Kalira shared a long look with Jaina, before her eyes snapped to Tyra. There was another look there, a softer one. And in some ways it was a warning; a warning for Tyra to stay safe, a warning that Kalira would not take it kindly should she return to find her lover had met the endless death.

And then Kalira stepped through, leading the rangers, and Sylvanas followed suit, her eyes sweeping to Jaina's, just once, and just for a heartbeat and a half, before she was gone.

Nathanos hung back and turned to Jaina, his voice threatening and darkness in his eyes. "If Orgrimmar falls and you still live, I will kill you, bitch, no matter what the Dark Lady wishes."

Somehow, Jaina found the strength to keep her voice even. It wasn't that Nathanos got to her; he never really could. It was knowing she couldn't be there for Boralus, that she was left behind, that Sylvanas had gone in her stead. She didn't know how to react to that, how to feel about that or even what she was feeling right now. Absently, as if Nathanos wasn't worth her time, she replied, "If Orgrimmar falls, I will be dead, and you'll finally be rid of me, Blightcaller."

"It would almost be worth it." The portal took him away and Jaina closed it with a little more vigor than necessary. She hoped he came out the other side in pieces. Only Sylvanas would miss him and Jaina felt a stab of… jealousy? No, that was impossible.

Jaina turned to see the people looking at her. Soldiers and citizens, heroes and champions, many of whom had become her friends. Galnir and Minuial stood with the soldiers, and Enda hadn't left, nor had Xu. The blacksmith, Agna, who'd she'd come to know, stood nearby, armed and ready.

And Tyra of course was on her left, her armor clean and shining, her blade sharp.

The city seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for her to make the decision that could save or doom it. Jaina felt her power course through her, felt the strength and unity of the people around her and allowed that feeling to center her. She pushed Boralus and Stormwind to the back of her mind; her mother and Sylvanas and Anduin were too far away for her to help now.

Once, Jaina had been on the verge of destroying this city. Once, consumed by rage and grief and the madness of the arcane, she'd nearly drowned every last soul in Orgrimmar. It had taken two of the people she'd loved most to talk her down from that.

Today, she finally forgave them.

They say time heals all wounds. Only recently had Jaina started to believe that. When her mother had forgiven her and her people welcomed her at last. When, just the other day, children of the Horde had looked at her not with fear, but kindness. When, now, they stood before her waiting, viewing her not as the enemy but one of them. Their Warchief's Consort.

Their Lady of Orgrimmar.

Outside the gates, death marched towards them. The very same fate that she knew so many others faced. But she was trapped here, trapped by her word and her unspoken promise, trapped by that look Sylvanas had given her just before she'd left. Jaina still didn't know if she could trust her, but she had to.

And she knew how to prove herself worthy of trust in return.

"Not so long ago, we were enemies," she said, amplifying her voice with magic. "But we aren't so different. Not where it matters. Not in our hearts. We are allies. We are friends. We are family! I'll be damned before I let them have this city! Are you with me?" The voices of Orgrimmar rose in a thundering cheer and Jaina turned to the defense.

She knew how the Horde fought, and she knew how the Alliance fought; but she thought that, maybe, they needed to do something different. There was no need to throw away lives in charges and attacks. No. Jaina decided that they needed to build a wall.

A living one.

Three hundred yards from the gate, she arranged a shield wall of warriors and paladins two deep, archers and gunners behind them. Healers were scattered throughout the line, along with numerous Champions of the Horde. She positioned Galnir near the center; despite her friendship with his mate, she knew she couldn't put him anywhere but in the line of fire. To do so would dishonor them both.

Above, a Horde airship hovered, guns pointed in the direction of smoke that was now rising from Razor Hill. The enemy had chosen a more difficult path bred by arrogance, but it was one that would most allow anxiety and fear to build among the defenders. Still, Jaina was nervous leaving the East undefended and had deployed a small force at the port. They could serve as reinforcements if nothing came from that direction. There'd been no sign of Naga among the attackers to the south, and if Naga did join the fight it would be from the east.

