I woke, cold. Not a regular cold, not even the cold of Northrend, but a soaking, burning, agonizing cold. A dying sort of cold. I could feel a breeze, and if it were possible, it was even colder. The hands upon me were cold, and all I felt was a numbing deadness. I was naked, exposed, moved and touched by so many hands… I wanted to scream, to fight, but I could not. "I believe we have her." A voice, so dark, so cold, so…uncaring, spoke. The space I was in must be huge to swallow his words like that, and I could hear screaming beyond. Howling. The gibbering of the mindless undead at Hearthglen, all around me. "Finally. She did not come easily."
"Clarimonde. Welcome back." Arthas's voice and my eyes startled open. I was in a great cavern, green and shimmering… so much…. Ice. "Here." He closed my fingers around a hilt, not the sword I had wielded in the Order… I could feel a sluggish presence in this one that perked up when my hand was closed.
"Arthas…you look…." My very thoughts were disjointed and incoherent… "Terrible." He did, as well. I had never seen him look…so bad. His hair, once amber gold, was fine and white. His eyes truly glowed now, not just from the power of his soul, but from simple power. His skin had paled, grayed. He considered my words, and grinned, a wicked, yet compelling smile.
"Shush, little one. Listen to it." He rested my other hand, open, upon the blade's foible, "It awakens as you do."
Clarimonde, my hand. My companion. My mistress.
It thought. Only vastly enchanted blades thought…. Knew… were aware of themselves and those around them… and most of those were weapons of darkness.
"What is its name, Clair?"
"Dormarth." Where that came from, I was not certain, but it was so. It was mine, I was its. "Arthas, what have you done?" I had been dead. I….still was, yanked back from…
"Noooo… Clair. Do not go back there." He ground the words out, and I heard Uther call my name from very far away.
"But Uther calls me." I turned my head to the side, away from Arthas, and something moved beside me, something large, dark, and insect like… That which had brought me back from the dead. I was an abomination… my heart was stilled in my chest.
"Uther is dead, Clair."
"So am I." I had died leaning against his leg, on the cold ground above the bay. This wasn't like the time that Uther had pulled me back from death. Then I had lived again, flush with health and fertility. Now, I simply did not live. "Where am I?"
"You are at the top of Northrend, Clair. My citadel." He pulled to sit me upright. I was nude, but few around me were alive and aware enough to notice, and those didn't seem to care. Arthas would rule, but never be King of Lordaeron… "You are reborn. I brought you back…it was not easy. You had been dead a long time. Well and truly dead."
And Uther still was…well and truly dead. I felt his loss like a sudden stabbing pain. Words failed me, I merely sat there and trembled, my fingers closed around a sword that pondered and considered. "Too much, too soon." Arthas noted, motioning into the darkness. Another of the insect spider things moved from the shadows, and carefully placed a pile of fabric beside me. "Dress, Clarimonde. You will feel better then. We will eat. And things will be just fine."
Somehow, I doubted that. Uther's death made things not fine. The weight of others who had been there, where I'd come from, so many of the Order, dead. The only good thing was that I could not recall Baudoin's presence there. Uther, yes. Gavinrad, yes. So many. But not Baudoin. Not Tirion, or Turalyon. Some had escaped the….purge. What had happened? What had finally brought down Uther? I stood doll like as I was dressed in a gown of impossible finery, black embroidered with gems and precious metals…. Never had I even dreamed of such a thing…
"Listen to me. Stay still. Stay calm." The blade had a higher pitched voice than most who told me to stay calm, but it was compelling anyway. "Uther is dead by Arthas's hand. Arthas has destroyed him, destroyed the Order, destroyed his father, destroyed Lordaeron. If we are not careful, he will destroy us as well. He has struggled to bring you back from the dead, you are valuable to him. If he doubts, we will cease to be valuable. Our time comes later. Now we must simply survive this."
The idea was inconceivable. Certainly, Arthas and Uther had not seen eye to eye in regards to Stratholme, but Uther's words to me afterwards let me believe he'd thought we could be absolved. But to kill Uther… I couldn't grasp that.
"Arthas has changed, my mistress. He is no longer the man you called brother or lover. That man has died in the purge of the Order as truly as Uther has."
I nodded, closing my fingers around the hilt of the runeblade, and following Arthas into the depths of the citadel. "So. What am I?"
"I am…uncertain." I didn't like the lack of information contained within it. "Unlike the others of Arthas's knights, you were well and truly dead. He used the oaths you gave him, the life you gave him, to pull you back. You are not slowly becoming undead; you are slowly becoming less dead. An interesting question, but not I think one you are particularly interested in. Arthas invested a great deal of power to raise you. We shall see."
"Arthas is not dead."
"No, not yet. He yet lives. You do not." It seemed completely at ease with that concept; I wish I could take it half as well. "Feed. Close your mind to it. You've closed your mind to worse."
I didn't like that. There were four dwarves in the small cavern that Arthas moved to, and he gestured at them. I knew, comprehended all too well. But, at least, I killed them quickly, and they sated me to unconsciousness.
I slept a great deal during the first days of my reawakening, at the foot of Arthas's bed, like a trusted hound. I dreamed of Uther, who said things which calmed me in my sleep, but that I could not recall when I awoke. The blade, Dormarth, was correct. Arthas was surrounded by members of the Order who had followed him to the top of the World, and who were, little by little, giving up their life in his service. My life had been snatched away, never given away. But when I had slept myself out, and fed several more times, Arthas took me to the top of the citadel, out into the open air of Northrend. "Summon your steed." He ordered, and I paused. Mine would never come to me again, snuffed out the moment I had ceased to live. The charger which had borne me out of Brill, to Hearthglen, and back, was gone. Arthas's knights rode animated horned equine skeletons, and I was afraid to call one. If I just kept on as if things were normal, they might return to that….
"Call it. He will persist until you do."
