A Blessed Act of Oblivion

Image from PsychVamp who is just the sweetest person in the world.

Triss recognized the smell of burning flesh before she realized that she was in pain. It was strange to lie there and realize that a good portion of her body was ruined, and she didn't know if there was enough magic or glamor in the world to cover it up. She knew why Aretuza made the mages beautiful; it was so they could get places in court. Triss didn't know how she was supposed to get a place in court if she had to cover up her chest. Her body was a weapon, and now it was broken, and she didn't know how to deal with it.

There was more fire in the air, and Triss didn't know how she knew it was Yennefer, but she did. There was something in the air that felt like her friend, and that was comforting that her friends were going to burn this place and everyone that was killing her and her sisters to the ground. Triss didn't know if she was going to survive, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was the revenge against the men that maimed her like this, that made her watch as her sister's turned against each other, and she hated it. She hated it so much, and Triss wished she could give the last of her energy to Yennefer to help, so it was all done. So that bitch Fringilla and all of the Nilfgaardians that slaughtered innocent people burned too.

Triss closed her eyes and wondered if she was going to wake up again.

+++

It was Tissaia's face that Triss saw when she opened her eyes. The Rectoress of Aretuza looked like she'd been through hell and back, and vaguely Triss could hear her saying that Triss couldn't die like this. The world was cold while her chest burned, but Triss could also feel healing magic going through her veins. It was helping, it was keeping her alive, but it wasn't going to fix her. She needed time and space for that which she did not have. Triss reached over and put a hand on Tissaia's arm.

"Yennefer?" Triss asked because Triss wasn't precisely focused on herself but Yennefer. That Chaos that was in the air was unlike anything she had ever felt before, and Triss wanted to know if she was even alive; that the fire didn't consume her entirely along with their enemies.

"I don't know," Tissaia replied, and she looked hurt by that. "So I'm not losing you too, Triss. I need you to hang on."

"I have a safe place nearby where no one will find me," Triss managed to say. "I want you to take me there, and I don't want you to tell anyone that you saw me. I don't want anyone looking for me until I want them looking for me."

"Triss, we have the best healers--"

"I am one of our best healers," Triss interrupted. "I need to do this myself so, please, take me to my cottage so I can recover in peace." Tissaia looked like she didn't want to do this, but she stopped the healing and nodded. Triss offered her former teacher a memory of where her cottage was hiding, and Tissaia lifted Triss into her arms like she was still a child and not a grown woman. The portal made Triss feel sick in a way that she hadn't in many decades, but she was injured, so it wasn't that surprising. It took most of her energy to lower the wards enough for Tissaia to walk the two of them through the door.

The cottage was a small place with two bedrooms and a large fire already roaring in the main room. There were ingredients for Triss to work on healing herself and maybe even figuring out a way to deal with these scars. Tissaia bypassed all of it to carry Triss to one of the bedrooms and lay her down in the bed.

"I've given you what I can," Tissaia said as she brushed Triss' hair from her fair. Triss could feel that parts of her hair were burned off, but she didn't want to think about something like that just yet. She needed to focus. "Right now, I want you to rest. When you wake up, you should be feeling well enough to move around on your own. I'd like to come and see you, make sure you're healing, but I have a feeling I won't be able to find this place again with your wards coming back up."

"It wouldn't be much of a safe place if people could find me," Triss replied. Tissaia smiled sadly at her and touched her hand. Triss could feel a little more healing energy go into her body, and she closed her eyes to the touch. It was much more gentle than she was used to from Tissaia. "If Yennefer is alive, tell her to come and find me. You can tell about where we are. If Yennefer comes close enough, I'll find her."

"I will," Tissaia said, and she pushed herself to her feet. "Do try and take care of yourself, Triss." The pain and the healing were enough that Triss couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. She waited until Tissaia ported herself away and began to put the wards back up. The magic that would kill anyone who wasn't Yennefer if they got too close was in place just as the world around her went dark, and Triss slept.

