The costume party was one of those lavish affairs that Faith had attended multiple times in Quel'Thalas. People indulging in culinary delights and more carnal pleasures were everywhere, some secluded while others were right in the open.
Elise was shocked as she spied a couple only barely concealed by a bush. "Is this a joke?" she whispered. "How do they do that in front of everyone?"
"I would say that they're drunk on arcane energy and uninhibited because of the Legion," Faith told her in the same tone. "Don't stare, it'll only attract attention."
"Do you think we'll be able to find the person Thalyssra told us about?" wondered Avelin, under the guise of twirling Elise around himself to a catchy piece of music.
Faith nodded. Thalyssra and Oculeth were several feet away from them, pretending not to know them while keeping an eye on their surroundings. "I'm sure she'll alert us, don't worry."
Alert them she did, signaling to Faith after having nearly been caught by a sentry. "My friend is just in the courtyard behind that house. Her name is Ly'leth Lunastre, and this is her party. She's waiting for us."
The five of them went into the courtyard, finding a pretty nightborne woman there, handing out party favors to all those who joined her.
"Welcome, my friends!" she said in a booming voice once she saw them. She waited until other people had left the area before lowering her voice, "Welcome indeed. I'm pleased that you could make it. Are you all right?"
Thalyssra nodded, "Very much so, yes. I might have died had Faith and her friends here not found me on time."
"Then I owe you a debt of gratitude," said the woman. "It is good to know that there are still some people who understand how bad the Burning Legion is. Elisande has made a terrible mistake, but not many within the city believe it."
"The Legion is powerful," said Faith quietly. "Its agents know how best to seduce people."
"Yes, that's very true. And unfortunately, my younger sister has fallen prey to Elisande's charms. I do not think that she will help us, although I've tried to speak to her about it."
"Tried and failed, dear sister," came a voice from behind them.
Faith turned around to see a woman who looked very much like Ly'leth, although her skin was fairer. She held a dagger in her hand that she had just unsheathed, and looked ready to use it.
"I did not think that you were actually going to oppose our leaders," she said. "Surely my sister isn't that stupid."
"Anarys," said Ly'leth. "Please, try to understand. There are demons within the city. Do you not remember the lessons we learned at Father's knee?"
"I will not let you destroy everything that he worked for, Ly'leth. What you are doing, trying to depose Elisande, is treachery. You are not fit to lead House Lunastre, and I will make sure that everyone knows it!"
She began to hurry away from the courtyard, but Faith didn't let her get far. A second later, she had encased the woman's legs in ice and was holding her there securely.
Anarys, however, far from being defeated, began melting the ice around her legs to free herself. Just as she got free, Faith collided into her, silencing her with a spell and holding Felo'melorn right at her throat.
"Do not move unless you want to die in the next three seconds."
Anarys glared at her, but became perfectly still, clearly taking Faith's threat to heart.
"By Elune, that was fast," breathed Ly'leth. "Your new friend knows her magic well."
Thalyssra nodded as Faith dragged Anarys over to them.
"I'm sorry, sister," said Ly'leth. "We're not going to hurt you, but I cannot permit you to rat us out to Elisande's forces. We are not trying to bring Suramar down, we're trying to save it from the Burning Legion. You must understand that."
Anarys tried to fight, but Faith was far too strong for her.
"People will notice I'm missing," she snarled. "They'll come looking for me."
"No, they won't," said Thalyssra. "Because technically, you won't be missing."
Ly'leth said a spell, conjuring her sister's likeness into a mask, which she duplicated. She smiled, "There you go. These masks will keep you disguised as my sister while you're in the city. That way she will still be able to make appearances where she needs to without anybody realizing that we have her."
"Clever," said Faith. "Garia, Elise, you should take the masks."
"Why us and not you, General?" asked Garia.
"Because I trust you both to do this as well as I would," she answered.
You did a good job, Faith, came Sylvanas' voice into her mind. I'm glad that you have come to see that you can trust others to do what you ask of them.
Maybe, but it wasn't easy. She wanted to trust them, of course she did, but part of her felt that she would have been able to do things better on her own, although she couldn't quite figure out how she would have done that.
"It is not easy to delegate, is it?" Thalyssra asked her a few nights later as they waited for Garia to return from a mission into Suramar City. "When you're used to doing things yourself and you're suddenly put in a position of leadership, it's a complete change of pace for you."
Faith nodded, "I feel like I'd be able to lead better if I could see what's going on with my own eyes."
"That's understandable, but you have to trust your people. You're a general now, and that means that you have to stand back."
"And look at the bigger picture. Yes, that's what Sylvanas tells me all the time."
