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Chapter 42: By Will or by Horn

I won't say that I decided. I can't say that I was sure. But I resolved to at least get more information. To try and not get beyond other people's hopes for me. I think that's how Illidan put it. Not break the mirror, the egg, all those things you can't reverse. Not yet.

Weird thing, I refused to believe I was anywhere near forgiving Kael'thas. I only wanted to take some steps. Just one hoof in front of the other. I remember that is what I thought when I put a hand on the cell bar, rolled eyes that the Blood Elves never did build these for Tauren did they? And I pulled a trick I had been saving up all that time, just in case I needed it. I wedged my horn in, as well as my hoof. I pushed, not with all my might, but just enough. Then I bent that bar. I wrenched one, a couple, then three bars out of their sockets at the bottom. It popped the lock free. I expected some magical ward to go off. It didn't. I guess the Blood Elves also presumed the bars should have been enough.

I caught the guards by surprise when I walked up to one from behind and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Take me to the king. I'm ready to negotiate."

They were wide-eyed, trained ranseurs onto me. But putting me back behind bars was pointless. I'd proven that in a few ways. By will or by horn, I was a wild thing. I didn't belong to any of them. No Tauren did.

I was escorted to Kael's royal office. Saturna had just arrived there, herself. We took our seats.

It was hard to look at Kael'thas, in his face, but I did. "I have a Night Elf buddy with full access to Greatfather Winter, who should have worked out the full story by now. Just like me, his work is not yet done and he wants to see you punished, Kael'thas. You did also try to burn him alive, after all."

Kael'thas knew exactly who I was talking about, obviously.

"I even shared intel with him. That's right, I helped Alessandre Shademoon himself. I've never been in this thing alone. You got rid of… of Meydiri. But Al is still at-large, and the wheels are turning on his end, still. Well, it'll be his version, an Alliance one, which I suspect is worse than what you've got to tell me." I crossed arms and sat back in my chair, "What does all this mean? It means that whatever the Horde is arguing about right now regarding my fate, about the investigation, or the Goblins and the attack, it doesn't matter."

I'm sure I sounded tired. I hoped I put this across as my last and final offer, better than any headgame I could play with them at that moment, at the end of this investigation. "The Night Elves have some damning information that will make that rampage I went on in the royal treasury look like sweet justice, after what you did. Kael'thas. Don't play me, nor yourselves for fools. Kael'thas, this is your last and final chance to tell me everything. All of it. The truth. I'm looking right at you because I am sure that Saturna doesn't know everything. She's willing to follow you blindly, somewhat. But I didn't save you back in Outland and I'm not sleeping with you now, so I'm not playing that game, Kael'thas."

Saturna was offended but I didn't care, I spoke louder, "I want it from the beginning before I let Triumvir Alessandre Shademoon of the Kaldorei Rogue Network draw his own conclusions and blow Silvermoon City off the face of the continent with the scandal!" I let that resound in the room. And I looked hard at Kael'thas. I really let him feel that I had no fucks left to give. "So Kael'thas, and you better pray what you have to say slots in with what I've unearthed so far, that I know to be the truth... This time, if you're lying? Then you're finished."

He remained tight-lipped.

I huffed, spread my hands, "Alright. Let's see if you can get up the courage to fill in the blanks. To start, I came home during a winter storm, in Mulgore. I remember I saw lightning. And… there was something in the sky. Something with the lightning? It snows whenever Greatfather Winter is in distress."

Kael'thas narrowed eyes at me. "Does it now?" He spoke to me like I was a small child reciting a fairy tale.

"It does. And I interviewed witnesses when I first got this assignment. Saturna and I both did that. But there is one Tauren man that I interviewed alone, she doesn't know about him. I believe he was a shaman? Or a monk?" I glanced at Saturna, "The man said he saw that lightning flash during the winter storm. He said the thing at the center of that flash had horns."

Kael'thas sighed, "I don't have horns."

I ignored him and his snotty gesturing near his perfect hairdo, like I was an idiot.

"Next thing, I checked with my pal in the Venture Co., an informant I know very well. Anything that goes down in Mulgore, black market, criminal, cultist, anything, if it's happening and it involves anything illegal, such as a dwarf-shaped box with holes cut in it, then it goes through him. He has the monopoly like you wouldn't believe."

"I thought you said this man of yours is trustworthy."

Here, Saturna swatted a hand Kael'thas' way, for her husband to be quiet and not make things so difficult. Kael'thas rolled his eyes, eased off.

