Chapter Text
Jaskier gets word from one of his contacts just as they reach the base of the mountain, a day’s travel from the nearest proper town. It comes in the form of an enchanted, ornery carrier pigeon – not a terribly common choice for messages, but not one he’s unfamiliar with.
Roach nearly eats it.
“Fuck!” Jaskier shouts when he grabs the thing and turns just in time for Roach to chomp down on his arm instead of the poor bird. “ Roach! ”
Geralt chuckles, but there’s the glow of magic as he shifts his fingers, and Roach lets go of Jaskier’s arm with a small huff. “Behave, Roach,” Geralt murmurs, and gets a snort for it, but Roach doesn’t try to bite Jaskier again, or get at the pigeon still held in his palm.
Jaskier shouts again wordlessly when the pigeon bites him, instead. He glares at the bird. It just turns one mean little beady eye at him and does it again.
“Fucking magic birds,” he mutters, finally letting go of the bird enough for it to flap up and perch – painfully, Jaskier might add – on his wrist. It thrusts out one of its little feet pointedly, and Jaskier unties the little piece of parchment, feeling irrationally scolded.
The parchment is small and rolled tightly. It takes a second for Jaskier to get it flattened out, careful not to rehydrate any of the ink with any oils or sweat from his palms.
“What is it?” Geralt asks, tying Roach’s reins loosely to a tree branch on the side of the road. She headbutts his shoulder but he ignores her.
“A note,” Jaskier answers redundantly. “Intelligence work.”
“Ah.” Geralt nods and doesn’t ask any further questions. Jaskier would thank him, but he’s busy decoding the message and hissing at the pigeon for biting him yet again.
It’s a familiar code, thankfully, and the blood-red ink tells him that it’s Lilia’s message. He hadn’t known she was one of the people working on this, but then again, he did just tell everyone he contacted to talk to whoever they thought best.
Mahakam. Meet in Ellander, The Smiling Bell – need a mage.
Well. He supposes his planned meet up with Yennefer is convenient, then.
The pigeon pecks at him again and he swears at it. Geralt snorts and starts digging into Jaskier’s bag, silently handing him a quill as well as some parchment. The inkpot he sets on a little tree stump nearby with a gesture.
“Thank you,” Jaskier says, around another hiss when the bird bites hard enough to draw blood this time. He crouches by the stump and quickly scrawls a reply. He gets bit and pecked a handful more times while he waits for the ink to dry, but finally manages to roll the note up and reattach it to the bird’s foot.
It gives him another mean look with its beady eyes, but finally flies off with his note, hopefully in whatever direction Lilia is.
“Does your intelligence work usually end in you bleeding?” Geralt asks, clearly amused as he trades Jaskier’s quill and ink for a pot of medicinal salve. Jaskier frowns and starts treating the little scratches and tears the bird left on his hand.
“Not usually,” he mutters. Geralt just snorts and takes the salve back as well.
He and Geralt split up once they reach the town. It’s a small place, but it has a three-room inn and a tiny tavern attached, and it’s a place adjusted to the sight of Witchers; Geralt is able to pick up some supplies as well as word of a few nearby hunts that he agrees to take before he returns to Kaer Morhen for a few more weeks.
Jaskier stays with him until he has to leave again. They share a surreptitious kiss hidden by the tiny stable and then Geralt is on his way, first to the outer edges of town to negotiate the price for those hunts, and then on to kill the monsters. As soon as he can no longer see the Witcher’s silhouette in the distance, he goes to the tiny inn to see about a room.
This early in the spring, there’s no one else staying here that doesn’t already live here, so he gets his pick of the three rooms. He chooses the one that smells the least like sheep and settles in for the night. It’s early, but this kind of place has no need for a bard, and he’s got to think of a plan for when he and Yenenfer go to Ellander. (Assuming she will go, though he can’t think of any reason she wouldn’t.)
Mahakam, though. That’s...worrisome, to say the least. It’s notoriously hard to gain entrance to the place, and sneaking in through the mountains is out because they’ll be killed on sight if caught. They’ll either have to gain the trust of someone who is already allowed to come and go freely – also notoriously difficult, as dwarves have learned to be cautious. Rightly so, of course, and Jaskier would die before implying that they don’t deserve their enclave to be safe.
However, it does make it significantly harder for him to find Renfri, assuming that Lilia and her network of contacts have good information, and Mahakam is an actual lead. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be a proper lead, but he does have to prepare for the possibility.
