Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sight that greeted the rider at a fork in the road, just outside the village of Blackbough, was interesting enough to make her stop. She was eastbound on a black mare, the sun beating down on her back from the west as it slunk lower along the horizon. 

A gathering of peasants stood facing a man teetering upon an embankment. He wore a cap with a pheasant feather stuck at a jaunty angle, and the fabric of his tunic was edged with knotwork. A chain of office hung around his neck. 

Probably the alderman, she thought. 

Tucked against the curve of the earthen wall, a small shrine faced the road, the warping wood of its roof stained black with age. Beneath the eaves of the shrine hunched the carven likeness of a crook-backed, gnarl-toothed crone. A patch of moss had grown above a corner of the deity’s mouth like a beauty mark. Ciri recognized the statue’s face; it was familiar, after a fashion. If she squinted, Mother Nenneke's knowing gaze stared back at her from the carved features.

Reins twitching towards her thighs, she brought her mare to an abrupt halt near the fringe of the crowd. Water sloshed under the horse’s hooves, churning up loose chunks of earth as Ciri guided her mount alongside the gathering. Not many peasants paid them heed—a few heads turned around in curiosity, only to turn back to the alderman’s sermon once they glanced upon the hooded stranger on horseback. 

“Hear me now!” boomed the alderman, arms spread high to the sky as he cried out. “True be, the war’s come to a close, and with it many a young man’s found his grave. Here and now we humbly beseech ye, Melitele, mother o’er all, t’bless our hearths and homes with young lads and lasses this comin’ spring!”

Buzzing noises of agreement passed through the crowd—a gathering of women and old or infirm men. Ciri kept her distance, watching as the alderman climbed down from the embankment to exchange greetings and shake hands. He made his way towards her as he wove through the gathering. Torn by indecision, she sank her heels deeper behind her stirrups, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. She couldn’t decide whether to spur her mare on to avoid exchanging words with the man, or to linger. The whole point of setting out today was so that she could keep her head low, her pace steady, and not stop for anything. 

Stopping would mean questions and she wasn’t in the mood to explain herself to anyone, nor was she inclined to talk at all. A sour mood hung over her, a disquiet that had been there since she’d gotten back to this world. It had been an adjustment to see and speak to living faces after weeks of fighting in the frozen wastes, the ice constantly biting into her exposed skin until it bled. The battle with the White Frost had been the Frying Pan all over again, but instead of brutal desert heat, Ciri was met with the living force of frost stretching into leagues of blinding whiteness. 

She was worn, she was tired. Most of all she was not ready for prying eyes and fumbling questions about who she was, where she was going, or what she was doing. Not today. Before she could decide to move on or linger, the alderman was blocking her path with his body and an entreating expression. 

“Will ye give an offering, miss?” he asked, clasping a hand over his heart.

Ciri hesitated before she reached into the traveling pouch belted at her side and scraped out a few gold crowns. It wasn’t enough to make any onlookers take note or bring gossip back to the village about a wealthy traveler heading east, but it would be enough to satisfy the alderman. 

“Melitele bless ye, ma’am.” With a tip of his cap, the alderman cupped his hands to receive the pour of coins as she opened her fist. After they trickled into his ruddy palms, he turned to shuffle back through the crowd and drop them into the wooden bowl between the crone’s claw-like feet. Others queued to offer their equivalent: an assemblage of underfed chickens, heels of bread, and small flagons of crude wine as a tribute to Melitele.

Ciri was down the road and moving at a brisk trot before the alderman had a chance to turn and thank her again. 

Once she’d put another league between herself and the outskirts of Blackbough, she guided her horse away from the road to a copse of trees, tugging back the hood of her oilskin capelet to let the fresh air hit her. The heavy material had kept the rain off her shoulders and head earlier in the day when she’d first arrived in Velen, shielding her face from prying eyes. But it was bloody hot beneath it, creating a foggy heat at the back of her neck that plastered her ashy hair to her skin with sweat.

The pale skin of her face was still spotted with hard, waxy patches of frostbite, but the liniment Geralt had given her was working to heal the ugly red spots. Her face had been much worse for wear when she’d first arrived home a month ago before Yennefer could worry over her with spells and ointments. Ciri was lucky to still possess a nose and all her toes and fingers after the degrees of frostbite she endured. 

Around her, the season’s changing was marked by small things. The edges of the leaves on the hardwoods were burgeoning from a deep green to the tinged yellow of their autumn coloring. Sunlight reached through the wilted canopy, lacking the strength of its summer zenith, and there was the constant rustling of small animals foraging in the underbrush. 

Despite the pastoral beauty, Velen had a way of making itself known to a person through its inconveniences: the swamps, the impassible roads, the heat, the fevers, the bandits, the monsters. Even the alleged cannibals tucked in the far southwestern parts of the region were well-known throughout the area. The province was not a place a person would willingly return to had they visited it once before, and Ciri had tortuously weighed the pros and cons of coming back to this hellhole. The pros had won out once she’d realized that as soon as her loose ends were tied, it was unlikely she’d ever have to return. These next few days would be her try at a fresh start, one where she could lay the past to rest. 

“And here we are,” she said to her mare, fanning the back of her neck. The horse’s ears flicked towards her. Ciri grimaced as she pulled the oilcloth hood back over her head, touching her heels to the mare’s sides to bring them out of the shaded copse of trees and onto the road. They resumed their journey eastward, the path emerging from a forest of young birches and yews into the sparse fields that stretched towards Crow’s Perch—her destination. 

New grass was just beginning to crop over the scorched patches of earth where the pyres of Nordlings and Nilfgaardians once blazed. The lands south of the Pontar were filled with squalor, an ever-present tinge of desperation visible on the faces of the peasants that she passed along the way. It had been months since the pitched combat in Velen had ground to a halt by way of the commanding powers signing on a dotted line.

The kingdom of Temeria, the land she presently beat a path across, was granted sovereignty as a vassal state under the empire that had brought it to its knees. The Nordling principalities like Redania were not so lucky: uniformly absorbed and indoctrinated into an ever-expanding bureaucracy. They would have no courts of their own, nor anything resembling a government to claim as their own.

Prosperity would inevitably emerge under the guiding hand of the imperial hegemony, but at the cost of these nations’ identities. They would become Nilfgaardian, while Temaria, in her good fortune, would remain Temeria. Conditionally.

Peace at a price, as Ciri thought of it.

A group of farmers ignored her passing. Backs bent to the furrows of dirt, they scratched at the freshly turned soil with picks and drags to ready the beds for winter planting. Further off, more laborers thrashed the long stalks of ripened wheat into bundles, marching slowly up the scraggly rows. A bloody spring and summer led to fewer hands planting, which made for a leaner harvest. These were simple folk, who in their short existence rarely traveled a couple of leagues away from their villages.

Further up the road, Ciri came upon packs of wild dogs—left there to die by uncaring kennel masters of both Nilfgaardian and Temarian forces. They were abandoned tools of war, not unlike the outline of abandoned trebuchets she spotted on the horizon. The dogs were fighting over the bleached remains of a jigsaw skeleton. A femur here, the turn of the skull halfway buried beneath the loamy ground and stained with dappled moss over there; not much else besides a cracked rib or fibula poking up out of the soil. 

Ciri watched with a fleeting, morbid interest as one cur fought another, their burly shoulders bunching under the strain of pulling with all their might in opposite directions. Force won out with the crrckkk of a knobby stretch of bone breaking in half, the length splintering until the halves pulled clean from each other. The dogs sprinted off in opposite directions to gnaw out the marrow in solitude. 

Crow’s Perch was a smudge on the skyline in front of her, a slight bump rising out of the land. The sun behind her had dipped below the horizon, painting the autumn air with streaks of bloody red and yellow.

Ciri had spared her mare most of the day, but with the failing light came the threat of getting caught on the road in the dark. She fixed her grip on the reins to hold them shorter, squeezing her heels against her mare’s sides. A sedate walk evolved into a full-bodied lope, the horse’s long legs eating up the road in strides. Ciri balanced herself in the seat of the saddle and curled over the animal’s stretched neck as she let the rush of the air flatten her hood low over her head. 

Half an hour of the relentless pace left her horse winded, lather building on the mare’s withers. Before they arrived, Ciri slowed her to a trot outside the palisades of Crow’s Perch.

The place had changed little since her stay at the manor house at the very top of the town’s hill. There were a few guards around the mouth of the high bridge leading across the moat to the entryway, but they paid little mind to a single rider coming into town just after dusk. Instead, militiamen continued their dice game, squatting in the dirt and cursing each others’ mothers in jovial tones when one lost a toss.

Ciri paused before the bridge, the torchlights near the gate illuminating a portion of the palisades. As she recalled, there hadn’t been a single body hanging against the high wooden fences surrounding the town when she was last in Velen. Now she counted at least ten bloated corpses, dangling like one-stringed marionettes against the rough-hewn wood. 

Horsethief, usurer, pig fucker. The nature of the offenses was scrawled on crude wooden placards hanging around their necks. Ciri was surprised that one of the Baron’s men was literate enough to write the crimes of the hanged. 

“Cheerful,” she said under her breath, her calves closing into her mare’s sides to remind her to go. The horse began to pick her way over the planks, head down, after a few cajoling words and the constant pressure of her legs pressing on her sides. Ciri didn’t blame the mare for balking. The bridge over the moat was just like she remembered it—a long stretch of wooden flotsam halfway rotted on top, with only intermittent stretches of railing strewn along the length of it. It was more a footpath over open water than a bridge.

The sun had long since slipped below the horizon. An early moonrise cast long shadows over the ground, creating a maze of darkness between the thatched roofs and low wooden huts that lined the dirt-packed road running from the bridge up towards the manor. Ciri didn’t meet any challenges from the guards until she arrived at the gatehouse at the top of the hill, the entrance flung wide open but manned by militiamen. 

These soldiers were more attentive than the ones guarding the bridge. They raised their torches towards her, blinding her with a sudden burst of light. Well-armed and well-armored, the air clinked with the sound of mail scraping against plate.

She dismounted, her legs protesting with the sudden stretch after a full day in the saddle. She walked it off by striding forward to meet them, looping the reins over her mare’s head to gather them in a loose-fisted hand. 

“Who plowin’ goes there?” shouted one of the men.

There was no way to make out their faces. Ciri tugged the hood of her capelet off and let it fall against her shoulders. The torchlight shone on her hair, the ashen color burning copper in its glow. One of the men whistled in recognition. 

“Lebioda’s thumb, s’that Ciri under there?” the whistler crowed with delight, lifting his torch high to cast a circle of light over the three of them and the horse. Ciri’s mare tossed her head, nostrils and eyes flaring wide at the sight of the fire. Ciri relaxed her grip on the reins and let the horse step back a few wary paces behind her. 

“None other than,” she answered, drawing almost even with the soldiers. She still couldn’t make out their features, but the one closest to her seemed familiar with his broad-shouldered outline and distinct limp. 

She was certain of who he was when he spoke again.  

“What business brings y’back to this pisshole?” he asked, a touch of wariness threading his words.

“I’ve come to see the Sergeant. Gretka too, if you still have her tucked away.” Ciri pulled a strand of hair out of her face, brushing it behind her ear. 

“If you want the Sergeant, you’ve got ‘em,” the broad-shouldered figure acknowledged.

“Sergeant Ardal,” she greeted, dipping her head.

He mirrored her motions and waved her on through the gate. A stable boy came to snatch the reins of her horse as she unbuckled her saddlebags. He led the mare away as the three of them clanked across the smithy yard with its banked forges and squat outbuildings.

Ciri maneuvered her bags over her arm, knocking against the hilt of the sword sticking over her shoulder. The Sergeant’s man wandered off towards the stables with the lad and her horse once they stepped into the main yard. She and the Sergeant made for the ramshackle red-bricked manor. Silence stretched between them, comfortable and borne of the decent acquaintanceship they had established months ago. 

“S’great to be seeing you again, missy,” Ardal broke the quiet as they started up the stairs to the manor’s door. “Imagined we wouldn’t ever see you again, especially in these parts, what with the Baron up and leavin’.” He sounded distinctly peeved about that last part, hiking one foot up the stairs, then the other. 

“Necessity drove me back here. Believe me, I’d rather be a million other places than Velen.” There was a touch of irony in her words—an irony that was surely lost on him. A million other places. Yet here I am.

“Then what brings y’back?” he asked after they stepped onto the well-worn planks of the entrance hallway. The tapers burning in their wall sconces reeked of animal fat, filling the dim hallway with its dark floors and plaster-covered walls. 

“Lost something in the bog.” Ciri twisted her fingertips inward to touch them to her palm. Thick gloves saved her the familiar bite of nails in the skin when she made a fist.

“Which bog y’speakin’ about?”

“I’ll tell the lot of you about it over a nice fire when I’m back,” she assured him. “Like the old days.”

When I come out of it in relatively one piece, hopefully.

Ardal hocked, loud enough to wake the dead, then spat the phlegm out on the floor. “If it’s the bog I’m thinkin’, I’ll light a candle for ye. Heard about the trouble you and that arse of a witcher caused up on Bald Mountain during Belleteyn. T’were I you, I’d give every town south of Lindon a wide berth. Folk down there aren’t too enthused about your killin’ of those bitches they worshipped. Witches, crones, ladies. Whatever th’fuck they were.”  

“The middle one is what most sane folk call them. The Crones.”

Unbidden, Ciri remembered the coppery stench of old blood mingled with the earthiness of wet wood. She could feel the water seeping through the leather of her boots and hear the crackling of the fire beneath the cauldron. The frustration welling in her now was just as fresh as it was on Belleteyn, when she’d watched Weavess disperse into a murder of crows with Vesemir’s medallion held tight in their claws. She recalled how the frustration surged into a rage as she watched the flock swarm towards the first hints of dawn peeking through the roots of the ancient oak, knowing that there was no time to give chase. 

There had been no time then to chase down mementos and finish off the last of the Crones, but now all she had was time. 

“Heard one of them managed to make it out alive if you listen to the ravin’ out of the alderman of Downwarren.” Rheumy blue eyes squinted at her in the low light. He hunched a shoulder towards the wall, leaning lopsided with his arms crossed. 

“I heard as much as well,” she agreed politely, dropping her saddlebags on a nearby bench with a heavy thud. 

The old Sergeant stared at her bland expression and sucked on his teeth before he seemed to decide on something right then and there. Shrugging, Ardal turned and started limping off in the opposite direction. He threw a hand behind him, pointing vaguely at the other end of the hall. 

“Gretka’s just down there, in the kitchen. Your old room’s across the way. Stay as long as you’d like, just don’t be bringin’ whatever you’re stirring up in that bog back here, y’hear?” 

“It’s only for the night. And I’ve another day to get where I’m going. I appreciate the lodgings, though,” she said to his turned back.

Anxiety tightened somewhere in her chest. Her last stop tomorrow after a brief pass by Crookback Bog was the disbanding Nilfgaardian camp far to the east. There she would have a chance to prepare, gather her wits about her, and rest before setting out to the Crones’ village. 

Her choice of base was ideal for another reason. Staying at the military encampment would allow her to send her father a direct answer through his emissaries. She didn’t feel the need for a face-to-face meeting to convey her intentions after their last prickly encounter. Since her final homecoming had grown further and further away by the passing of days, sleep became a fitful endeavor. Eating became a chore when everything tasted like ash in her mouth. Geralt knew nothing about the letter in her saddlebags, nor did Yennefer. They’d have said something to her by now if they did.

Before their party had sailed for Skellige, the emperor’s messenger came for her in Novigrad. She had scanned his letter, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it as far into her bags as she could manage. Back then it had been easy to shelve Emhyr’s question in the very back of her mind—what was the point of entertaining it at the time? She had been facing insurmountable odds, with death and dismemberment waiting for her if she failed. The far future was the last thing that had been on her mind. 

Yet she had survived both the Wild Hunt and the White Frost, and the future was fast approaching.

“Anything for the girl that takes a sword to a boar hunt and succeeds. A sword, by the gods,” the Sergeant swore to himself, laughing at the ceiling as he limped with his old soldier’s gait into the Baron’s study. 

Ciri smiled after the Sergeant’s retreating form in the dim hall and made her way to the scarred wood of the kitchen door. Her lungs filled up as she took a deep, calming breath and willed the tension away from her face.

Only smiles for Gretka, she told herself. When she was alone she would mull over her answer to Emhyr. She pressed a gloved hand to the door and pushed it open.

Chapter Text

Instantly, a battery of odors hit her. Rosemary, offal, yeasty dough, damp straw—all of it blanketed by the tang of woodsmoke. A cloud of it hung around the blackened kitchen rafters, coagulating and swirling like ripples in a tidal pool. The fire to her right was banked, coals smoldering under the belly of a great iron pot. Several braces of fresh rabbits, skinned and pink, hung from a wooden rack on her left.

Ciri squinted and walked further into the small room’s interior. It was dark despite the faint glow of the banked fire.

“Kitchen’s closed, didn’t ye hear Cook?!” piped a small voice from the wall of slatted wood dividing part of the kitchen. She spotted a pair of small, bright eyes peering through the gaps in the shelves built along the rickety wall. A small head ducked out from behind the corner. Gretka blinked owlishly, clutching a large wooden spoon to her chest like a dagger. Her braid flopped over a shoulder as she quirked her head, confusion pinching her little face, and then her eyes opened wide with recognition. 

“Hullo, you.” Ciri brought her hand up, wriggling it in a wave. It hurt to smile and stretch the raw patches of healing skin on her cheeks, but it was well worth it when Gretka matched her tooth for tooth with her grin.

“Ciri!” she squealed, throwing her arms up high as she bolted. Weaving and ducking around laden tables and barrels, the girl threw herself against Ciri’s midsection. The spoon she was brandishing earlier hurtled towards the collections of pots and pans hanging from a rack, clanging against them with a raucous din as Gretka tried her damnedest to squeeze the breath out of Ciri with a hug. 

“You’ve shot up like a weed.”

Ciri balanced her gloved hands across the girl’s shoulders. Gretka beamed up at her. When she had first met her, Gretka had been a little scarecrow of barely eight summers beneath her threadbare clothes. At least now she seemed to be filling out her small frame and had grown a couple of inches. The girl’s pink-dappled cheeks had rounded out more, too.

“Lots better cookin’ here than at home. More to eat,” the girl babbled, tugging Ciri’s arm to lead her over to the only seat in the room. “Sit, sit!” 

At the girl’s insistence, Ciri planted herself on the rough wooden stool standing near the stacks of firewood. She unbuckled the strap that held her scabbard fast to her back, leaning the sword against the wall beside her and making sure it was well within her reach.

Gretka was a whirling dervish of activity, darting from the shelves to the cauldron after fetching a plain earthenware bowl. She squinted into it, polished the bottom of the dish with her tatty sleeve, and then set about ladling a generous amount of what looked like stew into it. 

“How’ve you been?” Ciri asked, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Alright. Cook’s been lookin’ after me—her and Yoana.” Gretka’s tongue stuck out at the corner of her mouth, her brow furrowed in concentration as she carefully poured the last ladleful of stew into the bowl. She had to stand on her tiptoes to even reach into the cauldron. Her clothes were still the same threadbare sackcloth Ciri recalled her wearing when they first met, the tunic belted at the waist with a length of fraying rope. 

Ciri was hit with the aroma of spices once the girl brought over the bowl—nutmeg, rosemary, and a faint trace of paprika. Her mouth watered as Gretka handed her a spoon and a thick heel of bread. Ciri balanced the bowl and bread on her thighs in lieu of an actual table. The kitchen’s countertops and trestle tables were stacked with crockery and foodstuffs, fit to cave in under the weight of it all.

The Sergeant’s been busy provisioning for the winter, it seems.  

The thought sent a curdle of unease straight to her gut. Where’s he getting it all from?

Ciri dragged her train of thought off the topic by focusing on Gretka’s words. “Yoana who works out in the smithy yard?” Ciri remembered her from her last stay at Crow’s Perch. She recalled Yoana as a brawny woman with straw-colored hair, always tending to the forge and doing menial work like stitching leather and clipping rings of metal from tight coils to make chainmail. Meanwhile, the dwarf master crafter overseeing her work did little in comparison—at least, that’s what Ciri observed when she passed by their forge during her prior stay.  

“That’s her! Works out in the smithy yard with Fergus, but now Fergus is her assistant.” Gretka found a seat on top of a stack of grain bags, her thin legs kicking at the air as she scrambled up. 

Ciri ah’d, a smile stretching her face. She stirred absently at the stew in her lap. “Geralt told me as much. He’s sworn off of other armor makers and said Yoana’s the only crafter to see. I’ve half a mind to talk to her and see about getting properly fitted for a set like he’s got.”

The liquid in the bowl was thick and brown with generous hunks of pink-tinged meat floating on the surface. A shriveled, drifting chunk of flesh hovered on the top skimming of grease, bobbing around like a cork in the oily brew. As soon as it was there, it was gone in a flash and she was looking at another ordinary bowl of meat and vegetables. 

Ciri swallowed around the knot that had tightened in her throat. A rhyme she heard once while riding the roads outside of Ellander floated into her head. Witch’s brew, children in the stew. Since Belleteyn, she’d had a hard time stomaching meals that came out of cauldrons. 

Had she not wandered off the trail…that could have been Gretka in their pot. 

She shoved the dark thoughts back, tearing off a chunk of the brown bread from the heel for dipping instead of scooping up a spoonful. The first stew-softened bite of the bread made her eyes shut in bliss. 

“Stew’s delicious.” That’s all Ciri managed to get out between bites. The porridge she had eaten in White Orchard that morning held her over until about mid-noon. Since then her stomach had been growling like an angry wolf, placated only by bites of jerked meat and sips of water. 

“Me and Cook put it on just a couple hours ago, but it should be good for eatin’. ‘Least not where y’get the runs ‘cause the meats underdone.” 

Ciri dug into the meal, using torn-off pieces of bread to swipe up tender carrots and slices of meat—rabbit, she was sure of it. Soon the bowl was cleared out and her stomach was appeased. She sunk back against the wall, sighing. A sniffle broke her out of her reverie. Ciri cracked an eyelid and saw Gretka mopping at her face with her sleeve, her eyes downcast. Tears spotted her threadbare trousers. 

“What’re those for?” Her tone was just shy of chiding as she set her emptied bowl and spoon on the floor. Standing, she quietly came forward to set her hands on the girl’s shoulders. Her fingers tipped Gretka’s chin up, a needle-like sting going through her. The young girl’s expression was stricken with worry, 

“Thought I’d never see y’again,” the girl managed to whisper, so low that Ciri had to strain to hear it. 

It stung. Ciri knew what it was like to feel abandoned, to be utterly alone. What hurt the worst was that she had a hand in Gretka’s current situation. She’d saved her from the woods and then left her here when the ever-advancing pace of the hunt urged Ciri to leave Crow’s Perch.

Of course, the job in the kitchen was better than where the girl could’ve ended up. The alternatives were gruesome; her death at the end of a long trail that terminated in the Crones’ village. Another fate would’ve been a slower death in her family’s hut, left to starve and wither for want of so many mouths to feed during a lean year.

By residing in Crow’s Perch, Gretka had left behind those fates. The tradeoff was living in a different kind of danger—under the thumb of dangerous men.  

Ciri knew that kind of life.

She can’t stay here. 

Schooling her expression into something more cheerful than the frown that marred it, Ciri squeezed Gretka’s shoulders between her hands. “Nonsense,” she assured her. “We killed the Wolf King together. Can’t forget good helpers like you these days, especially when it comes to monster slaying.”

“You did that all on your own!” Gretka insisted, a smile breaking across her face like a small ray of sun. The tear tracks from earlier started to dry on her cheeks.

Ciri fished around in one of her pockets for a kerchief. Once she drew out the square of linen, the scent of lilacs and gooseberries drifted up to her nose. The corner of the cloth embroidered with a black Y flapped up and down as she wiped Gretka’s shining face clean. “I had help from a very knowledgeable assistant. I distinctly recall you picking all the herbs for the blade oil, you know.” 

Gretka puffed up with pride. Ciri watched as the girl’s eyes skittered across her face. She could feel the heat from the banked fire casting light across it, throwing everything into sharp relief. When Gretka reached up to touch Ciri’s cheek, she didn’t draw away. 

“What happened t’yer face?” The girl’s grit-stained hands mapped out the patches of shiny, raw skin dotting Ciri’s face. She ignored the long, ugly scar that split along her left cheek. That old mark was more familiar—part of the Ciri that Gretka knew from months past. She could barely feel the heat and pressure of Gretka’s fingers over the newer marks.

She gave Gretka a sly glance. “Got on the wrong side of an ice giant, obviously.” 

“You’re teasin’!” Gretka almost cut her off, her look petulant at the notion of being told such a grand lie. “My gran said all those are dead!”

“Most of them, yes. The truth of it is that I had to go away for a while. Where I went it was cold—very cold. So freezing that the snow bit at my face. Luckily I got back with all my fingers and toes.” Ciri raised her hands, tugging a glove free to show Gretka her right hand. Tiny scars lined almost every inch of her hands, thin and fine like stitchwork, but they were thankfully whole.

“Y’got lots more scars than me,” Gretka said, her hands cupping Ciri’s as she leaned over them to squint at one mark that was shaped like a hook near her right thumb. A memento from her time with the Rats.

The offhanded comment sent Ciri back to when she first entered the kitchen, Gretka hiding behind the shelves and brandishing the wooden spoon like a weapon. Worry tightened in her throat because she was the one who left Gretka here. She didn’t have many options when she first left Crow’s Perch, but back then it was the safest course of action. Now she thought about the bodies hanging from the palisades, their eyes pecked out by carrion birds, and their crimes written in a childish scrawl. 

This wasn’t a place for Gretka. Not if she had a say in it. 

“Do they treat you well?” Ciri asked, fearing the answer.

“Cook and Yoana do. But both of them told me t’keep my nose clean and stay clear of the Sergeant and his men. Said they were…” Gretka hesitated before answering, “Bad.”

“Do they try to come in here while Cook’s away?” Ciri felt the glove she was holding crumple in the fist she made, her knuckles blanching. 

Gretka hesitated for a hair’s breadth of a second, her shoulders tightening. “One tried to put his hand on my head, but I bit ‘em. Really hard. Popped me on the nose. Had to go see a pellar to set it back straight, but they left me alone after that.”

“Good girl,” Ciri said with a touch of distraction, anger welling up in her. Gretka was barely eight if she was a day—her preoccupations should’ve consisted of making mud pies or berry picking with her brothers and sisters, not being smacked about like a cur by sellswords. But this was Velen. 

She resolved to get Gretka out, then and there. It would be business reserved for after she’d dealt with Weavess. Ciri certainly couldn’t pluck every child out of Velen to some safer measure of living, but she could start with the one who had been her first friend in this land. 

Her ungloved hand came up to ruffle Gretka’s dark hair. The girl giggled, tucking her chin towards her chest. The banked embers in the hearth were nearly dead, throwing the shadows in the kitchen into strange shapes. Ciri tugged at Gretka’s hand, nodding towards the door as she picked up her sword. 

“Gotta clean up,” Gretka protested, skittering off the grain sacks before snatching the bowl and spoon by the stool. After a few moments, Gretka had washed both the bowl and the spoon with a rag wetted in a cistern by the stove, tucking them on a shelf for drying. 

Ciri motioned her towards the door, pointing with the pommel of her blade as she tugged her glove back on. “C’mon. We’ll bunk together tonight.”

Gretka hovered by the door, scuffing her shoe on the wooden planks. Her eyes were fixed on the floor in hesitation. “Cook said I’m not allowed in the guest room,” she trailed off.

“Cook’s not here now, is she?” Ciri made a show of looking around the kitchen. “Besides, I’d much rather have you nearby than holed up in the kitchen nook. You can make sure I get up at a decent hour, yes?”

“Yeah!” Gretka perked up at that, shouldering the door open.  

The two of them stepped out into the dimly lit hall, but their short walk to the door opposite was interrupted by shouting and hollering. A ragtag group of soldiers stumbled through the front door, their swords dragging on the wooden planks. Metal grated on the rough-hewn wood. Drippings that shone black in the poor light created a trail leading from the entryway to where the men swayed.

“Girlies, girlies! C’mon and play!” caroused one brave idiot once he caught sight of them. The three soldiers had to lean on each other for support to keep from falling all over themselves. They reeked of hooch and blood. Ciri could smell it from where she stood down the hallway from them. 

Gretka had moved behind her, clutching the silver-inlaid belt that was strung about her waist. It jingled faintly as her fingers trembled against the metal.

“Let’s go, Ciri,” Gretka whispered, her voice barely heard over the drunken shouting. 

Ciri bristled, smothering the urge to bare her teeth at the gaggle of soldiers as they staggered closer. As she advanced a few steps to meet them, Gretka’s fingers fell away from her belt. Ciri’s hand tightened around her sword’s scabbard. Their eyes were fixed on her, leering. They were passing around a bottle between them, taking long draws from the neck whilst talking loudly over each other. 

She heard snatched of discernible words amongst their jumbled slurring. They were not but ten paces away and in no shape to fight. One draw of her sword and she could cut through the lot of them like dry stalks.

“-tits so ripe-” 

“-that kitchen lass-”

“-fuck both of them bloody without batting an eye t’were it the old days-”

The roar of blood pounding in her ears was deafening. She reached up to cover the grip of her blade with her hand. 

“Watch ‘er, lads! Looks like she’s comin’ at us with that pigsticker of hers,” one of them jeered, the tip of his sword tracing lazy circles in her direction. A smirk split his craggy face, all yellow teeth and pockmarked skin. More droplets, dark as tar, pattered onto the floorboards with the motion of his blade. 

The sword hilt in her hand was practically singing to be pulled. But just as she stepped forward, caution stopped Ciri from clearing her sword from its scabbard. 

She was a guest. Guests in the North, despite what people from the South thought of them, did not kill under their host’s roof.

At least not yet, she reminded herself. It won’t do to have us thrown out on the road at so late an hour, and the only remotely safe place is the damned Nilfgaardian camp. Can’t port there. Not with how close it lies to the bog. The Crone will know I’m here if I port.

The door to the study cracked to cast light into the hallway before the Sergeant poked his head out. 

“What’re you lot stewing around in the hall for when I expected you all an hour past? Get in, you loitering whoresons!” he roared, thrusting the door open. The three soldiers stumbled, blinking in the firelight coming from the study. She could hear them start mumbling excuses to the Sergeant. 

She veered to the nearby bench where she’d deposited her saddlebags earlier. A brief check assured her that everything was still within them, and then she hauled the weight over her shoulder and returned to where Gretka stood shaking like a branch in a gale.

True—it would be risky to port. Besides stopping to see Gretka along the way, the whole point of porting just outside of Blackbough this morning was to avoid detection. Crookback Bog was leagues away from this part of Velen. She would bet a fortune that Weavess currently had the attitude and temperament of a cornered, wounded animal—always divining the omens for impending danger. Ciri couldn’t risk a close arrival, not where a ripple of her power would set off early warning bells for the last Crone. 

Geralt always emphasized the element of surprise. It could make or break a hunt. She wasn’t about to let herself fall prey to sloppiness by rushing out to fight the last Crone. Ciri could bide her time and patiently lay the trap. The payoff would be Weavess’s repulsive head on a stick and her empty village razed around her corpse—and the damn tapestry with it. 

“All of you sods get in ‘ere,” growled the Sergeant, jerking his chin at the open door to the study. Like a group of children fresh from a lashing, the three men shuffled out of the hallway with only a few grumblings.

The Sergeant gave Ciri a brief nod, ducking back into the study. Only when the door shut with a firm clack did she finally exhale.

“Right,” she finally answered Gretka, pushing open the guest room’s door. As soon as they were both in, she picked up the wooden bar that was gathering cobwebs in a corner and slotted it in its brackets across the inward opening door. There, she thought, in case they get any bright ideas about a break-in tonight. She let her head drop against the cool wood, exhaling as the tingle in her limbs faded.

Inside the windowless room, both of them set about getting ready for bed. After she dumped her saddlebags on the top of a dresser, Ciri found some flint to strike the wick of a single taper into life, illuminating the large desk in the corner. Ciri swiped her hand along the surface and the fine brown suede of her gloves came away covered in a film of dust. The taper was long with enough wax to last most of the night so she set the candlestick down there.

As she stood her sword against the side of the bed—a decent-sized piece of furniture that was wedged against the far wall opposite the door—Gretka caught her by the wrist. “Promise you’ll be here in the mornin’?” she asked, her other hand fiddling with the counterpane spread across the bed. It was a beautiful tapestry-like work, moth-eaten from disuse with the woven red and gold threads fading. 

“I swear it on my life,” Ciri promised, crossing her heart. The small hand that’d caught her squeezed her arm. 

She tucked Gretka into bed after the girl toed off her ragged shoes. The sheets gave off a musty, disused scent as Ciri smoothed them out. 

She dressed down very little for bed; only her capelet, various belts, straps, and the leather corset that cinched over her shirt were discarded next to her saddlebags. The dagger she wore around her waist was secured beneath her pillow, tucked into its scabbard but within easy reach should the need arise. 

Settling on top of the bed’s counterpane, she maneuvered until she was facing the door on her side with the pillow beneath her cheek. Her fingers closed around her dagger, a slender stiletto. 

If they tried to get in, they’d have to go through her to get to Gretka. 

Ciri shut her eyes, willing herself to sleep as she had on so many other nights. But after a half-hour of soft, calm breathing and many attempts to clear her mind, sleep seemed as far away as Zerrikania. She thought of tomorrow and the outcomes, of the long road towards the center camp. Who would be there? She hadn’t thought to send word ahead. Would the camp already have broken up by now? If that was the case, would she have to go to the city and find the Nilfgaardian ambassador to bring her answer to Emhyr?

“Can’t sleep?” Gretka’s whisper slowed the racing thoughts.

“Seems I’m not the only one.” Ciri turned over onto her other side to face the girl. She loosened her grip on the stiletto beneath the pillow, tucking her arms around herself to ward off a chill. The room didn’t have any heating to speak of save for the warmth she’d find under the covers, but that would mean tangling herself under bedclothes. She wanted a firm command of her limbs and the freedom to shoot straight off the bed at a moment’s notice, should the Sergeant’s men come to their door tonight.

“Can’t sleep either. Thinkin’ about those men. What they said…how they looked at you.” Gretka’s small fingers reached up to pat at Ciri’s chin, dropping to knot in the fabric of her shirt. She clung there. Ciri could feel her tremors so she reached up to cover the child’s hands with her own.

“They’re not getting in here. Not if I have any say in it. Craftier creatures than those sods have tried, believe me. And failed.” Her tone was just shy of fierce and not the least bit gentle. She brought the fire in her own heart and held it out to Gretka in her voice, willing it to quell the tremors in the girl’s hands. 

Take courage, she thought. That was something she had an abundance of these days. Ciri tucked a strand of hair out of the girl’s face. She peered up at her. 

“Might go to sleep with a story. Just like the last time you were here?” Gretka asked hesitantly, loosening her grip on Ciri’s shirt long enough to lay her hands on a pillow.

Ciri thought back for a moment, recalling the story in question. It came to her gradually as she gathered up the threads of memory. “Then how about we finish that tale? The one I started when we first came to Crow’s Perch. That first night here you couldn’t sleep.” 

Gretka was vibrating with excitement. “Yes!” she said, nudging Ciri to go on. 

Ciri smiled down at her, continuing, “The last we left our tale, the witcher had run across a village plagued by a wolf who stole away children in the night. Was that the lay of it?” 

“It was that!” Gretka huffed impatiently, bidding her to get on with it by nudging her again.

“So it was. And the witcher bargained with the alderman and came to this deal: promises of gold coin, oats for her horse, and a place to sleep in the barn loft…” 

It went on like that for at least an hour. The taper on the desk burned down a full inch as Ciri watched it. Gretka would draw a breath in and hold her hands over her mouth during the action filled bits, expectant and in awe as the witcher heroine wove and twirled her way through the story. An effortless dance of mystery and swordplay, deduction and disguise. Ciri had to shoe in details as she went along, but the tale came to her effortlessly.

“‘I have enormous eyes, all the better to see you with!’ shrieked the wolf. 'I have enormous paws, all the better to seize and hug you with!’” Ciri mimed claws by curling her fingers, jabbing them in Gretka’s direction. The girl scooted out of arm’s reach and ducked her head under her pillow, peering out with a giggle.

Ciri continued in the growling, gravely tones of the wolf. “‘Everything about me is enormous, everything, and soon you will discover it for yourself. Why are you looking at me so strangely, little girl? Why do you not answer?’”

She reached out and tapped Gretka. “And then the witcher girl smiled and said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’” A pause.

Gretka brought her head out from under the covers, her eyes wide and watery and she waited breathless for the next part of the story. 

Ciri leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, “And then the witcher girl went to sleep, as should Gretka.”

“C’mon, Ciri!” The protest was half-hearted and broken by an enormous yawn out of the little girl.

“It’ll end when you can keep your eyes open long enough to hear the finale. But for now, it’s time to sleep.”

That was met with more grumblings. But Ciri had told the truth of it. Gretka laid her head down, shut her eyes, and soon her breathing evened into the soft rhythm of sleep after a few minutes. She noticed the smudges of dark circles around the girl’s eyes for the first time.

Not much sleep is to be had around here. Not with those louts prowling the halls at all hours of the night. Poor thing probably doesn’t get any peace.

It was a hard sort of living to be had in Velen, even for a kitchen girl. Ciri turned over onto her other side to face the door, closing her hand over the hilt of the stiletto beneath her pillow.

I don’t know why I expected this land to be any different than the last time I was here, she thought. Her already low expectations about the state of affairs in Velen were being blown out of the water with every passing encounter. It wasn’t much of a province to begin with, though. Now it’s reached absolute rock bottom.

Gretka snuffled in her sleep and scooted closer. Her knobby knees tucked up against the small of Ciri’s back. She smiled in the almost dark of the room. She’d missed the quieter moments like this, the closeness of a friend. To hear Gretka’s peaceful breathing made the fight against the Frost worth it.

This is who I did it for, she reminded herself. Children like her. People like her.

She had paid dearly for her newfound freedom with her sweat and her blood, with all the lost lives of the many friends who littered her past. Now she was at an uncertain crossroads in her life; one path led towards a future she wanted with every fiber of her being, but the other veered towards something bigger—a life that she knew would demand more of her than anything before it.

Her fingers tightened around the stiletto’s hilt as the echoing shouts of the drunken soldiers leaked under the door. Gretka stirred in her sleep. 

Tomorrow would be the day when Ciri would start down one road and forsake the other. 

One last bit of business was left before she settled into the remaining months of life as she knew it. Once Weavess was dead and Vesemir’s medallion was back around her neck, she knew she could finally turn the page on this part of her life.

Before an uneasy sleep claimed her, Ciri realized something that tugged her mouth into crooked line.

After years on the run, she was finally the one giving chase. 

Chapter Text

A touch to her shoulder brought Ciri out of a deep, dreamless sleep and she had to force her fingers to uncoil from her dagger’s hilt. The familiar scent of woodsmoke and strong lye soap reached her nose. She cracked open one eye and saw Gretka hovering over her, a pewter candlestick cupped in her palm. The bright light of the candle she carried made Ciri close her eye against the glare. 

Finally, she summoned the willpower to sit up. The familiar sensation of having slept fully clothed accompanied the motion. She wriggled her numb toes in her boots, stretching her arms high towards the ceiling. It did nothing to uncoil the knot of anxiety in her stomach. Whereas yesterday had been the day before, today was the day of. Even if she spared her mare a hard pace, Ciri would arrive at the Nilfgaardian army’s camp by nightfall. There was no more delaying handing over her answer to Emhyr.

Penned in her neat script, it detailed her acceptance of his offer: a place at court, and recognition as his heir. A new life in Nilfgaard geared towards schooling her in the art of statecraft and making her suitable for the title of empress. 

What would’ve been my life had Cintra not fallen? The thought brought a sharp jab of anger to her heart. If Emhyr had not sent his armies towards the country of her birth, would she still be hovering at her grandmother’s side? Calanthe would’ve taught her everything she needed to know and more about ruling, about living a life deserving of songs. 

