As always, massive thanks go out to Eleneri and to my husband. This wouldn't be what it is without you, and it wouldn't be as good as it is without you.
And a thank you to all of you who are still reading. You're why I'm still cranking it out, and I cannot thank all of you enough for your support.
A quick note: Due to Camdyn's small stature and trying to keep things as functional for her as possible, I did have to shrink the Ashbringer to a bastard (hand-and-a-half) sword instead of a full claymore. She's short, y'all. Toting around a claymore, even on a fantasy standard but historically impractical back scabbard was going to get difficult for her when I started thinking about certain logistics.
Finding Highlord Tirion alive had seemed wholly impossible after what Camdyn had witnessed on the Shore the day before.
She had watched as a massive demon had dragged him into the fel pit, had watched him sacrifice himself. She had watched him die. Finding him now, after the loss of Ilaani, leaves Camdyn incapable of doing anything except standing there, momentarily dumbstruck. There's almost too much grief and pain weighing against too much relief.
But the world doesn't freeze with her.
Highlord Tirion is driven to one knee as he deflects a heavy blow that would have driven his head into his chest and struggles to stand again, trying to use the Ashbringer to push himself back to his feet.
"Breaking you," the jailer demon snarls as it presses in close against him, its magic-spawned blade screeching against Ashbringer, "has been far too taxing."
And then Camdyn sees everything come crashing down around her.
The jailer holds up one hand, and fel energies rush from the sickly ley lines up over the Highlord's body, drowning him. Highlord Tirion screams, and it sucks the air from Camdyn's lungs. The energy snaps into form - and the scream is cut short.
Highlord Tirion kneels within a solid crystal of fel, the Ashbringer clattering hollowly against the stone as it falls to the ground before him.
Camdyn's heart stops in her chest, and for the briefest of moments, she's taken back to the top of Icecrown Citadel, to a moment not unlike this one. Her stomach lurches even as her hope refuses to wane.
"Tirion!" Lord Tyrosus roars, his voice cracking at the edges as his grip tightens around his sword. His lip curls. "What have you done?" he spits at the jailer.
The turn it takes to face them is almost lazy. "I told you that you were far too arrogant," it drawls. "Come, gnats. I will finish you all."
Camdyn expects Lord Tyrosus to let out a battle yell, a ragged scream, a curse, anything. But the only noise he makes is the creak of his gloves as he adjusts his grip on his sword. Then he surges forward. He bears down on the demon, his broadsword cleaving through the air as he meets it, aiming for the jailer's shoulder.
The demon darts backward, far more agile than anything so large has a right to be. It raises a clawed hand, palm skyward, and the ground under Camdyn's feet begins to fluoresce.
Panic squeezes her throat tight.
"Move!" she barks, lurching sideways and knocking into Ebba. They both topple to the ground, taking a high elf with them in a tangle of limbs, as Iomhar hurtles past them with a shout. Plumes of liquid fel jet up from where they'd all been standing only moments before.
"You'll not be getting the best of me, demon!" Iomhar snarls.
"The Ashbringer!" Lord Tyrosus yells as he ducks under a heavy swing from the jailer's arm. "Retrieve it!" The words have no sooner left his mouth than felbats screech overhead.
Camdyn shoves herself off of Ebba and the elf, all of them scrambling back to their feet in time to see two felbats soaring just above them. One rockets toward them, its front arms clawing toward their faces. Blinding light radiates from Ebba as she unhooks her polearm and slashes at the bat. As it reels in pain, a succubus dismounts fluidly from its back, her whip lashing toward Iomhar.
But Camdyn's attention stays fixed on the second felbat. It glides past them and then dips, circling for a moment near where Lord Tyrosus is still engaged with the jailer.
Near Highlord Tirion.
Camdyn breaks into a desperate sprint, her boots sliding against the smooth stone. She finally catches traction and barrels toward where the Ashbringer lies.
She can see the green light glinting off its golden core, can see the reflection of the fel prism encasing Highlord Tirion in the edge of the blade. Her hand stretches, fingers open - and then the felbat dives and snatches the blade into the air.
Righteous fury ignites in her chest, hot and solid and certain, and the Light answers her need, flying from the end of her outstretched fingertips in a vaguely focused blast wave.
The felbat instantly shrieks in pain. A ragged hole in its right wing sizzles and smokes, and stinking motes of ash drift to the ground as the bat careens to one side before immediately regaining an unsteady altitude.
Camdyn swears under her breath and gives chase, waiting for the moment the new hole in the bat's wing will force another unexpected dip.
