Chapter 26

She found her Shan'do gathering strength. Arcane runes ran the length of the roof in all directions, criss-crossing each other like ley lines, though dull. Ero'then was in the center of this pattern, his hair and beard hanging from him, suspended in the air.

Here it was calm. Not ten meters out, the storm screamed all its fury, as if enraged at being so close to the night elf but unable to claim him. It sounded like it wanted him badly. A towering demon lay fallen on one edge of the platform. Thick, oily lifeblood ran from its ruined throat. Three huge, crackling spires rose around them, reaching to the abyssal heavens.

She halted, the burning vengeance that had driven her suddenly frozen. She didn't even blink when Karielle ran past her. She too skidded to a stop. But she wasn't frozen long.

"Old one!" she cried. "What are you doing?"

"Karielle Sunstrike! I fear I might have need of you. Can you see what I have done?"

Karielle's princess-hair flapped back and forth as she looked around. Read the runes. Read between the lines.

Then: "You're mad, old one! Not even the archmage could have done this. They'll see us across the Nether!"

Ero'then nodded. He was calm. He spared Sel'uen a glance but nothing more. "I cannot ask you to join me," he said.

Karielle didn't answer. She watched the kaldorei at the center of the spellwork.

Spellwork. Spells. Arcane magic.

"Shan'do!" Sel'uen screamed. "What is happening?"

Ero'then did not look at her. He forced himself to his feet. His leather jerkin hung from him as loosely as his hair. The air throbbed with energy. He took a deep breath and he bellowed his challenge, words that boomed into the storm with such volume that Sel'uen imagined they could have been heard from Azeroth.

"I AM ERO'THEN, MATE OF ANORA STORMBORN. TELL ME, DEMONS, DO YOU REMEMBER THE DEEPWOODS?"


And across the Twisting Nether, demon lords heard him.

Some had been there, and remembered the druidic trap that had cost so many demons and so much humiliation. These demonic lords remembered being crushed by an entire wood awakened by one charismatic druid. The Deepwoods had awakened and it had slaughtered an entire army of the Burning Legion. Those who hadn't been there remembered it, and sneered and laughed at their brethren who had stood over such a humiliating defeat. If ever Azeroth was conquered, extensive plans had been made on what exactly was to be done with the night elf known as Stormborn.

These demon lords battled each other for the chance at her mate. Eventually, one emerged. Xax'tilac. It had almost been expected. He was the greatest of them that had been there. He had fallen. He had built a palace in expectation of the collection of Stormborn's soul.

Xax'tilac was soon briefed on the situation at the manaforge, of the killing of the ambassador and the current battle. A minor eredar lord insisted that he had the skirmish in hand, that a Terror was making short work of them.

Xax'tilac knew better. Stormborn had been a female. He could only imagine what her mate was like.

Xax'tilac descended on the manaforge. The storm parted for him.


The gateway opened directly in front of Ero'then. The Nether stretched to infinity within it. A being exited and it stood before the two kaldorei and the sin'dorei.

It was impossible for Sel'uen to describe the being. It was tall, far taller than the doomguard, though perhaps not so big as the creature still tearing apart the elves below them.

It spoke. "I am Xax'tilac, kaldorei. Your arrogance burns brightly in the Nether, Stormborn's mate, if that is what you truly are. I will find out for myself."

Sel'uen quailed. The sound of that voice was the sound of the fall of worlds. It was more in her head than it was words spoken. Terror unlike anything she had ever felt overwhelmed her and she was so frozen in place that she lost her balance and fell down. It seemed like it had the same affect on Karielle.

Ero'then, however, remained standing. He didn't respond. He extended his arms sideways. His hands opened.

The runes around him blazed to life. Azure and violet energy shot into the air with harmonic humming. Lightning arced openly from the three pillars that scraped the sky to Ero'then. His body was now limned with light. Sel'uen realized he was smiling.

"Your arrogance also burns, demon," Ero'then remarked. He struck.

It is difficult to describe the clashing of forces which's exercising is blinding. Ero'then didn't seem to do much more than extend a hand and unleash a wave of illuminated force. The beam widened and then collapsed, forming a thin, whitish line. It was taut.

"You fool," said Xax'tilac. He charged two steps but was unable to take a third. He swatted, almost comically, at the white beam.

Then he retaliated.

The air popped, and Sel'uen felt like the inside of her ears caught fire. She screamed but could not hear herself. She tried to glimpse up and witness the blinding contest.