But now her grandmother’s bones rested in a mass grave full of other Cintrans. And here Ciri stood, still alive despite the odds. Everything that had happened to her since Cintra’s fall had honed her instinct to fight—to survive. 

She didn’t know where to put her old anger, so she set it aside and directed her attention at Gretka.

“What’s the time?” Ciri murmured, rubbing the sleep grit from her eyes. Her gloved fingertips came away stained charcoal from the mix of goose fat and ash she had used to shadow her eyes. She’d bother with doing up her face later—she had no fresh ash to mix with the tin of fat she carried in her saddlebags. That and she was sorely in need of a wash. Covering her face with the sooty mix wasn’t going to help her in that regard.

“Half-past the fourth mark on the candle,” Gretka supplied, handing her pieces of discarded gear that sat atop her saddlebags.

Almost dawn, Ciri thought, fastening her corset over the wrinkled cotton of her shirt. All of the various belts and straps went on after that, her dagger and sword finding their customary spots at her hip and back. Her muscles were still sluggish with dissipating sleep as she tied off a knot to secure the oilcloth around her shoulders, fumbling to straighten the hood so it didn’t snag against the hilt of her sword.  

“Are the men still up?” she asked, remembering the pack of jackals from last night. Ciri didn’t know if she could exercise patience this early in the morning if she ran into one on the way to the privy.

“They were all passed out under the stairs when I went t’fetch you some water for washin’.” Gretka moved over to the desk where a hunk of soap sat beside a chipped bowl brimming with steaming water. 

Gretka must’ve gotten up early to boil it. Ciri’s fondness for the child deepened as she stood on stiff legs to shamble over towards the desk, the promise of hot water pulling her along like a fish on a line. “If we’re lucky they’ll all be keeled over from the drink.”

The girl tittered, hiding her grin behind a soot-blackened hand. She set the candlestick down, giving Ciri a bit of light to wash by. The candle she’d lit last night had long since gone out. The girl started to inch towards the door. “Gotta go help Cook get breakfast on, but just wanted t’make sure you got up early, like you said.”

Ciri smiled after her, already stripping her gloves off. “Must’ve slept harder than I wanted to. Could’ve overslept if it wasn’t for you.” 

“You were sleeping like my gran did—snorin’ and snatchin’ up all the covers!” Gretka giggled, already halfway out of the room. The hall outside was dark as pitch, but Ciri could see a faint line of light at the bottom of the kitchen door.  

“Cheeky. Let’s see you spend a couple of hours in the saddle and come down perky,” Ciri replied in mock peevishness, tossing one of her gloves at the girl. Gretka caught it, dropping it on the bed before ducking out of the room with a high-pitched laugh. Ciri shut the door behind her. 

When she was at the wash basin and alone in the room, the quiet brought her dark thoughts back to the fore. 

Anger came first. Yes, she was angry at her father. She couldn't recall a day in her life when she hadn’t been angry at him. Discovering the truth of who he was, and what he had done to the country of her birth had snapped something brittle inside her. Her identity was rearranged. She was no longer the daughter of Duny and Pavetta. She was instead the daughter of Emhyr var Emreis, the ruler of the most vast empire in the world and conqueror of the Northern Realms. That had left her raw and ashamed.

Better a daughter to a dead man than to a murderer. Her father had been dead to her for years in both body and spirit until the truth came out. Part of her wish he’d stayed that way. 

And then, of his own accord, Emhyr had freely given her the best revenge Ciri could imagine. Her surprising, infuriating inheritance. His empire. His title. Calanthe’s dream for her as heir apparent to the throne of Cintra and so much more. Ciri could rebuild Cintra and all the other ravaged civilizations overrun by Nilfgaard's expansion. She could do what scores of rulers and their armies could not accomplish. She could dismantle the Nilfgaardian war machine piece by bloody piece. 

She had defeated the White Frost. Now she could be a world-maker for those who needed it. 

Or she would be, once she rinsed the taste of sleep out of her mouth.

Ciri set about cleaning her teeth with the fringed end of the willow bark stick she kept in her saddlebags. Yennefer’s precious deodorizing powder was rubbed into her armpits, and Ciri sneezed at the resulting burst of ground lavender and talc powder. Taking her sleep-tousled hair down from its tail and forcing it into order was easy without a mirror. She’d done it a thousand times before. She could do it blindfolded. Hair secured at the nape of her neck, sporting a freshly washed face and clean teeth, Ciri felt more like a living, breathing person than she had in days.

Her morning routine squared away, Ciri felt economical enough to sneak in a bit of breakfast before her next order of business. Crow’s Perch would be stirring with activity soon, and she wanted to get on the road at first light. Dawn would have the roads well-lit and all the necrophages would have slunk back into their nests after a full night of gorging themselves. There were fewer bodies littering the land than there had been in summer when the war ground to a halt. Ciri imagined the ghouls were getting more desperate for a steady food source now. Soon, they'd start to encroach on livestock and villagers. 

Plenty of work here in Velen for witchers.

The kitchen, when she entered it, was a small hive of activity. Gretka darted from a nearby trestle table to the larder in the back, scooping up handfuls of grassy ranogrin and tea leaves from clay jars on the shelves. She carried handfuls of dried herbs to the roaring hearth fire, dumping them into a whistling kettle. A young woman with a poker bent over the fire beside Gretka, stoking it to heat the underbellies of the pots.

“Morning,” Ciri greeted Cook—for it could only be Cook who was minding the fire. She was a tall, red-headed young woman with a hooked nose and stained apron covering her roughspun dress. Ciri joined Gretka, who was busy moving the hot kettle from the fire to a scorched tabletop and leaned a shoulder against a nearby post.

“Mornin’, ma’am.” Cook shot a look over her shoulder. Ciri could see the barest veiled curiosity in her dark eyes. “Didn’t know we’d be entertaining a guest here at the Perch—the Sergeant didn’t say nary a thing t’me about it until I came in t’start fixing up the porridge for the men.” 

“I was a late arrival,” Ciri paused, accepting an earthenware mug of hot, fragrant tea from Gretka. “I only made plans to come up to Velen a few days ago.”

Cook pursed her lips, turning back to the cauldron that bubbled with lumpy beige porridge. “Whereabouts you come up from?”

Ciri blew across the top of the tea, watching as the softened needles of ranogrin swirled around. The herb gave it a sweet, piney smell just shy of saccharine.

She considered her next words carefully—it was easy enough to answer questions with nothing but the barest facts after having done it for years. While a lie wasn’t merited, she didn’t have to tell Cook everything. 

“White Orchard,” Ciri said, her nose practically dipping into the tea as she sipped. The liquid was just this side of boiling, so she held it on her tongue, the stinging heat dulling some before it was tepid enough to swallow.  

Cook made a surprised noise, stirring hard at the porridge. Ciri noticed the gruel was so thick that the woman had to put her shoulders into the work, stirring like an oarsman in rough chop until the ladle finally beat the substance into submission. Gretka flitted between them, gathering up a stack of pewter cups and platters that were crowded on surfaces throughout the kitchen.

Cook blew at a loose strand of hair hanging in her eyes, swatting the wooden ladle against the lip of the cauldron until the porridge clinging to it came free and slopped back in. “Lovely village, that. My gran came from near there, ‘fore she met my grand da and moved up t’here. She used t’say Birke was the best time to be around White Orchard, since that was when the apple trees would bud and bloom after the thaw.” 

The redhead’s words tugged at something in Ciri, like the stray thread hanging loose at the edge of a tapestry. In her mind’s eye she could begin to see the string unraveling from the weave, hearing her own grandmother’s drawl, solemn and steady, but it was gone as soon as it came. Calanthe had been dead for nearly a decade past. The memory of her lovely face and calm, lilting voice had tumbled into a void in her mind, just as her body did over the rampart wall.

Time chipped away at the best of Ciri’s memories. Its slow march blurred scenes of her childhood once keenly remembered to the most minute detail. Now it was doing the same in later years—her mind clutched at the bright spots like a lifeline.

The thrill of beating the Gauntlet for the first time at Kaer Morhen. Geralt’s mouth had turned up at the corners for a split second before he made her run it again. The drowsy summer days spent in the shade under massive trees, listening to Yennefer’s voice as she read aloud during their time in Ellander. Triss painting her face, her brush a whisper on Ciri’s mouth as she colored it a faint shade of rose.

Of course, the ugliest memories faded last, the ones worth forgetting.

Cavorting with the Rats when they weren’t killing, the coppery reek of the arena in Claremont, the burn of fisstech hot in her nose—she resolutely pushed back the memories of being thrilled by the blood she made run with her blade, shutting it away somewhere safe. 

But what remained was worth keeping. All of those happy moments shone out like a beacon across a dark, deep sea. 

Ciri forced her shoulder to relax against the post and unclenched her fingers. She reached out to tousle Gretka’s hair as the girl marched passed, her arms laden with dishes on their way to the wash. Gretka giggled and ducked her head.

“Never seen White Orchard in the spring,” Ciri said. “My friends and I have been planning to winter there. I might stay until Birke comes, but I’m not quite sure. Plans being subject to change and all.”

To put it lightly, she reminded herself.

Change was coming. Today was the day she would deliver her decision to Emhyr. Today’s decision would put her on one path or the other. Once down that path, there was not much of a chance to turn back—when she committed to her choice, it was as good as set in stone. Her stomach lurched.

It was a good thing she had not eaten yet. Anything she put in her stomach save for weak tea and water ran the risk of coming up again. Already she could feel her gut twisting itself into knots. Ciri swallowed more tea to douse over the fluttering jumble of anxiety that felt like it was forming just below her ribs. 

Cook hrm’d in agreement, her eyes on the porridge. “Aye, something to keep in mind, if you’re considerin’ staying on after the winter down there,” she said, stabbing into the cauldron with her ladle once more. 

Ciri admired her dedication—if she were at the head of this operation, the gruel in the cauldron would’ve long since crisped into ash.

“I’ll have to keep your advice in mind,” she said, setting her emptied cup down on the counter. Gretka was on it quick as a magpie. The cup was carried off by the young girl for washing. Ciri rubbed at the back of her neck, a kink forming just to the side. “I need a word with Yoana. Is she usually awake at this hour?”

Cook nodded, her eyes still fixed on the bubbling oats in the cauldron. “Oh, aye, she’s up with the cock’s crowing and usually at the forge until dusk. I’d imagine she’s workin’ on some commission now, flooded as she’s been with them from all manner of Nilfgaardian officers,” she mused, a touch of pride in her voice. “Our Yoana is gonna put this stack of rocks and wood on the map, ‘fore long.”

“Then I’d best get to her now before she’s too busy to speak,” Ciri excused herself with a duck of her head, making her way towards the door. She gave a wave to Gretka who was making quick work of plucking a fat, headless chicken on a stool in the corner.

Now for the other matter of business, she thought. Geralt had told her of someone in Crow’s Perch to call upon someday and now was a good time as any to seek her out. Ciri'd never had a bespoke suit of armor to call her own. Armor certainly wouldn’t help with Emhyr, but she’d be damned if she went south only to commission a Nilfgaardian craftsman when she had every chance to call upon the services of a true master armor smith of the Northern Kingdoms.

Calanthe would be proud.

Chapter Text

Cook started, seeming to remember something before Ciri could push open the door to the hall. She hollered at Gretka over her shoulder, still stirring the porridge in the cauldron. “Gretka, go and pack the lady somethin’ for the road!”

Gretka dropped the chicken, scrambling to fetch a package tucked away on a nearby shelf. The girl held it over her head as she hurried over to Ciri. “I got it already!”

Chapter Text

When she arrived back in the kitchen, it was a busier scene versus how Ciri left it. Gretka was busy with arranging earthenware bowls of porridge on trays to carry out.

She nodded a greeting to Gretka and traded a few whispered words with Cook. Crowns changed hands with a sliding of coins scraping up against one another.

Chapter Text

She rode on the washed-out roads towards Lindenvale. Crow’s Perch was once more a smudge on the horizon and the sun was up. This day was proving to be as clear and warm as the one before.

Ciri sunk deeper in the saddle, rolling her shoulders back and keeping her breath even to give her mare the cue to slow. The pounding gallop wound down to a jog. She gave the horse a pat on the shoulder. The early fall chill from the morning had dissipated and Ciri threw back the hood of her capelet to let the air cool her.

Surrounding the road on both sides were meadows dotted with bushes of red Beggertick blossoms and tall stalks of Fool’s Parsley. Further out she spotted more recognizable plants: the stark petals of White Myrtle winked at her from big shrubs. Bursts of orange and yellow meant Moleyarrow flowers were in bloom.

Her horse slowed to a walk. Ciri swung herself out of the saddle and looped the reins over her horse’s head to lead her off the path. She needed a moment to stretch her legs and slow the racing of her heart. The adrenaline was working its way out of her system from the earlier pandemonium at Crow’s Perch. A comedown like that left her with jellied limbs and a sense that she’d run three leagues at a dead sprint. 

They spent a few minutes cutting through the field gathering—her mare snatched up mouthfuls of grass while Ciri twisted off the heads of Moleyarrow and plucked fronds of Fool’s Parsley.

Useful for decoctions and venoms, she thought. Geralt had always taught her to gather when possible as you never knew when you would see a particular plant next. Ciri wrapped the bundles of picked flowers and herbs with strips of rawhide, twisting open the latch on her saddlebags to store them away.

The stable lad had done her a service by readying her horse before the idiots had gotten ahold of him. Her heart had nearly come out of her mouth when she and her mare had thundered over the rickety bridge leading out of Crow’s Perch. She’d remembered she failed to fetch her saddlebags in the commotion.

Far too late to go back for them now, she’d thought, but the bags she’d brought into the manor were rigged to the back cantle of her saddle when she turned to check.

He must’ve gone in and fetched them for me.

There hadn’t been any sign of the stable lad as she galloped down the single lane to leave Crow’s Perch. If he was as keen to survive as he seemed, Ciri hoped the boy had hidden himself away safe or was far, far away by now.

Relief had flooded through when her eyes landed on those saddlebags. While there wasn’t anything of import in them that couldn’t be replaced, Ciri disliked the idea of her letter finding its way into hands not meant for it.

Worst of all would be having to labor herself with the task of re-writing it. She lined the bottom of one bag with gathered herbs and retrieved the envelope from deep within, tucking it in her belt pouch after folding it twice over.

“Now to get a handful of Arenaria. Then we’ll be in business,” she said to her mare, patting her glossy neck.

Hanged Man’s Venom wasn’t hard to make. It was a simple concoction: a few petals from the Arenaria flower ground up into a thick paste with any tallow. The Fool’s Parsley would only fortify the venom into something she wouldn’t want to nick her skin with. It was lethal for humans, elves, and dwarves, seeping into their bodies to slow the rush of their blood and clot it.

When she was certain of having a healthy stock of plants from the meadow, she remounted from the ground and let her mare lead them back to the road. She gave her horse a long rein to stretch her neck and trot on, sitting deep and hugging the barrel of the animal's chest with her lower legs so she wasn’t bouncing all over her back.

The further north they trekked the more the land opened up. Meadows gave way to sandy riverbanks and the Pontar, or at least a branch of it, flowed westward. Further up was the outline of a bridge big enough for a wagon to cross.

Ciri kept the river to her left side and looked south, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Smoke was rising from a town that was so small it was more of a wide stretch in the road.

Lindenvale.

A great oak stood sentinel by the gate as she road into town, once more lifting the hood of her capelet to shield her face and distinctive ashen hair. Mangy old sheepdogs roamed the dirt paths between the cottages as she passed through. She dismounted to walk the rest of the way through town. Her stomach was rioting on the Ranogrin tea she had this morning—her only breakfast. She needed food if she wanted to keep in the saddle for the rest of the day.

Her mare took a long drink at the shallow trough set up against a lean-to shelter that housed a sow and her squealing piglets. In front of the ramshackle inn with its white-daubed chinking stood a noticeboard.

Curiosity piqued, Ciri walked over to peruse the scraps of paper tacked onto the board but found nothing of importance. Only market notices for livestock and produce stared back at her.

“Witcher came through months past and cleared out most of the work for a sword like yours. Sorry, lass,” shouted a passing villager carrying an armful of laundry. Ciri gave her a nod of thanks.

Another village free of problems thanks to Geralt, Ciri thought with a grin. If she had any hope of making it as a witcher, she’d do well to find lands far away from his usual routes. He was downright industrious in clearing out monsters and other sundry problems in the North.

The inn yielded breakfast—a glossy skinned plum and heel of bread. She paid in crowns and left a few extra on the countertop for the jovial lady who sold them to her.

By the time she rejoined her mare outside, she had drunk her fill from the trough and ambled over to the manger. She greeted Ciri with a soft whicker around a mouthful of hay.

“Silly horse,” Ciri chided with a smile, reaching up to cradle the big, glossy head between her hands. Her mount chewed on with a single-minded purpose of getting her breakfast squared away, bit and all.

The mare was growing on her after only a day. She contemplated riding to White Orchard on the mare instead of selling her back to the horse dealer in Blackbough. Of course, that was after dealing with Weavess and the matter of the letter.

She remounted and felt refreshed after wolfing down her plum save the pit. Ciri steered her mare towards the southern road leading out of Lindenvale. There was a brief pause outside the fence as she looked around, hairs rising on the back of her neck. Unease settled into her gut. She searched for any sign of crows, but none soared overhead or lurked on a nearby post.

The rutted path followed the rise of a small hill into the woods.

Older woods, these. Bigger trees, bigger shadows.

The road went on a ways before it grew darker and more shaded, disappearing beneath the heavy boughs of the ancient oaks that flanked it.

She had examined Geralt’s meticulously drawn map of Velen before leaving White Orchard the day before. The road that led west to east above Lindenvale turned south to the Nilfgaardian center camp, but it ran near marked bandit hideouts and necrophage dens. It would take twice as long to wade through those. The plus was that the route did steer clear from Crookback Bog.

Which left her with the quicker alternative: cutting through the old forest and finding a reliable game trail with decent footing once they drew near Downwarren.

She wouldn’t pass through that town if her life depended on it. Even the Sergeant had made it clear that the townsfolk of Downwarren kept the Crones as their chosen deities. Those creatures had made themselves much more immediate to the people of these lands…and necessary.

Faster results than praying to Melitele, I’d imagine. Ease of access and all, she thought with disgust.

So she would cut around the town, heading higher into the hills before descending to the paths that lead to the main stretch of road near the Nilfgaardian encampment.

“Let’s put some distance on you, shall we?” she asked her black mare. The horse coiled up like a spring beneath her when Ciri shifted one heel and put more of her leg on her flank.

The animal surged into motion and within a few strides was cantering down the path, carrying them into the deep woods that bordered the place where Ciri had first discovered the horrors of Velen.

Crookback Bog.

“Imagine it. Hot water,” she told her mare. The horse was busy picking her way down the slope towards the road. “A copper tub. Me in it for the rest of the evening.”

They had spent the better part of the morning and afternoon navigating the shrubby, pine-strewn hills above Downwarren. The branches on the trees had been so low at times that Ciri had to dismount and lead the both of them single file along the narrow game trail.

Familiar landmarks kept her on course. The ancient, gnarled tree atop Bald Mountain had reared into view once they trekked further into the hills. She kept it on her right side. After a few leagues, the windmill at Benek appeared ahead as they made their way east on the trail. That had been Ciri’s cue to steer her mare down from the hills and find the path in the lowlands once more.

“And plenty of oats for you,” she promised with a pat on her mare’s neck. The horse flicked an ear back. “You’ve earned your keep twice over.”

It was an easy pace to set now that they were on a proper road once more. Ciri let her legs stretch and heels sink low, rising out of the saddle in a half-seat. She moved in sync with the easy, smooth canter the mare sped into. The wind teased at strands of hair that had escaped the tight chignon she had styled this morning.

The pine trees began to thin out. Dense scrub lessened until she could see clear through the forest as it sloped up out of the boggy lowlands. Sunlight beat down on her back, reassurance that west was behind her and east lay ahead. Ciri mentally retraced Geralt’s map in her mind.

Kimbolt Way. The main road to the Nilfgaardian center camp. It would be at the top of this hill if her bearings were true. Ciri clicked her tongue to urge her mare into a gallop.

Something whistled through the air and Ciri’s hearing registered a fleshy thud.

The mare shrieked and lurched, falling out from under her and she launched over the horse's shoulder. Before she hit the dirt she rolled tight into a ball, willing her body to relax. A lancing pain shot into the shoulder and knee that met the ground and she heard and felt something pop.

There wasn’t time to gasp or take stock of herself as she lay there in the dirt. Ciri scrambled to tear her sword out of its scabbard. She raised it instinctively when she felt the air above her move. Her blade caught the downward swing of a halberd’s edge as she got onto her knees. The pain in her ruined arm barely registered as her other hand freed the dagger from her belt.

It came up between the man’s legs and stuck into the flesh of his groin. Ciri pulled it forward when she felt the blade hit bone. Hot arterial blood gushed down her hand and made the dagger grip slick. The halberd bearing down on her veered off as the man wielding it collapsed.

Ciri staggered up with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.

A pair had emerged from hiding places in the bushes. Their third companion died at her feet. They were filthy bandits, dressed in tatters and mismatched armor.

Two to kill, she counted.

Her dagger flew from her grip as she leveled it at the man rushing her with a rusted sword. The steel buried itself in his cheek, missing his eye by inches. The tip of the dagger protruded from the back of his skull. He dropped.

One to kill.

The archer. He was already sprinting up the road and away from the scene. If she used her magic, she could come down on top of him and split his skull open like an overripe melon. But she was only a few leagues away from Crookback Bog and her magic needed to remain undetected.

So she ran him down. His panicked expression as he looked over his shoulder to see her closing the distance between them gave her more pleasure than she would ever admit.

“I surren—” was all he screamed out before Ciri spun into a neat pirouette. Her sword cleaved through the meat of his neck and his head went tumbling into a ditch. More blood sprayed her. The rest of him stood still for half a second before the headless body folded.

She limped back the short distance to where the men had downed her. The one with her dagger buried in his face was still alive and writhing about in the dark, bloody dirt.

She leaned down, pulled the dagger from his head, and slit his throat. His thrashing stopped and the light died in his eyes as she watched.

The screams of her mare tore at her. Ciri staggered over and collapsed beside the animal.

Ciri recognized them as the haunting, piercing shrieks that a horse made when its lifeblood was pumping out. Ciri pressed her hands into the creature’s neck and fought back tears, trying to soothe her with hushing noises.

It was a feeble attempt at comforting something in such great agony. The dirt around them became black with the mare’s blood as it pumped out of the hole in her chest the arrow made.

The bastards had punctured her heart. Soon the horse’s legs stopped their wild thrashing and the shrieks quieted. Her great barrel of a chest gave one last tremendous heave of breath and then all was still.

Blood pounded in Ciri’s ears. The sounds of the forest leaked back in as the ringing sound of her battle lust dispersed. Her limbs shook and the pain in her left side became a throbbing, constant reminder of the fall she had taken.

Tears made runnels in the blood drying on her face. Sadness crept into her. A beautiful creature wasted because she had wanted to make good time. She should’ve kept to the game trails and off the road.

Ciri bent over the mare’s black, glossy neck and closed the lids over her unseeing eyes. It felt like Kelpie was dead under her hands rather than a horse she had only known for a few days. A good horse, though. An honest one.

The Nilfgaardians found her like that not long afterward.

She had begun to strip the tack from the mare’s cooling body when she heard the sound of pounding hooves and clanking armor. Mounted calvary. At least a patrol in size, ten or twelve riders. They crested the hill and Ciri saw their flags held high—a golden sun emblazoned on a black field.

Instinct made her reach for her sword once more. It waited on the grass for a cleaning. Bandit blood was still caked on the steel.

She had a bad rapport with Nilfgaardian patrols. She remembered routing them with the Rats and killing quite a few officers who thought their black armor guarded well against her sword.

The patrol drew closer. Riders at the front sighted her first. Swift orders shouted in Nilfgaardian sounded for the patrol to halt. They stopped on the road where the headless bandit’s body was beginning to gather flies.

She could see eyes staring at her from between their visors. They wore winged helms and she noticed skulls decorating a banner that accompanied the standard of the Great Sun. At the head of the formation rode a man, the only one not in full battledress.

His face didn’t register at first. He was the one who broke away from the patrol and galloped towards her. His steed was a thickly built destrier barded in dark leather tack.

When the officer—marked so by his white ruff and the breastplate fasted over his doublet—finally drew closer, Ciri recognized him. She lowered her sword.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to General Voorhis. Her voice, at least, didn’t quaver.

Exhaustion was stealing its way into her body. She knelt on the grass by her saddlebags before her knees could buckle, laying her bloody sword across a knee.

She hadn’t seen him since Geralt had brought her to Vizima. Even then it was a brief exchange where she had been less than courteous. Steam had been almost spouting out of her ears when she stormed out of her meeting with Emhyr and found the general conversing with Geralt.

They’d not been formally introduced, but her father by choice had spoken of him after they left the throne room.

He knew the general as courteous. Favored by the emperor. A bit pompous. General Voorhis was the first to interrogate him on events past when Yennefer brought him to Vizima. The general had remained helpful to him during the few instances where Geralt needed it.

All in all, not the worst Nilfgaardian the witcher had met.

General Voorhis was not expecting to find her, especially like this, if his shocked expression was anything to go by. He dismounted and closed the distance between them, dropping to crouch beside her as she wavered on one knee.

He wore plated gauntlets. They felt heavy and warm when he caught her by the shoulders. The throbbing in her left knee and shoulder had kindled into a steady burn. His grip eased when she flinched at the touch. “Are you injured?” he asked her, his voice strained and faintly accented as she remembered.

She shook her head at him, stubborn to admitting anything more than a mild inconvenience. “Something popped out of place. I’ll manage,” Ciri gritted out.

General Voorhis nodded, pursing his lips into a thin line. He helped stand her up and moved his hands down to her elbows when she stumbled. Ciri sheathed her sword and resolved to clean it along with her dagger when she had time to sit down.

She knew Geralt would frown at her if she left her blades in their current state for much longer.

The rest of the general’s escort edged closer. Some soldiers dismounted and began examining the carnage strewn all over the road.

“Luned aep ker'zaer,” she heard one of the men hiss at his fellows. Some gasped.

The blood from the men she had killed dried on her skin and made her shirt stick to her. She looked soaked in it when she glanced down her front. No wonder he thought she was worse off than she was.

“You need a doctor. To set it properly, yes?” He looked down and kept his hands on her arms to steady her. His pale blue eyes scanned her face for assent. She didn’t argue with that.

“A doctor sounds lovely,” she agreed, her voice thin and high with pain.

Something told her that it was far more complex than a dislocation in her shoulder. She cursed herself mentally.

She couldn’t fight the last Crone with half of her body limping along. Weavess would take note of her presence soon, but Ciri couldn’t very well go charging into Crookback Bog like she’d planned to do on the morrow after some reconnaissance.

She needed rest and someone to set this damn shoulder. After that, she could reassess her battle plan.

Planning is half of it, cub. Ciri almost smiled at her grandmother’s remembered wisdom.

The general gave swift orders in his native tongue to the cavalry mounted around them. They started dragging the bandit corpses into a pile. Someone kicked the head out of the ditch and it landed by the growing pile of bodies.

One soldier knelt to finish unbuckling the bridle from her mare’s face. General Voorhis himself bent down to scoop up her saddlebags and put them over his shoulder.

“I need to bury her,” Ciri said, staring down at her mare’s body.

The thought of carrion birds or wolves gnawing at her mare’s carcass—worst still someone coming along to butcher her for meat—made her stomach turn.

The general rested a reassuring hand on her good shoulder, looking down at the black horse dead in the road. “I will send a detail to bury her. And burn these men,” he turned a cold, disdainful look on the remains of the bandits.

Ciri felt a surge of gratitude towards the man. She couldn’t speak past the knot in her throat, so she only nodded her thanks and looked away. He handed her bags to a soldier so they could be rigged behind the saddle of a cavalry rider.

It was his destrier he brought forward for her to mount. He held the horse patiently as she slotted her right foot in a stirrup with her right hand grasping the pommel. She tried to bounce herself off the ground and almost yelped in pain when she shifted her left side too much to mount. Ciri bit back the sound. There was no help for it. She had to get in the saddle unless she wanted to limp to the encampment.

The young general braced his hand on the underside of her thigh on her second try, boosting her up with a gentle push. Ciri got her bad leg over and almost collapsed onto the neck of his destrier, panting from the lancing pain that radiated from her knee to her shoulder.

General Voorhis didn’t need help in mounting from the ground, which was impressive in and of itself when she was occupying his seat. His warhorse stood as still and quiet as a pond as he set one foot in the stirrup and grasped the cantle of the saddle behind her. 

He hauled himself up and flung one leg over the side of his horse, balancing behind her on the back of the animal. He bracketed his arms around Ciri to take up the reins in front of them, letting her feet rest in the stirrups for balance while he kept his heels on the horse’s flanks to steer. He nudged it into motion—a sedate walk. The patrol joined them to escort, riders stacking at their back and both sides as the small formation turned southward.

The sun was starting to set on Velen once more. It painted the skies in pinks and reds as it descended in the west, warming one side of her face.

Ciri leaned back into the general. His breastplate was hard and unyielding, but it was a solid thing to rest against. She felt his arms tighten around her and his chin graze the top of her head as they moved along the road. She was too tired to keep upright and thus far the general was making a more favorable impression on her this second time than he did during their first meeting.

She let out a wracking, heavy sigh as her strength ebbed. Tiredness and pain were all that was in her, now.

“Something the matter, my lady?” he asked in her ear. He spoke low enough that the men around them would have to strain to hear it.

She shook her head and replied back lowly, “I'm glad to be coming to the end of a very long, very terrible day.”

He said nothing in reply, but his arms around her tightened ever so slightly. It was a hold that assured her he would keep her steady and upright until they reached the encampment.

“…thank you,” she said after a pause. She meant it.

“At your service, my lady,” he replied in that mild, pleasant voice. 

Chapter Text

Ciri nodded off in the interim. Her body crashed hard after the adrenaline faded, exhaustion from two consecutive days in the saddle at a hard pace and the pain from her injuries were trouncing on her need to keep alert.

Chapter Text

It had been a long time since Ciri had dreamed. Too long the fear of the Hunt and exhaustion had driven them away so the hours between falling asleep and waking were a dark void absent of dreams.

But this stretch of time was different from the hundreds of other nights she’d gone without dreams. This sleep, she dreamed. And in that dream she remembered a world long behind her.

There were abstract impressions of airy buildings that stretched up to the sky and seemed spun of stone rather than carved by hand. Green arbors and mossy flagstones, the sound of burbling water in fountains.

Tir ná Lia. The capital of the world of the People of the Alders.

Such a place would be a pleasant dream for anyone else. But when recognition set in, Ciri felt as if a hand closed tight around her heart.

Not here, she thought. Not this place. She remembered the bones piled not far from here, where Little Horse had lifted the veil from her eyes about the lengths the Aen Elle would go to.

The King of the Alders, the Fox and the Sparrowhawk came here to this world filled with humans, her mind whispered. And this is what they wrought.

It was the uglier aspect of Avallac’h, one she’d had to shut away in a box and forget about. Another to add to the pile if she thought more critically of her former companion. His laboratory had driven it home for her.

Wind conjured around her and nipped at her skin. A gauntlet fell on her shoulder, curling over the turn of it possessively. Ciri felt a presence loom at her back and the sensation of mail and leather brush down the length of her body.

Ciri remembered folk saying that scent brought back the keenest of memories. In the dream, the sharp bite of steel and oiled leather in her nose brought a rush of feelings back.

Infatuation. Desire.

Then, quickly on desire’s heels, disgust. Rage.

“Zireael,” he purred into her ear, the name a benediction. Ciri felt his body close over hers as he bent low. She’d forgotten how small she could feel next to him and tried to step clear, to warp to some other world in this dream and away from him. But he caught her body between his large hands and twisted it to turn her. Cruel green eyes pinned her in place and the shock of seeing him standing there rendered in painstaking detail stole the breath from her.

He was pulling at her body like strings on a puppet. Eredin angled her face to him so all she could see was his perfect, terrible face filling her vision. His mouth covered hers and Ciri stood pliant in shock. She felt his tongue spear into her mouth, long fingers pinching at her jaw to wrench it open and ease the slide of the hot, wet muscle through her lips. Every part of her was set on fire with disgust and arousal, a fluid knot of anger cinching in the pit of her stomach. His armored grip tightened around her shoulders until he caged her between his arms.

She kissed him back with all the hunger he poured into her. Her teeth clicked against his and she bit his lip bloody for the marks he put into her skin. Copper burst on her tongue.

His body bore her into the surface of whatever the dream conjured as space and time rippled around them. Floor, ground, bed, wall. It was inconsequential. Ciri had no stock of her surroundings beyond the elf over her. He was vividly detailed by her mind while the rest of the world around him blurred and melded into formless shapes and colors.

Ciri felt herself reach for him when he pulled away from her mouth, this enemy who’d chased her across tracts of space, of time. Her nails tore at the sides of his perfect, sharp face and raked bloody furrows. Dark hair curtained around her face. He only grinned wider at her, eyes filled with malice and a hunger she recognized in herself.

The movements of their bodies blurred. His hands were on her throat, squeezing until the sensation of her drawing air was strained and her breath came thin and reedy. It only sharpened the pleasure between her thighs.

Shame burned in her as he moved between her legs, clothes melting away as he plied her with fingers and found her dripping. Ciri wanted to slap the satisfaction off of his face but the urge left her when he canted her hips with his rough hands and filled her with his cock instead. His fingertips almost met as they cinched her waist, sliding her body to meet his rhythm and it was all Ciri could do to bite her lip and not moan with the heat that bloomed in her.

The pleasure was delicious. He pried the sighs from her with deep strokes and caressed her breasts, her thighs. Eredin handled her roughly—he bent and twisted her body around his length until she’d shouted herself hoarse.

This was a darker fantasy that she’d locked away ages ago. But here it was, idle thoughts made flesh as Eredin fucked her senseless in this space in a dream that was hazy around the edges.

I hate you, she thought. She sighed it into his mouth. The pleasure he tore out of her made such shame take root to the point where her tears spilled and beaded across her temples. It was far from a quick, furtive fuck that she could liken to a handshake. This was far more intimate—the act worried at the raw edges of something in her that screamed how wrong it was, to be dreaming this.

Eredin finishing what Auberon could never start.

He spent in her and Ciri burned.

Ciri tore herself out of her sleep. Her sheets tangled heavily around her legs. She could still taste him in her mouth and spat onto the floor, wiping herself with the back of her hand. Her limbs were shaking and she felt sticky with sweat, wetness making her thighs slick. Her cunt throbbed in time with the pulse of her heart.

She heaved herself up with her good arm and groaned at the soreness in her left side. The pain was a mercy—it made her focus turn away from the sensation between her legs. But such a dream…

There was a shame she wouldn’t shake for a while. Her sole consolation was that he was rotting and she survived him. Ciri resolved to muddle over her dream’s strange choice of bedmate at a later date.

One thing was clear: it had been too long since she’d enjoyed herself with another. And she’d be damned if she finished out the year without chasing away the fantasized touch and gaze of that mad elf out of her senses with someone more palatable.

“Fuck,” she said one of Geralt’s favorite words, bracing her bare feet against the wooden floor beneath her cot. The air was chilly during this early autumn morning and gooseflesh raised visible along her calves.

She leaned out of the cot, looking around the partition into the main part of the tent.

It felt more private back here in the corner, out of sight of the entrance the general had carried her through. Ciri remembered sprawling out on the table near the entryway, sweating like a stuck pig as the medic heaved her arm back into place.

Her ears listened out for the sound of the general’s soft breathing and heard nothing. Only the distant sounds of the camp coming to life reached her ears.

He must be out already, she thought. Dawn’s rosy fingers were reaching into the tent, illuminating the canvas on the eastern side with bright light.

Ciri reached up to unpin her hair and let it fall loose down her back. Her face felt grubby from sleeping in the goose fat and ash she wore smeared around her eyes as war paint. The rest of her felt unclean with dried sweat.

“Bath,” she said to no one but herself. If she counted back, it was approximately three days since she last had a proper wash.

As if the thought willed them into existence, Ciri heard the hobnailed tread of soldiers marching and the sound of sloshing water as they walked onto the platform the marquee sat on. The hair on the back of her neck raised and she measured the distance between herself and the stand that held her gwyhyr.

“My lady?” called someone behind the partition that shielded her from view. She recognized his mild voice.

“General,” she answered back in greeting, willing her hackles down. She looked away from her blade. There were shadows cast on the floor from the soldiers milling around the entrance of the tent and she could see the shape of the general among them.

“I thought it productive to procure you a bath this morning.” His voice had a cheerful, easy cadence to it.

That explains the sound of water. The soldiers clomped in and began emptying buckets of it into what sounded like a tub.

“I would do desperate things for a bath right now, General Voorhis.” She let the innuendo sit and enjoyed the coughing fit it elicited from the other side of the canvas partition. She heard him rattle off orders to the soldiers that accompanied him and soon the sound of their steps faded as they exited the tent.

The general ducked his head into view, leaning around the partition. His cheeks started to stain pink and Ciri wagered it wasn’t the autumn chill bringing color into them.

He took stock of her bare legs peeking out from the blankets and then her face, his mouth parting to say something but nothing came out. A raspy noise came from him as he cleared his throat.

“Something on my face?” she ventured, lifting an eyebrow up inquisitively.

“Your hair is down.”

Ciri lifted a lank, ashen strand up for inspection. It was in dire need of a wash and felt oily. “Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not,” he was quick to divert, stepping close. “Can you stand?” His hand extended out to her.

“Yes,” she bit out, waving off his offer of help. Even if she couldn’t stand, she was going to make her body damn well do it.

He shot her a speculative glance and dropped his arm, lips pressing together.

She raised herself, assessing every twinge that came with the motion. Her left knee was only sore and she bore weight on it well, but her shoulder remained a mass of nerves and tenderness. It hurt to move it within its wrappings.

His borrowed shirt did its desired job of providing her some modesty. It dropped to the tops of her knees and covered her like a shift, but the general kept his eyes locked on her face like his life depended on it.

He gestured to where the tub sat once she hobbled out into the main area. It was tucked behind another partitioned section of the tent and screened from view like the sleeping area she occupied. “In through there. The laundresses will be bringing your clothes up shortly.”

With that, he left her to limp into the bathing area on her own steam and started towards the opening to the outside.

Her voice halted him in his tracks. “No need to leave. I’d like to talk a bit more, if you don’t mind.”

General Voorhis turned to give her a baffled look.

“Are you quite sure you do not wish for privacy, my lady? I could attend to my business elsewhere. Of course, there are a few written matters that require my attention.” The general scrubbed at the back of his neck, looking at his desk.

“You can sit and attend to them while I get clean, if you wish.”

His presence nearby would afford her some early warning of intruders while she was in the tub—no doubt rumors were already making their rounds around the camp of her appearance and she couldn’t be certain of every soldier’s loyalty.

Someone could walk in and slit her throat where she sat and that simply wouldn’t do, to be cut down by a lackwit cat’s paw while she bathed. Emhyr fielded and thwarted assassination attempts before most could butter their toast in the morning, so how would she fare any different if word had spread to some assassin’s ear that the emperor’s daughter had arrived at the camp?

The general nodded his assent, moving over to the desk and producing the key from a pocket to open its lid. His face looked freshly scrubbed, his morning walk outdoors making his cheeks and nose red. Once more he wore his breastplate, white ruff in place around his neck and looking every inch the Nilfgaardian officer.

Ciri ducked behind the canvas screen into the small chamber made for the bath. The copper tub was full of steaming water and big enough for her to sit down in. A small footstool nearby was piled with bathing supplies—towels, salts, and a cake of soap. She pulled the general’s shirt over her head with one hand, careful to maneuver her bad shoulder out of the sleeve before draping the garment on the floor. Her bandages were unbound and discarded, clumps of the poultice flaking off her skin.

