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Lambert pauses, looking up at the dark bulk of the manor house. It looms against the moonless sky, grim and imposing, almost all the windows shuttered tightly against the night. Up near the peak of the roof, though, three windows glow with golden light.
“Here?” he asks softly.
His invisible companion taps his right shoulder, the signal they have agreed means yes.
At last.
It’s been a decade since Lambert first woke to a soft tap on his shoulder and discovered that he had a companion who could not be seen or heard or even touched, and could not himself touch anything…except Lambert. At first, of course, Lambert had done his best to exorcize the spirit, but silver had no more effect than anything else. Then he’d tried to ignore it. But the spirit had proved to be useful, spotting enemies and alerting Lambert of danger, finding water or useful herbs and leading Lambert to them, even helping hold Lambert’s injuries together so Lambert could stitch them more easily.
He’s become quite possibly Lambert’s dearest friend, and the one thing he’s ever asked for is for Lambert to come here. It took them a while to figure out where here was, since Lambert’s companion couldn’t point it out on a map, and tapping or tugging aren’t very good over long distances like an entire continent, but Lambert is stubborn. And here he is, to find out why the hell he needs to be here.
Lambert pads forward, slipping through the underbrush as silently as a ghost. His companion - Aiden, a name he only figured out by the painstaking process of writing out the whole damn alphabet and then pointing at each letter in turn, waiting for the tap on his shoulder to let him know he’d gotten to the right one - guides him with taps and tugs to a side door, half-hidden by shrubbery, that looks and smells like it hasn’t been used in years.
Lambert stops to fish a vial of oil out of his pack and drip it carefully onto the door’s hinges and latch, then casts a very slight Igni to warm the oil so it will soak in more quickly. Aiden jitters, tugging lightly at Lambert’s hair - braiding it, Lambert discovers when he reaches back to check. Aiden likes fidgeting with Lambert’s hair, which means that it’s much tidier these days than it was before Aiden found him; Aiden picks out all the twigs and knots with patient care, and puts it up in little braids, and would probably stick flowers in it if he could pick up the flowers.
For some reason, the only thing he can affect is Lambert, though.
Finally Lambert judges the oil has done its work, and eases the latch open; the hinges creak softly, but not as badly as he suspects they would have if he hadn’t used the oil. He slips in and closes the door quietly behind him. He’s in an unlit hallway, the dust on the floor suggesting it hasn’t been used in months or maybe years. The air smells stale, as if it hasn’t moved in a while.
A manor this size ought to be bustling with servants at all hours, but Lambert suspects the manor’s owners have fallen on hard times. Might be there’s just the family left, and two or three servants, all clustered up in those last few lighted rooms.
Well, that’ll make Lambert’s life easier, won’t it.
Of course, now that he’s fucking thought that, it’ll turn out the manor is full of katakans or something. Lambert draws a silver dagger just to be on the safe side, and twitches the fingers of his other hand in one of the signals he…actually doesn’t know how Aiden knows. They’re witcher signals, the hand-signs the Wolf School witchers use on the rare occasions they go hunting together. Lambert vaguely recalls old Barmin saying something about the signals being older than the School, though - going back all the way to Morgraig and the broken Order - and who the fuck knows where they came from before that.
Aiden tugs on his left sleeve, so Lambert heads down the corridor, looking out for doors to the left. There’s one about ten paces along, and Aiden tugs again, more eagerly. Lambert eyes the rusty hinges and digs out the oil again.
Four doors and a really annoying number of stairs later, he’s most of the way up to the attics of this sprawling manor and he’s used up nearly the entire vial of oil. The manor’s steward is not doing a good job of keeping the place in good repair, given the amount of rust on the hinges of every door Lambert passes and the thickness of dust on the stairs. Lambert has to keep rubbing a finger under his nose to suppress sneezes.
Aiden tugs at his sleeve, the right this time, and Lambert follows the tug to yet another door, though this one is standing half open. Lambert slips through the gap and up another fucking flight of stairs, these ones creaking under his weight in a rather worrying fashion, and does find himself in the attic. It is, as attics tend to be, a cluttered mess; there’s a battered suit of plate armor on a stand, missing half its pieces, and a roll of motheaten tapestries, and a tangle of broken furniture of various sorts, and who the hell knows what all else.
