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Lambert will concede that he has less cause, these past few years, to grumble about his lot. He cannot regret that Geralt did what no other Witcher would have tried - or could have succeeded if they had – and took an army of Witchers to kill a monstrous king and set all this into motion. He cannot regret that while he had no living yearmates, he has living brothers who love him dearly despite all of his bluntness and rage. Those pieces of history have meant though, that while Lambert is not required on Geralt’s Council - to care about taxes and road mending and replies to noble correspondence - he is nevertheless recognized by the human nobility in the Wolflands. He is known as one of Geralt’s close kin, thought therefore to be highly ranked in the ways the nobles judge, and thus appropriate to be involved in a diplomatic adventure. (Lambert takes a moment to imagine every Wolf trainer who had care of him as a trainee, being told that he was trusted to be involved in even the very straightforward form of diplomacy which was all the Witchers had for so long, and grins to himself.)
And of course Lambert will never – never – regret the twist of fate which brought Milena into his life and his bed, no matter that it has made him interesting among those human nobility who can identify more than only a single pale-haired Witcher by sight. When he introduces himself as Lambert of the Wolves, nowadays there are many humans who know that it means not only that he is part of the White Wolf’s own school, but that he is specifically the only Wolf who stands as consort to a Redanian Duke’s daughter, whose story is even seen as romantic to younger nobles of a particularly fanciful bent. The nobles believe that Geralt is showing them a kind of respect, by including Lambert of all people among the party.
So Lambert does not regret what has led him here, even if he does specifically regret agreeing to Geralt’s request to be part of today’s delegation to the border of Cidaris. He has studied the background of the dukedom, because there is no point in doing a thing poorly, and because both Jaskier and Aleksander had seemed to believe that it might mean something important that they have been asked. Instead of doing anything important, today Lambert had watched a short tourney demonstration of human arms, and fought the urge to elbow Aiden when the Duke puffed himself up watching the speed of their blunted combat. He had kept Aiden safely trapped between Aleksander and himself when the Cat looked to be threatening to participate in the little knife demonstration a few of the Witchers offered up afterwards. It had seemed enough to have Dragonfly and Vesper throwing their knives, followed by one of the Bears embedding a heavy axe into the centre of the target from the other end of the field.
And then they all head into the walled courtyard to pay each other bland compliments and not discuss what Lambert had understood as the two central concerns of the day: the relationship between Cidaris and the bordering areas of the Wolflands, and tariffs on goods being carried in from Cidaris city up the river through Temeria. Aleksander’s lessons may have prepared Lambert for this, but he doesn’t have to like it. Still, Lambert’s new sister is Queen of Temeria, he is going to have to go along on the Progress with Milena and Ciri, so he will become good at this if it kills him.
Lambert nods and attempts a polite smile in the direction of the nervous Viscount in front of him who is determined to express his admiration of the Warlord’s own demonstration. Right at the very end, someone had clearly managed to tweak Geralt’s own hidden streak of perversity, and Lambert had sighed to watch the twin swords spinning past each other, whistling past the two female Cat Witchers, hitting the target with a single thud and a hairs-breadth of space between them. The sudden intake of breath had made it clear that Geralt had not given sufficient warning to the human nobility, who were then caught between their terror and the desire to show the Warlord respect by applauding vigorously. Aleksander had started the applause in the end – the Witchers fairly nonplussed by Geralt’s skills, familiar as they are with them – and the other nobles had joined in with a kind of desperation.
Near to Lambert, but too far away to be heard by any of the other humans, Aiden is now whispering something very slightly scandalous close to Aleksander’s ear. Geralt is a little farther away listening carefully to the Duchess, Coën acting as his second today since Eskel is back in Kaer Morhen with Yennefer and Buttercup. Ciri is also back in Kaer Morhen, where she will remain until such time as Geralt is forced to accept the reality of the Progress, which means Milena is back home too. The more Lambert thinks about this, the more it feels like a test, but what any of the Council could be assessing he does not know. In the opposite corner, Vesper and Dragonfly are acting as Triss’s guard, and Lambert tries to recall why her presence was thought necessary on this visit. Something to do with the types of goods which had been taxed at higher rates previously, and Mathen of Cidaris’s firm belief that this is evidence of Geralt’s dastardly plans for their future. Frankly, if Geralt is forced to conquer another kingdom, Lambert wouldn’t count against him simply leaving the whole mess to Ciri and heading back onto the path where no one will accuse him of having diplomatic machinations. (Geralt would never do that to Ciri, obviously, not while she’s still young enough to need him there, but Lambert would be surprised if the thought had never crossed his brother’s mind.)
There is a sense of…wrongness which creeps across Lambert watching the room over the Viscount’s shoulder. It’s a little like the way he can usually spot – long before the steam or the smoke – that a potion is about to behave unexpectedly. For a moment, too many heartbeats, Lambert can’t spot what has caught up against his instincts. There is no scent of panic in the room, no notes of violence about to spring into life. The only thing is a young man, a very minor noble, making a beeline across the room towards Aiden and Aleksander. Lambert doesn’t recognize him, doesn’t think they were introduced, there is only-
Lambert springs up and over his bewildered conversation partner, only quick enough to throw himself between the unnamed noble and Aiden, to turn the knife aside with his own body-
And then there is darkness.
*
Aleksander had been practicing his resistance to a flush, with Aiden murmuring sweet but not entirely proper nothings in his direction, when his love’s eyes go suddenly wide.
Lambert has thrown himself – faster than Aleksander has seen anyone move who is neither a Cat nor the White Wolf – against Aiden’s body. Aleksander just has time to see the knife – a wicked blade which had been aimed towards Aiden’s chest and was instead embedded in Lambert’s back – being drawn back out by a blank-faced young noble he does not recognize.
Lambert drops to the floor like a stone and Aiden-
Aiden catches the noble with one hand and sharply takes his head from his body.
There is a moment of perfect silence, before another young man, some near cousin of the Duke, screams in horrified fury and dashes towards Aiden, grabbing for a sword. Aiden puts one knife through his throat and another in his chest, and if he is struck at all by the man’s blade then it causes him no delay.
Two guards in the Duke’s livery rush toward the scene and Aiden breaks one neck and cuts cleanly through another without a split second to consider the matter. Somewhere underneath the room’s screaming Aleksander can hear a rolling growl, and when he gets sight of Aiden’s face for a moment he gasps.
One of the other Witchers has tried to grab hold of Aiden and is thrown across the room for their troubles. Aiden flings himself after them, still making a sound which is wordless and full of the cat-madness he had warned Aleksander of months ago.
Aiden and Aleksander had been talking together in one corner of this walled courtyard, and now there is no door behind them nor anywhere else to go. Lambert is still slumped on the ground at Aleksander’s feet, and has not moved since he took the blade which seemed meant for Aiden.
Aleksander gets himself over the top of Lambert’s body and drags him further into the corner. There is a heavy table against the wall which he manages to tip over and keep the two of them behind. Lambert hasn’t made a sound.
Aleksander presses one hand against the wound and uses the other to search frantically inside Lambert’s jacket. There is a small box with a set of the human-safe salves Lady Triss makes for the Witchers to take on patrols with them, and there is a single potion bottle. Aleksander tries to calm his tearing heart and make sense of the label. Swallow, this is Swallow, which may be enough to hold Lambert to the world if Aleksander can get him to drink it, but even as he pulls Lambert up into his lap and gets him into an angle to press the bottle to his lips and massage his throat, something else is wrong. Something is… Aleksander can smell something sweet and rotting. Like flowers cut and kept in a vase too long. And if you were going to try to murder a Witcher, if you were clever enough to get close without them discovering your intention, you surely would not trust to a single blade to do the job.
The potion to save Witchers from poison is another of those named for a bird.
“I need- somebody- I need-” Aleksander raises his voice as much as he is able above the screaming and the sounds of flesh meeting flesh and steel meeting steel. “Golden Oriole.”
He doesn’t think he can have been heard, but a moment later, in an arc from far away across the room, a tiny bottle drops onto the floor beside him. The glass clinks on the stone but does not break, a piece of fortune bought by the mages of Kaer Morhen years before Aleksander came to the keep.
“Kiss,” Aleksander calls, not bothering to shout this time. “And Swallow.” He persuades Lambert to drink the potion which truly is golden, and a moment later another glass bottle lands neatly beside him. There is only one, and Aiden desperately tries to remember every other piece of information anyone in Kaer Morhen has ever given him about potions. “Half?” he asks, “is that right? Half of this and half of Kiss, and then a break?”
Two bottles fly over the makeshift barrier and Aiden takes it as a correction. He gets the whole of the bottle of Kiss into Lambert, and starts to keep a kind of time in his head, singing a dancing tune under his breath and watching the wound carved alongside Lambert’s spine very slowly repair itself, and some colour begin to return to the Wolf’s skin. There is still something wrong with Lambert’s breathing, and he hasn’t woken up even with all of the chaos and noise around them.
Aleksander gives him half a dose each of the Swallow and Kiss, singing again to count the time so when Lady Triss asks him he will know that he spaced fifteen minutes between the first doses in the hope that he wouldn’t save Lambert only to poison him with too many decoctions. He keeps his hands over the wound and presses as hard as he is able, though it means he can’t see if there is still evidence of the poison’s dark threads.
Aleksander doesn’t notice the sounds stop. He only notices when a shadow falls over him and he raises his head to meet the golden, terrified eyes of his Lord. “Lambert?” the White Wolf asks.
“He’s breathing,” Aleksander tells him, although any Witcher can surely tell that. Perhaps any Witcher now but Lambert’s older brother. “I believe there was poison on the blade if someone can-”
The White Wolf looks over his shoulder and gives a sharp order, before lifting the makeshift table barrier away with one hand. Aleksander can see Coën of the Griffins running to get the foul sword, taking it to a now-open portal which Lady Triss is being bundled through.
