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As a child, Emhyr had been attended by an elderly elven nurse who had told him stories of the ancient kingdoms of elves. Those stories had, he only much later realized, influenced the rightness he felt in restoring Dol Blathanna to the elves.
His nurse had, of course, not lived to see it. She had been pensioned off once Emhyr was old enough to spend his days with tutors and courtiers, some five years before the Usurper upended all their lives. She had chosen not to live in the palace compound in her retirement, and a place had accordingly been found for her, in a building owned by House var Emreis on the fringe of the city. The neighborhood was respectable but far from affluent, and had a sizable population of elves.
To the best of Emhyr's knowledge, she had felt comfortable and content there. A few times a year, on appropriate occasions, Emhyr had been taken by his mother to make discreet visits to her and the other similarly privileged old retainers who occupied the rest of the building. He had enjoyed these excursions out of the palace, out of the ordinary strictures of the life of the Crown Prince of Nilfgaard. There had been very little protocol; it had been only his own boyish pride which deterred him from climbing into his old nurse's lap on such visits.
He had spent many of those hours sitting beside her, though, and she would often tousle his hair or pat his knee just as she used to do. The building had a rooftop sitting area--sleeping area, in the hottest months--where grapevines shaded a pergola and the railed area beyond it gave views north out of the city and south to the golden towers.
It had been his memories of that northward view that had guided him, when he fled.
There had been no such escape for the denizens of the house. Elderly retainers, loyal to House var Emreis, they had not even tried to flee, so far as Emhyr had ever been able to discover. They had been executed, and the house appropriated by a petty house whose name was now remembered only on the floor of Emhyr's ballroom.
When he'd returned to Nilfgaard, Emhyr had punctiliously reclaimed everything that had ever belonged to House var Emreis. He had not allowed himself to betray any special concern about one unremarkable subdivided house in an elven neighborhood that had only become less fashionable in his years of absence. It had been a matter of principle--nothing to do with the memory of some of the freest and most peaceful hours of his annihilated childhood, sitting on a rooftop under the rustling grape leaves, listening to his mother and his nurse trade comfortable domestic gossip.
Nearly two decades on, the house had been vacant and unregarded, though scrupulously maintained by hired caretakers. Emhyr had never imagined the place as a bolt-hole, but he had also never quite found a use for it, nor been willing to sell it off.
And now here he sat, in the softness of a spring night under the rustling grape leaves, watching the fireworks celebrating Cirilla's coronation. This house was, if not precisely an utterly unguessable secret location, expected to be considerably far down the list of places anyone would search for him--and his daughter and her adopted mother had warded it extensively against that possibility.
Emhyr was safe, and alone, and ungoverned by the protocols of a rank he had, at last and forever, abandoned. It was a very strange sensation, and he avoided thinking about it by alternately allowing himself to meander through his memories of this place and being as dumbly transfixed by the spectacle in the sky as any of the other thousands of people watching it.
They were very fine fireworks. Sometimes for several seconds at a time he could manage to think of nothing at all as he took in the color, the sounds, the faint sensation of percussion reaching him even here after a particularly large burst of light.
He leapt to his feet, spinning like a cat in midair to face the direction of the sound, when he heard a portal activate. The man stepping through froze for an instant, staring at him as Emhyr stared back--just long enough for Emhyr to acknowledge to himself that if this man meant to kill him, all he could possibly do about it would be to face his death on his feet.
"Hey," the witcher--Eskel, recognizable even in silhouette by his broad shoulders exaggerated still wider by the spikes of his preferred armored jacket--said, stepping forward. "One down. They sent competent professionals, I'll give them that."
Not so competent that they had given this witcher any particular difficulty, by the even and judicious tone of his voice--nor so competent that they had detained him for a full hour.
"Come and sit," Emhyr said, catching the tone of gracious command in his own voice and having no idea what he ought to replace it with in these circumstances. He covered his uncertainty by half-turning back to his seat, gesturing around the other benches under the pergola, and the convenient table between them. "There is wine and water, and I believe that hamper has food."