By the time it gets late enough that he can no longer avoid going to bed, he doesn’t have any further ideas on how they’ll get in. He hopes that maybe Yennefer will have some ideas, or maybe Lilia, once they arrive.
It’s all he can really do, right now. Hope.
He wakes with the sunrise, though unwillingly. He hadn’t realized when he chose his room the night before that the single window faces east.
Rubbing his eyes against the light and to rid them of the crust of sleep, he sits up and fumbles for his journal. The note from Yennefer falls out and he grabs it, rereading just to check that he remembers how to activate the portal correctly.
He does, but he figures that maybe lighting a portal charm on fire inside an inn room would be considered rude, so he stuffs the note back into his journal and sets to getting dressed. Once he’s ready to go, dressed and all of his things gathered, he stops by the local hedgewitch to procure something to start a fire with.
Sure, he technically knows how to do that without Geralt’s Signs, but it’s so much easier to use magic than stone. He waits until he’s an acceptable distance from the town, down the road by a few miles, before he pulls the note back out.
It catches easily, and Jaskier places it on the ground so it won’t burn his fingers. The portal opens with a familiar magical whoosh as soon as the flames catch on Yennefer’s signature purple ink. Jaskeir takes a deep breath, making sure he has a secure hold on all of his things, and steps through.
He’s not sure of the distance he’s travelled, but it must be far, as he has to shake his head for a moment to clear the black from his vision when his feet finally find solid ground. “Yennefer?” he asks, just as his sight clears.
In front of him is a large, imposing wooden door. The hall he’s in is stone, and his voice echoes off of it strangely, sounding as if it’s coming from several directions at once. He ignores the way his hair stands and reaches out to the handle of the door, finding it unlocked.
Despite the size and heaviness of the door, it moves silently, opening to reveal what is clearly some sort of laboratory. He sees Yennefer standing at the far side, searching through a large, dusty tome.
“Yennefer,” he repeats, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
The sorceress turns and smiles at him, and Jaskier wants to smile back, but her movement shifts the sleeves of her dress and he catches sight of – what is that?
He drops his things unceremoniously and half-jogs across the room, reaching out and snatching Yennefer’s hand. “What happened to you?” he asks, pushing her sleeve up to look at more of her arm. It’s – scarring, clearly, of some sort, but not like anything Jaskier has ever seen. It’s got a pattern like frost, spreading out in spidery little lines, and it’s gray, the color looking cold against Yennefer’s dark skin.
Yennefer is frowning when he looks back up to her face, but she doesn’t snatch her arm back. “What I wanted to speak to you about,” she says. “Sort of. It’s related. I’m fine, bard.”
“You don’t look fine,” Jaskier protests. Up close, he can see the light bags under her eyes and the way her cheeks are slightly sunken. He drops her arm in favor of reaching out to pull her into a hug. She comes, though stiffly. “What happened? When did it happen?”
She sighs, though when Jaskier doesn’t immediately release her, she relaxes a little into the embrace. “It was before the dragon hunt,” she says, and Jaskier very carefully doesn’t go stiff at that. “Before – well. You don’t need all of the sordid details, but – ”
“Before your fight with Geralt?”
Yennefer stiffens and then pushes Jaskier away. He lets her, but doesn’t go much further than a step. “He told you?”
“Eventually, yes,” Jaskier says, watching her face carefully. He sees the way her lip trembles just slightly before she gets it under control, the way she almost frowns.
“Eventually?” she asks.
Jaskier sighs, reaching out slowly to touch her shoulder. She doesn’t pull back or stop him. “You weren’t the only one to walk down that mountain broken-hearted, dear heart,” he says softly.
Yennefer’s eyes go wide. “I – you…. What did he do?”
Jaskier laughs, and it’s much less bitter now than it might have been, had this conversation happened before the winter. “What didn’t he do is a better question,” he says lightly. “Come on, let’s sit down. I actually have quite a lot to tell you – and you clearly have a lot to tell me.”
“Hm.” Yennefer shakes his hand off, but doesn’t bother to step to the side, so when she goes past him, her shoulder brushes his. “Let me get some wine. Est Est, right?”
Jaskier chuckles. “Yes, thank you.”
They settle in a little sitting room that Yennefer leads him to with their wine. Jaskier revels in it, for just a moment, the first glass of real, decent wine he’s had for months, before he sets it aside.
