Damien lay back and let his eyes fall on her body bathed in an orange glow from the fire. The reflection of the flames flickered and danced over her skin, as if they enjoyed touching it as much as he had not long before.
He was surprised how gentle she was with her lovemaking. He decided he liked it. He had been with plenty of wild, raucous women. Her softness left her image lingering in his mind. Perhaps this was some form of magic as well? He wasn't supposed to be having these feelings. Is that why the famed White Wolf was such a sucker for sorceresses? Did they ensnare his mind?
Ekaterina had healed him with painful and bitter magic. It took weeks. Now that it was done, he seemed better than he had been before. She was more talented than any of the sorceresses from Aretuza. He found out a few nights earlier that it wasn't just in healing magic. Apparently Fergus had been trying to woo her before the Witcher's arrival in the village. Once he realized that the charred crisp that had staggered in from the specter lair was going to survive, he had no choice but to try and kill Damien himself. The Witcher could have easily sliced him to ribbons, but Ekaterina stopped him with a calming hand and led Fergus out to the villagers in the square.
"I will ask you all just once. Do you stand with Fergus as one in your hatred for the Witcher and the desire to kill him?"
A few of them scuffed their feet. Others looked at each other. Finally one said, "We do."
"So be it," she said. She made no incantation, no hand gestures, nothing. The color simply left their faces and they were dead. Everyone in the village. They say Witchers are incapable of emotion. Damien felt something bubble up, but squashed it immediately.
They never spoke of the village again. They simply packed supplies and rode off. He had gotten to know a little bit about her during the weeks she had healed him. He knew that while she did her best to serve the village, they despised her. She was tolerated because she could heal, but had to scrounge for ways to make ends meet. Then something happened. She never said so, he simply knew it. The villagers were living on borrowed time, Geralt and he were just the catalyst for the final reaction.
"Who is she?" asked Ekaterina the next morning. He looked at her inquisitively. "Yennefer. You said she has the same father as you."
"I don't really remember. Just a face in a dream. The Witcher mutagens make you forget your past."
She sighed and touched her finger to his forehead. "She has your black hair, and your looks. You are both half elven. The man who sold her is not her father. Or yours."
"You ought to ask before just doing that," he said.
"Did you ask before you started kissing me and finally bedding me?"
"No, but you made no objections."
"Neither did you."
Three days later they found themselves on the outskirts of Maribor. It wasn't their destination, but everything was being funneled that way by skirmishes and troops marching. Political games and war, Damien found them a waste of time. They never ended.
"I think your sister does too," said Ekaterina, "which is surprising for a sorceress."
"Did you just read my mind? I thought you had to touch my forehead."
"Sucker."
She was fun to be around, but sometimes could be real annoying. "Just how do you know so much about sorceresses, and my sister? It couldn't have been in my mind, I don't remember anything about her."
She reached across as they rode and touched him lightly on the arm. "You do," she said, "but it's buried deep within. That is why I had to actually touch you. Common daydreams? No touching needed."
"Or permission, it seems. Can you tell my thoughts now?"
She feigned a startled look. "Promises, promises! I might just let you if you tell me why you were really in that dungeon when Geralt of Rivia showed up."
His startled look was real.
They were suddenly interrupted by loud screams. Wings fluttered overhead. He looked up to see a small Gryphon darting through the air. It was too young to be wary of large groups of humans. How did it get there? It wasn't much more than a hatchling.
A peasant that hurled a stone at it found out the hard way that it wasn't too young to be deadly. "Stop!" Damien yelled and the small crowd started parting once they realized a Witcher was present. The Gryphon was feasting on the peasant, oblivious to its surroundings.
There was something not right. The gryphon was acting strangely. It would stop and tremble, then go on eating. Suddenly it fell on its side and started shaking uncontrollably.
"Kill it!" yelled a merchant at Damien.
There was no need. With a shudder it simply died. "The poor thing," he heard Ekaterina whisper to herself as she ran to the creature's body. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she made some limited movements with her hands a safe distance away. The magic was powerful, however. His medallion was vibrating wildly.
"We should leave immediately," she hissed as she suddenly stood up and took Damien by the arm. "I'll explain on the way."
"The way where?"
"Somewhere not here."
