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Chapter Text

Ciri woke to the feeling of pain in her wrists and something hard at her back. Her head was pounding. Everything ached. It felt like she was sitting up, but she'd never liked to sleep like that. And she didn't remember going to sleep.

Something's wrong. Something's wrong -

There were voices. Loud and angry. Well, one was angry; the other wielded a kind of anger that Ciri knew was trying to cover up fear.

"-let us go! I don't know who you think she is, but you're wrong. She's my daughter!"

"Yeah, you said that. Doesn't look much like you, does she?"

"Which I've always thought was a great shame, but what can you do? Look, gentlemen, we were lost in the desert, we just - ow!"

Jaskier.

Ciri jolted into full awareness like she'd been hit round the face. She snapped her head up and opened her eyes to find she was inside a building.

It was, in some ways, an unspeakable relief. We made it out of the fucking desert. A building meant shade, it meant people, the opportunity to find food and drink. It meant they might actually survive this.

They were in a large room with a high ceiling and walls made of a sandy coloured stone. It was a pub; men were drinking at the tables and there was a bar on the far side. Something about it struck her as familiar, something about the stairs and the windows.

Fuck. She'd seen a vision of this room when they were in the desert. One of her visions of Falka had happened here. What had Falka called it? Something about a possible future, depending on what Ciri decided to do...

The massive counterbalance to the good news of no longer being lost in the desert was that Ciri was tied to a fucking post, her hands bound behind her back. There was a young man equally trussed up to another post in front of her, and behind him an older, long-haired man was standing and shaking out his hand.

As if he'd just struck someone out of Ciri's sight.

Anger began to churn in her stomach.

She couldn't see past the post and the man tied to it. Catching Ciri's look, the young man raised his eyebrows.

"So you're alive, blondie," he said quietly. No one seemed likely to overhear; there was conversation and unpleasant laughter coming from the gathered men. "That'll cheer your friend up. I think he thought you might be dead."

There was a kind of amused interest in the guy's voice rather than concern, but fair was fair. It wasn't like they knew each other.

Her friend. Ciri strained to see round the post, but she was too well tied; the rope bit into her chest as she struggled to see Jaskier.

They'd not talked about this. Of all the things they'd discussed in the desert, getting immediately captured when they were on the verge of getting out wasn't one of them. They'd been so focused on getting towards people for the sake of survival that they'd really not taken into account that the people they found might be complete bastards.

He'd called her his daughter. Well, Ciri could play along with that.

"Father?" she called out. The man standing on the other side of the post looked round sharply. A bounty hunter, she thought, taking stock of him quickly. He wasn't a soldier, and there was nothing to suggest he was Nilfgaardian, but he still had a dangerous look.

"Essi!" Jaskier called back with audible relief. "Are you alright?"

Ciri kept her face as steady as she could, but there was a second when the name threw her and from the look on his face the young man tied up opposite her saw it. Fuck. She didn't know where Jaskier had got the name from, but he'd probably been planning what to do while Ciri was passed out for fuck knew how long.

"I'm fine," Ciri called back. Which wasn't entirely true; the pain in her head was easing but in its place hunger and thirst were reasserting themselves, and her muscles felt stiff. They couldn't have been here too long; outside the windows, the sun was still high, and the men were drinking but didn't seem drunk. This was a break, then, before they were taken somewhere else.

It was the somewhere else that worried her. The bounty their captor was chasing could have been placed by pretty much any leader on the Continent, and there were no good options. Some, though, were definitely worse than others.

She thought again of Tor Lara, of Vilgefortz so calmly pursuing her and Jaskier up the tower and what it meant that he'd found them and Geralt hadn't. She didn't know what he wanted from her or what he believed she could do. Or what he'd do to her to achieve it. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

Fuck, she just wanted her family back. Her whole family.

But for now, she had to look after the part of it she still had.

"You keep your fucking mouth shut," the bounty hunter said, and drew back his leg. Ciri didn't see the kick land, but she heard Jaskier grunt, and her anger began to twist into something dark inside her. "You're not on the fucking bounty, so I'd keep my mouth shut if I was you, or I'm going to start thinking you're not worth the trouble of keeping alive."

A deep, terrible sort of hatred burned within Ciri then. In some ways, it was a hatred that she thought might have been with her for a long time. For years.

She'd felt it a lot in the desert, especially in those strange visions where Falka had spoken to her. Or, as Jaskier kept reminding her, something that claimed to be Falka. Ciri still wasn't sure if the whole thing had been a series of dreams, or visions born out of her power. Certainly Jaskier had never heard more than Ciri's side of the conversations, and he tried to hide it but she knew it had begun to scare the shit out of him.

And for good reason. She could almost still feel the curl of fire beneath her skin. Jaskier had pulled her back before she went too far, before she'd finished healing him, but still - she could feel it now, what Yennefer had meant all those months ago. Fire magic took something. Her powers felt weak, drained and hard to grasp, like she was trying to cup water in her hands only for it to keep disappearing back into the sand.

But magic wasn't the only defence Ciri had. She was also a witcher, and the bounty hunter had her fucking sword hooked on his belt. The sword Geralt had given her, the one Jaskier had cut his hand saving when Ciri had dropped it in Tor Lara.

Geralt might be - Geralt might be dead. She might have lost him forever. That grief had haunted her and Jaskier on their long trek through the desert. They hardly spoke about it, but it wove around both their necks, choking them like a noose. They feared for Yennefer too, with no way of knowing what had happened to her after she ran back to Thanedd, and the uncertainty of that was awful. But thinking of Geralt was somehow worse, because that did in some ways seem certain. He had sent them away to face Vilgefortz, and he would have done anything in his power to keep him from coming after them. Ciri knew that with all her heart. Geralt would never have walked away from that fight, would never have let Vilgefortz pass willingly.

