My Life for My Prince
Chapter One: Three champions are traded for four
After his embarrassing night with the three women, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider wisely named Lianna, Thera, and Jacinta his champions. Anyone with a sliver of political savvy would catch on that it wasn't a true gesture of endearment, but a way of enforcing silence upon them. The champion of a Blood Elf prince has no right to share his dirty secrets. Her job would be the opposite, to keep them to herself, guard them with her life. If the three rogues had any career aspirations, Kael'thas' promoting them could also be seen as a little gift, a scratch on the back for helping him with his itch. However the Blood Elf prince purchased the ladies' silence didn't make a difference though. Lianna, Thera, and Jacinta let all the glowing prestige go to their heads.
"They go too far," a hissing Naga conveyed Lord Illidan's warning message to Kael'thas a few weeks later. Wave Commander Scy' lethrin's shining green scales reflected oddly in the red candlelight of Kael'thas' private chambers. His usual residence was Tempest Keep but Lord Illidan requested that his ally Kael'thas relocate the brunt of his Blood Elf forces to the Black Temple. Shatthrath City was observed to be buzzing with Azerothian adventurers who declared a Burning Crusade on Outland, especially these days. Invasion was imminent.
Kael'thas smoothly readjusted his red hood lower over his bloodshot eyes. He managed it almost naturally, without his hands shaking very much.
"What are a few officers with bloodied noses?" he smirked, feigning confidence in the situation. "My Sunfury are strong, they understand that my intelligence officers are just flexing their muscles. Once they show proper respect, Jacinta and the others will—"
"Even Lord Illidan treats the Naga and his demons better. I am shocked to hear you talk about your people this way."
Now Prince Kael'thas' hands really did shake. He put down the tome he was pretending to translate. "No one has ever complained about my leadership—"
"Not to your face, no. Not in your language, no. But I serve one who watches you critically. He says little about you but knowsss everything…" the Wave Commander Scy'lethrin hissed the end and cocked his head to the side, looking primitive. Then he grinned and showed rows of tiny pointed white teeth.
Kael'thas was afraid to say anything else.
"He is watching you. If you do not get your so-called Champions under control, our Lord and Master will cease to indulge your nasty mortal urges."
Kael'thas' eyes darted to a small fel iron chest at the far end of the room.
"No… he would not take those crystals away from you. But other addictions… these are very finite in his eyes. And lately they are getting in the way!" Then Commander Scy'lethrin slammed his flat palm on the table and Kael'thas flinched. The reptilian creature laughed. Air sucked through the closed gills and made a terrible wheezing noise to go along with the serpentine hiss. Kael'thas imagined it sounded even worse under water. Then, without asking permission, the Naga slithered out of Kael'thas' royal presence.
When the door closed, Kael'thas got up and began pacing instantly. "Damn them! Damn me for trusting those insidious rogues…" he really began to panic. "Now I'm in a bind because I can't keep away from those damnable crystals! Nor can I work, my senses are so frayed without them." He leaned on the table and stared at the old tome he pretended to read every time someone came to visit. He noticed then that it was a primer on arcane magic, a child's book. Today he'd cut back a bit... just how incoherent was he normally, to use a book like that as a cover? No doubt everyone knew how helpless he was now… surely even Lord Illidan knew. Kael'thas seized the book in both hands and trembled with his addiction, trembled with rage at himself. He growled in anguish and tore the book apart.
Even if he did speak to his three female champions… they wouldn't listen. They would continue to abuse the other Sunfury officers and go against his orders. He had no idea what they were up to now. The three women had disappeared weeks ago.
"If fate has any favor left for me, after everything I've lost… even the slightest of kindness, I beg her to use it now…" he sat back down, a forlorn look on his face. "Please escort those monsters I created into some horrible trouble that no one can possibly blame me for, so that I can put them into shackles."
Fate is a very sly girl.
