Azra'il's POV
There is a peculiar beauty to the post-interrogation phase, one that most mortals, in their haste to clean up the blood and tears, never stop to appreciate. It is the stillness. The absolute silence that follows when three minds, once filled with loyalty, secrets, and arrogance, have been systematically emptied, reformatted, and left on standby. I looked at my three specimens, Corbin, Isis, and Kethan, now just drooling, empty husks tied to chairs, and felt the quiet satisfaction of a librarian who has just organised a particularly chaotic shelf. A dirty job, yes, one that left unpleasant echoes in my own mind, but the result was undeniably… tidy.
With a weary sigh, I deactivated the layers of sonic containment in the Silent Room. The muffled sound of our own house rushed back in, filling the vacuum. I stepped out, the door closing behind me, sealing my work of psychological terror. And, as I expected, I found Morgana standing in the corridor, a statue of shadow and concern. She hadn't been spying, her honour would forbid it, but she had been keeping watch. Listening to the silence, which, I suspect, was infinitely worse for her empathetic imagination than any scream. Her violet eyes met mine, and I saw the question in them before she even formed it.
"Is it over?" she asked, her voice low, as if afraid of waking something.
"Data extraction is complete," I corrected her, because precision, even in this state of mental exhaustion, is important.
She scanned my face, searching not for blood, but for something deeper. Cracks in my soul? Metaphysical bloodstains? I knew she did not find what she feared. My facade was, as always, flawless. "And them?"
"They're resting," I said, which was technically true. The self-induced coma of a broken mind is a form of rest. "They've had a very, very long, and, I would say, enlightening night."
I walked past her, heading towards my study. I needed order, maps, and quiet to process the torrent of information I had stolen. She followed, her silence now not one of judgement, but a heavy blanket of anxiety. She knew the conversation was coming, and that it wouldn't be about the morality of my methods, but about what they had revealed.
"We need to talk, Azra'il," she said as soon as we entered the study. The smell of old books and dry ink instantly soothed me.
"Brilliant observation. You have a knack for the obvious," I murmured, making a beeline for my desk. I needed space. I needed to put the chaos of those three minds into an order I could understand. But she placed herself in front of me, a serene but unshakeable wall, blocking the path to my maps. Her eyes, the colour of the amethyst at her neck, were fixed on me.
"What did you learn?" she demanded. "What was so important that it was worth… whatever you did in that room?"
Eos's logic screamed in my mind. [Obfuscate. Control the narrative. Release the information in tactical increments to maintain the advantage.] For a moment, I considered it. It was the smart play. The safe play. To keep my cards close to my chest. But then I looked at her face, at the genuine pain and fear in her violet eyes. Not fear of them. Fear *for me*. She wasn't worried about the monsters I had broken; she was worried about the monster I might become.
And with a sigh that felt like it carried the weight of an age or two, I decided that tactical efficiency could go to hell for five minutes. She deserved the truth. Her loyalty, the silent rock that had anchored me since we arrived in this rotten empire, had earned her that right.
"Sit down, Morgana," I said, my voice softer than I intended. I dragged myself to my own chair, the effort of the psychic extraction finally taking its toll. "You'll want some tea. Strong. It's… complicated."
And then, for the first time since we arrived in this shit-caked, burning empire, I was completely honest. Well, mostly. I omitted the graphic details of my 'persuasion technique', framing it as 'forced memory extraction', a vague term that, while technically correct, didn't quite do justice to the artistry involved. The rest, however, was the raw, unvarnished truth, poured onto the table between us like a sack of freshly removed organs.
I began with the Black Rose. "They're real," I said, my voice low and tired. "And worse than I thought. Vorth is not alone; she is just a branch of a much larger tree, a 'petal', as they poetically and dreadfully call themselves." I described what I had learned: the vast network of runic artisans spread across Valoran, creating their surveillance web. I spoke of the independent cells operating in the capital, infiltrating politics and carrying out assassinations. Morgana listened, her hands clenched into fists in her lap, her expression hardening with every word, the scale of the conspiracy becoming clear to her.
"They have a local hierarchy," I went on, connecting the pieces I had ripped from the minds of Isis and Corbin. "Vorth is important, yes. But there is someone above her in this city, whom they call the 'petal leader'. It's a noblewoman named Lady Cassian. She's one of the ones orchestrating operations in the capital. I believe it was her order to investigate you."
"But it's not just politics," I continued, getting to the hard part. "It's theology of the worst kind. They're a desperate doomsday cult. They don't really care about Noxus. They see Darkwill's rule as a distraction, a child's game. They're trying to forge a weapon to fight something they themselves imprisoned and now fear." I paused, letting the weight settle. "They are terrified of their old master's return."
