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Jaina looked around the room. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so many leaders of different factions in one area outside of a battlefield. Alliance and Horde leaders sat amongst each other, and the tone was jovial, if not a bit cautious. And, she supposed, there was good reason for that.
They had captured Sylvanas Windrunner.
Once Ranger-General and Warchief to the Horde, Sylvanas was now known throughout all factions as a tyrant and a traitor to all. Teldrassil was just the beginning. Jaina dug her nail absently into the wood grain of the table, listing off countless cities that had burned in the name of the Warchief.
And it just didn’t add up.
“This isn’t some torture tour,” Anduin said, his tone breaking her thoughts as he leaned towards Greymane.
“She’s responsible for thousands of deaths. It would do the people good to see her fallen, broken,” Greymane gruffed in response. Even Jaina couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at his saccharine smile.
“Death,” Anduin said with a shake of his head. “Quick and final. We can’t risk her getting away again.”
“Not even a little torture?” They all turned their heads to Greymane, who shrugged at the attention and dismissed them with a wave of his meaty palm.
Jaina turned her attention to Nathanos. He, too, picked at the wood grain of the table, forehead creased in harsh lines. He hadn’t spoken much since he and the rest of the Forsaken aligned against Sylvanas. Even now, contemplating her future, he seemed at a loss. Jaina studied him hard, as if willing him to glance her way. She supposed she was looking for a kindred spirit. Someone else who sensed that not all was as it seemed. For a moment, his glowing eyes met hers. An inclination of the head was all she received before he turned away again.
She remembered seeing Sylvanas in Lordaeron. Jaina had been the hero that day, ridding the area of the blight and breaking down the walls to reach their target. Jaina didn’t think she’d ever forget the way Sylvanas reclined in the throne as if she’d forged it herself. Legs angled, head resting on a propped fist, utterly unconcerned at the devastation she’d caused.
This time when they’d captured her, Jaina expected another trap. She kept her focus to their peripherals, looking for the glint of an arrow or the sound of an alarm as she led the charge against the few remaining who were loyal to Sylvanas.
Her troops were meager at best. Interesting still, they all accepted Jaina’s offers of surrender. Cut down easily, weapons cast aside, they no longer held the proud defiance of a Horde loyalist, but the fatigue of the Forsaken, broken shells of bodies that had, once again, their hopes seized from them.
All that remained was Sylvanas. She stood in front of them, arrow nocked but bow lowered, and watched as Jaina, Anduin, and Saurfang made their way towards her. Her armor was shredded in some places, dark marks creeping out from underneath as bruises coated her skin. Jaina imagined it was much more difficult to keep it in top condition when on the run and hated by all.
Sylvanas’ lip twitched up in an arrogant smirk as Jaina neared, casting a hand behind her to keep the rest of the party away. Anduin grabbed it, forced her to turn and face him.
“Jaina, it could be a trap,” he said, speaking to her while keeping his eyes firmly trained on the banshee.
“And if it is, I’m most equipped to deal with it,” Jaina answered, prying her arm loose. “Just let me try, Anduin.” She cast her hand at the blood-soaked soil around them. “She’s got nothing left.”
He swallowed once, then inclined his head, taking a step back and drawing his sword. Jaina turned and Sylvanas watched as she sheathed her staff behind her back.
“Sylvanas Windrunner,” she said as she reached the elf, “for crimes against both the Alliance and Horde, you are hereby sentenced to--
A deep chuckle stilled her words. Sylvanas’ eyes were half lidded as they regarded her, but it wasn’t enough to mask the interest that flickered in them. “Leading suits you, Lord Admiral,” she drawled in that strange half-voice of hers. “Perhaps if you’d led the group at Lordaeron, I’d have come more willingly.”
“Do you surrender?”
Sylvanas looked over the charred remains of the battlefield. Down by her foot, she kicked away a lost and bloodied pauldron. The rain had come and doused the fires, leaving a haze of smoke in the air and inches of mud beneath their feet.
“Petrichor,” Sylvanas said before she inhaled deeply.
“Pardon?”
