The rope is digging into my wrists as I tug on it, trying to free myself. I don't need to look behind me at my skin to see how red it is. I wince as the rope doesn't loosen and ends up pushing deeper into the chafed skin.
The dad of Johan, who I have decided to name Rascal in my head, glances towards me, and I freeze under his scrutinizing gaze, pausing my escape attempt, although he can't see what's going behind my back.
That's when the door of the cabin opens, and Johan enters with a shovel on his shoulder. Dust and dirt fall from the shovel like snow onto the floor as he stomps in with his boots. "I covered up Uncle Borald."
There's blood flecks on the ends of Johan's sleeves, and I couldn't help but feel a smudge of sympathy for him. That is, until his eyes flick towards me, and his brows lower in rage, and my concern focuses on my own well-being.
I have inadvertently caused the death of a brother and an uncle, and I'm sitting in the cabin of his kin.
They're going to kill me.
"Johan, you know how much this is worth?" Rascal lifts my ring up. Rascal found it when they were tying my hands together, and it's probably the sole reason I'm alive at the moment.
Johan drops the shovel and leans it against the wall. He shrugs after a quick look. "Two silvers."
"Not even close. This gemstone is ruby," Rascal pauses, "Real ruby."
I inhale rapidly. If he knows the worth of that, it won't take long until-
"Now, why would a girl have this ring in her possession?"
They both turn towards me.
Rascal stands up from his place at the table and nears me. Although I'm sitting in the corner, I push myself as far away as I can from him, wishing the walls would swallow me up. In my hurry, I feel something sharp thrust into my skin. A nail?
He stoops down and comes right in front of my face, holding the ring between his thumb and pointer finger. His gray eyes meet mine. "Who are you, and how did you get this?"
His musty breath reaches me, and I wince.
I try to keep the tremble out of my voice. "I stole it."
He chuckles. "Did you also steal that stallion? And this very expensive cloak?" He takes my cloak and tugs on it hard. "Then you must be a pretty good thief, or-" He pauses, "The daughter of a wealthy family."
Johan is standing a couple of feet behind his father, and his eyebrows jump at the news. And then, a smile graces his lips.
I bet all they're imagining swimming in a pool of gold coins. I open my mouth to deny the fact, but then it hits me. If they realize I have no family to provide them with a ransom, then they will kill me. Or, even worse, they will sell me.
I need them to keep me alive and hopefully, unharmed. With enough time, I can get myself out of this mess.
I have to play along, which shouldn't be hard. I just need to play the part of a spoiled princess.
I let a tear slip. It's not difficult. I've been wanting to cry for the past couple of hours. "Please, don't hurt me. My father will pay any sum! Just, please don't hurt me."
I hate playing the damsel of distress, but don't regret it as I see both of them beginning to grin. It's working.
"Who are your parents?" Rascal demands.
I still. What do I say now? I don't know any of the rich families of Kaedwen, so I have no name to give him.
Rascal believes my silence to be a refusal to give an answer, so he grips my face hard and tugs me forward. His fingers are digging into my cheeks to the point where it hurts. I clench my teeth hard to stop myself from yelping out loud.
"I asked you a question." He bares his teeth at me. They're yellowed and brown and stink of rotting. I would prefer facing the wyvern or the warg over this as I try to stop myself from throwing up.
"My father- his name- it's-" His hand tightens his hold around my face, causing more and more pain. My mind digs for a name- any name! Just for him to back off, to stop my face from being crushed at the pressure, to escape from this! But I can't think of a single name.
Rascal shoves my head hard into the wall, and I yelp when I bash hard against the wood.
"One last chance," Rascal growls as his hand drops towards my throat and starts putting pressure. My heart thunders in my chest, trying to compensate for the lack of air entering my lungs.
Any name! Any name! Just give him a name! I yell at myself in my brain as the oxygen is being stolen from my breath.
"Geralt!" I choke out. He immediately lets go, and I am left coughing and sputtering.
"Say that again?"
I look up at him, out of breath and in pain. My chest rises and falls rapidly. I swallow hard and repeat, whispering, "It's Geralt."
And then I realize what I have done. Did I just give Geralt's name?
How stupid can I be? There's tears flowing down my face, and I don't even bother pretending to be a spoiled princess anymore. I really am weak, aren't I? I can't even protect the person who has given everything to me.
I have officially dragged him into my mess. What have I done?
All these weeks of training and building myself as a person... and for what? I'm still the same person I was a year ago. I can't deal with my own problems without dragging others into it. The same thing happened with Dara and the many others I have spent time with over the past year. No- I will not let them get to him. I will get out of his mess myself. I finger around the wall to find the nail and try to cut through the rope.
"Geralt- Geralt of Rivia?" I hear Johan's shocked voice from the back.
I glance up to see them both wear looks of complete surprise. Johan's eyes are wide, his mouth open. He takes a step back in disbelief.
Well, that's before Rascal snorts, slaps his thigh, and starts to laugh. Johan seems to be concerned for his father as he tilts his head and asks, "Dad?"
Rascal grabs a chair and sits down, hunched over and bellowing out laughter.
"Dad, are you okay?" Johan goes up to Rascal and puts his hand on his shoulder. He's biting his lower lip as he watches his father sit up straight again.
