Chapter Text
Whether they called her Dread Admiral, a pirate queen, or the Banshee of the Sea, there was one simple truth about Sylvanas Windrunner and her fleet: no quarry escaped alive.
She devoted a great deal of time and energy into reinforcing that truth, which was why amusement pulled at the edge of her mouth as the Ashvane blockade runner disappeared into a bank of fog. The band of islands they had sailed into was all bay and no breach; it was a jagged crescent of land, without a way past save running aground.
Surely the sailors thought themselves clever, that they could turn around in the fog and stall until her patience waned. Such hubris was wine-sweet; Sylvanas had centuries of restraint, enough to wear down any target, be they living or dead. Her ships were already arranged in a half-circle that cupped the bay, close enough to see one another despite the choking mist. No Ashvane would slip by them, and a runner wouldn't carry the supplies to last more than an extra day or two at sea--it would slow them down.
This one had already been impressively sedate. When Nathanos spotted the vessel, Sylvanas first thought to ignore it; she didn't care for whatever messages were being secreted to and fro across the waves, dictating politics on patches of earth she couldn't set foot on. Yet no message would sink a blockade runner like iron, weight tugging at the tides. Something of value lay inside, worth turning ship to albatross.
It fled the moment black chains and eminence sails broke the horizon, but Sylvanas' scouts were sharp, giving chase as the rest of the fleet turned to follow. The Banshee's Wail responded to her command like a lover, making haste against the limits of a battleship, keen yet swift. She traced the aged wooden railing with a finger, considering her next move as the command to halt carried from vessel to vessel; Defiance to Queen's Reprisal, Windrunner to Blightcaller, Oblivion to Eternity, with the Black Rose calling back to her again.
Her Forsaken crew made for a haunting chorus, Dark Lady watch over us spilling across the sea, echo upon echo. Sylvanas once detested the title; it was used by her fellow elves, those who refused to acknowledge her old rank as Admiral of Silvermoon after her death, but these were her people, elf or not, and they meant every word with respect.
"Nathanos." She had no need to raise her voice; as flag captain, he existed as her shadow, ready to both command this ship and carry out orders dutifully. "How do far do you think the Ashvanes will sink if they capsize?"
He chuckled, the sound rattling through hollow ribs. "Quite far, admiral. Whatever is hiding in the hold has nearly drowned them already."
"Good. We could use a few more souls in our frigates." Sylvanas drew the weight of her bow over her back, thumb offering a fond stroke along the string. "I won't waste our time starving them out. This will be over quickly enough."
Dark energy pricked beneath her skin, ten thousand spectral thorns yearning to split flesh and break forth. She focused, welcomed the pain as swelled and coiled, tighter and tighter. The sinew of Sylvanas' soul quivered, then severed into infinite threads as the banshee emerged from her body with a piercing wail: "Silence! You will all be still."
The command reverberated through the fleet like a blow, sending ship and sailor alike trembling. They obeyed in an instant, faster than a mortal breath could be drawn, for the force of their admiral's will was yoke and compulsion in equal measure. Sylvanas herself was immune to such exigency, save for the pull of the Lich King, now distant and scattered.
With her fleet quiet, no flap of sail nor draw of rope, no movement nor voice among them, Sylvanas sank back into her self and listened to the rhythm of the ocean. It soothed her at times, a torment at others, but on this day she sought what was out of sync with the sea. Through the fog, creaking wood and distant whispers made her ears flicker. The Ashvanes were a half a knot or so away, content with their shroud. Foolish to the end.
She plucked an arrow from her quiver, its vorpal head coated in black powder and a thick, amber resin. With the flick of her wrist, Sylvanas scraped it on the railing, sparks jumping from wood to steel. They caught, finding flame, and she nocked the arrow, letting the sound of the string settle so she could listen past the water again.
"Cannons," she whispered this time, but Nathanos heard her, and when he heard her, word spread like wildfire across the Wail. It jumped from deck to deck, and Sylvanas listened for every weapon as it was primed, counting as each one rolled against the bulwark, protruding through a line of gun ports.
Their work was wordless; the fleet had done this a thousand times before, and needed no instruction beyond their admiral's command. Her arrow sputtered and threatened to choke on the edge of the mist, but the magic in the flame held true, refusing to extinguish.
