Chapter Text
“You’re that bard!”
Jaskier only pauses for a second before slipping on his most charming smile and sweeping a bow to the woman behind the tavern’s bar. She’s pointing at him, excitement bright in her eyes, and before he can get a word in edgeways she says, “Jaskier, that’s your name! You came through here a year or so ago, I remember you. You played all night, got us the best takings we’d had in months.”
Jaskier doesn’t particularly remember performing in this particular little tavern on the back roads of Redania, but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t. “And it was my honour to do so, fair lady,” he says, taking her hand and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. A little flirting never hurt anyone and, well, if it’ll get them decent service in the arse end of nowhere, all the better.
“Will you play for us again tonight?” the woman asks, grabbing his hand and squeezing a little too tight for his liking. “Please. We can offer you rooms at a discounted rate, especially if you bring in as much custom as you did before.” Her face falls, just a little. “The war is hard on us all,” she says, a sigh in her voice and a slump in her shoulders that Jaskier has been a thousand times in the last few months. “Like now. It’s springtime, the sun is shining: we should be packed. But instead?” She gestures at the tavern, only a few handfuls of patrons scattered around the surprisingly clean interior. “It’s like this. But if you played for us?”
She squeezes tighter, and Jaskier fights back a wince. “I don’t know that I can,” he says, then indicates his throat with his free hand. “My voice is still recovering from a recent illness – I’m not sure—”
“Please,” the woman begs. “Food and drinks, too. As much as you can eat.”
A muscle jumps in Jaskier’s jaw. “I’m not travelling alone,” he says apologetically, “and I hate to think how much my companions would consume – they’re bottomless pits, both of them.”
“Food for all of you, then,” the woman says, “and drinks for yourself. And a discount on the room.” She pauses, takes his hand in both of hers. “I beg you.”
Ah, shit.
“Of course,” Jaskier says, trying not to wince. “I can’t promise the quality, though.” He extricates his hand from hers, rubs at his throat. “I’m really not on top form at the moment.”
She waves aside his objections. “Whatever you do, I’m sure it will be brilliant,” she says, beaming, and presses an iron room key into his hand. “Thank you, bard. Really.”
Jaskier smiles as warmly as he can, bows again, and heads to give Geralt the bad news.
Geralt’s in the stables with Ciri and Roach, predictably, because of course he doesn’t trust the stablehand to do his job properly. He’s getting Roach settled, unloading her saddlebags and passing them to Ciri, whose hood is pulled up around her face despite the warmth of the spring weather. It’s actually drawing more attention to her than having it down, if Jaskier’s honest, but he knows that it’s a habit she’s got into that’s hard to break – and, well, it does hide her distinctively ash-blond hair. “Geralt!” Jaskier says brightly, fiddling with the strap of his lute case. “So, good news: the room is going to be very cheap.”
Geralt eyes him. “And the bad news?”
Jaskier’s lips press into a tight line. “I’m performing tonight.”
Ciri’s green eyes are bright. “I thought we were supposed to be laying low,” she says, and the accusing tone in her voice is so much like Geralt that it makes Jaskier smile. “Not drawing attention to ourselves?”
“Yes, we were,” Geralt agrees, giving Roach a final pat and slinging his swords over his shoulder. His gaze is level.
Jaskier scoffs. “Like we can really not draw attention to ourselves when you insist on going around with those swords and that scowl.”
Geralt looks offended. “What’s wrong with my swords?”
“Nothing, they’re very subtle,” Jaskier says, and Ciri snorts. “But I wasn’t being conspicuous, actually. I just walked in to see if we could get one of their rooms and the barmaid recognised me – apparently I played here some time last year, not that I actually remember.”
“And she forced you at knifepoint to perform,” Geralt says drily.
“It was more emotional blackmail, if I’m honest,” Jaskier says, “but yeah, pretty much.” He flashes the key in his hand. “We’ve got a discounted room, free food for all three of us, and all my drinks are on the house. We’ll be out of here first thing in the morning anyway, and it’s not like this is going to be big performance – I’ll be singing in the corner of the tavern, it’s not exactly fancy.”
Geralt studies him for a moment. “I don’t like it,” he says.
