#reverse witcher

And he woke to Jaskier, his small hands already calloused and hard.   Jaskier told him to fight, to survive, that he would help him.  The boy’s face was small and soft and yet inside his blue eyes burned a white-hot fire of strength and determination.  And because Filavandrel was weak, because he feared death, because he took harbor in the first shore that was steady and not a terrible juxtaposition of a slow death and an agonizing grief, he held on to that lifeline and doomed two souls.

He didn't remember much of what happened, his memory was hazy and disconnected.  What he did remember didn't make much sense and Filavandrel had sufficient concern his answers wouldn't be answered honestly to not bother asking the other witchers in the first place.  He had been in a river of...  of... was it blood or something else?  He couldn't move, his body wouldn't obey him, he had sunk seeing nothing but a diffuse light through red, and then there were arms around him, pulling him upward.  It had hurt, everything had hurt.  There were little black-eyed creatures who said things that made him scream out his pain.  Through it all, through it all, there was Jaskier.  A head shorter and dragging all Filavandrel's weight as he sang loud enough to drown out those horrible words that scrabbled through the air to chase after them.

And then Filavandrel woke again as something else.  As monstrum.  He wanted to name the miserable giant of a raven staring at him with white eyes Monstrum, but the witcher who smelled of soft fallow ground and green things - Triss - insisted he name the thing something else lest he regret it.  He was wrapped in the sheets that stunk of his blood and the potions that caused his transformation, everything smelled like too much.  The cold cut over the overwhelming rush against his senses, without it he was certain he would be overwhelmed entirely.  The witcher carrying him smelled different, not like the meaty sweaty scent of the Dh'oine.  She smelled warm and dry, not like parchment but similar to it in the feel inside his nose.  He could feel how strong she was in the curl of her arm across his back and the way she carried him as though he was weightless.  He could hear her slow and steady heart beside his ear.

They walked and walked until they reached the woods outside a Dh’oine town full of ugly Dh’oine architecture.  Everything was brown or gray and stank. He could smell the filth of it from where they made camp.   The world had become a cacophony to his senses: the indistinct sound of voices from the town, the sound of birds, the rustle of the wind.  His nose was full of blood and the scent of sweat and leather, forest musk and the potions in Triss’ bag.  Even things he didn’t know he could smell like the green of the grass and the softness of Zola’s hair.  If he had tried to explain to himself a week ago what it was he was smelling he wouldn’t have understood and even how he wasn’t sure how to spool out his senses other than there must be other qualities to green and soft things that his nose couldn’t pick out before.

Zola laid him down on the pile of sheets he'd been wrapped in and crouched down on her heels beside him to breathe soft and deep, her raven perched at the nape of her neck with its wings drooping.  "Where are we?" he asked.  He didn’t want to extend enough trust to ask her, she was dh’oine, but he had been held against her for days and had long since synced his heart to hers.

"Outside of Gulet," Zola answered easy enough.  "We need to rest and sleep before we go on.  We've been awake for too long."

Triss set down Jaskier too far away.  He squirmed out of his wrapping to catch hold of the stinking sheet they'd wrapped the boy in and drag him close, the boy’s raven hopping after it.  The boy was dense for being so small, but felt light as Filavandrel tucked him in beside him. That was where Jaskier belonged, next to him, pressed close.  The familiarity of Jaskier's weight, his shape and warmth, soothed something in Filavandrel that had been snarling for days.  Sleek and pretty even after that long flight, Jaskier’s raven landed close to preen at the both of them.  When Filavandrel’s monster landed like a boulder next to them, he pushed it away.  He didn’t want it attacking that sweet bird or to get any ideas about Jaskier.

"Are we just going to sleep on the ground?" he asked, tucking Jaskier's head under his chin.  

Triss laid down on the other side of them, pillowing her head with the potion bag.  "We don't have any money and people are trying to kill you.  We're sleeping on the ground."

The other woman, Tissaia, sat close to Zola, bundling her cloak into a long pillow.  She hadn't said anything in ages, after looking over everyone she laid down and pulled Zola down next to her.  Zola sighed and allowed herself to be arranged into a comfortable position.  Her soft heart-shaped face looked strained, lines of weariness creating planes on her face.  With a sigh, Tissaia threw an arm over the bigger witcher as if to force her to sleep by force of will.  

Still, Zola's eyes stayed open, looking over them.  "How are you feeling?  Any pain?"

"Is there anything you could do if I was?" he asked.  "You haven't done anything for Jaskier."

"We kept him from being murdered," Triss said, voice sharp, her raven cwaed in agreement from overhead.

"Triss," Zola snapped back at her.

Triss huffed and turned to face away from them.

"There are things we could try," Zola told him.  "If you were hurting."

Filavandrel's hands clutched at the soft fabric of Jaskier's tunic.

"He’ll be okay,” Zola told him.  “It can sometimes take up to ten days for a witcher to wake back up again.  Jaskier has always had strength of spirit.  If you're feeling up in the morning we should begin your training."  Zola paused to consider him, he considered her back.   "You're stronger than you were before.  You could hurt yourself or others without meaning to do so."

"I didn't ask for this," Filavandrel told her.

