The Black Star of the North

Alexa Sviridova was born three years after Alterac fell.

She never knew her family as nobles, but her parents remembered it clearly enough for all of them. They remembered the estate, the servants, the family colors, the people who once treated the Sviridova name with respect. They remembered siding with King Perenolde during the Second War, and they remembered what came afterward.

The Alliance called it treason, her parents called it survival. When Alterac was broken and the nobles who had stood with Perenolde were stripped of their lands and titles, the Sviridovas did what many others did: They formed the Syndicate.

Alexa grew up among people who spoke constantly of what had been taken from them. The Syndicate, according to her parents, was not a gang of criminals. It was what remained of Alterac. Alexa believed most of this when she was young. Her parents were her parents. Their enemies were her enemies. Their version of the world was the only one she knew.

They also trained her accordingly. She began with wooden swords while she was still small enough that the weapon felt too large in her hands. Her father taught her footwork, balance, and how to read an opponent's movement. As she grew older, wood became blunted steel. Then steel with an edge. They were not raising a sheltered noble daughter. They were raising another Sviridova. Another sword for the Syndicate.

For most of her childhood, that seemed perfectly natural. The first crack came when Alexa was eleven. Lordaeron fell.

News came north in pieces. Plague. Undead. Villages gone silent. Refugees fleeing south while the kingdom that had once ruled much of the north collapsed around them. Alexa expected the Syndicate to ride out. She had spent her whole life hearing that the men and women around her were the rightful nobility of Alterac. They spoke endlessly about the lands that had been taken from them, the subjects they had once ruled, the kingdom they intended to restore.

Now there were frightened people practically on their doorstep with no king left to protect them. Surely this was what nobles were for. Instead, the adults celebrated. Lordaeron had helped destroy Alterac. Now Lordaeron was receiving its due.

There were raised cups, old grudges dragged out and polished anew, and satisfaction at the fall of people Alexa had never met. No one rode out to protect anyone. Alexa did not argue. She was eleven, surrounded by adults who understood the world better than she did. But she remembered.

Around the same time, Alexa had developed a tendency to make things more dramatic than they needed to be. A simple downward strike became Falling Star: First Severance. A feint became Shadow Moon Reversal. After becoming fascinated with stories about cursed warriors and forbidden powers, she made herself an eyepatch from a scrap of leather. There was nothing wrong with her eye; that was irrelevant. When asked about it, she would lower her voice and explain that some things were better left sealed. Most adults assumed she would grow out of it. She did not. Instead, the persona became more elaborate.

A year after Lordaeron's fall, the Syndicate took Strahnbrad. That should have meant something. Strahnbrad had once belonged to Alterac. If the Syndicate truly meant to restore what had been lost, Alexa imagined families returning. Fields being planted. Walls repaired. People being protected beneath an Alteraci banner again. Instead, the Syndicate occupied it. They held the town because it was useful to hold. Men came and went. Weapons and supplies moved through it. Plans were made for the next place to strike. Nothing was being rebuilt.

Alexa began to notice that a great many victories seemed to end with everyone preparing for another grievance. By twelve, she was sometimes sent out to purchase supplies. The Syndicate could steal much of what it needed, but not everything. Sometimes coin was easier. Sometimes discretion mattered. And a twelve-year-old girl attracted less attention than an armed man wearing Syndicate colors.

That was when Alexa learned what Sviridova meant outside the mountains. A shopkeeper would be perfectly pleasant until she gave her name, then something changed. A smile disappeared. A conversation became shorter. Goods that had been available moments earlier suddenly weren't. Prices rose. Someone might decide they preferred not to sell to her at all.

The betrayal of Alterac had happened only fourteen years before. To Alexa it was history. To the adults looking across the counter at her, it was something they remembered. At first she resented them for it. Her parents had warned her about people like this. Here was proof that they had been right.

But the more often it happened, the more uncomfortable that explanation became. Those people knew nothing about Alexa. They saw a Sviridova and decided what she must be. Yet back home, the Syndicate did much the same thing. Lordaeronian. Stromic. Alliance. All Enemies. Everyone seemed very certain about what everyone else deserved.

Part of Alexa's growing persona was simply that she thought it was cool. But part of it came from something less obvious. She had noticed the way people reacted to the Sviridova name. Even people who knew nothing about her personally knew enough about Alterac. The judgment came before she had done anything to earn it. So Alexa began to enjoy controlling the impression.

If people were determined to see something ominous when they looked at her, she would give it to them. Not Alexa Sviridova, daughter of fallen nobles. Something grander, dangerous, entirely of her own making.

As the years passed, the explanations she had grown up with became harder to accept. The Syndicate still spoke of restoring Alterac, but Alexa saw little restoration. They spoke of their responsibilities as the dispossessed nobility, but she had seen what happened when common people actually needed protecting. They spoke of reclaiming what was theirs, but most of what Alexa saw being reclaimed could fit inside a purse.

It began to look less like a kingdom waiting to rise again and more like a collection of angry people determined to make sure old enemies remained enemies forever.

Alexa never had one grand revelation. She simply believed a little less each year.

By fifteen, she had settled on the name Vespera Nocturne. It had taken several attempts, just like her title. The Black Star of the North.

One day, her father told her she was ready. The training and practice was over. She was being called to act. A caravan would be traveling south of the mountains. Alexa would accompany some of the others and keep watch. She would not even need to fight unless something went wrong.

Alexa had always known what her parents were. There had always been maps on tables, armed men arriving after dark, discussions about roads and patrols and merchants. But until then, all of it had belonged to the adults. Now they expected it to belong to her too.

In the early morning hours, the day before she was to accompany them for the first time, she packed what she could carry and hopped out her window.

She had no particular destination and very little money. She did, however, have a sword, a ridiculous title, and enough cringe to kill a horse.

She raised a hand in front of her face, fingers spread so she could peer through them. She practiced one of her lines as she walked. "Once, they called me the calamity beneath the northern sky. Then they buried my name beneath centuries of fear. Now the seal is broken. The world is not prepared! Ku ku ku!"