For my Sunshine. This story would've never gotten off the ground without you.

It was striking.

A dozen other words came to mind, but Rommath had read that one at breakfast and since set off on a personal quest to find something worthy of the description.

He was certain he'd found it now.

Forty feet of brushed bronze, wrought by the finest hands in all Quel'Thalas. Grand and imposing, a winged beast of legend, jeweled eyes fixed on the sky. The most lifelike god he'd ever seen.

Almost.

The statue was...striking. Rommath hated it immediately.

He hated its beauty, the way its wings stretched up and out as they reached for the horizon. He hated the crowds that clogged up the Walk of Elders, inching closer for a look at their warped reflections in the metal. He hated the pyres that burned at its base—tradition be damned—and he swore if they lasted any longer than the Day of the Dead, he'd stamp them out. He hated every pretty word they used to dress up the disaster, painting Sunreaver as some poor pitiful fool, as if Rommath hadn't cautioned him—Light, he'd warned him till he was breathless. And he hated—

"Pardon me, milord?"

—having his thoughts interrupted.

"Might I borrow that a moment?" The words were not so much spoken as sniffled, by a hiccuping boy who seemed to have forgotten that it was rude to point. "I-If...if you're not using it, that is…"

Rommath stared at his handkerchief, watching idly as his fingers traced their way along the embroidery. "I am not."

The lad smeared a stray tear across the back of his hand, as if to demonstrate his need. "May I?"

"Be quick about it," he said curtly, shaking out the wrinkles before he offered it to the boy. "Sunreaver's about to give his speech."

The boy nodded his thanks, gave his face a good scrub, and returned the kerchief to its owner, who greeted the gesture with a grimace.

"Hold onto it," Rommath suggested. "Least until it dries."

"Won't you want it during the speech?" he asked.

"No."

The boy gave him a weak smile. "You've never heard Archmage Sunreaver speak, have you?"

The grand magister pursed his lips. He'd had the "fortune" of chaperoning the forlorn mage since he'd arrived back in Silvermoon—just while his home was being restored, Aethas assured them all, but the Sunreaver Estate was more like a palace than a house, in all honesty. And at the rate it was going, Rommath would be babysitting the young archmage for the rest of the foreseeable future.

But had he heard Archmage Sunreaver speak? That was a tricky question.

Whine? Certainly.

Whimper? Definitely.

Sob? No doubt.

Tantrum? Oh, Light—his tantrums were unmatched.

But speak? Aethas had never been particularly quiet, not as long as Rommath had known him, but he'd been suspiciously silent as of late. No honeyed words, no idle banter, no smalltalk just to pass the time.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," the grand magister replied.

The boy straightened up, growing a few inches for Rommath to better see his surprise. "Never?" he cried. "Why, he's the best orator you've ever heard! Do you know what that means, milord? It's a new word, I learned it yesterday, and I think it just perfectly describes—"

"Quiet, lad," hissed the woman at his side. "Leave the grand magister be."

He shrank back, glaring balefully at the young lady. "But I've got to—his handkerchief—"

"What do you tell him?" The priestess glanced purposefully at Rommath, who was honestly trying his best not to notice either of them. "Go on, child."

"Sorry, Mister Grand Magister, milord," he said with a sniff.

"Speak clearly." She awarded him with a swat to the ear, as if to encourage him. "And sit up when you do it. You must remember your manners. The front row is no place for naughty boys."

And yet Rommath would've been seated by Halduron Brightwing, had the brothel not been hosting a two-for-one discount in honor of the holiday.

"Forgive me, sir," the boy told him. "I didn't mean to bother you."

Rommath glanced at the two of them, but he dared not acknowledge them with a reply. Heads were starting to turn, and he didn't want the attention.

"Apologies, Grand Magister," the woman said. "Can't understand a word he says, that accent of his. Shipped here straight from Dalaran after the…" She swallowed stiffly, covering the boy's ears as she mouthed the words over his head: "...the Purge."

Rommath resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"He's been placed in the orphanage's custody until the regency tracks down his aunt, the poor lad." She gave an exaggerated sigh, perhaps to make up for Rommath's lacking sympathy. "You'll have to excuse him."

He didn't feel particularly obligated to do so.

"Here's your handkerchief, sir." The boy cast a careful glance over his shoulder, edging a little closer. "You're going to need it," he whispered—low, out of his matron's earshot. "Trust me. They used to say in Dalaran that Archmage Sunreaver could move a statue to tears."

