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Queen Cerys an Craite of Skellige awoke in the middle of the night with the unmistakable feeling that she was being watched. It was nonsense, of course, because for starters she could neither see nor hear anything amiss, and the queen was someone who placed a lot of faith in her instincts.
Secondly, there was only one way up to the floor where both Cerys and Hjalmar slept, and it was guarded at all times. And every night without fail, Clan an Craite’s very best guards were stationed outside her chambers from the moment she retired until the moment she left them in the morning, which made it impossible for anyone to enter.
The queen believed in many things, but an enemy being able to disguise themselves so thoroughly that they became invisible, allowing them to slip unnoticed past the guards, was not one of them.
Thirdly, there were archers and swordsmen positioned on the battlements of Kaer Trolde morning, noon, and night, to prevent anyone attempting to gain access through a window. Not to mention the fact that Cerys’ room, which was hewn from the mountain itself, did not have any windows.
Still, rational thinking couldn’t explain the feeling of being watched. Or that the air felt different somehow.
Cerys sat up, pulling the covers around herself. The fire, which she could have sworn she’d fed enough to last until morning, had died, leaving the room cold and dark. The chill she could deal with, after all she was a Skellige woman born and bred, but she wished there was some light to see by.
There came not a sound, but Cerys could sense that something – someone – had moved. How that was possible, she didn’t know, for even hunters trained to move with the barest minimum of sound could not move silently.
But faced with an enemy, even an unknown one, a queen did not sit powerless, waiting for something to happen. She took action. “I know ye’re there,” she said into the darkness, feeling foolish but not afraid. After all, any ruler worth their salt slept with half a dozen weapons within arm’s reach, and could successfully defend themselves in pitch darkness with any one of them. “What have ye come for?”
She slipped her hand beneath the pillow, feeling for the reassuring steely chill of her dagger, and found nothing. An annoyance, nothing more; certainly not something to worry about. Sometimes while sleeping restlessly, Cerys unknowingly knocked the dagger off the bed during the night. When she reached for the sword mounted above the headboard and found it gone, a sliver of cold fear pierced her heart. For the first time that night, she felt vulnerable.
But Cerys was a queen, and she had no intention of showing that fear, especially when she still wasn’t sure whether there was even someone there. “Ye’ve taken my weapons, I see,” she continued, playing for time as she climbed out of bed and edged towards the fireplace, where another sword was mounted over the fire. “More fool you for thinking that’ll stop me. Ye think I grew up with a brother like Hjalmar and never learned to defend myself with my fists?”
All she needed to do was block an attack for a few seconds, long enough to yell for the guards, and she was quite confident that she could do that. But without any light, she couldn’t anticipate where the attack would come from, or in what form. She needed to force their hand. “What the fuck are ye waiting for, ye bloody coward? Ragh nar Roog?” she taunted.
She expected a heavy blow to the head, or perhaps a short, radiating pain as her heart was pierced. At the very least, a growled accusation about some supposed slight against one of Skellige’s clans. Not that any clan, even her own, could boast a hunter so talented that they could evade a score of guards without raising the alarm, nor move so silently.
A flash of blue-green light, blindingly bright in the dark room.
A disturbance of air as something moved towards her at speed, giving Cerys no chance to leap away.
A rough hand closing around her throat, not enough to choke, but enough to show dominance.
The queen gasped as the touch dislodged a cascade of memories which filled her head. She’d only ever allowed one person to do that to her, and that person was–
“Hello, Cerys.”
“ No !” The word, gasped, devastated, left her mouth before she could stop it. “It can’t be.”
It had taken her months to come to terms with what Geralt and Yennefer, exhausted, ashen-faced, and broken, had told her after they returned from the battle with the Wild Hunt. That Ciri was gone, just… gone. No one could explain how or why. But they were almost certain that, at best, she was never coming back, and at worst, she was dead.
Ciri was not a member of the clan, nor even Skelligan, but Cerys had draped the banqueting hall in solemn black anyway, as tradition demanded.
It was a dream, a delusion, a cruel trick. It had to be. Cerys reached out tentatively, wanting to touch the speaker’s face, to see if it matched the voice she thought she’d never hear again, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t allow herself to be drawn in any deeper than she already was.
