watching the woman work. Her hair was surprisingly long, having been layered into a pair of long braids that had been cleverly concealed under the cap, only for them to fall down nearly to Powder’s ankles once freed.

Surprisingly, Lux found the beat of Powder’s hammer against metal to be soothing rather than jarring. Despite the smith’s messy workspace and crude manners, there was a rhythm to her work that spoke of skill polished to a mirror shine. She began with heating and then beating scrap metal into what Lux eventually realized were nails, taking ruined bits of things and turning them into useful tools once more. It was a slow process but steady, and Powder hummed quietly under her breath as she worked, swinging her hammer to the beat of whatever song she was remembering.

Even more surprising was that Powder didn’t so much as question why a newly minted sister of the convent would be spending her entire day hiding in the back end of said convent. She just calmly accepted Lux’s presence as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be there and moved on with her day.

“You’re sure you don’t mind my being here?” Lux asked after a few hours. She had spent them silently watching Powder work, only speaking once the young woman took a break.

Powder raised an eyebrow as she set aside the pile of newly fashioned nails, along with her hammer and tongs. “Why would I?”

Shrugging, Lux said, “Because I think most people would be reasonably annoyed by a stranger sitting in their workspace watching them do their job. Don’t mistake me. I do appreciate it. The last thing I want is to go back inside, but…I worry that I’m causing you a bother.”

“If ya were, I’da said somethin’,” Powder replied.

Lux started to reply, but the words dried up in her throat as Powder casually hauled her shirt over her head and tossed it on the same hook as her flatcap. Her chest was lightly bound with strips of linen, but there was no missing the lean, lupine muscle of her abdomen, shoulders, back, and arms. Moreover, all down her right side were tattoos of soft blue clouds that seemed oddly delicate on the rough-spoken woman.

Instinct urged Lux to protest Powder’s impropriety, but reason asserted that it was, in fact, very hot next to the forge, and it would be the height of disrespect to tell Powder how she could and couldn’t act in her own place of work. Regardless, Powder seemed oblivious to Lux’s crisis as she plodded over to a barrel sat by the door, wrenched off the lid, which made her arms do a variety of fascinating things, and then dunked her head and half her torso into it with a splash. A moment later, Powder surfaced with a gasp as she slicked back her long hair, grabbed a rag, and began methodically wicking the sweat from her body before shooting a glance at Lux and asking, “Ya hungry?”

“Uh…uhm…” Lux stammered as she forced herself to look away, rubbed at her quickly reddening face, then took a breath before saying, “Y-Yes, I…I suppose I am. I skipped breakfast. I should uhm…go to the refectory. Thank you for letting me stay for a while.”

Powder paused, then shrugged and said, “I meant I’ve got some bread and cheese and a few fresh apples for lunch. If you want, I mean. Nothing fancy, but I don’t mind sharing. All comes from the convent larder anyway.”

Again, propriety urged Lux to demure, but the thought of returning to the shadowed halls of the convent haunted her. “If you really don’t mind, I…I’d like to stay for a bit longer.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame ya,” Powder said with a scoff. “Wait here.” 

She stepped out of the smithy, leaving Lux to ponder that odd reply. She worked for the convent, didn’t she? Despite that, she seemed awfully disdainful of it. Then again, Lux supposed that not everyone who worked at the convent was necessarily doing so out of some great piety. Lux herself certainly wasn’t here for that, so it would be the height of hypocrisy to assume that of everyone else. There was, Lux supposed, nothing wrong with considering it to be a good life and good work. Employment at the convent meant Powder would never be shy of meals nor a roof over her head and would always have some work to do. Additionally, the meager population of this particular convent likely gave Powder ample time for personal projects.

There were indeed worse ways to make a living.

At least if you weren’t born into riches.

Powder returned a few moments later, and Lux perked up as she set a couple of plates down on the table along with a brown sack. From the sack came a loaf of fresh bread, four bright red apples, and a hunk of cheese. Powder broke the bread and cheese in half and split them between the plates before pushing a couple of apples toward Lux. It all looked more like ingredients than lunch, and yet, as Lux broke off some bread and a bit of cheese and took a bite, she thought it might be the finest meal she’d ever had.

They ate in companionable silence broken only when Powder grabbed a knife from somewhere, wiped both sides on the damp linens around her chest, then set about cutting one of her apples into quarters.

Lux watched her move with the same ease and surety that she’d worked the bellows and plied her hammer. There was an economy to her motions that was just slightly mesmerizing.

“Copper for ya thought?” Powder asked suddenly without looking up.

“What?”

Powder flicked a glance up, and the corner of her mouth tugged into the shadow of a smile. “You’re staring. Just wondering what you were thinkin’.”

“O-Oh! I’m so sorry.” Lux flushed and looked away.

“Don’t be,” Powder replied. “Can’t complain about a pretty lady lookin’, y’know? Even if she is a sister.”

A shiver went down Lux’s spine. The way she said that…

The old fear of judgment was still there, but it was tempered somewhat by the knowledge of her situation. Didn’t she have worse things to worry about than what a blacksmith in the arse end of a convent thought of her? Besides, the way Powder had said those words, maybe…

“And if, for argument’s sake, I wasn’t a sister?” Lux asked quietly.

Powder sighed, bit through half a quarter of apple, then chewed, swallowed, and said, “Don’t mind me, blondie. I’m just the blacksmith. I ain’t gonna do anything. Forget I said it.”

“I didn’t mean that in a judgmental way,” Lux said softly. “Just…genuinely asking. If I wasn’t a sister, what would change?”

The blacksmith quirked that eyebrow again. It was a funny habit; like she was asking a question without actually asking. “Dunno. Maybe I’d ask if you wanted to walk the gardens tonight?”

“I’m not allowed out after vespers,” Lux said softly.

“Yeah, but you asked what’d change if you weren’t a sister, remember?” Powder said. “And if you weren’t a sister, vespers wouldn’t matter. Just, y’know, for argument’s sake.”

“R-Right, of course.” Lux smiled, wondering idly if this was really happening. Was Powder really…? “So, for argument’s sake, assuming I was allowed out, why ask me to walk the gardens? Why would I even say yes? Isn’t that a bit…improper?”

Powder clearly didn’t miss the way Lux smiled as she said that last word, and the smith leaned forward with a slice of apple held out between two fingers. “Maybe, but uh, can ya blame me? I’m a cad, remember? A cad and a rakehell?”

“And an oaf,” Lux added playfully.

“Right, can’t forget that.”

Lux took the slice of apple and bit into it. It was sharp and sweet. This time, she didn’t look away. She met those jewel-bright blue eyes and, for a moment, just marveled at how clear they were. In that new boldness, Lux also found herself appreciating the scattering of freckles that dusted across Powder’s nose and cheeks and the way her mouth formed a perfect cupid’s bow. She was an odd but not unpleasant mix of masculine and feminine that Lux actually found rather appealing.

More than appealing if she were being fully honest.

“So supposing I asked if you wanted to walk around the gardens,” Powder continued with exaggerated nonchalance. “Then I suppose it’d be because I think you’re pretty. And because I like pretty girls. And maybe you’d say yes because you like that? But since you are a sister, it couldn’t be that, right?”

Lux swallowed the bite of apple, then stared pensively at the other half as she couldn’t help but notice Powder’s hand was still outstretched. Acting on courage Lux hadn’t realized she possessed, she pressed the remainder of the piece back into Powder’s palm. Their fingers brushed and lingered, and Lux let it happen. There was no one here. No one but the two of them. So she let the blacksmith’s fingers touch hers and relished the rough strength in them. There were callouses that no woman of nobility would ever have. Not even one who learned the blade like the duelists of Laurent. They were warm, too. From this close, Lux could only be fascinated by their graceful length.

Then Powder pulled her hand back and purposefully turned the piece of apple over so the side Lux had bitten into touched her lips first as she bit, chewed, and swallowed before licking some of the juice from those cupid lips.

“You know,” Lux said slowly, “I’m actually not a very good nun.”

“No?”

Lux tried and failed to hide how Powder’s growing grin was infecting her. “No, not at all. In fact, I’m…I’ve already broken a couple of rules. Not intentionally, but rules are rules, you know?”

“Sure,” Powder replied, nodding along sagely.

“In fact, I’m…I’m so hopeless at this that I’ll probably end up breaking plenty of others. Unintentionally, you understand.”

“Right, of course.” Powder continued to nod as the odd huff of laughter escaped her. Lux was having a hard time holding back herself. “So, in that case, if you do end up accidentally breaking that vespers rule, and then, uh, accidentally end up out in the gardens, maybe I’ll walk you back to the convent, y’know?”

“How very gallant of you,” Lux replied airily. “And to think, I accused you of being a rakehell and a cad.”

“And an oaf,” Powder added.

“Of course.” Lux didn’t even bother not batting her eyelashes at Powder after that. “My mistake.”

Powder shrugged. “Happens to the best of us, blondie.”

They ate the rest of their meal in more than companionable silence, with both occasionally looking up, catching the other staring, only to hold the gaze for a moment too long before looking away. The shadows of the convent had never felt so distant. Not since that awful morning in chapel sixteen. For once, Lux was actually looking forward to the evening.

Assuming she could get out without anyone noticing, of course.

That was the rub, though. The Canoness had promised to keep her safe with a guard rotation between Samira—whenever Lux was actually in her quarters during the day—and the Night Canoness, Diana, after vespers. In theory, there ought to be a brief gap between Samira dropping her off at her room and Diana appearing to do patrols up and down the hall. There was no way that Diana didn’t have other duties, so, again, in theory, there should be a window for her to slip down into the lower floors.

As far as Lux could recall, no one had actually bothered to check if she was still in her room. Maybe that was because she had been so afraid of even leaving it that it seemed redundant, which was fair. She was scared.

Maybe it was just the daylight hours, or maybe it was the fair company, but Lux wasn’t so afraid anymore. Rather, she was, but she was less afraid than she was determined to spend a bit of time walking the gardens with a certain charming blacksmith. All she had to do was time her escape for just after Samira left her and just before Diana arrived. She had no idea when the Night Canoness would appear, but at a guess, Lux supposed she would have at least a few minutes of privacy in her hall. Minutes she would use to get to the stairwell that was seventeen doors down from her bedroom.

With their simple repast finish, Lux watched as Powder rose, took up her plate, then reached to take Lux’s. Neither made an effort not to allow their fingers to brush once more, and it sent a shiver down Lux’s spine. It was funny, actually. Lux knew for a fact that Powder didn’t tend to bother cleaning up after her meals by the fact that were was still a plate left over. She had for this one, though. Maybe if only for the excuse.

‘Protector’s wings, I’m practically wanton,’ Lux thought heatedly. ‘Mother would be horrified. How fortunate she’s all the way back in Silvermere.’

When Powder returned, she said nothing, but she did meet Lux’s gaze warmly before returning to her forge, coaxing it back to life, and taking up her hammer and tongs. She did not, however, bother to put her tunic back on.

Lux saw no special need to point that out.

The evening hours came too quickly, and Lux eventually had to force herself to rise and make to depart her little sanctuary from the convent’s shadows. It was growing dark, and the last thing she wanted was for one of the sisters to come looking for her back here and make trouble for Powder.

Knowing now what she did of Powder’s preferences and proclivities might explain why she preferred to live alone and apart from anyone else. If so, then jinx or not, Lux couldn’t help but wonder if some manner of providence had put them both in the same convent at the same time. The more important question was whether or not the sisters knew, and if not, then Lux was not going to be the one to apprise them of that particular fact.

So it was reluctance that stepped out of the smithy with Powder’s eyes on her back. The desire to stay was a palpable thing, and Lux dragged her feet as she stood at the threshold.

Then the wood beside her creaked, and she turned to find the blacksmith leaning, still nearly bare-chested, against the doorjamb as she said, “Want me to walk you back?”

Lux shook her head. “No, I’ll be alright. I just…I’m not looking forward to going back into the convent, that’s all.”

“Like I said, don’t blame ya.”

Frowning, Lux said, “I meant to ask…what did you mean? Do you dislike the sisters? Or the order?”

“Nah, I got nothin’ against them,” Powder replied. “Just uh…me’n the Protector? We got a complicated relationship, that’s all. Besides, dunno if you’ve noticed, but that place is uh…it’s definitely cursed.”

“Jinxed, I think,” Lux replied aridly.

Powder scoffed and nodded. “Yeah, you might be right.”

Her brazen insouciance was both charming and comforting. It was nice to be around someone who had such simple, understandable desires. Nice and maybe a little flattering, but there was nothing wrong with that.

As she finally forced herself to take another step and actually leave, a firm but gentle grip caught her wrist, and she looked back to find Powder with a worried look on her face. The blacksmith hesitated, then said, “If anything ever happens or uh, or you need anything, I’ll be here, okay? Just…Just come knockin’.”

Something about that caught in Lux’s chest, and an overwhelming rush of gratitude filled her to the point that she wasn’t sure what to say or even how to say it if she did. There was no doomsaying and no demands. There were no requests for her to lay on the altar of some unknowable curse that haunted the shadows of the convent.

Just the simple offer of shelter.

Lux laid a hand over Powder’s, then stepped close, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to the woman’s cheek.

“Thank you,” Lux whispered, then drew back.

Powder stared dumbly for a moment before lifting a hand to the place Lux had kissed and nodding silently. Before she could question herself again, Lux turned and all but rushed for the sidepath that would lead to the bailey. If she waited any longer, she was afraid she might not return to the convent at all. She may very well just try to while away the rest of the evening in the company of charming if waggish blacksmith until the Canoness finally sent enough people to scour the grounds to make sure she hadn’t fled into the woods. That would make trouble for everyone.

The sky was orange with the dimming sunset, and thin clouds crowned the horizon beyond the walls as Lux emerged back into the bailey for the first time in hours. There were still a few people milling about here and there, and she spotted Taliyah among them looking concerned until she caught sight of Lux and her expression slackened with relief.

“There you are!” Taliyah rushed to her side and looked her over. “I was starting to think you’d made a run for it when I couldn’t find you for the afternoon meal.”

“I had some bread and cheese with one of the laborers,” Lux replied, then added, “And an apple.”

She would probably remember that apple til the day she died.

Taliyah nodded as she started toward the convent, and Lux dallied for a moment before following. “That’s good. Are you feeling better? You certainly look better than you did this morning.”

“I am, actually,” Lux admitted. “I think I just needed some fresh air.”

Suspicions of the convent and the Canonesses aside, Lux couldn’t find it in herself to be too skeptical of Taliyah. The young woman wore her heart right there on her face, after all. “I know exactly what you mean,” she replied happily. “If I’m cooped up, I start to go stir crazy within a day. If you ever need to be walked out, just let me know. I’m happy to help.”

Lux nodded. “I’ll do that, but I suppose I should put some effort into learning the path from there to here on my own, shouldn’t I? It seems selfish to keep putting you all out just to indulge my desire to stretch my legs.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s no burden,” Taliyah replied, waving off her remark.

“Still.” Lux wasn’t going to admit to Taliyah that her desire to learn the path wasn’t altogether altruistic. So it was that as the young Shuriman woman led her back into the labyrinth of the first floor, Lux refused to allow the shadows a place in her mind as she focused on every step and turn they took.

She fixed those motions in her mind repeating them back to herself over and over, adding each new step as it came, until finally they reached the stairs to the second floor. It would be difficult but not impossible to reverse the path. It would be easier once she got back to her room and could write it down for practice.

Until then, though, she just mouthed the directions over and over as they made their way to the third floor.

‘Left, right, straight, straight, left, right, right, straight, left…’

Chapter Text

The quiet clink of cutlery on plates filled the refectory of the convent. In Lux’s mind, a refectory tended to be a rather large communal space for eating, although admittedly, that was likely due to her family’s strong military ties. In the royal army, eating halls were vast spaces by necessity, as the size of the kingdom required an equally sizeable army to maintain peace both in and along its borders.

In the convent, however, the refectory was more of a large-ish dining room that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the manse of a provincial noble. Everything from the walls to the rugs on the floors to the single long table were sturdily built, but lacking the gilded ostentation of the central nobility—signs of things built for longevity over appearance.

Lux appreciated that. Her family largely preferred function over form to begin with, but Lux was fully aware that she had always been a bit frugal-minded for a noble; something that she was given to understand came directly from her father. Pieter Crownguard was famous for his contempt of frills to the point that it was notable even for someone so deeply entrenched in the campaigner’s mindset. Whatever the case, rough but sturdy had always been Lux’s favored aesthetic, and as she ate her simple meal in silence, she couldn’t help but wonder how much that mindset contributed to her attraction to Powder.

Rough but sturdy.

Lux smiled at the thought.

“You seem like you’re in a fairer mood this evening, Sister Crownguard.” Canoness Leona’s words popped the comfortable bubble that Lux had been sheltering in, and her smile wilted as she looked from the evening stew.

It was a good stew; savory and filling, and well made despite it’s simple ingredients. Lux still would have traded it and the other comforts of the refectory for a chance to share a plate of bread and cheese, and maybe another apple, with Powder.

“The mountain air agreed with me,” Lux said quietly before taking another perfunctory bite of her stew.

“So it would seem.” Leona was already finished with her meal, and had set her bowl aside. She had also doffed her cap, allowing her thick curls of auburn to fall around her shoulders.

Leona Solari wasn’t the only one, either. Lux gathered that dinner being somewhat more casual was a normal thing for the convent. That and the size of the table versus the meager number of occupants meant that it was fairly clear what some of the dynamics were; Kai’sa and Taliyah were sitting practically hip-to-hip, and anytime Taliyah was looking one way, Kai’sa would be looking everywhere else. She reminded Lux of one of her estate’s guard hounds moreso than anything else. Samira was seated across from Kai’sa, though the two only spoke sparing, and shortly down from Samira was Sona, who continued to be a woman of few—or rather no—words, but, Lux suspected, many thoughts. The only other clear Demacian in the room watched everyone else from hooded eyes and from behind a waterfall of blue silk, finely kept in a way only a noblewoman’s could be.

Finally, there was another face at the table sitting nearly as close to Leona as Kai’sa was to Taliyah. One Lux didn’t recognize but, by both context and process of elimination, knew could only be one woman: the Night Canoness, Diana Argentius.

She and Leona were studies in contrast. Where Leona was broad and tall, Diana was compact and of middling height at best. The Day Canoness had a sturdy build that Lux could easily imagine carrying the weight of plate and blade, but the Night Canoness, while far from looking weak, had a far more svelte figure. She had the look of a dancer, Lux thought.

Likewise, her appearance agreed with both her title and role. Where Leona was sun-kissed to the point of being nearly bronze, Diana was pale as the moon, with bright, silver-grey eyes lined with kohl, and a waist-length braid of luminous silver hair.

This was the woman who was guarding her room last night.

Lux’s appetite soured and she pushed the remaining stew away before looking up at the pair of Canonesses and saying, “I’m sure Samira told you, but guarding my door seems to be a waste of time since my jinx cared very little about the Night Canoness’ presence last night. If it’s all the same to you, I don’t think it’s necessary anymore.”

Diana visibly stiffened, her spoon hovering more than halfway to her lips, and those steely eyes flicked up to fix on Lux. There was ice that gaze, but only for a moment. Then Leona laid a hand on her counterpart’s arm, and Diana’s entire body softened.

“I disagree,” Leona said smoothly. “If for no other reason than, if something does happen that puts you in danger, we’ll be close at hand to help rather than far down the hall.”

“With respect, Canoness, if my jinx doesn’t want you to help, then I highly doubt you’ll be able to gainsay her,” Lux replied.

“Her?” Diana finally spoke. Her voice was pleasantly husky.

“Yes,” Lux replied, unwilling to budge as she looked the Night Canoness in the eye. “Her.”

Diana narrowed her gaze. “You speak of the Omen as if it’s a person, but it isn’t. Do not mistake that being for anything like mortal. You may not live to regret it.”

That was true enough, but… “Again,” Lux replied, “with respect, and given that I’ve met her and you haven’t, I believe I’ll refer to her as my experience accords.”

A cough came from Samira that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh, and Lux looked around to find everyone staring at her like she’d just grown a second head. Even Sona was looking at her with raised eyebrows which was probably the greatest display of emotion that Lux had yet seen on the woman.

“You know,” Diana responded after a moment, “perhaps Sister Crownguard is correct. I believe I do have more productive things I could be doing with my evening than uselessly pacing the hall outside of her room.” She turned to Leona. “If she is so certain that the Omen’s will is inviolable, then even should it choose to snuff her out, who are we to gainsay the expert?”

Leona sighed and pressed her brow to her steepled fingers, and her lips moved silently in the shape of a common prayer for strength before adversity. “Diana, my moon, I beg you soothe your choler. Sister Crownguard has had an exceptionally trying few days, and given that our last attempt to safeguard her against the Omen’s influence failed, she has every right to be unenthused.

“Little sister, I grasp your frustration with these circumstances, and I confess I do not envy you them in the slightest. If I could promise you your safety with certainty, I would. All I can do for now is to ensure that aid is nearby should something untoward occur and promise you that the Omen is not a will of evil. I do not believe she will harm you, however hard that is to believe for yourself.”

“I understand, but you’ll forgive me if I’m spare on trust right now,” Lux replied 

“We are not asking you to trust us,” Diana said cooly. “We are simply trying to protect you, sister.”

Lux bit her lip to try and stem the flow of her temper, but in the end, it overpowered her, and she turned to glare at the Night Canoness. “From what, pray tell? If my jinx is, as you say, not a will of evil, then what precisely are you protecting me from?”

“It is better that you not. Know.”

“Naturally,” Lux said through her teeth before rising from her seat and saying, “I believe I will attend to my own vespers in privacy, Canoness. You’re welcome to station someone at my door, but I’d hate for them to miss their own prayers.”

“Lux…” Taliyah started.

Kai’sa silenced her with a hand on the young nomad’s shoulder. “It’s fine, Tali,” she said, speaking clearly for the first time that Lux could recall. “Let the new sister test the Omen’s patience. If it’s anything like the djinn, it won’t indulge her tantrum for long.”

“Kai!” Samira hissed. The Noxian’s face bore an expression of leonine anger, and Kai’sa pinned her mouth shut.

Though, she didn’t apologize.

“Sister Crownguard…Luxanna,” Leona began slowly. “You may do so if you wish, but I think it would be best if you were alone as little as possible.”

Lux’s eyes lingered on the shadows in the corners of the dining room for a moment before she tore them away, turned back to the Canoness, and said, “I already am, your Grace. I am not even allowed privacy in my slumber anymore, after all. Make of that what you will.”

She left the dining room with a heavy silence in her wake but couldn’t be bothered to care. No one wanted to tell her anything. It was all just grim references and suggestions, and frankly, Lux was sick of it. At that point, she couldn’t imagine the answers would be any worse than the constant, devouring paranoia that was gnawing at the edges of her mind day and night.

At that point, Lux was almost looking forward to the jinx’s next visit, if only because she was actually unknowable.

The dining room door shut with a funereal thump, and Leona Solari sighed, grimaced, then turned and thumped her elbow into Diana’s side. “Could you not show the girl an iota of kindness, my moon? A sliver of grace?”

Diana rubbed at her bicep as she frowned, then said, “I admit I allowed my temper to better me, but there’s nothing we can tell her that won’t make things worse! She isn’t veiled!”

“I am aware,” Leona stressed. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be gentle to her! You are demanding she remain willfully ignorant while things occur around her that she cannot explain and which even endanger her. You, of all people, should understand how that must feel!”

“I…y-yes, I…I know.” Diana turned away, and a pang of regret settled in Leona’s chest.

She reached out and took Diana’s hand, lacing their fingers beneath the table. “I don’t regret my excommunication from the Mount, my darling moon. Not now. Not ever. You were worth it.”

“Speaking of,” Samira broke in, drawing Leona’s eye to the ex-mercenary who was glowering at Kai’sa. “You could also stand to welcome the girl a little more, Kai. She isn’t trying to steal Taliyah from you any more than I was, hey? Your jealousy is an ugly thing when you let it better you like that.”

Kai’sa winced, then turned to Taliyah, who was looking at her with an air of disappointment and winced again. “I’m…I’m sorry. I’ll apologize to her later.”

“See that you do,” Leona said pointedly. “Making enemies of ourselves to her will only make her situation worse. Even if she doesn’t know Their names, she may fall prey to Them anyway if she feels alone enough.” Then she turned. “Sona, since Sister Crownguard has retired early, perhaps you can tell me if you heard anything unusual around her?”

In reply, Sister Sona Buvelle drew out a slate and a bite of chalk from one of her habit pockets and began to scribble on it. Leona had always admired how neat and delicate her handwriting was, even in chalk. Her calligraphy was practically a work of art on its own. Then again, Sona had had more reason than most to practice such skills, being mute.

When she was finished, she passed the slate down the table to Leona, who took it up and read over it.

‘She may be hearing whispers, though I heard nothing while she was here. The shadows are growing deeper. It’s not as bad as it was this morning, but it grew worse during dinner, and where darkness comes, fear follows.’

Frowning, Leona handed the slate over to her counterpart and partner, then said, “I was afraid of that. But she’s not ready. And besides, we need to determine why the Omen wants her before we do anything that might endanger her further.”

“Canoness?” Taliyah said suddenly.

“Yes, little sister?”

“Do we have any more fresh apples in the kitchens?”

Leona furrowed her brow thoughtfully, then said, “I’d be surprised if we did. They’re out of season by now, and I think our last bushels of them came over a month ago. I’m certain we’ve either preserved what’s left or otherwise baked them into pies. Why?”

“That’s what I thought,” Taliyah replied, then she shook her head. “But Sister Crownguard said one of the laborers shared an apple with her during lunch.”

“That was kind of them,” Leona replied warmly. “They likely just saved it. They’re a rare treat this late in the year. Did she say who it was? I’d like to thank them if possible.”

“I forgot to ask,” Taliyah said.

“Well,” Leona continued, “at least someone made her feel welcome.”

Lux counted the minutes and hours as she sat at her desk and tried to focus on Metus et Tenebrae, but made little progress. Partially, it was the vulgar Targonian that gave her linguistic skills a test, but the rest of it was just pure distraction. She wanted the night to come quicker and silently urged the hours to pass with greater alacrity.

She managed a little more translation, but it was slow going. The author of the book had a tendency to digress severely in places. They also continued to be annoyingly oblique about exact dates and times, making it continually difficult to place the date of the book and, therefore, establish a baseline context for the dialect. It was damnably inconsistent, too. Pages would be almost cold in how direct they were, giving clear instructions on how to perform nonsense rituals. Other times, whole pages would be dedicated to esoteric philosophies on the cosmic dance of stars and planets and the wills of inhuman spirits.

Her lack of focus on the matter was certainly not helping, and Lux was sure she’d just end up going over everything she’d read that evening again with a clearer mind sometime later. Probably in the daytime when the shadows were not so cloying.

Maybe tomorrow, she would take the book out to the rear of the keep and work in Powder’s smithy. It wasn’t the cleanest place, but it would be nice to work in the light. Then again, depending on how that evening went, Powder’s presence would probably not meaningfully contribute to her ability to focus.

Lux couldn’t find it in herself to be overly troubled by that.

A knock came at her door suddenly, and Lux startled before turning to glare at it. She knew it was childish of her to play silent, but dinner had left her bitter and feeling less than charitable toward the Sisters of Her Sheltering Wings.

‘‘Sheltering’ my pampered buttocks,’ Lux thought sourly.

Another knock. Then, “Sister,” came Samira’s voice, “I just wanted to ensure you were well before I went to bed, hey? And to…well, never you mind. I don’t mind your mood, but can you at least tell me you’re alright?”

Samira, at least, had been kind to her. Lux still wasn’t sure she trusted the woman or, in fact, any of the women in the convent, but Samira was at least trying. That deserved something.

“I’m fine, Sister,” Lux said quietly. “Goodnight.”

There was a muffled sigh of relief, then, “Goodnight, Sister Crownguard. Canoness Diana should be by soon. I don’t expect her to bother you. Sleep well.”

Lux waited until she heard Samira’s footsteps departing before scoffing and saying, “Not likely.”

Then she stood—her copied directions for the first floor clutched in one hand—and went to the door. Lux pressed her ear to it and straining to hear the echoes of footsteps. She heard them for a moment before they faded into the distance. Surely Samira turning a corner, then?

Surely.

Lux waited a ten-count anyway before pushing her door open slightly and looking to either side. Before her will could fail her, she slipped out, shut the door behind her as quietly as she was able, and darted for the stairwell. She counted seventeen doors down, then opened the final door to reveal the stairs, bereft of any holy sisters.

Diana was likely in the Canoness’ office exchanging duties with the Day Canoness. That meant that, at least for now, everyone should be on the third floor. Everyone except whoever was maintaining the vigil of adoration, which Lux still wondered about. If she had met everyone, then who was performing the vigil? She kept seeing the same small number of sisters, but if there was a schedule of duty to perform vigil in shifts, shouldn’t one of them be missing from each routine?

