Joy surged so fiercely through Kai'Sa's chest that she could not help quickening her pace as she climbed toward the surface.
"Kai'Sa!" Zihark called from below.
"What is it?" She looked back at him, laughter muffled beneath her mask.
Zihark hesitated, all the things he wanted to say shrinking down into a single sentence. "Nothing. Just... stay hidden once you get up there."
"Okay." Kai'Sa kept climbing. The tunnel was narrow and sloped upward, so crawling was the only way forward.
When she reached the end, she saw a crack above her head with daylight pouring through it.
That was the world she longed for.
So close she could almost touch it.
For one brief moment, she felt as though she had returned to that childhood she was on the verge of forgetting, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly.
Zihark patted her calf and raised one finger to his lips.
Quiet.
Listen.
Kai'Sa calmed down and focused on the sounds from above.
Their helmets amplified their senses. The air was thick with scents, and voices drifted down through the gap as people haggled with one another, mixed with the sharp smells of spices and roasted meat. A sour craving rose in her mouth before she even realized it.
There was probably a market up there, but he had no way of knowing exactly what kind.
Zihark's awareness web could only detect Void creatures. It was useless for this. All he could do was tell Kai'Sa to be careful, again and again.
He would not be going with her.
She would have to explore it alone.
Ripples passed across Kai'Sa's voidskin, and her body vanished, though she was still standing where she was.
She reached up to the crack and slowly widened it with her hands until it was large enough to stick her whole head through.
What she saw was a small marketplace drowned in color and noise. Arched canvas awnings stood close together, nearly covering the entire street. The air was packed with heat from the blazing sun, while people had set up their stalls in the shade.
Water sellers, livestock sellers, spice sellers, fruit sellers...
Small though it was, the place had everything.
This settlement was more prosperous than the little village where she had lived for ten years.
"So this is the world above... I'm back."
Her heart full of anticipation, Kai'Sa saw that no one was paying attention to the corner where the tunnel emerged, so she broke apart the dry dirt overhead and climbed out.
She had not forgotten Zihark's warning. The first thing she did was quietly find something to block the exit.
The tunnel opened at the base of an abandoned mud wall, which already concealed it from one side. Beside it stood a cracked clay vat full of nothing but dry grass and fruit pits, so Kai'Sa dragged it over and used it to seal the hole.
Before covering it completely, she did not forget to wave down into the tunnel at Zihark, though she was still invisible, so who knew whether he could tell.
Once that was done, Kai'Sa cautiously made her way toward the market.
The smell of sweat drifted through the street. All sorts of people were coming and going, but overall the crowd was not too dense, so Kai'Sa could move among them without much trouble.
She soon noticed that the strip of open ground in the middle of the road, where the awnings cast no shade, was rarely used. Even when people had to cross the five-meter stretch, they hurried through it as fast as they could, as if sunlight itself might kill them.
Kai'Sa looked up at the sky.
The sun was brutal today, yes, but not so brutal that people needed to avoid it like vampires.
That thought gave her an idea.
Wouldn't it be easier to avoid bumping into people if she walked out in the sunlight?
She slipped past the people along the street and cautiously extended one foot into the sun. The light bent strangely across her voidskin.
And that was when she gave herself away.
Kai'Sa realized that although her actual body remained invisible, the shadow cast by sunlight still existed.
Thankfully, no one was likely to notice a patch of darkness appearing out of nowhere in the sunlight. And even if they did, they would probably just assume it was the shadow of some bird perched on top of the awnings.
Kai'Sa pulled her foot back into the shade and continued roaming the market while avoiding the crowd.
The street was very clean, but her attention did not stay fixed on the stalls lining both sides. Sometimes she would look at the beautiful houses too, every brick and tile basking in the sunlight.
Atop a temple, she spotted a huge golden disc. It was a crude imitation of the legendary Sun Disc. No magic flowed across its surface, but it still held the fading glory of old Shurima.
