The snow fell in icy waves all around the camp. We had moved again since the last attack we'd endured, and it was rumored that we would soon be ready to move into the Citadel itself. Indeed, Tirion had been taking groups of us to the entrance of the Citadel in order to clear as many members of the Scourge there as we could.

I was renewing the spells on my spellblade, sharpening it as I murmured the incantations. Soon, it was glowing a pure white again, tinged with violet and red. I would be using my staff too, a new one that had been given to me by the Kirin Tor. Blessed by the Life-Binder herself, it was a magnificent thing crafted out of a beautifully polished black wood that was veined with blue and orange spells, and curved at the top to admit a floating pointed crystal.

"Are you almost ready?" Rotvine asked me.

I nodded. He and I were supposed to go back inside Arthas' domain to clear one of the main chambers. If everything went as planned, we would be able to move the following day, but I wasn't expecting anything to go according to plan. It was best not to have expectations when fighting the Scourge. We had learned that the hard way.

But amazingly enough, things did go well. The spells that we had put up around the entrance had held overnight, and no fiend had been able to get past them, so we had a good twenty-foot area that was clear of the creatures.

"It's not much, is it?" asked Carelia, who was with us.

"Honestly, it's so much better than nothing," I replied. "It's good to know that our spells are holding." I cast more of them, so that the boundary of our safe area glowed a clear gold.

We spent most of the day enlarging our safe zone, killing anything that came near us and managing to clear out the chamber we wanted while only sustaining a few minor injuries. By the time we stepped away, we had an area large enough to accommodate around fifty people.

Tirion was delighted. Highlord Mograine had been busy clearing the outside ramparts, and had already begun to move some of the camp equipment there.

"This is excellent," Major, he told me. "You all did a beautiful job here. We'll be able to move everyone here, and continue our job from within."

I would have smiled, except that I knew that Arthas was well aware that we were inside his citadel now. I still shivered at the way his voice had rung out, cold and dark, when we had first breached the entrance, welcoming us.

"We won't be using our tents, right?" Carelia asked me as she brought over our bags.

I shook my head, "No. The tents would be pointless here." I shivered and pulled out my hooded black cloak, putting it on right away. It was icy cold where we were, even colder than outside. "But we can light some braziers."

There were some torches on the wall that looked like they hadn't been lit in quite some time. Using a spell, set fire to their ends, and they began to burn merrily, the flames crackling red, orange, and yellow, making the area look slightly less cold. Granted, we had to stand close to them to feel the warmth, but at least the light they cast was friendly.

"That's better," said Rotvine. "At least for you guys."

"Us living, you mean?" I asked, smiling a little. "Yes, we prefer being in well-lit places."

"Which is why Sylvanas keeps a few extra lights in her chambers."

The mention of Sylvanas made me close my eyes. I missed her, as much as I didn't want to admit it. Now that we were here, I wanted her around more than anything, just to hold my hand and tell me that everything was going to be okay. That she would love me no matter what. That she would love me even after I died. Because I was almost positive that I wasn't going to get through this alive.

We slept directly on the icy floor, using sleeping bags made of mammoth fur. It wasn't the most comfortable way to sleep, because we shivered no matter what we did, and we were only able to sleep in two-hour shifts because we had to rotate with the people who were keeping watch.

"I'm telling you, the first thing I'm going to do when this is over is sleep for a week," I heard one of the soldiers telling his comrades. "How are we expected to survive like this?"

"We're not," I said to him. "We're in Icecrown Citadel, a place filled with so many horrible things that I can't even name them all. We need to accept the fact that we're going to die in here, in some way or another, and hope that our friends will burn our bodies before we're turned into what we're fighting."

"That's not an outlook to take, Major," Highlord Mograine told me.

"It's not an outlook, Highlord, it's the truth. I have hope that we're going to cripple the Scourge sooner rather than later. But not by any means do I think that we're going to get out of this unscathed."

"We're all trained."

