Chapter Text
“You got attacked?” Geralt asked sceptically, eyeing the distinct lack of injury or damaged armour on the recently returned patrol group.
“It’s… hard to explain,” Theo said haltingly, trying hard not to fidget.
“How about we get you inside with a drink and you can start from the beginning?” Jaskier suggested, herding the three witchers neatly into the keep.
***
It took a while to get them to relax, but eventually they were all present in Geralt’s office, and ready to begin.
“So, you said you were attacked, but not exactly?” Eskel prompted.
Theo and Cormac looked at one another silently, until eventually Kasper sighed. “I’ll do it then. It was a fairly normal patrol up until we got to Temeria. We got attacked by a Royal Griffin while packing up camp. It came from downwind so we couldn’t smell it and packing up was loud enough to drown its heartbeat out. We all managed to avoid getting hit, but none of us were properly armed or could get to our primary weapons.”
Livi’s pen scratched against her paper as she wrote, and Eskel gestured for the Crane witcher to continue.
“We were all pretty much exclusively using signs to avoid getting taken out, and Theo was tiring out faster than we could afford. I managed to get a couple of arrows into the thing, but it was too big for them to do much of anything,” Kasper said, shrugging. “Theo’s Quen failed, and Berengar dropped his to try and parry the Griffin’s claws with a dagger.”
Geralt hummed, and Eskel winced. It was a necessary move, but a dangerous one.
“It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get to me in time,” Theo said quietly, “he was on the other side of the field to me.”
“What happened?”
“Something killed the Griffin before it could get to me,” Theo said simply. “Dropped onto its back and slashed open its throat.”
“So, it had claws?” Eskel asked.
“And wings,” Cormac added, “being that it then grabbed Berengar and flew off.”
“Pardon?” Yennefer said, “This- thing, saved your lives and then kidnapped one of you?”
“Nay, milady,” Cormac said grimly, “it killed him.”
Geralt sat back in his chair. “If I understand correctly, you got attacked by something you couldn’t defeat, but another monster stepped in and took Berengar as some kind of… payment?”
“Indeed,” Kasper said tiredly, “it snapped his medallion string when it grabbed him, so at least we have that.” He withdrew the cold metal medallion and placed it on the table, snarling wolf’s head to the sky.
“Thank you,” Eskel said, running a finger over the etched surface, “You can go. We’ll announce his passing at dinner, but you can tell people beforehand if you wish.”
***
“Rhion!”
Rhion turned, guard raising slightly when he saw Milena hurrying down the corridor towards him.
“Oh, I’m so glad I caught you!” she said, sliding to a stop just in front of him. A lacquered box dangled from one arm, a beautifully painted swan and wolf chasing each other over the lid and down one side. “Sasha, Jaskier, Livi, Mouse, and I meet up every week to spend time together and get away from the bustle of the Keep. We’ve been meaning to invite you for months, but you’re a tricky man to pin down,” she said merrily, eyes twinkling.
Rhion hummed noncommittally.
“There won’t be any sorceresses, but there will be alcohol,” she wheedled.
Rhion stared at her for a moment, considering. “You’re not going to let me say no, are you?”
“No, I am not,” she responded, looping her free arm through one of his and striding off down the corridor.
Milena appeared to be fully prepared to drag him up to wherever they were going, so Rhion dropped neatly into stride behind her, adjusting her arm to sit as etiquette dictated.
Milena glanced down at their linked arms consideringly. “Has anyone told you that we decided to just make ‘Witcher’ into a title of its own?”
“They have not.”
“Roughly equivalent to a marquess, though extra responsibilities correspond to higher equivalent titles,” Milena explained, beginning up a flight of stairs.
“Interesting,” Rhion said, thinking over the implications in his mind, “So what would your equivalent rank be, then?”
“Well, I’d be-” Milena paused, brow furrowing. “Actually… I’m not sure.”
“I think perhaps it might be easier to work down from Geralt, rather than up from plain Witcher,” Rhion mused, “Geralt is emperor, so then from there you have a step down to Jaskier and Ciri and Eskel. They’re all roughly equivalent in rank, yes?”
“Well, the etiquette for interacting with the Imperial Consort and Crown Princess is very different, but they garner roughly the same amount of respect,” Milena said thoughtfully. “There’s not really an existing rank we can compare Eskel to, but I’d say he’s treated in a similar vein to a crown prince that favoured combat.”