Rascal wipes a tear and smiles up at Johan. "That was the funniest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Maybe we should keep her around just for the jokes."
Johan looks over to me, scans my exhausted, frazzled face, and returns his gaze back to his dad. "But dad, I don't think she was joking. She seemed pretty serious."
"Johan, don't be ridiculous. I raised you to be smarter than that. Witchers can't have children. She's lying!"
Johan turns his head towards me and then back to his dad, sending a hand through his bushy hair as he tries to make sense of the situation.
Rascal sighs. "I think we are done here."
Standing up, he pulls a knife from the table, and his gaze settles on me.
I'm so dead.
He moves towards me, and Johan jumps in between us. "Wait, Dad, wait!"
"Get out of my way, Johan. I have had enough of this brat. She's killed my brother and now she's trying to make a fool out of us. I'll sell the ruby and we will have enough coin to last us for years."
Johan raises his hands. "But what if she's saying the truth? Then we have a Witcher after us."
Rascal snorts. "That's exactly what she wants us to think."
"But, Dad-"
"Enough!" Rascal roars, and shoves his son to the side. Johan tumbles to the ground.
I make eye contact with Rascal, and he grins. "Maybe I can sell you afterwards after all. No one can tell the difference between human and beef."
My heart picks up the pace in my chest as he nears me with the butcher's knife, and the rate my hands are rubbing the rope against the nail increases.
Come on! Break! Break!
He stoops down to my level. The knife is by his side, hovering by his hip. He tilts his head at me. "What a waste of a pretty little thing like you."
And then I feel the rope break, and my hands are free.
I have one chance to get this right. Just one.
I throw my self forward, slamming the center of my forehead into his nose. Blood spurts out of his nose as he lets out a scream.
I'm also in pain, but what's more important, is that he is in more pain than I am. With the strongest shove I can muster, I don't give him the chance to recover his bearings and push him to the ground and out of my way.
Johan watches from the floor as I jump to my feet and sprint towards the cabin door, throwing it open and running outside.
I'm surprised to see he makes no move towards me. Smart boy.
"Johan! What are you doing? Get her!" I hear Rascal's yelling from the opened cabin door. Snow crunches under my feet as I make haste. I turn back to see Johan dashing towards me.
Stupid boy, after all.
But at the moment, all I can think of, is this is far too familiar as to what happened earlier. History repeats itself.
Johan is faster than I am. I am bound to lose just like last time, unless I do something differently. I push every bit of energy I have into the heels of my feet, trying to speed up, but at the same time, I'm surveying my surroundings.
What can I use?
We are in the middle of the forest. There's no river here, no lake or other body of water I can use to my advantage. Climbing a tree would only give me a temporary escape. A stick may hold off Johan for another couple of seconds, but let's be realistic, it's just a stick in the long run.
There's nothing.
There's really nothing out here to help me. I can't believe my escape attempt has amounted to... nothing. It has been a waste of my energy and time. I missed my chance.
Johan will catch me and bring me back to his father, and I don't even want to know what Rascal will do to me after I have broken his nose.
I feel fear with such force, I can't help but think- this can't be happening. This is not how I meet my end. I'm not done. I have so much more to do.
I can't die here!
Perhaps out of desperation, even though I know he is an hour long journey away from here, and I know he won't be able to save me this time, I still yell. "Geralt!" I pant, "Geralt!" My scream echoes through the forest, like a wave traveling through the land in all directions.
And that's when I feel Johan at my heels. He overtakes me easily.
I turn as we fly towards the ground, so I hit the snow with my back.
Unlike the first time he has caught me, this time he looks afraid. His hands are shaking as they grab mine.
Knowing how he feels about Witchers, I glare at him. "Geralt will kill you once he finds out what you did to me."
His brows turns up and he glances around the forest before looking down at me. "Is he really your father?"
I bare my teeth at him. "What do you think?"
Geralt had once told me that fighting is not always about winning the battle itself, but it can also be about buying more time.
I tried my best, I really did. I hope Geralt knows that I didn't give up, and that I did everything in my ability to come back.
But that's when I realize, he probably will think I ran away. The horror then truly hits me. He won't know that I was killed. He will believe that I've had enough of him.
The guilt in me twists my heart. I hope he doesn't blame himself. He did everything right. I'm the one who messed up. Why couldn't I just tell him about the trip here? I've been eaten alive by the regret of doing this the entire time I've been in the cabin, but now it really hits me.
This is not a joke. I don't have a reset button. I've played with my life, and I've lost.
"Good job, Johan." I hear Rascal's voice behind Johan. I peek behind him and see Rascal stumbling over to us. His face is a mess of red, and his nose sits at an unnatural angle.
I spot the butcher knife at his side.
And that's when we hear a pounding reverberating through the ground. Thunder? No, the skies are clear.
It's getting louder and louder, almost like a marching army getting closer.
And that's when I finally identify it- those are hooves. Horse hooves.
Cobalt is coming back!
Finally, through the thicket of trees, a horse jumps through, making its presence known, but it's not black like Cobalt. It's a brown mare I know very well, with a white spot on her nose, and she's not alone.
She's got her rider, and he looks pissed.