As we drew closer to the grand arena complexes, the atmosphere changed. The scent of spices and worked leather from the market gave way to the acrid smell of sweat, cheap ale, and raw adrenaline. We were on the outskirts of the great arena, and the distant roar of the crowd was a constant thunder on the horizon.
It was here, in a vast paved square before the smaller training arenas, that the energy was concentrated. The atmosphere was not that of a market, but of a martial fair. Banners of various noble houses and army battalions fluttered from makeshift poles. Entire families were spread out on blankets, picnicking while they watched their sons and daughters engage in duels that, though fought with wooden swords, were waged with an alarming ferocity.
"What is all this?" Morgana asked, the sparkle in her eyes dimming a little, replaced by her usual caution.
"It looks like a glorified recruitment fair," I replied, my eyes scanning the scene, analysing. "A spectacle for parents to live out their dreams of conquest through their genetically questionable heirs."
A herald on a wooden platform, with a voice that sounded powerful enough to bring down walls, bellowed at the crowd, "Youth of Noxus! Sons and daughters of the empire! Show us your strength! Show us your will! Today, at the Festival of the First Blade, the weak will be forgotten, and the strong will begin to forge their names! And the champion shall take home not only imperial gold, but the glory of wearing the Viper's Eye!"
He held up the prize. A heavy, dark Noxian silver necklace, with a single, large purple amethyst hanging from it. The stone caught the grey daylight and turned it into a deep violet fire. The exact colour of Morgana's magic. The colour of her eyes.
A sudden, illogical wave of possessiveness washed over me. That. That would belong to her. And if the only way to obtain it was to win a ridiculous Noxian festival that celebrated childhood brutality… well, I had faced worse challenges for far stupider reasons.
I turned to Morgana, who was looking at the necklace with a distant appreciation, like one looking at a beautiful but unreachable star. "I'm entering," I announced.
She spun towards me, her eyes wide, with the expression of someone who had just heard me say I was going to try and fly by flapping my arms. "What? Azra'il, don't be ridiculous. It's a martial tournament, not a debate."
"Precisely," I said, already pulling her by the hand towards the registration tent. "Less talk, more action. It will be educational."
The official in charge of registration was a burly Noxian veteran with a broken nose and a bored look that had seen it all. He looked at Morgana, a tall, mysterious woman, and then at me, a nine-year-old child who barely reached the counter.
"Come to sign your daughter up, have you, madam?" he asked with a chuckle. "I think the ten-and-under competition was yesterday. This is the main division, for up to sixteen. The swords are wooden, but they still hurt."
"I know where I am," I said, my voice cold, placing the entry fee on the table. "Write down the name: Azra'il Kilam. Division: General."
The official stared at me, incredulous, then at Morgana, who just heaved a sigh of defeat that said, 'I tried to stop her, I swear'. Grumbling about the madness of outsiders and the waste of a good entry fee, he wrote my name on a scroll.
I entered the competitors' area under the amused and pitying gazes of the other youths, most of them teenagers who looked twice my size and were already cultivating the first fuzz of moustaches that were, frankly, offensive. Morgana sat in the front row of the wooden stands, her face a perfect mixture of motherly terror and exasperated resignation. The stage was set. I wasn't here to fight for the glory of Noxus. I was here to acquire a shiny trinket. The fact that I would have to humiliate a gaggle of overconfident youths in the process was just a delightful bonus.
**Trial 1: The Agility Course ("The Viper's Dance")**
The first challenge was an agility course, designed to test balance and stealth. Narrow beams, wooden walls to climb, and, the Noxian touch, dozens of brass bells hanging about that would ring at the slightest touch, signalling a penalty.
I watched the first few competitors. They were strong, fast. They tore through the course with the brute force of young bulls, inevitably setting off a symphony of bells with every clumsy step.
Then, they appeared. A boy and a girl, dressed as commoners. The boy, silent as a shadow, went first. He didn't run the course; he flowed through it. His movements were so fluid and quiet it was as if he were teleporting between the platforms. He finished in a record time that left the crowd speechless. And he'd rung only one bell. A single, lonely *ding*.
The red-haired girl went next. Her performance was different. Where the boy was stealth, she was grace. A deadly dancer. She flowed through the course, her body twisting and spinning, never missing a beat. She too was impossibly fast and rang only two bells. They were, clearly, the favourites.
Then, my turn. The stifled laughter returned.
[Calculation complete. Route projected. Suggestion: utilise the 'Heron's Gentle Step' cultivation technique for the beams.]
