Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter One: By Which Fates

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

It rained the night that Jaskier died. 

In the years that followed, the rain became linked inextricably with the memory of that night. Geralt would find his mind returning to that forest at the first hint of ozone in the air, and without fail it would conjure up an echo of the bard. When the rains fell in sheets from the dark sky he could still smell the terror beading across Jaskier’s skin like sweat, could still hear the wild pounding of his heart as the witcher grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him towards the brambles, and pushed him into the dark heart of the wood.

No matter where he went, the shadow of the bard always found him. Try as he might, nothing could chase away the ghost that lingered there. 

。。。oOo 。。。

“Mark my words, Geralt, something is very wrong in Cintra. I’m lucky that Calanthe let me pass her borders at all. As it was, she treated me as though I were some criminal… some, some sort of monster or something." He winced at his choice of words. The likelihood that Geralt was listening at all was so low that Jaskier opted to nervously barrel on rather than bring attention to his fumble. 

“I performed for the young princess at the banquet and was ushered out before sunrise the next morning. Thank Melitele that I spent the evening entertaining an eight-year-old, otherwise, I would certainly have been offensively drunk. Nevertheless, I was escorted to the border by a contingent of soldiers. What a thought, that I, of all those in attendance , could be some sort of threat to the crown. What an obscene idea. I can’t help but feel it had to do with you and your child sur—”

“Jaskier?” 

“ Hmm ?”

“Shut up,” Geralt grumbled. 

The blessed silence only lasted between one crow's caw and the next before Jaskier was prattling on again.

“As I was saying, it would seem the words of King Eist were the only reason she allowed me into the country at all. Princess Cirilla requested my presence specifically, which is enough to make my heart soar. What an honour. She is a bright child, albeit a rather cheeky one. I fear if I were to spend too much time around her she would get me into more trouble than I manage to find myself in alone, which is impressive. 

"Even though I was barred from playing a good deal of my more popular works for obvious reasons. The princess is only eight after all and needn’t hear of what happens when—” Jaskier dodged a curtain of wispy moss that hung from a twisted branch. “Huh, looks like it might rain. Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you — have you reconsidered my proposal to head toward the coast?” 

When Geralt didn’t respond Jaskier continued. “To get away for a while? I think it would be good for you. You need a sort of a… respite. And I know what you’re going to say to that because it’s what you always say to that. Spare me the sanctity of the Path and the respite of wintering in a bone-chilling keep in the highest bloody frozen mountain pass in all of the North…” When even this failed to merit a response, the bard sighed dejectedly, running his hands through his hair. 

It was relatively quiet for a while. Jaskier entertained himself — as he always did — humming, reciting a line of poetry here and there, stopping to inspect mundane foliage.

“If you think ignoring me will stop me from talking I fear you’re sorely mistaken. You really should know this by now.” Jaskier hopped alongside, keeping brisk pace with the witcher. “In fact…” But before he could continue Jaskier’s words faltered, trailing off into true silence for the first time in what felt like hours.  “ Um . Geralt?”

The sudden spike of terror in the bard’s voice caught the witcher off guard. He turned back to see Jaskier standing in the centre of the winding dirt path, twisting the leather strap of his lute case in his trembling hands and staring at a tree as if it might swallow him whole. 

“Do you think that bird is following us?” He whispered through gritted teeth.

Geralt paused, briefly, looking up at the darkening clouds above them with despair as if begging them to rescue him from this conversation. “No.” 

“What makes you so sure?” 

“Because it’s a bird.” 

“Look, that very magpie has been following us for the better part of an hour now. At least I’m pretty sure that’s a magpie. It certainly isn’t a starling . I wonder what it wants.”  Jaskier hummed as he scrambled over a fallen birch that lay across the dirt path. 

“It’s a bird , Jaskier. It doesn’t want anything… except perhaps those horrid buttons on your coat,” the witcher growled. There was a storm quickly approaching and he had hoped to make it to the next town before it broke, but Jaskier, as usual, was doing everything in his power to prevent that from happening.

“Did you know some people believe the magpie is a harbinger of great change, a portent of…” The bard dodged a low-hanging branch, grumbling as it caught in his hair and tugged at the collar of his doublet. “...the shifting seasons? Some of the great poets even call them the keepers of secrets.” 

The witcher stopped, pivoted to face the wailing bird, and scrunched his nose. “That’s a crow.” 

“Wrong bird. I was talking about that… oh , well it’s gone now. If you had just looked when I told you to, you would’ve seen the magpie.” 

“That’s a crow… maybe a raven. Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s your screaming bird.” 

“The implication wounds me.” 

“What implication?” 

“That I wouldn’t recognise a bird as common as a crow . Besides, if you can’t kill a thing for the coin you’ve proven you have no interest in it. So don’t profess to be some sort of ornithologist.”

“Jaskier, you wouldn’t know a wyvern from a willow tit if it bit you on the face.” 

“Oh, I’m fairly certain I would be able to ascertain rather quickly that it was a wyvern that had bitten me, right before it ripped my head clean off. Do you want to know the saddest part of that hypothetical?” 

“No.”

“You probably wouldn’t even kill the damned thing.” 

“I would.” 

Jaskier put a hand on his hip and raised his eyebrows and Geralt chuckled. 

“Once it tastes human flesh it won’t stop killing. I stand to make good coin off a flesh-crazed wyvern.”

“You are a cruel, horrid man and you wound me, Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier whined.

But Geralt didn’t seem to notice, his attention abruptly focused on Roach as she snorted angrily, stamping at the ground and dancing sideways, refusing to go any further. He tugged sharply on the reins to bring her to a stop, eyes scanning the dense forest beyond the narrowing trail. The clouds were rolling in, blotting out what little light the grey sky still held.

“What is it, Roach? Hmm ? What do you know that I don't?” He slid from the saddle with ease, his expression hardening as he soothed the agitated beast. 

Moments later a raven swooped from overhead and landed before them on the path, cawing wildly. Roach shied, half-rearing before Geralt brought her back down to stand trembling and wild-eyed as the bird continued to shriek. A shiver of foreboding brushed the back of his neck and he found himself asking, “Jaskier, what do your great poets say of ravens? What do they foretell of?” 

“Nothing good, my friend.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Ravens are harbingers of death,” Jaskier said quietly. 

“Can’t imagine why a scavenger bird that picks the flesh from bloated corpses could be used as a symbol for death.” The witcher laughed, grinning at the scowl it earned him. “Your poets are wrong about one thing, though.” 

“And what would that be?” 

Quietly, humour draining from his voice, Geralt replied, “Ravens don’t foretell of death, they follow it.” 

Jaskier found he had no reply to that. Something in his friend’s voice, the set of his shoulders warned him against his usual kind of flippant comments. In silence, he watched Geralt staring out into the deepening gloom, listening for something only he — and possibly Roach — could hear. 

The bard fell silent, unease prickling through his chest. Just as he opened his mouth to try to pry some kind of explanation for their stop out of his travelling companion, he jumped as without warning or prompt Geralt slapped his horse hard on her haunch and she took off into the thicket. 

“What the…” 

Geralt ignored him. Pivoting to face the east, he scented the wind. The blade sang as he pulled his steel sword from his back, twisting it in his grip. 

Jaskier reached for him. “Geralt. Geralt, what's—”

"Run.”

Blinking, his heart beginning to pound with adrenaline as panic rushed through his veins, Jaskier reached for the witcher again. “What? No, I’m not going to just leave you — I don’t even know what’s happening! What’s going on?”

Geralt spun to face him, his free hand clamping painfully onto Jaskier’s shoulder. His face was set in a hard mask, every trace of humanity wiped away. “Do you trust me?”

“I — of course, I do, Geralt, why would you even— what —" Jaskier stammered.

“Then for fucking once , do as I tell you,” Geralt said, his voice heavy with a terrifying kind of urgency. “If you’ve ever trusted me at all, listen to me now.” He shoved Jaskier back, more of his inhuman strength evident in the motion than he would normally show, and with bared teeth snarled a single word:

“Run.”

。。。oOo 。。。

For once in his damned life, Jaskier didn’t question or protest, he simply listened. Deep into the wildwood, he ran; tumbling down embankments, scrambling up slopes, tripping and skidding into rocks and roots, his mind whirling with images of what terrible foe could have made Geralt so adamant that Jaskier needed to flee.

The rain pounded down in sheets as thunder crashed overhead. It pelted against his skin like ice against the fire in his blood. 

Staggering to a stop, Jaskier leaned shivering against the trunk of an old tree and huddled into himself. He’d done as Geralt had asked — he’d run, but he was only human and he couldn’t race blindly through the woods at night forever. Panting, trembling with a mix of cold and fear and exhaustion, Jaskier strained himself to listen, trying to hear what was happening, wondering if it was safe to go back yet.

He thought he heard voices, and the clash of weapons, but they were quickly drowned by the torrential downpour muting everything. Then, against all odds, he heard a voice. Rough and uncertain and nearly lost in the thundering storms, Geralt called out to him. 

Without a second thought, Jaskier scrambled forward, turning his head as he tried to gauge where it was coming from, how turned around he’d gotten in his blind flight. But before he could take more than a single step, the soft earth and tangled roots gave way beneath him, and headfirst he tumbled down the muddy embankment. Dazed and disoriented, Jaskier nevertheless forced himself to his feet — and collapsed almost immediately, his ankle screaming in protest. He blinked into the darkness, calling out, braving no more than a whisper. 

“Geralt,” he hissed, hoping against hope that those famed witcher senses might hear him despite the cacophony of the storm. “Where are you?”

The night was black as tar, the storm clouds thick and heavy overhead obscuring any natural illumination from the moon or stars. Far too dark for Jaskier’s merely human vision to pierce. So instead he listened, hoping against hope to hear any sign of life, any sign of Geralt past the muffling effects of the rainfall. 

As if in answer to his unvoiced prayers,  the sound of a stuttering breath and a thud reached his ears.

Jaskier stood, this time with more care, and limped forward in what was, hopefully, the right direction. It wasn’t long before he tripped over the witcher, sprawling forward and landing on his chest and face. 

“Geralt,” he wheezed, his throat raw. “Oh, hell, Geralt.” The bard clumsily turned his head against the witcher’s chest, feeling his slow heartbeat and his unsteady breath. 

Geralt was alive. He was still alive. Oh, thank fuck.

With shaking hands, Jaskier pulled the witcher into his lap. His knees sunk into the muddy silt below, pebbles and sticks digging into his skin. As he lay his hand across Geralt’s chest hot blood squelched through his fingers and his heart dropped.

No, no, no...

“Oh gods, Geralt. No…” Fuck. Fuck, that was a lot of blood.   Jaskier could barely see the witcher’s face in the darkness. Cold, filthy hands fumbled to cup his jaw, blindly feeling at his features. 

“ Jas… ” Geralt muttered in disbelief, his voice broken and thin like it took a monumental effort to speak

“Yeah, it’s me… It’s me Geralt. I’m here.” Rough stubble prickled against his thumb as he stroked Geralt’s face.  Jaskier wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure Geralt or himself.

“Y- you’re alive.” Geralt’s voice was fading but it sounded like he was laughing.

“Yeah,” Jaskier managed to choke out.  “Now let’s, you know, keep you that way too, yeah?” Clumsily the bard peeled off his torn, filthy doublet and gathered the fabric in his fist. He struggled with Geralt’s armour as his other arm kept pressure against the gaping wound in the witcher’s side. Bunching the fabric in his palm he pressed it into the wound, trying to stanch the bleeding. 

“Hey. I… I need you to stay with me, Geralt. Come on, wake up. Yeah? You’re going to be f— fine.” Jaskier’s breath hitched in something like a sob.  He couldn’t tell how much of the wetness on his face came from the rain and how much from tears. “C’mon, this is no worse than that time with the archgriffin, in the mountains near Vattweir. Remember? It took a nasty chunk out of you but you pulled through. You just gotta do that again, all right?” 

His mouth ran on without him, the way it so often did, as he tried to think of what to do, how to help. Geralt’s potions were with Roach, and who the fuck knew where she’d gone? Jaskier had already been lucky to even find Geralt, he couldn’t assume he’d have the same luck finding his horse. Maybe if he fastened the torn fabric he could hoist Geralt onto his back, maybe get them to the village they’d been trying to reach before it all went to shit — no. It was too risky. Geralt's injuries were too severe. Suddenly the witcher began to choke and the sound cut through Jaskier’s swirling thoughts like a guillotine. 

“Sh— shut… up.” Geralt ground out, the words nearly lost in the bubbling blood that sprayed from his mouth and speckled Jaskier’s chest and face. “Th— they think I… I… you… Jaskier, you have to f— find...” 

“Stop. Geralt, stop. I never thought I’d say this but please stop talking, you’re going to kill yourself. Whatever it is, it can wait. I promise you can tell me how stupid I am, how much you hate me after we find you a healer.” Jaskier whimpered the words smearing together in a tangle. 

“Jas,”  He gasped. “Listen to me. Ci- Ciri… tsz...sh —... gone. Ca— ,” Geralt choked, growling as his head fell back against Jaskier’s thigh. “Calanthe… s’dead . Ciri is… she’s… gone.”

Ciri? But...no it couldn’t be . Jaskier had been in Cintra not a month before for the young princess Cirilla’s eighth birthday. He had parted ways with Geralt at the borders of Cintra and they had found each other not long after near Sodden.

He didn’t understand. 

“I… I— We’ll find her, Geralt.” Frantically Jaskier looked around, blinking blindly into the humming darkness. He was turned around, completely unsure of direction or path. He had no idea how far away the nearest town was. There was no way he would make it to a town, no way Geralt would make it.

If what the witcher told him was true— someone had killed the queen of Cintra. Geralt’s child by writ of Destiny was missing, possibly killed by those who had claimed the life of her grandmother. Someone was after them — whether the armies of Cintra herself or those who had killed Queen Calanthe. Jaskier had no idea how many had come after Geralt or if and when they would try again. And now they were hopelessly lost in the woods and Geralt was going to die, he was going to die here in the cold and dark, here in Jaskier’s arms. If he didn’t do something, and fast, Geralt was going to die. 

Then the dark thought curled around his heart and choked off the air from his lungs. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He was powerless to save him. 

Geralt was trying to speak again, clawing at Jaskier's hands and face.

“Swear it.” His voice was fading. 

“Wh— what?” The bard cried. Panic flooded his veins at the implication.

“S- swear you’ll find her,” Geralt growled through bloodied teeth and tongue, his breathing ragged. With a jarring pull, he grabbed Jaskier by the back of the neck and pressed the bard’s forehead to his own. He didn’t have the strength to hold his head up any longer and he let it fall to rest in Jaskier’s lap.

“I swear it, Geralt. We will. I… I’ll find her, I swear on my life.”  The bard sobbed, his chest tightening like a wind-up toy, his lungs ceasing to work as his mind raced. Fingers fussing and fretting at the fabric, he pulled at the linen and cried out as the blood gushed through his fingers and down his arm. 

The hand that clawed at Jaskier’s neck grew slack as the tension bled from Geralt’s muscles. His breathing slowed and the weight of his body fell heavy and still. Pale yellow eyes — haunting and beautiful, grew dull. And the realization hit Jaskier all at once, that he might never see them open again. 

"Geralt. No, no, no . You have to keep breathing.” His hands shook violently, his fingers so as he pawed at the witcher. His right hand fumbled down the side of the witcher’s head to his chest where he aligned his knuckles with the crest of Geralt’s ribcage and drove them into the bone, twisted as hard as he could. It acted as a jolt of lightning, sending Geralt’s lungs into a frenzy, a growl caught in his torn throat. The already filthy, soaked silk wasn’t going to be enough. Even in the dark, he could tell that the witcher’s wounds were beyond him. Of all the impossible things that Geralt had survived…

Through the sheets of stinging rain, Jaskier heard something.

A large black bird drifted down from the branches of a twisting cedar and landed on Geralt’s chest. It cried out in a way that reminded Jaskier of a baying hound pawing at a foxhole. He tried to scare it off but the raven paid him no heed. It seemed utterly unimpressed by his pathetic attempt to scare it off. 

A hollow clinking, like wood or bone, grew into a song as faint torchlight grew closer. Jaskier squinted into the storm pulling Geralt close as if he could someone shield him from whatever horrible fate awaited them in the dark. 

“By which fates, little rabbits,” A voice called out from the thicket, “that I would find you in my wood. And on the eve of Semik, no less.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

A charred branch split with a resounding crack and the iron pot bubbled steadily above the flames. Jaskier knelt beside the hearth, palms resting delicately in his lap like a beggar or some acolyte in prayer and supplication. Numbly he watched on as the woman tended to Geralt’s wounds. The fear that chimed through him had been battered by the pelting rain and his lam through the thicket, but never truly snuffed out. Exhaustion had hollowed him out, his fear hardening what remained into a fragile frame that held his shape. And in the temporary respite of the cottage, the slightest tremor and he feared he would shatter like painted glass. 

The witch hummed as she sloshed her hands around the large, wooden bowl. Scrubbing the blood from her skin, the peculiar woman shook her hands and dabbed them dry on her skirts. Resting the bowl of rainwater on her hip, she hooked a barefoot beneath a log and kicked it into the hearth to feed the dying flames. 

Jaskier couldn’t tear his eyes away from Geralt, hearing the shutters unlatch and the soiled water slosh out the open window. Setting it up on the sill she called out into the rain with a whistle and a tap.

He was vaguely aware of her moving about the cottage once again. Fingers chipped at the dried blood that pulled at his skin.

The witch squatted in front of him. The bowl she had carried to the window was full of fresh rainwater. Holding a hand out and gesturing for him to take it, she pulled his arms from where they rested and turned upward on his knees. With all the grace of an impatient child, she dumped a ladle of water over his palms. The sting was nearly enough to shake him from his stupor. She watched him wince and bite down on his lip as she scrubbed at his skin, snorting and rolling her eyes. Rinsing the rag, she set about her task once more. This time with an almost gentle touch. 

Jaskier's eyes wandered over her. She was beautiful in a peculiar way, with the face of a painted doll, round and red. Her skin was pale and her fingertips were black as coal, as if she’d dug around in an ink well rooting for something. Intricately patterned tattoos trailed up her hands and arms, down the front of her legs, and across her chest. Kohl smudged across her large, dark eyes like a silken sash and the tips of her ears were as black as her fingers. She wore layers of colourful, worn fabrics wrapped around her torso and waist, and what appeared to be the skulls of small birds swung idly from the large holes in her earlobes. Jaskier couldn’t decide whether she was incredibly old or frighteningly young. 

Ambushed by a contingent of soldiers and left for dead in the dark of night. And then by fate or grace or random chance, he had found Geralt again. Whisked away to a witch’s cottage in the woods.

“What a nightmare.” Jaskier laughed bitterly under his breath. 

“Hardly.” She snorted. “My harvest is far more grim.” 

“Y- your…” He muttered dazedly, his breath hitched in his throat as though he would cry out.  “I’m afraid I’ve been terribly... In my distress, I— My name… My name is Jaskier and this…” She waited patiently as his composure began to fracture. “This is Geralt.” For the first time, Jaskier took a good look at her. “Forgive me, I never asked your name, my lady.”

“When you live as long as I have you are known by many names. You collect them like baubles and trinkets and lose them just the same. Why even the wind calls to me in the tongues of the dead from time to time."

Jaskier managed to squeak out the question that had been repeating in his mind over and over again. “Will he live?”

“It is a risky business to divine when a man will cease his fight and pass to the world beyond. But if fortune smiles, he will have until dawn. What I’ve done has not afforded him time, only comfort.” Her words rooted out the smallest seed of hope left in him and cast it into the fireplace. “Take solace, little rabbit, your witcher suffers not. He will slumber until Death comes to claim him." 

Jaskier sat in disquiet vigil, the realisation sinking its teeth deeper and deeper into him with every passing moment. Suddenly with a strangled sob, his fragile strength splintered. With fists interwoven, he collapsed like a paper fan. “No, I… I can’t just sit here and watch him die.”

With her feet planted firmly on the floor, the witch squatted down and swung her head between his knees to glance up at his face. Jaskier nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Whyever not?” She pursed her lips, a youthful innocence brightening the face darkened by streaks of ash. “Do you fear that your fate will be as his? Does your promised mortality frighten you, little rabbit?” 

Jaskier sat back, lifting his head and pulling his legs from beneath him to rest his chin on his knees. The witch followed his movements, her face still scant inches from his. Her large, dark eyes watched him expectantly. 

“I… In all honesty, I hadn’t thought beyond sunrise. I suppose, if I truly think about it I fear what life will be like without him. Fear what this world will be.” 

“ Bah !” The hag snorted. “The world will carry on. Spinning crookedly through veils of chaos,” She stood, flinging her hands this way and that as she turned on her heels. “And your witcher will be forgotten, as the dead always are. This is the way of things.” 

She was across the open floor of the cottage in the blink of an eye. The large black bird that had summoned her to Geralt in the wood, alighting from the rafters to land on her arm. 

“I can't let it end like this.” 

“Oh?” She barked, laughing through a bright smile. “And what will you do to stop it?” 

“I don’t know. But Geralt deserved better. This world needs him, I need him.” 

“It matters not if they need him. If the people of this world forget the very gods that crafted them from the red clay, what makes you think they will remember the monsters that they themselves made? They will cast him aside like a straw fetish. It matters not. I do not discern between the wanted and unwanted.” 

“Perhaps you’re right.” Jaskier’s eyelashes fluttered, tears falling onto his forearms as he hugged himself tight. “Maybe people are simple, maybe they need to be reminded… maybe they don’t deserve him.” 

“I tend to the flames, little rabbit. You may worship the ashes if you wish, but this is the way of things and neither you nor your pup are any exception.” 

“I know I’m not, I’ve never been anything miraculous, anyone noteworthy. I’m a storyteller, nothing more than a mouthpiece. Do not misunderstand me, I do not wish to die. But I would give everything I have to save him.” Now that the tears had begun to fall there seemed to be no end. “Maybe it's selfish that I want him to live because I know he… he deserves better than to be slaughtered by the people he has given everything to protect.” 

“Does it not defeat the purpose of your sacrifice to give one’s life for another if you are dead and rotting in the woods?”

A shrill bird call sounded from beside him and the bard was startled, a black and white bird flapped wildly across the cabin toward him. It landed on the floor, hopping about humorously.

“The magpie,” he whispered. 

Another bird shrieked as it swept down from the rafters, a sprig of white sage in its beak. It squawked, bobbing its head. 

“A queer little creature, indeed,” The crone replied as she held out a small piece of meat to the raven on her shoulder, taking the sprig of sage in return. 

“This is Shnyets and that is Vorovka. They are my children,” she said as she scratched under the raven’s chin and then pointed to the magpie that stood before him.

“O-oh. H- hello Vorovka. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jaskier couldn’t seem to keep from chuckling awkwardly under his breath. Surely he had had stranger introductions before… he just couldn’t think of any at the moment. So with a flourish, he bowed before the magpie. It squawked, hopping back and forth excitedly. 

The woman laughed, and the raven cried out. It cawed loudly, pulling its head back to scream at the other bird. 

“Unwise.” She cautioned the magpie with a click of her tongue. 

Jaskier stared dumbly at the arguing birds. The magpie flapped about as it crossed the room and doubled back to land on his knee. Its head turned curiously, it opened its mouth wide and cried. Then fixed its gaze on him as if it was deciding whether or not to peck his eyes out. 

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.” 

“He wishes to hear you sing,” The witch scratched beneath Shnyets’ beak, cooing at the raven. 

“O-oh… Who am I to deny a powerful creature such as yourself.” Jaskier smiled and tentatively held out his hand. Vorovka flapped its wings and hopped up into the bard’s outstretched hands. “Any requests?”  

The bird turned its head to the side, bright glassy eyes watching him carefully. 

“I know just the thing.” He hummed as the magpie hopped closer. 

“You should consider yourself either very lucky or very unlucky. This song has never been uttered to another living soul before. And I had intended to keep it that way.” Jaskier’s gaze wandered back to Geralt and the shallow, ragged rise and fall of his chest beneath the wool blanket. 

“I told myself that someday, I might sing it for him. Someday I would be ready to truly be seen. But it appears as though I have lost my chance while waiting for my someday.” 

So Jaskier sang of heartbreak, fear, and hope for a love that would never be. And when he finished the magpie cawed loudly, still not indicating that it was any more than just a bird.

“No.” The witch shot back. 

Vorovka flapped its wings wildly about as it flew across the room, only to swoop down at her. It picked and pulled at the string of bones and coloured glass that hung from her hair. 

She shouted at the birds in a strange tongue waving her arms about as though she had walked into a swarm of flies. The raven swooped down to land on Geralt’s chest and the magpie alighted upon Jaskier’s shoulder, picking at his soaked hair as though it were preening him. 

Shouting again, she huffed. “There is…” She hesitated and the moment felt like an eternity. “— there is a way.”

The bard opened his mouth to agree but the witch shot him a look that all but snuffed out the light that had sprung into his swollen, red eyes. Her hands were gentle as she cupped the sides of his face, her thumb rubbing away a stray tear. It reminded him of the look his grandmother used to give him when she would sing him to sleep as a child, her eyes holding an ache that he didn’t understand.

“You do not know what you ask, little rabbit.”

。。。oOo 。。。

The witch hummed as the storm raged on outside. 

“I’m afraid I haven’t coin bu—” 

“Bah! I don’t want a coin, you hedgehog . What would I use a coin for? Besides, the price you are to pay is heavier than the coffers of the fattest king on this continent.” She smacked him lightly on the head with the heavy, stone pestle. “Now take those filthy things off and wash. We must make haste.” 

Jaskier rubbed his head, staring at her in mild bewilderment. The magpie pulled at the collar of his shirt as he divested himself of his trousers. He bent over, lifting his hands above his head in time before the bird pecked at him again.

The heat of the fire reddened his bare feet and the draft from under the door sent shivers down his spine. His eyes wandered the small cottage drifting over bones and dried plants hung from strings and swung like chimes, clacking and clattering in the wind. The walls and shelves were lined with jars of specimens suspended in liquid and bottles of glass. Geralt lay within arm’s reach, still as a corpse beneath an old woollen blanket, each breath more shallow than the last. 

Jaskier resisted the urge to ask her any more questions for fear she would smack him again. 

As she moved to kneel between them, she set the mortar beside his hip. Gently she took hold of his hand and before he could question her, she slid a knife over his palm. He hissed as she placed Geralt’s medallion in his hand and closed his fist around it, wringing the blood from his grip and collecting it in the mortar below. 

Satisfied with the blood that had drained into the mortar she stood and began to rummage around through a series of jars collecting bones — the skull of some sort of bird, a fang, knucklebones, and so on. The raven hopped down from the rafters to drop a spring of some dried herb into the ashes from the fire. A bloody bandage from Geralt’s wound, and a lock of each of their hair joined the blood and bones in the mortar and was ground into a dark paste.

The witch crouched beside the witcher. Dipping her fingers into the mortar she painted hard lines and symbols across Geralt’s broken body with care. Finally, she stood, surveyed her work, and stepped around him. Squatting between the two men she mumbled some sort of prayer in an ancient tongue and rolled her shoulder. Dipping her hands into the mixture of blood, bone, and clay once more she stopped, her face scrunching as she took Jaskier in.

"The wild veins of Chaos run deep through the soil of this world and they are as unpredictable as they are dangerous. Are you sure you wish to do this, little rabbit? No one will fault you if you change your mind." Her voice was gentle, almost pained. "A life is a heavy price to pay."

“I am.” Jaskier swallowed hard but it did nothing to slow the flood of tears that dappled his cheeks as he reached across the floor and pressed a trembling hand to Geralt's cold face, tracing the line from his forehead to his chin the way he had wished to do a thousand times before. 

"Forgive me, Geralt. I couldn’t let you go, couldn’t lose you. I know I promised you that I’d find Ciri but… I can’t follow you this time, darling.”  Unable to scrub the tears from his eyes he let them trail down behind his ears and into his hair. “You’re going to have to do this without me. Please. Live well and find happiness, my wolf."

A life for a life.

“Very well,” she clicked her tongue as she placed a folded strip of leather between his teeth and tilted his head up. Her fingers ran the poultice in deliberate patterns across the skin of his throat, circling his larynx before moving down his chest to his arms and finally to the palms of his hands and down to the tips of his fingers. “Try to stay still, little one — you are about to see where the dogs are buried.” 

The witch glanced back at Geralt one last time, scrunching her nose. “Mind well,” she said, “Herein lies your answer, little paw.”

Thunder shook the rickety boards of the hut and Jaskier's screams were drowned in the storm.

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter Two: The Garden of Glass

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt’s ribs ached and his joints were stiff and cold. Breath crackled through his chest like fire. And in a single instant, the whole of the world came back to him. It was nothing and then it was all too much.

A centipede scurried across his chest and over his shoulder, burrowing into the dark soil below. The weak light of dawn burned his eyes. Hot, wet air blew up his nose and Geralt choked on the pungent taste of it. It was disgusting. The soft muzzle nudged his face harder, whiskers pricking him as his horse pressed her mouth against his cheek. 

Vines and roots tangled around his fists and through his hair like creeping ivy across castle walls. Buried in the dark, wet earth, his head rested in a bed of hollow, broken roots and unearthed worms. It was as if he had been laid gently in a shallow grave, a tree torn from the earth where his head had rested. And there stood Roach, grazing on the plants that grew around him.

“Well, good morning to you too.” He patted her chin affectionately. Clumsily he pulled himself to his feet, tearing the plants from his skin and hair. 

The death of Queen Calanthe and the fall of Cintra. The soldiers clad in black. They had killed him… hadn't they? 

Jaskier …

Something lingered at the edge of his waking mind — words whispered like a whistle through the trees— an urge to his memory like a sneeze or a yawn.

“I can’t follow you this time, you’ll have to do this without me...”  

But Jaskier hadn’t said those words. Truly, Geralt would remember. Wouldn’t he? 

Jaskier .

He’d made Jaskier promise to find Ciri. 

Geralt looked around him at the entirely unfamiliar clearing in the woods where he now found himself. Something in the back of his throat told him this was wrong… very wrong. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Stiff fingers twitched as they curled into the warm, damp sand. Blinking the fog from his eyes, Jaskier pushed his aching arms beneath him only to collapse immediately onto the lakeshore. His body felt heavy and sore. He felt as he had after the last annual music and poetry festival in Novigrad. A small smile played with the corner of his lips and he shook the lighthearted memory from his head. 

Where was he? Pulling himself up seemed to dislodge the momentary peace by way of a flood of memories. 

"Geralt..." He whispered but no sound came. He said the name again. And again. His hands flew to his throat as he stumbled to his feet. Silent rambling turned into screams but the only sound that could be heard was the symphony of insects and birds and the lapping of the lakewater against the beached driftwood. 

An unfamiliar ache crept into his chest and settled there. 

As far as he could tell he was still in the heart of the wildwood, by the shores of a lake it would seem. Surrounded by tall cedars and across the water, he could see groves of white birch, all bathed in brilliant orange and purple. Clumsily dusting the wet sand from his face and hair Jaskier squinted into the sunset. 

The crone’s hut in the woods. The spell didn't work. 

A life for a life, the witch had told him, and yet here he was. Very much alive.

He had to find Geralt or the witch — anyone who could explain what had happened, where his voice had gone, and why he was still alive.

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt’s saddlebags had been mostly salvaged from Roach’s flight through the forest. He had doubled back across the littered trail of bodies he had left behind. But through all his wanderings he had found no trace of Jaskier. The rain had washed away any clear footprints, scent, or trail.  It could be a good sign — that maybe Jaskier had reached a settlement and was waiting for him, fretting himself into knots anticipating his— the witcher’s return. 

Or, a much darker thought slithered to the forefront of his mind and coiled up like a viper ready to strike. Perhaps Nilfgaard found Jaskier before Geralt had. Maybe the bard had been taken prisoner and he was being tortured for information that he didn’t have. Maybe they had whisked him away only to kill him and dump his body down a ravine. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps — 

If Geralt could only remember what happened that night. But his memories were all some sort of jumbled nightmare of steel and blood and pitch-black armour. Screams and broken words from Jaskier’s hoarse voice begging him to hold on, to open his eyes, to stay awake. 

To live well and find happiness.

And then there was the matter of the princess. If she was alive he had to find her and protect her. The soldiers he had encountered that night in the woods had been foolish enough to attempt an interrogation. They tipped their hand fast, he knew what they were after. Nilfgaard wanted the princess, bound to him by the Law of Surprise. 

Something dark echoed behind his aching eyes repeating the same question again and again — could all of this have been prevented if he had risen to the occasion and claimed her eight years ago? Would she be safe or would she have perished long ago to the horrors of the Path? 

Jaskier and the princess were out there somewhere. And dead or alive, Geralt was going to find them. 

。。。oOo 。。。

The pleasant weather lasted only a day and a half before the thunderstorms returned, washing away everything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. Jaskier wrung the water from the fabric of his ill-fitted tunic. The clothing wasn’t nearly warm enough to keep out the bitter chill of the rain but it was far better than stumbling into town utterly naked and destitute. At least he had the clothes on his back, a beggar’s bounty. 

He had wandered for nearly a day in the forest before crossing paths with a peddler. The man, assuming Jaskier had been robbed and left for dead, gave him enough coin for a hot meal and a set of clothes. 

The tavern keep, however, was not so merciful. With not near enough coin for a bed or a meal, she had grown impatient with Jaskier’s mournful eyes and his dumb silence to her incessant line of questioning. 

He had offered to play his lute, gesturing as concisely as he could. When she finally agreed, Jaskier was forced to face a bitter truth— his music was as far from him as his voice. Fingers slipped across strings clumsily and no amount of warmth in his cold hands seemed to bring back what was lost. He had no idea where to place his hands or how to hold the delicate instrument, and no matter how hard he tried it wasn’t coming back to him. He felt it begin to settle deep in his chest, droning on in horrible discordance. Years of dedicated practice and study. It had been as natural as breathing and now it was just… gone. 

In the corner of the tavern, his back pressed into the wall, he fumbled and fiddled until the catgut strings began to blister the pads of his fingers. And when the moon had risen high and the fires were doused for the night the tavernkeep had turned him out, telling him to seek shelter elsewhere.

。。。oOo 。。。

“If you’re looking for work, you’ll find none ‘ere, I’m afraid. Unless you’re in the business of patching the thatch,” the bar wench boldly proclaimed, hoisting a full bucket of water onto her hip and brushing past him. She kicked open the tavern door and tossed the water into the street before brusquely pushing past again to place it back where it could collect the rainwater. 

“I’m looking for someone,” Geralt said, “a bard with bright blue eyes and chestnut hair. He plays the lute.” 

“Ain’t seen no one like that ‘round here, master witcher. Ain’t had no bards through these parts since last spring.” 

Geralt’s heart sank hard and fast. A toothless drunk sitting at the bar snorted, throwing his torso over the bar to bang his tankard on the knotted wood.

“But Daggi,” he boomed, “what about the bard ‘at came through jus’ las’ week?” 

He laughed until he wheezed, his red face turning plum-purple. Geralt had to take a step back to resist the urge to kick the stool out from beneath the man that smelled of piss and sour ale. 

The barmaid spun on her heels fast enough to send her skirts twisting around her legs and slammed her hand on the bar beside the drunk’s face. 

“Bite your fat tongue, Edvin. It ain’t right to mock the addled.” 

“What bard?” Geralt asked the old drunk, feeling a single spark of hope for the first time in days. 

“Forgive ‘im. Don’t pay ‘im no heed, master. Twas no bard. Just a beggar that seems found a lute. Poor, tongueless fool tried to play for his supper but could barely hold the damned thing. Wasn’t funny at all. Was just sad. The keeper turned him out in the storm that night, wouldn’t e’en let him dry ‘imself by the embers. Pity.” She smells of cold salt and wilting regret. “Turnin’ an addle mind out in the storm, it's just not the decent thing to do.” 

“Decent enough in most places,” Geralt lamented bitterly. Then, thanking Daggi for her time, he turned up his hood against the rain and left. He’d done all he could for Jaskier, weeks he wasted searching and turned up empty-handed. There was simply no sign of the bard. Wherever Jaskier was, he would have to take care of himself for the time being. Gathering his horse, Geralt turned northwest toward Cintra, toward the war. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Huddled under the eaves of the barn, Jaskier watched the rain pour off the roof in streams like a waterfall. Absentmindedly, he turned the coin purse over and over again in his hands, feeling the last few coins slide against the fabric and collide with each other. 

Weeks had passed and still, his voice had not returned.

I guess this is goodbye forever.

He’s reminded of the words to a song, but all that comes back to him are the three words.

Forever, forever, forever for now. 

He refused to entertain the fact that he could remember neither the words nor the tune to a song he had written.

 "I'll figure it out when I get there." Well done.

Well, I suppose you just assumed that you would find your witcher, alive and well, waiting for you in this shabby backwater sump. He didn’t wait for you in life, he certainly isn’t going to wait for you in death. 