She was molted with bruises on her bad side. Her skin was becoming a testament to yesterday’s unplanned dismount into the dirt.

Ciri heard the sliding of drawers as the general organized his desk. The scratching of a quill on parchment came soon after. She dipped a foot into the water and eased herself into the high-sided tub. The water came up to her navel when she sat down, steam drifting up from the surface.

The woman could’ve died happy in the bath that instant. The heat seeped into her joints and warmed her from the inside out, a stark contrast to the cool autumn air in the tent.

“What was it you wished to speak of, my lady?” His voice carried well through the canvas walls.

Ciri turned her head in the direction of where he sat. “Why does my father want me to succeed him?” She could not artlessly dance around the question, so it came out of her mouth without preamble.

The scratching of the quill paused before it started again. “I cannot pretend to know every motivation of the White Flame, my lady, but the most obvious reason being is that you are of his blood. You have a right to inherit, as he did from his father.”

“Blood doesn’t make me the least bit qualified to rule an empire and he damn well knows that,” she said peevishly, not understanding the cause for the irritation she felt.

Was that all it was that drove Emhyr to make me the offer? Obligation? She reached for the soap cake and a washcloth sitting on the footstool, scrubbing her face after lathering it.

The general’s reply was infuriatingly patient. “No doubt a sentiment he shares from his own experiences, my lady. You must know of the stories of his upbringing and how he came into power. Blood is only a small part of it. It’s the character of the man—or the woman—that makes or breaks their reign.”

Ciri frowned, raising one leg out of the water to start scrubbing it with the soap cake. It smelled of rosewood, all at once floral and peppery. His pillow carried the same scent.

When she didn’t interject, General Voorhis added, “And in your character, he must see in you something of himself. Someone that could, with the proper training and guidance, succeed him and lead the empire into a new age.”

Emhyr seeing something of himself in me, she thought with no small touch of sarcasm. The thought was enough to make her snort with contempt.

Ciri stared at the surface of the water, watching the shape of her hips and legs beneath. Her rose tattoo was blurry beneath the soapy bubbles. “You want to know what I think?”

He didn’t reply, but she could hear his quill stop scratching at the parchment.

“I think it’s an apology,” she said, the water sloshing against the sides of the tub as she sunk back to wet her hair. She came up and reached for the soap cake to start working it through the wet strands and into her scalp. “Him making amends in his own way for what he’s wrought—to me, to Cintra, to my mother. My grandmother.”

“What would they want for you?”

It took her aback, the question. Her spine straightened against the tub and she stared forward at the canvas wall of the tent.

“I was too young to know my mother when she died,” her voice halted. “I can’t pretend to know what she would want for me, but my grandmother…” She brought her knees up, watching as the water trickled down over the exposed inking on the inside of her thigh.

Calanthe’s ghost yet haunted her, memories of her grandmother brimming over in her mind. Statecraft, military tactics, economics—everything that she had done in their short time together to prepare Ciri for the day she would become the Lioness of Cintra, cub no more.

Ciri smiled at the surface of the bathwater. “She would want me to take the offer, if only to spite him and the empire by ruling it the way she raised me to govern.”

“It sounds as if you have an answer for yourself.”

“And what of you? Your answer?” She’d scrubbed herself clean by that point and the water grew more tepid.

The sound of quill to parchment stopped again. “Your highness?” Confusion was in his voice.

“What would you want of me?” The cool air hit her as she rose out of the water. Steam rose from her skin as she wound a bathing sheet around her torso.

Silence met her until she stepped out from behind the screen into the main area of the marquee. The wooden planks were rough under her bare feet and gooseflesh rose all over her limbs from the colder air outside of the bathing room.

“No doubt there are alternatives being considered for the succession. I’d name you one of them. How would I fit into anything you might have planned?”

She might as well have walked out naked for all the shock and awe written on his face. Or was it the baldfaced question she’d posed to him? He shot out of his chair at abrupt attention and almost upended his writing desk in the process.

Ciri was beginning to enjoy making this man fumble. The ways she could disarm him made a teasing, playful part of herself come out. It wasn’t a facet of herself that she’d indulged as of late, not since teasing Skjall until he’d turned ruddy in the face.

The bathing sheet brushed at the tops of her knees as she moved towards her cot—his cot.

She looked around the space and pretended to ignore his dogged attempts to act natural when he was sharing the ‘room’ with her in a state of near undress. Ciri watched as he sat back down at his desk and stared down his paperwork like it held some great puzzle for him to unravel. It seemed he was searching for words.

The tense silence was broken by her giving him an out from the current topic. “My clothes? Or are they still outstanding from the laundry.”

He latched onto the change of subject like a lifeline. Relief washed over his face and he stood, not looking in her direction as he made his way out to the front of the marquee. “Let me…see to that.”

Ciri smirked after his retreating back and settled herself down on the edge of his cot. She toweled dry and waited for her clothes to make their way back.

She cast her mind back to the first time she’d met this man currently chasing down her laundry—Ciri remembered how angry she was after her father made overtures of his offer in Vizima. Her terse rejection of it immediately followed and she left the White Flame Who Dances on the Graves of his Enemies sitting on the stone bench with a thoughtful expression.

Bursting through the door into the throne room, she’d caught Geralt in conversation with the general. When they’d finally left Vizima and were well on the road to Velen, curiosity prickled after the fog of anger at Emhyr dispersed.

‘What was it you two were talking about before I walked in there?’

‘Hmm…’ Geralt could say so much with one syllable. He was thinking on what to say next, staring ahead at the road.

‘Well?’ she pressed him, urging her horse to sidle up closer to Roach.

The barest hint of a smirk cracked the corner of the witcher’s mouth. ‘From how he talks about you, you’ve got an admirer.’

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Ciri’s clothes did return to her.

It was a very charming exchange where the general cleared his throat and announced he’d left them on the table for her, and to please come out of the marquee once she was fully attired.

She had to give credit to the laundresses—her clothes were washed so clean they felt like new. Nary a bloodstain. Ciri made a quick business of dressing and retrieving her articles from the tent, hoisting her saddlebags over her good shoulder.

Outside the marquee, the rising sun was clear over the horizon. The Pontar was a ribbon of fire in the morning light and dotted with barges. She watched as more barges pushed off the riverbanks laden with troops and horses, joining a line of small ships floating downriver.

Her boots made a racket on the boards as she stepped down to join the general. Aides and soldiers were milling around the marquee, moving in and out of smaller tents with bundles and war chests to load onto nearby carts.

“Where are they headed towards?” She and the general stood off to the side and out of the way of the packers, staring down the hill at the military camp and the river.

Ciri cast her gaze westward—she could see Bald Mountain in the distance, the skeletal figure of the ancient oak outlined in the morning light. It stood as an ominous reminder of where Imlerith’s corpse rotted and far beneath it, the mouldering bodies of Brewess and Whispess where she’d cut them down.

He pointed due northwest. “There’s a fleet moored in the harbor at Novigrad. First, to Oxenfurt to garrison men and then the bulk will continue on to home.”

Ciri let out a low whistle. “A Nilfgaardian occupied Oxenfurt. I bet Radovid is rolling in his grave.”

“Wherever that may be,” the general turned his gaze sidelong at her. “By all accounts, his body was dumped into the harbor in Novigrad after being looted and stripped.”

“Ah, that would be Philippa Eilhart’s work,” she supplied.

The general gave a laugh and the act transformed his face. More boyishness and youthful charm—he didn’t seem much older than her in that instant, despite the heavy chain of office and somber military dress. “Ironic that she would be the one to kill him.”

“That’s vengeance for you.” To Ciri, irony in vengeance was something she knew intimately.

Leo Bonhart had put her in the arena at Claremont to let the whole town gawk at her ‘barbarity’ and how well the witchers had schooled her to kill.

He’d wrung out all manners of horrors from her and let the fisstech run sluggish through her veins until the world was numb around Ciri and she looked out on it as if through a keyhole.

She remembered her lowest time in that arena Bonhart put her in to play killer for the sport of the rich, poor, and idle.

It was hard to forget the bite of her blade digging through her clothes, the tip piercing the skin under her breastbone. How she’d told herself to not cry, just don’t cry—one sudden thrust and her pains would be over.

‘You cannot do it.’ Bonhart’s voice was as clear in her memory as it had been ringing out over the silence that fell in the arena once the spectators had observed her putting her sword to her chest, ready to fall on it.

‘You cannot do it, witcheress. In Kaer Morhen they taught you to kill, so you kill like a machine. Instinctively. To kill yourself takes character, strength, determination, and courage. But that they could not teach you.’

So she didn’t kill herself that day. No, she lived and fought and broke free of him. And eventually, ran Bonhart through and let him die on her blade instead.

Vengeance, hand in hand with irony.

“What was your agenda today, highness?” The general had asked after touring her around the top of the hill where the command staff was encamped. Some essential structures were still up and not yet packed away—armory, smithy, and a picket line of horses.

What an agenda, she thought. The throbbing in her bad side was a sharp reminder of her less than ideal fighting condition. Not the worst shape she’d been in, but she’d been injury-free when she’d taken on the whole trio of the crones.

What was one pulled arm on her non-dominant side against the last crone? Not enough to make her delay her plans to kill Weavess, she decided.

“Finding that stolen item I mentioned last night,” she shared. “But I do have a rather large request to make of you.”

The general looked intrigued, shifting his weight back onto his heels. “Name it and I certainly shall seek to accommodate.”

She looked pointed at the picket line. “Have you a horse to spare?”

The general smiled broadly, turning towards the end of the line. “Yes, in fact,” he murmured, moving down the row of groomed, sleek animals. If one thing Ciri could compliment the Nilfgaardian army on, it was the quality of their mounts and the care they put into maintaining them.

The general was greeted with a whicker by the big, dark destrier Ciri remembered from the evening before. His personal mount, then.

“Nemrod’s stablemate…” The general pointed out the horse besides the black stallion.

There stood a grey courser, slimmer bones than the heavyset destrier that she’d sat atop last night. The horse seemed built for speed over muscle mass and possessed an arched, graceful neck that curved like a swan’s.

Ciri was immediately in love. She ducked under the picket line and offered her hand. The mare lipped at her palm. Not quite a ringer for Kelpie as the black mare who’d succumbed yesterday, but something in those limpid brown eyes reminded Ciri of her old horse.

The general leaned against a post, watching the exchange with a half-smile. “The grey’s name is Cantarella.”

“Aren’t you a beauty?” Ciri stroked her hands down the length of the horse’s spine to the long, flowing tail. Whoever groomed her was impeccable. How’d they keep a grey so spotless? “Cantarella…”

The rope of the picket line rose as the general lifted it higher to duck beneath it. He joined her between the two mounts, smoothing a hand over Nemrod’s back. “Geralt rode her at the Vegelbuds’s estate near Novigrad and quite bested me and this fellow.”

Ciri chuckled, turning to lean against the shoulder of the mare while she placidly chewed hay from a manger. She watched the general pick up the destrier’s saucer-sized hooves to look for stones.

“It came as no surprise to me, his victory,” the general said off-handedly, distracted somewhat by looking over his horse. “Canterella is sired by Cahir, the champion from Vole. Quite a commodity to have.”

Ciri started laughing hard. The sound and sudden shaking against the mare didn’t make Canterella budge.

“Her sire’s name is Cahir?”

He seemed to share in her amusement. And the reason for it. “The owners immigrated from Vicovaro. It’s not an uncommon name as the Vicovarians still hold the knight in high regard.”

“Then I’m glad of you loaning her out for a while, especially with such merits. I will take care of her.” That last bit came as a hard declaration. Guilt ebbed within her for the death of the black mare, but what more could she have done?

The general shared a smile with her. “I wouldn’t have loaned her to you if I knew you would treat her any less than I would.”

Chapter Text

“Are you certain you do not require an escort?” 

It was the second time in perhaps ten minutes that the general had asked Ciri that same question.  

“I am,” she insisted for, again, the second time. 

She labored on saddling and bridling the grey for the morning ride, outfitting the mare with all the belongings she’d brought out of the general’s pavilion. Her worn saddlebags were clipped to the cantle and rested comfortably over the horse’s rump. 

Each item of fine tack had been proffered by a cheerful young, red-cheeked corporal, who could only keep bowing over and over again as he brought each item to the picket line where the horses were tied off. All the while the man, barely out of boyhood, espoused yes, princess and here, princess in Nilfgaardian flanged with an accent she couldn’t put her finger on. Metinna, perhaps? 

She slid her hand under the girth, judged it too loose, and cinched it up tighter. The familiar weight of her sword belted across her chest did not protect her from the scream of protest her body gave at the movement. Her whole left side was starting to feel like one vast bruise. Her left knee twinged, but that was no comparison to how her shoulder joint screamed when she moved her bad arm.

The general hovering at her side made a disapproving little noise and Ciri brushed off a spark of annoyance at his coddling. He was courteous, nothing but attentive to her needs. He’d even had a doctor wrench her damned arm back into its socket before loaning her a prized horse. 

Even a Vivaldi banker would have blushed at the estimated cost of the animal she had floating around in her head. The man had gone so far as to forsake his own bed so she could sleep in the relative luxury of a camp cot. The least Ciri could do would be to treat him with every courtesy he’d shown her. Morvran Voorhis was not yet classified an interloper or a spy or a nursemaid, even if he might act like one at times.

He was, however,  an extension of her father’s vast power. Ciri had long since danced around the gravity of her father’s authority. He was a commanding sun, inevitably sucking all other celestial bodies into its orbit. Emhyr var Emreis was his reclaimed empire personified, absorbing into himself all of its people and places. He broke them down and remade them.

Or, if they did not fit the need or refused to fall in line, he disposed of them. 

Ciri’s father was a man and an empire that toppled kingdoms, Cintra included, in their efforts to surmount and achieve and seek out what they wanted: her. 

Emhyr and the idea of Nilfgaard as a state were so entangled that she didn’t quite know where the empire began and the man who controlled it ended. Perhaps they were so entwined that she could not really know her father by any measure as one would consider familial in the remotest sense. She couldn’t exactly call their relationship normal, could she?

Pavetta and Emhyr, as maternal and paternal figures in her life, were so far down the road of her memories that sometimes thinking about them felt like squinting through a looking glass. Trying to make out the inscrutable shape of two people, so far removed and distant, that she did not recognize them.

She recognized Geralt and Yennefer, even if she had not been born of their bodies or their blood. 

And yet, even after all the sins Emhyr had committed in the pursuit of putting her by his side, it was Ciri’s own decisions that had finally brought her there. Her own desires to step up into that place of power and change things. To branch out on her own fork of destiny, after she had fulfilled some great role in the cosmic scheme of things to subjugate the White Frost and start out on a new path. 

Ciri almost wanted to hate herself for choosing this route. Who but a fool would choose to join in the steps of some political game with more steps and turns and leaps than a complicated Toussanti bassadance?

But her pride was stubborn, and she was loath to admit she was submitting to some move on the Emhyr’s board. 

She refused to see herself as being weak, nor to see herself as bending to Emhyr’s will. She was joining the game as a player, not a pawn. She would be heir to the empire. If she intended to make that empire her own, Ciri had best get familiar with being in the periphery of Emhyr’s power and all its mechanisms, its players. She intended to be in the thick of it, should she deliver that letter and fully commit to this path. That included coming to peaceable terms with its actors: like the man hovering at her elbow this very moment while she fiddled with the bridle and cajoled the mare to take the shiny, linked bit into her mouth.  

Another thought crept into her mind. Should she deliver that letter, Morvran would be a technical rival. Certainly Emhyr had not sat idle in all these years she had vanished from the Continent. Her father was very practical, and in the absence of an official heir, he’d created auxiliary plans. She had read plenty in passing and heard enough from Yennefer to know the rough outline of how the empire functioned, to understand what might happen if Emhyr were to die. The matter of succession would be called to order by the princes of the blood, the guilds, and the ornamental imperial senate.

In the corner of her eye, Ciri saw an heir of the House of Voorhis straighten up. The general looked like anything but a potential political rival at that moment. Instead, he looked rather like he was steeling his spine enough to firm up his next approach at how to insert himself into her morning plans, ever courteous, ever courtly. 

“Then allow me to accompany you, at least.”

“Company versus an escort, hm?” Ciri wondered aloud, her fingers pausing on Cantarella’s throat latch. “Now you’re just repackaging the word.” The mare stood well for her tack up, even if her rider’s pace was slow and ponderous. 

He clasped his gauntlet-clad hand over his heart, his shoulders thrown back as if he was making some great declaration. “I swear on my own honor, there will be no escort. Simply myself and my horse. I can’t abide your wandering about the countryside without aid, especially in your state. Even if you are so very capable with injuries, my lady,” he hurriedly added that last bit at the knowing look she aimed at him over the mare’s shoulders.  

“That’s still an escort,” Ciri shot back archly, her mouth twitching. But General Voorhis’ expression was so damn earnest that she felt a little piece of her cave in at the request. 

Company wouldn’t be a harm. If anything, it’d be more protection. Bandits sprung up like weeds in these parts, and Ciri would be a fool not to appreciate an extra sword. 

There was, however, something to be said for keeping a low profile. A full coterie of Nausicaa cavalry like the evening before would muddle up her whole plan for the day. The business she would be about demanded subtly and precision, not a full call to arms.

And despite the doctor’s best efforts, her shoulder was, as he said, screeching in pain. The poultice had helped to reduce the swelling but…well, perhaps it was wise, prudent even, to have Morvran along.

Ciri tucked the ends of her billets in once she was satisfied with the fit of the girth and kept on tacking up. “I won’t wait on you if you can’t keep up.”

Morvran bolted away, his armor clattering as he worked swiftly and surely with his destrier. No barding or armor for his mount like she’d seen other cavalry mounts wearing. Before Ciri could mount, the man was close to finishing his work on readying his own dark-coated stallion, Nemrod, a magnificent beast that dwarfed Canterella’s demure, pretty stature.

They were riding out of the camp within the hour of her waking. The general had to wave off the escort that tailed him out of protocol. Snorting horses and their helmed cavalry riders broke off at the palisades. 

Ciri turned in the saddle to watch the black-garbed, armored riders reform their lines and trod off to other tasks now that General Voorhis had waved them off. “Do they follow you everywhere?” 

Morvran shot a rueful smile her way. “Quite. Enough that it’s disconcerting, riding out with just you.”

“Maybe I’m worth more than ten cavalry,” she said. “Does that make you feel safer?”

“Highness, you’re worth far more than ten. I’ve seen you fight.” His expression sobered. Ah, but he had been on Undvik at the last battle.

“Oh? And what’s your estimation? A battalion?” 

The general gave her a long, studious look that she couldn’t tell was serious or meant in jest. “Still assessing.”

Ciri snorted rather unladylike, feeling something light in her chest for the first time since she had clapped eyes on Gretka in Crow’s Perch. The sound made him gawk sidelong at her. 

Oh, but to break this man in on all of her rough habits. 

They forged up Kimbolt Way, the swamp dropping away to their left as they rose into the hills. It was steady, quiet work between them. He kept her bad side at guard by riding close, eyes on the woodline and roads that fed into the path they were on. Ciri kept a watch out on her respective side and got to know the movements of her borrowed mare with each passing league.

Mares were known to be hot-tempered. Moody. Like mercury, flashfires of temperament ranging sweet to sour. Ciri loved them all the more for it. Cantarella seemed no different. Her ears expressively twitched and even slight pressure on her mouth made her toss her head like an impetuous girl. 

“Brat,” Ciri chided fondly. They soon found their rhythm an hour into the ride. Gentle, guiding pressure and a light hand was what the mare needed. She bloomed under the slightest of aids. 

“Barely even a twitch of the hand and she’s clear, isn’t she?” The general commented, pride shining in his eyes as he watched Ciri sidle Cantarella in a half-pass. The grey surged forward laterally, not missing a step as she danced under Ciri’s body.

“Does she know any battle cues?” 

“Learning. She’ll launch with her backs at whatever is behind you if you put your right leg far back on her side, firm right rein. Just be sure you have your seat.” 

“I’ll try that out later,” Ciri said gleefully. A trained horse that could probably kick the paint off of the side of a stable. If her father wanted to get into her good graces, he could make a gift of such an animal to her one day. Or, better, Ciri might have enough capital to buy her own. How she wished for it—no horse would ever take the place of Kelpie, but perhaps she might find as fine a companion as Cantarella, a partnership she could rely on for years to come as a trusted mount. 

It took only two hours of an alternating walk-trot for the pair of them to reach her destination. The horses had barely broken a sweat. 

The windmill at Benek was churning the early morning mist. This high in the hills, fog lingered over the plots of vegetables turning ripe for the harvest. Of all the villages she’d passed through since arriving in Velen, this one appeared to have fared better than most. Ciri drew alongside the split-rail fence near one of the tidy little huts and dismounted to observe the hamlet. 

Each straw-thatched hut had lintels painted with painstaking detail of blue cornflowers and yellow celandine. Windows bordered with frames carven with symbols and runes to keep the evil outside of the house and the warmth within safe, protected.

Her Nilfgaardian companion dismounted with a clank of his sword pommel hitting his breastplate. The plate covering his hands and shins was noisy and drew more than a few looks from nearby villagers milling about with their morning work. Cantarella and Nemrod both were tied off at the split rail fence. Ciri motioned him to follow her. The headman’s house was easy to find—it was the largest thatched dwelling near the windmill. 

Those villagers out in the morning fog gave them curious looks. It was fairly obvious that the general was looked at with greater suspicion than Ciri was. They eyed him from their work sheds and vegetable plots.

No great love for Nilfgaard in Velen for a few years, I suppose.

“What is that they’re building, I wonder?” The general pointed out a pyre being built on what amounted to a common green near the windmill. Bundles of sticks and heavier logs were carefully arranged around a central pole. A stuffed straw figure clad in a crude, ripped dress was lashed to the pole.

Ciri stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t seen one of them in years. The pyre was instantly recognizable and brought back the memory of smoke in her nose and hot, sweet pastries on the bonfire night. “Northerners play at burning Falka during the Saovine. They’ll keep building kindling around her and set her to burn on that night.”

“How curious a custom.”

Ciri watched as the village women clambered onto the pyre in pairs, arranging a wig of straw over the effigy’s head or adding more accessories to ‘Falka’. 

“Curious? Don’t they burn people in Nilfgaard?” she asked as another bundle of kindling was added beneath the crude, straw-stuffed feet of the false Falka. They kept walking towards the headman’s hut and Ciri cast her mind back to her childhood, back when other effigies had been cobbled together in city squares. Calanthe had always shied away from the bonfire nights when Falka burned—too many ramblings and ill-blooded things that had passed from generation to generation in their family. 

Ciri thought of Savoine and all its traditions she had loved: sneaking out to play knucklebones with her friends and using pennies to buy candied apples from the street vendors, thinking little of the words passed down her bloodline about the woman who had placed her own child in Riannon’s arms, her mind splintered. And when some sense came back to the Temerian queen, born of Lara Dorren, there was no telling Falka’s child apart from her others. 

How strange it must’ve seemed to Grandmamma to see that same woman burn every fall for the hate she inspired. The gruesome skeleton that rattled around in the royal closets of Cintra and Temeria alike.

General Voorhis and his drawling, mild voice drew her memories away from the sweet caramel and woodsmoke memories of her childhood Saovines. “Not in effigy. Lately hanging is more the rage, though during the time of the Usurper, public burnings did happen with what he deemed political prisoners.”

Hearing about the man who’d upended her father’s ascent to the throne by killing her erstwhile grandfather, a distant face and name she would never meet, was jarring enough for her steps to falter in the dewy grass. How hard Emhyr must’ve had to fight back to get his foothold with how firmly the Usurper had plotted out his ruin—then cursed him with his mage, to boot. 

But Emhyr thrived in adversity. Maybe that was one trait she would admit to inheriting from him.

“Did my father make hangings the current fashion?” She picked up her stride again, raising her hand in greeting to the men and women near the common green who stared at them. They did not wave back, but Ciri kept her hand up and a smile on her face.

“The emperor is just—he grants beheadings to those he respects.”

“How charitable of my father,” Ciri said under her breath. 

They skirted the border of the vegetable garden on their way to the hut’s door. Ciri rapped on the wood with her gloved fist. Exchanging words with the headman’s grey-haired wife who opened it yielded a brief, confused conversation when the woman stepped out to find a lady with a sword and a Nilfgaardian general in full regalia. She advertised as much to the interior of the house, “BARTRICK, GET YE OUT HERE NOW! THERE’S GENTRY!”

Ciri made their excuses for troubling them with a visit, asking her if husband was available, and over the banging of pots and the clucking of chickens, the good woman confirmed as much with a “ye”, went back in, and shut the door in their faces.

They stared for a half-beat at the door before she picked right back up on the conversation. “And so the emperor hangs those he doesn’t respect?” 

“In Millennium Square, at the center of the capital itself. He says that nuisances are to be made an example of, princess. One cannot deny it is…very effective.”

The headman, on exiting his hut, immediately seemed suspicious of the two strangers, of course. He shooed them good naturedly into the garden patch, citing some other familiar superstition about talking in doorways being terribly bad luck. He adjusted the skullcap over his wide set ears, squinting at Ciri and Morvran. 

“Have you had a lot of children around?” she asked, leaning on the nearest fencepost. 

“Aye,” he answered, halting. “We came out better than most ‘round here. Sickness came through late spring and killed some, mostly the weans. Milk fever.”

“I’m sorry,” Ciri said, and she was. “We won’t trouble you for longer than a day and mean no one any ill. Might you send all of them out to play? Just over there.” She pointed at a vacant field that sloped down the hill, near to where the woodline rose up. To grease the wheels of such a bizarre request, she rummaged in a pouch strung on her belts and held out a sack of coins.

The headman took the coin pouch, weighing it in his hands with his tongue stuck out like a pumpkin stem out of the corner of his mouth. He gravely considered it, then Ciri, then the empty field. “...you mean the weans no harm, milady?” 

“On my honor as a witcher. And his, if you’d like.” She chucked her chin at the general, who stood equally as bewildered as the headman. He shifted on his feet, coughing, but drew his hands behind his back, putting on the airs of this being some official military business that of course he knew the inner workings of. 

Ciri wanted to applaud him for such a quick improvisation, even if he was as much in the dark about her intent as the headman. 

She reached out, took the pouch, and jingled it when they hit such a long pause that she thought the headman would have them chased out of the village with pitchforks. The clink of commerce for such a trivial petition seemed to jar the old man out of his slack-jawed awe.

“Black Ones are rather respectful of the weans. Orderly. Not a head harmed that didn’t invite it. I suppose we can oblige ye. Never seen a lady witcher before.”

The headman pocketed the coins, handing her back the emptied pouch, and altogether tried to look very sober about what was no doubt the cumulative earnings of a whole harvest now weighing down his breeches. 

Ciri flashed the old man a smile, gesturing to the general to follow her. “We’re an up and coming school. School of the Swallow. Our thanks for your hospitality, sir, and we promise to be out of your hair shortly.”

The headman bowed, then promptly scrambled off to start knocking at every door in the village, shouting for the children to come outside and mind their manners, but to drop whatever chore they were set to doing and get out to the field and play. 

“Your highness, considering that man appeared near bald under his cap, getting out of his hair might be impossible.” The general drew up beside Ciri, lengthening his strides to keep up with her as they marched to collect their horses, then head down the hill and over the rutted earth that was growing weeds.

“Figure of speech. I’m sure he’s heard it all before,” she breezed, leading them both towards the woodline with Cantarella and Nemrod ambling behind their respective riders. 

Chapter Text

The general was a noisy accompaniment to Ciri’s silent, swift strides. There was the rustle of his heavy, dark clothing against the metal of his gauntlets, his greaves. “...is there a particular reason why you’re paying off the village headman to send out all the children to play in that fallow field?” 

Was the general nervous? 

Instead of annoying her, it simply amused Ciri. 

Perhaps she did seem so strange to him. In fact, she might very well be the juxtaposition of what to expect concerning a princess of imperial blood, a queen in her own right if one were to look at the other claims that she could scrawl tidily under her own name, but never used.

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon.

Queen of Cintra, Heiress to Inis Ard Skellig and Inis An Skellig, Princess of Brugge, Duchess of Sodden, Lady of Metinna, Ebbing and Gemmera, Suzerain of Attre, Nazair, Vicovaro and Abb Yarra.

She resolved to drag out his uncertainty and further shake the man out of whatever preconceived notion he had of her, if only to while away the morning hours. It would be a long wait, and there was no book at hand or diverting game—only the general, who seemed readily available for her amusement, should she choose to make something of a conversation with him. To this very hour, he’d been a lively, engaging partner in conversation. 

A listener, thoughtful about each piece of information she allowed, with his own insights to trade back.

All in all, not the worst of Nilfgaardians she had known.

They’d fetched their mounts from the split rail fence and brought them near to where she planned to set up a makeshift base of sorts. It was quick work to hobble the horses in a lower, fenced off field to pick over the parched grass and dried fodder. 

“Observation. I’m waiting on something. Someone, rather.” She looked towards the dark woods, finding a fallen log in the grassy shade covered with moss and toadstools. A fine perch for them to wait on. She shrugged off her sword, leaning it against the log. Ciri carefully stretched out her injured arm, wincing at the strain before she righted it. 

“Care to elaborate, highness? Something to do with your stolen item?” The general eyed the log, raking his boot over the top of it to dislodge the mushrooms growing in clumps, making a seat for them both. 

Ciri went around the underbrush by the log, plucking up sticks and small branches, breaking them down into the size of kindling. “Benek is one of the closest villages to the bog, excluding Downwarren.”

“Why not summon up the children of Downwarren?”

“Too close,” she said over the hedges she had wandered behind. She picked up another dry stick, adding it to the growing pile in her arms. “And the people there are quite mad.”

“I’ve heard reports from our scouts of something to do with the cutting of ears and offering it on a stone. Child sacrifice. Really, all of the horrors get lost amongst all the others in the reports you hear out of every corner of Velen.” Behind them, the field was filling up with children who were barely old enough to walk and then lean, coltish youths that were only a summer away from being considered adults. 

They milled about, thoroughly looking out of sorts at being bid to play while the cow still needed milking, the chickens feeding…but gradually the younger ones got on with the idea and began a game of tag. Ciri smiled at the sight and wondered about Gretka, if this might be a better home for her than Crow’s Perch. It certainly seemed more friendly for children. Another group of older kids procured a pig bladder filled with air and started a rousing match of kicking it around. The noise of children at play carried downhill, loud and raucous. 

Ciri came out of the shaded woods with what amounted to enough wood to start a small fire. “They’re bait, for lack of a better word for it.”

“Bait?” Oh, now he was absolutely nervous. His voice held an uncertain lilt to it, as if he wasn’t entirely sure about her sanity, let alone her reasoning. 

Good, Ciri thought. Let him twist.

He fidgeted where he stood beside the log, looking with bafflement to the field full of children, then back to Ciri as she started stacking firewood into a tidy arrangement.

Ciri gave him a beaming smile that was all at odds with the concept of luring something out of the woods with perfectly innocent children. She pulled her flint out of its usual pouch, striking it until the bits of frayed tinder caught a spark and began to smoke.

“Yes. Trust me, I’m a professional. Now sit here with me and watch.” She patted the spot on the log next to her by way of inviting the man to sit. He folded himself onto the log, and she couldn’t quite tell if the stiffness was all unease with her vague instructions to just follow along or a lack of mobility in full military regalia. 

Perhaps both, because the man creaked like a tree in a high wind when he sat, if the tree were made of metal and fine velvets and leather. The look of uncertainty did not evaporate during the silence that followed, watching the children and the cracklings of the tiny fire as it caught on the small branches she had piled up. Ciri watched him out of the corner of her eye, amused. 

She unsheathed her gwyhyr, sliding the gnomish-made steel out to inspect the work he had done to clean it of bandit blood from the day prior, and found no fault. The man could clean a blade, which made him rise in her esteem just a little bit further. Gods, he had even sharpened it. 

Geralt abhorred people that didn’t tidy their weapons. Ciri had carried that tenant into adulthood. If how he handled her weapons as a courtesy cleaning was any indication, or how he kept his horses perfectly groomed, Morvran Voorhis would make it onto Geralt’s nice list over the idiot list.

A short silence was immediately shattered by her making pointed inquiries into what he was doing with Cantarella, once he arrived back in the capital. Rigid unease gradually slackened in his tight shoulders, his manner growing easier as nothing leapt out of the woods to devour the children right in front of them. He leaned his elbows on his spread knees, his hands animated as he spoke, which she was beginning to associate as purely him. 

The topic revolving around horses, invariably, led to him asking where she had learned her equitation, which had opened up a whole book of stories to trade back and forth about how they had learned horsemanship—what age they had started, under whom did they study, which rare books from every reach of the Northern Kingdoms and the empire itself did they favor on its practice? 

The conversation eventually unearthed that he was her senior by almost a decade, which wasn’t so surprising. What was singular to her was his meteoric ascent through the cavalry hierarchy to become a unit commander within Alba Division, one of the youngest generals who served as a direct aide to the emperor. But then he did come from a princely family in the empire. It made some sense that he rose to his station quickly as a result and stood so highly in her father’s hard-won favor. 

“Tell me more about the hippodrome,” she asked, thinking of the city of a thousand towers. It would be hot, being so far south. The capital sat at the mouth of the Alba river, catching the sea airs before they buffeted through the eastern provinces and whirled against the Tir Tochair mountains, washing inevitably into the vast deserts of Korath. It would be an entirely different environment than the north, a world unto itself.

It was a hard thing to place herself there, in those vast stone halls of the imperial palace, walking those streets shaded from the bright sun with strange trees, her ears filled with a language that she had no spoken proficiency in. Surrounding Ciri would be people that might one day be under her rule but with which she shared very little in common with, most of her exchanges with Nilfgaardians being thoroughly riddled with contention. The general, at least, might be her first tether in all this of normalcy, for at least they shared something in common: horses, and the near religious practice of keeping their weapons clean and honed to a brutal edge. 

And, he made the place seem all the more real to her, a girl who had never stepped foot in that far off city. The general’s words penciled in the rough sketch she had of Nilfgaard in her mind. Nilfgaard was vast, stretching as far as the eye could see if one were to stand in the tallest tower or at the top of the great lighthouse that sat out on an island in the harbor. Rooftops were regulated, clad in copper and other semi-precious metals, rendering the entire city a gleaming, golden appearance in the sun.

Ciri peppered him with more questions, fiddling with her flintstone and feeding more tinder to the fire. It was growing into a crackling burn, hot enough for what she needed it for.

“Did you go to university?” she asked, pulling small envelopes out of the pouch that sat against her hip. One was folded open, revealing the dried, odorless flakes of ground-up mistletoe. A few sprigs of the plant, pressed and dried with shriveled red berries, rattled about as she poured the powdery bits into a small tin of goose tallow fetched from the same pouch.

“Of course, but on what some would call an accelerated curriculum at the Imperial Military Academy.” It wasn’t hard for her to imagine the general just a tad bit younger, boyishly exuberant as he darted from class to class with his fellows. The thought made her grin sidelong at him. “I wasn’t long for the books before I was commissioned in the cavalry. A unit within the Alba Division.”

“How did you come into the confidence of the emperor?” 

She judged the amount of mistletoe in the tallow to be more than enough, reciting in her head Vesemir’s advice: About two pinches. Liberal amount of tallow to suspend it. And, Ciri, mind you don’t let it overheat. Burns out the properties you need to make the oil work. Knew a witcher from the School of the Cat who overcooked his oil before he went up against a chort. It was killing miners in droves outside of Ban Ard, then he got added to the pile when the blade oil was about as useful as pissing on the sword—that’s why Cats make better wages as assassins. Killing a human is easier than killing a monster. 

Morvran’s mouth twisted ruefully. “Your father tutored me when I’d just graduated from the auspices of the academy. Mostly it was being permitted in his presence and to take note of what I say, boy.” Ciri giggled at his affliction of her father’s voice, stern and commanding. He smiled back, watching her mix in the ground-up plant into the tallow with her gloved finger, his expression filled with mute fascination.  

She set aside the tin after capping it, nudging it with the tip of her scuffed boots close to where the fire burned. The metal, long since scorched from other times she had decocted oil, gained a few new scorch marks and the contents within began to sizzle and pop. “Does he often teach statecraft to other young noblemen?”

He shifted his elbows more forward onto his knees, clasping his hands together. Ciri noted how much broader in size he seemed this close up. Where she was slim, whipcord, he was broad everywhere—the shoulders, his hands, thighs clad in fine trousers when he spread them to sit comfortably. His leather coat slid easily to show an array of weighted hunter’s daggers holstered to his leg. His proximity ate up her attention, bringing into focus the man that had so earnestly wanted to attend her today like some tailing courtier.

But even with his insistence in accompanying her, Morvran had remained a respectful distance from her all day. The night before, when her mind had been dulled by pain, his appearance and form seemed an inconsequential detail. As had been his body up against hers as she suffered the leagues of riding to the Nilfgaardian camp from where the bandits had felled her and her mare.

Back in Vizima, just before she and Geralt had gatecrashed the witches’ sabbath on Beltane, the general had been but another nondescript Nilfgaardian face in the sea of others, and she was too damn angry at Emhyr to have really stopped and looked at the man exchanging with Geralt in the throne room.

Now, as the day wore on, she made up for lost time and took stock of the soldier who had offered all of his courtesies to her. Even sitting down he seemed taller than her, at least half a head so, and she wasn’t inconsiderable in height—Yenna had dubbed her my lovely beanstalk recently besides her familiar, fond ugly one with the height Ciri had reached in her majority.

His features looked like they belonged in some portrait darkened with time, hanging in some other noble house of Nilfgaard, which she supposed was very damned likely. Pale-skinned, with the shadow of a beard shorn close to his skin that gave him a clean shaven appearance but promised stubble if she were to reach up and touch his jaw with the ungloved tips of her fingers. 

Sleek hair which ran light brown in some strands, chestnut in others when the sun hit it. He wore it the same as he had in Vizima, part way loose around his neck but pulled back from his face. Serious, deep set eyes that were shadowed under his brow. Thin lips beneath a proud, patrician nose that had the look of being broken once in life, but set so well by whoever attended to the break that Ciri imagined many never noticed the uneven spot on the wide bridge. 

Just a man. 

A man who’s not wholly unattractive in your book, a little whispering part of her mind nudged. 

Morvran looked out over the fields spread uphill, his expression thoughtful. “Not uncommon among the great houses, or the son of a prince. But, as the years wore on, I remained in his service while all the others were farmed out to their postings in the military or positions in government. Only I remained in the rays of his great radiance.”

“Oh, I’m sure he loves how you put it that way. His great radiance.” Ciri clutched her hand, not the one smeared with congealed animal fat, over her heart. Then a dramatic drop of her shoulders, not the bad one, as she put on a show of swooning.

No wonder her father’s stern ego was as big as it was, especially if all around him vaunted his great radiance every hour of his day. The White Flame Dancing on the Graves of his Foes, her absolute arse. She nudged the tin to sit away from the fire to bring down the heat, mindful of not overcooking it and invoking Vesemir’s ire from the afterlife.

Her dramatic antics earned her only a quirk of his lips, his weight resting heavy on one arm as he shifted in his seat to lean forward next to her. The general looked uphill at the village, the windmill churning in the dissipating fog as the cool, crisp morning evaporated into a chill autumn day. “One cannot help but admire him. He is, after all, legendary. Throwing down the Usurper put him closer to godhood than imperator.” 

“What else do you love about the capital, besides the obvious of worshiping my father’s every act and word?” 

She was prodding him with her questions, worrying at the subject of Nilfgaard like picking at a hangnail, bothersome and just there. 

Morvran took her half-mock, half-tease about venerating Emhyr with grace. Or, perhaps it simply didn’t register; Ciri couldn’t tell by his damned earnest expression, which was all at once endearing and more than a little amusing, like hearing someone go on and on about a niche pursuit that she understood not one whit about, but they were certainly there to educate her about it and make her love it in turn. “Princess, I could not begin to number everything I love about the capital. I might have to consider that deeply before giving you a reply that is not listless ramblings.”

