Work Text:
Tissaia found her in Daevon.
A simple note delivered by a skylark to the abandoned barn Yennefer had sheltered in for the night. There was no signature. It made no difference. The raven-haired woman knew who wrote it the moment she saw Tissaia’s familiar script.
Leaning heavily against a bale of stiff hay, Yennefer let her eyes drift shut. A small, weary smile played at the edges of her chapped lips. Time was up.
After everything, Yennefer couldn’t say she minded. Quite the contrary. This was a relief.
Weeks had passed since Yennefer fled Aretuza in a rebellious feat of anarchy and desperation. Each one passed in a haze of progressively more dire circumstances. More weeks still had passed since her departure from Cahir.
She could never have executed the man. Not for something as asinine as Stregobor’s ploys and the Brotherhood’s whims. It simply wasn’t who she was.
Belligerence and dissent that the Brotherhood may call it, Yennefer would not compromise herself for the whims of men. Just the thought of it was enough to set her teeth on edge.
Unlike her ascension, this defiance did not feel like a victory.
The righteous fury of her youth had long abandoned her. Burnt up with her chaos all those weeks ago atop Sodden’s hill. Yennefer’s lips pulled into a rueful smile, eyes fluttering shut as she silently acknowledged it had been much longer than that. Sodden was simply the last in what felt like several lifetimes of disappointments and cruelties.
Yennefer’s thoughts turned, as they oft seemed to, to that last night before the battle. Sitting side-by-side with Tissaia for the first time in her life. Laughing and drinking together – and gods, she’d never known how much she ached to hear that laugh.
It felt almost like a dream now. A far-off memory from a lifetime ago.
Back then, she had told Tissaia that life had no more to give. Yennefer’s smile turned sharp and cold. She should have known better than to tempt the gods – life may have no more to give, but there was still much to be taken.
Tissaia had said it herself: You still have so much left to give.
And give, she had. The fields before her were awash in a fiery blaze. The searing torrent of the wrath and vengeance she’d so long contain flooding out in garnet, citrine hues. A vast sea of misery, filled with howls of agony and the putrid stench of burning flesh. Her own hands and arms had torturously blistered under the outflow of her chaos. Throat growing raw and bloodied as Yennefer wailed her grief and inhaled smoke-ladden breaths.
She had given everything. Until there was nothing left.
A pyrrhic victory.
The deathless mother’s words echoed cruelly in her head: What will she live for now?
Yennefer shuddered, unconsciously rubbing her worn hands together as she shook her head to clear the vile memory. Little good that it did her.
Every night, Yennefer was plagued by the same words. Over and over and over until it felt that they’d etched themselves into the very surface of her skull. You’re the desperate one, Yennefer crooned ever so knowingly. The mocking smile on the apparition’s faux-youthful face.
And wasn’t she just?
A hollow huff of laughter escaped her as dulled violet eyes opened to stare into the meagre surroundings. They were far from the most dire she’d occupied since departing Aretuza.
Yennefer unconsciously shivered, nose wrinkling, as she recalled the sewers. The ever-lingering memory of the putrid smell of pig’s shit burned her nose, and Yennefer’s stomach roiled, her mouth twisting in disgust.
Yes, she had stayed in far worse places. Pity it didn’t make her current circumstances feel any better.
Listless as she’d been between leaving Geralt atop the mountain and Sodden, it had not been like this. Back then, she’d still been a vessel. The fiery chaos in her veins had been steady and thrummed with every breath she took. Now?
There was nothing left.
Yennefer’s thumb unconsciously traced the scar on her wrist. And yet… You’ve stayed for decades. Why? Is it love? Legacy, you say? She grimaced, recalling the mocking glee in the demon’s voice. Power! That’s what you live for.
The deathless mother had been wrong. Or rather, she hadn’t been wholly correct. The mere thought brought a mirthless smirk to Yennefer’s lips. She had lived for power for decades, yes.
She had lived for Tissaia first.
Every wretched day at Aretuza, crumbling under the weight of her endless failures and inadequacies? Yennefer had kept going for the ever-elusive approval of the seeming ice woman who had spared her pitiful life.
The Rectoress had not been warm or kind or gentle. More often than not, the older mage had delivered barbarous remarks that pierced so deeply that Yennefer was still trying to pick out the splintered thorns decades later. The puckered scars of the ones she’d managed to pick out still twinged when a careless thought made her brush against them.
And yet.
Ice-woman that she had been, the Rectoress was still the first person who had ever had faith in Yennefer.
Yennefer’s thumb passed again over the lightly raised scar on her wrist. Her eyelids slid a quarter shut, violet eyes distant as she thought on that dread night.
Tissaia had not just spared Yennefer’s life when she stopped her suicide attempt. She had saved her. Where so many wouldn’t have spit on Yennefer if she was on fire, the Rectoress had healed her. Demanded better of her.
On more nights than she cared to admit, Yennefer had stared blankly into an eve’s campfire and recalled the Rectoress’s words that morning: Do you know how many people wouldn’t blink if you died?. That dread night on the forsaken beach after she’d buried the bitch Queen’s late babe, Yennefer had dared wonder silently back. And you, Rectoress? Would you blink if my passing came to be?
Given the fractious nature of their scarce interactions after Yennefer’s ascension? She had thought not.
It was a thought that hurt far more than Yennefer cared to admit back then.
Despite the deathless mother’s words, it was not until the Brotherhood elected to send her to Nilfgaard that Yennefer truly chose power. Even having escaped that fate and knowing Tissaia could do nothing about being outvoted, Yennefer’s fragile trust was shattered.
Yennefer shut her eyes against the sharp burn of tears across their surface. Her throat bobbed as she silently acknowledged the truth: she loved Tissaia. Against all logic and unattainability, she had always loved Tissaia in every broken way that her traumatized heart knew how.
Her head tipped back to rest against the hay bale, and Yennefer clenched her jaw against the burn in her nose. Beneath her closed eyes, tears stung, but still she refused them. A choked sound escaped her that might have been a mad laugh if she hadn’t swallowed it.
What did she know of love? If her elven father had ever loved her, she’d no recollection of him to see it. Her mother had loved her by leaving her. Istredd had loved her by using her. Geralt had loved her by chaining her.
Even the so-called love she had witnessed offered no reprieve. Her stepfather had loved her mother with his rage. Virfuril, if he could be said to have ever loved his queen and daughter, did so by having them killed.
Charity, altruism, devotion, affection, loyalty - all were lost on Yennefer. Creatures she had only heard of in fairytales. She tried her best when she was very young to mimic them, but it had wrought her nothing but more pain and rejection.
Yennefer didn’t know how to love warmly. So she loved Tissaia in all the burning ways she was able. Consumingly. She loved her with her churlishness and anger. Treasured her with unruly nature and stubbornness. Adored her with possessiveness and envy. Worshipped her by staying away.
Had she but the bravery, Yennefer would have loved her kindly. In every soft, warm way she had ever been denied, she would have loved Tissaia.
Toward the end of her days at Aretuza, Yennefer had gotten close. By then, the Rectoress’s arctic bite had tempered. The thick winter’s ice cracked and drifted away, leaving spring’s boreal ocean in its wake. As glimmers of sunlight warmed even that, Yennefer grew bolder. Until, at last, she’d dared wade into the chill of the ocean’s waves. Each lapping wave acclimated her weary heart to the temperature as it crested into her.