“Neither do I,” Jaskier says, as serious as he can manage, dropping his voice. “But we’re not far from Yennefer now, are we – what, a couple of towns to go? She wouldn’t pick a meeting place in a Nilfgaard-controlled area, not when so many people are looking for us.” He smiles at Ciri, reaches out and takes her hand. “You’ll be fine,” he says to her, reassuring and warm. “Don’t worry.”
“You should have said no,” Geralt says.
Jaskier sighs. “Honestly, I think it would have caused more of a commotion if I’d refused,” he says. “And I did try, Geralt. But the lovely lady behind the bar wasn’t about to take no for an answer.” He shrugs. “I’ll sing badly, play even worse, and hopefully they’ll boo me offstage before long.”
Geralt hums, clearly not happy about the whole situation – but, to be honest, he’s been wearing the same I don’t like this look pretty much since they left Kaer Morhen. Jaskier’s used to it by now. Geralt huffs to himself, grumbles, “You couldn’t sing badly if you tried.”
Jaskier laughs. “I love how you take something that would be a compliment on anyone else’s lips and turn it into an insult,” he says, but he knows Geralt doesn’t mean anything by it, not really. Or at least he thinks he doesn’t. “I’ll keep it short, I promise. And hey, maybe if all eyes are on me, no one will be looking at the father and his adorable daughter in the corner.”
Geralt hums again, unconvinced.
“Food will be good,” Ciri says. “Especially if it’s actual food, not that horrid hard tack.”
Geralt frowns at her. “What’s wrong with hard tack?”
Jaskier grins. “So many things,” he says. “Now, Fiona – shall we go investigate our lovely discounted room?”
Ciri nods. “I think we should.”
Jaskier leads Ciri back to the tavern, starkly aware of the tendrils of ash-blonde hair that escape her hood, and knows in his bones that Geralt will follow.
The room is small but clean, with two narrow beds and a low table in one corner. There’s a basin of cool water on the table and they use it to clean as much as is really worth it, given that they’ll just be getting filthy again on the dusty roads in the morning. Ciri seems to enjoy scrubbing dirt out from under her nails, though, so Jaskier isn’t going to complain. He retrieves his lute from its case, strums a few chords then frowns at the tuning, adjusts a couple of the pegs, strums again. “That’s better,” he says, half to himself, then looks up to find Geralt watching him, a softness in his golden eyes that Jaskier still hasn’t quite got used to seeing directed at him. Geralt doesn’t look away, either, just holds his gaze until Jaskier finds himself fucking blushing—which is, frankly, ridiculous, because he’s seen Geralt in far more compromising positions than this lately without ever blushing—and then the bastard just smiles.
Jaskier feels his heart twist in his chest.
Ciri makes a noise of disgust that, Jaskier notes with interest, is remarkably similar to the noises that Eskel makes when confronted with the olfactory evidence of their night-time activities. “Can you please stop staring at each other?” she asks, full of the petulance of a royal child. “I’m hungry.”
“She has a point,” Geralt rumbles.
Jaskier feels an attack of the dramatics coming on. “You were the one who was staring at me,” he points out, as arch as he can manage when there’s such unbelievable softness wrapped around his heart. “I take no responsibility for the staring.”
“He only stares because you give him something to stare at,” Ciri observes bluntly, and before Jaskier can fully parse what she means by that, she’s dragging them both out of the room and downstairs. Jaskier mainly just tries to protect his lute from the worst of Ciri’s roughhousing and is inordinately glad when Geralt gently but firmly detaches her hand from Jaskier’s wrist, slowing her headlong plunge into the tavern with a hand on her shoulder.
“Stay close to me,” he says. “Don’t draw attention to yourself, okay?”
“I know, I know,” Ciri says, her tone far more bored than it is accepting, and Geralt glances at Jaskier with exasperation in his eyes before following Ciri into the tavern’s main room.
Jaskier isn’t entirely sure how he ended up helping to basically raise a Cintran princess who’s currently being sought after by half the continent, but to be honest he imagines it’s not actually that different to raising any teenager whose freedoms are significantly curtailed. A lot of strops and complaining – although, admittedly, most normal parents don’t have to deal with semi-regular skirmishes with Nilfgaardian patrols and bone-trembling nightmares. And, of course, the literal tremors in the earth and the trees and the mountains that come along with those nightmares. It’s a lot, sometimes too much, but Ciri is bright and smart and scared and Jaskier would rather die than let her down.