Just as it bobbles within the limits of her reach, a pack of imps bubbles out from behind a scorched boulder and tries to intercept her. Light blooms in her core and flows through her, driving back the few imps that don't immediately fall in a smoking, gnarled mass at her feet. They run away, gibbering in fear, and the brittle husks of their comrades' bodies crunch under her boots like dry leaves as she chases the felbat through the carnage.
Overhead, the Ashbringer glows a pale green with reflected demonic phosphorescence. The Light thrums through Camdyn, surging and ready, when the felbat suddenly tries to angle back for an ascent up the nearest rockface. It can't quite manage it. When the bat wavers, the Light shoots from her in dazzling radiance, making her every nerve tingle. The felbat howls, and Camdyn can smell the sizzle of meat.
With a hideous screech, it spirals into the rock and is gone.
Dumbfounded, Camdyn skids to a stop and reaches for the release on her baldric. The heavy, familiar weight of her hammer slides into her left hand, and she cautiously approaches the place she'd seen the felbat vanish.
A hidden tunnel, practically invisible except from its mouth, yawns before her. A fel green trickle of water sluggishly chugs from the main floor down through the winding hall. Taking a step forward, Camdyn racks her brain, searching her limited knowledge of elven architecture, trying to determine what type of terrain the felbat was leading her toward.
The air in the tunnel is thick and oppressive, and it weighs heavy in Camdyn's chest with every breath. She strains to hear any sound of the felbat, any screech of pain or uneven gust of wind from its wings.
The only sounds are the pounding of her own heart and the rivulet of fel tripping and burbling as it widens into a small stream.
As she rounds a third turn, she can see the glow of moonlight ahead, and she shifts her grip on her hammer, rolling her shoulders against the familiar heft, readying for combat. The hall opens into a massive circular room lined with collapsed stone arches and ramps. A desolate, abandoned font lies in the center of the room, dry and empty, its walls long since broken and breached.
The room is empty. Quiet. With the heavy feeling of a long undisturbed tomb. It's a shaky breath that escapes her as she prays it won't be her own.
As she climbs over the massive stone that had once been the top of the entry arch, a glint across the room catches her eye. At the top of a mostly crumbled staircase, a mass of fur and claws lies curled and still in a pool of moonlight. Her breath catches in her chest as she watches it, waiting for any sign of life.
There is none. But a shift in her weight shows her a second glint from under its side, reddish this time.
The pommel.
She knows this has to be a trap - the room is too empty considering the rest of the demonic presence here - but she has no other choice: she must retrieve the Ashbringer. Allowing it to fall into the Legion's hands is unthinkable. Hands tightening around the haft of her hammer, she leaps from the stone and races across the room.
Almost immediately, Camdyn's stomach curdles. The hair on her nape prickles with every step, nerves tightening until she wants to scream. She ignores it as she lunges up the stairs and thrusts a hand under the felbat's mangled body. Her fingers brush against the hilt of the sword, and her fingertips burn as Light surges within her in response.
"Is this the Light's greatest champion?" The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, somehow both thick and grating, like putrid meat being ground between stones. A shudder shoots down Camdyn's spine as she fights the urge to recoil in revulsion from the voice ringing inside her head. "Come to retrieve the Ashbringer and lay waste to my kin?" it sneers again.
The energy shifts in the room, pressing and sliding over her nerves like a sword drawn against flesh as it circles around her. Hunting her. "They say only the pure can wield the blade." Hot breath crawls past her ear, and her left hand reflexively clenches around the haft of her hammer.
"Claim your destiny," the voice murmurs, low and hot and close and malevolent. "Let us see how great you truly are."
Camdyn closes her eyes, fingers a hair's breadth from the hilt, and simply breathes, waiting, judging the distance of the presence. It circles again, slowly, stalking. Watching.
It passes her left flank, and in one fluid motion, she drops her hammer with her left hand and yanks the Ashbringer from under the felbat's body with her right, bringing it to bear.
As her fingers wrap around the hilt of the sword, heat rockets down her arm to her core and back again, blooming anew in her, fierce and urgent. As she swings the blade toward her unknown assailant, he shimmers into being, his self-satisfied laughter ringing richly in her ears.
Camdyn's stomach hits her boots. Balnazzar.
"How good to see you again, little one," he murmurs. "To think it would be you."