It was hard to believe he could be gone. Despite knowing it was probably true, she rebelled against the thought every time it threatened her. But if he was, there was no fucking way she was letting the only thing he'd given her that she still owned stay in the hands of some kidnapping shitstain.

A shitstain who was threatening to hurt Jaskier. To kill him.

Geralt and Yennefer might be dead. Jaskier might be the only family she had left in the world.

And it had felt alien but not wrong to call him Father.

"Talk to him like that again and I'll kill you," Ciri promised him. It was easy to ignore Jaskier's hissed "Essi!" when he was still out of sight; she stared fixedly at the bounty hunter instead. She felt that her hatred alone should have been able to kill him; it felt deadly enough.

And the man had the fucking nerve to just laugh at her, echoed by the others at his table, and go back to his drink.

At least he left Jaskier alone.

But shit, they were in trouble. Near as he was to getting himself impaled himself on Ciri's sword, the bastard had made a good point. Jaskier wasn't part of Ciri's bounty. That meant there were, she figured, three ways this could go. First, the guy intended to take them both to whoever he was delivering Ciri to, hoping there'd be a bit extra for an unexpected second prisoner who clearly knew Ciri. Second, he might intend to split them up, perhaps knowing somewhere he could take Jaskier to sell him for who the fuck knew what kind of purpose. Third, he was going to get fed up before completing either of those plans and kill Jaskier outright.

Yeah, absolutely none of that was happening. Not on her watch.

But she needed a plan of her own.

The young man was still watching her, and he looked more intrigued than ever.

"He might not believe you," the man said quietly, "but I do. You want your chance to kill him and get out of here?"

Ciri ran a considering look over the room, then over the young man. He did look like he could be a fighter. Definitely something scrappy about him, something of the survivor in his eyes.

"You got an idea?"

He did, as it turned out. The plan - antagonising the bounty hunter until he got close enough to Ciri for her to palm his knife - did nothing for Jaskier's mood, and he was swearing up a storm by the time the young man had cut himself free. Before he could turn the knife to Ciri's bonds, though, their plan stopped mattering much at all because absolute fucking chaos broke in.

Ciri couldn't count the fighters. A handful of them, all young as far as a glance could tell, but the room erupted into shouts, laughter, and the sounds of steel and death faster than even she could track. And she was still tied to this fucking post - or she was, until the bounty hunter dove for her.

Protecting his investment, she supposed, or if nothing else imagining he could use her to barter his way out. His fucking mistake; Ciri had more to protect than he did.

He sliced through the rope around her chest. The second he did, she surged to her feet, slamming her entire body weight into him and crashing them both towards the wall. He impacted with a grunt but her hands were still bound; he seized a handful of her hair and yanked her head back. She twisted, drawing a knee up to slam into his crotch, and he gave a brutal scream of rage and pain but didn't let go. Even as he hunched forward, he slammed her forward into the wall, a move that crushed her ribs and bounced her head against the stone.

Blinking against spots in her vision and the fierce pain in her head, Ciri tried to turn - only to suddenly find his grip was gone. She pulled back, desperately wishing her hands were free, and heard a wet, fleshy noise.

Jaskier was there. He was holding the hilt of Ciri's sword, which was currently sticking out of the bounty hunter's back.

"Oh, gods," Jaskier said in a faint, sickly voice. "That's a lot of blood."

Well, he wasn't wrong. Ciri stared with wide eyes because if Jaskier had ever fought before, ever killed someone in his life, she didn't know about it - but there was no time. "Jask, my hands."

"Right. Right. Oh, gods. Okay, I would be sorry except you smashed my kid's face into a wall, so. Oh, gods, how does Geralt do this?"

He managed to keep up the litany until he'd pulled the sword out, maybe in a deliberate effort to drown out the noise it made. The bounty hunter was making little gasping, whimpering noises, and the moment the sword was free he slumped to the ground.

Jaskier made a sort of whimper in the back of his throat too, but he didn't freeze up. He looked to Ciri and she turned to give him her back, taking the opportunity to review the rest of the fight as best she could. The new arrivals were definitely winning, and they were clearly there for the other captive, calling out greetings to 'Kayleigh' as they fought with the confidence of those who knew they were going to come out the victors.

It took a few seconds longer than she'd expected, probably because Jaskier was being incredibly careful not to cut her with the blade, but then she felt the snap of freedom as the last fibres were sliced away.

Ciri shook the remnants of the rope from her wrists as she spun round and took the bloody blade Jaskier was only too happy to relinquish to her.

He looked like shit, and she had no idea how he'd got free in the first place, but they were both alive and unbound. It was a decent start.

Jaskier's eyes kept darting down to the man on the floor. He wasn't quite dead. Jaskier, presumably without really intending it, had stabbed into his stomach. It was a good strike, definitely taking him out of the game, but an unintentionally cruel one. He could take a long time to die that way.

There was a part of her that was tempted to let him. He would have condemned her to something worse.

But Jaskier wouldn't want her to. Neither would Geralt. Even Yennefer, she thought, would tell her not to, though she suspected Yennefer would've done it herself if she was in the right frame of mind.

It was a mercy killing, in the end, to crouch over the bounty hunter and cut his throat. A little like when Geralt had had to end Roach's life to spare her pain, though without anything like the same compassion and grief.

But it mattered. Somehow, in some way, it mattered that the first time Ciri ever chose to kill a man was to end his suffering.

When she stood back up, Jaskier's face was a maelstrom of emotion. A heartbeat later, though, she actually saw the way he shoved it all down, instead gesturing slightly helplessly into the room.

"Are we... on anyone's side here?" he asked, ducking as a plate soared over his head and smashed into the wall. "I'll be honest, I'm kind of lost."

"Pretty sure we're on the side that's against the assholes who captured us," Ciri said. She felt surprisingly calm, or maybe it wasn't surprising; it was the kind of focus she'd felt fighting the aeschna with Geralt, the calm of the fight. "But I'm also pretty sure they don't need our help."

