Work Text:
Adri was tackled from behind the second they stepped into the courtyard. Any other time, and she would have seen it coming, would have dodged or something, but they hadn’t stopped for three entire day, only to force feed Coën and redo his bandages, and to be fair, lack of sleep and having to literally hold the gryphon up so he didn’t fall down the mule while climbing a mountain had taken its toll on her.
So she fell, face first into the ground, barely managing not to bite her tongue in her surprise, while a shiny blade was pushed under her chin at the same time as a knee pressed between her shoulders.
She heard Berengar squawk and yell something but was too focused on not moving a single cell to pay it any mind.
The blade was pressed hard enough to draw blood, so she could only grunt when her left arm was brutally grabbed and brought behind her.
She kept her right arm where it was visible, trying to think. Her steel daggers were sheathed on her lower back, where the assailant was sitting, but she had the silver ones, at her thighs. Maybe if she was fast enough…
Two old leather boots appeared in front of her before she could think more on this, and a square of cloth was pressed to her face through her blue shawl.
She blacked out after a minute of struggling, the blade at her throat be damned.
***
Adri remembered the steel around her throat. It had fit snuggly at first, but the weeks had made her lose all of her weight, and it was almost breathable after a while.
The collar had been heavy, and she couldn’t run or jump in it, the weight and material of it leaving black contusion on her clavicles and back.
She couldn’t even swallow fully — not that it mattered. Water had been scarce and food even rarer.
She remembered the two witchers, standing tall above her, casting their long shadows over her frail body, inspecting the collar while muttering under their breaths.
The same witchers, who had cut it off, along with the head of the man who had put it around her neck.
She hadn’t thought about it for a while. The hunger was never quite like it had been then, unable to eat for weeks on end, having to fight for the smallest bite of stale bread. The Path was kinder to that life. Witchers were no slavers, and even as a monstrous monster-hunting mutant, the humans respected her more.
She sighed, and looked around at the cell she was in.
At least there were no chains around her neck or wrists. Her blades were gone, but her armor was intact, like her shawl.
She tightened it, just in case. It wasn’t her fighting cowl, but it’d do.
Berengar was screaming, somewhere not too far, and the echoes were making it hard to decipher what he was saying, but the more she focused, the more she could make it out.
“It’s fucking ridiculous, she saved us!”
That brought a smile to her face. On their trek up to the Keep, Berengar had told her about the attacks on the wolves, about Salamandra. She had expected a cold welcome, maybe even an antagonistic one, but not outright violence and to be thrown into a cell.
She guessed she understood. If the Viper’s Keep had still been standing, she would have killed anyone trying to get close that she didn’t recognize.
But she had saved them. Coën had been dying and she was certain Berengar wouldn’t have survived him for long. She was covered in blood, but it wasn’t from trying to kill anyone.
She was pissed, she realized suddenly.
All this trekking through the most goddawful forest, with paths made up of tiny little rocks, only to be sent here? She didn’t even want to be here! She was doing this as a favor for some guy she didn’t even know! And having to save that guy Coën?! Nothing had forced her to do it, she could have turned on her heels and gone on with her life, instead of trying some experimental alchemy with his lover.
She was mostly pissed that no matter what she did, people couldn’t even give her the benefit of the doubt. Not even other witchers. Not even when those guys had clearly given it to Letho.
Sighing heavily, she didn’t move when Berengar’s monologue abruptly stopped, or when the sound of an old heavy door resonated through the dark dungeon.
Someone stepped into the room outside of her cells, and she still didn’t move, simply looking up at the old witcher.
He went to stand in front of the cell bars, crossed his arm, and scowled.
“That map you had, where did you get it?”
“Mignole gave it to me,” she replied, raising her chin. He probably couldn’t see the movement with the shawl and the darkness in the way, but she could see his shoulders tense.
“Mignole?”
“She says hi, Vesemir.”
He took a step back, as if she had slapped him. She bit at her lips to stop herself from smirking. So she was right then, this old guy was Mignole’s lover. She had heard all about it, through the years.
“Am I to die?” she then asked, because he didn’t say anything and this was the most pressing question.
“No. I was told by Eskel that you saved him once, unless there are two of your kind running around.”
Her kind. She scoffed.
“That was me. But I’m here for another witcher.”
“Yes, Lambert, I heard. What do you want with him?”
“I have information to share. Personal information.”
His eyes moved down to her belly, because apparently this was what her life had come to.
She rolled her eyes, because witchers were infertile, no matter what, but it seemed they were also all very stupid when they wanted to be.
“Is he here? I just want to share what I know with him and be on my way.”
“He’s not.”
“Then I’ll just be on my way.”
“Not so fast.”
She had expected as much. She wondered, if she died here in this cell, how long it would take before Letho and his two Cats realized that something was wrong. No less than six months, probably way more.
Damn, she would have loved to say a real goodbye to him.
“Berengar said you saved Coën.”
“I did.”
“He said you also almost killed him.”
“There were holes in his chest,” she said, frowning.
“And you pumped him up full of highly toxic potions.”
She shrugged. “It worked.”
“I know, which is why I’d like you to take a look at our laboratory. Maybe we could exchange some notes.”
The surprise stopped her from responding for a moment, before she was getting to her feet and walking closer to the bars.
“Do you mean it?”
It was his time to shrug, and give a lopsided smile. “I’ve never seen Berengar so adamant about anything in his life, and Coën means a lot to all of us. We owe you a great debt for what you did.”
She didn’t have to ponder over it for long. She had to wait for this Lambert guy or find him one way or another.
“I accept.”
***
Adri was no idiot. There were a lot of mages and sorcerers that would pay a lot to get their hands on a Witcher for some scientific experimentation — and even more who would want to get their hands on an impossible to make witcher woman.
She still took the executive decision of trusting the wolves on that, and followed Vesemir to their laboratory, a dark round room at the end of a labyrinth of dark hallways.
The Vipers had had a similar room, but theirs had been way more furnished.
She smiled as she approached shelves full of jars of eyes and fluid.
“Everything is in that notebook,” said Vesemir, staying at the door, pointing at a parchment and vials covered desk in a corner.
The darkness was thick in that part of the room, but the words staring back at her from said notebook were clear as day.
She turned to send Vesemir a questioning look over her shoulder, but he didn’t move, the hard expression on his face not trembling.
Adri picked up the notebook and looked at the schema again. Yes, this was the mutagenic process.
He was trying to make a witcher.
She read his remarks, his schemas, the formulas he had copied off somewhere, frowning more with each word.
There had been rumors. That the knowledge had been lost, that it had been destroyed for a good reason, that no witcher wanted to make a child go through what they had gone through.
