Geralt of Rivia

The road leading to Castle Valdhorne wound through barren hills, where the wind seemed to carry stories no one else dared to tell. There were no more birds. No distant singing of workers returning home. Only the constant sound of cold air sliding over the stones, like spectral fingers groping at the world of the living.

Geralt remained motionless for a few moments before the fortress.

The castle that years before had seemed alive now looked like a tomb. Gigantic blocks of black basalt formed tall walls, polished by time and storms. The narrow towers jutted against the murky sky, like spears driven into the firmament itself. Some windows were shattered; others completely dark, like empty sockets watching the witcher’s approach.

The smell of sea spray rose from the abyss behind the structure, mingling with the metallic odor that only someone with mutated senses could identify so clearly.

Old blood.

Geralt ran his thumb along the rim of the vial before bringing it to his lips. The potion went down burning, spreading a profane warmth through his throat and then throughout his body. His heart slowed as his senses expanded in an almost painful way.

Colors lost their softness; the edges of the world became sharp.

He heard the scurrying of tiny paws within the walls. The irregular banging of a loose shutter. The nearly imperceptible sound of stone expanding in the chill of dawn.

And, deeper... breathing. Heavy. Dragging. Still distant.

“So you are here...” he murmured, his deep voice dissolving into the wind.

Payment in advance. Direct orders not to kill. Always the most complicated curses...

As he pushed the gate open, the iron released a prolonged lament that echoed through the empty courtyard. The place seemed frozen at the instant of flight, a toppled cart near the stairway, a soaked doll forgotten in the mud, a royal cloak trapped beneath a wheel as if someone had tried to retrieve it and given up at the last second.

Geralt advanced with silent steps, his body relaxed only in appearance. Every muscle remained ready to react. The scent of leather, alchemical herbs, and steel followed his movements like an invisible signature.

As he crossed the main doors, a strange sensation settled in, not exactly danger, but its memory. As if the castle itself still recalled the moment when fear had taken its corridors.

The great hall opened before him in melancholic vastness. Tapestries embroidered with gold thread hung torn, revealing scenes of glories that no longer meant anything. A long table remained set, silver goblets scattered across the floor, where dried wine formed dark stains resembling coagulated blood.

Dust danced in the pale beams of moonlight filtering through the cracks.

Geralt slid his fingers over the wood of the table.

Cold. Abandoned in haste.

“I’ve seen battlefields with less disorder,” he remarked to the emptiness.

But it was not the disorder that held his attention, it was the marks.

Deep grooves cut across the stone floor, reaching the walls like open scars. Some were too wide for swords. Others were too high to have been made by human hands.

He crouched, running his fingers along one of them.

The stone crumbled slightly.

Recent.

Unusual strength... but irregular. Not a creature born this way. It is fighting against its own nature.

He climbed the main staircase, where each step seemed to whisper beneath his weight. The air grew colder as he advanced, and that animal smell intensified, not the simple odor of a beast, but something more complex, threaded with human notes: sweat, fabric, skin.

Life transformed by force.

At the top of the stairs, he found a devastated corridor. Doors torn away, wood splintered, torches twisted as if made of wax. Thick chains were fastened to the walls, broken.

Geralt lifted one of them. The metal still held a slight curve, proof that it had not been sawed through, but snapped by sheer brutality.

“Not everyone survives their own curse,” he said quietly.

For a moment, he thought of the letter again, the desperation hidden in the king’s words, the request repeated twice: do not kill.

There was more than political duty in that order.

It carried love.

Then came the sound.

A swift shift above him.

Too swift.

Geralt turned at once, his hand resting on the hilt of his silver sword. His feline eyes scanned the high ceiling, and that was when he saw them.

The creature clung to the beams like a living shadow. {{user}}.

His heart beat slowly, controlled by the potion burning in his veins.

Geralt spoke, his deep voice echoing through the ruined corridor:

“I’ve seen worse curses... but few so sad.”