Book of the Fallen Prologue, Part I, Part II, Part III.

With the shadowy figure of Thelnin’s cursed spirit seemingly gone, Tharion resumed his meditations. Glancing upwards, his felsight locked onto a central ribbon hanging from one of the branches nearby. There were two streaks of dried blood upon the torn paper, each streak marking a different time of death.

The brushed ink spelled out a name that Tharion knew well—a name that he would never forget.

Elaia Shaillan.

“The first death.” Tharion whispered into the night. “I remember.”

* * *

You will kill her, Tharion. She has turned from us and gone mad. The responsibility falls to you to ensure she honors the promise she made so long ago.

Eraelan’s words still rang in Tharion’s mind, accompanied by the ethereal laughter that was layered beneath everything he thought these days. The demon hunter ran through a mental exercise to quell the demon’s chattering spirit, but he knew it was only temporary.

Tharion had survived his binding and blinding rituals, and while he now hunted with the abilities of a true demon hunter, he was still learning how to refine his technique.

This will be your true test as a hunter of the Returning Path. This is your chance to prove you are capable of enforcing our promises.

Tharion hated that he had agreed to such a position within the camp, but he had seen many others fall to the madness since he arrived. Alon had just been the beginning, and was far from the worst. The responsibility of hunting rogue demon hunters needed to be filled, and Tharion volunteered.

This decision changed the dynamic of Eraelan Netherbane’s camp entirely. No longer was Tharion treated like an equal, instead he had become an outcast among outcasts. Few trusted him any longer, for they believed that one day he would come for them if they strayed too far from Eraelan’s instructions.

The students began to understand how far Eraelan was willing to go in order to train his “perfect demon hunter.” Rumors persisted of alliances with the Burning Legion. The deaths of some students were thrown into question, and the rituals were becoming exceedingly dangerous and dark.

It did not help that a sect of Sentinels calling themselves the Stillmoon were investigating and harrassing the members of the camp. Few trusted those who willingly trafficked in demonic forces, and the ban on arcane magic under the penalty of death was still brutally enforced since the highborne exile.

The location of the Netherbane camp had yet to be discovered by the Stillmoon Sentinels, but most of Eraelan’s students believed that it was inevitable. Tharion had to take extra care that Elaia did not lead them back in her current state.

A clash of steel weapons caught Tharion’s attention. It was some ways ahead, deeper into the thick foliage of Ashenvale’s primordial growth.

“Your kind will answer to the judgement of the priestess!” The voice was unfamiliar yet distinctly kaldorei.

“My ‘kind’ have been evading your capture for years, Sentinel,” the response was calm. “If you cannot even find us, how do you propose to make us answer for anything?” Another violent clash of weapons sliced through the stillness of the night, punctuating the last word.

Tharion bounded through the undergrowth as fast as he could, worrying not so much about silence as speed. If Elaia were fighting one of the Stillmoon…

He leaped up a series of low branches and slowed his pace after a few minutes, sensing Elaia’s demonic aura nearby. The young demon huntress burned with strong fel energies that acted as a beacon to Tharion’s felsight.

While Tharion’s binding had completed successfully, Elaia’s mental distress at Thelnin’s death interfered with her own ascension. Her personality had split, and over the course of mere weeks, her darker half took over. Gone was the playful but skilled student of Eraelan Netherbane. Little more remained aside from a physical form which contained the churning chaos of her corrupted soul. And even that was degenerating into something else entirely.

Tharion steadied himself on a high branch and looked down into a small opening where two night elven women faced off. The first was Elaia, most advanced of Eraelan’s students, even moreso than Tharion. Her deep purple hair was fading to white now, and her rich skin becoming withered and sallow. She still wielded two heavy long blades, a feat that many others, male or female, could not match.

Elaia still wore the training wraps of one of Eraelan’s students, strips of leather and cloth tied around her torso more for modesty than any form of protection. Around her waist hung a tan kilt tied together by rope strands. It was a simple uniform. But little more was necessary for a demon hunter.

