Dealing with ancient, arrogant entities who believe themselves to be the centre of the universe is, for me, the equivalent of a dreadfully boring family reunion. I have negotiated terms of surrender with star-gods with inflated egos, I have played chess with the personification of time (he cheats, by the way), and I have taken tea with beings that fed on fear. Lissandra's oppressive calm, her pose as a millennial ice queen, did not frighten me. I had seen that sort of performance a million times before.
What chilled me to the soul, with a cold that no Freljordian blizzard could replicate, was the way she had looked at Morgana.
Until that moment, my safety in this world had been a simple equation. Morgana was the constant, a celestial force of nature who, even with her wings chained, was the most powerful creature I had yet encountered here. I had seen her soothe furious beasts with a gesture and heal mortal wounds with a whisper. She was my shield, an impenetrable wall against the petty dangers of this plane. I never once worried for her safety, because nothing we had met could even scratch her surface.
Lissandra changed the equation.
Before the Ice Witch, I saw for the first time a crack in Morgana's armour of power. Not from weakness, but from the simple, crushing truth that there are hierarchies even among immortals. There were beings in this world older, and perhaps, more powerful. For the first time since I reincarnated, I realised there was something in this universe that could hurt Morgana. That could break her. And that revelation was more terrifying than any threat to my own transient existence.
In that instant, as Lissandra judged us, an inconvenient and profoundly irritating truth crystallised. For the first time in countless lives, there was something in this world I was unwilling to lose. Morgana could be hurt. She could properly die, an end, a full stop, not the bureaucratic comma of a new beginning that death was for me. And the helplessness of my current body, the inability to guarantee her safety with a simple snap of my fingers, was a humiliation I had not felt for ages. That feeling was a poison, slow and corrosive, spreading through my veins. And I needed an antidote, urgently.
We left the shadow of the Abyss Bridge behind in a heavy silence. The only sound was the crunch of our boots on the snow and the bone amulet Ashe had given me, tapping rhythmically against my hip. Morgana walked beside me, wrapped in her own dark thoughts, the revelation about Lissandra and the Three Sisters weighing upon her.
"She told us to be her 'eyes'," Morgana finally broke the silence. "How? Will she follow us? Send her thralls?"
"Inefficient and noisy," I retorted, looking up at the grey sky. "My hypothesis, based on how she tried to read us, is that she has a form of psychic surveillance. She can see through dreams."
I saw the horror dawn on Morgana's face. "She'll… watch our dreams?" The idea of such a violation was palpably repulsive to her.
"Probably your dreams," I corrected. "Mine, she can't reach."
She stopped. "Why only mine? What makes you so different, Azra'il? How do you… build those walls?" Her question was not just of concern, but of sharp curiosity, that of someone piecing a puzzle together.
I looked away towards the horizon, towards the grey mountains that marked the border with Noxus. The truth was an entire library, filled with volumes on soul cultivation, mental wars waged on astral planes, and millennia of practice in sealing one's own consciousness. It was too much. And frankly, it was none of her business.
"It's a matter of practice, not power," I replied, and for a moment, the facade of sarcasm cracked, revealing something older and more weary. "You learn to build walls when you discover that if you don't, the world outside simply walks in and takes everything you have, until there's nothing left but an empty shell. It's a lesson one learns quickly. Or one doesn't live to learn it a second time." I looked back at her, and the ironic glint returned to my eyes, a shield being raised. "Let's just say I've had…" I couldn't finish, so I sighed. "Let's leave it, for now. Shall we focus on not becoming ice statues or mind-slaves before luncheon?"
I saw in her eyes that the answer had struck her in an unexpected way. She had not heard just an evasion, but an echo of a profound pain, something that resonated with her own scars. The unanswered question remained, but now it was tinged with a new compassion. She understood that it was a secret kept not out of pride, but out of necessity. And, understanding the weight of her own burdens, she granted me the silence to carry mine.
The vulnerability on her face, however, the idea of her being an open window into Lissandra's mind, set off the alarm within me. The alarm that screamed protect her.
"Alright," I sighed, the sound turning to a cloud of vapour. "Listen. Every night, before we sleep, I'll teach you the basics of Occlumency."
