A/N: Happy Lunar New Year everyone! I'm changing the update schedule for a few weeks- March is my birthday month and as a sorta reverse gifting scenario, I'm going to update March 1st, 15th, and 31st, then go back to once a month on or around the 15th. The chapters might be a little shorter since I've almost caught up to the written and edited chapters I have ready D:

Also- all of the chapter titles are song titles, so here's the list so far. (I've found some of my favourite music through fanfic!)

1) Prologue - no song :(

2) Hometown Glory - Adele

3) Die with Your boots On - Iron Maiden

4) All of Our Sins - VNV Nation

5) High Hopes - Panic! At the Disco

6) Demons - Imagine Dragons

7) I. Heroes - David Bowie

II. Shot in the Dark - Within Temptation

III. Joy - VNV Nation

8) See Who I Am - Within Temptation

9) Uprising - Muse / Sabaton

10) Angel of Wrath - Samael

11) Paradise (What About Us?) - Within Temptation feat. Tarja

ONWARDS!


Content warnings: brief descriptions of self mutilation, blood


The windowsill was just large enough to accommodate Soffriel if he pulled his knees up, braced his back against one side, and his feet against the other. It seemed like an awkward place to read but undeath had its perks and staying in a cramped position for several hours without discomfort was one of them. Here, he had plenty of light to read by while the sun rose.

The book was one of the fiction works from the Scholomance.

He picked it up out of curiosity- what sort of story did his mentor enjoy reading?

Apparently, adventure stories.

The main character was a high elf intended to take over the family business of jewelcrafting but instead she hung around the Silvermoon harbour, yearning to sail. She left her disappointed family and spent some years working aboard various ships until she was knowledgeable enough to purchase and captain her own vessel.

But then a mysterious mage stole her ship and as she chased him up and down the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms aboard a rented, dilapidated boat, she picked up a crew of stray characters. Just as the captain caught up to the mage and her stolen ship, the door opened and Ysadéan returned.

Soffriel tore his attention away from the captain stringing her bow to fire on the mysterious mage.

"How is Jaina?"

"She lives." Ysadéan closed the door and leaned against it. Soffriel abandoned the windowsill and book, and put one arm around her waist to steady her. "Oh, I'm not that tired."

"You're tripping over your own feet, shan'do."

"Hmph," she said, but she patted his hand and let him help her to a cushioned chair. Soffriel laid a blanket over her lap and sat down cross-legged in front of her. "What happened?"

Kel'Thuzad was carrying Jaina when they returned from the siege. She was pale and bloody, unconscious in his arms, and barely breathing. Ysadéan, the tauren paladin, and a Forsaken priestess went to her aid and worked on her for hours in turn.

"There was a fierce battle and Jaina led the charge."

Pride welled up inside of him and he couldn't help but smile.

Ysadéan leaned forward and her eyes brightened behind her veil. "Jaina is from Kul Tiras!"

"What?" Soffriel glanced toward the book left in the windowsill. "It's a real place? I thought the author made it up."

"Yes! It is a real place." She sat back. "I asked the lich if she had any kin."

Soffriel's eyes widened. "It was that bad?"

Ysadéan nodded. "But she is strong. She has a brother in Stormwind and her mother lives in Kul Tiras, where Jaina was born. Of all places! Kul Tiras!"

"Kul Tiras is... important?"

Ysadéan clasped her hands together and broke into a brilliant smile.

"This is a story I have not yet told you! I will tell you. This is a story from our darkest hour, when we of the Antler fled into exile. We took nothing with us and the only light came from our own eyes. They say Elune herself hid her face that night- the fools in Darnassus will tell you it was from horror at what we had done but in truth she could not bear to see her beloved children quarrel."

Ysadéan spread her hands and a thread of smoky black appeared between them, speckled with tiny points of light.

"We followed the stars. We ran and we rode, always to the east, until we came to the shore of the sea. We found help among the ports, and bought our passage with toil and magic. We sailed for many weeks. Eventually we saw land but the sailors were loath to approach the place, so we swam. We found people there. They called the place Drustvar and themselves the Drust."

The thread of darkness curled into a disk and the flitting sparkles coalesced into another disk, this one of silver light, side by side.

"The Drust accepted us; they did not fear our magic for they too held life with one hand and death with the other. We taught them our craft and those that learned it named themselves Thornspeakers. Some of us stayed with the Drust. The rest followed the stars to Val'sharah. Years passed and humans came to Drustvar. They tried to make an accord with the Drust, but the king ordered his people to war. The Thornspeakers urged the king to offer peace and to welcome the humans as they had done with us. After all, the Drust and humans share common ancestry, while we shared none."

Ysadéan directed floating sparks in a figure-eight between the circles of dark and light.

