Chapter Text
The wheels crunched steadily over the frozen crust, the horses snorted softly. The silence of the winter forest lulled the senses—none of the soldiers escorting the carriage spoke, and only now and then a bird rose from under the hooves with a startled cry and vanished among the black lattice of branches. Viktor had dozed off, his head resting on his hand, wrapped tightly in his warm cloak, blue on the outside and fur-lined within. They still had several days of travel ahead, and the only things that could occupy him on the road were thought and sleep. Fortunately, he had never found solitude boring.
A new sound pulled him from his half-dream. Too faint and distant to place at once, yet something in the roadside thickets had changed—something was moving toward them through the undergrowth, stirring loose snow.
Viktor drew back the heavy curtain, leaned out the window, and listened. There was no mistaking it.
“Hey,” he called to the guard riding beside him, “be caref—”
An arrow hissed past, cutting the air, and struck the soldier’s neck with a soft thud. The man’s hands flew up, clawing helplessly at the shaft; he gurgled, slumped from the saddle, and fell beneath the hooves of the riders behind. Now the others too had heard the sound of an approaching force. They regrouped, drew their weapons, lowered their visors. Viktor sank back into his seat and shut the window. One death before his eyes was quite enough to ruin his mood for the day. Let them handle it.
The snapping of branches and the clash of armor drew nearer. Several arrows struck the soldiers’ breastplates with a dry clang, others buried themselves in the carriage’s wooden walls. The ambushers burst from the forest and, without slowing, crashed into the Zaunite wedge. Horses shrieked, steel rang, and the short cries of the dying mingled with the barked orders of commanders. Viktor focused. The attackers seemed nearly twice as many as his escort, yet they were merely ordinary men. The soldiers of Zaun had shimmer.
Outside came a sound that no human throat could make. Viktor leaned back against the stiff seat, pulled from his side pouch a slender pipe carved with intricate patterns, and reached for the satchel at his belt—when the carriage lurched so violently that the violet crystals nearly spilled onto the floor. Muttering a quiet curse, he made to look outside—what in the abyss was taking those brutes so long? He had just touched the door handle when it flew open by itself, and in the opening, lit by the slanting rays of the setting sun, stood a stranger. His face was streaked with blood running from a split brow, and his eyes burned with the resolve of a dying man ready for one last desperate act.
Viktor had no time to react: the enemy seized his wrist and yanked him out of the carriage into churned, iron-scented snow trampled by hooves and boots. The pipe slipped from his fingers and landed in the filthy slush. The soldier was already straightening to raise his weapon when something massive swept over them, struck him down, and tore his screaming body apart in an instant, wrenching limbs from their joints. Viktor turned away—there was no need to watch as his shimmer-swollen bodyguard shredded the attackers—and groped through the loose snow for his pipe. Losing it would be a nuisance: he’d have to swallow the crystals whole or chew them, enduring the gritty crunch between his teeth. Neither prospect pleased him.
A crack of bones behind him suddenly cut through the heavy blow, followed by a bestial scream. Blow after blow rained down, and it seemed the very earth beneath Viktor’s feet trembled to the same rhythm. He finally found the smooth shaft of the pipe in the snow, clenched it in his fingers, and turned.
On the roadside loomed the massive shape of a knight in armour that had once shone. A huge war-hammer rose and fell in a steady beat, each descent ending with a sickening, wet smack as it buried itself in what had once been the face of one of the Zaunites. Arms swollen from the shimmer twitched with every strike; dark blood, with a violet sheen, spattered the mail and stained the gilded Piltover crest on the breast-cloth. Viktor looked about in a daze and only then realised that all his guards lay fallen. The grinding of bones being driven into the snow ceased. Silence fell.
“Don’t move,” the knight rasped.
Viktor lifted his eyes. The man came on, swaying, both hands gripping the blood-slick hammer, ready to bring it down at the least sign of defiance. Viktor bared his teeth. His own carelessness had played him false: he had placed such faith in the strength of his guards, fed on pure shimmer, that he never thought to aid them — and now he stood face to face with death itself; the great hammer, matted with clinging flesh, swung within dangerous reach of his head, ready to smash his skull.