Sylvanas aimed through the fog, letting her body settle into the subtle rock of the ship, kissed by every wave. Her sight was irrelevant, cast aside for other senses, and the head of the arrow drifted up by an inch. The arc had to be clean.
The bowstring sighed as it slipped from Sylvanas' fingers, sending the missile in a soundless cut past the fog.
In a blink, it struck solid hull. A faint glow burned through the mist as the arrow exploded with light.
"Fire!" She bellowed, and thunder answered.
Cannon after cannon ignited, and Sylvanas smiled as screams of agony and panic shot back across the water, what few Ashvanes had not been killed on the spot struggling to salvage some part of their ship. There was no chance; even if only half of her fleet's shots had landed, the blockade runner was a fragile bird, meant for flitting along the sea, and now doomed to collapse, taking their bounty along with them.
Of course, her Forsaken had no trouble swimming down to find it.
"Cannons back," Sylvanas snapped, but kept her bow drawn. There might be some stragglers in the sea, and such practice honed skill to a glorious edge. "Let us fetch our prize."
She sent another arrow into a drowning man's neck as the Banshee's Wail delved into the mist, his hands clutching at the shaft before he vanished beneath the water. A froth of red bubbled up, breaking the surface before it was swept away. Sylvanas had learned long ago that the ocean possessed a relentless thirst for blood, and no death was enough to sate it. She supposed that was fair; her influence permeated the sea, calling to every corpse they sailed past, and some arose from the abyss to join her, reborn as Forsaken. Such a passing could never satisfy a force of nature.
A skeleton of a ship awaited them, its hull blown to driftwood. Dead Ashvane soldiers floated amidst the wreckage, and the gleam of gold plunged deep, even deeper than Sylvanas had expected. She frowned.
"The Kul Tirans are growing arrogant," Sylvanas murmured, half to Nathanos and half to herself. "Why use a blockade runner to shepherd this much wealth? It was asking for any pirate with half a barrel of gunpowder to set them ablaze."
"Perhaps it was stolen from other parties." Nathanos stroked the heavy line of his beard. "Or they're so rich they're running out of ships to ferry their money about. Although last I heard, the houses were snapping at each other's throats."
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Their politics are irrelevant to us, Nathanos. I care not for Alliance nor Horde."
The latter she had sailed for, once. Never again, while there was willpower left in this rotten frame called a body.
"It's relevant so much as someone may be desperately channeling funds towards their endeavors." He shrugged. "How many other vessels like this await near Kul Tiras, ripe to be plucked?"
A fair point. Such was part of why Sylvanas had made him flag captain to begin with, for even her wisdom needed a second voice on certain occasions. "Our fleet could use restocking. Pickings have been slim this last season."
"We could always go back to hooking airships," Nathanos answered with a grin, teeth bared. "Watching those hit the water never gets old."
Entertaining as that was, the energy that powered said airships tended to be so explosive that anything worth salvaging turned to ash, blackening the water. They needed reliable fare, for no ship that flew her banner could dock at any port in Azeroth without a proper summons. That hadn't happened in more than a decade, and Sylvanas was half-convinced there wasn't a spellcaster left alive that knew the rites for it.
No matter. There would always be other ships in the ocean, new prey for the Forsaken to feast upon. If Kul Tiras was glut with wealth, she would sail there to slice the finest cuts away for her people, and watch the land around them starve.
It was what the living deserved. Every single one of them.
"Bring us about!" Sylvanas called, and the last of her influence bled back into her body, leaving every ship free to move and speak as they willed. She shivered, whole again, but always hollow. "I want us in human waters by next light."
Nathanos shouted across the deck, and she tuned out the busywork of the crew while staring out across the Wail's bow. Her heart twinged, sharp and sudden, and Sylvanas swallowed back a curse. The organ didn't beat, hadn't past the point of memory, but now it pulled like the needle of a compass, drawn to the limits of her chest.
"Admiral?" a voice beside her said. Her head whipped around to level Nathanos with a hard look, and he took a step back. "Are you alright?"
Sylvanas' eyes narrowed to slits, dismissing the question before her gaze returned to the water.
Yet her heart still ached, out of sync with the tide.
