League of Legends: Short Stories

The Weakest Heart

Stevan contemplated his next move. "Sister, you know what this is."

"Yes." I looked down at the paper; the diagram mirrored the mechanical and crystalline construction that pulsed within my chest.

I held my own heart's design.

"We thought them all destroyed. If this exists, others could as well. I could finally be free of this chair," he said. "To walk about my house as the master of his clan should."

"Perhaps it is time to let another take on the responsibility of clan master," I said.

It had been many years since Stevan had been able to navigate the halls on his own. Something his own children and grandchildren never let him forget. This wasn't just a piece of paper and a string of prayers. For Stevan, this was a map to immortality.

"This is only one schematic," I continued. "You believe if we uncover the rest of Naderi's designs, our artificers will be able to recreate his work. There would still be the question of how to power it—"

"Camille. Please."

I looked at my brother. Time had not been kind to a body born frail. But his eyes, after all these years, his eyes were still like mine, the Ferros blue. That deep cerulean couldn't be watered down by age or ailment. His eyes were the same luminous color as the hex-crystals lighting the drawing I held before me. His gaze pleaded with me now.

"You and I, we have led this house to greater success than Mother and Father ever dreamed," he said. "If your augmentation can be repeated, this success—our success, Camille—it can go on forever. This house will ensure the future of Piltover. Indeed, we will ensure progress for all of Valoran."

Stevan always had a flair for the dramatic. Coupled with his weaker constitution, it had been difficult for our parents to deny him anything.

"I am not the intelligencer for all of Valoran. I may find nothing."

Stevan gave a relieved sigh. "But you will look?"

I nodded and gave him back the schematic, but kept the chaplet, tucking the twisted loops into my pocket. I turned to leave the study.

"And Camille? If he's alive, if you find him—"

"It will be as it was before," I said, stopping my brother before he could unearth more of the past. "My duty, as always, is to the future of this house."

The late afternoon crowds near the North Wind Commercia still swarmed in anticipation of the Progress Day revels. The people's faces were flushed with the effort of making ready for the city's annual observance of innovation. However, it was not they, but a foreign trader tottering from drink that revealed my second shadow.

"By an Ursine's frozen teat," the trader said, frustrated with the press of the crowd. He pushed away those who had stopped to assist him. "I need no help."

Piltover's worker bees thrummed around us, all except for one blonde drone at the edge of the square. I kept her in view as I leaned down to the trader in front of me.

"Then get up," I told him.

The Freljordian looked up at me. His annoyance had him reaching for the carved tusk dagger at his waist. I met his glare and watched it slip down past the hex-crystal in my chest to my bladed legs. The man released his grip on the knife.

"There's a good boy," I said. "Now get out of my way."

He nodded dumbly. The trader backed away, and the mercantile hive mind of Piltover broke and reformed around him as he stumbled his way across the street. Only my shadow escort remained still, watching me from a distant market stall.