I did…and there was silence. For a moment, I was spared, and then I heard the thrum of hooves pounding against the icy ground. A horse was coming on fast, and he burst into view, his tail fanning like a banner behind him. Unlike the dreadsteeds of the others, he was bound in flesh…a great deal of it, covered in a shining ebon coat. He bore the horns of his skeletal brethren, but the rest of him was all horse. He had a torrent of mane and tail, and hairy feathers fell over his great hooves. He galloped around me in an increasingly tight spiral, finally hopping to a halt before me, and announced his arrival with a gusty snort.
"Fascinating." Arthas murmured. "Not at all what I was expecting. Summon the rest."
"What rest?" I asked slowly, and he chuckled.
"Your armor. His barding. It comes the same way he does. You just have to want it."
I closed my eyes again, and felt the weight of armor, a shield. "Again. Very fascinating." Arthas drawled. "Now you are ready to take your place in my court." He moved away, leaving me on the top of the world, and I opened my eyes. I wore black plate, piped in blue, and the horse was barded the same. The shield was liquid dark, but I could almost see the blazon of Lordaeron if I peered at it hard enough.
Conflict rose on the wind, and I climbed to the top of the glacier, staring towards the ocean. Someone came. I could sense them, a delicate change in the flow of life around me. People…resolute….
"What is it, Clair?" Arthas asked, appearing behind me. He felt his followers. He felt the dead, and dying, odd for one who still lived, breathed, slept and ate. I felt the living…
"Someone comes." The wind was picking up…there would be snow later. "Many someones come."
He paused, staring in the same general direction I gazed in. "Go." He ordered, turning away. "See what comes."
I nodded, hopping easily down along the ice, summoning my steed as I did so. He awaited me at the bottom of the treacherous path, barded and tacked this time. I mounted, and headed for the disturbance, halting on a bluff overlooking the gray, agitated waves. Ships… I narrowed my eyes. I had no need for a spyglass anymore; focusing my attention brought the same clarity. They were ships, yes. I recognized their shipwright's work…. Ships from the yard at Kul'Tiras. Ships from Jaina's country, built by her people. I gave the steed his head, riding along the coast in the same direction they were traveling in. The horse was in a fair, fine mood, skipping along in a flurry of flying changes of leads and snorts, beautiful and he knew it.
An icy dune gave me another good look, and I frowned. Definitely from Kul'Tiras, heavily beamed and sturdy, the ships were the same as the ones we'd come to Northrend on. Their sails were white, and upon that, a corruption of Lordaeron's blazon, the "L" blood red instead of blue.
"Who?" Arthas asked in my mind.
"I do not know, my prince." I told the breeze and the steed's wavering ears. "The ships are from Kul'Tiras. They bear Lordaeron's blazon, but it's in red."
"Hmmm. I do not know. Tell me when you do."
"Yes, my prince." I agreed easily enough, shadowing the ships. They were not coming to the Bay, but made landfall far away, on the coast west of it. Once anchored, they disgorged troops, garbed in the unfamiliar red and white, each bearing the same odd almost Lordaeron tabard. And they had paladins amongst them, some of them familiar. Priests as well, and I recognized several. They had been my friends, my companions, my support… but now they felt empty and driven. They had let events break them as surely as those who clung to Arthas were allowing things to break them. Their resolve and fear had borne a corruption as surely as any here. These, I could kill, and feed upon.
"They are twisted remnants of the Church and the Hand. Upon our shores. They should die now..." I let the phrase fade in my head, hungry and plaintive. I hungered, the blade hungered. And that hunger was easy to hide behind. That got Arthas's full attention, and he locked his mind on mine. I let him nudge in, and look through my eyes.
"You are strong and fine, Clair. But that is too much for you to take alone. Return, and stand ready to ride with my forces. You will feed upon them, I promise. Your hunger, your blade's hunger, will be slaked."
I returned to the Citadel, and the Frozen Throne, saluting as I moved up behind him. "Clarimonde brings me word that we have interlopers." Arthas stated, glancing over the five who stood before him. Four looked interested; the fifth sent me a vicious stare, and I gazed blandly back at him. Bonner, one time young paladin of the Order, now wished to be first among Arthas's knights, a position I held without request or attempt. He insinuated that I held it by grace of having once been in Arthas's bed, instead of at its foot. That might be correct, but I cared not. I had been the one to sense the trespassers…
"I have seen nothing, your majesty." Bonner stressed the honorific, while I slid by referring to Arthas as my prince.
"I realize you have seen nothing." Arthas agreed slowly, and I gave Bonner a barely triumphant smile. "Nevertheless, they are here. It is time to see just what you are capable of…" He grinned, and there was nothing of the man I remembered in that teeth baring grimace. The blade was correct, my Arthas, the golden haired, feline youth of my past was gone, dead. He glanced back at me, almost as if he'd heard the thought, and I let hunger blot it away, riding the swords' edge of famishment. "I know, Clair. You are hungry, and I will release you against these….violators of our lands, in due time. But I need you here, now."
I didn't need to hide the dismay at those words. Hiding behind my hunger paid it attention, attention caused it to rise. "My prince?"
"I would know who, what they are first. They are an unknown, and I do not like unknowns. We will take prisoners, question them. And you are the one who sees through lies and half truths. You will be my interrogator, and when you have my answers…you will feed upon them, and their brethren. I will release you and let you cry havoc. I swear."
I was pacing hungry before they brought me anything at all to question, but they finally managed to bring me three, two men and a woman, each dressed still in the mockery of the faithful of Lordaeron's garb.
I stepped from the shadows of the room, and one of the men took an involuntary step backward. The woman hissed, and the larger of the men stood stoic. I had not bothered to wonder how I appeared since dying, but obviously something had changed.
"Beast of foulness!" The woman declared, triumphantly, and I regarded her. It was a foolish statement, at best. I recognized none of them, which was both good, and bad. Recognition would have given me something to work with, but it also went both ways.
"Your expedition trespasses upon our shores." I stated tranquilly, and the smaller man took yet another step back, away from me.
