---------------

Please read and review. My first fan fiction.

Please also note that I, like everyone else, do not own World of Warcraft. I did invent the characters in this story, however (obviously not the NPCs from Blizzard's world who will make appearances later).

The present action of the story takes place 5 years after the defeat of Archimonde, during the time of The Burning Crusade. Every so often there will be a flashback chapter to the characters lives before the war with Archimonde. These chapters will have titles prefaced with "The Past:" and the beginning of the chapter will say how many years before the rest of the story it takes place.

--------------

The dead man's skin disintegrated when touched, coating its surroundings with dust. The body looked wrong – hollow, almost. The face contorted in agony, eyes wide open in obvious shock and fear, but with a hint of something else, something unrecognizable.

Gavren turned to his lieutenant and spoke in a soft whisper. "Four years working for the Temple, and I've never seen anything like this. I was traveling back when that damn plague was devastating the Northern Kingdoms, and I never saw anything close to this. See if you can get one of the priests down here. We need more guidance than I can give." His lieutenant nodded and turned to depart, while Gavren turned back to the corpse.

The disintegrating skin had left patches of muscle exposed. It was horrifying. Gavren had seen exposed muscles before, as a result of combat injuries, but these looked wrong. They were gelatinous and transparent. Gavren had seen similar things happen to the muscles of a diseased man several years ago, but there had been other symptons. Pustules and sores, loss of hair, loss of eyesight. The man dead on the floor in front of him showed none of the above. It's like his body was melted, but it wasn't burned or cooked... melted without heat. Is that possible?

Gavren tore his eyes away from the macabre sight in front of him and looked up. He was standing in a small cottage in Goldshire, just outside Stormwind. In chairs around the table were seated three women – the wife of the deceased man, and his two daughters – all understandably shocked. Watching over them were two members of the Stormwind guard, assigned to help Gavren in his work. A neighbor had called for the guard after hearing a scream from the cottage, but upon seeing the body, the guard had quickly asked the Temple to send a help. Gavren had still been awake, despite the late hour, and upon hearing the details, he had requested the assignment. The Latrielle family, in whose cottage he now stood, were old friends from his youth. The dead man was Frederick Latrielle, a woodcarver. Gavren had been friends with his youngest daughter growing up in Goldshire. The youngest daughter who had been missing for the last five years...

None of the three women had said a word, which was compounding the difficulty of Graven's investigation. He supposed he could bring them back to the Temple and try to coerce them to speak there, but he didn't have the heart. They were doubtless silent from the shock, and the old ties of his childhood made him feel sympathy for them.

Gavren turned to one of the guards. "I just sent Katryna up to fetch a priest. I need you to go and request a druid and a shaman as well. See if you can find one in the city, and if not, send a request from the Temple to Darnassus and the Exodar. We're going to need help here."

The guard nodded and left.

Gavren hadn't been expecting any of the women to speak after their initial silence, so he wasn't sure at first he had heard correctly when the Lady Latrielle – now the Widow Latrielle, he corrected himself, berating himself for morbidity as soon as the thought came to his brain – spoke.

"It was her," she murmured softly.

"Excuse me?" Gavren stared at her.

"Her," the widow repeated, staring straight and unblinkingly at a spot on the wall of the cottage.

"Who is her? Lady Latrielle, I will find your husband's killer, but you must help me," he said as he walked over to her. Perhaps a bit blunt and straightforward, but it was late, and Gavren was well past tired. He put a hand – hopefully a comforting one – on her shoulder. There was a long pause before the Lady spoke again.

"My own flesh and blood. Her. Come back and killed her own father."

These words seared themselves straight into Gavren's brain. He stiffened involuntarily, unsure how to respond. The missing daughter. Gone for five years. His closest childhood friend. No... she couldn't have... she wasn't on very good terms with her father when she left, understandably so... but to murder him...

"She was all in black. Like the night. Like death. But it was her own voice. I been waitin' five years to hear that voice. But I wish to the Gods and to the Light I hadn't tonight. It was awful. It weren't like I remember it, not sweet. All dark. All pain. All anger. That voice gone and changed over the last five years. But still her voice. I know that past a doubt." The Lady's voice was flat and emotionless.

Gavren stared at her, and the look on her face banished any doubt from his mind that she was telling the truth. Hollow, despondent, utterly hopeless. It was a frightening thing to see; someone that had lost all desire to live. The type of thing that only happened when a person was forced to see or experience something horrible, something beyond comparison. Like watching your youngest daughter murder your husband in a horrible way.

Gavren turned slowly back to the mangled corpse on the floor.

Cathery... what have you done? What has happened to you?

------------------------------

The incessant pounding on the door of her room in the inn was beginning to give her a headache. At first she'd tried ignoring it, but that strategy was clearly failing. Perhaps it was best just to give in, and see if she could make whoever go away. She rolled awkwardly out of her bed, staggering over to the dresser next to the window to grab a shirt.