"Of course we are. But do you honestly think that all of us here today are going to survive to see Arthas killed?"

"There are always casualties in war."

"Of course there are," I replied. "And standing here pretending that everything's going to be all right is pointless." I gave a sigh, "To be honest, I think that less than half of us will be making it through this. There are too many odds stacked against us."

"You may be right, but you're scaring the soldiers with such thoughts."

I nodded. Maybe I was. But some of these soldiers were young and green, which I supposed made sense, being as most of our experienced soldiers had perished at the Wrathgate.

"Major, you must be patient with them."

I sighed, "I know I do."

"And please, please remember that you're not the only one whose life was destroyed when Arthas turned to the Scourge. We all want the same thing."

"I'm aware of that, Highlord."

"Good. We'll get moving soon enough, and you'll be in the vanguard. Chances are that you'll get to Arthas before any of us do anyway."

"Please don't mistake me for a bloodthirsty warrior. I want Arthas dead, not just for revenge, but so that all of this," I waved my hand around, "can cease. We've all been through hell and back, some of you literally, and I don't know about you, but I'm at the end of my rope. All I want is to end this war and go home to live the rest of my days in peace. Peace, Highlord, do you remember what that is?"

Highlord Mograine chuckled, "I must admit that I don't remember peace very well. It's a while since I've felt it." He looked at me, "You should get some rest. I'd like to send you out with a team tomorrow."

Tomorrow. I was losing track of days while we were in the Citadel, as we had no sense of night and day. Several people had hourglasses, and it was their job to track the time and mark it for posterity (whatever that meant), but I hadn't really been paying attention to that.

I took my rest, waking up several hours later, feeling not exactly refreshed, but a little less tired than I had been as of late. My team was getting ready, and I hastened to swallow a quick and tasteless breakfast so as to be ready to go when the time came.

The team that had been assigned to me was a mishmash of people taken from all areas of the Horde and the Alliance. There were a couple of tauren braves that I'd briefly seen at the camp, and Tarr. A dwarf and three humans. Rotvine and Carelia. And finally, Varok Saurfang.

The tauren came to me, their hands outstretched, "Major Everstone, it's a pleasure," they said in soft Taur-ahe. "We know your family."

I smiled at them, "Welcome to the team, both of you."

"My name is Barash," said the first one, whose skin was the warm brown I associated with caramel. The second brave, whose coloring was darker, introduced himself as Nokee.

"I was with your brother when he got hurt. I'm sorry that I was not able to do more."

"Thank you, Nokee," I told him.

The dwarf introduced himself to me next. His name was Haldren, and he belonged to the Wildhammer clan. "I heard yeh've bin helpin' the Alliance in Northrend, and I thank yeh for it. My hammer is yours to command."

A little surprised by such an effusive introduction, I smiled and nodded at him, "Thank you, master paladin. I shall be happy to have your help." I looked at the three humans, who were looking at me with a bit of distrust. They wore armor that I had seen on the Stormwind soldiers who had come to claim Undercity for their own.

"You three were in Undercity," I said to them.

They said nothing, turning their looks into glares.

"By all accounts, I should hate you for trying to take my home. However, for the sake of what we're trying to accomplish here, I would be grateful if you could put that behind you. We can go back to hating each other later."

One of the men gave me half a smile. "All right," he said. "My name is Marcus, it's nice to meet you while we're not at each other's throats."

"Hello, Marcus, I'm Faith." I turned towards the other two, noticing a woman standing between the two men. "You're Beverly, aren't you? I heard someone calling your name earlier."

She nodded and took a few steps towards me to shake my hand, "Yes. I'm a rogue by profession, and I think you'll find that I do my job very well."

"I took forward to working with you," I said sincerely.

The final man, who was tall and slightly older than the rest, was still glaring at me with ill-disguised contempt, "Let it be known that I don't want to work with you, or with that," he said, pointing to Rotvine.

