Rest was a relative term, there in the ruins of a once-proud land, but it was still something Kael'thas Sunstrider would take for his soul-weary soldiers where he could. It was that moment of respite that he thanked his newfound and quite unexpected allies for, more than anything, as they dared to pause at the village to re-provision. Once he'd haggled sufficiently with the goblin merchants-profiteers, naturally-Kael walked inside the tiny travelers' inn and sat at the table nearest the door.
There were once dozens of these small, quaint little villages dotting the countryside of Lordaeron. But the undead Scourge surged through that land like an unholy flood, washing away most everything that was once vibrant. Scattered bands of refugees lived largely like nomadic bandits. This place, in the heart of Silverpine Forest, was once off a well-traveled road, but it had been abandoned at some point. Kael hoped its inhabitants were some of the few humans with sense enough to follow Jaina's exodus to Kalimdor, before the Scourge came down like a hammer; from the relative lack of chaos they'd found there, that was his best guess.
His thoughts turned maudlin, as they always seemed to whenever they turned to his old friend. The news that she'd survived and led a contingent of refugees across the sea to the west was welcome indeed, if bittersweet. Humans almost to a one, they were Tirasians mainly, with a smattering of Lordaeronians. But there were also a number of quel'dorei from Dalaran with her, it was said, who'd chosen to throw their lot in with her rather than their own people. It probably saved their lives. Still, they were off to the west, and not here suffering with their own. None had sought word of those left behind. They were ensconced safely within their new settlement of Theramore, and Jaina offered her condolences, but little else. Perhaps it was unfair of him to feel so bitter about it, as they'd taken heavy losses, and he himself did not join the Battle of Mount Hyjal, instead seeing to his own broken and dying people. Perhaps it was unfair, but Kael never pretended to be perfect.
A bit of hard tack and cheese, washed down with lukewarm water, was all the repast Kael managed; he forced himself to swallow it down along with his bitterness. Grand Marshal Garithos refused to open Dalaran's stores when the ruins were reclaimed from the dead, citing the strict need to ration supplies. But the robust human did not certainly seem to be lacking for meals, to Kael's eyes. Humans in what remained of the Alliance army lacked for nothing at all, while Kael's company of blood elves was forced to make do with less and less in the way of everything, from rations to equipment to logistical support. It was death by a thousand cuts, and in Kael's more cynical and bitter moments-moments that grew ever more frequent as the long months passed-he believed that Garithos intended to finish the job that Arthas started. It seemed the unexpected kindness of strangers was all Kael and his people had to rely on, to complete these thankless assignments.
The door to the inn opened in the midst of his brooding, and his latest unlikely savior walked in, her silvery eyes haunted by a pain Kael could not seem to understand. She bore it with great pride and dignity, however, as she did everything. Within that brief moment of respite, he finally took a moment to regard her.
She was, of course, a ravishing beauty. Kael had known few kaldorei in his lifetime, as they were a reclusive people, but they were elves all the same, and he had never known an elf to be any less than beautiful. Lady Tyrande Whisperwind was not the sort of woman who wore a mask for the benefit of others. She kept her own counsel, of a surety, but she was not one to mince words when she deemed them necessary. Kael admired that in her, as he finally took her measure there in the inn. Tyrande was a priestess, but she was a lady of war, Elune's soldier, tall and imposing and with all the bluntness that sort of station required. This was not to say that she was not regal in demeanor, or lacking in dignity or pride. There was some manner of the rarefied airs within her that Kael recognized in the old scions of Quel'Thalas, only it was something ultimately more...honest, he believed. He decided that he liked her.
