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Tissaia de Vries never feared death. How could she fear something that had been so close to her, surrounding her and casting its shadow over her when the sun shone hottest and brightest, always surrounding her with an air of menancholy and sadness, giving her the air of distance and detachment.
And perhaps it was right. Perhaps this certainty that death was nothing to fear made her more than others who tried to run and hide, who brewed potions and adorned themselves with amulets the moment they felt their bodies give way to a sickness, trembling in fear when a cold wind touched their necks, mistaking it for the veils of death they had never known until the moment when it would be too late and there would be no way of escape.
For her, these veils were never cold, not warm, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, nothing but the feeling of approaching the void, of being freed from a body that held her to the ground, enabled to rise into the air once and for all and fly away.
Death had never been uncomfortable for her. Rather a necessity in life, like birth or time, growth and decay following one another like the arrival of spring, turned into the rich abundance of summer, full of life and joy, laughter and dances in fields of flowers. Then would come autumn, harvest time, finishing in a barn, counting the blessings of summer and sending a prayer to the gods to thank them for the riches. Destined to help entire generations survive the chill and wait for the new spring to bloom and flourish again with what the old year had left behind.
And finally, winter would come with its blanket of pure, innocent white, covering every tiny bit of life under its icy folds and suppressing its breath so that when it lifted and released the tiny soul underneath, it would be no more and nothing would be left but a cold corpse and memories in the minds and hearts of the people one loved and cherished in the past year. Old acquaintances who would never be remembered, though they would remember one, and carry one's memory through more years to come.
She has spent hours, sometimes days on the deathbeds of family and friends, smiling softly, stroking hair and moistening lips, comforting them with soothing words, only to be roused by the familiar air of heaviness around her, the blanket lowered onto the weak, still struggling body lying before her, only to be lifted again in the next moment with a final exhale of peace and disappear into the night.
She never tried to fight it in those nights, never tried to avoid it. She had never done such a thing in her entire life, knowing that when death came and chose to take her, she would greet him as an old friend and gladly take his offered arm for him to lead her out of the world.
In the end... She had known him all her life.
-
The blanket of nothingness is the first thing she remembers in her life. Neither her mother's shining eyes, nor her father's look of either pride or disappointment at the birth of a girl. Or another girl? She will never know. Nothing she did in her later life could help her find them, make the memories of her mother and father or anyone present at her birth resurface. Nor of the person who put her in a small basket and carried her far away from her parents to leave her outside, half-hidden from view by the skeletal fingers of a thorny hedge.
For whatever reason, they condemned her to die.
A tiny, frail infant outside in the freezing winter chill, barely covered by a silk scarf in a basket slowly drenched with the icy water of melting snow. Her breath twists into little clouds in the air around her. The thin wisps of brown hair, nowhere near long and warm enough to protect her small head from the cold, topped with a tiara of ice crystals as the snow falling on her tries to give her a dress to match. It i a snowy winter night when she feels Death reach out to touch her and take her with him for the first time. A newborn, not even a day old, left alone in the cold, hungry, wet and lonely, but too weak from the effort of childbirth, the hunger, the penetrating cold surrounding her, to even cry.
All she can manage is a quiet whimper into the silence, trying to draw someones attention through the heavy snowfall. But the soft blanket slowly descending on her makes her forget the cold, the pain of her little stomach contracting and silences her mewling.
Heaviness drops on her eyes, the blur of their vision fading even more as she closes them, all the cold, the pain, the howling of the wind around her muffled by the thick blanket hugging tightly around her. As if someone had decided to lift her up and take her far away, to a land of endless dreams and rest, where she won't have to lift her tired little eyelids ever again, because there is nothing to see but dark emptiness, the absence of everything that tormented her in her short life.
This is how it should have been, if a sound had not torn the cover apart. As heavy as it appeared to fall on her, so quickly is it cut through by the delicate song of a singing bird, landing on the dead branches to continue with its song as if to draw her back to it. Light and gentle music is the first thing she hears, a skylark's song, the first words ever addressed to her to protect her from the dark veils and bring her back to snow and ice, cold and hunger and the terrible loneliness that ceases to be lonely as the little bird lands on her basket and looks at her with tiny black twinkling eyes.
She has no memory of the following scene, at least not exactly. Nothing but soft darkness, the sleep of exhaustion at the moment a woman approaches her, crying the moment she sees her, immediately lifting her out of the basket. She is close to a chest whose warmth she never felt before, wrapped in a long, thick turquoise shawl of finest wool to protect her from the merciless winter storm. "Poor little darling," a gentle voice coos to her, that she will remember centuries later as her mother's voice, even though she never gave birth to her. "Left alone in the freezing cold. My poor little child... Imagine what would have happened if my songbird had not escaped from her cage to go on an adventure and find you for me."