Cannon and siege weapons had been set up on the walls of the city and high points around the shield wall. In the canyon leading to Orgrimmar, goblin sappers had been dispersed to set traps and harass the advancing enemy.

It wouldn't be enough to stop them, but it might slow them down. And even then...

Jaina was considering her options when Tyra tugged on her arm and pointed towards the sea. An Alliance gunship thundered toward them at high speed. It slowed as it got closer, pivoting in the air to point its main gun towards the south. The Horde airship willingly made way, taking up a position across the ravine that would allow for maximum coverage between them. If the enemy breached the gate, the crossfire might just be devastating enough to buy Orgrimmar's noncombatants time.

A welcome surprise. Jaina started smiling as soldiers poured out of the gunship, parachuting down to join the shield wall, healers, or archers. A dozen gyrocopters fanned out to create a wall in the air, a likely vain attempt to protect the two big ships.

One figure fell towards Jaina, deploying her parachute at the last possible second. Yukale hit the ground in a roll and bounced to her feet in front of her.

"Show off." Jaina clasped her hand, laughing, "But I'm very happy to see you."

The rogue grinned back at her. "King Wrynn lent me a gunship and my very own legion. And that was before Sylvanas sent a few champions of her own to help Stormwind. I got the message from him a few minutes ago."

She did? Jaina hid her surprise and only nodded. "What of your Vanguard?"

"Most are in Stormwind, but I sent two to Boralus and two more to Thunder Bluff. I brought my Aunt Eilirria with me and a few other volunteer heroes."

She spoke as though she and Eilirria could be considered a legion in and of themselves as she nodded towards a pale, moon-haired Kaldorei riding towards them on a core-hound. The hunter hopped down, and gave Jaina a respectful nod. Her bow seemed to sprout flowers and vines at random. "Where do you need us, Lady Proudmoore."

"Yukale, you stay near myself and Tyra, and order the other champions with you to disperse as they see fit. Eilirria…" She trailed off, eyeing the core hound, then looking down the line. She pointed. "There. We're weakest there, you and that Core Hound should be able to shore it up."

The hunter nodded and climbed back onto her beast, riding towards the weak point in the line. Jaina took the opportunity to look back to the city. The bulk of the defenses were at the main gates, but there was always a chance something could attack through the North or West gates, where the defense was weakest.

They'd done what they could over the past several days. Jaina and a dozen other Horde mages had layered the Southfury with some truly nasty razorwire and proximity-triggered elemental summon spells; their druids had taken a worrying level of vicious joy in drawing up tangling vines and nursing nearly two hundred flesh-eating plants along the riverbed from seed to maturity in a manner of hours.

That would cause the city's shipping some headaches when this was over and was probably already doing a number on the local ecosystem, but so would Orgrimmar being overrun by Old God abominations, so everyone was just going to have to deal with it.

The Northern gate itself was vulnerable, with nothing but the empty forests of Azshara for miles and the Bilgewater surrounded on all sides by water, too busy bracing themselves against the Naga they knew were coming to send any warning. But that entrance was a poor choice for an invading army, with the long narrow canyon approach bottlenecking any invaders. Orgrimmar had scouts well-hidden in the trees, sentries with colored flares on the North wall, and more razorwire interspersed with magical traps covering the first quarter mile of twisting canyon. If Razor Hill was a feint and the enemy approached from the North, they would, just barely, have time to reposition.

But mostly she was gambling on the C'thraxxi and Silithid to prefer the straight approach.

The ground rumbled as explosions went off in the canyon. There were a dozen more, and then they stopped, black smoke billowing in the sky much more closely than Jaina was comfortable with.

The first lines of the enemy host emerged. Faceless, C'thraxxi and thousands of silithid. They'd climbed from the sea near the Echo Islands and Jaina didn't dare think about what could be swarming across both continents now. What could be attacking Stormwind. Thunder Bluff. Boralus.

She threw up a magical signal and every long range weapon they had opened fire. The heavy guns of the airships rang in her ears and echoed in her chest, the cannons and catapults throwing iron and burning pitch into the oncoming host.

