"There's a bounty hunter after you. Goes by the name Leo Bonhart." Seb said.
Ciri's brow furrowed. "A bounty hunter. What exactly is a bounty hunter supposed to do to the two of us that a hundred elves with swords couldn't manage?"
"This one kills witchers," Seb said, watching her carefully. "For sport, from everything I've gathered. Not coin or contract work. Sport, Ciri. Collects trophies off them, our medallions."
The words landed the way he'd expected them to. Ciri's face went pale, her jaw tightening. "That's..."
"It gets worse," Seb said grimly. "He knows what I can do. Might even know my weaknesses by now, for all I can tell he's had time enough to study me from a distance." He looked away, into the balcony, his voice dropping lower. "He's the one who killed the friends I told you about. The ones I met on the Path. Decent folk. Didn't deserve what he did to them." His hands curled slowly into fists on his knees. "There was a survivor. One. A she-elf. I found her half-dead in Mahakam, crippled, barely able to speak by the time anyone got to her. That's where I first heard his name, heard exactly what he'd done to the others, in detail I still wish I could unhear."
Ciri was quiet a long moment, something heavy and aching settling behind her eyes. She reached over and took his hand without a word at first, just holding it. "I'm sorry," she said finally, softer now. "It seems you've been carrying your own share of hell this whole time too. And I never even thought to ask."
"Wasn't exactly something to bring up over supper," Seb said, attempting a smile that didn't quite hold together. "Didn't want to add my ghosts on top of everything else."
"That's not how this works," Ciri said, squeezing his hand. "You don't get to carry all of that alone just because you decided it wasn't the right moment. There's never going to be a right moment, Seb. Not for either of us."
He let out a slow breath, something in his shoulders easing slightly at that. "Fair enough." He paused, then pressed on to the rest of it. "There's more. I asked Vesemir, before you got back from the hunt, whether this place has ever actually been attacked. Properly attacked, I mean, not just wandering monsters testing the wall while we were away."
"And?"
"He didn't answer with words," Seb said. "Just walked me out past the old orchard and showed me where he'd burned the corpses. Didn't say much else about it.." His jaw tightened. "Means even Kaer Morhen isn't as untouchable as everyone likes to pretend it is. Not against something determined enough, and patient enough."
Ciri absorbed that, some of her earlier fear hardening into resolve. "I also learned that Avallac'h was spying on us ever since we were children here... Good thing we're all here, then," she said. "If Bonhart or anyone else wants to try laying siege to this mountain, let them. We hold it. All of us together."
"We would," Seb agreed. "Still... wanted you to actually know what's out there. Didn't feel right, keeping you in the dark on it, not after everything."
Ciri let out a short, humorless breath. "You know, some days I genuinely consider riding straight to Nilfgaard and slapping Emhyr var Emreis across his smug, scheming face myself. Consequences be damned."
"That would be spectacularly stupid," Seb said, though something in his tone wasn't entirely dismissive of the idea. "But, strange as it sounds... I actually think we might end up there eventually. For more reasons than just settling accounts with your father."
Ciri tilted her head, studying him. "Oh, right. Your family."
Something flickered across Seb's face at that, there and gone almost too fast to catch. "Relatives, you mean," he corrected quietly. "My only real family were my parents, and they're both long dead now." He hesitated, weighing something behind his eyes that looked, for the first time in a long while, genuinely uncertain. "But my name... should still carry some weight in that court. More than you'd expect, probably."
"What do you mean by that?" Ciri asked, leaning forward slightly.
Seb reached out and took her hand properly this time, holding it between both of his own. "If this curse ends up being the thing that finally kills me," he said, low and steady, "then I owe you this much, at least. All of it. The truth."
"Okay, now you're actually scaring me." Ciri's voice cracked slightly despite her best effort to keep it level. "I already told you not to talk like that, Seb. I mean it."
He didn't let go of her hand. "I've told you about my parents before. About my father.. that he served in Emhyr's court, one of his most trusted men, before everything fell apart for our family."
"Yeah," Ciri said slowly, watching him. "You told me that much. Never the details, but that much, yes."