+++

Triss slept for three days, judging by how hungry and thirsty she was when she woke up. The pain was still considerable, but it was dull enough that she could focus. She got up and began to move about the cottage. The fire was still roaring, and Triss made herself something to eat. There was a mirror nearby, and she didn't know if she wanted to look. Her clothes were still covered in ash, smoke, and the smell of burning flesh. She needed to change, but she didn't know how badly that could aggravate the burn.

She needed to look, so Triss walked over and looked in the mirror. The burn covered the majority of the right side of her body and reached over her chest and breast and up her neck. Triss let out a laugh and sob as she wondered whether or not she even still had a nipple on that breast for how badly it was burned. The skin was healing, thanks to Tissaia, but it was going to be a terrible scar that was going to be impossible to cover up. Some of the hair on her right side was singed and gone. Triss knew she would have to cut most of it off to even it out, and she didn't want to do that. Not yet. She was a mage; she was supposed to stand next to kings and look beautiful and powerful. These scars made her look weak and ugly, which was a strange feeling.

Triss didn't think she felt weak or ugly, but she was a woman, and her own personal perception didn't matter as much as the perception of the men she would inevitably have to serve. She didn't know much about the war or if they managed to push Nilfgaard back. She didn't know if any members of the Cintrian royal family managed to survive. She went by the court once or twice over the last several years, and she even met Cirilla once. She seemed like a lovely young lady who likely didn't deserve the horrible fate that the Nilfgaardians would give her.

She wanted to be out there and fighting, but Triss knew that she was wounded. She had tried to protect people with her magic, and she failed, so now she needed to heal and figure out how she could be useful. No king would want a mage with scars and no hair, and while glamor was an option, she didn't want to have to keep it up all the time. If someone found out about it, they could accuse her of being untrustworthy, ignoring the fact that her beautiful face was not natural at all but something shaped by magic.

Triss hated court so fucking much sometimes.

Much like Yennefer, she needed to find a new way to serve now that things were different. She knew she was one of the best on the continent when it came to brewing potions, and perhaps that was the key. The war effort would need potions that healed people, and if she could do that, then maybe she could be of use. First, though, first, she needed to heal herself, and that meant taking care of all of it.

The dress was lost, so Triss took a knife and began to cut it away from her body slowly. Parts of the fabric were seared into the skin, and when she had to pull those pieces away from her body, Triss nearly screamed. She almost blacked out, and it took far too long, but before long, she was standing naked in the middle of her cottage and feeling so much better. The pieces of the dress could be useful, so Triss went through the motions of washing it. It got the smell out, and while the bloodstains remained, that wasn't what she needed it for. Instead, she made strips from the dress, coated them in a healing salve she made herself, and carefully laid them across her burns. It stung and brought tears to her eyes, but Triss knew that it meant the salve was working. She was half covered in the stuff by the time she was done, and there was little point to getting dressed again. She was alone in her cottage, so she didn't need to do anything.

To take her mind off of the sting, Triss sat down at her station and began to work on some very basic healing potions. They wouldn't heal something entirely, but they could save a life if need be, which could be enough when it came to human lives. Once they had a fighting chance, if they wanted to live, they would pull through. That is something she learned after many decades of living around people that often found themselves facing death's door; if they wanted to live, they would out of sheer stubbornness and spite.

Triss spent the rest of the day working on the potions and changing her own bandages once the stinging stopped. She had a small pile of potions off to the side, and she felt like she had accomplished something. It was a good feeling that made Triss feel a little better about what was going on around her. She needed time to heal, and if that meant making potions like this, then that was what she was going to do. She could handle this much while she recovered. Triss put fresh bandages on her burns, ignored the stinging from the salve, and turned in for the night.

+++

For the rest of the year and into the winter, Triss recovered the best she could. She did her best to heal, and she brought potions to the front lines when she could. She also kept her ears open for any possible sightings of Yennefer, but no one seemed to know anything. There were rumors about a mage that was left in a catatonic state and a Nilfgaardian base that was destroyed, but no one really knew who did what when it came to that. All Triss knew was that if Yennefer was out there, she was keeping to herself, which wasn't that surprising. She had hoped that if there were anyone Yennefer would seek out, it would be her, but it seemed that was not the case.

