Chapter 3
Rowan didn't have words. She still fought to catch her breath. For a long moment, the two misplaced figures simply faced each other, chests rising and falling in the aftermath of the chaos. The buck at Geralt's feet blended into the scene. Another limp body on the druid's floor. Rowan finally nodded to acknowledge Geralt's words. Her throat was growing worse. She swallowed a few times and rubbed at her neck.
"What is it?" the Witcher tilted his head.
"My throat," the druid rasped. "...I'll be fine."
Stepping over the third corpse, Geralt silently approached the bed and knelt. Thick callused fingers tipped Rowan's chin. He smelled of horse, sandalwood, and the night air. The Witcher gently felt at the tiny bones and muscles along Rowan's windpipe.
"Hmm. Your trachea is bruised," Geralt hummed, his yellow eyes scanning the injury. His breath moved a wisp of the druid's chestnut hair that had come undone during the skirmish.
"You should try not to talk for a while. Do you have anything for swelling?" he asked, shifting his gaze to meet her eyes. His fingertips lingered on her throat for a moment.
Rowan nodded, pointing to her basket of herbs by the larder. Geralt rose, retrieved the basket, and handed it to her. The druid nodded.
Looking around at the moonlit floor, Geralt sighed heavily through his nose. Rowan began rummaging through the basket for the correct herbs. Wordlessly, the Witcher began dragging the bodies of the intruders to the door.
He hauled all four bodies outside into the moonlight one by one. He never did look back to Rowan as he worked. He simply trudged along, a muted grunt here or there as he heaved each man's dead-weight. Geralt's white hair was clean. Perhaps a trip to the lake during his hunt for the buck, Rowan thought as she lit a few candles for more light. She struggled to keep her mind on brewing the healing tea her throat required. The pain would've been distraction enough, if it weren't for a Witcher silently entering and exiting her home as he disposed of four freshly dead bodies in the middle of the night. What a strange sight it must've been, she thought.
Geralt finished his task by collecting the two discarded torches from the floor. One was nearly extinguished, which he tossed outside. The other, he used to rekindle the fire in the hearth. It was a very cold night. The heavy silence between the druid and the Witcher was somewhat abated once the fresh logs began crackling in the flames. Rowan sat on the bed once more and sipped at her tea, almost grateful she couldn't speak.
"I'm sorry," Geralt breathed, facing the fire. "You saved my life and I nearly got you killed...or worse."
Rowan once again felt at a loss for words; even if she could use them. She looked deep into the mug she held close to her chest. The bitter herbs were doing their work. She wondered if Geralt's wounds were fully healed. When she finally looked up again, he still stared into the flames, the colour of his eyes harmonizing with the fire.
Despite herself, and perhaps her better judgement, Rowan swallowed and set her tea down. She rose, wrapped the shall that sat around her shoulders close, and crossed the room. Standing practically under Geralt's chin, she looked up and tried to pour what gratitude she could muster into his stilted presence. After a moment, he looked at her, nearly a foot beneath his gaze. Slowly, the druid leaned into him, still shaking, and wrapped her arms around his frame.
It was a long moment before her awkward gesture was returned. The Witcher gradually let his hands travel around the druid's slender body, pressing her to him in a firm embrace. Rowan nearly jumped when she felt a stubbled chin come to rest on the top of her head.
Rowan couldn't be sure how long they stood this way. Fastened by a tension, a relief, and an undefinable gratitude between—not strangers, yet not friends. The druid's scent calmed Geralt, as though familiar. Herbs, rain, and warmed wool. The faintest burst of a faded memory from another life lingered in it. His eyes widened as he held his saviour tightly. His knuckles whitened as though they tried to hold onto something. A desperate attempt to recapture a dream fading from the mind. If destiny were speaking…
The Witcher swallowed hard and slid his hands to her shoulders, releasing her at last. Her eyes were bright with the paling shock of fresh trauma, and the smell of tempered fear and feminine odors began to make his head swim.
"Rest. I'll be on my way, now." he murmured low. A little dazed, Rowan's lips parted for a moment before closing again as she stepped away. She nodded, swallowing, and turning to more sensible thoughts.
With that, Geralt turned and swiftly left the little cabin, closing the broken door behind him as best he could. Rowan remained by the warmth of the hearth, the dead buck at her feet, silent and dazed with withered adrenaline and empty reflections until morning.
There's gold in the green of your eyes…
Rowan startled awake. A proper spring storm had rushed into her dream just as a great flash lightning pulled her from sleep. Taking deep breaths, the druid watched the light show as rain pounded on the roof of her hovel.
It had been almost two weeks since her odd adventure with a Witcher. Geralt had saved her life, but the stench of human blood still soured her nose every time she woke or came home to her little cabin after some time in the woods. Replacing the cork flooring was an exhausting thought, but Rowan knew to be a very necessary one. If the weather remained poor, it would take longer.
Sighing, the druid rose and puttered around her home idly as she waited for the storm to pass. She had been able to utilize the fat from the buck Geralt had left for her, for six more candles. She lit two of these and added a little dried sage to some fennel oil to the clay bowl above. Rowan smiled fondly as the flame grew and the scent began to take.
There's gold in the green of your eyes.
Her mind idled in circular thoughts as her fatigue gained ground. Taking a seat at her small table, Rowan rested her head on one arm, willing the sleep to return. Perhaps it was worth a trip into town a bit earlier this year. What she wouldn't give for a night of uninterrupted sleep like she'd had when Geralt's fever had finally broken. A day of sleep, rather, she supposed. Either one would be lovely.
The storm continued to rumble and stammer until Rowan had lost most of the feeling in her arm. She rose and ambled back over to her bed and her furs.
It began with a smell. A smell so foul, Rowan was once again ripped from her slumber for the second time that very early morning. The smell was wrong. A stinging funk of charred, wet leaves? Flesh? Wool? Things were burning that should never burn.
Rowan stumbled from her bed as her eyes adjusted and she tried to make sense of what was happening. Her nose and mouth, even her eyes, were suddenly assaulted with a burning miasma of fumes and she coughed violently, her eyes watering and her gut spinning. The light penetrating her home was not that of morning, but of fire. Tall and raging, it roared with a terrifyingly callus force. Ash slipped silently into the druid's home through the small openings between the roots of her beloved sycamore tree. Dull orange tongues of light flickered between tall shadows just outside her small home, the likes of which Rowan had never seen before.
Retching and coughing against the smell, Rowan dropped to her knees and tried to protect her eyes as she crawled toward the door. Her back was already warm by the time she reached the steps. Fumbling, she turned the handle and shoved with all her might. A waft of cool air met her as she rolled out of her home onto her muddy entrance way.
The Elderwood burned.
Her sycamore tree blazed as though Hell had made purchase within. A great wall of fire stretched from south of the clearing as far north as she could manage to see through the smoke and heat of the inferno. Crawling backward on her hands, tears rolled freely down the druid's cheeks leaving trails in the soot that clung to her skin. She sobbed aloud, deafened by the roaring flames. Branches plummeted to the earth, sending plumes of sparks and heat into the air. The trees groaned and cracked as the fire sucked the life from them where they stood. The heat was unbearable. Shock and despair paralyzed Rowan until pain forced her instincts to take control.
The druid spun on her hip and found her legs beneath her, shaking but strong. She ran east and did not stop until her own sweat began to chill her skin in the freezing morning breeze. A pale yellow and red sunrise greeted her at the edge of the forest, a mockery of the wild blaze behind. Turning, Rowan fell to her knees and wept for her home. The Elderwood, her Elderwood, was swallowed in flames.