Chapter Text
They had to improvise, the ceremony and the rituals. The tumulus all around them made her heart ache in the worst of ways. So many deaths all around, so much pain sailing up from the ground. And all of that could’ve been avoided.
Her hands itched and burned with the need to make things right. To find Ciri. To make this whole nightmare go away, or to go back in time and avoid it all the same. But first this, first they had to commemorate and grief.
Yennefer watched every pair of eyes attach and then detach, fill themself with guilt and then anger, it was a circle and it was written, but it hurt nonetheless. She didn’t really know any of these young girls, but once she had been one of them. Once she had been young, scared, not sure where this strange place would take her.
She had been angry too, at everything and mostly at everyone. Mostly at her rectoress. But it was always deeper than that, more complicated to simplify it with a single word. Anger was a simple emotion, it was not enough.
Now here she was, called to take hand in hand her sisters and try to make sense of all of this. Yennefer could hold the fort while Tissaia got back on her feet again.
Picturing her defeated glance, her hollow cheeks, her stare pointed down with the new white locks, was hard and it made her heart ache all over again, even worse than before.
That man, that fucking demon, took too much out of her. He took something that Yennefer could’ve sworn on it’s immortality with her life, he took her fight and her pride.
The proud Rectoress of Aretuza, high arch mistress of magic, beating heart of the Chapter of the Gift and Craft (well now formal), crippled by a single sorcerer action.
Vilgefortz had taken too much, left Geralt in half and Ciri scattered on the Continent. Her hands started to burn again, she’ll burn him until there will be nothing left but ashes and satisfaction.
She was not coming down too, to join the ceremony, as she said that she would.
Yennefer could still feel the warmth and desperation of that single embrace, could still feel the hand gently holding her nape and then putting a lock of hair behind her hair. It was the most gentle touch they had ever shared, but it was desperate too. She was desperate to tether that woman back with her, with the need of her, of her guide.
Tissaia had smiled at her then, brief and tight, but it was still a smile. Yennefer had worked her whole life around Tissaia’s smiles, trying to get one, and they’ve been few and very far in between.
But she had smiled this time, it had to mean something-
Flowers were descending from the ceiling. No, not flowers, white petals . She opened her hand and a few fell right on her palm, a dark cloud started to obstruct her throat. A clear reminiscent of so long ago, of white flowers in her hand turning to dust.
She felt a stab of pain through her wrists, along the scars, and she heard something deep inside her break in so many pieces.
Then she was running, running and crawling up the stairs as if she had no lungs to obey to, as if she had no heart to slow down. The whisper in her mouth was a “no, no, no, no, please no”, the stairs were infinite, she saw no ending and just ran faster.
The voices from behind were nothing but white noise, the only rumor she heard was her own wild pumping heart, the air leaving her lungs in bursts that almost hurt.
She sprung the door open, feeling hot all over, hot and crippling with a freezing cold that sent shivers up her spine.
The blood spreading on the paved gray floor came first in her eyes. It was a red so dark it could morph into black. Her own blood rushed all to the head and, when she saw white hair near the red-black pool, she was already scrambling to the floor, reaching out with arms and hands stretched.
Tears were filling her eyes, a sob starting from her throat. She had Tissaia on her lap in a blink of an eye, slitted wrists in her hands. There was so much blood, too much blood outside her body and pooling on the floor.
The sob left her mouth, it was a pathetic sound, but not defeated, not yet.
Yennefer went with her guts and sealed the open wounds, cauterizing them with her chaos. It was going to be such an ugly sight, ugly scars on those delicate wrists, she was no healer.
Her own were neat, red lines on her skin, but Tissaia was the one with the control and the precision.
She was crying, hot salty tears descending on her cheeks, the woman she thought as immortal as time dying on her lap.
Tissaia didn’t even flinch when she burned her wrists, and it had to hurt, then she grasped at them with much more force than she should. But it was all slipping from her fingers, all those mages, then Ciri and Geralt, now this.
Now this.
She felt like without her Chaos all over again, empty and terrorized. She was screaming her throat hoarse in that forest all over again.