--
A crowd of angry cries echoed deep within the tall, stone walls of Proudmoore Keep. It would be hours yet before nightfall, but already a dim pall of fog cast its shadow over the land, rolling in from the sea and settling across the spires of the Keep, until even the harbour could not be seen from its siege-built windows. A crash thundered at the reinforced wooden doors that barred the Keep’s entrance. Dust shuddered from the green-bordered tapestries lining the walls. Inside, candles sputtered upon their wicks, tall and smokey. Outside, torches bristled in clenched fists. A mob bayed at the gates, wielding axes and swords and a crudely hewn battering ram made from an unfinished ship’s mast.
They rammed the doors again, a deep boom like a clap of thunder resonating through the Keep. Jaina flinched from the noise, but her mother did not. With unfaltering steps, Katherine Proudmoore descended the staircase winding round the perimeter of the main tower. Her white hair was pinned back in its usual severe twist, not a strand out of place. Her mouth was pinched, her eyes unyielding.
“You shouldn’t have come back, Jaina.”
Jaina lengthened her stride to keep pace. Her staff clicked with every second step. “I couldn’t just leave you here alone.”
Without looking at her daughter, Katherine snorted. “So, now you fear for my well-being? You never cared a fig for this House in the past. Why should you concern yourself with it now?” She waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. “Go back to the Kirin Tor, or to your precious ruins of Theramore.”
Tensing with indignation, Jaina said, “I want to help! Please, mother-!”
Abruptly, Katherine stopped and whirled around to glare at her daughter, and though she stood several steps below her, she seemed far taller than Jaina in that moment. Back straight. Voice cold as the northern seas. “Your ‘help’ is not wanted. Your very presence is what brought them here in the first place!”
“Boralus isn’t safe.” Jaina tried her best to sound calm, level-headed, but she could feel the panic bubbling up in her chest like a tide.
“No,” Katherine murmured, and her gaze travelled the length of Jaina’s robes and staff with a lingering sneer of disdain. “Not for your kind, anyway. I, however, am perfectly safe. Or I would have been, had you not returned.”
Jaina pointed to the window. Far below, two hundred or more torches burned through the fog. “You really think they’ll leave you in peace? The Ashvanes seized Waycrest Manor after stirring up that mob in Drustvar! They burned Lucille at the stake!”
“What happened to the Waycrest girl is a tragedy, and to accuse the Ashvanes of inciting her murder is serious.”
“You know it’s true. And they’ll do the same here.”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Jaina. I am not without means, myself.”
“Nobody else is coming!” Jaina held one hand wide, gesturing towards the broad tower, the heart of the Keep, empty but for a dozen guardsmen in Proudmoore livery on the bottom floor. “I contacted High King Anduin for aid, and he sent word back that the Alliance won’t intervene by overstepping the laws of an independent state.”
“Because the proceedings were perfectly legal, regardless of what you might think. The other Houses of the ruling council voted for House Proudmoore to step down, and another to take its place.”
“Lady Ashvane-!” Jaina tried to say, but Katherine interrupted her.
“Priscilla has been nothing but a good and kind friend to me, when I had no one else. When you left. When your brothers were swallowed by the sea. When your father -” Katherine choked on the words. Clearing her throat, she placed a delicate hand at her chest, fingers grazing the cameo that pinned her ruffled shirt at her neck. When she spoke again, her voice had lowered to a veneer of forced calm. “I am tired, Jaina. I have held the position of Lord Admiral for near a decade, and our family has held it for generations before me. Perhaps it is simply time for another House to take the helm.”
Another crash at the Keep’s gates. Jaina stared at her mother, incredulous, before bursting out, “Are you-? Are you even listening to yourself? That’s exactly what the Ashvanes want you to think!”
With a shake of her head and a rueful smile, Katherine turned away, continuing down the staircase. “So many years of study, locked away in those lofty towers of Dalaran, surrounded by dusty old books, and yet you have learned so little. The world does not lie awake at night dreaming that you’ll deign to rescue it, my dear.”
Jaina watched her descend. The mob howled for blood, whipped to a frenzy with every booming crash of the battering ram against the thick, iron-banded gates. In mere moments they would break through. Some of them would die, but eventually they would overwhelm the Proudmoore Guards and storm the Keep, swept up in their furore. All for her. All because Jaina had returned from Dalaran to find her homeland collapsing into ruin -- like so many aspects of her life. She had walked away from her family so many years ago, and now she was forced to watch the last remaining member of her bloodline do the same in return.