Even as they watched, the newcomers were subduing the last of the men. Brutally, at that - the room was a mess of blood and viscera and body parts. They were fierce fighters, this group. One last sword thrust, in and then drawn out to the side in a spray of blood, and the last body fell.

In the relative calm that followed, some of the Rats started looting the bodies of the dead; others turned to look at Ciri and Jaskier.

"Uh," Jaskier said. "Hello! Thank you for that, unless you're also now intending to kill us, in which case I retract my thanks and am actually quite offended."

Ciri would have closed her eyes if it wasn't excruciatingly dangerous to do so. Seriously, he'd been on the road with Geralt longer than she'd been alive; she was beginning to see why Geralt claimed to have spent most of that time dragging him out of trouble.

Thankfully, the woman at the front of the group looked more amused than anything. She also looked familiar.

"I think we're good," she said, taking a quick scan of Jaskier before her eyes settled on Ciri. "Hey, trouble."

"Oh, come on," Ciri said, the memory slamming into her. Gors Velen. She gestured with her sword, but there was no threat in it. "You owe me a purse of coin."

The woman laughed. She was, infuriatingly, gorgeous in her amusement. "We just saved your life," she pointed out. "And your friend's. I think we'll call it quits."

"And we are incredibly grateful," Jaskier said, coming over close enough to put his index finger on the flat of Ciri's blade and push it gently downwards. She sighed and let him do it, and some combination of their behaviour drew away the remaining tension from the room; the woman wasn't the only one who laughed this time.

"I'm Mistle," she said. There was such interest and open curiosity in the way she looked at Ciri. "And you hold that sword like you know how to use it. Want to stick around for a drink?"

Being the focus of her attention felt intoxicating. She was interested in Ciri. Intrigued, curious. And Mistle, in turn, intrigued Ciri. All of them did. There was such casual ease in the way they lounged around in the aftermath of the fight. They all looked young yet seemed to be led by no one but themselves. They were taking whatever was valuable, which meant this was how they made their money. Thieves. Bandits, maybe.

It sounded a lot like freedom. Like not being tethered by a destiny that caused you so much pain.

But it hadn't only brought Ciri pain. It had also brought her a family, and while she didn't know if they were all alive, she still had hope for them. And she still had Jaskier.

"I can't," she said, not without a thread of genuine regret. But Jaskier was beside her, and there was such concern in his face, and when she let herself lean into him his hand came up to her shoulder, always ready to support her. "We need to figure out a way home."

"Oh, shit," Kayleigh chimed in. "He actually is your dad? I honestly thought you were bluffing with that asshole before."

Jaskier made a vaguely strangled noise. And Ciri...

Ciri thought of a lot of things very quickly. She thought about how Jaskier had shaken her awake just before dawn that night in Loxia, and how he was the one who'd thought to pack the food and water that might have ended up saving their lives in the desert. How he'd tried to talk her into running away from Aretuza, but followed when she went towards it instead. The way he'd stood between her and Vilgefortz in Tor Lara and fought him even after Vilgefortz broke and lacerated his arm, even though he would have known there was no chance he could survive against a man neither witchers nor sorceresses could stop. How he'd tried to give her more than her share of water as they walked in the endless dunes, which had lasted until she threatened to pour the flask out on the sands if he wouldn't split it with her.

And there were happier times too. Meals shared around campfires as they travelled with Geralt and Yennefer. Singing together, their voices raised as they walked along countless roads. Teasing Geralt as a united force, drawing out smiles he couldn't quite manage to hide. Seeing Jaskier and Geralt sit side by side in the night, the way they'd look at each other when they didn't realise she was watching, and know she was part of something that felt right.

"Yeah, he is," Ciri said, and found it was the easiest thing in the world to say. Jaskier's weird noise took on a new pitch, and she kicked him in the foot. The sound cut out, and Mistle laughed again. "Excuse him. It's sort of a new arrangement."

"Okay," Kayleigh said, drawing out the vowels and turning away with a dramatic pivot. "Not even gonna get involved in that one. Let's grab the good shit and get out of here, guys."

Mistle's face held more regret. "Might see you around one day, then, trouble?"

And Ciri had the strangest sensation, for a moment, of destiny stretching out along two different paths. Different futures, like Falka had said. Like there was a road untaken where she'd walk out of here by this woman's side.

"Yeah, maybe," she said, but she felt certain it wasn't true. Without knowing how she could be so sure, she knew she wasn't going to see Mistle again.

And she seemed to know it too. With one last, lingering look, Mistle turned back to her friends, and Ciri turned to Jaskier.

He really did look a mess. With his lute lost in Tor Lara, his leather coat abandoned in the desert and the bag he'd carried now missing too, he was a good match for Ciri - both of them down to nothing but their shirts, trousers and boots. Ciri had her sword back, and with any luck Jaskier still had the pocketful of coin he'd had the sense to grab from the cabin in Loxia. They were going to need to figure out something new for his arm; the bastards had even taken away the sling they'd fashioned out of strips of his coat.

And she didn't like the way his wounds were looking. Resorting to fire magic in the desert had been dangerous, she knew, and if Jaskier hadn't stopped her when she had, hadn't unknowingly banished that vision of Falka, she understood that it might have consumed her. But part of her wished she hadn't listened and had at least finished healing him. Burning out the infection had saved his life, but the break was still barely healed and the gashes had started bleeding again; she could see the red spots through the bandages that had once been the lining of Ciri's jacket.

Still. He was alive. They'd kept each other alive, and they were free, and they were out of the fucking desert.

And Jaskier was looking at her like she'd lost her mind.

"Oh, shut up," Ciri said, even though he hadn't said a word. "I've got two fathers. You're not that special."