-
Her first brush with death is interrupted by a loving, childless woman, the wife of a wealthy cloth merchant, and her little bird, which he had brought from Kovir for her to ease her loneliness. It gives her the name 'Skylark' and the love for the delicate singing of the birds that saved her life back then. Though she will never forget the first and only one who cared so deeply for her, he took the time to wrap her into his veils, to lull her into an eternal sleep. Worthy enough to spend his time on, rather than leave her in the dark and declare the matter closed without another thought about her.
-
Fire rains from the sky as she encounters death for a second time, centuries later. All those involved in her birth are already death, while she never felt more alive than when she runs through the city of Mirthe, besieged and almost taken by Falca and her rebel army. Magic gushes from her hands like crystal clear water from a rich spring. Though the water is nothing but raw power, polished and purified by her ability to shape it, to fashion it into steel and silver, the most powerful weapon ever wielded by anyone in this world, anyone alive.
A tiny movement of her fingers and a dozen soldiers collapse before her, their guts spilling onto the already blood-soaked stones of the pavement, stained by the remains of mages and mercenaries alike. A mere glance is enough to send a man to his knees, his throat clutching as he desperately tries to catch his breath under her merciless magic. She just gaves him enough time to regret choosing the wrong side in this conflict until his lungs collapse under the lack of fresh air.
It has never been in her nature to be cruel. She herself has always been against the death penalty, against torture. Among the few who opposed the execution of those who fought against the formation of the Chapter, albeit too young ones, to be heard. After Mistress Crest's research regarding the trial of the grasses, the cruel torture the witch schools inflict on innocent children to turn them into mutant monster killers, she cried herself to sleep. Hunted in her nightmares by the dozens of young boys dying in excrutiating pain. Since she holds the title of an Archmistress and is Rectoress of Aretuza, every time she was asked to attend a royal birth, she secretly prayed that the mother and baby would be well, hid tears of joy behind gentle smiles and well-worded congratulations to the young mother, and suppressed them when her wails pierce the silence of a baby that would never let its first cry to the world.
Dead before even having the chance to live. She is far from the woman of stone and ice she shows the world in her lessons and lectures and the few times she is allowed to speak in front of the chapter.
Though in the streets of Mirthe, with all the chaos around her, the screams and wails of dying men and women, of mages falling to the ground, utterly weakened by the dimeritium rocks raining from the sky as a deadly greeting from Lady Falca's catapults, it no longer matters. Though in the streets of Mirthe, with all the chaos around her, the screams and wails of dying men and women, of mages falling to the ground, utterly weakened by the dimeritium rocks raining from the sky as a deadly greeting from Lady Falca's catapults, it no longer matters.
She is barely able to move and even breathe, choking on the metal that lays a few feet away from her. With its effects on her chaos, she can longer be soft, merciful and forgiving. To be neutral, to try to justify actions, is a feeling reserved for those who do not fight. For the kings in their castles who arranges or rearranges wooden figures of soldiers on maps. Make them cross rivers and continents without seeing a single battlefield, the bloody banners of both sides lying in the dust and the lamentations of the wounded and survivors who mourn their friends and comrades on both sides and secretly wonder why they ever fought.
The only peace is the one of the dead, their silence the only language the kings will understand when they see the desperate state of their army at the moment when there is no more army to command, nothing to be heard but the croaking of the ravens feeding on the corpses.
There will be time to mourn the losses, to count the deaths and to erect monuments to their memory, to rebuild the City of Mages, bigger and brighter, more lavish than ever before. But right now it is a vicious struggle, not for victory and glory, but for survival, resistance to a brutal force, determined to kill every single mage that steps in their way.
She knows that her fate is to be counted among them, when death surrounds her once more, the split second before she the dagger enters her shoulder and her strength wanes in the fleeting instant. "Look, look what a beautiful little bird we have here..." She tries to fight the man in his bloody armour, his relentless grip on her slender wrists, turning her to face him. He forces her to inhale the scent of her brothers' and sisters' blood on his chest plate, feeling the smear of blood mixed with dimeritium running down her arms. Desperately trying to focus her power, fighting one last time before her life ends, she whispers a spell. But her magic is gone, the chaos coursing through her veins no longer accessible, her entire body suddenly numb, except for the searing pain in her back caused by the blade. Infected with dimeritium for sure. The cursed metal, still releasing its death bringing fragments into her bloodstream. A heaviness she hasn't felt in centuries surrounds her, embraces her, far softer than the man's hands ever could. She knows, what he doesn't, that even for an Archmistress, prolonged exposure to dimeritium is a death sentence. Whatever he's about to do to her, there won't be much time, as his voice is already a blur. .. "See how gentle you can be. Let me find a place where we can be alone and then..."