The Gryphon had been cursed. A terrible curse. A curse that could spread to others like a plague. Ekaterina had gotten them out of there just in time. The curse was limited mostly to the outskirts, but hundreds died in the same way as the Gryphon had. Had Nilfgaard resorted to using cursed creatures to soften up the ranks, or had someone else entered the fray? He hated war.
The School of the Cat used to thrive on it with political assassinations and espionage. He was trying to change all of that. He was not innocent of the same mercenary activities, but he had survived the Trial of the Grasses AND fully mutated. He didn't fit in with the dregs of Witcher society. They took him in and trained him all the same. Being fully mutated, he quickly became one of their deadliest assassins.
Then she visited again.
The same woman who he had helped to steal the secret tomes full of formulas and magical instructions required to to change a boy into a mutant. The same woman who disappeared and left him to face the wrath of his original school's master. She had destroyed his life once. Why did he listen to her again?
Her second visit was the reason he had sought out Geralt of Rivia. Geralt's sometime lover was Damien's sister. He had planted the seed in Geralt and it was sure to get to her. He buried everything deep in his mind again as she had taught him. It was supposed to block out any magic user. He looked over at Ekaterina. She was different. Would it work on her?
"Will you tell me about your magic?" he asked, trying to look innocent.
"Are you worried about whether I can break through the multiple layers someone has set up to hide a secret in your head? Don't be. It may surprise you, but I don't constantly read your mind. There are too many more important things to focus on when out on the road like this. Every forest has secrets. Some will whisper it to you, but most can't hear it."
Now he was genuinely curious. "Are there more like you?"
She laughed loudly. "I don't know whether I should incinerate you for how insulting that question is, or let the elves that have surrounded us try it themselves." With her arm raised she made a gesture in the direction of a large tree ahead of them. Now he heard them. He could smell them too. Scoiatel. They weren't the powerful guerrilla force they once were, but they could still be deadly. Hatred filled their hearts. They had been betrayed and slaughtered by every nation and every race - including their own. He raised a hand in the air as well. The other he kept in reach of his sword.
An elf emerged from behind the tree. He was smiling. "See how she has taught the ape to mimic her? He doesn't even know what it means! For all he knows she could be asking us to shoot the guy with the funny looking eyes next to her."
No one laughed. Elves were not in the habit of giving away their numbers. Damien knew anyway. Sixteen. Two were wounded. "I'm a Witcher," said Damien. "I have no quarrel with you. I simply mean to pass."
"A simple Vattghern we would allow. You carry an assassin's swords. You can't expect me to believe that you intend to hunt a monster with those. Kill him."
"Stop! Perhaps I hunt a target that you do as well," yelled Damien. He wasn't afraid of the elves, but for them. Ekaterina was standing there with an expressionless stare.
"Everyone is our enemy, Vattghern. Are you sure who yours are?" The elf looked directly at Ekaterina.
"The gesture I made was a signal to the elves asking them to kill anyone with me." She looked directly at him, but had the same expressionless stare.
He was furious, but his training kicked in. Without hesitation he dove into the forest and followed his senses. Arrows came from all directions but embedded themselves harmlessly in the tree next to him. Before they could reload, two were dead. Another two had switched to swords, to no avail. Another round of arrows were on the way and the only way to avoid the them all was to let one hit him in the leg. He was oblivious to the pain. He came upon the two wounded elves and two others as nothing but a blur. They quickly lay in pools of blood.
The remaining elves tried to retreat. He didn't let them. He was no Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken. He was worse. No witnesses.
The last three, including their leader, made a last stand. The others who had run formed a path of bloody corpses leading to them. The leader actually parried a few blows, but died quickly. His final words were preceded by a laugh: "She is going to kill you. We had no idea she still existed."
They had run quite a distance, but he made no time getting back. He wasn't foolish enough to simply try and attack her. He remembered the village well. Could she do that to him? The elf's last words echoed in his mind. Who was she?
It didn't matter. She was gone. So were the horses.
Geralt was headed North. After his encounter with Yennefer and her betrayal, he had no desire to be around her. He entrusted Ciri to her again, but only because he knew Ciri could take care of herself now. Something had changed in her. She was no longer the innocent child with a power she couldn't control. Now she was a savvy, distrusting child with a power she couldn't control. Yennefer was the most powerful sorceress he knew. If she tried to betray Ciri again, however, they wouldn't find much more than a burnt patch of black hair and the scent of Lilac and Gooseberries.