Exactly as she'd predicted, Jaskier gaped at her for a long, wordless moment and then threw his good hand in the air. "The things I have to put up with," he said as though very hard done by, except that when he lowered his arm it landed on Ciri and squeezed her into a sideways hug - tight but quick like he thought she wouldn't allow anything more than that.

After she'd just said he was her father. Honestly. He and Geralt were as bad as each other.

"Come on," he said, letting her go. "We should probably get out of here before this lot. I imagine people are going to wait until they're long gone before they come asking questions, but we don't want to be here when they do."

Once again, a good point. Ciri retrieved her scabbard from the bounty hunter's body and strapped her sword back on, and with a final nod of farewell to the Rats they stepped out into the sunlight together.

It was bright and hot and unwelcome on Ciri's sunburnt skin, but they were in the streets of a town. Still full of dangers, and clearly she was as hunted here as anywhere else, but it offered them a much better chance than they'd had before.

"How did you get free?" she asked. The question had been nagging at her. "Weren't you tied up too?"

"Oh, I was," Jaskier said, wincing. She remembered his sounds of pain suddenly, and it made her almost wish she had let the bounty hunter die more slowly after all. "And with no respect to the already injured, I can tell you. I pissed him off while you were still asleep, enough that he threw one of those clay pots at me. Missed, thank fuck, but broken pottery is sharp enough to cut through rope if you're patient."

"I'm not sure if that's really clever or really stupid."

"Yeah, that's the grey area I live in. Geralt always..."

He trailed off like the thought had caught up with itself. His eyes flickered closed, and for a moment his thoughts seemed to hurt more than his arm.

"Do you think they're alive?" Ciri said quietly. It was the first time she'd asked outright since the first day in the desert.

Jaskier's hand found hers and squeezed.

"I don't know," he said. His voice was steadier than it was when she'd asked back then. "But I believe they are. And I believe they're looking for us. And that they won't ever stop."

Ciri breathed in deeply, and nodded.

"Then we'll keep looking too."

She leaned into his side again. Let herself rely on him.

"Together."

No news came to Brokilon for days. No word of the world beyond the forest, of what had happened at Thanedd or what had become of the people there.

Geralt lay in his bed of wood and moss amongst the trees and wondered if this was how death would take him after all these years. And if it really mattered any more if it did.

His memories of what happened after the fight were fractured, but he remembered the sight of Vilgefortz walking away down the beach, leaving Geralt trembling and powerless on the sand. And he remembered Tor Lara exploding, the way ancient stone had crumbled away, leaving a monolith exposed to the sky.

All he had, lying there in the forest, was memory. Regret and fear strong enough to choke him. He remembered the last time he'd seen Ciri and Jaskier. They'd been so close to getting away; they'd found a boat, they might have made it. And then his medallion had reacted to Vilgefortz's approach, and he'd known the only chance the other two had was if he stood and fought.

He'd believed he could win. He really had. But Vilgefortz's power was beyond anything he'd anticipated.

They hadn't wanted to leave him. Ciri had tried to refuse, but he'd seen a pained acceptance in Jaskier. If it had just been him alone, Jaskier might have tried to stay. But with Ciri to think about, for once, he hadn't argued.

"Never lost, always found," Geralt had said to Ciri, and then he'd looked to Jaskier. "I promise," he'd added, and hoped that Jaskier understood that the words were for him too; that they were a family, all of them, always.

He wished now as he'd wished then that he could have kissed Jaskier. That he'd done it before, any of the times he'd thought about it and tried to pretend he'd never thought it at all. Too much risk, too much vulnerability; so much to lose that he could not bear to be without.

Now, perhaps, lost anyway. Because of Geralt. Because Geralt had failed.

And in the end, in that last moment, there had been no time. Not to thank him for taking care of Ciri, or to tell him how much he meant to Geralt, or even to say goodbye. Just one last look and the comfort of seeing them turn and run together, and the desperate hope that they would find somewhere safe.

Now he was stranded in Brokilon, and there was no sign of them. With every hour, that hope grew thin and deepened his despair.

Each day his lungs laboured and every breath hurt. Every attempt to heal him failed. And yet still he lived.

And then, at last, Yennefer came.

She brought with her confirmation of what Geralt had feared to hear.

"She was in Tor Lara," Yennefer said, and she was crying. The world ripped apart under the weight of their shared grief. "I searched the ruins and found no sign of her. But she's been... I've heard word of her."

"She's alive?" Every word hurt, but he had to know.

"Yes. Yes, but... They're saying she's on her way to Nilfgaard. Emhyr's put out word in celebration of her arrival. She'd never go willingly. Vilgefortz must have taken her."

No. After everything they'd done to try and keep her safe - he'd failed. More completely and terribly than he could have imagined. Whatever dark fate they'd tried to protect her from all this time had found her after all.

And there was worse to come, because what Yennefer hadn't spoken of hung between them like the downswing of an axe.

"Yen," he said, and managed to reach for her hand.

But though his mouth worked to speak, he found the words wouldn't come. Because if Vilgefortz had overpowered and taken Ciri, if Nilfgaard had her now... What would have become of Jaskier?

"I don't know." Tears spilled down her cheeks freely as Yennefer shook her head. "I don't know what happened to him, Geralt, I'm so sorry. But when I searched the tower, I found..."

Words failed her too. They'd come to mean so much to each other, her and Jaskier. Geralt never could have imagined it years ago, but they'd all changed so much. They'd become a family.

Instead, Yennefer reached for something out of Geralt's sight.

The moment she showed him, he wished she hadn't. He would never be able to forget the sight of it.

A lute case. Crushed and deformed so badly that the instrument inside would be in splinters.

Geralt closed his eyes and turned his head away. Tears leaked from behind his eyelids and trickled into his hair.

"He's not dead," he said, as if by his will alone he could make it true. "He can't be."