The other woman was a Sentinel. Dressed more traditionally, she held a slender curved blade in one hand and kept the other closed in a fist, the signature moonglaive strapped to its back. She was crouched low, almost feline in her stance, and eyed Elaia Shaillan with intense silvery eyes.

“I vow to hunt your kind down to the last man or woman, demon hunter.” The Sentinel seethed. “I will not let the Legion regain their footing here in our lands!”

Elaia laughed softly. It would have been almost sultry if the madness did not shine from the felfire flames that burned through her black blindfold. “You know so little, yet you believe you know so much.”

The Sentinel sneered her response. “I know more than you realize. I know of the crimes your mentor has committed against our people. I know he murdered my lov—” She swallowed her words and quickly recovered. “I know he murdered Alon Bladewhisper.”

“Alon?” Elaia’s eyes burned brightly in amusement. “I remember Alon. He was the first to fail.” She lifted one of the two massive blades and pointed it directly at her foe. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one he always whined about.”

The Sentinel remained silent, but her face slowly contorted in growing rage.

“You were the one! The source of his weakness.” Elaia cackled. “I remember that lesson. I remember Eraelan scooping up the pile of ashes that used to be your lover and scattering him to the winds.”

“You took him from me. You filled his head with notions of blasphemy! Alon would never have willingly joined with a group who allies with demons! You made him betray me!” Tears began to stream down the Sentinel’s eyes now.

Elaia’s lip curled upward, a sadistic glint in the flames of her felsight. “No, Celina Stillmoon—yes, I remember your name just as well and anyone else who put up with Alon’s incessant whining—no, it was you who betrayed him.” The young demon huntress stepped closer to the Sentinel. “You abandoned him in a time of need. And when you confronted him again, your presence revealed the depth of his weakness.” Elaia’s smile grew. “Eraelan Netherbane doesn’t tolerate weakness. Alon was purged for the good of the rest of us.”

Celina gripped her weapons tighter and coiled herself as if she were a serpent about to strike.

“You, Celina, are the one who killed him.” Elaia laughed.

Celina Stillmoon sprang, screaming a rage that could only come from decades of guilt and loss. Her strikes were swift and precise, the moonglaive swirling about her like a cyclone of sharpened steel.

Elaia just continued to laugh as she dodged and parried the Sentinel’s assault. Celina was truly skilled, but Elaia did not earn her position easily, either. As Stillmoon stepped back to regroup, Elaia struck hard with one of her weapons. It was all Celina could do to keep from losing a limb.

Tharion watched the battle from above. He understood tactics well enough to know that now was not the time to interfere. He would wait.

A nearby tree exploded in felfire as one of Elaia’s strikes missed its mark. Celina had rolled to the side and was again working her way closer to the demon huntress. Elaia Shaillan, however, had no intention of making it easy for her.

“That you use their powers against me proves the depth of your corruption, demon hunter!” Celina shouted as she hurled the moonglaive at Elaia. “I have the Goddess behind me!”

Elaia leaned swiftly to the side to dodge the spinning moonglaive, but was too slow. The silvery weapon cut into her side before embedding itself in the trunk of an ancient tree. The huntress frowned and growled—a sound unnatural for any night elf—and lunged for her opponent.

Celina’s slender blade came down, but Elaia shifted at the final moment. The demon huntress struck upward with the blunt end of one of her weapons, sending the Sentinel sprawling to the withering earth. Casting aside the two huge slabs of sharpened metal like they were nothing more than wooden toys, Elaia pursued her attack and pinned Celina Stillmoon to the ground.

Tharion knew the time had come. Leaping from his high perch, he landed a few steps away from where Elaia knelt atop Stillmoon. “Stand down, Elaia.”

“Tharion,” Elaia’s voice had once again become almost sultry, speaking the other demon hunter’s name as a lover would. “Have you come to take me back home?” She did not turn to face him.