The fragile shells of bravery and tenderness she’d carefully carried in with her from the shore were lost under the sudden whitecapped crash of the Brotherhood’s machinations. Their smooth surfaces sank far deeper than Yennefer had the breath or skill to retrieve. Suddenly adrift in those chilled, tumultuous waves with her freshly pulped heart, Yennefer had latched onto the familiar driftwood of rage.
For the next decades? Power was all she lived for. Istredd’s wane smile passed through her mind, I’m sorry you chose power.
Yennefer’s lips twitched. Even as she thought it, Yennefer dismissed it. She hadn’t. Not really.
She had chosen Tissaia.
The hollowness in Yennefer’s chest echoed, wide and cold in its cavernousness. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed around its sudden tightness.
Sodden.
She had been prepared to die.
She hadn’t known there was so much more to lose.
Yennefer’s breath shuddered, muscles unconsciously tightening as she became, impossibly, more aware of the aching void inside her. As had become her penchant of late, Yennefer roughly pulled her cloak tighter around her.
Not that it would help when the icy emptiness was inside her.
Gods, she was cold. Had been ever since she had lost her access to chaos. When she’d been bound in Fringilla’s chains, Yennefer had dreamt of freedom and warmth. The terror that had filled her when she realized the warmth had not returned with her freedom was devastating.
Devoid of her power, Yennefer had ultimately reverted. She had lived for Tissaia anew. Every aching breath and weary step as she sluggishly trod back to Aretuza had been for Tissaia.
The tears in that familiar phthalo gaze and Tissaia’s shaky, poorly-hidden smile at Yennefer’s return had flooded the younger mage’s heart with warmth like the coming dawn.
Pity it hadn’t lasted.
Violet eyes narrowed into a squint as Yennefer’s lips twitched in a brittle, rictus smile. And wasn’t that the story of her life? She snorted softly, head tipping back again as her gaze drifted to the beams above
History had repeated, as it so often did.
Stregobor and his fucking schemes had triumphed, and Yennefer once again found herself alone with an impossible choice. She wondered if Tissaia knew that she wouldn’t – couldn’t – do it. Not like that.
Not for them.
Violet eyes drifted shut again as Yennefer thought again of the brunette’s shockingly desperate words as Thanedd’s stormy night roared outside around them. Power couldn’t do it, even when you had it at your fingertips! What makes you think it’s the answer now?
Not for the first time, Yennefer wished her answer could have been different. That it could have changed since their confrontation in Rinde. It hadn’t. In the wake of losing Tissaia - for the brunette’s insistence that she simply perform the execution told Yennefer that she already had - it always came back to power.
It was all she had left.
Drawing her arms around herself, Yennefer lurched forward to curl tighter beneath her cloak, arms wrapping around her calves. Another futile attempt to warm herself. Yennefer shook her head at her own efforts.
All the weeks spent hiding as best she could without access to chaos were just as futile now.
Slowly making the long journey across the Continent, she’d intended to find Geralt at Kaer Morhen. He had hurt her, and she’d left him, but he was the only one she could go to now.
Beneath the numbness that suffused her, her heart panged. How small a life she lived, for that to be the undeniable truth.
It mattered little now. Not if the Rectoress had come for her.
Resisting the urge to snort, Yennefer curled her fingers into the rough fabric of her trousers. How fitting that Tissaia would be the one they sent.
She should have expected it. If not immediately, then certainly after the wanted posters of her likeness were scattered across the Continent. Finally, she had committed a slight the Brotherhood would not tolerate.
It should, perhaps, alarm her how apathetic it left her.
Historically, the Brotherhood had always made it the duty of the Rector or Rectoress who put forth a mage to ascend to remove that mage if they required executing. And Tissaia, ever dutiful, would do as she must. No matter what her heart said.
Yennefer knew Tissaia cared about her. There was no denying that, not after seeing the woman’s face when she’d returned to Aretuza miraculously alive. However, she also knew the woman’s commitment to her duty.
Truthfully, Yennefer couldn’t help but be relieved it would be over soon. Weeks of hunger, cold, fear and failure had wearied her. The burden of her seven decades of fighting had finally come to roost. Vision blurred by tears that she blinked away, Yennefer chuckled humourlessly, and she thought of the words she’d shouted at Istredd all those years ago. It’s what I’m owed.
Foolish.
It reminded her of a passage she’d read in an elven tomb seeking a solution to her lost chaos. We have what we have while we have it. She rested her forehead atop her knees and smiled brittly into her lap. Now, what she had was gone.
Life had nothing left to give. And neither did she.
Moreover, the raven-haired woman was glad it would be her. Tissaia, in her methodical way, had no interest in showmanship or gloating. It would be an efficient death. Not least for the woman’s knowledge that Yennefer no longer possessed her chaos. There was no fear of defence required.
The relief Yennefer felt was tinged with regret for the modicum of guilt she knew the older mage would carry.
No student of Tissaia’s had ever strayed far enough to require the woman to execute them. It was, admittedly, not the first Yennefer had hoped to be for the older woman. Yet, not one she minded as much as she probably ought to.
Lifting her head, Yennefer rolled her tense shoulders and shook her head. Even if she had her chaos, Yennefer wouldn’t try to run. Not anymore.
She did not lie when she spoke to Tissaia on that wall in Sodden. All of the lives she’s lived, and she’s not once been satisfied. No legacy to leave behind – not that the Brotherhood would allow any legacy of hers to continue after her death. The closest thing to a legacy she was liable to have was the length of Jaskier’s life, should the bard feel compelled to continue singing the songs she knew were about her.
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. After the sandpiper’s help, Yennefer thought he just might.
Yennefer’s smile dimmed as she wondered if she might ask Tissaia to light a candle in her memory on Saovine. If nothing else, Tissaia might be willing to give her that. Circumstances being what they were, Tissaia was clearly trying to make this as painless as possible.
Mage executions were historically brutal, torrid affairs. That the Rectoress had come personally meant she would be spared the indignity of a public spectacle. The respite of something quick and efficient. The mercy of it lit a flicker of warmth in the wretched chill of Yennefer’s chest.
Unbidden, Yennefer’s lips curled up. Tissaia loathed mess. And, as the creator of several of the Continent’s most deadly poisons, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume the Archmistress would employ one for this purpose. With any luck, it would be a quick, painless one.
A quiet, unremarkable death. The sort the childish young woman she’d been in Aedirn would have railed against.
It was probably more kindness than she deserved, Yennefer mused. Given all the headaches she’d given the brunette over the years. Nevertheless, if this was to be her end? Yennefer was glad that it would be Tissaia.
Let the last thing she sees be those beautiful blue eyes that captivated her from the first moment she met them.
The very brief note Tissaia sent gave only a location – a place more than a little on Daevon’s outskirts – and the word tonight. Yennefer idly traced the letters on the page with her finger. Mapping the smooth curves and clean lines as she often had in those early student days as she learned to read. The Rectoress hadn’t the time to teach such things personally, but she did have plenty of documents as practice material.
If the students learned about the recent and long past political landscape of the Continent while learning to read? So much the better.
Brushing the memories aside, Yennefer briefly wondered whether she ought to perform any last rites for herself. She hardly knew what her family would do, but there were some common rites in Vengerberg. A few elven ones, if she dared.
Turning the idea over in her mind, Yennefer shook her head. Prayers would not save her. They never had.
If this was her end? Yennefer would meet it as she lived: Too proud by half.
