The Wrath of Sabellian (pt. 35)
Sabellian challenges Wrathion to a Trial of Wills.
Wrathion stared, wide-eyed, at the dragon before him.
I killed you!
Sabellian stepped down the archway like a giant, coiled cat. His eyes never left Wrathion’s, full of a controlled malice that sent a chill deep in the Prince’s gut and knees. He felt locked in place. Left grabbed at his elbow, but he didn’t move.
“How are you alive?” His voice came out as a gasp. Sabellian smiled grimly.
“It takes more than a single dagger wound to kill me, boy,” he said.
His thoughts weren’t like a hurricane, whirling with confusion and wildness. No - instead they were frozen, pinpointed in place on one thought, one image, one choke as a dagger hit the gut.
I killed you.
Smoke enveloped Sabellian’s form. It shrank down and dispersed, and he stood before the Prince as a human. His eyes were ringed with circles, he had an obvious limp - but still that smug malice remained, trained ever on Wrathion, never moving, hardly blinking. His heart hammered.
“A Trial of Strength?” Wrathion repeated, unbelieving. “You’ll crush me under your paw!”
“You misunderstand, Black Prince,” Xuen interrupted. The tiger stalked into view with his usual grace. His glowing eyes were trained on Wrathion. “This is a trial of strength, but there shall be no combat.”
Wrathion glanced from Xuen, to Sabellian, then back again. He glared, thought, then, not knowing what to say, struck out his hands in a waving motion to bid Xuen to continue. He was acutely aware of the mortal crowd watching him.
“It has not been some time that trials have been conducted here,” Xuen rumbled. His voice now echoed forward, obviously not just for Wrathion to hear - he spoke to the mortals and all those surrounded, too. “But millennia ago, when this island was not yet lost in time, they were sported with earnest. Challengers would either fight, or depend on their strength of will to guide them.” He nodded to the other Celestials who remained at each of their respective corners. “Each challenger asked a Celestial to champion them in such trials.”
Wrathion did not yet understand. “And?” he asked, his voice hinging on exasperation and panic. Sabellian was still watching him, but he dared not meet the alchemist’s eyes. His heart remained beating wildly at the dragon’s appearance. I killed him! I killed him!
“This shall be a trial of wills,” Xuen said. “It is of my own design: a trial of Strength. Your will and judgement shall guide your thoughts, and will either deny you what you seek or not.”
Before Wrathion could further ask what the Tiger was saying, Xuen lifted his massive paw and stretched out his claws. From each wicked white talon, a glow emitted and spread forth. Like curls of smoke, the energy twisted outward, then coalesced into a white sphere that looked to be made of cloud. It was about the size of Wrathion’s torso, and hovered idly in the air.
“Each of you will give your case,” Xuen rumbled. He nodded toward Sabellian. “Sabellian believes that you are wrong in trying to kill both him and his family. He thinks you to be a murderer, a child, and naive.”
Wrathion hissed. But again Xuen spoke before he could.
“And you, Black Prince, believe Sabellian and his family’s deaths to be necessary to the safety of this world.” Xuen looked back at him. “That they are beyond true redemption and, like the others of your family you have set free, they must fall, too, lest they harm others.”
Wrathion hesitated. How did Xuen know that? He cast a suspicious look toward Sabellian.
“The challenger with the most conviction and the least amount of doubt will win,” the tiger explained. “You must be able to stand at the side of your cause without wavering - for when doubt clouds the soul, strength is swallowed in its shadow… and the cause is poisoned by the ensuing confusion.”
Now Wrathion understood. He had to show with all his soul that he knew his way was right. That he had the stronger will.
Easy, he thought in a shaking voice. He felt like he was on the edge of a great pit - one he had come close to falling before after his “murder” of Sabellian, and one he had only narrowly avoided by boxing himself up with stone and hardening himself to all emotion. Now, though? Knowing the alchemist still lived? Knowing he had failed even in killing the dragon? The pit threatened to swallow him.
“I have chosen to champion Sabellian,” Xuen said with a ring of finality. Wrathion startled and looked back at the Tiger.
“Champion him? How could you possibly come to such a conclusion? He’s -”
But Xuen did not let him finish. “Who shall champion the Black Prince?”
Wrathion stilled. He recalled then that Xuen had said the “duelers” would choose a Celestial to champion them in some way. He looked back at the other Celestials, who watched him as one.
To his surprise, Niuzao stepped forward.
“I will,” the Black Ox rumbled. Wrathion stared blankly at him. “The Black Prince has shown a fortitude to both himself and to his tasks, and so I will champion him.”
Xuen glanced at Wrathion. “Do you agree to this?”
Somewhat stunned, Wrathion nodded quickly.
“Very well.” The tiger looked between the two dragons. “Now we must give terms.”
“Terms,” Wrathion repeated dully. Things were moving too quickly for him.
“If you are proven right in your case, you will be given something,” Xuen explained. “Whether it be peace, or justice, or an item.” He nodded to Sabellian. “Speak.”
Sabellian watched Wrathion. He smiled. It did not reach his eyes, and instead had the same smug calculation as before.
“If I am proven right,” Sabellian drawled, “... and I will be… you must leave my family alone. You will not harm nor kill them, and neither will you spy on them or stalk them with your little lackeys.”
“Is that all?” Wrathion asked sarcastically. As if he would agree -
“No.” Sabellian’s amusement flickered on his face. “When I win this trial, you are going to strip yourself of your false title, and you will go to Blade’s Edge to face not me, but my children, no matter what avenues you must take to do so.”
Wrathion thought it a joke. But Sabellian, and even Xuen, were watching him seriously. He laughed.
“Absolutely not,” he said, his laughter was a mix of anger and disbelief, now.
“You can ask Sabellian of anything if you champion through the trial, Black Prince,” Xuen reminded.
Wrathion paused.
“Anything?” he repeated. He smiled to himself.
“Then he should be executed,” Wrathion drawled, looking at Sabellian. “And the rest of the black dragons underneath him will be free to be slaughtered as they should have been long ago.”
He expected Sabellian to disagree. But the elder dragon nodded. That gave Wrathion pause. Sabellian couldn’t possibly be that confident, could he?
Xuen rose to his feet. “Very well,” he said again. “Do both agree to the terms?”
There was no way Sabellian could win. Wrathion’s case was the stronger one. Sabellian’s hinged on personal love and affection; the Prince’s on logic and reasoning and planning. If this was a Trial to see who had the least amount of doubts, then Wrathion could simply point out to Sabellian how he’d come so close to succumbing to the Old Gods after the battle at Sik’vess. How he was still a monster under all that false control. He had to sew hesitation.
“I agree,” Wrathion said.
“A moment.”