Aiden guides him through the first room of the attic and through a doorless archway so low Lambert has to bend almost double to get through it, then through a second room that seems to mostly be all things broken almost past mending, and through another doorway made for people much smaller than Lambert into a room that holds only one object:
A long wooden box that makes Lambert’s medallion shiver like an aspen in a high wind.
“This’s it?” he asks softly.
Aiden taps his right shoulder several times, clearly a little overexcited. Lambert pads forward, minding his step in case the old floor has started to rot, and peers down at the box. The lid has been nailed on, because of course it has.
Lambert rummages around in his pack for the little half-size crowbar his brothers tease him about carrying. Joke’s on them; a crowbar is a damn useful thing, and this one’s dwarf-made and just about guaranteed not to break.
The nails come up with unpleasant groans, ancient rust leaving stains on the wood around them. Lambert stacks them to one side where he’s not likely to step on them if whatever comes out of the box tries to kill him - lockjaw is annoying even for witchers - then hooks the end of the crowbar under the edge of the box’s lid and levers it up.
The lid clatters to the side more loudly than Lambert would prefer; Lambert winces and lunges to catch it before it can bring the whole damn household up to find out what’s going on. With any luck, they’ll think the first bang was just a shutter in the wind, or a particularly clumsy squirrel.
And then he looks down into the box and almost drops the damn lid again, because there’s a person in there.
A man, lean and lithe and handsome, wearing leather armor, lying there looking like he’s just…asleep.
Which, given how much dust there was on top of the box, and the fact that there were no footprints on the dusty floor, is a little fucking impossible.
“What the fuck,” Lambert murmurs.
Aiden tugs his sleeve eagerly. “Bloody fucking hell,” Lambert mutters. “Is that you?”
Aiden taps his right shoulder several times.
“Well…shit,” Lambert says thoughtfully, and sets the lid carefully aside. Yes, he’s a witcher and a damned good one, so he is a cursebreaker, but usually he’s got something more in the way of clues than a perfectly-preserved sleeping body that’s clearly been here for years if not decades, and an invisible companion who can’t affect anything but Lambert and can’t communicate except in taps and tugs. “Do you know how to break this?”
Tap. Yes.
Lambert nods. “Right. Do I need to break out the pointing kit?”
A tap on his left shoulder this time. No. And then a signal they haven’t worked out together: a soft touch to Lambert’s lips.
Lambert blinks and frowns. “My mouth? What? Is there an incantation?”
Tap. No.
“Do I just need to say your name? Come on, Aiden, up you get.”
Tap. No.
“What the fuck,” Lambert says, raising an eyebrow at the patch of air that is probably where Aiden is. “If it’s not your name or an incantation then I’m gonna need the pointing kit -”
There’s a gentle brush against his lips. Not a finger; Lambert knows what Aiden’s fingers feel like in his hair or against his skin, their calluses and blunt nails. Lips. Lips against his own.
Lambert stands there poleaxed for a long moment. “You need me to kiss you?”
Tap, tap, tap. Yes, yes, yes.
Lambert gives the air a deeply dubious look. “Waking sleepers up with a kiss is a myth, you know.”
Aiden tugs his hair softly, a gentle admonishment, and then taps his lips again.
“Fine,” Lambert sighs. “I’ll try.”
He bends down, frowning at the body in the box. Aiden’s a handsome bastard, Lambert will give him that. Good cheekbones, and a nice jawline. Beard’s still short, which suggests this is some sort of stasis spell in addition to the sleep, or that and the nails would be appallingly long. Lambert’s seen the aftermath of a sleep curse that didn’t include stasis, and it was not pretty.
Unlike Aiden.
Lambert puts a hand on Aiden’s chest for balance, noting the very slow heartbeat beneath the armor, and presses his lips gently to Aiden’s slack mouth.
For a long moment, nothing happens.