The Human Paladin did not know it but three sadistic women guarded every flank of his gold-clad charger. He even sang a little song--the kind that you only sing while bathing because you aren't a professional bard--as the elevator to the Scryer's Tier ascended. Jacinta smiled under her assassin's mask. Thera made a rude gesture to his snorting horse. Lianna was the silent one. She was only slightly smarter than the other two because she actually noticed when Prince Kael'thas overdosed on arcane crystals a few weeks ago and almost killed himself. That none of the three women were lucid enough to do anything about it didn't bode well for Kael'thas in the Black Temple or here in Shatthrath City or anywhere else for that matter.
"That paladin is kind of cute." Thera whispered to Jacinta. Their giggling caused the Human to almost fall out of his saddle.
"Is someone there?" he asked. Lianna cringed then raised the back of her hand as if to slap the other two. They waited for the Human paladin to calm down and leave the elevator.
All three women crouched low and crept to their left, away from the Arcane Constructs. The two enormous Sin'dorei war machines whirred and clicked, large stone hands reached into the air and grasped at nothing. The arcane crystals at their joints flared bright like the sun reflected in a mirror. Kael'thas' intelligence officers who were part rogue, part spy, part arcane crystal junkies flashed hungry looks at the machines before skulking past them. This was planned very carefully. A tiny magic dampener had been lodged into a crevice in the elevator platform.
Lianna made a silent hand gesture in stealth, one not so threatening this time, and the other two women nodded and split up. Thera crept into the Library and skirted Blood Elves carrying stacks of books. When she saw Voren'thal the Seer she knelt in a corner, folded her hands into her lap and waited. Jacinta crawled on her stomach behind vendors and around tents to where Dathris Sunstriker stood in his full plate armor. She crouched low in the tent behind him and watched an Orc shaman finish up a conversation before drawing her dagger. Lianna smiled wickedly as she crept behind the Scryer innkeeper. They'd rolled dice--of course they were her dice--to see who would get the innkeeper. It was every rogue's dream to make such an easy and emasculating kill in front of the enemy.
A horrible feminine shriek pierced the air on the Scryer's Tier. A dagger ripped through the Innkeeper's side. Another warcry joined the first and Dathris Sunstriker was felled. Thera went last. She simply stood up then slowly slit the Vorn'thal The Seer's throat. The Blood Elves then raced to the base of the Library where they met and sprinted to freedom. They slid easily past confused passerby, many of whom weren't familiar with Tempest Keep and couldn't tell the difference between the Sunfury and Kael'thas' recently turned Scyrers. Guards who attempted to stop the three rogues were stabbed with glowing green throwing knives or surprised with tainted mana residue that made them blind. Really, permanently blind. Kael'thas' champions had stolen the best of magical warfare from Illidan's vaults in the Black Temple for their personal game. Why would Lord Illidan be kind towards his enemies?
Lianna, Thera, and Jacinta came to the end of the red carpet and boarded the elevator just in time. The whole event was timed well. The three of them knocked shoulders into a young Draenei standing there and he yelped, fell backwards, then down thousands of feet to his death. The Arcane Constructs saw them but did nothing. The magic dampener planted on the elevator held true.
The women faced the baffled guards and saluted. "Remember the Sunwell!" Jacinta shouted.
"For Kael'thas!" Thera cried out after.
"Death to all who oppose us, death to the Scryers!" Lianna screamed last. Before the elevator fully descended, all three women jumped off the edge and vanished into stealth. Then they split up and met again some miles outside the city at a predetermined spot in Terrokar forest.
"They say that when A'dal heard the news, he wept." Lianna reported to Prince Kael'thas when they returned to the Black Temple a week later. A little while ago, when a runner came and informed the Prince that the flying mounts of his Champions were spotted overhead, he swore and held his head in his hands.
Now, Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider had to sit down. He was prepared for the worst, but not something like this. The three assassins stood at the other side of the small table. Jacinta broke out of her smirk for a moment to examine his torn arcane magic primer. "Why are you reading that thing? Isn't it for children?"