"We have come to cleanse these lands!" The woman spat, and shifted. She was obviously a gesticulator, used to grand gestures and points. Having her hands bound as they were cut down on her ability to self aggrandize. It also hindered her ability to cast. "Of those things that lurk in the shadows…like you!"
"I recognize many of the Silver Hand amongst your numbers, and an even greater number of the clergy. Why do these wear a mockery of Lordaeron's blazon?"
"The mockery is yours! Your very existence is a mockery of all that is whole and true…." She sputtered to silence when I placed a fingertip over her mouth.
"I get the point. I am a dark thing, which lurks in the shadows." This close to a target, I could feel the blade vibrating in its sheath at my side, hungering. "Evil. I comprehend you completely." I bent down and kissed her on her nose, and then realized I was taller than she was. I was taller than the cowed man, and as tall as their larger, silent companion. "Now. We've established just how abominable I am. Who are you?"
The silent one raised dark brown eyes to regard me. "First." He stated in a deep voice, "Who are you, that serves the Lich King?"
"I am Clarimonde de Nemesio, once of the Silver Hand." I let him have it. Sometimes information came from giving it.
"Swornbound of Arthas Menethil." His eyes were sad, level. "Doomed to fall when he did. I am very sorry for you, lady. His weakness brought you down, and we will be honored to remove this taint from you. We are the Scarlet Crusade; our sworn duty is to turn back the darkness of the Scourge, the plague, and bring Lordaeron back from her duress. Your service, your sacrifice, will be remembered… your name will be called from the altar when you are released from this."
"What….is that?" The younger male finally stammered, and the older one glanced at him.
"I am…not certain. I know what she was, before. Now…"
"What are they babbling about?" I asked, knowing the blade was wide awake and focused.
"You are glorious, my hand, my mistress. They expected undead…such as those felled by the plague. Rotting. Shambling. Easy to spit upon and rise above. There was so much damage to your body in the months you laid dead, that Arthas was forced to recreate you. His memory combined with his desires made a potent mixture. The rest you completed when you rose, as your soul melded and repaired it."
"I am Clarimonde. Risen knight of the Lich King, brought from my death to serve at his side again. And Northrend is his." And it better stay that way…if Northrend fell, then I truly had nowhere to go.
"Northrend must be cleansed. It is a breeding place of the Scourge, and the darkness. Arthas must be destroyed, and all who serve him." The older man stared at me, and I knew he included me in that. "Those who once served the Light are first to be released."
I nodded, raising my brows. Of course we were, and I comprehended his words. They called to the paladin I had once been. To Uther's daughter. But there was something rotten here…. I pulled my short blade, a gift from Uther, and pricked my finger, drawing my own black blood. I dabbed the dot over the bridge of his nose, and he struggled to get away from me, falling backwards until the ice wall stopped his flight.
"I am the daughter of Uther Lightbringer, by raising, if not by blood." I stated coldly. "Of the Hand. Swornbound to Arthas. And that tells me you are in the middle of something gone horribly wrong…" I closed my eyes, contemplating. There was death on their souls, as deeply etched as into my own. The blood of innocents stained their hands as red as their tabards. They were purging, cleaning the slate… my lands, most of Lordaeron. Baudoin had turned from them, had fled… They had massacred those I had left at Brill, those immune, still struggling to repair the devastation.
The blade keened, its cry audible. I drew it in a sweeping motion, driving it to its quillions deep in the man's chest. It fed from him; I fed from it, wrenching it free when it was done with him. The others followed, and I took the steps two at a time to return to Arthas. He watched me through steady, glowing emerald eyes. "You rage, my dear." He repeated a phrase from a lifetime ago. "Yes, I heard you. They have destroyed what little you left behind."
"Let me have them." I ground the words out, and he nodded, making the barest motion of his fingers.
"Go. Feed. Destroy them all."
And I did. They put up a valiant and concerted fight, making it all of the way to the foot of the glacier, mockingly close to the Citadel itself. I hounded them, harried them, and fed until I could feed no more. And when that occurred, I merely killed them, learning the gifts of my death as I did so. When their advance was halted, I back tracked them to the ocean, and destroyed the ships they had come in, leaving them breached and tumbled in the shallow waters, their sails billowing and flapping uselessly. When the exhilaration drained from me, I was left sated and sleepy, and turned the steed, not north, towards the citadel which crowned the world, but east… where we had made landfall.
"Clair?" Arthas queried softly in my head. "Where do you go?"
"I go to sleep, my prince." And that direction was the right place to do it in.
"Ah. I see." And by his tone, I knew he did. "Sleep well, my treasure."
I found it just north of Muradin's doomed encampment, a low building of dwarven crafting, half buried into the sere grasses of the bay. I climbed down the shallow steps into my own tomb, breached when Arthas came to reclaim me. There was a ledge carved into the stone wall, with my original kit resting within, and the stone that had closed it rested on its end against the other wall. I tilted my head to read the inscription of my own stone, Clarimonde de Nemesio, Knight of the Silver Hand. So simple. I only nodded, pushing my belongings to the floor and snuggling into my niche. I slept, far from Arthas, back with those who only came to me when I slept.
I suppose it should have been obvious we would not be left alone, that the chaos in Lordaeron would calm… after those that would die, did. And that Arthas could not be forgiven, forgotten… or that he wouldn't let himself be. I could feel the intrusions on this land… a brilliant point of power, undeniable, blotting out so many smaller ripples.
I woke when it appeared, returning to Arthas's side immediately. "What…is that?" I demanded, and he glanced sideways at me.
"That is Dalaran." He growled. "And many others."
He was enraged, and I silenced, moving away from him as quickly as I could without attracting attention. Dalaran? Here? The last I had known, it had been in Lordaeron, near Hillsbrad. It was an entire city… how could it be here?
