Van Bereaver

Chapter 6- Knight

Sage

Once again, I was walking in the forest after a dry spell of rain. I held my dress and cloak—the only thing keeping me warm—in my hands as I stepped over a branch. I was without food nor water, and without a friend to keep me company. The only thing that was my acquaintance was death. I could feel the inanimate being following me, warning me about the battle yet to come.

That was probably why I fled Sodden.

Word had gone around that a merchant had seen the black and gold armor of the Nilfgaardians sailing the Yaruga River to Sodden. Once mages like Yennefer of Vengerberg started flooding the area, I decided to flee, taking absolutely nothing with me. Luckily, Dandelion was somewhere I didn't quite remember, and the Witcher, I hadn't seen.

I spotted a doe in the distance, hiding behind a weak branch and slowling approached her. She looked scared at first, but when she saw me, she calmed down. I reached out to pet her and I felt her heavy breathing against my skin.

"Shh," I softly hushed. My heart sank as I heard an arrow release and pierce the doe's side and an airy shriek erupted from my lips. I stumbled back and gasped when I tripped against a rock, landing on my back with a groan.

A horse's hooves trotted towards me and I heard the loud neigh as the animal was halted by its rider, gaining up on its hine legs. I looked up to see the rider in a black and gold uniform, a sword hilted on his back, and a helmet with a winged animal's feather at the top.

"Nilfgaard," I murmured.

"Where is she?" the rider, a man, questioned. Not with a yell but with a deep inquiry and it felt like a threat. "Where is the girl?"

"What girl?!" I couldn't help but frantically shout. Through the open geyser of his helmet, he looked at the doe he shot and killed. He grunted and looked back at me. "What?"

"Stand," he ordered and I got onto my feet. "You're going to help me find her or you'll end up like the deer."

"A doe," I corrected. "And no, I won't end up like her." He snickered and let out an arm for me to grab, and he lifted me onto the back of his saddle and began trotting through the forest. "It would help if I knew the girl's name."

"Her name?" he questioned, his Northern accent coming into his dialogue. "She is known as the Lion Cub of Cintra."

I never knew I could fall into a trance without meditating and speaking the Elven language. But just from the utter of the girl's name, a feeling a brushed inside of me. It was worse with the essence of death from Sodden and it made me turn. I could feel my hair grow silver, my skin go pale, and my eyes grow cloudy like the sky above me.

If it wasn't for the Nilfgaardian rider who caught me, I would've fallen off the horse with a heavy impact and hurt myself. However, one arm wasn't enough for my limp body, and so he cushioned the slide off the black stallion. Lying on my back, I seized, my upper body rising as if I was going through an exorcism and I let out a scream. I hadn't beckoned one since Saovine night, which was six months ago, and it was rare for me to do so on days other than the sacred holiday.

My body shifted in and out of homeostasis as I tried to prevent myself from turning into a full wraith and disappearing from the knight. Towards the end of my episode, my body solidified and relaxed into the wet ground, and a tear ran down my temple, a sigh escaping my lips.

After calming down from my absurd high, I lifted, resting on my elbows, to see the rider had taken off his helmet. His ears were bleeding but he ignored it, only staring at his helmet with the feathered wing at the top with horror for it had shattered from the sound of my voice. He looked at me with glistening eyes and gulped in fear because he was in the presence of a higher power. Higher than Nilfgaardians, mages, mutants, nonhumans, and monsters, lied me, something that didn't fit in any of the categories, a harbinger of death.