Chapter Text
“Where are we even going?”
They’ve been trekking through the woods in silence for three days; they are probably overdue an ‘Are we there yet?’ from the child. Yennefer has thought it herself plenty of times, but Ciri actually receives an answer from Geralt, if not a satisfying one: “Someplace where there aren’t any people.”
“Where’s that?”
“An old cabin in the mountains. You’ll like it; it even has a bathtub.”
Yennefer can’t resist. “Not a cabin you built, then?”
“No.”
She waits, but he doesn’t tease her, not anymore. Instead, there’s the stony silence that was usually reserved for everyone but her. Yennefer glances around at Geralt from where she’s riding ahead, but his eyes are on Ciri, as always.
“And it’s more of a leaky trough. But still. The place will afford us shelter, and no one knows about it. It’s as safe as can be.”
Which is not that safe at all, with every power in this sphere and the next coming after them, but they don’t talk about that.
“And what do we do then? Wait for trouble to come to us?”
“We train, what else? Did you think you were finished?”
Ciri doesn’t suffer bullshit any more than he, though; that much Yennefer has already learned. “Why can’t we do all that in Kaer Morhen?”
Geralt put his brothers in danger when he brought Ciri to their doorstep, and with devastating consequences. But they don’t talk about that, either; Ciri feels guilty enough as is. So Geralt says, “I’d put some distance between us and that monolith.”
It sounds reasonable enough on the surface, and they’re all about saving face these days. Ciri nods just a tad too late but, sweet relief, they will make it another day’s ride with all their pretences intact.
They’ll have to face all the monsters eventually, and Yennefer for one is far more afraid of the figurative ones than those that can be fought with a blade. She suspects the others feel the same way, though neither of them has shared their confidences with her. Ciri’s nightmares come every night at the witching hour; the girl hardly sleeps, just like Geralt, and she’s beginning to look almost as pale as he, too. It’ll be a while before she regains her footing.
Yennefer too feels uncertain of herself, though she’d never admit such a thing out loud. Her place in this odd party of theirs remains precarious, or perhaps it only feels that way to her because she’s not used to being part of a team. Geralt and Ciri have bonded in the way only people who’ve saved each other can, and that’s not even taking into account their destined connection. They trust each other implicitly and Yennefer not at all.
That is another thing they share. Yennefer notices it in the way Ciri always looks around to see if she’s in earshot before the girl speaks to Geralt, and he outright told her he wouldn’t soon forget, or forgive, what she did. But she’s allowed to be here with them, and for now, that’s got to be good enough.
Once upon a time, there was a sorceress who scoffed at the idea of following a man around on his quests. Now it’s exactly what she does, and whenever Geralt grunts “North,” at her at a crossroads, Yennefer wonders if she’s failed herself and all her principles or if this is, shockingly, being mature. Rising above, for the greater good and all that. She hasn’t quite decided yet, but it doesn’t matter anyhow, she can’t forsake the two of them when they clearly need her and she has a debt to repay.
Still, she has to grit her teeth as she hears Ciri whisper, “And what about her? Do you really think we can trust her?”
Geralt is silent for a long time. Then he says, “We’ll have to stay watchful.”
“You want to trust her.”
“I do.”
“Because you still love her.” It sounds accusatory. Yennefer tries not to let it get to her. Here’s a child who knows nothing of life and love and how complicated they can be. What’s more upsetting is that Geralt actually feels compelled to explain himself.
“Yennefer’s a powerful ally.” Another long pause. “And it doesn’t matter. If she makes a wrong move, I’ll kill her. Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t worry about that.” More quietly yet, “I don’t want you to have to do that because of me.”
“It’s nothing to do with you. It’s Yennefer’s choice.”
Yennefer can only keep her head high and her eyes firmly on the road; not even a bee will get past her and at Ciri. Proving herself useful will be harder than she initially thought, though, for Geralt is leading them so well and truly away from danger that they haven’t encountered a living soul for days, man or monster. He shepherds them ahead of him like a grumpy dog, or wolf as it were, and Yennefer can feel his gaze burning holes into her back even though he’ll never meet her eyes when she turns to look at him.
