Inside Soraka's tent, the mountain wind sounded strangely far away.
Lissandra sat across from her, hands folded over the head of her staff, posture straight and unmoving. The cloth walls around them stirred from time to time, but no cold came in. A soft glow hung inside the tent, not from fire, but from the faint starlight that seemed to gather wherever Soraka remained for too long. It was gentle, warm, almost forgiving.
Lissandra disliked how much that warmth reminded her of things she had long ago trained herself not to want.
Soraka poured tea into a shallow wooden cup and placed it before her. "You came quickly."
"I had no reason to delay."
"No." Soraka sat down opposite her, her expression calm, though there was a gravity in her eyes that made the word feel heavier than it should have been. "I suppose you did not."
Lissandra looked at the cup but did not touch it. "I need access to Targon."
Soraka's hand paused over her own cup.
"To the peak?" she asked softly.
"To the star gate."
The air in the tent seemed to grow still.
Soraka did not immediately answer. Her gaze lowered for a moment, as though she were listening to something too distant for mortal ears. When she finally spoke, there was no surprise in her voice, only sadness.
"I knew you would seek a road that did not belong to Runeterra." Soraka wrapped both hands around her cup. "And I knew you were wise enough to understand that such a road cannot be opened by force."
Lissandra's mouth curved faintly, though there was no humor in it. "Be glad that I do understand."
"I am."
"You should also be aware," Lissandra continued, "that knowing I cannot take the violent path does not mean I have the patience for a slow one."
Soraka gave her a quiet look. "Lissandra."
"We are out of time."
"Logan is in the Void. Ahri is with him. If either of them could reach the Spirit Realm through his powers, we would already know. I would have heard something. The Twin Cities would have received word. There has been nothing."
Soraka lowered her eyes.
"Opening a passage directly into the Void is not an option," Lissandra said. "Even if I had the power to tear open such a wound, it would be insanity. A wormhole between Runeterra and the Void could bring catastrophe down on this world before we found him. And even if it did not, we would be thrown into some random region of the Void, assuming the word region still means anything there."
"In the Void, distance is not always distance. Direction is not always direction. What appears near may be unreachable. What seems impossibly far may be pressed against the skin of your own mind," Soraka said.
Lissandra's fingers tightened over her staff. "Then you understand the problem."
Lissandra's expression remained cold, but her voice had sharpened. "First, we need the star gate opened. You said before that at least six Celestials would be needed."
"I did."
"You said you could manage that."
"I believe I can."
Lissandra leaned forward slightly. "Even if you gather them, even if six Celestials agree to open the gate, the Rakkor will not simply stand aside and watch. They worship the mountain. They guard its paths. They have bled for less."
Soraka said nothing.
"Even if their power is insignificant, the ones on the other side of the gate are the problem. The Aspects will see the door open. Most of them will act at once. They will not allow beings who are not Celestial to step into their realm. Not willingly."
"Most of them," Soraka echoed.
"Not all beings of the Celestial Realm are the same."
For a moment, they simply watched each other.
Once, long ago, Lissandra might have mistaken gentleness for weakness. She no longer made that error. Soraka's kindness was not soft because she lacked the strength to be hard. It was soft because she had chosen to be, and choices made by the powerful were always more dangerous than instincts born from fear.
Still, kindness would not open a road through impossibility.
"Suppose," Lissandra said, "we manage to keep the gate open long enough. Suppose I cross. Suppose whoever comes with me survives the first breath beyond it. Then what?"
Soraka's lips pressed together.
"We would be in Targon Prime," Lissandra continued. "We would need to hide from the Aspects, leave Targon Prime itself, and move through the Celestial Realm."
She spoke each step slowly, not because Soraka needed it explained, but because absurdity became clearer when forced into order.
"After that, we would have to travel across a realm that does not measure itself by mortal scale. We would have to reach the farthest edge of creation, where existence thins, where form and law begin to fail. And only then could we enter the Void."
Soraka's gaze had grown distant again. "Yes."
Lissandra gave a short, cold laugh. "Yes. Such a simple word for something that should be impossible."
"It may be impossible."
"Do not waste my time with honesty unless you also have something useful to offer."
