The unfamiliar sounds yanked Kain from his sleep.
Whimpers.
He was on his feet before he knew it, the griffin was staring at the girl, hissed quietly.
In the amber light of weakening fire the girl's face contorted, she groaned and writhed as if someone's hands were on her.
"Yes," she whispered, but her face didn't quite say the same.
The colors around her shifted, new energy spurted in. New, more powerful, it was coming from inside her like a shining seeping from the center of a crystal.
The lights grew brighter and shimmered quicker around her. Griffin jumped up, croaking in alarm.
Kain rushed to her and, after a momentary hesitation, took her by the shoulder to shake her awake.
The intense electric jolt went through his nerves, blinding with its force. A mixture of her fears, lust, shame and guilt whooshed into him, stinging like enraged bees. Gasping, he staggered back, shaking his head to clear it.
Ciri jolted awake, gasping for breath and practically threw herself off her makeshift bed. As always, it took her a few seconds to realize Eredin was gone and that she was once again back to her own reality.
Kain was awake as well, looking almost as though he was in pain. Something that immediately captured her attention and made her worry. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
Pressing his back into the stony wall, he tried to get his breathing and pulse in order. The residue of what she passed to him didn't die easy.
"No... I'm... you had a nightmare. You groaned... and almost did something with your magic." He rubbed his face and detached from the wall, feeling exhausted and wishing for another bath. "You were not in control."
'...almost did something with your magic...' She remembered. She'd been close to traveling, to jumping from this cave to wherever Eredin currently was. She'd come so close. Too close.
Ciri hid her face in her hands for a few moments, trying to shake the eerie sensation that the dark elf was still here. "Not a nightmare," she whispered, watching him tiredly. "What did you see?" It was clear something had happened to him.
Kain took a few long breaths and went back to the griffin that calmed and twirled around to lie back down.
"I... don't know... if I saw anything."
He felt plenty, and the nerves within him were still trembling.
That didn't make her feel any better.
She felt violated. Not by Kain, but the older elf. And a new concern arose the more she thought of it: would Eredin be able to sense Kain through her mind? Had he already? If so, she'd condemned him to a life where he was not just hunted by humans, but the Aen Elle as well.
The King of the Riders had used people against her before. Yennefer. Geralt. Used them as bait to draw her out. What's to say he wouldn't do the same to Kain should he ever get his claws in him.
She'd been so selfish. And Avallac'h had been right. She should be locked up.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, scrambling to her feet to grab her cloak and sword. "I need to go."
"You can't," he said calmly. "Unless you want the Rider to find you. I didn't get the impression you did. So what changed?"
"You," she said honestly, pausing her task of dressing to meet his gaze. "I told you – it's not a nightmare. He gets in my head. It's been six years and…" Ciri fell silent, closing her eyes because she felt the sting of oncoming tears, stubbornly forcing them to recede before she could face him again. "I don't know how to stop it. How to keep him out. And I don't know how much he is able to perceive. If he knows who is at my side.
"He already knows about Geralt and Yennefer and our friends. And so they are targets as well. I don't want… I don't want him to hurt you."
Kain stood regarding her for a moment. He knew where she was coming from, and appreciated the sentiment, but couldn't let her go back to being alone.
"It's not as easy to hurt me as you think," she said. "And you don't deserve to carry the whole weight on your own.
"You need to ask Freyja for protection again - that dream or whatever won't return. It only did because you were upset about the village. It's natural."
"This is not her temple," she pointed out, looking around as if ensuring herself she was right about that. "Will she even hear my prayers here?"
Kain stared at her a moment, then chuckled despite himself. "The whole land is under her protection. The temple is just a symbol built by men. It's not the sole place she dwells. She hears you wherever you are - any time, any world."
Ciri had never paid much heed or thought to any God before. Not even during her lowest moments in life. And so she found herself lacking in information on even the simplest things, it seemed. Like how one worshipped.
She exhaled in defeat and threw her cloak down again, further from the fire and against the cave wall this time. She did not want to fall asleep. Not at once. She couldn't help but fear what would happen if she did.
She settled down with her back against the wall and closed her eyes, trying to find that same connection with the goddess that she had felt before. It seemed to take longer this time. Perhaps because she did not have a physical item to focus on.
But she eventually said her prayer, an embellished and adjusted form of the words that had come to her earlier. When she finished, she rested her arms on her knees and watched him. It calmed her somehow. "I don't want him," she said after a while, because no matter what Kain said, she knew he'd absorbed something of what had occurred within her mind at that time. "Eredin. I don't want him. I don't know why that changes when I sleep."
The repulsive mix of shame and lust stirred briefly in his memory. He cringed.
"You're scared and desperate. It changes things you feel."
"Right." She leaned her head back and briefly thought of Yennefer. Perhaps she could make her something? An amulet or a potion… something to help Ciri ensure her mind would be her own. With no unwanted visitors.
She just hoped to find a way to ask Yennefer without having to explain in detail why. Ciri wasn't sure she could live with the humiliation.
"You have to conquer your fear first," he said, leaning back against the griffin's side. "You're safe here, and I'll wake you if anything happens. Just don't wait for it to happen again because you're drawing it to you. Think of things you want rather than unwanted. Mind wanders like a wild horse, but it can be trained."
"What I want," Ciri mused, eyeing the roof of the cave. "I want to jump again. From world to world, from mountaintop to mountaintop. There is such beauty out there, such strange sights. The last world I was in, I stayed there for six months. The people there had metal in their skin, in their head. They were human but also… machines. And instead of horses there were ships with wings that flew in the sky."
She smiled a little at the memory. "Avallac'h hated it. It was funny."
Kain gave a soft hem of wonder. "I dreamt of something like that a few times. Didn't try to remember any of it, though, for when I woke, it made little to no sense."
"Recently?" she asked, for it was a strange thing to dream. Unless he had an amazing imagination.
"No. Several times since childhood."
Ciri regarded him in silence for a long moment, thinking on that. "When all this is over I can take you somewhere. If you want," she added as an afterthought. "That's a nice thing to think about. Something I want."
