Chapter Text
Ambessa Medarda sat on the balcony of the castle. The stone floor was cold beneath her feet, the air smelled faintly of the citrus in her drink next to her. Her clothing was simple by royalty status. Just plain linen and no leather or armour. She was supposed to be at rest. Yet even at rest, she still carried her Katar. As though permanently braced for combat.
Before her, Kino and Mel played beneath the open sky.
Kino had grown into his age, his boyish softness now replaced with sharp features and restless energy. A boy balanced on the cusp of manhood. Mel followed him closely, clever and observant, her laughter soft but bright as she chased him through the open space. Watching them stirred something old in Ambessa’s heart. Memories of her own childhood. Or rather the lack of it.
Her gaze lingered on Mel. The child’s face caught the light at an angle that highlighted all the wrong parts of her parentage. Those lips. The curve of her ears. The faint suggestion of brow and bone. They all resembled her father who was not Ambessa’s husband.
Rage flashed across Ambessa’s face before she could stop it. Her fingers twitched at her side. She forced the thought down, locked it away with practiced cruelty. She would not let him exist in this moment. Not here. Not through her daughter.
Kino saw it anyway, no matter how much she hid it. That boy had vision, he could see people better than they could see themselves, even at this young age. He slowed, confusion flickering across his young face. He did not understand the anger, only that it frightened him. Ambessa took notice. Her expression softened, she willed it into being something more maternal.
She was ever vigilant now. Perhaps even paranoid. Footsteps approached from behind. Ambessa recognized the cadence instantly. The royal doctor. Still, her fingers curled around the hilt of her katar, knuckles whitening. Kino and Mel noticed the motion. Mel’s play stilled entirely, fear flashing across her small face. Kino stepped closer to his sister without thinking, resting a protective hand on her shoulder.
The physician entered the courtyard, hands visible, posture respectful.
“Lady Medarda,” he said, inclining his head. “Master Azizi is doing well. Recovery will take time, but his strength returns. I recommend these herbs, and at least a week of uninterrupted rest.”
He presented his notes. Ambessa set the Katar aside and took the notes. Her precaution was warranted but in this case, unwanted. Yet she couldn’t take chances. The attack eight years ago that took Thala’s life and nearly ended Menelik was still poorly understood. An inside job was a suspect of course. So she always remained on guard like a Hound.
Ambessa listened as the doctor spoke. She accepted the recommendations, pressed gold into his palm without ceremony, and dismissed him with a nod. She rose and walked to the edge of the balcony and looked out over Rokrund. She could feel it coming. The stone spires, the banners, the restless city and market that pulsed beneath her rule. All was enshrouded in a silence the precedes a storm.
Azizi’s nights had grown worse. The curse of Volrachnun had taken root deep within him. He screamed in his sleep now visions tearing through him like claws. Sometimes he woke up grasping for breath, shouting for Kino to run. To take Mel and flee.
He spoke of his death as though it were weather. Inevitable. Acceptable. Ambessa could not. Menelik still lingered in his sickbed, a shadow of the lion he had been. If Azizi were taken as well, the Medarda family would fracture further. Power-hungry hands already reached inward, eager to tear at what remained.
She had a modicum of doubts. The attack on that fateful night could not have happened without intel from within the family. She clenched her jaw, forcing herself to breathe.
“MEL!!”
The sound of Kino’s voice was wrong. Not playful, but fearful. Ambessa spun on her heel. The world narrowed to a single, horrifying image. Kino on his knees, Mel cradled against his chest. Her face was blood streaked with the dark red spilling from her eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Her skin flushed unnaturally, veins popping out beneath it. Her small body twitched, limp in his arms.
“Mother help!!” Kino choked, shaking her gently. “Wake up. Please Mel, wake up ”
Ambessa paced the corridor outside the doctor’s chamber like a caged war-beast. The sounds from within, the clink of glass, the murmur of rushed orders, the sharp intake of breath, they set her nerves on fire. She could not stand still. Stillness meant waiting. Waiting meant imagining outcomes she refused to accept.