This wolf either didn’t know that or didn’t care, but as she read over his research she could see how close he was. Close enough to make an attempt. Close enough to almost succeed.
He was wrong about the exact amount of mutagens though, and the order. From what he had written he’d kill off the poor child after two to three hours.
“You’re making witchers?” she asked, as casually as she could as she read the last of his notes.
He might be close enough to succeed, if the kid was tough enough, and his mage powerful enough. She had, despite the dubious conditions of her change into a witcher.
“Are you against it?”
She laughed, putting the notebook down and turning to face him, leaning back against the big desk.
“I’m a witcher myself, why would I be against it?”
“The process of making a witcher can be…” he looked for his words, but Adri nodded. She knew what he meant.
“It’s true but that’s not the worst thing in the world.”
She remembered her own.
How the man had grabbed her by the chain linking the big steel ring around her neck to the wall, how he had violently pulled on it, choking her, sending her back against the sandy ground. She had still been choking and seeing stars when his crushing weight had settled on top of her, when he had violently grabbed her by the neck, his fingers able to close all around it.
She had fought and screamed, too weak to do anything as he had taken his big shiny knife and started slicing her, from her left ear, down to her neck.
He was about to cut her from ear to ear, and as her blood spilled out she had screamed like an animal — which was what she was in this moment, an animal who had just realized it was about to die.
There was no kicking or punching, he was a wall on top of her frail emaciated body, but she had tried.
Then the man’s head had rolled off his shoulders, but her screams had continued, even as two steady hands had taken her away from the heavy body, had pressed against the cut at her neck.
“You’re okay Sweetie,” had whispered Ivar, his big palm covering her entire neck and face.
She had looked at him, unable to breathe, unable to do anything except die.
He had pressed something against her lips, coaxing her to swallow.
“That’s it,” he had whispered, grabbing her into his arms, pulling her close to his chest as her body had broke into sweat.
She had started shivering, suddenly cold under the burning sand. Her own blood had felt warm against her skin. He hadpulled her closer, started talking again, but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of her heart beating.
“You’re going to be fine, I promised,” he had murmured just as the worst pain of her life engulfed her whole.
She had woken up a long time later, still chained, still in this strange man’s arms. People had called him a witcher, like the old stories she had been told back before the slavers.
He had smiled down at her, looking nice despite the yellow eyes and scars.
There had been another one next to him, who looked angry and had immediately started screaming, but Adri had paid him no mind. She had focused on her hearing instead. There was a dog barking, to her left, but she knew there were no dogs here. It had to be the one who usually followed the traveling merchant around — but the merchant had left earlier in the day, there was no way she could hear the dog.
Then she had realized it was night, and she could see the man still holding her clearly, and had promptly started to panic.
They’d had to finish and give her more mutagens and plants, before they departed the village. Nour had refused, scowling more and more with each second, arguing that they had killed enough humans on that day to attract enemies, but Ivar hadn’t heard any of it. He had broken the horrible steel ring around her neck, had given her water and some figs, had held out a silken tunic in rich blue, that she had stared at with round eyes until he had told her to put it on.
Both had turned their back when she had started dressing and undressing right there and then, and for the first time her brain had finally connected, and she had looked around.
She could faintly hear the dog, but no human.
She had swallowed, surprised that it didn't hurt at all, and put the tunic on instead of the dirty rags she usually wore. They had killed everyone but had saved her, why? What about the other children?
“You didn’t let her choose!” was saying Nour once she had focused back on them, the soft tunic feeling nice when she put it between her fingers.
“Like our child surprises usually choose?”
“Those kids are not chained outside the house like dogs! Look at the others, you let them go.”
“Was I supposed to let her bleed out right there and then?”
“Yes!”
Ivar had grabbed Nour but the collar at this and sneered something between his teeth that had the other witcher blanch, look down and not say a single word until they had reached the Viper’s home a week later.
“Becoming a witcher isn’t always a bad thing,” she told Vesemir. “Do you have a child surprise?”
“Not exactly,” he replied, looking embarrassed for a second
***
Adri met Leo in the kitchen, where he was cutting up vegetables and gave her a shy smile.
Vesemir had refused to give any details except for “he has been training with us for a while and he’d like to take the Grasses.”
She wondered what would make someone actively decide to become a mutant and doom themselves to a lonely life on the Path.
“Sorry for the knife and everything,” he said when Adri just stood in the kitchen’s door.
“It’s already forgotten,” — and quite impressive, if she was honest. Some normal guy getting one over three witchers was quite something.
“Vesemir said…” he hesitated, looking away toward the big fire burning and filling the room with some warmth. “Could you help?”
“Depends on what,” she replied with a cheeky smile he couldn’t see under her shawl. “I know my way around potions and mutagens. That doesn’t mean it will work.”
Leo frowned, turned to look at her again.
“I know what my chances are, but it’s still worth it to me.”
She nodded.
“I didn’t know, when it happened to me, but it was worth it too. I understand.”
He gave a nod too, and turned back to his vegetables.
She grabbed a knife when he pointed to one with his chin, and got to prepping the food with him.
***
Coën was slightly less pale than before, but only just so. He was laying in bed, tucked in tightly, and Berengar was sitting on the mattress, right next to him, staring at his face.
Adri cleared her throat as Vesemir left her at the door, walking back the way he had led her. She waited for Berengar to look at her before stepping in.
“Heard the bleeding completely stopped.”
“You saved his life,” he replied, voice too rough. He rubbed his right eye despite the absence of tears, and chuckled wetly. “Can you believe that? I meet him, and he gets stabbed right in the heart, what? A week later? And then a viper of all schools saves him, right here, on the wolves’ mountains.”
“Have you slept at all?” she asked when he simply looked at her with crazy eyes.
He shook his head, and she walked closer, holding out the bowl of stew she had brought him. Vesemir and Leo hadn’t commented when she hadn’t sat with them at dinner but had asked about Coën and Berengar. Truthfully she didn’t feel like taking her shawl off to eat in front of them, even though Berengar had seen her face.
The circumstances had been different.
He seemed to be hungry, because he grabbed the food and started shoveling it in while Adri moved away from the bed and walked toward the window and the view.
It was cold, not that she had complained to anyone, but she felt it acutely as she approached the window pane and looked out at the tall trees and cloudy sky. The mountains were beautiful though, and if she managed to hunt something big for fur, like a bear, she might survive the cold.
“Thank you, by the way,” said Berengar, mouth full.
His eyes were earnest when she turned to meet them.
“I’m very glad you helped us, and I know he is too.”