Kain thought about it and clucked his tongue. "In that particular moment, jumping between worlds is something you are trying to avoid. I would pick something of this world that you want. Some images that fill you with love and hope rather than fear. Something you know and love." He reflected on it a moment and added, "Fear is a child of the unknown. You can't fear something you know. It's always about things you don't know. You fear that Eredin because you don't know what happens when he gets you. You fear death because you don't know what it feels like when you're dead. You fear to lose your loved ones because you know there will be pain of loss and you don't know how grand it would be and you fear it would consume you and don't know what it would mean."
"Mm," she hummed in agreement, trying to find her way to something she loved. Someone. Geralt and Yennefer.
She thought of the three of them together when she was younger, some sort of memory she couldn't tell whether was real or fabricated.
Them sitting together, Geralt with an arm around Yennefer's shoulders, while Ciri practiced with her tiny sword, showing them the routine she had learned from Lambert that day.
That was love. That was safety.
Her eyes slid shut again, her fingers curling in the fur of her cloak, and she drifted off.
Kain fed more wood to the fire, then shifted back to Griffin and watched the girl for a while until he was sure she was asleep. He let his eyes close as he relaxed a tad. The griffin was sleeping peacefully, as calm as animals could be where there was no danger.
Kain tried to trust it. And soon enough, he slept.
For a time while Yennefer and Keira strategized—at least until the Witchers joined them later toward the afternoon—and settled in for the night, Keira appeared to have steered clear of the prying into Yennefer's relationship with Geralt. Only Lambert appeared to want to push the subject again later in the evening after helping himself to their untouched store of mead and the remainders of the cured meat. Eskel, on the other hand, seemed only to be interested in the drinking and fixing a patch to his shirt from a fight, while Vesemir attempted to warm himself with the fire and to recover from the long journey they'd had. Two out of five people groaned.
"Let's end it there, Lambert," Vesemir reproached.
"For what reason?" Lambert retorted.
"Yennefer is our guest and we've even bigger problems to deal with," Eskel lamented without looking up, as if the mere statement should have been enough to slow Lambert from his tangent.
It wasn't.
Apparently, he wasn't happy with the initiative Yennefer had taken making elixirs from their ingredients in the laboratory. He went on about how the Lodge and its associates only wanted their witcher secrets (how they'd had these very same fears in the past with an unnamed other and that they'd finally given them an opportunity to do just that); how Yennefer had probably already helped herself to everything she needed; and that, of all the able-bodied sorceresses they'd ever dealt with, Yennefer was the most conniving and least likely to be trusted.
Yennefer didn't suppose he'd have gone that far had he been sober, but somewhere along the way, he'd lost it, driven by irritation from his travels and other frustrations.
If she were to analyze, she'd say it was fear.
But how was she to know? Why should she care?
"If I wanted your stupid Witcher secrets, I'd already have helped myself to them years ago." Yennefer arched an eyebrow, daring him to content with that thought, to dismiss the fact that despite his obvious dislike for who she was, the opportunity had been there and easily amended.
Lambert scoffed and took a long sip of his beer.
"Why didn't you?" he asked, setting the mug down.
"Why didn't I what?"
"Why didn't you help yourself to the formulas?"
Now she had no idea why he thought she would want to. She'd never been interested in them beyond the fact that their species was unique and that Geralt happened to be part of them.
"Because of Geralt?" He gave a soft derisive laugh. "Doubtful."
Vesemir stabbed Lambert a scolding look while Eskel picked up something from his plate and tossed it at his head. Lambert made a show of deflecting the offending object.
"You know, I always wondered myself," Keira said, chipping in where Lambert had left off.
Everyone appeared to look at her – Yennefer included.
"We've all heard the ballads that reduce the mortals to tears and intrigue the rest of us, but I've never actually seen it with my own two eyes."
Eskel rose from his position at the table and announced that he was going in search of more mead although he already had a full tankard. Lambert watched him leave, disgusted by his assumed cowardice, nodding his agreement with the blonde sorceress as if she'd said something profound.
"And what is that?" Yennefer asked, unable to keep the irritable edge from her tone. Usually, when this kind of thing was came up in conversation, Geralt was there and shut them down. At least in his presence. This time, however, there was no such voice of reason and she hardly had the patience.
"How someone like Geralt—who takes a beating everyday—could be taken with someone whose heart is made of ice—who as quoted 'By ire ever growing, hardening into stone—"
''—amidst the cold to hold you in a heated embrace," Lambert concluded, lowering his voice as if to mimic that of whomever he'd heard the performance from.
They shared a joint look of satisfaction, complacency Yennefer wanted to wipe off their faces, and each dove into their drinks, clinking glasses, solidifying their sudden agreeability.
They'd been fighting since they came together.
Until now, that was.
And for what? To entertain themselves at her expense?
Yennefer stood, intending to leave them to it, to let them enjoy their insufferable childishness, refusing to let them bait her as she was sure they would have liked and had tried to do in the past.
"You don't see it, do you?" Keira asked, dragging her mug away from her lips, setting it down on the table in front of her. "Or is it that you don't care?"
"I think you need to spend more time drinking and comparing girth size with Lambert, and less time trying to concern yourself with my relationship with Geralt."
Lambert muttered and downed his mead.
"I don't see what the big problem is," Keira began. "You two are constantly at each other's throats. Making up, breaking up. No one is even questioning the fact that it has to do with sex. That there must be something you do that has kept him affixed to you—"
The Djinn and our talk on the boat raced in Yennefer's mind, along with Geralt's mask of apology, sheer contriteness and apprehension as she explained what she felt.
"Now there's something-" Lambert interjected, raising his empty mug, expecting Eskel to be at his side ready to receive the agreement and ply him with a refill. Only, he'd been met by a rush of golden light that swallowed him whole and spat him out in the lake somewhere north of the keep.
Keira hardly had time to react, to realize that she'd pressed too far, or even notice that her agreeable and temporary companion had gone missing before she, too, had gone flying, springing up out of her chair as if pulled by strings and forced out the side window in the hall already without a barrier to the ground below.
"Yennefer!" Vesemir yelled in alarm, no longer unresponsive to the situation, his hands balled into fists, his features contorted with disapproval. "Get a hold of yourself!"
Yennefer turned on him with a sneer, maddened that he could step in when it suited him as if she'd be brought to heel.