No, the man was entirely serious, which made her even more bemused than if he was masking over some annoyance or irritation after her blatant disrespect of his sovereign. Morvran Voorhis loved the empire, that much was certain, and wanted to share that feeling with her.

Perhaps she might find something to admire about Nilfgaard in turn. It would be a challenge—all she had done in life was detest it. Maybe his insight was a foot she could wedge in the door on her perspective, shoulder it open, and find something worth loving on the other side of it.

“You know, technically my highest title is queen,” Ciri said. She reached for the tin, snatching it from the fire with her gloved hand. It was set aside to cool.

“Your highest title is imperial princess, which supersedes any queenship title you possess in Cintra,” Morvran corrected. 

She flicked a gob of goose fat at him from the tip of her gloved fingers, peevish. It landed on his shoulder, and his nose scrunched as he meticulously wiped the greasy glob from his otherwise spotless coat. “That’s the most imperialistic thing you’ve said all day, general. I’ll allow it this once, but watch your high-minded comments. A Cintran queen is equal to any imperial princess, and the emperor, thank you very much.”  

He spread his hands in a gesture of peace—Ciri admired the glint of the sun off the dark metal of his gauntlets, how they tapered at the tips, almost clawed for grip. How the leather, worn, flexed across his palms. Capable, broad hands, just like the rest of the general. 

She swatted the errant thought away, for it was his turn to caper at her, it seemed, because Morvran turned to her, half-stooping on the log to bow over his folded arm. 

“Forgive me, your royal majesty,” he intoned, somber as a pallbearer.

Ciri wiped her goose-fat covered glove on the grass beside them before she caused a diplomatic incident by reaching over and wiping it off on the leather of his nice jacket instead. “I have the distinct feeling that you’re poking fun at me, general.”

“I would never poke fun at the daughter of the White Flame. My intentions are entirely serious.”

From the quick study she was making of Morvran, he was japing with her. There was a subtle twitch near the corner of his mouth, nostrils flaring in a tell that he was reining in a chuckle. But like a true courtier, or a general that knew when to press the advance and when to fall back, he kept a placid, serious expression under her sidelong examination.

“What about your family?” she asked after another silence, more comfortable than the last which had cropped up when they had sat down together. He looked sidelong at her, something inscrutable passing over his neutral expression, and Ciri was struck with the feeling that she had asked something more personal than all the other inquiries she had made of the man. 

Their exchange was interrupted by the pig bladder ball which had escaped the confines of the hill and came rolling towards them, coming to an abrupt halt at their feet. Morvran stood, shouted something unintelligible to the boys uphill, then gave it such a kick that sent it skidding back into the waiting hands of the village kids. They ran back to their game, squealing about how the Black One had a leg on him! 

“Nice punt,” she offered as he sat back down beside her, his sword’s scabbard almost banging against her before his hand came up and cocked easy over the hilt, maneuvering it to swing over the log and rest comfortably by his side as if he made a habit of sitting on random bits of forest detritus versus upholstered, gilded chairs.

“I feel as if I’m under interrogation,” Morvran said, turning to face her more fully. 

“Do you see any threatening implements around your person, general?” Ciri made a fuss about looking around them, lifting a charred branch with her boot as if hot tongs or clippers were lurking under it. 

His gaze cut down, dubiously looking at the charred branch still smoking hot from the fire with a cocked eyebrow. Then he eyed where her sheathed gwyhyr rested between them after she had propped it up on the log. 

“Oh, alright,” she sighed, crossing her arms, then, “but have I intimidated you into answering me?”

“I think being around you in a certain mood does merit the definition of operating under duress.”

At her scoff, Morvran hesitated for half a heartbeat before going on, “You’re a rather…imposing figure, highness, which I’m beginning to think is a family trait. I’d imagine you’re about to move on to intimidation next if I don’t answer.”

“Not yet. You’re being so obliging, now do go on.”

“Might I get a turn to ask you questions if I answer?” His expression grew somber, his mouth firming into a thin line as he looked at her, his eyes catching on her lips before they focused on her intent gaze. Until then, she had thought them a pale gray. Now, with barely a foot of space between them, their thighs separated only by a bit of air as they sat side by side, Ciri reassessed—Morvran’s eyes were blue. A pale, wintery blue.

“Possibly.” She realized her reply had lingered too long. Dropping her crossed arms to let her hands knot in her lap, she broke the way his eyes held hers when she looked uphill at the windmill. The morning was progressing into the early afternoon, the fog all but dissipated. Another sunny autumn day in Velen.

“There’s my father, the prince,” he imparted, his voice hesitant. He reached down between them, plucking up a blade of grass that was beginning to yellow with the season changing. “A grandmother who resides at our family’s villa in Loc Grim.”

“Sisters or brothers?” she quizzed him, reaching for her sword to belt it once more on her back, gingerly moving her sore shoulder through the leather loop. Unbidden, he reached out, hoisting the weight of it so she could maneuver easier into the straps. Instead of shrugging him off, she murmured a thanks which brought on another of his small smiles.

“One sister, older than me and married off, though we write often. She and my grandmother did the better part of raising me before I was sent off for schooling.”

“Your mother?” Ciri asked, canting her head as she fiddled with the buckle across her chest. She cinched it so her sword hilt rested high over her shoulder. 

At his pause, his face turning away from her, she wondered again at having asked something too uncomfortable, too much, but then Morvran flicked an errant piece of grass from his dark jacket. He glanced distractedly off to the side where the woods creaked and swayed in a sudden wind. “Dead for many years.”

He said it easily, as if it was no great detail or even remotely wretched to tell her. Like how she spoke about Pavetta—a closed wound, a face she could barely recall. A voice far off, murmuring something indistinct in that blurry, no-mans-land of her childhood. 

There was a long pause, solemn silence as they watched the children uphill from them play on. Then, in her efforts to break some of the airs hanging around like an onerous miasma of parental death: “I’m starting a club for that, you know.”

The general let out a bark of a laugh, half-disbelief, half-amusement. “You have the strangest sense of humor, princess.”

“Gallows humor,” Ciri said blithely, standing from the log to stretch out the parts of her that weren’t aching with pain from her impromptu dismount to the ground the day before. Suddenly the general was very interested in the ground between his boots, for she stood within an arm’s length from him while she did it. From his seated height, it brought him eyelevel with the jangling, belt-bedecked curve of her hip. Was it her imagination, or was the man turning pink? “Refined by spending many of my formative years being raised by witchers and sorceresses, I assure you.”

Chapter Text

Ciri abated some in her questioning, allowing Morvran to take the reins of making polite, conversational inquiries about her, as was only fair. He asked about more immediate things than her pointed questions about his formative years: whereabouts was she was residing? (“White Orchard, with Geralt and Yennefer. If you all show up with a parade of cavalry, I’ll know who ratted me out to Emhyr, and I will be quite cross.”) 

After he had sworn that location to secrecy from even the White Flame, as it was entirely her business when she chose to make her whereabouts known to him (which she only half-believed) he asked her about the elves. 

(“Ge’els and Avallac'h rule jointly, however long that alliance will last. With Eredin dead and the White Frost vanquished, they’ve quite a bureaucratic mess to clean up on their own world. I didn’t stay long enough to get all of the particulars before I finally ported back home for good.”

Then, kicking a piece of kindling onto the dying fire. “I’ve had enough of Aen Elle politicking to last me two lifetimes.”

The general had shot her a thoughtful, ponderous look. “Do you still keep in contact with the sage?”

Ciri thought of the she-elf in Avallac'h's lab. Her sharp, demeaning words that sliced any notion of their tenuous friendship that had been built on fragile trust to shreds. She wasn’t his friend; Ciri had always been merely a pawn for him to move around on some board under the precept of care. A simulacrum of his long-dead Lara, like looking at a moving, breathing portrait that the artist could never get quite right, no matter the hours spent laboring. A means to an end.  

A degenerate half-breed. 

Like trying to drink water from a mud puddle. 

She must do what she must. Then Avallac'h will be free of her. 

“No,” she said, “It’s…all rather complicated.”

To say nothing of the steaming heap of rubbish they’d left of the elven sage’s lab after letting off some steam. 

It had been Geralt’s idea, of course, but Ciri had put her boot through more than one expensive cabinet of curios or upended untold tables full of precious scrolls and tomes. Even the best restorative spellweaver would be hard pressed to untangle the chaos.

She spitefully hoped the water stains would never be lifted out of those pages.)

Morvran stopped asking after the affairs of the elves. She would give him top marks for tact, because she couldn’t be sure that her face wasn’t showing any sort of ripples of ill thoughts; if she had to stick her words like a spade into the mucky, blackened earth that was Avallac'h, she might well scream. Considering having a loose grip on her emotions while she screamed could unwittingly tear down walls and burst eardrums, his switch in topics was, in fact, self-preserving. 

Perhaps all of that would change with the passing years, and then the wary caution she felt towards her old ally would mellow with time. But for now, she had not the inclination or energy to, as Yenna might put it, work through it. 

The general diverted the conversation to another topic: that of her stolen item.

(“It’s a medallion. It belonged to a man who helped train me, raised me. He was at the siege of Kaer Morhen, you see.” 

That old, familiar feeling clawing up her throat. Sharply tipped grief that threatened to close it up, her eyes hot, like there was an alghoul living within her, feeding on each scrap of hurt and torment and loss instead of rotting flesh. 

She imagined if such a monster existed, it would no doubt be glutted. Such a creature could make a meal out of her sundry agonies for years.

Morvran, for all his chattiness throughout their time sitting on that lumpy, rotting log, had fallen silent, contemplative. He did not look at her while she struggled to find a way to say something so simple as he’s dead now, but in that moment the words felt as complex as when she first chanted a sonnet under Mother Nenneke’s sharp eye in the Elder Speech, tongue sitting like lead in her mouth. The general stared along her same line of sight to the top of the hill where the windmill churned the cool, autumn air; he remained a quiet, comfortable presence in the face of her losing words to speak aloud.

Finally, she could speak without her voice cracking. “...he died, and I could do nothing about it. The medallion…I kept it here,” she raised her hand to her throat, clutching where the wolf’s head of wrought silver once rested. “Until it was stolen. My sole memento of him.” 

“I know the attachment to such things,” Morvran replied. But before she could ask after how he knew of such an attachment and what exactly he held dear, he had asked about where she came from the day before, which absorbed up an entire hour as Ciri recounted the events at Crow’s Perch.)

A vexing voice she partly wanted to smother inside her head wondered if he was asking things that weren’t on broadsheets, or within all the intelligence reports no doubt available at his fingertips with all of the particulars about her life from birth until she’d dropped off the Continent for a time. Perhaps this whole morning he’d been filling in the gaps of his knowledge of all things Cirilla from the source herself.

But what reasons could the general have for making such a study of her, beyond getting to know her better? Her curiosity was waging a minor war with her healthy sense of skepticism as their talks wound on. His interest seemed genuine, but pointed questions from anyone under the standard of the great sun tended to raise her hackles by force of habit. She wondered at his interest, if it was simply the same curiosity she felt towards him, this kind man who showed her only courtesy.

Ciri found herself thinking back on all their exchanges, even to the first time she had spotted the general loitering about with Geralt in the throne room in Vizima. 

Perhaps the general sought something more specific from her. A hidden truth, or a connection only she could provide through her heritage. The most obvious being that she might one day sit the throne of his empire, which was bound to elicit all sorts of hangers on and well-wishers eager to get into her good graces should she ascend one day. Or mayhaps he was testing her, gauging her reactions to his inquiries to sniff out any unworthiness of Emhyr’s heir apparent. 

That thought led into another, more unsettling notion: what if the general was gathering information for his own means? Could he be a representative of a larger mechanism of court, one with its own agenda for her separate from Emhyr’s aspirations he’d laid out for Ciri? No doubt the empire was a world of intrigue and politics, one she could only attest to a cursory knowledge of. To know it, truly know it, would require living it.

As she contemplated the possibilities, her stance shifted from cautious cooperation to a more calculated engagement. If Morvran was indeed fishing for something beyond casual conversation to while away the hours, she was determined to turn the tide and gather her own information, an armament in and of itself. A game where every word and hesitation could be a move in a larger scheme.

Ciri decided that, for now, she would reciprocate every question, every well-meaning inquiry carefully. With a faint smile at the glint of curiosity in his pale eyes, she gave a detailed reply to his latest question (something along the lines about the state of the ‘criminals’ strung up along the palisades of Crow’s Perch, each bearing a placard of menial if not bald-faced lies of crimes meriting their hanging) all the while figuring out her next steps in this intricate maneuver of motives, what drove him. A veritable Gauntlet come again to knock her off footing she didn’t even possess yet as Emhyr’s heir.

The sun was well on its way to its zenith by the time they hit a lull, the air between them padded with comfortable silence while the children played raucously in the fields uphill. 

“What was that you were concocting? Some unguent?” Morvran asked, curiosity lighting up his eyes again as she took out the scorched tin and uncapped it. It had long since cooled. 

She turned it on its side, watching as the oil slick on the top with specks of green ran greasy until she righted it. “It’s a decoction called relict oil. Fat of any animal will do. It absorbs the properties of the plant, whether they’re purely botanical in purpose or something more.”

“I wasn’t aware I was conversing with an alchemist,” came what was bordering a teasing tone, or as close as he’d let himself. He reached for the discarded envelope sitting open on the log, pulling out a sprig of wilted green leaves and shriveled red berries she’d picked during her downtime at Kaer Morhen.

“You pick up all sorts of things if Geralt has any hand in raising you. I wonder what all you’ve learned, having Emhyr himself as a schoolmaster.”

That earned her a laugh from the general. “Your father has given me a very healthy respect for—” 

Ciri interrupted whatever he was about to tell her about Emhyr’s teaching methods, which must’ve involved poison or some live fire exercise at avoiding an assassin’s arrows, by reaching out to snatch up the sprig of shriveled green, dangling it over his head with an impish grin. 

“What exactly is it?” Morvran asked, staring curiously up at the wilted sprig of green.

“Mistletoe. Aren’t you familiar with our Nordling customs?”

It was right then, bizarrely, that she realized this was the most fun and engaging of mornings she’d had in a while. Perhaps the day of her snowball fight with Geralt within the walls of Kaer Morhen was last when she felt so lighthearted, so at ease. Even dancing around his questions felt more like a game than some impending trap, or doom. 

Certainly, there was the matter of the last Crone to deal with dragging her mood down, but that seemed a menial task compared to all the others she’d surmounted. 

“What is it supposed to do? Ward off bruxa? I feel as if I’m being teased.” Morvran’s gloved hand raised up, the interlinking pieces of plate guarding his fingers clinking together as he scrubbed the back of his neck, his expression puzzled. 

“It’s a Nordling Yule thing.” She stripped some of the bright green leaves off the sprig of wilted green, crushing them between her gloved fingers. There was only the sharp bite of something that smelled faintly plant-like and nothing more, the leaves odorless. He took the crushed leaves when she offered, staring at them as if they held some mystical power, not demanding drunken snogging in doorways during wintertime. “Vesemir would let me wreathe the whole of the halls in Kaer Morhen with it. The doorways, especially. I’d trick Eskel or Lambert into walking through the arch at the same time as the other and—”

There was a tug near her waist. The cat medallion hummed against the leather encasing her thigh. She stood, stretching out her cramped legs from having sat so long and carefully rotated her bad shoulder, testing the twinge it was giving her.

“Ah, they might be here,” she wondered aloud, looking at the woodline.

“Who?” he asked, fixing his gaze on the same set of shrubs she was watching. A cautious hand rested on the hilt of his broadsword, his shoulders tensing.

“More like a what. Appended by a who. Or many whos,” Ciri said, no doubt leaving him with more questions than answers since he was doing his best impression of a blinking, befuddled owl. “Keep the seat warm, yes? Back in two shakes of a drowner’s tongue.” 

She left Morvran sitting there and forged on into the woods. He looked stupefied, muttering something about Nordling idioms. 

It was berry picking season. There were a few younger children in the thicket, not too far off by the sounds of their laughter. Ciri plucked and ate a fat blackberry off the bush, winding through the dark, leafy underbrush. She sucked the juices off the tips of her glove and crouched, eyeing the underbrush when her medallion practically sang against her leg with how it rattled.

It was, as Geralt might put it in his own salient terms, a fucking crapshot chance of finding them on her first attempt. Vesemir’s voice chimed into her head, recitations over Brother Adelbert’s Bestiary. Relicts as a phenomenon had always been a fascination of hers, the idea of a proliferation of the creatures both malicious and good by nature that lived on despite the march of time, the holdouts of the old world as the new one tried to overtake it.

They’re shy creatures by nature, to be sure. And rare, what’s more. With hamlets and villages turning into towns and cities, the further into the woods they go. But if a village keeps the old ways, and there’s a goodly amount of children at play about, there’s bound to be a godling nearby. 

Peeking out from the bushes were two pairs of wide, bright eyes. One set was a guileless blue, the other a molted yellow-green like the autumnal leaves in the trees overhead and crunching beneath her boots. 

“Johnny! S’that girl that was with the witcher on the mountain!” squeaked the girl godling, a wilted wreath of pringrape leaves around her yellow hair. The godling scrambled forward on her hands and knees to get a closer look at Ciri.

“You’re Geralt’s lass, ain’t you?” Johnny—that was the one with the scarred lip—queried her.

“Hullo,” she said to the two little godlings, familiar faces from the witches' sabbath. “That I am. And glad I am to see you two are still about. Told you we’d be certain to stop by.”

“Don’t look like you brought Geralt!” shot back Johnny, his sharp, yellow gaze narrowing like a hawk’s. 

“No, I thought I’d let him sit this one out. Put his feet up, so to speak,” she sat down cross legged. The godlings squirreled out from beneath the bush, taking up seats on the loamy, leafy turf near her. “I need to know if the Crone is about, Johnny. I’ve come all this way to finish my business with the Ladies.”

Both Sarah and Johnny seemed to consider the other before looking Ciri over. A brief exchange sprung up, Ciri the onlooker while the two godlings chattered back and forth amongst themselves. 

“She killed Brewess and Whispess, probably could finish off that last one—” Johnny muttered before Sarah jumped in.

“She’s only the one witcher, though! Could get hurt, then how are we supposed to tell Geralt if he’s not—”

Johnny flapped his arms. “—gawh, c’mon, Sarah, she took on all three the last time!”

Ciri plucked a blackberry from the nearby thicket, lobbing it at Sarah. She caught it, bird-quick, and gobbled it down with an emphatic ‘Mmm! In season, they are!’

Then, Sarah took a sniff of the air, her pug nose scrunching as she considered Ciri. “What about your arm, eh? Can smell the leavings from a poultice. How you’re holdin’ it.” 

The godling’s sense of perception was a keen reminder that Ciri was dealing with beings as old as some of the stones poking out of the leaf-carpeted ground, not blue-skinned, strange looking children.

“Non-dominant side.” Ciri shrugged her good shoulder. “I’ve fought far worse in even sorrier states.”

Sarah sighed, standing up and toddling over to the thicket to start picking berries, eating them straight off the brambles as she went. “Be it on your head, then. But best ye take care to get it done quickly, miss!”

“With all due haste. That is if I do have the element of surprise. Do you think the last Crone suspects I’m around?” She trusted the pair of them, knowing of Johnny’s dealings with Geralt and their prior encounter on Bald Mountain. Her entire success depended on finding them and ensuring cooperation, guaranteeing Weavess’s certain demise.

“Naw, we’d have heard about it by now,” answered Johnny, fixing his crown of thorny twigs about his head. “Done a good job of keeping mum about your whereabouts, seems. She’s got spies about at all hours, mostly crows. Certain she doesn’t know you’re here, but she’s soon to find out if you hang about any longer this close near the bog. What you don’t want is her callin’ up all her drowners and hags and whatnot. She’ll swarm you.”

Ciri leaned forward, an elbow on one knee. She thought of her timeline, then: it would have to be tonight at the earliest. Waylaying by another day seemed perilous. “Does she ever go very far from her village?”

“No, not since she got back from Bald Mountain on Belleteyn, lickin’ her wounds and whatnot. Mostly stays in that house with the tapestry, whisperin’ to the other Ladies.”

Hair prickled on the back of her neck. “The others?”

“Echos of them, more like. You’d best get rid of Weavess, then burn the whole thing down, miss! Dark magic in that tapestry of theirs. Wouldn’t chance leaving it whole. Unmake it,” Johnny insisted. 

Ciri drummed her fingers against her knee, considering her strategy. “The last time we fought, she got away. Dispersed into a flock and flew right off.”

The boy godling spoke over Sarah, who was singing some children’s rhyme off-key about a man with a smile fair as spring paired with a sharp, silver tongue as she continued her feast on the nearby berries. “Then best not catch her out in the open, yeah? Go right into that house of theirs where the tapestry is. Do your magic and surprise her!”

“What would you take in trade for sending me a bird later to confirm she’s precisely in there, close by the tapestry? I’m sure I could find something nice to offer the both of you for the spywork.” Vesemir had told Ciri of an amusing exchange with another godling in Kaedwen on a job to kill a leshen, wherein the godling was in a bit of a territorial dispute with the leshy and was all too happy to extract a bargain out of the wandering witcher in need of a helpful pointer as to the whereabouts of the rather elusive monster’s lair. 

For the exact location of the leshy’s lair in the vast tracts of forest, he’d asked for a sweet bun stuffed with strawberry cream filling, and the thought of Vesemir having to haul out of the backwoods to retrieve a sweet bun of all things with that exact filling and then lug it back to the godling to get the location of the leshy out of him had always amused her to no end.

Johnny waved her off. “You’d be doing us all in the bog a great favor. Already done it by killing two of the Ladies. Finish the job and you’ll have our thanks.”

“Should’ve asked her for some ribbon. Or a set of hand pipes. Or a spankin’ new hat in pink! Blast it, Johnny!” the girl godling groused, stamping her little feet.

“Calm ye down, Sarah, not like getting rid of that last Crone isn’t going to give us ages of peace and quiet,” Johnny waved off Sarah’s fits, sticking his nose up in the air. “‘Sides, she deserves it, considering what the Ladies did to Gran. And all the little folk thereabout.”

Ciri inclined her head in thanks, smiling and standing from the ground. She slapped the sticky leaves off of her arse where they were pasted to the leather of her pants. “I might manage to come up with a bonus. Send your bird to me in the Nilfgaardian camp. I’ll be waiting.” 

The godlings left her, scurrying off into the thicket with a mad cackling that was an exact echo of the children’s noises not far off. 

That sound promised all the mischief and fun they’d no doubt bring to the village children, and Ciri felt all the lighter for having brought the two little relicts nearer to a considerable amount of playmates that would never know the horror of Crookback Bog or the vileness of the Trail of Treats should she have any say in it. 

Chapter Text

“Look sharp, General Voorhis.” 

Ciri was glad she squashed the puckish urge to sneak up and tap him on the shoulder. How quickly Morvran shot straight off of the log and wheeled on her, his hand cocked over his sword, spoke of how unwise it seemed to poke and prod a soldier wholly unaware of someone stealing into their proximity while heavily armed.

The look of tense apprehension broke when his eyes clapped onto her. She was well out of swordreach, leaning against a nearby oak with her arms crossed and a crooked smile on her face. 

His hand went lax on his sword, near exasperation coloring his voice, “Another skill set of yours appears to be the stealth of a cat, your imperial highness. How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to get the gist of that tune you were humming. Catchy melody. Familiar, almost.” It reminded her of childhood. The same cadence of lilting hums in her ear, her head draped across a broad, solid shoulder. A warm, woodsy aroma filling her senses and the sharp tang of ink constant on the big hands that held her small body tucked against another. 

“Ah, an old children’s rhyme,” he laughed, averting his gaze to stare up the hill at the flocks of children still cavorting about and singing their own Temerian folk rhymes about harvest time and avoiding swamps for fear of drowners. Nearby the woodline, Ciri could see a whole parcel of scabby-kneed kids scrambling into the underbrush, shouting gleefully. It seemed that Johnny and Sarah were about their work of mischief-making and frolicking with the village children in the woods, getting up to only gods knows what.

“What’re the words?” she gestured to him to follow her, stamping out the near-dead embers of her little fire. Clumps of dirt were kicked over it before she was satisfied that she wasn’t bound to leave it smoldering near the woods. (Geralt would give her such a look if she was slovenly in breaking down a fire, probably growling about how he didn’t raise idiots.)

Morvran began to cheerily recite the verse to her as they trudged uphill.

“Our homeland great, our empire vast,

All hail the sun that shines so bright,

Nilfgaard's might knows no end!”

Ciri threw her head back, laughing in disbelief. Of course she had heard it before. Her father, the utter demagogue, apparently had routinely hummed propaganda to her when she was barely out of the cradle. If that said anything about his confidence of reacquiring the empire when he was still living under the name Duny, Emhyr was nothing if not utterly assured about his plans for the future. 

Morvran’s voice rose in chant:

“Our warriors bold, our borders expand,

Under the sun we march as one, 

Led by the emperor's guiding hand,

Courage and strength fill our hearts,

For the glory of the great sun,

We play our part!”

Ciri stopped in her tracks, slowly clapping him off his imaginary ‘stage’. He gave her a flourishing bow that even the most critical of her old dance masters would give top marks for. 

She considered him with her gravest expression she could muster, though she could feel the corner of her mouth twitching. “I’ll have to give that one to Dandelion. He’ll write something scathing about the measure to whomever wrote it.”

“He’ll be writing to a grave—that one is as old as the empire itself.” 

Ciri busied herself with retrieving the bridle resting on the fencepost, hopping over the railing and into the empty field where they’d turned out their saddled mounts. Cantarella, the clever girl, gave up her attempts at scrounging grass from stretching her great neck under the lowest rail and walked right up to Ciri. Nemrod came like a very overlarge, dark lapdog to his master’s clucking tongue. 

Really, the most well mannered stallion she’d ever seen. 

Both horses took their bits so abidingly and placidly that she wondered if he didn’t douse them in honey water regularly. They mounted and waved their goodbye to the village folk, who were both bemused and no doubt relieved to see the strange pair they made leave the premises. The children kept on with their games, Falka’s effigy sitting like a duck waiting for roasting on the village common. It was all downhill from Benek to Kimbolt’s Way, the sun overhead heating the cool day to something of an early autumnal warmness like the day before.

“So…did you find your medallion?” Morvran asked her once they were well on the road, Benek and its windmill behind them. They’d picked up a trot and were going at a fine clip along the rutted roads, the way before them nothing but a downward slope of lowlands and pine forests. 

Ciri dropped her reins, stretching her toes in the confines of her boots. Then, to finish the stretch, she reached both her hands high, working out the ache in her bad shoulder with a scrunched, pained grimace. “Not quite, but one step closer. Few more steps to follow through.”

“Might I offer an escort like today, highness, on the next agenda item?” Morvran broached, his expression open and smiling as he trotted his destrier alongside her.

Right, then. So it was to be him tagging behind her every part of her plan he could ferret into. 

She used subtle aids from her seat alone to direct Cantarella to swing into her stablemate’s path, blocking Morvran. Ciri crossed her arms, firming up her thighs to hold Cantarella at a halt, unbudging as she had the mare stand like an unmovable stone statue.

The horse planted her hooves stubbornly, neck arched and her dainty head held high. Her gray ears pinned back flat and Ciri could hear the swish of the mare’s tail as all of her obstinate determination to bar his way seemed to travel directly through her arse and legs and into the horse. 

Both of them became an unmoving obstacle. Morvran, looking staggered by her abrupt halt to their pace, brought his stallion to a dead halt. Nemrod seemed to affect a similar confusion as his rider, snorting and pawing at the sudden stop.

Ciri held Morvran’s perturbed gaze for a full few seconds of uncomfortable, dragging silence. “General.”

“Princess?” he asked, uncertainty tinging his mild, pleasant voice, and damn her if she didn’t feel like an absolute heel for what she was about to say next.

Ciri leaned forward in her saddle. “Are you spying on me?” 

There was a half-beat of shocked silence, then a loud “No!” as the general insisted, his expression thunderstruck.

She felt herself really lean forward over the space between them, then, her mouth pursing. “Are you orchestrating observations on me for intents larger than just friendly interest?”

“What is this?” confusion morphed to disbelief as he laughed. “An interrogation? I mean nothing more than sincerity, my lady. Do you doubt my intentions as something sinister? Scheming?” He kept his tone light, almost impassive, but there was a slight incredulity in his blue eyes, like she had broken some sort of tenuous trust that had been slow building between them all day. 

What reason do I have to suspect him? It was a question Ciri was asking herself in a round in her head, over and over again. 

"Forgive my reservations, general," she said, softening her tone. "They’re not meant to be a slight. But why this persistence to be nearer to me? Certainly you know I can handle myself."

Morvran seemed to consider his next words carefully, his mouth firming into a thin, serious line. "If I may speak plainly…” 

“Go on, then.” She guided Cantarella to turn around on her hindquarters, the mare as full of restless energy that spoke of an urge to spring out from under her rider and gallop down the path.

When she rounded back on where the general sat stockstill on his equally frozen mount, all she saw was a sort of conviction in his eyes. Perhaps even determination to prove her habitual suspicion for naught. “I see a capable warrior determined to see something done. I thought perhaps you could use an ally, nothing more."

Ciri let her mouth drop into the slightest of smiles, but her eyes remained locked with his unflinching, unapologetic gaze. "And does this ally act of his own accord? Or on the wishes of the emperor?” She paused. “...perhaps someone else behind the throne?"

"I serve at His Majesty's pleasure, of course," Morvran replied. Ciri realized she’d tread on a nerve, because for the first time that he looked at her his gaze grew hot, indignant. His tone was terse, his words clipped. "But in this, highness, I act as myself alone. I am my own and answer to no other. Were I tasked to monitor you, I would confess it."

Ciri considered this new side of the general, thumbing the slick leather of the reins with her gloved thumb. She studied his stern face, bereft now of an expression that reminded her of the polite, impassive gaze of someone hanging in a portrait. Now Morvran seemed all hard edges and angles unfamiliar to her, sharper. If the general wore expressions as he wore his fine uniform, the one she was looking at now seemed thoroughly out of regulation. It was a face without any hint of deception, daring her to find the lie. 

Finding none, she decided to take him for his word.

For now. 

Ciri imagined that the instinct was near beaten into her, this suspicion of new faces, and wondered if she would ever be free of it, or if she was more like her father than she cared to imagine—bereft of the ability to place her trust in others, always looking over her shoulder and waiting for the pendulous, hanging sword to fall from the horsehair.

"Very well, general,” she sighed, leaning back in the saddle. Morvran watched her, wary, but there was a flicker of something frail and hopeful in his eyes as she relaxed her rigid shoulders and loosened her grip on the reins. “As I said before, I meant no offense. It's just…”

She trailed off, staring off at the woodline. They weren’t far from where he had found her the day before, half-kneeling in blood by her dead mare with bodies strewn about like used matchsticks. 

“Trust does not come easily to me,” Ciri broke the silence, drumming her fingers along her leg. “Considering the circumstances, an agent of Nilfgaard is someone I’d consider holding at arm’s length. Or clear across the Pontar if my arms could stretch. I prefer to rely on myself in these matters and no other."

He nodded. "I won’t ask for your trust, as you’ve plenty of reasons not to trust someone such as I, princess. But know that you have my aid, whenever you should have need of it.” Another pause as he considered her. “But please know I respect your abilities, with or without my company. As I said this morning, your skill in combat is more than considerable.”

Ciri threw him a smile. Top marks for sincerity, for if he was lying to her, he was forsaking his true calling in a theater troupe for a career in the army. She pushed away the whispering thoughts that he was a courtier and a consummate tactician, born and bred, and that lying might be second nature to Morvran Voorhis. For now, she would take him as an honest man, and if he forsook that perception with falsehood, she vowed to make him live to regret it and set it as a mission of hers to visit every inconvenience upon him.

Perhaps dumping ink in his tea at random. A snapping Zerrikanian beetle in his boot. Another more grander scheme was if she did take up rule of the empire, she could banish the general to a far posting where there wasn’t anything but a pot to piss in. Or, lowest of all things she could probably do if she discovered he was bald-faced lying to her about his motives being sincere and meant in a sort of friendship, seize all of his horses. 

That would be a living hell.

She siddled Cantarella up alongside Morvran, trusting that her face wasn’t an open book of all the horrors she would visit upon him should he be lie-smithing. They were close enough that their knees almost touched. “Your assessment has concluded on my skill, then? A whole battalion, you say?”

“You are the Lady of Space and Time, of course, with a witcher’s schooling. The White Wolf’s own child surprise. A battalion doesn’t come close.”

“Now you’re just sucking up, Voorhis.” She reached across, giving him a playful shove to the padded shoulder of his jacket like she might give Lambert or Eskel. But unlike the witchers who had in part helped to raise her, this man didn’t shove back. He gave her a surprised huff at the contact, keeping his seat by his thighs gripping Nemrod’s sides. His mount stirred, starting forward, and the general had to turn him on his hindquarters to settle him and face Ciri again.

"I speak only the truth, though perhaps overzealous in my praise," he said, eyes glinting with amusement as he rubbed his shoulder.

"Overzealous indeed," Ciri teased, waving a dismissive hand. "Why, I bleed as any other does. Look at this damned shoulder of mine.”

"I suspect merely dislocating your shoulder hardly diminishes the capabilities of your true powers,” he added wryly.

Ciri laughed. "Too true. Perhaps I should make a proper demonstration after my business in Velen is finished." She winked conspiratorially. "Say, I teleport aboard the Nilfgaardian flagship out at harbor in Novigrad, take it on a bit of a joy ride when there’s only a nightwatch manning it, then blink right back without so much as ruffling your charts?"

Morvran turned white as a sheet at the notion. "Ah, that won't be necessary—”

Ciri cut him off with another laugh. "Peace, general, your fleet is safe from me. For now.”

Their eyes met, alight with shared mirth. Ciri felt something wound tight in her chest like a spring waiting to go off finally loosen. Perhaps he wasn’t ferreting about for his own gains. Perhaps, instead, he saw her as worth getting to know. 

“Shall we?" He gestured politely for them to resume their ride. Ciri nodded, a new understanding between them as they rode in in thoughtful silence, the earlier tension dissipating into the crisp air.

The remainder of their ride back to the Nifgaardian camp was spent in more peaceable, safer topics than roadside interrogations about acts of espionage. 

Once they were out of the thick of the area where bandits had struck down her borrowed mare the day before, Morvran giving her assurance that the horse had been buried deep by the detail he’d sent out as was befitting such a noble beast (and the corpses burned of the bandits, which only served to cement the general as a decent sort), Ciri allowed herself to sit back with ease in the saddle. Up ahead, the hill was beginning to rise, canvas-sided tents of yellow and black dotting its landscape.

She swung Cantarella around, sidling her in a half pass as she chatted at Morvran, who looked bemused by her antics of twirling her borrowed horse this way and that around the bend of her leg. “You know, for all your talk of equestrianism, we ought to get a measure of the other.”

“Oh?”

“Certainly,” she said, spinning the gray mare in a pirouette. The horse was near to buzzing under Ciri with the amount of energy she had left to expend after what was a mid-distance ride at a sedate, easy pace. “A general overseeing the cavalry of the mighty Alba Division must be a considerable rider to command from the saddle. But you’ve not had the benefit of years of practical, improvised application like yours truly.”

Morvran raised an eyebrow, gathering the reins as he collected Nemrod under him. "Is that so, your highness? Care to put your words to the test?"

"First to that tall oak tree up ahead?" Ciri fell upon his acceptance, eager for an easy win. She rolled her bad shoulder, not even minding the twinge it gave her. Shading her eyes against the sun, she could see the tree in question many furlongs ahead—a short, liberating gallop that Cantarella seemed bred to outclass his stallion at.

"If you wish to be humbled, I accept your challenge," Morvran replied, a wry smile tugging at his lips.

"We'll see about that. Ready?"

At Morvran's nod, Ciri squeezed the mare’s sides, urging her from a halt into an outright gallop. Cantarella sprung forward, the whisps of her grey, feathery mane flying into the air as Ciri allowed her a free rein, letting her body poise easy over the mare’s neck and the seamless, smooth rhythm of the pretty courser’s body play on like a familiar, beautiful song.

Morvran was immediate in his own start—he drew up alongside and Ciri wondered at his reflexes. His bigger frame leaned low atop his destrier. The horses thundered down the path and pounded up dust, mane flying in the wind. 

Ciri let out a whoop of joy, throwing a playful look over her shoulder at Morvran. He was neck and neck with her, which was considerable. She hadn’t had anyone draw pace with her in ages. But when had she last raced? A while back, with the Baron’s men, which had been diverting enough. But this was a true test of speed and horsemanship, the general knowing just when to give the stallion his head so the dark horse could eat up the strides between him and Cantarella. 

In the end, Ciri just managed to edge out the general by barely a nose. "I knew it!" she cheered. Morvran laughed good-naturedly, his face flushed and sweaty from the race and the high sun beating down on them, despite the bite of cold in the air.

"Well played, highness. It seems I’ve finally met my match." From how breathless and smiling the armored man was, he was as equally enthusiastic about the impromptu race as she was, and anything but a sore loser.

Ciri's pulse was still racing as she turned a restless, stamping Cantarella around the oak tree to grin at Morvran. His own delighted smile that answered hers made her breath catch unexpectedly.

The sun glinted off his windswept hair and laughter lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes. Ciri found herself admiring the strength in his broad shoulders as they heaved with exertion, the shift in intensity that turned his typically polite gaze into one of fierce competitiveness.

As Morvran met her eyes, mirth softening, Ciri was seized by the sudden urge to reach across the distance that separated them and push back an errant lock of his hair that had fallen loose out of his tie. To let her fingertips linger on the crest of his cheek that was sunwarmed and hot with blood. 

She imagined how it would feel to grab his high collar and haul him a kiss that would render him as speechless, as breathless as he looked now. To feel his lips soften, yield under her own.

The thought came unbidden, and it shocked her with its intensity. Ciri quickly looked away, trying to ignore the warmth rising on her own cheeks that had nothing to do with the bite of the wind rustling through the great boughs of the oak tree overhead.

“Best two out of three? Back to the fork in the road?”

“How is it you Nordlings say it? I’ll take that bet?”

“What are we wagering?” Ciri tossed back, grinning. 

He pondered for a moment, then suggested with such a glint of mischief that it made her laugh again, "If I win, a lock of your ashen hair.”

“My hair?” she crowed, rounding Cantarella around. The horse tossed her head impetuously. “Whatever such an odd prize for? Alchemy?” 

“Not every man could say they held such a personal memento from their monarch, should you take the throne. When I am old and gray, I might take it out and show it to disbelievers that call me senile for boasting of besting the empress in my youth.”

Ciri laughed, intrigued by such a bet. "And when I inevitably beat you, I ask for something far more valuable: Cantarella.” She reached forward, stroking up the side of the gray’s arched, pretty neck. Her last wagered race had won her a black mare from the Baron, and she was inclined to keep up the winning streak if it accrued her such a splendid mount as Cantarella. The horse whinnied, as if in protest at the very idea of being relegated to a bet.

“You aim to claim my own horse from me?” he scoffed. “Fear not, ‘Rella, I have no intention of letting this bold woman make off with you.” Cantarella snorted and tossed her head again, as if in agreement with her owner. “Very well, highness. You have a bet. The camp barber is, by chance, near to the House of Respite by the camp’s entrance. I’m certain there are some fine shears to procure so you might cut a lock of hair free for me.”

“So very certain for a man about to be handed a humbling loss and be short one fine horse,” Ciri shot back, playful as she maneuvered Cantarella to draw up beside Nemrod. The pair of horses stood even, pawing the ground and fidgeting restlessly as their riders took their mark. 

"Now,” Ciri called, gathering her reins firm. “Ready...steady…go!"

At her word, their horses launched from a halt into a thundering gallop. Ciri's hair teased itself loose out of its tie and went flying behind her like a banner, and when she cast a look to her side to gauge how close her competition was, she could see Morvran's face alight with determination. 

