Archive of Our Own ^beta

Every tenth day, Marek comes to the hall. Theoretically it’s to submit a report on the condition of the estate; really it’s to help Jaskier with the accounts. Jaskier hates doing the accounts; one of the reasons he ran away was so he wouldn’t have to do them. Destiny, it seems, has a sense of humour. His entire life now is accounts, and harvests, and rental agreements, and taxes, and a continuous, crippling fear that he’s not going to make this work and everyone within a fifty-mile radius will die. It isn’t really what he wanted out of life.

The accounts involve maths, too. Jaskier hates maths. He can count the beats to a song, and that’s about all.

Marek, fortunately, is very good at maths, and over the last three years they have worked out a system where Marek does the accounts, and Jaskier pretends to understand them.

While Marek does magic with red and blue ink and a pile of tatty receipts, Jaskier stares out of the window and worries about the harvest. The weather has been kind this summer, and there’s no reason the fields shouldn’t deliver as planned. It’s been three years since the war, and the crops are only just back to normal. The first winter was nearly a famine; the second was lean. This year they should have enough to pay the tithes and keep some to store. They might actually get through to spring without anyone starving, if they’re lucky.

Jaskier’s fingers tighten on the windowsill. He did what he could, last year, gathered the grain in and shared it out equally. But he can’t be everywhere, and corruption still exists, and the rich survived while the poor died. He won’t let it happen again.

“Stop worrying about the harvest,” Marek says, from the desk.

“I can’t,” Jaskier tells him. “I don’t even know what I’m worrying about, what do I know about harvests? Maybe there’s a rot beetle at work in the barley, right now, and I’m standing here doing nothing.”

Marek comes to stand by him. “No such thing as rot beetles, my lord,” he says, face so straight that Jaskier knows he’s laughing quite hard on the inside.

“Plague then,” Jaskier says. “Barley plague, is that a thing?”

“No, my lord.”

“Oh, stop with the my lords and have a drink,” Jaskier says. “How are the accounts?”

“Balanced,” Marek says, whatever that means. He moves over to the armchair by the fire and waits for Jaskier to pour out two glasses of neat vodka. His face never gives much away but it softens imperceptibly when he sees Jaskier’s shaking hands. “The harvest will be fine,” he says. “It’s been a good summer, and my dad says the weather will hold, and he’s always right about these things. Better than an almanac, my dad.”

Jaskier’s met Marek’s dad. The man doesn’t like him much, thinks he’s ruined Marek by taking him off the farm and into management. But Marek’s right, he knows about the seasons.

“Well,” Jaskier says, and taps his glass against Marek’s. “Here’s to a better winter.”

Marek saved Jaskier’s life, that first autumn, when he was numb and scared and hiding in the hall with absolutely no fucking idea what to do. Everyone who knew how to manage an estate was either dead or had fled somewhere, and Jaskier could feel disaster pressing in without the first notion what to do about it. Marek came to beg for relief for the farmers in the south of the county, and even though he was barely in his twenties he was so clearly knowledgeable about the taxes he was meant to pay, and what Jaskier was meant to do with them, that he hired him on the spot.

If Jaskier could make Marek viscount he would; the man would do a damn sight better job of it. But Marek would only laugh on the outside if he suggested it, so Jaskier’s named him his heir in his will instead. Some nights, he cheers himself up by imagining Marek’s face when he finds out.

“What should I be worried about, then?” Jaskier asks, and Marek lifts an eyebrow at him.

“There are rumours of drowners in the woods by Ryn,” Marek says. “Not sure whether to credit it, yet, but there are also rumours of a witcher working his way through Redania, so if there are any, we should be able to deal with them soon enough. There are lots of beasts about this autumn, did you hear about the griffins in Kovir and the nekkers in Cidaris?”

There does seem to have been an upsurge in monsters; Jaskier’s heard about a plague of ghouls in what’s left of Cintra, too. “I think there are fewer witchers,” he says. “I’ve never met one, have you?” Marek shakes his head. “I came close once,” he adds. “I was in Posada years ago when they were looking to hire one, but I left before he arrived; they said there was a devil in the mountains so I decided not to linger. I always wanted to hear their stories. Maybe I’ll get the chance.”

Marek nods, politely. He’s one of the smartest people Jaskier’s ever known, a natural with figures, but he only had schooling till he was thirteen; he’d barely left his village before he came to petition the viscount and got Jaskier instead; and he’s still never been outside Lettenhove. He doesn’t mind when Jaskier rambles on about his travels and the tales he wanted to tell, but he doesn’t truly get it either.

Just once, he’d like to talk to someone who understands; but he doubts he’d get that unless he ran away again, and he has responsibilities he’s not willing to shake. If his father could see him now – Jaskier’s not sure if he’d be impressed or infuriated.

“And how’s our… other business?” Jaskier asks.

Marek swirls the vodka around in his glass. “Quiet,” he says. “A couple of letters in the usual place, they’re on the desk. Wanda and Szymon’s guest left last week; no news of any coming.” He pauses. “There are rumours of more soldiers on the roads, heading northwards, but I can’t tell yet if it’s the usual panic. It gets worse, in winter.”

It does. Every year, the number conscripted gets larger, the weeping after the lottery louder, and the panic more wild. Jaskier’s not sure what Nilfgaard even wants with these seventeen-year-olds. Who is there left to fight? The whole Continent rolled over with barely a whimper. The Brotherhood is broken and scattered; the northern states either conquered outright or meek vassals like Redania with puppet kings on the throne. There’s talk that the army is to cross the mountains, invade the desert, that they won’t stop till there’s nothing left free. It might be true. He tries not to think about it.

After Marek leaves, Jaskier pours another glass of vodka. He’s drinking too much, but there’s nothing else to do in this ridiculous empty house, with only an aged cook and an aged butler for company. Neither of them are much good at their jobs these days but they don’t want to leave, and Jaskier doesn’t want servants anyway. There’s a gatekeeper in the lodge, and he hires people on for the grounds and the stables, but they come and go as they please. It’s always quiet and empty in the hall at night, the silence echoing as he paces the rooms.

He never thought he’d return, and certainly not like this.

He was in Aedirn when Redania was sacked, and he’d turned round and walked right into the middle of it. He didn’t have any clear ideas of how he could help, but Oxenfurt was the closest thing he had to a home, and he couldn’t be anywhere else if there was a chance to defend it.

It was already over by the time he crossed the border, of course.

The Nilfgaardians picked him up with a bunch of other refugee stragglers near Rinde, interrogating people in order to send them back where they’d come from, promising there’d be peace. They were organised, Jaskier would give them that; their invasions were well practised by that point. He’d been through the villages they’d razed, though, and was doubtful about their intentions.

When they heard his name, they brought him to the troops’ commander, a pale man who seemed to revel more in paperwork than slaughter. He’d looked at a note in front of him, and asked, “Jaskier the bard, also known as Julian Pankratz, Viscount of Lettenhove?”

“My father’s the viscount,” Jaskier said.

The commander looked up. There was no expression on his face as he said, “Ah. In that case, my condolences.”

That was how he learned his father was dead.

He’d died leading his militia into battle, something he’d had no skill or practice in, during the first wave of the invasion. Two weeks later the Redanian king had vanished; his cousin was on the throne and agreeing to whatever kind of surrender Nilfgaard wanted; and Jaskier’s mother had thrown herself out of an attic window, loyal to the last.

It was two weeks after that when they ran across Jaskier in a refugee camp and told him he could be the viscount, under the terms of the peace treaty, or he could be dead. It wasn’t much of a choice, really.

He doesn’t hate it as much as he thought he would. He’s really trying to make people’s lives a bit less shit than they might be otherwise. But the anxiety about fucking it all up and causing everyone in his charge to burn never leaves him. And if he still plays his lute at night, dreaming of a different life – well, there’s no-one near enough to hear it.

In the following week there’s word of famine in Lyria, bandits come out of the mountains to attack Creyden, and closer to home it turns out there really are drowners in the woods by Ryn. A messenger comes to report two deaths. Two fewer men to bring in the harvest, Jaskier thinks, and then hates himself for thinking it. He signs off a hundred-crown bounty for the witcher, who’s apparently somewhere near Novigrad, and sends men to post news of the contract in nearby towns. He can always sell something else from the family chests, there’s a limit to how many necklaces a man needs.

Marek comes to sort out the accounts; there’s only one letter this time, but two guests need accommodating and Jaskier sends them to Piotr, up towards the north. He doesn’t like relying on the same people twice in a row. He writes two terrible ballads and one half-decent sonnet, and gets through another bottle of vodka. He suspects Marek is going to start drawing a line on the bottle if he carries on like this.

The weather holds, and they start bringing the crops in under a blazing sun, and Jaskier almost relaxes for a day or two.

The witcher takes the contract, kills the drowners, and comes to collect the coin after dinner a day later. Jan the butler shuffles into the small sitting room to announce his arrival, trembling so hard it takes Jaskier a few goes to understand. He’s a bit drunk already, which probably doesn’t help.

