For the briefest of instants, an infernal heat ruled the dark frozen depths of the damned citadel. Only for a moment however. The flames of the burning corpse of the last undead guard quickly faded into a frozen oblivion, leaving only the icy light of the spiral stair case to the Frozen Throne illuminating the burned area around the former arch mage.
"Hurry Proudmoore. Time is running out." The ghostly whisper of her recently found and hated mentor.
"Do you really think I didn't know, you damned specter?" Jaina retorted, move towards the frozen staircase at the heart of the Icecrown citadel.
"Forgive me, I for one would rather not be completely imprisoned by the self proclaimed 'Jailer of the Damned' because you needed to wipe out every shambling corpse."
Jaina grit her teeth in anger while picturing the moment long ago, when the cursed specter had died the first time, with his rib cage crushed by a paladin's hammer. There were no words for Jaina express the sheer hatred she felt for everything that had forced her to ally herself with the fallen Kel'Thuzard.
In the pale freezing light, the ice around the Sorceress reflected warped images back to her. The clearest of them showed a worn and frost covered cloak covering much of her body. Only her head and gloved hands were visible. Jaina's staff, once clean and well cared for was now burnt and blackened with soot. Her remaining blonde hair now matched the bleached white that had served to remind her of the Horde's inhumanity and those lost because of her foolish dreams. Her skin was pale and taunt over her face from the cold and lack of food with dark and heavy bags under her eyes from the next to no sleep during the past month from Kel'Thuzard's lessons and her studies of the forbidden tomes she had "borrowed" from Dalaran and a few over individuals.
It wasn't her haunting appearance that made her pause at the foot of the stairs of ice. Instead, she found herself thinking back to the last time she'd been in Icecrown, she thought of those who'd gone up the stair before her. The would be heroes and the both the current Litch King and Arthas.
As she began her climb, Jaina's thoughts turned back to the earliest days of the Third War, to when Arthas a declared the purge of Stratholme. Far, far too late she now knew what he'd gone through when he had been the one to see the truth while Jaina and Uther had prattled about how there had to be another way. Instead of listening, she'd abandoned the man she'd loved to damnation and death. Now she suffered as he had suffered. No one had ever listened to her naive delusions of peace between the Alliance and Horde and no one had listened after she'd been painfully awoken to the truth of the world.
"Soon, with the might of the Scourge we'll be able to wipe the Legion from the face of the world, the Horde along with them. All that's left is for you to hold up your end of the bargain. We're so close now."
Were it not for the words coming from the impatient Kel'Thuzard, Jaina would have smiled at the idea of the Horde broken, their spirit shattered and their traitorous races cowed and begging for forgiveness. Jaina had no interest in arguing with the specter why it had taken her as long as it had. Instead, she turned back her focus to her ascension.
She was nearly a third of the way up and more memories flew by, most filling her heart with even more hatred, especially where compassion and mercy had once had been savagely ripped to pieces by the Horde. Hatred of the Legion that was the source of both the Scourge and the Horde. Hatred of the Scourge for those it had taken from her. Hatred of the Horde for shattering all that she had tried to build. Hatred of the Alliance and all its worthless bureaucracy and leaders that had continuously ignored her until it was too late. Hatred of Dalaran for betraying her to allow the traitorous blood elves and other Horde savages back within the city walls. And finally, hatred of herself, for everything she'd done in the name her shallow beliefs, naive dreams and personal weakness. All of it fused together into a burning and freezing knot in her chest that felt near suffocating.
It was half-way once Jaina thought about how things had come to this. How she was forced to take extreme measures to save the few remaining things in the world that she was still able to care for. After the council of Dalaran had betrayed her to allow the traitorous Horde back into the city, she'd left to find some place that would heed her words. And despite the end promised by the Legion's invasion, still no-one listened or cared. Lost and alone, the Archmage had briefly considered just finally ending it all by throwing herself at the demons and taking out as many as she could before dying like Varian had. It was beyond stupid and pointless, but at the very least it would have been an end to all the pain that her memories and her utter powerlessness continuously caused her.
