Where The Light Hesitates
The hill above Dornogal still held the day’s warmth.
Anduin Wrynn sat at its crest, Shalamayne laid carefully across his lap, the twin blades catching the last gold of the sinking sun. Below him, the city stretched outward in tiers of stone and shadow, ancient, cavernous, and unsettling in a way he could not quite define. Dornogal felt unfinished, as though it had been carved open rather than built. The air carried a faint bitterness: smoke from Hallowfall, distant but persistent, clinging to the evening like a memory that refused to fade.
A short distance away, Thrall stood with his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. Jaina murmured something quietly to Turalyon, their voices low enough to blend into the hush of twilight. Anduin found a strange comfort in simply being there, in letting the silence settle around him like a familiar weight. Silence, at least, did not ask anything of him.
He felt it before he saw her.
Alleria Windrunner emerged from the city’s shadow, the Void trailing her like a second presence, subtle, restrained, but unmistakable. It bent the space around her just enough to unsettle the senses. Anduin rose as the others did, brushing dust from his robes as he followed them toward the city hall. Whatever she carried back with her, it was heavy. He could hear it in her voice before he caught her words. And then she mentioned someone else.
A stranger. Anduin slowed.
She stood a little apart from the group, not seated, not at ease—waiting. A spear was held firmly in her grasp, not as a threat but as an anchor. The stance was practised. Not ceremonial. Not careless. It was the posture of someone who had learned, through repetition rather than instruction, where to place her weight when the world turned hostile.
Her armour was leather, worn and repaired more than once, reinforced with small metal plates placed where experience, not regulation, had demanded them. Beneath it, a long-sleeved shirt covered her arms entirely despite the lingering warmth of the day and her cloak, which was damaged by time and dark experience, was tossed over her shoulder. Travel had not been kind to her, but neither had it broken her. If anything, it had stripped her down to function alone.
Anduin’s gaze lingered longer than courtesy allowed before he caught himself. Caution stirred in him. It always did.
But Alleria’s tone, measured, strained, made it clear this was no chance encounter. Whatever had happened on Ka’resh, this woman was bound to it. His fingers brushed the hilt of Shalamayne. Not in warning. In grounding. They gathered in a quiet alcove outside the hall, stone walls sheltering them from the open air. Alleria began to speak.
Ka’resh. Betrayal. The fall of Lord Dimensius. The death of Locus Walker.
Each word settled into Anduin’s chest like a stone dropped into still water, the ripples slow and relentless. Loss had a familiar weight. He listened without interruption, his eyes returning again and again to the stranger, noting the way she avoided eye contact, the tension in her shoulders, the way her grip on the spear never loosened.
“This is Mynthara,” Alleria said at last.
The woman inclined her head in acknowledgement. She did not offer more. Anduin returned the gesture, studying her quietly. Mynthara did not fidget. She did not pace. She endured the attention as one might endure bad weather, still, alert, and unwilling to invite further damage.
“Ka’resh…” Anduin said finally, his voice low, careful. “Alleria told me little. Only that it was… costly.”
His gaze lingered on her, then shifted briefly to Thrall, who was watching Mynthara with an intensity that bordered on recognition before returning.
“You fought beside her against the Void?” Anduin asked. A pause. Then, softer:
“And survived what came after?” The question was not about strength. It never was.
Thrall shifted, a low rumble escaping him. “You remind me of someone,” the orc said slowly. “A warrior in Orgrimmar, years ago. Fire in her strikes. Shadows in her eyes.” His brow furrowed. “Memory is unreliable these days.” Mynthara gave no sign she had heard him.
Alleria’s gaze flicked toward her, tension sharpening as she spoke again. “Mynthara may have information about Xal’atath.” Something in the air tightened.
Mynthara’s hand shifted, and Anduin noticed then what she held: a shard of unfamiliar metal. Clean. Too clean. She looked down at it as if weighing more than its physical heft, then placed it on the table between them. The sound was soft. Final.
“That is true,” she said at last, her voice controlled but taut. “But how do I know I can trust you?” The silence that followed was heavy. charged, but not hostile. Before anyone else could answer, Anduin stepped forward, just enough to draw the room’s focus.
“You don’t,” he said simply. No evasion. No false reassurance.
“Trust is earned. And after Ka’resh…” His eyes dropped briefly to the shard, its surface reflecting nothing of what it had seen. “I imagine that comes at a high cost.”
Jaina spoke next, calm as frost forming on still water. “No one here will demand what you aren’t ready to give. But if you know something that could stop Xal’atath”
Anduin met Mynthara’s gaze again, steady despite the faint ache tightening in his chest. As she turned her head, the fading light caught the edge of her ear, just long enough to draw the eye. Not enough to name. Enough to notice.
“We won’t press,” he said. “Not unless you allow it.”
His hand tightened on Shalamayne for a heartbeat before he forced it to relax.
“If sharing your truth can prevent another loss like Locus Walker’s,” he added quietly, “then we will listen. And wait.”
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
dededos
areudirty
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
