Chapter Text
He didn’t remember arriving.
The temple steps rose before him like white ghosts in the moon light, appearing insurmountable to his failing consciousness. He gritted his teeth and forced himself upwards leaning heavily on the balustrade. Progress was painstakingly slow, as the witcher dragged his bleeding left foot level with the right, leaving a bloody footprint. The muscles of his legs quivered like overboiled sinew, threatening to fold as he staggered up the steps.
Geralt reached the threshold on willpower alone—blood soaking his side, his left arm hanging limp, blood dripping from his fingertips. His right hand clutched his side in a vain attempt to stem the bleeding, or perhaps to protect his system from the pain of each step. The swords strapped to his back were forgotten, nothing but dead weight driving him down. The fire in his ribs burned like molten silver. One breath too deep stole the light from his vision. He collapsed without a word, the scent of blood rising sharply around him while the rest of his senses faded.
It was the temple students who found him first, scattering like crows startled from a field, then circling back with urgent, trembling hands. They hesitated only a moment before dragging him inside, stripping away steel and leather, and bearing his limp body to the infirmary, where Mother Nanneke moved like a tide—brisk, unrelenting, full of purpose.
She had tended him once before, long ago, when he was barely more than a boy and an unfortunate entanglement in the business of men had nearly claimed his life. She’d warned him then that revenge was a bitter path, one that hollowed more than it healed. And yet, in the end, she’d told him to kill them. Since that day, she had seen him bloodied more times than she cared to count, each visit carving new lines into the map of scars that now marked his body. Thankfully, she could count on one hand the times he had arrived in such a dire state.
Lying there now, stripped of his armor and stoicism, he looked no different than the boy who’d first come to her on death’s door. That memory flickered, sharp and unwelcome, as she saw the same pallor, the same broken stillness. Her hands did not falter, but guilt stirred beneath her practiced calm—the quiet ache of having once nudged him toward vengeance. And yet he had become a Witcher feared by kings and monsters alike, one who wielded violence with compassion, restraint, and a kind of weary grace.
He was blissfully unconscious as they laid him on the wooden treatment table and cut away his blood-soaked clothing. But when Nannette reached for the wounds beneath, he surged awake with a roar—a sound of pure agony, animal and unrestrained, so raw it froze every hand in the room.
The roar faded into ragged breathing. Geralt’s eyes were open now, wild and unfocused, his body half-curled in instinctive defense. Nanneke didn’t flinch. She leaned in, voice low and steady.
“Geralt. You’re safe. You’re at the temple. You’re with me.”
His gaze flicked toward her, unseeing at first, then sharpened with recognition. She placed a firm hand on his shoulder—not to restrain, but to anchor.
“You’re hurt. Badly. But you’re not alone.”
She straightened, turning to the cluster of novices still frozen in place. “Everyone out,” she said, not unkindly. “Except for Elian and Mira.”
The others scattered, grateful to flee. Elian, pale but composed, stepped forward. Mira followed, her hands already reaching for clean cloth.
“Elian,” Nanneke said, “mix an anaesthetic draught. Strong. Stronger than you think is safe. His system will burn through it twice as fast as ours.”
Elian nodded, already moving toward the apothecary shelves.
“Mira, prepare the instruments. Sterilise everything. I’ll not have infection undo what skill can mend.”
Nanneke turned back to Geralt, who was watching her now with the grim clarity of someone bracing for what comes next. She brushed a blood-matted lock of hair from his brow, her touch gentle, almost maternal, though her eyes stayed sharp.
“You remember the Crossroads,” she murmured, running a thumb along the old scar below his hairline. “You were barely more than a boy. It took months but we pulled you back from the brink. We’ve done this before, you and I. I’m older now. Better. And you’ve learned how to endure. I'll see you through this too.”
His jaw clenched, breath coming shallow and harsh but he gave a faint nod.
“Good,” she said. “Then let’s begin.”