"The king would not hear them. The Thornspeakers despaired for they loved their people but, with great anguish, they took up arms and sided with the humans. We took no part in the conflict- we could not fight the people who welcomed us on their shore, nor could we fight others who came with empty hands and harrowed hearts as we did. When the war ended, the Thornspeakers were the only Drust who survived. It was not the outcome the Drust or humans wanted but it was done and the peace that the king would not offer to the humans was now offered by the humans to the living Thornspeakers."

The disk of darkness passed slowly across the light; the little stars twinkled brighter. Ysadéan held the magic at the moment when there was nothing but a slender crescent of light remaining, and then let the black disk consume the light. The stars glittered in its absence.

"They became allies. They became partners and lovers. They had children. The Thornspeakers taught the Kul Tiran humans druidcraft, as we taught them years before. The human druids of Kul Tiras went on to teach another human kingdom-" She paused and touched her chin with one finger. "I do not recall the name. Jil- Gal-?"

"Gilneas?" Gilneas was also mentioned in the book, though it didn't say anything about druids. Soffriel thought it was another made-up place.

"Yes! Gilneas. Sister kingdoms, sea-farers."

The disk of light re-emerged from the darkness. Ysadéan held them equal and then the magic changed shape: the pale light became a stag with branching antlers; the smoky black became a doe with violet eyes.

"The Thornspeakers have forgotten what we are. The humans have never known. Now and always, two of our kind keep watch over the land in thanks for welcoming us so many years ago. Most of our people have travelled from Val'sharah and taken up the mantle of guardian as Athair or Athainne once or more in their lifetime."

Ysadéan moved her veil aside to reveal her dull silver eyes and the mass of scar tissue gnarled across her forehead.

"I have happily been Athair or Athainne several times and I defended the land without regret."

She let the fringe of leather fall again. The magical deer faded in a mist of sparkles.

"And so the story is caught up to us. But now I understand that my part in it is not over. In Val'sharah, I felt the will of Elune lift my eyes to the sky once again. So I set out, following the stars away from Val'sharah as best I could. As I wandered, I heard tell of a living king of death among the humans. How strange! I thought. How captivating! So I followed the whispers and-" She reached out and laid her hand on Soffriel's cheek, "-I found you! Lost in a terrible fugue, cursed among your people, but not among ours. No kaldorei is so far from Elune that they cannot be loved by her. She needs only to look upon them."

Soffriel cupped his hand over hers. "And you have come to show me the way back into her sight."

"I have marked you as one beloved of the Antler and offered you the road. You have only to walk it."

"It is… not easy."

Ysadéan shook her head. "No. It is never easy for us. We are pursued by all of those who do not understand us, who would condemn us, imprison us, and kill us. They come for us with teeth and claws, with weapons, words and hatred. We evade them with each step we take. And Elune waits at the end, among the stars."

She sat back.

"But we were speaking of Jaina and her homeland. Thero'shan, I do not believe in coincidence. I have guarded and defended the land of Drustvar, of Kul Tiras. That place is integral to our history; we were welcomed, we had a place to perfect our blessings and to pass them on. Such a place is sacred. Now here, in this land, Jaina welcomes foreign travellers as her ancient Drust forebears once did and gives them sanctuary."

She folded her hands into the sleeves of her robes.

"I am here to guard and defend this place. And perhaps I can convince Jaina to let me teach and pass on our blessings once more."

"She's let Kel'Thuzad teach. That's encouraging."

"That has less to do with him and more to do with you, Soffriel. Jaina knows his magic, his skills, and him. She knows nothing of myself. She does not trust me."

"I think Kel'Thuzad knows something of your magic. Not how to use it but that it exists."

She made a delicate snort. "He knows rhymes passed through a thousand mouths, corrupted by malice and passing years. But…" One of her ears flicked towards the door and they both paused, listening. The lop-sided, dragging footsteps of a skeletal guardian shuffled down the hallway outside and they were both silent until it passed.

The tips of Ysadéan's eyebrows twitched up and she smiled. "Perhaps, with enough knowledge, he could convince Jaina to let me teach."

"He does like strange magic."

"Ah… that is his weakness and his strength." She stretched. "For now, I will rest. Jaina may need me again." Soffriel stood and offered his hand. She accepted and he helped her onto the bed.

With a sigh, she slipped into her true form, tucked long black legs under her body and closed softly glowing eyes.

"Rest well, shan'do."

Soffriel glanced at the book in the windowsill.

Instead, he gathered up his study materials, left the room, and headed for the mess hall. It was morning and he expected to see the usual gathering of living Citadel denizens but there were only three people in the hall. One of them was fast asleep at a table, face pillowed on their arms. Soffriel recognized her as the tauren romance novelist. The other two were ghouls, quietly sweeping the floor.

