Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything Halduron Brightwing owned was paid for by the state. His armor, his bow, the apartment in the city he rarely used, and even Dal’diel, all bought and upkept by the gold allotted to the Farstriders. Halduron didn’t spend much of his own money, not really. He’d paid for a monument to the Farstriders who’d died defending Thalassian Pass, and emptied his coin purse at every tavern and brothel he came across, but he truly bought very little for himself. The Farstriders paid for his food, if he didn’t collect it himself from the land, and Dal’diel’s too, and the only licenses held by any Brightwing belonged to his father, who ran a carpentry business in Fairbreeze. 

Halduron did own one thing, however. Paid for with his own coin, and bearing his own name. When Lor’themar had announced his plans for resettling Windrunner Village, now cleared of gargoyles and undead, the public records office had received hundreds of applications. Property was scarce ﹣ it still wasn’t safe to spread out farther than what had been reclaimed by the blood knights and the Farstriders, and everything was concentrated around the old downtown. Even Windrunner Spire, set away from it all atop a hill, was still too haunted to occupy. Halduron had not paid much mind to the news. Let the southerners move back home, he thought, and the rich men and the venture capitalists. 

After his return from Highmountain, the public records office received a request: A permit for a small cabin, just on the outskirts of the village by the bay, signed by one Halduron Brightwing. 

He hadn’t invoked his title. The little cabin was not a Farstrider haven, was not tied to the Farstriders at all. Halduron paid for its construction from his own pocket, and a covered shed to serve as a stable, with orders that all of it face the beach.

A long time ago, he had promised Velonara a home in the south on the bay.

He wasn’t there often. When he was in the area, Halduron would take the long way round, away from the town and through the dunes, untack Dal’diel and let him pick through the scrub, and more often than not leave after only a few hours. He didn’t often stay the night, and most of the new Windrunner villagers didn’t even know anyone owned the little cabin on the beach. 

But sometimes. Sometimes he would check the stable and hear the soft snorting of an undead horse, catch sight of the long, dark blanket draped over its back. He would rub the horse’s jaw, where the scents of bone and decay were strongest, and talk quietly to the beast, before returning to Dal’diel, who would attack the poor thing if he was not introduced properly. Dal would nip at his fingers and chitter, and when Halduron was satisfied he would bring the bird into the stable and untack him, removing the grain from his saddlebags and emptying it into the little trough standing to one side. Dal was calmer when he was fed, and Halduron would place himself between hawkstrider and horse until he’d eaten, until Dal’diel made his cautious way over and started sniffing for treats. The bird knew, if he played nice with the unsettling animal one stall over, that Halduron would reward him with jerky. 

(The first time he’d tried this had taken a lot of jerky.)

Halduron couldn’t blame his bird. After all, he’d spent ten years on Dal’s back hunting the Scourge infestation, and old habits die hard. But luckily, not many of those Scourge had ridden horses, and the ones who did hadn’t stuck around. Even at his most skittish, it took no longer than an hour to get Dal’diel settled for the night. 

“Good boy,” he soothed, rubbing his hand along Dal’s glossy feathers. He slipped him another bit of jerky, snuck a piece to the undead horse at his back. Velonara had told him the beast didn’t need to eat, but most of them still retained the habit of grazing at patches of grass and trying to take your arm off for a bite of sunfruit. They also liked jerky, to Dal’diel’s chagrin. 

“Be nice,” he warned the two animals. Skeletal horses were war horses, and often with the tempers to match, and Dal himself had always been a bit of an ornery bastard. The bird just blinked its luminous orange eyes at him, while the charger, Finel’dorah, stared at him with no eyes at all. 

At least if they fought, they would make plenty of noise and alert him in the house. 

He washed his hands with the skin of fresh water in Dal’s saddlebag and then took a swig. Wine kept better, for long trips, and didn’t quite take on the taste of leather from the skin, but he’d been trying to cut back, and besides, the village was only a ten minute walk away if he ran out. 

(That was weird, there being an inhabited village in the south again.)

And then Halduron left, trudged his way up through the sand and let himself into the little house. He’d left it locked, the last time he’d been here, and it wasn’t now but that didn’t worry him. 

It was warm inside. A fire had been lit in the hearth ﹣ more for his sake, to ward off the chill riding in off the bay ﹣ and a kettle had been shoved in it. It wasn’t screaming yet; it probably hadn’t been there long. The cabin boasted two windows, one at the front the better to see the stable, and the other at the back facing the village. It held a bed, which had been made up with blankets pulled from the chest at one end, and a table with two chairs. There was no larder; he didn’t keep food there. It would only spoil, since he wasn’t often home, or encourage animals or murlocs to break in. A pack had been discarded on the floor, made of dark, quality leather, and a wet rag hung near the fire. His table had been scrubbed of dust, and a long black cloak was folded over the back of one chair. And in that chair…

“Hey Vel.” 

His voice had gone soft, different from the way he’d spoken to the animals a moment ago. A sappy, ridiculous smile spread over his face. Velonara turned, and she was smiling too. 

“Halduron…”

Halduron wouldn’t say he was in a typical relationship. He wouldn’t say he was in a relationship at all, to most people. But Lor’themar knew, as did Liadrin, and whatever their feelings on Velonara’s undeath, they were happy that he was happy. Finally happy. Not seeing his fiancée for ten years had driven him to a dark place, and he’d been miserable and drunk for most of it. He’d been angry a lot of the time ﹣ maybe especially at Lor’themar. Lor’themar had emerged from the elven genocide having lost only an eye, his love unscathed, and now he had a beautiful, talented daughter with cornsilk hair and vibrant green eyes. He had never even wanted a family, not like Halduron had, and while he loved his best friend and his precocious little girl, the constant, daily reminder that Lor’themar had kept what Halduron had lost tore him up inside. 

He’d yelled at Lor a lot, over the years. It wasn’t Lor’themar’s fault, really, but… he was angry anyway. 

Rommath knew, but Halduron was sure the man spent most of his time avoiding the thought. The man had his own demons, and he’d confided in Halduron a number of times. Halduron wasn’t really sure what he was doing ﹣ dancing around the Warden of the Sunwell, moping in his office, or screaming at him to stop seducing his mages. Rommath didn’t pay much attention to him if he didn’t have to, and his only concern was the divulgence of state secrets. 

As if Halduron paid attention to those.

And the brothels knew, but Halduron hadn’t exactly told them. He’d just… stopped going, when he returned from Highmountain, and found himself accosted from all sides with worries that they’d offended him, that their girls weren’t satisfactory, that they charged too much. Halduron didn’t know how to explain his absence to the madams and so, like the other difficult things in his life, he ignored them.

His coin purse thanked him for it. 

Halduron had meant what he’d said in Highmountain, in the mountain twilight and with his heart pounding. He didn’t care what their relationship had to be, or what it couldn’t be. He didn’t care what had to change. All he wanted, all he’d ever wanted, was Velonara, exactly how she was. What that was now.

It was awkward. He’d heard stories of people who’d reunited with undead loved ones. Elves, especially, had a difficult time. Elves were taught to revere life, and while Velonara wasn’t quite dead, she also wasn’t exactly alive. Many elves could only see the changes in their loved ones, could only see the decayed flesh and slack-jawed expressions, could not understand that beneath the undeath was still the same person they had loved in life. It was easier, for all parties involved, for the Forsaken to sequester themselves to the Undercity, the only place they were truly, universally accepted. It was something Sylvanas encouraged.

He supposed he ought to be thankful that Velonara had been a Farstrider. The dead Farstriders had been resurrected as dark rangers, and Sylvanas’s powerful command of dark magicks kept them more whole than most. 

Were it not for their eyes, and the pallor of their skin, it would be difficult to tell a dark ranger from a living one at all. 

Velonara had been reluctant. She had watched firsthand as her friends’ living relatives reacted with fear and repulsion to the rangers’ undeath. She had seen them thrown out of homes and chased away, and had sat with more than one of them as they sobbed, hearts breaking all over again. She hadn’t even returned to her own parents, in the ten years since she’d died. 

And she had every right to worry, in Halduron’s opinion. Hadn’t he pushed her away ten years ago? Hadn’t his own skin prickled in revulsion when he’d first held her in his arms, the day she’d come back to him? Hadn’t he recoiled in horror at the unnaturalness of her? He’d never known any unliving person before the Scourge, and they hadn’t exactly endeared him to the idea. 

Ten years of working with the Forsaken ﹣ even as little as he’d allowed himself ﹣ had opened his mind. He still loved Velonara, deeply, achingly so, and seeing the Forsaken, not as the mindless Scourge but as real people, attempting to live as normally as possible after such an abnormal event… They weren’t the monsters who haunted his nightmares. Most of them were just… people.

It wasn’t until Highmountain that he’d worked up the nerve to see her. He’d gone, however reluctantly, sure that Sylvanas would send her own dark rangers. And she had, and she’d sent Velonara. He couldn’t walk the lodge without running into her, and he couldn’t hide out in the woods until Lor called him home. He’d been forced to confront her, and his own fears, and been relieved to learn that she was still just Velonara. A little angrier, a little like when they’d first met, but still completely, undeniably the same woman he’d fallen in love with. The same woman he was still in love with. 

He would, until the end of time, whatever it took to make her feel safe again. To apologize for his stupid, horrible reaction in the aftermath of the Scourge. To never give her cause to doubt him, and how he loved her, ever again. 

* * *

Something was different. Finel’dorah had been stabled but hastily, still wearing its tack. The beast whickered noisily at him, an anxious sort of noise, and Halduron did not pet him, or attempt to place Dal’diel in the adjacent stall. He looped Dal’s reins around the hitching post outside, and hurried through the sand. His door was open as he expected, and he’d hardly set foot inside before he was attacked, Velonara barreling into him so hard he nearly lost balance and fell. 

“Vel,” he started, biting back a laugh. “I missed you too, but﹣”

“Sylvanas!” Velonara gasped.

If the look on her face were any less wild, he would have cracked a joke. No, I’m Halduron. But her expression unnerved him, and his arms went around her immediately. 

“Darkshore!” She was taking in great gulps of air, as if that would lessen the rush of words, tripping over themselves in their haste to leave her lips. “Halduron, Sylvanas ﹣ in Darkshore ﹣ she really ﹣”

“Shhh,” he soothed. With difficulty he managed to maneuver them inside, shut the heavy door with his foot. “Little lynx,” he said calmly, trying to hide his rising unease. “What about Darkshore and Sylvanas?” 

He knew that Velonara had been in Darkshore, had been called there with Saurfang to wage war with the kaldorei. He had his own opinions of the battle ﹣ he had never approved of the orcs invading Ashenvale, stripping the forests of their trees and butchering the wildlife, and he didn’t approve of them doing it in Darkshore either ﹣ but no one had asked for his opinions and it wasn’t his place to give them. Frankly, as long as it didn’t involve Quel’Thalas, he didn’t really care. 

He stroked her arms, chilled from the ocean spray. She must have just arrived. Velonara batted him away impatiently, trying to calm herself enough to speak.

“Sylvanas,” she said again, and her voice shook. “She ﹣ she and Nathanos﹣”

Again, here he would have made a joke, if she hadn’t been so panicked. We’ve known about her and Nathanos for years, little lynx. The whole reason he joined the Farstriders is because they were fucking, remember?

“They burned the tree.” 

The words didn’t register immediately. Darkshore had a lot of trees. “What do you﹣”

“Teldrassil,” Velonara cut him off. “They ﹣ they burned Teldrassil.”

And Halduron’s blood ran cold. 

Quel’Thalas had once had a great tree. Thas’alah had stood for millennia until it had been burned by Dar’Khan Drathir during the Scourge. Every elf alive had felt its death, had felt the horrible, clawing ache when the tree’s lifeforce left their souls. When Drathir had burned the tree to construct Deatholme, Sylvanas demanded his head. The news of the burning, the pain and panic they’d felt inside, had rung out to horrified silence amongst the elven population, had left them vulnerable to the Sunwell’s corruption. To destroy such a sacred thing...

Teldrassil was not just a tree. Teldrassil was a world tree, like Thas’alah, an ancient and powerful thing connected to the Emerald Dream. It was the source of the kaldorei’s power and immortality, their home for thousands of years since the time of the Sundering. 

And Sylvanas had burned it. 

Halduron felt like he was going to be sick. And then he was sick, shoving Velonara away to retch violently, heaving up his midday meal and all the water he’d drunk on the way here. 

Velonara did not react to it. Her own horror had overridden whatever sympathy she had. “Sylvanas, she’s… she’s not… she’s not an elf ﹣ she’s not a person anymore.” Her chest rose and fell rapidly, drawing in air as though it would steady her, but her voice still shook. “I don’t… I don’t know who she is anymore…”

“Lor’themar,” Halduron coughed, when his stomach finally stopped churning. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “You have to tell Lor’themar.” 

“I can’t ﹣ Halduron, if anyone sees me in Silvermoon﹣”

“I’ll bring him here.” He peered up at her, brows pulled together and mouth hard. “I’ll… I’ll bring him to you. He has to hear it from you. From a dark ranger.” 

Velonara’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “How… how soon will he be here?” She was uneasy suddenly, not panicked as she’d been a moment ago, and Halduron realized that Velonara didn’t have leave to be here. She was supposed to be in Darkshore. 

She’d probably traveled here at great personal risk. Sylvanas would have wanted all her rangers with her in Darkshore. 

If Sylvanas could burn a world tree, what would she do if she found out Velonara had fled?

“Not soon enough,” he said regrettably. “But I’ll get him here as fast as I can.”

Chapter Text

“She did what?!”

Aside from that single outburst, it was quiet in the little cabin. Lor’themar was staring in objectified horror, his eye wide and showing white at the edges. He was quite rigid in his seat, and very pale. 

Rommath had not sat. Had listened in shock as Velonara recalled the alarming events of Darkshore. He seemed rooted to the floor, fists balled and shaking at his sides. 

“She couldn’t,” Lor’themar protested weakly. “Sylvanas… she would never﹣”

“I was there , Lor’themar,” Velonara cut in. She had calmed some since her initial outburst, but upon the retelling, her voice had taken on a shaky quality. “I saw it. Sylvanas gave the order. She burned the tree.” 

“I just… I can’t believe﹣”

“Oh, come off it, Lor’themar!” And suddenly Rommath exploded with unbridled fury, fire licking at his clenched fists. Halduron had never seen the man so angry. “How long are you going to give that woman the benefit of the doubt?! She’s proven, time and time again, that she’s lost her humanity!”

“Rommath!” Lor’themar shot up as though burned. The horror on his face bled into anger. “How dare﹣!”

“Sylvanas Windrunner died to the Scourge!” Rommath shouted. “She hasn’t been your commander in over ten years, and you still act as if she is! How long are you going to remain under her heel?”

There was a scuffle. Lor’themar seized Rommath by the front of his robes, his features hard, and Rommath was smoldering, looking for all the world like he would punch the ranger in the face. 

“You are the regent lord, not Sylvanas! It’s time to make your own decisions, Lor’themar, or you’ll be burning world trees and committing genocide with her!” Rommath was furious, red-faced and spitting flame. “I will not stand by as you walk this path and destroy what’s left of Quel’Thalas!”

There was a tense moment, and Halduron was on his feet and ready to pull the two men apart when Lor’themar released the mage, yanking off his smoldering glove and throwing it to the floor. He stomped on it with finality. 

“You’re right,” he murmured, as if to himself. “You’re… you’re right.” 

Sylvanas had been the Ranger General for nearly a thousand years before she'd been murdered by Arthas Menethil. She’d been beloved by them all, and Halduron understood why Lor’themar reacted as he had. He would have swung at Rommath himself, if not for Velonara’s hand on his arm. A sickening reminder that Sylvanas had doomed thousands of innocents to die. The insult to his former commander stung, but the image of Teldrassil ﹣ the tree she had burned…

He thought he was going to be sick again. 

It took Rommath several minutes to calm himself, and he was still smoldering when he spoke again. “What are you going to do, Regent Lord?”

Lor’themar sunk back into the chair, all the fight drained out of him. “I can’t… Quel’Thalas will not back this,” he muttered. He looked right at Velonara as he said, “This is a war crime. This is the same sort of atrocity that caused the rebellion against Garrosh. We will not support it.” 

“We cannot stand against her,” Halduron said grimly. “Quel’Thalas would burn.”

“Could we seek protection from Stormwind?” Rommath questioned. Under Garrosh, Lor’themar had engaged in secret talks with Varian Wrynn, offering Horde intelligence in exchange for safety. They had very nearly been welcomed back into the Alliance, until Garrosh used the Sunreavers to destroy Theramore. 

“Garrosh ruined any chance of that.” Lor’themar pulled off his remaining glove, set it on the table. “They’ll never trust us again.”

“Saurfang refused her,” Velonara said quietly. “She ordered him to kill Malfurion, and he would not. He tried to stop the catapults.”

“He’ll pay dearly.” Lor’themar scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sylvanas will see that as treason.”

“She wouldn’t dare murder the High Overlord.”

“She burned a world tree. There is very little she would not do now.”

“Stay.” 

Lor’themar and Rommath had left, and only the lingering scorch marks from the Grand Magister’s shoes indicated they had ever been there at all. Halduron’s hand grasped Velonara’s, warmed by the roaring fire in the hearth. 

Velonara remained standing. “I have to go.”

“Stay,” Halduron insisted. “You can’t return to Sylvanas. What if she finds out you fled?”

She wouldn’t look at him. “I can’t be the only one horrified by what happened.” She didn’t sound terribly certain. 

“But you’re the only one who left. What’s the harm in letting her think you died in Darkshore?” But he knew as he said it that Velonara would not do that. She was not that kind of person.

“Halduron…” She looked pained. “I have to go back. I can’t just…”

But Halduron stood, pulled her to him. Buried his face in her hair. “I only just got you back,” he breathed, chest tight. “She’ll kill you.”

Velonara relaxed into him. She couldn’t help it; Halduron had always had that effect on her. “Then I’ll just have to be very careful,” she murmured. “I can’t sit here and do nothing, Halduron. I have to… I have to keep acting like I’m behind her.”

He sighed, tightened his arms around her. Rommath was right ﹣ no one would suspect a dark ranger spy. Velonara was high-ranking and powerful within Sylvanas’s forces, and she’d already proven she could slip away to the Ghostlands without notice. She’d never been given leave for her sporadic beach getaways, after all. 

“I’ll check in as often as I can,” she promised, and made to pull away.

“Stay just a little longer.” 

It was the plea in his voice that broke her. This was why Sylvanas discouraged fraternization with their old lives, with the living. Emotions were difficult for the Forsaken, and without emotions there was no empathy. Most Forsaken cared only for themselves, their fanatical devotion to the Banshee Queen a remnant of the magicks that had freed them. But Halduron… the little gifts he’d sent over the years, the memory of him and their time together… Halduron had helped Velonara keep her humanity. He was the only reason she still felt at all. 

“Just a little longer,” she repeated, pressing her face into his shirt. 

* * *

The Alliance declared war. With the burning of Teldrassil, the ceasefire they’d agreed to under threat of the Legion broke. Because it was Sylvanas who led the attack, the Alliance marched on Lordaeron. 

If Halduron held any doubts at all, they'd been smothered with their troops in clouds of green, noxious gas. 

“She blighted the battlefield! Our own soldiers!”

Saurfang was gone. Halduron didn’t think Lor’themar had managed to reach out to him before he’d been captured and taken to Stormwind in chains. Their only remaining ally was Baine, and his vehement protests during the battle had him under watch. Baine, it seemed, agreed with Saurfang that Sylvanas had gone too far in burning Teldrassil. 

Of course a tauren wouldn’t stand for the desecration of a world tree. And now Lordaeron had fallen prey to Sylvanas’s machinations. How soon until the blight reached Quel’Thalas?

“What do your sources say?” 

Rommath scowled. “Baine is impossible to get near, and Orgrimmar is in chaos with the Forsaken exodus. The orcs may believe in honor, but they also believe in the Warchief. The protests are minimal, and the ones that happen are quickly shut down.”

Just like under Garrosh. How long until Sylvanas put the city under martial law?

Lor’themar turned to Halduron. “Have you heard from Velonara?”

His gut twisted. “No.” He’d heard nothing since the day she’d left, and that was several weeks ago. He didn’t even know if she’d survived the battle. 

His one comfort was that, if Sylvanas had found out that Velonara had fled Darkshore, she would have been publicly executed for treason. Sylvanas had not done that, but after witnessing the carnage at the battlefield, Halduron’s hopes were in tatters.

Lor’themar pulled a sympathetic face. “I’m sure she’s okay.”

Halduron nodded, and tried to believe it. 

Windrunner Village was quiet. This early in the morning, the only sounds were the crashing waves along the shore and the faint gurgling of murlocs. As usual, he took Dal’diel the long way round, through the scrub on the beaches, though no one in the village was awake for him to have bothered. A Farstrider patrolled on the far side ﹣ Lor’themar had ordered the thinning of several units and convoys to aid in Lordaeron, but he’d refused to compromise the precarious safety of the newly resettled village ﹣ but Halduron himself had set that patrol, and the ranger was easily avoided. 

As he approached the little shed that served for a stable, his sensitive ears picked up the soft sounds of hooves scuffling in the sand, and he felt his blood quicken in his veins. He vaulted off his hawkstrider, ignoring Dal’s squawk of protest, and wrenched the door open. In the darkness of the coming dawn, he could just make out the black form ﹣ the tall, skinny horns and the bony nose. He heard the swishing of the beast’s tail, and upon being confronted by the faint trickle of moonlight, the creature’s head swung round, its eyeless face staring curiously. 

Finel’dorah. 

Velonara.

He didn’t think. He didn’t stop to bed his hawkstrider down, to rub his palm over Finel’dorah’s bony face or even close the door. He sidestepped the bird, who squawked again, and ran, the sand sucking at his boots. He tripped and smacked heavily against the sturdy cabin door, the sound reverberating in his skull, but it was locked. Cursing, he jammed the key in with too much force ﹣ it would have to be recut, the neck bending towards the wood ﹣ and kicked it open.

The arrow nearly put out his eye. 

“Fuck!” Halduron ducked just in time, and the arrow embedded itself harmlessly in the doorjam.

“Halduron?!”

“Shit, Vel!”

Velonara lowered her bow. “Why the fuck are you﹣”

“I thought you were dead!” The words were too loud to his ears, and he didn’t bother pulling shut the door before he was scrambling to her, boots thudding on the floorboards, knocking aside the weapon and pulling her tense body to his. “I thought you were fucking dead!”