Hoped that by some miracle he survived and would be searching for you. And here you are… penniless and alone. Truly a gentleman and a scholar. A master of the seven liberal arts, indeed. Well, you're here now and you still have no bloody idea what you're doing, do you? Did you think the answer was going to fall from the sky?

As if on cue, thunder crashed, shaking the barn, and frigid water ran down the gables to drench him once more. 

Ha. Of course. 

In the morning he could spend the last of his money on a hot meal, but how far would that get him? 

If he travelled north a day he could reach a proper settlement and might be able to make something off his lute — the only possession he had managed to recover in his wandering back through the woods. But the thought of selling it was still too painful. He wanted to laugh bitterly but no sound came to the trembling of his shoulders and chest. His sentimentality would be the literal death of him. 

He had gone down the list from composing and performing to the teaching position at Oxenfurt. Can’t very well teach a lecture without a voice, can’t sing either, he couldn’t read music though he had tried rather desperately, couldn’t seem to place his fingers on the frets where they should be, or remember where they should be. If the past several days were any indication there was no hope of him learning to play again. It was as though he had forgotten— no, it was more than that. His fingers were uncoordinated and clumsy, the music nothing more than illegible scratches on a page. He couldn’t manage to keep a simple beat against his thigh with his open palm. His voice, his music, his poetry, it was all just gone.

Without a voice, there was no way to talk his way into someone’s good graces or plead for mercy. 

And while he wallowed in his sorrows, he couldn’t seem to forget that still, he had found no trace of Geralt. 

Better think of something.  

He sighed letting his head fall against the old, swollen boards of the barn with a thunk, thunk, thunk.

Self-pity doesn't suit you, you know. And it won’t feed you or keep you warm either. 

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, flicking the water away. Not that it mattered, he was soaked through to the bone, penniless and starving and —

The sound of the farmer shattered Jaskier’s swirling thoughts. The man cursed to himself, fumbling with his lantern and turning the hood of his cloak up to keep out the rain.  The silent bard slipped out of sight, unable to stop the shame churning in his empty gut. 

If he could’ve just spoken he would’ve knocked on the farmhouse door. He would’ve asked them to take pity on him and offered to help around the farm in exchange for shelter for the night. But there was nothing he could say. 

Jaskier imagined what that would look like — a haggard, filthy man, dressed in drenched rags clinging to a minstrel’s lute. No shoes, no cloak, no satchel or coin. Stumbling out of the darkness to stop the farmer on his way to turn in for the night. Wordless and soundless, it would only cause confusion or worse — fear. So he waited for the light of the farmer’s lantern to be swallowed by the darkness once more and slipped into the barn. 

At least the hayloft would be relatively dry. He would try to get a few hours of sleep, and leave before dawn, and the farmer would never have to know. 

With numb, soaked hands he made his way up the scaffolding to the loft as quietly as possible, better not to spook the livestock. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. Clinging to the leather case of his lute, the sudden weight of the fragile instrument threatened to crush him. With a sigh, he threw himself backwards onto the damp hay and heard a small yelp. 

Jaskier flung himself upright, twisted around, and scrambled back in a tangle of limbs. Instinctually, he tucked his lute behind him to protect it from whatever lurked beneath the piles of dampened hay. But nothing emerged and everything was still once more. Even the rain was beginning to ease to a reasonable pitter-patter as the horses settled into their stalls for the night.

The only sign of life in the hayloft was the gentle rise and fall of the hay as if something was trying very hard to stay still and silent. 

I’m not going to hurt you . Not yet used to his silence, he opened his mouth to coax out the creature, just a painful reminder of what was now gone. 

Cautiously he inched forward and stretched out his hand to set it upon the straw. Before he could uncover whatever hid beneath it, the thing bit down on the meat of his thumb and he pulled away, hissing as he fell on his back. In the low light, he could make out a small humanoid. It scurried over him, trying to escape the loft before he could recover from the initial attack. But he was undeterred. Reaching out, Jaskier grabbed hold of the thing and pulled it tighter into his grasp. 

Unable to provide any more reassurance than a quiet shush , he held it fast, weaving his hands around their back and rocking gently until they ceased struggling. Slowly, deliberately he let go. From the flat of his back, he held up his hands in a sign of surrender. Pulling the cloak from her head, the small girl unleashed a wild mass of filthy, wet curls. Her face was caked with mud and bits of straw tangled in her hair and clothing.

Princess Cirilla?  

Jaskier opened his mouth to call to her but no sound came. With a scrunched look of confusion, she scanned his face in the darkness then suddenly her eyes lit up and she threw herself forward. Collapsing into his arms, she sobbed into his chest, her tiny fingers digging into the fabric of his soaked shirt. 

“Dandelion?” 

He nodded. 

“Oh, Dandelion… I can’t believe it. You’re really here.” She pressed her head into her chest, hard enough that it hurt his aching ribs. “They killed her,” Ciri whimpered. “They killed my grandmother and Eist. Everyone is gone and I don’t— I don’t know where I am or what they want from me.”

Jaskier let her fall to pieces, gently tucking her head beneath his chin. He let his eyes drift out the opened hood of the hayloft. His instinct was to hum to her, but nothing came. His chest ached more than before. 

The moonlight began to break through in weak streams between the drifting storm clouds.

“My grandmother said something about a man and I don’t know where to find him, I don’t know where I am or where he is or why they’re looking for me.” She clung to his shirt, lifting her head to stare at him with bright, fearful eyes. “How did you find me?” 

Well, that is quite a long story and I haven’t the parchment to write it all down, little one. Perhaps after we make our way north... 

Geralt. 

He shook his head, hoping she would understand. 

Jaskier ran his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away the tears. Tracing the curve of her lip with his thumb he stilled the quivering, pulling delicately at the corner of her mouth to encourage a smile. Smiling fondly back at her he felt like his chest might cave in.

“What’s wrong? Are you ill?” The young girl crawled into his lap and cupped his face with her small, frigid hands. “Why won’t you say something?”  

Jaskier opened his mouth once more, this time he held a hand to his throat and shook his head. But the curiosity of the princess would not be satisfied. After a rather horrid display of Jaskier’s ability to act out a story, the princess seemed to understand that he was not sick, but that his voice was not coming back and that he had been looking for her. Filthy, tired, hungry, and cold they giggled quietly at the horrid tragedies that had befallen them. 

In the morning they would leave before the sun rose high. Head north and find a proper town, he would explain things as best he could then. Hopefully, he could make enough from selling his lute to…

To what? He questioned. What will you do then? 

As he drifted off to fitful slumber, Ciri safely tucked in his arms, he couldn’t help but wonder.

 
If Geralt is gone, how are you going to protect her? After all, you swore you would find her and keep her safe. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Blood speckled the leaves and branches of the tangled forest floor. Geralt followed the scent as the hunt drew them deeper into the wood. The trail was fading, washing away in the storm. He stopped, listening, trying to catch any sign of movement or sound in the dark torrential rain. Then he caught sight of something, a flash of bright fur, but as quickly as it had appeared, it slipped into the ferns once again. 

Geralt pulled his sword free from its sheath as he was yanked from his fitful rest by the faint sound of his horse grazing. The fire had died, snuffed out by the cold autumn winds and the lack of tending. 

He tossed a couple of branches on the cold ashes and a handful of twigs and made the sign for Igni . The wind was surprisingly bitter— though he didn’t have much to compare it to. He wasn’t usually this far south this time of year. The thought had crossed his mind that he wouldn’t make it to Kaer Morhen but he didn’t have a choice. Abandoning the search for Jaskier and Cirilla wasn’t a possibility he was willing to entertain. 

He’d passed through a hamlet and three towns. Word of the war was beginning to spread and with it the smell of death on the wind. 

If he left now, if he waited for Spring thaw then it could be too late… it might already be too late.

The cry of a bird splashed through the simmering bubbles of his thoughts. The witcher looked up across the clearing to see a single magpie resting on the branch of a birch tree nestled in yellow leaves.

“A keeper of secrets, huh ? So where has he gone?” Geralt muttered. But the bird simply cocked its head to the side and squawked as if to laugh at him. 

。。。oOo 。。。

“Are you deaf boy? I said twenty orens. That’s the best I can do.” The man sniffed, wiping his lumpy nose on the sleeve of his tunic.

Jaskier shook his head vehemently, pointing at several examples of fine craftsmanship showcased on the instrument in his hands.

“Listen, I ain’t got no time for this.” 

Neither do I, can’t you see I’m quite literally running for my life here? Jaskier was trying not to fidget, but his hands never seemed to know where they belonged nowadays. And since he had lost his music and voice, his frustration bubbled and boiled just beneath the surface at all times. His fingers had settled into the nasty habit of erratic tapping and drumming. It was driving the lute peddler mad, which was a small consolation considering Jaskier wanted to strangle him.

They had made their way west to Brenna, but honestly, Jaskier had no idea where he was going. The sentiment that kept him clinging to his lute had been replaced with twisting grief at the very sight of the thing. He probably would’ve sold it even if he wasn’t running from an army with a child to protect and no marketable skills. He couldn’t very well settle and find work, considering the soldiers that seemed forever on their heels.

“Ain’t got no time to sit here and argue with some devil-touched mome. This is the last time I’m gonna tell you — twenty orens.” 

Devil-touched mome? You absolute gormless halfwit, you wouldn’t know a quality instrument if I took it and smashed it to splinters over your fat head.

“So sell it or move on,” the man shouted over the rain. With a bang of his fist, another leak sprang from the roof of his caravan, eliciting a slew of colourful curses.

Jaskier heard Ciri giggle. She was hidden from view of the market, tucked beneath his cloak and clinging to his leg. The slight sound was enough to remind him that she was starving and frozen. With renewed vigour he shook his head, pointing to the filigreed parchment that hung from the neck of a balalaika. In red ink, it read “ 350 ”. 

“ Twen— ty— or— ens— ” The merchant enunciated each syllable with the tap of a meaty finger on the wooden table. “Take it or leave it.” 

Jaskier huffed, running his hands through his hair in frustration.  He was soaked, freezing, and starved.  And he was trying to protect and hide an eight-year-old royal with absolutely no resources.  He would need a lot more than twenty orens if he was going to keep Ciri alive.

Something across the crowded market stalls caught his eye like a brief shimmer of moonlight on a lake.  The sight struck him like an arrow.  A turned sherpa cowl circled the man’s neck, laying over the top of his worn, heavy cloak.  Nestled against the dark blue gambeson sat a silvered medallion.  

Gods, can it be?  It’s a witcher.  

If he could reach the witcher then he could find Geralt, if he was still alive, or another wolf.  Jaskier couldn’t afford food or shelter, much less something as valuable and scarce as parchment but he could figure that out later.  Indeed a witcher would, at the very least, attempt to gather information if he appeared as though he had a contract to offer.

Jaskier took a step forward, without a thought.  Ignoring the protests of the merchant, and for a moment completely forgetting about his lute which sat upon the caravan’s stand.  Ciri tugged on his sleeve, shying away from the crowd, the fingers of her other hand digging into his thigh.  Her iron grip anchored him.  

He placed a hand on her back in an attempt to reassure her.  

Another nobody from the bustling crowds marched past the small caravan, hood up to shield from the pouring rain.  With his head low, the stranger tried to squeeze between Jaskier and the merchant’s booth.  

Jaskier turned, the motion catching his attention.  His shoulder collided with the hooded man and he nearly tripped into the musician’s booth, knocking hanging instruments from their cradles.  

Then everything happened all at once — the stranger gripped his shoulder tight and pulled him in, Ciri’s hand slipping from his grasp.  The world went white and Jaskier fell, paralyzed by the blade that sank into his gut.

。。。oOo 。。。

The thought had floated weightless through the back of his mind and bounced around Geralt's skull — he wouldn’t winter in Kaedwen this year, he wouldn’t see his brothers.  He was a mile or so outside Garramone when the snow began to fall.  As he dug through his pack for a piece of dried meat he remembered that the last piece of dried meat had been consumed the previous day… or maybe the day before.  He rummaged through his pack, finally finding the map that had been shoved in there carelessly several hours, days, or weeks before.  

The closest proper town was Maribor.  If he was lucky he could find a contract along the way.  And if he wasn’t… well he preferred not to think of that.  

If he couldn’t find a place to rest for a few days and some supplies, he wouldn’t make it through Temeria to Cintra.  It didn’t help that Geralt was moving toward the war, not away from it.  It was much harder to find peddlers and blacksmiths and notices pinned to message boards as he reached the outskirts of abandoned settlements and razed villages.  

Historically, war has been good for witchers — ghouls, alghouls, rotfiends, wraiths, and the like.  But the war had barely erupted, it would be at least a month before roaming witchers were sought after desperate refugees, scrounging together coins and services to pay witchers to dispatch the monsters so the survivors could scavenge from the dead in relative peace.  

He had to press on.  He was halfway across the continent from home.  If he was going to make it to Cintra, if he was going to find the princess, he needed to survive the coming winter first.  

“Humans die every day,” he muttered to himself. Something he’d told Eskel many years ago. Now he couldn’t remember whether it was meant to bring hope or closure. Either way, the words brought him no comfort. Jaskier had escaped or he hadn’t. He’d made his way to the nearest town or he'd died in the woods. Geralt would find his answer if he had to sift through the wildwood on his hands and knees. But not now. The search for Jaskier would need to wait. He’d search for work, avoid the war if he could, and find Ciri. 

。。。oOo 。。。

The dark was warm and soft. It enveloped Jaskier and he wanted nothing more than to stay there pinned beneath the weight of it. Against the soft sheets and feather down, he felt like a stone.

A voice wove in and out of the ink-black and tugged at him like a thread, dragging him back to consciousness and the pain. It tried to keep his wandering focus and the world began to poke through his rest like daylight streaming through holes in the worn fabric. A woman lay, poised like a sculpture sprawled lazily over the silk sheets. She wore nothing but an open robe. He tried to lift his head, to keep his focus but he couldn’t seem to. The sensations and sights grounded him as he bobbed above the waves of the heavy dark — soft, hazel eyes and plush lips, gentle fingertips tracing mindless patterns over his throat and chest. 

“You’re more clever than I gave you credit for.” The woman cooed. 

His mind felt sticky and thick as he stared dazedly at the woman. The instinct to reach out overwhelmed him and he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. She smiled sweetly at him, as she had done in this same bed so many times before.

That face, that smile. It was familiar, a memory, a comfortable place.

“Somehow you still manage to surprise me.” She hummed. “Perhaps I underestimated your potential. Oh, do say that you remember me, sweet kinglet. After all those honeyed kisses and tender touches, how could you forget?” 

A curator of the Arts, brilliant Gwent player, and former lover, the Lady Lilka Kositska, widow of the late Lord Bartłomiej Kositski Earl de Stael. 

The Countess de Stael.

Lilka leaned closer, tracing her lips up the side of his throat and nibbling at his ear, her arm draped across his chest, fingers lazily twirling about his hair. He gasped, the delicate sensations running through him like lightning.

She lifted her head from the pillow and spoke.  “Fetch my husband, let him know our guest is awake.”

With a pitying pout, the countess twirled her finger around a lock of sweat-soaked hair and tucked it behind his ear. “Oh, hadn’t you heard? I am Lady Lilka Bielska now. After the tragic death of my husband, may Melitele rest his soul, I took another to wed, a rather entertaining fellow and very skilled. Say, I wonder if you two might know each other, he too was once a minstrel.” 

Jaskier tried to follow her eyes but the world was fading in and out. Everything around him was far too blurry to make out. He heard a door and panic began to tighten his aching muscles into knots.

“This is my husband Lord Vlodzimier Bielski, the Earl de Stael.” 

A familiar face flickered in and out of view — angular features, olive skin, and cold black eyes framed by dark soft curls of hair. The man’s thin lips turned down in a sneer. 

Valdo?  

It didn’t make sense, none of it made any sense. 

“Well, Lilit’s tits… if it isn't little Dandelion .” The voice was unmistakable. 

“ Ah , so you do know each other. How delightful.” Lilka’s eyelashes fluttered and she gave pause, a glass pressed to her rosy lips. 

“Yes, delightful isn't quite the word I'd choose. True to the sobriquet, Dandelion is nothing more than a common weed. Carried on the wind, he has a nasty habit of tumbling into well-tended gardens where he doesn’t belong.” 

Confused and dizzy, Jaskier tried to sit up. It was like some sort of strange nightmare — his bitter rival from University and his former lover married and staring down at him where he lay in the very bed he had made love to the countess in. His squirming afforded him little more than a shooting pain that ripped through his side. And afterwards, the panic set in.

“Oh, don’t look so concerned, love.” She ran her finger down the contours of his throat. “It’s just a little something for the pain. I would hate to see you suffer needlessly. Though I’m afraid I didn’t anticipate you waking for some time now and it is a rather heavy sedative so try not to move so much, you’ll make yourself sick.”

His heart dropped into his stomach, with eyes wide and mouth drawn tight as the room spun around him. He clutched at clean, linen bandages. Unmoved by the panicked wriggling she reached over him to pull something off the small table set beside the canopied bed. 

“Rumor has it you’ve tangled yourself in these very sheets before. Honestly, I should never be surprised to find you somewhere you don’t belong. Though I have to say, I thought you would've learned your lesson the last time we met under similar circumstances. Had your fill, eh ?” Valdo laughed.

Jaskier couldn’t seem to keep his breathing steady. He felt like he was spinning in lopsided circles. Valdo gripped him by the jaw and turned his head as if he were inspecting a pig at the market. 

“Darling, are you sure your men acquired the right criminal? Julian here is many things but a murderer isn’t one of them.” They spoke about him as if he wasn’t lying between them. Valdo stood beside the bed and Lilka sprawled over the covers.

Murderer?

“Perhaps this is too much for him all at once. So while I have always been a fan of these little word games we play, let's dispense with the formalities, shall we? You took something that belonged to me,” her large doe eyes grew dark. “That was a very naughty thing to do.” 

A panic ignited in his chest, his mind spinning as he tried to remember how he had gotten here, what he remembered, and where he had been. He only knew that it was wrong, that he shouldn’t be here. 

“I have to say, I am rather impressed. It takes a lot to surprise me.” She sat up, kneeling beside him. Her hair cascaded over her bare shoulders. The thin gauze of her robe slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her elbows. In her delicate hands, she gripped a stone— dark and jagged, caked in mud, and bits of tissue and bone. 

“Never in a thousand lifetimes would I have thought you capable of slaughtering a man. And in such a barbaric way.” She mused to the rock turning it over reverently in her hands. It looked like a boulder, cradled by her nimble little fingers. 

It all came rushing back as if he had fallen through a frozen river.

Geralt and the soldiers in black. The magpie, the raven. The witch in the woods. His song. Cirilla in the hayloft. And then the peasant with the knife. It was raining in the crowded marketplace, Jaskier had bolted through the crowd, grasping desperately at Ciri’s hand as he chased after the cloaked figure with the medallion around his neck. Then the man, unremarkable in every way, Jaskier could barely remember his face. But he remembered the blade plunging into his gut, remembered the struggle through the mud, remembered the awful gurgling sputter that had sounded from the man’s head as it caved in beneath the rock in his hands. 

He killed him, Jaskier had killed him. 

His chest felt too heavy, his heart beating too fast. The air was too warm and thick, he was going to be sick. Instinctually he turned to the side, retched onto the pillow, and choked on bile. The countess gave him a little shove and he fell off the feathered bed to collapse in a heap, heaving on the stone. 

Ciri, where was Ciri? He had to find her. 

Disgust turned the corners of Lilka’s pretty, painted mouth into a snarl as her foot collided with his ribs. “You killed one of my precious beasts. A hawk, he was. A tree that took many years to bear fruit and you’ve gone and ripped it from my garden. What a naughty thing to do.”

With a punched-out huff, he tried to get his limbs to obey him. He tried to reach out and steady himself against the wooden frame beneath the bed but he couldn't seem to get his arms to move, couldn’t hold himself up.

“What’s wrong, pet?” she giggled lightly. “No words left in you?" 

"I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him struck silent before.” Valdo laughed.

The cold look in her eyes belied her bemused smirk. The thin, ornately embroidered fabric of her open robe slipped across the sheets as she leaned forward over the edge of the feathered mattress. “Say something.” 

He opened his mouth out of habit but no words came out, just a quiet, voiceless retch. Face resting against the cold stone. She laughed, placing the rock back on the small table and resting her chin in her hands.

“You can’t, can you?” A wide smile scrunched her pretty face and she laughed again. 

“Oh, this is peculiar. Stunned? No.” She cocked her head to the side, biting at her finger coyly. “Ill? Mmm , I suppose it’s possible but my healers have said you are recovering from your wounds remarkably. Other than the substantial loss of blood and undernourishment, you’re fine. You were talking in your sleep, thrashing in the throes of nightmares, and all the while you made not a single sound.” 

She swung her legs over the bed, her hands on her knees as if she were a child, admiring a strange bug on a leaf. “Do tell me you’re cursed. Oh, that would be rather interesting, now wouldn’t it?” 

“Your mages did say the stench of raw magic was wafting off of him like a sun-bloated corpse,” Valdo said, leaning in further to watch Jaskier’s face with a sadistic grin.

The countess ran her hand through his hair, grabbing a fistful and pulling his head back as he heaved. Her soft lips pressed against his ear as she pulled him to his knees. “But even after all the digging around in your pretty, little head, they found nothing ." She let go and he collapsed on cold stone and hot bile. 

"Ancient magic, one said,” she mused. “From the time before the Conjunction, claimed another. When I heard the word 'gods' tossed around so carelessly I had them all executed.” She stood, strolling past him to stand on the opposite side. “Perhaps they were right.”

“It could’ve been the cub," Valdo interjected. "I've heard stories of her mother, Pavetta."

“No,” Lilka sang, “No, I think it's something else entirely. I think he’s gone and lost it, hasn't he?” 

Panting through the cold sweat and rolling waves of nausea Jaskier managed to lift his head. He wanted to curl inside of himself and hide away but he didn’t have the strength. The sedatives were still thick in his blood, fogging his mind and melting his muscles. 

“I would call you a bird… but what is a bird without a song, hmm ? No,” She cocked her head to the side. “A little bug, perhaps a ladybird or a butterfly? So pretty and quiet.” 

He tried to recoil but still, his body wouldn’t move.

“Imagine my utter disbelief when I learned that you, a harmless, useless insect had slaughtered my beloved hawk?” 

Kill me, then. Why waste time? Just get it over with.

Trembling arms barely pull him up off the hewn stone, his aching body threatening to let him fall once more.

“What’s wrong? Did you lap at the wrong cunt? Scorn the wrong mage?" Valdo laughed. 

"Oh, my bardling, who did you cut with that silver tongue of yours? So deep was the wound that they ripped it from your sweet mouth?”  

。。。oOo 。。。

The magpie cawed loudly, rousing Geralt from his troubled sleep once again. The witcher snarled, picking up a pebble and hurling it as hard as he could at the bird. Somehow it managed to hop out of the way, cawing mockingly at him as it swooped down from the tree branch and dove into the thicket once more. 

“Six fucking days — I’m beginning to think maybe Jaskier was right about you. What the fuck do you want?” 

It sang a trilling fluty tune as it hopped around the brambles, flapping about and pecking at the tangled branches. 

“As I thought. You’re just a bird and a fucking annoying one at that.” 

The bird fixed its dark eyes on him. 

“Last chance.” The witcher warned. “If you stick around I will roast you over this fire and have you for dinner.” 

The magpie flapped its wings, tugging at something tangled in the branches. Geralt hucked another pebble but the bird dodged it with a nasty squawk. 

With what Jaskier would’ve called a wholly unnecessary display of aggression , the witcher threw himself across the small clearing meaning to chase the bird off or kill it — whichever came first. In his haste he tripped, nearly landing in the thorn bush. Then he saw it — a torn and stained doublet of robin’s egg blue with silver stitching in patterns of berries and flowers. The very same one that Jaskier had been wearing that night they were ambushed.

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo hated portals at the best of times, but taking three portals with three faceless mages in the employ of the countess was almost more than he could handle. His stomach roiled uneasily as he climbed the winding stairs to the princess’ room at the top of the tower. The countess had a penchant for poeticism and the inherent symbolism of locking the crown princess away in a tower was not lost on him.  But it was a bit heavy-handed.  

The sooner he got this over with the better. Valdo had never cared much for children.

The door had barely swung open when a small voice called out to him. 

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” The princess demanded. She stood in the centre of the room wearing an ornate wool-lined gown and palace slippers lined with sable fur. She looked upon him with the cold grimace of a royal who was about to sentence someone to death. 

“Who are you and what do you want?” She repeated.

“I have been charged with your care. Whatever you desire or find yourself in need of, do not hesitate to ask, Your Grace. It is the highest honour to serve you.” Valdo bowed with a flourish, removing the hat from his head and sweeping it behind him in a dramatic motion. “As for my name, you may call me whatever you wish. But if it pleases you, I am known as Lord Bielski, Earl de Stael.”

“It doesn’t. And you may address me as Your Highness. ” She quipped. The princess, young as she was, stood poised in the centre of her room, hands clasped in front of her as she looked up at the earl with utter contempt and disgust. 

He smirked, rising to stand. “Then perhaps, Valdo will suffice for now.” 

“Well Valdo ,” She hissed the name like the very word was poison on her tongue. “You know who I am, there’s no use in hiding it. What do you want?” 

“The Countess and I wish only to see to your continued safety in the wake of the impending war that rages across the north.” 

“Is that so?” 

Valdo had sold it well but the shrewd little brat wasn’t buying it. By gods, she sounded like Calanthe. He had always hated that beast of a woman.

“It is, Your Highness.” He bowed his head just so. 

“Where is Dandelion?” The little girl demanded with pursed lips and clenched fists.

“Recovering from his injuries,” Valdo watched her carefully, picking apart her reactions. “When the two of you were attacked in Brenna he was gravely wounded. Only by the grace of the goddess that I was travelling through at the time and came across the two of you. I fear what might have happened if someone else had found you. Why certainly Dandelion would have perished in the muddy streets of the market. As it is I’m afraid he has yet to wake and I know not whether he ever will again.” He furrowed his brow and turned down his lips to hide the smile that threatened to bloom on his face.  

Cirilla’s lips quivered and her eyes glossed over with tears. 

“I want to see him. Take me to him.” She demanded. 

“I’m afraid I must advise against that. He is resting, Your Highness. And his health is quite fragile. As soon as he is stable I will take you to him, you have my word.” He rested his hand over his heart and bowed once more. 

“Valdo,” The princess called as he turned to leave, “what does Nilfgaard want with me?” She tried her best to mask the fear in her tiny voice but Valdo smelled it like a bloodhound catching the trail of a fox.

“I do not know, Your Highness. And I pray for your sake that we never find out.”  With that, he closed the door and the princess found herself alone in her tower.

 。。。oOo 。。。

When Jaskier awoke again he was in the bed once more, stripped from the linen tunic that was wet with sweat and bile. A throbbing behind his eyes threatened to turn his stomach again. 

The strange nightmare he’d woken in was still all around him. It didn’t make any sense. If it was true, if the Countess did have Cirilla hidden away somewhere then she certainly must know the risks. What in all the spheres of hell could she possibly want with a voiceless, songless bard? He had to find the princess.

“Please, Lilka. I have to find her. I… I promised,” he begged but no sound came. As his eyes wandered the room he saw her, curled up by the fire on a scarlet divan.

“Oh, you sweet thing. You don’t understand, do you?” The Countess laughed as she leaned forward, setting aside the book she had been thumbing through. The fabric slipped from the cream of her skin to pool over the velvet of the divan. “This is your home now. You belong to me. Since the tragic, untimely death of Queen Calanthe of Cintra and the lion cub, her kingdom has been razed by the Black Sun. No one survived the sacking of Cintra, not even the precious child. In my wisdom and mercy, I have taken the princess as my ward, safely hidden away where not even the might of Aretuza can find her.

“And you ,” she hissed. “Did you think I would let you go so easily? Command the earl to slit your throat, or drown you in poppy and let you choke on your tongue in peaceful slumber?  A handsome tree you ripped from my soil and now you will take its place in my garden. A debt must be paid. You took what was mine and now you shall pay in your blood, a life for a life if you will.” 

No. You’re lying.

None of this was happening, it couldn’t be happening. Indeed, it was a dream, nothing more than a very strange nightmare. 

The Countess walked across the room to a small desk. The glow of the hearth cast warmth on her milky skin as if she were made of wax. “Let me tell you a story, my little insect. You always did love to hear my stories.” She moved aside a ledger and a bottle of ink to pull a small glass case from the desk with a dark wood base. Gracefully she turned and walked to the foot of the bed where Jaskier lay.

“Do you like it? It’s particularly exotic, the last of its kind some say. They are only found on a small island far off the western coast. They call it the cypris.” She held out the glass jar, casually crossing her feet as her head fell to the side. 

Jaskier tried to focus on the insect as it flitted around inside the glass. It was quite beautiful, a little thing with creamy wings that were splotched in deep velvet blue. 

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She loved beautiful things and wanted nothing more than to see all the wonders of the world around her. One day she saw a butterfly fluttering about in the gardens and she caught the thing. She loved the silly little bug for all its curiosity and all its beauty. She built it a glass castle, made of the most beautiful, little plants and the finest bobbles she could procure. One day, the lid was left askew, and despite all her tender care the butterfly escaped. It abandoned her.”   

To illustrate her point the countess lifted the glass from the wooden base and let the butterfly flutter out into the open air of the room. 

“The girl was heartbroken, devastated, furious — after all, she had done nothing but love a thing for its beauty and lavish it with all she knew how. A garden of glass she had built for the insect and yet given the first opportunity it flew away.” Her voice grew dark and her lips curled into a nasty snarl. 

With frightening speed, she plucked the butterfly out of the air and held it in delicately by the wings. She looked at the squirming thing with an odd hunger in her face and Jaskier tried not to grimace, concerned for a moment that she was going to put it in her mouth.

“When the girl found her precious butterfly it was perched on the windowsill as if to fly out into the world beyond. With care, she caught it and brought it back to the safety and comfort of its garden of glass. Try as she might, she could not forget the betrayal. For she had loved the thing and now knew that it could never love her in return. Mindless things that it was, the insect, could not feel loyalty or love but the betrayal was all the same.”

She stepped closer and it took everything within him not to recoil. Still tangled in the bedsheets he leaned back against the headboard. The countess climbed carefully onto the foot of the bed and crawled forward on her knees until she sat straddling his hips. He could feel her warmth through the sheets. 

No, please no. Please. 

He shook his head desperately, hearing his breathing deepen as he stared at her. 

Please. Not this. 

“The girl wanted nothing more than to care for her treasure. She would keep it there, in its glass garden, and be certain it could never escape again. Now perhaps, you’re wondering how she made certain it could not fly away. After all, not even the finest of things could keep the butterfly from roaming.” 

Jaskier gasped in horror as she ripped the wings from the insect. It wriggled helplessly in the palm of her hand. Her eyes wandered from the wingless thing to Jaskier’s face. She leaned forward to whisper against the skin of his throat. 

“I will watch my kingdom burn to ash and soot before I set you or my cub free, little cypris. That which I own, that which I command is mine and mine alone. If I cannot have it then I will destroy it.” She looked him in the eyes, unyielding and full of fire as the wingless butterfly fell from her hand to Jaskier’s lap. It writhed on the silk sheets until mercifully, it fell still.

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter Three: Upon the Bloody Rime

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

"Let's see," The man hummed, scratching at the deep, gnarled scars that cut through the right side of his face, "strangest thing all year… pretty sure this kikimora adopted a lost farm goat. Let the goat roam the swamp, and killed anything that came near it. But never touched the damn goat."

"Bullshit, Eskel." Vesemir snorted into his tankard and shook his head. "That's less believable than all those fucking gods-awful songs about Geralt."

“At least his songs are catchy,” Lambert added pointedly.

"Fair.” Eskel conceded, “Wonder if he'd let me borrow his bard if I asked nicely." 

The witcher at the end of the table chuckled and tossed a stale chunk of bread at Eskel.

"I didn't mean it like that. I'd pay the lad for a song or two… nothing more." Eskel smirked. 

"What's this nonsense about a bard now?" Aiden got up, retrieved his thrown bread, and dusted it off before popping it in his mouth.

"I'm surprised Lambert didn't tell you. Surely you’ve heard at least one of those fucking ridiculous songs about Geralt?" Eskel moved to the hearth, filling his bowl with stew once more.

"The white wolf propaganda? Is that what all that nonsense is?" 

Eskel drained his drink and scratched his nose with his thumb. "Seems a young bard attached himself to Geralt. He has been following him for a few years now, singing his praises. Undid a lot of damage after Blaviken." 

Aiden snorted, stifling a small laugh. "Good for him. Is he finally getting a good lay?" 

"Not sure.” Eskel shrugged. “Geralt won't talk about him, won't bring him to winter, and no one's ever seen him. If it weren't for the songs I'd be inclined to say he simply named his prick."

Without warning the youngest witcher slammed his hands on the wooden table, silverware clattering as it bounced. "Enough!"

The three other men seated in the otherwise empty dining hall paid little heed to his tantrum. The only show that anyone had noticed him was a brief glance of mild annoyance from the eldest witcher. Vesemir was too old to play into childish ploys for attention, but he could see Lambert winding himself up tighter and tighter into knots. So eventually he caved. 

“Enough of what, Lambert?” Vesemir rubbed his face. He looked tired, his shoulders slumped over the table as if clutching at his tankard was the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

“Enough sitting around in this dreary fucking keep just… just chatting like— like nothing,” Lambert rambled, pacing back and forth like a trapped animal.

The other witcher raised his eyebrows, waiting for Lambert to finish. 

“If Geralt is…” Lambert tried his best to hide how he choked on the words. “Can we stop pretending like he's gonna waltz through those fucking gates? Can we stop pretending like he's coming back? An- and if he’s alive, then fuck him.” 

For a moment the other witchers simply stared at him, trying to follow his train of thought through his outburst.

“Well that’s quite a leap, isn’t it?” Eskel couldn’t help but laugh. 

Lambert sat down, then stood again and pointed with a decisive movement. “Fuck him. If he’s out there, doesn’t even have the fucking courtesy to let one of us know he’s alive then fuck him… and fuck you too for that matter.” Lambert added. He went from pointing at a vague spot on the worn table to pointing at Eskel menacingly.

“You’re right,” Vesemir interjected. “Weeping won’t change it, neither will banging your head against the wall. I know you’re worried about your brother, we all are. Learn to control yourself.” 

“‘Sides, chances are you got your wish, Lambert. Geralt wouldn’t miss the chance to beat the shit out of you every day for an entire season. Something must have happened to him.” Eskel muttered into his ale, sombre and bitter.

“It’s possible he was delayed and couldn’t make it up the pass in time.” Vesemir offered.

“I hope he never comes back. Fuck that prick.” Lambert blurted out.

“Drop the act, Lam.” Eskel shot back. “Everyone knows you’re worried about him. We all are. Stop being a twat.” 

“Speak for yourself. I’m not worried.” The younger witcher snorted viciously, a little too enthusiastically to be believed. “I’m glad he’s not here. And you know what? You know what?” He added, circling back from where he was still pacing frantically. “Who gives a fuck? If he shows up here I'll kill him myself.”

Eskel had had enough, he stood so fast he nearly knocked the long wooden bench on its side. With his hands planted firmly on either side of his tankard, he growled. Lambert looked almost relieved, anticipating the fight he was trying so desperately to instigate. The last witcher, who had previously kept his head down, stood from where he had been perched at the end of the banquet table. 

“A suggestion, if I may,” he interjected. But no one seemed to hear Aiden speak. He had done his best to sidestep what he considered to be a family matter. But this was going nowhere and if Lambert got his ass pummelled by Eskel then Aiden was going to hear about it every day for the next fifty years. 

“Everyone here is right,” Aiden shouted. The others fell silent. Even Lambert stilled. Aiden took that small victory as a sign to proceed. He couldn’t help but snort at the sight of the mixed faces of consternation and bewilderment. “Whining about Geralt and fretting over him isn’t going to suddenly divine his fate, nor will it thaw the ice any faster. We’re all worried about him. The world is cruel and Geralt, despite his best efforts to appear a hardened beast, is a tender soul.

“I suggest at Spring thaw we head out in search of him. We meet in Hagge at the end of the season. Either we find him, or we find out what happened. Surely one of us will root out the truth.” Aiden raised his brows in search of affirmation.

“I think that’s a fine plan.” Eskel shrugged.

Lambert, for all his posturing, was simply standing there with his arms folded just staring into nothingness. 

Aiden smirked, quirking an eyebrow. “Come on Lambert, use your words like a big boy.” 

“Fuck you.” 

That was as close to an apology or consent to the plan as Aiden was going to get. 

“Only if you ask very nicely,” Aiden pointed at Lambert and winked, shoving another spoonful of stew into his mouth.

Vesemir looked wholly unamused, stirring the cast iron pot over the fire and shaking his head. “Now that you’re done squabbling like children — where were we? Aiden?” 

“Ah, yes. The strangest thing I saw all year? That’s easy.” 

“This should be good.” Eskel chuckled and leaned on the table, propping his foot upon the bench. 

