“I train in every spare moment. I don’t dare lose my skill. I’ve come here—this furthest corner of the temple garden—to limber up, to rid my muscles of that hideous, loathsome numbness which has come over me, this coldness flowing through me. And you found me here. Funny, for a few days I was trying to find you. I wanted—

“I need to talk, Iola. Let’s sit down for a moment.

“You don’t know me at all, do you?

“I’m called Geralt. Geralt of—No. Only Geralt. Geralt of nowhere. I’m a witcher.

“My home is Kaer Morhen, Witcher’s Settlement. It’s… It was a fortress. Not much remains of it.

“Kaer Morhen… That’s where the likes of me were produced. It’s not done anymore; no one lives in Kaer Morhen now. No one but Vesemir. Who’s Vesemir? My father. Why are you so surprised? What’s so strange about it? Everyone’s got a father, and mine is Vesemir. And so what if he’s not my real father? I didn’t know him, or my mother. I don’t even know if they’re still alive, and I don’t much care.

“Yes, Kaer Morhen. I underwent the usual mutation there, through the Trial of Grasses, and then hormones, herbs, viral infections. And then through them all again. And again, to the bitter end. Apparently, I took the changes unusually well; I was only ill briefly. I was considered to be an exceptionally resilient brat… and was chosen for more complicated experiments as a result. They were worse. Much worse. But, as you see, I survived. The only one to live out of all those chosen for further trials. My hair’s been white ever since. Total loss of pigmentation. A side effect, as they say. A trifle.

“Then they taught me various things until the day when I left Kaer Morhen and took to the road. I’d earned my medallion, the Sign of the Wolf’s School. I had two swords: silver and iron, and my conviction, enthusiasm, incentive and… faith. Faith that I was needed in a world full of monsters and beasts, to protect the innocent. As I left Kaer Morhen, I dreamed of meeting my first monster. I couldn’t wait to stand eye to eye with him. And the moment arrived.

“My first monster, Iola, was bald and had exceptionally rotten teeth. I came across him on the highway where, with some fellow monsters, deserters, he’d stopped a peasant’s cart and pulled out a little girl, maybe thirteen years old. His companions held her father while the bald man tore off her dress, yelling it was time for her to meet a real man. I rode up and said the time had come for him, too—I thought I was very witty. The bald monster released the girl and threw himself at me with an axe. He was slow but tough. I hit him twice—not clean cuts, but spectacular, and only then did he fall. His gang ran away when they saw what a witcher’s sword could do to a man…