#shadowgrace

Smoke clogged her throat, stung her eyes.  It was hard to breathe, but she couldn’t stop.  She had to keep going.  There were too many people there, too many that couldn’t escape without help and there would not be enough help.

She abandoned us.

It had been a blip on a subchannel, word that Tyrande had reached Stormwind with Malfurion Stormrage. That, if nothing else, would have driven her to at least try to reach the city before all was lost—for she knew in her heart of hears that all was lost—but she still had to try.  Someone had to try, as their high priestess had seemingly abandoned them.

Elune, light and love incarnate, watch over your children as we face the darkest shadows of our lives.

Her eyes stung as she wrapped a strip torn from her cloak over her mouth and nose to help mitigate the smoke.  Her ribs ached and she knew she was bleeding—the last moments as they grew close to Rut’theran before it was obliterated by a falling limb of the great tree had not been kind—and for a second Roiya was glad that the cloth was still damp with saltwater from the sea.  It would help for a time, at least.

Why had they been so keen to follow her into this hell?

Goddess have mercy on them.  Goddess have mercy on me.

She sucked in a breath, barely managing not to cough, and plunged deeper into the billowing smoke. Her boots echoed hollow on the stones, the sound muted by the roar of flames, of heat-driven wind, of the screams of the trapped and the dying.

Burning was a terrible way to die.

She dropped her shoulder into a burning door.  The wood splintered, ash and embers spiraling around her, melding with the shadows swirling around her.

I am shadow, your hand in dark places.  Elune, watch over me and help me to save your people as I walk in the shadows of Your light.

“Come!” she barked at the family huddled inside, reaching a hand out to them.  “Hurry!  There are portals at the temple.  Hurry.”

They hesitated for a moment too long.  She plunged deeper into the cottage.

“You need to go,” she said urgently.  “There is no time.”

“You’re Shadowgrace,” the elder of the three women inside said, her voice a raw but hushed whisper. “What are you doing here?  Our world is dying.”

“Elune commands, and I obey,” Roiya said, gentling her tone and swallowing the cough that threatened. “Our people are dying.  Where else would I be if not saving them?”

The woman’s eyes glimmered, tears there not only from the smoke.  She swallowed, nodding hard, clutching a girl of perhaps ten against her chest.

“Go,” Roiya whispered, her voice almost lost to the crackling and the screams, the rushing wind and the sound of falling debris.  “Please.”

The woman nodded, gathering her child, the others with her fleeing out into the plaza in her wake.

Her own eyes stinging, Roiya coughed once, then again, hard.  For a second, her vision dimmed.

Elune, please.  Do not forsake me—do not forsake us.

The cottage creaked. A whispered curse escaped her lips as a beam came down in a cloud of embers and sparks like fireflies in the summer air.  The sound of its crash left her ears ringing and she stumbled out into the streets of Darnassus, into the streets of a dying, burning city.

Physically, she was unharmed.

Physically, there was nothing wrong.

She could feel something changing, though.  She could feel the retreat inside, could sense herself withdrawing emotionally, turning back to the way things were.  Part of her fought against it.

Part of her welcomed it.

Knelt near the fire pit, hands curled into fists against her thighs, eyes squeezed shut, Roiya Shadowpaw took a deep, shuddering breath.  Her reward was a lungful of smoke and hot air and she shivered.

Gone.

It could not be real, could not be true.  That was the irrational part of her, the part that wanted to hold out hope.  It was the part that had made her shout Jo’s name before she knew the witch had gone down, the part that had seized her heart in a vice the moment the portal closed.

Ten thousand years and more of training drilled into her was the only thing that had let her maintain as much composure as she had.  It wouldn’t last.  Even she had limits.

Everyone had limits.

Duty.  Honor. Sacrifice.

Why couldn’t I stop this?  What could I have done?

Tears stung her eyes, but she couldn’t afford them anymore, not yet, not now.  They would wait—they would have to.  She knew that Cere had seen them, perhaps M and Jo as well, even Fro. That was then.

This was now.

The mask slid back into place.

For all that everything had changed in the past two years, two months, two weeks, two days, two hours—

No matter how much she had hoped to leave that mask behind forever, it was inescapable.

The Legion had come.

The Legion had taken.