Red eyes fell upon hers. “Petrichor,” she repeated, “the smell after a rain. It used to be my favorite.” She inhaled again as Jaina studied the dark tear marks beneath her eyes. The banshee appeared lost in thought, red eyes dimmed as they swept over her lost soldiers. Not many, mind. Most had already turned their backs on her. But enough to make Sylvanas pensive.
Jaina swallowed. She knew the way loss hit someone, bone deep and radiating into a hollow drum.
“Sylvanas, do you surrender?”
The eyes brightened somewhat and flicked back to her. “Surrender?”
Jaina gave a single nod. Sylvanas scoffed, leather creaking as her bow raised halfway. “You should kill me.”
Jaina could hear the sounds of her team readying to attack and cast a dismissive hand behind her. Sylvanas caught the action, mouth twitching once. One long leg stepped back and in a blink the tip of an arrow was pointed between Jaina’s eyes. Though obviously exhausted, Sylvanas’ bow never wavered as she held the string taut, brows furrowed at the Lord Admiral.
Again, Jaina waved down Anduin. He shouted at her, but she paid no mind, keeping her focus on her target. “Surrender, Sylvanas.”
“I never took you for a fool.”
“Nor I you.”
Sylvanas’ fingers tightened on the bow. Her lip curled up in a snarl, revealing the tip of a fang. Another quick flick, and the bow was at her side, arrow dropped to the ground and crunched beneath Sylvanas’ boot.
“Fool,” she said again. For a moment, Jaina braced for a trap. But none came. Instead, Sylvanas reached out and offered her bow to the Lord Admiral. Jaina kept her expression neutral as she took it. The bow that had claimed countless lives felt heavy in her hand, jagged edges pricking against her palm and a dark magic that seemed to want to war with her own.
Sylvanas said nothing as Jaina bound her hands together with strong magic. Nothing as Jaina’s hand swept along her thighs and found hidden blades. Nothing as she reached up and dropped the hood from her head, taking care to avoid the ears, and unclasped it from her pauldrons. She did not even spare a glance at a nearby orc when he made a comment so grisly to Sylvanas that Jaina had to turn away.
Now, Sylvanas was locked in a heavily warded cell while above her, Horde and Alliance debated her fate...peacefully. She should have been listening to these talks. She should have been thinking of the future. Of treaties and negotiations and reparations. Instead, she stared down at the floor, and replayed Sylvanas’ capture over and over in her mind.
The screeching of a chair pulled them all from their conversations. Jaina stood and met each of their eyes. “I’m going to speak with her.”
A chorus of no’s greeted her, but she was already halfway out the door, stopping when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Anduin let her go the moment she stilled, eyes filled with worry.
“Jaina--
“I know, you think it could be a trap.” She smiled, but he did not return it.
“What can you hope to gain from going down there?”
“Answers.”
His frown deepened. “You risk yourself, all of this,” he gestured back to the table, “for answers?”
“So much has been lost on rash decisions. I want to know the woman whose fate we decide.”
“She’s a tyrant, Jaina.”
“If we’d lost, we would have been labeled as tyrants and her as the hero.”
Anduin was still a boy, and it showed in his shocked expression. She capitalized on it and swept herself from the room. She didn’t have time to explain it to Anduin. He wouldn’t understand anyway. He was a good man, good king. But Jaina was a scholar at heart. And there were questions in that cell that begged answers.
Sylvanas was the only occupant of the many cells. Jaina could feel the thrum of magic as she neared, the power that both held and contained. She’d set most of the wards, and surveyed as she passed through. They had not been tampered with and she nodded to herself as she descended the stairs to the dungeon.
Trusting in Jaina’s wards, only two guards were stationed over Sylvanas with instructions to report anything out of the ordinary. Jaina touched them both on the shoulders as she entered, eyes focused on the cell in front of her. “Leave us.”
“Lord Admiral--
“I said leave us,” she finished without so much as a glance over her shoulder. She heard the sound of footsteps behind her and waited until she could hear them no more.
