Chapter 37: THE FALL OF CINTRA — Part 2
Every refugee told a different story.
"The princess died in the fire. I saw her body."
"She escaped through the tunnels. My cousin helped her."
"The Nilfgaardians took her. She's on a ship to Nilfgaard right now."
"She turned into a bird and flew away. I swear it on my mother's grave."
I listened to all of them. Used Bardic Resonance to calm the terror enough for coherent conversation, pushed gently toward truth without compelling it. Each story contradicted the last. Each storyteller believed absolutely in their version.
A girl with ashen hair. Green eyes. Twelve years old. Someone must have seen the real one.
Geralt worked the eastern columns while I took the west. We compared notes each evening, frustration growing as days became weeks. Cintra's fall had scattered its people across the Continent like seeds from a broken pod, and Ciri could have gone in any direction.
"She's alive." Geralt said it like a prayer, or a command to the universe.
"She's alive," I agreed. Because I knew it was true—because I remembered a story where she survived, where she found her way to safety despite everything. But I couldn't tell him that. Couldn't explain the certainty that kept me moving when exhaustion demanded rest.
We found a luthier in a refugee camp—a Cintran craftsman who'd fled with tools but no home. He repaired my cracked lute in exchange for a performance that gave his fellow survivors something to feel besides despair.
"This instrument has seen hard use," he said, running fingers over the fracture lines. "Someone's been playing through battles."
"Something like that."
The repair held. The music flowed again. And we kept searching.
Three weeks after Cintra's fall, we found our first real lead.
A farmer—elderly, weathered, more interested in his sheep than in politics—remembered a girl matching Ciri's description.
"Came through my fields maybe ten days ago. Skinny thing, filthy, looked like she hadn't eaten in a week. I offered her bread, but she ran when she saw my farmhand approaching." He scratched his beard. "Heading northeast, I think. Toward the Mahakam foothills."
"You're certain? Ashen hair, green eyes?"
"Hair like pale straw, eyes like spring leaves. Pretty child, despite the dirt." He shook his head. "Whatever she was running from, it scared her worse than an old man with bread."
She's alive. She's running. And she's leaving a trail.
But Nilfgaardian scouts were everywhere. Black-armored riders on fast horses, questioning every village, searching every barn. Emhyr var Emreis wanted his prize, and his hunters were relentless.
"We need to move faster." Geralt's hands flexed on Roach's reins. "If they find her first—"
"They won't."
"You can't know that."
Yes, I can. But I can't explain how.
"I know we're closer than they are. I know she's smart and scared and good at hiding. And I know—" I stopped, choosing words carefully. "I know that destiny doesn't break easily. We claimed her, both of us. That bond means something."
Geralt made that sound—the one I'd learned to interpret over nine years of partnership. Skepticism mixed with desperate hope. He wanted to believe. He just didn't know how.
"We should split up."
The suggestion caught me off guard. "What?"
"Cover more ground. You take the northwest villages—your songs open doors faster than my questions. I'll follow the trail northeast." He met my eyes. "Three days. We meet at the crossroads near the Mahakam border."
No. That's not how the story goes. In the version I remember, Geralt finds her alone.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe my presence had already changed things enough that the old patterns didn't apply. Maybe Ciri needed both of us, and splitting up was the only way to ensure one of us reached her in time.
"Three days," I agreed. "Don't do anything stupid without me."
"That's your job."
I almost smiled. Almost.
I shared my last bread with a refugee child that afternoon.
She couldn't have been more than eight—too young to understand why her world had ended, old enough to know she was afraid. Her mother was somewhere in the column behind us, too exhausted to keep pace with the march.
"Are you the singing man?" the child asked, eyes wide despite her hunger.
"I am."
"Can you sing a song? Mama says your songs make people feel better."
I sang. A gentle melody, nothing supernatural—just comfort offered through music. The child ate while I played, and by the time her mother caught up, some of the terror had left her face.
She could be Ciri. Any of these children could be Ciri, fleeing something they can't understand.
I gave the mother the rest of my provisions and kept moving.
That night, I slipped between Nilfgaardian patrols with Evasion Instinct guiding every step.
The soldiers moved in predictable patterns—confident in their overwhelming force, not expecting a single bard to pose any threat. They were right, in a way. I couldn't fight them. Couldn't challenge their occupation of roads and villages.
But I could move through their lines like water through stones, invisible and persistent.
Three days. Find her. Save her.
I had Ciri's description memorized. Ashen hair, green eyes, twelve years old. A princess who'd become a refugee, running from an empire that wanted her blood.
I'm coming, little lion. Hold on just a little longer.
The next village waited in the darkness ahead. I adjusted my lute strap and kept walking.
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