The two of them weren't exactly lovers because that seemed a bit too serious for what they did. Sometimes, when they were in the same place, they would fall into bed with each other. Yennefer was intense when you weren't in bed with her, but when they would sleep together, it was another level of intensity. There was something about sleeping with other sorceresses that were freeing in a way that Triss couldn't explain. There wasn't anything holding anyone back when it came to sleeping with another magic user, but Yennefer didn't come looking for her. Winter turned into spring, and Triss's burns were healing and scarring. She was still working on something to fix them, but they were made with the fire of magic and magic healed differently. There was little she could do.

She was in a nearby town looking for ingredients when she first heard the rumor of the song by a traveling bard. A bard traveling the continent singing about Witchers was out and about again. Triss knew about Jaskier from Yennefer, and she thought the man was foolish to be running around singing about a Witcher that all of Nilfgaard was hunting. There were also rumors that this bard was traveling with a woman who had purple eyes and dark hair if the rumors were true that at least meant that Yennefer was still alive, which was enough for Triss.

That was more than she ever thought she would hear about her friend again. She thought for sure that Yennefer's chaos had burned her alive, and there was no going back from that. She thought she had lost someone who meant more to her than Triss realized, and now it was too late. Triss was not in love, but the idea of losing Yennefer was never anything she had to grapple with. The idea that she might be gone and finding out that she wasn't was more than Triss could bear.

She was brewing more potions for the troops when she felt her magic come alive. Someone was coming close to the cottage, and Triss rolled her eyes. Some Nilfgaardians had gotten too close a few weeks before, and her vines had strangled the life out of them. She could only assume that this was no different from that. However, there was something familiar in the air, and Triss felt her heart skip a beat when a familiar voice called out that the person her vines were attacking was with her. Triss dropped the wards and walked outside.

"Yennefer? You're alive?" Triss said, unable to believe her own eyes. Yennefer was knelt down next to a man with dark brown hair and unnervingly blue eyes. He was breathing hard as the vines fell to dust around him. Yennefer was with him, and Triss gasped. Her friend looked the same, she looked even better than she had before the battle at Sodden Hill, and she even smiled when they made eye contact. They didn't quite run to each other, but it was a close thing, and Triss held onto her like a lifeline. "By the gods, look at you, how you do what you did, and look even better than before?"

"It's a long story," Yennefer said as she looked Triss over. She touched the wound on Triss's neck with her hand, and she looked sad. "I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough to save you from this."

"You saved us all, so it doesn't really matter in the end," Triss replied. "Who is the man?"

"He saved me, and I saved him," Yennefer said, and she beckoned him over. Triss looked up and saw the man approaching them. She could see a lute on his back, and she realized that this must be the bard that usually traveled with Geralt.

"Jaskier," Yennefer said, and there was something oddly soft about the way she said his name that Triss hadn't ever heard from her friend before. "Jaskier, the bard, I would like you to meet Triss Merigold. Triss, this is Jaskier."

"Yennefer says you saved her," Triss said, which was a test. She knew what men were like and how they liked to take all of the credit in situations like this. Jaskier, however, surprised her by shrugging.

"It's more like she saved each other," he said, and he bowed like they were in court and not in a cottage in the middle of nowhere.

"I apologize for my defenses. My magic recognized Yennefer, which is why it didn't attack her," Triss said, and he waved her off like it wasn't a big deal that if a minute or so longer he would be dead right now. "You can stable your horses out back, and then please come in. I'd love to hear what you've been doing all of these months."

+++

Triss listened to the two of them for a good portion of the night, and then she helped with the bright bruises that were on Jaskier's wrists and throat. He looked tired by the time she was done healing him, and he sent himself off to bed. Yennefer watched him go and assured him that she would be by later. He again waved it off like it wasn't a big deal that Yennefer of Vengerberg was promising to slide into bed with him. Yennefer settled down on the plush carpet in front of the fire, and Triss joined her. Triss watched him walk into the room, and as soon as the door closed and the magic that kept sound limited to the various rooms was in place did she turn to her friend with a raised eyebrow.

