Illidan's Private Journal - Steel and Honey
(Journal fragment, penned in Illidan's hand.)
She placed it back into my hand today. The dagger.
Not as a trinket returned, but as if to say I have proven myself, and I need no one's secret favors.
For a moment I considered refusing it. I wanted to tell her it belonged at her belt, not mine. That it was a gift, hard-won and already blooded. But her eyes left no room for gifts, no room for my pride. So I closed my hand around the steel, as though it were me who had been measured and found wanting.
Most noble daughters would have balked at such a test. She told me, with that calm defiance of hers, Most noble daughters aren't me.
And I laughed. I do not laugh easily.
The weight of steel is small, but tonight it burns heavier than ever - not in my hand, but in the hollow space she has left between us.