Neither of them knows where to tread on the uncertain ground between them. The only thing he seems certain of is that he doesn’t trust her to be out of his sight. Ciri rides between them, a buffer and their one link at the same time; if nothing else, they share her, the responsibility of her safety and care, and it’s more than Yennefer could ever hope for, especially now.
Still, the silence grates.
They shelter by the mountainside that night, somewhat protected against the constant snowfall by an overhanging roof of rock. Ciri finds herself a little nook to nestle into, and after she’s gone to sleep, there’s some blessed privacy to be had.
Not that it makes a difference to Geralt. He lies down next to Yennefer, curled towards her to preserve some body heat between them but otherwise doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s there. Yennefer knows she can elicit a physical response from him if she wiggles and shifts against him as if by accident, but it’s a clumsy seduction and she feels silly for it, especially since she’s tried before and been rebuffed.
She wishes they could just fuck and ease some of the tension between them that way. She has tried to make advances ever since the first night they spent huddling close for warmth in the wilderness and she could feel him get hard against her back, but whenever she attempts to take, well, matters into hand, he gets even grumpier than usual.
It’s the same tonight. He bats her hand away when she reaches for him under the blanket they share and growls, “I don’t think we should get any more comfortable together.”
Yennefer huffs. The man is truly immune to all of her charms. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to.” She can feel him shrug. He hasn’t moved away yet, and he’s still hard, and how’s a woman supposed to feel except frustrated?
“We still have an attraction. I find it hard to resist it. But that doesn’t mean indulging it is a good idea.”
“Oh. So this is one more thing to feel guilty for? That we have human desires?” Yennefer doesn’t even know where to begin; he gets under her skin like no other. Another thought occurs to her, even more maddening. “Do you tempt me to punish me?”
“Punish both of us, more like.”
That, at least, is reassuring. “Don’t you think we deserve a little balm on all our wounds after…everything?”
“The wounds that you inflicted?” he snorts. “You’re right. It should’ve been different. When I saw you again at the Temple, I thought it would be different. But that lasted all of a couple of hours before you betrayed us. So yes, I still want you, Yennefer, but I’m not happy about it.”
This is her burden to carry, and maybe Geralt is right and there really isn’t anything to be said about it. And yet, “We’re stuck together now. You can’t keep ignoring me forever.”
“I don’t think this qualifies as ‘ignoring’.” He thrusts his hips once, rubbing up against her, but then rolls away. Instantly she feels cold and lonely. Does he hate her that much?
“You know what I mean.”
He heaves a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you that I haven’t told you before.”
I don’t forgive you. The words echo in her head, a cacophony that is amplified when she twists around and meets his eyes. There’s grief there that reflects the pain Yennefer feels, but sharing it doesn’t make it any better. “Geralt, I--” She trails off when she sees him roll his eyes.
Yennefer has apologised a hundred times over to him and to Ciri, talking at them if not to them. Shouldn’t it be enough already? The girl, for one, seems to have accepted Yennefer’s explanation with the understanding borne of her own guilt. It was her hands that killed all those Witchers in their beds, even if Ciri had no way of stopping the demon that possessed her. Yennefer did, she had all the chances in the world to stop, and yet when she did it was too little, too late. Amends will have to be made, but how to make the two of them trust her again, she doesn’t know.
He clears his throat. “You know, I wish--,”
Those words prod at a wound inside her that never really healed. “Oh no, not again!”
He looks like he wants to argue, but then he checks himself with a monumental effort that makes his whole body shake before he goes very still. Only his fists are clenched so tightly they are trembling. “This is stupid. We’re both here because of Ciri. She’s what’s important here. The only thing that’s important.”
Yennefer can only nod at that, though she doesn’t entirely agree. “I’ll help you, I’ll do anything for her. You know I’d do anything for you--”
“I don’t know what I know about you,” he snaps. “You proved everything I ever believed about you wrong.”
Yennefer sort of wishes he’d just beat her physically and be done with it. “I know. I’m s--”
“Say you’re sorry one more time!”