"You told me your adventures and spending the winter in Kaer Morhen but care to tell me why you're looking at the bard like you want to eat him alive? What happened to Geralt?" Triss asked. Yennefer, the woman who wanted everything, smiled wickedly.

"Who says that Geralt isn't involved as well?" Yennefer said as she looked at the door. The wicked smile faded, and she just looked at where the bard was sleeping. Again, it was a look she hadn't ever seen on her friend's face before, and Triss didn't really know what to do with it. She reached forward and placed her hand on Yennefer's. "Geralt and I are bound by destiny and maybe magic, but that man, I chose him, and he chose me. We didn't have to have anything to do with each other. We could have shared a bed and never touched each other while we were recovering, and he wouldn't have said a word about it. He was there, and he cared for me, and he kept my secrets even as they hurt him."

"I didn't think I would ever hear you talk about someone like that," Triss said softly. "I'm glad you're happy, Yen, it's what you deserve." Yennefer shifted their hands and entwined their fingers together.

"I miss you, Triss," Yennefer whispered. "I'm a woman who wants everything, and that means wanting everyone too. If I had thought to ask Geralt if he would be fine with me having you, I would have taken you on this carpet right now." Triss felt her cheeks heat up as she thought about the many times they had been together. How soft Yennefer's lips were, the feel of her body beneath Triss's hands, the way she tasted, the memories were enough to make her heart beat faster.

"Just Geralt? Wouldn't Jaskier have a problem with it too?" Triss asked, and Yennefer grinned. She moved a little closer and brushed Triss's hair aside so Yennefer could touch the skin on her neck. It was scarred from the burn, and no one had ever touched Triss there before, and apparently, it was sensitive. Triss gasped from just Yennefer, barely running her fingers against her skin.

"He's an amazing lover who would give you everything if you asked," Yennefer whispered. "His mouth, his tongue, his fingers, all of it. Both of them are generous, but Jaskier knows how to take care of a woman. The two of us together, my friend, we would take care of you. We would make you feel like the beauty you are."

"This is all deeply unfair, Yen," Triss managed to say, and she sounded breathless. Yennefer was close enough that she could feel the heat coming off of her, and it was almost too much to bear. All she would have to do was turn her head, and they would be kissing, but she knew Yennefer. Her friend was loyal, and even if Jaskier was fine with it, Geralt might not be, and there was no way to ask him. So Triss had to sit there and deal with it; she had to sit there and not touch the body she desperately wanted to touch, and when Yennefer went to bed, it was too much to handle. Triss went to bed that night and dreamed of the many nights she had spent with Yennefer and thought about the ones that might follow.

+++

Jaskier was an interesting man that she didn't quite know how to deal with. He wasn't quite human, Triss could tell by the way he moved around and looked, but whatever he was, it wasn't deadly. He talked to her casually and didn't react when she called him a strange man. When she gave him potions that might save his life, he took them without a word and didn't even show them to Yennefer to make sure that they were what she said they were. The dynamic between the two of them was fascinating for Triss to watch because they were soft around each other. It was quite clear that Jaskier was a man who would rip out someone's throat with his teeth if pushed hard enough, and Yennefer had burned an army alive, but around each other, they were soft. It was strange, but it was nice to see that side of Yennefer that only she had seen in the past.

Yennefer was in town gathering supplies the day before they left when Jaskier sat down and silently watched her work on her potions.

"So when was the last time you and Yennefer fucked?" he asked apropos of nothing, and it took all of her training not to drop the potion on the ground. She turned around to snap at him for asking such a rude question, but he didn't look sleazy the way men usually did when they asked about two women being together. He looked curious like he was just curious about someone that Yennefer used to sleep with.

