Saikhal

Saikhal is a settlement in western Shurima, watered by a river that runs as a tributary into the great Mother of Life. Within the town, a dried riverbed known as the Cut lay empty for ages, but after the fall of Shurima it began to flow once more. For the first time in living memory, flowers grew along the street leading from the town square down to its banks. The settlement is old enough that Azir, the legendary Ascended emperor, came to it as a guest long ago and witnessed its founding. It was here that Xerath was born, in an age when the empire ran on slavery and the enslaved were denied even names and kept under constant threat of death. Taken as a slave by Renekton's forces, who conquered Saikhal in ancient times, Xerath bonded with Azir over their shared love of learning, though the gulf of power between them meant the two could never be equals. Azir holds that it was Xerath's later betrayal that brought Shurima to ruin. Long after the empire's fall, a young girl named Khari passed through Saikhal to fetch water from the Cut, carrying a bowl she had crudely mended after breaking it, having hidden the damage rather than admit her mistake to her grandmother. At the river she met a golden-armored figure who revealed himself as Azir. When she voiced sympathy for Xerath, the emperor's old fury returned, and he summoned sand soldiers to destroy Saikhal. Khari flung her bowl to distract him and pressed him about his revival, learning that Sivir's blood had raised him back as ash and dust, and that he ascended upon her awakening. Reminded not to repeat the mistakes of his past, Azir relented and withdrew his soldiers, sparing the settlement. Before departing, he mended Khari's broken bowl with golden sand, and she carried the water on to the village for a newborn child.