Sylvanas sat on the floor in the center cell across from the stairs, the stones around it glowing with wards. Jaina could only make out the red of her eyes from the shadows and with a lift of her hand, brightened the torches in the room. She was still bound, arms behind her back. As Jaina neared, she could see the addition of a cloth around her mouth. The elf’s ear twitched at her approach and Jaina watched as she rose from her knees without support from her hands. She simply eased back and rose onto her feet, meeting Jaina at the bars between them.
Jaina could see now that the cloth around her mouth was also enchanted. Someone else’s work. They must have feared her banshee wail. It was tight, pulled taut between the elf’s lips and stretching them wide. Jaina could not suppress a sigh. She lifted her hand and brought it between the bars. Sylvanas did not move, but her eyes watched her carefully as Jaina slid a single finger between the material and her cheek. It was softer than she expected, deathly cold. She hooked her finger around the cloth and pulled, bringing it out of Sylvanas’ mouth to hang around her neck.
Sylvanas gave a pleased hum, oblivious to the silly faces she made as she worked her mouth and lips to ease the strain. “Lord Admiral,” she cooed finally, tongue swiping along her lips. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Jaina made to speak but instead left her mouth hanging as she spotted a welt on the side of Sylvanas’ head. Her hair masked most of it, but she could see the drying remains of whatever Sylvanas had as blood, a healing gash, the swelling.
“What did you do?” she asked as she reached up to touch.
Sylvanas jerked away with a flip of her hair. “Me?”
Jaina’s eyes searched Sylvanas’ own. “Your guards are mere foot soldiers. Anything they do to you is because you have allowed it.”
Jaina thought for a moment that she saw surprise flicker in Sylvanas’ eyes. But it was washed away with a blink and a sneer.
“You think you know me so well, Proudmoore?”
“I know enough to know this is not what it seems.”
A dark chuckle poured from Sylvanas’ throat. “My, but aren’t you a refreshing taste of the Alliance. Someone who thinks beyond the tip of their sword.” Her eyebrows lifted, glancing over Jaina’s shoulder. “Or staff, in this case.”
“Why, Sylvanas?”
The elf merely blinked. The question had been asked of her so many times she no longer felt it real. A non-word spoken to ease the silence of the room. Jaina held her gaze. Her eyes stormed in fury and Sylvanas surveyed a pretty little wrinkle between her brow. So focused on the lines of Jaina’s face, she did not see the damned mage lift her hand again, until it brushed against the wound on her head.
Sylvanas’ ear twitched at the contact, face contracting for a moment as Jaina felt the swelling, eyes growing darker by the moment.
“Spare me your sympathy,” Sylvanas spoke finally. “It isn’t as if it hurts.” A lie, but what would the mage know, or care.
Jaina lowered her hand and surveyed Sylvanas’ lodgings. A bed roll on top of some hay and a bucket in the corner. “Have they fed you? Water?”
“I do not require it.” Not that they asked. Sylvanas couldn’t help but grin a little at that. The insipid guards thought themselves clever for taking lunch in front of her, throwing chicken bones into her cell and licking their fingers as if it had any effect.
Jaina huffed and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
Sylvanas took a step back, her own face now clouded in suspicion. Jaina nodded. “For all of our strides, we’re just as capable of cruelty as before. A part of me hoped it had dwindled.”
“And what strides are those?” the elf’s tone was mocking, but Jaina answered anyway, eyes lifting to the ceiling.
“Above us, Alliance and Horde are dining together, discussing trades and reparations.” Her eyes cut back to Sylvanas. “How best to deal with you.”
“If you didn’t want me tortured, perhaps you should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“If you wanted to die, why did you surrender?”
The elf took a step back, and then another, until she faded into the shadows at the corner of her room. Jaina heard the sounds of her sitting. She knew the conversation was meant to be over, but Jaina still hadn’t gotten what she came for.
Sylvanas lifted her head and watched the mage manipulate her hand. The suffocating magic around her started to ebb and flow like a strange pressure change. Her ears snapped back against her head in and and she allowed herself a grimace in the shadows. Were her hands not bound, she’d have clapped their palms over them. She’d thought Jaina above such measures as torture.