Jaskier goes out into the dark night, and almost bumps into the witcher, who’s dressed entirely in black. Only his pale hair and eyes are visible. He’s holding something that smells utterly foul which is dripping on the front lawn, making the grass steam.

“That’s disgusting,” Jaskier says, having just about managed to stop before rebounding off the witcher’s armour. “What is that?”

“Drowner’s head,” the witcher says. His voice is low, and gruff, and toneless. “Proof of death.”

“I don’t know whether to be shocked or appalled,” Jaskier says. “For gods’ sakes don’t bring it inside, the butler would kill me. You should come inside, though, I’ll sort the coin.”

He stumbles back up the stairs, and after a moment he hears the witcher put the head down – it makes a squelching noise – and follow him. His steps are almost soundless.

The small sitting room is only lit by a fire; he didn’t need anything else while he was sitting with his lute and his wine. Now he lights the candles on the table and the oil lamp on the mantle so he can see his first witcher properly. When he was eighteen, this would have been one of the most exciting moments of his life; he’s past forty now but it’s still something to enjoy.

The witcher is all black and white except for shining golden eyes. He looks tired, and sad, and slightly surprised for some reason. Jaskier knew all the stories about them being monsters in human masks were nonsense but it’s nice to be proved right.

“You’re the viscount,” the witcher says.

“Guilty as charged!” Jaskier says, brightly. “In theory you should address me as my lord, but let’s not stand on ceremony. Julian will do, or Jaskier if you prefer, that’s what they generally call me, not that there are many of ‘them’ left these days.” He turns to the chest on the far side of the room. “A hundred crowns, wasn’t it?”

The witcher makes a kind of strangled noise. “You… were a bard,” he says. “I’ve heard of you.”

Jaskier turns back, thrilled. “You have? How unusual.” He waves a dismissive hand when he sees the witcher about to speak. “No, don’t try and flatter me, I made a living but I was never that good. I probably could have been, if I’d worked at it, but I didn’t try that hard. More interested in wine and women than song, to be honest.” He unlocks the chest and finds the bag of coin he set aside, walks back to hold it out to the witcher, who takes it, looking – well, slightly constipated, frankly. “Are you all right?”

“I rode a way to get here,” the witcher says after a moment. He keeps… looking at Jaskier, it’s a bit unsettling. This is the longest conversation he’s had with anyone apart from Marek or Jan in months. And the man seems to have become even sadder, and he’s clearly as starved of company as Jaskier is, which might explain why the next thing Jaskier says is:

“Fancy a drink?”

He’s not sure why the witcher agrees; he doesn’t seem the social type. Maybe it’s been a while since he had an evening next to a fire. His clothes are filthy, Jaskier can see that much, even in the dim light. But he agrees. He takes his swords out of the double scabbards on his back, rests them within easy reach of the chair he chooses, and lets Jaskier give him a large glass of the red wine he opened this evening. He’s working his way through the cellars, and this one is pretty good.

“So what’s it like being a witcher?” Jaskier asks, when the silence has started to make him uncomfortable. The witcher’s still staring at him, which, rude. Jaskier’s fairly sure it should be the other way round.

“Violent,” the witcher says. “Lonely. Painful. What’s it like being a viscount?”

“Lots of maths,” Jaskier says and then – and he’s not sure why, really, he blames it on the booze and the stress and the fact that the harvest might actually be good this year – he puts his head into his hands and starts crying.

He doesn’t hear the witcher move, but then he’s there, and he’s… hugging Jaskier, which is quite unexpected, but also quite unexpectedly nice. His armour is solid, and the body beneath warm, and also Jaskier can’t remember the last time anyone touched him. So he decides not to question it, and just lets himself cry for a while, until the leather is soggy underneath his face and embarrassment wins over the tears.

He sits back, wipes his eyes, and says, “sorry, don’t know what came over me there.”

“Hmmm,” says the witcher. He’s crouched in front of Jaskier, arms at his sides now, but clearly not about to move away.

“You’re a good hugger,” Jaskier says. “I wouldn’t have thought that was a witchery skill. Gods, I don’t even know your name, where are my manners.”

“It’s Geralt,” says the witcher, looking at Jaskier intently. Jaskier frowns at him, because the name is familiar, and then he remembers—

“The Butcher of Blaviken!”

The witcher winces. “No,” he says, with a finality Jaskier can recognise, tipsy though he is.

“Fair enough,” Jaskier says, “I’m not sure I’d want that name either. Geralt, then, nice to meet you, Geralt. Sorry I cried on you. It’s a bit lonely being a viscount too, you see.”

The witcher makes that humming noise again, a low rumble in his throat, and sits down on the rug in front of the fire. “Tell me about it,” he says.

And Jaskier does. He drinks two more glasses of wine, finishing the bottle, and talks more that evening than he’s done in years: about his parents, leaving, the years on the road, his coerced return and the worry he feels continually – about not having enough to pay the tithes and taxes, about Nilfgaard asking for more coin and conscripts every spring, about his own death, if it comes violently or suddenly, and what will happen to his people after. “They didn’t use to be my people,” he explains, muzzily. “Didn’t want ‘em. Still don’t, truly, but – here we are – and I’m trying, all right? I’m trying.”

“I know,” the witcher says, gentler than Jaskier thought he would be. Time skips, and the witcher is walking him upstairs, and he feels a little sick and heady, the world in a constant fall around him.

The witcher settles him on his bed and Jaskier throws an arm out, captures his hand. “Stay,” he pleads.

He can’t see the witcher’s eyes in the darkness. “You’re drunk,” he says.

“I didn’t mean… not here. But there’s loads of rooms. Stay the night, sleep.”

“Hmmm,” the witcher says and turns to go, and Jaskier passes out wondering if that meant yes.

The morning dawns clear and bright, in direct contrast to his head, which is muddled and slow. He pieces things back together. The witcher, the wine, the talking. His throat feels raw with it and he’s troubled at how natural it was, to speak for hours without worrying about what he was saying, who could hear. Geralt’s an outcast, he reassures himself; no one likes witchers, the Nilfgaardians even less than others. He’s hardly going to run to Trelogor and tell tales to the king.

Still, he’s somewhat relieved, after he’s washed and dressed and gone downstairs, to see that the witcher hasn’t gone yet – the two swords are propped up in the small living room where he left them. Jaskier eats some of the bread and honey that Oliwia put out, and goes outside, eventually finding him in the stables, talking to a chestnut mare with a blaze on her forehead.

Jaskier clears his throat and the man turns. The horse does too, whickering slightly when she sees him.

“Careful,” the witcher says. “She bites.”

“She’s lovely,” Jaskier says, coming forward a couple of steps, out of biting range. “What’s her name?”

The witcher tenses, as if something’s upset him, and then relaxes again. “Roach,” he says.

Jaskier blinks. “That’s a terrible name.”

“So I’ve been told,” the witcher says, his uncanny eyes fixed on Jaskier in a way he finds profoundly disturbing, and also rather attractive.

“Well, it’s your business,” Jaskier says, politely. “Where are you off to next? Can I give you some food for your journey?”

“What I really want is answers,” the witcher says. “And I have a feeling you’re good with stories. Mind if I ask a few questions?”

This is shaping up to be a really strange couple of days, but since Jaskier’s days are usually so boring he could weep, he doesn’t mind it. He waves an accommodating hand. “Of course, but, if you don’t mind, perhaps outside? The smell of horseshit isn’t doing great things for my hangover.”

The witcher grunts, and follows him back across the lawn to the hall. There’s a table and chairs round the back, with a view across the formal gardens to the meadows beyond, and Jaskier sits himself down. After a few minutes Jan creaks outside with well-water in clay mugs and a plateful of pastries, shaking his head over the unconventional guest.

“What did you want to know?” Jaskier asks around a mouthful of apple dumpling. Oliwia can’t season savoury food for shit, but she’s an excellent baker.

There’s a long silence. When he looks over the witcher has his eyes shut tight, his whole body seeming pained. Jaskier realises he wants to soothe him, and the strength of feeling surprises him. He’s been too long without company.

“What happened?” the witcher says finally.

Jaskier blinks. “That’s quite a big question. I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific.”

“With Nilfgaard,” the witcher clarifies, growling slightly. “It shouldn’t – it didn’t happen like this.”

“Shouldn’t I’d maybe agree with,” Jaskier says, after checking Jan is out of earshot. “But I fear it definitely did.”

“Tell me,” the witcher says, and like the night before, Jaskier feels strangely compelled. He explains that, in hindsight, the first stone that fell was Cintra; that all anyone knows is something happened at the princess Pavetta’s betrothal that left the castle in ruins, and assorted nobles and heirs of ten countries dead, including Queen Calenthe.