Whatever the case, it was just one more inconsistency amongst a sea of them. Lux tried not to let it trouble it her as she descended to the second level and followed her memory until she found the next stairwell leading down.

This would be the real test of things.

Lux had written down every turn and straight line Taliyah had taken that evening upon their return. Before dinner, she had envisioned the path from the bailey to the stairwell, those directions perfectly in her mind’s eye. It was a talent she inherited from, of all people, her mother. A perfect memory, where each event was captured like a painting in her mind that she could not only revisit at will but in detail, and even step into that painting should she need more.

Then came the hard part. Lux had reversed the order of the steps, carefully ensuring she could backtrack the path, going instead from stairwell to bailey. It wasn’t as easy because it wasn’t as clear of a memory. Those paintings in her mind weren’t produced by happenstance but were a product of focus. So long as she was focusing, she could form that indelible memory. The problem was that she hadn’t been paying close attention during the walk to the outdoors that morning. Her mind had been…otherwise occupied.

Lux was regretting that distraction somewhat.

All she could do was hope that her preparation had been enough.

Her feet touched the stone of the first-floor hall, and Lux shivered as she shut the stairway door behind her. This place was designed to get you lost. She forced herself to remember that above all as she focused not on the halls but on the directions, took the first turn she had written down, and began to walk.

Instinct made her want to rush, if only to be out of the labyrinth sooner. She hated the first floor with a passion and, curiously, Lux had the oddest feeling that floor hated her just as much. There was a hostility to it that created an atmosphere of dread, like being trapped in the house of an unpleasant and disapproving relative.

Or maybe spending the day with her mother.

Lux tried to push away the whispers and shadows that her mind was conjuring as she followed the directions step-by-step, refusing to make haste despite her desire. It would work. It had to work. The directions were clear, and so long as she followed the directions, they would bring her to the—

A tremble threatened to settle into Lux’s limbs as she reached the end of the directions and looked up to find herself not in front of the great double doors of the convent keep’s gate, but a normal, wooden door. Lux swallowed thickly as she looked back down at the directions, tracked her mind back through her last several turns, but found no error.

Looking back up, she examined the door, then a chill went down her spine as her eyes landed on the doorknob and she spied the Targonian numerals etched there.

I V

The Chapel of the Vigil.

Chapter Text

Lux stood silent in front of chapel four, realizing with a sort of jarring abruptness that she could satisfy one of her moments of curiosity right then and there if she wanted to. She was equally aware that she shouldn’t—one of the very small handful of things the Canoness had been clear about was that the vigil was never to be interrupted.

A very small, petty part of Lux wanted to be that interruption, not because she wanted to know what was inside or thought it mattered to her situation in particular. She wanted to do it because the Canonesses and the Sisters and her parents and all of Demacia had incidentally conspired to put her right there, miserable, angry, and alone. She wanted to do it because there would be an ironic and vengeful poetry in their own actions producing a result they didn’t like.

It would be satisfying.

‘Beyond this door,’ a voice in the back of Lux’s mind whispered, ‘are answers to everything that I (you) want to know. If I (you) just open the door, at least something would make sense. You (I) just have to open the door.’

The feeling of cold metal on Lux’s fingers startled her, and she looked down to find her hand outstretched and fingers brushing the brass knob right where the Targonian numeral ‘I V’ was embossed. There was a weight upon her like a deep depression. It was the weight of a sky made black by endless thunder clouds heavy with unspent rain but unwilling to weep. Instead, those black clouds drifted like a vast gloom stretched across the firmament, bringing darkness where they went.

Lux’s eyes burned with a sudden onslaught of weariness, and what little light there was in the halls was fading as if the shadows were encroaching upon the guttering lamps. Somewhere in the distance, Lux could hear the drip, drip, drip of a liquid too thick and heady to be water, and in that moment, she knew with the certainty of a dreamer that she was alone.

All alone in the dark.

‘If I open this door, there will be another sister. If I open this door, someone will be there. If I open this door, I won’t be alone.’ The thought repeated itself like a mantra in her head, blending together in a soupy mixture of word and idea until there was just an echo bouncing around inside of her skull like, ‘If I open this door, if I open this door, I open this door, open this door, ope n this door, open this door, OPEN THE D—’

The dream heaved, and for the briefest instant, Lux was aware of that vastness. Though she hadn’t moved, vertigo assailed her as Lux thought the world had upended itself. In that instant, she thought that there was no convent and there was no door, and that the halls were only halls because she had been told they were halls when, really, they were just the idea of halls. They were moving. Or maybe they had always been moving?

Lux wasn’t moving. She knew that. Her feet were planted, and there was nothing moving, but suddenly, she felt quite outside of herself, and everything seemed an illimitable distance away from her.

Even the dark.

“Blondie?”

Lux nearly leapt out of her habit as she whipped around, only to find herself staring out at the bailey. She was standing on the threshold of the convent, her hand gripping the handle of one of the great double doors of the keep. Moonlight and starlight streamed down, carried on late summer winds made cool by the mountains around them.

The dream certainty was gone and, in its place, was left the sands of a sleep that Lux could not remember having. Hadn’t she just been in front of the fourth chapel? She had, hadn’t she? Except that her notes ought to have taken her precisely where she was standing. They ought to have left her right there at the threshold of the keep. She was right where she was supposed to be.

So why did it feel like she wasn’t supposed to be there at all?

Feeling untethered and frankly quite scared, Lux took three stumbling steps down onto the cobbled path that led to the bailey gardens and threw herself into the arms of the blacksmith who was waiting there for her.

“OH! Uh, y-you—?” Powder stammered as she took a step back to from being pitched off her feet by the impact, even as her arms looped protectively around Lux. “Hey, sister? You…? Are you okay?”

“No,” Lux sobbed as she slowly sank to her knees, dragging Powder down with her. “No, I don’t think I am.”

Powder just nodded as she sat down and cradled Lux. Her arms were as strong as Lux had imagined they would be during the fair day that seemed to be months or years past, not hours. She laid her head against Powder’s lean chest and, for a moment, allowed herself to be lost in the steady beat of the smith’s heart. Powder’s hands, though rough, were gentle with her as she rubbed soothing circles against Lux’s back with one while the other held fast ‘round the waist.

They remained that way for long enough that Lux’s fingers started to ache with how hard she was clutching at Powder’s tunic. Despite that, she didn’t want to move. She was safe in Powder’s arms, and that was all she was absolutely certain of.

Powder cleared her throat softly, though, and carefully prised herself off of Lux, braced her by the shoulders, and looked her over before saying, “You’re an odd one, Sister Crownguard.”

A hiccup escaped Lux as she reached up to pull off her cap which had gone askew anyway, then said, “I think I prefer ‘blondie’.”

“Yeah,” Powder replied wryly. “Me, too.” Then she stood slowly and, as she did, asked, “So uh, you wanna call this off? Much as I like a moonlit walk with a pretty lady, I gotta say, you’re right. You don’t look okay.”

“How long as I there?” Lux asked.

“At the door?”

“Yes.”

Powder shrugged. “I called out as soon I noticed ya. Seemed like you were in trouble or somethin’, but you look alright now.”

Lux didn’t move from where she’d half-collapsed on the cobblestone path. “The first floor of the convent is a maze. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know, and they won’t tell me. But I memorized the way back and even wrote it down, but when I followed it, I thought it took me somewhere different.”

“So you got a turn wrong,” Powder replied easily. “It happens.”

“Except I didn’t,” Lux replied, frowning. “I’m sure I was right, and it’s strange because it felt almost like…like a dream. Or a nightmare. And then I heard your voice and I…and suddenly I was at the door. It was like I’d just woken up.”

“Maybe you’re just tired,” Powder said, then held out a hand. “You sure you’re up for a walk, blondie?”

Lux huffed, and she stared at that calloused hand. “I don’t know what I’m ‘up’ for,” she admitted. “I just know that I’m so scared all the time.”

But Powder, stolid as ever, didn’t budge. She just kept her hand held out as she said, “Don’t be scared.”

Lux looked up past the outstretched hand to Powder’s jewel eyes and crooked smile, and frowned. A hint of that vertigo came back, and then the sky overhead seemed to bend around Powder’s head. Then she blinked, and it was gone.

“Blondie?” Powder’s angelic face was furrowed in concern.

“Be not afraid,” Lux whispered.

“Huh?”

“N-Nothing.” Lux swallowed back her fear, took Powder’s hand, and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

Before Lux could dip back into panic or paranoia, Powder—insouciant as ever—offered her arm in comical mock chivalry. Lux could only roll her eyes and take it. The rakish grin Powder gave her did wonders to banish the cobwebs of nightmare fear from Lux’s mind as she let Powder tow her down the path and into the bailey garden proper.

Taking a deep breath, Lux savored the scent of flowers and herbs as she held herself close to the blacksmith. Powder was so warm, and their closeness made her feel all the warmer for the cool air. As they walked the cobblestone path, Lux was struck once again by an overwhelming sense of peace. Like, out here, she was further from the awful things haunting her in the convent. It was like the very stones of the place were part of a tomb built specially for her and fashioned wholly to keep her buried beneath them. Powder, then, was the blasphemous grave robber, come to unearth golden treasures clutched in dead and withered hands.

Only poor luck meant the blacksmith had found her instead.

Perhaps it was selfish that Lux should benefit from that misfortune.

There were no lamps outside the convent, though there were sconces for torches. Those were unlit, though, for there was no real need for them. Once, when the place had been a fortress, they would have served the night watch, but the convent’s days of protecting an empire from its enemies were long over.

Still, the moon was high, and the sky was clear.

“You know,” Lux murmured, her voice soft and low because she felt speaking too loudly would be somehow offensive to this place, “I always thought the moon was just the right amount of light.”

“Y’think so?” Powder asked, sounding oddly curious.

“People call her the ‘lesser light’, but I’ve always liked the moonlight,” Lux replied with a nod. “Maybe it’s because I’ve always been afraid of the dark. The moon was a light even in the dead of night.”

Powder laid a hand over Lux’s where it rested on their joined arms. “Meant t’ask,” she said. “But why’d ya bother coming out in the middle of the night when you’re afraid of the dark, huh? I mean, I know I’m good-lookin’, but that’s crazy, Blondie.”

“A cad and a rakehell,” Lux murmured.

“And an oaf.”

Lux chuckled. “A cad, a rakehell, and an oaf.”

“That’s me.” Powder grinned and winked at her.

“Sounds like the start of a bad joke.”

Powder clicked her tongue and nodded before saying, “Y’know, it does, doesn’t it? How’s this for a joke? A cad, a rakehell, and an oaf walk into a pub, and the bartender asks’er, what’ll it be? And so she points down to the pretty blondie at the end of the bar and says, ‘I’ll take one’a those’.”

Against every ounce of propriety and stately good humor that had ever been instilled in her, Lux snorted and started to laugh. It was so brazen of a jest that it was either that or slap her companion for the evening, and, honestly, Powder might take that as a compliment, too. It was actually a little frustrating that the quirks and mannerisms she found so appalling in the young men of the aristocracy should be so charming coming from the lips of an uncultured blacksmith from the hinterlands. Did that make her a hypocrite? Maybe. But by that point, Lux was past caring. Two days had seen her experience more strain in the convent than a year of high society.

The world owed her a little hypocrisy, at the very least.

Instead of thinking any harder on that, Lux looked down at Powder. It was funny, actually. Now that they were walking side-by-side, Powder had to be at least a foot shorter than her, not that you’d know it from her bravado and confidence. To be honest, Lux had always felt a little self-conscious about her height. She’d come by it honestly, of course. Her father, brother, and paternal aunt were all even taller than her.

That didn’t make it any less awkward.

“Copper for ya thoughts, Blondie?” Powder asked suddenly, her voice raspy even as she kept it low.

Lux smiled softly as she murmured back, “Just that I admire your tenacity. I’m barely a nun, a failure of a noble house, and I’ve got at least a foot over you. None of those things are what I’d call appealing.”

“Hey, I don’t give a damn who you were,” Powder said. “I happen to like ya just fine as you are. And as for the height, I mean, if I didn’t like girls taller than me, I’d never get a second glance, y’know?”

Again, Lux snorted as she suppressed a wave of mirth. “Protector help me, but I’m almost upset that I can’t tell why I find you so appealing.”

“Just my dashing good looks, I guess,” Powder replied.

“Heavens, but you are a rake.” Lux shook her head in mock dismay. “A rake at the gates of hell.”

For some reason, Powder’s expression dulled at that remark. It wasn’t quite a frown, but there was something brittle about it. Then it was gone and she was grinning again. “Careful there, Blondie. Girl might start to get ideas if you keep complimenting her like that.”

“How often do you get slapped?”

“Eh, less than you’d think but probably more’n you’d hope.”

Lux shook her head but couldn’t keep the smile off of her face as she did. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Really, though,” Powder continued, taking a more serious tone as they reached the far end of the bailey gardens. “I’m not…I’m not trying to scare you off, Blondie. I really do like you.

The gate that had brought Lux into the convent just a couple of days ago now stood closed before her. A crazy part of her really did consider just climbing the steps to the crenellations and figuring a way to scale down from there. She could walk to Fossbarrow. From there, she could certainly get a carriage back to High Silvermere by way of the mayor since he was a Crownguard retainer. It would have been the easiest thing in the world, excepting for one exceedingly atrocious night walking through the woods, but…but it was possible.

If only everyone else who had tried that hadn’t died.

“Maybe this sounds silly,” Lux replied, “but I don’t have the luxury of even being frightened off.” She turned to look down at Powder again and pressed her lips to a thin line. “I’m chained here as surely as the stones of the convent, I’m afraid. Lucky you.”

“Doesn’t feel very lucky,” Powder said quietly.

Lux sighed. “I’m…I apologize. I didn’t mean to ruin the mood. I was just thinking that I’d like to go home, but I really can’t. I wish I could explain why, but frankly, I barely understand it myself.”

Slowly, they turned about and began the slow walk down the cobbled path toward the convent again. Really, it was a beautiful night for a walk. The moon was high in the sky and there was only a sparse scattering of clouds, meaning that even in the dead of night, it wasn’t a chore to see where they were going. The beds of flowers were beautifully tended and wonderfully fragrant, and every breath was full of the bounty around them.

“Powder?” Lux said softly, and the smith looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. “I just wanted to thank you for giving me my first pleasant night in this place. For the first time in months, in fact, I was looking forward to the sun going down. Honestly, this whole past year has been utterly miserable for me.”

Powder chuckled aridly. “Wow. Guess bein’ nobility ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”

“I suppose it’s fine so long as you don’t mind everyone telling you where to go and what to do and who you can or cannot talk to every single moment of your life.”

“Yeah…I’ll take my dilapidated smith shack behind the convent if it’s all the same to you,” Powder replied with the flattest affect Lux had ever heard to the point that it clawed another giggle out of her.

Then they reached the convent itself, and the humor quickly dissipated as Lux found herself staring down the doors as the grim realization set in that she was going to have to go back through the labyrinth.

Initially, it hadn’t bothered her. After all, she more or less had a map that would get her from the doors to the stairs. Or at least, that’s what it should have done. Except that now, Lux was possessed of the dark premonition that if she were to try and walk the long, dark halls of the first floor by herself again, she would only end up right back in front of the fourth chapel. Outside, under the starlight, it was easier to pretend that it was all just a strange fever dream that took her while she was walking; as if she had drifted off briefly while upright.

If only that were true.

“You alright, Blondie?”

Lux swallowed thickly, hesitated, then forced herself to say, “No, I don’t think so…this is going to sound silly, but I don’t want to go back through those doors, because I really think that if I do, I might not come out. Or that even if I am still alive by morning light, whoever finds me in those halls will discover that I’ve gone stark raving mad.”

To her surprise, Powder shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “Doesn’t sound silly at all. I told ya, that place is cursed. Wouldn’t go in there for love or money…” then paused and made a point of looking Lux up and down, then said, “Well, maybe love.”

Another snort escaped Lux and said, “You’re absolutely shameless, you know that?”

“Yeah, well, who’s got time for shame, huh?” Powder grinned, then the expression softened as she stepped back and took Lux’s hand—twining their fingers together as she did. “Hey, if you don’t wanna go back, then don’t. You’re welcome to stay the night with me. It’s not much, but it’s got a roof and a bed. I promise it’s more comfortable than it looks.”

That was probably the most appealing offer she’d gotten all night and had nothing to do with the fact that a handsome blacksmith was making it. Well, mostly nothing. Still, Lux dithered for a moment before just taking the plunge and asking, “I suppose there’s only the one bed, hm?”

Powder waved her off. “Yeah, but I only sleep in it half the time away. The other half, I fall asleep at my desk or somethin’. Believe it or not, I…I’m not trying to get you into bed like that, Blondie.” She took Lux’s other hand and held them tight. “I really do like you, so…y’know…I wanna do this right. Or at least, as right as an ashmouthed bumpkin can do by right by a bright light like you.”

“I uhm…I-I was already going to say yes,” Lux stammered, her cheeks pink and deeply warm by that point.

“Oh, well…” Powder looked around sheepishly, then shrugged. “At least you know where I stand, y’know?”

“About a foot below me?”

“Haha. Hilarious.”

“But really,” Lux said much more softly. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, Blondie,” Powder replied with that absurdly charming crooked grin of hers. “Now, c’mon. Let’s get around back. No point standing here and waiting for the moon to fall on us.”

Her mother would be appalled that she was going to be sleeping in another woman’s bed. She’d been even more appalled that said bed was in a shack behind the convent. For some reason, that didn’t bother Lux as much as it would have a week ago, and as they stepped between the outer wall and the inner keep to follow the ruts to the rear, Lux made a decision.

It was very honorable of Powder to give her the bed, really it was. It was charming in a completely different way than her waggish usual behavior. But with that being said, Lux decided wasn’t exactly going to to insist on it.

Chapter Text

Lux wasn’t sure if she was asleep or awake when she started hearing them.

Crows.

It was a sound that swept across her with a slow, heavy weight in the air, not unlike a great thunderstorm sweeping inexorably across the plains. In the very same way that the air would start to grow thick with unspent rain and begin to taste faintly of iron, coming of the crows was heralded by a deep, cloying dread.

Pushing herself upright from where she lay on the blacksmith’s narrow cot, Lux stared out the window and up at what parts of the sky she could see beyond the shadow of the convent. The sound of crows was growing louder with every passing second, and though she could not see it, Lux knew that it was pushing before an all-consuming wave of darkness.

Then it struck them.

The darkness crashed upon the convent and swallowed it with a nigh-physical force. A substance like pitch-black fog surged over the walls and began to fill the bailey and the rear yard. It splashed and bit at the convent walls, spilled through narrow windows, and Lux swore she could hear screaming coming from within. The blackness swept toward her, too.

Lux fell onto her back on the bed with a cry, throwing her arms out before her—certain she would be swallowed up. The dark reaching for her was not mindless. It was not water. It was a will of evil. Then suddenly, the forge adjacent to Powder’s meager living quarters, which had been dark and cold a moment ago, erupted into a blazing star! The darkness struck it hard and swept around them as if it had split against a mighty breakwater. It hissed and spat like oil thrown on a hot iron, and wherever that darkness washed it was carried on a tidal surge of whispers. Something in them reached out to Lux despite the light of the forge, and Lux, in her panic cast about for Powder as she back up.

But she was alone. The small room that served as both a bedroom and sitting room was empty of all life but her, and there was only whispers and the cawing of a vast murder of crows. The light was not enough. It would never be enough. Lux knew that as she scrabbled away until her back struck the foot the bed.

The darkness was leaking into through the door and the windows and the between the very slats of wood that made up the shack. It was reaching for her. Whispering for her. Calling for her to come out into the dark and give herself up.

Lux almost answered, if only to free herself of the cacophony.

Almost.

Another light—blue, this time—flooded out from behind her and cast the darkness bac. There was a rustle, and then six great, black wings swept around her, wrapping her up. They were harsh and stiff, and against her will and her own better judgment, Lux turned to look behind herself.

There, perched on the wooden slat that made up the foot of the was a figure that was manifold and many, and yet singular at the same time. It was shadow and suggestion, and yet everywhere she looked, Lux found hard lines and edges. Eyes like springberry lanterns glared out from the joints of her wings, and from the roiling shadows of her body—glaring not at Lux, but at the dark, as if she had some dire grudge against it. Maybe that was why Lux was able to look at her this time without feeling like her mind was bending in half. Last time, her Jinx was looking right at her, but this time, all of that dire regard was pointed past her.

What most drew Lux’s eyes, though, was not the inhuman and impossible shapes of her Jinx. It was the one possible shape that was stretching obscenely out of it. From the uncountable and evershifting mass of her core, a single limb was raised straight up, outstretched in the shape of an arm with its fingers curled out a something like a gemstone.

A bright, blue gemstone.

“Why?” Lux whispered as she abruptly found her tongue amidst the drowning fear. “Why me?”

And then that dire regard returned. Eyes fixed on her. Two eyes. A thousand eyes. It was one, the other, nothing, and both at the same time, and suddenly Lux was falling and falling and—

Lux jolted awake, gasping for air, and sat bolt upright to stare at the foot of the bed where her Jinx had lately been perched. There was nothing there. Nothing at all. Just a wooden slat, and beyond it a small, handmade chest of drawers. Powder was in her desk chair and sprawled partway over her desk in a state that looked abominably uncomfortable, and yet, somewhere, also completely natural.

Clutching the thin blanket to her chest, Lux turned to stare out the window and up into the graying day. She couldn’t have gotten more than a handful of hours with how early it was. At least it was starting to brighten, though. Lux knew she would have to force herself to go back through that labyrinth if she wanted to sneak back into her room, and she had put it off as long as she reasonably could.

A rustle came from behind her, and Lux nearly screamed aloud. She only saved her dignity by clapping both hands over her mouth to muffle the noise as she jolted and looked back to find Powder rising sleepily from her desk, a piece of parchment stuck fast to her the side of her face as she smacked her lips and looked blearily around before turning to look back at Lux.

“Mornin’, Blondie,” Powder muttered. “You goin’ back?”

Lux laid a hand over her thundering heart. For a moment, she’d heard the sounds of wings amidst the rustling of parchment. “Y-Yes, I uhm. I need to at least try and get back to my room, or else I’m certain to catch an earful from the other sisters.”

She gathered up the outer robes of her habit, which she had shed and laid over the blankets for extra warmth without the uncomfortable tangle of them ‘round her limbs. Powder watched her dress, a thin smile and a total lack of shame on her features as she did so. It wasn’t shame that had kept Powder out of the bed, but rather, simple respect. When they had reached that little shack in the rear yard, Lux had made it clear that she wouldn’t put Powder out of her bed, and had even tried—just a little—to coax her the other way. Powder had been adamant, though.

‘Maybe next time, Blondie,’ she had said with that crooked smile of hers. ‘F’now, get some sleep.’

There was a gallantry hidden amidst Powder’s waggish humor that Lux found endearing if, perhaps, a little frustrating. Her parents had directed her to become a nun. That didn’t mean she actually wanted to spend her life celibate, and improper as it might be, Lux wouldn’t have said no to a tumble.

Not with Powder, at least.

Ah well, from the way the blacksmith was watching her, there was sure to be other nights. Nights when her gallantry wasn’t quite as overwhelming, Lux hoped.

Lux finished buttoning her habit and turned to retrieve her cap, only to find Powder holding it out to her. She took it gratefully and set it in place, only pausing to card her fingers through her hair a few times to tease out a few snarls. 

That’s what she told herself.

In truth, Lux was well aware that she was simply delaying the inevitable. She had hoped that after a night of dalliance or, at least, rest, the task of passing through the first floor of the convent would seem less daunting. It was a vain hope, and Lux had more or less known that would be the case, but she had still held onto that hope nonetheless. She still wasn’t sure if she ought to try following the directions she had in her pocket. Perhaps they would work this time. Perhaps they had worked last time, and some madness had overtaken her. There was no way to know for sure.

“Miss Powder, can I ask you a silly question?”

Powder looked up from her desk where she had been gathering things for, Lux presumed, her daily duties. “Sure, why not?”

“Do you think it’s possible for madness to be…contagious?” Lux asked hesitantly. “Like a plague, I mean.”

“So like, passin’ from person to person?” Powder asked.

“Mm, yes.”

Powder shrugged. “I mean, I dunno. Sounds crazy to me but, I mean, if it’s crazy we’re talkin’ about, then I don’t see why not.”

“What about…a place?” Lux asked, although the moment she said it, she halfway regretted it. It sounded bafflingly silly as it passed her lips.

Except Powder just let out a thoughtful hum, then said, “Y’know, that I actually think happens more than the whole person-to-person idea. A place goin’ mad, I mean? Pretty sure that happens all the time.”

“R-Really?” Lux asked.

“Sure.” Powder ran her fingers through her ragged hair and chuckled. “Ain’t you ever been in an old place and just got a…a feeling about it? Like the place feels some which way about you, even though it’s just stone and mortar and wood. Like it’s got an opinion and maybe that opinion isn’t all that good?”

Lux laughed hollowly and nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Why do you ask?” Powder moved up beside her and tucked a finger under her chin. “Afraid you’re gonna catch the crazy?”

“Maybe I’m afraid I already have,” Lux admitted.

“Well, lucky you, I like crazy,” Powder replied, and before Lux could retort, she dropped her hand into a pocket, then pulled something out that sent a chill down Lux’s spine.

It was a long, heavy black feather suspended from a leather thong. There were dull, unpolished stones tied about it for weight, and the feather itself had been dusted with something pale.

“W-What is…What is that?” Lux asked, forcing herself not to recoil as memories of her nightmare flooded back unbidden.

“Where I’m from, “ Powder started, “crows are supposed to carry bad luck on their wings and they visit folks to bring’em that luck. So”—she wiggled the feather—“we carry around a crow feather to catch the bad luck and hold onto it for us. Figured maybe you could use it. Seems like you’ve been gettin’ crow’d, lately.”

“Crow’d?” Lux laughed weakly as she took the little totem. It was heavier than it looked. Maybe it was already carrying some bad luck of its own. “Yes. I suppose I have been.”

Tucking the feather away, Lux stepped closer to Powder, leaned down, and pressed a warm kiss to her cheek. It was all likely to be poppycock, and if anyone found it, at best, she’d get dressed down for indulging in such primitive beliefs. It was also probably the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given her.

“Thank you, Powder,” Lux whispered as she drew back and moved to the door. “I look forward to our next walk.”

Powder looked her up and down, then smirked. “Me, too, Blondie. Me, too.”

Lux didn’t ask Powder to walk her to the convent doors. She’d already courted a bit too much attention with their midnight walk. The last thing she needed was to be spotted being escorted back into the convent between the appropriate hours by the local blacksmith. Even if Lux was confident she would get away with a slap on the wrist at worst, she couldn’t say the same about Powder. If anyone living in or around the convent suspected Powder of having a dalliance with the newest sister, it might cast aspersions on her that would be difficult to shake. The last thing she wanted was to cause trouble for the only person she actually unabashedly liked in this Protector-forsaken place.

So instead, Lux stayed low and walked close to the wall of the convent, staying within the deep shadows cast by that edifice that Lux was more and more thinking of as being infected with madness.

If that was the case, though, then wherefore lay the source? What was the core of the sickness? Lux suspected it was deep beneath the convent, somewhere in the undercroft which Canoness Leona had been so adamant she not enter. There must be, Lux thought, some terrible, pustulent tumor within those atramentous tunnels leaking its septic nightmares into the bedrock and foundations, poisoning the very earth it lay upon.

Lux sidled around from the side of the convent and moved quickly and quietly to the double-doors, which she opened and slipped through before her nerves could better her and expose her to the light of day. The moment the doors closed, the darkness crowded in on her as if it had been waiting just beyond the threshold for her to return.

Yet, it wasn’t as…suffocating as it had been that night. Lux let out a stertorous gasp of raw and ragged relief. She had expected to be assailed by visions and whispers once more, but perhaps there was some ineffable quality to the daytime that banished the worst of such haunts.

Lacking any other reasonable options beyond guesswork, Lux drew out her directions and began following them in reverse order. The first few turns were cheering, because they were identical to the turns Lux recalled Taliyah taking when she’d escorted Lux back up to her room. She continued following that guide, expecting with each turn to find herself somewhere alien—perhaps in front of the chapel sixteen, or maybe at the door of the undercroft?

But, no.

Each turn came as expected, and when the last of them was taken, Lux found she’d been blessedly deposited right where she had been heading; the door to the second-floor stairs. There had been no whispers, no urgings, and no maddening demands, only the cold stone, the whistling of drifting air through empty halls, and the flicker of light at every evenly placed sconch.