She’s never told him, but she likes those golden animal eyes of his, the way they used to flicker like flames when he looked at her and she could feel the heat of that stare like a caress. Now, though, that fire burns, and she feels it so acutely that she wonders how she isn’t a pile of ash yet.
“What else can I do?” Tears want to fall, but damn her if she lets them.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.” Geralt suddenly sounds tired. He’s overburdened with worry for Cirilla, and Yennefer realises she isn’t helping him at all, she’s doing the opposite. She’ll have to do better. Maybe then he can begin to forgive her.
He goes to sit next to the nook where Ciri sleeps and holds vigil with his sword laid across his lap. He’s so still that he might as well be carved of stone, and Yennefer doesn’t dare disturb him for fear of kicking off an avalanche.
She vows not to sleep if he doesn’t, but nods off anyway, weary from their long travels and the sorrow that is like a millstone around her neck. In the middle of the night, she startles awake to a cry from Ciri, but before she can even rub the sleep from her eyes, Geralt is already there, hugging the girl close.
“Shh. It’s all right.”
But it’s not. Here’s another thing they can’t seem to fix. Ciri aches with guilt for the things she done; they cannot unbreak her heart any more than they can unbreak the unspoken vows they made to one another once upon a time. The girl shakes with big, heaving sobs no matter how tightly Geralt holds her, and again, there are no words.
At the first crack of dawn, they continue on, tired but all of them unable to rest. The road is more of a trail now, and it’s too steep to ride safely. They lead the horses and proceed on foot, Ciri leading the way, trying to implement her tracking lessons. Her eyes are firmly on the ground as she follows the prints of what Geralt identified as a wild boar, and her mind is too occupied to dwell on last night’s dreams or to pay Yennefer and Geralt any attention. It means Yennefer has the dubious pleasure of spending time with him, or perhaps that should be beside him; he’s determinedly quiet, pretending to track the animal too even though Yennefer is sure from his occasional sniffing that he’s following the boar solely by smell.
“The wolf in his element?” she asks eventually, trying for some lightheartedness that feels entirely out of place in the gloomy woods. She remembers another forest, a hut, hut hut, and shivers.
“Hm,” he concedes. “But it’s a useful lesson for Ciri; she doesn’t have Witcher senses.”
Yennefer sniffs at the air but can only smell herself. She makes a face. Tub, trough, she’ll take whatever amenities Geralt’s cabin has to offer. “That’s probably for the better.”
“You don’t stink,” he says offhandedly, “You smell like always. Lilac and gooseberries.”
Yennefer feels glad that he still cares enough to notice. “An illusion. A part of my enchantment.”
“I’m sure. But it’s one of the more pleasant things about you.”
“Thanks?”
He snorts softly. “You would.”
“Take a compliment where I find it? Yes.”
“It’ll never stop to amaze me, the way you look at the world.”
“What way do you think that is?”
“Like it owes you.”
“And you think it doesn’t? What do you know of my life?”
“I know the world doesn’t care about you because it doesn’t care about anyone. If you’re lucky, you get a handful of people who care.” He glances sideways at her. “And then you go and try to kill their child.”
Yennefer sort of wants to punch him. “Why did you ask me to come if you so obviously hate having me around?”
“You know why I asked.” He tilts his head in the direction of Ciri. “And it’s not that I hate it, I just find it…difficult.”
“You wished for us to be bound together, remember?”
If nothing else, she still knows how to get through that icy veneer like a pickaxe cracking a frozen rock. His pale eyes flash. “I don’t know what you think I asked of that Djinn. I didn’t bind you to me, I didn’t force anything unnatural on you. But it’s just like you to pretend that I did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You want to pretend what you feel has nothing to do with you.”
The urge to punch him grows. “Oh, and what do I feel? Enlighten me.”
He doesn’t have to raise his voice; the words slap her around the head hard enough. “You may crave love, but you don’t want to have to love anyone in return, not truly. It’s not in your nature.”
“That’s cruel.” It is, and it’s all the more shocking because he’s not a cruel man. “And it’s not true.” Her feelings for him are like a big, gaping hole inside her after all where he tore into her heart, and oh, it hurts.
