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Chapter Text

Chromie was on vacation when it happened. She loved visiting the distant past, back when fewer people were squabbling over the minutiae of mortal lives, trying to tweak the timeline in their favor or undo the fabric of reality or something equally tedious to clean up. So long as she made sure not to disrupt any historical events, she could rest here for months or even years without a single blip on her temporal radar.

This time she was in Stranglethorn Vale. The thick jungle was home to a number of different troll tribes, and Chromie watched them in fascination as they fought and feuded and eventually became the Gurubashi tribe. Eventually a city would rise here, then fall again, and eventually the ruins would become home to a notable villain and his loa.

Chromie finished her notes on the Gurubashi and cast a time-acceleration spell to dry the ink. Once upon a time the bronze dragonflight—of which she was a prominent member—could see all the strands of time at once and tell immediately if one of them were out of place, but their leader Nozdormu gave up that power to save Azeroth from Deathwing and end the Cataclysm. Nowadays the Timekeepers had to rely upon records and libraries, and Chromie could justify a longer vacation if she made it a working one.

Of course, the amount of time she spent in the past ultimately made little difference as long as she came back to the present more or less when she left it. Chromie tucked away her journal, shifted back into her native dragon form so she could gain some altitude (it was always safest to timewalk while airborne, to reduce the risk of getting stuck inside a tree or a building which hadn't been there other-when), and jumped all the way to the far side of the fourth Horde-Alliance war.

Instead of thick jungle and a coastal breeze, she found herself above a dusty wasteland in the middle of a windstorm. How had she come out in the wrong place? Hurriedly she teleported back to Stranglethorn ... or tried to. The spell brought her out exactly where she started, in the same buffeting storm.

Desperate, Chromie jumped to a higher altitude to get her bearings, but it wasn't much help. Though she was above the storm, she still couldn't recognize the place.

A creeping sort of dread filled her. Had she altered the future somehow during her jaunt to the past? It shouldn't have been possible. Without intention—or a fairly flashy time spell—she shouldn't be able to alter the timeline during a simple observation trip. Inexperienced timewalkers might think that stepping on a butterfly or whatever in the past might completely alter the present of their world, not understanding that the timeline which produced them already included the effects of their temporal jaunt. Without that direct intent to change something (and often even with it), the fabric of time simply absorbed the timewalkers' actions into what had already been woven.

But no—her chronolocator was working fine. It would have warned her if she were on the verge of causing a catastrophic temporal branch, and even if it hadn't, another of her dragonflight surely would. There must be some other explanation.

She traveled to other places she knew. Tirisfal, Moonglade, Ramkahen—all the same swirling dust, with no way to tell if she even had the right location. Finally she teleported outside Ironforge, and the familiar profile of the mountains sticking out of the dunes confirmed that she was where she was supposed to be. The very top of the gate was visible, though the rest of the valley was empty of anything green or living.

It was risky to teleport underground without knowing what she would find, so Chromie shifted into her gnomish guise and blinked in through one of the narrow windows in the stone above the gate. Everything was as it should be, architecturally speaking, but the forges were cold, and not so much as a mouse crawled around inside the great dwarven city. Here and there were piles of dust, some with bits of metal scattered around them—belt buckles or silver coins or an axe blade without a handle.

Chromie gasped. These inert piles were people—every denizen, everything organic turned to dust in what looked to have been a single instant. There was only one thing she knew of which could cause such a catastrophe; the Forge of Origination had been used.

She teleported out before she accidentally sneezed one of the dust piles apart. What should she do? Where were the rest of the bronze dragonflight, and why hadn't they fixed this yet? According to her chronolocator she was exactly when she wanted to be, about two years after the end of the Fourth War; this was definitely not supposed to have happened. Was she the only one left, somehow?

Holding back tears lest the dust cling to them and blind her, Chromie realized she would have to fix this herself. She began walking backward through time, small jumps at first and then larger ones, determined to figure out what had gone wrong and somehow restore the timeline she remembered.

*****

Jiari snapped awake all at once, though she couldn't have said what woke her. A sound from outside perhaps, or Soran moving in his sleep. Unlike her first husband he didn't snore, so it hadn't been that. Perhaps an owl had hooted from the woods.

She glanced over at the stone hearth. The coals were still glowing faintly; it couldn't have been more than an hour or so after midnight. She ought to get up and add more wood, but it was so cozy under the furs with Soran's olive-green arm draped over her that she resisted.

It still felt strange. Two months ago, Jiari wouldn't even have bothered with a fire; her undead body was rarely inconvenienced by cold, heat, hunger, thirst, or pain. Ever since the Alliance tried to kill her with a magic they barely understood and brought her back to life instead, she'd struggled to reacclimate herself to things which were once an unquestioned part of her existence. Breathing, for example—it was much harder to remain completely still and silent when your lungs demanded air every few seconds. Sleep was another one, reducing the number of hours in which she could accomplish things by fully a third; though at the moment it didn't seem so bad, really.

To an outside observer, it might even seem as if Jiari had embraced this new life as the only living human who served the Horde. In truth, her choice to marry Soran was born out of a need for something unchanging, an anchor to keep her from being blown about by the winds of uncertainty. He was also an extra layer of protection between herself and the Forsaken apothecaries who desperately wanted to take her apart and see what made her tick.

Whatever had woken her, she was in no danger here. Jiari tucked herself a little tighter under Soran's thickly-muscled arm, and was nearly asleep again when a vigorous pounding came at the door.

"Champion!" a familiar, male voice called through it, waking Soran as well. So much for staying cozy. "Champion Jiari!"

Soran pulled on his pants and cracked the door open while Jiari wrapped herself in the blanket. She'd forgotten that benefit of having a husband.

"Soran?" said the startled voice outside—Covas, that's who it was. He was an orc, and one of the fortress' few rogues besides Jiari. Except no—he'd been reassigned to Windshear Hold just over a month ago. "What are you doing here?"

His surprise was natural. He hadn't been here for the wedding yesterday, and with General Krom'gar and his entourage already on the way here, it was unlikely anyone bothered sending word to him about it. It wasn't exactly vital Horde business—and none of Krom'gar's, in Jiari's opinion—though there were a few people stationed in the formerly Alliance-held outpost whom she would have invited if she could.

"Sleeping," Soran replied in a tone which strongly implied he would like to get back to it.

Covas was not deterred. "Where's Jiari? I need to find her right away."

"I'm here," Jiari said when she was certain she was sufficiently covered to walk to the door. Once she would have balked at leaving her shoulders bare, but living among orcs and trolls whose fashion was influenced by warmer climates had relaxed her standards. "What's so urgent that it can't wait until morning?"

Covas eyed her blanket-wrapped form with chagrin, but got to the point immediately. "You need to leave. Someone will be here to arrest you any minute now."

"Arrest me? Why?!"

"Because Overlord Thandor was just found murdered, with your knife in his back."

Jiari couldn't have been left more breathless if a sledgehammer hit her in the stomach. Her vision swam and her knees buckled; Soran had to catch her before she hit the ground. She was aware of him and Covas talking, but none of the words made it through her haze of shock.

Thandor, dead? It couldn't be true. He was standing right beside her just a few hours before, an indestructible pillar of strength. She had saved him, risked the final strength of Thandor Fortress to wrest him from the Alliance. He was her mentor, her beloved overlord, the shield protecting her from the Banshee Queen's wrath. He couldn't just be gone.

Soran sat her down on a chair and tugged her shirt on over her head. "Jiari, we have to get dressed. Come on—snap out of it."

Numbly, Jiari stuffed her arms in the sleeves and pulled on her pants, then reached for her uniform.

"You won't need that," Covas said, though he removed her insignia from the black-and-red tabard and tucked it into her hand, "and you should cover that tattoo if you can. It won't be many days before everyone from Splintertree to Gadgetzan knows your description, but stay away from the settlements and you should be fine."

Soran too removed the brand new champion's insignia from his tabard and grimly placed it in his belt pouch. He was already dressed and busy bundling their armor up in a sack, and Jiari didn't even have her boots on.

She let Soran do up her laces and checked the harness which held most of her knives. They all seemed to be accounted for. "My knife. How?"

"It must be the one I lost." Soran gave her an agonized look. "I thought I dropped it, but it could just as easily have been stolen."

"It was," Covas said. "General Krom'gar had someone take it while you slept."

Soran cursed, and fury gripped Jiari so hard she could barely see straight. "He's the culprit. Krom'gar killed my overlord!"

"He didn't. The general is still en route, with an entourage of witnesses. You should know he's already sent letters to Cliffwalker Post and Malaka'jin, telling them he has proof you've been working for the Alliance."

"But you'll explain," Jiari said. "You'll tell them it wasn't me."

Covas shook his head. "I won't."

"Why?" Soran demanded.

"Because I've seen what happens to people who defy General Krom'gar. He has the warchief's blessing—"

"So he claims." Soran seemed inches from drawing his axe. "I've yet to see any actual proof."

"I've seen it," Jiari said. She stared off into the middle distance, remembering an orc officer living in a wretched shack in Ashenvale because he was afraid Krom'gar would come for him. Covas was right to be terrified. "He's telling the truth."

She explained briefly, and Soran shook his head in disbelief. "The warchief? Hellscream himself wants Thandor replaced?"

Covas spat. "Overlord Thandor could have pushed the Alliance from this land, or wiped them off the face of it completely. Instead he chose to go to their aid. Did you think Hellscream would forgive him for that?"

Grief threatened to overcome Jiari again, but she fastened her cloak and leaned on Soran's arm. Without her uniform, she felt almost as naked as she'd been without pants.

The door burst open without warning, but the one who came through it was Champion Shuak. The stalwart troll's face was pinched with grief.

"Jiari! You need to—" She cut off when she saw Covas, and her hand reached inside her cloak for a weapon. "I'm supposed to be arresting her," she said guardedly. "Are you here to stop me, or help me?"

"I was never here," Covas said. "I'm definitely off hunting in a completely different direction."

Shuak relaxed. "Do you have a plan to get them out?"

Covas nodded toward the window. "On its way."

Champion Shuak gave Jiari a salute, then stepped back out into the hallway with a grim smile. "Consider yourself under arrest."

"Thank you." Soran told her. Jiari returned the salute, and Shuak closed the door.

"If you're so afraid of Krom'gar," Jiari wondered as Covas pulled back the thick curtain on the window and opened the shutter, "then why are you helping me?"

Covas slid a pair of metal implements from his sleeve. Not knives, but long and slender—one with a hook-like tip and the other more of a corkscrew. "Unlike Thandor, General Krom'gar isn't squeamish about using my abilities to the fullest. If you stay, he'll have a confession from you eventually whether you're guilty or not, and I'd rather not do that to someone I respect."

"I'll kill him," Jiari said, pulling out her knives. Her hands shook with rage. "I'll do it myself!"

Covas grabbed her wrist, and it was all she could do to keep from cutting him. "Not like this, you won't. There are too many people you trained protecting him, and he's been planning this for a long time. Forget about Krom'gar and you might live; come back here, and you're a dead woman."

"I don't care! I want his blood!"

Soran plucked her knives out of her hands and put them away. "I'm sorry, my wife. I won't let you throw your life away for a coward who couldn't even bring himself to challenge mak'gora for the fortress."

My wife. Her resolve crumbled. If she died, Soran would be forced to avenge her—it was right there in their wedding vows.

The dam broke. Jiari screamed her grief, fists thumping solidly against Soran's chest. He held her as tightly as he could without hurting her, tears running down his own cheeks. Their time here was over; Thandor Fortress would never be their home again.

A rope slapped against the window ledge, announcing their escape route. Soran climbed to the roof (Jiari and Covas simply shadowstepped), where the sentries looked stolidly in the opposite direction. Another orc with her face masked held the reins of a trio of saddled wyverns.

"I told you she wouldn't be alone," said the orc, who turned out to be Idrona—one of the people Jiari wished had been here yesterday. "You should have let me saddle another wyvern."

Covas grimaced, pulling up his own mask. "Sorry. I underestimated her powers of persuasion."

"Or overestimated Krom'gar's."

"It's all right," Soran said. "A single wind rider will be less conspicuous than two, and I think she's still in shock. Took her three whole minutes to start threatening anyone."

"I'll do more than threaten the next person who talks about me like I'm not here," Jiari said, voice rough with grief. Soran was right, though; she wasn't sure she trusted herself to take the reins. She climbed onto the largest wyvern with him and tied her armor bundle to the saddle. "Is he really gone?"

"I saw the body myself," Covas replied.

Jiari gritted her teeth to keep from wailing and giving away their position to the whole keep. Her overlord was dead, and she couldn't even stay to bury him.

"What's with them?" Covas eyed the sentries. "I thought we'd have to fight them."

Idrona mounted her wyvern in a single, fluid movement. She'd been practicing. "They can't report what they didn't see."

Covas grunted thoughtfully. "I have a feeling General Krom'gar will have a harder time consolidating his power here than he thinks."

A horn sounded. One of the sentries twitched, but still didn't turn in their direction.

"Time to go," Covas said.

Soran didn't wait for him, already heeling the wyvern into motion. Jiari held tight as they dropped toward the parade ground and then rose again, flapping hurriedly. They circled once, gazing upon the fortress for the last time before wheeling off into the icy night.

Chapter Text

They caught a brief glimpse of Covas and Idrona flying off in another direction, but soon they were alone in the sky. The sound of horns faded into the distance, and Jiari let herself weep—holding nothing back. Her grief was an open wound, which had to be bled lest it fester and turn to poison. For Thandor she had fought, killed, bled, and sacrificed. For him she would have died a hundred times and thought the price but little.

Who was she to turn to now? Krom'gar hated her, Sylvanas wanted to dissect her, and Hellscream probably didn't need an excuse to have her thrown in chains or worse. People spoke well of the tauren's new chieftain, but what was she to him? Nothing but a stranger who wore his enemy's face. She suspected she would find no safe haven within the Horde again.

"Where are we going?" she asked once the tears abated for a time.

"West," Soran said.

"I can see that. What's our destination?" The only things in that direction were Sun Rock Retreat—a shrine where tauren pilgrims came once, in more peaceful times—and Farwatcher's Glen.

Soran held her closer with the hand that wasn't on the reins. "Somewhere they won't think to look for you."

"Not to the Alliance." She tried to take the reins, but his arms were longer than hers and her fingers too stiff from the cold.

"There are people in Farwatcher's Glen who owe me favors. We can take a ship from there, go anywhere we want."

"Anywhere there are no people," Jiari said bitterly.

"There are places. Everlook is neutral, and Gadgetzan—even Ratchet, if we decide it's safe to be that close to Orgrimmar. That's just on this continent; if we can get to Northrend, we're home free."

"Gadgetzan is gone." Jiari felt Soran stiffen. "You hadn't heard? The sand swallowed it up two weeks ago, in a windstorm the likes of which no one has ever seen before. As for Northrend, if there's anyone left after Deathwing torched the settlements and dropped a city on Wyrmrest, they're probably refugees themselves."

"'Fires to burn this entire world, and winds to scour it clean,'" Soran murmured.

Jiari turned so she could see his face. "What's that?"

"Something that dragon said right before I killed her. She said, 'more is coming.'"

"More of what?"

"Just that. Wind, and fire."

They flew in apprehensive silence for most of the night, except when Jiari's grief spilled out and became great, wracking sobs which left her cold and drained. Soran comforted her as much as he could, but it was his presence more than his words that kept her tethered through the storm of emotions.

At first light they began looking for shelter, and eventually found an abandoned quillboar burrow large enough to hide both them and their wyvern. They built a small, well-hidden fire and huddled together for warmth, eating the provisions they found in their saddlebags.

"It's my fault," Jiari said at length, prodding the fire with a stick. "Overlord Thandor is dead because of me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I figured out what that gnome said about the curse. My greatest fear is losing the things I love, so that's what happened because I came back to life—first I lost all my friends during the siege, then the Forsaken, then you ... now Thandor and the Horde."

Soran rubbed her arms tenderly. "You haven't lost me. I'm right here, and I won't leave you again."

Jiari smiled, but inside she knew it was only a matter of time before the curse struck again. She'd called down this disaster by daring to claim Soran's heart, and if she held onto him long enough, she would lose him, too.

They slept, and held each other, and even risked a little hunting to supplement the supplies Covas and Idrona packed for them, but didn't set out again until it was fully dark. They performed a brief vigil before they left, streaking their faces with ash for Thandor's memory since they couldn't attend his funeral in person. It helped; the only tears Jiari cried that night were silent ones.

After skirting a ruined city that Soran claimed was haunted, they spent the second day in a tent someone had left up beside the drill site in the mountains. According to Soran it was from here that the joint Horde and Alliance fire brigade had drained the lake which once sat in the center of the haunted ruins, and sent the water down to quench the forest. The tent was surprisingly dry, and the snake they found brumating inside made a tasty meal.

Jiari studied the knife she'd made the kill with. It was one of the pair Soran had made for her from the horns of the dragon he slew, to replace the one he'd lost. (Though it occurred to her that it was his fault she'd lost a couple more before that, too.) The blades were a match in quality for the ones Thandor made her, even echoing the same design, but these were longer, and black instead of ivory.

"We should reach Farwatcher's Glen tonight," Soran said. "Before midnight, if we're lucky."

She knew he'd been hoping to reach it before they were forced to camp, but even a fast wyvern didn't fly very quickly carrying double. It was just as well, in Jiari's opinion; she was in no hurry to throw herself upon the mercy of the Alliance.

"I'll have to introduce you to my family somehow," Soran said. "To my brothers, and my nieces. Might be a nephew too by the time we see them; you never know."

"I'd like that." It was the truth, but even as she said it she knew it could never happen. Anyone she got close to would eventually suffer the same fate as Overlord Thandor and his champions. "Do you know where they went?"

His smile faded. With the naga attacking the coast, most of the farmers had fled further inland. "No. They promised to send word once they were safe, but I don't suppose I'll get their letters now."

They laid down on their bedroll to rest. Jiari made sure Soran was good and tired before she let him sleep, and spent a few more hours dozing in his arms before she rose silently. She placed his necklace on the blanket where he would be sure to find it, keeping his knives—she wanted something to remember him by, but didn't want him to think she was coming back—and allowed herself one last cry before buckling on her armor and flying off without him.

Jiari stayed on the ground at first, following the road near their campsite until the sun was fully down. She was half afraid Soran would wake and catch up to her—a wyvern didn't walk as fast as an orc could run—but she saw no sign of him. She imagined she heard his voice calling her name as she finally lifted off into the evening breeze, but it could just as easily have been the wind.

Leaving Soran behind was the hardest choice she'd ever made. It was one thing to contemplate handing herself over to Sylvanas when she thought he no longer cared about her, but knowing how he really felt, that he would stay by her side until the worst happened if she let him, and leaving him anyway ... cruel was the only word for it.

He had to understand; she couldn't bear it if he didn't. Jiari had to lose him, but if she did it on her own terms there was a much greater chance that he didn't have to die.

At first she didn't know where she was going. (She couldn't turn herself in to the Forsaken now. Even if she could reach the Undercity with naga plaguing the shipping lanes, she wouldn't risk Soran following her there, where he might incur Sylvanas' wrath in an attempt to rescue or avenge her.) Soon however she found herself pointed south. It was the quickest way out of Stonetalon, which was now Krom'gar's demesne, and seemed a suitable destination for an exile. Desolace was where you sent horrible people, like murderers and traitors and women who left their husbands two days after the wedding. It took less time to cross the border than she expected, but she was riding single now, and most wyverns would bear a passenger the size of a tauren without difficulty. By the time the sun rose red over the mountains, it gave her a clear view of her new home.

Desolace lived up to its name. Aside from a sprinkling of scrub and brown grass on the slopes immediately below her, there was nothing to be seen but gray-brown sand and hills of bare stone which had been worn by the wind into little more than humps sticking out of the dunes. Further south, a sandstorm hid even those, forming a dust cloud which obscured the horizon.

Somewhere amid all that sand was a safe haven—a new forest where the Cenarion Circle needed willing hands and cared little for the petty squabbles between the Horde and the Alliance. If she could reach it, she might find sanctuary for a time.

For now, what she needed most was rest. Jiari camped on the slope, finding a stream that flowed down from Stonetalon to fill her waterskin from, and huddled beside her wyvern for warmth. Despite her fatigue, she slept for only half the day before the bitter cold forced her to get moving or freeze to death.

It would be warmer down among the dunes, she told herself. After a quick jog to warm up, she risked a flight down the mountainside in daylight.

This proved to be her undoing. Before she'd been in the air five minutes, two wyverns with riders wearing Thandor's colors closed in and began firing crossbows at her. She did her best to evade, but both she and her beast were tired, and the pursuers appeared fresh. They must have been camped on the heights, watching for her.

There was nowhere to hide, and no matter how she tried she couldn't outrun the pursuers. Her wyvern was struck first—it bellowed but kept flapping, and Jiari aimed it at the ground lest they still be a deadly distance above it when the beast's strength gave out.

She didn't make it that far. The next bolt that hit went clean through Jiari's armor and pierced her side just below the ribcage. In the shock of the impact, she lost her grip and fell from the wyvern's back. Her foot got tangled in the stirrup, wrenching her ankle but saving her life. The lopsided weight dragged her wyvern down in an awkward spiral, which at least made shooting at her more difficult.

Though in agony from the blow, Jiari had the presence of mind to cut the stirrup strap with her belt knife before she hit the ground, but she was spinning too quickly to pick a target for her shadowstep. She stepped blindly, coming out in midair and falling several feet to land on the arrow. It snapped off in mid-shaft, preventing it from doing any further damage as she continued rolling down hill, but that didn't stop the pain from robbing her of consciousness long before she reached the bottom.

Chapter Text

Since the afternoon Soran woke and found Jiari gone, he'd been lost. Not physically—he knew exactly where he was and how to get where he was going—but internally. The past few days were a rollercoaster; first the victory against the dragon at the Charred Vale, then Krom'gar's accusation against Jiari, followed rapidly by a duel, a promotion, his wedding, and finally Thandor's death. Now, after not even three full days of having her back in his life, she was gone again.

Soran thought he understood why she left him behind. He wished he'd taken her concerns about the curse more seriously, talked her through them rather than brush them aside. Or maybe it was pointing them straight for an Alliance stronghold which had been his fatal mistake. Jiari spent the past two months proving over and over that she was loyal to the Horde; the thought of suddenly having to beg her enemy's mercy must have been devastating.

Unfortunately, understanding didn't make it hurt any less. Didn't she trust him? Didn't she realize that they were safer together, no matter whether they went to the Alliance for help or set off into the wilds of Kalimdor?

Soran slid his fingers across the armor she'd had made for him. She complained that being alive again amplified all her emotions, but he didn't think that was the case. In his opinion, it was her undeath which did it. Even under the soul-dampening influence of the shadow magic which revived her, Jiari still managed to care about people. She felt strongly because she had lived so long with her emotions stifled, and spent that whole time fighting to hold onto the person she'd been before. Despite the shadows of the grave which clung to her, she'd radiated light to those around herself—but no matter how hard he tried, he'd never been able to do the same for her. Now that she was gone, he couldn't even try.

He spent the rest of his first day without her concealed near the abandoned camp, then trudged up the hill toward Farwatcher's Glen once the sun set. He walked all night, then into the next day; there was tree cover enough here to hide him from Krom'gar's scouts even if they dared come this close to an Alliance outpost, and he was too angry to sleep anyway.

Soran had never actually been inside the settlement, and was startled when he came to the edge a few hours after noon and was stopped by two well-armed guards. A Horde outpost of this size would have the trees cleared well back from it, but here they grew right up against the wall and even inside.

"Don't move, Horde filth!" one of them said. She would have reminded him of Jiari if not for the insult, between her accent and the short brown hair—that is, until thick fur sprouted from her body and she bulked up into the wolf-faced form of a worgen. "One step closer and I rip your throat out."

Soran held back his anger. Well, most of it. "Is that any way to treat the orc who saved your homes not a week past?"

The guard shared a look with her counterpart, who was just as unfamiliar to Soran as she. "What do you want?" she said with somewhat less of a growl.

"I am here to speak with Captain Kosak, if he is still here, or if not then another of the commanders from your fire brigade."

"Even if there were someone here by that name," said the second guard, "what makes you think they'd want to speak with you?"

Soran settled himself on a large rock outside easy reach of the guards' polearms. "Just tell your commander that Soran Felldragon, former champion of Thandor Fortress, would like to speak to him on a matter of some urgency."

It was amusing—and also infuriating—how much Soran's politeness put them off their guard. He'd honed the skill during his weeks dealing with prejudice among the Alliance firefighters, and was grateful to Overlord Thandor for teaching him the applications of a quiet word. He'd still wanted to lay about him with his axe sometimes, but patience was another of Thandor's lessons.

He'll teach no more of those, Soran thought with sorrow. He'd been Overlord Thandor's student for barely a month, but the wise old orc had imparted more wisdom in that brief time than most could in a decade. Not just combat techniques—most of Thandor's lectures could be applied in peacetime as readily as war. It was no wonder half the fortress practically worshiped him.

After a few moments' hesitation, the Alliance guards decided Soran wasn't going to leave until they obeyed his request, and the smaller one disappeared briefly. Within fifteen minutes or so (and after relinquishing his axe) Soran was invited inside the settlement's infirmary, where Captain Kosak was recovering from an injury taken during the draining of the lake.

"Just when I thought I was finally going home to Northwatch," Kosak said, shifting his bandage-wrapped leg. "Did I ever tell you about the spider bite that laid me up during the siege of—"

"Several times," Soran said.

Kosak gave a rueful smile. "So I have. Well now—'Champion Felldragon'. You've moved up in the world."

"And then back down again." Soran began with the news of Thandor's death and worked his way backwards, explaining who Jiari was and how Krom'gar had framed her. "We ... got separated after fleeing the fortress. Is there any way you can help me find her?"

"I'm not sure there is," Kosak said with more than a little regret. "We sent most of our scouts to Nijel's Point in Desolace two days ago. The Burning Blade has resurfaced in numbers unseen since the Third War, and even the forces we sent there may not be enough to hold them. I will ask that watch be kept for her, however."

Soran thanked his unlikely friend and accepted the gifts of a meal and a place to rest. Jiari knew he'd been headed there; if she changed her mind and came back to him, surely she would look here first.

*****

The dust of Desolace blew steadily into the faces of a long column of Alliance soldiers making their way toward the outpost at Nijel's Point. Most were afoot, since fodder for horses and riding goats and whatnot was scarce where they were going, but Meleen—the lone paladin among the group—was fortunate enough to be mounted. As one of the few survivors of the failed siege of Thandor Fortress, she had somehow earned pride of place among the humans and night elves of Stonetalon.

Though she considered the events of the siege to be among her greatest failures, Meleen had learned a lot from her humiliation during and afterward. Lesson one—things are not always what they seem. She'd learned that one while having her own sword pulled out of her chest after an unarmed human prisoner turned out to be a Horde champion in disguise.

Lesson two—never underestimate the enemy. That same champion had rallied what the Alliance commanders thought was a defeated army and pushed them from Thandor Fortress mere moments after Meleen unwittingly set her free.

Lesson three—you should never take that which you were not prepared to defend. Seeing that they'd lost but unwilling to leave empty-handed, Lord Fallowmere had taken the Horde overlord and one of its generals prisoner. It was Thandor's abduction which caused the survivors from the fortress to give chase instead of hunkering down to lick their wounds, and they'd slaughtered the last of Meleen's companions in their desperation to free him again.

They passed the second to last milestone. Uneasily, Meleen recalled the last time she'd been to this spot. She and her friends shot down a blood elf rider not far from here while mustering for the siege, and discovered in his journal what they thought was the means to grant the souls killed in Thal'darah a measure of vengeance. Instead, the "weapon" they concocted had brought the Horde's undead champion back to life, and thus ultimately doomed everyone else who'd been part of its creation.

That was lesson four—never play with magic you don't understand. The loss of her friends was a high price to pay for those lessons, and yet it meant she was unlikely to forget them again soon.

"'Ware, the Horde!" a sentry shouted, and Meleen shoved her ruminations aside as she spotted them—two soldiers wearing the colors of Thandor Fortress, wheeling overhead on wyverns. Immediately the company readied crossbows.

"Hold your arrows," Lady Fallowmere said, not shouting but somehow still pitched so everyone could hear. Meleen had yet to learn that skill. "Let us see what they have to say."

Meleen shifted uncomfortably. Despite the aid Thandor Fortress had sent to Farwatcher's Glen, she would never fully trust the Horde. With the fires extinguished and conditions for the cession of Windshear Hold fulfilled, who knew how much longer the truce would hold?

The whole affair left her feeling vaguely unnerved. There were those who claimed the Horde had only sent aid to get a good look at Farwatcher's Glen and its defenses. She didn't buy that—why spend so much effort when they could simply have let it burn?—but there had to be something more. What were they hiding behind their veil of cooperation?

The riders did not come down to parley, but continued their suspicious circling until Lady Fallowmere sent a trio of gryphon riders aloft to chase them away. Meleen half expected them to shoot someone before they left, but they must have been intimidated by the larger force on the road because eventually they retreated back over the hills. The caravan moved on again, keeping a warier eye on the sky as they went.

Things are not always what they seem. There was a reason those riders were circling, and it wasn't to become target practice. Meleen heeled her borrowed hippogryph into the air and took a look instead at the ground.

She saw nothing out of the ordinary, even when she flew in the same circle the wyverns had been, but the feeling that she was missing something wouldn't go away. She landed carefully on the slope and kept searching on foot.

Again nothing stood out to her, and her search took so long that the company was nearly out of sight around the bend. Meleen was about to give up in frustration when her cloak caught on a bush which, instead of losing a branch or two when she tried to tug the fabric free, came dragging along behind her.

Meleen was no scout, but the break looked fresh. More importantly, there was fresh blood on the ground beside it. Her heart beat faster. Those Horde scouts had been looking for someone, and whoever it was couldn't be far away.

She cast about for more evidence and saw several rocks downslope which had been dislodged from their places, some of which were marked with more blood—a lot more. Meleen uttered one of Dange's favorite curses. (It was a bad habit in her opinion, and one she never subscribed to in the past, but she missed having him there to say them. She didn't know what they meant, anyway.)

Down the hill she went, nearly tripping twice on the steep slope. When the blood trail reached the point where the hill leveled out, however, it was still a long moment before she spotted the victim. They were human-sized, in a gray-green cloak which blended into the dust, and were also coated in it so completely that it was no wonder the company walked right past. With that level of camouflage, whoever it was might as well have been a rock.

Lesson number one taught Meleen to draw her weapon and prepare a defensive spell before approaching the still form. Even assuming the victim was friendly to the Alliance—which she would never do again—injuries like that could make a person lash out without thinking.

The figure wasn't moving, and for a moment Meleen thought they must be dead, but a gentle prodding elicited a weak groan. When she turned the victim over to get a look at their injuries, however, Meleen nearly decided to call down holy fire and kill them then and there.

That face! It was the same woman—the Horde champion who'd killed each of her friends while Meleen somehow survived each encounter. She hadn't borne a Horde tattoo upon her cheek when Meleen saw her last, but that armor, in grays and greens which would blend as well into trees and earth as that cloak did, was equally unmistakable.

Meleen stepped back and laid her sword blade against the woman's throat, breathing hard. One slice, and all of their deaths were avenged. Oden, with a knife embedded to the hilt in his gut before he knew what was happening. Sydni, trapped in her war machine by a faulty ejection seat when it blew. Dange and his pets, somehow defeated by an unarmed, unarmored rogue who never should have been able to get close enough to touch him. Ylindia, who couldn't even put a scratch on the woman despite having the element of surprise—twice. And Gildis last of all, when the Horde champion in all her fury took vengeance for the curse he'd devised, and which he'd fallen victim to himself in order to spring upon her.

One slice was all it would take ... but Meleen couldn't make her fingers move. There was another, more recent encounter, the memory of which stayed her hand.

"Go home," the woman said in orcish, coiling up the rope with which she'd pulled Meleen from the steep-sided cleft. Meleen had expected to die there—slowly, of hunger or thirst or both—but she supposed being a prisoner yet again was a small step up. She'd hoped it was. Instead of binding her with that rope and dragging her back to Thandor Fortress, however, the blue-eyed former Forsaken climbed atop her huge wolf, turned her back, and rode away.

"Wake up!" Meleen shouted at her helpless foe, but not even a groan answered her this time.

The woman might not be dead yet, but with that much blood on the ground beneath her she was almost certainly dying. All Meleen had to do was walk away, and it was a foregone conclusion—but then she would never know why those riders were chasing her, or why, after slaughtering nearly everyone else who came against Thandor Fortress, the woman had let her live.

After uttering a few more of Dange's favorite words, Meleen laid her sword down and knelt to tend the woman's wounds.

Chapter Text

It took all of Meleen's medical training and skill to remove the arrow fragment from the human woman's abdomen without killing her outright. She had no tools, hardly any water to wash the wound with, and no idea what the arrowhead looked like. The thick shaft implied a crossbow bolt, but Horde bolts were known to be barbed, sometimes cruelly.

The only thing she could think to use to extract the arrow safely was a long, thin blade, of which she possessed none. Fortunately her patient carried daggers aplenty. Most were thicker of blade and hilt than Meleen expected, but the one in her boot was thin enough—barely—to slide in and free the barbs from her flesh without enlarging the wound more than a little.

Her patient stirred only briefly when Meleen extracted the arrow and used her healing magic to stop the bleeding. She supposed she was fortunate the woman didn't wake and start stabbing things, but neither could Meleen leave her here like this. Those wyvern riders would soon return—in fact, staying here this long now that the main company had moved on was not exactly a safe decision.

Hurriedly Meleen stripped off the woman's armor (it was too distinctive; more people knew that the person who wore that armor had killed Lord Fallowmere than even knew she lived and breathed once again) and left it in the dust. She was about to do the same with her weapons, but something about the design of one of the knives made her pause. Hadn't the orc who led the Horde's fire brigade been looking for a blade like this one?