“I almost wish it had happened again,” Lux muttered as she opened the door and began climbing the stairs. “If only for some constancy in my madness.”

Maybe it was just the daytime hours, even if dawn had not quite come to the convent yet. Maybe there was some greater madness that welled up during the night.

Lux chuckled as she pulled the feather halfway out of her pocket by the leather cord and smiled down at it before dropping it back into place. Maybe it was just the rising sun. Or maybe she’d caught the madness on a crow feather. It made about as much sense as anything else in this awful place.

Emerging into the second floor, Lux started quietly down the hall toward the further stairwell that would put her near to her room. She would have to be careful coming out since her quarters and the stairs shared a hallway which the Night Canoness may very well still have been patrolling. If she were fortunate, Canoness Diana had taken her words at dinner last night to heart and simply left her be, but Lux doubted it. Leona had been insistent and whatever the Night Canoness thought of Lux personally, the pair of them seemed to represent a united front on most things.

Those were the thoughts cross Lux’s mind as the 3rd-floor staircase door down the hall she was in abruptly began to open.

Lux froze, looked around, but there was no immediate halls to retreat to. Nearest hall was the one she’d just come from and it was almost as far from her as the staircase door was. What rotten luck. So much for that crow’s feather. The only thing near her was a door that bore the mark: XII on the metal plate of the doorknob. 

Chapel twelve was not on the approved list.

Lux twisted the knob, darted inside, and shut the door behind her anyway. She had already violated curfew, and given that her Jinx seemed wholly willing to drag her into unapproved chapels to torment her whenever it pleased her, it seemed whatever rules the convent operated under had ceased to apply to her if they ever had.

The chapel she’d taken shelter in was much like all the others. In fact, it was essentially identical save for the presence of prayer mats which were likely only laid out in chapels that were expected too see use. The votive candles were unlit and the altar was wiped clean of wax and dust. It occurred to Lux, idly, that she had no idea how the sisters kept the unused chapels tidy if no one was allowed inside except when they were put into rotation. Theoretically, they would clean them between services and perhaps more thoroughly on the night before a new rotation was decided upon. But the sheer number of chapels in the convent and the fact that only seven of them were ever in use—and of those, chapel four was always among them—meant their cleaning must be almost random.

“Perhaps,” Lux said without really believing it, “this was merely used recently?”

It made sense to think that which was why Lux suspected that wasn’t the case. Nothing in this forsaken building made any sense at all, so why in the heavens would this be sensible or reasonable?

She was distracted from that by the steady beat of footsteps passing by the door she was hunkered against. On instinct, Lux pressed her ear to the door and listened. She counted two sets of distinct footsteps and over that, a quiet, chanting murmur of prayer spoken in old, classical Targonian. The footsteps moved to the cadence of the prayer, meaning that this was not some idle escort or wandering sister. This was a procession.

A procession of two?

Lux waited a long count, listening as the footsteps slowly receded back the way she had come. The longer she stayed in the unwelcomingly clean chapel, the more Lux felt…out of place. Something in her bones told her that she was not supposed to be here and that it had nothing to do with the convent’s nonsense rotations. But she couldn’t simply burst out into the hall. Not now that she’d hidden herself. That would likely earn far more than a tongue-lashing, and she still didn’t trust any of the sisters, nor the Canonesses. No matter how congenial Leona pretended to be.

Yet, Lux’s curiosity burned. She wanted to know. If she was going to be stuck here, then her only recourse was to learn that which the Canonesses and the sisters refused to outright explain to her. So, slowly, she cracked the door and peeked out into the hall, thanking the veiled lady and perhaps the soul of mischief that the door’s hinges were as clean as everything else in it.

The hall was redolent with incense that smelled faintly…cold. Almost like mint tea, but not quite. With the door open, the murmured litany became slightly more audible, and Lux looked down to find Canoness Diana and Sister Kai’sa paused at the first-floor stairwell door.

Diana was carrying a censer and at that moment was moving it back and forth and up and down around Sister Kai’sa while praying. It had the look of a very serious ritual. The expressions on both Canoness and Sister only heightened that sense.

Finally, the Night Canoness seemed to finish that portion of whatever rite she was performing, set the censer down at her feet, and drew out a long, gilded purple stole which she ceremonially laid over Sister Kai’sa’s shoulders. Then she raised her hand in a ritual shape—two fingers out and two folded—and said, “Descend now into the dark, and let the moon guide you as it guides who travel through His realm. In this liminal time and passing space, go unto Her, and give of yourself. Go with our gratitude for your sacrifice. Go with our contrition for our weakness. Go with our obligation to stand firm before the fear and the darkness.”

Sister Kai’sa bowed her head low, and a few locks of her long, inky hair fell about her face. Diana lowered her hand, then set it upon Kai’sa’s shoulder and give it a firm squeeze.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you again, Sister,” Diana said, her voice low but echoing through the cold and empty halls nonetheless. “There’s simply too few of us lately, and—”

“—better me than Taliyah,” Sister Kai’sa cooly. She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “Last time she served the vigil she was bedridden for a week. I’m stronger than her.”

“Your passenger helps.”

Kai’sa scoffed. “I still think it’s dangerous to mix such holy rites with that…with my passenger’s nature. But if it means Taliyah is spared, I will serve vigil however often you require.”

“If we’re fortunate, and Sister Crownguard is what Leona believes she is, then this may be the last time you have to suffer the vigil. I pray it is so.”

Those words put a stone in Lux’s gut as Sister Kai’sa nodded wordlessly, then straightened out. The Canoness performed one last silent blessing over her, then stepped as and opened the stairwell door. No more words were shared between them, Sister Kai’sa simply stared down into the dark with trepidation for a moment, and then stepped inside, and the door was closed behind her with almost indecent haste.

Lux closed the door to her hiding place at the same time to cover any sounds its closing might make, and pressed her back to the door as she swallowed thickly. Her earlier fears seemed almost childish after what she’d just heard. Canoness Leona had said that the vigil was exhausting, but the way the Night Canoness had spoken of it, it sounded more than just tiring…it sounded like some kind torment. Now she had new fears to contend with. She had been right. The Day Canoness was not to be trusted. She knew something—or thought she knew something—about Lux, and whatever that was had to do with the vigil.

‘…this may be the last time you have to suffer the vigil.’

“Suffer the vigil?” Lux whispered. She swallowed back another surge of bile and panic as she clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, listening for the sounds of the Night Canoness’ footsteps.

They did not reappear, meaning she went down another hall.

Emerging from her hiding space, Lux sprinted for the third floor staircase, darted up it, bolted down the hall as quietly as possible, and finally made it into her room. With her door closed and locked behind her, Lux slumped against it and slid down slowly until she was sitting on the cold stone floor of her quarters. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as suddenly the dread of the convent closed began to close around her like the jaws of a wolf.

“A sacrifice?” Lux whispered to herself as she stared dully at the wall opposite her. “Am I…a sacrifice?”

Chapter Text

Kai’sa was absent from morning prayers, which was unsurprising. Equally unsurprising but perhaps far more disconcerting was the fact that no one made mention of the fact. There was no waiting nor hesitation over her unfilled prayer mat by Taliyah’s side. Canoness Leona made no commentary or fabrication concerning Sister Kai’sa’s whereabouts.

It was as if she had never been there at all.

The fact that no one—not even Taliyah—raised a question over this matter confirmed at least part of what Lux had overheard in the hallway. This was a known quantity. It wasn’t that the Canoness was hiding Kai’sa’s fate; it was simply that everyone else knew exactly what had happened and saw no need to question it. Of all the sisters, in fact, only Taliyah showed any discomfort with the empty space between her and Sister Sona, and only in a faint tightening of the muscles around her mouth and brow.

That was enough to tell Lux that Taliyah was worried about her, but that she also was well aware that there was nothing to be done about it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

And for once, Lux simply kept her mouth shut.

She took no duties from the roster, instead simply rising and leaving once the morning benedictions were at their end. That earned odd looks from the others, and Samira hesitated before taking a duty paper at random and following Lux out into the hall. It was a brief and tersely silent walk up back to her dorms, where Lux wordlessly opened the door, stepped inside, and shut it behind her. As much as she wanted to like Samira, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the mercenary woman was in on it just like everyone else. Perhaps she considered her participation in whatever the Canoness’ plans were regrettable, but not nearly regrettable enough for it to matter in any material sense.

Taking out Metus et Tenebrae, Lux seriously considered just carrying it out into the rear yard and throwing it into Powder’s forge to serve as fuel for some productive endeavor. Whatever the Canoness intended, Lux had no doubt that it would serve her ends, not Lux’s. It was, at best, a meaningless token intended to placate Lux’s curiosity. At worst, it was full of lies that provided some esoteric but false explanation for the strange rules the convent followed, when in fact the true reasons remained occluded and would remain so until such time that it no longer mattered whether or not Lux knew them.

The only thing that stayed Lux’s hand over the book was that she had yet to finish it, and that reading it with her suspicions in mind may yet yield some value. Likely not, but given the dearth of information and the sheer scale of the lies that she was dealing with, anything was better than nothing.

Thumbing through the text, she found her bookmark and began reading again. It was no easier than she recalled from last whence she set it aside. The vulgar Targonian was at once simplistic and convoluted in a manner that seemed almost purposefully designed to confuse whoever was reading it. Perhaps it was simply the lack of contextual knowledge, but now, Lux couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps it was also intentional.

It wasn’t necessarily that she thought that the author—whoever they were—was in some kind of time-lost conspiratorial agreement with the Canonesses of the convent, but more that perhaps they were simply mad. Looking at the subject matter now, Lux found herself more willing to believe that this book was authentic insofar as a completely mad author could be said to be authentic. At the very least, they seemed to believe what they were writing.

The hours passed with an interminable nature, and the constant scratching of a quill pen on parchment. The translations were shaky as always, and Lux had stopped trying to parse out whether or not the writer had intended particular parts to sound as, well, crazy as they seemed. If anything, the text only grew more unhinged as the pages wore on.

There were several meters of text dedicated to an in-depth explanation of local bird migratory patterns, agriculture, and the optimal placement of scarecrows. Another section digressed severely as to where one ought to place one’s bed in relation to their door and windows amidst an already long-winded explanation on the repeating numerics of seven, which broached a level of detail that nearly bordered on the relevant.

Four whole pages were filled with spirals that, upon closer inspection, were made up of crabbed targonian numbers scratched onto the page. They always began by counting up from one and terminating at nine, followed by a single nonsense scribble, only to start over. Over and over again, these ordinal spirals filled the pages in strange orientations. It seemed as if they were done with intent, because the author had been very particular about their size and shapes and exactly how far out the spirals went before ceasing. What their actual meaning was or if there actually was one in any sane sense was as elusive as everything in the damn book.

After hours of translation, Lux pushed the book away, set aside her quill pen, and groaned as she massaged her cramping hand. Her fingers were stained with splotches of ink, her eyes were beginning to ache from squinting at the near-illegible Targonian verbage, and all she’d managed to acquire was the certainty that Metus et Tenebrae was full of crockery and nonsense.

“Just a distraction, then,” Lux murmured to herself. “She wants me reading this tripe seeking gold amidst dross so I’m not paying attention to—”

A brief but sharp gust suddenly swept over and past her back, scattering her papers and sending the pages of the book dancing. Lux whipped around with a start, panic surging, and quite by instinct her hand plunged into her pocket to grip the feather totem Powder had given her. Her room was empty, as it ought to have been, and the door was closed. If the door was closed, though, then…

Lux clenched her jaw and bared her teeth at the empty space between herself and the door and hissed, “You may as well just show yourself. If the sisters are going to foist me upon you like a choice cut of meat, you may as well have at me.”

Her fingers tightened around that feather, careful not to crush it, but the texture was soothing as she waited for her Jinx to show herself.

“Well?” Lux whispered. “Just…Just get it over with.”

More silence answered, and after a moment, Lux’s shoulders sagged with something between frustration and relief. She had no desire to see that thing again—neither in reality nor in her dreams—but there would have been some satisfaction in getting a straight answer for once. But no, of course not. Unless her Jinx was waiting for Lux to turn her back, which seemed a bit unsporting.

A light rapping came at her door, then, followed by Samira’s softly accented voice asking, “Little Sister, are you well?”

“Fine,” Lux said loudly enough that it almost startled her. For some reason, the room seemed to dissuade volume. “I’m fine, just…another prank pulled by my Jinx. Much good you were.”

Lux turned back to her desk as Samira sighed. That hadn’t been quite fair, since it’s not as though the Noxian sister could do much against the ‘omen of the convent,’ but Lux felt as though she had earned a little pettiness. That and, whatever Samira’s professed guilt, she was clearly still obeying the Canonesses and it was equally clear that those two had no good plans in store for her.

“It’s past the noon hour, little Goldfinch. Come take some lunch from the refectory,” Samira said after a span of quiet. Then, “A walk might do you some good, too, hey?”

Lux barely heard her. Her eyes were fixed on the page that the breeze had cast the book open to. It was one of the pages that had only a handful of sentences scrawled haphazardly about the page, and maybe it was all the time she had spent reading the mad author’s words, but she’d started almost to grow used to the vulgar lexicon. Her eyes settled on the longest passage near the bottom right-hand corner of the page, and translated it with surprisingly little difficulty.

‘Oh, herald. But that I could see from thy height. But that I could see with thine eyes. To look upon us as the crow flies must be such a thing to see. To see this noxious curse in its unfit glory, with its songless steeples like pinprick spirals counting ever up and down. Oh, herald. I can see it. I can see it. I can see it.’

More knocking “Sister Crownguard?”

“Spirals,” Lux muttered, “seen from the eyes of a…”

Like a candle suddenly being lit inside her mind, Lux snatched up the book and began roughly thumbing back to the four pages of nonsense spirals. She stared at them with new eyes, fixing in her mind’s eye that hellish convent which now imprisoned her, and tried to imagine the sight.

From above.

With a great heave, Lux tore the four pages from the book and cast them down onto the stone floor of her room. She tossed the book onto her bed and fell to her knees as Samira’s rapping turned to a louder knocking. Ignoring the noise, Lux gathered up the pages and arranged them in a two-by-two block, but it was all a mess.

“No, no, no…” Lux began swapping the pages with one another. “Like this, perhaps? No, maybe this?” Then she scoffed and shook her head. “Luxanna, you fool. The orientation of the pages! Orient the pages!”

“Luxanna! Luxanna!” Samira’s knocking was growing frantic. “Luxanna, are you alright? I heard tearing!”

“This…yes! And then…then here, and there and—!” Lux was grinning wildly as she slid the pages together, and suddenly it all made sense. “Spirals. Spirals upon spirals upon spirals. All counting down and down and down. Interrupting the—yes!”

THUD!

“Will you stop that racket?!” Lux snapped, looking up from the pages as she swept them from the floor and folded them up before tucking them into her habit. Her secret stowed, she stomped over, unlocked the door, and threw it open to glare up at Sister Samira. “I’m fine! You don’t need to hammer and yowl, so, Sister.”

Samira frowned down at her, her brow heavy with concern as she said, “You are in a foul mood this day, little Goldfinch.”

“Mm, I wonder why that could be,” Lux said acidly. Then, without further remark, she stepped out of her room, pulled the door shut, and locked it before looking back up at her keeper. “I think I’d like to take my lunch outside, if that’s amenable to you.”

“Aye,” Samira replied evenly. “And perhaps some fresh air may soothe your choler.”

Lux rolled her eyes as she put her back to the taller, stronger woman and began walking down the hall. “I’m a prisoner in all but name, Sister Samira. More and more, I wonder if there wasn’t a more pointed reason I ended up here rather than by chance and my family’s poor idea of patronage.”

“You make it sound as if there’s a conspiracy against you, little sister,” Samira said with a tone of wry humor.

“Naturally not,” Lux replied.

“Why do I feel that was not a complimentary admission?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, Sister,” Lux replied, turning to glance over her shoulder. “I’d never be anything but respectful.”

“Aye, anything but respectful, indeed.” Samira’s eyes narrowed on Lux’s back, but Lux ignored it as she entered the refectory.

Only Sister Sona was there, silently eating a simple meal of bread and stew. Lux ignored her, even as the silent sister’s gaze rose to follow her as she crossed the room, ignored the simple wooden plates, and instead took up a simple, roughspun cloth. Into that cloth went a small wedge of cheese and some bread, as well as a handful of berries into it, then Lux wrapped it up and tied it off before turning to leave the communal chamber.

Samira followed in grim silence that, unfortunately, only lasted until they reached the stairs to the second floor. As they descended the narrow passage, she said, “Something has changed, hasn’t it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing that hasn’t always been wrong, Sister,” Lux replied flatly.

“Horseshit, little sister,” Samira shot back as they emerged into the second floor and Lux turned to start toward the stairs that she had watched Canoness Diana so recently send Sister Kai’sa through. “Talk to me, Luxanna. I’m not your enemy! None of us are! But I am not blind. I can see that something has affected you!”

Lux almost scoffed out loud at that, but she managed to keep it to an unseen twitch of her lips as she quickened her pace until they reached the door to the first-floor labyrinth. “I told you,” she said after a moment, “that nothing has changed. I’m just…frustrated. If you find my company so deplorable, I encourage you to tend to whatever other duties the Canoness has set you to. I’m sure they’re various and sundry, and I’d hate for you to get behind.”

“You need me to guide you through the first floor, though,” Samira said pointedly.

“In fact,” Lux said, now finally turning to meet the Noxian ex-mercenary’s gaze with a flat one of her own, “I do not. It’s just a bunch of stone halls and empty chapels, isn’t it? I’ll be fine.”

She felt more sanguine of that with the feather totem in her pocket, and Lux let her hand drift down to cradle it again. Samira didn’t seem particularly enthused with her attitude nor her sudden assurance in her own abilities, though.

“Be that as it may,” Samira said firmly, “I will see you down to the bailey.”

“If it suits you, Sister,” Lux replied.

Her words aside, Lux didn’t bother to wait for Samira to take the lead. Instead, she descended into the labyrinth with one hand holding gently to the feather in her pocket, a parcel of lunch beneath one arm, and a sharp memory of the turns she had taken just that morning. The shadows held fast to the corners, watching her as a hungry and feral hound with a taste for blood might watch a village woman. Lux had the distinct and troubling impression that if they could, they would be snaring about her as they had during her attempt to traverse the first floor alone last night.

Again, she wondered if it was the daylight, or perhaps the presence of a sister of the faith? Or maybe, just maybe, they couldn’t get enough ill fortune to stick to her to trip her up. Not with that little crow’s feather in her pocket, anyway.

A silly thought, but it made Lux smile all the same.

The halls of that labyrinth were no more welcoming in the day than the night, of course. Merely less hostile. Amusingly, it became clearer to Lux with each turn that Samira was expecting her to hesitate, pause, or swallow her assumed pride and ask for directions. Lux did none of those things, taking each turn with confidence, holding her copied directions firmly in her mind. It was, perhaps. She still had them in her pocket, of course, so it was entirely unnecessary to take every turn by memory, but if the sisters of the convent were going to toy with her, then Lux refused to let them think she was in any way dependent on them.

Or anything.

Fortunately, her memory saw her out, and Lux reached the double doors without issue or even really slowing down. As she pushed the doors open and stepped out into the chilly afternoon air, Lux looked back at Sister Samira to find the woman looking at her not with some renewed respect or regard. She looked…cautious. Skeptical, even.

“As I said,” Lux kept her voice and her expression neutral, “I don’t need your help.”

Despite the clear skies, a chill descended on the bailey as Samira met Lux’s gaze. For the briefest moment, Lux saw past the habit and the robes and the smirking mannerisms and into the eyes of a blooded killer of men. In the frame of the convent halls, Lux saw shadows clinging to her in the shapes of the countless souls she must have personally sent to the Shadow Isles. In that moment, Lux had the unwanted and thoroughly unhelpful thought: ‘She could kill me.’

Then it passed, and Samira’s expression softened as she said, “I don’t know what happened, little sister, that left you so suddenly hostile to us, but whatever it was, I assure you, it was a misunderstanding. I’m not here to harm you, and whatever has you believing otherwise is wrong.”

There was sincerity in her voice, and Lux could only wonder how much of that was real, and how much of it was in spite of whatever dictate was in place. Or maybe they were all lying to her, and she was just terrible at telling truth from lies. Maybe Samira was simply angry because her efforts at earning Lux’s trust were now seemingly for naught.

“Thank you,” Lux said as if Samira had not just tried to reassure her, “for the escort. I think I’m going to go find a sunny patch somewhere private to have lunch if that’s alright. I won’t pass the walls, I promise.”

Samira sighed, then nodded. “Very well, I won’t press the matter, but—no, never you mind, hey? Just…whatever happened? Whatever put these thoughts in your head? Don’t listen to them, little goldfinch.”

“Have a pleasant afternoon, sister,” Lux said, curtsying lightly, then turning to take a leisurely walk around the garden as she waited for Samira to leave.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long. Lux still dallied for a time in the gardens, but only because they were beautiful. She spied Taliyah working at one of the patches, her head low as she weeded diligently amongst the lay folk. It was a good thing there were so few people at the convent, because it made it easier to slip away unseen into the rear yard.

Just like that morning, Lux kept to the wall and the shadows, eventually emerging back into the sunlight, and a smile tugged at her lips as the muffled sound of metal striking metal met her ears.

The forge was lit and clearly in use, and Lux approached at a leisurely pace until she reached the threshold of the smithy, where she paused to lean against the frame. Powder was hard at work, a glowing piece of metal set against the anvil, gripped fast in a pair of tongs that she had in one hand while the other hammered away, and amidst the hammering was a song. She hummed to a beat, and while no one would ever accuse Powder of having the voice of an angel, there was something charming about her raspy tones.

Not wanting to interrupt, Lux simply waited and watched, smiling as she took the moment to appreciate the flex and roll of muscle that accompanied every one of Powder’s practiced motions.

That wordless song repeated itself three times before Powder finally plunged the piece into a barrel that sat near the butt of the anvil. A great gout of steam pillared up, and then Powder drew out what looked like part of a blade, though it was short and heavy-looking. A hacking tool for farming, perhaps? Lux couldn’t be sure. Whatever the case, it was clearly just more of the usual workaday duties of any smith, and as Powder wiped the sweat from her brow, her eyes fell on Lux, and a fetching rictus grin lit her face from ear to ear.

“Hey, Blondie.”

“Good afternoon,” Lux said with a warm smile and perhaps just a little too much lilt to her voice as she lifted the parcel. “Might a certain dutiful blacksmith might be willing to take a meal with me?”

The grin remained, though it canted with wry humor. “Well, I mean, I am pretty busy today, but seein’ as how you came all the way down here, it’d be rude to turn you away.”

“How generous,” Lux murmured as she slipped inside and leaned closer to Powder to press a kiss to her cheek. She was surrounded by the smell of fire, iron, and sweat, and Lux couldn’t help but linger for a moment to breathe it in.

It was just so…real.

Then she moved past Powder to set the foot on the table she’d occupied for much of the prior day, untied it, and sat down. Powder joined her a moment later with a small sack of her own, along with a heavy waterskin. From the sack came another chunk of dark bread, more cheese, and two ripe apples, one of which Powder pushed toward Lux, who accepted it gratefully.

“So,” Powder said before taking a bite of her own apple, chewing, then swallowing, “how was the run back to ya room?”

Lux’s expression darkened. “I made it. Although, I…I saw something I don’t think I was supposed to see.”

Powder paused mid-bite, lowered the apple, and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?” She set the apple down and laid a hand over Lux’s fingers. “They do somethin’ to ya?”

“Not me,” Lux said, shaking her head as she doffed her cap and set it aside before saying, “I saw the Night Canoness leading one of the other sisters down to the stairwell leading to the first floor. It was some kind of ritual. Something about giving Kai’sa to the vigil. Or her…her suffering the vigil. Does that…” Finally, Lux let the real fear of that night show on her face as she looked up at Powder. “Does that make any sense to you? How can one suffer a long prayer shift? I’m sure it’s tiring, but I know in my bones that’s not what the Canoness was talking about.”

“Yeah,” Powder muttered, scowling. “Yeah, doesn’t sound right to me, either. Were they forcin’ her? Making the sister go down there, I mean?”

Lux shook her head again. “N-No, no…Sister Kai’sa was going willingly. And there was something about her having a…a passenger? I didn’t really understand it. That’s not really what worried me, though. If this is something the nuns just do, then far be it from me to raise a clamor over it. They already do so many strange things.”

“What’s wrong, then?” Powder asked, fully taking Lux’s hand and holding it tight. “What’d you see?”

“It’s what I heard,” Lux’s voice shook as she swallowed thickly. “Canoness Diana said that if they were fortunate, it would be the last time Kai’sa had to suffer the vigil. She said that Leona thinks there’s something about me. She talked about me like I was a piece of meat!”  

She shut her eyes and brought the smith’s tarnished knuckles up and pressed them to her brow as tears leaked out to trickle down her cheeks.

“They talked like they were planning to…to give me to something!” Lux sobbed as she finally opened her eyes again. “To spare themselves!”

Powder’s eyes were wide, and her jaw was hanging slightly open. It was strange. Lux had expected disbelief, shock, or…or something. She hadn’t expected anger. Anger was too small a word for the expression on Powder’s face. Rage didn’t do it justice either. No. If Lux had to put a word to the look the blacksmith was wearing, she would have chosen the word: Wrath.

“Huh.” Powder took back her hand, picked up her apple, and turned it over a few times in her hand. Then she looked over it to meet Lux’s eyes as she took a big bite, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully.

“But I won’t let them,” Lux continued as she folded her hands in front of herself and took a deep breath. This next part was going to be a long shot. “I’m starting to think my…my Jinx wants me to see something. Or maybe to find something. This afternoon, I was reading a certain book, and I swear a wind kicked up behind me and turned the book’s pages.” She chuckled wanly. “And I was shut in my room. My windowless room.”

She took out the pages she ripped from Metus et Tenebrae and laid them out on the table. She carefully put them corner to corner in a two-by-two block in the orientation she’d discovered on the floor of her bedroom, then stepped back as Powder set the apple down and stood up to look down at the image captured in ordinal spirals.

“You see it, right?” Lux prompted, desperate to know that she wasn’t just imagining what was on those pages. “I’m not mad, am I?”

Powder shrugged. “Well, makes no matter t’me if you’re mad or not, Blondie, but uh…” she reached out and tapped a finger on the pages. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m seein’ it.”

“It’s the convent,” Lux said, looking down at the spirals that were arranged perfectly in the shape of that accursed structure she so loathed, with all its steeples and bitter promises. “And what’s more, I’m certain that these spirals are all placed deliberately! Strange as this may sound, I don’t think this is just some unhinged sketch of the convent. It’s far too deliberate.”

“I think y’might be right, Blondie,” Powder said, her smile twitching up. “Because to most people, this’d just look like scribbles. But to me?” She laid her palms on the whole block and turned it about to face her. “To me, this looks almost like a builder’s sketch.”

Lux’s face split into a smile of her own. “I knew it!”

“What a smile,” Powder said with an air of wonderment. “You oughta do that more often.”

“I’m afraid I have little reason to, of late,” Lux replied, but she leaned forward all the same. “But it’s easier with you.”

“Best thing I’ve heard in a while,” Powder said, then sat down and gave her apple a playful toss before catching it and taking another bite. “But you should finish eating, and maybe take a nap? You got shadows under your eyes, Blondie. Guessin’ you didn’t sleep after gettin’ back, huh?”

“I…n-no, I didn’t,” Lux said as she sagged and sat back down.

“Thought not.”

Lux began gamely picking at her lunch, starting with the apple, same as Powder. The sweet tang of the fruit woke her appetite up some, and soon she was eating like she was famished. Strange. She hadn’t felt hungry at all until she’d actually taken that first bite. Maybe it was just a matter of nerves and poor digestion.

While she ate, Powder looked over the sketch in detail, and only when they’d finished their repast and lapsed into a companionable silence for several minutes did the blacksmith wipe her hands on her vest and say, “Gimme some time to…to figure this out, alright?” She gestured at the pages. “Whoever drew this was definitely off their chump, but it also seems pretty particular to me. It’ll take a while, though. You gonna be alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Lux said, then massaged her temples as she added, “but I might take you up on that nap. I don’t fancy sleeping in the convent if I can help it.”

“I know the feelin’,” Powder muttered as she stepped around the table and went to the side of the room, fussed about with something several moments, then unfolded an odd contraption that proved to be a collapsed cot.

Lux furrowed her brow. “You’re…are you sure you don’t mind?”

“So long as you don’t mind me tinkerin’,” Powder replied with a quirked smile. “Take a rest,” she nudged the cot. “It’s not pretty and it’s probably the worst bed you’ll sleep on, but—”

“It’s lovely,” Lux said as she rose and half-stumbled over to it, sat down, and was immediately struck with a wave of exhaustion. A combination of little sleep and a full belly.

