The splashing cadence of Kelpie's feathered hooves was as consistent as a metronome and equally sedative. Ciri stiffened her back and struggled to keep her bleary eyes open. They had been riding past cascading stripes of repeating porcelain pillars for what felt like an eternity. She was beginning to slip in and out of consciousness when the black mare came to a sudden halt and jolted her awake.

Any divergence from the limbo of replicated architecture would seem surreal and the thing in front of them was certainly different. The partially submerged ruin resembled the dilapidated foundation of a tower. The stones it was set with were not the familiar Amell marble of the cistern, but dull pewter tarnished by time. There was a sharp acidic smell to the air as they approached. It reminded Ciri of steel being smelted at a forge.

"This is your freedom, Zireael," Avallac'h's words rolled through her back. "The Hen Gaeth. The Old Gate of this world."

Ciri clasped her Cat Medallion. It was gently vibrating in its own reactive rhythm like a heartbeat.

"Another portal..." she uttered uneasily.

"Yes, although not quite as mundane. This portal is a gateway between worlds..."

The mysterious inflection in Avallac'h's voice sounded as if it carried a wisdom as ancient as the structure itself. Ciri leaned forward with interest in the saddle as curiosity pinched between her perfect brows. Nothing about the ruin gave the impression that it could lead to another cavern, let alone another world, and yet here it was out of place in these monotonous depths. Avallac'h had said that the Easnadh once flooded the cistern. Maybe this insignificant arrangement of rock was the true purpose for such a labyrinthine place.

She saw it when she blinked. The curve of illumination on a gargantuan ring. Ciri wiped at the watery edges of her tired eyes and looked again. Set within the center of the ruin was a thin ring of sparkling matter. The smooth dark stone of the band only became visible for a brief moment when illumination reflected off its polished surface. The curtain of infinite darkness surrounding them swallowed it up again just as seamlessly. It seemed to defy gravity as much as human understanding.

If she had learned anything since Avallac'h awoke her from the Curse, it was that appearances could be very deceiving.

"So this portal works like the Tower of the Swallow? It connects my world with the world of the Aen Elle?"

"Not just your world. Every world. There are gates like this on every sphere, connecting them to countless worlds."

Ciri's eyes and voice lowered with concern. "What about that Navigator... Cerinthe?"

"Caranthir," Avallac'h corrected for the second time. "Cerinthe is a form of honeywort," he stated obviously.

"I know what honeywort is, Avallac'h," Ciri puffed out her cheeks and exhaled with a tired frown. "Witchers use it for blade oil."

She felt childish and ridiculous when he corrected her, even if the words themselves were devoid of emotion and inflection. Ciri fidgeted briefly within his unrelenting grip. Avallac'h felt his whole body stiffening in hard response to the small writhing movements. His mouth was a thin unmoving line as he loosened his hold on her, shifting back in the saddle as he cleared his throat.

"That Navigator," Ciri's eyes searched for the glimmer of the gate with apprehension, "surely he knows about this gate. You seemed pretty confident in his abilities as a tracker. Won't he follow us?"

"The nature of these gates," Avallac'h began in a voice that attempted to be reassuring until it became too analytical, "will obfuscate any effort Caranthir makes to track you. The Aen Elle will not be able to ascertain your destination so long as you refrain from using your power."

"Why is that?" She ran a hand through her hair and an ashen lock fell over the scar on her face.

Avallac'h recognized the gesture by now to be an indication of her own lack of assuredness.

"The stars in two different skies must align to form a connection between worlds. Such bridges are not unlike stardust, ephemeral as a streak of light in the night sky. They exist only for that fleeting moment in time."

Ciri's faded lips shifted with cynicism into one cheek as she stared down into the glossy void of Kelpie's mane.

"That doesn't sound quite as romantic when I imagine being tossed into the burning heat of a dying sun. How will we know where we'll end up any better than Caranthir?"

