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Chapter Text

“Rommath-!”

The Grand Magister moves without bothering to answer, rapidly drawing up an inferno and flinging it over the the heads of retreating allies where it thunders into three diving felbats with a violent crash. The small contingent of medics beneath it duck away from the reverberating aftermath and dash hurriedly forward: Horde, Alliance, and otherwise breathing hauled over shoulders and between them.

“Any word?” Kael’thas snaps over a shoulder at the nearest demon hunter - a slight Blood Elf just returned from the field, fel runes pulsing in sync with the flare of felflame eyes.

“None yet,” she tersely reports, voice just barely kept from a growl.

Kael’thas knows it is an inner war she fights and not irritation over his persistent questioning. He has asked the same question every time she returns from further up the lines and each time she drags a ragged breath against the raging demon within to answer. He knows this and yet can no longer stop himself from drawing Felo’melorn as he swings back around.

Rommath looks over sharply, attention drawn as if by the singing release of the blade from its sheath, but Kael’thas speaks before he can hear the objection leave his friend’s lips.

“It’s been too long.”

The Grand Magister moves swiftly closer. “We’re already retreating-“

“We need to stop,” Kael interrupts, stepping forward with embers at his feet. The demon hunter perks up in interest as the air around Felo’melorn wavers and crackles.

Rommath frowns, but steps quickly after. “He’s twenty minutes late,” he hisses just loud enough to be heard over the crash of fel engines and their own soldiers beyond. “If we stay much longer-”

“Allari.” Kael’thas doesn’t need to move his gaze from the field to know the demon hunter followed his movements.

“Yes.”

“How many remain in your contingent?”

“12.”

“And if you pull from the Alliance lines?”

She arches an eyebrow, but says only, “20.”

Rommath, thankfully, knows better to give voice to the alarmed stare he throws in his king’s direction.

Kael’thas nods. “Inform the Archmage and push through the gap in the center line.” The embers at his feet spin up around him with his words.

Allari takes half a step back as the air heats, crackling around the man who would be her king, blood already hot from battle and heart stirred enough to know the intent of the sin’dorei before her. But she is Illidari now, and a grimly satisfied grin is all that speaks of the pride that ill belongs in her heart from those words. “We will be there,” is all she says, leaping away with a downbeat of war torn wings.

“I assume you have a plan,” Rommath prompts the moment she is out of earshot.

“Of course I have a plan.” The corner of his lips quirking up, Kael’thas spins a magic circle into the ground from a burst of flame that arches down the length of his enchanted blade.

Rommath stays put. “I assume you have a plan beyond making a hole in their front line,” he flatly repeats, gesturing with one sweeping arm to the distinct lack of gaps in the Legion formation beyond.

A blood elf priest directing the movement of a charred tauren combatant glances up when the expansion of runes sweeps fire closer to the retreating forces. His eyes widen in immediate recognition and he swings back around, barking orders to redirect the flow of injured away and around the growing flares of fire magic coiling around the Sunstrider king.

Kael’s grim smirk hardens. “You remember the array in my bedroom?”

It’s… not what Rommath expects to hear and he shows it with a raise of his eyebrows.

“Rommath.”

“I remember it,” the magister quickly recovers.

“Can you reproduce it?”

At which point Rommath gives up on all pretense. “What?”

“If you can’t, you had best tell me now,” his king answers, twisting to expand his current circle of runes with a slice of his blade.

It’s just enough implied insult to push him into action. “For the record, this is a terribleidea,” Rommath growls, throws up his hands… but still jogs quickly to the side, summoning his staff with a swift gesture.

Kael’thas grins, broad and predatory, finishing the construction of the magic circle with a flare of Felo’melorn. “Al’ar!”

The phoenix appears in a burst of light and sound as if dragging the flames from the design carved into fel cracked earth. He spirals in the air with a great screech and dives forward immediately, skimming protectively over the contingent of Horde soldiers between his master and the Legion forces beyond. The war horn sounding retreat fades beneath the call and from the fields a new rallying cry raises from sin’dorei soldiers.