"I don't believe it either," Yennefer said, and suddenly her hands were on either side of his face. He opened his eyes to find her staring at him, her ferocity returned, her gaze full of fire. "I won't believe it. Nor do I believe Ciri is beyond our help. They would have fought to stay together, Geralt. They could be protecting each other."

It was a faint thread of hope. Nothing but the last note of a song left to tremble into silence until even the echoes died.

But if Jaskier was here, he would say that a song could last forever.

"I will find them," he ground out, and refused to let himself believe anything else. "I will find them both."

And as Yennefer healed him, he didn't let himself think about Ciri captured or hurt. He thought instead about her laughing, light and free, in the houses they'd hidden in during those long months on the run, and the way she'd danced in the firelight on her birthday.

He didn't let himself think about Jaskier hurt by Vilgefortz as Geralt had been, left broken on the ground to be buried under countless tons of stone.

Instead he thought about Jaskier sitting beside him on a mountain, in forests, in so many taverns that they blended together in his memory. About two decades' worth of days walking side by side, days that were lighter and more full of happiness than any of the ones that had come before.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and vowed that he would give everything he had left to have any of those days again.

Never lost. Always found.

He would see his family whole again.

Chapter Text

It said a lot about the state of Jaskier's life lately that being tied up in the back of a pub at the whims of a group of armed bounty hunters was actually the furthest from imminent death he'd been in a while. Up until the point where another gang burst in through the windows and started stabbing everyone, anyway.

He wasn't sure how long he and Ciri had been in the desert; time had started to go a bit wobbly, especially after the fever really set in. He knew it could be counted in days, not weeks, but it felt longer.

It felt like forever since they'd parted from Geralt.

There had been a stolen snatch of time when it had really seemed like they might get away together. The Nilfgaardian soldier had chosen to fight his own men in defence of Ciri; they'd eluded all sign of mages and elves; and they'd made it down to the beach and found one of the boats the Scoia'tael had arrived in. Yennefer had run into battle but he'd had Geralt and Ciri right there, safe, and for a few seconds he'd really let himself believe they might survive this together.

And then Geralt's medallion had vibrated. It was imperceptible to anyone not wearing it or near enough to touch it, Jaskeir knew. But he also knew Geralt well enough that he'd have recognised the face he made even if his hand hadn't drifted up to the wolf.

Magic.

Mage.

And knowing their fucking luck, it had been clear which mage it was going to be.

Then Geralt had looked at him, just looked at him, and Jaskier had known what he had to do. The only thing he could do, and yet also the worst thing he'd ever done.

Because on that beach, with a terrible danger approaching them, he'd taken Geralt's daughter and he'd run.

Geralt had wanted him to. He knew that. It was the only thing in the world Geralt had wanted him to do. There was nothing he could have achieved by staying. No question of abandoning Ciri when he had even the slightest chance to help her.

And yet for the sake of the one responsibility that could never come second to anything, Jaskier had left Geralt behind to die.

He'd known exactly what he was risking even as he left. His feet had never felt so heavy as they were on the sand that day, his legs never as reluctant to move. After two decades of dangers, he had known with absolute certainty that this was the greatest. That if he went through with this parting, he might never see Geralt again.

And there wasn't even time for goodbye. Not the kind they would need.

It haunted him afterwards that he didn't say anything. Even as he took those first steps, he could feel the weight of that regret settling into his bones. But words had failed him more utterly than he could ever remember. Nothing at all had come to his mind except one central, all-encompassing thought: I cannot say goodbye to you.

For better or worse, he wasn't given much time to dwell on it, not right then.

Because they turned and ran, but before Jaskier's mind even caught up with his feet, Ciri was already sprinting away - towards the looming fucking structure of Aretuza.

"Ciri, no!" he yelled, almost stumbling as he tried to catch up with her. Why did Geralt have to teach her to be so fucking fast? "The other way!"

Surely they should have gone right. Followed the coast away from the burning building and all the people who were trying to capture Ciri.

But no, of course she'd gone left. Of course she had. Why would any single step of this be easy?

And she wasn't stopping.

"Ciri! What are you doing?"

She could hear him. He bloody knew she could. But she didn't look back.

Which made for the second time that day that Jaskier had sprinted after Ciri as she ran in the worst possible direction. He'd tried to get her to go away from Thanedd when they'd left the cabin in Loxia; much as he'd shared her terror for what had become of Geralt and Yennefer when they failed to return before dawn, the safest thing had clearly been to get Ciri away from whatever had prevented them from coming back.

And now this. He loved the girl, he really did, but he was beginning to severely question what was going on in her head.

The one redeeming hope was that perhaps she'd decided the foot of those cliffs was the most likely place to find more boats, but as they splashed through the very edge of the water, Aretuza towering over them, a feeling of growing doom settled over Jaskier like a layer of frost.

Ciri wasn't looking for a boat. She was running straight towards the foot of the vast tower rising up from the waves.

Tor Lara. Jaskier knew as much about it as anyone who wasn't from Aretuza, which was to say basically fuck all. It was, presumably, very magical, while Jaskier was about as magical as a loaf of bread (meaning, not remotely, unless you were willing to be poetic about things, because a fresh loaf could feel pretty magical when you'd been stuck in the woods with a crochety witcher for a week eating nothing but dried meat). Perhaps Ciri could sense something he couldn't, but there was nonetheless a rather major flaw in whatever her plan was.

Ciri didn't slow down until she was right at the foot of the craggy rock formation at the base of the tower. As if she'd been there before, she went unerringly to where a cave opened up in the rock, and Jaskier skidded to a halt in the sand beside her.

"Ciri, what the fuck," he demanded around gasps of air. "We can't go in there. It's a tower. By definition, you can go up or down. Not out. This is a cage, not an escape route."

"No," Ciri said. "I need to go inside."