“I was in Brenna at the turn of fall and I saw a beggar beat a man to death with a rock, smash his head to a thousand tiny pieces.” 

“What the fuck?” Lambert recoiled, his lips curling at the viciousness of it.

Aiden pursed his lips and tugged on the chain that held his medallion. “Still curious as to what happened. By the time I muscled my way through the crowd only the headless corpse remained.” 

Eskel sighed, running his hands over his face. “And they have the gall to call us monsters.”

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt couldn’t lose it again. Desperation carried his feet through the brambles and ferns, over fallen trees and down embankments — but try as he might he couldn’t seem to run fast enough to catch it. Something wild ignited in his blood like a spark of chaos. He forgot himself in the chase. At that moment everything else ceased to be.

A flash of movement and Geralt dove, catching the rabbit by the leg. It squealed in frightened protest, raking its hind legs and writhing in the mud. The witcher scrambled for purchase but it managed to wriggle free and dart off into the thicket once more, leaving a trail of fresh blood behind.

Geralt jolted awake, his empty stomach churned. He shot forward, his head collided with his knee and he cursed. Roach whinnied at him as Geralt spit a mouthful of blood onto the slushy snow.

“What are you laughing at?” He grumbled, rubbing his head. The fire had died beneath the steady downpour of slush. As he dug through his pack for a piece of dried meat he tried to remember where he was — he seemed to remember being somewhere along the Ina River, recalling that information just as he remembered that the last piece of dried meat had been consumed the previous day… or maybe the day before. He rummaged through his pack, finding the map that had been shoved in there carelessly several hours, days, or weeks before. 

The next town was Maribor. If he was lucky he could find a contract along the way. If he wasn’t… well he preferred not to think of that. 

As Geralt trudged through the snowdrift he thought back to his comings and goings. 

It was far from his first winter without Jaskier. How odd it was, he considered, that Jaskier had come in and out of his life a hundred times. How odd that this was different. 

On occasion, perhaps more often than Geralt would like to admit even to himself, he would wonder where Jaskier had wandered and how he had fared. On cold nights he would wonder if Jaskier was somewhere dry and warm. When the hunts were fruitless and the villagers scornful he would wonder if Jaskier was well and safe in the care of a patron or at the university, or if he had to scrape and scavenge to earn his keep. Perhaps, there was a part of him — however small — that longed for Jaskier's presence, a piece of him that ached when the bard was away on his travels or nestled safely in his city by the sea. But Geralt never wondered if Jaskier would return to him, never wondered if they would find each other. A piece of him knew that they always would. 

That piece felt far removed now, lifetimes apart and oceans away, hollowed out by an uncertain ache.

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo’s assault was relentless as he drove the dulled blade forward; relaxed, confident, and poised. There was not a hint of hesitation in his strikes as he parried, advancing another step. It was as natural as breathing.

“Your feet are as clumsy as your hands always were. Though the word has it that they’re all but useless now.” Valdo smirked haughtily as he watched Jaskier trip on the edge of a cobblestone. “Say, I’m sure the Countess would simply love to hear you play again. Whatever happened to that lute of yours?” 

It took everything in Jaskier to keep from flinching at the words. It didn’t mean anything, he told himself. He hadn’t particularly valued Valdo’s opinion before, so why did it matter now? 

The Earl advanced again. Before his opponent could register what had happened he knocked the blade from his grasp and kicked Jaskier’s feet out from under him with a swift sweep of his leg. 

"I can scarcely believe you were raised in nobility, however paltry your pedigree.” Valdo snorted. “Regardless of how pitiful my expectations may have been, I expected more from you."

Valdo lunged forward, his sword pressing hard into the soft space just above Jaskier's clavicle. The blade was dull but still fully capable of running a man through and Jaskier felt a jolt of panic. Slowly he lay himself down on the damp stones and brought his arms above his head in a gesture of surrender. 

"You know what your problem is, Julian?" 

Jaskier scowled.  I'm certain you're about to tell me exactly what you believe my problem is, you—

"You think you're special." 

Amazing, your quips haven’t changed since we were children . Jaskier rolled his eyes.

Valdo looked at his nails, flourished his blade, and brought it back to rest against Jaskier's throat. 

"You always have. Somehow the idea wriggled into your little brain. This preposterous notion that you were destined for some sort of greatness because you were a gifted child, just talented enough to fool the adults in your life into thinking your capabilities and talents ran deeper than your sallow skin. But you were and always will be, a snivelling, petulant child who couldn't stand the thought of being just like everyone else, of being invisible and forgotten and meaningless. Because you were told you were special, you seem to think that the rules don't apply to you, that the suffering—" A fire crackled in Valdo's eyes, the only indication he was more than mildly disinterested in the entire discussion. He took a poised step forward and Jaskier scrambled back, chased by the tip of the blade pressing into his skin. 

"The yoke of misery and dismay that every man, woman, and child to ever walk this Continent must bear would pass over you like some avenging angel because you were different. Because someone told you that you mattered." Valdo was advancing steadily now, the blade still pressed firmly against Jaskier's skin as he crawled back. "And like the complete and utter imbecile that you are, you believed it. Because you thought that if you wished and you wanted something badly enough you deserved to have it. But you don't.

“You don't deserve happiness, you don't deserve anything. You're pathetic. Still, nothing more than that precocious, pampered child, sitting at the bay window staring wistfully across the sea, doe-eyed and dreamy," He thrust the sword forward just enough to break the skin with the blunted tip and Jaskier cried out with a punched-out huff.  "Fantasizing of a life in which the sun will shine, and love will prevail, and if you wantonly throw goodness into this world then its goodness that you shall receive in turn." The training sword thrust forward once more, a drop of blood welling around the scratched and dented blade. "You're not special or different. There's nothing incredible about you. You're nothing more than an idealistic git who got lucky." 

Jaskier felt a fire rise in his belly and crackle through his arms and chest. With a trembling snarl, he grabbed hold of the blade that pressed against his throat and pulled it as hard as he could.

There was no time to gain any real satisfaction from the look of shock on Valdo's face. 

Jaskier jerked his head to the right, narrowly avoiding the blade he had yanked from his trainer's hands. He clambered to his knees and lunged at Valdo, tackling him at the waist and sending them both crashing to the cobbled stone floor, wet with the salt sea air. And then suddenly he was on his back. His ribs collided with one of their dull practice blades and it knocked the air from his lungs. Breathless, his eyes wandered upward just in time to see the pommel before it smashed into his nose.

"Looks like your luck has run out,  little Dandelion. That was rather foolish. A friendly word of advice, you really should be more careful. I know it's not in your nature, but do try to think before you act. There is no one here who will spare the rod, no swooning maiden to weep o'er your bruises or to wipe your tears away with the silk of her chemise, no self-sacrificing mutant to carry your cross . Without your voice and your utterly banal poetry, you are nothing . And yet the birds still cry, the tide still rises and falls," He threw his arms out wide gesturing at the old structure around them, dust floating through the weak light. "The world spins madly on, nary a thought to where you might have wandered off to.”

Valdo adjusted a ruby ring on his finger that found itself slightly askew. 

“The Countess seems to think you possess some sort of unspoken potential. Having known you for many years, I am forced to humbly disagree. But the woman is nothing if not adamantine and so your training will continue," With a look of utter disgust the Earlspat on his student, landing a solid kick to his gut. "This is your life now, destiny and hope be damned. Lilka will unmake you and if you're found worthy, she will breathe life into the corpse that you’ve left behind. I consider it a blessing from Melitele herself that I will be here to witness your undoing." 

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt stumbled through Maribor, the bitter wind whipping at his face like a lash. The tavern message board, like everything else in sight, was covered in a layer of hoarfrost. What little parchment remained was either mulched to a frozen pulp or had been blown to shreds in the harsh gales. 

He planned to seek out the alderman first, then circle back to the inn to see what work he could scrounge up from its patrons. He patted Roach on the neck and whispered a gentle apology, and with it a promise of apples and other delights as soon as the winter was banished once more by the blossoms of spring.

When he reached the alderman’s cottage, the door was answered by an apple-faced young woman who ordered her young brother to stable Roach without a word from Geralt. And before he’d had a chance to introduce himself.

"I am Inna, like the river — and this is my father Fedir.” The woman said, smiling brightly at him. 

Her kindness was unwarranted and so unexpected it was almost off-putting. Geralt wasn’t exactly in a position to turn away charity due to enthusiastic willingness. Without shelter and food, his horse would die and he would follow not long after. He couldn’t find Jaskier or Cirilla if he was dead. 

Fedir fixed Geralt with a suspicious glare. "Don't usually see your kind 'round ‘ere this time o’ year. What do you want?" The old man grumbled. 

Inna’s father did not share her hospitality and, strangely, it was comforting. The suspicion and the prejudice, Geralt understood. Charity? He did not. 

"Father." Inna chided, slapping the old man on the knee.

Geralt smirked, holding up a hand that stung from the warmth of the cottage. "I take no offence. Your father speaks the truth. The Wolves winter in their keep in Kaedwen. This is the first year in many that I have spent the winter elsewhere."

"Kaedwen, eh ? Quite a long way from home, are we?" The old man barked, leaning in and fixing the witcher with a shrewd eye.

“Quite.” Geralt agreed. When he stopped to think about it — about how far he was from home, how lost he felt — a part of him wanted to weep into his hands. He felt brittle, a terrifying thing for a witcher to feel. He was too tired to argue, too cold to care that the innkeeper seemed mere moments from spitting in his face and turning him out in the cold. 

"Whether luckily or unluckily we haven’t any work for you. And I'm afraid we don't have much to spare either — a hot meal and warm bed is all we can offer." 

Geralt opened his mouth to protest but the girl stepped around the bar and grabbed hold of his hands. He stared stupidly at her, his mouth hung open and eyes wide. The warmth of her skin stung his cold hands. 

“Things are rough,” She said, looking up at him with bright hazel eyes. “And with the winter and the war at our doorstep, our plight is not unique. In war, there is no victor, only suffering and grief. We have to take care of each other.” 

Geralt couldn’t help but give pause. He’d known very few people, human or otherwise, who would give so freely for nothing in return. 

“I have no coin. I was simply looking for wor—” 

“Those of us who have some to spare should give to those who don’t. It's what the Goddess wills.” She spoke gentle words but her voice was stern, directed at her scowling father, no doubt.

Before either of the men could protest, Inna dragged them both to the table nearest the hearth and shoved them into their seats before skipping off to retrieve bowls and spoons for the stew and what was left of the day-old loaf of rye. 

“So, what brings you to Temeria, Master Geralt?” The young woman bit her lip and a rosy flush spread across her freckled cheeks.

He thanked her for the food and hoped that that would be enough to dissuade her from asking questions but she simply stared at him, waiting for an answer. "I'm… I'm searching for someone." 

“Oh?” The young maiden’s lips quirked into a funny smile and she leaned on her hands, leaving her bowl of stew to the mercy of the cold, drafty room. “A witcher marching through the rime in search of a lost love?”

He opened his mouth to protest but she just giggled, pulling the empty bowls from the table to fill once more with the watered-down cabbage stew. 

“I think it’s romantic.” 

“He… he wasn’t my… I didn’t…” 

“Has a price on ‘is ‘ead, ‘as he? Maybe he owes you money.” The old man said, squinting one eye. 

Inna whipped her head about and nearly spilt stew across the packed dirt beside the fire. “Papa, that’s enough.”   

The young woman tightened her grip on the wooden ladle in her hand and for a moment Geralt thought she might smack her father over the head with it. Fedir seemed to share Geralt’s concern. With a slew of nasty curses and some grunting the old man stood, nodded curtly, and dismissed himself from the table beside the fire. 

“Forgive my father, master Geralt. He means no harm.” 

“Nothing to forgive,” he shrugged. “I’ve met far worse than a shrewd man looking to protect his daughter during a war.”

There was a lengthy pause and Inna hooked the ladle over the handle of the pot and shuffled back to sit beside him. “Is he right to?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Do I need to be protected from you?” Her voice was so quiet, barely a whisper. 

“No. You needn’t fear me.” 

Inna hummed, the blush of her cheeks spreading down her throat and to her chest. 

“Tell me. This someone you’re searching for — you lose him in the war?” She passed a mug to Geralt and sat down beside him at the hearth, pulling her feet up beside her and tucking them under her skirts.

“Something like that.” He muttered into the steaming tea.

“I’m sorry.” She blew across the earthenware mug. “We lost both my elder brothers to Nilfgaard. The path of war is a wildfire. Everyone is on it whether they choose to be or not.” 

“He should never have been on the Path.” Geralt hated how broken his voice sounded as he pressed his lips to the hot clay mug.

“You must be so lonely.” Inna set her hand upon his and smiled sweetly. 

“Witchers are meant to be alone. I’m used to it… used to be, anyway.” 

“Oh… you never told him how you felt.” 

“I didn’t felt… feel . I don’t—” 

"Unless women…" 

"No," Geralt blurted out. "No. It's not that. I— he was never—" Geralt trailed off hoping he wouldn't have to dig the words out from where they were buried somewhere in his chest. But the alderman's daughter just blinked innocently at him waiting for him to continue. 

"He was never... that ." 

Geralt could smell the bloom of her desire and hear her quickening pulse and when Inna leaned in and captured his lips with hers, he let her. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier rested his head upon his knees and watched the snow drifting outside his window, piling up in the corners of the sill.  He knew he should try and go back to sleep, but he found himself fighting it all the same.  He had had the same dream again and again for a week now.  

Children fear nightmares , he scolded .  But… perhaps for good reason.  

It had all been for nothing in the end. Geralt was gone, Jaskier had given everything he was and he still couldn’t save him.  He had found Glimm but she had been taken away and locked away in a tower.  If you hadn't been for the Countess' forces finding them then surely Jaskier would be dead.  He would’ve bled out in the streets of the marketplace in Brenna.  He had seen her only once since then.  He mourned for them both, but also himself.  The man he had been was as dead as the witcher he had given his life to save.  Perhaps it had all been a lie, a scheme by a witch in the woods to steal his voice for some ritual or spell. He couldn’t think about that now. Jaskier shook the thought from his head and marched across the cold, hewn stone to his writing desk to continue the letter he’d been writing to Ciri. 

Dearest Cirilla, 

The Countess tells me that your studies are progressing well.  Did you receive my book on Kaedweni Tell?  I learned about it in the Stael Library — a vast and expansive collection of knowledge from across the continent.  I hope to become versed and, with any luck, come to regain my voice in a sense.  My soul is caged behind my teeth and it aches to fly free once more.  I know how difficult your time in isolation must be for you.  I, too, am unused to being so utterly tethered.  I became a bard to cast off the shackles of a dull, staid life at court.  To travel the world, see mountains and oceans, to be overcome by love and fear, to experience that which I had never experienced before.  

But enough about me.  

If Valdo, that beastly squawking bird, hasn’t already told you.  I wish to share some good news.  I will see you at the winter solstice celebration at the estate.  We shall watch the burning wheel together and feast and perhaps, for a moment pretend that there is no war.  We can imagine what it will be like when one day we are free.  If the food and festivities weren't enough to look forward to, I have a little something for you.  I eagerly await such a time when I can see you again.

Live well and find happiness, even in darkness, 

Your Jaskier

。。。oOo 。。。

"Douse that fire, you hag, it’s hotter than the ninth ring of hell in here.”  Valdo hissed.

“ Oh ?” Lilka seemed taken by his outburst, leaning across the bed and sipping from her wine glass. When he seemed intent to stand there stupidly, staring across the hearth she went to him, her arms snaking around his waist. “The winter is cold and unforgiving outside my window. I wish only for comfort and warmth. Surely there is nothing wrong with that.”

“I haven't the patience for your games.” Valdo pulled her hand from beneath the hem of his trousers and stood, crossing the room. He threw open the balcony doors and leaned heavily on the balustrade.

“And what could have gotten you so deliciously tangled? You’re usually so infuriatingly hard to provoke.” She called from the divan, the amusement in her voice made him want to drive his fist through the glass doors that swung in the freezing wind. 

“Is it too much to ask for some fucking silence?” He slammed his fists on the railing, ignoring the sharp pain that shot up to his elbows.

“You sit in silence all day, do you not?”

He didn’t respond, huffing through pursed lips as he glared out into the darkness.

“Unless the particular vintage of silence provided to you is inadequate. Would you rather I send you back to court?" She teased. Valdo did not find it as amusing as she did.

“It’s your fucking mute.” He pushed past her, crossing the room and doubling back in agitation. “I spend most of my life certain I’ll never be free of that fool and his squawking... and now I’m plagued by his dumb silence.” 

“You act as though he was cursed simply to spite you, my love.” 

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” He laughed bitterly. 

“Let me assuage your fears. You’re not that important, not to him nor anyone else.” She stated plainly. 

“You don’t know Julian.”

“I don’t?” She questioned innocently. “What a funny thing to say. He’s been my plaything from time to time for nearly a decade, and now he is mine and mine alone.” 

“Just because you fucked him, doesn’t mean you know him. You don’t.” 

“Enlighten me. What do you know that I don’t?” It was a challenge but Valdo couldn’t seem to quell the rage enough to give a damn. 

“I knew this would be a fruitless venture from the beginning, an absolute waste of resources. And I entertained the idea solely because I wished to avoid your incessant nagging. I knew he’d be useless, at the very least pathetic but I didn’t anticipate his stubbornness. Julian has never known when to quit. He simply drops his blade and stands there until I beat him so badly I begin to fear that I’ll kill him but nothing ever changes. You don’t know him as I do. He’s incapable of becoming what you want him to be. I’m not a god, Lilka, I can’t bring a stone to bear fruit.” 

“Patience, fox.” The Countess sang her tone a warning.

“And how am I to remain patient?" Valdo shouted, slamming his fist against the cobbled brick of the hearth. "Do you expect me to spend the rest of my life beating him to a bloody pulp day by day? He won’t struggle, he won’t yield. It seems I've traded his insufferable voice for his insufferable silence. I can’t even enjoy his pain. That persistent little beast has taken that from me too.” 

“Are you quite finished?” She laughed dismissively. 

“I fail to see how you find any of this amusing.” The Earl huffed, turning from the window to pull his shirt over his head and cast it aside. 

“You are peculiar, that’s all.” Lilka slipped from her nightdress and crossed the room to pour herself a glass of dandelion wine from a silver carafe. Sitting on the edge of the bed she leaned back lazily on one arm and sipped from her glass. “Have you perhaps considered the problem is the master and not the student?” 

Valdo shot her a venomous look, poured his glass of wine, and took a sip. He coughed and nearly spat it out. “This is fucking vile.” 

“Your problem is you fight like you fuck.” The Countess laughed. “Everything with you is mindless, violent rutting until you complete your task, whether that be to slaughter a man or to spill your seed. To unravel a man takes precision and patience, both of which you lack." She set aside her glass and leaned back against the feather bed.

"Slicing your sword through a tapestry takes nought brute force and a dull blade. But what good does it do you? Now you have a tapestry, just as you did before, but with a gaping wound. That is both useless and ugly. To rework the fabric and weave it anew you must first work your fingers along stitches and seams. Find where it catches and knots. Take hold of a thread and you may begin to unravel it."

He threw his glass on the ground and stepped closer, crunching broken shards beneath his boot. “I did not get where I am because I–" 

"You got where you are because I have permitted it and because I have patience. Mind what you venture to claim, my fox.” 

Valdo spun on his heels but the words died in his throat, facing the sight of her sprawled across the silken sheets, her right hand slipping between her spread legs.

“Now call my little lamb to me and I will show you the beginnings of unravelling a man without spilling a single drop of blood.” 

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

Chapter Four: The Drowned Effigy

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

Triss hummed as she sorted the bundles of herbs on the long wooden table. The faint sunlight that streamed through the windows caught on her auburn curls.

“How long would you say it's been?” She asked.

“Three days short of a year,” Geralt muttered in a daze. He leaned heavily on the open shutter of the window, watching idly as children wove in and out of the grove of white birch. They ran through the wood, wild berry juice dribbling down their chins and staining their white festival dress. 

He turned back to the matter at hand. Impatiently waiting as Triss prepared her spells. Reaching for Jaskier’s stained doublet, he prickled as his calloused fingers pulled at a loose thread of embroidery across the collar. The light blue was washed dull by old stains of blood and earth. It was beginning to shatter. Geralt had no idea how to care for silk properly. He had washed it as best he could. Had he damaged the delicate weave with his touch?

“When was the last time you had a proper meal?” Triss huffed and pulled the wisps of wild hair from her face. 

Geralt stiffened. “I didn’t travel all the way here for you to mother me about my eating habits.” 

She lifted her brows at him and he tried to rub away the ache behind his eyes. 

“It’s been a lean year but I have sufficient for my needs.” He muttered. 

Triss sighed, deciding not to press the matter any further. “Semik, hmm ?” She mused as she sorted the petals of the flowers from their stems. “Funny time to lose someone.” 

“ Funny ,” Geralt repeated bitterly.

“I’m sorry, Geralt. I didn’t mean it like that. You know that, love. I just… Semik is a big deal here in Temeria. It’s a festival of rebirth, a time to bury those who died in violence or before their time. A time for closure.” She hesitated, suddenly unsure of whether she was helping or making things worse. “Seems like a rather poetic time to find yourself lost, that’s all.” 

Jaskier certainly would’ve thought so. Wouldn’t he? Geralt imagined he would have called it poetic. Those bright sea glass eyes would glisten with life and wonder at the dark and dreary forest. His hands would certainly fidget and worry at his clothing, lute strap, and hair. He would bite his lip and sigh, calling it the prose of death or some such nonsense. Perhaps. Would he pick small birch twigs and wildflowers and fasten himself a crown as they walked through the forest?

Geralt clamped down on the ache winding tighter in his chest, slamming his hands on the warped, swollen boards of the windowsill. 

“You expressed in your letter that the anniversary of… that night would be the best time for your ritual. That is why I’m here. Semik is nothing more than peasant superstition, an excuse to overindulge in ale. It’s a celebration where mothers dress their children in white linen to be stained beyond recognition, young maidens carry baskets of perfectly good eggs into the wood to spoil, and villagers whisper promises to a tree before dragging it into the nearest body of water to drown it, all the while chanting and singing in hopes of chasing away rusalki.” Geralt’s voice had come across much sharper than he had intended but he let it be. Thankfully the mage seemed content to continue the preparation of her spells in silence for a time.

“Here.” She passed him a small piece of parchment and gathered a hunk of cheese and strips of dried meat in a small cloth. “Make yourself useful, I need these herbs.” 

“Triss, it will take me days to find all this.” 

“Then you better hurry. It must be done in two days' time.” She shoved the bundle of cloth into his hands and ushered him out the door.

。。。oOo 。。。

“Again,” Valdo ordered, his voice growing more agitated with every fumbled drill. 

Jaskier was still curled up, his arms around his head and legs pulled up to his chest.  They'd begun training at dawn, as they always did. But this time instead of running drills in the courtyard of roses, they marched down the length of the estate to an old watch tower along the cape. The rest had been the usual flavour of hell that he’d grown accustomed to. 

He pulled himself up on a crate, his fist going through the old, brittle wood. A little floundering and he managed to stumble to his feet. Everything ached. His ribs felt like they were splintering, and his hands were raw. His throat and eyes stung. 

From the crude carved-out window of the watchtower, he could see the silhouette of Cidaris across the bay. This was the closest Jaskier had come to leaving the Stael estate since his arrival. He wished to reach for it in longing but he didn't dare. Freedom was so close but so far from his grasp. He watched the red sails of Cidarian ships flutter as boats came into the bay, like rose petals blowing in the wind.

A solid hit to his chest brought him crashing back to reality. 

“I yield. I relent,“ Valdo announced dramatically, throwing his hands up in the air. “You cannot follow one simple task. I think, perhaps, the problem is in my methods. I resolve myself to try a different way. But no. Nothing works. Not a damn thing.” 

Valdo unsheathed a decorative blade at his hip and with a graceful series of steps that looked almost like dancing, he drove the pommel in rapid succession along Jaskier’s arms and chest, with one final hit to the soft of his belly.

While the mute sputtered, Valdo grabbed an old, salt-crusted length of rope. With it, he bound Jaskier's hands in front of him. Jaskier made to squirm but his body was still in a state of clumsy shock.

"Thank you for that lovely demonstration of your shortcomings." Valdo drawled as he tightened the knot and tested it. "You don't commit. Sure, from time to time, you might throw yourself at me in a fit of rage but when the time comes to truly strike you hesitate, you panic and it costs you what little advantage you may have gained from your foolish, brazen behaviour.”

Jaskier struggled but it did nothing to loosen his bonds. 

"Nearly a year of beating you senseless and it hasn't broken through that thick head of yours. Perhaps this will. So here's a lesson for you — if you panic, if you hesitate… you will die." Valdo stated plainly. Without further warning, the Earl pulled him to his feet and Jaskier found himself falling. 

It took a moment to register what had happened. Wriggling desperately he landed with a force so startling it ripped the air from his lungs. He knew they had been in the watchtower, knew the rocky shore and high tide was below them. But the pain was so overwhelming he was certain he must've split his back wide open on the rocks. And then Jaskier sank below the surface of the cold water and the waves swallowed him whole. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt marched through the bone-white birches in silence — an unsettling, familiar silence that had followed him like a wraith for the past year. He had once felt comfortable like this, sure… content. Sure that this was what he wanted, that he was better off alone. 

Until Jaskier came along and filled his life with idle chatter and incessant whining, with song, and something… something that Geralt couldn’t name or place — something he didn’t know he had needed. 

Geralt knelt at the trunk of a tree, inspecting a cluster of honey mushrooms. Pulling them gently from the soil, he wrapped them in a thin linen cloth. 

Jaskier was gone and he had taken his something with him. In its place there hung heavy the smell of death, oily and sweet, clinging to everything. 

The worst part was knowing that he might never know. 

Geralt was left to wander and to wonder which fate had met Jaskier that night in the wildwood.

。。。oOo 。。。

The weather was pleasant, the air cool and the sun bright. But the sea was frigid, and every moment Jaskier was trapped beneath the surface threatened to be his last. The watchtower was situated on the rocky coast and he found himself battered between rocks and inlets. With some clumsy flailing, he managed to kick off a large rock, only to be shoved by the waves, face first into another. Without warning, the tide sucked him out of the cove and away from the jagged rocks. He managed to get his head above the water long enough to gasp for air, only to waste the breath when his lungs filled with water. By some grace or mercy, he managed to scramble back to the surface. A wave crashed behind him, sending him sprawling onto the shore. 

Lucky, lucky bastard. 

No longer trapped beneath the waves and still, Jaskier couldn’t breathe. Coughing and retching, sputtering — gritty sand and blood dripping down his front. His body was impossibly heavy and he could feel the gentle, persistent pull of the undertow, threatening to pull him back out to sea. With great effort, he dug his elbows into the sand and attempted to pull himself upright. Hands still bound in front of him, his fingers twitched impotently. 

With some awkward manoeuvring, he managed to get a knee beneath him. Just a little more leverage and he might be able to pull himself out of the pull of the tide. A wave crashed down, the force so great it knocked what little air he had from his lungs and sent him sprawling, face and chest grating against the pebbles and sand.

His mind was still reeling, his skin still stinging from the initial impact. There was hardly room in his brain to dictate the chaos of his escape from the sea or to address his injuries. There was no room within him for anything but that very moment and the desperate clamber to survive. He had all but forgotten about the man who had shoved him from the watchtower and into the sea until he heard Valdo speak.

"Well, what do we have here ?” The last word was accented by a feral growl as Valdo grabbed a handful of Jaskier’s hair and yanked his head upright.

“It appears the lagan has washed ashore ," Valdo grunted, releasing his grip on the tangles of soaked hair to drive his boot into Jaskier's side. The bound man's face collided with a rock. The surface, which was porous and rough from the battering tides, clawed mercilessly at his skin. Blood was gushing across his tongue, choking off his already dwindling air.

“Do us both a favour, Julian. Let the tide drag your corpse back out to sea.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt dropped the linen bag on the table, grumbling as it tipped over and a large mushroom rolled across the wood. In a wave of twinkling light, all the small displays of candles throughout the cottage glowed to life. Triss, her hair blown wild behind her, stepped through the doorway with her hand aflame and ready to strike. When she saw him the ferocity bled from her and she lowered her hand.

“Geralt?” 

“I brought you what you needed.” 

Triss’ stern face grew soft and she padded across the stillroom. For a moment the witcher thought she would reach for the bag of herbs and ingredients but she walked past the table and straight toward him. He fought the urge to recoil from the closeness of it all. It felt wrong — but he couldn’t say why. Perhaps because everything felt wrong. There was no time to stop and hunt, no time to haggle for pay from an alderman or marquess, no time to walk the Path or winter at the keep — no time, no time, no time… 

“Geralt.” The soft sound of Triss’ voice brought him back from the edge of his spiralling thoughts, if only for a brief time. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier awoke in his bed with no recollection of how he had gotten there, tucked under a single quilt. His ribs were swollen, the skin around his chest tight and warm. And his face had been split from his eye down through his lips. Red and angry, it throbbed and stung like a hot poker. He could barely see, the swelling and dizziness were so bad. His wounds were still full of sand and his body was coated in a dusty layer of salt. 

Despite the summer heat, there was a chilling cold that thickened his blood like a lingering fog. His rib cage tightened like a vice around his lungs and heart. 

Still covered in salt and sand, Jaskier tended his wounds the best he could.

It felt like he had never left the water — heavy, numb, and deathly cold. He thought of the young page who had told him how he had gotten from the shore to his bed and how long it had been. 

He couldn’t exactly ask about what had happened. But a maid, relieved by the sight of him, informed him he’d been unconscious for nearly three days.

"Pick it up,” Valdo shouted as he tossed the sword to the stones at Jaskier’s feet. “If you won't defend your own life, why should anyone else?" 

The earl would wait no longer. 

"Give up, little Dandelion." He spat, circling the former bard like a hungry animal. Rage sparked in his blood at the sight of the man who stood in his way, refusing to fight and refusing to yield. "Wither and die like the weed that you are."

You know, for someone so intent on bemoaning the botanical imagery your dear wife is so very fond of, you fall back on it far too often. This is why you were never a successful poet. You haven't an original thought. Never have.  

Jaskier stumbled, his vision passing in and out of clarity. He had long since abandoned hope of lifting his sword again. If he could just stay on his feet…

What then ? He asked himself. What will you do? You fight so hard just to fall a moment later?

Maybe it was the thought of Ciri, abandoned by yet another person who had promised to protect her. Far less poetic and altruistic, perhaps it was simply the notion that Valdo seemed driven to madness at Jaskier's unwillingness to lay down and die. 

The most painful of all was the idea that it was because of Geralt, of the witcher's death in the woods, and the promise Jaskier had made, his final song.

Whatever the reason he clung to his footing. His stubbornness only served to fuel Valdo’s rage. With a look of pure contempt, the Earl turned his blade around. Before the other man had even registered the movement Valdo struck him in the larynx with the pommel. Jaskier choked, clutching his throat as tears sprung to his eyes. A sure blow to the back of his knee and he fell like a corpse.

He tried to stave off the panic but his lungs were thick and heavy. He couldn’t breathe.

As his world flickered like a guttering flame he could see Geralt — tired and unshaven, his face thin and haggard. He knelt just out of reach, at the base of an old tree as if praying. The witcher drove his fist into the birch, flaking off great sheets of birch bark. 

Geralt muttered something but Jaskier couldn’t hear. His heart flung itself against his ribs, lungs still refusing to work. Flat on his back, Jaskier craned his neck at a horrid angle. Instinctually he reached out for the witcher, mouthing his name.

"Stay down, I’ve told you twenty times over, to stay down!" Valdo shouted, his boot landing solidly between Jaskier's shoulder blades. 

You told me to get up, now you want me to stay down. Make up your mind . Jaskier smiled to himself. 

“One day you’ll learn to obey. Lay down and die, wither away like a plucked rose. Beautiful,” Valdo accentuated the word driving his heel into the other man’s spine. “Forgettable... and entirely unremarkable.” 

Say what you will. And maybe you're right, maybe I'm entirely unremarkable. But I won’t abandon Cirilla and I refuse to let you turn her into a monster. 

Jaskier sputtered, watching flecks of red splatter across the stone beneath him. 

I won’t– 

With one final effort, he pushed against the boot that held him to the ground and felt the searing pain rip through his left side once again. Valdo twisted his boot, his heel grinding against the man's spine. 

I won’t die by your hand, you arrogant prick. Not today or any day after this. Jaskier managed to lift his head just enough to catch sight of the earl out of the corner of his eye. He smiled at him, wide and bright with teeth coated in blood. 

Grabbing a handful of hair, Valdo pulled Jaskier’s head back and drove his boot against the juts of his spine. Jaskier wailed voicelessly as Valdo smashed his face against the stone.

For a brief moment, Jaskier could see Geralt, leaning against the wooden frame of an open window, his arms crossed over his chest. 

And then the world went dark.

。。。oOo 。。。

The young princess squeezed the quill in her hand, snapping the hollow barrel of the feather in half. 

“This is stupid.” She whined as she tossed the feather and the small knife across the table, sending small droplets of ink to splatter the parchment before her.

Valdo closed his eyes, pressing two fingers to the space above his right eye socket where the muscle twitched sporadically. Another tutor had stormed across the estate and quit, utterly unwilling to work with the earl’s ward. As her caretaker, Lilka claimed it was only fitting for the earl himself to oversee her studies until another suitable and perhaps, a more amenable tutor could be found. 

So it seemed he had been, once more, demoted from a glorified babysitter of a snivelling mute to the babysitter of a snivelling orphaned princess. 

“Say what you will. It will not change what is.” The earl said. “Your opinions on the matter will not persuade me. You must still learn to dress a quill.” 

“I had a dream last night,” Ciri said, tilting her head up in a show of distaste.

Valdo bit his tongue to keep the litany of insults and curses from passing through his lips. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me what it was about?” The princess goaded.

“No.” 

“I had a dream that Dandelion killed you.” 

“Oh, did you now?” Valdo scratched his chin, leaning back in his chair.

Well, wasn’t that an amusing thought? The little princess locked away in her tower dreaming of her heroic savior killing her ward to set her free. If she only knew the truth of her captivity, what horrors the earl had committed, the things he had done to the mute. The things the countess had done… was doing, would continue to do… 

“Yes." The princess lifted her head, her rosy face stern and poised like a queen. "He drove a sword through your belly and gutted you like a roasting pig.” 

The brass dish of candles and the porcelain ink pot began to tremble as though an earthquake had overcome them but everything else in the room was still. 

“I think that’s enough for today.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo had dragged the mute’s unconscious body through the sand to the carriage that had brought them to the watchtower. When they arrived back at the estate he had instructed a page boy to take Julian to his living quarters but not to fetch a healer or mage. Valdo had never bothered to check if the boy had done as he had instructed or what state the mute had been left in. That had been two days ago and Valdo hadn’t seen him since. He wondered if Julian would be there in the courtyard come sunrise — as he was instructed to do every morning, or if his corpse was growing cold under his silken sheets.

He sighed exasperatedly as he threw the door open doing his best to mask the twitching of his right eye that had persisted for weeks now. 

“You summoned me.”  He said, hands folded behind his back.

Lilka sat beside the bed in the corner. Ankles crossed, she tapped her cheek thoughtfully. 

“One of the gardeners found him sprawled across the flagstones when he went to prune the roses.” The edge of her voice was sharper than a blade, “It seems he was out there all night, flat on his face. The night air was cool and yet his skin boils." 

Valdo was silent, staring at the man in the bed, the air rattling in his chest like bone chimes in the wind. 

"Infection of the blood from unset bones and a wound across his face so deep and inflamed they fear he may lose his eye.” She continued, “You wouldn’t know how that happened now, would you?” 

Valdo needed to choose his next words carefully. “You told me to train him and I am doing what I can. It’s hardly workable material.” 

What little expression Lilka allowed to cross her face, faded. “I don’t want your excuses. If a tree is ripped from the roots too young it will grow brittle and bent.” 

“You told me to train the vines, to prune his hesitation and his panic. I see no better way than to thrust hi–” 

“Into the sea? Is that what you were going to say?” 

Valdo recoiled as if he had been struck.

Fuck . 

“Yes. How very perspicacious of you. No better way to teach a man to think through the haze of panic than to bind him, and thrust him from a watchtower into the high tide?” 

Valdo waited, careful not to react as Lilka picked him apart with her eyes. 

“You imbecile,” She hissed. “Have you listened to anything I’ve taught you? I told you to guide him, to teach him to thrive in his panic, to hone his hesitation, and trust his instincts. Now, do you honestly expect me to believe that this was an attempt to follow my orders? Not even the likes of you are foolish enough to interpret my words as a blessing to drown him." She glanced sideways and Valdo followed her eyes to the bed in the corner. Jaskier looked truly awful, every breath threatening to be his last. 

Valdo hadn’t anticipated a response this severe. She was growing to like the mute and that was a problem for him, in more ways than one. The impact of his presence was already so much worse than he had anticipated. At the forefront of his mind though was the growing fear of what she would do to him if Jaskier died in that bed.  