"Kael, Supervisor Fitzsprocket is more trustworthy than you are. That's all I need. Anyway, the Fitz didn't see anything like that going down, so the kidnap definitely wasn't a local job. It was bigger than that. And of course me finding the old Dwarf, in the, let's say closet, of your chief advisor, also cinches it. And what else? Ah yes, there's the palace cleaner. They told me something juicy and fascinating about the night before it all went down."

"Cleaner? You mean a royal servant of some sort-"

"Yes." I moved on quickly, since it seemed he wanted to write off whatever someone of a 'lower station' among palace staff might say. Typical snobbery, "And before I get into that actually-the other problem is, there is one Blood Knight I've never been able to interview. I've never even met her. And I also hear she's the wife of your healer. One of your healers, called Fennore the Immortal. She's a succubus. She's often misunderstood, being a demon. A demon, and a wife, and a Blood Knight. A curious mix."

Saturna glinted at me. "You're making assumptions. And what about the royal steward, that cleaner? You're jumping all over the place."

"Your husband was having some sort of special evening with a succubus on the night before Greatfather Winter's disappearance. It's what the royal cleaner said. They overheard everything while they were working in the next room. You weren't alone that night, Kael'thas. You were having a loud, riotous night instead. Right, Kael'thas?" I could not keep the smile off my face, that I'd caught him in some nasty, demonic affair.

Saturna lit up like a holiday tree. If her eyes were green, then her face was red. "What have you done?!"

Kael'thas bowed his head, "It was… that's not how it happened."

My smile almost hurt, it felt so good to arrive here at last. "And it's not palace gossip, is it? I know, now, that your wife wasn't in there with you. She wasn't the one. This isn't some fun little game you two shared, some early holiday revelry."

Saturna ground her teeth. She sighed heavily and wandered across the room, both hands covering her face.

Kael'thas lost his cool, "Please, Saturna—"

"Don't talk to me." She really sounded hurt.

"It wasn't like that, Turaho. Not at all! It truly wasn't. I wasn't with any old… succubus pet. I was talking to… well. Look, it was Mavia. Mavia the Maneater. I was only talking with her. Yelling at her, alright. Yes, she was angry and we were yelling. But I was not cheating on my wife. Feh. Typical assumption about warlocks."

I nearly laughed at him. "There we go! So you ordered Mavia to go and kidnap Greatfather Winter. So you were the one behind everything. I had held out hope for alternatives but this is how you work, isn't it? You let people feel sorry for you, or over-think your motivations. The poor, poor prince who had to become King after what happened to his lands and his father. Someone, please, give him a break." My eyes were wide, angry, "He can't be all. That. Bad."

Kael'thas looked at nothing.

"Coward. You couldn't even go handle the kidnap yourself."

"No." Kael'thas stayed glaring at his fine desk and all its golden baubles, its neatly stacked folios and papers, some with royal seals. His whole office so perfect and fine, a lifetime of hard work built up so carefully around him, about to come crashing down.

"Then there's the Legion connection. This same succubus, Mavia the Maneater, was once an agent to the Burning Legion. I bet she still is. Why give up all that power?"

"No."

"No? Are you really sure? I think there's a dossier on her about a mile long somewhere in Shatthrath City, or Orgrimmar, Dalaran, Darnassus… It was an important war, what the Army of Light got up to back in Outland, there are sure to be copies."

"I mean yes." He squeezed his eyes shut, "But it's complicated. Only I would be aware of this particular complication."

"Convenient, Kael'thas. Convenient. Another thing that's convenient is the reason I stormed the royal treasury in the first place, and that also connects with the Legion. I wanted a certain tiara that was in there. A tiara that you argued with your wife about, before the holiday party. You didn't want Saturna to wear it, did you? Because of the jewel in the crown. What if people noticed the shining gem? Certain Night Elven spies, most like."

Saturna came back to us at the center of the room, rubbed at her temple. She looked like she had a headache. "Wrong. That was just a simple, stupid fight. He's so vain sometimes. He wanted us to match."

Kael'thas clawed his desk.

I shook my head, "That is no ordinary gem. It shines like nothing else. Like the Light, am I correct? You had it set in a beautiful tiara, to help hide it. Well, I know you're a liar, Kael. I shouldn't ask you. But the royal treasury is the perfect place to store something from that era in Outland, something connected with a moment that the perfect crime was committed, in Shatthrath City by one of the Legion's agents. One of your dear cronies. Mavia the Maneater."