Her hippogryph growled, and Meleen realized the wyverns were circling back already. There was no time to worry about whether the weapons were stolen; she needed to get out of here before the Horde spotted her. Without stopping to think about what a ridiculously foolish idea this was, Meleen secured the human across her saddle and covered her with a blanket, then rejoined the company.

Sneaking an unconscious Horde champion into Nijel's Point was nerve-wracking, but surprisingly easy. After several miles of worrying that someone would wonder why she kept peeking beneath the blanket, Meleen and company climbed the narrow pass into the excavated ruin slash military outpost which contained the bulk of the Alliance presence in Desolace. Nobody even looked twice at her strangely-shaped bundle.

Figuring out where to put her now that they were here was harder. Most of the soldiers headed to the small barracks where Meleen and her friends were quartered last time, but those rooms were too public for hiding anyone in. She made an excuse to Lady Fallowmere about wanting a private space to practice her scribing, and headed up the hill to the inn. If the cost of the room was the only price she paid for harboring a Horde soldier, she would consider herself lucky.

What am I doing? she thought as she carried the surprisingly light human to her room and locked the door. There were any number of reasons this could go horribly wrong, the most likely of which was that the woman would come to in a strange place and decide to start killing people.

It was nevertheless worrying that she hadn't woken yet. Meleen finished removing the rogue's knives (and hid them somewhere clever) and then looked for other wounds she might have missed in her haste, but a sprained ankle and a plethora of bruises and shallow cuts were all she could find. Even after she healed these and got some water down her throat, Meleen's problematic patient refused to wake.

*****

For two days Soran waited for Jiari to change her mind and come back to him, spending part of each day on the promontory overlooking the Charred Vale in case she was hesitant to enter the village itself. He wasn't exactly welcomed in Farwatcher's Glen in the meantime, but aside from managing to acquire an escort every time he left the room Kosak found for him, nobody made him feel precisely unwelcome, either. It was a very strange feeling.

Around noon on the third day, Soran was there on the promontory when Kosak came limping out to find him. In his hand was a rolled scroll, like those sent by messenger bird.

"What is it?" Soran said, hope surging until he saw the grave look on Kosak's face. "Is it about Jiari?"

The brown-haired human handed him the scroll. "I'm sorry, Soran. I know you were hoping for better news, but...."

The message was indeed dire. The letter detailed the discovery of a wounded wyvern with a cut stirrup and a Horde arrow in its flank, as well as describing an encounter with a pair of Horde wind riders along the road earlier that same day. Soran remained hopeful until he reached the bottom, where the author claimed that Jiari's bloodied armor was found abandoned not far from where the riders were spotted.

He sat down hard on a fallen log. Kosak was right; Jiari would never have left her armor behind by choice. Krom'gar's scouts must have shot her down and either killed her or taken her prisoner. In truth, a part of Soran hoped she was dead; he didn't want to think about the things Krom'gar would do to her if she'd been taken alive.

"I'm afraid you aren't safe here any longer either," Kosak said. "A rather rude messenger arrived this morning from Thandor Fortress with a bulletin naming both of you as traitors. It isn't public knowledge yet, but ... well there's quite a hefty reward named for information leading to your capture."

"They needn't have bothered." That Jiari's name was on the bulletin meant nothing; Krom'gar's messenger would have set out long before the scouts returned from Desolace. "I'll be paying the fortress a visit shortly."

Kosak looked up at him with alarm. "You don't really intend to go back, do you? I was hoping I could convince you to take ship and head southward."

"Not without my wife," Soran said. "I'll free her from Krom'gar's clutches or I'll die trying."

The solemn-eyed look on Kosak's face said he agreed with Soran about which of those possibilities was more likely. "Well if I can't talk you out of it, at least let me know whether there's anything you need for the journey."

Within the hour, Soran had collected his things and begun the four-day march back to Thandor Fortress. He let his rage loose along the way, felling small trees with a single stroke of his newly-reinforced axe. He was angry at Jiari for leaving him behind, at himself for letting her slip away, and most of all at Krom'gar. If Soran had his way, he would cut the orc's scheming, murderous heart right out of his chest.

The sun drew close to the horizon. Soran was trying to decide whether to make camp or march on through the night when he heard a voice calling through the trees.

"Help!" It sounded like a gnome. "Somebody help me, please!"

Normally, Soran would have walked on past, but there were two compelling reasons not to. The first was that the gnome's assailant might well belong to the Horde, and therefore be someone Soran could coerce information from. The second—and most important—was that he was itching to dig his blade into something other than trees.

When he ran toward the voice, Soran found neither Horde soldiers nor wild beasts attacking a yellow-haired gnome in a stand of thick trees, but nearly a dozen small dragons. They were tiny, not more than whelplings, but they had the gnome quite surrounded. It was all she could do to dodge their claws.

With a roar that startled gnome and whelps alike, Soran charged in and began cleaving scaled bodies in twain. He cut down two before they regrouped, and then most of the rest changed targets, spouting small gouts of what looked like hot sand in his direction. This bothered him little; the armor Jiari made him was enchanted against fire, and he barely felt the scalding stuff as he cut down a third whelpling.

The gnome, far from being helpless, turned on her attackers the moment Soran's intervention gave her some breathing room. Mage spells blasted another pair of whelplings out of the air, and after the sixth one fell to Soran's axe the rest scattered, popping out of existence like they had never been.

Soran stood there panting, staring at a dead whelpling as he brushed sand from his armor. He'd thought at first glance that they were more of the black dragons which made fighting fires in the Charred Vale so difficult, but these were gunmetal gray, and their sandy breath made them of a different brood entirely than the ones he'd earned his second name from slaying.

"Oh, thank you!" The gnome gave his leg the biggest hug her tiny arms could manage. "Those things have been chasing me for two whole weeks!"

"You're welcome, I guess," Soran said, disappointed that the fight was over already. "You'd better get home before they decide to come back."

He walked back to the road and turned eastward, but she fell into step behind him, humming softly. Annoyed, Soran quickened his pace. Where did she think she was headed, anyway? Everything from here to Malaka'jin belonged to the Horde.

The humming and following continued. Finally he whirled on the yellow-haired gnome, one hand on his axe. "What do you want?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" The gnome girl clapped her hands together. "So, we made such a good team back there that I was wondering if I could hire you as my bodyguard."

He frowned. "I'm sorry, little gnome; I have business to attend to."

"Oh, I'm not actually a gnome. My name is Chronormu—but you can call me Chromie."

Soran stared skeptically at the ... person ... in front of him. "You look like a gnome to me."

In half an eyeblink, she changed. Instead of looking downward, Soran found himself looking up, into the eyes of a mid-sized dragon with bronze scales. Cursing, he drew his axe.

"There's no need for that," the dragon assured him, taking a hasty step back. Her voice was a strange mix of the gnome's and the deeper, more growly sound Soran associated with dragons. "I don't eat orcs, I promise!"

He lowered his weapon cautiously. It was probably true; if she'd wanted to harm him, she could have attacked while his back was turned.

"So what do you say? My rates are very competitive."

"I'm sorry," Soran said again, with somewhat more respect, "but there's a murdering coward who needs killing, and I don't expect I'll be available after that's done. You'll have to find someone else to play bodyguard."

"Pleeeeeease?" The dragon turned back into a gnome so she could beg more effectively. "I promise I can bring you right back to when you left—maybe even save you some time getting wherever you're going. There's just something I really, really need to do, and it would be a lot less dangerous if I had backup."

Soran considered the request. It was a long walk back to Thandor Fortress, and arriving on dragonback might make the rest of what he had to do simpler.

"How much did you say you were paying?"

*****

Meleen paced frantically back and forth in her room. It was nearly three days since she'd picked up the wounded Horde champion from the side of the road, and as yet the woman showed no sign of waking. Though Meleen could keep her nourished with broth perhaps indefinitely, she was starting to wonder if her patient was too far gone to save.

Had she done something wrong? She knew healing magic wasn't the cure-all some believed it to be, but she'd never had to treat a patient who couldn't at least tell her where it hurt. Was it possible she'd made something worse by carrying her like luggage, or neglected something vital in her initial healing attempt?

She didn't know. There was someone who might, but Meleen couldn't bring them here. Lady Fallowmere would take one look at her patient and probably slit her throat.

If she'd asked for help two days ago there might have been a chance of hiding the woman's identity from the rest of the outpost, but yesterday her description—right down to the scars on her chin—was posted throughout Nijel's Point, with quite a large sum of money named as a reward. (Her alleged crimes were not stated, nor was her name, though she was labeled "highly dangerous.") Meleen kept hoping to come back from the gates and find the woman woken and gone, but she never so much as stirred.

Once again Meleen asked herself why she bothered. She was playing with fire, hoping the woman's act of mercy meant that she was different from the rest of the Horde. Did she think that coming back to life had changed the former undead from the monster she once was into someone who could be reasoned with? Might the botched curse still prove beneficial to the Alliance after all?

That's why, Meleen realized. You think you can make up for your mistakes by winning her to your side.

Was it even feasible? She knew the human still felt loyalty to the Horde when they last met—she'd heard it from her own lips, after Captain Sternwall confronted her—but that was months ago. If the Horde were chasing her, trying to kill or capture her now, it was possible that she'd finally turned against them. Probable, even.

She would never know if the woman didn't wake, but there was only one more thing she could think of to try. Leaving her unconscious charge to sleep where she lay, Meleen made her way to the healers' tent.

The first three of the healers she asked did not know the answer to her question. (None of them had magic even as strong as Meleen's, so that wasn't incredibly surprising. Most of their priests and druids died during the siege of Thandor Fortress.) Fortunately they were all too busy treating patients of their own to wonder why she wanted to know. As she asked another, however, the worst possible person overheard the conversation.

"Which patient is it?" Lady Fallowmere said, coming up behind her. Her hands were full of bandages and antiseptic. "I'll see to them myself."

Meleen tried not to wince as she turned around. "It is not anyone here. It happened to ... someone I met during the siege. I was wondering if there was any way to save such a person."

Lady Fallowmere sighed, but handed off her burden to another healer. "Very well. I'll expect your aid here in exchange for the lesson, mind."

Meleen nodded reluctantly. The night elf matron had been trying to get her to stop "waving silly swords about" and help in the tent since they arrived.

"You say the patient was unconscious for days afterward, despite healing? What were their wounds?"

"A crossbow bolt to the lower back, on the right side. I think she tumbled down a hill afterward. I was wondering if there might have been some sort of poison no one knew to check for—something which did not respond to magic?"

Lady Fallowmere pursed her lips. "If poison were the cause, she would most likely have died from it on the first day. Unless part of the bolt remained inside the wound?"

"I ... do not think so?" Meleen began to sweat. She thought she got the arrow out intact, but what if she'd missed something?

"After that long, if a patient hasn't woken and there are no enchantments involved or foreign objects remaining within the body, the most likely culprit is swelling inside the brain—particularly if you believe a head injury occurred."

Meleen swallowed. There had most certainly been a deep cut to the woman's scalp. "How ... do I treat such a thing?"

"Once you've been healing for as long as I have, you can get a sense of where a patient's injuries are even if they can't feel them. Until then ... if you're sure there's no other cause, you can use a simple healing spell, but modified like so." Lady Fallowmere demonstrated, and made Meleen practice it twice.

"Thank you, my Lady. I will try ... to remember your lesson." She headed for the entrance, but Lady Fallowmere cleared her throat.

"Your aid in the tent, I said."

Meleen blushed. She supposed her patient would still be lying there once she was done. "Of course. What would you like me to do first?"

Chapter Text

It was almost midnight before Meleen could escape Fallowmere's watchful gaze. She kept expecting the night elf to press her further, asking why she really wanted to know, until she realized that disapproving frown was Lady Fallowmere's default expression. It hadn't always been so; before the bombing of Thal'darah she'd been quite amiable, but she—like Meleen—had lost many of those closest to her during the retaliatory assault at Thandor Fortress.

Regardless, Meleen was exhausted and the night far advanced before she made her way back up to the inn. All she wanted to do by then was crawl into her bedroll—her patient had the mattress—and get some rest. Instead she forced herself to take the chair beside the bed and try Lady Fallowmere's spell.

Nothing happened. She felt the spell take hold, knew it was doing something, but the woman didn't so much as twitch. Her inability to wake must be caused by something else after all.

Meleen slumped in the chair, defeated. She should have kept the arrow, to check it for broken pieces or poison or enchantments. At this point she might as well turn the woman in for the reward, because there was nothing more she could do for her. There was some small chance that whoever posted that notice wanted her alive.

She reached for the blankets, intending to check the woman's wounds one last time to see whether there were any she hadn't healed as thoroughly as she could, but her blue eyes snapped open with such suddenness that Meleen couldn't hold back a tiny scream.

Meleen's hand went instantly to her weapon—not to draw it, but to keep it safely inside its sheath this time—but her patient didn't rise from the bed.

"Where am I?" she said in orcish. Her eyes were as sharp and cold as a blade.

Meleen tried to still the racing of her heart by taking a deep breath. "This is Nijel's Point. You are ... safe from the Horde, for now."

If she expected gratitude or relief, she was disappointed. Instead the woman frowned bitterly and stared at the ceiling. Her tone was quiet, almost threatening but falling somewhere short. "Am I a prisoner?"

It was a good question—one Meleen really ought to have determined the answer to before casting her spell. What did she intend to do if the woman turned on her?

"I will not stop you from leaving, if that is what you wish." She answered in orcish because she could, even though she knew her patient understood common. "However, you may still find it ... difficult."

The woman sat up and felt at her back where the arrow had been. The scar it left was among the smallest of those Meleen found while bathing her unconscious patient and dressing her in a clean undershirt, but it wasn't exactly insignificant.

"You should have let me die."

The words, delivered in a flat voice with barely any emotion at all, felt like a slap to the face. After all that work, she couldn't even start with "thank you"?

"Perhaps I should have," Meleen said stiffly. "That is, after all, what civilized people do to those who spare their lives."

The woman's eyes narrowed, and the smoldering anger there made Meleen back up a step. "Is there any honor in killing a helpless foe? Perhaps I wanted a chance to kill you on equal footing."

Abruptly Meleen remembered that whatever enmity she held toward her for the deaths of her friends, the human had claim to as much or greater. She was right; the smart thing to do would have been to leave her to bleed out into the dust of Desolace. Not the right thing perhaps, but the smart thing.

"Do it, then," Meleen dared her, heart pounding. Now that she was awake, it was much harder to forget that the woman was a Horde champion who could kill her in an eyeblink. "This is as equal as our first meeting, is it not? Granted you do not have the element of surprise, but you are also not chained to any walls."

The woman tossed aside the blanket and stood, walking up to her with deliberate steps. Meleen held her breath, eyes focused on that bold red tattoo, but the woman didn't seem in the mood for violence after all. She looked her in the eye for a long moment, waiting to see if she would flinch, then gave a quiet hmph and turned instead to where Meleen had hung her clothing to dry after washing it. She turned her back as she dressed, with seemingly zero concern that she might be ambushed from behind.

Meleen tucked her thumbs behind her sword belt to keep her hands from shaking. Of course the woman wasn't worried; she could probably kill her without any weapons at all.

"Why...." Meleen's voice came out rough, and she worked some moisture back into her mouth before trying again. "Why was the Horde chasing you?"

The woman paused briefly in buckling her belt, but did not reply. Meleen felt emboldened to continue.

"If it is because you betrayed them—"

"Don't." The woman gripped the clothing rack so hard her knuckles turned white. "Don't pretend you know anything about me."

"I know that there is a bounty on your head, but perhaps the Alliance would grant you amnesty if you swore allegiance to—"

Now she turned, her look sharp enough to cut steel. "Do yourself a favor and don't ever finish that sentence."

Meleen's heart sank. Whatever the woman now felt towards the Horde, she clearly had no love for the Alliance either. All that work and worry was for nothing, it seemed.

No, not quite nothing. "Very well. I shall consider my debt to you repaid, and we can go on trying to kill each other when next we meet. Is that more to your liking?"

"Suits me just—" The woman reached down for her boots, but as she did so she stumbled, landing hard on one knee. Meleen moved closer and realized she was pale and sweating simply from the effort of getting dressed.

Fear gave way before Meleen's healer instincts, and she snatched the boots out of the woman's hands. "What are you doing? You can barely stand, and you think you are walking out of here through a town full of Alliance soldiers? Get back on that bed—unless you need help with that, too?"

The woman glared at her, but was breathing hard by the time she managed to regain her feet. "So I am a prisoner."

Meleen shoved the boots onto a high shelf, pushing aside the part of her which was terrified of provoking this woman. "Yes. Until you won't immediately undo all my hard work, I suppose you are."

"Fine." The woman walked carefully over to the bed and laid back down. Immediately her color improved, though with the way she laid her arm across her face it was hard to tell by how much. "Probably warmer in here anyway."

*****

The bronze dragon hadn't been lying; her pay rates were very competitive. She also paid in advance, and as Soran pocketed the gold he thought that if he somehow managed to survive killing Krom'gar and/or freed Jiari, mercenary work might not be a bad option for the future.

He expected Chromie to transform into a dragon once again and fly him someplace, but she remained in gnome form and took his hand instead. After a disorienting moment in which Soran felt like he was falling, he found himself someplace else.

They were in a cavern, small but tidy and lit with mage lights. Bookshelves lined every available bit of wall, each one stuffed to the brim with books and scrolls and oddly-shaped devices which glowed with runes or the like. It appeared to be a library.

Soran saw why the dragon wanted company; in close quarters like these she would be unable to shift into dragon form for a fight. She tensed as they arrived, wand ready, but after several minutes of searching the stacks and finding no one, Chromie relaxed.

"Phew. I thought the infinite dragonflight must be tracking me somehow, but it looks like they were only chasing my temporal energy bursts. That's still bad—there should be way too much time magic flying around for them to track a simple jump—but at least it means they shouldn't be waiting in ambush everywhere I go."

Soran understood almost none of that, and shrugged it off as "mage business." Maybe Shuak would have known what some of it meant. "What is it that you need here? And how long will it take to finish? I have a wife to rescue, or maybe to avenge."

Chromie made a face. "I wish I could say. If we're lucky we'll find what we need within a couple days—if not ... well, we might meet ourselves coming once or twice."

Soran began to pace impatiently. Now that he knew the dragon could teleport him anywhere she liked, the three days he'd agreed upon began to feel oppressively long. What if Krom'gar was having Jiari tortured right now? How many days would it take before she admitted to murdering Overlord Thandor simply to escape the pain?

"Are you sure we can't rescue her first?" Soran said after the dragon had been searching through her books for most of an hour. "She's smart; maybe she can help find what you're looking for."

The yellow-haired gnome bit her lip thoughtfully, considering the already large stack of tomes she'd selected. She hadn't even begun opening them yet.

"Tell you what." Soran pulled the gold back out from his pouch. "If you can get her out of the dungeon at Thandor Fortress, I'll give all of this back. In fact, I'll pay you to help me."

"I suppose if the infinite dragonflight is only tracking me temporally, it could be safe. I have no idea where this Thandor Fortress is, though."

"It's the largest Horde stronghold in Stonetalon." Soran scoured the shelves with his eyes. "Do you have any maps?"

She did. In a trice Soran had them all off the shelf, searching for one which showed Stonetalon in detail. He found one and unrolled it, then followed the line of the road with his finger until it bent westward just south of the river. "It's here, on the north side of this mountain...."

His eyes widened. The fortress was already marked, but the tiny label had the name wrong. It read "Krom'gar Fortress" instead.

"What is this?" he roared, wrinkling the map in his fury. "Why is Krom'gar's name on this map?!"

Chromie rescued the document before he could tear it by accident. Or intentionally. "Oh—you've found a discrepancy already? You're good at this!"

Soran snatched for the map again, but Chromie blinked out of reach.

"Tell me what's going on!"

"All right—all right! I was hoping not to need to do this, but if you'll calm down for a minute I can explain everything."

She waited patiently, and after a moment Soran pushed his rage aside and sat. He needed this dragon to save Jiari; antagonizing her was a step in the wrong direction.

"So," Chromie began, carefully laying the map out flat, "all of the books in this library are timelocked. There's a bigger one inside the Caverns of Time, of course, but this is my personal collection.

"Everything here was written on what we consider the prime timeline—some of them years and years from now. I keep them here so that I can trace discrepancies by comparing these records to the actual history experienced inside a branching timeline. Right now I have to figure out where that branch started so I can correct the divergence before we hit a cataclysmic dead end."

Soran shook his head. He still couldn't understand a word of it. "Explain it like I'm not a mage—please."

Chromie made a face. "Um ... so basically someone traveled to the past and changed something, and if I don't change it back, the world is going to end."

"Traveled to the past?" Soran stood thunderstruck. "Is ... that a thing people can do?"

"Oh boy," Chromie sighed. "I keep forgetting you orcs don't write fiction. Yes, it's quite common; mages and bronze dragons like me timewalk all the time. One time I visited a city full of Nightborne, where they ... well I guess that's not really relevant right now. The important thing is that this map shows things as they should be. As they need to be, in order to divert the disaster that's coming."

"What sort of disaster? Like the Cataclysm?"

"A bit worse than that. Pretty much as worse as it can get, really."

Soran shook his head, still trying to wrap his brain around the concept of time travel. "All because of a name on a map?"

"It's not about the name," Chromie said, "so much as the changes it represents. What did you say the place is called in this timeline?"

"Thandor Fortress—named after the orc who built it. Overlord Thandor ruled there too, until a few days ago."

Chromie conjured a quill and parchment from someplace and started taking notes. "Overlord ... Thandor. Hmm, it still doesn't ring any bells. Overlord Krom'gar on the other hand—that's definitely a name I've heard before."

"Don't call him that!" Soran growled. By now Krom'gar had certainly claimed the title, but he didn't deserve it.

"If you insist. Hmm ... which one of these books was it?" She began sorting volumes again, until Soran cleared his throat.

"So can you take me there, or can't you?"

"Oh, right. It should be a piece of cake ... assuming I'm not wrong about how they're tracking me, of course. Might want to be ready for a fight in case I am."

Soran readied his axe, and in an eyeblink he and Chromie were outdoors, on the hill behind the fortress. No flurry of whelpling wings greeted them, so he pointed down toward the tiny barred window which let a modicum of air and light into the dungeon and whispered, "She should be through there."

Another blink, and they were inside. It was unlit, which seemed strange; if Jiari were here, wouldn't Krom'gar have guards watching her at all times? And there was a smell ... he should know it, but the source eluded him for the moment.

Chromie conjured a mage light to illuminate the cells, but they were empty, as were all of the interrogation rooms. As far as Soran could tell, there weren't even guards posted outside the dungeon proper.

"Soran!" Chromie said in alarm, looking at something on the ground. In the dim light, Soran made out a thick trail of dried blood leading from the first cell to the outer door.

"No," Soran breathed. "No no no no no!" Dried human blood—that was what he'd smelled. It was different from that of an orc or a night elf or whatever, subtly so but enough that he was sure. He pushed through the outer door and followed the bloody trail, barely remembering to pull up the hood of his cloak before he passed the guards at the entrance to the keep. Chromie cast an invisibility spell and followed him closely; he could hear her breathing.

Back up the hill the trail went, ending at an unmarked grave sized for a human. Soran fell to his knees in shock. How could he be too late already?

Krom'gar couldn't have broken Jiari that quickly. It was impossible—she was far too strong for that. She must have said something, tried to reveal some secret which the general wanted kept silent; that was the only reason he could think of for Krom'gar to kill her so soon after her capture.

"I'm sorry, Soran," Chromie said, her invisibility spell fading. "I wish we'd gotten here sooner."

Soran latched onto that thought. "Can't we? You said you can travel through time. If you take me back to yesterday, before this happened—"

"I can't. Changing the past intentionally creates an even more powerful time surge than simply walking there, and the infinite dragonflight is sure to notice. Do you really think we could rescue your wife while fighting off three dozen of them, or more?"

"I can try!"

She touched his arm, and they blinked back into her library. "You can die trying, you mean. You promised you'd protect me, and if I can't find what I'm looking for before somebody activates the Forge of Origination, then I'll have to timewalk again to buy myself more days to search for it."

"Three days," Soran growled. "After that I'm free to do as I please." He would have vengeance against Krom'gar, even if the dragon wouldn't help him undo the past.

Chromie made a crossing motion over her heart. "I promise. Even if you have to guard five of me at once, I won't make you stay any longer."

Chapter Text

Despite her weariness, Meleen went downstairs to find out whether there was any food left to be had. Fortunately innkeepers were accustomed to a wide range of customer schedules, and she was able to acquire a meal which, while not hot any longer, would be more than filling for so small a person as her patient was.

Getting the woman to eat was more difficult. She turned her face away when Meleen set the tray on a table beside the bed, even though she had to be starving after so many days lying unconscious. In the end Meleen had to resort to bullying.

"That is my bed, and I want you out of it eventually. Either you can eat and regain your strength, or I will tell the watch that a stranger is sleeping there and see what they have to say about it."

With a glare that was edged with humiliation, the woman sat up and ate. She finished more than Meleen expected, leaving only the mulled wine untouched, then laid back down and shut her eyes. Meleen knew better than to assume she was asleep, of course, but it was hard to pretend to rest, and rest was what she needed most.

Now what? Meleen definitely hadn't thought this far through her semi-treasonous rescue, and she definitely hadn't thought about the possibility that her patient would be be too weak to leave immediately. She sat down and tried to think, but her eyelids drooped and she caught herself nodding off more than once.

"You've been practicing," the woman said, startling her fully awake again.

"What?"

"Your orcish. It's not so spit-worthy anymore."

Meleen refused to preen at the compliment—she had not spent all that time speaking orcish with the Horde fire brigade simply to gain this woman's approval!—but a tiny bit of her anxiety melted away. She eyed her bedroll.

"I'm not going to kill you in your sleep," the woman said, somehow guessing what she was thinking without opening her eyes. "I'm a rogue, not a coward."

"You could still rob me blind," Meleen pointed out. Not that she had much of value beside the inks in her writing case.

"I don't need you to be asleep for that."

Meleen gave the woman an indignant glare that she didn't notice, but eventually decided there was no point in losing any more sleep tonight. She took off her armor, laid down on her bedroll, and was out in seconds.

*****

When she woke in the morning, the woman was up and standing at the room's one window, the shutter cracked wide enough to see but not be seen from below. It was the draft which woke her, not the cold; the fire in the hearth was properly stoked already. With a start, Meleen realized her patient was also fully dressed—she'd managed to tend the fire and retrieve the boots without making enough noise to wake her.

Once again the woman spoke without looking at Meleen. Either she had very good hearing or had caught Meleen's reflection in the glass. "I'll be out of your hair as soon as you tell me where you put my things."

Meleen stood, working the kinks out of her back with her knuckles. She contemplated lying back down on the bed just to remember what one felt like. "I left your armor where I found you. You can have the rest once you prove you are well enough to—eek!"

There was no warning whatsoever. One moment the woman was at the window, the next she was behind Meleen, jabbing a gentle finger at each of her kidneys. Ylindia had never shadowstepped so suddenly in her entire life.

"Good enough?" She shadowstepped less abruptly into the chair, which was sized for Meleen but looked too big with the human sitting in it with her arms wrapped loosely around one knee and the other foot bouncing impatiently.

Meleen harrumphed softly. "I suppose. But before I return your weapons, you must promise not to harm anyone in this outpost."

"I promise not to start anything," the woman said, eyes like flint. "I reserve the right to defend myself."

"You will not give anyone an excuse to start anything, either!"

After a thoughtful pause, the woman nodded her assent.

It would have to do. Meleen walked over to her clever hiding place and opened it up. Many night elf inns were designed to be open to the air in warmer weather; the extra walls would fold away at will. They came in pairs, both to hide the hinges and to provide better insulation than a single lightweight wall panel could, but if you knew where the hidden handles were, you could get inside the wall gap and put just about anything you wanted there.

She retrieved the woman's belt pouch and the harness with its multitude of knives, but didn't hand them over immediately. "My name is Meleen, by the way."

The woman frowned at the unspoken question, but chose to return the courtesy. "Jiari."

Meleen knew that wasn't her whole name; most humans had two at least. She handed the harness over without pressing though, because she realized she'd heard the name before.

"You are Legionnaire Soran's friend!"

"Who?" The Horde champion didn't so much as bat an eye. She set a few silver coins from her pouch onto the mantle. "For the meal."

Meleen stomped a hoof gently in indignation. "You do know him. You and he charged through two-hundred Alliance soldiers to reach Lord Fallowmere."

"Fallowmere was an obstacle, not my objective," Jiari said while checking her knives, "and it's 'Champion Felldragon' now. He's been promoted."

"The fire brigade talked about you all the time, but I thought you must be an orc. They said you were going to break his heart."

A brief flicker of emotion crossed Jiari's face. Was that ... grief? "They were right." She touched a pair of black-handled knives at her hip. "He's better off without me."

There was no particular reason why her words—even in that flippant tone—should set Meleen off. She hated orcs, and even if Soran had been the least hateful of those who belonged to the Horde fire brigade, she really had no preference whether the fellow got laid or fell into a river. Maybe she just needed an excuse, some reason to shout which had nothing to do with her own grudges. Whatever the reason, Meleen's calm detachment finally crumbled.

"Is that not up to him to decide? You cannot play with people as if they were toys!"

Jiari's eyes narrowed dangerously, but Meleen didn't heed the warning look.

"We spent half the day looking for that knife of yours, and for what? So you could dump him for a blood elf? Is that why the Horde is chasing you—because you finally jilted the wrong lover?"

"Don't you talk to me about Soran!" the woman roared with such feral fury that Meleen's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. "Not you—especially not you! He's all I have left because of you and that gnome, but I can't go near him, can I? Every time I let myself care about someone, your stupid curse takes them away!"

Meleen was stunned speechless. She and everyone else who knew about that curse had been dumbfounded by its effect on the former undead, wondering if it backfired somehow despite its effect on the other three victims. Theories varied from the mundane to the absurd, but no one had guessed that the Horde champion's greatest fear might be anything so cuttingly cruel as the fear of loss.

At last Meleen found her tongue again. "But ... the curse should not have that kind of power anymore. Gildis said that after that initial burst of magic, the only traces left were those sustaining the transformation."

This time it was Jiari who looked stunned—and more than a little alarmed. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "Then why does it keep happening to me?"

Meleen blinked away tears, remembering all the horrible tragedies which had befallen her recently, without any curses at all. "Sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes ... bad things simply happen."

A brisk knock at the door made both of them jump. "Meleen?" said the innkeeper's voice from the other side. "Are you all right? We heard shouting."

Meleen turned to Jiari in panic, but the rogue was already invisible. She composed herself briefly and went to the door.

"I am sorry, Lyshaerya. I did not mean to disturb anyone."

"What happened? Is there anything I can do to—"

"It was nothing of great import," Meleen assured the blue-haired night elf. "I overreacted; that is all."

The innkeeper still wouldn't leave until she accepted a tray full of breakfast, but eventually Meleen managed to shut the door again and lock it.

"Jiari?" she whispered when the rogue didn't immediately reappear. "Where have you gone?"

The creak of the window swinging in the breeze was the only reply.

*****

Jiari fled across the rooftops, shadowstepping from one to the next as if running for her life. She'd been wrong. So very wrong! If it wasn't the curse which took Overlord Thandor, then she'd left Soran behind for nothing. Worse, now she didn't even know if he was safe. Did he make it to Farwatcher's Glen? Did they take him in, as he hoped, or had those people who owed him favors all come to this place with Meleen?

She'd done exactly what she promised herself she wouldn't, back when they stood atop the cliff searching for the Alliance who abducted Thandor—leaving him behind instead of facing their challenges side by side, like the miniature orc she styled herself to be. Of all the stupid mistakes she'd made since rising from the grave, she thought that might end up being the one she regretted most.

Abruptly she ran out of rooftops. The walls of the outpost were dozens of meters high, made not of hewn stone but of steep cliffs, with bushes and bits of elven ruin sticking out from them. If she'd been paying attention to anything besides where she was placing her feet, she'd have realized she was in a deep bowl, surrounded by cliffs on all sides except for the south, where they became steep hills instead. The maps she'd seen of the place didn't illustrate how thoroughly hemmed in it was.

This was far enough. Or rather, no place was actually far enough to run from the regret which pierced her to the very soul, so she might as well stop running and face it.

I let my fear control me, she thought, gripping the hilts of the knives Overlord Thandor gave her, just like you told me not to. I failed you again.

Grief for Thandor's death overcame Jiari once again, but this time it threatened to drown her. She should have known something like this was coming; if she hadn't been so distracted over Soran, surely she would have realized that Krom'gar would make his move soon. She'd failed to anticipate his treachery, even though she knew the depths to which he was capable of sinking. That failure had cost her everything she had left.

She drew the blades to cast them aside in shame, but couldn't. They were all she had left of her beloved overlord, and of the oath she'd sworn on the day he gave them to her. I will serve—for the Horde.

What would he say if he could see her now, cowering alone on a rooftop leagues from everything she'd promised to defend? She conjured up an image of him, tried to picture him frowning in disapproval, but the image wouldn't form. He'd never looked upon her shortcomings with anything but compassion.

You didn't fail me, Jiari. The words came to her in his voice, whether that was because she knew it was what he would tell her or because her mentor whispered them to her from the world beyond. It isn't your fault you couldn't save me. You're allowed to forgive yourself for not being there.

"The curse should not have that kind of power ... the only traces left were those sustaining the transformation."

"I didn't kill them," she realized in a rare moment of clarity. If the curse hadn't affected anything that happened after that first day of the siege, then the breakthrough assault from the Alliance, Thandor's abduction, the deaths of her fellow champions—none of it was her fault. All this time she'd blamed herself, thinking her stupidity in falling into that trap was the cause of their deaths, but it wasn't. Even if the curse had still been in play by then, it wasn't Jiari who brought the war to Thandor's gates. It wasn't even the Alliance—Krom'gar, and warchief Hellscream, were responsible for bringing this ruin upon the defenders of Stonetalon.

