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Mel Medarda first saw the exile while sitting alone in a booth at the Reckoners Arena, feeling the rush of anticipation that always turned the sweltering iron-and-stone bowl into something alive. The heat pressed down with malicious intent. Noxian summer stripped away all pretense of mercy, cooking stone and flesh until the distinction between the two became philosophical. Mel's purple gown had absorbed enough heat to brand her skin where the fabric touched. Metal spikes decorated the bodice and shoulders in patterns that caught sunlight and weaponized it, each point of contact threatening to sear through silk. The golden tattoos covering Mel's arms and collarbones drank the heat with greedy attention. Arcane ink courted warmth, pulled it deeper into her skin until the markings pulsed with their own internal fire. She scratched at her forearm, felt the heat intensify under her nails.
LeBlanc had branded her with new marks years ago, changed something fundamental in her blood and bone or rather unearthed what was always there. Mel wondered sometimes, when the tattoos itched or glowed or responded to magic she hadn't summoned, what her life might have looked like without them. Would she still feel this constant separation from her own skin? Or would the sense of inhabiting a body that belonged partially to someone else follow her regardless?
She fanned herself. Piltover had breezes that moved through streets with architectural purpose. Fountains and gardens and constructed fans made sure no Piltovan melted. Noxus allowed you to bake alive.
Mel pressed her fingertips against the stone railing. The marble had been absorbing sunlight since dawn. The crowd worked itself into a frenzy that made the stone vibrate under Mel's feet. Thousands of voices blended into something that stopped being human and became pure sound, pure hunger. They screamed for Draven. Mel watched him, with one hand supporting her chin while the other drummed against heated marble. The gold at her wrists caught light with every movement, announced her presence to anyone who cared to look up at the private booths. Ambessa would have loved this spectacle. She would have sat in this exact spot with wine in one hand and violence in her eyes, critiquing form and follow-through with the same intensity she brought to actual warfare. Mel could almost see her mother there. Ambessa was truly Noxian, taking up space without apology and belonging everywhere she went. The booth felt too large with just Mel occupying it. The Medarda section stood above common seating, carved from the arena's original stonework when the structure was built three centuries ago. Crimson banners hung from the ceiling, limp in air too dead to move them. They bore the Medarda crest in gold thread. Mel only came because empty booths made the great houses look weak. She had arrived late, slipped in after the preliminary matches when the crowd was already drunk.
Draven stood in the center of the arena with both axes raised overhead, soaking in adoration. He was shameless, unusually joyful. Probably a man who had never known embarrassment in his entire violent life. His grin cut white and sharp across his tanned face, visible from even the highest seats. He turned in a slow circle, made certain every section of the stands received their proper view of his magnificence. Someone threw flowers then someone else threw what might have been undergarments. Draven caught them both, tucked the flowers behind his ear and waved the garment overhead before tossing it back into the crowd.
A red haired woman with a white streak in the third row stood up and threw her scarf. Draven snatched it mid-flight, brought it to his lips and kissed the fabric. He pressed it to his heart, then tied it around his bicep where it would stay for the rest of the match. The woman squealed loud enough to be heard over ten thousand other voices.
Mel rolled her eyes. Draven possessed a strange charm the way some people possessed diseases. It was catching, irritating, somehow both aggravating and oddly endearing once you'd been exposed long enough. He was arrogant in the way only the genuinely skilled could be, but beneath the showmanship lived something good-natured, something that kept the arena fights from turning into actual slaughter. Draven wanted spectacle, not corpses. It made him easier to tolerate than most of the people who held power in Noxus. It didn't make him less insufferable.
The glorious executioner yawned, stretched arms over his head until his spine popped loud enough for the front rows to hear, then trudged back to his platform to see if any of the pit fighters were worth the effort of beating. Fights in the arena were no longer fatal by design. Draven had implemented that change himself, claimed it was practical. More living reckoners meant more fights, more fights meant more spectacle, more spectacle meant higher morale for a population that needed something to scream about besides empty grain stores, dead soldiers, and rising taxes.
"People need something to get excited for," he'd said when questioned. “More reckoners makes a happier empire.”
Mel wasn't sure that was the real reason.
