Chapter 12

The sin'dorei acquiesced to the order. They had all, to a man and a woman, looked to Karielle when asked to enter their assigned tents, and the girl had given them a curt nod. When she did it, though, Ero'then made sure he was seen standing beside her, ready to lead her into his tent.

Once everyone was where they were supposed to be, Ero'then waited for Karielle to look to him.

He held out a hand, indicating for her to go first. She entered without complaint.

Before following, he looked to the sky. The shimmering blue that held back the storm had all but vanished. He had been keeping it back in the same position since the combat.

Now he let the storm invade the area.

The rigid hold the blood elves' magic had had on the storm vanished. The storm came forward in bulges and streaks, closing down the sky and marching furiously towards the tents. He let it rage until he thought the bubble was of suitable size, then he held the storm in check there. It howled and screamed, like it had been promised something and then cheated of it.

He looked to the tent that had Drex's body. He had assigned Sel'uen to that tent, along with a blood elf who had been wounded by the demons. She would be fine.

He stayed outside for several more minutes, looking over the tents and watching the storm rage. The stale air grew colder. There was no rhyme or reason to the temperature, he had discovered. The region was chaos, bordering the Nether itself. Logic was barely an acquaintance of this place.

He stayed a while longer. Then he ducked inside.


Karielle had unpacked her things in a corner of the tent. She had emptied her backpack and unrolled her sleeping blanket. When he entered, she turned to look at him. Ero'then took the moment to evaluate her.

On an aesthetic level, Ero'then couldn't deny that she could turn heads. Even now, far from civilization in any form, with dirt and grit and sweat marking her face, he had to give her credit where credit was due: she didn't hurt him to look at. Her hair was a blood orange and she had worn it in a tie during and after the battle, but now it hung free. It ran over her shoulder blades. She wore a comfortable-looking robe, which might have looked very stylish once, but the journey and the storm had not been kind to it, and it was heavily stained and strained in more than a few places. She could have done with a change of clothes. She even smelled a little.

She didn't seem afraid to let him look her over. In fact, when he entered, she had turned and appeared to do much the same thing to him. She still looked confrontational but her proud smirk was gone, instead replaced by a small frown that dipped deeper as she studied him like a swimmer testing the waters with a toe. Her true eye color was a startlingly vivid blue straining at the burning green that caged it.

"Do you plan to sleep?" she asked him.

The battle and its aftereffects had occurred after a long day of marching. There was no way to tell the day. Ero'then was tired. He knew she had it worse but she covered it well.

"Yes," he said.

She indicated to the floor. His bedroll was slumped in a corner, where he had tossed it. "Where do you prefer?" The mocking undertone had become very slight, as if she was unable to completely shake it.

He retrieved his bedroll and placed it in the center of the room. He unrolled it and sat down.

She turned her back and started setting up her own roll when he cleared his throat.

She glanced. He held up a hand and drew his fingers towards him.

Saying nothing, she stood again and he thought he saw her sway. She must have thought he saw it too, because she smirked again, that promise of danger despite whatever he might think. She pulled off her robe.

He kept all his composure. Inwardly, however, he reacted very strongly.

The voluminous robe had made her seem much bigger than she actually was. A common shirt and blouse hung from her pale skin like decorations. Her breeches were cinched with a too-long belt and her head looked too big for her body. She was skeletally, painfully thin.

He knew they had become tied to the energy they wielded, but this?

He did not hint at how the sight of her sickened him or angered him. Instead, he made room for her on the cot and she joined him. He lay on his back and she placed her head on his shoulder.

"You have not told me your name," she said. He was off-put for a moment. He was trying to marry the undernourished frame to the full, spirited voice that came out of it. "You know mine," she said. "It seems only fair."

"Ero'then."

She said it to herself a few times. He imagined that she was trying to find the meaning in the old kaldorei tongue. He asked her how she knew it.

"My father was a mage, but he was also a scholar," she said. "He knew many languages and was always teaching me. He thought it would serve me well in the future."

"It seems he was a prophet."

A bitter chuckle. "A poor one, then. He did not see his death."

He asked her about the languages he had taught her. At first, her answers were short and in a tone of finality. But when he kept asking, she seemed to be drawn into conversation. She rolled over to look at him as they talked.

He was impressed. She was not exaggerating when she called her father a scholar. She spoke to him in Thalassian, then kaldorei, the common tongue of humans, a few troll dialects from the areas surrounding the human kingdoms of Lordaeron and Alterac, orcish, dwarven and gnomish. He didn't know orcish, or any troll languages, but he did recognize them when he heard them. Then she started speaking in a very harsh, guttural inflection that he neither understood nor had heard before.

"What is that?"

She grinned wickedly. "You don't know?" When he shook his head, she told him that it was Gutterspeak, a heavily bastardized version of the dialects of human Lordaeron. The undead who ruled those lands spoke it.

Forsaken. Ero'then grimaced.

She seemed to enjoy his revulsion. "I taught it to myself," she said. "It was useful back home."