I moved high in the glacier, well above Arthas and his throne, above the nerubians moving on their tasks, into the place that was just the land, the sky, and the wind. Here was silence, soothing and centering… Utterly alone.
"Lass." Some part of me had known he would come, that was why I had sought this distance.
"Yes, Uther?" I asked, glancing towards him. He was not truly there, that I understood. He was as dead as he'd been since Lordaeron had fallen at Arthas's hands. But his eyes loved me still, and I mourned him more than I mourned any other lost in this.
"You have run out of time, lass." He stated, his eyes leaving me and casting over the desolate beauty of my perch. "Tell me now; are you Clarimonde, of the Hand, or the Lich King's captain?"
I sighed, he was right. If the Order was landing in support of Dalaran, and the Kirin Tor mages, I would have to choose. But Uther was not content with just that, he turned again. "Tell me now, Clarimonde, do you go with Baudoin, and your sons, or do you stand with Arthas? Baudoin lands with the Order, and he comes for you, one way or the other."
I closed my eyes. Baudoin, my sons, the Order. So much, standing against an Arthas I no longer recognized. "If I desert Arthas, where do I go?"
"The Order is alerted to your presence and possible defection. We spoke of this when you slept, lass. You will be removed to Dalaran immediately, and sent through back to Azeroth… Stormwind, under the custody of the Order."
"I don't remember what happens when I sleep." I stated mildly, and he nodded. Custody… there was a term I did not like the sound of, but the alternatives… Bringing a blade against Baudoin, and others I knew. Arthas had released me from my oaths… but the Order had not. Baudoin had not. "Uther, I am so sorry…" I understood things much too late. I had loved Arthas, true. But I had loved Uther so much more… Perhaps had I not followed Arthas here, I could have stopped him from starting the purge…
"Never, lass. Just do this, stand as my daughter again. You could not have saved me. You could not have saved Arthas."
I sighed, staring at the empty world around me. I was dead and I fooled no one, not even myself. The blade at my side remained silent; I contemplated the destruction of it as surely as my own…
"I do not wish to end." It finally admitted. "But I am you, and you are me. To be drawn and sunk into those you cherish, no. I cannot feed like that, and you would hate me for it."
I nodded, decision made. I would die…again…as I had lived… Uther's daughter, Knight of the Hand.
My steed met me at the bottom of the glacier, and I mounted him, riding to disappear into the icy fog rising where the glacier gave way into ground. I rode for the Order's encampment, steeling my nerves. Enough. It was over…. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost ran down the first sentry. It was difficult to guess who was more surprised from the sudden meeting, me, or him. Even my steed was startled, snorting and shifting back onto his hocks, lowering his chamfron armored head and shaking his horns threateningly at the young man.
"Halt!" He yelled, a tad bit late. "Identify yourself!"
"I am Clarimonde de Nemesio. I believe that the Highlord is expecting me?" That was definitely the idea I had gotten from Uther's words. If not expecting, then hoping…. Was Baudoin the new Master?
"I am, indeed… Clarimonde." A voice came from the thickening fog, familiar. No, not Baudoin… Tirion, contemporary in age and experience to Uther, one of the primaries of the Order. Arthas had failed to purge this one… who else had he failed to destroy? "Dismount the horse, slowly…." I did so, stepping away from the increasingly anxious dreadcharger. "Dismiss him." Tirion's voice was completely, totally calm.
I did so, and he vanished into the nether, one closer step to my capitulation…. "Good. Now the blade… leave it in its scabbard, and unbuckle it from the frog…. Hold it in both hands, and bring it to me."
I moved to him, slowly. He looked old, but he felt…focused, alive. Renewed. I nodded, going to a knee and offering him the runeblade, closing my eyes in pain when he accepted it.
"Clarimonde!" Arthas screamed my name when it left my grip, the blade he had forged and imbued to see me through this as his. "What..."
Tirion nodded, grabbing me by my upper arm, yanking me to my feet. "And we just ran out of time…" he hissed, hurrying me along beside him. "Through the portal…" he snarled, bodily pushing me onto the rune carved into the bare stone. I was in Northrend, under Arthas's full focus one second, and gone the next… into blessed silence. It was warm, no… Balmy, warmer than it had been in years. I was surrounded by life, growing, verdant, fecund…. It was almost smothering. I could sense the ocean outside, the scream of gulls and the crash of water. I could hear the sounds of people in the depths beneath me, not the furtive scuttle of the nerubians or the gibbering of the undead which sounded in the depths of Icecrown.
"Clarimonde. So you are what the Order sees fit to send me in such a hurry."
Jaina. I froze in place, my features hidden in the engulfing safety of my cowl. "Lady Jaina." I managed. She was turned away from me, focused on the runeblade, my runeblade, resting on the table before her.
"We never had the opportunity to speak, Clarimonde." She turned away from Dormarth, who rested silently, willing itself smaller. "I've thought often since Stratholme that perhaps we should have known each other a little better… You've changed."
"So have you." She seemed smaller, but I understood that was because I had grown. She was probably the same height as I remembered her being a lifetime ago, but she was older, calmer, vastly more mature. And now I could sense the power coiling within her, deep and rich.
"At least I still live."
I shrugged, unwilling to play this game. There was a dizzying drop beneath me, and several precipitous ramps and stairs spanning the void…. A mage tower. I was hedged in by so many wards, so many runes… I turned away from her, moving to a narrow window and staring out. This was no place I knew, a bustling seaport… Was this Boralus, capital of Kul'Tiras? "I died honestly." It seemed an inane answer.
"Did you?" she demanded, the inane answer seeming to be more important to her than it was to me. "And how did you die? When? Where?"
"I died two days after we made landfall on Northrend. Arthas and Muradin went to clean out some undead… which had been preying on Muradin's people. I took a spear. I died." That was pretty much it…not much more to know.
She moved silently, from slant of sunlight, to shadow, and back again. "You claim to have died untouched by the Lich King, when Arthas was still whole? Dead by uncorrupted conflict?"