His voice breaks at the same moment his throat does, so suddenly that when he drops her to the floor, she can't even stretch her arms to catch herself, falling to the dust-covered floor covered in dimeritium. She closes her eyes, only to blink, somehow knowing that when she opens them the veils will be gone.
"Get up, Archmistress. Your fight here is finished." She must have been unconscious for some time. At least she cannot remember climbing into one of the towers of the Academy of Mirthe overlooking the whole city.
A slight turn of her head is enough to convince herself of something she already knows. The air is filled with the stench of fire, of burning bodies, the screams of the living and the dying, the whisper of burning books and libraries. Centuries of knowledge dissolving into air and ash, carrying their wisdom into the sky one last time, not by a spoken word, but destroyed by flames, never to be heard, never to be known again. Mirthe burns, glows one last time before vanishing from the earth and fading into oblivion. "What..." She whispers, her hands trying desperately to search the cold ground for something, some way to fight back against it....
"Falca has taken the city"; Stregobor's voice rings out from one of the balustrades. Lifting her head, she can see him leaning against it, his back turned to her to face the burning city, the fiery glow competing with the red sunset taking over the evening sky. "Everyone is either dead, has fled, or is desperately clinging to a thoroughly irrational hope that a miracle will happen to save what is already lost, fighting for it until their last or dying breath."
"I..." she starts and tries to sit up, though the pain in her spine makes a whimper break from her throat, she can't hold back any longer.
"As I said, your fight is over, esteemed Archmistress." he tells her without taking his eyes off the city, obviously bored by her pitiful attempt to rebel. Like a small child throwing a tantrum as bedtime approaches. "I will open a portal to take you back to Aretuza. Ilona Laux-Antille will take care of you, though I have already retrieved the dagger and cleaned the wound as best as I can. The dimeritium in your bloodstream has been extracted and I assure you that after a few days of vomiting and stomach cramps and an additional week of bed rest, you will be fine once you are back in your precious Aretuza, where you are sorely missed. "
She tries to find a hint of mockery in his voice, but there is none. He sounds the way she feels. Exhausted. Tired of all the fighting and bleeding and death all around her. "Now get up. It might be tiring at first, but right now you can walk and even run for the next few hours of even days, depending on ..." "What if I want to fight?"
Her voice is still weak, but it doesn't lack the determination she wanted to put into it. And apparently she has archieved her goal, for he spins around and stares at her as if she has lost her mind.
"You can't be..." "Everything we have fought for all these years is now hanging by a thread," she hises through clenched teeth, dragging herself to one of the huge pillars to use it as an aid to get up from the ground. "Everything we loved is destroyd ... I can't just sit idly in Aretuza and ..." "And so you want to sacrifice yourself for a lost course?" He raises his hand, one arm extended to gesture across the burning city. "Mirthe is already in ruins. Can't you hear them breaking down the doors of the Academy buildings? Give them a few more minutes and they will burst, Falca's soldiers will enter the most sacred halls of magic and destroy everything in their path. Not because they see any point in it, just for the sake of destruction. There is nothing to win here for you, Tissaia, and everything to lose. "
"Then I will..." she explains to him, just to be silenced by a shake of his head. " Have you forgotten the man who made you faint in the street, Archmistress?" he reminds her in a sneering voice. "Have you forgotten what he would have done to you?" "He would have killed me." Her voice is clear, matter-of-fact. "You of all people should know that I do not fear death, Stregobor. So there is nothing to fear even if they break through..." He interrupts her with a laugh, malicious and cold. "I never thought you so naïve, Archmistress." His hands closes around her wrists, holding her tight, forcing her to turn her head towards the flames that engulf the shimmering rooftops of the city where they have both spent decades, learning and working to build a world that is torn down at that very moment.
"There are worse things than death that happen to women in wartime, Tissaia." He tries to keep his voice hard and unrelenting. But neither the effort to do so nor the desperately hidden shadow of fear, of worry escapes her.
"They will kill me on the spot. Perhaps torture me for good measure, for I am nothing more than another mage. You, on the other hand, esteemed Tissaia, the young archmistress whose reputation extends beyond the walls of the city.... You won't get off that easily."
"But he..."