“Isn’t it?” He comes close enough that she can feel his warmth, and yet it’s like he’s a thousand miles away. “Then prove it.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.” It smarts that he can’t see it. “Just… When I lost my magic, I didn’t know what to do with myself. How to live without it,” she tries, wondering if it’ll even make a difference.
He growls. “I know why you did what you did, Yennefer. Doesn’t mean I understand it.”
“What else should I have done?”
“If you really couldn’t find purpose within yourself? Hung yourself off the nearest tree, rather than kill an innocent girl.”
He must’ve woken up that morning even grumpier than usual; but no, he doesn’t sleep, so such a thing shouldn’t even be possible. Yennefer tries to tell herself she deserves this, but she’s never been good at self-castigation. “I didn’t know she was yours!”
If anything, that seems to irritate him further. “If she hadn’t been, would that have made it any better?”
Yennefer has to laugh, it’s all so ridiculous. “Oh, so if you had to choose between yourself and a random stranger--”
“I try not to hurt innocent people.”
“Doesn’t always work out that way though, does it, Butcher of Blaviken?” she parries, and instantly knows she’s crossed a line.
Brusquely, he stops. His scowl is forbidding. “You’ve forged a path of destruction wherever you go. So tell me now, are you going to continue down that path or are you here to do better?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child!”
“Then don’t behave like one! Cirilla is more sensible than you, and she is, what, one tenth your age?”
“I’m not--” Yennefer starts indignantly, then realises her age is entirely beside the point.
“Hm,” he makes, shaking his head at her in the manner of a disapproving teacher that makes her grit her teeth with anger, but then he’s stalking off into the woods and she can’t get the last word in.
“Ciri,” he snaps, “Stay with the animals. We’ll rest here.” As far as he’s concerned, Yennefer clearly belongs to that category too, or else she’s not worth even mentioning.
The girl, for her part, obeys without complaint, abandoning the tracks and jogging lightly back to where Yennefer waits. She wonders at Cirilla’s compliance, but perhaps she shouldn’t; the two of them clearly know where they stand with regards to each other. Yennefer envies them that.
“The Butcher of Blaviken?” Ciri says now, and Yennefer realises the girl must’ve heard their entire conversation. Ciri may not be a Witcher, but she’s astute, and has bloody great hearing, apparently. “The one the bards sing about? That’s Geralt?”
Yennefer feels ashamed. She doesn’t much like it. “Yes.”
Ciri shakes her head. “I don’t believe it. That he did what they say he did. He wouldn’t.”
The girl’s faith in Geralt is nigh unshakeable. Yennefer feels glad for them both, glad that Geralt has someone in his life who so deservedly adores him, but she also feels profoundly jealous. “It was a long time ago. Who knows. He’s certainly never told me about it!”
“And yet you talk about it like you know.” She watches Ciri frown at her in a manner very similar to Geralt’s. “We’re supposed to be taking care of each other.”
Yennefer bites her lip. “We’re here to take care of you,” she says, but she feels the reproach keenly. “I’m not going to take his insults just because--”
“You betrayed us?” Ciri says sharply. “Well, if you can’t get along… Geralt and I were fine on our own.” She stabs Yennefer into the gut with that and then leaves her to bleed. Lightfooted, the girl runs off into the woods. “Hey, wait up!”
Ciri needs her, Yennefer knows it, but the impulse to just get on her horse and leave is still there. She wouldn’t, she won’t, but Cirilla’s disapproval is like a dagger twisting inside the deep dark hole of Yennefer’s guilt. She stays, venturing only far enough to collect firewood and pick through the brush for something edible. There isn’t much to be found in the dead of winter, but at least she can stoke a fire, make some tea from tree bark and wild herbs.
When the two of them return, Geralt is carrying the carcass of the boar under his arm, having neatly gutted the animal where he killed it for predators to follow the scent of blood elsewhere than their camp. Even his sullen skulking through the woods is purposeful; that man has a way of making anyone else feel useless, Yennefer thinks, and tries to swallow down her resentment.