“Tell me about the scars,” he says. “And what else you wanted to speak to me about. And then I’ll tell you about this winter.”
Yennefer hums and takes an uncharacteristically large gulp of wine. “Fringilla tried to kill me,” she says, clear and blunt, though Jaskier can see the hurt in her eyes.
“Fringilla?” Jaskier asks, casting about in his head. He recognizes the name, but it’s not someone he’s met, he doesn’t think. Certainly if it’s someone Yennefer knows – well enough to be a little hurt that they tried to kill her – he would remember having met them.
“Sorceress,” Yennefer clarifies. “We were at Aretuza together. There was...hm, a bit of...contention, between us. I...may have stolen her assignment at Aedirn. We weren’t exactly friends, there, and we certainly weren’t after, but….”
“But an attempt to murder you was a bit much,” Jaskier suggests, and Yennefer tips her head toward him before taking another generous sip of wine.
“She’s the sorceress assigned to Nilfgaard,” Yennefer continues after a moment. “I’m sure that explains plenty about what she’s like, now.”
Jaskier feels the way his face twists, and he takes his own generous swallow of wine. “I assume she’s fallen in with the White Flame worship,” he says, with no small amount of contempt.
Yennefer snorts. “She’s almost definitely leading the cavalry of that particular cult,” she says, clearly bitter. “She was...better. Before. But now – well, now. Anyway,” she finishes off her glass and then fills it again, “she tried to kill me.”
“And didn’t succeed, thank the gods,” Jaskier nods toward her and raises his glass. Yenenfer raises hers, but she’s frowning.
“She should have,” she murmurs. “That’s…part of why I wanted to speak to you.”
“What do you mean?”
Jaskier sets his glass aside again, and when Yennfer doesn’t reply and instead drinks her whole glass at once again, he reaches out to put a hand on her knee. “Yen,” he says softly. “What do you mean, she should have killed you? What happened?”
Yennefer huffs and stands, though she reaches out and squeezes Jaskier’s wrist before it falls from her knee. She paces across the room and then back, reaching up to push her hair back from her neck and then pull it over her shoulder.
“These scars,” she says finally, pushing her sleeves up to reveal the frost-like, gray marks again. They’re on both arms, and from what Jaskier can see, likely trail up further, and could be elsewhere, too. “They’re from Fringilla, but there shouldn’t have been scars left. I should have died. Whatever Fringilla did – it was powerful, and dark. More powerful and darker than anything I’ve ever encountered before, and I couldn’t defend myself. I didn’t get the chance. I knew, when I saw whatever her Chaos had turned into – black and full of lightning, Jaskier, it was something rotten – I knew I was going to die.”
She stops pacing and finally looks at him. Her eyes are wide and full of unshed tears, and Jaskier wants nothing more than to stand and pull her into his arms, but he knows that he can’t. Not right now, at least.
“I knew I was going to die,” she repeats, soft. “And then I woke up, no worse for wear except for the scars. They were black, at first. They’ve faded, but I don’t think they’ll ever fade away entirely.”
“Yennefer, I – ”
“I don’t need your apologies,” she cuts him off, and though the words are sharp, her expression is soft.
Jaskier nods. “Okay,” he agrees. “I just – what happened, then? If you should have died, why didn’t you?”
Yennefer shifts her hair again, and then comes back and sits heavily into her seat before refilling her wine and taking a deep drink. “It’s the wish,” she says, finally. “It...it saved me.”
“That’s why you were trying to figure out the wish,” Jaskier says, though it’s a redundant statement. “Why you and Geralt fought.”
Yennefer nods and takes another drink. “It’s odd, though,” she murmurs. “He was – he didn’t want me looking into the wish, I could tell, and he said as much, but it was…. It wasn’t just that, that made him go.”
Jaskier bites his lip against explaining. Surely, Yennefer knows – or can guess. And it’s not as if it won’t become a relevant topic, if she accompanies him to Ellander, but. He’s not certain that Geralt’s thoughts that night are his to tell, even if he does know them.
“He wants to apologize,” he says instead. “He asked that I tell you that.”
“Did he really?” Yennefer says, clearly doubtful.
Jaskier snorts. “He really did,” he confirms. “I know, it doesn’t sound like him. But it was an...interesting winter, so say the least.”
Yennefer quirks a brow. “Oh?”