Not long after, the regime in Nilfgaard was overthrown, and the new emperor – after consolidating his control in what sounded, from a distance, like a long and bloody campaign of murder and revenge – took advantage of the still-uncertain power structures and embarked on the slow conquering of the Continent. First Toussaint and Cintra, then Angren, Lyria and Rivia, then back up the east coast to Cidaris; then a dual invasion of Aedirn and across the Yaruga at Sodden Hill, and at that point Temaria surrendered and then Redania fell.

The year after Jaskier returned to Lettenhove, their armies took Kaedwen and the Hengfors League, and now all that remains are a few small keeps in the distant mountains, and the dryads of Brokilon, who stay in their forests and don’t interfere with the struggles of men.

“And no one tried to stop them,” the witcher says. “Not the Brotherhood, not the armies of the north—”

“They tried,” Jaskier says, lightly. “They say the mages held the pass at Sodden till the last of them fell. It wasn’t enough. My father died in battle along with thousands of others when they came for Redania. But Nilfgaard had half the Continent for cannon fodder, by then; there was never any chance.”

“And now they have the other half,” the witcher says, and Jaskier shrugs, as if to say, what can you do? The silence stretches between them, and he tries to block out what he saw on the road through Redania: the burned bodies; the screaming of those not yet dead.

“How is it you don’t know this?” he asks eventually. “Have you been under a rock?”

“People don’t talk to me,” the witcher says. “Spit, and throw stones, but answer questions? No.”

Jaskier swallows against the sadness of that. His life doesn’t seem so bad, in contrast. “But it’s been going on over a decade; haven’t you seen any of it? Even witchers must hear about politics somehow.”

The man grunts. “Do they – is there ever word of a child? A Cintran princess?”

Jaskier shivers. He feels, obscurely, like this conversation is dangerous, like it only needs one wrong step and he’ll be cast into some terrible darkness. “The truth is, no one knows,” he says. “The story is that whatever happened at the betrothal, Pavetta survived long enough to give birth to a monster. They say the Nilfgaardians have the child now, that they fight and die because she wants the whole world, and when they’ve finished conquering it for her, she’ll eat it.” He opens and closes his fingers, mimicking a hungry maw. It’s a good story. It’s certainly nonsense: people scrabbling for a meaning for the shit they endure. A power-hungry emperor is just too mundane without a fairytale alongside.

“Fuck,” the witcher says. He murmurs something, softly, perhaps a name, but it’s too quiet for Jaskier to hear. “This is wrong,” he adds. “The world is wrong.”

“No argument from me,” Jaskier tells him. “I much preferred being a bard to a viscount in service to a tyrant.”

“I didn’t mean—” There’s a wordless sound of frustration. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. I should go.”

Jaskier looks at him. He’s scarred, and scary, and yet he put Jaskier to bed last night so tenderly, and he’s the first person he’s had an honest conversation with in years. Marek’s probably his closest friend, but he’s also in his pay, and it’s not like they ever talk about their feelings. “Do you have to?” he asks, touching his tongue to the corner of his mouth and batting his eyelashes for good measure.

The witcher looks at him for a long time. “You don’t know me,” he says.

“This is true,” says Jaskier. “But you seem like a noble enough fellow, Geralt, and if you have no objections, I’d very much like to suck your cock.”

The witcher startles, just barely, but Jaskier’s watching pretty closely. “Well. That’s to the point.”

“The thing is,” Jaskier explains, “I’ve not tumbled anyone since last spring in Trelogor. I can’t proposition anyone here in case they feel they have to say yes, and there’s only so much one’s own hand can do. And I’m past forty, and I don’t see why I should wait to ask for what I want.” He stops talking, and stares off at the meadows in the distance. Clouds are gathering in the distance, rain maybe. He hopes it’s not a storm.

“All right then,” the witcher says. Jaskier raises an eyebrow at him. “Been a while since I had anyone willing, either.”

“Fantastic!” Jaskier says, and gets up, goes to kneel in front of the witcher’s chair, and works to unlace the ties of his leather trousers. He’s already a little hard, and Jaskier pushes his legs wider, pressing down through the material as he manouvres the witcher’s cock out of his smallclothes till it stands flush in the open air. “It’s huge,” he says, admiringly, and bends over.

If he does say it himself, Jaskier’s excellent at blowjobs – a key skill in taverns and courts across the land, if you want to get paid well. The witcher certainly seems to appreciate him, grunting and rocking forwards as Jaskier flicks his tongue over the head, and then slides his lips down the shaft, his other hand rubbing at his balls under the leather. He loses himself in it, the smell and taste of come and sweat and musky flesh – the man really could do with washing more often – and the witcher fists a hand in his hair, controlling his movements firmly but gently as he builds and thrusts and finally lets go.

Jaskier licks at the softening cock until it’s done spurting, and then sits back, a little spray of semen caught on the side of his mouth, smiling widely at the witcher, feeling almost dizzy with pleasure.

“Hmmm,” Geralt says – he can’t keep thinking of him as the witcher, not when he’s had his cock down his throat. “Your turn?”

“Seems only fair,” Jaskier says, a little hoarse, and Geralt lifts him bodily, turns him round and sits him down on his lap. He holds him firmly with one arm, bites at Jaskier’s neck while his other hand fumbles into Jaskier’s trousers to free him – fully erect since midway through the blowjob – then spits into his palm, and starts to stroke him off.

Jaskier comes embarrassingly quickly, head thrown back into Geralt’s shoulder, whole body pressed against warm leather and lean muscle. His spend patters onto the porch, and he tells himself he really ought to clean it before Oliwia despairs of him even more than she already does. His legs are weak and trembling, but it doesn’t matter; Geralt’s still holding him tight and for a moment Jaskier hopes that he’ll never let him go.

It doesn’t last, of course. He mouths at Jaskier’s neck a final time, pulls him in a little closer, and then releases him. Jaskier stands, only a little unsteady, and tucks himself away. “Now you can go,” he says, trying to make it light, funny.

Behind him Geralt says, “There’s someone else I need to find. But I’d… I’ll come back, if I may.”

Jaskier turns to smile at him. “You can come as many times as you like, darling,” he says, but the joke falls flat when he sees Geralt’s face, the desperate yearning and loss in his eyes. He turns away, embarrassed. The man must be positively starved for affection, if that’s how he reacts to a simple sucking.

“Who are you looking for, anyway?” he asks, for something to say, as Geralt stands, rearranges himself and re-ties his laces.

“A mage. Yennefer of Vengerburg. You know her?”

He shrugs. He never paid much attention to mages, apart from the ones at court and the ones who died at Sodden, and her name isn’t familiar from either list. “I don’t.”

“Or… Triss Merigold, perhaps, how about her?”

His heart speeds up, but the blood it sends spiralling round his body is icy. Fuck. Fuck! He can’t believe— why the fuck did he let his guard down, thinking with his cock like a teenager, assuming a stranger might not be an enemy. He should have known better. “No, nor her,” he lies.

The witcher stares at him, face blank now, as if he can tell it’s not true. But in the end he just nods, and takes his leave.

Jaskier gives him an hour’s grace before he saddles the fastest horse in the stable and rides like hell towards the exchange point. It’s about two hours away if you gallop as often as you dare; normally Marek does the pick ups and drop offs, as part of his usual inspection rounds. It’s less notable that way, but Jaskier doesn’t have time to worry about being noted. He needs to get the warning out, fast.

The exchange is in a tree, still standing though half-dead since a lightning strike when he was a child. The fire opened up a hollow in its centre, just wide enough for a man to reach his hand in. There’s nothing waiting for him within, so he pushes in his own note, stretching till he feels the tingle at his wrist that means he’s got it through the portal in the back of the trunk before letting go.

Triss herself had come up with the idea, she told him, when she came to show him how it worked. Permanent portals, powered by what remains of the tree or other living thing they’re buried in, allowing letters to pass between them. Triss is one of the few survivors of Sodden Hill, and one of the two names he knows in the network, though he doubts she’s in charge. Safer if each spoke on the wheel knows only a few others – that way, if Nilfgaard finds any of them, the damage will be limited.

It was the Countess de Stael of all people who recruited him, a few months after that first terrible winter, sending him a letter in the code they’d once used to avoid her husband’s scrutiny. It didn’t take him long to agree. He could do so little, but he could do this. His part is small enough, merely passing on gossip and rumour, moving people and weapons safely through his lands when required. He doesn’t know how any of it fits into the wider plan, or even if there is a wider plan. He hopes so. Some days that hope is the only thing keeping him standing.

The note he sent through, scribbled in haste back at the hall, reads: ‘The witcher Geralt of Rivia visited Lettenhove. Asked after Triss Merigold and Yennefer of Vengerburg. Advice if he returns? For what my opinion is worth, he didn’t seem malign.’ He couldn’t resist the last sentence. He’s a fool, he may be easily fooled, but… the despair in Geralt’s voice felt genuine. And they won’t risk anything on his word. It’s safe enough.

He rides back slower than he came, reaching the hall not long before sunset. He hands the horse over to a stableboy, remembering with a sudden flush that he never cleaned up the mess he made on the porch. He hopes Jan and Oliwia’s fading eyesight means they missed it.