“The next step down is lesser royals, which is typically family. Lambert is his brother, so you’d be grand duke and duchess respectively,” Rhion decided.
“I can’t be duchess,” Milena denied immediately, cheeks colouring rose. “I’m a duke’s daughter.”
Rhion raised an eyebrow. “You’ve not been disowned?”
Milena glanced at him sidelong and pulled to a stop in front of a door, releasing his arm to push it open. “I brought a surprise everyone,” she said excitedly.
“I like surprises!” Jaskier said cheerily from within the room.
“I don’t,” someone else responded. Rhion thought it was probably Mouse, as he was fairly confident that he could recognise all the others by voice.
Milena grabbed his wrist again and he allowed himself to be drawn into the room, toeing the door shut behind him. The parlour was warmer than the corridor by half, thick woollen drapings in sage green and a rich navy blue hanging across three walls, the fourth taken up by a blocky fireplace.
The wall opposite where they had entered had a large window with wooden shutters thrown open to let the afternoon light in. The bird feeder hanging just beyond the shutters’ reach in concert with how the brunette man sitting on the couch always smelled vaguely of grains gave Rhion a fairly concrete idea of who’s rooms he had just entered.
“Rhion!” Jaskier stood up from his place on the couch and bounded over to wrap the other man in a hug. “Oh, this will be wonderful, you must have the most fascinating gossip!”
Rhion smirked slightly as Jaskier pulled away.
“Everyone, this is Rhion,” Jaskier introduced. “Rhion, you know me and Milena, but this is Sasha,” he said, pointing to the brown-haired man, “ Livi,” a young lady with dark skin and black hair waved from her seat, “and Mouse,” he finished, gesturing to the youngest of the little group, a girl with brown hair and brown eyes, curled up sideways in her large, high-backed chair.
“Well met,” Rhion said mildly, dropping into the remaining chair as Jaskier dragged Milena back to the couch, setting her up right next to the window and its light.
The sentiment was echoed faintly, and after a moment’s pensive silence Rhion remembered that newcomers are the ones to start conversations in Redanian culture.
“I was discussing noble ranks with Milena as we were coming here,” he began, “and we found ourselves at odds.”
“Oh?” Mouse leaned forwards slightly.
“She insists that she is no more than a marchioness, but I say that she’s a grand duchess through her partnership with Lambert.”
Milena blushed harder, and Jaskier smiled delightedly. “Of course she’s a grand duchess, she’s part of the family!”
“But how can I be a grand duchess? That would mean I outrank Yennefer! I can’t outrank her!” Milena wailed.
“You wouldn’t, though,” Rhion said.
“Yen’s not a grand duchess,” Livi pointed out.
Rhion stared at her in confusion. “Yennefer is a grand duchess at least.”
“She is?” Jaskier blinked.
“As Geralt’s older sister, she’s a grand duchess, and she’s his left hand, so go up one rank to archduchess.” Privately, Rhion thought that everyone in the room would have known this already, since they didn’t exactly go out of their way to hide it.
“But they’re not biologically related,” Sasha said, brow furrowing.
Rhion raised an eyebrow. “If we’re going by biology then Ciri and Geralt are strangers, and Geralt has no family at all.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Did you forget that witchers don’t have blood families?”
“And yet here I am,” Mouse muttered, “a blood relative of a witcher.”
Rhion tilted his head in interest and stared at her. “Head of the Cats?”
Livi gasped, “how did you do that?”
“Instinct.”
“Instinct?” Sasha asked, looking up from his sketching.
“It’s” — Rhion smiled uncomfortably — “not easily explained.”
“Try us,” Jaskier challenged.
“People have… scents,” Rhion began hesitantly, “those with compatible scents tend to get along, and certain types of scent matching are typical of different types of relationship. Mouse and the Head of the Cat School have similar scents in the familial style.”
Mouse’s eyes had slowly widened over the course of the explanation. “So, you can just… smell who’s related to who?”
“Somewhat. Scents can change, people aren’t always compatible with their biological relatives, and it’s not always accurate. It’s all guesswork so I can and do get it wrong.”
“Rhion,” Jaskier interrupted, eyes glinting, “What’s the name of Mouse’s witcher relative?”
“I don’t know.” Rhion shrugged. “We’ve never been introduced.”
“Really?” Livi gasped.
Jaskier stood up. “We’re going to introduce you two then, come on!”