“Why would you﹣”

“I don’t know!” His breathing came in frenzied gasps as he crushed her to him. Hyperventilating. “No one’s seen ﹣ no one’s heard ﹣ and it’s not like I can just ask ﹣”

Velonara’s arms were around him, stiff and cold from the night air. She hadn’t lit a fire, clearly not wanting the smoke to be seen by the Farstrider patrol. “I’m fine. Dalah’surfal, I’m fine﹣”

“Well, I know that now!” And he was laughing, great shaky breaths punched from his diaphragm. His eyes stung, damp and burning in the still air of the cabin. He hugged her so hard it hurt, feeling every single one of her bones press against him, until finally she pushed against him, trying to get away.

“Shut the door!” she hissed, and he did, but he was only gone for a moment before appearing before her again, wrapping her cold hands in both of his. There was an ugly bruise on her cheek, black and mottled, and large, angry gashes along one arm. 

“Is that﹣”

She shook her head. “Worgen. Not important. Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

Velonara’s eyes were wide and too bright, but it seemed to be an aftereffect of Halduron’s sudden appearance, the shock he’d given her. She was calm when she spoke, her voice low, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.

“Saurfang was taken as a prisoner of war,” she confided, and Halduron nodded. She didn’t seem surprised that he knew. “He’s been thrown in the stockades in Stormwind, and Sylvanas wants to let him rot.”

It shouldn’t have shocked him, yet it did. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Why?”

“Teldrassil.” The word hung ominously between them. “Because he wouldn’t…. Because he defied her.” 

Stormwind didn’t know that. Stormwind only saw Saurfang as the High Overlord of the Horde, Sylvanas’s right hand. They would kill him, for what happened to Teldrassil. 

Halduron’s mind raced. King Anduin was a kind man, a listening man. If they could get word to him somehow, if they could petition Saurfang’s release ﹣ surely the Alliance wouldn’t execute him, if it could be proven﹣

“Sylvanas has put Nathanos in the High Overlord’s position.” Velonara cut through his thoughts. “The orcs don’t know. No one knows she isn’t going to ransom Saurfang.”

Nathanos. Once, the human had been a longstanding joke amongst the Farstriders. The power of a good fuck and how far it could take a man. A common saying amongst the order, What Would Nathanos Do, when bullshitting with each other, had evolved into a raunchy drinking game , had extended as far as Silvermoon and the Sunspire. 

We need to do something about the Wretched, Rommath had said only a few weeks ago. Before Lordaeron, before all of this.

What would Nathanos do, Lor?

And Rommath, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation, groaned like he always did, Please take this seriously.

And Lor had grinned, had uttered a filthy answer about cowing the creatures through sheer force of cock until Rommath started banging his fist on the table, shouting at them that they were children. 

What Would Nathanos Do didn’t seem so funny anymore. The devotion to Sylvanas that inspired the joke had become a dark obsession, and Nathanos was much more powerful now than he’d been as a living man. Halduron had heard rumors of the strange rituals, secret necromantic rites that had driven the rot from his bones and kept the decay at bay, brought strength back to his atrophied bones. Whether he’d wanted to admit it or not, Nathanos Marris had been a very good ranger, and as Sylvanas’s new right hand…

He snorted, an inelegant, ugly sound. “What would Nathanos do,” he muttered mirthlessly. 

Velonara knew the game. “Fuck his way into power,” she said tonelessly. “Just like he’s always done.” 

If only someone could fuck Saurfang free. 

“We have to get a message to Baine,” she said after a moment. “He’s the only one with any clout amongst the Alliance. He and Wrynn are friends.” 

“No one can get near Baine. We heard Sylvanas has him under surveillance.”

Velonara pursed her lips. “By dark rangers,” she agreed. “There are… I haven’t been able to be overt, but not all of us agree with what happened at Teldrassil. Some of us still remember what it means to revere life.” She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t… I can’t risk plotting with them. Sylvanas has spies everywhere. I’ll try and get on rotation to Thunder Bluff. I’ll try and say something to him.”

“Is he in Thunder Bluff?”

She nodded. “Left last night. He and Sylvanas had a shouting match, and Nathanos drew his weapon.”

What Would Nathanos Do indeed.

“What did they argue about?” Halduron pressed. 

“The use of the blight in Lordaeron. Baine told her her soul is hurtling down a dark path, and he demanded reparations for the tauren she killed.”

Baine was a young chieftain, only a boy himself when his own father was killed. Halduron had only met the tauren a handful of times but he’d never been able to find a single unlikable thing about him. Baine was steady and patient, and deeply connected with the earth. Azeroth was bleeding after Lordaeron, and her pain was something the tauren could not abide.

He could only imagine Sylvanas’s reaction. 

“What about the orcs?” he asked, although he already knew the answer. Sylvanas had been named Warchief by Vol’jin, and Vol’jin by Thrall himself. The orcs held Vol’jin in high regard ﹣ if he believed in Sylvanas, they would stand by her in victory and death. 

“Even if they knew about Saurfang, I don’t think we could turn them. Sylvanas was named. Whether they agree with her or no, she’s their Warchief.”

Fuck orcs and their honor.

“I’ll tell Lor,” Halduron promised, “about Baine. Sylvanas is keeping us as in the dark as she can.” 

Velonara nodded. “Sylvanas knows Lor’themar. She knows she can keep him under her heel so far away, if she feeds him the ‘right’ information. The less he knows about what’s truly happening, the more obedient she thinks he’ll be.”

And that had been true, once. Despite her undeath and his own regency, Sylvanas was still Lor’themar’s superior, in his eyes. He relied on her judgement ﹣ he’d pledged Quel’Thalas to the Horde on her word. But Lor’themar had spoken out against the experiments conducted by Putress, against the research into the blight and the reproduction of the Forsaken, and Sylvanas hadn’t liked that. Despite the loyalty he felt, Lor’themar was still an elf, and she knew he would not stand for the senseless war she now waged against the living.

“She told him the blight was a last resort,” he remembered suddenly. “That it was the only way to turn the tide against the Alliance.”

And Velonara snorted, loud and mirthless. “I’ll eat my cloak if that’s true.”

“You don’t know?”

“Dark rangers and the apothecary do not converge,” she told him. “Sylvanas doesn’t believe in us pooling our information and resources on our own.” She bit her lip. “We didn’t know about the blight. Some of us died.”

“Who?”

He didn’t know why he asked. Halduron knew the names of every single Farstrider raised as Scourge, and every one freed by Sylvanas. He’d been frantic, in those early days, searching for any hint that Velonara was alive. 

“Kassandra.” Velonara wouldn’t look at him. “And Levander.” 

Halduron knew them. They hadn’t been in his unit, way back when, but he knew them. Kassandra came from a family of mages, had mastered the shooting of flaming arrows with minimal damage to the forests. Levander had been mild in life; undeath had ruined him, turned him cold and sadistic. 

A half remembered prayer to a power he no longer believed in came unbidden to his lips. “As thien ah talah, ande loren Auri kal thien.” Bless them with true death, may the Light shine upon them.

Velonara was quiet, and in the resulting silence it was deafening. 

“Is that what you wish for me?” she whispered, her crimson eyes fixed somewhere across the room. “True death?” Her face was carefully blank, a wall rising between them. 

Halduron’s heart broke. “What?”

Stiff fingers picked at a thread on her torn sleeve. “Did you pray for me like that, when… When I died?”

Oh no. No no no no. 

“Vel.”

Velonara gently batted his hand away. “Is that what you want for me?” she asked again.

Once, he would have said yes. That night ten years ago, he and Lor’themar huddled around a small fire, burning hastily scribbled messages from exhausted runners. Lor’themar pressing a charred scrap of paper into his palm, unable to look at him. The names scrawled on it, sightings of Farstriders raised as minions of the Scourge. Lilana came back tonight. She saw several of our own. She said they weren’t… right. I’m sorry, my friend.  

A long time ago, when he was younger and stupid, gooseflesh raising the hair on his arms and revulsion churning in his gut. Finally reunited with his fiancée, her mind freed from the Scourge, and his only thought had been It would have been better if you had stayed dead. You are not my little lynx anymore.

The man he had been that day shamed him to his core. 

“Vel…” He reached for her again, and again she pushed him away. “Vel, no. No. I don’t want ﹣ how could you think﹣?”

But he knew how she could think that. He saw it in the set of her jaw, in the way she’d closed herself off. He saw it when he woke at night, shivering from the chill, the way she shrank from him, the way she thought it was disgust that caused the shudders and not the cold from the dying fire. Heard it in her voice, the wariness, before he pulled her to him. 

Her undeath had been the worst thing to ever happen to him, but he could not lie and say it wasn’t the best either. Perhaps her spirit would have been at peace, whole in the Shadowlands instead of in Sylvanas’s thrall, but in his own selfishness, Halduron was happy she was here now, just as she was. He was happy and grateful and so selfishly protective of each and every moment of precious time with her. He would have her as she was or not at all, and he had lived far too long without her to live through that again. 

“I lost you once,” he murmured. “And if I had known… Sun and Silvermoon, Vel, if I had known you weren’t going to come back I never would have let you leave with Sylvanas. Never.” He raked a hand through his hair. “There was so much I should have told you. That day and all the others. We spent five hundred years hating each other, little lynx ﹣ we wasted five hundred years when we could have been together!” 

“Halduron…”

“I should have told you, when we first met, that you looked sent from Al’ar himself. I should have told you were beautiful the night I put the burning blossom crown in your hair, and how the first time we drilled ﹣ do you remember that? ﹣ was the first night I dreamed about you.”

He’d woken hard and confused, images of Velonara playing on a loop whenever he shut his eyes. Lor’themar had noticed him staring and given him shit about it, and every night after that. 

“I should have married you, when I had the chance. Right there in the Elrendar, the very moment I fell in the water.” She’d laughed at him until she cried before extending her hand, and he’d thought briefly of pulling her in with him. “I should have ﹣ fuck, Vel, I should have done so much more.” He stopped himself before he could reach for her a third time, before she could push him away again. “Your being here still… Vel, I will never take that for granted. It’s horrible and selfish but I never want true death for you because I’m still ﹣ we still ﹣ have so much left. All of those things ﹣ I will never have enough time to say them all, and I will never be able to  fix what I broke that day but until the end of time itself I will try.” He was breathing hard now, and perhaps he was yelling, the words spoken so fast they all blended together. He didn’t care. “I will try every moment of every day to make up for what I did, I will never take for granted the second chance we’ve been given, and I can’t do that if you’re fucking dead!” 

Velonara died at dusk on the sixteenth day of the seventh month. As the sword ran her through, as she breathed her last breath, half a day’s ride away Halduron had felt a great and terrible chill down his spine. She’d already died once, and when the Great Dark Beyond reached for her again, Halduron intended to go with her. 

Her eyes were fixated at him, her knuckles pressed hard against her mouth. She looked beautiful and soft and so vulnerable in this moment that it made Halduron’s heart hurt. He waited and after a moment, one gloved hand reached for him. Like she had ten years ago, she reached for him, and came back to him. 

“Ana’eran surfal.” The words were soft, and he hardly heard her. His heart leapt into his throat. 

“Ana’eran surfal,” he told her, and let her pull him to her. Again, “Ana’eran surfal.” And again. “Ana’eran surfal.” 

I love you. I love you I love you I love you.

“I love you,” she murmured into his chest, her eyes falling closed as she felt his arms around her. Halduron’s heart thumped painfully against his ribcage. It tore at him that the confident, cocky woman Velonara had been in life had been reduced to this, to self doubt and anxiety and fear, and because of him. That wasn’t his job. He was supposed to lift her up, to make her happy. 

He had failed so miserably.

He hugged her fiercely. “I love you,” he breathed, lips brushing against her hair. “Whatever you need, until my dying day, I will give.” 

She gave a little scoff. “Halduron﹣”

“Until my dying day,” he repeated, injecting every ounce of force and love he had into the words, “whatever you need, I will give. I will not take our second chance for granted again.”

He felt her clutch at his tunic, her nails scraping against the fabric. When she lifted her head he was waiting, and captured her lips in the softest, most feather light of kisses. He didn’t know how to prove his words to her. He didn’t know what to do to make her believe him. 

“How long do you have?” he asked, nuzzling against her cheek. 

“I should leave soon,” came the soft reply. “I’m supposed to be making my way to Orgrimmar.”

Orgrimmar. Half a world away. When would he see her again? Cold fear seized him ﹣ the last time she’d left with Sylvanas, she hadn’t come back. 

“Stay just a little longer.” He jerked his chin towards the bed, the bare mattress unmade. The sheets had been put away, since the last time they were together. 

“You’ll be cold,” she murmured uncertainly. “We should at least get a blanket.” It was at her insistence that he had a fireplace and blankets at all. He would have curled with her on the beach under the stars, the way they used to do, if she let him.

“I don’t care.” He shuffled them backwards, until his knees knocked against the frame. “I don’t want to let go of you.”

“Halduron…”

“It’s fine.” He pulled her down gently, and she let him. The clasps came off their cloaks, and so she wouldn’t worry he covered them first with his ﹣ the one warmed by his heat ﹣ and then hers, folding their limbs together. “We don’t need blankets.”

When they were younger they’d slept like this often, wrapped in their cloaks under the stars. When he was feeling especially dickish he’d steal hers, bundle it under his head for a pillow and hog the other. They’d torn quite a few cloaks that way. 

Velonara liked to sit in front of the fire before coming to bed now, liked the warmth of it to seep into her pale skin so she wouldn’t leech so much of his. Neither of them wanted to light a fire tonight, didn’t want to risk the Farstrider patrol learning she was there. It didn’t matter. Halduron was plenty warm for the both of them. 

He twirled a lock of her golden hair around one finger, head resting easily atop hers. He didn’t think the Forsaken slept but she’d told him they dozed sometimes, or did something of an approximation of it. Alina called it meditating, Velonara told him. 

“I miss you, when you’re gone,” he murmured. “I think I miss you more now than I did before.” 

Before Highmountain. Before they’d met face to face again. 

“Do you have to go?”

“You know I do.” 

He wanted to go with her, to stand with her before Sylvanas and Nathanos Marris. To protect her. The thought made his eyes widen. The Velonara he’d known ﹣ the one who’d once leapt on a troll’s back and sliced its throat with an arrowhead ﹣ had never needed protecting.  

The Velonara he’d known had never defied Sylvanas, never committed treason either. 

He trapped both her legs in his and curled around her. The Velonara he’d known ﹣ the Velonara he still knew ﹣ was confident and strong and cunning. Could lie with a straight face and freeze a man in his tracks with a scowl. The Velonara he’d known ﹣ the Velonara in his arms ﹣ was going to be fine.

She had to be.

Chapter Text

The tauren capital was beautiful, Velonara thought. The Mulgore air was reminiscent of the eternal spring of Quel’Thalas, clean and warm and untouched by the Scourge. There was little to do here, admittedly, but she felt at peace when atop the bluffs. Usually.

Baine Bloodhoof was a gentle soul. He was idealist but not naïvely so ﹣ he didn’t blindly believe the best in people the way the boy king of the Alliance did. Baine had learned early in his life that the world was filled with cruelty and horror, that everything had a hidden meaning, and that even those closest to you would stab you in the back for a bit of power. He’d learned that last one literally, when his father died. 

The young chieftain was a better man than Velonara would ever be. She would have gutted Magatha Grimtotem if the old crone had killed her father, not sentenced her to exile. 

The tauren didn’t trust her, she knew. They had no reason to, not when she looked like every other Forsaken patrolling the city. But she desperately needed Baine to, if no one else. 

“What are you doing here, dark ranger? I’m not in the mood.” 

Velonara couldn’t blame him for being wary of her. Lenara had been here earlier, and her words had not been kind. The chieftain had been returned to his city and to all but his most intimate guard, everything seemed normal, but it wasn’t. He was watched at all times by dark ranger eyes, his every conversation listened in on, all his correspondence opened and read and corrected before ever appearing before him. If the tauren population knew they would revolt, and Sylvanas would crush them easily like so many flies on a carcass. Baine knew this well, and he bore it all without complaint for the safety of his people. 

“Lenara was already in,” Baine groused. “Delivered my mail herself.” He gestured to a thin stack of envelopes, the seals of which had all been broken. 

In elven culture, the use of first names with outsiders, rather than family or titles, was extremely rude, but not so to the tauren. They were familiar in a way that elves were not, and this ﹣ calling Lenara by her given name, if not to her face than at least to Velonara ﹣ was his way of acquiescence, of bending the knee. It would encourage his friends and advisors to do the same, to think of the Forsaken as compatriots and not as jailers. And at the same time, by referring to Velonara as dark ranger and not her own name, he was respecting their culture, keeping them at the distance to which elves were accustomed, and giving them one less reason to distrust or dislike him. 

Baine Bloodhoof was not stupid, no matter what Sylvanas thought. 

“I’m merely making my rounds,” Velonara told him, looking around boredly. Baine did not keep an office like Sylvanas or Nathanos. That was not the tauren way. Matters were always handled by a small council of trusted elders and put to a vote. Parchment and ink factored into it very little, and any correspondence or orders that needed drafting were usually done in his own home, the enormous longhouse on the high rise. Velonara didn’t know much about the intricacies of tauren government, and maybe one day she’d learn, but tonight she had more important matters to attend. 

Baine did his writing at a long, low table, not terribly dissimilar to the ways of the Thalassian nobility, and Velonara could not seem too eager, could not make it obvious that it was her destination. She let her eyes roam the longhouse ﹣ it consisted of one large room, with a small, controlled fire in the center beneath a strategically placed hole in the ceiling. A bed, large and comfortable and piled with furs, sat in one corner, a folded screen for privacy leaning against the wall. On either end were a setup of benches and compartments that held personal items. Some seemed merely decorative but those were few and far in between. Most of Baine’s possessions were usable in some way, from skillfully woven baskets and carefully crafted spears and drums. There were several sets of drums of varying ornateness ﹣ Velonara didn’t know if they related to tauren cultural practices or if the man simply enjoyed playing them. 

Near to the fire was a long pipe, and a half open pouch of smoking herbs. That was something familiar to her; both Halduron and Lor’themar smoked, as did several dark rangers, though Velonara didn’t think that Mulgore tobacco was quite the same as bloodthistle. From what she’d seen, tobacco didn’t seem to produce the giddy magical high that bloodthistle did. 

Baine kept his eyes on her as she sauntered about the room, brow furrowed in annoyance. He couldn’t protest this intrusion on his home and they both knew it, couldn’t show the slightest displeasure lest he risk Forsaken wrath. Velonara felt badly, for shouldering her way in like this. She’d knocked, at least. She was sure Lenara hadn’t. 

Finally she stopped before the tauren and his writing table. He wasn’t working on anything; the inkwell was capped and the handsome quill put away to the side. He had likely been stewing before his opened mail, resenting Lenara and the Forsaken who had read it. Deliria Dawes in particular was very thorough; she’d often poked into the late Vol’jin’s things as well. 

“If it’s all the same to you,” the tauren said evenly, “I would like to finish here and get to my dinner on time.” Baine didn’t eat meals in his home, preferring instead the company of his council and people on the middle rise. 

Velonara dropped her voice. The Forsaken eavesdroppers were mostly human at this hour, except for Lenara and Velonara herself, and Lenara had slipped away to their borrowed quarters some time ago, ostensibly to pen a report to the Banshee. Human ears were not nearly as sensitive as those of elves’ or tauren, would not pick up the quiet whisper in which she spoke now. 

“I need a word with you, Bloodhoof.”

“The Banshee has had plenty of words with me.”

“It’s about the orc.” 

And that got Baine’s attention. His ears flicked forward, eyes narrowed. “What’s there to know?” he snapped. “Has the ransom been set?”

Velonara took mental stock of her surroundings. Two tauren braves at the door, and two Forsaken spies outside. Lelyias, in particular, liked to lay out on the roof near the smoke hole. Sounds carried more easily there. “That’s not your concern.” She pursed her lips, flicked her own ears. Hoped he understood. “I would consider Varok Saurfang dead, for all intents and purposes.” 

Baine ground his teeth, his next words full of venom. “Where. Is. He.” 

Velonara jabbed at his mail. “Stormwind, Bloodhoof. Where he’ll rot, until our Dark Lady in her benevolence brings him home.” She stabbed a finger at his letters again, glaring hard. 

He blinked. Raised a wary brow. In a voice hardly audible to even her own superior ears, he asked, “What do they want?”

Velonara shook her head, barely a degree to either side. “She’s dismissed their terms,” she murmured. “He’ll die in Stormwind, for what he did in Darkshore.”

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Her experience with delivering unpleasant news to faction leaders was not a point in his favor. But Baine had trained for this role all his life and to his credit, his only reaction was to quietly bear his teeth. 

“So that’s how it is then,” he muttered. “This is what loyalty and honor earn a man in the Banshee’s Horde.”

“The Blightcaller is the sort of loyalty Sylvanas demands. Not honor.” 

“Why are you telling me this?” The chieftain’s eyes bore into her own. 

This was it. He would either believe her or he wouldn’t. Convincing him Sylvanas had abandoned Saurfang was always going to be the easiest part of the exchange. 

“Stormwind has to be told,” she hissed. “They need to know what he did for Teldrassil.” 

Baine snorted. “So why come to me? You lot obviously know your letters.”

“There is no you lot.” She bent over him ﹣ to anyone looking in, it would appear she were threatening him. She was sure Lenara had done so more than once. “There’s only me, and Silvermoon.”

“Silvermoon?” The tauren stifled a laugh. “Now I know you’re lying. The Regent Lord would never plot against the Banshee.”

“He plotted against Garrosh.”

“Garrosh,” he growled, “never had Silvermoon so tightly wrapped around his traitorous finger. The Regent Lord was not the lapdog he is to the Banshee.”

Despite herself she bristled. It was true, she knew. Sylvanas knew it and so did the other faction leaders. She’d heard, from countless shadowy places, what people thought of Lor’themar Theron. She wouldn’t explain his actions though ﹣ that wasn’t her job. She never claimed to know how the man thought. 

“Not anymore. Silvermoon lost a world tree of their own during the Scourge. They would never wish that pain on the kaldorei. It’s unelflike ﹣ it goes against what we believe.”

“We?”

The word had felt so natural on her tongue. Was she not an elf? Was she not a child of the forests, the same as Halduron and Lor’themar and every kaldorei? The horror she’d felt, watching the tree burn… She saw the flames every time she closed her eyes, still heard the screams. 

“We,” she affirmed. A treasonous declaration. One word from Baine, right here right now, would have her clapped in irons and on a zeppelin back to Orgrimmar to face judgement before Sylvanas and all her loyalists. 

Baine’s ears twitched. A beat of silence, loud enough to drown the thudding of his heart. “Why come to me?” he asked finally, gesturing helplessly. To the spies he knew waited outside his door, to the opened correspondence, to his own destitute situation. 

Velonara leaned in close. Felt the warmth of his body and his careful, controlled breaths. “You are the only one Stormwind will believe.”