“Go on,” Geralt says, annoyance warring with that new softness in his eyes. “Sing your songs. There’ll be food waiting for you when you’re done.” – and then, slowly, carefully, because they’re still slow and careful sometimes, when they have to be, he reaches out, presses a touch to Jaskier’s wrist, warm and firm.
Jaskier carries that warmth with him through his performance, buoying his heart bright and open in his chest.
The woman that he’s assuming owns this particular little tavern is right, as it turns out: the inn fills rapidly as Jaskier sings, throwing out the kind of easy, high-spirited ballads that tend to fit best with bright spring days like today. There’s a regular little crowd by the time he’s finished, feet tapping along and coins flashing in their hands on their way to his purse. The bar’s doing a roaring trade, as well, and when Jaskier finally manages to make his excuses and slip away, most of the patrons are well on their way to sliding-under-the-table drunk. He sketches a brief bow to the owner of the tavern, then weaves his way back to the table that Geralt’s sitting at with Ciri, tucked away in a half-hidden corner of the main room. There’s a bowl of some kind of generic stew and a mug of ale waiting for him, and he chatters happily to Ciri as he eats, explaining the story behind one of the legendary stories he sang, elaborating on the myths of the birth of the cockatrice, telling the story of this one time that Geralt fought a cockatrice, somewhere in Kaedwen, was it, Geralt? – and he slipped in a pile of its dung, lost his grip on his sword, and I had to go rushing in to save him, all very heroic.
Geralt snorts. “That’s not quite how I remember it.”
Jaskier raises an eyebrow in challenge. “And how do you remember it?”
Geralt drinks before he answers. “You were so scared by the cockatrice that you fell backwards over a fallen log,” he says, quiet amusement threaded through his voice. “The squawk you made as you fell distracted me – and as I turned to check you hadn’t broken your neck or something equally idiotic, I slipped. At which point the cockatrice pinned me down and I had to shout for you to pass me my sword.”
Jaskier waves a dismissive hand. “Details.”
Ciri laughs. “Important details.”
“But still just details,” Jaskier says, flashing her his brightest smile. “It’s all well and good being a terrifying witcher-sorceress, but if you want to properly cultivate your public image, Fiona, you should really listen to me. It’s all about selecting the relevant facts that you want people to remember.”
“So you leave out the part where you fall over,” Ciri says, “and just talk about the part where Geralt fell over?”
Jaskier beams. “Exactly,” he says. “And always remember the bit about the dung – audiences love a bit of dung.”
Ciri nods, storing this all away. “This is what you did with Geralt, isn’t it?” she asks. “With your songs?”
“It’s what I tried to do, yes,” Jaskier answers, aware of Geralt’s gaze on him, level and steady. “The problem is that I’m fighting against, oh, several hundred years of prejudice against witchers. It’s harder.” He glances up at Geralt, flashes him a soft smile. “But I like a challenge.”
Ciri nods, storing that away, too.
They don’t spend too long in the tavern’s main room after Jaskier has finished his food, because nothing’s happened yet, sure, but it’s probably best not to push their luck – and, anyway, they’ve got an early start tomorrow. Ciri takes the smaller of the beds, curls up under the thin blanket and is asleep in moments. Jaskier’s pretty sure that she’s picked up the ability to fall asleep anywhere from the witchers—he’s seen Geralt do it enough times over the years, and Eskel had the same infuriating ability, too—and, if he’s honest, he’s a little jealous. There’s usually too much going on in his head for him to sleep quickly, and tonight he’s still a little wired from his performance, adrenaline and energy jittering through his limbs despite the darkness of the little room and the soft whisper of Ciri’s sleeping breathing. He washes his face in the basin, running wet hands through his hair, then lets out a long breath.
“Jaskier,” Geralt says, quiet enough that Ciri doesn’t stir. “Come here.”
For once, Jaskier does as he’s told.
The bed is narrow enough that one of them should really probably sleep on the floor for the sake of actually getting enough sleep that they won’t be exhausted tomorrow, but there’s no way that either of them is going to suggest it. Jaskier slips into bed and into Geralt’s arms, his back flush to Geralt’s chest, Geralt’s arm draped across his waist. They shift a little around each other until they’re as comfortable as they can be, then Jaskier feels Geralt press a soft, careful kiss to the back of his neck and, well, something loosens in his chest that he didn’t even realise was tight.
