Radiant

Chapter 1

Orphellum Mechanicals. They were a wandering troupe that once performed in High Silvermere when she was still a kid. The manager of the grand theater, one personally funded by her mother, had sent letters requesting for their performance, with the approval and stamp from the lord Crownguard himself to get through the waiting list. Or so she had heard from the servants anyway. It sounded absurd for so much fanfare to be involved with a group of traveling performers, but she had figured it made sense when said group had had the noble house attending one of their plays.

In fact, the first day of their week-long stay had opened with said highly anticipated play that was rumored to be praised by the King himself, and her family as the ducal house of the land was invited as a matter of course. Even her brother in his youth, her normally literal-minded older brother who would sooner pass out during his knight training than pouring over literature in the family library, was entranced, from the moment Lamb asked the maiden to choose between the arrow and the chase, to Wolf's glee as his jaws clamped down on her offered neck. The lead actress' performance as the Kindred, a perfect duality of otherworldly elegance and savage brutality, stole away the audience's breathe.

The experience had haunted her ever since, a distant memory that never truely went away. Maybe it was the way the eyes behind the dual masks always seemed to glow eerily. Or how she could feel those eyes trained on her even to the balcony she had retired to for the rest of the evening. Her brother had brushed off her story on their carriage back to the manor, saying it was just a trick of the light playing off her young mind. It wasn't as reassuring as Garen might have wanted, but she was thankful for her dreamless sleep that night. With the passage of time, all that remained was a reverberating whisper.

"Do you prefer Wolf's chase, or my arrow?"

All around her were Demacian, soldiers and mages alike, donning masks of eldlock wood. She saw many armored in gold-trimmed Demacian steel, remembering a few of them heading to reinforce the formation protecting the now-breached North gate. A few wore peasant's robes, a group of mages taking refuge somewhere between the wood and the treacherous rocks of the North border, rallying to High Silvermere's defense as the undead incursion swept the nation. Her only respite was the image of them fighting side by side with neither grudge nor resentment, even as their lone pockets of formation were consumed by the mist.

"This thing smells familiar, Lamb. Has your arrow missed its heart?"
"No, dear Wolf. Nor has she escaped your jaws. The hunt has claimed her, yet the spoil was stolen from us, and now a shred of what she once was."

As stunning as the old troupe owner's performance was, it could not do the being in front of her any justice. The Wolf's voice was a combination of savage snarls and a deep rumble reverberating from its maws, while the Lamb's was an echoing cacophony of a thousand voices as if every single fallen on this battlefield whispering in her head.

"We knew of you once, child. A different vessel, a different time. Speak, little light. Tell us your name."

Little light. She felt a deep pang in her chest at Death's words. The pain of a fresh wound that has yet to close. The man who had betrayed her, once to plunge her country into chaos, and once more to break her heart in two. His saddened frown only served to drive the knife even deeper as the last wisp of her magic left through the hand he was holding.

"Why?" She couldn't contain her anger, or maybe it was just a despaired and broken heart speaking. "Why didn't you stop this? The dead has risen to consume the living, and yet none of you have come to us. Not you. Not even the Aspect we revere. If you are indeed Death, then why are you hiding? Or do you have a hand in this?"

"It is not within our purview to act upon what mortals perceive as balance or just, Luxanna," intoned Lamb, their voice firm and patient as if admonishing a petulant child. "It matters not to us the suffering of mortals, only that we were present to deliver their chosen ends. We are to neither govern nor intervene, only to fulfill a duty. Even those who have been stolen will one day return to us. A good hunter is nothing but patient, and we have eternity."

"This game is boring Lamb." growled Wolf. "Let us play a new game, one of chasing and running and biting."
"Do not be impatient, Wolf. She has yet to give us her choice." Lamb replied with the faintest hint of annoyance. "I ask of you once more, child. My arrow or Wolf's chase?"

"I would like the Wolf, please." The words left her mouth before her mind could catch up, a moment of spite and rare recklessness. But what does it matter, in the end? She had already died by his hands. What is the meaning of choosing between a swift or violent death if the choice had already been made for her?

"Excellent! Let us play 'Chase the Lux-Thing and Bite Her to Bits'." Wolf cackled, showing his pink tongue and a maw full of teeth.

"So was your choice made. You will find us when the broken is whole again."

The ground trembled beneath her, a deep rumbling she had felt as avalanche swept down the mountain. A massive jaw of earth swallowed her whole. The Kindred faded into the crowd. A thousand masks with glowing eyes peered over the edge at her fall, each of them either a Wolf or a Lamb.

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When she came to, it was to a night sky blinded with glowing contraptions. They looked vaguely similar to the trinkets she once saw used on merchant ships docking in Erendelle the few times she had tagged along with her parents or brother to the capital. These contraptions were bigger though, with oval-shaped glass casings and mounted on metal poles. Their light was as bright as the sun, yet it lacked the familiar 'weight' to it, the faint hum of magic that came with the tiny hexcrystal used as battery. With a will, a ball of light materialized on her palm, bathing her surrounding in a pale shine.

She was in what looked like an alley, though one that could only be found in the poorer districts of Fossbarrow. Narrow, dirty and stunk of what she could only guess was a trash wagon, like one of those patrolling the street at night before heading for the incinerator, but metal and without wheels. A quick check revealed that her armors were relatively intact if a bit scratched up and lost the silver luster of Demacian steel due to exposure to the Mist, except for the hole on her chest guard from the spectral blade he conjured. She wouldn't strip to expect the wound, not if she had indeed somehow ended up in one of Piltover's streets, however absurd it is, but the pain had numbed to a dull ache and she no longer feel her soul bleeding out.

*click*

The sudden sound startled her, and Lux looked up to one of the balconies where a person was leaning with half their body out of the window and holding a strange device. She knew next to nothing about Piltoverian technology, their various branches of techmaturgy weren't openly detested, but generally held with contempt by Demacian, but it would be foolish to dismiss it as a mere sheet of metal.

With a bit of concentration, the light bent around, concealing her from the naked eyes at least for a while. Not something that can fool a Mageseeker or any kind of sensor they had here that can detect magic, but it will have to do. There was much to do if she wanted to return to Demacia and if possible appeal to the government for help against the undead. If they weren't already as deep in the conflict as her people were, that is.

With new purpose, she walked out of the alley, not noticing the spectral mark fading on her back.