League of Legends: Short Stories

Ryze & Brand: From the Ashes

"I can't do it."

The words thickened Kegan's tongue, and almost crashed against the cage of his teeth, but he forced them past his lips.

"Master. I can't do it."

Defeat gave him a chance to catch his breath. Who knew failure could be so exhausting? In that moment, he looked for sympathy in the older man's eyes—to his disgust, he saw it right there, as bare as the cloudless sky.

When Kegan's master spoke, it was with the lilting flow of faraway lands. His was an accent rarely carried by these northern winds. "It is not a matter of whether you can," he said. "Only that you must."

The older man clicked his fingers. With a purple flash, the bundle of deadwood flared to life; a campfire born in a single moment of willpower.

Kegan turned from the fire and spat into the snow. They were words he'd heard before, and they were as useless now as they always were.

"You make it seem so easy."

His master shrugged, as if even that half-hearted accusation needed a moment's thought before replying. "It is simple, perhaps. Not easy. The two aren't always the same thing."

"But there has to be another way..." Kegan muttered, unconsciously touching his fingertips to the burn-scars blighting his cheek. Even as he said it, he found himself believing it. It had to be true. It wouldn't always be like this. It couldn't always be like this.

"Why?" His master looked at him with unconcealed curiosity in the light of his eyes. "Why must there be another way? Because you continue to fail at this one?"

Kegan grunted. "Answering questions with questions is a coward's way of speaking."

His master raised one dark eyebrow. "And there it is. The wisdom of a barbarian who cannot yet read, or count past the number of fingers on his hands."

The tension faded as the two of them shared a grim smile. They warmed broth, sipping it from ivory cups as their campfire cast them in a flickering amber glow. Above them—above the tundra for hundreds of miles around—the sky rippled with light.

Kegan watched the heavens' familiar performance, the gauzy radiance caressing the moon and the stars that cradled it. For all that he loathed this land, there was beauty here in abundance, if a man knew where to look.

Sometimes that was as simple as looking up.

"The spirits dance wildly tonight," he said.

His master tilted his unnatural gaze skyward. "The aurora? That is not the work of spirits—only the action of solar winds on the upper reaches of..."

Kegan stared at him.

His master trailed off, and awkwardly cleared his throat. "Never mind."

Silence returned to haunt them. Kegan drew the knife from his belt, setting to work on a sliver of unburnt wood. He carved with easy strokes. Hands that had set fires and ended lives now turned to a far more peaceful purpose.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the sorcerer was watching him.

"I want you to breathe in," the older man said.

The blade still scraped over the bark. "I'm breathing now. I'm always breathing."

"Please," his master said, with an edge of impatience, "do not be so obtuse."

"So what?"

"Obtuse. It means... Well, never mind what it means. I want you to breathe in, and hold it as long as you can."