Instead, Yennefer slowly stood and dusted herself off. After so many weeks on the run, she had little on her person. A small sachet of coins that she’d retrieved from an old money cache, sparse rations, and a half dozen crumpled wanted posters bearing her image. She’d collected the latter in every town she’d dared enter on her travels, tearing it from wherever it was posted.
Withdrawing the stack of weathered parchment, Yennefer flipped them over to the blank sides. Retrieving a suitable stick, the raven-haired woman grimaced and dipped it into the mud. It would be hideous, and Tissaia would likely be revolted by the pathetic replacement for ink, but Yennefer had no other solution.
In careful strokes, Yennefer wrote out all the contacts she could think of. Locations of all her safe houses and how to bypass any remaining wards. Where her money caches were. The incantations for several useful but uncommon spells. A few – probably unnecessary – notes of introduction to some trusted allies.
If not all, most of the information would be useless to Tissaia. The Rectoress was centuries old and among the most powerful people on the Continent. She had no need for Yennefer’s pittance resources.
Yennefer wanted her to have them anyway.
In her whole mess of a life, Yennefer had often failed to give Tissaia anything of worth – Sodden felt the only real exception – but this she could give her. And if Tissaia never used a single scrap of the information? It would have to be enough.
Yennefer would do as Tissaia once had and offer the older mage all she had to give.
Everything.
Sorrow gripped her heart as she thought of the night to come. How disappointed the Rectoress must be, Yennefer mused.
After everything Tissaia had given trying to keep her safe? She had only ever managed to throw it back in the older woman’s face. And now? Here they were.
One last time, Tissaia had to clean up after her.
At least this she could face with grace.
Having spent so many years spitting in the face of duty and fleeing all responsibility, Yennefer was finally tired of running. Exhausted from the unforgiving cycle of fleeing, scouring for food, looking over her shoulder and scarcely sleeping, that showed no end. The sibilant torment from the demon in her head and the countless nightmares that filled the feeble space the deathless mother left.
Yennefer’s heart clenched unpleasantly as she thought again of that night in the observatory. The night when she finally gave breath to her greatest fear with the loss of her chaos. ‘Without it, I’m nothing.’
Tissaia hadn’t disagreed.
The Rectoress had relayed that she could not fix Yennefer’s brokenness and allowed Yennefer to depart unfollowed. The raven-haired woman often wondered if Tissaia knew how ruined she always managed to leave her in their partings. Sometimes, on particularly dark nights, Yennefer let herself sink into the fear that she did. That the Rectoress might do so on purpose even after all this time.
Yennefer was so tired of running from Tissaia.
She had never been who Tissaia wished her to be. Maybe she could die as someone the Rectoress could be pleased with. A humourless puff of laughter escaped chapped lips as Yennefer dragged her hand through her wild, raven locks and murmured ruefully, “Sometimes the best thing a flower can do for us is to die.”
It seemed her time had come. Her petals all burnt to ash on a forsaken hill, the remaining husk of stem withering more by the day. Yes, sometimes it was for the best.
With that thought, Yennefer mustered the energy to leave the barn to find a stream to wash in. Her appearance was still magically enhanced, thank the gods, but it was far from what it used to be.
The long weeks on the run had left her features gaunt and her body thin. The once luscious locks of her raven hair had grown limp and tangled. Her violet eyes dulled of all hope. Though a quick rinse in the stream was less effective than a bath, it removed the worst of the grime.
Running her fingers through her hair to detangle the worst of it, Yennefer took a deep breath and glanced at the sky. The morning had passed, and she would have to leave soon to arrive on time. After a moment’s indecision, Yennefer tied her hair back in a braid as she had done that last night at Aretuza.
Glancing at her reflection on the water’s surface, Yennefer nodded sharply. Still far from her best, but - other than that brief stay at Aretuza - it was the cleanest she’d looked since before Sodden.
It would have to be enough.
She wanted to die lovelier than she had been when Tissaia found her. A low bar, perhaps, but one she refused to compromise on.
With lithe movements, Yennefer folded the last blank wanted poster into an envelope and tucked the information for Tissaia within. Reaching for her coin sachet, Yennefer withdrew four marks and placed them within before she folded the envelope shut.
If she had truly become such a disappointment that Tissaia had been left no choice but to finally rid the Continent of her? She ought to refund the woman for her trouble. To truly free Tissaia from any sense of duty she might feel to the girl she had once been.
Straightening her cloak, Yennefer tucked the envelope inside and took a steadying breath. It was time to go.
~~~
It was well after dark when Yennefer reached Tissaia’s cabin. As far past the outskirts of town as it was, Yennefer had to resort to torchlight for the last parts of the journey. Absently tugging her cloak tighter around her as she approached, Yennefer shivered.
As she drew closer, Yennefer’s gaze roved over what she could make out of the cabin in the darkness. It was a small structure. Likely no more than a single bedroom and modest den and smaller kitchen. A gentle billow of smoke rose from a stone chimney, the glow from the fire within visible around the edges of the door and windows.
Were it not the last place she would ever enter, Yennefer thought the soft orange glow would have been incredibly welcoming.
As she reached the doorstep, Yennefer paused to gather the quavering vestiges of her resolve. Bracing for Tissaia’s disappointment. She could do this.
Her breath hitched when, before she could knock, the door swung gently open. A hundred memories of the Rectoress opening her office door the same way flashed behind violet eyes.
Throat bobbing, Yennefer stepped inside. Her breath caught in her throat, violet gaze abruptly blurring with tears as she drank in the image before her.
For there sat Tissaia. Her diminutive form was illuminated by the golden glow of the merrily crackling fire in the hearth, the soft light pitching every sharp plane of her face into stark relief. Glorious as Yennefer had ever seen her, Tissaia sat regal and poised before the roaring fire with a near-serene expression. The familiar high collar of her sea blue gown cast shadows over the long slope of her neck, and her ever-present pendant gleamed in the firelight atop her chest.
She looked entirely too serene for the circumstances, Yennefer mused. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to mind. Hardly a burden for such resplendence to be the last she saw.
Pipe held delicately aloft, Tissaia exhaled a fresh plume of smoke in a lofty billow that circled her head like a dragon’s breath. “It’s impressive,” Tissaia greeted, her cerulean eyes flicking to Yennefer’s form. “The distance you managed to cover without being caught.”
Thin lips quirked, a dimple appearing on one side as Tissaia added ruefully, “Although, given how effectively you managed to avoid being spotted after Sodden, I oughtn’t to be surprised.”
Yennefer stiffened, stomach fluttering with anxiety. Had the effort required to find her annoyed Tissaia? She suppressed a grimace.
“Apologies for inconveniencing you, Rectoress,” Yennefer replied, attempting a smirk. It felt wrong on her lips.
Tissaia’s eyebrows rose, “Are we back to that?” She hoped not. It had taken many moons to pinpoint Yennefer’s location without the aid of chaos, and Tissaia had missed her rather desperately. Though their parting had, once again, been strident - as so many others had been - Tissaia had hoped they were past such acerbity.
Brushing the painful thought away, Tissaia waved her free hand toward the open seat. “Nevertheless, do take a seat. You must be frozen.” Yennefer certainly looked it. The thick fabric of her cloak wrapped tightly around her, a tenseness in her frame as though she were holding back a shiver.
Tissaia couldn’t help the worry that sprouted in her heart at Yennefer’s usually stiff countenance. She knew the younger woman had been, doubtlessly, struggling for the weeks on the run, but something about her posture seemed more off than expected.
As she took another slow draw from her pipe, Tissaia watched silently to see what the younger woman would do.
