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For all his many faults, Lambert was not an idiot. The warning signs had been there all winter. The first bout of pain in his chest, and maybe the second, he could have ignored. Just a pulled muscle from training, or bruising from when Eskel had blasted him into a wall. But the symptoms of hanahaki were something every Witcher was trained to recognise, even if the conventional wisdom said it wasn’t something they could suffer from.
People’s first association with Witchers was monster-slaying, but just as often their work involved curse-breaking. And since the symptoms of hanahaki were so often mistaken for a curse, it wasn’t uncommon for a Witcher to be brought in. It wasn’t a total waste of time either- if reciprocated feelings weren’t an option then a Witcher was just as capable as any other alchemist at brewing Black Dove.
Lambert himself had dealt with it a half-dozen times, and all but once that had meant putting up with noble dipshits. Probably it had something to do with all of the arranged marriages for political reasons, rather than marrying for love. And who was wealthy enough to afford to pay a Witcher for the work. A village would pool their coin together to have a griffin taken care of, or any other threat to everyone, but a single cursed individual was often out of luck.
Vesemir was fond of repeating that knowledge was as important in a fight as your swords, but all the knowledge and experience in the world wasn’t going to do much to help Lambert now.
He knew, when he left Kaer Morhen after the thaw, that his first priority was to confess his feelings as soon as he met up with Aiden. And until that happened, there was no point in borrowing trouble and getting himself all worked up about the possibility of rejection. Because even if Aiden didn’t feel the same, he wasn’t the sort of arsehole who’d mock Lambert. The worst part would be Aiden probably feeling guilty uselessly. Sure, it would suck more than a bloedzuiger to banish his feelings and, sure, their friendship probably wouldn’t be the same for a while (or maybe forever), but taking Black Dove would be better than the alternative. A split second of distraction at exactly the wrong time could mean the difference between life and death, and stopping everything to hack up flower petals would be nothing if not distracting. Odds were good that such a distraction in a fight would get him killed before the hanahaki could, if he left it unresolved.
Aiden and Lambert had a long-standing agreement to reunite in Ard Carraigh before deciding which direction to begin walking the Path; but, more often than not, something would come up to delay one or both of them. So, when Aiden wasn’t waiting for him at the Dusty Hare Inn as planned, Lambert wasn’t too worried. Given the ongoing war, he would’ve been more surprised if Aiden had been there on time. Bridges burned, battlefields swarming with necrophages, just a regular contract taking longer than expected. There were any number of reasons.
Lambert waited out the week, getting antsier each day, before he decided fuck it. He left a note with the innkeeper, just in case they failed to cross paths with each other while travelling in opposite directions. His best idea to start with was to head to Ellander. More often than not, Aiden spent at least part of his winter there. Not only was it a relatively central city in the Northern Realms, Mother Nenneke and her Temple of Melitele were known to be friendly to Witchers.
Lambert hadn’t spent as much time getting patched up here at the Temple as Geralt had, but he and Nenneke were still well acquainted. When they debated alchemy, he appreciated her no nonsense approach and refusal to back down, even when he thought she was wrong. But that stubbornness was hard to appreciate right now. She’d taken one look at him when he first entered the temple, before he said a word, and led him to her alchemy stores.
The scorpion grass she’d shoved into his hands was an unpleasant shock. There was only one potion it was used in, and Lambert’s case of hanahaki hadn’t even progressed to the second stage. There were no flower petals, yet, just that uncomfortable pressure and burning sensation of the flowers as they grew. Nenneke ignored his protestation, and stared him down until he stashed the scorpion grass with the rest of his alchemy supplies.
In her office, it was harder to ask about Aiden than he expected, maybe because Nenneke had already seen right through him and would surely connect the dots between who he was searching for and why.
“Yes, he was here for about a week,” Nenneke told him, and, for the first time since winter, the feeling in Lambert’s chest was from something other than the fucking flowers. “I had been contacted some weeks prior to see to Nadia, Duke Filip’s daughter, but there was nothing I could do for her- my healing talents are powerless in the face of a curse, especially one so strong. It seemed a stroke of good fortune when a Witcher came through my doors, seeking sanctuary for the winter, and offering in return whichever of his services was needed.”
