“Where am I?” Tharion Greyseer asked into the nothingness around him. It was dark here, wherever he was, and it was cold. The chill was not carried on any sort of breeze, but instead lurked in the very air so as to seep into one’s bones and freeze his soul.

“Has it been so long since you’ve dreamed, thero’shan?” The responding voice was frighteningly familiar, and Tharion frowned beneath the cloth mask that almost always obscured his lower face. “Has it been so long since you’ve had visions? You used to have them all the time—a gift from Zevash, if I remember correctly.”

“Where have you brought me, Eraelan?” Tharion’s words were harsh, the anger apparent in the demon hunter’s voice. “What have you done?”

“I have done nothing, Greyseer,” replied the voice as cool as the air that permeated this darkness. “I am surprised that you still seem so willing to accuse me of your problems. I though I taught you better than that…” A harsh laughter cut through the chill.

“Show yourself! I tolerate not your interference any longer!” A brief flash of felfire erupted from Tharion’s left hand as a large bone-carved warglaive materialized.  “You are no more my mentor. No more do you have a right to teach me anything!”

“Anger. You are angry, thero’shan. When was the last time you released it?” Eraelan Netherbane’s voice was calm and controlled, a stark contrast to Tharion Greyseer’s ragged breathing. “So collected you keep yourself, yet we both know the truth that burns beneath your soul, yes? We both know what will happen when you finally let go.”

Tharion’s voice seethed with unmasked hatred. “This is why I cage myself as I do, shan’—” he cursed at the misspeak, “—Eraelan. This is why I keep all things in check.”

“And this is why the Legion will win.”

Tharion did not respond to the retort, but instead kept himself silent in the darkness.  It seemed like minutes passed before Eraelan spoke once more.

“I developed your rituals and training routines to weed out the weaker demon hunters, Tharion, or have you forgotten?” Eraelan’s voice contained a little more venom now. “The path walked by other mentors was inferior. MINE … was superior. What was a little sanity in exchange for the strength of a full demon’s soul within you?”

“It killed many of us. It still does so, even to this day, shan’do.” This time the honorific was spoken in mockery, laced with the aggression of ten thousand years of remorse.

“You still miss her, don’t you, Greyseer?” Eraelan’s voice became amused. “Elaia. The one you killed…”

“AT YOUR COMMAND!” shouted Tharion loudly. It seemed as if the engulfing darkness receeded slightly at his anger, but if it did, it closed in again as quickly.

“Indeed. At my command.” Eraelan laughed again. “She was a failure, and you know that as well as I. She couldn’t contain the demon to which she was bound. She had to be put down like the feral creature she was becoming.”

“She was no animal,” Tharion sighed heavily, the memory of Elaia Shaillan crawling out of the recesses of his mind. “She was … a friend.”

“A lover. Don’t think I did not know. She turned to you for comfort after I killed her former mate.”

“So you admit to it openly, now? To sending Thelnin into a test he was not capable of passing?”

“He was weak. A waste of my time and hers. She deserved better. That you and she eventually chose to pair was … acceptable.” The coolness of Eraelan’s voice revealed how little he thought of his former students. They were nothing but tools—a means to an end.

Tharion growled harshly, spinning himself in the darkness in hopes of catching a glimpse of something—anything that would get him out of this null place.  “Release me, Eraelan!”

“In due time, Tharion, you will awaken.” The amusement in Eraelan’s voice was back again, lacing his words with a hint of mockery. “You have been shielded from me for too long, but now … now we can discuss matters more personally, yes?”

Tharion screamed in a terrible rage, his body bursting into the sickly green flames of felfire. The pale light illuminated all that was around him, casting its glow upon…

Nothing. There was still nothing. The darkness was absolute here; an oily blackness that churned just beyond the reach of the demonic light. Tharion opened his felsight further, using the anger to fuel the spectral vision. He saw nothing, however. There were no shapes, no silhouettes, no traces of life of any sort. It was all simple black.

Darkness and Eraelan’s voice.

“Let us begin your next lesson, thero’shan,” Eraelan cackled once again.