"You must remember that you become responsible for what you have tamed, husband . You nearly killed him with your carelessness and now you will tend his bedside until he is well once more." 

Proceed carefully, Valdo , he cautioned himself. Rather not join the late lord Bielski, in the garden.

He cleared his throat, hands clasped behind his back. “Of course, my lady. While the sentiment is shared, I respectfully disagree.”

“Dangerous.” Lilka hissed, “On what grounds does this shattering dissent of interpretation stand? Enlighten me.”

“With all due respect, my lady. Julian will never learn if he is continually coddled. It's been a year and I know that I am close. If there’s any hope that he could be of use in the future then I know I’m not far from tapping the vein. I stand by my methods. He’s broken bones before, set one of your healers on him, it's more than he’s worth.”

“Keep your head. If you grow too bold you might just lose it.” She laughed. “Though you have piqued my curiosity so I say to you once more, enlighten me. How much, would you venture, is he worth?” 

“Nothing, my lady. Julian is worthless… nothing more than a lost cause. This endeavour is a waste of time and resources. It is nothing short of foolish to think that a tongueless bard could become useful to you simply because he killed a man with a rock.” 

Despite the growing trepidation, Valdo barrelled on. “You commanded me to oversee his training and I have done so and will continue to do so until I am commanded otherwise. But I was not commanded to swaddle him and kiss away his tears. If you wish to smother him he’s right there.” Valdo waved dismissively to the bed where Jaskier lay in fitful sleep, drenched in sweat and trembling. 

“I’m sure he wouldn’t refuse the grip of that sweet cunt. Not that he’s in a position to do so even if he wished it.” Valdo spat the bitterness in his voice poking holes through his normally aloof nature. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more pressing matters to attend to. I refuse to waste my time playing wetnurse for your latest whimsical–" 

"Don’t presume to understand my intentions, you know nothing of the impetus that drives me. You are a simple creature and you lack foresight. You fancy yourself a sage but you are nothing more than a spoiled, benighted child.” 

The heat of her voice was suddenly cold like ice creeping across glass. “What is given can always be taken away. We must look out for each other, mustn't we? Why, I shudder to think what the King of Cidaris would do if he discovered what you’d done.”

Valdo's practised indifference returned with a graceful bow. 

Once more, Lady Bielski found herself with the upper hand. "Tread carefully and remember to whom you speak, little fox."

“Oh, and one more thing…” She held out her hand and Valdo complied, placing his hand in hers. She rose from her chair and with a swift motion, he felt fire across his lips. He stumbled backward but she caught him by the jaw, pulling his face down to meet hers. He tripped over his feet, nearly losing his footing as he groped at his face where the blade had sliced under the curve of his jaw. She held the small knife up, inspecting the bead of blood that trickled down the edge. 

“Don’t mar his pretty face again. For every mark left upon his brow, I will carve a piece from your flesh.” Then she kissed him, suckling the blood from his jaw before pushing him away and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 

。。。ooo 。。。

The tightly wrapped bundle of herbs sent delicate tendrils of smoke up to the roof of the cottage, curling in the air like strokes of a paintbrush. Triss recited the incantation once, then twice, and turned to the witcher with a worried look.

“You would do well to remember that I am not a master of divination and I have never claimed to be.” 

“I understand.” 

Calling upon Triss had been a desperate grasp for any information after he had exhausted his methods. The sorceress waved her hands and the candles spread throughout the cabin flickered to life. A single empty jar was set on the table before her, the smoking bundle in her hand. 

“There is fear and fire.” She muttered dazedly, her eyes aglow and flickering like candles. “I taste the wind upon the sea.” 

Geralt’s heart sank. Jaskier’s proposal of a respite, of a journey to the coast. Had he stumbled from the woods and headed for the coast, leaving Geralt behind? Had he thought of that when the soldiers overcame him in the thicket? 

“It was dark…” Triss could feel the desperation, the paralyzing fear as her lungs wouldn’t seem to take air and the muscles in her legs burned. The urge to run faster, to flee. Sorrow overcame her. And then crippling pain, a scream that shredded her very chest. 

Then abruptly the vision ended and the mage collapsed — a single wisp of white smoke caught within the empty jar, swirling about like a storm cloud.

“Are you all right?”  

“Yes.” She couldn’t stop shaking, sobbing into her hands at the overwhelming rush of Jaskier’s echoes. 

The witcher waited patiently, kneeling beside her with his arm around her shoulder. When she was ready he helped her to her feet. She gripped the edges of the table as if it could ground her to reality, could take away the terror and anguish that flooded her.

“It’s an echo. There’s… there’s something there and then there’s nothing…” Triss hesitated, unsure of whether it was wise to share the echo she had trapped with Geralt or not.

“What do you mean there’s nothing? Show me.” 

“I don’t…  not a sight or scent. Nothing.” 

Triss waited for a moment in deliberate silence, choosing her next words carefully. “Listen, Geralt, sometimes we overcomplicate things because we don’t want to accept the truth. We don’t want to accept what is.”

 The witcher spun on his heels, fierce yellow eyes fixed on the mage. “You told me there was a—” 

Triss was unphased, patiently grinding flower petals into a paste in a small mortar. “It's time to stop running.”

“More of the same, I’m afraid. No flickering life to cling to, no sparks of magic just… reverberations… wisps. Refusing to believe that Jaskier is gone won’t bring him back to you, Geralt. As much as it hurts the longer you draw this out the more painful it will be.” The pity in her hazel eyes struck his chest like a stone. 

“You’ll have to forgive me, Triss. But I’ve never put much stock in the absolutes of mages and their temperamental chaos. If you can’t help me then I’ll find them on my own.” 

“Mind your tongue. I don’t deal in absolutes and I never have. Lashing out at me won’t suddenly mend the sundered shreds of your breaking heart.” She held up her hand to silence him. “Spare me the painfully obvious lie that you don’t possess feelings. It’s lost on me, love.” Smoothing over the folds of her billowing chemise she leaned back against the table. “Nothing in this world is certain, you of all people should understand that. Maybe you’re right and by some miraculous oddity, they are still alive somewhere. If that’s the case I have no idea how you would reach them.” 

“So there is a chance.” 

“Now, that’s not what I meant and you know it.” 

“Triss.” He was holding her by the shoulders, looking at her with half-crazed desperation. “However small, is there a chance that either of them may still be alive?” 

“Yes, just—” As soon as the words were past her lips he released his grip and was off at a frantic pace. “Just as there is a chance that you will someday rise to be crowned king of Temeria. Sometimes the obvious answer, the simple one, is the truth all along.” She was shouting now, chasing after the witcher as he hastened to pack his belongings strewn about her stillroom. “Geralt, will you just stop for a moment!” 

He froze, hands resting on the carefully folded doublet. 

“Your fate and that of the child were inextricably intertwined and still you ran. Now you face the consequences. Your fate, your destiny will not wait patiently at your doorstep now that you’ve decided you are ready to rise to the occasion. You ran from fate and Jaskier was caught in the crossfire. Some things cannot simply be undone. You’ve been chasing ghosts for a year now and you’ve found nothing but anguish under every stone you’ve turned. It’s time to let them go, Geralt.” 

Geralt lifted his head from where it pressed against the cool wood of the sill, searching for the words when there was a knock at the door. Triss crossed the room gracefully, setting the stone mortar down on the table as she went. 

A young boy, with bright eyes and rich, dark skin stood panting on the doorstep. 

“Lady Marigold, the alderman says it is time.” 

“Thank you, Ivan.” She smiled at him and the boy beamed brightly back. He bowed hastily and Geralt feared his head would collide with his boney knees. 

“Master Witcher, I’ve heard many stories about you, sir. We would consider it a great honor if you would accompany us, sir.” 

Triss turned to him and gave him a look that told him to behave himself. “Ivan is my apprentice, he is studying the healing arts.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ivan. I’m—” 

“Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf from the wilds of Kaedwen. I...I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Master Geralt. I… it’s just I didn’t expect that you would be here, on the eve of Semik.” Ivan’s eyes were bright, his heart thumping in his chest. 

Geralt couldn’t help but stare blankly at the young man. He was practically bouncing out of his skin with excitement… excitement at seeing Geralt. Peculiar as it was, Geralt found it oddly heartwarming that Triss had told her apprentice of her adventures with the witcher many years ago. 

“I don’t know what Triss has told you but I’m sure most of it is lies.” Geralt smirked. 

Triss smacked him and Ivan snorted, his hands flying to cover his mouth. 

“No, sir. Lady Merigold told me she knew you but I’m ashamed to say... I didn’t believe her.” He muttered sheepishly. 

“It’s been many years since I’ve passed this way, longer than your lifetime I’d wager.” Geralt mused. “I’m curious, how did you hear of me if not from Triss?” 

“Well sir, when I was younger my mother took me to Redania. Traveling to meet a silk merchant or something like that. She was a seamstress, you see. We ended up staying through the winter, ‘til Spring thaw in a city by a river. We were staying at the tavern, my mother paying our way with her embroidery, darning socks, things like that.” Ivan shifted, smiling fondly at the memory. “We met a minstrel there, a local man I think. He sang songs about you, told me that he traveled with you during the Spring and through Fall. My mother feared he would tire of my incessant questions. But every few days he would bring a doublet or a pair of socks and ask my mother to repair them and we would sit by the fire and people would gather around. He would tell stories about you. You didn’t seem real, more like some sort of folktale. Some hero from forever ago, too good for the nasty world. It feels like a lifetime ago now, I don’t remember his name but I remember his stories.”                    

The world froze, the smile peeling from Geralt’s face like the skin of a boiled onion, the muscles in his chest winding tighter like coiled spring. He felt Triss place a gentle hand on his shoulder and looked down to meet Ivan’s expectant, worried eyes.

“Yes. I… Jaskier was his name. The bard I travelled with for some time was… he was quite the storyteller.” 

“Where is he now?” 

Triss flinched at the youthful innocence, the confusion on Ivan’s face. 

“Go on now. Tell the alderman that Geralt and I will be along shortly.” 

Ivan nodded, bowed excitedly, and ran off into the grove of birch.

“Well, I fear Ivan’s heart might break in two if you don’t attend the festivities tonight.” Triss smiled, cupping Geralt’s cheek with her delicate hand. “Oh, hush now. It won’t be so bad.”

Geralt nodded through a stern grimace. “I see, yes. And how, Lady Merigold, do you select the proper effigy for this very important holiday? Is it some sort of ritual… a sacrifice to divine the proper plant for such an occasion?” He held his forefinger to his lips as his eyes scanned the forest. 

Triss snorted and leaned in closer.  “That tree has been blocking my view of the river from the bay window of my study. Now I needn’t pay to have it cut down.” 

“Ah. You are both wise and powerful. May all the might of Aretuza tremble before you, Mistress Merigold of the white wood.” Geralt bowed with a dramatic flourish.

Triss pushed him and he laughed. Something in her eased at the old, familiar sound. What she wouldn’t give for those times so many years ago when they were young and foolish and things were simpler. 

“Come, Sir Geralt, White Wolf of Kaedwen, it is time for the ritual.” She held out her hand and with a stiff bow, he took it. Lifting their hoods they slipped into the dark grove, following the torchlight to the banks of the river.

。。。oOo 。。。

There was something about the surface of the water in the darkness that Geralt had always found calming. He watched the light as it danced along the river, torchlight pooling on the surface like dark oil, catching the vibrant yellow and trapping it in pockets of the waves. 

Geralt stood beside the mage at the water’s edge. His dark hood turned up against the night’s chill. Triss smoothed her hand over the crisp, white linen tunic she had given him and snickered. He shot her a look, opening his mouth to excuse himself before the ritual had even begun. He had no reason to be here, the child who had been so fascinated by his sudden appearance in the hamlet of Iza probably would’ve forgotten by now and he could excuse himself to be alone with his thoughts. 

He clung to the hope that Jaskier was still alive, and refused to believe that he was gone. The sunset marked a year since Jaskier’s disappearance. 

Maybe Triss was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. For a week he had combed the woods in torrential rain and thunderstorms, the floods uprooting trees and washing away anything and everything that wasn’t buried deep beneath the surface. Had Jaskier been found by the remaining soldiers? Had he been washed away in the floods? 

As time wore on Geralt had no choice but to leave the wildwood. He travelled north to the closest settlement in hopes that Jaskier would be waiting there for him. But no one had seen a flamboyant bard, dressed in worn leather boots and a tunic of robin’s egg blue.

He could hear Triss speaking to him but struggled to pull himself from the thoughts of that night.

Suddenly the young apprentice came barrelling through the crowd, nearly running into Geralt. A group of young men and women trailed behind him, all staring up at Geralt in awestruck wonder. 

“Master Geralt, you made it!” Ivan panted, his hands resting on his knobby knees, bright white clothing accentuated his dark skin and the brilliance of his smile. It was contagious and Geralt felt the tug at the corners of his lips. 

Jaskier had been the only person who could do that to him and he had hated it. Geralt spent far more effort than he’d like to admit, fighting against the loosening of his tense shoulders and the smile that played at his lips. 

Ivan drove his boney elbow into the side of another boy, muttering under his breath. “I told you he would come. You owe me two orens.”

“No way.” A red-haired boy muttered in disbelief, his mouth falling open wide. 

“Are you really the witcher?” Another cut in, pushing his way past the redhead to trip and nearly smash his forehead on Ivan’s shoulder. 

Geralt couldn’t help but laugh, his chin held a little higher as he looked at the group of starry-eyed children looking at him as if he was something...more. They observed him in a sense of wonder as if he wasn’t a grizzled and scarred mutant, something less than human, but rather a magical beast, the last unicorn. 

During his long life, he had been spat upon and chased out of settlements more times than he could count. It wasn’t uncommon for him to work for coin that never came. The lean years were aplenty and those aplenty few. But Geralt had come to terms with this. He had learned to be grateful for what he could get and expected nothing more until Jaskier had come along and forced his way into Geralt’s life. Perhaps at first, the young minstrel had seen Geralt as merely a way out, a means of escape from his lot in life. But from that very first day, Jaskier had boldly claimed the presence of Geralt’s humanity and defended it fiercely. Jaskier had insisted that life could be more, that even a life filled with horrors and heartache could be a thing of beauty.

How wrong he had been.

Geralt was more than some sort of roadside horror or novelty to these children, he was a hero and he had Jaskier to thank for that. A girl with bright blue eyes and chestnut hair shoved past the boys gathered around the witcher. Fidgeting, pulling, and tugging at her clothes and the crown of flowers upon her head in discomfort.

“Master Geralt, sir, have you come to Iza to celebrate Semik with us, sir? Lady Merigold told me that I should help you if you have any questions. I’m Anneliese. Here.” The girl pushed past the crowd of children and held out a wreath of birch, clusters of honey mushrooms, and wildflowers. Reluctantly he took it, staring dumbly at the wreath. Before he could ask she took it from his hands and tugging on his cloak indicated for him to bend down. As soon as his head was within reach she pushed the crown down to his brow and stepped back, inspecting her work with pride. He stood, straightening the birch crown so that he could see once more from both his eyes.

“She says witchers don’t have holidays, is that true?” Anneliese asked.

Geralt opened his mouth to answer but it seemed it was too late for that. The group of children shouted over each other, pushing to get closer to him, bombarding him with questions, excited squeals, and hushed giggles.  

Geralt turned to Triss for back up but the mage was gone, he spotted her across the riverbank. She held a staff of twisting birch branches as she spoke with what he assumed to be the alderman of the village. Catching sight of him she flashed him a cheeky grin. 

“Damn it, Triss.” Geralt cursed under his breath.

The young boy with big black eyes and hair the colour of fire wiggled through the crowd of young adults.  “Ivan says the words go ‘ give the coward’s horse a flea ’ but that’s stupid and wrong. Why would you want your horse to have fleas? It’s ‘ give the coward a horse to flee ’, isn’t it? Is your minstrel here? The one that wrote that song?” The redheaded boy called, tacking on a rather boisterous “Master Witcher Geralt, sir” when Ivan elbowed him in the side.

The banging of a drum silenced the children, reluctantly they dispersed to take their places, and Geralt found himself alone with young Anneliese. She smiled encouragingly at him, taking him by the hand and guiding him closer to the river.

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier was never late. He always came exactly when promised. The countess had granted them a whole day together in celebration of her birthday and they had planned to explore the creek nearest her tower. Barely more than a thin blue line she could see from her balcony. When the moon was full the creek drank the glow of the moonlight, shining like a vein of silver through a stone.

Ciri had clung to the promise of that day for nearly a month, daydreaming of their adventure and what fun they would have, what creatures they might find wiggling about in the mud. But the sun had risen high and began to set over the trees and still, she found herself alone in her tower… her beautiful prison. 

Ciri ran her fingertips over the worn parapet looking out over the tops of the trees. Her fingers had grown numb from the repetitive motion, tingling with every push and pull of her hand across the coarse stone. 

The creek was so close and so far from reach.

There was a knock at the door and she jumped. It had to be him, he had promised. She could forgive the delay… and she would with some persuasion, of course.

“Princess Cirilla.” The muffled voice called through the door. It was unfamiliar and rough. Ciri turned to see a soldier standing in her doorway. “The countess wishes to see you, I am to escort you to her.” 

“Well, you may tell the countess that I do not wish to see her.” Ciri hissed, turning back to the window and pulling her knees up to her chest. “If she wishes to speak with me so very badly then she may come to me.” 

The soldier stood still, seemingly uncertain of how to proceed. He glanced at his companion who whispered something and shrugged.

 “Go on, then.” Ciri waved her hand dismissively. “I’ll wait . I’ve gotten very good at waiting.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.” The soldier bowed, turning to his companion. “Return to the Lady Bielksi and tell her the princess does not wish to leave her tower.” 

The second soldier muttered something and the first grunted in exasperation. “I don’t care, just relay the message. She is in the west wing, tending the deathbed of the mute.” 

And the world seemed to fall away beneath Cirilla's feet.

。。。oOo 。。。

The old woman held out a small bottle to the earl and bowing her head scurried away back down the long halls. Valdo sauntered to the bedside with a huff, watching the man in the bed shiver with mild annoyance. 

“Gods have mercy. If I had to listen to his pathetic death rattle any longer I was going to set a fire poker to my ears. You know for a mute, he’s rather loud. Funny, isn’t it?” 

“What is that?” The countess gestured toward the bottle, ignoring Valdo’s complaints.

“For fever and pain.” Valdo shrugged, passing the vial to her. “Seems your healer believes the fever will boil him alive if the infection doesn’t rot him out first. It’s supposedly excruciating. I'm sure you're rather disappointed he’s not coherent enough to share this with us. He’ll heal faster if sedated.”

“I see.” Lilka hummed, turning the vial over in her hand before tucking it into the sleeve of her dress.

“What are yo–” 

“Silence yourself. I will not ask again.” 

“I will do no such thing.” Valdo protested slamming his fist against the wall. “Make up your mind, woman. Do you want me to tend to his wounds or not?” 

There was a knock at the door and Lilka bade them enter. A guard stood in the doorway, bowing deep as he informed the countess that the princess would arrive shortly.

“Thank you, fetch us water and a set of fresh linens. But do not disturb us until my ward arrives. You may send them in with her if you wish.” As the door closed once more the countess stood. 

“What the fuck are you doing now? Just give him the fucking potion so he stops this incessant whining or let me snap his neck already.” Valdo groaned loudly in exasperation. 

“Still yourself or I will still you permanently . I tire of your grating voice and I have no patience for your tantrums. You cannot learn when your mouth is constantly spewing whatever ponderous drabble enters your overactive, simple mind. Now watch carefully and utter not a word or I will cut your tongue from your head and feed it to the hounds.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

“Good people of Iza, we gather here on this eve of Semik. On the sacred ground, we stand. Beside the river, the place where the very fabric of life was woven. We have come to break bread with the gods that linger here, that walk this forest under the light of the moon and bless the trees to take root and rivers to cut paths over the land.” Triss spoke with a power and poetry that would serve her well in any court, her staff of birch a steady anchor beside her. 

Geralt stood awkwardly, watching as the Iszani began to remove their cloaks and their shoes, leaving them standing on the muddy ground in nothing but white linen and flowers. 

“Master Witcher, sir. Take your shoes off. Oh, and make sure you check them for toads after, you don’t want to find a toad in your boots. Mama says they’ll give you warts on your feet.” Anneliese whispered. 

Geralt chuckled at the warning as he divested himself of his cloak and his boots. The crowd fell silent, only the occasional cry of an infant or gentle weeping could be heard. Casting his eyes over the people gathered beside the river, he felt something unfamiliar warm and aching settle deep in his chest. 

“On this night we pray that fortune will smile upon those in need of mercy, that flowers and ferns may grow from the graves of those lost between this world and the next.” 

Anneliese wiggled through the crowds, pulling Geralt behind until they stood directly in front of Triss. Before the witcher could come to the conclusion he had been roped into participating, the crowd began to part. From the forest, a group of young men carried a freshly cut birch as though it were a funeral bier. The tree wasn’t very large. It was only about as tall as Geralt, its trunk as thick around as his thigh. But the boys carried it with great care. 

“We pray that those who suffered for nought in this life shall find mercy in the bosom of the gods and that suffering, unyielding, shall come to an end…”

“Okay,” Anneliese whispered. “They will pull it forward and everyone will touch it, place their offerings on the tree. Then you’ll drag it into the river and hold it beneath the water until all the offerings have floated away.” 

Geralt opened his mouth to protest but Anneliese just nodded encouragingly and stepped behind him, pushing him forward. 

Triss had just finished her prayer, the people repeating back her final utterance. Ivan and the other young men held out the tree, now adorned with wreaths, eggs, mushrooms, flowers, cloth, and loaves of bread.

Geralt took a deep breath and stepped forward. He found himself looking back to Anneliese for reassurance, feeling rather silly as he moved to stand beside the mage. 

Triss held his hand. 

“Ready?” She whispered. 

“No.” 

All he had to do was wade into the river and push the tree underwater for a minute or two. How hard could it be?  

“Oh gods of old, hear the cries of our people and have mercy.” Triss lifted her arms and a gust of wind blew the light from the torches, leaving them in utter darkness.

。。。oOo 。。。

With great care, Lilka pulled the sheets from where they tangled around the dying man. Humming, she poked at his bandaged ribs. Rather quickly she found the worst of the swelling, where the bruising bled from beneath the bandages to crawl up his arm and down to the hem of his pants. She drove the flat of her palm against his ribs and watched with bright eyes as he jolted awake. His pale eyes rolled around, failing to focus and fluttering closed only to be pulled open by the struggle to breathe through the pain. 

“Wake up, little dove. Oh, hush now, shh , there, there… oh , I know it hurts, doesn’t it?” She leaned over him, brushing the hair from his eyes, and kissing him softly on the forehead. His teeth chattered as he shivered through the dangerously high fever. And she watched with idle fascination as the confusion on his face turned to fear.

He muttered voicelessly, clawing at his chest as if somehow he could tear out the pressure mounting beneath his ribs. 

“No, no, no… none of that now.” She pressed the flat of her palm to his ribs and leaned forward, watching as he convulsed. 

“Remember this, when next you chance to stray,” Lilka whispered in his ear. “A lesson that you would do well to remember. That which is mine is mine alone and if I cannot have it then I will destroy it with my own hand.”

。。。oOo 。。。

With a theatrical bang of the mage’s staff, the torches roared to life once more and Geralt tried his best not to roll his eyes. Quite honestly it was a nice touch. For someone as blunt and candid as Triss, she certainly had a propensity for theatrics. The drums kept time like a heartbeat, slow and steady and thrumming through his chest.

Wading into the cool water, Geralt held the tree in his arms as though it were a corpse he carried to the grave. His eyes scanned over the crowd and he caught sight of little Anneliese, smiling at him brightly and pushing her arms downward in a gesture to encourage him to submerge the sacrifice. He smiled back at her and turned to face the dark river and the forest beyond.

Well, nothing was going catastrophically wrong yet so, why not? 

Fixated on the pooling light that danced across the rushing river, he wrapped his hands around the bare wood and shoved it beneath the tide. As the birch tree was swallowed up by the dark water he felt his heart cease in his chest, nearly falling forward. He couldn’t breathe and the drum grew louder and louder. 

Jaskier’s bones were frozen, his skin boiling. The weight on his chest was unbearable, he was drowning… the dark water swallowing the ceiling. The more he tried to still his shaking body the more violently his muscles seized. 

Maybe he wasn’t as strong as he had told himself he was. At that moment he would’ve done almost anything to make it stop.

The witcher squinted into the dark waters. There was something there, just past the white linen that danced under the surface. Eventually, the fabric floated away downstream. Overcome by the instinct to reach for his sword, panic set in when he found he couldn’t move. A scream resonated from under the water, air bubbling up to the surface. Geralt’s fingers sank into the bark of the tree and tightened around soft, hot flesh. Burning hands, fastened together with ropes, clawed and scraped clumsily at his skin. Air burbled up as Jaskier struggled beneath his grip. Milky eyes stared back at him from under the black water, filled with fear and pain.

。。。oOo 。。。

Ciri didn’t wait for the guard to announce her arrival. Pushing past, she flung open the door and nearly spilt the pitcher of water all over herself, the bundle of clean linen rags tucked beneath her arm. The room wasn’t very large. The Countess de Stael stood huddled to her husband’s chest beside the small table in the far corner, her face buried in his tunic. The other half of the small space was taken up by a simple bed on a wooden platform. 

With great effort, the man in the bed turned his head toward the door. 

The earl made it to Ciri’s just in time to take the vase and linens before she dropped them and rushed to kneel at the bedside. All the horrible things that had filled her mind like a stage play of suffering could not compare to the real thing. Calling out to him, she ran her fingers across his forehead. His laboured breathing was slow and thick, rattling in his chest. His brow furrowed, lips cracked, and his burning skin soaked in sweat. 

Jaskier’s eyes fluttered open. Dull and pale; they roamed listlessly about the room. 

“Dandelion… it’s me. It’s me, Ciri.” 

The world around him failed to come into focus. 

“Dandelion… Jaskier… please, Jaskier, wake up. Don’t leave me. You promised you’d stay, that you wouldn’t leave me.” Ciri sobbed. With great effort, Jaskier lifted his hand to her face. 

The princess clutched his hand like a lifeline. He thumbed a stray tear from her cheek and she sniffled, lifting her head to meet his eyes. Unable to hold his arm up any longer he let it fall, his thumb traced the corner of her lip, turning the corner up to encourage a smile. 

Chin up. Be brave, little lion. No matter what happens...

This was it. He was going to die here. He had promised Geralt, had promised the princess and he wasn’t strong enough to endure. Perhaps, Valdo had been right about him all along. Unremarkable, useless… forgettable. He couldn’t save Geralt, he couldn’t save Ciri, he couldn’t even save himself. 

“Jaskier… Jaskier, wake up, please.” Ciri’s voice broke as she choked back the tears. “Please, you promised you wouldn’t go. Please wake up. Jaskier… can you hear me?” 

“I don’t know if he can, little one.” Lilka’s voice was gentle and pained as she stood behind Ciri, setting a hand on her shoulder.

“What happened to him? Why did no one tell me he was sick? I... didn’t know… I— ” She choked on the words, “I thought he had forgotten me. I was cross with him… I...” Ciri's mouth drew taut, her furrowed brow unable to hide the fear in her wide eyes. She fretted at the hem of her sleeves, clutching his limp hand with white knuckles.

“He pushed himself too hard and failed to heed his body's warnings. Ignoring the signs of injury until he collapsed. His fever rages on and we are not sure if he understands what is happening, I could try to rouse him one last time if you wish.” 

“Why? Why would he do this?” Ciri whined as she cupped his face with her hands. His dull eyes fluttered open and he turned his face into her hand.

“He would do anything to protect you, sweet princess. He has trained relentlessly to defend you from those who seek to do you harm. Admirable, perhaps, but foolish. He would not listen to reason and I fear it may be too late.” The countess’ face fell, a tear dancing down the curve of her cheek to land in her lap.

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

Chapter Five: Crooked Teeth

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

The year had been prosperous for Aiden of the School of the Cat. Though he had, admittedly, slain very few monsters (even fewer of the non-human variety) he had made great progress on his research and had filled his pocket with coin. 

Passing through Montecalvo, he had opted to repair his armour and service his weapons before heading to Hagge, where he’d agreed to meet the Wolves at the turn of the season and hopefully learn of Geralt’s fate. He was in no rush, having turned up empty in the way of the search for Geralt. 

It was several weeks before he needed to leave for Hagge when into his lap had dropped a curious contract. Aiden was hired to find the monster and kill it. Simple enough… in theory. 

What he uncovered was far more puzzling than a striga or kikimora. As the story went, the eldest son of a duke and a highly respected family had been slaughtered by some animal or beast on a hunting trip, leaving the younger heir to the family fortune and lands. A strange, timid child, he was. At the age of seven, he was nothing like his bold and forceful elder brother. 

Now nordlings were no strangers to tragedy, rich or poor. People died on the cusp of life and prosperity all the time. That didn’t make the lad’s death exceptional in any way. But Aiden, while unconvinced of any suspicious or even monstrous goings-on upon first hearing of the contract, had no qualms about taking the duke’s money and investigating the death of his son. It would seem the father found his death and dismemberment a little too convenient considering the timing and the father of the bride's incredible penchant for superstition which caused him to halt any alliances between the two families. 

The poor lad was set to marry in one month’s time— a young woman and heiress to a small dutchy. With their estates combined they would become the most wealthy and influential family north of the Kabat River, a small territory in the grander scheme of things but together they might've been a notable presence in Redania.  

The lad had been gored by a boar’s tusk or something of the like. But the wounds seemed too shallow for a beast of that size to make. The difference was subtle but there. Aiden began the hunt once the young man had been washed and wrapped in his burial shroud. It took him days to find where the accident occurred. He followed the trail of blood left on the ferns and leaves. If Aiden hadn’t spent the last seventy years tracking beasts of all kinds he might’ve missed it entirely. Thick brambles obfuscated the footprints and hoofmarks, or rather what should’ve been hoofmarks. Crawling on his belly into the thicket, Aiden uncovered a complete lack of evidence that a boar or beast of any kind had been there. The only evidence of the struggle was the dried blood. But deeper into the thicket, where he could barely reach, he saw a single footprint, much smaller than that of the young man who had met his demise. The boy had been murdered. The stage had been set and the scene flawlessly executed.

It was a masterpiece.   

。。。oOo 。。。

“Eskel.” Triss unfolded her arms and smiled warmly at the witcher on her doorstep. 

“Triss. I’ll cut right to it. I’ve been searching for Geralt this entire season. I haven’t heard a damned thing. I was hoping maybe you’ve heard something from him? You look relieved to see me,” Eskel noted, “that can’t be a good thing.” 

“It’s… I’m glad you’re here. I just don’t know what to do.” 

"Never thought I'd hear those words out of your mouth," Eskel smirked, but Triss didn't match his playful expression. “You don't know what to do about what?” 

“It’s Geralt.” 

“You’ve seen Geralt?” Eskel practically shouted. His heart leapt in his chest, then flopped onto his stomach at Triss’ expression. 

“Have a seat, Eskel. I have something I need to tell you.” 

Eskel growled, his head falling back to thunk against the knotted wood. “Damn.” It was all he had managed to say for the duration of Triss’s tragic tale. “Damn.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt dove deeper and deeper, fighting against the current as he reached for Jaskier. The pale milky face sunk to the bottom of the river. His fingers grasped a strand of seagrass and as he pulled it to his face, the plant transformed into the intricately woven lute strap that Jaskier used to carry. Water rushed in his ears and into his lungs. He woke with a start, throwing himself upright. His head throbbed, his mouth tasted like ash. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living.” Eskel smiled. 

“Eskel? When did you get here? What the fuck happened last night?” Geralt grunted, swinging his legs off the straw mattress and planting his bare feet on the wooden floors. He let his head fall to rest in his hands.

“Try last week .” The other witcher interjected.

“Eskel, what the fuck are you doing here?” 

“I was about to ask you the same damn question. Where were you last winter, Geralt? We thought you were dead.” 

Suddenly Geralt was up so fast he nearly knocked Triss off-balance. 

“What are you doing?” She yelped in protest as the witcher tore apart his saddlebags searching for something. 

“What… What does it mean? It has to mean something. I know it does. He was there, Triss, in the water. I saw him in the water.” 

“We’re going,” Eskel said gravely. “We’re meeting the others in Hagge.” 

“But—” 

“We can talk about this when we meet up with Aiden and Lambert. This is not up for negotiation.” 

Geralt opened his mouth to speak but didn’t protest. If anyone could help him solve this thing, it was Eskel and Aiden… maybe Lambert too. 

“When do we leave?” Geralt asked. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo didn’t hate children, that would require far more effort on his part than he felt they were worth. But he was in no way fond of them. Not several hours after he had been freed from the burden of caring for the mute he was sent to tend to the princess. The earl, as deadly and powerful as he was, had become a wetnurse for a weeping has-been poet and an orphaned crown princess. 

He flexed his hand, inspecting the fading bruises on his knuckles. Lilka had instructed him to join her in the den after Ciri was asleep and he feared what that might mean, found himself wondering if that meant he would have to endure more of Julian’s unbearable presence. He had no love for the mute, by any means. He felt the closest thing to hate for the mute that he had ever felt.

Still, he didn’t wish to bruise, bloody, and break Julian. Perhaps once or twice would be cathartic — but the act of it had consumed him, his days filled with beating a man who refused to fight back. Julian haunted him, a living ghost, a waking nightmare. Valdo longed to kill him and put an end to both of their sufferings. 

Lilka had criticised him time and time again for his distaste for torture. Though she claimed she found it unnecessary she revelled in it and he knew that. Julian was nothing more than a porcelain doll for her to play with, to fiddle with and break, and to piece back together.

“Can you sing?” The princess peeped from her pile of quilts and furs.

“ Hmm ?” 

“Can you sing, Earl Bielski?” 

“I can do many things, lion cub.” She was still waiting for a direct answer and Valdo was not about to sing a lullaby to the princess. “You should be sleeping,” he added, hoping it would deter her from further discussion. 

“I can’t.” The princess whined.

Valdo felt his eye twitch and smoothed over the agitated muscles with his fingertips. “And why is that?” 

She was quiet for a moment, fiddling with the embroidery on the sleeves of her night dress. “What if Dandelion dies while I’m sleeping, what if he dies and I’m not there?” 

Julian would be fine. Even if he wasn’t, Valdo failed to see why she wanted to be present for his death. It was a gruesome thought for a child to have, even if it was driven by attachment and sentimentality. 

“I’ve learned that sometimes you’d rather hear a lie than the truth.” Valdo sighed, sitting on the foot of her bed and smoothing his hands over the black velvet of his doublet coat. “This is a common desire, many people do.” 

She leaned forward, hopeful eyes glowing in the light of the candles at her bedside. 

“The truth is often ugly, and it stares at us unblinking with hollow eyes and crooked teeth. But lying to you will grant you no great favour. I cannot promise you his well-being, not this night or any night after. At any time you may lose him and any embrace could be your last. This is simply the way of things. Try to sleep, princess. Your tutors will be here early in the morning.” 

The princess let out a helpless whine and wept into her small hands.

 。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt had taken far better care of his horse than he had himself — which wasn't altogether surprising. But the extent to which Geralt had neglected himself was truly frightening, and Roach wasn’t in perfect health by any stretch of the imagination, not compared to the spoiled beast she had always been. 

If she was led unburdened she would most likely make the journey to Kaer Morhen without many complications. But Geralt wouldn’t make it up the mountain pass on foot, not in his condition.

Eskel hadn’t spent an entire year chasing ghosts just to lose his brother now. He’d carry Geralt up to the keep if he had to. But his brother needed help and not help that any village healer would be able to offer. He needed Vesemir.  

Geralt could ride Eskel’s horse Scorpion, and Eskel would take the pass on foot. It would be slow going but they would make it. 

If Lambert and Aiden were waiting for them in Hagge, as they had planned to, then he would have even more help with Geralt. The witcher mulled over his thoughts and pushed aside his burgeoning fears as he stripped the horses of their tack and settled them into the stables beside the inn. 

“What am I going to do with him?” he asked Roach, scratching her forelock tenderly. 

Once the horses were situated and the stablehand was tipped, he took one last deep breath and headed back toward the inn. A bowl of hot stew and a mug of piss-swill mead would do Geralt some good.

Geralt wandered. Eskel had told him to stay put but, despite what everyone seemed to think, Geralt wasn’t a child and he didn’t need to be coddled. He wasn’t insane either. Something had happened that night in the woods, he just knew it. And he had seen Jaskier in the water, clear as day. If Triss couldn’t help him and Eskel wouldn’t help him, he’d find Jaskier on his own. Cirilla had perished in the sacking of Cintra and he would never forgive himself for that. Once he uncovered Jaskier’s fate, he would find the princess’ body and bury her. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think about that now. As he tried to banish the image of a young princess from his mind, conjured by the descriptions that Jaskier had relayed to him in his stories, he heard a familiar sound. The plucking of lute strings. 