She nearly pitched over, but Powder caught her and gently lowered her down to lie on the cot, kneeling beside her as she settled in. She really was awfully gallant when she wasn’t being an utter cad, Lux thought sleepily. Gallant and sweet and…very, very handsome.

“Get some sleep,” Powder whispered as Lux’s eyes drifted shut with the weight of ages pulling them down. A rough hand settled on hers and gently twined their fingers together. “You’re safe here, Blondie. I dunno what those nuns are doin’, but I swear…I will never let them touch you.”

Despite the warmth of the forge, Lux felt an odd chill as she began settling into true slumber. Maybe that was why the sound of Powder’s voice seemed strange there at the end. It almost sounded like…an echo.

Chapter Text

Samira rapped her knuckles on the door to the Canoness’ office and listened til she heard the soft shuffle of papers and the strong voice of Canoness Leona say, “Enter.”

Pushing the door open, Samira stepped inside before quickly shutting the door behind herself and approaching with a dark expression. There was something very, very wrong, and Samira had an inkling as to what it might be. She hoped it wasn’t the case because explaining that would be the Protector’s own job and half the devil’s at that, considering they literally couldn’t tell her certain things.

“What’s wrong?” Leona asked, her eyes boring into Samira in that strange, golden way they always did. “You look perturbed.”

“Perturbed is a word for it, Leo,” Samira replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “When I came to this place, we had an agreement for honesty, hey? Lately, I haven’t felt like we’re being particularly honest.”

Leona sighed and pushed her scriptures away before leaning back in her chair and folding her hands in her lap. “In my defense, I hardly expected the Omen to select the young sister Crownguard on her very first day in the convent.”

“But did expect it, didn’t you?” Samira accused.

“I suspected she might a possible candidate, just like her ancestor,” Leona admitted casually, before holding up a forestalling hand and saying, “I never pushed for the matter, though. House Crownguard’s request for her admittance was genuine.”

Samira narrowed her eyes. “And I’m sure the correspondence you’ve kept up with the heads of the House never strayed onto topics like troubled children or offers of advice, hey? Certainly not.”

“Accuse me of what you will, Samira,” Leona said, narrowing her gaze at the Noxian woman. “But what I do, I do for the sake of all. I’m sure you’ve felt it. The seals on this place—seals we do not understand, and have no means to replicate or repair—are weakening.” She sat up, then stood to her towering height. “The Vigil consumes more and more strength with every passing year. Sona hasn’t spoken a word since her last turn, and Tali was left in a fever delirium for weeks after hers. Kai’sa is the only one who can withstand it safely anymore, and we both know why that is!”

Samira bit her lip. Every word the Canoness spoke was true. She still remembered how Taliyah had emerged from her vigil delirious and babbling, eyes wide but unseeing, and hot to the touch. Kai’sa had been apoplectic over the girl’s state when she’d found out the next morning. And Sona…Samira still didn’t know what had happened to Sona. Diana found her collapsed outside the chapel, and she remained catatonic for a full day before rising.

Since that day, the dulcet voice of Sona Buvelle had yet to grace the convent’s choir halls as it once had. 

“I do not disagree with you on any particular point,” Samira said coldly. Speaking of which, there was something different about Sister Crownguard this morning. She was exceptionally…terse. So far as I know, I haven’t personally done anything to warrant her ill will, but I couldn’t help but notice that despite her usual penchant for questioning things, she did not ask why Sister Kai’sa was missing from benedictions.”

Leona’s eyes widened. “You think she may have witnessed the vigil procession?”

“I don’t know,” Samira said with a shrug. “I can only speculate. But her moods have darkened abruptly. Before, I could have a relatively civil conversation with her, but this morning, she would barely spare me two words at a time.”

“That is unacceptable,” Leona said, her fingers curling and scraping lines across the ancient wood surface of her desk. “We need her to at least give us the benefit of the doubt.”

“It would help if we stopped giving her the mushroom treatment, hey?”

“What?”

“Keeping her in the dark and feeding her bullshit.”

“Another Noxian legion aphorism, I assume?” Leona asked aridly.

Samira gave a thin smile. “If it fits, your Grace.”

Chewing her lip for a moment—a bad habit that Leona only showed when she was truly unsettled—the Canoness straightened and massaged her temples. Samira waited, giving the woman time to think. One of the reasons she had opted to stay was that Leona Solari was more than just a jumped-up nun. She was a capable warleader and a strategist second only to her partner, Diana.

Samira’s arrival at the convent had been considerably more fraught than Lux’s, too. When they had arrived, the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings had been on the verge of falling apart. Sisters of the faith rarely lasted more than a few moons, and a few too many past Canonesses had gone mad, died under strange circumstances, or both, for anyone to be comfortable with holding the position long-term. 

Until Leona.

She was a zealot of the oldest sect of the Mihiran faithful. Samira had never directly asked why someone like her, who clearly came from an august background, would accept such a backwater and, frankly, strange and dangerous posting, but she suspected it had something to do with the Night Canoness. She was the one who had contracted Samira to bring Taliyah, who had helped to repair the ancient and crumbling outer and inner walls. She was the one who had planned the reconsecration of its many chapels with the help of the Buvelle family, who maintained a long tradition of maiden priestesses of the old faith. She was the one who had reinstituted the old patterns and duties that seemed strange and pointless, but which seemed to calm the dark and ominous happenings of the convent.

Samira might have been born Shuriman, but her heart was Noxian, and Noxians only ever truly trusted results. That was why Samira trusted Leona. Because she had seen the results! Yes, it had involved all of them being initiated into the convent properly to see it all done, and that had been singularly strange.

But it had all been for a greater purpose.

A purpose that a simple mercenary life would never have given Samira.

“Where is she?” Leona asked after a long stretch of silence.

“Sister Crownguard?” Samira asked, and Leona nodded. “Down in the bailey, having lunch somewhere. For some reason, she seems to dislike staying in the convent.”

“Yes, I gathered,” Leona said cooly as she opened a drawer and fished out a key, then stepped around her desk and made for her door.

Samira frowned as she followed the Canoness, and as they turned a few corners, it became clear where they were going. “Your Grace, forgive me for making assumptions, but are you intending to enter Sister Crownguard’s quarters without her permission?”

“I am the Canoness, and this is my convent,” Leona said flatly. “I do not require her permission.”

Clenching her jaw, Samira said, “That’s as may be, but I would recommend perhaps not violating her trust any more than has already occurred, hey?”

Leona said nothing until they reached the door to the young sister’s room, fitted the lock, turned it, and pulled the door open. Samira tensed, unwilling to step foot in the place without Lux’s word on the matter, even if the Canoness didn’t seem to care. She understood the sanctity of having even a little private space to oneself, and this was something that had her hackles up.

She watched as the Canoness moved amidst the admittedly messy room. There were papers strewn across the floor, and most of them seemed to be in Lux’s elegant hand. Leona knelt and sifted through them, careful not to disturb them overmuch from where they lay.

“I gave her a book with the hopes that it would give her something to do and, perhaps, open her mind to some of the secrets of this place if she could translate it,” she explained after standing and moving to the desk. “Ah, here…even I only managed half a page before the scrawl became utterly illegible.”

“How do you mean?” Samira asked, a feeling of unease had begun settling over her ever since she’d laid eyes on the pages and the book.

“I’m not sure, honestly,” Leona admitted. “Only that it seems to me that the book does not wish to be read. Or, it seems, does not wish to be read by us.” She looked over the many, many pages of translations. “Our rules and duties are drawn from incomplete translations of this book, Metus et Tenebrae. They were done by many Canonesses over the past five hundred years since its discovery, with most only ever being able to translate a sentence or two before the book shuts them out.”

Then she went to Sister Luxanna’s desk and picked up the book, turned, and walked over to Samira, holding it out.

“Go ahead,” Leona said with an almost bemused smile. “Take a look for yourself.”

Being a mercenary meant many things, and one of those things was being superstitious. Mercenaries were like gamblers or sailors in that way. Every mercenary had their little rituals, whether or not they admitted to them, and Samira was no different. In this case, the moment the book was put near her, she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck go up, and by instinct, she turned and spat before grimacing apologetically at the Canoness.

She took the book, despite very much not wanting to, and found it was both awful to the touch and wickedly cold. She opened it, despite very much not wanting to do that either, and what she found on the inside was…strange.

The page was covered in unintelligible scribbles and scrawls that might have been a language once, but even that, at a second glance, Samira doubted. In fact, the longer she looked at it, the harder it was for her eyes to focus on any one individual character to the point they seemed to shift and swim in her vision until her stomach was rolling with vertigo and she pushed the book away.

Leona took it with a small chuckle. The moment it was out of her hands, Samira stumbled, overwhelmed by the sudden sense of stability. It was like she’d gone from standing on a storm-tossed boat to dry land in the space of a breath.

“W-What was that?” She muttered shakily.

“That is how the vast majority react to the book,” Leona replied wryly. “In fact, the ability to read even a portion of the book is one of the tests required to become a Canoness of this convent. Even a sentence or two is enough to earn a place in line.”

“And you…you gave it to Luxanna?”

Leona nodded. “Truthfully, I expected her to be perhaps read a page at most and then return, complaining about it being gibberish. Imagine my surprise when she…didn’t.”

“Alright, I’ll admit, that’s strange,” Samira said slowly. “What makes her so special, though?”

Shaking her head, Leona looked down at the book and said, “I’m not sure yet, but I’ve had an inkling about her for years. The blade of the Protector has e’er been pointed in the direction of that house, and I am certain that there is something about young Miss Crownguard that will ensure the strength of this convent. We cannot allow it to fall. We are the Last of the First, and we do not have the luxury of failure.”

Samira started to open her mouth, mostly to point out that she was just a Noxian mercenary who opted to follow a more meaningful path. Instead, she spied something about the book she had missed when she’d taken it up the first time, and nodded at it before saying, “Were those scraps always there?”

“Scraps?” Leona looked down at the book and examined it, then her eyes flew wide and snapped the book open.

Pages had been ripped clean from the binding.

“Impossible.”

Samira winced. “Perhaps you ought to have mentioned how valuable the book was instead of just…throwing it at her, hey? It’s not exactly her fault if you didn’t—”

“No, I mean, that this is impossible,” Leona hissed before looking up from the ragged fragments. “Over the past five centuries, some of the Canonesses who were driven mad attempted to destroy this book! It has been thrown into lakes, hacked at with wood-axes, and likely seen the inside of every stove and hearth in the convent at one point or another, to no avail.”

“Oh.” Samira grimaced and looked down at the tears. “So, how was it damaged?”

Leona shook her head. “I haven’t the foggiest,” she admitted.

Frowning, Samira bit her cheek, then said, “You say that the book makes itself unreadable, hey? For most people?”

“Yes,” Leona said quietly. “Why?”

“What if…what if she was able to damage the book because it let her?”

The Canoness looked less than enthused by that idea as she snapped the book shut, tucked it under her arm, and said, “Find Sister Crownguard, and bring her to my office, please.”

Because being seized by the ear and dragged back into the convent right after enjoying what Samira imagined was a pleasant lunch and a walk amidst the gardens was certainly going to endear the girl to them. Still, there was clearly something more happening beyond the will of the church and perhaps even the Protector, so Samira didn’t argue and instead bowed her head slightly before turning to head back down to the bailey.

Hopefully, Sister Crownguard was in a somewhat better mood.

More dreams.

And Luxanna was sure that she was dreaming. Again. She found it especially strange because although she had heard stories of mystics and the like from the far east of Ionia and Shurima who purported to be able to be aware of, and control, their dreams, Lux had never possessed that talent. Though in fairness, she reflected that she didn’t seem to have any especial control over her dream in that moment as she wandered an ephemeral facsimile of the convent’s halls.

For once, she didn’t feel particularly concerned about the place, in spite of how hostile it normally felt to her. Perhaps it was because she knew that she was not actually in the convent, and in fact in a dream version of that benighted place?

Whatever the case, she found herself possessed of something almost worse than terror as she wandered from empty hall to empty hall, and that was boredom. After the first several halls and the realization that she couldn’t simply force herself awake, Lux opted to simply go where her feet took her. That was the way of dreams, after all.

The further she walked, the more she began to notice things that were slightly out of place. That wouldn’t be too odd in a dream, as such things were said to be cobbled together from memories, as far as Lux understood it, and her memory of the convent, while excellent, was far from perfect. It wasn’t errors she was finding, though. Rather, it was the fact that the convent seemed much…newer.

There was less a sense of rot and antiquity, and there was a warmth in the air that she didn’t recognize. It was a pervasive, dry heat, and whenever a stray breeze brushed through, she swore she could smell some exotic incense. Certainly not the stuff burned in the censers and thuribles of the Protector’s chapels.

So Lux followed her nose.

Step by step, she began to feel a sense of déjà vu, and as she finally came to the great double doors of the convent keep, Lux found she was hesitant to open them. Some unnameable fear in her did not want to know what was beyond the door—some hellish expanse of burnt rock, perhaps? Vistas of madness?

Then something brushed by her leg, and the door was pushed abruptly open, and Lux stumbled and looked around, only to glimpse a flicker of blue slip vanish through the open doors. When she looked up, she was suddenly struck by a wave of murmuring conversation and noise and a heavy, beating heat. Light poured through the crack, and Lux swallowed thickly as she pushed the doors the rest of the way open and stepped out into the blinding sun.

Rolling out before her was a wide boulevard, lined with colorful stalls whose counters were scattered with strange and fascinating goods. Her eyes could not settle on the actual merchants, though. They seemed to blur and fade from existence as she looked upon, only to reappear as a vague impression in her periphery as she looked away. The same was true of the crowd that filled the streets. They were a faceless mass, save for one, small, thin figure that stood out starkly—a child—who raced between the people.

Possessed of a sudden urge, Lux bolted after her, pushing through the masses at as much of a run as she could manage. Whatever and whomever she touched seemed to fade into colored sand as she sprinted down the street after the fleeing child.

She was terribly familiar, and yet not.

There was something slender and fae about her, and a need to catch her burned in Lux’s chest. It was difficult because the child clearly knew these streets like the back of her hand; she ran with total confidence, taking blind turns as if prescient. Lux was only able to keep up with her by dint of her longer legs and greater stride, and eventually she found herself chasing the girl down a long street toward a great, towering edifice of palest stone.

The child moved from the street and up the steps of the cyclopean structure, and in that moment, Lux saw that the blue was not on her clothes, but on her head. A messy mop of blue hair. Her clothes were a simple wrapped robe of stained cotton, and her small feet were clad in much-repaired and mismatched sandals that barely fit her.

She skipped up the steps and slipped inside, and Lux followed, ignoring the guards as they turned to sand at her touch. She turned down a darkened corridor, following the sound of tiny footsteps until she was moving through what could only be servants' passages. On a whole, the building reminded her a bit of the great temples of the Protector in Silvermere, but there were many differences.

For one, the usual golden idols of wings and blades were missing, and in their place was a single golden eye surrounded by a sunburst on a field of white.

Lux followed the trail through those darkened halls, ascending steps and stairs, until she was certain she must have climbed halfway to the firmament, and only then did she hear them. Voices, soft and whispered. Lux sought after them, keeping her back to the wall and her profile thin as she came to a corner near a door and peeked around it.

It was a workshop of some kind, filled with the most wondrous instruments of brass, bronze, silver, and gold. It was vast, too, like the home of some divine spirit of artifice or smithery.

And there, at the far end of the room, were four children of varying sizes crowded around a desk. The child with blue hair still had her back to Lux as she reached for something, and when she picked up, Lux saw that it was an uncut jewel that was nevertheless of the brightest azure she had ever seen.

Who are you?

Lux jolted and whipped around to find herself staring up are a figure that seemed to fill the whole of the hall with light the color of brass. Just as it had been with the Omen, her mind seemed to bend and strain in an attempt to put together an image of what was before her:

Wings made from a million and one perfectly interlocking gears that flexed with jewel movements. Eyes like mechanical irises that opened to fixate upon her. A hand grasping a great hammer that burned azure from somewhere deep within it.

Then there was a sound from the room Lux had just been peeking into; a shout, then a clatter of something striking the ground, and the thing bellowed as it swept past her toward the room. Lux didn’t have a chance to see if the angel reached that place, because all at once, the whole temple shook as if it had been smote my the Protector’s blade, and azure light exploded all around her.

Chapter Text

Lux jolted awake, her vision still washed in blue for a moment before she blinked the sleep from her eyes and rolled over on the cot. Powder had been right, the cot wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least she’d been able to get some sleep.

The blanket covering her was thin but soft, and the room was warm from the heat of the forge. She could hear the soft ‘tink-tink-tink’ of a tool working delicately at metal, and Lux smiled as she rolled over and sat up. She stretched her arms over her head, wincing at the chorus of cracks and pops from her limbs as she yawned cavernously, and from the far end of the room, Powder looked up and smiled.

“Hey Blondie. Sleep okay?”

“I think so,” Lux said as she rubbed at her eyes. “I had a strange dream…I don’t remember much of it, but…”

Her head hurt. It was filled with brass light and clockwork eyes staring down at her. There was something else, too; murmurs and voices, whispers of conversations that Lux could remember actually hearing, but still stuck out to her in a strange way. There was something amongst those mutters and half-recalled voices that stuck in her mind, though, even more sharply than the dream itself.

“Something wrong?” Powder had paused her work and was looking at Lux with soft concern.

Lux shrugged and shook her head. “No, nothing’s wrong, just…this is a strange question, but have you ever heard of a place called Oshra Va’Zaun?”

“Va’Zaun? Sort of, actually.” She turned and picked up her work. It was a blade, and she was carefully etching something into the fuller. “You mighta noticed I’m not exactly local. I’ve been all over, and uh, out east, south’a Noxus, there’s this peninsula? Landbridge? Eh, I’m no good with fancy names, but there used to be this old Shuriman port out that way called ‘Oshra Va’Zaun’. All ruins now, o’course. Swallowed by the sands. Folks say the ruins are still there, though, and there’re digs every so often.”

“What are they digging for? Artifacts?”

“Maybe, but…” Powder trailed off, and Lux caught a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Legend goes that Oshra Va’Zaun wasn’t buried with the old empire. They say the Gods destroyed it as punishment for blasphemy, or something like that. I dunno. You’d be better off askin’ a Shuriman. They know the old stories better than me. Why d’you wanna know?”

“I think I dreamed about it,” Lux replied as she slowly stood and started pulling her habit on properly. “It was…very strange.”

Then again, everything about her life since coming to the convent had become strange. She needed time to figure out what was going on. Time to understand what her Jinx was trying to tell her. It was something that Lux had begun to suspect; that her Jinx wasn’t just pulling ill-tempered pranks, but rather trying to point Lux at something. Of course, it would be nice if she could just come out and tell her, but then again, the last time Lux had directly confronted Jinx, her mind had nearly snapped in half.

So maybe this was just the so-called Omen of the convent being polite. Or maybe she was genuinely trying not to hurt Lux while still being helpful in some way.

That would be nice.

“Goin’ back?”

Lux looked up, but Powder hadn’t moved. She was still diligently and carefully working at the metal in front of her. There was something mesmerizing about watching Powder work with her hands. “I have to, eventually,” Lux replied. “Trust me, it’s not out of any great desire. But if I stay here for too long, they’ll come looking, and I’d rather you not be troubled on my account.”

“Don’t worry about me, Blondie,” Powder said with a raspy chuckle. “I can look after myself just fine.”

Finally, she set aside her tools and picked up the blade, turned it over a few times in her hand, then nodded before blowing across it and setting it back down. Unable to resist the urge, Lux approached and watched over her shoulder as Powder pulled out a mostly clean rag along a pot of some slick oil, daubed some on the blade, and started to vigorously polish it.

It was a beautiful piece, actually. It was short, slender, and double-edged with a curious patterning to the metal, almost like ripples. Along the fuller, there were marks or symbols of some kind, but Lux didn’t recognize their provenance.

“Beautiful,” Lux whispered.

“And here I haven’t even showered,” Powder replied smartly, and Lux flushed. That prompted a sound of mirth from the smith. “But uh, yeah. Glad ya think so.”

She wiped the last of the oil away, picked up a neatly fashioned leather sheathe complete with a brass-buckled strap, and tucked the blade away. Then, to Lux’s shock, Powder turned and held it out to her.

“F-For me?” Lux asked quietly.

“If ya want it.”

“Why?”

Powder hesitated, then said, “Because when ya came in here, ya seemed scared. I don’t like you being scared, so I figured it might make ya feel better to have something to protect yourself with that the good sisters don’t know about.”

It shouldn’t have felt so good to see Powder sitting there in front of her, offering her a blade. It wasn’t something she’d consciously considered, but now that it came to it, Lux realized that, if the Canonesses' intentions were dark, cutting her way out of the convent might be her only choice.

Now that she thought about it, Lux realized that, deep down, she’d been considering it all along, and had more or less consigned herself to stealing cutlery from the kitchen.

A well-made blade, even a small one, was better than any kitchen knife.

“Where will I hide it?”

Powder turned the sheathed blade over to show the straps. “It buckles around your thigh. Nuns all wear skirts, so I figured, y’know. Hide it where no one’s gonna look, right?”

Lux bit her lip as all manner of unseemly thoughts followed that particular line of reasoning. It didn’t help that, although Powder’s expression remained perfectly neutral, there was a damnably suggestive heat in her eyes.

“I suppose that’s a fine idea,” Lux replied, then she stepped away to lean her back against the still-warm body of the forge, gathered her skirts in her fists, and carefully hiked them up while extending one leg.

Powder swallowed visibly, Lux couldn’t help but feel fiercely vindicated at the sight. She kept her eyes locked on Powder’s as the blacksmith rose from her seat, then knelt like a knight before her lady to take Lux’s leg in her hand. Her fingers were calloused and rough, but sweet for all that, and she brushed the skirts higher as she carefully looped the strap of the sheathe around Lux’s upper thigh.

Steady hands pulled the straps of leather taut, but not uncomfortably, before securing them with cleverly fashioned leather cords. If she was doing it quite slowly, then Lux only reasoned that it was so it was done properly, and so Lux could watch and learn how to do it for herself.

Far too soon, the blade was secure. It was a strangely comforting weight despite its newness, and Lux shivered as Powder pulled the last cord tight, with both hands wrapped around her thigh, only to trail those rough palms all the way down her leg to her heel.

There was something almost worshipful in the motion.

Briefly—very briefly—Lux considered not dropping her skirts back down, if only to see what Powder would do with that. But she didn’t. It was awful of her to even think it.

Powder rose with a reverential look on her face, but before she could step away, Lux caught her hands and blurted out, “Will you come away with me?”

Powder’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“When I leave, I mean,” Lux continued, unable to stop now that she had begun. “I won’t stay in this place! Not forever! And when I leave, I don’t want to leave you behind! Come back with me to my house! We can protect you! I…I can protect you.”

Her expression turned wan and thoughtful. “I’d love to, Blondie. Really I…I would, but uhm…there’re things here I can’t just walk away from, y’know? Obligations and all that.”

“Not even for me?” Lux said the words and immediately hated herself for it. She hated leveraging herself against the crude but genuine honor that rested in Powder’s heart.

The hurt on Powder’s face made that pain all the worse, but before she could recant, the blacksmith said, “It ain’t like that! If I could, I would, I just…it’s my family…”

“I told you! I can pro—”

“—they’re buried here.”

Lux’s mouth immediately went arid, and the words died on her tongue. Protector’s wings, and to think she’d called Powder a cad. “I…I didn’t know.”

Thankfully, Powder didn’t pull away. She just shrugged noncommittally as she said, “Happened when I was a kid. Don’t worry about it. I just…I wasn’t plannin’ on being her forever either, but you know how it is. Sometimes it feels like you’re just chained to a place, y’know?”

“I do,” Lux said with a small, bitter laugh, thinking of her own gilded cage, which she had so lately escaped, only to find herself thrown headfirst into this debacle.

“But,” Powder continued, “the truth is that, uh…I don’t wanna leave you either.” And that set Lux’s hopes soaring. “So gimme some time, alright? Assuming, y’know, the sisters give you time. I’ll put some old ghosts to rest and maybe after I’m done, we can get outta here together, and”—she turned to look out the window where a small murder of crows was roosting in a tree nearby—“spread our wings. See where the wind takes us.”

Lux let out a shaky breath of relief as she nodded, stepped a little closer, and said, “I like the sound of that very much.”

Powder’s jewel-blue eyes fairly glittered with delight as she flicked a few strands of her own messy blue hair out of her face. “You sure about that, Blondie? Me bein’ a rakehell and a cad and all?”

“And an oaf,” Lux added, then giggled lightly before saying, “but yes, I’m very, very sure.”

And before she could overthink herself or let cowardice take her spine, Lux closed the last bit of distance to press her lips firmly to Powder’s. The blacksmith stiffened, then almost instantly relaxed as she freed her hands only to slip them around Lux’s waist to pull her closer. Lux obliged happily, moulding herself to Powder’s more compact frame.

Kissing Powder was a singular experience. Lux permitted herself the indulgence of appreciating Powder’s body in that moment, if not any other time, and ran her hands up and down the blacksmith’s lean, corded arms, and over her dense shoulders. Powder was not a large woman by any stretch of the term. She looked practically fey from even a short distance, in fact, but that frame belied a body forged from lupine muscle that gave her a strangely weightless manner of motion. She was so much stronger than she looked, and Lux could feel it in the firm grasp of her hands and in the way her body simply didn’t yield. She was hard edges hidden behind a soft appearance, and Lux found she liked that very much.

She liked, especially, how warm Powder’s lips were.

They parted reluctantly, and Lux couldn’t help staring adoringly into Powder’s eyes for the agonizing seconds it took to pull away. The weight of the blade on her thigh suddenly felt so much more…comforting. It was like she was taking a piece of Powder with her wherever she went; a secret that only she knew, etched lovingly along the fuller of hidden steel.

“I’ll be back,” Lux whispered before licking her lips and forcing herself to move out of Powder’s grasp, and was gratified to feel the slight tug of resistance before Powder let go.

“I’ll be countin’ the minutes, Blondie.”

“I’ll be counting the breaths,” Lux replied before darting in for one last kiss, giggling as their noses brushed, and then she was away and moving out the door, feeling lighter than she had in years.

She watched Sister Luxanna Crownguard leave, her stomach sinking as her hands fell numbly to her sides. It wasn’t supposed to have been like this. She wasn’t supposed to have been like this. She wasn’t supposed to be…

Perfect.

She’d never been much good at planning. She’d always had Pops for that. Even now, so many years dead—for whatever the word dead even mattered to anything sealed in those crypts—she was still executing that old apostate’s plan. She hadn’t even hated the idea of it. She was immortal, after all. What else was she gonna do with her time? Sit up in the belfry and brood? Besides, she owed the old man that much and more.

She owed her whole family a lot more than that.

Except all of that had been before she had met her Blondie.

Now she had another promise to keep, and this one was to someone who would actually live to remember it, assuming she didn’t do what she was best at and get Blondie killed. That was unacceptable, so ‘Powder’ went to the table where the papers from Pop’s book were spread out.

The old man had spent years studying the bindings on her. The same ones that locked down fear and darkness. He had studied them, and then he had designed the convent to become them.

‘Powder’ ran her finger along the spirals representing a portion of the convent’s spires. For centuries, they’d kept the book secret. They kept it hidden so well that even they had forgotten what it was even for. But they had still kept it hidden, and just far enough from ‘Powder’s’ fingers that it might as well have been buried beneath the City of Pillars itself.

“Just give me some time, Blondie,” Powder whispered as her eyes began to burn not blue but with an unearthly light. “I’ll figure this out, and then”—she traced the spiral, and several of the numbers began to glow—“we can be together. And we can both be free.”

Samira punched the stone wall as panic and fury warred in her heart. Fear was not an emotion alien to her—quite the opposite, any good mercenary who expected to live long enough to spend their payday cultivated a healthy sense of fear that bordered on outright cowardice. She had never reneged on a contract, no matter the stakes, but that didn’t mean she was reckless with her life, and so fear had always been a close companion of Samira’s.

Except right then, when all that carefully husbanded emotion abruptly turned on her like a desert asp.

She had come down to the first floor in accordance with Leona’s orders, intent on finding Sister Crownguard and bringing her back, but unlike every other time she’d come down to the lowest level, this time she had gotten lost.

At first, she had assumed she’d allowed herself to become distracted. The last few days had been…difficult, and it was hard not to feel pity for the young Crownguard, who had never asked for this. Samira still felt a sting of betrayal at the Canoness’ professed manipulations, however subtle. So she backtracked, following the map in her mind, only to find herself hopelessly turned around.