"It's been some time," Triss said carefully. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, she wants to sleep with you," Jaskier said. Triss couldn't really understand if he was being serious or not; Jaskier was a man who could lie, and she knew that now. She didn't think he was lying, though, and he tilted his head to the side as he watched her. "She told me that she does, and I told her that she should. However, we don't know how Geralt would react, and we don't want to betray his trust."

"And you would be fine with that?" Triss asked. Men were usually possessive, and she couldn't imagine someone getting Yennefer of Vengerberg and then willingly sharing her with other people. It already didn't make sense that he was willing to share with Geralt, let alone with her.

"Of course," Jaskier said with a shrug. "I don't own her, and she doesn't own me. She doesn't want to betray Geralt's trust considering it took us half a winter to get him to join our bed, and he kind of hates us for leaving at all."

"She mentioned something about you joining us," Triss said carefully, and Jaskier grinned at her. "I can see that it would hardly be a hardship for a man like you."

"My Lady, you have no idea," Jaskier replied. Triss was about to ask him about it some more when Yennefer walked into the room with the last of their supplies. Triss didn't say anything more about it, and Jaskier didn't bring it up again. The next morning they left, and Triss wanted to kiss Yennefer more than anything, she even noticed the way Jaskier averted his eyes, and she could have, but she didn't. Triss liked Geralt, and hurting him for her own selfish desires didn't seem like the best idea. She watched them vanish through the wards and wondered if and when she was going to see them again.

+++

The spring turned into the summer, and Triss continued to heal. She heard about Yennefer and Jaskier, which was interesting, but she was glad to hear that their plan to keep Geralt and Ciri safe appeared to be working. She didn't know how long it was going to work, and Fringilla was not going to take kindly to being made a fool. That is what she was worried about above all else; Fringilla and the kind of revenge she could get up to. The burns continued to heal and get better, but they were still there and visible. Triss knew that there wasn't any going back to court for her anytime soon, and she wondered where her place in all of this was going to be.

It was on one of those days that she was wondering what she was supposed to do next when there was a crack in her wards that nearly took Triss off of her feet. She was out the door and ready to kill someone when Yennefer stumbled through a portal and fell to the ground in front of her. Triss ran to her side and could see that her friend was covered in bruises, blood, and gods know what else.

"Yen, what happened to you?" Triss asked.

"Fringilla, Nilfgaard," Yennefer managed to say. "They got to Jaskier's parents and took us captive. I managed to get him through a portal to safety." Triss helped Yennefer into the cottage and made sure that her wards were strong. Even if Fringilla managed to find them, the vines and the wards would be enough to keep them safe. Yennefer tried to say more, but her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and Triss had to carry her into the room. Yennefer had burns on her hands, more burns, and she looked like someone had stabbed her in the leg. Triss sat down and began to tend to the many wounds that her friend had all over her.

It took the better part of a day to get Yennefer stable, and even then, Triss wasn't even sure what happened to her. Yennefer said that she got Jaskier somewhere safe, but she didn't say where or what kind of state he was in. That was going to be the first thing Yennefer tried to do when she woke up, but there was no way she was strong enough to move just yet.

Yennefer slept for two straight days, and when she woke, she nearly blew the roof off of the cottage. Triss didn't think she had ever seen such raw Chaos like that in a person, and it took all of her skills to talk Yennefer down from accidentally blowing the entire place up by accident. "It's me," Triss said. "You know me, and you know this place. You know it's safe, and there isn't anyone who could ever hurt you while I'm here to protect you." Yennefer blinked, and it seemed that she was beginning to recognize the world around her.

"Triss, I got you," Yennefer said as she collapsed back in bed. "I knew that you were safe, but I don't remember much."

"You're wounded, and I'm doing my best to heal you," Triss said as she pushed Yennefer's dress up to show the stab wound on her leg. "Do you remember what happened to you?" Yennefer clenched her jaw, and her purple eyes flashed with anger.

"Jaskier's parents happened. They invited us up to their home so Jaskier could grieve, but it was a trap. They drugged our food, and Fringilla was there with Nilfgaard. The deal was to trade me for their son's safety, but Nilfgaard wasn't going to let that deal stand. I fought with Fringilla, but the herbs they put in my food made me slow. She managed to knock me down, and then I saw what they did to Jaskier. He was bleeding terribly, and Firngilla threw him to the ground. I don't know what she did to him, but he screamed, and it was so terrible.