He takes a drink of wine. “Well. I suppose I should start at the beginning – at least one of them.”
“Speak plainly, bard.” Yennefer’s tone is sharp, but when Jaskier looks at her, she’s smiling, eyes bright – teasing. He grins.
“Yes, yes, I will,” Jaskier promises. “You know of Geralt’s child surprise.”
Yennefer frowns, and Jaskier knows it’s a sore spot, but there’s not much to be done about that – at least not right now, and not by him. “I do,” Yennefer murmurs.
“How much do you know?” Jaskier thinks he knows the answer, but he wants to be sure.
“Nothing,” Yennefer says, confirming Jaskier’s thoughts. “Just that he claimed a child, and abandoned it.”
“Well,” Jaskier takes another drink of his wine, “ she was a princess.”
Yennefer looks up from where she was studying her wine, expression sharp and eyes narrowed. “A princess,” she repeats. “ Was? ”
Jaskier nods. “The Lion Cub of Cintra,” he says. “Certainly, you’ve heard of the fate of Cintra.”
“Of course I have,” Yennefer snaps. “She – the queen and her husband, they were killed. Nilfgaard said that the heir went missing, and everyone assumed they’d just killed her too. Do you know where she is, if they didn’t?”
“Safe at Kaer Morhen.”
Yennefer scowls. “That’s impossible,” she says. “The assasination was after the snows would have made it impossible to traverse that godsforsaken mountain – ”
“Unless magic was involved,” Jaskier finishes for her. “You remember the charm you gave me?”
“The portal charm – Geralt had the other side,” Yennefer nods. “So...she had it? You gave it to her?”
Jaskier shakes his head. “Not quite. Calanthe would have had my head if I had ever told her anything about Geralt – ”
“Wait,” Yennefer interrupts, holding up her hand. “You – Calanthe, you called the Lioness of Cintra by her first name. I’m missing something, clearly.”
Jaskier rubs at the back of his neck. “Yes, well. I didn’t exactly advertise it widely, though it also wasn’t actually a secret, per se – ”
“Jaskier.”
He coughs. “I was her music tutor,” he says. “From when she was two years old on, I would return to Cintra once a year and stay for a week or two to teach her music.”
“But you said you didn’t give the charm to her.”
“I didn’t.” Jaskier pauses to take a drink of wine, finishing off his glass. Without a word, Yennefer leans over and taps the rim of the glass, refilling it. “See, when she was – oh, about eight? Calanthe hired a bodyguard for her specifically. A Griffin Witcher named Coën.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Yennefer says. “Met him, too, briefly. He did seem to suddenly disappear from the Path…. Everyone probably assumed he was dead.”
“Likely. I gave the charm to him, and told him about Geralt and Ciri. Told him to use it if he ever needed to get Ciri out of Cintra and to Geralt. I had hoped, of course, when I gave it to him, that he wouldn’t have to use it. But….”
“But you knew it was a possibility,” Yennefer says. Jaskier nods somberly and takes a drink, but before Yennefer can say anymore, he continues.
“She needs you,” he says. Blunt and to the point. “Geralt and his mistakes aside, Ciri needs you, and we – the Witchers and I, including Geralt – want you to teach her.”
“Teach her? What on earth could I teach her that a troupe of Witchers and a noble-turned-bard couldn’t? You did say she was a princess.” Yennefer sounds bitter, even more bitter than when she was speaking of Fringilla, of Geralt. “I’m a sorceress, and a disgraced one at that – on the run from the Brotherhood. It’s been years since my education, since my time at courts, and it’s not as if any of that is even useful.”
Jaskier frowns. “What are you talking about, Yen?” he asks.
“All I have is magic and court nonsense,” Yennefer spits. “I’m of no use to a former princess that will now be raised as a Witcher.”
Suddenly, it clicks. Jaskier realizes that Yennefer really doesn’t know anything about Ciri, because all she knows is Calanthe and Cintra.
“Did you never hear any talk – rumor or otherwise – of Pavetta? Calanthe’s daughter?” he asks.
Yennefer blinks, then seems to consider. “I remember hearing of her birth, and of her death. Obviously, she's Ciri's mother – Calanthe was young when Pavetta was born, but the likelihood of her carrying a child in her mid-thirties would have been slim. Never mind that it would have been considered a bastard, anyway, since her husband was dead.”