"He was a fool with a dimeritium blade in his hand, too stupid to pull it out at the right moment to weaken you but not kill you." Stregobor flatly tells her without the slightest bit of hesitation. "Though I would not rely on others being equally incompetent, my dear Tissaia. In all likelihood, they will handcuff you with dimeritium and then let dozens of soldiers have their way with you until death would be the more pleasant and merciful option, though I doubt they would grant it to you so easily." She stares at him, paralysed by his words, the images appearing in her mind's eye.
"Don't worry, Archmistress, I won't let it come to that."
The grip on her wrists loosens, if only so he can cast a portal before her, shimmering cold and blue against the bright red of the sea of flames surrounding them.
"A passage to Aretuza. Though I would advise you to be quick, my abilities to command chaos are quite strained by combat and dimeritium, and I would be grateful to have some reserves left to die a glorious death, proudly defending the values of the Brotherhood."
"I will not..." Tissaia begins, the fire of resistance sparking in her eyes, though he only rolls his and grabs her again, this time around the waist.
"Either you leave willingly or I will throw you through it, honoured Archmistress."
"But..."
"Go back to Aretuza." His voice has returned to the heaviness she knows from him. The way he always speaks, as if his words and opinions are the most important things, not just in the room, but across the entire continent. "Mirthe may be destroyed, I have seen members of the Chapter wiped out trying to hold ground they had already lost hours ago."
"They fought..."
"Yes yes, they fought for what they loved and built and wanted to protect, don't remind me of what I'm probably going to die for, unable to defend myself due to keeping the portal open here for far too long," he spits out, spinning her so she is forced to look into his face, The desperation in his eyes, darkened by fear and determination.
"Mirthe is lost. No matter how this day ends. What is left of this world is scattered across the continent. Your Aretuza on the Isle of Thanedd will be the mightiest bastion of strength and knowledge the Brotherhood has left, once Mirthe has fallen. And it will need a capable sorceress to guide and protect it." He takes another deep breath and releases her shoulder to steady the portal behind them. "When all this is over, and it will be, and it will be soon, the Chapter will need new mages to fill its seats. Ambitious to build again from the ashes, to lead the Brotherhood through this crisis and see it emerge from it. Stronger, sharper and more determined than ever to seize power over the continent once more."
"And you think that should be me? You of all people?" She remembers his sharp remarks in her direction, all the while accusing her of thinking too feminine, too compassionate, too soft to ever lead and rule.
"We don't have time to discuss this, Tissaia," he groans, the portal already flickering behind them as she feels his strength slowly fading. "But all the things that annoy me when we discuss, the compassion for people who rebelled against our order, the blunt adherence to old rules only followed by a sense of unnecessary morality, the whining about children snatched from their mothers for the greater good, that I despise in you, can be useful for generations to come. And apart from that..." The faintest hint of a malicious smile appears on his face as he turns her to look directly into the portal. "... There is nothing more triumphant than the prospect of dying with you owing your life to me."
There is no time to answer him, to spit out a cutting remark, for when he pushes her she was already too weak to hold on. Stregobor illuminated by the red flames that engulf Mirthe, the wizards' capital, is the last thing she sees until the portal closes and cold, fresh air surrounds her, soft arms enfolding her in a protective embrace, the scent of lemon and lavender flowing from golden-brown shimmering curls. Though somehow she deeply regrets that the last glimpse, she would remember him by forever, looked like a overdramatised hero's portrait.
-
They meet again, in the end, after Mirthe has fallen and they both survived the storm.
"I guess you are quite relieved that you can still cast magic," she says to him as she sits beside his bed, her hands busy rolling some bandages while she tries not to stare at the stumps where his hands once were, flesh burned by the flames that had turned Mirthe to ash, hidden by pristine white. "Cast some good illusions and you'll be fine." She can't ignore the smirk on his face as he watches her sit beside him and talk. "You probably want to re-evaluate what you said back then. That fact that they did worse things to you than they would have done to me?"
She waits just a moment, watching his smile fade, but in the end he shakes his head.
"Like you said, my hands can be rebuilt by magic," he explaines in a thin, tired voice. "The pain will fade, the wounds will leave scars and in a few centuries even the memories will be gone. There will be nothing left but a dull ache and a reasonably coutiousness regarding Falca and her kin. On the other hand, what they would have done to you, Tissaia..." For a moment it seems to her as if he tries to raise his hand before remembering that they are lost forever. Instead, she places hers beside him. He won't touch it and it will be all right, they understand the gesture anyway.
"I doubt the wounds in a delicate woman's soul like yours would ever fade." His grin reappeares while she just snorts.
"So you still think woman to be less than men, Stregobor?"