And that was when the darkness began to grow deeper.

For the past hour and a half, insofar as Samira could trust her own sense of time anymore, she had been wandering the halls, turning this way and that, and every step felt just slightly heavier than the one before. Despite the chill in the air, Samira’s long, dark hair was soaked with sweat, and her heart was thundering in her chest. No matter where she went, she swore she could hear whispering, but when she looked or followed them, she found only empty corners or dead ends.

Swallowing thickly, Samira reached for the winged icon hanging from her neck and pulled it free. “Holy Protector,” she prayed as she tried to slow her heartbeat. “Guide your wayward servant. Send your light to illuminate the dark…Holy Sister of Judgment, leadeth me not unto shadow, but into your embrace.”

Never a woman of great piety, Samira abruptly found herself lamenting that fact as she clung to her icon of the protector and murmured prayers as she walked slowly from hall to hall. After years in the convent, she remembered quite a few of them, and exhausted them all before starting again from the beginning. None of them seemed to help, though. Every hall looked the same as the one before it, even if the numbers of the chapel doors told her differently.

The whispers were even getting louder, even if Samira couldn’t make out a word they were saying, and she tried to hedge them out. “I know who you are,” she whispered, finally breaking from her litanies but steadfastly keeping her eyes locked forward and away from the shadows. “I know your name, and I will not succumb to your temptations. You are the prisoner. You and your master. We are your wardens, and you have no power over us. You have no power over me!”

The halls seemed to tremble, and suddenly Samira’s vision doubled, and nerves transmuted violently into vertigo as she fell to her knees. She swore she could hear laughter, but it echoed as if coming from deep within the earth.

Lies. Leona lied to Luxanna. And if the Canoness lied to her, then who was to say she wasn’t lying to all of them? The idea, pernicious as a plague, scratched at the corner of her mind, and Samira clutched at the sides of her head as she tried to hedge it out. This wasn’t like the other trials. This was so much worse! Where was the herald? Where was the Omen?

Wasn’t the Omen supposed to be on their side?!

More laughter, and Samira swore she felt the edge of an ice-cold blade brush lasciviously along the skin of her back as if her habit were not even there. The urge to take Luxanna and just flee the convent outright suddenly surged through Samira’s limbs like molten metal, and she nearly vomited with the effort it took to resist rising and sprinting for the doors.

But what if that was the right decision? Hadn’t Leona all but admitted that she had lured Lux to the convent under false pretenses? As a mercenary, Samira had a skewed sense of honor, but she still had honor, and this was treading across that line and beyond!

No. NO! Those weren’t her thoughts! “Get out of my head!” Samira snarled as she forced herself to her feet and began stumbling forward. “BEGONE! BEGONE! I WILL NOT HEED YOU! I WILL NOT LISTEN!” 

What if Lux was the traitor, though? What if she was a monster hiding her wickedness beneath that lovely blonde veneer? Samira had experienced the high circles of Noxian society and found that aristocracy very rarely equated to nobility. Rather, those types tended to be the heinous of all, indulging their hideous appetites for no other reason than that they had the coin and political leverage to do so. Why should Demacia be any different? For all its cloak of glory, Leona herself had displayed no shortage of machinations.

Would she resist the whispers of temptation?

Would she, whom Leona refused to even share the name of her aggressor to, even have a chance? Hadn’t she known of Kai’sa’s vigil? Hadn’t she been out at night against curfew? Hadn’t she seemed far too certain of her path through the labyrinth just this morning?!

“There is no will but the Light, alone. She is without equal. Hers is the dominion and all praise, for she is all! BEGONE, DJINN! BEGONE!”

“S-Sister?” Samira looked up to find Luxanna Crownguard staring at her with wide, worried eyes. The young woman approached her cautiously, one hand out and the other in her pocket. “Are you…alright?”

Another of the djinn’s lies; another whisper of the darkness that clouds the minds of mortals. Samira took a step back, almost tripping over her skirts before she remembered they were there. She missed her combat leathers. They were so much more comfortable than these damnable Demacian skirts.

Luxanna stepped back as well, giving her space, and said, “Sister Samira,” she said slowly. “You…You seem unwell, are you lost?”

“I am,” Samira said, narrowing her eyes as her fingers twitched for her missing blade, but a blade was far too obvious. Other weapons were not, and no mercenary was ever unarmed. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sister,” Lux said, her tone still bitterly sweet and soothing.

Shaking her head, Samira could barely think for the pounding in her skull and whispers filling her ears. She forced herself to focus on Luxanna—forced herself to look past the sorcery. She repeated the litanies of the Protector in her mind, all too conscious of enraging something that she had no chance of slaying.

And that was when she saw it.

A darkness was crowding around the young Crownguard and filling the hallway behind her. It was vast, bituminous, and terrible, and it was filled with eyes that were watching, waiting, and judging!

“I see you for what you are!” Samira spat.

Lux took another step back, a mockery of fear on her face, even though Samira could see the twisting smirk hiding in the shadows all around her! She shoved her hand into the cleverly concealed cut she had made in the seam of her robes when she was first given them, gripped her prize, and pulled it free.

The handle was smooth, worked with mother-of-pearl, and fitted perfectly to her grip, while the trigger mechanism was designed by a rogue warsmith of the legion. The barrel was long, rifled, and etched with Shuriman prayers of protection.

Luxanna screamed, bringing both hands up, and one raised, palm out and fingers spread, but the other? The other was clutching something, and that was when Samira was certain. Certain to the point of madness. Luxanna Crownguard was clutching a fetish made from stormfeather! A curseworking totem even the old mothers of the old desert would have spat upon before touching!

“BEGONE!” Samira roared as she sighted Lux’s heart down the barrel of her pistol and pulled the trigger with a deafening report.

Chapter Text

It all happened so fast. One moment, Lux was backing away from Samira, who was clearly afflicted with some kind of madness, and the next she was staring down the barrel of a weapon that she had only ever seen pictures of. The mouth of the steel barrel seemed to be of infinite depth in that moment as Lux foresaw her death in a single, violent ignition of black powder.

A thousand and one thoughts pitched wildly through Lux’s mind as she threw her arms up and fell backward, clutching at the little feather totem that Powder had so sweetly given her. Even if it had no real power, it carried a wish within it from the blacksmith that Lux remain safe, and that made it precious to her. Some mad part of Lux’s mind prayed it would save her here, even if that was absurd. She was far too close—not even a novice could miss her at this range, and Samira was clearly far from a novice.

The normally-sanguine sister’s face was contorted in a rictus of fear and fury, and her finger curled around the trigger as she screamed, “BEGONE!”

She pulled the trigger, and there was a flicker of a spark, and that was when it happened. Time slowed immeasurably, and in the shadows cast by the igniting spark of Samira’s pistol, something vast, dark, and unholy was briefly illuminated, towering over Samira and seemingly spilling out from her back. Lux couldn’t comprehend it. There was no time, because suddenly there was a blast of wind and a rush of color, shape, and shadow that cascaded past her and Samira.

The only thing Lux saw of that was a pair of pale fingers that seemed to form from nothingness to gently touch the barrel of Samira’s gun.

Then time reasserted itself, and there was a deafening report as Samira’s gun detonated in her hand. The Noxian woman screamed as it kicked violently, pieces of metal and wood flying apart as the explosive powder within tore the weapon to pieces. Samira herself was thrown to the ground, utterly insensible, and curled around her bleeding, lacerated hand.

And the shadows of the hall suddenly vanished.

The terrible weight of darkness and alien paranoia suddenly fled as if it had been chased away by candlelight.

“SAMIRA!” Lux scrambled to her feet and stumbled over before dropping to her knees beside the older sister.

Her hand was a ruin, and parts of her habit were smoldering. Lux patted out the little flames that had taken hold before looking up with a thought to scream for help, but that thought withered at the memory of that thing that had been hovering over Samira moments ago. Something was here. She had known it practically from the start, but that was proof. There was something else in this damned convent and just as she had begun to suspect, it was down in this blasted labyrinth.

Clenching her jaw and pushing away her fear, and likewise ignoring that the woman she was helping had just lately tried to kill her, Lux gathered up the remains of Samira’s weapon, then got an arm under the stout sister and levered her upright. Fortunately, they weren’t far from the stairs, and she managed to half-carry, half-drag Samira to the door without issue. Lux kept her head on a swivel, looking this way and that, and expecting with each turn to see that shadowy thing spilling down a hallway at her like a silent, penumbral wave.

Pushing the door open and beginning her slow, shaky ascent with the groaning Sister Samira at her side, Lux couldn’t help but wonder if her Jinx hadn’t just protected her—that Jinx was still protecting her by keeping that thing at bay. Lux made a quiet promise to herself that, when she reached her room, she would kneel and properly thank Jinx for her protection. Strange and terrifying as she might be, if the Omen of the Convent had shielded her, then it was only right to show gratitude for such a miracle.

The moment they reached the second floor, Lux kicked the stairwell door shut, took a deep breath, and began shouting for help as she dragged Samira down the hall.

Fortunately, she only had to take a couple of steps before the thunder of footsteps heralded the disheveled Night Canoness, Diana, clearly having only just wakened, coming around the corner. She was wearing only part of her habit, with her skirts askew and her pale hair falling freely as she rushed to their side.

“Sister Crownguard, what is the meaning of this?!” Diana took Samira’s other side, lifting much of her weight, and Lux groaned in relief as she shared the burden.

“I…I don’t know!” Lux cried. “But she’s hurt! Do we have a healer?”

“Yes, yes, we do.” Diana nodded forward, and together they hauled Samira’s now-unconscious form up to the third floor and down a hall that Lux had never bothered to explore.

The Night Canoness led them straight to a particular door before roughly shouldering it open. Inside was a handful of beds arrayed against the wall, with a few slender windows allowing the fading light of the day to filter in across white sheets of soft cotton and hand-carved bedframes.

“Help me get her to a bed, little sister,” Diana said as she maneuvered them over toward the nearest mattress, and within moments they had Samira sprawled across it.

The moment she was down, Diana was looking over her, wincing at the bloody mess of her hand before going over the rest of her. Lux stepped back, not sure if she should leave, but too worried to simply retreat. It was obvious to her that something had been very wrong with the woman, and the sight of that awful thing in the shadows of the black powder spark had only assured her of that thought.

“Wait here with her, please,” Diana said after apparently determining that Samira’s life wasn’t in any immediate danger. “I need to fetch Leona and Sister Buvelle. Shout for us if she stirs or shows any other signs of distress.”

Lux just nodded as she took a seat beside Samira. She let her hand come to rest on the comforting weight of the new blade that Powder had forged for her, though, as Diana left the room. Some instinct told Lux that whatever corruption filled the halls of the first floor, it couldn’t yet reach the second or third, and so she was safe, but still…

Samira had just tried to kill her.

She wanted to believe that whatever caused her sudden bout of violence had not come from the sister who had shown her the only real decency in the convent. Lux wanted to believe that something awful had wormed its way into Sister Samira’s thoughts, as terrifying of a prospect as that was in and of itself.

So instead, Lux took her hand from where the blade lay hidden beneath her skirts, leaned forward, and propped against the prone sister’s bedside as she clasped her hands and began to pray. Not to the Protector, though, for Lux had experienced little intervention from the winged one despite the need for it.

No, instead, Lux whispered softly in the same vulgate as the book she’d been studying, “Herald of Misfortune, I thank you for protection. I thank you for your kindly shadow. I thank you for bearing this ill will upon your wings and carrying it away. Herald, I pray, carry the misfortune of this one away, too, and cast it to the winds. So be it, if such be your will.”

Lowering her hands, Lux grimaced as she looked over Samira’s pained expression. Much as she resented the sisters of the convent for dragging her into whatever this mess was, Lux hadn’t truly wished harm on any of them.

Thinking on that, Lux added, “And…Jinx. If you’re there? Try not to hurt them?”

The door creaked and then opened suddenly, and Lux sat up straight as both Canonesses bustled in, followed by the silent Sister Sona. Leona came to a stop, standing over Samira with a twisted grimace of worry, then turned to Sona and said, “See to her. Do whatever you must. If you lack anything, make a list and bring it to my office. I will see it fulfilled.”

Sona nodded, then moved to Lux’s side and stared briefly. Despite the lack of words, her message was clear, and Lux rose and backed away to give the sister more space. As she did, Leona turned to fix that golden glare of hers on Lux and jerked her head back toward the hall.

Well, that was probably inevitable.

Lux nodded, moving past Sona, who was going over the wounded Samira with a practiced hand. She followed Canoness Leona out into the hall and down toward her office. They made the walk in silence, and each step reverberated up Lux’s spine as she was keenly aware of the controlled anger bleeding off the Targonian sister. Intellectually, she knew she had done nothing wrong, but the problem is that she had no idea if that would actually matter.

The knife Powder made for her was her only real comfort.

She was ushered into Leona’s office, and the heavy door closed behind her with a sepulchral thud. The Canoness went to her desk in continued silence, the muscles around her mouth tight with strain as she turned to face Lux and said, “Explain.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to do that, your Grace,” Lux replied, her voice harboring an annoying shake to it as the excitement of the moment started to ebb.

“You just dragged one of my senior sisters into the hall bleeding from multiple wounds with a ruined hand,” Leona said through her teeth. “So I am afraid you’re going to have to do better than that.”

Anger snapped deep in Lux’s chest at the patronizingly maternal tone. “Well, it seems we’re both going to be disappointed, then, your Grace.” She did her best not to spit the words out. “I found Sister Samira raving in the halls of the first floor on my way back in from the bailey, and when I approached her, she turned on me! Accused me wildly, howled for me to begone, and then”—Lux pulled out the remains of the Noxian pistol and slammed it into her desk—“tried to shoot me! I haven’t the foggiest what happened or why! And if I’d possessed the slightest measure of sense I’d have left her lying there and fled this wretched convent for Fossbarrow, madness and Omen be damned!”

Canoness Leona stared at her for several seconds, possibly torn between the urge to punish and shock at the sheer audacity. Rather than address that, thankfully, she turned her gaze to the shattered remains of the firearm.

Reaching out, Leona dragged the broken weapon closer and picked up the blackened grip, turning it over in her hands as she looked over the damage.

Finally, she looked up and said, “You say she ‘tried’ to shoot you, yes?”

“Y-Yes,” Lux said, frowning. “Why?”

“Because the Samira I know does not ‘try’ to shoot anything, she simply shoots them,” Leona explained coolly, which did nothing for Lux’s nerves. “And that doesn’t explain how her prized pistol ended up in this condition.”

“She pulled the trigger and it exploded,” Lux said flatly.

“Exploded?”

“Was I somehow unclear, your Grace?”

Leona narrowed her eyes at Lux. “You would do well to check your tone, Sister Crownguard. You are bordering on offense.”

It took everything in Lux not to snap at the woman as she said, “My apologies, your Grace. You see, one of your nuns just tried to kill me today, so I’m not really feeling myself.”

For a moment, the pair simply glared at one another, and Lux was tempted to push the envelope just to see if she could get the Canoness to expel her from the convent. Only thinking of Powder and their recent promise kept her tongue behind her teeth.

To Lux’s surprise, it was Leona who capitulated first, sighing and breaking eye contact to look down at the weapon again.

“This…explosion.” She held it up and pointed at the blackened portion where the barrel had met the grip. “Did it originate here, as near as you could tell? Just a guess is fine.”

“I…yes, I think so.”

Leona frowned, but it was an expression of confusion more than displeasure as she cradled the broken remains, then shook her head and said, “I grow weary of impossibilities today.”

“Ma’a—your Grace?”

“That explosion you described is called a ‘misfire’. It happens most often with poorly kept weapons or when the powder contains impurities, or if the weapon is otherwise badly loaded.”

“And?”

“And does Sister Samira strike you as the sort of woman to keep her weapons in poor condition, use cheap components, or load her pistol in an amateur fashion?” Leona asked flatly.

The pointed nature of the question left the obvious answer lying between them. “No, obviously not,” Lux replied.

In fact, from what little Lux had learned, the picture painted of Samira was one of a consummate professional—someone who, for all her insouciant exterior, radiated an air of absolute competence. Mercenary work was not for the faint of heart, and to earn any kind of lifestyle, much less a reputation, meant that the mercenary in question was far more than just good at their job. A mercenary who slacked on maintaining their weapons would find them brittle at fatal moments, and those who used subpar materials or components would suffer the same.

“I know for a fact,” Leona continued as she set the ruined weapon down and tapped it with a finger, “that Samira spent every morning before prayers cleaning and caring for this item. It’s practically an icon of worship to her, and, casual blasphemy aside, I have heard her remark on more than one occasion that it’s saved her more often than the Protector.”

“Then…what you’re saying is—”

“—the odds of this gun, specifically, misfiring are astronomical.” Leona struck the nail on the head. “And given your encounter with, and the interest of, the Omen of this convent, who is well known for bringing misfortune, I suspect a woman of your intelligence knows what I’m about to posit.”

All Lux could do was bite her lip and nod.

“The Omen protected you.”

“Is that strange?” Lux asked quietly.

“Given that her influence has potentially killed multiple sisters of this order, or otherwise driven them to madness?” Leona said more than asked. “Yes, I would suggest that it is very strange, indeed.”

Lux bristled. “Well, if you’re looking for an explanation from me, I’m afraid I’ve nothing to give you. I’m no more in control of my JInx than I am of my own life of late, unfortunately.”

“Soothe your choler, Sister Crownguard.” Leona’s voice took on a hard, iron timbre. “I am not your enemy. I am not trying to harm you. I am trying to help you, and I assure you that I am just as concerned about Samira’s abrupt and violent lapse of behavior as you are.”

Somehow, Lux doubted that, but she didn’t see any particular good coming out of voicing that opinion. Instead, she kept her mouth shut and gave a somewhat flimsy bow of apology before straightening back up. It was obnoxious how much Leona actually sounded like she believed the words she was saying. For all Lux knew, she really did believe them. It was a shame, then, that believing one was doing the right thing did not prevent one from attempting to accomplish said ‘thing’ via heinous means.

Lux had the distinct impression that if Canoness Leona’s ultimate goal, whatever it was, called for the sacrifice of Lux’s own life, the Canoness would not hesitate to serve her up on a silver platter. How awful, it was, to think that her only true ally in this place—aside from Powder—might be a being of eldritch misfortune.

“Was there anything else you recall from the event, Sister Crownguard? Anything at all,” Leona pressed. “Even if it seems mad or insignificant, I would ask you tell me.”

Sighing softly, Lux recalled that strange vision she’d had in the light of the pistol’s spark, and said, “I did—I think I saw something. Mind you, it was only for the briefest moment as the gun…misfired. But in the light of that flame, I thought I saw something looming over Sister Samira, like a great and terrible shadow. I…I didn’t see anything definite, but the feeling was one of…of…”

“Fear?”

Lux shook her head. “Not exactly. More like something irrational. Just looking at it made the world feel less steady and almost like a…

Leona swallowed audibly, then said, “Like a nightmare? Did the world feel like a dream or a nightmare?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“I see.”

“And I further suppose you’re not going to tell me what I saw?” Lux said perhaps a bit more flatly than she ought to have.

Leona held her gave for several seconds, and then, without warning, slumped and dropped down into her chair. She pulled her cap from her head, allowing her auburn locks to fall freely over her shoulders as she buried her face in her hands. For a moment, Lux felt a surge of genuine pity as she watched the stoic walls drop away from the older woman, and behind them, she saw a breadth of strain and stress that reminded her of her father, of all people.

“If I could tell you,” Leona said slowly, “I would. But I took a vow of secrecy, and I cannot breach it. Until you take the same vow before the altar of the vigil, there are limits to what I am permitted to explain, and I am not the authority on who is called to those vows.” She dropped her hands and looked up with tired eyes. “Until you are called, I must say nothing. I am sorry, Sister Crownguard. Truly, I am.”

Despite everything, Lux actually believed those words. Whether they meant anything in the long run didn’t necessarily mean anything, but for whatever it was worth the Canoness sounded sincere.

“I will…I understand, I suppose,” Lux said quietly, then sighed and fished for a change of subject that wasn’t so fraught, looked down at Samira’s pistol, and said, “A shame about the gun. It really was quite beautiful.”

“If I could have it repaired, I would,” Leona said, catching onto the thread of a peace offering Lux had extended. “Unfortunately, it’s Noxian craft, and we are far from the empire.”

“I know it’s a long shot, but you could always ask the blacksmith.”

Leona raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. “I’m afraid the smiths of Fossbarrow are more suited to make common tools and nails than advanced weapons of war. This far from the border, I doubt any of them have anything made more violent than a hunting knife.”

“No,” Lux shook her head, “I meant the convent blacksmith.”

That prompted a frown. “I’m afraid we don’t have one.” A knot suddenly seized in Lux’s gut. “Most do, and I’ve tried for years, but the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings is so isolated that it doesn’t make for a particularly attractive post, even for a very pious smith.”

“O-Oh. My mistake, I…I simply assumed,” Lux said numbly as the blade hanging from her thigh seemed to suddenly triple in weight. “That’s a shame.”

“Fossbarrow is not so far away, though, so it’s easy enough to get the necessities and have small repairs done,” Leona continued, seemingly unaware of Lux’s collapsing sense of reality.

That was the true insult to this grievous injury.

That Leona didn’t seem to notice what she had just said.

If it had been anything else, Lux would have suspected the Canoness of further trying to seed doubt and uncertainty into Lux’s mind. Yet, the simple and matter-of-fact manner in which Leona was talking about the mundane irritations of managing a convent without a resident blacksmith was an order of magnitude more jarring. She really seemed utterly certain that the convent did not have a blacksmith.

“W-Well.” Lux forced the words out, feeling almost divorced from her own body and looking down at herself and the Canoness from above. “If you would like, I could make some inquiries with my family. We have…connections with the Royal Mechanist Society in the capital.”

Leona gave a wan smile, still looking wholly unaware of the ruin she’d just wrought of Lux’s world. “I may take you up on that, Sister Crownguard.” Then she frowned. “Are you alright?”

“Today has been…trying,” Lux said, still feeling cold and numb. “I think I’ll retire to my room, if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” Leona said softly. “I’ll have someone bring you some dinner. And, truly, Luxanna, if I didn’t say it before, let me say it now. I am sorry about what happened. If I could have stopped what happened, please know that I would have.”

Lux licked her dry lips, and imagined she could still taste Powder’s kiss as she said, “Unfortunately, your Grace, I believe you.”

Chapter Text

Leona slumped back in her chair the moment Lux left her office. Everything was coming apart at the seams, or so it felt. The world was hanging on tenterhooks, and only a handful of people even realized it. By the will of distant gods and spirits, mortalkind was rendered blind so it might live in peace, never knowing how close to the edge of ruin it was treading, and it was her great misfortune to be one of those rare few pushed close enough to the edge to look down into that illimitable drop.

She had wanted to ask Sister Crownguard a number of things that evening, but Samira’s actions had curtailed most of them. Given how close to the edge Luxanna was, Leona had the distinct impression that if she had piled an interrogation about the book on top of that, she might have lost the girl entirely.

No, for now, she had to prioritize keeping Lux in the convent. She would wait a day or two and then bring up the translations, as well as the damage. That much was neither unreasonable nor outside of her abilities. As much as Leona wanted to have answers to that particular question, especially given that the order still hadn’t managed to translate most of Metus et Tenebrae, patience was the order of the day.

For now.

The door to her office creaked open, and Leona looked up, ready to snap at yet another interruption, only to relax as she saw her counterpart entering, now fully dressed. Diana Argentius was, in every way, Leona’s opposite number—slight, where Leona was stout, limber, where Leona was unyielding, and pale, where Leona’s complexion fairly glowed with a sundrenched tan. She was the silver to Leona’s gold, and just the sight of her put a balm across the anger of the day.

“My moon,” Leona muttered. “How is Samira?”

Diana grimaced as she moved past Leona’s desk to lay a hand on her shoulder. “She could certainly be better, but Sona is tending to her. That explosion could easily have claimed her life. Had the fragments of wood and metal struck with any kind of fortune, she’d have bled out in moments.”

“Then perhaps the Omen has not wholly forsaken us.”

“The Omen nearly killed her,” Diana said darkly. “Who’s to say this wasn’t simple chance? That hexed spirit is an ally of convenience and happenstance. It does not serve the Protector nor the Light, nor, do I think, does it even have any great respect for the Sheltering One.”

“The Omen saved Luxanna’s life,” Leona said firmly. “The Nightmare took Samira, and the Omen intervened. This is not outside of our expectations, we’ve simply never had the sealed ones act so…brazenly before.”

“You trust to fate too easily, my heart,” Diana argued.

“And you lack faith,” Leona replied, not unkindly, “my moon. It’s why you were nearly excommunicated. I adore your curious mind as I do everything else about you, but there comes a time in the nature of faith when questions must be set aside.”

Diana rolled her eyes, a habit that had earned her no shortage of lectures from their ecclesiastical tutors back in Targon, then said, “I shall leave the unquestioning faith to you, I think. There’s some value in a good naysmith after all, and without me, you’d simply take everything that occurs as divine writ.”

“I’m not that rigid.”

“I beg to differ.”

Chucking thinly, Leona shook her head and doffed her cap, setting it aside before carding her fingers through her long, auburn curls. “I fear we are approaching some prophesied end, my moon. Some fate that we have been blind to until now. The sealed ones stir in ways I’ve never known nor heard of, and the Omen is acting of its own accord, not simply wandering the halls in a daze as it had before. That girl has changed something—brought something with her into this convent—and I need to know what it is.”

Diana crossed her arms and leaned back, resting her backside casually on the desk used by centuries of Canonesses. It was, to Leona, a part of the woman’s charm, but it was equally clear why she’d never fit in under the strict orthodoxy of the Mihiran faithful. “Do you have a plan, then?”

“Yes.” Leona clasped her fingers in mimicry of prayer. “I’m going to take the next vigil once Sister Kai’sa emerges.”

Frowning, Diana said, “The vigil has been almost lethally trying, of late. No one has emerged unscathed except Kai’sa, and only then because of her passenger!”

“Which is why I must act soon,” Leona said.

Diana’s frown deepened, but she didn’t argue. For all that she had a deeply contrarian nature, she knew logic and truth when she saw it, and this was a necessary risk. The communion of the vigil might tax her to and beyond her limits, but a life of faith was also a life of sacrifice, and Leona could not rightfully ask the sisters under the command to suffer what she would not take upon her own shoulders.

“I understand,” Diana said finally, then asked, “What do we do til then?”

Leona shook her head. “We wait, I’m afraid. We give Sona time to heal Sister Samira, and Kai’sa time to complete her vigil, and Sister Luxanna time to settle. Perhaps I’ll assign Taliyah to her, they’re of like age, and the girl is difficult to dislike.”

“Agreed.” Diana straightened, then doffed her own cap and shook out her long hair. It was so pale a blonde as to be the shade of purest platinum silver, and Leona had always thought it looked like a river of pure moonlight. “And since I’ve awakened early,” she continued, reaching out to stroke a finger along Leona’s jawline as she leaned in, “perhaps I might coax the time to pass somewhat more quickly.”

Despite herself, Leona smiled. Things had been quite busy since the Crownguard girl had arrived. Busy enough that she’d had little time for her partner, unfortunately. “Perhaps you might, at that,” Leona murmured as she leaned into the touch. “Though I might happier be if time elected to slow itself somewhat.”

Leona was abruptly quite thankful for the convent’s sturdy furniture as Diana hiked her skirts up and moved into Leona’s lap, laid both arms over her shoulders, and closed the distance until their noses were touching and lips nearly brushing together.

“Slowly or quickly, time passes all the same,” Diana murmured, then their lips met, and Leona felt some of the day’s strain fall away.

Her hand drifted to Diana’s hips, settling comfortably on the swell as she pulled Diana closer until their bodies were pressed flush together. It was no secret that Leona, with her flawless record and idealized representation of the solar faith, could have had any position in any cathedral, convent, or abbey that she wished. Diana was not so fortunate. Her constant questions had not endeared her to the Mons Sanctus, and she would have been relegated to somewhere so distant and unworthy that the pair of them would never have seen one another again.

That was why she had taken this inferior posting.

Of all the places to take, only the Convent of Her Sheltering Wings had been so poorly maintained that Leona had been given the freedom to select her escort entirely. Only here could she be with her moon in the way she wished.

Whatever price came of that choice, Leona would pay it gladly.

On the other side of the convent, Lux sat at her desk, numb with the ache of horror at the possibility of her own unhinging mind. Resting on the desk in front of her was the proof that she was not going entirely mad. The crowfeather fetish lay beside the sheathed blade, both of which seemed entirely real. Moreover, when she’d pulled the feather from her pocket during the altercation with Sister Samira, she had seen the older sister’s eyes snap to the feather fetish, meaning she’d seen it, meaning it was not a hallucination or product of a diseased mind.