The Wolf meets Aleksander’s gaze when he turns back, and says, “She kept trying to run through the fighting to get to you both. Vesper had to hold onto her.”
Aleksander asks what he has not dared, yet. “Aiden?”
The Wolf presses his temples with his fingers. “Had to call for a portal to get Eskel here to put him down-” He reacts to an expression that must have flown to Aleksander’s face, a fear he had not even managed to vocalise, “No, not like- Aiden’s as well as he could be, just took Eskel and me both to get him still. Probably wake up feeling like shit but that should be the worst of it.”
The Witchers have got a stretcher through the portal now and the Wolf carefully transports Lambert onto it, pulling back only a step to let them raise him up and ready him for home. The Wolf walks with the stretcher to the portal, guiding Aleksander with his free hand. He looks Aleksander up and down. “Get cleaned up before you see Milena or Aiden, hm?” He nods gravely. “Need to stay here and try to unravel this mess, but you’ll keep an eye on them? Kaer Morhen will be locked down for a day or so, Jaskier and Vesemir will know, but if you could-”
“I will do what I can for Lambert and Milena, and for Aiden, of course my Lord.”
The White Wolf grimaces as usual though it seems he lacks the energy for it. “But get cleaned up first. Aiden smells all that blood on you he’s like to go mad all over again.”
Aleksander has been trying not to think very much about the way he is currently drenched in Lambert’s blood. Still, he nods respectfully and then heads back through the portal.
Leocadie is the first one to reach him. “Little cousin!”
“None of the blood is mine. I am well, I promise. Is Lady Triss nearby?”
Leocadie inclines their head toward the spot on the stone floor where Lady Triss is leaning over the stretcher which had borne Lambert home.
Aleksander walks towards it, ignoring the outstretched hands of a few Manticores who try to greet him or delay him. Aleksander is still only partway comfortable around the keep’s mages, he has Lambert’s blood all over his hands and chest, and somewhere far from this room Aiden has been locked away until they can be sure he is himself again. Aleksander cannot stop to think about all of that or he will lose himself just as thoroughly. He drops to his knees on the other side of the stretcher and meets Lady Triss’s eyes. “I gave him one bottle of Swallow, then Golden Oriole, then Kiss. Then I waited fifteen minutes and gave him half each of Kiss and Swallow. I would have given him the other half but by then we-”
Lady Triss smiles gently at him. “You did everything exactly right, thank you Aleksander. We’ll give him some more potions now that I can keep an eye on his toxicity. But you did exactly as you should.”
He looks down at his clothing again. “I should-”
Leocadie appears at his shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” They look at Lady Triss. “Will Lambert be taken to his rooms, or will you be keeping him in the healing chambers?”
“Once we’re ready to move him, he should be fine in his rooms. You all tend to rest better that way. Ciri took Milena upstairs to get the rooms prepared for him, so we’ll be there soon.”
Leocadie nods. “Then I will escort Sasha there once he is washed and in fresh clothing.”
Aleksander allows himself to be walked towards the stairs but says, “I can get myself to Lambert and Milena’s rooms.” He still has trouble getting to floors where he spends less of his time, but the route to Lambert and Milena’s sitting room is well-known by now.
“I know you can,” Leocadie says. They nod at a passing servant. “Could we please get some hot water for Aleksander’s room?”
The servant nods sympathetically and runs off.
Leocadie keeps them walking to Aleksander’s own rooms although he has spent less time there – and no nights – these past months. Leocadie says, “Better to keep the blood out of Aiden’s room, probably.”
Aleksander shivers and can’t say anything else until they get to his door.
Leocadie asks, “Should I wait outside?”
Aleksander shakes his head. “I- no, please come and sit down.” He opens the door into his suite. “I will just-” He walks into his bedroom and partway closes the door, stripping off his blood-stained clothing and then hunting for some toweling.
He can hear the outer door open and close again, and then Leocadie says quietly, “The basin is outside your door now.”
Aleksander reaches out of the bedroom door until his hand reaches the edge of the basin and he can drag it back inside. It feels absurdly heavy, considering he had moved both a full-grown Witcher and a banquet table a few hours ago.
His hands shake as he wipes his body clean of Lambert’s blood, scrubbing until he thinks it must all be gone.
When Aleksander walks back into his study, Leocadie smiles. Then the Witcher asks, “May I touch you?” Aleksander nods and Leocadie reaches over, very slowly as if they are afraid Aleksander might be startled. Leocadie wipes a spot of what must be yet more blood from Aleksander’s cheek. “There we are.”
There is a knock at the door. When Aleksander calls for them to come in, Steward Kelner is there with another two of the servants. “I am very glad to see that you are well, my Lord,” he tells Aleksander. “We thought it might be best to get the clothes out of your room as soon as possible, and have someone in here to scrub up and make sure. Is that well with you?”
“Yes,” Aleksander agrees. “That’s probably-” He looks at Leocadie. “That would probably be helpful?”
“Yes,” Leocadie says. “We do not usually… our own blood or that of our Witcher siblings or cousins is not very often so concerning, but as there was so much of it, and given Aiden’s reaction afterwards, it would likely be wise to make sure he will not smell it in your rooms.”
Aleksander looks at the trail of it he has left going through to his bedroom. “I am sorry, I should have asked someone to bring me clean clothing in the hall, rather than tracking the blood through the keep and all the way in here.”
Steward Kelner smiles at him kindly. “It’s no trouble at all, my Lord, we know how to handle it.”
Leocadie nods their head towards the door. “Shall we take you to see Lambert, and wait for Aiden there?”
“The Wolf said that Aiden would be well when he woke.”
“And I am sure that he will. Likely worried about you as well as his friend, but he is not the first Cat to have dropped into madness and will not be the last.” Leocadie walks them both into the hallway and starts towards Lambert and Milena’s rooms. “It is like Jan and the blood – we know well enough now how to handle such things when they happen. The Cats will take care of him first, and I am sure he will run up and see you and Lambert both the very moment he is able to do so.”
*
Aiden wakes up in a very dimly lit room, lying on a bedroll which isn’t his own. The clothing he is wearing has been pulled from one of his chests, but he is entirely unarmed. He doesn’t remember why that should be the case. There is a little blood under his fingernails which he doesn’t recognize, and a speck – just a speck – of someone else’s blood entirely.
“Lambert!”
Guxart is sitting in front of the door, blocking Aiden’s exit. He says, “Lambert should be fine. Merigold is in with him now but the word from everyone round about him is that he should recover easily enough. There was poison on the blade but they got potions into him before it spread too much.”
Aiden’s head aches and he still can’t remember what had happened. He pulls himself into a crouch, noting aches and the pulling skin of mended wounds that he hadn’t begun the day with. The two of them had been asked to accompany the White Wolf and a few other Witchers to the borders of Cidaris. It had been a dull-sounding mission, full of diplomatic bullshit, but Lambert has been preparing to do more of that soon and anyway Aiden had wanted to go and keep company with-
“Sasha.”
“He’s well,” Guxart says. “Not even a bruise, as far as we could tell. He’s up with Lambert and Milena in their rooms too.”
“Who-?” Aiden asks. “How many did I-?”
“Four,” Guxart answers. “The one who went for Lambert, his friend, and the two guards fool enough to rush you after it happened. Then the rest of us caught up and it was only Witchers injured. Coën of the Griffins had a few bones broken but he will heal. You laid some blows on Geralt and Eskel but no worse than blood and bruises. Eskel got hold of you with an Axii once the two of them had knocked you round enough for it to take.”
“Who is- what is happening now?”
“Eskel and the Wolf are still in Cidaris. Yennefer headed there after them, all trying to make sense of what happened. Do you remember anything that might help with that, kit?”
Aiden remembers thinking that Lambert was dead. He remembers thinking that they had been betrayed, that he and his love and his dearest friend were being assaulted. That Lambert was already dead because he had thrown himself between Aiden and the blade. Aiden says, “They didn’t go for Lambert, they were going for me. Lambert must have spotted something, he moved before anyone else.”
Guxart frowns. “Truthfully, that makes less sense than someone targeting Lambert. Have you been making enemies among the nobility?”
It is possible, Aiden supposes, that perhaps in Redania there are some human enemies he doesn’t know about. Possible that there are some people unhappy that Aiden is known to be close, at the least, to the abdicated Aleksander formerly of Velen and now kinsman to the Manticores. Possible but he thinks unlikely, and unlikely that they felt strongly enough about it to enter into a conspiracy with a noble in Cidaris, knowing surely that whoever made the attempt would die at a Witcher’s hand. Though they could not have predicted Aiden’s madness.
“Are you-?” Aiden asks. “Am I to stay here?”
Guxart blinks at him. “I’d have thought you wanted to go and see Lambert for yourself, and reassure your Aleksander.”
“I don’t want to- I’d not forgive myself if I scare Sasha further, or if I made Lambert worse.”
Guxart continues to stare. “Lambert’s still going to be sleeping, though I’m sure when he wakes he’ll be sniffing around to make sure he didn’t get you hurt. We did have to get the poison out of you by the way, for all it was only a glance of the blade on your arm.”
Aiden doesn’t bother to look at his arm – he can feel where the wound must have been, and that it will not cause him any further harm. “No one else wanted to see me first?” he checks.
“The Wolf will, I’m sure, when he returns. Treyse wanted to know when you woke, but he wouldn’t keep you from Lambert or Aleksander.” Guxart’s stare is pointed. “Everyone is concerned for you, kit. Not least your siblings who have been bouncing around the doors waiting for you to be sensible again.”
“I should see Lambert, first, if he’s awake.”