Then the bell rang. Ambessa burst through the door. Her chest was heaving and pounding. Mel lay upon the bed, small and unnaturally still. Her face had been washed clean, the blood gone, the ashen pallor replaced by faint color. Tubes ran from her arms, thin veins of glass and leather pumping fresh blood back into her body in a steady, rhythmic pulse.
The physician stood at the basin, sleeves rolled high, arms red to the elbow. Blood and sweat streaked his robes, smeared across his chest and collar. He scrubbed methodically, as though routine alone could anchor him.
“What ails her?” Ambessa demanded. The man did not turn at once. He rinsed his hands again, slower now.
“Your child, unlike your grandfather" he said carefully, “is not afflicted by any illness, my lady.”
Ambessa felt her heart seize.
“The Arcane,” he continued, “is awakening in her.”
“I’m afraid,” the docotr went on, “that we must consider alternatives. Perhaps the Black Rose. This is their expertise. With Menelik’s ties to the Immortal Bastion, an audience should be…”
“NO!!!”
The word cracked through the chamber like a spike-chained whip. Ambessa inhaled, sharply, forcing the fury back behind her ribs. “There must be another way” she said, voice low. Controlled. “You will give me another way”
The physician hesitated, then crossed the room to his shelves. Ambessa watched every movement, impatience radiating from her like heat. He called his daughters to assist him, fingers fumbling as he searched through dust-coated tomes. At last, he pulled one free.
“I have heard of a clan,” he said, opening it. “According to legend, they possess a method to seal magic entirely. They descend from Demacia. Extremely secretive. Nomadic. Said to travel the borderlands between Noxus and Demacia.”
Ambessa took the book from him and read with ruthless focus. Behind her, the physician instructed his daughters to clean instruments and restack the shelf. His voice grew tentative again.
“Even so,” he said, “I must advise you to consult the Black Rose regardless. Secretive though they are to the average citizen of Noxus, they have been enquiring. Asking for children showing signs of awakening. Your daughter’s symptoms match precisely…”
The tome snapped shut.
“The Black Rose,” Ambessa said evenly, “will never hear of Mel.”
The physician turned, mouth opening to respond. “If that is how you wish then I guess I shall bide my tongue”
Ambessa stepped forward. The steel of her Katar flashed.
“You misunderstand,” she said, lifting her katar into the light.
The realization dawned slowly on the physician’s face. His gaze slid to the innocent nurses. Their eyes were wide and horrified. They did not move. They did not scream. They simply trembled sensing the intent.
The doctor looked into her eyes. He hoped to see reason in them. Surely the acting leader of house Medarda won’t kill their royal physician. At least she will spare the lives of his two daughters who’s only mistake was having ears to hear what was said.
Unfortunately, in those eyes… he found nothing but conviction. For a wolf, has no mercy.
The forest swallowed all sounds and voices and replaced them with an eerie droning noise that put her on the edge of her sanity. She was surrounded by the darkness and the trees of the forest. It was not ideal, but it was all that she had.
A small fire lit the clearing. Canvas went up and was secured with stakes driven into the damn forest floor. Mel lay bundled near the fire, breathing shallow but steady. Sleeping through most of the journey. Her body was recovering naturally, as the late physician had warned.
Ambessa knelt beside her, brushing sweat-damp curls back from her daughter’s face.
You live, That is all that matters. She thought.
But even through that calming understanding, something deeper gnawed at her. Rokrund stood without her.
Kino. Azizi. Menelik. She had left them behind, handed the duties of the kingdom to a still bedridden Azizi. She knew what that meant. She knew how quickly power shifted when a throne sensed weakness. An attack could come at any moment. A coup. An assassination. A civil fracture that would never heal.
She had covered her tracks neatly, but her absence couldn’t be hidden. The story that the Family physician was a traitor and attempted to poison them was flimsy at best. Rokrund was essentially cut off from its governing entities. Crime and disorder was on the rise.
Yet she had chosen Mel. She had put unreasonable pressure on Azizi in his time of need. The realization burned. She was sacrificing them. All of them.
Choosing one life over many. It was not the first time she had made such a choice, but it was the first time it had been her own blood on both sides of the blade.