But that had been but a brief moment before Jaina clasped onto her nurtured and growing hatred and refused the despair. It was worthless and dying like that would achieve nothing. However as she still had been without anywhere to turn, Jaina had found herself drawn to a place she had never expected to return to. A place where she'd made a choice that she loathed herself to this day for. With little options and a dwindling sense of sanity, Jaina returned the place that had plagued what little sleep she'd had since she'd left Dalaran, the damned, burnt out ruins of Stratholme. There, she at last understood how Arthas had felt when he'd stood upon the hill overlooking the now ruined city, and there she'd found Kel'Thuzard. The Litch had fallen far from grace, yet he had endured and laid a trap within Stratholme to lure a mage to him so he could possess a body and break free of the Litch King's control. However, with his powers limited, he had been barely even a shadow of his former self and Jaina had easily obliterated his trap. In the aftermath, she'd had the chance to destroy the accursed mage once and for all was she'd held his phylactery in her hand, toying with the various ways of violently and thoroughly annihilating the vile thing. Yet, Kel'Thuzard managed to convince Jaina to stay her hand and offered a solution to both their problems, a near perfect compromise.
Through all the chaos that was now besieging the world, there was one force that had done nothing. The Scourge was still chained within Northrend by the Litch King's will. The only thing the Jailer of the Dammed had done to protect the world was allow his paltry force of death knights free reign, which meant that all the power of the Scourge was still untouched, and would remain so for as long as the current king ruled. However, the bargain that Kel'Thuzard had offered would change that, and all Jaina would have to do would be to remove Bolvar Fordragon from the throne, which would allow the Litch to become the new Litch King. Of course that alone would be unacceptable, but the compromise was that Jaina would hold onto Kel'Thuzard's phylactery after his accession, essentially allowing her to keep the leader of the Scourge on her leash. Even as the fleeting voice of Jaina's sanity implored her not to, the mage accepted the bargain, knowing for certain the Kel'Thuzard would have something planned to back stab her.
It had taken a month of preparation, for even though Jaina's arcane powers were formidable, assaulting Icecrown alone would have been suicide. As such, Kel'Thuzard had taken her under his tutelage, teaching her the dark arts of necromancy, which she added to by returning to Dalaran quietly and using her Archmage status to grab the more forbidden tomes from the city's library. She chosen to practice what she learned in Northrend, far from prying eyes. She had barely slept for the entire month, as she'd focused entirely on her studies with a dark and terrible passion. Kel'Thuzard had been astounded by her progress, commenting how much of a waste it was that she'd been Antonidas's apprentice instead of his.
That memory made Jaina smirk darkly at the idea. Briefly she wondered what might have been if she'd actually been Kel'Thuzard apprentice when she'd been given to the Kirin Tor, and a mad laugh escaped her pale lips.
"Is there something amusing?" Her would-be master asked.
"Nothing, nothing at all." Jaina replied. From the cloudy light above, she could see that she was almost to the top of the spire.
The assault itself had been a simple matter in its planning, but a completely different matter in practice. With time pressing against her, the Legion's invasion, her mounting paranoia that the Kirin Tor would learn of her plan and her own impatience, Jaina opted for a more brunt and straight to the point plan to herself inside Icecrown. Using what she'd learned Jaina intended to raise a frost wyrm of her own to break through a much of the defenses as possible and rush for the Frozen Throne. Kel'Thuzard had not been particularly fond of the brutal approach and pointed out that raising an undead dragon would consume far too much of her mana, even if there was still a usable skeleton in the Dragon Blight for her to use, as most had risen and many had been destroyed.
Jaina had ignored Kel'Thuzard's concern considering the first point. Of course she'd already taken the mana cost into consideration and had the perfect solution in mind. As for the latter, that problem had forced her to delay for a few days as she searched for a skeleton that met her requirements before coming to a most ambitious conclusion. There had been one skeleton that was untouched, entirely whole, and exposed enough for her to use.
Galakrond, the massive bones of the Progenitor of Dragonkind had remained undisturbed since she'd rescued Kalec from the relic he'd uncovered within the beast's gargantuan remains.