She had but one card left to play. One last, wild attempt to right past wrongs.
“I snuck into the monastery of the Tidesages,” Jaina announced. “And I found a scroll there. It holds the instructions on how to summon the Dark Lady’s Fleet.”
Katherine froze. The line of her shoulders went rigid. Slowly, she turned back around to face her daughter. Anger, horror, and disbelief flared, painting Katherine’s pale face with ruddy blotches. She took a step up, advancing upon Jaina. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?” she hissed, glancing down the stairwell to see if any of the guardsmen had overheard. “If they even discover you were in there-!”
Rather than pause to listen, Jaina forged on. “I can summon her. I can bind her.”
“Enough, Jaina.”
“With the Dark Lady’s Fleet we can fight back the Ashvanes and reinstate you as Lord Admiral. And then you can-!”
“I said: enough!”
Katherine’s voice rang out as the mob outside struck the doors once more. Her words echoed with the roar of the crowd and the faint splintering of the doors starting to at last creak into submission. Jaina tightened her grip upon her staff, frost building at its tip, magic waiting to unleash at her command. With bated breath, the two of them waited to hear the thunder of footsteps, the clamour of wrathful voices, but none came. Instead, surly murmurs and the call for another charge of the mast. What remained of the Proudmoore Guard in this section of the tower all rushed towards the gates now, preparing for the worst.
Exhaling a shaky breath, Katherine rounded on Jaina again. “I shouldn’t be shocked, and yet I am. You would plumb such depths of depravity? You would summon an undead pirate queen -- a creature of the Lich King, no less! -- to war against your own nation? This isn’t helping anyone, Jaina! All you do is confirm their every suspicion!”
Jaina rapped the butt of her staff upon the ground, sending out a web-like lacing of ice across the stone step there. “I don’t care what they think of me! I know what’s true! And I know what’s right! I will do anything it takes, if it means protecting you! I won’t turn my back on this family! Not again!”
“Is that so?” Katherine’s eyes narrowed. “Then, let’s count what we all know to be true, shall we? Let’s review why I have an angry mob trying to break into my home and burn my only living child at the stake.”
“I don’t-” Jaina stumbled over her words. “I only want to-”
Katherine began counting on her gloved fingers, ticking off a list of Jaina’s most noteworthy sins. “They believe you killed their leader, your own father, and you did! They believe you betrayed your people for the Horde, and you did! They believe you a witch, and you are! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Shall I go on?”
“I know what happened. What I did-” Jaina swallowed thickly. “I know I can never atone for that, but I’m not a witch! You begged father to send me to Dalaran for proper training, and that’s how I was able to control it! And now I can summon -!”
Shaking her head, Katherine kept walking down, picking up her pace. “I don’t want to hear any more of this folly.”
“Unless you do something, you will die,” Jaina said in a rush, following her mother onto the ground floor of the tower. She could feel the panic lancing through her as her mother refused to look in her direction. “It may not be today. It may not even be tomorrow. But the very moment that snake, Priscilla Ashvane, doesn’t need you, she’ll have you killed. Maybe she’ll even take you out back and shoot you herself, just to see the realisation dawn in your eyes, because that’s exactly the kind of ‘friend’ she is.”
“Where on earth has Taelia run off to?” Katherine muttered as if to herself, ignoring Jaina’s words entirely.
Another crash rocked the Keep’s doors, louder now that they stood in clear range. Jaina could see at least fifty guardsmen readying their pikes as the doors shuddered and groaned.
“It doesn’t have to be like this! Just take my hand!” Jaina pleaded, holding out her hand towards her mother, palm up. “Please! I can get us out of here!”
Still not looking at her, Katherine waved Jaina away with a vague gesture. “There’s a sally port towards the northwestern tower. I’m sure you remember where to find it; you made good use of it enough times in your childhood.”
“I can’t lose you, too!”
A dreadful silence followed Jaina’s admission. Her voice cracked. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She couldn’t stand the raw, burning shame in her stomach, the barest stirrings of hope, and the near imperceptible gentling of her mother’s eyes.
Then, Katherine glanced away with a sigh. She looked as tired as Jaina felt. “It’s time for you to leave, my dear.”