A season of grunt work in exchange for safe lodging was something Lambert had done before, as had his brothers, at one time or another. Working as a farmhand or guarding a travelling merchant may not have been glamorous, but if it kept you fed (and less covered in monster guts), then there wasn’t really anything to complain about.
“I accepted his offer, and told him about the Duke’s daughter,” Nenneke continued. “He never returned to the Temple. Several days later, news reached me that the poor girl had passed. That she had survived for so long before succumbing to the curse was a surprise, but—“
“But that doesn’t mean shit when there’s a Witcher to be blamed,” Lambert concluded bitterly. He thanked Nenneke for her help, and considered what to do next.
Going around asking questions was as likely as not to get him run out of town too, but it wasn’t like he had any better options. He was turned away at the door when he tried to speak to the Duke, who was, according to the steward, too consumed with grief. Talking to him wasn’t completely useless, at least. The steward had been the one to pay Aiden at the completion of the contract, and also the one to share news of another. A ‘giant’ in Lan Exeter, terrorising travellers into and out of the city.
Other than the first giants in Skellige, giants weren’t real. But the mystery of what it really was would definitely have interested Aiden. Of course, Lan Exeter was in the furthest north-west corner of the Continent, a real fucker to travel to. (No wonder they’d sent copies of the contract far and wide, they’d have been waiting a good long while for a Witcher to pass through otherwise.)
If that was where Aiden had gone, it would explain why he hadn’t made it back to Ard Carraigh in time to meet Lambert. But he sure as shit wasn’t going to travel all that way based on one iffy bit of information.
He learned basically nothing asking around, except from some of the guards posted to the gates to the city. A few quick rounds of dice poker to get them to see him as less of an outsider, and they were happy to share what little they knew. They remembered a Witcher asking about the best place to cross the Pontar river, which didn’t exactly prove anything, but it was the right direction if Aiden had indeed headed towards Lan Exeter.
Given the lack of any other information to go on, Lambert decided to go to Lan Exeter. If nothing else, the real story behind this giant would probably be entertaining. The distance would be much faster to travel if he had a horse, but Lambert usually eschewed having one for a reason. They weren’t cheap to buy, or feed, and keeping their equipment in good condition was just another expense. But given he didn’t exactly have all the time in the world to waste in tracking down Aiden, it would be worth the hassle. He could always sell the damn thing later and recoup some of the cost.
Hunting drowners in the sewers was a reliable, if disgusting, way to make some coin. They didn’t exactly pay well, but several days of turning in sacks of heads to the city guards quickly earned him enough coin to buy a half-way decent horse.
Lambert avoided the cities and large towns along his route, unless he needed the supplies, but he made sure to talk to the mayors and aldermen of smaller towns and villages. None of them had seen a Witcher passing through, much less the specific Witcher he was looking for. He took on a handful of contracts, just to have enough coin to keep himself and his horse fed and his gear in good repair.
By the time he reached Lan Exeter, Lambert was in a truly foul mood, even by his usual standards. The hanahaki had progressed to the next stage, and now he was coughing severely at the worst times. Tracking a nekker back to its nest, only to cough loudly enough to attract the attention of the whole bloody horde of them no matter how he tried to muffle the sound. Or in a fight with a grave hag, when he only managed to avoid being temporarily blinded by sheer dumb luck, rather than any skill. Not to mention how it disturbed his sleep. It hadn’t gotten him injured yet, but it was only a matter of time. Based on how things had been progressing, he had a month, maybe two, until the third stage began, unless he found Aiden soon.
He didn’t have to search for the giant- it came to him, about 5 miles out from the city. A regular forest troll, being used by a group of bandits to extort travellers to and from Lan Exeter. Sure, the troll was the biggest Lambert had ever seen in his decades on the Path, but it was just as easy to confuse before he took it down. The bandits weren’t any more skilled either, but at least they had some decent stuff stashed in their camp. The pay for the contract was disappointing, not worth the hassle of travelling so far, so Lambert felt no remorse for keeping the stolen goods to sell. A finders fee.
Hearing that Aiden hadn’t been seen didn’t come as a shock. After no one had seen him on the road, and the forest troll that hadn’t already been dealt with, Lambert would’ve been surprised to actually find him in Lan Exeter. Not that being expected made the disappointment any easier to bear.
For lack of a better idea, Lambert returned to Ellander. He took a different route, following the coast south for a while before turning east. He asked in every town he passed through, but still no one had seen any sign of Aiden.