The boy king and Baine had been friendly for years. He had even written to King Anduin when his father died in the invasion of Broken Shore, offering words of sympathy and comfort. The only member of the Horde who had been permitted to attend the funeral. Who had been trusted to enter the city of Stormwind in their most vulnerable hour. 

“What do you want from me?” Baine asked hesitantly. 

Velonara jabbed at his letters again. “Your word. Quickly, now.” More loudly, by the fewest decibels, she said, “I’m not obligated to divulge the Dark Lady’s secrets to you, Bloodhoof.” Watched as Baine reached for a scrap of parchment, as he gripped the quill with shaking fingers. He seemed at war with himself.

“How do I know you speak the truth?” 

Nothing was ever given for free. Lor’themar could easily deny his involvement, could claim Silvermoon’s ignorance, and Sylvanas would believe him over Baine. Lor’themar had never lied to her before, and as far as the Banshee knew, had no reason to do so now.

She chewed her lip. There was only one bargaining chip, one piece to play to make Baine believe her. Did she trust him?

She didn’t have a choice. 

Leaning in very close, her lips nearly brushing the fur of his ear, she confided solemnly, “I told the Regent Lord about Teldrassil. I fled when the tree burned.” 

Baine’s eyes widened; his nostrils flared. He stared at her as though seeing her for the first time, as if she’d suddenly grown another head. 

“She’ll kill you.” It was not a threat, only a bald statement of fact.

Velonara leaned back on her heels and held his gaze. “She will,” she agreed. Even if the accusation were false, she would die. “But before she does, I will do everything I can to stay Saurfang’s execution.” 

They sat like that for what seemed like hours, expressions hard. And then Baine flipped the lid to the inkwell, and scribbled something on parchment. We need to talk. There was no signature.

Velonara watched as he heated just enough wax to make a seal, a blob on the inside of the note not the outside, and instead of a stamp, he gestured with his overlarge hand. “Come.” She shifted to his side, and he lowered his head, his impressive horns level with her face. “Break it.”

“What?”

“Break it,” he repeated, pointing to a thin crack along one side. “A small piece. It won’t be missed.” 

“Baine﹣”

“Break it.”  

It wasn’t the violence Velonara was opposed to. She had ripped troll tusks straight from the faces of Amani brutes, slit throats with only arrowheads, jammed her knees into exterior limbs and pulled back until they shattered. But this…

If this letter were intercepted, with Baine’s horn attached…

She drew a dagger from her belt, jammed its point into the crack. It didn’t matter what had made the fault line ﹣ it bent all the same. Baine winced but made no noise as she carved out a thumb-sized piece of keratin. 

Halduron probably would have done it better, without the little trickle of blood. Velonara dabbed at the spot with her cloak, the blood invisible against the black fabric. 

Baine pressed the little chip of horn into the wax, and when it had cooled enough he folded the note several times, very small, and dabbed another blob on its outside. This blob bore no seal. 

“How will he know?”

“He’ll know,” Baine assured her. “How will you get it to him?”

I have no fucking idea.  

“The less you know, the better.” She tucked the note up her tight sleeve, shoving it under the frayed feather and grass bracelet Halduron had gifted her years ago. Gestured to his horn. “How will you…?"

Baine waved a dismissive hand. “It’s been cracked for ages. No one will suspect.”

“Right.” 

She hoped he was.

* * *

Zandalar was a dismal place. Muggy and hot and loud with the buzzing of insects. The living seemed uncomfortable in the heat, perspiring from the slightest movements, but some of the Forsaken enjoyed it.

“I haven’t felt this warm in years,” she heard Kitala boast, just outside the pyramid in the brilliant Zandalari sunlight. 

The trolls gave them a wide berth. While the dark rangers were mostly intact, the decay chased away by powerful dark magicks, the deathguards and less important Forsaken weren’t so lucky. The smell was so strong it hit even Velonara’s dulled senses, followed them around like a cloud. 

Sylvanas had ordered Baine to the continent with the First Arcanist, his entire retinue ﹣ his own and the unwanted Forsaken spies ﹣ in tow. Velonara had not been able to secure a position in the mission to extract the princess and her advisor from Stormwind. Even as it ate away at her, she supposed it was for the best. There would have been no way to break from a team that included the observant shadow hunter Rokhan, and the stockades were in the heart of the city, well away from the Keep and king. She would have been shot on sight, wandering alone in Stormwind, unable to disappear even under the cover of night.

But with her immediate removal to Zandalar and no relief from her position in sight, Velonara wished she could have at least tried. Stormwindian guards and SI:7 would have found Baine’s letter on her body when they searched her, and the king would have been informed. 

The little folded paper she kept hidden, tucked inside her chestguard and nestled beside Halduron’s locket. She couldn’t afford the risk of not having it on her person, of having someone discover it, but sooner or later, if there was no opening, it and the little piece of Baine’s horn it harbored would have to be burned. 

But there was no opening, no opportunity to slip away for a cross-continental trip, and no one from the Alliance of any importance on the island to entrust the smuggling of sensitive material. She hadn’t even been able to tell Halduron she’d been leaving. He still thought she was in Orgrimmar!

She had to calm down. The Forsaken didn’t feel. Didn’t panic. For the briefest moment, Velonara cursed the humanity Halduron had nurtured within her. 

“What do you have against trees, Vel?”

“Go away, Lenara.”

The other ranger crossed her arms, a smirk flitting across her face. “It’s not that bad. At least the Zandalari are cleaner than those mangy tauren.” 

Velonara didn’t want to talk to Lenara. Once they had been friends, but… watching her friend holding kaldorei at bowpoint, watching her defend the burning of Teldrassil…

They weren’t friends anymore.

The arrow split its predecessor clean down the middle with a dull thunk as it left Velonara’s bow. The wood was made from Darkshore trees, an unsubtle reminder of what had brought them here. Velonara felt sick using them. 

“Nathanos’s called a meeting,” her friend was saying. “Let’s go.” 

When had Lenara begun to respect a man like Nathanos Marris? When had Nathanos Marris begun to garner anyone’s respect and admiration? Velonara remembered nights around the campfire, she and Alina and Lenara and Lilana in varying stages of amusement and hilarity, listening to increasingly bawdy What Would Nathanos Do jokes, remembered yanking friends into patrols and watches to avoid being saddled with the human for a partner. Remembered the disdain they’d carried, at learning that Nathanos, after his induction to the Farstriders, had been given leave to live in his own home in Lordaeron, because he couldn’t stomach the rumors and teasing. Because he thought he was better than them. 

It had only made the harassment worse, whenever he did show up again at the Enclave. 

When had Lenara decided to defer to someone like Nathanos fucking Marris? Lenara, who’d scorned and insulted him in fouler language than even Velonara knew, who repeatedly questioned his leadership and even his manhood? Lenara had refused to follow Nathanos Marris in life ﹣ what had changed in undeath?

Sylvanas. By the curse of the magicks she had used to free them they were bound to her. Her voice didn’t run through their minds as Arthas Menethil’s had but Velonara could feel her all the same. Just there, lurking in the back of her mind. She wondered if her disgust at the burning of Teldrassil had just made her more resistant to it. 

“I’ll be right there.” She thought about wrestling the intact arrow from the tree, from the wreckage she’d made of the other six, but the idea made her shudder. The sooner the Darkshore arrows were gone, the better.

On her way back to the Great Seal she plotted. The Nightborne Oculeth had set up telemancy beacons that did not require a mage’s constant supervision. There was even one to Silvermoon. Liadrin had pulled the Nightborne to their cause ﹣ Velonara couldn’t approach Thalyssra directly, but perhaps she would not be questioned if she were to request shal’dorei assistance. Surely Liadrin had said something to her friend. The staging of coups seemed to be something of a specialty for the First Arcanist. 

Because that’s what this was, what it would ultimately be. Once the letter reached Anduin Wrynn and Saurfang’s head was no longer on the chopping block, Sylvanas would want to know why. She would want names and bodies and punishments. Examples would be made of the traitors. Baine would be in immediate danger, and a revolution would be upon them. Velonara had seen this before, with Garrosh. 

She never thought she’d be taking the same steps against Sylvanas. 

The entrance to the alchemists’ hall opened as they passed. A troll stepped inside, and before the door closed a slim, pale hand caught it. Pushed it back open, was followed by the elf to which it was attached. Velonara would normally pay her no mind ﹣ sin’dorei alchemists were a copper a dozen, but she thought she knew this one. The woman did not immediately recoil from her as most sin’dorei did, regarding her coolly before her eyes slid away. Her hair was piled high atop her head, in an older, classic style, frizzing slightly in the Zuldazar heat. She was unremarkable in every way, except for the hand slipping down the hall’s golden door. 

Most sin’dorei, especially those with delicate, comfortable positions like that of alchemist, wore their nails long, and many painted them. This woman’s nails were clear, and very short. On its own that may not mean anything ﹣ it wasn’t as if fighters and laborers held claim to short fingernails ﹣ but with Baine being monitored, and his correspondence to the Alliance High King at a standstill…

She made note of the woman’s face before following Lenara up the gilded stairs.

* * *

The alchemist was careful. She’d not made an impression on the others in the hall, and her work was neat, unimportant, and did not stand out. 

Velonara caught her as she was leaving the city, a field pack slung over her shoulders. “Allow me to walk with you, alchemist. It’s treacherous going by the river.”

The other woman regarded her warily. “I’ve made the journey before,” she said dismissively. She spoke Orcish well, and Velonara couldn’t decide if that was a feat or not. Orcish wasn’t a difficult language, but many sin’dorei thought it beneath them. This alchemist clearly did a lot of business with the Horde outside of Silvermoon.

“Where are you headed?”

She gestured vaguely. “Just out past the Village in the Vines. There’s a strange sort of insect that lives there, I use its blood for my work.”

Velonara raised a delicate eyebrow. “It’s risky to traverse the jungle with no weapon. Foolish, even.” 

But the alchemist had her there, and pulled a dagger of orcish make out of her pack. She handled it carefully, as if trying too hard to appear like she wasn’t sure how to use it. The knife was clearly made for fighting, not scything herbs or chopping ingredients. 

Utility knives only had one edge, however. This blade had two. 

But Velonara didn’t point that out. “My patrol takes me out that way,” she said instead. “I’ll walk with you part of the way.” It wasn’t a request.

The alchemist pursed her lips, her jaw jutting slightly as she rolled her tongue in her mouth. And then she shrugged, and said genially, “I suppose I would appreciate the company. No one from the hall had the time to make the trip with me.”

A sin’dorei from Silvermoon would have good reason to fear the Forsaken. Quel’Thalas was cut off from the mindful undead that made up the Lordaeronian population, separated by a vast chasm of feral Scourge, and the elves themselves were secluded by nature. A well-traveled sin’dorei, who carried orcish weapons and spoke the lingua franca of the Horde, would have seen many Forsaken along the way. Especially now, with the presence they had carved out in Orgrimmar. 

There were goosebumps along the alchemist’s arms, hard to see in the shade of jungle foliage but there all the same. For all her careful planning, an ease around the Forsaken was difficult to fake, and Velonara was willing to bet her usual disguise sported a very different outfit, one with long sleeves and a covered midriff. 

Although, Velonara reasoned, it was entirely likely that she was unnerved because one of Sylvanas’s personal guard was taking an unsolicited interest in her.

“Where did you learn Orcish?” Velonara asked. 

The other woman shrugged. “Here and there,” she said noncommittally. “I traveled with orcs for a time. You pick things up.” 

“What brings you here?”

“The promise of discovery, dark ranger. No outsider has ever been allowed on Zandalari shores.” She gestured around them. “I wanted to learn all I could.”

Velonara studied her as they walked, until the last of the city patrol was well behind them and the jungle stretched on all sides. Aside from the knife again stowed in her pack, the alchemist appeared unarmed. But she knew as well as any rogue the multitude of places one could hide a blade, and the red and gold skirts of sin’dorei fashion often housed a myriad of hidden pockets. 

“What’s your name?” 

The answer came easily, practiced and sure. “Aeris.”

“No family name?”

“No, ma’am.” She inclined her head. Of course not. A family name was risky; sin'dorei families rose to and fell from prominence quickly, and one that had been out of favor last month could easily be in favor this one, were well known and fact checked without difficulty. At least, that was how it used to be.

Elves were not supposed to ask about families in the wake of the Scourge. It was disrespectful, a reminder of all they had lost. The Forsaken, in some aspects, felt the same way. But Velonara supposed, as part of Sylvanas’s elite, she could get away with some discourtesy.

She switched to Thalassian. “What did your parents do?”

The other woman’s ears flicked, irritated. “Before the Scourge, dark ranger, they ran a small apothecary out of Goldemist,” she replied in the same language. She had no accent that marked her as a southerner, her Thalassian clear as the speech north of the Elrendar. 

“Did they now? Good on you, for keeping the family business alive.” Goldemist was a lost village, its previous inhabitants impossible to verify. 

“I suppose you could say that.” 

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, steps suspiciously quiet for traipsing through a jungle full of large, flat leaves and brush and sticks. 

“Aeris, you said your name was?”

“That’s right.”

“Has that always been your name?”

The woman shot her an unreadable look out of the side of her eye. “Yes.”

Velonara saw the tensing of muscles, the hair rise along the alchemist’s arms. A hand snaked along her own side, almost as though pressing on a stitch, or reaching for﹣

“That knife stays where it is, Sanguinar. That and all the others.” Velonara kept her voice low. Her life as a ranger had taught her that even the trees had ears.

To her credit, Valeera Sanguinar did not protest her identity. She stood rigid amongst the leaves, hand poised to whip a blade from its hiding place along her hip. 

A good ranger, a Banshee loyalist, would attack. Would bind Valeera Sanguinar’s hands and feet, divest her of all her hidden weaponry, hit her a few times for good measure. Drag her back to the city. Velonara supposed she wasn’t a good ranger. Not anymore.

“Are you here for Baine?”

Sanguinar’s voice was steady. “What makes you think that?”

Velonara stepped very close. They were nearly the same height, and Sanguinar did not flinch as Velonara’s whisper trickled past her ear. “I know the boy king must be worried about him. Baine hasn’t been getting his letters. I know the boy king’s still writing, hoping for an answer that won’t come.”

Slowly, so as to not set off more alarm bells in the other woman’s head and get herself stabbed, Velonara reached inside her chestpiece. Dislodged the little packet with the piece of horn. She held it out, crinkled at the edges, the blob of wax smooshed but not quite melted. 

“Tell him to keep writing,” Velonara hissed. “Nothing must change.”

“What’s this?” Sanguinar eyed the note cautiously. 

“You can open it.” And the other woman did, snatching the paper and breaking the seal easily. She was more hesitant to open it, probably afraid of poison powder or hexes, but upon determining it was empty, she unfolded it, eyes raking over the four words written in Baine’s hand, the piece of horn a signature to verify its author. 

“Deliver this to the little lion,” Velonara breathed. “Baine said he would understand.”

Sanguinar stared at the note for what seemed an eternity. “What is this?” she asked again, suspicious. “Is the tauren alright?”

“He won’t be.” Not even if he kept his displeasure inside. He’d more than proven he disagreed with Sylvanas, and the Banshee demanded unquestioned loyalty from her subjects. It was why Nathanos had risen so far, and why Baine would fall. 

Quickly Sanguinar folded the letter. Tucked it into a hidden pocket along her waistline. “What do you want in return?”

Nothing was ever given for free. 

“Baine will explain everything. I can’t say more.” Velonara could not be certain the High King’s personal spy would deliver her letter, and she was not about to pay her in damning secrets. 

“Why are you doing this?” Sanguinar regarded her critically. “The friendship between two boys seems a trivial thing for a dark ranger to concern herself with.”

Velonara huffed. Even if she no longer cried, remembering still brought a lump to her throat. “Teldrassil.”

She needn’t say more. The meaning ﹣ Saurfang’s execution, Sylvanas’s madness, Baine’s guard and stripped privileges ﹣ was clear within the horror of the burning world tree. 

She stepped back. Nodded once, in the Thalassian style, a superior to a subordinate. “The village is just down this way, Aeris,” she said, gesturing ahead of them and to the left. “My patrol takes me back from here.” 

Sanguinar inclined her own head. “Teldrassil,” she murmured, before continuing on like their conversation had never happened. She walked with strong, purposeful strides, easily sidestepping the hidden tree roots and clinging vines, and decidedly not moving in the direction of the village. 

Velonara didn’t know how long Sanguinar had been in the city ﹣ she knew she should report it ﹣ and she didn’t care. Sanguinar was their one shot at reaching Anduin Wrynn, and maybe getting Saurfang out of this alive. 

She tapped the pendant beneath her armor, gently, and murmured an old ranger’s prayer. For the first time in ten years, she silently beseeched every power she knew ﹣ the Light, the Shadow, Elune and the Sunwell and Al’ar the phoenix god ﹣ that Valeera Sanguinar reach her destination safely, and Baine’s message find its way into the hands of the boy king. 

And then she straightened her spine, and turned back the way she’d come, and made her way back to the city.

Chapter Text

It was quiet in the Stormsong Valley. Velonara would even call it peaceful, if not for the feeling of unease permeating the very air. This was no friendly gathering, she thought, no routine meeting for the leaders of the Horde. Sylvanas had called them all to this base, even ﹣ and here Velonara started ﹣ Lor’themar. The information being fed to Quel’Thalas was minimal and carefully controlled, and even Velonara had hardly been able to get a covert and coded message through. There had been little Velonara had been able to do, recently.

She was still assigned to Baine’s surveillance, but few opportunities presented themselves to speak to the tauren alone. She had not seen Valeera Sanguinar again, though she knew the woman was still in the city. Baine had spoken once or twice to Velonara of “our friend,” but she was not sure if it was to Sanguinar or the little lion that he referred. He assured her that he’d managed to speak to little King Anduin, but Velonara knew not how, or how often. He’d never left Dazar’alor. 

With a growing sense of dread, Velonara watched as Sylvanas made her way down the hill, accompanied by the Blightcaller and one of his hounds. The beast sat obediently in the only available space, the unbroken spot in the circle through which Nathanos and the Dark Lady strode through. A subtle, slightly threatening reminder that no one was permitted to leave.

“I have troubling news,” Sylvanas announced calmly, standing just to the side of the mok’nathal Rexxar. Nathanos took his place at her right hand. “It seems there are traitors in our midst.”

Velonara did not look at Baine, and she resisted the urge to glance at the regent lord. She stood very still as she listened, fear coiling tightly in her gut. 

She knows, she thought desperately. About Saurfang and her own collusions with Quel’Thalas. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eitrigg, standing in Saurfang’s place, shift uncomfortably.

Sylvanas was moving now, striding slow and purposeful past Geya’rah, Thalyssra, Rokhan. “Most of you,” she was saying, “need fear nothing.” Stopped before Baine, at the opposite end of the circle. “But Derek Proudmoore didn’t flee to Kul Tiras by himself.”

If her blood still flowed, it would have stopped cold in her veins. Sylvanas was not talking about Saurfang, perhaps did not even know ﹣ but what she spoke of was far worse. A much more dangerous, deadly secret, known only to a select group of individuals. Baine, his rugged form bathed in foggy moonlight. The heavy hooffalls over the dilapidated wooden gangplank. The return of one who was lost to his rightful home, snatched with utmost secrecy from the hands of Sylvanas’s most trusted blightbrewers, his mind still whole and intact. 

There is a sickness in the Horde, Baine had mourned. My heart can no longer bear it.  

Jaina Proudmoore’s shocked, fearful face as her long dead brother stepped hesitantly to her side, as Velonara pulled the gangplank back onto their own ship. 

“﹣help, didn’t he?” Sylvanas turned, and the creak of a pulled bowstring caught Velonara’s ear. Nathanos had nocked an arrow ﹣ no one dared breathe ﹣ was pointing it at Baine.

This is it.  

No, not at Baine. Just slightly behind, to Thomas Zelling, the tidesage who had steered the ship.

“Zelling?” The way Sylvanas said the man’s name was curious, almost friendly, but underneath simmered deep waves of unbridled poison. 

The tidesage sputtered weakly, unable to defend himself. He had been a good man in life, unsuited to treachery and subterfuge. Velonara felt badly that it had been he who'd been raised to undeath; he didn't deserve this fate. He could not lie, and would not admit the truth, and for that, Sylvanas would kill him. 

Along with everyone else who’d had a hand in spiriting Derek Proudmoore away. 

Lor’themar bristled. He hadn’t even known about Derek Proudmoore ﹣ no one had ﹣ but he could not stand for the overbalance of power, the threatening of who he perceived to be an innocent man. Beside him, Gallywix’s face glowed in the firelight, fangs gleaming in an omniously toothy smile. 

“Stop!” 

With everyone’s eyes focused now on Baine, Velonara crept closer. Silently, she removed the glove on her left hand and the ring on her third finger. 

“I returned Derek Proudmoore to his family!” Baine announced, eyes hard and voice loud. Booming over the crackling of the bonfire and the quietude of the camp. “You raised him as Forsaken! You planned to deny him his free will!”

Lor’themar stiffened, and across from him so did Rokhan and Eitrigg. All had always been critical of the creation of new undead. All had always steadfastly refused to allow Sylvanas to raise their fallen soldiers, had argued vehemetly against the unholiness of denying a just and deserved afterlife.

Velonara reached up and undid the clasp of her necklace. It rustled against her armor as she pulled it out, as she opened the little locket and pressed the ring inside. Forced it closed, uncaring if the stone chipped or the metal bent. 

“I could not stand by and let such depravity unfold!”

Sylvanas would kill them all ﹣ Zelling and Baine and Velonara. She was sure the Banshee had already murdered Burch, the apothecary who’d helped her smuggle Proudmoore from the Hall of Rituals. Velonara would not allow Quel’Thalas ﹣ would not allow Halduron ﹣ to face Sylvanas’s wrath. 

Next time, Halduron, you’ll be happy. She stole forth, past the hound who observed her with a critical eye, past the stunned Ji Firepaw who paid her no mind. I’ll free you from me. From Sylvanas.

“Thank you for your honesty.” There was no warmth in the Banshee’s voice, and after a moment there came the sickening thunk of an arrowhead embedding itself in flesh and bone. Zelling fell, and he did not get up again. 

Lor’themar’s entire body was rigid and unyielding, his one good eye staring in shock at the scene. At Baine as he screamed and deathstalkers crowded around him.

“Banshee! Are we nothing more than pawns in your game? You betray the Horde!” 

The declaration rang out, echoing harshly amid Stormsong’s peace. Baine glowered, breathing hard through his nose, the thick golden ring piercing his nostrils fogging with every breath.

“No, Sylvanas replied curtly. “He did. And so did you.” 

Velonara slipped past Garona, frozen in place. Pried apart Lor’themar’s clenched fist, entwining their hands and pressing the locket into his palm. I want to free you from the shackles. Halduron. Lor’themar didn’t react, fingers curling around the necklace. He didn’t look at her. Halduron, your true happiness lies beyond me. Search and find it.