Soffriel selected some food and tip-toed out of the hall.

When he reached his destination, he tucked his books under one arm and carefully stacked the plate of muffins and fruit on top of the steaming mug of hot chocolate. With his now free hand, he knocked softly on the door.

There was no immediate answer.

He knocked again. "Kinndy? It's Soffriel."

Oh. It's still early. She might be asleep.

After a few seconds, he heard the scuffle of stocking feet. Kinndy opened the door a crack and blinked at him. "I don't really feel like studying."

"That's okay." He held out the plate of food. "I didn't see you in the mess hall yesterday."

He hadn't seen her at all the day before, nor the day after she returned from the siege, bloody and burned, and cried "I'm sorry, I can't-!" before she bolted from the lab.

She pushed her tangled fringe out of her face. "Oh." She took the plate.

"And this." He offered the hot chocolate.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. How are you doing?"

She looked down at the food. "I don't know."

"Do you want to talk?"

She hesitated a moment, then nudged the door open with her elbow. "Okay."

Despite her assertion that she didn't feel like studying, there were books, pens, and texts spread out neatly on her bed, along with a nest of blankets. Soffriel sat down cross-legged on the floor beside the bed and settled his books in his lap.

Kinndy closed the door with her toe and stared into the hot chocolate for a full minute. "I feel really stupid."

"Why?"

"I… I didn't think about it when Jaina asked whether we wanted to go with her." She remained by the door, staring through the mug. "I didn't think about what it really meant." She trudged to the bed, set the food on her nightstand, and crawled into her blanket nest. "I should've- you said 'no'. I should've thought about why you said no. You've actually been in a fight before."

"Yes."

"And you- I mean… I think I killed people." She fiddled with the tassels on one of the blankets. "I don't know. Like, I know why we were fighting. But it's different up close."

"It is."

"And I just-" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I didn't even know Zaphine. I talked to her for maybe two minutes? I only knew her name because you told me. She kept looking for her dad."

"Did she find him?"

Kinndy shook her head. "I don't think so." She pulled a thread out of the tassel. "Yeah. Mostly I just feel stupid."

"That's okay."

She looked up. "Is it? I mean… What did you… The first time you were in a battle. How did you feel afterward?"

"Er. The first time I was in a battle I died."

"Oh! Oh my god, I'm so sorry-"

"You need not apologize."

She smoothed the blanket over her knees. "…can I ask about what happened after that?"

Soffriel lowered his gaze. "I remember very little. Some orders they gave me and… his voice in my head. I remember when they gave me a Death Charger. I was worried because I had never ridden a horse."

"You never rode a horse?"

"No."

"I thought everybody knew a little bit about riding. I mean, even I know and I've lived in cities all my life."

"My people ride sabercats. You sit differently on a horse."

"Oh, right. Yeah, I guess you'd have to."

Kinndy was quiet again for another minute.

"I was okay until Zaphine. I was scared but even the adventurers looked scared sometimes. And Jaina never treated me like I was in her way or holding her back or anything. Everything she did, she had me with her, until Zaphine, and I don't think Jaina knew. I think she just saw that we got separated and thought the battle was too dangerous. And she was right. She was right to send me back." She began picking at the tassel again. "Or maybe she felt like she couldn't protect me."

"She cares about you a lot."

"I know."

Kinndy was silent for long enough that Soffriel opened one of his books. After a few minutes, she reached for the hot chocolate and moved over to the edge of her bed. "Is that your necromancy stuff?"

"Yes." He kept his hand over the page with the illustration of a partially-flayed orc skull.

"Do you like learning it?"

Soffriel cocked his head. "I don't dislike it."

"That's not the same as liking it."

"No."

As a healer, Soffriel learned through instinct, under the direction of masters. There were no pages of labelled drawings; he followed the veins and sinews of living people with an innate sense he no longer possessed. Sometimes, when he traced the inked lines through diagrams, he felt a wisp of memory but he could never hold on to it.

Kinndy furrowed her eyebrows. "What about Ysadéan? What does she think about necromancy?"

"She calls it 'callow butchery'."

"But she's okay with you studying it?"

"She agrees that it is the right path for me."

Kinndy sipped the hot chocolate. "Jaina used a lot of portals and shields during the siege. And ice. I don't remember her doing anything that was obviously necromancy. Some of it looked like shadow magic maybe."

"Some of the spells that I was... given when I was made a Death Knight are similar to shadow magic."

"The stuff that Kel'Thuzad did definitely looked like necromancy." She shuddered. "Except when he was casting with Jaina."

"Oh?"