"I know."  She was too understanding.  Her voice too kind, he was angry, he wanted to fight!  To snap his teeth at her throat!   He yowled, a sound that snapped out between his teeth without meaning to make the sound.  She lunged at him between the opening and closing of a blink, she rumbled low in her chest, her eyes glowing the yellow of lightning.  

He went still, curling his body around Jaskier.  

"You're alright," she told him, pulling back again.  "Just remember that you’re stronger than you were.  You can hurt Jaskier without meaning to with him asleep like that.  The transformation will make you feel more aggressive.  It'll last a couple of days and then things will even off for you.  If you start experiencing any... strange hungers, you must tell us right away.  It may not feel like it, but you're one among us now.  We'll do all we can to help you."

Jaskier's heartbeat was slow and even.  He shivered.

"It's cold," Zola told him.  "Come move closer."

He didn't want to, he didn't want any of what was happening.  The weight of Jaskier in his arms worried him though, the boy wasn't responding.  He was limp and weak, stiller than sleep.  Filavandrel moved the two of them closer to her warmth.  He was certain he wouldn't be able to sleep, but she tucked the sheet around them both and made a gesture that sunk him down into slumber.

When he slept his dreams were terrible, he yowled and thrashed against iron bands and the sky was red and gray and white and full of ravens.  He was hungry.  He was so hungry he screamed and he begged his mother to feed him but she just said, Ahh, ahh, ahh.  He clutched at her belly and begged her.  He was so hungry and he bit and he ate and ate until his body refused to take any more.  He closed his eyes against where he had sunk his teeth, but he knew, he knew.  He should stop, he never should have started and the sky was red and gray and white and Jaskier was there and his eyes were black and he sang I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

He woke to the sensation of a hook pulling at his ribs from the inside.  He flailed on the grass, yowling like a lion cub.  Jaskier was laid back beside him, Zola bent over the two of them.

“Leave them, leave them!” Tissaia snapped, voice sharp.  There was a scuffle of sound and movement, the witcher women moving around their makeshift camp.  The strength of Zola’s arms held him down until she could tuck he and Jaskier together like too folded hands.  They were the both of them leaned against her chest.  Filavandrel’s tongue roamed along his teeth.  They felt sharper and caked and sticky with something.

“Did I bite someone?” he asked.

“Hush,” Zola murmured into his hair.  “Hush, you’re alright.  You ate when you were adjusting to your changes.  You’re back now, that should be the last of it.  Jaskier is fine too.  I was just taking him to see if I could get a little water in him.”

“Don’t take him away,” Filavandrel said into the side of her neck.  “I need him, don’t take him away.”

“We won’t,” Zola told him.  “We won’t.  You’re alright.  It’s alright.”

He heard Tissaia murmuring to Triss as they dressed a deer for breakfast.  The smell of the blood and the flesh of the deer was sweet and delicious.  He didn’t know why they hadn’t just put their faces into its belly.  It smelled delectable.  “Something went wrong didn’t it?”

Triss’ shoulders were tense and high, she didn’t say anything.  He leaned against the side of Zola’s body, hating how much comfort he found in her strength.  He felt so angry.  They had known what they were doing was dangerous, letting Jaskier risk his life like that.  There had to be others who could have been chosen, others who were older and stronger.  They hadn’t, they had gone with the easy option.  They had let Jaskier go through with it.

“It’s too soon to know,” Zola whispered to him.

He looked up at her.

“It can take days for a witcher to wake sometimes,” she reminded him.

He grumbled.

She made a soft huffing sound at him, a sound like a laugh.  They sat quietly watching Tissaia stab sticks through sections of venison with more force than was probably necessary. “I was the thirteenth child of a poor farmer,” she told him after a long silence.   “My parents could barely afford to feed my siblings.  Once I was off the teet I had to care for myself.  When a witcher came to the farm to kill a forktail that had been stealing the goats the law of surprise wasn’t even evoked.  My mother just handled me over.  I don’t remember much, not what she wore or whether it was sunny or cloudy.  I can’t even remember what the house looked like.  But I remember the way she handed me over and the way she turned away.”

Her voice was soft and warm, he could feel the movement of her slow breathing through her armor.

“Triss was the law of surprise,” she told him.  “So was Jaskier.   Witcher Vea had him stay with his parents until he was four or five.   Longer than most.  I think she was holding out hope she’d find another school to take him.  The process the School of the Raven uses works better on girls.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“None of us were wanted, none of us were loved enough not to give up,” Zola said.  “Not until we began our training and became something more.  The promise of becoming a witcher was the promise of belonging – both with other witchers and in the world.  We would become a vital piece of the world, gain a purpose.  You were already wanted, already had a place to belong.  We’re going to do our best to understand how you feel about what happened.  Please try to understand as much as you can from our perspective.”

He didn’t particularly want to, but that was part of diplomacy.  He nodded.

Zola squeezed her arms around him.  “It will take a couple days, but we’ll see about getting you back home.”

Filavandrel sat up straighter.  “Can’t we go any faster?” he asked.  “I can wear a hood, or cover my ears some other way.”