Tears flowed down her cheeks—not of grief this time, but of release. There was nothing she could have done differently without knowing the future before it happened. She'd done her best in a bad situation, and if her best wasn't good enough, then few could have done it better. She had served, with every ounce of her strength, and would continue doing so if anyone gave her the chance.

I'll find you, she swore, touching the knives Soran had given her this time. I'll stay by your side even if it means losing you in the end. He deserved that much, and—she could finally admit it to herself—so did she.

Before she could do any of those things, she would first need to find her way out of this place. She worked her way southward and tried to recall everything she knew about Nijel's Point. An Alliance military outpost near the border with Stonetalon, it housed fewer soldiers than Thandor Fortress (even before it sent half of those to die in the siege), but based on the number of buildings, it contained far more people. She hadn't expected to find so many civilians living here.

Jiari shadowstepped onto the tallest adjacent building so she could scout the best way out of the town. It was only then that she discovered why that paladin ... why Meleen thought she would have such a hard time leaving.

Her first impression of the walls was correct; there were no entrances except for a narrow pass at the south end which was now barred with several makeshift walls. Slipping past those would be a piece of cake, but the real problem was beyond. Camped by the hundreds outside the lowest wall were satyrs and demons, in all shapes and sizes, leading an even larger force of Burning Blade—humans and orcs and the like who worshiped the Burning Legion. Jiari hadn't thought there were this many Burning Blade left in the whole of Azeroth, but wherever they'd come from, they and the Legion would swallow this town whole the moment the walls were breached.

Those wouldn't hold for long. Even now the second wall burned with green felfire, and bells called the reserves out from their beds. She stood to answer the call, then remembered which colors the soldiers below her wore. They wouldn't welcome her help.

Or would they? The Alliance had asked the Horde for aid before. If Meleen was here, so would be others from Stonetalon. Surely they would see reason if she offered her blades; the paladin had hinted that they might.

The better question was, should she? These were still the people who had dragged her overlord from his own fortress and caged him like an animal. Not the same exact people, since most of those were dead, but people just like them. The kind of people who would tear a Forsaken limb from limb to make sure he could never move again, or hunt one through the woods and slice her open when all she wanted was to be useful to someone.

Jiari felt at the foot-long scar which adorned her shoulder and tried to convince herself that she was all right with her enemies killing each other. It would save her the trouble, wouldn't it? But it was no use. It wouldn't be as clean as two armies facing each other on the field of battle; there were children and noncombatants down there. Even if that weren't the case, she knew what the Burning Legion did to their prisoners, and that wasn't something she wanted to watch happening—not even if it were someone she knew deserved it.

She tied a bandanna around her face to hide her tattoo, and went to see what could be done.

Chapter Text

Soran sat with his back against the wall, axe laid across his knees and Jiari's wolf tooth necklace curled in his fingers. He couldn't think of it as his greatmother's necklace anymore; it belonged to his wife, even though she'd left it behind. He would have placed it on her grave had Chromie given him the chance, but for now he kept it, stoking his anger even as he wept bitter tears for her loss.

He was done with self-recriminations. Every ache, every wound on his heart since the day they said farewell on the promontory all those weeks ago, could be laid squarely at Krom'gar's feet. The sabotage of their letters, the mission to Ashenvale which kept Jiari from joining the fire brigade at Farwatcher's Glen, and most of all the overwhelming grief at Thandor's death which convinced her she had to leave him before she lost him, too—all were of that villain's making. Only once Soran relieved Krom'gar of his head could he truly rest again.

That didn't mean he couldn't sleep. After staying up all night watching Chromie scour her library shelf by shelf, he didn't even need to lie down; he simply closed his eyes where he sat and slept until what felt like midmorning, though there was no daylight to confirm the hour.

The library was silent when he woke. Soran came abruptly to his feet, but found Chromie safe, sleeping at a desk with her face on an open book. Carefully he tucked his cloak around her to keep her warm.

If he survived his vengeance upon Krom'gar, then what? He didn't know where his family had gone, and he'd been labeled a traitor already for leaving with Jiari. It might be convenient to be friends with a teleporting dragon in that case. He'd have to make sure he didn't burn any bridges there.

There were no chairs to fit him in that winding cavern, but Soran made do with a sturdy, book-filled chest he found in a corner. He dragged it quietly over to Chromie's table and entertained himself by looking through the things she'd sorted out.

Most of it was incredibly dry, lists of names and dates and notable accomplishments. Several were in languages he didn't speak, but a stack of letters caught his eye. They were written in orcish, though the addressee—someone named Thalyssra—sounded more like an elf. The language was also quite flowery for an orc, which had him baffled until a turn of phrase made him realize the author was actually Forsaken.

He skipped to the end, curious, and his hands froze when he saw the signature. Your eternal friend, Jiari. He went back to check the date, but he hadn't read it wrong; this letter wouldn't be written for another five years or more.

It couldn't be the same person. He'd seen Jiari's handwriting, and it was nothing like this. Nevertheless, the lack of a surname and the other similarities made him keep reading.

The letters in the stack were more than simple correspondence. Combined, they made a memoir of sorts, describing the exploits of their author in service to the Zandalar trolls. He didn't know why a Horde champion would serve the Zandalari throne so valiantly, or what this "Azerite" stuff was that she kept mentioning, but the more he read, the more he pictured his Jiari acting out the events described on the pages.

Then came the incontrovertible truth. Soran got through the stack and realized there were two more like it, bound with twine. He'd started reading in the middle; the first bundle was months older, in a much less practiced version of the same hand. It was a perfect midpoint between the script on the second volume and the handwriting he remembered. Further, this was the part of the story he knew, about her first days as Forsaken and her adventures in Tirisfal and Silverpine.

Soran's hands trembled. His Jiari was alive—perhaps not in this timeline but in Chromie's, the one she talked about restoring. If he could go there, see her again ... that would be worth more to him than a lifetime in service to this dragon could possibly repay.

If he helped Chromie set things right, wouldn't that be better than vengeance? He'd sworn to kill Krom'gar or die trying, but if he could make it so Jiari never died in the first place, wasn't that more important than fulfilling the letter of his oath? Or ought he to kill Krom'gar on principle anyway? He would have to mull it over.

In the meanwhile, reading her letters was the next best thing to having her there by his side. He couldn't stop, even when he reached the part where she'd first met him and found no mention of himself. She hadn't remembered the encounter immediately when they met again, but still something about it bothered him.

He skimmed ahead, through her desertion from Undercity and her time in Durotar, the Barrens, and Ashenvale, to the first letter which mentioned Stonetalon. He was more than a little alarmed when Krom'gar's name first appeared—not as a general, but as Overlord of Thandor ... no, of Krom'gar Fortress, like it said on the map. Where was Thandor in this alternate history of Chromie's? Why was Krom'gar made overlord instead of him?

The greatest blow came, as Soran had begun to fear it would, at the end of that letter. He remembered clearly the news of Thal'darah, how it reached him hours after the event. He'd still been in Ashenvale then, about to set out for Stonetalon. According to this letter, however, the Hellscream of Chromie's timeline had flung Krom'gar from a cliff and disbanded the army there that very same day. This other Jiari left the fortress before Soran even reached it.

He'd never caught up to her. That was why the second stack of letters didn't mention Soran; in this alternate timeline, the siege of Thandor Fortress never happened. Jiari wasn't there to fall victim to the Alliance's strange curse, or to come back to life and fall in love with him. She was already gone, leaving him once again without a trail to follow.

Soran clenched his fists until they ached, struggling not to howl in anguish and wake Chromie. Yes, he could help the dragon restore this alternate timeline and save Jiari, but if he did, she would never be his. He would probably never see her again.

*****

By midday, Meleen was worse than exhausted. Between the hard fighting of the past few days and the late night in the healers' tent, she thought she could have laid down right on the battlefield and slept some more. Her reflexes were sluggish, and she'd already made several mistakes, her strikes missing enemies which otherwise might have done much far less damage before they went down.

The defenders of Nijel's Point had lost the second wall completely and been pushed back to the third. This one at least was reinforced with stone piled behind the timbers, making it marginally less vulnerable to felfire, but it had no ramparts or decent places to fight from. Most of those fighting the demons and Burning Blade who sought to bring it down did so from the hills above the pass, where they were themselves exposed to arrows and bolts of felfire.

A lull in the fighting came, mostly because the bodies below the gate were piled so thick they were an impediment to solid footing. The demons took as many corpses with them as they could and drew back out of reach of the defenders' arrows to regroup.

Meleen leaned her head against the cracked boulder she was using for cover and tried not to think about what would become of the Alliance soldiers among the dead who were dragged away. It wasn't actually hard; it was becoming difficult to focus on anything which wasn't actively trying to kill her.

She wasn't sure what happened next. It was possible that she fell asleep for a few minutes during the lull, or perhaps she was simply too exhausted to notice the incoming assault, but the next thing she was aware of was a warning shout, cut off abruptly by a thunderous CRACK. Then she was falling.

Meleen found herself on the ground in front of the wall, the wind knocked out of her and her leg pinned. She couldn't see what had caused the bank to collapse beneath her, and though she heard voices shouting in common somewhere above, there was too much dust to see or be seen through it. All she could see through the haze was the great hulking demon bearing down upon her.

She didn't even have the breath to shout for help, and she was far too dizzy to cast a spell. She was mere moments from being crushed with a steel club as thick as she was when a cloaked figure appeared in midair, gave a savage yell, and stabbed the demon in the eye.

It howled and staggered backward, swinging wildly as Meleen's rescuer somersaulted backwards out of reach. Blasts of magic from the top of the wall drove it back, but two dozen Burning Blade were right behind it with weapons drawn. Meleen hurried to dig her leg free before they reached her.

The cloaked figure posted themself between Meleen and the enemy, and though a quick glance revealed that they wore no armor, somehow they managed to hold the line while she dragged her leg free. They were whirling, masked death on two legs, and Meleen nearly stopped digging to stare in awe. The economy of motion, turning almost every parry into part of the next strike, was as captivating as any dance she'd ever seen.

At last Meleen dragged her hoof out from beneath the rubble, but it wouldn't take any weight. Fortunately the defenders still on the wall saw her finally and tossed ropes down, and the archers laid down cover fire until she made it up and over. She collapsed on the other side, groaning in pain. She would need to see Lady Fallowmere about her leg; she was too tired to see straight, let alone mend it herself.

"Who's your friend, Meleen?" said Sergeant Melkins. He was a balding human, with brown hair that framed his face like the ears of a basset hound. "I've never seen anything like that!"

"I do not—"

But now that her head was clearer, Meleen realized she did know the masked woman, who had vanished as suddenly as she appeared. That cloak, and that skill, and that glimpse of cold, blue eyes....

"She is not my friend," Meleen amended, masking her shock as best she could.

"Well whoever she is, somebody ought to find her some armor. We could use a bit more of that down here."

Meleen hopped arduously up the hill, but was stymied by the ladder at the next wall. She sat down at the foot of it; maybe she could rest here long enough to get her strength back. It was certainly safer than the ledge she was on a few minutes ago.

"You shouldn't fight when you're that tired," said a low voice out of nowhere, speaking orcish.

Meleen jumped. She looked around, and could just see the faint outline of the Horde champion beside her, wreathed in shadows. If she hadn't known someone was there, she would never have seen her.

"What are you doing?" Meleen hissed. "Someone could figure out who you are!"

"Nobody even looked twice at me until just now." When Meleen gaped at her, she added, "You didn't expect me to sit and watch, did you? I'm as trapped here as you are."

"But you are a rogue. You could sneak out any time you wanted!"

Jiari released the veil of shadows which shrouded her, becoming fully visible again. "Not through that—not without armor. Too many of those things out there can see right through my shadows, and stealth won't fool a demon dog's nose."

"You still did not have to...."

"To what, save your life?" The woman seemed oddly cheerful—especially considering the state she was in when she left the inn. "You're welcome, by the way."

"We were even! Now you have placed me in your debt again."

"Of course I did. You're the only person in this town who might actually help me leave it." Jiari tugged her mask up tighter. "Now, are you going to let me help you over this wall, or do you intend to sit there until it crumbles?"

Meleen caught herself gaping again and shut her jaw. Last night the woman practically threatened to kill her, and now she was being helpful? She was doing it to keep her off-balance; there was no other explanation.

Once they were past the defensive walls, Jiari did not vanish again but lent her a shoulder to lean on. It was certainly more dignified than crawling, though Meleen almost wished the woman would abandon her so she could ask for help from somebody—anybody—else.

"What makes you think that I will help you escape?" Meleen muttered, keeping her voice low since there were now even more people about. "Perhaps I would prefer to turn you in for the reward?"

Jiari ... giggled. That was the only word for it. "It would be hilarious to watch you try that. A bit humiliating for you, I think."

How could the woman laugh in a situation like this? Didn't she understand that a single word from Meleen would turn the whole town against her? She couldn't do so, of course; far too many people who were not Horde champions would die if she did.

"You are a terrible person, did you know that?" Meleen said. "You are horrible, and I hate you."

"I'm glad you got that off your chest. Now, tell me where they keep the mess hall in this place."

Meleen glared at the ground in front of her, since it was the only thing she could look at while still watching where she put her hooves. "That food is for Alliance soldiers."

"I've earned my keep—and more, I should think. I've only had the one meal since midday ... was it yesterday?"

"No. You were out cold for three days."

Jiari missed a step, nearly sending them both to the ground. She recovered quickly, though her tone when she spoke was absent its previous levity. "I see."

"What is wrong? Are you late for an important assassination?"

She didn't rise to the bait. "I was hoping to catch up to someone, but it's ... unlikely they'll have waited this long."

I will not feel pity for this woman, Meleen told herself, but it was already too late. Jiari had every reason to want Meleen dead for what she'd helped Gildis do, yet somehow she retained that implacable, stoic facade. In all their encounters, Meleen heard the woman raise her voice only once—this morning, when she talked about leaving her only friend behind.

Meleen knew what that felt like—the loneliness of losing everyone you cared about, and the fear of getting close to anyone else lest it happen again. Survivor's guilt, her counselors aboard the Exodar called it. She was stuck there now, for the second time in her life, and if the last was any indication it could be months or even years before she forgave herself.

They walked in silence the rest of the way to the healers' tent, where Jiari obediently fetched water and changed bandages and did whatever Lady Fallowmere demanded, while Meleen impatiently waited for the night elf matron to get around to her. The rogue even sewed up some of the nastier wounds that came in, and the healers had to admit that her stitches were the tidiest they'd ever seen from a volunteer. Jiari didn't answer a word for their praise, pretending to be mute. Meleen didn't know what game the woman was playing, but she supposed as long as it benefited the outpost there couldn't be too much harm in it.

Eventually Lady Fallowmere got around to Meleen, though she gave her an earful for making extra work for the healers—never mind all the soldiers she'd healed on the field before her fall, or those spared from wounds because of protection scrolls she'd scribed while watching over Jiari. Fallowmere could be a slave driver sometimes, especially when she thought you were shirking, and she made no secret of the fact that she considered all this waving of swords to be secondary to the needs of her patients.

At last, ankle tender but sturdy enough to walk on, Meleen escaped. Jiari followed her through the crowd around the mess tent, a fleeting shadow who was there one moment and gone the next, as if she simply happened to be going the same way. It made Meleen nervous. Whose pockets was she picking while she was out of sight?

The heavy fighting in the morning and the sudden lull meant the tent was packed full of dirty, bloodied soldiers. Meleen lost sight of Jiari once she got in line, but spotted her a few places back a moment later. She probably ought to quit looking for her; if she was caught, Meleen didn't want to go down with her.

They were almost to the front of the line when a commotion near the entrance drew everyone's attention. A human with a scroll called for quiet, then climbed onto a bench and read.

"Be it known that Thandor Fortress has heard our call for aid against the Burning Blade." Utter silence fell. "They will answer this call, if—and only if—we deliver a traitor believed to be hiding within this outpost."

Meleen caught herself turning toward Jiari, and hurriedly directed her gaze back to the messenger. She couldn't stop the flush of color which stained her cheeks, however, or still the sudden racing of her heart.

"The Forsaken rogue known as 'Jiari' is wanted for the assassination of Thandor, former overlord of the Horde in Stonetalon. Since this rogue can convincingly pass as a living woman, all face and head coverings will be banned within Nijel's Point until she is found. This order is effective immediately."

The noise of people removing helmets was almost as loud as the exclamations over the murder. Many of the Alliance here knew it was Thandor who sent aid to Farwatcher's Glen, and Meleen understood from her conversations there that he was held in high esteem by his soldiers. If Jiari had killed him ... well, it was no wonder the Horde wanted her so badly.

Meleen did turn to look for her this time, and of course found no one. It was unlikely the woman would show her face in public again, masked or otherwise.

She didn't know what to think. Jiari was a killer—she knew that all too well—but to murder her own overlord? That would be like Meleen murdering Lady Fallowmere, or Prophet Velen; it wasn't the sort of thing good people did. Then again, Thandor still belonged to the Horde, which was known for its savage cruelty. Who was Meleen to say he hadn't deserved it?

It would have been suspicious to leave the line now, and her breakfast was long gone, but Meleen's stomach churned at the thought that she might have helped a murderer escape justice. Nevertheless she took a tray and found a seat, intending to finish quickly so she could hunt down the woman and demand answers.

This plan was stymied by Sergeant Melkins, who plopped his helmet down on the table and sat beside her. He gave her a significant look and said, "You know who she is, of course."

Meleen nearly choked on her stew.

"That masked woman who saved your life at the pass," Melkins continued. "It has to be her."

"Why do you say that?" Meleen said once she could breathe again.

Melkins scratched at the days'-thick stubble on his chin; no one had much time for shaving lately. "It's the armor. Our scouts found it two days ago, but no sign of whoever wore it. Leather, not black like a rogue would usually wear but made to blend into forested terrain. That matches the description of a Horde champion's armor who they say ... well why am I telling you this? You fought the Horde in Stonetalon; I'm sure you know the stories better than I do.

"Anyway, that woman at the wall had no armor—not that she seemed to need it. And she fought like a rogue, don't you agree?"

Meleen buried her panic deep inside. Melkins wasn't accusing her of anything—and he wouldn't, so long as she kept her head. "So you are saying that ... you believe a fugitive Horde champion saved my life?"

He chuckled wearily. "It does seem improbable, doesn't it. Maybe she's hoping to curry favor with the Alliance, keep us from turning her in. After seeing her skill I might consider it, but ... well, let's be honest; Thandor Fortress is the only military stronghold close enough to help us. If it's a choice between one champion and a proper army, no rational person would choose any differently."

He was right, she realized. The reward money was one thing, but the lives of everyone in this tent, this town, were more important than whatever sense of obligation Meleen felt toward Jiari for saving her—even if she weren't also a criminal. Since it was likely no one at Nijel's Point could best the woman in a fight, there was only one thing Meleen could think of to do.

She would have to convince Jiari to turn herself in.

Chapter Text

Soran tucked Jiari's letters into his satchel while Chromie slept. He knew he shouldn't take them, and she'd probably be upset at him when she found out, but he needed more time to come to terms with what he'd learned. There had to be some way to avert the alleged disaster without also losing his wife, if only he could figure out what that was.

Unfortunately, hiding the pages made little difference. Not half an hour after she woke up again, Chromie opened up a tome labeled "Notable Events - North Kalimdor" and exclaimed, "Here it is! Krom'gar Fortress, from which was launched the bombing of Thal'darah Grove. I knew I knew that name!"

"That was two months ago," Soran said reluctantly. "A week before the siege."

"So it still happened?" Chromie seemed surprised. "That's interesting. Normally I would expect any tinkering this catastrophic to at least knock a few historical events loose along the way. According to this record, the fortress was completed almost a year ago, and that's a seriously long time for nothing significant to happen."

"What does that mean?"

"Maybe nothing, maybe everything. It could mean that the name change was an inconsequential side effect of the temporal tampering, and what we're looking for is completely unrelated. Or it could mean that the change was the whole point, or ... anything in between, really."

Soran couldn't help thinking that Krom'gar being in charge of Thandor Fortress for that long would make a very large difference, even before the obvious divergence outlined in Jiari's letter. He wasn't ready to give up, however.

"Do we have to change everything back?" he wondered. "Overlord Thandor was a great and wise leader—a teacher, who unlocked the potential inside many champions. Surely whatever disaster is coming will be easier to avert if he and the soldiers he taught are here to face it. My wife, Jiari, was one of those champions."

"Wait, your wife was Jiari?" Chromie gaped. "The Forsaken Jiari? That's uh ... pretty kinky."

"It's not like that. The Alliance set a trap for her, and it brought her back to life instead of killing her."

She stared at him, flabbergasted. Clearly such a thing had never happened in her timeline. "That sounds like an awfully drastic change ... but I suppose there might be a way."

Hope made his heart beat faster. "What is it? I'll do anything it takes."

"Oh, it's not that difficult; I simply have to leave myself a note." She grabbed some parchment and a quill. "I decide what I'm going to do, then I send a note to my past self telling me NOT to do that. If I succeed, I come back and replace the note before I've read it, and everything's hunky dory. If I fail, the note is still there and I know better than to try it again."

It made Soran dizzy to think about it, but he supposed Chromie knew what she was doing. Instead of beginning to write, however, she tilted her head to one side as if listening for something.

"What are we waiting for, exactly?"

"The message chime. If we've done this before, it'll ring and let me know there's a message waiting. I don't hear it though, so we must be in the first loop. How exciting!"

She grabbed Soran's hand and teleported them both to a wider chamber, still underground but walled in a different sort of stone. This room was lined with a wide assortment of mysterious objects, some of them taller than Soran, but Chromie was only interested in one—an ornate golden chest embossed with an hourglass motif.

"So, what exactly do you want to change? It helps to be specific, in case we want to try something slightly different later. Oh, and you need to avoid crossing your own path; being seen by your younger self always makes things complicated. Oh and also, we'll probably be attacked there by the infinite dragonflight after we jump, so we should choose where we want to face them."

Soran shook his head, still bewildered. "Yesterday you said we couldn't risk making changes."

"We have to make at least one if we're going to set things right—and anyway, that was before I knew the person you wanted to save was Jiari. She and I go waaaaaay back."

"So what you're saying is, I should have mentioned her name sooner."

Chromie wore a look of chagrin. "Well, I mean ... yeah, I guess you should have."

Soran resisted a sigh only because the dragon wanted exactly the same thing he did.

"So where shall we start?"

Soran thought hard. It wasn't enough to save Overlord Thandor himself; in Jiari's letters, the siege of Thandor Fortress never happened either, which meant the champions who died there should have lived. On the other hand, if he changed things too early, he might never get a chance to impress Jiari enough for her to pay attention to him later.

"The death of Champion Geargleam," he decided. "An Alliance saboteur blew up her shredder and the artillery, eight ... no, nine days after the bombing of Thal'darah—just before sunrise. If we can stop that saboteur, the rest of the battle should go smoothly. As for the place, how about here? It seems open enough."

Chromie wrote her note and opened the chest to place it inside (this involved unlocking several complicated mechanisms and disarming a pair of security spells), but found another letter already contained within.

"Well this is strange. I wonder how I missed it." She broke the seal and read, eyes widening with every line. "It's from Nozdormu. He needs me to meet him here, at timecode ... uh, that's two months ago. I have to take this, but can you escort me, just in case? I know it's technically before our destination, but I'll compensate you for the extra time."

"Sure," Soran said warily. He had a feeling he was in it for the long haul anyway.

Chromie handed Soran a bronze bracelet—somewhat gnomish in design, but instead of gears the thing had tiny tubes full of shifting sand all over it. "Put this on. It will keep you timelinked to me so we don't have to be touching to make the jump together, and hopefully it'll also reduce the temporal ripple caused by bringing someone back with me. ...I think I'd better take us a few minutes before the meeting time, in case we have to spend it fighting."

Soran locked the bracelet around his wrist, then pulled out his axe while Chromie gave a countdown. When she hit zero, they jumped through time.

It felt ... not exactly like when she teleported him to and from the library. There was the similar sensation of falling, but also a feeling of sand running through his fingers, slipping past his skin, like he himself were inside an hourglass which had just been inverted.

The ground solidified under his feet again, and Soran found himself ... exactly where he started. There was nothing different about the cavern to tell him when he was—except for the fact that there were now two gnome-dragons in front of him.

"Oh, hello!" Chromie said to Chromie. "I didn't expect to find me here!"

"Me either!" said Chromie. Soran wasn't exactly certain which one was his, until she continued. "I just came here to pick up some mail I apparently sent myself."

"Oh, it wasn't from us," Soran's Chromie said, showing herself the letter. "No wonder I didn't hear the chime; I interrupted myself before I could read it. Silly me!"

After she explained why they'd come before the time the message specified, the other Chromie pressed a thoughtful finger to her lips. "We should check to make sure it's the same letter. If it is, I can just leave it in there until you collect it."

"Good idea!"

Soran's Chromie began the sequence to open the chest, but he'd seen the whole tedious process once before, and began wandering through her collection to keep himself occupied. The other Chromie decided Soran was now the most interesting thing in the room, and followed him curiously.

"Hmm. I haven't met you before, have I?"

"No, I don't think—"

With no warning whatsoever, an explosion ripped through the small cavern. Soran and both Chromies were sent flying, colliding with bits of her collection.

When he came to his senses, bruised and battered, he found one Chromie weeping over the other one. Both were scorched, but the one on the ground had several pieces of bronze shrapnel in her chest, and was unmoving.

"This isn't how I was supposed to die!" wailed the still-living one.

Soran lifted himself up onto one knee, groaning. He recovered his axe, which he'd dropped in the blast but fortunately had landed not far from him. "What happened? ...And which one are you?!"

"It was a trap. Why would Nozdormu want me dead?"

Even if Soran had an answer for her, he didn't have a chance to give it. A soft popping sound announced someone teleporting into the room, and was followed by at least half a dozen more.

"Hide!" Chromie whispered, and dragged him behind a shattered cabinet. The air around them fuzzed, and Soran realized he was looking out through an invisibility spell.

They held their breaths as the intruders came closer. The flutter of wings and click of claws against stone told him what they were before they even came close enough to see the gunmetal-gray scales of several infinite whelplings and a pair of bipedal drakonids.

"Where is she?" the taller of the drakonids said, shoving aside bits of wreckage. "I told you; you shouldn't have triggered it early!"

"I know I felt her timewalk in," the shorter one replied, "and someone was definitely opening the chest. See? Half the locks are open."

One of the whelplings gave a cry, and for a moment Soran thought he'd been spotted, but it was the fallen Chromie who caught its eye.

"There she is!" Shorty slapped the dead gnome-dragon's face, but that Chromie's glazed eyes didn't even blink. "Reset the room while I take her to the boss for verification."

He lifted the body and blinked out, and the other one waved its hands. The room righted itself, shattered objects flying back together and returning to their original places. Soran felt himself being pulled as well, but Chromie grabbed his hand and muttered a quiet spell, and after that all they had to worry about was dodging the rest of the collection.

The drakonid looked around with a frown for a moment, but after inspecting some of Chromie's odds and ends, he shrugged and vanished, taking the whelplings with him.

*****

Meleen was too well-known to sneak through the mess line a second time, so she did the only other thing she could think of, which was to return to the inn and ask for a meal there. She took it up to her room and made sure the window was unlatched, hoping Jiari would return so she could talk to her. The rogue didn't immediately appear, so Meleen laid down to see what sleep she could find before she was needed again.

It was several hours later before the soft creak of the window's hinges woke her. Jiari appeared, stepping down from the ledge as silently as a cat, and eyed the tray on the table.

"That supposed to be for me?"

Meleen sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "It is ... the least I can do after you saved my life—again."

Jiari raised an eyebrow, but took the chair and accepted her offering.

"It was hot when I brought it up." Meleen said, even though the woman hadn't complained. "Where were you all this time?"

"Examining my options." She sniffed at the mug of ale on the tray, then pushed it aside. Would nothing satisfy the woman? "You're nervous. Why?"

Once again Meleen found herself staring at the bright red tattoo on Jiari's cheek. Why had she put their colors on her face for all the world to see? Couldn't she see the barbarism and cruelty the Horde brought everywhere they went?

"Oh, nothing," Meleen said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. "Only Sergeant Melkins grilling me about your dramatic display."

Jiari paused in mid-bite. "Does he suspect you've been helping me?"

So she hadn't been eavesdropping. Meleen was torn between relief that the woman wasn't following her everywhere, and once again wondering what mischief she might have been up to in the meanwhile. "No, but he will if you do something like that again. I do not think you should go down to the pass anymore."

That wasn't what Meleen meant to say at all. Wouldn't it be better if Jiari got herself caught?

"It wouldn't be a problem if I had armor. I'm sure nobody meant you should keep your helmets off while fighting the—"

"Why did you kill Overlord Thandor?" Meleen blurted, unable to keep it in any longer.

Jiari's expression darkened. "That's the wrong question."

Meleen flinched at the dangerous glint in her eye. As amiable as she seemed to be today, the woman was still capable of killing her without any armor at all. "...Did you kill him?"

That question wasn't much more to Jiari's taste, but at least she wasn't glaring daggers at Meleen anymore. Grief made faint lines around her eyes. "I would sooner plunge a blade into my own heart."

Silence fell, and guilt made Meleen's stomach turn. Though she couldn't have put the reason into words, she knew the woman was telling the truth.

"I'll need your help with the armor," Jiari said once she'd emptied her tray. She must have been hungry, to make it vanish so efficiently, so at least she wasn't stealing food from anyone else. "Is there a place you've been putting the bodies of the dead while they wait for burial? I know it's disrespectful, but—"

"If you really wanted to help us...." Meleen couldn't finish the sentence. How could she ask an innocent woman to give herself over to Horde justice?

"I'd be lying if I said I wanted to, but the gryphons are too heavily guarded." She peered into the small mirror above the washbasin and gave her hair a lick with a comb from her belt pouch. "I can't watch and do nothing while the Burning Blade slaughters children and civilians—even if they are Alliance."

"But there is something you could do!" Difficult or not, wrong or not, she had to press on. Jiari might not feel any obligation to the people outside this room, but the Alliance had taken her people in, welcomed them like family even though they were from a completely different world. "Your fortress will send us aid if you ... if we...."

Jiari turned to look at Meleen in puzzlement. Then the light of realization dawned. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't realize ... you thought Krom'gar was actually going to help you."

Meleen froze in the midst of buckling her breastplate back on. "He has to. He promised!"

Quiet, mirthless laughter shook Jiari's chest. "He doesn't, and he won't. Krom'gar has hated me since I came back to life simply because I look like I'm Alliance, and he'll shed not a single tear if every man, woman, and child in this outpost is torn to pieces. In fact, if he's seen my report in Thandor's office, if he knows I found out who's really responsible for Thal'darah and thinks I shared it with you, he might come in person to finish you all off."

Almost, Meleen believed her. It was so tempting to forget that this woman was a rogue, practiced in deception and not bound by paladin oaths or any codes of conduct. She could do as she pleased, say whatever she thought would give the greatest benefit to herself, all without a pesky conscience getting in the way. And even if she did believe she spoke the truth, who was to say that she wasn't mistaken?

Jiari left a handful of coins on the empty meal tray—probably stolen; why else would she be so free with them?—pulled up her hood and mask, and set her foot on the windowsill.

"Where are you going? The entire town is looking for you!"

"And if I stay here, and somebody asks if you've seen me, are you going to lie to them?"

Meleen grimaced. "The odds of someone asking so direct a question—"

"Are still not zero. You paladins are all about that letter of the law stuff, right? I'm giving you an out. Besides, I need to figure out a backup plan in case you can't find out where they're keeping the dead."

"I never said that I would...."

But Jiari had already drawn the shadows about her and stepped out through the window. By the time Meleen reached it there was no sign of the stubborn human.

No, not a stubborn human. A stubborn Forsaken. Meleen tried to picture the capricious rogue as she might have been before her transformation, with skin hanging off her bones and a dim light shining from empty eye sockets. Alive or not, Jiari was still Horde on the inside; why else would she have stayed with them for so long when she could have rejoined her own kind?

Because she had found her people, that was why. She'd gone native, drinking in with the traditions of the orc-led Horde and becoming one of them. For that matter, who knew what depravity the woman was capable of before she even died?

Innocent? Jiari was far from innocent. Sergeant Melkins was right; the Horde champion hadn't saved Meleen out of compassion, but out of self-preservation. She'd been counting on the Alliance's inherent generosity, hoping they'd forget the horrible things she'd done, but Meleen remembered all of it. She would never forget the sound Gildis made when the woman murdered him—a helpless prisoner, who couldn't possibly do anyone further harm in that state!—or the looks on the faces of her friends as Jiari ended each of their lives. If Gildis' admittedly unhinged ramblings were to be believed, Jiari herself was also participant in the bombing of Thal'darah Grove.

Meleen hurried down to the pass, heart pounding. She knew what she had to do now, knew why the Light had guided her to find Jiari instead of someone who would let her bleed out into the dust. The woman deserved death, yes, but did it matter who meted it out? If Jiari's punishment came at the hands of the monsters she consorted with, wasn't it still justice?

She found Sergeant Melkins resting behind the second to last wall. Though they'd lost the first one completely, the second had been refortified with stone and earth since Meleen left. She was surprised not to hear the sounds of battle.

"They have pulled back?" she asked him.

Sergeant Melkins looked up with a start. He looked like he could use a nap himself. "They haven't done more than test us since your mysterious rogue took apart that squad earlier. I think they're worried she'll show up again."

Meleen shifted uncertainly. If Jiari's actions had bought them a much-needed respite ... but no. She might have saved many lives today, but Soran and the rest of Thandor's army could send the Burning Blade back to lick their wounds in whatever holes they crawled out of. "She will not. Not unless she finds enough armor to conceal her identity."