It was an objectively alarming sentence, in the circumstances, but what was worse was the distant way she said it. Like she was only half in the conversation, the other half of her mind already in the tower.

She'd drawn her sword.

"Ciri," he tried again. "Ciri, please."

For a moment, it made no difference. Then she blinked and finally looked away from the dark tunnel.

"Jaskier?"

"Hey, kiddo. What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Ciri said. "But we need to go in there."

"Um. Why?"

"Something's calling to me. It feels like before. Like when I portalled at Kaer Morhen."

"Like when you're around monoliths," Jaskier said with dawning realisation. He looked up at the tower with new suspicion. "Ah, fuck."

"Exactly. I think something in there can help us."

"And this seems like a good idea to you?"

"Jask," Ciri said, and sounded so like Geralt that a hand seemed to wrap around Jaskier's heart and squeeze. "Do you really think anything else will work? If Geralt can't stop Vilgefortz, is a boat or a ferry actually going to help us get away?"

Jaskier stared at her.

Then, with heartfelt passion, said, "Fuck."

"Follow me," Ciri said.

And Jaskier did.

The tower, typically, was creepy as fuck inside. It was dark, lit only by small windows and strange flashes of light. There were sounds he couldn't place, and they all echoed strangely. The air carried the feeling of a storm about to burst. It was a large space, too dark to see how high it went, and consisted of a set of stairs along the wall that spiralled up around...

"Oh, look," Jaskier said. "A monolith."

His voice shook. He wished it hadn't.

Ciri made a noise that wasn't quite an answer. Her face looked grey in the poor light and her eyes were huge. He could see his own fear reflected in them, and he reached out to squeeze her free hand. It felt like there was nothing good ahead, but what lay behind could be worse. They both knew what might already be pursuing them and what it would mean.

They climbed, Ciri taking the lead without a word. The steps were large and strained the muscles of Jaskier's legs quickly. It was unnerving to climb with so little light, and they both tried to stay close to the wall; there was no protection on the steps, and the drop became fatally high far too quickly.

"Can you hear that?" she said at one point, when they'd gone high enough that Jaskier could practically feel his pulse hammering in his throat when he breathed.

He paused. He could hear the same strange bangs and echoes he'd heard when they entered, and the waves booming against the rocks below, and a crackling noise he couldn't quite place. Loudest of all was his own ragged breathing.

"Hear what?"

"Like a voice. A woman. Whispering."

It was only through enormous strength of will that Jaskier didn't whimper. No, he could not hear a voice. Why the fuck could Ciri hear a voice?

"Ah. No," he said carefully. "But that's fine. I'm sure that's fine."

"Really?"

"No, there's a good chance something's about to eat us, but I didn't think you'd want to hear me say that."

It made her smile. Even in the midst of the fucking nightmare they were living, she smiled.

He tried to remember that afterwards.

Because what came next was a voice that they both heard.

"I didn't come to hurt you, Cirilla."

It was deep. Cold. Calm. Coming from somewhere down below.

It startled Jaskier so badly he thought his heart might stop. He flinched and slipped, falling back down the step he'd just climbed and slamming his knees into the stone with a pulse of pain that seemed to travel through his bones. In the same moment, Ciri either fell or deliberately dropped to the stone too, and there was a strange glint of light as something fell.

On pure instinct alone, Jaskier threw out his hand. Without his mind having processed why it mattered, he knew not to try and catch the object, but rather slammed his palm down as it hit the stone and kept going, momentum carrying it out into the void.

Pain sliced through his hand and there was a clattering sound of metal on stone, and he realised what it was that he'd done.

It was Ciri's sword. She'd dropped it, and it would have fallen down the tower. Even now it was suspended hilt-first over the edge, less than half the blade on the step, held there only by Jaskier's hand. He'd cut himself on the blade.

The shock and pain distracted him for a moment. Then he processed the way Ciri was staring at him, wide-eyed, and how pale she was as she turned to peer over the edge of the step instead.

"All I want is to share my knowledge with you."

It was a man calling up to them. A man who was looking for Ciri.

Jaskier had never seen or heard him before, but this could only be Vilgefortz. Vilgefortz had made it into the tower.

"It was smart for you to join the witcher and Yennefer. But we both know they couldn't properly train you."

He didn't sound rushed or worried. The light that revealed his whereabouts was moving steadily up the stairs. He wasn't running.

He'd got past Geralt, and he wasn't running.

He wasn't expecting to be pursued.

"No," Ciri whispered. Her eyes were shining with tears.

Surely Jaskier's heart must be bleeding, not his hand. If he looked down at his chest, it would be cracking in two.

"Ciri," he said quietly. "Take the sword."

Ciri reached out slowly for the hilt, never shifting more of her weight over the edge than she had to.

"Your hand," she murmured.

"It's fine. Keep going."

Her face was a silent, desperate plea for which Jaskier had no answer. There was nothing they could do but keep climbing.

"Only I can show you the way," Vilgefortz went on. "Only I know what your powers can do."

Legs trembling, his breath coming with frantic speed, Jaskier found himself frantically hoping that whatever had drawn Ciri here had a really, really good plan.

Fuck, his hand hurt. His fingers were slick with blood even when he clenched them into a fist, but at least he could still feel them.

And then they came to a wider step, a platform that led to a doorway. They were still a long way from the top of the tower, but the stone archway loomed over the mouth of a dark tunnel.

"Please, Cirilla," the voice came from below. Not as far away as before. He was getting closer. "Let me help you. Be my pupil."

"You can help by being less of a fucking creep," Jaskier muttered, and Ciri made a sound that might've been a laugh if it wasn't so terrified.

"Such a fucking creep," she agreed. "Come on. This way."

He didn't bother questioning her. Either she knew what she was doing or they were absolutely fucked; there really wasn't a third option at this point.

