“Mother can commission a portal for us. Unless you would rather fly over the ocean and Westfall, where you are not welcome, even from a distance?”
Seryth supposed that was fair, though he didn’t like to admit so. “We could have saved ourselves an entire trip by just going there, first.”
“Mother isn’t all-knowing,” Malfas replied. “You learned something during the detour too, did you not?”
Seryth was too tired for an argument, and at his request, Malfas let the conversation go and bore them aloft.
Eli wasn’t in her apartment when they returned to Dalaran. Instead, Seryth found a row of crystals on her desk, each glowing gently with a different color, and a note: “Hi, Seryth! Thought you might come by. Gone to visit my sister. Crack the crystal of your choice to open a portal. The green one is most fun!”
Seryth eyed the green crystal, which had a distinct fel-like hue to it. He decided he would not be taking Eli’s advice on that one.
“What do you think?” he asked Malfas. The netherdrake sniffed each crystal delicately, like a connoisseur of wine. “That one seems most likely,” he finally said, nodding to a teal-colored crystal in the middle.
“I don’t know how you tell, but anywhere’s better than here, waiting to get picked up by Val’sharan druids,” Seryth muttered. “Here goes nothing, then.”
And he cracked the crystal.
The next thing he knew, he was in Shattrath. Draenei and sin’dorei still lived there despite the long years since the conflict with Kael’thas and Illidan. Seryth had never seen so many of his kin before in one place, though he knew their numbers here paled in comparison to those in Silvermoon.
He overheard some of them talking about their home city, particularly about the Sunwell and the ren’dorei. He knew from his foster father that all manner of elves visited Silvermoon to replenish their mana at the Sunwell. On a sudden inspiration, Seryth stopped one of the sin’dorei. Was mana at all like the anima Ulfar had mentioned? Perhaps it was a way to heal himself and the little dragon without crossing over to Shadowlands after all.
The sin’dorei, who introduced himself as a Lord Torvos, was disdainful of Seryth. Seryth was used to humans remarking on his elven blood, but it had never occurred to him that elves remarking on his human blood would be just as painful.
When Seryth asked about the Sunwell, Torvos squinted at him, and said Seryth would have to prove himself. After all — and he gestured to Seryth’s guardian-turned-voidwalker lurking behind him — the Sunwell had already suffered great damage at the hands of the void elves, and Seryth had the same ill-gotten feel about him.
“So set me a task,” said Seryth, “and I’ll prove myself.”
Torvos said that Seryth must show he wasn’t allied to the ren’dorei in any shape or form. He had heard a group of them were gathering in Netherstorm to plot a raid on the Sunwell. If Seryth could capture any information regarding that raid and hand it over to Torvos, perhaps the sin’dorei would consider trusting the half-blood.
Seryth swallowed his pride and agreed.
Malfas’ flight was strong through Terrokar Forest and past Zangarmarsh. He began to tire as they climbed into the sky to fly over the spikes of Blade’s Edge Mountains.
“No, don’t stop now!” Seryth cried. He recognized druidic structures below them and didn’t want Malfas landing among them.
Malfas banked around, losing altitude all the while, until he landed heavily just outside a small outpost in the highlands adorned with gears and floodlamps. Seryth pushed himself up out of the dirt where he had been catapulted, wearily pushing the wing-tip of Malfas aside and squinting at what they had found.
There were gnomes patrolling the outpost’s walls. Lots and lots of gnomes.
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