I drew myself up to my full height. Being taller than humans, this gave me an advantage, "If you refuse to work with me, you may leave. Go. I have no use for people who will not take my orders in battle."

Tirion heard me, and immediately came over to remove the man from my sight, "I'm sorry, Faith. I'll get you someone suitable right away."

"No need to apologize, Tirion," I told him, smiling.

He all but dragged the man towards the entrance, and I briefly wondered what would happen to him, but at that moment, a female Draenei came to me.

"Hello, Major. My name is Arel, and I was wondering whether you would be able to use me today."

I looked at her, assessing her strength. She was battle-scarred, but looked good.

"Are you a shaman?" I asked her.

She nodded, "I've been fighting the Scourge for quite some time, although I have more experience against the Legion."

With a nod of my own, I smiled, "Good. Welcome to the team, then." I motioned to Tirion, who saw Arel with us and smiled. Taking everyone aside, I introduced everyone else to the new members, "Now, I know that there have been a lot of tensions between the Horde and the Alliance lately. But as I said, I'd like to put that aside for now. I'm lead for the upcoming incursions, but Overlord Saurfang is the ranking officer. So whatever orders you get from either of us, follow them to the letter, understood?"

"Yes, Major," said Beverly.

"One more thing," I told them. "We're going to be facing extreme conditions in there. I'm not sure exactly what it is we're going to see, but we'll need to work together to face them. So I'm going to all you all by your first names," I nodded to Varok, "with your permission, of course."

Varok nodded, "Of course, Faith."

"And all of you should address me the same way. We'll have to work too quickly to bother with formalities."

Everyone seemed to agree, and I felt the tension ease somewhat. I could tell that all of us, even Varok, were still afraid of what we were going to find once we were given the go-ahead, but at least we found that we weren't as hostile towards each other as we would have thought.

I sat down, with the others imitating me, and we began a mundane conversation about our favorite things. Soldiers looked at us weirdly, as they doubtlessly thought that we had lost our minds, but I liked the exercise, as it broke the ice between all of us. By the time Tirion came over to us and asked us to get ready, we were feeling better about each other.

I took a cross-shoulder bag that was small enough to be cumbersome, but that had been magically enlarged from within to hold a lot more items than it normally would have. I appreciated it, as I was able to put all of my potions inside, extra food rations, and even my sleeping bad and additional clothes.

"Do you always take this much stuff with you when you're doing an incursion?" asked Carelia.

"There's a possibility that we won't be able to return here to get additional supplies, or even to sleep. I suggest all of you equip yourselves accordingly."

We stepped beyond the magical barrier, looking around carefully. For weeks, we had been studying maps of Icecrown Citadel, having caught several members of the Cult of the Damned, who had given us a layout of the stronghold, bit by bit. We were on the first floor of the citadel, the Lower Spire, where I knew Nerubians to be, along with bone constructs that were more than fifteen feet high.

Lanterns hung from the ceiling, burning a bright and evil blue color. The flames brought absolutely no warmth, only chill.

"Do you hear that?" Rotvine whispered to me.

I nodded. What sounded like bones rattled on the floor, just out of sight. Since we'd moved into the entrance hall, we had been besieged by massive skeletons that had, at first, proved difficult to defeat. But we'd managed to get rid of them in the end. What we were hearing now sounded exactly like them, but on a grander scale, and much more numerous.

We slowly rounded a corner, stopping in our tracks.

"By the Sunwell," I breathed.

There must have been fifty massive skeletons amassed in the corridor, rattling evilly as they prowled across the floor.

"Fire," I said. "Right now."

My spell was on my lips as my hands crackled with fire. It wasn't my black fire, I felt it was too early for that, but it was enough. As one, those of us who knew fire spells cast. The corridor exploded as my and Rotvine's flames quickly decimated at least ten of the skeletons, and the shaman's bursts of lava engulfed several others. Haldren conjured forth a beam of light that fell upon another skeleton, while Carelia kept up a constant stream of low chanting, keeping barriers around us in case something decided to sprint at us.