He followed her down a short corridor, through another doorway and out onto a balcony that overlooked the monolith. Lighting flashed implausibly around them; more alarmingly still, as Ciri stepped onto the balcony, the surface of the monolith began to light up in red flashes. Then words, written in runic symbols he didn't recognise, began to scrawl themselves across its surface.

"Did we know monoliths could do that?" Jaskier said, rather unintentionally high-pitched. It wasn't something he'd heard of before; it didn't even look like what that magical storyteller had described about the monoliths at the time of the conjunction.

Ciri didn't seem to hear him. She looked entranced, even more than she had at the base of the tower. She sheathed her sword and stepped closer to the monolith, raising her hand.

And then she started talking to it.

"What are you trying to tell me?" she asked. "Please. We need to get out of here."

He didn't know if he should touch her. He wanted to jolt her back to awareness, but what if it hurt her somehow? He had no idea what he was dealing with, but the fixation on her face was terrifying.

"Ciri," he began, but she was crying out again.

"I understand!"

"Understand what?"

And then, like the situation wasn't fucked up enough already, Vilgefortz appeared in the archway.

In other circumstances, Jaskier might have thought him handsome, even admired the self-assuredness with which he held himself. But there was more to his appearance than that even at a glance. Something in the way he held himself, the way he walked... that was a kind of confidence that seemed almost lazy, but only in the sense of a predator who had already done all the hard work to set a trap and now knew that all that lay between it and a feast was time.

He wasn't even injured.

Jaskier couldn't breathe.

"What are you-" Vilgefortz began, talking to Ciri, but he broke off as he saw Jaskier. "Who the fuck are you?"

Speared under the intensity of Vilgefortz's stare, Jaskier wondered if this was how it felt to be an ant perceiving a human for the first time. At any rate he felt unsettlingly like he was about to get squashed under a shoe.

And he couldn't stop it. Not unless he ran, maybe, and hoped Vilgefortz didn't care enough to stop him.

But he couldn't run. He wouldn't.

His heart was pounding. Jaskier felt like he might throw up at any moment.

He was going to die. That was what he saw in Vilgefortz's eyes.

This was the point where Geralt normally showed up. When the monster had Jaskier in its sights and he was just beginning to contemplate his own mortality and all the choices that had led him to that point.

But there would be no Geralt this time. Because Geralt was - Geralt was probably already...

He hadn't been able to help Geralt. But he could help Ciri, even if all he could do was buy her time.

On legs that felt like they were made of water, Jaskier stepped between Ciri and Vilgefortz. Shielding her with his body, which was the only defence he had. Hiding her from view.

"Get the fuck away from her," he said. His voice was shaking. So were his hands. He could hear his blood pounding in his ears.

He wondered if Geralt, too, had felt the desperate pounding of his own heart in those last seconds.

"I have no need of you," Vilgefortz said.

He barely even looked at Jaskier. He simply flicked a hand dismissively, the gesture so casual that Jaskier didn't understand what had happened.

Not until he was screaming.

He was on his knees and he didn't remember getting there. There was nothing but pain. It was blinding - splintering. His arm - gods, what the fuck was wrong with his arm - it felt like it had been torn off and maybe it had, there was burning, ripping, gouging pain -

And Vilgefortz was talking again. Stepping forwards past Jaskier as though he wasn't there, as though he was nothing.

"You don't understand what you're playing with, Cirilla! You are not ready. You are not ready for this kind of power!"

Through a haze of tears, Jaskier squinted up at them. Ciri still wasn't moving. She had to be in some sort of trance. Whatever she was doing, if she didn't do it now, Vilgefortz would have her.

Jaskier staggered to his feet. He didn't want to move - he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. He wanted to be anywhere but here. He wanted to know what had happened to his arm but he didn't dare to look.

He wanted Geralt.

His foot banged against something. Distantly, he looked down. It was his lute. The strap had been severed. There was blood on the case.

He looked up. Looked at Vilgefortz, who was reaching towards Ciri. Ciri, who was reaching for the monolith.

Jaskier only had one move left, and only seconds to make it. Seconds - he could win seconds that might be enough for what Ciri needed to do.

He flung himself at Vilgefortz.

He never reached him. With a snarl of frustration, Vilgefortz thrust out a hand and suddenly Jaskier was in the air. He was flying - pushed by an invisible force that tore him off his feet. He soared backwards, past Ciri, past the fucking edge of the balcony. He was going to crash into the monolith, and then he was going to fall.

Fuck. Oh, gods. Geralt, I'm sorry. Ciri...

In that moment, as he passed her, Ciri looked away from the monolith. Her eyes locked on to him. They were so bright they seemed to glow with power.

And her expression was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Scared, and angry - but beyond that, this was the rage of someone who would do anything to change what they were seeing, and was just realising they had the power to do it.

"NO!"

He was falling. There was nothing to catch him. Nothing -

And then, with Ciri's scream, the world exploded.

Jaskier caught one last glimpse of Ciri's hand reaching for him. Behind her, Vilgefortz was blasted back by a torrent of light and power.

He half-expected the light to do the same to him. Or to finish, you know, falling to his really grisly death.

Instead, the brightness grew until he had to screw his eyes closed. But instead of obliteration, a strange sensation grabbed him around the navel and pulled.

He fell. The fall stole his breath, blanked his mind out with terror.

But he landed not on unyielding stone but on something fine and warm that moved beneath him, soft enough to cushion him. Rather than a sudden and brutal stop, he rolled down a gentle, shifting slope.

Unfortunately, rolling meant his entire body weight repeatedly landing on the arm that was still burning with pain, and his body promptly decided that this was the final straw. Before he'd even had a chance to be surprised at his own survival, Jaskier passed out.

The first thing Ciri was aware of was the heat. A dry, stifling heat, the kind that made the air feel almost like it was too thin for your lungs. It was so hot it hurt, and the heat was coming from both above her and below. Her head ached, and her mouth was dry.

