The brushwood caught fire in an instant. The pyre belched smoke and flames leaped up. The yelling and screaming coming from the Wicker Hag made the Witcher’s hair stand on end. Of course, it was impossible among the cacophony–made louder by the crackle of the fire–but it seemed to Geralt that he could make out Nightingale’s desperate croaking and the high-pitched, pain-filled shrieks of the half-elf Schirrú.

The half-elf had been right, he thought. Death isn’t always the same.

And then–after a terribly long time–the pyre and the Wicker Hag mercifully exploded into an inferno of roaring fire, a fire in which nothing could survive.

‘Your medallion, Geralt,’ said Angoulême, standing beside him.

‘Eh?’ He cleared his throat, for his throat was tight. ‘What did you say?’

‘Your silver medallion with the wolf. Schirrú had it. Now you’ve lost it forever. It’ll melt in that heat.’

‘Too bad,’ he said a moment later, looking into the flaminika’s cornflower-blue eyes. ‘I’m no longer a witcher. I’ve stopped being a witcher. I’ve learned that now. On Thanedd, in the Tower of the Seagull. In Brokilon. On the bridge on the Yaruga. In the cave beneath Gorgon. And here, in Myrkvid Forest. No, I’m not a witcher now. So I’ll have to learn to manage without my medallion.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

The king loved the queen boundlessly, and she loved him with all her heart. Something so fair had to finish unhappily.

Flourens Delannoy, Fairy Tales and Stories

Delannoy, Flourens, linguist and historian b. 1432 in Vicovaro, in the years 1460–1475 secretary and librarian to the imperial court. Indefatigable scholar of legends and folktales, he wrote many treatises considered classics of ancient language and literature of the Empire’s northern regions. His most important works are: Myths and Legends of the Peoples of the North; Fairy Tales and Stories; The Surprise, or the Myth of the Elder Blood; A Saga about a Witcher, and The Witcher and the Witcher Girl, or the Endless Search. From 1476 professor at the academy in Castell Graupian, where d. 1510.

Effenberg and Talbot, Encyclopaedia Maxima Mundi, Volume IV

A strong wind blew in from the sea, ruffling the sails, and a drizzle like thin hail stung the voyagers’ faces painfully. The water in the Great Canal was leaden, rippled by the wind and flecked by a rash of rain.

‘Come this way, sire. The boat is waiting.’