The cave that Sapphire called home was small. Invincible and the unnamed vulture stayed outside of it, because it was so small. There was room for Sapphire, a small fire, and her pack that held all of her worldy possessions. A knife, a bow with arrows, an old necromancy book, a map of the Eastern Kingdoms, a sewing kit, a flask of water, and some food. Nothing else.
Sapphire crawled into the cave, more like a split in the rock then a cave. She looked out. The view was good at least.
A large, ominous tower stood in the middle of a valley. It was huge, and imposing. A dark aura came from it. It was not made of saronite, but it reminded the girl of Icecrown Citadel.
She scowled. No, she did not want to think about that right now. She pushed out such useless thoughts out of her head. The girl made a fire, and curled up next to it.
She took out a piece of salted pork in her bag, and chewed on it. A cry of a bird, a raven or a crow, sounded loudly in the dead silence of the mountains.
Invincible looked into the crevice, empty eye sockets looking at her expectedly.
"Good night, Invincible," Sapphire said to the skeletal horse. He snorted in satisfaction, and lowered himself down, lying at the entrance. The vulture flew back off, probably to find some carrion to eat.
Sapphire had been running for a long time. She never stayed in one place, for fear of being hunted down. By paladins, by Forsaken, and even the Scourge. She might be the old Lich King's daughter, but now she was just a deserter. A young girl with a lot of power, running around to do whatever she wanted. Who would not want to try to catch her? She had already been attacked by several groups of undead. Invincible was the sole reason for her not being captured, outrunning anything thrown at her.
Sapphire's eyes drooped. She was sleepy. They had explored around Deadwind pass, and tomorrow, they would try to get into the odd tower.
Sapphire was so lonely. She had spoken to anyone for months. The last time, seven months ago, she had been in a place called the wetlands. Both her and Invincible had stowed away on a boat, and it had come to Menethil Harbor. The name of it shocked her, and she had spent three days exploring the place. She bought food, the sewing kit, and some leather and fur to fix her clothing. Then, in the dead of night, Invincible showed off his wings and flew away, to the snow capped mountains of Dun Morogh.
Slowly, they made their way across the continent. Sapphire had no idea where she was heading. Anywhere, she supposed. Anywhere to get away from the darkness clouding her heart.
There was a crystalline sound and Sapphire was woken from her drowsiness. Stalactites of ice was growing from the top of the ceiling.
"Light damn it..." Sapphire groaned, and she cut off the power. Thunder rumbled outside, and Invincible neighed in annoyance as rain began to fall.
Every time. She could not control herself. It was worse when she was near dead bodies. She had passed a graveyard back in Lakeshire, in the region of the Redridge mountains. Graves moved, and hands had exploded out of the dirt. The girl had screamed, and Invincible had spurred forward into a full on gallop.
And ice grew around her. Animals fled from her, except carrion eaters like the vulture. The girl killed plants too sometimes. Most recently, Sapphire had leaned against a tree in the Swamp of Sorrows, and touched it with her bare skin. There was a crackling, and slowly the tree withered within a couple of seconds, leaves falling like rain.
Sapphire broke off an icicle, and sucked on it. At least the ice gave her a fresh supply of water. She broke up the ice and put it into her flask of water for later. She pushed the flask back into her backpack, and pulled it over to her. Using the pack as a pillow, she soon fell asleep.
She walked toward the tower boldly. Karazhan had been the name on a sign. At first, there was nothing wrong with approaching toward it. But then, a tingling went up her spine. Then, it slowly became an itch, and then became a horrible pain in her veins. Sapphire gasped, and clutched her chest, as a pain throbbed inside her.
She was going to continue up to the castle, for she had no idea the pain was linked to it. Fortunately for her, a black form flew at her cawing.
The girl yelped, and recoiled backwards. She fell to the ground, expecting some kind of large beast to attack her. Nothing happened, so Sapphire looked up. It was a raven. Her new pet vulture hissed in anger as the smaller bird chased it off. The small black bird landed on the ground, between her and the tower.