This was a new voice, but one Wrathion knew. He turned to stare at Kairoz as the Bronze dragon descended into the Celestial Court. In one hand, he held the hourglass he so treasured.
“I believe this can help,” the Bronze said, looking at Xuen. “It is a personal project of mine. It may not be finished, but it has properties that such a trial could use.”
“You never showed me what it does,” Wrathion hissed off to his side. Kairoz glanced at him, then looked back at Xuen.
“It allows one to get visions from the past,” Kairoz said, but spoke to the Tiger and not to the Prince. Wrathion prickled with irritation. “I can try my best to attune the Hourglass to a specific event, so all may see it.” He hesitated. “It may disfunction, at times, but only in minor instances.”
Xuen considered this. Then he nodded. “Very well. I agree to such an object if the duelers wish to use it.”
Sabellian was looking at Kairoz now with a mix of annoyance and interest. Wrathion frowned at the Bronze suspiciously, thinking he understood what Kairoz meant, but not completely.
“You mean to say,” Wrathion began slowly, “that if we give you some - scene to show this audience that happened in the past, the Hourglass will show a vision of it?”
Kairoz nodded. His smile was sly but proud. “I told you: the epoch stones, and the magic of this island, allow so much. If you wish to show the audience something that helps your case…” He let the sentence trail off, and he raised his eyebrows at Wrathion expectantly.
This - this was perfect! Wrathion’s annoyance at the Bronze immediately vanished into excitement. He could show everyone the suffering Sabellian had inflicted on him and others - especially the mortals he had no doubt terrorized when corrupted on Azeroth. Then they would see his death, and the death of all the other Black Dragons, were necessary! He whirled to Xuen and grinned.
“I agree,” he announced.
“As do I,” Sabellian rumbled. He remained staring at the hourglass. Wrathion’s excitement fizzled. What would Sabellian recall from those sands?
Xuen nodded. “We will have a moment’s reprieve for the challengers to discuss,” he said.
The moment the tiger said that, Wrathion whirled away to the opposite side of the Court. Left and Anduin followed.
“I have dozens of spies,” he growled, “and not one knew he was alive?”
Left frowned. Her face was creased with frustration. “I can’t explain it,” she said. Anduin came up beside her. He studied Wrathion.
“Are you alright?”
“No.” The Black Prince glanced back at the elder dragon. He spoke with a woman that looked a little older than Wrathion, and he realized she’d been one of the drakes who had come with Sabellian in the beginning. He scowled.
“I’m sure you could always back out of the challenge,” Anduin suggested warily.
“I already accepted it,” he said. “And it’s not the challenge I’m worried about. It’s how he survived.” Wrathion swept off his turban and ruffled his hair, a nervous habit. He’d felt the blade pierce muscle and gut in Sik’vess. Such a wound would have made the dragon bleed out quickly.
“We could attack without the need for this trial,” Left said.
“And be struck down,” came a voice from above them. Wrathion looked up. Standing before them was a giant orc - a mountain of an orc, really. His face was hidden by a wolf mask. Left froze.
“You are with the dragon?”
“Yes.” The orc glanced at Wrathion. His distaste wasn’t hidden in his gaze.
“Rexxar,” Wrathion realized. The Champion of the Horde. Bewilderment struck him. “What do you have to do with Sabellian?”
“An old friend,” he said. He did not take his eyes off of him. Wrathion tried not to squirm under such a predatory gaze.
He did look away, though, and shook his head. He looked at Left, expecting her to know the answer. She shrugged.
That story would have to wait.
“We won’t attack,” Wrathion drawled, glancing back to the beastmaster. “Reach not for your axes.”
Rexxar grunted.
The idea, though, was tempting. Wrathion had a decent number of spies on the island,
and coupled with the mortals who would no doubt want to attack a black dragon elder, they might stand a chance against Sabellian and his own forces.
But was that even needed? Wrathion frowned in thought. No. No it wasn’t. This was a strength of will, he reminded himself. He knew he had conviction. He knew he owned up to his cause.
He would win.
Kairoz waltzed over.
“So,” he said. “What visions would you like?”
Wrathion glanced at the Hourglass, where it now hovered by Kairoz’s shoulder.
“What of Sabellian’s corruption?”
“Oh. Yes.”
Wrathion brightened. “Excellent.” That was the one thing he had to work on. A trial of wills - he had to seed Sabellian with self-doubt… and if he showed the elder dragon the monster he’d been right in front of his face? Yes. That would do well to make Wrathion’s own case. It’d be over quickly.
“Then I want something to shown what he really is,” he said. “Anything, or all of it. Something to make him shake.”
But surely Sabellian would expect that. Again he wondered what Sabellian would bring forth from the Hourglass.
“I have some ideas,” Kairoz said. “Don’t worry, my friend. I will win this for you.”
Wrathion smiled. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. Sabellian might be alive by some miraculous feat, but this gave the Black Prince a chance to cement to the mortals and to all others his stance on being the last - and why he had to do certain things, like kill his family.
“No doubt he will ask me to summon what you have done to his family,” Kairoz said.
He shrugged. “It won’t matter when we show my reasoning behind it,” Wrathion said. “Ah, Kairoz… you can’t tweak the visions in my favor, can you?”
The Bronze gave him a guilty smile. “No. The Tiger spoke with me before I came to you. I must be neutral.”
“Fine, fine.” He glanced over to the Courtyard. Sabellian spoke with the Tiger now. He bristled, feeling oddly betrayed by Xuen, who had given him his blessing only recently. “Well! I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?” Anduin said. “Maybe you need some more visions…?”
“No. I’ll just keep showing a corrupted Sabellian. Enough to make my uncle start to doubt himself.”
Anduin frowned, but he said nothing.
“Worry not, Prince Anduin. I have this - easy.”
Anduin stared at him. A flicker of doubt passed through the prince’s eyes, but again he said nothing.
Wrathion felt strangely annoyed by that. He turned to Left. “Tell the Tiger I’m ready.”
---
Moments later, they returned to the Courtyard, and Wrathion had a new flare of confidence.
“The time of the Trial has come,” the tiger said. “Place your hands on the orb. You must link your chi with it, so it may measure your doubts and fears. The Trial when end when it glows with its full energy - in the color of the winner.”
Sabellian swept forward with the prepared movements of someone who had expected the order. Wrathion frowned as the dragon placed his hand on the orb. He had the suspicion that he and Xuen had planned too much of this Trial beforehand, and he wondered what else his uncle had in store.
No matter, though. He took a deep breath and walked forward. No doubt. The most conviction. A trial of mental will. He could do that, and he would.
He put his hand on the orb.
Light enveloped both of them. Something warm grabbed at his heart and mind. Wrathion gave an involuntary gasp. His hand seeped a purple glow that sank into the sphere. Sabellian’s, in turn, gave the sphere orange energy.
