Chapter Text
Come round, come round! The mistress of this inn lights the lamps, your truncheons have been decimated to naught but a dinner for hounds. Refresh your flagons, friends, and gather ye round for passed is the hour for song. The chimes toll the most hallowed hour, that of starlight, snoring children and crackling hearth fires. We, my friends, are kindred folk. Those who stoke the fire, watch the embers climb into the night and soar away on the breeze. Those embers carry with them the most precious treasure humanity brings, rarest among all jewels across the vastness of the Spheres. Stories. And tonight, I open my trove and pluck for you the polished gem.
Not a child loses her first tooth without hearing of the massacre of the Witchers’ keep. You know the townspeople, driven to pitchforks and fury, did storm the warriors’ winter lodgings and in their feverish ambush they did destroy Kaer Morhen, burning it and taking with it the School of the Wolf. And you know as well as any boy who can sprout a whisker that only one survived that horror. Vesemir: acclaimed Witcher and the mentor of the White Wolf. He who had lived one hundred years before Kaer Morhen was built and survived another century after it was razed.
For so long, that fraternity of warriors, the pack of Wolves that remain, have declined to speak about the siege on their stronghold and the time leading up to it. And though it is through Vesemir that we begin our story, this is not his tale. No, it is the oft o’erlooked saga of Rosimund Ffei, better known as The Phoenix of Kaer Mohren.
Our story begins in the winter some seventeen years before the siege.
Winter’s opening salvo was enough to blanket the keep and surrounding environs. From atop the watch tower of Kaer Morhen, the Witchers could only see the most stubborn of treetops rising above the snowy canopy. Branches sagged and bent under the weight of this onslaught that had come silently in the night.
In his blind tucked along one of the Wolves’ clandestine pathways, Vesemir closed his eyes. The snow brought with it an eerie silence, a muffled quality as if he listened to the world through a velvet glove. The call of a raven echoed queerly through the valley, its cackle blending with the gentle gurgle of the creek. Several yards away, hooves crunched through the icy crust as a doe and her fawn ventured into the day. In his mind’s eye, Vesemir could see the stark landscape: branches and saplings slashing black gouges into the pristine white; water tumbling in silvery sheets over stones. A panorama in glinting monochrome.
A sniffle.
Ripples formed in the creek around the intruder. A crimson leaf—the last holdout from autumn—had lost its long battle against the inevitable. It landed in the water and flowed down stream, treacherous snowflakes clinging to its veins.
A choked sob.
Vesemir opened his eyes.
From nearby came another sniffle, this one more stout and…chunky. The sobs continued, blubbery, wet and small. So terribly small.
Heaving a sigh, he abandoned his hiding place. Chill air blasted his cheeks and tossed his hair. To the east, the crying continued. Vesemir shed his stealth, allowing the rattle of his weapons and the creak of his leather armor to herald his approach. He found the child on the bank of the rill, little more than a shivering bundle of homespun and sodden black curls. She reached out with her quaking hands, fingers white and stiff, attempting to cup some of the running water. What little she could stand to hold soon splattered away on the journey to her parched lips.
Stopping a few yards away at the mouth of a modest waterfall, Vesemir squatted low and made a production of removing his weapons. Between feigned huffs and puffs, he glanced from beneath his lashes at the child. She had taken notice of him but seemed rooted to the spot, eyes wide. Her hands balled into two tiny fists near her face.
From his hip, Vesemir produced a water skin. “This is a fine place you’ve found,” he said, still breathing heavily as if winded from the chase. “I’ll just be refilling my flask.”
She let out a tremulous breath, a cloud forming in front of her face. Her lips were blistered, skin peeling away from raw, tender flesh.
“Oh, little lark, how long have you been out of your nest?” Vesemir asked.
She darted a look over her shoulders, eyes darting around the trees seeking escape.
Vesemir sighed. He knew what frightened prey looked like.
