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The circular, domed Cathedral of Light in Lordaeron was packed that morning of the first day of the week, just after dawn. The wooden pews were filled, and people were standing around the circumference of the sanctuary of the Light filled holy place. Those who could not find a place inside to stand or sit attempted to gather in the foyer and spilled outside onto the church's steps.

Since the Cathedral had been cleansed and reopened by Jeshua Lightborn and his emissaries, it had remained available for anyone to come and seek the Light or sit quietly in meditation. The cloister apartments had been made available by the queen to Jeshua's emissaries and they attended to anyone seeking to be healed or learn about Jeshua. But no one had restored the regular service of worship on the first day of the week as of yet.

No one until today.

Much to her surprise, a newly living Alonsus Faol, alongside the emissaries Jim Jacobson and Mathaius Levi, had come to Lordaeron's current queen requesting permission to hold regular services in devotion to the Light, and in particular, in devotion to the Lightborn. After much discussion, it was decided among all present that the new services would be held at dawn on the church's original day of worship to commemorate the New Dawn which Jeshua had brought to all of them. It would be announced throughout the city.

By the morning it was held, all of Tirisfal Glades knew about it. From the appearance of the crowd, all of Tirisfal Glades had come in response as well.

In the center of the sanctuary, directly underneath the great dome of the church, stood a marble stone altar on a raised white dais. To either side of the altar were positioned candle stands, the candles of which appeared to be fresh and new, except all those present knew they had been burning brightly for weeks with no rational explanation other than that Jeshua had been there. On the surface of the altar a large silver chalice filled with a deep red wine had been placed where the Tome of Divinity would normally lay open. The great and venerable altar book, which had stood its vigil for decades in the empty and forgotten cathedral, had been carefully moved to the corner of the altar to make way for the unusually placed cup.

Standing in front of the altar was an older man in plain brown linen clothes. His grizzled, lightly bearded face had been weathered by a hard life under the sun and on the sea. The veteran sailor had become well known to the whole of the city as Jeshua's chosen "shepherd", though the man refused at all to take any kind of title other than the one the Lightborn had given him, Emissary. Unlike any clergy most of those attending had ever known, neither he nor his fellows dressed in any kind of fine or showy vestments. There was no gold thread, no expensive silks or mageweave, nothing to indicate they had any kind of a position or power at all. They might have been well washed vagrants off the street. And unlike anyone else of any prominence or rank, they carried no weapon, staves, jewelry, or trinkets of any kind. Yes, one might have been forgiven for mistaking them for nobodies off the street, such was their impoverished appearance.

But the story the old sailor spun, and the teaching he gave were anything but ordinary.

Jim had been talking to the assembled crowd for some time, relating to them what Jeshua had taught himself and his fellow emissaries during their time with him. Jim's speech was rough at times, and the crowd could easily tell that the man hadn't received much in the way of a formal education. He spoke plainly and honestly. At times, like the sailor he was, he thought nothing about peppering his sentences with "colorful" language, not noticing or caring about some of the blushes or strange looks he received.

And then he began talking about the night Jeshua had last eaten with them. His voice took on a certain solemnity and reverence that hadn't necessarily been there before as he recalled some of his last memories of his "Captain" before his death.

"The night Jeshua got murdered, just before he was," Jim Jacobson told the assembled crowd, "He took a cup he had on the table, and poured some wine from a bottle he kept on the table we were eating at. He had it waitin' there for the whole meal and hadn't opened it yet. We'd all been wonderin' what he'd been saving it for." Jim then picked up the full chalice from the altar, holding it reverently in both hands, and showed it to all those present. "He prayed over it, 'n when he did we all saw a little bit o' Light pass into it. The Captain said the wine in the cup had become his blood. He told us it was to seal the pact he was makin' with all of us, that if we remained in him, he would remain in us, and he would do anything we asked from him."

A quiet murmur passed through the crowd at Jim's description of the wine as the blood of a pact being made. They all knew and remembered with disgust the pact the people of Silverpine had made with the Worgen's blood. They all knew what it had done to them.