"Still trying to avoid the fact that I saved your life in order to scorn me, esteemed Archmistress?"
"And, I see, still jealous that the Brotherhood has bestowed that title on me instead of you, even though you are a man and nearly fifty years my senior."
They look at each other with stern expressions and narrow eyes, then their serious faces and angry looks give way to the slightest hint of suppressed smiles on their lips.
"I guess we will meet often in chapter meetings," she says with a shrug, rising from the chair beside his bed. "We should at least try to speak civilly to each other from now on." He opens his mouth, ready to answer her, something resembling "the only thing preventing that is your feminine weakness for emotionalism and melodrama", but he remains silent, instead just nodding at her.
"Until then, esteemed Archmistress."
"Until then, Stregobor."
-
They live and fight and kill for the brotherhood and the world they dream of, they wanted to build their entire lives and finally get the chance to do it. Though their struggles consist of letters, carefully worded, to kings and queens and their court advisors, to roll stones down hills, set wheels in motion to shape the future of the continent. They never get blood on their hands, never touch the ashes of ideas and beliefs they burn, but sit in their respective fortresses, far away from events they see nothing more than a faint red glow on the horizon. The man who fought in Mirthe is tired and has retreated to his illusion gardens and the libraries of Ban Ard to conduct his experiments and still pursues his academic drive for knowledge. Though she lives and breathes for what she has created, the only thing she will ever give birth to, is the world that rises beneath her fingers and words, her actions and those of the girls she shapes.
When Nilfgaard attacks the North, it is only natural that she will fight to protect and defend it, as any mother would protect her child from the world's curtails and another brutal force coming to take it away from her.
-
This is why she stands on the hills of Sodden, looking into Yennefer's eyes, feeling the veils surrounding her, realizing that she is going to die. "You saved me," the last words she will ever hear from Yennefer, their foreheads touching the last thing she will ever feel until the flames engulf her as they should have done many decades ago when Mirthe burned. Once again she is not afraid, but this time she is happy, proud. For she knows what Yennefer will do. The dearest girl, the woman she loves more than anything, although she will never know. Not until it is too late, until the flames engulf her and the rest of the hill, burning down the woods and the grass, and the Nilfgaardian forces with it.
A last ambush of the Northern mages, torn to pieces, pierced by arrows, burned and tortured, and still resisting, still holding their ground against Nilfgaard's army, until the Northern kings arrive. It can't be much longer, she already hears the galloping hooves of King Foltest's vanguard coming. Though well aware that it's nothing but pure fantasy, born of the desire that all the sacrifices, all the suffering meant something. Change something. That everything they have done, all the bloodshed, has the power to turn the tide of fate, to make the river of time and destiny flow into another bed. That the North will win this time, fending off the black armies of the South in a battle that will go down in history.
Yennefer's fires will clear the battlefield of enemies, the hills of swords and sounds of combat, leaving the dark covers of death rule over the entire field of battle so that peaceful silence can once again reign. "Come," she whispers as she feels it approaching, the cold of the night and the warm wind feeding the flames in the distance dissolving into nothingness.
"Come. I'm ready."
She lifts her eyes to Yennefer's, glittering like giant amethysts in the dark night, ready to forget the bottle, to bring her chaos into the world like a mother giving birth to her child in a final, desperate push.
And what a child it will be, Yennefer brings forth!
The salvation of the northern kingdoms, a flame that burns longer and brighter than any fire before, shaping the continent, fueling the forges that create kingdoms and rulers and dynasties to rise and fall. Fed by the wind around them, the fires will not extinguish until the last piece of wood is eaten away, until there is no feast left for them, falling victim to it's own greed long after she, and all the soldiers around her, have breathed their last. A small sacrifice to make a world safe.
So she straightens her back and embraces the darkness, the silence approaching her. She has nothing to fear. And therefore nothing to hide.
"Come," she whispers again, one last time, closing her eyes for a moment and breathing in one last breath of fresh air to be exhaled once she no longer has control over herself, over anything. "I'm ready."
She knows she is. She is ready to die, having wandered the world for centuries, seeing her girls shape the world to make it a better place. Everything she wanted to accomplish is done. She can leave now, ready to hand this world over to those who were almost like daughters to her. And to Yennefer, whose love she will lock in her heart and take with her into the eternal darkness to be her light, her guiding star for the rest of eternity.