"My title, if you recall, is Aen Saevherne," Avallac'h explained in a tone so literal that his vaunting choice of words somehow belied modesty. "A Knowing One so named for possessing the arcane ability to predict such passages through time and space. I will use my knowledge to activate these gates and guide you through them, until you no longer wish it of me. Ordinarily, there would be some negligible probability for error or separation. However, we both possess what you might call an... exceptional gift of genetics. It negates such possibility, so long as we traverse together."

Avallac'h tugged on the reins slightly to stop Kelpie from chewing on the bit and waited for some sound or gesture of acknowledgment from the unpredictable woman in his arms. He knew she was more worried about Caranthir than she was letting on and he felt a need to reassure her. Explaining what he was knowledgeable about was a simple task of forming cogent words. Using those words to calm a creature he did not understand was proving to be much more difficult.

Ciri's charcoal-lined eyes had been focused on deftly weaving silky ebony strands of mane between her pale fingers while listening to the serene monotone of his verbose explanation.

"The fox with his thousand and two hundred eighty-six paths of cunning..." she muttered to herself thoughtfully.

Avallac'h was too thrown off by the statement to conceal the confusion that creased his sharp elven features. His pale blue eyes fell to her ashen hair as if there was some explanation buried within their snowy whispers.

"What?"

Ciri smiled in reminiscence as she leaned into Avallac'h's chest. His chin grazed along her hair softly before he moved his head considerately to one side. He found it unexpectedly pleasant to feel her relaxing against him, even if the feeling confused his body as much as his mind.

"It was a story that Geralt told me when I was little," Ciri spoke lightly as her hands worked on forming a dark braid. "After he found me lost in the Brokilone forest. The story of a fox who met a cat that was being hunted. The fox boasted to the cat that he knew a thousand and two hundred eighty-six paths of cunning through the forest. That they could use his paths to evade the hunters and their hounds." Her smile faded with her words. "The story didn't end well for the fox..."

Avallac'h furrowed his brow. She could recall exact numerical minutiae from this trivial childhood tale, yet she couldn't remember the name of the Navigator she feared for posing the greatest threat towards her freedom. The nonsensical categorization of meaningful information in her mind was truly mystifying. But right now this whimsical eccentricity of her nature was unnaturally alluring. There was an indescribable aura around her in this moment, some strange anomaly with its own gravitational pull that tugged him into her atmosphere. It filled his head with cotton as he felt contented to bask in its warmth and the feeling of her body resting against him.

She was bewitching and blurring his boundaries again.

Avallac'h's face once again rested into something unreadable.

"An interesting human fable," he remarked dryly as he reached to his side and detached the silver mask dangling at his belt, "but with circumstances not analogous to this situation."

Ciri looked over her shoulder as he pressed the mask to his face. Emeralds curved up at the corners of her eyes to reflect the cold glint of silver. Her brow wrinkled upward with confusion and tugged a corner of her mouth with it in amusement.

"Why are you still wearing that thing?"

Avallac'h took up the reins. "Your world is not the only sphere where hostilities exist between humans and non-humans, Zireael," he stated with a knowing apprehension.

"So...?"

"You will be safer if-"

Ciri exhaled with a groan of burgeoning frustration as she leaned forward.

"We..." Avallac'h maintained in a placid tone, "will invite less incident if you are not traveling with an elf."

He avoided a debate by invoking an activation spell.

"Straede aen'drean aep muire aep aine."

Ciri blinked lazily into the emptiness of the gate. Nothing happened. Seconds passed and began to turn into minutes. She had almost drifted off again when the Cat Medallion startled her with a shuddering shake. The gate's incomprehensible circle of space trembled as it filled with an orange spinning glow that throbbed into the hushed manifestation of a portal.

"Right on time," Avallac'h stated more to himself than to Ciri as he tightened his hold around the curve of her slim waist. He squeezed in his heels to drive Kelpie forward and the black mare carried them into the sunset lens of light as if such a thing was entirely ordinary.