The rest of the humans started getting ready to venture out into the Kaer proper, so Rhion stood as well and was promptly hauled out the door, Jaskier’s lute-strong fingers clamping around his wrist.
***
“Honestly, the way you dealt with that mage was inspired,” Treyse drawled, leaning against one wall of the great hall.
“I’d have liked it to be slower, but thanks.” Rhion responded, eyeing the man with mild suspicion.
“Great Uncle Treyse, this is Rhion,” Mouse said cheerily, “Rhion, this is my Great Uncle Treyse, Head of the Cats.”
“And Imperial Spymaster, is he not?” Rhion asked.
“How did you learn that?” Sasha asked sharply.
Rhion shrugged. “People talk.”
“It’s not something we really talk about in public though,” Livi pointed out, “and it’s certainly not something I’d expect people to talk to you about, no offense.”
“I wasn’t part of the conversation, I just overheard.”
Treyse pushed himself off the wall, straightening to his full height. “Overheard, did you?”
Rhion’s voice was drier than the Korath Desert, “I’m biologically closer to a wyvern than I am to a human. Overhearing things isn’t exactly a choice.”
Treyse squinted at him. “What else have you overheard?”
“Why do you ask?”
“As you so kindly pointed out, it’s my job,” Treyse snapped.
Rhion’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“You’re a security risk.”
“I don’t think this is the best place to be having this discussion,” Jaskier said to the two of them, “Nor do I think it’s something that you should be starting without prior discussion, Treyse.”
“Excuse me,” Rhion said, face eerily blank, “I’m going for a walk in the forest.”
“Will you be back for dinner?” Milena asked, spine ramrod straight.
“If I’m welcome.”
“Of course you are!” Jaskier said firmly. “Where do you plan on sitting?”
Rhion looked at Treyse for a moment. “Next to Vesemir, if that’s acceptable.”
Jaskier nodded agreeably, and Rhion gave a short bow before turning on his heel and striding away.
***
Rhion felt the hairs on his neck rise, but he ignored it and continued listening to Vesemir’s story.
The feeling got stronger.
And stronger.
There was someone standing behind him.
Very calmly, Rhion turned in his seat to see Barmin, glaring.
“Did you do it?” he rumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“Berengar.”
Rhion’s gaze drifted to the floor and then to his own hands, folded neatly in his lap. “He got Lost.” It was a simple statement, quiet and blunt.
Barmin lunged, grabbing Rhion by the collar and throwing him at the back wall of the dining hall.
Conversation stilled, all eyes on the old Wolf.
“Barmin,” Vesemir growled.
Barmin snarled, “you only have a problem with it because he likes you!”
Vesemir glared, eyes going dark. “I will not stand by as you put me in a situation where I am forced to choose between my father and my brother.”
“You call that a father?” Barmin spat, disgust colouring his voice. “That is no father, nor witcher, nor even man. That is a MONSTER!” Barmin roared, whirling to face Rhion where he lay against the wall. “You are a DISGRACE, Rhion Seraphin, and you should NEVER HAVE DONE WHAT YOU DID!”
The air in the hall seemed to freeze as Rhion stood, glacially slow. When he looked up, Barmin stumbled back, hand instinctively going to where his swords would lie were he on the path.
Rhion’s eyes were devoid of the warmth so often present, devoid of the life and light that they had all grown so accustomed to. In its place, there was all the numb hunger of the monster he had just been accused of being.
“If you are so convinced that I am inadequate,” Rhion said, voice echoing in the cavernous room, “then you do it.”
“What?”
Rhion withdrew a single silver blade from beneath his doublet and tossed it on the floor at Barmin’s feet. “Mena molach Ichavhelar. All praise the Kinslayer.”
“NO!” Barmin stumbled back further, eyes wide. “I can’t-”
Rhion lips stretched in a parody of a smile. “Oh? Can’t you?”
“I am not you!” Barmin burst out. Where there had been anger and grief, now the bitterness of fear was overwhelming.
Rhion’s face went flat. “Exactly. I am the only option, lest you prefer the Lost run rampant.”
“It would be better than what you do to them,” Barmin whispered.
Rhion stalked closer, stooping to pick up his dagger, thumb smoothing over the emeralds inset in the crossguard. “If I did not exist,” Rhion said, smooth as velvet, “then you, and your year, and the year above you, and all the years below you, would have been slaughtered in your beds.” He ran a finger down the edge of the blade, face returning to its human expression. “There will be a Kinslayer as long as there are Witchers. Nothing will change that.”