Dandelion had also leapt to his feet but was too ashamed to run away, because neither Geralt nor Bernie was preparing to flee. The Witcher drew his sword and ran towards the causeway, and the halfling rushed after him without a second thought, armed with a pitchfork. Lightning flashed once more, and a galloping horse came into view on the causeway. Behind the horse came something vague, an irregular cloud, a whirl, a phantom, woven from the gloom and glow. Something that caused panicky fear and a revolting, gut-wrenching dread.
The Witcher yelled, lifting his sword. The rider saw him, spurred the horse on and looked back. The Witcher yelled again. The thunder boomed.
There was a flash, but it wasn’t lightning this time. Dandelion crouched by the bench and would have crawled under it had it not been too low. Bernie dropped the pitchfork. Petunia Hofmeier, who had run out of the house, shrieked.
A blinding flash materialised into a transparent sphere, and inside it loomed a shape, assuming contours and shapes at frightening speed. Dandelion recognised it at once. He knew those wild, black curls and the obsidian star on a velvet ribbon. What he didn’t know and had never seen before was the face. It was a face of rage and fury, the face of the goddess of vengeance, destruction and death.
Yennefer raised a hand and screamed a spell. Spirals shot from her hands with a hiss, showering sparks, cutting the night sky and reflecting thousands of sparkles on the surface of the ponds. The spirals penetrated the cloud that was chasing the lone rider like lances. The cloud seethed, and it seemed to Dandelion that he could hear ghastly cries, that he could see the vague, nightmarish silhouettes of spectral horses. He only saw it for a split second, because the cloud suddenly contracted, clustered up into a ball and shot upwards into the sky, lengthening and dragging a tail behind it like a comet’s as it sped away. Darkness fell, only lit by the quivering glare of the lamp being held by Petunia Hofmeier.
The rider came to a halt in the yard in front of the house, slithered down from the saddle, and took some staggering steps. Dandelion realised who it was immediately. He had never seen the slim, flaxen-haired girl before. But he knew her at once.
‘Geralt . . .’ said the girl softly. ‘Madam Yennefer . . . I’m sorry . . . I had to. You know, I mean . . .’
‘Ciri,’ said the Witcher. Yennefer took a step towards the girl, but then stopped. She said nothing.
Who will the girl choose? wondered Dandelion. Neither of them – the Witcher nor the enchantress – will take a step nor make a gesture. Which will she approach first? Him? Or her?
Ciri did not walk to either of them. She was unable to decide. Instead of moving, she fainted.
The house was empty. The halfling and his entire family had left for work at daybreak. Ciri pretended to be asleep but she heard Geralt and Yennefer go out. She slipped out from the sheets, dressed quickly and stole silently out of the room, following them to the orchard.
Geralt and Yennefer turned to face the causeway between the ponds, which were white and yellow with water lilies. Ciri hid behind a ruined wall and watched them through a crack. She had imagined that Dandelion, the famous poet whose work she had read countless times, was still asleep. But she was wrong. The poet Dandelion wasn’t asleep. And he caught her in the act.
‘Hey,’ he said, coming up unexpectedly and chuckling. ‘Is it polite to eavesdrop and spy on people? More discretion, little one. Let them be together for a while.’
Ciri blushed, but then immediately narrowed her lips.
‘First of all, I’m not your little one,’ she hissed haughtily. ‘And second of all, I’m not really disturbing them, am I?’
Dandelion grew a little serious.
‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘It seems to me you might even be helping them.’
‘How? In what way?’
‘Don’t kid me. That was very cunning yesterday, but you didn’t fool me. You pretended to faint, didn’t you?
‘Yes, I did,’ she muttered, turning her face away. ‘Madam Yennefer realised but Geralt didn’t . . .’
‘They carried you into the house together. Their hands were touching. They sat by your bed almost until morning but they didn’t say a word to each other. They’ve only decided to talk now. There, on the causeway, by the pond. And you’ve decided to eavesdrop on what they’re saying . . . And watch them through a hole in the wall. Are you so desperate to know what they’re doing there?’
‘They aren’t doing anything there,’ said Ciri, blushing slightly. ‘They’re talking a little, that’s all.’
‘And you,’ said Dandelion, sitting down on the grass under an apple tree and leaning back against the trunk, having first checked whether there were any ants or caterpillars on it. ‘You’d like to know what they’re talking about, wouldn’t you?’