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the-redmane-family · 6 years

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Frostheart

A chilling wind gusted through the small, snow-laden vale at dusk as the distant cold sun began to sink over the western horizon. The clouds circling overhead provided a light dusting of snow uncommon for this time of year, a harsh reminder of winter even as summer crept ever closer. In this secluded location, deep in the Alterac Mountains, a small frozen lake slept soundly beneath the unseasonable cold.

At the edge of the glacial covering, a solitary woman stood, a pale blue and purple dot that almost seemed to merge with the twilight cerulean of the lakeside snow. As Thea Redmane stood alone, she held her wedding ring in the palm of her left hand, tracing the runic markings upon the band lovingly. Tenderly.

Greedily. Hungrily.

Just three days past, she had bound her Scourged husband’s soul within the confines of the small gemstone set into the band. It had been a slow, methodical project, to fashion such a secure prison out of something so small. Long nights had passed in the confines of her study, poring over forbidden texts that she had recovered from the ruins of Dalaran. Books penned by authors whose names had long since been stricken from the histories of the magocratic order; scholars and sorcerers that delved too deeply into the depraved art of necromancy, and for their hubris, had paid the price of forfeiting all that would have been their legacy.

One name, however, remained forever etched into the memory of Dalaran, whether the mages would have it or not. One scholar whose writings, no matter how profane, could not be contained or erased. Even here, she sensed the faint echo of his passage. Leaving the order that she had once counted herself among, and some years after that, returning at the heel of his king. A faithful servant whose reward had been power beyond reckoning.

But this place, my love. This place is for you and I, now.

Thea closed her hand over the ring and turned, facing away from the lake, casting her eyes off down a large snow embankment that led through a winding mountain pass. Her gleaming yellow eyes knew this place; they had kept silent vigil over its snow-covered stones for years. A body divided from a soul. As Thea turned again, she beheld the weathered rock of a mountainside… and a great frozen waterfall. This waterfall would remain frozen perhaps eternally, for it had been made to freeze not by the weather of the world, but by the twisted magic of a death knight in pursuit of his quarry. In pursuit of her, Thea the Bright, the last act of a desperate woman as she fled the wreckage of the caravan she had been charged with protecting. She grimaced at the memory as she strode toward the ice-bound waterfall.

The remembrance of the death knight’s magic ripping her soul from her body did nothing to slow her advance as she stepped lightly across the frozen water, toward what appeared to be an empty grave dug into the densely packed ice. The ice here had been made to freeze so deeply and so thoroughly that any liquid water only existed more than several feet beneath the surface. Thea stopped as she reached the grave’s edge.

It was quite large—too large to have been dug for a human. Of course, the ice had only been sundered once, and not to place anything within the grave, but to remove its contents. Thea had not been alone that day, so many years ago, when she had perished freezing and alone. Another had followed her to the same fate, entombed in a crystalline prison of death. One called—

“Frostheart.”

The word left Thea’s mouth as if to herald the arrival of the clomping hooves that now clacked across the thick ice behind her. Slowly she turned to look upon the skeletal visage of her faithful warhorse, its tattered barding arrayed in hues of purple and blue that matched her own robes. She reached up with one hand, running her delicate fingers down the horse’s skinless, furless muzzle.

I am dying, Thea, spoke a voice from the past, that of the legendary Andromath. She closed her eyes, thinking back to that moment in the venerable archmage’s study.

You can’t die, Shal. You’re one of the most gifted archmages I know. We’ll find a cure for this sickness. Dalaran is the heart of all human learning.

The archmage had shaken his head, gesturing as if to refuse the chance at more life. I can die, and I will. I must. I have lived through so many lives of men. It has been a long life. A good life. I have learned much, and taught many. I know that I can go to my rest with nothing to regret. It must be this way.

The tears had welled up in Thea’s eyes. Even as Shal had spoken the words, she had known them to ring true; perhaps truer than anything he’d ever said to her.

Always trust in love, Thea. My brightest, my best. You are the daughter that I should have had. Alas, it was not so, but I am grateful to have instructed you. Please, do not mourn with my passing. Only smile in my memory. A warm embrace had followed, as Shal had hugged his most beloved student one final time. Look after your husband, and your niece. And keep hounding Ainsworth to finish his research. I fear that he’ll become too productive without someone to keep him grounded.

There had been a twinkle in the old man’s eye as he spoke of their mutual friend, and the two had shared a laugh through tears before the elderly man beckoned her outside to the stables. Come. There is something I must show you.

Flameheart. Thea could still hear the wonderment in her voice. Your war-steed. You cannot give me this honor. With all my heart, I don’t deserve this.

Shal had led the brilliantly white horse over by the bit as the great animal followed dutifully. The stallion’s deep, intelligent eyes had met hers with something akin to a solemn understanding. A shared sadness at the imminent departure of the man whom they both cherished so dearly.

That is why he will pass to you, dear Thea. You are my greatest achievement. Yes, even as I take credit for that which is not mine to take credit for. Greater than any spell, of more value than the most precious gems or crystals, more powerful than all of the arcane energy in the cosmos… is love. The love, the goodness that you have inside you. Never lose sight of it.

The band of the wedding ring burned coldly against Thea’s dead hand as she clutched it close to her breast. The undead horse stood beside her, studying her.

“Flameheart, you once were,” she said, bringing her face close to the skeletal muzzle. “But the fire of life is no longer within you. Just as it is not in me.” The mage whispered harshly as a cold wind blew through her hair. “Now,” she whispered, “you are Frostheart. Your heart is frozen, your blood still. Just… like… mine.” Slowly she kissed the grey, bony muzzle.

Thea looked down at her palm again, and then slipped the wedding ring onto her finger as she studied it, tracing the runes once more. She smiled darkly.

“Thea the Bright,” she said, climbing atop the horse’s back, turning the reins toward the pass which led north, through the Plaguelands and back to the Undercity. “So I was called, once.”

She looked down at her ring again. Inside, the soul of her husband writhed and twisted restlessly. The mage leaned down to speak to it, as if the man trapped within could hear her. “Do not fret, my love. I will find you a body. Very soon, we will hold each other once more. And none shall separate us—not now, not then, not ever again.”

Thea looked up, speaking to Frostheart. “Yes, Thea the Bright I was, but am no longer.” A twisted, determined smile bloomed upon her dead, immaculately preserved face. “I am Thea the Damned. Who has loved as greatly as I have? Who could even begin to imagine all I have endured? Woe to they that stand in my way, and woe to those who oppose me.”

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