Sunlight slanted thin and pale through the gap in the shutters, and Seb's eyes opened slowly to the familiar cracked beams of his own ceiling and to the weight resting against his hand, warm and unmoving.
Ciri lay slumped forward at the edge of the bed, head pillowed on her folded arms, her fingers still curled loosely around his, fast asleep in the middle of what had clearly been a long, unbroken vigil.
"Ciri... Good so that wasn't a dream.." His voice came out rough, barely more than a rasp.
She startled awake at once, head snapping up, eyes still bleary with sleep and then they widened, all at once, as the sight of him fully registered. "Seb!" She was already moving, throwing her arms around him in a fierce, sudden hug that caught his injured shoulder squarely.
"Ow!"
"Sorry.. sorry," she said, easing back just enough to look at him properly, though she didn't let go of his hand. "I'm just glad you're awake.."
"What do you mean.." He blinked, trying to piece together the fog in his head. "I feel like we were just talking a minute ago."
"That was two days ago," Ciri said, something raw still audible beneath the relief in her voice. "You've been asleep for two whole days, Seb."
"Two days?" He pushed himself up onto his elbows, and it was then that Ciri's gaze dropped, and he followed it down to his own bare chest where thin, dark lines spread like veins beneath his skin, branching outward from somewhere near his heart in slow, deliberate patterns that had no business being there.
Seb went very still.
"Vesemir tried a few different remedies," Ciri said quietly, watching his face for a reaction. "Nothing made it go away. It hasn't spread further in the last few hours, at least, but it hasn't retreated either."
"No wonder I feel a bit tired still," Seb said, flexing his fingers experimentally, testing the weakness threading through his own limbs.
"That's all you feel," Ciri pressed, eyes narrowing slightly. "Nothing else you're not telling me?"
Seb's mouth curved, and he caught her hand, tugging her gently closer until barely any space remained between them. "Why? worried I'm about to sprout horns and start eating villagers?"
"I'm serious." But the color rose in her cheeks regardless. "I'm worried about you. You're not exactly invincible, you know, whatever you like to pretend."
"I'm not worried about myself," he said, quieter now, the teasing fading from his voice. "Pretty sure the Lady of Time and Space can figure something out for me, if it ever comes to that."
He kissed her then, and she met it just as fiercely, the fear and relief of the past two days pouring into it in equal measure and when she finally broke away, she rested her forehead against his, one tear slipping free before she could stop it.
"I just.." Her voice wavered.
Seb stayed quiet, waiting, his thumb brushing gently along the back of her hand.
"I just don't want to lose you," she said finally, barely above a whisper, "because of me. Because of my mistakes. Even Geralt got hurt out there, seeing the two of you like that, after everything.."
"Hey." He tipped her chin up gently until she met his eyes. "If I went back and did it all over again, I wouldn't change a single thing. Not one. Whatever happens to me from here is on me, my mistake, letting him land that hit in the first place. Not yours. Never yours."
He eased himself upright, testing his legs, and rose from the bed with only a slight sway before steadying himself, stretching his arms overhead with a low groan. "See? Still moving. Still mostly in one piece."
Ciri managed a small smile, though the worry hadn't fully left her eyes she knew him too well by now, knew exactly how easily he buried things rather than hand them over, even to her.
"Come on," Seb said, already reaching for a shirt. "Let's go find Vesemir. And Geralt, I never actually got the chance to properly talk to him."
They found both men in the great hall below, deep in low, serious conversation over a spread of old books and scattered notes, and Vesemir looked up first as they entered.
"There he is," Vesemir said, something like real relief flickering across his weathered face despite the gruffness of his tone. "Good. Awake at last. I was just discussing you with Geralt, as it happens."
"Is that so," Seb said, dropping into a chair across from them, Ciri settling close beside him.
"That curse of yours," Geralt said, without preamble. "It's unlike anything either of us has seen before. Vesemir agrees, we need someone who actually knows this kind of magic. Properly knows it."
"Yennefer," Seb said flatly.
"Unfortunately, her." Vesemir said, sighing. "She's dealt with darker sorcery than most, elven workings included. If anyone can untangle whatever that elf did to you, it's her."