"Well, you should listen to her."
"I'd listen to her better if she allowed me to rule by her side."
Thalyssra smiled, "Ah, I'm sure she'd love nothing more than that. But there's a war going on, and she probably thought that you were the best one for the job she gave you."
"I know," whispered Faith. She shook her head, missing Sylvanas more than she cared to admit, but now wasn't the time for that. She went to the map, making a few notes on it. There had been a major skirmish in a vrykul village on the eastern coast of the zone, but it had been taking care of with no casualties on their part.
There had also been multiple reports of demons venturing out of Felsoul Hold. Faith had taken care of them personally when they had come too close to where they were.
They'd had a busy few days, even without having to worry about the Burning Legion and Elisande's forces. The withered were everywhere, drawn to the abundance of magic that had coalesced in Meredil—the area they were in. Avelin had had an idea to train some of them to fight, and the experiment had had mixed results.
"I do think it's getting easier to control them," he said. "And they were able to drain that demon of magic very quickly, it was impressive."
"The problem is that you need a huge amount of them in order to bring down just one foe," said Baladir, who was polishing his staff. "And they have to have magic."
"Well, there are huge numbers of them all over the place," countered Avelin, not unkindly. "If we could train them to attack demons, who definitely have all sorts of magic, we'd be able to gain the upper hand here."
Faith glanced at Thalyssra, "What do you think?"
"I never once thought of using the withered against the demons," she said. "But the idea has merit. I think it's something we should pursue, and it would definitely get them off our backs."
"Just be careful," Faith told him. "We have warlocks in our ranks too, and I wouldn't want them hurt because of this. They're already drained from enslaving the demons they're able to control."
"Does that really help at all?" wondered Elise, who had just returned from a scouting mission on the borders of Azsuna.
"Of course it does. If you can control an infernal and make it go crazy, it'll kill a fair amount of foes for you. The problem is…"
"There are warlocks on the other side too," finished Thalyssra.
"One problem at a time," said Garia, stepping away from a teleportation pad and scaring them all out of their skin. She bore signs of having fought, but didn't appear hurt, although she looked very glad to be in relative safety.
"Are you all right?" Faith asked her.
Garia nodded, sitting down where she was. "These damned sentinels are a menace. If I hadn't already been dead, I wouldn't have been able to outrun them the way I did."
"What happened?"
Glancing at Thalyssra, Garia pulled out her blades and began to clean them, "When you told us that the situation was bad in Suramar City, I hadn't expected it to be like that." She shook her head, "A lot of people are being oppressed. From what I can tell, they're being denied access to arcwine and mana juice in order to keep them in line."
Faith made a small noise, "That's akin to starving them," she whispered.
"It's despicable," snarled Thalyssra. "Elisande shouldn't starve people to get what she wants."
"You have to admit that it's an effective way to take care of things," Faith told her. "It's not a method I would personally use, but Sylvanas would."
"Yeah, if you weren't around to stop her," muttered Garia.
"I'm working on breaking her of that habit," said Faith, feeling defensive. "Anyway, she hasn't done anything like that in a while… not that I know of anyway. What did you do about the arcwine?"
"I may have borrowed some without permission and distributed it to the people who needed it." She looked up at Faith, "I think that's what you would have done, isn't it?"
Faith smiled, "It is, actually. Thank you, Garia."
Garia gave a nod and sheathed her blades again before getting back to her feet, "There's a good rebellious area in a part of the city called Starcaller Retreat, and I directed some of the people there. At least eight of them went, which is more than I expected."
"You did a really good job," Faith told her, moved. Truth be told, she wouldn't have been able to do better herself.
"We also managed to recruit someone named Vanthir, who had been working alone against Elisande since you left, Lady Thalyssra."
A smile spread across Thalyssra's face, "That's excellent news. I knew he'd supported me when I attempted the coup, and I'd hoped that he hadn't been arrested by the magistrix's forces."
"He took charge of the arcwine distribution, so I'm thinking that we'll be able to help a large portion of the starved population that way. We had to… redirect some arcwine to our forces, which is when I was spotted by those sentinels. But do not worry: everything's fine."
"For now, anyway," said Faith. "Who knows what's going to happen when the demons figure out what's going on."
A lot happened, as it turned out. For nearly a month, they were able to keep things steady in Suramar: helping the population and undermining Elisande's plans just enough for her to think that mistakes had been made by her followers without alerting anybody else.
Garia and Elise, along with a tauren druid named Laima worked on recruiting more people for the rebellion while Faith and Thalyssra planted an arcan'dor tree in their sanctuary of Shal'Aran, which had grown since Faith had arrived.