"Remember what their magic was like inside the spellcage? Think of that but outside and bigger. King Anduin and like twenty adventurers made a shield and they walked out of it and-" Kinndy made dramatic gestures and nearly spilled the hot chocolate. "Total annihilation. Absolutely mad. I wonder if they do anything together that's good? You know? They're so powerful together. Imagine if they made something rather than destroying stuff."

"Together they made the spells that Jaina wore."

"Yeah, but that… Hm." She wrinkled her nose. "The support one was broken when she came back."

"Kel'Thuzad told me that physical damage is sometimes strong enough to break a spell. We saw what it took to build it. Imagine what it took to break it."

Kinndy sat back. "I didn't know that. Whoa."

The silence stretched on and they both turned their attention to their books. Kinndy moved the plate of food to her blanket nest and opened a worn leather-bound tome. After some time nibbling and reading, she began to take notes.

The light through Kinndy's window moved across the floor in slow hours.

"How can you sit like that without moving for so lo- Dumb question, don't answer that."

"We should take a break." Soffriel blinked at the page. "I've read this six times and it makes less sense each time."

"Let me look at it."

He held the book against his chest. "No. We need a break."

Now there were people in the mess hall and an air of tired celebration. They talked in small groups, trading stories, sharing food, and leaning on their companions. Some of the more lively adventurers showed new scars and dented armour. They chose to come back here, where they are all welcome. Jaina has made them welcome.

Someone had pinned a tattered Horde flag on one wall. It was covered with hundreds of small symbols. Soffriel paused. Some of the symbols were words in Common and a few in Darnassian.

"Thazmin Merrygear," said Kinndy. She pointed to words Soffriel couldn't read. "Bellabeth Coppercloak… Rahn Tinkwhistle... These are all names."

"Yes."

While they were looking, Kagra joined them. She offered a quill and ink. "You got someone to add?"

Soffriel straightened up. "These are the honoured dead."

"Yep."

Kinndy swallowed audibly. "Is Zaphine's name here?"

Kagra pointed to a short collection of letters in what Soffriel presumed was troll script. "Right there."

Soffriel hesitated a moment, then accepted the quill, and carefully spelled her name in Darnassian underneath. Kagra's lip curled but she said nothing.

"There's so many," Kinndy whispered. She turned and looked up at Kagra. "Thank you. Thank you so much. My name would be here if it wasn't for you. I can't even begin to..."

Kagra grunted. "You did well out there. It would be a shame to lose a talent like you."

Kinndy turned back to the flag.

"They're all dead," she whispered. Soffriel saw tears ready to spill down her cheeks. He touched her shoulder.

"Let's go sit on the front stairs. The days are getting shorter. We should appreciate the sunlight while it lasts."

She glanced up at him.

"Sure."


The healers left hours ago and Jaina was still asleep. Kel'Thuzad had taken over a chair beside her bed and a book from her bedside table.

Thankfully it was a spicy romance novel and not some of the other 'light reading' she did that involved too many numbers and not enough forbidden passions. A good quarter of the book was smut and the plot was surprisingly complex. Perfect.

"The sequel is in the drawer, if you're interested." Jaina's voice was so quiet it was almost obscured by the sound of him turning the page.

He set the book aside.

"Good to know."

Colour had returned to her cheeks and lips, and the shadows beneath her eyes had faded. Jaina took a deep breath and pushed herself up to sit, cloaked in blankets, before he could stop her.

"How long…?"

"More than two days since the siege. About six hours since you were last awake."

She ran her fingers through her loose hair. The motion was slow but her hands were steady.

"I don't feel as bad as I did after Deathwing." She stretched and again her movement was slow but strong. Her voice was still paper thin. "I feel like rubbish but not any worse than I did before the siege."

"The brace did its job then."

She nodded. "It absorbed most of the physical damage. We can reinforce it in the places that failed and continue to extend it. I think what finally broke it was the compounding small injuries; all the scrapes and strains and overall fatigue."

"Hmm. It couldn't stand up to continuous minor abuse and mitigate larger blows simultaneously. Perhaps we could construct a repair system within the spell rather than reinforce it."

"Good idea! I'm very impressed with the overall performance. Not bad for a first try."

"The healers still had a lot of work to do afterwards."

"Yes, but I've returned to my previous condition. It can stabilize me."

For only so long. "As long as you keep a handful of healers around."

"True, but I don't see Ysadéan leaving any time soon." Jaina examined her hands. "She wasn't alone?"

"No. She had help. Jaina, I trust Ysadéan to keep your condition secret but others may not be so quiet about it. People are going to learn that you are weakening."

She looked from him to her window.

"I know."

They will come for you. "Right now, Icecrown has an army but if we are attacked repeatedly, that army will weaken with every battle. Icecrown will not survive without-"

"Reinforcements?"

"Yes." He waited for her to answer but she remained focused on the window. "This place that you are building will only be a sanctuary if it can be defended. You know how Azeroth is."