Knowing it was a trick of the incredible forces being unleashed at that moment, Sel'uen thought Ero'then looked like a Highborne noble. His features had sharpened, his skin had lightened, and the aura of light and runes that surrounded him made him look like a king. He looked like perfection and it reminded her of Karielle. His lips were turned upwards in a dark grimace. Bright blood leaked onto his teeth and down his lip, contrasting sharply with the whiteness. Sel'uen realized that she had been effected by the demon lord's spell by proximity. Ero'then had taken its brunt.

But though the Shan'do wavered he did not fall. He pushed back and, if possible, the manaforge grew brighter.

There was the blinding white with Ero'then as its focus and there was the depthless shadow that enveloped Xax'tilac.

"YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME, KALDOREI!"

And it didn't look like he would. The light began to fade. Barely at first, but then Sel'uen started to notice it. The runes grew dimmer. The spires' crackles came fewer and farther between. The manaforge was being drained.

The white beam that connected Ero'then and Xax'tilac wavered. The demon lord's smile stretched across its whole face. It started growing.

Ero'then gritted his teeth. But even Sel'uen could see that it wasn't his fault. He wasn't faltering. He was running out of power.

Sel'uen only realized that Karielle had been gone when she returned with crates of mana floating around her. She stumbled onto the roof, and the crates clattering around her, some opening and spilling. She looked up, her princess hair falling ridiculously in her face.

"Old one!"

Ero'then dared a glance. He was rewarded with that grin, that torturer-raised-in-a-madhouse smirk. She held out a hand, and her eyes, so long smoldering with green fire, looked like they exploded.

Sel'uen staggered away, too numb to be horrified. A rope of emerald - not unlike the white beam connecting the two contesters - ran itself from Ero'then to Karielle.

The white light enhanced itself and overwhelmed the darkness until Xax'tilac looked like a demon-child in a white room. His alien expression belied his astonishment. He pushed back and the whiteness retreated. But then it came back again.

Sel'uen looked around her. The mana was vanishing in the containers, and those that hadn't already popped open. They evaporated so rapidly Sel'uen felt like reality was slipping from her fingers.

As Ero'then grew in stature and magnificence, Karielle began to shrink. Her skin wrinkled and her frame grew smaller like her bones were folding in on themselves. Her eyes burned like twin fel suns, the only green in the white room that had swallowed the roof of the manaforge. Karielle was crumpling, the only part of her body not shriveling up like a prune was her hand, which clung the emerald rope.

"I WILL FIND YOU ERO'THEN, STORMBORN'S MATE! I WILL FIND YOU AND I WILL RIP YOU APART FOR ETERNITY!"

Ero'then was cool as a spring breeze. He did not respond.

The portal behind Xax'tilac collapsed in on itself. The darkness was devoured by the light. Xax'tilac himself, a child-demon again, buckled, twisted, tried to flee, then broke.

He collapsed into a small puddle.

The end of the light was almost as blinding as its appearance. Ero'then fell five feet and landed in a heap. He did not rise.

The only person who looked like they were alive was Sel'uen. She blinked and began to see the world again.

The storm was gone. From the roof of the now-dull-looking manaforge, she could see for miles. The lumpy landscape. The dark sky - populated by celestial bodies and streaking comets -stretched on forever above her. Below, she watched as an army of demons fled until they reached their portals or simply fled helter-skelter over the violet land. They wanted no part in whatever had just happened.

Shaking from head to toe, Sel'uen crawled over to look at Ero'then. He was breathing and his eyes were open but he was unresponsive. He looked shocked, even surprised. She thought about slapping him and imagined he would explode in a nexus of white light.

She whimpered and backed away from him. From a safe distance, she stared at her Shan'do.

Her Shan'do. A mage. He had broken every sacred law their people had passed in ten thousand years.

How long had he been doing it? How long had he hidden his talents from the elders? From Malfurion himself?

She would have kept to her thoughts, but a sound wakened her out of her reverie. She looked around, waited. It came again, and something worse than dread leaked into her stomach.

It was Karielle.

Her skin had darkened. Her hair had whitened and brittled like it was straw. She was curled up as fetus—as if she was some tiny, wizened elder. She looked like a raisin. She moaned again, and Sel'uen felt her jaw vibrate uncontrollably, like it always did before she would cry.

But she didn't cry. She couldn't.

She couldn't do anything. She could only sit there at the top of the manaforge and shake as Karielle moaned and Ero'then lay still as death.