Gunners with rifles were the next to fire as they came within range, followed shortly by so many arrows they blotted out the sun. Screeching and screaming rose from the enemy as storm clouds prevented the sun from returning.

And then as the army was forced into a narrow channel by barricades both natural and fortified, the mages, shaman and warlocks Jaina had hidden stepped out and unleashed their fury.

Someone, Galnir she thought, started beating his shield, and the rest of the line followed his lead. Like thunder, the sound rose up over the crackle of arcane and flame as the defenders of Orgrimmar shouted their challenge, Jaina's voice right along with them.

"For the Horde!"

She lifted her hands, blasts of arcane shooting into the enemy mob. She raised barriers of ice to further narrow their approach and then twisted her hand, impaling them by the thousands on frozen spikes.

A pair of mages were back to back on a large boulder, throwing bolts of ice and fire into a number of Faceless that had surrounded them. Warlocks were being overwhelmed to Jaina's left and she watched as another mage went down farther in.

Before Jaina could provide any of them an escape route, the host broke through the choke-point and spread out as they charged the line. There was a flash of golden light and the mages in the center of the host were pulled back to the line. Jaina saw Minuial pulling them bodily to safety and threw up a wall of ice to give them cover.

"Shield wall, hold!" Jaina shouted, her voice amplified by magic to boom across the line. "Champions advance!"

Champions of the Horde charged forward. On Jaina's left, Yukale drew long, thin blades and disappeared in a puff of smoke, before appearing in the center of a group of faceless and silithid. She fought like a dancer, avoiding blows with grace and striking true with every attack.

Tyra charged on her right, leaping high and cleaving a creature in half as she came down. Over a hundred yards away she spied Eilirria atop her Core Hound, rampaging through Silithid and Faceless, loosing arrows faster than could be counted.

With her people too close for her to use the really dangerous spells, Jaina shot focused blasts to give the champions cover. A C'thraxxi broke through and slammed into the shield wall only to be quickly dispatched. Good. But she didn't think it would be good enough for long.

"Hold the line!" Rolling her shoulders, Jaina formed swords in her hands of vibrating blue energy as the enemy host swarmed her. She spun around, alternately cutting the creatures down and using her swords to focus her ranged attacks into a small, deadly point. Something knocked her to the ground. Rolling to her feet, she snapped her swords towards the ground, elongating the blades until they became whips of crackling energy. Screaming, she lashed out, creating enough breathing space for her to risk a glance to see if the line was holding.

Tendrils of dark energy ripped through the ground and smashed into the shield wall, sending bodies flying. Another wrapped around the Alliance Gunship, crushing it like a tin can and flinging it into the city gates, smashing them into rubble.

The Horde airship didn't fare much better, spiraling out of control into the Durotar desert as another tendril ripped into the defenders.

The familiar screams of the dying joined the battlecries and then something else. A rumbling, like thousands of feet scrambling across stone.

With the airships down, there was no more suppressing fire across the open plateau.

On the cliffs and walls above Orgrimmar, hundreds of Silithid stampeded and climbed, bypassing the defense completely. Mages and warlocks started raining fire down on them, but their efforts barely made a dent. High atop a tower on the gate stood a small figure. Enda cackled madly as she flung insanely large fireball after fireball into the surprise attackers.

Jaina pulled Tyra to her feet where she'd been knocked down. "Get some more people up there, now! They can't get into the city!"

Jaina turned back to the battle and swept her arms out, sending a wall of energy into the host and pushing them back. She amplified her voice again. "Warriors of the Horde! Hold the line! I have an idea and I need to get something. Hold the line until I return!"

And before someone could think to stop her, she teleported to Dalaran.

Dalaran was, thus far, not under attack, though looking to the east, smoke was visible and cannon fire was like a distant storm.

She ran to the vault; if anyone tried to stop her she scarcely noticed as she came to the wards and ripped them apart through sheer force of will.