"Occlumency?" The word sounded strange on her lips, and I saw a furrow of recognition on her brow. Not of knowledge, but of a distant echo, like hearing the name of a lullaby your mother only sang once. "That term… it's odd. But it feels… old. Ancient magic."
"It may well be," I said, another half-truth. "It is a method of disciplining the mind, of creating an inner sanctuary and locking the door. With your power, you should learn quickly. It will make your dreams a confusing blur to her. At the very least, it will grant us some privacy."
She nodded, gratitude and determination in her eyes momentarily eclipsing her suspicion. "You… would you do that for me?"
The question was so direct, so vulnerable, that my emotional armour felt heavy and useless for an instant. I stopped walking and turned to face her, the seriousness on my face disarming hers.
"Yes," I said, my voice without a trace of irony. "Because you taught me to read the runes. You taught me the name of every herb and every star in this sky. You didn't run when I was ill, and you put up with my insufferable personality for over seven years without leaving me to the wolves. You are… family. And I am not letting that ice-witch stroll through your mind as if it were a public garden. This isn't a matter of tactics. It's a matter of principle. Now, let's go."
I turned sharply and began walking again, so she wouldn't see the flush of embarrassment that threatened to creep up my cheeks. The truth was far more complicated than affection, but in that moment, it was the only part that mattered to be said. And from the respectful silence with which she followed, I knew she had understood every word.
And so, our journey of nearly a year to Noxus began. And every night became a training ground, a silent battle waged within our minds.
Morgana's training began the first night we felt a safe distance from the Abyss. The fire crackled, the cold stars of the Freljord looking like needle-points in the dark velvet of the sky.
"Sit," I told her. "Close your eyes. Now, what do you see in your mind?"
"Darkness," she replied. "Memories floating like embers. The light of the fire on the back of my eyelids."
"Wrong," I retorted. "That's just noise. Your mind is not a void. It is a place. A landscape. The first step of Occlumency is to understand the geography of your own self. Find the centre."
It took nights for her to understand. Her mind, I learned, was not a fortress or a palace like that of mages who seek order. Morgana's mind was a wild, twilit garden. A place of melancholy beauty, with ancient trees whose roots were made of sorrow and flowers that bloomed from compassion. The trouble is, a garden has no doors or walls.
"I asked you to build a fortress, a safe place, and you're describing an open field," I said in frustration after nearly a month of training.
"But the pain is part of who I am," she would argue, her voice low, sitting on the other side of the fire. "If I lock it away, I lose myself."
"You don't lock it away to kill it," I said, my voice gentler than I intended. I stood and picked up an ember from the fire with a magic-imbued hand. "Look. Outside the fire, this ember will die, become cold ash. But if we put it back…" I returned it to the flames. "…it lends its heat and helps the rest burn brighter. Your memories, your pain, your anger at your sister… they are embers. You cannot leave them scattered about your mind, where a gust of wind, or Lissandra's curiosity, could rekindle them and burn your house down. You gather them. You place them in a hearth at the centre of your mental sanctuary. They are not your enemies. They are your source of warmth. You control them, they do not control you."
That was the turning point. Slowly, night after night, I guided her. She learned to give shape to her garden. She built walls, not of cold stone, but of tangled, thorny vines. She created a path and learned to feel an intruder's presence like a foot stepping off it. The hearth at the centre, where her most painful memories now burned, became the heart of her defence.
While she trained her mind, I dedicated myself to my body and my Qi with a silent fury. The humiliation I had felt before Lissandra became an inexhaustible fuel. Every morning, before the sun rose, I would leave our shelter for the biting cold. The practice of Body Refinement required pain, and the Freljord offered it willingly. I sat in frozen streams until my muscles spasmed, forcing my Qi to circulate to keep me warm, a process that strengthened my meridians with brutal speed.
As Morgana and I walked, I maintained a constant breathing cycle, absorbing the cold, pure energy of the Freljordian earth. It was different from the energy of Shénvara, wilder, more untamed, but just as potent. My small child's body protested, but with each day, I felt the foundation of my power solidifying. The Dantian, once a spark, was now a small, steady flame.
