Chapter 21: THE EDGE OF THE WORLD — Part 2
Geralt's voice cut through the torchlit silence like a blade.
"Because killing us won't save your people."
Filavandrel's sword didn't waver. "It will feel satisfying."
"And then what? You'll have two corpses and the same problems you had before. The humans will keep pushing. Your people will keep starving. Killing a Witcher and a bard won't change that." Geralt's tone was matter-of-fact, stripped of pleading or posturing. "I'm not your enemy. I kill monsters. Not people choosing pride over surrender."
The words hung in the chamber. I watched the elves' faces—saw grief and anger and exhaustion written in the lines around their eyes. These weren't warriors at their peak. These were refugees clinging to the last fragments of a shattered civilization.
I know how this ends. I know Filavandrel makes the right choice. But watching it happen is different from reading about it.
"You call us proud." Filavandrel's voice shook slightly. "We are all that remains. When we die, our culture dies with us. Our songs, our history, our blood—everything ends in these hills because humans wanted our land."
"I know."
Two words, but something in Geralt's delivery made the elf falter. The Witcher's golden eyes met Filavandrel's with understanding that shouldn't have existed between hunter and hunted.
"I've lived longer than most humans. I've watched your people fade for generations. I've seen what you've lost." Geralt's bound hands shifted against his ropes. "You think I don't understand desperation? I was made in a laboratory, forced through mutations that killed half the boys who tried them. I'm as much a monster in human eyes as you are."
Silence.
An elf near the back—a young man who couldn't have been more than a century old, which meant adolescent by their standards—lowered his head.
Filavandrel's sword descended. Not to strike, but to rest at his side.
"And what do you suggest, Witcher? That we roll over and die quietly? That we make peace with our extinction?"
"I suggest you survive. However you can." Geralt's voice softened almost imperceptibly. "Find new purpose. Adapt. The world has changed, but change doesn't have to mean ending."
"Easy words from someone who still has a place in that world."
I'd stayed silent through this exchange, knowing Geralt needed to carry it. But the moment felt fragile—balanced on a knife's edge that could still tip either way. When Filavandrel turned to me, I knew my chance had come.
"And you, songbird? What wisdom do you offer?"
I took a slow breath, ignoring the pounding in my skull.
"I can't give you back what was taken. No one can." The words came carefully, truthfully—I couldn't lie here, couldn't risk my power punishing me for deception. "But I can tell your story. The real one, not the versions humans spread."
"Songs won't feed my people."
"No. But songs shape how people think. How they remember." I thought of the Kowalczyks, of Brzeg burning, of a ballad that had spread across the Continent carrying the truth of refugee suffering. "If humans only hear stories of elvish raiders and savages, they'll keep fearing you. But if they hear what you've endured—the betrayals, the broken promises, the slow theft of everything you built—some of them might start to understand."
Filavandrel laughed. It was a bitter sound, hollow with centuries of disappointment.
"You think humans will change because of songs?"
"I think change has to start somewhere." I held his gaze. "I've sung about refugees from the south, fleeing Nilfgaardian expansion. Human refugees. And people wept, and they gave what they could, and they remembered. Truth has weight. It lands differently than lies."
The chamber stayed silent.
Torque stepped forward, his hooves silent on the ancient stones. "The bard speaks true," he said quietly. "I've heard his songs in distant taverns. Humans who've never seen war cry when he sings about suffering." The Sylvan's yellow eyes found mine. "Whatever else he is, he tells true stories."
Whatever else he is. Torque had noticed something during our moonlit meeting. Something he wasn't explaining to Filavandrel.
The elf lord considered this. His sword hung at his side, forgotten. The hunger in his face—the desperate need for something to believe in—was painful to witness.
"If we release you," Filavandrel said finally, "you will tell no one of this place."
"Agreed." Geralt didn't hesitate.
"And you, bard? You will write this... honest song? Tell the truth of the Aen Seidhe?"
"I will."
It was an oath. I felt the weight of it settle onto my shoulders—not supernatural compulsion, but genuine commitment. These people were dying, and I had the power to make their deaths mean something. To ensure the world remembered what had been lost.
Filavandrel sheathed his sword.
"Cut them loose."
The ropes fell away, and I rubbed my wrists where the bindings had bitten deep. Red marks circled my skin, promising bruises that would last for days.
An elf returned my lute case. Another handed Geralt his swords with obvious reluctance.
Torque pressed close as we prepared to leave. "Play better next time," he said, the same words he'd used in the moonlit field. But this time there was something else behind them—acknowledgment, perhaps. Recognition between creatures who weren't quite what they seemed.
"I'll try."
We walked out of the ruins as dawn broke over the hills.
The morning light felt impossibly bright after hours in torchlit chambers. My head still throbbed, and exhaustion dragged at my limbs, but we were alive. Free. The timeline had held.
Geralt said nothing for the first mile. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat.
"You met the Sylvan before. Watched his fields. Kept it secret."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I considered several answers. Partial truths, misdirections, the kind of clever responses that had served me well for three years. But something about the night we'd just survived demanded better.
"Because I knew you were coming," I said. "Not specifically—I didn't know your name or when you'd arrive. But I knew eventually a Witcher would take this contract, and I wanted to be here when it happened." I met his suspicious gaze. "I've been waiting in Posada for months, Geralt. Building a reputation. Positioning myself to meet exactly the kind of person who might tolerate a bard following them into danger."
His eyes narrowed. "You planned this."
"I hoped for it." I spread my hands. "I'm ambitious. I want to write songs about real adventures, and that means finding someone who has them. When I learned about the 'devil' in these hills, I knew it would eventually attract a monster hunter. So I waited."
Not the whole truth. Not even close. But close enough to satisfy the question without revealing the impossible.
Geralt studied me for a long moment.
"You're not what you seem."
"Neither are you." I smiled despite the headache, despite the rope burns, despite the lingering terror of being one bad decision away from death. "Most people see 'Witcher' and think 'monster.' But I saw you talk down an elf lord who had every reason to kill us. That's not what monsters do."
Something shifted in his expression. Not warmth, exactly—Geralt didn't do warmth—but perhaps the absence of hostility.
"You're going to be trouble," he said.
"Probably." I unslung my lute case and started walking beside him. "But I'm also going to write the best damn song anyone's ever heard about this adventure. And I'm going to make sure people know the truth about what happened here."
We descended from the hills together. Behind us, the elven ruins sank back into morning mist. Ahead, the road stretched toward an uncertain future.
I began humming.
The melody had been forming in my mind since the moment Filavandrel lowered his sword—something bright and defiant, the kind of tune that would stick in people's heads. Not just about the adventure, but about the man beside me. The Witcher who killed monsters but talked to elves. The White Wolf who deserved better songs than "Butcher of Blaviken."
"What's that?" Geralt asked.
"The beginning of something." I adjusted the melody, letting it grow. "I'm thinking of calling it 'Toss a Coin to Your Witcher.' Catchy, right?"
He made that sound again—"Hmm"—but I caught the ghost of something that might have been amusement.
The sun rose higher as we walked. My head pounded, my wrists ached, and I was fairly certain I smelled like Torque's stench bomb.
But for the first time in three years, I wasn't alone.
The journey had finally begun.
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