He followed the jaunty tune through the open market beside the inn until he found a young bard, standing on an overturned crate holding Jaskier’s lute. Geralt saw red. 

“Where did you get this?” He snarled as he muscled his way through the crowd, lifting the young bard up by his doublet. The minstrel yelped, frozen in absolute terror as his feet dangled inches from the ground. 

“Wh- what?” He choked, the collar of his royal purple doublet catching about his throat.

“Where did you get this?” Geralt screamed, clutching the neck of the instrument with enough force to hear the fragile wood groan beneath his grip. 

“I bought it.” The young man wailed. “I bought it from a luthier named Talhauser.” 

“Where?” 

“B- Brenna. I bought it in Brenna from Talhauser. Please don’t kill me, sir. Take it, you can have it. I—” 

In the back of his throat, Geralt tasted blood and bile, mud grit between his teeth. Rainwater dribbled down his face and into his eyes. A droning hum started at the base of his skull, growing louder and louder until it was nothing but screams.

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo watched the man in the bed toss in the throes of whatever nightmare gripped him. He was glad to soon be rid of that cramped room and of the horrid duty of tending to Julian’s wounds. Valdo had been many things in his lifetime — a nobleman’s son, a bard, a thief, a killer, an earl… but he wasn’t a healer and he had no intention of continuing to play nursemaid for his former bardic rival.  Julian was no longer tripping along the line between life and death but he wasn’t what Valdo would call ‘well’ either. 

Lilka had requested Julian be brought to the east gardens, calling it “ an opportunity for enlightenment ”. Whatever she was planning, it couldn’t be good. 

He was hopeful though. Maybe Lilka would kill the mute and put them both out of their shared misery, but he seriously doubted that.

“I would be so lucky,” The earl muttered to the unconscious man before shaking him awake. 

Geralt ran up the stone stairs that spiralled upward in a tight passageway, a torch in one hand and his silvered sword in the other. Jaskier chased after him, running as fast as he could but he couldn’t catch him couldn’t keep up, couldn’t fucking breathe. He cried out, but he made no sound. The stairs began to slip from beneath his feet, hot blood dribbled down the worn rock and cut grooves across the stone. 

A cold hand patted Jaskier’s cheek and he struggled to open his heavy eyelids. 

For a brief second, as his blurry eyes darted around the room Jaskier saw him — the witcher sat on a log beside a fire, staring at his hands. There was someone else there, they were shouting but Jaskier couldn’t make out the words, a gruff voice puncturing his thoughts and leaving holes in the sleepy vision. 

“The countess de Stael, Lady Lilka Bielski has summoned you to the eastern gardens. I am to take you to her.” The guard said, hands behind his back and posture poised and effortless. Valdo stood at the door, expressionless and poised. Jaskier’s heart sank.

。。。oOo 。。。

The door opened with a splintering creak and shut with a moan of wood on wood. 

“They here yet?” Lambert asked. 

“No,” Aiden replied. 

“What took you so long?” Lambert grumbled, scratching at his chest. 

“I got caught up," Aiden said with a shrug. "Chatting with a peddler at the bar, he shared some rather interesting news with me.” 

“ Oh ?” 

“Yes, it appears as though the crown prince of Kovir is dead — choked on a pearl onion.” 

Lambert laughed uproariously, throwing himself back down on the tangle of rough linen sheets. 

His amusement was short-lived though, as he watched Aiden pull a leatherbound journal from his pack, wrapped with a cord and stuffed full of scraps of parchment and scribbles. 

“Oh no… No, no, no. Don’t you dare .” He warned, but Aiden ignored him. 

“These incidents — at a glance they all look isolated, commonplace even. But there is something about them, a pattern… Just look at this.” 

Lambert groaned as Aiden pulled out a map and laid it out across the floor by the light of the hearth. 

"The assassination attempt of King Foltest of Temeria, the death of the young marquess Strossen in Nazair, Count Döfering of Cidaris suddenly struck with what was ruled the only case of the plague Cidaris has seen in over thirty years, the earl Uther de Eckbert of Angren, set to merge two very powerful earldoms, was suddenly run through by an elk on a hunting trip, and just days ago Halver Guthbint in Montecalvo was stabbed to death with a boar’s tusk. He was set to merge two dutchies in his marriage to a young dutchess in what would be a small but powerful alliance— and that’s just to name a few. The Szlachta are dropping like… like…” 

“Like flies?” Lambert offered with an unenthused wave of his hand. 

“No, like…” Aiden hummed, searching for the words. With a twitch of his nose, he fixed Lambert with a solemn look. “Like doves.”

Lambert scratched his chest and muttered under his breath, “What the fuck does that even mean?” 

“Someone is hunting them.” 

“Good! It’s about fucking time.” Lambert called out to the ceiling, but Aiden ignored him.

“Each of these incidents has led to a shift in political power, sometimes subtle but sometimes they’ve led to massive upheaval. In any case, someone stood to benefit greatly from these deaths.” 

“And that someone is…” Lambert prompted. 

“Well, not a single someone, I just mean that someone stood to benefit in each of these assassinations.  Now that being said I do believe there is someone who is orchestrating all of this. Someone moving the pawns and calling the shots so to speak.” 

“This is exactly my point,” Lambert laughed. “Nobles have murdered each other since the dawn of time and they’ll continue to do so until the end of it. They murder commonfolk too, the difference is no one hears about it because no one gives a damn. How many people did this Earl Eckbert kill before he died? I wouldn’t call a haughty young nobleman stupid enough to get impaled on elk antlers an assassination. I’d call it delicious irony.” 

“But what if it wasn’t? What if it was just made to look like an accident?” 

Lambert groaned long and loud, throwing his arm over his eyes. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier blinked away the brilliant sunset, his lungs crackling in the frozen air. Lilka stood in the gardens, dressed in brilliant furs and deep blue silks. She turned to him, the picture of perfection, a meticulously crafted porcelain doll. Jaskier shivered against the frost in his shift and trousers. There was someone else there— a bedraggled man wearing clothes not unlike his own. He had a large nose, deep chestnut eyes, and a scruffy beard. 

Lilka positioned them across from each other, about a man’s height away. 

“I have brought a gift for you, my little Fisher.” Lilka stepped forward and with a cruel smile held the blade between the two men. “The price of your freedom is the head of this man and that of his daughter. Though I don’t imagine either will pose much of an obstacle to you. He is no fighter by any stretch of the imagination, his child no older than nine years of age. Kill them both and your debt to me will be satisfied.” 

There was a wild look in the man’s eyes, weary numbness burned out by a bright blaze of hope. 

“Watch and learn well husband,” Lilka said as they stepped away from the two men.

Jaskier dove for the knife, knocking it from the reach of his right hand in his haste. Throwing himself across the frozen ground he managed to grab it with his other hand, his finger catching along the sharpened edge.

 “Pluck apart the strings of a heart and you will find that which threads the soul. Sometimes the strands are thick as a halyard, others are as fine as horsehair.” 

The Fisher sidestepped Jaskier, grabbing hold of his wrist and pulling the blade from his hand. 

“Take care not to cut it.” Lilka cautioned. “A man with nothing to lose is worthless. He is but a cold pit of Ash, where a molten fire once burned.” 

Valdo could hear the smile in her voice, eyes fixed on the scene that played out in the garden of roses. The Fisher was behind Julian, choking him, pushing the blade toward his neck. The earl felt a flutter in his throat, a peculiar sense of dread as one does in the face of preventable tragedy. He had taught Julian how to escape a hold like that at least a hundred times. 

Lilka held her hands together to keep her pale fingers from the cold, hidden in the fur lining of her billowing sleeves. “If you sever the ties you will stunt your power and crush your reach.”

It took Valdo more effort than it should have to maintain his look of utter disinterest. With a sharp pull of the fisher’s arm and a sweep of his foot, Julian escaped his grasp. Using the flat of his palm, he drove the blade into the throat of the man who held it.

“Tangle the thread about your finger and the man becomes a marionette, an instrument…” The countess stifled a giggle, “A wolf in a cage, a viper in a birch basket. Find what he loves and take hold of it, and he is yours to command.” 

Jaskier hissed through clenched teeth, clambering atop the fisher and twisting the blade. He pulled it from the man’s throat, releasing a spray of deep red upon the budless rose bushes.

。。。oOo 。。。

“Eat. At least five bites.” Eskel sighed through a mouthful of cheese, he pulled a piece of rind from his mouth and tossed it into the fire.

“Why is everyone all of a sudden so concerned with my eating habits? I’m fine, mother .” Geralt snarled but made no move to reach for the handful of cured meat and dried fruit in front of him, his eyes held by the flames of the campfire as the wet wood burned, spitting dark smoke into the air and choking off the crisp night wind.

“ Why ?” Eskel’s patience was wearing thin. “ Why ? Because you look like you’ve been dead for a year, Geralt — that’s why.” 

“Maybe I have,” Geralt mumbled to his hands.

The blade fell from Jaskier’s hands to land in the dirt with a thud.  Blood splattered and sprayed across his face and chest, soaking the ill-fitting tunic that hung from his gaunt shoulders. It dripped from his delicate fingers and smeared across his forearms, his breath blowing out like puffs of pipe smoke as he heaved. Jaskier was barely keeping himself upright, swaying like a willow branch. 

“Are you—” Eskel cut himself off slamming his hands against the rock he was sitting on. “No, look at me! Have seen yourself lately, Geralt? It’s like you’ve gone mad . You got us run out of town and we are lucky that it didn’t end in violence. You tried to kill a man today because he was playing a lute that looked like the one Jaskier used.” 

“It doesn’t look like Jaskier’s lute. It is Jaskier’s lute.” Geralt snapped defensively, running his hands through his filthy hair in frustration.

“And? So what if it is? He said he bought it from a vendor in Brenna, That’s not a crime Geralt, and certainly not one punishable by death. Maybe someone found his lute in the woods and sold it or maybe Jaskier sold it himself.” 

Geralt stood decisively, nearly marching right into the campfire that sat between them. Thankfully Eskel was faster. He sidestepped the fire, planting his hands firmly on his brother’s chest before Geralt could trip into the flames.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Eskel growled. 

“To Brenna to the merchant Talhauser.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” Eskel watched his brother carefully. He was thin and haggard, weaker than he had once been but he was dangerous, unpredictable, and wild in ways that Eskel had never seen. He watched as Geralt’s eyes flitted to the swords that rested behind Eskel just outside of their tent. Eskel knew that look — Geralt was judging his chances. “Sit back down or I swear to the fucking gods I will break your fucking legs.” 

Geralt snarled with a look that Eskel had never seen, full of hate and fury, like a promise from a caged animal to kill its master once freed. It hurt… more than it should have, but Eskel would gladly take the pain if it meant Geralt’s life.

“I’m… I’m scared, Geralt.” Eskel admitted. “Something is wrong with you. You would’ve killed that man if I hadn’t intervened. You’re not in your right mind, you’re not… well.” 

“I’m not insane, Eskel.” 

“Don’t try and argue that point with me right now.” Eskel laughed bitterly.

“You weren’t there that night.” Geralt barked, snapping his jaws as he pulled himself away from his brother’s reach. “Something happened out in those woods. I can’t eat, I can’t fucking sleep. I… I see him when I close my eyes I can still see him and… it’s like…” Geralt’s words fell off, slipping into a jumble of nonsense as he blinked away the tears. 

“Geralt—” Eskel reached for his brother but it only seemed to drive him further back, the spark of anger returning to his voice once again. 

“I’m not fucking insane, I'm… I’m haunted. ” Geralt pounded on his chest with his fist, sinking to his knees. “Something happened out in those woods… something happened .” 

“Maybe you’re right and maybe Jaskier is alive out there somewhere. And… and maybe Aiden is right and all the assassinations of nobles and wars waged over the past hundred years within the northern kingdoms are because of a secret society that orchestrates them . Maybe there is some truth to these insane theories. I’m not dismissing that. But you are not in your right mind right now, Geralt.”

“If you would just listen —” 

"No, I’m done listening,” Eskel shouted, slamming his fist into a tree behind him. “You need food and sleep. You had us run out of that shithole with pitchforks and torches. You nearly killed a man, you’re— I can’t reason with you when you’re like this, not until you start taking care of yourself. And then, if you want to talk, we can talk… but not now.”

Eskel could see it in his brother’s eyes, the indecision. Geralt was weighing his options and he wasn’t particularly stable enough to make wise decisions. “Don’t make me axii you, Geralt.” 

Geralt snarled, but his shoulders slumped in some measure of defeat and he slumped back down on the fallen log he had been resting on. Reluctantly he reached for his bowl of stew and poked at it with a spoon. 

“We’ll reach Hagge tomorrow and, if those two idiots can be counted on to remember the one damned thing they were told to do, Aiden and Lambert will be there. We’ll get you sorted out. I promise…” 

。。。oOo 。。。

The sun had long since set and Jaskier had retreated to his hollow. Idly, he realized that the kettle over the fire had been boiling long enough now that it was rattling, water trying to jump from the spout and sizzling in the fire. With a rag to guard his hand, he dumped it into the painted wash basin and refilled the kettle with the cold water that had been brought for him. Vigorously he scrubbed his skin until nearly every inch of him was raw.

Jaskier had watched for years as Geralt fought unthinkable beasts, his sword moving with grace and precision. The bard had always assumed that it would be harder to kill a man. Had thought that he wouldn’t have the strength or the stomach for it. The latter was certainly true. But aside from the bile that burned in his nose and throat, he was completely unscathed. It was easy. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Perhaps there would be some great struggle, like the man in the market. Scrambling through the mud, blood, dirt, and rain choking him as he dug his hands into the large rock and lifted it over his head again and again and...

It felt wrong to let his mind wander, wrong to turn and run or shy away. So instead he watched on in horror, committing to memory the awful sound a throat makes when cut, the feel along the blade as it met little resistance slicing through the meat. The inhuman screech as blood gushed down his front and soaked Jaskier like rain. The horrid rattle of air wheezed past the severed cords like wind through the dry reeds. 

He forced himself to watch as the light flickered in the man’s eyes, his limbs flinging haphazardly this way and that, grasping blindly at his killer as he slid to the ground.  The dull thud of a body hitting the dirt, limp and pliant, like the toll of an old church bell. It was loud and messy, but worst of all it was slow. It took the fisher several minutes to cease his gurgling struggles and fall still, face contorted in anguish. Those minutes felt like lifetimes.

And as Jaskier scrubbed the dry, gummy blood away until the water ran red like wine and his fingers were raw, he told himself that it would never get any easier. That he would never get used to the weight of that life he had taken as it hung around his neck like a yoke. That he would never forget the face of the man in the market, would never forget the fisher. Perhaps if he forced himself to bear witness to his crimes that his humanity would somehow remain intact.

What a pretty lie that was.

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

Chapter Six: The Darkling Thrush

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware.

— Thomas Hardy

Jaskier closed the book of poems and sighed, pulling the mess of dark hair from his face. The length of it had never bothered him before and he often let it grow out whenever the whimsy overcame him. But now that he was no longer a lovestruck lutenist but rather a… whatever he was, he found it got in the way. As it turned out it was rather hard for him to see the pommel of a blade as it swung for his face if there was a curtain of dark hair plastered to his skin with sweat and blood.

He would need to cut it, but what would the countess do if he simply hacked it off himself? Would she mind at all? Would she notice? Or would she do something drastic and horrific to serve as a show of strength and power over him?

A growl built in his chest. Every decision he made had to account for her whims. After all, she had made it rather clear that he was nothing more than a pet to her — an insect in a glass garden, bound to life and to the countess by threat of Cirilla's safety. As he closed his eyes he thought of the wingless butterfly wriggling across his lap.

The thought of eventual escape seemed more and more like a fantasy with every passing day. He had seen Ciri only a handful of times when permitted and organized by the countess herself. Any attempts to blindly thrash his way out or muscle free would be met with swift correction. It was a game now and he had no choice but to play. 

How long until the first snows? Can’t be long now. He pondered, pulling his cloak tighter against the bone-chilling wind. Despite the constant attention of two healers and a mage, he hurt all the time and the cold air did nothing to ease the aches that stiffened his body. They had managed to keep him alive — no small feat considering Valdo’s mercilessness. 

A year had passed since they had been captured in Brenna. He had spent a majority of that time simply standing there as a dulled blade was thrust into his hand or Valdo tried to teach him how to oil a dart with poison. But everything changed with the death of the Fisher.

How long? He wondered. How long would Lilka play her game before she grew tired of him? How long would the pattern hold? How long until the earl truly lost his temper and, despite the leash that choked him, tore out Jaskier’s throat like a rabid dog?

The countess could cage him, take away what little autonomy and freedom he still possessed — but she was going to have to try harder if she hoped to break his spirit. He laughed bitterly at the thought. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, particularly not himself, that he feared he felt the cracks forming. He feared he was already beginning to break. 

As Jaskier closed the window and limped back inside, mindful of the linen bandages around his foot and ankle, he wondered if he’d outlive himself — if he’d watch what was left of the man he had once been, wither and die or if Valdo would kill him first. 

。。。oOo 。。。

There was a knock at the door and Lambert didn’t stir, still snoring loudly. Aiden shot upright in bed, straining his ears to hear any whispers outside the door. He heard the shifting of heavy boots weighed down by armour — a guard or a witcher, perhaps. Another knock, this one more impatient than the last. Still Lambert didn’t stir.

“Enhanced senses, my arse.” Aiden grumbled as he rolled over Lambert and out of the bed. He pulled on his trousers as the impatient rapping continued. He threw open the door to find Eskel, soaking wet with rain, steaming in the warm inn. “Well, hell—” 

“I need to get back downstairs before something happens. Meet us down there when you’re dressed.” And with that he turned and marched down the stairs. 

“Us?” Aiden blinked. “Oh, this is gonna be good.”

“Was the food not to your liking, dove?” The countess sighed, her head resting in her hand, cheeks rosy from the wine and the warmth of the fire. “I couldn’t help but notice you barely touched your plate.” 

Jaskier looked up from his hands, panic flooding his blood. He was unsure of how long it had been since his focus had diverted. He had lost himself in the soft pads of his fingertips where there once had been calloused skin. Running his thumbs across the calluses of his palms. The mark of a fighter or a labourer – no longer a musician.

Daintily Lilka brought a blackberry to her lips, pausing to look at him. He could see the wheels in her head turning as she picked apart his expression and posture. Gods, how he hated the feeling of her eyes as she peeled him apart, dug her claws into him, and pulled the strands from his bones like a vulture to a bloated carcass. 

“Have you fallen ill, darling?” 

Jaskier’s tongue darted out to wet his chapped lips. He swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.

They had been sitting in the drawing room for nearly an hour, awaiting the earl’s return from safely delivering the princess back to her ivory prison after their supper. They sat at a small ornate table, spreads of fruit, wines, and breads dotted the surface. 

“You misunderstand my intent.” She stated with certainty.

Oh, this ought to be interesting. He furrowed his brow, lifting his head and pulling the hair from his eyes. 

“You think I wish to break you apart and I don’t.” She said as she lifted her wine, the edges of the glass catching the light of the hearth. “Quite the opposite.”

Jaskier hadn’t meant to laugh. But truly, it was a funny thought. 

That’s exactly what you’re trying to do. Months of broken skin and broken bones, tears, and blood. If you don’t wish to break me then what else could you possibly want? 

The countess replied as if she could hear his very thoughts. “For what purpose would I shape you into some mindless thing? Why, if that were so, I would simply kill you and employ a necromancer to breathe life into your corpse. Would that not be easier?” 

Jaskier didn’t doubt that the countess could find a dark mage to do her bidding, if she didn’t already have one in her employ. The doors were opened by a serving girl, and Valdo strutted in like a peacock.

"I must admit, this power of mine is intoxicating." The Countess continued. "The power to turn people against their better nature, to urge them forward along untravelled paths, to mould and shape them into something they are not." 

"To break them," Valdo interjected as he loosened the cuffs of his doublet and gracelessly threw himself down on the divan. 

"Not to break them, no.” Lilka quirked an eyebrow in irritation at the interruption. “To break a man is the work of a brute and it lacks finesse and skill. Anyone can break a man. Torture is often no more than a means with which to break a man, and I find it... unfulfilling. Torture, in the end, will yield nothing but a corpse to dispose of. Perhaps a corpse can feed the soil, but it is of no use to me. It is unsustainable.” 

“Delicate and precise is the work I do. To unravel, to untangle, to remake… that is true power. The strong will survive and be made anew, scarcely remembering who they were before.” Lilka said. 

And what of the weak?

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my unnaturally long life and just last winter Eskel tried to tell me that he saw a kikimora fall in love with a donkey." 

Lambert felt Aiden’s boot collide with his shin beneath the table and yelped.

"It was a goat ," Eskel muttered into his mug of ale.

Geralt hadn’t bothered to look up from the dented pewter plate that held his cold dinner. He swayed a little, and Eskel worried he might lose consciousness right there in the middle of the bustling tavern. 

Aiden called his name, reaching for him but stopping short out of an abundance of caution. If Geralt heard him he didn’t give any indication of it, lost in thought or perhaps losing consciousness, they weren’t certain.

The three other witchers shared a look of concern. Aiden had insisted a proper meal would be good for Geralt, despite Eskel’s initial hesitancy to bring him anywhere near the crowded tavern. The Cat was beginning to think Eskel had been right.

“We’ve got a long journey ahead to the keep. We should all try to get some rest.”

Lifting his head, Geralt uttered the first cohesive string of words since they had met in the tavern. “I’m not going back with you.” 

Lambert laughed, a bitter mix of concern and indignation. “Like hell, you aren’t.” 

Geralt muttered something else but it was too broken apart to make any sense. 

They waited to see if he would repeat himself but he seemed content to sit there, his eyes trained on his hands, fist curling around a dull steak knife as if he had forgotten how to use it.

Something settled uneasily in Aiden’s gut, something in the back of his mind that told him this was going to end in disaster.

“Oh, come now, don't give me that look." The countess pouted, mockingly. "You look at me as though I’ve stolen your life away. When I brought you here, you had been stripped bare of all you possessed and all you had been. You were dead. A corpse, a husk, a shell, heaving in the mud over a headless man.”

Jaskier choked on the flooding memory of that rainy day in Brenna, hot blood gushing from his gut and down the side of his leg, the heavy, soaked fabric pulling at his skin as he crawled through the mud like an animal. Ciri's scream resonated through his jaw and it felt like it would tear him apart. But it was drowned out by the wet crunching and cracking as he smashed the rock into the man's face again and again. He knew he was dead. His face was gone. Surely a man without a face couldn’t be alive. But he couldn't stop, not until brain matter speckled his face and soaked his skin, and he collapsed into the filthy street.  

He drummed his fingers on his thighs, focusing on his breathing. Hands clumsily grasping at the fabric of his tunic. It was as if his fingers knew there was somewhere, someway they should be but they were utterly unable to comply. At some point he had pushed his chair from the table, nearly doubled over, trying not to be sick. 

Valdo snorted at that, summoning a serving girl with a wave of his wrist to fill his glass with more wine. It was very clear to everyone in attendance he had no intention of remaining sober any longer. 

Clattering discordant grief built in Jaskier’s chest like tumbling stones to the sound of the harpsichord as the young girl plinked away at its keys. 

“I find it amusing that you wrestle with this concept, dove. Considering the amount of time you wasted trudging along beside a witcher.” 

“Yes,“ Valdo sneered, “I heard you kept one as a pet for a time.” He drained the glass that had just been filled with wine.

The countess ignored him, pulling the cherry stem from her mouth to inspect the knot. Slowly her eyes drifted to Jaskier, drinking him in with idle satisfaction. “Is that true?”

“Never tried my hand at one,” The earl lamented. “Though I would simply love to play with yours, Julian. What did you say his name was?” 

Jaskier bit back the tears, fighting to force the swelling tide of emotions back down into his tightening chest before he crumbled to pieces. 

“Oh, darling, look at his face,” Lilka said to her husband. “He’s gone, isn’t he? Oh, how tragic. Your witcher is dead.” 

Before he could meet her burning gaze, Valdo interjected, accenting his words with a slap to the arse of the poor servant. 

“Poor boy’s lost his mangy mutt. Or were you the pet, eh ? A little bardling to choke on that fat, monstrous cock… a bitch in heat brought to heel?” 

Geralt stood abruptly, slamming his hands on the table in a disjointed motion. If it hadn’t been for the weight of Eskel sitting on the bench beside Geralt the whole thing would’ve toppled back, possibly knocking the table over in the other direction. 

Just as swiftly as Geralt had risen, so did the other Wolves, all poised to strike if needed. The tavern fell still and silent. The air stunk of fear and adrenaline as the patrons watched the strangers in the corner.

Jaskier’s fist collided with the table. Crystal clattered and silver rang as his chair scraped across the cobblestones. He snarled at the earl, his fist tightening around the silver knife in his hand.

“Don’t torment the mute, it's not as though he could tell us of his indiscretions even if he wished to. Besides, his exploits are his own and not sensible talk for the table.” The countess watched Jaskier carefully, a curious smile tugging at her lips. 

“It’s far too much work to maintain control of a kingdom in the light. Too many eyes on you, too many witnesses. But here," She threw her arms wide gesturing to the empty drawing room, "in my kingdom… in the darkness, on my throne, I reign uncontested, and not a soul in the waking world knows. A man cannot covet that which he does not know to be, nor can he prepare for it. How can you fight something that isn’t real? It begins to take on a life of its own in myth and shadow. And there it resides, ever-wakeful, ever-changing in the minds of men. It is formless, powerful, and unstoppable.

“That is true power, forget kingdoms, tsardoms, dutchies, and principalities. Kingdoms will rise and fall like the tide and their rulers along with them. True power resides within the shadows, where no one tarries, where no sane man dares venture. The things that go bump in the night, the beast scratching at the door. What is that thing you always say, darling?” 

“Never let your subjects think for themselves.” Valdo slurred. “You can kill a king with a well-placed dagger but it is much harder to kill an idea.” 

“Precisely.” The countess plucked a cherry from a brass dish and popped it into her mouth. “Not knowing what awaits them in the darkness is what drives men to madness. People will imagine horrors that you could not conjure with flights of winged devils at your back. The unknown is far more terrifying than some fat, balding prick who sits upon a throne and spends his days raping poor milkmaids and running his greasy fingers over mountains of orens, bemoaning the distribution of grain rations to the poor.

"My power rests beneath my feet. It is the power by which I have built my kingdom, and by which one day I shall die.” Leaning back in her velvet chair she tucked a leg beneath her thigh and smoothed over the folds of her gown.

“Think of it like this,” she continued, twirling her fingers over an intricate birch basket on the table, tracing patterns on the lid.  “It is like a viper coiled in a basket. Every time I shift my grasp upon the woven reeds I feel the thrill of the gamble. My heart flutters with curiosity. And the question repeats in my mind — when will it strike? When will I feel its fangs sink into me?" 

She leaned forward suddenly, her eyes alight with something that made Jaskier recoil. Lifting the lid she tipped it over upon the set table and out of the basket slithered a large black snake. Jaskier stumbled backward and the countess laughed. 

The creature hissed, pulling its head back as it coiled around a dish of blackberries. As Jaskier retreated the serpent followed, slithering across the small table with frightening speed. 

“Why is he just standing there?” Lambert hissed. “Everyone is watching us.” 

But Geralt made no move to respond, he just stood there unsteadily as though at any moment he might crumple beneath his weight. 

“Sit down you fucking oaf, before you get us all tossed out into the street,” Lambert said. 

There was something distant, unnatural in the look upon Geralt’s face. Aiden called to Lambert, trying to stop the shipwreck he saw playing out before his very eyes.

"The viper will strike… animals are predictable if nothing else and they will bite when cornered. I too was once a viper in the woven basket.” A distant look softened her features, as though she had stirred up some an old ache like the fog from the dredge of a riverbed. “And when the moment was mine to claim I sunk my fangs into the beast that caged me."

The adder recoiled, its head scrunching back, poised to strike. Jaskier brought the knife down, pinning the beast just beneath its head. Unclean, sloppy, hesitant — his strike almost missed the adder’s body entirely. As the snake wriggled about the knife sliced down its side and almost slipped from beneath the skin entirely. Jaskier held fast, hoping it would hold before he got himself bit. 

“My, my,” Lilka’s eyes grew cold. Her amusement soured as the snake twisted and curled over itself. It knocked over a bowl of pomegranates and a silver carafe of juice as it writhed, pinned to the table by the silver knife. Lilka’s plush, berry-stained lip curled up, exposing her pearly white teeth. “What a vicious little beast, you are.”

Lambert reached across the table for Geralt’s wrist but was stopped short by the dull pewter knife that jammed through his outstretched wrist, pinning him to the oak table. The young witcher screamed, staring down at the knife protruding from his arm.

“Vicious, little beast.” Geralt spat, eyes glossed over with that strange distant look. 

Geralt faltered, releasing his grip on the knife now wedged between the bones of his brother’s arm. 

“What the hell was that?” Eskel demanded, shouting over Lambert’s screams. The tavern fell utterly silent as the patrons watched the witchers in fear, some cowering at the sight.

“So much for not making a scene,” Aiden said, bemoaning his fate to the ceiling of the tavern. “Melitele have mercy and strike me where I stand. I cannot take you dogs anywhere .” The Cat took one long drink from his tankard before he slid between Eskel and Lambert. 

“He fucking stabbed me,” Lambert shouted.

“Shut up, Lambert.” Eskel barked back. One hand gripping Geralt’s shoulder, the other clutching a dagger pointed at his brother’s belly. “Don’t say a fucking word. Outside. Now .” 

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.” The young witcher seethed and snapped his jaws like a wolf caught in an iron trap. 

“Get him out of here, Eskel,” Aiden commanded before gripping the handle of the knife. “And you, I’ll let you up if you promise to behave.” 

“Fuck that,” Lambert ground out. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.” 

“No, you’re not. Listen well, pup — I’ve had a rather long, confusing day and I don’t have the patience for your indignant rage, no matter how justified. I swear I’ll pin your other wrist to the wall unless you promise to behave . Now I’m going to let you up, I have some very serious damage control to do.” 

Lambert swallowed the fire burning in his belly and fixed his rage-filled yellow eyes on Aiden. It wasn’t until he gave a curt, little nod that Aiden pulled the dull knife from Lambert’s wrist, unpinning him from the table. 

Eskel shoved Geralt out the door so hard that Geralt tripped and nearly fell flat on his face. Geralt was light on his feet, and that shouldn’t be enough to destabilise him. But Eskel had learned rather quickly that nothing was as it had been with Geralt. 

“You better have a damned good explanation for what just happened.” Eskel’s voice was low and quiet, controlled. 

The distant expression on Geralt’s face stirred into a kind of tired confusion. “I… there was an adder.” 

“An adder?” The witcher repeated in disbelief.

“Yes, a… a black snake there on the table. It was coming right for me. I…” 

“There was nothing there, Geralt,” Eskel shouted. “You stood up. Lambert was trying to keep you from making a scene. All he did was reach for you and you fucking stabbed him.” 

“I— I’m sorry. Fuck . It was there, I swear I—” 

“Enough.” Eskel said quietly, holding up a hand and screwing his eyes shut. “We need to get you home to Vesemir.” 

。。。oOo 。。。

What a vicious little beast, you are. The words echoed back in his head as Jaskier held fast to the knife against the struggling serpent. For a moment, across from him he could see Geralt — plain as day. Not quite Geralt, though. A wraith, an echo, a ghost. 

Lilka didn’t say another word on the matter. Uttering a gentle “come” to both of the men with her as they retreated from the room with the dead adder to another drawing room within the palace. Luckily, it seemed, she wasn’t going to punish him for killing her precious pet. Jaskier took a book from the shelf and thumbed through it. He knew he could not leave until he was dismissed but he took no joy in playing witness to the earl and countess as they argued. 

Jaskier had learned rather quickly that argumentation was merely a form of foreplay between the countess and the earl. Certainly, they would claim that they were there to discuss matters of court and politics, the war effort, and whatnot, but Jaskier wasn’t a fool. Besides, it seemed rather counterintuitive to invite a mute to a debate. 

In a velvet chair by the hearth, he would sit, sometimes for hours on end. It was a rather impressive work of art, the fabric was the color mustard seed, designs embroidered delicately in the fabric — flowers, birds, and butterflies. His fingers traced around the head of a pheasant and over the back of a cluster of chamomile flowers, back down to a gardenia then over to a falcon… or maybe it was a hawk. He couldn’t tell, the scarlet and deep gold threads were so delicate and small, such an impressive work of art, reduced to a prison. 

He listened for a time, trying to follow the strange cant of their conversation — the unspoken code, and language with which they discussed the matters of the night under the light of day. He had become fairly skilled at deciphering the nonsensical babble into something significant. But it hardly mattered, soon their spirited colloquy would end and they would find themselves naked, spread across the bearskin rug, the divan, an armchair, or the study desk. And Jaskier would be expected to wait patiently until he was dismissed. 

He crossed his ankles and let his head rest against his shoulder. A dull ache began to settle behind his eyes and in the back of his teeth. He rubbed circles around his eye sockets and felt some relief beneath the pressure. 

His fingers fretted at the fabric of the chair. He couldn’t help their twitching, it was as though they remembered there was somewhere they should be, something they should remember but couldn’t manage to find it. As if his hands knew what they had lost and were desperately searching for it. 

When it became clear they would be there all afternoon Jaskier plucked another book from the shelves of the lavish study and made his way back to his chair. It was bound in dark leather with red stitching, a bird with a speckled breast and big dark eyes upon a twisting branch had been cut into the leather, and embossed with blue ink.

And until she took pity on him and dismissed him, he was expected to sit there and witness. And if the countess was feeling particularly cruel she would force him to watch and fix her eyes upon his as— 

Suddenly the countess shoved Valdo off of her, and he growled. The poor bastard had been trying to unlace his trousers for the better part of an hour. Jaskier rested his face in his palm to hide his grin and wondered if she intended to make Valdo soil his breeches with spend as she had the last time he disagreed with her. Last week it was on the seemingly trivial yet somehow significant matter of recent trends in taxation in Ebbing. 

Valdo had cursed and tossed a painted wooden bowl across the room, leaving blackberries and cherries to roll across the bearskin rug and bounce off the cobblestones. and Lilka lay sprawled on the divan, running her fingers through her hair. She was beautiful. Jaskier reminded himself that she wasn’t real.

The woman he thought he had loved was nothing more than a carefully crafted work of art, a marble statue, a porcelain doll — nothing more. The real thing was a beast, a devil wriggling and writhing beneath a painted veneer. 

The woman that Jaskier had known and loved was as real as his promised freedom. Despite the sobering evidence that surrounded him it was becoming increasingly difficult to remind himself of that fact. She slipped her hands down her front and between her legs — eyes fluttered, mouth falling open and letting out a desperate moan. Jaskier shifted in the chair, fighting to tear his eyes away from the sight of her enraptured. The countess was truly beautiful. As beautiful as she had been when Jaskier had slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her close, as he had unfastened her corsets and kissed the soft, creamy skin of her belly and thighs. 

“Lost in reminiscence, little ladybird?” The countess cooed. 

Fuck. 

He recoiled from the claim as if touching a glowing iron, clumsily knocking the collection of poems from his lap.

“Oh, how quaint.” She purred, catching her lip between her teeth and watching his eyes dart away. 

“I know that you watch us, that you watch me. I can feel your eyes.” Lilka cooed as she stretched out across the divan like a cat. Her porcelain skin glowed in the hearth light. 

“You say a thousand words with a glance, more than those beautiful lips ever could.” 

He could hear her padding across the study, coming closer. With his eyes fixed on the page, Jaskier read the poem again and again but the words meant nothing, he couldn’t stitch them together.

Unable to swallow the lump in his throat, he choked. With a tender touch, she lifted his chin. 

“What’s wrong, Jaskier ? Are you unwell?”

It wasn’t until she called his name that he realized he hadn’t heard her call him by his name since he had lost his voice. The sound of that name on those lips froze the blood in his veins.

A frantic shake of his head. 

“Do you like that, hmm ? When I call your name?” Her breath was hot and sweet against the corner of his mouth. “Would you like to hear me moan it?” 

Couldn’t go forward, couldn’t go back. He was trapped. He stopped, looking down at Lilka with desperate eyes, hands digging into the velvet of the chair and he shook his head, frantically pleading. 

No. Please no. Anything but this. 

He needed to compose himself, to redirect her. If he could find Valdo then perhaps— 

His fingers drummed erratically against the arms of the chair, eyes screwed shut. He didn’t feel her unclasp the buttons along the hips of his trousers, didn’t feel her pull his tunic loose. 

“I know that this is a lot to take in, a lot of change. Don’t fight against it, love. I know you’re afraid, but it’s all right.” Planting gentle kisses she buried her face between his thighs. “I don’t wish to take anything from you, I would never, and surely you must know that. I only wish to give you the world, wrapped up in satin bows.”  She knew that he didn't want to, she knew that he couldn’t deny her and she reveled in it. 