If this was her sin, she would bear it. She was strong enough to make that choice. She didn't know if it was selfishness or partiality, but she knew that she would choose one child to lose to protect another.
She was drowning in her thoughts and fears when she heard it.
Footsteps.
Ambessa’s eyes snapped open. Her hand closed around her katar as she rose in one smooth motion, positioning herself between the sound and Mel. The forest seemed to hold its breath.
Several figures emerged from the treeline. Stepping into the firelight as one collective, their movements eerily synchronized. Their attire matched the descriptions in the tome precisely, layered cloth and light armor to no armour.
Gold intricate tattoos traced their skin in elaborate patterns, glowing faintly, as if lit from beneath. When they spoke, they did not speak separately. Their voices harmonized, their many throats forming one sound.
“Why do you walk alone, bearer of blood and blade?”
“Why do you seek us?”
The questions came without pause, sharp and to the point. They already seemed to know all about her. They must have been following her like a pack of wolves. Only revealing them when they discerned enough about her.
“My child is ill. She needs help” she said. “I am willing to pay whatever the cost demands.”
Their heads tilted in unison, the display unnerving Ambessa as the dark figures stood impossibly still yet their heads bent aside in perfect synchronicity. Their gold tinted eyes moving without blinking.
“Cost demands sacrifice”
“What will you sacrifice?”
Ambessa’s grip tightened around her blade.
“Everything,” she said simply. “If it means she lives.”
Silence followed. Not the absence of sound but the sound of contemplation.
The warriors stepped closer, each step, each breath and each twitch of even the smallest muscle happening simultaneously. They moved, forming a widening circle around her and the tent.
The gold in their tattoos flared, bright and blinding. Lines of light stretched from skin to skin, weaving a lattice of radiance. The ground trembled.
Ambessa physically felt space and time fold in on itself. In the span of a heartbeat, the forest vanished and was replaced with a vast chamber of an ancient temple.
The architecture had no seams, no mortar, no joints. An entire temple carved from a single, colossal stone, its surfaces smooth and impossibly precise. Light filtered from nowhere and everywhere at once, warm and ancient. She could spot the way the stones were carved and smoothed to bend and shine in ways to accommodate the movement of light.
The circle of warriors broke and now stood in an arc in front of her. Ambessa looked down at Mel, still sleeping. She cradled the child in her muscular arms. Holding her firm and close.
The temple opens inward, corridors unfolding like the veins of a Giant. No torches line the walls, no braziers burn. The stone itself gives off a muted, golden luminescence. The soldiers walk behind her. Their footsteps echo only once, then never again, because all dozen warriors move their feet in harmony. Their feet leave and hit the ground at the same time.
Ambessa walks at the center of the formation. Ambessa adjusts her grip instinctively, shielding the child’s head, her back, her heart, every vulnerable place all at once.
At last, the passage widens into a vast inner sanctum. The chamber is circular, its ceiling lost to the heights. The floor is etched with concentric sigils, each ring older than the last, worn smooth by centuries of passage. At the far end stand the leaders of the clan.
Three figures, spaced apart yet undeniably bound, their forms partially obscured by long robes of pale ochre hue. Gold runs through their skin in branching patterns far more complex than those of the warriors.
Their faces are uncovered. Neither young nor old, neither wholly human nor something else. Their eyes glow softly, reflecting their nature. Truly ageless. The warriors peel away, lowering their heads in perfect unison.
Ambessa remains alone. She does not kneel. She stands before them, spine straight, chin lifted, one arm wrapped around her daughter like a shield made of bone and will.
“Ambessa Medarda. Child of war. Champion of Death. You arrive, not knowing what awaits you.”
“You have endured hardships to reach us. Our community prides ourselves in preserving and acquiring knowledge and living in harmony with the respiration of the universe.”
“So tell us… what is it that you seek”
Ambessa’s gaze does not waver.
“My child is dying,” she says. “I was told you can stop it.”
The three figures raise their hands towards Mel. The gold in the chamber shines as if in response.
“Magic stirs within her,” the leaders say together.
“Unshaped. Unbound. Awakening as it should.”
Ambessa tightens her hold on Mel.
“I want you to bind it,” she says. “Seal it. Cut it out if you must.”