Her guide, the bane of her existence, the peak of all her emotions, was laying almost dead and she could do nothing but bathe her hands in her warm blood.
She couldn’t breathe, everything hurt like a flesh wound and the adrenaline was still running around her body. What about after?
Her fingers trembled while holding burned wrists. Tissaia had slit her wrists vertically and deep, of course she did, she wished to die and knew how to do it fast enough.
Yennefer couldn’t find the courage to feel for her pulse. What if she did and there was none? What if she lost her for all eternity?
She stared at closed eyelids. Tissaia looked peaceful, like she was sleeping. And she had no right to look so at peace while Yennefer was about to reach inside her own stern to throw her own heart out. Maybe that would hurt less.
She had no right to look so pleased while Yennefer was a step away from crumbling down in a bottomless pit, in the void.
Her fingernails were shaking and she could still not find the courage to end it all.
She cradled Tissaia in her arms, trying to not taint the white curls with her bloody hands. They looked sacred, pure, still alive. Putting her forehead on top of hers, as gentle as she could, she felt it still warm and exhaled a sob more.
The Rectoress was so fucking small in her arms, it felt unreal, it felt impossible. The center of all that power, that amount of Chaos that called lightning from her hands, barely filling her arms.
She sobbed again, tears creating a waterfall on her chin, and maybe she was going insane.
That was how Triss and the others found her, holding a dying Tissaia to her chest and crying her eyes out.
She saw Triss’s knees almost give out but the healer got the best of her, and she went to them. «Is she?»
Yennefer shook her head, arms tightening around the little weight in them. «I-I don’t know.» She was such a coward.
“I don’t want to know.” She wanted to scream, because once they know it was forever, there was no going back.
But Triss was already acting and caught a wrist in her hand, the other going up and on her neck, pushing two fingers in the pale skin.
There was silence, so much silence, she forgot how to breathe.
Then Triss let out a sigh so long she felt it in her own lungs. «It’s very weak, but it’s there. You did a good job with the wounds and stopped the blood. Hopefully just in time.»
Please, please, please be just in time.
She nodded, not knowing what to do with any part of her body, just holding the weight on her lap closer to her, chin on snow white forehead. Yennefer found so much respect for her friend in these moments, she saw her usually calm self became crucial and reactive.
Her lungs were getting air again, but her arms refused to let go. Triss was staring at her now, as one would stare at a wounded animal. Perhaps she was a wounded animal.
«We need to put her on the bed, then we’ll see what we can do for the blood loss.» Her voice was calm, so calm, it started to grit on her nerves.
They needed to move, but her limbs wouldn’t move an inch.
«Yennefer.» It was Margarita, she was speaking from above them, panic swirling in her eyes.
She could smell only the disgusting metallic after taste of blood, and she could also feel it in her mouth, on her tongue. There was nothing left of the light marine and pressed flowers scent that Tissaia brought around with her all the time. It was sickening. Her stomach protested.
«Let’s put her on the bed.» It was still firm, but still gentle, as if she was talking to a child.
The irritation, more than anything else, made her finally move. With Triss' help they get Tissaia up, still very much in her arms, still weighing much less than she thought.
The bed was a few steps away and she cradled the body in her arms, making sure the lifeless head was against her shoulder and not hanging back into nothing. She’d never allow that. She shook Triss’s arms away, eyes staring in closed ones.
She put Tissaia on the bed, watching the burned wrists staring back at her in a flaming red, accusing. «You would’ve done a far better job, Triss.» All her strength and all she could say was a whisper.
The red head was already checking the pulse again, and enchanting the wounds, making the skin less red, less angry. «Nonsense, you did an emergency act Yen, you did wonderful. You saved her.»
She was barely holding herself up, her legs barely working to keep her up. In her head there was only noise, only nonsense and anger and too much.
«You think she’ll recover?» It was stronger than a whisper but it scared her far more.
Margarita and Sabrina were at her side, one petrified the other with wet blue eyes.
«I am going to make a potion, a speed recovery one and we shall see. The pulse is very weak.» Her shoulder fell, her heart touched her stomach and she was going to be sick.
