Everything ached. Jaina's head pounded, her throat was sore and her body twinged whenever she moved too quickly. Too much to drink, too much dancing, and then whatever that had been between her and Sylvanas. And then she'd spent most of the night tossing and turning, her nerves and stomach roiling.
But as exhausted as she was, Jaina was used to not sleeping well; it was her normal state of being. At least they'd survived their first night together without killing each other, though the odds hadn't looked too good there for a few moments.
Pushing Sylvanas like that had been stupid, Jaina knew that. Jaina also knew that wouldn't be the last time she'd do so, nor did she think it would be the last time Sylvanas would find some way to embarrass or humiliate her. But if she touched her again, in any way that Jaina objected to, she'd make good on her threat. And then some.
Crawling out of bed, Jaina had the faintest memory of smooth, cold skin pressed against her back sometime during the night. Standing next to the bed and surveying the room, Jaina rubbed her head and decided she'd just been imagining things.
The wedding dress still lay crumpled on the floor, and Sylvanas had not bothered to do anything about the mirror or her armor yet. Jaina scowled, then cast a spell to put the mirror back together and tossed the armor into a corner; she wasn't going to pick up after Sylvanas.
Her mother's dress, however, she took care of by hand, folding it up so it could be cleaned. Katherine Proudmoore wouldn't leave the city just yet, and Jaina wanted to make sure she took the dress with her.
After dressing, Jaina went into the kitchen to make herself a small breakfast and something to take care of her hangover. It was an old family recipe, and it almost always worked. Fortunately, she was able to make do with the spare ingredients in the kitchen. Jaina assumed Sylvanas had 'forgotten' to stock it for her on purpose.
She nearly dropped her hangover cure when she walked into the main area and realized she wasn't alone.
Sitting in a chair was the Forsaken Warrior from both the Windwhistle and the reception. A dazzling array of lights formed patterns in front of her. Jaina waited while she solved the puzzle box, then cleared her throat. "Where's Sylvanas?"
And what was this warrior doing here?
"The Dark Lady had an early meetin' with some Alliance reps ta discuss lumber rights," the warrior said, picking up her puzzle box and deactivating it. "Told me ta take yer to her when yer got up. An' ta show yer the city later."
"My personal jailer, I take it?"
"Bodyguard."
"I fail to see the difference."
She shrugged. "I do as the Dark Lady commands, aye?"
Jaina held up her finger, drinking from her glass until her hangover cure was completely gone. Then she dropped her hand, absently rubbing her 'engagement' ring with her thumb. "What's your name?"
"Tyra Cole."
The name sounded familiar, and Jaina wondered if she'd met a Cole at some point, or even this particular Cole in life. Most Forsaken had come from Lordaeron. It was possible.
Choosing to not make things awkward, she put the glass on a table and nodded towards the door. "Grommash Hold?"
"Aye." Tyra got up, her armor creaking. She retrieved a large sword from where it leaned against the wall, sheathed it across her back, and led Jaina out into Orgrimmar.
The wedding had been held in that gap between summer and winter that Durotar liked to pretend was fall, so it was less warm than she expected. She wondered how she hadn't noticed the chill at the wedding; but she had been just a little preoccupied, and then wine and activity might have warmed her further. Or maybe it had just been a warmer day. It was still morning and the sun was just peeking up over the valley, so it hadn't had the chance to warm up from the night.
Jaina wondered if it ever snowed here. The city bordered Azshara to the north, after all, and it did on occasion snow in that ancient land.
Navigating the steps was going to get old, she realized. A lift system or even just a zipline would be a welcome addition but Jaina wasn't about to ask for either just yet. To do so would make her appear weak, and Jaina had to avoid looking weak as much as possible. If it meant spending the rest of her life burying her feelings, so be it.
Grommash Hold was an eyesore, a reminder of who had built it and what he'd done. Jaina missed the old hold. That Garrosh had moved the seat of Horde power from the Valley of Wisdom to the Valley of Strength had been telling and a clear delineation between Thrall's Horde and the current one.
She doubted that Sylvanas had ever considered moving it back. Sylvanas was clever and intelligent, but the symbolism of Wisdom over Strength was either lost to her or something she'd calculated as contrary to her goals. Jaina had no way of knowing which it was, and filed the thought away for later.
The entrance to the hold required going around an elevator. Jaina remembered the machinations Garrosh had planned beneath Orgrimmar and surmised it had been a quick way down for him. Up was probably the old Warchief's quarters. What might Sylvanas do with those if she wasn't using them?
Jaina gripped her staff tightly as she stepped into the hold proper. Sylvanas was reclined on the throne, leaning back with one leg thrown over the right armrest. Tyrande Whisperwind and a single sentinel were left to stand. Unsure of where to stand herself, Jaina took an awkward position on Sylvanas's left, half way between her and Tyrande.