Their playful contest filled Kimbolt Way with joyful shouts and pounding hooves.

Chapter Text

The House of Respite, as it was so named, was not living up to Ciri’s expectations of being anything resembling a peaceful oasis in the middle of the muddy abyss of despair that was Velen. But perhaps she had set her expectations too high for a spa-like, tranquil experience when she only had to lean out the door and spit to hit Crookback Bog, or any of the other millions of horrors waiting just beyond the lintel when it came to this godsforsaken corner of Temeria.

No, instead of respite, it might as well have been called the House of Fools (Who Expected Respite Here), or maybe the House of Mysteriously Pungent Boot Smells, for the instant she entered the premises behind Morvran she was transported back to her youth. Ciri never would get the smell out of her memory of when Eskel had tasked her with cleaning out his favorite pair of boots, marinating for a month in griffin’s blood.   

She settled on calling it the House of Lies and False Advertising when she went up to the bar and asked for something as simple as a glass of small ale to cut the dust clogging her throat from all of the racing, but was advised that they were all out of ale and offered her White Gull instead.

“No thank you, I prefer my vision intact,” she declined, polite as she could. “Are you keeping anything of a milder nature behind there?” Somehow the barkeep, who was staring rather obliquely as he busied himself behind the bartop, procured a bottle of watered down white wine that he poured into a clean glass. 

Behind her, the frenetic chaos in the taproom was quelling. Apparently the state of disorder and unrest of the so-called House of Respite was thoroughly out of Nilfgaardian military regulation. Morvran led her into the building by politely holding open the door for her and assuring her that this was a fine accommodation for an afternoon repast, the best the Nilfgaardian Army Group ‘Center’ Camp could offer. The both of them were decidedly famished, having skipped any sort of breakfast and worked themselves thirsty from tearing up and down Kimbolt Way on their horses.

Their entry had been waylaid by a squealing pig stuffed into a frilly frock and a red wig thundering past her into the enclosed yard outside. It had grazed her knee, and she had looked at Morvran’s shocked, still face with what was no doubt an equally confused expression.

What followed was a transformation of the general right before her eyes. He stormed into the House of Respite, shouting in Nilfgaardian. Something along the lines of “Cease this damned disorder at once! Who is responsible?” 

Within, the dimly lit interior that smelled like a mix of sweaty boots and sty (apt, considering the cloven-footed resident that had just vacated the premises), Ciri found it was stuffed near to the rafters (which were festooned with the black and gold banners of the great sun, again, apt) with officers busy with their lunches. 

They were all laughing raucously at the porcine antics, but went as silent as a funeral procession the moment Morvran’s voice cracked over their heads. There was another bark of an order out of the general for everyone to “fall in” and such a great scrambling ensued, the sound of so many chairs scraping the wooden floors that Ciri’s ears were still faintly ringing with it. 

The most likely offenders to her wandering examination of the crowded taproom was a huddled group of junior officers barely old enough to have earned the dusting of whiskers on their cheeks, looking thoroughly abashed and guilty as charged. There wasn’t even a need to interrogate the diners to identify the responsible party—the youths stumbled forward, falling all over themselves to confess their sins and receive their reprimands like good little soldiers.

She could set a clock by Morvran’s expedience in dealing with the chaos. Within minutes, he had the place back in order. The cadre of junior officers were set to scrub the floorboards with their own toothbrushes, supervised by their rather lax senior officer who apparently had set all of them up to wrangling a pig and stuffing it into a dress for reasons still unknown. Some sort of mystifying Nilfgaardian military tradition, she wagered. The prankster senior officer was bound for a night in the stockades as penance after he had his juniors clean and air out the stink from the taproom. Some unfortunate soul had been sent out into the yard to round up the pig and free the poor thing from its frilly trappings. 

All the other officers who were deemed mere onlookers to the minor breach of conduct returned to their lunches, sedate and orderly. But every so often, Ciri would feel eyes on her as she stood at the bar, waiting for Morvran to finish up whatever order of business had dragged him away from doling out punishment. 

Shortly after the incident with the pig had been dealt with, the general was hurried into a backroom with officers wearing badges of white with a black alerion spreading its wings. Ciri was more than able to find ways to occupy herself, so she shooed him off with a flick of her fingers and a smile hidden in her wine cup when Morvran seemed to look between her and the officers. The dour-looking pair of officers were practically doing a jig on the spot, so eager they were to drag him off into a more private venue. 

She took another sip of the watered wine, leaning a hip on the bartop as she surveyed the near-silent room that was filled with the sound of cutlery scraping porcelain plates and the low murmur of Nilfgaardian trading back and forth amongst the soldiers.

As a rule, she avoided drinking before any sort of imminent battle, finding it dulled her reflexes at best, made her footwork sloppy and her teleporting just off center of where she intended to blink to. These past years spent eluding the Wild Hunt had been spent in near sobriety for fear of drink making her miss some vital tell or warning that danger was imminent, Eredin and his merry band of bothersome goons ready to sweep her up and subject her to whatever myriad horrors played behind the king’s icy eyes when he gazed at her.

But now she could stand here and savor a drink. It was still early in the day. She’d allow herself this one measly, diluted glass of wine and savor every drop, because Eredin was defeated, Weavess was mere hours from being as dead as the madman who had ran Ciri all over time and space, and the day had proven itself a rather enjoyable one of agreeable company. 

Even if said company had beaten her at one of her favorite pursuits.

Ciri would never admit to being a sore loser. But, as was proven today, being soundly trounced by a full horselength in the tiebreaking match had been as humbling as when the sandbags on the Gauntlet back at Kaer Morhen knocked her flat on her scrawny arse as a child. She did not sulk into her watered down wine as she took a long swig of it, contemplating the sharp bite of something like a grape left on a piece of slate to age. She was still deciding if the taste was good or not, staring into her cup as if it could reveal where she had gone wrong in the race that allowed him to get a full horse length ahead.

As the minutes dragged on, Ciri pried herself from the bar and left a silver penny for her watered wine. It wasn’t exactly the feeling one might have of walking around a den full of wolves, but perhaps a room of rather suspicious house cats, wary of a newcomer traipsing about what was their domain, hackles up and stares aimed at her with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. 

It was as if Emhyr himself was walking through the center of the room in nothing but his knickers. The thought made her snort, and the sound drew more than a few extra pairs of eyes as Ciri passed along a row of officers, unperturbed.

She paused at a far corner that had four armored men huddled in creaking chairs, their plates stacked clean. A deck of cards was at the center of the table. 

“What’s that you're playing?” She expected Gwent, because everyone was stark-raving mad for the game. Coming home to this world had been like walking into a card den, for everyone seemed to carry a deck of their own making and occupied all their small hours with the game. Even Geralt kept a stack of cards in his saddlebags, diverting himself with every innkeeper he could and making a tidy sum that didn’t involve slaughtering drowners or rotfiends.

“Belote, your radiance,” mumbled one dark-haired, older officer. “It’s Toussanti.” 

She fought with everything she had in her to keep a straight face as being addressed as your radiance. “Never heard of it. Might you deal me in and suffer me learning how to play on the fly?” 

Ciri was pretty sure that the emperor’s daughter being denied learning how to play cards from a Nilfgaardian citizen was some sort of act of treason. She couldn’t be sure, as this sort of tenuous status as a royal heir wasn’t one she exercised often, if at all in her life.

But the gruff man dealt her in, and she wedged herself between two burly other officers that were eyeing her like a bomb stuffed with saltpeter.

By the time Morvran got done with whatever official business had pulled him away following the Pig Incident, she had learned no less than five new phrases in Nilfgaardian (all filthy curses) and had an open invitation to summer in Mettina at Officer Bleddyn’s family villa.

As they moved through the parting crowds to get to the back of the House of Respite where their lunch awaited, Ciri imparted all the tidbits of gossip she had weaseled out of her new acquaintances over their game of Belote. 

“Did you know that your policy of running off all the courtesans and the minstrels from the officer’s club wasn’t well received? I was assured that the scene in there today wasn’t anything compared to how things looked a month ago.”

Morvran chuckled, holding open the door for her as they exited the taproom into the warren of back rooms situated throughout the other parts of the building. “Oh, I received more than one strongly worded complaint for my beautification efforts. All anonymous, no one bold enough to say it directly.”

“What about morale?”

Morvran barked out a laugh. “They can find morale in Oxenfurt, or within their own company should they so wish.”

“Are you condoning fraternization, general?” Ciri drawled, shooting him a sly, sidelong glance. 

Morvran cleared his throat, looking slightly flustered as he busied himself with opening yet another door, this time to a small, private dining room. 

"I ensure relations under my command remain professional and disciplined," he said carefully.

Ciri bit back a smile. As she passed him in the doorway to take her seat at their already set table, she allowed her shoulder to graze against his. She was close enough to catch the scent of clean sweat and something woodsy clinging to the leather of his jacket, feeling the heat radiating off of him from the black absorbing the heat of the sun from earlier. 

"Of course, how silly of me to imply otherwise."

Their lunch consisted of some delicious potted hare cooked in red wine with pearl barley and roasted parsnips. Ciri nearly inhaled the dish and caught Morvran staring at her from across the fine linen tablecloth. They ate off of porcelain dinnerware bordered with gilt golden suns, no doubt imported from the very heart of the empire, and she drank nearly half the pitcher of iced, clean water like she’d just walked out of the Frying Pan (again).

Their lunch conversation was sporadic between succulent bites of vegetables and hare, the topic consisting mainly of comparing notes about their mounts. No camp aide was attending them, and Ciri couldn’t get her hands quick enough around the handle of the water jug before Morvran was refilling her crystal glass, attentive and watchful as she demolished her lunch. 

More than once she looked up from her plate to catch his pale gaze, thoughtful as he considered her. His eyes would track away, as if mindful of how he was looking at her, staring politely off to the side.  

When she leaned forward, elbows affixed to the table to impart a bit of wisdom on the makings of a Offeri saddle that Geralt had in his possession (which Ciri unabashedly coveted and wondered how much wheedling she’d have to employ to get Geralt  to indefinitely loan it), their knees brushed under the table. She made no move to draw away, and to her surprise, neither did Morvran. In fact, he drew in closer, shifting his arms to cross on the table as he leaned in and seemed enraptured by her talking about something as banal as saddle tree mechanics. 

She excused herself to the privy afterwards, tidying up and fixing her hair from where it hung halfway out of its tie from a hasty updo after she was beaten at her own game of racing. Her eyes scanned the mirror in the washroom as she bit down on a copper hairpin on loan from Triss, her hands busy as she bound up her hair. She left one long strand at the back hanging loose on the nape of her neck, reading the funny scribblings of all the officers who had scratched their names and declarations onto the edges of the mirror in Nilfgaardian.

GREGOR WAS HERE  

Commander D. was here - briefly!

Lunch was dreadful, except for the partridge. More partridge.

If found sleeping on the privy, please wake me before inspection!

Beside a crude drawing of a rooster: Wake up at dawn to this, Voorhis!

And, tangential to the drawing of the crowing cock, penises of every shape and size and artistic interpretation dotting the edges of the gilt-framed looking glass.

It was a study in maleness, for she could recall near identical graffiti on the rocks near the bathing pools at Kaer Morhen. Ciri had learned the majority of her more crude vocabulary in those vaunted caverns scrawled with every curse word from hundreds of years of witchers doodling on the rocks with bits of flint.

And penises. Lots and lots of penises.

She joined the general out in the yard where he held the reins to their mounts, touching his shoulder as she came up behind him. He started, but turned on her with a smile and offered out Cantarella so she could lead the horse. 

“Where’s the barber-surgeon?” she asked as they exited the small, enclosed yard of the House of Respite, passing the pig that was now free of human dress and happily digging around in a slop bucket. The night before had not allowed her much of an observation of the land around the Nilfgaardian encampment—what she saw now was rolling fields with trees clear cut, covered wagons and great pavilions set up outside of the tall palisades that protected the heart of the encampment. 

“Just over there,” Morvran pointed. Down the rutted, dusty road was a small pavilion set up next to a pole painted red and white.

“C’mon,” she gestured, leading off Cantarella. “Time to make good on our bet.”

As the pair of them drew closer, tying off their horses to the post outside, they noticed the barber-surgeon was busy at his work. He was wrestling an abscessed tooth from some insensate soldier being propped up by his fellows. An empty bottle of Redanian Herbal by the strong smell and markings on it sat open on a nearby table and the soldier was slurring out a drunken song while the barber-surgeon dug around in his mouth with a vicious-looking set of forceps.  

The group didn’t even notice her borrowing a pair of hair shears from the fellow’s mixed box of surgical instruments and aesthetician’s tools. 

“Highness—” she heard the hesitation in Morvran’s voice, the worried uncertainty as she pulled the loose strand of hair she’d left out of the tie for this very purpose. 

“Don’t tell me you’re chickening out from collecting your winnings, Voorhis.” Ciri shot him an arch look over her shoulder, focusing back on getting the shears close, about an inch from the roots. It would be a long strand of ash white hair, about the width of her thumb and the length of her forearm.

“It’s just that—” he rushed. “It’s not by any means necessary for you to—”

His words died when she cut the strand free from her head with a schnikt of the shears closing. She tied it off with a bit of dark green cord from the barber-surgeon’s many rolls of ribbon stacked on the worktable nearby. Ciri replaced the shears where she had found them after snipping off a few more choice bits of ribbons from the variety to choose from. 

Rose, canary yellow, vermillion, turquoise; she selected only the most garish and brightly colored ribbons amidst the collection. The colorful ribbon was stored off for later, Johnny and Sarah’s bonus that she could convey back with the bird she was expecting, and she left a heap of silver pennies on the table. Behind them went on the gurgled, drunken ‘awawawaw’ing from the man who was having his tooth pulled.

“Your prize, sir,” she declared, dropping the tied strand of ashen hair into Morvran’s outstretched hand. He looked so discomposed, dazed, struck and stunned that Ciri had to laugh. 

“What, did you think I wouldn’t follow through? I always settle up my bets.”

He curled his big, gloved hand around it, gingerly, as if it might well disintegrate in his palm. 

"I—thank you, highness," he managed, clearly moved. "I will safeguard it as a most cherished keepsake."

Ciri smiled, unexpectedly warmed by the solemn reverence in his tone.

"See to it that you do," she admonished lightly. Then, feeling bold, she reached out to cup his gauntlet-covered hand in both of hers briefly. His fingers where the dark metal was tipped for grip prickled through the leather of her gloves.

"And know that it was freely given. No returns," she added impishly.

Morvran's eyes locked with hers. They were close enough that she had to tilt her head up a bit for their difference in height to meet his gaze, and in it she saw a dawning realization kindling into something else. This close to him, she could scent the same rosewood soap she’d washed with that very morning, the slight parting of his mouth. Heat from his skin radiated through the black leather of his gloves. 

There was a buzzing in her limbs, an anticipation poised in her, a long-forgotten flutter of something catching in her chest, like a swallow trapped just beneath her breastbone. 

For the second time today, she impulsively wondered at what it would feel like to stand on her toes and press her mouth along the stubble shadowing his jaw, how he might unravel from his composed, polite manners were she to kiss him. She imagined it would feel good—too good, probably, to kiss a man who looked at her like he was doing now. Ciri watched his gaze drop lower on her face and knew then, absolutely knew then that he was staring unabashedly at her mouth.

But before she could properly parse out what she was looking at in those pale eyes or act on such a wild urge, raucous drunken singing behind them broke the spell. It seemed the tooth had been successfully wrenched out and all of the men, including the barber-surgeon, were celebrating the success rather loudly.

Ciri stepped back, her palms still tingling where the sharp tips of his gauntlets had grazed her through her gloves. He stood there like someone had clubbed him over the head, his hand still outstretched where she held it suspended between hers for that long moment. When Morvran moved again, he stowed the long, tied strand of her hair in the breast pocket of his jacket.  

"Come," she said brightly, going over to busy herself freeing Cantarella from the hitching post, "let’s get back up to your tent. I want to beat you in this new Toussainti game I’ve just learned. I’ve hours of time to kill and the afternoon is still young.”

Chapter Text

As the pair of them walked through the gates of the Nilfgaardian Army Group “Center” Camp in silence, the soldiers guarding it drew to attention to fire off sharp salutes.

They traversed uphill, passing lines of armored soldiers and wagons. Near the top of the hill, they passed a pair of sentries who aimed even more salutes at the general. Ciri’s presence at his side received more baffled looks aimed at her over their vizors. At the picket line near his pavilion, set on the highest hill in the encampment, they hitched the horses after unbridling them and tended to their respective mounts. Their swords were unbuckled and set aside to lean next to one another on a post, not far out of reach. 

Like Ciri did with every horse that came into her care, Morvran spoke under his breath to Nemrod as he groomed the stallion, rubbing down the horse’s sweat-stained back and sides with a fistful of hay until the animal fairly shone like oil-black obsidian. Not one to make use of such a fine animal as Cantarella and leave her with any speck of dust on return to her owner, Ciri spent the better part of an entire hour going over the horse from her velvety nose to her dock. 

“I see why you loaned me the gray, now,” she said to the general after plucking up all four of the horses dainty hooves, digging out mud and bits of manure and straw with a pick from the nearby wooden box he’d set down for her on a groom’s stool. It was full of nice tools, even a soft bristle brush that she put to the gray’s coat after rubbing the worst of the dust out with a hay wisp. 

“Why’s that, princess?” he asked, ducking under the picket line to offer out some tidbit in his hand for Cantarella. The mare lipped it from the flat of his palm, crunching. Ciri smelled something sweet and suspected the man kept a store of sugar cubes on his person for just this purpose. 

She threw Morvran a look over her shoulder, still crouched as she brushed out the feathery bits of silvery hair over the mare’s fetlocks. The soreness in her bruised shoulder made the work twice as ponderous, but she thanked her past self for the muscle memory and forethought to take the fall on her non-dominant side. “Takes twice as long to groom as a bay or a black horse.”

“Are you admitting defeat, highness? Say the word and I shall take over.” It was a casual offer of help, but she could hear the undercurrent of barely restrained laughter in his poshly accented voice. 

Ciri huffed in feigned annoyance, even as her lips twitched with barely contained humor.

"Admit defeat? Never," she shot back, brandishing her bristle-brush. "I’ll conquer this gray coat or die in the attempt."

Morvran let out a chuckle, holding his hands up in askance. "Far be it from me to doubt your determination. Though should you require reinforcements..."

He trailed off with an easy smile, ducking back under the picket line to finish up with Nemrod. They worked in companionable silence for a few moments before Ciri spoke again.

"I wouldn’t mind assistance with her mane," she allowed. "My shoulder still feels like it’s been run through a meat grinder, though I refuse to acknowledge it."

"It would be my honor, highness," Morvran replied, sounding pleased at being entrusted with even this small task.

Together, they stood alongside each other and gently worked out the tangles with their fingers, of one mind when it came to the heretical thought of putting a comb to such a long, beautiful mane. She chatted about how she would do this for Roach every morning now that she was back home and Geralt had relinquished all care of his mare and Yenn’s gelding to Ciri to keep her occupied. 

As he spoke about his own family’s stables and an amusing aside of his elder sister having to chase him out of his mother’s favored gelding’s stall ever so often, as he spent the better part of the hot summers practically living in the grand mews of House Voorhis, she watched his large, capable hands move near hers with unexpected delicacy. It reminded her of how he handled her strand of hair, pocketing it after she’d given him the token as his winnings from their race.

That same level of care was evident in the attention he gave each silvery strand of Cantarella’s mane straightening beneath his fingers.

It was as much soothing for her as she imagined it was for Cantarella. In this, they simply served the horses, all the particulars of rank and the manyfold complications falling away. And it was...nice.

Sweaty, sore, and thoroughly smelling like horse again just as she had arrived yesterday to the general’s vast marquee (albeit not keeled over with pain and a shoulder out of place this time) she fell into one of his rather sumptuous carven chairs with its nice upholstered cushion and kicked her feet out to stretch her legs. Her sword strap was draped over the high back of the chair so the hilt was resting comfortably within reach. The table where the doctor had set her shoulder stretched before her, dotted with maps of Temeria and Redania. 

White Orchard was a mere dot on one of them, and it was then that she felt a stab of guilt having run off in the dark before dawn with only a letter left for Yenna and Geralt. But, seeing as there was no portal opening on top of her to dump out a rather woozy and discombobulated white-haired witcher, shortly followed by an irate raven-haired sorceress, Ciri figured her underlining of the sentence I’ve been needing to do this for myself had gotten the message across. 

Morvran came into the grand tent looking as dusty and sweaty as she felt. 

She offered him a cup of water she’d poured from the covered pitcher sweating condensation, left by some attentive aide-de-camp. He took a sip from it but seemed very interested in the table, his gaze casting everywhere but her until finally he seemed to draw something from inside himself, resolve or courage or something in that same family that called itself bravery. 

“All of the Alba Division officers dine with me in the evening,” he began, setting aside his cup. 

Ciri listened attentively, even if she was melting even further in her chair, feeling much like a cat stretched out in a sunbeam with the afternoon light streaming through the opening of the pavilion. It felt good on the ruin of her bad shoulder, soaking in the heat despite the crisp chill of autumn. 

“They’re begging for the gift of your own presence at the table tonight, should you consider joining us for supper.” Morvran straightened up, folding his arms behind his back and throwing his chin out, the picture of a courtier inviting a lady to dinner.

“A whole coterie of Nilfgaardian officers? Begging for me?” Ciri teased, lifting a leg to cross her ankle over a knee. Her slouching became indolent in his chair. She drummed her gloved fingers on the heel of her boot, considering the man standing a few feet in front of her with her chin on a propped-up fist. 

The effect of her drawled, lilting suggestion on the word begging was instantaneous. A blush crept up the general’s neck, and he seemed avidly interested in the tops of his boots all of a sudden. She bit back a grin, enjoying flustering the general who seemed committed to playing the collected noble to the very hilt.

"Of course, you need not join if you'd prefer to keep your own company tonight," Morvran added quickly, his arms falling back to his sides where his hands clenched into fists, and it was then she wondered if all that sweat on his brow wasn’t just from the exertion of grooming the horses and standing out in the strong sun with her for the better part of the last hour. "I could find other accommodations for you…I only thought…but please, whatever you wish—"

His stumbling words were cut off by Ciri's laugh, her sense of mercy getting the better of her. "Oh stop, I'm only jesting. I'd be obliged to join you and your officers. There’s something to be said about building a bridge and getting over it, don’t you think? And that is…bound to be a very long bridge to build." 

Ciri wasn’t sure a bridge of that span, metaphorically speaking, could even be built. She thought of how much Morvran might know of the blood on her hands, of the she-Rat called Falka, a girl with ashen hair who helped slaughter Nilfgaardian cavalry, and her cheerful mood met a very rapid and sudden death.

Would any of the men tonight look at her and recognize her face, scarred and matured as it was, and see something of the wild youth that had spilt blood and stood in the cooling puddle as the soldier wailed, clutching under his arm as red flowed hot down his side? Were any of them unlikely survivors who had seen Emhyr’s daughter enraptured by the sight of a Nilfgaardian who was fighting the inevitable as his lifeblood pumped out of him, cut down by her blade?

The phantom burning of fisstech was hot in her nose just then. 

Ciri forced the vivid memories down, trying to still her racing heart. The drugs had clouded everything back then, fueling a vicious frenzy in her veins of the girl who had walked out of the Korath desert a dazed, hollow shell, filling herself up with drink, with sex, with violence to stymie the emptiness she felt in her. 

She glanced at Morvran, wondering if his pale eyes had read reports penned in emotionless detail of the Rats' attacks. He would’ve been well into his command when she was running around in Geso under her old moniker. Did he picture her among the Rats, face twisted in a paroxysm of drunken bloodlust as men fell beneath her blade? Did her father know of her acts of slaughter, her slaking of thirst for vengeance on his soldiers, wanting to hurt them as much as she had been hurt when he set them loose in Cintra?

Morvran looked immensely relieved at her acceptance of his dinner offer, seeming to think nothing of her sudden silence. His hands unballed, his fingers flexing where she could hear the creak of the leather gloves. "Splendid," he said, finally meeting her eyes again with a reserved smile. "They will be thrilled. As will I. Your company has been..."

He trailed off, seeming to think better of whatever descriptor he was about to put to no doubt what was one of the more stranger days of his time in the North. Ciri smiled in spite of the looming specter of Falka hanging over her head.

She found, like the other instances today that she’d performed this tongue-tied conjuring, that she rather liked rendering the articulate Nilfgaardian stunned enough to be absolutely bereft of words.

"Been…enlightening? Thoroughly unexpected? Rather dull?” she prompted playfully. Morvran just shook his head, the tips of his ears pink.

“Wonderful,” he managed. “Profoundly enjoyable. You are a singular spirit, my lady, and our journey today was most illuminating. Not one dull moment.”

Ciri smiled slyly. "High praise coming from a man who sees all the flash and pomp of the imperial court. Careful, general. Keep up such flattery and I'm liable to think you like keeping up with my company, as burdensome and strange as it might be."

Morvran glanced away, a touch of color on his cheeks. His ears were growing even redder. "The pleasure of your company could never be so onerous a burden to bear, princess," he said quietly.

“I’d advise you to reserve judgment until at least enduring a week in my presence. I’ve been called a pain in the ass more than once by a certain mutual acquaintance of ours. Here. Drink this, you look as dried out as I was.” She pushed his cup of water forward, mentally shoving aside the gallant declaration of him actually liking her company and what that did to the bird-like feeling trapped in her chest, winging about like a diving falcon.

As he picked up his cup again, she distracted herself by quizzing him about the location of his playing cards. He didn’t seem a gambling man, but then again, he was a soldier. How else did he while away the hours during the doldrums that so often mired wars, honing his strategy with each hand dealt? 

Her assumption proved correct when Morvran gestured vaguely in the back towards his writing desk, his mouth preoccupied with drinking deep from the cup. It was an open invitation for her to search over there. Ciri went to the back, rummaging around the tidy drawers that weren’t locked. 

On the surface in glossy vellum was a half written letter to a Cassia var Aldes that Ciri felt her eyes skip over, not inclined to pry even if he’d invited her to search for the stack of playing cards.

But she did wonder—was this Cassia perhaps a lover? A political acquaintance? A betrothed? Or perhaps someone more familial, like the elder sister he had mentioned earlier that day… 

Var Aldes was a name unfamiliar to her, but then again she had leagues to go with catching up on the Nilfgaardian social climate and all of its particulars. And, a more annoying flit of a thought: what did it matter to her, who the man corresponded with? It was none of her business. 

She smothered the errant thought with shuffling the card deck, cutting it like Lambert had taught her to. Morvran had loosened the starched white ruff that he and all the other officers seemed to favor with their military dress, unbuckling his sword belt to set it and his weapon to rest on the table. Another force of habit they seemed to share: the sword never strayed far from his reach. He shucked his gauntlets and retrieved a cloth from a side table, wetting it from the pitcher.

When he unbuttoned his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing his muscle-corded forearms, she averted her eyes back to the playing cards, but not before noting the criss-cross of white lines, scars gained from battle or training. They matched the lines strewn across her own body, the ugliest splitting her cheek and courtesy of the orion thrown at her face so many years ago. 

After miscounting the number of cards she’d dealt him, she finally succumbed to the rabid curiosity rattling the bars of her mind to just get on with it and ask even if it made her sound like a snooping fool.

"So, Cassia var Aldes," Ciri remarked casually, smoothly reshuffling the cards and dealing his hand again before he could notice her count was off. "She must be someone significant for you to write her so far from home."

Morvran chuckled, mopping off the back of his neck with the wet cloth before answering. "Cassia is my elder sister, who bombards the central command with rather terse letters if I don’t write to her every fortnight to appraise her of my wellbeing. In turn, she sends me news from home, family matters. If I don’t finish that letter by the morning and post it, she’ll threaten to write his radiance directly about my brotherly neglect to keep her informed."

"Ah." Ciri pointedly ignored the oddly relieved swoop in her stomach. "Well, I hope she's well."

"As do I. We remain close despite the circumstances and distance." Morvran took the seat opposite her. "Now, shall we play?"

Ciri’s slightly bruised ego at having lost at something as natural as breathing to her like horse racing was mended somewhat by beating the general at many hands of Belote. She was near crowing with victory by the time the aids arrived to set up an early dinner in the general’s makeshift war room. Ciri abstained from beating him another round, granting him reprieve with a dismissive (if not jesting) flick of her wrist, and went to wash the dust off her face and hands in the canvas-sided room with the washbasin and tub. When she came back out, the general had similarly tidied himself and was once more in full military dress and looking none the worse for wear. 

He took in her refreshed appearance, his fingers pausing in adjusting a fastening on his dark jacket. Morvran’s eyes lit up, crinkling in mirth when they lighted on her face. “You’ve done your eyes again.”

“It felt like running around barefaced all day,” she admitted, touching a finger to one of her temples where the goose fat and ash had been mixed into a dark, sooty liner, smearing it with more care than was typical to give it a winged edge coming off the corner of her eye. “I’d go for days with it on when I was moving from world to world. It’s as much of a part of me as the scar here.” Another touch, more cursory, to the split in her flesh that blemished her cheek.

Morvran seemed to not pay it any mind as the detractor she viewed it as. If anything, he looked at the scarred side of her face as if it held as much interest for him as looking at her eyes, her unbound hair that morning. 

It reminded her of how he looked at her lips earlier, breathless and still. “I’ll never quite forget how you first looked,” he said, “back in Vizima. You stormed in from the courtyard dressed thus.”

“Oh? And how did it seem to you then, watching someone like me storm into the throne room?” She leaned over her seat, snatching up the cards to stack the deck and put them back where she had found them like a polite houseguest, or tentguest. Morvran paused, belting his sword at his waist, and whatever he was about to impart next was thoroughly lost in the racket coming from outside of the tent.

“Is she in here, Voorhis?” The great, booming voice spoke with a distinct Nilfgaardian accent. Ciri’s hand shot to her sword hilt before she forced her hand to rest casually at her side. The cards teetered precariously in the stack that she had dropped in her haste to arm herself, threatening to spill off the edge of the table and onto the wooden planks below.

The makeshift floor vibrated beneath her as an officer in a white ruff ducked into the pavilion; ducked, because the man who appeared to be in his forties was tall as he was broad, a big, muscled blonde with short-cropped locks so mousy it might as well have been her own hair on his head. He thundered across the planks and Ciri contemplated going for her sword again, but what sort of assassin shouted Morvran’s surname like he was calling to a friend across a bar? 

And, as he dropped to one knee and put a sizeable, gauntlet-covered hand over his heart with a thump, Ciri further scrapped the notion of running the man through preemptively with her gwyhyr, for his intent seemed harmless if a bit…unconventionally boisterous and overenthusiastic. 

It was much like being jumped all over and slobbered on by some lumbering mastiff. 

“Highness,” he boomed, “allow me to be your first loyal sword, and I so swear my fealty to you personally as a soldier within Alba Division, sworn to the blood of var Emreis. I pledge to you my fealty, with my own iron striking me should I falter in my duty. May your radiance shine as the great sun does upon the empire.”

Now thoroughly discomposed and wondering what in all the hells to do with the man kneeling before her, because he was so obviously waiting for some very specific and well-worded response no doubt expected after such a declaration of devotion to a sovereign figure. 

“Stop dithering about, general, and introduce us!” the ash-blonde man hissed out, gesturing with a sweep of his armored arm.

“While the lady needs no introduction, might I present Colonel Gregor Leuvaarden, lately Count of Liddertal.” At a pronounced clearing of the big man’s throat, Morvran added with a touch of weariness, pinching the slightly uneven bridge of his nose, “And the most devoted servant of her radiance, the noble Princess Cirilla."

Ciri studied the kneeling colonel with no small measure of trepidation. Clearly this rather overt show of loyalty meant a great deal to him. Though theatrical, she sensed an earnestness beneath the pomp and boisterous declarations.

"Rise, colonel," she said carefully, trying on her best diplomatic voice and manner, however rusty they might seem. "Your fealty is…duly noted."

Gregor stood swiftly, his craggy features splitting into a smile that revealed he was most pleased with her response. "You honor me, princess. If ever you have need of me, you have but to ask. My blade belongs to the emperor and all who claim his blood." He thumped a fist over his heart again, closing his big hand over the leather-wrapped hilt of the broadsword resting on his hip.

Ciri nodded, hoping it carried all the grace expected of receiving such a solemn vow. "I am glad to know it." She gestured to the table. "But come and sit awhile. Certainly there’s enough time before dinner as the earliest arrival to pass the time. Tell me about Liddertal. Just south of the Alba where it borders Vicovaro, is it not?"

Gregor acquiesced, taking a seat with barely contained enthusiasm, and launched into a diatribe about Liddertal that lasted all the way until the handful of other officers arrived at the pavilion for their supper. 

As Morvran hovered over Gregor’s shoulder throughout the exchange, watchful, Ciri shot him a wry look. It seemed she had acquired another ardent ally amongst fellows where she least expected such professed loyalty.

Chapter Text

Of all the situations Ciri expected to be fielding during this journey in Velen (which in her earlier imaginings had consisted of various acts of monster slaying involving one runaway relict, extracting Gretka to a considerably safer and more permanent fosterage, and finally putting to rest her imperial father hounding her to declare herself as heir apparent), knowing which fork to use without seeming like a backwoods yokel was the least of them. 

She had to lean on all the distant, foggy years of her courtly lessons with Grandmamma looming over her, critiquing how she held the fork too close to the tines or how much soup she put on her spoon. 

Kaer Morhen had seemed a luxury holiday compared to the rigors of the Cintran court she grew up in. The most Geralt or any of the other witchers had expected her to do was not drop her sleeves into the stew when she ladeled it into her trencher, for they couldn’t abide having to pluck out hairs or bits of linen from the cauldron. 

Yenna had cracked the proverbial whip when she started lessons with Ciri in Ellander, though, claiming she was as ill-mannered as a street mongrel. The sorceress went about course corrections to the witchers’ rather loose view of table manners a young princess should exercise. 

In Tir ná Lia, there had been occasions where Ciri was trussed up in gossamer silk and presented at Auberon’s dinner table, the prettified dh’oine who could plod her way through sipping the rose wine and nibbling at the vegetable-laden dishes the Aen Elle seemed so fond of. And, considering her circumstances as a woman on the run these past few years, there had been far fewer occasions to sit down and enjoy a proper dinner by the genteel definition of the word.

If any of the officers noticed her pausing over the complicated array of utensils at her place setting, they did a very good job of not making it seem obvious. 

All of them seemed well-versed in the art of courtesies. Gregor Leuvaarden made his fork look like a delicate toothpick between his meaty hands, his form so large that she had to wonder if there was an Aen Elle somewhere in his family tree, too.

Commander Derghoff d’Arvy, another notable acquaintance of the Nilfgaardian sort she had made tonight, was less gregarious-seeming as his blonde companion and seemed an opposite of his fellow cavalryman, lean and small and dark with a narrow, pinched face that made Ciri think of a fox. Everytime she looked in his direction, his calculating, clever gaze seemed to light on her and the others in the makeshift dining room. 

More idle observations of the commander’s appearance left her with an uncanny impression of sharing some blood with him, for if ever there was a man that looked like an echo of her own father in his youth, it was Derghoff. 

He sat within some nebulous role of commanding the scouting units of Alba Division, which Ciri smelled out as something akin to being a spymaster. Of everyone gathered around the table that evening, he appeared the closest in age to herself and Morvran. All the other officers were well and truly north of forty years at a minimum. 

Gregor Leuvaarden and Derghoff d’Arvy had claimed the seats closest to her after what seemed to be a very heated debate in fastly traded Nilfgaardian with other officers, citing rank and bloodlines and all manner of factors that apparently made their cases greater as to who pulled enough rank to merit the seats closest to Emhyr’s heir apparent. Morvran might’ve trumped both of their cases, but he stood back in favor of letting the cavalryman and the scout commander flank Ciri’s place of honor at the end of the table. 

“Is this all mostly Alba Division?” she asked her two closest tablemates over the dessert course, some type of honey cakes that she was trying her damndest to not eat six of. The mains and sides had been hearty dishes, duck confit and sweet currant jam and figs and braised pearl onions and a leek and potato soup that had left her doubtful of her ability to roll herself into Crookback Bog tonight and kill Weavess on such a full stomach and a wretchedly sore arm. 

Ciri had begged off a second helping that Gregor wanted to pile on her plate. It seemed a strategy of her father’s people was to load their guests up with so much rich, decadent food that one was forced to be pliant and amiable in the face of so many black-bedecked officers.

“Aye, your radiance,” came the raspy, sardonic voice of Derghoff. Gods, but he even sounded like Emhyr. Ciri made a mental note to save the question for the very limited smalltalk she could make with her father, for if she wasn’t looking at a familial descendant from some long dead ancestor of theirs, she would eat her socks. “Except for the field marshall over there. He commands the Center Army Group.”

Derghoff pointed at the serious-faced, salt-and-pepper haired man who opted to wear his cuirass to dinner. He was deep in conversation with Morvran and a grey-bearded major. 

“Var Moehoen, isn’t it?” Ciri waved off an aide’s offer to refill her crystal goblet with something stronger than the purified water she’d been sipping at since their meal began. 

Reception to Ciri taking up space at General Voorhis’ table had been a mixed bag: some genuflected as grandly as Gregor had, while others were more reserved in greeting her. Ciri by instinct alone preferred those who were quieter in taking her in. Var Moehoen was one of them, but he had nonetheless bowed very gravely over her hand and said appropriate, polite things about how fortunate they were to have her tonight.

“Yes!” Gregor cried out, his big fingers dwarfing what was a sizable honey cake. One bite from him obliterated at least half of the sweet. “Lovely pronunciation, your radiance. Have you had much of an opportunity to speak Nilfgaardian?” 

“I’ve never had much of a need to exchange in Nilfgaardian, though I understand it well enough.” Ciri’s gloved fingers toyed with the stem of her crystal-cut glass, looking over the candlelit spread before her. The table was surrounded by the noble and genteel sorts of Nilfgaardian officers her father no doubt promoted to their positions by his own hand, carefully curated for their loyalty and political advantage. 

A sharp, vivid reminder of how much of an outsider she was looking in on a landscape she did not yet fully understand. An interloper. 

And how much of a fool was she, really, thinking she might rule them one day and be a monarch as absolute as her father? 

It was then that the smell of acrid woodsmoke from the campfires outside reminded her of the smell of buildings burning. Garbled, rough-spoken Nilfgaardian shouts. The thunder of people fleeing through the streets, Cintran blood soaking the ground as she passed bodies stacked like cordwood from the city’s sacking. 

“Do you have much time for leisure here on campaign?” she asked the men to her immediate left and right, drumming her fingers on the table. Her tone was light, hoping to steer the conversation to something resembling safe topics , which she was fast realizing was near impossible amongst men who had likely had a direct hand in the decimation of Cintra. 

It was var Moehoen’s gruff voice that spoke up from Gregor’s side. “We have little time for frivolity.”

She felt her face run hot. It was then that she felt silly, girlish, and thoroughly stupid for having asked something as imbecilic as ‘what do you do for fun around here’ amidst a war torn region like Velen in the company of the Nilfgaardian leadership that had helmed that effort. 

An awkward silence stole over the table before Morvran’s smooth, confident interjection. "The princess makes a fair point—some respite from duty is important, lest we become too mired in the business of war, which can drive one mad," he offered diplomatically. “Only just earlier she beat me in a good many hands of Belote. Speaking of, is there not a tourney in Beauclair next summer?”

Morvran’s diverting topic of conversation paid off. There was a dull roar from the other end of the table and Gregor half-rose out of his seat next to her in his eagerness to declare himself as joining the rolls months in advance to joust against ‘all those Toussanti ponces’. 

The noise gave her the opportunity to lean forward on her elbows, disguising her clenched fists as hands clasped together in thoughtful contemplation. "You must instruct me sometime on what amounts to Nilfgaardian military philosophy," she said, turning to var Moehoen. "I've much to learn from experienced commanders as yourself."