Jim then passed a hand and prayed over the contents of the cup quietly so that even those near him would strain to hear him, "I'm doin' what you asked, Captain. Now I'm askin' that you do what you said and make this cup like you did that night."

As he whispered his awkward prayer, Jim's hand began to glow with a gentle golden light which passed over and into the cup of dark red wine. "Thanks for backin' me up, Captain." Jim then whispered, his eyes misting over just a little.

He then held the cup again even more carefully with both hands and showed it to the crowd once more, "Jeshua told all of us who were there to drink from it, and not just us, but everybody who wanted to follow him after us. So we're offerin' it now to everyone here."

The crowd was silent as they watched him, their eyes attentive and their ears attending to every word.

Jim then sipped from the chalice and offered it to a Night Elf man dressed as simply as he was standing nearby. After the Night Elf, it went to a Draenei woman dressed in the same way, and then down the line of all those present near the altar, each sipping carefully from the cup. From there Jim then returned to where he had been standing in front of the altar and held the cup out to those sitting in the pews and standing around the circumference of the sanctuary.

"This cup is for anyone who wants Jeshua to be a part of them." Jim then told the crowd, offering it out to them. "It's for anyone who wants to be a part of his pact with us."

In spite of the large crowd, the sanctuary was so silent that a mouse could have been heard echoing loudly from wall to wall had one been there. The idea of a blood pact like this, even one with the man who had enlivened them again...

There was no movement within the sanctuary. Jim knew why. He'd lived among these people for the last few weeks and knew their opinions of the "pact" the Gilneans and the Worgen had made just to spite them. Jeshua knew it too, and yet this was how he chose to do this.

Finally, seeing that no one else had moved, a single elf woman with golden blond hair and dominant bearing stood up from the front pew. She wore the blue cowl and cloak of one of Silvermoon's former ranger generals, and gilded mail armor across her torso and legs as she came forward. Sylvanas Windrunner, queen of Lordaeron and Warchief of the Horde, drawing back her hood to reveal her face fully, took the cup from Jim's hands and said loud enough for the entire Cathedral to hear her, "I will make this pact with Jeshua. I won't dishonor his memory." She then also sipped from the chalice and handed it back to the emissary.

After she sipped from the cup she paused for a moment, and then looked back at Jim in surprise. Jim nodded to her, understanding the recognition and realization she had just experienced just as he and those with him that night had also experienced. Her life and Jeshua's had become intertwined just as theirs had.

Jim then handed the cup to the queen's champion and consort, Nathanos Marris, whom he had met in Hearthglen. Nathanos also took the cup without hesitation, nodding familiarly to Jeshua's emissary. His reaction had been similar to his Lady's.

The next person to come up was a virile but elderly man with balding head, gray hair in a ring, and short gray goatee. His own conservative crimson tapestry vestments were those of a Priest of the Church of Light symbolizing his faith, though they weren't the more extravagant Bishop's vestments he might have been entitled to wear for his rank in that denomination. He approached reverently and humbly, his head bowed in contemplative, quiet prayer. Alonsus Faol also took the chalice and sipped from it.

After these a line began to form as all those within the church stood up to accept the chalice. Person after person came to honor Jeshua's cup. Old, young, man, woman, soldier, builder, farmer, wealthy, and poor, it made no difference. Jim then began to worry that the cup might run dry as the line of people wanting to honor the man who had redeemed them didn't end. Soon, Jim lost mental track of the number of people, though he knew the sanctuary itself had to be able to hold hundreds not counting those standing during the service or those outside.

But every time he glanced at the level of the cup, it never seemed to drop below the half way point of the ornate silver chalice. He wasn't an educated man, not in any traditional sense having done most of his learning at sea and on the deck of a ship, but even he knew that was impossible with so many people, and he silently thanked his "Captain" once more.