How could he have been so foolish? To bind his fate to hers with a wish from a Djinn? Now he was cursed for all of eternity.
Roach gave out a snort.
"I wasn't asking you," he replied with a pull on the reins. "Just keep headed North." The elves had betrayed the Emperor by leaving Cintra, the Nilfgaard sorceresses were all being imprisoned, and Jaskier had disappeared. He was last seen in Oxenfurt. Geralt dreaded going there to look for him. Fashion, art, and all of the arrogant blather from the residents. They drank wine instead of vodka and the prostitutes were far too expensive.
Yennefer had partially redeemed herself with a sacrifice that saved Ciri. Could he - no, that was the Last Wish talking. He loathed her. The scent of Lilac and Gooseberries filled his mind. He did have to admit she looked good. Her magic wasn't working, so it wasn't an illusion. He knew what she was in the past. The artists at Aretuza had done a good job.
But he hated her.
A strange looking bird swooped over him and disappeared around the bend. It sat sitting on a long abandoned well near the road. As he approached he thought he could hear a voice coming from it. "Do not trust him," it said. Then the bird flew off. It sounded like Ekaterina.
Oxenfurt was still a days ride, and the well still had water. He walked Roach out of earshot of the road and leaned against a tree to rest for the night. No fire. He was still too far away from the city.
Later he thought again of Yennefer, but his thoughts were interrupted by something far more troublesome. He was dreaming. The sky was black and the earth had been charred. A single dead tree stood off in the distance. He heard a whimpering sound and then what seemed to be incantations. They weren't in any language he had ever heard before, and weren't in a pattern of any rituals he knew either.
As he approached he saw a woman in front of the tree, facing him. She was covered in what looked like sap or a thick oil. The inside of her thighs were covered in blood and her eyes were like blood as well. Her arms and legs were splayed out as well as her hair. She was floating mid air.
She was Yennefer. Then Ciri. Then a sorceress he didn't know.
Then it was Ekaterina. He awoke. She stood before him.
"Nice entrance."
"Only those with troubles are troubled when I approach."
"I liked you better as a hedge wizard."
"You do remember me telling you how dangerous ancient magic was?" she asked. She wasn't smiling.
"Fine, fine. What brings you to me, Ekaterina? The leg works great, by the way, better than before. I got your, um, message. Who was it about?"
She looked at him with piercing eyes. "Don't play coy with me. Damien will be in Oxenfurt. You won't see him unless he wishes to be seen."
"I don't understand. What has he done? Did he try to hurt you?"
With that she laughed. "Oh Geralt, you are so adorable. Always ready to rush in and save the damsel in distress, or your Child of Destiny. Is she well? I despised making that portal. Have you ever seen what happens when one goes wrong?"
"That's enough. I can't stand them either, but I have a sense you knew that. Who are you really, and how can you just appear out of thin air before me? We are hundreds of miles from your village."
"I am not the one who deceived you. I told you from the start who I was and that I had learned an ancient magic no others knew. I'm a woman, however, so everything I do is treated with mistrust while a fellow Witcher from a disreputable school drags you out of a graveyard and that is all it takes to make you be best chums."
"I'm sorry."
"I am too, because I missed it as well. You also have other reasons to be mistrustful. Have you figured it out yet?"
"Figured out what?"
Ekaterina rolled her eyes. "Whether you love her or not? Why do you think I bothered with the bird? Your constant back and forth was driving me nuts. I had to stop it! Forget it. We have more important things to discuss."
"You can read my mind?"
"The stones at the bottom of the well could read your mind you were thinking so loudly."
"Why would Damien be in Oxenfurt?"
"It's not you he is after."
"Yennefer!"
"I really hope the rest of this conversation doesn't go this slowly." She feigned having a headache. "Damien carries a secret. It's protected by a magic I cannot completely penetrate. I only know it involves her."
"She is nowhere near Oxenfurt. Is he going to hurt her? Would he actually hurt his own sister?" Geralt felt betrayed again. Was anyone truthful in this world?
"I just know what he is capable of, Geralt. He lied to you. He wasn't in that cave to kill corpse eaters. He doesn't take contracts on monsters."