“No, Elaia,” Tharion whispered a word of power and a warglaive appeared in his hand. “I am here to kill you.”

The corrupted huntress turned and looked over her shoulder, the blazing green of her felfire eyes intense even behind her blindfold. There was no smile on her face as there had been on her voice moments earlier. “Then do it, Tharion. Rid me of this life of empty pursuit. Kill me and scatter my ashes to the winds as Eraelan had done to the others.”

“Stand, Elaia. Stand and face me and I shall.”

Elaia stood and turned toward Tharion, and Celina immediately scurried away and to the base of a nearby tree. Her face was still pale from the brush of death.

“Always honorable to the last, eh, Tharion?” Elaia reached a hand out and one of her weapons flew to her grasp. “It’ll be your undoing one day, you know.”

“Such is the way, then, Elaia. Today, however, I am to be your undoing.”

Elaia nodded her head before leaping towards her former ally.

* * *

Tharion removed the warglaive from Elaia’s abdomen, and her lifeless body slumped to the forest floor at his feet. He wiped her blood from his blade with his kilt, and then turned to the Sentinel who had been kneeling nearby and watching the conflict.

“You are Celina Stillmoon, yes?”

The Sentinel nodded her head as she stood. She had recovered her moonglaive sometime earlier, and it was now once again resting upon the back of her fist. “I am.”

“What is your intent?”

The question seemed to strike Celina as odd, for her expression froze for a brief moment. “I … rather, I would say we have been tracking those from your camp for a while now. You are each to be sentenced to death.”

“On what grounds?”

“The death of Alon Bladewhisper and Seth’doril Sunblaze. The disappearances of Thelnin Doran, Elaia Shaillan—” Celina glanced down at the corpse nearby and frowned. “—and countless others. Eraelan Netherbane is considered a criminal.”

“And you seek to capture me—to capture all of us—and put us to death?” Tharion kept his posture still, his eyeless gaze locked on Stillmoon.

“We do.”

“You intend to capture me tonight?”

“Will you come without a struggle?”

“No.”

Celina nodded her head. “Then, no. You saved my life this evening, demon hunter. You have bought yourself a few more days of respite from my sisters and I.” The Sentinel paused before turning away from Tharion. “Thank you.”

Tharion nodded his head and turned towards Elaia’s body. He knelt briefly and picked her up, leaving her weapons where they lay. Before departing the grove, however, he spoke. “I remember Alon. He wanted you to be free of him in the end. He wished you happiness without the burden he brought to your life.” Tharion stepped into the darkness of the Ashenvale forest. “He freed you.”

Celina waited a few moments until she believed the demon hunter gone. Then she spoke, addressing the nothingness around her. “How many years, Alon? How many has it been? Did you not realize?” She wiped a fresh tear from her battleworn cheek. “I never wished to be free of you…”

* * *

“How many years, Greyseer?” Her voice had not changed in all this time. “How many years has it been since we met that night?” The Sentinel stepped fully into the clearing and looked at the stone that marked Alon’s empty grave.

“I have lost count, Celina Stillmoon. For a time, the count mattered not.” Tharion did not turn his head to look at her. Such a gesture was little more than a formality when the Greyseer’s felsight allowed him to see all around him. “You are here for the same reasons as I?”

“I am, demon hunter.” Celina stepped next to Tharion and knelt upon the soft ground. The light from Elune flowed over her, as if she were somehow favored by the moon. “I came to visit my Alon, to hope that he may hear me as the veil of death weakens on this holiday.”

Tharion merely nodded his head as he stood.

“Leaving?”

“Indeed. You deserve your privacy, and I am done for now.” Tharion turned his back upon the Sentinel. “I have much to reflect upon this night, so I will leave you and Alon … alone.”

“Thank you, Greyseer.” Celina closed her eyes and placed her ungloved hand upon the smooth stone of Alon Bladewhisper.

And she began to cry.

* * *