Sabellian looked down at him. His expression was passive in its angry sort of way, and his eyes dark.
“I am going to destroy all you have done here,” he said in a low voice for only Wrathion to hear. “And you will suffer for it.” He smiled, grim. “It is more comforting to me than a quick death.”
Something in Sabellian’s tone made Wrathion nearly shudder. This was not the growling, maddened Sabellian from before, bent on violence and early revenge. This Sabellian had such a calculation about him, such a decisiveness, that Wrathion almost found himself believing the elder dragon.
“Well. Good luck,” he growled back.
“No, Black Prince,” Sabellian said. He backed away. “I am not the one who needs luck.”
Wrathion scowled and backed off to take his place on the Court.
“The Trial begins,” Xuen boomed. “The challenger shall be the first to present his case.”
“Show me the deaths of my children by the whelp’s hand,” Sabellian said without hesitation. “And all else he has done to make my family suffer.”
Kairoz nodded. He paused, then, raising one hand, he curled his fingers into a fist. A glow of gold and blue energy began to coalesce between the cracks of his fingers. It reached out to touch the Hourglass. As it did, the curled dragons about the item opened their eyes. A small murmur of interest rose in the crowd of mortals. The dragons uncurled themselves so the whole of the Hourglass’s pearly exterior revealed itself. The sands began to run not down, but up, defying gravity.
Kairoz grimaced. His pale face was aglow with the neons of his own magic.
With a sudden burst of energy, the Hourglass rippled and from it shot forward a slim beam of light. The light began to widen, and widen, and widen, until a great panorama stretched before them. It was so large the sides of it nearly touched the opposite edges of the Celestial Court.
The white glow diminished, but as it faded, other colors swirled into existence: black, reds, dull tans and browns. Some sharpened into spikes, and mountains, and - dragons.
Blade’s Edge Mountains shimmered into existence before them. The vision showed a scene in one of the lower but widest valleys, bordered by the sharpened rocks and cliffs that gave the region its name. The sky above startled Wrathion, so bright and red were the streams of nether and space.
In the valley, next to the large opening of a cave nestled in the mountains, stood three dragons. They were drakes, in truth, all seeming to be of the same age. Perhaps they were even of the same clutch. One sat close to the entrance.
“I don’t know why Father keeps it alive,” one of the drakes said in a husky voice. She was slim with a bright orange belly, and paced back and forth before the drake who seemed to be standing guard at the cave entrance. “Should it not die? It tried to kill us.”
The guard fluffed her wings. “Father wants more information from it,” she explained. “It tried to kill Talsian.”
“Yes. I know that.” The orange-bellied drake stopped and turned to face her sister. “It’s probably some treasure hunter, wanting our hides for glory.”
“It said it worked for someone, though,” the guard pointed out. “Don’t you think -?”
The orange-bellied drake interrupted her with a loud grunt. “I doubt the mortal will say much,” she said. “I hunt. I will bring you back something, Ryxia.” And with little else, the drake turned and jumped into the air, and soon she was a speck in the mountains.
Ryxia. Did not Wrathion know that name? He glanced at the drake and frowned in thought.
A noise, small but only just perceptible, came from the cave. Ryxia glanced back. The vision’s point of view shifted so it looked where Ryxia did: inside the cave. It was dark and stank of meat - how could he smell it, when watching something? - but within there was a faded red glow, no bigger than the size of a pebble.
Then he saw the shape: a crumped blood elf lay against the wall deep in the cave. It was his Blacktalon - the very first he had sent to scout Outland for search of information not about any dragons or hidden relatives, but to see if there was Legion activity and to collect information about demons in the various energies.
Wrathion realized what was about to happen. For whatever reason, he found himself tensing up.
Ryxia raised her smaller fins curiously. The Blood Elf was speaking, but lowly. Even in the vision he was not understandable. But Wrathion knew what he was saying, and who he was speaking to.
The small drake crept closer. The Blood Elf shook. His shattered hand, by some miracle, was able to grab the hidden dagger behind his back. His eyes glowed a dull red, but the gem glowed far brighter, signaling Wrathion’s control of him, even a world away.
Ryxia stepped closer still, until she was nearly looming over the elf. “Who were you talking to?” she asked again, a small hint of both curiosity and wariness in her words and eyes.
The Blood Elf lunged.
The drake did not see the dagger until it was too late. The blade struck her in the belly, and she shrieked in pain and fear. She scrambled to get away, but the Blood Elf hooked the dagger upward, and Ryxia’s scramble only made a further gash in her belly. She shrieked again in panic, but more-so now in agony.
And then, at once, she collapsed. Wrathion caught a glimpse of her intestines coiling out from the open wound. She fell atop the Blood Elf, which only sealed her fate further.
She went still.
The vision did not change immediately. It hovered on the corpse for a moment longer. Wrathion bit the inside of his cheek. He dared not look at Sabellian, but he wished he could look away.
This was the death that had begun it all. He remembered his own panic when the blood elf had shown him the drake, and how it had lit him into a frantic and sudden action, how he needed to see the drake dead for his own peace of mind and satisfaction… for she had been a sign that he had failed in the only task he had thought he had done with accuracy, and Wrathion was not one who liked his plans going very wrong.
What would have happened, he found himself thinking, if he had calmed enough to stop the elf - and himself, by extension - from killing this drake? He could have probably dealt with the situation more quietly - more acutely - without invoking Sabellian’s wrath. A foolish mistake. His first foolish mistake.
The vision shifted suddenly. It showed another cave, but this was dark and cold and blue. Stalagmites hung from the ceiling as sharp as a dragon’s tooth.
He knew immediately where he was. His still-healing left arm began to ache.
It was the cave Sabellian had brought him to after the elder dragon had attacked him at the Tavern - and where he had tortured him about information about his lack of corruption.
But the vision, to his relief, did not show his bleeding and bruised body. Instead, it showed the maddened drake Left and Anduin had unleashed from the deeper recesses of the cavern to serve to distract Sabellian. It lay on its side; deep gashes riddled its scaled hide. The sickly white Sha energies Wrathion knew too well radiated at the fallen drake’s eyes, horns, and paws, pulsating with each struggling breath of the drake’s.
Above it loomed Sabellian. He was sitting on the outcrop of the cave, as his full form could not quite fit inside. He had lowered his head above the quivering, possessed drake, and watched it quietly. The other drake, the one who had helped with the torture - Nasandria? - stood on the opposite side of her father. Her uneasy glance passed back and for from her elder, to her brother, then back again.
“M-my blood… hungers…” the possessed drake hissed in a voice that had Wrathion’s heart clench with fear. It was not the drake’s voice.