Temptingly close to the fire as the offered chair was, Yennefer readily complied with Tissaia’s offer. The gods alone knew how long it had been since she sat before such warmth. However, even as she moved, the raven-haired woman couldn’t help the unease it gave her.
Why would Tissaia dither over whether she was cold or not? She was about to die. There was no point in fretting over something as minimal as a slight chill. Still, Yennefer was in no position to shirk any offered kindness. Though Yennefer near moaned in subtle relief at the heat the flames offered, the frozen chill that had plagued her stayed in her marrow.
If Tissaia thought it odd that Yennefer didn’t remove her cloak, she didn’t say.
As Yennefer settled herself, Tissaia savoured the familiar spiced taste of her favoured tobacco blend as she drank in the younger woman’s appearance.
It would be remise to say that Yennefer looked terrible, but there was no denying the raven-haired woman was in poor shape. Dark circles shadowed sunken violet eyes, and - though her cloak hid the worst of it - the thinness of her frame was obvious. If the too-prominent bones of her cheeks, emphasized further by her unusually pulled-back hair, were any indication? It might be worse than when Tissaia had collected her all those years ago in Vengerberg.
Yes, the weeks on the run – months, truly. Yennefer had hardly been at Aretuza long enough to count as any proper reprieve – were hard on her girl.
Relieved as she was to see Yennefer alive, Tissaia couldn’t help the finger-twitching desire to take care of the girl. From the moment her girl had passed Aretuza’s barriers, galloping away on the horse at speeds only Tissaia’s prior enchantment of the beast could have allowed, Tissaia had feared for her. Devoid of her chaos as she was, Yennefer was beyond even Tissaia’s considerable abilities to track.
Given Yennefer’s muted reception tonight, Tissaia withstood the desire to go to the younger woman. It would undoubtedly be poorly received.
Exhaling another elegant waft of smoke around herself, Tissaia asked lightly, “Would you care for a cup of tea? Or wine? I’ve both, and you could surely use something to ward off the chill.”
Yennefer stiffened. Was that... it? Did Tissaia mean to execute her without even telling her of her fate? The ice in her bones spread, frost seeping through her muscles as a numb detachment fell over her.
Distantly, Yennefer discarded the thought. No, that wasn’t right. Tissaia likely intended to wait until Yennefer imbibed the poison before explaining. A precaution, lest she try to resist ingesting it.
Yes, Yennefer mused grimly. That would fit Tissaia’s style better. It skipped neatly over theatrics and would accomplish the task with brutal efficiency.
Pity it did nothing to dull the gelid squeeze of Yennefer’s heart. Such a clinical, removed way to go about things. The deathless mother’s voice echoed again in her mind, You’re the desperate one, Yennefer. The most.
Madly, Yennefer almost laughed. Here she was at the end of her life, and all she could do was despair over her own insignificance to the woman who would end her.
The numbness in her veins spread, and Yennefer spared a thought that it was a mercy to not drag things out. Still, she couldn’t help but wish they were doing something more than exchanging pleasantries as though they didn’t both know what was going on here.
Beneath the brittle cage of her ribs, Yennefer’s heart throbbed with a sharp ache. Her throat bobbed as she forced herself to swallow around the lump in it.
Shoving the hurt away, Yennefer kept her expression carefully blank. She had promised herself that she would meet her end with dignity. If this was how Tissaia wanted to do it? So be it.
Steadied anew, Yennefer muttered an agreement for tea because she was still dreadfully cold. If Tissaia was surprised by her choice, she didn’t say anything.
Artfully placing her pipe on a small side table after tapping the dottle into the ashtray, Tissaia rose and strode elegantly toward the small kitchen.
Smiling tremulously, Yennefer allowed fondness to flow through her for Tissaia’s predilection toward not using chaos for mundane things. Confident that Tissaia was focused on her task, Yennefer let herself stare. With little effort, amethyst eyes sank into the trajectory they’d so often roved in her student days. Dragging languidly over every soft curve and elegant gesture the woman made as she moved fluidly about her task.
Gods, she was lovely. For the first time in her life, Yennefer wished tea took longer to make. She could sit and watch pale fingers nimbly open the sachet of dried leaves and meticulously measure our portions for hours on end. The precise movements of Tissaia’s arms and hands as she laid out the cups and filled them soothed something in Yennefer’s chest.
Though she was aware of the weight of Yennefer’s gaze upon her, Tissaia made no move to address it. Unsettled as the younger woman seemed, if it brought her comfort to watch Tissaia prepare their beverages? So be it.
It was shockingly like the girl Yennefer had been long ago, Tissaia mused absently. Feline eyes watched the first small bubbles form along the bottom of the pot as Tissaia recalled those days long ago. Yennefer had been a skittish thing in her youth. Forever hiding. In the shadows, behind a pillar, behind her fringe - any way she could obfuscate herself, Yennefer would take. However, even as she hid, Yennefer watched.
While, at times, Tissaia had struggled not to look at the younger woman, Yennefer was unabashed in her staring. Those haunting violet eyes had followed the Rectoress’s every move. One of the only reprieves Tissaia gained with Yennefer’s departure to Aedirn was escaping the distracting weight of that stare as her feelings for the younger woman changed.
Unconsciously grimacing, Tissaia ignored the faint blush that crept up her cheeks as she imagined the havoc her life might have been attempting to stay focused under such circumstances. She would always regret their disastrous parting at Yennefer’s ascension, but that dilemma? She gladly avoided confronting.
When the water boiled, Tissaia smoothly poured it into their mugs, meticulously ensuring they were even. Satisfied, Tissaia turned and returned the short distance to the hearth.
Smoothly setting the two mugs on the small, circular table across from the fire, Tissaia gestured for Yennefer to choose one.
Yennefer froze. If Tissaia was letting her choose, neither cup was poisoned. Her pulse thundered in her ears as her stomach swooped. Gods, was Tissaia planning a more brutal method after all? The back of her neck prickled, a cold sweat dotting the exposed surface of her skin.
Before her thoughts could truly spiral, Yennefer forced them away. There was no point dwelling. Not when she could see a subtle furrow forming in Tissaia’s brow.
Hastening to take a mug, Yennefer murmured a quiet thanks. Without hesitation, she lifted the mug to her lips and sipped the contents. The slight burn of her tongue was well worth the momentary warmth the steaming beverage brought her.
Steadied by the grounding burn, Yennefer cleared her thoughts. It mattered not what method Tissaia chose. She would give over her information and let it be done.
The chill in her limbs expanded. Yennefer breathed. The rictus of her jaw smoothed into its previous placid alignment.
Her violet gaze drifted to meet the emerald gleam beneath cerulean pools, and Yennefer almost smiled. Gods, she was glad it was Tissaia.
Mentally chiding Yennefer’s impatience as she watched the woman drink the scarcely poured cup, Tissaia returned to her seat. Truthfully, she could hardly blame the raven-haired woman for it. Rough as Yennefer had been living, Tissaia had no doubt it was the first proper cup of tea she had had in ages.
Confrontational as Yennefer tended to be, Tissaia couldn’t help her concern at the quiet thus far. The note she’d sent had lacked details, to say the least. It was unlike Yennefer to not demand them. Though Tissaia could admit, Yennefer had not been much like herself since Sodden. She could hardly blame her.
The effects of the dimeritium she’d inhaled had mercifully been non-permanent. Even then, Tissaia hadn’t felt herself without her chaos. The staggering weight of her grief had overwhelmed the worst of it from her conscious thoughts, but still, it lingered.