She smiled and gave him a nod.
***
For the next four weeks nothing happened. Leo, who seemed to be doing all of the cooking, was leaving her meals in the kitchen, where she could eat alone with her own thoughts. Berengar never left Coën’s side for more than ten minutes at a time, but Leo went to sit with him most afternoons while Adri was down in the laboratory or the library with Vesemir, going over the mutagenic process.
Adri had thought about it once, when the subject had been brought up by the rest of the school, but it had been dropped just as fast. Vipers were in no shape to be making any witchers — they didn’t even have a home anymore. It felt nice to work her mind though, and at night she sat near the fire with the others in silence, continuing to make herself a brand new armor while Vesemir told Leo stories about the school, or his life on the Path.
No one asked her anything, but she could feel their curiosity, their gazes going to her when they thought she couldn’t tell.
They had given her a room not too far from the common room, but with a window with no escape route. If she tried to sneak out into the night, she’d have to go through the front door, not that it was her intention but at the one month mark, once Coën was feeling well enough to sit up and talk, she was starting to feel like she would be trapped there all winter.
Several furs and blankets had appeared at the foot of her bed, but that didn’t help the cold draft in each room. Even when sitting close to the fire she couldn’t quite get herself warm.
This was with that in mind that morning that she wrapped herself in all of the warm clothes she had — reinforced with the fur Vesemir had pushed into her hands and had told her in a grunt to make her boots more appropriate — and went out with all four of her daggers, a small pack and the entire mountains as her hunting ground.
It had started snowing two weeks prior, but she still wasn’t used to its sight, and her steps creaked strangely when she walked on it. It took her some time before understanding how to keep silent as she treaded through it.
Once that was taken care of, she started exploring. First she climbed a few trees, enjoying the view and trying to familiarize herself with the terrain. She watched the few birds flying around — nothing she’d ever catch with daggers — then focused on what was happening at her feet.
Holding a branch with her left hand, she reached inside her heavy cloak for her potion belt, easily grabbed the right one, taking a sip of it, the effect immediate. The leaves became clearer, like they were suddenly a lot closer than they were. She took a second and third sip, looking around at the details of the geography crystalizing into focus in front of her eyes.
With the fourth sip she saw something move, to the East. It was hard to tell the distance with the potion in effect, and she didn’t know the terrain well enough anyway, but it looked dark and furry.
Maybe a bear, or a wolf.
She climbed down the tree, and went in that direction, training herself not to make any sounds or leave any imprint in the snow.
It was long, and pretty graceless, but she managed fine after a moment, even as the snow started falling harder, the flakes as big as her thumb. It stuck to her eyelashes and eyebrows, and for a moment she stopped, closed her eyes and tilted her face up, feeling the cold snowflakes fall down and melt on her skin.
After a moment she started back on her hunt, because staying at the same spot brought the biting cold, and at least when she was fighting with the snow and hidden uneven terrain she didn’t have time to be cold.
She found a trail after a while — a long while, but she had gone that far and didn’t like the idea of going back to the Keep empty-handed. Whatever it was she was after knew to stay discreet, its traces barely visible.
Or maybe that was just the rapidly falling snow, she thought with a laugh to herself.
It was fun to do something new like that. She wasn’t used to the unknown anymore, preferring to stick to what she knew for her own protection.
She was wearing her cowl, the heavy one, made out of leather, leaving only her eyes uncovered, but each time she breathed, a small cloud appeared in front of her face, as if she was wearing nothing.
She wondered if humans could survive here. Berengar had told her that this was only the beginning of winter, that it could get a lot colder.
She didn’t want to experience that.
The trail she was following vanished after a moment, so Adri studied the trees around her, found the less dangerous one, and started on climbing, taking care not to slip.
At the top she found worse than nothing: the Keep was gone behind the wall of snow. She watched it for a moment, stomach dropping. It looked a lot like a sand storm, but the snow didn’t bite as much, it didn’t attack her in the eyes.
She had made a rookie mistake.
The sun was pretty much gone too — everything was gray, except for the trees that looked white with a few dark spots here and there — but her internal clock told her it had been less than three hours. The situation was salvageable then.
On the climb down the tree she almost slipped and fell, grabbing a branch at the last minute, and once again she couldn’t help a laugh. The great woman witcher Adri, dying of a broken neck because she slipped and fell. Auckes would have a field day.
The snow was up to her knees when she touched down on the ground, and she started walking fast, feeling uneasy. Like something was staring at the back of her neck.
She wrapped her cloak tighter around herself, right hand going for the steel dagger at her back, and struck a second later, when her heart beat picked up, her instinct telling her about the danger lurking.
She spun around, coming face to face with a giant, her dagger out and at their neck while the giant, buried in a fur cloak too, held up a long hunting knife to her neck.
“Adri?!” asked the giant, before reaching up to take off their hood.
Adri could only blink up at the red cheeked and scarred face of one Eskel. She knew that face, having spent hours trying to stop it from bleeding, having sewn it together, having looked at it with worry when the witcher had slept for almost two days straight.
She had spent more days worrying about what, exactly, had managed to scratch him up like that than she liked to admit.
He lowered his knife, a surprised smile playing on his lips despite the frown at his brows.
“What are you doing here?”
Adri blinked again, not understanding the question for a second.
Here, he meant the middle of the forest on that one mountain peak.
“I was hunting. I saw something and thought it might have been a bear.”
Maybe it had been him. His armor sure didn’t blend in well in the snow, which had her wondering if she was so bad in the snow that she hadn’t even seen or heard him approach.
She finally lowered her hand, sheathing her dagger and putting her arm back into the relative warmth of her cloak, but they stayed as close as they were — close enough to stab, if needed be.
She didn’t like that distance.
“You’re hunting right here?” he asked, frowning even more.
She had spent so much of her little trip from that cabin Letho had summoned her to up to these mountains thinking about Eskel and what she would told him so he’d let her in the Keep and speak with the other wolves that she had completely forgotten that he didn’t know she had reached said Keep.
“I’ve been staying in Kaer Morhen for a few weeks,” she told him.
He only looked more lost.
“Why?”
“I need to speak to Lambert.”
His face smoothed over, his frown disappearing as well as his small smile, leaving absolutely no expression.
She was pretty sure this wasn’t a good thing.
“Lambert?” he repeated, his voice more metallic than usual.
“Yes.” A sudden gust of wind forced them to protect their face, Adri turning around so the wind was at her back, waiting for it to end.
Eskel’s voice cut through it before it did.
“Let’s find somewhere better to discuss,” he said, starting to lead the way without waiting.