There were hands on the chieftain now, though Baine did not resist. They did not clap him in irons but they might as well have, as he was shuffled along, the center of a circle of armed guards. His spine was straight, his head held high. Velonara could just see the crack in his horn, where she’d removed the piece for his illicit letter. 

Be safe, Halduron, and forget me.

She followed, as she knew was expected of her. She looked at no one, tried to maintain the air of stately, unknowable dark ranger. They would not arrest her so publicly as Baine; there could be no question of loyalty amongst Sylvanas’s most elite. 

As she trailed in the wake of the tauren’s steady hoofsteps, Halduron’s face ﹣ his silly, scrunched up, laughing face ﹣ leapt to the forefront of her mind. She would never see him again.

I’m okay with having nothing in the end.

* * *

Halduron didn’t enjoy being in the city. It was close and confined, and ever since he’d stopped his patronage at every bar and whorehouse, it felt oppressive and judgmental. He was fine with Rommath’s judgment ﹣ the mage had been doing so since the first moment they’d met ﹣ but this was something different. Foreign, pleading, and wanting. He didn’t like it. 

But he refused to leave for fear that Lor’themar would return while he was gone. He’d heard nothing of the war ﹣ of Velonara ﹣ for months, and Lor’themar would surely have news of her, even if only a brief sighting during his trip to the Kul Tiran base. He didn’t think either would risk actually speaking to one another, not surrounded by so many Banshee loyalists. 

Rommath was taking care of the day to day of the kingdom, the minutiae for which Halduron had no patience. Meetings with guild heads and trade unions, important meals with diplomats. The formal briefings with Edward Hanes, the envoy sent from Dazar’alor and devotee of Sylvanas. Halduron didn’t know why Rommath bothered ﹣ Hanes told them nothing. Shipments of azerite and updates on Zandalari negotiations, things that mattered not in the grand scheme of things. Unimportant and a waste of time. 

Rommath handled all of this, so it was a surprise to see him stride into the Small Court in the early afternoon, Astalor Bloodsworn in tow and his assistant conspicuously absent.

“What’s this then?” Halduron asked mildly, loosing an arrow at a small target he’d constructed on the courtyard’s far side. The Small Court was rarely used anymore, a remnant of Sunstrider kings and noble houses and an age long past. Halduron liked spending time here, was rarely bothered by his own assistant or annoying city people. 

“Shh.” The Grand Magister began stomping around, breaking from Astalor and erecting strange wards along the perimeter, while Astalor did the same on the other side. They met in the middle, by Halduron’s target, and together opened a portal. The courtyard filled with the sound of rushing water, and in stepped Liadrin, her lips pursed, and Solanar Bloodwrath. The portal closed and another created in its place; through this one came High Priest Kath’mar, and Warden Neeluu with her bodyguard shadow Captain Flamekissed. 

Halduron lowered his bow, no longer interested in shooting targets. “I would have dressed the part if I knew this was a state meeting.”

“For the first time in your miserable life, please shut up.” 

Rommath was in a mood. 

“Lor’themar’s back,” Liadrin murmured. 

“Already?” Halduron’s ears perked up. 

She nodded. “He’ll be here shortly.” 

“He’s meeting with that Forsaken,” Astalor supplied, snapping the portal closed. “Standard procedure, apparently.”

Rommath snorted. “More like being told what to say." 

“What’s going on?” asked the High Priest. 

The Grand Magister didn’t answer, tracing a rune Halduron was unfamiliar with on the ground, close to the palace entrance. The one Lor’themar would use when he arrived. 

“Something bad,” Solanar muttered, shifting his weight uneasily. He looked like he’d been training ﹣ his short hair was damp with sweat, cheeks pink with exertion. 

“There have already been reports from Kul Tiras,” Liadrin added.

“Kul Tiras?”

“Several of my blood knights were disturbed by recent events. Their messages were intercepted by Hanes this morning.”

“Thankfully, not even Hanes can keep a nosy magister out of his treachery,” Rommath growled, and Halduron thought it best not to ask. He’d never known how the magister came by his information ﹣ he seemed to know everything that went on Quel’Thalas, no matter how mundane. Halduron suspected a large, elusive spy network run by extremely well paid sources.

It was actually some time before Lor’themar appeared. His entire body was tense, a carefully controlled storm raging beneath this skin. Halduron had never seen his best friend so angry. The Regent Lord’s eyes found the Grand Magister’s.

“Can I?”

A nod. “It’s safe.”

Even so, Lor’themar’s words, when they came, were so quiet as to be part of the integrity of the Small Court itself, simply there and taken for granted, like the air they breathed. 

“Sylvanas has arrested Baine.”

Gasps and sharp inhales punctuated the room. “Does she know?” Rommath demanded. 

Lor’themar shook his head. “I don’t think so.” Velonara’s information, sporadic though it had been, had told them months ago that Baine had spoken to King Anduin. “She arrested him for the return of Derek Proudmoore ﹣ Jaina's elder brother. Sylvanas raised his corpse and planned to use him against Kul Tiras.”

Liadrin grit her teeth. She especially had a hatred for Sylvanas’s necromantic tendencies. 

“Baine’s been taken into custody ﹣ we all witnessed it ﹣ and the Forsaken who helped him shot.” 

Another death of one of her own. Would Sylvanas stop at nothing?

“Was there anyone else?” the Warden Neeluu asked gently. She seemed to be struggling to process the information, hesitant to ask. 

Velonara. Velonara had been part of the group assigned to monitor the tauren. She had collaborated with him to petition the Alliance for Saurfang’s release. Had she been part of this Derek Proudmoore scheme as well?

“What of Velonara? Did you see her?”

And suddenly Lor’themar wouldn’t meet Halduron's eyes. 

“Lor? Was she there? Is she safe?” 

The Regent Lord fiddled with something in his pocket, staring at the carefully manicured greenery across the way. 

Halduron’s heart pounded. “Lor’themar!”

And his friend sighed, shoulders drooping as though crushed with the weight of a large burden. Extracted from his pocket something made of dark metal, strung on a thin chain. Held it out. Halduron felt transported back to ten years ago, to that night by the fire, the charred slip bearing a hastily scribbled list of names. And just as he had ten years ago, Lor’themar murmured, “I’m sorry, my friend.” 

In his hand was a locket, its smooth umbral metal painstakingly chosen to blend seamlessly with black leather. The sides were not properly closed, and a hint of palest blue, reminiscent of a once icy stare, glinted through the gap. An inscription had been engraved on the inside, the words of a desperate man a decade younger, the words by which he still stood. 

Until the stars fall

And the Great Dark

Beyond takes us

I will love you

Longer than you love me

Halduron stared at it. He couldn’t bring himself to take it, wanted to recoil from the necklace and the meaning of it being here rather than around Velonara’s neck. 

“What…”

“They took her too.”

Sylvanas would kill her for her treason. Would torture her and torment her and leave her barely alive, just as she had done to Koltira all those years ago. And then she would murder her.

“No…” Images of Velonara flashed in his mind, the crimson eyes and wry, amused smile. Delicate hands carding through his yellow hair, cool lips pressed against his skin. The world fell away ﹣ there was nothing but him, and somewhere out there was Velonara. 

“I won’t…” He didn’t know when his bow appeared again in his hand. Wasn’t conscious of slinging the quiver over his shoulder, its supple leather case banging against his back, arrows clattering against one another. He could see Sylvanas quite clearly in his mind’s eye, the dignified woman she had been and the monster she was now. He had never been able to best her at shooting, but he could at least launch an arrow into her wicked eye before she took him down. 

There was a distinct ringing in his ears, and he ignored it. Focused on his steps, one foot in front of the other. The exit from the Small Court. If he was fast enough, perhaps Velonara would be…

“Halduron!” 

The world roared back to life as a heavy weight smashed into his back. Halduron fought, clawed at the arms around his midsection and swung the bow like a mace. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“Halduron, stop!” a voice yelled in his ear. It sounded like Lor’themar. There came a loud crack and a cold pressure against his legs ﹣ his feet were frozen to the floor. “Stop!”

“I won’t lose her again! Let me go!” His elbow connected with something solid, a blinding agony blossoming in the joint to the tune of a loud, pained grunt. The hold around his waist lessened but did not abate. 

There was commotion somewhere behind him. Another pair of hands, clad in black and red plate, reached for him and he swung.

“I’ve got him,” Lor’themar insisted. “I’ve got him, don’t.”

“Don’t stop me!” Once Halduron had poked fun at his friend, had teased him for going soft just sitting on his ass in the Spire all day. It seemed Lor’themar had taken the jabs personally; his grip was just as iron as he remembered. “I will find Sylvanas and﹣”

“And what?” Lor’themar spat. “Get shot full of arrows? Tossed to Nathanos’s hounds?”

“I’ll be with her!” The words came out strangled around the lump in his throat. Dimly he registered that his cheeks were wet. It seemed he would never outgrow the crybaby he’d once been. 

“You’ll be dead!”

Another grunt ﹣ Halduron’s fist had connected with the Regent Lord’s face. 

“I’ll be with her!” He had vowed, from the first moment he’d taken Velonara in his arms, all those months ago at the lodge, that wherever she went, he too would go, and when true death finally laid claim to what was left of her soul, Halduron would follow her into the Shadowlands, never again to be parted. “I can’t lose her again!”

He’d only just gotten her back…

A warmth flooded his body, a cloying, sleepy sort of feeling. The Small Court crumbled around him again. The weight on his back faded. The Light drained all the fight from his muscles and when he fell, all he saw was black. 

* * *

Now this was familiar. A comfortable bed, a dull throbbing behind the eyes. Halduron wondered how much he’d drunk to not remember getting home. That wasn’t unusual, really ﹣ he’d blacked out plenty of times over the years. But he’d been trying to stop drinking ﹣ to stop drowning himself in the bottom of a bottle ﹣ and he felt a twinge of disappointment. The last thing he remembered was…

He bolted upright, and the world lurched.

“Hey there, easy. Easy now. You’re going to be dizzy for a bit.”

A firm hand pressed on his shoulder. Blinking rapidly in the fading light, Halduron saw not Lor’themar, but Astalor. His muscles tensed and he tried to calm his racing heart. 

“Liadrin knocked you out,” Astalor said apologetically. 

Halduron flopped back into the mattress. “Of course she did.” Now that he thought about it, the pressure in his head wasn’t the usual hammering of self hatred and loathing. It was calmer, gentler. A residual wave of Light laving at all his most vulnerable, painful places. He knew the feeling; Liadrin had done it before, after particularly horrifying nightmares and outbursts of rage. It was supposed to be soothing. 

“Where’s Lor?” he croaked. His throat felt raw, the words scraping at his soft insides as they clawed their way out into the open air. 

Astalor gave him a small smile. “It was thought that you would feel better if he was not here when you woke,” he said kindly. And that was appreciated. Lor’themar pushing him back down to his bed would have resulted in another fight; Halduron had swung at his friend one too many times over the years and Lor’themar had borne it all with quiet acceptance. He had been lucky, had survived the Scourge almost untouched. He had gained after the tragedy, and Halduron had lost his entire world . Even now the anger ebbed when his mind wandered too far.

“How is he?” 

“Kath’mar set his nose. There was quite a lot of blood, I tried my best to wash it all off you while you were asleep.” 

Halduron sighed. He’d have to find Lor’themar and apologize. Again. 

It was good that Astalor was here, rather than Lor’themar, or even Liadrin. Halduron had known the two for over eleven hundred years, and they knew each other inside and out but not in this. In grief, the comfort his friends could offer was minimal, inadequate and hurtful. They’d been together since they were children ﹣ how could they ever understand how Halduron felt over Velonara? The guilt, the anger, the soul killing heartbreak ﹣ Lor’themar and Liadrin had never experienced that. But Astalor had. He’d lost his wife in Kael’thas’s attack on the Sunwell, slain by a pit lord on Quel’Danas. Not even a body remained over which to mourn. 

Somehow, he’d remained strong.

Halduron had spoken with Astalor Bloodsworn a great deal over the years. The man had suffered as he had, his marriage cut too short by untimely death; he had nightmares, he confided to the ranger, of watching his wife run into battle for the last time, and being unable to follow or stop her. He felt guilt at the time wasted ﹣ he’d had only eight years with his wife, but had met her several decades earlier, when he was still a student in Dalaran and she a journeyman priestess. He’d thought nothing of her then, and it ate at him, the feeling that they could have started earlier, that they could have had more time. Halduron was well familiar with guilt. He and Velonara had spent nearly six centuries at each other’s throats, loathing and cursing each other. If he could go back, if he could only have placed that burning blossom crown on her head on that drunken Midsummer night of his first year at the Enclave, they could have had over a thousand years together in bliss. 

Astalor had been married such a short time. What was eight years to an elf with a lifespan of three thousand? But in the decade since the Burning Legion’s invasion, he had not moved on. He was, perhaps, the most eligible bachelor in all of Quel’Thalas ﹣ even with his lands donated to the state and the vast Bloodsworn fortune ceded almost in its entirety to the crown, Astalor remained an attractive prospect. He came from an old Highborne family, pledged to the Sunstriders from the time of Dath’Remar, and such a history was compelling. But Astalor had courted no one, did not even look. He’d told Halduron once that he felt it disrespectful to his wife and the other woman both, because how could he love another when he’d already given away his heart? His wife had been his soulmate, and he wanted no one else for as long as the Light blessed him to live.

Halduron didn’t know if he believed in soulmates. They seemed a fairy tale, something out of the old classics and ancient poems. But he understood what Astalor meant, because he felt the same way. He wanted no one who wasn’t Velonara, and no amount of drinking or whoring had changed that. Velonara was his beginning and would be his end. 

“Astalor.”

“Mm?”

“If you were me.” Halduron stared up at the ceiling; he’d been brought back to his own apartments within the Spire, the high vaulted ceiling above familiar in a distant way. His eyes prickled uncomfortably. “If you were me, right now. What would you do?”

Maybe that was a stupid question. Astalor was a quiet and cautious man, who thought through every possibility before acting and had not a violent bone in his pious body. He was nothing like Halduron ﹣ was not rash and impulsive, not quick to anger. Halduron could never imagine sweet Astalor reacting as he had to Lor’themar’s announcement. 

The mage was quiet for a long time. He picked at a thread in his sleeve as he thought, until finally he said, “I’m not you, Halduron. I’ll never be like you. I’ve been told many times I’m too nice and too meek, that I should stand up for myself and what I believe in.” He pulled at the thread, the tiny string snapping and trailing from one end of his sleeve. “I can’t pretend I know exactly how you feel,” he admitted. “My wife is dead, after all. But I think, if she were alive, and in a situation like Velonara’s, I think I would do whatever it takes to bring her home again to me.”

Halduron’s eyes widened. What?

Never would he have expected Astalor to say something like that with such conviction. Astalor, who preached on the importance of letting go and forgiving oneself, who had largely made his peace with his wife’s death, and was really living his life rather than simply counting down the days until he saw her again in the Shadowlands. Halduron stared at him, heart beating fast. 

Astalor took something from his nightstand then, held it out in his large, gentle hand. Velonara’s locket, glinting determinedly in the waning light, the pale aquamarine ring winking at him from the gap in the side. 

“We’ll get her back, Halduron,” Astalor swore. “We’ll bring her home.”

Chapter Text

All alone in a dark room. That was all Velonara knew. 

Baine wasn’t with her. No doubt they’d spirited him someplace far away, afraid of collaboration or escape. She almost laughed. No one ever escaped from a Forsaken dungeon.

Although… she wasn’t in a dungeon. Was she? Even Koltira Deathweaver had been held in the bowels of the Undercity, but the Undercity was destroyed… Where had they taken her?

Velonara angled her head, looking for any distinct architectural features that would give away her location, if only for her own peace of mind. The smooth marble of Quel’Thalas, or the rough red sandstone of Durotar, or the persistent mildew that clung to everything in Tirisfal Glades... Nothing. There was nothing of note. With a sigh she fell back against the unyielding table.

At least the rack was the same. The manacles clattered as she shifted, trying to take pressure off her spine. They’d strung Koltira up on a rack exactly like this. 

She wondered when they’d start the torture. 

“Do you regret it?”

Something dripped in the dark little room, viscous and slow, falling with a fat plop! somewhere out of sight. Velonara did not often come down here ﹣ she wasn’t an apothecary, and she wasn’t part of the Dark Lady’s torture squad. She wasn’t supposed to be here in this room at all, but she’d heard rumors, of a death knight… a prisoner of war…

Long ago, she’d served with Koltira Leafweaver in the Farstriders. For several centuries they been part of the same unit, first under Captain Helios and then Lor’themar Theron, before being handpicked by Sylvanas herself to join the reconnaissance that ended her life. Koltira had possessed a sullen and withdrawn demeanor, in contrast to his outgoing and charming brother, and he and Velonara had developed an easy, quiet camaraderie, fostered by their hatred of trolls and disdain for some of their unit’s lackadaisical attitudes. Koltira had been a difficult man, but Velonara had liked him well enough, and it hurt to see him manacled to the rack. Like he was an enemy. Like he’d never been one of them at all. 

Stonefaced, crimson eyes roved the death-ravaged body of her former friend and colleague. He didn’t look good. Sharp ribs poked out from his battered chest, and strips of flesh had been torn methodically from the soft skin of his belly, armpits, groin and thighs. Down his chest ran a ragged, brutal slash, long since healed by Scourge magicks into a thick, coagulated line ﹣ the blow that had killed him years before. The rumors said he was being reeducated, and Velonara supposed the torture was part of that. She shuddered to see the shrunken, blackened flesh clinging to his fingers and toes, the remnants of soot. 

They’d burned him. To drive their point home, they’d scorched it into his dry, decayed flesh. 

“Regret what?” Her voice was steady as she took him in, this man who had once been her friend. 

A parched, mirthless laugh cracked out of Koltira’s throat, his icy blue eyes tilted upwards in an unfocused stare at the ceiling. “Sylvanas,” he rasped. Strange how such a whisper could seem so deafeningly loud. “Do you regret joining her?”

It was no wonder Sylvanas was furious with him. Such talk was treason under her iron command. Koltira could claim allegiance to Mograine and the Ebon Hold but the fact remained that he was just a Forsaken with a fancy title, and all Forsaken belonged to the Dark Lady, in the end. 

She allowed herself the smallest titch, a corner of her mouth curving downward. Koltira didn’t seem to be expecting an answer, and she wasn’t about to give him one. 

She shouldn’t have come here, and with that thought she left, the rotting wooden door shutting heavily behind her, once again sealing Koltira off from the world.

Velonara wondered if she would ever see Koltira again. Yes, she would tell him. I regret it every day. Seeing him there, stretched so tightly over the rack that had he lived she would've seen every beat of his desperate heart, had sown something deep within her. 

Doubt. 

For the first time since finding herself free of the Lich King’s will ﹣ no, for the first time in her entire life ﹣ she questioned Sylvanas Windrunner. She began paying attention. The Sylvanas she had followed in life was not the same woman who owned the remains of her soul, the one they called reverently their Dark Lady and Banshee Queen. She cared little for the living, and with the torture of Koltira, she revealed that she cared less for her Forsaken now too. 

What had happened to the Ranger General? When had her passion ceded to cruelty, her drive become obsession? When had her motive shifted from all of them to her alone?

Though… it wasn’t like Velonara was much better. 

She’d done terrible things in the name of Sylvanas Windrunner. She’d aided in the procurement of resources for the bombing of Theramore, and held at bowpoint and shot without hesitation any who dared question her. She’d surrendered prisoners to the apothecaries with full knowledge of the horrible experiments that awaited them, and when Sylvanas gave the word, she’d slaughtered all who attended little King Wrynn’s Gathering. All those people, who’d only come searching for their lost loved ones…

And because of her, because of the actions she took in the war against the Alliance, Teldrassil went up in flames.

A chill swept through her bones at the memory of the tree. It wasn’t Koltira that forced her to act. Nor the unnecessary massacres at Thermore and Arathi. No. What had finally forced Velonara’s hand, what finally convinced her that the Sylvanas she had once known and loved was finally, truly gone, was the crack of burning pitch smashing into the salt-kissed trunk, and the dying screams of innocent kaldorei. The glare of flames as they overwhelmed the ancient world tree, eating away at something sacred and holy, something that never should have come into play at all. 

Yes, she would tell Koltira. I regret following Sylvanas Windrunner.

She would die again in Sylvanas’s service, and this time she would deserve it. 

They came sometime later. Velonara didn’t know their names. She supposed she wouldn’t ﹣ Sylvanas wasn’t stupid enough to let other rangers to interrogate her. With her defection, the dark rangers had been compromised. It was too great a risk that any of them would sympathize with Velonara, and try to set her free.  

A seemingly random assortment of Forsaken filtered in and out of her chamber at all hours. Perhaps, if she’d been one of the living, it would bother her ﹣ the constant comings and goings made it impossible to sleep, and there were no meals. Perhaps they didn’t interrogate Forsaken enough to warrant a separate protocol for her. There were blightguards and apothecaries and one or two with veiled faces who Velonara learned very quickly were “persuaders.” Officially, Sylvanas didn’t condone torture, but it was an open secret that it happened. 

How else could the blight have been created?

She didn’t talk. They asked her questions, so many questions… Who else collaborated to set Derek Proudmoore free? What sort of allies had taken up with Baine Bloodhoof? Had he reached out to Anduin Wrynn, and was the Proudmoore extraction a joint effort? Who was her contact within the Alliance? Where did they talk, where did they meet? Who else had she cajoled to her side with her lies against the Banshee Queen?

Silence was met with pain. There were needles, and impossibly sharp knives, and she lost more than a few nails from her fingers and toes. Goblin electrical devices, with their terrifying shockwaves and residual stench of burnt flesh, featured prominently.

One of the advantages to being Forsaken, Velonara had learned over the years, was a dulled pain response. The horrors to which she was subjected hurt, and quite a bit, but with gritted teeth and a clear mind she found she could bear the worst of it. The Forsaken specialized in the discomfort and struggle of the living, not the undead. 

“Such a shame Lord Blightcaller has ordered us to keep you alive,” one of the persuaders murmured, wrenching a corkscrew-shaped object from her sternum. A pained noise hissed through Velonara’s gritted teeth. “The apothecaries have requested you for experimentation. Perhaps you’d rather speak to one of them.”

Don’t say anything. Don’t think. Empty your mind.

The persuader didn’t seem to expect an answer either way. He ﹣ and Velonara was sure this one was male, with a voice like a heavy smoker and a badly scarred throat ﹣ regarded her for a moment before running a finger over a selection of instruments she couldn’t see in her current position. “Personally,” he continued, “I don’t think we’re quite on the same page here. Physical persuasion does not seem to bother you nearly as much as you nor I would like.” With a short, huffing sigh, he slid something shiny and likely sharp back into his kit. There was a dull scraping as he hooked his foot under a three-legged stool and pulled it forth, settling lightly as he rummaged in his pockets. 