“Love you,” he hears Geralt murmur.
Jaskier smiles in the darkness of the room. “Love you,” he answers, and sleeps.
Jaskier is woken by the sound of screaming.
He starts awake so suddenly that he falls out of bed, thudding to the bare floorboards with a sharp cry. His first instinct is to reach for Ciri, to calm her, to hold her as she screams her way through the nightmares – but when he sees her, she’s bolt upright on her bed, eyes wide and lips pressed tight shut. Jaskier’s sleep-fogged brain doesn’t understand for a long moment, but then he sees Geralt, on his feet at the small window, staring out into the blackness of the night – and, oh, shit.
Screams in the night are never a good thing.
“Geralt?” Jaskier asks as quietly as he can manage, scrambling to his feet, going to Ciri and taking her trembling hand in his.
“Soldiers,” Geralt answers, clipped and short. “Two score at least.”
Jaskier’s stomach drops, because now that he’s listening, he can hear it, too: boots stamping on the ground, the rustle of weaponry, the sound of low conversation, hushed voices. “Nilfgaard?” he asks.
“Can’t tell,” Geralt says. “But we can’t risk it.” He moves away from the window, starts tugging on his clothes. “Get dressed, both of you. We’re leaving.”
Jaskier knows better than to argue.
He’s lacing up his trousers with unsteady hands when there’s a sudden flare of light from the small window, warm and flickering, and a bark of startled voices. Something seizes in his stomach and he looks up at Geralt, wide and panicked. “Is that—”
“Fire,” Geralt confirms, and then: “Fuck.” He grabs their bags, slings them over his shoulder. “Looks like it’s caught in the next building. We need to get out of here now.”
Jaskier’s not about to disagree. He shrugs into his doublet, grabs his lute, and follows Geralt and Ciri down the stairs – and his instinct tells him to make as little noise as possible, to sneak out of there without anyone noticing, but that’s really not an issue because there are voices behind every door, now, startled, alarmed, and the murmur of soldiers’ voices outside shifts to shouts, angry, panicked. Jaskier’s heart is hammering louder in his chest, adrenaline flooding his heart with lightning as they reach the bottom of the stairs – but the main room is empty, no fire, no soldiers, no danger.
Maybe they’ll get out of this yet.
Geralt leads them quickly to the stables, where Roach is clearly agitated, hooves stamping, nostrils flared. Jaskier does his best to calm her as Geralt gets her loaded up, saddlebags and Jaskier’s lute strapped firmly to her back – and all the while, the noises from outside are getting louder, closer. Shouts and screams, the clash of weaponry. Jaskier’s heart is practically beating out of his chest. Ciri mounts Roach with the ease born of her royal birth, but Geralt pauses, looks at Jaskier, forehead furrowed. “We have to be fast,” he says, “and Roach can’t carry us all.”
Jaskier’s breath catches in his throat. “Take her,” he says, his voice tight. “Take Ciri and get out of here. It’s okay, they’re not after me – I’ll meet you at Yennefer’s.”
Geralt shakes his head, turns away, dives into the rest of the stable – and comes back with a grey gelding, eyes rolling a little from the smoke and the shouting but saddled and ready to go.
“Geralt, that’s someone else’s horse,” Jaskier points out.
“Don’t care,” Geralt says, shoving the reins into his hand. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
Jaskier’s heart twists, pain and love, and he nods, swings himself up into the saddle. “If someone tries to kill me for stealing their horse,” he says, bright and sparking to hide the fear that’s still throbbing behind his eyes, “it’s your fault.”
Geralt doesn’t answer. He mounts Roach behind Ciri, takes the reins from her, then catches Jaskier’s gaze. “Stay close,” he says, voice tight – and Jaskier knows Geralt more than well enough to hear the subtext. I won’t lose you, not again.
Jaskier nods, and follows Geralt out of the stables.