“Exactly,” Jaskier agrees, though he doesn’t mention that Ciri was only not a bastard by technicality. “But you never heard about the disastrous betrothal feast?”
“It was set upon by magic users and some cursed man,” Yennefer says, as if Jaskier is a particularly dim child.
Jaskier hadn’t known that the story had been changed. It makes sense, of course, both that the story was altered – Calanthe was always very careful about image – and that he wouldn’t have known it, since he didn’t talk about his involvement in the betrothal openly for Geralt’s sake. No one could “correct” him if he didn’t speak of it, and there was no point in telling him the altered version otherwise, since he’d been there.
“That was a lie,” Jaskier says. “Geralt and I were there – that’s how Geralt ended up with Ciri as his child surprise.”
Yennefer’s frown deepens. “Then...what did happen?”
“Pavetta happened,” Jaskier says simply. “There were no proper magic users at that feast except for Mousesack and Geralt. Pavetta, though – she had Chaos. And a lot of it, considering that her screaming when Calanthe’s men tried to kill her lover made her levitate thirty feet in the air and shattered windows, among other destruction.”
There’s a heavy pause while that information settles, and Jaskier spends it drinking probably too much of his wine at once. Yennefer doesn’t mention it, just reaches up absently to refill it when it’s gone.
“Ciri has magic,” Yennefer finally murmurs. “You want me to teach her to – what? Control it, harness it, suppress it?”
Jaskier scowls. “Definitely not to suppress it,” he says. “That sounds dangerous, considering the damage Pavetta did. But control, yes. Harnessing it – well, I supposed if she would like to, yes, that too.”
“Okay,” Yennefer says. “I...I can try. I’ve never really...taught it. Magic, Chaos – all of my knowledge of how to teach comes from Aretuza, and that’s...well. It was Aretuza.”
“Anything you can do will be worth it,” Jaskier assures her. “And anyway, that’s not all. She was a princess – she could still be a queen someday, if she decides she wants to take Cintra back. She needs to know about court, about manners and deception and politics. There’s only so much I can do by myself, Yen.”
He takes a deep breath, and another drink, and continues. “She needs a teacher. Of magic, of court. But more than that – more than anything else, she needs a family. She lost hers with the fall of Cintra, and obviously we’re trying, the Witchers and I – but she needs a mother, too.”
Yennefer flinches at the word, wine sloshing a little. “Jaskier, I can’t – ”
“You can, ” Jaskier interrupts. “I know it’s not what you really want. I know she’s not yours, not really. But she could be, and she needs someone, and you – you’re the best for it. And not just because of your magic and your court knowledge, either. Geralt didn’t mean what he said on that mountain, and even if he had, I’m telling you right now that it’s horseshit.”
“Jaskier.”
“You’ll be a fantastic mother, Yennefer, dear heart, you will. ”
“ Jaskier. ”
Before Jaskier can say anything else, Yennefer has tossed her glass of wine aside and knocked his from his hand as well, apparently heedless of the mess. She grasps his wrist and yanks, pulling him up from his seat and into her arms, as she wraps them around him and buries her face in his throat. He can feel the wetness where she starts to cry against him, and his heart thuds painfully in his chest.
He wraps his arms around her as well, softer than hers around him, and pets through her hair. He can smell the lilac and gooseberry she covers herself in, that scent that leaves Geralt caught and stupid every time he smells it, but underneath it, his face practically buried into her hair, he can smell magic and her tears and dust. He wonders how much time she’s been spending in dusty laboratories and hugs her just a little bit tighter.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs after a moment. “I’m sorry, I just – ”
“Don’t,” Jaskier stops her, leaning just far enough back to see her face. “It’s okay, dear heart.”
Yennefer huffs, something like a laugh, and finally pulls back from him, wiping furiously at her face. “Don’t mention this,” she says, the threat clear as crystal in her voice, and Jaskier chuckles.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Might want to clean the wine out of the carpet, though.”
Yennefer looks to where there’s spreading red stains sinking into the plush rug and sighs. “I suppose,” she says, as if it’s a great chore, and waves her hand. The stains disappear in a blink.
She bends to gather the glasses, thankfully not broken. “Sit,” she orders, and Jaskier does as he’s told while she refills the glasses and hands him one. It’s no longer regular wine, or if it is, it’s nothing Jaskier has ever had before.