Kael'thas shook his head slowly. "You can't possibly know all that. Not with any real evidence. You're speculating. You expect me to tell on myself."

"I know that the Night Elves were worried about their world tree, something that the Blood Elves also are aware of. The tree has a cancer and they hoped that Greatfather Winter, being something like an immortal Titan, might have an idea of how to save it. I know that Greatfather Winter didn't know how to make a world tree whole again, but he did know of someone else who was similarly ailing, another immortal, long-lived creature, that wasn't whole. A creature that was missing a piece of himself and was struggling to live on without that integral piece. Because we know very little about Naaru and how their bodies made of Light function. But certainly, stealing a part from the whole would damage it, wouldn't it? Make it less of what it was. Like the tree.

"I don't know if that was Mavia's intention at the time, way back then. I assume that if the Legion, or you, Kael'thas, wanted A'dal dead, then she could have accomplished that, had she known. Likely, stealing a piece of A'dal, a fragment, was an attempt to have something of him to send back to Legion headquarters. Something to study for weaknesses, to experiment on. It does make sense. Though I wonder why they didn't ask for your Naaru? Was Silvermoon too far away for them?"

"…Shit." Kael'thas drummed fingers on the table.

"You wanna fill this blank in for me, or should I continue assuming the worst? That Kil'jaeden himself had you and Mavia do it way back then? His lapdogs."

Saturna looked alarmed to hear this.

Kael'thas fidgeted like a schoolboy in trouble, sinking some in his posh royal deskchair. "I never ordered Mavia to do that. Her Legion masters did. But when I found out, I forbade her to hand… the thing over. I thought it was horrible, or really too dangerous, to give the Legion that kind of power."

I leaned in, "I thought you were allied with the Burning Legion at the time. A sort of double-agent. Don't lie, Kael'thas. History hasn't been kind to you on this one. Everyone knows of your involvement with the Burning Legion."

He set his teeth, "I wasn't… I didn't have my mind quite made up about the Legion back then. So, I took a chance. I concealed the fragment using magic and manufactured some evidence for Mavia to show her masters in the Legion, that it was destroyed when she subtly extracted it from A'dal. I suppose she used her whip to slice a piece off, hell if I know how she actually did it."

Saturna gasped, then covered her face again. A 'thank goodness you didn't go that far,' look. Though I don't know why she was so upset. She had forgiven Kael'thas everything damn else so far in their dramatic lives together.

Kael'thas screwed up his mouth, thinking, but then confided the rest of it as well. "I could not have known how Light magic would be affected over such a long duration, and away from its host. No one could. After a long while, I checked the shard of A'dal again and it had coalesced, into something like a gemstone. It was an easy thing to have it cut by someone I trusted—there are a rare few jewelers who only handle royal regalia anyway. Then I had it set in a tiara and gave it to my wife as a present. In that case, it wasn't going to get beyond the palace, of that I could be sure."

"That. Was my favorite tiara!" Saturna swatted his shoulder. Kael'thas flinched big time. I sensed an interesting echo of them then, from their crazed history together in Outland. That was a 'Crap, my Blood Knight girlfriend is about to exorcise me again,' sort of flinch.

Was? Good. Saturna was starting to catch where I was going with this. Obviously, they were going to have to give it back.

Also funny, in a way, but I stayed focused. "So Mavia, this succubus who was doing real favors for the Legion back in Outland, today, in the here and now, she wants to cover up what she once did. Hide how she is still involved with remnants of the Burning Legion, perhaps the demons left here on Azeroth, in hiding, and also any possible connections with the Twilight Hammer cult—"

Kael'thas raged at me, "Not true. Not the case at all!"

"We can iron out the exact details later. Alessandre and his network of rogues probably have that information, especially about the Twilight Hammer cult. They deal with them in Ashenvale, and all over. But the main thing is, Mavia wanted to shut Greatfather Winter up by kidnapping him at your request. Best place to do that is in Horde lands, why not Thunderbluff? Now all the pieces connect. The witness who saw the horned figure over Thunderbluff, the snowstorm, Darnassus. the Legion. And now, you."

Kael'thas appeared to be sweating, a bit. Finally, I'd got him to do that. But then he leaned over the desk at me. "One thing that doesn't hold water in your version of events, Turaho. Why would Mavia ever go to such extremes? Greatfather Winter comes every year. Suddenly she gets upset and wants to do something about it?"