“Up!” the knight commanded sharply, tugging the haft in a convulsive readjustment. Viktor obeyed, bracing himself against the carriage wall. There was no choice. The fight was lost. The air reeked of filth and metal; the warm bodies of soldiers lay where they had fallen, their sightless eyes turned up to the yellowing sky. Only the two of them remained alive.
For a few seconds they watched each other like two beasts poised before a spring, waiting to see who would strike first. Viktor studied his executioner’s face: manly and hard, cheekbones sharply cut, a stubborn chin half-hidden under thick stubble. A few short scars crossed brow and cheek like the ledger of battles won. Brown eyes looked down with undisguised hatred and disgust.
“Hands where I can see them,” came the order again. “And remember, mage: make a move and I’ll break your neck.”
Viktor held his hands out as told, watching tensely as the knight planted his hammer in the snow, haft upward. It seemed he had no mind to kill him. At least, not yet.
“What’s this?” the man snapped, seizing Viktor’s wrist — Viktor still clutched the smoking pipe.
The next instant his face met the wooden wall of the carriage with a dull crunch. Broad hands roughly hauled back his cloak, groped his back and belly, drew a dagger from a boot and tore the pouches from his belt. Viktor cast a sharp look over his shoulder: the Piltovan was emptying into the snow slender tools for handling reagents, rare soporific herbs, mementos but useless amulets.
“Stop!” Viktor cried as the knight held up a little bag of purple crystals. His voice sounded disgustingly plaintive even to his own ears, so he squared his shoulders and hurried to add, “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”
The kidnapper lifted his cold gaze to him, slowly shook a few shimmer grains into his palm, their glow catching the dying light of the sun, and sneered.
“If you need me alive,” Viktor went on, never taking his eyes off the glimmering crystals in the man’s hand and trying to lend his voice a note of disdain, “then I won’t last long without it. I suggest you give the pouch back to me — along with the pipe.”
“Damn Zaunites,” the knight spat aside and, to Viktor’s horror, crushed the crystals in his palm, brushing the violet dust into the snow. “You’re all the same, filthy spawn. Hands!”
Viktor turned and stretched his arms forward again, feeling a faint relief when the Piltovan tucked both the pouch and the pipe into his belt bag. In the next instant Viktor’s hands vanished inside rough woolen mitts — so huge that both his hands could have fit in one. A tight cord wrapped over the thick fabric, drawing his wrists together into a helpless bundle. Viktor almost smiled; this thick-headed soldier clearly had no idea how the Arcane actually worked. Well, that ignorance might prove useful later.
The knight ran the other end of the cord through the carriage wheel’s hoop and tied a cunning knot. Straightening, he wiped sweat from his brow, smearing half-dried blood across his face, and fixed Viktor with a hard, lingering stare.
“Move, and I’ll kill you,” he muttered through his teeth, then lifted his hammer from the snow and strode toward the fallen bodies.
With barely concealed contempt, Viktor watched the man rummage through the corpses, checking saddlebags strapped to the dead horses. It seemed the Piltovans were not only unscrupulous, but also unashamed scavengers, robbing their own fallen comrades.
The sun was setting, the air growing colder. Viktor sat down on the carriage step, wrapping his cloak tighter around him. His heartbeat slowed; the rush of blood faded, allowing thought to return. All his guards were dead, the horses scattered. The nearest settlement was nearly a day’s ride away — and that was on horseback. Monsters worse than wild beasts roamed these forests. Without shimmer, and alone, he would never survive the journey. Even if he freed himself, he’d hardly get far: his captor kept glancing back every few moments to make sure the prisoner was still there. He might try to find a vial of pure shimmer among the dead, drink it and… Viktor shook the damp strands of hair from his face. No, that was madness. Too large a dose, too great a risk of losing his mind. And his mind was the one thing he could not afford to lose.
Meanwhile the Piltovan finished searching the fallen, gathered what he found into a large sack, and began dragging the bodies into two piles: his own he laid carefully upon the trampled snow, almost reverently, while the enemies he threw aside in a heap like refuse. Viktor grimaced. And we are the ones those arrogant Pilties dare to call savages?
At last the bodies were sorted. In the dying light the knight knelt before his fallen comrades and fell silent, lips moving in a soundless prayer. Viktor let out a muffled chuckle. How noble of him: march deep into foreign lands, slaughter innocent soldiers, and then pose as a pious man of faith. That was Piltover in its purest form — filth under a mask of virtue, intrigue veiled by political alliances, treachery excused in the name of progress.
