The Eagle That Does Not Fall

The Eagle That Does Not Fall

Volume One: Mare Nostrum, World Unknown

Invariably, all nations crumble, fall, and are forgotten. And in their final death throes, they often drag others down with them.

The Histories of Empire, Ruination

Only in the crucible of strife does God burn away the impurities to reveal the essence of a person - an inner core that might otherwise have remained hidden for an entire life.

Rhaedri Brison, Destiny's Crucible

PROLOGUE: WHAT THE GODS FOUND INTERESTING

The gods of Runeterra were very old and not especially communicative, but they paid attention.

They had been paying attention for some time - since long before the Rune Wars had scoured the world, since before the Void had first pressed its fingers through the cracks in Icathia and found purchase, since before the Freljord had frozen around whatever sleeping thing lay beneath it. They watched the way old physicians watch a patient: not with sentiment, but with the complete, unhurried attention of those who have seen enough to know when something is about to become significant.

What they found, in the hospital bed in Geneva on a gray Thursday afternoon, was something that had not been in their world before.

Not a man dying. Men died constantly. The world was full of dying.

What they found was the specific quality of knowledge inside the dying man - knowledge of their world, held by someone who had never been in it, detailed and precise and organized in the way of someone who understood systems and who had spent a lifetime thinking carefully about what broken things needed in order to heal.

They found this interesting.

They did what gods do when they find something interesting.