“No! I’m not!” the image of Jaina insisted. “Theramore is my city. I need to stay and defend it!”
“Jaina, if you don’t go soon, we will both die, and my efforts to drag the cursed bomb here instead of letting it strike the heart of the city will be for nothing. Is that what you want? Is it?”
The sound of the approaching sky galleon increased. “I won’t abandon you!” Jaina shouted. “Maybe together we can divert it!” Jaina watched herself turn to look at the nearing ship—to see Kalecgos fall, to see the bomb being dropped. The Vision adjusted, and suddenly it was as if everyone present was seeing what Jaina had seen. There was a collective gasp in the courtroom.
What had followed had been a blur in Jaina’s mind, but now she saw it all. Rhonin paused in his spellcasting long enough to physically grab Jaina and shove her into the portal. She struggled, but was caught within the portal spell’s grasp.
Jaina was looking right at Rhonin when it happened.
The leader of the Kirin Tor stared toward the window, his arms outstretched, on his goateed face an expression of complete and total defiance.
And then—
Her world went white. Rhonin’s entire body turned violet—the hue of utterly pure arcane magic. Then it exploded in a sickening cloud of lavender ash.
Before she even realized what she was doing, Jaina’s throat was suddenly raw from her scream. She was not alone—not here in the courtroom, and not in the past, where those who watched the mana bomb descend were crying out in hopeless horror.
Dimly, she heard the reverberating tone of Taran Zhu’s gong and his call for respite. Jaina was grateful that Vereesa’s torment was over, although her own was just beginning.
Anduin hadn’t spoken directly to Jaina about what she had personally witnessed. He had heard about it, and had thought he understood the nightmare of what she had undergone. He realized now he had only the barest comprehension. He didn’t know what else Tyrande was planning on showing, but after what she had done yesterday, he expected the worst. She’d already shown the jury and the spectators the horrific sight of Rhonin’s sacrifice. She was not, Anduin guessed, about to hold back.
He had to admit, the night elf’s brutal, take-no-prisoners, spare-no-feelings attitude was working. Anduin stared angrily at Garrosh as the orc sat, crippled, sha-scarred, and chained within an inch of his life, next to a Baine who had his head in his hands. Anduin knew that it was not the threat of prison that kept the angry mobs from taking over in the temple. It was that of not being allowed to see the next Vision, hear the next witness, or vicariously experience the next atrocity.
The respite was only for twenty minutes. Vereesa had gotten up and left without a word. Anduin didn’t think she would return, and couldn’t blame her. Jaina too had left almost immediately with Tyrande, although by their body language, Anduin could see the relationship was strained. He’d expected Kalecgos to accompany the two, but instead, the blue dragon remained in his seat.
“Aren’t you going to Jaina?” Anduin asked. “It’s a brief respite, but I’m sure she’d be glad to see you.”
Kalec gave Anduin a halfhearted shake of his head. “I’m not sure she would,” he said.
Anduin shifted awkwardly in his seat. Varian was paying no attention. The king leaned back in his chair, his arms folded against his chest, and stared fixedly at Garrosh.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Anduin said quietly. “She’s been through so much . . . You two seemed really right for each other.”
“So I had hoped,” the dragon said. Then, as if he had said too much, he clapped Anduin on the shoulder with too-boisterous good humor. “Going to go stretch my wings.”
“Might do the same,” Anduin said.
“What, stretch your wings?” It was a poor joke, but it made Anduin smile despite himself.
“Ha, I wish. I just have legs. See you in a bit, Kalec.”
Three lotus buns and a cup of yak milk tea later, Anduin found himself questioning just why he was trying to help Garrosh Hellscream at all. And if Tyrande showed what he thought she would, Anduin didn’t think he would continue.
Jaina was pale, but more composed than she had been earlier. She and Tyrande seemed easier around one another as they entered and each resumed her seat. Taran Zhu announced that court had resumed session, and instructed Tyrande to continue.
“As we saw in the Vision of Time, Rhonin did succeed in portaling you to safety, and in drawing the mana bomb directly to the tower,” said Tyrande. “What happened then?”
Jaina sat straight, hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were red, but when she spoke, her voice was calm. “I regained consciousness on the island. Kalecgos found me, and I told him that I was going to return to Theramore, to see if there was anyone left I could help. He offered to come with me, but I insisted on going alone.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Anduin glanced at Kalecgos. The dragon’s lips were pressed together in a thin line and he wasn’t looking at Jaina. Anduin guessed that the conversation the two had actually had was nowhere as civil as she was describing.
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“I would like to show the court what Jaina Proudmoore saw upon her return to the city she had founded, had loved, and was willing to die for.” She nodded to Chromie.
A collective murmur of horror rose from the spectators, and Anduin saw that even the August Celestials, usually so impassive, looked distressed. The mana bomb had left a huge crater, yawning in front of the rubble that was all that remained of the great tower. The sky had been rent and wounded, with the insane colors that Anduin had heard one could see in Northrend.
And the bodies—
Anduin swallowed hard, tasting bile. There were so many. Some of them looked normal—well, as normal as a corpse could look, he supposed—while others floated in midair, bleeding upward. Still others were a uniform shade of violet. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to which form death took.
He watched the image of Jaina, her face drained of color and blank with shock, walk about the ruins. Her hair—white, now—almost seemed to be floating about her, and he could hear the hum and crackle of still-viable arcane energy.
The detritus of ordinary life stood in sharp contrast to the overwhelming scale of the destruction. Anduin glimpsed things like goblets, hairbrushes, leaves from a book that crumbled to purple dust when Jaina picked them up.
The enormous temple was quiet as everyone watched Jaina sort through the ruinations, looking for life, for any sign of hope. The only thing that broke the silence was the soft sounds of grief as Jaina came across bodies that someone recognized and mourned. Pained, who had survived so many battles, still clutched her sword as Jaina bent to stroke her long hair. The strands shattered beneath the mage’s touch.
Anduin recognized others—Admiral Aubrey, Marcus Jonathan, for so long a fixture at Stormwind’s main gate. He found himself wishing selfishly that the then-Jaina would just leave, so that he wouldn’t have to see the horror anymore, even secondhand.
There was a small shape on the ground, about the size of a child. He turned to look at Jaina, and saw that she had buried her face in her handkerchief. She couldn’t bear seeing this again, and he didn’t blame her, not one bit.
The image of Jaina stared at the small corpse, lying face down in a scarlet puddle. The blood had matted her pink ponytails. Tenderly, Jaina reached out to the body of Kinndy Sparkshine, the gnome who had been her apprentice.
It crumbled into violet sand, and the Jaina of the past screamed in agony.
Anduin tried to look away, but he was transfixed, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight of Lady Jaina Proudmoore, one of the finest magi of this age, shrieking and weeping, picking up handfuls of the arcane dust as if she could piece the girl back together.