"What I never told you," Seb said, meeting her eyes fully now, "was his actual name. Or mine, for that matter.. because Sebastian isn't the name I was born with." He took a slow breath. "My name... My real name is Arven var Winneburg."
Ciri went very still, staring at him. "What... wait." Her eyes narrowed, pieces shifting rapidly behind them. "Why would you ever need to hide a name like that..."
"Because I—"
A sharp knock rattled the door before he could finish, followed immediately by Eskel's voice, muffled but insistent. "You two done being mysterious in there? Vesemir wants everyone in the hall. Now, preferably, sooner if you can manage it."
Seb exhaled hard. "We'll finish this later."
"Okay," Ciri said, though her eyes lingered on him a beat longer, turning the name over slowly, that didn't quite fit the picture she'd built of him yet. "...Arven." She wrinkled her nose. "No. Absolutely not. I'm still calling you Seb. That name's far too Nilfgaardian for my taste, and I already have enough of that in my own blood to deal with... wait does the others know about this?"
"No they don't... all they know is that we're both Nilfgaardians," Seb pointed out. "Might as well get used to it."
"Don't remind me," Ciri said, though there was genuine warmth threaded through it now, and she let him pull her up and toward the door, her hand still folded into his.
Down in the great hall, Vesemir and Lambert were already waiting, the fire crackling loud and warm in the otherwise quiet room, throwing long shadows against the old stone walls. Lambert looked up the moment they entered, and his mouth curved slowly into something entirely too pleased with itself.
"You know," he drawled, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed, "ever since you two got back from wherever the hell you actually went, you've been stuck together tighter than a burr in a horse's tail. Can't go five minutes without one of you within arm's reach of the other. It's actually kind of sweet, in a nauseating sort of way."
Ciri, rather than pulling away or flushing at the observation the way Lambert clearly expected, closed the distance further instead, lacing her fingers more firmly through Seb's and lifting her chin toward him. "Does that bother you, Lambert?"
"What.. no, I mean.." Lambert floundered visibly, caught entirely off guard. "That's.. that's great, actually, good for the both of you, I just.." He scowled, gesturing vaguely with one hand as though trying to physically pull the rest of the sentence out of the air. "Damn it, I had a whole comeback lined up for this, and you went and ruined it by not getting embarrassed."
"Practice makes perfect," Seb said dryly, and earned a rude gesture from Lambert in return, which only made Eskel snort quietly from where he leaned against the mantel.
"If we're all quite finished entertaining each other," Vesemir said, "I called you all here because by now, Geralt should have reached Ard Carraigh. Means he'll be back sooner than any of you are expecting, once he's made proper contact with Yennefer."
Ciri's brow furrowed. "I thought he was riding all the way to Nilfgaard itself."
"You do realize that particular ride would take him the better part of several months, in this weather," Eskel said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Assuming he didn't work poor Roach clean to death trying to make the distance in half that time, which knowing Geralt.. is entirely possible."
"He's headed to a mage's tower in Ard Carraigh," Vesemir clarified patiently. "There's one there with a working megascope, last I heard. He'll use it to reach Yennefer directly. She'll teleport straight to him, and the two of them will make the rest of the journey here together, through a portal as well."
Ciri pressed a hand briefly to her forehead, letting out a long, exasperated breath. "Sometimes I really am an idiot."
"Sometimes?" Lambert said, deadpan, earning himself a light shove from Eskel that didn't quite manage to hide his own grin.
Seb let out a long, slow breath of his own. "Well. That's good news, all things considered. Also means I'll be handing back over the best room in the keep again."
"With that particular demon coming alongside Geralt?" Eskel said, arching an eyebrow. "Yeah. You absolutely should, and gladly, before she decides to take it from you the hard way."
"She's crossing the continent to help keep me from dying," Seb said, "Least I can do is hand over the good mattress without a fight."
"Wise," Vesemir said, nodding once in approval.
The air in the center of the hall shivered suddenly, folding in on itself with a low, resonant hum, violet light spilling outward as a portal split open right there between the tables, catching every eye in the room at once.
Vesemir's mouth twitched as he rose slowly from his seat. "Speak of the devil.."
/-\
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