She is calm as the fire explodes, sinking to her knees, knowing that in a few seconds she will be dead. But instead of surrounding her, the veil is eaten by the flames, torn by the desperate cries of burning soldiers in unbearable pain, while all she feels is the dimeritium in her body, a slight headache, a bit of nausea, the heavy feeling in her lungs that slows her breathing. And the cooling radiating from the heliotrope that protects her and the small piece of grass she stands on, allowing life to oppose merciless fire. She remains alone and lost on a battlefield, having once again escaped death, to feel her heart break as she lifts her eyes and Yennefer is not where she should be.
"Yennefer?" She screams in the darkness, the burning air aroung her, hoping for something she will never get. "Yennefer!"
Her life has been spared once again. But at what cost...
-
The burning fear in her heart finally subsides as the doors to her chambers open and Yennefer rushes toward her, eyes clouded in tears grabbing at her hand as soon as she is by her side.
"How...?"
"Just a little dimeritium," Tissaia reassures the exhausted girl, stroking the trembling hand that clings to hers as if it were necessary to hold her, to pull her from deaths icsy grasp.
"I... I didn't know..." the younger woman whispers, fixing her face with tearfilled eyes, begging for forgiveness. Forgiveness she doesn't need to grant because there is nothing to forgive. Though she doubts Yennefer will see it that way. "I'm so sorry, Tissaia, I'm so..." She sobs, still clinging to her hand because she doesn't dare to hug her. Because of their feelings, neither of them dared to give words to what was being described, not even at that moment when neither of them knew if they would see the sun rise the next morning.
"Tissaia..." Yennefer whispers, still holding her hand in hers, still clinging to her with all her might. "I... I..." Her voice breaks, the look in her eyes more timid than she's ever seen them, begging and pleading her not to push her away as so many have done before.
She remembers it, her worst fear. That even though she is a beauty, no one would love her. She is a beauty now, of course. But there had been a beauty back then that she had already seen, hidden under a crooked back and a deformed jaw, but undoubtedly there. Although suppressed by all the doubts, the fears, brought to light every time she held out her hand with a smile, with an innocent look from kind eyes in a sweet face, unsharpened by contempt and bitterness. Despite all the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of those who should have loved and cherished her.
"You were always a beauty, Yennefer," she whispers quietly in the stillness of the room, pierced only by Yennefer's heavy, rapid breathing, her occasional sobs. "And I've always been proud of you and..." She hesitates for a moment, thinking about all the reasons she told herself to stay away from Yennefer, not to speak what is now on her lips, ready to be released into the world. Only to find that they have vanished into thin air, turned to dust by time, faded into the fires of Sodden. There is no reason for them to push Yennefer away. Never again. "And you have always been loved."
It's not much of a revelation. No one falls to their knees, no one will write ballads about this simple sencence, and this morning she feels too weak to even lift her head from the pillow to press a kiss to Yennefer's lips. Though it shouldn't surprise her that the black haired woman does, still clinging to her as if the fear of it all could be nothing but a dream that vanishes into thin air, leaving her on the battlefield drenched in ash and dirt, surrounded by the corpses of those she loved.
"You saved my life," she whispers to Yennefer as soon as the kiss ends, smiling as the young woman lifts her hand to caress her cheek, running her fingers through her long, raven-black curls.
"Likewise," Yennefer breathes, smiling brightly before leaning in to kiss her once more.
-
The years after that day are bright and beautiful, although she knows well that all beauty must die someday. And that, unfortunately, those who cherish it most are often enough the cause of its early demise. She who wanted nothing more than to protect the Brotherhood and its Order, and by a twist of Furtune, is the one who brings it down. Making the coup of Thanedd come to fruition and destroying everything she held dear. She deserves to die as the battle erupts around her, a ballroom of guests suddenly transformed into a battlefield where death is their only spectator.
"No!" She cries to the room. Words stumbling across her lips as spells are cast and arrows fired, shattering on the walls or hitting their target with a sickening smack. "No! Vilgefortz, tell them to stop this madness..." She looks at him out of pleading eyes, the man she thought she could love in the most desperate hours, now turned against her. If her heart had still been intact, it would break at that moment, he turns and raises his hand, ready to kill her on the spot. Although it had already broken into pieces, crushed into dust as she realized her mistake, she saw them attacking each other and raised a hand to protect her girls and everyone around her, innocent or not.
The blood clinging to their hands had no meaning, none against the guild she put on herself when she freed Vilgefortz and his companions, so who would she be left to judge them?