She shook her head, mouth a tense line.  “We have no money and all of us have white hair.  It makes us noticeable.  Witchers are hated by humans enough as it is.  And Aedirn tends to attract witchers from the School of the Viper.”

“Are they our enemies?” Filavandrel asked.

“No, we’ve worked with them in the past when it was necessary, but they can be cruel and opportunistic.  We’re vulnerable.  It’s better not to take the risk.”

He almost snarled something at her, but then stopped by some instinct he had learned between that stone bed in the ice and this too much clearing in the forest.  Zola had felt so strong carrying him, like a part of the mountains hemming in around the icy valley, but…   But she was only a few years older than he was.  With her cape and outer robe were set aside he could see she was barely out of adolescence, not yet an adult.  The other women who were sent out to protect the two of them, they were young as well.  His rage was edging toward fear.  What did any of them know about surviving?  How were they meant to survive?  He was more grateful than ever to be brought back to Dol Blathanna.

The rest of the journey home meandered, at first so he only saw glimpses of things that were familiar, and slowly becoming increasingly certain he could go back to his bed, so back to his life, go back to his friends.

Now he was awake he was expected to walk, watching the bundle of Jaskier in Zola’s arms up ahead.  While he walked Tissaia instructed him on what she said were the very basics.

“I’m going back home,” he told her.

She looked down her chin at him, the movements of her body effortless and smooth.  “It won’t do you any harm to learn along the way, now focus.  You see one drowner, what do you do?”

He rolled his eyes.  “Look for more, they travel in groups.  Stay out of the water.  Use igni.  Pay attention to smell, to the movement of the wind.”

“What are their immunities?” she asked.  She continued on like that, lecturing him and then asking questions until his eyes crossed.  At first, he grumbled, but there was nothing else to do but walk and worry.  They saw the borders of Dol Blathanna on the second day, and he took off running for it, Tissaia traveling in even steps beside him.

Things are tense and strained and Filavandrel didn’t understand.  He wanted to go to his rooms, to his father’s rooms, but people asked him questions until Zola had to make soft humming sounds at him to keep him from snapping at them with his teeth.   There is question after question, the court physician is there.  Bjorn loomed huge and brutal in the corner of his vision.  He didn’t understand what was happening.   This was his home.  This was where he belonged.  It went on long enough that Zola and Triss bundled up next to each other on a bench with Jaskier between them and slept.  Filavandrel knew he was confused.  He knew things were disjointed.  He knew his waking and his dreaming were all muddled together into something bare-toothed and frantic as though time had become a staircase he was falling down.  With Zola and Triss out of commission, Tissaia stepped forward – her face severe as an Elders, her words sterner than the strictest of her tutors.  The two of them are brought before his father’s most trusted councilors and tried with an earnest ferocity not to run out of the council chamber to where Jaskier rested.  The room was cold and white and gray with fine carved chairs and the smell of sweet blossoms floating through the long windows surrounded by fluted columns.  Tissaia did not touch him, not even just to lean close.  Her nostrils flair and her fingertips rest on the council table.  Tarienne had red hair and was tall - she centuries on Tissaia, Ilariel was a good friend of Athelinuin – they would play music together often.  Still, Tissaia refused to buckle – bullheaded and not giving a hands breadth of space to them

“He has changed,” Ilariel said.  “He is not like us anymore.”

He felt a sort of grief and rage in his chest.  

“Filavandrel is strong and brave,” Tissaia said, her back very straight and her nostrils flaring slightly as she paused to look over the two elves.  “He is even stronger now he has gone through the transformation.  He is an asset to his people.”

“Why should this dh’oine tell us what our people needs?” Ilariel gestured at them.

“I’m not a human,” Tissaia said.  “I’m a witcher.  One that is from a School that has long been allied with the elves.  King Fidháil was good friends with Grand Master Borch.  Our School has offered aide to your people many times.   Some of you know Grand Master Borch.  You know that normally witchers don’t get involved, we are impartial.  We manage monsters and take our pay, but we have made ourselves your friends.”

“For some profit,” Ilariel pressed.

Filavandrel looked at Tarienne who gave him a tense smile back.

“For your own profit,” Tissaia said, sounding much older than she was.  “We have saved your prince and brought him back again to you.   There is no interference here.  I don’t understand why there is a debate.”

Tarienne smiled a tight smile, more of a wince.  “There is a concern that Filavandrel is too much changed.  His behavior has been… odd.”

“You have not spent more than an hour with him,” Tissaia said, voice gone sharp.

“We have spent ten years with him before hand,” Ilariel said.  “He is different.  He is monstrum.  He does not carry the grace of his line.”

Red started to bleed in around the corners of his vision.

“He is getting used to his new senses,” Tissaia told them, part of a lie.  He wasn’t sure if she was trying to get rid of him or if she was trying to help him get back home.  “He will be more himself once he has had time, surely being home will ease him back into himself.”

Tarienne tilted her head to the side, “Despite the others worries and some of my own concerning what was done to the son of a dear friend and beloved leader, Filavandrel is an elf.  He is one of us and we should welcome him again back home.”

Ilariel made a snide noise, making a sharp gesture through the air that made Filavandrel tense up, his body leaning forward.  “That is not an elf!  That is some changeling stitched together by creatures that had the ear of our king for far too long.”