He turns the corner round the side of the hall and sees Marek waiting for him at the door. It’s not his day to come, it’s been two days since he was there last, and Jaskier starts running. A million things turn over in his mind: another monster, a disaster with the crops, an army at the gates, Geralt. He’s out of breath by the time he reaches the steps up to the entrance, and his heart sinks further when he sees Marek’s pale face.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“There’s a messenger,” Marek says, whispering, nodding inside the hall.

Jaskier nods, squares his shoulders and marches in like he owns the place, which, of course, he does. Marek must have learned of the messenger and come to alert him, but not fast enough to beat them here.

The messenger is waiting in the small dining room, standing to attention by the fire. He’s wearing the black armour of Nilfgaard, polished to a shiny glow – a noble, no doubt, too precious to be sent to fight and die like the rest of them. “Julian Pankratz?” he asks.

Jaskier nods, keenly aware of the dust on his clothes, crumpled from riding. He’s still hungover, for fuck’s sake, could he look more suspicious? But the soldier just hands out an envelope. “A message, my lord.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier manages, and tears it open messily. He reads the letter. Reads it again, because the first time he couldn’t believe it. Reads it a third time to be sure.

“Any reply?” the soldier asks. There’s a small smile lurking on the edge of his lips.

“Tell… tell your master we are honoured, of course,” Jaskier stammers, eventually. “We’ll expect the party. At their convenience.”

The soldier nods, and leaves, and Jaskier stands lost in the room, heart still hammering, sunk somewhere low in his gut. It’s been a day of disaster, he sees that now. First the witcher, now this.

Marek comes in ten minutes later; no doubt waiting till he saw the soldier safely off the grounds. “What is it?” he asks, when he sees Jaskier frozen, dread clear in his voice.

“We’re fucked,” Jaskier tells him, and hands him the letter.

He watches as Marek’s pale face drains even paler. “This must be wrong,” he says.

“I know.”

“It says the emperor is coming here. The emperor, Jaskier!”

“I know.”

“Even if – even if he has the smallest of retinues, we’ll have to find room and board, and a feast worthy of his majesty, and— this will ruin us!”

“It will,” Jaskier agrees. Funny how calm he feels suddenly. When you’ve waited so long for the axe to fall, it’s almost a relief when it does. “But I very much fear the entertainment bill is the least of our problems.”

“Oh,” Marek says. “Oh, fuck.”

“Mmmm,” Jaskier says. At this precise moment there are three escaped prisoners of Nilfgaard in his lands, all waiting for their escort out whether by carriage or portal; not to mention several caches of weapons hidden in the homes of various families who lost people in the invasion, or sons to the draft. Any or all of which could be found, if Nilfgaard descends on Lettenhove as it’s apparently about to do.

“I’ll go to the portal, get the word out,” Marek says.

“In the morning,” Jaskier tells him. “And take care. Make sure you’re not followed. I’d go myself, but—”

“But it’s fair to assume you’re being watched, if they’re coming,” Marek finishes for him. “I don’t understand – why now? Why you?”

“I have no idea,” Jaskier tells him, falling into a chair, contemplating fetching the vodka and then thinking better of it. He’ll need a clear head from this point on. It does seem odd. Even if they had suspicions of his involvement in what can, charitably, be called the anti-Nilfgaardian resistance, surely they’d just kill him. It doesn’t make sense that they’d send the emperor. He travels the royal courts, not rural backwaters. “Marek, you have to be careful, all right? Send the warning and then go home to your family and don’t come back here till this passes. Whatever happens, promise you’ll stay away.”

“My lord,” Marek says, unhappy, and Jaskier smiles at him.

“I named you as my heir,” he says. “I’ll tear the will up, now, don’t want you getting into trouble if this goes the way I expect it to. I just wanted you to know.”

“You’re an idiot,” Marek tells him. There are tears in his eyes.

“It’s true,” Jaskier says, “and I hope no one else will suffer for it. You’d better go.”

Marek hovers, uncertainly, and for a moment Jaskier wonders if he’ll embrace him, but in the end he just sticks out his hand, and Jaskier shakes it with a nod, and then he leaves.

I’ll probably never see him again, Jaskier thinks, and it’s an awful thought so he puts it out of his mind. He’s starving, suddenly. He goes into the kitchen and reheats the stew on the range. He’ll need to find a better cook than Oliwia for the banquet he’ll have to throw for the emperor.

Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, ruler of all the known world, has decided to visit a provincial nowhere, one of the least of his holdings. Marek’s right, it makes no sense.

He remembers what Geralt said, only this morning but it now seems an age away: the world is wrong. Jaskier’s never doubted it, but it feels more true than ever. For an instant he wonders if Geralt’s arrival could be connected with the emperor’s but that seems more unlikely still; what would an emperor care about a witcher? No, Geralt’s right: the world is wrong, and a one-time bard is about to host the most powerful man in the Continent, and he really doesn’t think he’s going to get out of this intact.

He might make a good song out of it before he dies, though.

The next two days pass faster than he can ever remember time moving before. He calls in anyone who can be spared to clean the hall from top to bottom; places orders with the finest merchants in Oxenfurt for wine and food; and hires the kitchen staff from the best local inn to cook it. The best inn isn’t that good, but there’s a limit to what he can pull off quickly. It costs all the coin he’s been setting aside for leaner times, but Lettenhove can survive lean times. It can’t survive the emperor getting insulted at their hospitality and deciding to burn the fields, salt the land, and enslave the populace.

Word comes of flooding in the Skellige Isles, an earthquake in Toussaint, plague in Kerack, as if the rest of the continent is reflecting the disaster that Jaskier fears is about to strike his home. But in Lettenhove the early rains are light, and the harvest continues without incident.

On the third day, he’s sitting outside while the floors get a final polish, halfheartedly digging weeds out of the packed earth of the drive, when a portal opens two feet away and the Redanian court mage steps through. Stregobor, his name is. Every spring, he stands next to the king when all the lesser nobles arrive to render what they owe, and you can tell he’s getting off on the power of it. Jaskier doesn’t care for him.

“My dear viscount Julian,” he says, smiling a wide, smug smile.

“My lord Stregobor,” Jaskier says. He has no idea if that’s how you’re meant to address a court mage, he never did pay much attention to courtesies, but he figures it can’t hurt. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

“Ah, well, when an illustrious guest is passing through my territory, I just like to check all is in order, let the fortunate host know what’s expected.”

“Please,” Jaskier tells him, standing up. “Enlighten me.” He’s tempted to ask what the fuck the emperor is doing, coming here, but he’s fairly sure he won’t get a straight answer.

He leads Stregobor on a meandering route round the grounds, half listening to a long list of requirements about food, linen, protocol, filing the details away somewhere in his head while the larger part of him wonders why the man looks quite so pleased with himself.

“You must be delighted,” Stregobor tells him at the end of his recitation, a twinkle in his eye, like he’s pretending to be a fond uncle, not a man who could kill Jaskier without breaking a sweat. “To receive the emperor!”

“It’s a great honour,” Jaskier says, resisting the urge to add, and one which will bankrupt me and mine entirely. “I can’t wait to have the privilege of meeting him.”

“He’s a great man,” Stregobor says. “A fine man. You’ll see.”

“I’m sure I shall,” Jaskier responds through gritted teeth, his cheeks starting to ache from the false smile he’s been holding all this time. “In the meantime, my lord, could I offer you any refreshments? It’s a hot day.”

“Please,” Stregobor says, and follows Jaskier into the hall, side-stepping the various cleaning buckets and rags with an air of not noticing anything beneath his dignity. “Such a lovely place you’ve got here. Quite bucolic, you were even gardening when I arrived! Delicious.”

It’s an odd word to use, and there’s something sharp and sly in his tone that sends a shiver up Jaskier’s spine. Like an old wolf in a child’s tale: I’m going to eat you up. But perhaps this is just what mages are like, not quite human. Jaskier’s only ever met Triss, he doesn’t have much to go on.

He shows Stregobor into the small sitting room and pours him a glass of the Toussaint red. The mage’s eyes rove round the room, judging, considering, until they fall on Jaskier’s lute, propped in a corner. He hasn’t played since the night Geralt came, hasn’t even thought about it.

“That’s a fine instrument,” Stregobor says, chuckling slightly.

“It is,” Jaskier says. “It served me well, in a different life.”

“Yes,” Stregobor says. He sips at his drink, teeth showing slightly, more like a predator than ever. “I hope it continues to serve well in this life too.”

The words aren’t weird, but his voice… Oh, Jaskier really doesn’t like his voice, it’s like something slimy has crawled out of the undergrowth and spoken. Warm and slippery and wrong. He can’t quite hold back his shudder.

“I’m sure it will,” he says, after a long moment, and the mage smiles even more widely, and stands up.