Adri followed as well as she could, the snow rising, now above her knees — barely reaching Eskel mid calf. She remembered the first time they had met, how her size had shocked him. His had shocked her too, this was the first time she had met someone capable of rivaling Letho.
He led her to a small cave, well hidden and pretty dry, all things considered, with his stuff already there, next to the ambers of a fire.
A quick sign from him was enough to bring the fire back to roaring life, and he sat down next to it without waiting, taking off his snowy cloak to reveal the fur coat he had on underneath.
Adri did the same, sitting down as close to the fire as she could, doing her best not to start shaking now that they weren’t moving anymore, and took off her cloak, laying it down next to her, watching the snow on it slowly melt.
She rubbed at the melting snow on her lashes too, accidentally met Eskel’s gaze, and cleared her throat.
“A friend of Lambert sent me here, to get him.”
“What friend?”
She shrugged. “A friend. I don’t know a lot, but I know he can be trusted.”
“So you found the way up to the Keep? And Vesemir let you in?”
She laughed softly at this.
“I wish, but no. I met Berengar along the way, and Coën, who was dying.”
Eskel tensed so suddenly, it made her heart pick up on it and start to drum. She looked around, but there was no danger. He was reacting to her words.
“Don’t worry though, we managed to save him with some crazy amount of potions.”
“Coën died years ago.”
She shrugged. “He had two holes in his chest but he’s alive, and back at the Keep. Your little friends jumped me when I first walked in but Berengar talked them out of imprisoning me for ever, and everyone was very glad that I managed to help Coën.”
Eskel simply stared for a moment, before shaking his head, a sad smile crossing his face.
“Coën, alive and back at Kaer Morhen. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
She could understand that. She remembered Mattia telling her that Letho had survived his stupid missions of kingslaying, and not believing a single word until she had seen his bald head with her own two eyes.
And screamed at him, for at least thirty five minutes straight.
“You know,” she said when the silence around them grew too long, making her feel uncomfortable, “I never thought I would one day see so much snow.”
His eyes snapped to her, and his smile grew warmer.
“First time?”
“Oh yes. I didn’t think it was possible to be so cold.”
He moved at that, grabbed something from his pack, a thick wool blanket, and slowly moved so he could put it around her shoulders, smiling once it was done.
“Better?”
“What about you?”
“The fire will warm me,” he replied, which had her roll her eyes, grab the corner closest to him and hand it out.
“Come, since I’m barely big enough to be considered an adult.”
He gave a bashful smile at this. On their first meeting he had asked if she was a child, probably because of her height. It wasn’t that she was tiny — although she was — but that he was an absolute giant.
He was sure of his movement as he sat down next to her though, probably too close to the fire but he didn’t comment on that, and slipped the blanket around his own large shoulders.
It was warmer thanks to the blanket, but mostly thanks to his arm against hers, but she didn’t move, closing her eyes instead and leaning just a bit closer to the fire.
“I miss home,” she sighed, feeling his eyes on her face.
He said nothing, moved about a little, to cross his legs judging by the movement, but didn’t make a single noise.
“The days are longer, the sun is hotter, and the grass is greener. Nothing is gray. Nothing is cold.” she smiled to herself. “We have gnomes.”
“I’ve never seen a gnome in my life,” muttered Eskel.
She huffed a laugh, sent him an amused look, just to see the petulant tilt of his mouth, before turning back to the fire with closed eyes.
“Why don’t you go?” he asked, softly.
“There’s a hefty price on my head and the Keep has been burned to the ground.”
She could still feel the burn of it against her skin even as she stood far enough to be safe when the flames had reached the laboratory. The entire first floor had exploded, the rest of the building collapsing in on itself. It had burned for a week straight.
The corpses had been impossible to identify.
She opened her eyes again. There was no point in thinking about it. The school of the Viper had officially died on that day. Life went on.
“I’ve never seen a snow storm but if I’m not mistaken…”
Eskel smiled, his face close enough that she could see the gold freckles in his eyes. It pulled at the terrible scars on his cheek but he didn’t seem to mind.
“That’s a proper blizzard, yes.”
She sighed.
“I wanted to hunt something to get myself warmer fur.”
“I’m afraid the bears aren’t on this side of the mountain.”
She shrugged, their shoulders brushing.
“At least I’m not alone in the snow.”
He hummed to that.
***
They ate some of the food they had brought — dried fruits and meat, and some leftover bread Adri had stolen from the night before — but the snow only got worse, to the point that they stayed right where they were, until night fell.
“I have White Gull,” proposed Eskel when it was clear that Adri wouldn’t stop shivering anytime soon. She took the bottle without a word, drinking gratefully. The heat settled in her stomach. It wasn’t enough to stop her from shivering, but it helped somewhat.
Eskel was still watching when she handed the bottle back.
For a second she wondered if she hadn’t done something strange, before realizing what was going on.
“Is it the cowl?” she asked.
She had pulled the flap covering her face up, just enough to be able to put the bottle underneath it. He shouldn’t have been able to see her face but maybe…
The scars on his own face stopped her from pushing that thought farther. His were objectively worse than hers.
“Not at all,” he said, slightly too loud, slightly too fast. He wet his lips, took a sip of Gull too, before trying for a smile. “I can turn around if you want, so you can take it off. Even when we ate you did that and it can’t be very practical.”
Adri shrugged.
“I’m used to it. It’s easier to be a killer if no one knows what you look like.”
Among other things, she didn’t say. The Nilfgaardian army was everywhere nowadays, and they sure as fuck knew exactly what she looked like, to the point that she had debated pretending to be a man — up until reality had rushed up to her and she had realized that she could at best pose as a boy.
A small and frail boy but oh well.
“We’re all Witchers here,” he said, not looking at her anymore. “Even at the Keep, you can trust us, we protect each other.”
She smiled bitterly, thinking back on the way Vesemir had said her kind. Even with the vipers, not everyone had accepted her — some who had been turned after her. She was under no delusion, but he looked sincere, so she didn’t hold it against him.
Sometimes even Witchers could be naive.
“It’s keeping me warm anyway,” she said, taking the bottle back from his hands, and once again slightly lifting the flap of her cowl to drink.
The conversation changed after that. Eskel told her about some contract he’d had during the year, and she did the same, omitting her little trek through the continent that had made her broker than broke. She’d never worked so little in a year before, but at least she had seen a lot.
Like the wraith she was telling Eskel about.
He almost fell down laughing, leaning on her shoulder as he shook with it. They were still under the same blanket, with Eskel’s big fur lined cloak added on top of it, the fire in front of them, White Gull warming their bellies.