Then hands were on her shoulders and they were pushing, forceful. «No, if you are going to be sick, you will not do that here!» It was Sabrina and she was being turned around and pushed her on her knees, and under her head was a bucket.
She dry heaved in the bucket for a moment before vomiting bile and spitting it too. The bitter taste made her almost vomit again. Sabrina groaned above her, but held her hair back.
«Alright, I am alright.» She spat again and put the bucket away, grimacing at the bile burning her throat. «I am alright.»
A hand was caressing her hair, more tapping than everything, and it was Sabrina. «She’s going to be fine, what are a few slits to Tissaia De Vries.»
“Deadly, they are deadly.” She desperately wanted to say it but swallowed it back, with bile and saliva and all of that. «Fuck, how dare she.» Was what went out. «How dare she, to leave us on our own!»
«Yen.» Triss had gotten up from the bed and Yennefer could only clean her face with her hand and stare at the figure on it, unmoving, almost lifeless. «Yen, this is not the moment.»
And when it was going to be?
«I told her we needed her, that I needed her!» And she was still crying, and her throat hurt from both vomiting and that. What a fucking mess. «She was going to leave us, leave me! Just like that.» She cleaned her tears away, mostly proud of remembering to do so. «Just like that.» Her voice went away in a whisper that was almost a silence.
She avoided all the looks and stares she was getting, and dragged herself to the side of the bed where Tissaia was. Her forces left her all together and she fell on her butt, her back laying on the bed, breathing hard. «Go.»
Nobody moved and she grimaced. «Go make that potion or whatever we need to make her better. I’ll be watching over her. I’ll stay here.» Her voice never sounded more small and angry at the same time.
They were speaking to each other, she wasn’t hearing any of that. Nothing was flying past the angry noises in her mind, her head held up to watch Tissaia’s chest rise and fall, it was weak and far between.
Like her smiles.
«How dare she.» She muttered under her breath, feeling drained of all her strength.
Her hands were still red with blood, her nose could still smell only blood. She wiped them on her dress and stared at the figure on the bed.
Nobody moved. «I said go! She needs all the help she can get.»
Then, finally, she heard steps and a closed door. Her neck bent in an arch and her head got to rest on the mattress.
Triss and Margarita came back with a vial, and they found her as they left her, back on the bed and legs stretched on the floor, head turned to look at the woman on the bed.
«She didn’t move, not even her eyelids, nothing.» Yennefer had watched, eyes of a hawk, aeger for every flinch, anything really. Then she watched the vial, the dark green color of the liquid in it. «She can’t drink that Triss, if she’s not awake.»
Everyone was going stupid, and Tissaia was gone for less than half an hour.
Rita went to check the pulse and threw a glare at her, but Triss, gentle Triss, came to her to squeeze her shoulder. «I know that Yen, I am not a beginner.» Then Sabrina came with a pot full of water, steam coming out of it. «She’ll inhale it while breathing, it is our best chance of helping her, even a little.»
Correction: everyone was not going stupid, she was .
«Her pulse is still very weak.» Margarita was on the other side of the bed, holding a very pale hand, applying an ointment to the red ugly slit on her wrist, then wrapping it with bandages.
Her knees came up under her chin, she felt like a child again, fourteen and scared of wherever it was coming.
«I should’ve imagined something like that. She was too closed off, too in control. I should’ve thought that this was a likely possibility.» Yennefer groaned, so low to scratch her throat, because she should’ve thought about that too. «Yennefer you saw her last.»
It did not sound like an accusation, Margarita would never do something like that, but all her blood was boiling up.
«She must’ve forgotten to mention that she was going to slit her wrists! What can we do?» Her shoulders felt so rigid that they could snap.
Sabrina put the pot down a little bit too hard and scoffed. There was something wet in her voice, something she never really heard. «Nobody is accusing you, you imbecile. We just want to know if she said something.»
She knew that already, but her skin was burning and she was feeling restless, and Tissaia’s stomach was even slower in its rise and fall.