She shifts her weight, readying to drive forward. Balnazzar tuts at her and waves a hand. Fel energy races for her from the trickling streams circling the room. "There's no need to be so aggressive," he croons as Camdyn launches herself over a jet of green liquid, landing on her shoulder and following into a roll down what remains of the stairs. Pain sears through her left leg, pulling her up short. Panic drives her heart into her sternum as she looks back to see magical chains vising around her ankle. She bites back a curse as she realizes she had fallen right where he'd wanted her. Every attempt to yank her leg free only tightens their grasp.
"Why struggle? I merely intend to rip your soul from your body and take it for my own," he pauses as a feral grin slides across his face, "as I did your beloved Dathrohan's." Another chain shoots from his hands and wraps about her waist, grating against her armor as it tightens.
Dathrohan. The first of her heroes to fall. And she had been the one to deliver the blow. Camdyn grits her teeth and struggles to breathe as the chain around her torso cinches tighter.
"As you were the one to deprive me of that guise, it's so poetically fitting that I now have you to serve my ends." Balnazzar approaches her at a leisurely stroll, wings flaring idly, and the fel waters around her recede back to their chugging tracts. The bare skin of her right arm burns at the touch of fel as yet another chain snakes around her shoulders, and Camdyn can feel the Light inside her rising beneath her skin in response. "I will turn you into a weapon of the Legion and destroy everything you ever loved. Piece. By. Piece."
He raises a clawed hand, and Camdyn feels herself being pulled to stand, hanging in the air.
Her fingers are still closed around the Ashbringer's hilt, the one prize she refuses to relinquish. The Light is still blazing through her, intense and fresh and blindingly bright, an ever growing loop between her core and the sword, until even she has to shut her eyes. Time slows to a crawl, and she can feel the heat grow to an inferno.
Light explodes in a soundless corona around her, more brilliant than ever before.
Camdyn still can't quite see when she crashes to the ground, but she somehow manages to land in a hard crouch. Light sings through her veins as she wraps both hands firmly around Ashbringer's hilt.
"Worm!" Balnazzar snarls with rage, his clawed hands curling at his sides before swiping through the air in her direction. Fel rises in the corners of her vision, but she throws herself at Balnazzar, bringing the sword back over her shoulder to slice at his abdomen.
He sees it coming and dances back, twisting fel magic around his fingers as he arches an arm over his head. "You are here because I will it," he sneers, low and deadly. He swings his right arm down in a sharp arc, and a ball of felfire explodes at Camdyn's feet. Pulverized stone dust erupts into the air, clouding her vision and clogging her lungs. "You are alive because I will it." His voice is closer now. Camdyn stands still and waits, trusting in the Light. "And you will serve because I will it." Just as his voice rings in her head, she feels a strong surge, a pull at her core demanding her full attention.
She pivots on her right foot, sharply thrusting the sword forward into the smoke and dust. Immediately, she meets resistance, and she throws her whole weight behind the Ashbringer.
Balnazzar howls, and the smell of charring flesh rises even over the thick chalkiness of the stone settling around them.
"And you will not win," she grunts as she pushes up against the hilt, twisting the Ashbringer deep in Balnazzar's gut, "because the Light wills it."
Ichor runs from his mouth, and a hatred burns in his eyes. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of looking away. "I will," he gasps hotly, his weight growing heavier on the end of her sword as he stumbles to his knees, "be back."
"I'll be ready," she snarls through clenched teeth.
The show of teeth he gives her in response is more pathetic than frightening. His breaths gurgle as ichor rises in his throat. "We," he manages, garbled and thin but still discernible, "shall see." His last breath leaves him in a prolonged rattle, and then he sags against the sword, almost more weight than she can bear.
She plants her right foot against his chest, tilts the Ashbringer up as much as she can, and then firmly shoves his corpse away from the end of the blade. His body slides to the stone with a wet, satisfying thump.
Camdyn takes a moment to collect herself, breathing through the trembling of her hands and the quaking of her thighs. When she can finally hold the Ashbringer steady, she passes the flat of the blade against Balnazzar's bicep, cleaning it of his ichor, and then sets it aside long enough to retrieve her hammer and set it back in her baldric.
Her fingers have barely brushed against Ashbringer's hilt again when she hears Lord Tyrosus calling for her.
Camdyn whirls on the entrance to the font, blade leveled and ready. A false face and voice would be well within a demon's familiar tricks. She steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the lump in her throat borne of fear that a demon could be puppeteering Lord Tyrosus as Balnazzar had Dathrohan.
Lord Tyrosus steps into the mouth of the hallway, scanning the room until he sees her. His gaze swings to the mass at her feet, and Camdyn can almost see him rock back on his heels.
