A Hundred Years and One More Day

The courtyard of the witchers’ fortress is bathed in sunlight. Its grey, moss-covered stones don’t look so grim in the golden, spring-joy-saturated beams. Ciri sits on a log, squinting at the bright light. She doesn’t mind it. She loves to feel the comforting warmth on her skin that is soon enough covered with a scattering of freckles. She wants to listen to the trill of a nameless bird perched on the half-collapsed battlement of the wall. She’d even be happy to do a round or two on The Killer. She’s having a good time. She’s home. Noiseless, Vesemir takes a seat next to the young witcher. There is a light smile on his lips that has been there for days now. Ciri brought back life to Kaer Morhen, one that normally flees these walls come the spring-time. It’s been years since his former apprentices saw how the high mountain meadows take on green in May. How the sky, awash with rainstorms, shatters into thousand pieces to settle on the grass with cornflowers. How the mountain rivers fill up with crystal waters from the shining glaciers. How the first-to-come swallows build nests on the watchtowers. Young witchers were beckoned by the highway, and the old master had nothing left to do but patch the holes in the ceiling of the main hall, sighing at the memory of his own wild youth. The little princess brought magic with the alarming smell of ozone to it, the turmoil of flight, and a wounded Nilfgaardian knight. Exhausted, ragged, white as a sheet, they tumbled out of the blindingly radiant portal and into the courtyard three weeks ago. Vesemir had a glimpse of the bare dead woods and a dried-up riverbed before the magic window slammed shut. He asked no questions; there was no time for that. Now he could take a respite to think about what happened. To think about the dark shadows under Ciri’s eyes, her skin-and-bone face. He could ask himself if he did the right thing when he gave water to the bleeding lad. He could simply take joy in seeing the little princess who had turned the castle upside down in the nicest of ways. “How is he?” Ciri doesn’t open her eyes; she knows that the old master has been sitting by her side for some time. “Getting better,” the witcher reports happily as he watches Cirilla’s lips spread into an involuntary smile. “A couple more days and we can take him out to the yard. Everything heals quickly in the spring sun. I’ll make ‘im a crutch. “And the knee?” Her whiteish eyebrows meet at the bridge of her nose. Vesemir doesn’t say anything, and Ciri opens her big green eyes to look him right in the core. The old witcher grimaces and shakes his head. The former princess bites her lip. “Do you want me to…?” “No. I’ll do it myself.” The witcher rises, determination on her face, and disappears into the chilly shadow of the main hall… Cahir looks at the mountain peaks shining in the light of the cold northern sun. He’s been watching them for three weeks now, the only thing to bring change to the landscape being the birds flying occasionally by the window. And Ciri, who comes to visit him every day. The witcher brings him juicy meat with garlic and herbs, and tells him endless jokes, and brings him books from the surviving library, trying to pick the ones that don’t speak of monsters or elixirs. And desperately does all she can not to look at his bandaged leg. The Vikovarian knows: his knee won’t bend again. The former princess is too eloquent in her silence about the fact that he will stay a cripple. The hinges in need for some grease give out a creak, and the white-haired head appears in the doorway. Cahir smiles despite himself; she is early today. “I brought you some soused apples.” Ciri sits down on the bed unceremoniously, her thigh touching his leg. This gives him no trembling: he is used to her touch. Now that everything save friendly hugs became impossible, the intensity of his sensations seems to have dulled. He doesn’t want to admit it, but his body has given up, resigned to the defeat. And the wound heals worse with every passing day. If it wasn’t for the witcher… He doesn’t want to think about that. “Thank you,” he smiles, looking up at her. Without fear or embarrassment. There is no need for them anymore. Who would suspect a cripple of being over-familiar? Ciri lowers her eyes and crumples the edge of the woollen blanket. It’s not about the apples. “Vesemir said…” she whispers finally, choking on the bitter words. “I know.” Cahir’s hot hand blankets her