Adri laughed too, feeling good and relaxed in the middle of a blizzard with some guy she didn’t even know.
“And then what did he do?”
“Well he took his pants off, to start.”
Eskel laughed even more, his adam’s apple bobbing when he leaned his head back and drank more Gull.
She had killed a few humans like that. Make them drink until they don't know the difference, and let the highly toxic White Gull do its job. It was a good plan, up until the drunk guy tried something — thankfully she was a highly trained killing machine.
The thought hadn’t crossed her mind even once, she realized, that Eskel might be someone she should worry about. Maybe it was because she had once seen him half dead and had saved him and nursed him back to health.
Maybe it was the way his eyes crinkled when he turned them to her.
“Look,” she said, a strange feeling of trust coming over her, “I need to know that I didn’t come all this way for nothing. Is Lambert coming?”
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t,” he replied, rearranging the way he was sitting.
Their knees bumped, he muttered an excuse but she ignored it to continue staring at his face.
“I’ve been here four weeks,” she said, which had him stop in surprise.
“Vesemir let you stay for four weeks?”
“As I said, everyone seems very grateful, and he needs me.”
“Need you for what?”
His eyes scanned her face, despite the fact that there was nothing to see but her eyes.
“That’s for him to tell you, I think.”
He frowned. It pulled at his face and Adri followed the movement of his fingers as he absentmindedly reached up to touch them, pressing on the still pink skin.
“Do they still hurt?” she asked.
He blinked, took his fingers away, shook his head.
“I used the ointment you gave me, and made some more. It only hurts if I move my face too much now, and you know us Witchers hate joy and smiling.”
She laughed, “yeah, don’t I know that.”
“Have I thanked you for that, by the way?”
She shrugged, scooted closer to the fire. He followed her movement, putting the blanket and cloak back over their shoulders when they started to slip off.
“I’m pretty sure you did, but there’s no need. I did the normal thing.”
“Most wouldn’t have stopped, or would have fought those people only to get to loot my corpse.”
“What can I say? I have a big heart.”
“Yes,” he replied, with all the seriousness in the world.
Adri blinked, her eyes into his — their amber color liquid with the fire light, his lips shiny when he licked at them, one lock of his hair artfully falling on his forehead.
The snow was still falling non-stop outside, and their little fire burned as bright as was safe for them. The only way the two of them could sit any closer together would be for Adri to get on his lap.
Not once had he done anything uncourteous. He was sharing his warmth, his blanket, and his booze with her.
Maybe he was way more dangerous than she had thought.
She had never been more glad for her cowl.
“Maybe we should go to bed,” he said after a full minute of just staring.
“Yes,” she replied, pulling her pack closer. “Any chance that the snow stops by tomorrow?”
“There’s only one way to know,” he replied, watching her pull out her second cloak, and the small blanket she had brought too. “I don’t want to be rude but uh…”
“We have to sleep together, I know,” she replied, focusing on unlacing her boots and cringing at the way it sounded.
Eskel cleared his throat but looked amused when she chanced a look his way.
“I’ll let you take the side closest to the fire,” he said, chuckling as he started on his boots too.
“That wasn’t even up for debate,” she replied, putting down her two cloaks so they could lay on them.
Eskel pretended to be busy with the fire when she moved farther back into their small cave and turned her back to him, changing her cowl for her shawl, hoping it wouldn’t slip off while she slept. She would have kept the cowl had she been on the Path, but here with a guy who didn’t seem to care it was a little ridiculous, and she slept better with a shawl than a cowl — or with nothing, but that was pushing.
She then went and laid down next to him without a word, facing the fire, her back to him. They had piled two wool blankets, Eskel’s cloak and some fur he had, and it was almost enough.
Adri’s teeth clattered for ten minutes before she was turning around to grab Eskel’s forearm, who had been laying on his back, half of his body not even fitting under their little cocoon, and pulled him, until he was on his side, his arm around her.
“Don’t be shy, I won’t stab you and I’m cold.”
He didn’t say anything but moved, fully turning and getting closer, pulling her back with his arm, until they were spooning, his chest against her back, her socked feet against his legs, and the rest thankfully not touching.
He started rubbing her arm, until she stopped shaking so hard and her body finally relaxed. That had him sigh, the sound close to the back of her head.
She wondered how they managed to fit despite the gigantic height difference, and fell asleep before she could think about it more.
***
It was still snowing in the morning, but less intensely.
The fire had reduced to amber, but Adri was feeling warm for the first time since she had arrived on that mountain top, and she let herself bask in it for a moment.
Eskel was still sleeping, snoring softly somewhere near her left ear, his entire face pressed into her shawl. They were more intertwined than they had been the night before, having moved so they were half on their side half on their front, Eskel blanketing her with his body — or crushing her, she wasn’t sure which term was more appropriate.
She watched his hand near her head for a moment, not wanting to move but knowing they couldn’t stay like that. She was no specialist, but the snow might pick up again at any time, and she wanted to get back to the Keep.
Eskel made a sleepy noise, some kind of soft moan, and she could tell at which exact instant he was aware of his surroundings, his entire body tensing, before he was cursing and rolling away from her.
She was immediately cold again.
“Shit, sorry,” he said, sitting up, rubbing his face. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
A werewolf had once thrown her through a brick wall, so the idea of him hurting her by sleeping was amusing.
“No broken ribs,” she said, sitting up too, bringing their blankets closer.
Her toes were freezing. Maybe she should have kept her boots on.
She was pondering over that, before realizing that Eskel was not saying anything, and pointedly looking down at the blankets.
“Hm you…”
Adri frowned, realized the tip of her nose also felt cold, and rearranged her shawl. It had slipped in the night, as expected, but the bottom part of her face and her neck had stayed hidden, and she didn’t really care about him seeing her nose.
“The snow isn’t falling as hard,” she said, grabbing her boots and quickly putting them back on.
“We might make the trek up to the Keep, how do you feel about walking in the snow.”
She smiled under her shawl, but he saw it in her eyes, smiling back.
“It can’t be worse than the sand.”
They ate the last of their dried meat, Adri put her cowl back on and redid a bandage Eskel had around his right bicep, before they were off.
He was more gracious than her once in the snow, not that she was surprised since this was his element, but seeing a man as big and broad as him move like water was always something. She thought only Letho had been blessed by that capacity, and only thanks to his viper mutagens, but it seemed innate in Eskel.
He helped her navigate through the places where the snow was up to her waist, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her after him, his fingers never gripping too hard.
She climbed a tree at some point, smiled at his impressed exclamation, and looked through the gray on gray scenery to find a bigger and grayer spot that might have been the Kaer Morhen keep.
