Chapter Text
Music chapter: Bishop Briggs – The Fire
Everyone always believed that all Yennefer of Vengerberg ever wanted was power.
The girl who came from a filthy pigsty screamed—yes, fuck, of course she wanted power. Power was beauty. Power was money, lust, and respect — everything Yennefer had never had when she was a hunchback, with a crooked jaw, a bastard among so many others in that city that pretended not to see her.
On the cruelest winter nights, when her spine ached against the frozen, rough floor where she lay with only a handful of straw to cover her frozen hands, she cried. Cried until she fell asleep. And between sobs, she imagined a different life — a life where she danced across a bright hall, dressed in silk, her body straight, her hair shining under candlelight, and every eye upon her, filled with envy.
But the dreams would vanish soon enough, swallowed by the cold and hunger. Her body trembled so violently that nothing else existed beyond pain and the most primitive needs.
There was a time, when her siblings were still little, that her younger sister would sneak out of their shared room and steal scraps of food meant for the pigs. Her stepfather was stingy enough to let her starve, but the small, sweet sister would toss the pieces through the window, along with a blanket too thin to warm but enough to soften, just a little, the sharp edges life had carved into Yennefer.
The girl would sit beside her, and they’d stay there for hours, talking about their day. Sometimes she brought books their mother had traded at the market for jars of fat, and the two of them would read and dream together.
Until the day their stepfather found out.
He hit the seven-year-old child so hard she fell unconscious, then beat Yennefer until she passed out. Two days without waking — and scars for life.
There were no more nightly escapes after that.
When Tissaia de Vries appeared — elegant, imposing — and bought her for four marks, Yennefer saw her mother, for the first time, try to defend her. Pathetic, but she tried. Yet all it took was a word from the stepfather, and the woman fell silent.
And there they stayed — her mother and siblings — standing in the doorway as the cart pulled away and every bit of hope disappeared with the sound of its wheels.
In that instant, Yennefer understood: she had been foolish to think anyone could ever love a creature like her. Istredd, her mother, her siblings — all had proved the opposite in painfully different ways.
But Yennefer was no longer that dreaming girl.
Sixty years had passed.
Her mother, her stepfather, even her siblings must have been dead by now. All that remained of the girl from the pigsty were her violet eyes and the twin scars on her wrists.
She had attended more balls than she could count. She had drunk, eaten, fucked, and lived — one or two entire lives, perhaps — and still, the emptiness never left.
Everyone who passed through her life or her bed had loved her power. Never Yennefer.
Then came Rinde.
And through a glance reflected in a mirror, after almost forty years, she felt her heart race.
But it couldn’t be.
Not Tissaia de Vries — the woman who bought her, who humiliated and molded her, who broke her and raised her in equal measure.
She couldn’t desire Tissaia.
So she did what she always did best: used her sharp tongue to push her away.
And if, for an instant, she saw in Tissaia’s stormy eyes something that looked like desire, she pretended it was her imagination.
When Geralt appeared, a spark of hope ignited in her chest.
Maybe, this time, she could love someone by choice — and be loved the same way.
At the time, she was still chasing the impossible — to restore her lost womb — and everything was chaos with the djinn.
But of course, it was a lie.
It had never been more than an enchanted wish, cast by a man Yennefer thought cared for her.
And then came Sodden.
Tissaia called her to battle. Asked — please.
And Yennefer went.
Like a fool.
After all, she had nothing left to lose. Or so she believed.
Until she saw Coral lose an arm.
Until she felt Sabrina’s blade pierce her stomach.
Until she heard Triss’s screams — sweet Triss — as fire burned her neck.
But nothing, nothing could have prepared her to see Tissaia.
Her Tissaia.
Bloody, trembling, barely standing.
Yennefer thought she would die there, but Tissaia held her face in both hands and whispered, voice hoarse and desperate:
— Don’t give up. Let the chaos come.
And Yennefer obeyed.
She screamed as fire consumed the field to the horizon.
She screamed when she shielded Tissaia from the flames and felt the heat lick her own legs and hands.
And then, the truth — raw, naked, undeniable: those who thought Yennefer only wanted power had never understood a thing.
All she ever wanted was love.
And in Tissaia’s blue eyes — wide, shining in the firelight — Yennefer found what she had searched for all her life.
It wasn’t just desire.
It was love.
Devastating, chaotic, uncontrollable love.
And in the seconds before losing consciousness, Yennefer knew:
She would burn the world for Tissaia.
And if that meant the sweet, silent blessing of death — so be it.