Morgana felt her instincts flare, a quiet tightening beneath her ribs, even as she maintained the serene, statuesque composure she had perfected over centuries. At long last, she could place a face to the uneasy stirrings that had haunted her for months now, a whisper of unease that clung to the wind like an omen.
She stood before the entrance of the MageSeekers' headquarters, that wretched den of sanctimonious zealots who reminded her far too much of her sister. Their cruelty wore the same self-righteous mask, and she despised it. But her gaze was not upon them. It was fixed instead upon the young man with the power of negation
Her celestial birthright granted her a singular sight, an ancient and sorrowful gift. With but a single gaze, she could behold the sins of mortals, see how they clung to their souls like smoke drifting from a smoldering pyre. The wicked choked on their own darkness, the wounded bore thin wisps of pain, the cruel carried storms that blotted out the light.
This sight had long guided her hand, toward comfort, toward deliverance, toward judgment when she must. It had shaped the placement of her sanctuaries, hidden sanctums where the lost and hurting found solace.
But she had not expected what she saw when her gaze fell upon the young man standing protectively before the brown-haired girl.
At first, she saw nothing. No smoke. No stain. No shadow. And for a brief moment, she wondered if she looked upon the impossible, a soul without sin. But such a thing did not exist. Not in this broken age. Not in any age.
So Morgana looked deeper.
And only then did the smoke reveal itself, and she understood why she had missed it.
It was… beautiful.
That was the only word that dared touch the truth of it.
A sin-stain transfigured, incandescent, shimmering like the last light before dusk. It was so faint she had missed it entirely at first, so strangely beautiful she questioned her own senses.
This young man had sinned, yes, for he was mortal, but he had recognized those sins. Grieved them. Atoned, sincerely and fully, in a way even the ancient rarely achieved.
And he had done all this while still so unbearably young.
'How curious…' she breathed inwardly, a flicker of warmth piercing her eternal weariness. 'How wondrous… and how tragic.'
If he was not the tyrant of shadow she had feared, then how, in the name of all the old heavens, had he come to wield such a dreadful power? A force that unraveled, that erased, that defied the natural order she had spent a lifetime defending?
What manner of being stood before her?
What path of sorrow had he walked to become what he was now?
Morgana's fingers tightened faintly at her side. She felt her heart soften, bruised, but still tender.
How could such a being exist? How could one so young have walked a path so whole?
She realized she had been staring for far too long the moment his gaze shifted, quietly, unhurriedly, yet unmistakably tracking her own. And in that single, piercing exchange, another truth unfurled before her.
He understood.
Somehow, impossibly, he knew what she was doing. He sensed that she was seeing him, truly seeing him. His soul, his sins, his strange radiance of atonement. And though her thoughts had moved with the swiftness of ancient beings, measured in the breaths between heartbeats, she felt, no, knew, that he had matched her pace. That however long she had wandered through her observations of him, he had spent just as long studying her in return.
For those like them, for whom moments could lengthen into eternities, she had lingered far too long.
Morgana softened her expression, a faint smile touching her lips as she lifted her still-smoking hand. A reminder, painful, insistent, of just how swift he truly was. She had scarcely breached the veil, teleporting into the fray, when she saw the crescent of pure unmaking scream toward her.
In that bare instant she had summoned her chains, letting them coil before her like serpents of shadow and moonlight. She had parried celestial fire and cursed steel before, had withstood blows that toppled mountains and shattered sanctuaries.
But his power was not fire nor steel.
The moment her chains met the slash, they hissed, burned, and nearly dissolved, the very concept of them tearing away at the edges. Even with all her strength, even with centuries of mastery behind her, the chains cracked, splintering into drifting fragments, just enough for her to redirect the blow.
Still, the crescent grazed her.
Just the edge of it. Just the whisper of contact.
And it had seared the back of her hand as though it were the judgment of a god.
It still throbbed now, a quiet, insistent ache. Not unbearable, she had weathered far worse, but undeniably humbling.
She cradled her wrist with her other hand, exhaling softly.
"So," she murmured under her breath, more to herself than to the stunned mortals around them, "your power truly is undoing. I only brushed it, yet it still burned me."
There was no anger in her voice. Only wonder, and the faintest thread of unease.
"Nice to finally meet you," the young man said, and she took note of the way he subtly kept the young girl tucked behind him. Even without looking directly, Morgana could feel the child's suffering. Wisps of pain clung to her spirit like torn veils, fear, grief, abandonment, all wrapped around a soul that trembled as though it had weathered far too many storms for one so young.