The field marshal looked somewhat mollified by her interest.

"Of course, your highness," Var Moehoen acquiesced with a bow of his head. "It would be our honor to mentor you in the knowledge befitting an empress."

Ciri smiled politely, hoping her pounding heart wasn’t going to vomit out of her mouth and go splat on the table. It felt…much like being cowed. Of forcing her manner and speech to fit into a neat, tidy little box of courtesy when she so wanted to say other things to the man. But she swallowed those words. The conversation moved on to analysis of which knights-errant might enter the tourney before the rolls were finalized in the spring.

The earlier, thundering silence was a thing of the past. But the race of blood in her ears, the hot embarrassment of feeling like an outsider, alien, out of her depth entirely amongst what should be enemies. 

Yenna would give her good marks for recovery, even if Geralt would snort about her having to curb her very blunt opinion, to play nice for the Nilfgaardian gentry. 

And how fucking ludicrous it did seem to her then, that she should be sitting here making smalltalk with these soldiers when she was waiting on the signal from Johnny to kill some unspeakable horror that folk like this could only dream up in their dizziest nightmares. It was enough to make her stifle a laugh in her goblet of water.

Was this merely an introductory exercise in what she might live day after day for the rest of her life if she went down this path? It went down bitterly, she found, like swallowing a coin whole—all metallic tang, like blood in her mouth, and the feeling of something choking her. 

The air outside of the crowded tent was crisp and cold as compared to the busy interior, hot with bodies and braziers being lit to ward off the cold of the night. Ciri had left her saddlebags secured in a locked chest in the general’s pavilion, trusting him with the contents—there was nothing in there that he didn’t already know about in some fashion, chiefly the letter to her father. 

There was a hunter’s moon on this chilly autumn night. It hung pendulous in the sky to the east, bloody and foreboding as its mass sucked up the space in the heavenly vault, eclipsing the pinprick of stars that usually dotted the night. She was swarmed with the scent of woodsmoke, of dew on the sparse clump of grass she stood on and the warm, familiar smell of horses dozing nearby on the picket line.

Ciri had excused herself when the men had broken out the cards and smoking pipes. Their topics had drawn away from talk of the tournament to instead discussions about the price of barley, which was a rather complex subject as she listened with half an ear. From the experience of how most of the men spoke about agrarian matters, Ciri knew she was in the midst of landowners, tradesmen—war was not their sole business, that much was apparent. 

As she took in the fresh air the pavilion no longer afforded, being crammed up with so many bodies, she surveyed the hill that sloped down from where she stood. More than a third of the camp had vanished as she looked at the checkered tents. 

Greater swathes of the terraced hillside were exposed compared to how she remembered it this morning. The Nilfgaardian Army Group “Center” Camp was packing up and rolling out to disperse to full time garrisons, Temeria well on its way to enter its stability period of becoming a true vassal state of the empire.

She crossed her arms, feeling a twinge in her shoulder. Better than the screaming pain from the night before. Her gwyhyr was a solid, comfortable weight on her back.

“Moon gazing?” came a mild, pleasant voice from behind her. She didn’t turn, knowing that it was Morvran coming up on her left and standing at a respectful distance.

She tipped her head, gazing up at the cratered surface of that far off moon. “It’s been a while since I’ve stopped to admire our own night sky.”

Ciri turned her head, looking at how the light from the moon illuminated him in profile. He’d drawn up even with her where she stood at the very edge of the hilltop. In the distance, she could hear the noise from all the officers still occupying his pavilion as they started up a rousing card game or swapped a pipe stuffed with tobacco back and forth. 

“You know,” she started, filling the silence. “I’ve been to worlds where there wasn’t just one hanging around up there. Multiple celestial satellites, a few with rings of floating rock about them. Then another world with something they call a gaseous giant that was a hundred times larger than the moon, always evident even in full daylight. The world orbited it like a sun. It was rippled like a pearl. Beautiful, really. But there’s no place like home.”

Morvran stirred, his arms moving to cross and mirror her own posture, and she heard him take in a breath like he wanted to ask her something before her next words cut him off.

“—thank you,” Ciri said. “For coming to my aid in there. I feel as if I’m bound to lodge my foot in my mouth many more times if I’m to take up my father’s offer.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his head swivel towards her, the sharp point of his chin as he looked sidelong at her. “So are you?”

“Sticking my foot in my mouth once more?” she japed easily, dancing around the question. “If the gods are willing, I'll have many more years and plenty of opportunities to say the wrong thing again.” 

“Taking him up on his proposal, highness,” Morvran insisted gently, taking one step closer. She could smell the pipe tobacco lingering on his jacket, even though she noticed him declining any offer for a draw off of Derghoff’s carven, ivory pipe. 

Ciri drummed her fingers where they rested at the fold of her elbow, looking from the Hunter’s Moon to his face turned towards her. His gaze was hesitant, expectant, as if he was waiting on her to change his entire world with her answer, which in due course, she supposed it would. “I'm supposed to answer him,” she hedged, another nebulous, indirect answer. 

Why couldn’t she just come out and say it to him?

Because, a voice which sounded a great deal like the stern, commanding tone of Calanthe, once committed, a lioness does not go back on her word. 

To accept Emhyr’s proposal would mean an irrevocable cementing of her course in life, destiny binding her to the state. It would mean permanence, giving up the life she’d seen for herself in her daydreams of what things would be like once her quest was shut and done, the grander destiny she had in the universe fulfilled. 

To take up her father’s offer would mean an alteration of not only her fate, but of Morvran’s. He would remain in the line of succession, undoubtedly, but she would stand in between him and the throne. Eventually, should sickness nor an assassin’s blade claim her life, she would be his liege lady. All of those men in his tent and every last one camped on this hillside would look to her as empress, and with the manner of government in the empire, she imagined that her power would be nigh absolute with some conditions.

The thought sat heavy like a lodestone on her chest, weighing down her heart so it felt like it sunk to the pit of her stomach. Accepting Emhyr’s offer meant embracing those that had shattered Cintra, her entire world, as kin and countrymen. Overnight, she would become the inheritor of millions of lives whose fates she steered with edict and writ.

She would have to release what remained of her hate, her rage towards the empire to govern it with a clear, open heart and guide it towards what she envisioned as its more peaceful incarnation. 

It would mean a lifetime of nights just like this one, countless days stretching on ahead of her where she would have to bite back on her words for the sake of concealing her prejudices, quell any rude words that wanted to fly off her tongue—to appear very much like a woman who was not stirred to violence at the mere notion of what had been done to her, to Cintra, by those that surrounded her every waking hour.

She did not have to forgive Emhyr, but she did have to make peace where the opportunity presented itself. 

That hate would eat her alive if she let it. And, if she went forward with this, she would be seeing plenty more of him. He would become the lynchpin of her daily life, a mentor—for who better to teach her about the empire than the emperor himself? 

Gods, but she felt gut-turning nausea the more she thought of it all. The finality. All of what she would sacrifice for the gain of power to change things in the empire. Her privacy, her body, her youth and all the years after it—even her heart, for she could not imagine falling in love and being given leave to marry whomever she chose, even if she was the most powerful person in the empire. 

There were expectations and alliances to form with marriage pacts that were too valuable to shirk, and even Emhyr was beholden to the favor of his supporters to see him through his reign safeguarded. She would have to earn it and keep that favor with a majority of the nobility if she wanted to die old and gray in her bed with a golden reign chronicled for all the ages. 

That same thought of political backers led to another—her father was running out of time to declare his heir. Surely she could not simply slip off for a few more years and reappear to take up his offer if she wanted more time to think it all over, enjoy freedom while it lasted. It was not on a limitless extension. He was running out of time. 

Her father needed her.

Would holding off an answer to Emhyr, or rejecting it outright and continuing on the witcher’s path be a rejection of her true self? Or would rejecting the witcher’s path and acceptance of being bound to the wheel of rule be where her true self died? 

This was largely becoming not a fork in the road to choose her way forward. Instead, it was a tangle of briars she was wading into, and no matter how hard she hacked and sawed and slashed with her mind, it grew ever tangled around her. The path forward was obscured, hidden beneath her stumbling feet.

Perhaps she was a fool, waiting for some clarifying moment to seal her decision to move forward one way or another. 

Or, maybe, was there a third way forward, one that she could not see clear enough yet?

The general’s voice broke her roiling contemplation. “Might it be easier to transport yourself to Vizima and give him such a response in person?” Ah, a tactical retreat instead of pressing her for a yes or no. 

“I very well could have,” she offered him an artless shrug, hating how nervous sweat from imagining the future cooled on the back of her neck and under her arms. “But I had loose ends in Velen.”

He let out a disbelieving noise. His arms shifted, crossing over his chest. The moon glinted off the heavy, gold-chained necklace he wore around his neck, a symbol of the Guild of Merchants. “Opting for the long way around, then?”

“More like the most practical way around. Three birds, one stone.” She held up three gloved fingers.

“Your medallion,” he counted off and Ciri closed one finger towards her palm, making a small noise of confirmation. “Answering the emperor.” That earned him another affirmative with putting down a second finger. “What would be the third item?”

Ciri dropped her hand which held that last, single finger raised. “A girl who helped me when I first came to Velen. I intend to see to her welfare if she wishes it so, find her a more permanent situation. Stability. Something I know a girl her age sorely needs, for I’ve been there and done all of that.”

“You’ve a kind heart, highness.”

Ciri laughed. “Don’t spread that around and make the men think I’m all soft and tenderhearted, Voorhis. I've got a reputation to maintain, you know. Savage Nordling and all.”

Morvran's mouth quivered at the corners, like he was fighting a smile. "I would not dream of tarnishing your fearsome reputation, your imperial highness," he replied, eyes glinting with humor and the distant light from the braziers. "Though in truth, wisdom and compassion in a ruler are virtues, not weaknesses." His expression grew thoughtful, distant. "The best of leaders uplift their people through solicitude, not might alone."

Ciri considered this quietly, turning it over in her head before answering, "My grandmother would’ve scoffed at being called soft-hearted. Yet her ferocity came from her love for Cintra. For its welfare.”

"Exactly so," Morvran nodded. "Your father inspires loyalty through strength. Cunning. But devotion given freely, not commanded through fear, is what endures."

He gestured out at the camp which spread below, throwing his arm behind him towards the well-lit pavilion that was noisy with cheerful, boisterous officers. "These men follow me not just from duty or ambition, but because they trust I will not waste lives callously. That faith is a gift I honor."

Ciri looked down the hill and saw the soldiers mingling amiably around their campfires. United in cause, not merely conquest. Something she could take charge of, rein in, redirect to works worthier than needless expansionism. 

To reform an empire.

Chapter Text

Ciri and Morvran quit the area around the marquee to walk the perimeter outside of the palisades. She wasn’t certain if the change of scenery was more for her benefit or his; the moonlit walk took them away from returning to his crowded war room which had been converted into an officer’s mess hall. From the sounds pouring out of the tent as they descended the hill, his fellows in Alba Division were likely to go on into the wee hours of the morning with their card games and pipe smoking.

They talked about the state of current affairs: Radovid’s death that had preceded Djikstra’s own demise, Var Moehoen’s imminent governorship of Temeria (and how Emhyr had explicitly told the new governor to ‘give Temeria a gentle hand’ in light of the Blue Stripes mounting a rather spectacular strike effort on heavily manned Nilfgaardian garrisons), and the early success of Cerys in Skellige during her newfound reign. 

“Her approach to developing trade is rather…inspired, I should say,” Morvran’s voice was becoming familiar to her. So much that Ciri could pick up on the measured, steady pace in which he spoke the Common Speech, how he drew out his vowels on some words. “Even now she’s sending ships to match our own mercantile routes, all the way to Ofir.”

“Are those your guild connections passing along those pearls of information?” 

Ciri wondered if after all of this was settled in Velen that a trip to the isles was in order. Perhaps she could bring along Geralt and Yenna, make proper honors for Crach at his cairn. She hadn’t seen Mousesack in ages and would like to get to know Cerys better, experience more of the isles that Papa Eist so loved. She had all the time in the world now that she wasn’t having to keep five steps ahead of Eredin and his lot.

“I am nothing if not my father’s son, so all of this came by way of those same connections in the guild,” Morvran said ruefully, clasping his arms behind his back as they walked the perimeter of the camp walls. 

The fields outside of the palisades were lit by the glow of the full moon. It was bright enough that it was almost like walking in daylight, the shadow of each weed and stump casting shadows across the rolling fields near the Nilfgaardian encampment. To the west, she could see the outline of the crumbling bastion that sat high on the hill, then further still the gnarled, great tree that squatted atop Bald Mountain. If they kept walking straight forward for a time, they would eventually go downhill and right into Crookback Bog.

But, as they reached the part of the camp wall where it winged south for as far as the eye could see, she turned them back towards the gates and put their backs towards the western horizon. 

“...may I ask what you intend to answer the emperor?” Morvran asked her. His sword rattled in his scabbard, the noise of him moving in his armor a familiar sound after spending the whole day in his company. 

Ciri let out a laugh. In the cold night air, she could see her breath form into mist from her lips. She looked sidelong at him, his pale face made luminous in the moonlight, shadows cast across his grave expression. It made him appear older than his years. “You’re biting down on the arrowhead right away, aren’t you, general?”

“I know you would appreciate the brevity. You seem hesitant in only this one matter and very assured in all others.”

“You’re not wrong,” Ciri agreed, blowing air to tease away a strand of ash-blonde hair that had fallen into her eyes. Their boots crunched across loose stones and dried grass. Up ahead, the torchlight from the gates and the many exterior tents outside of the palisades flickered as the wind picked up. 

“The truth is, Voorhis, I don’t know what to tell my father. The letter answers in the end that yes, I will accept. But I jump back and forth it seems. I say yes, but then I just…balk when I think of it all. When I feel that doubt, I want to take the letter out and set it aflame before it can make it into his hands. Disappear down the Path.” 

She felt her gorge rise again as she remembered her earlier feelings of uncertainty, which had bloomed into near panic at thinking of what her life might be like one year from now, five, ten. 

His strides had kept up with her pace until that point. But at the thought of ten years from now and the prospect of what life looked like from where she stood in that moment, it was enough to halt Ciri in her tracks, take in the chilly air to cleanse her lungs to try and rid her mind of the rising dread. The leather of her gloves creaked as she flexed her hands, raising them to cover her face and hold it for a half-beat to ground herself.

As she shut her eyes, Ciri bitterly reminisced on how she thought it would be all too simple once the White Frost had been waylaid, the crisis averted so she could focus on what became of her future. 

That wistful notion of things being far easier after her cosmic destiny was satisfied had aged quite terribly.

How damned stupid was it that of all things to throw her off kilter, it was this? More than any impending fight with the last Crone with one arm out of commission. Fleeing Eredin seemed a pleasure jaunt in comparison, for she had always known how it would end: him or her dead. 

She’d killed with a freer heart and more surefootedness than how she felt with this damned albatross of a choice about her neck as to what the remainder of her life would shape up to be.

“You appear to be trying to talk yourself out of this,” Morvran observed in that mild, gentle, infuriating voice that made her want to tear her hair out. How could he be so damned observant and sensible every time he spoke? 

It was enough to make Ciri laugh through her fingers, a high-pitched, uneven sort of sound.

“I have been,” she admitted, moving to drop one hand covering her face so the other could pinch her gloved fingers on the bridge of her nose. A headache was coming on, the echoing twinge behind her left eye felt in her injured shoulder. “But I keep talking myself in circles.”

“Swanning about, as your father puts it. His more diplomatic response to a more vulgar word that I won’t repeat.”

She didn’t snort, but it was a near thing with how he imparted that fact like some great secret about her father, who was so buttoned up she couldn’t imagine a curse passing from his stern lips. Her earlier unease melted in the face of Morvran’s dry humor. 

“Are you some sort of expert in…Emhyrology?” Ciri dropped her hand from her face to look at him. 

“I am the foremost expert on your father, I’d argue,” Morvran assured her, his face holding that same, curving smile he seemed so inclined to give her when he found something amusing, like he was sharing a secret only they were in on. It gave her the distinct impression he was trying to cheer her up. “Second only to Vattier de Rideaux, but it’s the viscount’s business to know exactly what your father might be thinking.”

“I don’t think either of us wants to know exactly what my father is rattling around in that head of his,” she drawled, barely concealing a shudder. When she hugged herself to waylay it, his expression turned into a full, mirthful grin. “Let Vattier de Rideaux roll that boulder uphill for eternity, I welcome him to it.”

That earned her a chuckle from Morvran. He crossed his arms behind his back, his posture easy as he observed her, then the distance towards the gates. 

“Besides, Emhyr has a worthy candidate in you.” Ciri looked in the same direction, scuffing her boot in the dirt.

At those words out of her mouth, the lessening tension between them tightened once more like a cord drawn firm in a game of cat’s cradle. When she looked up at him, there was trepidation in his eyes, or something akin to it. The trees far off across the fields stirred with the wind, but Ciri could not feel it against her skin, carding through her hair or clothes. 

Morvran held very still as she dissected her thoughts aloud. His lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

“You have the confidence of the court and the ear of the emperor,” she began. Melitele’s teeth, but she sounded like Geralt when she began listing out the evidence like some itemized list. “Your father controls most of the trade coming in and out of the empire as the head of the Merchant’s Guild. 

“You’re a decorated general who is a breath away from becoming a field marshal like var Moehoen in there. You have royal blood through some far flung common ancestor of ours, same as what runs in my veins. To my eye, you’re more than capable of winning Emhyr’s vote of confidence as an heir along with the support of all the people that matter. Am I wrong?”

His mouth worked open, then closed after a pause where he seemed bereft of words. There was no instant and smooth dismissal of her facts, though, which made her stomach flip oddly. 

“I’m finding you are never imprecise, highness, in your appraisals. But for all my professed readiness as you’ve detailed so very… thoroughly, I am not you and never shall be. Your father chose you, not I. And the more time I spend in your presence, the clearer it is that you are meant to be imperatrix.”

“I take it today left a better impression than the first time we met,” she answered, her voice faint even in her own ears. 

There was an intensity she’d never seen in his eyes, a fervor as he took a step closer. He was within arm’s reach now, so close she could smell the soap on his skin and the faint scent of horse and leather that filled up her senses so pleasantly. Warm and familiar.

“This morning you asked me where you might fit into anything I’ve planned. Would you like to know, highness?” 

Ciri couldn’t answer him with words, for her tongue was weighed down like lead in her mouth. 

When Morvran cleared his sword from its scabbard, taking one knee on the dusty ground beneath him, she felt all the blood rush out of her face. 

“I would swear my sword to you, my counsel, my fealty. You would be my liege until death should take me. This I swear by the Ard Feainn.”

There was a pause where neither of them spoke until she reached out, took his broadsword by the offered hilt, and turned it to lightly touch the flat of his blade to his jacket-clad shoulder. His confidence, the conviction with which he spoke, made Ciri halfway believe that she was suited to the role, that he saw something in her that she could not perceive herself. Some spark or quality within her that was measurable, observable.

It warmed her. This…faith he had in her.

With General Voorhis and likeminded Nilfgaardians, she could steer the empire towards a new era. 

His belief in her reminded Ciri of Geralt’s steady assuredness of her ability, an unwavering belief that every trial that faced her was surmountable if only she set her will against it. 

Perhaps she would not feel like an island unto herself if she had people like Morvran supporting her. His allegiance and counsel might make the long, treacherous path of commanding the empire that had torn the nation of her birth apart navigable, cutting down the challenges of finding a way forward because he was certainly no outsider to the empire.

And then, when she couldn’t quite take the somber and heavy air of the moment anymore: “That’s the second time in one night that a Nilfgaardian has gotten on his knees for me. I’m beginning to quite like it, you know.” 

There was a tic in his jaw as it worked, flexing and straining. She watched his gauntlet-clad hands clasp tighter where he had set them over his thigh. “One typically says ‘I accept your oath’ and bids them to rise.”

“Are you pledging your services as an etiquette master as well as a sworn sword? I did find all that cutlery at your table a bit out of mode of what we do at fine dinners in the North, though I am out of practice.” Ciri raised his sword to examine the sharp edge of steel in the moonlight with a critical eye, the slick black leather wrapping the haft of it warm from his grip.

“Highness, there is a rock digging into my knee and I would very much appreciate your leave to rise, but I shall not until you accept my oath,” he shot back stubbornly. 

“Pushy, aren’t you?” Ciri chided him, letting the flat of his blade drop gently to his shoulder once more. She flipped the hilt easy in her hand, rotating the blade to let the smooth, non-lethal breadth of it kiss his neck above the white ruff. 

His throat bobbed as he moved to swallow—even if she didn’t press the keen edge of it to his throat and merely teased him with the flat of it, there was an undercurrent of danger to what she was doing. It was enough to make her own heart race—feeling the weight of his sword in her hand, folding her fingers over the grip where his fingers had rested. 

Holding him by the throat with his own weapon.

She leaned in. Even on one knee, he was tall enough that there was no need to bend too far so she could speak soft and the words not get lost in the wind.

“I’d hope whatever goodwill I’ve built here today would keep you from knocking me off as a contender to the throne, were I to slip off into obscurity and you might start feeling anxious about me mounting an uprising somewhere should I change my mind.”

“H-highness,” he stuttered, his face written over with shock. There was a tinge of incredulousness to his tone, almost bordering outrage at her having even the gall to imply he’d do such a thing. “I would…no, I would not—”

“You wouldn’t?” she interrupted the babble of words coming from his mouth, leaning further down, loose strands of her hair that had escaped its ties tickling his face. Her movement forced him to crane his neck to hold her gaze. 

Ciri thought of how he looked at her that afternoon, the flush that sat high and red in his pale cheeks following the heat of the race, the way his eyes drew raptly to her mouth after she closed his hands around that strand of hair she’d cut from her head. 

He wet his mouth, swallowing thick enough to make the sword wobble in her hand. She drew it away from his neck with a fluid, easy motion, switching her grip to angle it down and press the hilt into his chest, letting the flat of it rest heavy against him. His hands closed tightly over hers. There was no stepping back with how firm his hold was on her hands wrapped around the hilt. The sword hung between their joined grip. 

“That’s all I ask you to swear, Voorhis. To respect my choice, and not levy any plot against my life should I choose either path. It’d be very unfortunate if I had to hang you for treason as your empress, or come after an emperor trying to kill a wandering witcher should I decline the offer and set off down the Path.” 

Morvran stood on shaking legs, his fingers coiling tight around the hilt of his sword. Returning to his full height made her have to tilt her face up to look at him properly, the moonlight illuminating his expression, the flare of his nostrils. 

They were standing so close that only the sword between them separated their bodies from pressing tight together. She could make out the flush on his cheeks, how his mouth parted as if he could not catch his breath and looking at her gave him no reprieve, no chance in all the hells of getting his calm, collected demeanor back. 

As if he could not believe her impudence, her brazenness, just her.  

Ciri’s heart was drumming fast in her ears, blotting out the sound of wind in the trees and the noise from the camp over the palisade walls. It echoed in her chest, a steady thump that beat against her ribs. Anticipation. Wanting. He held her gaze, his thumb circling over the back of her glove where their hands were clasped together. His eyes mapped every inch of her face like he’d looked at her when they last stood so close.

In the aftermath, recounting which of them moved first would never leave her with a clear recollection—perhaps she rocked up on her toes. Maybe he ducked down.

All she registered is that they moved as one, and then Ciri didn’t have to wonder what kissing a man like Morvran, who looked at her like she was holding some of the sun’s light beneath her skin, would be like. His mouth was on hers, burning with heat. 

Her eyes shut tight and fingers went lax between his where they were wrapped around the hilt of the sword, and she wasn’t sure what he did with his blade until she heard it clatter to the ground. A hind part of her brain wanted to say something smart about his carelessness with his weapon, but the rest of her didn’t care if he dulled his fine sword on the rocks beneath if it meant Morvran kept kissing her like this. 

It wasn’t chaste, or reserved like she thought a nobleman like him might kiss her—this was full of raw need, no restraint or art to it, as if he’d been waiting to do this for hours. Days. Years. 

Gods, how good it felt to be needed. Desired. The heat flooding her body was delicious, nearly forgotten in the span of time since she had felt like this. 

And she could not stop wanting it, that kick of adrenaline that made her heart burst. 

The greatest rush, better than killing. 

Better than the burn of fisstech. 

It was everything.

Ciri let the air rush out of her, sharp through her nose. They were tangled—mouths, arms. His lips were soft and tasted of good wine, but the rest of him was solid armor and smooth leather covering a hard and unyielding body pressed into her. And then her hands rose up, clutching at the front of his jacket, hauling him against her, leaving no space for even the barest sliver of moonlight to fit between them. 

She was by no means a small woman, but gods he handled her like one as he walked their bodies back. He was strong, making her catch around his shoulders to moor herself as he shoved her up against the rough-hewn wood only a few paces behind them. 

Her feet dangled, the tips of her boots dragging against the ground as his arms caught her under the thighs and hoisted her up, up and she knew that maddening rush of heat flooding her veins at being handled roughly, desperately, like he couldn’t get enough of her mouth. 

And when she parted her lips for him, it was his muffled groan that undid her. It was all a swirl of motion, dizzying arousal that made her cunt throb and her hips twist as she half rode his thigh. Wetness, the slide of tongues. Her arms tightened around his neck, her bad shoulder aching with being jostled and the strap holding her sword on her back digging between her breasts. She crushed that stupid, courtly ruff while his fingers clutched her legs, kneading the flesh of her thighs—

—they surrendered for air, panting. He leaned in, his brow pressed against hers, and she opened her eyes to stare into his. Pupils blown out, cheeks dusted pink. Ciri wondered at how she must look, disheveled and stunned. How red her mouth would be. Bits of her hair falling into her flushed face.

“You’re maddening, Cirilla,” he choked out.

Her name came from Morvran’s lips for the first time, not princess or highness; her head was swimming. Avoiding drinking the whole of the day, or even the buzz of it to keep her mind clear, seemed useless, for now she felt thrice as drunk as she had in quite a while. 

“It’s Ciri,” she said, her thin, high voice as overcome as he looked. 

“Ciri." His voiced was hushed, ragged. Reverent. “Ciri, Ciri…” 

He kissed her again, and it was so, so very easy to shut her eyes and lose herself in his kiss. His desire.

Something cheeped.

She ignored the noise. Situational awareness was obliterated, and certainly any one of her teachers would scold her for throwing that sense to the wind, but dammit this felt good and he kissed her so well and—

Another twittering sound reached her ears. Barely. They might as well have been stuffed with cotton because her focus was most certainly elsewhere, but Ciri opened her eyes and broke away from Morvran, his protest registering as a soft noise of dismay at losing her mouth.

Over his shoulder, in the bright moonlight, she saw a blackbird perched on a high stalk of grass. 

The bird chirped again.

Chapter Text

Ciri untangled herself from Morvran, ducking out from under his arms. The loss of her caused an instantaneous change in the general—he braced his gloved hands on the palisade wall like it was the only thing keeping him standing. 

The oaths he uttered under his breath weren’t even in Common Speech (and translated roughly to some approximation of Great fucking Sun “Ard hvrenen Feinn”, which seemed a mite heretical of him, if not endlessly amusing to her since the man seemed opposed to swearing). Then he made a noise like the wind had been knocked out of him, nearly doubled over, and Ciri could’ve been in the same dire straits should their circumstances differ—but her own mind was reeling from the whiplash of tingling, heightened arousal to hypervigilance. 

She scrambled towards the bird perched on the stalk of grass, wary of frightening it off with her flailing arms and rapid steps. Slowing her pace, she forced herself to calm down even if her heart was threatening to erupt out of her throat. 

Certainly this had to be the signal she had been waiting on—a tiny messenger sent by Johnny, a sign that the hour was nigh. He had sent her a bird. Weavess was right where she needed her to be in that horrible, wretched hut, nearest to the tapestry. It would be tight quarters, and Ciri possessed a tactical edge of surprise. She could flash in, assess where Weavess stood in the small space, and be on the last Crone in the span of time it took most hearts to beat a single time. 

“Thank you, tell them I said thank you,” her words rushed out at the blackbird, rummaging in her pockets for the many strips of ribbon she’d gotten from the barber-surgeon’s tent. The bird, for all its ordinary appearance, considered her gravely and accepted the proffered bits of colorful cord in its orange beak like the transaction was all too common. 

When she turned, Morvran had positioned to face her, somewhat more composed. Or, rather, composed as he could be in the face of how damned strange was the scene that awaited him. He looked at the blackbird, then at Ciri shoving bits of ribbon to it like one would shovel out coins to a shopkeeper.

“Highness,” he strangled out, “forgive me, but what—”

“Not much time to explain,” Ciri cut him off. “Save it for a nightcap, why don’t we? I’ll regale you with every last bit of the story when this is done.”

“When what is done?” Now there was a thread of panic in his tone. 

Ah, that would be the blade coming out. 

She had reached up and cleared her gwyhyr from its scabbard in the time it took for Morvran to ask, and when the last syllables of his question left his lips, his tone was tight with confusion. 

The blackbird chirped once more before darting off, lost in the inky black night now that the message had been carried to its intended recipient.

Ciri spun on her heel, striding towards the woodline far off on the western horizon. She could hear him behind her, the scrape of stone on steel. Such a noise made her cast a glance over her shoulder, brow pinching.

The damned fool was following her, shoving his discarded sword back into its scabbard, hurrying to keep up. “Highness, if there’s no time to elaborate, allow me to—” 

“You can’t follow me, Voorhis.”

Her voice was sharp, cutting, and gods she hated how damned wounded it made him look, how some soft part of her wanted to quiet herself and explain why he could not follow. 

But there was no time.

She turned to keep walking, her boots scuffing across stone and crunching dead grass. Focus, she told herself, willing the threads of her magic to gather. It had been so many days since last she’d used her power, and reaching for it felt like shaking out a deadened limb, tingling and prickly as the blood rushed back to it.

“Princess, could you please—Ciri—” The plaintiveness in Morvran’s voice broke any hope of her focusing long enough to port. How he spoke her name desperately, unencumbered, boldly, as if he’d been saying it aloud for ages instead of the constant litany of your highness, princess, my lady on and on and on.

“You can’t fight what I’m after,” she snapped, rounding on him. The moonlight glinted off her raised sword. Her body hummed with impatience, the need to act. She blocked his way forward, standing obstinate, and there was something just as stubborn in his own expression as he halted out of arm’s reach of her. His mouth opened like he wanted to offer objections, protests.

For a wild moment, she debated lurching forward to grab Morvran, porting him alongside. But when she took that idea further, she imagined nothing but disaster. The fight waiting for her was work for witchers, not soldiers.

Ciri was raised to kill monsters.  

The man standing before her, shoulders heaving and face alight with determination (the noble who had been kissing her good sense and willpower to shreds so thoroughly that she could still taste the dry, sweet wine he’d been drinking that night when she ran her tongue over her teeth) was raised to kill things of a more mundane nature—cavalry, footsoldiers. His skills were in the placement of siege weapons and plotting the movement of entire armies, perhaps even organizing the occasional assassination of political adversaries if he was the type for power plays. 

Her work was leagues away from what he knew. Morvran would only get in the way. Or, worse, get himself killed. And then where would she be? Guilt-ridden. Clutching him while he bled out, offering a dying man some paltry comfort after letting him talk her into something as stupid as allowing him to stay by her side and fight, kissing his blood-stained lips until the life left his body, writing in his place to a sister who would never get a letter back from her beloved brother, or having to look her father in the eye and explain why one of his favorite generals was dead— 

Gods, but how had this become so complicated in the span of twenty-four hours was a marvel that only she could perform. 

Ciri silently damned her own idiocy, then cursed again at how Morvran was looking at her like following her to the edge of the cosmos was far preferable than being left behind.

Time. 

How long had it been since the bird had come to fetch her? How many moments had been wasted trying to shrug him off so she could bloody well focus and get down to the business at hand?

That monster would not get away again, not when she had plotted this out so carefully. Not when the last piece of Vesemir sat in some stinking, boggy hovel surrounded by all the horrors of the Crones. 

“You would only get in the way.” The brittleness in her voice quelled his argument. 

She could see it in his expression, obeisance warring with his sense of honor, of his need to see to her safety. Her harshness, the bark and severity of her words, finally sunk in and his face smoothed. It dawned on his face, the realization that this was no idle task or errand, or even a banal sort of threat he could help dispatch. Ciri was bound for deadly peril, something that required her skill and hers alone. 

Morvran looked to forcibly swallow more questions, instead simply asking her, "Do you intend to return?" 

Ciri was already turning to leave before his question made her pause, taking in his face lit by the moon, how his eyes creased with concern. She took in the tightness of his hands forming into fists, making the leather of his gauntlets creak. He was tense. 

Worried. 

It made her think of the last time she had passed into perils and left behind those that she bid not to follow her. 

"Of course," she said, finally turning. Then, aimed over her shoulder as she took one last look at him, “You’re not rid of me yet, Voorhis.” 

Her resolve, how she spoke of him suffering her company longer and this was not yet the end with a bit of her earlier pluck, seemed to lift some of his worries. He even managed a tight smile before she lengthened her steps. 

"Good hunting, princess," he called after her, his voice rising to carry on the wind. Ciri threw a hand up, her only parting gesture as she hurried forward. Her strides ate up the distance between the camp wall and the forest. The moonlight illuminated the way and by the time she dared to look back at him, he was a distant figure that stood unmoving, watching her leave and keeping vigil. 

Wrenching her head back to look forward and mind her footing, she forced her focus on the trees that swayed in the wind. Her fingers fumbled at her belts, finding the pouch that held the decoction of relict oil she’d brewed earlier that day in Benek. She took it out, uncapping and spilling the oil over the quicksilver gleam of her sword, angling it to let fat droplets ooze down the runnel of the blade.

As she pocketed the tin, the notion of what would happen if she didn’t come out of this fight alive crept up on her. 

What if this was her final hunt? 

She had walked alongside the spirit of death countless times, but tonight felt…off. Like there was a sourness about it, festering. As if more was at stake than it had been when she’d advanced into the portal on Tor Gvalch’ca.

If she died tonight, Weavess would continue to roam free, maybe muster up some dark art to restore her sisters back to their bodies. 

And for those that she left behind if death should take her…

Ciri imagined Morvran waiting in vain for her return, his hopes slowly sinking as the day broke with no sign of her. Would a man whose acquaintance of one whole day mourn her? How would he convey such news to her father, to Geralt when he inevitably came looking?

(Perhaps, far away in time, Morvran would take out that strand of her hair bound with cord, and think about the woman he’d kissed under the hunter’s moon. Would he recall how her mouth felt, how her body moved against his? Would he remember how Ciri sounded, the barest of gasps fanning over his lips when he hoisted her up and stepped his body between her legs? Would he wish that fate had spun a different thread for them both? Would the young emperor, her father’s successor, think fondly, wistfully, of the woman in whose place he now sat?) 

Geralt and Yennefer would be bereft (reflecting further on that notion led Ciri to imagining her destiny-chosen father breaking down the gates to the very afterlife to come fetch her back to the world of the living), and she would hate herself for putting the both of them through a permanent loss after having spent so little time reunited.

She thought of all the others who loved her and what they would feel if she became another soul swallowed by the darkness.

Even Emhyr might be moved to some state of despondence, were she to meet her end this night.

Ciri shuddered, shaking herself. 

She could not die, not with so much left to do. So much left unsaid, undone. 

Not when she finally had the chance to live and stop running.

She was far into the fields that surrounded the camp and before her were the tall, gnarled pine trees that signaled the edge of the forest. Behind her, all she saw was the empty stretch of land between her and the camp, Morvran's figure a pinprick on the landscape. The wind set the distant campfires and torches on the hill to flutter. She could smell the woodsmoke, sharpened by the chill in the air.

It made her remember an old folk song sung around Saovine bonfires. Haunting, lilting notes floated through her head as she looked up at the umbral halo of the moon. 

“The moon shines, the dead flies, the dress flutters, flutters…” 

Some distant voice in her memory sang the refrain, husky and sweet. 

Her birth mother’s voice, almost forgotten amidst time. 

(Whenever she thought of mother, it was the sensation of velvets pressed into her cheek as she set her face against the side of a warm thigh, the smell of lilac and gooseberries. Dark, curly hair tickling her nose when Yenna would lean in to turn a page as they read together, Ciri dozing by the sorceress' chair on warm, springy grass. 

Father held similar impressions of a man who was not bound by blood. The bite of alchemical smells heavy in her nose, warm leather and horse. How Geralt’s eyes crinkled at the corners first before that rare, quick smile barely turned up one side of his mouth before it was gone. His big hand steady on her shoulder as he corrected her stance, the sun wavering off the edge of her first steel blade when he had deemed her ready for it.)

She lifted her sword, ignoring the burn in her shoulder as she angled its weight to guard her front, just as Geralt had taught her. There had been hundreds of times when she had suffered worse pains and come out alive on the other side of a fraught fight. 

If her existence had justified any one persevering quality she could clutch onto and claim as her own, it was tenacity. 

Ciri would live to see the sunrise. And many more to come, gods willing.

“Miss, are you not afraid?” Pavetta’s phantom song echoed in her ears.

The air around her seemed to ignite and crackle with the flashfire of her gift. It swarmed her form as she gathered up the strings of time and space, warping them in a brilliance of greens and blues that moved around her like a river’s current. She fixed in her mind’s eye the village of the Crones and felt the world bend around her. Narrower, she bid her blood. 

The tapestry. 

She could see it looming in her mind’s eye. Hair shorn from thousands of heads, woven together to make a grizzly tableau of the Crones busy with their craft. Her fingers tightened on the skateskin grip of Swallow, advancing a step to the right on the dried grass, grounding herself through her footwork which was as familiar, as automatic, as rhythmic to her as breathing.

There, she commanded her powers, feeling it swirl around her. A slow build of concentrated precision to place herself in the right moment, in the right place. 

Ciri felt the full force of the magic in her blood rising, charged with her will. Her power rolled over her, a steady caress as if she floated beneath the surface of some great ocean, looking up at the incandescent light breaching the still, dark waters. 

She had walked that razor’s edge between life and death before, but always returned. 

By this night’s end, and thousands more, the sun would rise to find her standing. 

Time slowed to a crawl. With a brilliant flash, the field stood empty once more.

Chapter Text

Time and space folded around Ciri, surrounding her in that fluid, rushing darkness that flickered once before the world around her reformed. Instead of the smell of bonfires and the sharp, cold air of the field outside of the Nilfgaardian camp, she was swamped by a stuffy heat and the reek of peat fire. 

Then came the odor of rot. It was like taking a brick to the face, the scent heavy in her nose as it clawed its way down her throat, making her want to gag with it. Under the watery stink of the bog that she recalled well enough from her last time in the village, the Crones’ hut had the unmistakable smell of an ossuary—a charnel reek of old blood and decomposing flesh.  

But after a calculated sweep of the room and spotting the hunched, towering shape with its back turned to her, she ignored her revulsion and kept moving. Ciri pulled at her magic again. She thrust her blade forward, lunging to throw her weight behind it as she bid her power to bring her closer.

There wasn’t even a chance to fully form on the other side of the blink before the inhuman screeching reached her ears. When she took shape where she had willed herself, her gwyhyr slid easily through flesh and pulled free like Ciri had done hundreds of times. 

A long, withered arm with a clawed hand swiped for her.

Ciri ported back, but misjudged the space—she crashed through a low table, stumbling back. It upended elixirs and bottles and foul smelling vials that dashed on the ground beneath her boots, smoking ominously and filling the already haze-filled room with more noxious airs. It took everything to keep her balance and not go arse over end onto the stained floor, widening her stance as her injured shoulder throbbed and burned.

“Hen Ichaer,” came the sibilant, shrieking hiss of the Last Crone. 

Ciri stepped one foot back, holding her sword at long point to guard her front and watch the Crone through the smoke. She saw a wound through a rend on Weavess’s filthy robe. The flesh beneath was the same ghastly, pinkish white of a butchered sow’s skin, but now it curdled and bubbled black where her thrust had been straight and true when she put her sword through the relict’s shoulder. 