Ciri instinctively closed her eyes tightly to the unfamiliar. When they came to a halt she opened them to a monochromatic world. Everything from the bleakness of the overcast sky above to the stacked steeples of stone and boulder surrounding them was a shade of grey corroded with geodes of onyx. Soft beds of blackened lichen and moss clung to every visible earthy crevice. Kelpie had carried them through time and space onto a chiseled mountain path of obsidian with shadowed rainbow bands of shimmering color. The horizon was a vast emptiness marked with towering narrow mountains of timeworn rock that pierced through the howling air into clouds of mist.

The thin windy chill blowing over them was a clean and refreshing change from the suffocating stillness of the cistern. It was punctuated by the wavering bleats and cries of a small herd of white mountain goats as they pattered across the alternating stony glass surface unperturbed on stiff legs. The crashing sound of the portal closing from behind caused the flighty animals to scatter like a flock of gulls from breaking surf.

Ciri laughed in Avallac'h's arms as a tiny goat fell on its side amidst hysterics before stumbling back onto four legs and bounding away with the clicking of cloven hooves.

"Welcome to Col Heledh'aard," Avallac'h declared in an uplifted voice. The journey through the portal might have infused it with some small degree of pride, or he could have just raised it over a sudden breeze. Ciri was not certain.

"Heledh'aard... Glass Mountains?" Ciri looked up and winked into the flowing immensity of gloomy dreariness overhead. "I can't see the sun, but I'm guessing that these aren't the mountains of my world?"

"Correct."

"So the Aen Elle once lived on this world, too?"

"What makes you say that?"

There was an enigmatic inflection to his voice. Ciri's face returned to the undefined horizon with a slightly discouraged look. She knew from his tone that he was going to correct her. But oddly enough, it didn't annoy her. She must have been more tired than she realized.

"This place has an elvish name and we came through an elven portal?"

"The Hen Gaeth are not elven constructs," Avallac'h explained as he readjusted the two of them briefly in the seat of the saddle. "Aen Saevherne have merely charted and marked their event horizon on some worlds. Made them more... recognizable. The Hen Gaeth as a phenomena are more ancient than any race."

"Portals can't be more ancient than any race," Ciri wrinkled her nose with a puzzled expression. "Someone had to craft them."

She waited for him to correct her again with some tidbit of sage-like elven knowledge, but there was only the cold thin atmosphere of the mountain.

"Zireael..." Avallac'h's low voice was almost swept away by a sudden gust of wind. "That human parable. The one about the fox."

His tone carried something uncharacteristic for a Knowing One. It was a curiosity shadowed with uncertainty. Avallac'h ran his tongue over identical elven teeth as if the taste of a question in his mouth was quite strange.

"Did the cat escape the hunters and their hounds?"

Ciri smiled sweetly as she brushed a windswept ashen strand behind her ear and leaned into him. Her emerald eyes sparkled as they scanned the smoky mountains blending into the mist.

"Yes, and in a clever way. Did you want to hear the story?"

"No," Avallac'h answered with a light slap of the leather reins. "I've heard the only part that mattered."

There was the scrape of glassy stone beneath heavy feathered hooves as the black mare carried them down the winding obsidian path of the mountain.

Avallac'h realized she was asleep when they descended a steep gradient of gravelly onyx and her head lulled into the crook of his neck. The spell that once linked them had run its course and exhaustion had finally caught up with her. He brought the horse to a halt amidst a protruding assortment of sterling quadratic rock so that he could examine the limp woman in his arms. He brushed loose waves of ashen-white hair away from the diminutive human features of her delicate face and rested the back of his hand against the rounded curve of her disfigured cheek. It was cold. They were in a rather inhospitable climate. He reached behind him to a pouch at his belt and felt with fumbling fingers for a specific recognizable shape before withdrawing a compressed green artifact. He placed it upon the flat rocky edge of a jutting boulder and uttered a spell as Kelpie rutted impatiently. There was a flash followed by the soft crumpling of cloth as the object transformed.