Soraka accepted the rebuke without offense. "I am not trying to discourage you."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Measuring the weight of what you are asking."
"I already know the weight."
"No," Soraka said gently. "You know the danger. They are not the same thing."
Lissandra did not answer at once.
"..."
"I have spent more years than mortal nations can count holding back the Watchers," Lissandra said at last.
Soraka listened without interruption.
"And now," Lissandra said, "one man has done what no Freljordian hero, no demigod, no queen, and no tribe could do. He killed a Watcher. Then he severed disaster from Runeterra and let the Void swallow him so this world would not become another Icathia."
The name settled heavily between them.
"That debt is not abstract," Lissandra said.
Soraka's face changed then. Only slightly, but enough.
Lissandra saw that the Starchild understood.
"Saving him is not merely mercy," Lissandra said. "It may be strategy."
"And Ahri?"
Lissandra's voice grew quieter. "If she is still protecting him, then she is spending power she cannot recover quickly, perhaps cannot recover at all in that place. If she falls, he falls with her. If he breaks, then what returns from the Void may not be Logan."
Soraka closed her eyes.
For the first time since Lissandra had entered the tent, the Starchild looked tired.
Not physically. Soraka's weariness was deeper than flesh. It was the fatigue of someone who had seen too many wounds and knew exactly which ones could not be healed by tenderness alone.
"I can move through the Celestial Realm," Soraka said. "Freely, compared to most. I know paths there that the Aspects do not watch closely. I know places where their sight bends away. I know how to hide a light among greater lights."
"Then you can guide us."
"To the edge of creation, perhaps."
"Perhaps."
Soraka opened her eyes. "The Void is different."
"I understand that you fear it."
"I respect it," Soraka corrected. "Fear is too small a word. The Celestial Realm is vast, yes. It can be cruel, dazzling, cold, beautiful, and terrible. But it is still part of creation. It still has pattern."
Lissandra watched her carefully.
"The Void does not."
"Could we reach it?"
"Perhaps."
"That word again."
"Because certainty would be a lie."
"We do not know where he is. We do not know whether the Void has already shifted him somewhere beyond reach."
"No," Soraka said.
"Then by all means, tell me what we do know."
Soraka's expression softened with sorrow, but her answer was steady. "We know that he is not beyond importance. The Void reacted when the Watcher died. The world reacted. The creatures tied to it stirred. Such a disturbance leaves echoes."
For the first time since arriving, she reached for the tea. It had gone nearly cold, but she drank it anyway. The taste was mild, herbal, almost painfully ordinary.
"You have someone in mind," she said.
Soraka looked toward the tent's entrance, though her eyes were fixed on something much farther away than the cloth flap.
"I do."
"A Celestial?"
"Yes."
"One who will help?"
"I cannot promise that."
Lissandra studied her. "You speak as though this being does not obey the same rules as the others."
"He does not."
"All Celestials think that."
Soraka almost smiled. "He is not like the Aspects."
Lissandra's patience thinned. "I did not climb this mountain to trade in riddles."
"And I am not offering one." Soraka's voice remained calm, but the starlight in the tent seemed to pulse faintly with her words. "There are beings of power, Lissandra, and there are beings who are power only because mortals and immortals alike have no better word for what they are. He moves through places that cannot be charted. He appears where the balance of creation is endangered. He crosses realms that even Celestials cannot easily reach."
Lissandra's grip tightened again.
Soraka continued, "If there is anyone capable of traveling everywhere, including where existence fails, including what we might call nonexistence, it is him."
For a few breaths, Lissandra said nothing.
She had not prepared for a possibility that sounded more impossible than the problem.
"A traveler," Lissandra said slowly. "Through nonexistence."
Soraka inclined her head.
"And you believe he may be able to find a path into the Void."
"I believe he may know whether such a path exists."
Lissandra looked down at the cup in her hand. The tea reflected no image, only a pale shimmer of gathered light.
A bitter thought passed through her mind. How strange that after all these years, after all the weapons she had forged out of secrets, kingdoms, and fear, the next step might depend on asking politely for help from a wandering Celestial who might not answer at all.
Yet she had come to Soraka because violence could not solve this.
Soraka's gaze lifted.
"Bard," she said.
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