Some of the skeletons did break away from the main group on fire and charged us, but Varok and the other warriors quickly cut them down. Marcus, who, as it seemed, was a hunter, brought some down with flaming arrows. His form was very good, although part of me couldn't help but compare him to Sylvanas. Sylvanas moved better, but maybe I was very biased in that respect.

"What is going on here?" came a deadly voice that would have made us panic had we been anybody else. "Kill them!"

I couldn't see who had spoken, but heard the unmistakable ring of authority in the order.

As we burned the last of the skeletons, something enormous appeared, one of the bone constructs who looked bigger than almost anything I had seen so far in my battles against the Scourge.

"Bring it down!" I cried, swinging my spellblade and hacking away at the thing's foot as it tried to crush me. I screamed out a spell in Thalassian, and white fire burst forth from my blade as I swung it in an arc, connecting with a bone. It immediately began to burn brightly, throwing light in various directions, enough for me to see Nerubians coming from adjacent chambers.

"I've got them," said Tarr, moving to the group of undead spiders on the left, while Varok and Beverly moved towards the group on the right. The rest of us focused on bringing down the construct, which wasn't easy. Spells burst forth from all over the place, catching each other in midair and sending showers of multicolored sparks over us. A massive hammer came down, and would have caught me had a Nerubian not distracted me enough to move out of the way.

I don't know how long we fought those things. The construct took quite some time to bring down, nearly landed on top of us when we finally killed it, and the Nerubians somehow brought forth more skeletons. By the time we had gotten rid of everything, I was absolutely exhausted, which didn't bode well. My companions hardly looked better than I did. Beverly sported a nasty cut on her chin, and Tarr had gotten a blow to the head that made him sway a little.

"We should rest for a bit," I said, wiping at my forehead. "That was quite a fight."

"How long?" asked Varok. "We shouldn't stay here too long."

"Five minutes, if that." I would have been able to go on right away, maybe, but I could tell that Carelia was showing signs of flagging. "Sit down, everyone. I'll put some spells around here, in case the others follow us out."

I did just that, and Rotvine joined me, quickly putting up some barriers, which seemed unnecessary. We had cleared out anything that had been lurking in the chambers and the corridor. Even the webs hanging above us were empty, save for some small harmless spiders that were crawling about.

"We should try to send a message back to the main camp," Rotvine said to me.

"I'd love to, but it took us ten minutes to get here, and we would lose some precious time."

"I can make a portal there."

"You have enough energy to manage something like that?"

He nodded, taking a vial from his ragged robes. Inside the vial, I saw what seemed to be a dark swirling potion. I couldn't imagine what it was, and took it from him when he handed it to me.

"What is it?"

"Sylvanas gave it to me before I left, with instructions to give it to you. It's her essence."

"Her what?" I looked at the vial in complete horror.

"Her essence," he repeated. "She made the potion and added her blood to it, to give you some of her energy, so that you wouldn't get tired as quickly. She… she knew we would be in here."

"You want me to drink that?" I asked. "It's death."

"It won't kill you. At least, I don't think it'll kill you. Sylvanas was angry with you when you left, but I promise that she doesn't want you dead. She wouldn't do anything to hurt you, not like that."

"What will it do?" I trusted Sylvanas with my life, but I wasn't sure I wanted to swallow the contents in that vial.

"It should imbue you with some of Sylvanas' essence, to make you stronger."

I had figured that much out for myself. "You don't know."

"Not really." He began to make a portal, "I'll let you decide whether or not to take it. She said that I wasn't supposed to force you in any way. I'll be right back." He stepped into the vortex, and I sat down to wait for him to return. Varok came over to me. "What do you think?" I asked him.

"I stayed in Undercity for about an hour after you'd left. Sylvanas watched the spot where you'd vanished from for about ten minutes, not saying a word. I think she was a little hurt by the fact that you left so quickly."

"She banished me. I wasn't going to stay there and watch her order her men to arrest me again."

