Christie Golden - Thrall - Twilight of the Aspects

Alexstrasza did not give pursuit. She folded her wings and dove earthward, heart shaking her with its frightened pounding, deathly afraid at what she might find.

The Twilight Father stood on the top of one of the many mountains that jutted upward in the Dragonblight. He did not seem to feel the cold as the wind tugged at his hooded cloak, and kept the hood firmly in place with one hand. The other hand was closed tightly about a small silver chain, the links tiny and finely crafted. From the shadowy darkness of the cowl, his eyes, set deep in a craggy, gray-bearded face, peered out. He had been watching the battle with pleasure, issuing his booming taunts to rattle the Life-Binder with an almost childlike glee.

But the explosion that had so devastated the dragonflights had also surprised and dismayed him.

Beside the large, stockily built man stood a beautiful young woman. Long, blue-black hair whipped in a wind that brought a pink hue to her otherwise pale cheeks. The thin chain that the Twilight Father held in his gloved hand culminated in a circle about her slender throat, almost like an elegant necklace. She, too, seemed impervious to the cold, although her tears had frozen on her face. Now, though, she smiled, and the tears cracked and fell to the cold stone beneath them.

Slowly, the hooded figure turned toward the girl. “How did you manage to get word to them? How did you do it? Who helped you? ”

The girl’s smile widened. “Your followers are too loyal to help me. I did not get word to them. But it seems that someone is smarter than you … Twilight Father .” She spoke the title, not with the respect that the cultists did, but with a defiant contempt. “Your plan has failed.”

He took a step closer to her, then suddenly chuckled. “How stupid you are. There are always options. And a wise man always has more than one plan.”

Casually, he tightened his grip on the chain. The girl gasped, her hands flying to her throat as the chain twisted, flared white, and began to burn her. He smiled at the smell of burning flesh, then, just as casually, released her from the spell.

She did not fall to her knees, not quite, but her gasping and shivering were sufficient to mollify him.

They had indeed suffered a setback. A tremendous one. But what he had told his prisoner was true. A wise man always had more than one plan. And the Twilight Father was nothing if not wise.

He was far from defeated.

They were gone.

The sanctums—all of them. Gone, as if they had never been. Five miniature dimensions, sacred space to each flight—obliterated. And along with the sanctums were the unspeakably precious treasures they housed: their young. Thousands of lives had been snuffed out before they had even had a chance to breathe air or flex their wings.

Alexstrasza had accompanied the wardens; there was nothing left even to investigate. Somehow the twilight dragons had managed to cause each sanctum to implode, leaving nothing behind except traces of the energy used to destroy them. Discovering the how and even the why of this would be the work of another day, when heads were clearer and hearts were calmer. For now, the dragonflights were united indeed in their pain and loss.

There was no hope, and yet Alexstrasza had it. She reached out, with her heart, her Life-Binding magic, her depthless love, trying to find a trace of the one who had been first in her heart. Their bond was so great that even if he had been spirited away somehow, if he lived, she would sense him. She had always been able to before.

Korialstrasz?

Silence.

Beloved?

Nothing.

Gone with the sanctums, and the eggs, and the hope of the dragons’ future, was Korialstrasz.

Alexstrasza crouched, stunned and reeling, on the snowy earth. Torastrasza, majordomo to the Ruling Council of the Accord, stood beside her, trying to offer comfort for something so horrific, so huge, that no solace could possibly be found, not for a long time. If ever.

Tariolstrasz approached Torastrasza. “A word with you?”

Torastrasza nuzzled Alexstrasza gently. “I will be back in a moment,” she said.

Alexstrasza looked up at her with vacant eyes, briefly not comprehending Torastrasza’s words. Then she nodded. “Oh, yes … of course.”

My beloved, my heart, my life … why did I ask you to stay behind? Had you come with me, you might have survived. …

Angry voices were all around her, raised in rage and anguish, fear and fury. The only thing saving Alexstrasza from losing herself was merciful numbness, which was starting to wear off the longer this nightmare that could not possibly be real continued. She felt a gentle brush along her neck and turned to see Ysera looking at her with compassion in her rainbow-hued eyes. The green Dragon Aspect was silent, knowing there was nothing that could be said, and merely stretched out beside her sister, their sides touching.

“Life-Binder,” said Torastrasza’s voice after a time. Alexstrasza lifted her head with an effort and regarded the other dragon.

“Korialstrasz …” Torastrasza began, but she could not continue.

“I know,” Alexstrasza said. Her heart broke a little more at the admission of it, as if saying the words were helping it to become more real. “He … was there. In the sanctum. My love is gone.”

But oddly, Torastrasza was shaking her head. Sudden, irrational hope filled Alexstrasza. “He survived?”

“No, no, I—it seemed to be a suicide venture.”

She stared at Torastrasza as if the majordomo were speaking gibberish. “Your words make no sense!” she said, slamming her forepaw down.

“He was … he did this. What little is left bears his energetic mark. It is green and … and living.”

“You are saying my sister’s beloved consort destroyed the sanctums? Including the eggs and himself?” said Ysera, her voice still calm and detached.

“It—there is no other explanation.”

Alexstrasza stared at Torastrasza. “This is not possible,” she said, her voice harder than stone. “You know Korialstrasz. You know he is incapable of this.”

“Not if he was working with the Twilight’s Hammer!” Arygos’s voice was filled with fury. “This whole time he was urging you to slay my father. Attack the Nexus. And all along he was plotting the extermination of our entire race!”

Anger exploded like a roiling fireball in Alexstrasza’s blood. She leaped upward, her eyes on the blue dragon, and slowly advanced on him.

“While your father whimpered in his madness, Korialstrasz and I fought for Azeroth. We united with whatever allies we could find. We changed time itself; we risked death and worse for this world. Always he was beside me, his heart true and strong. He even loved you, Arygos, saving your life, and Kiry’s, and that of so many others. Time and again, he has saved our world, our race. And now, you stand here expecting us to believe that he would ally with Deathwing? With a cult that wishes only the end of everything?”

“Arygos,” urged Kalec, “there could be another explanation.”

There could be … there was … there must be—Alexstrasza knew it. And yet—

“The battle tactics employed by the twilight dragons were designed to keep us fighting in the air high above the temple,” Torastrasza continued, her voice as gentle as her words were ruthless. “It was a distraction, to keep us occupied … to lure out the Wyrmrest protectors so that—” Torastrasza broke off and looked down, unable to regard her adored Life-Binder as she spoke words that she had to know were ripping the Dragonqueen’s heart to pieces.

“Alexstrasza,” Kalec said gently, “tell us why Krasus chose not to come today. He surely … I am not certain, but you asked him to stay behind, did you not?” His voice was pleading.