Spells alone would not sustain them or replenish the blood that was lost. Avallac'h knew that with his only philter depleted he would be feeling the strain of fatigue soon enough. They both needed proper rest and succor. Time was ordinarily so insignificant to elves as to be imperceptible, but every granule of time spent with her had fallen upon him heavily in a variety of ways. He wanted to reach the human settlement at the base of the mountain as soon as possible for both their sakes as well as his sanity. Until then the green cloak would have to suffice in offering her some respite from the elements. He wrapped Ciri gently in the downy material lined with iridescent feathers as her brow crinkled and she made an almost inaudible moan.

Avallac'h's logical mind knew that her unconscious state was the unavoidable result of blood loss and exertion. Buried beneath this understanding however was a subconscious thought contrarily illogical. Some mirage of his own imagining that had been inspired within the depths of the cistern when she shared the murmurings of her heart. The delusional daydream that this was some display of her trust. That she had forgiven the monster she knew in the world of the Aen Elle and willingly fallen asleep in the arms of a new man who had emerged from the Hen Gaeth with her into a new world.

But this was only a perverse fantasy.

The reality was that willful acts required conscious choice. She would not have chosen to be in the arms of the man who had so grievously wronged her if she had any true choice in the matter. Her present condition was the consequence of his negligence in the cistern. Her compliance before that, desperation driven by circumstance. Her compulsion several years ago... coercion of an unforgivable conspiracy that was his own amoral craft. All of these events were similar in that they occurred in the absence of choice. Her choice. Mages were adept in the magical art of illusion and Avallac'h had masterfully presented her with illusions of choice since the time they first met.

The only redemption for him was in securing her safety along this journey to meet with destiny. Time was meaningless to an Aen Elle and especially one with a promise to keep. Vigilance towards her would cost him nothing of value. Not when his life lost its worth centuries ago. He would serve her until she finally exercised her freedom of choice. The choice to be free of him.

Resting upon the level plane of uplifted crumbling rock was a richly painted wooden wagon drawn by a pair of mules. Hanging over the floral motif of the back door was a decorative bar suspending three large golden spheres like an oversized wind chime. It was a symbol of trade. The bells inside each orb would jingle whenever the rutting mules disturbed the wagon.

The short young man in blue suede threaded with brown leather grinned from ear to ear as he lowered the cracked telescope. His unruly sandy hair fell over his stormy blue eyes and framed his spirited face.

"I was right!" his voice cracked in excitement through crooked teeth. "It was two atop the steed... and one's a lady! She's got to be the princess!"

Another man who could not have been much older flattened on the ground next to him in a bed of blackened moss. His sooty dark hair matched the color of his leather jacket while his depressing face fit all too well with their surroundings. He removed his thick spectacles and pinched at the red edges on the bridge of his nose before lifting up the telescope to one studious grey eye.

"Looks rather plain and poor for a knight, doesn't he? Only armor on him is that strange silver mask. That's all he could afford?"

"This princess looks like the sleeping variety," said the sandy-haired man as his mouth quirked to the side briefly in thought. "Maybe they're easier to rescue?"

"I hope this doesn't become a regular thing," sighed the dark-haired man with a frown as he lowered the telescope. He pinched at his nose again before fitting on the cumbersome spectacles. "If paupers are rescuing princesses in the Glass Mountains, I'll need to find a real job counting numbers. The boring kind... behind a desk."

There was a metallic clattering like so many pots and pans from the wagon behind them as a slender young woman in green calfskin and a low-cut top charged out the back door. It slammed behind her with a jangling sound only to creak open again on loose hinges. The beret she wore tucked away boyishly cut blond hair and was adorned with a single large golden feather. Her freckled features might have been pleasant if they weren't contorted into such a cynical and contemptuous expression. She wiped dirty hands over her cream breeches and left behind a congealed trail of blood.