"They're drunk!"
As if somehow those words should be their excuse enough – and they were – a second ago, one she could have written off easily had they not touched on the unconscious issue she already had.
He shook his head stiffly, broke away from where Yennefer was standing and headed for the window, expelling a sound of shock at what he'd seen before breaking away to run outside.
Yennefer walked over to reclaim his place at the window, peering down at Keira strewn on the ground, her pristine blonde hair fanned out around her head like a wild halo, a cut above her right eye, her left hand twisted beneath her, her ankle bent in a way that suggested it might actually be broken.
Served her right.
Yennefer blinked away the fog of anger when Eskel appeared beside them, attempting to lift the woman off the ground, to get her into their arms so that they could carry her inside and tend to her wounds.
Yennefer returned to the table, collected what remained of her meat and Keira's abandoned drink and headed upstairs to get some sleep.
Eredin did not return. Nor was Ciri plagued by any other dreams that night.
She woke when the sun had started to climb over the hills and its light penetrated the cave. Kain was still asleep by the looks of it but she doubted he would be for long. The griffin cracked an eye open as she got up, following her movements around the room.
The fire had died out. She grabbed her cloak and put it on, heading outside to find some more firewood. Even with the sun on the sky, it was still cold.
Her movements around the cave pulled Kain from his sleep, but he took his time until her footfalls shuffled outside.
He stretched and sat up, so did Griffin. The beast let out a quiet croak, stretched like a cat and trotted for the exit. Kain took the jacket off, put the now dry shirt on and clasped the medallion back around his neck, hiding it beneath the shirt and jacket. He buckled all the straps and combed the bangs away from his eyes with his fingers.
It was an early morning outside, a few hours after sunrise. It was chilly but luckily clear. A rain would not be welcome.
Ciri gathered another armful of broken branches and headed back for the cave, stopping to greet Kain at the entrance. "Morning. Where did you go wash last night? Which direction?" she asked, eyeing her surroundings.
There's a stream in that direction," he pointed. "Very close. Make sure there's nothing lurking around."
"Oh, but I always prefer to wash in the presence of drowners and hags," she teased, smiling as he headed inside to deposit the wood.
"It's a disturbing preference, but I don't judge," he said, heading away toward the shrubs.
Ciri left moments after, walking in the direction Kain had pointed out. He was right; it didn't take long until she reached the stream at all.
She crouched down and washed her hands, gathering some to drink before splashing her face as well. It was freezing cold. Her fingers were already numb.
She drank some more before she headed back, feeling a little more sprightly.
Kain slipped his sword on and waited for her outside the cave, strolling as he surveyed the plants and flowers with interest. It was useful to know what grew here in case he needed to use the herbs. Finding sage last night was luck.
"It's best to go to the tavern for breakfast," he said when she came back. "Skinning and frying rabbits takes more time."
"Alright." Ciri pulled on her gloves and straightened her cloak. "Ermion said you weren't appreciative of company. Is this awful for you? Spending time with me?" It was not an accusatory question. A simple curiosity.
"It's not. I'm just out of habit for it, is all. I've done more talking with you in the past two days than in the last two years."
Ciri nodded, starting on their trek towards the tavern. "How long has it been since you left the dryads?"
"About five years in all."
"And you've been alone for all that time since?"
Kain cast an amused glance at her. "You think it's bad – being alone?"
"Not if that is what you prefer," she shrugged. "I'd take solitude over the wrong kind of people any day."
"It's liberating to be on your own," he admitted. "It's the most freedom I've ever felt."
"I can imagine. I suppose the dryads had their fair share of rules as well?"
"Any group does, they weren't an exception."
"What was it like living with them?" she asked, looking up at him as they walked.
Kain hesitated, unsure of what to say. "Like at constant war with the rest of the world. Patrols, hunting parties…
"There were happier breaks for magical festivities and rituals and celebrations, but more of a rare occasion. There was rarely any peace."
"Sounds like the Aen Elle," she said after a moment's contemplation. "Do you miss being there?"
Kain pondered. "Being there… not really. I wasn't alone. But I had to be killing for it. I was fighting someone else's war and getting a lot of blood on my hands, for which I was praised. I don't miss that being gone."
"Understandable." Ciri eyed the sun that had come up to peak out behind the trees again, enjoying the warmth on her skin. "Anyone there you got close to?"
Kain sighed, turning away to hide the scowl. "Dryads are hard to get close to if you're a male outsider."
"Not trusting of the male species?"
"It's mostly females, unless the guests they let under their protection, non-humans. They harbor the non-human fugitives who fight their war for and with them. They steal little human girls and turn them into dryads with Waters of Oblivion."
"Ah, yes, I remember that part. And before the dryads? Where were you then?"
"It's all ancient history now," he murmured as they walked into the village. People raised their heads to look at them as they passed, but almost no one was too interested. The first working morning after the festivities was not an easy one, and even two fair-haired people didn't hold their attention for too long.
The innkeeper remembered them. "What's it gon' be? Meat or fresh fish? Got 'em fresh from early morn."
"Meat for me, thank you," Kain put the coins on the counter and headed for the tables. Only one had a sailor finishing his meal. The rest were empty – everybody was busy.
"Same for me, please," Ciri said, preparing to follow Kain to the table.
"Did ye find yer man, lass?"
She turned to the innkeeper, eyebrows raised. "Pardon?"
"Yer man. Ye asked for directions to his village last night."
"Oh," she felt disappointment and sorrow drench her like cold water. "Yes."
The innkeeper regarded her with a knowing look. "Found himself another lass while ye were away, huh? It happens."
She didn't answer that, moving to catch up with Kain instead.
Kain settled at the table away from the sailor, feeling uncomfortable and misplaced. The unbidden memories of Brokilon attempting to invade his mind. It had been so long since he thought of it.
And of her.
Ciri settled opposite him and leaned back in her chair.
They were both quiet for a stretch of time, seemingly a lot on their minds.
She broke the silence after their breakfast had been served. "You know a fair deal about magical animals, right?"
"I suppose I do. Don't you? Being a witcher's ward?"