A pause. Long enough to ache.
“Many who come before us are naive. Few understand the weight of what they seek. But you are the most extreme case”
The nearest leader steps forward. For the first time, Ambessa sees one of them move independently.
“There is nothing wrong with her to bind her. She does need to be saved. She is normal.”
Ambessa’s jaw clenches.
“She is not normal,” she replies. “She is a doorway to Volrachnun. One opened by the Kindred themselves. You can seal it. So do it”
The leaders do not move when they speak.
“We will not alter the Kindred’s design” they say, voices layered and calm. “Within a week, the surge will pass and the body will adapt.”
Ambessa stares at them as if they have spoken a lie.
“She is not dying,” they continue. “She is changing. And she will survive the change. It is her nature.”
Ambessa steps forward, tightening her hold on Mel.
“I don't care what it is. Seal it” she demands. “Close it. Bury it. I do not care what she becomes later if her life is endangered at every bend”
A faint ripple passes through the gold-veined stone. They look at her more closely now.
“Even if we wished to, it cannot be done.” The words strike harder than a blade.
“Her body is not yet complete,” the leaders say. “She has not reached physical maturity.”
“To seal her magic now would tear her apart.”
“Pain beyond endurance.”
“Why?” one asks. “Why deny her what she is?”
“She is my daughter… not whatever you think she is. NOW SEAL IT”
“No,” the leaders say. “You will leave. NOW.”
Ambessa’s hand snaps to her Katar. Steel flashes in the golden light.
“I did not come here to be dismissed,” she roars. “I came to save my child.”
The warriors step forward as one. “Stand down.”
Ambessa bares her teeth. “Make me.”
They move. Not as individuals, but as a single entity composed of a dozen bodies.
Ambessa is stronger. Faster. Deadlier. She cuts deep. Her blade takes an arm clean off, and yet the warrior does not cry nor stumble. She pushes forward towards Ambessa and lands her cut. This was inconceivable, such a blow should physically halt all momentum, yet the person moved as if her limb being dismembered was as much of an inconvenience as a hair being pulled out.
Chains snap around her limbs. She is driven to her knees. As dozens of cuts rain down on her body from all sides, too fast and too frequent for her to counter or block them all. The Katar is wrenched from her hand. She breaks. She gets pulled to the ground as her hands are tied behind her back and her head is held in place by the tip of a dagger.
“Please,” she gasps. “Please, she’s all I have. Letting this awaken is handing her to the Black Rose”
The warriors hesitate. They all turn simultaneously to face their leaders. They move forward as the chains leave her body. She immediately uses her freedom to crawl towards Mel who was unconscious on the floor.
The leaders are silent for a long moment. “LeBlanc is known to us.”
A ripple of something like distaste runs through the gathered warriors.
“She is the antithesis of our path,” the leaders continue. “Where we gather knowledge to preserve balance, she hoards it to dominate. Where we share memories so no truth is lost, she weaponizes secrets and buries the dead beneath lies.”
Ambessa lifts her head slowly. Hope, small, fragile, dangerous, flares in her chest.
“She has taken much from us before,” the leaders say. “Children. Souls. Futures.”
Their many eyes settle on Mel. Understanding dawns, sharp and cold.
“This child stands at a threshold,” they say. “And unfortunately… we cannot help”
Ambessa bows her head to the stone. “Please..” she whispers. “Please. I will kneel. I will bleed. I will give you my kingdom, my strength, my life. Whatever it takes…. Just save her.”
The leaders move closer. When they speak again, there is something almost like sorrow in their voice.
“We cannot mark her,” they say. “Her body is too young. The gold would burn her from within. She would not survive the binding.”
Ambessa’s heart sinks into the abyss. She feels it slow down in its rhythm as the words land. She feels her body give way even as her mind and spirit continue to hold onto faith.
“But…There is one path.”
Ambessa’s breath catches.
“A bond meant to unify many into one. To endure what no single body could bear.”
Ambessa already knows. She feels it in the air, in the way the warriors stand, and fight. She watches as the arm she cut off is being re-mended back into the body. Yet the person shows no pain or suffering.
“The Shayaluk” The leaders say.