"Aren't you a Bloodmage and a master of arcane magic?" Thera added.
Prince Kael'thas lost it. "You… IDIOTS went down to Shatthrath City, assassinated the head of the Scryers and told everyone that it was MY idea?" He wanted to pull out his long hair and almost did.
"But they deserved it for betraying you, my Prince. The Scryers are our enemies." Lianna insisted in a calm voice.
"I know that they are our enemies… aren't you the very ones who bring the security reports to me? Don't you know that the attacks on the Black Temple have increased of late? These aren't official Sha'tar forces, but Alliance and Horde… sometimes Orcs and Humans working together. They are coming directly from Shatthrath City. How do you think the real brunt of Sha'tar forces will react when they hear about what you did?"
The three woman opened slack jaws and shrugged at eachother's vacant gazes.
"They will take it as an open declaration of war! Lord Illidan did not give me persmission to—"
"You are not his slave, Prince Kael'thas." Lianna lifted her chin with authority. "You can do whatever you like, even take revenge on those who hurt you. The Scryers committed treason, and they deserve nothing better, unless…" then she paused, "Unless you don't think what they did merited treason."
The other two rogues leaned in, eager for his answer.
"The men you killed… were friends of mine, once, long ago… I am furious with them now, what they did is an offense to all of Silvermoon!" then Kael'thas leaned to the side as if he'd lost the will to control even his own body. "I wasn't ready for them to… I never wished to put the dagger in their backs myself, the way they did to me."
Lianna opened her mouth in shock. "The so-called Scryers? The betrayers?"
"There is someone else here called The Betrayer!" Kael'thas roared.
The women fell silent.
"Is he evil? Is he plotting our deaths? No, he gave me what was promised, and now we are serving him in turn, like the Naga. How dare you go and do something so vile in my name!" Kael'thas gained courage, "And now my name is his name!"
Kael'thas' knuckles went white as he gripped the armrests of his elaborate high back chair. His apartments were lush, done in scarlet and gold. Nothing had been spared to make the prince comfortable far away from home.
"Your name is your own." Thera parroted Lianna. She lowered her eyes.
"Are you mocking me?"
"No, my liege." She bowed her head reverently.
Prince Kael'thas stood. "No, I believe you are. I think that when I allowed you to come here to me some weeks ago, you let it go to your head. That is not what happened here."
"That has nothing to do with this, Kael'thas." Lianna sneered.
"Do not be so familiar with me." Prince Sunstrider thrust a chin at them. It was perfect, clefted. His features were sharp but deeply masculine, elegant. It was hard not to stare at him because he was very good to look at.
Lianna forced herself to look away. "What we did with you, there," she pointed at the plush round bed behind him, "was not seduction, or some game… we saw how you hurt. We only wanted to love you, for a while. Don't you remember? There was a time in Silvermoon when an orgy was welcome by one of your status—"
"We are not in Silvermoon. We will not carry on the very hedonistic practices that blinded us when the Scourge came tearing down our walls." Kael'thas paced in a circle then turned sharp on his heel. His red robes made a loud rustling noise. "Do you know the real reason why we refused to join the Humans' Alliance? Three fourths of us were lounging before hookas and the Sunwell, with palms plastered to arcane crystals, our brains melting out of our heads! Did we come here to Outland, after being rejected by the Alliance and all of Azeroth just to repeat our mistakes? Perhaps those men committed treason and deserved to die, but not the way you did it… not with such dishonor."
The other women bristled. Lianna spoke for them again, "You are weak, just like everyone else! You can't even make up your mind about the Scryers. Do you hate them, or do you forgive them? Sitting here, pretending to read a children's book and look busy when Lord Illidan calls on you… you only just now noticed it was a book beneath your level of education, and that's why it's in pieces, isn't it?"
Kael'thas would not meet her eyes.
