Her nose had not felt the oozing steam of a stew under it for too long to not just be inhaling it through her drunken senses and imprint it over the hunger's sharp teeth, already dug deep into her thinned out body. Azaras saw only three more Witchers and she was weary of all of them, but the kindness of receiving food, be it old or not so tasty, connected her to the bench ar the end of the long table behind the tree and further from the place where the men have gathered to listen to Geralt's explanation.
He whispered their names before he left her at the table. Lambert, the younger looking fellow, wore his furred collar high, and from the group, he was the one who glared the most obviously at the sight of a woman in their hall, a total outsider dining with them. Eskel, if bothered by her presence, surely was less obvious about it. Azaras thought that, were it not for his brown hair and scarred right side of the face, Eskel would have looked rather close to a brother to Geralt; though she doubted that was the case, their posture, their build were very similar and that only left her wondering if they also shared the talent and skills for battle.
The third of them, in fact the first she met upon their entry in the castle's hall, was Vesemir. His aspects betrayed his elder status, too old even for a Witcher's longevity to sustain a fresher look, but it was also a matter of fame sneaked in there, a motive to his age.
Azaras had no interest of following guidelines that no longer served her and though in another life etiquette teachers would have seen her this way and died of ill heart in an instant, now, it seemed perhaps a freedom. A handful of old and hard bread, spoon after spoon shoveled into her mouth.
Her eyes have avoided staring at the Witchers. A long road prepared her to trust Geralt with speaking the truth. Instead, she stared right ahead at the back of the tree decorated in medallions. Some of them were torn, others were painted red in dried blood. Fallen Witchers, Azaras thought.
A burn on her right cheek cemented her spoon into the bowl before her, drop the stone bread on the table. Lambert was no longer facing Geralt, but rather glaring at the intruder, so Azaras too, stared back and listened in on a conversation she initially did not want to hear.
"It's possible," Vesemir gave Geralt the verdict. A bad feeling has bowed his head, brought his chin to rest on the collar of his sturdy armour, which have seen, much like him, better times. That experience whispered about a darkness which came with the cycle of history; it smelled like something he had seen before unfold, perhaps even somethint as destructive as what and who had destroyed their home.
A draft blew through the fortress, reminding the men of the cold, long winter, surrounding their halls.
"You said women never survived the Trial of the Grasses," Eskel frowned, a disbelief builing in a tension, spread over his crossed arms. They folded over his chest, puffed him up as he stood, attentive. Perhaps returning from a hunt would have had him expecting silence, the quietness and lack of trouble otherwise the world deceived them greetings in, not the turmoil and the pressure of agitation from troubling news.
"Because it wasn't designed for them to begin with," Vesemir replied. Each and every one of the younger Witchers around him have been his students once. To this day, he looked up at them with the pride of a teacher, something in his own youth, he would have cursed the realization of as useless.
Old age caught up to him.
"But," Vesemir continued, feeling Lambert restlessness beside him, "that doesn't mean enough research into this dead field wouldn't reveal ways to improve the herbs or even make them compatible with women. We never did that back in the day because there was never a demand. We didn't try it later, because we started lacking the resources and the acceptance of the people."
"Someone did it now," Geralt noted. Unlike the rest, he had time to adjust with the idea of a change. "I saw her fight and the way she described the Trials is very similar to what each of us went through. There was no way for her to make that up."
Vesemir was not bothered by the idea of a woman joining their ranks. They were lacking men and monsters were not yet running out completely either. What got him gloomed in a pondering concern was the village Azaras woke up into. All that death...
"Then, really, there's only one question we need to ask ourselves," Eskel sighed. He too rolled with the idea rather fast. Witchers met too little with each other and if the fates allowed it, he'd never have to cross paths with this woman again anyway. Truly, if she was to join their ranks, they'll solve the issue of her stealing away their bounties too. "Who made her and why on earth would anyone fund what I imagine is quite the expensive research?"
"War."
Lambert got up from beside Vesemir, drawing out his sword and resting its tip right on Azaras' neck when he turned around. He was the only one who, without a change in passive coldness, was on edge about her very presence amongst with them, infuriated by the idea of having her stay.