"Arthas was still a man then, yes. Still…my swornbound. I still loved him then. I died in a natural manner, not of my will."
She gazed at me for a long moment, motioning with a hand and chanting a few burbling words. A point of light coalesced in front of my nose; flittered around me a couple of times, each time, its tail became thicker, more visible. "You bear oaths…to the Order." She sounded almost surprised. "And to a man who yet lives. But none to Arthas…"
"Muradin told Arthas to release me so I would die faster. He did so."
"And you are here now, why?" She moved closer, studying me as she came.
"I have surrendered to the Order. I will not bear arms against my brethren…" she reached up and pushed the cowl back, raising a sudden quirky brow when the oddly heavy sunlight fell across my face.
"How generous. You will not feed on the Order. An interesting piece of work, that. Whose crafting is it?" She motioned at the quiescent runeblade. "And does the sunlight bother you?"
"I will not feed upon the Order." I assumed that this surrender was tantamount to execution by starvation, and at the idea, the blade cried. She snapped her head around to study it, her eyes narrowing and the line between her honey brows deepening. "And the blade, it is the work of the Lich King, of course. Would I carry… less? And no… the light does not bother me. Should it?" The last was a half truth. It was much brighter than I had seen for years, unpleasantly so, but nothing about that felt particularly wrong.
"Perhaps, if you were not as you claimed. So…tell me of Arthas, now." She moved past me, sitting at a finely crafted desk pushed up against the wall.
"There is no Arthas, now. That man is dead, and I mourn his loss to us." There was only the Lich King now. "Where am I? Kul'Tiras? I do not recognize it."
"No, this is not Kul'Tiras." She stated…and filled nothing into the heavy pause I let grow after it. She was just full of answers.
"Arthas is gone. Arthas is dead." I returned to her conversation, since she refused to be drawn to mine. "Jaina. He is lost…to us. Gone. Destroyed."
"I had so many questions once. You loved Arthas, it was plain to see… I guess it is foolish to ask them now, but I always got the sense that something was going on. That Arthas hid things, and hid them badly."
I chuckled, shaking my head. She'd opened the door, may as well swing it open all the way. "Jaina, many people hid things from you." She raised her head, her eyes calmer than I expected. There was relief there, clean blood from a tainted wound. Someone was finally going there. Someone alive enough to go, who would know. "Arthas was to marry you, had you known… I do not know."
"Known what, Clarimonde? That he was with you… We decided that it would be best if we stopped it, until we were certain. Until we could be together… you were there when I wasn't… You were at Stratholme, and I know he did not forgive me for not…." She shook her head convulsively, her eyes tortured. "I could not…"
"Known that Arthas did not fall childless." I leaned against the stone wall, studying the rugs on the plank floor. "The King, Uther, all moved quickly to make certain you did not know." Her face was very still, she was stunned into silence. "Terenas did not want to jeopardize your relationship, while I was a noble's daughter, you were Daelin's daughter, and brought Kul'Tiras with you. I was good enough to cause trouble, well born enough to be a threat. Then I compounded it by bearing a son, Arthas's son. That couldn't happen."
"I can't see Uther keeping that a secret…."
"Certainly he would. If it got out, you would be hurt. I would be hurt. You would be the woman scorned and I would be the whore who did it. We are not men, Jaina. We are held to different standards…and we were spoiled where we were… the Violet Citadel for you, the Lodge of the Order for me. The truth is lost in situations like that."
"And what was the truth?"
"The truth…" I sighed. "That Arthas missed you greatly. That he was lonely. That there was a fine festival and a good amount of alcohol and that things happened. The mistake of youths, Jaina. By then, I had decided on another, and it was an accident. I do not regret it… I would find it worse to know that Arthas is gone from me, without what he gave me. I hope that you loved him enough to feel the same."
She glanced at me over her shoulder, pensive and thoughtful. "Arthas was worth loving then. I make no excuses for it, and neither, I guess, do you."
"No excuses." I agreed, studying my gauntleted hands, and the fall of golden light across them. "Where am I, Jaina? Why do I not know this place? Is it Boralus?"
"No. It's Theramore." She finally answered. "Across the ocean, many leagues from any point that you should know…" She and I felt the portal stone activate again, and she turned to it. "Tirion." She identified quickly when I moved away from it, placing as much fighting space between it and myself as the wards would allow, and as close to my blade as possible. I would rather fight in the open, the dizzying height and spider web of ramps that mages seemed to favor was low on my list of favored terrain, but this was what was left to me.
It was indeed Tirion, appearing where I had earlier. He strode off of the rune point, his eyes locked on me. "My apologies, Lady Proudmoore." He stated. "You seemed to best place to send her when Arthas realized she was held. She's too valuable to let him recover her…."
I folded my arms over my chest, fighting to leave my combat stance, and leaned against the stone wall next to me. Valuable. That sounded dire. The Scarlet Crusaders brought to me to question had been valuable as well… until they'd been dead. I said nothing in response, and Jaina merely returned her attention to my blade. "You have disarmed her." She noted the obvious, and Tirion raised a brow.
"Of course." He said, taking a contentious position close to her, the perfect point to intercept me if I attacked her. "She has served Arthas for years." I glanced at her for her response, he was correct and his caution was admirable.
"You call her valuable. How so?"
"She knows the layout of the Lich King's citadel. His strengths. The disposition of his followers… even assuming he changes things because we have her, he cannot change much…."
"So you mean to use her for intelligence… And then what?"
"That remains to be seen." He glanced in my direction, obviously trying to gain my measure. I had never met Tirion before; he had run his own Lodge far from Uther's at Stratholme. I knew him about as well as any of the primaries, by name, by face, and by reputation. "What do you know of her, Lady Proudmoore? Uther's records were destroyed…" His gaze, still on me, sharpened… "During the destruction of Stratholme. As an initiate from Alonsus Chapel, the Hand now has little information on her, other than she was dear to Uther."