That likely also had something to do with the fact that she was the only one of her people whose aid was given heartily. Her small band of Sentinels and druids kept their distance, eyeing his blood elves with only vaguely disguised suspicion, though their loyalty to their mistress and respect for her command was such that no ill words were received from them, and they were circumspect in their behavior. In the end, they treated his people with a kindness his own Alliance superiors had rarely shown in these arduous few months. If the kaldorei did not entirely trust their sin'dorei cousins, well, they did not openly behave as such, and that was as much as Kael could ask for. Night elves had dreadfully long memories, being a once immortal race; though the ugly conflicts that led to his ancestors' exile were distant and fading to his own people, with their comparatively thinned blood, they'd surely happened within the lifetimes of at least a few kaldorei present. He could not fault them their suspicions, even as Tyrande reminded them of the heavy price the Alliance paid at Hyjal. They still lent their aid, and that was what truly mattered.
Kael rose from his seat and bowed to her with a graceful swirl of his billowing crimson mantle, the urbane prince clinging to his sense of decorum like a security blanket. He would not abandon the niceties of his aristocratic upbringing no matter how dire the situation, and no matter how many indignities he was forced to bear at the hands of those who deemed themselves his people's betters, for it was a comfort to him when few other things were left.
"Lady Tyrande," he greeted her warmly. "You're welcome to join me, if you wish. I only wish I had better hospitality to offer you, and better bread to break than crude soldiers rations."
"I've lived on less in lean times, young prince," Tyrande replied, with a wry smile, and sat beside him. "The company is welcome all the same."
"Indeed," Kael agreed, taking a sip a water from his flagon. He paused a moment, staring a bit awkwardly at the crude tin vessel as he composed his thoughts, wondering how best to broach a delicate subject. Tyrande's compatriot, Maiev Shadowsong, was conspicuously absent from her side, and the obvious friction between them was beginning to concern Kael.
The Warden had paced about the small village like a woman possessed, pointedly ignoring Tyrande's entreaties to sit and recover her strength for the battles to come, and in the end simply glared at her before setting to scout out the area on her own. There was certainly no love lost between the two of them; that much was abundantly clear to Kael, and though he could not deny his curiosity, he'd initially and rather prudently decided it was a matter best left alone.
Still, he worried that it might prove a liability. The journey to the River Arevass would be fraught with danger, to say the least, and the fact that his newfound allies did not seem to be of one accord was not entirely heartening to him. If this caravan escort were to succeed with a minimum of trouble, and Kael was to aid the night elves in their hunt for the fugitive Illidan as repayment for that assistance, they could ill afford such tension within the group.
"Is Warden Shadowsong well?" Kael asked at last. "She seems to...chafe at the delay. And a great many other things."
Tyrande made an unpleasant scoff, shaking her head in disgust. "Maiev has but one thing on her mind-apprehending Illidan-and everything else is a means to that end. She has always been supremely stubborn, but I fear this singlemindedness may lead to tunnel vision before too long," she replied.
"This Illidan's crimes must have been severe, to cause such ire within her," Kael said a bit delicately.
For a moment, he feared that he'd overstepped in his curiosity, because it was a long time before Tyrande responded with her eyes lowered, and that ancient pain he'd seen in them seemed that much more raw. "Among our people, he is known as the Betrayer. It is a moniker that is well-earned," she replied brusquely.
"How is he on the loose then, if I might ask?"
"I released him."
Kael blinked, startled by the matter of fact tone Tyrande took, but she broke off a piece of a dense biscuit and ate in silence. After another agonizingly long moment, and a long drink from her waterskin, she stared at him with no small amount of determination in her expression, her eyes narrowed.
"Illidan was trained and empowered by Sargeras himself to fight demons. There is no one alive with more knowledge of them, more capability to slay them, or more experience fighting them. So I made a judgment call to free him, as was my right and privilege as leader of the Sentinels and acknowledged caretaker of the kaldorei people for millennia," Tyrande explained.
"I take it Maiev was not pleased with this decision," Kael said.
Tyrande nodded, a shadow clouding her face. "I know all too well what the Legion is capable of, having seen it firsthand in my youth. It was a desperate situation, Kael, and I did what I had to do-I sincerely believed Illidan was our best possible weapon against them, and thus our best possible chance at survival. Not everyone saw it that way. Maiev's wardens refused a direct order to stand down, and tried to prevent me from releasing him from his prison. I had no choice but to slay them," she replied.