Draven fought with genuine joy, but he didn't kill with it. There was a difference there, something about valuing skill over death, competition over execution. She wondered if his brother saw it the same way. He made himself comfortable after a few matches, setting the scarf down in his own booth and grinning up at Mel for a split second. The crowd was still cheering for him.
The grinding of ancient metal started before the crowd had time to settle into their seats. The mechanisms beneath the arena floor groaned, lamenting their existence in the way only old Noxian engineering could manage. Every moving part sounded ready to give up entirely, to let gravity and rust win their long war. A section of sand began to sink and separate, grains sliding into the growing gap. The crowd's screaming tapered into speculation, everyone craning their necks to see what fresh horror was being dragged up from the cells below.
Would it be a basilisk, drugged just enough to be angry rather than lethal? Some poor bastard from Demacia still wearing armor stamped with their king's crest? Perhaps an elder dragon?
The platform rose with the speed of continental drift. Mel found herself leaning forward, fingers gripping marble hard enough that metal spikes bit into her palms. Something about the crowd's shifting energy caught her attention, pulled her focus down to the arena floor where sand still fell in streams.
Someone in the crowd cheered. Others pretended to know who the challenger was, started explaining to their neighbors, and absolutely making things up.
The figure on the rising platform wore what generous people might call armor. Mismatched leather straps crossed her torso, cinched tight over salvaged metal plates that bore dents and scorch marks from previous owners. This was protection you pulled off corpses and compiled into something that might stop a blade if you were lucky and the blade was dull. Her blonde hair hung in her face, stringy with sweat and grime.
Thick iron links ran from a heavy shackle around the woman's ankle to a ring bolted into the black metal pillar that rose with her platform. Perhaps ten feet of chain in total, each link thick as Mel's wrist. She recognized the design from when she was a girl. These were typically used to anchor warships or reinforce fortress gates. They had to weigh close to what she did, maybe more. Moving with those attached would require constant compensation. The platform locked into place with a clunk that Mel felt in her teeth.
Three reckoners moved in without waiting for announcements. The crowd started to jeer, split between those who bet against the chained woman and those who found three-on-one odds insulting regardless of circumstances. Someone threw half a cabbage, screaming something about honor. It bounced off the sand near the platform, rolled to a stop against one reckoner's boot.
The woman waited.
Mel heard the words “exile” but before she could ponder them, the first reckoner committed to his attack, came in fast with a blade aimed at her ribs, he assumed speed would compensate for bad positioning. She moved into his momentum rather than away from it. One hand caught the back of his head and drove him forward with every ounce of force she could generate. His face met the pillar with a crack that reverberated across the arena. He dropped then folded onto the sand in a heap of useless limbs.
Mel looked away. When she glanced back, another reckoner was on the ground, clutching at his throat where her boot had connected. The third and fourth challengers came together, carrying spears, thrust for her back while she still faced the pillar. The woman spun and the chains came with her, whipped around her body in an arc that sent links singing through dead air. They wrapped around one spear's shaft just behind the point. Instead of pulling away, she stepped into the thrust, let the weapon slide past her side close enough to part leather and probably skin. Then she wrenched the spear down and sideways, used the chain's weight and her own leverage to throw the man completely off balance.
He staggered, tried to recover. His companion pulled back for another thrust.
She kicked out with her chained leg, whipped the links in a wide arc that caught the second man across the shins. Physics took over. He went flying then hit the sand hard enough to raise a cloud of dust that caught sunlight and turned golden. The last reckoner stopped advancing. He looked at his companions; one not moving, one gasping, one bleeding, one reconsidering his entire career path. The crowd was laughing now. He dropped his spear, raised both hands in surrender.
The woman glanced up, met Draven's eyes across the arena. Then she turned her back to him. Stood there with her shoulders squared and her spine straight, chains pooled around her feet, waiting.
Draven's showman's grin had faded. His expression settled into something more thoughtful. He looked at the chained woman, the reckoners on the ground, then at the last man still backing away with his hands raised. Then he glanced up at the crowd, weighing something in his mind that Mel could not parse from this distance.
He reached down and lifted a broken broadsword .
The blade had snapped maybe a third of the way from the tip, left a jagged edge. It wasn’t pretty but lethal it was. Heavy enough to cave in a skull if you put your back into it.