Zihark had once told her that the real Sun Disc was enormous, suspended in the sky so high it disappeared into the clouds.
Without realizing it, Kai'Sa came to a sheep pen. The moment the animals inside caught her scent, they panicked and bolted in every direction, yanking their tethers taut and nearly leaping out of the enclosure.
The seller ran over and started shouting at the livestock, while Kai'Sa quickly moved away.
Then a trace of blood scent slipped into her nose, stirring the voidskin's hunger for flesh. The inner layer of the armor bit hard into her body, and pain shot through her so sharply that her leg nearly gave out and her invisibility almost dropped.
It wanted to feed.
Instinctively, Kai'Sa looked toward the source of the smell.
A butcher was slaughtering a goat right there in the street, draining its blood into a wooden bucket.
Kai'Sa went the other way and wandered aimlessly until she found herself stopping in front of a stall.
Dozens of baskets were filled with all kinds of little things. Bracelets and necklaces, bangles and earrings—the sort of objects girls tended to love.
What Kai'Sa wanted, though, was a wooden comb.
There were silver-plated combs beside it, and combs carved with decorative patterns, but she liked this plain little peachwood comb best.
Because it was the cheapest one.
But cheap or not, she had no money.
And she did not dare reveal herself to buy anything.
A veiled girl no more than two years older than Kai'Sa walked over, and Kai'Sa quickly stepped aside. The stall owner enthusiastically started introducing the goods to her, completely unaware that someone invisible was coveting them.
Kai'Sa watched the whole exchange in silence. The girl casually picked through the items, then at last chose a shell bracelet, something rarely seen in the desert. She paid for it and walked away happily.
Kai'Sa felt an unexpected stab of envy.
Her gaze returned to the wooden comb, the one that girl had not even glanced at, and suddenly a thought rose in her mind.
Should she take it?
Quietly.
No one would notice.
Kai'Sa felt ashamed of herself for even thinking it. It was not worth much, but stealing was still wrong.
And yet she wanted so badly to take the comb back underground as a keepsake, and have Zihark use it to comb her hair. She loved that feeling.
She also spotted some ear picks nearby. Maybe having her ears cleaned would feel even better. But the underground was so dark that it hardly seemed practical.
There was also a vanity mirror, but she still did not dare look at her own face. She did not know whether she still looked like the little girl from her memories. Zihark said she was beautiful. She wanted to believe him, but she was not brave enough to test whether it was true.
In the end, her eyes came back to the comb again.
That was what she wanted most.
The stall owner suddenly pointed in Kai'Sa's direction, and her heart jumped. For a second, she thought she had been discovered.
Then she looked around in a panic and realized the woman was pointing at a giant beast some distance behind her.
It was a Skallashi. Kai'Sa had never seen one before, though she had heard her father mention them.
Its body stood taller than the houses lining the street. Its four legs were long and thin like a giraffe's, yet its neck was oddly short, more like a cow's. Kai'Sa could not even imagine how it managed to drink water from the ground.
The Skallashi could carry both goods and riders on its back, and under the control of its handler, it was now making its way down the very street where Kai'Sa stood.
She needed to leave.
Her scent might startle the beast and send it into a rampage, and with so many people on the street, the result would be exactly the kind of disaster she never wanted to cause.
So she meant to go.
But before she did, she noticed that the stall owner and all the people in the street had their attention fixed on the Skallashi.
In the end, temptation won.
She did the wrong thing.
No one noticed when one wooden comb disappeared into thin air.
Kai'Sa broke into a run, whipping up a strange cold gust behind her as she fled like a thief.
The comb could not turn invisible with her, so she held it tight against her chest and hid it beneath her arms.
When she reached the edge of the market, she moved the clay vat aside and quietly slipped back down into the crack.
Then she looked back and saw Zihark still waiting for her in the tunnel.
Kai'Sa startled for a second—
and then suddenly her nose stung.
[End of chapter]