Author's Note: Back to the Freljord couple, oh yeah! I know you guys missed them. I did too. Enjoy the chapter!

War touches down like blood drumming in the ears, like froth bubbling up a shore. It's deafening, silent, and sordidly rife with pressure akin to an unsprung coil, tight and wound. It's a numb realization that scuttles upon the mind like the slowest of horrors, casual dread that doesn't hit home until the blood is already lapping at one's feet.

"Svein!" Julia's eyes were wild as she dashed across the courtyard and flung herself into his arms. "Svein, Svein!"

She was nearly sobbing.

"Wh-What's wrong?" he blurted, alarmed. "What's going on?"

"The city's been breached," she bit her lip to keep it from trembling. "It-It was out of nowhere, I don't know who it is, but the whole place is getting turned inside out because some of our own people are joining them, and they haven't reached the castle yet but-"

"Slow down," he brushed aside wisps of auburn and cupped her cheek. "I'm glad you're safe. Have you any word of our king and queen? They should've returned from their diplomatic excursion by now."

She cast her gaze downward, trying to placate her shaking shoulders to no avail.

"Only the enemy's word," she whispered.

Svein felt his heart drop out from under him.

"They were shouting it at the top of their lungs, for all of us to hear as they attacked," she closed her eyes as her fingers clenched around Svein's armor.

When she opened them, he couldn't help but be taken aback as twin beads of coal-black looked forlornly into his own.

Julia clutched at his shoulders and drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"They're saying that Queen Ashe and King Tryndamere are dead."

"Call everyone to arms!" Svein shouted. "Until our leaders return, I'll take temporary charge! Non-combatants, evacuate to the castle until further notice!"

Royal guards and barbarians alike saluted him, before issuing their own orders to squadrons of fighters already sheathing blades and donning headpieces.

He felt a tug at his sleeve.

"S-So you think they're lying?" Julia almost whimpered. "It can't be true, can it?"

"Of course not," he soothed. "Go back to the castle. I've got it from here."

"I want to help," she frowned. "I'm not just going to stand aside and do nothing."

"Julia, I can't let anything happen to you-"

"That's sweet, but misplaced," she gently refuted. "I'm not one to go down without kicking and screaming along the way."

"Alright," Svein relented. "Then how's this? Go around and gather any volunteers – anyone at all who isn't already fighting but still willing to do something – and have them set up barricades. Then when you're behind them, use every dirty trick you know to give our fighters an advantage. We're going to need it, since Queen Ashe took a portion of our fighters with her. We don't know when they can return to provide backup."

"Aye aye," she grinned weakly.

He hugged her briefly, before urging her to go.

As soon as she vaulted the perimeter fence and disappeared from sight, the smile vanished from Svein's visage.

"I'm holding down the fort, Your Majesties…" he murmured. "So come back quickly. You're not dead. You're not."

He grimaced as he unstrapped his battle-axe and inspected the gleaming edge.

"Because all this means nothing without the both of you."

The tide came in quick and unkempt. Seams of fighters bundled together at one juncture, disheveled battle-cries clamoring in from another.

The unsteady squeal of metal upon metal, clocking in at unsettling intervals like a ruptured heartbeat.

"Remain grouped!" Svein roared. "Our numbers are thin, so we have to funnel them! Play to our strengths, but above all, be conservative; saving lives is priority number one!"

Without turning his gaze, Svein flicked his axe backwards and its end caught in an assailant's forehead.

He didn't break stride as he dislodged his weapon and heaved it around him. Hapless victims who dared attack him were easily caught in the whirlwind of steel, and his cheek was peppered with crimson.

And as he saw him, his ferocity waxed to deranged heights, still empowered by the rush of battle, the spark of loathing and fire licking against his insides reminiscent of the king himself.

"Torstein!" he roared as he saw the traitor amidst the swath of enemies.

"If it isn't the king's topmost slobbering pup," Torstein sneered.

"It's all your people?" Svein bristled. "You stirred this up?"

"It's an honor that you hold me in such high regard," he drawled. "But though it is true that we, true Avarosans as we are, have moved on to bigger and better things, I'm not the one running this show. That privilege belongs to our rightful queen, who's going to help us take back what is ours."