And then Jim began to notice something else he hadn't before. The eyes of those who partook of the cup began to glow with a soft golden light. As his own eyes moved, glancing at the person taking it from him that moment, to the queen that still stood watching the proceedings, to those who had already come. There was a golden, light filled glow which had taken root within each one's eyes which he hadn't seen before even in Paladins he had met. Jim didn't know what it meant, but assumed that his Captain did, and that was okay with him.

Jim had drank from the same cup. He knew that Jeshua was watching all of it through Jim's own eyes too. That was the pact they had made, Jeshua within them, and they within him.

In Stormwind...

Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker knelt in front of the altar in the Cathedral of Light that morning just after dawn. His gilded Paladin's armor had been left on a display rack in his apartment in the city, and instead he wore olive green woolen pants and vest over a simple white shirt. Sturdy, shined brown leather boots were on his feet. The only weapon he had was a short sword in a scabbard on a belt at his waist. The great church itself was largely empty as services would not be held for several hours, and the Priests themselves had not arrived in the sanctuary yet. It was dubious they would even be awake at that hour.

His return to Stormwind had not been pleasant. Unable to enter the Sanctum of Light on his own, unable to call upon the Light at all, he had returned quietly, and certain that the Argent Crusade guards would inform the Highlord of his... How would they describe it? A rejection by the Light? A fall from grace? A corruption? All of the above? Would the Highlord then inform his majesty? Would he be cast out and stripped of his title?

He had not returned to those lands he owned as a lord knight of Stormwind within Elwynn Forest. As much as might have wanted to return to his holdings, he could not bear those there knowing his disgrace. Would they even remain in his hands once word became known? Or would he be stripped of his lands and title? He didn't know. He had been so filled with shame at the Light's rejection of him that he had seen and talked to no one but went straight to the rooms he had use of in the city and had shut himself in, taking no food or visitors for three days. His obligations as a trainer of new Paladins were let go for the time. His own students and apprentices had been left to their own devices. He could not face them without the Light.

He could do nothing without the Light.

"The Light abandons no one." It had been a maxim which Tirion Fordring had discovered through his own experience. The great man had taught, and lived by it. Grayson Shadowbreaker was now clinging to that maxim as he wrestled with what was happening to him. If the Light didn't abandon anyone, then what had happened to him?

A personal copy of the Tome of Divinity had lain open on the wooden desk in his apartment as he searched through it, looking for answers, but he continued to find none that seemed to help. The only answer which appeared to him seemed impossible in his mind. He himself had abandoned and lost faith in the Light.

Except he hadn't. Not in his own mind at any rate. Not yet.

And neither had the Priests in the Cathedral, but they too appeared to be cut off. After leaving his chambers he had thought to seek counsel from Bishop Marcus as his own spiritual director. The Bishop however had informed him of the challenges that he too had experienced and had no answer for as of yet.

More disturbing still to the struggling Paladin was the darkness he began to feel from some of the clergy. In the absence of their connection to the Light, many of them had resorted to the Shadow in order to continue healing, albeit at some personal cost of pain to themselves. Grayson's world had been turned inside out where the Shadow was growing and the Light, once his strength and salvation, was now aloof and distant and would not respond to his pleas no matter how sincere or even tear filled.

On the sapphire carpeted steps in front of the altar, those pleas had continued as he humbled himself before his divinity. He didn't know how long he had been on one knee searching deep within himself for the presence of the sacred.

He truly didn't understand, and felt like a child whose mother had turned her back on him without explanation. He had fought the unholy and undead for decades. He had healed in the Light and championed justice throughout his life, teaching and training others to do the same. He had fought pride, selfishness, and unrighteous anger within himself at every turn, and had made the Tome of Divinity his guiding refuge in the Holy Light. He had even gone to Light's Hope in the name of the Light to seek the destruction of those abominations which the dark charlatan Jeshua had created, and to restore sanity to the Paladin Order. What more could he do to prove his faith and devotion?

