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When the summons come, it is a surprise. Her people had long forgotten her, decided to erase her, or so she had thought. To receive word from Lor’Themar himself, who’d taken over from their errant prince, meant more to her than she could ever possibly say.
“You summoned me, my lord.” Cesaelia bows as expected when she meets him, a long-learned show of respect. He raises a hand to her, nodding and inclining his head in a return gesture. “What do you need of me?”
“Every year, we ask a champion of our people to perform an act of remembrance.” Cesaelia’s heart skips a beat as he motions, one of the attendants stepping forward with a lantern. She can feel the familiar energy of the light coming from it, a long-distant memory of power ripped from them. Her eyes dart from the lantern to Lor’themar. “This carries a flame born of the Sunwell. I would ask you to bring the lantern to locations important to the fall of the Sunwell and Quel’Thalas, and light the memories we cannot forget.”
“I would be honored, My Lord.”
Her breath releases when the magic touches her skin, the handle of the lantern smooth and warm in her hands. She fixes it to her belt with great care, the gentle warmth seeping through the leather of her armor and to her skin like an embrace.
“I will meet you in Tranquillen, and you will light the first memorial.”
The ride through Eversog into the Ghostlands takes time, even with the provided hawkstrider. Settled in the saddle, she takes in her homeland, a land she hasn’t seen since she left for Outland all those years ago. It had been in a state then, and seeing it now is no easier. Eversong has begun the cycle of regrowth, but the Dead Scar remains, a blight upon the land as Arthas had once been.
The lands closest to the first gate, now called the Ghostlands, have not fared as well. Trees creak and sway, an unearthly gray, dead color to the bark and the leaves, yet they still grow. The effect is eerie, almost itself a reminder. “We were once green” the trees seem to say. “We once had life like the ones you were just admiring.” Corruption has turned the land. Like it has turned many others. Shivering, she presses forward to the gate.
When she reaches the statue, Lor’themar has a story to tell, delivered as she lowers the lantern to the light. He tells of the beginning of the end, of his own tale of near death so common among their older warriors.
“Words cannot describe the invasion our people suffered that day. That any of us survived to tell the tale is a miracle. One that we cannot afford to waste.”
If she were more impulsive, she would tell him she knows, more than he could understand. But the memory of her elder brother’s face - as it was in life, warm and playful and protective - stops her words. She remembers the chaos, the way her parents and their youngest brother barely escaped. And she remembers the aftermath. Seeking out other survivors and begging, seeking any information she could find, until one of her brother’s company, one of few who made it off the battlefield with their life as a messenger, delivers the news. “Keleion has died. He fell to Arthas. To the Lich King.”
The memory of the battle, watching her people fall, almost brings her to tears, though she knows it is long past, and those who fell are long dead. Or long since raised, like her brother.
‘Is this what you saw, Kel? Is this where you fell? Did he raise you here, too?’
She regrets not asking him then, but she doesn’t think he would tell. She never told him her own story. Nor would she tell him the horrors her own personal nightmare brought on by the demon had her witness. She doesn’t need Lor’themar’s vision to show her brother’s fall. She’d seen it herself many a time.
Windrunner Spire does not ease her heart, her brother’s last words before he took off ringing in her ears.
“The Horde may be our people, but Sylvanas is not. Not anymore.”
“Kel…”
“Cesaelia, I have served under the Lich King once before, I won’t serve under the Lich Queen.”
She still can’t wrap her head around how far Sylvanas had fallen. The stories of the Ranger-General, the woman who saved so many of them, had given her all until the end, didn’t match the cold Warchief of the Horde. It didn’t match the attack on Teldrassil.
“I’ve had my fair share of disagreements with Sylvanas… But I will never forget her sacrifice. She was the Ranger-General of Silvermoon. Nothing will ever change that.”
Again, if she were more bold, more brash, she might comment on the look in Lor’themar’s eyes, the bittersweet and guilty tone she can detect in his words, tell him that she understands, once again. Her trust in the Warchief, the knowledge of what she once was and what she has become, the fear that drove her brother to take off after what happened to his comrade, weighs on her.
“I… I trust Baine. I trust Lor’themar. They are honorable leaders. I want to believe we can be more than monsters. But, Vrizza, what are we now under Sylvanas? I want to believe there is still good in her. She was one of us, once. She gave her life for my people. But….”
“Some people can’t be saved, y’know? Not even from themselves.”
She brushes her fingers along the ground where Sylvanas fell, even the light of the Sunwell too weak to ease the chill in her heart after the vision.
“She was a true Ranger-General until her last breath. May Silvermoon never forget her bravery in life.”
She remembers the story of the Sunwell more vividly, remembers the loss of power, remembers the Prince that led them to Outland. The Prince who sent her to Illidan, seeking new allies. As they tell of the fall, she waits. She waits for the history to go on, to tell of his betrayal, his Alliance with forces beyond their reckoning, his desire and thirst for power that brought down so many. But the story never comes. They tell of the Sunwell. They tell of the destruction, and then…
“And so ends the most tragic saga in our people’s history. Follow me, Cesaelia. It is time to return the lantern to Silvermoon.”
She knows Lady Liadrin’s story. She knows they went to Outland together. And she knows they have both seen and done things on Kael’thas’ behalf that belongs in their histories, should never be forgotten. And yet her kind, those who gave it all again, remain unmentioned. The man who went mad with power, deceived by the Deceiver, unmentioned.
‘They’ve forgotten you. They know your sacrifice, they know your struggle, and they’ve swept it under the rug. You mean nothing to them.’
The demon whispers in her head, a voice she’s long since ignored, sensing her every thought as always. He almost sounds right, she thinks sardonically. If he weren’t forgetting something important.
‘They have asked me here. That they call for me still, and they have allowed me to remember, that is enough.’
She pushes the demon back, ignoring the renewed whispers and attempted corruptions he offers. It is no different than usual, and she has long grown used to it. Glory was never her goal.
Their paths have differed from their people, both her and her brother’s, but they are not forgotten. They are not the living, but the dead. They are the fallen that are honored now. Her brother with the Lich King, and herself to the demon, the ceremony is for them. To honor them. To honor their sacrifice. Raising her eyes to the sun, she sends a prayer for her brother, honoring him as he would honor her, and prays for his safety. At her side, the lantern glows, the renewed hope of the Sunwell embracing her as readily as always.
“Always remember that our people are not defined by tragedy, but by our ability to overcome it. From the ashes of the past, we carry the flame of hope into the future.”