"Yet he could have killed me. He could have left me to die. Is it possible he actually just wants to finally see her again?"
"May I touch your forehead?" she asked.
"For what purpose?"
"To see if you really are that stupid. Come on Geralt, think. Yennefer is how old? All of these years and then suddenly he shows up, just in time to tell you he is her brother before I shove you through a portal? I suppose you took the bait and told her?"
"You don't need to touch me to read my mind. You tell me." He felt bitter and cold.
"Your cute when you get sullen. I know you didn't tell her, but you may not have had to. She reads your mind constantly from what I understand."
"She couldn't, actually, she had lost her magic. That was why she was tempted by the Deathless Mother. The fiend was able to restore her power."
"Interesting. I need to met this entity."
"Too late, she's gone."
"You think returning to the Wild Hunt makes her gone? It's not that simple."
"Please stay out of my mind. You couldn't have known that happened without reading it."
She was going to admonish him for being rude, but took a different tack. "As you wish. It's too bad though. I kind of like what you were thinking when you saw my body covered in tree sap."
He looked at her coldly. "I'm not interested."
"Yes you are. I don't sleep with anyone who's had their heart so recently broken, however."
Geralt was getting impatient. "What is it you want from me."
"From you? Nothing at all. Damien wants something from Yennefer, however. It may cost her her life. Protect her, Geralt. It is too early for her to die."
"Who are you?"
"Someone you might have enjoyed as a lover tonight had you not made a stupid wish. Tell me, when you held a sword to her neck did the wish stop you from killing her? Could you kill her, Geralt?"
"This conversation is over."
"I didn't think so."
Damien examined his leg. The Scoiatel were still using the same damn arrows. The bleeding wouldn't stop. He had to live. He had to get his hands around the neck of Ekaterina and kill her.
"I wouldn't let you."
His sword was instantly at her throat.
"What stays your hand, Damien?" asked Ekaterina. "Do you think your Witcher mutagens might save you if I wanted to kill you? If I did, you would have never even been able to draw your sword."
Damien lowered his sword. Slightly. "Was this all a ruse? A test? When it happened you were…somewhere else. Your face was pale and expressionless. Your voice sounded distant."
"The forests speak slowly. I told both of you my magic is quite ancient. Geralt can be excused for not remembering or understanding. He has been immersed in the world of sorceresses and their magic for a long time, and for such trivial reasons. I had hoped you were more open to it after seeing me use it for weeks in order to heal you."
"You never went into a state like that. Enough games. Why did you give them orders to kill me, and why did the leader say with his dying breath that he didn't know you still existed?"
"Geralt was just as surly as you are." Her look became dangerous and she brushed the sword away from her throat. "A few weeks of healing and suddenly you are an expert on forces so vast and complex even I can't comprehend it all? Both of you are in tremendous denial. He's actually forgiven your sister for betraying him. He still refuses to accept that he means so little to her."
Damien lowered his sword, then sheathed it. "Let's focus on you betraying me," he said. He expected her to get even more frightening looking. He didn't expect her to laugh.
"You still don't believe the forest spoke to me, do you? How is it, then, that I knew about the elves long before you and your famous Witcher senses did? Didn't think about that, did you?The forests don't give out information freely, especially when it concerns a race that treats them a lot better than humans do. You were correct, however, in that I wasn't in the here and now."
"Why?"
Her look became more serious and less frightening. "It wasn't me. It wasn't the forest, it wasn't the Elves. It may have been whomever locked a secret in your head. Don't act coy, of course I know. Someone took over me. Don't worry, it will not happen again. They've been following us, just waiting for a good time to act. I don't knew who it is, but it seems clear they don't want you alive. That's why I went to see Geralt so quickly."
"You expect me to believe you've seen Geralt? In such short time? You picked up portals awful quickly. Especially one big enough to take both horses."
Her voice became frightening again. "I'm not playing games with you, Damien. I don't need portals or other silly magic to travel somewhere far away. Geralt is just outside Oxenfurt. I didn't tell him what happened. Like you, I planted a seed. I let him know that you weren't being honest about why you had sought him out. I also convinced him that you would be waiting in Oxenfurt, silently stalking him."
She was impressed. He held his anger. "Why would you tell him that?" he asked calmly.
"For the same reason you planted a seed. You knew who it would get to."
