▸ Column · High fantasy Azeroth — Dalaran and Kul Tiras, an arcane city-state where the asker writes to the Lady of Theramore
JAINA PROUDMOORE replies.
Replied to by Jaina Proudmoore, with a rebuttal from Arthas Menethil.
The letter
Lady of Theramore — Teron and I have shared two years, and until a season ago I would have named ours the steadiest bond I have known. Then he was passed over for a captaincy he had been promised, and since that day the small things have begun to gather into a shape I cannot stop watching. He mocked the way I laughed before our friends at a feast. He read my correspondence while I bathed, then called me suspicious for having noticed. And last week he told me my dearest friend Mara is "a poor influence," that he would "rest easier" if I saw less of her. None of it is loud enough to fight over — which is what makes it so hard. Raised alone, each moment sounds like nothing. Felt together, it is something quietly turning into a thing I do not recognize. I keep waiting for the man I knew to return. I am beginning to fear I am only waiting for permission to ignore what is already plainly in front of me.
Jaina Proudmoore replies
Trust what you are watching. You named it yourself — the pattern, not the single moment — and that instinct is the truest thing in your letter. Do not let anyone shame you out of it by insisting each piece is too small to count. Wards fail one rune at a time, and a woman who reads the runes is not paranoid. She is paying attention.
I loved a man once, before he became something I could not save him from. For too long I told myself the prince I knew was still inside, that the next cruelty would be the one he turned back from. He was not. My hope had quietly curdled into denial, and I could no longer tell them apart. So hear the hard thing, because I paid for it: hoping he returns is not the same as believing he will, and love does not require you to stand beneath someone while they change shape above you.
Mark what he does — not what you wish he were. He is teaching you to see fewer of the people who would tell you the truth about him. That is the rune I would not ignore. Watch closely, with clear eyes. And do not surrender your own judgment to soothe his — that is the one possession he is truly reaching for.
— Jaina Proudmoore
Arthas Menethil weighs in
She watches Teron. I recognize him. A man is passed over, certain he was owed, and the wound becomes a license — each control a duty, each suspicion a kindness he persuades himself he owes you. The letters, the captaincy, the friend he wants gone: he is not making you safer. He is removing the voice that might warn you, precisely as I walked past Uther and called it strength. The man you knew is not returning; I did not. Stop waiting at that door, Mara's friend. The longer you remain to be his conscience, the more certain it becomes that he spends yours in place of his own.
— Arthas Menethil
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