Mardias could feel that since the funeral, it was the first time someone had come to his grandfather's grave.
Jorach Ravenholt walked with a slight limp in his left leg, holding a cane. He was accompanied by a single attendant. After disarming the attendant, Mardias personally led them into the cemetery. Now, Jorach stood about three steps from the tombstone, hands resting on the cane's handle; his attendant, dressed in black, seemed more suited to the cemetery's silence. After a Shawlt while, Jorach bent down, and the attendant hurriedly supported him, placing his own coat on the grass and helping Jorach sit cross-legged. Jorach leaned forward, his back forming a weak arc, with the cane leaning against his right shoulder. Though close to the tombstone, his eyes seemed to be gazing into a deeper distance, like someone who had spent a lifetime watching sandstorms in the desert, seeing the sea for the first time.
Mardias knew that since Jorach had come alone, there was no threat. Four years ago, Farad had secretly come to Stormwind to try to make a deal with MI7 without Jorach's approval, a plan thwarted by a forged letter from Panthonia. Upon returning to the manor, Farad began his power struggle with his master, Jorach. Recently, rumors had spread among adventurers that the manor was completely under Farad's control; Mardias didn't have the manpower to verify this, but the scene before him spoke volumes.
He knew Jorach was older than his grandfather, yet the former did not appear as aged as the latter did in his final days. Additionally, Jorach lacked the oppressive aura that once permeated the air around him—it wasn't that he had never had it, but it had faded from his skin.
"Mardias Shawl," Jorach said, still looking at the tombstone. "I want to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"Did he die painfully?"
"I think... no. He stopped breathing in his sleep."
Jorach turned his head and looked into Mardias's eyes for a while, as if trying to discern if there was any hidden meaning behind the words.
"Dreams. How do you know?" He let out a contemptuous sound and turned back to the tombstone. "Panthonia, your grandson is interesting. Or should I say, filial? He says you died in your sleep, without pain. He hopes you didn't suffer much. That's impossible. Just look at the people you and I have killed. I won't live much longer; every night before I sleep, I can feel those I've killed, struggling not to close their eyes. I'm fighting them. They reach out one by one, trying to press my eyelids down. I can't let them succeed. Struggle and slaughter, Panthonia, it's what we've done our whole lives, and we must see it through to the end."
Jorach's voice was unstable: sentences often started strong and heavy, but the boundaries between syllables became increasingly blurred in the middle and towards the end, accompanied by a hoarseness that wasn't just an old age trait but innate. At this point, Mardias found himself trying hard to compare him to his grandfather. Unfortunately, height comparisons were impossible since he only remembered his grandfather's seated figure after he was wheelchair-bound. To make further comparisons, he needed to understand Jorach better, even if only through his voice.
"It's been fifty-eight years since you left SouthShawle. At first, I said we might not survive that winter. Then, I said we wouldn't live to twenty. Later, I thought I'd surely not live to twenty-five but didn't plan to tell you. As an elder, I didn't want to be called a coward by you, and I hated it. Now, I feel I've lived too long. But you probably never had such thoughts. Always the greedy bastard.
"Now you're dead, and you've destroyed one of my wishes. I'm Duke Jorach Ravenholt, heir of the Alterac bloodline, and you, a third-rate noble refugee from Lordaeron, wouldn't acknowledge my title. I always thought it was out of jealousy. You envied me for having a reason to fight, while you wouldn't even talk about your homeland. We should never have teamed up from the start. I should've killed you like I did other refugees because you and I are different. But after all these years, Alterac is still in ruins, and Lordaeron... in this sense, we're both failures.
"Ah, and there's one more thing I finally have the chance to say. Do you want to know what happened to your first son? The one you spent twenty-one gold to have a woman deal with? He tried so hard to become one of my assassins, but he was too incompetent and died on his first mission at the hands of the Syndicate. I didn't set him up. Yes, the Syndicate killed both your sons, including the one you cherished and the one you discarded like a stray dog. How does that feel?"
After a pause, he continued.
"I thought telling you this would bring me satisfaction. I was wrong."
Jorach glanced at his attendant. The attendant helped him up. He gripped his cane.