"Don't mind if I do," Eskel said evenly, with perhaps a hint of amusement. He was, in Emhyr's limited experience, even more inscrutably deadpan than Geralt, but by the same token the most consistently courteous. Emhyr could admit that that made him the easiest to deal with of all of them.
So far. Things would likely change, after tonight.
Emhyr sat again and, reminded of its existence, sipped some wine. He probably ought to ask some clarifying questions or express gratitude for Eskel's work tonight--but of course it was not for his sake that Eskel had done it, even if Emhyr benefited from it most directly.
Eskel rifled through the hamper and made a small approving noise before extracting some delicacy and eating it in a few quick bites. Upon reflection, the very large hamper was almost certainly not intended for Emhyr's consumption. He had the easy task, after all: sit still in his designated safe location and remain alive, as Cirilla unaccountably but insistently wished him to be.
They sat for a time in silence, and then, in a lull between fireworks--setting up a particularly dazzling display, no doubt--Eskel said evenly, "Colors suit you."
Emhyr looked over in the witcher's direction--he had selected the seat directly opposite Emhyr's--and then down at himself, though he could see almost equally little in either direction, his eyes far from adapting to the darkness of no lights in the sky. Clearly the witcher could see well enough to see what Emhyr knew was there; Emhyr was wearing quite different clothing than usual, soft things in dark muted colors but absolutely no black, nor gold. He had kept only two pieces of jewelry, and only the--surely enchanted, though he had not inquired--platinum ring Cirilla had given him earlier today was visible.
The mourning locket containing a lock of Pavetta's hair he wore, as always, invisible next to his skin.
Emhyr had not thought of what to say to Eskel's quiet remark--compliment?--when the fireworks started again in a sudden cacophony. He was almost immediately distracted from them by Eskel reaching out a hand in his direction, and he froze even before he realized that Eskel did not mean to touch him, but to reassure him, and so he was still seated as another witcher sauntered over from a portal whose activation had been drowned out by the fireworks--though not from a witcher's senses, clearly.
"Boy, some people really fucking hate you," Lambert remarked, dropping to slouch very close to Emhyr and grabbing his goblet, swigging down his wine without invitation or hesitation. Emhyr watched him, fascinated and appalled, as he continued swallowing until the barrage of fireworks ended.
"Not that you haven't earned it or anything," Lambert added in the quiet after. "But they really ought to be smarter about it. Fuck, was that the end of the show? Did Geralt miss the whole thing?"
"Well, if he did I'm sure it's because he was having more fun somewhere else," Eskel said, still sounding quietly amused.
"Eh, fair enough," Lambert agreed, pouring more wine--still into the goblet Emhyr had been drinking from. "You want some of this?"
"Watered," Eskel said, and that was evidently all he had to say for Lambert to know the proportions he wanted, as he poured each very exactingly into the goblet he passed to Eskel, and rather more carelessly into two others. He pushed Emhyr's original goblet back in his direction--so it wasn't that he didn't know, merely that he had been making some abstruse point in the manner of witchers.
Emhyr sipped cautiously. He was surprised, and then not surprised at all, to find that Lambert had precisely duplicated the ratio of water to wine that had originally been in the goblet.
"Thank you," he said mildly. He had meant it only to fill a silence, the safe politeness that had been drilled into him almost since he could speak, but Lambert looked up and met his gaze with an intense witcher-gold stare.
"You're family," Lambert said. "That's what all of this is. Ciri's ours, and Ciri claims you, and you're doing the best you can for her on your way out, so you're family. You get what you need, that's the deal."
Emhyr blinked. He had heard both Cirilla and the witchers make assertions of that general nature before, when discussing what was to be done with him after his abdication, but never so pointedly. And, of course, never when he was so powerless to do anything about it should they change their minds. Never when he was utterly at their mercy.
He nodded slowly, trying to make clear with his whole being that he was taking it seriously, however bewildered by it he was. "For that also, I thank you."
Lambert huffed, rolling his eyes as he flung himself back in his seat. "Yeah, okay, direct doesn't work any better. Eskel, you try."
