AN: I found this in my hard drive and decided to finish it up and give it a little polish I guess?

Chapter 14: Quest Marker

"Should I be any less feared because you've stripped me of my titles?" -Kel'Thuzad

Kel'Thuzad grinned. "To murder what's left of a god."

"I doubt the priests would approve," I said, mentally shooing away the text that read "You have failed the Quest 'Jaina's Secret'!" as I followed him out the door. It slammed shut the moment I crossed the threshold.

I paused at the text. Troubling.

Fists banged against the door. "Open this-"

Kel'Thuzad waved in its general direction ambiguously and all sound ceased to emanate. "As long as it doesn't hurt the Light, I'm sure they won't care," he said. "Now, think carefully child. Is there anywhere specific you think it might be? Perhaps somewhere the girl child would visit often?"

The Quest 'How to Save a Life' has progressed!

Must everything be spelled out for you?

Remaining Tasks:

-Find and subdue Aelin

Minimap Quest Markers Activated.

"I might have some ideas," I said, willing the mental map into sight. Sure enough, there was a giant yellow question mark hovering over the docks. "Our best bet would be the docks, or somewhere by Lordamere Lake. She spent a lot of time there."

The Archmage snorted. "That is a very big place to search. Would you care to narrow it down?"

My brows scrunched at the map, but it remained stubbornly unhelpful in that regard. Maybe it'd tell me more if I got closer? "If you bring me with, it might jog something in my memory."

"The recklessness of youth," Kel'Thuzad said and I could hear the eyeroll in his voice. "At least it'll be curious now that the source of its power has been cut off."

"She," I corrected. At Kel'Thuzad's inquiring glance, I said, "Aelin is a girl."

"You know it's name." The shards in his hands spun to life, spinning clockwise, then counterclockwise, each rotation at a different pace.

"Is it supposed to be a secret?" I asked.

"Ael-in," he said, savoring the sound of each syllable. "High elvish for 'surrounded water' or better put, a lake. Fitting that a primitive being chooses a primitive name."

I grit my teeth. "Is that important?"

"Few elementals are able to take on a name. That tells me quite a few things," he said.

"I don't suppose you'd care to share your insights?" I asked.

"This elemental has ascended the Hierarchy of Spirits," Kel'Thuzad said. "Being of the lake would rule out the regnal and ducal tiers. A baron maybe?"

I raised a brow at that. "Are you saying that elementals have a nobility?"

He shrugged. "In a manner of speaking, yes. There remains some debate whether the Hierarchy Model of Elements is appropriate given even the most powerful of the elementals do not necessarily hold sway over those beneath it. The late Archmage Medivh noted that elementals often challenge each other over their mantles of power."

I blinked. "So you're saying elementals don't like each other?"

"Essentially." Kel'Thuzad beamed. "To think that a trip to Lordaeron would see me spar against a force of nature itself…"

"Surely you have Elementals in Dalaran? Scholar Nort says it's one of the first spells archmages ought to master," I said.

"Mere sprites, or the rare chivalric spirits that have been overfed mana. The lowest two ranks of the Hierarchy," he added after seeing my blank expression. "If what you say is true, then this Aelin ought to be a step above anything I've seen at the very least."

"If it's as strong as you say it is, shouldn't we assemble a party?" I asked. "Like those mages you came with."

Kel'Thuzad shook his head. "I need them here, keeping an eye on the girl and time is of the essence. A large party would only slow us down, and a lack of means to coordinate would make searching multiple areas inefficient."

"Then what about a small one? I have my guards, and that elf Father sent," I said.

"Elf?"

"It's ill manners to speak of someone not in your presence." Vereesa stepped out of the shadows, her mottled, woodland cloak somehow fluttering behind her in the windless corridor. Imbued with magic, no doubt.

I waved my hand at her dismissively. "Thank goodness you're here then, Lady Windrunner."

"What brings you to Lordaeron?" Kel'Thuzad asked.

"Watching him," Vereesa said. "I was so kindly volunteered when the human king made his request. Is it absolutely necessary to bring the child with you, Archmage?"

"I didn't know you cared," I muttered.

Kel'Thuzad shrugged. "The alternative is to let the girl child die."

"It would be a mark on my record if he were to die on my watch, and we Windrunners do not fail, but it would be in equally poor taste to let Proudmoore die," Vereesa said, then sighed. "Let us proceed without delay."

"We are in accord then." Kel'Thuzad clapped his hands together and walked off at a brisk pace. "Keep up! I haven't quite figured out the workings behind time magic or immortality yet."

"What about the others?" I asked, scrambling into a jog to follow. Thank the Game for Agility, or I doubt I could have managed even that.

"Would take too long. The elf can come along seeing as she's already stalking you," he said.

"You wouldn't be able to stop me anyway," Vereesa said, long and inhumanly graceful strides letting her keep pace with ease.

We were through the castle gates in no time at all and it occurred to me that technically speaking, none of the guards actually knew where Kel'Thuzad and the high elf were taking me, or for what purpose. Honored guests from allies they might be, but they weren't exactly beholden to Father. That we could walk out without anyone asking questions…well, sneaking out from now on would be so much simpler as long as I could convince Windrunner to go along with it.

I was a prince. How hard could that be?

The first stop was the docks we had picniced by when the murlocs attacked. The pavements were scrubbed clean of the green goo the murlocs bled and there was no sign of their bodies. Or damage, for that matter.

"Didn't the murlocs raid here just yesterday?" Vereesa asked. "Quite the efficient cleanup, for humans."