Guxart flicks his head toward the door. “Go on then.”
Aiden still expects someone to stop him, as he walks the familiar route up to Lambert and Milena’s rooms. There is no one there until he reaches the door to their suite – Gweld and Rach flanking either side. Rach darts a quick punch to his shoulder before sliding under his arm for a hug. “Y’alright?”
“Well enough,” he tells her, and looks over at Gweld. “Lambert?”
“Triss left a while ago, she says he’s well as could be expected. Aleksander has a note of the potion dosages for the rest of today, and Triss’ll be back in this evening to check on him.” Gweld gives him a careful once over. “You gonna be okay to see him?”
Aiden places a hand over his heart. “Promise.” He doesn’t know truly if he can mean that. He has seen Lambert injured before, his chest gouged open or leg broken, insensible after being thrown against a cliff-face. And in all of those times Aiden had managed. He had protected Lambert and – mostly - killed whatever monster had been threatening them both. They are bad memories but they are memories. He doesn’t remember much of anything now, after Lambert falling. But Lambert’s blood is on him somewhere and his arms and chest were so thick in human blood that someone – Guxart most likely – had scrubbed him down as if he were a kitten.
Gweld just nods back at him. “Go on in then. He’s not supposed to be moving around, so if he wakes up – which isn’t likely yet – keep him from doing anything foolish.”
Aiden answers the way he always would have. “I’m no miracle-worker.”
Gweld grins at him, a shadowed thing but sincere enough. “Go on, Milena and Aleksander will be glad to see you better off.”
Aiden opens the door as quietly as he can manage, and tracks through the sitting room back towards the bedroom, where he can hear all three heartbeats.
Milena reaches him first, flying over the floor in her slippered-feet. “Aiden! Are you well?”
“Not sure it’s me you ought to be worried over, Kitten.”
Her arms are tight around his waist, and he can hear the distress in her faster heartbeat and the shake of her voice. “Triss says he will be quite well when he wakes, and after a little time for the potions to work on him.” She smiles and gestures across the room. “Sasha did very well at doctoring to him, so I am told.”
Sasha’s answering smile is wavering. “Lady Triss is too kind, I think. Are you well, love?”
“Did I hurt you?”
Sasha blinks at him. “No, of course not. Did someone tell you that you had done so?”
“No. No, they said you were fine.”
Sasha steps towards them both and wraps his hand carefully around Aiden’s wrist. “I am not hurt, and neither were Dragonfly or Vesper. Lambert was only hurt because of-”
“Me,” Aiden says. He walks towards the bed and tries to make sense of the bandaging over Lambert’s shoulder, stretching towards his spine. Aiden sits on the edge of the bed, careful of his limbs and foolishly watching out for the knives which he is still not rearmed with.
Milena goes to sit on the other side of the bed, resting her hand on Lambert’s better arm. “No,” she says. “My love is sleeping, so I will be the one to tell you that is a fucking foolish thing to say.”
“It was not because of you,” Sasha agrees. “Only in trying to keep you safe, which I cannot fault him for. I would- I would like to think I might have done so myself, had I been quick enough.” He takes up the seat alongside Lambert’s bed, on the same side Aiden is perched, darting a quick look at the hourglass set on the table with a range of potions.
Aiden shudders. “Fuck no, don’t ever- there would have been no mages quick enough on the continent to have saved you, pup, don’t ever try to take a blow for me.”
“I am not certain there would have been mages quick enough for you, had the attacker reached you,” Sasha tells him. “Lambert took the blow to his shoulder, largely. But the man aimed for your chest.”
Milena is frowning between them. “When Lambert wakes, he will undoubtedly tell you that he regrets nothing about it, except perhaps that he will now have to undergo another diplomatic exercise when he is well again.”
“Yes, killing four humans and having to be fucking restrained by the Wolf and Eskel probably ruined our chances for a peaceful year with Cidaris.”
“You were attacked,” Milena reminds him. “And if Geralt and Eskel intervened to spare more bloodshed then Cidaris will understand that the provocation was high and yet the White Wolf and his Right Hand were merciful to Duke Zygmunt and his people though he had failed to control his compatriots.”
“Aiden.” Sasha asks. “Are you well, truly?”
“I’m sorry that I scared you.”
“I was-” Sasha knows the way of them now too well to lie. “Only for a moment, when you looked so very… I was mostly scared for you. No one has ever told me before exactly how they go about quenching the situation when it does occur.”
Aiden could almost laugh at Sasha’s gentle, careful euphemism. “Try to keep us down without killing us, if it’s a thing that’s possible to do. If not, put us down as quick as they can.”
Milena stretches her hand over Lambert’s slowly rising chest towards Aiden, clutching. Aiden gives her his hand and squeezes hers carefully. She tells him, “Eskel was there inside ten minutes, and Geralt there from the start. I am very glad of it.”
Sasha’s scent is muddy with upset and fear, but he has drawn a smile to his face. He says, “Would you like to sleep for a little while?”
“Here?”
Milena nods at him. “We can take turns. You should try first, you still look much paler than usual.”
Lambert is the one who looks pale, laid out on the bed between them. Laid out by a poisoned blade he took for Aiden’s sake, which Aiden requited by dropping into madness so thoroughly that half the Wolf’s court is still in Cidaris trying to smooth things over, and Lambert had to be rescued by Aiden’s own terrified beloved. And yet because Milena and Sasha both ask it, Aiden permits himself to curl up in the gap on the bed, and count Lambert’s heartbeats to send himself into sleep.
*
Lambert wakes up knowing exactly where he is on the continent. He is in his bed in Kaer Morhen, surrounded by the mingled scents of his own body and Milena’s honey-and-roses, the last stronger where she is sleeping curled up beside him on the bed. On his other side, Aiden is also asleep on top of the blankets and furs, his own familiar scents of pine and sword-oil almost gone or soured by his misery. And to the same side of the bed as Aiden – seated very properly in a chair that must have been dragged from their study – Aleksander is awake, the faded scent of the apple soap he favours almost overpowered by something more astringent.
Lambert expects at least Aiden to wake when he does, but only Aleksander startles into motion. “Lambert.”
“There some water here?”
“Yes, of course.” He hurries to pour some for Lambert and to help him into a sitting position on the bed.
Milena stirs a little but Lambert runs a hand gently over her head, running fingers through her soft hair. He takes a long drink of the water and then asks, “How bad did it get?”
“I’m sorry?”
“One of the fucking nobles took a run at Aiden. He doesn’t smell hurt but he does smell miserable. Milena smells of it a little but that’s likely-”
“Because you were hurt.”
Lambert rubs his forehead but nods. He’s still not used to it but he won’t dishonour her love for him by suggesting that it might not be enough to have her exhausted and worried at his side. He’s reasonably sure that he was stabbed with something foul. And the way the wound pulls, it’s both been healing a while and due more healing yet. That’s a bad hurt for a Witcher to take, to still be feeling it like this afterwards. He says, “They weren’t aiming at me.”
“I know.” Aleksander frowns. “I didn’t think to tell the White Wolf that, when we were all… I assumed that they had all seen it happen, for all that only you were close enough to prevent it. But Aiden told us when he recovered that the Wolf’s Council had believed you to be the target. I should have-”
“Hey now. It was a fair enough guess that if you had seen it, one of the others did too, especially when it comes to swordplay. Long as they know now, Geralt and the rest can do what they need with it.” Lambert pauses. “You said after Aiden recovered. He didn’t take a hit with whatever the fuck that was?”
“Ah. No. The blade was poisoned, and you were… you were clearly very badly hurt. We were able to get potions for you to drink, and later Lady Triss worked some magics over you. But Aiden was- before that, I believe that he-”
“He thought I was dead already. Stabbed in the back past his own arm. Fuck.”
“He caught a little of the blade. Not enough for him to notice the poison or even the pain we don’t think but enough for-”
Lambert nods. “Enough.” He looks down at Aiden’s face, drawn into a frown even in his sleep. And sleeping still though he’s not so badly hurt himself and neither Lambert nor Aleksander are being very quiet in their speech. “Did it get bad?”
“He- ah. I am given to understand that it could have been much worse. He killed the person who attacked you, and the young man’s friend once he saw and ran at Aiden with a sword. Two of the guards misunderstood what was happening and when they tried to disarm Aiden he killed them too. After that, the White Wolf took command and between he and Coën, and then Lord Eskel when he arrived, there were some injuries but no one especially badly hurt. Coën took a broken collarbone and some cracked ribs, but I am assured that is not much to a Witcher.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Lambert agrees. “Has been, years ago, though never with Aiden. He’s always been pretty… he’s never been one that we worried about much, that way.”
“But he cares for you very much.”
Lambert feels a certain degree of alarm at that statement, through the haze of muffled pain and potions, and his general worry over this whole mess. “Aleksander, you know that Aiden’n me aren’t- you don’t need to worry on that account. I don’t know if he’s said anything to you about-”
Aleksander interrupts him, smiling. “We have spoken about it, yes. Only because I had wondered why he had never thought to court you when he loves you so dearly.”
“And what did he say?” Lambert asks.
“Hmm. Largely that he enjoys aspects of courtship such as chasing down a box of oil paints or building a birdfeeder, or hunting through greenhouses full of flowers for his lover, and he did not think you would tolerate such fondness for very long.”
Lambert has to laugh at that. “True enough. Was never much of a one for sweetness before-” He looks down at Milena, who has her fingers wound up in the edge of his shirt.
“Yes,” Aleksander agrees. “I was not- if I had thought to wonder, I would not have been surprised to learn that Aiden would find your hurt enough to make him lose himself for a little while. I’d think the same if it had been Milena, truly, and I would imagine for me as well.”
