“I guess this is goodbye…” Viktor’s voice sounded so small in the vast emptiness of the hexzone.

Sky watched him with concern. She waited, but he did not continue, averting his gaze instead to look where their hands were joined. His thumbs drew anxious circles over her palms. They were standing face to face now, as if they were on the brink of an openness neither of them dared to approach before. Not even during these past months when they existed almost as one in this astral realm.

Viktor spoke of goodbyes, but his grip on her fingers only grew stronger with each passing moment. Sky observed the tremor in his arms and on his lips while pearls of tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

At the depth of her mind, she was conflicted. Part of her wanted to throw her arms around him and tear what was left of him away from whatever influence took hold of them both. Not for her salvation, no. She knew there was no going back for her, and she would have gladly burned up again a thousand times over if it meant she could save him just once more. But these parts of her mind were covered in the same numbing mist that enveloped them both since the moment of their deaths. A soft light in her mind which reassured her that their actions were leading them all to a worthy destination. They were healing the world after all! But why did it feel like Viktor was slipping away from her the closer they got to achieving their common dream?

Sky couldn’t pinpoint exactly when she started noticing it: a third presence, intangible and pervasive, always at the edge of her perception. It swirled around them like invisible tendrils. Seeped between their clasped fingers. Washed over them as they floated in each other’s arms. Moved them apart, then together, and then apart again at its own alien whim. The astral realm’s gentle embrace sometimes started to feel like a stranglehold, its promise of peace a forced surrender, and every so often, for a fraction of a moment, Sky couldn’t help but sense that they were being watched by something that hid in the never-ending darkness behind the soft clouds of colour.

Viktor, on the other hand, remained entirely oblivious. In fact, he only seemed to grow more and more addicted to his power in ways that sometimes almost scared her. Just as she felt her own awareness rekindle, Sky could feel Viktor, her Viktor, the one who came to her again after years of distancing himself, slowly starting to fade. So she was destined to lose him again after all… In her helplessness against his will, she still wanted to believe this strange, foreign intuition. That something truly good could come from him embracing the power of the Hexcore and the role of the “Herald” his followers positioned him as. So when Dr. Reveck suggested that Viktor should evolve beyond his current state—beyond her—to ensure his power won’t be depleted, Sky resigned herself to disappear and watch the last traces of the benign, curious, determined man whom she loved so much dissolve with her. She found comfort in the thought that at least he won’t be alone when it happens.

She squeezed his hands gently.

“Viktor…” she whispered to him.

“What?” He looked up, suddenly shaken out of his tense contemplation. His eyes now shone dark in his pale face, almost as dark as the nothingness that enveloped them. Sky shuddered under the intensity of his gaze.

“Viktor, it’s alright. You made a choice,” she soothed him.

“Dr. Reveck.” Viktor said sharply, “He made the choice. He was the one who demanded that I give you up.”

“Yes, but…” But you have to survive, she had the urge to tell him. The words were true to her heart, but still she stumbled over them when she felt that presence again. A foreign echo behind each syllable, feeding them a secret meaning.

“He also told me once that one must sacrifice love and legacy to achieve progress. I have told you this story before, haven’t I?” Viktor continued, speaking now as much to himself as to her. “Those are the words he lives by. He once hoped I would live by them, too. The Hextech dream is gone now, and all that loss gave me was pain.” He sighed. “And you…” His voice broke on those words and he couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Sky knew he still had trouble speaking about the events of that night in the lab, when she gave her life to save his. “So if the doctor was wrong about my lost legacy, what if he is wrong again? What if there is another way for me?” His gaze was now fixed again on their clasped hands. The colours and patterns of their astral bodies mingled where they touched.

“What do you mean, Viktor?” Sky asked. Only now did she notice that the starlights around them had started to fade one by one. She stepped closer to him.

“It was not my own decision to become this way, you do know that, don’t you?” Viktor answered her with a sudden irritation in his voice. “All my life, I tried to carve out my own path, but now I see how I was still a slave to the wants of others. Build us tools! No, build us weapons! Cure yourself! Don’t cure yourself! Trust me, Corin Reveck wasn’t the only one who taught me about sacrifice.” He scoffed. “I have all this power now that I still barely understand. Why should I use it to please such a man? When I do know that I alone can change the world for the better. But I’ll give this one to Dr. Reveck: I have to survive to ensure it can happen. So…” His voice softened as he shifted his palms, interlacing his fingers with hers to emphasize his next words. “…I want to take you with me.”

Sky was stunned. She felt the hold of the arcane surge within her again, making her shiver.

“Would that even be possible?” she asked barely above a breath.

“The doctor said I can only ascend alone, yes? But I have a theory… Maybe I could extend that power to you… If you became a part of me,” Viktor explained to her. He spoke again with the same fervour he had when he used to discuss engineering problems with her. “If we became one. Then you could come with me. Your presence would be tied to me, yes, but you could still experience everything through me. I could share a life with you, and in here we would still be together just as we are now. We could do so much good for the people, not just in Zaun, but around the whole world. And you would guide me. As you always did.” He smiled at her with reverence. “I believe it could be possible! Nobody has ever been so close to one another as we are now. Just look at us!” He raised their clasped hands excitedly to show her: the outlines of their bodies vibrated and glowed, melting into one another with a warm light.

