The lightforged paladin stands on the small rise, overlooking the Horde platform growing its way out of the shoreline of Darkshore like a tumor made of steel, rivets, and garish paint. She is frowning. “I received your message and traveled here as swiftly my warframe would allow. What about this did you wish to show me?”
The figure next to her is like a mirror image, if the mirror had been coated with darkness and rime. Instead of a paladin, the other was a death knight. “I learned of this activity after another attack on our site in Ashenvale. I have been scouting this area since I’ve arrived.”
“The Alliance is already aware of this warfront, Saaira, but is unable to send further support. Only the night elves and the worgen have been able to organize a counter-offensive here.” The paladin keeps her gaze forward.
The death knight frowns at the clinical response. “You seem…distant, my sister. Why?”
The paladin straightens her posture, but does not turn around to face her sister. “When did you acquire…that thing? I thought you abhored the very thought of undead.”
Behind the two draenei stands a hunched creature that was probably once human. Its bones protrude from its joints, which are loosely covered with scraps of soiled cloth. They had once looked like ornate robes, but that was likely years ago. Now? Now they are little more than rags.
“I did, once, yes,” the other responds. Her voice is emotionless. “But I don’t any longer. I have accepted what I am, Rephaia. It took many months, but I have made my peace. Have you?”
The paladin closes her eyes. She knows that her sister’s current state of undeath is largely her own fault. She has never been able to let go of that fact. She had worked to try and find a home for the both of them–a place where they were welcomed, but it had been difficult. Even now, as twin protectors of a remote camp in Ashenvale, they both felt like outsiders.
“No,” the paladin responds after a few breaths. She lies. “It is not a problem. Not for me.”
“Good, because there is information still remaining in his rotting skull that could be useful to us,” the death knight continues. “I have been…learning things. As I said, its knowledge is what lead me here.”
The paladin’s frown deepens, but she still does not turn around to face the other, yet. “I believe we already know what there is to know. This battle has been shifting back and forth for weeks.”
“There is something else here,” Saaira replies. “Something that the forsaken are seeking. Something buried nearby.”
Rephaia’s frown remains on her face as she finally turns to look at her sister. “What ‘something’?”
Saaira shrugs and passes a glance to the undead slouching behind her. “I don’t know. His head is filled with fragments of memories, almost as rotten as his own flesh. They speak of an expedition through Felwood to descend upon this land. At the beginning of this war, I think. But it also suggests that not everything went to plan during this detour. Something happened, and there are a small group of forsaken here searching for the source of that ‘something’.”
“That is…vague,” Rephaia turns her gaze back to the platform.
“It knows of the worms,” Saaira says.
Rephaia spins back to the death knight and takes a step forward. He eyes flare with intensity as they lock on the undead thing, then back onto her sister. “What does he know?”
Saaira smiles, but it is not a warm one. “He remembers where they first appeared. He believes he remembers who invited them into this world.”
Rephaia takes another stride to the forsaken creature and grasps his jawless head in her hand. The sounds of old bones cracking and rotten flesh tearing bleed from the thing’s neck as the draenei turns its empty expression up to her eyes. There is no recognition there, nor fear, nor any sign of active intelligence.
“Who has brought these things upon–”
The sky explodes as the fourth crack of thunder slams them all to the ground. Nearby trees, ancient and tall, sway under the invisible impact. Saplings, still thin and wispy, are flattered to the ground. A massive ripple washes out across the ocean.
Both Rephaia and Saaira curse and push themselves to their hooves. The paladin looks around, her hammer and shield drawn. Her sister pulls the heavy crystalline maul from its harness and rests it in her cold hands.
“This will have to stop,” Rephaia says with frustration in her voice.
Saaira turns to look at her sister, but then looks down on the ground as her brow furrows. “Where did he go?”
Rephaia glances down at her hooves at the crumpled rags that lay where the mindless undead had once stood. There was no evidence of the rest of him anywhere. No flesh. No bone. No dust.
The paladin stows her weaponry and kneels down to place her hand on the tattered garments. She reaches her hand out, but pauses. Upon the back of her wrist, shining through a slit in her gauntlets, could be seen an ethereal purple glow.
Rephaia immediately pulls off her gloves to reveal the back of her hand, upon which now rests a strange symbol. Two worms, one silver and one purple, entwine each other in a figure-eight. Each appears to be spawning from the mouth of the other.
“Where did you get that?” Saaira asks, kneeling next to her sister.
“I…I do not know,” Rephaia replies. “It was not there before I arrived here.”
“I have seen it before, Rephaia,” Saaira whispers as she reaches out to touch the mark with her own hands. Another glow from beneath her own gloves catches her attention, and she removes her own gauntlets. Another symbol, just like the first, shines brightly upon the back of the death knight’s hand.
“Where?” Rephaia asks.
Saaira, silent, nods towards where her undead companion once stood.
* * *