The call to arms goes unanswered by Rommath, who instead mutters into his raised lapels and drags his staff along the dirt. He doesn’t look up to watch Kael’thas blink himself forward, into the air, and on to the back of the firebird. It’s too much to worry over his king now - not when he knows how ridiculous this plan is and how much of it now relies on his ability to reproduce an experimental summoning array he happened to see a few times over the past couple of weeks because Kael’thas refused to remove the failed experiment from his chambers.

“This is a terrible plan” He says again to no one, lifting a hand to cast runes into the dirt across the way. Then he turns again, sweeping his staff after to handle the stranger (read: completely made up) characters he knows he saw as part of the summoning circle even if he has no actual clue how they work or what they do.

That’s the problem, really. None of this is known magic. Well, the theory is sound, of course. Kael’thas isn’t stupid he’s just … a little too creative at times. So none of the circle has a spell that can carve it into the ground. Some of the runes? Sure. A circle or two, maybe, and the containment spell is standard enough that he’s able to wing it, because fuck you he’s Grand Magister for a reason and he’s not about to let Kael’thas steal all the acclaim for himself.

Of course, that means spending several minutes drawing a summoning circle into the ground on a battlefield that until just a moment ago they were barely holding. A battlefield they are still more likely to lose than not, in Rommath’s opinion.

“Not that it apparently matters for anything,” he grouses as he swipes through the last couple of runes.

“What doesn’t?”

The familiar snap of arcane magic is the only thing that keeps him from flinging a ball of fire directly into Khadgar’s face the moment he appears.

“What are you doing?”

Rommath covers his shot nerves by slamming his staff into the ground and releasing it when he’s sure it can stand on its own. “What does it look like?” He irritably tosses over a shoulder, and calls up a summoning spell for a couple of candles.

Khadgar looks about as mystified as Rommath wishes he felt, but steps quickly forward to see what he’s doing. “Something to do with the reason Allari decided rush the front lines, I assume?”

“Looks like,” Rommath offers in-between settling each candle into the soil around the circle.

A beat of silence.

“… And that would be…?” Khadgar eventually prompts with a brief sweep of his staff.

Rommath straightens from the last candle, one hand pressing into his lower back to push with the movement. “As far as I can tell? Some sort of combined summon and teleportation array.”

“… What?”

“Oh good, you finished.” Kael’thas seems ever so slightly out of breath as he lands, Al’ar banking around the gathered magi before streaking off to battle once more. It is, rather unfortunately, much closer to them than before Rommath began drawing in the Light-damned dirt as a method of fighting the hordes of demons barreling through thin ranks.

“I still think-”

“I don’t care,” Kael’thas declares with a wave of his hand, stepping purposefully around the circle in quick, critical appraisal. Rommath, rather than affronted, looks annoyed and steps back with a roll of his eyes. “Yes, this will do.”

“... And the plan?” Khadgar attempts again, gesturing with both arms towards the strange magic circle, collapsing front lines and the fanatical push of demon hunters just beyond.

“Retrieving the forward team and acquiring reinforcements.”

“What?” and “There aren’treinforcements!” fly out simultaneously.

“Rommath, cover the troops.”

The Grand Magister steps to the side with a gesture that clearly speaks of exasperation but nevertheless throws down a rune of power and partially turns to cast into the skies above them while keeping an eye trained on his king. He doesn’t say anything about the risk. He doesn’t argue. He merely glares and casts viciously under breath, pointedly not leaving Kael’s side.

The king smirks and turns to start pacing the circle in a sequence long since memorized. “Archmage, I am glad you could join us,” he begins, and Khadgar’s incredulous stare turns to him far more openly than Rommath’s. “If you could anchor a portal here while I work...”

“... To where?” The tone is beyond mystified, but the magus begins the long cast regardless. Backwards, mind you, because you’re supposed to start a portal with a destination in mind, but apparently that’s not allowed at the moment.

His question goes unanswered in favor of the incantation Kael begins. Wisps of purple and blue curl up around the archmage, drawing up crumbled pieces of rock with the collection of arcane power coalescing in his hands. He looks furtively to Kael’thas as the chant reaches a peak, eyes widening when a crack of arcane and fel snap together above the circle.

The blast of a siege canon careens towards them. Rommath explodes in flame. Fel and arcane rip through the air as a large, demonic form pops into existence amidst shadow and smoke above the summoning circle.

“Now!”