“I must be going. Congratulations on your hard work, it all appears in order. I look forward to accompanying the emperor here tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” He thought they had at least a week; he has men posted ready to alert him when the entourage gets close and there’s been no word yet.

“Portals, you see,” Stregobor tells him, waving a hand airily. “So much more convenient than trudging along in the dust.”

“Of course. Well. Tomorrow then,” Jaskier says, feeling quite proud that he keeps the scream building in his lungs safely tucked behind his teeth for as long as it takes to walk the man outside and bow to him as he leaves. Then he does let it out. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

They can do it – just about – if the emperor doesn’t mind that the full feast won’t be the first night – but, ah, fuck it, why is he even trying to impress him? Neither he nor Lettenhove are particularly impressive. He’ll just have to hope this is some random visit so the man can put the fear of, well, him, into his vassals, and not something more calculated. If he’s actually got a reason, there’s nothing Jaskier can do about it anyway. And he’s not going to run.

He’s so busy contemplating the food they have in store and the time it’ll take to prepare it, not to mention getting the freshly washed linen on the master bed, that he doesn’t notice the horse till it’s right next to him.

“What the fuck was Stregobor doing here?” the witcher growls at him.

Jaskier is having a really bad day and he thinks he can be forgiven jumping backwards and squealing in what feels an extremely undignified way. “Fuck Stregobor! What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I said I’d come back,” Geralt says, dismounting. His voice is flat, as if they’d agreed on a plan and he’s hurt Jaskier forgot about it.

“But not, like, in two days! Little busy here, in case you hadn’t noticed!” He gestures at the women running in and out of the hall, the wide open windows fluttering with tablecloths drying in the sun.

“What’s going on?” asks Geralt.

“Oh, nothing, just the little matter of a surprise royal visit.” Jaskier decides it’s very much time for a drink and turns back into the house, not at all surprised when the witcher follows him all the way into the small sitting room. He picks up Stregobor’s unfinished glass, drains it, pours another.

“You’re drinking too much,” Geralt says mildly.

“I will drink exactly as much as I please!” Jaskier yells back. “What the fuck! You turn up, and you ask after Triss Merigold, and then the emperor announces his imminent arrival? This has all happened in a week! A week, Geralt! Last week my main concern was the weather, and this week I have to worry about getting executed for treason if I use the wrong sort of knife!”

Geralt goes very still. Stiller. He wasn’t exactly moving much to begin with, unlike Jaskier, who’s practically vibrating. “The emperor’s coming?”

Jaskier sits down in one of the armchairs and folds over till his forehead’s resting on his knees. “Tomorrow,” he says, muffled.

He hears Geralt kneeling down before him, the creak of leather and shifting metal. He rests a hand on Jaskier’s head, soothing. “You should come with me. Today.”

“I can’t,” Jaskier says, looking up at him. “I have a job to do. It’s a shitty job and I hate it and I wish it had fallen to anyone but me, but it didn’t. So I’m doing it if it kills me, as I suspect it will.”

Geralt looks frustrated. “I wish I could explain,” he says. “I wish I knew how to. I wish you remembered. Listen.” He pauses. “What were you doing a month ago?”

Jaskier’s not sure why he should bother answering, but he does anyway. “Well. This, or something like it, probably. Sitting around, being useless, fretting about things I can’t control.”

“I was in Blaviken.” He stares at Jaskier, almost despairing. “My friend Yennefer and I – we were looking for another friend of ours, he’d been taken by that arsehole Stregobor. We got as far as his tower when there was a stink of magic, and when I woke up I was halfway across the Continent and the world had changed. It took a month to get here, and now I’ve found Yen, and she’s coming, and we can figure it out. I hope.” He closes his mouth, breathing heavily, as if this is a particularly long speech, which by his standards it might be. “But you need to come with me. Now, today.”

“No,” Jaskier says. Nothing Geralt is saying means anything to him; he can see he’s desperate, but it’s not his problem.

He can also see Geralt is furious, though his expression barely changes. “I could make you come.”

“You did that already, it was lovely,” Jaskier reminds him, and then when Geralt glares he sighs and says, “Look, I have responsibilities, and I don’t know you, and I don’t really trust you, so.”

Something in the witcher’s face crumples. It’s kind of heartbreaking, actually, so Jaskier looks away to ignore it better.

After a moment, Geralt gives him a curt nod, gets up, turns around, then stops abruptly. “Wait. The lute.”

Jaskier blinks a little at this sudden change in direction. “Yes? I did tell you I used to be a bard.”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was… a gift,” he says, rubbing at his temples; he can feel a headache coming on. Day drinking is always a bad idea.

“Who from?”

“I—” How weird, he can’t remember. He knows it was given to him, but the rest of the story is lost, somehow, like there’s a gap in his mind. “I’m – not sure.”

Geralt is staring at him again, his eyes intense, almost glowing. “It’s Filavandrel’s lute. You shouldn’t have it. If we never— How do you have it?”

Jaskier gapes back. “Filavandrel, as in, the king of the elves? Geralt, I don’t know what you’ve been taking, but I promise, wherever I got it, it wasn’t in a fairytale.”

“Hmmm,” the witcher says. He stands looking down at him for a long time; he looks exhausted and determined. “Jaskier. I’m going to wait for Yennefer to arrive and then we’re coming back, all right? I promise. I will always come for you. Don’t get yourself killed in the meantime.”

He’s all set to make a flippant remark, but something stops him, the pain in that golden glare and the sincerity in his words, odd though they are.

“I’ll try,” he says instead, and sits mindlessly for a while after the witcher leaves, for as long as he can get away with, until the pressure of his to-do list calls him back to himself.

Geralt is long gone by then, and Jaskier realises, ridiculously, that he misses him. He shakes the feeling away, and gets to work.

And then it is the following evening, and he’s standing outside his front door with men carrying torches to light the drive, and the portal opens and his guests come through.

The emperor’s retinue – the soldiers, anyway – are already stationed all over the estate, billeted in the nearest inns and houses a mile around. The men and women walking out of the portal are nobles of Nilfgaard and Redania, twenty or thirty of them, dressed in the latest fashions. At their head, Stregobor is wearing a crimson velvet tunic, a splash of colour next to the emperor, who’s dressed all in black: silk and linen with white lace at his cuffs, pale skin, black hair, burning black eyes. The power rolls off him, and Jaskier almost buckles under it.

But it’s his home, and so he steps forwards and bows to greet his liege lord. “Welcome to Lettenhove, your highness,” he says, keeping his voice warm and light. He’s been in enough courts, he knows the rules of this game. Smile, scrape, hide.

The Emperor is on a step below, looking up at him. His eyes are dark enough to drown in. “I’m glad to be here,” he says, his voice rich and deep. “Julian, is it? Or do you still go by Jaskier?”

“Whatever my lord prefers,” Jaskier says, a little surprised, but he supposes this is another show of power, an ‘I know everything about you’ statement.

“Jaskier, then,” the emperor says. “I’m only sorry I couldn’t be with you sooner, Jaskier.” He smiles, a thin thing as if at a private joke, and Jaskier struggles to keep any trace of the horror rolling through him from appearing on his face. This is… wrong. Something truly, terribly wrong is happening here, and like a nightmare all he can do is let it play out.

He shows them into the banqueting hall, apologising for the poor decorations and in advance for the meagre fare, and the emperor simply looks about, intrigued, while Stregobor smirks next to him. He takes his place next to the emperor at the head of the table, as protocol demands, and the rest of the nobles arrange themselves and sit. Ten soldiers stand against the walls. The waiters come to pour wine and carry bowls for the guests to dip their fingers in, and a low hum of conversation rises among the candlelight and still night air.

The emperor takes a sip of the white wine. “It seems you spared no expense,” he says drily.

“We don’t have much,” Jaskier says, “but what we have is yours.”

“Yes,” the emperor says, those dead eyes fixed on him. “Everything I want, I take.”

“As is only correct,” Jaskier says, stumbling – are they not even playing at being polite? What is the man doing?

They eat, the clatter of knives preventing further conversation. He can barely swallow, his mouth’s so dry, but he daren’t touch the alcohol. He needs to try and understand, to take note of everything.

After the first course, the emperor sits back lazily in his chair, swirls the wine in his glass and says, “did they teach you the great man theory of history at Oxenfurt, bard?”

Jaskier’s mouth drops open. Just a bit. “I. Um. I must confess, your highness, I wasn’t the most attentive student. Perhaps you could…”

“There are two theories of history, you see,” the emperor says. “One claims that life is chaos, that revolutions and wars are merely the visible, explosive result of years of small changes, or grievances, or missteps. The other posits that the world revolves around great men, who hold destiny in their hands and whip events in the direction they choose. Which do you think is right?”

There’s no doubting which view the emperor holds. Jaskier says, “to be truthful, I’ve always considered myself… destiny adjacent.”

The emperor barks a sudden laugh, shrill and cold. “You are absolutely right. More than you know. And yet even the smallest pebble…” He looks at Stregobor, who’s been eating and drinking steadily and keeping his own counsel otherwise. “Enough of this,” he says. “The time for illusion is past, I believe.”

