Lingering remained the sound of another burial down the saturated lands of death, iced in winter ghosts. Beneath Sylvain's feet, a grave above which stood tall, appeared freshly, without name, beside his father and his sister. Geoffrey, what remained of him, had been ordered to find his final sleep as far away from his own family as possible.

A last, eternal, punishment.

"It's good to see you standing, your Highness," Yulis bowed his head, and wrapped in the aery robes, bizarrely subjected to no frost, fluttering behind him in the wind, he walked downhill, towards the graves he was so uninterested in.

His crimson eyes focused instead on the sturdiness and vitality returned to Sylvain's legs.

"Any news of the fugitive?" Sylvain's grains of thoughtfulness have reached the end of a barrel, that without kindness, was no longer bottomless at all. He held no emotions over his supple features sucked in, on skeletal aspects, into grey tones.

"We swept our lands, but unfortunately the bard is gone."

There was a small possibility that the cold has killed Jaskier or that he had ran to hide an entire life, as far away from the darkness which tormented him in Arcapan as possible. But neither Yulis, nor Sylvain could take those possibilities as chances to weight against their goals, or even against their darker urges of revenge.

Sylvain's mind was molded to the extent that from the night of horrors that just past them into bluer clouds, he only remembered the scarlet rage that Jaskier was to blame for Geoffrey's untimely departure from the land of the living. Were it not for that wretched bard, his knight would have never committed treason.

So the king sighed deeply, without anything more to lose, nothing further holding him back from his scheming mind, that of any child raised around lords playing games of politics. "We must assume the worst," Sylvain breathed in the brisk air. A scent of decay flooded his nostrils and tempered him into feeling the pulse of blood into the tired veins of the grave-digger.

With grave restraint, he tightened his jaw and did not look away from Yulis. "Jaskier is riding for Kaer Morhen," Sylvain concluded. There was no other way to explain why in the keep's yard, another head of a mutiny provoker had been added on a stake, dripping hissing blood on grounds no carnivorous birds dared visit anymore. "Send our hounds and three good men after him, on fast horses. If he's not on the main roads, instruct them to go ahead and get as close to Witchers' fortress, hide and wait there for his arrival."

"How many days will they wait?" Yulis, peering, pressed another question. Sylvain was wearing the crown, but he was tugging the strings of his every muscles, the true iron grip behind the army Nilfgaard offered Arcapan in silence.

Every soldier was of value, unlike every villager who became mere flesh for use. Nilfgaar ordered another conquer and Sylvain too was aching to turn the table on another enemy he was surrounded by. Though he was confident enough to even go down from Barefield with this new army and take on Hengfors itself, Sylvain agreed on keeping the northern frontier on a straight line, heading for a campaign over the Creyden mountains, to take the fortress with the same name.

No survivors of that place were needed, so none were in their prospect either.

The long march would be starting from there on, because they were planning on taking advantage of every second of winter and following passes through the mountains, from Talgar to Narok, and burn everything down to the harbor of Tridam, where, they shall wait, in victory, for another praise from south.

Amongst the moribund atmosphere, Sylvain could smell victory and glory, so when his eyes descend, he smiled upon Azaras' grave. Yulis threw the final stone one knowing glance filled with spite, for it was the corpse not buried which he dreamt to tear apart each night.

While one of his order's members, had joined with their worshipped God of Life, she was out there, breathing an air that they have given meaning in her lungs. Azaras shivered in the howling gales; the further their horses rose upwards on the paths of the fortress, the more uneasy was the vortex of goosebumps on her skin.

Behind Roach, a trusty companion of Geralt's, her own horse she mounted, barely affordably earned into their entourage and hardly used to anything more daring than plains and hills, perhaps even some tamable forests and beaten past, was struggling to keep up. There was not enough cruelty in Azaras yet to force the animal go faster than it was able to, nor did she have the heart to leave it there to starve and freeze, when reaching the fortress meant warmth and food for it.

Between her and Geralt was room enough for a wind and frankly, plenty for a slowed image of a wolf, to walk across their path and run to the right, on another path which opened there.

Abruptly enough to scare her horse, Azaras pulled the reins and stopped. Her eyes followed the slow outline of her wolf, the same dark fur of her dreams, the same peaceful presence which guided her back to Geralt, on the right paths, now walked a different way than her and somehow, she wished, from deep within to follow.

The shattering of quietness provoked Geralt to stop Roach as well and turn around, slightly confused. He looked at Azaras, followed her gaze, but did not understand what she was staring at so profoundly.

"There's another path over there," she pointed out, but did not look his way. If he didn't know better, and he knew, Geralt would have said Azaras was afaird to move her attention away from something she had to follow closely. There was nothing on the secondary path she looked at though, nothing but a rode, much like their own, covered in snow, and just a bit more narrowed.

"Yes," Geralt answered uncertain.

"Where does it lead?"

"Another entrance to Kaer Morhen," his answer this time elicited a bright reaction into Azaras' eyes, meeting his with a hurried hope. He felt bad for having to crush that joy, "But that road is prone to avalanches this deep into the winter."

Her gaze snapped to the side once more. The phantasm only she could see was peacefully moving away down the path Geralt was deeming unsafe, "Can't we go that way instead this time?"

