Perhaps he was tired from the day, or perhaps he was simply in a poor mood. Karya was unusually quiet at dinner.
And since Peter hadn't come home for dinner, Lux didn't have to put on her ladylike demeanor. She paid it little mind and focused instead on her brother.
Unlike the energetic Garen who'd gotten up that morning, he was now utterly listless.
His dark golden hair was a mess, flattened against his head like a patch of weeds. He seemed to have taken a bath, but he still looked grimy.
Garen no longer talked about enlisting. He just kept wolfing down his food—he was clearly starving!
As Lux watched in astonishment, Garen ate five whole ribs before leaning back and slumping completely in his chair.
His once-flat stomach was now visibly bulging. Garen burped, looking like he'd "finally come back to life." Ogesha, who usually couldn't stand him forgetting his manners, merely watched with a smile and occasionally speared a piece of salad with her fork.
Garen was clearly exhausted.
"Looks like your training is going... well, Brother?" Lux said, her expression a little peculiar. "Just a bit too tiring?"
"I feel like I'm about to die." Garen rolled his eyes. "Lux, my dear little sister, you've never been through anything like this. You can't even imagine!"
"All right, you still have enough energy to complain, so today's training can't have been all that strenuous." Ogesha cut him off. "Now, you'd better take a turn around the garden, then have a good soak in your washroom and get to bed early. If you want to become a proper soldier, this is only the beginning!"
"Yes, Mother." Garen winked at his sister. "No problem. I'll go for a walk, then take a bath and go to bed. Don't worry, this level of training is nothing!"
As he spoke, he sprang to his feet and somehow grabbed his sword, raising it high with its scabbard still on.
"Charge! For Demacia!"
Lux blinked at the sight. Before, she might have thought her brother looked cool and envied him.
But right now, for some reason, Lux felt... well, embarrassed for him.
Lux hadn't even realized that just two days with Karya had already changed some of her perceptions.
Or perhaps that kind of change was simply part of growing up, wasn't it?
Perhaps because she'd witnessed magic with her own eyes that day, or perhaps because the stories she'd heard earlier had been too exciting, Lux tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep.
In the stories she'd heard before, princesses were usually the ones who needed rescuing. But Setaqa was nothing like those porcelain-doll heroines. She was a truly brave warrior.
The last story Lux had heard like that was the legend of the Winged Sisters. In that tale, the Winged Sisters had inspired Demacia's earliest settlers to establish the great nation.
Ever since then, Lux had longed to become a hero of Demacia, just like the Winged Sisters.
Today, she'd heard another story. Setaqa's tale seemed to open a new door for her. Setaqa wasn't one of the Winged Sisters soaring through the sky; she was a poor, destitute warrior with nothing to her name. And yet she'd still defeated her enemies with her fists and teeth, with sticks and stones. Just thinking about it set Lux's imagination alight, and only made it even harder for her to sleep.
At last, she could only reach a hand out from beneath the covers and grasp her sword again.
"Karya, tell me another story about Setaqa."
Karya was in low-power mode, busy preparing his lessons. He never expected Lux to ask for a story when it was nearly midnight.
You're nine years old, not three!
He was happy to tell the little girl about Big Sister's dashing exploits, but Lux had class tomorrow, and he still had a little more lesson planning to do. So he turned her down.
"If you want to hear a story, then pay attention in class tomorrow. Pass the evening review test, and I'll tell you stories whenever we have time to review."
"But I can't sleep." Lux pouted. "It's all your fault. Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is a sea of yellow sand, the endless expanse of Khar'sai..."
"Khar'sai?" Karya hesitated. "I don't think I ever told you about that place."
"Maybe I saw the name in a travel book somewhere." Lux yawned. "Mm, I really want to see the desert with my own eyes—to see where Setaqa fought..."
"You'll get the chance." Karya paused, then seemed to change his mind. His voice gradually softened. "All right, little girl. I'm out of stories, but I'll sing you a song... Setaqa's favorite Shuriman tune."
"A Shuriman tune? I've never heard one." Lux lay flat on her bed and buried her head deep in her pillow. "I've only heard Demacian music—hymns, concertos, symphonies, and things like that. What's a Shuriman tune?"
"A folk song from the desert."
A folk song from the desert?
The next moment, Lux closed her eyes, and Karya's deep singing filled her ears.
♪ The Shurima River flows quietly ♬ Flowing toward the distant oasis ♩
♪ Shuriman people walk barefoot ♬ Walking along its banks beneath the night sky ♩
♪ The city of Shurima lies not far away ♬ Beyond, the sands glitter and the night stretches vast ♩
♪ I lift my head and gaze downstream ♬ Gazing at the lights of my dreams ♩
♪ I bend down and drink deeply ♬ Drinking in its fragrant, mother's-milk sweetness ♩
♪ The Shurima River flows quietly ♬ Flowing beneath the lofty starry sky ♩
♪ The Shuriman people take up their spears ♬ Their spears guard the peace of home ♩
♪ The city of Shurima, its walls rising high ♬ Those walls are Shurima's arms ♩
♪ I fight before her breast ♬ Fighting in every line of an epic tale ♩
♪ I sleep forever in her embrace ♬ Sleeping amid golden waves of wheat in the oasis ♩
Lux couldn't understand the Shuriman language, but Karya's singing carried a boundless sense of vastness.
With her eyes closed, Lux felt as though she really stood in the desert beneath the starry sky, following in the footsteps of the Shuriman people of old as they walked along the banks of the Shurima River.
Karya's deep voice was like the ceaseless river itself, carrying Lux's thoughts until she finally drifted off to sleep.