"Do you know why we've beat up so many of the Sunfury? Why there are reports of abuse reaching your desk?" Lianna persisted. Clearly these women had their ears tuned to everything going on around them, as his Intelligence Officers. "Because we needed to shut their mouths. You wouldn't believe the things they are saying against you, my Prince, that you are a weakling, an addict. At least the three of us could add lecher to that list… maybe the men will at least respect you. You should be grateful for what we did." Then she turned to her cohorts. "In fact, I think that we should do more. You aren't worthy of the power you command. A whole year went by since the Scryers left and you showed no kind of reaction. Now you know what everyone thinks of your pathetic, self-loathing stupor!"
"Guards!" Kael'thas yelled.
Grim Blood Elf soldiers carrying phoenix shields marched into the prince's room.
"These three… are no longer my champions." He pointed to Lianna, Jacinta, and Thera with a trembling hand. "They have shamed me, they have shamed all of us. Put them behind bars."
The women outraged and twisted in the hands of their captors.
"Have you gone mad! We've done everything for you, everything you've ever asked of us!" Thera screamed. "Is this how we're rewarded for being the only women here brave enough to sate your royal cock!" Then she doubled over when a guard slammed her in the stomach with the butt of his sword.
Prince Kael'thas shared a look with the other man. He did not thank him, for he feared to qualify that statement. Instead he walked over to Thera and lifted her chin with a forefinger and a thumb.
"Look at me." Kael'thas hoped his voice sounded forceful enough. Thera's bottom lip quivered. A tear crept down her cheek and stained his finger.
"What you three have done is horrible. You are no better than the Scryers for acting without my permission. It's nearly as unthinkable. The fate I give you is a mercy…" He dared to add, "a mercy for a mercy, for coming to me that night." Then he let her go and addressed all of the rogues. "When Illidan marches into Shatthrath and lays siege to the city, you will not be among the traitors on Scryers' Tier we will destroy first."
"That was a very good show just now," Jacinta spat back as the guards removed them from the room. "Does that mean you're actually sober?"
Kael'thas watched them leave. He had a sudden urge to pyroblast everything in his room, but decided it was the crystals making him feel so volatile.
It took almost a month to traverse through Shadowmoon Valley to the Black Temple on horseback. As it turned out, Saturna and the other Bloodknights arrived just in time.
"So what is this clever thing we're going to do to win the Prince's trust? Those demon guards don't look like they are going to stand down." Sunthraze the Sly complained loudly. They were still a ways off from the entrance of the temple, but it did not look promising.
Saturna's shoulders hunched with irritation. The corrupted Ashbringer rattled against the back of her breastplate. She never wore a cape.
"I told you to just trust me on this. Let me do most of the talking." She reminded her party.
Sunthraze sucked his teeth and rolled his eyes.
Pyorin the Tank was at the back of their little procession for a good reason. "Mistress Whiteblade, would the raiding party of angry Orcs and Humans charging at us from behind have anything to do with your plan?"
Saturna twisted around in the saddle to see for herself. "Oh shit!"
"You… sound surprised." Pyorin worried. Apparently, he had a lot more faith in their leader than anyone else.
"It seems Shatthrath City wanted to follow up on our banishment. And at that, they move fast. Every one of them has a flying mount." Fennore frowned.
"No wonder we didn't hear them sneaking up on us." Saturna watched, helpless, as the allies of the Sha'tar landed their flying mounts. She grimaced when she recognized a great many Scryer faces.
"I told you we should have stayed in Shatthrath long enough to earn gold for our own flying mounts." Sunthraze loosened the enormous Blackened Spear he carried slung across his back and took it in hand.
Saturna's swearing at his untimely remarks was drowned out by the sound of the enemy closing in the distance, fast. She turned her horse around in the middle of the road, and the other three paladins followed the wordless command to attack.
That was how Prince Kael'thas first saw her.