The hand at her throat was just as she remembered it – small but not delicate, the skin roughened. For every second she told herself she wouldn’t give in to hope, there were another five where she already ached with it. “Light a damn candle, would ye?” she snapped, furious at her own weakness, trying desperately to master her emotions. Yet when the hand fell away from her throat and a candle flickered to life beside her, she still wouldn’t allow herself to believe.
The woman in front of her looked, and spoke, and felt, like Ciri, save for a scar over her eye which was new. But Ciri was gone, almost certainly dead. The queen couldn’t let herself believe anything else. Hope was a powerful and necessary thing in times of darkness, but too much of it was stupid, irrational, and delusional. Hoping that a dead woman had come back to life and appeared in her chambers was certainly all of those things. Not to mention dangerous.
“Ye aren’t going to fool me,” Cerys said, keeping her voice steady even though her mind was in turmoil. She breathed deeply to calm herself, regretting it instantly when she realised that the woman before her even had Ciri’s scent. The few times they’d met as adults, Ciri had always smelled the same – like grass and metal, and just faintly of whatever fragranced oils she’d bathed with the last time she’d slept somewhere with a bathtub, which never quite managed to cover up the tang of sweat.
More memories surged forth, flooding Cerys’ mind. Ciri’s strong, lightly-scarred arms wrapping around her. Ciri’s soft lips on hers, hungrily possessing her. Ciri, Ciri, Ciri. Cerys growled in anger. “Ciri is dead,” she spat, barely registering that she’d never actually said the words aloud before, “now hurry up and kill me, or fuck off back to wherever ye came from, d’ye hear?”
She’d heard of creatures which could turn themselves into another person with such accuracy that even their loved ones would be fooled. That had to be the answer – they were using Ciri’s appearance to gain her trust and get close to her. Yet who among her potential enemies didn’t know that Ciri was gone?
The jarls did; she’d explained everything – almost everything – when they came demanding an explanation for the wholesale slaughter on Undvik.
And the emperor of Nilfgaard was Ciri’s father, the person who had sent Yennefer and Geralt on a mission to find her and who had no doubt forced them to explain in excruciating detail what had happened to her.
But if not a member of a rival clan or one of the Black Ones, who stood to gain from deceiving then killing her?
The woman’s face fell, as though finally realising she wouldn’t be getting a warm welcome. Well, what sort of queen would Cerys be if she let herself be tricked by a shape-changing monster which had crept into her room, disguised as someone she’d loved?
It was unnerving that the woman hadn’t spoken. Surely Ciri would have said something, tried to explain or defend herself? But in spite of all her mysterious and inexplicable powers, Ciri was still human, still vulnerable to a sword between the ribs or a dagger plunged into her heart, and perhaps she felt that letting the queen play her hand first was the best idea.
Her mind in silent turmoil, Cerys careered wildly between certainty and doubt, willing herself to make a decision. “Tell me something only the real Ciri would know,” she said sharply, suddenly deciding on a course of action. She had no idea whether taking on someone’s appearance also offered access to their memories, but it was the best strategy she could think of.
The woman leaned down, murmuring in her ear. The intimately familiar brush of Ciri’s lips against her skin, the low hum of Ciri’s voice, the inescapable, dizzying feeling she got whenever Ciri was close to her… The words had been convincing, but it was the feeling which made up Cerys’ mind for her. It wasn’t something which could be pretended, and if it was, pain and loneliness were encouraging her to throw herself headfirst into it anyway.
She wanted to believe, even just for a moment, that Ciri was alive.
She’d raised her hand and cupped the woman’s face before she was even aware of it, running her thumb over the scar beneath her eye. “Zireael?” she asked, her voice wavering, hope clinging audibly to every word, “is this really happening or am I dreaming?”
Cupping the queen’s face with battle-scarred hands, Ciri looked deeply into her love’s eyes. She’d been watching her for weeks, always hidden just out of sight, aching with longing. She’d tried to convince herself that looking was enough, but it wasn’t. It never could be.
With the Wild Hunt defeated, Ciri had been given a second chance at life, and she intended to seize it with both hands, starting with Cerys. She needed to feel the redhead in her arms again. “It’s not a dream, my Sparrowhawk,” she murmured, wondering whether or not she had permission to kiss the queen’s full lips, then doing it anyway. “I came back for you.”