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After the pogroms and the fall of the School of the Wolf, Vesemir only has three sons left.
He can call them his sons now, there are no other trainers to judge him for the weakness of his sentiment.
He only has three sons left, and he cannot lose a single one of them before his own time comes. He cannot suffer another loss.
He finds a way to protect them, even if it goes against so much of what he has learned and taught.
There is a mage who lives deep in the Aedirnian woods who is rumored to be able to prevent death, both natural and unnatural alike. He seeks her out, saddles laden with the coin purses of his fallen brothers and sons with the hope that he can buy them insurance against the many dangers of the path. The weathered hut he finds is so far from the grand castle in the woods he had been imagining that he almost dismisses it out of hand, but the medallion around his neck vibrates like it has never before and he knows that this is the right place.
The door opens before he can raise a fist to knock and he takes a deep breath, centering himself the way he was trained to and has trained others to, and enters.
The mage has been waiting for him, there is a second cup of tea set out next to the one she is sipping from and the chair across from hers slides out as he approaches. Each time he looks at her face she appears different, an old woman hunched beneath the weight of her years one moment, a young lady glowing with youthful energy the next. She is unlike any mage he has encountered before and the differences set him on edge.
They sit in silence for a moment before the mage asks him why he has sought her out. He tells her, throat tight and eyes stinging, of his brothers and sons who did not survive. He tells her, tears streaming down his face but fists clenched with protective anger, of his remaining sons. She listens quietly, her expression does not change as he speaks but something in her eyes seems to mirror the pain in his own heart.
She promises to help him.
His offer of coins is refused, are his offers of service. The mage claims that all she wants in return for safeguarding his sons is for him to cherish them, to let them know how much they are loved.
He promises that he will.
There’s a hum of magic in the air and his medallion vibrates so hard it nearly snaps the chain around his neck. A flash of white blinds him, and when he can see again he is back in Kaer Morhen, horse and coin all intact.
He begins to think that perhaps the mage was more than she let on. He hopes that she has kept her promise.
When he greets his sons that winter, it is not with the customary clasping of arms as he used to, but with open arms and fierce hugs, heart near overflowing with relief and love each time he looks out onto the trail and can see another one coming home.
It’s during an evening of drinking and telling tales from the year on the Path that Vesemir is able to let go of the last knot of dread in his chest. Each of his sons has a wild tale about nearly meeting their doom, only for something miraculous, something magical , to have happened and prevented a painful death. The mage, or whatever she was, has kept her promise.
That night Vesemir hugs his sons close as they retire, pressing his forehead to theirs and basking in the knowledge that he will not lose them, that he is finally free to love them as they deserve.