The Witcher: Serpent School Witcher's Otherworldly Journey

"Think about it, Geralt. What would happen if I chased him away tonight? Could I still track him after he left the camp? No. Could I know where he went, who he met, or who he wrote to? No. A Serpent School witcher skilled in alchemy and poison concoctions, freely roaming near an impending siege—do you think that's acceptable to me?"

Geralt was silent for a moment, and for the first time tonight he felt that Triss was not opposing Gillian's decision to stay, but rather explaining why she wanted him to stay.

This realization eased the tension in his chest a little.

“And what if he stays here?” Triss continued, her voice carrying a calm, almost admiring quality befitting a planner. “He’ll protect the King alongside you. Every patrol he takes is within the Kingsguard’s sight. Every potion he concocts is detected by my magical senses. Don’t let my bad mood tonight fool you, Geralt, but this afternoon I set up four sensing barriers within a thirty-foot radius of his makeshift tent. I can smell even a single mandrake seed he grinds.”

"You—" Geralt's eyebrow twitched. "When did you do that?"

"While you were out patrolling the camp," Triss said casually, a faint, smug smile playing on her lips, "you didn't really think that the King of Temuria's royal advisor could protect His Majesty with just your sword, did you?"

Geralt stared at her for several seconds before finally lowering his head and letting out a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a bitter laugh.

"You warlocks..."

"We warlocks will outlive you, Geralt. Because we don't act on trust alone."

Triss's tone softened, only slightly, but enough for Geralt to tell that the woman had emerged from her near-out-of-control anxiety and returned to her more familiar, composed rhythm.

"There's another, more practical reason for keeping Kiliam by your side." She looked at the flames, a hint of unguarded candor in her voice, the kind that only comes out in the dead of night. "Once the siege begins, Foltest will personally ascend the siege tower. I can't stop him, the goddess Metaria knows I tried, but that means you'll need to do three things at once on that chaotic battlefield: keep an eye on the king's safety, guard against assassins from any direction, and—stay alive."

She turned around, her azure eyes appearing exceptionally deep against the blue barrier.

"You are one of the greatest witchers in the world, Geralt. But you are not a god. In a place where corpses pile up, hot oil pours down the walls, and screams and smoke fill the air, one person is not enough. Even if that person is the White Wolf, it is not enough."

As she finished speaking, her voice suddenly became extremely soft, as if she were saying something she herself was reluctant to admit.

"If your assessment of Giliam is correct—if he truly is, as you say, a witcher with principles who wouldn't betray his own kind—then during the most dangerous moments of the siege, his sword will relieve half the pressure. Of course, you'll need to devote the other part of your energy to guarding against his sword, but a sword in the open is always better than one in the shadows."

She paused for a moment, as if making some painful decision in her mind.

"And if your judgment of him is wrong—"

"Won't."

"Let me finish." There was a rare, almost gentle insistence in Triss's tone. "If, and I mean if, your judgment of him is wrong, then he is within your sword's reach. At that distance, there is no Serpent Witcher in the world who can accomplish his goal before your sword falls."

After she finished speaking, the tent fell into an extremely strange silence.

Geralt held the empty tin cup, remaining silent for a long time. The firelight flickered and danced in his beastly eyes. He was processing every word Triss had just said.

She wasn't against Kiriam. She never was.

She is accepting Giliam's existence, but according to her own rules.

Let him help you. But I'm staring at him.

If he's a good person, you have an extra life. If he's not, you have an extra chance to solve the problem up close.

In either case, you are safer than if you were carrying the burden alone.

This is Triss Merrigard's way. Not gambling with trust, nor with doubt, but preparing for both possibilities and keeping all risks within her reach.

"In just one hour, you've given me a dressing down, analyzed the entire political landscape of the North, and then told me that keeping Gillian here was actually your idea," Geralt finally spoke, his voice carrying a half-serious, half-joking helplessness characteristic of the White Wolf. "Are you trying to make me admire you, or are you trying to give me a headache?"

"Both." Triss's lips curled up slightly, but the smile was fleeting, quickly swallowed up by a deeper worry.