"I know monsters more than animals, but what I mean is…" She reached for her wrist and removed the silver bracelet there, cautiously handing it over to him. "Does this make you feel anything? Sense anything?"
Kan took the bracelet and twirled it in his hands. A silver chain with a green stone that looked like a dark tourmaline. There wasn't anything immediately vibrant in it; however, after a bit of focusing he sensed the energy in the stone.
"There is magic in it. The crystal holds it – crystals keep information, which is why they get enchanted. What is that supposed to do?"
"It used to summon a horse. My horse, Kelpie. She was my sole companion for a long time, much like you and your griffin. I lost her when I had to flee The Wild Hunt. The bracelet broke shortly after." Ciri hesitated, watching the piece of jewelry with a hopeful look. "Avallac'h has tried to fix it, but he says the connection might be broken. Or that Kelpie might be dead." She swallowed. "Can you… feel if any of that is true?"
It was another surprise – those were piling up with that girl. Summoning a horse with a bracelet was strange even for what he had seen in life.
He concentrated on the bracelet once again, tuning out the tavern's smells and sounds, but it wasn't easy. He didn't feel comfortable enough to dig deeper.
"I feel something, but to find out more, I need a quieter place with fresh air. We'll have our meal and then I'll see what I can do." He waited for the innkeeper to leave the meal, and handed the bracelet back to her. "It doesn't feel… dead. That much I can tell."
Ciri nodded eagerly, hope rekindled at his statement. She took the bracelet back and fixed it around her wrist, then got to eating, quicker than she ever had. Had this been Kaer Morhen she would have been chided by several witchers. "Thank you," she said in between greedy bites. "Thank you."
Kain cast a flabbergasted gander at her. "Nothing to thank me for yet."
He found his hunger as he started to eat, but even that didn't make him sweep the meal off the plate with the speed the girl was making. She had to wait for him.
"You are trying to help. That earns you my gratitude," she said simply, offering him an uncharacteristic wink. One she immediately regretted.
Kain finished his water and set the mug aside. "You've been here before, haven't you? Any magical towers around you're dying to see?"
"Not that I know of," she said with a slight laugh. "To my knowledge, there are three such towers. Only one on Skellige. I entered portals in the other two towers once upon a time. Both to flee. Didn't really go well."
"If so, there should be another place to see."
Kain headed for the door, giving a nod to the innkeeper as he passed.
"Come again," the innkeeper said as he walked out.
"No other dreams last night? You seemed to have slept better the second time."
"The portals are unstable. Dangerous. If I had any dreams I don't remember them. It was nice. New."
"You have any place to be?" Kain asked, stalling before they picked the gates.
Ciri lifted her arm to show him the bracelet again, giving him a questioning look.
His responding look was a reprimanding one. "I remember. Any place with no people will be good."
They were almost through the gate when someone called to them from behind.
"Eh, lads?" An elderly woman was approaching. She spared him an interest look, then turned her eyes to Ciri, and smiled. "I saw ye like the horses. We hold a race 'ere in celebration of Mother Freyja. If ye want to take part, ye'll honor the Great Mother with yer victory."
Ciri blinked in surprise, gaze drifting from the elderly lady to Kain. "Oh, uh…" Ciri supposed she should if it was in Freyja's honour. To thank her. "Sure. Sign me up," she told her with a small smile. "You'll have to lend me a horse."
"Ye can talk to folk before the race starts," the woman said. "Some will be willin to lend a horse for a few coins. Good day to ye, youngens, may loving Freyja protect ye."
She started away, and they continued on the path. They returned to the cave and found Griffin next to the entrance cleaning feathers. Seemed he'd had his meal.
Kain took her bracelet once again and sat down on the grass to concentrate. He toyed with it lazily, watching the light play in the depths of the green stone. It flickered and flashed and lured, and the energy felt as if it was warming his fingers.
There was a recurring image sweeping through his mind: a black horse rearing up, its eye widening, the pupil narrowing and dilating as if it hears something it knows.
"The connection is still there," he said, raising his eyes to the girl. He stood up and held the trinket out to her. "But after the thing broke, it's a bit… damaged. I could try to restore it, but… I've never done that before, and I'll need a place with magic. The Freyja temple could do, but it needs to be empty, which leaves the night time."
Ciri crouched down beside him, arms resting on her knees as she watched him work with the bracelet, eyes wide and eager. "But you think she is alive? Unhurt?"
Her eyes were pleading. Kain thought it would be the same for him with Griffin. "I don't feel she's dead."
That was the best news she'd heard in quite a while. Ciri couldn't help an ecstatic smile as she wrapped her arms around him in a celebratory embrace, her face briefly resting against the crook of his throat. "Thank you," she whispered just before she withdrew again, reclaiming the bracelet to fasten it around her wrist.
He froze in her impulsive embrace, utterly out of touch with that simple human custom. Her breath hot on his neck sent a jolt of thrill through his nerves, and then she pulled away.
The memory of the night before rose its ugly face, but he did his best to turn away from it.
Once the bracelet was fixed in place, Ciri turned to look at him again, in a greater mood than she had been all week. "So, will you honor us lowly humans with your participation in the race?" Her tone teasing and impish.
"Races draw attention and I don't do that," he spread his arms briefly as if saying she already knew that. "And hardly horses themselves are eager to race. Humans make them and then call themselves winners after reaching the finish line on someone else's legs."
Her eyebrows shot skywards. "Fair point. Of course, if they were to race by foot most of them would not make it halfway up the hill." She smirked a little, but it faded soon. "Would you, um… Do you have plans for today? Important things you must do? Or… would you come with me to the graveyard?"
He frowned, pondering. Graveyards weren't the best place to step on, but if she needed it, he might as well see where it was. It must be about that village and the man who saved her.
"All right. You know where it is? Lead the way."
"I've a fair idea," she said, leading the way back towards the village of Lofoten. It would take them some time to get there on foot, but she needed this. She wanted to find Skjall's grave, honor him and his sacrifice in whatever way she could.
She was glad of Kain's company. The more time they spent together, the less she understood Ermion's warnings of staying away from him. He had made him sound dangerous and unkind; someone who could not be trusted. That was not her impression in the least.
Gesturing for Griffin to stay, Kain followed the girl, catching up with her, but stayed a bit behind.
