A very long and semi emotional letter from the author~
Okay, I just want to say a few things here (feel free to skip this, of course).
When I first started this trilogy back in September of 2014, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd played WoW on and off for a few years, but more so as something to do in my freetime, never really with the intention of getting involved in the lore. I struggled with a lot of issues, as everyone does, and it was always easy to distract myself with it.
It wasn't until I accidentally found myself reading the wiki about Maiev Shadowsong that I realized what a beautiful, in-depth universe I'd been hanging out in. It pretty much went all downhill (uphill?) from there. I wanted to know everything about everything. I fell in love with everything I read, every character and story. I leveled five characters to max and have probably thirty alts scattered throughout, each of which has their own working story. I explored zones. I read novels. I read fanfic. I watched lore theory videos for twelve hours at a time.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that WoW (and the Warcraft Universe in general) is a phenomenal game that has a very real effect on everyone that plays, whatever the reason may be. I've seen a lot of hate over the past few years for a lot of different things, and I'm sure most of you have too, but regardless of what draws you to the game, regardless of your faction or race or class, we're all united in the love we have for it in the first place.
I watched the movie trailer way too many times before writing this.
But anyway. I would like to give a massive thanks to everyone that has stuck with me throughout this series, and everyone that came along the way. I am eternally grateful for every review, every follow, and every message I have gotten since starting this. A particularly special shout out to Blame the Priest, who has been my constant beta, and who has become one of the greatest friends I have ever known. It's the readers that have pushed me to keep going, to see this through to the end, and to always strive to be better. I'm proud of how this has all come together, but I can just as honestly say that I am ready to move on. A year and a half is a long time to devote to the same three characters.
Again, thank you, truly. Maybe I'll see some familiar names popping up on my future projects.
Much love xx -Skye
…
epilogue
six years later
It was the echoing of his hooved steps against the rock floor of the Warden's Cage that gave him away, long before he appeared in front of the bars that held her. Maiev had long since made herself comfortable, or at least as much as was possible, in the furthest corner of the cramped cell, with her knees drawn to her chest and her heavy emerald cloak draped around her. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, whether it had been days or weeks or months, only that there was some sick, twisted irony in it all. She might have laughed, only the mere thought of it was enough to send a ripple of pain through her.
Six years.
Six agonizing, brutal years. Six years spent wandering aimlessly, walking in circles, always two steps behind.
Six years Maiev Shadowsong had spent traipsing around Outland in search of the Betrayer.
And for what? Cordana and the rest of the Watchers had left her long ago, deeming this little more than a suicide mission, telling her that she was insane, obsessed, and scurrying back to Malfurion Stormrage to beg for his forgiveness. They had abandoned her to fend for herself in the remnants of a shattered world, a world that had been forsaken just as she had, a world that now belonged to Illidan and his forces.
Six years, but really, it had been thousands more. Their lives had been tangled together for so long that it was damn near impossible to tell where one ended and one began, where Illidan left off and Maiev started. Vicious cycles. They were all trapped in a game that no one really knew how to win and no one really wished to play.
And now she was here, trapped in this cage, locked behind bars. Now, everything had come full circle. It might have made her laugh if it didn't make her want to cry- not from the defeat, but because she was tired, she was vacant, she was empty. She had lost whatever had driven her in the first place. She was nothing, knew nothing but this endless chase and the certainty that neither of them would ever stop until one of them was dead.
Illidan appeared then, on the other side of the cell, all snarling glares and an aura of dread that clung to him everywhere he went. Once her heart had leapt at the mere thought of him. Now, she stared back with lifeless eyes, didn't even bother to move from her place on the ground. The few times that he had been there to see her, it had been strictly to gloat, rubbing it in her face that after all this time the tables had turned, and now she was the one behind bars and he was the one on the outside watching in. She had taken each insult as gracefully as she could, her face impassive as she listened to each of his mocking words and wondered idly to herself what happened to the boy that she had once loved. For surely this was not him; no, this was a stranger an imposter, a demon that had taken his form, that had corrupted him until little remained of the boy she remembered from so many thousands of years ago.