"Clair is…" Jaina's voice was calm, smooth, steady. "The only child of one of the noble lines of Lordaeron, the DeNemesio family. Her father brought her to the Hand to raise after he got into some troubles that Arthas did not see fit to enumerate, but those ended the man in jail…" she glanced at me, and I raised a brow.
"He was embezzling from the Crown's coffers." I filled in the blank, and she nodded slowly.
"She was Uther's ward, raised alongside Arthas. A better than adequate paladin was always the description I heard, except from Arthas, who named her as an exemplary example of the breed. She was very bright; the Kirin Tor had their eyes on her, especially after she proved to have some prophetic abilities, but by then, she'd already sworn to the Hand. Both Uther and Arthas pushed her to become Arthas's swornbound, as I heard, she was hesitant. Her training was sporadic, she spent a lot of time laid up, first from a bad riding accident, and then from childbirth. There were rumors…" she swallowed, "That her first born was Arthas's."
That was news to me, obviously Uther had not squashed that one nearly as well as he'd hoped, but as I'd warned Terenas, Anelas had been the spitting image of his father. No one with eyes would miss it. And the Lodge did not seek foolish men… men who couldn't put two and two together. Someone talked too freely, however, if that rumor had found its way to Jaina's ears. Of course, she was with the Kirin Tor, and if they caught the rumor…
Tirion coughed, his eyes flickering between me and Jaina. "And?" he demanded of me, and I shrugged.
"As I have told Jaina, it was so. I make no excuses now. He…" I tasted the strings of bonds on me, yes, Anelas still lived… "Is Arthas's son. Sired and born before everything fell apart."
"You claim to have borne the Menethil heir." Tirion grated out, "In front of Lady Proudmoore. In front of me?"
"The truth is often onerous." I quoted Uther, and Tirion stared at me. "Arthas accepted the child. Even Terenas acknowledged it. There were documents…" One, with Terenas, probably destroyed when Lordaeron City had fallen. One, with Uther, and as Tirion had just noted, Uther's records had not survived the razing of Stratholme, and one… resting within my pack…leaning against the wall beside Jaina.
"Let me guess." Tirion chuckled cynically, and I stared at him. "Arthas had them…. And they're lost with him?"
Jaina looked between us, obviously less than impressed with this. She believed me, and didn't need this. I knew and didn't need this. But Tirion was the Highlord of the Order now, and held me in custody… "There were three copies. No one was foolish to have only one, Lord Tirion. And no, Arthas had none of them. Terenas had one, in the Vaults of Lordaeron City. I assume those are lost…." He shrugged, uncertain…so the Order did not know the status of the Capital's vaults. "Uther had one, yes, in the Order's archives… and you tell me those are certainly lost." He folded his arms over his chest, shadowing my stance, and nodded. "And I was given a copy."
"And you lost yours where?"
"Who says I've lost mine? It's in there…." I pointed at the pack, and Jaina studied the pack, making a slow motion with her hand. She shrugged after it, grasping the pack by its worn straps and lifting it to the table. She began sorting the contents, the vast majority of them the remains of my original kit… spyglass, fire kit, knife, until she uncovered my map case. She opened it, removing its contents under Tirion's wary stare, her eyes on the upper most document. It wasn't the packet from Terenas, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember what it was or why it should catch her attention so completely. She glanced at the next, and the one after it… "By the Light." She breathed, and Tirion stared at her. "She's carrying the original dispatches warning of the plague. The Kirin Tor archivists would give their souls for these…"
He sighed, his eyes darkening. "Clarimonde DeNemesio brought the first coherent warnings to the Hand, the first to let us know that it was more than it appeared to be. We received them at the Lordaeron lodge, but even with them, could not muster an effective response. As their author, she would carry a copy until she could file them at Stratholme…" And there had been no chance for that to happen.
"Yes, but these should be the documents she's referring to…" she pulled the packet, still bound with blue and white ribbons, out from the collection of documents and maps I'd been carrying so long ago. She opened them, scanning them quickly. "They name Anelas Menethil as the son of Arthas Menethil, as acknowledged by him and his father. If Arthas dies without a legitimate heir, then he is to be acknowledged as the heir to the throne… of Lordaeron."
He took the documents from her, reading them much slower than she had. "I do not foresee Arthas producing a legitimate heir now." He said with the slightest shadow of a smile. "And these are true documents of the King?"
She waved a hand over it, and nodded. "No forgery. Terenas wrote these, Arthas, Uther, both signed them. If there was only a Lordaeron to give the child… Where is he now, Clair?"
"I do not know." And I wasn't sure if I wanted to know. Leave Baudoin to keep doing his job… "All I am certain of is that both my sons yet live. The last I saw of Anelas was when I brought him to Lordaeron when Brill began sickening. When I left the dispatches…" Those dispatches she had returned to, obviously they were so much more interesting to her than the King's documents. Lordaeron City had fallen, its vaults and libraries lost. The main Lodge of the Hand, at Stratholme burned, possibly by my own hand… now, the major depository of knowledge was held by the Kirin Tor mages. To me, the dispatches were merely that, letters I'd written which had failed to do their job. But I could see where they might have value now.
"What do you know of their dispersal… these documents? Who knew what, when?"
For the first time, I allowed myself to look back at the events leading up to the tragedy instead of grinding away at the tragedy itself. I let myself encompass the horrifying speed and severity of the Scourge plague. Brill had been fine when Arthas and Gavinrad had passed through the morning before. There had been nothing amiss to alert either of them. "Uther had them within a day of the first illness at Brill." I stated. My mother had died in the first eight hours of the plague. "The Hand at Stratholme was alerted and moving when I arrived there the morning after the first illness. So at that point… Stratholme and Lordaeron had both received warnings."
Tirion nodded slowly. As the Master responsible for Lordaeron, he would have received them before Uther had… Baudoin would have reported to him immediately.