“When Milena went missing,” Lambert admits, “it took Aubry and Letho to keep me from murdering a whole temple full of priestesses. And she wasn’t stabbed in front of me.” He looks at Aleksander seriously. “If the fucker who stabbed me had gone for you instead, not sure anything Geralt and Eskel did would have kept Aiden from tearing the whole lot of them apart. But speaking of that, I think I need to talk to Geralt if he’s around. How long was I asleep anyway?”
“A day and a half,” Aleksander replies, sounding a little shaky. “The rest of the day it happened and all of today. I can see if the White Wolf has returned - he would want to know you were awake at any rate, wherever he is. He and Lady Yennefer and Lord Eskel had all remained in Cidaris to try and make sense of the situation, but Jaskier thought they were returning soon, at least briefly.” He stands up and heads towards the door. “Lambert?”
“Hm?”
“If there is anything- you saved Aiden’s life. I cannot imagine that there is anything I have which you might- but if there is anything I have or can offer you in honour… you need only ask.”
“Aleksander…”
“Sasha, between us, I think?”
“Sasha then.” Lambert shakes his head. “There’s nothing I need from you for that. Just be good to Aiden, okay? This’ll be hard on him.”
Aleksander is looking towards the door. “Something is- I am not sure he is truly himself again yet. Not that he’s still angry or- or lost his senses. But he seems very unhappy to me, not only that you were hurt, or that he was forced into those killings, but something more than that.”
Lambert sighs. “For all that it could’ve been worse, I don’t think it’s much fun for them. ‘Cept maybe Kiyan, stabby little fucker. Well. We’ll all three keep an eye on him then, all right?”
“Of course. I should go and see if everyone has returned.”
When the door has closed behind Aleksander, Lambert reaches down to Aiden’s shoulder. He’s still somewhat braced for Aiden to wake up furious, and it didn’t seem a thing to risk with Aleksander in the room. But Aiden comes awake with a shiver, pressing his forehead to Lambert’s hip. “Lam?”
“Yep.”
Aiden looks to his other side, panic spiking. “Sasha?”
“He’s gone to check if Geralt’s home yet. Milena’s still sleeping. We’ve got Serrit outside the door, seems like. Sasha’s told me what’s been happening here. You want to tell me why you still smell like you’ve been gored by a cockatrice? I’m the one who took the brunt of the poison, from what I hear.”
Aiden’s answer – though he looked little like providing one anyway – is interrupted by Milena waking and immediately sitting up to look at Lambert. She says, “You are not allowed to leave Kaer Morhen without me ever again.” Lambert catches her as she leans back towards him, pressing her face against his neck and breathing a little too shakily.
“As it happens,” he tells her, “we’re all pretty glad you weren’t along on this trip.”
Aiden’s scent spikes further misery but when Lambert turns towards him he only shakes his head. And they have rules here. They don’t press when warned off a sore spot, no matter that it was probably earned on Lambert’s behalf. He supposes he will have to wait Aiden out, or else hope to coax it out of him when Lambert is well enough again to climb the ramparts with him.
Lambert looks between them. “So Sasha caught me up on the immediate aftermath, but did Triss happen to mention how long I’m supposed to be stuck in bed?” There is something still feeling…unpleasant around his spine, and when he tries to move his right leg. “Fuck, c’mere kitty.”
Aiden allows himself to be drawn quickly up against Lambert’s shoulder, brushing the injured side this time but Lambert can’t bring himself to care.
Milena smells very fond on his other side, but tells him, “A week, perhaps. It was a bad wound. They would not- they tried to keep me away until Triss was finished cleaning it up. Even by the time I saw you, it was a wicked looking injury, my love. And no one could be certain how long it would take you to wake up. We were all… very worried. There has been someone outside in the hallway with a xenovox for the past two days, for Geralt and Eskel had to stay in Cidaris but they wanted to know the moment you woke. Coën and Leocadie and Gweld have all been by as well, and Ciri has been beside herself, poor thing. Jaskier has been distracting her with extra history lessons about Cidaris.”
The door opens. “Lambert.”
Lambert grins at his brother, but is almost lost against the spike of feeling from Aiden. No one else reacts - not Geralt who is only leaning over Aiden to press his forehead to Lambert’s, and not Eskel who has settled himself against the wall looking fond and relieved. Why the hell is Aiden so afraid?
*
Aleksander apologises again to the White Wolf for not immediately letting him know that Lambert had not been the target of the attack.
“You did the important thing,” he is told again. “You kept Lambert alive. Now, better see what he wanted to tell us.”
Aleksander isn’t certain that Lambert had something of import to tell the White Wolf, rather than just reassuring his brother that he is alive and awake, but the way Lambert had sent him to pass the message on had spoken of urgency.
When they get back to Lambert and Milena’s rooms, Aiden and Milena have apparently woken now too. Aiden scrambles back off the bed when Geralt goes to greet Lambert, and comes to stand beside Aleksander at the wall instead. It is not like Aiden to be especially deferential of the Wolf, for all that he clearly respects his leadership and his goodness. Aleksander frowns and leans his shoulder to Aiden’s, trying to offer the comfort he is so often given by his lover. He wraps his arm around Aiden’s waist and lets that stand for it, for more than he would ever have dared to offer a lover of any gender in front of his Emperor, in any court but this one. Aiden leans back, until there is no space between them at all.
Lord Eskel is standing in the opposite corner. “Let me guess,” he tells Lambert, “you’re about to tell us the little fool noble was magicked.”
Geralt and Lambert – and Aiden and Aleksander – all turn to look at Lord Eskel in surprise.
Geralt frowns at Lambert. “Yennefer noticed it as soon as we got her in to look over the bodies. How’d you spot it above the concealment spells?”
“Truthfully?” Lambert shrugs his better shoulder and nods towards Aleksander.
Aleksander feels his hands twitch, anxiety stirring though he should know better by now.
Lambert shakes his head hurriedly. “He was a pretty minor noble, yeah? The kid with the blade.”
“The son of a baron,” Geralt says. “A small barony, we were told.”
“Okay,” Lambert says. “So two things. I’m gonna wager that what the spell did was to make sure that he wasn’t thinking about stabbing anyone until about half a moment before it happened. Wasn’t thinking of anything, so he could walk about a whole courtyard full of Witchers not smelling of guilt or fear or violence. Meant that he wasn’t smelling of much of anything, which was a little bit harder than usual to pick out what with all the flowers and hair oils and fuck knows what else in there. But yeah, didn’t smell of anything. Second thing. Very minor noble, in a courtyard with a duke, a few viscounts and barons, and the Warlord of the North.” He looks at Aleksander again. “How long did you spend teaching me to watch out for who everyone else in the room is paying attention to? But this boy walked straight past the Duke, and didn’t have his eyes on Geralt at all. Made a line right for Aiden and Aleksander, who weren’t anything close to the highest ranking or most interesting people in the room. Least unless you ask me and Milena.”
Aleksander dares to smile back at Lambert’s grin. “That was very well spotted.”
“Had a good trainer.”
Geralt is shaking his head, nearly laughing. He looks at Lord Eskel. “And how did you know he’d already spotted it then?”
“He got to Aiden in time.” Lord Eskel’s expression turns more grave. “You’re faster’n most of us, Lam, but that was…”
Lambert flushes a little. “Luck, most of it. Standing closer than anyone else, and paying more attention to all that byplay than I would have been before we started this.”
“True so far as it goes,” Lord Eskel says, “though I think it was more than luck. And saved things from getting worse than they did.”
“Speaking of that.” The White Wolf nods at Milena. “Spoke to Griffin and Marika to let them know Mathen of Cidaris is likely to be twitchier than usual for a while. Everything’s apparently well enough in Temeria, but we’ll send a few more squads there anyway.”
“It was the Witchers who were attacked,” Milena points out. “With the presumed exception of King Mathen himself, who we all know to be… easily affronted, surely the other bordering lands will understand that nothing that happened was provoked by Kaer Morhen.”
The White Wolf sighs deeply. “So far as we can work it out, Mathen wouldn’t have cared much about the boy.”
“Cyryl, apparently,” Lord Eskel fills in. “The boy’s name. Of a very small barony near to the border, that has changed hands between Temeria and Cidaris a half-dozen times in the last century. His father, the baron, wasn’t high enough in favour with the Duke to even be invited. But the second boy, the one who ran in afterwards, was some kind of cousin to the Duke and to Mathen both. Close enough for Mathen to be pretending affront, at any rate.”
“A name,” Aiden asks, “the cousin, do we know?” He tenses again when Lord Eskel and the White Wolf both turn to look at him.
The White Wolf’s expression is very gloomy, though Aleksander has been trying not to judge him by those. He says, “Andrei de Drasart, cousin on Mathen’s mother’s side. Much more in favour with Duke Zygmunt than Cyryl. And a decent swordsman. He was one of the ones they had demonstrating.”
“And he was bespelled also?” Aleksander asks.
“No, not so that we could tell. But he and Cyryl were close, friends for years. He was the reason Cyryl was there at all, from what the Duke said. We think that was just… unfortunate.”
Lord Eskel elaborates. “Think he saw his friend killed and just ran at Aiden, no matter that Lambert was stabbed first. And then the guards got involved and it got…messy. We’ve been trying to work it out so Mathen will calm down and stop accusing us of trying to provoke whatever it is he thinks we’re provoking.”
The White Wolf huffs a little. “Mathen didn’t know anything about it, nor anyone in the court that we can tell. But someone cast the spell on Cyryl. Must have wanted something.”
Lord Eskel says, “We’ve been trying to track down the Baron and Baroness, and the boy has a couple of older brothers. If it was something in the family, some history with Witchers we don’t know about, it might tell us something. But apparently the rest of the family had travelled away to visit the Baron’s sister, and no one’s seen them since.”