Following that logic, Lux felt safe in assuming the knife was real as well, and it certainly felt real. That probably eliminated the possibility that she’d cracked utterly and been spending her days in an empty, rundown smithy, hallucinating a burgeoning romance with a non-existent blacksmith.

That left one of two options: the first being that Powder was some sort of indigent, hiding in the rear of the convent and lying about who she was, except that made no sense upon even the slightest scrutiny. Only a novice, like herself, who was wholly unfamiliar with the limited population of the convent would fall for that. If any of the other sisters had come across Powder, the lie would have fallen to ash in an instant, to say nothing of the Canonesses.

The second option was far more likely and, unfortunately, far more terrifying; that ‘Powder’ was an invention of the convent itself. Wild as the thought was, there was little else that explained all of the little strangenesses that Luxanna had, admittedly, been doing her best to ignore.

The apples, for instance. Powder had claimed that they’d come from the larders of the convent, but there were no apples in the larder anymore. Lux had clung to the idea that Powder had simply acquired them when they had been there, and kept them fresh in an icebox or something. Ice and snow were no hardship to acquire so close to the mountains, so it was feasible, or so Lux had told herself.

Likewise, there was Powder’s evident skill with the forge. Someone lying and hiding out would not possess such consummate mastery. Lux had watched Powder comfortably work the various tools of the smithing trade, most of which Lux couldn’t have named with a blade to her throat beyond the hammer, anvil, and tongs. It was clear that, for whatever else Powder might be, she was a blacksmith. Then there was the other small oddity that Lux had chalked up to simple chance; at no point had anyone— layfolk or sister—ever come to the smith with a task while she was there. Every visit had felt like coming to an isolated island where the convent was far from reach, despite the smithy resting in the shadow of the keep at all times.

None of these things were particularly egregious in and of themselves, but all great things were made of small things, and this Lux had been so desperate for a haven that she’d failed to notice it was bricked and mortared with inconsistencies and lies.

So then, to whom did Powder belong?

Darkness? Fear?

The Omen?

Had Powder really been lying to her all along? Whispering sweet nothings while pulling her strings and gently leading her down the road to damnation? Lux wanted to believe that was not the case. She wanted to believe that the look in Powder’s eyes when they’d kissed, and the way she had touched Lux when she’d given her gifts and she’d promised to protect her, was real.

She wanted to believe that.

Lux swallowed thickly as she fought off a wave of nausea and tears. Even now, knowing that there was something terribly wrong, all she wanted to do was flee the damnable convent and fall back into Powder’s arms. She had no doubt that it would feel just as real as it had that afternoon, and if she let herself, Lux was certain she could forget the awful revelation the Canoness had inadvertently handed her.

For now…Lux was willing to act on the assumption that Powder, at least, didn’t intend to harm her. She’d offered nothing but protection and asked nothing in return. It had seemed to have come from a place of genuine care. It probably hadn’t, if Lux were being fully honest with herself, and there was almost certainly some ulterior motive behind it all, but…

A thought occurred to Lux in that moment; one that might have seemed absurd under most circumstances, but in this particular one was startlingly possible.

Could ‘Powder’ read her mind?

Experience suggested the answer was ‘no’. Her few visits hadn’t implied any talent of that kind, although who really knew in this case. There would be a very easy way to tell after this, though, and that was to return to Powder’s smithy on the morrow. If she were some all-seeing entity or otherworldly being capable of peering into the minds of mere mortals, then it would be obvious that Lux was aware of her ruse. In that case, Powder’s smithy would be gone in its entirety, the smith would be nowhere to be found, or Lux would at least finally be confronted with at least one truth, which was Powder’s true nature.

Of course, that was assuming Powder was able to tell.

‘But what if she couldn’t?’ Came Lux’s traitorous thought. ‘What if Lux had a ruse of her own?’

It was actually comical to consider, and yet she was considering it all the same. This was probably in the running for the stupidest idea that she had ever had, and that included the time she got away with snogging one of the maids’ daughters when she was fourteen.

Stupid, yes, but she’d managed it.

Time would tell if she could make idiot lightning strike twice.

A double rap against her door startled her from her plotting, and Lux turned, half-expecting to hear Samira’s husky voice on the other side before remembering what had happened. Instead, it was the lighter voice of Sister Taliyah.

“Sister Crownguard? I have some food for you.”

Was dinner past already? That meant vespers would be sung soon. She was about to tell Taliyah to leave the food, but before she got the words out, a memory flitted through her mind like an errant bunny across a prairie.

‘You’d be better off askin’ a Shuriman. They know the old stories better than me.’

Had Powder just been playing with her? Well, there was one way to find out, and Lux stood, went to the door, and unlocked it. Taliyah was standing on the other side, a shy smile on her face, and her messy hair not quite tamed by the cap of her habit. It was endearing, and just looking at her left Lux with the overriding impression of someone nearly guileless.

Not stupid, but…perhaps someone who sees the best in people. “Thank you,” Lux said, before taking the plate of some smoked meat, bread, and jam from her and stepping back. “Won’t you come in? I’m afraid I haven’t been particularly social lately, and I’m starting to get tired ot spending all of my time alone.”

Taliyah’s visage brightened. “Love to,” she said as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. “I wanted to before,” she continued, “but Kai’sa hovers over me like a hawk, and she…she doesn’t trust you.”

“Well, the feeling is unfortunately mutual,” Lux muttered as she sat down on her bed and nodded for Taliyah to take the chair, which she did. “I haven’t given much reason for trust, nor been given much reason in return. It’s a little…isolating.”

“I know,” Taliyah said softly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told Kai’sa to go stick her head in the sand, but I know it’s just because she cares about me. She’s very protective.”

“Samira said you…that she picked both you up in the desert and brought you to the convent, is that right?” Lux asked as she poked at her dinner, not really possessed of an appetite but trying to work up the will to eat some of it anyway.

“Mhm.” Taliyah bobbed her head. There was a certain musical sway to her, even at rest, that left Lux thinking she must get restless quite easily. “She came for one of my tribe. We’re stonespeakers, who can hear the voice of the desert and the mountains, and move with them. Actually, she came to ask for one of our elders, but none of them would go, so I volunteered. There was much shouting and arguing, but they couldn’t stop me, and Kai’sa refused to leave my side.”

“Is she a stonespeaker, too?”

Taliyah shook her head. “No, she is an outcast. Her mother died of a plague, and it sent her father into…to dark places. He was branded a heretic and cast into the desert. She was not, but no one would take her in, either. I was eleven years old when I found her wandering amidst the dunes, nearly dead. She was only twelve. I taught her our tongue and our ways, and now, she protects me.”

“A bodyguard?” Lux asked as she finally worked up the strength to smear some jam on the bread and take a bite.

“Lovers.”

Lux choked on the bread.

Taliyah giggled, then said, “Sorry, I forget that your kingdom is very rigid sometimes. My tribe is not. We move like the wind on the sands. We travel where roads take us, and love where love finds us.”

“That uhm…that actually sounds nice,” Lux admitted.

“I’m sorry you’ve had such trials since coming here,” Taliyah said as she slouched against the desk and tapped her foot rhythmically against the floor. “I’m sure it’s not what you expected.”

“Not at all.”

“Are you going to stay?”

Lux shrugged as she took another bite, chewed, then swallowed before saying, “I don’t feel I have much choice in the matter, honestly. It’s either stay and learn why I’m afflicted so, or leave and risk being bludgeoned to death by a trout falling out of the sky or something else equally absurd.”

Taliyah snickered, then waved and hand and said, “Sorry, sorry. It’s not actually funny, but it is, kind of, you know? Funny, but in a bad way.”

“We call it gallows humor,” Lux replied.

“Aye, gallows humor. That is a good name!” Taliyah nodded as if assured of something deeper than a simple colloquialism.

Annoyingly, Taliyah was proving to be quite likable. Maybe if it had been her and not Samira who had been in charge of ushering her around, her first impressions of the place would not have been so dour. It helped that she was both around Lux’s own age and genuinely sweet-natured.

“This is…perhaps a bit off topic, but can I ask you a question?” Lux set her plate aside and met Taliyah’s doe-like gaze. “About Shurima, I mean. Or rather, about a place called Oshra Va’Zaun.”

Taliyah’s eyes widened, and she made an odd gesture over herself before spitting on the ground by her feet, then said in a harsh whisper, “You should not say that place’s name! It’s a cursed place, where cursed things live!”

Well, Lux hadn’t expected the story to be a particularly uplifting one, but the way that Powder had mentioned it so off-handedly had left Lux with the impression that the place was just an old story. The look on Taliyah’s face suggested it was anything but.

“What happened?”

“A…A great blasphemy against the gods and spirits that poisoned the earth,” Taliyah said, not looking wholly comfortable with the topic. “A sin so terrible that the heavens opened and poured wrath upon the city for its horror and hubris.”

Lux frowned. “Can you maybe be a little more specific?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m curious.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Taliyah hesitated. Her soft brown eyes were wary now as she looked over Lux with something like appraisal. It was enough for Lux to amend her earlier idea that she might have had a better introduction with Taliyah. It seemed everyone would be poisoned against her.

“May I ask why?” Taliyah eventually asked.

That was a fair enough question, Lux supposed, and she said, “I dreamed of a place I’ve never been, where the sun was high and the air smelled of incense and salt. And when I woke that name was in my mind, and don’t know why.”

A truncated but truthful retelling.

If anything, it only made Taliyah’s frown more concerning, although at least now she looked less suspicious and more…worried. “Visions of a damned place is a bad omen, but I understand your curiosity. I’ll tell you the story, if you’d like, but I don’t know if it soothe your mind.”

“At this point,” Lux said flatly, “I’m just happy someone is willing to tell me anything at all.”

Chapter Text

We do not call the city by its full name anymore, for to do so is to disrespect the destruction visited upon it by the heavens. If it must be spoken about, we must speak its name only in part, to respect that which was broken.

The doom that came to Zaun began with a messenger of the heavens. In times long past, it is said there were holy messengers who were set to watch over us by Mother Mihira, but by dictate of heaven, they shall not interfere, for we children of flesh and bone were granted the will to err, that we might rise above our sins to grace. For countless generations, we toiled and lived beneath the eyes of the watchers, suffering at times, and joyous in others, as life is wont to be, but always apart, as Mother Mihira declared.

And then, one of the Watchers, or so it is said, fell in love.

In the city you speak of, there was a young scholar-priest who sought to heal the wounds of Zaun and uplift its ragged people from the salt and dirt. One Watcher saw this and was moved, and began to watch the Scholar in particular. The story goes that as time passed, and the Scholar preached his words, the Watcher became more and more enamoured of this fleeting mortal, until one day, the Scholar fell ill.

The city of Zaun was not a clean place, and the Scholar, though brilliant, had been frail, and soon, the Watcher was joined by his sibling, Quiet Death. Together, they watched the Scholar, and the Watcher pleaded with Quiet to spare the young man.

‘Is this not what we have been watching for?’ the Watcher said. ‘What point is there, if their brightest are taken before they can light the way, or the brilliant strangled in their cribs! This is not justice!’

But Quiet was unswayed. ‘Mortals must die,’ said Quiet, ‘or else life has no meaning.’

The Watcher was incensed, and stood between the Scholar and Quiet Death. They argued until it became clear that Quiet could not be staved off, and so, in an act of supreme disobedience, the Watcher struck Quiet, breaking their pale bow so they could not send forth the arrow that would gently take the Scholar’s life. Then, the Watcher abandoned the heavens, for the earth, and descended to the Scholar’s side, and as the Watcher fell, he tore a single, burning blue star from the sky.

A small piece of heaven had been stolen.

The Watcher brought health back to the Scholar, and together they went into the city, and with the stolen star of heaven, they brought miracles to the city of Zaun. The Scholar was called a prophet and a herald, and a great temple, unlike any other, was raised in the heart of the city, stretching so high as to touch the clouds and threaten the domain of heaven. Other Watchers abandoned their posts, too. Some out of mercy, others out of love, and some…out of hubris. This great fall, this great sin, was heralded by love, and though the love was pure, it was reckless, and as the heavens opened and stars fell, so too did other things crawl forth from the earth seeking that light.

It is said that a demon came to Zaun. A curse that wanted only to take the light for itself. As the Scholar and the Watcher toiled to make their miracles that would uplift the world, this demon slipped through the shadows of the city until it reached the temple. There, it tried many times to enter; first as a rat, but a cat chased it out. Then, as a serpent, but a young altar girl caught it in a basket and cast it back into the gardens. Thirdly, as a bird, but a poor child seeking food, knocked it from the sky with a slingstone.

Finally, it took the form of a Child.

The Child snuck into the temple, evaded the gazes of the guards and holy men and women who walked the halls, and made its way to where the Scholar and the Watcher toiled, and there it found the star of heaven.

Greedily, it took, but the star was not for it, and heaven rejected the Demon, casting it out of the temple and down into the depths of Zaun, its wings blackened by fire. There, in the darkness, it lay chained, and many years passed. Then, one day, a Priest who ministered to the lowest and most destitute came by chance upon the prison of the Demon.

This Priest was a man of faith, but also a man of pride and ambition. He saw this winged one, and in it, saw himself rising to the heights of the temple. He spoke to it and learned of the star of heaven, and his pride turned to rage, for who was the Scholar and this Watcher to keep such a prize for themselves? Had he the star, or so he believed, he would work such miracles! And so the Priest turned to spells, darkening his soul with heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy to release the demon.

And he did.

The Scholar and the Watcher knew nothing until it was too late, too certain of the Demon’s prison. The Demon remembered the way into the temple and returned to where the star was hidden, and this time, it was ready. The Priest, you see, had worked spells to let the Demon take the star, and as it stole that piece of heaven, the sky turned red with blood and the demon rose on black wings. The Scholar and the Watcher beheld with horror as ruin swept their golden city, but before the Demon could usurp the will of heaven, Mother Mihira finally moved.

Light poured from the sky and struck the Demon down, but in doing so, scoured the city of Zaun, shattering its great monuments and temples, and burying it beneath the earth. And so, Zaun became a cursed place, poisoned by ambition and pride.

Lux listened with rapt attention, her dinner forgotten in the flow of Taliyah’s words. There was a sense of antiquity to the tale, and with every word, Lux was reminded of the strength of the Shuriman’s oral traditions. In the desert, especially among the nomadic tribes, histories were preserved through stories told from father to son and mother to daughter.

From Elder to Younger.

This story was one such, and Lux could hear in it the voices of the many who had told it before Taliyah. Most curious was its perspective, though, and Lux wasn’t sure how to approach that tactfully, so rather than try, she opted for bluntness instead.

“The curse in your story,” Lux asked. “Is that the Omen?”

Taliyah frowned and shrugged. “I don’t know,” then she paused before quietly adding, “but…I think so.”

Which didn’t make quite sense from what Lux knew of her Jinx. Nor did it exactly line up with how the sisters of the convent treated the Omen. “In the story, the curse is malicious. A force of corruption, almost like a Darkin. But if it’s the same as the convent’s Omen, why does the church treat her like a protector? Doesn’t that trouble you?”

“It does,” Taliyah admitted. “But my appa used to tell me that stories have souls, just like people. And so, just like people, they change every time they meet someone new. I was terrified when I first came here and was told what haunted this place, but…” she trailed off, then smiled earnestly. “Just because a story is old, doesn’t mean it’s completely true. Sometimes, the evil we’re told to fear is just strange, not wicked.”

“That’s very wise of you, I think,” Lux said warmly.

Even in spite of the fact that Taliyah’s presence was almost certainly an attempt to soothe Lux over what happened with Samira, she couldn’t help but like the girl. Taliyah struck her as a genuinely earnest young woman, and it wasn’t her fault the Canoness was using her as a catspaw to smooth over ill will.

“So, Zaun, then?” Lux started, and Taliyah nodded. “It was a real place? Truly real?”

With the unasked-for and apparently unintentional revelation that the convent had no blacksmith, Lux found herself questioning if everything she’d seen and heard down there had been real or not. She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that every stone she turned over, though, suggested that it was.

“Oh yes, you can even visit the ruins. Though I wouldn’t recommend it,” Taliyah replied.

“Haunted?”

“In a way,” Taliyah said, then added, “but not the way you Demacians imagine it. It is…forsaken. A godless place. Even the stones of that place are silent, having witnessed such blasphemies.” Her expression softened. “You said you dreamed of this place, yes? How did you know it was Zaun?”

Lux shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know. I woke with the name in my mind. I can’t explain it. That’s why I was so curious.”

“Strange…” Taliyah carded her fingers through her messy hair. “But no stranger, I suppose, than being favored by the Omen. Perhaps you are simply a strange person, Sister Crownguard.”

“I’ve been called worse,” Lux said wryly.

Taliyah laughed warmly, though her good humor faded somewhat as she trailed off and looked over her shoulder at the door briefly. Turning back to Lux, she said, “I should go prepare for vespers. See you there?”

“Naturally,” Lux replied.

Rising from where she’d seated herself on the floor, Taliyah excused herself, leaving Lux with an upsetting number of unanswered questions. Worse was that the questions that had been answered had done nothing but suggest more mysteries, and worst of all was the thought that Powder…

“Why?” Lux muttered, her mood plummeting as she slumped on her bed, wrapped her arms around herself, and shuddered. “Why couldn’t you just be who you said you were?”

Tears burned at the edges of her eyes.

“Why couldn’t you just be Powder?”

Vespers passed solemnly. With Sister Buvelle’s voice mere a gentle hum, Samira still unconscious and recovering, and Kai’sa vanished into the vigil, whatever that entailed, that left only a small number of voices to sing the prayers.

But sing them they did, and Lux joined her voice to the others without complaint. Something the Day Canoness seemed inordinately pleased with, inasmuch as it was possible to tell from her stoic expressions. She didn’t look overtly displeased, though, so that was something, and at this point, Lux had resigned herself to playing a somewhat longer game than she’d hoped.

The Omen’s ‘curse’ threatened to follow her wherever she went, assuming the stories were true, and Lux had no reason to believe they weren’t at this stage. She didn’t want to believe that her Jinx would kill her in some horribly unlikely way if she left the convent—not after she’d been so pointedly protective—but then, she had to contend with the fact that the Omen was not human. There was every chance that her Jinx was only being so protective and helpful because Lux had been relatively cooperative.

If that was the case; if the Omen only wanted her to cooperate and was willing to side with her even against the other sisters as she had in the case of Samira, then Lux thought she could work with that. It was a little…cold, but then, again, this wasn’t a human being she was dealing with. The Omen was a power of the divine. She was more akin to a force of nature, and one didn’t casually befriend a tempest.

At least this tempest seemed to be content to direct its wind and lightning elsewhere so long as Lux was compliant. The real question now was: what did her Jinx actually want?

She knew it had something to do with the diagrams she’d given to Powder, and now she knew Powder was involved with the convent somehow. She was no mere blacksmith. Was she a servant of the Omen? Was Jinx obfuscating Powder’s presence from the eyes of the other sisters somehow? Or was she some wraith? A spirit of some kind? That was the more terrifying proposition, but also, Lux felt, the least likely. Powder had felt perfectly solid when Lux had touched her, though that might have been mere phantasm. Better proof was the objects Powder had made for her, which, by all metrics, were perfectly real.

The crowfeather fetish and the knife were both real.

So, Powder, at least on some level, had to be real as well.

But she was also lying. Even if everything Powder had actually spoken to Lux had been true on the surface, she had still been knowingly omitting and hiding things from Lux. It took everything in her not to storm down to that little shack and give Powder a piece of her mind, divine protection be damned.

For now, Powder was at least nominally on her side, same as the Omen, and Lux was not so flush with allies that she could elect to be picky about them. Better, instead, to pretend nothing had changed and see where things went. Maybe Powder could help her determine the truth of what the Omen wanted and, in doing so, tip her own hand to Lux about her and the Omen’s motives.

So, despite what she actually wanted to do, Lux pointedly did not leave her room the next day except to attend the requisite prayers and see to her own needs. Instead, she read more of Metus et Tenebrae. It continued to be obnoxiously obtuse and, at times, almost purposefully unhelpful, but it gave her something to do, at least. She did the same thing the next day, though she spent the lion’s share of that going over her prior translations, which convinced her to spend yet another day retranslating them because, looking at them now, they were frankly atrocious.

They looked, to Lux’s eyes, as if they’d been translated by some kind of mentally deficient idiot-child. The fact that she had been the one to produce them was almost offensive. She tried not to think too hard about how easily she was acquiring the skill to translate what could be charitably described as an archaic dialect of vulgar Targonian that ought to have taken her months to truly grow comfortable with, rather than a handful of days.

Another day passed, then another, until she had spent her first full week at the convent. Strange. It felt like she’d spent months there, but it hadn’t been that long at all. So much had happened, and every day seemed to bring new strain and terror.

The morning of her seventh day, she rose bleary-eyed and feeling less than rested. Her room was unpleasantly dark, and as she always did, Lux reached for the candle and matches that rested on the small table by her bedside.

Her fingers had not quite touched the candle when it abruptly lit.

Lux stared at it, unmoving, fingers trembling as the warmth of the candle’s little dancing flame soaked into them. She took several shaky breaths as she gently poked the candlestick with a finger, but nothing else happened.

Just a phantom lighting her candle for her.

Nothing odd about that, apparently.

Swallowing hard, Lux picked the candle up and slipped from her bed, hissing softly at the frigid air as she raised the candle and surveyed her room. All seemed normal until the light fell across her doorway, and there, Lux froze, eyes wide and heart pounding in her chest.

Her door was wide open.

Another sweep of her quarters revealed no intruder. Lux even demeaned herself by dropping to her hands and knees to check under her bed as if she were a child, but that was empty, too. Beneath her desk were only dust bunnies and shadows, and her small closet contained only her day and night clothes, as well as her habit.

Acting on impulse, Lux approached the open door as near as she dared, which was only barely within arm’s reach, reached out, and swatted it shut. She watched it for several moments, but it remained silent and still.

Satisfied, Lux turned back to her desk, thinking to light a few more candles to battle the dark.

And a creak sounded behind her.

A chill went down Lux’s spine as she looked warily over her shoulder to find her door open once more, its threshold beckoning her like a dark whisper. So she did what she felt any rational being would do and edged a bit closer to swat it shut again.

“S-Stay,” Lux said, feeling more than a little silly to be speaking to a door. Then she turned back to her desk, desperate for a little more light.

Creak.

“OH, FOR THE LOVE OF—!” Lux spun around and glared at the now stubbornly open door, then looked up at her shadow-washed ceiling, more annoyed than frightened, and said, “What!? What do you want?!”

Looking back at the door, she realized, for the first time, that the halls beyond were not utterly black as she would have expected. Steeling herself, Lux tiptoed to the threshold of her door and peeked out; to her right, the sconces were lit down the length of the hall while, to her left, they were all dark.

Sighing, Lux muttered, “Well, I did ask.”

Then she stepped back into her room, went to her closet, and pulled out her warmest dressing gown that she’d brought from home, along with a pair of slippers. Perhaps it was stupid to venture out into the halls before the sun had even properly risen, but Lux was determined to play the Omen’s game if only to appease it. Besides, her Jinx had protected her from Samira’s madness.

And maybe this would even reveal something.

It was worth investigating.

Keeping the candlestick high to allow its meager light to supplement the weak sconces, Lux ventured out into the hall and followed the trail her Jinx had presumably left for her. It had to be her Jinx, as far as Lux was concerned. Whatever haunted the first floor seemed wholly confined there, and besides that, they seemed to operate best in the dark. That was what Lux told herself as she walked through the still and silent halls of the convent to keep herself from bolting back to her room.

She could feel a presence just beyond every edge of light. In her periphery, Lux swore she caught glimpses of eyes watching her with a strange intensity, yet whenever she turned even slightly to bring them into focus, they would vanish like morning fog.

Phantoms? Insanity? Or was it merely a trick of the light?

Regardless, Lux followed the trail, and her sense of direction told her she was reaching the northmost section of the convent that formed the rear of the structure nearest the mountains. That was where the lights eventually ran out, with the final lit sconce being one that rested directly beside a closed door.

Lux stood before it, wondering if it was worth trespassing. She didn’t know where most of the doors in the convent halls went, and hadn’t bothered to ask. Now she was being directed through one, and for all she knew, it would lead to a straight drop directly into a darkin’s maw.

“Well, again, I did ask,” Lux said sullenly as she reached out and tugged on the door. It rattled, but remained closed. Lux glowered up at the ceiling. “What do you want me to do? It’s locked.”

Silence answered her, and Lux felt her temper rising.

She grabbed the handle of the door and said, “See?! Loc—!” 

Something clicked just as she pulled on the door, expecting resistance; it swung freely open, sending Lux stumbling back as the force she’d put into the pull bounded back on her. 

“Oh, very funny,” she spat as she righted herself.

Shaking her head, Lux held the candlestick into the doorway to find it illuminating a set of stairs spiraling upward. Better up than down, she supposed. Lacking any other option beyond going back to bed and potentially hacking off her Jinx, Lux began climbing the stairs. She went up and up and up, the stairs spiraling around an open space in the center of what she was climbing. The air grew colder and colder until she finally reached a wooden trapdoor. She set her arm to it, gave a few good pushes, and threw it open.

A wave of icy morning air swept over her, and Lux shivered hard. Somehow, her candle remained lit, though. That was surely not natural, but then again, nor was any of this.

Emerging from the door, she found herself at the apex of one of the convent’s seven steeples, and from here it was obvious that there were no bells in them as one might expect there to be. It was a spacious tower, with a gap in the center. It was, by all metrics, a perfectly average bell tower; it simply lacked the bell.

“Alright,” Lux said, turning in place and looking around. “What did you bring me here for? Why am I up here freezing my arse off, exactly?”

No answer.

Shaking her head, Lux looked around, then down the vertiginous drop into the rear yard of the convent. She chuckled softly at the sight of Powder’s little forgehouse and shack, and couldn’t help but wonder whether or not anyone else would see it if she brought them up here. Would Leona look down and see only an empty yard? Would that be the truth of it? Or would it be the Omen clouding the Canoness’ sight?

A flicker of light flashed to the east, and Lux winced as she threw an arm over her eyes and squinted out toward the horizon.

Despite everything, Lux felt her heart lighten as the dawn broke, a tidal wave of sunlight sweeping over the dark forest canopy, pouring through the mountain passes and banishing the darkness as it warmed the world once more. There was a solid, enduring beauty to it, and one that soothed Lux significantly. The dawn would always come, whether or not she was there to see it, and honestly, Lux was glad that she was.

It was as she watched the sunrise that she felt it: a presence, vast as the night, filling the space behind her with an unknowable dread. Lux swallowed thickly as darkness encroached on her periphery, and at the edges of her vision, she could see dark, oily feathers wrapping around her as if to encase her in them. Amidst those pinions and coverts, Lux saw eyes.

She was surrounded by feathers and eyes and darkness, such that even the dawn was being choked by them. Lux clenched her jaw and kept facing forward. She kept her face to the sun, praying that it would banish the shadows around her as it rose, but the presence only grew more and more imposing.

And then she felt something on her back.

A touch.

That was the final straw. All the terror of the dark that was in her broke out in a raw, reflexive scream as Lux spun on her heel, swinging the candlestick like a bludgeon. She saw it, then. Just like the first time, in the chapel, she saw it in broken fragments, like a vision of madness pushed through broken glass. Her mind grasped bits and pieces; too many wings flaring out like rays of a black sun, a shrouded face but for the terrible lantern-like eyes, darkness light an night with no moon, made up its body, and upon its brow were broken crowns. All she could think to do, in that moment was to get away, and without thinking she stumbled backward.

But she was in the belfry.

That thought came to her too late, just as her foot came down on open air.

Chapter Text

‘What an absurd way to die.’

That was the thought that passed through Luxanna Crownguard’s mind as she pitched off the edge of the belfry. That and the fleeting notion that it might have benefited from a railing. Then everything vanished in a surge of animal panic, and a scream ripped its way out of her throat as she fell.

Past the roaring of the frigid mountain winds, Lux heard an explosion of wings, like a vast murder of crows or a great unkindness, all around her, and black feathers eclipsed her vision. Hands like talons, or maybe talons in the shape of hands, seized her tight as not thousands but six black wings enfolded her.

The world vanished in a hurricane of black feathers. Sharp, inhuman fingers dug painfully into Lux’s shoulders as she went from falling to abruptly being heaved into the air. For a moment, the dark tapestry of the twilight hour came unhinged from the firmament and, in it, she saw stars arranged in constellations no mortal astronomer had ever named. She saw a horizon riven in twain, torn between a collapsing darkness and an all-consuming light. She saw the twisting nightmare beyond everything, and somehow knew that it was, in the crudest and most horribly unknowable way, aware, and that it was dancing to pipes and flutes that only it could ever—or should ever—hear.