With that, all Jaina had needed to do was retrieve a certain artifact. And she did so with a twisted bittersweet pleasure when she payed one last visit to Dalaran, going to the Deepest vaults of the Kirin Tor. As the council was focused entirely on the war, there had been little trouble for her until near the end, where the guardians of the vault had attempted to contact the council to confirm her business. The Alliance mages wound up unconscious and unable to move, the Horde mages... were far less fortunate. Along with one other small item of a twisted sort of sentimental value, Jaina stole the Focusing Iris, and used its power to aid her in raising Galakrond. Or at least half of the monster. Undoubtedly given time and research, Jaina could have used it to raise the behemoth in its entirety, but she knew that even though she gotten away before the alarm could have been raised, as what she stole had been protected by her own spells, it wouldn't be long before someone alerted the council, and in particular Kalec, to what she had done.
The wingless top half of Galakrond had been more than enough to get Jaina to Icecrown and well past the gates. Kel'Thuzard had guided her to the heart of the citadel and her magic, boosted with the Focusing Iris had made short work of the defenders she'd encountered.
With that memory, Jaina now stood at top of the stairs, before the Frozen Throne and the burning carcass that called itself a king that sat entombed within. The thoughts of Kalec and how he'd try to stop her made her bite her lip in disgust, anger and, possibly from the very last part of her heart that hadn't been ripped apart yet, a final fleeting, faded spark of desperate hope.
"Proudmoore... What madness has caused a peacemaker to come to die alone on the roof of the world in the war with the Legion?"
Madness? Was it such that drove her, Jaina found herself wondering as the Litch King raised the corpses of those that had fallen against the last stand of the previous lord of the undead. Was it madness to want to save her world by any means? To seek the power to attain the justice that has been denied for far, far too long? To finally have those that would listen to her?
"Madness? Perhaps it's something like that, but you're mistaken in believing I'm the same naive brat I was before, Bolvar." Jaina replied, gazing up at the burning figure entombed in ice with nothing but hate, pain and certainty burning in her eyes.
"No matter how you think you've grown, leave or you will die. There is no peace for you to seek here." One of the last guardians to rise was the cold preserved corpse of the former Litch King, a crude sword of ice forming to replace the shattered accursed runeblade he had once wielded.
Seeing her former love once more and knowing full well that he was damned and the Litch King's words caused a bitter laugh to echo out into the frozen open court, which surprised her almost as much as it surprised Kel'Thuzard and Bolvar.
"Peace? Such a thing is impossible in this world, with the Horde savages and those fools leading the Alliance. But what's here will certain change that beyond any doubt." Jaina immediately went on the offensive, using a combination of her newfound necromancy to interfere with the undead and slow them while her old and refined arcane magics wrecked havoc with fire, ice and a large elemental of water and ice.
"You would doom this world with your actions!"
"It was doomed when the orcs first invaded!" Jaina screamed, angry at Bolvar's worthless excuses for his inaction. If he cared so much for Azeroth, why did he do nothing with the power of the Scourge!
Once enough of the defending undead had been thinned out, Jaina threw her elemental forward against the remaining defenders to buy her the time she needed while she made a dash for the throne, readying the Focusing Iris. One of the undead broke away from the elemental's distraction to intercept the fallen Archmage. At first, Jaina readied a fire spell to eliminate the corpse, but quickly changed it as she saw that it was Arthas.
"I'll make things right." Jaina whispered as she avoided a swing from the risen corpse used a simple knockback spell to make some room, then followed it up by immobilizing Arthas by encasing him in ice.
This action left the mage open to a magic assault by the Litch King which sent her staggering back, eating away at the last remaining speck of warmth that hadn't been cut away by Northrend's winds and draining the energy from her.
"You've made your choice to join him in damnation. Your journey ends here."
Jaina's vision started to grow dark as her strength faded and the despair that had wish her to throw herself at the Legion, once more reared its wailing voice for her to give in and just let it all end. She'd sacrificed everything, for nothing...
Nothing?
Once again the voices of Jaina's past replayed. She heard Arthas declare the purge, she heard the prophet Medivh's words of doom and more. All of it quickly reignited Jaina's faltering will in a bursting inferno of hatred which in turn gave her the strength to conjure up a shield against the Litch King's assault.
Step by step, she moved towards the Frozen Throne, focusing her defense on deflecting Bolvar's offense rather that straight up blocking it in order to make her shield last just a little longer while the undead finished off her elemental and started to turn towards the Archmage. The Litch King's assault intensified with every step and Jaina could almost feel the undead closing on her, but she made it up the last few steps as her shield collapsed and stabbed with her staff with all her might, slamming the final remaining shard of Frostmourne she'd fixed to the staff's base.