“Convenient,” Lambert says. He looks over at Aiden, who is still very tense and very quiet at Aleksander’s side. “And you’re sure you don’t know anything about the family. Either of them. No feuds in the area you remember?”
Aiden shakes his head. “I’ve been to the city of Cidaris a few times here and there, taking a route out to Skellige. But before Kaedwen, our circuits were mostly to the south unless I was-”
“Traveling with me,” Lambert fills in. “Yeah, all right. If we’d managed to offend some noble badly enough for him to want you dead decades later, I’d remember it.”
Lord Eskel looks fondly at him. “Even with your propensity for offending nobles, we’ll have to hope so.”
“Hey. I’m now trained to only do that with full intention.”
Aleksander raises his voice a very little. “Are you certain that it was anything to do with the baron’s son at all? If he was indeed bespelled then it could simply have been that he was a convenient target for someone who did wish harm to the Warlord, and who knew that the boy would be there on the day. If he was a good enough friend to Mathen’s cousin, it likely wasn’t so very surprising that he would be invited along. Someone could have relied upon that, and perhaps relied upon the fact that he was unknown to us all.”
The White Wolf frowns thoughtfully. “Would make it even harder to find them, if there’s no connection.”
“Yes,” Aleksander agrees. “Although I still don’t know- if that was the motivation, why they might have been bespelled to attack Aiden.”
Lambert says, “Might not have been. Could just have been bespelled to get close enough to a Witcher who wasn’t surrounded by other Witchers, to give them a better chance at getting a blow in. Maybe even-” He smiles in Aiden’s direction, though there is something a little tentative in it. “-could have been the spell was to choose the Witcher that looked like their easiest target.”
Aleksander expects Aiden to banter back at Lambert, odd as his behaviour still is, but Aiden only shrugs.
It is Milena who bats at Lambert’s shoulder and protests, “If the spell decided that Aiden’s charm and demeanour made him a more compelling target, then it was a foolish spell indeed.”
“I’ll have you know I was being very charming,” Lambert answers, “and talking to fucking boring people, since that’s what I’d been sent to do. Aiden, meanwhile, was in the corner all afternoon flirting with Sasha.”
Aleksander darts a quick look at Aiden. He had not thought about his being the possible cause of Aiden’s distraction, that had so nearly ended in tragedy for Lambert or for Aiden.
Lord Eskel is still looking thoughtful. “If it wasn’t aimed at either of them, could just have been someone wanting to kill a Witcher to prove it could be done.”
“Or someone wanted the thing to end bloody,” the Wolf offers, mouth grim. “If the boy was bespelled and didn’t ask for it, could be he was always supposed to be killed too. If they only wanted to make it tricky between us and Cidaris.”
Beside him, Aiden is so tense he seems frozen, and Aleksander wonders why no one else seems to notice when surely they can smell the emotion of whatever is upsetting him so.
“Well, bloody is what they got,” Lord Eskel agrees, “though it could have been worse. Mathen’ll get over it, he always does eventually. We’ll figure out how they got a spell on Cyryl, whether it was something he asked for or no. And Milena’s right, no one else is going to say it wasn’t our right for Aiden to defend him and Lambert both, for all we might wish it didn’t happen as it did.”
The White Wolf shuts his eyes briefly. “Gotta head back to Cidaris tomorrow morning and hope Yen’s got further with finding the baron. Duke Zygmunt’s starting to say that Mathen’s right, that we must have had something to do with it or known something. Need to get an answer soon.”
“Something other than keeping the casualties down to four humans, and that including the one who stuck a knife in our brother, despite a Cat Witcher in a rage?” Lord Eskel asks. “Lucky the whole place wasn’t torn apart.”
The White Wolf looks pointedly at Lord Eskel. “Not supposed to be the one saying that.”
“You don’t need me to do your talking for you now,” Lord Eskel says. “Lambert’s trained in diplomacy.”
Aleksander joins in their laughter, even smiling proudly at his first student, but he always has one arm around Aiden’s waist, keeping hold in case his lover’s fragile veneer should break. Aiden does not laugh, only presses his face to Aleksander’s hair and breathes in, as though to root himself here in the room, and not wherever else his thoughts might be taking him.
*
Cedric tries to talk to him. Guxart tries to talk to him. Even Treyse tries to talk to him.
Aiden is clear that he does not want to discuss what happened.
He does apologise to Coën, who is still nursing a broken collarbone and some awkwardly cracked ribs. Merigold helps the healing along, but she likes bones to get a chance to fix themselves more slowly. She says the mending doesn’t take, otherwise. Coën of course only nods gravely at Aiden and tells him that there is nothing to forgive.
Axel does not try to talk to Aiden, but instead watches him warily from a few places up the table every evening. Cedric looks miserably between them both.
Lambert is more difficult to avoid - being one of the dearest people to Aiden’s heart and openly wounded by the evasion - though easier to escape from, since he is still supposed to be staying off his feet and so Aiden can simply walk out and leave him there.
Sasha has not tried to talk about it. He said, once, a few days after Lambert had woken up, “I would be glad to listen to whatever you would care to tell me, always.” But he has not pressed the matter. Aiden can only be grateful that he explained Witcher customs on the matter to Sasha when he arrived.
Sasha still curls up trustingly in Aiden’s arms, every night. It is Aiden who wakes up gasping now. He doesn’t truly remember it, except in flashes.
He remembers the smell of Lambert’s blood, pooling under his fallen body. The nick in Aiden’s own skin through a tunic Milena had embroidered for him.
He remembers catching a glimpse of Sasha’s face, drawn in fear and horror.
He remembers Geralt tossing him into a wall, growling. Coën flanking him, keeping distance between Aiden and the door where the screaming humans had been guided away. Eskel flinging the Axii at him for the third time and the smooth blankness finally clouding his fury.
He remembers, although he didn’t care until much later, that the screaming from the humans had turned to silence by then. Quiet the way a prey animal becomes when it is hiding from something horrific which wants it dead.
It has been a week now, and Aiden has been told that they have almost finished tidying up the mess in Cidaris and Temeria, to the best of their current abilities. There is a certain irony in the fact that the best monster hunters in the continent cannot track down one missing human. Yennefer has still not returned for longer than a few hours – she is hunting down the missing baron along with the mage Adrianna, guarded by Gweld and a squad of Witchers that includes Dragonfly and Vesper both. Geralt is always keen to ensure that no School will appear less in favour with him than the others, no matter that it was a Witcher of one School most responsible for the latest troubles. Aiden is going to make that easier for Geralt, and for his siblings and cousins.
*
Aleksander is keeping Lambert company while Milena goes to join Princess Ciri for supper. He had expected Aiden to join them, but at the moment it is only the two of them in the sitting room. Lambert is permitted to be out of bed, but is propped on pillows on his couch, his still-wounded back carefully angled to be at least risk of strain.
Lambert plays chess, which Aleksander did not know until this miserable week. Aleksander is a terrible player, but Lambert turns out to be an excellent teacher in his own right, laughing not unkindly when Aleksander makes what are apparently terrible moves, and then putting the pieces back and explaining what would have gone wrong.
There is a stretch of silence while Aleksander is supposed to be trying to think of his next move. Something about the game has reminded him of the bespelled son and his despairing friend, of Aiden’s misery, of people sent into battle with no choices. He looks up from the board to see Lambert already looking back at him.
“What’s wrong, pup?” Lambert asks.
Aleksander doesn’t know where to start. He asks a question he has been wondering about instead. “Milena told me that when she arrived here, Aiden had already been gone nearly a year.”
Lambert looks as though that was not the question he had expected, but answers gamely. “Sounds about right. He headed out on a loop of the Skellige Isles a bit after Jaskier got here.”
“It seems uncommon, I think, for the patrols to be gone so long. And I believe Aiden travelled alone?”
“Most of the time, yeah. And yeah, it doesn’t happen often that we’re away so long, even on full patrols. Skellige’s not part of the Wolflands, and it’s a pain to get around if the weather turns bad, but there’s enough to hunt and the people don’t mind Witchers so much. It needs doing, but it doesn’t make much sense for a normal patrol route.”
“Why was it Aiden’s responsibility?”
“He gets bored,” Lambert says quickly, and then immediately corrects himself, eyes wide. “Not of people. Or at least not of the people he gives a fuck about. But he’ll grumble about the weather and the food in the islands and then complain if he’s on a route around Kaedwen that he might as well stay in the keep. If they don’t change up the obstacle course every month or so he goes to bother the Cranes for something new to add. And he’s a fucking good fighter but he’s not on a regular roster with a team so when there was something that needed doing well and accurately, he was on the list of choices.”
“You used to patrol together?” Aleksander asks.
“We used to travel the path together,” Lambert agrees. “Even when we weren’t supposed to. Because fuck that. We have patrolled together since Geralt took it into his head to kill the king of Kaedwen – certainly gone to fucking war together – but Geralt-”
“Needs you here.”
Lambert does not look entirely comfortable with that reading of the situation, but Aleksander knows of course that Lambert travelled with that first party to Tretogor, he fought close to the Warlord in the fall of Ard Carraigh, was in the force which took Kovir, alongside Lord Eskel when he conquered Temeria, and with them both when they descended on Velen to rescue Aren and the Mantikittens. He is consort to the Princess’s chief Lady-in-Waiting, and stands as a keen swordsman in the defence of them both and of the White Wolf’s own consort when such things might be required. There was a reason Aleksander had accounted him of high rank when they worked it through for lessons, and a reason that Lambert Blade-Tongued is one of the few Witchers whose names are known through the Wolflands and beyond.
Aleksander says, instead of any of that, “You have not been injured badly in some years, or if so only by monsters and not humans, while on patrols where you expected to be attacked. Aiden has seen you injured very badly before, when you travelled on the path together, but he has not been required to worry about that so often since the Warlord took Kaedwen.”