But then he realized who this drake really was: the second drake to come with his father to help destroy the Tavern, and Wrathion, in turn. Right had wounded it greatly. It was no wonder he had so easily succumbed to the Sha, weakened as he had been by such vicious wounds.
The drake looked at Sabellian, and for the slimmest of moments, a clearness came to him. His gaze lost its hunger and anger and became pleading. Desperate.
“Pain… exquisite… pain…” he continued.
It was not a moment after Sabellian placed his massive paw on his son’s side. But what Wrathion thought to be a comforting motion instead turned out far more gruesome: Sabellian leaned down, took the lost drake’s head in his mouth, and snapped his neck with a practiced movement.
The body fell still. Sabellian let go of the head, and it felt with a clanging of its great horns to the floor. Nasandria was frozen in shock.
“We could have -”
“We could have done nothing, Nasandria. He couldn’t be helped.”
The vision shifted again. For the second time it showed Blade’s Edge, but in one of its surprisingly fertile forests. A glimpse of an abandoned Cenarion Expedition building was visible through the clumped trees to the south, but it was a narrow river that the image instead focused on. Large lumps of dark rock lay about it. Again, even if he was not there, Wrathion could actually smell the scene.
It smelled of rot and chemicals.
He wrinkled his nose - and then realized the shapes he had taken for rock at first glance were bodies. It was a macabre assortment of twisted corpses: lynxes, raptors, and wolves all lay in pained positions about the grass.
“The river - poisoned,” breathed a voice. The point of view of the vision shifted to the left. A smaller drake, slim-bodied like one of the spotted big cats of the Barrens, stood panting before Samia in her dragon form.
“What?” Samia’s fin rose in anger and surprise. “They poisoned the water?” Samia snarled. “What – where did you hear this? Where are Rexxar and the others?”
“We found their camp,” the drake panted. “it took hours, but the bear found them. We overheard them speaking. They’d poisoned the river with the same herb that poisoned Neltharaku.”
The vision shifted again. Instead of the forest, it showed the sharp valleys. And - Wrathion held his breath. There were so many of his kind here. Whelps that he knew immediately were around his true age were curled up near the opening of a great cave, and perhaps half a dozen drakes slumbered near another smaller opening. Two adult dragons stood guard, and among them, three nether-drakes. The slim anomalous dragons looked so out of place among their brethren.
But while Wrathion began to wonder why the Hourglass was showing such a normal scene, but began to see oddities. Every dragon he saw moved little, or sluggishly. With some, he saw the beginning curve of ribs shine against taut muscle and scale. Eyes were dull and tired. They were starving, he realized. Even he, who had not spent much time around other dragons, realized such signs in their draconic body language.
A dragon and two nether-drakes alighted close by the whelp cave. In their paws they held three rock flayers and a motley talbuk. The vision zoomed in, and Wrathion scrunched his nose. The corpses were old. Their fur and skin sagged with setting-in decay, and the blood, he knew, was already dry.
One of the black dragons who had been standing guard sniffed. “Is that all?”
The dragon who had brought the old feast grunted. She let go of the corpses, and the nether-drakes with her did the same. “We came back as fast as we could,” she explained. “But we can only go so far before the meat starts to take.”
The male dragon grunted. “Damn this poison,” he said. “Let us hope it will run its course into Zangarmarsh.”
“And that every lynx and raptor wasn’t condemned,” the female grumbled.
It seemed the poison thrown into the river by his Blacktalon’s had not only killed many of the dragons’ prey, but it had also decimated much of the prey among Blade’s Edge. Was the river the only source of water? Wrathion watched in silence as the dragons began their grim task of dealing out the meat to all, and did not blame the whelps’ lack of enthusiasm as they poked at the meat with the end of their snouts. No wonder they were hungry; no viable prey seemed to be showing itself in the mountains.
The vision dimmed - and Wrathion, who had prepared himself for another image of death and suffering, blinked in surprise when it faded entirely, leaving only the Celestial Court.
He dared a glance at Sabellian. The elder dragon looked to hardly be in control of his anger: his fists were clenched, his jaw locked, and small puffs of smoke escaped his nose with each breath.
“Do you wish to give your case?” Xuen’s voice rang, and broke the spell over both dragons. Wrathion ducked his head and looked at the audience. To his annoyance, all were staring at him. Far away, he couldn’t tell what the expression was on most of their faces.
Sabellian breathed in deep. His outward anger diminished, and he turned to the mortals - but not before looking at Wrathion. Though his outward anger had gone, there was such a deep-seated hatred in his look that the Black Prince found himself leaning back.
But then Sabellian looked away.
“I understand your distrust of me,” Sabellian said. “My kind has made this would suffer. But I am not like that anymore. My time on Outland has - alleviated me of such madness.”
A lie, Wrathion thought.
“We did nothing to invoke this boy’s crusade of death,” the elder dragon continued. “You saw how his rogue attacked my child unhindered - and how it killed another. And for what purpose?” The more he spoke the angrier and louder Sabellian became. “So he could be the last? So he could think his charged duty truly finished?” He spat the words. “My children harmed no one. No mortal suffered by their doing. And even in their innocence, this boy decided to murder them all. To make them die for something they did not do.”
“You’re corrupt!” Wrathion interjected. “Outland may have given you some relief, but you all remain cursed! If you were to come to Azeroth permanently -”
“Did we give any indication that we would be coming back to Azeroth?” Sabellian roared in a sudden outburst. Wrathion flinched. “Or did you see a black dragon and panic?”
Wrathion’s face grew hot with anger and shame. The audience began to murmur among themselves. He knew that they were already distrustful of them after Sabellian had spread the information that he had been double-crossing both factions. This was not helping his case.
“I hardly panicked -”
“You are a child. A boy. You threw a tantrum and now try to fix your mistake.”
The orb began to pulse orange.
Wrathion scowled. “My turn,” he said. “Show me Sabellian as he truly is, Kairoz.”
Sabellian’s face fell - but only for a moment.
The Hourglass rotated to a horizontal position. Still the sand ran back and forth with no need for gravity. A second time, the energy expanded, and a second time the scene before them came to life.
The mortal town was aflame. Great gusts of smoke billowed from collapsed roofs and piles of wood and rubble which were once buildings. Huge slabs of timber, broken pieces of rock, and bodies of both humans and horses littered the wide cobbled road. Wrathion was not sure if it was night, or if the smoke was so thick it had consumed the light of the sun.
And the screams were deafening.
He watched, transfixed, as people fled past his vantage point, disappearing to the side as if they had traveled out of his line of vision and back into the past. A woman on a horse cantered through the road, a great harpoon held in her right hand, and shouted orders indistinct above the din of chaos. More soldiers arrived in the street, spilling out from a side alley, some on horseback but most on foot. They wore the armor of Lordaeron, Wrathion noticed. Not Stormwind.