A mage devoid of their chaos was a terrible thing.
Whatever prompting Tissaia might have used to coax a reaction out of Yennefer died on her lips as the raven-haired woman straightened, seeming to come to a decision. Tissaia’s gaze sharpened as she watched a complex series of emotions flit through the amethyst depths of Yennefer’s gaze.
With little fanfare, Yennefer gracefully bent to replace the mug on the table. Careful to keep her expression neutral, Tissaia’s eyes widened as Yennefer withdrew a rather crude-looking envelope from her robe. Before the brunette could inquire as to its contents, Yennefer leaned forward to deposit it on the table next to their mugs of tea.
Tissaia’s brows twitched into a subtle knit at the unexpected soft clink accompanying the soft thud as it landed. An artifact of some kind?, she mused. When would Yennefer have had the wherewithal to find such a thing while on the run? And where, for that matter. The raven-haired woman had surely been avoiding most sizeable towns - Tissaia’s spies would have found her much sooner, elsewise.
The silence as Yennefer leaned back in her chair and resumed her too-casual lounging did nothing to soothe the quiet alarm Tissaia felt. Despite her unease, Tissaia accepted the wordless prompt and reached to lift the envelope from the table.
It was heavier than expected, she noted. Drooping on one side where whatever made the clinking noise lay. A small jingle as she lifted it made Tissaia’s lips press together, brow knitting tighter. What had Yennefer included?
Deft fingers opened the envelope with ease, and Tissaia exposed the contents. Cold dread crashed over her as she looked inside.
Four marks.
Tissaia’s heart quivered.
“Yennefer, what—” she began, breaking off as she caught sight of the terrifyingly resigned expression on the younger woman’s face.
“Tissaia,” Yennefer said quietly, her violet eyes bright and weary. “I understand what has to happen.”
Tissaia’s brow furrowed. “Yennefer,” she began cautiously, slowly lowering the envelope as her piercing gaze met violet. The terrible dread that crept across her skin like morning frost thickened into a glassy surface as foreboding flooded her chest. “What precisely do you believe must happen?”
The chill in her chest tipped to an icy plunge as Yennefer offered her a small smile, the likes of which Tissaia could only describe as resigned. “I finally went too far,” Yennefer said plainly, her voice devoid of blame or regret. “Made too much noise.” Violet eyes shone with an understanding that threatened to shatter the older woman. “And now, my Rectoress must do her duty.”
Chapped lips pulled into a self-deprecating grin as Yennefer tipped her head at the envelope, “Figured I owed you your money back, after everything.”
“Yennefer,” Tissaia breathed, horrified. Her mind spun as, with terrifying clarity, she suddenly understood.
Yennefer thought she was here to kill her.
As though she ever could. Her ancient heart creaked beneath the weight of it.
The room abruptly felt too small and not nearly small enough. Tissaia’s ears rang a dissociated pitch as she grappled with the reality. One thought persisted in the sudden swarm of her mind: Why had Yennefer come?
If Yennefer truly believed the Rectoress had come to execute her - and she assuredly did, Tissaia held the proof in her hands - why would she come? She knew that Tissaia was aware of her lack of chaos. Even if Yennefer had been bold enough to believe she could best Tissaia when she possessed her chaos, there would be no defending herself without it.
“I’m so tired, Tissaia,” Yennefer said, voice laden with a quiet desperation that reaved Tissaia’s heart. The amethyst surface of her gaze was glossy with moisture as the younger woman bade, “Just get it over with, Tissaia.” Her lips trembled. “Please.”
Tissaia did not gape, but it was a near thing. Terror, outrage and anguish warred within her chest as she processed Yennefer’s words.
Gods, Tissaia thought, aghast. What had happened to her girl after she had fled Aretuza? She had known – agonized and grieved – that Yennefer had suffered greatly ever since Sodden. Knew that the loss of her connection to chaos was devastating. But this?
This was beyond what Tissaia had ever dared imagine.
Her throat bobbed as she forced herself to swallow. Yennefer had scared her that dread night when she confronted the younger woman with her knowledge of the lost connection to her chaos. The sight of her bold, cold, brave little raven dropped to her knees with tears in her eyes, pleading – begging – for a solution that Tissaia did not have to give? It haunted her.
The words Yennefer had said – her assertion that she was nothing without her chaos was anathema to the older mage. Yet, when Yennefer had said them, Tissaia had found herself unable to give voice to such truths. As had so often been the case, the monsoon of her emotions when it came to the other woman overwhelmed her.
Another moment passed, unanswered.
Though she’d not dared to risk it, Tissaia had ached to tell Yennefer the truth. That she could never be nothing. Not ever. Not when, for many years, she had been entirely too much to Tissaia.
Everything.
When Yennefer had defied the Brotherhood and fled the farce of an execution in a dramatic display of defiance, Tissaia had been relieved. Had taken comfort that, hurt as Yennefer was, the raven-haired woman was not without her temerity. She had told herself it was better to let Yennefer go. That her girl would be safer far afield, where the Brotherhood did not have eyes on her.
What a fool she had been.
Tissaia’s jaw worked as she fumbled for a way to respond to Yennefer’s appalling assumption. Not for the first time, she cursed their interaction at Rinde. Doubtlessly, Yennefer had taken from her words that day that another sizeable misstep would see calls for her execution.
Grimly, Tissaia could even concede there were those among the Brotherhood who would and had made such calls before. Though Stregobor’s blustering came and went in bursts of his typical genocidal diatribes, rendering them far less credible than if another member should make the same motion.
Tissaia’s fingers unconsciously curled around the damning envelope Yennefer had handed her. The four marks within faintly jingled.
Abruptly, Tissaia’s thoughts turned back to that first day. The callous exchange in Vengerberg, the journey back to Aretuza and, of course, Yennefer’s first night. Every moment of terror that had accompanied it. Long, sleepless hours spent vigil at the girl’s bedside.
Counting every breath as she waited for the raven-haired girl to wake.
Feeling the wispy embers of Yennefer’s chaos begin to glow warmer and brighter as her body healed.
Pointedly ignoring the urge to brush the rough-cut fringe from the girl’s forehead and whisper yet more apologies she would not hear into her ear.
It had been a terrible night. A graceless morning. And, as she had that first morning, Tissaia reached inside her heart to wield the most volatile weapon available.
Features smoothing over, Tissaia pulled the Rectoress’s visage across her own and rose from her seat, replacing the envelope on the table as she did. “You get to live.” She said cooly, ignoring the lance Yennefer’s subtle flinch drove through her heart. Her hands linked before her navel, spine unconsciously elongating to be impossibly straighter and chin lightly lifting.
“How dare you.” Tissaia pressed on, her stomach burning with the unpleasant heat of her anger. Her outrage at Yennefer’s blatant disregard for her own life was rivalled only by the horror the woman thought Tissaia would kill her. As though she ever could. “After everything that I have done to keep you alive, how dare you come here and throw yourself at my feet to beg for death.”
Yennefer started. The Rectoress’s harsh accusation hit her like a blow to the chest. What was happening? Why would Tissaia be here if not at the Brotherhood’s behest? And begging for death? Hardly.
The raven-haired woman swallowed a scoff. After all this time, it shouldn’t surprise her that Tissaia wouldn’t realize why she had come.
Her eyes burned as she recalled their first talk after she managed to return to Aretuza. The rather shit hug they’d shared. A hero, Tissaia had called her. In the same breath, she had moved swiftly on to politics and the need for Yennefer’s silence.
