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Yennefer could barely stand. Her legs shook, but she ignored it. This was not a time for weakness, least of all hers. Geralt needed her.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the still, pale witcher at her feet. “I know you don’t like portals. But you need to get out of here.”
She did what she should have done hours ago. Her fingers traced a line through the air, pulling the portal open in a flickering, unstable seam, stretched too thin. She should have done this before expending all her strength on useless healing spells that only mutilated Geralt further.
But if the portal tore them to pieces, at least they would die together. Not good, but better than the alternative.
She grabbed Geralt’s arm and stepped into the portal, realising too late that she was dragging him by his recently dislocated shoulder. Not that it mattered now.
The horrible compression, the tearing that always accompanied travel through space. No wonder Geralt hated this.
She fell, stumbling out of the portal. There were people. Shouting. All she really felt was the blood on her body. Geralt’s blood.
But there he was. Still in one piece. More or less.
She shouted for Nenneke. She had decided to go to the temple. There was no guarantee where Triss was or Shani. She could search for them by portal later, once Nenneke was taking care of Geralt.
Oh Nenneke.
Hands lifted Geralt onto the stretcher, too many strangers surrounding him. For one wild, irrational moment, she thought they would carry him somewhere beyond her reach.
They placed him down in a room of white stone and quiet, filled with the scent of crushed herbs and burning candles.
Nenneke’s voice, a lifeline wrapped in iron, cut through the silence.
“What’s he done to himself now?”
A report. Quickly.
Archgriffin. Fall from great height. Twice. Shoulder dislocated. Cut to the forearm. Head injury. Concussion probable. Worse possible. But the blood… The blood everywhere. The wound. Her attempts to heal, freeze, cauterise.
His heart. Still beating. But how much longer? So weak, so fast, so erratic.
How long? Too long. Hours.
How could she? Because he wanted her to. Because he wanted her to love him till the end, not try to delay the inevitable. Because he knew her so well. Because he knew she couldn’t accept fate. Because he wanted to go in peace, not in this. Panic. Mayhem.
Oh Geralt… Geralt…
The silence was only interrupted by Nenneke barking orders.
What has he done, that boy?
Pupils uneven. Broken skull suspected. A bleed on the brain?
How much could a man bleed?
A man? Not much. A witcher? Not much more than he already has.
Hurry. Go. Fetch Triss. Need her skill, need her chaos.
She didn’t know how she mustered the strength, what dark recesses of her mind she tapped. The strength to tear herself away from Geralt. To conjure another portal.
Don’t die. Don’t you dare leave me.
Like he left her so often. Sometimes with a note, sometimes not even with that. Sometimes shorter, sometimes longer until fate brought them together again.
Damn fate.
Triss. Fortunately, she was at her desk.
Come. Geralt…
You can’t just barge in here and… oh… oh…
She saw the truth on Yennefer’s face. Sometimes thoughts are so clear they don’t need to be read.
Triss opened a new portal as Yennefer’s flickered out of existence. She shouldn’t. She needed to preserve her chaos.
Triss held her upright as they travelled, as they fell back into Nenneke’s temple.
Get Shani.
Give her a moment, for pity’s sake.
He doesn’t have a moment.
Oh Geralt… Geralt…
He was still alive, then. The knowledge spurred her on.
Another portal, another terrible, constricting, tearing journey.
She stumbled into the clinic, covered in blood, her skirt torn. A kindly nurse. No, no, not him. Shani.
Shani.
Come. Geralt…
Do you think I can simply…? Oh… Oh…
She understood. Grabbed the packed bag and stepped, without hesitation, into the portal to somewhere, to anywhere, to Geralt.
Three women bent over a body.
Melitele’s temple. Melitele’s healing. The goddess has three aspects. Maiden, mother, crone. The three women around Geralt were neither. But they were love and care and skill.
Three women were working as one fleeting life ran through their fingers.
And she, the fourth, held his hand, waiting.
She had waited too long. They would not succeed.
You did what you could. Let us…
She dipped into his brain. The slow, strange jumble of unformed thoughts and emotions greeted her.
I love you, Geralt. I love you so much.
I promise. No new witchers. Never. Anyone who dares to try will face my wrath. No boy will face what you did. No trials, no training, no potions, no path…
Believe me. I’ll do anything.
I’ll love them. I’ll love you all. Vesemir and Eskel. And I’ll even try to believe that Lambert is a good man, that he could be happy.
And Letho. But I’ll need you to make me feel safe with him.
I need you.
I love you, Geralt. I love you so much.
It’s truth. It’s everything.
Not only her love, either.
So many people. He was right about one thing. He was so loved. By Ciri, by Jaskier, by so many friends far and wide across this accursed Continent he had wandered all his life. He was respected by the many, many lives he had saved or made immeasurably better through his stupid, reckless, self-less deeds. He was so much to so many.
He couldn’t… This remarkable life, it couldn’t end like this.
They love you, Geralt. They love you so much.
Yennefer whispered fervently into his ear. Told him about everything. About the three women who cared for him.
Their love. Their expertise. Their experience.
It had to be enough.