He thought of Brokilon; it was like surrendering to the idea that refused to leave. He had to stuff it back into the box he kept it in for all these years. Where it belonged with all the past.
It didn't go amiss that instead of walking beside her, he always stayed a few paces behind. "Guarding me, archer?" she asked over her shoulder. "Or have you a lot on your mind?"
"I'm not used to company," he reminded. "Griffin doesn't need me to talk to him."
"No, I suppose he would not require your words."
They used the same road as last night. Though this time there were no drowners in the way.
"How was it with your mare?" he asked. "You talked to her?"
"I did. Quite a lot actually," she admitted. "I felt alone at the time. Not the good kind. And she was my only friend. The only one I could truly trust."
He nodded pensively. It was a familiar sentiment. "She's probably searching for you, too, then."
"I hope so. She would never let herself be caught by any other." Ciri was silent a while, the only sound that of their footsteps on gravel. "I miss her."
He didn't respond; there was nothing to say to that. He feared to think of what it would be had he been in her shoes.
The village loomed ahead. It felt cold and empty even from the distance.
There were painfully few people, and all of them women. They sat in a wide circle, and as they approached, it became clear they were praying. The woman standing in the head of the circle noticed them and frowned. Kain sensed both confusion and fear about her.
"Forgive us for disturbing you," he said, addressing all of seven them while they scrutinized the two. "We came to pay respects to the fallen." He cast a quick glance at Ciri, in case she wanted to ask where the cemetery was.
The woman who looked like a priestess folded her arms as if feeling a chill. Her eyes studied Ciri sharply. "Ye that ashen-haired lass, ain't ye? A witcher and that magician filth were lookin for ye if ye's her."
Ciri was pleasantly surprised by Kain taking the initiative to approach the group of women. He was getting better in the company of others all the time.
The pleasantness evaporated from her face when the priestess spoke, eyes narrowing dangerously. Ciri did not like how she spoke of Yennefer.
Ciri tried to push the annoyance from her voice because people rarely wanted to give information to someone who was angry and scowling. "When was this?" Had they returned from Novigrad to find her?
"A few weeks past," she said. It was clear her encounter with them had not been a pleasant one.
"Right," Ciri said simply, not needing any more information on that topic. "I am looking for the grave of a man named Skjall. He used to live in this village. Is he up at the cemetery?"
One of the women spat at her feet, but for some reason Ciri had the feeling her derision wasn't entirely directed at her.
"The craven," the priestess sneered. "We do not speak his name, for he no longer has one."
"What does that mean?"
"When the Wild Hunt came, the craven ran while his people died. He lived as a coward, he died as a coward. There is no room for him in our cemetery."
"That is not what happened," Ciri argued, feeling her temper and indignation rise. "He led them away from the village. You would not be alive if not for him!"
The Priestess smiled as though she knew truths Ciri did not. "That is not what we saw."
"Where is he?" Ciri's voice trembled, her fists were clenched at her sides.
"He met his end in the Goddess' Garden. After your Witcher dredged him up from the caves, we threw him in the crags to rot with the fallen warriors of The Hunt."
Kain cringed at the thought of all those bodies rotting in the open. Why wouldn't these people burn their dead?
"What happened to him in the Garden?" he asked.
"Morgvark," the woman who looked the oldest answered simply. "He wanted to cleanse his name by killing Morgvark."
"The monster who lived in the Garden, the filth punished by gods' wrath," the priestess explained. "We never saw 'em since. The witcher said the monster killed 'im, for the witcher rid us of Morgvark in the end."
"He had done nothing wrong!" Ciri hissed in the priestess' direction, glaring at them all. "Where are the crags?"
The priestess looked mildly hesitant but eventually pointed out the direction. Ciri set off immediately, ignoring her calls.
"He does not deserve your sorrow! He is a traitor!"
It wasn't far. A three minute walk away from the village she found The Crags – a set of rugged cliffs leading down into a hollow in the earth. The wind carried the stench of decaying flesh and though it should have disgusted her, it simply made her more furious.
Skjall had not deserved this fate. Nor had he deserved this resting place. She needed to remedy it in any way she could.
"She should not disturbed the cursed," the priestess told Kain, looking after Ciri who stomped away. "Tis not good for the livin."
"What if it's not what you saw?" he asked. "What if he wasn't cursed to begin with?"
She seized him with a distrustful look. "Gods woulda showed us. He was no warrior, and he ran. He did not want to die and he ran."
"Cowards don't go after monsters to prove anything," Kain reasoned. "Their love for life surpasses everything, especially their honor and dignity. He would have just left your village to someplace no one knows about him. Instead he went for the beast."
"Tis what Witcher said," the oldest woman murmured.
"It's reasonable to doubt whether he's really a coward."
"Who to prove otherwise?" the priestess asked.
"Where is the Garden you spoke of?"
"On the end if the path north from 'ere, close to the Mother's temple," the priestess pointed behind her where the road went.
He nodded and hurried after Ciri.
He found her standing at the edge of a hole reeking of rotting flesh and something else even fouler, darker. Approaching, he saw the black armored bodies and some creatures resembling a mix of ghoul and dog with spikes sticking from their backs.
The Wild Hunt abominations.
Ciri's face was a mask of a tranced loss and sorrow.
"Best to burn them. The riders and their dogs."
"Yes," Ciri said, unable to take her eyes off the heap of corpses, attempting to glean Skjall's face amongst them all. "After I get him out. I want to put him in the ground."
Kain observed the heap of bodies. It was all armor and spikes.
He walked around the edge of the hole, and on the other side there was someone wearing fabric clothes - all dirty and discolored but not black metal.
"Is that him?"
She followed Kain, squinting down at the figure he'd pointed out. "Maybe. Yes… I think so," she said, moving down the slope toward the heap, careful not to slip on the loose rocks and gravel on her way there. "Yes, it's him!"
He was hard to recognize; face all bloated and discolored, but it was him. His clothes, his likeness.
She took hold of one of the riders and with great effort began to haul him off Skjall's legs, to make it easier to get him out of this horrible place.