Well, that would certainly explain Maiev's pique, Kael thought, wincing internally. But he could not fault Tyrande's reasoning, and he would not judge her. How could he have? If the survival of his own people were on the line, he would have made such a harsh decision-and in truth, he had already done so. When it became clear that the Sunwell was tainted beyond hope and slowly killing his people, Kael made the heartwrenching choice to destroy it, in effect finishing what Arthas began, in order to save what few of his people remained. So went the ruthless calculus of war, and it was a level of harshness that was expected of ones such as he and Tyrande, holding the fates of whole peoples in their hands. Kael would not judge Tyrande for freeing a traitor and a criminal, nor defending against mutineers in a time of war, for that was surely what it sounded like to him.
"Forgive me if I'm overstepping here, my lady. Though our people share a common ancestry, I realize our cultures are different-but that sounds like insubordination to me," Kael said cautiously. "I understand Maiev's anger, but it was a difficult decision, and you did what you thought was best. We all do, in such desperate moments."
"I answer to the justice of the Goddess before all others," Tyrande said. "And Maiev does not understand that, for all our laws, it is She who will exact it in the end. I may only seek Her wisdom as best I can, and protect our people to the best of my ability. If I erred, it was perhaps in believing that his long centuries of confinement gave Illidan cause to long for freedom, and when presented with it, that he would do his level best to prove himself worthy of keeping it. I cannot know his heart or his mind, even now. But I hunt him for Elune's justice now, and not Maiev's."
"Seeking justice is always a worthy endeavor, my lady. My own people are in sore need of it. I will do whatever I can to aid you, as I promised, as soon as the caravan is secure and the supply run complete. I gave my word, and I intend to keep it," Kael replied.
Tyrande smiled faintly at him then, even affectionately, and it surprised him. "I thank you, young prince. I'm pleased to see the Sunstrider tendency toward nobility and honor has not diminished in these long years, even if your complexion has somewhat. You are certainly Dath'Remar's scion."
It was mildly unnerving to hear her name his famous grandfather in such an idle fashion—and "mildly" was quite an understatement-but Kael accepted the compliment graciously nonetheless. It was not the first time he'd been favorably compared to his legendary ancestor, but it may well have been the first time a stranger did it who might actually have been the man's peer, and not measuring Kael against a legend. "You pay me a kindness, my lady. You knew my grandfather?" he asked.
She nodded, and sipped from her waterskin before continuing. "The debt I spoke of when first we met is not simply a matter of the Alliance's heroism at Mount Hyjal. It's more personal. Long ago, during the first war with the Legion, I was imprisoned by Queen Azshara in the palace at Zin-Azshari. I'm sure you've heard the tale of how your grandfather led a splinter group of his fellow Highborne and defected to join our rebellion. But in doing so, he personally freed me and aided my escape. I likely would have perished, if not for his aid. Whatever our disagreements may have been, and however misguided I believed him to be in the end, Dath'Remar was a good man. Your people were fortunate to have him, and you should be proud to be his descendent."
Kael was a student of history, of course, even before his studies began in earnest in the libraries of Dalaran. The Grand Athenaeum of Silvermoon was his second home as a boy, even more so than the impressive personal library his parents kept in the palace. History and statecraft went hand in hand, after all, and Kael was kept well-nourished in both as though it were mother's milk. As well, the War of the Ancients loomed large in the history of his people-though he suspected his ancestors' accounts might vary considerably from the night elves, particularly in its aftermath. Such was always the case with schisms, and Tyrande stood on the opposing side of what might have been a civil war. Those "disagreements" she spoke of were over no less than the very heart and soul of the elven people, the direction and future of the kaldorei race. They were too much to bear, and Dath'Remar's people were forced into exile, and built a kingdom far away from the strife of a broken and fallen empire.