No, please. Anything but this. 

Jaskier didn’t bother to bite back the shuddering huffs this time, getting dizzy off his shallow breaths that didn’t quite reach his lungs. Even if his lungs hadn’t burst into frantic flutters, the stench of sex and rose oil would’ve suffocated him. 

Please don’t make me do this.

She looked up at him with the same look he had seen on his cousin Ferrant’s face when they were children and Jaskier had stumbled upon the boy skinning a farmhouse cat alive. His eyes pleaded with her and all he could manage was another frantic shake of the head. He felt like a child again, a helpless child, silenced and vulnerable, trapped with no way out.

Please. 

Jaskier gulped, swallowing roiling nausea and the fire in his belly. He was suddenly too hot, the collar of his tunic too tight around his throat. If he wasn't careful he was going to be sick right there. 

Squeezing his thigh, she giggled at the pull of muscle drawn tight, shaking, desperate to stay perfectly still and resist the urge to move with her. All he could manage was a meek shake of his head, as he bit down on his lip.

“Your body betrays you, Jaskier.” Lilka smiled, sweet and cruel, wiping away his tears. “Open your eyes.” Lilka’s voice was delicate, weaving up and down like stitches of lace. Her words poked and pulled through him like needles. Jaskier bit his lip, exhaling and steeling himself before he forced his eyes open, shame and self-loathing vied for which would tear him apart first. Her breath was uncomfortably hot against his sensitive flesh. 

“Lilka.” Valdo was standing across the study, fully dressed and looking on at the sight with a placid mask of indifference. Something in his voice was dark and rough, husked out as little more than a growl. “That is enough, we have other matters to attend to.” 

The countess hesitated, the hunger in her eyes bleeding away, replaced with a proper, courtly smile. Without a single word, she released her grip on Jaskier’s thighs and retrieved her discarded clothing. He sat there awestruck, his trousers unlaced and pulled open and his calloused fingers catching on the embroidered velvet of the armchair. 

Just before the door shut there was a pause. 

“A word of advice, Julian,” Valdo said, “this world of ours is full of pain. Learn to take pleasure when it’s handed to you or it will be your ruin.” 

Not until Jaskier was alone in the study did he fall from the chair, his stomach unceremoniously emptying itself of its contents in the broken wooden bowl that Valdo had cast aside. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Winter swept across the western continent with a blustering and grandiose display of force. Snowstorms raged for days at a time with no end in sight, swallowing the grey light of day, and illuminating the night.  

Ciri’s letters told Jaskier that she was learning much and was treated well. But that didn’t change the fact that she was still a prisoner. Jaskier had turned it over again and again in his mind, through countless sleepless nights. And he saw no hope for escape, but one. The only way out was through. He threw himself into training, arriving early, running his drills in his room at night. There was no escape for a mere man. The only way out of the countess’ glass garden was as a beast. His motivation had impressed the countess and she’d allowed Jaskier to see Ciri on Koliada, giving them nearly a week together during the festivities. It was so much more than the occasional meal together, or a permitted stroll in the woods around her tower accompanied by a detail of guards. She was learning Kaedweni Tell, a form of signed language and had requested a copy of the book she was given so that Jaskier might learn too. 

Seeing Ciri grow up, knowing that, while she was safe from harm, she was a prisoner, served to stoke the fire in his heart. Jaskier filled his days with training and his nights with writing. He wrote to Ciri, told her of funny things he had thought of or heard, and dictated stories of bravery and misunderstood heroes — stories of Geralt, when the idea of such wasn’t too painful for him to bear. 

Dearest Cirilla, 

I hope this letter finds you well. 

Your tutors sing your praises when they are not cursing your name as they stomp across the gardens and claim that you are the spawn of Lilit herself. Though this comes as no surprise to me, your intellect can only be rivaled by your mischievous nature.

I regret that my duties have kept me from you for as long as they have. I long for a time when we shall be reunited once again. Earl Bielski and his beloved wife Lady Lilka, our most gracious caretakers, were kind enough to host a feast to celebrate Koliada and kinder still to invite us to join in the festivities.Have you ever celebrated it before? How did the experience compare, I wonder. Did your grandmother uphold the tradition in Cintra? She never struck me as the type to lay down obeisance to any god or goddess regardless of what tradition dictated. With no intent to speak ill of the dead, the truth is simply that the more rigid a traditional practice the more likely that the late Queen Calanthe would tie it to an arrow, light it on fire and send it hurtling out the window to be trampled beneath the feet of Cintran war horses. Now do not mistake my observation for a pointed criticism, I have very little feeling about the matter either way. It simply causes me to laugh and I cling to every precious moment that does during these dark times.

Perhaps it is the inherent weariness that comes with age that causes this sudden poeticism to overcome me — this desire to practice such a ritual as this. Or perhaps it is the silence that strangles me or the smothering quiet of the snowdrift outside of my window. But the cold dark of winter feels eternal. The festival of Koliada was a time to celebrate, to remember that even the darkest of nights will one day be swallowed by the light of the sun. And the hoarfrost that creeps across the ground will one day be banished by the warmth and the song of the meadowlarks will serve as a harbinger of spring. 

I will cherish these memories and they shall sustain me through the harshest winters. The fires and feasting, song and dance. There was something oddly cheerful about the utter impracticality of stomping around the muddy snow in wool-lined boots and trying to keep our feet beneath us as we slipped and stumbled by the firelight. 

May it serve as a symbol to us both that there may still be a light, however small, even in the wake of this bloody war.

Be well, find beauty, and have joy. 

Your Jaskier

Once certain the ink was dry, Jaskier carefully rolled the parchment and sealed it with blue wax. Only when he was certain he was truly alone and unseen would he pull the panel from beneath the headboard, the loose stone from the floor, and push the solid wood chest from the foot of the bed to gather his papers. He scribbled out the events from the very beginning —  from the night he had lost Geralt, the night he had died. He had several stashes of them, no two consecutive pages in the same hide. Unsure of what he’d do with them if anything he found himself writing still. The silence was driving him mad and he had found a haven in scribbling the words on parchment.  It wasn’t the same, it would never be the same, but through his quill Jaskier had found a new kind of voice. 

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter Seven: The Bones of Winter

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

“But did you feel it?” Aiden whispered to Lambert as they chopped firewood in the blustering winds. 

“Of course I fucking felt that, you prick.” Lambert hissed, holding up his scarred hand to his chest. They had a room, a room with a lumpy straw bed and a roaring fireplace all their own waiting for them inside the keep. 

Now they were out deep in the gaping frozen cunt of the north mountains doing their chores and Geralt’s because he'd lost his fucking mind. Lambert just didn't think it was fair. Life had never been fair to Lambert— to any of the witchers— but this was a whole new level of fucked over. 

All he wanted was a little bit of respite this winter. And even that was too much to ask. 

“No, not your hand,” Aiden said dismissively, his eyes distant as he chopped wood. “Something happened. I could feel it in my medallion. The faintest vibration.” 

Lambert scoffed and looked at the Cat with utter disbelief. “You’re fucking nuts. I can’t deal with two whack jobs at once. You’re going to have to wait until after I kill Geralt, then I’ll deal with your mad arse.” 

“Maybe there’s something to this, Lamb.” 

“If you say one more godsdamn word, I will run you through.” 

“No, you won't,” Aiden smirked, bringing the axe down hard. “You'd have nowhere to sheath that beautiful, aggressively average cock of yours.”  

。。。oOo 。。。

The day began before dawn with a cold plunge. No words. No warmth. Just the icy shock of the water stealing Jaskier's breath and forcing clarity.

After that came the knives — thrown, drawn, reversed — until his fingers blistered. Then running drills in the orchard, barefoot in the snow. To stay hidden, cover his tracks, stay silent with only the orchard's winter bones as cover. Each missed step earned him a switch across the calves.

By midmorning, he was balancing blindfolded on the narrow beam over the cellar pit, reciting hand signs with split-second precision while Valdo lobbed small stones at his chest. He fell only once today, caught himself and managed to prevent snapping his ankles this time. He blistered the hell out of his hands in the process though. 

Lunch was dried meats, bread, and water, if he’d earned it. Today Valdo deemed he hadn't.

Then came the part he hated most. What Valdo called Becoming. They'd send in a stranger, or sometimes a noble’s brat in fine silks. He was to win them, disarm them, deceive them—all while pretending to be nothing at all. Sometimes a cook, a farrier, a coachman. 

No words, no charm, just whatever was left of Jaskier and his deafening silence. 

By dusk, his head ached, his hands were swollen and they oozed plasma and blood, the backs of his calves were welted and bruised, the skin split in some places. He was falling apart. He had been looking forward to sinking into himself beneath the droning tide of Lilka and Valdo’s dinner diatribes. But, unexpectedly, Ciri was there. Jaskier hated that his first thought had been, ‘this must be some form of punishment. They want me to try and put up a façade in front of her when they know I’m near collapse.’ 

Unfortunately, knowing their intentions didn't make him any more capable of countering them. 

Ciri immediately panicked when she saw the bandages. But Lilka had played it off as some valiant attempt by him to stop a falling stock pot from crashing to the floors of the kitchens and burning a scullery maid and that he had burned himself in the process. Ciri seemed to believe it. 

Jaskier longed to speak to her, to ask her how she was doing. But his hands were too swollen and raw to sign. So he listened intently when she spoke and the rest of the time, he tried to stay present. Like hanging onto the rope over the cellar pit after losing his footing. He tried not to retreat into himself and sink. 

“Fiona,” the countess hummed, stirring her glass with a crystal sugar spoon, “do you know how witchers are made?” 

Ciri glanced between Jaskier and the countess, confusion and curiosity bright on her freckled face. 

“No, Lady Lilka,” she quietly replied.

“Mages snatched up little children and vivisected them, running experiments and filling them with poisons like drowning rats in a barrel.” The earl sang the words as though it were a song, searching for a melody. He was half-drunk already.

“A gruesome truth, but a truth nevertheless. Mages stole children, snatched little boys from their cradles and beds, ripped them from their wet nurses, and carried them off to a keep in the mountains where they tortured them, mutated them, and killed them.” 

The princess, having just shoved a cut of roasted beet into her mouth, stopped chewing, clutched her silver fork tight, and turned to Jaskier for confirmation. He nodded, a bitter taste in his mouth. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed. 

“Those that survived were more beast than human, set loose on the world to hunt down monsters.”

“Is it true?” Ciri whispered, and Jaskier nodded solemnly once more. 

“Do you know why they did this?” The countess asked. 

The princess shook her head. 

“Because, they wished to create a man without fear, without pain.” The countess smiled fondly at the young girl. “Why do you think they did that?” 

Ciri thought for a moment, swallowing the mouthful of food and washing it down with a sip from her glass of pomegranate juice. “To make them better fighters?” 

“I believe that was their intention, but they failed. Do you know why?” 

Before Ciri could speak, Valdo interjected. “If a man cares for nothing, then he has no fear. If he has no fear, then he has no hesitation and is, therefore, unstoppable. Is this not true?" He mused, leaning forward from where he sprawled lazily in his chair to pull a pear from an ornate wooden bowl.

Jaskier watched the countess carefully, trying to gauge her reaction, but her face remained all but unreadable.

"Yes, on this point we can agree. But once more, you lack forethought. If a man cares not for the world and feels no love, then he fears no loss. If he fears no loss, he has nothing to fight for. With no hope, no drive, no fire in his belly or beneath his feet, then what has he?" 

Valdo took a bite of the under-ripe pear and pulled a face at the crunch, eliciting a giggle from the young princess.

"So...what, he becomes disillusioned and bitter, is that it?" Valdo asked. 

“Earl Bielski, you are a drunk and a fool.” The countess cautioned, resting her hand upon the ornate basket beside her.

Valdo gestured to the serving girl holding the bottle of wine, she stepped forward and he slapped her arse hard enough for her to yelp. 

Ciri fumbled, her glass of pomegranate juice spilling over her plate. The earl scowled. The countess and her ward both giggled, meeting each other’s eyes with a tentative fondness. Cirilla avoided the earl’s look of indignation as she searched for a way to switch the subject. 

Jaskier was only half paying attention, watching with disgust as Valdo groped the poor serving wench yet again.

He barely heard the conversation around him. The clink of silver on porcelain, the low thrum of the hearth. Everything was muffled, as though someone had packed his ears with wool. His thoughts drifted, unmoored, spiralling back to the smell of pine and horse leather, the rough texture of a scarred thumb brushing his jaw. Fingers laced with his own.

For one aching moment, he could see him—Geralt. Geralt was there standing in the doorway. Snow in his hair. A gash above one brow. His shoulders drawn tight with exhaustion and something else, something soft in his eyes. Relief. Recognition, perhaps? It was so real, Jaskier's heart stopped for just a beat.

Geralt called his name. The voice wasn’t in the room. It wasn’t real. It was inside him.

The sound of it shattered something.

His chair scraped violently against the floor as he lurched forward, knocking his goblet aside. The wine spilled dark and blooming across the table linens as Jaskier pitched toward the ground.

He hit the stone floor hard. His knees buckled, the blisters along his palms burst from the pressure of slamming his weight against the stone. Blood welled beneath the split skin. He doubled over and retched. Not daintily. Violently. A whole-body purge, like the vision had turned him inside out.

Ciri gasped. “Is he— Is he alright?”

“Little mouse?” Lilka called softly to him. She didn’t raise her voice. Her tone was calm. Too calm.

Jaskier blinked rapidly, struggling to return. Sweat clung to his brow. He was still shaking, knuckles white where his bleeding hands gripped the edge of the tablecloth.

Ciri had risen from her seat, half-reaching toward him.

“Sit, dear,” Lilka murmured, brushing Ciri’s shoulder with two polished fingers. “It’s just a faint spell. The poor thing gets those sometimes. Nothing serious.”

“But—” Ciri looked unconvinced. “He’s bleeding through his bandages.”

“I said sit.”

The command wasn’t shouted, but it cracked across the room like a whip. Ciri sat.

Jaskier remained on the floor, head bowed, bile on his tongue, the echo of Geralt’s voice still ringing in his skull like a struck bell.

And across the table, Lilka smiled.

Lilka’s lips curled faintly, there was something deep and dark in her eyes. 

“Woolgathering again?” she asked, tone light, but there was an edge beneath it. She reached for the wine, graceful and measured, like she hadn’t just clocked the way his hand was trembling.

Jaskier gave a paltry nod, unsure of what else she expected him to do given his inability to speak. He wiped his mouth, gave a mournful look to the serving girls who bustled to clean up the mess he'd made, and sat on the other side of the table for now. 

“I… uh, I like your basket, Lady Lilka,” Ciri said quietly. 

“Thank you, Fiona.” The countess replied. Her voice was bright and beautiful like a ringing chime. 

Jaskier was certain she would continue, her voice joining the din of Valdo’s advances on poor maids and the sounds the wind made against the stones of the keep. But she didn’t. The countess sat there with her hand on the lid of the cylindrical basket. 

“It’s called a tuesok. Come, come. Have a look.” She prompted. The countess lifted the basket and turned it around so that Ciri could see the fine drawings etched into the bark — depictions of falcons, maidens, horses, berries, and flowers. It was truly stunning. 

Jaskier remembered distinctly the last time she had held the basket, there had been a serpent in it. One that Jaskier had killed. He had no way of knowing what was in the basket now, if anything. 

Jaskier’s body moved before his mind could catch up. His hand shot out and caught Ciri’s wrist firmly.

She froze. So did Lilka. The moment stretched on. Only Valdo continued unbothered by the tension that had settled over the dining table. 

Jaskier mouthed the word don’t.

Lilka’s eyes flicked to his. Amused and assessing, and as cold as the North Seas. But she said nothing.

Ciri looked between them, confused. Then she sat back slowly, rubbing her wrist where he’d grabbed her. He hadn’t grabbed her hard, but it had surprised her. 

Jaskier didn’t let himself look at Ciri. He kept his gaze on the basket—on the place where he knew the danger lay, coiled and waiting.

He had let his guard down. Let grief and memory dull his senses. And Lilka, with a smile as fine as a blade, had reminded him what was at stake.

If he wasn’t careful, Ciri would die, or worse, suffer his fate. And Lilka would be the one to see it through, with elegance, with calculation, and with the very hand Jaskier had once trusted to guide him.

He swallowed hard and let go of the princess's wrist.

He couldn’t afford to see ghosts. Not now. Not when the monster was still at the table.

Lilka flashed him a dazzling smile, dimpled cheeks rosy, she pulled her lower lip between her teeth and let out a contented sigh. 

“Next time, perhaps,” the countess said, turning her dazzling smile toward Ciri—but her eyes never left Jaskier. “The hour is late, and I fear you must depart, Fiona.”

“Oh.”

The disappointment in the princess’s voice was small but sharp, like a tiny blade pressed to the heart. Her shoulders sank, fingers tightening around the napkin in her lap. Then, as Jaskier rose silently to his feet, she sprang from her chair and ran to him, arms wrapping around his waist.

He startled at the sudden warmth of her, blinking down at her tangled hair and the pale curve of her cheek pressed to his tunic. One of her braids had come loose, ribbon hanging limp against her collarbone.

Behind them, the fire snapped in the hearth. The servants stilled. Even Valdo’s drunken mumbling softened to a murmur.

“What are you afraid of, child?” Lilka asked, her tone honeyed and delicate. “You may speak freely; no one will hurt you here.”

Ciri hesitated. Her grip on Jaskier didn’t ease. She slid one of her hands down into his and began tracing absent, anxious shapes across his rough palm—circles and slashes, spirals and crosses.

“I…” she glanced over her shoulder, eyes searching Lilka’s expression for something — reassurance, maybe. Safety. She didn’t find it. “When will I see Jaskier again?”

“Soon, dove.” The countess smiled, her teeth glinting. “He must away on matters of court, but he’ll be home soon.”

Ciri looked up at Jaskier, her mouth trembling. Miss you, she signed, the motions small and private.

He cupped her face gently, thumbs brushing her temple as he mouthed the word “soon”.

It wasn’t a promise. It couldn’t be. But he let her believe it was.

She leaned up on her toes, and he bent instinctively to meet her. He kissed the crown of her head, soft and reverent. He held her for a moment longer, memorising the weight of her, the steady beat of her worry against his chest. Then he stepped back, watching as the guard captain cleared his throat and motioned for her to follow.

Ciri lingered one more second, then turned, slipping silently from the hall with her retinue behind her like shadows.

The doors closed. Jaskier stood still.

“Well then,” Lilka purred, reclining in her chair, turning her glass in her fingers. “What a precious little bond the two of you share.”

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

She tilted her head and smiled, dimples pressing deep.

“You may go.”

He didn’t move at first. His pulse was still fluttering from the vision, from the basket, from the grip of Ciri’s fingers and the fear in her voice. The mask of calm slid back into place like old armour as he inclined his head.

“Rest well tonight, little creature,” Lilka hummed as he turned to go. “For tomorrow I have news for you.”

Jaskier blinked at her, trying to keep the confusion from muddling his features. The appearance of indifference was the closest thing to secrets he had these days. 

Great.

。。。oOo 。。。

They were in the main hall, half-drunk on White Gull, snow crusted thick against the keep’s windows. A fire crackled merrily, and Gwent cards were strewn across the long oak table like fallen leaves. Aiden was arguing over the rules, Eskel was laughing into his cup, and Lambert had just cursed loud enough to scare some crows roosting in the rafters.

Geralt was silent. Not brooding, not exactly. Just... still. Staring at his hand like he wasn’t sure it belonged to him. Maybe they didn't anymore. They certainly didn't feel like it. The noise of the room dulled. Muted. Like cotton had been stuffed into his ears.

Then the room tilted.

Jaskier had struggled to sleep after Lilka’s ominous dismissal. But he knew he’d need it, he stumbled into bed, exhausted and crusted with sweat and blood. He’d barely fallen asleep when a jolt of panic shot through his chest.

Jaskier stirred beneath the blankets, fingers twitching under his chin like he was plucking at a memory. His breath fogged in the cold. The fire in the hearth had long since guttered out. Something was wrong. He couldn’t tell what, yet. But it was. 

Then, he heard the whisper of a hinge.

He didn’t move. Not at first.

The door creaked open, no louder than the wind outside, and he felt the shift in pressure before he heard the sound. Soft-soled boots. Controlled breath. Someone entered with the patience of a snake.

His heartbeat slowed.

Not from calm. From calculation.

He kept his eyes shut. Let his limbs go slack until he heard the blade slide free. 

A sharp crack of wood, and Geralt was no longer sitting in Kaer Morhen. He was… somewhere else. Somewhere, he was certain he’d never been before. 

A breath of candlelight. The stink of sweat and smoke and pain. Jaskier was there. Half-asleep, eyelids fluttering as a shape loomed over him in the dark. He looked exhausted, broken. Thinner and sharper, somehow than Geralt had ever seen him. His hands were bandaged, as was the leg poking out from the tangle of blankets. A horrid scar tore sideways across his mouth, healed and pink now. 

Geralt could see a hand clad in a finely stitched leather glove holding a blade. A blade that was slowly and silently lowered to Jaskier’s throat. He could feel the chilled iron through someone else’s skin.

The world snapped sideways. Geralt's body moved before thought. He surged to his feet — cards scattering, bench scraping back hard enough to splinter. The mug in his hand shattered against the floor.

“Geralt?” Eskel asked, halfway between concern and alarm.

But Geralt didn’t hear him.

He was already moving, shoulder-checking Aiden as he lunged forward, grabbing Lambert by the collar and throwing him. 

“Oh, fuck this.” Lambert wailed as he scrambled to his feet. He launched himself at Geralt but Eskel caught him.

 "Don't—" Geralt snarled. His voice was wild, wrong. "Get away from him!"

He bared his teeth. Picked up an iron poker from beside the fire.

“Whoa—whoa, fuck, hold on!” Aiden ducked. Lambert threw a punch at Eskel. Who let go of Lambert, leaving Aiden to restrain him, and threw himself at Geralt.

Eskel caught his hand and the poker before Geralt could drive it down into the back of Aiden's skull. “Geralt! Geralt!”

And just like that, it broke.

Geralt staggered. Blinked. The iron poker clattered from his hand. His knees hit the stone. He stayed there, panting, wide-eyed, like something had just passed through him.

Silence rang like the echo of a bell.

“Fuck me sideways,” Lambert muttered, getting up. “What the hell was that, you mad bastard?”

Geralt didn’t answer.

His hands were shaking. An earthenware bowl that had broken in the commotion had sliced his palm. He barely noticed.

Vesemir’s voice came from the far end of the hall, calm but cold. “Get him out of here.”

The knife wasn’t showy. It wasn’t meant to threaten. It was clean—a quiet blade, meant for one purpose. It slid free of its sheath with a whisper. 

The weight in the room shifted. A presence. Quiet footsteps, deliberate, pacing slowly from the doorway to the edge of the bed. Closer. Closer.

“Tell me, bard,” Valdo’s voice was a low murmur, almost fond, “what happens if you don’t hear them coming?”

Jaskier didn’t answer. He didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. But his entire body tensed beneath the blankets, muscles locking as pain flared in his legs and hands, the deep lash welts still raw, his fingers tight and split from training.

He hadn’t been asleep. Not really. He hadn’t slept deeply in weeks.

The blade touched his throat. Cold metal on fevered skin, as intimate as a lover’s kiss.

And Jaskier moved.

His hands—bandaged, blistered, trembling—shot out with violent precision. One gripped Valdo’s knife wrist, squeezing hard enough to grind bone. The other slammed up into his midsection, a palm strike trained into him over weeks of abuse. It knocked the wind out of Valdo’s smug little lungs with a grunt.

Jaskier twisted, rolling off the bed with a thud that sent lightning through his legs. His knees nearly buckled from the impact, screaming where the switches had broken skin earlier. But he caught himself, panting, half-crouched on the stone floor.

Valdo recovered fast, but not fast enough.

Jaskier surged forward, pain blurred by adrenaline, and tackled him back against the bedframe with a snarl. They grappled, no elegance or no grace, just desperate force. Valdo tried to twist the blade inward again, but Jaskier got under him, drove his shoulder into the bastard’s chest, and pried the knife from his fingers with a voiceless grunt of effort.

The handle bit into his palm, tearing already-raw skin. He didn’t care.

He staggered backward, knife raised now, chest heaving, knees shaking. Blood slicked his hands. His entire body was aflame with pain. But he didn’t drop the blade. He didn’t look away.

Valdo laughed. Wheezing, he bent over with a wicked, toothy grin. “There he is.”

Jaskier stood seething. 

“You’re still too slow,” Valdo panted, straightening. “You should’ve had my throat open the moment before I touched you.”

Jaskier’s grip on the knife tightened. Pain thrummed through him. 

“But better,” Valdo said, brushing off his tunic like nothing had happened. “Much better.”

Jaskier noticed his hands, though injured, didn't shake. He wondered when the last time they'd trembled with fear or adrenaline. 

“You left your door unlocked,” Valdo added.

Because you told me to.

Jaskier just stared.

Valdo stepped forward again and opened his palm for his dagger. Begrudgingly, Jaskier offered him the hilt.

Valdo patted him on the cheek, set his hand on Jaskier's shoulder, and offered a gentle kiss to the crest of his cheekbone. 

“Next time I’ll use poison,” he said, tone almost fond. “Sleep well, Julian.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Jaskier’s chest heaved. He touched his throat when Valdo had cut him. It wasn't deep. Barely bleeding. His hands and calves hurt far worse than his throat. He stayed there long after Valdo was gone, alone in the dark. Blood slowly dripped from his bandaged fists.

It had been two days since the incident in the main hall, and despite Eskel’s attempts to coax him out of his quarters, Geralt was content to wither away there alone. But now, in the middle of the night, with everyone asleep and retired to their rooms, and the halls of stone cold from the bitter winter outside and the banked fires, he wandered. 

The fire crackled low, casting a wavering amber glow across the stone walls of Kaer Morhen’s study. Geralt stood by the hearth, unmoving, his hand braced against the mantel as though it were the only thing keeping him upright. The air smelled of ash and pine resin and something sharper, like pickled regret.

Vesemir stepped inside without a word. He moved like he always had: slow, steady, letting the silence do half the work. He poured himself a drink and took a seat without invitation.

“You’re chasing ghosts, boy,” he said quietly.

Geralt didn’t move.

“I’ve seen the signs,” Vesemir continued. “You train like your body’s not your own. You eat only when someone puts food in your hand. And you haven’t slept right in weeks, I can hear you pacing the halls like a spirit with no grave.”

“I’m fine,” Geralt said flatly.

“Horse shit.” Vesemir sipped his drink, gaze sharp. “Geralt, you’re grieving.”

Geralt turned his head, just slightly. Enough to show he was listening. Not enough to confirm anything.

“You don’t have to say his name,” Vesemir went on. “But I know. I’ve known since you came back from the south half a man.”

Geralt’s jaw tensed.

“You didn’t get a body,” Vesemir said softly. “Didn’t bury him. Didn’t burn him. Didn’t get to lay your sword on his grave or light a candle or speak his name at dawn.”

“I don’t need a fucking ritual,” Geralt muttered. “He’s not—”

He stopped himself.

Vesemir waited, as patient and as sharp as ever.

Geralt exhaled, the sound ragged. “He’s not dead.”

“Isn’t he?” 

That quiet question hit like a blade slipped between ribs.

“You think this is what the living feel like?” Vesemir’s voice was gentler now, but no less firm. “You think this… silence inside you, this ache in your chest like something was ripped out and stitched back wrong, is nothing?”

Geralt’s throat worked, but he didn’t answer.

“I’ve buried brothers,” Vesemir said. “I’ve buried sons. And you’re grieving, Geralt. Whether he’s dead or not. You lost him.”

Geralt’s hand trembled on the mantel.

“I hear him,” he whispered. “Not his voice. Just… him. I can't explain it. It's not a sound. It's… it's like a wire in my teeth. Like a song I can’t remember but can’t forget either.”

Vesemir was quiet for a long moment. Then he stood, walked over, and placed a hand on Geralt’s shoulder.

“When you carry someone that close for that long, they don’t always leave clean,” he said. “Sometimes love lingers. Sometimes guilt. Sometimes magic. Doesn’t matter which it is, it hollows you out the same.”

Geralt blinked hard.

“I wasn’t ready,” he said hoarsely.

“No one ever is, son.” 

They stood like that a while, the fire crackling, wind moaning through the keep stones. Silence settled soft as snowfall between them.

Then Vesemir said, “You can’t keep bleeding in the shadows, boy. If he’s truly gone, grieve him. And if he’s not… find him. Before what’s left of you forgets how.”

Far to the south of Kaer Morhen, beneath a sagging stone balcony slick with moss, the boy they called Blue—on account of his striking eyes—moved like a shadow through the veins of Lord Reymard’s estate.

His hands were chapped. His eyes were dull. His limp was barely noticeable now. It was part of the story they’d built around him.

He moved through kitchens and gardens and libraries no one remembered to lock. He was nothing. No one.

But in the dark, he paused.

His breath caught. His chest ached—not sharp, not sudden, but deep, like an old bruise pressed too hard. It pulsed, low and sickening, somewhere behind the ribs.

He’d felt it before. It had become a companion to him since that night in the woods. It was like his own shadow, following him in the sunlight and overtaking him in his darkest moments, swallowing him whole. He pressed a hand to the stone wall to steady himself, blinking against the sting behind his eyes.

Grief could do that. Witches, too. They twisted you up and make you feel things that weren’t there.

Jaskier closed his eyes.

He’s not real, he told himself. Geralt is dead.

The ache pulsed again, faint as a plucked string. A memory. For a second, he could almost swear he saw a mockery of Geralt, as real as his own two hands, leaning against the wall, gaunt and pale and broken. 

But he wasn’t there. Geralt never was. It was just a cruel trick of the grieving mind.

Geralt was gone.

Jaskier had failed him—utterly, finally, and without excuse. The weight of it sat in his chest like riverstone, cold and heavy, dragging him down no matter how many faces he wore or lies he memorised.

But he would not fail her. He couldn’t.

Ciri was all he had left of Geralt. She was his last oath. His final song. And if he had to become a shadow to protect her—a dumb, tongueless servant slipping through enemy halls—then so be it.

He’d already buried his voice. What was the rest of him, if not disposable?

He pushed it down. Buried it beneath frost and ash and the rhythm of footsteps down a hall he wasn’t meant to be in. There were names to memorise. Maps to sketch in charcoal on the underside of a dresser drawer.

So he moved on.

And the bond, thin and fragile as spider-silk, trembled. But it held all the same.

They called him "Blue" or sometimes "that dumb bastard from Low River” here. 

Nobody asked his name.

The first noblewoman had waved him off after an hour, deciding he was too dull for the house and too pretty for the stables. But she owed a favour to her cousin, who owed a favour to a minor baron, who owed a rather large debt to Lady Bielski.

So she gifted him, with dramatic sighs and a false sense of generosity, to the next rung down the ladder. Who, in turn, passed him along with a bottle of mead and an apologetic shrug to Lord Reymard’s household in Duskwater Hollow.

That was where Lilka wanted him.

The estate was a rambling grey thing, full of peeling tapestries and sharp-eyed servants. Reymard was an anxious man with too many debts and too many doors. All with locks, irons, and pins. His household thrummed with paranoia, a perfect place to drop a mute ghost of a boy no one would notice until it was too late.

Jaskier kept his eyes low. He limped slightly, favouring the old injury on his foot, which wasn’t entirely feigned, though he made it worse for show. He chewed absently on his lower lip and wrung his hands. When anyone spoke to him, he stared.

Once, he moved his fingers strangely. Twitching in sets of three, like he was working out a tune he couldn’t quite remember. That seemed to be the thing that convinced them he’d been kicked in the head by a horse, a rumour someone helpfully started after he wandered into the tack room and knocked over a pail.

By day, he mucked stalls and scrubbed dishes. By night, he wandered. Always quiet. Always forgotten.

He lingered in archways. Listened by doorframes. He learned the head steward was sleeping with the baron’s youngest son. He learned two of the guards were being paid off by someone from Gors Velen, and that a courier would arrive within the week.

He traced the cracks in the floor of the library with a fingertip and memorised the length of the hallway between the war room and the servants’ stairs.

On the fifth night, he slipped into the upper study. His fingers were shaking, but precise. Behind the false panel in the desk was the missive Lilka wanted.

He copied the names, burned the original, and replaced it with a forgery. Then he knelt by the fire and dirtied his face with soot. By the time the head cook found him in the scullery, he was clutching a half-eaten heel of bread and humming tunelessly to himself.

The courier never came. But a covered wagon did. Carrying inside, supplies from Bielski lands and a single mute stablehand curled up between barrels and crates.

Valdo had been tasked with giving Julian an assignment. He’d chosen an impossible one. The longer he could keep him in training, the longer he could keep him from proving himself to Lilka. 

Julian was already a problem—clever in ways he shouldn’t be, too observant for someone meant to play dumb. The last thing Valdo needed was for the mute to be placed somewhere out of reach, beyond his interceptive grasp. So long as he could see him, monitor him, redirect him when needed, he could manage the threat. But each successful mission chipped away at that illusion of control.

He prayed, quietly and bitterly, to the gods and devils Old and New that some unfortunate tragedy would befall the little mewling bardling while he was away. A wrong turn. A blade in the dark. A slip on a frozen road. Something clean, impersonal, final.

It would cost them, yes. His loss would create waves through Lilka’s networks, like plucking a thread on a spider’s web. The utterly useless man had become unexpectedly effective, unexpectedly trusted. But Valdo would pay that price a thousand times over. He would drain every coin from Cidaris’s coffers if it meant keeping Julian out of Lilka’s true grasp.

Because he knew what came next.

Once she gave him a name, a real one, once he was welcomed into her menagerie proper—with all the pomp and unspoken promises that entailed, Valdo’s position would begin to rot from within. It wouldn’t matter how long he’d served, how deep his roots ran, how many bodies he’d buried in her name.

Julian would become the new jewel in her crown. And Valdo? He would become just another old blade—useful until dulled, then discarded. Or worse, he would find himself in the garden with Lilka’s late husband. He’d come too far, bled too deeply, and sacrificed too much to let that happen now. 

He hated the mute for that. But more than that, he feared him.

This was merely a stalling tactic until he could figure out how to get Julian out of the way for good without his head being on the line. 

He was stewing and mulling in his thoughts when there was a knock at the study door. A guard entered and announced that Julian had returned from his assignment. Valdo’s heart dropped so fast he thought he’d be sick. 

“Send him in,” he drawled lazily.

When Julian entered, he placed the letter on Valdo’s desk without ceremony. He didn't flinch when Valdo picked it up with a frown. He just stood there, expressionless and waiting with those big, foolish doe eyes. Jaskier had never been known to sit still in any circumstance. But the broken man, standing on the other side of his desk, was no longer quite Jaskier.

“You found it,” Valdo said flatly, scanning the forged version of the missive. The tightening of his fingers on the parchment was the only indication that he seemed surprised by this news. In fact, he was utterly stunned. Valdo had sent the Ryś into the estate undercover as a scullery maid, and she'd never managed to wander any deeper than the dining halls. She'd been there for two months before it was clear the mission was fruitless. She was more than capable of success in both retrieving information and planting it. As capable as she was at killing. But she hadn't succeeded. 

And where the Ryś had failed, the Countess's horrid little plaything had succeeded. He had waltzed into the estate and returned with a hand-drawn map of the entire estate, and the ledgers that Lilka required. He had only been there for eight days. He was a natural. He was a sharpened needle driven through moth-eaten linen. 

Fuck. 

Valdo looked up to see the mute's placid face, waiting to be either reprimanded or dismissed; there would be nothing in between. It was, not only the ledger that Lilka had been searching for, but a recreation of the estate and all its servants quarters, passageways, and hidden rooms. 

“Did anyone see you?”

A sure shake of the head.

Valdo set the paper down, pressing his thumb into the corner. 

“She’ll be pleased.” He paused, opening his mouth as if to speak, but he simply closed it once more and reached for his wine.

Fuck.

Still, Jaskier waited.

Valdo exhaled. “I didn't think you'd ever catch on. But it seems you're finally making yourself useful. What wonderful news.” 

His pulse throbbed behind his twitching eye. Valdo wasn't the least bit pleased, and he knew he certainly didn't sound it either. He had accomplished what he’d been sent to do and he’d done it seamlessly, quickly, and provided more information than they’d asked for. 

Shit.

Jaskier crooked an eyebrow. His nose twitched, but he kept his hands folded behind his back. 

“Though if you are to slip through the shadows so quickly and readily, we'll need to do something about that face of yours. That scar makes you recognisable.” 

Jaskier touched the side of his face absently, his fingers brushing the edge of the scar Valdo had given him when he threw him into the sea, helpless and bound. Valdo watched him for a long moment.

“No longer a mere butterfly, you seem to be,” Valdo muttered. Repeating the words that Lilka had said to him earlier as she waxed poetic about Jaskier leaving on his first reconnaissance mission. 

Jaskier said nothing. Just tilted his head like a crow listening to a far-off sound.

Valdo shivered, disgusted at the sights and mannerisms of his former petty rival. 