The little town’s streets are a melee of fire and blood, a handful of townsfolk standing firm against the veritable flood of armed men – and, oh, shit, whoever set that fire fucked up because it’s spreading, now, leaping from roof to roof, catching in the fresh thatch and the dry wood. Jaskier hears Geralt swear sharply as some unfortunate soldier tries to rush Roach, only to die quick and noisy on Geralt’s sword, but then they’re galloping, Jaskier crouched as low on the gelding’s back as he can manage, trying his best to focus on following Roach’s lashing tail as best he can. Shouts follow them as they crash through the burning town, and an arrow whistles so close over Jaskier’s head that he swears he feels it part his hair. He barks a shout, squeezes the gelding tight with his thighs, and follows Geralt down a narrow alleyway, barely wide enough for the horses to fit.
Jaskier’s breath is loud and panting in his ears. His heartbeat is an echo under the night sky.
There’s a crumbling, creaking sound from the burning building to the right, and all of a sudden there’s a slurry of wood and roof tile and flame plunging to the ground in front of the gelding’s hooves. The horse rears up, throws Jaskier to the dirt with a ricochet of pain up his spine, and for a moment all he can do is lie there, flat on his back, winded and in pain, just staring up at the small patch of darkness he can see between the fire and the groaning buildings.
“Jaskier!”
Jaskier rolls onto his stomach, vomits a little into the dirt, then looks up – and abruptly wants to vomit all over again.
The alleyway is blocked, piled high with the detritus of a burning building that, extremely helpfully, is still on fire. Jaskier can just about make out Geralt on the other side, still astride Roach with Ciri in his arms, and there’s fear blazing loud on his expression. “Shit,” Jaskier rasps, dragging himself to his feet – and then the whole situation just gets worse because, for starters, the grey gelding has bolted and, just to complete the package, he can hear jackboots behind him. “Fuck,” he says again, then turns back to Geralt. “Go!” he calls over the crackle of the flames.
“No!” Ciri shouts, at the same time as Geralt barks, “We’re coming back for you!”
Jaskier shakes his head, glances around. The alleyway is narrow, yes, but he can see that there’s an even narrower snicket branching off the alley a few metres behind them, too narrow for horses, shadowed and dark. He’s got no idea where it goes but it’s better than waiting around for the soldiers that he can hear getting close – and he turns back to Geralt, catches his gaze, tries not to look as terrified as he is. “They’re not after me, I’ll be fine,” he calls.
Geralt’s eyes flare. “Nilfgaard is after you, as well,” he snaps.
Jaskier shrugs, deliberately putting to the back of his mind the Nilfgaardians who drugged him, the mercenaries who cornered him in a stable. No time to worry about that. “Then if I don’t meet you at Yennefer’s rendezvous in time, you come back for me,” he says firmly. “It’s not far, if you ride hard you can get there in a day or so. But Geralt, you need to get Ciri safe. I’ll be right behind you as soon as I can. And if I’m not, you can come and play the hero and save me, okay?” He pauses for a second, and when Geralt doesn’t answer, he says, “Okay?”
There’s no other choice, and Geralt knows it.
“Jaskier, no!” Ciri calls, her voice pained, but Geralt just winds his arm closer around her waist.
“Be careful,” he says, insistent and firm, then wheels Roach around and sets off into the night.
Jaskier runs.
The snicket is so narrow that at times he has to squeeze through it sideways, the catches of windows dragging at his clothes, boots slipping on the smooth cobbles underfoot. He doesn’t think he’s being followed and he’s pretty sure no one saw him slip into the little crack in the wall that lead to the snicket, but nonetheless his heart is in his throat. He’s been in danger before, sure, but the last few times he’s actually been at any real risk of harm, he’s had a witcher to back him up – Eskel before the long winter at Kaer Morhen, and, of course, Geralt since then, so careful with him, so protective it’s almost funny. Except now he’s alone, stumbling through a narrow crack between burning houses, soot staining his clothes, what he’s pretty sure is a solid cut across his forehead from where he hit the ground, blood seeping into his eyes – and he’ll be fine, he knows where to go once he finds his way out of this fucking maze of houses, he’ll be right on Geralt’s heels once he manages to find a fucking horse, but for now? For now, he’s alone.
Jaskier grits his teeth and pushes onwards.