"How old was your father?"

She fell silent. At first he thought the question had been too personal. Then he realized that she was trying to give him an exact answer.

"Two thousand, four hundred and forty seven," she said. "My mother was younger, though not by much."

Ero'then nodded, but the answer disturbed him. His people did not keep track of age with such precision. They merely referred to a rough time period or event near when they had been born. The humans counted their lives by the passing of the seasons, for their hour of life was short. His people, however, did not count age in numbers. The thought that Karielle had known her father's age to the very year left him astonished and not a little bit troubled.

What value was there in that? It bordered on the obsessive.

Still, he asked her age as well. He wasn't surprised to hear it. She was barely an adult.

"And you, kaldorei? What is your age?"

He took a moment to answer. Karielle's green-blue eyes studied him. He couldn't have given an exact age if he had tried.

"I was young during the Sundering," he eventually said.

He had not thought it possible to startle or surprise the girl, but her eyes went wide.

"You were there?" she said, her voice suddenly quieter. "During the first invasion?"

"Yes."

"And I thought my father was ancient," she said. The smirk snuck back on to her face. "You fooled me. I thought you younger than that, old one."

"Why?"

She snorted. It was not very pretty. "You're here, for one thing," she said. "And for a second, the way you treat the girl."

"What do you mean?"

She laughed at him. "What do you mean?" She mocked him with an echo. "You ride her like a trouble-maker. You'd like to ride her elseways. She looks like a sweet, innocent one. How long have you wanted her?"

She must have seen him chew out Sel'uen when she had asked if there was anything she could do for Drex. She hadn't deserved everything he said, but she was the student who he needed to kick in the ass once and a while. She could be much better than she was.

He shifted positions so that he could lean over Karielle. "She is my charge and my student. Do you doubt my character, sin'dorei?"

She still had her smirk. But she said, "Of course not, old one," she said. "You have a mate, then?"

He did not draw away from her. "I did," he said.

The blood elf studied him. This close to her, he was more and more convinced that he could snap her fragile frame with a minimal application of force.

"What happened to her?" she asked.

"She grew sick. When we sacrificed Nordrassil to stop the demons, we sacrificed much more. She died."

The blood elf looked like she wanted to ask more, but apparently she thought the better of it. Ero'then asked her, "Have you ever had a mate?"

"Nothing so formal," she said. "But I've had lovers. One really good one. I thought about it wth him."

"What happened?"

"I didn't see the point. Didn't you ever feel boxed in? Did you ever stray?"

Ero'then smiled at the girl. He didn't think she was giving him bravado to compensate for her lying next to a man who had seen millennia come and go. She was pretty now in this far-off world without so much as a basin of water to freshen her; he could only imagine how she must have looked to her peers back in Quel'thalas. No, she had not wanted for lovers.

He said, "Karielle, there are lovers and then there are mates. Once you have known both, you will not confuse the two. You drink from a river and you can taste the river. But if you swim in the river, then you experience the river. You know the river. Believe me, young one, when I say that it is far better to swim in the river than to merely taste of it."

"Well, you must have truly loved her," she said smirking. "Do you miss her?"

Ero'then's answer was a small shrug. "Love means something different after ten thousand years," he said.

She eyed him. After a moment, her gaze fell to study the fabric of the bedroll. Though he watched her, now she couldn't meet his eyes. She licked her chapped lips but didn't speak. She was occupied with herself, and he let her mind wander, leaning back on the bedroll.

He had a good idea of the paths she was traveling. He waited patiently for her to come back.

When she did, her bravado returned with her. "He's dead now, anyway," she said, despite him not having been aware that they were still talking about her favorite lover. "Alongside my father and mother. Sacrificed on the altar of the Scourge."

She was working herself back into a mood. Ero'then frowned as he felt a similar mood enter his blood.

"You know why they came for your people."

Her eyes shot back to his. They were blazing and ready for a fight. "You have no right," she said, "to condemn me, or any of my people. We left of our own will. We accepted your "exile", despite how you benefited from our power."

"Benefited?" he echoed the word. "What benefits have we reaped from your experimentation? Your foolish lust for power? You brought the Legion to the world with your pride! They hunt you even here!" he pointed to the tent flap.

"It was only through us that the world was saved," Karielle shot back. "When we realized what Queen Azshara had done, we fought back as well. We've fought the Legion at every turn. We are its oldest enemy, and the one it fears the most." She pointed, mimicking his indication towards the clusters of dead demons outside. "We can face the Legion on its own terms. It is our mastery that can protect this world."

"Your mastery? Your contribution to the war was to sink half the world. It was through your Sunwell and your Dalaran that the Legion returned! And where were you when our forests burned? Where was your prince when they came to Hyjal? It was our sacrifice that bought us a future. Real sacrifice. Malfurion saved us all, including your people. And how do you thank us, now that we have cleaned up your mess? You rut like donkeys in a heat, chasing after more magic, more power."

They had both found their way to their knees. Their whispers were shouts.