“Ilariel,” Tarienne said sharply.

“Look at him!  He is not some half-elf.  He is unnatural!” Ilariel snapped back.

Again, Tissaia’s nostrils flared.  “Our school was founded as an attempt to prevent the end of the world.   There is an ancient prophecy telling of signs before the world turns to death and ice.  The prophecy of Ithlinne, a prophetess of your own people.  It begins with the murder of your people at this place, the blood of the Aen Seidhe will flow here.  This is not a secret, it is a threat, and one that our School has done all it can to prevent.”

Again, Ilariel made a sharp aggressive movement at him, Filavandrel followed the movement with a twitch of his head.  “More likely a chance to massacre our families while we prepare for an army that won’t come.   The dh’oine are satisfied as long as we stay here, they have no desire for our land.”

Blinking at the elf, Tissaia said.  He had learned enough of her face to know she wished to be indecorous but contained herself, “If there’s no threat coming, who do you think will massacre your families?   And why or how would three young witchers and two children massacre your whole people?  You speak nonsense, I know not why when all our secret desires are to return a child to his people.”  Her voice was dry and her face had turned coldly stoic, giving nothing away.  

Taking a step forward, Tarienne reached out to Tissaia.  “I apologize.  His grief makes him a fool.  He doesn’t know what he says.”

“I know precisely what I say.  King Fidháil was a fool to trust you,” Ilariel snapped back.  “Take that thing back with you.  It should have been Athelinuin who was saved.  If there had to be a loss here, perhaps it is best that it was only Fidháil to his own foolishness.”

With a yowl, Filavandrel launched himself at Ilariel.  He can see in his head what he will do.  He will take the creature by the hair and he will put his teeth in his neck and tear open his throat and then he will eat his heart and -  His plan was cut short as Tissaia caught him out of the air as though picking an apple from a tree and slammed him down onto the ground.   A sound came from his throat like a yowl or a roar or a snarl all mixed together.  She pinned him with her body, made a rumbling sound against his back that made him go still and watchful under the strength of a superior predator.  He scratched across white quartz of the floor unable to scratch at Tissaia and finally just snapped his teeth ineffectually at her.  She rumbled again and he went still.  The deep instinctive part of himself that lurked low and crouching understood by some unspoken scent or touch that Tissaia was greater to him and only sought to care for and protect him.  The weight of her body brace over her back was as much to keep pain away as to keep him from foolishness.

He went still under her, rolling quiet yowling sounds around his mouth.

“Perhaps it would be wise not to taunt a child with the death of his father,” Tissaia said, her voice husky instead of smooth as it had once been.

“Ilariel,” Tarienne said.  “You’ve done enough harm.  Excuse yourself.”

“You saw what he’s become,” Ilariel said.  

“You have shamed yourself today.  Leave,” Tarienne hissed, angrier than he had ever heard her before.

The red took a long time to go from his gaze, but Tissaia didn’t falter, she held her position steady until he went still and limp.  Zola would have picked him up, Triss would have spared him a look, but Tissaia just stood.  He stood with her, so tired and aching inside his chest.

Tarienne was seated at the table with her face in her hands.  She took in a deep breath and then let it out again.  “He belongs here, of course. Just not now.”

Filavandrel slipped his fingers under the leather armor at Tissaia’s thigh.  He pressed his face against her side.  He felt himself begin to shake and cry.

“You can train him you said?” Tarienne said.

“Yes.”  Tissaia spoke the word in an abrupt full stop.  “The transformation prepares a witcher to survive hardship and monsters.  The changes affect the mind as well, once Filavandrel’s body has become used to the change he will be himself again.  Perhaps a new self, but himself.”

Tarienne nodded, still not looking at him.  “Bring him back then.  Not before.”

Tissaia let him hold onto her as she walked out of the council room into the antechamber.  He used to play Aswai here when he was still young enough for it to swallow his whole attention.

“I ruined it for myself, didn’t I?” he asked her.  He could here the footsteps of his people like the flapping of dove’s wings, but could not see them.

“What you did was dangerous, for yourself and the rest of us.”

He let out a wet hiss of breath.

“There are witchers of the School of the Griffin or the School of the Wolf who are taught to ignore their emotions, who have almost perfect control,” Tissaia told him.  “Then there are witchers like us who feel them as though they were our ravens on our shoulders.”

“Like us?” he asked.

Her smile was tight, she reached out and pressed a hand to his shoulder.  “It doesn’t matter if you were provoked.  You could have killed him, you wanted to tear out his throat with his teeth, didn’t you?”

He swallowed.

“You have the speed now, and the strength.  And the teeth for it,” her eyes were not cruel, but they were intense, fierce.  “It is your job to protect people, not slay them.”

It didn’t feel fair, but Tissaia and the others were the only ones he had to hold to.  He was no one to them, but they called him one of their number.

“If you go to a village and they short you on a contract or throw stones at you and you tear out their throats, everyone turns on our School.  We would pay in blood for your mistakes.  And who’s fault would that be?” she asked him.

He swallowed.  “Mine.”