The words were almost lost to Rommath, drowned out by the crowds as they cheered Sunreaver's approach.

Almost as loudly as they jeered outside Sunfury Spire the night we brought him home.

They'd called to see him drawn and quartered in the plaza by dawn, but they seemed to have forgotten their threats now.

Because the commoners loved a victim. Rommath knew this well.

"Thank you." He wore a tight smile behind his cowl, invisible to all but the boy as he leaned lower, close to his eye level. "Don't hold your breath, lad, or you won't see the end of this ceremony."

He wouldn't shed a damned tear.

Aethas, on the other hand, was making no such promises. He started his speech with a sniffle, just shy of a sob, and was silent, waiting for the crowd to follow suit.

"I missed the Fall of Silvermoon…" He didn't sound too appreciative; more ashamed, the way he'd tucked his hands behind his back, staring at the ground like a guilty child coughing up a confession. "I was studying in Dalaran when I got the news. Had just settled in for a long night of research I'd been procrastinating for weeks."

He stopped to survey the crowd, reading their agitated expressions, nodding slowly. It was a bold introduction, but Rommath suspected he'd known that when he'd drafted the speech. Made it that much harder to listen without rolling his eyes.

"I missed the destruction of Dalaran too," he admitted. "I was here, walking these very streets—or the ash and rubble that covered them." His voice cracked this time, but the grand magister was far too cynical to believe he hadn't written that in when he'd gone over his outline. "And everyone just kept telling me how fortunate I was. But I didn't feel fortunate. Just guilty. Kept wishing for a disaster, to ease my conscience, weighed down by survivor's remorse."

Aethas Sunreaver's charisma seemed to have survived the Purge. Thank the Light.

His decency, on the other hand—Rommath thought that was up for debate. It took twice the daily recommended dose of Sunreaver's usual audacity to compare the "situation in Dalaran," as they'd taken to calling it, to the Fall of Silvermoon. Or Dalaran's own demise, for that matter.

Rommath had arrived just in time for the peak of the Purge. It hadn't been pretty, not in any sense of the word. Indeed, it'd been quite ugly—he wasn't a huge fan of the city's renovations, if he was quite honest. And then there was Lady Proudmoore. But it wasn't "Fall of Silvermoon" ugly. It wasn't "bodies in the streets" or "an entire skyline flattened to dust" ugly, or "air too thick with smoke and screams so why bother breathing" ugly.

But Sunreaver hadn't seen Silvermoon's spires sink to the ground, and most of Silvermoon hadn't seen Silver Covenant soldiers chase down scared civilians like some sick fox hunt. And because neither knew more than the stories of survivors, the fools believed each other.

Rommath was glad for them, truly. Somewhere beneath his scarlet cowl, he was grateful they'd managed to keep their ignorance intact.

But he'd seen Silvermoon in ruins, and he'd seen Dalaran flat and desolate. He'd been a captive in the dungeons, and he'd howled himself hoarse down there in the dark. And he could safely say that he'd have a lot more pity for Magister Sunreaver if he didn't already supply enough of his own.

Or perhaps if people would quit calling him "Magister" Sunreaver.

Rommath had half a mind to tell him too, once he was finished straightening out his own self-pity.

So not today, in all likelihood. Today was reserved for brooding and bitter thoughts.

His specialty.

And he was so talented, it seemed, that he'd missed out on the core of Sunreaver's speech. Tragic.

Probably better for his mood, though, because the archmage was wrapping up his address with a voice hushed with reverence, and Rommath was already feeling nauseous.

"—as the light of a flame burns bright in the darkest of night," Aethas was saying, "so too shall we shine our brightest in these dark times!" A blast of heat bowled over the audience, chasing away the chill of morning as the pyres licked higher, burning bolder at the archmage's behest. "And once more, everyone shall see—our spirits shall not be trampled."

And it seemed he'd packed a little piece of Dalaran's theatrics when they'd fled the city through its plumbing. How fortunate.

"Once more—" Sunreaver grew uncharacteristically quiet, pausing as he waited for the noise to dim. "Once more, we shall rise from the ashes, born anew."

He held his pose for a moment—triumphant and proud, arms raised skyward to match that beautiful bronze phoenix that stood behind him—and when he'd had his fill of adoration, stepped aside for the regent lord.