He drops the boar by the fire and nods at Ciri. “Can you take it apart? Like I showed you?”
“Sure.” Ciri gives Yennefer a long, appraising look, then pulls a knife from her boot and sets to work.
With the girl occupied, Geralt turns to Yennefer. “Come with me.”
Yennefer half feels like he might take her into the woods to kill her and hang her entrails from a tree for the animals, but he’d probably make a bloody lesson out of that for Ciri, too. They walk in determined silence for a little while, and then they arrive at a small brook where Geralt begins to wash up. He’s covered in blood from fingers to elbow; the water runs red where he dips his hands in.
“Did the boar put up a fight?” she asks for lack of anything less asinine to say.
“Yes.” His lips quirk. “Ciri helped catch it.”
Yennefer sighs, torn between fondness and exasperation. “You make a good team.”
“We do.” He glances up at her from where he kneels. “Wasn’t sure you’d still be here when we returned.”
“Did you want me to leave?”
He considers this for longer than she likes. Then he says, “No. But you don’t usually take well to confrontation.”
“I said I’d help Ciri.” Yennefer shakes her head. “You don’t trust me at all, do you.”
“No.”
She huffs out a bitter laugh. “You know, I feel for that animal. Gutted, poor thing.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself and maybe we might get somewhere.”
He’s giving her a chance; somewhere deep inside, a rational part of her notes this, but she’s too upset to heed it. “And again, you’re talking down to me.”
He growls. “No, Yennefer, I’m practically begging you to make this easier for all of us.”
“I’m not trying to make it hard!”
“Well, you’re right about one thing.” Rising, he towers over her. “You’re not trying.”
Yennefer takes a swing at him, but of course he catches it before it lands. “Fuck you, Geralt.”
He looks at her hand shaking in his. “Like I said. Not even trying.”
“Oh?” With his hands occupied, she simply slaps him with her left, and this time she connects. “Did you just bring me along so you could keep punishing me? Do you enjoy it?”
“I love you, Yennefer. But you don’t bring me joy.”
He may not mean to hurt her, but the knife twists in her gut all the same. “Love. That’s a big word. Do you think you even know what it means, Witcher?”
She’s doing him a terrible injustice, and she knows he feels it when his face clouds over like the winter sky. He drops her hand and brushes past her. “Come back and join us or don’t. But make up your mind about how it’s going to be.”
Her heart sinks like a rock to the bottom of a deep dark lake. Even still, he’s giving her a choice, and somehow that makes it worse, the regret. Topped with spoonfuls of guilt, of course, and Yennefer doesn’t know what to do with herself anymore, doesn’t even have the warm glow of her self-righteousness to warm her. She just stands there, dumbly, watching him leave, and then the tears finally come.
They’re stupid. She’s stupid. It’s all very stupid, sobbing into the bark of a tree, and yet it takes a stupidly long time for her to stop. When she does, she feels a little better; cleansed, somehow, the fire of her temper burning a little lower, less all-consuming.
In the end, she walks back to the campfire, of course she does. Whatever Geralt may think of her, she won’t let him or Ciri down again; she knows it, but apparently they still bloody don’t. When she emerges from the woods, Ciri looks surprised, but then she smiles, and Yennefer feels the pressure inside her ease. She’s needed, but she wants to be wanted there too, and when Ciri scoots over on her seat of moss and pats the ground beside her, Yennefer is grateful.
Geralt, for his part, says nothing, but he hands her a spit of meat and a flask that contains some sort of liquor. It makes her cough, but warms her up nicely.
“What’s in that thing?” Ciri laughs as Yennefer wipes at her eyes. “He won’t let me have any.”
“I don’t think mere humans could survive this,” Yennefer says. “It’s awful.”
“Best brandy to be had in Kaer Morhen.”
“No wonder you Witchers are always in such a bad mood.”
Geralt grunts. “Give it back then.”
“No.” Yennefer takes another long drink, which goes down more smoothly. “It suits.” A bitter sip to swallow, and then a lasting, deep burn on the aftertaste. What else would they be drinking on a journey like this? Certainly not apple juice.