“What is it?”
“To link your soul to hers,” the leaders continue, “would anchor her power. Her magic would bleed into you. Her pain would become yours. Her awakening slowed and buffered by your strength.”
Ambessa doesn’t hesitate. “Do it.”
A warning ripples through the chamber. “This could kill you”
“I didn’t ask to be saved.”
“Your soul will tear,” they say. “You will feel what she feels. Nightmares. Hunger. Fear. If she suffers, you will suffer. And while your body is strong, the pain will be inflicted upon your very soul.”
Ambessa reaches out, brushing Mel’s face. Her voice is steady now. Certain.
“Good,” she says. “Then she won’t suffer alone.”
That is when the leaders finally incline their heads.
“Lay them upon the stone.”
Ceremonial warriors move forward, gentle now where before they were merciless. Ambessa does not resist as she is guided onto the slab. Across from her, Mel is lifted and placed upon the twin altar, still unconscious, her small chest rising and falling.
Gold begins to glow. The leaders move in synchronicity. Their hands steady as they paint living sigils across Mel’s skin. The tattoos sink beneath flesh, veins lighting like molten metal. She clenches her jaw. Ambessa’s heart flutters at the sight of her child’s pain.
A smaller figure approaches, a girl, nearly the age of Kino. Maybe a bit younger. An idol clutched tightly in her hands. The three-headed wolf gleams dully in the chamber’s light. As the final markings are drawn, the girl steps close, eyes meeting Ambessa’s.
“Brace yourself,” she says quietly.
Ambessa huffs a breath through her nose. “I’ve endured worse.”
The girl’s expression does not change.
“No. No you haven’t”
The idol is raised. The leader walks to Ambessa’s side. “She is a doorway from Volrachnun. Be careful Ambessa, the door you used to return to the land of the living can also be used to enter the land of the dead. And that is precisely what LeBlanc wishes for.”
“Let her try” Ambessa says with rage and venom in her voice.
Golden tendrils erupt outward from the idol, threading through the air like living light. They pierce Ambessa’s chest, her throat, her skull, then lash across the divide and sink into Mel’s small, fragile body.
For a heartbeat, there is silence.
Then Ambessa screams.
Mel swallows, throat aching. The recognition finally reminded her that she was not a child, but in the Wellspring, living through her mother’s memories. As a child she had a curiosity about her mother. She always seemed to fall ill when she did. Her exact same symptoms but only worse. But she never stays in bed, never lets anyone see her weakness for long. She just… pushes through it. Like pain is something she can outrun if she moves fast enough.
The realization makes her aware of the Wellspring. The water is warm and luminous, wrapping around her like silk. Understanding hits her like a blade to the chest. The fevers. The shared pain. She knows what all of it was. Tears blur the water, paradoxically so, as the truth settles. Ambessa didn’t just protect her. She chained herself to Mel’s suffering. To her fate.
“I’m sorry,” Mel whispers into the Wellspring. “I didn’t know.”
The water shifts. Suddenly, violently, it pulls away from her. Mel is yanked upward, ripped from warmth into cold, into air that burns. She crashes back into her body, coughing hard, water spilling from her mouth as her lungs seize and refuse to work properly.
She gasps, choking and coughing in panic. Something tightens around her throat. Her hands fly up on instinct, fingers clawing at a forearm that does not belong to anyone she knows. Her vision swims as she wheezes, stars bursting behind her eyes.
Then her sight clears. She is staring into a woman’s eyes. They are bright. Curious. Amused. A face Mel has only ever heard about in whispers and warnings, yet somehow recognizes by pure instinct.
The grip on her throat loosens just enough for her to breathe.
“Hello, Mel” LeBlanc says, “So nice to finally meet you.”
LeBlanc releases her without warning and sends her skidding across the stone.
Mel hits hard, the breath punched clean out of her lungs. She coughs, palms scraping as she drags herself upright, chest burning. Her vision steadies just in time for instinct to take over, arms raised, stance sloppy but defiant, magic humming painfully under her skin.
LeBlanc watches with open interest.
“Oh?” she says lightly. “You’re going to fight me?”