"And you're going to do it by killing the lot of us, I see," Svein's fist trembled as he spat the words. "Like the scum you are."

"Do not talk to me about scum," Torstein surged towards him. "When you barbarians need look no further than the mirror."

Svein easily parried his strike, twisting his axe so that Torstein's blades hooked about the edge.

With a flick, Svein handily disarmed him, before laying the rim of the axe along his throat.

"Any last words?"

"Now, let's not be hasty-"

With one solemn stroke, Svein splintered the silver-tongued devil's neck, causing rivulets of red to crawl across the asphalt.

"I was kidding," the warrior remarked ruefully. His weapon gleamed scarlet amidst the sunlight coursing along its surface as he shouldered it.

But it was far from over, and Svein realized this most poignantly when he gazed towards the enemy lines once more and witnessed for himself who had masterminded this assault.

"Avarosa have mercy," he mumbled, taking his stance and preparing to charge yet again into the fray.

"Look," Katarina glared at her companion, hands fisted against her hips. "She's not coming. I've been telling you from the beginning that she's not interested in whatever crap 'apologies' we'd pull out of our asses."

"She agreed to meet us here," Garen retorted, grunting as he adjusted his bulky shoulder plates against the unforgiving cold. "And you wouldn't be here with me if you didn't also believe she would hold to that agreement."

"Says you," she grumbled, turning away and crossing her arms stubbornly.

When another hour passed, Katarina angrily threw up her hands.

"That's it! I'm done waiting!" she growled. "I told you she wouldn't come! That stuck up snowflake and her stupid barbarian boytoy can rot for all I care!"

"Katarina, you don't mean that," Garen pointed out.

"Yes, I fucking do!" she snarled. "This is what I get for trying to be all sincere and weak-"

"We're doing this because we both feel like we have wronged them," he explained quietly. "If only to ease your guilt, I know how desperately you need to make amends."

"Ugh," Katarina glared at him. "Have I ever told you how annoying you are when you pull the 'voice of reason' card on me?"

"Several times."

"Just making sure."

"Perhaps," Garen narrowed his eyes against the swirling frost, peering into the rapidly worsening blizzard. "It isn't that they're unwilling to come, but that they're unable."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Katarina leapt down from her perch on the icy crag to stand next to him.

"It is possible that something has happened. To them, or to their city."

Katarina frowned as he gazed curiously at her.

"Hey!" she snapped. "Don't look at me! Noxus isn't gonna come near this place with a ten mile pole. Not since the League's intervened on Freljord's behalf."

"So if it is not Noxus…" Garen mused.

Katarina brushed aside loose strands of crimson as she sauntered ahead of him.

"At any rate, we aren't getting anything done like this. Let's head over and barge in on their front gate. Then they'll have to listen to us. So take your eyes off my ass and the stick out of yours. Let's get moving."

"Must you be so crass?" he rolled his eyes.

"Only around you, darling," she trilled, her grin bleeding sarcasm.

He sighed, and made to follow.

Julia counted it as the one of the only moments in her life in which she felt true fear, when she witnessed Svein fall to the Ice Witch.

"No…" she whispered, fingers trembling against her lips.

In the distance, Lissandra sneered.

"Is this all you worms can amount to without your exalted leaders?" she shouted. The chill of her voice brimmed the entire battlefield's expanse, threading its poisonous bite into the cracks of warfare.

Claws, lined with malevolent ice, gripped ruthlessly as they held Svein up by the throat. He weakly scrabbled at them with his fingers, attempting to pry them off.

"They'll…come back," he rasped across bloody lips. "You don't stand…a chance."

"That's cute," Lissandra simpered. "Such sickeningly saccharine loyalty. Why don't you tell me just how you think you will win, when so many of your forces have either already defected to me or perished in the wilderness alongside your precious monarchs?"

"The only ones…who defected…are the filth who have already betrayed our queen once. You've scraped…the bottom of the bucket. Couldn't be more…fitting if you ask me."

He coughed, painting her knuckles crimson as they slowly crushed his windpipe. Even then, he managed a smirk.