I also studied. The scrolls stolen from the golem's tower contained secrets of the Old Freljordian Magic, runes of elemental power. In the quiet of my own mind, I began to fuse these concepts with the science of cultivation I knew. Instead of drawing a rune and feeding it externally, as Morgana did, I learned to form it internally with my own Qi and project it with a pulse of energy. They were hybrid spells, faster, more efficient. And invisible to anyone who could not read the flow of Qi. I was forging my own weapons, away from Morgana's watchful eyes and, I hoped, from the psychic surveillance of our millennial gaoler.
The border with Noxus was a land of scars, a strip of earth that belonged to no one and bled for both. Burnt villages were silent monuments to conflicts no one remembered but the land.
After nearly a year of travel, I was a different child. My body, now a little over eight years old, was lean, but dense with the strength of cultivation. And Morgana… she seemed calmer, more centred. The Occlumency sessions had given her not just a defence, but a new level of control over her own tumultuous soul.
Finally, we saw the city. Knot Klage.
It was not the capital, the dark heart of the empire I had read about, the Immortal Bastion. It was the frontier. The largest and most fortified Noxian garrison-city in the north, the first bulwark against the Freljordian hordes and the staging point for any invasion coming from the ice. It was a test. If you could survive Knot Klage, perhaps you stood a chance in the rest of the empire.
The city was like a punch to the face. A fortress of black iron and grey stone, built not in harmony with the landscape, but in absolute dominance over it. Strength here was a spectacle. Red and black banners snapped in the wind like whips. The sound of steel being forged in the hundreds of smithies was the city's constant heartbeat. And the crowd pouring in and out of the massive gates was a mosaic of power and ambition: legions of human soldiers in heavy armour, Vastayan minotaurs acting as caravan guards, and battlemages in adorned robes displaying their power openly, without fear of hunters or dogma. Everyone, of all races and creeds, united by one thing: blind loyalty to strength and the empire.
To fulfil Lissandra's mission, to survive here, hiding was not an option. In Noxus, weakness and excessive secrecy attract predators. We would have to become a useful, but non-threatening, piece on the board. Our destination was the Immortal Bastion, where the true power and the secrets Lissandra sought resided. But one does not enter the heart of the empire without an invitation or influence. Knot Klage would be our training ground. Our starting point.
"We're opening a shop," I announced to Morgana that night, in the noisiest, grimiest tavern I had ever had the displeasure of visiting. It was called 'The Broken Spear'.
"A… shop?" she asked, her eyebrow raised over her mug of mead.
"Yes. An apothecary's," I explained, leaning over the sticky table. "You, with your mysterious aura and knowledge of herbs, will be the 'herbalist from a distant land'. I will be your 'prodigy apprentice, who is dreadfully ill-tempered'." My plan was simple and logical. "Noxus is a war machine. And war machines produce wounded soldiers. Wounds, diseases, poisons… and secrets. People come to healers not just with broken bodies. They come with fractured minds and souls, seeking discreet solutions. We will be the listeners and the healers. We will gain influence not with swords, but with poultices and tinctures. And when we have enough of a reputation and enough contacts… we will go to the capital."
Morgana considered for a moment, then nodded. She saw the wisdom in the approach. It would be the Noxian version of her restorative justice: mending what the spear breaks.
We entered the city the next day, losing ourselves in the chaotic crowd to find a place. Morgana, shrouded in her shadows, not quite comfortable being in Noxus, looked like a lily in a battlefield. I, on the other hand, looked at the brutal, vibrant city, not with fear, but with the interest of a chessmaster before a new and complicated board. The rage I had felt before Lissandra had been forged into a cold determination. The helplessness, replaced by a sharp-edged purpose.
Lissandra had sent us to the heart of the spear. She wanted us to be her eyes, to search for a weapon she could use. The fool. She had given me an objective, forced me to remember what it means to be strong, to protect what is mine.
I did not come to Noxus to find a weapon for the Ice Witch.
I came to find one for myself. And, if necessary, I would forge it from the very bones of this empire.