"Mardias Shawl. There's someone named Jorgen in MI7, right?"
"Yes."
"Farad told me about him. I've heard a bit about the situation in Stromgarde. Arrange for me to meet him."
"No. He's in prison."
"Prison? Why?"
"None of your business."
Jorach didn't respond to Mardias, continuing to look down at the tombstone.
"Tombstones are boring. For fifty-eight years, I've wanted to see your body, not the tombstone. Before this... you were always lucky, several times you should have died, but you survived. That luck ends here. Dying of old age, Panthonia, think about it, that's your end. Maybe because you wasted too much time and energy on women, or maybe because you were surrounded by fools, forcing you to do unnecessary things. I guess both reasons apply. You should've rested long ago, but you overdid it. Farad is smart; he managed to push me out. I think the manor's future is nothing to worry about. Look at your grandson, as self-righteous as you were at eighteen. I toured MI7 earlier, and your so-called legacy... under the council's supervision, with the capable ones imprisoned, is truly laughable. Our struggle ends here, but I've got a few good years left, Panthonia. I'm the final winner. And you, a complete failure."
He spat on the tombstone.
"I suppose you're done now," Mardias said.
Outside the cemetery, Jorach walked forward with his cane; his attendant stood before Mardias, extending his right hand.
Mardias retrieved the confiscated weapon with his left hand. A dagger.
"Hurry up," Jorach said, turning back.
Mardias didn't immediately return the dagger. He looked into the attendant's eyes, silently mouthing:
I will kill him.
"What are you stalling for?" Jorach stomped the ground with his cane.
"Right away," the attendant said.
Mardias placed the dagger in the attendant's hand. The moment he reclaimed the weapon, the attendant attacked. Mardias dodged the swinging blade and drew his own dagger. He slashed the attendant's eyes, then knocked him to the ground. Grabbing the attendant's hair, he made sure Jorach, several meters away, could see the dagger at the attendant's throat before striking. Two seconds later, he released his grip, letting the corpse fall face down; blood splattered on the cemetery's white fence. He had waited until now because he didn't want to do it in front of the tombstone.
Jorach kept half his body turned this way. From the start of the brief fight, he had been watching Mardias, never glancing at the attendant. His gaze suddenly seemed familiar to Mardias. Permeating, emotionless observation.
"So, what's your next move?" Mardias asked.
Jorach turned and walked over, dragging his slightly lame left leg. As he approached, Mardias thought about what to do, his mind racing faster with Jorach's proximity, until he found himself stepping back.
Beside the attendant's body, Jorach knelt down slowly and painfully, letting out the involuntary murmurs of the elderly. He supported himself with his cane, using his left hand to search the corpse's inner coat, finding a money bag. He took it, then stood up even slower than he had knelt. He opened the bag, looked inside, and then tied it back; throughout the process, Mardias, standing close with a drawn blade, seemed to exist outside Jorach's perception.
"I didn't plan to return to the manor on this trip," he said, pocketing the money bag. "This money is enough for me to find a competent servant. Do me a favor," he kicked the corpse's arm, "dispose of him somewhere hidden outside the city. Ravenholt assassins don't need burial."
Jorach left. Initially moving his left leg carefully, then slightly faster once he adjusted. Before his figure disappeared, Mardias had two minutes to kill him, but it was pointless.
Mardias firmly believed the man before him was a failure. After exile, visiting old acquaintances' graves in Stormwind, what was the point? Jorach hadn't truly figured it out. In the end, he lived longer, had a more enduring successor in the power struggle, and considered it a victory—he knew it was a lie. From bringing only one attendant to the insult to the tombstone, it was all self-destructive behavior. He might have hoped memories of the past would prevent self-destruction, but they hadn't.
Maybe he had been waiting for me to kill him.
Through Jorach, Mardias saw another possible outcome.
If he could have controlled MI7 earlier with the strength and cunning he lacked, then the current Jorach would be what his grandfather would have become.
Suddenly, for the first time, he felt grateful for his situation. Yes, he wasn't the ideal successor. But even if MI7 were to fall, he was still willing to uphold the dignity of a grave.