"I know what you want to recommend."

"I want a King capable of leading an army that will crush any assault."

"Since when do you care about-" She shook her head. "No. You're right. Right about the need for defense."

"My most basic desire is my own preservation, of course."

Jaina turned to him. "You're not a man driven by his most basic desires."

Kel'Thuzad met her gaze for a moment, then looked away. Instead of answering, he fetched a glass and a pitcher of water. "Drink."

She did and set the glass on the bedside table. "If Ysadéan knows, then the other healers who attended me after Deathwing must know too."

"Probably."

"I suppose it would take some time for them to convince a force large enough to mount an assault against Icecrown." Jaina bared her teeth. "Can Azeroth just stop-? Please. For a year. For six bloody months. Two weeks! I need a vacation. Everyone needs a vacation."

"That's not a bad idea. Were you still lucid after the cheerful pandaren fellow summoned up his ancestor?"

"Perfectly. I heard what the ghost said. His words have run through my mind over and over. Find peace within yourself so that you may share it with the world around you..."

"Not that part. The part after that where he extended an open invitation to visit his land."

"No, I think I was unconscious by then." Her expression brightened. "I would love to visit Pandaria. What I do remember was beautiful."

"He left you- us- a sort of hearthstone. It can send and receive messages as well as transport a person to a specific place. Let me retrieve it from the lab."

"Thank you."


Kel'Thuzad opened the lab to discover the stove burning low and some books misplaced. Soffriel and Kinndy. Studying even when their mentors are otherwise engaged. Good.

There was a noise in the hall behind him; the softest click on stone. If the person had meant to be silent, they would have been. He growled under his breath.

"You again."

Ysadéan shrugged off her deer form and followed him into the lab.

"Why are you here this time?"

"I would like to show you some magic. It is not a kind that you have seen…"

He turned. She held out her right hand, palm up, drew a short dagger from her robes with her left, and sliced across her palm twice.

"I've seen that before."

She didn't answer. Instead she cupped her hand to hold the pooling blood. Now she returned the dagger to its hiding place and retrieved a wooden spindle from another pocket. She held the spindle below her bleeding palm and slowly, carefully, she tilted her hand. A thin stream of blood touched the tip and as it began to drip down the wood, Ysadéan turned the spindle. For a minute they were both silent as Ysadéan spun her blood into glowing thread.

Finally, she mended her wound with a flourish of green light and tied off the thread.

She held out the spindle.

Kel'Thuzad took it from her. The thread was softly luminous and as he studied it, the glow pulsed like a heartbeat. He touched it with one finger. It was warm but not wet.

"And what am I supposed to do with this?"

"Use it to stitch up the corpse you are hiding in your lair."

"I don't know what you mean. Perhaps we should switch to Darnassian."

"Use it to stitch up the corpse you are hiding in your lair." The word she used for 'lair' meant something closer to 'private home' and the word she used for corpse had an inflection that made the word a play on the sound for 'child'.

Uh oh.

"I've seen your needlework on many of the cadavers that roam these halls. You have a deft hand, but cotton thread rots and cuts into cold meat. This will not rot and it will spread vitality to the tissue it binds." She folded her hands. "I have answers if you have questions."

Kel'Thuzad looked from her to the spindle. The glow faded until the thread looked like perfectly normal scarlet cotton.

"What are you?"

"Yadrassil'elah."

"'One with a crown of bone'. What does that mean in Common?"

Ysadéan smiled. "A necromancer."

Kel'Thuzad raised an eyebrow. "Really."

"I know what you are trying to do. I saw what you did for Soffriel. I know why there is a corpse in your lair. You're practising and refining your craft. You will give Jaina the best work you can do." She held out her smooth, unblemished right hand. "Let me help you, Kel'Thuzad. Let me give my blessing to your King."

He frowned. "Jaina doesn't want to be undead."

"Jaina only knows one kind of undeath."

Kel'Thuzad looked Ysadéan up and down. "Are you...?"

"Of course not! A good necromancer should never be undead."

"Now that's just rude."

She pressed her fingertips together and made a shallow bow. "Apologies. In our tradition, a necromancer should never be undead. In yours it is different. You are quite good at what you do."

"Yes, I am." He moved to the desk and found the Pandarian hearthstone in a drawer. "Fascinating as this is, I have other things to do."

"Very well. I will wait until you call on me."

He nearly asked, And if I don't? but decided he didn't need to hear her reply.

Yadrassil'elah. There's a word for it in Darnassian after all.


When Kel'Thuzad returned to Jaina's bedchamber she had blankets and pillows strategically positioned to prop her up and keep her from catching a chill. The Helm of Domination, sheets of calculations, sketches, and books occupied the rest of her bed. Her voluminous black fur cloak lay over her shoulders, almost swallowing her pale body in the folds. None of these things had been within easy reach when he left the room.

