Avallac'h's silence stretched on, taut and unyielding, his eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder rather than meeting her own.
"Since you've gone deaf," Ciri said, voice flat and cold, already turning for the door, "I'll go see to it myself. I can't exactly escape your world, so that shouldn't be a problem, should it."
His hand caught her arm before she'd taken a second step. "No," he said, low and final. "You will remain here."
"Avallac'h!"
He was already moving, stepping back through the doorway even as his free hand traced a swift, practiced rune in the air behind him. The threshold shimmered gold for an instant, and by the time Ciri lunged for it, the barrier had already settled solid and humming across the entire frame, and Avallac'h was gone, his footsteps fading swiftly down the corridor beyond.
"What the hell!" Ciri slammed both fists against the ward, and it held without so much as a flicker, absorbing the blow as though she'd struck packed stone rather than empty air. "Avallac'h! Get back here! Now!" She struck it again, and again, until her knuckles ached and the barrier remained exactly as unmoved as before, and finally she stepped back, breathing hard, fury and fear tangling together in her chest.
Something big was happening. She'd felt it in the tremor that had run faintly through the palace stones minutes ago, heard it in the distant, muffled sound of shouting and steel and Tir na Lia was not a world at war. Avallac'h had told her as much himself, more than once, with something like quiet pride: theirs was a peaceful world, ancient and untroubled, with no enemies left to trouble it.
Which meant whatever was tearing through these halls tonight had come from somewhere else, someone from a different world entirely.
Ciri's eyes went wide, her pulse suddenly hammering for an entirely different reason. "...Could it be.."
.
.
.
Steel met staff in a shower of white sparks as Caranthir's ward absorbed yet another of Geralt's strikes, the elf's counter coming a moment later, the staff's carved head driving hard into Geralt's ribs and sending him stumbling back a full step, breath punched out of him. Caranthir pressed the advantage at once, a lance of raw force lancing from the staff's tip that Geralt only barely turned aside with a hastily raised Quen, the ward flaring gold and cracking under the strain.
Caranthir's magic came relentless, layered and precise, spellwork Geralt had no name for interwoven seamlessly with staffwork that moved with the same deadly grace as any master swordsman he'd ever crossed blades with. Twice already Geralt had felt his own strength flagging, his signs guttering thinner with each cast, the elf showing no comparable sign of tiring.
But Geralt had survived worse than tired.
He feinted low, drawing Caranthir's staff downward to block a strike that never came, and in the half-second opening that followed he unleashed Aard at point-blank range the force of it tore the staff clean out of Caranthir's grip and sent it clattering across the stone floor, and before the elf could recover, Geralt's blade was already moving, a vicious diagonal cut that Caranthir only partially avoided, silver steel opening a deep, burning line across his eye and cheek.
Caranthir staggered back with a sharp, pained hiss, one hand flying to his ruined eye, blood already welling thick between his fingers.
Geralt didn't press the kill. He didn't have the time to spare for it Seb was somewhere in this palace already, more of these riders would come, and every second spent here was time not spent finding Ciri. He turned instead and broke into a hard run deeper into the palace, past startled, fearful elven attendants who scattered from his path with cries of alarm, cutting down the two guards who were foolish enough to stand their ground rather than flee, his silver blade making short, brutal work of both before he kept moving without so much as breaking stride.
Behind him, Caranthir straightened slowly, blood streaming freely down the ruin of his face, and snatched his fallen staff back up from the stone floor with a white-knuckled grip. "You'll pay for that, Vatt'ghern!" he snarled after the vanishing Witcher, voice raw with fury.
Elsewhere within the palace's winding halls, Seb's medallion trembled violently against his chest, a constant, that told him plainly enough what kind of place he was walking through a place saturated in magic so deep and old it had soaked into the very stones, into the air itself. It made sense, he supposed. The Aen Elle stood at the very summit of whatever hierarchy governed magic in this world or his own, conquerors of entire realities long before mankind had learned to strike flint. He shook off the thought before it could slow him.
He wasn't looking for Ciri directly, not yet. He doubted he'd stumble across her by accident in a palace this size. But if he found the king, or Avallac'h, or anyone who mattered enough to know where she was kept, he'd have his answer soon enough. He pushed the thought forward and kept moving, until the corridor opened suddenly into a vast, vaulted chamber a throne room, empty, or so it seemed at first glance.
The doors along every wall opened at once, and Red Riders poured through them in perfect, disciplined formation, encircling him within seconds, their curved blades gleaming, voices low in rapid Elder Speech. And from the dais beyond the empty throne, a figure stepped forward, silver-haired, composed, his bearing carrying an authority that none of the riders around him possessed.
"Human," Ge'els said, his voice carrying easily across the vast hall. "I will not trouble myself asking why you are here. We already know the answer well enough. Yet you will answer for your crimes this night, in this very hall."
Seb looked him over, unimpressed, sword still burning faintly in his grip. "Crimes? Killing your soldiers was probably the noblest thing I've done since I first picked up a sword." His eyes narrowed. "But you're not Eredin. So who exactly are you, and where's your filthy king or general, whichever one of you is actually in charge around here. I'd very much like to meet him."
"My name is Ge'els," the elf said. "How is it you know the General's name? You must have crossed paths with him in the world of the Aen Seidhe."
"If we'd crossed paths," Seb said flatly, "you'd need a new general by now." He rolled his shoulders, fire hissing faintly along his skin. "Now let's skip the rest of this. Where is Cirilla."
"The King's guest," Ge'els said, "will be protected from the likes of you."
Something in Seb's expression went very still. "The king's what." A short, humorless breath escaped him. "So that's Avallac'h's plan, is it. Great." His grip tightened on his sword, flame surging brighter along the blade. "Guess I'll have to kill all of you, then."
"Kill this arrogant human," Ge'els said, cold and final.
The Red Riders surged forward as one and Seb dropped low, slamming both palms flat against the throne room floor. A pillar of fire erupted upward from his very body, roaring through the hall with a force that shattered stone and sent Red Riders flying in every direction, their formation obliterated in an instant, Ge'els himself thrown backward off his feet by the sheer force of the blast, the ancient throne room's walls scorched black in a widening ring around where Seb stood at the center of it all, untouched, burning, and utterly unmoved.
Far from the chaos consuming his palace, King Auberon Muircetach sat alone in his private garden, hands folded calmly in his lap, the distant sounds of fire and steel and screaming drifting to him only as a faint, muffled murmur beyond the garden's warded walls. He did not rise. He did not so much as glance toward the smoke curling above his city. Whatever intrusion had befallen his world tonight, he judged it beneath his concern.. a passing inconvenience, nothing more, to be handled by those far better suited to handling such things. His people had not lost a war in longer than even he could easily recall. He saw no reason tonight should prove different.
Eredin approached across the garden's pale stone path with an easy, confident stride, with a faint smile of a man whose plans proceeded exactly as intended.
"Eredin." Auberon said as he glanced at his General.
"I've come to report, Your Majesty," Eredin said, and bowed his head.
/-\
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