Flames slowly rose above the corpses, the air filled with the moan of boiling blood and the crackle of splitting skin. The wind carried the stench of burnt hair. Despite the icy gusts creeping under his cloak, Viktor had no wish to come any nearer to that pyre. Meanwhile the knight set fire to the Zaunite bodies as well, without so much as a single prayer. Viktor needed to understand his motives — the purpose of the abduction, the route he intended to take. He had his suspicions, but only one who held the full picture could emerge the winner in the end.
“Stand up,” the knight ordered grimly, returning to the carriage. He untied the rope and fastened it to his belt. Slipping a travel pack over his shoulder and resting the hammer upon the other, he walked into the dark forest ahead, not even glancing at his captive. Viktor kept pace, eyes fixed on the back of his head and shoulders beneath the heavy cloak. The short black fur shimmered with fiery reflections from the burning pyre behind them. The Piltovan seemed to be looking for the horses that had fled: he studied the trampled snow, lighting it with some ingenious fluorescent device such as Viktor had never seen before. The scholar within him briefly outweighed the prisoner, and he could not resist asking, “What is that device?” Perhaps he could at least make the man talk.
The Piltovan cast a dark glance over his shoulder but gave no answer. Viktor drew a slow breath. The situation was not merely unpleasant — it was becoming infuriating. Death no longer terrified him as it did ordinary men, but being treated like this was intolerable.
“Will the noble knight of Piltover deign to follow proper decorum and explain what compelled him to invade foreign lands, slay our soldiers, and abduct a court alchemist?” he hissed through his teeth, giving the rope a sharp tug to make himself heard.
The man looked back again, grimacing as though catching an unpleasant scent. The blueish glow of the fluorescent device cast shifting shadows across his face.
“You’re coming with me to the capital,” he said at last, reluctantly, without slowing his stride.
“What an honour,” Viktor purred in reply, making no effort to hide the mockery in his voice. “I had no idea my research was so highly valued by your masters.”
“I’m taking you to trial, mage. The Council will judge you for using the knowledge and skills you gained at the Piltover Academy against the nation and its people.”
Viktor couldn’t help but chuckle.
“So that’s why you and your cutthroats broke every accord between our lands? Is this your famed Piltovan justice?”
“You and your vile shimmer poison all of Runeterra,” the Piltovan growled through his teeth, not looking back. “Sometimes one must break accords to strike off the serpent’s head and spare the people from the plague that creeps out of your rat holes.”
“A noble thought, delivered with the grace of a street thug. You mistake the symptom for the disease, knight. Shimmer is but a tool.”
“A tool?” the man snarled, yanking the rope sharply as if to emphasize his dominance. “For what? To make godforsaken monsters out of men?”
“Do waves not cast spray?” Viktor shot back, his voice taut with defiance as the ropes bit into his wrists and weakness spread through his limbs. “You do not understand the nature of despair. What we create is an answer to suffering, not its cause. I suppose that word is seldom heard in your gilded Piltovan cage.”
Keeping pace with the kidnapper’s long stride while speaking grew harder with every step. The freezing air cut into his lungs, leaving his breath wheezing on the way out. His right leg was going numb, refusing to obey. He needed rest — or the staff he’d left behind in the carriage. Or shimmer. His gaze drifted again and again to the man’s belt, to the pouch where the purple crystals and the pipe rested.
“In answering your imagined suffering, you only multiply it,” the man said flatly, bending down again to study the tracks in the snow. “Your alchemists give birth to things darker, fouler, more twisted. You turn men into hideous, swollen creatures, slaves to shimmer, unable even to recall who they were before the poison first tainted their blood. Is that your answer to suffering?”
“What you speak of, knight, are mistakes. Failed experiments,” Viktor forced out, stifling the cough rising from deep within his chest. “A desperate hunger for life, which at times takes… unpleasant forms. Tell me, do you truly believe a starving man will refuse moldy bread simply because it is not a feast?”