"They were going to hang him for killing Nilfgaardian soldiers. They were going to use him to make me complacent, and Jaskier knew it," Yennefer continued. "I knew that look in his eye; he would have done something to get himself killed so they couldn't use him against me, and I knew that Nilfgaard wouldn't turn him over to his parents like they wanted. So I summoned the last of my strength and shoved him through a portal, but I don't remember where I sent him. I just didn't want him there." Yennefer looked down at her hands, and they were shaking with what looked like anger. Triss didn't say anything about this display of emotion she was seeing from her friend and let her continue. "He was bleeding out with no money and no weapon, and I don't know where I sent him. He could be dead for all I know."

"What happened next?" Triss said as she took Yennefer's hand into her own. Yennefer took a deep breath and seemed to regain her composure.

"They didn't have anything to hold over me anymore, so I saw no reason to hold back," Yennefer said. "They threw me in the back of a carriage in a cage like an animal for a week, and then when I was far enough away from the city, I broke out. The herbs in my system must have gotten out faster than they thought they would. I burned half of the men alive or worse, and then I fought with Fringilla." Yennefer smiled, and there was death in that smile. "I wasn't able to kill her, but she's hurt, and she's hurt badly. Then I portaled here because I knew I would be safe with you."

"You'll always be safe with me," Triss replied. Yennefer couldn't stay awake much longer and eventually fell back asleep. Triss changed her bandages and climbed in bed beside her. She didn't touch Yennefer but slept next to her. It was going to take days, maybe longer, for Yennefer to have the strength to go back out and look for Jaskier. Triss just hoped that he was alive, not only for his sake but for Yennefer's. She didn't want to think about what Yennefer would do to Nilfgaard if he died.

+++

As Triss predicted, it took some time for Yennefer to regain her strength, and it took even longer for her to admit that she needed help. It seemed that she didn't have any way of tracking Jaskier because he didn't like the idea of someone being able to find him in that way. He thought that if she could track him, then another mage could. Now she was doing her best not to rage and panic at the same time when it came to tracking Jaskier down. Triss put out her own feelers to the towns nearby, but no one had heard of a bard coming through that matched his description. A week after she appeared, Triss found Yennefer sitting in front of the fire and looking sad and angry at the same time.

"What am I going to tell Geralt?" Yennefer asked. "I didn't make any promises, but if I return to Kaer Morhen and tell him that I let Jaskier die? I don't know if he'll forgive me." Triss didn't know what she was supposed to say to something like that, so she said nothing. She sat down on the rug with Yennefer and wrapped her arms around her. Yennefer let it happen, which was all the proof that Triss needed that things were worse, she thought. Yennefer didn't like to be vulnerable even around the people she cared about, and this was showing vulnerability.

"He's a smart boy," Triss said as she tried to come up with something that could help. "If he needed to get somewhere safe, he would find somewhere safe to go. That's the kind of person that Jaskier is. He knows people are looking for him, so the fact that we haven't heard anything probably means that he's in hiding, which is what he should be doing."

"I don't like waiting," Yennefer said. Triss pressed a soft kiss to Yennefer's cheek and held onto her for a little while longer. She didn't want to think about Yennefer going out on her own to burn down half of the continent to find her bard, so she was probably going to have to go with her. Triss wasn't sure how she felt about going back out into the world just yet, but she would make it through this if that were what it took to keep Yennefer safe. Yennefer might act like she was a stone-cold sorceress, but she acted on emotion just as much as the rest of them did, and she was very emotional right now.

"Once we can form a portal, we'll go look for him together," Triss said, and Yennefer turned to look at her.

"You're coming with me?" she asked.