The Focusing Iris was still where Kalec had placed it. It was such a small thing, glowing ominously and bringing back terrible memories and the icy feeling of despair.

With this, Garrosh had destroyed Theramore. Garrosh had destroyed her. Her hopes and dreams, the life she'd built, her ability to reason and love and care.

And with this, Jaina had nearly destroyed Orgrimmar in revenge. It felt so long ago, and she felt like a different person now as she held it in her hand.

But with this magical relic, perhaps she could make amends. Save the Horde she'd once hated. And if she was honest with herself, she'd be damned if she lost another city.

The power of the Iris flowed through her, energy crackling around her eyes and making her blood catch fire. When she returned to the battle the portal alone unleashed so much raw power that she formed a crater in the midst of the enemy.

Standing and holding the iris aloft, Jaina's voice rose on the wind as tendrils of void lashed at her barriers, swords and claws trying to break through.

She saw Yukale leap in, impaling a C'thraxxi through the back with her swords and riding it over silithid, forcing it to crush everything in its path. A Ren'dorei rogue she hadn't even realized had accompanied the gunship seemed to materialize out of the shadows, daggers moving so quickly Jaina could only see a blur. Was that Unariel?

Forcing herself to ignore everything else around her, Jaina concentrated on her spell. The arrow around her neck glowed with the same energy that lit up her eyes and hands. The sea groaned and receded, the sky opening up with freezing rain.

Lightning struck a Faceless that got too close to her and she felt his presence before she saw him.

"Jaina," said Go'el, two syllables that carried more regret and emotion to them than they had time for. They'd not spoken since the wedding.

"I need more time," Jaina replied, the water on her face from more than just the pounding rain.

"We'll do what we can."

"Thank you." At least, if this effort killed her, she might have at least parted on better terms with her old friend. She hoped she had a chance to settle things further with him. And with Sylvanas.

Go'el charged into the thick of things. His presence and Jaina's spectacular return bolstered morale as Heroes of the Horde rushed in from all along the gate to repel the attack.

Jaina saw the colors of the Alliance among the Horde. Yukale's legion and other Champions that had arrived with Thrall. In the distance, the Core Hound roared and she heard Galnir's voice over it all, bellowing a battle dirge.

She realized that maybe Sylvanas and Anduin's bid for peace had paid off, if they could all buy her the time she needed to weave her spell.

Jaina couldn't let herself think about anything but this singular act. Not Stormwind. Not Boralus. Not her mother. Not Sylvanas.

Somehow over the course of the past years, something had happened between them. Something that Jaina was terrified of, that the person she'd been the last time she'd held the Focusing Iris would have loathed her for.

Yet, it was something that she wanted to explore. Reason enough to live, anyway, a rope to grasp for. Searching for something, anything to give herself more strength, Jaina started humming. Her cloak fluttered behind her, hair loose and whipping around her face, her voice rising like the tide.

Part of the line broke and the shield wall failed again. Galnir's dirge was cut off. Jaina felt a pain spreading through her chest as sweat and rain soaked her thoroughly. Even with the Iris, she wasn't sure she had the strength or the power. But then she felt it.

The sea headed her daughter's call, surging and mounting until the wave became a mountain, casting the whole of Orgrimmar and northern Durotar in its shadow.

Jaina snapped her fingers as the wave fell, cresting over blood-stained sands and engulfing the enemy host. She ported Thrall and every living or undead Horde and Alliance fighter to Orgrimmar-and the wards triggered.

She had the space of a heartbeat to understand what had happened and know she'd sealed her own fate-she'd been so clever altering their defenses against magical attack and incursion, so careful to protect against possible corruption of allies; any mass teleportation of troops past the walls even by friendly mages would automatically raise the iron-hard arcane shield now covering the entire city. Even if she had the strength left to teleport herself it would take seconds she didn't have to dismantle her own barrier. And that would mean destroying the dome even as her summoned wave crashed over the shield, burying Orgrimmar beneath it.

And Jaina's cry was lost to the roaring wind as the wave washed her away.