They debated hunting something to eat or not losing anytime and starving until they reached the Keep, and settled on that second option. It was pleasant to walk and work with him.
The last hour was torture, of course. The snow was too powdery for them to walk on, so they kept on falling in it. At some point Eskel grabbed her by the waist and tossed her out of it, making her laugh so hard she couldn’t stay upright. That had her wonder if this was what walking the Path with another witcher was like. The camaraderie and help was nice, but she knew it wasn’t always this great. Two witchers had to split the payment, they had to worry about each other. She couldn’t imagine having to fight off some monsters while someone she cared about was close by, in immediate danger.
They reached Kaer Morhen in the middle of the day, Vesemir waiting for them at the gate with a scowl and crossed arms.
“I thought you had gotten yourself killed,” he told Adri, before turning to Eskel, “same for you.”
Eskel smiled hard enough that it had to hurt, and engulfed the older witcher in a bear hug, tapping him on the back in the way men did.
“I missed you too,” he announced, and Adri decided to leave them to it, continuing her walk in. She wondered what Leo had made that day, hoping for more stew, and that grain bread she liked.
Instead she found Coën and Berengar sitting at the table in the common room, the gryphon still pale but smiling, wrapped in white fur, Berengar sitting close to him.
“Hey,” she beamed, “glad to see you up.”
“Glad to see you didn’t die in that blizzard,” replied Berengar, but he was beaming too, a glint in his eyes she hadn’t seen in someone in a long time.
Vesemir and Eskel walked in before she could say more, accompanied by a guy that had her heart picked up.
Finally, she thought.
Aiden had described his Lambert as someone who “looks like an asshole. But in a good way“. Now, she didn’t want to judge him too harshly, considering that despite throwing her in a cell the Wolves had been very nice to her, but this guy had a bitchy look on his face, and that rugged wolf charm despite his delicate features. It was very strange, but it suited him, and she could see what Aiden would like about it.
“Lambert?” she asked, taking a step up.
Finally, she’d grab him and make her way back to Letho, then she’d be able to go wherever she wanted, that weight off her shoulders.
“Who the fuck is that?” replied the guy, turning to Vesemir.
Before anyone could answer him Eskel was stepping up, eyes wide as he stared at something behind Adri.
“Coën?” he breathed.
“Coën?!” repeated Lambert.
Both of them looked like they were witnessing a miracle, and when she turned to watch Coën, he simply raised a hand and smiled brightly.
“Hey guys. I’m back.”
She looked away, feelings rising in her throat from the look on their faces. She knew exactly what it was like, remembered the day she had seen Letho, Serrit and Auckes, safe and sound, like a blade in the guts — remembered how they had looked at her the way those two were now looking at Coën.
Gods, they had really thought he was dead and had grieved him.
Gritting her teeth against the wave of emotion taking over the room, Adri decided that now was not the time, and slithered her way to the kitchen without a sound. She’d eat, and then she’d get to Lambert.
***
After a very large meal that Leo had left for her in the kitchen — with a small note and everything — Adri took a too long bath in the Wolves’ gigantic hot springs. She had never seen something quite so perfect before, at least not in the Northern kingdoms, and it was the only place she managed to feel warm and normal.
Once she had bathed for long enough that she was embarrassed at herself, she put her armor back on, the new fur coat that had appeared on her bed during her absence, the pink shawl she had used in Oxenfurt, and went back to the common room.
Everyone was sitting close, speaking in low tones, Lambert and Eskel still armored. Vesemir looked up as she approached.
She could read in his eyes that he didn’t want her to do this.
“Lambert,” she still called.
He looked up, frowning.
“Who are you? They said you came to see me.”
“Aiden sent me,” she said, expecting his reaction.
She wasn’t stupid, had seen what Aiden had looked like — had seen how they had reacted to Coën. She took a large step back in time to dodge the sword, but it was useless. Eskel had jumped to his feet at the same time as Lambert, and had blocked his attack with his own sword.
“Don’t you fucking dare say his name,” he gritted between clenched teeth, looking furious, and sad, breathing hard, the smell of panic filling the room.
Adri simply raised both hands, trying to look as non-threatening as she could.
“He’s alive, and was found by another Cat. He was too wounded to move, so I was called, and he asked me to come find you.”
He moved in a blur, side stepping Eskel and going for her, but she was fast too, managed to get her daggers out and up just in time to stop his blade a little too close to her face for comfort.
“Stop,” he spat despite the tears burning in his eyes, Adri’s arms shaking in the effort to keep him from cutting her.
Aiden had warned her.
“He said you took your medallion back too soon.”
She almost stabbed him when he suddenly stopped putting pressure against her weapons, letting his arms fall down by his sides as he stared blankly at her.
“What?” he asked, voice flat.
She lowered her daggers but kept a tight grip on them, just in case.
“He said your took your medallion back too soon.”
A long string of curses followed for long enough that Adri chanced a look over his shoulder, at the other witchers who seemed as lost as her.
“What else did he say?”
“Hmmm.” A lot, was the real answer, but some things shared while agonizing in pain were better left never repeated. “He said you look like an asshole.“
He chuckled wetly at this, and fell to his knees.
Vesemir jumped to his feet, Eskel took a step closer, Berengar grabbed Coën’s hand, and Adri simply lowered down until she could look at Lambert’s face.
“He’s alive,” he breathed.
“He is,” she replied in the same tone, sheathing her daggers and putting a hand on his shoulder. “He’s in horrible shape though. I’ll tell you everything, okay? But there are things only you should hear.”
He nodded weakly, the tears falling down his cheeks, to his in-need-of-a-shave chin, before they crashed down on the stone floor.
Adri reached up, wiped at his cheeks, and took him in her arms when he broke into sobs.
The others were staring holes at them, but she focused on Lambert for now.
***
Once calm Lambert had left with all the others to get a bath too, leaving Adri all alone to wander the halls, until she decided to go to the laboratory, where Vesemir was already working.
She had guessed, that he wouldn’t go take a dip with them, so she closed the door behind her, already knowing he had been waiting for her.
“The path down the mountains is closed now,” he said, not stopping what he was doing.
She only moved so she could see what he was doing, and watched as he gently poured a translucent but oily liquid from one vial to another.
“I’m sure I can make it.”
“Even if you could, Lambert couldn’t.”
“He—”
“He couldn’t,” he cut her, turning to fix his serious eyes on her. “The year that cat die he waited until the last minute to come here, almost dying in the process, and you know what he did once he was safely home?” he corked his vial and gently put it down, before closing his fists tightly, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he slowly got up and turned to face her. “He let himself slowly waste away. He wouldn’t train, he wouldn’t get out of his chambers, he barely ate anything.”
