He tried to move his arms and legs and found them bound. Mere chains should not have held him, but an incredible weakness also filled the captive.

"Aah, you're awake." The figure looming over him was a blood elf with a sadistic grin. "Much better. I tried to be very gentle. After all, we should be friends...."

Krasus's gaze shifted to the staff the blood elf held. It was virtually identical to Iridi's, and at first he feared that she had also been captured. However, then he recalled what he had done, sending her to the one place in the vicinity of Grim Batol where she might be at least for a moment safe.

But the same could not be said for either him or Kalec.

The young blue, also chained, lay next to him. Kalec was still unconscious. He looked like the warrior, not the dragon, and Krasus had hope that perhaps their captors did not yet recognize what they were.

Unfortunately, the blood elf quickly crushed that slim hope. "So you are a dragon...both of you, I mean...fascinating. This puts a different slant on things."

Krasus had no time for minions. "Where is he? Where is your Infernal master?"

"'Master'? I, Zendarin, have no master...." The blood elf shifted the staff toward Krasus's chest. "...And you'd be wise to speak with more respect to one who offers you hope...."

The dragon mage looked at him with new interest, but then the blood elf glanced behind him.

"That damned timing of hers..." he muttered. The blood elf raised the stolen staff...and turned to shadow.

Krasus's higher senses still allowed him to see a trace of the blood elf, but he gave no sign as the murky figure disappeared from the chamber. Alone save for Kalec, Krasus surveyed his surroundings in the hope of finding some quick escape.

He found only what he suspected the reason for his weakness. A single golden shard hung high above, well out of physical reach. The spell that kept it there was a clever one, for Krasus knew well what forces were required to maintain the levitation of that particular piece.

Other than the shard, the chamber was unremarkable. It said something for the confidence of his true captor—the blood elf had already verified indirectly that he was not the one in control here— and also of that mysterious figure's identity.

Yet, something he had said also confused Krasus. Just prior to his flight, the blood elf had mentioned "her," not him.

Her...

"Onyxla..." the dragon mage breathed. Yes, he knew his captor now. Somehow, the prime daughter of Deathwing had survived. Everything made perfect sense now, save how she had managed that last feat.

Of course, she was her father's child. Not only had she taken up his cause by raising new eggs in her lair, located in the southern parts of the Dustwallow Marsh, but she resurrected his role as a member of the Prestor line, taking on the guise of Lady Katrana Prestor in Stormwind In order to try to keep the Alliance's leadership fragmented.

However, she had eventually overstepped herself, her plot against King Varian Wrynn turning back on her. In the end, he and a brave band had tracked her back to the marsh and, though it cost many lives, slew her... or so everyone had thought.

It was very possible that she had been cunning enough to fool Varian. Onyxia and her brother had been among the most clever of dragons, even if that genius had been misdirected. Nefarian had even managed to take his father's and sister's work to some fruition, creating the chromatic dragons. True, his efforts had ended once he, too, had been supposedly slain by brave fighters, but if Onyxla had learned from him, it would explain much of what was going on in Grim Batol now.

A grunting sound caught his attention. One of the dwarven abominations scurried inside as if to see if the prisoners were still there. Krasus was repulsed by the creature. Seen up close, it was even more a twisted mix of dwarf and dragon, making even the drakonid and dragonspawn handsome by comparison.

The thing rushed up next to Kalec, looking him over in a hungry manner. Krasus had no doubt that it was capable of eating a living being alive and doing so with relish. He summoned what strength he had and stared at it until it looked his way.

The rune burnt into its forehead flared bright. With a chomping of teeth, the creature fled from the chamber.

Krasus had not expected his weak spell to work, but he had wanted to at least frighten away the thing by attempting something. That plan had worked, but it now left him weaker than ever.

And more at the mercy of the damned shard.

Then, he sensed another presence approaching. There was no mistaking what it was, not this close...

Into the chamber she strode, a queen before slaves. Through a gauzy veil, she peered down at Krasus with mild amusement in her expression, but great satisfaction in her burning gaze.

"I trust you are well?" she purred. Her attention went to Kalec. "And who is this handsome young blue? Such an added pleasure to receive both of you”.

Krasus frowned. This was not Onyxia. He could sense that well enough. Yet, everything she radiated bespoke the dread black flightand Onyxia had been one of the few known females left.

She turned her face to the side, the better to display the ravaged part of her face. Krasus, aware how the injuries were a reflection of what she would also look like as a dragon, imagined the latter vision.

And only then did he recognize his captor.

"You are dead...." More dead than even Onyxia or her accursed brother Nefarian. More dead, certainly, than he had believed even Deathwing.

The lady in black gave a throaty chuckle. She drew back the veil —which was, in truth, as much illusion as the rest of her current appearance—so that her burnt countenance was utterly visible.

"Have I not changed, then?" she mocked. "A female likes to think she's kept her beauty even after so long...."

"You could never change...your evil, that is... Sintharia."

"Sintharia... long has it been since any called me by that name. I've come to prefer the one I've used in this form... Sinestra... as it has nothing to do with my darling, unlamented mate...." The female dragon leaned over him. "How long has it been, my dear Korialstrasz? Five hundred years? A thousand? How long since we last enjoyed one another's company?"

He did not hide his enmity. "Five hundred or five thousand years would not be enough time to pass before I would willingly look into your face, Sintharia! The marks of your loving Neltharion have never healed, have they? They still burn, do they not, from your last mating?"

Sintharia was more than merely a black dragon; she had been Deathwing's prime consort, the mother of the most foul of his line. Onyxia and Nefarian had not gained all their menace from the mad Earth-Warder alone; Sintharia had been very much her mate's partner in much of his plotting.

But she was also supposed to be dead. Krasus recalled that time as well. It had been closer to a thousand years than five hundred, a time period when the question of Deathwing's demise had also been an important one. Sintharia had been very much alive, though, and - she had strived then to spread a contagious spell among the magi of Dalaran that had effectively caused the powers of those infected to cease working. Krasus had been intimately involved in putting an end to that plot and, in the process, it had appeared as if Sintharia had perished when her own magic had been turned on her.

But, as ever, the dragon mage thought bitterly, the line of Neltharion proves more cunning than death....

The female dragon's macabre appearance was not due to that incident nor any other plot in which Sintharia had participated. As Krasus had indicated, her horrific burns were the result of nothing less than her mating with the altered Earth-Warder. As the dark magics and darker madness of Neltharion had taken over him, he had physically changed. His body had burned continuously, burned so hot that even his own kind could not bear his nearness, much less his grip.