“The Continent breeds nobles and anointed knights that shameless?”
Will shook his head in genuine disbelief.
The sheer brazenness of it bordered on farce.
A decade ago, fresh from breaking the striga curse on King Foltest’s royal bastard, Geralt had retreated to Melitele’s sanctuary to nurse his torn flesh.
Prince Hereward’s household knights had marched up the slope to run him out of the duchy, only to meet Nenneke’s unyielding wall.
A tense compromise followed: the witcher agreed to quit the valley within three days.
When the hour arrived, Geralt and Dandelion had saddled their mounts to depart in peace.
Count Falwick and his green squire, Tailles, had lain in wait along the post road, demanding satisfaction through a formal duel.
Because the young whelp enjoyed the prince’s special favor, royal statute forbade drawing his blood.
The gambit was crude and transparent: humiliate the legendary White Wolf in front of the ducal retinue to purchase cheap martial renown, knowing the witcher’s blade was barred from striking true.
In the clash, Geralt’s superhuman leverage had easily turned the squire’s furious thrusts aside.
Pushed past his footing, Tailles had taken the rebounding edge of his own parrying blade clean across his face.
An utter idiot, undone by his own petty theater.
“The White Rose rots from the head down,” Geralt said, his voice flat as he tossed a handful of snow over the hearth stones.
“Gold strips the purity out of any chivalric order. King Foltest remains a sensible monarch, at least; he and I understand one another well enough.”
“Naturally. Besides, claiming the scalp of a witcher isn’t the sort of glory an honest warrior boasts of over his ale.”
Geralt gave a dry nod.
“That business touches upon another name folk whisper in taprooms: the Butcher of Blaviken.”
Will caught the drift.
He knew the broad contours of that blood-soaked morning in the market square; an impossible choice between two evils that ended with a market drenched in gore and a crowd throwing stones at the man who had saved them.
“We can save the rest of that verse for a tavern bench,” Will said, rising to brush the dry pine needles from his breeches.
“Let us put some leagues behind us before the frost sets.”
“Hold your stride, Will.”
Geralt’s gravelly voice lowered, his yellow cat eyes fixing on the dense spruce line a quarter-mile out.
“We aren’t riding out of this grove unchallenged. We have company in the brush.”
Will frowned, opening his life awareness across the snow.
The perimeter was barren of green embers.
“Don’t strain your senses looking for tracks in the snow,” Geralt muttered, his hand resting light on the wire wrap of his hilt.
“Elven scouts. They can punch a yew shaft through a man’s temple from outside your line of sight.”
“Geralt! Butcher of Blaviken!”
A low, grating voice carried through the pines.
Three stocky figures marched through the snowdrifts, cradling heavy poleaxes across their mail-clad shoulders.
These were no comfortable valley craftsmen like Bowen or Visco.
Their dark beards were split into twin braids, their wool caps pinned with bushy gray squirrel tails.
Geralt cleared two inches of steel from his scabbard, holding his left palm out in a flat gesture of caution.
Will’s inner perception flared as six emerald lights materialized within the outer ring.
More boots were circling their flanks.
“Neither, mutant,” the dwarf growled, teeth bared in a humorless grin.
“We are the Scoia’tael. The free breath of the Elder Races.”
Several slender figures slipped from the branches, dropping onto the snow without a sound.
Their features were sharply angular, ears tapered to delicate points, cap badges trimmed with the same gray squirrel pelts.
Cold, unblinking eyes pinned Will where he stood.
Had Geralt not been standing at his shoulder, half a dozen black-fletched shafts would have turned his chest into a pincushion before his hand could reach his belt.
Behind the skirmishers came a rough timber cart, piled high with dented plate and mail coats.
In the pale winter sun, the silver petals of the White Rose stood out sharp against the bloodstained wool.
Will’s gut tightened.
These woodland fighters had wiped out an entire mounted patrol of the Order without leaving a survivor to raise the alarm.
The Squirrels were an alliance born of despair: elves, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings who had taken to the wilderness to push back against centuries of pogroms and pogrom-masters.
What had begun as a struggle for survival had warped into a campaign of terror, marked by charred homesteads, ambushed baggage trains, and slaughtered human non-combatants.
“Geralt, this is your final warning,” the elven leader said, stepping forward.
His voice carried an unearthly, musical cadence, laced with a bitter thirst for blood.
“We respect what you did to those dogs in Blaviken, but that respect won’t stay our bows if you shield human filth.”
The Northern Kingdoms had harvested the hatred they sowed.
With the empire pressing from the south, the Scoia’tael had thrown their lot in with Nilfgaard, trading guerrilla blood in the woods for the promise of a sovereign elven state in Dol Blathanna.