Then her back struck cold stone, and the air was beaten from her lungs. In her mind, she was still spinning and spinning and spinning even though the ceiling overhead remained stubbornly in place. Her fingers brushed the old, pitted stones of one of the convent’s small chapels, and when she remembered to breathe, Lux smelled the faintly cloying smoke of votive candles.

And somewhere nearby, someone was praying.

Lux wasn’t sure how long she lay there, only that the scent of incense neither grew nor faded, nor did the prayer ever stop, even for breath. She wasn’t sure she cared, of course. Lux was vaguely aware that her cheeks were streaked with bloody tears, and that there was a numbness in her that had not been there when she’d awoken.

She had seen something she ought not to have, of that much Lux was utterly certain. She had, however briefly, been afforded a perhaps unintended glimpse beyond whatever veil was thrown protectively over the eyes of mortalkind. Whether it was a veil of mortals’ own making, fashioned to shield their minds from that which limited consciousness could not fully grasp, or the artifice of something greater and older, Lux could not say. Whatever it was, though, it was there for a damned good reason.

Eventually, when Lux did stir, it was to slowly turn her head to the side and crane it back to look up and behind herself. There, she saw what she had been expecting to see, which was not the comfort another might expect. It was a figure in the habit of a nun, though being so close to it now, Lux could see that there were things wrong with it. It was not solid, precisely. It was shadow and suggestion, and that suggestion suggested a habit to the mind of one looking upon it. The room was filled with the shadow of wings that Lux imagined could stretch from sea to sea, and they were contained there, in that tiny room, like an everlasting dark.

Lux licked her lips and found them horribly dry and chapped, and when she opened her mouth to speak, all that emerged was a croak that hurt her throat to make. Working her tongue around her mouth in an effort to find some moisture, Lux took several slow, deep breaths as she watched what was either her savior or her tormentor—or perhaps some motley of both—offer strange devotions in a language Lux suddenly realized she couldn’t understand.

She only knew it was a prayer from the cadence.

Trying again, Lux breathed in, then out, then asked, “Why?” And the prayer faded softly, leaving the small chapel in deafening silence. So Lux broached it again with another question: “Why me?”

The nun’s head began to turn, and in fear, Lux closed her eyes and turned away as a sob wracked her chest. She could feel her Jinx’s many eyes fall upon her, piercing her and pinning her to the floor with dire regard.

“I’m sorry…” Lux sobbed, her shoulders shaking as she turned onto her side and curled up, covering her face with her hands. “But I don’t know what you want from me! I don’t know what to do!”

The metal creak of hinges answered her, and Lux lowered her hands to look at where the chapel door had swung open. Without thinking, she looked back up at her Jinx, but only for a moment. Survival instinct kicked in the instant before her conscious mind grasped what it saw, and she covered her face again. The outline of it was still burned ever-so-slightly into her eyes, though: a figure, shrouded in black cloth that a mortal mind would mistake for a nun’s habit, standing ominously over her with an arm outstretched and a finger that ended in a curved, ripping talon pointed outward.

With her face still covered, Lux rose shakily to her knees and crawled toward the door. She did not look up, she did not look back. She focused only on the placement of one hand in front of the other as she cried softly, leaving blood-hued teardrops in her wake, until finally she got to the hall and collapsed into it.

There was another rush of wind and wings, and without moving, Lux knew that her Jinx had come to the threshold of the chapel and was standing over her again. She knew it, so it did not surprise her when she felt something like fingers weave gently through her hair. Lux flinched and curled protectively around herself, even knowing it would do no good, but the hand did not harm her. It did not cut or slice. It just…stroked, as if trying to soothe.

And suddenly, Lux thought she could hear singing.

The voice wasn’t exactly pleasing, much in the way that a raven’s croak or a crow’s caw was not what anyone would call musical or beautiful to the ear. But it was lovely in an odd, imperfect way that Lux found more calming than if it had been impossibly perfect.

For once, despite being shrouded in collapsing darkness, Lux didn’t feel afraid as she thought she ought to. Instead, she would dare say she felt safe. Wings of shadow encircled her, hedging away the unpleasing morning, and for a moment, Lux thought she might even be able to fall back asleep.

In that instant, Lux was certain.

Her Jinx did not want to harm her.

The rattle and clink of metal sounded beside her, and suddenly the overwhelming presence of something not of this world was gone. It vanished with a rustle of wings and a swing and click of a chapel door.

When Lux opened her eyes, she found herself lying on the stone floor directly in front of the convent’s great double doors. There was only a hallway behind her, not a chapel, and resting within arm’s reach were two objects: a blade in its leather thigh-sheathe, and a crowfeather fetish tied with beads on a leather thong.

Powder’s gifts.

Swallowing thickly, Lux reached out, put a hand on them, and dragged them into her embrace as if they were the woman herself. She held them tight to her chest as she sat weakly upright, her hands trembling terribly with shock and awe. One moment, she had been up at the highest point of the convent, and the next, she was here, in this place. There was no explanation.

It was a miracle.

A dark one, but a miracle nonetheless.

“Well,” Lux croaked, “I may as well get moving.”

Everything felt dull and numb as Lux rose on bare feet; her slippers had vanished somewhere in her rescue. Stumbling drunkenly to the doors, Lux threw her shoulder against them, pushed them open, and stepped out into the dull gray of the early morning.

In her head, she knew that it was quite cold. Freezing, even. This close to the Silverhorn range, even summers were quite nippy, to say nothing of any other season. Luxanna ignored it and trudged down the steps, ignoring how the cold stones bit the soles of her feet. She stepped onto the path and immediately made a left, heading for the shadowed path that would take her around to the rear yard of the convent.

Maybe it was the delirium, but Lux suddenly found it quite funny that she no longer had to worry about the Canonesses, sisters, or other layfolk discovering her tryst. After all, the convent had no blacksmith.

How convenient.

She emerged into the sun-dappled yard, though there was little warmth in the air. Rather, the sun had teeth this morning, its rays illuminating only a biting breeze as Lux moved, step by step, in a dreamwalker’s march, toward the forge and its adjoining shack. She was halfway there when the shack door opened, and a sleepy-looking Powder emerged, one hand clutching a cup of something that steamed.

Powder yawned cavernously, rubbing at her eyes before adjusting the flat cap that kept her mess of blue hair tamed. Lux came to a stumbling halt, unexpectedly captivated by the vision of the young woman. She really was quite handsome, wasn’t she? Though short, she had a lankiness to her that was complemented by all of that lean muscle. Lux stared as she rolled the sheathed blade and fetish around in her hands; she was holding them as if they might shield her from the madness that lay just outside her vision.

When Powder turned her head, it was a lazy, sleepy movement, done as she brought the cup to her lips to take a sip. Their eyes met from across the yard, and despite everything, Lux couldn’t help but smile.

Powder, on the other hand, spat out her coffee and yelped, dropping the whole cup onto the ground to spill across the dirt as she cried, “LUX?!”

“Good morning,” Lux said, still not sure what all the fuss was about.

That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say as Powder’s eyes went wide and she rushed to Lux’s side. She grabbed Lux’s hands and flinched, looked her over frantically, then said, “Shit, Sister, you’re freezing! And your feet!”

Lux frowned and looked down.

There was blood leaking from between her toes.

“Oh,” Lux muttered, then looked back up at Powder. “Right. My slippers are probably still in the belfry.”

A reflexive shiver rolled through her, and Powder swore. Then she moved around Lux and swept her right off her feet and into a bridal carry. For some reason, that was quite funny to Lux, and she started laughing as she clung to Powder, who carried her the rest of the way across the yard to the forge and kicked the door open.

At which point, Lux remarked, “Is it my wedding day?”

Powder didn’t seem to find that very funny. The muscles around her jaw tightened, and her eyes fairly blazed as she carried Lux to the cot that she’d napped on, laid her down, and said, “Stay there, a’right? I’m gonna get the forge lit and…shit, I’ll get you some blankets, okay?”

“Okay,” Lux mumbled sleepily as she rested her head on the stiff pillow. As Powder rose to leave, though, Lux caught her by the hand and said, “Wait…did you, uhm…the diagrams?”

A stricken look crossed Powder’s handsome features. She turned to kneel by Lux’s bedside, took both of her hands, and said, “Don’t worry about that, Blondie. We’ll handle that when you’re…when you’re better.”

“M’fine,” Lux said with a dopey smile. “I think I’ve got an angel watching over me, although”—she chuckled wanly—“I don’t think she’s very good at her job.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Powder muttered, then pushed Lux’s hands back under the blankets and stood. “Now just…just stay there, okay? I’ll be right back!”

Lux just waved blearily as Powder went to the forge and began the laborious process of lighting it for the day. Now that she was lying down, Lux could feel the gnawing ache in her limbs and burning on the soles of her feet. She could feel the numbness that came not from shock but from the fact that she’d been wandering the convent yard at the cusp of autumn in little more than her sleeping shift.

There was a sense of strange detachment to both herself and the rest of the world as Lux watched Powder ignite her forge. In the back of her mind, she could hear the Canoness say those damning words about the convent’s alleged blacksmith: ‘I’m afraid we don’t have one.’

No blacksmith. So, then, what was Powder?

Spirit? Servant? Slave?

“Powder?” Lux asked sleepily.

“Hm?”

“Am I safe here?”

Powder looked up from the forge, her eyes gleaming in the growing light of the forge. She stared at Lux for several seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, Blondie,” she said softly over the crackle of flame. “You’re always safe with me.”

Smiling, Lux slumped into the first drifting waves of sleep, and as she did, she mumbled, “Thank you…”

‘I see you.’

These are the words that I and every child who has ever stared into the dark, knowing that it was not empty, hears in the back of their minds. Those three words have echoed from antiquity down untold generations, from the grunting man-things who saw gods in the weather and the seas and the stones all the way up to the age of kings.

It is those words that we fear—that I fear. That we all remember to fear. It is those words that are still whispered to us in the dead of night when all should be silent.

‘I see you.’

‘I am coming for you.’

‘I am getting closer and closer.’

And then I feel it touch me and I scream, and my scream becomes a choir in harmony with every shriek of terror that has ever torn its way out of a child’s throat. 

The world spins and rips, and I see it there, standing on a lonely atoll. A figure like a man, but it’s not a man. It’s the lonely man. That’s what they call it. And when I see it, I pretend I don’t. I turn and look away, and ignore how the howl of the wind off the seas doesn’t sound quite right, and I lean a little harder on the rudder which suddenly seems to want to drift toward that atoll.

The world spins and tears, and I see it there, rising from the mass graves frozen by winter’s cruel fingers. It is the voices of dead women and men, clad in a rusted helm, rime-caked furs, and rotten leather. I see it briefly through the window as it lopes into the village before my mother pulls me away. I hear it calling for a son, a daughter, or a spouse. It calls out in the voices of mothers, brothers, and fathers. We do not answer. We do not go outside. We keep our doors closed, ignore any knocking or familiar voices calling our names, and above all else, we do not look out our windows.

The world spins and sunders, and I see it there. We’re sitting at the campfire, the camels circled and resting, and I count the men and women gathered. Their heavy robes shield them from the harsh sun, and harsher sands also mask their face, so when I count one extra—one more than was there last night—I say nothing. I do not remark on its ragged robes or tattered, cast-off garb, nor does anyone else. We are silent and we are terrified, but we do not leave. We don’t move. We don’t speak. It cannot speak until we do. So we stay at the fire, silent, and feed it until the sunrise, and only then do we look up again.

The world spins, and I see a sea of darkness, and it spreads across the world on the blackest wings. it whispers in dreams first, then into my ear, and it says, ‘I see you.’

…

The world spins and I—

—the fields were gold, like veins of treasure tilled up from the good, black earth. They stretched on and on forever, and in the bright starlight I marveled at their riches from my vantage upon the

—and I—

—it rose rigidly upright, and it was watching me. Watching me and watching me and watching me and watching me. Its arms were held out wide as if for an embrace. As if tethered to wooden posts. There were no posts. It wasn’t tied. It wasn’t really a

—I rememb—

  TEETH AND CROWS

Lux jolted awake as searing pain spasmed through her legs. Raw panic gave her wings as she flailed, throwing off the layers of blankets that she’d been clutching at like grim death. Panic transmuted into pure terror as something clamped down on her legs, pinning her to the bed!

She tried to roll off. To throw herself to the side, but a weight suddenly crashed onto her and pinned her down. A scream choked in her the back of her throat, throttled by panicked gulps of air as she turned and stared up into…

Into soft, worried blue eyes.

“It’s just me,” Powder said as Lux’s chest rose and fell at roughly the same rate as a rabbit being chased by an eagle.

Powder slipped off the creaking cot that Lux belatedly remembered falling asleep on as the fog of fear ebbed from her sleep-addled mind, and she looked around the now-warm forge as reflexive tears made salty tracks down her cheeks. As the nightmares faded from her mind, Lux turned to look around the little forge that Canoness Leona was adamant did not exist—or at least wasn’t occupied—and wondered again if she was going mad.

“Blondie?”

Lux turned back to Powder, who was staring worriedly at her, and swallowed thickly. Lux looked down at her feet, where it had so briefly felt like branding irons were being pressed to her soles. She found her feet bandaged, or at least half-bandaged in the case of the left one, probably due to her flailing.

Powder got to one knee by the cot and reached out, gently stroking Lux’s cheek and brushing away a few strands of sweat-matted blonde hair before saying, “Hey, you okay?”

“I remember,” Lux said slowly.

“Remember what?”

“I saw it.” Lux turned to meet Powder’s gaze. “When I was a little girl, I went with my family to my aunt’s estate in the Eastfold and visited the vast farmlands that are her fief. And while I was there, I saw it,” she whispered. Then she closed her eyes and remembered the rhyme her friend had taught her that day in Cloudfield. “High above the rotten rows. Cloth and metal, teeth and crows.”

Chapter Text

Ten Years Ago, Cloudfield, Demacia

Lux had never seen so much wheat in her life. She stared in wonder at the rows of gold that seemed to stretch out forever and ever as her family carriage rumbled along the road toward her auntie’s estate.

Cloudfield was not the largest village in the Eastfold, by any means. It was actually rather modest. But it was the village closest to Lux’s aunt’s actual home, and her Aunt Tianna had always preferred a quieter home life over the hustle and bustle of the grand cities of Demacia when she wasn’t doing whatever it was the king commanded of her, like winning wars and fighting Noxians.

At ten years old, Luxanna Crownguard idolized her aunt. She was handsome, noble, and a legendary swordswoman. She was one of the youngest captains ever to serve the First Company ‘Dauntless’ Vanguard. Luxanna probably could have recited everything pertinent about her aunt from memory should the need arise, and occasionally had, regardless of whether or not anyone had asked.

Luxanna adored her aunt was the point.

That, among other reasons, was why she had been sent to spend the last month of summer at her aunt’s estate that year—largely due to an excessive amount of begging and her mother finally losing patience and giving in. The trip had taken over a week, and she’d been escorted by a dozen house guards. Lux had privately thought it was a bit silly. They were in the middle of the kingdom. There were no bandits in the middle of Demacia. And, predictably, Luxanna’s childish prophecy had proven true. It had been, at worst, a bit tedious, but at least they had gotten to stop at some interesting inns and taste some new foods. That had been fun. Now, though, they were rolling through Cloudfield and its little slice of Demacia’s breadbasket, and Luxanna was mesmerized. It really was a beautiful stretch of country, and so lush compared to the relatively sparse lands surrounding the Crownguard Estate.

Not that her home wasn’t beautiful, but it was very austere, nestled as it was against Lake Silvermere and the Silverhorn Range looming high beyond it. Everything was quite cold, even in the summers, but here, in the heartlands of Demacia, there was a deep, cloying warmth that clung to everything, and it was even making the ends of her hair curl a little.

Soon enough, they were past the vast swathes of fields and passing into the village proper. It was a beautiful little village, and much better kept than some of the ones they had passed through to reach it. That wasn’t terribly surprising, though. It was the direct fief of Tianna Crownguard, so one would expect it to be well cared for.

“My Lady.” Lux’s shoulder was touched gently, and she turned to find her maid, Alise (who wasn’t all that much of a maid since she was only a year older than Lux, but she did her best), looking at her with a childish moue of concern. “You shouldn’t lean so far out the window of the carriage, my lady. It’s not proper.”

“But the town is so pretty!” Lux huffed.

Alise didn’t argue. Likely because it was a very pretty town. But Alise also took her job very seriously, trailing precisely three steps behind Lux wherever she went, always doing her best to anticipate Lux’s needs, which she did fairly well since the pair of them had grown up together. That was something Luxanna herself was still growing accustomed to. Alise was no longer simply her playmate. She was her maid, and would in likelihood be so for the rest of both of their lives.

Protector-willing, anyway.

Whatever the case, Lux slumped back in her carriage seat, arms crossed as she watched the town pass by. It was not a large town by any means, so in little time they were beyond the heart of it and climbing up a gentle hill. There, Lux saw the first hints of her aunt’s estate. It was a beautiful home, raised from the pale stone of the local quarry and the dark woods of the nearby forest. It gave it a certain light and shadow appearance that Lux quite loved. The estate was expansively open, unlike her own childhood home, and much of the space was given over to pastureland, wild forests, and flower gardens.

The one thing that stood out as they approached, however, was the sizeable stables. Lux’s aunt owned quite a lot of horses, and it was a passing joke in their family that they were the reason Tianna Crownguard had never had children—they wouldn’t be anything like as well-behaved as her horses.

The carriage was parked nearer the stables than the manor house, and the door was open before Alise could even move to try. Luxanna peeked around her maid and found herself eye to eye with a girl wearing boy’s clothes. She was, perhaps, a few years older than Lux, being taller and a bit broader, and her hair was a long, straight waterfall of deep, oaky brown. Her complexion was sun-kissed, meaning she was certainly not a noble, and there was a roughness to her that practically shouted ‘villager’ to Lux.

“Welcome, m’ladies,” the girl said brightly, stepping back.

“Hello!” Lux replied with a broad smile as she practically hopped out of the carriage and stuck out her hand. “I’m Lux! What’s your name?”

“My lady!” Alise whined from behind her as she trailed out in a fit.

“Cithria of Cloudfield, if it pleases you, m’lady!” Cithria did a wobbly curtsy that wouldn’t have passed muster with Lux’s most generous instructors. “I’m m’lord Tianna’s squire!”

Alise sidled up beside Lux, arched an eyebrow, and wrinkled her nose in an excellent impression of her mother looking down on a particularly scruffy dog. “You’re a squire? Really?”

Cithria puffed up. “Sure I am!” she said defensively. “I train with the house guard every day! And I can outride most of the instructors, too! M’lord Tianna says that, when I’m older, she’ll recommend me to the Dauntless so I can continue serving under her!”

“If auntie says so,” Lux interjected before Alise could voice her doubts again, “then you must be very brave.”

That drew a more genuine smile from Cithria as she gestured for them to follow and began leading them around the grounds, while, behind them, the house guards were beginning to move all of the luggage from the carriage to the manor house, and the drivers stabled the horses. Lux's attention was fully captured by the grounds, though. She was fascinated by the day-to-day motions of the world around her. Her mother rarely allowed her out of the house for anything but events, and fussed over her terribly, so being able to get out and see a little of the kingdom she lived in was wondrous, even if it was just her aunt’s estate.

Eventually, they reached the manor house itself.

Cithria led them inside, opening the door for them in a show of courtesy that suggested Lux’s aunt had at least tried to drill the girl in proper manners. Even inside, there was a bit of a wild scent in the air; wildflowers, trees, and the air of a farm lingered in respect to the lands that her auntie ruled over.

Speaking of which.

Captain Tianna Crownguard was just descending the steps into the foyer, clad outlandishly in trousers and leathers that would have likely caused scandal amongst the nobles of Silvermere or the capital. The younger sister of Lux’s father, Pieter, by four years, she was, in fact, especially young for her position as a Captain of the Dauntless at the age of twenty-two. Despite that, she was already renowned for her tactical brilliance and personal swordsmanship, and Lux adored her in the way only a favorite niece could. She was especially delighted to be compared to her aunt, as they shared many favorable features. Their hair was nearly the same shade, and unlike her mother’s, was naturally quite straight. They also had precisely the same color of eyes; a rare shade of piercing blue that was colloquially called ‘Crownguard blue’ amongst the nobility of Demacia.

One day, Lux hoped to be just like her. A dashing, swordswoman of the Dauntless known for heroism and knightly honor. It was a dream that her mother was set on quashing, but Lux held fast to hope. After all, if her aunt had done it, so too could she.

“Luxanna,” Tianna said fondly, her severe features oftening considerably as she reached the landing and approached to lay a hand on Lux’s crown of golden hair. “How was the journey? Not too troublesome, I hope. I’ve put quite a lot of coin into the roads of late.”

“It was long and very boring,” Lux said with a smile. “But Cloudfield is so lovely, Auntie! The fields are like gold!”

Tianna chuckled as she ruffled her niece’s hair. “So they are. The harvest is upon us, and you’re just in time for the coming festival!”

Lux was practically bouncing on her heels. A very unladylike motion that would have earned a firm hand from her mother. “A festival!?” she turned excitedly to Alise. “Did you hear that, Alise! There’s going to be a festival!”

“I’m sure it will be interesting, my lady,” Alise replied in what Lux thought was an overly politic manner.

“It’s one of the best times of the year!” Cithria chimed in, nearly matching Lux’s excitement. “We’re already cleared the north fields, but those are the smallest. We’ve got quite a bit more to clear before the rains come! If the Protector permits, the season will stay sunny and dry long enough to scythe it all.”

Lux straightened, fascinated by the idea of the harvest. She’d read about harvest festivals and the works of agriculture, of course, but her father’s fief wasn’t farmland, so she’d never had a chance to watch.

“What happens if it rains?” Lux asked, eyes wide. “Will it spoil the crops?”

Cithria nodded, suddenly looking quite serious. “One bad pour could turn’em rotten, m’lady. It would be an awful shame to lose a field, and then we’d have to clear it right quick or else Fiddlesticks might sneak in.”

Lux raised an eyebrow and looked to Alise, who just shook her head in confusion. Her aunt gave another soft chuckle as she set a hand on her squire’s shoulder.

“It’s a local legend,” Tianna said.

“It’s not a legend, it’s real, m’lord! I’ve seen it!” Cithria insisted, then turned back to Lux. “Fiddlesticks is an evil spirit who sneaks into untended fields at night or into rows left to rot. It pretends to be a scarecrow, and waits to snatch children who play in the fields when they ought to be workin’ or sleeping.”

Lux gave a little gasp as a thrill of fear traveled down her spine. “Really?!”

Tianna sighed. “Enough, Cithria,” she said. “You’re frightening my niece. There’s no such thing as Fiddlesticks. He’s just a story to keep children in their beds and at their daily chores, nothing more.”

For a moment, it looked as if Cithria was going to argue, but her respect for Tianna visibly won out a moment later as she lowered her head and nodded, bowing to her lord knight. Tianna favored her with an indulgent smile and squeezed her shoulder, showing the admonition had passed.

“Thank you for looking out for my niece. Now, to the stables with you. There’s work to be done, and chores still to manage.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Cithria bowed again, shot a last glance at Lux, then darted out the doors.

Lux watched her go, her mind racing. For once, she was only half-listening as her auntie took her on a tour of the manor house, which was much like her own home, only smaller and a bit more rustic. The whole time, she wanted so badly to ask about the spirit that Cithria mentioned, but knew in her heart that if she did, she would only earn her aunt’s ire. It was clear that her aunt didn’t believe in the village’s old legends, and honestly, neither did Lux, but that did nothing to quash her curiosity.

That meant that, if she wanted to know, she would have to ask Cithria.

Four days passed before she would have the opportunity to speak privately to her aunt’s squire. Lux couldn’t complain about the time spent, though, as she got to spend each of those days with her aunt. She spent the first two days learning to ride one of her aunt’s more agreeable steeds and quickly discovered a love for the beasts.

By the third day, she was excitedly riding a lovely black Varkasian named Midnight alongside her aunt as they explored the countryside. Together with Alise, who was quite hilariously terrified of their placid steed and clung fearfully to Lux, they wandered many of the roads that wound through the forests and fields around Cloudfield.

It was, her aunt said, a Duchess’ duty to oversee her fief directly, though Lux wasn’t sure how many nobles of the Demacian court actually did that. Her mother certainly didn’t, and her father was often serving with the Vanguard or training her brother.

Whatever the case, it was clear that Tianna was much beloved, because everywhere she went, she was greeted by her people. There was no fear in their eyes as they looked upon her, but rather there was love and loyalty. It only made Lux more certain that she wanted to be just like her aunt when she got older.

Eventually, though, duty did call her aunt away. Some matter with the west fields, though the courier didn’t specify, nor did her aunt ask any clarifying questions before nodding soberly to him. She made her apologies to Lux before leaving her to the stablehands, and Lux helped Alise down after dismounting herself.

“If it…if it pleases you, my lady,” Alise said, looking a bit green, “I think I would like to lie down.”

“I don’t know why you’re so afright, Alise,” Lux said pointedly. “Midnight is better behaved than some of the nobles’ sons that have visited us.”

“A-As you say, my lady,” Alise replied, though she didn’t look like she meant it.

With a huff, Lux dismissed her maid, and Alise tottered off inside while Lux rolled her eyes and took Midnight by the reins to lead her in. She made it all the way to the stable doors before they opened, and Cithria stepped out with a sack of feed under each arm.

“Oh, Lady Lux!” Cithria smiled broadly as she set the feed aside. “How was your ride?”

“Lovely,” Lux said, but shook her head as Cithria held out a hand for the reins. “It’s alright. I like putting her away. I want to brush her, too, before I leave!”

Cithria laughed and nodded. “You sound far too excited for chores, m’lady, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I don’t mind,” Lux said archly. “I happen to like caring for horses, and I’ll certainly have one of my own when I return home!”

“Bet you won’t be shoveling their manure, though, hm?” Cithria joked.

Lux stuck her chin out defiantly. “I can do anything to care for horses. Even shovel manure! It’s just stinky, that’s all!”

“Sure y’will, m’lady,” Cithria replied with a wink.

Bristling as she put Midnight away, Lux said, “I’ll feed and water Midnight, and then brush her and clean her stable, then! And I won’t complain once!”

Cithria eyed her critically, then spat on her palm and held it out, “Alright, m’lady. I’ll see that. But that’s usually my job, so if you’re doing it, I’ll do something for you. Just name it.”

Lux blinked owlishly at the glob of phlegm on Cithria’s palm, then looked down at her own soft, uncalloused hand and awkwardly spat into it. It was clumsy; she left a trail from her lips that took some work to dislodge, and Cithria was clearly holding in her mirth as Lux slapped her damp palm against Cithria’s to shake.

It was an awfully uncultured thing, and it left her hand feeling slimy as she pulled it away and wiped it on her trousers. “Alright, well, I want to know about Fiddlesticks! You said it was real, right?”

At that, Cithria frowned. “Well, y-yes, but…m’lord Tianna doesn’t like that pagan talk. It’s not proper, she says.”

“It’s just stories,” Lux said pointedly. “If my aunt says he’s not real, then I don’t think it is, but I still want to hear about him! It sounds frightfully interesting!”

Cithria looked thoughtful as Lux got to work caring for Midnight. She tossed some hay and refilled her water trough, then got to work brushing her while she ate and drank her fill. There was something very calming about caring for a horse, and Lux quickly fell in love with it. Finally, once Midnight was finished, Lux moved her to an empty stall and picked up a wide shovel. Her arms were tired from brushing, but she had made a deal, and her aunt and her father were both very firm about keeping to one’s word.

“So?” Lux said, looking back at Cithria as she started fulfilling her promise and started shoveling.

“Fine,” Cithria said, crossing her arms. “But you didn’t hear it from me, m’lady.”

“Hear what?” Lux asked cheekily.

Cithria laughed, then sighed and said, “Alright, well. Legend has it that far away in Noxus, there was a village, and in the village, there was a girl who everyone said was cursed. All manner of misfortune happened ‘round her, even if she was kindly and sweet. It was as if the Gods and Aspects had turned their face from her. Her parents even passed of illness, though it left her untouched, which only made the murmurs of a curse louder.”

Lux listened, rapt, only barely remembering to keep shoveling as Cithria told the story. She was especially surprised that it happened in Noxus, but then, Noxus was said to be an especially cursed place. They did dark magic there, or so the priests said, and rejected the Protector in favor of dark, nameless things that promised power.