He tested its weight, shifted it from hand to hand. Mel watched his shoulders tense, then watched him draw back.
He threw it.
"No." Mel's hand shot out before conscious thought caught up, magic sparking gold at her fingertips. The arena shimmered at the edges of her vision. The golden tattoos on her arms blazed bright enough to leave afterimages. Draven's aim was perfect. The broken sword spun through the air in a high arc, turned end over end, and buried itself point-first in the sand two feet from the woman's left side. Close enough that she would only have to take a single step to reach it. Far enough that she would have to choose.
The crowd went absolutely wild.
Mel settled back into her seat. She smoothed her hands over her lap, adjusted the drape of fabric at her shoulder. The metal spikes had left small indentations in her palms where she'd gripped them too hard. When she looked back at the arena, her face was composed. Her eyes stayed locked on the woman below.
The exile turned her head just enough to look at the broken sword. She took that single step. Her hand closed around the hilt and pulled it free from the sand in one smooth motion. She tested its weight the same way Draven had, felt the balance of broken metal and tattered leather grip.
Draven's grin came back in full force. He leapt from his platform, axes spinning in both hands, sand rising in clouds where he landed. The crowd's roar doubled then tripled, becoming something that shook loose mortar from ancient stones.
The woman lifted the broken sword and Mel realized this spectacle would not end quickly.
She gathered her composure and rose from her seat, already hating herself for the curiosity that dragged her away from the fight. The crowd's thunder followed her through narrow corridors between private booths. Her fingers trailed along heated stone walls that had been baking since dawn, stored enough thermal energy to cook bread. She nodded at the few nobles who noticed her passage, offered the appropriate smile, murmured the appropriate greetings.
When she reached the booth where Darius and Swain sat, she paused at the entrance.
Darius was leaning forward. The Hand of Noxus did not move. His right hand rested on the pommel of his axe where it leaned against the booth's railing. The weapon stood nearly as tall as Mel, bore a skull emblem and engraved Noxian text she couldn't make out from this angle. Darius watched his brother feint left. The woman read it, stepped inside his guard with those chains whipping around to force him back. The corner of Darius's mouth twitched. Mel had been home for a few years now and still she was not certain she had ever seen the Hand of Noxus truly smile. Perhaps he saved expressions of joy only for military victories. Perhaps he had forgotten how muscles formed something that wasn’t dour. But something in his face now was almost content.
If Darius could feel pride in someone else, he felt it now.
Swain sat back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, cane resting against his knee. His left arm was wrapped in red cloth, fabric bound tight. A raven perched on the back of his seat, head cocked at an angle that no living bird should manage. Its eyes glowed dull red. Two guards stood at attention behind the Grand General's chair, their expressions blank behind steel helmets that had to be cooking their skulls. A third guard flanked Darius. Flag bearers held the Noxian banner and Darius's personal standard, both hanging limp in the dead air. The men sweated in their ceremonial armor, watching the fight with varying degrees of interest. One of them shifted his weight from foot to foot. Another kept glancing at Darius, probably trying to gauge when they would be dismissed. A third, this one a young boy, had given up pretense entirely and was watching the fight with open awe.
"Gentlemen," Mel said, stepping into their booth without waiting for an invitation. She nodded at the guards whose expressions softened. The boy waved. The Medarda name afforded her certain privileges and while Darius might wish it, Swain wouldn’t cast her out. She had questions and curiosity was burning through her more insistently than propriety allowed. "I hope you do not mind the intrusion."
Darius didn’t turn. "Lady Medarda." That was it. The general said just enough to acknowledge her existence without committing to actual conversation. Mel had met statues more talkative and warmer icicles.
Swain turned his head and smiled. The raven's gaze followed. "Mel Medarda. Come to see the spectacle? Your mother used to occupy the Medarda booth for these events. I see you’re carrying on the tradition.”
"She did," Mel said, moving to stand beside them at the railing. “Much about the arena has changed.”
“So has Noxus.” Swain said.
"Hm." Mel kept her voice light, genuinely curious rather than demanding. Her eyes remained fixed on the arena below. The exile had just used her chains to catch one of Draven's axes mid-swing, the links throwing sparks where metal ground against metal. She twisted, used the weapon's momentum to wrench it from his grip, then released it to clatter across the sand. "But it seems I have stumbled upon something far more interesting than the usual fare."
