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(i)
The other young and respectable highborn girls were nattering on for the hundredth time about the same eligible and equally atrocious young lords on their fourth aimless lap around the garden and Ciri was somewhere between imagining smashing her parasol over Edith’s head and crying tears of boredom when she saw her grandfather.
He was behind a hedge.
She tilted her head in confusion, falling out of formation with the group.
“Princess Cirilla,” Edith called in that snooty-shrill voice, “aren’t you coming? I was in the middle of my story.”
“Oh, do go on, Edith,” she said, squinting when Eist held a gold tube up to his eye and stared at…the trees. A spyglass? “I’m certain I will hear your story in full for the third time when you tell it again on the next lap.”
One of the others gasped, and Edith made a little hmph sound before they continued on their way, the lower-ranking girls filling her spot in the gaggle without a second thought.
Ciri hoisted her skirts and tromped off the path into the soft earth. “Grandfather? Grandfather!”
Eist jumped as if unaware he was being observed. “Goodness! Oh, greetings, darling.”
“Hullo,” Ciri said. “What are you doing behind the hedge?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just, erm, birdwatching.” He swiped the sleeve of his embroidered doublet over the perspiration on his forehead.
“Birdwatching,” said Ciri suspiciously.
“Well, yes.”
Ciri stepped closer, her shoes sinking into the ground. Her maid was going to be so annoyed with her when she had to scrub the dirt off again. She made sure to hold her dress up high enough that the lace wouldn’t get muddy.
“What are you really doing? You can tell me, I won’t tell anyone.”
He leaned in, glancing about furtively. “You may recall, Cirilla, that your grandmother is currently in the midst of a very critical and very dull meeting with an ambassador from Novigrad.”
“The one with the big red mustache that was at dinner last night?”
“The very one.”
A grin spread across Ciri’s face. “You’re hiding,” she accused.
“Birdwatching,” he corrected. He tapped the side of his spyglass as if to emphasize his excuse.
“What kind of birds, then?”
“Oh, you know—,” he waved his hands about, “—any. I did not, if you’ll notice, claim to be an accomplished birdwatcher.”
She held out a hand. “May I take a look?”
“You may certainly not. Are you not meant to be promenading with the other ladies?”
Ciri scrunched up her nose.
“Come on.” He took her hand, squeezing her fingers in his large palm. “I shall walk you back.”
“But Grandfather—”
His eyes twinkled as he winked at her. “Meet me behind the hedge when you’re done.”
(ii)
“I love you,” Ciri said, desperately, as if that would make it all go away. As if that would close her grandmother’s wounds. As if the strength of it could take the resignation out of her eyes. Ciri clutched that familiar hand, not adorned in finery, not wrapped around a beer or a weapon as it should be, and hoped she was in Hell. That would be better than the reality of her home burning—the screaming in the streets—Calanthe’s weakening grip—
Sickly sweat glistened on her grandmother’s brow when she opened her mouth.
Tell me I’ve done it, Ciri thought hysterically, tell me you love me. That you’re feeling better. That you’re going to chase these barbarians out. Run me through with your sword, I don’t care, anything…
“Find Geralt of Rivia,” said Calanthe instead, and Ciri knew that she had failed.
(iii)
Ciri slept fitfully on the road, always plagued by the dreams. Tonight, at least, they were pleasant instead of bloody.
In this dream, she was in a field of bright yellow wildflowers. She tilted her face to the sky and soaked in the sun, breathed in deep. It smelled like rebirth; like weeds sprouting up from last year’s rot. From death. Bodies everywhere, gods—enemies all around—she has to run—
“No, no,” she said, crumpling as clouds covered the sun and winds whipped her muddied hair around her face. “No! Not again, please—”
A hand grabbed hers. She opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut. “Hey,” said Dara. “Let’s go!”
They ran, hand in hand, through the flowers, until finally they escaped the storm unscathed. They laughed, gasping. Ciri twirled Dara. He dropped into a clumsy bow and plucked a flower. He placed it behind her ear with a grin.