The smooth flow of magic confirmed that Lux had finally fallen asleep.
The little girl seemed to lack a sense of security. Even in a deep sleep, she clung tightly to Karya.
Karya stopped singing, but he didn't mind. What concerned him more was a small detail from his earlier conversation with Lux.
He hadn't misheard her. Lux had mentioned Khar'sai.
Lux had said she might have seen the place name in a book, but Karya didn't believe any travel book would mention Khar'sai.
Khar'sai was a vast desert in southeastern Shurima, a true wasteland where life could not survive. As it bordered Icathia, large numbers of Void creatures still roamed there to this day.
Karya didn't know exactly what conditions were like in Khar'sai, but he was certain no one—not even an explorer—would choose to go there and come back in one piece, let alone leave behind a travel book.
So Lux definitely hadn't seen the name in a travel book.
Could Karya have mentioned Khar'sai while telling his stories? That was even less likely.
Khar'sai was where Setaqa had fallen, and it was Karya's place of sorrow. Even someone as strong as Karya wouldn't bring up a wound that would never heal without a reason.
So he would never have told Lux about that place. Most of Setaqa's stories hadn't even taken place in Khar'sai, and even if they had, Karya wouldn't have mentioned it.
So the question was: why did Lux know about Khar'sai, and why had she mentioned it without thinking?
It was a chilling question for Karya, because in Runeterra, seeing something you'd never seen before or hearing something you'd never heard before wasn't a good sign.
In Icathia, a group of people had seen a world they'd never seen before. That world was called the Void.
In Freljord, someone had heard the voice of a mighty will she'd never heard before. Its master was called the Void Watcher.
Of course, Lux's situation probably wasn't that bad. In Karya's view, it was most likely because of him. Her mental strain and exhaustion that day, as well as this strange imprinting of memories, all stemmed from his demonstration that morning.
Even though he hadn't used Lux's magic, and had only borrowed her body for a little while, his influence had inevitably lingered within her.
In any case, whether the Void had set its sights on Lux or Karya's memories had affected the poor girl, he'd have to avoid controlling her body to cast any more spells if he wanted to prevent this from happening again.
That also meant Karya would have to revise part of his lesson plan and proceed more carefully, making absolutely sure Lux never lost control.
If her spell went out of control, Karya would have to take over her body and forcibly stop it, which could lead to unnecessary danger.
It might even be more troublesome than the spell itself going out of control.
Tsk. What a mess.
Karya clicked his tongue in self-mockery. It seemed he'd become some kind of rod-shaped source of contamination. It was fine for Lux to charge him up and share some of her senses with him, but whenever he did anything to Lux, she ended up suffering for it.
Being able to receive data and energy one way only really sucked!
The next morning, Lux woke up feeling great and heard two pieces of news.
One was good news, and the other was bad.
The good news was that her "cram-school-style teaching" would be less intense. Karya had refined the lesson plan. She'd study for three quarters of an hour, take a fifteen-minute break, and have six lessons a day.
The bad news was that on top of the original "cram-school-style teaching," Karya had moved up her physical training so she could study more safely.
That meant that in addition to six lessons of regular study, evening review, and morning study to go over her mistakes, Lux would also have to exercise for four lessons.
"After all, I'm a sword." Karya explained when Lux asked about it. "If you don't know any swordsmanship at all, isn't it strange to carry a sword around all the time?"
"But... I can learn swordsmanship from my aunt Tiana!" Lux wasn't looking down on Karya. She simply thought her aunt would make a better instructor. "She's the first woman to command the Fearless Vanguard!"
"Maybe that's a remarkable achievement, but trust me: your own swordsmanship and your ability to teach swordsmanship have never been directly related."
"Really?" Lux was still skeptical. "If someone's swordsmanship isn't good enough, how could they possibly teach others well?"
"That's because people with good enough swordsmanship often judge others by their own talent." Karya sighed. "People like that can't teach well."
At that, Karya remembered the time Aatrox had taught a class at Shurima University.
Aatrox had been a swordsmanship prodigy, the likes of whom Shurima saw only once in a thousand years.
But his teaching method had always been, "First, raise your sword. Then shift your weight, follow the momentum of the swing, and strike at the enemy's weakest point. That's all there is to it."
Then that swordsmanship prodigy had led the students in that class to fail every single heavy-sword course. They'd followed Aatrox's method to the letter, but the results had been a complete mess.
Ordinary people couldn't keep up with a genius's way of thinking. So when geniuses taught people with ordinary talent, the results were often less than ideal. Their talent was their method of learning, and that method usually couldn't be replicated.
In Karya's view, Lux probably wasn't an exceptional swordsmanship prodigy. So rather than have her study with the more professional Tiana, it'd be better for him to teach her himself.
After all, when it came to teaching, he was the professional!
In the end, Karya successfully persuaded Lux. His method was simple: he promised her that although Garen was exhausted all the time, in three years he definitely wouldn't be able to beat her at swordsmanship.
Hearing that she'd be able to surpass her own brother, Lux finally had no more reservations and gladly accepted Karya's lessons.
Lux was so happy about the promise that she kept smiling at Garen during breakfast.
Unfortunately, Garen took those smiles as encouragement from his little sister. So after devouring three beef ribs in one go, he raised his sword again.
"Charge! For Demacia—don't worry, Lux, I won't lose to the prince! Your brother is the best!"
Tsk, tsk, tsk...
Poor Garen hadn't realized yet that his rank in the family might soon become "the younger brother"!
Well, this was it for the Crown Guard family... They'd all started competing with one another!
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