However, Kael's people once valued tradition more than anything, and even the children of goatherds in Quel'Thalas could produce intricately calligraphed scrolls of goldleaf and mageroyal ink with the storied histories of their family lines. If he were alone, Kael might have wept once more: for what he could not prevent, for what was lost, for what could never be again. Unintentional though it may have been, Tyrande's words were yet another bitter reminder that the storied and legendary Sunstrider dynasty would likely end with him, and that ten thousand years of glorious civilization ended in less than a week, crumbled to ashes scattered by an unholy wind bearing the chill of the grave. They were thoughts that haunted him in the dark and solitude of night, lying awake wracked with the pain and guilt of his father's loss, and he could not forgive himself for the fact that he was not there to aid his people. It didn't matter that, logically speaking, he knew he might well have died with his father at the Sunwell Plateau. Lor'themar and Halduron told him as much when he returned to a weary and grieving nation of refugees. Still, the weight of that guilt threatened to crush him whenever he was alone, whenever he stopped moving long enough to breathe in the scent of death and decay in the chill of the air around them.
But he was not alone, there in that abandoned inn; he was not Tyrande, who could afford to bare her face to the world and dare anyone to call her less than the chosen of her Goddess. He was Prince Kael'thas, last of the Sunstrider dynasty and only heir of High King Anasterian, who fell defending the very heart of his people. Kael was the one hope of a dying race, their only beacon in a night so long and so filled with despair that he could ill afford to shatter that illusion for them. He could not bear to show them that darkness had in truth consumed the very sun they looked to for warmth and comfort, that the star by which they fixed their hopes and dreams for the future was himself lost in any number of ways. And so he wrapped himself in dignity and tried his best to push back the despair, to swallow it down as he did the bland and tasteless rations, and existed day to day in a state of numb horror that he never showed to the world, lest his people lose what little hope they had.
"The years have diminished my people," Kael said quietly. "My father was in the twilight of his years, which was a far sight shorter than my grandfather's span, when the invasion came. And I will live half as long as he did. Perhaps even less, without the Sunwell. Our people's lifeblood was already quickening with each successive generation. But now...now, I fear it is spent. So few of us remain."
Tyrande's silvery eyes softened considerably, and she looked less a soldier then; more the priestess, and though he did not share her particular faith-truly, he did not know what if anything he believed in any longer, after such horrors he'd witnessed-Kael found it nonetheless comforting. "Where are the rest of your quel'dorei brethren, young prince? Are they unable to fight against the undead, as you do?" she asked him.
Kael took a deep breath, and a long drink of lukewarm water to steady himself, wishing dearly at that moment that it was wine instead. "The Scourge thoroughly devoured our ancient homeland, my lady. Quel'Thalas is no more. What few of us remain and are able to take to arms and magic are with me, in service to the Alliance. The rest huddle together in refugee camps amidst our ruined forests, and on small islands off the coast. But we are no longer quel'dorei. We name ourselves sin'dorei, now. As your people are Children of the Stars, mine are Children of the Blood, in homage of our murdered fallen, that none shall ever forget their loss."
He swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in his throat, aided by a crumbling bit of waxy and flavorless cheese. The saltiness was something to focus on, and better to taste it from a bit of unappealing field rations than his own tears. For her part, Tyrande showed nothing but empathy in her expression-in the softening of her ancient eyes, in the downward curve of her lips into a genuine frown, in the slender blue hand placed against her heart. It meant more to Kael than words could have possibly expressed, and thus he was silent.
In truth there was not much empathy for Quel'Thalas in the wasteland of fallen human kingdoms beyond the Thalassian Pass. One would think that survivors of Lordaeron, whose destruction was the harbinger of his own kingdom's demise, would bear some measure of kindness for a people who suffered a numbingly similar sort of absolute horror, whose own beloved king was struck down by the same cursed blade, whose loved ones were also not merely denied the sacred dignity of eternal rest but, even more horrifyingly, desecrated and turned against the living as mindless weapons. Their own land was likewise blighted to fallow ashes. One would think the humans might sympathize at least slightly, might recognize that this was shared pain.