“You’re well known, Dark Ranger Velonara. Favored of the Dark Lady, high-ranking captain of her elite unit. Obedient ﹣ until now, that is ﹣ and precise. I’m told you’re quite good with a bow, even in melee capacity.” 

The scratchy timbre faded to white noise as Velonara stared determinedly at the ceiling. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was the crackling of a campfire, punctuated with the sharp pop of burning twigs, driving away the chill of the Amani mountains…

“﹣can’t say I’m privy to the majority of your exploits,” the persuader was saying. “Hazard of the job, knowing too much about your patients.”

There was a vague Lordaeronian lilt there, at the edges. Eastern Lordaeron, she thought, but how far? Maybe he’d been born in what was now the Plaguelands.

“﹣no secret you’ve struggled more than most with letting go﹣”

Velonara wasn’t familiar with the humans who’d inhabited the far eastern corners of Lordaeron. Most of them were Scourge now, and Scourge didn't talk. He didn’t have the gentle Thalassian rounded vowels that marked those who lived close to the border, those who’d traded with Morningstar City in the shade of Thas’alah. But she’d met a fair few from the very edges of the Eastern Plaguelands ﹣ paladins and priests, mostly, of the living sort, and the Blightcaller ﹣ and he didn’t speak with their harsh barking consonants either, or have the softly drawn S that she associated with people from Blightcaller’s region. 

“﹣kept the same friends, I’ve been told, who of course have been taken in for questioning…”

Stratholme. The thought smashed into the rising fear for Alina. She couldn’t think of Alina. The Lich King’s control over their minds had been better, perhaps, than Sylvanas’s, but that didn’t mean the Banshee couldn’t peek when it suited her. He sounds like he’s from Stratholme.

“﹣have been searched, as is protocol. We’ve found some interesting odds and ends there.” As he mused, he withdrew from his pockets a small leather pouch which he emptied onto the table beside his instruments. There were a few quiet plinks, but nothing really to alert Velonara to what he’d revealed. She needn’t have worried, for he was a considerate sort who did not leave her wanting.

He held up one hand, tightly gloved in leather broken in not from warmth but from continuous use, with sharp cracks instead of gentle creases, and between two fingers he showed her his prize: a collection of feathers, some rather ragged with age, pinched at the shaft ends and fanned almost attractively, as if he were a merchant and she a potential buyer. Fear rose like bile in her throat.

“These are rather pretty,” he mused. “They’re dragonhawk feathers, aren’t they?”

Maybe Andorhal. I don’t think there are any Forsaken from Stratholme.

“I’ve never seen a dragonhawk. I’ve heard during breeding season they’re mildly murderous, which seems like a hazard to you elves when you consider that they're everywhere.” 

The gold-orange feathers disappeared, replaced by a sickeningly familiar fan of royal blue. “And these are from a hawkstrider, I believe. Difficult to train, but fantastically loyal if done right.”

Dal’diel’s severe amber gaze flashed in her mind. His initial hostility ﹣ so like his rider’s ﹣ and the fondness it had melted into. He’d chittered at her the morning she left with Sylvanas, the last morning. Stretched his long blue neck over the woven net door, and drew a lock of her hair into his beak. Groomed her like he would one of his own. Like he’d groomed Halduron so﹣

Don’t think about him.

A pinch appeared between the persuader’s brows. “Blue isn’t a very common color for hawkstriders, is it? And yet, blue is all you have. Almost like… they’re all from the same bird.”

Feathers were useful, and Farstriders used lost and molted ones from their own hawkstriders for a variety of things. Fletching for arrows, and quills, padding for thick double-layered cloaks and trousers and blankets ﹣ Lor’themar had once owned a splendid cloak of jade green feathers ﹣ and attractive fishing lures… Farstriders wasted very little, and Velonara had herself possessed a beautiful collection of shed feathers in a jewel-toned teal from her own hawkstrider, now long dead. Killed in the attack by Arthas Menethil. 

“Doesn’t Silvermoon’s Ranger General own a bird with plumage this shade?”

Dal’diel was a legend among Farstriders, famous for his temper ﹣ so unusual for a male ﹣ and his viciousness in battle. He’d made a name for himself in several Horde cities, and there was a rumor that a handful of stables in Orgrimmar refused to board him. He’d attacked Finel’dorah more than once, frightened by the stench of death that clung to the charger, but some careful pets and bribes of jerky usually put him right. 

The feathers vanished, replaced with a small corked vial, empty save for an oblong pearl of dark silver, winking at her in even the dim light. 

“The apothecaries have determined that this came from Quel’Danas, or perhaps northern Eversong.” The persuader’s voice was calm and even, and though Velonara couldn’t see his face beneath the veil, she could hear the turned up corner to his lips. “The murlocs of Quel’Thalas are quite ferocious. Isn’t it difficult to acquire gems such as these?

I traded with a Greengill for this, the letter had said. They don’t part with a lot of their clams but they gave me five for a few dragonhawk eggs. This was in the first one I cracked so I’d say I got the better end of the deal.

Velonara jumped at the feel of cool leather dragging along the abused skin of her left arm, the yank of the frayed braided cord encircling it, a royal blue feather woven through it. “And of course, there’s this.”

She thanked whoever was listening that she’d had the presence of mind to pass her locket and ring to Lor’themar before being whisked away. If the random clutter in her quarters was damning, those would have been an instant death sentence ﹣ for her and for Halduron.

“Fraternizing with the living is forbidden,” the persuader said coolly, the old bracelet straining before finally breaking from Velonara's arm with a snap. “It’s better for all of us to let go of our pasts. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the disastrous Gathering.”

Don’t speak. Don’t endanger him. Stay quiet.

The persuader leaned in very close. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire, dark ranger,” he murmured. “If you cooperate, perhaps we can stamp that fire out, hmm?”

The meaning was threefold and they both knew it. Thanks to Velonara’s sentimental heart Halduron was suspect, and whoever had been dispatched to Quel’Thalas would be keeping a closer eye on him from now on. Anything Halduron said could endanger her further and invite Sylvanas’s wrath. If she had rebelled, what was stopping the clearly enamored Ranger General from doing the same?

And then… 

Koltira’s reeducation, which had been a failure in the psychological sense, had been a marked success in a handful of ways. It was easy to put down a Forsaken. Even the recently deceased reacted quite similarly when faced with suggestions of brute force or prolonged underwater exposure. When pushed, their desiccated bodies simply gave out. But dark rangers and death knights ﹣ they were made of something stronger. Carefully preserved and empowered by dark magicks, they were able to withstand the elements and the strain that would kill common gutterfolk. It wasn’t until Koltira’s capture that the apothecaries had gotten the opportunity to test how to truly harm what was, in essence, a proper body. 

Fire. No matter the magicks that had been worked upon them, no matter how good their preservation or how iron their will, all Forsaken would succumb to flame. Even the great Koltira Deathweaver. 

Velonara feared very few things, in life or undeath. Even the prospect of her own demise did not inspire the terror it probably should, the panic it brought to even other Forsaken. But fire… She would willingly suffer any other fate than being burned alive.

“How many others will go up with you?” the persuader questioned, before pulling away again, and leaving her to her own thoughts.

It was Midsummer, and she was drunk. She thought she’d blown past the line two bottles back, but who was really counting. 

It was Midsummer, and she was drunk. The fireworks would be starting soon, and while the best place to watch them was from the treetops, this year they were gathered in a large open field, and the trees were too far away. 

She hadn’t realized it was him until after the words were out. Until his sharp profile came into focus, and his wide blue eyes, unfocused with drink, honed on in her. For a moment neither of them spoke, and then Velonara felt her lip curl of its own accord.

“Oh,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain. “It’s you. ” Her friends would never let her live down asking Halduron fucking Brightwing to watch Midsummer fireworks with her. Alina had been teasing her for decades about the man already. “Nevermind.” 

She’d find somewhere else to watch the display. Fuck Brightwing, already claiming the best spot. She’d just have to find a better one. 

“Wait. Velonara.” 

She swayed on the spot. The ground was soft from last night’s rain; she couldn’t keep her balance.

“Sit down.” Brightwing indicated the spot beside him. “Truce? For the holiday?”

Alina would never let her hear the end of it. A truce with this idiot? But… he really had found the best spot in the whole field. And he seemed too preoccupied to bother her, nursing a half empty bottle of Fire Brew and absent-mindedly fiddling with a flower crown. Some part of her was pleased he hadn’t found anyone to give it to. 

Grass rustled gently as she dropped down beside him, perhaps too close, but she was drunk and it was too much effort to move over now. She raised her bottle with a nod ﹣ “Truce.” ﹣ and took a long drink before she could regret it. She supposed they could go one night without hating each other; things would return to sober normality in the morning. 

It was Midsummer, and Velonara was drunk, and watching blooms of fire burst in the night sky with a man she hated… A stupid, rash, irresponsible excuse for a Farstrider, who didn’t know his head from his admittedly fine ass… But she couldn’t find it in her tonight, to think of him with her usual vitriol. Maybe tonight, for just a few hours, under the cover of the fireworks, she didn’t hate him. Not quite. 

What a disturbing thought. Her cheeks flushed, and in an attempt to compose herself she took another swig of her Fire Brew. She didn't dare look at Brightwing.

Suddenly the other ranger was in her space, was leaning close and ﹣ was he going to kiss her?! 

“What ﹣ ”

Her hand flew up to smack him ﹣ she was drunk but nowhere near that inebriated ﹣ but no… Brightwing was pulling away again, and a gentle weight settled around the crown of her hair. The hand that would have struck him instead drew back, and touched the delicate, papery burning blossom petals. 

Shock colored her face. It was Midsummer, and they were drunk, and Halduron Brightwing had just placed a crown of flowers atop her head. What was he thinking? What did it mean?

“Happy Midsummer, Velonara,” he murmured, his relaxed, moonlit face turning skyward as an explosion of violent pink rocketed across the night sky. 

What was he playing at?

For a moment Velonara envisioned ripping the crown from her head, throwing it back in Brightwing’s stupid face. She wasn’t some village girl he could woo over the holiday, wasn’t some idiot he could claim for one night before disappearing back into the forests. The thought made her angry, that Halduron Brightwing would try and do such a thing.

Except he wasn’t. It was Midsummer, and Halduron Brightwing had given her a crown he’d woven himself, and by all rights that should indicate some interest in her… But he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He hadn’t reached for her again, and when the fireworks show ended he left, without his customary smirk, without any indication he wanted her to join him. Why had he given her…?

It didn’t make sense. 

“Oooh! Vel’s got a crown!” Lenara crowed when she rejoined them. By the flush over her cheeks she was well and truly drunk, her own burning blossom crown slipping low over her forehead. 

“Who’s it from?” Lilana asked eagerly. “Was it Faltora?”

“Do you really think Faltora would let her leave alone?” Lenara’s eyes gleamed. “Besides, I heard he crowned Marillion and Lilatha.”

“The nerve!”

“I know who it’s from!” Alina cheered in her tipsy, singsong voice.

Velonara ripped the flowers from her hair and shot her friend a steely glare. “Shut up.” Alina’s mouth dropped open.

“No!” she gasped. “It really was ﹣ ?”

Velonara felt her cheeks flame. “Shut up,” she hissed, but Alina would not be stopped. 

“By the Sunwell,” she giggled, “I knew it! I knew he liked you!”

“He does not!”

“Are you going to spend the night with him? Come with me!” Lenara jolted forward so suddenly she sloshed the rest of her Fire Brew down her front, and most of Lilana’s too. 

“Who are you going to see?” Velonara quipped with narrowed eyes. Anything to get them off the subject of Halduron Brightwing and his stupid flower crown. 

Lenara’s cheeks pinked. “Tomathren,” she gushed breathlessly. “He kissed me!”

It was as easy as that. Alina squealed, and Lilana wished her luck, and no one paid any attention to the little orange blooms atop Velonara’s head.

It was Midsummer, and she was drunk, and she went to bed that night alone. Splayed on her back beneath the open sky, far removed from happy summer couples and drunken revelry, and the idiots from the closest village setting off intermittent fireworks. 

She’d pulled the flowers from her hair, but could not find it in her to crush them. They were from Brightwing and she hated him but… he’d taken the time to weave the flimsy stems together, each bloom arranged so perfectly as to display from its best angle. Every one whole and perfect, with long, polleny stamens springing from dark red centers that faded to a pale golden orange at the edges. Velonara had never thought of Brightwing as a romantic but…

Why had he given this to her? If he didn’t like her and he wasn’t trying to bed her, why did he invite her to sit, and during the height of the display crown her with burning blossoms? 

Why didn’t it bother her?

When morning came, and the camp packed up and left, the blossoms remained, lain carefully along a large, flat rock so as not to be trampled by careless hawkstrider feet.

Sometimes she wished she’d kept that burning blossom crown. The first gift Halduron had ever given her…

Her mind blanked at the heavy creak of the door. A useful trick she had learned after becoming Forsaken. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the other persuader ﹣ this one was also a man, but he spoke with a thick Stromgarde accent, with the peculiar hacking H common amongst Dwarven and its many dialects. He was a bit more well preserved than the other one as well, with real muscle beneath the padded leather armor. For Sylvanas to expend that kind of magical energy on him, he must be very highly ranked. 

Maybe one of Nathanos’s people then. Sylvanas had never been able to deny Nathanos Marris anything. 

“Still not talking to me, eh?” the persuader commented, more to make noise than because he expected any sort of answer. “That’s a shame. I heard a lot from your friend ﹣ what was her name? Alina?”

Don’t react. Don’t say anything. She’s not involved. You’ll endanger her more.

He puttered around the little room, inspecting the tray on which various small instruments of torture lay ﹣ so teasingly close and yet so far ﹣ and the manacles binding her to the table, keeping up a steady stream of chatter.

“Most of it was rather useless, I admit,” he went on, picking up one heavy chain and glaring at it as though it personally offended him. “Things we already knew, unrelated and unneeded.” He did not touch her. Velonara didn’t know how to interpret that. “But you two are rather close, aren’t you? She seemed to know an awful lot about you.” 

Cracks skittered throughout the stone ceiling. A particularly nasty one started from a large dent, like a body had been slammed into it, and streaked all the way across the room before falling into shadow. There were gouge marks further on ﹣ probably from chains used to hang insurgents from their wrists and ankles, until the weakened structure could no longer support their weight. 

Velonara clenched her jaw. Alina was her best friend ﹣ her only friend, now that Lenara had shown her true colors. Her head was on the chopping block solely because of that friendship; she hadn’t had anything to do with the plot to free Derek Proudmoore, and she didn’t know about Velonara’s involvement in it. No one living did, except Baine Bloodhoof, and her connection to Baine was already well documented. 

Alina didn’t know that Velonara spied for Silvermoon, that she’d run from Darkshore and rallied the leaders of their old homeland. There was a lot Alina didn’t know… so much Velonara had lied to her about… She didn’t know if she’d survive Sylvanas’s plans ﹣ if either of them would ﹣ and if she'd ever be able to apologize… 

I’m sorry, Alina. I tried to keep you out of it.

“What are you doing?”

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, the switching from the close work of arrow fletching to the girl peering down at her making them go a little fuzzy. She blinked several times, lips pressing together and turning down in a scowl. 

“What’s it look like?” and “Did you need something?”

To her annoyance, the girl reached down and gently took one of her finished arrows from the pile, lightly running the tip of one finger along the expertly cut feathers attached to one end. “This is really well made,” she murmured. 

Velonara was one of their unit’s best fletchers, and part of her duties included contributing to the communal arrow stores. A Farstrider’s arrows could be easily identified by their feathers ﹣ most took them from their hawkstriders, though a handful were very good with dragonhawk feathers. Captain Orestes was particularly skilled at adapting the soft, uncooperative orange dragonhawk plumage left over from swooping season into something sturdy and usable. Velonara was kept well supplied by her hawkstrider, a teal bird with a placid disposition who at times preened a little more than was strictly necessary and had a reputation for being fussy among the stablehands. 

“Thank you.” Her eyes dropped back down her work, as she bound a trio of jewel-toned feathers to the arrow shaft with a string of wet sinew. There had been an Amani raid not long ago, and they were short now on their primary projectiles.

After a moment it became clear that the girl wasn’t leaving. “Did you need something?” Velonara asked again.

“Oh.” The girl looked up, startled. “Um. A few of us are going into town tonight. You never come.”

“No, I don’t.” She didn’t have time to waste drinking in town and flirting with country boys like some of the others in the unit. Her parents would rather she stopped wasting time as a Farstrider altogether, but Velonara had always been a determined little shit, and her Farstrider phase had never abetted.

The girl cocked her head. “I thought, maybe, it’s because no one ever invited you.”

Velonara’s hands stilled. 

Well. That was… certainly true… Not that it mattered. Velonara was well regarded among her peers and was the first in her basic training unit to advance as far as she had, and that was enough for her.

Perhaps she’d let it go to her head.

“You should come,” the girl offered, “if you want.” 

Warmth bubbled in her chest. 

“I’ll think about it,” she said noncommittally. 

A nod. And still the girl didn’t leave. “Yes?”

With a bright smile, the girl told her, “I’m Alina. Can you teach me to fletch arrows like that?”

After that day they were inseparable. Perhaps Velonara had been cold and standoffish ﹣ a consequence of her upbringing, no doubt, as a member of the minor nobility dotting the Thalassian countryside ﹣ but Alina was undeterred. She spoke to Velonara like an equal, respected her for her knowledge and military prowess, and stood up to her when she was being a dick. Alina was the first real friend she’d ever had. Velonara loved her. 

“You think they’re all like that?” Alina questioned, peering over her shoulder at the new recruits. One of them, the loud one with lynx scat on his boots, had just received a well-deserved tongue lashing.

Velonara wrinkled her nose. “I hope not.” Orestes had hinted the other day that she would be given a new assignment training and disciplining the newcomers. She prayed the loud one was the only idiot among them or else she’d never be finished in time to join the scouting mission to Zeb’Watha.

As it turned out, the loud one’s name was Halduron Brightwing, and he was absolutely the reason she didn’t go on the next scouting mission. Or the one after that. 

“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" 

Thunk! went the arrow as it embedded itself firmly in an unfortunate target splashed with yellow paint, vaguely reminiscent of Brightwing’s tangled mop.

“We need those in one piece, you know,” came Alina’s cheerful voice. 

“Orestes says I’m not allowed to shoot recruits.” Thunk! 

“He can’t be that bad.” The playful tone had disappeared from her voice but the smile remained, a gentle ray of sunlight to Velonara’s stormy face. 

“He doesn’t do the training exercises properly,” she griped, ripping another arrow from her quiver. “He doesn’t take anything seriously.” The bowstring creaked as she pulled her arm back. “He’s always off sleeping or fucking around with his friends or getting mauled by lynxes.”

“I don’t think the incident with the lynx was entirely his fault…”

“And because of him, I’m stuck here and not in Zeb’Watha murdering trolls! Fuck!” 

The arrow flew wide as the feathers sliced over her fingers. A rookie mistake, and one she wouldn’t have made if it weren’t for Halduron fucking Brightwing.

Amidst her cursing, Alina murmured, “There shouldn’t be any murdering on a recon… Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” 

Clearly disbelieving, Alina wrenched Velonara's bleeding hand away from another arrow, using her sleeve to apply pressure on the slit carved into her skin. After a moment, she quipped, "You know what would be funny?"

Velonara rolled her eyes, wincing at the pain in her finger. "Enlighten me."

"What if you two ended up together?"

"WHAT?" Velonara yanked her hand back in shock, and it took several heartbeats for Alina to reclaim it.

“What was it like?”

Velonara sighed. Alina had always teased that she liked Halduron Brightwing, and after the man’s little stunt on the beach the other night ﹣ which she'd done a piss poor job of fighting, mind ﹣ her friend had been so thoroughly vindicated that Velonara wanted nothing more than to go back to the beach and drown herself.

“You’ve kissed people,” she said dismissively. “It was like that.”

“I’ve kissed women,” Alina corrected. “And I’m not asking about people, I’m asking about Halduron. ”

Velonara made a face. “Don’t call him by his first name.” The words came out more pleading than stern and she cringed internally. “It’s gross.”

Unrestrained laughter tumbled from Alina's traitorous mouth. “Vel!” she gasped. “You had your tongue in his mouth ﹣ ”

“Don’t remind me.”

“ ﹣ how is it gross to call him Halduron?”

“We’re not friends. It’s rude.”

“And humping him in the middle of the ocean isn’t?”

“Alina!” Velonara hissed, scandalized. “I did not ﹣ ”

“We were all there, Vel,” Alina reminded her. “Frankly, Lenara and I were surprised you came back to camp without him. We thought for sure we wouldn’t see you until morning.”

Heat flooded Velonara’s cheeks as she remembered that night. The celebration that followed a particularly difficult set of drills. The drunkenness of their fellow rangers, the wrestling in the sand by smallclothes-clad partiers ﹣ Koltira had bested his brother, and in turn been thrown flat on his back by Lor’themar and stalked off in a huff, which was quite funny. There had been copious amounts of alcohol, and the poor hawkstriders who’d been forced to carry them picked at the sparse dune grasses after being unburdened. Bloodthistle smoke curled thick in the air, mingling with the slightly salty scent of the driftwood bonfire… 

And there was Halduron Brightwing. 

He’d been much more rambunctious than was usual, having placed well in Sylvanas’s exercises, even better than Lor’themar ﹣ though of course not better than Velonara. He hadn’t been able to beat her in the footraces in over four hundred years, and while they were nearly equal in their swimming abilities, she had beaten him that night. 

It was the alcohol. That was the only explanation Velonara was willing to consider. That was the only reason she’d allowed Brightwing to scoop her into his arms ﹣ his strong, muscular arms ﹣ and throw her into the sea. Their hands clasped beneath the water, drawing them together once more, and when they surfaced ﹣ she gasping for air and he infuriatingly composed ﹣ they bobbed far too close than they had any right to be… 

“I saved you!” Brightwing crowed triumphantly, sweeping his wet hair from his face.

“Idiot!” Velonara snapped. “You almost drowned me!” She put up no resistance as he pulled her to him, and it must have been the current that helped her along. Suddenly her feet no longer touched the sandy bottom, and she was wrapping her legs around Brightwing’s hips to stay afloat. Her heart pounded at the contact. She should have pushed him away ﹣ splashed water in his face and yelled at him, and swum back to shore. But something held her back… Something in her didn’t want to do those things…

“You know you liked it.” His voice had dropped, low and sultry, and his sky blue eyes fell upon her lips. He wanted to kiss her. Beneath the waves, pressed against her thin shorts, she felt the firm pressure of his hardness, and wondered briefly if Alina’s speculations about the curve of Brightwing’s dick were right. The thought didn’t fill her with disgust as it once would.