And then Lambert’s medallion vibrates so hard it might actually leave a bruise against his sternum, and under his hand Aiden’s chest rises and falls in a deep sigh, and one of Aiden’s hands comes up to curl around the back of Lambert’s head as his mouth opens beneath Lambert’s own.
It’s the best kiss Lambert has had in…well, a hell of a long time, actually, and Lambert almost forgets that he’s standing in a dilapidated attic, too caught up in the surprisingly sweet taste of Aiden’s mouth and the soft moans rising from Aiden’s throat and the way Aiden’s fingers scratch gently through his hair, urging him closer.
He pulls back at last, though, and looks down to discover that Aiden’s eyes are a brilliant, beautiful green…
With pupils as inhumanly thin as Lambert’s own.
Lambert blinks down at him. “You’re a witcher.”
Aiden grins and reaches up to tap Lambert’s right shoulder, then pauses, blinks a few times, grins wider, and says, in a voice rather hoarse from disuse, “Yes, I am.”
“Huh,” Lambert says, straightening up, and offers a hand. Aiden’s fingers clasp around his wrist, callused and strong, and Lambert grips Aiden’s wrist and hauls the other witcher out of the box and onto his feet. “What School?”
“Cat,” Aiden says, voice already starting to lose its hoarseness and gain a sort of pleasant lilt that reminds Lambert of the accents he’s heard from down Mettina way. “Wasn’t it obvious? I was in a box.”
Lambert lets out a bark of laughter. “Guess you were.” He lifts his free hand to touch one of the elegant ringlets of Aiden’s dark hair. “No wonder you like playin’ with mine so much. Vain kitty, aren’t you?”
“Oh, a bit,” Aiden says cheerfully. “But also you’ve got really nice hair. And - well - I didn’t get to touch much, these last…too many years.”
His grin wilts a little at those last words, and Lambert steps forward before he can overthink the motion, throwing his arms around his friend and squeezing. Aiden melts against him, tucking his head under Lambert’s chin and winding his arms around Lambert’s waist and clinging.
Lambert rests his cheek against Aiden’s hair and lets him cling. More than a decade as a spirit, unable to touch anything but Lambert - hell, Lambert would probably want a hug, too, in Aiden’s boots.
Finally Aiden heaves a great sigh and reluctantly lets go, stepping back just far enough that they can look at each other again. “So we should probably get out of here,” he says.
“Yeah,” Lambert agrees. “Speaking of ‘here’ - how the hell did you end up in that box? And where’s your gear?” Aiden has his armor, but Lambert doesn’t see any swords.
Aiden snorts. “Let this be a lesson to both of us about taking contracts without proper preparation,” he says ruefully. “Though you don’t seem to need that lesson. I don’t think I’ve seen you take a contract without scouting it thoroughly in the whole time I’ve been haunting you.”
“Taking a contract blind is fucking stupid,” Lambert says, raising an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
Aiden sighs and shrugs. “Got hired to help prevent a curse.”
“Prevent?” Lambert says dubiously.
Aiden stretches, fingertips nearly brushing the low ceiling, and nods towards the doorway. “Can we walk while I tell the story? That box is giving me the shivers.”
Understandable. “C’mon, then,” Lambert agrees, leading the way back out of the attic. Aiden follows on his heels, but doesn’t speak until they’re back at base of the creaky old staircase.
“So?” Lambert says, giving his companion a pointed look.
Aiden shrugs again. “So. Apparently the lord of the manor pissed off some sorceress or other, fuck if I know how - see what I mean about not scouting properly? - and she cursed his kid, but the curse wasn’t going to kick in until the girl turned sixteen.”
“Mages,” Lambert sneers. “Sadistic assholes, every one of ‘em.”
“Truth,” Aiden sighs. “Anyway. They called me in just before her sixteenth birthday; wanted me to keep the curse from actually hitting her. So I was there when the sorceress showed up with this enchanted spindle, of all the stupid things, and - well - she went for the girl and I got in the way…”
“And you ended up asleep instead,” Lambert says, grimacing. “That must’ve been some spell.” Witchers are usually at least partially resistant to curses.