"Stop your croaking, you little toads!" She scolded through painted ruby lips. "No pauper is sending me back to a life of whoring."

She angrily kicked away a rotting wooden sign with faded heraldic symbols and the fancifully scripted words 'Scenic Overlook' before kneeling down between the two men. She snatched away the telescope and held it up to a critical green eye.

"Somethings not quite right. Their horse is a black mare, not a white stallion... and where's the coffers of riches? The golden apples?"

"I-I don't know, Marielle," addressed the sandy-haired man as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Maybe he only had time to grab one thing...?"

"Don't be daft, Euchre!" Marielle shoved the telescope back to the sandy-haired man irately. "This masked hood just pilfered a princess from the Roc like a rogue and rode off without any value for coin? I don't believe it."

"B-but they return from the pass!" Euchre stammered awkwardly as his eyes rolled between her face, her chest, and the ground. "Never heard of any rider coming back from the top of the Glass Mountains... 'least not empty-handed... or intact..."

"There is one way to find out," said the dark-haired man. He stood up and lifted his spectacles with the touch of two fingers.

Marielle raised a thin eyebrow. "How's that, Pytha?"

Pytha shrugged with a blank look. "Well... we could ask...?"

Aen Saevherne had a natural ability for portents. Sensing monsters and magic was something of a sixth sense to any Knowing One. Circling within the shroud of thin clouds high above the Glass Mountains was a bird of prey with a wingspan of unfathomable size. The threat loomed over Avallac'h like its enveloping feathered shadow, along with the sudden foreboding feeling that he was being watched. Through the mist cascading down the narrow glassy canyon he could sense their approach on the wind. Not the beating wings of predators, but the rotting stench of carcasses. They were scavengers.

Avallac'h possessed the knowledge to sense danger. But most importantly, he possessed the wisdom to know when and how to avoid it. This canyon was the most defensible descent down the mountain and he wouldn't risk endangering her again so needlessly. He tightened his grip on Ciri as much as the reins as he rode forward.

There were three of them. Only one approached through the mist. He was riding a donkey.

"Hail!" Pytha greeted with a practiced smile, his spectacles glinting as he gave a curt bow of his neatly combed head of raven hair. "Hail and well met, Sir Knight!"

Pytha halted his donkey at the side of the road and its long fuzzy ears twitched as if they too awaited a response on the wind. But the dark mare trotted past as swift and aloof as a shadow without so much as a sidewards glance from her silent rider.

"Sir- Sir Knight!" Pytha adjusted his spectacles with some surprise and struggled with the stubbornness of his obstinate braying donkey for a moment before turning around to follow. "Sir Knight, have you slain the Roc...?"

Avallac'h didn't hear him as he dug in his heels and drove the black mare forward at a rocking canter. Clear pale eyes pierced through the silver mask as the next rider came into view up ahead on the rocky edge of the canyon wall. She wore a sour expression and was mounted atop a spotted pony next to a richly colored wagon. On her command it wheeled into motion with a jangling noise down the middle of the road and maintained the steady pace of a snail. Avallac'h gritted his even teeth as he pulled back on the reins and slowed Kelpie to a walk.

"Strangest knight I've ever seen," Marielle muttered under her breath as she rode up alongside Avallac'h and looked him over with a sneer. "Fool doesn't even carry a sword..."

Pytha stroked his chin as he flanked the other side, his grey eyes examining Ciri with some interest.

"That would explain why the princess was scarred by the Roc. Perhaps... perhaps a vow of poverty?" He raised his steely eyes and voice toward Avallac'h over a sudden gale of wind. "Sir Knight, would you make a display of charity-"

"Look, knight!" Marielle interrupted as she rode in close to Avallac'h, golden feather bobbing at his side as if it was the thing doing the talking. "I don't know how you defeated the Roc, but you're going to tell us where you left its treasure!"