It had to be the alcohol. They were so terribly drunk. That was the only reason Velonara entertained the thought of… The only reason she found herself…

“Maybe you’re right,” she murmured, before capturing his lips in a kiss that quickly moved from sweet to lewdly passionate. A frustrated whine died in her throat as a broad hand snaked around her waist, dipped tantalizingly close to the swell of her bottom, and she found herself pressed flush to his chest, reaching up to tangle in his long yellow hair. Oh, how she’d wanted this…

Velonara blinked abruptly and found herself back in the present, red as the crimson tiles of Silvermoon herself and sitting before an increasingly smug Alina.

“You were just thinking about it, weren’t you?”

“Oh shut up.”

More laughter, as Velonara shoved her. “Do you want me to share first?” she asked. “Saia is a fantastic kisser.”

Velonara ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Yes. Tell me all about Saia.” If Alina really got going about the village girl, perhaps she’d forget all about Velonara’s display at the beach. 

She wasn’t sure she understood what had happened, personally. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to share the experience with anyone else. Not yet. Even if all the southern Enclave’s rangers had borne witness, it still remained a somewhat private, confusing thing… Velonara didn’t know how she felt about it.

“ ﹣ and she does this thing with her tongue,” Alina was going on, “it just makes me weak at the knees.”

“Yeah,” Velonara found herself agreeing. “I know what you mean.” She’d sloshed wobbily from the water after kissing Brightwing, half afraid she was going to fall over and make a fool of herself. 

Alina was grinning at her again. “You do, do you?”

Velonara shoved her again. “Shut up.”

A pained scream rang through the clearing, ricocheting off the trees and crashing violently back into the three figures huddled together on the ground.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay now.” 

“She’s not ﹣ I had to ﹣ I had to ﹣ ”

Velonara hugged her friend closer to her chest, uncaring of the foul ichor staining her leathers. In the silence of the dead forest, Alina’s tearless sobs were like the thunder that threatened to spill over the Amani Mountains, the harbinger of the storm that was their second chance at life. 

“I know.” Alina struggled in her arms, all at once reaching for the body slumped before them and recoiling from it. Her bow was missing, her dagger embedded in twisted, undead flesh. “It’s okay. I know.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen. How had such a simple, stupid mission come to this? How had the search for Nathanos Marris trudged up the empty shell of Alina’s lich-bound wife?

Velonara supposed there wasn’t really any other way. Focused as she was on the singular, obsessive goal that was the recovery of Nathanos fucking Marris ﹣ if he was even Scourge at all, if he wasn’t fucking dead like a normal person ﹣ Sylvanas would never consent to expending the immense magical effort necessary to free Saia from the Lich King’s will. His grip on her wasn’t so tenuous as it had been on them, and Saia wasn’t even a ranger to begin with… Just some girl from Goldenmist. Her family grew apples, for Al’ar’s sake. 

“It’s okay,” she soothed, holding Alina tight, afraid that if she let go Alina would crumble before her eyes. “She’s at peace now. You helped her, Alina. You helped her.”

Alina collapsed against her, horrible shuddering sobs wracking her small frame. Velonara wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, but she could hazard a guess. Alone in the woods, an attack by a feral undead. Alina might not have even known at first that it was Saia who’d found her. 

“Hey, are you guys al… right…” 

Lenara stopped a short ways away, taking in the scene before her. At Saia dead on the ground, really and truly dead, and Alina in pieces beside her, and for the first time since breaking free of the Lich King, her face showed genuine emotion, crimson eyes wide with sorrow and pity and understanding. They all feared what had ultimately befallen Alina. They all feared the day they would run across their friends and loved ones, and in what sort of state they would find them.

“Oh, Alina…” Lenara breathed, soft as the storm’s first drops of rain. 

Alina hadn’t been right for a long time after the death of Saia. They’d burned her, as they burned all dead corpses now, and when her body was ash Alina had buried her. There was a grave marker somewhere in Quel’Thalas, nothing more than a small cairn of smooth, flat stones, that was all that remained of Saia. The only note upon the world that she existed outside of Alina’s memories. 

And yet Alina hadn’t withdrawn into herself like so many of their peers. When Tomathren chased Lenara away from their marital home Alina had rushed to comfort her, and it had been she who’d stayed with Lenara all night when news of his remarriage reached the Undercity. She had refused to return to Silvermoon to present themselves to the new Thalassian government, had waited anxiously for word that Velonara’s journey had resulted in a better outcome than Lenara’s or Areiel’s or Kitala’s; and when it became clear that it hadn’t, Alina was there for her. Every single time it became too much, Alina had selflessly stood by her, a paltry substitution for the light and comfort of the Sunwell or Thas’alah or Halduron’s arms but a comfort nonetheless. 

When Sylvanas decreed that fraternization with their old lives was officially discouraged ﹣ or rather, banned under threat of reeducation ﹣ only Alina had supported her longing for Halduron.

Men are spineless and a curse upon the world, Lenara had muttered bitterly, scowling at the little package in Velonara’s hand. It bore no seal, with only “Velonara” written in a ranger’s common slanted scrawl across the top. Its sender was obvious. You should burn that.

But Alina had frowned. I think it’s sweet, she’d murmured, placing a protective hand over what Velonara learned was a selection of pearlescent pink shells from the Golden Strand. He still cares about her.

Then why isn’t Velonara living with him? Lenara’d demanded. Why is she rotting away with us? Halduron Brightwing is no better than a fairytale, Alina, wake up! It’s guilt that compels him to send this shit, not love! Fire burned bright in her eerie scarlet irises, fire that she turned then to Velonara. You should burn it, she hissed. He doesn’t love you anymore. The living do not care about us.

Don’t mind her, Alina had soothed later. She’s still upset. Tomathren got married last week.

Velonara had nodded absentmindedly. She knew. Lenara had been crabby and irritable for days, and it had not escaped Velonara’s notice that her friend’s wedding ring was now blatantly missing from her left hand. 

Confusion over Halduron’s gifts swelled in her chest, and a great and terrible ache grew in her unbeating heart. Alina had unwrapped the package for her and carefully placed five delicate rosy shells ﹣ no larger than the pad of her thumb ﹣ in the palm of Velonara’s hand. Look, Vel. One for every century you’ve been together. Velonara’s fingers closed over the shells, and Alina had held her as she’d cried over them, no malice or envy in her own gentle heart. 

The scratching of a match head, and the resulting woosh of flame, brought Velonara back to the present with a sharp intake of air. 

“Ah, there we go.” A sadistic grin twisted her persuader’s words. “I was wondering if you’d ever react to me.”

She tried not to look. She tried not to. But her eyes were drawn to the halo of the burning match like a magnet and even as her body recoiled, as every deadened nerve and dried string of sinew shrunk away, the little flickering fire held her in place. She saw Teldrassil in that flame, the great tree splintering to the destructive power of Ragnaros himself; heard the screaming of Thas’alah in her veins as it suffered against Drathir’s army; saw the blackened and broken fingers hanging limply from Koltira’s once strong hand. 

Velonara knew this was just another form of torture. They would smother the flame before it ravaged her desiccated body. She hadn’t told them anything yet, and they wouldn’t risk killing her until she had. 

But fear of fire was ingrained deep in her ruined soul, and her persuaders knew it. 

“I’ve heard a rumor,” the persuader murmured, “about Silvermoon.”

Fear coiled in Velonara’s gut, terror racing down her spine. She felt like she’d been splashed with a bucket of ice cold water, now fully awake for the first time.

Don’t listen to him. He’s lying.

How often had she herself lied to enemies of state? How many times had she said things exactly like this?

“Several sources report that the blood knights have begun to mobilize.” The fire ate its way down the match, one millimeter at a time. Velonara couldn’t look away. “And Farstrider patrols have thinned. Do you know why that is?”

The military was preparing for war, marching towards the capital and its army of magisters. To people like Rommath, mages skilled and powerful enough to draw open the sizable portals needed to transport en masse. 

She bared her teeth. 

“I see,” her persuader chuckled quietly. “But this isn’t just about Baine Bloodhoof, is it? The arrest of a traitor would not rouse the likes of Lor’themar Theron to disobedience.”

He was a mage. He had to be. The match should have burned itself out by now. 

A mage could channel liquid fire through the remains of her circulatory system, inflicting unbelievable amounts of pain without consuming her flesh. They’d done it before, Velonara knew. They did it to Koltira. 

“Someone like Baine Bloodhoof wouldn’t be enough to flush the Ranger General from the forest, would he?”

Halduron!

“This all started much earlier, I think,” the persuader intoned. “With Saurfang.”

No. No one knew about Saurfang. No one knew about the plot to fr﹣

“Bloodhoof admitted as much,” the persuader whispered. “He confessed to meeting with the Alliance king to ransom the orc.”

There was a strange starkness to life when one was undead. With no breathing to hitch in the throat, no heartbeat to drown out the terrifying whispers, Velonara was acutely aware of every small sound in the tiny room. The minute crackling as the magically slowed flame consumed the match. The rasping noise that escaped between the cracked lips of her torturer after each word. The clicking of her eyelashes as she blinked, fear splashed plain across her face. 

Even the deafening silence of her dark soundproofed room made a noise.

It was a bluff. Everyone knew the tauren and boy king were friends. It was not a stretch to imagine the tauren would reach out to Stormwind. Wasn’t that why he’d been under surveillance? This was a fabrication, a crudely slapped together concoction meant to elicit a reaction, and nothing more.

“Silvermoon is plotting something. I think you know what it is.”

Insurrection. Open rebellion under the martyred wing of the High Overlord. 

“Would it loosen your tongue if I told you he’s dead?”

What?

Her persuader cocked an eyebrow, and Velonara imagined the thin smile tugging at his cracked lips behind the veil. “Your Ranger General,” he said softly. “Killed the other day.”

No.

“He fell during a raid on a Forsaken camp. Run through with a broadsword.”

It’s not true. It’s another bluff. 

“I believe that’s how you died the first time. A bit poetic, isn’t it?”

He’s not dead, he’s not dead.

But he could be. The Halduron she knew ﹣ the one who’d once charged almost single-handedly into Zul'Aman after the disembowelment of his best friend, the one who’d led more suicide missions than she could count and somehow, somehow always managed to scrape himself off the ground alive ﹣ would do that. The news of her capture would send him into a rage.

I live for you, he’d told her once. Where you would go, I will follow. And when the Shadowlands call for you again, I will walk with you, hand in hand. 

He thought she was dead. Someone must have told him she was dead. That Sylvanas had killed her for her treason. And that idiot, that moron, that stubborn jackass had gone and gotten himself killed, after all she’d done to free him from her.

“What is it now?” Gone was the gentle, almost fatherly concern, replaced with irritation as her persuader addressed someone over his shoulder, and the spellbinding flame balanced between his fingers gutted out, leaving them in semi-darkness once more.

Another voice spoke, somewhere across the room. “The Blightcaller’s asking for you. He’s in a foul mood. Best not to keep him waiting.”

Velonara’s entire body felt frozen in place, her persuader’s words ringing in her ears. He’s dead. Killed the other day.

The man in question turned back to her, placing the spent match on the table uncomfortably close to her bare thigh. It couldn’t burn her anymore, yet still she flinched. “We’ll continue this later,” he murmured, low and sultry like a reluctant lover interrupted in the middle of the act. “I’ll see what I can find out about your Halduron Brightwing.” As though they were friends, and he were doing her a favor. And then he was gone, leaving Velonara to stew in her anguish.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Halduron couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t be dead…

I’m supposed to die, not you! You were supposed to go and live a normal life! You were supposed to forget about me! You were supposed to be happy, you stupid asshole!

She could see it clearly in her mind’s eye, no matter how hard she tried to push the images away. Halduron, face alight in fury and sky blue eyes heavy with grief, setting out on his own, just as he had all those years ago in pursuit of Zul’jin, except this time there was no Koltira or Faltora to hold him back. There was no feverish Lor’themar to present the bloody troll head to. There was no Velonara to come back to at the end of the night, because Halduron believed she was dead.

Sylvanas isn’t Zul’jin! she wanted to travel back in time and scream in his face. She’s not some stupid troll! Sylvanas is… she’s…

But ultimately it didn’t matter what Sylvanas was. Halduron had never made it to her. He’d died in a Forsaken camp, far away from Quel’Thalas. They probably hadn’t even burned him.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She hadn’t stripped herself of his ring and locket to create in him an avatar of vengeance. He was supposed to be free of her now. 

She’d never known he was serious, when he vowed never to leave her again. That was just something people say. It wasn’t supposed to be true. He wasn’t supposed to…

You stupid, stupid ass!

And in the quiet of her hidden torture cell, dragging late into the night, Velonara finally broke into a series of pained, gasping sobs as the remains of her heart shattered.

Chapter Text

Dal’diel shrieked as the bustling village of Fairbreeze came into view. It was one of his happy shrieks, as he threw his plumed head in the air and danced a little in place. He’d caught sight of Furan, making his way back into town with a cart full of timber.

Screeeee!

Caaaww! came the reply of the hawkstrider hitched to the cart, who stopped in her tracks and craned her whole neck around to look at them with her milky eyes. Shala was a beautiful bird of striking orange coloration that made her desirable to the area’s breeders, but a blow from a wrathguard had rendered her mostly blind and thus unusable as the warstrider she was bred to be. Halduron was pleased to see that she was settling in her early retirement well, and had taken quickly to his nephew, following him around like a newly hatched chick. It was adorable.

Furan’s face split into a wide grin and he raised one hand in greeting. “Uncle Hal! Bal’a dash!”

Dal’diel trotted up before his rider gave the word and immediately shoved his large face against Shala’s, the crest on his head displayed prominently. He seemed to understand that Shala couldn’t see him ﹣ he was a particularly intelligent bird ﹣ and yet his feathers fluffed full anyway. Halduron thought perhaps one day he’d indulge Dal and breed the two.

“Sinu a’manore,” he replied, letting the reins rest against the bird’s neck. “Is it just you with all this?”

“Kal's helping Granddad,” Furan replied with a shrug, referring to his brother. “I’m only just returning, myself. Shala and I were out all afternoon.”

Judging by the amount of wood piled into the little cart, he’d been out since dawn. Halduron indicated with his chin. “That all for you?”

“Nah. Some of it’s for the neighbors.” That made sense. None of it was quite up to the quality Halduron’s father preferred for crafting furniture, and most of it would probably end up in the cooking fire. Furan ran a lot of errands for his grandfather, but Baran Brightwing was too particular with his timber to allow the boy to gather it on his own. With the gift of Shala several years ago, Furan had taken an interest in hawkstrider husbandry anyway, and earlier in the year had successfully raised a clutch of chicks that all fetched very good prices at the summer auctions. Halduron, who’d always wanted to retire and start a hawkstrider farm, couldn’t be prouder.

Furan’s brows came together as he peered around Dal. “No Salandria today?” he asked, as nonchalantly as he could, and Halduron tried very hard to suppress a grin.

“Not today, Fu.” Halduron often brought Salandria with him on day trips outside the city, and in recent years Furan had taken a fancy to her. “Her mother threatened to gut me if I interrupted her lessons again.” 

That wasn’t strictly true. While Liadrin had threatened Halduron on multiple occasions for “being a disturbance” and "ruining Salandria's education," today he had purposely left the girl behind. He didn’t want to burden her with his somber mission. 

His nephew rubbed at his neck anxiously, and Halduron did him the courtesy of pretending he didn’t notice. He’d had a first love too once, and remembered how painfully awkward it could be. “Can you…" he started, only to stop abruptly and change tack. "Min’da says next year we can keep one of Shala’s chicks.” He laid a hand on the hen, stroking her silky feathers softly and earning himself an appreciative chirrup. “But I’m not sure if I want to yet. We don’t need another workbird, but Granddad might like one. Shala’s really useful for carting his pieces to auction.”

This promised to be a long conversation, and one Halduron would welcome under normal circumstances. Furan was the only one who really got him when it came to hawkstriders, even if the boy was a Light-awful rider. But he’d come to Fairbreeze today for quite a different reason, and hawkstriders couldn't be further from his thoughts. “You’ve got all year to think about that,” he said lightly. “I’ll help you figure it out, yeah?” Taking the reins back in hand, he tugged lightly to get Dal’s attention again. “I need to see your mother today though, Fu. Is she home?”

“Oh!” Furan leaned against Shala, a subtle nudge away from Dal. A small reminder that they were supposed to be doing something. “She might be at Granddad’s. Grandma is teaching her some old family recipes.” And that was alright ﹣ Bria and his father lived next to each other. 

Halduron nodded in thanks, reaching forward to ruffle his nephew’s hair. Furan would be taller than him soon, and Halduron didn’t know how he felt about that. The world moves on, he thought sullenly. 

“Hey!” Furan batted his hand away and Halduron laughed. He’d started hating that right around the time he’d taken an interest in Salandria, so naturally Halduron did it whenever he could. 

Dal’diel chittered in annoyance as the ranger nudged him on, and Shala chattered back. “C’mon, Dal,” Halduron urged. “You can see Shala later.” The bird threw what he swore was a glare at him before giving in and trotting into town.

Fairbreeze had recovered quickly after the Scourge, being originally one of the largest settlements in northern Quel'Thalas, and after the destruction of their home ﹣ Halduron thought it was properly called a manor, and also thought that applying a term for nobility to the barn in which he’d grown up was laughable ﹣ his father and sister purchased a plot of land, not outside the village limits as before but deep within its heart. The Brightwings had money, left over from their days millennia ago as aristocrats and lawmakers, and Baran poured quite a lot of it into jumpstarting the Fairbreeze economy. He’d taken what he’d learned crafting luxury furniture and turned it into something a little more useful. He’d built the twin cottages in which he and Bria lived, and helped rebuild the town with a team of other carpenters and construction workers with whom he was still friendly. It was only in recent years he’d gone back to building furniture, and every so often he’d rent a team of hawkstriders to take his best work to sell in the city. 

That was how he’d met Halduron’s stepmother, who’d lost her husband and children to Arthas Menethil's undead army. Kyrenna’s village was one of the innumerable Scourge casualties, lost to what became the Dead Scar, and she arrived in Fairbreeze crammed into a wagon of refugees with only the clothes on her back. She was a kind, unassuming woman, with close-cropped hair the color of chestnuts and a soft, gentle voice. Furan, Bria’s oldest boy, didn’t remember his grandmother, and his younger brother Kalaren had never known anyone but Kyrenna. 

Bria. Hal. His father had called them together three years ago, sat them down at his modest kitchen table, hands folded before him and thumbs tapping each other anxiously. I have something important I would like to ask you, and I will understand if it makes you uncomfortable or angry.

Halduron was pretty sure he’d been hungover that day; he remembered Bria elbowing him in the ribs, and the difficulty he’d had paying attention. It was easier, once his father began speaking.

I need you to understand that I will always, always love your mother, Baran had started, and Halduron’s first thought was nothing good could come of a statement like that. But he’d been wrong, as his father’s anxiety grew, as Baran explained that he’d grown close to someone new who lived right there in Fairbreeze, and that he ﹣ a grown man and their father besides ﹣ was asking their blessing to see what sort of relationship might blossom.

Halduron had understood his father’s concern. His mother’s death had hit them all hard. Gloom settled in the Brightwing household, and Baran no longer found joy in any of the hobbies he’d once loved, or in anything else for that matter. Coupled with Bria’s husband’s death and Velonara’s enslavement to the Lich King, it seemed none of the Brightwing men would ever smile again. 

If it hadn’t been for Bria, Halduron wasn’t sure what would have happened to them. He’d never properly thanked her for how she’d pulled herself together for all their sakes, how she’d taken care of them in spite of her own grief. Her boys had lost their father, and their uncle and grandfather were well on their way to an early grave, and somehow she had remained strong enough for them all.

It never occurred to Halduron that he was supposed to be angry with his father, about Kyrenna. That he was supposed to be envious, or hate the woman. He supposed that was why his father was worried ﹣ he feared his children would resent him, for moving on so quickly. For falling in love again, when neither of them had done the same. Perhaps that was the driving force behind asking Bria and Halduron’s permission. If they’d said no, Halduron had no doubt his father would have forgotten Kyrenna, would have written her off as just another lost opportunity in a neverending episode of misery.

I’m so happy for you, An’da, Bria had assured him, and Halduron had agreed with her. Perhaps that made him a hypocrite, the inability to be angry with his father while simultaneously raging at Lor’themar for his good fortune. But his father understood. Baran had lost to the Scourge, just as Halduron had. His relationship with the woman who became Halduron’s stepmother began in the ashes of terrible tragedy, while Lor’themar and Liadrin’s survived it, emerging stronger than ever. 

Lor, kindly, had never called Halduron out on it, and had attended his father’s wedding and congratulated Baran in person. 

Thank you, son, Baran had said, squeezing Lor’themar’s shoulder, and Lor’s single eye grew very misty. I feel as though the light’s come back into my life.

As Halduron drew closer, he saw that despite Furan’s assurance, Kalaren was nowhere to be found, and neither was his father. A twin pair of wooden birds sat primly on the front step, one a little rougher than the other. Kalaran enjoyed working with his hands, and though he was still very young, they all thought he’d grow to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. 

Halduron left Dal’diel in the yard with a warning not to eat Kyrenna’s flowers, and strode the short distance to his sister’s cottage. A terracotta pot boasting a large yellow flower atop a bed of glossy green leaves greeted him, and he was careful not to kick it as he yanked open the front door.

“Bria!” he hollered. “You here?”

After a moment there came a distant, “No one’s home!” Halduron shut the door and wandered around the side of the house, where he found his sister pulling laundry down off the line. 

“It’s your favorite brother,” he announced. His sister wasn’t looking at him, but he imagined she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t have a favorite brother,” she groused fondly.

“That hurts, Bri. You’re my favorite sister.”

“I’m your only sister.” Bria carefully unpinned a leaf-printed tunic, laying it out against her chest and folding neatly before placing it in the basket hovering at her side. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see you,” Halduron said, almost sheepishly, and was rewarded with a pair of pants tossed in his face.

“You can see and work,” Bria said firmly, clamping a hand to the line as a strong breeze threatened to whisk away the dress she’d just unpinned. 

This was familiar, Halduron thought, shaking the pants out and folding them along the seams the way Bria had taught him long ago. This was why Bria was the bedrock of their family. Halduron and their father were too soft, were known to drop everything at the slightest off tone of voice and neglect the things that made their family run. Halduron had confided in his sister many times over the years, and it was always over laundry, or minding the night's stew, or mending ripped clothing. Their mother had been much the same way.

