Prologue
"Shindu sin'dorei..."
Alanya's voice rose over the rolling waves to dance with the butterflies. Her daughter lay in her lap, watching the ocean with wide blue eyes.
Matheron opened his own eyes to the present and shifted nervously. To the south, across that beautiful expanse of water, his city was burning. He gripped his double-bladed sword in one hand, and flexed his free hand in anticipation. His thoughts drifted back to the past.
"Shindu, fallah na..."
He and Alanya and their beautiful daughter had been resting on this very spot, reveling in the glory of the Sunwell. It was his first day of leave since he had earned the title of spellbreaker, and Alanya had greeted him with pride in her eyes. "You will be a hero," she said as she embraced him. "Some day, our daughter will hear stories of your bravery."
Some day? That had been the first sign that something was wrong.
"Sylvanas and her rangers will deal with the skeletons and ghouls," Captain Thandril was saying. Matheron half-listened, still reliving the past. "Our targets are the necromancers behind the lines. Stripped of their minions and their magic, they will fall easily to our blades."
Matheron looked past his captain, across the channel to Silvermoon City. The columns of smoke were getting closer; the muffled roars were getting louder. The Scourge was coming.
"Their most powerful weapons are the frost wyrms," Thandril continued, "the frozen skeletons of dragons, held together by magic. It is possible, if unlikely, that we could tear them apart the same way." Thandril scanned the faces of his soldiers. His eyes met Matheron's briefly, then moved on. "Regardless, today we fight, and we die, for our city and for our people." He hefted his blade. "For the glory of Quel'Thalas!"
"Glory to the Quel'Dorei!" his comrades replied. Matheron realized vaguely that he had missed the cheer. He didn't care.
"Anar'alah belore...shindu sin'dorei..."
Alanya's voice had trailed away at last. Matheron watched her anxiously, awaiting explanation.
"There will be war,"she had said. "There are those that would use her. She is the heir to my name and my fortune, and with my blood in her veins, she will be a powerful mage in her own right."Alanya stroked the girl's golden hair. It was like silk, shimmering in the sunlight. "She won't be safe here."
Matheron's eyes widened. "You aren't...you're leaving me?" He shook his head. "Alanya, I–"
She laughed lightly. "Don't profess to love me. You wed me for power, Matheron. It is the girl you love."
He said nothing.
"Take a moment to think for once, and you'll agree with me. Your daughter is in danger, and I can protect her. She can stay here and be a slave, or I can teach her to be a leader."
Matheron remained silent, and Alanya began to sing again. His daughter looked up at him and smiled. Her eyes held only innocence – the blissful ignorance of youth, untouched by war, politics, lust, or power. She is no leader, he longed to say, but a voice inside him protested: would you rather her a slave?
"They come!" Thandril shouted. Matheron forced away the memories with a grimace. A frost wyrm glided across the water, a dark rider astride its back.
Better to fall in battle, than to live with what I've done, Matheron decided. Today is the day I die.