“No,” she said, her hand tightening on his shoulder.  “It would be mine for not killing you.  The same as it would be the fault of the others for not putting me down.  We all carry each other on our backs now.  You as well.”

“I’ll train hard,” he promised her.

Her face softened.  “I know you well.”  Then after a pause she squeezed his shoulder again.  “I should have let him feel your hot breath on his throat.  He deserved to piss himself a little.  Would you like me to go fetch something of your father’s?  Perhaps your brother’s?  Or something of your own?”

Filavandrel pressed his face back against her side.  Ilariel and Tarienne hadn’t asked such a thing of him.  He knew Tissaia could smell his tears, but she didn’t comment on it.  “My brother commissioned a lute for me.  It’s in my room.”  He knew it was a nonsensical thing to want.  It would be in the way and it would be of no benefit.  He didn’t even know how to play it yet.

She led him through to where Zola and Triss were sleeping under the anxious eye of a couple guards.  “It won’t be for long.  Zola, wake up. I’m going to fetch a few things for the prince and then we will leave.”

To their surprise Jaskier popped his head up and looked around confused, his brow furrowed and his mouth pulled into a small puzzled line.

Triss jolted up, wrapping her arms tight around the witcher boy.   "Jaskier!  You're safe!  Are you alright?  How do you feel?  Are you hungry"

She darted across to the other side of the watchtower waving to Vea whose long braids were blowing like white ribbons in the wind.  The lean witcher waved back, her raven Ilian launching out with an experienced wing to ride the curl of the wind around the tower before spinning down into the fog.  From farther down the tower Tea’s raven Juna launched out swift as an arrow.

Tissaia curled a protective hand around Stribog, holding him close to her body.  He shivered his beak clacking, his pearl-white eyes scanning out over the tower edge.  From the fog came Ilian and Juna’s shrills.  She waited, tense.  There was the sound below of the front door opening.   Tissaia let out two sharp whistles to be heard over the rush of air.  On the second tower, Vea stood with her arm curled out to catch at Ilian’s experienced drift up through the wind and down into her arms.   Breathless, Tissaia watched, then all at once, the suspense was broken.  Vea, waved for her to sound the alarm.  She lifted the trap door in the floor of the tower and dropped down, skipping the ladder, to pull the rope just as Grand Master Borch appeared dashing up the stairs.  He had an expression on his face she had never seen before.  He stood on the top stair for a moment before he gestured for her to follow him.   Jackdaw clacked at her once from the Grand Master’s shoulder, but it was a tense sort of cut off sound.  

“Sir?” she asked before she realized she was holding Stribog to her chest like she was still an acolyte and nudged him to take his place on her shoulder.  She was fifteen, it was time she acted like it, in front of the Grand Master no less.

Borch smiled his kind gentle smile and motioned her along.  “Come with me, Tissaia.”

They jogged down the halls because no one walked the halls of Praenuntius unless they were a baby or dying.  Up ahead she heard one of the potion mistresses arguing with someone whose voice she didn’t recognize at all.  There were very few men within the walls of the School of the Raven.

The potion mistress looked close to feral, her eyes dark and burning, her pale hair was bundled up on top of her head.  “His body hasn’t been prepared, even without considering the fact he’s a boy or that he’s almost dead.  If you’re that determined to bury your son just wait.  You didn’t have to come here and drag an army with you!”

The other person looked like an elf, one she didn’t recognize, holding a bundled-up figure in his arms.  He wore finer clothes then belonged in the Blue Mountains, marred with blood that looked half from himself and half from the person he held.  “I know that your school uses forbidden magics.  You would have the debt of me and of my people.”

“If we do this, and if he survives,” Grand Master Borch said.  “He will never be able to father a child.  Your line will end with him.”

The elf looked at Grand Master Borch, his expression broken down the middle.   “Save my son.  Please, old friend.  You have to save him.”

The bells of Praenuntius began to ring out an alarm and raven calls suddenly sounded out of the halls of the school.  Tissaia’s hands clenched into fists at her sides.  She looked at Grand Master Borch.  He looked calm, or perhaps just tired.  It was just at the end of wintering in, the school was flush with witchers.  Everything would be alright.

“We are going to have to improvise and be a little indirect,” Grand Master Borch told the potion mistress.  “Tell Chireadan to prepare accordingly and have him pick one of the newer witchers he’s training, we can’t spare anyone at the gate.”  

Tissaia didn’t understand what was happening.  

Hand on the elf’s shoulder, Grand Master Borch led them to one of the raven roosts.   They weren’t in there for very long before a giant raven landed heavy on the elf boy’s chest, making him cough and sputter up blood.  “Cwa,” it said, dark and sarcastic and then sip at the red splatter around the boy’s side.  

The elf looked on in horror, but Grand Master Borch just kept smiling.  “Excellent.  And off we go to the transformation chamber.”

The chamber was deep in the fortress, the only entrances into the cave underneath the Praenuntius and a long solemn hallway leading into it from the potion wing.

Before they went in, Grand Master Borch took the boy from the elf’s arms.  “You can’t go any farther, I suggest you escape while you can or find a sword and join the fight.”

The elf pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead and ran off.  Tissaia wasn’t paying him much attention, Stribog kept making concerned sounds in her ear.