"Step away," Kain said, holding his hands together as if there was an invisible ball between them. He waited for the energy to get denser, then threw his hands forth; the black knight's body Ciri was struggling to move jerked upwards and fell a few feet away like a kicked doll.
He drew a deeper breath, focusing his power, then held a hand out, staring at the needed corpse. He slowly lifted his hand, and the corpse 'sat up' and began to rise as if pulled by strings.
Ciri drew back as soon as he said, releasing her hold on the dead elf. Kain moved him with what seemed like effortless power, but that increased once he moved onto Skjall's body. She watched, mesmerized, as his corpse jerked and swayed up the hill, only climbing out herself once Kain had finished.
Kain deposited it on the edge of the pit and bent over, hands propped above his knees, waiting out the slight nausea.
"Yennefer would like you," she murmured, more to herself than him and paused beside him as doubled over. She didn't touch him. Wasn't sure that'd be wise or welcome at this moment. "Are you well?"
Kain barely squelched the sickness, trying to breathe in shallow intakes, and slowly straightened up. He wasn't sure if it was simply the stench that made him sick. An unsettling feeling crept around his heart.
"I'll be all right," he said, walking past her and to the body.
The man had been dead for many days, but still preserved better than he should have been. The pit was breathing cold along with stench, and that explained it.
Ciri wasn't sure if it was his magic making him feel sick, the stench of the dead, or the sight of them. And she did not think now was the right time to ask.
She moved closer to examine Skjall. His round, friendly face had lost everything that had made her trust him. Once more she felt something akin to heartache; pain and guilt for the people who had died on her behalf. "Let us take him away from here. Someplace… Someplace the earth is still soft enough to be moved. Where he can find peace."
"Can't drag him - the body will come apart," Kain warned, scrutinizing him and frowning deeper. "Something's not right…"
Ciri frowned, more at the second part than the first. "What do you mean?"
She crouched down beside the body, trying to see what Kain was seeing.
There was something strange going on around the body: as if a black smoke came out of it in thin coils.
"I don't know, I haven't seen it before. It's like he's truly cursed, but not the way they said. The body is soaked with something... nasty. It's unsafe for the living to touch it."
Ciri stared; first at Kain, then Skjall. "Something dark?" she asked, inhaling sharply. "Do you think it is possible The Wild Hunt cursed him? They are mages, after all.
"Could it be a trap? Skjall and I were fighting together, running together. They would have made the connection, they always do."
Kan shook his head subtly, still staring down at the body. "I don't know. I need to find the place where it happened to see. I can't read it off him - it's like letting a viper bite you when you have no antidote."
Ciri hesitated. "We can't just leave him here. What do we do?"
Kain glanced around, undecided. "No animal will touch him, although necrophages could. And whatever it is, I don't think it can be fixed on the body itself. We have to dig a grave and burn him in it." He gave her a firm look. "I know no other way. Unless…" His expression turned pensive as he looked at the body again.
Ciri watched in silence for as long as she could stand it. "Unless...?"
"A blessed water of some kind. That could change something." He shrugged and looked over at the hills in the north. "Maybe from that Garden where it happened. The Garden is sacred, from what I gathered."
Ciri hesitated but a moment. "Then let us go there. Or I will." She met his gaze. "I appreciate you doing this. More than I can put into words but...if you are tired, if the magic is too much, I do understand."
"I've never done anything that'd be too much.
"You said he led you out of the village. Do you remember where you parted? I want to see that place. It still remembers."
Ciri straightened and examined their surroundings. "If we go back to the village, I will find it from there. We were on horseback when we fled, but we should manage the walk just fine."
"Show me the place." He gestured in invitation to go.
Reluctantly leaving Skjall behind, they traipsed back to the village. From there she led him onto the road she had taken that day, along the coast. Their destination was a nature-made archway of rock, one Ciri had slipped through while Skjall had continued further up the road. "This is where we parted," she told Kain, pointing in the direction Skjall had ridden. "I went down to the water where Avallac'h was waiting, while Skjall and the horses distracted the Wild Hunt. I tried to make Avallac'h stay and help, for I knew there was little chance Skjall would make it on his own. But he knocked me out and took me away. I don't know what happened to Skjall after that."
There was a huge rock, a cliff with a passage through it; it sat between the pathway leading from the village and the shore. Kain walked into it slowly, his footfalls quiet and yet still echoing faintly against the stony walls. He closed his eyes briefly, smelling the air, letting the sounds of the sea waves sloshing and ebbing fill his hearing and carry him to that day.
His hand skimmed along the cold stone until he was out and on the beach overlooking the sea. It was peppered with foamy patches on tops of the small waves. The wind had risen since the morning. He watched the ocean until he saw a boat with his inner eye. The boat was on the sand, and a tall figure stood beside it. Another one came, her ashen strands of hair blowing around her neck and cheeks; they argued shortly, and then the tall figure did something as quick as snapping fingers in front of Ciri's face; she fell back and he caught her.
"He saw your friend knock you out," Kain said, trusting Ciri was hovering behind him somewhere. "He turned back to help you, but he was knocked out of the saddle." Kain surveyed the sand, walking slowly until he stood before the spot the village boy fell. "He passed out shortly, after seeing your friend take you away in a boat. When he woke up, it was over. His village and family was no more, just like his honor and name."
Kain blinked, clearing his mind, and turned to her.
"Whatever happened to him didn't happen here. It's like they said – the Garden. And that… Morkvarg."
"The Hunt just left him?" She frowned. That sounded unlikely, too. Unless they were panicking because they had lost track of her. "Should we go? To the garden?"
She was amazed at his display of magic, how easily it seemed to come to him and how he was so… in control. She longed for the day she would be able to use her own freely again, when she would get to practice.
"Whatever answers this story misses should be there," he shrugged, and began to walk.
Ciri fell into step beside him. He seemed to know where he was going. Either he had been to the Garden before or he'd asked for directions. "Did they say anything else? Those women? About the Garden?"
"There was some monster there cursed by Gods, and your friend wanted to kill it to restore his honor. But the monster killed him. And then your witcher mentor took care of the monster."
"Geralt," she said automatically. "His name is Geralt."
It pained her to know Skjall had gone there to fight a monster in order to regain his honor. And it infuriated her that the people who were left had turned on him.