"Is that-" his voice breaks, and his brow knits.
"Balnazzar," Camdyn answers, ignoring the crack in her own voice. She still hasn't lowered the Ashbringer. She has no intention of being taken by surprise.
As Tyrosus turns to her again, he finally catches sight of the sword leveled in the approximate direction of his head. He looks wan, the lines on his face deeper than they had been minutes ago, and his shoulders sag just enough to be noticeable. "Peace, Sister," he murmurs, rust still lingering on the edges of his voice. "I'm no demon."
Camdyn tightens her fingers on Ashbringer's hilt. "So you claim."
Light blooms under his feet, golden and glorious, casting shadows against the stone. Slowly, Camdyn lowers Ashbringer, tension bleeding from her in waves.
"You need to come quickly," Tyrosus says, words tight and clipped. The weight of his gaze on her nearly pins her where she stands. "Tirion's called for you by name, and I fear he isn't much longer for this world."
"You freed him?" It's almost a squeak
Tyrosus's lips thin, and his gaze shifts away. "For all the good it's done him." He turns back up the hallway, clearly expecting her to follow. "We must hurry."
"Lord Tyrosus," she calls as she leaps down the steps. He stops and turns back to her, the eyebrow above his eye patch arched even as the rest of his face remains impassive. "I have the Ashbringer."
"Bring it," he says simply as she vaults over the crumbled archway. Everything in her protests at his simple direction.
"But shouldn't-" He cuts her off with a firm shake of his head.
"You were the one to find it, you should be the one to deliver it." He turns away again, leading her back up the hallway and falling into silence. Camdyn can practically feel sweat breaking out on her palms.
Lord Tyrosus doesn't speak the rest of the way back to the main floor of the temple, nor does he shorten his stride.
When they break back into the open moonlight, Camdyn almost has to shield her eyes. A bright, golden glow emanates from where the large fel rune had been minutes before, overwriting it. In the center, a small dot of shadow lies prone.
As her eyes adjust, it resolves into the still body of Tirion Fordring.
Lord Tyrosus breaks away from her, jogging to the center of the consecrated ground. He crouches down to Highlord Tirion, reaching a gentle hand out and laying it on the Highlord's chest. "I found her, Tirion," he says. "She's here."
Camdyn's heart is in her mouth, but she approaches the Highlord as quickly as she dares. "Sir," she says as she lays the Ashbringer down and drops to a knee near his head.
Highlord Tirion's breathing is fast and shallow, and he reaches a shaky hand up toward her face. She takes it and guides it to her cheek. A loose smile quivers across his lips even as his face twists in pain.
"Brother," he corrects, and it clearly takes a toll. His voice is more sound than words. The rasp of the dying. Grief is a weight tied to her sternum, buoyant and heavy all at once, making her want to collapse in on herself and scream the pain of her soul into the silent night.
She refuses to do either. Not now.
"Brother," she says, trying to keep her voice level, trying to keep the tears at bay. She fails at both, a tear falling onto Highlord Tirion's cheek as the word crumbles at the edges. "I'm here. What would you have of me?"
"You must wield the blade." Every word is an effort, heavy gasps of air punctuating each syllable. "You must," he stops again, his fingers curling against her cheek as he struggles to convey his final wishes, "stop the Legion."
She wants to deny him, wants to tell him that they can't do it without him to lead them. But she swallows down her sorrow and her anger, her hurt. "I will. I promise."
Highlord Tirion's clouded eyes lock on hers, and for a moment, the haze of death seems to lift, and it makes Camdyn's breath lock in her chest. "You must," he chokes, "become the Ashbringer."
He trails off in a slow rush of air, his pupils blowing wide and his eyelids falling to half-mast as his fingers go limp against her cheek.
She can't help the quaver of her lip as she looks to Lord Tyrosus for confirmation. For guidance. He merely shakes his head once before bowing his head and slowly pressing his palm more firmly to Highlord Tirion's breastplate.
Camdyn lowers Tirion's hand from her face but can't bring herself to let it go. Her whole world narrows to the limp, lifeless curl of his hand in her palm, to the feeling of inexorable grief washing over her, through her, as she sinks onto her heels. It slams into her like a tidal wave, and she knows she'll drown if she stops fighting for even a moment.
A large, warm hand curls around her neck, gently guiding her to look back up. Lord Tyrosus kneels before her now, anguish swirling just below the depths of raw determination in his gaze. "Not here," he says quietly, voice hoarse and thick with restrained sorrow. "Not now. There is yet work to be done. I'll take Tirion home. You need to report to Stormwind."
