Christie Golden - Arthas - Rise of the Lich King

“This talk of Dalaran moves you,” she said archly.

“Silence, ghost,” he muttered, despite himself remembering the first time he had entered the gates of Dalaran as escort to Jaina. The innocence of that time was almost impossible for him to conceive of anymore.

“Someone there you care for, perhaps? Pleasant memories?”

The damned banshee would not let up. He surrendered to his anger, lifted a hand, and she writhed in pain for a moment before he released her.

“You will say no more of this,” he warned. “Let us be about our task.”

Sylvanas was silent. But on her pale, ghostly face was a savage smirk of satisfaction.

“I can help.” Jaina’s voice was calm, calmer than she actually expected it to sound. She stood with her master, Antonidas, in his familiar, loved, wonderfully disorganized study, gazing at him intently. “I’ve learned so much.”

The archmage stood gazing out the window, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, as if he were doing nothing more serious than looking down at students at practice.

“No,” he said quietly. “You have other duties.” He turned to regard her then, and her heart sank at the expression on his face. “Duties I…and Terenas, Light rest his soul…both shirked. Because of his refusal to listen to that strange prophet, he ended up murdered by his son, and his kingdom lies in ruins, inhabited only by the dead.”

Even now, Jaina cringed at the statement. Arthas…

It was still so hard to believe. She had loved him so much…loved him still. Her constant prayer, silent and known only to her, was that he was under some sort of influence he could not resist. Because if he had done all this of his own will—

“I, too, was asked, and I, too, had the arrogance to assume I knew best. And so, my dear, here we are. We all must live—or die—with our decisions.” Antonidas smiled sadly. Her eyes stung with tears she blinked back and refused to shed.

“Let me stay. I can—”

“Keep safe those you have promised to take care of, Jaina Proudmoore,” Antonidas said, a hint of sternness creeping into his voice and mien. “One more or one less here…will make no difference. Others look to you now.”

“Antonidas…” Her voice broke on the word. She rushed toward him, flinging her arms around him. She had never dared embrace him before; he had always intimidated her far too much. But now, he looked…old. Old, and frail, and worst of all, resigned.

“Child,” he said affectionately, patting her back, then chuckled. “No, you are a child no longer. You are a woman and a leader. Still…you had best go.”

From outside a voice rang out, strong and clear and familiar. Jaina felt as though she had been struck. She gasped in sickened recognition, pulling back from her mentor’s embrace.

“Wizards of the Kirin Tor! I am Arthas, first of the Lich King’s death knights! I demand that you open your gates and surrender to the might of the Scourge!”

Death knight? Jaina turned her shocked gaze to Antonidas, who gave her a sad smile. “I would have spared you the knowing…at least for now.”

She reeled with the knowledge. Arthas…here…

The archmage strode to the balcony. A slight flutter of age-gnarled hands, and his own voice was as magnified as Arthas’s had been.

“Greetings, Prince Arthas,” Antonidas called down. “How fares your noble father?”

“Lord Antonidas,” Arthas replied. Where was he? Right outside? Would she see him if she stepped beside Antonidas on the balcony? “There’s no need to be snide.” Jaina turned her head away and wiped at her eyes. She struggled to speak, but the words seemed to stick in her throat.

“We’ve prepared for your coming, Arthas,” Antonidas continued calmly. “My brethren and I have erected auras that will destroy any undead that pass through them.”

“Your petty magics will not stop me, Antonidas. Perhaps you’ve heard what happened in Quel’Thalas? They thought themselves invulnerable as well.”

Quel’Thalas.

Jaina thought she might be sick. She had been here in Dalaran when word had come, from a handful of survivors who had managed to escape, about what had happened to Quel’Thalas. So too had been the quel’dorei prince. She had never seen Kael’thas so—so angry, so shattered, so raw. She had gone to him, words of compassion and comfort on her lips, but he whirled and gazed at her with such a look of fury that she instinctively drew back.

“Say nothing,” Kael had snarled. His fists clenched; she could see, to her shock, that he was barely restraining himself from physically harming her. “Foolish girl. This is the monster you would take to your bed?”

Jaina blinked, stunned at the crudeness of the words coming from one so cultured. “I—”

But he was not interested in hearing anything she had to say. “Arthas is a butcher! He has slaughtered thousands of innocent people! There is so much blood on his hands that a whole ocean could never wash them clean. And you loved him? Chose him over me?”

His voice, normally so mellifluous and controlled, cracked on the last word. Jaina felt quick tears come to her eyes as she suddenly understood. He was attacking her because he could not attack his real enemy. He felt helpless, impotent, and was striking out at the nearest target—at her, Jaina Proudmoore, whose love he had wanted and failed to win.

“Oh…Kael’thas,” she said softly, “he has done…terrible things,” she began. “What your people have suffered—”

“You know nothing of suffering!” he cried. “You are a child, with a child’s mind and a child’s heart. A heart that you would give to that—that—he slaughtered them, Jaina. And then he raised their corpses!”

Jaina stared at him mutely, his words having no sting now that she knew the reason for them. “He murdered my father, Jaina, just as he murdered his own. I—I should have been there.”

“To die with him? With the rest of your people? What good would throwing your life away do for—”

No sooner had the words left her lips than she realized that it was the wrong thing to say. Kael’thas tensed and cut her off sharply.

“I could have stopped him. I should have.” He straightened, and coldness suddenly chased away the fire in him. He bowed low, exaggeratedly. “I will be departing Dalaran as soon as possible. There is nothing for me here.” Jaina winced at the emptiness, the resignation in his voice. “I was a fool of the greatest order to ever think any of you humans could aid me. I will leave this place of doddering old magi and ambitious young ones. None of you can help. My people need me to lead now that my father—”

He fell silent and swallowed hard. “I must go to them. To what pathetically few remain. To those who have endured, rebirthed by the blood of those who now serve your beloved.”

He had stalked off then, fury etched in every line of his tall, elegant body, and Jaina had felt her own heart ache with his pain.

And now, he was here; Arthas was here, at the head of the army of the undead, a death knight himself. Antonidas’s voice startled her out of her reverie and she blinked, trying to return to the present moment.

“Pull your troops back, or we will be forced to unleash our full powers against you! Make your choice, death knight.” Antonidas stepped back from the balcony and turned to regard Jaina. “Jaina,” he said in his normal voice, “we will be erecting teleportation-blocking barriers momentarily. You must go before you are trapped here.”

“Maybe I can reason with him…maybe I can…” She fell silent, hearing the unrealistic wanting in her own voice. She hadn’t even been able to stop him from murdering innocents in Stratholme, or going to Northrend when she was certain it was a trap. He’d not listened to her then. If Arthas was indeed under some dark influence, how could she dissuade him now?