Weavess’s skeletal hands clutched at her wound, her body erupting into a flurry of movement, lurching across the confined space of the hut towards Ciri with grasping claws. Her reach was so long that the Crone did not even bother stepping over the upended table.

She was many times larger than Ciri, and gods, fast. So fast. Faster than she could remember, and she imagined it had a lot to do with cornering the Crone like some animal in its own den.

Feint!

She thrust out her sword with a one-handed grip. Gnarled, blackened fingernails glanced off the blade, sparks flying before Ciri bent her elbow. 

Diagonal step, carry it through a flash. 

Her swordpoint scraped the roughspun covering Weavess’s gangly, stooped torso as she moved through her footwork like steps to a volta, or a galliard.

Thousands of times. You’ve done this thousands of times, she chanted to herself through the burn of twisting her bad shoulder to finish the feint. Her finishing stroke was too short, merely grazing the underside of the Crone’s long, spindly arm.

Her mind spun through a litany of measuring her stance, adjusting her tempo, and reading the movements of the monster trying to kill her, heart thrumming so hard it was near to bursting in her chest. 

Front guard! 

She cursed herself, almost too slow for the back swipe of the witch’s clawed hand coming down. It was a near thing—she was a hair's breadth away from gaining a scar to match the one on the other side of her face. The Crone’s big hand grasped the dark iron of Ciri’s gwyhyr, the edge biting into the meat of the pale, fleshy palm grit-stained with dirt and blood. 

Ciri panted with the effort of throwing her weight into Weavess’s grip, fighting every inch to keep the monster from shoving it aside and leaving her exposed.

Left, your left is open—

Weavess’s other hand scrambled for her unguarded side. 

The order of the day seemed to entail the Crone trying to bleed her out with her cutting, vicious swipes, or grappling close enough to get her in a hold and tear her limb from limb with her frightening strength.

Ciri ported, Weavess’s clawed grasp on her sword failing as she moved it and her body clear across the room to a space nearest the tapestry, judged the distance from her new position, and waited. 

Baiting her. 

Her gloved hands clutched tight on the skateskin grip of her sword. The pain in her shoulder was drowned out by the adrenaline burning through her veins, the sweat pooling at the small of her back from the ache, the effort, the heat of the muggy, smoky hovel she stood in.

Forward, through space. Again.

Another rapid flourish as the Crone charged her, shrieking, but when she reached the spot Ciri was standing in, she clawed at nothing but air and the wisping trail of her magic, blue-green and verdant. Ciri watched for a half-beat as she blinked behind Weavess, swinging her blade down and—

The sound of flesh and bone rending was incredible. A fleshy, thick noise as her gwyhyr cleaved at an outstretched arm meant to take her by the throat but now grasped only emptiness, separating the limb from the Crone’s body and biting into her ribs as it carried through with its force, its sharpness.

All Weavess drew back was a blackened, smoking stump, gushing dark ichor and smelling faintly of the relict oil that ran slick down Ciri’s blade.

Weavess thrashed around to face her, folding onto her knees and clawing at the wound on her chest, then feebly at the stump of her arm, moaning and shrieking like a dying animal. Ciri had to quickly sidestep to avoid one of the many flailing limbs. The macabre sprouting of extra legs—trophies? Or more appendages—out from the Crone’s skirts were limp and knocking about while her working legs churned at the floor with agonized kicks. 

The stump of Weavess’s shoulder blackened and charred, adding more smoke to an already hazy room.

Then the wailing halted. All that was left was an eerie, quiet rasping and the smell of blood and rotten flesh, then burning. Ciri tightened her grip, steeling her spine and watching carefully as Weavess gained some sense back and lunged with her remaining hand outstretched. 

When the mass of limbs attached to the snarling monster lunged for her legs, Ciri was poised to answer with her sword. Her heel bore down into the floor, spinning as she sidestepped with her gift again. 

She flashed a few strides away from Weavess, but the Crone’s hideous face considered Ciri, then the door with a twisted snarl, seeming to weigh her options and finding survival more appealing than making another attempt on her life. The monster crawled crab-like across the expanse towards the door on one hand and knees, hissing. 

Exits, she thought.

Ciri couldn’t rule out an opening in the recesses of the tall roof. The witch was bound to disperse into a flock of birds again at the first opportunity of open skies and an assured exit, and Ciri would be quite cross with herself for letting this drag out too long.

Not again.

She had fantasized about drawing this out to give it the proper pitch and cadence a fight like this deserved. 

But practicality wore out.

Ciri darted forward, bringing her gwyhyr down through the meat of the Crone’s neck with a heaving sort of shout. It separated clean with a gush of more black ichor sprouting from the gaping viscera of her neck. Grey, wet meat sagged like an emptied bag and a strangled rush of air guttered from the open esophagus the color of spoiled beef. 

The great, sprawling hand clawed at the dirt for another half-beat before the body collapsed. But Ciri could not stop with one clean stroke of the sword separating head from body—she kept on, hacking and thrusting and savaging at the Crone’s shoulders until nothing was left but bits of drab fabric and meat. It flew in chunks to the ground, sizzling with the relict oil that covered her sword.

Each stroke of her gwyhyr revealed more of that graying, strange flesh that did not bleed so much as it oozed. Even the blood could barely be called that; the ichor that came from the Crone’s body slugged out as much as it flowed, black and tar-like as it flung off of her blade and onto Ciri’s clothes, spattering her face and hair. 

It smelled rotten, foul. And it didn’t bear any resemblance or sensation to the blood she had felt on her skin in all of her years of being covered in the stuff; this blood was not hot, but ice-like.

It reminded her of when she had cut down Whispess, then stuck her sword into Brewess beneath the great oak amidst the dark cavern, lit only by the cauldron’s fire. Cold water sloshing over the tops of her boots. 

Back then, she’d thought the flecks of blood touching her face were mere droplets of that same cold, dark water roiled up from thrashing through the shin-deep, stagnant pool. Now, feeling it fleck onto her face as she cut up the last Crone until she was naught but an indiscernible pile of cloth and flesh, she knew the blood in their veins ran as cold as water drawn from some dark, lightless part of the earth.

Ciri did not stop until her shoulder began to throb in complaint with each movement she made, bringing down the blade until it caught on the knobby bits of spine and stuck.

She wrenched her sword free with a savage sound torn from her throat, flicking it to let the splatter of gore and blood run off the tip and patter onto the ground. Then all was quiet in the hut save for the sound of her labored breathing and the guttering sound of candle flames burning down the wick. 

With one table’s contents upturned, it was darker than how she arrived, many candles scattered and snuffed out on the floor in the commotion. It leant the space an eerie gloom, making the hovel seem as closed in and dark as the insides of a coffin, especially with how much space the Crone’s body took up on the floor. 

Ciri had to pick her way over the sprawl of many limbs, one detached arm courtesy of her cleave and then the many legs attached to the Crone. The set at the front of Weavess’s body was smaller than the legs that sprawled beneath them, worn like a lady’s jeweled girdle dangling from her waist. 

She forced herself to not look—the legs made accessories were too small to be a grown woman’s, the knees knobby with youth and the skin smooth under all the dirt and scrapes accumulated on the pale, gray flesh. 

Instead she focused down at the head she’d cleaved off, a pointed hat crumpled under its weight and eyepatch askew to show nothing but a scabby hole. She watched as flies crawled across the relict’s strange, spider-like set of red eyes, already filmy in death.

Ciri felt sweat sticking her shirt and breastband to her skin, her heart pounding in her ears and keeping in time with her panting breath. When she finally looked at the expression frozen on that dead face through the haze of bloodlust fogging up the edges of her vision, she noticed Weavess died as shocked as her sisters.

She punted the head with the instep of her boot. It felt good to watch it roll unsteadily like a lopsided children’s ball across the room to lodge under the tapestry. Air blew out of her mouth, her pulse slowing as she bid herself calm. 

Her ears pricked at the sounds coming from without. Wind in the trees, the croaking of frogs despite the chill of the season. No rasping of water hags or the gurgles from drowners just yet.

The tapestry was only a few feet away and tallow candles littered the floor and surfaces nearest to it, casting the room in a dim, smoky light. Blood the color of ink ran off the edge of her blade and the large, withered arm sprawled just near the tips of her boots. 

That’s a job well done, she thought, reaching up a trembling hand to pull her damp hair back from her face. Her glove came back stained with the Crone’s black blood. Deed is done, quest fulfilled. 

At least, in part. She looked across the space at the fabric of the tapestry—if she could even call it fabric—hanging there within arm’s reach. 

She didn’t dare touch it, despite its best efforts to sing to her, wheedling and cajoling Ciri to do just that. Voices hissed in her mind, bidding her to reach her hand out. They compelled her.

Touch us…

…blood of the traitoress…

…a seed which will not sprout but burst into flame…

It was the words of the Crones reaching for her ears like wormy, frayed threads of string. With this sort of proximity, standing by a tapestry made of living malice, Ciri was awed at how alive it felt, how reasonable the request seemed in the moment before she swatted away the seductive thought of abiding by the tapestry’s demands like she would the buzzing of a gnat around her ears. 

Such insidious power, but then again, it was made of things from the living; the tapestry was festooned with the webs of hair that anchored it to the walls, oily braids and shriveled scalps dotting the ropes like Yule garlands. 

All was just as Geralt had described it when he recounted to her what he saw inside of the Crones’ hut. Her last visit where the Crones bestowed her their dubious version of hospitality (considering they were eagerly discussing chopping off her feet for the stew before sending for Imlerith to come collect her, as logic dictated that she need not be whole for whatever designs the Dearg Ruadhri had on her) was solely relegated to an outbuilding, not in here. 

Not in the heart of their desolate village with this…thing breathing in her face. 

There was a confusion of antlers arranged into a strange chandelier over the tapestry. Candles, dotting every surface near it, dripped wax onto the floors and cast everything in a smoky, greasy glow of burning tallow.

Tallow, Ciri thought, taking in the reek of fat burning. 

Fat made of animals. 

Innocuous enough, but the smell seemed…wrong compared to the burning of goose fat that was pleasant to her, like a holiday meal cooking just behind a kitchen door. 

This was a thicker smell of burning fat, cloying.

Her gorge rose up violently. Bile, hot and acid-like, hit the back of her throat as she considered the many curios scattered about the space, macabre bric-a-brac lit by so many candles, mounds of them, pooling into each other as they melted into every surface they were set upon. 

Poppets made of straw and sackcloth stained with old blood. 

Teeth. 

Bones of birds and other small creatures. 

Rusted knives. 

Charms made of feathers and twine and twigs.

As Ciri’s eyes caught on bones sitting amongst the candle-lit tables, she saw a skull. Her mind almost skipped over it with how commonplace it seemed in this den of horrors, but this one was remarkable in that it was so small that it could fit in the palm of her hand. 

Fresh, for children’s bones were not as hardy to the elements as adults. 

It gleamed like a pearl.

Looking at that tiny skull and processing exactly what it was brought on something that was inevitable: namely the loss of everything in her stomach. She was sick over the floorboards, the scent of rotting flesh and dirt and burning hair and fat—

Ciri scrubbed the back of her mouth with a gloved fist and funneled all her sorrow, all of her rage into tearing the place apart. Never minding the sounds of ripping open drawers, upending crates, searching every nook of the hut, making so much raucous noise that she was bound to bring down every drowner and hag that lived in this bog.

She began at the front near the door, pulling down tables and rummaging with shaking hands in wooden boxes. Contents were upended near Weavess’s corpse, the metallic pings of pins and nails hitting the floor and scattering. Then pots cracking and smearing the floor with dyes, her feet tracking colored prints all over the space as she searched. 

What if it isn’t here? 

She banished the thought, her vision blurred at the edges as she continued to plunge on through the drawers, tables, and other objects scattered on the floor. Her search passed by fruitless with a full half-hour of growing panic until it finally turned up.

It would’ve been missed had she not heard its chain rasping across wood when she knocked over the box it was secreted in. When the medallion’s familiar weight dropped into her palm as she tipped the contents of the box out, it felt like holding a miracle, wrought of metal and memories.

Ciri put her back to the rough-hewn wooden wall. Her fingers tangled in the chain of the wolf’s head medallion. Tears wet the leather of her gloves, falling soft and soundless from her face. 

A giggle escaped her, then a laugh. 

It rang high and shrill in the closed, murky space.

She clutched the medallion and felt the metal warm in the palm of her glove. There was a faint hum from it with its proximity to the tapestry. 

“I’m still hunting for your copy of Brother Adalbert’s Bestiary, you know,” she said thickly to Vesemir’s medallion. It was all she had of him after his body was eaten up by the funeral pyre’s flames. “Any hints as to its whereabouts would be appreciated. Eskel and I are going to draw straws for it when it turns up. Lambert’s already claimed that old stumpy hat of yours. He looks so stupid in it.” Her voice quavered, a laugh bubbling at the thought. 

The rubies of the wolf’s head twinkled back at her. She pressed her mouth to it, kissing it, tasting silver and remembering how Vesemir had always smelled of the hearthfire at Kaer Morhen and the acrid tang of blade oil. Her throat clogged up with even more hot tears.

The chain looped easily over her head and when the medallion’s weight fell heavy on her breastbone, she felt…whole. More herself than she had been since it was taken from her.

Job’s not done, child, a voice like Uncle Vesemir’s rang in her head, reminding her of the work still at hand. 

Resolve steeled her spine. She pushed off from the wall, maneuvering around the chaotic mess strewn on the floor towards the tapestry. The Crones’ static expressions did not move—their eyes stayed cast down at their ghastly craft depicted in the scene.

But then she could feel them screaming when she lifted her gwyhyr. The firelight of the candles made the steel gleam like a shard of the sun, and that screaming crescendoed into such a horrendous noise when she made the first cut. Then another. Swinging again and again as the wailing pierced the air until it quelled into silence. Cut quiet, like the hissing of a serpent after its head had been chopped off. 

The edges where her blade had touched the tapestry smoked like Weavess’s flesh when she had carved it up. The Crones' dying wails had rivaled the sound that came from Ciri when her blood took hold. She split the thing clean in half and then quartered the pieces that hung limp on the wall. 

Her warpath of pulling this terrible place down around her ears didn’t end there.

Ciri snatched up candles, throwing them into the thatching overhead. 

More were dumped onto the floor, some flames snuffing out but more catching on the pools of liquids that had poured from upturned bottles, turning the floor into a lake of fire with a sudden hissing and a burst of heat that was near to singing her clothes.

Burn.

She wanted it all to burn. 

Then, there would be the calm that came with it, the peace, as every fiber and shard of timber and bone and ghastly object housed within these walls would be incinerated, cleansed from this terrible place. 

The tiny skull that sat nearest to the tapestry was snatched up, cradled under her arm. It felt like such a delicate thing. If she put effort into it, she could crush it under her bootheel with its fragility.

Ciri leaned back against the wall, crumpling until she sat on the floor and discarded her messy blade to lay beside her. She watched the fire climb up to the rafters, cutting off the path to the door, eating at the edges of the tapestry. The smell of burning hair was thick in her nose as flames crawled across it, erasing the faces of the Crones in an instant for all of time.

Weavess was aflame, now. Her skirts blackened as they too caught fire and charred the flesh of those small, slender limbs that hung like an ornament between the Crone’s legs. 

Ciri could’ve sat in that place forever, watching the fire creep up and lick at her skin until it torrefied and burned. She listlessly considered the skull that sat in her lap, feeling all her strength and earlier vigor sap out of her. 

She couldn't guess at how many children died here. Part of her wished she could spend time searching the buildings for remains to inter somewhere decent, anywhere but this absolute hell. But intuition told her that there wasn’t much left to find besides what sat in her lap, looking at her with black holes for eyes.

The Crones had consumed everything down to the marrow. 

She clutched the medallion around her neck and felt the metal warm in the palm of her glove.

How many parents in Velen had sent their own blood to the Crones, for lack of food and too many mouths to feed? Or just to placate them on request?

It was easier for the parents than doing the honors themselves—foist the children off on the Crones, stuff their fingers in their ears and pretend that they were being treated like little princes and princesses, sent off to live in a world spun of sugar and fairy attendants forever. 

Geralt had told her everything the night after they’d arrived in Novigrad from Velen, worn ragged by their respective battles on Bald Mountain. They had recounted their run-ins with the Crones to each other before they had been reunited on the Isle of Mists. 

After Geralt gave his side of the story, part of Ciri wished she’d stayed ignorant. His retelling of his time in Crookback Bog had turned even her stomach. It was physically marked in Geralt’s voice, a monotone broken by something akin to regret.

“I couldn’t do anything for the kids,” he’d said to her when they were deeper in their cups in the Chameleon. “It was either the spirit trapped in the tree or the Crones. I chose the evil I knew versus the evil I didn’t have a damn inkling about. If I had the chance to do it over, I’d do it differently, but there’s not a lot of shit to say about going back and changing the past.”

He took another drink of his ale. “It’s done.”

She doubled over the skull and put her swimming head between her knees, clutching it close, coiling her body over the skull like she was trying to protect it and her soft parts from harm. 

The futility of trying to protect a child that was far too gone for her to save from the cruel acts already wrought on it.

It could've been Gretka's skull laying in her lap, had Ciri not stumbled upon the girl.

Out, her mind screamed.

She had to get it out of here.

Around her, the fire was crawling up the walls and the smoke was becoming unbearable. It wormed its way across the last bit of torn tapestry, and Ciri thought the otherworldly screams that wailed from it once more were like music before they were silenced. She sat and waited until it was completely burned up, smoke filling up the space, black as pitch. 

She could hear the drowners gargling and lurching about outside, then the telltale scratching and banging at the door of a water hag, its voice rage-filled at losing the last of its mistresses. 

Mindless thralls with all their strings cut and no one to puppet them, only driven by the smell of the blood in Ciri's veins and the sound of her pulse heavy in their ears.

By dawn, this place would be a smoking patch of black, blighted ground surrounded by crumbling outbuildings and nothing more.

When the fire had almost reached the tips of her boots and it was well assured that the hut would burn down to cinders by the sun’s first light, Ciri picked up her discarded sword and blinked to somewhere more pleasant, which was a stretch when she considered Velen being any place considered remotely beautiful. The whole region seemed like a land without any pleasantness. 

But she drew on all of her memories of places in Velen that seemed far away from the bog and all together peaceful. And there she chose a spot by the Pontar where there was a great birch tree. She dug out a shallow grave with her own hands, laying the skull to rest before making a cairn over it with flat, heavy river rocks. She whispered a prayer to Melitele to watch over the little soul that could now finally seek respite, their remains interred. 

And there Ciri sat until exhaustion willed her back to the camp.

Chapter Text

As it sometimes was the case, Ciri’s ability to manifest where she willed it was more of an art than an exact science. One might aim to steer the prow of a boat onto a particular stretch of shore, but a river’s current has a mind of its own even if one's hand was steady on the tiller. 

The results were varied when she considered her body as the ship and time and space itself her river—lately, she had an innate command of it. Perhaps her recent mastery was some latent survival mechanism at play because Ciri knew if she misstepped with her gift, she could end up very dead or in an imprecise location that would just as well kill her. 

But if she was incredibly exhausted, or injured, that natural ease she possessed as of late dissipated like mist on a sunny morning.

This was one of those unfortunately uncoordinated instances of using her gift.

One moment, she was by the moonlit Pontar, standing over a freshly dug grave before she willed herself back to the Nilfgaardian camp. The next second she was stumbling, the soles of her boots scrambling on the rocky scree covering the hillside near to where Morvran’s pavilion stood. Her heart dropped right into her arse when she started slipping, her mind barely processing that she had judged her port rather short of where she had intended. Ciri made an adjustment in the span of a heartbeat and blinked to the top of the hill. 

This time, she materialized at the picket line, closest to the pair of horses they’d made use of earlier that day. The beasts were startled, pacing at the picket line with their heads tossing, but the hobbles and their halters tied off to rope kept them from bolting and causing any more commotion. 

When she looked over her shoulder across the moonlit hilltop at raised voices coming from only a little ways away, she saw a pair of armored sentries at the edge of the hillside. They were looking down the dark slope, chattering with each other as they observed the spot where Ciri had almost gone head over heels to meet her unfortunate end with a broken neck near some poor footsoldier’s tent. 

Ciri swiftly concealed herself between the horses after ducking under the picket line, staying out of sight until the sentries returned to post and spared her any pointed inquiries. The shadows concealed her despite the area being lit up like day with the full moon high in the night sky. 

She held her face between her hands, resting her brow against Cantarella’s warm shoulder, wondering about Geralt and Yennefer and even Emhyr and how incredibly cross they’d all be with her if that was how she went, for how stupid would it be to die from a misjudged teleportation than anything else.

Exhausted, she leaned heavier against Cantarella, practically fusing herself to the mare’s side. The horse’s hide twitched against her cheek. 

She spent a long moment with her face buried in the pretty courser’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar, comforting smell of a warm horse. Behind her, Nemrod was standing close enough that his flank pressed into her back, and Ciri was nearly squished between the pair of animals as they settled back to their piles of fodder and lolled carelessly against what they no doubt viewed as a very strange human standing between them.

When Ciri pulled her face back after listening to the sentries plod off to their posts, their garbled Nilfgaardian reaching her ears dismissing the sounds she had made to be “some form of blasted animal”, she blanched at the sight of blood rubbing off on the mare’s previously spotless gray coat. 

Scuffing it out with her dirty sleeve made it worse, smearing the dried patches of blood that had flaked off with some of the wetter bits until it was all a smear on the horse’s flank. 

Ciri let out a perfunctory “fuck” under her breath and resolved to deal with it at first light. It would be the worst sort of form for Morvran to walk out and find his prized courser covered in blood.

When her elbow nudged his flank by accident, Nemrod flattened his ears and craned his neck to look at her, chewing his hay with an air of consternation.

“What?” she asked the vexed-looking destrier. “Peevish I’m so close, aren’t you?”

The stallion snorted back at her. 

She didn’t chance spending another second within biting range of Morvran’s horse, as the animal seemed inclined to only one particular human and Ciri was most certainly not him.

The horses went back to their fodder.

Her feet dragged the ground, exhaustion stealing into her limbs as she put one shoulder under the rope to duck it, then the other. 

There was no sentry to challenge her on the way into the pavilion, which did not surprise her. The entry and egress to this area of the camp stood behind at least a handful of guarded checkpoints.

Illuminated by the moonlight spilling in through the tent flaps, the large table that stood in the main room was back to its normal state—maps and figurines versus serving as a dining table for the officer’s meal earlier that evening. A nearby brazier radiated warmth, but the coals were well on the way to dying for lack of a fire in it. 

Further in, through the maze of painted canvas walls that made the marquee seem more like a functional set of rooms than a temporary structure, a single candle burned on the desk.

Ciri had no concept of how much time had passed since she left the camp to kill Weavess. Certainly a number of hours judging by the position of the moon, and it was late enough in the night for Morvran Voorhis to have fallen asleep at his letters. 

He was slumped over his desk, one arm folded in and his face tucked against it. No armor, jacket, or ruff to adorn him in formal uniform—the general was merely clad in his white shirt, breeches, and boots. A dagger sat near his hand and an unsheathed saber she’d not seen before leaned against the arm of his chair. 

There was already another chair pulled up to the desk opposite his own. A seat no doubt used by Derghoff or Gregor or any one of the other men who had stayed up late after all the pipe smoking and card playing abated and the officers of Alba Division found their respective cots. 

She settled into the chair after unbuckling the strap to her empty scabbard, looping the leather over the back of it. Her blade, still caked with dry blood and relict oil, ended up on the floor beside her seat with her discarded gloves once she’d peeled them from her trembling hands. Her spattered corset worn over her shirt was unfastened with her jangling belts, dropped on the floor. All of it could wait until the morning to be scrubbed free of blood.

A green bottle sat corked within arm’s reach on the desktop, two goblets of cut crystal stained red with the leavings of an earlier drink shared between comrades. Ciri, thoroughly at home in the tent by now, reached across and availed herself of Morvran’s wine.

Uncorking the bottle with her teeth felt a bit crass, but she was too weary to wrench at it with her fingers. And they shook terribly whenever she tried it—unsteady with the comedown of near-euphoric energy at making such a kill and burning down the Crones’ hut, bookended by the shock and horror of burying what was left of a little child. 

The spongy give of the cork between her teeth, the squeak of it coming loose from the neck of the bottle, then the soft pop as the air escaped behind it was like listening to a rather moving piece of music.

She didn’t even bother with using one of the discarded goblets. Straight from the source, Ciri pulled on the neck of the bottle with her lips, knocking back what amounted to a generous swig, and then let it hang heavy between her fingers as she put the bottle down between her spread knees. It was a dry wine, but on its heels was an afternote of something sweet, like strawberries. 

Bliss. 

She raised the bottle again, chasing the loose-limbed tranquility it promised.

It reminded her of how he tasted earlier.

Ah, then it all came crashing back in. A shock ran up her spine and she almost sputtered on the next sip she was taking, pressing her fingers to her lips as wine beaded and pattered into her lap.

Blasted reality reared its ugly countenance once more. 

There she sat, in the candlelit gloom of a general’s tent, in the heart of a Nilfgaardian encampment, watching the man she’d been kissing only a few hours ago.

The man who was, by all accounts, her father’s protege and heir presumptive should she slip off down the Path and force his hand at finding another to fill the role of successor.

The man who was as polished and ready to assume his role as Ciri was untried, untested, and so thoroughly the opposite of what was no doubt expected of an empress.

The man who, at this angle, in the low candlelight, she found handsome in the peace of sleep. 

It had snuck up on her, Ciri realized. 

The way her eyes drew across the lines of his face, finding them altogether proud even at rest, but in sleep his mouth was lax and lacking the tight control he exerted over his expression. No more mild, pleasant smiles aimed at her or that bored affectation she had seen him employ when dealing with others—what was left for her to consider was  an aristocratic profile contrasted with an almost boyish softness around his mouth and eyes.

Pretty.

“Shit,” she sighed quietly, finding no better word to put to the situation. Ciri threw an arm over her eyes and set the bottle of wine to the side of her chair. 

There went any shred of serenity or peace she was expecting after killing the last Crone. Vesemir’s reclaimed medallion was a heavy, reassuring weight on her chest, but even that did not ground her in the moment.

This frisson of attraction was akin to stepping knee deep into a manure pile. It added a complicated wrinkle on an already labyrinthine situation. There had to be a rule or regulation around this written down in some stodgy imperial codex (article IV, section X do not swive your generals) to not muck up what would be a working relationship between herself and a subordinate, a subject—

She should grab her things and leave her letter for Emhyr on his desk, port to Lindenvale’s inn and make a plan to collect Gretka from Crow’s Perch at first light. 

Depositing the letter for Morvran’s attention while he slept would be perfunctory, leaving absolutely no fanfare attached to the act. 

Just as she preferred it. 

She could get it over with and accomplish the second thing she came to Velen to do: answering her father in the affirmative, doing what was right even if it was at the expense of her own personal liberty she’d fought tooth and nail for since she was a frightened child, running from a burning city and weaned on run, fight, survive. 

Shucking the letter on Morvran’s desk and leaving him to deal with it would be a bit cowardly and avoidant, yes, (rude, to put another word to it—she could spare him at least a note for his hospitality and kindness, but how was she to do that when the man himself was sleeping on top of all the readily available parchment and quills like a dragon on a hoard) but it would save her having to deal with…

Ciri’s sigh was heavy as her head hit the back of the chair. She wanted to flap one hand about, gesturing to the universe as her sole audience at all of this, as if the general sleeping across from her presented a rather complex problem.

Which, in fact, he did. She couldn’t very well get into it with him, no matter the attraction. 

She peeled her eyelids open to stare sullenly at the canvas ceiling overhead.

…could I?

Some sensible part of her still in residence within her buzzing skull gave the rest of her a sharp kick in the hindquarters to stop spiraling down a path of suppositions and what ifs, as the present situation was this: Ciri, covered in blood, sitting in Morvran’s tent. 

She was tired. There was no good exit strategy, Ciri was no craven, and there wasn’t anything strictly wrong with her having been kissed (and kissed so well) by Morvran. 

It could all be chalked up to a mere dalliance, a line she would take care to not tread across again. She would wait until the morning, say a proper goodbye, avail herself of his bath again, deposit the letter for Emhyr to the general’s keeping, and then leave. 

Ciri took another draught of wine, letting her head fall back against the chair again and allowing the rest of her body to unwind. She tried to empty her mind out, but it might as well have been bailing out a rowboat with only her hands, the bottom of it completely blown out and filling up fast. 

Ciri…

Someone was calling her out of the depths of a dreamless sleep. 

“Ciri,” came the voice again, soft in her ear. Urgent. A deep, masculine pitch and close enough to stir at the strands of hair feathering against her ear. Her face was burrowed in the crook of her arm, the smooth surface of wood warm against a cheek. 

She lifted her injured arm from where it lay like lead in her lap, swatting at where the voice was coming from. Her mouth was dry and tasted of the long sips of wine she’d drank earlier, draining about a third of the bottle before giving it up when the drink had done its job and lulled her busy mind into a state of sleep. 

None of that muzziness remained in her head as the disorientation of sleep faded. The air stirred at her side, as if whoever she was flailing at sidestepped her half-hearted attempts to shoo them off. 

“G’way,” she mumbled into her inner elbow, her voice slurred with tiredness.

“Cirilla, I’ll see you lifted out of this chair and brought to the surgeon if you don’t rouse.”

She brought her head up and squinted blearily at the face illuminated by the moonlight. The candle on the desk had long since burned out, the canvas-sided room lit only by the waning moonlight coming from the front of the tent. 

Morvran looked as concerned as his tone implied—tight, worried lines creased at the corners of his pale blue eyes. He crouched by her chair, one bare hand clenching the carven arm until his knuckles blanched. His face was level with her shoulder and he was looking up at her face with something like tightly reined-in panic.

“What time is it?” Ciri sat up, her spine and bruised shoulder protesting at the motion. Her body was in knots—arse dead from sitting in a chair for hours, spine bent awkward from slouching forward to sleep on the desk. Then, as an afterthought to him, “Don’t Cirilla me.” 

He ignored her grouchiness, all perfunctory business as he urged her to sit up with a gentle hand against the shoulder closest to him. “Half past four when I checked the water clock. Straighter, please.” 

She complied, no doubt looking like some irate owl being roused from its sleep, wide-eyed and befuddled. Morvran stripped back the collar of her blood-soaked shirt, now a vague rust color instead of creamy white linen.  

Ah. 

That would be where his concern was coming from—namely how it looked like she had been dragged through a blood-soaked battlefield.

Backwards and forwards. 

Ciri let her head fall back against the chair with a soft thunk, shutting her eyes and allowing Morvran to check her over. 

Some small, secret part of her curled up like a contented cat in a sunbeam at being fussed over like this, though she gave no outward sign of it.

When all Morvran found was unblemished skin near the worst of the splatter covering her upper half, taking care to go no further than the top of her breast band, he let out a rush of air he seemed to be holding in, thin and high through his pursed lips. 

He sat back on his boot heels, letting one hand fall between his spread knees while the other went to pinch the bridge of his nose. The general shut his eyes like a headache was building behind them and pressed a thumb into the corner of an eye to stave it off.

“Ciri, you’re covered…'' he halted, his voice strained. Then, “This is the second night in a row you’ve been covered in blood.”

“It’s a habit of mine you’ll come to think commonplace if you hang around me for long enough. Comes with the trade. But no, it’s not mine,” she reassured him, pulling the shirt from her skin. It was plastered in places, uncomfortably sticky, making her face pull into a grimace. 

“Then whose?” Morvran asked, sounding as baffled as he looked—wide-eyed and waving his hand at her front. 

It was, in fact, an extraordinary amount of blood now that Ciri looked down at her clothes and noted it. Her shirt was bound for the midden heap and the spare one in her satchel was bound to take its place. Her pants were leather, so no harm done there after a good rinse and oiling. 

She looked sidelong at her belts, gloves, and gwyhyr where they lay on the floor beside her chair, coated in viscera. Her blade especially was in a state that would make Geralt affect that slight tic at the corner of one slit-pupiled eye. “Ever heard the tales of the Ladies of the Wood?”

Both of Morvran’s hands fell between his knees as he set his elbows on his legs. He considered her, his mouth pursing. “Vague summaries and local legends from the aldermen. Superstitions.”

“Well,” Ciri said, plucking at her dirty shirt for emphasis. “I’m fairly covered in the last superstition’s lifesblood, so you can stop thinking of them as the fables of backwood yokels.” 

Morvran’s look of concern dropped, taken by surprise at her words, then a full, hearty, chest-deep laugh erupted from him. Ciri smiled back, enjoying how it lit up his face from within, how nice it was to see him smile at her japes. 

“Your agenda is quite exhausting,” he told her once the amusement had mellowed into a quiet, comfortable silence between them. He went to one knee rather than keep on crouching, within arm’s reach of her as he occupied the space by her chair. “You’re fresh from defeating a world-ending peril, so now you must make do with the local threats to the populace of Velen to keep preoccupied?”

She stretched in her seat, grinding her teeth at the sensation of pain coming from her shoulder. 

What she wouldn’t give for one of Geralt’s alchemical wonders to make it all go away, or Yenna’s incantations spoken over her bruised flesh. She would never admit it out loud to Morvran, but she had quite overdone it tonight with her work to kill Weavess on an already injured shoulder. “A woman has to keep herself occupied. Besides, a witcher’s work suits me quite well.”

“You certainly seem at home in your current state. And, you've gotten your medallion back. Or at least I think that is a wolf’s head underneath all of that gore.” 

Ciri looked down at herself, feeling her nose scrunch at the sight of blood on her cheeks, and who knew where else she couldn’t immediately observe. “Yes, though I’d avail myself of your washroom until the guards are up and can fetch hot water for a real bath.”

“Here,” he said, standing up to walk off to the side, bringing back a washrag wet with cold water from a standing basin nearby. Ciri mopped at her face, sighing at the feel of blood coming off where it was caked to her hairline, the bridge of her nose. 

“I must’ve looked a sight,” she said after the worst of it was off of her face and neck, standing to refresh the cloth with a soak from the basin until the water ran pink. Vesemir’s medallion got a dunk and a scrub until the silver glinted as bright as the rubies set into its eye sockets, then it went back around her dripping neck. 

There was a larger task at hand to dunk the whole of her head into a tub and wash out the blood from her hair, but that was a task for first light versus stumbling around in a dark tent to manage it. 

Morvran stood facing her when Ciri rejoined him near the desk, a pensive expression on his face. He leaned a hip against the edge of it, half of his expression illuminated by the moon and the other half cast in shadow. 

“I hesitated to touch you without your expressed knowledge—one must respect the dangers of waking a woman considered armed and deadly. And covered in blood,” Morvran added, crossing his arms over his chest. “There was a moment when I thought you slumped dead across this desk and I’d slept through your arrival and exsanguination like some hapless fool. Imagine my relief when I saw your breath stirring my quills.” 

It sounded like a weight had been lifted off of him and he was still riding the coattails of some euphoric revelation at having found her whole, unharmed, and in her usual state of impish, teasing ease with him. 

“Yes, I suppose that would be quite awkward, wouldn’t it? Waking up to my corpse?”

Ciri’s jape seemed to land somewhere flat this time around. It earned her no sort of amused laugh from him, or even a smile. In fact, the notion seemed to obliterate any of his earlier cheer and take the wind right out of his sails. 

Morvran looked at her with that solemn, beleaguered sort of look and simply said, “Don’t even jest.”

It was enough to make her heart catch in her chest. 

He cared.

Chapter Text

There was no masking Morvran’s care for her with any courtly airs. It was plain enough for her to see, written across his face. 

Their eyes locked, a distinct softening of his gaze that preceded the tension in his broad shoulders unwinding, as if released from an immense weight that had been pressing down on them upon waking and finding her in this current state.

Ciri recognized it plainly for what it was; he was relieved at finding her alive and well and it was more than an obligatory or patriotic concern expected of a Nilfgaardian general towards the emperor’s daughter. 

Whatever limits she set for herself were wilting in the face of how Morvran was looking at her. 

She didn’t want to say goodbye, nor shove the letter into his hand and remove herself from him. 

There was no compulsion left to flee, to escape the complications of what staying would do. She didn’t heed the warning bells of how impactful this choice would be were she to reach out and touch him like she wanted to. 

Her fingers fairly burned with the urge to sweep across the sharp line of his jaw, press into his lips, and feel that softness of them against her skin once more. She tightened her hands into fists to hang at her hips, her nails biting into the flesh of her palms.

Only a mere arm’s reach of space separated them. 

Morvran regarded her with an expression that was quickly cooling, shuttering to its usual polite reservedness as the silence stretched. His gaze shied off her face, looking about the space and unfolding his crossed arms to let them rest by his sides.

Ciri wanted to stay, if only for a little while. 

If there was a consequence to be paid for what she was about to do, Ciri decided it was well worth catching some of that softness that Morvran had been gazing at her with, bottle it up within the confines of a memory, and let it keep her company on nights where life seemed as flinty, harsh, and cruel like this one had been thus far. 

“Morvran.”

Invoking his given name was like chanting a spell. 

Ciri loved how it tripped off her tongue for the first time, pleasant-like. The sound of it from her lips ensorcelled him, drawing his eyes back towards hers as he stood shocked, still. His mouth parted and she watched him wet his lips, his throat moving as he worked to compose a word in reply.

It made her feel powerful, a heady rush that ran electric under the surface of her skin. She could freeze him to the spot by invoking his name, again and again. A bit of strange, wonderful magic that made her stomach flip and her breath draw shallow, heat squeezing around her ribcage and forcing her blood to flow hotter, quicker. 

His hands fisted, like he wanted to reach for her, but bit back on the impulse like she’d done before.

Not anymore, Ciri decided, throwing rationality and good sense to the wind where it belonged. 

She closed the distance between them, reaching to cradle his jaw. When she thumbed where it joined his neck, she felt the hot, heavy pulse of blood rushing beneath the surface. His pale eyes drifted shut at her touch, and the whole of his body seemed to lean into her hand when it drifted up to cup his cheek. His fingers closed over her wrist, making it seem bird-like and fragile in his heavy grip. 

Ciri had broken their steady orbit with her impulsivity to touch instead of look—rather than circle each other, they crashed together, frantic and grasping. His other hand closed over the back of her neck, holding her as she pressed their bodies together, kissing him. 

She could feel the warmth of his chest through the thin layers of their shirts, and he seemed to dismiss her blood-soaked state as a mere triviality, for it was a small detail to have her in his arms with the way he held her against him, kissing her senseless again. The intensity of it was enough to make her head spin, the rush of air expelled out of her lungs and breathed into his, sighing as Morvran deepened the kiss. 

Cloves, red wine. 

An intoxicating flavor that she wanted more of with each taste of his mouth.

Morvran’s thumb circled over the bumps of her spine, running up the back of her neck until his fingers tangled in her hair tie and pulled the mess of it loose to cascade down her back. 

The blood-spattered strands of ashen white spilled through his fingers, and Ciri would swear the moan she let out wasn’t her own voice when she felt his rough fingers slide against the back of her head, for when had she ever sounded so unbridled and shameless?

It felt delicious, how his hand moved against her scalp, carding through her hair like it was a finer silk that he’d never touched in his life and at any instant it could be snatched away from his grasp. She fisted her other hand in his shirt while he kept her wrist tight in his grip, holding onto the fabric as a mooring line as the world tilted, spinning dizzy around her. 

The sense of vertigo could not be the wine, nor her exhaustion, because every last mote of those things fogging up Ciri’s mind had been obliterated with how clear-headed she was when he kissed her. 

Kissing Morvran brought the world into such a sharp, rushing focus that her heart roared in her ears and the room seemed to pitch under the soles of her boots.

Amidst the heat of kissing each other, she’d managed to crowd him back against the edge of his desk. She had only to put both hands out to grip it and he would be trapped between her arms. 

Ciri pulled her hand free from his grip and draped herself over his shoulders, touching him in turn, feeling the heat of his skin when she cupped the nape of his neck, how his heart beat a tattoo against her palm when it skated over the breadth of his clothed chest. 