“Well,” she says after taking a drink. “I supposed I’ll go to Kaer Morhen, then, and meet Ciri.”
“Please do,” Jaskier nods. “Although, I have another favor to ask, first.”
“Hm?”
“I have business in Ellander,” Jaskier says. “Intelligence work, of a sort. And one of my contacts informed me that a mage would be needed.”
Yennefer considers for a moment. “Alright,” she says. “Though I expect to be told more about what’s happening than just intelligence work, bard.”
“Of course,” Jaskier nods. “Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. If I can, of course.”
“Is there anything you can’t tell me?”
“Just what I don’t already know myself,” Jaskier shrugs. He takes a sip of his drink. “It’s a...delicate situation. One I’d like for Geralt to not know about until it’s resolved.”
Yennefer raises her brows. “You said that I was not the only broken heart on that mountain,” she says. “I would assume after this winter that’s no longer true – and you’d better be telling me that story as well, later. But if Geralt can’t know about this – what, exactly, is this?”
Jaskier sits back into his chair and sighs. “How much do you know about Blaviken?”
Yennefer agrees to accompany him to Ellander once they sober up a little, and joy of joys, even has a plan to get into Mahakam.
“Assuming Yatham is alive, of course, which he should be, but he does have a penchant for gambling….”
“That does not fill me with an overwhelming sense of confidence, Yen.”
“Oh hush,” Yennefer swats at him before finishing up whatever she’s fussing with – it looks like a very, very large pelt of some kind, and Jaskier has no idea what she’s trying to do with it or why. He’s also relatively certain he won’t get an answer if he asks, so he doesn’t ask. “Anyway, we can’t portal straight into Ellander. That close to the Temple, the Brotherhood is likely watching for magic – I am still technically on the run, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Jaskier takes the pelt when it’s handed to him – holding it does not clarify what kind of pelt it is, and that just cements Jaskier’s decision to not ask about it or what Yennefer is doing with it – and then hands it back when Yennefer grabs for it. “That’s fine, I doubt Lilia is expecting me for at least another week or longer, anyway.”
“Lilia is your contact?”
“One of them, yes,” Jaskier nods. “I have absolutely no idea what we’ll be finding in Ellander except Lilia and a lead, or at least one of Lilia’s contacts and a lead.”
“Thrilling,” Yennefer says drily, and then with a wave of her hand the pelt just...disappears. Jaskier blinks at where it was, then shakes his head.
“How close can we portal? Just to give me an idea of travel time.” He steps out of Yennefer’s way when she sweeps past him toward the laboratory, and then turns to follow her.
“That depends,” Yennefer says. “Are we actively avoiding Geralt?”
“Don’t have to,” Jaskier answers, leaning against the door while he watches Yennefer sort through several books that look like they’re older than her and Geralt combined. “He’s probably back at Kaer Morhen right now, and he’ll be staying in Kaedwen when he does go back to the Path.”
Yennefer pauses to turn and raise her eyebrows at him. “And he agreed to that? Willingly?”
“It’s stunning what sudden fatherhood will do to a man. Or, Witcher, as the case may be.”
“Hm.” Yennefer huffs and turns back to her books. “Okay, if we don’t have to worry about accidentally running into Geralt – probably just outside Flotsam.”
“Outside of Flotsam in the direction of Hagge, or of Biały Most?”
“Hagge.”
Jaskier hums and does some quick math in his head. “Okay, so…. Depending on how we’re traveling, that would make travel to Ellander take anywhere from...a single day to five or six days.”
“Horses, bard,” Yennefer says, finally seeming to decide upon several ancient tomes to grab. “I may not be able to use my magic, but I’m certainly not walking. ”
“More toward the one day side, then, gods willing.”
“The gods have nothing to do with it,” Yennefer snorts, turning and opening a cupboard just to pull out some kind of bag and toss it at Jaskier. He catches it with only a little fumbling when the weight of it shocks him.
It’s coin, judging from the heaviness and the clinking. He opens the bag to find a very significant pile of crowns. For a moment, he considers asking where in the world Yenneer acquired this much money, but quickly rethinks it.
“Fair enough,” he says, looking back up to Yennefer. The books have disappeared exactly like the pelt, and Jaskier continues to not ask questions. “When should we leave?”
“That’s up to you. We can go now, find an inn in Flotsam to stay a night, then travel on, or we can rest now, make travel quicker once we’re through the portal.”