Will felt a surge of cold pity beneath his wariness.
Stripped of their ancestral lands, these young elves had been reduced to irregular raiders, clinging to the false promises of southern diplomats who would discard them the moment the treaties were signed.
Today offered little room for argument.
As Will’s fingers brushed toward the hilt of his Skellige blade, Geralt stepped into his space, shoving his wrist back down with a sharp, warning glare.
“Lower your steel,” Geralt commanded, then turned to address the elven leader.
“This is Will, a monk of Melitele’s house. He carries the personal blessing of the Great Mother and mends the sick without asking for race or coin. By the tenets of the old earth, he does not walk under the laws of mortal kings.”
Will’s eyes widened slightly.
That works on them?
The elven captain’s brow furrowed.
He closed the distance with silent, predatory steps, a faint azure luminescence flickering across his fingertips as he reached toward Will’s chest.
“Earth, growth, the deep roots… you carry the resonance of the ancient groves.”
“An apprentice to the green circles,” Will offered smoothly, keeping his breathing level.
If this band died on these stones, every bailiff and patrol commander between here and Vizima would turn their spears toward witchers and hedge mages.
Will bent down, lifted the bloodied breastplate stripped from Tailles, and offered the steel outward.
“A small contribution to your stores.”
The elf accepted the armor, his sharp eyes lingering on Will’s face, measuring the calm behind the youth’s golden irises.
A long silence hung between them before the elf turned on his heel, motioning for the war band to melt back into the timber.
“We will cross paths again, Son of the Goddess. Farewell, Geralt.”
“Seems your reputation in Blaviken buys more than cheap ale,” Will murmured, watching the last squirrel tail vanish into the pines.
Geralt exhaled a cloud of white vapor, swinging into Roach’s saddle without a word.
Only after they had put several leagues between themselves and the ambush did the witcher speak, his voice barely carrying over the crunch of hooves in the crust.
“They remember the men I butchered in the square. None of them ever bother to ask whose lives I was trying to save.”
…
Back in the sanctuary of Ellander, the weeks had slipped past with quiet momentum.
Ciri was making rapid strides under Yennefer’s instruction.
Beyond basic incantations, the sorceress possessed an extraordinary grasp of kinetic movement; she guided the girl’s sword routines through mental discipline, teaching her to quiet muscle spasms, regulate breathing, and harness adrenaline surges to control her explosive strength.
Up in the sunlit loft, Ciri sat curled against Yennefer’s knees, letting the woman’s slender fingers comb through her ashen hair.
“What is eating at you today, little falcon? You’ve been staring at the floorboards since noon.”
Ciri traced the seam of her linen sleeve, her voice dropping to an insecure whisper.
“Lady Yennefer, why am I forbidden from wearing jewel-cut pendants or crystal pins? The older novices wear such lovely ribbons, and I look like a stable boy.”
“Because the conduit sleeping in your blood is an open storm,” Yennefer explained, her tone softening with rare maternal patience.
“It pulls and repels ambient Chaos without your consent. Touching a focused medium like cut sapphire or refined dimeritium would be like sleeping beside an ignited petard. I have no desire to see that pretty cheek of yours singed to charcoal.”
She tucked a stray lock behind the girl’s ear.
“Weave wild aster into your braids, or braid a crown of sweet clover. Natural blooms suit you far better.”
She paused, violet eyes narrowing with gentle amusement.
“Why the sudden interest in ribbons? Has that boy Will caught your eye?”
Looking at the girl’s loose tunics and scuffed leather boots, Yennefer doubted the youth would look twice at such a ruffled fledgling.
Color rushed to Ciri’s ears.
She bit her lower lip, squirming against the cushions.
“It isn’t that! The novices whisper about him constantly during the mending chores. They say he is unlike any man in the valley. Two of the kitchen girls even tried peeking through the bathhouse shutters before Mother Nenneke caught them with her broom! They trade stories about court romance and laugh at me, calling me an unwashed little tomboy who knows nothing of the world.”
Yennefer pressed two fingers against her brow, suppressing an exasperated sigh.
The poor child had spent her formative seasons running wild among the old bachelors of Kaer Morhen, with only Triss to offer clumsy advice on womanhood.
“Very well, Ciri. You want to understand what passes between a man and a woman?”
Ciri’s cheeks burned crimson, though she nodded with stubborn determination.
“When does a lady know… how does one…?”
“Gods above, hush,” Yennefer laughed, shaking her head.
“Finish your translations of the Elder Speech before dusk. Tonight, I will teach you a few fundamental truths about men, so you don’t go making a fool of yourself when the world comes knocking.”