The Litch King's death knights had been thorough in their search to gather all the fragments. All but one. Jaina had kept the shard of the accursed blade's tip in a vain attempt to find a way to release the souls of those lost to the Scourge, but the majority of the sword's magic had been lost in its destruction, leaving her with a worthless piece of scrap metal with dark memories attached which she buried and forgot, until shortly after her return to Stratholme.
The ice coffin of the Litch King shattered violently, blasting back the onrushing undead. Jaina had prepared some defenses which only caused her to knocked back slightly. Even as her staff shuddered and splintered from the abuse, the Archmage raised her weapon to finish what she started and stabbed towards the now exposed Bolvar who caught the makeshift spear with his charred and still burning hands. Now it was a physical struggle between the two.
While in life Bolvar would have easily outmatched Jaina in a contest of physical might, the ravages of the dragon fire had taken much of his strength away, and the Archmage could feel Kel'Thuzard using what meager magic he had to siphon power from the now stunned undead guards.
"Finish it! Finish it now!" The spectral Litch cried out as Jaina slowly forced the shard's point forward closer to Bolvar's unbeating heart.
"Kel'Thuzard... You can...not be serious... Proudmoore... You'll die before... realizing what you've done!"
"I know full well what I'm doing, Bolvar..." Jaina grunted as she put in the final effort and drove the spear-point home, twisting it viciously and blasting unholy fire down through her now ruined staff and into the doomed Litch King. As the being once know as Bolvar Foredragon screamed in despair, the Archmage whispered to herself so quietly that not even Kel'Thuzard heard. "Succeeding you..."
In an explosion of green and orange flames and white ice shards the Litch King died. The force of the blast finally destroyed Jaina's tortured staff and blew her back with enough force to leave her completely stunned for a few moments. Strangely, she didn't feel panicked as she pushed herself up from the bone chilling ice, only a dark and absolute calm. A look around revealed that the Litch King's guards had fallen with their master. It was uncertain how long that would remain the case.
"Finally the pretender has fallen." With the threat of Bolvar's control over him gone, Kel'Thuzard once more returned in full, reforming his normal skeletal form. "You have done very well Proudmoore." The Litch waved away the cloud of ice around them and floated towards the empty Helm of Domination where it lay at the foot of the Frozen Throne. "Far better than I'd expected, all things considered. As such, I'll give you the chance to serve me willingly."
The betrayal had been long coming. Jaina had known that their bargain wouldn't last past the Litch King's death. One mercy was that Kel'Thuzard was aware of the fact that the Archmage had discovered his safety measures on his phylactery, so he skipped over explaining the situation.
"That's quite different from what I had in mind, Litch."
"Did you really expect otherwise? You are still such a child, Proudmoore." The balefire orbs glowing within Kel'Thuzard's eye sockets barely threw a glance towards Jaina, otherwise he might have noticed the dark smirk forming upon her chapped and frozen lips.
"And did you really think I believed that you taught me everything?" Kel'Thuzard's skeletal fingers reached for the Helm... and stopped just short of the black metal.
"What?"
Jaina walked over to the stunned and helpless Litch, fiddling with the phylactery as though it was a mere trinket, revealing the enchantment she'd cast upon it to bind Kel'Thuzard to her will. "I made it a point to teach myself all that you left out, 'Master'."
"Impossible!" She now had the Litch's full attention, his balefire eyes staring at her with what she imagined was shock and anger. "Tch, you may control my physical form and my power, but my mind is my own still, Proudmoore. And you wont be able to keep me trapped forever."
"I don't need to." Jaina reached down for the Helm of Domination.
She'd known that Kel'Thuzard would betray her. Initially she'd thought she could control him like a puppet, but the few experiments she'd managed in the month had cast serious doubts on that plan. That doubt only increased with the more she learned until she came up with a new plan. Or rather...
"What are you..."
As Jaina touched the black, ice coated metal, even through the gloves and her numb fingers, the former Archmage felt a chill like nothing before all but blast its way through her, all the way down to her soul. Despite the sudden shock of cold, or perhaps because of it, her grasp was firmly frozen to the Helm of Domination as she lifted it up and gazed upon the still orange crystal and the empty eye gaps.