"Well this is the year that Darnassus had that conversation with Greatfather Winter, about their cancerous tree."

"Wrong. They've had that conversation every year, constantly, with anyone they can trust with the information. In fact, they won't shut up about it. It's sort of an open secret in the world of spies, espionage and intel. Their world tree has been sick for a very long time."

"You're moving fast to cover your ass, Kael'thas. I have to admire that."

Saturna cut in. "It's true. This isn't just Blood Elf intelligence, I'm sure greater Horde intelligence would also corroborate the same. I just… hate to go to Sylvanas of all people about it. But an ailment like that is something that the Night Elves would have been, and certainly were aware of, for years. This isn't the first time they asked someone powerful for help. Though, learning that A'dal wasn't whole, that did send a ripple through the intelligence community. It unsettled a lot of us. Eyes looked our way, invisible fingers began to point to us Blood Elves."

Right. Saturna headed up a secretive order of Blood Knights.

I had a feeling then, that Saturna had just left off saying anything further and was trying not to look at her husband. Kael'thas was no longer so forthcoming either.

I was tired of the song and dance, "What am I missing? This is the part I said I needed when I walked in here." My eyes flashed to Saturna, to sweeten it. "This ain't really an olive branch, Kael'thas, but it's the best I've got. I loathe you, so deeply, but I don't want to put the wrong person in prison for this. I've been saying that all along to the Blood Knights, to Illidan—"

"Illidan?" Went Saturna, unnerved to hear it.

"… to the Alliance, to everyone all this time. Please, fill me in. This is your last and only chance."

Kael'thas spread his fingers over the desk. His gaze went unfocused for a time. "Alright. Okay, fine. Though, telling the truth when we've come this far it feels… so unnatural."

"I suppose it would, for you."

This time, Saturna shot me a look.

Kael'thas licked his top row of teeth, then a canine. "When Saturna's Nexites got the intel about A'dal, and in-house we already knew, because it was so obvious, that Mavia was the one who'd done it, that Mavia was the one who made him so ill... That A'dal had been suffering since Outland because of what she'd done, Mavia went crazy. Or, close to it. She feared what would happen when the whole world found out. And it was only a matter of time. Really, she was running out of time." He waited. He breathed in, out. He nodded at some inner conversation he had with himself, finally deciding on something, "What you don't know, and what I suppose my wife only suspects about me… I have my own spy group. I have a unique bond with Mavia, and Fennore. We are the Coven of Three."

Saturna blinked at him. A very wifely, indignant look.

"I formed this coven a long time ago, in secret, to help train Fennore to be both a Paladin—that is, a Blood Knight—as well as a warlock. Something that should have been impossible. But I needed to control his powers back then, and contain Mavia. We needed a sort of magical bond between warlock master and pupil, to get it to work. That was also one of my main exposures to the Legion, back then. I never did speak with Kil'jaeden, not personally." He rolled his eyes, "That is a whole other story. Only a man that I thought I was Kil'jaeden. The whole time, I was being conned."

Saturna made a casual gesture, "It was another of his zealous fans, like me." As if this happened every day. What was wrong with these Blood Elves in Kael's inner circle? "Kael eventually promoted him to be his chief advisor.

Okay, what the hell. Seriously, what is WRONG with this Blood Elf inner circle?

Kael'thas coughed. "But ah, so. Yes, what happened was, I knew of Mavia's distress and I wanted to speak with her first, before she did anything wild. I summoned her on the night in question and soon she was screaming her head off. She was convinced that the whole world would find out soon and believe she still served the Burning Legion to this day. Which, by the way, she does not. We made very careful efforts to break her bond with them long ago. Fennore, and myself. Our coven could not have worked if there was some Legion spy listening in on every single plot we made. No leaks. And I would have noticed, if there was some subtle drain on our power. I won't tolerate that."

I chortled, "The Coven of Three. So much for that!"

Kael'thas looked at me like he wanted to end me. Don't ever shit-talk his warlock stuff.

"Well…" I tried to get out from under his gaze. "So then you told her to go off and settle it, to silence the Dwarf."