“That sounds about right. Sasha, where are you heading?”
“May I- may I ask you another question, and if it is inappropriate or offensive then you must simply tell me and I will not say anything further.”
Lambert blinks at him. “Thought we were near enough beyond offending each other, you and me.”
Aleksander has to smile. “Yes. I know Witchers are not easy to offend, and between you and I would not expect to do so in most things.”
“But?” Lambert asks.
“You would not speak to me of what you can sense of Aiden’s unhappiness, since he is unwilling to talk further about it?”
“Ah.”
“He has-” Aleksander says it slowly, to give Lambert chance to stop him if it is truly an unforgiveable thing to speak about. “He has nightmares, I think. He has said before that Witchers don’t truly fear the way a human might. He said that was part of the trials you undergo. But he has said also that he is still…”
“He doesn’t like spiders,” Lambert says. “I don’t- we don’t normally panic the way a human would, not about something trying to kill us at least. But that doesn’t mean we don’t all have things that keep us up at night, or wake us out of our sleep. Like thinking about Milena hurt.” He pauses, biting down on one lip. “Thinking about me being the one that hurts her.” Lambert shrugs. “Aiden has the same thoughts, I’d guess.”
“There’s something,” Aleksander says, “something with the White Wolf.”
Lambert stares at him. “With Geralt?” Suddenly, he bangs his hand on the table, making the pieces and Aleksander both jump. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “When Geralt came to see me when I woke up the first time, Aiden was afraid. I thought it was just- being attacked and me being stabbed, honestly.”
“When we are at supper,” Aleksander tells him, “Aiden keeps looking up at the High Table. I thought perhaps he was anxious because the White Wolf and Lord Eskel hadn’t returned, but on the nights when the Wolf was dining he seemed more tense than before. And I am only- I have been assured of my place here.”
Lambert’s nod is so quick and sharp that Aleksander is struck with gratefulness all over again.
“And I know,” Aleksander continues, “that Cats have been caught in madness even since the Wolf came to power and the Witchers all came to Kaer Morhen.”
“Yeah,” Lambert agrees, “it’s shitty for them, it doesn’t happen often but it does happen.”
“What could a Witcher do,” Aleksander asks, “that the White Wolf might be wroth with them?”
“What d’you mean? Geralt doesn’t really get- he’s angry enough but it’s mostly at kings or nobles, or when he gets it into his head that the whole system needs burned down, that type of thing. Can only really see him getting pissed at a Witcher if they’d done something awful, betrayed the keep or hurt one of the servants. Hurt one of you, hurt Ciri. It would have to be big, and anything like that we’d all know about anyway. Wouldn’t only be Geralt that would care.”
Aleksander tries to talk thorough his thoughts. “You know that we often find the Wolf… difficult to read. Milena has learned it, she tells me, but it took her time. Livi claims she is improving but she believes it is mostly because she has learned to read Lord Eskel very well and they are so close.”
“Geralt’s difficult enough for us to read, and I’ve known him more’n seven decades. It’s no fault in you.”
“What mood has the White Wolf been in, this past week?” Aleksander asks.
Lambert considers the question. “The usual, when he’s forced to go and deal with diplomatic bullshit plus, well, plus me being stabbed on top of it. He’s been frustrated as hell, wanting to be done with travelling back and forth to Cidaris, angry that the world won’t just let him hunt monsters in peace.”
Aleksander asks it again. “What might make Aiden think that the White Wolf is angry with him and not only the terrible things that happened this week? Or rather I should say, if Aiden is not sleeping, and if he was very afraid for you and even of what he might have done if the White Wolf and Lord Eskel had not been there to prevent it, would it be possible that even a Witcher might…?”
“Fuck,” Lambert says. “It shouldn’t be. That’s usually a Wolf thing, to think we should have acted better than we managed and then to get tangled up in it. Cats usually have more sense.”
“Perhaps we have been a bad influence,” is all Aleksander can offer to that.
“C’mon then,” Lambert says, struggling to his feet.
“You are not supposed to be moving out of these rooms.”
“Yeah, well you’re not supposed to be getting all guilt-ridden for allowing Aiden to get guilt-ridden. Might as well go and make sure our fool Cat hasn’t decided to do something truly idiotic because we took our eyes off him for half a minute.”
*
Aiden knows that Geralt and Eskel are both in Kaer Morhen, though Yennefer is still in Cidaris. Geralt had spent much of the afternoon sparring brutally with as many Witchers as would face him in the training fields. Aiden had flung himself over the obstacle courses instead, barely conscious of his own body moving until he reached the end each time. It’s probably a little like the madness.
Aiden had washed up, and then visited Lambert again and been gently chided by Milena for his absence the last few days. He had kissed Sasha’s soft mouth and pink cheek, before heading up to the ramparts where no one would follow him, and he could wait until supper.
Now Aiden walks quickly down the gap between the rows of tables, ending up at the centre of the high table, facing Geralt. There isn't- isn't truly a way between Witchers, for what he needs to do here. But he's seen the humans do something like it, has listened to Sasha and Milena when they spoke, to the squads of Witchers returning from lands newly taken by the Warlord.
Aiden drops neatly to one knee and bows his head.
He can hear the sudden shock of a room of Witchers going silent.
Geralt asks, “Aiden?”
“I put all we built here at risk, Wolf. Twenty years of working to show that we are not- that we’re not only monsters.” He can't look up now, to the table where Kitten is sitting at the end, smelling of surprise and old fear. “That the Wolflands are safe, that we’re protectors of everyone in them and of every innocent who crosses our path. Instead every doubt they had I gave form and face to. Every awful story they tell their children. I drew blood in my madness and not for justice or protection. And I cannot even claim that it was for Lambert, for he could have died from the poison while the rest of you had to fight past me.”
Geralt asks, quietly but perfectly audibly, “What do you need from me?”
“Death or exile,” Aiden says, “according to your judgement, would be the appropriate thing by our own laws and theirs.”
Jaskier protests from Geralt’s side, “You can't truly expect Geralt to-”
Geralt hushes him gently and vaults the table so that he is looming over Aiden.
It’s quiet enough in the hall that Aiden can hear the doors open at the back of the room. “Whatever he expects,” Lambert calls, “Geralt sure as hell better not be thinking of granting it.”
Aiden doesn't turn, but he can hear and scent Lambert making his way - still slowly - up to the front of the hall, supported by Sasha on his weaker right side. Aiden had wanted this done before either of them would have cause to know about it.
Lambert continues, now that he’s close enough to stand alongside Aiden’s kneeling form and rest one hand on his shoulder. “Because Geralt knows, I’d warrant, that if he sends you out into the cold I'd be following straight after you.” Lambert’s head is unbowed to his brother. “Exile for both is what he’d be ordering.”
Geralt rubs his forehead wearily. “Where would you even go?”
“Skellige.”
Aiden startles at the voice, at Sasha’s own trembling and fear, as he says it.
Sasha continues, “For Aiden has spoken of his last trip there fondly enough, I know Lambert had wished to see more of the isles and I- I will be happy to learn more of their customs than I can read in the histories.”
“Skellige first, if you wish.” Milena has rounded the end of the table to lean gently against Lambert’s other side. “Then Zerrikania perhaps, for I have heard that the animals there are very different and perhaps Sasha would find new creatures to draw. My love would perfect his fluency in the language, and Aiden and I will sun ourselves in the heat.”
“Kitten,” Aiden objects, looking upward for the first time, catching her eye and then those of his own love, who is still pale and fearful but unmoving.
Geralt is still-
“Aiden,” Geralt asks, “what has brought you here, truly?”
“You have scented of nothing but rage in a sennight, Wolf, and I will not be- Whichever you think will appease them best, my death or my exile, whichever will reassure them that I alone lost my reason and my control, I alone terrified and traumatized a court of humans and spread the worst tales about us fresh again though your lands. Whatever will make things right between the Wolflands and the borders I will do.”
From behind them, the direction of the Manticore tables, a young voice calls out, “This is bullshit! They attacked us first-”
Someone at the table must drag little Zia back down, though Aiden can still sense her bristling now that he’s focussed on anything other than Geralt’s rage and the threads of weakness that yet work their way through Lambert.
Geralt sighs. “Aiden. If I decided that I wanted your head for this I would have to get through Aleksander and Milena, then Lambert, and once I had done it I would face the whole of the Cat School, likely in the same madness you fell into when you saw Lambert hurt. I thank you for your judgement of my skill but…”
“That isn't-”
Geralt speaks over his reply. “Or if I ordered you into exile, I would lose my own younger brother, again the whole of the Cat School and likely the Manticores also after Aleksander. To say nothing of how no more than two days after that my daughter would be sneaking after you to Skellige or Zerrikania since I was fool enough to allow her Chief Lady and her Uncle to be lost to us.” Geralt holds up his hand to prevent anyone else from speaking while he gathers his thoughts together. “Aiden. You have said - and I understand your grief - that we worked hard and against what we had been taught for centuries, to build a sanctuary here for Witchers from each school. We joined with our kin to make something new and to fight monsters of all shapes. If there was a monster in front of me in the form of a Witcher I would be the one to take his life, to spare my brothers and cousins from having to make that choice. But that is not-” He stops, suddenly. “Hmm. Lambert of the Wolves.”
Lambert gives the White Wolf a sharp and very correct bow which is both bafflement and anger. “My lord brother.”
If Geralt were the kind of man to roll his eyes in front of four hundred Witchers bristling with wrath, he would have done so. Instead he simply continues, “You are my brother, you were one of the first to support- Aiden of the Cats has asked us to take from him his life or his place here in Kaer Morhen, as payment for treachery committed against us by human hands. You and he were the two Witchers most grievously injured in this. I leave this decision to you.”