I said the name, and it seemed to suck what little warmth remained in the room, as if the very mention of it opened a fissure to a cold, lifeless place. "Mordekaiser."
I watched Morgana closely. The name did not meet with the emptiness of ignorance, but with the impact of a hammer on an ancient iron plate. Her eyes widened, and for the first time, I saw fear, a primal, historical fear. The colour drained from her face, and her hands clenched into fists.
"That's not possible," she whispered, her voice tight, as if reliving a legend told around a celestial campfire millennia ago. "He was defeated. His fortress, destroyed. His soul, unmade."
"The legends lied. Or they were optimistic," I retorted grimly. "They didn't destroy him. They betrayed him and imprisoned him in the very kingdom he created. And now, Corbin, the archivist, believes he is stirring." I quickly described what I'd seen in his mind: the 'anchor', the Black Rose's desperate attempt to usurp the power of the Death Realm to use as a weapon against him when he returns.
Morgana ran a hand over her face, the weight of an age she thought was over crashing down on her again. "The Immortal Realm… The terror he spread. The darkness. We thought time had reduced him to dust and myth."
"Myths have a nasty habit of returning, especially when desperate cultists decide to lend them a hand," I said, my voice low. And then, I looked her in the eyes, bracing her for the final blow, the part of the myth that was terribly new and personal. "The weapon they are building to fight him, Morgana. That 'anchor' to usurp the power of death… it doesn't work with common magic. Not with the magic of mortals."
I stood and began to pace the room, the pieces of the puzzle I had stolen from Corbin's mind fitting together into a terrifying picture. "Their magic, the magic of Noxus, is built on blood, steel, and will. It's powerful, but it's… earthbound. And necromancy, the very essence of Mordekaiser, consumes that magic like fire consumes wood. They cannot fight fire with more wood. That is why their experiments have always failed. They are using the wrong fuel."
I stopped and turned to her. "Their weapon needs a catalyst of a completely different nature. A power that does not come from this plane, one that doesn't obey the mortal rules of life and death. A power that opposes the cold entropy of death with the unquenchable flame of something… more." I chose my words carefully. "They call it a 'Living Heart'. A power of near-divine resonance. A power their magic could attempt to shape and corrupt into ammunition, the only ammunition, perhaps, that could truly wound Mordekaiser's iron soul."
Morgana's expression shifted to one of slow, sickening comprehension.
"What they felt that night in the slums was not just raw strength," I continued, my voice a whisper. "It was the *nature* of your power. Even contained, even sealed and released for only a brief moment… it left an echo. A signature that was unlike anything they had ever catalogued. A power that was not of this world."
I saw her connect the dots. The expression on her face went from horror to shocked disbelief.
"The power they felt…" she whispered, her voice barely audible, "...in me."
"They don't know your name," I quickly reassured her, trying to stem the tide of panic I saw blooming in her eyes, an emotion I rarely saw in her. "They don't know *what* you are. They just know that the 'arcane phenomenon' from that night, the power that annihilated the Pit Rats… is the missing power source for whatever they are planning. You, Morgana, with the power of a celestial sealed in your blood… you are the essential ingredient for their apocalypse."
The room was silent for a long time, a heavy vacuum that seemed to suck all the air and sound. Morgana stared into the void, not at me or the maps on my desk, but at some distant point in time and space, her mind clearly struggling to process the violation on a cosmic scale. Her attempt at justice hadn't just put her on their radar; it had made her the sacrificial target of their dark war against a dead 'god'. The ideological rift between us, our petty squabbles over tactics and morality, evaporated instantly, incinerated by the magnitude of this new, existential truth.
She finally stood, her movements slow and deliberate. And I felt it.
It wasn't a wave of visible magic. It was something far deeper. A resonance. The symbolic iron chains I always felt around her aura, the representation of her contained celestial power, began to vibrate with an unbearable tension. I felt the air pressure in the room drop, the ozone crackling like before a devastating storm. Beneath the skin of her hands, for a split second, I saw a pale golden light pulse, struggling to break free. The serenity on her face was replaced by a cold fury, an anger so ancient and vast it made reality itself shimmer around her. She wasn't just angry. She was being tempted to break every seal, every bond, every promise she had ever made to herself. Tempted to unleash the power that could turn the Immortal Bastion into a crater of smoking glass.
"They dare," she said, her voice low but vibrating with that contained power, making the vials on my shelves tremble. "They dare to try and turn pain and compassion into a weapon of death." Her eyes, now glowing with an intense violet light, met mine. "They want to harvest my soul to fight a shadow from the past? Let them come. Let them try. They will find only the purifying light I have imprisoned for ages."
