By late January 1265, biting gales howled over the ridges, driving thick sheets of snow across Temeria until the entire realm lay suffocated under gray ice.
In the sanctuary courtyards, ancient fir branches snapped under the heavy drift, keeping Will and the novices busy with wooden shovels from dawn to dusk.
Ciri was slowly regaining her footing.
During her training at Kaer Morhen, night terrors had ripped through her sleep almost every evening, her waking shrieks laced with dark prophecies of slaughter.
Geralt had swallowed his pride to call upon Triss Merigold back then.
The red-haired sorceress had spent long nights rocking the frantic girl, soothing her frayed nerves with sedative draughts and gentle incantations, often finding her own rest only as the dawn grayed the arrow slits.
Eventually, Geralt, stubborn as a mule, had sought out Yennefer across their icy silence, asking her to take the burden.
That plea had bridged the rift between them.
Following Nenneke’s letters, they had chosen to move the girl to the sanctuary in Ellander, placing her in seasoned hands where she could laugh and study among girls her own age.
Will had promptly been evicted from his attic loft.
It was the choice corner of the whole complex, flooded with clean morning light.
Yennefer and Ciri had moved in, the sorceress hovering over the girl like a fierce, vigilant mother.
The friction between them had slowly softened, Ciri’s subconscious resentment dissolving into genuine devotion.
That initial resentment had stemmed from Geralt; the girl had feared Yennefer would snatch the witcher away, stripping her of the lone family tethering her to the waking world.
“Hah… hah…”
“Faster, Will!”
“Move your feet! Faster!”
Will wobbled atop the narrow timber piles, dense clouds of steam puffing from his mouth into the freezing air.
Geralt’s training regimen was merciless.
Every movement demanded instantaneous reflex and precise weight distribution.
“Is that all the steel in your legs? Tris was right: you have the hide of an ox, but your form is a butcher’s wreck. You are panting like an old cart hound.”
Geralt circled the logs with fluid steps.
“Anchor your hips before the thrust! If the pirouette is clumsy, drop the flourish. Keep that iron between your vitals and my point.”
Will skipped frantically between the wooden posts, trying not to pitch headlong into the packed snow.
If his guard slipped an inch, a bruised rib was guaranteed.
Geralt aimed exclusively for the eyes, the armpits, the knees, and the groin, every strike calibrated to cripple or kill.
It was terrifying to think what kind of hell the old wolf masters had put young boys through behind the walls of Kaer Morhen.
Crack!
Bang!
Thud.
A brutal strike to his wrist drained the last shred of his strength.
Will slipped off the post, tumbling into the drift while his longsword clattered against the shale.
He couldn’t hold the guard; his forearms were dead weight.
Worse, Geralt had caught on to his vitality reserves.
The witcher deliberately ran him ragged until his life essence dipped, then forced him through live-steel sparring with strict orders not to mend the resulting gashes until the drill concluded.
Geralt knelt in the snow, pressing a calloused thumb directly into the weeping cut on Will’s forearm.
A strangled howl tore from Will’s throat.
“Hurts, does it? That regeneration of yours is an extraordinary trick, but once an enemy clocks your habits, they won’t give you breathing room to knit.”
A lingering shudder ran down Will’s back.
When Geralt had first offered to test his regenerative limits in sparring, Will had agreed out of pure curiosity.
Every time he attempted to break distance, the witcher’s blinding speed shut the path down.
And Old Cui had spent the entire display shouting encouragement from the side fence!
The afternoon had ended with Will’s spilled blood soaking into the flowerbeds, leaving the winter rose bushes remarkably lush, while Geralt dragged him into the infirmary by his collar under the muffled giggles of the novices.
“In Vesemir’s book, lad, you wouldn’t pass for a first-year pup.”
Geralt stood, shaking the slush from his leather greaves.
“Clean yourself up by noon. We ride for Vizima this afternoon.”
Without waiting for a reply, the witcher turned toward the subterranean greenhouse caverns.
Whatever quiet pact he and Nenneke had struck remained a mystery, but the easy companion of the road had transformed into a relentless taskmaster.
Vizima?
What business do we have in the capital?
Will blew out a long breath.
Anywhere was better than staying pinned to the logs.
Ever since the confrontation at the gate, word of the scarless healing had swept the province like wild fire, turning Captain Tailles into the laughingstock of the garrison taprooms.
Will stretched out flat in the snow to cool his burning lungs.
If he lingered too long, the sweat on his shirt would freeze him solid to the clay.
With a thought, the ledger flickered into view:
Name: Will
Level: 4
Talent: Fountain of Life
Attributes: Vitality 10.5, Strength 6.5, Agility 4.8, Perception 5.6, Magic ?