“Get out and clean yourself up, you smell like horseshit.”

The mute scurried away, and Valdo was left with the deeply troubling news that Julian had succeeded, against all odds.

Power was shifting like the sands. And change, it would seem, was inevitable. But Valdo would be damned if he let Julian take his kingdom from him. 

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter Eight: Dark Wet Bones

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

FOUR YEARS LATER 

Geralt learnt to eat again—slowly, without tasting it. To sleep, if not restfully, then at least without screaming. The nightmares came in tides and thunder, predictable only in their violence. He stopped fighting them. Stopped trying to shake them off. He simply lay still and let them gnaw through him.

When the sudden, suffocating visions overtook him, he no longer gasped or clawed at his chest. He didn’t speak to them or fight them. He didn’t even blink. He only watched, helpless, as the ghost of Jaskier played out its quiet horrors. Sometimes the bard was drowning. Sometimes he was bound, bled, beaten until Geralt could hardly recognise him. Screaming without a voice, bones breaking, and hands bleeding. 

Other nights, he simply stood in the corner of the room, silent and unmoving, staring back with a gaze so hollow it made Geralt want to weep.

And occasionally, when his mind was exceptionally cruel, he watched as a beautiful pale woman with the features of a doll and a black eyed man with warm olive skin ravaged Jaskier. 

All the while, Jaskier never made a sound.

Geralt began to wonder if it was madness. Or a curse, perhaps.

He no longer knew which frightened him more—that he was imagining it all… or that he wasn’t.

The smell of sandalwood made him flinch. A sparrow's song could ruin his day. He dreamt of hands reaching for him through dark water, of scars he’d never touched or had seen before but knew . And in the space between breaths, when the world held its silence, he sometimes heard music—faint, broken, half-remembered.

Once, deep in the woods, he followed it.

Just the ghost of a melody, fretting at the edge of his memory like fingers to moth-eaten fabric. He walked for hours. Through thorns. Through mud. Through snow and silence. Until it stopped, and he was alone again, wild-eyed and panting in the dark.

Maybe it was nothing. A trick of wind. A memory too sharp to dull.

But he stood there anyway, straining to hear it again.

。。。oOo 。。。

My Little Lioness, 

I have read your most recent letter more times than I can count.  I am so happy to hear that you are safe and well.  I must admit the story of the hedgehog in your armoire caused me to laugh so hard that I cried.  I have not laughed like that in years.  After the war began, I wasn’t certain I ever would again.  

You asked about my feet. You are always so thoughtful, my princess.  Oh, that more nobility was as charitable and goodhearted as you, my dear.  Though I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about me.  I am well, just simply rather clumsy, I’m afraid.  Not even a witch’s curse could take my fumblings from me.  Of my feet, they are recovering well.  The broken bones have all but healed, and I feel not a thing.  It’s as if it had never happened.  Fret not, my little lion, I am well, as happy as I have ever been, and healthier too.  

Valdo and I will be gone for some time, I know not how long.  It seems that in keeping with the noble tradition of men mucking about in the woods, we are called to a hunt.  You must remind me to tell you of the time that Geralt and I went hunting, and I was bitten rather viciously on the face by a rabbit.  It nearly slaughtered me, the beast.  Were it not for my valiant witcher I would certainly have perished beneath its pointy teeth.

Don't tell him, but I do so hope that the earl’s quarry gets away this time.  Valdo has always said that it is foolish to ask the goddess for a fruitless venture, but mercy for prey and foolishness are not always the same thing.  To know the difference is what distinguishes man from beast.  Never forget that.  

I have another story for you and I hope that if I do not fall from the earl’s good graces during our time in the wildwood, he will deliver it promptly to you.  This gift I have sent is small and silly, barely worth mentioning, but it reminded me of you.  Unfortunately for me, the weaver’s wife seemed to notice the desperation with which I clamoured after the thing and intended to rob me of every last coin I possessed, the ruthless wench.  

Enough about me, though.  You know, I could fill libraries with my rather frequent and extended digressions.  How are your studies?  The countess has told me that you excel in herbalism.  And if the salve you have sent for my hands is any indication, I must agree with this assessment.  It has worked wonderfully, though I must admit it smells positively awful.

I look forward to seeing you on your birthday. Twelve years of age already? It pains me that it has been so long since last I saw you, and I fear that you are growing up without me. You must stop this instant! Didn't you know that you must remain eight years old forever?

I think of you every day and hope that you are well.  If you have the need or want for anything, do not hesitate to ask.  

I miss you dearly, darling, and I'm proud of the woman you are growing to be.  I hope to see you soon.  

I know things are hard right now, but it will not be this way forever.  

Of all the things that will change in this world, my love for you never will, my dearest little lion.  

Your spirit is wild, and your suffering is brief.  Be well, find beauty, and have joy.  

Your Jaskier

Ciri lifted the brooch from the bundle of papers and inspected it by candlelight.  It was a penannular cloak pin, made of polished metal.  Along the curve of it rested small red gems set in sprigs of holly.  It had been wrapped in a scarf of deep scarlet, embroidered with yellow dandelions.  It was an odd thing to give a young woman—a pin and a sash with weeds on them.  

In a fit of emotion, she threw the pin against the wall, and it rang out as it split in two, the pin of the brooch skidding across the smooth stones and under her bed.  She dove for it, crying out at the realisation of what she had just done.  Gathering the piece, she sat back on her heels and fiddled with them, pricking her fingers several times while she worked the pieces back together.  

She hadn’t realised she’d been crying until her nose began to drip.  

“I wish you were here,” she croaked, clutching the pin to her chest.  “Wish I knew what went on in your head.  Where do you go when you’re away?  Why do you always ache?  Why are you so sad?”

She let herself rest there a while, folding up like a silken sash until the stone dug into her knees and her head ached.  When she had cried all the tears left within her, the princess of no kingdom stood and stripped herself bare.  Wiggling under the covers, she began to read the newest tale Jaskier had written for her.  A tale of Geralt and the elven king Filavandrel.  This, Jaskier promised, was the ‘true’ account of events.

Her heart broke for the elven king.  After all, she could relate.  A king with no kingdom, a man with no home and no people.  They weren’t all that different, the two of them.  

As she drifted off the sleep, Ciri wondered where Filavandrel was now, and if he had ever found the safety and peace that Geralt had begged him to find. If he had ever found a home.

。。。oOo 。。。 

It was the peak of summer and there was no time to waste if Geralt hoped to reach his destination before winter. For better or for worse, Geralt had planned to make the trip up to Kaer Morhen this year before the pathways were buried. There he would rest, he would try to let go. Try to connect to his brothers and apologise for the past four years that passed in a nightmarish blur. But before that, he needed to say goodbye. He was on his way to the nameless forests to the south of Oxenfurt—north of Cintra—where Jaskier had perished. He would lay him to rest as he should have four years ago. He couldn’t save him, he couldn’t make things right, and no matter what he tried, he could find no sign of Jaskier’s survival. He would do the only thing left and try to find closure. 

When he had cut across the rolling hills near Oxenfurt, the last thing he had expected to find was a headstone, sitting on a grassy slope, wildflowers and rye dancing in the wind.

Geralt knelt at the Byzantine cross, mindful of the flowers and water-stained parchment that littered the ground. With his sword tucked safely against his chest, the hilt resting against his shoulder, he read the swirling Glagolitic text that scrolled across the bars of the cross again and again.

Ⰼⱆⰾⰻⰰⱀ Ⰰⰾⱇⱃⰵⰴ Ⱂⰰⱀⰽⱃⰰⱅⰸ

ⰱⰵⰾⱁⰲⰵⰴ ⱇⱃⰻⰵⱀⰴ ⰰⱀⰴ ⰿⰵⱀⱅⱁⱃ

ⱇⰰⱅⰵ ⱆⱀⰽⱀⱁwⱀ

Julian Alfred Pankratz

Beloved Friend and Mentor

Fate Unknown

It was an odd place for a memorial to a tenured professor. He would have expected it to be erected near the Alchemy tavern or perhaps on the university grounds, but this hill. What a peculiar choice. 

They had passed near Oxenfurt only once on their travels together. Geralt refused to enter the city itself, claiming that Jaskier’s incessant prattling was enough for him—that he didn’t need a city full of academics and bards all chittering and squabbling like a roost of hens. 

Many herbs grew wild in the fields and rocky hills beside the city. So they had stopped on that very same hill, Jaskier singing and humming as Geralt gathered white myrtle, verbena, and celandine.

For the first time, Geralt let the thought creep in through the cracks in his weary mind. Jaskier was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.

Jaskier had deserved to live a long and comfortable life, to die old, surrounded by loved ones. Isn’t that what every human wants? A good death? He couldn’t protect Jaskier from the horrors that had awaited them in the woods, couldn’t save him, couldn't even give him the rest he deserved. After all, he was only on the warpath because of Geralt. 

The thought had twisted under his skin like a thorn, burrowing deeper and deeper until he thought of nothing but Jaskier’s death. Had it been swift and painless, or did he suffer? Did his bones snap and splinter in the jaws of a hungry beast, or did he choke on his blood, his tender flesh run through by the blade of a footsoldier? Did he fight? Plead for mercy? Did he call out for Geralt with his dying breath, begging the witcher to save him? 

Jaskier had died a thousand times in Geralt’s mind, each time more gruesome than the last.

“I was always shite at these things, you know that. I need you. I need you to tell me how to live without you. Tell me how to leave you here. Tell me how to let you go. I’ve watched you die a thousand times, and yet you remain. Jaskier, please, I’m begging you.” Desperation mounted in his chest and threatened to crush his lungs. Clutching his sword with shaking hands, he wailed to the hot summer dusk. 

And when he had shouted and screamed and cried, the silence that had plagued him persisted, unchanged by his desperate pleas. In disquiet vigil, he sat through the long night until twilight began to cast its warm glow across the horizon.

“You always said the morning is wiser than the evening. Here I am — no wiser than I was before.” 

“Oh… I’m sorry.” A voice called, and Geralt jumped, surprised that he hadn’t heard the woman approach. 

“My apologies, good sir. I didn’t mean to disturb you. Uh… I… I didn’t expect anyone to be up here so early. You know poets don’t tend to rouse before midday.” 

Geralt wasn’t sure how to respond but managed an awkward nod. She was in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. She had a young yet stern face and wore a practical tunic and leather trousers. With a leather satchel slung over her chest, in one hand she held a metal plate of some sort, and in the other, a hastily snatched handful of wildflowers and grass plucked from the field on the way up the hill. 

The woman waited for a moment before awkwardly shuffling the rest of the way up to the grave. She glanced back at Geralt as if seeking his approval to proceed, and he held a hand out. Far be it from him to stop her. With a sigh, she set the bundle of wildflowers beside the byzantine cross. She stepped back, hands held in front of her, clutching at the metal disc. 

“Did… did you know him?” She asked, her eyes still fixed on the gauzy, worn cloth that danced in the wind. It tangled over itself, catching on the corners of the crossbars. 

“Jaskier?” 

“He was always Professor Julian to me. I don’t know what I think I’ll accomplish by bringing this here. But here I am.” She smiled sadly.

Geralt lifted his eyebrows, completely unsure of what it was. With both hands, she held out the instrument to him. It was a queer thing, almost resembling the inner workings of a clock. 

“It’s called an astrolabe, a very rare thing and very expensive. It’s used for measuring celestial altitude. Professor Julian loaned this to me, oh , four winters past now.”

She must’ve seen the look of confusion on his face. 

“He taught music primarily, other things too, like logic and grammar. That’s what he was known for: what students came across the Continent to learn from him. But I was never inclined. I have always had more interest in the heavens than the ramblings of men. He was my professor for geometry and astronomy.

“He said he would drop by the next autumn and show me how to use it properly. He told me that this hill was the best place for it. Not sure how true that was—he was partial to this place and said something about it being special. Would hike up here in the bloody middle of winter and look out over the sea, scribble in his book and whatnot.” She laughed, shaking her head. “So… so when it became evident that he would not return... Everyone knew this was the place he would wish to rest.”

Geralt had no words. A stone sat heavy where his heart should've been. 

“Were you his?” 

“ Hmm ?”

“His witcher,” She clarified, ducking her head to meet his eyes, which were cast at the cross. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but a witcher visiting the grave of a musician and academic is sort of… unusual. I guess I just wanted to know if you were his.”

“I suppose in a way I was, but not as I should’ve been.” 

“The famous Geralt of Rivia,” she sighed wistfully. “Well, I will leave you be, good sir. Know that you will always have a place in Oxenfurt. Julian’s home could be yours too if you wished it.” 

Geralt said nothing as the woman turned to leave, pausing to look back one final time at the witcher who stood by the graveside. “One last thing, Sir Geralt. Know this, as I’m sure you already do, you were truly loved.”

。。。oOo 。。。

The air was thick and heavy. The humid warmth of the summer now cooling after the sun’s retreat, and as the night deepened. 

 “You may have proven yourself quite adept at swiping letters from the tables of sleeping nobles and slipping poison into barrels of wine, but you have yet to face a real threat," Valdo said coolly.

That was demonstrably untrue. Jaskier had nearly died so many times he’d lost track. Without Lilka’s healers and mages, he’d have been paralysed or dead long ago. 

Something sank in the pit of his stomach at Valdo’s words.

Nothing good could come of this. He had known that from the beginning, but now that ever-present fear droned louder and higher, humming in his ribs.

“You have made it clear that you are utterly incapable of learning anything the easy way. The countess, in her wisdom, has given me her blessing to do things my way.” Valdo twirled an arrow idly between his fingers, inspecting the tip. 

Oh, really. And what makes you so sure this vague and singularly important lesson will be received tonight when I’ve been too impossibly dimwitted to learn it thus far in your tender care? Jaskier raised his eyebrows incredulously. 

“I’ve found it best to teach you through experience. Pain seems to be a powerful motivator for most. Much to my surprise, you seem to have grown quite accustomed to it. So tonight, you must use what little skill you possess to hunt me down and kill me. Or you will die.” 

Jaskier felt his heart quickening. He shook his head, a silent plea, and took a step back as Valdo pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got nothing but time, Julian.” Valdo sneered menacingly. 

“Run, little rimester..." He ran his fingers over the fletching of the arrow, catching along the feathered edge, a frenzied lust in his cold eyes, “and pray that this time I do not catch you.” 

The sun had risen and set on the forest of bone birch, and still, the hunt continued.

For a time, Jaskier had carried a sharpened branch he’d tripped over—jagged, splintered at the end, light enough to wield if it came to that. But the river had taken it from him. Slippery stones, swift current, the branch torn from his hand when he slipped crossing through the shallows. He’d nearly drowned getting across, and all he had to show for it now were mud-streaked legs and bloodied palms.

The only useful thing he’d scavenged since was a thin flake of shale. He turned it over in his hand now as he crouched beneath a low bank, the rock slick with sweat and rain. It could cut skin, maybe. With enough pressure, enough precision. But it wasn’t heavy enough to bludgeon anything larger than a rabbit. Not that he had the strength for that anymore.

If he had his bow or his daggers. If he had boots rather than being barefoot. If he had food. Water. Anything .

But he had nothing.

He couldn’t get close enough to do any real damage to Valdo without allowing the earl to riddle him with arrows—likely poisoned, if the burning in his veins days before, after the near headshot that had grazed his cheek, had been any indication. Valdo was too skilled to be ambushed. Too careful to underestimate him again. And Jaskier had already played most of his cards.

He’d eluded the bastard for now, but only just. And he could feel him, close enough to stir the air. There was no silence, not really, just the rustle of breath behind the trees. A weight. A presence. The back of Jaskier’s neck prickled with it.

There was little cover here, for all that the understory grew thick and tangled. Not enough to hide a body in motion. If he wanted to disappear, truly disappear, he’d need to crawl on his belly through the ferns and leaf litter, wait in the dark like a fox in its den, and hope that Valdo just happened to stroll into reach.

He didn’t have time for hope.

Jaskier moved. Slow and deliberate when he knew the sounds might carry. Faster when the rain picked up or when the river roared in the distance, muffling the break of branches and the shuffle of wet cloth. His gait had begun to hitch. Blisters burned on the soles of his feet. His thighs and calves ached from days of uneven terrain, of crouching, fleeing, freezing still in the brush.

The birch in this part of the forest were no use to him—too young, too thin, their limbs too high to climb. A raven might find purchase. Not a man.

He paused, leaning against one of the pale trunks, breath coming fast. His fingers twitched around the shard of stone. Not enough. Never enough. Even if he got lucky, even if he cut the earl, Valdo would be on him in an instant. He’d seen what happened to men who had almost killed Valdo.

His thoughts spiralled. Too many days without sleep. Too many nights spent listening to branches crack and wind shift. There were no good options. No tools. No traps.

But, there was one thing he might still have. A moment. An opening.

An illusion of weakness so complete, Valdo wouldn’t see the blade coming.

The thought chilled him to the bone, but he didn’t shove it away.

Instead, Jaskier let it fester in his mind, dark and steady.

If he could time it right… If he could bait him just close enough… He would have to let himself be caught. And if the gods were kind, only one of them would walk away.

Jaskier breathed through his nose; his lungs burned. The rasping of his breath in his dry throat was deafening. Too loud, it was still too loud. The last arrow had only narrowly missed his shoulder, and he could still feel the sting of its path against his torn tunic. Valdo truly intended to kill him this time. One of them would die in this forest. 

It was raining, just enough to muddle the sound of the forest. That could be to his advantage, but if the last four years were any indication, it only spelt trouble for him. 

A snap of a tree branch or the forest litter. He couldn’t hear anything else over the pounding heartbeat in his ears and the growing rainstorm. 

His eyes scanned the trees above, but he couldn’t see anything. Perhaps the exhaustion and hunger that gnawed at him made the choice for him. Or perhaps some part of him truly thought this was the best strategy. He'd gone mad.

Twitching with anticipation, Jaskier took a shallow breath, slammed his foot down on a tangle of dry branches, and dove forward, holding his footing in the gap between the birch. Feathered ferns, drooping with rainwater, drenched his trousers, his hair plastered to his face. The rain, previously just a drizzle, grew louder and heavier.

Then, a flash of white pain. The world tilted.

An arrow tore into his belly, just left of centre. Not deep enough to kill outright, but enough to steal his breath.

He crumpled forward, hands catching on mud and moss, slick and useless. He gasped… or tried to. All that came was a thin, strangled sound of sucking in the rain that ran down his face. Rain beat against his back as he doubled over, clutching the shaft of the arrow with one hand, bile rising hot in his throat.

He tried to crawl. His hands, blistered and shaking, scrabbled for purchase in the undergrowth. The forest spun. The ferns clawed at his ribs as if to drag him under, to welcome him home.

Valdo’s poison was already blooming in his blood—subtle, slow, and cruel.

A boot wedged beneath his ribs and flipped him with a grunt.

“ Tsk, tsk . Poor choice, Sable.”

Valdo leaned down, eyes shining with triumph. As far as the Earl could tell, Julian was still alive. In shock, perhaps. Bleeding. Dying. But alive.

He nudged Jaskier’s chin up with the toe of his boot.

“Look at me,” Valdo spat. “I want to see your eyes as the life drains from them.”

Jaskier’s lashes fluttered. His fingers twitched toward his gut. He looked broken. Defeated.

“Whatever shall I tell the little princess?” Valdo cooed. “I'm so sorry, darling girl, but your beloved Dandelion was just so tired and he gave up. Oh, don’t be mad at him, dearest. He simply wasn’t strong enough to endure. He loved you, he truly did… it just wasn’t enough, it seems. He left you behind like your mother did, and your father, and your grandmother, and even the witcher whose fate is tied to yours. But grieve not, sweet princess. He did nothing worthy of tears. Nothing worth remembering.”

Valdo knelt beside him, voice thick with mockery. He fisted Jaskier’s tunic, ready to lift him for the final blow.

But then, Jaskier’s eyes snapped open—icy and wild.

His hand shot to the arrow buried in his belly. A single ragged, wet breath. Then he yanked.

The scream never made it past his lips. He twisted, reversed his grip, and drove the blood-slicked arrowhead up. Straight beneath Valdo’s jaw.

The force of it cracked something. Maybe bone. Maybe fate.

Valdo choked out a garbled, wet sound. But even as blood sprayed across Jaskier’s arm, the Earl grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close. Their foreheads collided.

Valdo laughed. Choked, gurgling laughter that sounded like dying.

Then the world peeled away.

And there was nothing.

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt jolted awake to the pained cry that echoed through the unnamed woods. Something was out there — before he could place what it was or where it came from it had stopped. And he heard the call of a bird.

“A peculiar rabbit he was, indeed. But that does not answer my question. Why does his wolf slumber in my wood?” A voice called from the dark.

He felt something blunt nudge him in the side of the head. Again, harder this time. 

“Get up, child. There will be lifetimes ahead for you to rot in the soil. Up, up, up.” 

Another smack to the side of the head.

“Wha—” 

“You came here in search of answers, did you not?” 

Geralt was still trying to process what was happening. His medallion grew hot, searing his skin. He held it tight, like that would somehow make it all make sense. But it grew hotter still. Glowing a bright white. He pulled it off, frantically wrapping the chain around his sword. When he moved to pull the sword from its sheath, his weapons were just… gone. 

“Come, come. No time for poking or thrusting.” She hummed, her trinkets and bones tinkling as she sauntered off into the dark. 

By the time Geralt was upright, the woman was walking away, one bird perched on her walking stick and the other on her shoulder. 

“Who are you?” Geralt grunted as he chased after her. As he stumbled to his feet and took a step forward, he realised he wasn’t where he had fallen asleep. 

“Who are you, witcher?” She poked him in the chest with her walking stick. The bird that had perched upon it now hovered in the air, squawking indignantly, “That you are so powerful that you can rewrite the stars and unring the bells of the fates, hmm ?” She laughed hoarsely. 

“What the fuck?” He hissed, turning around the crowded cottage, and catching a jar with some sort of fermented animal in it as he knocked it off the shelf. “I… I never claimed to do so.” 

“If you do not possess this power, then why do you splinter your bones beneath the weight of it?” The strange woman turned to the bird on her shoulder.

“How curious,” She clicked her tongue and barked out a hoarse chuckle. “he has forgotten.” 

“Forgotten what?” 

“What has been done. What has been set in motion and upon the threads of fate, has been woven into something…” She gave pause and looked at him with an expression of true bewonderment, “spectacular.”

“If it has been done, then surely there is some way to undo it.” Geralt blurted out.

“Perhaps,” she mused, taking a wide step around him, her bare feet silent against the worn wooden boards. “But everything in this world has a price. You can have nothing without paying something in return. Even lives stolen demand payment, Geralt of Rivia. And you cannot steal one that has already been given. 

“The man you seek is gone, lapochka . Did you hope to find a corpse here, hmm ?” 

Geralt said nothing. The witch was behind him now as she ground bone and ash together in a mortar. 

“I am curious. If he does not seek the dry, bleached bones, then what do you seek?” 

“Answers,” he blurted out, dizzying himself trying to keep up with her 

“Why do you wish to know? Why do these bones plague you? You have crunched the bones of three times eighty kingdoms beneath your stinky boots." She smacked him again with her stick, this time on the back of his calves. "What value do the bones of a single halfbreed matter to a mutant?" 

She stepped around Geralt and crouched, a magpie swooping down from the rafters to land on her shoulder. It dropped something in the mortar, crying out as it hopped from one shoulder to the other. The witcher looked up at her, confused. He was on the floor now, his tattered armour discarded by the hearth, stripped bare, and covered in bandages and blood. The witch grabbed him by the cheeks and turned his head this way and that before pushing his forehead back until his head thunked against the wooden floor. 

“Tell me, how do you hope to find answers if you will not ask questions, hmm ?”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she was already up and moving, grabbing a rather juicy-looking organ of some sort and dropping it into the stone bowl.

“So significant is he, the little paw, that all the cogs and wheels of the cosmos are his to answer for. Upon his shoulders, they rest, and the weight that he has no claim to is crushing him.” The witch snorted, the magpie on her shoulder laughing. “So then in his mind, he is a god, is he? And if he is god, then a heretic he must also be.” 

Jaskier lay just out of arm’s reach on the floor beside him. Trembling, naked, and battered from his flight through the brambles. He stifled a sob as the witch ran a knife over his palm and then shoved something into his hand, careful to catch the blood that dribbled down his arm in her mortar. 

“Don’t you touch him!” Geralt wailed, choking on the blood in his own throat. But the words were lost in the thickness of his lungs. He was on the ground now. 

His voice became nothing more than a hushed howl of wind. His body was broken and bent, bone shattered, the life gushing from the open wound in his side. 

The witch ignored his struggle, painting lines over his body, lines and strange symbols over the worst of the wounds. She stood and made her way to Jaskier. Panic ignited in the witcher’s chest. Geralt couldn’t save Jaskier, couldn’t reach him—he was dying. 

“You amuse me, lapochka ,” she sang, humming as she began to paint lines of the black mixture across Jaskier’s body. Jaskier was speaking to her, tears streaming down his cheeks into his hair, and he turned to Geralt. “You wish to undo a great sacrifice. To undo the purest act of love that I have seen orchestrated for a thousand years. The ancient arts are as wild as they are powerful, even I do not command them. I merely speak, and when they will, they listen. To save a life, a life was given.” 

"Forgive me, Geralt. I couldn’t let you go, couldn’t lose you. I know I promised you I’d find Ciri, but… but you’re going to have to do this without me.” Jaskier stopped, the words catching in his throat as though he were going to say something, but changed his mind. “Please… live well and find happiness, my wolf." 

Trembling fingers, cold against Geralt’s skin, traced delicate lines. Trapped in his broken body, Geralt cried out. He was so close he could almost reach Jaskier, but he couldn’t move. 

“Very well," the witch huffed, wedging a strip of leather between Jaskier’s teeth. Geralt watched breathlessly as she painted patterns across Jaskier’s body. She turned to Geralt with an odd look. “Try to stay still, little one. You are about to see where the dogs are buried.” 

The witch said, glancing over her shoulder to fix her eyes on Geralt. "Therein lies your answer, little paw." 

The witcher was trapped in his frozen corpse as the witch began to chant.

The thunder rolled, and the rain shook the cottage. 

Jaskier's back arched off the ground, his neck rolling at an unnatural angle as he thrashed. Only the heels of his feet and the base of his skull still touched the floor.

Geralt could do nothing but look on as Jaskier suffered. The screams shredded his throat, sounding almost inhuman. Breathing heavily, he turned to face the witcher, bloodied tears still dripping from his eyes as he stared through Geralt. Finally, he stilled, the rains ceased, and all fell silent. 

As if a spell had broken, Geralt launched himself forward, reaching for Jaskier. But his hand passed through the bard to land in the smouldering embers of his campfire. 

He was outside once more. Rushing to his feet, he whipped around to search for the hag and nearly collided with her. She looked up at him with a toothy smile. 

"Have you found what you seek?"

“Enough of your games, witch!” he screamed. 

“Games? What a peculiar game, indeed. Games are for children, and I certainly do not have the time to entertain them. But he is not smiling or laughing.” She asked the birds perched on her shoulders.

“He’s dead,” Geralt’s voice broke. “I know he is… I’ve watched him die again and again.”

“That you have,” she agreed. Then fixed him with a crazed look. "Go on. If you wish to hear the words so bad, then say them, little paw." 

“Enough riddles!” Geralt shouted, “Where is he?” 

"Ah. Now that is a better question. But you must ask yourself one more thing. Has the man he died to save perished alongside him, or does he still draw breath?"

“Enough games!” Geralt roared. “Tell me, witch—is the bard dead?”

" Ah ! That is the wrong question," she said, her voice now low and ancient as the soil.

“Why do these bones plague you?” she asked. “Bones that still elude you. Ungnawed. Unbleached. Still dark. Still wet, they are.”

Geralt took a trembling breath. “Then what’s the right question?”

She turned, slowly, her eyes like clouded glass. “Does he want to know, or does he need to see ?”

And before he could answer, she raised a hand.

The world pitched sideways.

He stumbled.

The air grew thick and wet with rot. The scent of blood and damp leaf litter choked him. He blinked—and they were in the woods. The real woods. Nowhere near the cottage.

Rain lashed through skeletal birch trees. Ferns flattened under the weight of it. And there—on his knees—was Jaskier.

Gasping. Pale. A bloody shaft protruded from his gut.

He watched the bard cough, blood foaming at his lips as his trembling hand hovered over the arrow, too weak to pull. Then a shadow knelt beside him.

The man, whom Geralt recognised from his hallucinations, held a small, green vial. Uncorked with the flick of his thumb.

“Well now,” the man said softly. “Wouldn’t want you dying too fast, Sable.”

Geralt tried to move. He couldn’t.

The man tipped the vial. Just a drop.  Jaskier's spine arched as he writhed in agony; in the absence of a sob, his bloodied throat made an awful sound that clawed its way up from his chest. His hands twitched, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Blood seeped through his filthy tunic.

Then, just as the bard slumped back, unconscious, Jaskier mouthed Geralt’s name.

The vision shattered.

Geralt fell to his knees in the witch’s hut, retching from the stink of blood and death that wasn’t really there.

The fire hissed, guttering low. Baba Yaga towered over him.

“Now you know,” she said simply. “He is not yet dead.”

“Where is he?” Geralt rasped.

But she was already turning away.

“The thread frays. That is all you may have.”

She paused at the door, her silhouette crooked against the night.

“Find him before it snaps.”

And Geralt woke with a start, Roach screaming and stamping her feet. The fire beside him had suddenly gone cold. His medallion stuck to the welted skin of his chest, where it had burned him. 

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier woke with a shudder—bones jerking, muscles spasming like a puppet yanked on tangled strings. Pain lanced through him, raw and deep.

A warm weight pressed against the back of his head. Not crushing, but steady. Unwelcome.

Above him, someone hummed. The sound was off-kilter, drawn-out in places it shouldn’t be, clipped in others like a drunkard mangling a lullaby. A sailor’s dirge, old and swaying.

It was Valdo.

Jaskier forced his eyes open, lids dry and crusted. The fire’s glow stabbed at him, too bright. He ground his teeth, rolled onto his belly, and vomited into the leaf litter.

“Still yourself, pet,” Valdo said, barely glancing up. “The poison will pass. You’ve had a partial dose of the antidote. I'm far more worried about your wound.”

Valdo flicked it with two fingers, and Jaskier's whole body jolted. 

Valdo was seated beside him, elbows braced on his knees, fingers fussing over something just out of view. Jaskier blinked until the shapes bled into coherence.

A blood-soaked rag. Valdo’s tunic was ripped open. The skin on his throat was raw and seeping from the wound Jaskier had left with the arrow. 

A dark line had been smeared across his collarbone and under his chin, crusted with ash and hastily stitched.

Valdo caught his eye and gave a sardonic little smile.

“Luckily for you, I always carry a dose,” he said. “The poison would’ve taken us both otherwise. Next time, do try to aim higher. You nearly had me.”

He winced as he shifted, reaching for a charred stick to stoke the fire. 

Jaskier tried to sit up, the motion pulled at his abdomen, which had been packed with strips of cloth but not yet stitched. Blood welled again, hot and fresh.

Jaskier let himself collapse, cheek pressed to the cold detritus. 

When he woke again, every inch of him hurt. His gut throbbed with a vicious pulse, and he was distantly aware of his abdomen having been bound in tight, rough bandages. They pressed in like a vice—too tight, too hot.

He hadn’t done that. Valdo had. 

The bastard had cleaned and bound his wound.

“Don’t think it was mercy,” Valdo muttered, as if reading his mind. “It was practicality. You bleed out, and I shall have no choice but to carry your body back to prove it to the countess, who—despite her blessing of my methods—will be most displeased at your death. And I’d rather not explain how I managed to kill the mute and gut myself in the process.”

He took a swig from his waterskin and tossed it lazily in front of Jaskier’s face.

“I’ve thought long and hard,” Valdo went on, his tone almost conversational, “and still your idiocy utterly confounds me.”

Jaskier scowled faintly and tried to reach for the skin, fingers weak and clawed. Valdo snorted and snatched it up, uncorked it, and brought it to Jaskier’s lips himself.

“Careful now,” he murmured. “Slow sips. If you puke on me again, I will leave you here to rot.”

Jaskier drank deeply until the skin ran dry. He coughed, panting against the pain in his ribs.

“You won’t die in these woods,” Valdo said softly. “Not tonight, anyway.”

Jaskier stared up at him through his lashes. The firelight etched every line of the earl's face—jaw clenched, lips thinned, eyes glittering like coals.

“I cannot decide,” Valdo said at last, “whether you’re simply a bungling fool, or whether that was calculated. That you knew I’d catch you, and this was your attempt at a trap.”

It worked, didn't it?

Jaskier lifted a trembling hand, slow and deliberate, and traced a line along his throat from ear to ear.

Valdo’s breath caught.

A moment of silence stretched between them.

I meant to kill you, the gesture said. And I still will.

Something shifted in the earl’s face. Not fear or anger. But a strange blooming pride.

There was a flicker of it, quickly buried. He leaned back, exhaling through his nose.

Perhaps the Countess had been right about him after all.

Chapter Text

THE HARBINGER

by yolkipalki

Chapter Nine: The Hammer of the Witches

。。。oOo 。。。

Silence is all we dread.

There’s Ransom in a Voice –

But Silence is Infinity.

Himself have not a face.

– Emily Dickinson

。。。oOo 。。。

Geralt had spent three days dragging a lake in Rinde, convinced by whispers of an imprisoned djinn. Three days wading through cold muck and wrestling snarled fishing lines, only to haul up nothing but shards of moss-choked pottery. Broken. Useless. Just like every other lead.

Rinde was just another town. This mage? Surely just another haughty sorceress ready to wave him off with an elegant flick of her wrist and tell him to let it go. They always did.

But if there was the slightest chance—any chance—she could tell him something…

It didn’t matter. He had already lost everything. There was nothing left to lose.

The sorceress didn’t look up when he entered. Her dark hair fell in sleek waves over her shoulders, ink against pale skin, as she lazily turned a page in the book resting on her lap. She reclined in the wide bay window like it was a throne, sunlight cutting sharp lines across the polished floorboards.

“I heard you lost something,” she remarked, voice smooth as silk. Still, her eyes never left the page.

“Did you.” Geralt's voice rasped out of him like an unused blade. It sounded foreign, even to his own ears. Idly, he wondered how long it had been since he'd spoken more than three words to anyone, even Roach.

“Word travels fast amongst those of Chaos.” She flipped another page, the motion careless. “And your little… quest is far from ordinary.” She finally lifted her gaze, violet eyes gleaming like glass under sunlight. “I wondered when fate would drag you to my door.”

“Fate had nothing to do with it.” His patience was a thread stretched taut, fraying by the second.

She closed the book with a soft thump, uncurling from the window with unsettling grace. Her gaze fixed on him like a hawk eyeing wounded prey. “I know who you are, Witcher. You know who I am.” Her head tilted, studying him. “But who are they, I wonder? Must be quite special… to have you chasing ghosts for years.”

She circled him, steps light, voice heavy with mockery. “Though what are a few years to you, hmm? Or has the Path grown cold in your absence?”

“If you’re going to waste my time—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” she interrupted silkily, smirking as she brushed invisible dust from his shoulder. “Forgive me,” she added, tone feather-light, “I forget how fragile witcher pride can be.”

Geralt’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want your apologies. I want answers.”

“And I want information,” she countered, stepping close enough that the lavender scent of her filled his nose, sharp and cloying. “Your secrets mean little to me, Wolf, but they’re the price of my help.”

He hesitated. Years of silence were a hard habit to break.

“They…” His throat tightened. “They’re people I failed. My family, of sorts.”

A dark eyebrow arched. “How touching. And vague.” She turned away, pacing toward her desk, idly tracing her fingers over the carved wood. “You know, the more details you give me, the more likely I can help you with this—what was it? The fruitless search for your failed family?”

“I’ve told you all I can.”

“You’ve told me nothing.” She spun back toward him, voice sharp now, the amusement draining from her face. “And while it’s very noble to protect the secrets of the dead, I assure you it helps no one.”

“Forgive me if I don’t trust you.” His hand twitched at his side, aching to shove hers away when she reached for the edge of his doublet.

“Forgive me if that doesn’t wound me,” she drawled, unbothered. Her eyes glinted with dangerous curiosity. “I offered to help because, frankly, I find your predicament… entertaining. Bore me, and I’ll rescind the offer.”

She perched on the edge of the desk, legs crossed at the ankle, all polished confidence and venom.

“A princess and a court jester,” she mused, lips curling in a wry grin. “It’s almost poetic.” She tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “All that coin, all that effort… wasted.” Her head tilted again, mock pity colouring her voice. “Have you considered they might just be dead? Humans have a nasty habit of doing that.”

Geralt’s expression hardened to stone. “If you can help me, then help me. If not…”

“I’ll help you,” she cut in smoothly, her voice quiet but sharp as a blade. “But only if you stop lying to yourself.”

The room pulsed with quiet. The weight of years. Of loss.