thin fingers, covered with a web of scars. “I knew it all along. You… shouldn’t have… you… should have left me there… His cheek burns—the former princess slaps hard, with the full sweep of her arm. The Vikovarian freezes, staring at her in confusion. Ciri is angry, Ciri is furious, Ciri glares at him as if she wants to slap him again. “Don’t you dare say a thing like this. Never, you hear me, never!” Her thin nostrils flare, and a frenzied fire splashes in green eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Cahir lowers his eyes, feeling that he has touched something irreparable inside her heart. Maybe she just wanted to protect him, to keep him safe, to prove herself that she could? And maybe it was a tiny girl with short-cut hair that she saw in him? “I know that you wanted to help. Thank you. I just…” The air feels stuck in his throat, a spasm of resentment taking over. “I just don’t know how to be anymore. How to live… like this. “Much better than not to live at all!” Ciri spits out. She thinks he doesn’t see, can’t see. He didn’t see the severed heads of The Rats impaled on the stakes. He didn’t see Mistle reflexively picking up her own guts. She doesn't care about that odd, vague feeling that wriggles in her heart every time they stay alone. As if something freezes inside her, on alert. As if she's eleven again, and a frightful knight in a winged helmet pulls her out of a smoke-and-blood-smelling dress. She doesn't care. She needs, she needs to save him. “Is it life, though?” his words hold much more bitterness than he's willing to admit. “No family, no homeland, no friends. I have fought all my life, being a soldier is all I can do. Who needs me now?” Cahir bites his lips, but the unbidden tears freeze on the tips of his eyelashes all the same. “I do,” Ciri breathes out right next to his cheek. He has no time to feel embarrassed, to feel a slightly scratchy, hot touch of her lips. The witcher misses the mark, kissing the corner of his mouth instead. It's shameful, sweet, bitter. And she wants more. Her lips never leaving his skin, she moves them further, covering those of Cahir. Chapped, thinned, desired. Cahir holds his breath. It's a dream. A delusion. He died and went to the Isle of Avalon. He doesn't want it to stop. His hand reaches for the ashen hair of its own accord, fingers burying themselves in the tangled strands. He lightly pulls the back of her head closer and pries her lips open, grazing the thin thread of her mouth with his tongue. Suddenly, Ciri gives out a deep moan and leans forward, kissing him openly, passionately. The Vikovarian feels his head spinning, and there are stars before his eyes—from the fact that the witcher covers him with her fragile body and from the agonising pain in his broken knee. Cirilla can take it no more. She wants to feel the Nilfgaardian closer, and almost lies down on him. With her fingers in his black, unruly swirls of hair, she holds his head in her hands as if afraid of letting go. And kisses him as if she wants to explain, to prove something to this fool of a man who is ready to give up on his life. She arches and presses herself against him as his hands timidly come to rest on her back. Cahir moans into the kiss, all atremble. She too vibrates from the burning desire inside her that seeks the way out. Ciri will never admit it, but she has been thinking about the Nilfgaardian, ever since their first night in the forest, when she huddled against him from the cold and fear, imagining this very moment and desperately forbidding herself to touch her own body the way she wanted to. The Vikovarian freezes. He dares not go any further. He knows—it has to be stopped. He even opens his mouth to tell her how wrong, how foolish it is what they are about to do. Ciri sees it her own way. Straddling his hips and pulling back a little, she yanks his shirt open with a single jerk of her hands, the buttons scattering around the room. The former princess stares hungerly at his slender, muscular body, all covered in scars. She wants to trace each of them with her tongue. The witcher leans over him again, her lips pressing against the sharp collarbone. Cahir lets his breath out, and pushes his hips up, his ears turning red from the primal frankness of the gesture and the fact that his hands are squeezing her thin thighs. It’s hot and airless. She pulls off her shirt and unties the corset that constricts her ribs. Her chest rises rapidly in tune with her heavy breathing, and