‘You’ll kill them, Yennefer.’

‘Since when has that ever bothered you? You take care of the dragon, I’ll deal with the people.’

‘Yennefer,’ the Witcher said coldly, ‘I don’t understand. What do you want with that dragon? Does the yellowness of its scales dazzle you to that degree? You don’t suffer from poverty, after all. You have numerous sources of income; you’re famous. What are you about? Just don’t talk about a calling, I beg you.’

Yennefer was silent, then finally, twisting her lips, aimed a powerful kick at a stone lying in the grass.

‘There’s someone who can help me, Geralt. Apparently, it’s… you know what I’m talking about… Apparently it isn’t irreversible. There’s a chance. I could still have… Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

‘It’s a complex operation, costly. But in exchange for a golden dragon… Geralt?’

The Witcher remained silent.

‘When we were hanging on the bridge,’ the sorcereress said, ‘you asked me for something. I’ll meet your request. In spite of everything.’

The Witcher smiled sadly and touched the obsidian star on Yennefer’s neck with his index finger.

‘It’s too late, Yen. We aren’t hanging now. It’s stopped mattering to me. In spite of everything.’

He expected the worst: a cascade of fire, lightning, a smack in the face, abuse, curses. He was surprised just to see the suppressed trembling of her lips. Yennefer slowly turned away. Geralt regretted his words. He regretted the emotion which had engendered them. The limit of possibility overstepped, now snapped like a lute string. He looked at Dandelion and saw the troubadour quickly turn his head away and avoid his gaze.

‘Well, we’ve got the issue of knightly honour out of the way, my lords,’ Boholt called, now dressed in armour and standing before Niedamir, who was still sitting on a stone with an unvarying expression of boredom on his face. ‘Knightly honour is lying there, groaning softly. It was a lousy idea, Lord Gyllenstiern, to send out Eyck as your knight and vassal. I wouldn’t dream of pointing the finger, but I know whom Eyck can thank for his broken pins. Yes, I swear, we’ve killed two birds with one stone. One was a lunatic, insanely reviving the legends of how a bold knight defeats a dragon in a duel. And the other a swindler, who wanted to make money from it. Do you know who I’m talking about, Gyllenstiern, what? Good. And now our move. Now the dragon is ours. Now we, the Reavers, will sort out that dragon. But by ourselves.’

‘And the agreement, Boholt?’ the chancellor drawled. ‘What about the agreement?’

‘I don’t give a shit about the agreement.’

‘This is outrageous! This is lese-majesty!’ Gyllenstiern stamped his foot. ‘King Niedamir—’

‘What about the king?’ Boholt yelled, resting on an enormous, two-handed sword. ‘Perhaps the king will personally decide to take on the dragon by himself? Or perhaps you, his faithful chancellor, will squeeze your belly into a suit of armour and go into battle? Why not, please do, we’ll wait, my lord. You had your chance, Gyllenstiern. Had Eyck mortally lanced the dragon, you would have taken it in its entirety, nothing would have been left to us because we hadn’t helped, not one golden scale on its back. But it’s too late now. Open your eyes. There’s no one to fight under Caingorn’s colours. You won’t find another chump like Eyck.’