A sinister silence ruled over all.
Only the crack of burning timbers and the fall of stone reminded him that Stratholme had lived only moments before.
Thick smoke billowed skyward, veiling the square in a gray shroud. Through the haze, the Royal Gate was nowhere to be seen.
The houses that still stood were blackened husks, windows gaping like hollow eyes. The streets reeked of blood, ash, and rotting flesh. It had been scarcely two hours since the royal soldiers, led by Prince Arthas, had abandoned the city. Yet to Ronan it felt as though time itself had stopped—along with the very breath of the world.
He stood in the center of the square, a lute slung across his shoulder, his hood drawn low. His palms were gray with soot.
Only one question echoed through his mind: Why? Why had the prince turned against his own people? Why had even the living been condemned to die?
As he bent to scoop a handful of ash, a glimmer of firelight caught his eye. On the cobblestones lay a silver pendant, set with a ruby carved into the shape of a heart. Carefully, he lifted it, closing his fingers around the stone.
"Beautiful... too beautiful to be left here," he thought.
And yet, as he slipped it into his pocket, guilt pierced him—like stealing the final memory of someone who would never hold it again.
He cast his gaze over the desolate square and moved toward the gate, each step hollow, echoing through the empty city.
And then... he heard it.
A faint, ragged cry.
"Hel...lp..."
Ronan spun.
Among the ruins of a collapsed house to his right, a figure clawed weakly at the rubble. A woman—her hands torn and bleeding, her dress in tatters, her face blackened by smoke.
He rushed to her. Before she could even raise her hand to him, her body went limp, collapsing into his arms.
"M–my child... where is he?" she rasped, tears streaking through the soot on her cheeks.
Ronan froze. The truth stuck in his throat like stone. He had seen too many corpses, heard too many cries silenced forever. That child could not have survived. And yet... he could not let her pass with such cruelty in her heart.
"Your child... is safe," he whispered. His own tears blurred his vision, but he did not look away.
As his eyes fell lower, his breath caught—her left leg was gone. Blood seeped into the ash, pooling dark beneath her.
"Everything will be all right, my lady," he murmured, holding her closer. "Close your eyes. I am with you."
Her breath trembled, fading with every heartbeat. Ronan drew his lute to his chest. The strings were coated in ash, their song broken—but he would not be silenced.
Closing his eyes, he began to sing:
"I do not know your name, nor you know mine,
yet still I hold you in arms of night.
The streets are burning, the city is gone,
close your eyes now, let sleep be the song.
You are not alone, hear my strings play,
in this quiet hymn, drift far away."
The words carried through the ruins, returning to him in echoes, as though the dead houses listened with him. It was a song of sorrow, short and fragile—but the last she would ever hear.
When his voice faded, her eyes were closed. Her lips parted, but no breath returned.
Ronan held her for a moment longer, until the truth sank in—she was gone.
Gently, he lifted her and carried her behind the house, where a small garden still clung to life amid the wreckage. By a half-collapsed doghouse he found a broken shovel.
He was no gravedigger—he was a bard. But still, he began. Each strike of the blade into the hard earth was heavier than the song he had just sung.
When the grave was ready, he laid her within it. On her chest he placed the ruby pendant. A quiet prayer escaped his lips:
"Just a little longer... and you will be with your child."
He buried her and sat beside the mound, head in his hands. Long he remained in silence, lost in the emptiness that gnawed at his chest. Why had this happened? Why had a king's son become the hand of an executioner?
At last, he rose. Brushing dirt from his knees, he walked toward the gate. There, he turned once more, looking back upon Stratholme—
a city reduced to ash and shadow.
"It will never be as it was," he whispered. And he walked on.