the Vikovarian watches, entranced, as her sharp pink nipples harden from the cold and desire. The Swallow doesn’t want to cover herself or to hide. She wants him to look at her like this. For the first time since Mistle, she wants to open up, to show the whole of herself. She stands up on the bed, the latter creaking in complaint, throws off her boots, and pulls her trousers off her narrow hips. Cahir can’t take his eye off that rose, red and inviting. He wants to press his lips against it, to trace every line with his tongue. But all he can do is lie helplessly and watch as Ciri comes down again to touch the heavy buckle of his belt with the Imperial sun on it. Ciri has never been with a man before, but she knows how they work. Avallac’h had explained to her everything before he sent her to Auberon’s chambers. And still, she hesitates before undressing the Nilfgaardian entirely. To fill the awkward silence, she places a gentle kiss on his stomach at the edge of his trousers. Cahir arches, and moans from pleasure and pain, his fists clutching the crispy bedsheets. He whispers her name, over and over again, and the witcher can take it no longer. With a yank at the belt that gives a loud clank against the wall, she removes the final barrier between them, and freezes, hesitant. She watches, studies. The Nilfgaardian is nothing like the elf king, he needs no tricks or games. He’s burning, melting, thirsting for her. But she wants to learn, to explore, to possess. She bends down, scorching the delicate skin with her shaky breathing, watching the curious interweaving of veins and the pulsation—the echo of his rabid heartbeat. The tip of her tongue draws a line up and down and up again. It’s salty, sweet, hot. Cahir moans no more, and only watches her, his eyes reflecting the sky open wide. No one, in all his life, has ever touched him like this. Noble ladies, village girls, a nurse in a camp hospital… All of them flashing before him in a nameless, faceless kaleidoscope. Embarrassed, wanton, distant, bold, they could never awaken in him even the hundredth part of what he’s feeling now as he looks into the poisonous green of her eyes, glancing up at him like a fox from behind a raggedly cut fringe. Ciri feels her dominance, her power. She wants to stretch these minutes out into eternity. She wants more. She saw what Iskra did with Giselher. She tries to replicate the deep, smooth movements. The Nilfgaardian doesn’t moan. He screams, desperately gasping for air, helplessly clutching the edge of the blanket to keep himself from grabbing her by the hair and doing the irreparable. Her tongue grows bolder as it draws an intricate pattern on the trembling flash beneath it. Cahir growls, every single muscle in his body rings with tension. Ciri knows what’s coming. She moves her head the way Iskra did, drawing a little back. A desperate groan echoes from the stone vaults and off towards the Blue Mountains. It’s salty, sweet, hot. She wants it again. She wants more. Cahir seems to have forgotten how to breathe. He stares at the witcher hovering above him with a stunned, pleasure-drunk look in his eyes. He can feel it: she will not stop until she gets all she wants. The shimmering depth of her eyes is bewitching, captivating, like the heart of Col Serrai. He reaches for them, his shaky fingers tenderly tracing the outlines of her sharp features. The Vikovarian pulls Cirilla towards himself, and she follows, sliding up his heated body like a snake. He lifts her hips up, carefully holding them steady as he helps her to make herself comfortable. The former princess moans. It’s painful, hot, strange. She wants more. Her back reflexively arches, her ashen hair fall down her shoulders. She wants to freeze, to stay like this forever, full to the brim of her, whole. Cahir waits. Let’s her get used to it. Anxiously watches her tense, focused face. Kisses each and every freckle on her pale skin. Ciri looks into his eyes, drowning him in the bottomless depths of her own in response to his tenderness. The Vikovarian hesitates. It’s hot, sweet, tight. He wants to stay like this forever, in her blissful captivity, whole. And yet they move. Slowly, then faster, then faster still. As if afraid to be late, to lose. As if time could end at any moment, take away, separate. As if afraid to lose each other to never find again. And when the universe rushing around them explodes with a blossom of shimmering stars, they know—this is their destiny.