Lissandra's condescending smile faded as she considered the dying man before her.

"They are dead," she asserted, attempting to relish every word. "They didn't suspect a thing when we ambushed them, and now she's dead, and that pathetic girl of a queen is never coming back! You. Have. Lost."

Svein's laughter was like flames licking at her feet.

"Tremblin' in your boots, are you?! The ancient witch herself? Can't say I blame you! You can kill me, you can attack us and maim us, scramble our insides, beat us so far down we can't see dirt, but we won't stop getting back up."

Teeth marred with blotches of red, Svein hollered his fervor for all to hear.

"Our blood is alive with our oaths, and our Queen freezes them eternal! It's nothing so feeble as to submit to you."

Though his body hung limp, his eyes bored savagely into Lissandra's, never relinquishing their hold, never offering an inch.

"You're no match for her."

Lissandra's mouth thinned and twisted black.

"As heartfelt as your death wish is, I'll have to refuse for now," she smiled, cold and empty. "Because I'm going to have you watch. Watch as I raze your land, as my Frostguard legion descends upon your people, as your blood which you hold in such high esteem dies in the wind. And you're going to watch and see that Ashe won't be there to save any of you."

She flung him aside like a ragdoll, and swept her gaze across the castle looming against the horizon.

"Here, at last," she breathed, closing her eyes behind her mask. "Is Freljord's reckoning."

"Mary, we have to do something!" Julia cried, hysterical.

"Calm down, Julia," the young mother put a hand on her shoulder. "He's in bad shape, but you heard the witch. She's not going to kill him yet."

"He was bleeding," Julia sobbed. "He's almost dead, he's out there in pain, and I can't help him."

"Svein wouldn't want you come to harm because of him," Mary told her.

"But, what can we do?" Julia whimpered. "They're almost at the castle now. Our fighters are barely holding on. W-Without Her Majesty and King Tryndamere-"

"We'll just have to hold out," Mary stated grimly. "Like Svein said, we can't back down when things get tough. Have faith in our leaders, and until they return, – they will return, mark my words – we fight. Give them something to come back to."

Julia stared at her, then out at the ravaged landscape. Crackling fires engulfed homes even as the flames themselves were buffeted by unforgiving gales. Soldiers and trolls alike, toppling to the grass-torn gravel like dominoes.

"We fight," she whispered, peering to Mary for almost timid confirmation.

Mary smiled without cheer and nodded.

"We fight," Julia repeated, stronger, clenching her fists, her back suddenly ramrod, lined with reaffirmed conviction. "We hold out."

"We're Avarosans," Mary laughed, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. "The lot of us aren't very good at going gentle into that good night."

"Hey," Katarina frowned. "You hear something?"

"Can't hear much over this wind. How do these Avarosans live like this?"

"Wimp," she rolled her eyes. "Hang on, listen – see, there it is again!"

She tugged impatiently at his sleeve.

"I'm gonna check this out. Swing back and fetch your men, would you? I have a feeling we're going to need them."

"Are you okay?"

Her voice was soft.

"Yeah," he grunted.

"Good."

Then she shifted.

"No more mercy."

"No more second chances," he agreed.

"They're going to rue the day."

Ice, in her very lungs, behind her eyes as she closed them.

The patter of frozen pebbles as he staggered quietly to his feet and extended his hand.

She took it.

"You're going to have to bear with the devil in your system, because I fully intend to use it."

"Oh, don't worry," A flash of jagged, gleaming teeth. "For once, he and I are on the same page."

Standing, she smoothed herself over. An impassive sheet of unyielding frost. Lips lined with blazing cold, eyes sharp with searing chill.

In the cavern, the Queen and her demon silently burned.

Author's Note:

I'd be lying if I said that last scene didn't take at least a little inspiration from Teen Titans, when the titans were shown recuperating underground from Terra's betrayal. Playtime's over, I guess. Heheh. I'll reveal more about Katarina and Garen and what they're doing here next chapter, but I was also thinking that I might write a little tie-in oneshot focusing on them and the events leading up to their joint decision to come to Freljord. What do you think, would it be something you guys would like to read?

In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review? That'd be swell.