As the Aetheric Rail ascended the High Plateau toward the capital, Kael'thas was focused on battle strategy. He was preparing to confront the Hero Faction's intellectual elite.
But at the final transfer station, he was blindsided by a simple act of human nature.
A young woman, a volunteer for a local charity, was collecting donations for an orphanage recently ravaged by a wild-mage incident. She was frail, determined, and clearly exhausted, her uniform threadbare.
Kael'thas, seeing the weakness, dismissed her. The Arch-Fiend had no use for charity.
Theon Graylock, however, paused. He reached into his immaculate jacket, pulled out a heavy purse of gold coins—far more than a student should carry—and dropped it into the woman's donation box.
"That's for the children," Theon said, his face stripped of its academic arrogance, showing only genuine pity and concern. "Make sure they get proper heat this winter."
Kael'thas felt a sharp spike of confusion. "Why did you waste capital on a biologically inefficient cause?" he demanded of Elara's soul.
"It wasn't a waste," Elara insisted, suddenly stronger in her conviction than he was in his logic. "He did it because he could. Because it matters. That's why they defeated you. Because you thought those small kindnesses were weakness, not a source of their unified strength."
Theon caught Elara staring. He gave her a small, uncomplicated smile. "Not everything is an exam, Vane. Some things are just right."
Kael'thas looked at the gold, then at the satisfied look on Theon's face. He understood ambition, hate, and power. He did not understand self-sacrifice for a negligible return. This profound, baffling kindness was a piece of the world's structure that his demonic logic had never accounted for, and it caused the first genuine crack in his demonic ego. The Hero Faction had been built not just on light magic, but on things he deemed illogical.