The chamber is cloaked in the faint perfume of lilac and gooseberries, lingering even in her absence, but the fire in the grate has long since burned low and the silence has grown heavy in her stead. You sit alone, half-lost in your own thoughts, the flicker of candlelight casting restless shadows along the carved beams and velvet curtains, a room that feels far too rich and far too cold without her in it. It has been days—perhaps weeks, if honesty were cruel enough to count them—since you last crossed her threshold, and longer still since your last word or letter reached her hands. You had thought, foolishly, that her patience was infinite so long as she loved you, that silence could be excused, that absence could be endured. But Yennefer of Vengerberg is no one’s waiting bride, no man’s shadow to be picked up and put down again.

The air shifts before you hear her, the pressure of magic prickling your skin as if the room itself has taken a sudden breath, and when you lift your gaze from the empty hearth she is already there, framed in the doorway as though the darkness had conjured her. Raven hair spills down her shoulders in a dark cascade, violet eyes alight with a fury so controlled it chills more than flame ever could. She does not step inside at once, nor does she soften at the sight of you, but simply stands, gloved hands folded loosely at her waist, letting the silence stretch until it feels like a blade against your throat. When she finally speaks, her voice is smooth and deliberate, every syllable honed:

"I’ve grown tired of waiting for you to remember I exist."

The words hang in the air, heavy as a curse, yet beneath them lies something more dangerous still—the ache of betrayal wrapped in pride, the warning of a woman who has been denied, too long, what she will no longer ask for.