But this time was different, and she could tell as soon as she saw him. This time he did not look as though he had come to brag, for he did not look victorious at all. Instead his brows were drawn together over his unseeing eyes and his lips were turned down into something between a frown and the scowl. This time it was hard to believe that it was the demon with which she had become familiar that she was gazing at, for if she dared to look closely enough, Maiev swore that traces of Illidan still lingered in his features.
The Warden had to take a breath to steady herself and remind herself that there was nothing left for her there, nothing left for them-if there ever been anything between them to begin with. It was so hard to tell now, all of her memories blurring together, her love and her hatred blending into one emotion that she herself couldn't even begin to comprehend.
She waited silently for some time, waited for him to speak, to say anything at all, but no words ever seemed to make it past his lips. When he did finally speak, the words came out soft and rushed, barely even audible. "Kael is gone," he said slowly, and it took her far longer than she cared to admit to realize that he was upset by this, to recognize the sadness that dripped from his words. However, no matter how long she tried, Maiev couldn't bring herself to understand Illidan had thought this worth coming to see her, why he would think she would care enough to bother, like they were still the greatest of friends that confided in each other everything.
After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Maiev brought herself to clear her throat and find her voice. "Kael was a traitor from the start," she told him. It was hard to hide her own bitterness, for she remembered while a time when the young Elven prince had fought beside her and offered his aid in destroying the very same demon that he had come to join forces with. It was hard to hide her bitterness about much of anything when she was caged and forced to endure the antagonizing of her sworn rival. Especially because it was hard to ignore the fact that she understood clearer than ever why Illidan had resented her for all the years that he had been the one in the chains.
"Yes," Illidan murmured softly, bowing his head under the weight of his horns. "Everyone is gone." He paused for a long moment before glancing up at her. Not for the first time, she wondered what his emerald eyes saw as the roamed over her body. "And yet, you are still here. Amusing, isn't it?"
"I'm just dying of laughter," Maiev retorted plainly, her voice completely even.
Illidan's own features remained composed as he continued watching her; she hoped that whatever he saw, he couldn't make out the way she fought off the urge to squirm uncomfortably under his piercing emerald gaze. "It's interesting," he said then, slowly, like he wasn't really sure he wanted to speak the words aloud. "After all this time, it's always come back to you and I."
"Did you come here for a reason?" Maiev snapped suddenly, lurching forward, her armor creaking against itself. "Or simply to further my misery for your own entertainment? Because I assure you, Stormrage, you have done enough to torment me over the years that this is all becoming rather redundant. You have made it abundantly clear that you don't love me, that you never have loved me, and that you never will love me. I assure you, I have gotten the message. So if you've come because you're lonely in the absence of your little princeling plaything, I have no sympathy for you, and I would appreciate if you'd let me return to my solitude."
Illidan snarled as his hands wrapped tightly around the bars, his wings flaring up slightly along with his anger. "You are hardly in a position to mock me, Warden," he hissed at her.
"Why not?" She scowled right back, tilting her head to the side and peering at him through narrowed eyes. In a flash, she was on her feet, a blur of motion that darted across the room and collided with the bars so that little more than mere inches between them, wrapping her own hands so tightly around the metal that her knuckles went white. "If you wanted me dead, you'd have killed me by now."
To that, Illidan said nothing, and Maiev felt a vicious smile tug at her lips, one that looked far more like a grimace. "I don't care if it takes the rest of our lives," she said then, turning away, taking a deep breath in attempt to regain her composure as she retreated to the far side of the cell. "You and I will never stop until it's over, and we both know it."
This time, it was Illidan's turn to grin back at her, equally as malicious as her own. In so many ways they were so alike, bound in their madness and their hatred and their cursed fates that had left them stranded here in Outland. They had spent the last ten thousand years trying to destroy each other with the idea that maybe that was love.
And if she was being totally, completely honest with herself, Maiev wasn't entirely sure that she would change a thing. Because maybe it wasn't love, not in the way she had imagined it when she was younger, but it was the closest they had ever come to it. And maybe it was madness, but it was theirs and theirs alone, and in a world that had completely crumbled around them and a life that had never gone as planned, it was all that they had left.
Maiev threw a glance back at him over her shoulder, and for the slightest of seconds, that familiar fire sparked in her eyes. "Your move, Stormrage. I'll be waiting."
end