The sergeant shut his eyes and leaned his head against the bulwark with a sigh. "I almost wish we could give her some."

"That is ... what I came to discuss."

Chapter Text

Once the infinite dragons were gone, Chromie released her invisibility spell and sat down on the ground in shock. Soran was pretty bewildered himself, and more than a little bruised.

"Now what do we do?" he asked. "Do we still need to see this ... Nozordu fellow?"

Chromie looked up at him, face pale. "What did you say your name was again?"

Soran sucked in a sharp breath. This was the wrong Chromie—the one who hadn't met him yet. The one who brought him here was the one whose body the drakonids took away.

"I'm Soran. You hired me to protect you from the infinite dragonflight, and I ... I failed."

"It's not your fault," Chromie sniffled. "I was here twice, and I didn't even see that coming. ...Why didn't I see it coming?"

"I'm not really sure, but you ... the other you ... said she was trying to fix an altered timeline. Does that help?"

Chromie nodded slowly. "We bronze dragons are uniquely immune to the effects of paradox. If one or the other of me belonged to a temporal branch, then neither of us would be a direct antecedent of the other."

Whatever that meant, it seemed to cheer her marginally. Enough so anyway that she offered to undo his bruises with a time spell.

Soran hesitated. "That won't draw their attention?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't sense any time magic anywhere. Either the whole dragonflight is being unusually quiet today, or...." She paled again, and her voice became a shocked whisper. "Or I wasn't the only target."

"Maybe they're all hiding, like we were?" Soran said, but Chromie didn't believe it any more than he did. These were dragons; at least some of them would fight back.

"I have to find them." She snatched up a satchel and began stuffing things into it. "If there are others, maybe we can figure out what happened and go back and set things right."

"What about me? You ... the other you was going to help me save Champion Jiari."

"You don't understand; I can't even sense the branches of possibility anymore. Something must have happened to Nozdormu!"

Soran still didn't know who that was, and he was pretty sure he didn't care. What he did know was that with or without Chromie's help, he needed to find his wife. "Then at least take me home to Thandor Fortress."

He expected to have to explain where it was again, but this Chromie nodded immediately. "I suppose I can't leave you here, can I? Hang on tight!"

She took his hand, and a moment later Soran found himself behind the fortress, halfway up the hill where Jiari had been ... no, would be imprisoned. Artillery growled from the other side of the keep; the battle was underway.

"Is this the right place?" Chromie asked. "It doesn't sound very safe out there."

Soran locked the faceplate of his helmet in place, remembering what the other Chromie said about crossing his own path. "I'm a champion of the Horde; I can handle it. Good luck finding your friends."

"You too," she said, then bade him farewell and vanished.

*****

"Thank you for bringing this to us, Meleen," Sergeant Melkins said. "I know how difficult it must have been to come forward, but you made the right choice."

They were in council—the leaders of Nijel's Point, plus Lady Fallowmere and Meleen, all meeting behind closed doors in the town hall. The fighting had resumed, but Melkins left two corporals in charge of the pass and called the others here to discuss Meleen's idea.

She had confessed everything, explaining why she'd felt an obligation to help a Horde champion and about her failed attempts to get the woman to turn herself in. How could she do otherwise? She couldn't capture Jiari on her own, and the situation at the pass grew more and more dire by the day. In addition, while it was true that the woman had saved her life, a handful of good deeds couldn't absolve one of a life of crime. She couldn't let herself become an accomplice to whatever the woman might do in the future.

"You deceived me," Lady Fallowmere murmured while the others discussed how to capture their prey. "That spell I taught you ... that was for this Jiari, wasn't it?"

Meleen winced. "I am sorry, my Lady. I hoped that I could bring her back to the Light, but that proved to be impossible."

"You are certain?" Her tone was oddly intense.

"I...." Was she? Meleen had nothing concrete except the accusation of murder and her own instinct. No, that wasn't true—the Horde fire brigade also had much to say about her, little of which was good. Only Soran seemed to think there was anything virtuous about her, but he was an orc, so his opinion meant little. "She has been among the Horde for all this time. Is that not proof enough?"

Lady Fallowmere frowned in dissatisfaction. She can't have been hoping that the woman's rebirth had changed her, could she? Not when it was the living Jiari who slew her father.

"If only the world were so simple," was all she said.

*****

Jiari spent the night in a sheltered nook on someone's rooftop, curled up in her cloak beside the relatively warm bricks of their chimney. It wasn't that she didn't trust Meleen—not exactly—but she'd been on edge ever since she learned how long she was out. Soran could be halfway to anywhere by now, especially if he'd taken ship as they discussed, or he could be in Thandor's dungeon being tortured by Legionnaire Covas, or scouring Stonetalon or Desolace in search of her. He could be injured, or lost, or dead and buried, and there was no one she could ask, no way to find him without giving herself away to Krom'gar.

The one chance she might have was if he went on to Farwatcher's Glen like he'd been planning and left a message for her. Even that was risky, as the Horde would no doubt have sent her description there as well, but the sooner she left here the better. Meleen wouldn't be able acquire extra meals for long without being noticed, and even if she could, the Burning Blade would breach those walls eventually. From what she'd seen, the Alliance had no champions left, and though they seemed to possess a handful of experienced soldiers, Jiari couldn't determine which might be on the verge of breaking through. Perhaps if she were able to advise the defenders here on their strategy (or rather their complete lack of one), they might have a hope of victory, but as things now stood they would be lucky to last more than a few days longer.

She couldn't solve this problem; like it or not, this town's fate had been taken out of her hands. Jiari's only concern now was to avoid sharing that fate, and to quit wasting time here while Soran's trail grew colder by the second.

A wan light brightened the sky to the east, and Jiari stole along the rooftops until she could see Meleen's window. It was cracked open now—it had been latched at dusk, and the room empty—which meant the draenei either had some news for her or enjoyed filling her bedroom with frigid morning air.

Jiari was about to shadowstep to the window ledge when she saw them. Two soldiers were huddled against the wall of the next building, standing close as if in conversation, but one of them lifted her eyes to the window for a moment before turning back away. There were more, down the other alleys, all with a convenient line of sight to the window.

Did they suspect Meleen was helping her? It was possible. Paladins weren't exactly known for their guile, and she'd mentioned being grilled yesterday.

Bitterly, Jiari gave up hope of getting warm inside the inn. It was probably too much to expect a meal today either, and her stomach wished she'd tucked more of what Meleen gave her yesterday into her cloak for later. If she had to fight like this, she might be in trouble.

After nearly an hour, the window shut again and Meleen exited the inn, looking up at rooftops in the vain hope of spotting her. Jiari followed from a distance, until the draenei's meandering path convinced her she wasn't going anywhere specific but rather waiting to be approached. She'd been afraid Meleen would acquire an escort as soon as she walked out the door, but none of the soldiers waiting on adjacent streets moved to follow her. Perhaps the glance at the window had been coincidence after all.

She had no parchment to write a note with, but Jiari dropped into the alley and grabbed a handful of pebbles. When her quarry passed by, Jiari flicked one at her helmet.

"Ouch!" Meleen said, likely more in surprise than pain. She glanced around, saw no one, and tried to move on, but Jiari flicked another stone at her greaves.

This time Meleen looked down and saw the arrow Jiari had scratched there in the dirt. It pointed toward the outskirts, where there were a handful of places suitable for a private conversation. Instead of following, however, the paladin scratched out the arrow with a hoof and drew another one pointing toward the center of town.

Meleen's meander quickened, and Jiari followed via the rooftops in the direction of her arrow, trusting that the draenei knew what she was doing. She grew nervous the closer they got to the center of the town, but then she realized what it was Meleen was trying to show her.

There, in the middle of the town square, was Jiari's armor. It had been tied together and hung, like a corpse on a gibbet, from the top of a twenty-foot pole—right between the outpost's largest well and a solid wooden pillory. It was as public a place as it could possibly be.

Meleen walked up to the pole and took a good look, crossing her arms and frowning. She moved on shortly afterward, finally settling in a shaded alcove where she leaned against the wall and started scratching little x's in the dirt with her hoof. Jiari made extra sure no one was watching her, then shadowstepped to the ground.

*****

A cough came from the darkest part of the alcove, and Meleen jumped. Jiari was there, looking wan and rumpled.

"You can't leave your window open anymore," the rogue said. "It's suspicious."

Meleen grimaced. She'd spent a full hour shivering in the draft from that window, hoping Jiari would step through so the druids concealed in her bedroom could snare her with an entangle spell. She was starting to worry that the woman had found some way out of town already, until she saw that arrow on the ground.

"So that's a neat little trap they've set for me out there. I thought you said you left my armor behind."

"I do not know which of the scouts found it," Meleen said honestly, then bit her lip. "What makes you think it is a trap?"

"You didn't see them?" Jiari glanced back toward the square where her armor swung in the breeze like some faded ghost of herself. "There are two shifted druids on the roof of that building over there, a rogue in a black cloak stationed in the alley opposite us, and I'm pretty sure the gnome who keeps peeking through those shutters is a mage. Add to that the hunter who may or may not be lounging on his porch for a completely different reason, and we have a combined total of every type of person in this town who I'd rather not pick a fight with.

Meleen gaped at her. She had missed only the pair of soldiers disguised as civilians drawing water from the well. "You saw all that with a single glimpse of the square?"

"It's called basic reconnaissance," Jiari said. "Don't they teach that in your fancy Alliance paladin school?"

Her tone was a straight deadpan, but Meleen caught the amused twitch of her lips before Jiari mastered it, and stomped her hoof indignantly. "I would not know. I was trained aboard the Exodar."

"Well that's points in your favor, I guess."

"Why are paladins not in that list?" Meleen couldn't help asking.

Jiari's eyes kept moving, studying everything but Meleen for signs of danger. At least the rogue didn't suspect her yet. "What, of people I'd rather not fight?"

Meleen nodded.

"You rely too much on your armor to keep you safe. All I need is to get close enough to find a weakness, and then ... well I guess you know what happens next."

She did, all too well. Sometimes that scar still ached.

"Is this all you had to show me," Jiari said, "or did you find out where the dead are being taken?"

Meleen tried to keep her expression as neutral as the rogue's. "You will not find what you wish in the morgue." Not after last night, anyway. "I ... did discover where the spare armor is being kept, however."

Jiari vanished from sight again and Meleen walked to where they could observe a windowless building which looked like a warehouse, but was guarded by a pair of soldiers. There were more inside, of course, but the ones out front looked bored, as if they thought this assignment meaningless. One of them wasn't even bothering to watch his surroundings.

"Was it always under guard?"

Meleen shook her head, cheeks coloring at the lie of omission she was making. The armor was beyond that padlocked door, but only because she had convinced Sergeant Melkins that it would be safer to have it guarded, in case the first two gambits failed to snare her. "They began collecting it yesterday, soon after the announcement was read."

Jiari cursed softly. "It's no good. I'll have to find another way out of this deathtrap."

"But there are only two guards. Surely you are not afraid of—"

"Oh, I could kill them both in two seconds flat—but I can't get through that door and back out again without hurting anyone."

The look of bitter resignation on Jiari's face stunned her. Of all the things that could go wrong with this plan, she never expected the promise she'd extracted from the rogue the morning before to be one of them.

Meleen couldn't keep the incredulity from her tone. "You would keep your word, even if means being trapped here indefinitely?"

Jiari stiffened, turning to face her fully. Her eyes widened in indignant anger. "Do you really think I would still be here if I intended to break it?"

The intensity of the woman's quiet outrage once again left Meleen without words. She was right; what was to stop her from slaughtering the guards at the stables and stealing a hippogryph? Even the forces watching her armor might not be insurmountable to someone of her skill—if she weren't constrained from harming anyone.

"Three days," Jiari said, and Meleen got the impression that only willpower was keeping her fingers from settling on her blades. She knew orcs could be touchy about the strangest subjects, and clearly the woman had picked up a few of their habits. "That's how long you said I was out. For three days you watched over me, kept me from starving, and never once gave in to the temptation to take revenge for the people I killed in front of you. Should I answer that restraint with anything less? Will my honor stand if I can't wait that same three days before I so much as ask if you'll release me from that oath?"

"But you are Horde," Meleen blurted, then wished she could take the words back when the woman's hands finally closed around the hilts of her knives.

Jiari didn't draw them. She took several deep breaths and forced the fury boiling behind her eyes down to a simmer, then her hands unclenched as well. When she finally gave a reply, it was calm, collected, and full of quiet conviction.

"Yes. With every bone in this body."

Meleen shook her head, unable to reconcile the contradictions that sentence engendered. The Horde had no honor. They were made up of cruel monsters and walking corpses and scheming, treacherous blood elves.

"If only the world were so simple," Lady Fallowmere said.

"You look at us and see monsters because that's what you want to see," Jiari continued, almost as if she could read Meleen's mind, "but if you'd ever bothered trying you would realize we're just people. Good and bad, wise and foolish—exactly like the Alliance. Yes, we've made mistakes. Yes, we've done cruel things, but so have you."

"The Alliance only did what was necessary—"

"Was it, though? What you did to me at the wagon, was that necessary? Or did you rig the trap with a fancy curse instead of explosives because you wanted me to suffer before I died?"

The words cut deep. She was right; a gunpowder bomb would have been simpler, and infinitely more predictable. The woman in front of her would be dead, and Thandor Fortress in the hands of the Alliance now, if they had done as she suggested.

And hadn't there been glee on the faces of her friends when Gildis proposed his trap? Hadn't Meleen herself thought him clever, handing over the runestone in anticipation of the look of terror on the face of whoever triggered it? If she, a paladin, could take pleasure in the thought of needless cruelty toward her enemy, then surely those of lesser moral standards would have as well.

The evidence spoke for itself, though it took Meleen this long to see it. Jiari was a woman of honor, and if she vouched for the Horde then there must be more among them who shared her convictions. Surely they couldn't be as prevalent as she insisted, but the fact remained that if Meleen had misjudged one person, she might have done so for others. Perhaps many others.

We're not the same, Meleen assured herself, but I was still wrong. This is still wrong. I can't lead her into a trap when she wouldn't even be here if not for a promise she made me—not and still claim to have any honor of my own.

"I will find you some armor," Meleen said, blinking back tears of shame. "If I can think of some excuse to go inside—"

"Don't." Jiari fixed her with a stern look. "They're already watching your window; you can't risk helping me anymore."

"But it is my fault you are trapped here. I had—"

"It's my own fault. If I hadn't been stupid, traveling during the day without backup, I could be halfway to Tanaris by now."

"I still owe you," Meleen insisted. "You only saved my life because you thought I would help you escape!"

"That's not why I did it." Jiari peered at the wall, expression guarded.

A prickle ran up Meleen's back. "Why, then?"

The rogue shifted her stance, drawing the words out with difficulty. "It's because ... you gave me hope. I thought ... all this time I thought it was my fault the people closest to me kept dying, but now I know it wasn't. Because of you, I can find Soran and make things right."

Meleen's breath caught. The pieces all slid together at once—the way they'd stood side by side in battle, the way the orc legionnaire defended her honor when others attacked it, and seemed so driven to put out the fires in the Charred Vale for good. She knew he hadn't been doing it out of any concern for the Alliance, but all this time she thought he must have some dark ulterior motive for helping them.

That wasn't it at all. His unwavering diligence and his courage against the black dragon, Jiari's willingness to risk her life against the Burning Blade—all of it stemmed from their urgent desire to return to the other's side. And Meleen, who twice now had been saved by that desperate wish without even being aware it existed, nearly destroyed all hope of its fulfillment.

"What will you do?" she wondered, shaken by how close she'd come to doing something unforgivable. "If you will not accept my help, then how...?"

Jiari wet her lips, peering at the cliffs around Nijel's Point. "If I can't scale that wall somehow, maybe I can disguise myself as one of the Burning Blade. It's dangerous, but so is staying here."

She is so much braver than I will ever be. They both are.

On impulse, Meleen dug into her satchel and pulled out all her trail rations, then handed over her waterskin as well. Jiari took them with gratitude, then grabbed her gently by the forearm.

"Promise me that if it gets bad, you'll find a way out of here?"

This time Meleen let the tears flow. "This is my post. I cannot abandon it."

Jiari nodded sadly. She understood duty at least well enough that she didn't try to talk her out of it.

"In that case ... good luck." And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

Trail rations weren't exactly the most palatable of breakfasts, but Jiari was glad to have them. She ate what she could stand and saved the rest for the road; though she would be able to forage once she reached Stonetalon, anything she caught before that had an even chance of being poisonous, and it was too long since she'd brushed up on which was which.

After appropriating some rope and a grappling hook she found unattended near the stockade, Jiari began her climb up the cliffs northwest of the outpost. The first part was the most dangerous—not only because it was steep, but because it was hard to maintain stealth while ascending. Her cloak was made to blend in with rock and earth, so at least she wasn't incredibly obvious, but she was fairly certain that the only reason she didn't get shot at was that everyone was too busy worrying about the demons below them to look behind.

There were a few false starts, and the grappling hook was less useful than she expected, but at last she got high enough to shadowstep the remaining distance. She collapsed at the top, panting and muscles trembling, with the sun still not quite at its peak.

The terrain above the outpost was strewn with loose rocks, and there were no game trails whatsoever, but it was surprisingly level. At one point Jiari found a bit of weathered paving stone sticking up from the dirt and realized this must have been a proper road at some point, perhaps before the Sundering. It wove between domed hills and sometimes disappeared in one spot and continued elsewhere, either off to one side or lower down.

Surprisingly there was very little wind today, though the sun warmed her less than she had hoped. Enough vegetation dotted the northern edge of the dusty wasteland that eagles circled, giving Jiari hope that there might be game enough to support her after all.

On second thought, no—that speck moving across the sky to the south was not an eagle. The shape was wrong, and after a moment Jiari identified it as a hippogryph with a rider.

Instantly she hit the dirt, drawing the shadows around her. Her cloak was probably enough to conceal her from this distance, but the rider was making methodical sweeps, north and then south along the full width of the foothills, getting closer at each one.

They're not looking for me, she told herself, though she moved more cautiously whenever they swung back toward her . Even if they saw me climbing, it's a fool's errand to track a rogue from the sky. Of course, foolishness and desperation had a lot of overlap.

As the hippogryph wound closer, Jiari realized the rider was in full plate armor, and when they came closer still her identity was clear. Why had Meleen come looking for her? Had she decided to help Jiari despite the risk? If so she wouldn't refuse, but there was also the possibility that she'd changed her mind about letting her go in the first place. It might be safer to keep hidden.

Faintly, Jiari caught the sound of Meleen's voice calling her name. That was no good; if Krom'gar had scouts out searching these hills for her, hearing the draenei shout would clue them in that she'd come this way. Whatever she wanted, Jiari had to find out now before that happened.

On Meleen's next pass, Jiari kicked a loose boulder down a hill to send up a brief dust cloud. The hippogryph wheeled closer to take a look, though Jiari had risk a sharp whistle before Meleen spotted her and landed.

Jiari approached the paladin and her hippogryph with caution, hands on her knife hilts. "What are you doing? If someone followed you...."

"They have Soran," Meleen said, breathless with worry.

Jiari found it a little hard to breathe herself. "Who does? Are they from the fortress?"

"The guards at Nijel's Point. I do not know how, but Lady Fallowmere discovered he was your friend, and...."

So not Krom'gar. Things weren't yet as dire as they could be. "Where are they keeping him—in some cell guarded by a dozen hunters?"

Meleen was practically in tears. "He is chained in the square where they hung your armor. Lady Fallowmere says she will kill him if you do not appear, and I believe her. I have never seen her so furious!"

Jiari fought to think clearly despite the pounding of her heart. "If this is a trick...."

"I saw him with my own eyes; I swear it on my paladin's oath!"

I just got free of that place! But no—if Soran was in danger, nothing else mattered. She would face the Burning Legion alone and unarmed if there was even a sliver of a chance of freeing him, and she certainly wasn't afraid of an overworked healer.

"Take me back," Jiari said.

The flight to Nijel's Point took too long and was over too quickly all at the same time. Jiari discarded half a dozen plans before the outpost came into view. She drew the shadows around her while still clinging to Meleen's waist, lest the watch spot her coming.

Meleen hadn't been lying. If the orc chained to the post beside the pillory wasn't Soran, he was as good a likeness as Jiari could make out from the air. There were bloody stripes across his back, and Fallowmere—who Jiari recognized from the healers' tent—stood there with a whip, prepared to give him some more. Worst of all, the flogging had drawn a crowd; the odds of escaping that unscathed were vanishingly slim.

"Take me close to that rooftop, there," Jiari told the draenei, "then try to come back around to the alley without drawing attention to yourself. I'm afraid I'll need to steal your mount."

"What are you going to—"

"What you don't know can't get you clapped in irons. ...Probably." If it were darker she might try something less risky, but it was still hours until sunset and Soran might not have that long. There was only one way she could think of to free him without killing ... probably quite a lot of people (her oath to Meleen was forfeit the instant the Alliance laid a hand on her husband, but she owed the paladin enough to try) and putting it off wouldn't make a lick of difference.

They were close enough to the roof for a shadowstep, and she did so before the paladin could ask any more questions. Meleen circled and landed, and Jiari gave her time to get into position. The hippogryph in the alley was escape plan number one. Number two was ... there was no number two. She would never manage that climb again with Soran wounded, and definitely not after stirring up the hornets' nest. She had exactly one chance to pull this off.

From the rooftop she'd chosen, Jiari had a clear view of the square. Fallowmere was shouting something about vengeance for her father, making cruel taunts in an attempt to make Jiari reveal herself, but she ignored those. The woman was irrelevant. What mattered was Soran, who was chained and gagged and keeping his feet with an effort of will. Her heart leapt at the sight of him, even as his wounds drove a spike through it, but she resisted the impulse to rush to his side. She needed a distraction, some way to get to him and unlock his chains with out anyone seeing. Maybe if she set fire to something, or waited for the Burning Blade to breach one of the walls—

Fallowmere's whip cracked again, and the agonized sound of Soran's scream made something inside Jiari snap. She leaped off the building and shadowstepped to the square.

Inside the space of a heartbeat, Jiari stunned Fallowmere with the hilt of her knife, grabbed the whip from her hand, and wrapped it around the night elf's throat. As thick as it was it made a poor garrote, but it was plenty strong enough to restrain her.

"Let him go!" Jiari shouted in common so no one could misunderstand. For Soran, her pride could go cry in a corner. "Set the orc free or I swear I'll slit her throat!"

Taking a hostage was not an ideal plan. Neither was it foolproof, if the townsfolk believed they were dead without Krom'gar's help. Still, it held off their suddenly drawn blades long enough for her to realize it wouldn't hold them off forever.

Jiari tugged down her hood and mask so her face was clearly visible. She had to give them more than threats. "I am Jiari of Thandor Fortress! Release him, and you can have me instead."

Soran turned toward her with plaintive eyes, and suddenly she was aware of several things at once. First—the night elf she had in a chokehold smelled not of antiseptic and herbs, as a healer should, but of the peculiar mix of metal and sweat that someone did after wearing plate or chain armor all day. Second—though most of the crowd seemed genuinely alarmed at this turn of events, several soldiers had begun calmly sliding loaded crossbows from beneath their cloaks the moment she uncovered her face. Third, and most important—while plenty of fresh whip marks crisscrossed Soran's back, there existed none of the old scars he'd obtained as a child in the Alliance internment camps.

It wasn't him.

Which meant this whole scene was a setup.

The crossbows came up. The night elf wearing the illusion of Lady Fallowmere tried to grab Jiari's arm and hold her in place, but Jiari leaped, kicking her to the ground for some extra height, and caused the bolts to miss both of them. The stand-in was caught in a mesh of tangled vines as several druids completed their rooting spells too late.

At the top of her jump, Jiari vanished and shadowstepped to the nearest rooftop, intending to head for Meleen's hippogryph and flee. The instant her foot touched the roof, however, the crack of a hunter's frost trap sounded the end of her freedom.

Icy tendrils crept up her legs and bound her arms in place. Jiari summoned the shadows, trying to step through them and break herself free, but she had never fully mastered that skill, and her willpower was already depleted after vanishing in front of so many people. She was well and truly caught.

The illusion of Soran dissipated, revealing a smirking orc mage of whom Jiari knew little but her name. She blinked up to the rooftop and snapped an iron collar around Jiari's neck, then began relieving her of all the weapons she could reach through the ice.

"You always did prefer the high ground," said a familiar voice from the next roof over. "You might have thought I learned nothing from our little excursions, but I was paying attention."

Legionnaire Kalibir stepped out from the shadow of a roof gable with one of his wyverns. If she'd done proper reconnaissance instead of leaping in blindly, she'd probably have spotted them.

"Tell me, what gave it away?" he said, crossing the gap with the help of his beast. "I thought Murym's illusion was spot on."

"K-Kalibir," Jiari said, teeth chattering from the cold. "I d-didn't kill Overlord Thandor."

"Want to know a secret?" Kalibir leaned in close and whispered, "I don't actually care, so long as I get the promotion I was promised for bringing you in."

Jiari's eyes widened in fury. "I should have realized you were Krom'gar's stooge, you pompous, preening, piece of—"

Murym backhanded Jiari so hard that it was long moments before she was able to see straight again. By then she was on the ground, face first in the dirt with her wrists now chained behind her back. She was relieved of the rest of her weapons, as well as her boots and the lockpicks in her sleeve, and her bandanna became a gag for her mouth.

"Put your swords away and get back to your posts," said the real Lady Fallowmere as she helped the trembling stand-in to her feet. Most obeyed, though several crossbowmen stood by to guard her. They grew tense as she stepped toward Kalibir. "I trust you are done with this ridiculous charade?"

"Not as ridiculous as your paladin friend's ploy with the armor, my lady," he said, giving a mocking half-bow. "I told you mine was the better plan."

The words came as a blow, though not an unexpected one. It was all clear now; Meleen was the one who told the guards to watch her window, and who had the unused armor put under lock and key. What Jiari mistook as honest concern after she didn't take the bait was a desperate gambit to draw out her further plans, so the Alliance would know where to look for her once this final trap was set. What really shocked her though, was that the paladin had lied with a straight face when claiming Soran was a prisoner. Jiari would have to be more careful around draenei in the future—assuming she had such a thing, which was now improbable verging on downright laughable. They were better liars than she thought.

Murym lifted Jiari and carried her toward a larger wyvern, but Fallowmere stopped her.

"Wait—I would look upon the face of my father's killer."

At Kalibir's careless shrug, Murym shoved Jiari onto her knees and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulling her neck back at an uncomfortable angle. Jiari was still too dazed to muster a proper glare, but she met the night elf's gaze without fear.

Lady Fallowmere's eyes, as she peered down at Jiari, went from coldly imperious to startled recognition. "You? But you were helping in the healers' tent!"

"No doubt as an excuse to steal supplies," Kalibir said. "Rogues have such sticky fingers."

The night elf seemed unconvinced, but neither did her eyes express any pity for Jiari. "What will become of her?"

Kalibir climbed back aboard his wyvern. "Once she confesses, I imagine she will be executed. The Horde does not forgive those who betray them."

At last Fallowmere tore her gaze away from Jiari's, and Murym tied her firmly in place across the second wyvern's shoulders. They were taking no chances that she might try to shadowstep away in mid-flight.

"And the aid you promised? How soon will it come?"

"Why, it is already here!" he said, glancing upward. While Fallowmere and the others scoured the skies in search of Horde reinforcements, Kalibir and Murym heeled their mounts aloft. He circled once and then shouted back down, "Here is your aid: Overlord Krom'gar grants you the courtesy of not stabbing you in the back while the Burning Blade finishes you off for him!"

I'm sorry, Jiari thought despite herself, watching an outraged Fallowmere and her retinue shrink into the distance. I wish I'd been wrong.

*****

Meleen saw the wyverns take to the sky with their captive and ran to the square just in time to hear the blood elf's parting shot. She readied a spell, but Lady Fallowmere caught her wrist.

"Let them go," she pleaded, including the nearby crossbowmen in her glance. "We cannot afford to start a war with the Horde today."

"What have you done?" Meleen demanded. "Where is Soran?" She searched the arrow-strewn square with her eyes, but saw no sign of the orc champion.

Only once the pair of wyverns were out of range of Meleen's spells did Lady Fallowmere release her. "He was never here. It was an illusion meant to draw out the Horde fugitive."

Meleen's knees gave way, and she dropped to the ground in shock. An illusion? "Why? Why did no one tell me?"

Lady Fallowmere exchanged a look with Sergeant Melkins, who had appeared from the direction of the pass. By the expression on his face, he'd already been told what happened. "We did not want to force you to lie," Fallowmere said gently. "I am sorry if the Horde messenger's ... display upset you."

"But you did," Meleen wept. "Jiari was miles away from here, headed to find the real Soran, when I called her back. She only returned because I told your lie for you!"

"Miles away?" Sergeant Melkins said in surprise. "How? Why didn't you say something?"

"Because I was wrong! I thought that her loyalty to the Horde meant she was unredeemable, but she is innocent, and more honorable than I." Would the Light abandon her for an unintentional lie? She dearly hoped not. "She warned me that Thandor's new overlord would not honor his word. I should have listened sooner!"

They looked troubled. Lady Fallowmere knelt beside her. "I apologize for not telling you we were working with the Horde's emissary, but there is nothing we can do now. We are better off without their eyes upon us."

"You are wrong," Meleen said, standing. There was something she could do. Something she had to do. She ran back to the alley where she'd left the hippogryph and heeled it into the air.

Chapter Text

By the time Meleen caught sight of the Horde riders who had Jiari strapped across a saddle, they were little more than specks against the sky. Though she urged her hippogryph to fly fast as it could, it was nearly dark before the gap closed at all. When it did, it happened so suddenly that it took her a few minutes to realize she could only see one of the wyverns in front of her.

A moment later, the other found her. Without warning it came bursting out from the trees below and raked her hippogryph with razor-sharp talons. Meleen's mount screamed and tried to fight back, but the wyvern darted away as quickly as it came, then circled around for another strike.

The blood elf rider took aim at her with his crossbow. Meleen dodged his shots mostly by accident, changing direction unpredictably as she fought her mount for control. The wyvern didn't miss, however; it came back for another swipe which scraped across her armor and left great gouges on the steel.

At last Meleen quit fighting her hippogryph and gave it its head, letting it choose their path while she readied a spell, but this time wyvern and rider dove sharply for the treeline and disappeared beneath the branches. How it could vanish so well with no leaves to hide behind and its rider wearing bold black and red, she didn't know. She tried to chase the other one instead and found that it too had vanished.

"No!" Which way had it gone? Was it hiding beneath the branches as well? She tried flying toward where she'd last seen it, but the blood elf came at her again. This time his crossbow bolt planted itself in her mount's shoulder.

The hippogryph screamed and fell into a barely-controlled dive which ended with them both on the ground, Meleen nursing a dozen bruises or more but thankfully alive. She removed the crossbow bolt and healed her mount's shoulder, but it wouldn't be flying again for a day or two. All she had accomplished was to get herself stranded.

*****

It was harder than Soran expected to blend in at Thandor Fortress. Even though the battle was well begun when he arrived, the rigid discipline maintained by its soldiers meant that it was easy to spot when someone didn't belong. He was called out twice for being out of uniform before he managed to borrow a legionnaire's tabard and insignia from one of the fallen (he figured that rank would give him the most autonomy without drawing undue attention), and once more for being where he shouldn't. It wasn't until the Alliance tried to breach the ramp defenses that things got busy enough that no one cared who he was so long as he was helping.

It happened an hour into the fight. Piles of heavy logs were laid at the bottom of each ramp to keep the Alliance from driving their siege engines up to the fortress, and these doubled as a bulwark from which the Horde could fire crossbows and whatnot from cover. Somehow, a pair of Alliance druids managed to get close enough and avoid getting shot at for long enough to sprout a tree beneath the bulwark on the west ramp. The logs scattered, half of them pushed down the ramp and the others knocked askew.

Champion Wildwind—a tauren with fur black as midnight except where white scars crisscrossed his muzzle—was the first one into the breach. He swung an iron-bound club as thick as a human in a broad arc, shouting for those behind him to repair the bulwark.

Soran leapt to it, muscling logs back into place with the help of tauren and fellow orcs, while Wildwind kept the Alliance off them. Trolls and undead joined Wildwind in pushing back the enemy line, but they lasted only a few minutes before most of them fell. The enemy was eager, bolstered by the success of the druids' spell, and pressed forward like a bloodthirsty, armored wave.

By now Soran had left off hauling timbers and set at the still-growing tree. At first it fought him, branches curling out to snatch at the axe, but finally someone managed to put a crossbow bolt through the face of the druid maintaining the spell, and he made quick work of it after that. The tree fell, immediately becoming part of the bulwark itself.

"Zohma!" Wildwind shouted, addressing the tusked bear who was running down the ramp toward them. "Reinforce the barrier!"

The bear became a towering troll druidess, and green tendrils of magic wreathed her wrists. "On it!"

Thick vines sprouted from the ground, wrapping the logs of the bulwark and binding them in place. More vines grabbed the stray logs and dragged them back to where they started. Soran found himself on the wrong side of the barricade and began climbing up it.

Behind Soran, Wildwind gave a sharp grunt of pain; the tauren champion was surrounded, one leg hamstrung. Though he was still fighting, it was only a matter of time before the Alliance got in a lucky shot and finished him off.

No. Champion Wildwind didn't die here! Before he knew what he was doing, Soran leaped off the bulwark and charged in with axe swinging. "For Thandor!"

Between Soran's axe and Champion Zohma's bolts of moonfire, they drove the Alliance back far enough to allow Wildwind to limp back to the bulwark. Soran lost his axe in the scramble to help him over, but for the moment he was so relieved to be alive and relatively safe behind the vine-bound barricade that he almost didn't care.

Zohma leaned down to heal Wildwind's leg, but the tauren waved her off. "Go, reinforce the other side."