Aiden argues, “That isn't fair.”
Lambert squeezes his shoulder. “Why? Because if I’d have died there in your place I’d have thought it a bargain well made?”
“Lam-”
Lambert ignores him, looking at Geralt with less misery now. “We missed this plot fomenting, however it came about. A decision from me, and you'll abide by it?”
“I trust your judgement,” Geralt says evenly.
“A trek around the borders of bloody Cidaris then, for me and Aiden. Treyse or Mouse if you can spare them, Sasha if you can spare him, and another dozen Witchers from across the schools. Some of us to be visible, and fucking courtly in our questioning, and a few to be less visible and see what else we might have missed. And if we can find nothing more then we know that there was nothing we could have found, nothing else we could have done but what we always have done: kill monsters and try to keep ourselves alive in the process. If we find something then we deal with it and be done.”
Geralt nods. “Two months, or evidence of more treachery, whatever comes first. I want to have you all back home in two months.”
“Wolf.” Lambert nods. He turns to his side, to where Kitten’s scent is running to sadness. “Bringing Ciri would make the whole thing- else I’d ask to have you along too.”
“I know,” she says. She smiles at him. “I'm sure Yen will provide you with a box, and we may learn to write very detailed letters to each other.”
“Every day,” Lambert agrees, full of adoration. Then he looks down at Aiden and frowns. “Get up then, kitty. Think we’re all sitting at the Cat table this evening.”
Aiden allows himself to be pulled up to his feet, bundled under Lambert’s arm on one side and clutched to Sasha on the other. Milena supports Lambert at his injured shoulder, casting quick worried looks past him to Aiden.
The Cats make room for all four of them in the middle of the table, sliding in around them again and huddling close.
Aiden survives the anxious, angry hissing from Rach and the too-hard punch to his shoulder from Kiyan. He even manages to keep eye contact with Guxart and nod when he is warned that Dragonfly will be unforgiving of his foolishness whenever she and Vesper make it home.
But Cedric and Axel sit opposite Aiden. Axel says nothing, only stares, and Cedric looks a little as though he wants to shake Aiden. Eventually he sighs out, “Little brother.”
“I know,” Aiden says. “I’m sorry.”
“Now he’s sorry,” Cedric answers, looking around him and up to the ceiling. “Damn near caused another schism between the Schools for the sake of a king everyone knows is madder than we are, but he’s sorry about it now.”
“Not for the king’s sake,” Aiden answers. “Not for-” He cuts himself off.
“Go ahead,” Axel tells him. “Ask whatever it is.”
“Was I afraid? Back then. When you were-”
“Yes,” Axel says. “Afraid of me for months afterwards too. Even when you didn’t remember what had happened, you still watched me like- Not sure it stopped until your Grasses.”
“Bullshit,” Cedric says, faux-cheerfully. “It was weeks, except for a few nightmares, and even then you wanted to be a Witcher more than you were afraid of either of us. And if we’re monsters then even still we’ve saved more than we’ve killed and I wouldn’t-” He looks at Axel. “I wouldn’t trade you for any of it.” He looks back to Aiden. “Wouldn’t trade you either, even if you’re a foolish kit who should have said that all to your older brothers a week ago instead of to the Wolf and the whole hall beside.” Cedric shrugs. “The mages made us…what they made us. And all we can do is make our own choices with the rest of it.”
*
If it wouldn’t likely still scandalize Sasha, Lambert would suggest again that they find a two-bedroom suite. As it is, both he and Milena are unwilling to let Aiden and Sasha go to their own rooms after supper, and instead all four of them gather together in the sitting room belonging to Lambert and Milena’s suite. Lambert is on the couch where Aiden has slept for so many nights. Milena sits down there too and tucks herself to his side, but when Aiden takes up a spot on the floor, head resting against Lambert’s knee, she starts to run her fingers through the Cat’s wavy hair. There’s a little thread of anxiety in her scent which Aiden will be unhappy to have caused when he has more focus to realise it.
Sasha sits on the floor as well, leaning shoulder to shoulder with Aiden. He pulls his sketchbook from where it had been set neatly under the table, and Lambert watches Aiden watch Sasha drawing the shape of a gull.
“You really would have gone to Skellige,” Aiden says.
“I would have gone with you to Skellige,” Sasha agrees. “And Lambert and Milena also.” He keeps his eyes on the black lines of his drawing. The bird has a black head and a black tip to its tail, and if Lambert was asked to wager on the matter, it resembles very much the seabirds he remembers from the Skellige Isles.
There is a knock at the door, which is more than a little troubling, given the lateness of the hour. Lambert calls, “Yeah?”
Milena rolls her eyes at him fondly and gets to her feet to answer it. “Geralt, Eskel, what can we do for you?”
It’s easier to notice, now that he’s looking for it, the way apprehension is coming off Aiden.
Geralt and Eskel are trailed into the sitting room by Jaskier and Yennefer, which doesn’t much help Lambert’s own apprehension.
Milena just smiles at all four of them and invites Yennefer to join her on the couch. Eskel and Geralt take up the remaining chairs, and Jaskier flops into Geralt’s lap.
“So,” Yennefer says, “we’ve tracked down our missing baron, eventually.”
“And?” Lambert asks. “Did me or Aiden in fact insult him thirty years ago and he’s been biding his time for revenge?”
“Nothing so cunning, sadly. It was mostly as you had suggested, Aleksander.”
Jaskier frowns, looking unusually wan. “Worse, I think. So, it transpires that Baron Ryszard did in fact hire the mage who bespelled his son, with the orders for him to attack a Witcher after their tourney. And you were right Lambert that the spell was designed so that he wouldn’t know what he was doing until he did it.”
“So he didn’t want to kill either of us,” Aiden says.
“No,” Jaskier agrees sadly, “but he would have killed you all the same, and there was nothing any of us could have done about it at the time.”
Yennefer makes a low furious noise which suggests that she and the other mages may be researching ways to alert for mage-craft like that in the very near future. What she says is, “Apparently he believed that the ensuing chaos might lead to his volatile king declaring war on Geralt.”
“He can’t have thought he would win,” Milena says. “Cidaris has strength in its navy and its ports but he can hardly have expected victory against a Witcher army.”
“I don’t credit the Baron with much intelligence,” Yennefer agrees. “He seems to have been convinced that if it appeared that Witchers went into a killing rage in a border duchy, the other border kingdoms would rise up and ally themselves with Cidaris. He didn’t plan for Mathen’s cousin to be involved, that was only luck on his part. It doesn’t even seem to have occurred to him that his son’s friend might be close enough to- well.”
Lambert shakes his head. “Anyone else involved?”
“That’s where things become a little trickier.” Yennefer grimaces. “The boy, Cyryl, was the son of Baron Ryszard and his second wife. She did know that he planned to cause some unrest at the tourney. But she did not realise that the Baron had planned it knowing perfectly well that whatever happened, her son would die in the attempt.”
“And he did know,” Eskel says. “Not that it makes much difference to us, he was certainly planning for Witchers to die by the end of it. But he knew his own son would die immediately, and told him nothing of the plan. Lied to his wife about the poison and the speed of Witchers.”
Sasha casts a quick, regretful look up at Milena, and then over at Jaskier. Jaskier smiles back at him, scent edging further to sadness himself. Sasha asks, “He had another son, the Baron?”
“Yes,” Jaskier agrees. “Cyryl was the third son. Baron Ryszard has two older sons and two younger daughters. I imagine he thought he could spare one child.”
“To get what?” Lambert asks.
Yennefer is still enraged, audible in the tight cool tone of her voice. “His barony was a small one. He thought if Mathen was sufficiently motivated by the Witcher monsters murdering a baron’s son in cold blood, he might be equally motivated to give that baron a larger holding somewhere when the war was won. I think he planned to carve out a piece of Temeria from the borders.”
“But his son did the stabbing,” Lambert says. “How did he expect to make it look like he wasn’t involved in the plot of it? Or was that where the mage was involved?”
“That, I can’t tell you,” Yennefer says. “The mage apparently thought better of what I would do to him if I found him. Or else whoever hired him did. He’s dead, anyway. Burned up very emphatically, difficult for me to get much from it. Adrianna will keep looking into that one, if for no other reason than we should probably establish whether any of this started further south. But he’s dead anyway, and his suspiciously proficient concealing spells with him.”
Sasha shudders a little and Aiden leans in closer against his shoulder. Aiden asks, “We do think there was someone else involved?”
Eskel nods. “Have to assume so, the Baron didn’t seem smart enough to have come up with the thought and run in the same circles as the right mage, much as he thought it was his own idea.” He wrinkles his nose. “You’ve probably the right of it, Lam, getting Treyse and Mouse involved. Too many coincidences. Mathen’s a fool but he’s not completely wrong about how strange it all would seem from the outside. Why would you think a twenty-year-old extremely minor noble had decided to attack a Witcher? We know we didn’t set it up, but it has the ring of something odd.”
“And it might have worked,” Geralt offers, “if Lambert hadn’t spotted him first. Might have been enough chaos that we didn’t have track of who started it. Humans didn’t. Even as it was, with-” Geralt is being very careful not to look directly at Aiden, and has one palm open on the chair and the other around Jaskier. “Lots of shouting and confusion, more than a few Witchers injured, Aleksander all over in blood.”
Lambert is startled out of his increasingly unhappy contemplation. “Why was Aleksander covered in blood?” He becomes the immediate recipient of a number of baffled stares. “Whose blood?” he asks.
Jaskier tilts his head. “Ah, I believe it was mostly your blood.”
“Why was Sasha covered in my blood?” Lambert asks again. “He was close to Aiden when I was stabbed but not that close.”