Time stretches as she stares at him, willing herself to respond at all. Lord Tyrosus reaches over and gingerly takes Highlord Tirion's hand from her own, laying it across Tirion's chest. "Come, Highlord," he says. To her.
The Ashbringer lays at the edge of her peripheral vision, the golden glow of holy Light reflecting on the honed edge of the blade, dancing in bursts of vibrant, prismatic color. Slowly, she reaches for it.
It doesn't even feel right to wield it, let alone claim it. But the knowledge that Tyrosus is right - that this place isn't safe to linger - drums at the back of her brain. She wraps her hand firmly around the hilt and shakily pushes to her feet.
"I'll take your hammer back to the Sanctum," Lord Tyrosus murmurs before pressing a leather belt into her free hand. "You'll be needing this." She blinks at the length of leather. A sword belt, she finally realizes. Tirion's sword belt. She nods, dumbly, willing her mouth to form words.
"Thank you," she finally manages. Her tongue feels thick in her mouth. She lays the Ashbringer back down and loops the belt around her waist. Her fingers tremble as she tries to work the clasp, failing twice before finally succeeding. When she raises her shaking hands to the buckle of her baldric, Tyrosus takes pity on her, reaching for it and carefully undoing it himself. The weight lifts from her shoulder, and she bends to retrieve the Ashbringer.
As her fingers wrap around it, she wonders if it will ever feel right to claim it, and she wonders that she was the one Tirion willed his legacy to. Surely he meant to offer such power to Lord Tyrosus, not herself. Camdyn shoves the thought away to be dealt with later. After the Broken Shore is far behind them.
She stands, sliding the Ashbringer into its sheath on her hip. Lord Tyrosus has her baldric, with her hammer still attached, slung over one of his shoulders. He still stands next to her, at Highlord Tirion's head, but Ebba and the high elf now stand between Highlord Tirion's feet. With nothing more than a glance passing between them and the barest nod, they all simultaneously crouch down and slide their hands under the Highlord - Lord Tyrosus taking him by the back of the shoulders and Ebba and the elf each taking him by a knee.
"I'll scout ahead and get the gryphons ready." Iomhar's gruff brogue is so uncharacteristically soft, it's almost lost under the whistle of wind. "Care to join me, Highlord?"
That he turns to her makes her head spin. The concept that she could be the Highlord seems like a fever dream. She forces a dry swallow. "Sure," she croaks out.
Her body doesn't feel like her own; everything feels distant and dull, each twist and turn of the pathway seeming just like the one before it, each cliff matching the next.
Somewhere in the darkness, just beyond a turn, Iomhar stops short. An exasperated huff blows out from the depths of his beard, and he whirls on her. His hand clamps, not unkindly, around her right forearm. His dark brown eyes, unblinking and far too probing, peer up at her from under knit brows.
Camdyn flinches, shrinking away from his gaze.
"I know ye're hurting, lass," he murmurs. "We all are. But ye've got to hold yerself together until we get safe, same as the rest of us. I'm no gifted healer, but let me see yer arm." He turns her bicep gingerly, and then warmth blooms under her skin, soothing the burn she had nearly forgotten. "That should hold ye until we get to the end of this," he says with a tight nod. His fingers curl into her arm. "Just stay with me until then."
"Okay." The voice still doesn't sound like her own, but she pushes it away and tries to give Iomhar a reassuring smile. She's sure it looks more like she's about to be sick, but it seems to be enough. His brows unknit, and he releases her arm.
"Good," he says as he turns back around. "Follow me. Almost there."
Three turns later, they step into open air, and the stone at their feet is covered in a thin dusting of sand. Iomhar fishes his whistle from his pouch, and he puts it to his lips and gives it what looks to be a solid blow.
The warbling yell of a murloc answers the call, and Camdyn's gut sinks. Instinct has her right hand reaching to her breastplate, but as soon as her left drops to her hip and bumps into the sword, it rushes back to her. She takes a bracing breath and draws the Ashbringer, letting its power sing through her as Iomhar slings his shield loose and frees his hammer.
She doesn't even need to ask where the noise came from. A bulbous shape sits breaching the waves just ahead, lumbering and awkward as it climbs toward the beach.
The shape turns toward them, spine stiffening, and then the yell comes again just before it charges toward them. Camdyn blinks. Something about its line is wrong, its shape bulky and far too broad instead of sleek and streamlined. It takes her a moment to realize what she's seeing: the murloc is wearing something as a helmet.