As he knelt there, the image of a man with reddish blond hair and beard flashed across his awareness again. He didn't know who it was, or why the man's face would come to him. He had never seen or met him before, he was certain. The expression on that face was pained and sorrowful towards him, even as he reached out with his right hand gesturing for Grayson to approach.

Why am I seeing this man's face again? He asked himself internally. And then the next thought, Is the Light trying to show me something?

A hope kindled within him that maybe the Light hadn't fully left him. Maybe the man it was showing him had something to do with it. Maybe if he found this man, he would receive answers.

"When is a Paladin not a Paladin?" A strange voice echoed the riddle mockingly in the empty sanctuary.

Grayson's one good eye opened as he came out of his meditations. His muscular, athletic body was stiff and sore as he rose to a standing position before the altar, nodding a short bow in respect before turning to face the owner of the voice.

What he saw was a human man robed in dark blue, his facial features mostly hidden by a cowl. The man was standing not far from what Grayson knew to be the entrance to Stormwind's burial catacombs. Even from that distance though, the knight could feel the presence of the darkness emanating from the man. It felt cold but tangible, and there was a discordance in the air, a madness around the man that seemed to want to reach out towards Grayson and turn his own mind inside out.

"What do you want, Shadow Priest?" Grayson asked, his tone neutral but not friendly. He knew those devoted to the Shadow weren't explicitly forbidden from the cathedral, and he respected it even if he didn't like it.

"Oh no! Not what I want, but what do you want? The Light's all turned off and you can't find a way to light it up again? Maybe a goblin can help, hmmm?" The dark man taunted. "They're good at that I hear."

"What do you know of it, Priest?" Grayson then demanded from him from where he stood, his left hand fingering the sword at his side.

"What do I know? What do you know? What does anyone know? That's the trouble. Everyone knows, so no one seems to." The Shadow Priest moved calmly to stand in the center of the barren church, facing the knight as he stood on the steps next to the altar.

"What mad riddle is this? Either speak plainly or be quiet in this place." Grayson warned the man. "You will respect the Holy Light in this place."

"Oh! Respect the Holy Light!" A wicked looking grin spread underneath the man's cowl. "The Shadow knows the Light well, but its devotees don't seem to. That is the riddle, is it not? The Light wanes and the Shadow rises because no one can see what's right in front of them." He then began to giggle as though laughing at some private joke at the knight's expense.

"What do you mean?" Grayson then questioned, seeing that there appeared to be some method behind the man's mad ravings.

"Dawn has come to the north, and dusk to the south, Paladin. The Light has made its move, and now the Darkness counters. You will see! All will see!" The Shadow Priest began laughing maniacally as he turned his back on the struggling man and strode out of the cathedral.

Grayson Shadowbreaker watched the madman leave the church, laughing as he went. The knight's mind was filled with questions. He wanted to dismiss the Priest's words as the riddles of a madman, but something within him couldn't. There was a truth there cloaked in a deception that he felt he had to understand. And he felt it was all tied to the man whose face he kept seeing. He had to know who this man was. And he had to understand the truth behind the Shadow Priest's riddle.

Grayson would discover what had happened. He would set things right. The Light had finally answered his prayers, he felt. It had given him a chance at redemption for whatever transgression he had committed.

It had given him a quest.

Later that day...

Bishop Marcus had been in his private study within the Cathedral when Lord Shadowbreaker had come to him that afternoon. It had been a couple of hours after the morning service. He had developed a relationship with the man over the last several years, taking over as the Paladin lord's confessor and spiritual director after Bishop Farthing retired to his own small property in the countryside. They had developed a good understanding of one another in that time, and a good working relationship as well.

The morning service had been noticeably subdued. There had been no healings. Neither Marcus nor Laurena dared attempt any at the moment. His homily had preached on the virtues of the Light, and the pursuit of faith and justice even when times seemed the darkest, and falsehoods and illusions surrounded you. He had then gone into the supposed Dawn Event and the false teacher Jeshua and how the Light simply didn't work that way. It had been a good homily, and the people had been attentive.

