Chapter 37
Priestess
X Priestess X
The irony was not lost on her. Since the moment this course was decided upon, she wondered if her name was to soon join that of Queen Azshara and Illidan, the two most damned figures in all of her race's history. A lifetime of service, undone in one single moment. Ten years from now, should they survive this, what would her punishment be? 10,000 years of imprisonment by her former sisters? Would she be allowed even that?
And what value was there in a name? Narelle Blackmoon. It was hers. She had owned it for ten centuries, winning honors with her unyielding service. Yet, who knew its sound? Its meaning? She was no vrykul to have hunted glory and renown, nor a noble to have her worth tied with that of her homeland. So to have it spat upon by a thousand mouths, a hundred thousand, or even – dare she hope – a million mouths, should such a cost concern her? They would be alive to curse her, and that was victory itself.
Narelle thought of her father, Epinell Blackmoon, of the Ashenvale Farstriders. A male hunter, his was a name already spurned and hated by the matriarchal Sentinels, no matter his heroics in the Qiraji War, before it, or after. When the Sentinels had come, requesting Narelle by name, they gave no regard to the Farstriders that had raised her and trained her. Perhaps her name had value then, but as the decades and centuries followed, she only saw it become more forgotten, blending among the countless others.
Driven by a strange frenzy, Narelle continued this whimsical-seeming nostalgia, delaying her task as long as possible. Apart from that Sentinel recruiter, another had come requesting Narelle Blackmoon personally. Warden Feyde Silvershadow, she recalled. Thus had begun Narelle's ill-fated calling with the Shadow Wardens, which had taken her to Satheen Thistlechill, the priestess so loved and hated by the shadowflame-branded ex-warden. Satheen's patient labors had led to this moment, the fruits now sickly rotted in fel taint. Could that great woman be blamed for what Narelle was about to do?
The last to give Narelle value, in all her recalled years, was Linsai Scarleaf, the Commander of the Watchers in Silithus. The severe commander had once fought beside her father, and he knew the name Blackmoon. He knew her skills as both sentinel and warden and sought to employ them. Though titled then as Sentinel, she was kept as his hidden blade against those who would threaten their Watch, until the day she was assigned to Sin de Rath the Mad.
Sin de Rath. Because of him, all of these people – her father, Feyde, Linsai, Satheen – if they still lived, would find her name turned to ash in their mouths. Her life, her meaning, her very existence had been rent apart, reshaped, and finally damned upon this final act. She hated him. She hated him with such a fury that her shoulders trembled and shook at the mere thought of his dark face and gloating smile.
And she loved him. She knew from the moment she had lived his memories that it had become true. Not since Satheen had she felt such an overwhelming dichotomy of emotion for one person, of blind passion that drove all of her physical and emotion might towards just one man. Despite calling his concerns about showing his back to her folly, she and Sin both knew that everyday she had been considering how to slay this wretched warlock. He had violated everything she stood for, forced her to allow the qiraji to leave Silithus, and he had made her agree to it, to believe he was in the right for defiling her sacred duties.
And worst of all, the greasy slime that clung to her hands and arms and soul and could never be washed away by her scouring thoughts, was the fact that he valued her. He had chosen to keep her after Silithus. He had taken her into his trust in the Nether. He had given up a horrific chunk of his soul to keep her well. And when she sought to leave his side, to breathe the vengeful air of war without the stygian veil of his presence, he had been ready to beg her to stay. Sin de Rath would have begged her if it meant she would stay.
In all his life, Sin had only begged twice. She knew it from his memories. The first was to his mother, the night after he murdered the trolls that had slain his father. He had begged for forgiveness, for his inadequacy. Her response was one of the most beautiful scenes of emotion Narelle had ever seen. The second had been in the War of the Shifting Scenes. The same Linsai Scarleaf approached with a list of suspected individuals, asking that Sin put them to question regardless of innocence. It had been a request of such brutality, yet such necessity, that only the dark warlock could be expected to fulfill it. Sin had rooted out dozens of cultists in the following days, saving untold numbers from poisoned deaths or midnight butcherings. Some, however, had been innocent. The realization of what he'd done to an innocent man, a brother-in-arms, had nearly broken the young Sin. He had begged then, to mute ears. The sin remained unforgiven.
Forgiveness. Would Sin forgive her for what she had done and was soon to do? She knew she had hurt him by leaving. Staying, however, would only have been worse. She had been drowning in Sin, lost to every facet of his person, swayed by her emotions, his, and the memories that were not her own. There was only one thing Sin could have said to make her stay, the one thing she needed so desperately to hear from him at that stage, but they both knew that it was not something he could have said honestly. She was changing in a different direction than he was.
With this, Narelle's metamorphosis would be complete. She knew with each beat of her elven heart that this path was her own. If she saw Sin after this, she would meet him on even footing, as her own person. They the two of them had changed so much since their beginnings, both towards and away from the other, that she wondered how their mutual feelings towards each other could remain so unchanged.
And she knew that of all those that knew her name and gave her worth, that Sin would be at the forefront of those that forgave her for this moment. The dying Elune might curse her name, yet Sin would remain. He would remember her as Miss Blackmoon, or Lady Blackmoon, and he'd lace it with all the kindness and disregard that he usually did. If he would just forgive her for leaving, for abandoning him to face their mother Margaret de Rath alone, then Narelle knew she could survive this moment with an unflinching heart.
She was his priestess, and the favor of her god was all she needed.
