Van Bereaver

Chapter 12- Equinox

Sage

Word had gotten around that the emperor, Emhyr var Emreis, had found the Lion Cub of Cintra, Princess Cirilla, and was bound to marry her soon. However, that wasn't true. With Geralt's vision of Ciri, she was no where near Nilfgaard, and whoever the Emperor was claiming as Cirillia, wasn't real.

"Have you done this before?" Geralt asked. He had sat before me so I could use him as a contact to reach Ciri.

"Yes. With the Black Knight, actually," I said cooly and his amber eyes shot up. "That's how I found her during the Battle of Sodden Hill. Through him."

"You never told me the specifics."

"You never asked. All you cared about was that Ciri was safe. I care too and that's why we're doing this right now." I motioned him to give me his hands and he did as I started to mutter words in the Elven Speech. Even though my eyes were closed, I squeezed them, trying to get a feeling through him. "There's nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing'?" he questioned. "I drank that hallucinogetic water."

"I don't know," I said, shrugging.

Before he could say any more, Milva had called to get dinner. I quickly stood to get myself some of the stew she made and looked back to see that Geralt was still on the ground. I grabbed another serving and returned to him.

"It'll be alright," I said, giving him the food. "We'll find her."

He nodded in my reassurance and started to eat. Once we finished, we got ready to sleep for the night and Pegasus was on watch. Geralt and I were further from the fire and it was darker on our side of the camp and the heat only extended so far. As I was fixing my cloak and new set of clothing that was given to me by the dryads, I felt a cold gust of wind that ran down my spine and I shivered. The weather called for no wind or rain, just the brisk air of the end of the year.

"Are you cold?" Geralt asked, his voice low and genuine.

"There's a chill coming," I told him. He murmured something I couldn't hear before shuffling in the autmn leaves and before I could feel his body centimeters away from me, he already put an arm around my body. I looked down at the hand that rested at my stomach and held a breath. When his warmth comforted me, I finally exhaled and relaxed.

"Good night, Sage."

"Good night."

But sometimes, nights weren't always good. The autmn equinox was supposed to be right around the corner which meant next week, not tonight. With the long, tight, and inescapable hold of the white-haired Witcher, it awoke something in me.

In the middle of the night, I felt my hair grow out into its dead silver and my skin shrivel up in the cold that blew at me again. Equinoxial phenomna was normal for the entire Continent, like what I do on Saovine Night. But tonight, it was different. Even in the clear skies, I heard loud rumbling. Thunder crackled and behind closed eyelids, I could see the flash of lightning. Pegasus was quiet but I heard the neighing of a thousand horses, the clatter of hooves and a deep roaring. As what I had seen on the Isle of Thanedd, a vision of a wraith had plagued my dreams. The large man in the heavy armor of blood and bones, and the tall crown that sat on his head. I finally put the pieces of the signs together and saw the bigger picture. It was the Wraiths of Morhogg, the Dearg Ruadhri, the Red Riders, Red Horsemen, the Phantom Riders, the Wild Hunt. All the various names everyone called them, but it was them.

This first sign disappeared and I saw flashes of light and dark fighting each other in the midst of a white chill that had covered the other vision. Footprints were in the snow and it had led to a dead body, a person who had died of frostbite. Following them, hundreds of bodies had scattered the surface of the wolf's blizzard.

Atop the snow, a massive wave had crashed over everything and the same vicious lightning of the Red Riders flashed in the sky. A boat had been battling in a sea storm on the Isle of Skellige. The people on the island, like Craich an Craite, who believed in superstitions, said that there was always a heavy storm on the waters when the person with Cintran and Skellige blood died. And now, that storm was brewing.

I ejected from my nightmare, tearing out of Geralt's embrace, and lying flat on my back, a tremendous wail escaped my mouth. My fists were so tight that I had dug into the palm of my skin, and I had kicked so hard that my boots pushed the dirt in the ground.

In the future, Jarra, the scribe from Melitele, documented that the keen of the red-headed Beann'shie on the autmn equinox was so loud and powerful that it awoke everyone on the Continent. It was startling to Emhyr var Emreis, Sigismund Dijkstra, Philippa Eilhart, Triss Merrigold, the old Witcher, Vesemir, and Vilgefortz of Roggeveen. That night, the sorcerer had awoken, screaming so hard in fright that half of his face that had been burned off by Geralt's igni sign had begun to bleed.

"Sage!" Geralt yelled. "Sage!" He had covered his ears with his hands but it was no use when they trickled blood. If she continued on like this for another minute, he was sure he would die.

Geralt managed to climb onto his feet after being pushed away by my arms and caught off guard by my voice, and staggered to me. Dandelion and Milva were both concerned and confused. Geralt flicked his hand to form the aard sign to create a force that would repel my voice. I basically swallowed on the waves of my wailing and began choking.

"Sage," I heard Geralt call. He had pulled me into his lap and stroked my hair as I had done to him a few nights ago. Dandelion and the dryad had come to my attention and I could see all of them above me through my hazy eyes.

"You're bleeding," I whispered. Touching Geralt's ears, I rubbed the blood on my fingers.

"Never mind that. What happened? What did you see?"

"Tedd Deireadh," I said. "Ciri is the End of the World."