“There, see?” he said. “We made it!”
“I miss you,” Ciri said. “The storms come every night.”
Their joined hands swung between them.
“I’m right here. If you ever can’t find me, just start running. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “Okay. I will. Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said, and she woke to the first rays of dawn.
(iv)
Geralt gripped her firmly, affixing the splint to her forearm.
It hurt, but she mustn’t complain. She must be strong. Still, even with her teeth gritted and the nails of her other hand digging into her palm, she whimpered when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
His eyes flicked to hers. “Am I hurting you?”
“No,” she said.
“I need to do this to ensure it heals properly.”
“Just do it, then.”
He furrowed his brow and reached for the bandages, then stopped.
“You have to tell me. I don’t want to cause you unnecessary pain.”
Ciri frowned, drawing her shoulders back though they too are sore from the endless days of drills, and no less from the fall that had put her in this position to start with. “Do you think me a liar, Geralt?”
“Of course not, Princess, but you could yet be lying.”
“Yet I am not. Carry on.”
Geralt sighed and held the end of the bandage with his thumb at the heel of her hand. He began to wrap it tightly around her wrist, keeping the splint in place.
She felt a tear run down her cheek. She wiped it away hastily for naught; he no doubt noticed. Probably his witcher-smell could sense the salt on the air, or some other such nonsense. Sometimes when she looked at him in the right light, she could see the monster in him. The flat glint of his eyes, the tight coil of his muscles. He could crush her right now if he wanted to.
But he would stop immediately if she told him it hurt. She knew this with the same bones that threw herself at him in the forest without a second of doubt, without a moment of fear, without even a word.
He tied off the bandage with a practiced knot and ripped off the remainder with his teeth. “There,” he said. “Good as new.”
(v)
It was really very warm under the blankets on the divan in the library.
Yennefer was reading aloud, droning on and on about herbs and brewing temperatures and hex bags. Ciri felt her eyes dropping shut. She had to keep pinching her own thigh to keep her head upright, but even still she had not heard the last ten minutes of lecture.
“’And be sure to affix the bag securely to the hexee, lest it come loose and misfortune befall an unintended—’ Gods! What rot.” Yennefer snapped the book shut and flung it across the room with a flick of her wrist. It hit the shelf with a thump and fell to the floor. “That’s enough for tonight, I think. Reading De Mellivue is enough to do my head in, Goddess knows what it will do to you.”
“Mmhm,” Ciri hummed, swaying. She collided with something velvety soft and a little pointy—oh, Yennefer’s velvet dress. Her shoulder. That made sense. It was nice. “M’sleepy, Lady Yennefer.”
“You may sleep in your bed, little one, but I won’t be carrying you.”
“Mm, comfy here.” She snuggled in a little closer, surrounded by Yennefer’s tart floral perfume. She worked one arm underneath Yennefer’s and hugged it to her chest sleepily. “Warm.” A few quiet snuffling breaths later, she fell still.
Yennefer stiffened, looking askance at the girl now sleeping against her side. In waking Ciri was refined, often haughty, always headstrong. Confined to a keep full of stinky, burly, mannerless witchers, she carried herself with the determination to match to anything they threw at her. Yennefer could see the walls she had built to keep the pain at bay. They were much like her own.
But now this guarded, pampered princess was relaxed, her face smooth and delicate and bird-like. She looked like the child she was. And she held Yennefer tight, curled nearly into her lap.
A knot rose high in Yennefer’s throat. Ciri’s hand rested limply near her knee, palm up and open as if waiting.
Gingerly, Yennefer slid her fingers between the pale ones. Felt the newly-formed calluses on that thin skin. Ciri’s hand twitched reflexively, and Yennefer nearly pulled back, but then she settled once more.
It was nice. Yennefer leaned her head down to rest atop Ciri’s and closed her eyes.