Lor'themar Theron had been silent thus far. Saving his voice, he always said, but Rommath had sat to the right of Lor'themar at dozens of ceremonies just like this one. Dozens too many to be fooled by Theron's used and reused reasons, or his threadbare smiles. He didn't want to be here any more than Rommath did.

He smoothed out his tunic, shaking his head as he stood to take Sunreaver's place on stage. "Well," the regent lord muttered, just loud enough for the front row to hear. "Don't know how I'm supposed to follow that." He gave Aethas a passing pat on the shoulder as they traded spots, vaguely reminiscent of his ranger days, and eyed the sooty smudges left behind the archmage's display. "How about another round of applause for Magister Sunreaver?"

Rommath clapped all of three times and hugged his arms against his chest, letting his scowl sink back beneath his cowl as Aethas took the empty seat to his left.

For a moment, Sunreaver was mercifully silent, staring straight ahead as Lor'themar began to address the crowd—sugarcoated words and promises of retribution as their armies set off for the shores of the Isle of Thunder. But just a blink and a breath later, the archmage was frowning at him in that way of his, how he always did before he spoke.

In retrospect, Rommath thought he shouldn't have been so optimistic. He should've known better by now.

"Are you pouting, Grand Magister?" Aethas asked, craning his neck to peer over Rommath's collar. "It's a bit unbecoming, don't you think?"

"Sulking," he corrected him.

Sunreaver furrowed his brow. "You didn't like the speech?"

"The crowd certainly seemed to think it was something." Rommath's gaze flickered back to the lad on his right, who had nearly fallen out of his seat in at least three separate attempts to catch a glimpse of "Magister" Sunreaver. "The fires were...unexpected."

Aethas grinned like someone who hadn't just seen the slaughter of the organization bearing his name might've grinned. "It was a spur of the moment decision," he explained. "I thought it was a nice touch."

"Whoever gets the privilege of scrubbing the scorch marks off the stage might not agree," said Rommath.

The redhead's smile fell flat. "You didn't like it."

"I can't imagine where you got an idea like that," he muttered.

Sunreaver scowled. Rommath would've pointed out pouting was "a bit unbecoming," as Aethas had so eloquently phrased it, but he didn't want to borrow the archmage's words at this particular moment.

"Well," he said with a huff, "you are once again outnumbered by the popular opinion."

The grand magister pursed his lips, an invisible frown. "Did you see the placard?"

"What?"

"The placard," Rommath repeated. "At the base of the statue."

Aethas narrowed his eyes at the bronze phoenix, as if he hoped to read it from where he sat. "I haven't gotten the chance yet."

It wasn't easy to believe, but the glimmer of curiosity in the redhead's eyes spoke for his honesty.

"'Dedicated to those fallen at the hands of injustice,'" Rommath recited. "'May you walk in the light of a thousand suns.'"

The archmage shrugged a shoulder, tugging anxiously at the wrinkles in his robes—still black as coal, nearly a month after the Purge. Sunreaver mourned like a widow.

"It's a nice sentiment, isn't it?" Rommath asked, lower than a whisper.

Aethas pricked a copper brow, more shocked than surprised by the looks. "You think so?"

"A little late," he said, "but that's Thalassian bureaucracy for you. Can't get anything done on time around here."

"Three weeks isn't so bad," Aethas whispered back. "Why, when my father was the—"

"A decade," the grand magister interrupted, giving him a black stare. Black as those robes. "Or something close, by my reckoning."

Sunreaver turned an alarming shade of red—humiliation, Rommath hoped, but it looked more like anger, especially the way his lips were pressed together. "Nine years."

"And three months and twenty-two days." Rommath had a knack for dates that came in handy from time to time. "But I'm glad to know you're keeping track too."

Sunreaver swung his gaze back to the stage, applauding with the rest of the audience as Lor'themar moved on to more trivial topics—talk of holidays, festivities, parades, parties, feasts, more parties. "Well, Grand Magister," he said coolly, "nine years and three months and twenty-two days is a long time to hold onto a petty grudge."

Rommath's fingers clenched around his handkerchief—it'd just started to dry, but if he could make Aethas Sunreaver cry, he thought it was worth seeing it soaked all over again. But for all his seething, the worst he could come up with was, "You'll have to excuse me."

At least Aethas didn't look satisfied when he left.