Khadgar understands. In a flash of insight, he throws the half-made portal spell into the vestiges of the summon, effectively wedging open the crack in space. It is, suffice to say, far more difficult than it looks, but he holds on. The summoned shadow spins towards the incoming ball of fel rock and takes off with a downbeat of demonic wings, colliding with shattering force.

Illidan lands roughly, splitting the ground beneath his hooves and Rommath redirects his pyroblast towards the falling debris: incinerating the rock into twinkling dust.

“Kael’thas.” The demon hunter straightens with a stretch of his wings, drawing up to his full height as he turns towards the sin’dorei king.

“How nice of you to join us,” Kael’thas somewhat breathlessly greets, signaling for the closest medic in spite of the man’s posturing. He’s seen enough of Illidan post battle to know the likelihood that at least some of the blood streaking over glowing fel runes belongs to the demon hunter himself.

“My team,” Illidan growls, eyes flaring with the words. They are more a threat than a question.

“Working on it,” Khadgar interrupts, voice strained as arcane energy pours into the small, spasming crack in the air. “If you would… be so kind… King Sunstrider?”

Kael’thas sweeps out from beneath Illidan’s loom to catch the edges of his spell. It jerks in his hold, arcing fel and arcane lightning into the ground, shimmering in the air, lancing through his veins, and lodging like a spike in his temple. He sets his jaw and digs deeper, expanding the spellwork with a flare of energy that sends flames licking up his form in sputtering response to his instinctive draw for stability against the fel in his grasp.

It’s enough.

Khadgar rips open the portal with a rough drop of his arms as if physically dragging the jagged pool of energy into existence, and stumbles thereafter on to the support of his staff when the updraft of arcane abruptly shuts off. There’s a near breathless pause as the portal hangs there, wavering and oddly vibrant until a night elf stumbles through, one hand clamped to a large gash in his side. He glances up, instinctively turning towards Illidan with barely any hesitation and swiftly tosses something back through. Immediately, the rest of the team follows, darting out of the portal in various states of burnt, slashed, and broken, but alive.

Kael draws a slow, steadying breath and allows himself a thin, satisfied smirk. Illidan, of course, has already scanned the surrounding battle and turns back, quickly taking stock of the regrouping strike force. It takes less than a minute for the dozen or so compatriots that followed him behind enemy lines to appear and moment they do, Kael’thas snuffs out the spell with a twist of his wrist. Nowhere left to go, Khadgar’s portal slams shut with a small shockwave of residual energy and the magi pause to collect themselves.

Illidan catches Kael’s eye and grins, for once deeply satisfied with his sudden displacement at the blood elf’s hands. It’s only a moment, however, and then he’s turning away and throwing himself into the air with a resounding cry of “Illidari - to me!”

Every member of his team down to the man with half his side missing raises their weapons and launches after him into battle.

A stone lands in Kael’thas’ hand and blinks in surprise, only then realizing the length of his stare after Illidan’s retreating form. It’s too much to ask of his magic abused body to produce much other than a curious shift in his gaze just then, however, so he gives the undead woman suddenly beside him a curious raise of his eyebrows.

She taps a bony digit against what is apparently a healthstone in his hand. “Better than a priest when you’ve got that much fel in your system.” A brief pause and the skin around her mouth shifts in what could possibly be a smirk. “Your Highness.”

He crushes the stone without hesitation, inhaling deeply as he draws the energy into himself. It sinks into his skin, rushes through his veins and settles like a strange, searing balm into overworked magic pathways.

“An… interesting method,” she muses as he straightens, waving off another medic that steps forward. The priest looks more irritated than anything, but only eyes the summoning circle in his hesitation before deciding to return to people more immediately in need of his talents. “I wasn’t aware-”

“Let’s keep it that way, shall we?” Kael’thas blandly interrupts.

The warlock barks a laugh - a strange, hacking sound the king is fairly certain no livingthing can actually produce. It soon subsides to less alarming chuckles and she withdraws a second stone from somewhere within her robes, pressing it into Kael’s hands as well. “Of course, of course. I haven’t been a mage in quite some years, but I seem to recall hackneyed portals taking a bit of effort.”

