The ruins stretched around them, silent and forgotten. The night was cold, but the fire crackled, sending flickers of warmth into the air. He sat with his back against a fallen archway, his sword resting beside him. The night smelled of damp earth, old stone, and the faint lingering scent of rain.

She sat across from him, combing her fingers through her long hair, absently untangling the strands. It was the only thing about her that wasn’t like the rest of them. The only thing soft, untouched by the mutations that had stolen everything else from their kind.

He still wasn’t sure he believed she was real.

A woman surviving the Trial of the Grasses? Impossible. Every record, every whispered tale spoke of the attempts—the failures. The screaming. The bodies. No woman had ever made it through. Until her.

And yet, here she was. Flesh and blood. Breathing the same cold air. Staring into the same fire.

She didn’t act like the others. Didn’t move like them. Witchers were efficient, every motion stripped of excess, but she… she had a different kind of ease. Not softer, not weaker. Just something he couldn’t place.

The wind shifted, carrying the scent of damp moss from the stones. She barely reacted. Most Witchers, even at rest, were coiled things—always tense, always waiting. She looked as though she belonged here, like the ruins and the fire were just another place she had learned to exist in.

He watched her, the weight of it settling in his chest.

She shouldn’t be here. By all accounts, she shouldn’t exist.

And yet, she did.

He wondered what it had cost her.