Withered yellow leaves spiraled down in the cold wind, carpeting the ancient flagstone paths of Oxenfurt Academy. Yavi stood at his dormitory window, his breath condensing into a thin mist on the icy glass.
He stared blankly at the sky, his thoughts drifting toward his hometown deep in the northern mountains. Ever since he had run into his older sister Mel in Oxenfurt three months earlier, the memories he had deliberately suppressed had surged back like floodwaters bursting through a dam. Mel had carried the citrus fragrance their mother often wore, making him feel as though he had returned to childhood and bringing his longing to go home to its peak.
Shaking his head to clear his jumbled thoughts, Yavi went to class as usual. That morning's subject was ancient history. The smell of old parchment and ink filled the stone-built, vaulted classroom, and the ancient history professor's low voice echoed beneath the dome as he recounted the rise and fall of the ancient elven court. Yet the legendary tales that had once fascinated Yavi now seemed blurred and distant, as though behind a thick pane of frosted glass. The magnificent elven court the professor described twisted and warped before his eyes. Its stone columns became the familiar birches in the forests back home, and the elven queen's silver crown turned into the plain headscarf his mother wore on winter solstice night.
"...And so, at the end of the Third Era, the Aen Seidhe People abandoned..." The professor's voice seemed to drift closer and farther away. Yavi's quill wandered unconsciously along the margins of his notes, the ink bleeding into the hazy outline of a mountain range-the mountains of the Northern Kingdoms back home. In his ears, the scratching of the students writing in the front row became the rhythm of his older brother Jace swinging his sword, stroke after stroke, carrying the dull echoes peculiar to winter.
His witcher medallion rested against his chest, its cold metal edges distinctly palpable through his clothes, like invisible shackles. When the professor reached the lament of the elves forced to leave their homeland, Yavi unconsciously traced the wolf's-head pattern on the medallion with his fingertips. The stone walls of Kaer Morhen, Master Kharkov's stern gaze, the bitterness of the Trial of the Grasses potions, Professor C's magic tests... These images forcibly overlaid the pinewood scent of his mother's smoked sausages and the giggles of his childhood. He forced himself to focus on the thick tome lying open before him, but the ancient script crawled like ants across the parchment, refusing to form meaningful sentences.
The wind outside seemed to have grown fiercer, carrying the chill of the north. Only when the bell announcing the end of class finally pierced the stagnant air with its dull tolling did Yavi realize that the parchment before him was empty apart from a few meaningless ink marks and a hastily sketched mountain peak. Where had the professor left off? Where had the elves gone in the end? He remembered nothing. He merely closed his book in silence and followed the crowd out of the classroom, leaving the elves' thousand-year tale of wandering behind in the cold, stone-tiered classroom, along with his own homesickness that had nowhere to settle. The morning's lessons were over, and he had absorbed nothing. Only the medallion on his chest felt heavy, weighing on him until his chest felt tight.
Yavi finished his morning classes in a daze, mechanically chewing the black bread and stew provided by the dining hall. The food tasted of nothing. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, casting mottled patches of light and shadow across the flagstone floor, yet it could not dispel the gloom in his heart. When his morning classes ended, Loriess had sent Yavi a magical voice transmission, telling him to come to the dean's office that afternoon.
Passing through the arcade's alternating light and shadow, Yavi stopped before Dean Loriess's oak door. He took a deep breath, raised his hand, and knocked softly. The dull sound of his knuckles meeting the wood rang particularly clearly in the quiet corridor.
"Come in." Dean Loriess's distinctive, mature feminine voice came from within, carrying unquestionable authority.
Pushing open the door, Yavi caught the familiar scent of perfume-black jasmine mingled with cedar. Loriess was leaning by the window, a slender pipe held between her long fingers, wisps of smoke drifting from her dark red lips. Today she wore a sharply tailored black robe, with a silver brooch pinned at the neckline that gleamed coldly in the sunlight.
"Sit," she said without turning her head, her voice carrying its usual commanding tone. Yavi noticed her freshly painted nails, a dark red like congealed blood.
"You've been distracted lately." She abruptly turned, her sharp gaze scraping across Yavi's face like a blade. "Is it because the winter solstice festival is coming? Especially after seeing your sister here-has that made you miss home even more?"
Yavi said nothing at Loriess's words, but his faintly trembling fingertips and taut jawline had already betrayed him. Loriess gave a soft laugh and walked straight to her desk in her high heels, the hem of her black robe sweeping in sharp arcs with each step.
Smack! She tossed a letter onto the desk in front of Yavi, its wax seal gleaming dark red in the sunlight. "From Sicco Jett." She lit a fresh bowl of tobacco and narrowed her eyes amid the smoke. "Open it."
Yavi hesitantly opened the envelope. The parchment bore familiar, scrawling handwriting:
"Yavi:
Reading this is as good as seeing me in person. I've heard all about what you've been doing in Oxenfurt-resolving the griffin crisis peacefully. Well done. I hear you saw Mel, too?"
When he read his sister's name, the pad of Yavi's finger unconsciously brushed the paper. There was an ink stain blurred by tea there, as though the writer had set down his pen midway through.
"The winter solstice is approaching, and I know what's on your mind. Go home with your sister for the festival this year. As for the Witcher Order-" Here, the handwriting suddenly pressed deep into the paper. "I'll handle it."
At this, Yavi looked up at Loriess in disbelief. She was leaning languidly against the edge of the desk, her red lips lightly gripping her pipe, a wisp of smoke escaping the corner of her mouth.
"What are you looking at me for?" Her tone was calm. Her fingertips gently tapped the pipe, knocking off the ash. "I don't know a single word of what Sicco Jett wrote."
Yavi's Adam's apple bobbed, and his fingers gripped the edges of the letter tightly. The parchment crackled faintly in his hands. "Professor C said..." His voice was a little strained, like a long-unused string suddenly plucked. "He said I could go home for the winter solstice festival this year. As for the Witcher Order... he'll explain things to them."
Loriess slowly blew a smoke ring. The gray-blue smoke twisted into the shape of a wolf's head in the air. She narrowed her eyes, her red lips curling into a meaningful smile. "Oh?" The pipe spun between her fingers. "Has that stubborn old man finally learned to be flexible?"
"I can... I really can..." His voice caught, as though something warm had suddenly lodged in his throat. Fourteen years. Ever since becoming a witcher apprentice, he had never again seen the cooking smoke rising over his hometown.
Loriess gave a soft snort and took a bulging suede coin pouch from a drawer. The pouch traced a graceful arc through the air and landed in Yavi's lap with a thud, its weight making him instinctively clutch it close.
"A thousand crowns." She blew a string of smoke rings, her red lips appearing and disappearing behind the haze. "If you're going back, don't go empty-handed." Her nails tapped lightly against the pipe. "Remember to take a box of Oxenfurt candied fruit for that younger sister you've never met. Little girls all love it."
"Thank you, Teacher Loriess!" His voice trembled slightly with excitement.
"Enough of that." Loriess waved a hand and turned to look out the window. "Winter in the Northern Kingdoms is... particularly cold this year. Buy some more warm clothes."
After saying goodbye to Loriess, Yavi rushed out the door like a gust of wind, the coin pouch bouncing merrily at his waist. His footsteps receded down the corridor, so light it was as though he were walking on clouds. Listening to them, Loriess gently extinguished the embers in her pipe.