Inside the transformation chamber Chireadan – the only other male witcher at the School of the Raven – was setting up his bottles and potions.  He looked upset.  Zola and Triss were there helping him set up with tubes and washing down the table.

“Grand Master Borch,” he said as he fiddled with the stand.  “I feel as though I should protest.  Boys don’t take the change as well and that boy hasn’t had anything to fatten him up, he hasn’t been trained.  The transformation will tear him apart.  You know what happens to acolytes who go through the change without being ready for it.”

“This is Filavandrel aén Fidháil of the House of Feleaorn,” Grand Master Borch said with that way he had of tipping his head back and then forward again.  “He is the one who will take back Dol Blathanna if we fail from keeping it from falling, and save his people.  For all our efforts it seems the time of sword and ax is nigh after all,” Grand Master Borch looked so sad.  “We must keep him safe as long as we can.”

“His body has not been prepared,” Chireadan said again, voice grating like a poorly used whetstone.  “He hasn’t even drunk any of the tea.  The transformation is going to burn or drown him.  He won’t be able to survive the Other, it will overtake him.”

“He is an exceptional child,” the Grand Master said.  “Who will become an exceptional man.   The survival of the elves rests on his shoulders.  The weight of prophecy will have to be enough to help him survive.  Our sacred charter is to save the world, have some hope Chireadan.  Believe in a miracle.”

There was a sort of panic that blooming in Tissaia at his words, Stribog’s body pressed against the side of her head.  They were all taught the prophecies from a young age.  She’d been trained in waiting for the signs of frozen harbors, black suns, storks in Cintra, and the spilling of the blood of the elves.  How the band that had founded the School of the Raven had prevented a new Conjunction of the Spheres only a few hundred years ago.

“I drank the tea,” a small lilting voice said from behind them.

Tissaia turned to look at a little acolyte, a boy, his arms full of clean sheets.  His eyes were bright blue, and his brown hair as fine as dandelion fluff, his expression was so sweet and soft.  Next to her she could feel the weight of the Grand Master’s stare.

“His papa loves him,” the little boy said, setting down the sheets on the transformation table to take up the elf child’s hand in his.  “And he’s going to do good things.  I want to help.  I paid attention to Alta.  I heard her say how you change us.  The tea never made me sick like it did Dura or Mellie.  I can help him get better and be with his papa again.”

Grand Master turned to Zola.  “How has Julien been progressing, no trouble with the tea?”

“Like- like a fish to water,” Zola said, uncertain.  She looked to Tissaia, but Tissaia didn’t know what to say.

Grand Master Borch held out his hand to the boy smiling with that soft kind smile, his eyes were so sad.  “You’re a brave boy.  That might be enough.”

Chireadan looked to her as he was preparing the bottles, pausing to do two sets instead of one.  “You have near-perfect signs, don’t you?  You caught lightning with Quen on your first try.”

“Yes sir,” she answered.

“Come stand near the boy.  It will take too much to guide our elf friend here through the change, I need you to maintain Julian.”

“He prefers Jaskier,” Zola said from where she was helping Triss, her knuckles white around the bottles she was holding.  “It’s what his mother called him.”

“I can’t,” Tissaia said.  “I can’t do this.”

Grand Master Borch touched her shoulder and then cupped her face with his hands.  “Look at me.  Look at me.”

She blinked up at him.  His eyes were such a perfect gold.  

“Tissaia.  You can do it and you will.”  He made a sign against the side of her head, though she wasn’t sure which one it was, she felt a sudden assurance wrap around her.  A total faith.  

She nodded at him.  

He pressed a hand to her shoulder, and then did the same for Zola, and Jaskier, and even Chireadan who wrapped his arms around Grand Master Borch and held on for long moments.  “Be safe, old friend.”

“I have a few more tricks in me yet,” Borch told him, holding him tight.   “I’m so proud of you Chireadan.  I’m so proud.  Thank you.”

And then Grand Master Borch was gone, closing the great doors behind him as he went.

The elf woke up then because of course he did.  At least Chireadan was an elf, that seemed to calm him a little.  “Where am I?”

“You’re at Praenuntius.  The School of the Raven,” Chireadan said.  “You’re dying and your father’s magic wasn’t enough to save you so you’re going to become a witcher.”

He could have lied a little.

“N-no,” the boy stuttered.  “I’m an elf.  Of the House of Feleaorn.”  He began to cry, a soft almost silver sound.  It was ridiculous.  No one needed to cry that pretty.  “They killed m-my mother.  My brother.  Athelinuin,” he said and covered his face with both hands.  “He was going to teach me to play the lute and now he’s dead.  Let me die.  Please.  I just want to be with family again.  Let me die.”

Jaskier slid off the bed to go tuck the elf’s hand into both of his, holding it against his cheek.  “You can do it.  I know it’s hard.  Grief is a river that finds it’s end in peace.  Don’t let yourself drown in it,” Jaskier said.   Tissaia had heard the same lesson from Alta who seemed to be repeating the philosophy to the new acolytes.  “Don’t give up.  No one is dead until they’re dead.  Zola is really nice and Chireadan is really smart. They’re going to do something to save us and you and I are going to be alright.  Please, don’t give up.”  For all they were Alta’s words in Jaskier’s mouth, the boy had tuned them true to himself and played them well from his own lips.