If you can talk, their mother had said once, handing him a broom, you can do it while you sweep.

He supposed if Bria and his mother weren’t like that, nothing would ever have gotten done. Halduron had been a needy child, and cried often. 

“Furan told me you’d be at An’da’s,” he remarked mildly, placing the folded pants in the basket. “Said Auntie was passing along state secrets.” It had been Kyrenna who’d insisted her stepchildren not call her min’da, saying it would be disrespectful to the mother they'd lost. Halduron appreciated that about her. 

The wind had pulled several of Bria’s long honey locks from their tail, and she tucked them somewhat impatiently behind her ears before returning to the laundry. “She did,” she explained. “I now know how to make a top secret snowplum pie.”

“Does that mean you’ll have to kill me once I eat it?” Halduron teased, reaching out to help her with a bedsheet.

“Of course. Can’t have you blabbing about it all over Quel’Thalas.” His sister grinned. Sometimes Halduron thought Bria would get along well with Rommath. They shared the same prickly, sarcastic sense of humor. The sheet joined its brethren in the basket, and Bria reached for the next one. "Everything alright, Hal?

“Well. Your son is upset I arrived without Salandria in tow," he deflected. He’d come to talk to his sister, but now that he was here, the words stuck fast in his throat. It wasn't the sort of conversation he felt they could have over laundry. “He’s pretty enamored with her.”

Bria nodded, amused. “What does Lor’themar think of that?”

Officially, Salandria had no father, and Lor’themar and Liadrin were not together, but Bria had known Lor’themar long enough that she didn’t believe that, and Lor never corrected her when she mentioned it. 

Halduron flicked a clothespin at her. “He says Furan needs to learn to ride a hawkstrider, shoot a bow, and skin a lynx before he’ll let him near her,” he teased.

“He’s not going to be a Farstrider,” Bria protested.

“Who said anything about being a Farstrider? All men should know how to do those things.”

Bria flapped a towel noisily in his direction. “Get to teaching him then.”

“I see.” 

His sister was quiet in the wake of his confession. It hadn’t taken much prodding; once the subject of Furan’s possible Farstrider career came up, it was a natural progression to the turmoil constricting Halduron’s heart. Bria didn’t want her sons joining the Farstriders, and Halduron’s experiences played a large part in why. 

“So.” They were standing in Bria’s cozy kitchen, where a quarter hour ago she had set them to preparing dinner. The longer Halduron went on, the more their hands stilled; neither of them had moved in some time now. “That’s a lot to digest, Hal.”

No one was supposed to know about the insurrection. No one was supposed to know about Sylvanas’s cruelty, about Saurfang’s rebellion. Yet there was no one Halduron trusted more than his sister, and no one else who would look at things the way she would. 

“I don’t think you should go,” Bria said at length. “I know you, Hal. You… you won’t come back.”

She wasn’t just talking about the civil war. 

“I have to. I’m the Ranger General, it’s my job.”

“Yes,” Bria concurred. “War is your job.” Very carefully, she set her knife down on the counter, wiped her hands on her apron. “Velonara is not.” She looked at him with a critical eye. “If Sylvanas is… If she’s become as you say, then Velonara’s probably already dead.”

That was the reality Lor’themar refused to name. The words Kelantir and Astalor shied away from and danced around. The possibility, the very, very real possibility, cut Halduron deeper than he thought after all he’d endured. Even Rommath refused to admit that Velonara had most likely been executed. 

But even if she had… Halduron didn’t want shadowy rumors. He didn’t want someone’s secondhand say-so. If Velonara was dead, he needed to see it. Needed to assure himself that she had been granted what had been denied by Arthas fucking Menethil, and to guarantee her place in the Shadowlands by taking the torch to her still body himself. 

And then, he would go with her. And that’s what his sister was afraid of.

“You remember what it was like under Garrosh Hellscream, don’t you? But even he didn’t send his own guards to Silvermoon, Hal. Sylvanas did. An’da tells me about them whenever he goes to the city. How are you supposed to get an army out of Quel’Thalas without her knowing?”

That was Rommath’s problem, and Halduron said so.

Bria rolled her eyes and snapped, “And what happens when you get to Orgrimmar, Hal? She wasn’t afraid to dump blight all over the Undercity. We all heard about it! Who will she come for then?”

“Thunder Bluff, probably,” Halduron mumbled. “More defensible.” 

“That isn’t the point, Hal!” She raised her hand, and for the briefest moment Halduron thought she would hit him. He jumped as her palm smacked instead against the counter, the echo reverberating in his ears. “She’ll hunt down every single conspirator and execute you all for treason! What will you do then?”

“I’ll be with her,” Halduron said hotly, and this time Bria really did hit him, the flat of her hand colliding with the side of his face so hard that for a moment he saw stars.

“Don’t be stupid!” Electricity crackled between them as scarlet bloomed on Halduron’s cheek. “I don’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with you and An’da.” It felt like watching a fire calm after a sudden influx of kindling as Bria’s rage dimmed, as her sorrow welled. “Remember when Min’da died?”

“Of course﹣”

“I was so scared, Hal. The way An’da talked… he sounded just like that. All he wanted to do was go wherever she was.” She swiped angrily at her eyes. “And he… he got better. Auntie made him better. And you… Hal, watching you the past few years has been the most amazing thing. You don’t… You don’t hate yourself anymore. You aren’t dead inside anymore. You’re my brother again. I don’t know what happened, but﹣”

“Velonara,” Halduron said tersely.

“What?”

“Velonara happened. She came back.” 

“What.”

Halduron’s eyes closed, sparing him Bria's look of shocked disbelief. He hadn’t told his family about Vel. About what had happened in Highmountain. He’d only told Lor’themar because the man wouldn’t stop asking what had come over him after his return. Unlike Lor’themar, however, his sister wouldn’t understand, and wasn’t polite enough like Liadrin, or uninvested enough like Rommath, not to comment on it.

And Halduron understood. Really, he did. Bria was far removed from the Forsaken, her only experience with the undead being the feral Scourge remnant that still roamed the Scar; and her husband was dead. Really, truly dead, like their mother. She would never wish the curse of undeath upon them, and would shy away in revulsion should they rise, as Halduron once had. 

He didn’t think it meant she loved her husband less than he loved Velonara, that she would have shunned him in undeath. If anything, it was perhaps a commentary on Halduron himself ﹣ he carried five hundred years of regret for hating Velonara, and that wasn’t something easily let go. Undeath hadn’t dimmed his feelings for her, now tinged with the guilt and shame of how he'd first pushed her away, and upon coming face to face with her once again Halduron had been hit with the one immovable, undeniable truth: He would always be in love with Velonara, and nothing would change that. He ached for her so fiercely that just the one fortuitous sight of her transported him back a thousand years, made him relive in the blink of an eye every kiss, every touch, every glance and crowed praise and muttered insult. He’d died when the cursed Frostmourne ran her through, and hadn’t really lived since. 

When he was a little boy, their mother had told them a fairy tale about two lovers forged together by the cosmos itself, their bond so strong it triumphed over even death. They found each other in every life, souls reaching across time and space to reunite again and again until the end of time. They flourished together, and wilted when apart, and no matter what sort of adversity threatened them they always triumphed in the end. Halduron thought it was probably a parable, intended to teach children there was power in love and loyalty, but he'd identified with the lovers as he'd grown older. It became astonishingly clear in the face of undeath that his soul was bound to Velonara’s for all eternity by some cosmic force he didn’t understand, and nothing would be right as long as they were apart. Whatever happened, even if he was no longer Halduron and she no longer Velonara, they would make their back to each other, as was ordained by the gods long before either of them had ever been born, during the birth of the universe itself. That was just something that was, like the air he breathed, or the rain that nourished the soil, or the sun that shone in the sky. 

“She was there,” he told her evenly, “when I went to Highmountain. She was the Forsaken representative.” 

He saw as it clicked in his sister’s mind. He’d changed two years ago, and two years ago he'd left to fight the Legion ﹣ in Highmountain. 

“I can’t… It was so clear to me once I saw her again. I didn’t want to leave Highmountain, because I didn’t want to leave her.”

Bria stared at him. “Hal… She’s﹣”

“I know. It didn’t matter.” Halduron sighed, carding a hand through his hair. “She was exactly the same, Bri. Exactly the same, and she was hurting just like I was. Forsaken aren’t like the Scourge. Most of them aren’t any different than normal people.”

“Living people.”

“Living people,” he agreed, after a moment. “I’m not… I’m not going to argue with you over it. What happened to her wasn’t right, and what I did wasn’t either﹣”

Bria folded her arms tightly over her chest. “Halduron,” she said, in the same tone she used with misbehaving sons and stupid brothers. “You don’t… have to stay with her out of some sense of… obligation. Or guilt. The circumstances have changed. No one will blame you if you walk away.”

You don’t have to do this, Velonara had murmured with downcast eyes, when he first showed her the cabin he’d purchased on the outskirts of Windrunner Village. I’ll understand, if you take your ring back. If you don’t want me anymore. It’s alright.

“I stayed because I love her. Because she’s still Velonara. She’s still obstinate and self-sacrificing and all those things that made me fall in love with her in the first place. I have never felt obligated in my feelings for her.” Even back then, when the hairs rose on his arms and he’d pushed her away, he hadn’t wanted his ring back. Hadn’t rescinded the promise he’d made to her, and hadn’t wanted to. They had entwined their lives together, that day in the Elrendar, and those feelings weren’t something that just… stopped.

“Bria.” And the word was shaky on his lips. “I lost her for ten years… I can’t do that again. I don’t want to do that again.” He chewed his bottom lip, stopping only once he tasted the metallic undercurrent of blood. “It will kill me. What I did for those ten years, that wasn’t living. You said so yourself, Bria. Please don’t make me do it again.”

He didn’t care if she understood the pull he felt towards Velonara. Halduron had never understood it himself. But he needed Bria to understand that not going after her wasn't an option. That was what he’d come here to say. His life meant nothing if Velonara wasn’t in it. 

It was the tears that swayed her. Halduron had cried a lot in his life and Bria had borne witness to it many times. It probably struck differently now, when he wasn’t splayed across her kitchen table and half drunk with grief. When he was sane and sober and mostly in control of his own life.

“Am I…” And Bria had always been very good at never letting her brother see her pain. Always took the same even, measured breaths, always paused to compose herself before her voice cracked, not after. “Am I going to see you again?” It was more difficult this time, and fat tears shone in her sea green eyes. 

Halduron had never made a habit of lying, and he wasn’t about to start now. “I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I won’t… I won’t come back here without her.” 

All the breath punched out of him as Bria threw herself at him, crushing him to her so tightly it hurt, and he returned the gesture. He wouldn’t be surprised if they parted covered in bruises.

“You’re an idiot,” Bria gasped into his shirt, balling the fabric in her shaking fists. She trembled against him. “How could anyone think… Ranger fucking General… so stupid...” 

You’re the new Ranger General?! she’d yelped years ago, disbelief coloring her face. Who in their right mind would think that’s a good idea? Lor’themar’s gone insane.

Halduron buried his face in his sister’s hair, shallowly huffing a tearful laugh. “I know,” he sniffled. “Horrible decision, really.”

* * *

Saurfang was dead.

The Horde is nothing, Sylvanas had declared. You are all nothing!

Halduron felt like nothing right now. The rebellion succeeded thanks to the High Overlord’s sacrifice, and for the first time since the Legion’s defeat the Alliance had faced them not as enemies but allies. Even now, soldiers clad in Alliance blue worked side by side with the members of the rebellion rooting out Banshee loyalists and freeing prisoners of war. Baine had been recovered, no real worse for the wear, and stood with Thrall, King Wrynn, and Jaina Proudmoore before Saurfang’s funeral pyre. 

Orcs burned their dead too. 

The scene was frightening in its intensity. Orcs and trolls and tauren alike cried loudly and openly as Saurfang’s body burned, and Thrall himself shed tears unashamed. As part of the Silvermoon Triumvirate, Halduron was expected to stand there with the other faction leaders, as the orcish war drums beat a slow, mournful song and the flames ensured the High Overlord’s eternal rest in the Shadowlands. He had met Saurfang several times and had liked him quite a lot. The orc had real honor, and carried with him all his life the regret and shame of the First War and the invasion of Azeroth, the horrible things he'd once done under the influence of the blood of Mannoroth. It made him strive to be better every day, to steer the Horde in the noble ﹣ the honorable ﹣ direction forward, away from the demonic horror they once were.

If mistakes were made, they were in spite of Saurfang’s actions, not because of them. 

But Halduron didn’t want to be here. He kept glancing toward the edges of the crowd, to the paths carved into Orgrimmar’s canyons and the people scattered among them. It would take time to arrest all of Sylvanas’s loyalists, to separate the innocent from the complicit, but in the meantime people were fleeing. Sylvanas was gone, and so was Nathanos Marris ﹣ What would Nathanos do? Lor joked grimly upon learning the news. Chase after his bitch with his tail between his legs. ﹣ along with every dark ranger and blightguard. Halduron needed to get his hands on one of them. Surely someone knew where Velonara was being kept?

The Underhold had been searched, they’d been told, with mostly Alliance prisoners of war inside. Baine had been held there, but it seemed defectors ﹣ people in need of reeducation ﹣ were sequestered somewhere else. 

He shuddered, when he considered what reeducation meant. He'd heard the whispers of what had been inflicted on Koltira.

“Ragefire Chasm!” Halduron had demanded. “Has anyone searched it? Where was Koltira held?”

“The Undercity,” Rommath had replied. “Beneath the Apothecarium.”

“Is it still accessible?"

“I’m sure you’ll have a hard time finding anyone to volunteer and look.” 

Halduron would go himself, if they’d let him, but no. Lor’themar had insisted he was needed at Saurfang’s funeral. A unified front ﹣ blood elves and nightborne, orcs, trolls, goblins, and tauren, all steadfast and strong before the people in the wake of Sylvanas’s grievous betrayal. 

He supposed it was the honorable thing to do.

* * *

Ragefire Chasm. The Underhold. The ruins of Tirisfal, in as far as anyone could see. Velonara wasn’t there. 

Halduron groaned unprofessionally as the latest scout gave her report, earning him a sharp glare from Rommath’s direction. There had been dead dark rangers, they’d been told, but none of them were alive, and none of them were Velonara.

“Search them again!” Halduron pounded his fist on the table, rattling the assorted goblets and pens and quills. “Be more thorough!”

“We’ll have to contact Queen Talanji,” said Rokhan, somewhere to his left. “I’m sure dere be prisoners in the Alori dungeons.”

“Velonara wouldn’t be in Dazar’alor!” 

“No,” the troll concurred, straightfaced. “But others might. Dere be more missing dan one dark ranger, Brightwing.”

Halduron felt his whole body flush with heat and the table knocked painfully into his hip as he vaulted to his feet. How dare ﹣ how dare that fucking troll insinuate Velonara wasn’t important, that finding her wasn’t a priority ﹣ what did motherfucking Rokhan know about dark rangers ﹣?!

His fist was flying toward Rokhan’s face before Halduron even realized he’d moved, whole body lurching forward in an adrenaline-induced rage, ready to smash into the troll’s overlarge nose and snap his tusks right off his face.

“Halduron!” And then many things happened at once.

Rokhan twisted away, one sinewy blue arm rising in defense, hand curling into a fist. A clatter behind him was Halduron’s only warning before an iron grip seized his flying arm, yanking it back in a practiced woosh so quickly Halduron’s shoulder screamed in its socket as he slammed back hard into the rock that was Lor’themar Theron.

“What the fuck?!” Gazlowe yelped. 

“Light damnit, Halduron!” Lor’themar bellowed, clamping his arms around the ranger and dragging him bodily away from the table and the bewildered Rokhan. “Calm the hell down!”

He’d well and truly snapped. The worry and frustration and fear that had seized him over the last few weeks had finally coalesced into a white hot inferno that threatened to erupt at the first opportunity. Every single muscle ached for release and he fought against the Regent Lord with all the strength he had, but years of restraining Halduron’s fury made Lor’themar far too cunning to fall for any of his tricks. He kicked Halduron’s leg back when he snapped it around his calf, keeping them from stumbling and struggling on the dirt floor of Grommash Hold, and pinned his arms to his sides.

“Walk it off,” Lor’themar grunted, as one of Halduron’s fists smacked into his unguarded thigh. He whirled, and Halduron’s feet went out from under him. “Go get some air! Walk it off.”

Every eye was on them as Lor’themar shoved him from the room, and it when they reached the hall that Lor released him, breathing hard. “What the fuck, Hal?” he demanded. 

“You heard him! You heard how he said﹣”

“How does hitting him find Velonara?!”

There were orc guards in the hall, standing stiffly twenty or so feet away, and staring determinedly at anything except the two screaming elves. 

“All of us are trying to work together, Halduron. I promise you, I will not let them forget about Velonara.”

Halduron glared at him, panting from excertion. His shoulder ached. 

“Get some air,” Lor’themar ordered, his dead white eye glowering ominously from beneath the askew patch. “Come back when you’ve calmed down.”

The tension coiled again, and for the briefest moment it looked like Halduron would swing at him, take out all his misplaced anger on his oldest friend as he had so many times before. His clenched fists vibrated with the need to hit something. Anything. 

“Halduron.” Lor’themar’s voice was quiet, and sad. “You can’t keep doing this. Come on. Talk to me.”

“What do you care?” Halduron spat. “Go back to your perfect little life. Leave me alone.”

“Hal… My life isn’t perf ﹣ ”

“Like hell it isn’t!” Hot fury coursed through him, hammering viciously with the beat of his ruined heart. His chest felt too tight; unable to contain the weeks and months of roiling anguish. He thought he would burst. “Look at you! Regent Lord of all Quel’Thalas, no heartache, no nightmares ﹣ ”

“I have nightmares, Halduron,” Lor’themar protested, but there was no bite to it.

“The Scourge gave you everything !” Halduron bellowed. “The Scourge gave you freedom and power and spared you your wife, but wake up, Lor! The rest of us weren’t so lucky!” 

His friend stood there, arms held loosely at his sides, and did not protest again. There was no tension in him, no fight at all. They’d had this argument many times since Arthas Menethil marched his unholy army through the peaceful land of Quel’Thalas, but never before had Halduron been so bold. Months of bottled anger, finally uncorked and leaking between them, and Lor’themar had no ground to stand on.

The slap rang out as Halduron struck him, the palm of his hand landing hard against the stiff leather patch covering what was left of his friend’s right eye. Lor flinched ﹣ the skin beneath was sensitive still, the once fractured socket still prone to ache ﹣ but he did not push Halduron away. His good eye widened in pain, and that was all.

“An eye? How does that compare to the suffering of the quel’dorei? How does a missing eye make you an authority on my grief, Lor? How does it entitle you to stand there so high and mighty like you know anything about how I feel?!”

He felt Lor’s breathing against the bare skin of his wrist, slow and even. Unroused, as Halduron was. Even in this, as Halduron attacked the only injury he'd endured in the invasion, he did not react, and when he raised his hands it was with open palms, shaking not with fury but something else entirely as he touched them softly to the sides of Halduron’s face. 

“I don’t,” he murmured, voice thick with an emotion Halduron could not name. “I don’t know how you feel. You’re right.” His calloused fingers were rough against Halduron’s skin but his touch was not. “I have been more fortunate than most ﹣ ”

“Yeah, you fucking have,” Halduron retorted.

The wide slash of Lor’s mouth closed then, and a lesser man would have risen to the bait. A lesser man would have hit him then, but Lor’themar Theron had always been a better man than Halduron, and his lips curled down in a sad little frown instead.

“Hit me,” Lor’themar told him, and this was not a challenge or an order but some sort of… Penance? Apology? “If it makes you feel better ﹣ if it helps you ﹣ then hit me, Hal. As hard as you can.”

As he did then all those years ago, Lor stood before him now. Angry, yes, glaring at him with flared nostrils and breathing loudly from his open mouth, but if Halduron were to hit him ﹣ and oh, his fist itched to connect with Lor’s stern face, to bruise black and blue the only man to have benefited from the Scourge ﹣ Lor’themar would let him. Would stand there and take it, as if he deserved it. As if it were his fault Velonara was missing.

A low, frustrated growl ripped its way from Halduron’s throat, and he stalked off down the hall, nails digging ragged half moons into his own skin.

The problem with Lor, Halduron thought, as he set himself down heavily in the red dirt outside Grommash Hold, was that he was too damn kind. It wasn’t Rokhan’s fault what happened to Velonara, but it wasn’t Lor’s either, and still he never protested, never defended himself… Never once hit back, no matter the fury in Halduron’s voice or the swings he took.

Halduron leaned back, his head knocking gently against the stone wall, as rosy shame flooded his cheeks. It wasn’t only that he felt badly for lashing out at his closest friend ﹣ yet another thing he would need to apologize for, when he spoke to Lor again. Whether or not Lor’themar felt he needed to offer his own flesh in some sort of sickening atonement wasn’t the problem. It was Halduron’s own short-sightedness, his unwillingness to see past his own grief that shamed him. His blindness to the truth. 

Lor’themar had lost too. And his silence on the matter was not an indicator of relief or gratitude, but his way of not burdening Halduron, who had always been more emotional, more rash than Lor’themar; who was clearly not coping well with his own losses, and could not bear the weight of another.

Halduron knew Lor very well, as one would expect after eleven hundred years, but there were things the Regent Lord did not, would not discuss with him, things that, had Halduron looked a little more closely, he would have noticed easily. The way Lor integrated, almost seamlessly, into the Brightwing family, and the warm, familiar relationship he had with Halduron’s parents; and how that wasn’t always the case. The first time Lor had met Baran Brightwing he’d been wary, untrusting and on edge like a wild animal; and it was only after observing the affection with which he treated Halduron, affection which extended to Lor and their entire company, that Lor’themar relaxed. He never spoke of his own parents, and where a father should have been in his stories, there was instead the High Priest Vandellor. It didn’t take a genius to infer that something was deeply wrong in the Theron household, something that Lor had done his best to forget. 

And Vandellor had died to the Scourge. In his rare moments of clarity, Halduron remembered that, remembered the sadness he’d carried quietly in his heart in the months afterward. The moments he spent secluded with Liadrin, and the grave to which he paid his respects. He’d rid himself of House Theron’s dark past at the expense of the life of the only father he’d ever had. 

Just because his grief didn’t manifest as Halduron’s did, didn’t mean it didn’t exist. 

And Kael’thas… One of the only things Lor had ever revealed about his family, confided by the fireside one late spring night, was his relation to the former crown prince, that he was Kael’thas’s favorite cousin, a person the prince admired above all others. Halduron remembered the pained, pinched look as Rommath ﹣ then only an arrogant and tiresome advisor ﹣ disclosed the prince’s corruption, his dalliances with demons and dabblings into powerful fel magics. Remembered the guilt Lor confessed to ﹣ I should have paid more attention to him. I should have loved him as he loved me. Maybe if I hadn’t been so obsessed with my life as a Farstrider… Maybe he’d still be alive ﹣ after his death, the composure with which he held himself threatening to crack under the strain. 