Azaras lifted her eyes from the shine of the silver blade, and faced instead the three other golden eyes, not expecting her approach. The matter was concerning her and Azaras had about enough to hostility in silence. "War," she repeated.
Vesemir reached his hand out and placed two fingers on top of Lambert's sword. Their silver weapons were sharp enough for just one touch to cut, so his humble will was pressed where there was no sharpness, pushing the sword away from the woman as an allowance for her to speak.
Geralt knew she was hungry and he was certain some more talking would have had his brothers swayed to reason. But things could be going faster if she joined, only he did not expect the words she just continued with.
"Witchers are handling monsters just fine as long as the people pay, so really, the only other use for more of you could be war."
Eskel scoffed, "We don't engage in that sort of political matters, lady."
"You don't," Azaras pointed out and Vesemir, though looking at Geralt, rathet than turning around to her, smiled. "That's why someone would need new Witchers. Because I, unlike you, don't know your creed's ways, so I just might-"
"You heard the lass," Lambert interrupted and swung his sword once to raise at her neck again. "She doesn't know our ways! She's not one of us."
"She can learn," Geralt answered fast, though calm. His words forced his friend to give up on attacking Azaras, who, spiteful, did not move an inch out of the way. She stared Lambert down, her eyes dark emeralds from cursed lands.
Vesemir stood up and the creak of the seat he left behind echoed in the hall. Azaras could have sworn some of the medallions dangled from a draft just then, clicking an whisper as it watched the tension unfold between the master and his pupil.
"I saw her fight," Geralt insisted. He, too, did not move from the face of an attentive narrowing of Vesemir's golden eyes. "She'll learn our ways..."
"Do you think I don't know who she is?" Their conversation turned to whispers to be shared only between them. "Lords and Ladies have no business holding this much power."
"She already renounced her titles," Geralt was prepared to face this loophole too. "No one's looking for her from Arcapan either. She's as much of an orphan as all of us for all they care."
Vesemir growled lowly and turned his head to the side. That was the giveaway he had finally started considering the perks. Geralt continued, feeling inside just a little more certain than before, "We could use more people. Especially now that new monsters are showing up."
"New monsters?" The whispered sequence broke with the snap of Vesemir's eyes back on Geralt. He was searching for signs of lies desperately. How terrifying fear looked on the scars of age. "Like breeding excessively or..."
"More like cross-breeding," Geralt corrected him with caution. It felt like these words entered a dangerous land and were he not to thread carefully... "There's new species. We encountered the hive of one of them on the way here too and by her descriptions, Azaras' brother has been crippled by a new monster as well, two years ago."
"Of course," Vesemir's eyes widened and he stepped back, looking down. His head bowed as before the laughing guillotine of time, returbing him the favor of such a familiar sweat. Things connected in his mind clearly and it did not take him any longer to connect Azaras with the monsters, with the village and with the cause which has once caused another such plot against their kind.
"It's dark magic," he mumbled, straightening up. He did not give Geralt's confusion any attention, but only stared him coldly in the eyes while his next words boomed towards someone else, who had to hear them loud and clear. "Lambert." Geralt's breath hitched even before he could hear the rest.
"Kill her," Vesemir gave the order.
Immediately after the order, hatred disappeared from Lambert's features. In fact, he was drained of any emotions and it seemed as if the yellow of his eyes got louder than any other greys and blacks he wore. In under a second, he was beside Azaras and his silver sword swung down.
"No!" Geralt made one step forward, hand on his own sword, watching Azaras, from afar, barely stepping away from how close the first hit had been to having decapitated her. Vesemir stood between him and interfering. His mentor's hard hand grabbed his shoulder and held it back like a bite on his very air.
Eskel watched Azaras' dodge and immediately lowered his gaze beside his feet. Upon entry, they have searched her and took all her weapons. The pile stood there, beside him, rendering that woman in an impossible disadvantage towards someone as Lambert, whose swordplay got him renounced.