The Temple was his first stop in Ellander. When Nenneke solemnly directed him to her office to sit before she would speak to him, he knew.
Aiden was dead.
He ignored her offers of sympathy. All he wanted to hear was what had happened, and, more importantly, why.
She told him the sequence of events as best she had been able to piece together. The official story was that Aiden had botched the contract, and when the girl died he’d taken the money and run. The unofficial story involved a plot against the Duke, and a band of mercenaries. He didn’t bother to ask how she had come to know all this, it was self-evident. Those who came to the Temple seeking help were often those with nowhere else to go, those who were ignored, looked down on. The beggars and brothel workers, who heard and saw more than most would give them credit for.
Nenneke’s information was enough of a starting point for Lambert to dig for more details, and this time he wasn’t politely asking. One name led to another, until he felt like he knew enough.
A group of the Duke’s courtiers had hatched a plan to usurp his position. Kill his beloved only child, and he would be too consumed with grief to realise what was going on before it was too late, if at all. There weren’t many mages around these days, and to anyone else investigating the curse would just seem like a bad turn of fate. There would be nothing to suggest it was murder, much less murder committed by the usurpers.
Aiden’s presence had been the one thing they hadn’t accounted for. Breaking the curse had not only thwarted their plan, it opened up the possibility of their treason being discovered. So they hired an assassin to kill two birds with one stone. A fatal ‘relapse’ of the curse gave them all the justification needed to set a bounty on Aiden’s head; and if they had no excuse but to take him down when trying to bring him in, well. No one ever shed any tears over a dead Witcher. And the bad repudiation the Cat School had earned for themselves only made it easier to dismiss Aiden as another one who’d gone bad.
No Witcher ever died in his bed, sure, but for Aiden to have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time… The injustice of it burned. Lambert wasn’t going to rest until he tracked down every last one of the murderous bastards involved.
The nobles involved in the plot were easy enough to identify, especially given the idiots had kept most of the written communication from their planning. The incriminating details were more than enough for Lambert to be satisfied in leaving their fate to the Duke’s more loyal men. If even one of those treacherous bastards avoided the gallows for their role, then Lambert would eat his silver sword.
Which left only the murderers.
He had the name of the leader, Jad Karadin, but the man seemed to have vanished off the face of the Continent in recent months. Several of the nobles in Ard Carraigh had sent offers of further work, but none had been answered based on the unsent letters he’d found in their offices. Even a known associate, Superintendent Lund of the Bits in Novigrad, had been claiming to have no way of contacting Karadin, but Lambert could be damn persuasive when he needed to be.
From Ellander, the distance to Novigrad was maybe a third of the distance to Lan Exeter, but it felt longer. The coughing was getting worse each day, and he knew he didn’t have long before the next stage started.
Lambert checked the noticeboard in Novigrad mostly out of habit, and he was glad he had. In amongst the usual crap was a contract for an unknown monster, signed by none other than Superintendent Lund himself. Completing the contract and claiming the reward was definitely going to be an easier way of gaining access to the man than any other plan Lambert could come up with. Not that taking down the damn ekimmara could be described as easy , but Geralt’s surprise intervention made it a damn sight easier.
Explaining what Aiden meant to him wasn’t something Lambert was prepared to get into, not in a stinking fishing hut with evidence of the fight surrounding them. He appreciated Geralt’s offer to help with the matter he was in Novigrad to take care of, but he doubted Geralt would really be willing to get his hands dirty avenging a Cat Witcher. Offering to split the reward was an easy way to butter-up Geralt— he wasn’t doing this contract for the coin after all.
It was easier than expected to convince the guard on the door to let them through to see the supervisor, rather than fetching him. Lambert had been more than ready to axii him, but obviously they weren’t stationing the best and brightest in the Bits.
Lambert tried to keep his cool, he really did. But being told to watch his tone after making one snarky response to Lund’s snide comment was too much. Any pretence of politeness was gone now, and Lambert demanded to know where to find Jad Karadin. There was going to be no getting out of explaining this to Geralt now, especially after Lambert left him to deal with the guards in order to chase down Lund.