Stregobor sighs. “We could have waited for the meat course,” he complains, and waves a hand. Jaskier tenses, expecting – he’s not sure – pain, probably. But instead there’s only silence.

He turns away from the emperor and finds himself gazing at an empty table. The chattering nobles, with their bright clothes and shining features, are all gone; whisked away into nothingness; their plates untouched.

He thought he’d been frightened before. He realises now that that fear was a pale thing, merely a dream imitation of the terror that keeps him frozen where he sits.

“Come,” the emperor says, and stands. “I have a gift for you, as an appreciative guest should.” He walks out of the room, and Jaskier stumbles after, not seeing any alternative, pulse thundering in his ears. Two of the soldiers peel away from the walls and fall into step behind him.

In the entrance hall, two more soldiers are standing over a bundle of cloth by the door. It stirs, and one of them tugs it upright, and Jaskier falls to his knees, a sob bursting out of him.

It’s Marek. Bruised, bloody, broken: his eyes sealed mostly shut, his face a swollen monstrosity, his body bent in ways no human’s should be.

They must have taken him the same morning he went to the portal. While Jaskier was racing around with brooms and bedlinen and menus, his good friend was being tortured.

He hears a moan, and thinks it must be Marek, and then realises it’s him. The sound punching out of his lungs. All these years he tried, and tried, and oh, how he’s failed.

“Marek,” he says. The emperor moves behind him, places his cold, cold fingers on his shoulders. “Oh gods, Marek.”

“Found this one communicating with your sworn enemies, my lord,” one of the soldiers says, sounding delighted. He kicks at Marek’s chest, and Marek releases a kind of whimper, a choked off noise from a place beyond pain.

“At my orders,” Jaskier says, loudly, desperately. “At my orders! He was only doing what I told him – please – it’s me you should be punishing, not him, please.”

“I leave you alone for a month,” the emperor hisses into his ear, “and you’re already getting in trouble.”

“Yes,” he says, the words not really making sense, but then what about this does? “I did it, it was me. Please, let him go!”

“He sang well,” the soldier says, with relish. “We have the names. The Countess de Stael, the sorceress Merigold.”

Jaskier braces himself for more, but the silence stretches. He meets Marek’s half-closed eyes. He gave them what was safe; the ones he’d warned. The ones who could, maybe, protect themselves. Not Wanda or Piotr or Szymon or Pawel or the dozens of others who hosted refugees, hid weapons and coin, and have no way of running.

“Sorry, my lord,” Marek whispers, and Jaskier mouths, thank you. There are tears in his eyes, spilling over.

“Let him go,” he says. “You want me – ” because the emperor does, he knows it, he doesn’t understand it but he’s certain – “not him, please, leave him out of it.”

“Jaskier,” Marek says. His voice is halting and hoarse, it clearly costs him to talk, so Jaskier shuts up and listens. “There was... note. Trust him.”

It takes a moment, his thoughts hurtling back. The question he’d asked, four days back. Advice for if the witcher returned. And they’d answered. Trust him.

He should have gone, when Geralt asked. Too late now.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He locks eyes with Marek, trying to convey everything he’s feeling. His thanks, his anger, his guilt, his love.

Marek nods at him, a dip of the head so brief it’s barely there.

And then the soldier behind him slits his throat.

Jaskier knows he cries out, a wordless howl of grief and rage, but he can’t hear it over the beating of his heart and the sound of Marek falling forward, quite softly. The blood spreads, a slow tide heading Jaskier’s way, glinting wet in the candlelight. He tears at the hands on him, iron and cold, tries to reach his friend, is held back.

“Enough,” the emperor says, and he sees Stregobor moving out of the corner of his eye, and then there’s nothing at all.

Awareness comes slowly. His body first: the press of a pillow against his back, soft sheets against bare legs. An itch at his wrists and ankles, some kind of weight. His mouth is dry; his head aching. He goes to swallow, lick his lips, and meets resistance: cloth tight across his tongue. He chokes, and his mind wakes, and he remembers.

The emperor and his unreal entourage, like it was all a joke to him. Marek as the punchline.

He doesn’t want to open his eyes, but the tears make him blink.

He’s propped up against the headboard of what had been his parents’ bed, in the master bedroom he could never bear to use. Someone’s taken off his doublet, his breeches, leaving him in shirt and smallclothes. He tries to bring his legs up to cover himself but his ankles are tied to the posts at the end of the bed, his wrists to the ones on either side, leaving him with barely an inch of movement. He thrashes, once, instinctively, and then tells himself to calm the fuck down. Panic won’t help. He’s not sure anything will help but he won’t be weak in front of them. He’ll fight till they kill him too.

“Good morning,” the emperor says, and Jaskier snarls at the sound of his voice, hoping it covers the drumming of his racing heart.

The emperor is sitting in front of his mother’s dressing table, by the window, chair turned to face the bed. He puts the book in his hands down on the floor and gazes steadily at Jaskier, eyes roving over his body like he’s examining a beast ready for the slaughter.

“I always preferred you mute,” the emperor says. “You’re a crude man, much better suited to screams than words.”

Jaskier closes his eyes against the dull black emptiness of that stare. He’s gone somewhere beyond exhaustion or understanding. The emperor will talk, and he will listen, there is no escaping it.

“My poor poet. I should have come for you sooner, saved you from the heartbreak of believing you were ever free. But it was quite a shock, you know, this world we made together. So much to learn, so much to do. I wasn’t sure if you would remember your other life like Stregobor and I do, but I’m glad you don’t. I’m glad this is all you know.” Jaskier feels the give of the mattress as the man sits on the bed, tries to recoil but the ropes stop him. A finger strokes at his thigh and he chokes back a sob. “I hope you’ll understand the honour of your position some day, the greatness of what you’ve achieved. I’m sure you will, with time.”

He keeps his eyes closed, his hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. An animal caught in a trap, all sweat and adrenaline, and no way out.

“We were talking of the great men of history, weren’t we,” the emperor says, voice low. “I am a great man, Jaskier, and fate must change to fit me. It threw so many obstacles in my path that I thought I would never triumph over it. But Stregobor saw the truth, and came to me with a solution. Sometimes the course of a mighty river can be changed if you dam the tiniest part of it.”

He listens, and breathes, dizzy with the feel of that finger moving gently up and down his skin.

“Once upon a time, you see, a bard met a witcher in Posada, and started accompanying him. In time, the bard took the witcher to a wedding, where the witcher was tied to a princess of Cintra, so that when her city fell she had a guardian. Later, the witcher took the bard to a sorceress to save his life, and their relationship turned the sorceress both softer and harder. Soft enough to join the war, and hard enough to hold Sodden Hill against a battalion. All these things that stood in my way... And all we needed to do was twist history so that you left an inn a day early, and they vanished. Like smoke on the wind.”

Jaskier opens his eyes to see what madness looks like, but the emperor’s face is quite still and calm. He believes this bullshit. But it can’t be true. One man can’t change the course of history. Especially not him, not by the alteration of a single day. He tries to say so, and the gag turns the words into formless noise.

The emperor raises an eyebrow and tugs the cloth out of his mouth. “Speak, then,” he says.

“Say all this is true. I don’t believe a fucking word of it, but since you do. What next? You kill me?”

“Oh, dear, no. Quite the contrary. You’re the fulcrum on which the world rests, until it adjusts to the new course we’ve given it; we can’t kill you. Besides,” he says, moving his hand to tug at Jaskier’s hair, “even if I could, I wouldn’t. I grew rather fond of you, in the end. We made the spell work together, me by taking, and you by breaking, and you broke so beautifully.”

It’s not even lust in his eyes. Jaskier would know what to do with lust. It’s just… possession. The fondness a man feels for a tool well shaped to his hand. “Please,” he says. “Whatever you do to me, spare my people.”

The emperor sighs. “They were never your people. You may remember years, but you’ve only been here a month. It was just a dream, and I’ve woken you from it. But since you want to know what fate I’ve laid out for you... We’ll stay here long enough for Stregobor to prise the names of every single person in your pathetic circle of traitors out of your head. We’ll hang them in the town square so you and your people can see what comes of those who don’t accept the mastery of the White Flame. Some loyal Nilfgaardian will be posted here to see that this land pays its dues. And you’ll come back with me to the City of Golden Towers. You’ll live in luxury – the finest food, clothes, a suite of rooms, perhaps even instruments, if you behave yourself. The world is grateful to you for smoothing my path, Jaskier. I’m grateful. And in the end you’ll love how I thank you for it.”

“I’ll die first,” Jaskier tells him, and spits, and the emperor backhands him so hard his head strikes the back of the bed and everything goes vague and hazy.

When he returns to himself, the gag is back in his mouth and the emperor’s by the door. “It’s a lot to take in,” he says, clear and cold. “It’ll take time. I’m looking forward to helping you.”