A soft little crystal tear squeezed out of the elf’s eye, but he set his small jaw and nodded.  

Zola scooted Jaskier’s cot closer so they could keep holding hands.

There was a cacophony of shrilling and shrieking from inside the fortress.

“Zola,” Chireadan said as he took the elf’s free arm, feeling with his fingertip for a vein.  On the other side Triss did the same with Jaskier.  “The door if you please.”

The curly-haired witcher barred the door and then centered herself.  Her hands moved over the frame scratching in a combination of Yrden, Curn, and Quen before moving to the floor in front of it, layering in defenses.

“Tissaia,” Chireadan snapped at her.  

She nodded back at him, centering herself.  Stribog made a low rumbling sound from her shoulder.

“Listen to his heart, concentrate, focus your hearing like you were trained to on the hunt.  You will need to use a sign combination of somne and quen to slow him down and maintain a low but constant rate.  If his heart goes to fast the Trial will tear him apart, if it is too slow you will stop his heart and he will die.”  He looked at her, smiling that same soft sad smile that Grand Master Borch used.  “You can do this.  Just listen to me, nice and slow.  Begin with somne.”

She went into a kind of trance.  Sign combinations were difficult, a sleight of hand that was almost magic.  When the School of Raven had decided to go without mages, they had to make some adaptations.  She could feel the sluggish beating of Jaskier’s heart going slower and slower under her hand, she could feel it reach the same pace as the little elf’s.   Chireadan would give commands from time to time for the potions they used.  She could feel when the first of it hit Jaskier’s system, the way his body shook with it.  Sweat soaked down her forehead, down the back of her armor.  The boy was so small, so terribly small even with all the fat packed on with an acolyte’s diet.  Triss appeared at her side with a cloth and wiped her face off with swift movements.  Her hands were cramping into hooks, her body screamed.

The majority of the School of the Raven were women.  Only the witchers that specialized in the potions really knew the process, but there was something about the difference in it – the way the school went without mages – that meant women just took the change better.  Jaskier must have been the only male acolyte.  She vaguely remembered he was loud and had that too cheerful habit of trying to be helpful.  Tissaia didn’t want to kill him.   Chireadan made it look so easy.  The turning of the Signs to the outer possible application.  She didn’t remember anything more of her first transformation.  She woke to blood on her sheets, went to go tell her bunk leader, and by the next morning her hair was white and she was a witcher.  She hadn’t been awake for any of this, just woke up with a burning body and a world that was too loud.

“Second batch,” Chireadan said.  She saw him move out of the corner of her eye and Triss moving to her right.  Looking over she watched Triss pin Jaskier’s raven down onto it’s back with a practiced hand.  The raven made a bit of an annoyed sound, but seemed too good-natured to fight the position. Then Triss took a branching tube with a sharpened edge in her hand and stabbed it into the raven’s chest.  

Tissaia cried out and dropped Quen as Jaskier’s raven kicked and sprayed blood into the tubing.  The raven struggled fiercely on the table – snapping and cawing, its feathers going out of place – but its blood was pouring out of it almost black in the tube and then grew weaker, and weaker, and then it just lay there making low croaks.

Kicking at Tissaia, Triss snapped her head in annoyance as she connected one branch of the tubing to some potion bottle that was connected to Jaskier.  “Tissaia!  Focus!”

All she could do was stare at Triss and down at the raven on the table.  It was still, its eyes blank.  Tissaia didn’t know what was happening.

“Tissaia!  Focus or he’ll die!”

Turning back to Jaskier with a frantic sort of numbness, she cast Quen again.   She felt it take, but weakly.    She was losing control like a sled on a field of ice jack-knifing back and forth.  She didn’t know.  She didn’t know they killed the ravens.  Stribog was on the cot staring at the twitching body of Jaskier’s pretty raven.  His eyes were white.  All the witchers had ravens with white eyes.

Jaskier made a high pained animal sound twitching and writhing so hard he would have thrown himself off the bed if Triss hadn’t been there to throw her body on top of him.  What were they doing?  What had been done to her?

“Tissaia!” Triss screamed.  “He needs you!”

She couldn’t get it to stop, she couldn’t get control back.  She hissed out from between her teeth.  Her fingers felt like they were being torn to pieces.  She was going to do this, she could do this!  The first level of protection on the door activated in a swirl of color.  How far had the enemy breached to get to the turning room?  She felt her Other rise up, tight-laced to the throat and absolutely full of teeth.

“I could have been a mage!” Tissaia howled, she could feel the sort of red mist of going feral circle around her vision.  She wanted to bite, she wanted to tear.  “I could have been a mage.  The greatest who ever lived.  I chose what I am.  I chose this, I chose to be a wonder and a horror!  I am the rage in the night!  I am the silver sword and the fist of steel!   I am powerful and you will obey me!”

Jaskier dropped down so still she thought she had killed him, but no there was the soft murmur of his heart in her hands.  She felt something wet on her mouth and droplets of blood landed on Jaskier’s face where she leaned over him.  She felt odd and light-headed.