The lack of sense reminded him of every tale, of her every decision and Geralt's confusion was concreted into a glare. "It's the wolf hallucination again?" He did not wait for her answer, before shaking his head, "Then no, we are sticking to this path."

"That wolf led me back to you!" Overly defensive of her hallucination, Azaras did not fail to raise her voice back, almost enough to make Geralt secretly wish her throat healed just a little bit slower.

"It also was an omen of you death plenty of times. We are not taking any chances."

His answer was definite and no matter how much Azaras yearned to follow that faint hunch, she agreed to stick to the path which they have taken once before, which Geralt knew like the scars on his body were a map to him, easily recited. Knowing something must have drove him and Yennefer, the witch, apart at some point, Azaras neither insisted on finding out why he dislike the idea of not being able to explain her delusions or daylight visions.

Though, there wasn't much light left when the snowing clouds' turmoil stirred over crests, glared down on the hooves slowly guided away from ice. It wasn't a long climb until they had to leave the saddle and walk besides their animals, where once more, Roach had shown the habit of living beside a Witcher.

Azaras' horse was tiredly paying attention to the road she tried to made easy for it, while Geralt's stopped, huffing and puffing.

"We're being followed," Geralt let Azaras know in an alert whisper. Just then, when his hand tried to reach for his steel sword, they both notices his medallion's shiver. Silver was unleashed instead.

Azaras released one arrow, turning around and to her feet, screeching fell a wraith, taken off guard by the silver tip going through its hovering body, pale and half transluscent, currently stunned. In a flinching phase, between disappearance and reappearance the wraith was standing again. Then, a Sign from Geralt had to send it away in a light.

"Mount, we need to go."

Specters do not bleed. Unless there's time to find the bodies of these souls returned from ill wills, a fight with a specter could go on restlessly for far too long. However, they were stagnant and territorial; if they outrun it, and they did, the fight could be avoided.

"Since when do monsters come this close to the fortress?" Azaras breathed out her shout desperately. Even with her slower horse, they got away and to the closed gate of Kaer Morhen in record time. She wished she had time to just point out how in right she would have been to take perhaps another path this time, when a second worry burst the calmness of relief.

Geralt banged on the doors. He shook them, even tried to open gently.

Nothing moved the tall hinges, and on top of all of that, he felt the tingle of a spell, locking them out. Azaras recognized that sensation as well, it felt fairly distinctive, even to her unexperienced glossary of knowledge in such things.

Between grunts and hooves impatiently panicking beside them now, the scream of a wraith echoed downhill. Shackled steps multiplied and several specters started appearing, walking slow and vengeful after them, all deformed in their specific way, after a death that sucked all color from their chopped faces and hanging torn limps.

Monsters never would have traded paths so close to Kaer Morhen on purpose, nor would have there been wraiths around no Witcher has ever heard of; so really, Geralt knew there was only one good reason behind all of this oddness.

"Wraiths can be summoned," he shared his conclusion through gritted teeth with Azaras.

She didn't understand what she had to understand by that. Was there a bigger scheme she didn't know of? Was there an enemy he had and forgot to share amongst his few words a warning of to her?

Of course, Geralt heard and remembered clearly something she did not, something he immediately blamed everything on, even what felt then as a trap... The Blood Sorcerer by the sea was not the only one left of the order.

"What am I aiming for?" Azaras placed a second arrow on her bow, returned to her hand and took a steady aim, waiting for the guidance of someone far more knowledgeable in a bestiary's details.

"Head, heart, but don't aim."

"What?"

Wraiths were getting close impossibly fast, murmurs going in and out of physical existence, far more corporal than anything she ever pictured as ghosts before.

"If they see the attack coming, it won't harm them."

His explanation suddenly made facing off specters with her bow tougher. If speed of attack was necessary to be controlled, Azaras decided it was time to keep her arrows in the quiever, placed the bow back and finally take her sword, with determination. Knowing a sign or two would have been useful but they had approximately just a few more seconds before they had to fight back the grotesque greeting committee, so instead she sucked in a deep breath and let out a sigh that relaxed her stance.

"I'll take the left and you'll take the right."

Geralt nodded and his gloves melted into a firm grip on the hilt of his sword. Why they'd fight back this flanking monsters, he had to fight a way to bypass the spell. Something told him Azaras' dream would have led them on a far easier path back home.

Just when she was about to leave his side, the doors groaned open and they were pulled inside. While Roach knew to get in even before its master, Azaras horse, quite lost in fright and trying to get away, was left behind. Between the crack now closing in darkness on the blueish abyss of snow, scarlet spurred and splashed, bones cracked and tore.

The doors smashed closed and from light of winter, they were welcomed by the flicker of flames, dancing for their own storm. Dying last breaths of Azaras' horse haunted from the other side of the fortress until an abrupt stop. Then, only the ghostly murmurs and intelligible creeps shivered their last grasp on this new atmosphere, mastered by a third presence.

Geralt was first to turn around, still in defense. Kaer Morhen, surrounded by monsters, such that a spell had to be put on the front door... he had a feeling Vesemir was not behind this, not behind them.

And he was right.

chapter dedicated to ethanwnters