Having cleaned it up as more refugees had arrived, they had discovered four large chambers on both the floors, which served as dormitories, kitchens, infirmaries, and a war room. There was even a room where people taught the younger Nightborne who had arrived.
"Once the arcan'dor fully grows," said a night elf, "this place will be entirely self-sufficient."
"We just have to make sure to keep it safe," Oculeth told him.
They got word of the attack on Starcaller Retreat just as Faith and Avelin returned from a mission to reroute leyline energies to Shal'Aran for the tree. They were watching as the tree grew before their eyes when Elise arrived, breathless and scared, her face very pale.
"By the Light, we were found out!" she cried. "I think that someone followed us back to our headquarters, and…" she burst into tears, shaking so much that she was unable to say anything until Faith had all but forced a strong drink down her throat.
"It's okay, Elise," she said quietly. "Tell me what happened."
"I had just gone out to free some prisoners deep within the city, when I heard demons pouring in. I wasn't able to do anything, General, I'm so sorry!"
"Take a breath," advised Faith as she rubbed her back in slow circles. "There you go. "You saw demons pouring in, then what?"
"It's gone, Faith. They raised everything to the ground. I saw that some people were able to escape, but I was trapped. I only managed to get back here after they were done because I would have been found out otherwise."
"Where's Garia?" Faith asked her.
"She was inside when the raid happened, but she fought. It was thanks to her that so many people managed to escape, but I don't know where they are." She began to shake and cry even more, unable to stay on her feet.
Faith kept a hand on her shoulder as she addressed an ashen-faced Thalyssra, "This is bad. I'll go warn Sylvanas about what's happened. Avelin will stay here and keep Elise calm. Baladir, I'd appreciate it if you could go warn King Anduin about what's transpired. Laima, I'm leaving you in charge of the arcan'dor. It should bear fruit any time now, and we should start being able to harvest from it soon."
"I'll take care of it," said the tauren quietly.
Faith nodded, seeing Thalyssra getting as many people together as possible for a counterstrike. "I would advise you not to attack before I arrive. I'll talk to the Knights of the Ebon Blade and see whether they can sense Garia anywhere. They should be able to help us figure out where she and the others are."
She teleported, landing in Orgrimmar in a heap and hurting her knee, having missed her teleportation point by several yards in her agitation. Far from caring, she took off at a sprint, ignoring calls from guards who wondered what was going on.
Sylvanas caught her as she stumbled into Grommash Hold, "Whoa, hey! Are you okay? What happened?"
Faith told her, and as she spoke, she saw people already moving: Sin'dorei mages teleporting to Silvermoon while a death knight conjured a death gate to get to his counterparts in the Ebon Blade.
"Okay, Faith, we're going to take care of this together, all right? Please don't worry so much. It's very unfortunate that we've lost so many allies, but maybe enough people were able to get away."
"What if they were caught?" she wondered. "Sylvanas, what if Garia was killed?"
There was a sudden screech, and Faith found herself with an armful of blue dragon as Emmi flew to her and began to nuzzle her, crying out happily.
Sylvanas smiled as she watched them, "You know as well as I do that Garia can take care of herself."
"I know," Faith told her as she rubbed Emmi's wriggling body. "Have you grown?" she asked her. "Sylvanas, what have you been feeding her?"
"Boars, mostly. She has a good appetite."
"You're not kidding. I won't be able to keep her on my shoulder anymore." Faith kissed her muzzle and she gave a little sneeze, causing tiny blue flames to come out of her snout. "Adorable."
Emmigosa screeched happily, and Faith heard a distinct "Mama" in that screech. She froze and looked at Sylvanas, whose red eyes were wide.
"Did she just…"
"Did she call you… oh my goodness, Faith!"
"Emmi!" cried Faith, tears springing to her eyes. Sylvanas bounced over to them and wrapped them in a long hug.
It was a moment of pure joy, the three of them like that. Emmigosa squeaked happily, nuzzling both of them as they kissed. It was the kind of moment both Faith and Sylvanas had wanted for years: a happy family together.
It was over all too soon, Faith and Sylvanas having to break apart to discuss the situation in Suramar, but the two of them felt lighter right then; refreshed and ready to take on anything.
They knew they were both going to need it in the days to come.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi everyone!
Whoa… two updates in a day!
I'm going quickly through the Suramar storyline because I really don't want to spend too much time on it. I really want to get the story moving along so that I can get to the Shadowlands, because I have an awesome idea for that (and that idea may have nothing at all to do with what Blizz has planned for Sylvanas…).
I hope you're all enjoying the expansion, by the way!