“Yeah,” Aiden says softly. “At a guess, the sorceress had been putting Chaos into it the whole damn time the kid was growing up. But I don’t think she meant for me to stick around as…well…whatever the hell kind of spirit I was.”
“I dunno, being stuck unable to talk or touch anything sounds pretty hellish,” Lambert says slowly. “Might’ve been an extra layer of sadism.”
“True.” Aiden hums. “Well, in any case - the backlash of the spell hitting the wrong person did some serious damage to the manor, and also to the lord’s reputation.” He snorts. “Idiot threw a party. The ballroom got thoroughly wrecked, and I think half a dozen people ended up with broken bones.”
“Lackwitted of him,” Lambert agrees. Cursebreaking parties - what will the nobility think of next?
“Once they finished cleaning up -” Aiden hesitates. “Well. They stuck me in a box in the attic, as you saw.”
“Uh-huh.” Lambert looks over his shoulder. “What’re you leaving out?” Because there’s something, he’s pretty sure.
Aiden takes a deep breath. “One of the reasons they stuck me up there - well, the curse had a really traditional sort of bent to it. And the lord said - well, he said he didn’t think witchers had true loves, anyway, so there wasn’t any point putting it about that I needed mine to come find me.”
Lambert stops dead on a stairway landing and turns around. “True love?”
“You’re the only person I’ve been able to touch,” Aiden says softly, green eyes huge and hopeful. “You came to get me. You woke me. And I -” He takes another deep breath. “I wouldn’t want another true love. You’re marvelous, you know. Brilliant and deadly and foul-mouthed and funny and good all down to your bones. And handsome as sunrise, too.”
“You have really weird taste in men,” Lambert says blankly.
“I happen to think I have very good taste,” Aiden says, with a hint of that cheerful grin.
“Umph,” Lambert says. But -
Aiden’s his dearest friend. He’s watched Lambert’s back and helped tend his wounds and fussed over him; he’s become so much a part of Lambert’s life that Lambert doesn’t want to know what it might be like to go back to walking the Path alone. And like this - with a voice and a body and a witcher’s skills - well, having Aiden at his side like this will probably be even better than having him as a voiceless spirit.
“Let’s get your stuff and get the hell out of here,” he says gruffly. “We can talk about your terrible taste in men somewhere that doesn’t smell like dust.”
Aiden, who probably knows Lambert better than anyone else in the world at this point, grins. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he agrees. “Oh - my swords are in the armory, down that way; I’ll need to buy everything else new, I expect.”
Lambert turns towards the armory. “What the hell happened to this place, anyhow?”
“Turns out tricking a sorceress into cursing the wrong person doesn’t actually make her less angry,” Aiden says ruefully. “She just put another one on the whole damn family: bad luck. The old lord died falling down the stairs; the girl I saved married, but he was a piece of shit and then he died of bad shellfish. Their servants either got better offers or just ran like hell. These days I think it’s just the girl and her mom and her kid, living in a couple of rooms and cursing the old lord’s name.”
“Huh,” Lambert says, and hauls the door to the armory open. “D’you know how to break that one?”
For some reason, the question earns him so brilliant a smile that he almost staggers into a wall. “Yes,” Aiden says. “There’s a nasty little bit of spellwork buried down by the foundation stone; if we dig it up and burn it before we leave, the curse will break.”
Ugh, more stairs. But Lambert doesn’t care to leave curses lying about, and in any case the last few survivors of the house didn’t do anything to Aiden but leave him in the attic, which - well, Lambert can easily imagine some idiot deciding that the cursed witcher in the attic was the source of all his misfortunes, and having Aiden’s head cut off. So leaving him alone was almost certainly the best of the available options.
It’s the option that meant that Lambert could find him.
Which, come to think of it - “How the hell did you find me?” he asks.
Aiden shrugs. “There was this…pull, while I was a spirit. Once I let it, it led me straight to you.” He grins. “Helpful of it, really.”
Which is more than a little disconcerting.