The ice in her chest creaked. Tissaia didn’t even realize that Yennefer hadn’t saved Sodden or the Continent. She had saved her. Had returned to Aretuza, where Yennefer had never wanted to be again, for her. Went to Sodden itself for her.
Of course Yennefer would come here, expecting death, for her too. If anyone else had been sent after her? Yennefer would have run.
She would have run as far and fast as her legs would carry her. She might have even dared risk stealing a horse. Even if the Brotherhood had sent the likes of Triss or Sabrina. Still, she would have fled.
Yennefer had come for Tissaia. Would cede her life to no other.
Pity that, even now, that seemed lost on the older woman.
“Sometimes,” Yennefer began, meeting Tissaia’s frigid stare. “The best thing a flower can do for us is to die.” The scapolite surface of Yennefer’s gaze gleamed as her smile grew strained. “Death must serve a purpose. You and Vilgefortz are making a play for the seats you want – what better way to curry favour than ridding the Northern Kingdoms of the traitor who ruined their execution party?”
It wasn’t that she wanted to die. Not really. If Tissaia’s reaction was any indication, the Rectoress had no intention of killing her, even. Although Yennefer’s weariness at the now unknown of what had brought the woman to her doubled at the knowledge.
She didn’t want to die, but she was ready for it. Had been for a long time. Yennefer suppressed a shudder as another wave of cold crested over her.
What will she live for now?.
And really, Yennefer mused. Wasn’t it sad that there was more for her to die for than live? At least, if she died, any advantage Stregobor might have gained from Yennefer’s most recent rebellion would be irrefutably quashed if Tissaia rid the Continent of her.
“Curry favour?” Tissaia repeated, furious. Her hands fell to her sides as she strode forward to close the distance between them and stare up at Yennefer in outrage. “I don’t know what’s more insulting. That you think my goals so basic, or that stand here intent on throwing your life away, then lecture me on purposeful death.”
Insulting and terrifying. What had happened for Yennefer – relentless, tumultuous, infuriating, vibrant, Yennefer – to grow so despondent? Tissaia’s heart quivered beneath her ribs, each pulse sharply snagging on horror’s vivid edge.
A much younger Yennefer’s voice echoed, slurred by her long-gone lisp and tears in Tissaia’s head: You should have let me die.
Tissaia had refused her then. She was not about to indulge her in such an atrocity now.
Tissaia’s nostrils flared, gaze arctic as she continued sharply, “You are not a flower, Yennefer.” Heedless of the flicker of hurt her words evoked, the brunette raged, “You are not some delicate petals and flimsy stem to be plucked from the earth and used by another!”
Yennefer had never been a flower. There were always girls who came to Aretuza that way, of course. Ones the Rectoress knew immediately wouldn’t ascend. Yennefer had been no such thing.
Though Tissaia would not have named her as such at the time, she had realized the truth over the years. Yennefer had been a revelation. A bright spot bursting to life in the star-speckled canvas of Tissaia’s sky.
To her shame, she’d not noticed how dim it was without the raven-haired woman until that light was gone. The vast emptiness surrounded her in Yennefer’s absence when she thought she had lost her at Sodden.
The emptiness had left her grief-stricken under the terrible weight of loss.
She would not lose her now.
“This isn’t you,” Tissaia said bluntly, daring Yennefer to defy her. “Defeatism? It is beneath you, Yennefer.”
The Rectoress tipped her chin toward the forgotten envelope. “For how long you raged and railed against your acquisition to Aretuza, you seem to value your life just as little.” Seeing the subtle stiffening of Yennefer’s posture, Tissaia hardened her resolve and pressed, “Why now? You survived Sodden and fought to return to Aretuza. Without your chaos to aid you, you fought to live and return. Burst into a closed meeting to announce your survival. Why are you so willing to die now?”
“Because there’s nothing left!” Yennefer burst out, surging to her feet, chest heaving. With every word Tissaia spoke, bitter and biting as the churning sea, Yennefer had felt the ice encasing her creak. The relentless assault demanded a defence be mounted lest she drown beneath its weight.
Even as her heart cracked in her chest, Tissaia nearly sagged in relief. Finally.
Unaware of the older woman’s thoughts, Yennefer shook her head and continued, “Life has no more to give, and neither do I!” She silently cursed as the surface of her gaze burned anew. With her feeble defences cracked, the painful words spilled free. “I have no power. No legacy. I let it all go on that forsaken hill! My life is all I have left to give, damn you. Without chaos?” Flyaway strands of her raven hair waved as she shook her head, swallowing hard.
Tissaia’s heart clenched. Bereft at the amethyst-bright grief in Yennefer’s gaze.
“I’m nothing, Tissaia,” Yennefer whispered, voice cracking. Her nose burned, the first treacherous tears slipping free. “Nothing more than a prettier version of the useless wretch you bought for four marks.”
A sob caught in her throat. Gods, it hurt so much to say it aloud. Yennefer squeezed her eyes shut, futilely willing away the tears. Distantly, she wondered if Tissaia would still be repulsed by her tears. After all, she was hardly a sorceress anymore. Perhaps her tears might be slightly less than hideous.
Yennefer’s eyes snapped open as a soft hand cupped her cheek. Her breath caught in her throat, her amethyst stare widening as she took in the sudden change in Tissaia’s appearance.
Where seconds before the Rectoress had stood, immovable as ever, now Tissaia’s expression had melted. The diminutive woman looked at her with tenderness Yennefer had only seen from her once before. For the heartbeat when the other woman had first turned to see her alive a month after she’d been missing.
“There you are,” Tissaia cooed – cooed, Yennefer thought incredulously – as her thumb swept over the wind-roughened skin of Yennefer’s cheek.
“Tissaia, what—” Yennefer began, only to be cut off by a gentle hushing from the older woman.
“My bold, cold girl,” Tissaia murmured. Her gaze ducked briefly. When she returned it to Yennefer’s gaze, the brunette offered her an apologetic smile. “Forgive me, that was cruel, but I needed to know.”
“Know what?” Yennefer asked dumbly, thoroughly overwhelmed. Tissaia had always had a gift for unbalancing her, but this was beyond the Rectoress’s usual standards. Rare as Tissaia’s touch was, she could focus on little else. Her cheek burned beneath the sudden heat of Tissaia’s affection.
Tissaia’s lips quirked, her dimples lightly showing. “That there was still some of you left in there.” Her thumb made another pass over Yennefer’s cheek. “No matter how hurt you’ve been, you’ve always fought, me dear.”
Usually, Yennefer’s mulish nature was the source of Tissaia’s migraines. Today, however, it was a reassurance the brunette had latched onto with every remaining vestige of her hope.
However hurt Yennefer was, she was not broken. No matter what the raven-haired woman might think.
For a long moment, Tissaia’s words hung in the air. Neither woman prepared to break the tentative silence. Yennefer flinched in surprise when Tissaia tucked the wispy raven strands of hair that had escaped the braid behind her ears.
Undeterred by Yennefer’s reaction, Tissaia trailed her fingertips down the back of Yennefer’s jaw. Ghosting over the trembling side of her neck, Tissaia let her hand rest on the raven-haired woman’s too-thin shoulder.
“Take this off?” Tissaia gently prompted as she pinched the thick cloak covering the delicate bones. There was no command to it, and she would not insist if Yennefer resisted. Still, Tissaia couldn’t help but hope.
Brows furrowing at the request, Yennefer slowly shucked the garment. Draping it over the chair behind her, she waited to see what Tissaia would do.