The coward fled into his office, but Lambert was right behind him. Lund wasn’t as helpful as Lambert had hoped he’d be, but at least he got one name and a location. Vienne, who could be found at the Seven Cats Inn. Geralt got all up on his high horse about murder after Lund got what was coming to him, but Lambert didn’t care. He’d given Lund a cleaner death than Karadin and his band had given Aiden.
He waited outside the Inn for Geralt to finally turn up, despite every instinct yelling at him to deal with this Vienne before she could slip through his fingers. But no, it was better to give her a chance to get rip-roaring drunk before he questioned her, and to have Geralt there as backup.
Although, when Geralt demanded an explanation before he’d go along with anything else, Lambert did consider just doing everything himself. He didn’t tell Geralt everything, he didn’t need to know about the hanahaki, and Lambert wasn’t looking for sympathy, just help.
Vienne also didn’t know where to find Karadin, but she wasn’t completely useless. The names and locations of Selyse and Hammond, the other two associates, were important information. So, as thanks, he was willing to leave her alive. Besides, the early grave she was drinking herself into was a worse death than he’d be able to give her, and it’d come sooner rather than later.
With Hammond in Skellige and Selyse in running a brothel in Tretogor the fastest option was for them to split up. Of course, Geralt couldn’t simply agree to the plan, and Lambert had had enough of the moralising. “This is one of those situations, serious situations, when you don’t ask unnecessary questions and just help your friend.”
Because Lambert’s life was nothing but bad luck, snapping at Geralt was enough to set off another round of coughing. There were still no petals yet, but any day now they were sure to show up. So much for not telling Geralt about it.
Thank all the gods, for once Geralt kept his trap shut despite clearly recognising the symptom for what it was, and without further argument he agreed to be the one to go to Skellige. Lambert got seasick much easier than any of his fellow Wolves, and dealing with that on top of the hanahaki would definitely be too much to deal with.
The Black Lily was easy enough to find in Tretogor, and it was even easier to break into Selyse’s office. There was a treasure trove of information to be found- if he cared at all, Lambert would have been able to destabilise the entire kingdom based on the gossip and rumours all carefully recorded. But all he was interested in was where he could find Jad Karadin.
Fortunately, that was just as well documented. Selyse relied on Karadin, under a new alias, for a steady supply of new workers, courtesy of his ship which transported ‘live goods’ from Skellige. Lambert would eat his boots if it wasn’t Hammond involved on the other end, and if he was right then Geralt would deal with him.
Her role in Aiden’s death would have been enough on its own to earn Selyse a taste of his sword, and the fact that so many of her workers weren’t there by choice only strengthened his conviction.
Lambert had at least two weeks to wait before Geralt would return from Skellige, so he put the time to good use investigating. ‘Roland Treugger’ was a noted philanthropist and respected trader, with a residence in Gildorf, one of the fancier neighbourhoods in Novigrad.
Waiting at the Nowhere Inn for Geralt to return from Skellige was tortuous, not least because the hanahaki had progressed to the next stage. Several mornings he’d woken to find flower petals on the pillow, coughed up in his sleep. The shift from this stage to the final stage was typically the shortest, and Lambert knew he was going to run out of time before he knew it. But as long as he got to Karadin first he didn’t care.
Geralt had found much the same evidence of what bad news Karadin’s little band was, so at least he was willing to quit moralising at Lambert about it. Lambert shared what he’d discovered about Karadin and his new life, including just how close his residence was for them to pay him a visit.
They were spotted by the guards before they could even formulate a plan to break in, but rather than having to fight their way through, Lambert and Geralt were invited inside instead.
The unexpectedness of the invitation paled in comparison to the realisation that Karadin was himself a Witcher. The presence of a wife and two kids was also a shock, but it made sense as part of the veneer of respectability Karadin was projecting as Treugger.
“What School did you come out of?” Geralt asked.
“That of the Cat. So few of us left,” Karadin replied, and Lambert saw red. How dare this sack of shit act like the deaths of so many of his brothers was something to treat so lightly. Especially when he’d been personally responsible for at least one of them. It took every ounce of self-control Lambert had to not blast him into a wall.
“Not one among us doesn’t dream of changing our life. I simply did not stop at dreaming,” Karadin was saying. “They say no witcher ever died in his bed. I aim to be the first.”
Lambert couldn’t possibly count the number of times he and Aiden had talked about the exact same thing. Often while traipsing through some shitty leech-infested swamp, they had imagined the lives they could have built for themselves, if Destiny hadn’t had other ideas.