"Practice makes for perfection," Kel'Thuzad said.

I consulted with the minimap, and it had zoomed in. The marker now hovered somewhere to our south, the quieter portion of the port. "It should be this way," I said.

"I don't see anything," Vereesa said, taking point.

"You'll hear it first. Put those ears of yours to good use," Kel'Thuzad said. "Water Elementals are a crafty sort. They have a fine cunning to them that Earth and Fire Elementals fail to appreciate."

"You mean like an ambu-"

A torrent of water burst from beneath her, launching her into the air. I heard, more than saw, her body impact the ground.

The water pooled a few feet from us and reformed, her eyeless visage peering at us. Aelin opened her mouth, and the awful bellows of waves breaking against rock filled the air.

"You," -glowing runes materialized around Kel'Thuzad- "will be Silent."

The screeching stopped and-

-Aelin whipped at Kel'Thuzad with extended arms, long as a stream, each crack sounding like the rapids of River Arevass.

Kel'Thuzad brought his hands up, palms open in a circular motion. A luminescent blue bloomed into existence from the tips of his fingers, straining against the blows. The archmage laughed. "To do battle against a force of nature! What a prize!"

"Bash'a no falore talah!" Vereesa returned, nimbly running atop a low fence even as she nocked her first arrow. She released and the arrow snapped forward, too fast for my eyes to follow, but I could already tell her aim was true even at a dead run. It was that natural elven grace at work. A coil of light wrapped itself around Aelin's torso, anchoring her to the arrowhead now embedded in the cobblestone road.

Against any manner of foes, this would have been the first in a series of deathblows, but to truly contain the idea of water itself was next to impossible. Even the very earth, much as it tried, could not stop a river from reaching the ocean, nor could the air plug up the heavens during a storm. Aelin's torso was immobilized, but that was more a passing discomfort to the water elemental than the crippling blow Vereesa intended it to be.

With the patience of a river carving up the land, Aelin continued to batter away at Kel'Thuzad's shield, eroding its ethereal foundations with each blow and ignoring Vereesa's every effort to lighten the pressure.

Arrows, it turned out, didn't do much to water.

"You need to use magic!" Kel'Thuzad said, his cheeks beginning to dampen with sweat as a web of cracks creeped its way from the heart of his magical shield outwards. "Either disperse her body with force, or rip her core out!"

"I'm trying!" Vereesa snarled, committing to a backflip as a third arm shot out of Aelin's back and chased after the elf, twisting and turning with inhuman agility. Perhaps the only upside to all this was that Aelin's reach was not limitless. Once the water ran thin, her arm drew back, and she redoubled her efforts against Kel'Thuzad's rapidly failing shields.

Arrows, it turned out, could be fired at a distance.

Safely out of the range of an angry elemental, Vereesa peppered her with arrows of cold iron and enchanted steel and blessed quicksilver. These were not the weapons of any ordinary longbowman, but the specialized kit of a Quel'Thalas ranger. She must have poured a small fortune's worth of projectiles into Aelin, and to her credit, it was having more of an effect than her previous efforts.

Here and there, Aelin's humanoid shape began to flicker and falter and fail. Progress, but that progress was not fast enough.

With a mighty crash that sounded like the falling of a great tide, Kel'Thuzad's shield shattered into a thousand glimmering lights, and the wizard was thrown back several feet. One of his magical daggers was ripped from his grip, clattering to the floor even as its creator's head was smashed into a wooden wall.

Not dead, I surmised as he dove after the dagger. His HP had gone down, and he was now knocked down, but Kel'Thuzad was not dead.

When I looked up, I was face to face with Aelin, who was peering down at me. It tilted its head to the side. From the corner of my eye, I could see Vereesa trying to close the gap, yelling at me to stay away.

I ignored her. Was there any running in this situation? I was a child, with a child's legs. If the veteran elf had barely managed to escape with an impressive amount of over the top acrobatics, what chance did I have? My agility was by no means on that level, and I had no spells that could help me escape.

I clutched the frost dagger with both hands, trying to keep my teeth from jittering as Aelin continued to stare at me. I was keenly aware she could stop me whenever she wanted. She'd tossed aside Kel'Thuzad like he was nothing, and chased away Vereesa like shooing a fly.

I was just a kid of nine in way over his head.

But she didn't. Instead, she stared at me with her big, round eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Then I stabbed her where her heart ought to be.

"Ar-thas," Aelin managed to say as the ice took her. Her body froze over and crumbled, each whisper of the wind stripping away at her solidified form. In seconds, a teardrop shaped thing that sparkled against the fading day clattered to the ground.

It was all that was left of her, and I held it close to my chest.

The Quest 'How to Save a Life' has been completed!

"You did the right thing," Kel'Thuzad said, limping towards me. "It had to be done."

Then why did my mouth taste of ash and salt?

AN: So yeah I've been away for a while. Been writing some stuff on other sites, mostly doing original fiction these days. If you guys want to check it out, I mainly publish stuff on RoyalRoad / Scribblehub under the name Halt or HaltWrite. My current work is a meme story titled "These Heels Step Heavenward", a satirical take on xianxia (Chiense fantasy genre) being isekai'd into a generic western medieval fantasy.

Other stuff I've worked on since this are two Game of Thrones stories. The King Is Dead is post Lich King Arthas being reborn as Joffrey's younger twin and trying to find redemption in a world that won't let him find it. Zero Requiem on the other hand is a Code Geass fic with Lelouch being reborn as a Velaryon during the War of the Ninepenny Kings.