Whatever resistance was being posed by this town’s inhabitants to the mass of armed soldiers rampaging through its streets is clearly dying down. When Jaskier comes to a broad street that he vaguely recognises as the street they trotted in on this afternoon—thank fuck, that means he knows where to go from here—it’s practically deserted, one limp body that he’s not going to look too hard at crumpled in the gutter and a small pool of blood a few metres away that suggests that the poor fuck got a good stab in before he died. Jaskier tries his best to keep to the shadows, heading quietly towards the outskirts of the town. He moves slower than he wants to, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that he’ll just look even more suspicious if he runs, and it’s working, fuck, it’s working, he can get out of this fucking backwater, find Geralt, find Ciri, and—
“There!”
Soldiers, six of them, with bloodied helms and roses embroidered on their liveries, lit by the flickering tongues of the fires. “Get him!” one of them bellows, raw from smoke.
“Shit,” Jaskier husks, and runs.
He doesn’t run fast enough.
Geralt rides through the night, his heart frozen and heavy in his chest.
Ciri protests shrilly on their way out of the little town, grabbing at his arms, demanding that he turn Roach around, that they go find Jaskier, shouting that they can’t leave him behind, they can’t – and the guttural, animal part of Geralt’s mind agrees. The rational part, though, knows that Jaskier’s right: there was no way for him to get over that mess of fire and debris, no way for Geralt to get to him, and it can’t be a coincidence that a whole godsdamned army of rose-liveried soldiers turn up just after they roll into town. They have to keep Ciri safe, they have to. And Geralt knows, somewhere in his hindbrain, that Jaskier would willingly give his life to save hers.
That doesn’t mean that he has to fucking like it.
Ciri falls asleep against his chest, eventually, face streaked with soot and tears. He holds her steady with one arm, guides Roach with the other, and they gallop on down the road that will lead them to another little town called Berrygrove, eventually. That’s where they’ll meet Yennefer, that’s where they’ll wait until Jaskier comes tripping along on their heels, that’s where Geralt will grab him close and kiss him and make sure that he never lets him go again.
The sun rises, slow and steady. Geralt sort of feels like the sky should be red-streaked and heavy, not bright blue and cloudless, and he abruptly realises that that’s the kind of thing Jaskier would say, the kind of thing he’d sing about. His heart twists, painful and rich, and just for a moment he remembers Jaskier sprawled out in his bed—their bed—at Kaer Morhen, naked and flushed, eyes blazingly blue in the firelight, looking up at Geralt like he’d never seen anything quite so beautiful.
Geralt’s lips twist in a snarl, and he urges Roach on faster.
Ciri wakes mid-morning, but the only sign that she’s no longer awake is the increase in the regularity of her breaths. She doesn’t talk to Geralt, doesn’t even look at him, just stays heavy against his chest and stares along the road ahead.
“He’ll be fine,” Geralt says eventually, half-shouting over the clatter of Roach’s hooves. “He’ll meet us at Yennefer’s. He’ll be fine.”
Ciri doesn’t answer, but that’s okay. Frankly, Geralt’s saying it more for his own benefit than for hers.
It’s early evening by the time Roach trots into Berrygrove, her flanks heaving, her muzzle flecked with foam. Geralt reins her in on the outskirts, dismounts and helps Ciri down, and they walk the rest of the way, feet heavy, shoulders slumped. Geralt’s running on maybe a handful of hours’ rest, and Ciri slept in the saddle, yes, but that’s not exactly the best form way to regain your strength – so they’re both exhausted, drained from adrenaline and fear and sleeplessness, and all Geralt wants to do is find Yennefer and then find Jaskier.
“Where are we meeting her?” Ciri asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken all day.
Geralt’s voice is hoarse. “Her letter said she has a house near the river,” he says.
Ciri nods, then immediately collars a passerby, asks in her most imperious voice for directions to the river. The man points her in the right direction while looking vaguely intimidated, and Geralt should probably give her a lecture about, you know, keeping her head down and being unmemorable, but it’s been a long fucking day so, well, fuck it. They make their way to the river, Roach’s head hanging low, her breath snorting in long huffs, and Geralt strokes his fingers through her mane gently, trying not to think about kissing Jaskier in the stables at Kaer Morhen, pressing him up against the wooden stalls and feeling his heart pound rabbit-fast in his chest.
Ahead of him, Ciri comes to a halt. “Geralt?” she says, jolting him out of him memories because her voice is… strangled? Afraid?
Geralt’s alert in a heartbeat.