Pytha shot her a spectacled glare. "He won't answer if you keep talking like that!" He hissed in a hushed voice that was still audible to everyone. "You need to address him like a knight!"

"Ohhh?" Marielle formed the sound with her lips in a mocking gesture. "You mean with flowery words like wither and thither and hither?"

Pytha cocked his head to one side. "No! I mean.. respectfully appeal to his sense of chivalry or honor or some-such..."

"Bloody hell, Pytha!" Marielle barked at him angrily. "Your sniveling has gotten us nowhere and you're supposed to be the high-born hero expert!"

"He hasn't said a single word," Pytha scratched his forehead in confusion. "Maybe he took a vow of silence instead?"

"Wait..." Marielle looked over Avallac'h again with a more discerning eye and a slight squint. "I think... I know what he is! I've heard of his type before. This one... he's a mage!"

"Well, I guess that would make sense..." Pytha shrugged with a face and voice as deflated as his ego. "Mages don't use swords..."

"They don't use swords because they fight with schemes!" Marielle's thin brows slanted in anger. "He's ignoring us because he's trying to deceive us!"

There was a squealed neigh as Marielle kicked her heels into the side of her pony and charged it forward. She came to a glass-grating halt across Avallac'h's path and pressed two fingers to her crimson lips in a sharp whistle. The wagon came to a jingling stop somewhere in the mist ahead so abruptly that its back door could be heard swinging ajar as something fell out with a metallic thunk. It rolled along the smooth chiseled surface of the road with a curving tinny sound until its long journey finally came to an end in front of a large hoof heavily feathered with ebony. Avallac'h glanced down at the shiny object with icy eyes and no expression. It was a visored helmet. Judging from the weight and stench, its former owner was still attached.

"Tell us, mage man," Marielle gripped the hilt of her sheathed rapier. It was resting across a thigh streaked with grimy blood. "Where'd you hide the Roc's treasure?"

Avallac'h scoffed inwardly. He would hide her disrespectful dh'oine tongue down her choked throat if she drew her sword. But he knew she would not.

"I am spent on time and patience," Avallac'h warned in a low voice with a tone that held nothing. It had a way of chilling his inoffensive words into something more threatening. "If my path remains obstructed, I will clear it unscrupulously. I propose that you avoid such an unfortunate event from occurring by allowing me to pass."

"He... he spoke," Pytha uttered with wide grey eyes as his spectacles slowly slid down the bridge of his nose.

Marielle grinned proud as a peacock under the shadow of her golden-feathered cap. She stared defiantly into the void expression of the silver mask.

"The frilly way this mage man talks, you'd think he's the princess!"

Euchre finally approached on short eager legs. He bent down briefly in front of Kelpie to pick up the helmet like a boy recovering a lost ball. There was a crooked smile on his ridiculous face when he raised his sandy head and looked up at Avallac'h with excited blue eyes.

"Will he help us? Does he know where the treasure is?!"

"Listen, mage man," Marielle spat with a smirk. "If any of us had any concern about 'unfortunate events occurring', we wouldn't have come to these mountains. The talons of the Roc don't discriminate, no matter what the tales say..."

"W-would you look at this!" Euchre sputtered suddenly as he held up a satiny corner of green cloak that once concealed Ciri's legs. "She's not even wearing a dress! This is just some... ratty old cloak! She's not a princess at all!"

Ciri moaned as she rustled awake through lidded emerald eyes laden with coal. She felt sapped of all energy and her neck was stiff. Every joint and bone in her body felt aching and sore. She brought a weak hand to her throbbing head and her palm touched something plush and downy. When she realized that she was wrapped in a warm cloak it almost brought some color to her paled face.

"Avallac'h," she spoke dimly through dry lips that held a slightly shy curve for a moment. "What's going on? Who are these... people?"