“Prepare yourselves!” the woman yelled. “It comes again!”
The mortals looked up and held their weapons. Wrathion followed their gaze. High above, the smoke billowed and stretched. A near roar thundered forth from the wake, and at once the smoke-clouds burst apart.
A giant black dragon soared out from their cover. Its great mouth was open wide, its teeth and gullet stained with blood, and its eyes were alit with such a beastial fury it seemed more the gaze of a proto-dragon than a dragon’s of actual intellect.
Sabellian roared again and dived toward the soldiers.
The commander’s horse reared as the hulking behemoth came upon them. Wrathion knew immediately that the humans were outmatched against such a foe, but he found himself transfixed upon Sabellian, both out of fear and awe. The elder dragon did not slow his descent as he careened to the band of soldiers. Harpoons from unseen workers flew suddenly at his sides, but he spun. They sailed over him.
Sabellian opened his maw wide and exhaled. Flame burst forth from his gullet, and though the humans had expected this, a quarter of them were too slow for the sudden attack. The fire cooked them alive in their suits of armor.
But the other survivors did not remain lucky. Sabellian clamped his jaws closed and roared back with a sudden bank of his wings. His throat contracted. He opened his mouth again. But from it did not spill flame - instead a torrent of dark purple liquid shot from his gullet. It spilled upon more than half of the defenders. From where it had struck, sudden steam billowed. Metal corroded, and with it, skin and flesh. Those stricken screamed in agony as the poison burned away at their muscle down to the bone. Even though he was watching a vision, Wrathion could smell the chemical burning of flesh.
Panic now scattered the remaining forces, and like the citizens from before, they turned to flee. Sabellian roared in what Wrathion thought as amusement. The dragon turned around to the forces as he had before, but no poison or flame exited his jaws. This time, he dove, and plucked up two humans in his mouth. They hardly had time to scream before he crunched down on them with his great teeth and then swallowed the battered bodies whole, and soared back off into the clouds.
The vision shifted, and when it stilled, Wrathion saw that a little time had passed, but enough where the town was far more destroyed than before. On one of the still standing buildings, Sabellian perched, and he roared with such great force the air around Wrathion seemed to shake. His point of view backed up as if he were watching through a fleeing citizen’s gaze, and when it did so, Wrathion saw more of a panorama of the destruction: an entire town, perhaps the size of Redridge, lay desolate, burning, and broken. Dozens of bodies littered the road, of all ages and sizes - and those were the only ones he could see.
Wrathion realized he was holding his breath. While his Tavern had not suffered such desolation, the scene reminded him of when Sabellian had first attacked him - and then he remembered that he was watching a vision, not interacting with it. He was not within it, as much as it seemed so. He glanced to the side, and startled as he saw the brightness of the Celestial Court to his side - and there at his side stood Sabellian, as he had been before.
The elder dragon’s face was taut and ashen. It was the only indication of any grief or regret on his face. Wrathion could not tell what the dragon was thinking; even as the vision began to fade, Sabellian remained transfixed on the image of his past-self with a distant but hardened look. How could this be the same monster in the vision? Even during the Tavern, and even during the battle of Sik’vess, Sabellian had not shown such beastial fury or such bloodlust as he did in the flashback…
But that did not help his case. Wrathion shook himself out. That Sabellian was Sabellian. It had only been the brief time when Sabellian had gone to Outland that he had been given respite, but the corruption still lurked, and with it, the same dangerous beast that still roared and laughed mightily in the vision.
Finally, the giant image before them faded. A silence spread among the Court. Not even the audience, who had been so animated before, spoke much. Wrathion turned to face them, and saw most if not all staring at Sabellian, who still had not looked away where the vision had been.
The orb grew an ugly mix of orange and a light lavender, swirling together and overlapping, each energy trying to take over the other.
“So,” Wrathion said. “That creature is what I’m trying to stop from happening. That was you, Sabellian. Do remind me: how long ago did you enter the Dark Portal? And how old are you?”
The dragon scowled at him.
“Oh, nevermind! I’ve just remembered. Thirty years ago, perhaps? That’s when you were… ‘clear’ of mind. And you’re ten thousand years old.” He counted on his hands in mocking fashion. “A mere … .3 percent of your life.” He smiled.
The lavender began to eat at the orange.
Oh, I have you now, uncle.
“And here you are, proclaiming yourself of sane mind and body, when you’ve hardly lived as much for any time at all in comparison to your vast span of years,” Wrathion continued. “How could you begin to know if you still won’t catch madness in Outland? The Old Gods may still reach out to you there - being interdimensional void beings, of course. That’s right: you don’t know. You’re a time bomb, waiting to explode.”
Sabellian’s glower became murderous. The orb pulsed purple.
Sew the doubt.
“You’re right,” Sabellian said at last. “I don’t know.” He scowled. “But you act as if I want to return to that enslaved life.” He glanced at the Hourglass, where it spun like a glob at Kairoz’s side. Silence stretched among them.
“Bronze,” he said at last. “Show me the end of Obsidia’s Wrymcult.”
Kairoz hesitated. His eyes grew distant - but he was quick to nod. He turned and swept out his hands, and as before a curtain of energy rocketed from the artifact. It swirled through the air like a screen, billowing and rippling with grit and golden sand.
It parted. Before them stretched Blade’s Edge, hot and unending in its sprawl of spikes and gorges.
A flash of onyx and red swept past them. The vision followed it. It was a black dragon, lithe of body and flying fast toward a cave below. It was no one Wrathion recognized - but did he not know the name Obsidia?
The dragon landed in front of the cave.
“Sabellian!”
The roared name echoed down the gorge, its challenge tangible in the snarl.
Shadows shifted from within the cave mouth, and from them stepped the alchemist in his true and gigantic form. His eyes were dark and quiet as he stared at the smaller dragon before him.
“Obsidia,” he greeted with no lacking distaste.
“A mortal band has just killed Maxnar - and half of my wrymcult in Coven,” she growled. Movement smeared off to the top of the gorge. Another dragon sailed into view, then landed behind the female. Then another. Then another. Three adult dragons stood before Sabellian, each wildly different in appearance and design.
They were not of Sabellian’s clutch. They had no double-horns, no brown-gold tinge to the underbelly. Wrathion stared at them. There had been more dragons in Blade’s Edge that were not of Sabellian’s brood? And yes, he knew the name Obsidia - it came to him while he stared at the leading female. She’d been a broodmother during the Cataclysm, and had been destroyed. But why was she here?
“Your dragonspawn lair?” Sabellian didn’t look at the newcomers. “A shame.”
