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Belleteyn had come and gone, leaving behind naught but hollow grief and a daisy chain a child had dropped, interwoven with violets. He had picked it up and, instead of seeking its owner, had put it around his wrist and gone to Redania.
He didn’t remember the journey.
The royal gardens were in bloom.
The weightlessness at his back proved he had left his lute behind. Was it at the inn? Or many miles behind? The streets were still dark and empty when he set out. He remembered that, because the tiny windows of the castle had lit up and guided him there before the sun could.
Spring compelled people out. Couples walked by arm in arm, children ran squealing while playing catch. They all passed him by. He watched the archways like a dog, deluding himself that anyone crossing under them was him.
Until it was.
The fog didn’t disperse. He watched through it with glassy eyes, too afraid to wonder.
Radovid saw him, and then it felt as if Jaskier was someone again. For a few moments, the weight of it was so crushing he could barely breathe, too intense, too real.
The king stopped in his tracks, forcing his entourage to follow suit. Their curious glances had no bearing on him. With a gesture of his hand, all the courtiers and servants left. A glare, and the guards followed.
Jaskier held his breath as Radovid walked towards him.
There was a moment, as he stood there, where anything could have happened.
“Speak. And be hasty.”
The coldness in his voice made something tremble inside Jaskier’s chest. But all of himself had been broken and badly sewn back together, so many pieces were loose, and he ignored it.
“I’ve come for you,” he said, knowing desperation colored every word, uncaring of it.
Radovid’s throat worked, a minuscule movement.
“They are all gone.” He could feel the prick of tears. “Cahir, Regis, Milva… Angoulême, the poor child… Ciri. Yen. Geralt.” They fell. “They have all left me.”
Even after blinking them away, Radovid’s face remained an enigma to him. Jaskier glanced down. Those eyes he’d once been so good at reading into, what was in them now? Was it nothing, or could Jaskier simply not see what they hid anymore?
“I’m… I’m here. Radovid…”
A sharp intake of breath made him look up. One second later and he would have missed Radovid’s expression, twisted with an anguish he dared not name before looking away. “I see.”
“I…”
“You’re lonely. Because you’re alone, you want me.” Radovid nodded slowly. “Well, I was lonely too. I was alone too. And you told me I would always be. You left me. Only now that you’ve got nobody else, you come back.”
“Radovid, for pity’s sake—”
“Pity?” Radovid’s voice broke as he went on. “Did you have any for me? After my brother died, when I was terrified and alone, facing war and death, did you have any pity for me?”
Jaskier wished he had his lute so he could drown the memory of that conversation in his notes. So he might have something to fill the terrible silence that followed.
“As a kindness to the man I once was,” Radovid said, “I will let you go this time.”
He turned his back, then. Terror shot through Jaskier with dizzying force.
“Wait!” No reaction. He rose, almost stumbling, and gripped Radovid’s arm, too tight, made him turn around. “Wait.”
“Go, Jaskier.” The anger and sorrow in his eyes had been carved into indifference. “If I ever see you again, I will have you executed.”
“Radovid—”
“Stop calling me that,” Radovid snarled. “You lost any right to when you spat my love back at me. Do you think I jest? That I am not capable of it? Go. Now that you no longer have your witcher to protect you, perhaps I’ll offer a reward to whoever brings me your head.”
Jaskier let out a shaky breath. “You wouldn’t.”
“And then we’ll find out if the people’s loyalty for the Sandpiper holds up.” Radovid was too close. “You think you have it, but the war has been long. Their hunger is loud. Their anger is loud. And you have been very quiet as of late.”
“You…” He swallowed. “They would never. The people love me—”
“They loved you.” Radovid’s voice cracked in the air like a whip, its harshness not diminished by the tear that tracked down his cheek, wiped in haste. “But you have ill-requited that love, you have forgotten and misused it, and now, who knows? They might even hate you.”
Jaskier could barely speak past the lump in his throat. “Please. Please, I beg you. Every thread that linked me to this world has been torn.”
“Then learn to live adrift. As I did.”
The sob that tore its way through Jaskier had no more effect on the king than the wind on a statue.
“Go.”
He could almost see it, a string being pulled taut, slipping through his fingers, no matter how desperately he tried to hold it. When Radovid disappeared from his sight, it broke.
Jaskier sat in the garden afterwards. As the sun hid, he felt something on his skin. A violet petal had fallen. The rest were already browning, soon to wilt. He gripped the chain, nearly tore it apart.
Instead, he rose and slowly made his way out of the palace grounds. The sagging bracelet brushed against his palm. If he tried hard enough, he could almost pretend someone was about to hold his hand.