Below, Draven laughed. He retrieved his axe, spun it in a flashy display that made the crowd roar their approval. Mel sat in silence. Finally, Darius glanced back at her. Then again. Then a third time, his jaw tightening with each look. He was waiting for the noblewoman to leave, to go back to her own booth, to stop lingering where she was not explicitly invited. He couldn’t tell her to go, so he let his gaze do the talking.
Mel, being Ambessa’s daughter, had a spine. She caught his gaze, blinked owlishly, and pretended she hadn't gotten the hint.
Swain's eyes sparkled, obviously one of them found her deliberate obtuseness amusing. "You are wondering who she is," he said, forming it as a statement instead of a question.
Mel turned to face him. "I am."
"Her name is Riven," Swain said. "Captain Riven, formerly of the Noxian military. She led a warband during the Ionian campaigns. Did you hear the name in Piltover?”
“I fear I have not.”
“Unsurprising,” Darius said.
Swain massaged his temples. “Forgive his manners.”
“Already forgiven.”
“Darius knows more than I about her military history. They fought side by side.”
“Years ago,” Darius sighed. “We weren’t well acquainted. She fought in Ionia. She was one of our best, officially honored by Darkwill.”
“How did she end up chained to a post?”
“Desertion.” Darius said.
Swain inclined his head. “That and destruction of invaluable military property, the sword she broke was a masterwork. She was apprehended but came without a fight. The sentence was death."
Below, Draven had retrieved his axes. He was grinning again, sweat streaming down his face, clearly enjoying himself immensely. Riven stood with the broken sword held in a low guard, chains coiled at her feet, breathing hard but steady.
"Draven intervened," Darius said. His voice was stiff, unused to this much conversation. He finally turned to look at Mel. "The Reckoners Arena needs warriors, her execution would be a waste, now she fights and earns her freedom or she dies trying."
“How many matches must she complete?”
“This is the first of one hundred.”
The corridors beneath the arena were cooler than the surface. Blessedly, mercifully cooler and Mel thanked gods both old and new. The temperature dropped with each step down, pulled heat from Mel's skin until she could finally breathe without feeling punished for it. She had waited three hours. Let the crowds disperse, let the arena empty, let the sun sink low enough that shadows claimed most of the city. Then she had made her way down through the passages that led to the holding cells, nodding at guards who recognized the Medarda crest on her rings and didn't ask questions. A single torch sputtered in its bracket beyond the bars.
Riven sat with her back against the wall, legs crossed, eyes closed. The chains from the arena were still there, looped around her ankle and bolted to a ring in the floor. She could have been meditating. She could have been unconscious. For a split second Mel panicked, thinking she could have been dead. Her chest rose and fell so slowly Mel almost missed the movement. Bruises were already spreading across her ribs, darkening the skin beneath torn fabric. Her knuckles were split where they had connected with Draven's jaw. Blood had dried in the creases of her hands, turned dark and rust-colored.
"Riven," Mel said.
The woman did not react. Black paint streaked across her eyes in a single horizontal line. Her hair had been pulled back in an Ionian style,
Mel waited. The crowds were gone, scattered to taverns and betting houses to argue over what they had seen and how much money they had lost. She looked different in torchlight than she had in the viewing booth. The gold at Mel's throat and wrists caught the flames, turned warm and soft. Amber instead of glare. The purple gown seemed out of place, too rich and too clean against the filth. The metal spikes decorating her bodice looked juvenile down here, as though she was playing a part that never truly suited her.
Then Riven's eyes opened.
For half a second there was confusion. She had expected no one. Or she had expected death. Death did not usually wear purple and gold.
"You know me," Riven said. Her voice had a rasp to it.
"You? No." Mel took a step closer, though she kept distance from the bars. "But I know several of your names."
Riven nodded. She did not close her eyes again, just kept watching and waiting. She had nowhere else to be.
"Riven," Mel continued. "Daybringer. The Butcher of Ionia. Which do you prefer?"
"First one's fine."
"You fought well today," Mel said.
"I fought." Riven shifted and something in her ribs pulled wrong. She didn’t react to the staggering pain. "Draven gave them a show."
