The decision had been taking root in Leylin's mind long before Kael'thas ever set foot on the manor grounds, though he had deliberately kept it to himself during the prince's frantic visit. Some plans required absolute isolation to mature.
To share an idea too early, while its edges were still soft and malleable, was to invite the first reactive doubts of others to reshape it. Leylin preferred his designs to be fully forged, calculated to the last decimal, before they were subjected to the friction of outside opinion.
And this particular design required meticulous calculation. All intelligence pointed toward a singular truth: Northrend was becoming the axis upon which the world's immediate future would turn.
In the frozen wastes of the roof of the world, the Lich King's terrifying grip was slipping. By turning the devastating raw energy of the Eye of Sargeras against Icecrown, Illidan Stormrage had failed to obliterate his target, but his failure had yielded a fascinating, far more volatile outcome.
The spell had fractured the continent's tectonic foundations and split open the Frozen Throne itself. The entity inside was bleeding its dark divinity into the snow, its power draining like water from a cracked urn.
It was that sudden crisis that had forced the Lich King to recall his premier death knight, Arthas Menethil, summoning him home across the seas to protect the fragile, cracking vessel of his master's soul.
Leylin had spent the weeks since Silvermoon's fall analyzing the fragmentary, agonizingly delayed dispatches filtering back from the far north.
He had no intention of letting the fate of the world be decided in a frozen vacuum, reported to him through secondhand whispers. If he wanted to master the coming storm, he needed to stand at its center.
His first stop was the manor's eastern wing, where Tyr'ganal and Aminel had established their makeshift command center. The large chamber was a chaotic labyrinth of mapped coastlines, translated texts, and scrying arrays.
Leylin walked into the room, bypassing a desk covered in runic calculations, and laid out his intentions without a shred of preamble. "We are going to Northrend."
Tyr'ganal didn't blink. He simply set down the charcoal quill he was holding, his amber eyes narrowing slightly as his sharp mind immediately began parsing the logistical nightmare of the statement. "Northrend," he repeated, his voice level. "The frozen continent. You want to observe the Lich King's regression firsthand?"
"Observation is only the first step," Leylin said, leaning over the master map pinned to the central table. "That place will become the center of the upcoming storm."
Aminel looked up from a stack of encrypted ledgers, her fingers tapping a rhythmic cadence against the wood. "The timing is exceptionally delicate, Leylin. You closed the door on Prince Kael'thas only hours ago. If the elven nobility or the remaining eyes in Silvermoon notice a sudden, heavy mobilization from Windrunner Manor immediately following a private royal audience, they will draw a direct line between the two events. The secrecy of the Sunwell water will be severely compromised."
"I am aware," Leylin replied smoothly. "Which is why we are not throwing a fleet together by morning. We need an deliberate buffer of time. A calculated delay to ensure that to any outside observer, my departure looks like a routine expedition rather than a reactionary strike. We will give it a week. Perhaps ten days."
"That gives us enough time to handle the logistics properly," Tyr'ganal observed, a faint, rare nod of approval tracing his features. "And it gives those you intend to ask the chance to weigh the risks rationally. Northrend is an unforgiving wasteland. It does not tolerate rushed plans."
"Precisely," Leylin said. "Begin preparing gears that we need for the cold-weather. We will need to requisition from the local stores. Keep it quiet. I will assemble the others tonight."
The fire in the manor's private council chamber crackled softly, casting long, dancing shadows across the heavy oak table. Gathered around it was the core of Leylin's inner circle: Alleria, Sylvanas, Vereesa, Aminel, and Tyr'ganal. It was a configuration that had become deeply familiar over the past months, a collective born of necessity and hardened by the horrific defense of their homeland.
Leylin didn't waste time on a grand narrative. He laid out the bare, cold facts of the northern continent, the structural decay of the Frozen Throne, and they might confront Arthas Menethil.
The room absorbed the declaration with a profound, heavy silence. Over the course of the recent campaigns, they had learned a fundamental truth about Leylin: when he spoke of a deployment, he was not opening a floor for debate on whether the journey was advisable. He was providing a roadmap so they could determine how best to secure its success.
"I'm going," Vereesa said immediately.
There was no tremor of hesitation in her voice, no rising inflection that hinted she was seeking permission or approval. It was a stark, immovable monument of fact.
