‘And that’s also possible.’ Ciri licked her lips. ‘Magic too… I can recover… everything I once lost can be restored. And be mine once more. I promise you, you’ll be astonished when we meet again.’

Mistle turned her closely-cropped head away, eyes fixed on the pink and blue streaks the dawn had painted above the eastern edge of the world.

‘Indeed,’ she said quietly. ‘I shall be astonished if we ever meet again. If I ever see you again, little one. Go. Let’s not drag this out.’

‘Wait for me,’ Ciri sniffed. ‘And don’t get yourself killed. Think about the amnesty Hotspurn was talking about. Even if Giselher and the others don’t want to… You think about it, Mistle. It may be a way to survive… Because I will come back for you. I swear.’

‘Kiss me.’

The dawn broke. The light grew and it became colder and colder.

‘I love you, Waxwing.’

‘I love you, Little Falcon. Now go.’

‘Of course, she didn’t believe me. She was convinced I’d got cold feet, that I’d rush after Hotspurn to look for help, to beg for that tempting amnesty. How could she know what feelings had overcome me, as I listened to what Hotspurn had said about Cintra and my grandmamma Calanthe? And about how some “Cirilla” would become the wife of the Emperor of Nilfgaard? That same emperor who had murdered my grandmamma. And who had sent that black knight with feathers on his helmet after me. I told you, remember? On the Isle of Thanedd, when he held out his hand to me, I made him bleed! I ought to have killed him… But somehow I couldn’t… I was a fool! Oh, never mind. Perhaps he bled to death on Thanedd… Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Go on. Tell me how you rode after Hotspurn, to recover your inheritance. To recover what belonged to you.’

‘There’s no need to sneer, no need to mock. Yes, I know it was stupid, I see it now, I saw it then too… I was cleverer in Kaer Morhen and in the temple of Melitele, there I knew that what had passed could not return, that I wasn’t the Princess of Cintra but someone completely different, that I had no inheritance. All of that was lost and I had to reconcile myself to it. It was explained to me wisely and solemnly, and I accepted it. Calmly, too. And then it suddenly began to come back. First, when they tried to impress me with the Baron of Casadei’s daughter’s title… I’d never been bothered about such things, but suddenly I fell into a fury, put on airs and yelled that I was more titled and of better birth than she. And from then on I began to think about it. I felt the fury growing in me. Do you understand that, Vysogota?’

‘I do.’