"Vultures in search of carrion," Avallac'h answered with a tinge of annoyance as he tugged on the reins. "Ignore them. We'll be on our way soon."

"Of course she's not a princess, you dolt!" Marielle gave Euchre an annoyed look as he walked up to her pony. "It was obvious the moment we spotted them. If she were a princess, she'd have a prince charming with her, or a knight in shining armor. Not this creepy hooded mage man in a mask!"

Ciri felt a fire of fury light up in her chest. "He's not a creepy hooded- I'll have you know that I am a princess!"

Avallac'h sighed inwardly. She had only just awoken and already too much was being said.

Marielle laughed haughtily. "Oh really? Prove it then, princess!"

"I..." Ciri tilted her head back in confusion as if slapped by some invisible hand. She was too exhausted to ponder such a riddling statement. "I don't really see how I could?"

"I have an idea!" Euchre held up one finger in the air as if it was the idea. "Give her an apple. The regular kind! If she eats it and dies, we'll know she's a princess!"

Ciri was about to answer when Avallac'h squeezed her so tightly that it was almost suffocating. He hissed a single metallic word through his teeth that the Witcheress recognized all too well.

"What-whoa!" Marielle flustered as her pony began to neigh and rear up, stomping wildly at the ground with the glassy crack of hooves. Euchre was nearly trampled underfoot before stumbling out of the way and dropping the helmet. It clattered like a metal bucket when he tripped over it in his astonishment, eyes wide as Marielle's pony pranced against her kicking heels and flanked the edge of the canyon wall. The mules drawing the wagon were next. They whinnied as they pulled the creaking cart aside in a dumb daze and cleared the road. Pytha decided that it would be prudent to immediately dismount his donkey and courteously lead it aside as he adjusted the spectacles on his blanched face.

Avallac'h gave a click of his tongue and Kelpie snorted heavily before trotting forward. Ciri couldn't help herself. She leaned out and looked back at the fading trio through lidded eyes, her pale lips tugging into a small smirk.

"Sorry to disappoint you," she yelled to them over the thundering clap of Kelpie's hooves, "but I'm actually quite fond of apples!"

Marielle was too infuriated to be shocked. "Mage man! How dare you hex my horse!"

Ciri could still hear the obscenities being shouted behind them as she leaned against Avallac'h. Small giggles erupted from her as she smiled up at him with her tired face. Although she couldn't see it, it caused the corner of his mouth to curve up almost imperceptibly.

Kelpie had carried them only a short distance past the wagon when Avallac'h pulled back on the reins sharply and brought the black mare to a sudden halt. Ciri felt a growl vibrate from him at her back and settle within her chest. It sent an unusual shiver of excitement through her as a gale rushed down the pass. Avallac'h released his hold around her as the misty air in the canyon began to thicken into a much heavier fog.

"Stay on the horse," Avallac'h ordered as he dismounted.

The command was too disconcerting to anger Ciri. She felt the Cat Medallion begin to hum with warning as confusion and concern creased along her frayed features. She shouted to him through the muffling density of the rising air as ashen locks whipped around her face like a soft snowstorm.

"Whatever it is, we should stay together! Don't leave me to face it on your own again! it's too dangerous!"

Avallac'h's silver mask turned up to reflect her.

"I won't leave you again..." his low voice seemed to battle to stay even over the intermittent blasts of cold. "Stay with Kelpie."

Avallac'h walked a short distance ahead before stopping in the middle of the road. He looked into the shining prismatic void of obsidian underfoot and knelt down, placing a palm over the chilled glossy surface as the wind swept around him. Ciri drew the feathered cloak around herself tightly. She knew that he was preparing to cast some kind of complex spell. Whatever it was would undoubtedly be quite powerful, which was all the more troubling in implication.