“I know it was your doing,” Obsidia bit out. “I know your daughter commanded them.”
“Did you see her lead them into the Coven?” Sabellian flicked his eyes at last to the other dragons. The air was palpable with challenge - and anger. But the elder dragon didn’t seem bothered, as if he could fight back the three with a quick swat of his claw.
“Blackscale has seen her working with the Expedition,” Obsidia said. “Giving out baubles and gold… and stealing my whelps from their assigned hunters -”
“Assigned hunters?” For the first time, Sabellian flickered with the anger and impatience Wrathion was used to. “You give them to the mortals as gifts. As pets. Only so you may stay in power over them. So they can continue their… worship of you, worm. The children are better off with Samia.”
“They are mine,” Obsidia snarled. “And you admit to meddling!” She whipped her tail back and forth. “The Wyrmcult is of my own design. I will not have you tear down what I have -”
“I will tear down what I will, Obsidia,” Sabellian snarled. “Deathwing left me as commander, and you as me underling. Do not test me, broodmother.”
“Deathwing would loathe to see his commander now,” she spat. Sabellian growled. Even though it was just a vision, Wrathion felt the sound in his chest. “Already as soft as a dove when he has nothing to guide him.”
“Soft?” Sabellian huffed smoke, a hint of amusement in his face. “Idiot. Is that what you call the Old Gods? Guides? They’re our enslavers!” Each word grew in volume until the last was roared. Whatever was happening here had been in motion for a long time; they were witnessing the boiling point. “You call me weak? Weak is the fool who can’t even cope with the idea of freedom. Weak is trying to recreate a way of life known only to a slave. Weak is doing only what they know rather than trying to do better - and weak is handing over their own children to power-hungry mortals to keep that lifestyle in check!” Sabellian bared his teeth, his orange eyes aglow. “You call ME weak, broodmother?”
“I am doing what I must!” Obsidia snarled. “At each turn you stop me… and you? You do nothing to help us! Do you think I want some flimsy domestic life that you’ve settled in so comfortably? I want the life that was stolen from me by this world! How can so you easily turn away from everything you’ve known? This Wrymcult is my refuge. You cannot take it from me!”
“I can,” Sabellian growled. “And I will. Your cult is an abomination.” He glanced over the others, eyes studying. One of them did not look at him, instead staring at the ground in shame. “All of you are involved. Clearly.”
“Obsidia is right,” said one dragon. “We wish for our old life. It… it’s been difficult in trying to adjust. I find myself empty, without purpose…”
“Then find purpose, Rivendark,” Sabellian spat.
“You may be our commander, but you can’t choose what we want,” said another, the one standing next to the dragon who hadn’t yet looked up from the ground. “Sabellian, even you must find it hard. You are older than all of us. Do you not feel -?”
“Do I feel as if I wish to return to enslavement?” Sabellian scoffed. “No. I’m not so enamored with the idea, Insidion.”
Insidion frowned, but said nothing. To Wrathion, it looked like he had little conviction in the subject. The words had sounded strangely rehearsed. He eyed Obsidia. She was their leader, not Sabellian, he realized. And it looked like Sabellian knew that too.
Rivendark stepped forward. “Then what should we do? None of us want this life - and you! Turning away from your father. When the Portal reopened, we wanted to return, and you forced us to stay - coward!”
Sabellian flexed his claws. Any amusement fled from his face, and Wrathion felt fear in his own heart as the elder dragon took on a countenance of simmering rage and power. He turned the gaze to the challenging dragon.
Rivendark took a nervous step backward. All fight fled from his face.
“Learn your place, or I will force you into it,” Sabellian said.
“Enough.” Obsidia’s word was crisp and like a bite of air. “You all nothing of our only life, here. You will doom us to suffer - and this world has limited time before it devours itself. You would doom us to its demise, as well?”
“If you cannot live freely, then yes. You will suffer, but not because of me. Because of your own weakness.” He huffed. “And as for Outland’s destruction… that is far in coming.”
“Then,” she said, “we will leave.”
Silence.
“Leave,” Sabellian repeated. The word fell from his tongue like honey, slowly and drawn out. “Deathwing has not released us from this station.”
Obsidia snorted. “That’s what you said when you didn’t let us go through the Portal. We all know Deathwing thinks us dead. He can’t release us if he doesn’t know we live.”
“And our charge is completed,” cut in Rivendark. “We protected his eggs. It wasn’t our fault they came out… wrong.”
The Netherwing.
Sabellian glanced at them. It was becoming clear he hadn’t expected such a turn of events. But if they were at such odds, why did he not embrace the idea?
“Furywing,” he said, looking at the other female. “You agree?”
She bowed her head lower and said nothing.
Sabellian bared his teeth. “All of your children would march to their death. Those whelps have never heard the whispers. Look at me! Do you want to see them grow mad?”
Furywing flinched, but did not raise her head.
Obsidia looked smug. “They will return to their rightful legacy,” she said. “And be raised as conquerors - unlike your whelps, Sabellian, simply bait for the Gronn.”
Sabellian hissed. The hateful sound was like a spell, freezing them all in place. He opened his mouth to show off his teeth, and his fangs elongated unnaturally, like a snake’s. Wrathion had caught a glimpse of those in the earlier vision, but thought it a fluke. Now, looking at them, they caught the sun in a metallic way. Metal implants?
Obsidia rumbled and took a step back.
But a moment later, Sabellian seemed to change his mind. He closed his mouth. The dragons relaxed.
“You want to leave?” the elder dragon said. “Then leave. Go enslave yourselves and your children. I am done with you.”
Obsidia smiled, pleased, then raised her wings. “We should have done this a long time ago,” she mused. “Good luck with the Gronn, commander.”
She flapped her wings and was off. Rivendark quickly followed.
He needed them for protection. Gruul must still be alive, then. Of course Sabellian hadn’t wanted them to leave. That was too much of an open position. If the father of Gronn wanted more dragon trophies, all that would stand before him would be a single dragon, not four.
Furywing turned as if to leave, but rumbled and went up to Sabellian. The dragon hadn’t moved.
“Sabellian,” she said. “You could come with us. I know it’s been difficult for you too, like it was for Kesia. If you come back…”
“No.” Sabellian didn’t speak with the same venom as before. A deep exhaustion settled into his voice. “That life is a ghost to me. I can’t go back to it, no matter how the weaker parts of my mind call to it.” He glanced toward where Obsidia and Rivendark had gone. “I can understand their wish to return. But you and Insidion? You just had a clutch.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known -”
“As it was for me,” Sabellian snapped. Furywing hunched her shoulders. “But I can see when a challenge is a gift. And now you will sacrifice your children so you can be comfortable in servitude.” He scowled. “Get out of my sight.”
