They stood motionless for a moment until the returning procession barged into them, shook and jostled them again. The young woman quickly turned and fled, clumsily trying to join the dancers. She looked back. Just once.

Beltane…

What am I doing here?

A star shone in the dark, sparkling, drawing his gaze. The medallion around the Witcher’s neck vibrated. Geralt involuntarily dilated his pupils, his vision effortlessly penetrating the obscurity.

She was not a peasant woman. Peasant women did not wear black velvet cloaks. Peasant women–carried or dragged into the bushes by men–screamed, giggled, squirmed and tensed their bodies like trout being pulled out of the water. None of them gave the impression that it was they who were leading their tall, fair-haired swains with gaping shirts into the gloom.

Peasant women never wore velvet ribbons or diamond-encrusted stars of obsidian around their necks.

‘Yennefer.’

Wide-open, violet eyes blazing in a pale, triangular face.

‘Geralt…’

She released the hand of the fair-haired cherub whose breast was shiny as a sheet of copper with sweat. The lad staggered, tottered, fell to his knees, rolled his head, looked around and blinked. He stood up slowly, glanced at them uncomprehending and embarrassed, and then lurched off towards the bonfires. The sorceress did not even glance at him. She looked intently at the Witcher, and her hand tightly clenched the edge of her cloak.

‘Nice to see you,’ he said easily. He immediately sensed the tension which had formed between them falling away.

‘Indeed,’ she smiled. He seemed to detect something affected in the smile, but he could not be certain. ‘Quite a pleasant surprise, I don’t deny. What are you doing here, Geralt? Oh… Excuse me, forgive my indiscretion. Of course, we’re doing the same thing. It’s Beltane, after all. Only you caught me, so to speak, in flagrante delicto.’

‘I interrupted you.’

‘I’ll survive,’ she laughed. ‘The night is young. I’ll enchant another if the fancy takes me.’

‘Pity I’m unable to do that,’ he said trying hard to affect indifference. ‘A moment ago a girl saw my eyes in the light and fled.’

‘At dawn,’ she said, smiling more and more falsely, ‘when they really let themselves go, they won’t pay any attention. You’ll find another, just you wait…’

‘Yen—’ The rest of the words stuck in his throat. They looked at one another for a long, long time, and the red reflection of fire flickered on their faces. Yennefer suddenly sighed, veiling her eyes with her eyelashes.

‘Geralt, no. Don’t let’s start—’

‘It’s Beltane,’ he interrupted. ‘Have you forgotten?’

She moved slowly closer, placed her hands on his arms, and slowly and cautiously snuggled against him, touching his chest with her forehead. He stroked her raven-black hair, strewn in locks coiled like snakes.

‘Believe me,’ she whispered, lifting her head. ‘I wouldn’t think twice, if it were only to be… But it’s senseless. Everything will start again and finish like last time. It would be senseless if we were to—’