Giving Tyrande a nod and reassuring smile, Jaina leaned on her staff. She felt Sylvanas's eyes on her for a brief moment before she continued addressing Tyrande, still sitting as though she were bored and Tyrande was beneath her.
Jaina knew a power play when she saw it. Tyrande and Malfurion, individually, were among the few people Sylvanas couldn't beat in a fair fight. But far be it for Sylvanas to act like it; and she'd never face either of them as a pair or in a fair fight. Just like she wouldn't face Jaina in a fair fight. Jaina felt generous enough to not consider Sylvanas a coward for it. Sylvanas was a survivor.
But so was Jaina.
"The Horde needs lumber," Sylvanas said. "Ashenvale remains the only easily accessible source."
"Except you have ceded your claim to it, after you've already severely depleted the trees." Tyrande sounded like she wanted to use harsher words, but was restraining herself. Jaina would have preferred that Tyrande be unrestrained. "There will not be a forest left. Allow us to harvest it for you and trade. That way we can replant that which is taken, and rotate the areas lumbered as one would rotate through farm fields."
It was reasonable, and yet Jaina thought Sylvanas wasn't going to make it that easy. It almost felt like a test. Still, she spoke before she could think better of it. "The Horde needs lumber, but Tyrande is right; Horde foresting techniques are not sustainable and have not been for years."
She turned her gaze to Sylvanas, finding the Warchief watching her with something approaching interest. "I propose a middle ground. Replant the areas already depleted, and harvest a designated area agreed upon by both, then rotate to the replanted areas, and back again, and harvest the trees together, Kaldorei and Horde lumberers. That way, Tyrande's people retain their sovereign lands, the Horde still gets wood and learns new techniques, and the forest doesn't suffer for it."
"And what, pray tell, would the Horde give up for this?" Sylvanas swung her leg off of the throne, and leaned forward.
"Ore," Tyrande suggested. "A small amount from your mines. We could have our advisers discuss the details."
There was a pregnant moment and Jaina almost held her breath, wondering if the ore request was a bridge too far. But it was a good deal for both sides.
Sylvanas finally spoke. "Agreed. Let our people discuss the details and we will meet again for final approval."
Smiling, Tyrande inclined her head, though Jaina could feel her hatred for Sylvanas break through the facade momentarily. That wasn't what affected her, though. It was the brief look of pity Tyrande gave Jaina before she left.
Dismissing Tyra and the others in the room, Sylvanas pointed to the floor in front of her, voice hard and commanding. "Come here."
Stomach roiling with self-loathing, Jaina approached the throne. She refused to kneel, and Sylvanas didn't ask her to. "Is this where you give me a spanking?"
"I wish to make clear two things," Sylvanas replied, ignoring Jaina's comment. "First, when we are in public, in the presence of either Horde or Alliance, you are never to contradict me. Take me aside, alone, if you wish to do so, and I may even encourage that. But if you go against me in public the punishment will be swift and severe."
The situation with her stomach only got worse, but Jaina asked, "And the second thing?"
"Your place is at my side." Sylvanas gestured to her left. "But I suppose you chose a fair enough position without having had the chance to hear my wishes."
Faint praise and Sylvanas was being alarmingly accommodating, but it was better than nothing. Jaina supposed she'd never get a seat of her own and she didn't want one.
"Anything else?" Jaina asked.
Sylvanas ran her eyes over Jaina, the inspection drawing unwilling heat to Jaina's face. "We need to do something about your wardrobe. Just a little too much blue."
"I'm a mage," Jaina snapped.
"A Horde mage now, my dear wife."
Tyrande's pity had been echoed in the eyes of all of Jaina's friends and family last night. Pity. Horde mage. Sharing a bedroom with Sylvanas Windrunner. Their fight last night. And now paraded about like a trophy wife. Sylvanas had listened to her, unexpectedly allowed her suggestion in the midst of a trade negotiation; but that was the last thing Jaina could focus on right now.
Without waiting to be dismissed, Jaina turned to find something to empty her stomach into.
"Lady Proudmoore." Sylvanas's voice made her stop. Her shoulders ached from how stiff they became.
"What?" Jaina didn't turn around, her hands closing into fists as she counted backwards from ten, both to reel in her temper and try to calm her stomach before she emptied it on the floor of the hold.
"Do you have a hearthstone?" Sylvanas was right behind her, her breath tickling the back of her neck.
She swallowed bile as it rose up. "Why?"