Her life could’ve been so easy, Yennefer thinks. There never used to be a power great and inspiring enough to make her want to serve. She used to be beholden to no one, didn’t care for politics, alliances, even friendships. She was mistress of herself, and now she isn’t. Damn Tissaia for dragging her back into the messes of mages, and damn Geralt for making her care.
He didn’t play fair when he used that djinn’s wish against her even if he’ll claim otherwise. But it’s no matter now that there’s Ciri. Yennefer used to think herself the centre of her own universe, the bright, shining star that would turn everything and everyone close to it to ash if they didn’t submit and orbit around her at a proper distance. But she burned herself out summoning that fire, quite literally as it turned out, and now it’s beginning to feel like she just might not be destined to achieve greatness, only to help facilitate it. Frustration makes her ache just as much as the burden of responsibility that is suddenly upon her.
The power that is once again at her fingertips is great and terrible, and yet, Ciri is meant to surpass her. There is no doubt about it in Yennefer’s mind; she’s seen the girl’s magic, has felt it and never been surer of anything. Ciri will be the all-powerful sorceress Yennefer dreamed of being, and though it fills her with wistfulness, there is pride there too.
Is that what it is to be a mother? Yennefer doesn’t dare think it, not when she has so long to go to even gain the girl’s friendship, never mind her love, but suddenly she knows she can’t but try. For all of Yennefer’s power, there never used to be a purpose to it, and now there is.
Not that that makes it any easier to figure out where to go with it. No, if anything, the stakes are raised, and Yennefer feels it keenly when she wakes that night to the girl’s cries and there’s nothing she or Geralt or anyone can do about it. The helplessness hurts worst of all.
“It’s all right,” Geralt tells Ciri over and over and over, stroking her head with big, gentle hands, but Ciri won’t stop shaking.
“No, it’s not!”
Geralt sighs into her hair. “You don’t need to be scared. There are no monsters here.”
“Yes th-there is. M-me!” Cirilla grows more and more agitated. “I’m afraid I m-might d-dream and…d-do terrible things. H-hurt you in your sleep. L-like the others.”
“No.”
“But I can feel it,” she cries. “That force. Sometimes it feels like I’m going to burst at the seams with it.”
“Then perhaps you should let it out.” They both look around at Yennefer as if they’d forgotten she was there, and truly, she hadn’t meant to speak until it just came out, the idea. “It’s not so unlike tiring yourself out sparring.”
Ciri looks unconvinced. “H-how?”
This is what she’s here for, Yennefer thinks, this is what only she can do. Only a small thing, a tiny pebble to lay into the foundation of the mighty tower she toppled and which needs rebuilding, but it’s a start. She feels around the ground and finds a rock, then digs through Geralt’s saddlebags for the herbs they collected on the way. They’re wilted, but there’s still enough life in them for her purpose.
She moves over to Ciri and holds out both items. The girl has stopped crying for sheer befuddlement, a small victory. She’s still clinging to Geralt, fists wrapped in his shirt, and seems quite unwilling to let go. “What’s that?”
“One of the first spells I was ever taught when I learned to channel magic,” Yennefer says. “Levitate a rock.”
“Whatever for?” Ciri asks.
Yennefer smiles. Smart girl. “So you can learn how it feels, observe the toll it takes. Here--” She demonstrates it, the sad little plant withering and crumbling to dust in her hand.
Cirilla draws in a deep, shuddering breath, but she lets go of Geralt and takes the rock and a wilted dandelion leaf. She holds it up. “What if I don’t use this? Will I hurt myself?”
“Yes,” Yennefer says ruefully. Not the best thing to tell a girl who’s fraught with anxiety and self-loathing. Geralt glares at her, clearly thinking the same thing.
“Ciri,” he starts, but Yennefer holds up a hand and he falls silent.
Her sleeve falls back, exposing the scars at her wrist. Even in the low light of the dying fire, they stand out starkly against her pale skin, a reminder forever of what she’s overcome.
She looks at Ciri and can see understanding in the girl’s frown. “Why’d you do that to yourself?”