One would think wrong, in that case, as Kael discovered to his rather bitter surprise. More than one human Alliance soldier whispered that "those damned elves" deserved what they got for abandoning Lordaeron after the Second War, even now as Kael risked to lose what few able elves remained in what was proving to be an endless and futile assault on the Scourge, and lose with them what slim chance his people had to rebuild.
It was certainly a view held at the top, as the Grand Marshal made abundantly clear-not the least of which through these hopeless assignments Kael's soldiers were given, these increasingly monumental tasks with fewer and fewer resources allotted to them. In the days of Alleria and Turalyon fighting side by side, things may have been testy at times, but never would the High Prince of Quel'Thalas have been debased in such a fashion, nor would any soldier have been treated with such indifference. Perhaps if Calia Menethil had survived, things would have been different, but the Princess of Lordaeron perished with the rest of her kin at the hands of her murderous brother, and there was no one left to hold the Alliance to its standards of honor.
No one left but Kael and his people, who swallowed the indignities they were subject to regardless of how bitter the taste went about doing the only possible thing any of them could have done: pursuing vengeance for their fallen homeland, whatever the cost.
Perhaps his mask crumbled then in spite of his best efforts, because it seemed that Tyrande saw right into his troubled mind when she spoke at last. "I grieve for your people, Kael, more than mere words can say. But you must not allow rage and despair to poison your heart. You may yet lead your people to a brighter future," she said softly.
"With all due respect, my lady, rage is a powerful motivator, and some days it is all that keeps the despair at bay," Kael replied, a hint of bitterness creeping into his tone in spite of himself. "Avenging the fallen is all we have left."
Tyrande stared at him intently with a penetrating gaze, piercing enough to make him want to flinch from it-though he held it nonetheless, clinging as always to that sense of dignity as a comfort. "It is not all you have left, Kael," she said. She turned then, reaching out across the short distance between them over the table, and placed her hand upon the worn embroidered silk of his once fine red and gold robes, directly upon his heart. "You are not alone, and you would do well to remember that."
He blinked, at first startled by the suddenness of her touch, and then by the faint scent of cinnamon spice in the air, in the common room of an abandoned inn that had long been stripped of anything in its larder. The air grew warmer then, along with Tyrande's hand, and Kael glimpsed a faint nimbus of crimson gold about her fingertips, flecks of color like a sunset, for just the briefest of moments.
It was not often that the famously eloquent Kael'thas Sunstrider was struck dumb, but he found himself in one of those occasions at the stirring of his beloved guardian within him, beckoned by a night elf priestess who by all rights should not have even known she was there.
"How do you...?" he stammered.
Tyrande smiled, removing her hand. "Al'ar is with you always, Kael. Like the warmth of your mantle, she settles upon your spirit. The humans may call her a pet, believe her to be little more than a mage's simple conjuring, but I know the truth of what she is, what she means to you. My people knew her even before the world's Sundering, before the schism that set us each upon different paths. She was Dath'Remar's guardian, too. Do you wish to know what Cenarius taught us of her, when we were children learning in his grove?"
Kael's eyes grew wide with awe, and all he could do was nod his ascent, stunned as he was-not at her statement that Al'ar was the guardian of the Sunstrider family line, which was another truth any goatherd's child in Quel'Thalas could have recited at command, because every priest from the smallest country chapel on the Elrendar to Sunwell Plateau itself had been teaching it for ten thousand years. Al'ar, Goddess of Phoenixes, was carried in the heart of each scion who bore the name Sunstrider, and guided and protected them on her wings of fire. It was why the crest of his house and that of Quel'Thalas itself bore Al'ar with stretched wings worked in gold, and it was why phoenixes were so revered by a people that night elves called godless and irreverent, even as the Church of the Holy Light spread its teachings throughout the land and quel'dorei priests slowly began to lose the meaning of the old traditions.