She stared outside. It must have been one in the morning, at the earliest. Not late by her old sleep schedule, when she lived in the forests of Teldrassil, but she had adopted a diurnal schedule since moving to Stormwind. Inwardly, she sighed. Humans were a strange bunch of malcontents. If you were noctournal, everything closed at eleven and you had to change your ways. If you became diurnal, they wanted you up at one in the morning. Even Night Elves need sleep, you sods...

Although voicing her thoughts was tempting, she managed to muster enough courtesy to simply yell out an "I'm coming!" while pulling a black silk shirt over her head. It wasn't the most modest item she owned, having been tailored for a party in Darnassus several years ago and intended for wear with an evening gown. But it would suffice for now. She wasn't going to spend time dressing, not at this hour. The only reason she was dressing at all was because the idea of greeting a human with nothing but a bra on top was extremely unappealing.

Thank you, Cenarius, father of Druids, for making my work pants comfortable enough to sleep in, and thus making me look at least partially respectable right now with less effort. The prayer was only halfway joking.

She staggered sleepily over to the door and opened it. A man in a Stormwind guard uniform was standing outside, looking flustered. Probably from banging on my damn door a bit too much.

She blinked groggily at him. "Yeah, what do you want," she muttered, her tone barely making the sentence into a question.

"Ah.. are you Miss Edelia A'luntho... luntho...lre..." the messenger stuttered, clearly not accustomed to the pronunciation of Darnassian names. Some Night Elves had extremely easy ones – Dawnbreeze, Riverrunner, the like. Edelia's name was not one of them.

"A'lunthorela," she muttered.

"Yes, Miss Alunth... er, sorry... " he floundered again.

She sighed in exasperation. This was not worth getting up at one in the morning for. "It doesn't matter. Edelia is fine. Yes, I am her. Tell me want you want." With any luck, her directness would be reciprocated and this could be settled quickly.

"Miss Edelia, I am sorry for waking you at this hour, but your presence has been requested by Gavren Tuldor, Paladin of the Light, Most Honorable Servant of his Lord -"

"I don't care who his Lord is," she cut him off snappishly. So much for directness being reciprocated. "What does Gavren Tuldor want with me?"

"Well, ma'am," started the messenger apologetically, "there's been a death. And Sir Tuldor has requested the aid of a druid. Your acquaintance at the Temple gave us your name and location."

Oh sodding hell. Giving Amy my name and telling her that I'd be happy to help the Servants of the Light whenever they needed it. It seemed like such a nice idea at the time. Sodding sodding hell.

But I did promise to help.

What kind of death does he need a druid for? Can't a paladin deal with a dead body?

She stood in the doorway, mulling it over in her mind for a moment, but in the end, there was relatively little doubt as to her decision. She had promised to help, and Edelia's word meant the world to her. And perhaps, if she was lucky, the need for a druid was real, and Cenarius wanted her there. It was worth finding out more, at least.

"Very well. Give me one moment to find my boots, and then you may take me to this Gavren Tuldor."

----------------------------------

She heard a splash as she stepped into the cottage and looked down. She'd stepped into a large puddle of white liquid that stretched across the length of the floor. It was opaque; not clear like water. Edelia stepped back out of reflex, into the doorway and away from the strange substance.

"Here, you don't want to step in that. Let me give you a hand across." She looked up at the speaker, a well-built human with short brown hair and dark brown eyes to match. He looked to be in his early thirties. The tabard covering his silver armor identified him as a paladin from the Temple. His face reflected the tiredness she felt, which made her feel slightly better about being awake at this hour. Misery loves company. There was also something else hidden in his features. Anger, perhaps, or sadness. Edelia couldn't tell for sure.

"Gavren Tuldor?" she asked, regarding his outstretched hand.

"Yes. And trust me, you want a hand across. You'll be glad for the help once I tell you what that puddle is."

She frowned at him, more than a little confused by his words. But the puddle was just a few inches too wide for her to step across into the room without getting some on her boots, and if it turned out to be something truly unpleasant...

Edelia nodded and reached out, grasping his hand. It was rough, calloused. A swordfighter's hand. She took a leap across the puddle and he pulled her across in the air, swinging her to the other side where he let go. She stepped back from him and turned to regard the puddle, now that she had more room.

"Well, Sir Gavren Tuldor, what is it?" she inquired. He turned towards her.

"Gavren is fine. And brace yourself before I tell you, Miss..."

"Edelia is fine for now. No Miss," she answered, recalling the messenger's difficulty with her last name. "And consider me properly braced."

He nodded, a grim expression on his face, before turning back towards the puddle.

"An hour ago, it was a corpse."