"You know nothing of our struggles," Karielle hissed. "You are blind, coddled, and ignorant, hiding in your forests, deaf to the ways of this world. Malfurion wouldn't know his head from his ass if he walked out of the woods. And now I hear he's lost himself in his dreams? You think that is leadership?"

"How dare you." He was leaning over her again, dwarfing her small frame. Yet again she did not budge. "Malfurion Stormrage saved us. Your people have taught you no respect at all."

"I respect what is deserving of respect. That does not include an upstart druid who imprisoned his own brother for saving the world's only hope at fighting the Legion. Illidan gave his life to stopping the demons."

"Sold his soul, you mean. Betrayed us all."

"Are you joking?" Karielle laughed. It was a harsh, cruel laugh. "Illidan gained the power he needed to stop the Legion. He did this not once but twice. And both times, your precious Malfurion was too short-sighted to see that his brother was doing what had to be done. For all our sakes."

"You are young, child, so I will forgive you these outbursts. You don't understand what you speak. You're only reciting what your elders have taught you. I cannot fault you for that."

She leapt at him, one arm raised. By instinct he grabbed her wrist and prepared to twist it, but he realized she was not readying a spell. She was shoving her hand in his face. She wanted him to see something.

"Don't speak to me of youth, old one. I've lived my words. Fault me for this."

Her palm was open. There was an ugly scar in its center, and it ran deep. She shoved the other palm in his face too. It had a similar marking.

"You were there in the first war with the demons?" she said. "Well, I might not have seen that war, but I've been in one with demons too. I wasn't in Dalaran. I was visiting my parents in Silvermoon when they came. We all joined the fight, but Arthas was too strong. My parents fell and I fled deep into the city. I found an old wine cellar and hid myself. I hoped to wait out the storm. I thought that Anasterian would rally our forces in Quel'Danas and throw back the undead, so I waited. But I didn't know that they had taken the Sunwell. The days grew longer and the Scourge did not leave. They eventually found me. I fought them with all I had. I gave them my special brand of hellfire. But they kept coming. When I was spent they dragged me out of the cellar. They were human magic-users—covered in tattoos and fawned over by cavorting corpses. They were Cult of the Damned. Many were looting the city—looking for prizes."

"They had their fun with me. I thought they were just going to kill and raise me, but they didn't. They dragged me to a few houses first, looking for wood. Eventually they found one, and they nailed me to it. Both my hands and both my feet. They would come and go, and others would come by too. It went on for days. But don't think I was the only one—you could always hear others in the city… screaming. There were days I thought I had it lucky."

Ero'then had taken her hands. The air was only growing colder and more turbulent, but she sweat furiously now. She sweat through everything. She talked directly to him, looking in his eyes, but hers were glazed.

When she fell quiet for a long time, Ero'then asked her how she had escaped.

She said she hadn't. It was the living who had been tormenting her, and the living slept. During the night, she started experimenting.

"I started feeling it a few nights in," she said. "I didn't know that it was because of what Arthas did to the Sunwell at the time. I thought it was just the pain."

Slowly but surely, she had begun to draw arcane energy to her. Without the Sunwell, it should have been much harder, but the dark energy that held the army of the Scourge together was thick in the air. Whenever a patrol would walk by, or someone would entertain themselves with her, she would steal bits and pieces.

"Not enough for them to realize," she said. "I barely used any of it. When I did use it, it was just to keep me buoyant. I couldn't lift myself up to breathe anymore, so I had to use some spells to get air in my lungs."

Finally, the Scourge presence had lessened and lessened. Arthas had taken the army south. A cultist had come to finish her off.

"He got an unpleasant surprise," she said.

Afterwards, she had survived by hiding in the ruins and hoarding arcane energy. She even managed to cage a banshee early on. She was able to draw energy from it for days, though she said the power had made her feel sick. Like she had consumed something diseased.

But it worked. Finally, when Kael'thas returned and gathered the survivors, she crawled out of the wreckage with the others. Many had worse stories than hers. Kael'thas renamed their people there.

"We didn't understand the magnitude of it then," she said. "We were just glad to be alive. It was if only after we started exploring the ruins together that we saw all the bodies. We were a decimated people. Thousands. Thrown into meat wagons and dragged onto piles. Too much for even Arthar to raise all at once, it seemed. Prince Kael'thas was right. We were sin'dorei now.

"There's no going back to the way things were. Never."

Ero'then was silent. Karielle had exhausted herself with her story, and her hands were limp in his. Her scarred child's hands.

He said, "And even after all that, you won't give it up?"

Her head rose and her teeth were clenched there. She tried to rip back her hands, but he wouldn't let her. After a moment, she stopped trying and shouted at him at full volume: "How can you even ask that?" The green in her eyes swirled in sickening circles. "You want me to walk the world without it? Defenseless?"

"They'll keep coming for you. First it was the Well. Then it was Quel'Thalas. They'll come again. And one day the price will be too high."

The look she gave him was one filled with absolute disgust. "Yeah?" she said. "Well you know what? You can go fuck yourself, old one."