The heat of him was incredible in such a cold space where the autumn air stole into the tent, past the braziers, to nip at their skin. She clung to that heat he put off, sought it —her fingers inched under the hem of his shirt, feeling the muscles of his stomach bunch up under her fingertips, corded and jumping as she ran her nails over him. 

Then lower, reaching between the waist of his trousers to let his cock fill up her hand. She thought his knees might buckle when she stroked him, feeling him harden in her fist. 

Ciri imagined how good it would feel to kick out of her pants, prop herself up on his desk, and fuck him. The thought of it—the mere fantasy of taking him between her thighs and letting him fill her up—ignited something in her blood and made her ache, slick heat where her thighs rubbed together as she fidgeted, restless with the want of it.

Morvran sagged against her and broke off from her mouth, panting. He pressed his brow into her own, and through her half-lidded eyes she watched his face screw up and his teeth bare in a grimace, like he was pained by this, and Ciri was half-mad with the impulse, the want to kiss him again, to chase away all the discomforts, each of the doubts that plagued them both. 

She pulled her hand free of his clothes, clutching the collar of his shirt with shaking, white-knuckled hands, pressing close to him where she could feel the ridge of his cock tight against her stomach.

There was a flutter of uncertainty in Morvran’s whisper, his mouth a scant few inches away from her parted lips as he stuttered a halted word before he managed, “We shouldn’t…”

“Probably not,” she agreed, her voice sounding distant amidst the pounding of her heart in her ears. 

This was a bad idea, a paramount foolhardy notion to surmount all other ill-advised decisions in her life. 

Ciri was about to cross that same line that she had only drawn up for herself mere hours ago, crossing that border into territory that could muddle up the waters of multiple political landscapes, and drop the proverbial swordpoint right into her foot before she even had a chance to make her first real muck-up as a head of state, but here she went, letting off steam with someone who might well fall into her chain of command one day.

Her unsteady hand reached up to card through his hair like he had hers, pulling its tie loose until it fell unbound around his flushed face.

“But I want it,” she said, speaking so close that their lips almost brushed while her words spilled out. His hair feathered against her cheek. “Don’t you?”

“You’re to be…” he stopped himself, his hands tightening where they rested on her waist. There was a tension to him, like he wanted to push her from him, to remove that immediacy of her body to avoid tipping them both over the edge into temptation. 

It was a knife dance, like balancing her finger on the point of a sword with only a shred of leather separating flesh from a keen, cutting edge. 

“Not yet,” she reminded him, her voice almost plaintive. “Not right at this moment.” 

Ciri was sick of denying herself and was more than a little reckless at that moment. She could only temper herself so much, impatience and desire and want warming her like a small sun. 

She tugged at Morvran, turning his body with hers before she hitched a leg and set herself on his desk. Untold number of papers went teetering over, spilling onto the floor. An inkpot smashed with a wet, glassy sound that neither of them seemed to flinch at, so absorbed they were in what the other was doing. Perhaps more was upended from Morvran’s desk to the ground below in the mad scramble. 

(A letter to the emperor, perhaps? 

Emhyr would never know the origin of why his pet general’s missive came stained with ink in the top right corner after opening a sealed dispatch. 

A secret act of rebellion, a symbolic I was here and you don’t even know it without Ciri’s own hand written on the parchment to state as much.) 

Morvran stood still between her knees, his hands unmoving and clenching reflexively where they circled her waist. The earlier agony of indecision was not yet wiped from his face.

What was one night of breaking rules of social decorum or rank, or ten more nights if they both wanted to? 

Damn well worth it when he made her feel this rush, like her body was waking up after dormancy, how alive it made her feel under his hands.

She tore one of his hands from her waist, pressing her mouth into the warmth of his palm, feeling the indentation and textures of calluses, scars. Her own hands were a feminine match for his own from the same type of work: swordwork, constant toil, horses.

Ciri never considered herself a seductress, or possessing one scrap of the sexual magnetism all the fair sorceresses of her time used like a knife. But with how he was looking at her, bedraggled as she was, reeking of bog and blood, and see nothing in his face but desire that eclipsed the uncertainty, she certainly felt like one of those women who could crook her little finger and make men fall to their knees. 

Bravery—that was one word for what she did next. Bravery made her drop his hand to take her shirt’s hem between her fingers, lifting the ruin of it off her body and tossing it to the side. 

Power, that was another word for it. She felt powerful as he looked at her, sitting there on the chaos of his desk, almost shivering in the cold in her dirty breast band. There was nothing but naked want in his gaze as it tracked over the molt of bruises across one shoulder and the old scars riddled across parts of her she found unsightly.

“Do you want me?” 

It was a simple enough question to ask him, and one he didn’t hesitate to answer. She could see the tight string of his control draw thin, tense, then snap as he looked at her.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. And again, “Yes.”  

He surged forward to kiss her, hair falling in a curtain around his face, framing his features. She caught his chin between her thumb and forefinger and pressed her lips against his. 

There was a great rush of air as he sighed into her, relief, absolution—something that certainly felt like them letting go of whatever held them back. Now they only could block out the world around them and delve into one another.

It was all a bit backwards, how she had to rock forward on her arse and sit up tall on the desk—already a woman of no small height—to keep his mouth against hers. Her grip was demanding, insistent on his chin, angling his face down to kiss her, as if she was taking any sweetness he was offering.

There was a sharp intake of air. She could feel his mouth moving against her in a pantomime of words, prayers or swears. Ciri couldn’t be sure. But they were smothered by her pressing into him, folding her arms around his neck to pull him closer. 

There wasn’t enough space between them for moonlight to get through, bare skin smooth under her hands as she reached under his shirt and ran them down his back and up his front. As she skimmed her palms down, she felt fine hairs feathering his chest, a coarser trail starting below his navel and dipping below the edge of his breeches.

She thrust her hand between them, fumbling with the fastenings to her breeches and wriggling her hips, arching off the desk to help him wrest her pants down and take her smalls with them, but the clothes barely made it around her knees to tangle at the tops of her boots before the both of them gave up anything to do with undressing her more. 

There was enough moonlight to illuminate what Morvran saw uncovered—she knew it by the breath he drew when he stood back on his heels and looked between them, clothes askew, mapping inches of pale, scarred, bruised flesh and finding nothing but—

“Beauty,” he said, awed, his hand lighting on her naked thigh. 

Ciri felt heat creep up her collarbone and climb towards her throat. 

Beautiful might’ve been what he meant, but adjectives were trickier than a noun in this worked up state they’d both gotten themselves into. 

Besides, he was speaking in a second language of all things, so anything he managed in Common Speech was a marvel and a blessing because Ciri certainly felt like her words were about to go out the godsdamned window if he kept tracing his fingers from her knee to follow the line of muscle further up—

Her mind tumbled over itself when his fingers touched one curving pettle of the rose tattooed on her inner thigh. The rough, textured skin trailed up the stem inked there until she was certain he could feel the heat of her cunt, so damned close.

She’d forgotten about this after so long of being bereft of touch, how good it felt to be handled, and to touch another in return.

It was enough to make her face run hot and something catch low in her stomach, an odd swoop that made her realize how wet she already was, her body waking up to the sensation of his hot skin, the smell of him: peppery, then the musk of something almost floral. 

The delicious smell filled her up, intoxicating.

“Shouldn’t we—” his fingers paused and a frisson of restlessness shot through her at his hesitation. Morvran darted a look over his shoulder, doubtlessly ready to haul her off to the cot like some form of gentleman as he was raised to be towards ladies and not fuck her on the desk, but Ciri’s diminishing patience, thoroughly on its way to impatience, considered even five steps was a step too many and the desk served nicely. 

“Don’t stop, damnit,” she rushed out, trying not to sound snappish. Needy. Demanding. When he focused on her like she’d opened her hand and slapped him clear across the face, Ciri knew she had failed. Miserably. “You don't need me flat on my back to bring me off.”

He raked his hand over his face to cover it, pressing his thumb at the corner of one eye nearest his proud, hawkish nose with a beleaguered sort of chuckle. Like he couldn’t believe the words that flew out of her. “That mouth.”

“If you don’t make me come within the next instant, Morvran, I’ll go fucking mad.” Now she was snapping.

“As my lady commands, I obey.” 

Damnit, he sounded so obliging and banal about it, like he was taking her order for tea or complying with some marching order doled out by a commander instead of giving her—

His fingers slid between her slick folds and the sensation was so jarring, so very electric that her shoulders jerked forward and the straps of her breast band hung limp off her frame like damp butterfly wings. 

Some distant, still-functioning part of her mind that wasn’t absolutely focused on how his thumb circled her clit registered the cold air against her nipples as he tugged the band of fabric down, constricting her ribs as it was shoved aside, her breasts thrust up with the movement. His other hand covered them, rough skin sliding against a nipple as he twisted it between his thumb and forefinger.

He kissed her the instant his fingers dipped into her, pressed, and that sweet, steady friction between her legs made her moan into his mouth.

Oh. 

But he did know what he was doing.

Morvran worked his fingers into her slowly—one, then two—stretching her out when there was no need. He could take her as hard and fast as he wanted because she was too slick, too ready for him. 

Words, as predicted, became impossible for her to speak as he fucked her with his fingers, his thumb slicking over her clit—all she could do was moan and writhe and twist for him to don’t stop, please, please…  

He was as discomposed as she felt, gasping into her mouth with what he found between her thighs, wet heat for him and whatever he was saying to Ciri got lost in kissing, amidst moans and sighs and the sounds of his fingers working her cunt. She was so wet, coating the insides of her thighs, his hand between them glistening when she looked down, moonlight and shadow illuminating and hiding everything all at once. 

He was bound to make her come embarrassingly fast like this, and Ciri couldn’t help that she had not been touched thus, so well in so long, that when he was begging into her mouth in broken Nilfgaardian that she could barely translate to use him, use his fingers, give her something to come on and—

There was always a moment, just before she came, where the breath stole out of her. 

She forgot to breathe, the ache tight in the pit of her stomach and the burning anticipation of riding the sharp edge of something devastating, the muscles in her legs straining.

Ciri took a gasping, rattling breath and bucked against his hand, feeling that tension in her snap and radiate all through her limbs, her walls squeezing around his fingers hard enough to make him tense up and moan as brokenly with her as her climax surged. 

It felt so good—ecstacy, release, tension dissipating to leave nothing but a sweet ache in her body. He didn’t stop until she caught his hand tight between her thighs, clamping down and near hissing to slow him down.

There was an unwindinding for a brief time as she bid her heart to stop racing—draping an arm across his shoulder, leaning her sweaty brow into his chest as she willed her lungs to stop heaving. 

One leg dropped to the floor, the heel of her boot dragging along the planks as she took air into her lungs and willed the room to stop spinning around her.

Then as quick as that languid, peaceful ease came, so too came the burning need to do the same to him. 

“Ciri,” Morvran threaded out. “That’s not necessary—”

For a man that protested any perceived inconvenience he might visit on her, how his body was responding to her quick, furtive yanks to open the fastenings of his breeches while he swayed between her knees spoke contrary to his pleading to not bother herself. 

Besides, she wanted it—desperately. 

“Shut up,” she hummed, pulling his cock out. 

Pretty, that was her word for him. 

Pretty man, pretty cock. 

A thin, silvery trail of saliva dripped out of her mouth and into her outstretched hand. She could feel him staring down, and when she tilted her face to look his lips were parted, eyes glazed over as she slicked her hand up his cock. 

Oh, but how she loved drawing such noises out of him when he moaned for her. How shocked he seemed in the aftermath of watching her spit into her palm, as if that of all acts he’d seen thus far out of Ciri was the most indecent and unexpected. 

It made her want to guide him between her thighs to the mess he’d made of her, notch the thick head of his cock against her cunt, and set her heels into him so he had nowhere to go but deep.

His cheeks were pink when she kissed him, the tent filled with the wet sounds of her skin sliding over his, encouraging the roll of his hips by pulling him in closer with her thighs as he bucked into the friction of her palm, murmuring praise into his ear until he was panting, his head lolling back on his neck so his face was upturned towards the canvas ceiling. 

“So pretty, hmm? Come for me,” she whispered in his ear, her teeth digging into the flesh to gently bite down. 

Soft orders, gentle demands out of him as she pumped his cock. Then he was fucking her fist, needing it, like he could not get enough of feeling her.

His head dipped and he let out a sound that was near to whimpering. Ciri caught his mouth again, sucking heat and friction as she pulled at his cock until she could feel his thighs tense against her. 

She kissed him through it until he broke apart with a cry, the thickened sounds and garbled Nilfgaardian pouring out of his mouth. He spilled into her hand, trembling as she rubbed her palm over the head of his cock, his moans turning desperate when it became too much. 

Morvran slumped and Ciri caught him, burying her face into his shoulder as she coiled her legs around his waist, holding him there.

Sweat cooled on her skin, the chill winding into the pavilion with the cold night air. She ignored the minor discomfort in the face of how good she felt. How good everything had been.

There was no room between them for regret.

Chapter Text

Damnably, Ciri found herself bleeding once more into the muddy waters of Crookback Bog.

She was running, always running, but this was slow going—treading through water sloshing past her ankles, a boot threatening to get stuck in the claggy mud underfoot. A sense of panic welled within, creating that kick of rushing blood as her body readied itself for a fight if this flight of hers should fail. 

There was a far-off bay of hellish hounds on her scent. There was plenty of it to go around, the rich elder blood staining the dark waters like ink droplets as it leaked through her gloves like a sieve. It was that same wound on her side, reopened where it had healed over with the Crones’ witchery to patch her up. 

Wasn’t that who gave chase? 

Yes, it must be. 

She’d stolen out of the window of the hut where the Crones kept her before they could carve off the bits that Eredin wouldn’t mind her lacking. He and the Aen Elle state (such as it was) were only intent on a single function of her body. 

Last she checked, people didn’t need to possess feet or hands to bear children.

Only that it wasn’t the Crones running her down as she crashed through brambles and reeds, her pace sluggish as she fought to run in water that was up to her shins. With each darting glance over her shoulder, she expected Weavess to lurch through the undergrowth with the extra set of child-soft legs sprouting from her belt, reaching for Ciri with a hand that was entirely bone.

Instead, it was a rider who gave chase, helmed and imposing on a steed that looked half-dead, almost skeletal under its barding. As long as she dared to look before twisting back to find a clear way forward, Ciri saw a rime of ice forming underfoot as he charged his mount through the shallows.

Could it be Imlerith?

Yes. That was who he sent to run her down in these muddy fens. One of his generals familiar with the wretched nooks and crannies of Velen, having reveled and fucked his fill on many Beltane nights at Bald Mountain with the Ladies’ indulgent blessings. 

And Geralt had killed him on that same night while she had done the same to Brewess and Whispess in the bowels of the earth below that dead, twisted oak.

It was then that Ciri realized she was dreaming and, despairing, she willed herself awake with the same muscle memory of pulling at that inherent magic of her blood gift, but no such transportation to the world of the waking was imminent. 

Ciri was blindsided by a great force that knocked her to her knees, and for a single terrifying moment, she doubted that she was dreaming. She was shoved into the thick mud, silt running between her gloves as he bore her down to the ground. A rock slick with moss was an unlikely pillow beneath her head, scraping against the side of her face. 

Muddy water with a thin layer of pond scum sloshed into her mouth and nose while a rumbling voice overhead warned her, “Cease this pointless struggle, Zireael.” 

Not Imlerith, then. 

Eredin felt feather-light for an elf who towered a head over her, armored in full plate. But regardless of whether he was as heavy as a mountain or light as goose down in this nightmare, she remained pinned under that phantom weight. 

Again, you’re dreaming, a kindly, soothing voice reminded her from within.

“Is it now?” he asked, conceited. The metal of his gauntlet was cold as he threaded a massive hand through her hair, using it to wrench her head back and bare the curve of her throat.

She felt a true swallow to Eredin’s sparrowhawk—hopeless, with a sense of inevitability as a great bird of prey pounced on a lesser bird, pinning it with talons and positioning it for feasting.

“It need not be like this.”

Hate filled her mouth like bile. It burned like it, too. She wanted to spit it out, expel the taste of him. He gripped her jaw like an unruly child refusing to look whoever was doling out hard truths, a bitter spoonful of medicinal discipline, in the eye.

Eredin’s words were as soft as his touch was cruel. Rough caresses came to mind, trite and hollow.

“We will keep you well. You’d want for nothing. All of this fuss would be over. I would leave your precious friends and kin to their own short lives,” he lied before giving her a truth, “as all I want for is you, Zireael.”  

A thumb covered in rough leather smoothed along the bow of her lower lip.

This was Eredin at his most convincing—his politicking at the gazebo a lifetime ago, worlds away, when she’d thought him handsome as a winter’s morning, the divan sitting like an invitation while she in a fit of girlish folly admired the sharp bite of his beauty, the hard angles and slopes in his unyielding face.

“And he will be a wonder.”

She began to struggle anew, and this phantom Eredin bore her into the mud with his suffocating weight atop her. Ciri let out a wet gurgle into the muddy water, thrashing and kicking until she could feel the front of her body sink deeper into the muck.

Past the sensation of halfway drowning, she thought how heinously patriarchal, how so like Eredin’s ego to chalk up a product of his intended slavery, of the imminent rape of her body, and envision Ciri giving him a son. It made her want to laugh hysterically at the absurdity of it all. 

Not a child, but a he. 

She could see the terrible road he was ready to lay before her. Ciri would watch on as her son, green-eyed as his mother and sire, was weaned on poison. He would know only the arrogance of the Aen Elle and drive legions before him with his inherited gift to the new cosmos, and those bones Ihuarraquax had shown her would stack taller on worlds beyond the one the Aen Elle inhabited now. 

A girl child (if that’s all he could wrench from her body before she found a way to strangle herself with a silk scarf from a chandelier, take a long drop and a sudden bloody stop off the airy balconies of Tir ná Lia, or manage an overdose of wolfsbane) would be used just like her—breeding stock until they got it right, so to speak. 

As if you need to have a cock to meet the prerequisites of prophecy. 

But this all would never come to pass, because this was a dream, and Ciri dribbled black water to spit out alongside the words that dispelled Eredin like a miasma, a curse-breaking affirmation that he simply was not, “Thank all the gods that you’re dead, then.”

At dawn’s first light, Ciri was unwilling to surrender to full wakefulness. 

But the world outside of the tent’s canvas walls was urging her to do just that—there was a twittering of birdsong, the neighing of horses at the picket line, and the faraway sound of metal clanging on an anvil as the army farrier set about his work.

Ciri applied the lumpy pillow even firmer to the side of her head to muffle the racket. 

No, she did not want to turn her mind over to the world of the waking. She would have slept for an age. It was a luxury not to dump herself out of bed and scramble around in a panic, plotting the next jump to safety with her magic.

To fully wake up was an onerous notion. Besides, it was cold without the warm swaddle of blankets and Morvran’s big body wedged between hers and the canvas wall, burning hot as a forge fire. 

It wasn’t the most comfortable of sleeping arrangements. At first, Morvran burned oppressively hot when she tried to lie across him. Ciri had bullied him (amidst his weak protest that he could simply sleep on the other bed) around the narrow, creaking cot until finally, they’d found harmony and an adequate shared warmth with both of them on their sides, her breasts mashed flat against his back, knees tucked neatly alongside his.

This way kept her warmer than any fire. 

(To say nothing of how touching Morvran made the shaking in her limbs and the shock of the night leach from her body like poison drawn from a wound. Not feeling alone in all of this provided Ciri with a sense of quiet, the warmth of his companionship emptying her mind until it was still as the surface of a pond.)

Before sunup, she’d risen and stumbled around in the near-dark for the privy to piss. She welcomed the urgent distraction of a full bladder and not a lick of direction concerning where the latrine was. The fumbling search in the dark for relief almost cut the lingering sensation of having had a horrible nightmare, or a terrific hangover, in half. 

The fug in her mind couldn’t all be owed to the half bottle of wine she’d quaffed, for it was too fine a vint; the fear of being haunted from beyond the gates of whatever hell Eredin was chained in was smothering. But reason pointed to a simpler answer than a genuine haunting—her mind giving a familiar face, a character to that crushing dread of being hunted after years of fight, flight, kill.

In the few moments it took for Ciri to have her crisis, standing there, shivering in the dark, she nearly froze to death. The autumn air had chilled in the dead of night and snuffed the heat out of every brazier in Morvran’s pavilion. She had her silent, heaving cry, dabbed her face clean with a washrag, and then went to the privy.

Shuffling back into the cot was harder than coming out of it.

For one, it woke her bedmate. 

It was impossible not to, considering the scant feet of space she had to squeeze into on her side to fit alongside him. But when Morvran aided her like fetching a fine lady down from a coach instead of a half-dressed, still-bloodied witcher, she suspected that he’d been awake long enough to hear her fit of emotion, but was too damned polite to pry about it, or wise enough to not ask unless she volunteered her woes.

They both settled for facing each other on their sides, the canvas and wooden frame protesting each twitch. Neither of them was by any means a small person, and they were putting this cot through its paces with their combined weight.

Secondly, it took a great deal of coordination to arrange themselves under the bedclothes into a position that didn’t ache, cause a great deal of discomfort, or leave a limb sticking out in the frigid air. She only favored the one side to sleep on with her shoulder still out of sorts, and there was simply no way to hold him at arm’s length like this, not that Ciri wanted that distance. 

No, tonight she sorely needed such a simple human comfort as being held and stroked. 

And oh. How nice it was to be held. She’d quite forgotten it.

Lately, on returning home for good, there’d been hugs aplenty with the genial clasping of shoulders or forearms, crowding close—friendly, familial exchanges of physical affection. 

But it wasn’t as if she went to Yenna or Geralt or Triss and said, ‘Shove over and make room, we’re bunking together.’

Though she was certain none of them would tell her no, or even mind. How lovely that would be, ensconced between Geralt and Yenna while a candle burned low, the steely scent of blade oil and lilac, a long, elegant hand sweeping through her hair whilst Geralt hummed off-key, leafing through a bestiary. 

Between them, she could be a girl again, surrounded by only love.

Her current circumstances were a certain shade of that because Morvran touched her in a way wholly different from all the other times Ciri had been held by any lover, friend, or family. 

She decided to describe it as a sense of utter reverence for how he handled her body. That was the name for it. Not that Ciri felt like some carven idol on an altar, or reduced to an object by how his rough hands moved over her body in chaste, soothing draws. 

Slow, measured sweeps down her flank followed the curve of her hip. It was a bit ludicrous to compare, but she recognized in it the same manner that he handled his horses and almost giggled in the dark in a paroxysm of mad amusement when the realization dawned on her. 

Morvran Voorhis soothed her ragged mood and quaking with the same degree of care that he might calm his prized courser.

It was obnoxiously effective.

Such treatment, such utter care to lull her off without words and only his hands on her body still shaking from the cold, or the ebbing adrenaline of the fight, or the nightmare that had stirred her from their shared bed, put her under quicker than any sleeping tonic. 

And the man did it with only his hands. 

Ciri cracked her eyes open to stare at the back of Morvran’s head, a Nilfgaardian general, and the only source of communal warmth in this whole blasted space: ensconced within his cot.

What amounted to any sort of pillow talk the night before had been short-lived in the face of how damned exhausted the both of them were after they had broken apart, mopped the worst of the sweat and the slick and the blood off, and then fell into bed together. 

Her breath stirred his unbound hair at the nape of his neck. Sometime in the early dawn after he bewitched her into a quiet, dreamless sleep with only his hands, Morvran had turned onto his other side. He slept in true military fashion: like the living dead and with a cavalry sword tucked under the cot, naked steel at the ready.

As she drowsed, her eyes halfway open, Ciri noted a smattering of freckles across one of Morvran’s shoulders like a constellation. She walked her fingertip across his skin, feather-light. That did not appear to wake him. 

She counted his easy, deep breaths, skimming her fingertips towards his other shoulder to touch another grouping of freckles. For a man as pale as Morvran, it was a surprise to find beneath the starched collar and cuirass marks of having been out in the sun—evidence of a childhood spent out of doors before life stuffed him into military dress and confined his work to institutions: academies, palaces, barracks, and their like. 

Ciri wasn’t certain if she expected some awkward, paralyzingly tense impasse between them. She waited for it to rear its ugly head, but they hadn’t been conscious around one another for very long after trodding over that line last night. 

Or was it very early in the morning when he had his fingers in her, rough from swordplay and a lifetime around horses like hers?

War did make strange bedfellows, but her war was over and if she were to bend space and time to relay to a younger version of herself, even if only a week ago, she would be waking up beside a Nilfgaardian general after a fraught night of raw intimacy, she’d laugh herself out of the room.

Ciri braced for it, anticipating hot shame or regret crawling across her skin, but nothing of the sort happened upon this waking hour.

None found her yet as she played her fingers across his warm skin, soaking in the smell of his hair—faintly floral, like a lady’s perfume. She wanted to stick her face in the soft snare of brownish-reddish-goldish and inhale, to roll Morvran over and harry him lightly, teasingly, to interrogate him about the providence of how a military man should smell so lovely for the long march. 

He was a curiosity, this horse-mad son of a princely house whose fealty she had duly sworn to her service, should she bid it. 

“I fear you will burn a hole in me should you stare any harder,” came Morvran’s sleep-roughened drawl. His accent was thicker in the morning, less polished, like he was still knocking the rust off of it.

His words caught her mid-thought, and she had been rubbing her thumb over the back of Vesemir’s medallion. The backing was smooth under her thumb where it rested on her clavicle, warm from laying against her skin while they slept. She let it fall on its chain to the bedclothes.

“How long have you been playing at sleep?” Ciri’s voice was still froggy and far more curt-sounding than she’d meant it to be.

Certainly, she could be called prickly in the morning, and Geralt likened her to a very titchy housecat, or an overly indulged child (which was just the same as many housecats) if ever he had to wake her from a dawn lie-in at Kaer Morhen. 

Instead of prodding her by the shoulder, Geralt took to throwing a dishrag or other soft implement on her sleeping face because Ciri woke up fighting. This, coupled with a compulsive habit of sleeping with a dagger under her pillow, made for rough wakeups. 

She did take after him.

This morning was no exception—her sheathed dagger was a hard, unyielding outline under the thin goose feathers stuffed into the cot’s pillow under their heads, the bedclothes shared like the rest of the groaning frame by two people ill-fitted to it by their combined height and weight. Its hilt poked through the pillow when he shifted.

“A time,” Morvran replied sparingly, and before Ciri could prod him for more specifics, he sat up. The movement caused the canvas and wooden frame of the cot to creak threateningly—if the portable furniture had a weight limit, they’d long since overtaxed it.

“Did you manage any rest?” he asked, running a furtive hand through his loose hair. It was unbound from its usual half queue and fell around his serious, pale face. He met her gaze with boyishly charming hesitation, uncertain of how to look at her barely covered body in the dawning light, casting his eyes down at where she was curled on her side against him.

“A few hours,” she said, flapping her hand dismissively. “Though I’d benefit from a good many more hours of the stuff if I can spare the time.”

“Please rest, then,” he urged, catching her hand to cup it like a songbird, or something equally frail and dear, while he wheedled her with all manner of delicious conveniences, “I will have another bath ordered with breakfast. The laundresses are happy to assist with cleaning the blood out of your clothes yet again, and I will see to your blade...that is, unless you have yet another eldritch horror to dispatch and no such luxuries to spare on recuperating.”

She wasn’t so easily won over with his fussing, as dearly as she would like to indulge. 

(To say nothing of this new chapter they’d opened with each other that went well beyond the atypical ruler-vassal dynamic, or what newly minted friends got up to in the dark when emotions ran high and a wine bottle was passed around. 

Dallying about with him in the daylight sounded like what she sorely needed to append to last night’s encounter, and with some sharp instruction and a bit of breathy goading she was certain Morvran could soundly fuck her into torpor over that writing desk sitting a scant few feet away from where they were presently.)

No, unfortunately, today there was no time to spare for long baths, sex, or very involved acts of bleaching her linen shirts.

Ciri stole her hand back and stretched, long and languorous and with intent, and the act appeared to scandalize Morvran anew as the sheet slipped down the expanse of her stomach to bare her breasts. He let out a faint gust of air like he’d been waiting to exhale since turning to face her in the morning light. The frank, barely restrained amazement at the novelty of her naked form in stark daylight felt as if he was taking his hands again and running them all over her purring ego instead of her body.

“I’m fresh out of those eldritch horrors, thankfully. Today is for the disposal of more mundane evils. You know, the usual villains.” 

And then she flipped to her stomach, crowding a pillow under her chin, and briefed him on the situation in Crow’s Perch. It was a report limited to the high points, Gretka’s situation, and how Ciri had left affairs behind in the dust cloud of her borrowed mare after the unfortunate business with the stable lad and poor, dead Wilburn once she relieved him of a hand. 

Morvran, by the end of it, had pulled a great deal of his attention from the dip of her swayed back and how the drape of the sheet barely covered her arse, and instead bore a look of furrowed concern on his face. 

“By the sound of it, this Crow’s Perch needs a firm hand in restoring a semblance of order where stable boys aren’t in fear of being unduly hanged for a gifted parcel.”

“Well done, you, how very clever,” she cooed, and if that chiding praise of him having stated the obvious didn’t make the man turn scarlet all the way down to the thatching of tawny hair disappearing below the sheet pooled in his lap, or a certain stirring further down that merited perusal. 

“You know,” she mused, “I had thought simply killing the Sergeant and all of his ilk might do in a trice, but he did raise a fair point about readily available backfill being a persisting problem if I should go about removing him. I don’t know the first thing about how to read in a new headman or castellan. Otherwise, another Sergeant will ride in and start right where the old one has left off.”

“This is, I believe, the part where I can assist readily.”

She could feel her face pulling into a moue of hesitant uncertainty as she cut a sidelong look out of the corner of her eye and up. From how his expression flickered, Ciri appeared not the least bit amenable to accepting his yet-to-be-outlined offer of help. 

“Highness—” and then he stopped to correct himself, “Ciri. Don’t make me beg.” 

Morvran fell back onto the cot in a fit of exasperation, and from how he winced, she knew the pommel of her dagger had smacked him squarely on the back of the head. He discarded it on the rough-hewn plank floor with a clatter. 

She was still getting used to him calling her by her name, instead of ‘your imperial highness’ or ‘princess’ or any of the other titles he could put between them. By how Morvran instinctively reached for those trappings of courtesy, old habits died hard for a scion of a princely house.

“Have I mentioned the thrill I get when Nilfgaardians beg me for things?” she deflected into her pillow, which was technically theirs if she thought even lightly about it. “It reeks of the highest irony.”

When she turned her head to look at him across the expanse of creamy, fine linen, too fancy for a camp cot, Morvran was plowing on, rubbing at the slightly crooked bridge of his nose. 

“What of this little girl you care for, this Gretka? If she is to stay in her natal land without you uprooting her for a safer foster, that will require change that can only come from a steady administrative hand. We alone possess the surplus and supply lines for food aid. We employ a vetted method of transitioning a nation in crisis toward stability. And I don’t believe you intend to leave here and begin governing Crow’s Perch. Allowing Field Marshall var Moehoen to begin his governorship of Temeria there could help Velen become less…”

“Less like Velen?” Ciri offered archly. 

“I meant to say horrific, but if the word translates the same in Common Tongue, then my meaning is conveyed.” 

Ciri gave careful consideration to his proposition, drumming her fingers along her arm. Her bad shoulder gave a twinge of protest. She gave up the position on her stomach to flip herself and stare contemplatively at the canvas overhead, lit golden by the morning light. 

He was, in no uncertain terms, asking her, begging her consent to do what needed to be done. The Nilfgaardians would have in their power complete authority to do just that, and they were going to be executing that very same plan throughout Temeria, but he was asking her leave to go deal with it directly, to start with Crow’s Perch. It was a kind enough courtesy to lend someone without any real say in it.

Not yet, at least. 

“You’re not to go in there and make this another miniature imperial province,” she said after a pregnant pause. “They come in, aid in the transition to installing someone competent, which I define as a person disinclined to treat petty crimes as a hanging error and keep food stores in good order and fairly distributed, then it’s straight back out.”

Putting such guidelines on her consent struck something hard in him. Morvran sat up once more and looked down at her with an expression of disbelief. 

Ah, so this is where she could dig claws in if the fancy struck. 

“You speak as if that approach isn’t the spirit of our intent, indeed our entire strategy for Temeria as a vassal state of the empire,” Morvran protested.

“You’re conveniently leaving out the part where you gain economic command over all of Temeria’s exports, coupled with an absolutist say in deciding who sits on the throne in Vizima once my father vacates his royal, pompous arse from it,” Ciri fired back, maintaining a cool, unflappable front in the face of his mounting indignation. 

By the downturn in Morvran’s expression, she’d downright shocked him with her flippancy, like using a sun temple’s offering bowl as a spitoon or another effrontery that bordered heresy. 

“You would take care to not speak so freely about the White Flame,” he cautioned her hesitantly. “The heir of the empire speaking of the emperor in those terms is akin to treason.” 

Ciri shot up alongside him and let her mask of indifference drop the second he presumed to start lecturing her on how she should speak of Emhyr var Emreis. That made her blood roar like a godsdamned lion set loose in her veins. He gripped the edge of the cot behind him as she crowded close, chest to chest, so she got right in his face to sneer.

“Well, I’m not the imperial heir yet, so I can say what I like. And even past that point, you’ve no right to advise me on how I’ll air out opinions about my father. He’s well deserving of any criticism I see fit to throw his way.”

Morvran quieted, sitting stiffly against her as a frisson of recognition sparked behind those winter-pale eyes, and in that moment, he seemed to understand the point she was making, the impetus behind it, and conceded with a tactful unrolling of his broad shoulders.

Ciri wondered in that heartbeat about his father, the prince, and if he had any degree of difficulty twittering the appropriate filial piety as she did. 

Not that Emhyr made it an easy feat for her to hold him in any high regard, or even tolerate. 

(From what Ciri had discerned about her own paternal family’s history, growing up in a royal Nilfgaardian house was akin to being raised by particularly unfeeling reptiles. 

Perhaps that was why Morvran had such a high opinion of Emhyr—a displacement of paternal adoration, someone lofty and far enough removed from his family to pin all his hopes where his father had failed him. 

Was it catching, and a bit of Morvran’s stareyedness for her was radial to his veneration of his emperor? 

She swiftly shut that assumption in a back drawer of her mind where it damn well belonged.)

“Your words, if left unchecked, will run ahead of your good sense one day if you let them, Ciri,” Morvran uttered that bit in Nilfgaardian, stirred enough that she was sure he didn’t even notice he’d swayed back to his native tongue. 

Ciri, when spoken in that accent, sounded heavier, more decadent, like the two syllables carried a weight on his tongue. Every other word rang with the clear intent of being more proverb than an insult, but this was a warning that her pride did not want from anyone, much less him. 

“I’ll take that into consideration,” she snided. “Now, shove over before I dump you out of this bed for being an obnoxious imperialist. Just because you were in me to the last knuckle doesn’t give you leave to caution me on guarding my tongue. I want to be let up so I can bathe.” 

That Morvran would be her one route to call up the proper authorities to draw her a bath was a footnote in her consideration. Such a request would require them to be on speaking terms. For now, she was tackling the immediate problem of fighting her way out of the tangle of bedclothes and not caring about minor details like maintaining diplomatic ties so she could bathe in water warmer than tepid piss. 

Ciri imagined herself the very essence of what well-bred Nilfgaardians like him thought the Nordling savages looked like at that moment. Her hair and neck were still crusted with Weavess’s black ichor, and if she had a looking glass handy, there would be an answering fire in her eyes to that steely, steady look Morvran was giving her when he gently steered her by the good shoulder and bid her to look at him.

She allowed him to stop her halfway out of the cot, one bare foot on the cold, rough floor planks. A cursory look at Morvran’s face showed her nothing but contrition. 

“Peace,” he urged gently, switching back to the language they could both converse in. “This is not how I envisioned our day beginning.” 

“Oh, and how did it start in your mind? Birdsong, cock sucking, professions of love? All in that order?”

Morvran’s jaw worked, and he wisely chose silence as an answer to her venom. His hands fell away to his lap. Her anger quelled the longer he waited it out.

Ciri had heard somewhere, in some faraway world she’d passed through, that sixty seconds was a fine allotment of time to allow a body to regulate itself and decide if what she was feeling was merely instinctual or something she should sit longer with if the sensation persisted. 

So she settled back into the rumpled bed sheets on the opposite end of the cot, drawing her knees up towards her chest and hugging them to her breasts. She scrubbed at her scalp, dirty with relict blood, and sighed. A quiet minute was counted down in her head, and by sixty, the racing of blood in her veins quelled and the flush in her face chased itself out.

Their exchange had teetered towards an argument before fizzling out just as fast as it had come, a spring rain when compared to a storm.

When Morvran finally spoke, she listened.

“My only need is your safety. And, if I am being overly ambitious and aiming for far more than I can manage, which I am told is a recurring fault,” he explained steadily, “my only want is your satisfaction with me as your lealman and you as my ker'zaer. If I misspoke, it was only out of care, and for that I am sorry.”

It was then that Ciri realized that perhaps this was a terrible start to the morning, and given another chance, she would very much like a do-over. 

She was the one to finally break the silence growing more ponderous by the moment. 

“I did warn you yesterday to hold onto that opinion of me for a week before lauding about my qualities, didn’t I?” 

Their cot was crowded for a big man who was doing his best to give her adequate space, and a tall woman who was curling in on herself like she was guarding some soft, tender part of her spirit like a snarling badger. 

Morvran drew himself to sit up tall and brusquely waved off her version of a stilted apology. “I have learned not to take anything said before eight o’clock in the morning personally.”

Ciri let out a thin, high noise through her nose. Then a giggle, which felt rusty. And then she laughed, fully and throatily, and it felt like she’d forgotten how to laugh in the age and a half it had been since she’d buried that tiny skull by the Pontar in the small hours of the night. 

Morvran, she noticed through the fringe of her eyelashes, found her spate of giggles equally humorous. At first, he smiled crookedly at her, then was hopelessly infected by her unseemly braying. 

And then she couldn’t quite look at him without more hysterics that made the cot shake, and finally the pair of them put an end to trying to keep a respectful distance, which was ridiculous considering neither of them had a stitch on to speak of besides a shared sheet. They collapsed against one another when Morvran’s own paroxysm of uncontrolled laughter towed them under like a riptide, and just as it had felt so good to be held, it felt like flying to laugh finally, unchecked, unbridled, free after so long.

And then Morvran gently clasped Ciri at the back of the neck to pull her in, and kissed her, and the laughter between them was silenced; it was unlike last night’s kisses, tinged with wine and fueled by desperation, of a heady joy of having survived to enjoy such an act and him having been glad to see her alive after her dangerous efforts. 

Her arms banded around his neck and she pulled herself onto his thighs as much as he was towing her into him, the sheets sliding around their lower halves, and she could feel his cock stir against her thigh and his shoulders draw tight as she ground into his lap, stradling him.

This kiss felt like a proving ground, a test, as if this could cost Morvran something and he was gauging it with how he cradled her jaw, angled her face, and slipped his lips over hers so softly. 

And oh. 

That was so lovely—he was so lovely, so tender with her. It split something in her chest, and even if it felt as raw as scraping open an old wound, his attentions were such a medicine to her tired spirit, and she couldn’t help but love them a little, or perhaps a great deal. 

Morvran drew back to search her face in a flit of breathless admiration, caressing the long, ruddy line of her scar until it terminated, and then the hinge of her jaw. His fingertips were rough from horses and swordwork, and when they ran from her neck to the arch of her collarbone, she felt a sweet, hot swoop in her stomach that reminded her of weightlessness. 

And then he kissed her again, harder, and Ciri was lost to the heat of it.

Whatever was in her face was answer enough for him, or he’d found what he was searching for within himself—permission, an allowance to let himself slip a little, if only for her.  

What was that bit about no time for nonsense like this? reminded an inner, nagging voice. 

Ciri told it to sod off for a bit.