He had sent word ahead of his triumph. Of discovering who had been behind the plague. Of searching him out. Of slaying him, and of this day, his glorious return to his place of birth. As he strode along the road toward Capital City, on foot, he was greeted with cheers and applause, the grateful outpouring of thanks of a nation saved from disaster by their beloved prince. He accepted this as his due, but his mind was on seeing his father after so long.

“I would speak with you in private, Father, and tell you of the things I have learned and seen,” he had written into his letter, delivered a few days earlier by a swift courier. “You have, I am certain, spoken with Jaina and Uther. I can imagine what they have said—tried to turn you against me. I assure you I have only done what I believe to be the greatest good for the citizens of Lordaeron. In the end, I have destroyed the one who began this plague upon our people, and I return home victorious, eager to begin a new era for our kingdom.”

Those who marched behind him were as silent as he, their faces as cowled. The crowd did not seem to require their response to wildly celebrate their return. The mighty drawbridge was lowered and Arthas strode across it. The cheering throngs were here, too, no longer comprised of commoners, but of diplomats, lesser nobility, visiting dignitaries from the elves, dwarves, and gnomes. They stood not just in the courtyard but also above it in viewing boxes. Rose petals, pink and white and red, rained down upon the land’s returning hero.

Arthas remembered that once, he had thought to see Jaina standing before him on their wedding day, the petals falling upon a face lit with a smile, turned up to kiss him.

Jaina…

Moved by the image, he caught one of the red petals in a gloved hand. He thumbed it thoughtfully, and then frowned as a stain appeared. It grew before his eyes, desiccating and destroying the petal, until it was more brown than red in his palm. With a quick, dismissive gesture, he tossed the dead thing away and continued.

He pushed open the huge doors to the throne room he knew so well, strode forward, glanced at Terenas briefly, and threw his father a smile that was mostly hidden by the cowl. Arthas knelt in obeisance, Frostmourne held before him, its tip touching the seal carved into the stone floor.

“Ah, my son. Glad I am to see you safely home,” Terenas said, rising somewhat unsteadily.

Terenas looked unwell, Arthas thought. The incidents of the last several months had aged the monarch. His hair was grayer now, his eyes tired.

But it was all going to be all right now.

You no longer need to sacrifice for your people. You no longer need to bear the weight of your crown. I’ve taken care of everything.

Arthas rose, his armor clattering with the movement. He lifted a hand and drew back the hood from his face, watching for his father’s reaction. Terenas’s eyes widened as he took in the change that had come over his only son.

Arthas’s hair, once golden as the wheat that had given sustenance to his people, was now bone-white. He knew his face was pale as well, as if the blood had been drained from it.

It is time, Frostmourne whispered in his mind. Arthas moved toward his father, who had halted on the dais, staring, uncertain. There were several guards positioned about the room, but they would be no match against him, Frostmourne, and the two who had accompanied him. Arthas strode boldly up the carpeted steps and seized his father by the arm.

Arthas drew back his blade. Frostmourne’s runes brightened in anticipation. And then a whisper, not from the runeblade, but a memory—

—the voice of a dark-haired prince, seemingly from another lifetime ago—

“He was assassinated. A trusted friend…she killed him. Stabbed him right in the heart…”

Arthas shook his head and the voice was silenced.

“What is this? What are you doing, my son?”

“Succeeding you…Father.”

And Frostmourne’s hunger was sated—for the moment.

Arthas turned them loose then—his new, unquestioning, obedient subjects. Dispatching the guards who charged him upon the death of his father was a simple matter, and he stormed with cold purpose back out into the courtyard.

It was madness.

What had once been revelry had now become frenzy. What had once been celebration had now become a frantic flight for life. Few escaped. Most of those who had waited for hours in line to welcome their prince back now lay dead, blood congealing from hideous wounds, limbs ripped off, bodies broken. Ambassadors now lay with commoners, men and women with children, all hideously equal in death.

Arthas did not care what their eventual fate was—carrion for the crows, or new subjects to follow his rule. He would leave that to his captains, Falric and Marwyn, as bone-white as he and twice as merciless. Arthas marched through the way he had come, focused and intent upon one single thing.

Once clear of the courtyard and the corpses, animated or still, he broke into a run. No horse would bear him now; the beasts grew frantic at the smell of him and those who followed him. But he had found that he did not tire; not when Frostmourne, or the Lich King who spoke to him through the runeblade, was whispering to him. And so he ran swiftly, his legs carrying him to a place he had not been in years.

Voices swirled in his head, memories, snippets of conversations:

“You know you were not supposed to ride him yet.”

“You missed your lessons. Again…”

Invincible’s horrible screams of agony, echoing in his mind. The Light, pausing for that awful moment, as if deciding whether or not he was worthy of its grace. Jaina’s face as he ended their relationship.

“Listen to me, boy…. The shadow has already fallen, and nothing you do will deter it…. The harder you strive to slay your enemies, the faster you’ll deliver your people into their hands….”

“…This isn’t a blighted apple crop; this is a city full of human beings!…”

“…We know so little—we can’t just slaughter them like animals out of our own fear!”

“Ye lied tae yer men and betrayed the mercenaries who fought for ye!…That’s nae King Terenas’s boy.”

But they were the ones who could not see, could not grasp. Jaina—Uther—Terenas—Muradin. All of them, at some point, by word or look, had told him he had been wrong.

He slowed his pace as he came to the farmstead. His subjects had been here before him, and now there were only corpses lying, stiffening in the earth. Arthas steeled himself against the pain that recognition brought with it even now; they had been the lucky ones, to simply die. A man, a woman, a youth his own age.

And the snapdragons…blooming like mad this year, it would seem. Arthas stepped close and extended a hand to touch one of the beautiful, tall, lavender-blue flowers, then hesitated, remembering the rose petal.

He had not come here for flowers.

He turned and strode to a grave, nearly seven years old now. Grass had overtaken it, but the marker was still readable. He did not need to read it to know what lay here.

For a moment he stood, more moved by the death of the one in this grave than by that of his own father, by his own hand.

The power is yours, came the whispers. Do as you will.

Arthas extended one hand, Frostmourne firmly gripped in the other. Dark light began to swirl around the outstretched hand, increasing in speed. It moved from his fingers like a serpent, undulating and writhing of its own accord, and then it speared down into the earth.

Arthas felt it connect with the skeleton below. Joy flooded him, and tears stung his eyes. He lifted his hand, pulling the no-longer-dead thing from its seven-year slumber in the cool dark earth.

“Arise!” he commanded, the word bursting from his throat.

The grave erupted, showering bits of earth. Bony legs pawed, hooves seeking purchase on the shifting soil, and a skull thrust upward, breaking the surface. Arthas watched breathlessly, a smile on his too-pale face.