He'd never been particularly fast, but he tried his best to make his way out of the crowd in a hurry. It took him a good twenty minutes to escape the Walk of Elders, but his thoughts had drifted so quick he might as well have opened up a portal right from his seat.

He kept his shoulders hunched, expression hidden behind his cowl, leaving just a set of vacant eyes to broadcast his mood. The grand magister was starting to feel a little too close to his old self, and he didn't need him here. He would've hated him too.

Light, he needed to get away from people. He needed to get away from cheering commoners and fidgety orphans and melancholy "magisters."

"Surround yourself with sad people and there's no doubt you'll end up in the same sorry state," the prince used to tell him. His favorite words, when they were young, because Rommath had been a pathetic child too. "Better to stick with people who are always happy, if you're looking for a role model."

But he'd yet to find any people like that since he last heard those words.

He needed to get away from the grand magister; he'd dig Rommath out from somewhere underneath and pull him up into perspective—just for a few moments, he'd put him back before anyone else could see.

Reminisce, ruminate, meditate.

And then he'd straighten his robes, sink back into his cowl, and he'd be the grand magister once more. Cold and impersonal, but calculating, and ruthlessly effective.

His leg was aching by the time he'd reached the Court of the Sun. Either he'd been walking quicker than he meant to, or there was a storm on the horizon. Perhaps both.

Of course, he would've expected a more...traditional storm, one with gray skies and thunderheads spitting rain and hail. Not a chaotic whirlwind of emotions—the distinct pattern of words he'd come to associate closely with none other than Aethas Sunreaver.

Rommath jumped at the sound of his name, too close, too loud, and almost foreign to his ears. "Grand Magister," he corrected, clutching tightly to his staff.

Sunreaver effectively ignored him. "You all right, old man?"

"Grand Magister." He spoke the words with distaste, let them roll off his tongue with a grimace. "I'm hardly an old man, nor do I intend to be for quite a while."

"Your staff gets more use as a walking stick than a weapon," Aethas informed him.

Rommath narrowed his eyes and bit back a few choice words on Sunreaver's own maturity, hobbling his way toward a bench instead, the one with the best view of the fountain—he knew. "Just the weather. Not good for the joints."

"Arthritis?" Aethas asked, taking a seat beside him. "You're not making a very good case for yourself, old man."

"Old injuries," he said tersely. "Can I help you?"

Sunreaver pursed his lips. "I think perhaps you've got it backwards."

"Can you help me?" Rommath gave a laugh, caustic and short. "I think I'm beyond help. Or so I've heard."

"Well, everyone was staring at me like it was my fault you bolted," Aethas snapped. "I had to do something. It made me look bad."

Rommath raised a brow, unimpressed.

"And, ah…" He fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve for a moment, looking away on three separate occasions before he finally managed to hold Rommath's gaze. "Lor'themar was talking about the Bell again," he added. "I figured I was already pretty well-acquainted with the situation. Didn't need to sit through it with all those people glaring daggers at my back."

Rommath stared straight ahead, watching the water dance and shimmer in the cold morning light.

"Thought we could bond over it," he said with a hollow grin.

"Beg your pardon?"

"Thought you might have some advice, or something." Aethas shrugged, following Rommath's gaze to the fountain. "How to find peace with...ah, that many people hating you...and all that."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What's the secret, hm?"

"I don't know what you mean," Rommath said stiffly. "Most of Silvermoon seems to think—"

"—that you're not to be trusted?" Aethas finished for him. "I think I'm starting to know the feeling."

Rommath stared flatly at him. "—that you're the second coming of Dath'Remar," he said. "Pray tell, Sunreaver, how is this helping me?"

"Oh, that's right!" he said, straightening up. "Well, that was my original intention. But then I saw you standing in the middle of the court, all alone and holding onto your staff like it was your dying breath, and I wondered if perhaps we could help each other. How's that sound?"

"Does it look like I'm in need of help?" Rommath asked.

"Well, you were just standing there for a good ten minutes, staring off into space," said the archmage. "You only blinked twice, I swear. I was worried you'd had a stroke."

Rommath felt like insisting, once again, that he wasn't old, but he didn't expect it to do him much good. "I needed a moment."

Aethas nodded, silent for one sweet, merciful moment of bliss. "Why here?"

"The weather," he repeated, flat and monotone. Not a lie; Rommath called them half-truths. "It's cold and damp. Makes my leg ache."

