‘My poor little one…’ he said in an unfamiliar voice. ‘My little one, my poor raison d’état.’

Bells rang throughout Cintra. In a stately manner, deeply, solemnly. But somehow strangely mournfully.

Unusual looks, thought Hierarch Hemmelfart, looking, like everybody else, at the hanging portrait which measured, like all the others, at least one yard by two. Strange looks. I’m absolutely certain she’s some kind of half-breed. I’d swear she has the blood of the accursed elves in her veins.

Pretty, thought Foltest, prettier than the miniature the people from the intelligence service showed me. Ah well, portraits usually flatter.

Utterly unlike Calanthe, thought Meve. Utterly unlike Roegner. Utterly unlike Pavetta… Hmmm… There’ve been rumours… But no, that’s impossible. She must have royal blood, must be the rightful ruler of Cintra. She must. It is demanded by raison d’état. And history.

She’s not the one I saw in my dreams, thought Esterad Thyssen, King of Kovir, who had recently arrived in Cintra. She’s certainly not that one. But I shan’t tell that to anyone. I’ll keep it to myself and my Zuleyka. Zuleyka and I shall decide how we shall use the knowledge those dreams gave us.

She was almost my wife, that Ciri, thought Kistrin of Verden. I’d have been Duke of Cintra then, according to custom the heir to the throne… And I’d probably have perished like Calanthe. It was fortunate, oh, it was fortunate that she ran away from me then.

Not even for a moment did I believe in the tale of great love at first sight, thought Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen. Not even for a moment. And yet Emhyr is marrying that girl. He’s rejecting the chance for reconciliation with the dukes. Instead of the daughter of one of the Nilfgaardian dukes he’s taking Cirilla of Cintra for his wife. Why? In order to seize that miserable little country, half of which, if not more, I would anyway have gained for the empire in negotiations. To seize the mouth of the Yaruga, which is in any case under the dominion of a Nilfgaardian-Novigradian-Koviran maritime trading company.

I don’t understand anything of this raison d’état.

I suspect they aren’t telling me everything.

Sorceresses, thought Dijkstra. It’s the sorceresses’ handiwork. But let it be. It was clearly written that Ciri would become the Queen of Cintra, the wife of Emhyr and the Empress of Nilfgaard. Destiny clearly wanted that. Fate.

Let it be, thought Triss Merigold. May it remain like that. Well and good. Ciri will be safe now. They’ll forget about her. They’ll let her live.

The portrait finally ended up in its place, and the servants who had hung it stood back and removed the ladders.

In the long row of darkened and somewhat dusty paintings of the rulers of Cintra, beyond the collection of Cerbins and Corams, beyond Corbett, Dagorad and Roegner, beyond the proud Calanthe and the melancholy Pavetta, hung the last portrait. Depicting the currently reigning gracious monarch. The successor to the throne and to the royal blood.