She nodded, shifting form into a green-maned bat which took wing and hurried east across the parade ground.

"What's your name, legionnaire?" Wildwind asked as Soran helped him stand.

"Thagrand," Soran said, giving his father's name as he had when challenged earlier. "I made it in from Zoram'gar just as the battle started."

Wildwind gave a grunt which may or may not have meant he believed him. "You're pretty handy in a fight, Thagrand. Come see me when this is over."

"Yes, sir." Soran allowed a pair of tauren to take over and help Wildwind back up to the fortress, then peered through the barricade in search of his axe. He saw it, on the ground in front of the enemy's shield wall, but even if he could reach it before he was cut down, he'd never make it back up again.

Instead, he snatched up a crossbow someone had dropped and began firing through the bulwark. His chance to retrieve it would come eventually, even if he had to wait for the Alliance to go running home. Until then, he had a fortress to defend.

"Elekk coming for the barricade!" someone shouted in warning. Soran saw it; it was quite a monster, with tusks large enough to tear through even the reinforced bulwark if they let it, and its thick plate armor protected it from crossbow bolts and spells alike. It crashed against the barricade, stunning a blood elf archer who'd been perched halfway up and knocking her to the ground. Then it wrenched a log free.

"Horde!" warned an Alliance soldier who stood several ranks from the barricade. "Don't let it kill the elekk!"

Soran looked up in shock to watch a figure in familiar armor roll out from beneath the elekk, dodge half a dozen Alliance lances with a quick shadowstep, and laugh in their faces. She danced among their blades, trying to slice the beast's saddle strap, but the leather was protected by thick links of chain and would not give to a simple slash with a knife.

"Jiari!" Soran called, but she didn't hear him over the sounds of battle. "It's Champion Jiari; give her some cover!"

Crossbow bolts pinged off Alliance plate as Jiari snatched up Soran's axe and drove it into a gap in the back of the elekk's leg armor. The beast bellowed, nearly landing on top of her as the weight of the log in its tusks brought it down, but she leaped out of the way and climbed over the barrier.

Soran stood there stunned as Jiari landed beside him and caught her breath. She was right there, within arm's reach, but he still couldn't hold her. She didn't even know his name yet.

"Are you all right, Champion?" he asked, voice rough with emotion.

He offered a hand, but she was too busy tightening her bandanna to notice. She stood, and said in a voice which was artificially hoarse, "I'm fine. Just slipped in all the Alliance blood on my boots."

A laugh rippled up and down the barrier, but Jiari was already jogging up the ramp, dodging volleys of Alliance arrows as deftly as if they were feathers floating on the breeze. Soon she would reach the top, where a younger, more ignorant Soran would put steel to her throat and drag her before Overlord Thandor in chains.

Unless I stop her.

The thought was barely formed before his feet were moving. This wasn't the plan—he wasn't sure he had a solid plan, to be honest—but he was changing it now. If he could stop Jiari before she reached the top, he could warn her that she would be revealed, and keep her from suffering all that pain at the wall.

"Jiari!" he shouted, but was drowned out by the growl of artillery from the promontory. He ran faster. She wasn't exactly hurrying; she would still be thinking, trying to decide how to reach Overlord Thandor and convince him of her identity. He could reach her, if he tried. "Ji—"

"STOP!" said a voice which penetrated every inch of his body. Soran found himself frozen in place, the very air around him frozen, all sounds of the battle ceased. What was happening?

With a great flap of wings and a soft crunch of shifting stones, Chromie landed on the ramp. Soran found his invisible bonds loosed, but the world around him remained stationary. Even the arrows were frozen in midair.

"Please tell me you haven't changed anything yet," she said.

"Why?" Soran demanded. "You ... the other you said I could save her!"

The dragon's wings drooped. "That's because she didn't know how bad it was. My entire dragonflight is missing! And not only them, but the Aspects—Nozdormu, Alexstrasza, Ysera, Kalecgos—they're all dead, and I ... there's nothing I...."

She laid down on the ramp and keened, a great, groaning sound that made Soran's hair stand on end. He glanced past her at Jiari, frozen with her shredded cloak fanning out behind her, but Chromie was in his way.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but what does that have to do with me? I don't know anything about dragonflights or time whatsits—I only met you yesterday!"

The bronze dragon blinked great, sandy tears from her huge green eyes. "I don't even know where to start fixing this! You're the only one who knows anything about the other me—the one from the timeline where this didn't happen. If you change your own history, you might never meet me at all, and then I'll have nobody. In fact, if the two of you hadn't come back in time together, both of me would probably be dead. There would be no one at all who even knew something was wrong!"

For once, Soran didn't have to think hard to understand what she was talking about. He had saved Chromie, in the woods outside Farwatcher's Glen while he was still bent on murdering Krom'gar. Would he have been there at all if Jiari were still alive? It was improbable, verging on the impossible.

"The earliest change we could find involved this fortress," Soran admitted. "The name was different on a map, but you didn't know why."

"That's a place to start." Chromie looked around nervously. "This isn't the best place to talk. The longer I hold this time spell, the more likely the infinite dragonflight will notice it. They're probably already waiting for it to end."

"My wife is right there," Soran groaned, looking at Jiari's frozen form above them. "How can I leave her when I'm so close?"

Chromie laid a gentle claw on his shoulder. "You could save her, yes. But the moment you do, the infinite dragonflight will sense what you've done and come for you. They'll kill you or erase you from existence, and probably put back whatever changes you've made if they can. Even should you escape them, the moment you take that chronolocator off you'll be sent back to whenever you put it on, and the altered history you created will be the only reality anyone but you remembers."

Soran looked at the device on his wrist; he'd forgotten he was wearing it, and definitely hadn't known it was so powerful.

"Weeks or months after that, the world will end, and you'll both be dead anyway. Do you really think it would be worth it?"

"Yes," he said stubbornly, but immediately changed his mind. If Jiari were the only person in this world he cared about, it might have been true, but she wasn't—even if she was the most important one. "No. You're right; I was being selfish. I promise I won't change anything, if you'll just give me one more moment with her."

Reluctantly, Chromie let him pass. He hurried up to where Jiari stood and looked into her eyes, touched her time-stopped face with his fingertips. He wished he could soothe away the fear that made tiny creases across her brow, but that would have to remain a job for the Soran of the past. The world needed the Jiari who had written the letters in his satchel more than he needed this one.

"Goodbye, my love," he whispered, and pressed his forehead against hers one last time. "I will save you; I swear it. Even if it means I have to lose you."

Returning to Chromie felt like cutting out his heart, but what choice did he have? The world was at stake, which meant the Horde was too, and both of them had sworn an oath to defend it. Surely Jiari would make the same decision.

"All right, get ready," Chromie said.

The spell came down slowly, first the arrows moving and then the people. Time was still speeding up when Soran remembered. "Wait—my axe. It's on the Alliance side of that barricade!"

"I'll get it." She waved a claw and vanished with a ripple of light just as time finished resuming. The voice which spoke from behind the veil was her gnomish one. "Meet me behind the fortress—and watch out for infinite dragons!"

Soran remained on the ramp for several excruciating minutes, unwilling to climb to the top and watch himself arrest his wife. He waited until she was taken inside the fortress before he walked slowly back up, watching the sky so closely (he thought he did see two infinites hovering above the fortress, but they didn't seem interested in coming close with all the arrows flying about) that he almost stepped on the pile of Jiari's knives at the top. He moved them to the side so they wouldn't get kicked around, then paused. Hadn't some of these gone missing?

Quietly he snatched up the pair he didn't recognize and tucked them into his belt, then joined Chromie behind the fortress. They weren't the same as having Jiari back in his arms, but they were something tangible of hers, and for now that was all he was getting. Besides, it was better that he took them with him than for the blades to end up in Alliance hands.

Chapter Text

It was a cold and miserable trip back to Thandor Fortress. Jiari spent most of it trying to keep warm, tucking her toes into the fur of the wyvern she was slung across and wriggling her fingers to keep the blood flowing and stave off frostbite. Her shoulders ached after only an hour of having her hands bound behind her, but even when they camped in a deep cleft for the night, her captors didn't loose her. She didn't really expect them to; they both knew that all she needed to kill them both was a single hand free.

Kalibir looped the chain of her collar around the back of a tree and locked it to the cuffs on her hands, then grabbed a fistful of hair and tilted her head so she was forced to look at him.

"I always hated you, you know." His handsome elvish face twisted with contempt. "You were a grunt when you came to the fortress. A grunt, when I was a legionnaire already, and yet you become champion first. Did you think I would forget that while you ran us ragged in the woods?"

Jiari couldn't answer with her mouth gagged, but Kalibir didn't seem to want a reply. He shoved her face into the icy dirt and walked off to unsaddle his wyverns.

I trained him too well, Jiari thought, blinking away her tears before they could roll down her cheeks and freeze there. His strategy was perfect, except for the scars on Soran's back which nobody who hadn't seen him shirtless could reproduce. How many more of Krom'gar's favorites knew her every strategy, her every weakness?

It didn't matter, really; they were unlikely to get another chance to use that knowledge against her. Covas certainly wouldn't risk his neck for her a second time. Though she tried not to, she started imagining what he would do to her with the torture implements he kept up his sleeve.

Murym at least took pity and tucked Jiari's cloak around her before laying down closer to their well-concealed fire. Jiari didn't know who'd been chasing them earlier, but Kalibir was as skilled a woodsman as she'd ever met. It would be a miracle if they found her, and an even greater one if they could sneak up on him and his wyverns unaware.

The night was agony. Though the cleft sheltered them from most of the wind, it was already below freezing by the time the sun went down. It wasn't until Kalibir got tired of her chains clanking as she struggled to stay warm and ordered one of his wyverns to lay beside her that she got any sleep at all.

By the time they arrived at the fortress near mid-afternoon, the cold and the lack of food left her so stiff and drained that she wasn't sure she could have moved faster than a walk even had someone freed her. Murym carried her inside anyway, and for once Kalibir let someone else stable his wyverns so he could escort Jiari to Krom'gar himself.

Their entrance did not go unnoticed. Shouts filled the courtyard and the halls as she was carried past, and people came through every door and peered out from half the windows. Some wore hateful expressions, spitting when they saw her and shouting, "Murderer!" or worse. Others were silent, their faces full of doubt or anguish. Idrona was one of these, as well as a surprising number of those who went with Soran. Jiari supposed that—having had their misconceptions of her corrected once already—they were less likely to be duped a second time.

Jiari had no comfort for them. She could barely muster the energy to look them in the eye, but she did it so they would know she was still unbroken.

Kalibir had her carried all the way to the war room, where she was shoved to her knees in front of Krom'gar. The stone floor felt warm beneath her frostbitten toes. Shuak and Gar'losh were standing beside the map table, as was Covas. All three of them looked at her with shock.

"We found her hiding among the Alliance, my Overlord." Kalibir tightened up on her chain so he could force her to face the ground. "She ran right to her new masters—just as you predicted."

I wasn't there by choice, Jiari wanted to say, but couldn't even try with the gag in her mouth—lest she look even more undignified than she already did.

"And what of the other traitor?" said General ... no, Overlord Krom'gar. It killed her to think of him so, but that didn't make it any less true. "Have you found him yet?"

Kalibir's hesitation was plain. "No, sir. He wasn't with her."

"You're sure?" Krom'gar said, a threat in his voice.

"Yes, my Overlord. I don't believe we would have caught her if she knew where he was."

So Soran was still at large. That was some comfort.

"Let's hear it from her own lips," Krom'gar said. "She'll at least know where he was headed."

The gag came off. Jiari worked some moisture back in her mouth before speaking.

"Well?" Kalibir said, shaking her chain.

"The Burning Blade," Jiari said hoarsely. "Once they've razed Nijel's Point, they'll come for Stonetalon."

The other champions stirred. Either they hadn't heard yet, or they were as disturbed by the cultists' sudden resurgence as she was.

Krom'gar grabbed Jiari by the throat and lifted her to her feet. If not for the iron collar protecting her neck, she would have been unable to breathe. "Where is that misbegotten son of a draenei you call your mate?!"

"You promised them aid," Jiari gasped. She didn't know why she cared, except that it gave her pleasure to unveil Krom'gar's treachery in front of his champions. "Those people gave me up for that promise, and you left them to die."

"If I did, then they deserved it!" Krom'gar gripped tighter, lifting her off the ground. Jiari felt as much as heard the metal collar groan as it began to bend beneath his hand.

"That will be quite enough, Overlord Krom'gar," purred a voice which turned Jiari's blood to ice.

The fingers loosened, and she managed to turn her head just enough to see a leather-and-mail clad figure lounging in a chair at the far end of the orc-sized map table. It was a figure she'd only seen recently in her nightmares.

Sylvanas Windrunner—Banshee Queen, Lady of Lordaeron, and savior of the Forsaken—uncrossed her legs and steepled her fingers. "I did say I needed her alive, did I not?"

Jiari's breath quickened, and despite all her training she knew that fear showed on her face. Krom'gar wouldn't protect her from Sylvanas. Since she'd come here in person, it was unlikely even Overlord Thandor could have done so any longer.

"My Lady," Krom'gar said with grudging deference, "it will take time to wring a confession from this fork-tongued wretch. You must give me time to—"

"I must give you nothing, Overlord." Sylvanas stood, and that famed temper flared as she bit the air with each word. "I have waited months already for this deserter to turn herself in for dissection. I will not be denied any longer."

Krom'gar relinquished Jiari back into Kalibir's hands. He too was afraid of Sylvanas, though he hid it well—merely wiping his palms on his tabard. "I understand, my Lady. Perhaps a few hours will be enough to...."

The Banshee Queen walked around the table, seeming taller than she was due to her incredible presence. Krom'gar quit talking; the champions stepped aside.

Jiari dropped hurriedly to one knee, head bowed and heart pounding. "My Lady," she murmured.

"So you do know how to show proper deference to your betters," Sylvanas said.

Jiari's brow twitched, but she didn't take the bait. Nothing good ever came of defying the Dark Lady.

Sylvanas tipped Jiari's chin up with ice cold fingers, and pressed a sharpened metal glovetip into her unmarked cheek until it bled. Jiari managed not to flinch.

"Incredible," the Banshee Queen murmured. "If I hadn't seen you dead myself, I wouldn't believe."

"My Lady," Jiari dared, keeping her eyes lowered, "forgive me—"

"No." The word was neither loud nor sharp, but it had the finality of a headsman's axe. "I will not forgive. We will tease out every secret that impossible body holds, and when it clings to life no longer you will be dismantled for parts and continue to serve until the pieces wear out and crumble to dust. Do you understand me?"

Jiari squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head. "Yes, my Lady."

Sylvanas snapped her fingers. A pair of Deathstalkers appeared from the shadows at the back of the room and took Jiari by the arms, one of them collecting her chain from Kalibir. She got one last look at each of the other champions, meeting their horrified gazes with one of silent farewell. Even Kalibir looked sick to his stomach as he contemplated the fate which awaited her in Undercity.

The jeering resumed as Jiari was walked back outside the fortress, but the champions quickly quelled it. Silence fell as she was loaded into the same wagon which once caged her overlord—when or why someone had retrieved it, she didn't know—and her chain was locked to a newly-installed bolt on the floor. Then a Forsaken mage spun up a portal large enough for the wagon and Sylvanas' retinue to pass through, and Jiari said farewell to her home once again.

*****

Chromie teleported with Soran to the largest library he'd ever seen, even bigger than the one in her cave. This one was inside a building, or at least it seemed to be. For a moment Soran felt a vague, shifting sensation which reminded him of being on a ship, but there was no scent of salt water, and the air was as dry as that in Stonetalon.

"Where are we?" Soran said.

"The library in Dalaran—it's a floating city. I figure this is as good a place as any to do some historical research."

"What's wrong with your library? The one with all the timelocked books?"

Chromie brightened. "My own library? That's a great idea! Do you know where it is?"

"It's...."

Abruptly Soran realized he didn't even know what part of the world that was in. Chromie had teleported him in, and then back out of it again. Did it even have an entrance to the outside world?

"Sorry, I never asked. But ... wait. I do have these." He pulled Jiari's letters from his satchel, in their three bundles. "They were written by my wife, except she wasn't my wife in that other timeline. I ... sort of stole them from you."

Chromie took the bundles from him and winked. "I think I can forgive you, just this once."

They pored over the letters all that day and most of the next, with some help from a gray-haired human mage named Khadgar, who was very excited to learn that Chromie was a bronze dragon. Nowhere in any of them could they find evidence of temporal tampering before the change of overlord at Thandor Fortress.

"To think that a single person could make so much difference," Khadgar mused.

"Thrall is a single person," Chromie pointed out. Khadgar conceded with a nod.

"You haven't met Thandor." It was strange talking with a human who hadn't even blinked at finding an orc in his library, and Soran tried to maintain what courtesy he could in return. "His training methods are ... effective."

"But for his presence to cause such a catastrophic ripple...." Khadgar grimaced at the page he was reading—something in the Zandalar section. "Let's not show this one to Jaina, shall we?"

"I think Soran already figured that part out."

Soran frowned at her. "What part do you mean?"

"You said you told my alternate that you wanted to avert the deaths of the champions at Thandor Fortress, but here in this letter we can see that the battle going on right now never happened. The garrison was disbanded immediately after the bombing of Thal'darah Grove."

"Such a tragedy," Khadgar said. The news was still fresh, here and now. "Are you sure we can't undo that particular event as well?"

"No, if you'd just listen."

Khadgar put his hands up in surrender.

"Let's say," Chromie continued, "that in the other timeline Thrall chose this Krom'gar as overlord, and Thandor as his general. The soldiers there would still benefit from his training, wouldn't they?"

Soran nodded slowly. He hadn't considered that possibility.

"When Thal'darah was destroyed in our timeline, those champions remained in Stonetalon—a target the Alliance couldn't resist. But here in this alternate record, there was no one to take vengeance upon, because the fortress was already empty."

Khadgar finally caught on. "Hmm. Where did those champions go, I wonder?"

"To fight the naga coming out of Vashj'ir," Soran said, thinking aloud. "To stop whatever happened—will happen—in Tanaris or the Twilight Highlands. There are so many terrible things about to happen, places where a well-trained champion or two might have turned the tide."

Chromie nodded. "They each save one person, or three or four, and those soldiers go on to save a dozen more together, and before long maybe a thousand people are alive who might not have been. Maybe a lot more."

"Like dominoes," Khadgar suggested.

"Who?" Soran said, but the archmage shook his head ruefully and didn't explain.

"And not just Horde champions," Chromie pointed out. "How many Alliance heroes die dragging Thandor out of his fortress tomorrow?"

Soran gritted his teeth and glared at a convenient bookshelf. She was right, but it still grated to think that going forward with their plan would spare Alliance lives as well as Horde. "A lot. The army that broke themselves against our gates was two thousand strong, and only a handful survived Jiari's vengeance."

"So we stop the battle right now, send everyone away," Khadgar said.

Chromie shook her head sadly. "I wish we could, but it won't solve everything. The infinite dragonflight is still out there, capable of putting back anything we fix, and we've already lost the dragon aspects—most of whom are clearly mentioned in these letters. We have to stop whoever caused this at that very first temporal divergence, to keep them from simply starting over."

"But how? How do you determine the point of change for an event you know almost nothing about?"

"I didn't say it would be easy," Chromie said, "but it's not like there isn't a way."

Soran shared a look with Khadgar. He had the feeling the hard part was going to be his job.

"First, I'll need your chronolocator."

Soran looked at the wristband her alternate had given him. "I thought you said if I took this off, it would send me back to when I put it on."

Chromie grabbed his wrist and began fiddling with dials. "On that setting, yes. It does more than one thing. ...For example, make sure you leave this dial here alone if you don't want to merge yourself with the you in your current timeline and forget everything that happened since."

"Believe me; I'm too afraid to change anything."

She removed the bracelet with a click and Soran flinched despite himself, but he didn't find himself back in Thandor Fortress or a cave or someplace. He rubbed his wrist and watched as Chromie stuffed half of Jiari's letters carefully through the ring, and the other half through a similar bracelet she pulled from her pouch.

"I'm going to cast a tiny time spell. Hopefully there are enough mages here that it won't draw any attention."

Soran loosened his axe in its loop, but the small flash of her spell was the only consequence. That, and every page of every letter Jiari had written abruptly crumbled into fine dust.

"Oh, that's not good. That's very not good!"

"What did you do?" Soran demanded. Those letters were one of the few things he had to connect him to his wife.

"I extracted the timelock essentiae on the letters to establish a baseline for a temporal variance detection spell. This is what those same pieces of paper would look like if they'd been brought back from the future of our current timeline."

Soran touched the pile of grayish-black dust with his fingers; it was so fine that the touch sent bits of it into the air. A fire wouldn't have left this sort of residue, would it? "What does it mean?"

"That whatever my counterpart was trying to avert is very, very bad." She handed the bracelet back to him. "I really hope this worked, because we don't have any more of those."

He put it on, and for a moment noticed nothing. As he focused on Chromie, however, something very strange occurred. It was like ... like he was seeing through two sets of eyes at once. There was his normal vision, but over top of it or alongside it was an extra sense. To that sense, his chronolocator glowed with a bright golden hue, but Chromie's was faintly red, as was she. Most of the objects in the room were somewhere in between, with items they had moved since entering more likely to be red.

"What am I seeing, exactly?" His own hands were overlaid with red—a much brighter shade than Chromie. Khadgar looked on with jealous interest; the gnome-dragon had kept the spare for herself.

"That's your time variance index. The more a person's history varies from the events they would have experienced in the timeline where those letters were written, the higher their variance index. Your variance goes all the way to the siege of Thandor Fortress—the first time you were there, I mean—while ours only goes back to...." She studied the draconic symbols floating above her wristband. Soran thought they must be numbers. "...The day each of us met you, looks like."

"How will this help us?"

"Well, we simply figure out who at the fortress has the highest variance index, let the time crystal calculate the date of the change, and bang!—we go back to that moment and set things right."

"That doesn't sound too difficult," Khadgar said.

If only he'd been right.

Chapter Text

The portal through which Jiari's wagon rolled did not lead to Undercity, as she expected it to. Instead the wheels kicked up red dust as they carried her toward the high walls of Orgrimmar, the mightiest orc city in the world. The gates were closed—she'd never seen them shut before—and as many Forsaken stood upon the walls as anyone else. A horn sounded, and the gates opened only long enough to let them in.

Inside, the streets were full of refugees. The wagon made slow progress, even with Sylvanas on her skeletal horse opening a gap in the crowd before them. Goblins, trolls, orcs, Forsaken, and blood elves sat filling every open spot of ground between the high canyon walls which protected the city. Jiari was shocked to see others there as well—human and dwarf and gnome, some wearing Alliance blue, all clustered together in dirty, nervous knots.

"What happened?" she asked, turning to the Deathstalkers who walked alongside the wagon. They glanced in her direction only for an instant before deciding to ignore her. Jiari's expression darkened. "I am Forsaken. I have Deathstalker training—I deserve an answer!"

They looked at her again, a touch of embarrassment on their undead faces. One of them finally decided to respond.

"Lordaeron has fallen," she said. "The day after Stormwind did. The Dark Lady poisoned the city with blight so that our enemies could not hold it, but it will be years before we can return."

It was a shock almost as great as losing Overlord Thandor. Undercity and Stormwind—two of the greatest cities held by Horde and Alliance—gone so quickly that word of a siege hadn't even reached her before they fell!

"How?" was all she could think to say.

"The naga took Stormwind," another Deathstalker said. "The Twilight's Hammer got tired of breaking their teeth on Ironforge's gates and came against us without warning. Not even the Dark Lady could raise their dead against them fast enough to make a difference."

"Dust and ashes," Jiari breathed. It was a wonder Sylvanas bothered to come for her at all. Or maybe that was the point; she felt the loss so keenly that she needed a point of victory to balance it. "How many made it out?"

The answer was bitter and hollow. "Not enough."

The world had gone mad. Entire cities lost overnight and Alliance citizens taking refuge in Orgrimmar itself? What other calamities had Jiari missed within the shelter of the Stonetalon Mountains?

The wagon rolled through the streets and down through the Cleft of Shadow into a place she had heard of but never seen. Ragefire Chasm was a series of natural tunnels full of geothermal vents and pools of magma, which heated Orgrimmar from beneath but also were reportedly crawling with troggs. Those seemed to have been cleared out now, at least in the upper levels.

But the wagon went further, into a rough-hewn passage which ended in a great elevator going even deeper. The whole place screamed orc construction, but whatever it was meant to be originally, Sylvanas had taken possession of it now, complete with banners lining the walls.

At the bottom of the elevator, the way quickly grew too narrow for the monstrous wagon. Jiari's neck chain was locked to a manacle on the wrist of a hulking abomination named Jenny (she had never approached one of the gruesome constructs while in possession of a fully working nose before, and had to fight to keep the disgust from her face), and the Deathstalkers searched her and found every pick and wire concealed within the seams of her clothing. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned who trained her after all.

They really were taking no chances with her. The last shred of hope that she could escape and find Soran again evaporated as they led her through a heavy gate and locked it behind them.

*****

"She's here."

Ellyn Bitternight, acting head of the Royal Apothecary Society, looked up from her desk at the undead goblin poking his head through her office door. These newly-raised Forsaken had no sense of propriety or respect for rank at all. "Who is?"

"The Phoenix, ma'am," the assistant said. "The real one this time."

"She had better be," Ellyn grumbled. The last woman they brought in who claimed to be Jiari of Thandor Fortress was a fraud who didn't even speak undercommon, and who for some reason thought she could gain access to Orgrimmar's orphanage, of all places, by impersonating a Horde champion. They dissected her on principle, of course—it served her right for getting everyone's hopes up, and it was good practice for the real one.

"Sylvanas brought this one in personally. If she isn't the real deal, I sure don't recommend telling the Dark Lady she got it wrong." That was sound advice for any situation, really.

Ellyn followed the assistant to the main antechamber of the Apothecary's Hall, where two Deathstalkers and an abomination waited with a dirty, frostbitten woman in a mottled cloak. At least this one looked like she put up a fight, with bruises and dried blood marring her cheek.

"Best have a healer look at her," Ellyn said. The assistant dashed off to find one. "Are all those chains necessary?"

It was the woman who answered—in perfect undercommon, which was a good sign. "You're welcome to take them off."

She wore a small smile, and a dangerous glint entered those exhaustion-dulled eyes. Ellyn resisted the urge to take a step backward. Not many people could look eager at the prospect of fighting two elite Deathstalkers at once.

"I'll take your word for it," Ellyn said.

The woman didn't struggle, even when Ellyn had two assistants strip her naked and scrub every exposed surface clean. She did shiver profusely, and Ellyn made a mental note to have the procedure room warmed before they began operating. Being dead often made one forget about such trivialities as room temperature.

A healer came and dealt with the woman's bruises and chilblains. By then she could barely keep her eyes open, even while another assistant fitted her with a thick wool tabard which could be removed without freeing her arms. Fortunately Ellyn was prepared for such mortal frailties after the last botched attempt, and had had a cell built at the far end of the procedure room. Bedding was found, and the subject allowed to sleep while apothecaries gathered outside Ellyn's office, clamoring for an update.

"Remember—patience, discipline," she told them. "Living bodies are fragile; if we break this one before we find its secrets, we may never get a second chance." Still, she was champing at the bit herself by the time the subject was rested and fed and ready for her interrogation.

The woman balked for the first time when she was dragged from her cage and strapped to the procedure table, though she groaned with relief when her hands were unbound from behind her back and fastened at her sides.

"Interesting response," Ellyn muttered, jotting her thoughts in her notebook. "You must tell me everything—the exact circumstances of your transformation, the duration of your undeath prior—even insignificant details could be important."

"Can't we get this over with?" the subject said. Her accent was a mix of Gilneas and north central Lordaeron, with a surprisingly strong orcish influence. Perhaps she was the real Phoenix after all. "Cut me open and have your look, so I can die already."

"Oh, my dear." Ellyn stroked the subject's hair like she might a favorite pet. "That's not how this works at all.

"Assuming the cause of your condition isn't readily apparent, we will have to study each of your body's systems independently before we attempt to duplicate the results. I will have a priest ready at every hour of every day, in case we need to revive you.

"Such drastic measures may interfere with the results, however, so I hope you'll oblige us by doing your best to stay alive until we've completed our research. I don't suppose you have some motivation to do so—aside from scientific curiosity, of course? A reason not to succumb to death a second time?"

Tears ran down the woman's face, though there was no other change to her visage, and she declined to answer the question. Lacrimal apparatus appears slightly overactive, Ellyn wrote in her notes.

"How long will it take?"

"Oh, weeks certainly—which is why I was hoping to get your full statement as soon as possible, before the surgeons begin knocking down my door. Shall we begin?"

*****

Soran prowled the corridors of Thandor Fortress, dressed in a legionnaire's uniform once again. It was weeks after Jiari brought Krom'gar and Overlord Thandor back, and still Soran hadn't been able to catch a proper glimpse of either. It didn't help that the Soran from this time spent most of his days in company with one or both of them, working his way through legionnaire training. Whenever he got close to his younger self or anyone who knew where he was supposed to be, Chromie's temporawhatsit would chime to warn him that he was in danger of altering his own timeline.

The dragon was doing her own reconnaissance both here and elsewhere in Stonetalon, but it was more difficult for her. Illusions were imperfect, and while Chromie claimed some dragons were adept with more than one guise, it was not a thing she had ever bothered working on. Any loss of concentration would cause her form to revert back to its gnome shape; she'd been noticed by the sentries more than once and forced to teleport to safety without the information they needed. She much preferred to scout the Alliance outposts in the region and leave places like Thandor Fortress to Soran.

Right now he was working off a tip solicited from a bone-weary Legionnaire Kalibir that the overlord liked to spend the evenings in the library when his other duties allowed. He'd been a no-show the last three nights, but this time when Soran turned the corner he saw the door ajar and light spilling out. He might even be able to get a look without being spotted.

Unfortunately, he and Thandor weren't the only ones up late.

"Where are you going, soldier?" barked a voice which made Soran clench his axe handle in fury. He took a deep breath and forced himself to release the weapon before turning around.

The red aura—the temporal variance or whatever—around Krom'gar was brighter than anyone else Soran had scanned so far, but not by as large a margin as he expected. Other than that, he was the Krom'gar Soran remembered, scowling his customary scowl. In his experience, the general only smiled when he wanted something from you.

"Nowhere, sir," Soran said, resisting the impulse to cleave the general in two. "I'm simply walking."

Krom'gar's eyes narrowed. "I would think after I ran you ragged all day that you'd be dead to the world by now."

"I was asleep, General." Technically Soran was sleeping right now; he'd checked. "I woke up and needed to stretch my legs."

"Leave the boy alone, Krom'gar," came the overlord's voice from behind him. "He's allowed to walk."

Soran turned once again and nearly gasped in shock. Thandor's variance aura wasn't just red—it was as starkly crimson as a Horde banner. Not even Krom'gar's was half so bright.

"As you say, sir," Krom'gar grumbled. "Goodnight."

He brushed past Soran and vanished around a corner. Soran was about to excuse himself and go report to Chromie when Overlord Thandor addressed him.

"Come on in then," he said.

"Sir?"

"I can see when an orc has something on his mind. You came to see me?"

Soran half expected his wristband to warn him that he was about to cross the line, but it showed him nothing. Chromie had explained; so long as someone didn't timewalk with the intent to change something, the past and future were fairly forgiving of casual visitors. You might cause any number of awkward conversations for your other self, but unless you strayed where you knew you didn't belong, you would find that most of what you did was part of history before you started. It had been so when Soran met Jiari at the bulwark; she'd cited that exact conversation to him while she was chained behind the fortress.

"Yes, my Overlord," Soran admitted, allowing Thandor to wave him inside.

The library was humble compared to the ones Chromie frequented, but there wasn't a useless tome in the lot. Treatises on tactics, historical conflicts, and several dozen languages filled the cramped shelves. There were even a pair of books written by Thandor himself.

"What's on your mind?" Overlord Thandor said, seating himself in the room's most comfortable chair. There were others, but Soran elected to stand.

"I was wondering how you came to be the overlord of this fortress, sir. Was it some great deed which made the warchief choose you over everyone else, or simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time?"

Thandor raised an eyebrow at him. "Getting ambitious, are we?"

"Sir ... let's just say I've been giving a lot of thought to the future."

The wise old orc nodded thoughtfully. "I cannot fault you for that.

"The answer to your question is that there would be no fortress without me. I convinced Warchief Thrall that we needed a stronger presence in Stonetalon. 'Give me a pair of masons and some of your greenest troops,' I said, 'and I'll show you what I can do with them.' He didn't have to listen—I was nobody to him, just a tag end from Doomhammer's scattered army—but he took a chance on me."

Soran felt his admiration for the overlord grow. Few would dare to make such an audacious request of a warchief.

"When I said 'green,' he took me to heart," the overlord chuckled. "Every one of the hundred he sent was fresh off the farm, thin as a post, and completely undisciplined—all except Krom'gar and Grebo, who I think he gave me because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. Everything else you see here, I built from scratch."

"Thank you, sir," Soran said, impressed. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"Is that all you wanted?" Thandor seemed amused. "Not going to try to wrangle more time with a certain someone? It is traditional for a champion to teach most of the legionnaire courses."

Soran stiffened in surprise. How had Thandor already known of his feelings for Jiari? He'd only just discovered them himself, by this point in history! "N-no, sir. That would be ... incredibly distracting."

"You're more career-minded than I gave you credit for, young Soran. I like that. That sort of dedication is what it takes to become a champion of Thandor Fortress."

Despite himself, he stood up straighter. Thandor wasn't precisely sparing with compliments, but he didn't toss them out casually either. Like an archer with a finite number of arrows in his quiver, he always made them count. Even though Soran already proved himself a champion in this Thandor's future, the praise made him swell with pride.