“Sabellian -”
“Get out. And do not come back.”
Furywing looked hurt. As Sabellian turned away, the vision faded.
Again, the suddenness of reality had Wrathion dizzy. He blinked hard for a couple moments as he adjusted.
And when he did, he knew at once he was beginning to lose. He looked at Sabellian, who stared at him with a smug look.
The orb pulsed. Its light lavender tilt began to shift - into a deep orange.
Everyone watched him. Wrathion’s brown broke out in a cold sweat. How could he deny what he’d just seen?
Sabellian hadn’t wanted to go back to Azeroth. His vehemence had been touchable. He’d never been a danger to the world. With panic, Wrathion realized his own doubt, and he tried to grab it, to turn it and squash it in his hands. He couldn’t lose. No. He had to kill the dragons. He had to!
Something Obsidia said struck him.
“So what if you didn’t want to come back?” Wrathion said at last in the silence. A strength of wills. No doubt. A strange warmth suffused him, and he recognized it to when he’d received Niuzao’s blessing in Steppes. Niuzao had championed him. Fortitude. He took the blessing with desperate claws now. “Outland will fall eventually, and you and your brood will be forced to come here, as Obsidia and the others did. You’ll still become a danger to us. I’ve done what I’ve done so I can stop that before it begins. We all saw what destruction you by yourself could unleash - and as I said, you don’t know if you’ll not grow mad in Blade’s Edge!”
“My brood will never submit to the Old Gods again,” Sabellian drawled. He looked unaffected. Wrathion bared his teeth. The orb continued its orange pulse.
He was losing.
“Oh,” the Black Prince said, “and how will you do that? Some wonderful elixir of yours?”
“I’ll kill myself.” The words struck Wrathion like a blow. He stared, wide-eyed. “But now before releasing my children of their own coming misery.”
“You’ll… you’ll kill your own children?”
“As I said,” Sabellian rumbled, “none of us will be slaves again.”
Never once did the orb shake in its color. Sabellian had no doubts about such a path. Killing his own children did not quiver at his strength? Wrathion blanched. Titans, he had never known this.
He had to put doubts in that path, then. He had to make Sabellian question.
“So you can kill your own?” Wrathion scowled. “Why fight me over something that is inevitable? Come, uncle, surely you see the stupidity in all this! You hate me because I’m beating you to the punch, as they say, is that it?”
“I hate you because you’re a threat,” Sabellian snarled. “You would steal all the years that have yet to live because of your own fear and impatience. I want them to live all the life they can. I want their lives to be free of horror. I want their last moments to be those of peave and family.” Sabellian scowled. “I want them to know love. Do you think I want them to know fear at the end of an assassin’s blade in their final heartbeats? Skewered by a mortal because of a paranoid cousin?”
The orb pulsed a brighter orange.
“You can try to shake me,” Sabellian said. “I see you trying. But you cannot.”
“No! I will not lose this!” Wrathion balled his hands into fists. “You are Deathwing’s son! His first clutch! You can’t walk free, even in a world with no threat to Azeroth - and I already killed you! I can kill you again!”
The hourglass shuddered.
It exploded with energy, and before Wrathion could blink, he was swallowed by it.
Wrathion found himself in a dark cave. It was shallow, the end rounding off to his left in a hollowed wall laced with sharp points and cracks. A dry smell permeated the air. It reminded him dimly of his time in the egg – of the Badlands.
He looked the other way toward the light, and startled. Sabellian stood there, looking at the entrance of the sizable cavern, where it opened up into a crowded scene of more dusty-colored rocks and natural walls. A mountain range, perhaps.
“How did we get here?” Wrathion asked in bewilderment. Had the Hourglass somehow transported them? But Sabellian gave no indication of hearing him. Wrathion glared. It was not the first time the elder dragon had ignored him, and so, reaching his hand out, the Prince waved it in front of Sabellian's face.
Nothing. The elder dragon only exhaled.
Wrathion scowled and smacked Sabellian's snake pauldron -
Only for his hand to go through Sabellian.
He paused in alarm. It was as if Sabellian was an apparition. Again Wrathion struck his hand out, and again it passed through the dragon. But unlike normal apparitions or holograms, Sabellian's image did not waver or disperse in the movement of Wrathion's hand. Instead he remained undisturbed, solid as he had appeared before.
And then, studying Sabellian, Wrathion realized there were details in this image that he had not caught before. Sabellian was wearing an altered outfit than the one he was accustomed to seeing the elder dragon wear. While the snake shoulders remained, the robes were less colorful and less voluminous. Instead they reminded Wrathion of the Kirin Tor battlemage armor: half robe, half mail, and cut slim to the body. The colors were a deep orange, black, and crimson.
But the outfit was ripped in savage places, and what Wrathion thought to be blood stained more than one unfortunate patch of cloth or mail. Sabellian himself was injured: his left arm was limp at his side and quickly bandaged, and one of his eyes was a deep blue bruise. Other scratches and bruises littered the dragon's visible skin. He slouched as if his back ached. And to Wrathion he looked almost... younger. Not by much, but perhaps enough to be obvious. The angry creases in his eyes were slighter, and his face a little smoother if not for the bruises.
This was a vision, he decided. It could be nothing else. But unlike the other visions, Wrathion seemed to be a part of this phantasm, living in it like a ghost. But what was it showing him? He suspected this was again a corrupted Sabellian because of the shift of age and clothing, but why -?
A sudden shadow crossed over the light of the entrance. Sabellian straightened and bowed his head. Wrathion looked over.
He stiffened. Sweat immediately broke out on his brow.
Deathwing stood before him.
Wrathion had seen Deathwing before in his trials that the Celestials had given him. That image had been nightmarish enough with its detailed likeness, and had been enough to send him into fits of fear, even in front of his champion. But this – this was the true Deathwing in the flesh.
He was massive. There was no other words to describe the fallen Aspect. Every piece of him was jagged and raw and large: from his claw-pauldron shoulders, to the great pieces of dried lava that acted as his chestplate, to his actual height. He exuded both power and cunning, and Wrathion could feel the unnatural heat roll off of the dragon's mortal guise even from where he stood. On instinct he slouched back as if to cower against the wall. But he went no further, finding himself frozen in fear.
“Father,” Sabellian greeted hoarsely, and the submission in his tone was just enough to make Wrathion break free from his thrall. Never before had he heard Sabellian speak so low and quivering. “Good news?”
“Enough news to make a decision.” Deathwing's voice was like the first grumblings of an earthquake, and held a cold malice in it that made Wrathion shudder. The Aspect walked into the cave, and his shadow stretched before him, contorting against the far end of the inner walls.