"Ah, yes," said Sunreaver with a smirk. "The cold, aggravating your 'old injuries.'" He laughed, quite pleased with his humor. "Try giving a speech with the grand magister watching, hm? You don't know cold until you've faced that frigid glare."

A joke, Rommath was certain, but it stung all the same. "Don't flatter me, Sunreaver," he said flatly.

"I'm being dead-honest," he insisted. "There's ice water in his veins. That man's heart is a glacier."

"I'm not cold," he told him, quiet and contemplative. "Just bitter, that's all."

"Fine," Aethas agreed. "No ice water. Just vinegar."

Rommath peered over the edge of the fountain, watching his reflection ripple in the glassy water. He supposed it must've looked that way, from the outside. But he knew his veins ran rich and red, because those words drew blood.

But Aethas was still chuckling somewhere in his periphery, and the grand magister's scowl had stayed the same. If anything, the glacier was on the outside; he wore it like armor.

"—but I was scared of the decorations, so we never properly celebrated the holiday. My family wasn't all that interested in traditions anyhow," Aethas was saying now, unaware that Rommath wasn't listening—or maybe just unconcerned. "So the first time I ever really saw a proper Day of the Dead was in Dal—"

"Was the monument your idea?" the grand magister asked suddenly, giving the story a swift death.

Aethas blinked, startled by the interruption. "No, it wasn't," he admitted, freckled cheeks tinged pink. "But they asked my approval, and I gave it."

"Hm." He tilted his head to the side, considering this. "Odd that no one asked my approval. Being the grand magister and all."

"Rommath."

Grand Magister, he corrected silently.

"Don't be childish." Ironic, considering Sunreaver's frown was looking more and more like a petulant pout by the second. "There wasn't much point in asking. They had to have known you'd say no."

"And why shouldn't I?" he asked, glaring over the rim of his cowl. "I didn't get a memorial for my trip to Dalaran's dungeons, nor did anyone I saw down there."

Aethas turned a loud shade of red, all the way to the tips of his ears, and apparently thought he should raise his voice to match. "They didn't die down there, Rommath," he spat.

"Then where are they?" He sat up to scan the clearing, but the Court of the Sun was still empty; they were the only ones. "Everyone I knew or cared about is gone too, and all they have to honor their memory are a few decrepit statues of Kael'thas that the commoners petition to tear down every year."

"As well they should," Aethas hissed. "They're a plight on this city."

Rommath's knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on his staff. "He was our prince," he said lowly.

"Yes," said Aethas, and his voice was no less kind, "then he was a delusional vessel of the Burning Legion who laid waste to his own city." He hesitated a moment. "A monster."

Rommath shook his head—not a protest, just a helpless gesture. "Maybe he was," he said, quiet now, as his temper began to cool. "But I couldn't ever see it. They called him a fright, there at the end, but he just looked frightened, to me."

Aethas was silent. Light be praised.

"He had the fountain commissioned," Rommath said distantly. The foundation was all that was left of the original—cracked marble and a rust-colored ring around the base—but they'd gotten around to restoring the fountain with the rest of the city. "Wanted Silvermoon to feel more like home. He adored the one in Dalaran."

Aethas chewed his lip, looking a bit tense. "Yeah. It was beautiful."

"The whole city was," Rommath said softly, as if someone else might possibly hear.

"You lived there a while?" he asked.

"Eleven years? Twelve?" He paused to check his math, then confirmed it with a nod. "Eleven. Moved there when I was eight."

"You know…" Aethas stretched and settled back in his seat. "I'd bet you have some magnificent tales to tell."

Rommath lifted a brow. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

The redhead crinkled his nose and gave him his best nonchalant shrug, though the smirk seemed a little flat. "Everyone I knew and cared about is gone too," he said. "Tell me a story, old man."

"A story?" he asked, shrinking back into his cowl. "I—I wouldn't even know where to begin—"

"The beginning," Aethas suggested. "You were eight."

"Ah." Rommath swallowed, suddenly self-conscious. "Yes, eight. That was the year my brother died and my mother left," he explained. "So it was just Father and me. Which, in a way, means it was just me, I guess…" He glanced at Aethas, watching warily for any trace of judgment, but the archmage kept his expression blank. "We got there just around dawn, I remember, because the sky was lavender woven with gold, and I told my father it seemed fitting, but I don't really think he cared."