"Jaina, you just woke up. Don't push yourself."

"I feel fine- as fine as I can. Don't look at me like that. I'm okay, really. Really."

He set the Pandarian hearthstone on her bedside table. "What's all this for?"

She took a deep breath. "I can almost see it. It's becoming clearer and clearer when I dream and I'm remembering it when I wake. The closer I am to undeath, the more I can see. The more the Lich King takes, the more it opens to me." She held a sheet of paper out to him. "Look at this."

He took the paper from her. "The feedback loop? Completed?"

She nodded. "And some of the other spells bound to it." She sorted through the papers. "This one. Here- and this. Those too. These are incomplete… I can't see more than shadows."

Kel'Thuzad examined one page after another.

"I can find them," she said. "I can find the spells that bind the Lich King's power to a willing recipient. I just need to be a little closer. Just a little bit."

He resumed his seat beside her bed. "A little bit closer to undeath you mean."

"Yes. A little closer to understanding this curse." She met his gaze. "We can control it. I can tolerate it. I can see the edge now- the precipice, the point of no return. Bring me to the edge- keep me at the edge- and I can find the answer."

Before he could speak she reached for his hand.

"And… I found something else."

Jaina had improved her mental shields to the point where Kel'Thuzad felt only whispers of her strongest emotions. Now, she opened them completely and drew him in.

For a moment, he felt her turmoil, her exhausting fear, unexpected piercing loneliness, and the unshakeable foundation of her beliefs beneath it all.

See.

What he saw was a flourishing ecology of magic: individual spells bonded to regulating hubs, chains of three dimensional arrays, and a substrate built upon the now-familiar feedback loop.

This is the Helm.

It's almost beautiful, isn't it?

It was. He identified some of the spells that Jaina had transcribed. There was so much to learn, so much to test-

Look.

She turned his attention to a thread of sapphire light amidst the intricate landscape. It wasn't an integral part of the whole; it was knotted to sections of spells, pierced and pulled by the thorny gears of smoky black arrays, tangled up in the architecture of the Helm.

He was sure she felt him shudder, felt his grip on her hand tighten. Felt the moment of connection, recognition, completion-

Jaina...

Your soul.

She handed the Helm to him. He took it from her; cold, unyielding metal, carrying the faintest gasp of warmth from her touch.

He stared into the empty visor. "I felt it but I could never grasp the shape of it. I couldn't do more than guess at the edges."

For a long time, he sorted through reactions, unable to fully complete any emotion. Finally, he settled on a sense of peace.

Jaina had picked up a pen and was tapping it against her teeth in thought. He didn't remember seeing her move.

"...I don't know anything about extracting a soul from a phylactery, nevermind from spells this complex, but if we can see it clearly, surely we can unbind it."

"We?"

"Someone somewhere will tell me that eternal servitude is what you deserve but... it's not. You deserve to live with your mistakes and choices, like everyone else."

He grimaced and handed the Helm back to her. "I've never felt so touched and threatened at the same time."

She gave a snort of laughter. "You should-" Her words sputtered and she clasped a hand over her mouth, fighting the rattle in her throat.

"Breathe. Jaina, breathe."

She took one long, strangled breath and fell into wracking coughs that left her shaking. Her skin lost any hint of colour, except for the smear of blood on her lips and chin.

"Dammit." Her voice crackled. "I miss... when feeling... 'fine' meant... I could laugh... without ending up in tears." She took a sip from the glass Kel'Thuzad offered. Blood swirled into the water. "I hate this."

He took the glass back and suddenly the peace within him broke. The emotions and gnawing thoughts that he successfully shoved into closed corners of his mind for years clawed at the walls.

Jaina only knows one kind of undeath. He smashed the echo of Ysadéan's words. It doesn't matter. Jaina doesn't want to be undead.

And that meant someday she would end.

It didn't matter who the next Lich King would be. It wouldn't be Jaina. Someday she would collapse and not rise, fight to breathe and fail, and he knew- he had seen it so many times- he knew that her final moments would be nothing but terror. It didn't matter how brave she was, how strong she was. She would fight and while she was losing, she would know that she was losing.

Or maybe it would be like this, while he sat beside her silent, struggling, sleeping body. Maybe he would see her chest go still beneath the blankets and though he would know with practised certainty, he would touch her throat and find her cold.

And she would be gone.

Jaina didn't want to be undead.

She would be gone.

Kel'Thuzad dropped the glass. He clutched the front of his robes so tightly his pathetic, blunt claws ripped into the fabric. The tangled bright blue of his soul burned in his mind's eye. It slipped free of the shackles, unwound from the chewing gears, and eternity opened before him.

