Chapter Text
I don’t understand why I’m always being left behind.
The thought cut at the tender stretch of skin between his ribs, echoing in the darkened confines of the empty cathedral. Varian had only just returned from the campaign on alternate Draenor a handful of months before. They were supposed to be a family again, to try for something like the cohesion they hadn’t had since Tiffin had died; that Anduin had never known. But then the Legion had returned, and both the Horde and the Alliance had been forced to answer their threat to the world with a combined show of force. A force that had failed. He’d promised before he’d left, that he’d return. But all that came back was a crumpled letter filled with what the warrior had no doubt hoped were words of encouragement but detailed, instead, all the ways that Anduin had made him weak. All the reasons he hadn’t come back after all.
His father had lied. His father had left him. Had left him again. And, this time, there would be no miraculous return from the fighting pits of Orgimmar. He was dead. His soul obliterated by the foul fel Magics wielded by Gul’dan. And it was Anduin’s fault. His fault for pushing, constantly, for peace. His fault for forcing him to bank the fires of his rage. His fault for taking the wolf's teeth.
Genn had left Stormwind immediately after the letter had been delivered by one of the countless adventurers making up the mercenary ranks of the Alliance. He could claim it was to chase Sylvanas and gain justice all that he wanted but Anduin knew the truth. The other man knew the same thing Anduin knew. The same thing Broll and Valeera and all the other leaders did. The same thing his people did, and the source of their distaste for him that he could feel charging the air like static.
Even the Light had gone from him. Retreating from his desperate groping until it wasn’t merely out of reach but out of sight. Leaving him alone in the darkness, where he’d remained for nearly a week. Aware of the presence of an entity among that darkness that he couldn’t see but too mired in his grief and hurt to care what it was or what it wanted or even that its nature was undoubtedly malignant.
Let it devour him if that was what it had come for. Nothing mattered anymore. Jaina. Genn. His father. Everyone had left him. He was alone now. A lion with no pride. A wolf with no pack.
As if animated by the turn of his thoughts, the presence approached at last. He still couldn’t see it. Not in the physical world, nor with his third eye, but he could feel it. Tendrils of unseen power wrapped around him. Curling about his arms. His waist. His neck. It was strong, this nightmare of the Void. The ease with which it could snap his neck or crush his ribs and kill him was immediately apparent. One wrong breath. One wrong thought. That was all it would take for this thing, a being beyond fathoming, to snuff him out like a wet candle.
That he didn’t feel afraid told him all he needed to know of the state of his sanity. But that, too, was something that didn’t matter.
It spoke at last. Its voice as old as the world beneath his feet and as deep as the roots of a mountain. And as his mind unraveled the twisted tongue of its words, the identity of the being at last settled with a terrible certainty into his bones.
Anduin Wrynn. I have heard your desperate calling, like a child lost in a dark forest.
N’zoth. This was no mere shadow fiend or creature of darkness. It was an Old God. One of the greatest evils known to the universe. Madness incarnate, and the one responsible for the fall of the Black Dragonflight.
It should have terrified him. Repulsed him. The notion of a being that existed as the embodiment of everything he’d thought he’d stood against, as a priest of the Light, touching him ought to have been abhorrent enough to send him reeling. But his grief had hollowed him so much that he simply accepted the reality of its touch for what it was and Anduin observed the fraying edges of his mind with a detached sort of interest.
It would be easier, if he were mad, to endure his solitude. So why fight when he could simply give way and allow the Void to numb him?
The Shath’yar rumbled, a sound like shattering stone that registered as approval. One of the unseen tentacles slipped up to stroke his jaw.
The Light has left you behind, but that matters not. You belong to me now. And, through me, you will strike back at the heart of the Legion. Gul’dan will merely be the beginning of the Black Empire’s return.
A flood of images rushed over him. Each one fluttered before his eyes for only a moment, too quickly for him to make out details, but Anduin thought he caught flashes of ice and black gates.
