‘Neén,’ Braenn shook her head. ‘Ess’ vatt’ghern, Gwynbleidd, á váen meáth Eithné va, a’ss.’

‘Gwynbleidd?’ the beautiful dryad said, grimacing. ‘Bloede caérme! Aen’ne caen n’wedd vort! T’ess foile!’

Braenn sniggered.

‘What is it?’ the Witcher asked, growing angry.

‘Nothing,’ Braenn sniggered again. ‘Nothing. Let us be moving.’

‘Oh,’ Ciri said in delight. ‘Look at those funny cottages, Geralt!’

Duén Canell really began deep in the valley; the ‘funny cottages’, resembling huge bunches of mistletoe in shape, clung to the trunks and bows at various heights, both low, just above the ground, and high, occasionally very high, right beneath the very crowns. Geralt also saw several larger constructions on the ground, shelters made of woven branches, still covered in leaves. He saw movements in the openings to the shelters, but the dryads themselves could barely be made out. There were far fewer than there had been the last time he was there.

‘Geralt,’ Ciri whispered. ‘Those cottages are living. They’ve got little leaves!’

‘They’re made of living wood,’ the Witcher nodded. ‘That’s how dryads live, that’s how they build their houses. No dryad will ever harm a tree by chopping or sawing it. They love trees. However, they can make the branches grow to form those dwellings.’

‘How sweet. I’d like to have a little house like that on our estate.’

Braenn stopped in front of one of the larger shelters.

‘Enter, Gwynbleidd,’ she said. ‘You will wait here for Lady Eithné. Vá fáill, moppet.’

‘What?’

‘That was a farewell, Ciri. She said “goodbye”.’

‘Oh. Goodbye, Braenn.’

They went inside. The interior of the ‘cottage’ twinkled like a kaleidoscope, from the patches of sunlight filtered and diffused through the roof structure.

‘Geralt!’

‘Frexinet!’

‘You’re alive, by the Devil!’ the wounded man said, flashing his teeth, raising himself up on a makeshift bed of spruce. He saw Ciri clinging to the Witcher’s thigh and his eyes widened, a flush rushing to his face.

‘You little beast!’ he yelled. ‘I almost lost my life thanks to you! Oh, you’re fortunate I cannot stand, for I’d tan your hide!’

Ciri pouted.

‘You’re the second person,’ she said, wrinkling her nose comically, ‘to want to thrash me. I’m a little girl and little girls can’t be beaten!’

‘I’d soon show you… what’s allowed and what isn’t,’ Frexinet coughed. ‘You little wretch! Ervyll is beside himself… He’s sending out word, terrified that your grandmother’s army is marching on him. Who will believe that you bolted? Everyone knows what Ervyll’s like and what his pleasures are. Everyone thinks he… did something to you in his cups, and then had you drowned in the fishpond! War with Nilfgaard is looming, and because of you the treaty and the alliance with your grandmother have gone up in smoke! See what you’ve done?’

‘Don’t excite yourself,’ the Witcher warned, ‘for you might open your wounds. How did you get here so swiftly?’

‘The Devil only knows, I’ve been lying half-dead most of the time. They poured something revolting down my throat. By force. They held my nose and… What a damned disgrace…’