Roy’s exhaustion and bruises from the day before were all gone when he woke. Once again, he was bursting with energy.
“You should thank Letho, boy.” Nenneke handed him a bowl of black, sticky, rancid sludge. “But first, finish this. I don’t want to see a single drop in there.”
Roy gulped the whole thing down without any complaints. He’d faced worse nightmares before, so a bowl of putrid medicine was nothing for him. “Why? What did he do this time?”
“Letho might look like a brute, but he’s a meticulous man. He massaged you for more than two hours after you fainted. If it weren’t for that, you couldn’t have recuperated overnight, no matter how spry you were.”
“Is that so?” Roy held his wrist. There had been a bruise there after his training the day before, but there was nothing left of it, aside from a faint trace. Even the blisters and swellings on his hands were already disappearing. He knew the Viper School’s massage could work wonders, though he never expected them to still keep up after his enhancements.
***
It was the same old routine that day: another checkup from Lytta, another data recording, and another hormone injection. Then Roy went to the training grounds, overflowing with vigor. On the other hand, Letho looked calm and collected, with a sword by his side.
“Another busy day…”
It was, but it was also slightly different. Nobody had noticed their training for the first few, but that day, a young priestess-in-training approached them, staring at Roy with deep interest. Letho would point out Roy’s mistakes from time to time, while Roy would follow his every order, as if he were nothing but a mere puppet. All Roy did was repeat two movements: a slash, and a thrust. Naturally, it was boring for the kids.
“Booorrringg. He’s a two-trick pony. I’d rather watch a troupe perform.” A girl with pigtails pouted, bored after wasting her time watching the training. “Who are they, anyway? Why are they allowed to train in the temple?”
“They’re probably knights of the order,” a petite, bright-eyed girl commented. “Only the knights are allowed to brandish their weapons in the temple. That’s Mother Nenneke’s rule.”
“Yeah. Remember twenty-seventh? When the knights came to the temple last month?” A slim girl with her hair tied up in a ponytail had the gleam of worship in her eyes. “They were also practicing in the same place, all so they could keep the villains at bay and protect us.”
“They wouldn’t protect any of us, because Mother Nenneke would rather spend the donations of the poor than give it up to those bloodsuckers,” a tall girl retorted. Roy noticed she was holding a pair of beautiful, quiet children. “They were only here to escort the queen of Ellander.” The girl was sure of it. “And as for the guests, as you can see, none of them are wearing any armor, nor do they have the crest of the White Rose on their chest. Look at their eyes. That bald man over there is a witcher. I bet that boy is his disciple.”
“Witchers, huh? They aren’t as elegant as the knights, but they deserve our sympathy. I see why Mother Nenneke took them in.”
The girls talked about how weird it was that witchers had the eyes of a beast, then they started talking about something else. “Queen Emilia comes every month to donate to the temple, doesn’t she? Then she buys a lot of herbs from Mother Nenneke. She’s the most devout believer I’ve ever seen. She should be blessed with the cutest child ever, but I wonder why Melitele wouldn’t grant her that.”
“Silence, Lily. How dare you speak of the queen like that?” Iola II glared at the girl. “Stop gossiping and get back to class. If you’re even one minute late, you’ll be copying your homework one hundred times.”
***
“Don’t get distracted, boy!” Letho smacked Roy’s cheek with his wooden sword, drawing blood.
“Hey, just because I have hair doesn’t mean you get to hit me like that. And why do you keep hitting my face?” Roy winced at the pain and shifted his focus back to the training at hand.
***
On the other hand, Nenneke, Coral, and Iola came to the yard, observing the duo from afar.
“What do you think of the child, Coral?” Nenneke clutched her chest, worried. She felt that taking in a candidate for the trial wasn’t a good idea, for not everyone was as trustworthy as Geralt was. The mutations are unpredictable. Both his body and mind will change. Roy might be a gentle soul now, but who knows if he’ll turn into a murderer once he finishes mutating.
“Oh, Mother Nenneke. I’ve told you a million times. I, Lytta Neyd of the Sorcerer’s Brotherhood, am here to oversee the process. Nothing will go wrong.”
“Don’t call me mother, Coral. You aren’t younger than I. And honestly, if I had a child like you, I’d probably hang myself.”
“Ouch, Mother.” Lytta chuckled. “Let’s talk about the boy. It hasn’t been a day since I came in touch with him, but he has proven himself to be an interesting one. The way he speaks and thinks is quite peculiar. I’ve seen many people over the years, so I’m sure he’s not from an Aedirn village as he claimed to be. He’s probably…”
“From somewhere else.” Iola nodded in assent. “He’s not a northerner, but not a southerner either.” How did he find out about my past with Geralt?
***
Apparently, Roy had stood out too much. Lytta’s eyes gleamed, and she clenched her fist, trying to grab something. “The trial’s just starting. He won’t escape me. I’ll get to the bottom of this.” She turned to Nenneke. “And don’t beat yourself up. Go ahead with the research about their decoction. You might just come up with a few new potions. That’ll show everyone how generous Melitele is. And honestly, we did something good.”
Nenneke was intrigued. “How so?”
“The brotherhood has done a survey. The witchers have been acting weird over the past twenty years. We suspect that no new witchers have been produced during that time. That goes for all witcher schools.”
She looked up, feeling sympathetic. “If this keeps up, they’ll slowly but surely disappear in the ravines of time. Honestly, having nothing but mages is boring. We need more magical individuals to help out. And with my help, he might just be the last witcher ever born.”
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