Katherine walked away towards the guardsmen, towards the door, to meet whatever came for her head on. Any feeble protest or broken apology died in the back of Jaina’s throat, trapped in her mouth, half-formed. Slowly, her arm feeling leaden, she raised her hand, her fingers already tracing a teleportation spell even as the magic flushed to the surface of her skin. Her mother did not turn to see her vanish in a veil of arcane runes.
In a blink the interior of Proudmoore Keep was replaced by a misty, cobbled street. The Keep itself towered high above, its tall spires vanishing into the fog. For a moment Jaina traced its familiar parapets with her eyes, before gritting her teeth and tearing her gaze away. With purpose she strode into broad view of the Keep’s entrance. The mob was turned away from her, gathering for another assault of the battering ram.
Frost gathered around Jaina’s clenched fist. She drew her arm back as if to deliver a blow, and shot a bolt of ice from her hand. It careened over the heads of the mob, and crashed into the outer walls of the Keep. Every head jerked in her direction, baleful glares darkening when they saw exactly who it was that stood behind them.
Gathering a deep breath and gripping her staff tight, Jaina put as much steel into her voice as she could muster. “If it’s me you’re after, you’re looking in the wrong place!”
Without waiting for their reaction, she turned and ran. The soles of her boots pounded against the cobblestones as she bolted down streets and side-alleys, using every scrap of childhood memory of this city to guide her path. She could hear them giving chase, abandoning their assault of the Keep, and a brief surge of relief flooded through her.
Shouts grew closer and multiplied. Jaina didn’t have to glance over her shoulder to know they were fanning out to surround her and block any path of escape. As she ran, she reached out in front of her, tracing a lightning-quick rune with her fingers that trailed with green sparks. She muttered an incantation under her breath and pushed the spell to life.
Three ghostly apparitions, mirrors of her own image, split from Jaina’s body. They bolted down separate avenues, drawing the mob apart through this section of the city. The spell would not last long. Just long enough.
With her other hand, she dragged the tip of her staff along the ground behind her. Another breathless incantation was already spilling from her mouth. Runes pulsing with energy flared upon the ground with every step she took, blooming from her footsteps only to fade in her wake. Jaina swept her staff in a broad arc, and felt the runes push against the soles of her boots, driving her up into the air. Jaina’s lined half-cloak furled behind her like a wave as the air swelled around her, bearing her higher -- just high enough that she drifted, feather-light, onto a rooftop.
The moment her feet touched the top of the building, Jaina kept running. Her lungs burned in her chest. A downward glance told her that while the mob had fanned out after her apparitions, they were still in pursuit, illuminating the streets below with merciless torchlight. She leapt to another rooftop, pushing herself with a flicker of magic to make the jump, and doubled back to the south, sprinting for all she was worth.
The angry shouts began to fade the further she ran. Vaulting back to the ground, Jaina landed with a flicker of arcane energy. Her thighs ached from exertion, but she could not stop now. Panting, she scrambled towards one of the many dingy private docks that dotted the perimeter of Boralus. Small enough to launch a skiff, but too small for an invading force to make any use of it in the event of a siege.
One such skiff bobbed against the wooden dock. Without checking to see if anyone was watching, Jaina tossed her staff into it, untied the skiff from its post, and clambered aboard. The boat--little more than a dinghy--nodded beneath her weight, and a slop of murky harbour water sloshed inside. Grimacing, Jaina tugged the single sail free, winching it higher with a rope and a grunt of effort. She hadn’t sailed in years, but the lessons came roaring back, as natural to her as any Kul Tiran worth their salt.
As she settled herself at the helm, she placed one hand confidently on the tiller. The other hand called upon the air and the sea, magic coming to her as easily as breathing. For a brief moment, her eyes blazed with the arcane before dimming once more.
A stillness settled across the dock. Then, the sail stirred, and a concentrated gust of wind pulled the little boat to life.
Jaina did not relax until after she had cleared Boralus Harbour and the skiff was skimming along the coastline heading south east towards open water. Even then, her gloved hand grasped the tiller hard enough that she could feel a smarting in her wrist. She had to force her fingers to unclench.
The cool ocean air remained deadly still even as Jaina guided her boat further and further from land. She wiped at her brow with the back of one forearm. The mist extended well out to sea, obscuring the horizon in an ashen soup that her eyes could not pierce. Before long, the shore had paled to a dim outline, then faded from view altogether. Only then did Jaina murmur a counter-spell which caused the sail to flutter, then go motionless.