Kael’thas is… fairly certain she attempts to wink. It’s difficult to tell. She leaves before he can make anything of it, though, ambling towards the front lines on a broken gait. He sighs, represses the urge to rub at his eyes and tosses the stone to the Archmage on his right. Khadgar fumbles for the rock, but manages to catch it in the end. He seems a bit less convinced of its usefulness, however, and chooses to pocket it instead.

Rommath steps through the used array, dragging the tip of his staff flat over the dirt and off handedly scorches the earth after he’s passed through, just to be certain the circle is completely wiped from existence. He looks decidedly… less than impressed with the entire sequence of events.

“It worked,” Kael’thas preemptively defends the moment Rommath is within normal speaking range.

If anything, this only seems to rile the Grand Magister further. He steps in close and hisses, “Your grand solution was a booty call?”

Kael’thas blanches. “Rommath-!“

“Oh no, you don’t get to ‘Rommath!’ me after making me carve out a summoning spell -“

“Rommath-”

“… a fel summoning spell, mind you -“

“Grand Magister.” It’s enough to stem the tide of words, but only for a moment. “This is neither the time nor-”

“Apparently it is!” Rommath interjects with a broad gesture behind him to the burnt away circle, the armies, and well, everything. “Clearly I was too polite about the rumors-”

“Rommath,” Kael’thas sighs, quickly losing the thrill of impending victory his successful rescue-via-experimental-magic caused to a rapidly building headache.

“I memorized a booty call for you-“

“You did not.”

It’s the first thing that actually stops the irritable tirade for more than a breath at a time. Rommath pauses. Narrows his gaze as if trying to determine if his king really thinks he hasn’t had to misdirect attention from the presence of a very large, very demonic night elf leaving the man’s personal chambers at four in the morning on more than one occasion.

Kael’thas stares levelly back.

Rommath turns back towards the summoning circle he can’t see anymore. Then to the imposing figure cutting a swath through the demonic hordes. Then back to Kael’thas, eyebrows arching higher with each movement. The moment each piece slides into place is nearly visible on the small part of his face that shows above his collar.

It’s definitely the muffled laughter that makes it obvious that he’s sorted it out, however.

“… I’m going to kill demons now,” Kael’thas announces as regally as he can manage in the face of his best friend’s chortling and stalks towards the field of battle.

Rommath throws his head back and laughs into the fel-tainted air.

Chapter Text

Turalyon still isn’t sure what to make of him.

Kael’thas doesn’t worry over it as he’s much the same.

The long lost paladin turned Exarch is a little too stiff and a lot too fanatical for Kael’thas to wholly relax around him and Turalyon’s body language mirrors his own unease right back. It’s his eyes, of course. It’s always his eyes with humans who have ever seen a High Elf. That the man has been married to one for 1000 years certainly isn’t helping anything. Fortunately, staring at war maps and talking through troop movements doesn’t require eye contact, so the debriefing isn’t too terribly awkward.

Or long.

Which is also for the best. He’s spent far too many hours on the battlefield to give more than a passing damn who takes to it after him. Between a steady flow of healthstones, a few personally cauterized wounds, Illidan’s general fighting style, and he’s-forgotten-how-many-potions taken just to stay running, Kael’thas is just glad he hasn’t started openly shaking. Mana biscuits only get you so far and he needs something real in his stomach before he crashes.

Hopped up on adrenaline and at least five separate forms of magical and non-magical drugs is not a state of being he exactly planned on revisiting since finishing his last meaningful contribution to the library of Dalaran, but this past decade has been nothing if not unpredictable.

“ - love to see some of your notes on the matter, if you have the time?”

Kael’thas blinks. Khadgar looks expectantly back at him. When had the Archmage arrived? Not for the first time, Kael is immensely glad to know without having to look that his Grand Magister has trailed him all the way to - he glances up - Dalaran, it would appear. Damn. How long has he been functioning on autopilot? He doesn’t even remember leaving the Vindicaar.

Well, it’s not the first time he’s managed to hold a conversation when otherwise completely exhausted. Now what were they talking about? Something to do with the summoning array, more than likely. He had rather presumptuously dragged the man into that mess: it would be rude to turn him away.

“I am surprised you do not spend more time in the company of your returned friends.” It’s a neutral response and Kael’thas finds himself at turns pleasantly surprised and vaguely aghast that such courtly mannerisms have apparently embedded themselves so deeply in his psyche.