Chapter Text

Soran obtained the overlord's dismissal and hurried outside, but fate wasn't done tossing emotional curveballs at him yet. He hadn't gone halfway up the path when he heard someone call his name.

He turned, and found Jiari striding up the path, neck craned to see him better. "It is you. I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"I was," Soran said, drinking in the sight of her. This was the first time since the ramp that he'd been within a hundred yards of his wife, at least while she was awake. It killed him to think that less than two months from now all he would have left of her was an unmarked grave not far from this spot. "I woke up and felt like walking. Er, Champion."

She unbuckled her helmet; she must have just gotten in from training the senior legionnaires, because her hair was all mussed and sweaty. It was strange to see her without that tattoo on her cheek. "If I ordered you to call me by my name when we're alone, would it make a difference?"

Soran couldn't keep the grin from his face. His heart beat faster as he looked into her eyes. "That would be wildly inappropriate, ma'am. At least as inappropriate as me asking you to join me on my walk."

Now would be the perfect time for Chromie's device to spoil his moment, but again it remained silent. He wasn't really going to get away with spending an evening with Jiari, was he?

"No one can fault us if we just happen to be walking in the same direction," she mused. "Especially if they don't see—"

The sound of footsteps coming up the path curbed that thought. They glanced down to see Champions—no, Senior Legionnaires Gar'losh and Shuak trudging wearily up toward them. Jiari gave him an apologetic frown and then blanked her expression.

"How is training, Legionnaire?" she said a little louder than necessary.

"Enlightening, ma'am." Soran tried to remember exactly what Krom'gar had them doing that day, but failed. "I had no idea there was this much to learn about warfare beyond where to swing your axe."

Jiari nodded. "I remember thinking the exact same thing when I first got here."

Behind her, Shuak and Gar'losh slowed their steps—either reluctant to interrupt, or trying to eavesdrop.

Jiari addressed them without turning, making both jump. "If you're heading up for a bath, I suggest you make it quick. I expect to see you five minutes after the cock crows and not a moment later."

The pair saluted briefly and continued walking. Soran entertained the brief hope that he and Jiari could continue where they'd left off once the others passed, but it was not to be.

"I should take my own advice. Enjoy your walk, Legionnaire Soran."

He tried to keep the longing from his voice, but was pretty sure he failed. "I will try, Champion."

"I've never seen anyone so moon-eyed over a woman," said Shuak the instant Jiari was out of earshot. This time Soran was the one who jumped; he didn't realize she and Gar'losh had stopped walking again. "Why don't you just ask her on a hunt—or whatever it is humans do instead?"

"She's still mourning her first husband," Soran pointed out.

Shuak made a face. "That rotting sack of murloc entrails? Why would she bother?"

"Don't encourage him," Gar'losh chided. "You know it's against regulations."

"You cannot regulate affairs of the heart. Soran, you will let old Shuak know if you need any love potions, yes?"

Gar'losh shook his head and walked on toward the creek, washing his hands of the whole conversation.

Soran coughed. "That won't be necessary, ma'am. If you have any tips on how to make champion before she's promoted again, however...."

"Perhaps once I discover that myself," she said wistfully.

At last Soran escaped and made his way back to the rendezvous point. Chromie was already waiting there; she'd spent the day hopping around Ashenvale, on the off chance that whoever they needed was elsewhere at the moment.

"Any luck?" she said.

Soran described what he'd seen, as well as what Thandor told him about the fortress. "It isn't a matter of Krom'gar being chosen instead. Thandor was the original overlord. Something must have happened to him before the maps in that library were drawn."

"I wish I knew how old they were," Chromie said. "Did you catch the timestamp of his deviation?"

He peered at the golden characters hovering—to their eyes only, he'd learned—above his chronolocator. "This? Sorry, I don't read ... whatever this is."

"Of course you don't," she sighed. "Here, let me see."

Chromie fiddled with his wristband for a long while, frowning and making unhappy noises, and finally threw her hands up in frustration. "This can't be right. It's like it can't make up its mind how long ago the change happened. I'm going to have to get a second reading."

Soran sighed. It was never that easy, was it?

*****

It was several more days before they managed to get another good look at Overlord Thandor, but they finally managed it by teleporting into an empty room overlooking the parade ground (there weren't many, or Soran would have found one sooner) and waiting patiently for him to walk past. This endeavor granted the same results, however.

"It doesn't make sense!" Chromie said. "Unless...."

"Unless ... what?"

"Ohhhh, that's frustratingly clever," she groaned. "They've diluted the timestamp by introducing several insignificant changes in addition to the big one. I can't get an exact fix."

Soran's heart sank. "So now what? I can't exactly walk up to him and ask what day he didn't decide to leave the fortress."

"What day he didn't die, you mean. This variance aura ... his life didn't just change when whatever didn't happen didn't happen; for this level of variance, nothing he did between now and that day could have been the same. Breathing, sleeping, eating—whatever event our temporal saboteur diverted, it must have ended in his death."

Thandor's voice drifted in from the parade ground, firm and strangely comforting. Soran hadn't thought he was that attached to the old orc, but being able to speak with him again however briefly after so many painful weeks alone made him realize how much he missed the overlord's wisdom. The thought of not only losing that wisdom forever, but of erasing it from history completely, was too much.

Soran's hands clenched into fists. "I'm sorry, I'm done. Losing my wife was hard enough; I can't help you kill someone who means so much to so many people. Take me back to my own time and let me have my vengeance upon Krom'gar."

Chromie laid her tiny gnomish hand on his and looked up at him sadly. "He dies a few weeks from now anyway, doesn't he? That's what you told me."

"I won't do it," Soran asserted. "Please—take me home? I won't even make you pay me for all the extra days."

She nodded solemnly and teleported them to the ridge behind the fortress where Soran had left his armor. He strapped it on and reverently folded the tabard he no longer had the heart to wear, leaving it and the legionnaire's insignia on the ridge. Then he pulled his axe from its sheath, to deal with the infinite dragons who would inevitably appear when they jumped forward in time.

"I'm ready."

Chromie tweaked their wristbands, and then Soran was enveloped by that unsettling sensation of falling through sand. This time however, the sand didn't vanish at the end of the jump. It swirled about him, more like thick dust, miring his feet and blowing into his eyes.

"What happened?" he bellowed over the thunderous noise of a dust storm, and regretted it as he breathed in a goodly amount of the stuff. Hurriedly he covered his face with a bandanna.

"Hang on!" Chromie said, and teleported him again.

In a blink, they were safe inside a darkened shelter. The storm still roared on the other side of what felt like stone walls, but here the wind hardly reached them.

"Where are we?" Soran coughed.

Chromie conjured a mage light and let him see. His eyes told him that he was in the mess hall in Thandor Fortress, but there were no tables or chairs, no fire in the hearth, and definitely no people. It even smelled empty, with nothing present but a thick layer of that grayish-black dust on the floor and here and there some rusty nails or a discarded, haftless axe blade.

"I thought you might want to see what the end of the world looked like before you decided to go live through it."

Her face looked haggard in the magelight as she led him to a window. Outside, the storm raged across an empty, treeless valley where lake and stream and road were now one wide, flat plain of featureless dust. A chill ran up Soran's back.

"As apocalypses go it isn't quite the worst. Eventually life will return—maybe as soon as a thousand years, if the Forge of Origination is working properly. It won't look much like what lived on Azeroth before, but eventually the creatures which evolve here will learn to walk and talk and build fortresses like this one. They might even find it, if any of its stones still stand by then."

"How far into the future is this?" Soran said.

"Not far—only a year after the last date mentioned in the alternate Jiari's letters. I probably could have jumped us earlier, but I wanted to be sure the infinites wouldn't spot us if I missed."

Her tactic was cruel, but effective. If nine years could turn the place he knew into this hopeless wilderness, then whatever had happened must be catastrophic indeed. Every person Soran knew would be dead before their time, and all for the price of one valiant orc's life.

"It isn't fair," Soran said. "We shouldn't have to make this choice."

"No one should. Knowledge of the future is a heavy weight to bear—which is why the bronze dragonflight stays out of mortal business whenever possible." Then she wilted. "Stayed out, I mean."

Soran shut his eyes and mustered his resolve once again. She'd already lost far more than he had; at least there were still plenty of orcs around when she'd met him. He had no right to air his trivial grievances in front of her.

"If we do this," he said, "if we go back in time and make sure Thandor dies ... I don't want to remember. You can do that, right? You said it was one of these dials."

"This one, but don't set it now or you'll end up as a pile of dust." She fell silent for a long moment, then added, "Thanks for not leaving me to save the world on my own."

"I can't do this alone anymore," Jiari said.

Soran held out a fist. "Feel free to drag me back here if I try to quit again."

"Deal." She returned the fist bump, some of her good humor returning.

"So what is the plan? Wander around the Thandor Fortress of the past some more?"

"We'll have to scan someone else," Chromie said. "If I can find the infinite dragon who made all or even some of these micro-changes, I can cross-reference the data set and narrow down the moment of the big one. We just have to lure them out somehow."

"So we time jump, then. Draw them into attacking."

Chromie shook her head. "I don't know how many infinite dragons there are in this timeline, but I doubt the mastermind is doing their own policing. We need to figure out where they're hiding, or do something so big they can't possibly ignore it."

"And also survive," Soran reminded her.

"Right."

Soran pulled out his waterskin and took a swig, then paused. Was there anywhere to refill it once it was empty? The cistern might still be full, he supposed, but if everything that once lived was now turned to dust, he certainly wouldn't be doing any foraging. They needed to figure out their plan and get back to the present in a hurry.

"So what do infinite dragons do when they're not terrorizing unwary timewalkers? Do they have any hobbies?"

"I'm not really sure. They're the antithesis of the bronze dragonflight, so I guess destroying what we collect, corrupting what we've tried to preserve—that sort of thing. They already trashed Nozdormu's library."

"What's their endgame? Why set in motion events that will bring about the end of the world? They can't possibly not realize that's what they've done."

"That is their endgame. Like the Twilight's Hammer, they want to end the world, or free the Old Gods, or maybe both."

Soran frowned. "Is there no specific place, no event that's part of the world ending which they might be watching specifically? Some final turning point we could reverse and delay their victory by a few hours or days? Surely that would bring out the big guns."

"There is something," Chromie realized. "One moment which they've been trying to bring about above all others, but at which they've always failed."

"Which moment?" Soran said.

"The death of Thrall."

Chapter Text

"So where does it happen?" Soran said. "And when?"

"I'm not sure. We know from Jiari's letters that Thrall faced the Twilight's Hammer on Mount Hyjal not long after Thal'darah, but that was in a completely different timeline. He could be anywhere in this one."

"It's a place to start, isn't it? At least we could take a look."

Chromie took them there without timewalking first, and Soran found himself in an even more alien environment than he'd seen at the fortress. The stone of the massive peak was swept bare, wind that remained constant having borne away even the dust which filled every valley at lower altitudes. Chromie had to buffer them against that wind with a time spell which slowed it while it whipped past them, because it was so fierce that even though it was empty of debris, they had trouble seeing in it.

Parts of the stone were jagged, as if rain and wind had never touched it before everything turned to dust. Others were smooth like glass, some of it broken up in chunks where Chromie said whatever was underneath must have blown away and let it fall. Soran recognized the blackened and partially-fused sections from his time in the Charred Vale; there had been fire hot enough to melt stone here.

The weapons were Soran's first real clue. "Look—there was a small army stationed here when it happened. Mostly night elf archers judging by the arrowheads and belt buckles."

"There were plenty of Sentinels posted at Nordrassil, to protect it. Probably druids with them, but since they don't carry a lot of metal they'd leave fewer traces."

"Thrall would leave plenty though, wouldn't he?"

Chromie's eyes widened as far as they would go. "Of course! If he brought the Doomhammer with him, then we'll know he was here!"

She shifted into dragon form and they scoured the valley, but found nothing. Then she circled higher, and the glint of metal from the next valley down caught their eye.

"What is that?" Soran said. "Are those goblin shredders?"

"They're probably from the Third War. Both the Alliance and the Horde had camps up here; it wouldn't be surprising if some broken equipment was left behind. There's probably a graveyard as well."

They landed amid jagged clefts which had been partially filled up with scree. Soran picked his way through, finding weapons of Horde and Alliance make, as Chromie had said. Plenty of belt buckles and the like littered the landscape, and he thought it strange that so many fallen soldiers had been buried with their weapons. Then he saw the insignia.

"Chromie!" he called in alarm, snatching up first one brass pin, then another, then half a dozen more. "These aren't from the Third War. They're from Thandor Fortress!"

"Why would they be here?" she wondered.

"I don't know. Maybe Krom'gar decided to expand his territory—or Hellscream did. Plenty of Alliance weapons too, so it was a fairly large battle."

They scoured the area to no avail, and moved on. Finally, among what looked to have been a circle of standing stones, they found the hammer.

Only the steel was left, of course—a rectangular block of metal with a wolf's head engraved upon the side. It still glowed with a faint magic, as it had the one time Soran saw it before, right after his ship landed on the shores of Durotar. Near it was a strange spear, etched and broken in two, plus abandoned armor of both Horde and Alliance make.

"This has to be the spot," Soran said. It should have bothered him more to know that the Horde's greatest warchief would fall here, but after seeing Thandor Fortress empty like that, he'd grown somewhat numb to the whole business. "Can you figure out how long ago...."

Chromie studied her chronolocator. "It's hard to tell exactly with this wind moving things, but ... I don't think this has budged in almost as many months as we jumped forward. The end of the world is much earlier than we thought!"

*****

Jiari worked at the long iron chain which bound her neck to the floor of her cell, using leverage and the bolt itself to pry at a weak weld in one of the links. She worked quietly, hiding what she was doing from the pair of Deathstalkers who stood by the procedure room's outer door. Eventually either that link or the bolt itself would go, and she could make her escape.

She'd been here something like two weeks now. It was impossible to tell for sure, this deep in the bowels of the Underhold, but if her meals were delivered at anything close to a consistent schedule, then it was at least twelve days and not more than fifteen. At least her arms were bound in front of her now, to make tasks like eating and using the steel chamberpot in the corner easier. (She'd broken the ceramic one they gave her on the very first day, though they managed to find all the shards of it before she could do anything useful with them.)

If only she could get her hands on a scalpel. Somehow in all the times they'd opened her up, the surgeons had missed the slender horn case which held a set of emergency lockpicks alongside her clavicle. She could feel it there, and had researched where to cut to extract it safely, but the only utensil she was ever granted was a dull wooden spoon. They watched her every moment she had that now, ever since the day she split one lengthwise and tried to use it as a lockpick.

So far, she had undergone more than three dozen surgeries. Bitternight took tissue samples every day, sometimes while she was out cold on the table and sometimes not. Fine scars left over despite magical healing criss-crossed her body, running down her arms and legs, and across her belly and chest. Her face was not exempt; though she had no mirror to see the scars, she knew she had more now than when they'd started, and they'd taken one of her eyes and replaced it with someone else's, "to see whether the essentia is self-replicating," whatever that meant. She wondered what else they'd taken, and from whom they'd gathered the replacement parts. She wondered whether they replaced everything they took.

Whatever they were doing while they had her open left deeper scars in addition to the ones she could see. A dull kind of fire inside her built day by day, never quite fading before they dragged her out of the cell again for more. Sometimes the burning sensation made her want to claw her own skin off, but they kept her fingernails cut short so she couldn't harm herself with them. They did other things as well; she was usually fed a sleeping draught before they opened her up, but some of the magics they worked while she was awake left her screaming before they were half finished. Afterward Bitternight would hold her and stroke her hair, whispering things like, "There, there, my little Phoenix," or "That wasn't so bad, was it?" while Jiari trembled and wept. If she'd had any strength left in her muscles after those episodes, Jiari would have broken the woman's neck long ago.

When the pain grew greatest, she would draw the shadow dance around herself and drift—for a few moments anyway—in a sea of darkness where pain was dulled by the icy cold of the Shadow. It would have been so easy to let go and allow the darkness to take her, but Bitternight had encouraged her to find a reason to keep living through the torture they were putting her through, and she had. In those moments, when she felt her link with the world of the living start to ebb, she would claw her way back with thoughts of the vengeance she had yet to inflict upon her enemies.

First (as a matter of course), she would murder the acting head of the Royal Apothecary Society and every other researcher who stood in her way. After that she would go after Krom'gar. He would never see her coming; she knew a dozen ways into the fortress without even using her shadowstep, and she might even make an exception to her rule about granting only swift deaths. One thing was for sure; fast or slow, Krom'gar would know it was Jiari who killed him. There were others who would face her wrath eventually as well for the part they played in her capture—people like Kalibir, and Meleen—but Krom'gar would be the first.

Despite her resolve, each time Jiari used the shadow dance to hide from the pain, she felt a part of herself erode away. She almost welcomed the jagged scars it left on her soul; she would have no need for mercy, joy, or even hope in the days to come. Sometimes she even thought she heard something whisper to her from that darkness. Recently, the whispers had been growing louder.

Without warning, the link gave. Jiari was so startled that she laid there staring at the broken weld for a moment, wondering what to do next. The gap wasn't yet wide enough to slip the next link out through it, but she thought one good wrench should do it. Should she leave it like that until she managed to do the same to the chain binding her hands? The logical part of her brain said to have patience, but the maddening pain beneath her skin screamed that if someone saw the first break before she was ready, she wouldn't get a chance to use it.

A key rattled in the lock, and Jiari's heart began racing as it always did when someone came in—even if they were only here to empty the chamberpot. The one who entered was neither surgeon nor chambermaid, but the skinny undead goblin who brought her meals. (Twice she had tried refusing to eat, but the indignity of being force-fed wasn't worth the minor inconvenience it caused her captors.)

It was time to go. Jiari rose to her knees and braced the weak link on the bolt, waiting for the right moment. The clangor of the cage being unlocked masked the sound as she jerked the chain to twist the link open, and as soon as the door opened Jiari shadowstepped through it.

Her bare foot met the throat of the Deathstalker she judged to be the more dangerous of the pair, and Jiari heard a loud crack as his neck snapped. A split-second later she had drawn one of his knives and thrust it into the chest of the other one. He managed to get his arm up to block it from striking his heart, but she wasn't stupid enough to stop after a single hit. With the full force of a champion's strength she slammed her manacles against his skull so hard that it caved in, and he crumpled to the floor.

The first Deathstalker stumbled toward her—alive but disoriented from having his neck bent in the middle—but Jiari had one more loose end to tie up before she could see to him. The goblin who had brought her food was just opening his mouth to shout when she shadowstepped again and dropped him from behind with a spine-severing strike. Almost she regretted having to kill anyone other than Bitternight, but the fire beneath her skin eroded what empathy she once held for anyone who helped keep her in this torture pit, and it was virtually impossible to merely incapacitate a Forsaken without magic.

Now she could turn her attention to the survivor. She wasn't sure why he didn't call for help; perhaps he thought he could take her himself, or more likely she'd crushed his larynx. Either way suited her just fine.

Jiari found herself grinning as she parried the Deathstalker's whip-quick slash and returned a strike which tore his cloak. Whichever of them cut the other first would no doubt win; the poison on her stolen blade smelled like a strong paralytic.

They exchanged a few more such blows, and it became clear that despite his current impairment, her opponent was more experienced than she at knife work. If Jiari had spent her entire undeath training under Trias or Belmont she might have been able to best him without her armor, but the Deathstalkers didn't impart their every secret to a recruit fresh out of the grave, no matter how much potential anyone saw in them. It was time to use what Thandor had taught her instead.

Jiari vanished. There was always a risk to doing so in the middle of a fight, as most skirmishes didn't last long enough to muster a second one and if things went badly you'd blown your escape plan, but she needed a moment to catch her breath. It had the added benefit of convincing her opponent she was inept enough for him to spend the next few seconds wrenching his neck back into place instead of signaling the guards outside.

By then Jiari was ready for him. As soon as he moved toward the door she went for a shadowstrike which he barely turned aside, and then it was a frantic exchange of blades until finally she maneuvered him into place.

One of the first things she'd learned as an apothecary's errand girl (a mandatory part of her poisons training) was what in the lab she should absolutely not touch. While she caught her breath, she'd also glanced over and confirmed that everything was still where she'd seen it when she was last on the table. Now, with a flick of her wrist, she threw a knife and shattered one of those forbidden containers onto her opponent.

The effect was immediate. Fabric and hide armor dissolved with a gentle hissing sound, and the Deathstalker almost managed to scream as the caustic liquid ate into his withered flesh. She looked away, hoping for his sake that his end came quickly, and stepped well clear of the glass-filled puddle on her way to retrieve the other Deathstalker's lockpicks. A few minutes later she was freed from her chains and dressed in his uniform and armor, and ready to face whatever lay on the other side of that door.

Chapter Text

"Ready?" Chromie said.

"No—but I'm not getting any readier." Soran climbed onto the dragon's back, gripping the chain she'd wrapped around her chest for him to hold on with. It was tempting to take the Doomhammer with him, but it wouldn't swing the same as his axe, and finding a suitable haft was a hassle he didn't want to bother with. He left it there.

They'd decided there was no alternative but to simply jump backwards in time and see what they could discover. Chromie thought she'd pinpointed they day they needed, and at least was certain she wouldn't dump them right on top of the apocalypse. They did need to be airborne, though. There was no telling how deep the layer of earth on top of this stone had once been.

She launched into the air, and a few moments later they teleported into a conflagration. Soran's armor and Chromie's scales sheltered them from the worst of it, but he could see nothing whatsoever through the smoke and the flames until she beat her wings to take them above it.

Even at a height, it was impossible to tell they were on the same mountain. Lava seemed to flow uphill to fill the valley they'd found the hammer in, and above them stretched a massive, burning tree which could have held half of Orgrimmar in its branches. The inferno below them was a hundred times worse than at Farwatcher's Glen, with pools of magma and forests which had already been burned to charred pillars but through which even hotter fires now raged. It was all Chromie could do to keep them in a pocket of breathable air as they climbed ever higher.

"Where is he?" Soran coughed.

"Down there—look!"

She circled back, but the object of their search was plain. Flame roiled around a small open space, and elementals like the ones Soran fought near Farwatcher's Glen but a hundred times taller were focused on something in their center. Each time one would close in, it would get flung back to the edge of the ring or disintegrate entirely. Smoke and steam filled the air so thickly he couldn't see who was fighting them.

"How do we get through that?" Soran said. "Even if we teleport close, we could get blasted apart before they realize we're friendly!"

"Hold on tight," Chromie said.

He had no choice but to comply, though he wished she would at least give him a chance to wrap a bandanna around his face to filter some of the smoke. She dove toward the clear patch, dodging arms of flame which batted at them as they came within reach. Soran thought they were about to make it through when the infinite dragonflight appeared in force.

"Watch out!" Soran tugged at her shoulder scales like he might have the fur of a wyvern he was trying to redirect without reins, but she'd already seen them. Streams of hot sand spewed from the mouths of a hundred whelplings and more than a dozen full-grown drakes.

Chromie didn't think twice before teleporting them out of there, but even then they were followed. She had to jump them back into the future, then into the far distant past before she lost them. They landed in the middle of a grassy plain which reminded him of Hammerfall, where he grew up. At least there should be decent hunting.

"Just let me rest a minute," Chromie panted.

Soran slid off her back. "We're not trying that again. It's suicide!"

"There has to be a way," she said. "We're running out of alternatives."

He wiped the ash from his armor and gave it some hard thought. There hadn't been nearly so many dragons when he met Chromie in Stonetalon however many weeks ago (or centuries from now) that was. The heavy resistance above Mount Hyjal told Soran they were on the right track, but even if they tried jumping to another physical location on that exact day, they would likely find the same group of infinites waiting for them. They needed to be less obvious about their approach.

"We'll have to get there the old fashioned way," Soran realized.

Chromie eyed him askance. "Which way is that?"

He smiled, showing all his teeth. "One day at a time."

"Oh. Right." Her grin had more than a little grimace in it. "Even if we do though, things looked pretty desperate back there. How are the two of us supposed to make a difference against so many fire elementals?"

Soran turned one of the insignia he'd found over in his fingers. It was a general's badge; he wasn't sure who it might have belonged to. "I don't know a single person who could make a difference against that kind of army. I do, however, know an army that can." He left the badge there in the grass. It was time to go speak to some of his new friends.

*****

Jiari listened at the door, heart pounding. Her stolen clothing was loose in all the wrong places, but the Deathstalker's armor was adjustable enough to keep her vitals covered, and that was all that really mattered. Most importantly she had proper weapons, not quite champion-grade perhaps but not the cheap stuff the grunts used either.

There was no sound of commotion from the other side; the door was thick enough to muffle her screams during experiments, and her quiet scuffle with the guards might easily have gone unnoticed. She imitated the twice-dead goblin's knock, then melded into the shadows.

The lock rattled and a moment later the door opened, revealing another Deathstalker guard. Jiari entered the shadow dance and shadowstepped past him to thrust her dagger through the back of his partner's skull and leather helmet alike, which noise regrettably alerted the first one to her presence. Her next shadowstrike, meant for his heart, missed him completely as he vanished.

Jiari's first victim did not die immediately, but judging by the jerky movements she made after she collapsed, she wouldn't be getting up without healing. The antechamber's only other occupant was Jenny, the same abomination which accompanied her down originally, and Jiari threw a handful of something she'd snitched from an apothecary's jar into its eyes. It gave a great, foul-smelling belch and swung a club wildly in her general direction, but even a child could have dodged it.

The last Deathstalker would be far more difficult to avoid, once he struck. Jiari kept her back to the wall as best she could, listening for the slightest whisper of fabric or creak of leather armor. She herself knew how silent the undead could be, without breath or even heartbeats to betray their location.

In the end it wasn't a noise that gave him away, but the feeling of shadows coalescing as he prepared to strike. Jiari spun, deflecting his blade just in time, then made a calculated slash of her own, which he parried with his off-hand blade.

They leaped apart, dodging Jenny's club as it came crashing down between them. Jiari shadowstepped and found her strike parried as skillfully as she'd done herself. Worse, his counter scored her stolen armor mere inches from her chin. He was faster than she was, if not as skilled with his blade as the one she'd doused with acid.

She tried the trick which took down Fallowmere, changing to a strike from above at the last moment, but he sensed her duplicity somehow and shadowstepped out of the way. Was she telegraphing, looking where she intended to strike or shifting subtly and giving herself away? She had to be. How else could he seem to move out of the way faster each time she struck?

No, she was forgetting something. He was undead, but she was not—she tired much more quickly now, and had been confined to a cage for weeks besides. She needed to end this fight before he either wore her down, or Jenny managed to regain its vision so they could work together.

Jiari stumbled, letting the enemy scratch deep gouges in her chest armor before she countered. She had to make him think she was more exhausted than she was. It worked; he stopped coming at her with blades and began aiming swift kicks and elbow strikes at her vitals—less lethal blows lest he damage Bitternight's priceless test subject. She took them, absorbing the force with her arms as best she could, until finally she saw her opening.

She drew the shadows about her with all the speed a champion's will would grant her, and shadowstepped an instant after her opponent leaped. He was still in the air, unable to change direction, when her blade plunged through his armor to sever his spine at the waist.

He collapsed face first onto the floor, and Jiari was on him a split-second later, plunging blades through the armor on his hands and straight into the stone. She shoved his head down and snatched up his own knives, pressing one of them against his skull.

"Where's Bitternight?" she growled, dodging yet another swing of Jenny's club by simply ducking a few inches lower.

The Deathstalker gave a wheezing laugh. "You've already lost—you just don't know it yet."

"Fine—I'll find her myself." Jiari took the ring of keys from his belt and headed for the nearest of the room's other doors, but as she stood her knee buckled and she nearly lost her balance. The room spun, and it was all she could do to make it to the door and start trying keys in the lock.

What was happening? She was certain nobody so much as scratched her with any sort of poison, but by the time she found a key which fit the lock, her muscles were too weak to turn it. She fell to one knee just as the door opposite burst open and guards poured through it.

The gas! Whatever Jenny—it had stopped swinging now—belched into the air wasn't a random outgassing from the decay of its internal organs. It was a sedative of some kind, meant to be inhaled and therefore effective only on the living. That was why she'd felt her strength waning faster than she expected, and why her opponent was so certain of victory.

"Catch her!" someone shouted. "Take her weapons!"

She fought the hands which shoved her against the ground and stripped off her stolen armor, but the Deathstalker was right. She'd already breathed in far too much of the disabling gas; in a moment it was all she could do to remain conscious.

No! I was almost free!

Vaguely she was aware of Bitternight coming out through the door she'd almost gotten open, and after an indistinct conversation the woman said something which sounded like, "Yes, that would be for the best."

Jiari's leg was propped against something solid, and she had only an instant to take in the fact that Jenny was swinging its club at her before the impact cracked her femur solidly in two.

She screamed in agony, her head suddenly far too clear. By then, no amount of struggling could keep the multitude of hands from shoving her back into the cage and locking her neck directly to the bolt on the floor.

*****

Soran and Chromie sat panting in the dirt, scorched and bleeding and surrounded by the bodies of a dozen infinite whelplings and almost as many bipedal drakonids. They had jumped forward in time to what Chromie thought was several days after Soran left his own timeline (she wanted to make it later, but he pointed out that the army he had in mind would still need travel time), and found an overly warm reception. The fight was over now, however, and they had won.

"Where to now?" Chromie said as they bandaged themselves up.

"Farwatcher's Glen is back that way, but by now the Horde will know I was there. Most of the Alliance fire brigade went south anyway, to someplace called Nijel's Point. I was thinking we should start there."

Chromie didn't know exactly where it was, so they spent an hour or so in the air searching before they spotted the demon army encamped against the Point.

They wheeled closer. Soran set his jaw grimly; the situation was much worse than he expected. Demons and Burning Blade covered the dunes and pushed their way up the narrow path to the outpost. Bolts of felfire shot toward the buildings above and were deflected by priest spells and the like, but it was clear that the defenders were exhausted. He was going to have to help them before they could help anyone but themselves.

"Let's take some pressure off," Soran said. "You game?"

"Um, I'm not exactly great at this kind of fighting...."

"Just clear me enough space to work in."

"Will do." Chromie's shoulder muscles tensed. "Hold on tight!"

She tucked in her wings and dove, gaining speed for a strafing run with her hot sand breath. It took the demons coming up the pass completely by surprise; very few of them had shields or much in the way of armor. They recoiled, roaring, and turned their attention upward.

"This is my stop," Soran said as she came back around. "Now get out of here!"

He slid from her back, launching himself axe first at a one-eyed demon with a club as thick as a tauren's arm. It brought that club up to parry, but wasn't quick enough to deflect anywhere near the full force of his blow. The axe cut so deep that Soran had to spend a moment prying it out of his foe's skull before he could use it again.

By then the enemy was in disarray. They didn't seem to have anyone telling them what to do (perhaps that was their commander he'd killed?), so half were focused on Chromie's retreating form when Soran started laying into the satyrs and Burning Blade cultists which could still see after that sandblast. It wasn't long before they turned around again, however, deciding to focus on the more immediate threat.

Hurriedly, Soran cut his way back to the Alliance bulwark, trusting them not to shoot him before he reached it. His old armor would never have held up to the kind of abuse it took on the way there, which said something about the skill of the craftsman Jiari commissioned it from. That didn't mean he wasn't bleeding by the time the Burning Blade forces withdrew, but it did mean he lived long enough to climb one of the ropes offered by the defenders and take a knee on the other side.

The Alliance forces behind the makeshift wall drew back warily, then parted to let a balding human soldier through. If Soran remembered Alliance ranks correctly his insignia made him only a sergeant, but there was no one of higher rank to be found.

"I thought the Horde wasn't sending anyone," said the sergeant, after introducing himself as Melkins.

"The Horde didn't send me. I've come on behalf of the bronze dragonflight." He waved toward Chromie, who was circling lower—headed for the open space at the top of the ramp. "My employer has need of your fire brigade."

Melkins led him up to the top, but he made no secret of the fact that they couldn't spare anyone right now. "Unless you can help us evacuate," he said to Chromie after she'd resumed her gnomish guise, "I'm not sure what we can do to help you. We're in dire straights here."

A familiar-looking night elf in flowing robes came up to heal their wounds. Alithia Fallowmere, he thought she was called; she'd been one of the Alliance healers at the Charred Vale. They had barely interacted there, but when she got a good look at his face, her eyes widened in alarm.

"You ... you are the orc the Horde was looking for."

Soran's eyes narrowed, and his hand went to his axe. If they decided to turn him in to Krom'gar for the reward, he would have a very difficult time not killing anyone.

"There's no need for that," Sergeant Melkins assured him. "After the last one, I don't think a single person in this outpost would tell them you were here."

"The last one?" Soran frowned. Had someone else gotten on Krom'gar's bad side already?

"Your Champion Jiari," Fallowmere said, startling him. "That is why you came, is it not? I am sorry to tell you that you are a day too late. She was taken to Thandor Fortress yesterday."

"Yesterday?" He exchanged a confused glance with Chromie. She'd been certain they arrived in Stonetalon at a point after Soran left; he even found the bodies of the first whelplings he slew, just to be sure. "Kosak told me they shot down her wyvern almost a week ago!"

"My scouts found the wyvern and the armor," Melkins admitted, "but the rider was rescued by one of our paladins and kept hidden until she recovered from her fall. We didn't know she was here until the day before they caught her."

Soran couldn't have been left more breathless if someone punched him in the stomach. All this time he'd thought the body in that unmarked grave was hers, but if that was someone else ... it meant he still had a chance to save her!

"Chromie...." He turned to her with desperation in his eyes, but she was already shifting back into her dragon form.

"Aw, how can I say no to that face? Besides, after reading all those letters, I kiiiiinda want to meet her."

"Meleen went after them," said Lady Fallowmere, "but we have not seen her since. She is a draenei—"

"Yes, I know her. I can keep an eye out, but I won't make any promises."