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." Jaina declared.
"No..."
Before she could wonder at just how light and fragile the Helm felt for its look, an unwelcome, but inevitable newcomer arrived.
"Jaina!" A massive winged form dropped down from the dark ominous skies, transforming as he landed into his half-elf form. "No... What have you done?"
Jaina looked towards Kalec, uncertain what she was feeling as a immense amount of conflicting emotions rose within her upon seeing his dumbstruck and worried face. Pain, anger, frustration and relief were all bottled within her and drove away the cold, numb void of hate.
"What does it look like Kalec? No one listens to those without power, so it's time I finally forced people to." She scowled at the former Aspect as she felt her gaze being drawn back to the Helm as the possibilities of the retribution she would bring.
"Jaina, I understand that you're hurting, but that no excuse for what you've done and what you're going to do. It's not too late, come with me away from this cursed place. The last thing Azeroth needs is another monster." There was a quiet anger mixed in with the fear in his voice as he took a cautious step towards her. Jaina was actually hurt that Kalec looked like he was expecting her to attack, even as she went over how she could beat him.
That contradiction within the Archmage caused her will to falter, giving Kel'Thuzard the opportunity to attempt to break free in the simplest way possible, killing Jaina.
As the razor shards of Kel'Thuzard's spell raced towards the Archmage, Kalec raced forward and tackled her out of the way. The Litch was able to fire off another spell before Jaina established control of the undead mage, that attack was easily blocked by the blue dragon. However, the undead guards of the fallen Litch King were now beginning to rise once more.
"Time has run out, Proudmoore. The time of the living is ending, either by the Legion's hand or the tide of the Scourge. You should have taken my offer, as you don't have the will to take the Frozen Throne." Kel'Thuzard declared smugly, his balefire eyes boring deep into Jaina's soul as she once again got to her feet.
"Jaina get the Helm and grab onto me!" Kalec said urgently as he blasted the nearest of the advancing undead.
Almost in a daze, Jaina drifted to the Helm of Domination where it had fallen after she'd been tackled by Kalec. She'd been so sure of the need of vengeance against the Horde for everything the savages had taken from her and the few remaining people she loved. But after seeing Kalec afraid of her, that had shaken Jaina far more than she'd expected. Grabbing the Helm, the Archmage swore she could hear a growing chorus of the damned claimed by the Scourge that was now beginning to fully wake.
What had she done? The human remnant within Jaina whispered.
A painful grunt from Kalec caused Jaina to strengthen her will, lest it falter again and she turned back towards him, Helm in hand. Kel'Thuzard was still bound and none of the undead had reached Kalec yet, but drops of blood dripped onto the ice in a small pool at the dragon's feet. He'd been hit by one of Kel'Thuzard's spells.
Seeing that reminded Jaina just how easy it was for her to lose those people she held dear and as though in response to her fear, the chorus of the damned within the Helm began to whisper dark and tempting promises into her ears. For the briefest of instants she ignored them, but then she recalled a situation similar to this...
How many would have been saved if she'd drowned Orgrimar when she'd had the chance? If she hadn't listened to Kalec and Go'el? The Alliance had already lost more than the invasion fleet that would have been wiped out with the city. How many more were doomed because she and Varian had allowed the Horde to endure?
"Jaina!" Kalec called, frantically as he blasted another walking corpse to ashes. The rest were uncomfortably close now and the corpse of Arthas was about to strike.
Her gaze never left the Helm as she was standing right behind the dragon. "I've got it, I'm here."
"Grab onto me and don't let go!" Kalec was about transform, he readied the spell to kill the closest corpse and then transform.
"Yes." Jaina placed a hand on Kalec's back, feeling the warmth, fleeting in a wretched and unforgiving world. "I'll never lose you."
And then she shoved him forward.
Kalec's spell was unable to materialize and he had no chance to avoid the dead Litch King's strike. The ice blade cut deep across the dragon's half-elven form. His scream of pain cut deep into Jaina, but she only told herself that this was just one more necessary sacrifice and raised the Helm of Domination, feeling the warmth of Kalec in her hand being consumed by the unholy cold metal as she placed it upon her head.
In an instant Jaina found herself isolated, alone in a dark abyss, at least at first.