"As I recall, I said I thought it was gonna take time," Eskel said, taking a measured sip of his wine. "You spend your whole life waiting for a knife in the back, you don't stop waiting for it because somebody says, hey, you can trust me, I'm different."
Emhyr absolutely did not feel a twinge from the old scar where Calanthe's knife had sunk in--from the front, because she had that much honor. He took another small sip of wine; sitting perfectly still would have betrayed too much.
"But yeah, like Lambert says--tonight, what we're doing here, it's for Ciri's sake, but it's for you, too, because you're ours now."
Emhyr's lips parted but he had, very genuinely, no idea what to say to that incredible declaration. A thrill of some sensation he couldn't name raced down his spine--it surely should have been fear, knowing that he was purely and wholly alone and at their mercy, and it incontrovertibly was not.
Eskel's head tilted a little, and Lambert straightened slightly and made a small sound, like they'd noticed that reaction and had some thoughts about it. Emhyr pressed his lips together and groped for something, anything, to say to distract them.
"You just said," Emhyr said to Lambert, a little sharply but far too trained-smooth to be a blurt, however unconsidered the words, "that you understand very well why people want to kill me. Have killed me, so far as they know."
Lambert snorted and straightened up fully, gesturing with his wine goblet. "Sure, yeah. Of course. And I know why they hate me and want to kill me, and I know why they hate Geralt, and I know why they did kill Geralt. And I even know why you did what you did to Geralt, back when, and let me tell you, if threatening to kill someone, or even meaning to, or torturing them, or locking them in a little room where they thought they'd die--"
He took a sharp swig of wine and shook himself a little, like a dog, but his gaze stayed fixed. Emhyr could not resist holding very, very still.
"If any of that shit made somebody not family even when they'd hashed it out and promised not to do any of that shit again, in a way where we could believe them--then we'd have nobody at all, and that's a fucking shit way to try to live."
"I did not particularly expect to survive leaving the throne," Emhyr said, though he knew better than to say it like an actual objection to the plan. He'd been shouted down thoroughly on that, weeks ago.
"Yeah, well, we don't fucking throw people away and let 'em get murdered when we can help it," Lambert said fiercely. "You're ours, you're family, you're--"
The portal activated again and Emhyr looked toward it with some hope of being delivered from this conversation. Geralt stepped through and didn't break stride, coming straight over to them.
"Lambert, fucking give the man some space to breathe," Geralt said making a shooing motion that very nearly made Emhyr laugh out loud; he might as well have been flapping an apron at some importunate pigeons.
Lambert huffed and moved to throw himself down beside Eskel, taking his goblet with him in a perfectly steady hand.
Geralt promptly sat down on Emhyr's other side, far closer than Lambert had been sitting, and leaned across him to swipe Emhyr's goblet.
"All done," Geralt said, sitting back to take a civilized sip in wild contrast to the heat of his thigh alongside Emhyr's and the fact that he had just pressed close enough for Emhyr to catch a whiff of blood and ash rising from his skin. "You've officially been murdered tonight, your majesty. Possibly three times over-- definitely enough to let Ciri take out everyone who was involved in any of the conspiracies."
There had, evidently, been at least three. Cirilla's mages would have an interesting time sorting that out, though she had seemed to be prepared to execute everyone involved in any of them; it would allow her to clear a great deal of opposition from her government. It would allow her crucial time to establish herself and her policies without a threat of actual civil war.
The only part Emhyr found confounding about the plan was, in fact, how much effort she had put into ensuring he would survive it.
"So," Emhyr said, as dryly as he could manage. "I'm dead, then."
"It's not so bad once you get used to it," Geralt said comfortably, slinging an arm around his shoulders as if--well. As if Emhyr were simply another man with whom he could be as familiar as he would with another witcher. As if Emhyr were theirs. His. "And we're keeping you. You'll be all right."
"All right," Emhyr echoed, listening to the grape leaves rustle overhead. He looked for the first time all night to the north, where the stars were coming out above the darkness beyond the city, where he had fled once before, and almost believed it.