Her skiff drifted atop an unnaturally still sea. Jaina’s breath misted in a cloud from her mouth. A chill had set in, and she shivered against it. She glanced around for any sign of other ships, but she was--as far as she could tell--alone upon these waters for the time being. Her apparitions would have long since faded back in Boralus, and it would be some time yet before the Ashvanes could figure out what had happened. She had a day, perhaps.
She could have teleported herself to safety back in the Keep, or when she had been racing along the rooftops of Boralus. She could have sent that mob to an early grave. She could have just grabbed her mother’s arm and spirited her away. She could have never returned home in the first place. She could have drowned Orgrimmar. She could have saved-
Swearing loudly, Jaina rubbed at her forehead, then dropped her head into her hands. She did nothing but steady her breathing for a few long minutes, soothed somewhat by the roll of water beneath her once more, by the comforting sounds of gentle waves lapping against the hull.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, Jaina straightened. Reaching beneath her half-cloak, she pulled out an age-yellowed vellum scroll and set it beside her. Its pocked surface bore painstakingly detailed drawings that she had already spent hours pouring over, gathering all the necessary ingredients. Jaina cleared as much of the little wooden deck as she could, pushing aside rope and the spare oars she did not need.
With a touch, she lit three candles and placed them on the deck. Dipping her fingers in a vial, Jaina linked the candles with a circle of painted ash, careful not to disturb it with the corner of her boots. She dug around in a pouch at her waist that clinked with reagents, before placing in the circle: two gold coins, an age-blackened rose, the flight-feather of a slain eagle, its tip streaked red, and the fingerbones of a man who had been tried and hung for murder.
Picking up the scroll once more, Jaina chewed at her lower lip. She hesitated. Then, steeling herself, she began to read aloud.
Her voice did not rise, but with every word it echoed, vast and deep as the abyss below her. The incantation filled her like liquid darkness filling a cavern. She could taste the black magic on the back of her tongue, singed and bitter and vile as blood upon a rusty blade. It swelled deep in her gut, buzzing at the base of her skull until the incantation threatened to choke her, pressing against the backs of her teeth, dripping from her mouth.
She finished the incantation with a sharp gasp. With trembling fingers she wiped at her chin, then leaned over the side of the boat and spat blood into the water. Jaina coughed, nearly gagging. She straightened with a grimace of distaste, looking around her for any sign that the summoning ritual had worked.
The empty mist stared back at her, silent.
Her brow knit in puzzlement. Jaina checked the scroll again, then her ingredients, counting each one. She repeated the incantation. She spat up blood again. She cursed the Tidesages with a violent series of words that would have made any sailor blush. She squared her jaw and snatched up the scroll with building fury. She repeated the incantation, over and over, until her head swam with the blighted words, until she was pale and shaky with blood loss, until her voice was a hoarse whisper and the fog had seeped into her cloak, into her very bones.
Leaning against the helm, Jaina tilted her head back and let the scroll slip from between her fingers. It dropped to the wood between her feet with a soft ruffle. She closed her eyes.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
A soft breeze curled over the edges of the skiff. The candles sputtered and died. Cursing under her breath, Jaina snapped her fingers to light the candles, but the sparks died as soon as they leapt to life. She snapped her fingers again, but stopped. She glanced up. A sound crept through the fog: a familiar creak of wood, of sails and masts.
Squinting through the gloom, Jaina held her breath and the whole world seemed to go still in anticipation. A skeletal prow loomed through the mist, its figurehead a bronze-pitted woman impaled upon the bow. Like a black-winged creature rising slowly from the deep, the colossal shadow of a ship set with dark sails emerged from the fog.
“It worked,” Jaina breathed.
Triumph rushed through her, then. Jaina could feel an exultant smile growing on her face as she looked up at the ship. Another creak drew her attention beyond the ship, and she felt the smile slip.
More followed the flagship. Many more. Their shadows were faint outlines, growing thick and fast the closer they drew. Jaina soon lost count, and triumph gave way to a slowly dawning fear that walked its icy fingers down the length of her spine. For there upon the flagship, a figure shrouded in mist and darkness stood at the bow, staring down at her with eyes like red embers that burned through the night.
"Summoner," Sylvanas Windrunner's voice was echoed by the spectral howl of the dead, "for what reason do you wish to bind my fleet?"