Kyana Of Cintra

89

Kyana came back to reality like a lightening bolt had hit her. Geralt's eyes were hooded, but still open, gazing up at her. Kyana smiled at him, caressing the matted hair away from his sweaty face. "How're you feeling?" She asked him, placing an arm by the side of her to lean on. He looked into her eyes with a weak smile on his face, attempting to raise one of his weak hands to her thigh. 

"I feel like someone shoved a sword through my brain." He stated, blinking twice and frowning to accommodate the pain pulsing through his body. "What happened? I remember that lady, the food, feeling you in the room, then and I woke up and you were still in my head." Kyana sighed, trying to figure out the best way to tell him what she had to. 

"I met the lady. She promised to give me the list of potions I need to cure you, in return for your attendance to a visit to her." Geralt's eyes widened at the promise Kyana had made behind his back. "Don't look at me like that. She was a fool. She gave me the list before I took you to her. You don't have to go, I can divert your thoughts somewhere else before you start hallucinating." Kyana smiled at him, contented with her level of competence. 

Geralt thought for a moment, lifting himself up into a sitting position to think it over. Kyana watched him, her hands hovering over his body to make sure he didn't fall from the cart. Geralt looked off into the distance at explosions, hearing them ring out in the silence. "What's that?" He groaned, nodding his head in the direction of the smoke. Kyana turned her gaze to the commotion, drawing her conclusion, but was beaten by Yurga's reply. 

"Well, from the direction, I would say that Nilfgaard has made it to Sodden. Take Sodden, you take the North, some say." Kyana began to unbind the wound, gazing at it without satisfaction. It had not festered, but it had not healed as well as she liked, either. "Ye gods, that looks hideous." Yurga commented on it, something Kyana shot him a look for. Geralt groaned as he shifted to inspect his wound. True enough, it did not look good, and Kyana noticed the blackness creeping into his veins. Kyana grabbed onto Geralt's bare arm, pulling it towards her so that his forearm faced the sky. The veins were black, grayer towards the top of his shoulder, but still dark. She panicked internally, launching her hand into her bag and pulling out an old, horrific potion she had been saving. She gazed at Geralt, who breathed heavily as he prepared himself for what he was going to have to drink. 

Kyana gave him half the potion to drink, which he did without much protest. The other half she used to pour onto his wound, watching as it smoked like acid against steel. Kyana cast a sympathetic look towards her fiancee, gripping his hand in her own to help him channel the pain. He groaned in pain, creating a fist with his free hand that dug into the cart floor as his other squeezed Kyana's. His eyes fluttered, just as they had when he had his first hallucination. Kyana looked up at him and started to panic. 

"No, no I haven't diverted you." Kyana placed her hands on his head again and tried pushing him away to another train of thought, to no avail. He entered the hallucination swiftly, with Kyana observing with her hand in his, guiding him out of it. The boy was there again, this time on the back of a cart resting in hay on a beautiful, warm day. Visenna drove the cart, her head remaining in it's place; facing the road. Not once did she look back to check on her son. 

"What's at the edge of the world? If we go past it, do we fall off the world? Where do we fall? Into another sphere? How many spheres are there?" Young Geralt questioned his mother, who continued to drive the cart without saying a word. "Do you have any food?" Young Geralt asked, linking it to another question. "Is there food on other spheres?" Visenna pulled her hand back, forcing an apple out of the tree to float in her hand, offering it to the boy. He laughed in amusement and took it, holding it in his hands. "And after the edge of the world, let's go to Lyria and Rivia and Vengerberg!" He cried enthusiastically. 

"Stop." Visenna said softly, unaware of Kyana's presence this time, seen as she did not visualize herself inside Geralt's mind. The boy carried on, unaware of what his mother was about to do.

"And never stop!" Young Geralt cried out, talking about the travelling. Visenna obviously meant in that moment to stop immediately, so that they may 'rest'. 

"I have to stop." Visenna insisted, her voice softer again as though she were about to faint. Kyana's heart felt as though someone had wrapped a hand around it and squeezed; how could someone do something like that to Geralt when he was so innocent, when he was but a child trying to help his mother? Still, she pushed on, to comfort Geralt as his hand squeezed hers tighter. 

"Are you okay, Ma?" The confused and innocent little boy asked, snapping Kyana's heart in two at how despicable Visenna had been. 

"I need water." She stated, pointing to the bucket that was conveniently placed on the outskirts of the cart. "Go! Fetch it for me." The boy climbed from the cart with the bucket in hand with no hesitation, locating a nearby stream of mountain water. He was smart enough to know moving water was better to drink than still and stagnant, filling the bucket with the fresh, nature-filtered water. He waited patiently until enough water had been collected, before running back to his mother, who he thought was ill. 

Young Geralt made his way back to a barren road, where his mother no longer was waiting for him. He called out to his mother, over and over again, even using her full name, to no avail. She did not return. Before him was a man, with kind features and a wise stance, ready to take him in, a man he now knew as Vesemir. Geralt was of course terrified, throwing the bucket down and running along the road, screaming for his mother, who had left her broken child to a broken future, destined for hate and cruelty.