Jaskier hums, hefting the bag of coin in his palm while he thinks. “Rest now, travel quicker,” he decides.
Yennefer nods. “Come on, then, I’ll show you where you can sleep.”
“Tell me again, about Blaviken,” Yennefer says the next morning, after they’ve stepped through her portal to see Flotsam on the horizon.
“Which part?”
“Why was Renfri even there? Aside from the fact that there was a market and she and her men were known to rob merchants, there’s nothing special about Blaviken. You said she had a score to settle, that she and some wizard basically trapped Geralt between a rock and a hard place – which I knew from him, obviously, though with significantly less detail, mind you – but you never said why. What was the score?”
Jaskier blinks. “I thought you knew, honestly,” he says.
“Knew what? ”
“Stregobor,” Jaskier says simply. “It wasn’t just some wizard. Renfri was born under the Black Sun.”
Yennefer stops so abruptly that Jaskier nearly runs into her, and there’s a peculiar, haunted look on her face when she whirls around to face him.
“She was?” she asks, quietly.
Jaskier nods, and Yennefer huffs, pushing a hand through her hair and messing up the previously-immaculate curls.
“I – ” she starts, and then huffs again, sounding frustrated. “I knew – I know that Stregobor is a putrid, slimy excuse for a man, he always has been, but – ”
“You really didn’t know,” Jaskier murmurs, a little shocked.. “Yen – ”
“I knew about his – his perversion, the girls, that stupid prophecy. Everyone knew about that. I didn’t know that Renfri was one of them. That he tried to use Geralt for his – for – ”
Jaskier swallows and takes a tentative step forward, hand outstretched to grasp Yennefer’s shoulder. She doesn’t stop him, but she also doesn’t really react at all, staring somewhere near his sternum but clearly not looking, not really.
They stand there for a moment, Jaskier unsure what he should say – what he could say. Yennefer’s breathing is just slightly shaky.
Finally, Jaskier can’t stand it any longer, and he opens his mouth to speak, only to have Yennefer suddenly look up, fire in her eyes. She jerks back from him before spinning around and opening a portal in the road before them.
“Fuck the Brotherhood,” she says, steely. “ Fuck them.”
She steps through the portal and disappears. Jaskier stares, open-mouthed, for a split second before he stumbles forward and follows her through.
Yennefer has dropped them into a mostly-forgotten alley in Ellander, but one Jaskier knows – there’s a bakery to the left, a tea shop to the right, and a bustling market square in front.
“The Smiling Bell,” he offers, when Yennefer gestures pointedly at the mouth of the alley, where the general hubbub of the city is filtering toward them. “A tavern of surprisingly ill-repute for how well-off it is.”
“Lead the way,” Yennefer says, and so Jaskier does.
True to the etiquette of most cities, no one really pays them any mind when they stride out of the alley, though Jaskier does see some women looking jealously at Yennefer’s finery. Yennefer either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore it, and he follows suit, weaving around the crowds easily.
The Smiling Bell is bustling, packed even though it’s not even midday yet, and Jaskier stops just inside the door to inspect the mass of people. There’s no one he recognizes right off, but that doesn’t mean much. Yennefer touches his elbow lightly, a silent question in her eyes when he looks back to her, and he tips his head toward the bar.
“Should be something left for me,” he says. “Wait here.”
Yennefer’s eyes narrow, but she nods. Jaskier makes his way through this crowd just as easily, though he goes slower, listening in to conversations as he passes, taking note of the faces he sees. Eventually, he reaches the bar, and is greeted silently by a tired barmaid.
“I was told there was something left here for me,” he tells her, voice low. She quirks a brow. “Dandelion should be the name.”
She hums. “Aye,” she says. “Squirrely little man brought a message, a week ago now, two?” She turns, one hand cupped around her mouth, and shouts, “Erik!”
While they wait for whoever Erik is to respond to the call, Jaskier tries to puzzle out who the squirrelly little man might be. He’s narrowed it down to about a dozen names when a boy arrives at the bar, looking flustered and annoyed. He can’t be more than fifteen, if he’s that old.
“Ma’am?” he asks, sounding as annoyed as he looks.
“Don’t sass me, boy,” the barmaid snaps, but she reaches into her apron for something – a key, Jaskier sees, when she hands it over to Erik. “There’s a fancy envelope in that back room, got a seal on it and everything. Bring it here.”