"Brill sickened during the day. That night, my mother died. I rode from Brill to Lordaeron at dawn, reached it in the early evening, and wrote the dispatches. Then I returned to Brill. It had fallen by then, so I rode to the Tower and ported to Stratholme… but they'd already received the dispatches hours earlier…."
"Ironfist had a copy ported to Uther at the same time I received word." Tirion stated, and my stomach plunged. Ironfist, the same label that my prophecies gave Baudoin, the first of the Hand to hold the dispatches when I left Lordaeron. "Both of the major lodges knew then… by your account, a day later."
"Yes." They'd done little good, as I understood it, but I'd done my job the best I knew how. If I'd known then what I knew now… I would have moved from Brill the moment my mother had sickened, straight to the portal and Uther…. And even now, I had no idea what I could have done to change things. Could the extra day have made a difference? Would Lordaeron have stood had I been that swift to respond? Would Arthas have remained in the Light? Would Uther, Gavinrad…the Hand… have survived?
"Clarimonde." Tirion breathed, and I turned my eyes to him. "We have been over this many a time. We do not believe we could have turned the plague even if we had known of it earlier. Once Kel'thuzad had planted it, it was over."
"Hmmm." The room had once been warm, but I felt chilled and turned away from him. All that panic, all that scurrying…had been for naught. I could have stayed at Brill, secure in my immunity…
"You state your sons yet live." He moved to a window beside me, surveying the seaport. "Does their survival not make it worthwhile? You did your best as a member of the Hand, Clarimonde. Our only question now is can you be brought back into the Light after all of this? It is Uther's wish that we try… He does not rest, and I believe that you are part of the reason why… Jaina?"
"I will not help you destroy her. If you truly mean to try, Tirion, then you have my aid. If you do not, then go elsewhere with this. The Light burned brightly within her… she fell because of that."
"I am honor bound to try and bring her back to us." He retorted, and she nodded, turning to me.
"Then take up the blade, Clarimonde, and come with me." She motioned at the runeblade, already moving towards the first ramp down. I scooped the blade up before Tirion could complain, bounding after her. She took me out of the tower, moving quickly through the streets to the keep overlooking the town and wharves. Tirion trailed, glowering at any who tried approaching her, and together, they got me into a sleeping chamber.
"Fine. Clarimonde." She stated, while I regarded the room. It was so mundane, so blessedly ordinary after years in Icecrown. Sunlight poured from the window, bright and yellow, not the wan, halfhearted light I'd become accustomed to at the top of the world. There was a breeze, warm and heavy. "Off with the conjured gear." She continued and I stared at her in puzzled disbelief. She wasn't truly suggesting what I thought she was….
"Off. With the conjured gear." She repeated stubbornly, opening the interior door into a small bathing room, the tub already filled with steaming water. "First…you stink, deplorably so. Secondly, we need to ground you back in reality. Real clothes, not this exercise of your will. Thirdly, I need to see what's been done to you, to see what might need to be made right. Who raised you, or do you know?"
"Arthas, working in conjunction with several nerubian necromancers."
She wrinkled her nose at that, but still waved insistently at me. I glanced at Tirion and she chuckled. "Shy? You're no innocent maiden, Clarimonde. Off with it." Still, I hesitated, and she stared at me. "What?" She finally demanded.
"I do not know…." What I looked like. What this armor hid, what I might see in a glass if I happened to find one…like that one, hanging on the wall. She followed my eyes, and moved to lift the glass from the wall and turned it reflective side against the stone. She was still stubborn when she turned back to me, and I sighed in defeat, banishing the conjured gear I had worn without pause for all the years I'd been in Arthas's court, and gazed down at myself. I expected…different. The blade maintained that I had been rebuilt by Arthas, and the necromancers. I did not expect to still have the body of a mother, wider through my hips, heavier in breast and belly than I had been before the children. I was desperately pale, nothing new there, but under my skin, marked in the same purple as a new bruise, runes flowed, rose and fell like cream poured in hot tea. I studied them for a moment but gave up when I felt the rising headache.
"Bath first." She ordered, and I wondered just how badly I did smell. The water was warm, and pleasantly scented. I scrubbed, doing my best to ignore Tirion, who likewise, was doing his absolute best to ignore me.
"Who has the child?" He finally asked, his eyes still studying the intricate patterns on the tapestry next to him. "Your children? Your sons?"
"My…. Husband does, I assume. I gave them to him when I came to Lordaeron's barracks." I stood, toweled off, and shrugged into the gown that Jaina handed me. It felt truly odd after years of conjured, perfectly fitting armor.
"Husband?" He demanded, his gaze on me again now that I was dressed. "Like I said, Clarimonde, the records at Stratholme were destroyed…" And Jaina had not known of Baudoin… Those in the Order who had were purged. Now, it seemed that even the Order's remains did not know who I had given the children over to… "I assume those were the records of any such marriage."
"Baudoin, the Ironfist." I stated. "The younger son is his. We were bound before Anelas was born."
His eyes met Jaina's, and there was sudden comprehension in them. "I will recall Baudoin from Northrend." He stated, "If he'll come. Does Arthas know…?"
I nodded slowly. Yes, Arthas knew. If Baudoin was in Northrend, looking for me, then he was in incredible danger. Arthas had not blinked an eye before destroying the Order; he would target Baudoin now from sheer spite. "Arthas is well aware that Baudoin and I are bound. He knows the little one is Baudoin's born. At one time, Arthas blessed us…" But that was a lifetime ago… Back when Uther lived and Arthas was still Arthas. Back when things still made sense.
"Then I will recall him. Carry him from Northrend bodily if that's what it takes." Tirion's lips twisted in an almost smile. If Baudoin had his mind set looking for me, it might just take that. "So you are comfortable having her here?" The last question was not directed at me, but Jaina.
"You tell me." She answered slowly. "Tirion, Highlord of the Silver Hand. Is she evil? A lost cause? Or just a woman who got into something she couldn't help or control? Is she still Clarimonde, beloved ward of Uther?"