You are not alone. Not yet. One remains who would be family. The uncle that you never truly got to know. Friend to your father who stood beside your crib when you were moments old, whose thumb you gripped with both your hands.
He knew that Jaina had been there. As had, of course, his parents. But Jaina had left him, now. And his parents were dead. There’d been no one else.
There was another. Briefly, a figure flashed before his eyes. A man, with broad shoulders and silver plate, war hammer in hand. He is held, now. A captive to the Kirin Tor. A dark secret of Dalaran, deep beneath the floors of the Violet Hold. Without his bonds, he can be reasoned with. Convinced. The Legion is an old foe to him. He will aid you.
A prisoner in the Violet Hold? A place where many of the worst monsters on the face of Azeroth were kept contained so that they might never pose a threat to those who lived there. What connection could he possibly have to such a person? How had they come to be there? If they’d done something terrible, he supposed it made sense that no one would have ever mentioned them to him. Never wanting him to know that there’d been another there, at a time where only those who would be named guardians over the child should the need ever arise should be present.
Who were they? Anduin wracked his memories. Struggled for purchase but found none. The mystery slipped through his fingers like smoke.
“I’ll go.” He said to the dark cathedral and the even darker presence lurking there. Rising to his feet as the grasp of its limbs retreated. “I’ll go. I’ll find him. In return, I want power. Power enough to destroy the Burning Legion wherever I find them.”
And power you shall have, as is fitting of the High Priest.
At once, it felt as if he’d been drenched in cold water. Dragged down to the very depths of the sea, far passed where even krakens dared venture. Where the water was so deep that everything was crushed to pinprick size beneath its weight. That cold and that pressure closed in on him. Forcing its way inside him, through his mouth and through his nose. Curling around his spine. Stretching under his skin. Settling in his bones and forming a cold, glaring star. And then, as quickly as it had come, it relented and Anduin came back to full awareness coiled on the ground beside the foot of a pew. Shivering and dripping wet. Lungs burning with a need for air he couldn’t fully find. He felt strange. As if everything had at once become suddenly shockingly clear. Enough so that he could see all that would be and all that had been if he just closed his eyes and tried hard enough. The truth of creation, and the lies of the Titans, hissed at the back of his mind like a warren of venomous snakes. His hair stuck to his forehead in matted strands, smelling of brine from the deep sea and glowing at the tips the rich tone of deadly nightshade. Glittering with stardust.
His knees wobbled and threatened to give way, but he forced himself to his feet. Braced for a moment against the doorframe to catch his breath and then stepped through the doors.
He took the minds of his guards the moment they turned towards him. The rush of wielding such power with so much terrible ease crushed the small flare of guilt that attempted to blossom in his chest as he watched their eyes glaze and then flicker violet with shadow. Their psyche cracking under his hands like heated ceramic dropped into snow. They followed in lockstep behind him as he made the short trek back to Stormwind Keep, passing yet more guards who looked at him oddly but didn’t question his bedraggled appearance. The glowing portions of his hair now safely tucked beneath his collar.
He made it three steps into the keep itself before encountering a blockade. Mathias Shaw stood before him, arms crossed over his chest and green eyes narrowed. Anduin could see the truth of him, then, as plain as dawn but forced himself to meet the monster's gaze where the rogue's eyes would be rather than lift his head to glare into the face of the Dreadlord occupying the same space and time. “King Wrynn.”
“Not King yet, Mathias,” he couldn’t keep the sneer off his face. His total concentration was devoted to keeping in the shadows that wanted to spill from every pore and engulf him in the night sky’s embrace. Transform him into something else. Something with talons and teeth to rip into the beast before him. The whispers were suddenly deafening. “My coronation is still a few days out; even rushed, tradition must be adhered to and there’s much to prepare.”
“Of course, your majesty.” The disguised demon said, suppressing a sneer of its own. “I-.”