He shifted awkwardly on his golden Hawkstrider, at the entrance to the Black Temple. The seething dispassion in the Sunfury soldiers who no longer respected him made the languid haze of arcane magic coursing through Kael'thas' veins even more terrible. He was sure that death was ready to meet him because of those damned rogues, but wasn't even lucid enough to fear it. When Lord Illidan heard news of the incoming attack, he ordered Kael'thas to 'go clean up his mess'... his had been through Naga Wave Commander Scy'thlerin of course.
When the enemy soldiers shouted their battlecries, their curses for revenge, one woman in the far off road crouched low and drew a long blade in front of her. Three others drew weapons and formed a file behind her. Kael'thas could sense the fel energy wafting off the corrupted Ashbringer from where he waited for the onslaught. Who were these four Blood Elf soldiers, and why were they protecting him?
Then the woman screamed and dragged the blade around in a circle. She leapt into the air and her perfect body twisted elegantly. Through his daze, Kael'thas thought he was seeing it in slow motion. He saw her evil corrupted blade turn white and she too dazzled with the exotic spell she cast. When the woman landed on hands and knees, the white blade had been loosed into the marauding throng.
It rotated exactly three turns mid air before exploding into the enemy front line. The white Light consumed every man and beast there and then expanded on that horizon in a silent eruption of searing white and red blood.
He blinked, feeling shock and horror for the first time. His heart raced, and he wondered if he had been hallucinating. The corrupted Ashbringer was again in the woman's hand, but half the charging raid was decimated. Exclamations rising up from Sunfury around him told Prince Kael'thas he wasn't seeing things.
"For Kael'thas!" the woman shrieked and her three comrades ran up behind her, brandishing weapons.
The Prince could not take his eyes off the battle. He feared to even speak or act as the miracle took place in front of him. He had seen paladins fighting before, he knew that these four were such soldiers… but the way they wielded the Light, as if it were but magic, any magic. And the woman who led them had just done a thing with her sword that he never saw any retribution paladin do before, by turning it white.
"Should we assist them?" Kael'thas' general politely interjected after a time. Kael'thas came back to his senses then. He gave the order and his army went out to meet hers.
But they got there too late. The four paladins finished off what was left of the angry raid from Shatthrath City with expert precision. The woman paladin had turned the tide of battle instantly by cutting the size of the enemy in half, making the odds against them two to one.
"Who are you?" Prince Kael'thas crossed through the threshold of bodies to where the four paladins stood recovering.
"I am Saturna Whiteblade." Saturna said in her rich voice. She bowed and the other men introduced themselves. Fennore was at a loss for a clever nickname like Sunthraze and Pyorin, so he referred to himself as 'the healadin.' No one laughed at his bad joke.
Perhaps Prince Kael'thas would not have been so obvious about his attraction to the woman during that first meeting if he weren't high on arcane crystals.
"You are well named, in my opinion." He smiled at Saturna.
Saturna stepped over the mangled body of an Orc. Her blade was just as green and bloodied.
"As are you." She knelt reverently. "You are he who walks by day and we are Bloodknights who seek to always follow in these shining footsteps. Will you allow us to continue our dedicated service to you, as our ancestors followed the first Sunstrider who crossed the Great Sea?"
Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider dismounted and handed his reigns to a nearby Sunfury soldier.
"You speak so eloquently—"
"Because I speak the truth." She looked into his eyes. Her face was pained and beautiful. "We are Masters of the Light, but you are Silvermoon. Our blades," and she placed the corrupted Ashbringer on the ground at Kael'thas' feet. The other paladins removed their weapons and did the same. "…are yours to guide. Will you allow us to join you?"
Officers Lianna, Thera, and Jacinta could not be more perfectly replaced.
"I accept." Kael'thas said, but it sounded like he spoke solely to Saturna. When the other male Bloodknights bowed in response, the prince remembered his manners and stopped gazing at their alluring commander.
Author's Note:
So, I think to myself... it doesn't really hurt to write two fanfictions at once, does it? Especially when both are so much fun!