"You did not exactly say hello when we first met," he continued, sword held at the ready, though no malice crossed the space between them. He was wary, yes, braced, guarded, but not hateful.
A truth she already knew. He had sensed her nature just as she had sensed his.
"You will have to forgive me," Morgana replied, inclining her head with soft dignity. "A lack of knowledge compelled me to haste. I sought only to safeguard my interests."
Her gaze drifted briefly across the MageSeekers and rebels who surrounded them, but not a shred of her attention truly settled on them. They were irrelevant to this moment.
"Sylas," the young man murmured, and though his expression barely shifted, she noticed the faint lowering of his eyes, weariness, disappointment, perhaps a trace of pity. "He will fail. As long as I'm here, he will fail."
Morgana offered a slow, solemn nod. She had expected no less. Sylas's fury had long since begun to rot into fanaticism. His desire for justice had withered beneath the weight of his revenge.
"I, too, am not blind to his faults," she said. "His rage blinds him. He has yet to grasp the weight of the consequences he sets upon his own shoulders."
She lifted a hand slightly, her fingers gesturing toward the young man. "Not as you have."
That drew a reaction from him. His eyes narrowed, not with anger, but with something more cautious, more probing.
"I don't suppose you're part of the rebels," he said.
"That's the Veiled Lady!" a young voice cried from the rooftop.
Morgana's gaze shifted upward, as did the young man's. A boy stood there, clutching a forging hammer far too large for his slight frame. He could not have seen more than fifteen summers, and yet the moment Morgana beheld him, a quiet sorrow settled upon her heart.
The smoke that clung to him, his sins, was heavy. Far too heavy for one so young.
His words sent ripples through the gathering. Gasps broke out from both knights and rebels alike, fear and awe threading their voices. Only the young man before her remained unmoved, steady as stone.
"Who?" he asked plainly, and even the trembling girl he shielded looked at him as though he had grown another head.
"Captain? H–how could you not know about the Veiled Lady?" she whispered, incredulous.
He let out a low groan. "Oi, don't look at me like that. It's not my fault, okay?" he muttered, almost petulantly.
A ripple of disbelief swept through the rebels, a series of hushed murmurs that crawled across the courtyard like nervous insects. Even the hardened MageSeekers stared, unsettled that he did not recognize the woman whose very name had become legend among the oppressed.
Morgana did not mind. Truthfully, she found his ignorance refreshing. So many mortals bowed or trembled at her presence, clinging to the myths etched around her name rather than seeing the woman herself.
"T-Tremble, Demacia!" Rukko suddenly shouted, voice cracking only once. "For she stands among us!"
Morgana blinked once, slowly. Asta raised a brow. Mira flinched.
Morgana could see how the boy's confidence seemed to grow the more he spoke.
"That's right!" he said, pointing his hammer dramatically toward Morgana as though unveiling a deity. "Open your eyes, all of you! Soldiers! Rebels! Cowards hiding behind those cursed MageSeeker chains!"
Murmurs spread through the crowd.
"This, this is the Veiled Lady!" Rukko declared, letting the title ring through the square with a boy's desperate need to be heard. "The one who shelters the broken! Who judges the corrupt! Who defies the tyranny that's ruled these streets for generations!"
His voice trembled, but his stance did not.
"She is the one who brings justice to those the MageSeekers cast aside!" he cried. "The one Sylas said would break the old chains of Demacia with us! And now, now she stands here, proving everything we believed in!"
Another wave of gasps rolled through the onlookers. Morgana's wings stirred faintly, a ripple of shadow and starlight, though her expression remained unreadable.
Rukko wasn't done.
"You see her, don't you? All of you! This isn't some mage to be hunted, this is hope!" His voice cracked again, but he didn't care. "Hope with wings and judgment and power even the MageSeekers fear!"
The rebels around him began to stir, the tension in their bodies rising like a storm being coaxed awake. Rukko pressed on, breathless, eyes bright with a mixture of faith and desperation.
"And as long as she stands with us!" he shouted. "As long as the veiled lady stands with us, we have nothing to fear."
He thrust his hammer upward like a rallying standard.
Oh. Oh dear.