Aiden picks his swords out easily from the meager array of weapons left in the armory; they’re shorter than Lambert’s blades, almost closer to long knives than proper swords, but Aiden looks right with them on his hips. He takes a belt of daggers, too, shrugging it into place across his chest, and turns to grin at Lambert.
“That feels better,” he says. “Right. One more cursebreaking, and then let’s get the hell out of here.”
Lambert nods. “Lead on,” he agrees.
Aiden’s grin turns impish, and he reaches out to tug on Lambert’s sleeve. Lambert goes with the gentle pull, stepping closer, and Aiden laughs, bright and delighted, as Lambert backs him up against a wall.
“Got to make sure the first one took,” Lambert murmurs, and bends his head. Aiden meets the kiss with flattering enthusiasm.
“I think you’re probably going to have to check regularly,” he murmurs as they part, giving Lambert a very hungry look through dark eyelashes.
Lambert snorts and grins back. “You know me. I don’t leave things half-done.”
“So you don’t,” Aiden agrees. “Which gives me great hope that at some point in the not too distant future I will be very well done. But first, cursebreaking.”
“Cursebreaking,” Lambert says, and follows Aiden back out of the armory and down into the house’s cellars. The spell is just as easy to find as Aiden said it would be - a nasty little tangle of string and wood and something that smells foul buried not very deeply in the dirt floor - and Lambert puts a silver dagger through it before Aiden casts Igni. It burns quick and hot, leaving nothing but a smear on Lambert’s dagger, and as the flames die, Lambert’s medallion shivers and falls still.
A weight seems to go out of the air; even in the cellar, the dankness seems to recede. A faint bitter scent that he hadn’t even noticed before fades away to nothing.
“Huh,” he says, wiping his dagger clean. “That worked.”
Aiden grins. “And now we can leave,” he says. “Gods, it’s going to be good to be alive again!”
Lambert snorts. “Good to not have to point at dozens of fucking letters to talk to you,” he says wryly. “C’mon, let’s go.”
He’s not expecting to meet anyone on the way out; presumably the last few survivors of the double curses are huddled in their rooms, praying that the light will keep them safe. But there’s someone waiting in the corridor when they reach the ground floor again: a haggard woman in her early thirties, perhaps, though with lines of care on her face that make her look far older.
“You’re awake,” she breathes, looking at Aiden in wonder. “I thought - I felt something - you’re awake. Oh, thank the gods.”
“Lady Emily,” Aiden says, stepping forward slowly. “I’m awake, yes. The curses are broken.”
The woman glances over at Lambert. “I’m - I’m glad,” she says. “I should pay you. I know you never got what Father promised you - well, you were asleep. But - you broke them both, didn’t you?”
Aiden nods. “We did. But I know your house is…not wealthy anymore.”
The woman’s mouth twists in a rueful grimace. “No, we’re not. Father should have let me take the curse; better one daughter than the whole house. And who knows? I might have ended up with a true love, instead of that cad Henryk. But - well.” She gestures around herself at the dark, quiet manor. “We’ve sold almost everything that was worth money, but if there’s anything you do want, it’s yours.” Her eyes fix on Lambert again, on the twin swords over his shoulder. “And I will teach my son to honor witchers,” she adds softly, and turns to vanish up the stairs again.
“Well,” Aiden says thoughtfully, “as far as I know they did sell almost everything, but I suspect we could turn up a couple of blankets and some food before we leave.”
Lambert nods. Provisions are always welcome.
The pantry turns out to have a decent selection of dried meat and fruit, and a linen cupboard provides a set of blankets that will make a decent bedroll for Aiden - or a good addition to Lambert’s, if they end up sharing, which he fully expects they will. And a cupboard near the exit even provides a small leather pack to stuff everything into.
So really, Lambert thinks as they leave the manor behind them, the golden light seeming to glow more brightly from the high windows than it did when he arrived, he’s done quite well out of this little adventure: he didn’t have to fight anything, he’s not injured, he has more food and supplies than he arrived with -
And he has Aiden walking beside him, looking around at the midnight forest in almost palpable wonder, a spring in his step and a light in his eyes and a smile like sunrise on his lovely lips:
Lambert’s true love and dearest friend, alive and well at last.