A liyure is a handheld instrument common to the foothills of Zhyun, not alike a lyre and unlike a harp. Many bards take their fashion after the liyure, as its chords are considered most harmonious and jubilant, and are appreciated endlessly in inns and on long caravans. The unusual closed-together alignment of the strings necessitate special metal gloves, talons really, in order to properly place and pluck during play. Nevertheless the liyure remains popular, a favorite especially on the island midlands.
Khada Jhin is playing one now.
Truthfully, it had been in fact liyure gloves that many years ago inspired the design of the Golden Demon’s eponymous claws, which allows him to play as flawlessly tonight as any bard might. The song would be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in the medium, a ballad famously played on the steps of Fae’lor fortress some generations ago to plead for the safety of refugees to an otherwise closed sanctuary.
This particular detail, of course, is not coincidental.
Syndra is to mean Destruction inasmuch as Khada Jhin is to mean Golden Excellence, and tonight the latter is entertaining rather an achieved audience in the former. It is not everyday that an age-old fortress bound to a Noxian-controlled island rips itself asunder and ascends into the heavens, after all. For that she may color him impressed. (And it is not everyday that Khada Jhin is impressed.)
She’s not the only one here.
Before our Sovereign tonight are a cadre of not-so-equally esteemed but nevertheless notable guests, which include some elders of Navori and a retinue of Brotherhood commandants. The commandants in particular had been among the very same that ordered the discovery and ‘dispatch’ of yours truly, when they at last realized that the Golden Demon bargains with no-one that are not his already benefactors. How did that end for them?
Judge by their glassy eyes and pearly-white grins.
It must have been his magic that drew her here, Jhin imagines. He may not be the sort to levitate entire buildings from their foundations, but the Golden Demon is not much less auspicious, and neither are his performances subtle in this regard. Well, consider herself welcomed! Much has changed in Ionia since a great long dream.
Jhin plucks his last note, and bows. His true face of ruby and gold glints so lovingly under the moonlight stars.
“Sovereign,” he says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
