Chapter Text
It’s midnight, it’s raining, and the nightwraith has yet to show. His silver sword gleams with oil, and the potions that will protect him from the wraith’s attacks are running through his veins like ice. The small fire he’s built hisses and snaps as the rain hits it. He paces back and forth.
Meditate, say the voices of his old tutors in his head. Center your mind, find your power.
But Grantaire has never found meditation as calming as it was meant to be. Being alone with his thoughts isn’t exactly a balm.
A glint of light flashes at the edge of the clearing, eldritch green. The cat medallion at Grantaire’s throat hums a warning, and he raises his sword. Silver, for drowners and foglets and leshens…and wraiths.
There it is, a ghostly skeleton crowned in dead flowers and dressed in a tattered mockery of a wedding gown.
He flings out a hand and casts Yrden on the grass around him, forming a ring of sigils to slow or stop an enemy. The magic makes a wraith corporeal when it crosses the boundary, pinning it within the circle of glyphs.
But first, he’ll have to draw it closer.
The wraith flickers in and out of sight as Grantaire circles his trap warily. It’s seen him, or sensed him, he’s sure of that. Now it’s only a matter of time. He just has to keep it in sight.
It crosses the edge of the trap, and the sigils flare bright. The wraith’s howl sets his teeth on edge, but he plants his feet and swings his sword. It hits home with a sickening crunch—not enough to kill the wraith, but enough to weaken it.
Unfortunately, it’s also enough to knock the wraith out of the circle of glyphs. It flickers, and Grantaire knows better than to waste his strength on attacking now. He shifts his grip on his sword waits for the wraith to drift into the trap again.
Instead, it vanishes and reappears behind him. Grantaire dives to the ground just out of its grasp, tucking into a roll as he hits. His momentum takes him across the trap he’s set, and if he’s lucky the wraith will follow him…
It does. By the time Grantaire gains his feet, the wraith is frozen again. This time, the blow from his sword is enough, and the ghost-light fades as the wraith crumples to the ground. Then it’s only Grantaire, breathing hard in the rain and the howling wind.
There’s another flash, half-seen out of the corner of his eye. He takes it for lightning at first, and that’s almost enough to kill him.
Because there isn’t one nightwraith in this clearing. There are two. He casts another ring of glyphs around him as the wraith lets out a deafening scream, and the world flares bright as noon for a heartbeat.
Grantaire staggers backwards, flinching. His eyes are dazzled, and when the darkness returns he can only see the violet afterimages smeared across his eyes. He fumbles for his belt. He has a vial of Cat somewhere, it’ll clear his vision…might overload his body, leave him retching and sick in the aftermath, but that’s better than dying here in the dark—
But this nightwraith is older, angrier, more powerful, and it presses its advantage. Grantaire abandons the thought of another potion, unable to risk even a moment’s inattention. His vision is still dim, so it’s mostly intuition that sends him pivoting to the left just as vicious claws rake through the air in front of him. One claw snags the edge of his armor, slicing through layers of leather, but he’s saved a mauling. He swings his sword in response, but it passes through the wraith without resistance. He has to get it into the trap, or he might as well be shadowboxing.
He dispels the glyphs and casts them again, desperately, throwing them forward as far as he can. The farthest edge just catches the wraith, pinning it in place, and Grantaire charges forward.
It’s over in a moment. This time he turns slowly, focusing his senses and watching every corner of the forest for wraith-light. Nothing. The steady chill of his medallion tells him that there are no more monsters nearby, so he cleans the ichor off his sword and slides it into its sheath on his back. Then he stumbles back to the fire and crouches down to warm his hands, bending low while he catches his breath.
Did the villagers know there were two wraiths, when they sent him out here? No doubt they’ll insist otherwise, as they’ve only promised to pay him for one. Either way, he’ll need trophies. Even the stupidest villagers know not to pay unless you have a trophy—and sometimes even then, it’s a fight. Grantaire just hopes it won’t be a literal one. He’s had enough blood on his hands through the years, and not all of it belonged to monsters.
He draws his knife and kneels down beside the nightwraiths. Cutting off the head has always seemed like an indignity, but it’s the only trophy that’s true proof of a dead wraith. A less-gruesome trophy, like a skeletal hand, might be procured at any untended cemetery, and Grantaire has known plenty of people, witchers included, who would prefer the digging to the fighting.
None but a witcher would have heard the soft hiss of breath behind him. Grantaire looks back over his shoulder to find an elf, caught fast in the trap that he hadn’t yet dispelled. Fading adrenaline surges through him again as he rises to his feet, already reaching for his sword. Steel this time, for mortals instead of monsters. He holds it at guard and steps closer to face the elf.
In the firelight, Grantaire can see that he’s dressed all in browns and greens, with thick leather strips sewn together into armor. He wears leather bracers, to guard his wrists from the bow on his back, and a pair of long knives hang at his belt. Not a simple forager or traveler then, but a warrior. Probably Scoia’tael, at that—an elven rebel.
The light gleams on his fair hair, slick with rain, and catches in his furious eyes. Despite his exhaustion in the wake of the nightwraith battle, Grantaire feels a tug of desire.
He handles it with the same grace as everything else in his life. "And they say Francesca Findabair is the fairest of all the elves," he says. "Did you come to kill me? Clever of you to wait until after the nightwraiths were dead, then. Expecting that I’d be spent, an easier target."
"Release me, vatt’ghern." He continues in Elder Speech, and Grantaire can only assume it’s impolite.
"You know, some might consider that being held at swordpoint was a time for caution, perhaps even manners. But not you."
"Why bother? You’re going to kill me anyway."
"Am I? Are you planning to give me reason to?"
"Your kind don’t need a reason."
Grantaire rolls his eyes. "Fuck off. I’m not getting paid to kill elves."
"As though that matters. Everyone knows the witchers of the Cat school are murderers and madmen."
Grantaire’s free hand travels to the worn medallion at his throat. "Everyone knows, do they? I wonder who told them." He’ll allow that some of his colleagues are…less than judicious, when it comes to wielding their swords and their power. But the same could be said of any witcher school, or the Lodge of Sorceresses, or the Scoia’tael. To say nothing of the various kings and queens who trample the continent in their rush for glory.
"What were you doing here?" he asks. He probably doesn’t want to know—he’s not one for getting involved, but if the elf is planning to raid the village who hired him, Grantaire is going to have to choose a side, and quickly.
"Scouting."
"For?"
"A safe path," he says, with a wry twist of his mouth. "And I nearly found it. At least when I don’t return, they’ll know not to follow me."
He’s strangely composed, for someone in such dire straits. He expects Grantaire to kill him, but he stands tall and proud, his head raised. Grantaire allows himself to admire that composure.
He wonders how old this one is, if the long years of the elves are longer than Grantaire’s years as a witcher. They seem to grow more remote as they age, and this one is fiercely present. He might be nearly as young as he looks, like a human only a few years out of his teens.
It doesn’t matter, really. The wars will change him, one way or another. Grantaire waves a hand, dispelling the glyphs. "Go."
The elf takes a step back, further from Grantaire’s reach, and rests one hand on the hilt of his knife. "If you think this means that my people will owe you a debt—"
"Just go. It’s been a long fucking evening, and I’m not in the mood for another fight."
The unspoken threat is enough to convince the elf. He turns and vanishes into the woods, so quickly and thoroughly that even Grantaire’s witcher senses can’t see where he’s gone.
He watches the woods for a long time, but the elf doesn’t reappear, and no arrows sail out of the darkness to impale him. That’s that, then. Grantaire gathers up his grim trophies, puts out his fire, and begins the long trek back to town.