Hearthstones were rare outside of a few chosen Champions, and deeply emotional to those that possessed them. Jaina had once gifted one to Anduin when he'd been younger, set to Theramore. It was to allow him to get away from his father and tend to his own thoughts should he need it. They were rare enough that Jaina knew Sylvanas hadn't just assumed she had one. She didn't need it, after all. Damn her spy network.
Stepping around to block Jaina's path to the exit, Sylvanas held out her hand. "Give it to me."
"You realize that I can portal anywhere I wish to, right? I accept that I have to have a shadow but-"
"As laid out in the compact-"
"I know!"
"As laid out in the compact," Sylvanas repeated coldly. "You may travel within the confines of Orgrimmar and the surrounding environs. You may, with an escort and proper notification of myself or a designated member of the Horde, travel to other Horde cities and territories. You are explicitly barred from Alliance territories outside of official, pre-arranged visits. Do you understand?"
Jaina's voice became low and dangerous. " As laid out in the compact, I can leave, when I wish to and unless you have a damn good reason to countermand my travel. I'm not going to spend ten minutes arguing with Tyra, Nathanos or some guard if I want to visit Thunder Bluff or … or Zuldazar for some reason, so I expect you toit's best you make sure they all know that they're messengers only."
Sylvanas was silent a moment, then inclined her head once in acceptance and held out an open palm. There was something almost cruel in the way Sylvanas stared, hand outstretched expectantly. Her eyes dipped to the anchor pendant that hung around her neck, as if offering Jaina a choice.
So it was meant to be a symbolic gesture. Without the limits of the compact, Jaina's skill and power with portals allowed her to travel anywhere she wished. What was one hearthstone that could only take her to a single location compared to that?
Sylvanas waited, and Jaina had the feeling if she hesitated much longer she'd take the pendant too.
She pulled it out, the stone small and cold in her palm. The soft glow reminded her of home. She didn't bother to hide the tears as she shoved it into Sylvanas's hand and then pushed past her, hard enough to make her shoulder hurt from the impact.
Pain was better than feeling anything else right now.
Sylvanas had never expected that Jaina would ever actually bother to use her hearthstone. It was, more or less, intended to remind her of just where she belonged. There were political implications to the Warchief's wife carrying a hearthstone set to anywhere but Orgrimmar.
It was eerily quiet. Sylvanas stood near the center of a crater, tendrils of purple energy drifting in the air. Even now, so many years after the event, the skies above Theramore looked like someone had clawed gashes in reality; and through the lacerations, Sylvanas saw stars. If she stared too long, they almost seemed to stare back.
Rolling the stone around in her hand, Sylvanas looked at it. Most people would ask why Jaina would keep such a thing. A quick way back to a shattered city and a shattered life and a reminder of a pain that cut so deep no one else could fathom it.
Not Sylvanas.
No, Sylvanas understood exactly what this meant. While she didn't need some physical heirloom to remind her, she still felt that same kind of torment every hour of every day of her existence.
A pain to remind her of the day everything changed and everything she'd fought so hard to protect had been lost. Her people, her city, the life she'd once led. How naive she'd been, how confident in her own abilities and the hope of victory. How much she'd taken for granted.
Sylvanas never took anything for granted, now. She closed her fist around the stone, wondering what it would be like to feel that sense of hope in the face of hopelessness again. But she came up with nothing but a pitch blackness in the bottom of her soul.
Of course, the next question was if she'd have dropped the manabomb on Theramore herself.
Sylvanas wouldn't have pushed the same war the same way that Garrosh did, and she would have saved the weapon for either a much more valuable target or to hold in reserve as a bargaining chip or doomsday device. And she'd learned valuable lessons both from the war with the Kaldorei and the Alliance war that followed.
Still, yes, a year ago. Now? Well, she'd have left it in Stormwind while Jaina resided in Orgrimmar as extra insurance. Two manabombs for the price of one, considering Jaina was effectively that level of destructive.
Something to consider, actually. She couldn't get her hands on the Focusing Iris, but perhaps her engineers could come up with another weapon she could use as a bargaining chip in the future. Sylvanas trusted the Alliance about as far as she could throw Jaina's boat. She did not intend to stop considering ways to give the Horde, and herself, an advantage.
Slipping Jaina's stone into her pocket, she took out her own. An easy way back to Orgrimmar, and one she wouldn't have taken this potentially dangerous trip without.
Two years ago, it would have taken her home to the Undercity. Ten years before that, it would have taken her to Silvermoon. Jaina was a sentimental fool, and Sylvanas should just destroy her stone-she would be doing the girl a favor. Or she could simply have another mage reassign it to Grommash Hold; colder, but perhaps less viscerally cruel, than forcing Jaina to do so herself, and it was more than time she accepted her new reality.
Feeling the weight of Jaina's stone in her pocket, Sylvanas returned to Orgrimmar.