“The villagers tolerated’er until, one year, there was a particularly awful harvest. There were empty bellies and a lot of dark words, and the sky was black with crows every day,” Cithria continued, her expression growing grave. “One day, the alderfolk of the village decided they could bear it no more, and everyone was convinced the girl’s curse was to blame. So one evening, they came to the girl’s home and dragged her from her bed. She kicked and screamed and cried, but they had all plugged their ears and looked away so they wouldn’t have to look her in the eye.

“They dragged her to a field gone rotten and over to an old scarecrow’s post, tied her up to it, and cut her up something awful. And no matter how much she pleaded, they would not listen! And then they left her there, and as they left, the skies went black with crows. Drawn by blood, they fell upon the girl with razor-sharp beaks, pecked out her eyes, and stripped her to the bone!”

By that point, Lux was practically hiding behind the shovel, meager protection that it was, and in a shaky voice whispered, “What happened to the villagers? Did they lift the curse?”

Cithria shook her head. “There was no curse,” she said. “Just one unlucky girl. The only curse came when they killed’er. A year later, it’s said, the village was readying for a plentiful harvest, but on the last days of summer, much like these, a storm came and rained horribly. The farmers ran out to try and save their crop, harvesting in the downpour before it turned rotten, but not a one returned home that did. When the rain passed, the villagers emerged, and there, standing in the middle of the rotten fields, was a single scarecrow that no one recalled putting up.

“They searched for the farmers who had gone out, but there was no sign of them, and so the villagers returned to their homes. But that night, while they were getting ready for bed, they heard a call for help. It was one of the farmers! Some rushed out to find him, but they vanished, too. Then their voices began calling out, and others came to help them, only to disappear! Finally, as the remaining villagers realized that a terrible curse had come upon them, another voice was heard. It was the voice of the girl they had all killed! And she was chanting a rhyme over and over.

“High above the rotten rows, cloth and metal, teeth and crows. Through the fields and down the lane, voices never heard again. Fiddlesticks, first of ten. Fiddlesticks, the end of men!”

By that point, Lux had finished cleaning Midnight’s stall and was in the process of putting the horse away once more. Her nerves were all a-jangle at Cithria’s story, though. Only once she had Midnight comfortably penned up did she turn back to her aunt’s squire and ask, “If it happened in Noxus, then why did Fiddlesticks come to Demacia?”

“My granna says,” Cithria began, “that curses come from hate, and hate doesn’t know anything about borders or lines on a map. And a curse will spread and spread and spread, like a sickness. Fiddlesticks doesn’t care about Demacia or Noxus.” Then she leaned back against one of the empty stalls, chewing a piece of hay thoughtfully. “I don’t even know if the story is true in all honesty, m’lady. But I know Fiddlesticks is real, for sooth. I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”

“Where?” Lux asked, enraptured.

“The south field,” Cithria replied slowly, like the memory was one she would rather avoid. “It was two summers past during harvest. Some of Miss Lottie’s sheep had escaped and I’d spent all evening running them down, so by the time I got them penned up again, it was well dark.”

She turned and walked over to the small window that looked out over the road that wound up from the village to the manor house, and Lux went to join her, hanging on tenterhooks. Cithria leaned partially out the window, maybe to let the sunlight counter her strange tale.

“I was walking back to the manor house, and looking forward to a bath, I’ll not lie. Sheep can smell something fierce.” She chuckled, then her humor faded. “I was on a hill east of the south fields when I saw it by the starlight. A scarecrow was standing in the middle of the field. Just the one. All lonely-like.”

Lux cocked her head quizzically. “Isn’t it normal to have a scarecrow in a wheat field?”

“Sure,” Cithria replied, shooting her a wry look as she rolled the shoot of hay to the other side of her mouth. “But that field had three that morning, and they were all scattered about. Not posted up in the middle. And it looked wrong. Don’t ask me why. Couldn’t say. It was too far off. But I’ll swear on the Protector’s wings that it was just wrong.”

“But how do you know it was Fiddlesticks?” Lux asked, wide-eyed.

Cithria rolled the bit of hay around again for a few moments, then spat it out before saying, “Because when I saw it, I got spooked and took off, sprinting all the way to the other side of the hill. I’m fast, m’lady. Real fast. So I got to the far end right quick, and as I did, I couldn’t help m’self and looked back over my shoulder.”

A thrill went through Lux’s body at those words. Something in her tone put goosebumps over Lux’s arm and down her neck. “What was it?”

“Just a scarecrow, still as can be,” Cithria said quietly, looking away. “Except it wasn’t in the middle of the field anymore. It was closer…and it was looking right at me.”

Cithria shivered. Despite the warmth of the day and the clear skies, Lux thought there was an unnatural chill in the air.

“Never run so fast in m’life,” Cithria said softly. “Scared outta my wits, I was. Thought I’d had it. I got all the way to the manor before I dared another look back. But when I did, the road was empty. Nothing there.”

Her words seemed to trail off of their own accord, as if the waning days of the season refused to welcome them into the warm air. Cithria looked haunted for a moment, scared as only someone very young can be scared of the dark. Lux couldn’t quite understand it. It seemed scary, certainly, but in the end, hadn’t it all been nothing?

“You’re really sure it was Fiddlesticks?” Lux asked, still brightly curious.

Cithria just nodded. “I know it doesn’t seem like much, but with respect, you weren’t there, m’lady. You didn’t feel it.” She turned to Lux with a dead serious expression. “That thing in the fields weren’t nothing natural nor good. Never been so scared in my whole life. Swear to Sol”—she tapped her brow with her fingers—“if you made me choose twixt sieging the Immortal Bastion alone in my skivies and going back into that field at night again with half the Dauntless at my back, I’d hand you my trousers m’self and march to Noxus then’n there.”

“Really?” Lux asked.

“Really.” Cithria wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Fightin’ Noxians sounds downright lovely by comparison. After that night, nothin’ m’lord Crownguard asks me could balk me.”

It sounded almost silly, but the look on Cithria’s face kept Lux from laughing. She really was scared, and witless from the looks. Whatever she’d seen had put the fear in her, and that was no lie. The promise had been kept, though, and Lux swore up and down not to tell her aunt that Cithria had told her that story.

Honestly, if she did, it would probably only earn her a paddling anyway, and Lux had no desire to test those waters. Her aunt was indulgent with her and especially lenient, but there was no telling exactly how far that leniency would go.

Still…

Lux spent the rest of the day wandering the manor, eventually posting up in the library. By the time evening had properly fallen, Tianna still wasn’t back, though. Not even when the old chamberlain fetched her for dinner. It was a quiet thing, with only herself and Alise eating quietly. Alise still looked worn ragged from the long ride—and probably the many rides prior, as she refused to be left behind, no matter how much she hated being on horseback.

By the time dinner was over, Lux was starting to worry and pestered the house servants until one of them told her that Tianna was going to be staying in the lower village for the night, though they wouldn’t say why.

Finally, Lux retired to her room. It was smaller than her room at the Crownguard manse, but then, so was her auntie’s whole estate. It was a modest span of land full of people who cared for it, and Lux imagined that suited a woman like Tianna who intended to serve on campaign for long stretches of her rule. The room was tidy, though, and comfortably furnished, and even had a shelf filled with books of fairytales the likes of which Lux’s mother always looked down her nose at as being unsuitable literature for a young lady of House Crownguard.

It became clear to Lux, though, partway through the night, that her aunt hadn’t been particularly studious about checking what tales were placed on that shelf. Even as the moon rose and the stars lit the cloudless night sky, Lux sat up, wide awake, reading a particular tale.

It was called: ‘The Prince & the Scarecrow’

The story wasn’t long, and more or less retold the tale that Cithria had told her, except in this one, the person fed to the crows was a young boy, and at the end, the scarecrow was slain by a noble prince. Considering Cithria’s tale had ended, though, Lux suspected the author of the book had changed things to make the ending a bit sweeter. But other than that, it was almost identical; the village, the curse, the unrighteous death, and a dark spirit in the shape of a scarecrow. It was all there, with one exception. 

According to the foreword of the book, this tale came from the southern reaches of Demacia, not Noxus.

Closing the book, Lux slipped out of bed, her mind abuzz with curiosity and wonder. Making a decision, she put on her trousers and shoes, grabbed the coat her aunt had provided, and quietly snuck out of her room and down the darkened halls of the manor.

It wasn’t hard to escape the manor. It wasn’t a prison, after all. And Lux’s aunt employed far fewer house staff than her own parents did, so most of them were gone or asleep in their own rooms. No one saw her leave, not even Alise, who slept on a smaller bed that the servants had brought into her room after she’d all but thrown a very polite fit about not being allowed to stay in the same room as her charge.

Lux lifted a small prayer of thanks to the Protector that Alise was so tuckered out after the day’s ride. She never would have approved and certainly would have raised an alarm if Lux had tried to leave in eyeshot of her.

Following the road, Lux kept her eye to the sky, reading the stars the way her father had taught her. Whenever Pieter Crownguard did anything with his daughter, it was inevitably in service to teaching her some skill or other, but Lux had particularly fond memories of learning the stars and constellations on her father’s knee, even if it was just for navigation.

The Eye of Sol was brightest in the sky, and she used it to find her way south. That was where Cithria had seen it, right? The south fields. Despite the long day, her limbs fairly sang with excitement, and curiosity bubbled in her belly. She followed the road, then turned off it and climbed up a grassy green hill that was still faintly warm from the sunny day. 

And as she crested the rise, she found her prize.

The fields were gold, like veins of treasure tilled up from the good, black earth. They stretched on and on forever, and in the bright starlight, Lux marveled at their riches from her vantage upon the hill. It really was beautiful, and in that moment, Lux could understand why her aunt loved her fiefdom so much, despite it being so far from the heart of the kingdom.

A faint wind rushed across the sea of wheat, and a rustle like distant ocean waves could be heard. The stars twinkled overhead, lighting gold with silver, and Lux marveled at it briefly.

But only briefly.

The wind abruptly became colder, and Lux felt a tightness close around her throat for no reason at all. It was as if something inside of her were recoiling from a thing she couldn’t see. Her heart began beating rabbit-fast, and her breath turned to short, staccato snaps of air as a sweat broke out across her brow and down the back of her neck.

Gooseflesh prickled at her skin, and everything in Lux screamed at her to run, but to where? And from what?

That question was answered a moment later.

She saw it first, like a shadow on the surface of the wheat. Lux blinked, and suddenly, there, in the middle of the field, was something that Lux would swear up and down had not been there a moment ago. It was stiff and bent, its limbs hanging at odd angles, and its head twisted at a broke-neck angle.

Then it twitched.

It spasmed.

And it rose rigidly upright, and it was watching her. Watching her and watching her and watching her and watching her! Its arms were held out wide as if for an embrace. As if tethered to wooden posts. There were no posts. It wasn’t tied. It wasn’t really a scarecrow! It wasn’t a scarecrow! That wasn’t a scarecrow!

High above the rotten rows.

Lux turned and ran down the hill for the road, a scream caught unsung between her teeth, and behind her she could hear it; scuttling and snapping and clawing its way toward her.

Cloth and metal!

She could hear the grind of rusted metal joints and splintering wood, and the rip and tear of cloth and old leather. It was a sound nothing wholesome could make, and it was getting closer and closer and closer! So close she could smell it! It smelled like old death! Like rotten blood and old, bad grease, stained black with filth! She could feel its breath on her neck!

The manor house was in sight! She could see the lights! See the—!

TEETH AND CROWS!

Something struck her, and suddenly she was on the ground meters from where she’d been a moment ago. Her head was spinning, and her back ached horribly, and…and there was something on top of her.

Something enormous and so dark that it blotted out the night.

And there were teeth. There were jaws. It was the mouth at the end of everything that ate all the good light in the world and it was opening wider and wider and wider until—

…

There was a flash of blue, and little Lux knew no more til morning.

Chapter Text

“Fiddlesticks,” Lux said softly, repeating the name that her childhood fears had long since conjured into a consumptive fear of the dark. “What a silly name…”

Powder was sitting on the bed beside her and listened silently to her tale the entire time. Lux could hardly recall the last time that someone had so clearly and simply been listening to her, and there was the slightest sign on Powder’s face at any point during her long recounting that she thought the other woman’s mind was wandering. Rather, she looked utterly consumed by the telling.

“What happened after that?” Powder asked.

Lux shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “I woke up in bed scared out of my wits and screaming bloody murder, but I was just…in bed. Like the whole thing had been a dream I’d had. Or, rather, a nightmare. I’d have thought it was just that except…”

“Except…?”

“Except when I went to wash up that morning, still shaking, mind you, I found awful bruises across my back and shoulders right where Fiddlesticks had struck me in my ‘dream’.” Lux gave Powder a thin smile. “I had no excuse for them, but no explanation for myself either, so I hid it. I haven’t thought about that day in years. I had forgotten it entirely, in fact, but how?”

The mattress shifted as Powder moved a little closer and took Lux’s hand. It was strange. She knew, intellectually, that Powder was not who she claimed to be. She knew that Powder was lying to her about being the convent’s blacksmith, even though it was clear that she knew the smithy’s art to an impressive degree. Lux knew all of that, and yet she took comfort in the woman’s touch and in her presence. She had precious few allies, and frankly, Lux was getting tired of being alone. Even if her only real ally was a liar, it was something.

“Maybe,” Powder started, “you forgot because you had to?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, sometimes, forgetting’s a kindness,” Powder said quietly, quickly adding, “Not all the time, but if you really saw that thing as a kid? I mean, I wouldn’t want a kid to have to remember seein’ that, y’know?”

Lux brushed the hair from her eyes as she considered that thought. It wasn’t that she precisely disagreed. Objectively, Powder was right. No child ought to be plagued by that sort of experience at so young an age, but despite that, she had been plagued by it, even if she couldn’t recall it. That, she realized, was when her fear of the dark had truly taken root. Not that she hadn’t had those fears as a very young child, but only in the natural sense. Most children feared the dark to some degree.

Her fear, past the age of ten, had been thoroughly irrational.

Or so she had thought.

“I suppose,” Lux agreed, then frowned as she looked back over at Powder. “But I don’t understand. How can that…that thing be sealed here if I saw it when I was ten? How is that possible? Did it escape?”

Powder shook her head, then stood, walked over to the table, planted both hands on it, and leaned over the diagram Lux had provided her. “I don’t think so,” she said pensively. “Even if everyone’s got a different name for it, it’s all the same thing. Call it Lonely Man, King’o’Rags, or Fiddlesticks, but everyone is afraid of the same thing. Maybe it’s not the whole thing, but maybe it’s enough that it can push the tip of a claw through the bars of its cell if there’re enough folks who believe.” Then she sighed and looked over to Lux with sad eyes. “And everyone believes in fear, Blondie.”

“So…it’s our belief that gives it power?” Lux asked uncertainly.

“It’s our fear,” Powder said. “Fear is a kinda belief, though. Maybe the very oldest kind.”

There was some truth in that which Lux couldn’t deny. Something else about that memory was gnawing at her, though. What was the flash of blue that had consumed her vision in that last moment? It was only for a moment, but it was also sharp and clear enough of a memory that Lux couldn’t pretend it was anything but real.

And all she could think of was the dreams she’d had of the Omen, and the blue light spilling out around her, and from that strange gem she kept seeing.

Briefly, she considered bringing that up to Powder, but decided against it. For now. She wanted to trust Powder, but she didn’t want to overplay her hand. Powder hadn’t made any comment on the flash of blue light when Lux had mentioned it, so either she didn’t know anything about it, thought it was nothing, or…she was hiding something. Lux didn’t like that last thought, and the others weren’t encouraging either.

The tap of Powder’s fingers drew Lux’s attention to where the blacksmith was gesturing down at the pages on the table. Lux rose from the bed and moved to Powder’s side, looking down over the diagram. There were new marks written into the margins in what Lux could only assume was Powder’s crabbed shorthand. They were odd, vertical scratches that Lux didn’t recognize, but probably meant something to the blacksmith. It was cheering to see how many of them there were, though, because it suggested that Powder really was taking this seriously.

And that this was new to her.

“What is it?” Lux asked. “A prison? Like we thought?”

“Maybe,” Powder replied, eyes narrowed as she swept a hand over a few of the pages and flattened them out. “You were right about the spires. There’s something odd about’em. It’s like they’re all…counting down to somethin’. Couldn’t say what, though.”

Then she pointed to a section in the center of the sketch.

“This is the heart, though. Right here. Dead center of everything. There’s a buncha stuff under it and a bunch of stuff overtop of it, but this is right in the middle.”

Lux leaned in closer, doing her best not to be distracted by the familiar scent of sweat, cinders, and the forge that perpetually hung around Powder. She forced herself to focus, tracing the lines of the madcap drawing, and when she finally found the patterns, it clicked.

“That’s the fourth chapel,” Lux said quietly. “The one the vigil is held in.”

“Makes sense.”

“The question is ‘why’?” Lux straightened and looked down over the whole of the sketch, trying to fix it in her mind. It was insane, but it had its own logic despite all of that. “Why build this? Why fear and darkness? And why is my Jinx here? What is her purpose? The sisters say it’s to protect us, but every other sister who’s seen her has gone mad and died! That doesn’t seem very protective to me!”

She wondered it out loud, not only to get the words out, but also to see how Powder would react. The fact that she was here without Canoness Solari’s knowledge—or indeed the knowledge of anyone else in the convent—implied she was being hidden by something of great power. The only beings of power that Lux knew of in the convent were the Fear, the Darkness, and the Omen. And since she had been tacitly encouraged to go to Powder after being rescued from that fall, it meant that, at the very least, her Jinx considered Powder to be an ally. That wouldn’t be the case if she served one of the other two.

In that case, shouldn’t she know?

Lux observed the blacksmith’s face as casually but as closely as possible, looking for any sign of duplicity. She wanted so badly to trust Powder, but to Lux’s surprise, Powder looked at least as uncertain as she felt.

Powder traced a finger over the lines, following the spirals inward and downward. “It’s like…a sink. Or a well. A sluice, or maybe an aqueduct?”

“What do you mean?” Lux pressed.

“Just that…the longer I look at this, the less it feels like prison,” Powder explained, looking deeply confused. “I-It’s like a prison, but sort of in the same way you could call a well a prison if you dug it deep, pulled up the rope and bucket, and then dropped someone you didn’t like down it.”

“Alright,” Lux said, turning back to the sketch and trying to see it the way Powder was describing it. “But why bother? Why not just make it a prison?”

Powder pressed her face into her hands as she sank down onto the stool, let out a long breath, and carded her fingers through her hair as she said, “That’s a real good question, Blondie.” Then she looked up at Lux. “You still got that book?”

“Metus et Tenebrae?”

“Gesundheit.”

Lux sighed, then chuckled and nodded, “Yes, I do. It’s in my room.”

“How much more is left to translate?”

“Half? Maybe a little more?”

Powder scowled down at the sketch, and the trouble on her features bothered Lux more than she wanted to admit. If Powder, who ostensibly served the Omen, was confused by this, that was probably bad.

Did…Did even the Omen itself not know why the convent was built?

“Keep translating, Blondie,” Powder said finally. “And I’ll keep…chuckin’ away at this. This sketch is too detailed to be random. It’s doin’ something, that’s for sure.”

Lux put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay. I’ll do what I can. But there’s one thing you should know about the book. Something I only just realized recently.”

“Yeah?” Powder frowned up at her.

“It feels like it wants to be read,” Lux admitted.

Powder’s expression darkened at that. At first, it had been almost a convenience, but now, all Lux could think was that she ought to have known better. Nothing in this place has been wholly benevolent, and plenty of things have proved wholly the opposite. It felt as if the book was trying to lead her somewhere by throwing out threads of madness and letting her follow them until she found the great loom at the center. What truly terrified her, then, was not the threads, nor even the loom.

No. What terrified Lux the most was who was doing the spinning.

And why?

“May I ask you something, Powder?” Lux began, her voice cracking slightly as the weight of it felt like it was settling deep in her chest.

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or perhaps the fragility, but Powder looked up with concern painted clearly across her handsome features. She stood slowly, took both of Lux’s hands in one of hers, and brought the other to Lux’s cheek, and said, “Anything, Blondie.”

“This may sound horribly selfish, and certainly a bit mad considering how little time we’ve spent together.” Lux squeezed Powder’s hand fiercely. “But I like to believe that you feel the same in your heart as I do in mine, regardless, so I’ll ask it anyway: If you have to choose, will you choose me?”

Powder shook her head in confusion. “What d’ya mean? Choose between you and what?”

“I don’t know,” Lux admitted, “but I fear that, eventually, you might have to, even if it’s only weighed against the convent. And I just…” She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood as she leaned her cheek into Powder’s palm and squeezed her hand tight. “I hope you don’t think less of me that I’m choosing to be very selfish in telling you that I want you to choose me!”

She clenched her eyes shut as tears burned behind them.

“I…I just want to be chosen by somebody who doesn’t want to use me!”

Suddenly, she was dragged forward into a tight embrace as both of Powder’s arms went around her. Lux clung to Powder almost by instinct, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face against the blacksmith’s strong neck and collar. Lean, powerful fingers stroked up and down Lux’s back as Powder held her close, and Lux was surprised to find she could feel Powder shaking just slightly beneath her fingers.

“I’ll choose you, Blondie,” Powder whispered. “It’s not crazy, and…and if it is, then I don’t wanna be sane. So don’t you worry, okay? I swear it. The wind as my witness, I’ll always choose you.”

Lux was missing.

She’d been missing nearly all day. The young Crownguard hadn’t appeared for morning benedictions, which was out of character for her even at her least pious. After prayers, Taliyah had confessed that when she’d gone to wake Sister Crownguard by knocking repeatedly on her door, there hadn’t been an answer. 

Leona had immediately marched to Lux’s room and used her master key to open the door, only to find nothing but silence and an empty bed that looked like it had barely been slept in. She thanked the Protector that the convent was not overly large, because she and Taliyah spent the rest of the morning scouring the upper two levels for the young woman, calling for her loudly as they walked the halls, until finally, Leona had been forced to admit that there was only one option remaining.

The first floor maze.

The only true question, though, was why? The powers of fear and darkness did not extend beyond the first floor, even at night. If they did, the holy seals would have been disturbed at least if not outright destroyed, but they were untouched and intact. That meant that, wherever Lux went, she either went willingly…or at the behest or demand of the Omen.

Had she tried to defy the Omen? Had she tried to leave? Leona prayed that was not the case. Her moon had been right about one thing: Leona had gone to great lengths to secure stewardship over Luxanna, but it was for very particular reasons. If only the girl’s span at the convent had been gentler…

But of course, fate and the heavens were not known for taking a gentle touch with mortals, whatever the sermons might suggest about their overflowing love.

She left Taliyah to do what chores could be done by one person to try to keep to the routine, since there was no sense in both of them wandering that floor. Especially after what happened with Samira, Leona was growing wary of the convent’s seals and their integrity. Everything felt as if it were hanging by tenterhooks, and the slightest breeze might unhinge everything she and her moon had been working toward.

So Leona descended the steps onto the first floor, and the moment her boots came to land on the cold stone of those twisting halls, she felt it.

A keen malevolence.

It was as if, with every passing night, the hungry darkness beneath them was growing stronger and stronger, and she couldn’t account for why that was! Leona straightened her back and kept walking, focusing on the appropriate pattern that would bring her safely to the convent doors.

Her hand went to the icon of enfolding wings that hung from her neck, and her lips moved in soft, Targonian verse. “Mother Mihira, guide my steps. Sister Protector, shield me. Lady of Veils, grant me thy mercy, and leadeth not unto damnation.”

The prayer seemed to stutter in the air around her, as if it were unwelcome, but Leona continued to murmur it regardless, letting it chase away some of the cloying dark. She could feel as much as hear the hostile whispers around her getting closer, only to recoil from her faith, but for how long?

Sister Samira had been strong-willed, but not strong enough.

What if Luxanna had been taken similarly?

Somehow, Leona thought that if the darkness had claimed the Crownguard girl, they would all know it, but she couldn’t make any claim as to why that felt right. Only that it did. Still, she added a prayer for Luxanna’s safety as well as she walked the long, dark halls, trusting her memory and her faith in the Mother of Justice to bring her to the doors.

And it did, and more besides.

Leona reached the double doors of the convent and reached out to push them open, intent on interrogating the lay folk on if they’d seen the missing sister, only for the doors to open abruptly, with Lux standing at the threshold, looking especially disheveled.

A wave of relief crashed over Leona, and she let out a wave of breath before stepping through the doors and wrapping the young novice in her arms. “Mother’s mercy, Sister Crownguard, where were you?”

“I…” Lux started, seemingly stunned at the embrace, and fairly so.

But Leona couldn’t help herself. The relief at finding Lux alive and apparently unharmed was so great that propriety, briefly, took a back seat.

After a moment, Leona drew back, still gripping Lux’s shoulders, and finally, Lux said, “I don’t know. I woke in the very early morning, before dawn, and found my door open. I went to close it, only for it to open again and again.” She shook her head and gave a derisive snort. “My Jinx wanted me to follow her, I think. And I did. I followed a trail of lit sconces to a door that led to one of the empty belltowers, but as I watched the dawn break, I felt something…some vastness behind me, and a touch at my back, and then I…I panicked, spun, and saw her again, and by instinct tried to get away.”

Leona’s chest constricted. “While you were in the belltower?” she whispered.

“Yes, your Grace,” Lux said with a weary look. “I fell…I remember falling down and down, and then I remember a rush of black wings, and…” she shook her head. “It’s muddy after that.”

By all accounts, that very nearly sounded like yet another death of a sister at the hands of the Omen. Perhaps Lux was right in calling it a jinx. But why? Lux had not fled the convent! She was staying put, doing as she was told, so why?!

Leona looked the girl over. She was still dressed in her sleeping shift, and her feet were bare, but they were also wrapped in bloodied linens. Frowning, she looked back up and asked, “Who bandaged your feet?”

Luxanna stiffened, then said, “Th-They were like this when I woke. I really couldn’t say.”

That was a lie. Or at least half of one, but the problem was that Leona couldn’t put a finger on what half. Luxanna was not nearly the dissembler she thought she was if she expected that to pass muster. Leona tucked that thought away for now, though. Luxanna was already treading softly around them, and her distrust was far from a secret. Pushing this matter would only serve to undo what very little goodwill Taliyah might have engendered when she took over for Samira.

So instead, Leona simply nodded. “I see. Well, I’m relieved that you’re safe. It may seem like too much, but allow me to carry you back to the stairs so we can get a look at those injuries. I’ll not have you walking the length of these halls on bare, bloodied feet.”

She could see the refusal begin behind Luxanna’s eyes, but it never got any further than that. After a moment, the young sister nodded stiffly and allowed Leona to scoop her up in a princess carry. She was light, by the standards Leona was accustomed to anyway, and barely a burden as she retraced her steps back through the halls.

Leona had a great deal of things she wanted to say to the girl. A great deal of apologies she wanted to make. She didn’t know how, though. Not without them being spoken as a prelude to yet more crypticisms because she had yet to determine how much she could safely tell the girl without putting her in more danger than she was clearly already in.

The best she could do was hold Lux gently and firmly, and, through that, try to deliver the notion that she truly did wish to protect and defend. Leona was no stranger to feeling like a hypocrite, even if she knew that she was backed into a corner and had no other options that weren’t outright worse, but it made it no easier.

As they reached the doors, Leona finally broke the crushing silence that had wrapped them during the walk back, and said, “I know you have few reasons to trust me or, in fact, any of us, but I beg you believe that I will do everything in my power to keep you from harm, if only you let me.”

“Of course, your Grace.”

Leona pressed her lips to a thin line and forced herself not to sigh as she nudged the doors open and ascended the stairs to the second floor. There was no real faith behind those words, merely perfunctory lip service. She tried not to show it through her temper, as it had often bettered her in her youth, and served her poorly for all that. She reminded herself that it was she who had failed to endear herself to Lux, and it was she who had planted that seed of distrust, however accidentally.

They reached the third floor without trouble, not that Leona had expected any once they left the maze. She carried her up to the third floor, to the healer’s wing, and as they approached, she heard the soft, dulcet strings of music echo from the partially open door.

“What is that?” Lux asked quietly, as if afraid to disturb the heavenly tones.

“Sister Sona,” Leona replied evenly. “She plays a rare Ionian etwahl. It’s a tradition of the maiden priestesses, in whose arts Sona’s family educated her.”

“It’s soothing.”

“Mm, so it is.”

Leona pushed the door to the healer’s wing open with a booted foot, and, as she did, she felt Lux go rigid with terror in her arms, and Leona bit down on her lip as she stifled an oath.

As expected, Sona was there, her etwahl laid across her lap and her slender fingers dancing across the string to tease out celestial notes. But what Leona hadn’t expected was to find Samira, sitting up in her bed, bleary-eyed, but conscious, and it was too late to back away before hers and Lux’s eyes met.

All Leona could do was grit her teeth and think grimly to herself, ‘Well, bollocks.’