Chapter 20: THE EDGE OF THE WORLD — Part 1
Geralt tracked the Sylvan like a hound following scent.
He crouched at the base of a rocky outcrop, fingers brushing marks I couldn't have seen from three feet away. "Recent. Hours old, not days." He straightened, scanning the landscape with those unsettling eyes. "It's not hiding. It's leading us."
"Into a trap?"
"Probably."
I thought about my moonlit encounter with Torque—the yellow eyes, the warning about "friends" in the hills. The Sylvan had taken my measure and decided I wasn't worth escalating over. But I hadn't been traveling with a Witcher then.
"Should we turn back?"
Geralt made a sound that might have been a laugh. "You wanted to follow me into danger. This is what danger looks like." He drew his silver sword—the one for monsters—and continued up the trail.
Fair enough.
I kept my lute case secured and my Evasion awareness stretched as far as it would go. The hills around us were beautiful in the afternoon light—golden grass, ancient stones, the distant glitter of a stream. The kind of landscape poets wrote about.
The kind of landscape where creatures hid.
"You said you had information about this area." Geralt's voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. "The Sylvan specifically."
"I watched the fields one night. At a farmer's request." I kept my own voice low. "Saw the creature working. Horned, hooved, exactly what the legends describe. It ran when I approached, but not before we exchanged words."
Geralt stopped walking. "You spoke to it."
"Briefly. It said I played well for a human. Warned me its friends wouldn't be as forgiving if I wandered too far into these hills." I met his stare. "I decided not to test that warning. At least, not alone."
"And you didn't think to mention this before we left Posada?"
"You didn't ask."
His jaw tightened. For a moment I thought he might actually hit me, or at minimum leave me standing here while he continued alone. Instead, he made a sound of pure frustration and resumed walking.
"Stay behind me. When things go wrong—and they will—run. Don't try to help. Don't try to be heroic. Just run."
"I'm not much of a runner."
"Then you'll die."
The trail wound between boulders that had probably stood there since before humans came to this land. Each shadow could hide a threat. Each rocky overhang could conceal archers. My Evasion awareness hummed with low-level warnings—not immediate danger, but the sense of being watched. Hunted.
Torque came out of nowhere.
One moment the path was clear; the next, a horned figure appeared directly in front of us. His hands moved in a complex gesture, and a wave of stench rolled over us—rotting meat and sulfur and something worse.
Geralt stumbled, gagging. The smell hit me like a physical blow, but my instinct screamed MOVE before my mind could process why.
I dropped flat.
Something whistled through the space my head had occupied—a thrown club or staff that would have cracked my skull. I rolled, scrambled, tried to find my feet—
Impact.
Stars exploded behind my eyes. The ground rushed up to meet me. I heard Geralt shouting something, heard more movement, but everything was distant, muffled.
The last thing I saw before darkness took me was Torque's face, close enough to count his pointed teeth. His expression was almost apologetic.
"Sorry," he said. "Nothing personal."
Pain woke me.
My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat, each pulse a fresh spike of agony behind my eyes. I tried to move and discovered my hands were bound behind my back, wrists tied with rope that bit into my skin.
"You're awake."
Geralt's voice, rough and low. I blinked until my vision cleared enough to see him beside me, similarly bound, sitting against a stone wall.
We were in some kind of underground chamber. Roots broke through the ceiling; ancient masonry crumbled at the edges. Elven architecture, or what remained of it—the graceful lines still visible despite centuries of decay.
And we weren't alone.
Figures surrounded us. Thin, angular, pointed ears catching the torchlight. Aen Seidhe—elves—watching us with the flat, desperate stares of people who'd lost nearly everything and expected nothing good.
Filavandrel stood at their center.
I recognized him from the show, but again, the reality exceeded the performance. He was beautiful the way Geralt was beautiful—otherworldly, dangerous, carved from something harder than human flesh. His armor was ancient, his sword older still, and his eyes held the accumulated grief of a dying race.
"The Witcher wakes." His voice was musical even in contempt. "And his pet songbird."
"We're not your enemies." Geralt's tone was carefully neutral. "We came for the Sylvan, not for you."
"The Sylvan works for us. As does everything that still belongs to the Aen Seidhe." Filavandrel stepped closer. "You came to our lands with silver and steel, Witcher. What did you expect to find?"
I bit my tongue. Everything in me wanted to speak—to explain, to negotiate, to use my powers to ease the tension. But this was Geralt's scene. In the story I knew, he'd talked them out of this. He needed the chance to do it again.
Don't interfere unless you have to. Let the timeline hold.
My head pounded. Blood had dried on my temple from whatever had hit me. The headache was going to be spectacular, assuming I lived long enough to appreciate it.
Filavandrel turned to face me. "And what of you, human? What songs will you sing about this night? Tales of elvish cruelty? More lies for your people to repeat?"
The question hung in the torchlit air.
Support Geralt's argument. Don't make things worse.
"I've sung songs about your people's suffering," I said carefully. "Real ones. The burning of Shaerrawedd. The betrayals after the peace. The truth, not propaganda."
An elf in the back—a woman with hollow cheeks and desperate eyes—unclenched her fist slightly.
"Pretty words." Filavandrel's blade caught the light. "Humans are good at those."
"So are elves, I've heard. The difference is whether the words are backed by truth." I held his gaze despite the pain behind my eyes. "I'm not your enemy. Neither is he. We came for a Sylvan who was damaging crops. Not for genocide."
Torque appeared at Filavandrel's shoulder. His yellow eyes met mine.
"I know this one," the Sylvan said. "He watched my fields. Played music instead of running." Something like respect colored his reed-thin voice. "Not the usual human response."
Filavandrel's expression flickered. "You've met before?"
"Briefly." Torque shrugged his goatish shoulders. "He didn't report what he saw. Didn't bring hunters. Just... waited."
The chamber fell silent.
Geralt was watching me now, assessment in his golden eyes. I'd just revealed something I hadn't told him—proof that I'd encountered the Sylvan and kept it secret.
But it might be the thing that saved our lives.
Filavandrel raised his blade toward Geralt's throat.
"Give me one reason," he said, "why I shouldn't end this now."
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