Mel spits to the side. “If you’re real, then yes.”
A soft and delighted laugh escapes LeBlanc’s lips. “Good. I’d be disappointed otherwise.”
From outside Mel hears nothing. The entire Village of Verkkon appears to have been silenced. She hopes they aren’t dead. Her eyes turn towards LeBlanc.
“Are they dead?” Mel snarls. “Did you kill them you evil psychopath??”
“No… they are just all asleep” her smile thins. “And excuse me?? Evil psychopath??” She tilts her head. “And inappropriate. That title suits your mother far better.”
Mel barks a humorless laugh. “Shut up and tell me what you want?”
“I expect nothing,” LeBlanc replies. “I’m here because I need your help.”
Mel straightens, incredulous. “Mine?”
“To stop Ambessa Medarda.”
“Ha… I’d try to laugh if I could” Mel snarks. “Why would I help you against my own mother?”
“She’s trying,” LeBlanc says calmly. “To end the world”
The world shatters outward. Darkness rolls in from every direction, swallowing the cavern. Mel gasps as the vision snaps into place. Piltover, vast and strong as usual, but the sky is choked with storm clouds that never move, lightning crawling endlessly through them. The Hexgates pulse with invisible fissures of Arcane energy cracking the air like glass under strain.
“Seven months,” LeBlanc says, her voice echoing everywhere and nowhere. “That’s how long you have been in there. Unlike Menelik who sacrificed both his eyes, you only had to gouge out one. And it seems to have even regenerated. Truly a magnificent creature you are.”
Mel’s hands move to her face. Her eye… its back. She feels a bit sore but still, its there. Her gaze moves to LeBlanc.
“Ofcourse, it has it’s side effects, While Menelik saw decades within the span of a week, You have been inside the Wellspring for close to half a year and more. And in that span…” LeBlanc motions to the visions that surround them. “this is what your dear mother has accomplished”
Mel shakes her head. “This.. No… you are lying!!”
“Am I?” LeBlanc gestures. “Perhaps, but you can’t lie to yourself can you? Feel it, you know you do”
Mel does. The Hexgates scream. Same as the entire atmosphere around Piltover.
“She’s trying to break fate itself,” LeBlanc continues.
Mel turns on her. “NO… she would never go that far”
“How far? Far enough to kill a physician and his daughters to silence them?” LeBlanc speaks smoothly. “Far enough to subjugate Zaun by force and fear? Far enough to slaughter Piltovans and lay the blood at Jinx’s feet to split the two cities?”
Each word lands like a hammer.
“No,” Mel whispers.
“Far enough that she would erase her own bloodline?” LeBlanc presses. “You remember the Medarda clan massacre right? And what about Kino running away from home and you being exiled? Was that not far enough?”
The storm above Piltover churns harder.
“And of course the seal,” LeBlanc says softly now. “Your seal. Your soul bound and muted when your body would have survived the awakening just fine. She crippled your nature and your growth.”
Mel’s hands curl into fists.
“She did it to protect me.”
“Yes,” LeBlanc agrees. “And that is the problem, she doesn’t see the harm that her protection is causing”
Silence stretches. Mel closes her eyes, and feels it. The truth isn’t in LeBlanc’s words. It’s in her bones. In the way the Arcane snarls against its restraints. In the sickening instability of the gates, stretched too far, too fast.
“You know it. Ambessa is pushing something that cannot be pushed. I admit, I am hungry for power, but if I am to rule Runeterra, Runeterra needs to exist. Leave Ambessa to her vices and that will no longer be the case”
Mel exhales, unable to accept the bitter truth. “…What do you want from me?”
“You do not realise it, but you have immense Arcane strength in your heart. In time you will intuit most of your capabilities.” LeBlanc brings one arm forward. “But that won’t be enough to stop Ambessa.”
Mel watches as a Medallion materialises in her palms. “The world is at stake, and when you face Ambessa and find yourself needing a little extra push… you would be wise to remember me”
The darkness and the vision of Piltover vanishes, as does LeBlanc. The Medallion with the sigil of the black rose falls to the cave floor. Mel is left in the silence… her heart beating in uncertainty… and fear of what is yet to come.