"She's one of us!" Geralt searched a middle, between looking at Vesemir, and staring past him ahead. Each time he looked, a different thing happened and soon, he was slapped with the knowledge Lambert's sword came over an opening Azaras left unguarded.
"My... skills come and go. I'm not always ready to go like you." Geralt heard clearly in his mind the memory of her confession at the tavern ruled by hues of orange and brown. Folded away, the memory dissolved into this blueish cold hall and at the sound of a wound being gushed in. Pouring blood launched between them and dripped first on the sword, then on the floor which swallowed it dry into sponged stone, so only stains remained.
"Why are you smiling?" Lambert pulled the sword back after Azaras preferred sacrficing the integrity of her left hand to stop it from impaling her chest. The palm was pierced through and now bleeding heavily, much like her breath struggled to keep up. It was the pain which brough golden threds into her eyes.
Iridial lawns caught fire and their auburn, vengeful, for pain it did not care.
Slowly, though more blood fell between her fingeds and theough her knuckles, Azaras tightened her left hand into a fist. "Now," with her smile playing on her lips, her shoulders had stopped shivering before the Witcher, "you're in my way." I'm sorry, Geralt. I gave them a chance.
"She's one of us!" Geralt kept fighting against Vesemir's unmovable decision and he couldn't understand how he agreed with him that she was mutated as them, only now to have decided she was to die. "Who cares who created her? If you train her like you did us, she will be loyal to the creed."
Pointlessly have his words been wasted, for on one of his ears, they've entered for Vesemir, leaving on the other unchanged.
Metal on metal, a clash of swords shivered the atmosphere on a pitched sound. Then the sigil beam reverbed: Somne.
Eskel could not stand about and watch such an uneven fight. He had interfered first by blocking Lamberts final blow on Azaras with his own sword. And when his brother stumbled back, pushed by him, Eskel put both of the engaged fighters to sleep.
Before Vesemir could growl at him too, he turned around serene, "We need her alive if we are to find out who out there is playing God, creating monsters and Witchers. It would be wiser to just lock her up until we call for an expert who knows what to look for when we cut her open."
Already knowing there was nothing in which he said that shouldn't be agreed with, Eskel turned around and with a heavy sighed, picked the woman up, draping her over his right shoulder.
"You should leave," Vesemir sighed, at last left only with Geralt there. "It will take a while until my friend will arrive for sure, but it won't be pretty once he takes her on his table."
He found no pleasure in knowing he had to take something from Geralt, something he knew he valued. One would have to be blind not to see the spark of a wish in another's eyes. Hopeless beings, dehumanised for their job, and yet Vesemir had now to snuff out the smallest chance Geralt had to having something of his own which will not fade to dust and slip through his fingers as the decades pass.
Cold was on his features. Cold was in her bones.
Azaras gasped and shivered into the darkness of a room whose slightly innerly curved wall gave away its circular shape. It smelt of iron, it felt like death has lingered much amongst that unfiltered air.
But what it truly meant to be there, when the haze of a forced sleep paled, was to acknowledge the pain in her left hand, now dubiously bandaged, and realize she's been locked away before her true goal has been met.
Stupid little Azaras, some part of her mocked her as she rushed and stumbled on her feet, blindly touching the walls and searching for the door. She did not hear the pleas, she did not see any actions to help her, so her rage went outwards too. Trusting a Witcher... now you'll never not feel the guilt.
Revenge was just a shadow. Her hand had reached the wood of the door and it felt heavy, it seemed thick under her push and pulls over locks. A shadow cast upon her guilt, never strong enough against doors. What a cruel irony for it to stop her again.
Feral in desperation, the sound of steps dangerously close to the exit had her press down to the wall. There were no real weapons with her to aid, but Azaras was fast to undo her belt and stretch it. When the door unlocked and open, the first to step in has been glanced over through narrow eyes blinded by cold, shivering candle lights.
She aimed to wrap the belt over their neck and were it not for his instincts to reach up and place his hand under, Geraly knew she would have had enough strength to strangle him right there and then. Like a beast, her eyes too, captured some light even in darkness.
He grunted, allowing her to pull him down, noticing that even Azaras had hesitation at last to kill him. "I'm not dying before I kill that monster," she whispered to greeted teeth.