“My pain is your pain.” That’s what she said, but that was between them, too personal to share. Her wrists hurt too. And your pain is my pain too, you sociopath.
«Nothing that matters.» She said instead, praying that they won’t hunt her further. She couldn't take it.
There was almost a general sigh, a resigned one.
«How can we know that this remedy is working?» She should be searching for Ciri, searching for Geralt, and yet she couldn’t move from her pathetic spot at the side of this bed, her eyes pointed at closed ones.
Triss put the vial in the water and she felt a string of Chaos warm the water even more. «She has to survive the night, if she’s still alive tomorrow then she'd be mostly out of danger.»
She didn’t sound optimistic at all, and Yennefer wasn’t one either.
«I can’t feel her Chaos.» She whispered almost in her knees. That too was destroying her hopes. Even with her lungs filled with dimeritium, in Sodden, with her knees on the ground and blood descending from her head, even then Yennefer was able to trace her Chaos.
Not sensing it in the air? Swirling with her own in a practiced dance? That was terrifying.
A warm hand was back on her shoulder, squeezing, comforting. «I know. But she’s strong, give her time.»
She wanted to scream, to crawl at the wall, no one understood anything. «She doesn’t want to live! She won’t fight, how can’t you see that?»
Someone behind them gasped. It was Sabrina surely, no sorceress with dignity would gasp like a damsel in distress.
«Oh cut it! We are not that naive, but bringing us all down won’t do any good. Now get up from there and find something useful to do!»
She was going to snap, because they betrayed Tissaia too. They conspired against her too, and this was their fault too. She really was going to go all out, but when she turned around Sabrina was cleaning the blood on the ground. Eyes still wet, rag in her hand already red. Her mind shut itself down.
They stared at each other. «You can get mad at her when she wakes up!»
If she wakes up.
Her jaw was so tight that it was going to break. «I do whatever I want to do!»
The blonde scoffed at her, a rumor of water in the background. Why was she doing it by hand and not using her magic?
The hand on her shoulders never left and she was grateful for it. «Now it’s not the moment to fight between ourselves. She wouldn’t want that from us, she’d expect better.»
That was it, she was done. Something dark and roaring rumbled inside like a fast tide. «Than she shouldn't have slit her fucking wrists!» Then she was up, a storm inside her stomach.
“You weren’t taking control, you were losing it.” Everything you ever said was never really meant for you too huh? What an hypocrite.
«Yen-»
She left the room with the need to burn everything to the ground. «Just keep watching her.» They said something in return but she had her ears full of a whistle and a roar, and it wouldn’t go away.
The Rectoress of Aretuza didn’t wake up, and did not even flinch all day. They were going in the night, the Sun was already down and the stars were coming up.
Yennefer had come back not even half hour later, and had been on the empty side of the bed since, staring at the up and down of a weak chest.
«You should get some rest Yen, I can watch her tonight.»
Her eyes hurt from the need to keep them open. «You can stay too if you want Triss, but I am not moving from here.»
And she should move, she had so much to do, but her body just won’t. That bed was really comfortable too, soft but firm. Well, only the best for the rectoress. If she thought about the thing they called bed when she was a young scholar…
It was better than the pigsty thought. Well, everything was better than the pigsty.
The red head was fidgeting with a piece of paper, and not watching her face. «What is it?» She fidget some more, evading her gaze. «Triss, what is it?» She could take anything now, nothing was going to shock her more.
The other woman got a big breath, and trembled into it. «We-, well, Sabrina found this on Tissaia’s desk while cleaning up earlier.» It was a piece of paper folded in three, nothing written on the outside. «It-it’s for you.»
«For me?» Her mind shut off, just blanc, black turning into nothing. «What does it mean for me? From who?»
Triss just let her take it in her hand, one of them was shaking, or perhaps both were. «We weren’t sure if to give it to you. But I think you need to know. It’s from Tissaia to you.»
The paper fell on the bed sheet and she got it again, fingers caressing the slightly rough fabric. Her eyes went to the other side of the bed and then up. She hoped to not look begging.
Triss just smiled at her and then went out, leaving her with the heaviest piece of paper ever in her hand.