“Whatever you have to tell me, you will wait to tell me until the morning.” He snapped, cutting him off. “If it is urgent, there are military officials who can see done what needs be. I’ve been through more than enough for one day and I will sleep, now. I’ll have no disturbances until the morning.”
He turned on his heel and walked away from the dumbstruck infiltrator before he could attempt to relocate his voice. The mind-broken guardsmen followed on his heels, clattering in their armor, but Anduin paid them no mind. Posting them outside the door of his room with a passing thought and entering through the door.
He hadn’t moved out of the prince’s chambers yet. Now, he never would. He’d be a prince forever. A traitor to his people. But Anduin no longer cared. He’d never wanted to be King. Certainly not so soon. For however much time Stormwind might have left, another could have his crown.
Anduin crossed the room in a handful of strides and threw open his wardrobe. Hastily stripping off his silks and furs in favor of dour, threadbare peasant’s clothing. A tunic and trousers. Dull, scuffed boots. A black cloak with a deep cowl that he pulled over his head after tucking his mother’s locket away in a small pack at his side. Followed, after a moment’s thought, by the crumpled letter which was all that remained of Varian Wrynn. A pouch full of gold followed it before he secured the pack and heaved his body out of the window. Falling three stories onto hard stone with only a last-second levitate to stop his legs from snapping like match sticks.
The sky was dark, above Stormwind, in the intervening moments between late night and early morning, and an expert navigation of the city streets, alongside the hissing whispers, helped ensure that no one saw him as he made his way over to the Mage Quarter. The ramp up the tower spiraled quietly towards the silver moon, full and partially obscured behind a screen of clouds. Anduin’s footsteps tapped against it, slightly offbeat with the persistent limp in his gait. The portal room on the top was equally as deserted as the rest of Stormwind, staffed only by the constructs and arcane elementals that the mages had conjured. A dozen magical texts fluttered overhead like anxious birds. The enchanted window at the far end spilled pools of blue and golden light across the floor which tracked behind his boots as he passed through it. Stepping passed the ring of runes supporting the portal to Dalaran and then crossing through onto the other side.
He’d been to the Silver Covenant Enclave many times before, having frequented Dalaran a few years prior to visit his adoptive auntie before she’d turned into a woman he’d hardly recognized. A woman who’d abandoned him. It was no longer what he remembered, overtaken by the silver banners of Gilneas and full of Worgen Greyguards.
This is what the Old Wolf would rather do than stand beside you in your time of need. See, now, the truth; he feared your father but views you as weak. Had you stayed, he’d have rebelled in an effort to usurp you.
Better for it, then, that he hadn’t stayed. Let Genn lead the Alliance if he wished. Anduin had nothing left now but vengeance and the madness waiting on the other side to swallow him. Soon, he’d be just like Deathwing. Corrupted nobility, forever doomed to be remembered as a monster.
What did it even matter, in the end? Monsters, after all, had short lives. Short lives and violent ends, and then they no longer knew of things like pain and loneliness.
This was for the best.
Shaking himself from the rut his thoughts had fallen into and turning his back on the pair of Worgen who’d begun to stare, Anduin hurried to the doorstep of The Hero’s Welcome , relieved to find that it, at least, remained. The innkeeper had retired by that hour and so he dealt with an arcane reception system and, after paying it the proper sum of gold for a single night, received a key and a room number.
He crept up two sets of stairs and slipped through the correct door. Pulling his cloak from around his neck and his pack from his waist and dropping both carelessly across the nearest chair before toppling gracelessly into the bed. He would rest now. In the morning, he’d eat and wash the salt from his skin and then descend into the prison to free a mystery to whom he had even more mysterious ties. And in doing so he’d be announcing to the world that he no longer stood on the side of virtue.
May it end his suffering in short order. Death would be a mercy, now, so long as he got vengeance first.
Anduin coiled up beneath the thin sheets and squeezed his eyes shut.