"Of course, why wouldn't I?" Triss replied. Yennefer blinked, and for half a moment, Triss thought they were about to kiss. Then she remembered that Yennefer cared about her relationship with Geralt, and them kissing could be seen as a betrayal of that. She wouldn't wish that kind of complication on someone she cared about, so Triss moved away from Yennefer, so they weren't so close. Maybe they would get the chance to be together again someday, maybe not, but keeping each other safe was the priority, and that was something that Triss could do.

+++

Three days later, Yennefer felt strong enough to form a portal, and they both began to gather their things. Triss didn't know where they were going to go next, but she had a feeling that Yennefer had some idea. As they packed, Triss decided it was time to finally ask.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to Lettenhove," Yennefer said, and her voice was extremely flat. "I want to look that Viscount and Viscountess in the eye and ask them how they feel about their son being presumed missing or dead because of their own arrogance. I want to look them in the eye and tell them that I was doing a spectacular job of keeping Jaskier safe, and it is their fault that he was hurt. I want to hear them beg me for mercy for this whole thing happening and for taking away what is mine." Yennefer paused as she looked around the cottage a little. "Also, they have all of my things, and I want them back. They don't deserve to have that lute."

"We should probably avoid killing anyone, though," Triss said as she remembered how complicated all of this could be. "The last thing we want is some sort of power volume in the north."

"Jaskier told me he has half-siblings who could take over things if I decided to make them suffer," Yennefer said with a wave of their hand. That wasn't quite the answer that Triss was expecting, but if there were anyone who planned their murders in advance, it would be Yennefer. Once they were packed, and Triss made sure that the cottage was carefully hidden, they made a portal to take them right outside of Lettenhove. As they walked into the village, it seemed that all of the destruction that Yennefer spoke about was cleaned up. There wasn't any evidence that there was a fight or that blood was spilled. Yennefer walked with her head held high, and her gaze focused on the manor in front of them.

As they approached, Triss could hear someone arguing with the guard at the front gate. His back was to them, but she could see dark hair, and two swords were at his back.

"I want to speak with them immediately," the man said.

"The Viscount and Viscountess are not able to speak to anyone, and they wouldn't speak to you," one of the guards replied with a sneer. Triss could see the man clench his fists, but Yennefer tilted her head as she looked at him.

"Eskel?" she asked, and the man turned around. He had terrible scars down one side of his face, and yellow eyes just like Geralt did. There was a wolf medallion around his neck, and Triss could only assume that this was one of Geralt's brothers that she was told about. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you and Jaskier," Eskel said as he walked up to her, and Triss could see how relieved he was to see her alive. "I heard about a fight in Lettenhove and that you two were missing. I promised Vesemir that I would try to find you both if I could." Eskel looked around and frowned. "Where is Jaskier?"

"Missing," Triss said before Yennefer could say anything. "Master Witcher, I'm Triss Merigold, a friend of Yennefer's. I came with her to try and find Jaskier. It appears we both had the same idea to start here."

"They made this happen," Yennefer said as she glared at the manor. "And I intend to make them suffer for it." Triss was about to tell her that was a bad idea, still, when Eskel frowned and looked over their shoulders at something. Triss looked over her shoulder and saw two men walking toward the manor. She didn't recognize one, his hair was dark, and he had facial scars as well, but she knew the eyes and the medallion. This was another Witcher but the man next to him she knew. Jaskier looked a little thinner; the dark clothes he was wearing didn't seem to fit him right, and they had blood on them, and there was a terrible burn scar on his throat, but he was alive. He was silent, though, which seemed strange for him. Triss put a hand on Yennefer's arm. "Oh, what?" She turned to yell and went very still. The two of them stared at each other for half a moment, and then they were running toward each other.

It was like something out of the stories or the legends as they ran. Triss breathed a sigh of relief as Yennefer took Jaskier into her arms and held onto him so tight she was going to leave bruises. She didn't think he would mind, and Jaskier was holding onto her just as tightly. The other Witcher didn't look relieved, in fact, he still looked worried, and Triss realized that Jaskier still hadn't said a word. Yennefer was speaking to him, and Jaskier hadn't made a single sound back.

There was something very wrong here.