Melkins shot a frustrated glance at Lady Fallowmere, then an urgent one at Soran. "Even if they stopped for the night, they'll be nearly to the fortress by now. You'll never catch them in time!"

Soran climbed onto Chromie's back. "Watch me."

"You said you need our help," Melkins tried one last time, "but if you leave, there might not be anyone left by the time you return."

"We'll be back before you know it," Chromie reassured him, "hopefully with more help."

Chapter Text

As soon as they were airborne, Chromie teleported them to the hills above Thandor Fortress. A quick peek into the dungeon told them Jiari wasn't there yet, so they flew in reverse along the path her captors would be taking from Nijel's Point. Though they flew for several hours, zig-zagging back and forth across the most direct route in case they'd gotten off course, they saw no one.

"We must have missed them," Soran said in frustration as the sun leaned too far westward for his liking. "Let's go back."

Once again they found the cells empty, so back to the air they took, teleporting in short jumps to cover an even wider area. It was possible something had delayed them, but if so, how was he to track them down?

At last, with the light of dusk waning, they spotted a campfire just south of the main road. Silently they crept up to the edge of its light, but found no Horde soldiers there. Huddled beside the fire was the draenei paladin Soran met in the Charred Vale.

"Your friends are worried about you," he said, stepping into the light.

Meleen jumped about half a mile and came down with a hand on her sword hilt. A hippogryph hissed at him from close behind her.

"Soran?" she said, incredulous, then gave another start as Chromie popped in beside him. "How did you find me?"

"The more important question is, where is my wife? Fallowmere said you were following her—"

"I do not know! I lost track of them yesterday, when that smirking blood elf shot me down. ...Wait, did you say wife?!"

A blood elf? Soran cursed under his breath. "It has to be Kalibir—that's why we didn't spot him. He's too smart; if he thought he was being followed, he'd probably fly just above the treetops the whole way. Wouldn't be surprised if he ducked under cover every time he saw anything bigger than a crow."

Meleen wilted when she realized that was her fault. "What do we do now?"

"There is no 'we'. If you want a lift back to Desolace you can ask my friend here, but I'm not taking you with me."

"I can help!" The draenei seemed half-desperate to join him. It made no difference, though.

"All you can do is get yourself killed," Soran said. "Or worse—you might get in my way."

"Please," Meleen begged. "It was my mistake which let them catch her. I ... I have to make it right!"

Soran frowned at the insistent paladin. "Why would you care? You told me she killed all your friends."

Meleen's cheeks colored, and she inspected her hooves for a moment. "That was ... a consequence of the choice we made to enter the battle. I am no longer certain we were justified in assaulting your fortress."

It was probably the most adult thing to come out of her mouth since he'd met her. Draenei were supposed to be old—some of them impossibly so—but Meleen at least had always reminded him of a petulant child. Maybe she'd grown up a bit.

"Is that so? You sure you're not still out for revenge?"

There came the familiar indignation, but she restrained herself to a tiny huff. "If I were, I would already have taken it."

So she was the paladin who hid Jiari from Krom'gar for so long. It seemed improbable, but so did a great many things he'd seen and done lately.

Soran exchanged a look with Chromie, who shrugged.

"It's all right by me. I think I can carry both of you."

"Fine," Soran said, "but don't make me regret it."

Once more they spied on the dungeon and found nothing, but Soran was undeterred. Someone at the fortress knew where she was being kept, and he would glean that information even if he had to beat it out of them.

"Won't that draw too much attention?" Chromie worried when he said as much.

"Probably—which is why I'm going to start by asking someone I won't have to beat at all. Champion Shuak helped us escape; she's not likely to side with Krom'gar now."

Chromie teleported Soran inside the keep and hid under a veil while he knocked on Shuak's door. It opened, thankfully, but the person who answered it was not the troll champion he expected.

"Get inside," hissed a black-swathed orc as she dragged him through the door and shut it behind him. These were clearly Shuak's quarters—the walls were covered in the sort of things only a troll would collect—but the orc in black was Idrona.

"What are you doing here?" Soran wondered. "Where's Shuak?"

"On assignment." Idrona muttered something under her breath; it didn't sound complimentary. "She told me you would come looking for Jiari, but I never thought you'd be that stupid."

"More like desperate. Where is she being held? I know Kalibir brought her in."

By the time she finished her explanation, Soran felt like someone was twisting a knife in his gut. Freeing Jiari from Thandor's dungeon would have been easy; hunting down where the Banshee Queen had taken her would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

He pounded the wall with his fist, hard enough to crack the mortar. Nijel's Point grew weaker by the hour, and he'd already wasted half a day which could have been spent bolstering them. He couldn't justify haring off to Orgrimmar on another wild plainstrider chase.

"Don't tell me you're giving up now?" Idrona said. "Krom'gar and his cronies would shoot you dead on the spot, but that didn't stop you from coming here. Don't tell me you're afraid of a few Forsaken?"

"There isn't time! I can't search for her and still do everything else that needs to be done!"

Idrona narrowed her eyes at him. "Like what? You mean helping the Alliance at Nijel's Point?"

Soran looked at her sharply, but of course she knew about the siege there by now. Horde scouts would have been back and forth between there several times since it began, and if Krom'gar had found Jiari there he would be unsurprised to find Soran there, too.

"One champion isn't enough to save them," Idrona said, "not even if it were her. You can't do it alone, so you might as well go rescue your wife while there's still time."

"Still time...." Now there was a tempting thought. It could be hard to convince Chromie to make another jump after how close their last few encounters with the infinite dragonflight were, but if Jiari were with them it would reduce the risk significantly. If they were jumping back anyway then they might as well reclaim the hours which had passed since leaving Nijel's Point. "Maybe you're right."

"Of course I am. Just be careful; Sylvanas is the only person I know of who's more dangerous to cross than the warchief, and you're no good to anyone dead."

*****

Meleen didn't know what to think of the company she'd found herself in. Despite Jiari's insistence that there was good inside the Horde, it was still hard to think of an orc like Soran as anything but a monster. Her most vivid memories of them all involved people being slaughtered, and even though she had evidence that he was one of the "good" ones, she still didn't know what sort of baseline she could expect for that measurement. There were certainly no orcish paladins.

Chromie was another sort of thing altogether. Her choice to appear as a gnome gave Meleen a measure of comfort, but her true form was startlingly fearsome. She had powers Meleen didn't fully understand—the whole argument between her and Soran about whether they could timewalk after finding Jiari left her dizzy—and her claim that they were trying to avert the end of the world was equally incredible. Either Chromie was stark raving mad, or she was all that stood between this world and oblivion.

At length Soran managed to convince the dragon that rescuing Jiari was worth the risk of facing these "infinites," and they took to the air again. This time when the sensation of falling which accompanied her teleport ceased, they found themselves over Orgrimmar.

Meleen had never seen the orcish capital before, not even from a distance, and it was nothing like she expected. Amid winding canyons of reddish stone was nestled a ragged oasis, with palm trees and shallow pools creating a spot of color in the otherwise bleak landscape. The western quarter of the canyon city was partially inundated, with wooden walkways crossing a soggy marshland. There were the familiar Horde buildings with their spiked red roofs, but half were carved into the stone walls rather than freestanding, and in places where the canyon was narrow, awnings of stitched-together hides stretched all the way across to shelter shops and houses from the sun and wind. High stone walls with even higher towers of timber guarded the entrances to the canyon, making it nearly as impregnable as Ironforge.

Even in the moonlight, it was clear that the city was packed to the brim, but still there was a steady stream of people with lanterns and torches to light their way as they pushed inside. Meleen and the others were shocked to see Alliance refugees among those being welcomed through the gates; apparently the naga had taken every port south of the city, and would be here in a matter of hours.

Chromie took them inside the city without bothering with the gate, and they began their search. A handful of people had seen Sylvanas come in with a prisoner in a wagon, but nobody they talked to knew where she had gone. The Forsaken seemed to be congregating within a cave complex beneath the city, which seemed as good a place to start as any.

Meleen stayed as close on Soran's heels as she could manage while they descended into a huge natural cavern containing buildings of its own. Eyes followed her and Chromie—mostly orcish ones at first but as they went deeper they became predominantly undead eyes, glazed over with death or nothing but faintly glowing sockets. It was the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen.

It wasn't that Meleen hadn't been in proximity to the undead before. She'd faced the Scourge in Northrend, ghouls and skeletons in tattered clothing which came on in waves that only holy Light or fire could halt completely. Never though had she come so close without unleashing that Light upon them. Her fingers curled instinctively into the shape for a spell, allowing the glow of magic to surround them and light their path, though she desperately hoped she would escape without having to complete that spell. There were too many of them; if she did anything to spark their aggression, they would swarm her within seconds, tear her limb from limb, and devour the pieces.

How did the Horde keep their hunger in check? There must be a secret to it. Even Soran must be able to feel the oppressive wave of unholy magic which emanated from their combined presence, but he spoke to them casually, without even a bead of sweat on his brow.

"Please, I have to know where Sylvanas went," he told the slack-jawed corpse which stood in front of him. It wore surprisingly tidy robes, and might have been either male or female while it was alive—perhaps Soran could tell the difference, but Meleen couldn't. "My wife was with her."

That had certainly startled her. If most people Meleen knew were torn from their spouse mere days after the wedding, they would have been weeping and pleading, but Jiari did neither in her presence. Soran too kept a remarkably tight rein on his emotions, sometimes pacing but always taking the time to breathe before he made a decision. She couldn't decide whether it was admirable or unhealthy, the way that pair kept everything bottled up so tightly.

The rotting undead Soran had addressed hesitated, throwing a suspicious look at Meleen and Chromie. Or was it a hungry one? "Even if I knew, I wouldn't say so in front of them."

Soran turned away, disgruntled. "Why don't you two wait outside? Might as well get some sleep while you're at it; I'll come get you once I've found something."

"Whatever you say, boss," Chromie said with a salute, and teleported herself and Meleen back to the rocky ledge where they first touched down. The night air never tasted so sweet.

"Why did you call him that?" Meleen wondered. "I thought he was working for you?"

The dragon stretched all the way out, shedding her gnomish form so she could warm the frigid stone with her sand breath before laying on it. "Sometimes giving the right impression is more important than silly things like precedence. If people think he's working for a gnome, they'll be even less likely to help."

"Could you not simply explain that you are a dragon?"

"I'd rather people helped me because that's what they want to do, not because they're afraid of me. Besides, I don't think there are many highly placed dragons within the Horde, so my authority is pretty thin. Right now, Soran is the best one for the job."

Meleen readjusted her perceptions of the dragon slightly. She had assumed that Chromie took the guise of a gnome because she sided with the Alliance, but she seemed as comfortable working with the Horde as with anyone else. It said a great deal about her that her appearance and demeanor were calculated to set people at ease when she could easily intimidate them with her true size and might.

Permitted in the city did not mean welcome there. Nobody who knew anything would talk to Chromie or Meleen, which meant Soran was on his own the next day as well. Chromie contributed by supplying bribes—it was amazing what people were willing to do in exchange for a trinket or two left behind when they fled home—but Meleen could find no way to contribute to their efforts.

Instead she found herself on the wall, weaving bolts of holy fire to fling at the naga besieging the city. There, standing alongside trolls and goblins and sometimes a handful of Alliance soldiers, she finally understood why Jiari had fought the Burning Blade at Nijel's Point. It wasn't out of simple self-interest; the rogue admitted having more than one plan to escape, and stuck around only because she hesitated to set out without armor. Likewise Meleen could ask Chromie to take her elsewhere at any time, if not for the duty which demanded she right the wrong she'd caused. It wasn't generosity or pity which prompted her to risk her life for those within Orgrimmar's walls. No—these might have factored in somewhere, but her core motivation was frustration. The enemy she wanted to face was a hundred leagues away, and if she couldn't lend her strength at Nijel's Point, she might as well lend it somewhere.

Days passed. Soran reported that Jiari was being held in a place called the Underhold, but getting inside proved difficult. He could reach the great elevator which led downward from Ragefire Chasm, but aside from Hellscream's officers, no one but Forsaken were allowed inside. Chromie tried to bypass this restriction with an illusion, but the sharp-eyed guards at the entrance nearly threw all three of them in a cell.

"Could you not simply teleport inside?" Meleen suggested once they had retreated to the safety of their ledge.

Chromie made a face. "Not without knowing the layout. I don't even know how deep that elevator goes, and there's no do-overs if I accidentally teleport into solid rock."

"What if we find someone who's willing to draw us a map?" Soran said.

"The building schematics would be better. Oh, if only that shaft were wide enough to fly in, I could just see for myself how deep it is!"

"Someone has to know. I'll figure it out."

"How do we know she is even still alive?" Meleen despaired. Soran was of the opinion that the Forsaken would take Jiari apart piece by piece if they thought it would help them reproduce what had been done to her, and they had no reason to wait before they began.

The orc fixed her with a baleful glare. "We know, because if she's not there when we reach wherever she's being held, it's because we went back to the day she arrived and rescued her then. All we have to do is figure out where she was. Right?"

"Now you're thinking temporally!" Chromie said. "We'd better be sure, though. I'd rather not have to fight the Horde and the infinite dragonflight at the same time."

Chapter Text

Finding someone from the Underhold they could bribe to let them in was harder than it had been in the upper city, because most of its denizens hailed from Undercity itself. Chromie took Soran to the ruins of Lordaeron once to see whether anything could be recovered from the blight-shrouded halls, but one glance was enough to make them abandon that plan of attack. Even if the city hadn't been filled with choking green mist, all those who had died during the evacuation now walked about, attacking anyone who came close.

They'd been in Orgrimmar for nearly two weeks before Soran found someone willing to measure distances in exchange for transport out of the city. Chromie wasted no time utilizing the intel, teleporting them all to an empty room just down the hall from the well-guarded elevator. The place was surprisingly empty, with most of its inhabitants outside fighting the naga at any given moment, and it was easy enough to avoid the few who remained. Slowly they mapped the interior, teleporting past locked doors until finally they could go no further.

"It's warded," Chromie said, peeking around a corner at an iron gate guarded by two well-armed Deathguards. "It's a pretty powerful spell; I can't push through it."

"But we're so close!" Soran thumped his fist against the wall. "Is there no way around?"

"If someone could take a signal beacon inside the barrier I could use it to bypass the wards, but other than that ... I'm not sure."

They retreated outside to mull the problem over. Soran was certain he could find someone else willing to take a teleport beacon through that gate, but Chromie insisted there wasn't enough time. Thrall's death at Nordrassil would happen within two days if it hadn't already, and it was certainly not much longer than that before everything living on this world turned to dust.

"Please," Soran begged her, "give me one more day. I've lost her too many times already."

Chromie looked up at him with sad, gnomish eyes. "I know you miss her, and I'm sure she's a capable warrior and all, but a hasty plan could get us all killed before we've gathered everything we need to save the world. We have to get back to Nijel's Point."

She was right, but that didn't stop her words from making him angry. Ever since the day he felled his first dragon, forces had jerked him from hope to despair and back again without a respite, and now once again the rug was being pulled out from under him. He was at his breaking point.

"Go then!" he shouted. "I'll find her without you!"

Chromie stiffened. "You promised you wouldn't leave me to do this alone again."

"Yes—back when I thought Jiari was dead and the only way to save her was to help you. What I didn't say was that I made that promise to her first. I can't leave my wife in Sylvanas's hands so long as there's even a flicker of a chance she's still alive, and I won't believe she's dead this time until I hold her body in my arms.

"Anyway, you don't need me. There are any number of champions down there who would kill for the chance to regain those they've lost to the naga. They'd probably even fight each other for it! Choose one of them, or even half a dozen, but I'm staying here."

Deliberately he removed the chronolocator which the first Chromie had given him (after making sure the settings were still where they belonged) and held it out to her. She took it reluctantly, looking more discouraged than she had since she found out she was the only bronze dragon left alive.

"You'll help me save the world, won't you?" she asked, offering it to Meleen instead.

The draenei hesitated, but ultimately declined the bracelet. "I would not be standing here were it not for Champion Jiari. I have a debt to repay."

Chromie looked troubled. "She's really that important to you? You'd both risk being stuck here in Orgrimmar when the world ends, on the off chance that you can get her free without me?"

Soran exchanged a look with Meleen, then they both nodded. "The other Chromie believed in her, too," Soran said. "All I did was say her name, and suddenly you were willing to risk changing the past to save her."

"We cannot save Nijel's Point without her," Meleen asserted, surprising Soran with her ardor. "Champion Jiari is more than a warrior; she is a skilled tactician. Twice I have seen her rout the Alliance within moments of joining the battle—once when we were all but sure of victory—and she sees with a single glance what others might miss after an hour of observation. I would not say that she could single-handedly turn the tide at this battle you speak of, but ... well, I would not wager she could not, either."

"Meleen's right. Even if both of us die freeing Jiari, you'll still be better off with her by your side. She has more skill and training than anyone left in Desolace or Stonetalon, unless you count Krom'gar himself."

They were swaying her; he could tell by the way she chewed her lower lip. He was about to start rattling off Jiari's further exploits when they became aware of an uproar from below.

"What is going on?" Meleen wondered. "It does not look like they breached the gate...."

Soran peered down from the ledge and saw people pressing through the crowd, shouting and screaming. Most of them wore Alliance colors.

"You two better stay up here," he said, drawing his axe. "I don't like the look of this."

He hurried down from the ledge, but no one within earshot seemed to know what the commotion was. He muscled his way through the crowds until finally he found someone who did.

"It's Hellscream," panted a wounded orc. "He's ordered the Alliance refugees to be tossed over the wall—along with any Horde who try to protect them. Says they're a drain on our resources."

It was madness. Resources? Orgrimmar had enough water in the cisterns to supply the city for a year even should the river run dry, and there were still plenty of mages and wyverns to bring in food from Thunder Bluff or elsewhere. Evicting the refugees, many of whom were soldiers, was only doing the enemy's work for them.

From behind Soran came a gasp that was closer to a scream, and he turned to find Meleen there. She'd followed him despite his instructions.

"But what can we do?" she said. A glance showed that she wasn't afraid for herself—Chromie would take her to safety in an eyeblink if she asked anyway—but for the others who made their panicked way through the streets.

"There's no way out of the city," the orc said bleakly, "so I suggest you choose where you want to die." He moved on to warn the rest of the refugees, but Soran wasn't so fatalistic as he.

"Get back to Chromie," he told Meleen.

"But I will not—"

"She needs to know, and she can help evacuate ... some of them, at least. Send the rest north along this road toward the tauren quarter; they'll help if anyone will. Don't let them go through the gate at the fork or down through the Cleft of Shadows, or they'll be cut off."

"Where will you be?" Meleen said.

"I have to get something from the orphanage. Go!"

If Soran hadn't taken note of its location the week before, he would never have found the building. As it was, there was such a rush of people either to obey Hellscream's order or defy it that he almost lost his way twice. He pounded on the door with no reply, then pounded louder. Finally someone shouted down at him from the second story.

"Go away! There's no one here for Hellscream; these are Horde children!"

"There was a girl here—the stepdaughter of a Horde champion." Was that the right word? What did one call the illegitimate child of their widower? "She was sent here only two months ago."

"Even if she were still here," the matron spat, "I wouldn't give her to you!"

Soran shook his head. If she was already gone, well enough. If not ... he didn't know how Jiari felt about the girl, but he didn't want to have to tell her that he'd left a child to die. He was about to say as much when the matron began throwing things out through the window at him.

"Hey!"

She didn't let him get a word in edgewise until Meleen found him again, flanked by a pair of tauren druids who looked like they'd already been in a fight or three.

"What is taking you so long?" she asked, sword in one hand and the other readying a spell. "We cannot hold the portals much longer!"

He gestured toward the matron, but she had already ducked back inside the window. She appeared at the door a moment later with not one but several human orphans, and well as a handful of others who were decidedly not children of the Horde. She shoved a gnomish infant into his arms without even a word of apology for all the vegetables and kitchen implements she'd flung in his direction.

Soran handed the gnome to Meleen and snatched up the girl he'd come for, and they collected a handful of other Alliance refugees and Horde defenders as they pushed their way north. Few dared challenge an orc and a draenei in full plate armor with a pair of druids as backup, though Soran did have to bloody a few of the ones who did. Before they reached the tauren quarter, however, they were cut off. A dozen Kor'kron guards mounted on giant scorpions barred the way, half with crossbows trained at the druids lest they take to the sky with their charges.

The Kor'kron captain—an orc with a jagged scar running from temple to chin—dismounted and approached, weapon still in its sheath.

"Let's be reasonable," she said. "No one wants to shed any more Horde blood today. Drop your weapons and walk away, and I'll forget the faces of every one of you treasonous curs."

Another line of Kor'kron came up behind them, and slowly the orcs and trolls they'd gathered along the way dropped clubs and spears and slipped sheepishly back between the mounted soldiers. Only two besides Soran and the druids held their ground, and they and Meleen kicked the abandoned weapons toward the unarmed among them.

"This isn't right," Soran told the captain. "Hellscream has gone mad, setting us against each other like this!"

His words fell upon deaf ears, and he knew it. The Kor'kron were loyal to the warchief, whoever that might be at the moment, and obeyed his orders absolutely. Soran tightened his grip on his axe, regretting only that his honor wouldn't let him abandon these innocents in favor of rescuing Jiari. Chromie would have to find someone else to help her.

"You've chosen your fate," the captain said, drawing her sword. Others dismounted and did the same.

Then, with a flash of bronze, Chromie appeared. She sprayed hot sand into the faces of the Kor'kron, driving them back, and landed beside Soran. "Everyone grab hold, quickly!"

The refugees obeyed, surrounding the dragon in a panicked wave, and one spell later they were past the blockade, safe (for the moment) in the tauren quarter. Chromie collapsed into a heap from the exhaustion of teleporting so many at once, even just a short distance.

"We need one more portal!" someone cried, and a pair of tired-looking trolls and a blood elf hurried over, working together to open one. Soran got Chromie to shift into her gnomish guise so he could carry her through.

He and the others found themselves in a field near Thunder Bluff, where a hundred or so other Alliance refugees and more than two dozen wounded Horde were gathered. If this was all who made it out, then Hellscream had a great deal to answer for.

"I misjudged you," Meleen said quietly as Soran watched Jiari's stepdaughter shriek and attach herself to a refugee which bore a passing resemblance to her exiled mother. "She was right; there is good within the Horde."

He eyed her askance. "You're just now figuring this out?"

Meleen blushed and looked away. Soran glanced up at Thunder Bluff; tauren were coming down the elevators armed with stretchers and bandages rather than staves and hammers, which was a good sign.

"I guess I'm on my own after all. Chromie—I know I shouldn't ask this of you, but will you take me back to the Underhold?" If he went straight there, he wouldn't have to watch the city tear itself apart on his way in.

"No," the gnome-dragon sighed. "Not unless you have a solid plan, that is. I consider you a friend, and I won't send you into danger without one."

Soran's heart sank. His "plan" involved charging that gate and killing things until someone either agreed to let him through it or put an axe through his skull. He knew she would never approve.

"I have a plan," Meleen said, surprising him once again. "I know how to get a beacon past the barrier—and I can do it before sunset."

"How?" Chromie asked. "They'll kill you on sight!"

Meleen nervously shifted from one hoof to the other. "Not if I have something they want."

Chapter Text

Meleen had hoped never to set foot in Orgrimmar again, especially after seeing Horde and Alliance alike cut down by Hellscream's devotees. She definitely hadn't wanted to arrive as she was now—stripped of armor and weapons, with her hands bound in front of her.

"Keep moving," Soran growled, shoving her harder than was perhaps necessary toward the Deathguard captain guarding the tunnel to the Underhold. She stumbled, not finding her footing again fully until she stood right in front of the armor-clad undead.

It considered her with disdain, looking more bored than anything else. The look it gave Soran was only marginally more friendly.

"Brought you a present," Soran said, gripping Meleen's arm so tight she nearly let out a whimper.

"Kill it yourself." The Deathguard waved him away. "I'm busy."

"You're going to want this one alive, I think. She has information which could interest the Banshee Queen herself."

Undead eyes narrowed. "What sort of information?"

Soran shook her so hard her teeth rattled. "Tell him."

"Ch-champion Jiari," Meleen stammered. "I ... my friends and I are the ones who cast the spell which brought her back to life."

"The one you call the Phoenix," Soran clarified. "The living, breathing Forsaken from Thandor Fortress—this draenei knows how it was done."

"Please, do not hurt me! I will tell you everything I know!" She would, too; if the world was really ending in a day or three, there was little they could do to abuse the information, and even less to replicate it.

The Deathguard captain stepped close, studying Meleen as if she were a rare specimen of a particularly ugly beetle, but its look at Soran was sharper. "I've heard about you—bribing people, trying to get into the Underhold. Why should I believe a word you say?"

"Because I'm not the only one who heard her admit it. I can name names if you like; they're all in Stonetalon right now, but they'll remember this one."

Once again the undead stuck its face too close to Meleen's for comfort. Bits of its cheekbones showed through the darkened flesh, and she flinched.

"I suppose the apothecaries might as well question it," the Deathguard said at last. It waved for the others to make a path.

Soran tightened his grip on Meleen's arm again and marched her toward the tunnel, but the captain barred his path with a speartip.

"Not you. Whatever mischief you're up to, we don't need any of it near our Phoenix."

"No!" Soran tried to push his way through, but the guards closed in and pried Meleen from his grip. "I want to see my wife. You can't keep me from her forever!"

Meleen's breath came quick and shallow as undead hands dragged her down the rocky tunnel and into the massive elevator carriage. This was always the plan, she reminded herself, but as metal scraped against stone and the carriage began to drop, she found herself exactly as terrified as she would have been if there were no plan at all.

Though the tunnels below were no darker than they had been when she came here with Chromie and Soran before, they seemed more oppressive. Nevertheless, she felt a spike of hope as the Deathguards led her through the gate which had stymied Chromie. They were definitely on the right track.

Beyond it were the same kind of tunnels, a bit narrower and with a lot more branches. Some of these ended in doors and others were simply lined with them, but Meleen's journey ended only two turns later. She was taken through a pair of locked gates to a room with barred cells, and shoved inside one. They didn't even bother to untie her hands.

The first thing she became aware of as her eyes adjusted to the darkness was the soft sound of weeping. It came from the next cell, where a human woman huddled beneath a ragged blanket.

"Jiari?" Meleen said, then realized the human's hair was too fair, and her skin freckled instead of tanned. She seemed a close match for the Horde champion in height and build, though.

There were others. Most of the half-dozen cells held humans of similar proportions, which she felt couldn't have been coincidence. One was missing a foot, another an arm; the weeping woman looked to have lost an eye.

"Have you seen her?" Meleen asked her fellow prisoners, describing who she was looking for. "She is a prisoner, but with a Horde tattoo on one cheek."

"The Phoenix," said the dark-skinned woman who was missing a foot. "That's what they call her. They say she's Forsaken, but she didn't look undead to me—just asleep."

"Where is she?"

"I only saw her the once, in the procedure room." She went on to describe the experiments they'd found themselves a part of, explaining why some of them were missing parts. Meleen was aghast; how could anyone even conceive of such cruelty?

"They going to give her hooves next?" joked a man who seemed to be short of breath.

Meleen pushed aside the horrifying mental images and focused on what she'd come here for. With an effort she worked aside the loops of rope to uncover the wristband Soran had relinquished—itself bespelled to look like another piece of rope—and turned on the locator beacon Chromie had set there. Now all she had to do was wait for the dragon to work her way through the wards.

*****

Jiari lay chained to her cell floor for only a short while before a pair of healers came to look at her leg, though the burning agony made it feel like hours. When they did come, they reduced the swelling only far enough to make sure it was a clean break, and that the bone wouldn't cut an artery as soon as she moved. Then her broken chain was replaced with a much thicker one, and a second bolt installed on the floor for her wrist chains. She could no longer rise higher than a sitting position, and that only with difficulty—not that it mattered a hair with her leg unsplinted. The one consolation was that Bitternight no longer looked at her without fear.

She almost gave up right then. Hope was a guttering candle flame, flickering in the breeze of the shadow dance she summoned to dull the pain. She would never get a second chance, and even if she did there would be more invisible, unguessable traps laid for her. No longer did she believe she could enact her vengeance should she escape somehow; if her leg healed like this she would be a cripple, unable to fight or even stand. What reason was there left to try?

Come to us, the whispers from the darkness seemed to say. Find solace in the shadows of eternity.

It was so tempting to hold on. She'd been in shadow dance for too long already; a few more seconds and she would drift away, mind and soul entombed within its frigid darkness forever. Would it be so bad, really?

Then the stubborn core inside herself awoke—the willpower that kept her alive even when slow poison had long since claimed the rest of her family. Soran was still out there, probably searching for her right this moment. He wouldn't care whether she were crippled or scarred; his legs were strong enough for the both of them. More importantly, she had an apology to make for leaving him behind. Even if the curse were actually still in play, she shouldn't have made that decision without him.

It wasn't hope that made her push the shadow dance with its insipid whispers from her. Rather it was her obligation to Soran, for her vows, and for all the times they'd saved each other. There might never be a way to escape, but if one came, she had to be ready.

Her leg wasn't going to set itself, and neither would anyone else do it for her, but she'd learned the way from the tauren in the Barrens—that felt like a lifetime ago—after a raptor savaged the other leg. Laboriously she turned herself about until she could slip her foot through the bars of the cell and wedge it there, then pulled against the chains to straighten out her broken leg. It was agony, much more so than when she'd been undead, but the pain reduced immensely once the bone was aligned and settled into its place. Though she had nothing to splint it with, friction and the weight of her body would keep traction on it so long as she remained still. At the moment, she didn't have the energy left to move anyway.

Whether because of her escape attempt or some other reason, there were no more procedures that day or most of the next. A pair of Deathstalkers now watched her every move, eyes burning with fury for the loss of three of their own, but their glares gave her a strange sense of satisfaction. No longer was she merely a possession to the Forsaken; she was a force to be reckoned with, and maybe to fear. Never helpless, even caged.

The evening of that second day, she was chained to a gurney (they lightly braced her leg during transport, lest she find some way to use the break for mischief) and moved into a larger room, which had never happened before. There were more people here, not only Forsaken but some druids as well, all seated in a sort of shallow amphitheater with her in the middle. She made sure all of them knew what she thought of them; she might have lost all hope of  escape, but her spirit—and her tongue—were as yet unbroken.

"That will be quite enough of that," Bitternight said, still doing the patient nanny act even though she would no longer look her in the eye.

Jiari lapsed into brooding silence, partly because she didn't feel like spending the session chewing on a spit-soaked rag, and partly because it would be petty to continue. She wasn't petty; she was caged vengeance, and it was important to her that Bitternight knew the difference.

"My esteemed colleagues," the head apothecary continued without looking at her, "as many of you know, yesterday we were able to successfully revitalize the hand of a volunteer with what we are calling the "Phoenix essentia" within the subject's blood and bone, which we extracted using a unique mix of arcane, druidic, and shadow magics."

A gasp filled the room. This was the first Jiari had heard of it as well, and she craned her neck with the rest to see the healthy patch of brown skin on the hand of Bitternight's volunteer. He raised the limb high, and gasps were augmented by cheers and—in some places—joyous weeping. Jiari might have let out a small gasp of her own.

"The effects are sadly short-lived. Currently, we believe that a complete transfer of the Phoenix essentia from the subject is necessary to halt regression back to an undead form, but if today's proof of concept operation is successful, our next step will be to see whether we can propagate the essentia and extend its properties to all Forsaken."

"Transfer?" Jiari said. "You mean you can take this curse away from me?"

Bitternight almost managed to meet her gaze as she gave her a careful pat on the shoulder. "Yes, my dear. If all goes well, you should be undead again soon."

"Then will you set me free?" Jiari said. Soran would be disappointed, but if Bitternight could truly restore her to her proper form, Jiari might even forgive her.

"And defy the Dark Lady's will?" The apothecary tsked. "I won't ask what you did to infuriate her so, but whatever it was, you still have to answer for it."

"If she ever comes back," someone else muttered.

She should have known. Sylvanas' words were very specific; Jiari would be dismantled for parts before she was allowed to serve the Horde again. At least there will be an end to it soon.

Final preparations were made, and a fresh volunteer strapped (not as tightly as Jiari) to a table of her own. Their hands were bound together with palms facing, and Jiari reciprocated the brief squeeze the woman gave her fingers. Then a troll druid and two Forsaken spellcasters—a mage and a warlock, she guessed—wove a spell around a narrow blade which Bitternight then plunged through their overlapped hands.

Jiari cried out briefly from the suddenness of it, but compared to what she'd endured already, the pain was nothing. Blood flowed from her wound and into the volunteer's, and she willed the curse to go with it.

Energies crackled in the air, and the fire beneath her skin intensified. The volunteer groaned, feeling some or all of the same, then her groans turned to whimpers and whimpers into screams.

"Make it stop!" the volunteer cried, but Bitternight ignored her. Jiari gritted her teeth to stifle a groan, but she wasn't anywhere near her own limit yet. She gripped the woman's hand, lest her strugglings break whatever spell was running down the knife between them.

Something ... changed. The pain did not lessen, but instead of burning heat and cold Jiari felt only the latter. Ice flowed into her while the fire flowed out, and with it went ... life.

The observing surgeons gasped as one. From the point of contact, the volunteer's skin grew warm and full while Jiari's withered. The pallor of undeath crept along her fingers, then up to her wrist, then began slowly working its way toward her elbow. The flesh of her fingertips turned to dust, leaving bones exposed where time and use had worn at them before the battle at Thandor Fortress.

The volunteer's pained groans took on a note of joy as the reverse happened to her own hand. It was working! Soon Jiari would be rid of this curse and have only the consequences of her own actions to look forward to.

Then something went wrong. The transformation slowed, and the crackling of magic grew fiercer. Luminous white filaments peeled off the blade and went writhing about the room.

"Don't let any of it escape," Bitternight warned. "We need all of it to complete the transfer!"