"Good," Eskel's voice came over a beginning of a sound from Geralt. "Because we're not here to kill you."
"We're here to get you out," Geralt confirmed. Only two fingers separated now her belt from his neck and thinking she released the tightness, he tried to curl them down over the leather.
Azaras' eyes narrowed on Eskel. "He put me to sleep, didn't he?"
"I saved your life," Eskel corrected her proudly. "It wasn't a fair fight and I owed Geralt one. Now," he threw a glance towards his friend, "you are the one who owes me, because we are far from even."
"We'll get out of here and..."
"We?" Outraged, Azaras let go of the belt and smacked in the air next to Geralt's head like a whip. All bark and no bite, she did not wish yet to hurt him, even if she had all the rights and all the chances too. It was just... Geralt was not fighting back in any way.
Guilt drove him back to her too.
"You think I will go with you after what you just pulled? I almost lost my hand to your dear Witchers." Azaras huffed an impossibly sarcastic smile, sniffing away, hopefully to het rid of the stench she inhaled before. "You're all the same..."
"Look at your hand," Geralt ordered. He kept his voice down, expectedly patient for Azaras first to look him in the eyes, realize he's serious and then reluctantly follow his directions out of curiosity.
She felt pain beneath the bandage and though she did not know what to expect when she unwrapped that mess, she surely did not anticipate seeing the hole covered again in tissue and only the skin left to heal over in a future ugly scar.
"Hmm." Geralt had been right.
"Sure looks like a Witcher to me," Eskel watched too, with a half-hearted impression. "Then you better get going. Vesemir will not like this so you go find whoever made her and prove she's with us. And..."
"I'll help you track the monster too," Geralt vowed to Azaras. He vowed her safety there too and in debt now to her, there was nothing which would push him to let her down.
Their eyes met wordlessly. To move her lips meant thinking more and meaning far less, so Azaras agreed silently to let only her eyes hold the break of their trust, to hold the truth that she'd sleep with her sword close.
Geralt would not expect any less. He knew the second he returned her belongings to her, they all weighed a little death against his every wrong move. And a voice of reason told him it was worth it. How very inconvenient is that.
Before leaving completely, taking a secret passage to the horses waiting them outside the walls, Eskel pulled Geralt back. He neared in for a whisper, a secret to remain trapped in those sorrowful dungeons.
"If she proves to be a monster..."
Bitterness formed on the roof of Geralt's mouth. He licked it with his words and grimaced, "I'll kill her myself."
"Are you sure you can do that?" Eskel tilted his head forward, knowingly. "Vesemir is may have recognized her past status, as Arcapan is not too far from us, but I know who she really was to you once."
Same bitterness, now swallowed, clenched over Geralt's stone cold heart. It ached, but it ached alone and silent, for no action shaded his features away from neutrality, not even shame or desire. "That was in the past. If she's not a Witcher, I know what I must do."
Eskel let go of him with a flattened smile. "Then," he sighed, "good luck and pray you don't see me again too soon."
No sooner had he joined Azaras, the questioned reached him with the fresh air that unclogged her mind. "Why?"
His silence was an answer on its own, an unspoken thought trapped between pages of books Geralt had read to no one, not even himself.
Azaras insisted with a stop next to their horses, "Geralt, why are you doing this?" She no longer had the status that allowed her the impression of riches, nor did she held the fair maiden beauty which may have melted some of this white wolf's ice.
But her perception did not match his. Geralt pulled himself into the saddle on Roach. "Because we need more Witchers," that was the easier answer. "And you need a home," came the harder one.
It was hard because for that one, he did not have clear explanations as for the first. What were they, if not just lonesome shadows? Nothing but wandering soul, rejects of the world. He had to hope, this nature of theirs was a family, because anything else was too much to endure.
"I cannot wait then," Azaras sighed through her ascend on her own saddle.
"What?"
"To tell the world just how emotional Witchers really are." A little tear glinded over the smudge of black under her right eye and into the faint wrinkles of a smile.
chapter dedicated to jonbernthals