He moved from the shadows of his corner, right up to me, resting his hands on my shoulders and peering into my eyes. It was laughable; I was almost as tall as he… He traced from my hairline to my chin with a fingertip, then sighed in defeat. "She is Clarimonde, daughter of the Hand, of Uther. She did all we could have asked of her, and then some. If she is capable of controlling what has been done to her, she still has a place with us… As she was promised. Welcome home…my sister."
"Bring Baudoin out of Northrend." I stated, and he nodded, half bowing to Jaina and leaving the room. She waited for him to be long gone, before glancing at me again.
"What is it you fear?" She asked, moving to the mirror and picking it up, tilting it to view herself. "Do you not have a certain degree of faith in Arthas? If, as you say…he made you again… Would he fail to make you as you were…or lovelier?"
"The blade says lovelier, but it is biased." It was me, I was it. Its own self esteem was mine… She shook her head, turning the glass to face me, and I gazed upon myself for the first time in years. I had not so changed that I would not be recognized, I looked like a slightly different version of myself… perhaps a little ill or pale, but certainly not dead. My hair had darkened slightly, from the brown of my childhood to a near black, thick, dark, flowing. My eyes were still violet, oddly brighter yet darker, as they shone with a lesser version of the power that turned Arthas's eyes into glowing cats' eyes. My features were longer, sharper, more austere, but how much of that was from the loss of my youth? I….
"I look like my father." I noted slowly. "But you are right; it is not as bad as I'd feared." I'd watched the others deteriorate before my eyes, and they were still alive… why should I think that I, dead for months, would fare better?
"I am no necromancer." She shrugged, replacing the glass on the wall where it belonged. "And I have not studied it… it is too dangerous a path for my tastes. But I would say the ones who worked on you did a superlative job. Welcome back, Clarimonde. Now sleep, while the Hand tries to halt the advance of your husband."
It was amazingly easy to sleep, rolled up in blankets in a room that didn't stink of ice and death, lulled by the crash of the ocean and the cry of gulls. I woke to raised voices in the antechamber, two deeper, male voices, growling, and one higher pitched female voice, trying to vainly to soothe. I listened for a long moment… The woman was Jaina… one of the males, Tirion. The other…. Baudoin.
"There was no reason to force me from Northrend." Baudoin snapped, and I considered his voice. He'd grown, and not all of it was for the better. He nursed his own private darknesses…my Baudoin was no more. But then, his Clarimonde was likewise. "We are close to securing our position there…"
"I understand that, Baudoin. No one faults your response so far…" Tirion, "But something here at Theramore requires your personal attention."
"There should be nothing here for me." Baudoin again, still high tempered. The old one would have never raised his voice to a Master, especially the Highlord.
"Clarimonde gave herself over to the Order's custody yesterday." Jaina stated gently. "She is no longer in Northrend. She is here, in Theramore."
There was a long silence, and I wished I could see him. How had he taken those words? Did they matter at all? "Clarimonde… is here?" His voice was choked, tense. "She is….safe?"
I flinched. No, I was not safe…I was dead. Would they break the news to him, or would I be forced to? "Baudoin." Tirion sighed. "We knew, going into Northrend, that Arthas's followers gave up their lives to go with him…"
"So she is a death knight." Baudoin hissed. "But she is here, safe?"
"She is." Tirion agreed slowly. "Released from her oaths to Arthas, she came back to us of her own free will. I still see her as one of the Hand…"
"Where is she?" One, or both of them, must have indicated the door, because it flew open, revealing Baudoin. He was heavier than I remembered, he'd let his hair go long, and his temples were shot with silver. His armor had seen not just better days, but better years, he still wore his original set from the Hand. I sat up in the bed, and he froze in the doorway. "Clarimonde." He breathed, as if he was trying to will himself to believe what he saw. "By the Light… Clair…" He took a step, then another…as if forcing every inch, and then it seemed he could go no farther. "I… was coming for you, Clair." He said, his eyes tortured. "I tried to stand at Brill, but I couldn't. It was yours, and I let it go… I turned and ran so many times… the only thing that kept me going was that you told me to…so long ago. You kept me alive, Clair. You were right, flee when the orders came. Uther's orders were the true ones…"
"And my babies?" I steered him from that…it was dead, it was over, nothing would change it now.
He lifted his brandy eyes to mine, victory lurking in their depths. "Babes no more, Clair. Fine young lads, both of them. My parents have them, safe in Hillsbrad. I could not stay with them… the Order called again, and you…"
I moved to him, and his eyes devoured me. When I was close enough, he wrapped his sword arm around me, resting his forehead in the curve of my shoulder. "Baudoin." I sighed, smoothing his hair. "No fault, no blame. As long as you tell me my babes live safe, I am well."
"You return to the Hand?" He asked, and I nodded. "Then we return to Northrend?" He raised his eyes, warily, to mine. "We go after Arthas?" That was a question he dreaded asking, but it had to be asked. I could feel Tirion's eyes upon me, and farther away, beyond the wall…Jaina's attention.
"Yes, Baudoin." I agreed slowly. "We go after Arthas. Uther…" I puzzled over the words to express it. "Was my father." I placed my hand over my stilled heart. "Here, where it counted."
It is always cold in Icecrown, and I stared across the familiar landscape, my hands light on the dreadcharger's reins. I wore the black armor, piped with blue, same as before, but the blazon that before only I could see on the shield, the blazon of Lordaeron was now clearly visible, white and blue. And again, I wore the tabard of the Hand… "Icecrown." I stated, opening my hand in its direction. I could feel Baudoin's vague misgivings beside me; he still felt it was too much to ask of me….
"I come for you, my beloved prince." My heart spoke, and I was not sure if Arthas still heard it. The Scarlet Crusade had been right about some things… Those who had served the Light would be the first ones released, Arthas, my brother, father of my firstborn…would be freed, and my heart would call his name from the altar of my soul.
12/4/07