"I feel fine, though," Seb said, though even he could hear how unconvincing it sounded. "Just tired. Comes from throwing everything I had at an army of elves and a navigator in one night."
"That thing on your chest," Vesemir said, nodding toward him, "is not 'fine.' It's spreading, slowly, and we have no idea what happens once it finishes doing so.. if it finishes at all meaning we don't know for how long it remains that way. That's not a risk I'm willing to sit on and hope resolves itself."
"He's right," Ciri said, quiet but firm. "Yennefer should be able to figure out what it actually is, at the very least."
Seb was silent a moment. "I don't think I'll be spending the whole winter here."
Vesemir's brow furrowed sharply. "What do you mean by that."
"Like I told Geralt already," Seb said, "I still need to find Philippa. I got what I set out for.. Ciri's home, safe. But that woman betrayed both me and Triss, stole the mask that got should have got me into Tir na Lia. and I still don't know what she did to Triss after that. On top of which," he added, with a humorless, tired huff, "I'm probably wanted for regicide."
Ciri blinked, brow furrowing hard. "What?"
"Well, that's.." Vesemir started.
"I'll fill you in on that part later," Geralt cut in smoothly. "Yen too, once she's here. For now, you focus on recovering. The rest can wait a few more days."
"You're going to tell me everything that happened," Ciri said, fixing Seb with a look that allowed no argument, "later. All of it."
Seb smiled, as he leaned back in his chair. "Like I said." He glanced at her, something soft beneath the exhaustion in his eyes. "Not very good stories at all, you'll realize how trusting and how stupid I am."
.
.
.
.
TIR NA LIA -
Two days ago, in the burning royal palace of Tir na Lia
The throne room still smoldered where Seb's fire had torn through it, scorch marks climbing the ancient columns in wide black streaks, the shattered remains of the throne's dais littered with ash and the fallen bodies of Red Riders who had never managed to land a single blow. And there, amid all of it, King Auberon Muircetach sat upon what remained of his throne, hands folded in his lap, staring out at the ruin of his own hall as though it belonged to some other palace entirely, some other king's failure.
Eredin found him there and stopped just inside the doorway, taking in the sight, his king, untouched, unmoving, surrounded by smoke and death and the wreckage of everything that had, until tonight, seemed unassailable.
"Your Majesty." Eredin crossed the hall slowly, boots crunching over broken stone and drifting ash, his ruined, fire-scarred face carrying none of its usual composure.
Auberon didn't answer at first. His eyes remained fixed on some distant point beyond the ruined hall, beyond the burning city visible through the shattered windows, beyond anything Eredin could follow.
"Ge'els is dead," Eredin said, watching for some reaction and finding none. "Avallac'h is dead. The city outside is in chaos, your people, Your Majesty, terrified in their own homes, watching their palace burn from a threat none of them can explain." His grip tightened around his sword's hilt. "And you sit here. In the ashes of everything we spent hundreds of years building toward."
Still, nothing. Only that same hollow, distant stare, as though the king had already left this hall long before his body had.
Eredin's jaw tightened, something cold and final settling behind his eyes. "Why should I go on pretending now," he said, low, almost to himself. "The others who might have stood between me and this moment are already dead. You had your chance, Auberon. Six centuries of chances, and you squandered every last one of them on grief and hesitation."
He drew his sword.
Auberon's gaze shifted at last, sliding slowly to meet Eredin's approach, and something in that ancient, weary face didn't show fear, instead it showed the look of a man who had perhaps known, on some buried level, exactly how this night would end long before it arrived.
"They have escaped, Your Majesty," Eredin said, closing the last of the distance between them, voice dropping cold and final. "Thanks entirely to your incompetence. Your softness. Your sentiment." He raised the blade. "Hundreds of years, and you could not bring yourself to do what needed doing, even at the very end."
The king said nothing.
Eredin drove the sword forward, and it found its mark clean through the old king's chest, the ancient ruler's breath leaving him in a slow, final exhale, his eyes finally closing as the last of whatever had kept him upright gave way entirely.
"Long live the king," Eredin said, quiet and utterly without ceremony, and withdrew the blade, letting Auberon Muircetach's body slump forward against the ruin of his own throne, the king of Tir na Lia, dead among the ashes of everything he had failed, in the end, to protect.
/-\
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