He leaves, and Jaskier decides he might as well despair for a while. He generally tries not to. He’s usually good at seeing glimmers of light amidst his anxiety; he is, at heart, an optimist. But everything around him is dark, and the only hope he can muster is that he can find a way to kill himself before the emperor gets to work on him. He has no illusions about the help the man is offering. Torture is still torture even if it doesn’t break the skin. He doesn’t even have the energy to scream. Who’d hear him?

Time passes, and he drifts with it, lets his aching head distract him from thought.

There’s a cold breeze coming through the window. It smells, faintly, of lilacs.

Someone says his name. He jumps, still dizzy from the blow to the head. There’s no one in the room. But he still heard it.

Jaskier, the voice says. A woman. A deep voice, rich, with a small edge of irritation. Can you hear me?

I’m going mad, he thinks.

Not yet.

He jumps again, opens his eyes again. The room is still empty. What the fuck.

My name is Yennefer, the voice says. Do you know me?

It’s familiar. The person Geralt said he was going to find. You’re a sorceress. What did the emperor say? A sorceress whose relationship made her both softer and harder…

The voice growls in his head. Fucking typical man, thinking anything a woman does is because of another man. I’ll show him what I’m made of. Soon, I hope. Tell me what’s happening.

He pushes it at her – the last two days of panic and grief and fear, the promises the emperor made. I can’t give him the names of the people who went against his rule. He’ll kill them. I need to keep them safe.

We have bigger problems. The world is wrong. It’s breaking. Monsters, famine, flood. Haven’t you heard?

All those reports: earthquakes, violence, plague, beasts. Can she be right? Is this destiny reacting to being wilfully pulled off course? But here in Lettenhove the weather has been perfect. The harvest’s the best they’ve had in years.

I think that’s because of you, Jaskier, the woman says. I think you’ve been protecting your home. You’re the eye of the storm, but it’s getting worse around you. The emperor might believe it will calm down, but it’s equally likely to rip the world apart.

I don’t know what you want, he thinks. But I’m not doing anything till you help me protect them.

There’s a wave of exasperated fondness that he finds himself clinging to, so different from the emperor’s cold certainty. Fine then, you stubborn ass.

A strange sensation starts to build in his head. Like glass, slippery and clear, a wall between him and the world. There, the woman says. That should hold against a hack like Stregobor. Listen. We’re close, but the house is warded. I can’t get in, and there are too many people for Geralt to fight his way in. You need to find a way to get outside so we can reach you.

Geralt’s there?

Yennefer laughs, but kindly. I know you don’t know why that’s funny, she tells him. Yes, Geralt is here. He’s sharpened his swords twelve times in the last hour and he’s desperate to kill someone. We’re coming, just like we did before. I’m sorry we didn’t get there in time to stop them finishing the spell, but we’re here now.

I’ll always come for you, Geralt said. And Jaskier believes it.

I’ll do what I can, he tells the woman in his head. Feeling the small glimmer of light lifting him out of the darkness.

He’s left alone for hours. By the time they do come back his mouth is arid as a desert, his stomach so empty it’s passed through rumbling and into a hollow ache. He’s spent the time trying and failing to find a comfortable position, and composing an ode to the beautiful voice in his head. The Lilac Mage. The Serene Sorceress. He can’t say either feels right, but every time he closes his eyes to think he sees Marek’s blood creeping towards him and he has to stop and breathe and cry for a while.

They are together, when they return. Stregobor in a garish turquoise tunic; the emperor still in black. Jaskier glares at them, and receives an affable smile from one, a thinning of the lips from the other.

It’s Stregobor who takes the gag from his mouth, keeping his fingers out of the way. “I remember how you bite,” he says, chuckling. “This will go easier for you if you just give us the names,” he warns, still with that avuncular charm that makes Jaskier feel sick to his stomach.

“Fuck you,” he says, because the old ones are the best ones.

Stregobor sighs. “Fine,” he says. He places his hand on Jaskier’s head, tightens his grasp, and—

there’s something in his head he can feel it like a knife cutting through flesh but there’s no flesh no blood and yet he feels flayed open a voice saying show me and layers of him are being shaved away pulled apart under the steady sharp pressure and it doesn’t hurt but he can feel it layer upon layer stripped off almost gently he can’t bear it and he’s shaking apart but there’s no blood no pain there’s a wall smooth slippery like glass almost non-existent but there and it’s holding it’s holding it’s keeping the blade from cutting and ripping and taking and—

He’s breathing, sweating like he’s run a race, and Stregobor is stumbling back, red-faced and furious. Jaskier smiles sharply at him, preserving the memory as he suspects it’s the last thing he’s going to enjoy for a while.

“How are you doing that?” the mage hisses.

“Doing what?” Jaskier asks innocently. “Is something meant to be happening?”

“What’s the problem?” the emperor asks, impatiently, glaring at the mage.

“His mind is protected,” Stregobor says. “I can’t reach beyond the most superficial level.”

Thank you, Yennefer, Jaskier thinks, and feels sly satisfaction pushing back at him.

The emperor looks him up and down, not like a person, like a stain. “That was the easy way,” he says, coldly. “We’ll see how stubborn you are when I start cutting off your fingers.” He has a sword at his belt, and he takes a measured step forward.

Jaskier’s fists clench and he finds himself pressing back into the pillow behind him because no – he knows his weaknesses, he knows the emperor is right, he would give up anything in the world after the first full cut.

Stregobor clears his throat.

The emperor stops, glares at him, then turns and storms out. Stregobor follows, leaving Jaskier gaping into the suddenly empty room.

That was weird, Yennefer says inside his mind.

They’re worried about something, Jaskier tells her. They said they couldn’t kill me, but maybe they’re worried about hurting me too… Yennefer, if this is truly a spell, can you break it?

There’s a long, long silence. Yennefer?

I don’t know, she says. They shouldn’t have been able to do it in the first place. I think Geralt and I, and Stregobor and the emperor, were close enough when it was cast to remember it when we became the people we would have been in this world. And you can’t, because it’s tied to you somehow. It must be, if they’re concerned about… damage. Though I’ve never heard of a person being the locus before, it’s usually some sort of object. Anyway, the spell can’t be complete, not the way they meant it to be, not given what’s happening. And I think that means you’re influencing it in some way. It would explain why the rest of the world is convulsing, and the worst that happened here was a couple of drowners.

Not the worst, Jaskier thinks, and he sees Marek again, and he’s crying again, and Yennefer is quiet in his mind, a steady presence.

Hold on, she says. We’re coming.

He must sleep, though he doesn’t remember it, because he closes his eyes in the dark and when he feels hands on his shoulders and opens them again it’s light.

There are three soldiers in the room. One of them is standing with Oliwia, a knife to her throat. Her grey hair is rumpled and messy, her eyes red with tears. One of them has his hands on Jaskier’s shoulders, leaning in close, teeth bared in a mockery of a grin. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he whispers, as the third one starts to untie him, “or we’ll gut the old woman like a pig and feed you the entrails.”

Oliwia sobs out loud and Jaskier nods, lies still as the ropes fall away, stays quiet as they pull him from the bed and march him down the stairs, arms held behind his back. They drag him out of the front door and throw him onto the hard stones at the emperor’s feet.

He lies there for a moment, winded, and then slowly pushes himself up to kneel.

There are soldiers in a line sixty feet away, hands on pikes and swords. In front of them thirty or so men and women are huddled on their knees, all inhabitants of the nearest houses, two carts to the side of them, used to fetch them here perhaps. There’s a carriage, black and polished, which must belong to the emperor; strangely, Jaskier’s lute is resting by one of its wheels. He knows the people: the gatekeeper and his wife. The hostler. Several maids and gardeners and the scribe who travels the county writing letters for those that can’t and the innkeeper and—

The emperor grips him by the back of the neck and forces his head up, forces him to look at all those people. All his fault. If he hadn’t – but no. This has nothing to do with the network, with his foolishness. This has to do with what they stole from him. A day, a meeting, a life.

Yennefer, he thinks. I’m outside now. You need to hurry.

“Look at your master,” the emperor calls. “In the dirt at my feet, like a dog, like he deserves. He has betrayed me, and in so doing he has betrayed all of you. He has lied to me, and unless he gives up the names of those who helped him resist my rule, my men will kill you, one by one. If you know any of the guilty men, speak and you will be spared. If not, I will drown this land in blood.”

The frightening thing, Jaskier thinks to himself vaguely, is that the emperor doesn’t shout; he doesn’t froth at the mouth or get angry. He just states his intentions, and then does what he says. No bluffing, no remorse. He’s so sure. And yet he doesn’t get it, not at all.

“I’m not their master,” Jaskier says. “That’s what you don’t understand. That’s why you’ll lose, eventually. They don’t serve me. It’s the other way round.”

The emperor glares at him. “And you will serve again,” he says. “Stregobor! Show him what’s in my mind.”