“Why indeed?” Yennefer asks back, and after a moment, Ciri nods.
With a determined snuffle, she scoots closer to Yennefer and holds out the rock and plant. “Tell me the words again?”
The first three attempts fail.
“It’s not that you don’t have the power,” Yennefer tells Ciri when the girl spits in frustration after the fourth try. “No; it’s that you have too much of it.”
“That makes no sense at all!” Ciri slams the rock against the ground, and the ground shakes.
To have that kind of power, Yennefer thinks, and has to smile. “It’s controlling you. You need to be controlling it.”
Ciri glares at her. “But how?”
“You can try to swim against a current, but it’ll always sweep you along in the end, when you’re spent.”
“Enough with the fucking poetry!” Cirilla snaps, angry, and she’s so much Geralt’s mirror image at that moment that Yennefer bursts out laughing.
“Careful now, you know what happens when you scream.” Maybe this is what Ciri needs, someone who can appreciate her power and still make light of it. She glances at Geralt, who’s sat back and is watching them with a frown on his face that looks like it’s been etched there for perpetuity. “People will look at you and think you father and daughter, truly.”
“What people?” Ciri asks moodily. “There’s not a soul within a day’s ride. I can’t be trusted around anyone, apparently.”
“More like, they can’t be trusted around you,” Geralt growls.
“You’ll learn. And then you’ll be able to protect yourself and others.” Carefully, Yennefer raises the girl’s hand between them again and tugs until Ciri uncurls her fingers, one by one. The pebble lies in her palm, innocuous. “Now. Swim in the direction the river takes you.”
“I can’t. It’ll pull me under.” There’s fear in the girl’s voice, and Yennefer suddenly remembers that Ciri was trapped inside her own mind, under the heavy weight of magic, when Voleth Meir possessed her.
“No,” she says. “It’ll carry you if you let it. Make it do the work of taking you where you want to go.”
There are tears in Ciri’s eyes again. “But I don’t know where I want to go.”
“For now,” Yennefer tells her, “You want this stone to hover. That’s it.”
Ciri focuses in on the pebble. “All right,” she says, “all right,” and then, suddenly, magically, the stone hovers above her hand as the plant shrivels and dies in the other.
Surprised, Cirilla gasps. Her hand shakes, and the pebble starts to wobble in the air.
“Easily,” Yennefer says, “gently. Never give of yourself if you can help it.”
Ciri’s voice comes as if from far away. “And if you can’t help it?”
Yennefer thinks of Sodden, of the fire burning within and without. “Be sure it’s worth it.”
The girl’s focus shifts back to her, and the spell is broken. The stone drops back into Ciri’s hand. “Yes,” she says, wondrously. “I see.”
Geralt huffs. He lays a blanket around Ciri’s shoulders, tucking the girl underneath it as well as his arm, and scowls determinedly at Yennefer. “You should’ve left it at ‘Never give of yourself’.”
“What’s the point of my power if I don’t use it?” Ciri turns her head to peer up at him, suddenly looking small in her blanket.
“You should use it,” he says gruffly. “But only in a way that doesn’t hurt you.”
There’s a balance that’s hard to strike. “Magic will always come at a price. As you and I both know,” Yennefer says.
“A price Ciri shouldn’t have to pay,” he says through his teeth.
Yennefer smiles. “It doesn’t usually come with a choice. And especially not when you have power like Ciri does.”
He lets out a sigh like the weight of the world is crushing him, but then he nods. “Be safe about it. Both of you.”
Ciri frowns at him. “But you never play safe!”
Geralt has the grace to look sheepish even as he says, “That’s different.”
“Why? Because you’re a man?”
“Because I’m much less important than you.”
Ciri shakes her head. “You’re important to me.”
The words echo inside Yennefer’s soul. He grunts something that sounds like a curse, but then he reaches out and ruffles Ciri’s hair like she’s a puppy and he can’t resist. “Well. We’ll just have to take care of each other, hm? I’ll be careful if you’ll be careful?”
Ciri nods, and a bargain is struck.