"If you were to die today, would you really want to do it while being mad at her?"

I looked at him, "No. And I'm not mad at her."

"Yes you are."

"She blamed me for what happened."

"You blamed yourself for the Wrathgate. She blamed you because it was convenient, and you know it. Being angry with her for it is normal, but it's been a few months now. When's the last time you spoke to her?"

I looked down at the vial, "A while."

"You haven't even written to her? When you were in the Borean Tundra, you wrote to her so often that we would have bets on it."

"I started twenty letters to her, but ended up tearing them all. I couldn't figure out what to tell her." I looked down at what I was holding. Had she made it for me?

"You know how devastated you were when she was killed?

"Yes…"

"Imagine how she would react if the same thing were to happen to you. Nobody was happy with the way she treated you when you returned. Thrall especially had some words for her that I won't repeat here, and reminded her that you had always been there for her, something that she hadn't quite forgotten."

"You're saying I should drink this," I told him. "Whatever it is."

"I'm saying that you should trust Sylvanas enough to keep you safe, even if she's in Undercity and you're here."

I looked at the potion again. It looked like liquid smoke, and felt cold in my hands. Uncorking the vial, I immediately smelled Sylvanas, a much more concentrated version of what I normally smelled when I was around her, if I forgot to put a spell around myself so as not to gag in the Undercity air. Varok stepped back.

"I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now," he said, rubbing a hand over his nose.

"Here goes nothing," I said. "If I die, burn me. I mean it." I raised the vial to my lips, swallowing its contents quickly and trying not to breathe as I did it. Immediately, my stomach contracted, and I thought, for a moment, that I was going to vomit the potion. It was like ice going down, burning as badly as fire would have done. The taste of Sylvanas flooded my mouth, spices long decayed and putrid meat, combined with what seemed to be every decomposing taste in the world.

My body convulsed. I shivered. My vision blurred for a second, my very veins crying out as the potion coursed through my system. I collapsed, and Varok caught me as I writhed my heart beating a too-rapid beat in my chest.

"Easy, Faith, easy," he said. He sounded on the edge of panic. "Just breathe through it."

Breathe. Right. My lungs were enflamed with cold, and I wondered for a second whether I was going to die from this.

Faith.

"Syl… Sylvanas…"

Calm down, sweetheart, it's okay. Just focus on me and the pain will go.

I could hear her as easily as if she were standing next to me. My breathing eased, my heartbeat returning to normal. "Are you trying to kill me, Sylvanas?" I asked.

A chuckle echoed in my mind. No. I'm glad it didn't kill you. I wasn't sure.

And she had made me drink it. I would kill her if I got out of this mess.

"How do you feel?" asked Varok.

I opened my eyes, noticing that my vision was clearer than before. I could see the tiny cracks that our fire spells had made in the walls of the corridor. Getting to my feet, I felt stronger, although my stomach was still trying to reject whatever I had swallowed. I was still shivering, but it was the least of my worries.

Rotvine came back, and stared at me for a moment. "You took the potion," he said.

I nodded.

"You look paler."

I didn't doubt that I did. Sylvanas chuckled in my mind again. It was eerie, hearing her like this, what with the Lich King's laughter creeping in around us. "What did Tirion say?"

"He's sending people to come and take over this area. They'll have a small troop follow us from afar, just in case, with mages who will be able to make various portals throughout the citadel. It looks as though the Knights of the Ebon Blade have decided to make a move as well. They'll join us once we've gone past Lord Marrowgar."

Lord Marrowgar. I'd heard about him as a creature made from thousands of bones, and glowing with eerie blue light. But I had no idea what it really was, except for a creature of death.

"They say he's a bone wraith," said Varok as we got to our feet. A few people had come through the portal after Rotvine, their weapons glowing with the Light.

"And I'm sure he's as horrific as he sounds," I told him. "We might as well get it over with."

"Yes… come to me, minions of the Alliance and the Horde… so that may kill you and resurrect you in the name of the Scourge," said a disembodied voice.