“Third potion, Triss,” Chireadan said.  “Now.”

“It’s only been a couple of hours.  It’s too soon,” Triss said, still crouched over Jaskier’s body.  

There was a bang at the door and the Quen shivered all over like an angry cat.

“Do as I say Triss.”

The fear coming off Triss sent dread like a claw from the tip of Tissaia’s head to the small of her back.  

“Third potion,” Triss said.

There was another bang at the door.

“Zola,” Chireadan said.  “Get my swords and lean them against the table and go open the back door to the caves, please.”

Something black was seeping out of Jaskier’s nose, Triss tilted the boy to the side and it came out of his mouth as well.  She switched the tubing going into Jaskier’s raven, it began to make feeble jerking motions.

“He’s too young,” Triss said.  “His body isn’t taking it.”

“He’ll be fine,” Chireadan told her, he swayed on his feet, but his hands never faltered.  “Have some faith.”

The bang came at the door again, something odd in the sound and Quen shattered.

“They have a mage,” Zola said.

“Triss, be a dear and pack everything up,” Chireadan said, voice showing a bit of strain.   “Destroy whatever you can’t carry.  All of you are going to leave and find shelter elsewhere.  Do not return here for a few years. Do not wait for anyone, do not tell anyone where you are from or where you are going.  Act as if you were the last of the School of the Raven. Winter in at Oxenfurt, we have friends there.  Do not tell anyone that the school was under attack.  Do not tell anyone about the transformation process.”

Triss moved around in her periphery vision almost at a blur, there were flashes of heat and the pop of breaking glass bottles.  Tissaia watched Jaskier’s hair turn white.  He kept jerking in place.  The elf boy wasn’t jerking in place.  She was doing something wrong, she had to be doing something wrong.  

“It’s as done as it’s going to be,” Chireadan said.   Tissaia released Quin and her hands instantly cramped up into fists.  Triss came up behind her and helped her put on a pack and swords, then pulled up her hood for her.  Jaskier’s raven twisted up onto its feet, its eyes were white, it was staring at Jaskier’s face, the smear of black around his mouth and nose.  “Triss,” he said.  “Be a dear and finish this up, will you?”  He started muttering to himself in Elder as he pulled out cat potion and drank it down.  He was bouncing on his feet in a way Tissaia associated with going a bit feral, his head swinging back and forth.

“Yes, sir,” Triss said.  She yanked the tubes out of everyone, wrapped Jaskier and Filavandrel in their sheets like they were shrouds and put the elf in Zola’s arms.  “Come on, Zola,” she said.  “We need you.”

“But-” Zola started, the door was bowing.

“Don’t be selfish,” Triss snapped at her.  “Chireadan told us to go.”  She picked up the little acolyte, his pretty white-eyed raven fluttering awkwardly over to perch on the boy’s chest.

The caves under the school weren’t properly underneath it.  There was a tunnel covered in the glowing moss that was one ingredient in the tea they drank and cold stone steps going down, down, down.  Chireadan looked at her, smiled at her and then closed the secret passage door behind them.  There was a scrape on the other side of the door as though something was being moved in front of it.

She.  She felt.  

She turned and followed after the other witchers, hating the vulnerability of how her hands were all knotted up.  She couldn’t even hold a sword like this.  The stairs turned into finally into a kidney-shaped room.  There was the partially frozen over pond where the acolyte fish waited to be caught and the hole where little acolytes were tossed in to learn to get out of ice that had cracked or to become food for the fishes in turn.  Alta had trained acolytes for at least a hundred years since she lost her leg.  The trainer was a blocky woman who kept her hair short and had always been honest with them.  Let the cold polish away weaknesses, learn the edge’s of endurance, become hard and self-sufficient.

She pushed forward, mindful of the ice over the pond.  She didn’t have her cleats, but she had been running on snow and ice as long as she could remember.  They walked together, out into the open white of the frozen valley.  The stink of chaos was heavy in the air as poison in the air.   Ahead of her Jaskier was shaking in Triss’ arms, his body jerking in a way that didn’t seem like the cold.  She wanted to ask if he was dying, but her mouth stayed stubbornly closed.  Behind her she could hear shouting and smell blood.  Stribog landed like a stone on her shoulder, clacking at her for a moment before taking off ahead.

Tissaia looked back over her shoulder at the tower, at the screaming cloud of ravens dispersing.   Fire blossomed at the front of the tower, an immense wave of Axii that made her eyes sting to look at it.  This had been her home for a decade, the massive dark stalactites reaching for a sky that would never reach back.  Black towers smooth as obsidian glass with ice piled up like diamonds standing tall on a massive lake of ice. She knew that chance had rescued her, she knew from the death cries of the ravens that witchers were dying – witchers better than her.  Still, she could not do the sensible thing and go.  Her whole vision was those black towers that had always been warm, full of companionship, a place where she was thought to be more than grief and a temper.  A place where she had been taught the coming of the end of the world and how to delay it, delay it, delay it until it was in inconvenience, not a cataclysm.

Zola took her by the arm of her coat and shook her.  “We have to go.  The kids can’t take prolonged exposure.”