He stopped, swallowed with difficulty, fear and anger thundering across his face.
“It almost killed him. I can’t lose him.”
“You won’t,” she said, walking closer. “And there’s nothing any of us can say or do that will stop him from going.”
“At the end of the winter, once the path and his mind are cleared.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but Vesemir cut her off.
“Besides, we need to work together on our mutagen problem.”
It wasn’t as much of a problem as the mutagens here were shit. Adri knew exactly where to find the good kind — after all, she had emptied the Viper lab of important and rare reagents and hidden some of it — but she didn’t trust the wolves, or anyone, with that kind of information.
“I would like to go as soon as possible,” she started. She’d never thought she would one day have to haggle like that with another witcher, “however, if you’re certain the path is barred, we’ll wait for it to clear.“
He breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you.”
She nodded. After all, working on making new witchers could be beneficial, and after sleeping outside while the blizzard was raging outside, she wasn’t keen on seeing what other surprises the mountains had for her.
***
After that, life took on a very strange turn. Adri trained with them, brewed potions and teas to get Coën back to full health, researched and fought with Vesemir about how to rightfully conduct the Grasses. She still didn’t eat with any of them, but she sat in the evening by the fire, finishing to sew her brand new scale leather armor, along with a new cowl where she could take the hood completely off without it impacting the cowl.
They sat with her, with varying degrees of distance, and talked, with her, with each other. It reminded her painfully of what having a school was like.
She learned about Coën, how he had spent his winters with the wolves for a few years already, how Berengar had stopped being a witcher years before that, how Lambert liked to come up with new bomb designs. Eskel mostly spoke of his adventures on the Path, and Leo never once breached the subject of how a young guy like him would ever willingly come live here to train as a witcher with, as far as he knew, no chances of ever fully being one.
Because whatever Vesemir and her were cooking in the laboratory had to stay a secret, for now. She had no idea what the old wolf had told them about what they were doing down there every day for hours on end, but no one ever asked or said anything about it, except Leo on that first day.
The days bled together, creating a weird but not unwelcomed routine.
On that morning though, the air was crisp enough that Adri couldn’t even move her feet when she woke up. It took a well aimed Igni at the hearth in her chambers, and crawling to it before she could finally regain control of them.
Fucking wolves and their fucking mountain, she thought to herself.
She put her brand new armor on though, excited to try it and start breaking in the leather, added several layers under and over it, enough that she was pretty sure she looked more like a ball of fur and leather than anything else, and four pairs of socks, before she stood in front of the faded mirror above her hearth.
She was too short to see herself in it, so she had to stand on her bed — that she had brought right in front of the hearth anyway — and carefully pulled up her hair, right on top of her head, as tight as she could.
Once done, she made sure it would stay in place by moving her head around a bit, before attaching her brand new cowl around the lower half of her head.
She was covered from nose to toes, but still shivered as she stepped out of her chambers toward the kitchen, knowing the others would already be outside hacking at each other.
She ate fast, and joined them, one dagger already in hand.
Coën and Leo were already at it, training together to accommodate Leo’s slower reflexes and Coën’s still shaky movements, while Lambert and Eskel were hacking at each other with much fanfare and crazy pirouettes that no witcher would ever use while on the path. She smiled as she thought of her summer with the manticors, how a kikimore had bitten someone's calf right as they were doing that kind of visually impressive movement.
Berengar whistled as she approached him. The sounds of fighting from the two other groups stopped.
“Well, well, well, is that the new armor?”
“It’s nice isn’t it?” she replied, smiling as she turned on herself.
“Super nice. Maybe you should make me one too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe, but only because you threw yours away!”
Berengar laughed, looking happy and relaxed, a far cry from when they had met, and turned to grab a sword from a rack.
Adri turned to look at the others while she waited for him, and met Lambert and Eskel’s eyes.
For a second, they only stared at her.
“So you do have a head under that shawl,“ commented Lambert.
“Yeah, but still no mouth,” she replied, which had him snorting.
Eskel said nothing, but offered her a tiny smile, before they went back to training.
Berengar came back a moment later, and Adri focused on that. She knew why she had been paired up with him when she had started training with them. She was a woman, and a very small one at that. The big guys thought they would hurt her, and Adri had let them believe that. She was a viper, had taken hundreds of monster and human contracts, two wolves were not going to impress her, but it could be advantageous to have them believe she was weaker than she actually was.
So they had paired her up with Berengar, who had stopped working as a witcher a few years before. It was a strange concept, one Adri had never really even imagined. Being a witcher was more than a job, it was who she was, and it couldn’t just be stopped.
But Berengar had done it, although he had probably kept on training since he was still better than any good human swordsman could ever hope to be.
They went slow that morning, going through the familiar motions without bravado, hitting, dodging, hitting back, parrying. It was nice, to have someone to train with.
Living with the wolves was making her reconsider a lot of things. She wondered if splintering the vipers was still the best solution. They were places they could go, the few of them still left. Deeper into Tir Tochair, or some island. The desert was also an option — and would be better than these stupid mountains, she thought as her right toes stopped moving, making her stumble on her dodge.
She rolled on her fall and managed to mock slice up Berengar’s leg, stopping with her dagger’s blade at the junction of his leg and hip, right where she would have cut the artery.
“Nicely done but I still saw you fall,” he said, out of breath, holding out his hand.
Adri grabbed it and jumped up to her good foot, keeping the other off the ground.
“Yeah,” she grimaced, “the cold is fucking with my mutagens.”
The glint of excitement disappeared from his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
She cursed herself for sobering him up. He was a nice guy who had lived through some fucked things, and she couldn’t get his pathetic expression from when they were in that tree covered in Coën’s blood out of her mind. She liked him, and wanted him to be happy now that his lover was well and they were both home.
“Don’t worry, it’s just the cold.”
He frowned and stepped closer to her.
“Give me your hand,” he ordered.
Rolling her eyes, Adri sheathed her daggers at her back and held out her right hand.
He handed her his training sword, which she took in her left hand, and took off both his and her glove, cursing when his burning fingers wrapped around hers.
“How the fuck are you so cold?” he asked, sending a panicked look around before grabbing her shoulders and starting to push her back towards the Keep.
“My blood is colder than yours,” she said. “I’m a Viper, remember?”
He cursed again, and called for Coën, which had the effect of making everyone stop and start to join them with varying degrees of panic on their faces.
“There’s no need to worry, I’m fine, I just need to go sit by the fire,” she tried, but Coën and Leo were already by their side, and Leo took the sword from her hand, Coën then grabbing said hand and taking her glove off too.