They were the same, he and Lor’themar. Lor was just better at keeping his own emotions in check, at setting them aside when the matter demanded it.

A sigh wooshed from Halduron’s parted lips, before he smacked his curled fist on the ground. Lightdamnit, Lightdamnit, Light damnit! He was such a selfish asshole. 

He wasn’t the only one waiting anxiously for news of a loved one. Thrall, Thalyssra, Baine… and yes, even Rokhan. Sylvanas had probably stolen people from them too, and every messenger, every scout’s report had them waiting with baited breath, praying for the name precious to them to be called. 

Halduron scrubbed a rough hand through his hair and, pushing back against the wall, staggered back to his feet. He needed to take a walk. Get some air, as Lor had implored.

Halduron didn’t return to the meeting, and the singing of the night's insects was in full swing when he finally returned to the apartments ﹣ luxurious by orcish standards ﹣ he occupied when in the city. Orcs were big believers in community and as such, delegations were always housed together in large, single rooms. It was contrary to the stuffiness of Silvermoon, and people like Rommath complained, but Halduron enjoyed the company. Isolation was a punishment in orcish culture; and besides, it reminded Halduron of Farstrider camps, bedding down in cramped tents with four or five other bodies side by side.

Lor’themar was there already, he and Rommath talking about something or other over a large tray bearing a variety of orcish dishes. Rommath didn’t care for orcish food, which consisted mostly of meat cooked to varying degrees of rarity and relied heavily on smoke for flavoring, but Lor did, and was biting into something crunchy Halduron thought was scorpid as Rommath bemoaned the orcs’ avoidance of produce in all forms.

“There are prickly pears,” the Regent Lord remarked mildly, gesturing to a platter of the violently magenta oblong fruits, plucked of all their needles and sitting prettily on a bed of edible cactus pads. 

Rommath made a face. “Those… things are not fruit.”

“We could call for cactus apples,” Lor suggested. “Maybe they have cactus apple pie.”

“Cactus apples are too sour.”

A bemused chuckle bubbled in the ranger’s chest. “You have to eat something, Rommath. Here, try this.” He held out his own plate, grinning at the revulsion creeping across the Grand Magister's face.

“I will not,” he said tersely, “fall for that again.”

“The trolls are eating crab stew and agave,” Halduron put in, crossing to the edge of the woven mat, where he knelt and removed his boots, careful to keep the dirt from the packed floor away from the food.

“I don’t believe the agave’s offended you as of yet,” Lor mused. 

Rommath ignored him, his sharp gaze immediately settling on the Ranger General. “Have you regained control of your temper?”

Halduron did not point out the irony of Rommath, of all people, asking such a question, and Lor, unwilling to provoke the Grand Magister further, busied himself with shoveling crispy scorpid into his maw. “A walk around the Valley of Honor has done me a bit of good.”

“Good.” The magister sat back with a huff, once again surveying the meal in search of something tasty. Halduron’s own stomach rumbled, but before he gave in to its demands he leaned towards his best friend and reached a soft hand out to clasp the back of Lor’s neck, pulling him forward until their foreheads touched. 

“I want to apologize,” he said quietly. 

Lor blinked at him, sweat beading along his hairline in the Durotar heat. The scorpid slid down his throat with a muffled gulp. “Hal, you don’t have to apologize to me. It’s alright.” His tone was pleasant, as though Halduron had done nothing worse than drink the last of the wine.

No. It isn’t. His eyes closed, shame warming his cheeks once more. “I’ve been difficult,” he murmured, “and harder on you than you deserve. I’m selfish and self-centered, and you’ve weathered all my horrible tantrums without compl﹣”

“Halduron.” Lor’themar was looking at him with such kindness and love, and mentally Halduron recoiled from it. He wasn’t worthy of the friendship of someone like Lor’themar Theron. In his place, Halduron would have snapped long ago. “Stop,” he said gently. “It’s alright. I understand.”

It’s not alright, it’s not alright, it’s not alright!

“Lor﹣”

The Regent Lord shook his head, hot skin sticking a bit and mingling their sweat. “I’ve told you before,” he said patiently. “Whatever you need to feel better, I will bear it. If that’s what you must do, I am only too happy to be of assistance.” An easy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Now, my friend, please. Sit and eat with us.” 

Halduron swallowed past the lump in his throat, blinking rapidly against the pressure building in his sinuses. Meeting Lor was one of the most fortuitous moments of his entire life. He was not a good man, or a good friend ﹣ Halduron was well aware of this, in his lowest moments ﹣ and Lor loved him anyway. Lor forgave him all his transgressions and asked for nothing in return, and Halduron did not deserve him. 

He nodded against Lor’s forehead, not trusting himself to speak, and released him, falling back on his knees and for several moments just breathing deeply through his nose. He heard the rustling as Rommath quietly, finally, selected a piece of fruit that satisfied some unknowable requirement, and heard the gurgling of water pouring into an empty cup.

“There’s fried scorpid,” Lor remarked, “and roast boar. The cactus pads are roasted too, I believe.”

“They don’t smell terrible,” came Rommath’s input, and a hiccup of a laugh tumbled from Halduron’s lips. 

“I don’t know how you’re alive,” he teased, shifting to sit flat on the floor, legs crossed. Both magister and ranger pretended not to see as he swiped the back of his hand over his eyes. “You don’t eat anything.”

Rommath’s characteristic frown was back. “There’s no law stating I have to enjoy what passes for orcish cuisine.”

“No, but I’m pretty sure you’ll starve if all you eat are prickly pears.”

“Worry about yourself,” the mage grumbled into his cup. Halduron grinned. This was familiar, and easy, this nagging of the Grand Magister, and it said something as to their relationship that Rommath allowed it as much as he did. The Rommath of ten years ago would have stormed out long before this point, complaining of their childishness and the impropriety of it all. He was more difficult to infuriate these days, having settled into a sort of beleaguered acceptance, and lost his temper far less. Halduron admired the man for how far he’d come, and someday he’d tell him so.

Someday far, far in the future, of course.

* * *

It was no great secret that Halduron despised trolls. He understood, on a basic level, that the Darkspear and the Amani were not one and the same, he really did; but the sight of tusks and the murmur of Zandali still set his blood to boil. With few exceptions, he didn’t get along with the Darkspear, which mattered very little when he spent the vast majority of his time in the Thalassian forests and quite a lot when stuck in the middle of Orgrimmar. 

Vol’jin had been alright, in Halduron’s opinion, and it was a damn shame he was dead.

And he supposed, if he was being generous, the Darkspear had good food. They certainly knew how to cook fish better than Halduron did, at any rate. 

Perhaps his reputation preceded him, he thought, as the young troll stuttered in his general direction. He stood there, towering frame hunched over and wringing his large three-fingered hands, and when he spoke he addressed his feet in a hesitant mumble.

“Out with it already!” Halduron snapped impatiently. Why was the boy reporting to him, of all people, if he was so terrified of him? 

The troll jumped. “D-dere’s a prisoner in de Underhold!” he stammered. “She… she asked for da Ranger General!”

Halduron frowned. Thrall had forbidden him from interrogating Sylvanas’s lackeys after he’d beaten the last one. Whatever. It wasn’t like the man would need his teeth; Forsaken didn’t eat after all. “You’ll have to talk to Thrall,” he said brusquely. It didn’t really matter who the prisoner wanted to speak to. There was a hierarchy here that even he couldn't break.

The troll’s shock of red hair bobbed furiously as he shook his head; Halduron wondered vaguely if their mohawks required some sort of wax or if troll hair was naturally stiff. “I was t-told to find da Ranger General,” he pressed. “Da prisoner’s a dark ranger.”

Halduron froze. What?

They hadn’t been able to capture any dark rangers. All of them fled with Sylvanas. 

He wasn’t conscious of his arm leaving his side until it smacked into the youth, seizing him roughly by his thin leather harness. “What did you say?”

Round amber eyes stared anxiously back at him, and the troll threw his hands up defensively as if afraid Halduron was going to hit him. “Dat’s what I was told! A dark ranger!”

His brain wasn’t working properly. Where were they holding prisoners now? How had they gotten their hands on a dark ranger? Could it be Velonara?

Fuck Thrall. “Take me to her,” he demanded. He’d speak to her himself. He had to know. 

The troll skittered away, bare feet stirring up clouds of dust in the hot sun, and Halduron dashed after him. 

“Hey. What’s your name?” he asked at length, as the boy led him down into the Underhold. 

The troll seemed startled. “I… Zekhan.” His name shot between his teeth before he could think the better of it, and belated he smacked a hand to his chest in an orcish salute. “I’m Zekhan, Ranger General.”

A dark ranger. If she proved useful at all, he’d treat this Zekhan to lunch. 

The Underhold was a very large, gloomy place, and though Halduron had already swept through its dark corridors after the reclamation of Orgrimmar, he would easily have become lost if it weren’t for Zekhan, who seemed to have memorized the way. It took Halduron a moment to realize that this was the same boy who’d been with Saurfang, the one who’d run after him as the old orc marched to his death. He looked different without the warpaint, too young to be a part of the war. 

“In here,” the troll whispered, shouldering open a creaky door made of thick, dry wood. The room was divided in two, a separate room artificially created by a row of vertical iron bars stretching from one side to the other. A prison cell. The door to the cell was open, and Halduron recognized the broad back of Lor’themar, whose ears twitched at their arrival. Hidden by his bulk, presumably, was the dark ranger.

“You can leave it open,” Lor’themar told Zekhan. “She won’t run.” 

Zekhan hesitated, but Halduron didn’t wait to see if he would listen, pushing past the troll and Lor’themar both. The dark ranger had been chained to the floor, sitting stiffly on folded knees. Her cloak was missing, and her weapons ﹣ likely taken in the arrest. Halduron felt his heart drop into his stomach as he took in the curtain of black hair obscuring her face. 

Black hair. It wasn’t Velonara.

“Nice to get some air in here,” Lor’themar was saying. “It’s stale this far down.” He was far too relaxed for the situation, some dim part of Halduron’s mind remarked. 

All the ranger’s armor had been removed, and she wore only a black shirt and trousers. There were no identifying marks ﹣ Halduron knew the names of every single dark ranger but he hadn’t met most of them. He’d never been close to the vast majority elves who ended up serving Sylvanas. His hand shot out and grasped the ranger’s chin, jerking it with a rough upward motion. Panic flashed through her crimson eyes before giving way to calm, a tentative smile bleeding onto the woman’s pale face. 

“Hey, Halduron,” said Alina. She sounded like she’d been eating glass. 

Alina. Oh. 

Halduron owed Zekhan lunch for the rest of his life.

Chapter Text

It had been Baine who’d pushed the order through in the end. After the armistice, members of the Horde weren’t allowed in Kul Tiras, and it was only due to the debt owed by House Proudmoore that Jaina agreed to the expedition at all. 

There is a cave, Alina had told them, where Sylvanas kept prisoners for reeducation. It’s in Stormsong Valley, atop a cliff.

Halduron squinted in the late afternoon sun. Stormsong Valley had a lot of cliffs.

I’ve never been there, Alina explained apologetically. Whatever Sylvanas had put her through had not been kind to her voice, and it was several moments before she could elaborate, frowning with the effort required to produce sound. I only heard of it while they were interrogating me.

It was easier going with a mage, he had to admit, though there were some places even Jaina Proudmoore could not portal. Rommath had tried to explain portals to him once but he hadn’t understood it well and Halduron had forgotten most of it. Portals made his head hurt. 

I am indebted to your Velonara for her part in freeing my brother, Jaina had said, seeing the surprise on Halduron’s face. I will do what I can to help you find her.

Baine had offered to come, though Halduron ultimately declined. He was needed more in Orgrimmar to hammer out the details of the new Horde council with Lor and Thrall and all the rest. Rock climbing in Kul Tiras could wait for him but Halduron could not. On the days Jaina was able to join them they made fast progress, and the map she’d given him of Stormsong Valley was soon rapidly blackening with X’s and annotations. 

Screee! shrieked Dal’diel, sidestepping a shrub of feathery leaves. The honeybee that startled him buzzed curiously, darting out of reach of the bird’s snapping beak. 

“Dal,” Halduron reprimanded absentmindedly. “Don’t bother the wildlife.”

“There are saurolisks in this area,” Alina rasped, eyeing something in the distance. 

“There are saurolisks everywhere,” Halduron muttered. If one wanted to hide something, Stormsong Valley was a fucking incredible place to do it. Every hill boasted a cave or a tunnel or a mine, and so far they’d been assaulted by corrupted tidesages, angry quillboar, bewitched thorns, and hostile bees. What was a saurolisk but one more thing hellbent on murdering them?

They made for a tasty meal, at least, which was more than Halduron could say for anything else they’d encountered.

“Hold on,” he called to the dark ranger. “I see something over here.” Clicking his tongue against his teeth he nudged Dal’diel off the trail, and relaxed his hold on the reins as the bird carefully picked his way over the rocky ground. Behind him he heard the louder scrabbling of Alina’s undead charger doing the same. A black smudge had caught his eye, smeared into the junction between a boulder and the sheer rock wall, and upon poking his head in he found it was a cave like all the rest. And just like all the others, it was merely one large space, with no hidden tunnels or rooms. Sighing, he made his way back out, wincing as he scraped himself against the rock, and mounted Dal’diel once more. 

Alina shot him a sympathetic look. “We’ll find her, Halduron. Time is the one thing we have plenty of.” 

“Yeah.” He supposed there was a benefit to being Forsaken. There was no chance of Velonara dying of malnutrition or neglect while they searched, if she was still alive at all. 

Irritably he shook his head, banishing the thought. She’s out there somewhere. I know it.

It was the noise that roused her. It’d been a while ﹣ she wasn’t sure how long ﹣ since she’d had visitors. She wasn’t really sure how long she’d been here. All the days blended together when kept in a windowless cave. 

But there was noise now, muffled but most certainly there. Velonara’s ears twitched but the sounds were too faint to make out any words. They were definitely people, she decided, listening to the familiar cadence. Definitely people. 

Soon enough there came the heavy scrape she knew to be the door to her prison scratching against the floor. Velonara had never touched the floor, but she’d gathered by now that it was made of the same stone as the ceiling.

“So fucking cold,” someone was grumbling, and for some reason that brought out a quiet huff of amusement. Velonara had long ago lost the ability to feel the temperature in this place. She supposed it must be cold, since her fingers no longer bent. 

At least she had fingers still. Her persuaders had never gotten around to burning them off. 

A warm orange glow winked at her in the darkness, growing brighter the farther into the room it thrust. Velonara let her mind clear, each thought a grain of sand slipping through her frozen fingers. It was safer that way.

“They definitely used this place,” came a scratchy voice. It sounded like a woman. “Any bodies in that one?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” 

The light bobbed closer on the outskirts of her vision as Velonara stared determinedly at the ceiling. The cracks above her head stood out in stark relief, spiderwebbing deep in the far corners. She’d forgotten just how many of them there were after so long in the dark.

“Yeah,” called the voice again. A man’s voice this time. “This one’s a ranger too.” And then the light fluttered, as if it had been dropped and caught very quickly, before disappearing altogether, the clattering sound of wood coming half a moment later.

“Vel.”

Velonara knew that voice, and knew there was no way it could be here. So this was what happened when rot entered the brain. She knew then she was dying, the decay finally eating away at her sanity. It wasn’t the worst way to go, she decided. Not if he was here.

“Vel!” There was a loud thump, and something heavy smashed into the table. Something warm. “Fuck!” came the familiar voice again, laced with pain, and frenzied hands scrabbled over her body. “Bring another light!”

“What’s going o﹣ by the Sunwell!”

She was hallucinating, Velonar decided, as more orange light illuminated the room again, backlighting a head of tangled yellow hair bending low over her, and the strands tickled. The chains attached to her manacles rattled, banging harshly against the abused skin of her wrists. 

Her persuaders had never touched her like this. All their movements had been careful and precise, and they never touched her chains. There was no reason to move her, not when she’d already been arranged in such a perfectly open, defenseless position.

“Vel Vel Vel Vel!”

It took her a moment to realize the voice was calling her name. She didn’t remember the last time she’d heard it. Drops of some sort of warm liquid splashed her skin. 

The ache in her deadened heart was back, the single tether to her living body, the one she only felt with…

But he couldn’t be here.

A calloused hand, so terribly warm, slid along the side of her face. Near her feet her manacles rattled again, with a frustrated growl of, “I can’t get the lock open!” this time in the same woman’s voice as before. 

“Vel.” Hot breath misted her skin. “For fuck’s sake, Vel, please don’t be…”

He couldn’t be here. He was dead, wasn’t he? Did his presence mean she was dead too?

Slowly, so painstakingly slowly ﹣in the time it took the universe to fade, for the stars to fall and the dragons to turn to dust ﹣ Velonara wrenched her dry eyes away from the ceiling. She heard a sharp gasp, and after a moment the fuzziness cleared enough that into view came the pale, withdrawn, and unmistakable face of Halduron Brightwing. 

“Vel,” he breathed, and the wetness she felt, she realized, were tears, welling rapidly in his wide eyes and falling with abandon. If she were dead, she was glad he had waited for her in this place, happy that they would walk into the Great Dark Beyond together.

“Hal…” Her voice, faded with disuse, died in her throat, barely audible at all, but Halduron had heard her. Halduron always heard her. 

A warm, solid weight pressed against her freezing body, shaking with relief. His head lay buried in the juncture of her shoulder, and if she inhaled ﹣ did dead people inhale? ﹣ she smelled the familiar tang of sweat and blood and hawkstrider and Halduron.  

Dead people shouldn’t have a smell, she thought dully.

“Aha!” came the cry, followed by a cold sensation around one ankle that Velonara realized belatedly was air. Cool air caressing her bare skin where the manacle had been. Why would she still be chained if she were dead?

“Don’t worry,” Halduron whispered shakily, leaving her for just long enough to reach up ﹣ and then she felt his familiar rough fingers grip her arm. Heard the rattle of chains as he gingerly lifted it, searching for the lock. “We’re going to get you out of here. We’re going to take you home.”

Home. Where even was that anymore?

“I swore to you,” he murmured, over the clinking of chains and his own chattering teeth, “I swore I would come back for you. Wherever you are, I will always go.”

Yes… He had promised her that once. Stupid, stupid Halduron… You really did come for me…

He continued to talk to her, through ragged breathes and hiccuping sobs, as he worked open first one cuff and then the other. Conscious of her stiffened form, he carefully rubbed his own heat into her shoulders, until she was able to rest her arms along her sides for the first time in... she didn't remember when. 

This can’t be happening, Velonara thought dimly, as Halduron gently gathered her in his arms. The warmth radiating from him was like fire, but one that did not and would never harm her. It seeped beneath her icy skin, softening her hardened muscles, as it had so many times before. Beneath the murmuring of orange-gold trees on cool Thalassian nights, and shielding her from freezing mountain rain as they sheltered from Amani scouts; caressing her slick skin in countless streams and pulling her close at the first shiver.

Velonara couldn’t shiver anymore, but she thought she must be doing something like it, for Halduron to gaze at her so. To warrant the worry etched in every line of his face. Just ahead of them, bathed in the glow of torchlight, was the familiar form of Alina, and a lump grew in her throat, chest swelling so full she thought it might burst. 

Alina’s here too… She’s alive…

Velonara pressed her face into Halduron’s jerkin as the sunlight hit them with terrifying blindness. Her eyes burned, and her ears twitched uncontrollably as so many sounds ﹣ birdsong and rushing water, the crash of distant waves, the squealing of quillboar ﹣ assaulted her weakened senses. Her head ached. The cool breeze felt like so many knives slicing her flesh, and Velonara thought to herself that if her persuaders had really wanted to hurt her, all they’d had to do in the end was let her outside. 

Halduron collapsed heavily in the soft grass, lowering Velonara with great care into his lap and folding her once more in his strong, warm arms. She felt his hand in her hair, and then the electrifying softness of what felt like a blanket or greatcloak draping over their huddled form. 

“I’ll find Proudmoore,” Alina was saying, and Velonara didn’t understand why but lacked the strength to ask. It didn’t matter, she supposed, not really. Not when Halduron was here, murmuring sweet nonsense in her ear and holding her so tightly. So real and warm and alive.

“How?” she breathed. How are you here? How did you find me?

His breath tickled the tip of her nose and she inhaled, drawing his words into herself like some sort of panacea, some sort of lifegiving elixir that kissed life into her cold, dead bones, pumping magic back into her unbeating heart. 

“Because I love you,” he whispered. “And nothing will keep me from you, so long as we both live. Until the stars fall from the sky, and the dragons age and turn to dust, and the Great Dark Beyond claims us for the final time, I will always find you. I will always be with you.”

* * *

Halduron Brightwing lived for another fifteen hundred years. He died on a warm summer morning, at the ripe old age of twenty-nine hundred and thirty-six, surrounded by friends and loved ones and his beloved hawkstriders, attended to by the woman he’d loved with all his heart. As his heart beat for the final time, and his breath stilled in his lungs, Velonara felt the same chill down her spine that had frightened him so long ago. She stared down death for the second time, and this time she was not afraid. 

“I love you,” she murmured into his papery skin. “I will always love you, until the Great Dark Beyond claims us for the final time.”

It wouldn’t be long now, she thought, her hand clasped in his. She was so tired. I’ll see you soon, dalah'surfal.

As the sun set on the day, so too did Velonara on the world, and the remains of her soul vanished, in search of her love in their next life.

“You’re disgusting,” said the girl, wrinkling her aquiline nose.

The boy, with ink down his front and ink-stained hands, grinned. “Actually,” he said, “I prefer Hatheon.” He swiped a lock of damp yellow hair from his forehead, and swept into a bow much too grand to be a genuine greeting, bending at the waist and scooping into one hand both spilled ink bottles in one fluid motion. His face was handsome, even covered in smears of black.

The girl’s heart beat fast, and she hated the tremble in her voice. “I didn’t ask,” she snapped, hand lashing out to snatch the bottle back. For the briefest moment their fingers met, and electricity jolted through her. 

She spun away before he could see the flush spreading over her cheeks, and marched back to her seat, yanking it out with more force than necessary and glaring holes in her desk. 

“You really can’t help yourself, can you?” mused his friend, passing him a clean cloth to wipe his face.

“What can I say?” the boy quipped. 

“That you’ll stay out of trouble and stop antagonizing people like Velanni Brightstar. I’d like to enjoy my time in the Academy, you know.”

The boy waved him off, watching the girl out of the corner of his eye. “As long as everyone’s not like this Velanni Brightstar, we will.”