Kain didn't respond, kept walking. He circled around the village and found his way back to the path the priestess pointed out.
Ciri followed, staying close to his side, unable to enjoy the beautiful nature surrounding them. Her head was filled with anger and petty thoughts of vengeance. She wanted to smack those women back at the village and make them eat their spiteful words.
When they finally came to their destination, they were forced to pause outside the gate. The locked gate. "Doesn't seem like they welcome visitors."
Kain turned sideways from the locked gate – there were stairs leading onto the wall surrounding the garden. He cast a glance at the brazier in the foot of the stairs and jogged up.
He strolled along the wall, surveying the Garden in mesmerized dismay. The giant tree in the middle of it was dying; the leaves were brown and dry and falling down with every breath of the wind. There was a carpet of them beneath it; and the smell reminded him of the corpses pit. He winced, his hand coming up unwittingly to his solar plexus where he felt it – a twirling, coiling ache that made him sick.
Ciri jogged up the stairs after him and came to a halt beside him, eyeing the place supposedly called The Garden. It did not look like a place worthy of a beloved Goddess.
Kain did not look too good. He looked faint and pale.
She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Not a pleasant energy… Are you sure you want to continue?"
Her touch started him a bit, and sobered. "Whatever lingers in that body is… it feels close to this… here. It's connected. It happened here."
"If this is where he died, that would make sense."
Kain went along the wall, turned with it and surveyed the tree and the space around it. There was a house behind it, as abandoned and cold as the garden appeared to be. From down at it from the wall, he noticed that not the whole Garden was decaying. It seemed like the disease was spreading from the tree, gradually eating up the rest of the green.
Freyja…
Kain stalled his step. It was like that gust of wind inside the temple last night, coming from nowhere and carrying the name in a whisper.
It was Her garden, and it was dying. Not dead yet, but dying. He wondered why Ermion and his druids wouldn't at least try to do something about it.
Hesitating for another moment, he continued along the wall until he reached the turn leading to the central square where the tree and the house were. It was a circle in a circle, the centerpiece of the garden, its heart. It's diseased heart.
The smell of decay intensified, making his stomach turn and his solar plexus ache as if he was dipped in something toxic. He swallowed and approached the tree as if it could attack. Kain gazed up into the damaged canopy. The leaves fell solemnly around him shuffling softly in the breeze.
Ciri watched him move for a short moment, then followed, giving him the space he needed to work. He was like Yennefer, their methods looked similar. Once more she felt that pang of longing. Magic… Ciri could feel it all around her. But she was too scared to tap into it. Too scared of anything that could lead Eredin to her. "What happened to that tree? Can you tell?"
Kain looked down at the round table of white stone with a dark stain on its flat surface. He didn't need to look closer to know it was blood. It had the same black smoke coil over it like steam over a hot drink on a cold day. It seemed to be the place for offerings to the Goddess. The man from the village tried to do it right.
Something went terribly wrong, though.
"Not yet," Kain responded, strolling around the tree and scrutinizing the ground around it.
There was a metal grit almost fully covered beneath decaying leaves and ivy strings. He glanced back at the table; he knew what he would see if he touched it. He could as well not waste his time.
Kain went ahead toward the house, but something stopped me mid-step. The medallion beneath his shirt sensed the energy. He hesitated, refraining from touching a hand to the Cat pendant, then followed the trail. It led him sideways from the house and down onto the first level of the garden.
It was still green and looked like any long abandoned garden – wild and lush.
"Your Witcher was here," he informed the girl upstairs, and heard a growl.
A wolf appeared from the bushes, snarling.
Staring it into the eyes, Kain slowly lowered down on one knee and waited. The wolf growled, then sniffed the air, undecided. Eventually, it approached with caution, stretching his neck to sniff. Something in his yellow eyes shifted, and fear-filled anger dissipated. It licked its muzzle and trotted away, through the wooden doorway deeper into the garden.
Ciri watched him from above with growing fascination, how he moved, how at ease he felt with nature.
Something that was further cemented when a wolf appeared and Kain knew just what to do. It made her feel some kind of way… Proud? Proud to know him. To watch him.
She smiled.
Kain threw a glance where the wolf went, but decided to try the path that led ahead. He passed a fountain – it wasn't working, the water seemed stall, the walls of the basin beneath the water was tainted with greenish growth.
There was a dead wolf lying on the stony path, cut down by a sword, seemed like. The Witcher's.
Growling, another wolf appeared. It watched him for a moment, unmoving, then trotted past him much like the first one.
Kain looked down at the dead wolf. "Squaess," he murmured. "Aé gloire taedh." He waved a hand over the carcass, and it flames encompassed it, soaking it rapidly and reducing to ash.
The stairs leading to the tree level were magnificent once, as white as the table next to the trunk. Now it was broken, as if a giant axe cut it in two.
He turned and went back to the passage after the wolves.
Ciri stayed up on the stony walkway where she could keep an eye on him, slowly trailing the path. He moved out of sight every now and then and it took several seconds before he reappeared.
She wasn't worried. She could feel him. Some kind of magic? She did not know. Mostly it just felt like the sensation she had experienced when on the water, being drawn to the tower, or possibly Kain, like a magnet.
Kain came out to the back of the house; the back door was sealed shut with wooden planks. Next to the house was an old pergola with drying climbing plants covering it in uneven patches. Beyond that little backyard there was a lower level and a water channel with clear water separating the sectors of the garden.
He stood on the wall over the channel, listening, feeling for directions. There was something important on the other side. He hopped off the wall onto the roof of a shed, then to the ground. The channel was not wide enough, so he stepped a bit back, then dashed and leapt over.
There were two levers on stony columns on the other side. He figured they were for the wooden trap doors built in the channel. He sensed the Witcher's energy again, faintly. It had been a while, and the Witcher didn't spent much time on this spot. The energy was pulling Kain away, further to the side.
He moved out of sight again and when Ciri finally leaped down after him, it was not from concern but curiosity. It took her a few minutes to catch up with Kain. He was standing near some sort of river. "Anything?"
He peered at her standing on the other side, on the edge he jumped off. "Your Witcher's trail is all around here. I'll see what he found."