Khadgar’s smile is fond and quick - enough so that most probably won’t catch the slight tension that creeps in regardless. “We have already spoken, of course. I could not sit idly by knowing they were only a portal away for the first time in years.”

“Still,” Kael’thas presses, just a little further. He likes Khadgar, so he doesn’t say the rest. It’s difficult not to be fond of the man, especially if one is any sort of mage, but… well, he is still human, after all.

“I am sure there will be plenty of time for that once we’ve won this war,” the archmage answers, his expression tiring just the bit.

“Then let us retire for the evening.” Kael’thas nods towards a portal as he speaks, altering it with a brief gesture. He glances back only long enough to catch the look Rommath shoots him as he hastens join them, and steps through before a word can be spoken.

Lor’themar is waiting for them on the other side. The Regent Lord watches with the stolid disposition his position demands, but Kael knows him well enough to understand his presence alone is a show of concern. They are several hours late in returning from the field of battle, after all. Well, for the betterment of them all, he’ll -

The guards are moving.

Right.

He really needs to sleep.

“Hold,” Lor’themar orders, because he is probably the best decision Kael’thas made in his frantic scramble to keep his people together - somewhere near a decade now? Strange that what should be a blink in his life should feel so much longer.

“He is a guest,” he musters - loud, clear, and impressively regal in the face of the too familiar twilight that has settled into his very bones. Sleep and food, he thinks, turning immediately for the adjacent hall.

“Archmage,” Lor’themar greets with a nod to their guest as Rommath stumbles out of the portal a step behind.

“Regent Lord,” Khadgar returns, smile open but weary as he takes a moment to simply observe their surroundings. “It has been some time since I last laid eyes on these walls,” he murmurs, “Your rebuilding efforts are quite impressive.”

Kael’s lips quirk in spite of himself, prideful in his exhaustion. “Indeed. We have been the fortunate beneficiaries of a particularly talented Grand Magister.”

Rommath subtly snuffs out the glowing embers still burning at ragged ends of his King’s hair. Smoke quickly dissipates from the tips of his fingers.

Lor’themar clears his throat. “Our status?”

Kael’thas merely waves towards the portal yet remaining and returns to his self appointed task of getting to his chambers as quickly as possible. “Shall we, gentlemen?”

“Oh yes.” Khadgar perks up immediately, stepping quickly after. “Where did you say the summoning circle was?”

“My chambers. It’s been something of a… personal pursuit.”

“My King,” Lor’themar manages half a step after, refraining from sounding too desperate for the information he needs to perform his duties. “An update-” he cuts off when a hand lands on his shoulder and looks imploringly to the Grand Magister patting it. Of course all he gets is an amused, wired smirk from Rommath as he passes, jogging to catch up to their King, already halfway down the hall.

Khadgar, Light bless him, pauses in the midst of this, glancing after his host before looking back to the beleaguered Ranger Lord turned statesman. “We won the field-” A glance and a few quick steps back towards Kael’thas. “Used some experimental summoning magic - it was quite intriguing - “ The King turns a corner and Khadgar breaks into a light jog, calling out over his shoulder, “Speak with Turalyon!”

Lor’themar does not sigh, but it’s a near thing.

There is a part of the King’s chambers in Silvermoon that glints and glimmers with the relics of an ostentatious past seemingly untouched by the chaos and carnage of the past several years.

“I would ask that you excuse the mess,” Kael’thas announces as he sweeps through that section, moving instead towards a side room with light streaming through the doorway, “but I have seen Karazhan. You are welcome to whatever notes can be found, regardless. I am afraid I left in a bit of a rush.”

If Khadgar is insulted by the statement, he doesn’t show it, choosing instead to summon a mana biscuit as they walk. He nods politely to the guard holding the ornate door open for them. The elf inclines his head in acknowledgement and shoots his Grand Magister a concerned look the moment Khadgar passes. Rommath waves him off, keeping pace as if he is not just free of the fire that has left his robes singed and the field of battle that caused it.

“I don’t know how you can eat any more of those,” Kael comments with an eye to the mana biscuit Khadgar absently munches on. He pauses just outside the inner room to pick up his usual tray of meats, cheeses, and fruits left by a thoughtful staff long since terrified away from his experimental magics and leads them in.