The mage moves his hand, and—

Jaskier is looking down at Jaskier. Jaskier is tied face down over a table. Jaskier – the tied down one, not the observing one – is naked. Jaskier is moving towards Jaskier, kicking aside his lute, unbuttoning his breeches. Jaskier is watching Jaskier struggle and enjoying it. Jaskier is listening to Jaskier humming a tune, in a desperate attempt to distract himself, as Jaskier gets closer, anticipation building—

There’s a sharp noise, like a note struck on a glass. Jaskier leans forward and retches; he has nothing to throw up but he wishes he could, wants to empty himself of that vile sensation. Cruelty and lust and pleasure in pain. He saw himself and wanted to hurt himself, wanted to destroy himself until there was nothing left but a – a – vessel.

He’s so full of that disgusting feeling, choking on it, that he doesn’t immediately notice the chaos around him.

There’s a portal ten feet away and a woman who must be Yennefer is standing in front of it, all black hair and flowing robes, magic gathered in her outstretched hands, hurling it at Stregobor. Geralt is moving through the troops in his way like they’re not even there, both swords hacking and slashing, clearing a red path as he aims for the emperor. And the people – the cowed, kneeling locals – are throwing themselves at the cart, pulling out axes and scythes and hammers and pitchforks that they must have hidden there, a deadly array of tools in their hands as they turn to face the soldiers.

There are shouts and screams and running feet, but Jaskier feels very distant from it. The emperor has drawn his sword, is moving towards Geralt. Jaskier’s eyes drift past them. He’s looking at his lute, propped against the carriage wheel. They were going to take it with them, when they left. When he was inside the emperor’s memory, the lute was there too, kicked aside. Why would he have the same one in both worlds? It makes no sense.

Yennefer said most spells used an object as the locus. Stregobor said he hoped the lute would serve well in this life too.

He starts crawling. He doesn’t have the energy to stand, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The battle rages over his head, men falling and fighting around him, but his path is clear. He is at the carriage, and the lute is in his arms, a familiar weight. He looks up. Stregobor is being driven back towards the hall. Geralt has cut down the last man in his way before clashing swords with the emperor. His people are fighting for their lives, for their homes. He thinks, it was a good harvest. I’m grateful. But it’s wrong, isn’t it.

There’s a still quality to the air, as if something is paying attention to him. Something large and inhuman, something bearing down on him as if he’s the only real thing. It’s not kind, whatever it is. It could hurt him as easily as help him. But it is right.

He opens his mouth to start talking – to destiny, he supposes, or the world. But that’s too big, so instead he just thinks of Lettenhove, the home he left without a backward glance and then returned to, the home he’s grown not to love, exactly, but to care for. He’s worried over it, held it together with his own two hands, tried to keep it safe.

The cries of pain and clashes of steel and sharp shocks of magic are growing closer but he feels calm, curled around his lute, in the quiet centre of the raging storm. “If you can hear me,” he whispers. “Whatever you are. I know you’re angry but all I want to do is help. Let me help.”

There’s a hush, after an audience quiets, just before the first note is played or sung, that has an almost physical weight. He feels it now.

“They took a day from you,” he says into that hush. “They took a day and broke both of us. If you give it back to me I can fix it. Just one day, and everything will be back in tune.”

His hands are on the strings. There’s a melody in his head, the one he heard himself humming in the emperor’s memory. He thinks, give me that single day, and feels the strings vibrate under his fingers, reverberating bone deep.

O valley of plenty, he prays, to the world, to Lettenhove, to whatever power is out there listening, and strikes the chord.

The floor is cold under his cheek.

Someone is moving around nearby. The clink of bottles being set down on wood, shifting furniture. He rolls on to his side. Stregobor is walking towards a cabinet at one end of the workshop, past a table stacked high with paper, a shelf lined with glass jars.

Jaskier knows that table. He saw himself tied to it: a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet, shown to someone who doesn’t exist anymore. His head hurts. He tries to get up and Stregobor says, “I don’t think so, young man,” and he finds himself flying backwards and hitting the wall.

Everything aches. His vision is blurry and dull. He can’t remember how many days he’s been here, but he’s fairly sure he’s been drugged, given how the world is fading out at the edges, and how he had a dream and it felt real, or maybe that was real and this is a dream…

There’s a bang somewhere, a distant pounding at a door, and Stregobor startles. He drops whatever he’s holding and it shatters on the floor. “Damn,” he says, frowning, then makes a shape with his fingers and a portal opens. Emperor Emhyr var Emreis steps through.

Jaskier sobs and presses his aching back further into the wall.

“What’s that noise?” the emperor asks.

“The witcher seems to have arrived,” Stregobor says, sounding slightly anxious. “I don’t understand. He was at least a day away.”

Oh, Jaskier thinks. Thank you.

“Then let’s get on with it,” the emperor says, impatiently.

The pounding on the door below stops. Then there’s a sound – a ripping, a heavy thud – that you might expect if a door was torn off its hinges.

“I – you don’t understand, we can’t. It’s not ready! He needs to be prepared – you need to be prepared— It has to be the two of you, done right, to make it stick…”

Jaskier pulls himself on to his hands and knees and starts moving towards them. He knows when and where he is now. It’s the day before they do the spell. The day before the emperor breaks him. The day before Yennefer and Geralt find him, too late. But not this time. Sometimes all you need is for something to happen a day early. A bard to leave. A witcher to arrive.

“Are you saying it’s impossible?” the emperor asks.

“I’m saying we should go,” Stregobor says. “Take him to Nilfgaard; I can start the spell again there, no interruptions.”

Jaskier picks up one of the scattered shards of glass and slices the back of Stregobor’s leg open. How’s that for an interruption, he thinks, viciously.

Stregobor screams and falls; the portal falters; the emperor looks down at them both and throws himself back through it just as it collapses, leaving Jaskier stabbing at empty space. He turns back to Stregobor, who’s whimpering on the floor, pain distracting him from retaliation.

Jaskier tightens his hold on the glass. He says, “this is for Marek,” and Stregobor says, “who?” and Jaskier rams the glass into his throat and pulls.

When Yennefer and Geralt reach him, he’s lying in a pool of cooling blood. His hand is bleeding but he hasn’t let go of the shard yet. He’s trying to hear something – destiny, or fate, or the world – though he’s fairly sure it’s not there anymore, not since he mended the tear in its existence.

Geralt kneels down next to him, and touches his face, so gently, like he’s scared Jaskier is going to break.

“You came,” Jaskier says, smiling.

“I’ll always come,” Geralt tells him.

“I know, witcher,” Jaskier says. His eyes are sliding shut and he lets them. He doesn’t need to worry anymore. “Your timing, as ever, is impeccable.”

In the weeks after, Jaskier does three things.

First, he heals. They leave Ciri where she is, safe in Kaer Morhen, and travel to one of Yennefer’s many tucked away houses to let him sleep and scream and mend. Yennefer helps, but the harm is not just physical. He tells them what happened, what he thinks happened and what might have happened – the darkness and the fear dripping out of him, slowly, revealed and burned away. At night the emperor walks through his dreams and he wakes up fighting, and Geralt holds him, thrashing and sobbing, until he sleeps again. It takes time. It takes more than the gift of a single day to rid himself of the scars of all the others. But he’ll come out of it, into the light waiting for him on the other side.

Second, he borrows a thousand crowns from Yennefer and arranges for them to be sent to Lettenhove, a gift to a young farmer, in the south of the county, to do with as he will – to study, or buy a bigger property, or simply to squander. Whatever he wants, in a world where he has a choice. Jaskier writes: Marek. This is from a man you won’t remember, whose life you saved, quite by accident. Let him wonder. A good mystery is a wonderful thing.

Third…

He steals close to Geralt one day in the kitchen, where he is peeling potatoes and Yennefer is chopping herbs, a strange and unlikely domestic peace between them. He pulls Geralt to him, kisses him, and then spins around to kiss Yennefer on the lips too, lets her taste Geralt on his tongue.

She threatens to turn him into a toad but she won’t. He’s not scared of her threats anymore. Well, that’s a lie, he’s absolutely scared of her threats, but she’s been in his head. He felt the fondness. If she does turn him into a toad she’ll also turn him back. He kisses her deeper, and reaches behind him for Geralt’s hand, brings them together around him.

They don’t even leave the kitchen, the first time. Geralt kneels to suck Jaskier’s cock, and Jaskier takes Yennefer apart with fingers and tongue, and Yennefer lets Geralt fuck her, leaning back in Jaskier’s arms, her hands in his. Dinner is quite ruined.

So, third, he takes his rightful place in the middle of their bodies, of their lives. Yennefer, who wants everything but doesn’t know how to let anyone give it to her. Geralt, who wants to love but thinks he’s too monstrous for it. They always needed Jaskier to translate for them, to teach them how to take what they want and give it back in equal measure. He’s the fulcrum their world rests on, after all. He’s seen what happened without him. He won’t ever leave them alone again.

Fortunately, they don’t seem to mind.