Milena leans around, pressing her hand to his elbow. “My love, did you not tell us that Sasha had explained to you all that had happened?”
Geralt says, still not looking so very much at Aiden, “It took us twenty or thirty minutes to get things calmed down. We had to call for a portal, get Eskel in, make sure nothing was happening elsewhere. Aiden wouldn’t- none of the rest of us could get close. Triss nearly had her head taken off trying to get to you. Aleksander was beside you when it started.”
Lambert looks at him and Sasha only flushes bright and says, “I am not sure I am so very well-suited for a battlefield but I felt bound to try.”
Geralt is blunt about it. “By the time I did get to you, Aleksander had pulled down a table as a barrier, poured four potions into you, and was putting pressure on the wound. Had to tell him to get cleaned up the moment we got back to Kaer Morhen, he was so covered in your blood I was nearly mad with it let alone-”
Lambert knows he should react to Aiden’s soft wounded noise but instead he asks, “Which potions?”
“Golden Oriole,” Sasha recites, “Kiss and Swallow, and half each again of those two last.”
“I wasn’t carrying Golden Oriole or Kiss,” Lambert says. He does when he goes on the path of course, and prepares them himself when Aiden goes out on patrol. Used to do the same when his brothers were readying themselves for the end of winter. But he doesn’t carry a full pack all the time now. He possibly should.
“No,” Sasha agrees. “And I would be grateful if in the future you carried more medicine for yourselves as well as for humans. I’m not certain who was carrying the potions actually, although I know it was Dragonfly who made the throw when I called for them.”
“You knew what to call for,” Lambert says, feeling the corner of his mouth beginning to twitch.
Sasha looks suspicious. “Golden Oriole for poison, Kiss for bleeding and Swallow for health.”
“Any others?” Lambert asks. “Cat? Tawny Owl?”
“I- Tawny Owl I believe is for long battles. Cat I know is for seeing in darkness, and you told me it was one of the oldest recipes. I didn’t think either would help for a poisoned wound.”
“They wouldn’t,” Lambert agrees, “I just wanted to see how much you’ve been listening. Decided to take up a career in alchemy?”
Sasha shakes his head. “I don’t- don’t remember very much about making them, but we discussed potion-making often when we were preparing for your Trial of Etiquette. There were often useful analogies to be found, which seemed beneficial for working with the trainees since I cannot compare my lessons with their sword work or other battle skills. And at any rate-”
“What?”
Aleksander shrugs. “It is something you are so very passionate about, and you were good enough to pay attention to my lessons when I know courtly manners are not something you would usually worry over. Why would I not take the opportunity to try to remember your lessons too?” He pauses. “You are my friend too, Lambert. I- why would I not listen when it is something you find important?”
Lambert tugs at his own hair a little in frustration. He looks at Geralt and Jaskier. “Care to take a guess who, sitting in that chair by my bed when I woke up for the first time, almost immediately tried to offer me a fucking boon for saving Aiden, without mentioning that he’d saved me right in kind?”
Jaskier laughs brightly and nudges Geralt, who presses his lips together. Jaskier says, “Well to be entirely fair, Geralt has been trying all week to think up boons for Sasha, before we were distracted by this evening’s excitement.”
Yennefer grins too. “Aleksander, would you like an aviary? Geralt isn’t certain where we’d put one, or how big it would need to be so that it wasn’t cruel for the birds, but he’s very prepared to find some craftspeople to construct one for you. Seraphina and I have been tasked with spelling the glass if required.”
Sasha is sent into a sputtering protest. “My lord- Wolf- I am very grateful for your kindness but truly I am very happy with my bird feeder and the gardens.”
“Hm.”
“He also asked Serrit if there were any other art supplies you might like,” Jaskier offers. “But she seemed to think you were currently well-equipped at Aiden’s hand. I had suggested you might enjoy some further artistic tuition, or books, since I know sketching is not always seen as an entirely appropriate skill for a ducal heir. Serrit is lovely of course but I wouldn’t necessarily credit her with a trainer’s patience, except where it comes to knife-play. We have some elvish friends on the plains who will know artists, if it’s something you would enjoy.”
“Truly,” Sasha insists, “I do not need any reward for doing what any of the Witchers present would have done, and likely with less fuss.”
There was a little spike of something at the idea of tuition, Lambert notes. He has heard Sasha murmur before that it is only birds he can draw, and that it isn’t an impressive skill by noble lights, though Lambert has seen plenty of Witcher sketches of beasts and nothing so clear and lively-looking as Sasha’s drawings. It might be something to investigate later.
“More than a year ago,” Geralt says slowly, “I told Milena she could have anything she asked of me, for what she did to keep Eskel and my lark safe. Half a year ago, she told me she’d like to spend it, on a promise that when we took Redania I’d keep you as safe as I could manage. Told her at the time she didn’t need to spend a promise on that, when you were already owed safety by all of us for the letter. Doubly so now, for Lambert.” He frowns, awkward as a stone in your boot. “If there is anything you would like, which would make things more…comfortable, here, then you should ask. Ask Jaskier or Milena if it would be easier than asking me. But above that, the same promise I gave Milena once: if there is aught I can give you, anything you need ask of me as a- then it’s yours.”
Sasha takes a couple of very shallow, tremulous breaths. And then one deeper one. “Baron Ryszard had four other children.”
“Yes,” Jaskier agrees, something warm already in his expression. “A son already married, from his first wife. And another son and two daughters, from his second wife.”
“Have you- forgive me, the second wife, the one who knew about his treachery but not its form-”
“Geralt gave her to Mathen of Cidaris to deal with himself, in the hopes that would appease his wounded pride. We had to deal with Baron Ryszard ourselves, obviously.”
“And the children?”
“Oldest son didn’t know, but doesn’t seem especially mournful. Insists that he’s entitled to the barony and all that entails. Doesn’t seem to notice that Mathen will likely be after his head for risking a war with the army of the White Wolf, once the king stops rampaging around thinking it was one we provoked. I’m not sure he can be helped.”
“The other three?”
Jaskier nods. “A son about your age, also unknowing of the plot, rather more upset about the loss of his brother. Currently staying with his aunt in Temeria, but it doesn’t seem a suitable long term solution. The girls are fifteen and thirteen, also staying with the aunt, who has three daughters of her own still unwed and in the home.”
Lambert is monumentally unsurprised when Sasha steels himself and looks at Geralt.
“My lord,” Sasha says, “would you provide some protection for these three elsewhere in your lands? I- I know what it is, to be viewed a traitor in your home, and to have nowhere safe to go.”
Geralt casts a quick look at Jaskier and then turns back to Sasha. “That one I have offered already.”
“Our flower thought you would ask,” Yennefer says. “We decided to anticipate you.”
“I know the feeling well enough myself,” Jaskier says. “And so Geralt says that doesn’t count as a boon either, Sasha. We offered them Kaer Morhen or Wolvenburg as they please, and left them to think on the matter.”
Aiden says, “I can’t imagine they’ll want to be in the Keep. Not if they loved their brother.”
Sasha coughs. “I said to you once, love, that Witchers care very much about choices, and you called that true. It was their father who chose to send their brother to his death, for nothing but the hope of better riches for him and the one son he cared about. You were given no choice at all. I would not judge them, of course, if they cannot be here where they might be reminded of it, but the monster was always their father.”
Aiden buries his face in Sasha’s shoulder, breath very shaky.
Geralt looks between them all. “Hm. Listen to Aleksander. Preferably before you try to offer your head to me at supper again.”
“So say we all to that,” Jaskier agrees. “My loves, shall we to bed? Lambert is looking a little weary, and Triss will have our heads for not putting him straight to rest again after he ignored her good counsel and went wandering the keep.”
“I’m fine,” Lambert protests, “or I’ll be so in a day or two. Going to have to be, if we’re going on a fucking diplomatic adventure buried inside border spying.”
“You’ll go nowhere until you’re ready,” Eskel tells him. He stands from his chair and crosses the rug to squeeze Lambert’s shoulder and kiss the crown of his head.
Lambert can feel himself flush under the affection, but he doesn’t push his brother away.
Yennefer and Jaskier make their way to the door, but Geralt waits a moment further. He crouches on the rug across from Lambert and leans to press their foreheads together. “Two months,” he warns again. He looks over at Aiden and Sasha. “Two months and then home.” He smiles, small and amused with himself. “Else I’ll send Milena and Ciri after you to drag you back.”
“We would do so with pleasure,” Milena tells him, touching his elbow. “Thank you, Geralt.”
He nods back at her and leaves, catching Jaskier around the waist and allowing Eskel to kiss his cheek. Yennefer laughs at the three of them for foolishness, and they head in their respective directions back down the hallway.
When the room is only theirs again, it is suddenly very quiet.
Sasha tilts his head back and looks up at Milena and Lambert. “Might we sleep on your couch tonight?”
Lambert remembers, once, promising his dearest friend another wolf to love him, boldly and truly. He remembers Sasha’s terror at anyone knowing that he might enjoy looking at Aiden, or that he might relish the moments when he was held carefully under Aiden’s arm. He remembers Aiden’s joy when Sasha admitted to Milena that he was willing to be courted. Lambert does not remember Sasha pouring potions into his reluctant mouth or knocking a table over to keep them both safe, though he remembers all too well Aiden’s bared throat this evening, and Milena and Sasha coming to flank him at Aiden’s back.
Lambert doesn’t know what is showing on his face or in his scent, but Aiden leans in against his knee and it is Milena who smiles very softly and replies, “Of course. You are both always welcome here.”
It is later again, although only barely, when Lambert drifts to sleep with Milena beside him, Aiden and Sasha tucked up close in the sitting room, and four sets of heartbeats to measure out, as if the sound of rain on windows, and all you love kept safe inside.