"What the hell, you stupid bird?"
The raven looked at her intently, a type of intelligence in the gleam of its eyes.
Sapphire stood up, and tried to walk past it, but the bird cawed angrily, and flew up at her. It pecked her hand.
"Ow! Stupid bird, what do you want?"
It landed on her shoulder, and cawed. Sapphire felt like the animal was trying to tell her something.
"Oh, fine. I won't go up there, okay?"
The bird nodded happily. Sapphire sighed, and slowly left back to her cave. Invincible balked at the sight of the bird, but did not protest when it hopped from the girl's shoulder to the saddle. The vulture had not come back, so it must not have liked the smaller raven. That made Sapphire suspicious, but she shrugged it off.
Sapphire pulled her stuff out of her cave, and latched it to the saddle. She pulled out the map. The raven hit it with a wing.
The girl scowled. "Stop it, or I am going to pluck your feathers, you turkey."
It pecked at the map. Sapphire looked at where it pecked. Stormwind. Well, she had always heard about the human capital. Might as well head that way.
"Fine, bird. We'll go there. Happy?"
It cawed, and hopped onto her shoulder. Sapphire felt like the animal was very smart, smarter than a raven should be.
Ethan followed Autum unhappily. She was giggling, and held Ethan by the arm. Two puppies followed, one a puffball of white, and the other a cute little brown one. Rot the puffball whined, and sniffed Terra. They both trotted ahead of the two, and tumbled around playfully. When the female was not looking though, Rot suddenly frowned, and had a look of utter dejection on his face. Autum sighed.
"Poor puppy," She said.
Ethan nodded, and let the girl take her to the tailor. He winced at the sight of bright colors, and ruffled sleeves.
"Don't worry, Ethan. It's for only one night. It's not like you are marrying me."
The boy looked down. There was a dance tomorrow, and he had no one to take. It would have been fine, except that Jaina pointed out that not bringing a date would mean a lot of girls looking his way. So, he had asked Autum's sister Karanda. She had been elated, even after he told her it was only for one dance. The girl apparently had a dress that matched his glowing eyes.
The boy felt like he was going to throw up when he saw Autum pick up a very frilly shirt. He sighed. Today was going to be a long day, and it would only get worse when he had to get a shirt fitted to his size. He lowered his head to where his runeblade normally would sit. It was not there, and that just made him even grumpier.
An owl hooted in the middle of the night. Moonlight shone down upon the graveyard, through the leaves of trees. The lake nearby rippled, and slowly lapped against the land next to the graves. Frogs croaked, and disappeared into the water with a splash.
The Cathedral of Light was lit up this night, a congregation in progress. Good, for the small group of rebel Scourge that were slowly going through the graveyard. A guard lay on the ground, blood pooling on a grave. One deathknight grabbed the body, and dragged it to the water. No one would see the corpse any time soon. The lantern was still glowing, but a ghoul smashed the glass and smothered the fire.
Slowly, they all went through the graveyards. Ghouls, deathknights, and necromancers. They went to a crypt, and saw more guards. Two, standing on each side of the crypt. They were easily killed, without a fight or sound. The necromancers went into the crypt, leaving the undead outside.
It was white inside, rounded and clean. No rats or bones inside. Only a single tomb was in it, a large box of white granite on a raised platform. The symbol of Lordaeron was carved on one end.
The necromancers looked at each other eagerly. Finally, they had found what they were looking for. The body had been hidden from everyone. To avoid it from being desecrated, but that was a lie. It was hidden so Arthas Menethil could not be resurrected.
It had failed, for they had found it.
The necromancers quickly went into a circle around the tomb, and prepared the ritual. They drew symbols in ashes, and had sacrificial blood ready. Then, they started chanted. It was a foul, dark language, that would make anyone shiver in fear and want to run away as fast as possible. There was a crackling of dark magics, and the necromancers rose their voices. No one would know about this before it was too late. Deathknights stood guard to the entrance.
There was crack in the granite, followed by more. Dust rose up in puffs. A hand burst out.