Karadin was a motherfucker, but it wasn’t like he was wrong. About the dreaming of a better life, at least.
“Remains to be seen,” Lambert managed to get out through gritted teeth. It was the first thing he had said to Karadin, and he didn’t plan on making much more conversation with the shitstain.
Geralt clearly caught on to just how close to losing it Lambert was, and finally decided to get to the point. Karadin sent away his loving wife and children; their presence was all just part of the image, and Lambert was glad they weren’t going to be at risk of getting caught in the crossfire of what was about to go down.
“Talk to him, Geralt. If I do, first word he says to me, I’ll lose it and throttle the fucker.”
Geralt asked about Aiden, and Karadin spun the same bullshit story about a contract gone wrong. He was just regurgitating the same lies as the nobles in Ellander, hoping that Geralt would believe him where the nobles had failed to convince their Lord.
But having seen the slave-trade operation that was behind the facade of a respectable merchant made it an impossible sell. Karadin recognised his failure, and drew his sword first, hoping to catch them off guard.
Combat, proper combat- not just sparring, against another Witcher was always a brutal fight. But two against one, especially when the one was out of practice, had only one inevitable end. Geralt had an opening to make the final blow, but he left it for Lambert.
Having someone to fight besides again was an unpleasant reminder. He thanked Geralt and asked if he wanted to talk about it, knowing that Geralt’s answer would be a curt “no”.
“See you later. Some day.” It was a dismissal, and Geralt took the hint.
Standing there, staring at Karadin’s corpse, Lambert felt nothing. He had expected to feel relief that it was finally over. Or satisfied, now that the entire bunch of murderous fucksticks were dead, or as good as. But he just felt hollow. Except for the flowers.
He’d managed to make it through the entire confrontation without coughing once, but the come-down from the adrenaline was apparently the signal his body had been waiting for. This bout was the worst so far, and once Lambert could finally catch his breath again it was obvious why.
A fully formed daffodil.
Right there in the spreading pool of blood.
There was probably some metaphor in there, one that any bard would love to write about for some grand romantic tragedy, but Lambert didn’t care. Karadin’s body needed to be burned, both to prevent the formation of a vengeful spirit and so no one else would discover he was a Witcher. The last thing any of them needed was authorities deciding Karadin’s slaving business was related to his being a Witcher, and taking it out on the rest of them. Lambert watched until the fire burned all the way out, and didn’t pass up the chance to piss on the ashes.
For lack of a better option, Lambert returned to the room he had at the Nowhere Inn to think through his options. There was no point in returning to Kaer Morhen to look through the remains of the library— he already knew everything he needed to know about hanahaki. Including that he probably didn’t have enough time to make it, even if he’d wanted to.
Once someone reached the point of coughing up whole flowers, there wasn’t much time left. They either confessed their love and had it reciprocated, or they took the Black Dove and killed their feelings. Or the flowers killed them.
Obviously the first option was not available. Which meant it should have been simple for Lambert to brew up a dose of Black Dove. It wasn’t a complicated bit of alchemy, and he even had all of the ingredients on hand. There was absolutely nothing stopping him from doing what needed to be done. Except.
Except…
It felt like he would be killing Aiden all over again. Killing one of the last remaining traces of Aiden that was left. Karadin hadn’t lied about one thing, the lack of Cat Witchers remaining. There were so few people left who knew Aiden at all. And even though Lambert would still remember everything they’d done together, if he took Black Dove, he wouldn’t have any emotional connection to those memories.
Running on muscle-memory, Lambert set up his alchemy gear. Even if he made it, he told himself, he wasn’t obligated to take it. No one else would even know, whatever he decided.
He couldn’t help but think how much easier this would be if he’d just been rejected instead. Sure, things would’ve been awkward between them, but he still would’ve had Aiden by his side. Any price he could pay would be worth it, if it meant he had Aiden.
Far too soon, the brewing was done. “Fuck you, Aiden,” he whispered to himself. “Why’d you have to go and die on me?”
A wracking cough brought with it another daffodil.
A flower in one hand, the cure in the other. A simple choice. One that Aiden would surely have forgiven him for, if he were still alive to grant anything.
But, as the bitter liquid slid down his throat, Lambert doubted he could forgive himself.