Tissaia gently took her hand and tugged just enough that Yennefer numbly followed her. “Come sit,” Tissaia bade gently.
Yennefer blinked rapidly as her eyes processed that Tissaia had already sat. The brunette was still holding her hand. “What – on you?” She asked, incredulous.
What in the Continent was happening right now?
An agreeing hum met her disbelief. “If you’re not opposed, yes.” Tissaia looked up at her through the long fan of her lashes, and Yennefer momentarily forgot how to breathe. “Forgive me, but I would rather have you close just now.”
It was an understatement for the gods. Terrified as she was by Yennefer’s willingness to die, Tissaia was near-desperate to have her close. She had been since Sodden.
Heat, foreign after so long without, spilled across Yennefer’s cheeks at the situation. Still, nothing could make her deny Tissaia. Not when she had ached for such closeness with the other woman for years. Stepping toward the hearth until she stood beside the older woman, Yennefer slowly bent her knees until she sat on Tissaia’s lap. Instantly, the hand not holding hers wrapped warmly around her waist.
Exhaling a tremulous breath, Yennefer turned her gaze to watch the flames.
“Yennefer, look at me,” Tissaia commanded softly. She would not do this with the other woman looking away. Too many things needed to be said. All of them demanded total focus.
Helpless but to obey, Yennefer turned her head and met devastating emerald, aglow in the cerulean depths of Tissaia’s unflinching stare. The hand holding hers released only to rise and cup her jaw.
“You are not nothing.” Tissaia said fiercely. Chest lifting, the brunette inhaled deeply and continued, “I know you, Yennefer.” Her gaze bore into wide, violet depths. “To your core.” The hand on her girl’s waist lightly squeezed in unconscious emphasis.
Yennefer shivered. It was not the first time Tissaia had said those words. She knew they were irrefutably true. Little as Yennefer let herself be known, Tissaia had always seen her. Even when she hadn’t realized it, the older woman always had.
“Everything that you’ve done, everything that has been done to you?” Tissaia’s thumb ceased its brushing as her hand firmly cupped her girl’s cheek. “You have survived them, Yennefer. Against all odds and obstacles – incidental or intended – you have survived.”
Her brave, bold girl. Tissaia would do anything to spare her from having to merely survive anything more.
A pale thumb swept over the ridge of Yennefer’s cheekbone to cut off any rebuttal. “I know that you have been terribly hurt, Yennefer.” Tissaia soothed. “But you will survive this, my dear.” Peridot gleamed, earnest and heavy with promise in cerulean depths as Tissaia added, “I will help you, Yennefer. I will help you, and you will survive this.”
Yennefer’s eyes drifted momentarily shut as the raven-haired woman unconsciously nuzzled into her hand, and Tissaia’s heart melted. How long had it been that she’d wished to speak such things to the younger woman?
Unaware of Tissaia’s thoughts, Yennefer couldn’t help but languish in the affection. Gods, but Tissaia was warm. For a woman with such an icy reputation, Yennefer swore she radiated enough warmth to outdo a witcher.
Tissaia waited until Yennefer’s eyes opened and met her own before continuing. “I came because I missed you, Yennefer,” she admitted softly, blue gaze boring into the glossy surface of Yennefer’s violet gaze. “I worried about you.”
Her fingers ghosted over Yennefer’s skin as she tucked stray raven hairs behind the woman’s ear. “I’m sorry that it took me so long, my dear, but I wanted to wait long enough that the Brotherhood would not assume I was going to you.” Her lips tugged into a wry smile, eyes twinkling with some amusement. “And it took time to find you.”
As fast as her good humour came, it washed away.
The muscle in Tissaia’s jaw ticked as she swallowed around the unpleasant lump in her throat and unconsciously tightened the arm around Yennefer’s too-thin waist. “I understand how you might have reached your conclusions, Yennefer, I do.” She grimaced faintly. “I will not lie to you and say there are not those on the Brotherhood’s council who would, indeed, seek your death.”
Yennefer withheld a scoff. That was obvious. Stregobor, if no one else, had been out for her blood before she ascended.
“However,” Tissaia continued. “Even if they attained enough votes to order it, I could never do it.”
Dark brows shot up as Yennefer looked back at her in stupefaction. Surely, Tissaia couldn’t mean that. Dutiful as she was, Tissaia must realize that she would kill Yennefer if called upon. To believe otherwise was more optimism than Yennefer knew herself to possess.
Seeing Yennefer’s poorly hidden disbelief, Tissaia shut her eyes. For two breaths, she allowed herself to despair at how utterly she had failed to convey her regard to the woman who had come to mean so much to her.
“I could never kill you, Yennefer.” Tissaia quietly reiterated as she opened her eyes to meet Yennefer’s stare again. “Not for anything.” A flinty shine entered her gaze as she added fiercely, “I would eviscerate anyone who dared try.”
“I don’t understand,” Yennefer admitted, finally. She felt lightheaded. Nothing about this meeting had gone at all how she anticipated. The sudden emergence of this bafflingly-open version of Tissaia threw her. Every chilled expansion of her lungs threatened to splinter and melt under the encompassing warmth the brunette seemed determined to swath her in.
Tissaia’s smile was small and sad, eyes aglow with peridot remorse. “You wouldn’t, no.” She dropped her hand from Yennefer’s cheek to take the younger woman’s hand and lifted it to rest atop her heart. “My heart cannot bear the thought of losing you, Yennefer.”
Yennefer trembled.
The surface of blue pools grew glossy with Tissaia’s unshed tears as she said, “I was… shattered when I thought you lost.” Her fingers unconsciously curled to grip the fabric of Yennefer’s shirt. “For days, I wandered the battlefield, screaming your name and relieving countless soldiers’ deaths in search of any glimpse of you.”
A few stray brunette hairs slipped free of Tissaia’s chignon as she shook her head. “When I carved your name on that monument, I knew the truth – winning that battle was not worth it.” Her throat bobbed, hand coming back up to cup Yennefer’s cheek. “Not when the price was you.”
“What are you saying?” Yennefer breathed, eyes glassy and hands trembling. For how hard her heart was beating beneath her ribs, Yennefer was astonished it hadn’t escaped her.
“I love you, Yennefer,” Tissaia replied softly. “I love you more than I have loved anyone in my long life.” Her gaze impossibly softened as she added, “I understand if you do not feel the same—”
Tissaia broke off with a startled umph of sound as Yennefer twisted in her lap and kissed her.
At Tissaia’s words, the spidery cracks in the ice around Yennefer’s heart shattered. With a surge of warmth she’d not felt in ages, Yennefer kissed Tissaia as desperately as she dared. Hands reaching, she grasped the brunette’s face and melded their lips together.
When - recovered from her momentary shock - Tissaia returned the kiss with equal fervour? Yennefer half-sobbed, the older woman swallowing the sound as her arms wrapped around to pull Yennefer closer.
Their eyes slid shut, and the pair lost themselves in the kiss. Lips gliding together and hands grasping as closeness they’d dared not dream to have came to fruition.
When, breathless, Yennefer pulled back, her hands held Tissaia’s face as tears streaked down her cheeks. “You stupid old hag,” she gasped, pressing their foreheads together. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
Tissaia’s eyes closed. A few stray tears slipped down the slope of her cheek as she relished in Yennefer’s closeness. Unconcerned by maintaining any semblance of propriety, Tissaia used the arms around her girl to pull her closer. Gods, what she could have saved them both had she been brave enough to admit it when Yennefer was at Aretuza.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t say it then, darling,” Tissaia whispered into the scant space between them.