“Tell me who they are,” she said softly. “Truly. And I’ll show you what the stars have to say.”

Geralt’s jaw flexed. His hands curled at his sides. His voice, when it came, was rough and raw with grief.

“A child,” he said at last. “And a man who wouldn’t stop singing.”

Yennefer’s eyes glittered. Her lips twitched. Something knowing, and maybe—just maybe—faintly sympathetic.

“Well,” she purred, rising to her feet once more. “That’s a start.”

。。。oOo 。。。

The hall beneath the Stael estate was dark but for the firelight in hanging cressets. Smoke coiled towards the rafters—juniper, rowan, herbs sharp with protection and older things. They burned in a brass bowl at the foot of Lilka’s throne, the scent clinging to the tapestried walls and the cold stone beneath Jaskier’s knees.

He knelt on a fur of sable, black as pitch and soft beneath his torn palms. Blood still seeped through the bandages wrapping his hands and around his abdomen. His tunic clung to him with sweat, crusted with forest mud and old wounds.

Above him, Lilka stood robed in midnight blue, the heavy sleeves embroidered with silver thread in curling, ancient patterns—symbols of hearth and claw, hunter and hunted. Her pale hand cradled a length of woven cord, dark as the fur beneath him, strung with a small pewter charm. A sable, sleek and poised, its eyes two polished beads of onyx. The creature’s delicate paws curled around the edges of the disc as it clung to him already.

Valdo lingered at the edge of the hearth’s glow, arms crossed, mouth twisted with something unreadable. Pride, perhaps. Possession. Or jealousy, old and sour. Jaskier couldn’t tell. 

“Rise,” Lilka commanded softly, but her voice carried the weight of iron.

Jaskier obeyed, stiff and slow. His gut ached beneath the tight bindings. His legs trembled from the lingering poison and the blood loss, but he did not falter.

“This name is now yours,” Lilka said, stepping close. Her fingers skimmed his jaw, the side of his throat, tracing the pulse beneath his skin. “You have earned it.”

A low hum rippled through the room as Lilka’s faceless mages began to sing an old song, older than her, older than stone keeps and gilded courts. The magic in it prickled along Jaskier’s arms like static, like a warning.

Lilka lifted the cord, the sable charm swaying between them like a pendulum.

“Kuna,” she whispered. “Sable. Swift and small. Soft in fur, sharp in tooth.”

The charm swung closer, cold against his throat as she fastened it, the woven cord settling like a leash, like a noose.

“You run well. Swift and cunning creature. Once a warbling bird, fragile as hollow bone. You are a predator now, and your pray shall be that which I deem yours to feast upon,” she continued, voice velvet-smooth, “You belong to me, my clever little hunter. You will vanish when I tell you. Strike when I command it. And when they see this—” Her thumb brushed the charm at his collarbone, pressing it flat to his skin. “They will know whose creature you are.”

Behind her, Valdo’s eyes gleamed in the firelight, sharp as the sable’s teeth.

Lilka leaned close, her breath cool against his ear. “You are the Sable now. My shadow in the woods.”

She pulled back, eyes glittering. And the ceremony, such as it was, was complete.

Jaskier’s fingers hovered near the charm, hesitant, curling into a fist instead. It burned faintly with old magic—a tether, a mark. The last piece of the man he used to be was stripped away.

But deep in his chest, beneath the pain and the fear, something coiled tighter. Quiet. Patient. Waiting.

。。。oOo 。。。

The fire was low, more ash than flame now. Aiden had let it die when he was poring over his notes of more tragedy-befallen nobles and unlikely alliances. Now he crouched beside the fire pit, feeding it careful splinters and kindling. He decided he needed more wood, branches and logs when the scrape of boots on stone reached his ears.

The woods were quiet tonight. Whoever approached wasn’t trying to hide.

Aiden straightened, hand drifting to the hilt at his belt, but before the tension could coil tight, a familiar voice barked through the trees.

“Oi, no need for the teeth, Cat. It’s only me.”

Zoltan Chivay stepped into the firelight, the same stubborn beard, and the same battered axe strapped across his back. Older, maybe. Greyer at the edges. But still Zoltan.

Aiden eased his stance, some of the wariness draining from his frame. “You’ve got a bloody death wish, sneaking up on witchers in the dark.”

“Death wish?” Zoltan snorted, dropping a heavy satchel by the fire with a grunt. “Been wishin’ for years now, lad. Heard you were ‘round. Wanted to bring these before you disappeared on your bloody Path again.”

There was quiet for a while. The crackle of the fire, the distant hiss of wind through leaves. Aiden let it stretch, content to let Zoltan talk if he wanted, or leave in peace if he didn’t.

But after a moment, the dwarf began rifling through his satchel, pulling out scraps of parchment, folded pages, and a leather-bound journal that had seen better decades.

“Word travels, even up the mountains,” Zoltan muttered, arranging the papers in his lap. “About the Wolf. And the hunt.”

Aiden stilled, his pulse shifting, heavy and leaden.

“They say he won’t rest. Won’t stop.” Zoltan’s fingers lingered on a scrap of worn parchment, the faded scrawl unmistakable even from a distance. “The Wolf that hunts for his Songbird.”

Aiden said nothing. The name lingered, familiar and raw.

“They think it’s romantic,” Zoltan went on, snorting under his breath. “Half the bards down in Mahakam sing it like a cursed fairy tale. The witcher, carving his way across the continent, following the ghost of a dead man's song.”

His hand hovered over the pages, and then he held them out to Aiden.

“Take it. It’s the only way I’ll stop hearin’ ballads about that fool bard of yours.”

Aiden’s mouth twitched, but the warmth never reached his eyes. “Not mine.”

Zoltan shrugged, settling himself by the fire with the casualness of someone used to unwanted roads and colder camps. “Yours enough. Travel with Geralt long enough, every miserable sod becomes half yours by osmosis.”

“Why are you giving these to me?” 

“He won’t find him,” Zoltan added softly. “Not like that. But… maybe these’ll help.”

Aiden hesitated, then took the pages. Notes scribbled in haste. Half-finished verses. Fragments of poems. Songs Jaskier had sung a hundred times beside the fire and some Aiden had never seen before.

His throat tightened.

“Thought you hated me after that incident in Velen,” Aiden managed with a forced grin.

“I do,” Zoltan grunted. “But not more than I cared for Jaskier and care still for Geralt. And the poor sod’s been chasing shadows so long, I figure he deserves at least a thread to follow.”

The pages trembled faintly in Aiden’s hand.

“Give these to him when you see him,” Zoltan said, already rising to his feet. “Might not be the man he’s huntin’, but it’s a voice. Sometimes… that’s enough.”

Aiden nodded once, silent. The papers weighed heavy in his hands with memory and promise both.

The fire crackled as Zoltan disappeared back into the dark.

And Aiden sat there, the weight of a lifetime of songs and stories in his lap, listening to the wind carry the ghost of a familiar tune through the trees.

。。。oOo 。。。

Valdo threw the heavy oak doors open with more force than he should’ve been able to muster.  

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He shouted, his voice carrying across the banquet hall.  

"Good morning, dearest," the countess replied with a smug grin, delicate fingers digging into the rind of a clementine.  

"The Kestrel?" he scoffed, "You've given the Sable his first real orders, and he's to be trained and accompanied by the Kestrel?"

"Why, husband, you surprise me.  I thought this revelation would come as a great relief to you."

"I've spent four years training him.  Four fucking years and you send him to Creyden with the Kestrel." 

"Is there something wrong with the Kestrel?" Lilka leaned forward, resting her face in her palm and grinning widely.  "Her work is flawless and thorough."

"With all due respect, my lady, the Kestrel is hardly—"

"I have made my decision, and that is final.  I suggest you make your peace with it lest I find you in contempt."

And with a delicate wave of her hand, she dismissed him and the matter of the Kestrel entirely.

。。。oOo 。。。

Jaskier stood on the cliff looking out over the stormy grey seas.  He had been informed he was to meet another like him on the cliffs and travel to Creyden.  He wasn't quite sure why he was tasked with meeting them here.  Perhaps secrecy.  The closest city was Przyladek Haninge, at least three days' travel. 

What Lilka had said to him that first night was beginning to make sense.  Jaskier wasn't the only one.  The man that he killed in Brenna—the Hawk, as Lilka had called him—had been sent to retrieve Ciri.  

He felt nervous and, if he was being honest with himself, a little excited.  Perhaps he and the Kestrel would share some common ground.  Perhaps he could find an ally. Aside from Valdo, he had met two of Lilka’s beasts—the Fisher and the Hawk—and he’d killed them both. Maybe this would be different. But he dared not trust to hope.

Several hours passed before a stranger approached Jaskier, a small woman with dark skin, thin lips, and big, black eyes.  She stood beside him, poised and peaceful.  She was dressed as a sailor might, in drab grey wool.  Though beautiful, she was unremarkable.  There was nothing about the way she dressed or carried herself that would cause her to stand out in a crowd.  

"I understand that you are wordless," she said, eyes fixed on the white-capped waves stories below.  

He nodded.  

“Very well then. Listen well, li'l one. You might be tall and strong, but you'd be wise to use speed over strength. Brute strength is noisy and will tie your hands. Our work is precise and must be executed flawlessly. One tiny misstep and—" she twisted her foot just so and a series of pebbles and small stones went tumbling down the cliff face, clunking as they went. "I will teach you first to stoop, a skill you will find most useful in your comings and goings." 

She pulled a small leather pouch from her satchel and handed it to him.  

"Chalk," she explained, "mined from the deposits along the Ulvari cliffs on Hindarsfjall."

She could see the confusion plainly on his face.  "Don't worry, I will teach you all you need to know.  First, you must rid yourself of those clunking, hulking boots.  They will do you no favours here."  

They walked about half a mile down the cliffside before they began their lesson.  

Jaskier learned to dust his hands and test a grip before he threw his weight onto it.  Then, slowly, they climbed down the cliffside as the salt sea spray soaked them to the bone.  Several times, Jaskier lost his grip and slid, barely catching himself before he plummeted to his death.  Not until they reached the gloomy black sand shores did his heart cease beating hard enough to dizzy him.  

When his raw, numb feet landed on the cold sand, he collapsed onto his back and stared up at the clear, starry sky.  It was as if he could see all the infinite worlds and stars with his naked eyes. It was stunning.  

So enraptured with the cosmos above, Jaskier didn’t notice the Kestrel begin the climb back up the cliffs to an open cave mouth up a sloping rock face, distant enough from the shore to stay dry at high tide.  When she bade him follow, Jaskier dusted the sand from his tunic and trousers, dusted his hand with chalk and began the climb.  

The cave was cold but dry.  Gathering branches from a pile of driftwood, the Kestrel poured a vial of oil on the wood and, with some difficulty, sparked the flint.  

They ate smoked fish and cold rice wrapped in grape leaves, each lost in their respective thoughts.  After she’d had her fill, the Kestrel leaned back, cracking her knuckles and stretching.

 “You did well, Sable.” 

Jaskier smiled in a way he hoped conveyed his thanks.  While not gentle, the Kestrel was kind in ways that Valdo most certainly was not.  He tugged on the black cord around his neck.  Though light, it burned most curiously… like a static spark.  

“You’ll get used to it,” the kestrel said, pulling a similar chain from the folds of her tunic and leaning forward so he could inspect the small charm.  Like his, it was a tiny charm of an animal.  A kestrel to his sable.  

“I don’t feel it anymore,” she explained.  “It can be heavy at times. Though it is a burden I gladly bear. I am grateful for it.  It serves as a reminder of the blessing of the Ifrit.” 

Jaskier leaned forward, weaving his fingers together around his knees and watching her intently.  

“When this cold, terrible world had no more place for me, I found a home in the Ifrit's kingdom.  Chewed up and spit out by two wars.  I had nowhere left to go, no home to return to. Not even the free city of Novigrad held the promise of coin for me."

I was sleeping on the docks, leaning up against a pillar post, when the Kingfisher came.  He alighted from the roof of a smithy forge to land before me, and in one smooth, effortless motion, he sliced the throat of King Vizimir’s guards. He didn’t expect to see me, for when our eyes locked, I knew my life had changed forever.  He tried to kill me as he had the guards, but I fought. Though hungry and tired and clothed in rags, I was still a proud soldier.” 

She pressed a fist to her chest.  “When he realised he could not possibly walk away unscathed, he retreated.  I pursued.  He led me to a statue of Mokosh, far outside the city gates, where I watched him vanish into thin air.  I waited there.  For three days, I waited, and when I had given up all hope, I met the Alabai.  He fed me and clothed me, and together we journeyed to White Orchard.  He told me of the Ifrit and… here I stand before you.” 

Jaskier was moved by her tale of belonging. Though he wasn’t certain how she could possibly be speaking about this secret web of Lilka’s with any sort of soft fondness and reverence. 

“One day, when I have proven myself worthy, I will fall at her feet and I will wash my lady’s feet with my tears and she will welcome me home to the battlefield that I have long laboured to protect.” 

Jaskier scrunched his brow.  The Kestrel, who seemed to on some level understand his confusion, pulled a locket from her bag, carefully opening it to reveal a simple drawing of a beautiful woman's apple face.  It was Lilka, unmistakably.  

"The Ifrit, the lady in red, our mistress and master. Have you seen her?" 

He nodded.  

"Truly? You've met the Ifrit?" The kestrel whispered in reverent awe. “You are blessed, Sable.  A chosen one, indeed.” 

Oh, how he wished he could tell the Kestrel how the woman she held so sacred was a monster.  Though surely she had to know to some degree.  The barbaric tasks he'd been made to commit were proof of that.  

But then again, the Kestrel said she'd been a soldier.  In her eyes, Lilka was a goddess, and she would gladly kill to fulfil the goddess's purpose.  It was a righteous cause, the greater good, the will of the divine, perhaps.  

Jaskier's heart broke for the valiant soldier and her misplaced loyalty.  

。。。oOo 。。。

“Tell me something, wolf.” Yennefer huffed, swinging a leg over him and tangling them both deeper in the mess of furs. She traced a finger down the chain around his throat, teeth grazing across the skin. 

It had been so long since Geralt had carried a conversation he wasn’t sure he remembered how, even if he hadn’t just been fucked stupid. 

“Hmm.” 

“Is it true what they say about witchers and their insatiable appetites?” She bit at his lip, revelling in the shaking gasp, the twitching of his hips.  

“I…” But he couldn’t seem to find the words. It was all too much, more than he had felt in years, possibly ever, all at once, rough, raw. He felt his chest begin to heave, breaths coming faster and faster as she rolled astride him, leaving a trail of scratches and nips down his chest. 

“No matter.” Yennefer laughed, her hands slipping around the chain and tugging, cutting off his air with a choked-off cry. The warmth of her hands was like lightning through his veins. “I intend to find out.”

Yennefer slid from the bed to retrieve a silver carafe, pouring herself a glass of white wine. She lit the fire in the hearth with a disinterested wave of her hand. She sipped her wine and watched Geralt lay there, blissfully fucked senseless with his hands behind his head. It was the first time he had felt anything but pain in a very long time.

“You’re a strange man, Geralt,” she chuckled, setting her glass aside and joining him in the tangle of furs and silk sheets. 

“Not a man,” he countered with the slightest smirk. 

“Geralt…” Yennefer brushed the hair from where it tumbled around his face, tucking it behind his ear and looking up at him with a queer expression. She looked upon him with tenderness, her eyes were vibrant. A gentle touch that mimicked another and suddenly Jaskier was there, right there lying across the floor, naked and shivering, just out of his reach.

Jaskier’s hand was coated in blood and soot, his fingers shook as they traced a line from Geralt’s temple to his lips, and then the bard’s head smashed into the floor, eyes rolling back as he let out a scream that ripped through Geralt like fire.

As Yennefer nestled sleepily beside him, she ran a hand across his cheek, tracing the rough unshaven side of his face to his kiss-bitten lips.  Her hand lingered, fingertips tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. For a breath, her eyes softened—not the calculating gleam of a mage, but something fragile, human, terribly dangerous.

“You bring out the worst in me, Geralt,” she murmured, so quietly he almost missed it. “You’re a simple man, yet so strange.”

And then it was gone, buried beneath that smirk, the coiled steel behind her gaze.

When Geralt regained consciousness, Yennefer was holding him, a delicate hand tucked around his shoulders and one tangled in his hair, her chin resting on his head. 

。。。oOo 。。。 

ONE YEAR LATER 

The fire in the hearth crackled low, throwing long shadows across the cluttered study. The room stank of melted wax, burnt sage, and frustration—months of it, layered thick as the dust on Yennefer’s spellbooks.

She sat at her dressing table, twisting a silver chain through her fingers, the links glinting faintly in the firelight. Her reflection in the mirror was drawn, pale, violet eyes rimmed red with sleepless nights and silent arguments.

Behind her, Geralt loomed in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes shadowed, the lines carved into his face deeper than they'd been a year ago.

“I appreciate your persistence,” Yennefer said quietly, voice low but frayed at the edges, “and your faith in my abilities, Geralt.” She let the chain fall into the velvet-lined box with a soft clink and turned to face him, folding her hands in her lap. “But what you ask…” She shook her head, the words catching in her throat for half a second. “It’s impossible.”

His jaw clenched. He didn't speak, but the quiet weight of his stubbornness filled the room.

Yennefer exhaled through her nose, fingers lifting to twist a strand of dark hair around her finger before tucking it behind her ear. The movement was automatic now—a nervous tic that had resurfaced in recent months.

“This world is cold,” she said softly, “and cruel. Wanting something with all your heart doesn’t make it so. I know you think if you just want hard enough—fight hard enough—it'll… undo everything.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat, voice growing brittle. “But we’ve been at this for months. Years.” Her eyes flicked to the window, to the black sweep of the sky beyond. “And I’ve found nothing but echoes. Shadows. Dust.”

She let the words settle. Heavy. Inevitable.

“They're dead, Geralt.”

His face barely shifted. But his eyes—they burned. Quiet, low-burning grief.

“I refuse to believe that,” he rasped.

Yennefer snorted, bitterness curling behind the sound. “Believe whatever you like.” She rose from the chair with feline grace, crossing to the nearby shelf, her fingertips tracing the lid of a worn wooden box—more trinkets, more useless tools. She was always searching, even now, even after all the rituals and dead ends. It had become habit. Or weakness.

“We’ve been chasing ghosts for over a year. You’ve been chasing them for more than five,” she reminded him, turning to lean against the shelf, arms crossing over her chest. “Your child. Your jester.”

“He's not a jester,” Geralt snapped, raw and sharp, like a blade ground against a stone.

Yennefer’s eyes flashed. She turned on her heel, stalking toward him with a look sharp enough to flay skin.

“Devotion,” she hissed, stopping just short of him, “will not wake the dead. If it could, soldiers would claw their way out of their shallow graves and limp home to their widowed brides.” 

Her voice cracked, briefly, the strain of it showing. “The world is cruel. And your grief? Your suffering?” She stepped back, gaze cooling to glass. “It is no great exception.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Yennefer turned toward the door, ready to walk away— she should walk away —but her feet betrayed her. She lingered, fingers tightening around the frame, her head bowed for a moment before she glanced back at him.

Her voice was quieter this time, almost too soft for him to hear. “I know you loved him, Geralt.”

A breath. A heartbeat. “In ways you don’t even understand.”

The words lingered, brittle and raw, in the quiet.

Her eyes met his—tired, guarded, aching.

“But he’s gone.”

She left him there, silhouetted against the dying fire, the frustration still clawing at the space between them.

。。。oOo 。。。 

It had pained her more than Yennefer would ever say to send Geralt away with his head hung low.  

She held the shattered silk doublet folded neatly in her hands.  She had tried everything she could think of, every spell and counterspell she knew or could find in old tomes.  Without some artefact of the princess, her options were limited. The burning of Cintra had left a scar on the land, a wound that festered with rotted corpses and raw magic. It would take lifetimes to sift through it all to discern the young girl’s fate.  

She had hoped that the bard would be a different matter, at least marginally easier to track down.  But she had caught nothing but glimpses and echoes.  More than there should’ve been for a man supposedly dead, these four years passed.  The mysterious disappearance of Jaskier the bard had become an obstacle that she could not seem to overcome, no matter how hard she tried.  Yennefer did not take kindly to failure in any sense.  

She could feel the connection between Geralt and the bard.  Whether the man was alive or not, the fate that tied them together was very real.  She had seen it, caught flashes of it when they were close or when Geralt would wake screaming in the night. 

It stunk of old magic and pain, and she could practically taste it.  This ritual was a last resort, an old form of divination that she had learned about in the library at Aretuza.  

As far-fetched as it seemed, it was her last hope of divining the fate of the missing minstrel.  The supplies to perform such a ritual would take time to collect.  The chances of success were so low, and she couldn’t bear to see the painful flicker of hope in Geralt’s eyes snuffed out once more.  

So she would do it on her own, as she had always done things, and perhaps, maybe, she could do something good for someone and bring the witcher something more than heartache.  

。。。oOo 。。。

The thunder had quieted to a low, distant growl now and again. Rain hissed against the stone walls as the storm rolled north along the coastline.

Lilka had sent for her husband.

Begrudgingly, Valdo slipped from the bed and pulled his trousers on. He hadn’t slept, not after visiting the belligerent little princess and her endless whimpers over the beloved mute. The Sable’s latest mission—successful, of course—had only deepened the knot in his gut. Lilka had rewarded the boy. Welcomed him into their bed. It should have satisfied him. It hadn’t. Sure, physically it had felt wonderful, but beneath it, an oily rot was fermenting. Something had to be done about the Sable and soon. 

The unease clawed at his ribs, coiling tighter with every step along the winding halls to the drawing room.

The countess lounged in her velvet chair, bathed in firelight. Her cheeks flushed from the heat, lips stained red as fresh blood. At her feet, the lynx gnawed lazily at a shattered bone, marrow glistening between its sharp teeth.

“We have a problem,” Lilka mused, swirling cherry wine in her glass.

As Valdo crossed the room, the lynx’s ears flattened. Its yellow eyes fixed on him, unblinking.

He matched its stare, teeth clenched, but wisely kept his distance. “We have many problems, my dear. Most of which, I would argue, stem from your favourite pet.”

“Even you can be right on occasion.” Lilka’s voice was light, but her gaze stayed locked on the fire, distant. “Someone is looking for him. Someone powerful.”

A pause. The rain whispered against the glass.

“They very nearly succeeded.”

Valdo’s smirk returned, crooked and sharp. “How curious. That anyone powerful would waste their time on a blundering fool like Dandelion.” He chuckled, tipping his head. “I’ve seen his memorial in Oxenfurt. Quite tasteful. Fate Unknown — has a nice ring to it.”

Lilka did not smile.

“Ah,” Valdo breathed, grin widening. “It’s that fucking mutant, isn’t it? The bard’s witcher still lives.”

His laughter cracked like dry branches, self-satisfied and brittle. “I’m surprised you haven’t killed him yet. I’d love to meet the beast.”

“No.” Lilka’s voice snapped like a wire pulled taut. “You are to have no contact with the witcher. I forbid it.”

“Then let loose your little lamb,” Valdo pressed, circling the chair, gesturing widely. “End it. Or are you worried he’ll write a song about your lovely garden?”

Lilka’s lips twitched. The lynx cracked the bone between its teeth.

“He knows too much. He’s seen too much.”

“Which is precisely my point,” Valdo insisted, his grin fading now, replaced by something colder. “The mute is a liability, and I can’t fathom why you keep toying with him. Cats play with their prey, my love, but they always eat them in the end.”

Lilka’s fingers tightened on her glass.

“Kill him,” Valdo urged, voice low. “Be done with it.”

“I can’t.”

He arched a brow. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she said crisply, plucking a letter from the table, the wax seal glinting crimson. “I have a job for you.” She pressed the parchment into his hand. “Take him to Malleus.”

A cold rush tightened in Valdo’s gut.

“Unmake him.”

For half a second, Valdo hesitated. His pride curled sharp as wire. If Malleus stripped the boy down to nothing… what would be left to break? To own?

But Lilka was watching, peeling his layers away with her shrewd eyes. 

With a stiff, sweeping bow, Valdo turned for the door.

“Oh, and Valdo, darling?”

He stilled.

“Keep his eyes.” Her voice was honey-sweet. “I’ve grown… fond of them.”

。。。oOo 。。。

Silver cobwebs clung to the fractured rafters above, glistening faintly where the weak, bruised light bled through the broken stained glass along the western wall. The air was dense, oppressive, curling in her lungs like smoke.

Ciri’s boots clicked across the polished stone, each step echoing into the gaping quiet of the ruined ballroom. Her breath clouded faintly in the chill, vanishing as quickly as it formed. The faint hum of a storm pressed in around her, low and restless like a snarl beneath the floorboards.

The walls stretched impossibly high, their cracked pillars veiled in rot and ivy. Dust coated everything, thick as ash.

She should have known this was a dream. Her legs carried her forward, drawn by some unseen hand toward the throne that loomed at the far end of the hall.

The moment she stepped beyond the shattered threshold, she saw him.

Jaskier.

He stood near the dais, haloed in the soft, sickly light slanting through the broken windows. His chestnut hair was brushed from his eyes, tumbling in gentle waves around his face. The scar that cut from his eye to his chin glistened faintly, raw and sharp like a blade’s edge. His expression was calm, unnervingly so. He was a portrait of quiet resignation.

When he saw her, the edges of his mouth curved upward. Sweet. Familiar. He held out his hand.

But Ciri’s throat clenched tight with panic.

Because she could see it.

Behind him.

A shadow, hulking and low-slung, prowled between the broken columns. The shape of it rippled with lean muscle and thick fur, its eyes twin coals burning through the gloom. A pale wolf, monstrous and sharp-toothed, was stalking just beyond Jaskier’s notice.

“No,” she choked out, her voice thin and useless. “Jaskier— behind you—”

He didn’t react. He couldn’t hear her.

And then, before she could run to him, something small and dark darted from beneath the throne.

It moved impossibly fast, a blur of sleek sable fur and needlepoint fangs. The creature’s body rippled like smoke as it coiled low to the ground, eyes glinting amber. It sprang.

Jaskier flinched just as the sable sank its teeth into his wrist, claws curling into his arm like hooks. His face contorted. Not in surprise, but in grim, practised pain. Black blood welled from the punctures.

Ciri stumbled up the dais steps, only to trip and fall hard to her knees.

Jaskier yanked the sable from his arm, its jaws dripping black. Unbothered, it melted into the shadows, vanishing beneath the throne as if it had never been there at all.

She scrambled toward him, desperate to reach him, but the moment she did, he removed the crown from his head. Silver gleamed, shaped into the curling forms of wolves and slender sables tangled together, snarling at either temple.

He placed the crown upon her brow with chilling reverence. For a moment, as the weight settled against her brow, the cracked glass of the stained windows caught her reflection. Her eyes—wrong, impossibly blue, familiar in a way that clawed at her chest.

She blinked, and they were hers again.

But the wolf and sable snarled at either temple of the crown, their jaws locked tight. And beneath her, the throne of corpses awaited.

The throne awaited her. But it wasn’t her grandmother’s throne. It was a heap of twisted, broken bodies, their mouths gaping in silent screams, their eyes glassy and dull.

Jaskier’s blood-slick hand lingered at her shoulder as he guided her down into the corpses.

The wolf circled. The sable’s golden eyes gleamed from the dark.

Ciri woke with a strangled gasp, drenched in sweat, the phantom weight of the crown still pressing against her skull.

Outside, the rain whispered against the glass, but beneath it… she swore, from the safety of her tower, she could still hear padded paws prowling around in the dark.

。。。oOo 。。。

The storm raged outside when Jaskier returned to the estate. After they’d asked him about his mission and he’d provided the written account of what had happened, to be read and burned, Lilka beckoned them both to the countess’s bed. They stripped him bare. Teeth, hands, mouths—pushing, pulling, clutching at his body. He told himself it didn’t matter. Just sensation. Just the flesh. This wasn’t the first time they’d done it to him. He’d control himself, ground himself, keep himself from giving in as he always did. But something was different now. 

Like a vine consumed by flame, he held his shape perfectly. At a glance, he looked the same. But nothing was holding him together anymore.

His white-knuckle grip on the headboard slipped. He let it. His cheek pressed to the carved wood, breath fogging against the cool grain. He didn’t bite back the silent moan as Lilka’s hands guided him forward, as Valdo thrust deeper into him, bucking Jaskier forward into the tight heat of Lilka’s throat.

Valdo’s hand curled under her jaw, possessive, guiding, as he leaned in close. His breath was hot and heavy behind Jaskier’s ear.

“Stop fighting me, Sable,” the earl murmured. “That’s it. There you are.”

Dangerous , Jaskier thought distantly. The game you’re playing. You don’t know what will happen… what you’ll lose when you give it up.

But there was nothing left in him to resist. The final threads snapped. His body jolted forward with a voiceless cry. Valdo pushed him deeper, holding Lilka steady as she choked, swallowed, and squirmed.

After, when the fevered breaths and whispered praise had faded, he slipped from the nest of furs and silks. Over discarded clothing. Back to the stone halls. Back to his hollow.

The cool air kissed his cheeks. Wet. He touched his face, fingers trembling faintly.

When had he started crying?

When he’d reached his rooms and the serving girls had drawn a bath, he slipped into the scalding water. And he laughed. Laughed until his ribs ached. Until his throat rasped. Until he wept again, silent and shaking.

It was funny. How hard he’d fought. How long he’d fretted, begged, pleaded to keep his pleasure his and his alone.

They’d taken all of him. Hollowed him out.

And blissfully… finally… he didn’t feel a thing.

Jaskier had been pulled from his fretful sleep by Valdo’s approach. He’d heard the earl coming before the door creaked open, and he was prepared. Knife hidden in his sleeve, eyes cold and unwavering in the light of Valdo’s lantern.

“I’m not here to kill you,” the earl said, voice weary. “We’re taking a little trip.”

They walked for what seemed like an hour through the winding tunnels beneath Lilka’s estate before they reached a dead end of stone, guarded by two faceless mages. Jaskier shuddered as they approached, still yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

“Do you have your ink?” Valdo asked. 

Jaskier nodded. 

“Use it. You need the practice navigating the portals, and the system isn’t perfect. You’re the only wordless one, so you’re the first who hasn’t been able to speak the keys.” 

Jaskier pulled out a small vial and uncorked it, dipping his finger in, he stepped beside the faceless mage and tentatively drew a sign for the portal Valdo instructed. The air hummed and cracked, wisps of golden fog pulling them into a black abyss.

A man was waiting for them in the stone chamber where they landed. He reached out and touched Jaskier’s face. And then the darkness took him.

When Jaskier awoke, the cold had permeated his bones, and every part of him ached. The stone chamber was quieter than a grave. The only sound was the steady drip, drip, drip of water falling from the vaulted ceiling into shallow, blood-dark pools below.

Jaskier knelt at the centre of a perfect chalk circle on an obsidian floor so polished he could see his reflection perfectly beneath him. He moved to stand but found he had no strength. Panic seized him. His tunic hung in tatters, bruises still blooming across his ribs, the faint, jagged scar running from eye to jaw a raw, angry seam on his face.

They hadn’t even bothered to restrain him.

There was nowhere to run.

Malleus stood across from him, garbed in plain black, his eyes pale as boiled bone, flat and lifeless as a corpse’s. His gloved hands flexed once, leather creaking faintly, before he stepped forward.

“This is Malleus,” Valdo remarked, tone detached, almost fond. “The Hammer of the Witches, they call him. When he strikes, nothing remains whole. He once made the sorceresses of Aretuza beautiful—stripped them down, built them back. Tonight he’ll do the same for you.”

Jaskier's pulse thudded in his ears, heavy and slow, like a war drum. His eyes flicked to Valdo, lingering nearby, arms crossed, that faint smile curling his mouth like a hook.

“You’ll keep the scar,” Valdo added. “A reminder. You may one day forget who you were before Lilka took you into her fold, but you will never forget what I made you.”

“And the eyes,” he went on, gaze sharpening. “Lilka wants them.”

Jaskier's lip twitched. But his voice was long gone. Stolen months ago.

Malleus made no sign of hearing them. His gnarled, magic-etched fingers hovered over Jaskier’s brow.

“This will hurt,” the mage said simply, his voice stripped of empathy, of warmth. “In every way. Try not to scream.” 

“Don’t worry,” Valdo smiled. “He can’t.” 

And then the Unmaking began. A pulling apart of every thread in the tapestry of his flesh, his mind, his soul. His bones shrieked. His skin writhed. His thoughts split like shattered glass, scattering into the void. He screamed voicelessly, blood dripping from both nostrils. He clawed at his chest, cartilage grinding and crunching. He saw his hands melt and shift beneath his eyes. His skin deepened to a warmer gold. His hair, once dark and sun-touched, bleached out to a pale, unfamiliar flaxen blonde. His face—the planes of it were the same, but… not. Angles just slightly wrong, softer here, sharper there.

Somewhere between the splitting of bone and splintering thought, in the fractured glass of his unravelling mind, Jaskier felt raindrops, cold on his face. He could smell it, churning up the hot summer dust. And then he saw him.

Geralt was slumped in the saddle, thin and haggard in a way that Jaskier had never seen him before. Rain was soaking his cloaks. Roach picked her way down the distant road, steady as always, carrying him away.

Jaskier tried to call out, but his voice… his voice had been gone for years. He couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it as he reached toward the spectre of Geralt that faded with a fresh wave of pain that overtook him.

So close. So achingly close to himself, but wrong in a way he could neither place nor forget. His breathing came faster and faster.

But the scar remained.

That angry, familiar slash from eye to jaw. A mark of possession.

And his eyes were the same blue. The same impossible larkspur blue that Lilka had grown so fond of.

When it was done, Jaskier collapsed onto the cold stone, chest heaving. His limbs felt foreign. His mind was hollowed, rewired, coiled in tight knots he didn’t understand.

The circle of runes at his feet hissed and guttered out. The polished obsidian floor beneath him, smeared now with blood and ash, reflected someone he didn't recognise. 

Malleus straightened. 

“His soulprint is gone,” the mage declared, voice stripped of emotion. “Nothing remains to thread to nor scry upon. The threads of fate have been cut.”

Valdo stepped in close, crouched, fingers brushing the edge of the scar. His smile widened, dark and sharp. “Welcome back, Sable.”

Jaskier looked at him, at all of them, with familiar eyes in an unfamiliar face and wept silently.

But high in the rafters of that forgotten place, where the shadows curled and the draft hissed through the stones, fate coiled still.

Silent. Waiting.

No living mage understood the ancient ways of true Chaos and the gods. Malleus could not read the threads spun long before his time. Could not sense the frayed knot that bound wolf to songbird still.

But it was there.

And it was not done with Jaskier yet.

。。。oOo 。。。

Yennefer twisted the metal rod and tapped the end of it, splintering the doe’s femur into three parts and laying them out along the seams of the shattered silk doublet. It had taken her a year to procure the ingredients she needed for it. Hands held steady, she let the chaos rip through her and watched with unease as the silk was consumed by black fire.  

She pressed her palms flat against the triangle of bone and bundled herbs. Closing her eyes, she focused her intent. The threads under her hands contained years of memories. 

Yennefer could feel the fluttering anticipation of a performance, fingers picking at a loose string as she cleared her throat and grasped the pegbox of the lute in her hands. 

It faded into the smell of cedar, smoke, and the tang of mouldy bread. A slow-rising fear as she whittled the hours away, stoking the fire. She was waiting for Geralt to return from a hunt, mind stumbling and tumbling through the gruesome possibilities, the worry that he may never return. She stoked the fire until the stick in her hands fell to brittle pieces, sending embers up to the dark sky above. 

She watched Geralt through Jaskier's eyes, spoon stirring circles in his watery stew, felt the affection blooming in her heart like spring blossoms tumbling on the wind, felt the bleeding heart of a romantic, raw and bright thumping against her ribs. She was so vulnerable and yet unbreakable. And then she began to lose him, as she had every time before. Yennefer fought hard, tears streaming down her cheeks, overwhelmed and yet unwilling to turn away. She dug her fingers in, the flames licking up her arms as she screamed. 

The heat felt like a fever, slowly climbing in her blood until she feared it would consume her. The fire raged, and a raven cried, the weight of a cold, muddied stone, the stench of stagnant water and a filthy marketplace, bright green eyes full of tears looked up at her, begging her to stay, but her words were lost, her tongue thick in her mouth.

The bones splintered beneath her palms, and she clawed him to the surface. 

In that fragment of a moment, she saw his eyes bloodshot and drowning in tears as he screamed voicelessly, thrashing against the restraints as he was picked and pulled apart by magic just as she had been all those years before. Rearranged and unmade, whoever did this intended to make him untraceable. And before she could get to him, he was gone. All of it was just… gone. 

"No, no, no!" Yennefer slammed her hands against the table. The fire was extinguished in a blaze of bright light.

“Gods damn you! Where did you go?” She whispered, all her strength wrung dry, and she slid down to lean against the leg of the table. Hands still covered in blood-red ash, she pulled at the tangles of her sweat-soaked hair.  "Where are you?"