"He certainly did. Though I noticed he threw you a weapon. That was unexpected."
"Was it?" Riven let her head fall back against the stone, still watching Mel through half-closed eyes. "Draven loves a good fight. Does not matter if it is in the arena or some back-alley brawl at a Noxii outpost. He's always been that way."
Mel's eyebrow lifted. "You knew him?"
"Before the arena?" Riven gestured vaguely at the cell, at herself, at all of it. Her chains clinked against stone. "Yeah. We crossed paths during the campaigns. He was already making a name for himself. I was just another captain trying to keep my people alive."
"Crossed paths," Mel turned the phrase over. "Interesting way to put it. You led a warband, did you not? During the Ionian campaigns."
“Yes.”
Mel felt something shift in her chest. The golden tattoos on her arms began to pulse with faint light, arcane ink reacting to whatever power still lingered in Riven's broken sword. The weapon rested somewhere in the arena above, confiscated after the fight, but its signature was there in Riven's bones.
"And yet Draven threw you a weapon," Mel said. "Gave you a fighting chance instead of making it an execution. Why?"
“Respect for another warrior.” Riven was quiet for a long moment. "And because Draven does not actually enjoy killing people. He just enjoys winning."
There was something else under the words. Something about friendship or what passed for it in Noxus.
“Did someone send you?”
“No. I came on my own.”
“A noblewoman coming to see me.” Riven smiled, “Who would've thought?”
Mel's fingers tightened on the bars. "I could speak to the Grand General and arrange clemency. Your service record—"
"Stops at desertion." Riven said. "There is no correct way to present desertion."
"There are circumstances and mitigating factors. What you witnessed..."
"Doesn't change what I did. I broke my oath. I destroyed military property. I abandoned my post during wartime. What I did while under our banner was worse."
The golden tattoos at Mel's collarbones flared. She pressed her hand against her throat, felt heat pulse beneath her skin. "If you wish, you could fight for Noxus again but off the field." The words came faster now. "Your tactical knowledge alone—"
"Is worth ninety-nine more fights." Riven met her gaze. "Then absolution. That was the arrangement."
"The arrangement is barbaric."
"It's Noxian. I accepted the terms."
Mel wanted to argue. The light beneath her skin spread down her arms, traced the patterns LeBlanc had burned into her years ago. The marks pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. She scratched at her forearm, nails catching on silk.
"Is Ionia in danger?" Riven asked. “Of another invasion?"
The question caught Mel off guard. "What?"
"The empire. Are we marching on Ionia again?"
"Not for a while. Noxus is focused inward, consolidating power. There are whispers about Demacia but nothing concrete."
Riven nodded. "Then I'm fine staying put."
"Fine." Mel repeated the word.
"I killed people who trusted me to keep them alive." Riven's chains clinked as she adjusted her position. “I was called a butcher for good reason. This is nothing.”
The tattoos on Mel’s arms burned bright enough that Riven had to squint. Mel pressed both hands flat against the bars, tried to force the magic back down, back into wherever LeBlanc had hidden it in her blood.
"You deserve better than this."
"You don't know me."
“I know you don’t deserve this!”
"Neither did the Ionians I slaughtered." Riven closed her eyes again. "One hundred fights. I agreed to the terms."
The glow beneath Mel's skin pulsed. She could feel magic gathering at her fingertips, responding to the sharp edges of her frustration. She wanted to tear the door from its hinges, to burn through the chains, to grab this woman by the shoulders and shake her until she decided to leave.
Instead she stood there, hands pressed against cool metal, watching Riven breathe.
"There is so much you could do," Mel said. The light at her collarbones flared then faded, flared then faded. "Beyond the arena, beyond Noxus if you wished."
Mel looked at Riven's hands. She saw split knuckles, scars layered over scars, calluses so thick they had their own geography.
The torch sputtered. Shadows jumped across the walls.
Riven was quiet for a long time. Then she said, very softly, "I appreciate the visit, Lady Medarda. But you should go. The guards will wonder why a noblewoman is spending so long in the cells."
"I want you to be free," Mel said.
Riven "Then come watch the fights," Riven said. "Ninety-nine more. If I earn it, I'll walk out."
"If you don't?"
“Come watch,” the exile almost smiled. “And I will.”