“If that moldy bread is bait laid by dark forces — binding you to serve them, turning you into something so unbearably deformed and broken that—” The Piltovan exhaled heavily and came to a halt, peering into the dark. “Then yes. Better to die of hunger than to taste that bread.”
Viktor stopped a few paces behind him, grateful at least for the brief respite. Were it not for the throbbing pain in his leg and the prickling in his chest, he might almost have found the exchange amusing.
“A poetic notion,” he murmured, watching the man examine the snow. “But hunger seldom leaves a man the luxury of choice. When survival demands a bargain with darkness, morality becomes a privilege few can afford.”
“You Zaunites are all the same,” the knight spat without turning, tugging the rope again as he moved ahead, seemingly at random. “You invent excuses for your selfishness to meddle with the laws of nature. No wonder Piltover thrives, bringing progress to the world while you wallow in filth.”
Viktor’s brow tightened slightly, but his tone stayed cold and composed.
“Progress built on arrogance. Perhaps it is in filth that a kind of endurance is born — one your gilded towers will never know.”
“I’m not here to debate the foundations of Piltover’s prosperity with you, mage,” the kidnapper said, his voice still firm though his composure was slipping—and Viktor noticed it. “Do as you’re told, and perhaps you’ll reach the capital in one piece.”
“My survival, regrettably, now depends on our cooperation,” Viktor inclined his head slightly, studying the knight in the dim blueish light of that unknown device. “Provide me with proper protection, and my knowledge may yet serve Piltover’s interests.”
The man finally turned, fixing his prisoner with a hard stare from under his lowered brow.
“You truly believe I’m leading you to the capital so you can poison it with your arcane corruption? You’ll stand before the Council for your crimes—and pray to every god you know that they do not condemn you to death.”
“I expected nothing less barbaric from you Piltovans,” Viktor said evenly, his gaze glacial. “I harbor no illusions about your true regard for knowledge—or your notion of ‘justice.’ Yet since I am still alive, my existence must serve your purpose, knight. Do not forget that.”
“Your existence, yes. But not your well-being. You would do well to remember that yourself, mage.”
Viktor bent forward, seized by a fit of coughing. The cold wind struck his face in uneven gusts, the trees moaning in the dark around them. A storm was coming. The knight shifted his hammer to the other shoulder and grimaced—whether in pain or disgust, Viktor could not tell—as he watched his prisoner spit blood into the snow.
“We’ll have to spend the night in the forest,” he said when Viktor straightened, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“Wonderful,” Viktor hissed, narrowing his eyes. “A blizzard is coming. Perhaps a brute like you might survive it by burrowing into the snow, but I—”
“There’s an old hunter’s hut not far from here,” the knight cut him off, turning away and striding ahead. “We’ll stay there.”
They trudged once more through the dense, moonless dark. The forest closed above them in an impenetrable canopy, and the first sharp gusts of the storm clawed at their cheeks. Viktor struggled to keep up, each step sending pain stabbing through his leg, his chest tightening as though gripped by a noose. He limped more than he wished to admit and fought to hide it. At last, the faint, murky glow of the Piltovan’s device fell upon the snow-caked wall of a derelict cabin. Following his captor, Viktor slipped with relief through the crooked doorway.
Inside was a single room—filthy, littered with branches and clumps of moss blown in through the cracks. Yet it seemed someone had been here not long ago: around the blackened pit of an old fire lay makeshift beds of fir boughs, and in one corner stood a neatly stacked pile of kindling.
Viktor watched with a faint smirk as the knight tried to light a fire. He’d walked the entire way barehanded—the woolen mitts hung limp around Viktor’s bound wrists like empty sacks—and now his own frozen fingers could scarcely manage the flint.
“How disappointingly predictable,” Viktor muttered at last. “And what a pity your gloves have been with me all this time.”
The Piltovan shot him an irritable glare; his eyes caught the fading blueish glow and gleamed sharply.
“You truly think I’m fool enough to untie you now and let you slit my throat before running off?”
“I merely point out the irony of the situation,” Viktor replied with a faint smirk, shaking his bound hands.
The knight said nothing, turning back to the pile of logs on the hearth and striking the flint with trembling fingers. The spark refused to catch.