Sky slowly pulled her hand away and watched as the wisps of colourful flame reshaped themselves into her fingers. She took a few steps, turning away from Viktor, weighing his words. What he was offering was dangerous and entirely unpredictable. It was Viktor’s unsafe experimentation with the Hexcore that got them into this conundrum in the first place. It gave them an unimaginable power too, a true second chance, but maybe they were already testing their limits. Maybe - she could feel that foreign presence invite her in - they should just give up their will and let these powers take charge… Haven't they been so right before… Sky shook her head to get rid of the thought. Her steps sent ripples across the many-coloured pools of stardust. She followed them with her eyes until they disappeared into the creeping darkness.

“But you know that if this plan fails, you will die too?” she said.

“I think we both know I made peace with that a long time ago.” Viktor stepped behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Sky turned further away and hugged herself tightly.

“I’m scared, Viktor,” She whispered after a prolonged silence. “There is so little left of me. I don’t even know how much. What if I disappear completely?” And how much is truly left of you? she wondered to herself.

“I will protect you. The way you protected me.” He reached out, caressing her cheek. “I have so much to make up to you.” Sky leaned into the touch. How could he be so sure?

“And do you truly think we will still be able to meet in here if you succeed? Could we still see each other? Touch each other?”

“I… don’t know that.” He slumped his shoulders. “But we will stay together. So… would you still keep me company, Miss Young?” He attempted a grin.

A crack on the mask of omnipotence, Sky noticed with a hidden, sad smile. Her brows furrowed: she wanted to push him further, she wanted to see behind it all and maybe find that final missing piece of him that eluded her for so long.

“I still need to know something before I can decide.” She turned towards Viktor to face him again.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you change your mind about ascending alone?”

Viktor opened his mouth, but once again, no words came. Gone was the certainty, the excitement of achieving something hitherto impossible. They found themselves again at the brink of honesty, just like at the start of their conversation. One final veil of hesitance before they could bare their souls completely to each other. Sky hoped Viktor would have the courage to lift it.

Finally, Viktor sighed, and he started to speak.

“Never before in my life have I felt so lost as when you died. Everything life threw at me before: my heritage, my illness, all the doubt I have faced at the Academy… I knew I could either fight it or, at the very least, accept it. And there I was faced with something that I couldn’t fight and that I couldn’t possibly accept either. The only thing I knew for certain at that moment was that I couldn’t go on without you. Because during all that time I was so selfish and took you for granted, I did it because I needed you with me. Against all odds, I was given a second chance, that I still don’t believe I deserve. And I followed you here to become someone who deserved it. So if you trust me just this once, I promise I won’t hurt you again. I will not shut you out. Because if I do… Well… I might go on existing… but I will not survive. So please, Sky… stay with me!”

A teardrop floated between them, minuscule and glistening. Then another. And another. Sky couldn’t tell anymore which one of them they came from.

Because it was not the voice of “the Herald” she heard in his desperate plea.

Memories came back to her of a little boy’s hopeful eyes searching her face for connection, of the same boy coming to her in secret to tell her about his fears of leaving Zaun… the man he later became, crouching on the ground and sobbing into her ashes…

Many, many moments where Viktor let himself be seen the way she always saw him.

The vision of the future she has resigned herself to, where she would lose him again and for good, had no power over her anymore.

Because if Viktor was ready to finally, truly give himself to her like this, she was ready too.

With a tearful smile, Sky nodded yes.

His lips found hers with a timid first kiss. Sky’s hands tangled in his starlight hair, pulling him closer. The moment seemed to stand still as her feet lifted off the ground. Each one of their tears birthed new constellations around them as she drifted with him in weightlessness, anchored by his arms around her, trying desperately to make up for all the time they had lost: the past they had wasted and the future they might not get to have.

Sky could soon feel the charge of power emanating from his fingertips as he reached up to cradle her face. The hold of those invisible tendrils that tore at her mind has finally loosened. She felt herself burning again, but this time she felt no pain, only Viktor. And with the memory of this moment of shared devotion, of complete and unconditional love, she gave herself over to dissolve with him in this continuous embrace.

-

A blinding pulse of light illuminated the Fissures. The shockwave that followed sent a gust of wind careening down around the buildings, ruffling the fields of flowers and swirling hundreds of yellow petals in the air. Viktor’s followers all put down their tasks at hand, and those who were in their tents came rushing out onto the pathways. Vi, Jinx and Isha peered through the cracked windows of the greenhouse. The man once known as Dr. Corin Reveck dropped his instruments incredulously. The crowd all raised their eyes to the structure at the centre of the village.

The Herald floated above the remains of the cracked dome. His robes were now tattered and ash-violet. His skin and his hair were patterned with the colours of the astral plane. Above his head, a halo, a disk of cosmic fire, held by an invisible hand.

“I sense your presence, Sky. As if I had never lost you,” he whispered lovingly, a wave of serenity washing over him. His plan had worked.

And an echo answered him. A woman’s soft voice, which went unheard by the onlookers.

“As if I had never lost you.”

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