But before it could get any worse, it dissipated, the magic easing from the room like water down a drain. Sylvanas felt the great many weights surrounding her lifting, and though she didn’t need it, took a breath just to feel her lungs fully expand. The magic within these bars had never hurt her. But they were so powerful and so plenty and so different from her own that kept her alive, it felt like a foreign, stifling presence.
Then the door opened. Red eyes cut to the mage now stepping inside her cell. She shut it behind her, and even had the naivety to lock it. Sylvanas was no fool. Lord Admiral Proudmoore could obliterate her from this world with a flick of her wrist, and she was grateful for the shadows that hid her expression as she watched the mage walk closer.
She never thought she would see the former Warchief of the Horde so…pathetic. The woman in front of her was haggard, dirty, fractured if not completely broken. It was odd to see her in such a state. Especially after all that she had done. Perhaps if she tended to that hideous wound, it would be easier to see her as the terrifying equal that she was.
Jaina crouched down in front of Sylvanas, staff scraping across the stone floor. She pulled a rag from the small pouch around her waist, and after running her palm over it once, Sylvanas saw that it was now wet. She reached for Sylvanas’ head yet again. She jerked her head away with more force than necessary, hoping it sent the message.
“I said, spare me.”
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”
Sylvanas scoffed. “And here I thought you were above the cruelty of your companions.”
Jaina rolled her eyes and leaned forward again. Sylvanas thought to headbutt her, but the best she could do was a meager attempt to lean away. Jaina’s head came to rest on her shoulder. Sylvanas could smell the sea on her, and something sweet. The hair that tickled her cheek was soft and full of life. She was also unbelievably warm. The elf could feel the heat radiating from her, her frozen body trying to absorb it and shy away from it all at once.
It was only then that she felt her hands fall free behind her back. Jaina leaned back on her knees, the warded chains in her palm, and said nothing. Sylvanas brought her hands in front of her and scratched an itch on her neck that was going on three days. Then she began to rub her wrists, reveling in the mild pain that was soothing away.
Jaina did not see it coming. She could not anticipate the speed of the Warchief. Before the blink of an eye she was slammed against the wall, head knocking back against the stone. A cold, hard hand surrounded her neck and eyes burned red into her own.
“Fool,” Sylvanas repeated. “Do you think I would not hesitate to kill the Alliance’s most precious treasure?”
“You’re hesitating now.”
The hand tightened. Jaina felt her body’s warning signals and pushed them to the back of her mind. She reached up and took a hold of Sylvanas’ wrist, thumb stroking along where a pulse used to be. Not attuned to magic, Sylvanas wouldn’t be able to sense the magic gathering in her grip, ready to snap-freeze her the moment she tried anything.
Sylvanas slunk back to her corner, arms crossed. “Leave me, Lord Admiral.”
Jaina was still on one knee, catching her breath and rubbing at her neck. Still, she shook her head. She was powerful, yes. But Sylvanas had the jump on her. She could have ripped her throat out before Jaina even realized she’d moved.
“You’ve always done terrible things, Sylvanas,” she started, voice huskier than normal. “But never without reason.” She cast her hand around the room. “I want the reasons for this.”
Sylvanas shrugged. “Maybe I got tired of fighting and just wanted to watch the world burn. Maybe I was so consumed with power that I thought myself invincible. Maybe, I just enjoy a good bloodshed. It matters not, Lord Admiral. You have won. Go and gloat with the others and leave me be.”
“If those reasons were true, I’d be dead. You wouldn’t have allowed your last few faithful to surrender. You would have ripped those guards to shreds when they hurt you. You…”
Jaina drifted, the pieces finally connecting in her mind. Her mouth fell open, but all she could see of Sylvanas was the glow of her eyes. “Sylvanas...no.”
“Leave me be.” Repeated softer than Jaina ever thought the warchief capable.
But Jaina was nothing if not stubborn. She took a few steps forward and Sylvanas threw her eyes to the side. She did not like the emotion that stirred behind the Lord Admiral’s gaze.
“You became the common enemy. To unite us. All those people, those crimes. They were to bring about peace.”