“Shit,” he breathed. “You’re colder than the dead.”
“That’s not nice,” she frowned, already knowing that this was a lost cause. Everyone was treating Coën like the miracle he was, including Adri, so there was no resisting what was about to happen, and she did feel cold anyway.
A smile pulled at her lips when she thought about sitting by a fire.
Berengar and Coën guided her toward the gigantic fire in the common room, grabbing the large chair Vesemir used at night and pushing it as close to the fire as possible, forcing her to sit there before they were grabbing all the blankets and fur they could see laying around and piling them on top of her.
She hummed. That was nice, especially since she couldn’t move her right leg at all when she tried. Sleep started pulling at her eyelids in that peculiar way it did when she was about to fall into that dreamless sleep brought on by the cold.
She had managed to resist that pull since arriving here, but it was impossible that morning, and her last thought went to hoping the others wouldn’t think she was dead before she sank into the peaceful and empty world of sleep.
You need to wake up, was the stark thought that filled her chest with panic and had her jump back to consciousness.
She hadn’t moved, but the sun indicated late afternoon, and her rumbling stomach told her it had been a few days. The room was empty, the fire was roaring by her side, and under the absolute pile of blankets crushing her to the chair she felt somewhat warm.
Maybe she should join the wolves when they piled close and on top of each other in the evenings, she thought with amusement, before taking her courage with both hands and pulling the blankets off.
Her teeth started chattering, of course, so she grabbed one dark blue wool blanket and the soft white fur they all used, wrapped them around her, and got up.
Her legs and arms protested, but staying static would only make her feel colder, so she started walking determinedly toward the kitchen, not even realizing that she was slithering like the viper she was, until she arrived in front of the kitchen door and heard an unknown voice.
“But what if we can’t trust her? I would have never brought him if I’d known.“
“There’s no need to panic,” interjected Coën, “she saved my life.”
“And now she’s in our home! What if it was the plan the whole time?”
“We’re not the ones with enemies from her school,” said Lambert.
Adri frowned. What had Letho said after this whole fiasco with the king slaying job? The white wolf fucking sucks? Or something in that line of thinking. And how many fucking wolves were there? She had thought those guys had been murdered by the cats at some point.
Then a feminine voice started talking, and Adri froze.
“I could look inside her mind once she’s awake. I couldn’t get anything when we arrived.”
“She’s our ally!” protested Berengar.
There was a beat, the sound of people moving around while Adri stayed frozen on her spot — this had to be a sorceress.
Being a Viper didn’t mean having the best of hearing when it came to witchers, but she had other advantages, so she pressed herself against the wall, as close to the door as she could, and stayed completely immobile — which was easier than it should have been, considering that she had just been sleeping for a long time, her body still sluggish.
“Look guys,” said Eskel. “Everyone is on edge right now, but Berengar is right. She’s our ally. She’s been here for too long now, if she wanted to do something she would have already, and nothing forced her to save Coën — or myself.”
“You’re as bad as me when it comes to women so excuse me for not trusting your opinion,” snapped the very first voice, the one she thought was the White wolf’s.
There was a growl, a deep dangerous sound that had Adri’s hair stand up.
“Maybe we should just all take a deep breath,” announced a new voice.
The growling continued, more voices adding to it, even as the sound of steps resonated from the stairs behind Adri.
She blended even more into the wall and the shadows, and watched as Vesemir approached the kitchen. He frowned as his eyes passed over her, but she didn’t move, didn’t even breathe, and he didn’t see her, stepping into the kitchen instead.
“Aren’t you done fighting like children?” he asked, not raising his voice but his words still resonating.
“You’re letting some Viper we don’t even know stay here!” yelled the White Wolf.
“And if I remember correctly this is my Keep and I get to make that choice.”
“Not when it puts us all in danger. Why is she here? Lambert said she came all this way just to tell him something, which sounds ridiculous, but why would she stay?!”
“It’s because of me,” replied Leo in a small voice.
Adri’s heart squeezed painfully.
“That’s what you’re doing in the lab, isn’t it? You’re trying to find a way to make me a real witcher.”
There was a beat of stunned silence, before a concert of screams started, and Adri chose this moment to move again, leaving for her chambers.
***
None of her stuff had moved, except for the blankets from her bed that were gone — probably laying on the floor next to the chair she had fallen into.
It seemed like no one had touched her. She was still wearing the same armor, her boots and cowl were untouched. Only the harness holding her daggers had been taken off, and was now nicely waiting for her on the big chest in the corner of the room.
She put that back on first, feeling the cold clinging back to her body and fighting it off. Then she got to her pack, fought with its content for a moment, before finally finding a small piece of parchment.
There was enough to write on the little table by the chest, and she wrote a simple enough note, something Lambert could use to find her, so she could get him to Aiden after she left.
Because she couldn’t stay. Not when the cold was pulling her under like that. It was too dangerous now that new people who distrusted her were here, now that a fucking sorceress had come and offered to look through her mind. She had too many secrets to protect, too many people who were only alive because of them. Maybe if she hadn’t fallen into hibernation…
She stopped that thought right there. The Wolves weren’t her friends, or her school. They were glad she had saved Coën, and they needed her. That was all. She couldn’t be of use to them if she slept until it stopped being so cold, and that was bound to have consequences.
So she had to act now, while they were fighting in the kitchen, thinking she was still sleeping by the fire.
She grabbed everything she had and pushed it down into her pack. There was no food but her water skin was there and enough snow was covering absolutely everything that she didn’t fear dying of thirst. She added the fur and blanket she still had wrapped around her, her former armor, and put on all of the layers she could wear while still moving around freely.
She couldn’t find her gloves at first, and started panicking, before realizing they were in the chest, along with a long, fur lined coat she had never seen before.
That would be payment for saving Coën, she decided as she quickly did it up. It hid her weapons, which could be both good and bad, but for now her priority was to stay as warm as she possibly could while she got the hells away from this Keep.
The last thing she needed was to put her silver daggers in their sheaths at her thighs, and once that was down she put her pack on her back, and slipped out, feet staying fast and silent as she crossed the long hallway.
There were still loud voices coming from the kitchen, but she stayed alert.
Her heart was beating fast, for once, which helped keep her warm and moving, the words she kept repeating to herself: move, move, move, don’t stop.
She reached the common room, crossed it as fast as she could, and managed to open the door large enough to pass through without making it wince.
Then she took off, as fast as she could, taking the biggest steps her short legs could manage.
It was snowing abundantly, and she hoped it would cover her trail.