Something other than the white noise of wind and the circumferential metallic chant of Avallac'h's disembodied voice began to fill her ears. It was the clacking of hooves on rocky chiseled glass. Ciri's chapped pink lips parted as she looked over her shoulder with a hitched breath. She anxiously searched the curtain of lace until her eyes narrowed on the foggy framed outline of riders. She was anticipating the Wild Hunt, but the braying noise of a donkey caused her to exhale some of her tension with an irate grumble.

Pytha faded into focus with Euchre peeking over his shoulder on the donkey. Marielle rode alongside on her pony with a look of pure indignation.

"Mage man!" Marielle shouted into the wind bitterly as she stood up in her stirrups.

Ciri pulled on Kelpie's reins angrily to meet their approach. She turned the shadowy mare sideways on the obsidian to block their path as her cloak billowed in the wind like a velour flag of veridian.

"Don't interrupt him! This is serious!"

Marielle smirked at Ciri with a smug expression as they all came to a halt.

"Ohhh?" She mocked with painted lips and a visible roll of her tongue. "Me and the mage man have business to settle. How are you going to stop me, princess?"

Dark emerald eyes heavy with coal and fatigue glowered their only warning.

"Don't call me that." Ciri cautioned coldly.

Euchre practically hugged Pytha as the eyes of both nervous men began to dart anxiously between the two women. The air pressure in the canyon seemed to rise up with the tension.

Marielle didn't back down. "What would you prefer? Sleeping Beauty? With that face...?!" She laughed uproariously and wagged her thin eyebrows. "No, no, princess suits you just fine!"

Ciri tore away the feathered cloak and drew her Gwyhyr from its scabbard in the same quick motion. The fluttering cloth hadn't made its journey halfway to earth before the pointed edge of polished steel was resting a millimeter from Marielle's flashing throat.

"So much as breathe another word," Ciri scowled with a spark of warning in the golden rims of her eyes, "and I'll slit your overused windpipe."

Marielle's hand hovered over the hilt of her rapier shakily. Shock was visible on her face as her lower lip curled back. It trembled and twitched defiantly as if she was going to say something. There was a part of Ciri that hoped the vile woman would do her the courtesy of speaking what would become her last words. The Witcheress licked along the chap of her pink lips as her mouth curved into something quite devilish. She expertly twisted the blade along the hollow of Marielle's neck as a challenging tone crept into her voice.

"Call me princess again and we'll see if I'm bluffing...!"

Pytha's thick lenses shifted slightly on his paled timid face as he raised his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"Now... now hold on a minute, ladies..." he spoke with a shaky voice as Euchre stared wide-eyed behind him. "Let's all just calm down for a second..."

The powdery cold mist around them began to softly swirl and disperse. It formed an eerie corona of clarity over their position within the enveloping thickness of fog as Avallac'h finished his incantation. He stood up and turned around calmly, seemingly unperturbed to witness the spectacle that had developed in his absence. The void expression of the silver mask turned to face Marielle's troupe. Although it was evident that the spell had taken its toll upon the elven sage, his languid voice still commanded attention with its stern and mysterious tone.

"If you value your short lives, you will stay within this protective circle."

Author's Notes

Aen Elle - People of the Alders. The elves that left Geralt's world centuries ago.
Aen Saevherne - Knowing One. Elven sages. The most powerful type of mage.
Col Heledh'aard - Mountain Pass of the Glass Mountains. A world borrowed from a Polish fairytale.
Dh'oine - Human. The Aen Elle view them as an inferior species.
Easnadh - Sigh. The name of the large river running through the Aen Elle capital.
Hen Gaeth - Old Gate. The gates from "Through Time And Space" in Witcher 3.
Zireael - Swallow. What the elves nicknamed Ciri.
"Straede aen'drean aep muire aep aine" - Path entering into the sea of light.

Thank you to Andy, demisses, Kiba1500, monima, Nurm, and everyone else who has stuck with my story and been so very supportive! I hope that my story will continue to keep your interest and that my writing will improve along the way. =)