For several minutes Viktor watched in grim satisfaction as the man’s futile attempts went on. Though the wind had stayed outside the stone walls, the frost still crept in through every crack in cold, invisible streams. His joints ached, and each breath burned his lungs. Drawing in the frigid air through his nose, Viktor closed his eyes and carefully traced a rune with the toe of his boot on the dusty floor. A faint spark ran along the lines and then leapt to the dry branches, flaring up with a hungry, almost feral vigor.
“What in the blazes—!” The knight sprang to his feet, reaching for the hammer he’d set aside. “You could do that this whole time?”
“Necessity makes men inventive, don’t you think?” Viktor watched the crackling fire with quiet satisfaction.
“Then why didn’t you try to escape?” The knight lowered his hand from the hammer, his gaze flicking uncertainly to the flames.
Viktor gave a slight shrug, lowering himself onto one of the makeshift beds of fir boughs, careful not to betray the sharp pain slicing through his leg from ankle to thigh. He doubted he could rise again without help.
“Escape? You slaughtered my escort, scattered the horses, dragged me into the woods straight toward a snowstorm,” he said, watching the shadows dance along the walls. “I’m not reckless enough to forget that my life now depends on you. Besides, you took something very important from me.”
The knight sat down on the fir branches, adjusting the rope that bound them so it would not catch fire. Pulling the hammer close, he leaned on it, eyes fixed on his captive.
“You want your shimmer back?” he asked at last.
Viktor held his gaze despite the trembling growing in his muscles. He needed the shimmer badly, but showing weakness was out of the question.
“It’s not a matter of want, knight,” he said evenly. “It’s the guarantee of my safe arrival in your capital. My body requires careful handling, and we would both benefit if you returned the pouch.”
“Shimmer is no remedy. It’s poison,” the man said, frowning.
“Even poison, taken in moderation, can serve as medicine.” Viktor’s voice was weary now; his hands trembled beneath the heavy cloak.
“And what if you lose it?” the Piltovan asked, pulling the pouch from his belt and weighing it in his palm. “Or if it runs out along the way? How can you place your trust in such a fragile source of… life?”
“And what do you trust?” Viktor’s eyes glinted faintly in the firelight. “Faith? Steel? They can fail you just as easily.”
“But I can live having lost my faith or my blade. Can you live without this?” The knight held the pouch over the fire. “What happens if I throw your potion into the flames?”
“Are you testing my patience?” Viktor leaned forward despite himself, eyes fixed on the pouch, his throat suddenly dry. “Your games are tiresome.”
“No. I’m asking a question. Would you truly not survive—could you not reach the capital without that poison?”
Viktor swallowed hard and closed his eyes. He felt cornered not only in body but in spirit. Every muscle cramped, clouding his thoughts.
“That depends on what one means by survival,” he said quietly at last. “I could reach it, yes—but I’d be drained. My mind would falter, my body weaken. I doubt I could properly take part in whatever farce your Council intends for me.”
He met his captor’s gaze again, hoping the man would find neither plea nor despair there. The Piltovan watched the fire in silence, his cheek resting on the hammer’s handle. In the firelight his eyes gleamed amber-yellow, like polished stones. At last, having reached a decision, he drew a slender pipe from his belt pouch—engraved with delicate filigree—and, grimacing, plucked a crystal of shimmer from the bag. Viktor held his breath, following every motion: the awkward way the man pressed the violet shards into the bowl with his thumb, how he brushed the dust from his fingers onto his stained cloak, and how, after a pause, he leaned forward and offered the pipe, mouthpiece first.
“A curious act of mercy,” Viktor said, his tone controlled though every nerve in him screamed to snatch it. He hesitated, unwilling to expose his desperation. “What’s the price of this sudden generosity?”
The knight only gave a small shake of his hand. Resistance had long since drained from Viktor—he parted his lips, caught the mouthpiece between his teeth, and leaned back as the man drew a glowing branch from the fire and held it out to him. He inhaled. Coils of violet smoke rushed into his lungs, and the pain that had gripped his body ebbed at once, replaced by fleeting, deceptive ease.
“My task is to deliver you to the capital sane enough to stand before the Council,” the knight said, breaking the moment’s haze. “I was granted leave to use force if you disobeyed, but your mind must remain intact. If this”—he grimaced, nodding toward the purple smoke curling from Viktor’s nostrils—“is what it takes to keep you coherent, then I’ll endure it.”