She was speaking of justice, but the power emanating from her was that of annihilation. The same holy fury that animated her sister. It was noble. It was mighty. She was magnificent. The part of me that had been a general, that had commanded armies and broken worlds, exulted. *Yes*, that part screamed. *Unleash it. Incinerate them. Show them what true power is. Justice is merely the will of the strongest, and here was the strength that could remake this continent in its own image.* It was the most efficient solution. The purest.
But then… I looked into her eyes, at the pain beneath the fury. And I remembered. This fury was not her. Not the Morgana who chose to fall. Not the Morgana who mourned her father. The woman who embraced the darkness to protect others. If she unleashed this light, this fury, she would be no different from her sister. And Morgana, to be Morgana, could not be Kayle. She would lose herself. And that, for some reason I refused to analyse, was unacceptable.
"It is a glorious vision, Morgana," I said, my voice calm and unexpectedly sincere, an anchor against the storm. "I would pay to watch you turn the Immortal Bastion into a crater of smoking glass. It would be… cathartic."
My response, so different from a rebuke, took her by surprise. The light in her eyes faltered.
"But think one step ahead," I continued, approaching, speaking not as a child, but as an equal strategist. "You would wipe them from the map. And along with them, the millions of innocents crushed under the same yoke you despise. Your justice would become annihilation. You would become your sister." I paused, letting that most feared word settle. "And in the process, you would light a beacon. You would become the brightest anomaly in the world, drawing the attention not only of the Black Rose and an undead king, but of everything that lurks in the stars and craves a power source like yours. You would not find peace. Only a larger, longer war."
My words, woven not with judgement but with the cold logic of consequence, struck home. The furious light in her eyes receded. The invisible chains on her soul settled. The pressure in the room eased. The storm was passing, leaving only the ache behind. She sank back into her chair.
"So," she said at last, her voice steady but devoid of its divine arrogance. "What do we do?"
"We leave," I said, without hesitation. The decision, which had been forming in my mind since I'd seen Mordekaiser's name in Corbin's thoughts, now seemed the only sane move, the only option in a game where all others led to annihilation. "This is not our fight. It is too big, too old, and both sides are monstrous. We let the monsters of Noxus fight their own apocalypse."
"Leave?" Morgana blinked, the idea so simple and so radical it didn't seem to fit into her mindset of always fighting. "Just… walk away?"
"Precisely," I confirmed, my mind already working through the steps. "It's not a retreat. It's a strategic repositioning. Away from the impact zone." I began to pace the room, energy returning to me now that I had a clear course of action. "We have three problems to solve for this to work. First, our outstanding contract with the Ice Witch. I don't walk away from a debt, especially with someone who can literally freeze time. I will contact her tonight, on my terms, and deliver my report. Mordekaiser's stirring is exactly the kind of existential calamity she's worried about. That releases us from our obligation."
I stopped, looking at the door to the back room. "Second… our logistical problem. The three in there. We can't just let them go. And killing them would be a waste of a resource."
"And the third?" she asked.
"The third," I said with a thin smile, "is how we use problem number two to solve all of our other problems: how to get out of here alive and without being hunted to the ends of the earth by every faction we've pissed off. We're going to use them to buy our way out."
Morgana nodded, the logic of the sequence clear to her. Deal with the watcher-goddess before dealing with the mortal pawns.
That night, I prepared. Morgana stood guard outside my room, her shadows forming a protective barrier against any physical intrusion while my mind travelled to colder realms.
I did not sleep. I dived. I extended my consciousness, not to dream, but to transmit. I projected a single, clear 'hail' into the dream-ether, a direct line of communication to Lissandra's mental coordinates. It was like lighting a beacon. I was not invading her realm. I was summoning her to mine.
The meeting did not happen in Lissandra's frozen world. It took place in a neutral mental space of my own creation: an infinite, featureless white room. Lissandra materialised before me, her avatar of dark ice and shadow forming with genuine surprise.
"You… opened a door," her ethereal voice echoed. "I did not think it was possible."
"You were making too much noise trying to break down the window," I retorted. "I thought it would be more efficient to use the front entrance."
A cold silence fell. The test of wills had begun.
"You have summoned me, little anomaly. That is audacious. I assume you have something to report. The calamity that threatens my Seal."
"I have your report," I said, blunt. "And I hope this will be our last business meeting. Then I can get back to having normal dreams about my teeth falling out and forgetting to hand in school projects, like everyone else."
The humour was met with silence. Tough crowd.
"The calamity you sensed is not the Void," I began, delivering the information concisely. "At least, not directly. The energy signature leaking from the foundations of Noxus… it belongs to your old neighbour in domination. The Iron Revenant."
I paused, allowing the name to hit her. The static around her form seemed to intensify, the darkness in her silhouette deepening.
"Impossible," she hissed. "Mordekaiser is broken. Unmade."