With deliberate and slow movements, the Witcher took a long drink from his water skin, then placed the mouth of the flask into the flow of the stream. When it was full, he capped it and held it aloft, waving it toward the child.
“It’s full and fresh,” he called gently.
He rose and closed the distance between them by three paces. Her breath quickened and Vesemir heard her pulse do the same. He placed the replenished water skin on the snow and backed away to give her space.
With one shaky look in either direction, she scrambled to the bottle on hands and scraped knees. While she gulped for her life, Vesemir took in more details. The child’s face was dirty, save for the tear tracks and the too-pink tinge to her nose and cheeks. She wore the threadbare scraps of an indigo tunic belted about her waist with unraveling rope. Her bare feet were red from exposure. Vesemir knew he had to act quickly, but with utmost care.
“Little lark, you can have as much water as you want. Food, too, next to a warm fire. How does that sound?”
Her quaking intensified, eyes narrowing as she took him in. She thrust out a single accusatory finger aimed at his heart.
Vesemir followed her gaze to the medallion on his chest. The head of a snarling wolf. Clutching it in his hand as much to cover it as to take comfort from it, the old Witcher softened. “I’m a Wolf, it’s true,” he said, “but I only slay monsters. Not little girls lost in the woods.”
He tapped his leather glove against the metal sigil. “It’s an oath I take very seriously,” he rumbled.
The girl cocked her head to the side, for the first time showing an emotion that was not fear.
“You know what an oath is, lark?”
Her hair sounded like a rustling haystack as she shook her head.
“It’s like a promise. Do you know that one? Promise?”
A nod. Another sip from the water.
“Good. Good,” he repeated, taking a single step toward her. “A promise is as fine a place as any to start. I am Vesemir.”
Her heart raced, quivering breath shallow.
He took one more step, then, cautiously, crouched and extended his right palm to her.
She didn’t flinch or recoil.
At least there’s that, he thought to himself. Vesemir let his relief show in a genuine smile.
“What do you say you come with me, lark? I promise,” he said with emphasis, “you will be warm, fed and safe.”
She said nothing, but her eyes lingered on the wolf medallion.
“The only wolves you’ll see will be the good ones like me. Will you come with me?”
She stared at his outstretched hand, mulling over the decision to trust him or freeze to death. She placed her tiny fist into the well of his glove.
“Thank you for trusting me, lark,” he said squeezing her hand. “Are you afraid of horses? No? Good. I’m going to call mine and we’ll be in front of a fire before you know it.”
With three quick whistles, he rose to his feet, pulling the girl up into his arms and holding her against his chest. Vesemir had eaten birds that weighed more than her!
From just over the ridge, came the sound of hoofbeats and the jingle of saddlebags.
“This is Tessa,” Vesemir said, getting the child into the saddle. He pulled a blanket from his bundle and wrapped it around the girl. She held her place on the saddle while the Witcher packed up his weapons and mounted the horse.
As the pair trotted to Kaer Morhen at the gentlest pace Vesemir could allow—he would not sacrifice their safety for kindness—the girl sagged against his belly.
“Don’t you worry, little lark. We’ll go to Kaer Morhen, the keep of the Witchers. Have you heard of it?” After she nodded, he continued, “We’ll get you fed, warm and look after you until we can find your mother.”
In the circle of his arms, he felt the girl stiffen. He heard a sniffle. Then a sputter. From within her swaddling came pained noises. What began as stifled sobs soon grew to uncontrollable coughs that wracked her body. She threw back her head and let out a wail so keen and terrible in its grief that Vesemir’s very soul ached. He paced a hand to her shoulder—so tiny beneath his touch!—and tried to tell her in his own way that he knew her pain. Words from a stranger could bring no comfort, he knew, but he could be kind. So he let her destroy the stillness of the morning with her screams.
When she was spent she fell back against him, shivering.
“Worry not, lark. We’ve got room in our nest for you.”