"No. I told Mavia to stop being hysterical, as well as paranoid. That is how the Legion likes to manipulate mortal races, how she was used to thinking when dealing with them. All she had done was taken a piece of A'dal. In fact, she didn't even have it anymore. It was now a gem that not even my wife noticed was the purest raw form of Light magic, set as a stone in her favorite tiara. Even if people did find out, no one could touch us. Not easily. But there are no guarantees in this life, anyway. I was comfortable with the open lie, the blatant offense being on everyone's tongues. I was confident there was nothing anyone could do about it. That is the point of power, why you, why anyone powerful, amasses wealth and influence."

I hated it, but it made sense. Kael'thas was a scholar, he'd been practical about the whole thing, to start off. Then, when it came time to deal with one of his silly underlings, he leaned on the other side of his personality, the guy who grew up with a golden spoon in his mouth, who'd seen countless royal relations get out of ugly fixes because, well, they were powerful enough to fix those fixes. So to speak.

"But Mavia was still incensed. She couldn't handle being discovered, going through deceptions all over again. And she was horrified at what Fennore might think, as well as the possibility of losing him. I think the part of her that is more demon than Blood Knight took hold. I ordered her not to go. But she somehow worked through her terror, later convinced Fennore to say yes. I'm the coven master, but he is her husband. Somehow… she got out of her demonic binds, somehow. It's the best way I can explain it to someone not versed in demon magic, or… magic." He looked down on me.

Oh for crap's sake, Kael'thas. Of all the times to be a snob!

"Make this easy as pie for me to understand, then. Now."

Kael'thas felt along his neck, the stitches there. Not that he feared I was going to cleave his head clean off again, but it must have been an old habit. He noticed me staring and then grimaced, realized what he had been doing with his hand.

"Ah, so. Mavia, on her own, rushed off to Thunderbluff, the easiest place, and time, to grab Greatfather Winter. Fennore, and not for the first time in his marriage to her either, obeyed her will instead of being the one in charge. They worked together to take the old dwarf. And then of course they brought him back here. Because they panicked."

"They brought their prize back to the coven master."

"Yes, in a way." Kael'thas itched at his blonde hair, then swept a hand down through a long tress and the dark underlights hanging over his shoulder. "I tried to fix it for them. I did not tell Saturna more than was necessary, or anything that might upset her."

"Typical." Saturna shut her eyes and shook her head at him.

"…But I did tell my wife that we were in a bind and we needed to figure out a strategy, fast. Rumors came flying out of Darnassus like a burst wasp hive. Saturna offered to go to Thunderbluff to play offensively. She wanted to request the Horde's help before the Horde itself could accuse us. And I stayed here, laid the groundwork for the inevitable deception. Saturna's Blood Knights, the Knights of the Blood Nexus helped. Then, you accepted the assignment, Turaho. You know the rest. You lived it."

"I almost lived through it, yes."

Kael'thas looked pale, now that it was all out in the open. At last, I could read him. I could tell he was not lying in his fear, his upset. And then there was something else that also pissed me off. He was right to look slightly relieved. It really had not been his fault at all. He covered up for someone else's mistake, and badly. But he truly had not put anyone up to it.

"Why did you cover for a succubus?" I had to know.

"Because Mavia lives with the same fear I do, of being judged. Of being treated like a monster, a sinner, a reject. It's why Arthas never turned back after Stratholme. It's why Illidan can't go back to the Night Elf people. Not fully. One sin too far. Some days, I don't know how the hell I made it back here, my head still on and the woman I love alive, and still loving me. But I am here."

I sank back in my seat. I tapped my hoof as I thought it all through. I looked at Saturna's face. She was coming to the same conclusion I was. And I was imagining the fake desperation in her features that day we first met. When she clasped her hands together beneath her chin, in classic style, said 'My husband is innocent,' like some dame out of an old, bad Goblin detective story on the screen over at The Fitz. So this was really how this all was going to end up?

I had my legs broken. I had plenty of evidence that Kael'thas, and his wife, and her Blood Knights, functioned like a pack of gangsters, not like real soldiers of the Horde. And not to mention, how many times had Kael'thas attempted to murder me? Though, you might write all my mishaps off as occupational hazards. I'd had plenty of that done to me before, and worse. Some of it by Alessandre's own agents in Ashenvale. I never got to sue anybody over it, or take them to court. I just dodged people's bullets in my line of work.

Kael'thas sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose, "And also, I didn't want Fennore to lose something that I almost lost, forever. True love."

"Oh come on!" I guess I said what I was thinking out loud. That was when Kael'thas grinned like a lynx. He knew he had me.

Me and my melted old Tauren heart.