Skills: Alchemy Lv.1, Swordsmanship Lv.2, Healing Lv.2, Life Meditation, Life Drain
Experience: 205/400
Vitality 10.3 to 10.5, Strength 6.2 to 6.5.
Agility 4.3 to 4.8, Perception 5.2 to 5.6.
Over the past three months, Geralt had rarely taken him out on beast contracts, focusing entirely on polishing the rough edges in his footwork.
In the witcher’s judgment, Will’s agility and field awareness were lagging far behind his raw durability.
A shadow fell across the drift.
Tris crouched beside him, shoving a fistful of dried bitter roots into his cheek.
“Old Cui, you are still the only decent soul in this yard. The rest of them deserted me the moment Geralt cleared his throat.”
Will chewed the root with a grimace, though Tris only offered an awkward cough, gesturing toward the main courtyard.
“Nenneke sent me. The hall is packed with folk waiting for a healer. This frost has hung on too long; the peasants are turning up with broken limbs and black frostbite.”
Will rubbed his temples.
He had nearly forgotten.
The frozen ruts on the high road made riding treacherous, and few mounts could stomach the blizzard winds, cutting down his visits to the city.
As a result, the tenant farmers and villagers from the surrounding dales had begun hiking straight up the hill.
Slipping on black ice was no light matter.
He had already set thirty broken shins, hips, and forearms this week alone.
Life was hard on the soil; winter didn’t stop a peasant from hauling firewood, and one clumsy step on a hillside was enough to ruin a family for a season.
…
“Uncle Frank, mind your lower back when you hoist the timber. Old marrow turns brittle in the cold.”
“Aunt Susan, your shoulder is inflamed from years of hauling wash tubs. Let your boys shoulder the tubs this winter.”
Will worked down the benches, murmuring instructions as the novices bustled behind him with stone mortars and steaming kettles.
The tea they were ladling out was an alchemical brew he had cultivated up in the loft, grafting mountain roots with his life essence.
He hadn’t expected much from the experiment, but the infusion acted like concentrated marigold, boosting circulation and chasing the damp chill from aching joints.
A single hot tin brought color back to a pale cheek.
“May the Mother keep Master Will in good health! Those skinflint herbalists down in Ellander were asking twenty-five crowns for a pot of lard and dried mint! Thieves, the lot of them!”
“Aye, we’re fortunate the sanctuary sits on our doorstep. Between Mother Nenneke’s salves and Master Will’s green light, an old man can still walk his furrows.”
“Shame about old Zeski. If the lad had woken two seasons earlier, Zeski wouldn’t have spent his last winter howling into his mattress from the gangrene.”
The villagers huddled close around the iron brazier, trading grim tales of past blizzards.
Will listened in quiet sympathy; ten souls had perished in the lower parish alone, carried off by common wound rot that a pinch of clean salt and fresh stitches could have halted.
In this world, an ordinary life hung by a fraying thread.
Will wiped his hands on a clean towel and looked up at the last petitioner.
The young face seemed oddly familiar.
“Have we met?”
The young man pulled a folded piece of parchment from his wool doublet and laid it on the trestle.
Will glanced down, recognizing the charcoal sketch: the young knight commander who had stepped forward during the confrontation with Tailles, a sworn retainer of Lady Marie’s household.
“Salat, was it? You don’t look like a man nursing frostbite.”
“My health is sound, Master Will. However, Lady Marie requests your presence at the manor with all haste.”
Will tilted his head, his interest stirred.
“Something urgent?”
With her wealth and ducal connections, very few troubles in Ellander couldn’t be resolved with a purse of crowns.
Salat shook his head, offering a respectful, tight-lipped shrug.
Will considered the calendar.
He had intended to pay a formal visit to the countess to settle their accounts, but the weeks had slipped away between the refugee influx and Geralt’s brutal drills.
“Tell her I will ride out when the schedule eases.”
Salat bowed his head.
“Understood. The drifts are thick along the western orchard; send word to the livery and the house will dispatch a carriage to fetch you.”
“Why put it off? I can spare an hour by the hearth while you tend to the lady.”
Geralt’s gravelly voice drifted from the colonnade behind them, smooth as cold well water.
Will didn’t flinch.
He knew that tone; the witcher was merely carrying out Nenneke’s orders to keep a tight leash on her troublesome charge.
Will kept his face deadpan as he delivered the line without missing a beat.
“Temptation only slows the draw of my steel.”
Geralt let out a dry, rattling chuckle, leaning his shoulder against the masonry.
“Right. I’ll make sure Yennefer takes you along to the next Lodge assembly. You can deliver that line straight to the council table and see how far it carries you.”