She opened it a dozen times, without the courage to read a single word, before she decided to stop being a coward. It was indeed Tissaia's elegant and secure handwriting. Practical, fast but so pretty.
Piglet,
It was only one word and she was already choking on it. Memories were assaulting her, but she managed to go forward, eyes burning while reading.
Teaching you has been the biggest bright spot of my life .
She had to close her eyes at that, her heart was beating against the stern as if it wished to break it. She couldn’t believe it, this was not real.
Like when Vilgefortz had said that Tissaia considered her one of her best students just to get her to Aretuza. That hurt too. She’ll kill him for that too.
There is a cost I must pay. Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and the best thing it could do to us is die.
She almost screamed out loud at that, gripping the paper so tight in her hands. She wanted to break it into a million pieces and burn it, watch the ashes take place and cancel everything. But she folded it back, tears streaming again on her cheeks, and tucked it in one of her dress’s pockets.
Tissaia had to wake up, because she had a lot of explaining and things to get accounted for when she did.
«You better wake up, because I am following you wherever you are going otherwise.» It was a promise, and a threat, made to no one but herself and the silence.
There was a strong light that made her vision almost gold behind the eyelids, with flashes of darkest colors and voices in the background. It was so hard to open her eyes but she finally did it, and everything was too bright and every part of her body hurt. An ache, more than acute pain.
Her wrists hurt more, like the pain was concentrated there.
«Tissaia? Oh Melitele she’s awake!» That was Triss' voice.
Distinguishing the shadows was getting easier and now she found herself between two. Triss was at one side, hand grasping hers, beaming at her. She turned her head, with some difficulty, and at the other was Yennefer with dark circles under her stone eyes and anger written all over her face.
Then it all came back to her in a short flash. Her eyes closed shut again, all the pain coming back tenfold. The embarrassment, the shame, the guilt, the betrayal of her own body.
How was that even possible? She was to die, she made sure of that.
She was sure of that.
Tissaia tried to open her mouth, that was difficult too, but she managed. No other muscles of her body were moving. Everything was out of her control.
«How are you feeling? Oh you worried us so much.»
Yennefer was not speaking, she was just staring. There was betrayal there too.
«How? Why?» Her voice was the weakest she ever heard, it came out hoarse and low.
There was only silence coming from her right side. Angry silence coming in waves. «Y-Yennefer found you just in time. She closed the wounds.»
Her eyes would not open again, her lungs were filled with heavy stones.
No, that was supposed to be her price to pay. She was supposed to be nothing, at rest. At rest from the shame, from the failure. The old Chapter should’ve died with her.
«You had no right.» It came out even more crooked, more broken than before and she heard Triss freeze.
«You had no right to abandon us to this mess.» Yennefer’s voice was broken too, and she understood that but she had no right .
Her strength was minimal, but her eyes opened again to stare at the amethysts ones. They were as hard as they could get, as she’d seen them. «You should’ve respected my choice. I am done, the old guard is done.»
«You should rest Tissaia, this is not the moment-»
«That’s easy ah, that’s very easy. What was it? You were losing control, you were not making a choice.»
Her own words slapped back in her face. «You were a child! You had all your life ahead and didn’t know it. I lived centuries, I can decide when it’s enough!» Even trying to make herself heard was hard, her voice came out as whispers, as hushed stabs and nothing more.
But Yennefer was listening to every word, it was written in every hard line on her chiseled face.
She watched her rise up from the bed, a storm of limbs and black dress. Had she watched over her? For how much time?
«No. No you don’t get to go so easy. No. I burned hundreds of men in their armors to save you , to keep you safe. Did you think a couple of stab wounds would be too much for me? I decide when it’s enough!» She was being shouted at, again.
How dare she?
The words made her mouth open in a silent protest. When she went to speak again, to make clear that was unthinkable her head went dizzy, the room turned on itself.
«That’s enough Yennefer! She needs to rest and recover, stop agitating her!»
Tissaia wanted to counter that, she had enough spite to answer, but her eyes started to close on their own. The last thing she saw was Yennefer going out of the door, then all went black again.