“A pragmatic decision, I’ll grant you that,” Viktor murmured, drawing again and shifting the pipe to the other corner of his mouth as his muscles loosened. “But don’t mistake this for gratitude. Our agreement stands.”
“Agreement?” The man’s brow lifted. “We had no such thing.”
“Did we not?” Viktor’s lips curved into a crooked smile. “You’re my jailer and I your captive, yet for now our aims align. We both need me alive. You know I depend on you—I’d be dead within days in these monster-ridden woods—and so you know I won’t run. Tell me, what is that if not a kind of pact? Guard me, and I’ll obey.”
The blizzard struck the walls of the hut; the boards of the roof groaned in protest. The shard of shimmer in the pipe burned low. The knight let out a hoarse laugh.
“Don’t try to sweet-talk me, mage. I know you’ll kill me the moment you get the chance,” he said. “Finish your poison and try to sleep. We move at dawn.”
The violet glow in the pipe died. The knight carelessly pulled it from Viktor’s teeth and shoved it into his belt pouch without even emptying the ash. Viktor watched with annoyance; if the pipe wasn’t cleaned properly, the resin would ruin the shimmer’s taste.
The man tossed a few more logs onto the fire, stirred the embers, and fixed his gaze on the flames, resting his cheek against the haft of his warhammer. Viktor studied the way light and shadow moved across that impassive, battle-hardened face. Information—he needed information. The more he had, the stronger he became — even a crippled, limping man like him.
“You’re Jayce Talis, aren’t you?” he said at last.
The knight flinched and raised his head, unable to hide the flash of surprise in his eyes.
“How do you know my name?” he asked darkly, his brows drawn tight.
Viktor smiled to himself; his guess had been right.
“Word of a fearless—if rather brash—captain of the City Guard has reached even Zaun, knight. The embroidery gave you away.” He nodded toward the man’s belt pouches, adorned with the red-and-gold sigil of a hammer.
The man snorted but said nothing. So, perhaps he wasn’t as much of a fool as Viktor had thought.
“Go to sleep,” Jayce muttered at last. “Enough talk.”
Viktor’s head was still ringing from all that had transpired that evening. His body, steeped in shimmer’s fumes, grew pliant, the muscles soft and heavy as clay. He lowered himself carefully onto the bed of fir branches, facing the fire and his warden, and his weary eyelids fell shut. Hunger gnawed at him, yet despite the pleasant numbness, sleep would not come.
So it was Jayce Talis they’d sent to capture him—a soldier forged in fire and steel, risen from blacksmith to captain of the City Guard, the Council’s darling and the personal favorite of Mel Medarda herself. Absurd. Nonsensical. Viktor frowned, pulling his cloak tighter around him. Jayce had led a small unit deep into Zaunite territory. It was hard to believe the Council didn’t understand what dangers awaited ordinary soldiers here, untrained in magic. And clearly, Jayce himself knew nothing of the Arcane, or he’d have treated his prisoner very differently. They hadn’t even warned him what kind of doom this mission might bring upon his men. They’d sent him to die.
Viktor half-opened his eyes and looked at the knight through lowered lashes. Jayce sat opposite him, still resting his cheek against the hammer, and seemed half-asleep. Did he realize what dire, perilous situation he was in? Had he known from the start how reckless his masters’ command was, and still followed it blindly, even if it meant certain death far from home?
In one thing, Jayce Talis had been right. Viktor would kill him, the moment the chance arose. Not here, not now—a crippled wretch with his hands bound would not survive the forest or find his way back to civilization. But the captor could not avoid settlements forever. They would need food and rest. And when that time came, Viktor would kill him the instant he was safe. Without hesitation, without remorse. Afterward, he would find a way to return to his patron; a skilled alchemist could always earn himself a good horse and a pouch of provisions. He would return to his workshop—to the retorts and crucibles, to the scent of herbs and reagents, to the tang of burnt shimmer curling toward the ceiling in glimmering coils of smoke.
The thought brought a faint smile to Viktor’s lips. What was a life—the life of a treacherous, arrogant soldier—compared to the worth of discovery? Perhaps they were not so different after all: if death was the price one must pay for progress, then both Zaunites and Piltovans paid it with equal eagerness.