"What will a life beyond the human span do to you, I wonder?"

"I'm willing to find out, if circumstances allow."

He forced his fingers to relax and leaned down to pick up the shattered glass.

"Kel'Thuzad?"

He closed his eyes. "It slipped." Slowly, he sat up, holding a palmful of shards. "I'll get rid of these."

He left her room, deposited the broken glass in a bin near the mess hall, and stood outside her door, bludgeoning his thoughts back into their corners.

Jaina doesn't want to be undead. She would never forgive me.

Jaina only knows one kind of undeath.

The books and sketches were put away and she was tucked back into the covers when he returned but the lamp at her bedside was still lit.

He resumed his seat.

She rolled over and propped her chin in her hands. "Do you want to come with me?"

"Where?"

"Vacation in Pandaria. I'll take Kinndy and Soffriel if they want to come along."

Kel'Thuzad tried not to think about the corpse in his lair.

"I'll pass. Khadgar seems to have developed a keen interest in my whereabouts beyond Icecrown. I wouldn't want the kind people of Pandaria to bear witness to any argument that might arise between us should he find me abroad."

"Mm. I suppose you're right."

"He could have at least thanked me though."

"Lor'themar thanked you. I didn't see that coming." She slapped both hands against the mattress. "And you know what else I didn't see coming and I'm still mad I missed?"

"Tyrande Whisperwind? You might have mentioned it."

"Have I? Tyrande Whisperwind! At the gates of Orgrimmar! Helping the Darkspear crush the rest of Hellscream's defenses! With Sentinels and sabercat cavalry! I will never, ever forgive the universe for making me miss that." She pointed a finger at him. "You should have never told me. I dreamed about it afterward!"

"And miss you gushing about her like a schoolgirl? Oh no." He grinned. "I had no idea you carried such a torch for her."

"It's not like that! She's just- she's essentially a demi-god. She's 10,000 years old!"

"And she's really pretty."

"And she's really pretty!" Jaina pouted for a second. "Meanwhile, I was down in the catacombs covered in blood that was half mine. I guess we'll just have to wait for the next cataclysmic event and hope she shows up, right? I know, don't tempt fate, etc."

"I fear that's a given fact and needs no encouragement from fate."

"Ugh." Her breath rattled when she inhaled and he watched her focus on taking control of every breath. The effort stole her excitement. She tugged the blankets close around herself. Her brow furrowed but she said nothing.

"A copper for your thoughts."

"They're all dismal. Not even worth a copper."

"Share them with me so they don't plague your dreams."

She closed her eyes. "I won't make it to the next cataclysm." She opened one eye. "Damn this curse. I'll never meet Tyrande."

"You could always try a vacation in Darnassus."

Jaina grimaced. "I don't think I would be well-received."

"Maybe not."

She was quiet for long enough that Kel'Thuzad thought perhaps she had fallen asleep.

"Can you put out the lamp?"

He did so. Wan moonlight silvered the edges of the shadows and made Jaina's hair a streak of radiant white.

"Ysadéan asked me something this morning. I wasn't entirely awake but I remember. She asked, 'when was the last time you were truly happy?'"

Kel'Thuzad grunted. "She asked me the same thing a few weeks ago."

"What did you say?"

"Something flippant. What did you say?"

"I told her I would have to think about it." He could tell that she had opened her eyes; they cast a faint blue glow on the bedsheets. "All I ever wanted was to study..."

Kel'Thuzad leaned back and stared at the soaring black ceiling. "Me too. Believe it or not."

"No, I believe it."

"When was the last time you were truly happy, Jaina?"

She sighed. "In the lab. Reading books I could never imagine opening. Sitting on the floor drawing spellmaps with bone powder." Her voice shook. "Teaching apprentices! Learning from you. Learning with you."

Kel'Thuzad opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

"All I ever wanted… It wasn't this. I wasn't raised to rule. Theramore was an accident. My father died. I did my best. They had a mayor. A city council. Guildmasters." She swallowed. "I had a tower. Now I have a Citadel. And the Scourge… They're the easy part now. I don't know how to rule living people. I don't want to. But here we are." She shifted up onto her elbows to look at him. "What about the Scholomance? Naxxramas? Did you want that?"

"The Scholomance, yes. Naxxramas less so but I did the bidding of my King with enthusiasm."

"Tell me about the Scholomance."

"The Headmaster part- well. Somebody had to do it and you know what they say: if you want it done right, do it yourself. The part I enjoyed were my students. Some of them anyway."

"I suppose you terrorized them."

"Only the ones I liked."

"And you had an apprentice once."

"The best Dalaran could offer me at the time. No, it was in the Scholomance I found the truly brilliant. There are so many people the world casts aside for so many reasons. Most of them are irrelevant. Useless chaff. But there are a few- in every species- diamonds in the rough, I suppose. Some of them found me and I gave them knowledge."