Leylin shifted his gaze to the youngest Windrunner sister. "Northrend is not the lush forests of Ashenvale, Vereesa. It is not even the ruined, ash-choked hills of Alterac. It is an arctic desert. The climate itself is a lethal weapon, the terrain is completely unmapped, and the enemy holds the home-field advantage."
Vereesa met his stare with the fierce, unyielding steadiness that was the birthright of her bloodline. "I stood on the slopes of Mount Hyjal, Leylin. I watched the skies tear open and rained arrows into the faces of doomguards and abominations alike while the world burned around my ankles. I know exactly what discomfort feels like." She leaned forward, resting her hands flat against the map on the table. "I am not asking for your consent. I am telling you that I am part of this unit. You are not going alone without me."
Leylin studied her for a long beat, searching for any sign of bravado, but found only the cold, sharpened edge of a seasoned veteran. He gave a single, curt nod. "Pack for sub-zero operations."
While Vereesa's commitment was immediate, the atmosphere across the table grew suffocatingly tense. Sylvanas sat in a state of absolute, unnatural stillness, her hands resting tightly on the hilt of her blade.
"I want to go," Sylvanas said. The admission was dragged from her throat, raw and heavy with a burning frustration that she rarely allowed the world to see.
Her eyes fixed on the northern wastes drawn on the map, a deep, vengeful hunger flaring within them. The Lich King had butchered her people, shattered her kingdom, and turned her beautiful city into a charnel house.
The desire to strike at the heart of the beast was a physical ache in her chest. But beneath that fury was the cold, suffocating weight of reality.
"You are the Ranger-General," Alleria said softly from her side. It wasn't a rebuke, nor was it an attempt to hold her back. It was simply the cruel, unyielding truth of their current existence.
"I know exactly what my title demands, sister," Sylvanas snapped, though the bite in her tone was directed at her own shackles rather than Alleria. She closed her eyes, her breathing disciplined but shallow. "The rebuilding of Silvermoon is in its most fragile stage. The rebuilding of the Farstrider corps, the redistribution of our border patrols, the defense of our remaining sanctuaries—it all routes through my desk. I cannot simply hand the reigns of our entire military apparatus to a subordinate and vanish into the arctic on an open-ended hunting trip with no return date."
She let out a slow, bitter breath, the calculation failing to yield the result her heart demanded. "As the world stands tonight... I cannot make it work."
The silence that followed was heavy with the tragic reality of leadership. Sylvanas was a prisoner of her own duty, bound to the soil of the kingdom she had fought so bitterly to save, forced to watch the vanguard march to war without her.
Leylin observed the interplay between the sisters, his analytical gaze shifting down to Alleria. The eldest Windrunner had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the entire briefing. Her posture was taut, her focus absolute, but she hadn't uttered a syllable regarding her own place on the roster, despite the unmistakable look of readiness radiating from her.
"Alleria," Leylin noted quietly. "You've kept your thoughts to yourself."
She looked up, her expression a mask of careful, measured restraint. "Sylvanas cannot leave her post," Alleria explained, her voice low and precise. "To untangle her from the military infrastructure of Quel'Thalas right now would take months we don't have."
She paused, her eyes drifting between her two sisters. "If I take my bow and march north alongside Vereesa, it means both of Sylvanas's sisters leave her behind to face the political and military wolves of Silvermoon entirely alone. I am not comfortable with that balance."
"You're afraid of abandoning her to the dark," Vereesa said softly, the realization dampening her fierce energy.
"Yes," Alleria said simply. "We have spent too long fractured. I will not leave her to carry the weight of an entire kingdom by herself while we hunt ghosts in the snow."
Sylvanas's jaw tightened, a complex mixture of fierce pride and deep, unspoken emotion flashing across her pale features. "I am the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, Alleria. I do not require my sisters to act as a shield for my comfort. I have held broken lines by myself long before you returned from beyond the Dark Portal."
"Holding a line because you must is an act of war, Sylvanas," Alleria countered gently. "Being left alone by choice is an act of neglect. I am choosing to stay."
Leylin intervened before the conversation could spiral into a debate of familial obligation. "We have a week," he said, his deep voice cutting through the rising tension.
"Perhaps more. No final rosters need to be locked in tonight. You don't need to choose between the frozen north and your sister under the pressure of this room. Take the time. Talk through the logistics of the Farstrider command structure together, without an audience. The departure date is flexible enough to allow for a calculated decision."
