Christie Golden - Jaina Proudmoore - Tides of War

And the wave broke free.

Thrall arched his back and flung his hands up in the air. His muscles screamed and his lungs labored for breath as he poured all his strength into holding back the tide.

It halted in mid-surge, quivering against the strain as Thrall himself did. Air and Water were in a conflict neither element truly wished as the tidal wave shivered. Thrall had no thought, no word, no gesture to spare for his own protection. He could feel the water struggling to break loose, feel the air fighting to hold it in place.

And he was entirely at the mercy of a woman who stood a few yards away—one he had once called “friend” but who now was striving to be death incarnate.

“Release the wind, Thrall!” Jaina shouted. One hand still on the Focusing Iris, she drew back the other. Arcane energy whirled about her, tossing her robes and white hair. “Or I will kill you where you stand, and you will still fail!”

“Do so!” gasped Thrall. “Slay me! Turn your back on everything that once gave you integrity and compassion! For I will not permit this wave to crash upon Orgrimmar as long as there is breath in my body!”

For an instant, it seemed to him that Jaina wavered in her determination. Then her face hardened.

“So be it,” she murmured, and gathered the energy in her hand.

A shadow fell over both of them, and before either realized what had happened, a huge reptilian form dropped down on the sand. He interposed his massive blue shape between the orc and the human and cried out, “Jaina! Don’t! ”

Thrall could not believe it. Kalecgos—here! How had he found them? At once he answered his own question. The blue dragon had been searching for the Focusing Iris. The quest had come to an end—Kalecgos had found both it and its brutal mistress. Thrall now had an ally—and the orc continued to funnel all his energy into holding back the seething, straining tidal wave.

Jaina stumbled as Kalecgos landed in front of her. “Move aside, Kalec,” she snarled, trying to recover. “This is not your fight!”

He changed into his half-elven form, still interposing himself between her and Thrall. “But it is, you see,” he said. “The Focusing Iris is not yours. It belongs to the blue dragonflight. It was stolen, and something cowardly and horrifying was done with it. I cannot, I will not, let that happen again.”

“It’s not cowardly!” Jaina cried. “It’s justice! You went back to Theramore, Kalec. You saw what was left. You didn’t know them as I did, but Pained and Tervosh and K-Kinndy—they were your friends too! There was nothing left of her but sand, Kalec. Sand! ”

Her voice broke on the word. He made no move to fight her, even though she still stood in an attack pose. Even though she still had her hand on the Focusing Iris.

“I too have lost those I love,” he said. “I understand at least a glimmering of your pain.” Kalec took a step toward her, stretching out a hand imploringly.

“Stop! Don’t you move!” Again arcane energy crackled about her. “You don’t know anything about what I feel!”

“Are you so very sure?” Kalec had halted but not retreated. “Tell me if this sounds familiar. The initial incomprehension. The guilt, and the second-guessing, and the numbness, because you can’t take it in all at once. You can only take it in a little bit at a time, like opening a dark lantern just a crack. The strange shock every single time as you realize, again and again and again, you will never see that beloved person anymore. And then the anger. The outrage. The desire to hurt the thing that hurt you. To kill the thing that killed them. But you know what, Jaina? It doesn’t work that way! If you drown Orgrimmar, Kinndy still won’t be waiting for you in Theramore. Tervosh won’t be out tending his herb garden. Pained won’t be sharpening her sword and glowering happily. None of them will come back.”

Jaina’s heart contracted in anguish. But she could not listen, because everything he said rang so sickly true. She could not agree, because then she would have to let go of the rage.

“They will have company,” she spat.

“Then you had best plan to join them,” Kalec said, continuing implacably, “because you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you did this. Because, Jaina—all those things I described, I felt. I felt so deeply, so intensely, that I did not understand how my heart could bear to continue to beat. I know what it feels like. And… I also know that you can heal. It comes slowly, and in stages, but you can heal . Unless you’ve done something to yourself so that you’ll never recover. And believe me—if you loose this wave upon Orgrimmar, you will be as dead as the ones you claim to mourn.”

“I do mourn them!” Jaina shrieked. “I do! I can hardly breathe, Kalec. I can’t sleep. I just see their faces, just as I remember them, and then their bodies . The Horde must pay!”

“But not by your hand, Jaina, and not this way.” The voice came not from Kalecgos but from Thrall. Jaina turned stormy eyes upon him. “There is justice, and there is vengeance. You must see the difference between the two, or else you betray those who loved you.”

“Garrosh—”

“Garrosh is a thief and a coward and a butcher,” Thrall said calmly. “And you are doing precisely what he did—right down to using the same artifact that obliterated Theramore. Is that what you wish? Truly? To be remembered as that even by your own people?”

Jaina staggered back as if struck. No, he was an orc; he was just like the rest of them; her father had been right. Thrall was trying to confuse her. She shook her head wildly.

“I am doing what I know to be right!” she shouted.

“As did Arthas, when he slaughtered everyone in Stratholme,” Kalec said. Jaina stared, appalled and disbelieving. He continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “And he at least didn’t act with hate in his heart toward those he killed. Is this what your legacy is to be, Jaina Proudmoore? To be another Garrosh, another Arthas?”

Jaina’s legs buckled and she dropped to the sand, still keeping her hand on the Focusing Iris. Her mind was reeling, thick with fog and anguish.

Arthas—

I can’t watch you do this.

She had said that to him, after begging him to change his mind. Had ridden off with Uther, weeping at what Arthas had become. Slowly, as if her head weighed a thousand pounds, she turned to look at her hand on the Focusing Iris. So simple a thing, to have so much power and to have caused so much pain. She thought of its energy being used to animate a five-headed monstrosity, Chromatus. To funnel all arcane energy to the Nexus. To fuel a mana bomb that incinerated innocent young girls.

To wipe out Orgrimmar—

She thought of Arthas mocking Antonidas before Archimonde destroyed Dalaran. And the face of her old mentor, crafted of purple smoke: “ This is not for idle hands, nor prying eyes. Information must not be lost. But it must not be used unwisely. Stay your hand, friend, or proceed—if you know the way.”

She had wanted justification so badly that she had seen his appearance as an invitation—even though she had been forced to break the magical seal. But it hadn’t been.

Proceed—if you know the way.

But she hadn’t known the way. She had been lost, blundering blindly. If anything, his brief appearance had been a warning, not a nod of approval. In her heart, Jaina knew what Antonidas’s reaction would be to what she was about to do. And the knowing was like a knife.

The hand on the Focusing Iris clenched into a fist.

Jaina slowly got to her feet and lifted her tear-stained face first toward Kalec, then toward Thrall.