Though there had been a noticeable absence. The Davidson family, so attentive and devout in the past, had not been there that morning. He had approached Joseph in his shop after being alerted by a concerned and kindly Brother Kristoff of the man's deviation into his son's heresies, and his verbal abuse of a Priest who had been singularly devoted to the Light his entire life. He had encountered the carpenter's verbal abuse himself, and had been forced to warn him of the serious consequences he would face in the church if he didn't see the error of the path he and his family were being led down.

Even the Shadow Priests, as deviant as he believed their devotion to be, understood the importance of correct theology and view of things. This man Jeshua's teachings, persisting even after his reported death, threatened to confuse and twist that. And worse, his incredibly complex and dark magics threatened to deceive the untrained and uneducated.

As a guardian of the sacred deposit of faith of the Church of Light, Marcus couldn't allow that.

The Bishop had been contemplating these very things when the Paladin lord, dressed in humble clothes and armed only with a plain shortsword at his waist, had knocked once more at his door. The man had looked haggard and tired, and the clergyman was certain he had not bathed since the last time they had spoken and commiserated about their mutual crisis of faith.

It was a question to which Marcus had yet to find an answer.

He had invited the Paladin inside his study once more and bade him to sit in the carved, blue upholstered wooden chair opposite himself at his writing desk. Next to the desk and lining the walls were wooden shelves filled with books of philosophy, theology, and some of Azeroth's greatest authors. On the desk was a personal copy of the Tome of Divinity with worn gilded pages, and a writing journal. Next to this were a pen and raven colored inkwell.

"Your grace, the Light has granted me an answer of sorts!" Lord Shadowbreaker had told him. "It has granted me a vision twice now of a man I am certain has much to do with our problem. I feel that he must be found."

Surprise and some hope began to fill the old Priest's features. It was tinged with a little envy as well that the Light would speak to the Paladin and not to the higher ranking clergy, but that would have to take a back seat for the moment.

"Please, my son. What does this man look like?" Marcus had asked.

When the Paladin had given the Priest the description of the man he had seen in his visions, Marcus had leaned back and sighed. Thoughts raced through his mind as to what it meant. He had no doubt of Lord Shadowbreaker's sincerity or that this was what he had seen. The man's reputation for humility and integrity was legendary. Marcus also knew for a fact that the Paladin had never come within recent sight of the man he was describing. He couldn't have.

"I know the man the Light has shown you." Marcus finally told the Paladin. "And I believe you are correct in your assumption he has much to do with our plight. Indeed, I believe him to be the source of it."

"You do?" Grayson Paladin had sat up in the chair upon this revelation. "Who is he? Where might I find him?"

"You are describing the heretic Jeshua as I saw him in Hearthglen, my son. As for where you might find the man himself, as I have been told by Lord Greymane, he was betrayed and executed by the Banshee Queen herself who then accused Lord Greymane of the murder." The Bishop replied. "Evil will always collapse in on itself."

Confusion spread over Grayson Shadowbreaker's face as he digested this information. "Then how...?" He began to ask.

"The man may be dead, but he lives on through his followers as they continue to spread his poisonous and confusing teaching among those in the north. You've had to face it yourself among the Order of the Silver Hand, have you not?" Marcus told him. "An organization wholly dedicated to the service of the Holy Light refused to do the Light's will and purge a village full of undead abominations and ghosts. How can that be? This poison must be stopped, my son. Perhaps the Light showed you this man's image because it wants you to be the one to stop it once and for all."

The Paladin became very quiet at the Bishop's words, dropping his head as he thought. The Priest could see a struggle on his face where he believed none should have existed. But then, the struggle appeared to pass and a grim determination took it's place.

Lord Shadowbreaker then raised his head and said in voice which carried the weight of a Paladin's hammer, "Then I will become the Light's retribution. Send me north and I will purge this poison from Azeroth once and for all."

Bishop Marcus then took the man's hands into his own. "The Light's will be done." He told him solemnly.