"No, no, no! What have you done?! It wasn't too late, it didn't have to be too late!" An aged and pained voiced screamed at Jaina. She turned and saw an ancient, sick and battered woman staring at her in anguish, disgust and horror. Jaina realized she was looking at herself, as the crone had the same features as she and wore the same clothes she'd worn among the Kirin'Tor and was leaning heavily on Jaina's shattered staff, now whole within this realm.
"We've long since passed that point. Now all that's left is..." Jaina started walking around her counterpart, forcing her to struggle to turn herself.
"Is what? After the Legion and the Horde do you think the Alliance would stomach what you've made us become?!"
"They'll see reason, one way or another."
"That will be a struggle without end."
"And it will be one which I can only win with the Scourge at my command."
"We both know that isn't true."
Jaina stopped circling and instead started to close in on her crone-self. "True, as long as I have you..."
"I'm only trying to stop you from making us lose what little we have left!"
"And we wont. Kalec will only be the first."
"And when will it end?"
Jaina gripped her crone-self's wrinkled chin and lifted her bruised and sickly face upwards, allowing their eyes to meet. "When I've saved everything." She said with a smile as she realized a new purpose, for more than just vengeance, raising her other hand.
A single tear fell from the crone Jaina's tired eyes. The despairing crone managed to one weary shake of her head before Jaina strangled her.
Upon the summit of Ice Crown, in the midst the howling wind and wails of the damned, the newly crowned Litch Queen called for order from her subjects and they obeyed without question. At last there were those who listened. The Litch Queen reveled in the new found power and opened her eyes, unleashing a frozen white and blue light.
XXX
Each limp became almost impossibly harder for Kalec, from the physical wounds that threatened to tear his body in half and the spiritual wounds that had already all but destroyed him. He could barely think, his mind frozen in a state where the only actions were to warn anyone about what was coming. He'd managed to escape Ice Crown, managing a transformation back into his true form, but his flight had been short lived as a massive claw had ripped him from the sky and slammed him into the unforgiving yet mercifully cold ice. The purpose that now drove Kalec had made him transform back into his half-elf form to escape the immense cage rather than let it all end, but for what reason? He couldn't hope, he couldn't pray, if he felt anything he would lose his what little remained. What was left clenched desperately to the numb delirium and forced him to limp on.
All for nothing.
All around the wounded Kalec came impacts of snow as several frost wyrms landed, surrounding him.
There was no escape.
"I said I would never lose you." From within the cloud of snow in front of him, Kalec saw a human shape come emerge. At first he saw Jaina, the woman he loved, exactly as she had been when he'd first been drawn to her. Clever, calm, beautiful, full of hope and optimism, hurt but still driven to do the right thing and never faltering to seek out a peaceful solution. But that woman faded away, consumed utterly to the last by the wretched and accursed murdering being that approached him, the Litch Queen. "You will understand in a moment."
At the sight of the newborn monster, the numbness fell away, making Kalec mind snap as he relived feeling Jaina shove him into the undead's attack, seeing her put on the crown and control Galakrond to swat him from the sky like an insect. As more blood dripped from his stricken body, memories flowed together warping and twisting. Kalec fell to his knees and screamed as he lost both the women he'd loved in the same instant. All he could do was scream, in anguish, pain and madness. There were no tears falling from his eyes, for they'd already frozen to his face during his doomed escape.
His scream was cut short as the Litch Queen stabbed the last shard of Frostmourne into his heart.
"Shhhhhhh. I have you now..."
His living scream had ended but Kalec's suffering had only begun.
Author's bit: Boy has this story been floating in my mind for a while now.
Just a heads up, I don't actually play WOW, I'm just a big fanboy of the fluff, have been since Warcraft 3. For the Scourge! Long live Arthas! ….I'm still miffed about Blizz killing the one true king, but getting off track. As I don't play WOW so some, if not a bunch of stuff may be messed up. (Kinda like there being a secret shard of Frostmourne lying around, but I fucking love that beautiful dark sword!)
Let me know what you all thought, hope you enjoyed this story/possible scenario.
(Please, please let the Scourge become relevant in Warcraft's equivalent of the apocalypse.)
Yours in awaiting to see the true wrath of the Scourge
AC-107