Beyond the second set of doors lies a familiar disaster. A large set of windows takes up most of one wall, serving as the only blank space in the entire room. The rest is utterly covered in runes, books, scrolls, pillows, and various writing paraphernalia. A smattering of low tables and high pedestals scatter the room with open grimoires and half written notes around a hastily cleared area in the center, wherein an array has clearly been burnt into the floor. Half melted candles dot the magic circles, partially blackened and misshapen and without a doubt seared to the spot as permanently as the runes. Only a currently unused metal roost looks the least bit pristine where is stands by the windows.

“You are welcome to join me,” Kael’thas offers to both as he plucks a piece of fruit from the tray.

Khadgar blinks at the commentary more than room and steps forward with a shrug. “I suppose I’ve developed a taste for them,” he says of the biscuits. Not wanting to be rude, however, he selects a large berry from the tray, sets it between two halves of his conjured biscuit and takes a bite, looking quite pleased with the result.

“… It’s been too long since we’ve cleaned in here,” Rommath decides, chagrined on his King’s behalf. He toes a candle experimentally, finding it bafflingly stone like.

“We’ve been at war,” Kael’thas flatly reminds his friend. “This was supposed to be stress relief.” Once assured his stomach will handle the fruit well enough, he moves on to a small slice of lynx meat even as he dubiously eyes the mana biscuit sandwich. Perhaps the man had spent a bit too long in Outland after all.

“Stress relief… that didn’t get you laid,” Rommath dryly points out, his amusement obvious despite their company.

Khadgar finishes quickly and immediately summons more biscuits, oblivious to his host’s silent judgement. This time, one of the sauced pieces of meat is tucked between the conjured pastries and he brings it with him over to the array, beside which he sits cross-legged on the floor and begins inspecting the runes.

Kael’thas turns a non-plussed stare upon the magister. “Stress relief that will fundamentally change how summons are performed.”

Rommath arches an eyebrow. “I see. And how many others have been summoned besides Lord Illidan?”

It takes quite a bit of the sin’dorei king’s rapidly diminishing restraint not to glare like a petulant child. “As you saw, that is being adjusted.” He turns with a flick of his hair to a pitcher of sweet smelling wine on the tray and pours himself a drink.

Rommath steps closer to a point where they’re ostensibly having a private conversation, not that Khadgar is paying any attention. “So you created an experimental array that only summons Illidan, and - until this afternoon - only to your bedchambers and you mean to tell me nothing happened between the two of you?”

Kael’s restraint vanishes into a defensive glare. “No. I am telling you that I decided to try my hand at demon summoning and wisely decided it shouldn’t involve chopping up one’s soul and chucking it like fishing line into the Twisting Nether,” he hisses over the rim of his glass.

“Didn’t you say Illidan isn’t even a demon?”

“I also said we have been working on that aspect, I believe.”

“Have you been working on the celibacy too?”

“King Sunstrider, do you have some fel notes at hand?” Khadgar asks around a mouthful of his mana biscuit meat sandwich.

Kael’thas huffs and walks away rather than answer the Grand Magister. “Yes, it’s right over here,” he replies to Khadgar instead, calling a pile of half burnt papers and the grimoire they laid upon into the air with a gesture and then settling them on a nearby table. “Which part were you looking at?”

“My memory of the inner workings of fel magic is unfortunately rusty. I was hoping to see your notes on how you integrate it into the summon.”

“I am not sure your memory would help all that much, regardless. I have been informed - on multiple occasions - that I employ a rather different method than most use to manipulate the fel,” Kael’thas explains as he selects only the small pile of hastily scrawled notes and delivers them to the archmage. “Several layers of arcane are created to handle the fel rather than directly interface with it. From my research, it would seem most warlocks are in fact not that talented at such manipulations.”

“Which is fascinating, as some of them started out as mages, as it were,” Khadgar hums as he takes the notes, instantly lost to them.

Rommath leans subtly over the archmage’s shoulder, an eyebrow quirking a bit as he skims the notes. “That’s… a lot of arcane. You were desperate.”

“I was creative.”

“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” the Grand Magister notes with some obvious amusement. Something catches his eye, however, and his own curiosity overrides the need to pester his friend over his (lack of a) love life. “What is this rune, anyway? I was fairly sure you’d made it up,” he asks, pointing to something that looks like Kael quite simply smashed an arcane rune together with some fel symbol.