Erik rolls his eyes, but darts around the other side of the bar, ostensibly to do as he’s told. The barmaid sighs after him, shaking her head, and then wanders off to other patrons. Jaskier leans against the bar and scans the room again.
There’s nothing and no one any more interesting from this angle, but luckily Erik returns with his letter before he can get bored. Jaskier takes pity and digs out a meagre handful of coppers for him, which earns him a quick, “Thanks!” before the boy is off again, lost into the mess of people milling about.
He cracks the seal and unfolds the letter to find Lilia’s handwriting again. A cursory scan tells him that the code is probably giving him another location, and more details on what the lead is. He folds the parchment back up and stuffs it into his doublet before slipping back through the crowd to where Yennefer is still leaned against a wall. People are giving her a wide berth even with how packed the tavern is.
“Anything?” she asks.
He taps his doublet, where the letter rests, and nods. “Come on,” he says. “Somewhere quieter.”
Yennefer shrugs and follows him back out of The Smiling Bell and into the streets of Ellander.
Twenty minutes later finds them in a significantly less populated tavern, each with a glass of overpriced wine. They find a table near the fire, pushed into a corner, and settle side-by-side.
Jaskier takes a healthy sip of his wine – not terrible, all things considered – and then pulls Lilia’s letter back out.
“Can you just read that?” Yennefer asks.
Jaskier nods. “More or less,” he says. “It’s a useful skill.”
Yennefer shakes her head, a small smile on her lips. Jaskier opens his mouth to ask, but she interrupts him by gesturing at the letter. “Go on.”
He snorts and takes another drink of wine before turning back to the letter.
“She says there’s a story one of her men overheard when he was trading with some of the dwarves,” he says as he uncodes and reads. “A princess struck by a blood curse, hidden in a mine. The curse must be why Lilia told me to bring a mage.”
“Sounds like a fairytale,” Yennefer scoffs into her glass.
Jaskier shrugs one shoulder, scanning over the rest of the letter. “Doesn’t most of this?” he points out. Yennefer rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue the point.
“The family that owns the mine is apparently very territorial over it, even though they haven’t mined it in decades,” he continues.
“Sounds promising,” Yennefer murmurs.
Jaskier hums. “It does,” he agrees.
The rest of the letter is just further details – the family name of who owns the mine, the approximate location of it, a few more overheard rumors.
“I think we have to look, at least,” Jaskier finally says, after they’ve both contemplated the contents of the letter for several minutes.
Yennefer hums. “I think so too. I suppose I should get a hold of Yatham, then.”
“How?”
“Shouldn’t be hard.” Yennefer waves a hand, then signals for more wine when a barmaid passes by. “He’s a right bastard and most any place that holds Gwent tournaments from here to Ebbing know him by name.”
Jaskier snorts. “Sounds pleasant.”
“Absolutely not,” Yennefer says, shaking her head. “But he should be able to get us into Mahakam with minimal bribery and bloodshed.”
“I would prefer none, if you care to know.”
Yennefer shrugs, tossing her hair over one shoulder. “Unfortunately one or the other is guaranteed to be necessary, if not both. It’s not as if you don’t have a strong stomach and a penchant for stabbing first, asking questions later, Jaskier.”
“Not the point, Yen.”
Two days later, they have word that Yatham will be waiting for their arrival at the entrance of the pass that leads to Mahakam.
“The rumor Lilia’s man heard, it said a blood curse, right?”
Jaskier looks up from where he’d been inspecting a very nice quill to find Yennefer in front of him, arms full of various things from the nearby apothecary that Jaskier cannot – and doesn’t want to – name.
“Yes,” he confirms.
Yennefer hums. “Unfortunate,” she says. “If this isn’t a dead end, and this is really her – it might take some effort to fix this.”
Jaskier shrugs, reaching out and taking a few things from her when they teeter a little. “I expected nothing less,” he says.
“Yes, well, I hope I’m wrong, but just to make sure – you do have a strong stomach, right?”
“Yes, Yennefer.” Jaskier snorts. “What part of decades travelling with a Witcher did you miss, dear heart?”
“None of it,” Yennefer rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately, your songs are catchy.”
Jaskier gasps, flinging a hand over his heart. “Oh, Yennefer, ” he exclaims, overdramatic entirely on purpose.
Yennefer rolls her eyes again. “Don’t push it, bard, you still need me around for this adventure.”