They’ve reached the river, its waters gleaming blue in the spring sunlight. There are little boats tied up by the edge of the boardwalk, quaintly painted in bright colours, mostly barges and flat-bottomed transport vessels – that’s probably where most of the town’s revenue comes from, Geralt imagines, the trade that the boats bring with them. There are a fair few people milling around aimlessly, more people than he’d expect, actually, and he grips Ciri’s shoulder, pulls her closer to him – and that’s when he notices it. There’s a row of houses facing the river, tall, narrow buildings leaning up against each other, their windows blank eyes onto the world. This must be the houses that Yennefer meant, must be where she wanted to meet them.
There’s one missing.
Ciri shrinks back against Geralt’s side, her hand unconsciously gripping Geralt’s wrist.
One of the buildings is just… gone. And by ‘gone’, Geralt doesn’t mean that it’s vanished, or it’s missing, no, he means that it’s been destroyed. All that’s left is ragged planks, shattered bricks, slivers of glass and rags of soft furnishings, spattered across the riverfront. It’s an orgy of destruction, shattered, broken – and all of a sudden, the medallion around Geralt’s neck is trembling against his chest.
He takes a sharp breath. “Magic did this,” he says. “Mages, they fought.”
Ciri’s fingers twist tighter. “Yennefer?”
“Must be,” Geralt answers, his jaw tight. “Fuck.” He pauses for a second, Roach’s reins in one hand, Ciri’s hand in the other. “We need to find out what happened here.”
“We know what happened here,” Ciri says, tight and quiet enough that he barely hears it even with his witcher hearing. “They came for her, for Yennefer.” Panic is seeping into her voice. “They took her, like they took Jaskier.”
Geralt doesn’t answer, his heart thudding loud in his chest – because he doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t even want to acknowledge the possibility, but he’s never really believed in coincidences. A flood of armed men in the night just after they arrive in a new town, splitting them up, and now they get to their rendezvous with Yennefer – and there’s a gaping hole where her flat is supposed to be?
They left Jaskier. Geralt left Jaskier.
Fear starts to trickle thick and slick into his heart.
“What do we do now?” Ciri asks, her voice so horribly, horribly small.
Geralt takes a steadying breath, forcing his heart to slow. “We’ll find somewhere to stay,” he says. “And then I’ll find out what happened here. If it was Yen, then we’ll—”
“Geralt.”
Geralt spins on his heel, dropping Roach’s reins, reaching for his sword, and pushing Ciri behind him in one smooth move. He’s blaming the sickness coiling through his stomach for the fact that he doesn’t recognise the voice because, fuck, it’s Eskel, pacing towards them with a deep furrow in his forehead. “What are you doing here, Eskel?” Geralt asks, more surprised than anything else.
Eskel doesn’t answer. “Come with me,” he says, short and clipped. “I’ll explain.”
Ciri ducks out from behind Geralt. “Do you know what happened?” she asks, her voice tight. “Do you know what happened to Yennefer?”
Eskel’s lips are tight. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I do.” He pauses, his gaze darting from Ciri to Geralt to the lute case strapped to Roach’s back, and concern starts to spread across his face. “Geralt,” he says, slow and level, and Geralt remembers the protectiveness in Eskel’s expression when he first arrived at Kaer Morhen with Ciri, remembers Jaskier’s smell all over him. “Geralt,” Eskel says, “where the fuck is Jaskier?”
Geralt thinks about Jaskier’s face, soot-streaked and afraid, staring up at him through the flames with such fucking bravery in his eyes – and then he looks back at the ruin of the house on the waterfront, all the devastation, at the violence.
“We left him,” Ciri says, her voice high and tight. “There were soldiers, we got separated. We left him behind.”
“You left him?” Eskel snaps.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Geralt says, nostrils flaring, meets Eskel’s angry gaze. “I wouldn’t have left him if I had a fucking choice.”
Eskel’s expression is tight. “Fuck,” he spits, then: “Geralt, we have to talk.”
Geralt’s gut twists. “What is it?”
Eskel shakes his head. “Not here,” he says, gaze sweeping the street, the river, the butchered row of houses. It’s like he’s looking for something, looking out for something, and that really just makes the whole situation worse, if Geralt’s honest. “Come on,” Eskel says. “I’ll explain.”
Geralt knows deep in his heart that he’s just made the worst mistake of his godsdamned life.