He climbed lightly up the stony crumbling fence and went further along the water channel to a big cave entrance. It smelled of a beast from inside it. He didn't sense anything alive in there. It had to be Morkvarg's lair.
He took a deep breath and went in, slowly to adjust his vision.
Ciri did not follow this time. What would be the point? She wouldn't be able to see her own feet in that cave, even with the daylight streaming in.
She remained by the river, waiting, sensing his movements as he descended into the dark.
The cave was rather big. In the center there was a stick with an old yellow skull on top of it; a bonfire ashes next to it. Kain got flashes of a tall figure, hunched over and strange, pacing around muttering and growling.
Pain. Hate. Despair so deep it makes you want to scream until your head bursts—
He winced, rubbing his face, and shook his head in hopes to clear his mind. Morkvarg was gone, his presence faint like a faded painting. Many people died in the cave and around it, he could sense it, could feel the screams, the rage of the beast mixed with immense suffering.
Kain emerged from the cave with knowledge that it wasn't the place to help him. A few feet away there was another broken bridge leading to a stony archway with a grid door. He saw it was slightly ajar. He hopped over and entered another part of the garden.
He didn't say anything, silent and with his face pinched in concentration. Ciri didn't disturb, assuming he would tell her once he found something that mattered.
She wondered why Geralt and Yennefer had come here. How had they known Skjall had been her saviour? Had the women back in the village told them and sent them here? Or had they used magical means? She suddenly wished they were here so she could ask.
That part of the garden preserved the most beauty, it seemed. Perhaps because of it being the farthest from the tree where, Kain felt, the nasty thing happened.
However, the temple's big door lay on the ground as though knocked out from the inside. Deep scratches covered the darkened wood.
"Morkvarg," he muttered to himself and stood at the threshold.
The temple was thrashed, candle holders broken, a few skeletons sprawled in various poses suggesting they didn't just choose to sit down and die.
A thick chain snaked across the room dividing it in two. On the end of it there was a huge paw. Gnawed off.
"Morkvarg was a werewolf," he said. "Your friend was not the first one to try to kill him. They all died."
He squatted down and looked at the long gashes in the wooden floor. Claws.
"The Witcher fought him here. And won."
"Witchers tend to be more successful in those matters than us mere mortals," Ciri murmured, stepping inside and eyeing the severed paw with mingled fascination and disgust. "It is likely Skjall met his end here as well then? This garden, I mean. The priestess was not lying?"
"He died here, yes. But not in this temple. Outside." He glanced around, giving it a thought. "He tried to hide here at some point, but then the werewolf found him, and he tried to defeat him outside. He…" Kain trailed off, turning to step away from the threshold and across the lawn, following the string he sensed. There was still the Witcher's trail – he found it.
There was a hole in the ground, probably an old well. Kain looked down and saw the sky reflecting on the water surface.
"He fell down there and… it was his end. Feels like Witcher had to go down there for the body."
"What could they hope to gain from his corpse?" she mused. "Geralt is noble, yes, but when in a hurry I doubt he would stop to tend to the dead while the living are in danger."
She peered down into the crack, unable to see much at all.
A shred of conversation fluttered in his head; Kain stilled for a moment, catching the thread once again, then followed it in silence. Trying to listen and feel his way, he didn't notice how he got back to the tree and was strolling around it slowly until he stopped at the table once again.
The churning sensation was crawling back into his solar plexus. He winced. The Cat medallion buzzed with energy and not in a good way. It made him want to take it off and rub the skin beneath it. He was staring at the ground before him, and it felt strange… bad… painful.
"He brought the body here," Kain murmured. "She wanted it… for a ritual. Dark magic… that is what happened to the body. It's what happened to this place. The ritual. She reversed the magic, bent it backwards to make the corpse speak… It upset the very power of this place and poisoned it. Through its heart."
Blinking, he staggered back and lowered to one knee to regain balance, pushing the visions away.
"She drew the power from the tree, twisting it as she did, and that ritual defiled both the garden and the body."
Ciri swallowed, listening attentively to his every word.
Yennefer.
She'd brought him back to live? Ciri did not know that was possible. Not with someone who had been dead so long.
She must have been searching for information. Information about Ciri, Avallac'h, and The Hunt. It did not surprise Ciri in the least Yennefer would use such drastic methods. She'd always gone to extremes to try and protect her child.
Kain fell to his knee and Ciri lowered opposite him. He had a look in his eye that made her think he was in the verge of collapsing.
She brought a hand to his cheek, her fingers barely making contact with his skin. She worried her touch might upset him but she could not help herself. "Are you alright? Perhaps we should leave this place."
Her touch startled him a little; his gaze snapped up to lock on hers. He shook his head and peered at the tree, up at the branches above that looked like dried out fingers of a corpse.
"It's not going to be contained here," he said. "This poison, that reversed energy still goes on. It will spread further. The whole Garden will die, and then the forests around, and then the villages and then…" He didn't want to imagine this foul magic seeping into the sea and through it. "I have to try to do something about it."
Ciri frowned, still amazed by his knowledge but also highly worried about the potential of the islands dying.
"Can I help?" she asked. "Is there anything I can do?"
He got up to his feet, feeling heavy, as if the air itself was trying to weigh him down. "Not when you can't use your powers, nor know how. Freyja will have to help me with that. It's her Garden.
"You might not want to stay here until… it's over."
Ciri stood as well, still frowning with concern. "Where will you go?"
He gave her a briefly confused look. "You will go – back to the village or the cave, whichever you prefer. I have to stay here to figure out how to do it."
"I'm not leaving you here alone, Kain." What if he collapsed, or the tainted magic somehow managed to harm him. She could not with good conscience go back to the cave and simply wait. "If it makes things easier with me out of the way, I will step outside the main gate and wait there. But I go no further."
He opened his mouth to argue, but then it was not fair: he didn't leave her, either, even if he didn't know why.
He sighed. "Best for you to be outside."
She nodded. "Be safe."
Reluctantly, she climbed back up the stone wall, onto the raised walkway that circled the garden. Ciri did as she had said and descended the stairs outside, settling down next to a wooden signpost that carried Freyja's name. "Please protect him," she whispered. "Please keep him safe."