The looks of concentration on the spellcasters' faces intensified, but those glowing wisps didn't vanish. They floated about, looking for something to latch onto, and several people moved warily out of their path. Eventually, one of them landed on the volunteer herself.

"NO!" The woman's screams became something more primal as dozens of luminous scorpions burst forth from the point of contact. They were as translucent as the strands themselves, but Jiari had heard screams like hers only once before—when two Alliance soldiers met their deaths right before her own transformation. The volunteer's greatest fear was manifesting.

Ghostly white scorpions stung the volunteer repeatedly, and though Jiari couldn't tell whether they had any effect, they were real enough to the woman. She thrashed violently, until it was all Jiari could do to hold onto her despite the restraints.

More strands touched unwary members of the audience, and more ghostly horrors filled the room. People stood from their chairs and ran out the door, trying to escape the strands as much as they did the fears they'd unleashed.

"Hold onto it!" Bitternight shouted as more white wisps spun off the end of the knife. One of them touched her, and Jiari watched a ghostly version of herself climb off the table and back the woman into a corner. "No. No!"

"I can't hold on," said the druid. "It's going to—!"

The volunteer got her hand free of the restraints and Jiari's grip, and in that instant the spell collapsed in on itself. Jiari felt the magic explode back out of the volunteer's hand with a sound like a hundred bolts of moonfire striking all at once, and then everything went black.

Chapter Text

"What was that?" Meleen said. The thunderous boom had shaken the very stones of the Underhold, and for a moment she'd feared the end of the world was at hand already.

The other prisoners looked shaken as well. They'd never heard anything like it in the days since they'd been kidnapped from the streets of Orgrimmar to serve as involuntary donors, though there'd been no shortage of vaguely disturbing sounds in the interim.

Meleen was beginning to lose hope. It was nearly a day since she'd activated the beacon, but there was no sign as yet of Chromie or Soran. Had something happened up above? Was the naga invasion keeping them away somehow?

"Least they could do is feed us," complained the man who'd contributed a lung to whatever they were doing to Jiari. Though they'd received a paltry meal the evening before, the only time that door opened so far today was when an undead apothecary came to interrogate Meleen. Even that seemed cursory, as if the creature were eager to be somewhere else.

"So all this is your fault?" the prisoners had asked, incredulous, as soon as the interrogator was gone. They'd barely spoken to her since, deciding as a body that they wanted nothing further to do with her.

The worst part was that they were right. The curse she'd helped Gildis inflict upon Jiari continued to have unintended consequences, most of which harmed its makers far worse than they had its victim. There was a metaphor in there that she feared to think too closely upon.

It was only a minute or so after the thunder that Chromie and Soran finally appeared, popping out of nowhere into the space between the cells.

"Sorry that took so long!" Chromie said. "I thought I'd never get past the wards, but this weird surge of magic weakened them just now, and I ... oh, you have friends."

The prisoners nearest Soran shied back as he scoured their cages in search of Jiari.

"She is not here," Meleen told him, explaining what the others knew of her whereabouts. "Please, can you get them out?"

"No problem! We should be able to teleport freely in and out for at least fifteen minutes before the hole I made in the barrier closes."

A few moments later the grateful prisoners were gone, off to Thunder Bluff or someplace else that was hopefully safe. Meleen put on the armor and weapons Soran handed her, and Chromie cast illusions on all three of them to make them look like Forsaken—right down to the tabards. Meleen struggled not to look at the horrifying pockmarks which appeared all over her exposed flesh.

After a careful glance through the grate on the outer door to gauge the distance, she teleported them straight to the procedure room.

There was no one there. Soran hurried to the open cage and snatched the blanket off the pallet, but found no clues beneath it.

"She was here," he said, practically frantic, "but where is she now?"

"We'll have to split up." Chromie took off a bracelet that matched the one she'd given to Meleen, and handed it to Soran. "When you find her, activate the beacon on my chronolocator."

"Which dial is it?"

Chromie showed him, but Meleen had already chosen a direction and begun jogging down it.

*****

Jiari came to after the explosion, expecting to be dead or half-burned or worse, but found herself mostly unscathed. Her left hand was still withered and undead, covered in her own blood but no longer bleeding. Unfortunately, it and the rest of her limbs were still tightly chained to the table, which (to add insult to injury) was now on its side.

The apothecaries and their guard lay around her, corpses smoldering. Jiari marveled that the backlash of their spell had done so much damage to them while leaving her untouched, but after a luminous tendril landed on her and did nothing, she realized it was because the curse still had mastery over the rest of her body. The magic released had already done its worst to her, and could have no further effect. As she studied the new cracks in the stones around her, Jiari also decided it was a good thing they hadn't gotten much further with the transfer before they lost control; that kind of power could level buildings.

Whatever the real reason, this wasn't the time for ruminating. She needed to escape before someone came in and locked her back in that cage.

Desperately she worked to free her withered hand, heedless of how the steel cuff cut at her dead flesh, but Bitternight had bound her too tightly. No doubt she'd anticipated how much easier Jiari would be able to slip her bonds once she was fully undead again.

Jiari snarled in frustration. Surely it wouldn't be much longer before someone investigated that thunderous noise. There had to be a way to get free before that happened.

In a fury she summoned the shadow dance, but though it lent an intoxicating strength to her limbs, it made no impression on her bonds or the table. As it lingered, however, Jiari felt the shadow magic concentrating in her withered hand. It was stronger there, much more so than she remembered feeling before her transformation. Had she simply grown accustomed to being alive again, and become unused to the sensation? Or had the long suppression of the shadow magic which fueled her undeath caused it to bounce back stronger?

No, neither was the case. This new depth of shadow came from within herself—from the rage and bitterness of loss and betrayal she'd drawn close while using the shadow dance to hide from the pain. She'd always kept those shadows at bay, trying to hold on to the person she was before she died, but now they combined with the necromantic magic within her undead flesh to become a flickering, growling darkness.

She fed that darkness. There was one way out of these chains—a way she'd never been able to master before but which now she understood. It was shadow of the soul which enabled the most infamous rogues to walk through walls and doors unhindered. What other powers had she denied herself by clinging to humanity like the scraps of a childhood blanket?

Jiari held onto the shadow dance until intoxicating power became pain, feeding all of it into her hand. She drew more of that darkness with the champion's will inside her, though the two seemed to resist each other somehow. It didn't matter. All that mattered was pouring that shadow into her hand, more and more, until her very bones could slip into the realm of shadow and bypass the physical world.

She was almost there. With a final burst of will she gathered all that shadow into her wrist and tore straight through reality. Her arm came free, the steel of her cuff left unscathed except for lingering tendrils of shadow wreathing about it. As it did so, undeath crept further up her bare arm, more wispy filaments breaking free as the curse unraveled halfway to her shoulder.

Jiari released the shadows then, leaving herself drained and uncomfortably empty. Tendrils of that dark magic clung about her still, whispering secrets in her ears, and this time she didn't push them away completely. She might need them again later.

She was now one step closer to being free, but the bands at her waist and neck were secured with locks rather than latches, and even if she knew which of the corpses lying around her had the key, she couldn't have reached them. It was unlikely that she could pull the same trick with her still-living limbs, even if she had time to muster her strength again for it. That meant her only recourse was to extract her emergency lockpicks.

The bones of her fingertips were sharpened into claws, as was fashionable in Undercity when she visited, and though they couldn't make as clean a cut as a blade, they did the job. The task of piercing the still-living flesh of her collarbone was excruciating and slow, but at length she cut deep enough to slide the lockpicks in their horn case from inside her flesh.

The first pick broke before she made any progress, the cheap metal bending at the middle as soon as she tried to use leverage on it. The second fared better, and once her neck was free she could see what she was doing on the rest of the bands.

Within minutes she was free of the table and working on her next problem—her broken leg. The brace they'd put on it was nothing more than two lengths of hammered iron, held in place by a pair of leather straps. It was neither designed nor intended to let her put any weight at all on the leg, and the nature of the break was such that if she moved too quickly it would fail anyway. She needed to splint it properly if she expected to do anything more vigorous than sitting up.

There wasn't much to work with, but eventually Jiari tore enough strips of fabric from cloaks and robes to bind a piece of chair to her leg beneath the original brace. It pinched uncomfortably, but padding it would take time she didn't have. So long as her toes didn't turn blue, the leg would endure.

Next was clothing. Though there were several soldiers among the twice-dead, there was no point in putting on armor; if she had to fight hard enough to need it, she would lose before she started. Instead she borrowed a skirt and blouse, a sturdy pair of boots that almost fit her, and a hooded cloak.

She was still looking for something long enough to use as a crutch when she ran out of time. Footsteps were approaching hurriedly, though it seemed to be only a single pair for now. Jiari shadowstepped to a spot beside the doorway and melded with the shadows, prepared to get the drop on them if needed, then stilled her breath as best she could as an armored figure stepped through.

*****

Meleen gasped when she saw the contents of the amphitheater. The hallway was bad enough, full of dazed and unconscious undead, but those inside the room were burned or broken. Was this where the sound like thunder came from?

She hurried to the center of the room, where a scorched body was bound to a gurney, but it wasn't Jiari. Beside a second gurney lay a bloodied white tabard, with no sign of the person who must have worn it.

They've killed her, Meleen thought in sudden panic. This is all that's left!

Then a voice spoke from the shadows. "You're not nearly dead enough to wear those colors."

Meleen turned toward the sound of Jiari's voice, but her relief lasted only for the instant it took the rogue to plunge a pair of daggers into the gaps in her armor.

"Good thing I'm here to fix that for you," the rogue murmured in her ear.

Meleen tried to cry out in pain and found that she couldn't; though the blades did less damage than her own sword had done at that first meeting, their placement, right below each arm, put them into both of her lungs. Shock and lack of air left her paralyzed, and a swift blow to the knee put her on her back, staring up at a face that was twisted in hatred. She almost didn't recognize Jiari, between that and her new scars.

"I—" Meleen gasped. "P ... please—"

"I don't know what you're doing here," Jiari snarled, tendrils of shadow wreathing a blade which dripped with Meleen's blood, "and frankly, I'm in too much of a hurry to care—but I am going to kill you properly this time."

Jiari whipped her hand back, then forward again all in a single eyeblink, driving the blade deep into Meleen's skull. There was a flash of searing pain, a welcome darkness, and then—

—then darkness became searing pain, and Jiari's face receded. Daggers removed themselves from her flesh, leaving lungs that were whole and undamaged. Meleen found herself living the last five minutes in reverse, walking backward through the door, past crumpled undead, and down hallways until she was back with Soran and Chromie beside Jiari's empty cell.

Reflexively she screamed and clutched her face as soon as she could move under her own power again, but her eye was now as blade-free as it had ever been. "Where ... how...?"

Soran blinked at her in surprise, but Chromie at least had an inkling of what just happened.

"Oh no—you died, didn't you?"

"I ... she stabbed me. In the face!" Meleen hadn't been so shaken since Jiari nearly killed her that first time, behind Thandor Fortress. "She did not even give me a chance to apologize first!"

"What are you talking about?" Soran demanded.

Chromie grabbed Meleen's wrist and fiddled with her chronolocator. "It's a low-power time reversal spell; I call them do-overs. I set it to trigger if one of you were killed, so we'd have warning if we were about to run up against the end of the world. I didn't think we'd need it before then!"

Soran's eyes widened. "A time spell? But that means—"

"Yes—the infinite dragonflight will be here soon. If I modified it correctly, the spike of time magic will be mostly at the other end, but we have maybe five minutes before they start hunting for everyone whose timeline just changed!"

Chapter Text

Soran ran to the room Meleen described, but the only sign he found of Jiari was a pair of bent lockpicks. He cursed. Either Meleen's explanation had taken longer than the time it took for her to reach this place, or ... or Jiari was hiding from him.

He called her name, begged her to reveal herself, but there was no sign of her aside from the scent of blood and a dead Forsaken who'd been stripped of clothing. How badly was she wounded? Her attack on Meleen said she was in a murderous mood; had they done something which prevented her from distinguishing friend from foe?

There was only one thing he could think of to do. Jiari might be confused, but if her instincts were intact enough to dispatch a paladin in full plate within seconds, she would be capable of finding the way out. He knew the Underhold better than she would; all he had to do was get there first.

Quickly Soran grabbed a ring of keys he saw on one of the dead guards. Jiari might be able to pick the locks between here and the entrance, but Soran was stuck doing it the old-fashioned way, and some of the doors didn't open without a key—even from the inside. Chromie wasn't here to help him; she'd taken Meleen out to the ledge, where the infinite dragonflight would have less chance of sneaking up on them. It was even odds that they would try to reach the spot where the spell was triggered as well as chasing its living source, but Soran would deal with that if and when it affected his search. For his part, Soran had told them not to come back unless he called. Either he escaped the Underhold with his wife, or he didn't come out at all.

*****

Jiari kept her breath still until the counterfeit Soran slipped back out the door. Her heart had leapt at the sound of his voice, but she'd been fooled before, and by an illusion far more cleverly crafted. If someone wanted her to believe he was really her husband, they should have paid more attention to details; completely aside from the fact that he looked three years dead, the duplicate's armor was gouged as if the wearer had fought a dozen dragons in it, and the blackened steel appeared to have gone for longer without a polish than they'd been apart.

While watching him gather up the keys—why hadn't she thought to do that first?—she briefly entertained the possibility that it might be the real Soran, disguised so that he could roam freely about the Underhold in search of her, but the coincidence was too great. What were the odds that he would find her the moment she managed to free herself again? A thousand to one? A million?

No, this was another trap like Jenny—a failsafe that must have triggered when she slipped her bonds. She would be a fool to fall for it twice.

There was something else, too. For an instant when he walked through that door, she'd thought he was Meleen, of all people. That brief moment of disorientation could be from blood loss after cutting out her lockpicks, or strain from the failed transfer spell, but it also could be some sort of mind-warping magic, stealing images from her thoughts in order to tempt her into revealing herself. To be honest, Meleen might have been the better choice to draw her out; the rage which boiled within her at that imagined glimpse was palpable.

Kill him, the shadowy voices whispered. His armor can't stop your blades.

Jiari resisted the temptation, and not just because she couldn't quite make herself murder someone who wore Soran's face. That's what they want us to do. Better not to interact at all.

She shadowstepped into the hallway—walking was beyond her, and limping in her splint would have made too much noise—and watched the impostor hurry down the hall. Was he headed to report to his superiors, or to the exit?

The exit, she decided. With Bitternight and the other apothecaries charred almost beyond recognition, the two were likely the same direction now, and if he were smart he'd expect her to head there anyway. Instead she followed him, straining the range of her shadowstep to keep up with him. They reached the gate she remembered, and the impostor hesitated.

"Has anyone been through here recently?" he asked the two abominations standing guard.

They glanced at each other, then shook their misshapen heads. Jiari felt a wave of panic; he hadn't been running for the exit so he could leave the Underhold, but rather checking to see whether she'd already gone through it. He knew she was trapped. Now all he had to do was alert everyone else on this side of the door to search for her.

Instead of shouting for help, which is what Jiari would have done, he posted himself at the door—arms folded as if he intended to stay there for a while. The abominations didn't complain; few could speak, and fewer had enough working brain matter to do more than follow orders.

Of course—the impostor would expect her to be able to take down the guards and pick the lock. She could probably do it, even with the broken leg, but he was an unknown variable. Who was he under that illusion? A warrior like Soran? Another mage like the last time? She couldn't attack carelessly, but neither could he walk away and leave the door half-guarded.

It was a stalemate. Jiari shifted as silently as she could, trying to rest her good leg without putting any weight on the splinted one. She couldn't stand here forever. Neither could he (that was no Forsaken under the illusion; of that she was sure), but all he needed was someone else to walk past who he could quietly send to find Jenny and flood the halls with sedative gas again.

You should have killed him while he was alone, the voices whispered. You didn't listen, and now you're trapped. Trapped!

After two minutes that felt like an eternity, the impostor stirred. He frowned, nose twitching, and peered up and down the hallway in search of some scent Jiari hadn't caught. Twice he looked right through the shadows which veiled her, but she pulled them closer and held her breath.

Behind her, urgent voices rose; those who escaped the direct impact of the spell's detonation must have begun to regain their senses. Jiari tensed, hands clutching her borrowed knives, and prepared to make a final bid for freedom.

Then, astonishingly, the orc pulled out his keys and started trying them in the gate. Had he decided she wasn't going to try this route after all, or was it another trap? She couldn't see how it would be, unless all he'd been trying to do until now was delay her long enough for more help to come from outside. If so, she would still take her chances with whatever waited on the other side of that door.

It opened, and she shadowstepped through it, but there was no one on the other side except another pair of Deathguards. She needn't have moved so quickly, either. The orc under that flawed illusion (he had to be an orc; anyone else would have to move differently to make so much noise) pulled it wide and held it there, peering through as if looking for someone. He held it so long that the guards on the other side grew nervous.

"In or out," one of them said, eyes narrowed.

He came through and shut it just as a pair of battered apothecaries headed toward him from inside, and Jiari shadowstepped further down the hall while the Deathguards were distracted with making sure he locked it behind him. Some of those had particularly sharp eyes, and she wasn't in any condition to fight them this time.

What had just happened? If the orc beneath that illusion were working for Sylvanas or the apothecaries, he would never have let her through that door. There had to be some trick yet unrevealed, some explanation besides the one she couldn't make herself believe. Maybe Krom'gar had decided he wanted her back so Covas could torture her into claiming she'd murdered Overlord Thandor?

The illusion-cloaked orc walked away from the door, taking his time, scrutinizing every dark shadow. There was a desperation to his expression that he hadn't revealed before.

Run! the shadows whispered. He'll see you!

She watched him approach, frozen with indecision. She kept making the wrong choices when it mattered most; what if she did it again?

The maybe-Soran came abreast of her and moved on past. Then he stopped. His head lifted and his nose twitched as he looked around, and Jiari realized abruptly what had caught his attention. This whole place smelled faintly of bone dust and formaldehyde, but she smelled of blood and sweat—things only the living produced. Of course a perceptive nose would notice.

"Jiari?"

The yearning in his voice—it was a perfect match for Soran's—nearly made her release the veil of shadows which concealed her. The sound of that voice speaking her name was water in the desert; she would run through fire to hear it, if only it were real.

"I don't know why you're hiding from me, or even why you left me behind in the first place. If ... if it's because you want to be free of me, then I'll ... I will...."

He faltered, unable to speak whatever words came next. At last he took a deep breath and dug into his cloak, then pulled out a pair of daggers.

"At least I can give these back to you." He set them on the ground and walked on, jaw tight and back stiff. "The exit is this way."

Jiari stared at the knives which glinted in the flickering light of a wall sconce. She knew them; they were a pair she'd lost months ago, during the siege of Thandor Fortress. Not even Soran himself could have replicated them so exactly.

Don't listen. They're not real! Don't touch it don't touch it don't touch it!

Ignoring the voices, she leaned down and touched the blades. No spell sprung from the hardened steel to snare her; they were as real as the scars on her face. Jiari snatched them up and set out after her quarry, who was moving faster now. Before she could catch up he moved into an open chamber (where had all the people gone?) with no convenient walls to lean against for support, though the sides were lined with half-constructed war machines. In a few moments he would be out of her reach.

It's all a trick. Don't—!

She stepped out of the shadows. "Soran!"

The orc stopped in his tracks and turned with agonizing slowness. His breath caught as his eyes lit upon her, and he took a step closer.

"Wait." Jiari unsheathed a knife, still terrified that she might be wrong. "Prove it's you."

"I ... I don't know how," he said, anguished. "We haven't had enough time. I don't know your favorite color, your favorite food—I don't even know your children's names."

It was true. Their history was known, almost every interaction part of the public record. Any details which gossip hadn't already uncovered could simply have been tortured out of the real Soran.

"Then tell me...." There had to be something. A moment so obscure no one would have thought to ask him about it. "Tell me the first words you said to me during the battle of Thandor Fortress."

His eyes unfocused as he dug through his memory. "I said, 'Undead don't bleed.'"

They were close enough to the right words, but had she ever told them to anyone? Had Idrona or anyone else been close enough to hear it? She didn't think so—but how could she be sure?

The orc that was either Soran or a very convincing illusion took another step toward her, then several more. He didn't stop until his throat was within inches of her outstretched blade. The voices from the shadow practically screamed for her to run, or stab him, or both, but he had opened the gate, and given her weapons. What sort of enemy would do that? Who, if not someone who trusted her explicitly, could stand so close to her bared steel without any sort of hesitation?

At last, the hope that he was real overwhelmed her fear of being caught again, and she lowered the blade.

In an instant he had her wrapped in his arms, holding so tight that she nearly shadowstepped free in panic, but his limbs shook with the same relief as her own. "I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you were dead ... so many times."

"You're real," she whispered, feeling at the gouges in his armor. Those were no illusion, strangely, though there was nothing undead about him at least. He was warm and solid, and very much alive. "How did you find me?"

"Did you think I would ever stop looking?" The reproof in his voice was mild in comparison to the anguish on his face just a few minutes ago, when he thought she'd rejected him, but it cut her as deeply as a shouted accusation.

"I'm sorry." Jiari sobbed against his chest, weeks of tears pouring out all at once. She was sure her words were half-incoherent. "I should never have left you behind. I was wrong; it was never the curse, and even if it was, I shouldn't have ... shouldn't have made that decision without you."

Soran removed his helmet so he could press his forehead against hers. "I forgive you. So long as you don't ever do it again."

His tone was only half-joking, but that was enough to quell her tears for a moment. His rugged brow furrowed as he ran his fingers along her new scars. "What have they done to you?"

"They broke my leg. I need to see a healer before—"

With a crack like distant thunder, the chamber filled with dark, winged figures, the sound of their flight reminiscent of the plague bats of Lordaeron. They descended in a frantic swirl, one pair knocking each other out of the air.

"It's another trap!" Jiari pulled out the knife she had just sheathed.

"No—they're here because of me." He replaced his helmet, drew his axe, then considered her leg for half a moment before adding, "Hide!"

She had no choice but to obey; wounded like this she would only get in the way of his swings. Quickly she shadowstepped into the gap beneath one of the half-built machines.

Soran let loose with a roar at the winged things, adding more bodies atop the dazed ones which had collided. Jiari got a good look and realized they weren't bats at all, but smallish dragons.

Had they come to exact vengeance for Farwatcher's Glen? But no, those had breathed magma, while these spat gouts of scorching hot sand, some of which splashed into Jiari's shelter and stung her exposed skin. Rather than black, they were a silvery, sort of lightning-streaked color.

Whatever they were, organized was not it. There were at least three dozen all told, most whelps but a handful that were larger than Soran, and they clearly had not expected to find themselves inside such a narrow space. The larger of them ended up on the ground, and one decided it didn't care whether it hit its smaller fellows with its sand breath.

"Duck left!" Jiari barked. Soran reacted immediately, dodging out of the way of the scalding sand, though the whelplings did not. Three of them went down screaming. Another trio closed in on the sound of Jiari's voice and tried to spray sand into her hiding place.

She took one in the eye with a cheap knife she'd borrowed from the twice-dead Forsaken, and shadowstepped to another spot—this one less sheltered but with a better view. The young drakes had recovered from their confusion and were taking turns leaping past Soran and raking at him with their claws. She began to understand how his armor had so many gouges already.

"Go!" he shouted at her. "Make for the entrance!"

Jiari shadowstepped again and shoved a pile of supply boxes over onto one of the drakes that was waiting its turn. She might be comparatively immobile, but she could still fight. "I thought you said never to leave you behind again?"

Catching a glimpse of the look on his face was worth the scratch she got from a whelpling while her attention was divided. She thrust a workman's wrench through its wing membrane, then more of her poor quality knives found their way into more whelplings' throats, though the motion of flinging them made her leg scream in pain.

Soran cleaved a drake's head from its shoulders and barely dodged being pinned by the rest of its body as it fell. The faint grin on his face as he set his axe against impossible odds mirrored her own. "We escape together, then!"

Like most things in life, it was easier said than done. By the time they were halfway to where the corridor narrowed again they were both burned and bleeding, and only the terrain and Thandor's training kept them alive. Jiari ran out of knives she was willing to throw and made do with the contents of a goblin toolbox, shadowstepping or vanishing when the whelplings got close. Soran's armor protected him against the bulk of their attacks, but the bigger drakes buffeted him about until he found cover among the war machines.

Unfortunately, drakes could use their heads too. Once they realized they couldn't come at Soran in such a narrow space, they began shoving the half-built machines at him instead. He was able to dodge the first, but the second left him pinned and weaponless. One of the drakes shifted into the form of a night elf and retrieved the orcish greataxe, lifting it to finish him off.

"Soran!"

Though Jiari was already exhausted from shadowstepping around the battlefield, she found the strength for one more. Appearing in the air above the shifted drake, she spun and slammed one of her good knives into the back of his skull.

They fell together. The body of her foe cushioned the impact, but Jiari still hit hard enough that her leg slipped the splint and bent even further than the first time. She screamed, half-blinded by the pain.

"Jiari!" Soran reached for her, trying to free himself but unsuccessful. The surviving drakes shifted into humanoid form as well and closed in, grabbing spears from an overturned weapons rack.

Somehow still capable of rational thought despite the agony in her leg, Jiari grabbed Soran's axe and tried to crawl to him, but the night-elf drake—surely dying but not dead yet—clutched her scorched sleeve and held fast. She was stopped, inches from Soran but unable to touch him. Her life flashed before her eyes.

Then, just as all seemed lost, a yellow-haired gnome appeared, bridged their hands with her own, and took them someplace else.

Chapter Text

Jiari found herself on bare stone, with the open sky above her. The pain in her leg was too great for her to focus on where exactly she was, but the lack of anything trying to kill her was encouraging.

Soran, freed from the vice he'd been caught in, stumbled and landed on one knee beside her. His fingers found hers a moment later.

"She needs a healer!" he told the gnome. "Where's Meleen?"

"I don't think...."

Jiari's head spun, and the world went out of focus. Why did she have a sudden mental image of Meleen, undead and wearing Forsaken colors like Soran's now-dispelled illusion? This time it came with a memory of driving a blade through the treacherous draenei's eye socket.

"...them together yet."

"Tell me where she is," Jiari demanded, thrusting away the memory. It must have been a fragment of a dream she'd forgotten upon waking; nothing important. "I'll kill her for what she did to me!"

She tried to sit up, but Soran held her down and it hurt too much to fight him.

"We would never have found you without her help," he said angrily. What right did he have to be angry at her? He wasn't the one who'd been betrayed, half frozen, and then taken apart one piece at a time.

Take her apart, the voices whispered. You promised us blood!

"She lied to me! Kalibir would never have found me if she hadn't told me you were their prisoner."

Soran stiffened. Clearly he didn't have the full story yet.

"There isn't time for arguing." The voice came from where the gnome had been standing, but when Jiari turned there was a bronze-scaled drake there instead. She looked as cut up and battered as Soran was. "All aboard for Nijel's Point!"

"No." Soran's gaze was focused on Jiari. "None of us are ready for another fight. Take us somewhen safer."

The dragon hesitated, then nodded her great, scaled head. Soran gathered Jiari in his arms and carefully climbed aboard.

"It's you," Jiari said, gritting her teeth through the pain. "You were snooping around Thandor Fortress."

"We had good reason," Soran said, startling her. "Anytime, Chromie. We're ready."

Jiari was decidedly not ready, but she clung to Soran tightly as the bronze dragon spread her wings and ran off the edge of the bluff. After a terrifying drop and an excruciating jolt, Jiari felt the sensation of sand slipping past her skin as they dropped through some in-between place without sound or substance.

When they came through to the other side, Jiari gasped. They flew in a wide circle above a still-smoldering Thal'darah grove; the trees around it which weren't also blackened to char were tinted in the colors of autumn. It was exactly as she had seen it on her previous visit. The air was too warm and the sun too high for it to still be winter, and other things Soran had said clicked into place.

Time travel. We've gone backwards in time!

"When are we?" Soran asked after Chromie landed in a clearing not far from the smoking devastation.

"A few days before the siege of Thandor Fortress." The dragon was back in her gnomish form, though Jiari knew better than to think of her as anything less dangerous than what she was. "Back when there was still enough time magic to mask our arrival."

"How?" Jiari wondered as Soran spread out his cloak and laid her on it. She didn't have the concentration to ask anything more specific.

"It's what she does. This is Chronormu of the bronze dragonflight; they're the guardians of time."

"So nice to finally meet you!" Chromie held out a hand, then thought better of it when she saw how much pain Jiari was in. "Er, let's see if we can do something about that leg, shall we?"

The magic which surrounded the gnome-dragon was golden and again reminiscent of falling sand. Rather than healing, time seemed to reverse itself; first Jiari's leg moved back into its splint, then her cuts and burns vanished in reverse order from when she'd gotten them. A moment later the line of undeath began creeping back down her arm.

"Stop!" Jiari said in alarm, grabbing Chromie's wrist to interrupt her spell. "Don't undo any more!"

"But your leg isn't— Oh!"

She and Soran both stared at the hand with which Jiari had grabbed her. The withered limb with its darkened skin and exposed bones could never have been mistaken for living flesh.

Soran peeled back her sleeve until he found the join where dead skin met living. "What ... what did they do?"

"They tried to transfer the curse to someone else, but it blew up in their faces. You saw the aftermath."

"I had wondered," he admitted.

"It's ... still unraveling." The line hadn't moved upward since she last summoned the shadow dance, but it was unlikely she could go her whole life without using that again. At this point she wasn't sure she wanted to. "I don't know how long it will be before I'm my old self again."

Soran squeezed her hands. "It doesn't matter. However long it is, we'll make it be enough."

Jiari wrapped both arms around his neck, unwilling to let him out of reach. To her relief, he didn't flinch at the touch of her dead fingers. She held the embrace as long as she could stand to with an audience, then let Soran help her to her feet. She held out her good hand to the gnome-shaped dragon. "Thank you for getting us out of there. I assume you require payment of some kind?"

"Jiari!" Soran said.

"Wow, you're exactly as sharp as everyone says you are." Chromie shook her hand, expression wry. "I wouldn't call it payment exactly, but I do need your help."

*****

Meleen listened in from the spot where Chromie told her to wait before going back for Soran. The dragon had informed her that this wristband would tether Meleen to her when she jumped backwards in time, but she'd expected to find herself a matter of weeks in the past, not ... months, it must be, for the day to be so warm. For a few moments, until she saw Chromie land in the clearing, she'd been afraid the spell must have gone wrong.

The sight of Soran lifting Jiari from the dragon's back should have relieved her; that was what they'd been working toward these past weeks, ever since Meleen got herself shot down over Stonetalon. Instead it made her palms sweat and her muscles clench in panic. Jiari might have forgiven her once for the curse which brought her so much pain and anguish, but she'd be a fool to think the woman would ever do so again—not after the wild-eyed fury with which Jiari thrust that dagger into Meleen's eye. Though that was an alternate timeline, the rogue who did it was maybe ten minutes removed from the one in the clearing. There was no reason to believe things would go any differently should she step into the open.

"In that case," Jiari said in response to something Meleen hadn't caught, "why not go back into the past and recruit more of your kind to help?"

"Huh. I never even thought about that," said Soran.

Chromie's tone was a mix of admiration and resignation. "That really would be a good idea, if not for the retroactive timetrace."

"The what now?" Soran wondered right along with Meleen.

"We use them to track whether anyone has messed with important historical figures, but since the infinite dragonflight took my alternate's body with them as proof of her death, there a good probability they've cast one on her and every other bronze dragon they killed. If I change the history of someone they've done that to, the infinites will trace it backward and be on me like flies on a murloc's dinner."

"Suppose you recruit your own past self a few dozen times?" Jiari said. "Or some heroes from the past who don't have one of these timetraces on them?"

"I could, but it would be a logistical nightmare. Even a tiny slip would make temporal waves big enough for the infinites to notice."

"All right. What is the plan, then?"

She was asking all the right questions—the ones Meleen or Soran should have thought to ask weeks ago. She was the right person for this job. Meleen took heart, knowing that at least Nijel's Point would be in good hands even if she couldn't go back with them, but after Chromie and Soran explained their need for the Alliance fire brigade, Jiari shattered even that hope.

The rogue's pitch began low and tense, but rose with each sentence. "You've got to be kidding me. You want me to help you save the people who sold me out to Krom'gar? Who were so desperate to catch me that they forced me to sleep on a rooftop, then let Kalibir put on a show for the whole town and drag me off in chains?"

"Well when she puts it that way...." Chromie muttered.

"The one person in the whole place who I thought I could trust went out of her way—twice—to get me to walk into a trap. Help them? I'd rather go back to the Underhold!"

Meleen squeezed her eyes shut. It was naive to think Jiari would lay all of the blame on Meleen herself; if anything, she was the least of those responsible.

"You don't mean that," Soran said. "You're only saying it because you're hurt. Once we get you to a healer—"

"Of course I hurt! The apothecaries had me screaming almost every day, and it's their fault. Do you know how many times I wished I could reach a scalpel, just to end it?"

Meleen flinched, and was pretty sure the others did too.

"Please, Jiari. They couldn't have wanted this to happen to you."

"Couldn't they? You think they didn't know I was the one who made sure their assault had no survivors? Or that I killed their Lord Fallowmere with my own blade?"

"It's all right, Soran," said Chromie sadly. "If she won't help, then we'll just have to come up with a different plan. At least now we have plenty of time."

Chromie took the pair of them off to find a proper healer, and Meleen sank down on the leaf-covered ground and wept. How could she have thought a Horde champion would help her, even without her accidental betrayal? A single act of mercy didn't make them friends, and a pair of them didn't turn mortal enemies into allies. Saving Jiari's life had earned her only a brief respite from the wrath Meleen accrued when she helped lay that curse.

No—it was time for Meleen to stop expecting the Horde or even Chromie to save Nijel's Point. She had to find the solution by herself.

TO BE CONTINUED....