No, he was stunned that the night elves, their distant progenitors, would have their own teachings about Al'ar. This was what truly shocked him. Kael spent years listening to his parents, reading his grandfather's writings on how the excesses of their Highborne ancestors were so thoroughly cast down, how everything they'd once held dear was discarded, but for the love of the arcane. It was why they walked by day and revered the sun rather than the moon, and rejected everything to do with Elune-Queen Azshara was raised up by her, so they said. And it was Al'ar's blazing fires that lit their path out of exile and into glory in the wilderness, her purifying flame that burned away everything in them that was weak and corrupt. Everything that was kaldorei, in truth, though Kael was not quite so impolitic as to discuss that particular morsel of theology in the presence of a Priestess of the Moon. Al'ar was a thoroughly Thalassian symbol, by any measure. What would she mean to night elves?
So Kael nodded eagerly, genuinely curious about how she was seen by them, and Tyrande continued.
"Al'ar was the first creation of Aessina, the Ancient of Life, born of an egg given life by the fires of Alexstrazsa, and it was from her that our ancestors learned of the regenerative qualities of fire. We no longer wept when the forests burned, because we knew the soil grew richer in the fires' wake, the better to sustain us. When Cenarius taught us to view our immortal lives as a grand cycle, he pointed to Al'ar's unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth," she said.
"Fascinating," Kael replied, and truly meant it.
Tyrande smiled a bit sheepishly then. "Forgive me if I lecture you as a priestess, but I only wish to remind you of who you are. Your kingdom may lay in ashes, and for that I am truly sorry, but remember who it is that always rises from them, stronger and more vital than before. You bear the heart of the phoenix within you, Kael. It is greater than rage, greater than hatred-and greater than despair for what has befallen you, for how your people have suffered. And you too, may be reborn, if you keep fast to this truth. Your people will survive this, and so shall you. If there were ever a mortal who could survive even in the face of death, it is one held in the wings of Al'ar, who stokes the flames of rebirth. Think on these things, when despair threatens to claim you."
Kael felt somewhat foolish for not making the connection himself. Perhaps it was because he was too driven to despair to have faith in anything, even Al'ar. Al'ar could not save his father or the Sunwell. Al'ar shed tears of fire upon scorched earth, and her mournful cries of sorrow were how he knew Quel'Thalas had fallen. The art of summoning her had proven more and more physically taxing to him, since the Sunwell's destruction, and Kael feared the time would soon come when he would no longer be able to do so, though again this was something he told no one, not even Rommath.
But so mired was he in this overwhelming rage, pain, and exhaustion, Kael had apparently missed the obvious: the cold heart of death itself may have claimed so many of his people and much of the land itself, but their guardian was a living testament to the powers of regeneration. His personal guardian, who seemed a comfort to him when few others were. Kael felt so foolish then, that he'd lost such a basic truth.
Sometimes, though, it took an outsider to point out the truths that were right in front of a person's eyes. A warmth came over his heart that Kael had not known since before that fateful day in Dalaran, when Antonidas summoned him to the Violet Citadel and his entire world ended in a single solemn pronouncement. And with it came a peace he had not known since before then, either.
It would not magically heal his broken heart. But it was a start. Tyrande gave him much to consider, and for that, Kael was grateful.
"Thank you, my lady," Kael said with a genuine smile. "I will."
Tyrande returned his smile, and rose from her seat. "Good. Let us see to your caravan then, and continue our hunt."
Kael dutifully followed her out of the inn and back to his waiting soldiers, more grateful than he could have expressed for this moment of respite-one he needed more than he ever could have realized. He silently vowed then to keep Tyrande's words of encouragement with him, no matter what the undead-or Grand Marshal Garithos, for that matter-would throw at them. There was always a way to survive, and with Al'ar's grace, perhaps Kael and his people would find it.