I took several steps, climbing the few stairs onto a raised platform, where I could sense a spell hiding the Scourge lord from view. Murmuring an incantation of my own, I shattered the magical wall, and saw something designed to claw out one's sanity in one swift stroke.

Lord Marrowgar was a creature out of children's deepest nightmares. Seeming to hover over a large limb made of bones, it had four skulls for a head, and two gigantic sets of skeletal wings. The blue light emanating from him was as cold as death itself, and he carried an axe that was longer than I was tall.

"This is the beginning and the end, mortals!" he cried. "None may enter the master's sanctum!" He laughed, swinging his axe. I felt a frigid breeze strike me, and would have stepped away from it if I could have.

"By the Light," whispered Carelia.

The bone wraith laughed again, "The Light?" he screeched. "You think that the Light will help you now? The Scourge will wash over this land as a swarm of death and destruction!"

I cast the first spell that came to my mind, an arcane spell that glowed white and pink, which came in spirals from my fingers and rooted the creature from the ground. I followed it up with small fireballs that exploded on contact, joined by everyone else's spells. Varok, Beverly, and the tauren braves rushed towards the Scourge lord, attacking him from four different angles. Haldren and Carelia used the Light to protect them as best they could, while those of us who attacked from a distance kept back enough to be able to cast.

Lord Marrowgar fought hard. Every time he tried swinging his axe, Rotvine and I would block his movement so that he wouldn't injure anybody. We kept having to dive out of the way as he used his own brand of magic on us, sending bone spikes hurtling from the ground at us. The only warning we had was the ground trembling beneath our feet. Tar, at some point, was a second too slow, and his foot was impaled by a large spike. He screamed.

"Tarr!" I cried, running to him. I could already tell that his foot had been shattered, but he was still casting his spells, despite the obvious pain he felt. I mimicked him, dragging him out of the way when a second spike came towards us.

"Damn it, we have to finish it!" shouted Varok.

I focused my energies, and produced my black fire. Sylvanas was chanting the spell in my mind with me, giving me strength, making the fire stronger. I threw the black fireball at Marrowgar, and he stumbled back a few steps. My fire had caught one of his wings, and as he tried to quell it, Tarr and Arel threw bursts of lava at him. The lava, combined with the fire, was devastating for him.

"Get out of the way!" called Rotvine. "Now!"

They didn't need to be told twice. Varok and the others ran back to us as the lord gave a screech loud enough to rattle the very walls. I murmured a spell, Rotvine imitating me as we intensified the heat of the flames.

"Go back to the hell you came from," I hissed.

There was a small blast. I shielded my face with my arm as the flames engulfed Marrowgar's entire body, turning him to dust right there and then. His axe fall to the floor with an echoing clang.

We held still, positive that something was going to happen, but nothing did. Seconds ticked by and the fire burned itself out, dimming the light of the open chamber we were in. I turned around, and saw that several Knights of the Ebon Blade were there, watching us with their mouths slightly open, apparently in shock.

"I never thought I would see that creature fall," said one of them in awe.

"There's plenty more where that came from, I'm afraid," whispered Rotvine. "D'you think it's safe to go through?"

Good job, Faith, said Sylvanas to me. You did it.

"I think we can go on," I told him, silently telling Sylvanas that I loved her. She had also studied the maps of the Citadel, I knew, and instructed me to take a left and go down the stairs, while some of the Knights of the Ebon Blade took the right passage. There were several skeletons and undead spiders ahead of us, which we quickly dispatched, before walking into what appeared to be an empty chamber.

For a Scourge chamber, it looked magnificent. Its high vaulted ceiling was intricately carved with designs representing frost wyrms and Nerubians, along with various liches and other undead creatures. The floor was likewise carved out what looked like marble, but I didn't have the time to examine it closely.

Because out of a concealed door, carrying a blade that had the aspect of a miniature version of Frostmourne, came Cindera.