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A shriek of metal grinding metal snapped Aiden out of his light doze. He rolled sideways, grabbing the throwing knife under his pillow. His other hand pulled the dagger from under the mattress as he landed in a crouch on the thin rug.
The bedroom tried to keep spinning around him, so he closed his eyes—eye—and listened for movement.
That noise— the squeaky gate at the entrance to the old farm property— gave him a twenty-count before a running human would reach the front door. A creature would either go over or through the fence, and if it was another witcher come to finish him off, well, hopefully they thought his wounds had been more damaging than they were.
At the count of fifteen, snow crunched under a step.
Then another.
Whoever approached was walking and making no effort to conceal their steps.
Opening his eye, he rose to his feet and spared a glance at his boots. Going into a fight without them was foolish, but he’d rather scare his visitor off before they realized he was alone. He slinked across the small room. His elbow bounced off the threshold to the main room, but at least he’d only clipped it this time.
Maybe he was finally getting better at judging proximity on his blind side.
The heavy curtains at the front of the house had a small square cut out of the side that lined up with the bottom corner of the window so the occupants could look outside without having to disturb the fabric. Aiden crouched to the side, behind the protection of the wall, and peered out at the early morning.
A figure in dark attire stood stark against the blanket of pristine white snow that had deepened overnight. His arms were raised slightly from his sides, his gloved fingers spread wide, but there was no mistaking the sword across the figure’s back.
The unfamiliar witcher scanned the property like he was searching for signs of occupancy. Aiden hadn’t been outside in days, but the witcher might be able to smell the smoke from the remnants of his banked fire.
As the witcher looked toward the battered barn, Aiden darted for the front door. It opened on silent hinges, but the other witcher’s attention snapped to him. The rest of him held unnaturally still.
Aiden ran his thumb over the flat of his throwing knife, taking comfort in its weight, even though it would do little against a witcher with chainmail around his arms and an honest-to-gods breastplate. His fingers stilled. “Griffin?”
The witcher’s mouth ticked up. “Indeed.”
“Coën.”
Coën dipped his chin in the slightest bow. “Aiden, I presume.”
“Yes.” Aiden sagged against the doorframe, and Coën lowered his arms, grinning.
It’d been nearly a decade since Lambert had sheepishly asked if could tell his best friend how they spent their seasons on the Path together. Lambert had tripped over his words, trying to reassure him that Coën wasn’t a Wolf with their all-too-understandable grudge against Cats and he would never tell the Wolves. He might be a little shit, but he was a little shit with honor, for whatever that was worth.
Aiden had agreed as soon as Lambert paused to take a breath. He trusted Lambert’s judgement.
Simple as that.
He started to tuck his dagger into the back of his loose trousers but reconsidered. The way he kept tripping over things he hadn’t seen and catching the edge of furniture, he’d likely hurt himself with it unsheathed. He glanced back and tossed it to land on the armchair instead. He couldn’t bring himself to let go of the throwing knife.
“How did you find me?”
“It was not my intention. The early storms”—Coën gestured to the snow around him—“closed the path to Kaer Morhen earlier than I’d anticipated.”
“And Lambert had given you directions to find this place.” Aiden nodded.
They’d stayed in one of Coën’s safe locations in Kovir a few years back after a barbegazi had sunk its teeth into Lambert’s leg deep enough recovery had taken weeks. It wasn’t a surprise Lambert had offered some of their safe places in return.
“I can leave you in peace, if you prefer, or continue my travels tomorrow.” Coën tilted his head and stared at Aiden as though he could see the failed target practices, the bruises from misjudging distances, and the sleepless nights wondering if his other brothers were dead or were waiting to betray him too.
He swallowed roughly. He should tell Coën to go.
His emotions weren’t nearly as controlled as he’d been trained to keep them, he was going to be a lousy sparring partner, and he wasn’t sure if Jad would come for him again. It would be selfish to ask Coën to stay.
But the prospect of filling a long winter as he had been? He wasn’t sure it wouldn’t break him.
“No, it’s fine.” He tried to smile. “We can be the ones to bring Lambert stories this time, right?”
Coën hummed. “Am I correct you already have a story to tell?”
Aiden tensed, rolling the throwing knife through his fingers until he had the grip to throw it. It took too long to make his hand relax.
“Lambert never mentioned…” Coën gestured to his own face, his undamaged yellow-green eyes.
“Yeah.”
A raven landed on a fence post and Aiden used it as an excuse to look away, even though it gave Coën a better view of the fresh scars.
Jad and his band of assassins had ambushed him at the start of autumn. Thank fuck Lambert had been dealing with a contract while Aiden went ahead or Jad probably would’ve been a little more thorough in making sure his targets were dead.
As it was, Aiden had crawled deeper into the woods until he’d healed up enough to risk a visit to a hedge witch. By then, his eye was beyond repair and he hadn’t known how to find Lambert before he’d turn north for the winter.
Lambert probably thought he was dead, or worse, he thought Aiden had finally gotten tired of him the way always seemed to expect.
He shook his head. There was nothing he could do now but survive until their next meet-up. “That’s new.”
The raven fluffed up and rifled through the feathers on one of its wings. Bare tree branches rattled in the growing breeze. The air smelled damp with another snowstorm soon to be on top of them.
“You should come inside.” Aiden blindly tossed his throwing knife over his shoulder toward the armchair and was happy not to hear it drop to the floor. Half-blindness hadn’t negated all of his training. It only felt like it on the bad days. “I’ll scrounge up some breakfast.”
“I should settle my horse first,” Coën said, and Aiden looked back at his vaguely positive expression. “She’s around the last bend with our winter supplies.”
“Okay, good.”
He hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize two occupants would need twice as much food— more even, with the horse. The extra supplies also meant longer before he made a fool of himself trying to hunt anything too large to catch itself in a snare.
“Why don’t you start on breakfast while I get her settled,” Coën said. “Then we can prepare for the rest of the winter and what needs to be done come spring.”
Aiden frowned at the ominous words.
It was easy to forget between all of Lambert’s tales about winter shenanigans and Coën’s more knightly armor that he was a witcher too—a master of the sword, raised to efficiently kill predators, willingly poisoning himself to do what he believed right.
Aiden pushed himself off the doorframe. Exhaustion threatened to topple him, but he stood firm. “And if they were humans and another witcher?”
Coën scanned him, lingering on the heavy shadows he knew ringed his eyes and the places his shirt hung too loose from muscle loss. “As I said, we have all winter to figure out what to do next.”