As it draws closer, she recognizes the smooth lines and the artistic work of the metal. King Varian's lion pauldron is perched precariously on its head, turned to the side and tilted back, keeping the murloc slightly off balance.
The murloc bears down on them, and Iomhar bends sideways, leaning low to slam his hammer into its rib cage. It roars at him, thin and reedy, its mouthful of razor sharp fangs gleaming in the moonlight before Iomhar smashes his shield against its face. It stumbles and reels, blood pouring freely from its mouth, before Camdyn slices the Ashbringer through the air.
The pauldron gives a dull metallic thud as it falls to the ground, and its shape makes it roll slightly, tipping the murloc's head delicately onto the sand. Its glassy fish eyes blink rapidly before its tongue lolls completely out of its mouth and it goes still.
The body gouts blood from what remains of its neck, standing for the briefest moment before toppling to the sand. There's another oddly metallic clang as it falls, tiny and muted. Camdyn sheathes the Ashbringer and toes the body over. Around its neck is a brown leather pouch the size of her fist with a thick leather strap spilling from it. Bits of faded blue dye are barely visible against the worn dark brown. She crouches and scoops up the pouch, mindful as she can be of the blood.
"I'll ready the gryphons," Iomhar says. He pauses for a moment and then winks at her. "Let me know if it's anything good." And then he's gone the last few meters up the beach to where the gryphons are beginning a slowly spiraling descent.
Prying the cinch of the pouch open, Camdyn initially sees only the iridescent gleam of seashells. She grabs hold of the leather strap, carefully tugging at it, pulling whatever it might be attached to. A wave of seashells rains down from the pouch onto the beach as the item pushes them out of its way. A mass of kelp follows, wet and squelching as it passes through the mouth of the pouch.
And then the item gives way. A compass, its golden edges caked in seaweed, swings free in the moonlight. Camdyn glances briefly back into the pouch, seeing only a handful of pebbles and a silver-sized mass of fish scales, and drops it back onto the murloc's body. She turns the compass over in her hands, looking for any identifying marks. When she finds none, she plucks enough seaweed free of the hinge to open it.
Her breath catches in her chest.
A portrait of Prince Anduin as a young boy smiles serenely up at her from inside the compass's lid. Gingerly, she pulls the rest of the seaweed free, checking the compass for damage. She turns it over in her hands, running her fingers over its seams. There isn't so much as a scratch on the glass.
She tugs a kerchief free from her belt pouch and carefully wraps it around the compass, then tucks the parcel back into her pouch as securely as she can. The sounds of measured steps draw closer behind her, and she makes her way to the beach to help Iomhar finish wrangling the gryphons.
As she approaches the beachhead, what she had thought was a pile of rocks she can now tell is a pile of dead murlocs. She circles it warily as Iomhar croons to the gryphons, setting their reins to rights.
"What do you make of that, Highlord?" he says, his gaze flicking back to the pile. She glances it over - some of the murlocs have been nearly eviscerated while others are practically unharmed save for a single puncture wound somewhere on their bodies. At the back of the pile, just at the edge of the tide, is a neat raptor footprint. Camdyn crouches down and runs her fingers around the edge of it and then shoves her hand through it, filling the print back in with sand.
"I think a friend gave us some help," she says as she stands and claps the sand from her hands.
Iomhar only raises an eyebrow in response, saying nothing.
Lord Tyrosus and the others have shuffled onto the beach, and they carefully lay Highlord Tirion on the sand.
"Ebba, Arliette, put the Highlord on Ilaani's gryphon. Then you two and Iomhar will return to Light's Hope with me and help me prepare to lay him, and Ilaani," he swallows past the odd hitch in his voice, "to rest. We'll also need to prepare the ceremony to instill the new Highlord." Camdyn's own throat goes tight. "The Highlord," he continues, looking at her now, ignoring the fact that she's absolutely positive all color has drained from her face, "will be continuing to Stormwind to report to the king before returning to us."
He mounts his gryphon in one fluid motion, leg swinging easily over the saddle. He dips his chin to her and raises a fist to his shoulder. "Light's speed, Highlord."
For a moment, it's all she can do to blink dumbly at him. Finally, her fist finds its way to her own shoulder, returning the salute. "May the Light be with you, brother," she answers.
He waits for her to mount her own gryphon before he gives the signal to take flight. Camdyn settles herself into the saddle and tries to recall where her first stop on the relay will be. Stormwind, after all, is almost a day's ride away.
May the Light be with them all.