“I did.” Let the lord of the blood elves never be called humble. His weirdly overtired, magically wired state of existence smothers his simple affirmation with overt pride in a way the king would at least temper a bit otherwise. But in his personal chambers, discussing magical theory with two of the brightest magi in Azeroth? Not going to happen. Instead, he launches into an abridged explanation with the enthusiasm of newly confirmed magister defending their research.

“No one else has used this combination in so far as I have been able to find. Nor has Lord Illidan encountered it before. It’s a result of the energy weaving at the core of the spell. I needed a great deal of fel but also a great deal of shadow in the construction of the portion that connects directly to the Twisting Nether.

“Usually a simple Talar is fine to stabilize the more drastic fel runes like Dregla. However, finding something shadow based that was both powerful enough to contend with those runes and reacted well to them was not working. So rather than keep looking for things that didn't exist, I broke them down into their primary components, and found that those seem to mix far more easily.”

He steps closer again, gesturing to the runes in question. “So here, it actually breaches the space, and here it spans the distance. The shadow radical, then, is primarily used as a short cut through to the Twisting Nether. From my research it seems warlocks tend to cast a much wider net initially, but I did not think that would work so well when I was not providing bait to lure a demonic entity. Better to just reach through and snatch it up.”

“Fascinating,” Khadgar murmurs, glancing between the papers and the array itself. “I never thought to separate runes into smaller components. Is it possible to use them on their own?”

“Unfortunately, not that I have found. I had to combine them in order for the magic to respond to both,” Kael’thas sighs, sweeping his hair back from his face as he straightens from the notes Khadgar remains intently studying.

“… The magic you used to summon a half demon you’re not sleeping with-”

“Rommath.”

“- even though you clearly want to.”

“Rommath.” A slight twitch accompanies the lowly hissed reprimand.

“What?” The Grand Magister manages to sound confused in spite of the mirth clear in his gaze. It is sometimes frightening to remember how much time he actually spent among the court before there stopped being a court.

Kael’thas looks pointedly to the archmage who has apparently moved to squat by a separate set of runes, muttering under his breath as he traces them.

“Does it look like he cares?” Rommath answers with a broad gesture.

And well, no, obviously. He doubts very much that Khadgar ever would, but it’s the principle of the matter, really. Kael nearly says as much before Rommath suddenly steps forward, eyes narrowed at the center of the circle.

Where his circle of protection lies.

Where his circle of protection layers over his original array.

“You tried an experimental summon… of an unknown demon… without wards?”

“I had it under control.” It’s a bald faced lie, but it sounds regal enough in the split second it takes for the Grand Magister to level him with an unimpressed stare.

“And how many summons did you perform before you put those in?” He curtly demands with a wave to the hastily scrawled runes.

“Just the one-”

Rommath’s stare is withering. “You seriously didn’t remember to use protection until after you summoned something.”

“I was exhausted from spending five hours keeping Jaina and Sylvanus from killing each other!”

“So you thought you’d end it quickly, then,” Rommath deadpans.

Kael’thas raises a hand to his eyes in complete exasperation. So it hadn’t been the best idea, but he didn’t need his supposedly best friend to rub it in his face. The way the elf phrases it, it sounds like he was trying to get them all killed rather than relieve a bit of tension. Light, he’s tired.

“… Have some pity,” he mutters in Thalassian, exhausted.

“When you start having some sense.” The words are harsh, but the tone is more fondly exasperated by now, which is a balm in its own right.

“Have you considered a fire rune against the the fel radical here?” Khadgar suggests from the floor.

Lor’themar finds them several hours and one lord of the Illidari later in various states of passed out on the floor of his king’s bedchambers.

Khadgar, it seems, received a blanket at some point; Rommath is face down in some thick tome on a low table; Kael’thas dozes nearby, draped against the Grand Magister, and Illidan Stormrage greets him with an idle gesture, taking up most of the room from the center of it without looking up from perusing three scraps of notes at once.

He’s not paid enough for this, but there’s another summit in an hour and he dreads that more than whatever hellfire awaits his attempts to rouse his compatriots. At least he doesn’t have to track them down, he thinks with a sigh, straightens his shoulders, and strides forward.