A gentle blue wave of chaos surrounds her, following her whispered spell, separating the combatants, though not for long. She can already feel her strength fading, a slight pain running through her body every time a spell or arrow hits her shield and tries to break through it. She can see Philippa on the other side, hears her voice, turns her head for a moment, hoping to make a difference. But she is disappointed when she sees her raise her hands to attack. She and Keira and even Triss, her dear darling Triss, so soft, kind and shy, she would never have thought her to do such a thing. But here she is, staring at Vilgefortz and Francesca in utmost contempt, preparing to break the shield she desperately holds up to protect them. To protect the innocent, even though she's not sure if there is anything innocent in this room. All of them are either already dead or fled the place. Some of them may be blessed by merciful ignorance of what is happening here, sleeping in their beds and dreaming away the night the Brotherhood will finally sink into their knees and never rise again.
"Please, come to your senses," she tries to reason with them once more, only to be answered by Philippa's snort and Vilgefortz's icy, peircing laughter as he raises his hand once more to conjure a bright yellow shiny ball in his palm. "Step aside, Tissaia." his voice booms in her head, as much as she tries to shut him out. "Let us deal with those traitors. I have no intention to hurt you if you accept that the Brotherhood's reign will end today and..." "Never!" she spits back sending pain through her body and mind.
It's not his fireball that collapses her shields, but Philippa's explosion spell, fired directly into the wall to protect her as soon as she sees a favorable opportunity, Vilgefortz weakened, her old Mistress focused on him. The sparkle in the air fades, only to be replaced by colorful spells thrown across the room, the sound of desperate wailing, breaking windows, and screams of agony silenced in a gurgling sound.
She does nothing to protect herself, though no arrow finds her neck or chest, no spell hits her full force to free her from the hurricane of chaos that rises around her. It is not her war. And fate does not even grant her the grace to end her life before she sees everything she loved and cared for destroyed, and all the girls she cherished killed by her own rash actions. She doesn't want to be her to see it. She fears not death, but being alive as she watches them die, unable to do anything. So when she knows death is not close enough to come for her, she does the only thing she can. She flees.
The tower becomes her retreat, a death trap to the Redanian Soldiers, who, by some cruel irony of fate, will be hers as she is theirs. The veils of death are closer than ever with each fireball she throws at them, every carefully measured breath of chaos to exhaust herself to death and not unconsciousness. It's easy to control with fireballs ... but less so with the portal Triss asks her to cast.
"Please Tissaia, save him.... " The Witcher. The man Yennefer once loved, the man whose daughter she loves more than anything in the world. Even more than her, but how could she blame her? She wouldn't even dare accuse a mother of loving her daughter. "Please, I can't... I can't anymore..." She could tell herself that she is doing it for him. As a gesture of gratitude for taking care of her beloved Yennefer, for giving her the child she longed for. And maybe that's what Triss thinks, though the reality is different. In the end, she does it for them, not just for him. Because despite everything Triss has done, she still loves her. There may be many things to forgive and talk about, guilt and innocence and the blood they have shed in the service of their kings.
But those are conversations for another day, when the battle is over. The dead will be counted and mourned. For now, she just wants to save lives. This time she gives her hope of death to open a portal to take Triss and Geralt far away from Aretuza and Thanedd and all the carnage, hoping they survive as she falls unconscious to the cold stone floor.
-
When she closes her eyes, she still sees them. Not just at Thanedd, but all her life. Crying and wailing and fighting, trying to escape from the death, she looks straight into eye without even flinching. Her hand doesn't shake even as she closes it around the bone-handled knife. She never understood why they fought and whined and begged. She would understand it for the little people, a mother who abandons her young children after another babe is born, a father who knows his family will starve without the few coins he brings home each day. She understands it in lovers and children who know that they are everything for their parents, but never for mages.
Not after a life that dragged on for so long, it became boring, where there was nothing but the never-ending tide of knowledge and literature or worldly pleasures to escape the emptiness of being.
All in all, everyone knows what lives must die.
And she is not afraid of the undiscovered land.
What is death in the end, but to go to a new place with someone who was always present in her life?
What other than the research she did, the discovery of a new potion or spell?
What else but to lift the barriers that protect Garstang, to overcome the spell that Nina Fioravanti had put on those walls ages ago to protect them?
She tells herself that she is fine, that she has accepted death after meeting him so many times. Four times she was destined to die, always to be saved by fate and what it sends to rush to her side. The day of the coup was the day her life was to end, along with the Brotherhood, with all she had known and loved.
The second chance that fate has given her has brought her to the point where she is, lifting the knife to her wrist and doing what she is supposed to do: Ending a life that is nothing but turmoil and pain and the blurred memories of what she had done, the thousands of people she has failed to protect.
Sometimes she imagined how it would feel, how the blanket would slowly sink to her, without pain, without distress, simply taking her breath away and leaving her at peace forever.