I took a deep breath and began. I did not run. Instead of speed, I used technique. I felt the balance of each beam, the flow of air around each bell. My movements were efficient, precise, almost lazy. Where others leaped, I stepped. Where others rolled, I leaned. I wasn't fighting the course; I was in harmony with it.
I finished in a time that was considerably slower than theirs. The crowd, expecting speed, seemed disappointed. But then the judge announced the score. Zero. Not a single bell. Not even a tinkle. A shocked silence fell over the square, before erupting into confused applause.
After the trial, while I was drinking some water, the red-haired girl approached, the shadow-boy a step behind her. The curiosity in her eyes had won out over her initial scorn.
"You're not fast," she said. It wasn't an insult; it was a confused observation. "But you… you don't make mistakes. How?"
"Speed is useless without precision," I replied with a shrug. "I simply refuse to be imprecise. It's a waste of time."
She looked at me, a glint of understanding in her predatory eyes. The first seed of rivalry and respect had been sown.
**Trial 2: The Precision Throw ("The Hunter's Eye")**
The second challenge: throwing daggers at a series of moving wooden targets. Some appeared quickly, others moved in complex patterns.
The red-haired girl, whom I'd heard the herald call 'Kat', was a master. Her performance was a spectacle of speed and aggression. She held multiple daggers in each hand, and the blades flew in a continuous stream, a river of steel that bit into the targets with satisfying, dry thuds. The crowd roared for her. She was the Noxian ideal made manifest: strength, speed, and a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
Then, it was my turn.
I picked up a single throwing dagger. The crowd laughed. I ignored them. I took a deep breath and extended my senses. I didn't look at the target. I looked at the space between myself and the target, at the path the steel would travel, at the inevitability of its arrival. Each of my throws was slow, deliberate. The dagger didn't fly fast; it flew perfectly.
When a target appeared, I did not react. I had already been waiting for it. When the last target, the fastest one, sprang up, I did not throw at it. I threw at a side wall. There was a gasp of confusion from the crowd, who thought I had missed. But then the dagger ricocheted off the wall, then off a wooden post, and embedded itself in the *back* of the moving target, a strike that defied logic and geometry.
Dead silence.
Kat wasn't laughing anymore. She was staring at me from across the arena, a slow, predatory smile forming on her lips. She hadn't found a competitor. She had found an enigma. And I knew, from the glint in her eyes, that she was hungry to solve it.
The boy beside her, Talon, was not smiling. His expression remained blank, but his hand moved subtly to his wrist, where a blade would be hidden. He did not see me as an enigma. He saw me as a threat. And he wasn't wrong.
**Final Trial: The Duel on the Beam (The Confrontation and the Deconstruction)**
Through the points system, we arrived at the inevitable. The final event, a duel with wooden staves on a balancing beam, would be between myself and Kat. The strange child versus the local prodigy. The crowd was electric.
We climbed onto the beam, one at each end. The world shrank to the size of that narrow wooden path.
Katarina was a storm. As soon as the signal sounded, she surged forward, a torrent of fast, precise strikes, designed to unbalance me, to overwhelm me.
I did not fight back. I danced.
Using techniques from a lifetime she could never imagine, I didn't block her strength. I redirected it. Her staff came for my head; I would touch it lightly, using her momentum to spin myself around, the blow passing harmlessly. She attacked my feet; I would take a small side-step, her staff hitting empty air. To the crowd, it looked like I was getting lucky. To her, I knew, it was the most frustrating experience of her life. I could feel her anger growing, making her movements less precise, more desperate. The combat machine was overheating.
It was time to add some fuel to the fire.
"Your form is good," I said, my voice calm and conversational as I dodged another furious strike. "But you put too much weight on your front foot. That's why your right shoulder opens a tenth of a second before the blow. Predictable."
"Shut up!" she snarled, attacking again with more fury.
"High thrust, predictable. Left spin, good form, but your supporting foot is a bit off-centre… ah, almost lost your balance there. Focus, Katarina. Focus."
I was narrating her defeat in real time. And she knew it. It was psychological warfare.
Finally, blind with rage, she screamed and lunged with a final, powerful, and reckless attack. I dodged it easily. And then, I sat down.
I simply sat down on the beam in the lotus position, my staff resting on my knees, and looked at her with an expression of pure, absolute boredom.
"Are you finished yet?" I asked with an exaggerated sigh. "This is getting tiring. I have other engagements today. Could we please fast-forward to the part where you overbalance out of sheer frustration and I win? My knees are starting to ache."