"Reports of his death have been grossly exaggerated," I said. "The information I extracted from the cultists says he is 'asleep' and 'awakening'. They are simplistic. They think in terms of sleep and waking." I paused, my own mind processing the nuances I'd seen in the Black Rose's research reports. "I suspect the situation is more complex, and more dangerous."
"What they believe is an awakening, I believe is a… reconnection. He is not asleep, Lissandra. I believe his consciousness, his iron will, is perfectly awake, reigning over his Death Realm. What was broken was his anchor to this plane. And now, that anchor is mending itself. What they feel is not him waking up. It is the chasm between the world of the living and his empire of damned souls narrowing."
I went on, the theory solidifying as I spoke. "And his old servants, the 'Black Rose', are in a panic. They betrayed him to sever that anchor, and now their own actions, their experiments with unstable powers, are inadvertently repairing it. They aren't waking a sleeping lion; they're rebuilding the bridge to his cage, and he's just waiting on the other side, watching."
Lissandra absorbed my analysis. I could feel her ancient mind processing the terrifying implications. Mordekaiser wasn't just a reborn threat; he was a neighbouring universe of pure necromantic tyranny about to collide with their own. And the only barrier was the very seal she maintained against the Void. His awakening could very well shatter everything.
"The child… and the fallen angel," Lissandra finally said, the horror turning into cold tactical resolution. "You have uncovered the rot in the empire's heart. The servant is about to unwittingly release the master. This threat must be… pruned before it can blossom." Her intent was clear, an order veiled in a botanical metaphor. She wanted us to be her shears.
"Exactly. The threat has been identified," I said with a cutting finality, refusing to be made a tool. "I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. My task was intelligence, and the intelligence has been delivered. What you do with that information is your problem. We are leaving."
The temperature in the white room dropped twenty degrees, the void gaining a biting cold. The pressure of her will, forged in a millennium of frozen solitude and cosmic power, crashed down on me, a force designed to crush mountains and the wills of gods.
"You are going nowhere," she declared, her voice no longer an echo, but a decree. "You are the one variable on this board the Black Rose cannot predict. And your companion… her power, as you yourself identified, may be the key to forging a weapon. You will stay. You will intervene. You will be my blade in Noxus."
I did not flinch. Her pressure met an unshakeable wall, the indifference of one who has felt the gravity of collapsing stars. The threat of a goddess-witch was… laughable, in comparison.
"Let me clarify the terms of our 'contract', Ice Witch," I said, each word cold and precise. "You blackmailed me with a veiled threat in the Freljord to investigate a problem for you. I have investigated it. To blackmail me again would be… unwise." I let my own threat hang in the air between us. "My specialty is identifying flaws in systems. And your system of control over me is based on a single, flawed premise: that I care about your eternal war."
I took a step forward, walking into her overwhelming aura of cold without a care. "I do not fight the wars of gods. I watch them lose and then note the reasons in my journals. My only interest in this entire sorry state of affairs is ensuring my guardian does not become ammunition in your apocalyptic battle, nor in the Black Rose's. Which means getting her off this board as quickly as possible."
"You have the arrogance of an eternal being," she hissed, the fury in her voice like the sound of a glacier calving.
"And you have the stubbornness of one," I retorted. "We're even. Almost."
I turned, a gesture of finality. "Consider our agreement concluded. If you try to stop us from leaving, or hunt us after we've gone, I won't leak your secrets to the Black Rose. That would be too obvious and tactically uninteresting." I allowed a small smile in my dream-form. "I will simply tell the world the truth. The real story of the Three Sisters. The truth about the Watchers beneath your precious ice, and about the pact you made to sacrifice everyone and everything in exchange for power. I will turn your legend into a cautionary tale for children. We'll see how long your Frostguard remain loyal when they know they serve a monster who betrayed her own kind to become the gaoler of the end of the world."
The threat was total. Mutually assured destruction. The silence that followed was long and heavy with the weight of millennia of secrets. She knew I'd do it. My complete lack of attachment to this world was my greatest weapon.
"You have a dangerous enemy in me, little anomaly," she finally said, the fury receding, replaced by something colder.
"I'm sure I'll make new ones tomorrow," I replied. "Consider this our farewell. And by the way, stop spying on Morgana's dreams. She has enough nightmares of her own without you rummaging around. It's rude."
With that, I did not wait for her reply. I simply closed the door. The communication channel dissolved, and the vast white room, along with the goddess-witch's presence, vanished in an instant. I was back in my room, cold sweat on my brow, the sound of my own racing heart in my ears.
I was free. And I had just declared a cold war on one of the most powerful entities on the planet.
[Analysis of negotiation: Risk of future retaliation from Lissandra: 87.4%. Short-term survival rate increased by 92%. The transaction was… optimally risky.]