She walked to the fireplace and stretched out her hands to touch the leaping flames. The firelight reflected in her eyes a deep sense of powerlessness in the face of the crushing wheel of fate.

"But that doesn't mean I'm not afraid, Geralt."

Her voice suddenly became very low, so low that Geralt almost had to lean forward to hear her. It was no longer the voice of a royal advisor, nor the voice of an elite sorcerer from the Gathering Hall. It was the voice of a woman in the dead of night, facing too many unknowns beyond her control, finally revealing a corner of her vulnerability to the only person she trusted.

"I can set up barriers, I can plant spies, I can make everyone entering or leaving the king's tent undergo three magical checks, but these are all things I can do. And the things I can't do..."

She didn't finish her sentence.

But Geralt understood.

I cannot shield you from the sword.

I can't run from this tent to your side in the split second you're face to face with an assassin.

All I could do was rush over afterwards and watch you—

The image she didn't speak of hung silently between them, heavier than any words could express.

"It's like smelling a strong stench of blood in a dark forest." Triss straightened up again, exhaling sharply, as if pulling herself back from the thought she dared not carry out. She chose to continue, because she knew that if she didn't lay everything out tonight, she wouldn't have a peaceful night from now on.

"You draw your sword, thinking that the lone wolf baring its teeth and growling at you is the only threat. Your attention is entirely on it. But you are completely unaware that high above you in the treetops, in the deepest shadows, something far more deadly and silent lurks. I always feel that a vast spiderweb woven from blood, lies, and gold is closing in on us, on all of Temeria. The black banner of Nilfgaard with its golden sun has not yet been planted on the banks of the Pontal River, but Emhyr's enormous and cold shadow has already enveloped this camp."

Triss's words echoed within the tent, which was tightly sealed by a magical barrier, like an ancient prophecy foretelling destruction. The surrounding temperature seemed to drop to freezing point with her words.

In truth, Triss was absolutely right. As an elite member of the sorceresses' council, her hound-like political instincts and profound understanding of the Serpent School's background allowed her to pinpoint the deadly fuse hidden in the shadows with unparalleled precision. She sensed the immense crisis that threatened to overthrow the entire northern kingdoms and displace tens of thousands.

She left Gillian in the camp not because she was truly convinced by Geralt, though she genuinely, without pretense, respected the white wolf's judgment. She kept him because she had spent the entire evening distilling all the possibilities like an alchemical formula, arriving at a cold, purely rational conclusion: keeping a snake in sight was far safer than letting it disappear into the grass. And if the snake happened to be just a snake, its fangs could at least help her repel other enemies.

But fate, or rather, that cruel god who liked to play dice games with mortals in taverns using lead dice, played an extremely vicious joke at this moment—the snake was never the snake she thought it was.

"Promise me, Geralt." Triss turned and strode quickly to the white wolf. Ignoring the mud and sweat on the witcher, she reached out and gently, with deep affection, cupped his scarred and weathered face. Her eyes were filled with pleading, and a profound unease about the unknown storm that was about to break.

"In the coming days, once the siege begins, no matter how intense the fighting becomes, absolutely, absolutely do not leave Foltest. Let Gilyam share what you can—you say he's skilled, so let him do what he's good at. But you yourself must always stand closest to the King. No matter what happens, no matter how much Gilyam acts like a dutiful mercenary, even if he just saved your life, do not let your guard down for even a second. I have a very bad feeling... this is just the prelude to a terrible storm."

Geralt looked down into Triss's beautiful, worried eyes. He could feel the slight chill in her palms, a chill born of nervousness. The guilt he felt for concealing Yennefer's past welled up within him again. Finally, he could only nod slowly and solemnly. He extended his large, calloused hands, calloused from years of wielding a sword, and placed them over the back of Triss's hand.

"I'll be watching him. Anyone who wants to harm the king will have to step over my dead body first."

The firewood in the magic brazier crackled again with a "pop," sparks rising briefly before extinguishing. Outside the tent, a distant horn sounded, hoarse, weary, and carrying the damp echoes unique to early spring nights.