Alleria offered a small, grateful nod, her shoulders relaxing a fraction as the artificial urgency cleared from the room.
With the familial dynamics momentarily paused, Aminel spoke up, her voice restoring the professional, analytical tone of the meeting. "Tyr'ganal and I are confirmed for the roster. That much is non-negotiable from our perspective."
Tyr'ganal nodded once, a silent, economical confirmation of his partner's words. Leylin looked around the table, taking stock of his assets. Vereesa was locked in, her focus absolute and lethal. Aminel and Tyr'ganal were committed. Sylvanas was chained to her duty by iron bonds of responsibility, while Alleria stood on the knife-edge of a difficult personal choice.
"An expedition to Northrend is not a minor reconnaissance patrol," Leylin said, steering the conversation toward the harsh reality of their logistics. "Regardless of who takes the field, a handful of individuals cannot sustain an operational footprint in the frozen wastes. The environment is actively lethal, and the Scourge's numbers remain vast, even in their fractured state. We need a secure, defensible perimeter the moment we make landfall to act as a staging ground for our intelligence gathering. We need numbers. Not an army like the one we deployed to Kalimdor, but a tight, elite combat group capable of operating without backup in an environment that offers no forgiveness for weakness."
"The Radiant Guard," Vereesa suggested instantly.
"A detachment, perhaps," Leylin agreed, tapping his finger against the table. "But we cannot gut the defense of Windrunner Village. Pulling the entire elite guard into an extended arctic campaign would create a dangerous security vacuum here, especially while the ongoing transport and distribution of the Sunwell water requires an absolute guarantee of local stability. We must be highly selective with our recruitment. We need specialists. Soldiers trained specifically for cold-weather survival, high-endurance tracking, and asymmetric warfare against undead hordes in confined, frozen environments."
"I will begin analyzing the rosters immediately," Tyr'ganal volunteered, his voice practical and detached. "I will screen both the Farstrider units and the Radiant Guard for candidates whose tactical skillsets match the arctic profile, and whose current operational duties can be reassigned without disrupting our local defensive lines."
"Do it," Leylin commanded. "Move quietly. Every step of this preparation must remain entirely invisible to the eyes in Silvermoon for the next seven days. We have a narrow window to gather our supplies, secure our arcane reagents, and prepare our equipment for a climate that destroys standard gear. Do not waste a single hour."
The council slowly dissolved as the attendees moved off to execute their respective directives. Tyr'ganal departed to pull the military records and begin his silent talent search. Aminel returned to her scrying arrays to calculate the potential arcane interference they would encounter near the Frozen Throne. Vereesa slipped away to the armory, her mind already transitioning into the cold, practical headspace of a ranger preparing for an extended hunt in a lethal wilderness.
Sylvanas and Alleria lingered at the oak table long after the candles had begun to gutter, the heavy silence between them carrying the weight of a conversation that would consume the rest of their night. The unresolved question of Alleria's choice, the heavy burden of Sylvanas's duties, and the complicated, fiercely guarded love between the sisters hung in the air, no longer subjected to the scrutiny of an audience.
Leylin remained at the head of the table for a few moments more, watching the empty room with the quiet. A week. It was exactly the buffer he needed.
It was enough time for the political ripples of Kael'thas's secret visit to smooth over into nothingness. It was enough time for the Windrunner sisters to untangle their internal knots and determine their lines of succession.
And it was enough time for his magi to forge an elite vanguard capable of stepping onto a continent that none of them, despite the horrors they had survived, had ever seen with their own eyes.
Far to the north, across the grey, churning expanses of the Great Sea, the frozen wastes of Northrend waited in indifferent, monolithic silence. The Lich King's power continued its steady, agonizing leak through the cracks in his icy cage.
Somewhere in that blinding white wilderness, Arthas Menethil was riding hard toward his master's call, while across the twisting nether, Illidan and Maiev continued their private, endless war through the shattered ruins of Outland.
The grand tapestry of the world was shifting, refuses to pause for their preparations. The board was in motion, the pieces were sliding into their designated squares, and the only task that mattered was to be completely, flawlessly ready when the hammer finally fell.
Leylin stood up from the table, blew out the remaining candles, and stepped out into the night to begin his own work.