But as she feels the blood run down her arms, the veils slowly but steadily descending on her, there is no peace, no calm, not the faint hint of dignity or serenity she imagined she would feel when death finally reached for her. Only pain. The pain in her arms and in her heart that breaks when she thinks of her girls, of Rita's tears and Yennefer's desperate sobs when they hear what she has done.
She thinks of the sweet song of the skylarks in the meadows and bushes that she listened to for hours when she a child, her mothers hugging her whenever she tucked her in at night, kissing her forehead and thanking the gods in a silent prayer for the little girl they had given her. She thinks of the gleaming rooftops of Mirthe and the scent of the libraries of the continent, centuries of knowledge and power to be preserved, protected and honoured forever. Dust and old pages, leather and the oils they rubbed on it to make it withstand the centuries return to her nose, mingling with the scent of lilacs and gooseberries, Yennefer's smell whenever they kissed, clinging to her own body for hours and days after they made love. She remembers the smiles of her life, tastes and scents and colours and soft, warm furs under her fingers.
The moments when a royal baby was placed in her arms, when it first opened its eyes so that the first thing it would see in the world was one of the most powerful women alive, smiling at it and speaking a blessing to make it fair and wise and beautiful and long-lived. All the beautiful moments of her life pass before her eyes and she feels tears running down her cheeks in her attempt to lift her hands to close the wounds on her arms for she has been mistaken for all these years.
She is afraid of death!
Right now she is afraid and the fact that she has escaped death several times in her life does not change the fact that she does not want this life to end.
"I want to live," she whimpers into the air and closes her eyes, though the tears continue to flow past her lids and onto her cheeks. "I can't die! Not now! I just want to live!"
But the veils continue to close around her and as she struggles desperately, on ground already lost the moment the blade cut her tender skin. She knows there is no way out. Four times she has been to die and life has reached out its arms to her to bring her back from the relentless grip of death. This one time she knows she is meant to live. But as she closes her heavy eyelids, knowing it will be the last time because she doesn't have the strength to hold them open much longer, no one comes and life finally decided that maybe she had been in this world long enough after all these years.
"Forgive me." She sends out into the black void that surrounds her, hugging her tightly, never to let her go. There is so much more to say, but she lacks the words and the strength and, when the veils surround her completely, even the breath to go on.
-
In the end, there are fundamental choices that cannot be undone. But sometimes one is able to flip the coin that is tossed in the air, to stop the dice that are already rolling. The split second when there's nothing left to do, the moment of regret; With a future hanging by a thread, flowting in uncertainty. There is no more time to beg, to bargain, to wish, to pray, the time to fight or let go is already over. There is nothing to do but wait to see if sheer fate and luck make the coin land on the right side, to stop the dice the moment they show the numbers to win the game.
-
In the end, there are fundamental choices that cannot be undone. But sometimes one is able to flip the coin that is tossed in the air, to stop the dice that are already rolling. The split second when there's nothing left to do, the moment of regret; With a future hanging by a thread, flowting in uncertainty. There is no more time to beg, to bargain, to wish, to pray, the time to fight or let go is already over. There is nothing to do but wait to see if sheer fate and luck make the coin land on the right side, to stop the dice the moment they show the numbers to win the game.
When Tissaia opens her eyes, the warm summer sun falls through the windows, bright and sparkling. A salty scent hangs in the air and the sea rushes against the rocks that form the foundation of Thanedd, indestructible whatever attack may come. A gentle hand touches her shoulder and as she turns her head she looks into Ritas' smiling face, surrounded by a shining golden halo, tears running down her cheeks.
"Yes," she answers the question she never asked. "You're alive. Everything will be alright."
She wants to say something back, but is distracted by Triss's sobs and the door crashing against the wall, only for Yennefer to be at her side a moment later, pulling her into her arms, burying her hands in her hair and sobbing desperately.
"Why..." she whispers, staring at her, searching for answers in her eyes. " Why did you do this? Why...?" There are many possible answers to that. For why she wanted to end her life. But she is tired and the wounds on her wrists still hurt, though she can already feel them closing and Yennefer's chest is a more comfortable pillow than she remembered, and with her scent filling her nostrils, she just knows everything will be fine. "I'm just happy to be alive, Yennefer." she whispers, feeling her arms close around her, soft hands caressing her hair as she drifts back into a deep, healing sleep.
In the end, she was meant to live, fate ignoring her decision and forcing her to watch the sun rise once more and feel Yennefer's arms around her, her kisses on her cheeks, forehead and lips as the salty wind blows the delicate song of a small skylark from the gardens to her ear.