"I saw what you gave them. I know what you took from them."

"I gave them a place to learn. We took in people that didn't fit. The wrong species for magic. The wrong sex. People that the Kirin Tor said were too old to begin an education. Do you know how many people we taught to write?"

"Kel'Thuzad. I know." She coughed. "You did many terrible things and some decent things too. I know. Were you truly happy there?"

"Yes."

"Was it the last time you were happy?"

"No." He couldn't see any of her face except the glow of her eyes. "The last time I was truly happy was… four days ago. In the morning, before our disgustingly punctual apprentices arrived. Soffriel I can understand but Kinndy should sleep in like a normal student now and then."

Jaina laughed and for once it didn't end in a coughing fit. "I don't remember anything special about that morning."

"There was nothing in particular." He drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. "I like teaching. Some of my students were talented mages, talented necromancers. Some were well-studied enough to compete with those who had a natural affinity for magic. All of the good ones were ambitious. But my god, Jaina, there is no one like you."

She took a shaky breath and her eyes sparkled with tears.

"When I... when I go. You'll be a-alone. I don't... I never thought…"

Kel'Thuzad put his face in his hands and did everything he could to keep his thoughts crammed into the darkest corners of his mind.

"Come here." She patted the bed. "Come here."

He hesitated.

"Just… lay with me. Please."

He got one knee up on the bed before she pushed a hand against his chest. "For Light's sake, take your boots off! What kind of monster are you?"

"Remember I was raised in the wilderness by hermits."

"It shows."

He kicked his boots off and climbed over her. In this body, he was almost a foot taller than her and when he spooned against her back, she fit neatly under his chin, in his arms. She leaned against him.

"Thank you for being my teacher." Her voice trembled. "Thank you for being my friend."

He kissed her hair. "Thank you for being everything you are."

Jaina fell asleep quickly and if she dreamed, they didn't trouble her. Kel'Thuzad spent the night fixated on the soft rhythm of her breathing until it lulled him into a trance and the thoughts he wouldn't name went quiet in their cages.

He came fully alert when someone knocked on the door.

"Noooo…" Jaina groaned into her pillow.

Kel'Thuzad put on his boots and went to rain down ruin on the interloper.

Ysadéan smiled at him. "Good morning."

Kel'Thuzad actually could kill with a look if he wanted to. "Good morning, Ysadéan."

"Has your King any need for me?"

"I'm fine," said Jaina from the bed. "Thank you."

Ysadéan put her hand on Kel'Thuzad's sleeve. "May I borrow your servant? I have some need for his skill with a needle and thread."

"I think I can spare the time," he said in an amiable tone through clenched teeth. "Bring back something nice for me from Pandaria."

Jaina chuckled. "I'll find some gaudy jewelry."

"Excellent."

He closed the door and turned a searing gaze on the druid.

She put a hand over her mouth. "Oh! Oh dear! I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

"What kind of healer wakes a patient before the sun is up?"

"One who knows that their patient rises to pace the halls if she is not otherwise occupied." She switched to Darnassian. "Forgive me. I am looking forward to our collaboration. It is the best time of year to do this work."

Kel'Thuzad narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"Let's discuss particulars in your lair. I'm eager to see the material you've selected for this project."

Kel'Thuzad didn't have much use of his room- he had little need to sleep and very few personal belongings- but it served as somewhere to keep himself when he required solitude.

It also served as his own miniature laboratory.

Ysadéan gave the room a quick once-over and then approached the head of the metal table and leaned close to the face of the corpse. For a minute she remained still and appeared to be doing nothing.

"Yes. A willing soul, though perhaps a challenging puzzle. Now, there are three important things before we begin."

From hidden pockets in her gown, she brought out her small dagger, a file, the spindle, a tool he didn't recognize, and a piece of bone.

"From your antlers, I presume?"

"Yes. First: always, always give something of yourself." She held up the file and the unknown tool. "We carve any bones they are missing."

He raised an eyebrow. "You've got your work cut out for you here. What did you give of yourself to Soffriel?"

"Have you not found it? One of his vertebrae."

"I think Anu'Shukhet might have shattered your gift."

She shook her head. "Oh, no. Not that one. It's the one at the base of his skull. A very important gift. Now, the second thing-" She carefully parted her hair to expose one of the bony pedicles where her antlers would grow. There was a small bump, covered with black velvet.

"This is why it is the best time of year to work."

She raised the dagger and cut deep into the growing antler. Bright red blood welled up from the wound and she picked up the spindle. As she spun, she continued to speak.

"And the third thing: I must know her name."

Kel'Thuzad looked down at the corpse.

"Zaphine."