"Yennefer." He didn't even try to deny it. "I mean her no harm. I hope you haven't brought it upon her."
"Yennefer can handle herself," she replied. "Why do you seek her now, after all these years?"
"You already know why. Something is locked in my head. My sister may be the only one who can unlock it. You are very powerful, but not trained in the kind of magic that created this barrier."
She softened her look and motioned for him to sit. The camp looked pathetic without his provisions from his horse, but she couldn't risk him riding off. He would bleed to death.
"I'm sorry, Damien," she said. "Let's see to that leg."
"What happened to the horses?"
"I was hoping you could tell me that."
Damien sighed and sat down.
Yennefer watched as Ciri made a face while trying to twist her fingers into a difficult configuration. She didn't bother to scold her for the umpteenth time not to do so as it gave away her intent. She would press it after Ciri could get her fingers to behave.
She now knew about her brother. He had been sold by her father the same way she had been. Geralt hadn't told her. Once her powers were restored she heard him practically screaming it with his mind. Why did it mean so much to him? Was he thinking it would make her happy to tell her? He didn't seem to want anything more to do with her.
She didn't remember Damien at all. Perhaps he came along after she had been sold away. From Geralt's thoughts she knew he was a Witcher and that the School of the Cat had become a real school, not just a repository of thugs. How did they locate the knowledge? It had long since been abandoned at Kaer Morhen.
"Damnit!," cried Ciri. "Why must I twist my hand so? I may never hold a sword again!"
"Meaning you are well on the way to truly defending yourself."
"Oh please."
"Do you think Witchers are more difficult to kill than a sorceress?" asked Yennefer.
"Well, of course! Geralt may have lots of scars, but look at what he fights against. I don't see sorceresses out there taking on zeugels and wyverns."
"And we don't go around smelling like them either. You are the lone heir to the throne of Cintra. You carry Elder Blood, for which half of the world is chasing you. Do you really want to hang out in sewers killing zeugels?"
"It's better than all those boring councils and gatherings."
"I agree that they are boring," smirked Yennefer, "but you don't need to go the complete opposite direction. Magic is far more powerful than any court decree, or a zeugel for that matter.
"But why must it be so painful?"
"It only is at first. Once you get the basics you will be overwhelmed with the possibilities." Yennefer smirked again. "You might even come up with a soothing spell for those fingers."
Ciri rolled her eyes, but returned to practice.
Yennefer tried to recall everything she had seen in Geralt's thoughts. The young Damien struck a handsome pose. That meant he hadn't been fighting monsters for long. Her parents were long dead and gone, along with the rest of her kin. That meant Damien, assuming he was telling the truth, had to be nearly as old as she was. What had he used his Witcher training for if not to kill monsters? He did carry assassin's weapons, but fought with them much better than the average School of the Cat spy.
Yet she knew he was telling the truth about being her brother. She also knew he had saved Geralt's life. Had he not, Ciri might have been sacrificed by her own desperation to gain her powers back. That would have been the end of her. Geralt's spirit would have hunted her to the ends of the earth and would have killed her.
She wondered if he now wished he had never made his last wish. After saving Ciri, he was cordial to her, but only so. He eventually agreed to let her train Ciri. The young princess also seemed to share a bond with him. One that brought him scampering hundreds of miles to save her. She eyed Ciri closely. How had she signaled him?
It didn't matter now. Ciri's lessons were coming along nicely and Geralt continued on his search for the elusive Reince. She also had her power back without sacrificing the girl. Yennefer rarely felt remorse, but she did for what had almost occurred.
The dark figure peered through the trees at the handsome Witcher and his hedge wizard lover. The country witch was more than she let on. She hadn't cracked the secret in Damien's mind, but she had figured out enough to run off and warn Geralt about him. She also was now resisting any attempt to control her.
Perhaps it was for the best. The first attempt to control her resulted in her nearly getting Damien killed by by some vagabond Scoiatel. It was almost as if she was mocking her, threatening to kill Damien. The Scoiatel were supposed to kill her, but she tricked them into attacking Damien.
The dark figure smiled. Damien wasn't vital, just one of many threads in the web she was weaving to ensnare Yennefer and the girl. It wouldn't be long. She retreated from the couple, transformed into an owl and flew off.