Yennefer shook her head, leaning forward to lightly kiss Tissaia again simply for the knowledge that she could. “No,” she murmured against Tissaia’s lips. “Don’t— how you said it doesn’t matter. It’s - knowing that you could…” she broke off, shaking her head as a sob caught in her throat.
Tissaia soothingly rubbed a hand up and down the length of Yennefer’s back. She could hardly fault the younger woman for being overwhelmed. Selfishly, she was rather pleased to finally be able to offer any comfort. The gods knew how many opportunities she had missed in the last months.
Emotions back under her control, Yennefer drew back enough to meet the emerald-studded pool of Tissaia’s gaze. “Having your love? It’s everything, Tissaia.”
Tissaia’s heart thumped heavily beneath her breast as her eyes sharpened with understanding. “You asked me for that once.” She murmured softly. Turning her head, Tissaia lightly kissed the palm of Yennefer’s hand in gentle regret. “I couldn’t give it to you then.”
Given their interaction in Rinde, Tissaia wasn’t confident Yennefer would have accepted it then if she’d tried.
Looking back to Yennefer through the fan of her lashes, Tissaia continued, “If you permit me, I will do my utmost to do so from now on.”
As the words left her lips, Tissaia was startled to notice the fire flare bright and warm in the hearth.
Blue eyes flew wide as she abruptly gripped Yennefer’s wrist in shock. As she processed the source of Tissaia’s reaction, Yennefer’s violet eyes widened in equal astonishment.
Trembling, Yennefer scarcely dared breathe the words as she asked, “Was that me?” When Tissaia offered no refute, Yennefer shakily removed herself from the brunette’s lap as she stumbled toward the hearth and plucked a flower from the vase on its mantle.
Quivering with the force of her anxiety, Yennefer turned her focus to a small stone by the fire’s edge. For a suspended moment, she froze. Petrified by the memories of her failure.
Focusing on Tissaia’s lingering warmth on her skin, Yennefer managed a weak breath and whispered, “Zeilil eip.”
Elation flooded her when the stone readily lifted, the flower wilting in her grip.
Whirling around with huge eyes and a disbelieving smile, Yennefer was unsurprised to see that Tissaia, too, had risen from her seat. The usually unflappable Rectoress was clearly taken aback by the turn of events.
Tissaia’s blue eyes had saucered as she stared, fixated, on the floating stone in disbelief. “I thought I felt something when we kissed…” she absently murmured before suddenly snapping her gaze to meet Yennefer’s. “I had no idea this would happen.” She blurted out with uncharacteristic impotence.
The strands of hair that had fallen loose under Yennefer’s affections swayed as Tissaia faintly shook her head. “I have no idea how this happened.”
Yennefer was silent for a long moment as she searched her own mind for an answer. Elated as she was, it did seem rather fantastical that Tissaia’s kiss would be enough to restore her. Even for a mage as powerful as the venerable Archmistress De Vries, that should not have been possible.
Abruptly, Yennefer realized: she was warm.
More than warm, her mind felt clearer than it had in ages. Lighter and unburdened by an oppressive weight she’d not realized it was carrying.
“Voleth Meir…” she murmured. Tissaia’s gaze snapped to her, “What?” she demanded sharply.
Yennefer grimaced. “When I was with Francesca and Fringilla, Voleth Meir began visiting our dreams. I’ve no idea how or what awoke them,” she added, certain that Tissaia would ask. “They managed to trick us into entering their sarcophagus.”
Tissaia paled. A demon, she thought in horror. Melitele, no wonder her girl had been so cavalierly accepting of death.
“Francesca and Fringilla agreed to deals,” Yennefer continued, grim-faced. “I don’t know what they were either.” She flexed her hands, testing the sudden lack of ache in the joints as she relished in the warmth that had filled her.
“You refused.” Tissaia exhaled, relief cresting over her anew as Yennefer nodded. Thank the gods for that. “That’s my girl.” The brunette murmured.
Whatever foolishness Fringilla and Francesca had incurred could be dealt with later. Reticent as Tissaia was to even consider what the deathless mother might have offered them, she couldn’t care about it now.
Not when she weighed it against the much more pressing concern of Yennefer’s safety.
Yennefer flushed lightly under the small, proud smile the other woman shot her. Clearing her throat, she ducked her gaze and said, “They’ve been tormenting me ever since. Telepathically taunting me every time my chaos could help.”
Stricken, Tissaia breathed, “Voleth Meir feeds on pain.” Yennefer had been plagued by a demon that fed on pain. Her hands shook. It was no small feat that Yennefer was still alive after such an assault. Never mind the strain she had been under with the absence of her chaos.
Tissaia interlaced her fingers at her navel to quash the urge to reach for the raven-haired woman. There would be time for that later.
Wincing, Yennefer nodded. “Yes.” She raised her hand, palm up, and allowed a small burst of chaos to spark from it. “There are few better ways to ensure a mage is in pain.”
Brows knitting, it took Tissaia but a moment to follow Yennefer’s train of thought. “You believe they were blocking your access to chaos.” Her head cocked slightly to one side. “While it was most pleasant, what makes you believe our affections could repair such a thing?”
The faint flush on Yennefer’s cheeks darkened as she cleared her throat and revealed, “When I met them, they… talked about my suicide attempt.” Tissaia’s eyes widened, expression growing stricken anew. Undeterred, Yennefer continued, “Talked about how I’d kept living decades after – they said that I lived for power.”
Tissaia withheld a wince as her fingers squeezed uncomfortably tight. Still, she held back. Whatever Yennefer’s theory, it would do them no good to be side-tracked before it was done.
Yennefer ducked her gaze, teeth worrying her lower lip as she prepared to expose her heart. Though she knew now - incredibly - that Tissaia felt the same, the vulnerability felt no easier.
When violet eyes rose to again meet hers, Tissaia’s breath hitched at the depth of emotion that glowed within them. “They were wrong,” Yennefer said quietly. “I lived for you first.”
“Yennefer,” Tissaia whispered, unsure how to convey the enormity of her heart’s response to the declaration. She felt lightheaded by the magnitude of the confession. She was spared attempting to string together an answer when Yennefer continued speaking.
“I – that night at Aretuza? When you didn’t say anything after I said I was nothing without my chaos, I thought you agreed.” Yennefer admitted, ashamed. She held up a hand to wave off the denial she knew Tissaia wished to speak. “Without that – without you, all I have left is power.”
Heaving a deep breath, Yennefer said, “I think, even before then, I never let myself believe that you could want me back.” She shook her head. “I’ve been so fucking cold since Sodden. I thought it was my lost chaos but, maybe it was Voleth Meir. Knowing you return my feelings… I could never stay cold.” A near-shy smile crossed Yennefer’s lips as she admitted, “No pain or suffering could hold up against your love, Tissaia. Nothing could compare.”
Cheeks heating, Tissaia’s heart raced at the words. Gods, what fools they had been. Existing for so many years in doubt when they could have been more so much sooner.
She would not let them waste another moment.
“Then,” Tissaia began carefully as she closed the distance between them. “As you were the fire that kept me safe at Sodden, allow me to be that which keeps you warm, darling.”
“Please.” Yennefer said quietly, heart hammering beneath her ribs.
Eyes twinkling in the firelight, Tissaia looked up at Yennefer and drawled, “Have you ever used that word before?”
Yennefer’s answer was swallowed in their tender kiss.