Sylvanas said nothing, but it was more than enough of an answer. Jaina felt torn in a thousand different directions, her morals and ethics and heart and mind all battling against each other to try and sort out what she’d just learned.
“I have to tell-
“No,” Sylvanas leapt at her again, this time palm clamping over her mouth. She could see Sylvanas trembling, lips snarled in rage as she spoke. “No one can know. It will ruin everything. Everything I have done will be for naught. All those that perished will be well and truly in vain.” She lowered her hand from Jaina’s mouth. “It’s why you must kill me. End it once and for all and fight to maintain peace.”
Jaina thought back to all that Sylvanas had done, all the innocent lives lost. “There were other ways, Sylvanas.”
“You have the luxury of saying that now. It was the only way.”
“All those people.”
“I know what I did. I accept that.”
“I don’t.”
Sylvanas shrugged. Jaina glared.
“If you wanted peace you could have brokered it! Not slaughtered your way to it.”
“My, for someone so intelligent you are naive. Your foolish king only offered peace when it suited him. When we were beaten and starving and willing to accept any meager scraps he offered. That, Lord Admiral, is tyranny.” Sylvanas threw her eyes to the ceiling. “I lost the Alliance’s trust long ago. Any peace I tried to make would have been met with distrust. Inevitably, someone would try to break it, and we would be at war again.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You forget how long I’ve been on this earth. How many times I have witnessed this.” She flung her hand towards Jaina. “How many times some idealistic, young human comes in speaking of peace and happiness and forgiveness. The cycle had to be broken. Something had to give. And it was me.”
“You could have come to me.”
Their eyes met again. Sylvanas studied Jaina for what seemed like a long time. In the darkness, Jaina could not make out her expression softening, or the lingering looks she gave certain parts of her features. “In another life,” she started, only to have it drift away. When she spoke again, her voice had hardened.
“I’ve not known you without your boy king and his loyal mutt. As I said before, were you to lead instead of them, perhaps things would have been different. But that is neither here nor there.”
Jaina could not calm the storm inside of her. She could not swallow the nausea at her throat. Sylvanas had done terrible, terrible things. But Jaina knew what it was like to feel such fury, to want so desperately to win and be done with it. She’d nearly destroyed Orgimmar on the same principles. She knew what it was like to hate so deeply and darkly that no light could shine through.
“I’m sorry.”
Sylvanas’s ears twitched, betraying her confusion, and Jaina continued. “I was thinking about what you’d been through. Arthas, the Forsaken, all that you’ve lost and all that’s been taken from you. And still, you choose to carry this burden for peace. I’m...I’m sorry.”
Were she not undead, Sylvanas might have crumpled at the words. Few had ever said such words to her after her transformation. She felt like a child, wanting to weep over a small amount of validation. And she would not be swayed by it. The elf clenched her fists and shook her head.
“I do not need your pity.”
“It is not pity.”
“You should have killed me when you had the chance.” Sylvanas turned her back to the mage, studying the bland stone walls and hoping for a knife to pierce her skin.
Jaina gazed at Sylvanas Windrunner in her tattered rags and bruises, hair knotted and dirty. For all of her many faults, she was a good leader, a good person. And this is what the war had turned her into. A broken half-life that now had no home to call her own. Perhaps if Jaina had more initiative, things would have been different. Perhaps they could have brokered peace together. Perhaps Sylvanas would be sitting upstairs at the table with them, rather than in a cell.
“In another life,” Jaina repeated quietly.
This time, it was Sylvanas who was unprepared. She did not expect the Lord Admiral to lurch forward and wrap her arms around her. She stiffened, waited for the pain that surely accompanied death. After a moment, she realized it was a hug. No one had dared be so brazen with her when she was Ranger General, and definitely not when she was Warchief. She smelled the sea again and felt that warmth and found herself immobile. The fight had left her long ago, when she’d made her decision on the fate of this war. Alone in this cell, she didn’t need to be cocksure or tough. Alone in this cell with someone’s arms around her, Sylvanas allowed herself to be broken.