That was the last straw. To be treated not as a threat, but as an inconvenience… it was the ultimate humiliation. With a cry of fury, she charged. Her advance was wild and unbalanced. I didn't even need to stand. I just extended my staff; the dry crack of it against her shin was louder than the roar of the crowd. The shock and the pain did the rest. She windmilled her arms comically in the air and fell from the beam with an indignant shriek, landing in the net below.
I slowly stood up, yawned theatrically, and walked to the end of the beam. The victory was mine.
The confrontation came afterwards, of course. She found me near the prize table, her face red.
"You… you mocked me!"
"I did not mock you. I taught you," I corrected. "A Noxian warrior's greatest weapon is their pride. And it is also their greatest weakness. I just showed you how easily yours can be used as a weapon… against you."
The lesson hit her like a punch. "This isn't over," she said, her voice low and full of a new, cold determination. "Next time, there will be no lessons. Just a winner. And it will be me."
"I'll be waiting," I said. I looked at the purse of gold and the necklace on the prize table. I picked up the necklace. "I believe you fought not for the gold, but for the victory," I said, pushing the heavy purse of coins towards her. "A commoner would need the coins. But a bored noblewoman, testing her skills against the rabble… she would only care about the honour she lost."
My comment left her speechless. I had revealed I knew she was not who she pretended to be, throwing her disguise back in her face. Instead of getting angry, I saw a flicker of reluctant respect in her eyes. I was playing her game of shadows.
She took the gold without a word, a tacit acknowledgement. She introduced herself formally, as a noblewoman, even in our simple clothes. "I am Katarina Du Couteau."
The name was a powerful one in Noxus, a statement of belonging to one of its deadliest houses. She expected a reaction, perhaps intimidation or admiration. I gave her a calm nod.
"Azra'il Kilam," I replied.
I saw her mind working, scanning the mental catalogue of all Noxian houses, great or small, even foreign ones. Kilam. The name meant nothing to her. I wasn't from a rival house, not from a known lineage. I was… a complete mystery. And I could see in her eyes that this was infinitely more intriguing than if I had been the heir to any house she knew.
"Remember my name," she said, but this time it sounded less like a threat and more like an invitation to a future duel. With that, she and her brother turned and vanished into the crowd.
I turned and walked slowly back to the stands, the roar of the crowd finally fading to a distant hum in my ears. Morgana was standing, waiting for me. The expression on her face was no longer terror or exasperation. It was something I rarely saw directed at me. Pride. A quiet, unshakeable pride that shone in her violet eyes and was a thousand times heavier and warmer than any imperial gold.
"You're insufferable," she said, the words the same as before, but the tone completely different. There was a warmth in them, an affection that made my face burn.
"I know," I replied, stopping in front of her. Suddenly I felt awkward, the soul of millennia shrinking inside the body of a nine-year-old who had just been praised. The cold confidence I had used to face Katarina evaporated completely. I looked away, focusing on the necklace in my hands, which suddenly felt incredibly heavy.
"I… um…" The words, which came so easily when I was deconstructing an opponent's logic, failed me. I held out the necklace. "I told you I wanted to see different colours. But I realised it was more efficient to simply find something that matched the colour your eyes already are. It's… pragmatic." The excuse sounded weak even to my own ears.
Morgana said nothing. She took the necklace, her fingers brushing against mine, her skin warm against my own, which was cold from nerves. With slow, graceful movements, she fastened it around her own neck. The purple amethyst settled perfectly against her pale skin, and the stone seemed to come alive, glowing in the twilight as if it held a captive star.
"It's beautiful, Azra'il," she said, her voice a whisper. "Thank you."
She then did something I did not expect. She leaned down and wrapped me in a hug. It was not a quick, awkward embrace; it was firm, protective, enveloping me in the scent of dried herbs, earth, and ozone that was uniquely hers. My hands, for a moment, did not know what to do. Then, hesitantly, they came up and clutched the thick fabric of her robes. I buried my face in her shoulder, hiding the embarrassing heat that was rising in my cheeks.
I had won a necklace, the unwanted attention of Noxus's future deadliest blade, and an aching body from a duel I had instigated. But to be here, in this hug, in the silence that followed the storm of the festival… that, I realised, was the true prize. One that, for the first time in a long, long time, I felt I truly deserved.
"Let's go home, little star," she murmured into my hair.
I just nodded.
That night, back in our silent fortress in the heart of the leviathan, I watched her from the doorway of her room. She was sitting on her bed, in the light of a single candle, holding the little Demacian knight in one hand and touching the amethyst stone at her neck with the other. There was a small smile on her lips, the most genuine and peaceful smile I had ever seen her wear.
My day off had started with the mission of rekindling a spark in her. What I had not expected was that, in the process, I would find a home for my own.