The Eye of Kilrogg Narelle commanded finally ended its flight over the gulf between Camp Desperation and the landmass of Ulduar, and she guided it over legions of Skinless to the hill above the titan city's gate. Using warlock arts with the flair of expertise and familiarity, she diverted the fel energies of the Eye into a Demonic Circle, breaking apart their link and leaving her alone in her tent. The tug of the Circle could be felt in her soul, ready to pull her the required distance.
The final few seconds of sanity were spent checking her preparations. The anchor for a Twisting Nether-to-Azeroth portal was working flawlessly. She shimmied a dark robe, black and glittering violet, over her ashen Unbelkhat – The Forgiven Sin – and she picked up a rough-looking yet expertly enchanted and lacquered staff. Her mithril-encased nail tapped her faithful crossbow with bitter memory, and then she took a step outside her tent.
Immune to the sight of Camp Desperation, Narelle looked at the nearby qiraji and said, "Await my return."
The white nodded once, formally, respectfully, and Narelle summoned herself to the Demonic Circle in a flash of ash and fel flame.
Here the air was colder, sharper, and scented with the stench of burning rot. The wondrous and magical city of Ulduar that Sin remembered was long lost, consumed by spires of ebon Skinblight and glittering opals. Lips thin with resolve, Narelle lifted her chin up to the sky, where Elune showed herself as witness to this self-damning moment. Narelle stared at the brilliance of her goddess, The Goddess, and a defiant fel halo curled around her unhelmed face, the mockery of Elune's halo that she had accidentally formed in the Twisting Nether.
At this very moment, Sin had entered the Nexus, where Margaret de Rath awaited him. The gods of Azeroth, reborn by Sin's hand, had begun their counter-attack. Behind her, in the camp, lightning was exploding outward in great cracks like sparks around an anvil, measured by each beat of the great hammer King Malthon used as the titanic man began to break apart the recovered scythe used by the Singing Blades. Sekara, the demon-qiraji – soon to become the demon-qiraji-goddess – had turned her begotten connection to her old god masters against Ghat'Nothos, attacking with the all the remaining strength of the All-Mind, even as Sin relied on her in his ensuing battle. And as Narelle stared now, daring her beloved goddess to smite her for this blasphemy, the white light of the moon began to grow in intensity, brighter and brighter until it began to burn the earth around her. Skinblight popped and sizzled beneath the fury of the true goddess.
Alive, unharmed, Narelle accepted the mercy of Elune and raised her staff. Heart thundering in her chest, she followed Sin's memories towards the ley lines of Azeroth and began to divert their power, breaking the ancient laws of the Blue Dragonflight. The seething corruption within would scald anything that sought to disturb their charge, but Narelle had no concern with what was touched in this spell. The sludge of Ghat'Nothos was soon to meet a more powerful and pervasive magic than its own, burning through a whole universe parallel to this one. For millennia, this power had been eagerly awaiting just this moment, where it could finally began to spill into this reality, and the poison of the old god was no match for this ancient, all-consuming hunger.
Her eyes shut against the bright and black world, focusing. However, Narelle was distracted by the sudden flush of tears down her cheeks, burning hot streaks over her chilled skin. She was crying? It seemed not even in this state, mind wrapped in shadows, could Narelle forget the crime she was committing. She reopened her stinging eyes, resolving to watch through the watery blur the truth of her actions.
Purple runes exploded around her. Demonic words scratched through her throat, the sounds breaking it in like a seasoned whore in a virgin's body. She knew a lifetime of using this tongue, yet this was the first her mouth had wretched them out. More tears spilled. The purple lights coiled into shapes, then into runes composed of younger symbols. The summoning magic flowed outward in a violent storm, filling the hilltop with its distinct presence. Above her, the dark sky began to mold together, the blackness growing ever darker, and even Elune struggled to maintain the hole she peered through.
Six soulstones were offered to the spell, the soul magic she once so furiously swore against dissolving into the greater web. The lights flashed, devouring it, hungry for more. Narelle supplied, crushing six more. Then six again. Six times six. The runes were contorting into new shapes, forming a wide ring, then folding into itself. They bent into a wider ring, now twenty yards wide. It continued to grow.
Screaming now, Narelle raised her blackened staff. The whole cloud of light pulsed green. The rings expanded wide, and it flashed again. The black sky was bubbling with light too, fiery reds and green growing in the bowels of the clouds. At last, it was ready, and Narelle cried out the arcane anchors that would stabilize the whole ritual. Like a heart beat, the green pulsed and pulsed, until finally the whole ring of purple runes were consumed in the sea of fel in a sound like a collapsing marble building. She had lost control of it; the spell was sustained entirely by the ley lines now, its integrity rapidly coalescing by the greedy hands of those Beyond, finishing what she had begun.
Narelle stared, wild eyed, at the spherical, shimmering cloud of green that hovered before her, openly weeping as her mouth grew quiet. Dark shapes churned inside it, restless. A scream of flame and hell pierced the heavens, spewing massive chunks of falling meteors, first a handful, then a dozen, then hundreds. Her coarse, aching throat dried at the sight, knowing that inside each massive ball of stone and fire was a construct, that which they knew as infernals.
The first shapes burst through the portal, showing themselves as the massive felguards of bloated, muscular flesh and impossibly large blades. Imps by the dozens ran at their feet, and a commanding demon was soon to follow, one of the wicked, six-armed shivarra, hellcrying and doomsaying in mixes of verbal magic. Thousands followed.
Narelle stared as the full might of the Burning Legion began its fourth invasion of Azeroth on the very doorstep of Ulduar, spilling all of its ancient and furious might against the usurping god that sought to claim this world before them, knowing very well that it was she who brought them here.
AN: So congratulations to Narelle for being the first character outside of the main four to get her own chapter. I know it's short, but I think it says more than enough.