Morgana felt a weary sigh curl at the back of her throat as she watched the rebels stir like startled birds, their emotions igniting and swelling in chaotic waves. The boy's proclamation had struck their hearts like a hammer to a gong, and now the zeal of youth was spreading among them with troubling speed.
This… was spiraling in a direction she did not like.
When she chose to unveil herself before the young man, she had braced herself for the possibility of battle. She did not relish it, but she had accepted it. Such was the way of the world. Revelation often came clothed in conflict.
Yet now that she had stood before him, looked upon him, understood him… Her certainty wavered.
Her chains, had nearly dissolved upon grazing his power. If sin was the measure by which her chains bound souls, then this youth could never be held. His atonement shone too brightly. His burdens had been lifted by his own hands, long before she ever laid eyes on him.
Most of her arts would wither to nothing beneath the erasing edge of his negation. And she had no desire, none at all, to unleash her celestial fire upon him, nor upon the trembling mortals around them. To do so would be to all but announce her return to Demacia. Kayle wouldn't be far behind after that.
Across from her, the young man turned, his eyes settling on her with wary focus.
"So you 'are' with the rebels," he said.
There was no accusation in his voice, merely a steady readiness, one warrior assessing another. His sword remained angled, and she knew it would soon point at her again.
Morgana drew herself upright, the veil of calm she wore settling around her shoulders like a dark mantle. The rebels behind him rallied, murmuring, gathering courage they did not fully understand. She felt their hope, their anger, their desperation, and she pitied them.
But her gaze stayed on him. Only him.
Morgana inclined her head, slow and deliberate, a gesture neither denial nor concession. Shadows stirred at her feet, drawn to her sorrow as much as her power.
"I only came here for you," she answered softly, "Your power is one that darkens the beauty of the world."
Her voice, calm and measured, did nothing to quell the fervor behind the rebels. Rukko was still alight with the feverish triumph of youth, chest heaving as though he had personally summoned her from the heavens. The others murmured, hope gathering like a storm they no longer feared.
He looked at her flatly. "That doesn't answer my question."
Morgana's lips curved faintly. "No," she said gently, "it does not."
His eyes narrowed. She felt the shift in him, the quiet settling of intent, the way a warrior lowers his heart into readiness.
He would not trust Morgana, not when surrounded by rebels who worshipped her like an omen of revolution. Her very presence had spurred them to more violence.
The MageSeekers in the back began to shout, emboldened by the confusion flaring around them.
"Filthy witch!"
"She's manipulating them!"
"Don't trust the witch!"
"Seize the boy, he's dangerous too!"
Morgana's wings twitched behind her, shadows rippling like the brush of nightfall.
Rukko stepped forward again, hammer trembling in both hands. "You heard her! She's with us! As long as the Veiled Lady stands..."
"Enough," The foreigner said, then he exhaled once, grounding himself. Then he turned back to Morgana.
"I don't know what you are," he said, steady as stone. "But we can talk after you've brought yourself in."
Then he looked around. "Everyone else stand down. Now!"
Of course no one followed his orders anymore. The rebels in their high rushed at the MageSeekers who retaliated in return.
It seemed that the foreigner finally understood that he wasn't going to be able to quell this without violence, and he could only start with the source of the rebel's confidence.
Her wings unfurled with the soft roar of ancient storms, their shadowed span catching the light in rippling violet and gold. Chains erupted from the ground at her command, sleek, coiling, divine things, barred in front of her like a shield of dusk-forged armor.
She had originally come here to test him after all. And although she had read his heart and saw that he was not Demacia's destruction, it seemed that they were fated to do battle today.
The negation strike met them.
Her chains burned white at the edges, their essence unraveling, stripped away thread by thread. She felt each fracture like a knife along her nerves.
Still, she held firm.
The force of his blow slid across her defenses, redirected into the stone to her left, carving a gouge deep enough to swallow a man whole.
He was attacking with the intent to disable, not kill. Morgana understood that and she respected it.
But she could not allow Demacia to become their battleground. She could not give her sister a reason to descend from the celestial realm.
She slipped backward, feet leaving the ground entirely as she hovered above the fractured earth. Her chains recoiled, circling protectively around her like serpents forged of midnight.
"The name's Asta. Asta Staria Silver." He said, and she felt his dreadful power slowly cover him and the girl behind him.
'He's polite too.' She smiled as she replied. "Although you already know it. You may refer to me as Morganna."
Then she teleported, and even as she appeared in the sacred forest she felt him arrive above her with a swing.
Boom!