To face the Lich King.

She fought to free herself, but the guards held her with the proverbial death grips. Worse, they dragged her toward the Lich King.

But this is impossible, Sylvanas remembered. He is defeated!

He is —

Arthas cupped her chin. His human traits could just be seen through the openings of the helmet. Frosty breath escaped him as he spoke.

“So becoming as a high elf…and so more becoming as a banshee…”

She was placed on a stone platform, then chained. Varimathras joined the Lich King, who again cupped the captive’s chin.

“This time…I’ll make you right,” Arthas promised. His cold breath coursed over Sylvanas’s face, but it was not the breath that chilled her so.

Arthas planned to make her a banshee again…

Sylvanas still recalled the horrible agonies her last lingering life force had suffered before her dread transformation. She knew that she would go through a terror a thousand times greater now.

“No!” she cried out, trying to use her powers. Unfortunately, those powers would not belong to her until the monstrous spell was completed.

Arthas raised his long, sleek sword, Frostmourne. Its evil was as great as his. He held the point over her and as he did, he and the weapon filled her frightened view.

“Yes, this time you’ll be a properly obedient servant, my dear Sylvanas…even if we have to raise you again and again and again to get it right…”

Sylvanas shrieked…

“She will not wake,” Sharlindra murmured, feeling in her a level of fear not experienced since just before her death. She eyed the other Forsaken around her and saw that they, too, were going through the same thing. “She mentions the traitor Varimathras, slain by her, and the Lich King, finally defeated! What sort of dream does she go through — and why does she dream?”

Nearly half of Sylvanas’s subjects were in a state like that of their queen. All but a few of the representatives of the other Horde races staying in the Undercity were likewise, though in their case that made more sense.

And worse, so much worse…the Forsaken were under attack.

Under attack by shadows of their own former loved ones, who had become something even more hideous than that which the once-living denizens of the Undercity now were. The Forsaken knew that they were not real, yet neither were they figments. What stalked the undead, what unnerved them as only their original demises had, were creatures somewhere in between. They ravaged the Undercity in a manner that served to bring home to the stunned Forsaken what it must have been like when the undead, as part of the Scourge, had overcome the once vibrant realm.

A shriek shook Sharlindra anew. This time it had not come from Sylvanas. This time it had come from directly above. She knew it for the cry of one of the other banshees, but it was no warning nor any weapon of battle.

It was a cry of fear…the fear of the unliving.

Sharlindra looked at those gathered with her. Frightening as they were to outsiders, the Forsaken now had a pathos about them that had nothing to do with their existence. Rather, those undead she studied looked uncertain, off balance.

More shrieks erupted from the upper recesses of the Undercity.

The banshee looked to her queen, but there was no hope of guidance from Sylvanas.

“The mist…” warned a rasping voice. The speaker barely wore any remnants of flesh and only the magical properties of his undead state enabled him to speak, for his jaw hung loose on one side. “This mist…” he repeated.

Sharlindra looked to the steps leading down to their location. The dark green mist was seeping down the stone steps, as if a living creature slowly approaching its prey.

The Forsaken pressed away from it. As they did, though, in the mist there began to form figures.

The banshee stepped back. She knew some of them. By their reactions, others, too, recognized their kin and friends — the living who were more tortured than they.

The banshee let out a shriek that began as a desperate attack and ended in despair…

The Nightmare enveloped the Undercity.

In Stormwind City, King Varian watched as the mist and its ghoulish force surged toward the keep. From various parts of the rest of the capital, he heard screams.

We’re being assaulted…and we can’t fight them…Arrows had been tried. Arrows with oil-soaked, fiery tips. They had been no more effective than the swords, lances, and other weapons. What magi and other spellcasters were still conscious in the city were doing their best, but their effectiveness was limited.

The brave defenders of the keep awaited their monarch’s orders.

Varian saw his son and dead wife, both still multiplied a hundred times over, cross through the gate as if it were air. Nothing impeded these living nightmares.

And knowing that, Varian found himself with no orders that he could give…even as his citadel, his kingdom, began to fall before him.

Throughout nearly all the known lands of Azeroth, the Nightmare surged forth. As it did, the mists faded enough for the waking to see what had become of its victims…and what would be their own fate. Despite that, though, despite whether it was the orcs in Orgrimmar, the dwarves in Ironforge, or any other race in any other realm, those left to defend against its terror did not for the most part surrender. They knew that they had no choice but to keep fighting…no matter how little hope they had left.

But there was one realm oddly free of the mists. That was Teldrassil and, thus, Darnassus, too. That did not mean that Shandris Feathermoon did not know much of what happened on the mainland and beyond. The general was well-informed through her network.

A network, though, that was quickly collapsing.

Shandris lowered the last missive received from an agent near Orgrimmar. It echoed those from Stormwind City, tauren Thunder Bluff, and other locations where Shandris had spread her web.

The mysterious mist was moving. Worse to her, though, was the fact that she also had no information as to her mistress’s location.

Tyrande had been heading toward Ashenvale…and then had seemingly disappeared.

She is not dead! the younger night elf insisted to herself.

Discarding the parchment, Shandris abandoned her quarters.

She could have taken up residence in the high priestess’s abode, as Tyrande insisted whenever departing for matters of state, but Shandris preferred her spartan quarters. There were no decorations honoring nature, only weapons and trophies of war.

Defending her mistress and her people had become Shandris’s entire existence. Indeed, she had tried more than once during her mistress’s absence to locate some trace of Tyrande through the visions of other priestesses.

That had failed. Instead, Elune had granted each of those priestesses another vision, one that confused the general.

It was a vision of Teldrassil being eaten from within. A horrid, festering decay would spread not from the roots but rather the crown. It would quickly devour the World Tree inside out. The vision had always been short, only three or four breaths in span. Shandris had gone over it thoroughly with each priestess and still did not understand it.

The vision had so troubled her today that Shandris could no longer sit still. Hoping to clear her thoughts, she had personally begun patrolling the length and breadth of the capital, wending her way from the fortified bastion of the Warrior’s Terrace down into the commercial sections of the Tradesmen’s Terrace, on through the mystic Temple of the Moon and across the lush, sculptured islets of the garden. There she had made a detour to the industrious Craftsmen’s Terrace before returning to her quarters in the Warrior’s.

That left only the Cenarion Enclave. Shandris did not fear stepping into the druids’ stronghold. Nor did she respect Fandral so much that she would have stayed clear because of him; her first loyalty was to Tyrande. Even now, the general would have normally bypassed the enclave, but Shandris had learned long ago that to find answers it was often better to not seek the obvious source.