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When Rommath feels nothing, it is a surprise. Not even numbness – his constant companion, his shield, hollowing his chest to protect his heart – is in its rightful place. The Grand Magister’s Asylum is dark and quiet and so is his spirit. On this, the fifth anniversary of Kael’s funeral, his only thought is that perhaps it is time to utilise this space again. Not for himself – he has far fonder places to call refuge – but for other magisters, young ones, full of fire and promise.
A grimace barely twists his lips. Not yet: they are still so few in number. The Sunwell still has room to house every scholar and pilgrim and more. Magistrix Narinth’s little one is showing promise, and the list of birth registrations grows month by month, but it will be decades before Sunfury Spire bustles with enough excitement to make him long for the days of quiet with a wry smile.
The first year, he had sunk to his knees, powerless with grief, having sought private solace after his stoic, solemn vigil at Kael’s unmarked grave. The scent of peaceblossom had been strong on the wind that night, and Rommath had despaired of his powerlessness, had despaired of yet another inequitable kick in the teeth from a universe that revelled in perversity. Where was he to channel his rage and heartbreak if he could not even lay flowers on his prince’s grave? If he had not even a stone, a monument, a statue to stare at unseeing while he schooled his lips to stillness and cursed his nose for running, leaking the tears that his eyes would not?
All had agreed that Kael must be buried in secret. Rommath could not fault the populace for their anger – as the former prophet of Kael’s brilliance he was intimately acquainted with the outrage of betrayal – but he wished, how he desperately wished, that his friend could have passed in a normal way, the right way, old in his bed, surrounded by family, with a funeral that was as much celebration as it was mourning. They were supposed to have grown old together, he and Kael, painting Dalaran red and gold, eventually returning to Silvermoon to rule with no regrets, Rommath ever loyal at King Kael’s side.
Completely alone in the eerie sanctity of the Grand Magister’s Asylum, Rommath had execrated and excoriated his weak and wretched heart. What use was grief? What use anguish? Pitiful, all of it. Their forces were soon to assault Icecrown Citadel; this visit was a frivolity he could ill afford. And yet here he was, hands clutching at the sunburst mosaic like a widow in the throes of torment.
I love you. The thought rose unbidden and demanding, like vomit, and just as vile. A secret he would take to his grave – and would his have a marker? Despicable, unworthy Rommath, laid to rest in the family vault while Kael lay alone on Quel’danas? His heart burned with bile. Not enough; his love had never been enough. Perhaps if he had been brighter, more cheerful, more vital, Kael would have kept him by his side and never been swayed by the insidious whisperings of the Deceiver.
But no, no. That way lay madness, and he had already worn great gouges into the stone of that winding path. Arrogant, to assume that one man could have arrested Kil’jaeden’s designs. Who was he, to single-handedly thwart the Legion?
He had always attempted everything single-handedly, though.
Except with you.
Kael’s brilliance had been blinding, strong enough to bring even reserved, solitary Rommath into his radiance. Long into the night they had laughed and talked and theorised. Kael had shown Rommath the value of collaboration, the value of opening himself to others. Those days in Dalaran had made him a more generous man – a better man. Kael had loved him, even only as a friend.
Unconsciously, he flexed his left arm – his stave arm – militant, determined. He pushed himself up from the floor, the tiles smooth beneath his palms, and swept from the room with eyes that trailed demon fire.
“The Lich King will soon pay for all that he has ruined,” he vowed, whispering, carving the promise into his heart, into his forearm, hoping that the blood that dripped to the dark soil of Kael’s final resting place would somehow drain him of the agony that wracked him.
It had not, of course. He had returned to Silvermoon with an ache in his arm and a hole in his heart as wide and spiralling as the cosmos, betrayal still infecting him with its putrid flame.
Year upon year he had returned and grieved. His shamefully dramatic gesture had not been repeated, but his love and grief and anger still roiled and seethed deep within, allowed to surface only when alone, only at times of his own choosing. His will was iron; his will was steel.
His will was weak, snapping beneath the weight and force of his unseemly, unbecoming emotions.
On this, the fifth anniversary, Rommath finds that he feels nothing at all. His heart beats smoothly and evenly; his hands do not shake; his ears do not curl. The Grand Magister’s Asylum is just a room in need of a dusting, a room in need of quills and parchment and bright voices.
I loved you. The thought rises quietly and unassumingly, like acceptance, and just as tranquil. The maelstrom within him has ebbed without his realising, contentment slowly filling the emptiness like grains of sand in an hourglass. Time: the great healer. He would have scoffed, once, but here, in this place, after all these years, he cannot deny it: the future does not have Kael in it, and that is finally okay.
The relief, the freedom, yawns before him like a chasm that has no end, but that is okay too, because Rommath is resourceful. Rommath’s life is full of friends and good, honest work for which he is highly esteemed. Quel’thalas is flourishing under his stewardship; its people no longer whisper about him. He receives more frivolous holiday love tokens than even Brightwing, to the bafflement of them both.
I loved you. The thought settles easily and warmly, like absolution, and just as gracious. His heart is no longer chained to a spectre of another world, another life. His heart is no longer chained to a prince – a friend – who was beautiful and brilliant and oh-so-achingly fallible.
When he meditates beside the Sunwell, the last stop before he returns to Silvermoon, Rommath finally opens himself to the golden energies that have entwined and enmeshed with the arcane that is his lifeblood. Rommath does not like the church, does not like the fawning and prostration before a force that simply is, but the calm and the hope that flow through him, the peace he feels, are undeniably holy, if holy is what it means to have a heart that is clean and bright and burning.
On this, the sixth anniversary, Rommath is preparing for war. There is no time to visit Quel’danas, not with the Burning Legion once more at their door, but he knows that Kael of all people would understand. He looks down at the ring on his hand, plain and gold and precious, the fondest of promises, and allows himself to smile.
I will avenge you, he vows, carving the promise into his heart, into the world, knowing that the strength of his conviction and the strength of his love will surely drain the Deceiver of the very life he wishes to extinguish.
He scoffs quietly at himself. When had he begun to think so artlessly? The strength of my love? You have turned my head, made me an imbecile.
For a while Rommath stares out at the Isle, alone with his thoughts, watching the sun glint off the ocean and the light of the Sunwell spiralling into the clouds. The view from Sunfury Spire has always been spectacular, and this day is no different.
Footsteps sound on stone, careful and measured, and Rommath does not need to turn to know that it is Lor’themar. They stand in silence for a while, companionable and easy. Rommath is glad that he need not explain himself.
“We will avenge him,” Lor’themar says eventually, quietly but full of conviction.
On this, the sixth anniversary of Kael’s funeral, Rommath feels everything, and it is no surprise at all.