She blinked her eyes open with some difficulty. It was bright. Way too bright. She was lying in direct sunlight under the full force of a burning sun that made it hard to even look up at the sky, which was utterly cloudless.

Her whole body felt like a giant bruise. Not moving, however, wasn't an option when it felt like she was lying far too close to an open fire; Ciri forced herself up, shielding her eyes with an aching hand.

Sand. She was sitting on... sand. It seemed to go on forever. She was partway down the side of a dune, and in front of her frozen waves of sand stretched off towards the horizon.

"What the fuck," she breathed. Panic began to mount in her. Where was she? What the fuck had happened? She'd been - where had she been?

The tower. The monolith. Vilgefortz.

Jaskier.

"Fuck!"

He wasn't there. Why wasn't he there?

Terror ripped through Ciri, the kind of terror she'd felt the day Cintra burned. Jaskier had been with her, and now he wasn't. He'd... fuck, now that she was out of the tower, she realised she'd heard him screaming. How had she not realised before? She'd been talking to the monolith and there had been sounds behind her but they'd been so remote, part of someone else's life, not her own. She hadn't really been aware of anything but the monolith until there had been movement in front of her and it was Jaskier flying past her, Jaskier falling...

She'd thrown every part of her power into reaching for him. She was sure she had. So where the fuck was he?

She couldn't have failed. She couldn't have left him at the mercy of Vilgefortz, like she had left Geralt. She couldn't have missed, let him fall, let him die.

No. No.

Ciri staggered to her feet, slipping in the sand. Her skin felt raw and flushed, already affected by the heat. A fucking desert - but it didn't matter right now. Nothing else mattered but that Jaskier had to be here, and she had to find him.

Her best hope was that they'd come through a portal together and just been separated, and she couldn't see him from here. Higher ground was her best bet, so she scrambled up the dune, slipping down one step for every two she managed to climb. The heat already felt unbearable, and the exertion made her sweat.

She crested the top of the dune, and - there. Thank fuck. There was a body lying in the crater on the other side of the ridge, a smear of dark red against the orange sand several dozen feet below.

Ciri skidded more than climbed down. This side was no shadier than the other; the sun was too high and the hills too gentle to grant any such mercy. And Jaskier was wearing that leather coat.

She fell to her knees beside him.

"Jaskier."

He wasn't moving.

"Jaskier!"

She pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back.

His cheeks were flushed with the heat. If they hadn't been, she might have thought he was dead. His breaths were so shallow that she couldn't even see his chest moving at first. When she pressed her fingers to the pulse point under his jaw, his heartbeat was fast and thready.

"Jask," she said again, more softly, and then she saw his arm.

It was his right arm, the one he'd been half lying on. When she'd rolled him over, the arm had stayed behind, splayed out to the side - splayed out strangely, at an angle that just seemed wrong to look at. And there were tears running down the length of the sleeve, huge rents in the coat, and sand was stuck to the shredded leather.

Feeling like she was in a strange nightmare where her body was acting of its own accord, Ciri leaned over and ran a fingertip over the sleeve.

It came away dotted with grains of sand and smeared with blood.

"Jaskier," she said again, and this time her voice was thick and choked. No, she couldn't cry - she mustn't cry here, not when her instincts were beginning to tell her how utterly fucked she was. "Jaskier, wake up. Please, you have to wake up."

Despair threatened to consume her. She was the cause of this. It was because of her that Geralt might be dead. He'd done it to defend her. Yennefer could have fallen too, killed in a conflict that had only happened because so many people wanted to find Ciri. And now this - Jaskier with open wounds, broken bones, trapped out here in one of the most dangerous environments on the fucking Continent, and it was all Ciri's fault.

Better if she'd never met any of them. Not better for her, but for them. They might all have survived. They might all be happy.

She was rot. Ruin. Plague. No wonder Triss had been afraid of what she'd seen in Ciri's head. Ciri was destruction. Why shouldn't it turn out that her destiny was to unmake worlds; she'd already destroyed the three that mattered most.

No.

Not yet.

He's alive.

He's breathing.

I'm not alone.

He needs me.

I can't give up.

Jaskier was alive, but if Ciri didn't act now, he wouldn't stay that way for long.

He was bleeding. His arm was clearly broken.

Ciri was a witcher. She'd learned from Geralt of Rivia, from Vesemir, from Coën, even from fucking Lambert on the rare occasion he was in a helpful frame of mind. Her magic was unpredictable and dangerous, not to be trusted on delicate work like this - but setting a broken bone, patching up bleeding in dire conditions? That much she'd learned from her family, though the conditions were worse than she thought even they would have predicted.

And this was Jaskier. Jaskier who wore a mask of cowardice to conceal his courage; who could be foolish, but wielded foolishness like a weapon; who offered kindness like it was nothing, like it wasn't the hardest thing to hold onto in a world that could be so cruel.

He owed her nothing, yet he was good to her. He was funny. Generous with his time and his energy. Sweet in little ways that he never drew attention to. Always putting others ahead of himself, but pretending that he wasn't.

And she was beginning to understand what had happened in Tor Lara, to piece together what she'd heard while she stood entranced by the monolith.

Jaskier had defended her against Vilgefortz. He wasn't a warrior or a mage. He wasn't any kind of fighter. It had been a stupid fucking thing to do. It could so easily have got him killed. It still might.

It was the kind of thing you only did if you loved someone. If they were your friend.

Or your family.

Ciri's despair did not leave, but it... banked. Like a spreading fire suddenly halted by lack of fuel, or a river held back by a dam.

She wasn't alone, because Jaskier had come with her. He'd chosen to try to help her.

Even if this was all her fault, she would not do any less for him now.

Ciri breathed in slowly, and found that her hands were steady.

She had someone to save, and she would not fail.