Sabellian did not move as Deathwing approached him, but he kept a submissive posture: his head bowed lower, his eyes looking not at Deathwing's face, but at his chest. “And?”
“The mortals have moved on,” Deathwing said. “The skull is lost.”
Sabellian glanced up to the Aspect's face. “Allow me to send my faster scouts after them. I can -”
“No.” The reply was swift and decisive, and Sabellian fell silent. “We must move on to other avenues.”
What time period was this? Wrathion wracked his brain for clues as to what they were speaking of. Deathwing was still among Azeroth; he had not yet fled to the recesses of Deepholm. The Battle of Grim Batol had not yet taken place, and Wrathion admitted he knew little about Sabellian's personal history enough to pinpoint when he and Deathwing might have been together on some mayhem concerning mortals, or a skull.
A skull? He backtracked. That sounded familiar...
“The eggs will remain in Blade’s Edge,” Deathwing continued. He looked Sabellian up and down with a slow rake of his eyes, as if only just seeing his son’s injuries. Close together, now, Wrathion saw their obvious resemblances. Their faces had the same shape, and near the same slope of nose and cunning eyes. There was no mistaking Sabellian as to whose clutch he had come from.
Blade’s Edge. Only a moment later did that register. They were in Blade’s Edge!
“Remain here?” Sabellian repeated. He frowned. “Father…. if I may. I think the best course may be to move them to Nagrand -”
“And let the orcs trample them? Let the cooler winds freeze them in the shell?” Deathwing scoffed. “No. This place will be the best for my clutch.”
Sabellian nodded after a moment, but there remained an unsureness to his eyes.
“You and those below you will stay here and guard them,” Deathwing continued.
For the first time in the conversation, a flare of confidence lit in Sabellian’s eyes, reminding Wrathion finally of the Sabellian he knew. “Guard them? The mortals may have moved on, but the gronn remain. We’ll be slaughtered. Even you could not hold back that Gruul creature.”
The last sentence was a mistake. Deathwing whirled back to Sabellian with a swiftness that belied his hulking form, and the alchemist flinched, expecting a blow. But none came. Deathwing only loomed above his less-favorite son and emit a sudden heat and power about him that again Wrathion, despite being a ghost in this vision, felt himself freeze in fear.
“You will stay here.” Deathwing’s words were slow, punctuated, as if he was speaking to a whelp that had gone dangerously out of line. “You will guard my eggs at any cost.” He gave Sabellian a long look. “At any cost. If you should die, so be it. As long as my eggs remain.”
A long pause stretched before father and son. Wrathion himself did not breathe, but slowly, he realized what he was seeing: Deathwing’s abandonment of Sabellian on Draenor with the eggs that would eventually become the first Netherwing.
“I am… your lieutenant,” Sabellian finally said in a clipped, frustrated voice. But there was a hint of the same unsureness there from before. “Surely I would be better suited with you? Another could -”
“And you have done well as my lieutenant,” Deathwing interrupted smoothly, giving Wrathion a glimpse of perhaps the Daval Prestor he had pretended to be. “But now you will be here, making sure my new children are safe.” He turned away. “Nefarian takes Blackrock. Onyxia, Stormwind. And to you, this task is given.” He glanced back at his son, who stood staring blankly at him. “Your brother and sister accepted their tasks gracefully. Why don’t you?”
Sabellian locked his jaw. He bowed his head. “I will protect your clutch,” he said.
And then the world around him spun. Wrathion clutched his head as vertigo claimed him. He fell to his knees. When the sensation fled, he opened his eyes - and again found himself inside the Court.
Sabellian looked similarly bewildered - and pale in the face. Had he, too, been swallowed by the vision?
“I didn’t ask for that vision!” the Prince snarled at Kairoz, who looked alarmed.
“I’m sorry. Truly, I am. I didn’t know it would react so much to your emotions.” He cringed. “I told you it wasn’t complete.”
“An appropriate vision, no doubt,” Sabellian spit out. He rubbed his face and eyed Wrathion. “As you see,” he drawled, bitterness in his voice, “my father hated me. Even if I was his son. Even if I was his first clutch. Do you honestly think that makes a difference in this?”
In that moment, he loathed Kairoz. He scowled at the Bronze and his hourglass. That vision had been almost perfect in dismantling Wrathion’s point further. Had Kairoz done that on purpose?
Why?
He felt the control seep from him, and though he tried to grab it, it was like trying to grab steam. It curled through his fingers, taunting him, as he stared at them all - and stared at the orb.
Orange. Bright orange.
Seeing Deathwing in the flesh - somewhat - had only infused him with a further dread that now he could not shake. And though the vision had been accidental, Sabellian remained smug and thoughtful, his eyes on Wrathion.
And in that moment, the Black Prince realized he’d walked into a trap.
“Ah. My last vision, I think.” He glanced at the orb. “The last one I’ll need. Show me Wrathion’s betrayal at Sik’vess.”
No!
Wrathion tried to look away as the vision unfolded. But he found his eyes pinned to the scene.
His heart grew cold as he saw the dark cavern of the three; the three Paragons; the cursed sculptures of Y’shaarj’s living body.
And then Left burst from the shadows. The fight seemed so much quicker than it had at that moment. Then, Wrathion had nearly been possessed. Then, Wrathion had tasted real fear.
He turned away when he saw himself grab the extra dagger from Left’s belt - but he could not block the sound of Sabellian’s wet choked gasp as he was stabbed. He glanced up, bile threatening his throat, as he saw his past self pull the weapon from the other dragon’s gut.
I killed him. The thought was numb on his tongue. The feelings of confliction and confusion that had followed him in those next days returned to him now as past-Sabellian spit out the words:
“Truly a black dragon.”
He hissed and closed his eyes. He saved my life and I still slaughtered him when he couldn’t fight back. The shame he had bottled up, the doubt at such a kill, now felt like poison in his veins. He hated Sabellian. But seeing the “murder” again, hearing the words - he knew what Sabellian had meant by them. The betrayal had set him into the legacy Obsidia had wanted to return to. Of manipulation, of death, of backstabbing. A black dragon indeed. A black dragon who had wanted to separate himself from that legacy and had only succeeded in embracing it without conscious effort.
Seeing Sabellian maddened in the prior vision had only made it more obvious to Wrathion that his uncle would not become that any time soon. Seeing Deathwing hate Sabellian cemented within him an awful kinship with the alchemist that he loathed.
When he opened his eyes, he didn’t need to look at the orb to know he’d lost. All his doubts flooded into him now, unleashed, breathed out by the dark pit he teetered on.
But look at the orb he did, with slow, dead eyes. It swirled like a globe, a bright fire-orange and spinning with chi symbols.
“The challenge is done,” Xuen boomed. “Sabellian wins the Strength of Wills.”
